Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2053: The Shohei Ohtani of Indie Rock

Episode Date: August 31, 2023

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Ben’s voice and the potential for an ambidextrous superstar who blends the skill sets of Shohei Ohtani and Pat Venditte, then discuss all the implications of the Angels (and a few other teams) placing prominent players on outright waivers right before the deadline for postseason eligibility. After that […]

Sometimes I still feel like that little girl Hearing grandma's handheld babies Collecting baseball cards before I could read They say I waste my time Tracking all these stat lines But it's here I've found my kind Of all Effectively Wild Hello and welcome to episode 2053 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Raleigh of Fangraphs, and I am joined as always by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben,

how are you answering as few words as possible? Yeah, I sound like this. This is how I am. Apologies to everyone. Not ideal for a podcaster to mostly lose their voice, but here we are. I thought I was over whatever this is, and it appears to be back. I mean, it's going to happen. This is your flu game, you know? I will say as many words in this episode as I possibly can. And the good news is, Ben, that we already have an interview just in the can, ready to go. You've already said those words, so you don't have to say them again. Not that I sounded much better when I was saying those words,

but later on this episode, we will indeed be talking to our pal Ben Gibbert of multiple bands that he is fronting these days, Death Cab for Cutie and the Postal Service. He is about to embark on a nationwide tour, and we're going to talk to him about that. He'll be playing transatlanticism in its entirety and give up in its entirety because it's the 20th anniversary of those famous classic albums. But also, Ben is famously a Mariners fan, and the Seattle Mariners are, as we speak, at least still a first place team, technically. Tied for first, but it counts. It does count. It's a three-way situation that does not carry any sexiness with it when I say that.

They did lose to the Oakland A's last night. Julio seems to have a little bit of foot pain, Ben. He's got a little nerve situation. Not currently in the lineup for their series finale against Oakland. But hopefully he will be fine. And if he's not, we're never allowed to talk to Ben ever again. You know, I think that that just will be the new pod rule that he, you know, we brought his happy energy together with mine. And it was too much. The universe had to rebuff it and say, no, no. Although, true to our form as Mariners fans of varying degrees of intensity, we managed to sound nervous and talk about how angry we were with the team at various points this season. So hopefully that can serve to counterbalance whatever force we unleashed, you know.

Yes. Well, you've already fulfilled your goal of talking about Julio Rodriguez every day. Every day. So you can just rest and relax the rest of this day. Yeah. You can go on vocal rest as I will be doing. But we'll get to Bennett a bit.

We have to talk about some waiver madness, some waiver claim going going on here that have dominated the baseball news lately. And one brief follow-up to a follow-up. Last time we talked about, or I guess two episodes, we talked about what could be more impressive than what Shohei Otani has accomplished. And then last time in response to some listener responses to that topic, some people suggested, well, maybe you could have a two-way, two-way player. It could be a two-way player in baseball who also plays multiple sports at a high level. And then we talked a little bit about multi-sport athletes and whether we'll ever see them again, but we've

gotten a bit of feedback to that from multiple listeners, including David, Patreon supporter, who said, last time you said two-way, two-way Otani. And I thought, of course. However, you went the two-sport way. Well, I drifted off into a world where Otani not only switch hit, but switch pitched a la Pat Venditti. UCL tears be damned. He's got two. And Matt, another listener, wrote in. Same suggestion. It's Otani crossed with Pat V another listener, wrote in, same suggestion.

It's Otani crossed with Pat Venditti, the ambidextrous pitcher. So yes, if a player could come along who not only was a great hitter, but also could pitch with each arm, it would not only outdo Otani, but also true to the spirit of the original question, it would be something that would capture the fancy of the baseball public and be something that had never really been done. It might be that the pitch clock would add complications for the new Venditti, who presumably would have to switch gloves between batters. But if we can have a special Otani rule regarding the DH, I submit that a glove-switching pitch clock allowance is not too much to ask.

The original Venditti was not a major league pitcher with either arm, but relied on the platoon advantage to add to his value. But our hypothetical player, since he is hypothetical, can be great with either arm, but relied on the platoon advantage to add to his value. But our hypothetical player, since he is hypothetical, can be great with each arm. And in contrast to some other answers you've discussed,

it could all be done at the same time and would all be baseball. To round it out, the player could also be a switch hitter, although that by itself would be less impressive because switch hitting, while not exactly common,

happens often enough. So yes, Otani, it's already impressive that when he tears his ucl he's in the lineup the same day or the next day but in this case he could also be on the mound potentially just throwing with the other arm so it would be like multiple layers of redundancy right and uh he could potentially pitch more often, I guess. It depends on the fatigue, but you would have some protection built in. You'd have a protection.

I'm laughing with you. Yes, of course. But you'd have a spare, right? He'd have a spare UCL that he could actually use to continue to pitch at a high level. Yeah. And it would be nice because right now, like we, Ben, I don't know if you know this, but we added handedness as a filter to the leaderboards. I have long desired. I know.

Yeah. We regret the oversight that has lasted years. But it has been rectified courtesy of Sean Dolinar, who makes so many things at the site work and work well. And we do have a switch pitcher handedness option. But as Sean noted in his post announcing this addition to the site, it is right now literally a leaderboard of one. And so it would be great if there could be more guys on that list, if only to justify the addition of the little button. Although I will say, I have a very fond memory of Venditti

when he was, I think during his stint with Oakland and they came to Seattle and my dad came with me to a game and he was just like morally offended that this existed he he he found it very unnerving i think he he was just very upset and so um it would perhaps flummox dear old dad a little bit but um he was just like that shouldn't be allowed it was such a visceral reaction i was like i think it's fine dad he's He's like, I don't like that. I don't, dad's, you know, dad's not an overly, you know, prescriptive guy toward other people, but that one, he was just like, no, no, don't, no. A bridge too far, an arm too far. This is just unnatural. Couldn't take it.

Well, I hope he's okay with Otani at least. And Shohei Otani remains a Los Angeles angel. In fact, he's not even on waivers. But that sets him apart from several other angels. Six of them, in fact, as we speak on Wednesday. Almost a quarter of the angels roster is on waivers right now. So to minimize the amount of time that people have to spend listening to me, do you want to set up what is happening here? Yes, because it is not unprecedented for players of real big league quality to find their way

to waivers in August. It wasn't even unprecedented yesterday, right? We also learned that Harrison Bader is on the waiver, why Carlos Carrasco, Mike Clevenger, you know, there've been a couple of other teams that have sort of taken this route, but none, certainly none yesterday to the extreme that the Angels did. And I don't think that there's really a precedent for this many guys from the 26 man hitting waivers all at once. So let's set up the scene, and then we will link in the show notes to John Becker's really good explainer

on sort of what the mechanics of all of this are and what the payroll implications are, and then we can link to Ben Clemens and his analysis. I know Craig Goldstein also wrote a good piece about this for Baseball Perspectives. So there's hope for everyone trying to sort out what the heck this means, but let's see what we can do here. So these guys, and by these guys, I mean literally Lucas G Alito,

Matt Moore, Ronaldo Lopez, Hunter Renfro, Randall Gritchick, and Dominic Leone were put on waivers yesterday. Listeners might remember that this Angels team acquired Lucas Giolito, Ronaldo Lopez, Randall Gritchick, and Dominic Leone at the trade deadline in an effort to sort of bolster their big league roster after they made the decision not to trade Ohtani. And yesterday they said, enough already. And so those guys have hit waivers. The timing of it is such that once the waiver claims for them are processed, they will be postseason eligible for their new club. Teams have to have players on their 40-man, not their 26-man, but on their 40-man roster prior to September 1st for those players to be postseason eligible. Now, if a player is in the team's organization, but not on the 40 man by September 1st, they can still be used as an injury replacement if another player goes on the injured list. But like in general, for guys to be postseason eligible, they have to be

on the team and on the 40 man by September 1st. And so by doing this on Tuesday, they will all be claimed by Thursday and they will be postseason eligible for their new clubs. And this caused just a lot of consternation yesterday. And I think that it's an interesting situation for a lot of reasons. And I guess like the tone and posture I am keen to adopt here is like, I want to be on my guard, but I don't want to be a chicken little. Because I think it's one of those situations where you don't want to get blindsided by like the new cool thing that teams are doing that like kind of undermines competitive integrity across the league. But I do think that there are some factors that are specific to the Angels that are at play for this move. And then there are some broader league-wide implications that we should consider.

And I even, Ben, I made a little pro-con list. I made a little sheet for myself so that I could remember. Yeah. And just to clarify, because waivers can be confusing and have always been confusing. Waivers are wildly confusing. Yes, right. Even when something this wild is not happening. Wildly confusing.

Yes, right. Even when something this wild is not happening. So people may remember there used to be a waiver deadline on August 31st. So that was like a separate deadline, separate from the non-waiver, what we typically call the trade deadline. Yes. Now there's only one trade deadline. That doesn't exist anymore. And also there are no longer revocable waivers. Correct. As there used to be. So it used to be that you could just kind of dangle a player out there. You could just put them on revocable waivers

and then you could snatch them back, you know, and you could say, no, actually, we just we were feeling out the just what would happen. Right. And and there used to be a lot of breathless headlines about, you know, Team X put Superstar Y on waivers. And it was like, oh, my gosh, what's happening? No, it happened routinely. The teams would just put players on waivers just to sort of suss out the interest or see what happened. And in the vast majority of cases, nothing happened. However, this is different.

This is not revocable. And this is because of the time in the year, how late it is. You can't even pull these guys back. So there's no going back if you're the Angels. If someone claims them, they get them. They're gone. That's it. Yeah. So no backseas on this.

No backseas. Yeah. And also, you can't trade anything for them. Correct. The team that claims them gets them for nothing except their remaining salary, which is about a sixth of their remaining salary because that's how much of the season is left. Right. And the waiver claim priority, which is still being determined, I guess. Right. Because it's the priority on Thursday that will ultimately be the one that matters here.

Right. And the worse your record is, the higher your waiver claim priority. And it's league-wide, not league-specific. So the more you've sucked so far, the better the chance you have of getting yourself a Lucas Giolito or Ronaldo Lopez. Although, of course, if you've sucked very much, then you will probably not be interested in their services. This would be playoff teams or hopeful playoff contenders who would be interested here. Right. And so, like you said, in sort of order from worst to best in terms of the waiver priority, if there is a tie, the claim goes to the team in the same league as the team waiving the player. Right. So if you are trying to lay a claim to one of these guys and you were tied with an NL team and you are an AL team, you would get priority. you are an AL team, you would get priority. And then in the event that it's two teams from the same league, then you go to the record from last season and on and on until you have reached some way to break the tie. And because it is binding, no take backsies, you know, once you have put in that claim, if you get a player or if you submit a claim for multiple players, which you are allowed to do, and the waiver order does not reset after you have laid claim to one of these guys.

So if you are, say, the San Diego Padres and you still are clinging to just the barest chance that you are going to make the postseason and your pitching is either hurt or at least temporarily likely to be suspended in the case of Suarez because of sticky stuff, you might say, got to catch them all. And then you'd have them all. And you have to have room on your roster to roster those guys. And obviously you have to pay them.

So there are some stakes to what the teams decide to do here from a claim perspective. what the teams decide to do here from a claim perspective. And there is language in the relevant document here about like, you have to claim guys in good faith. So you can't lay claim to a player just to block that player from being claimed by another team, which means you can't immediately designate those players for assignment. You know, there are rules in place to try to curb chicanery. And then the Angels were like, we have new chicanery that we would like to do. We have new shenanigans. We have not anticipated this.

Yeah. And it should be a rule that you have to keep Lucas Di Alito and Reynaldo Lopez together. They have already been involved in two trades together. So it should be a package deal like you can't break up the set. But there is not actually a rule against that. There is no such rule. So I guess like let's maybe start by talking about the Angels' motivation for doing this and then we can talk about the potential impact it has to the playoff races and then like how worried we should be about what this might do to competitive balance, particularly if it were to become a trend and then like what factors might influence the likelihood of that. Does that sound like a good multi-part structure? Okay. So for the angels, the motivation here is I think pretty obvious,

which is that this is a technical term for how the last couple of weeks have gone. And I'm going to do a swear, Shane, so get ready to bleep it. But I would say that the play for the Angels in the last couple of weeks has sucked shit. And so they have found themselves in a position of not really having any shot of making the postseason, despite the, I think what we thought at the time

was the admirable goal of keeping Otani and then really going for it, right? So they went out and acquired all of these guys. But they're not going to see October baseball. And so in an effort to save themselves some money, to reset some luxury tax threshold stuff, they made this move. So as you alluded, these guys are owed, according to John Becker, about $6.4 million for the rest of the year. We currently, and by we, I mean John and Jason, have the angels just barely exceeding the first luxury tax threshold. And so they need to trim about a million and a half dollars from their payroll to get under that luxury tax threshold. And so they need to trim about a million and a half dollars from their payroll to get under that luxury tax threshold. And you might say to yourself, well, why do they care about that? Like, they're not going to get your tax on the amount over. And it's like,

it's $1.5 million. That luxury tax threshold bill isn't going to be a big one. But if you get under the threshold, it resets and eliminates all of the associated penalties with that which is relevant because they did not trade otani but i'm sure will stick him with a qualifying offer as he walks out the door and if they are not a luxury taxpayer their draft pick compensation when he signs with another team which it seems very likely he will will come after the second round rather than coming after the fourth round, which is an appreciable difference both in terms of the likely quality of the amateur players available then and the slot money that comes with that pick.

So they have incentives around that to dip under the luxury tax threshold. And yeah, that's what they have opted to do. So whether you find those incentives and acting on them compelling or whether you find this to be a quote unquote bad look, you know, I think those are at least what the incentives are. And so, yeah. Yeah, it's definitely, it's embarrassing

one way or another if you're the angels and you just went all in and you just acquired all these guys and then less than a month later, you're saying, actually, we're done. We've sucked so bad that we are completely hopeless now and we're just going to get rid of these guys, whether it's to improve your draft pick compensation or to save several million dollars. Yeah, a little money. You certainly cannot put that past Artie Moreno either as a motivating factor. Either way, it obviously looks bad to divest yourself of almost a quarter of your roster

with about a month left to go in the season in sort of an unprecedented way. And really, you'd think that Otani has to be looking at this and thinking, what a trash organization, right? I mean, if part of the motivation for going all in and really trying to compete was, hey, we'll show Otani that we're making our best effort, and who knows, maybe we'll sneak into the playoffs and he'll have a great playoff run.

As we talked about, maybe his injury made it slightly more likely that he would want to stay. Maybe it would make the Angels slightly less motivated to keep him. But also just the fact that this reflects poorly on the organization, at least in some ways. Like if it's about staying under the tax to some extent, I guess they could sell it to him as, hey, we're saving some money that we can offer you. But it just, it seems unlikely that he would see this happen, that all of these reinforcements would be leaving. And he would say, yeah, this is an organization that I want to be part of. So not only does it reflect how their playoff fortunes have completely cratered, but it also seems sort of as a concession that they're not going would keep him either way. But if they at least tried to keep up appearances by employing their players through the end of the season, maybe that would be a little less embarrassing and might make him less inclined to leave. So to me, it almost is kind of conceding that he's out the door over to. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and i think that some of the um there are elements to this that are

specific to the angels but i also think that they point to the potential pathway for this becoming a larger trend in a way that we would probably find incompatible with like real competitive integrity right so like the angels were really bad in the most important two weeks of their season. It took them out of the playoff race. All of these guys are free agents, right? Most of them, I don't think any of them would draw a qualifying offer. And most of them aren't eligible for the qualifying offer because they're trade acquisitions, right? And that makes you ineligible for a QO. And then there's like the CBT stuff associated with Otani in particular, even though he wasn't waived, like his impending free agency is certainly

giving them extra motivation to do something like this. And like, I think that if you want to be concerned about this becoming a broader trend, like the Angels aren't the last large-ish payroll team that is going to have a bad season, not be competitive in the postseason and look around and say, hey, if we get rid of our, you know, pending free agents, we can save some money. And, you know, there's the savings itself. And as we have, I think, seen over the years, like there doesn't seem to be a small enough amount of money that some owner somewhere isn't like, can't we save that though? Can't we not spend that amount of money, right? Like in the aggregate, you're like, it's $7 million. Like that's nothing. That's not even like, that's like maybe a reliever, right? Or in this case, like six guys.

But like that's not a lot of money. That's a weird thing to be willing to subject yourself to sort of the public shaming that is going on with these guys. But like owners are always happy to save as much money as possible, even when the amounts are minute. So we shouldn't underrate that as a motivation. And certainly all you have to do is look at like the fact that other big spending teams are doing this, you know, is the, is moving Carlos Carrasco going to like really appreciably alter the Mets payroll situation? No, probably not. But they want to spend some amount of money. The Yankees want to save some amount of money on Bader. There's clearly incentive around that stuff. So that's not great. to be placed on waivers like this. But even some of the non-Angels, I think,

are better than the typical caliber of player placed on waivers at this point in the season and just given away like that, right? And in Zach Cram's explainer of this for The Ringer, he looked at the five players who changed teams because of waiver claims in the last week of August last year, and it's Austin Davis, Jesse Chavez, Bradley Zimmer, Rob Zistrisny, Tommy Romero. I know Elvis Andrus changed teams earlier in the season because of A's cheapness. But like Bader is, you know, not having a great year,

but is a player who potentially has some value and defensive value and Clevenger's having a pretty good season, right? And I think that is somewhat out of the norm, even those players being made available in this way. And I don't know why it's happening this year. The Angels, I think, have a very specific set of circumstances here, right? Yeah. Where things just went so south for them. So suddenly they're right over the limit, the thresholds.

They have the Otani looming over, Otani's free agency looming over them. So that might not be a set of circumstances that repeats itself. Right. But does it change the norms around this, right? It's sort of breaking the seal. You know, one reason you might not have done this before is that it makes you look bad.

It's embarrassing. But now the angels have taken that bullet. They've just said, yeah, we're going to look bad and people are going to make fun of us. We're going to do it anyway. And then you have the Yankees and the Mets doing this with players and the Guardians, et cetera. Maybe this just becomes kind of par for the course unless something changes, right? It's sort of surprising in retrospect that it hasn't happened before. I don't know what has stopped it from happening before other than unwritten rules of competitive integrity or just wanting to avoid scorn.

There's the waving team side incentives that you worry about. And then there's the claiming team side incentives that you potentially worry about. So like the Reds didn't do anything at the deadline, right? And they, you know, who knows if any knows if, you know, if any of these guys are going to get to them? Who knows if they're going to get past the Padres, right? AJ's AJ's AJ, you know, he might just say, like, gotta catch them all. But if you're Cincy and you have the opportunity to add a Ronaldo Lopez, like just just for salary and it's not very much salary does this alter your incentives around the deadline and and you just say look I'm just

gonna wait I'm just gonna wait and see what's available to me later I'm a fringe playoff team anyway you know as we saw with the Angels like two weeks of bad play might sink me. So why expend prospect capital? Why be willing to take on money? Why do any of that stuff to improve my roster if I might be able to just pick up a Ronaldo Lopez or, you know, a Giolito or whatever in a couple of weeks? So you do worry about that piece. But can I offer the flip of all of that and tell you why i'm i'm not like panicking about it yes and neither am i to be clear but yeah but i'm not suggesting you're panicking although it would be hard to to tell because you are i have so little vocal range right now that i don't think i could convey you're really white knuckling it would sound the same

but but i think worst case is like okay this sort of normalizes this. And then you see some superstar who adds even more impact to a playoff roster than a pretty good reliever or Lucas Giolito, right? Like the Angels were not going to do this with Otani because A, it would be even more embarrassing to put Otani in waivers B as long as he's still playing. He's still selling tickets for them. Right. Right. But say you had a player who was not the draw that Otani is, but was not even a similar kind of talent, but maybe similar to one way Otani, you know, a difference making player.

A difference making player. Yeah. Yeah. That could happen, right? Teams could look at that and say, yeah, the Angels did this with a bunch of guys. This is basically the same. We'll cut this star who's not necessarily

putting butts in the seats, but is winning games. But he's making lots of money, and he's not going to help us make money, or the wins that we get over the rest of the season won't matter. So we will cut him loose. And the downside of that, the negative interpretation would be that this disrupts the integrity of the pennant race, right? Like someone just picks up that player for nothing except their salary late in the season could potentially swing a race or swing the playoffs. And there's just something sort of unseemly about that, right? I mean, obviously we used to see

players change teams in late August. It's not unheard of, but if some star went to one team because that team had a slightly worse record than another team that it's in a race for, and then that team overtakes the other team that it's in a race for, and then that team overtakes the other team that didn't have the waiver priority, it would ruffle some feathers, right? There would be, I think, some people upset about the fact that Team A cut that player loose and Team B was just able to pick him up at that point in the season. Sure. I think that that would be bad. I am skeptical about that happening, though. And I think the main thing here is that in some ways, the Angels, by the extremity of their action, seem like they might just inspire the league to change the rules around all of this stuff.

Yeah, that is a possibility, yeah. And I think that you could, and you know, I would want to think through like the potential scoreliness that these suggestions would entail. So like, don't hold me to any of this stuff, right? Because like, if we know anything about a front office, it's that they're going to be scorely and that when you present teams with a deadline, they're going to very quickly come to understand the sort of optimal strategy around that deadline. Right. So we know that they do that. But like one thing you could do is maybe you move maybe you move the has to be in our org piece of this back closer to the trade deadline itself. So, you know, not necessarily he has to be on the 40 man.

Maybe you keep that date the same, but like you move the rest of it back. So it's more proximate to the deadline. The impact late on potential playoff races is minimized because again, it's so close to, you know, the August 1st actual trade deadline. And so sure, there are still going to be teams that are cheap or like really keen on getting under the CBT. But if they're presented with the option of being cheap and getting under the CBT and getting a prospect back or just getting the salary relief, if you know the guy has to have been within a competitive team's org on i don't know august 5th august 10th whatever right so like maybe they do that maybe you change how many guys you can release or claim at the same time maybe you i don't know you could do a you could do a bunch of things. the trade deadline back a bit potentially. And then at least, you know, you'd be making trades

as opposed to just giving a player away and getting a player for nothing in terms of talent. Like we talked about the history of the trade deadline and how back in the 20s, the Red Sox just salary dumped Joe Dugan on the Yankees. And that basically led to the trade deadline moving earlier in the year for the next 60-something years. So there has been uproar about this sort of thing before, and I could see that happening again. But yeah, I don't know how motivated Rob Manfred is to do something about this, but obviously some owners prefer to be able to do it, and they're his bosses as well. Sure. But I could see it being a potential problem from a PR perspective.

And I can imagine just as many owners and front offices being like, hey, do something about this. Like, this is not within the spirit of the waiver deadline or the waiver system. Like, come on. And we know that there are rules within the system now to try to prevent some amount of shenanigans, as I said. So, like, you know, I think that they don't want to make a mockery of that system. I have been wrong before. So, you know, and when it comes to the question of, like, good players, you know, maybe not Otani, but like really good players moving for nothing. I do think that that's a concern.

really good players moving for nothing. I do think that that's a concern. I'm skeptical that the incentives around moving those guys are as loose as the concern around this would imply, because just pick a name, Ben. Pick one name that kind of fits this mold for you. Who's a guy? Pick a guy. I was going to say like Kyle Tucker because he's a very good player, but sort of an unknown underrated, not a star commensurate with his abilities. That is true. I don't know if Kyle Tucker, like, you know, Kyle Tucker's making good money in art, but he's like, so like imagine Kyle Tucker two years from now, right? Right, yeah. When he's an independent free agent, yeah. Yeah, like imagine Kyle Tucker in 2025.

Kyle Tucker's playing great. He's getting big R-brazes. He's making, per roster resource, he made $5 million this year. So like let's say in 2025, he's making 15. I don't know, right? Like he's making some reasonable chunk of change, not a crazy amount, but some amount of money. And so like you're a team with a Kyle Tucker. And I don't know that he even really needs to be a free agent, candidly, but you're a team with a Kyle Tucker. And Kyle Tucker would be to the team acquiring him at the deadline a rental. so it would you know limit his his potential

prospect return for instance but he's still gonna net you a good player right he might net you a couple of good players and so are there teams that would look at that scenario and say you know those good players whatever we still want to save this money. Sure. I'm sure there are, right? Like the A's exist. They literally cut Elvis Andrews so that he wouldn't hit benchmarks so that they had to pay him more. So like, I don't want to underrate the cheapness of owners. But I do think that in general, when you have good players who are available on the, you know, around the deadline, that you want to get meaningful value back for them. And you want that value to exceed just a couple million dollars. And so I do think that that would matter. Now, maybe on a bigger contract, that calculus starts to change. But I don't know.

I still am skeptical that for really, really really good actually playoff race altering players that this would be the approach that teams would take. I think was a fringe playoff team at the deadline, decided not to sell, was trying to win, and then realizes you're out of it. Maybe you do need to move the calendar around a little bit. But I'm skeptical that really good players would be as freely available as the concern around this suggests. And I think the other piece of it for me is like, we have talked a lot about how the strategy of tanking, hard tanking, the way that the Astros did, has lost some oomph when a lot of teams are doing it. And so if you had 10 teams doing what the Angels are doing, I'm skeptical that like all those guys would get claimed. And then it's not a good strategy anymore, because you're still just having to pay them, right?'s the other piece it's like if if lucas giolito somehow doesn't get claimed and he absolutely will but like let's imagine for a moment that like

everybody lost access to their fax machine and they didn't send in their waiver claims and he just doesn't get claimed he just goes back to the angels and they still have to pay him so it does seem like there is going to be a point at which a mass adoption of this strategy limits its utility for any given team because you just have so many guys and not all of them are going to be able to find their way to a new home because like you do have to have roster space for this right and not every team's going to want to cut guys or have guys who are obvious cuts who are you know worse than what their options would be and i don't want to i'm struggling to find the right tone here ben because i don't want to discount teams wanting to be cheap and squirrely teams love being cheap and squirrely it's like arguably one of their favorite modes

you know i don't want to disincentivize concern here i don't want to tell people not to worry because i think that it needs to you know you need to keep a like weather eye on it and i really do think it proves the league to decide like what kind of behavior here are we going to tolerate and when they have identified the stuff that does not fit with their understanding of like what kind of behavior here are we going to tolerate? And when they have identified the stuff that does not fit with their understanding of like what the waiver wires for, you know, what kind of impact, late impact they are willing to have this kind of stuff have on playoff races, they should bracket that behavior and say, you can't do this anymore because we know that teams given the license to behave in a cheap and squirrely way are going to do it.

Like they're going to do it. So as always, I am arguing for regulation. The other potential pro, I suppose, is that, hey, these players are free. Oh, yeah. Right? I mean, they get to desert players are free. Oh, yeah. Right? I mean, they get to desert the sinking ship. Oh, yeah.

You get players that are on a lousy team that are just playing out the string. Yes. I mean, they're probably pretty pleased about it, right? Oh, yeah. They got a get out of angels free card. Oh, yeah. You could make a case that from a league-wide perspective, from a fan perspective, that, hey, okay,

we can concentrate more talent on contending teams and rosters that are actually going to be playing into October here. Like, there's often a proposal about, like, oh, you know, if you defeat a team, you should get to take one of their players for the next round. Or sometimes we've talked about the potential to loan players out if you're out of it. And there's some precedent for that. So maybe you could say, well, hey, this gave us something to talk about and to analyze.

And also, you get to see these players. They get to go and win somewhere. And maybe it equalizes the playoff field a little bit because the very best playoff teams aren't going to get dibs on these guys. So maybe it gives a little leg up or an arm up to a lesser contender. So you could find some positives in that, too. Oh, yeah. I mean, like, so like yesterday, I was texting with some folks, you know, I was like sending some feelers out to some team folks to be like, what's your take on this? Because I saw the reaction to it on Twitter and it was like much more, the concern was heightened in a way that I was not experiencing.

Like I don't want teams, as I said, to have excuses to be cheap and squirrely. But I was like not as concerned about that as it seemed like the crowd was. And so I was like, you know, help me kind of dial in what my level of concern should be here. And I did talk to someone who said basically what you did they were like isn't this isn't this good for players and i was like yeah if you're ronaldo lopez like this whips because you're getting out of there and you're now if what ends up happening is congratulations you're just a pod right now like maybe the the impact of that is blunted because, as you know, we saw when when Ben Clemens asked Dan to like run the zips on it, like if if San Diego claims, you know, him and Matt Moore and G Alito, like it does move their playoff all, at least in terms of this year, because the most potentially impactful of those players ends up on a team that's really on the fringes and won't end up being in the playoffs when it's all said and done. But the idea of being able to get out of what has to just be like a profound bummer of a situation and going to, you know, maybe you go to one of the better teams, like

maybe San Diego decides not to do anything and you end up on Cincinnati or like you end up on deciding not to do anything. I mean, like, you know, sometimes people like fall down and like they get distracted by having to deal with that for a day. And then they, like, forget to put in their weight or glimpses. You know, they're like, oh, crap, I tripped. And now I don't have any of them, you know. I meant to catch them all, even Gritchick. And I didn't do it, you know.

It could happen. It probably won't. But it could happen, right? But maybe you end up on Cincy. Maybe you end up on the Twins. Maybe, you know, you end up with the Diamondbacks. Like, there are a lot of, every team needs useful pitching. And so every team that has any shot at the postseason

is going to put in, I would imagine, a claim on at least one of these guys. And so, like, from that perspective, it's great. Like, again, I'm struggling to, like, get the, I feel like I'm not getting the tone right where i want it bang because i'm not unconcerned but i'm not panicked maybe this is what whelmed like sounds like yeah um and i don't want to you know if you are sitting there and you're like this just offends my competitive sensibilities i think that's a completely reasonable reaction. And I, again, do think that the league needs to be like, oh, this is behavior that has now, we have observed

it. It exists in the world. And you are right that like, they apparently do not feel any embarrassment about this. So what do we, what do we actually want the rules to be around this stuff? Like they should decide that and they should come up with something that puts at its center preserving the integrity of those pennant races. But I'm skeptical it's going to matter a lot this year. I'm skeptical it really fundamentally changes the incentives for teams but but i should also acknowledge that like it only needs to change the incentives for a couple of teams for it to be like a weird fluky thing we have to worry about every year and so uh they should change the rules so that we don't have to did i meg rally expect to be editing about baseball essentially trade related news into the evening hours on August 29th. Ben, I submit that I did not expect to do that because like I had been told that we weren't doing this anymore. And then we did. So maybe we should really get rid of it so that I can not have to work at night in the month of the later parts of August. Like this is the deal that we struck. I am really stressed.

And then I get two months of being less stressed. And then I'm really stressed again. This is really all about me. Yeah, clearly. I'm sure Rob Manfred will take that into account. But it gave us something compelling to talk about. It's sort of a fascinating situation. And we will see how this waiver claim cornucopia shakes out. And we'll talk about. It's sort of a fascinating situation, and we will see how this waiver claim cornucopia shakes out, and we'll talk about where everyone ended up next time. But for now, we can take a quick break, and we will be back with Ben Gibbard of Postal Service and Death Cab for Cutie to talk about those bands and his tour and the Seattle Marers. Well, you can hear Ben Gibbard on every episode of Effectively Wild, in a sense, because he

wrote and performed the little ditty that plays under our outros. But today he's here in person to talk about playing some songs of his that are slightly better known than the Effectively Wild outro theme, and also to talk about the first place Seattle Mariners. Welcome back, Ben. It's lovely to be back. Good to hear you guys again. Welcome back, Ben. It's lovely to be back. Good to hear you guys again. Especially under these circumstances. I keep seeing these stats or fun facts about how

the Mariners are in first place for the first time since 2003, which is great cross promotion for you because you can say, oh, 2003, what a year. Do you know what else happened that year? I put out a couple albums and guess what? You can come see me play them. So everything's coming up 2003 for you these days. I really should lean into that, shouldn't I? I didn't realize this was another angle I could start using with all this pre-tour press. Yeah, right. You talk to the New York Times, you talk to Billboard, then you talk to Effectively Wild. That's kind of the trio that most musicians, before they go out on the roads, they want to make those stops. Well, when we talked to you last September, I gave you some grief. I took you to task for scheduling a tour that coincided with the first Mariners playoff appearance in more than 20 years.

But, of course, how could you have known that the Mariners would be playing into mid-October? What reason had they given you to think that that might happen? would be playing into mid-October? What reason had they given you to think that that might happen? And once again, I guess you've put your obligations to your bandmates and your fans before your fandom, and you are touring during the postseason. Although, this time the tour ends during the ALCS. So I don't know whether you planned it this way or whether you thought the Mariners were going to be a perennial playoff team and you'd better stop touring in late October just in case or whether it worked out that way. It kind of just worked out that way.

I just want to assure everybody who has tickets to this tour that I'm not going to pull that move that that one country artist pulled where he canceled the show because UNC was playing the Final Four or something. Yeah, to go to the Final Four, right. Which, with my understanding, was not even a school that he had gone to, which seems weird. Not that I went to the University of Mariners, but, you know, it's a little different, I think. Yeah. Yeah, no, I feel like I do not regret booking this tour during this time.

And certainly earlier in the season, I was not thinking that I'd be missing anything. But now I'm a little nervous, you know. Right. Yeah. But from what you told me last October, it sounds like it was not an entirely unpleasant experience for you to be on stage during Mariners postseason games and have people in the crowd telling you what was happening or to be surprised after it ended. I guess it's ideal to get to watch your team in the playoffs, but it sounded like you made the best of that situation. Yeah, well, the culmination of that was the comeback against the Blue Jays. We were playing in South Carolina and we were backstage watching the game on TV.

And, you know, one thing is leading to another. And I think right before we went on stage, they had, you know, I'm forgetting the exact sequence of events, but if they had not tied it, it was looking like it was going that way. You know, it was like all the momentum was on the Mariners side. And our tour manager was like, do you want to push by five minutes? And I'm like, I can't do that. I can't be that guy. Like we said we'd go on at nine. We're going on at nine. We're not going to make people wait.

That's really unprofessional. And so a couple of songs in, some guy like screams out in the crowd, the Mariners won. And I was like, do not mess with me. Are you serious? And somebody came over my ears like, yeah, they pulled it out. They won. And then the rest of And I was like, do not mess with me. Are you serious? And somebody came over my ears like, yeah, they pulled it out. They won.

And then the rest of the show was like jubilation with the understanding that I got to get off stage and then go and watch the highlights of the things I just missed. Sad that I missed them, but also very happy to see the outcome of that particular game. I was listening to the Orioles broadcast yesterday and they had Joan Jett in the booth. I guess she's a huge Orioles fan, like has been to fantasy camps and everything and like, you know, into the minutia of the roster and, you know, how Gunnar Henderson was performing at the beginning of the year and how his defense was bolstering him when his offensive numbers weren't great. And she was saying that she will sometimes take her phone with her on stage and cover it. And then like between songs, we'll check in when she knows that the Orioles are playing. So you have an option and from no less luminary than Joan Jett. I mean,

if anyone can give you permission, I think she's on the list. So. Well, there's also a famous story about Johnny Ramone having a TV placed where like a teleprompter would be for. Yeah. And then he's watching the Yankees while he's playing a Ramones set. We might have discussed that last year. I will not be doing that. I feel it's very important to be present amongst people who bought tickets for these shows. And, you know, I also I'm sure we've all had this experience watching our team where you're out in public and you check the score and you just like scream an expletive at your phone and people like, what? What happened? Did somebody die? And they're like, no, the Mariners blew, you know, like more Brandon Morrow came in and blew the

lead or whatever. You know, I'm obviously dating that reference, but like, you know, it's, it's kind of one of those things where you have to like, that's okay to an extent in public when not on stage. But I think for me, I can't, I can't go there. Yeah. I don't think any Yankees fans, musicians will have to worry about that this October if Johnny were still with us. Wow, Ben. I was going to say, you're dating yourself with that reference, although that it could apply to so many dates is part of the problem that the Mariners face. But I'm curious, how has this season kind of washed over you? Because, you know, we got the postseason monkey off our back. And then we start watching this team at the beginning of the year. And as you didn't know if he was going to get out of at least this season. I think people were confident that Julio was going to be OK.

But, you know, they were like looking up at the Astros, which they're used to, but also the Rangers. And you got these upstart teams in the East and then we're here. So like how how did that strike you? Because when you're when you're done worrying about making the postseason like once more in your lifetime, it's a relief. But then they're that they are at times still a Mariner. So like, how's it been for you? I spent a good amount of the season being very angry. You know, I was angry at ownership. I was angry at Jerry. I was angry at the team, various players on the team. I think Larry Stone had

written a piece at some point in June or July that, you know, the headline was something like, is this the most infuriating Mariners team of all time or something like that? And my answer was, yes, it is. It's 100% the most infuriating team that I can remember, at least in the last couple of decades. And, you know, I think it was very easy to look at what the Rangers had done over the past two off seasons by in spending money, which like, you know, I don't know if John Stanton knew that was allowed, you know, that you were allowed to spend money on players, you know, more than, you know, like a utility outfielder. And, you know, so maybe somebody should let him know in this offseason, I hear there's a guy on the on the block that might be interesting for the Mariners

to to at least, you know, kick the tires on. He's a little banged up now, but I think he'll be fine. You know, it might be worth kind of, you know, reminding him that you're allowed to spend money on the team. Right. You know, it's like obviously obviously over the last, since July 1st, I guess they've, you know, they've, they've had this, you know, incredible record and they've been playing wonderfully and the offense is back alive. And it always felt, I'll admit, I didn't have a lot of faith in June, but I think that because, you know, asking, you know, saying something like, well, all the offense needs to do is get going and we're going to be in good shape. It would felt like a really stupid asinine thing to say when no one was hitting, you know. Right. But at this point, it's like, yes, of course, the starting rotation with the exception of Castillo and obviously Ray is

injured and, you know, it's basically a homegrown rotation. The bullpen has been phenomenal and people are starting to hit. So, you know, that last piece, which obviously is a huge piece of the team actually deciding they want to score runs now that that seems to be occurring on like a laughable kind of with laughable kind of consistency. Yeah. I mean, granted, against the, you know, you know, the Royals and the A's. Sure. But hey, a win is a win. They're technically major league baseball teams will be very important, certainly when we look at the last couple weeks of the schedule, which go Rangers, Astros, Rangers, Astros. Yeah.

Yeah, last year we talked to you right before the end of the regular season, and you were still very wary of even conceding that the Mariners might be a playoff team, though the odds were certainly in favor of that happening. So do you feel like now that it has happened once that you can at least consider the possibility before it's official, or is there still a part of you that is reluctant to consider that a fait accompli? I mean, there's a month left in the season and, you know, my fatalist concerns are, you know, have a lot to do with the Mariners peaking too early there's plenty of time for like a

brutal losing streak in there of which I of course hope doesn't happen and you know they're things seem to be firing on all cylinders so even if they're firing at 75 percent cylinders I think the Mariners have a really good chance of making the playoffs but they they you know American League is really tight this year and you, between the AL East and the AL West, there's only so many wildcard spots. And it's going to come down to theme and switching it up to Go, Go, Go, Go, Julio, which I don't want to say it writes itself. You wrote it, but it would almost re-record itself. It fits. I mean, at this point, I think Julio is very much deserving of his own song. And I wouldn't be surprised if Macklemore

is like 75% done writing it. I feel like it might be coming out, knowing Macklemore will probably be out in like October 1st, we'll be hearing this thing. So I haven't written one yet, but I do feel like someone's going to beat me to that punch and it's probably going to be Macklemore.

Speaking of Macklemore, no. I mean, like he was present for a lot of this actually did you get to enjoy any of the all-star stuff in seattle were you there for any of that ben i was out of town for playing a festival and i got back the day of the home run derby and i have to admit that I had a couple options for tickets or to kind of participate in that seeing either the home run Derby or the all-star game. But I have to admit that the all-star game feels a little bit like baseball Coachella, you know, where it's like I go to a fair amount of games and, you know, now that interleague plays is the way it is like, you know, you have myriad opportunities to see a lot of these players in person now. And so the idea of just fighting through

like a festival environment to like, you know, see your favorite band, so to speak, is kind of like, you know what, I'll see them when they come play their own show. You know, I'll see them at the show box. I don't need to go out to the gorge with 30,000 other people to see this thing. And so, you know, I politely

declined that I watched the game on TV. I mean, obviously the Home Run Derby is, in my opinion, far more fun than the All-Star Game because nobody hits in the All-Star Game because it's like everybody coming out of the pen is the greatest pitcher of all time. But it was pretty fun to see how the city kind of embraced baseball for an extended weekend. And it seems as if that fervor and excitement has kind of carried on to, you know, this run that the Mariners are on now. One thing Macklemore doesn't have is a crossover event in honor of Jose Caballero's birthday. We're posting this episode on Death Cabbie for Cutie Day in Seattle. And I know you have a long relationship with the team in various forms, and you've performed at the ballpark many times, thrown out first pitches.

How did this come about, this T-shirt that is sort of Death Cab, we have the facts style blended with Jose Caballeros? Is it as simple as someone said, cab, cabbie? It just, it makes sense. We've got to make this happen. So a friend of mine, Trevor Gooby, who's the ballpark manager, I think that's his official title for T-Mobile, had sent me like an internal memo. I don't know if it was like a press release or whatever, but they kind of give things these kind of like humorous names or pun names or whatever. And Caballero had had a pretty good day and they were putting out this press release at something that was like death cabbie for cutie. You know, Jose Caballero did this and that and this and that. And I'm not exactly sure how that evolved into a themed kind of day.

But, you know, I'm sure it had something to do with, you know, the marketing geniuses at the Mariners. We had our friend Zach Bolton, who's a great designer in town. He owns and operates Porchlight Coffee and Records on Capitol Hill. Longtime friend of ours has designed a bunch of records and t-shirts and stuff for us.

You know, we had him design the shirt. And, you know, I really love the fact that he basically used the artwork from We Have the Facts and then just put a baseball player, which kind of vaguely resembles Jose Caballero, on the shirt. And, you know, I think that, you know, when Jose Caballero came up,

I don't remember exactly when in the season, but it was at that point where I was maybe at my maddest, at my most mad at this team. And I was just really taken with how this dude, who I believe was like a pure rookie, came up with this like swag and this attitude, like he'd been there forever. And like, you know, I don't think he's going to end up in the Hall of Fame at the end of his career. But the fact that he was kind of he came in with this swagger and like attitude at a time when the team was really scuffling and not playing well and people didn't seem like they were having a very good time was just a real breath of fresh air for me. And I think for a lot of other fans as well. Like, who does this guy think he is? Like barking at like, you know,

a veteran pitcher on the mound. This is his third at bat in the big leagues, you know, whatever. I mean, that was just really fun to see. So I was really happy when this kind of co-pro kind of came across our proverbial desk. When Eric Longenhagen wrote Caballero for the Mariners prospect list,

he comped him to Patrick Beverly, the kind of player you love when he's on your team and hate when he's not. That's a really good analogy. That's a really good comp. Yeah. Yeah. Because he, gosh, he seems to mess with opposing pitchers timing on pitch clock stuff more than anyone else in baseball. It's wild. Yeah.

And he just, you know, I mean, you know, obviously that, you know, his numbers are not incredible at this point, but at the same time, he seems to kind of come into the game and affect the game in some form or fashion, whether it's in, you know, on defense or, you know, running the bases or just, you know, pissing off people on the other team, you know, I'm all for it. I'm curious as you look ahead to the postseason, just like make you contemplate this as a reality. It's not kind to like, you know, survey the American league field for us, Ben, like, who are you, who are you most concerned about as these Mariners try to make their way

through October potentially? I mean, it's probably just a pretty predictable answer, but I think it always just comes down to the Astros. I, you know, I think that there are these intangible elements of having been there, done that before. You know, I would imagine that if you're the Astros and you've been to the World Series so many times and, you know, won it once, you know, for real, you know, there's kind of this, like, the heartbeat's probably a little bit doesn't raise as high as it might for other teams who are relatively new or inexperienced in that,

in that part of the season. You know, I would have worried about the raise until all of these kind of pitching injuries and, you know, other unmentionable things happened with their team. I would have been concerned about them. The Rangers seem to have a very real bullpen problem, which makes me happy, but also doesn't necessarily make them a huge... I mean, the offense,

they could explode and score 15 runs on you, but they're not doing a great job of closing out games, so I'm not as concerned about them. Famous last words. But yeah, it just comes down to the Astros and just the fact that while, you know, the Mariners have kind of had their number this particular season, I just always fear them turning it on in the postseason and just like, oh, here we go. Another Astros World Series appearance. You know,

how fun. Because I know Billboard doesn't give you unlimited chances to get your baseball takes off. Do you have any non-Mariners related thoughts? Is there anything that you've particularly enjoyed this season? I am given to understand you've enjoyed the Angels implosion for one thing, but new rules related, any other individual players or teams that you have found some delight in this year? that you have found some delight in this year? Yeah, I think as much as, you know, a lot has been written about this, and, you know, I think a lot of us probably are not super keen on giving Rob Manford much credit for anything. But, you know, I think these new rules are a resounding success.

I mean, I don't want to hear it from anybody who... It seems like at this point, if you're saying that the longer games are better, you're just being a contrarian, you know? They're not better. This is so much better. This is so much more exciting, you know, and, and at this point, you know, I obviously at the beginning of the season or spring training, things felt like they're moving too swiftly, but then you just kind of adjust to the new pace and it doesn't feel rushed at all. In fact, sometimes I'm like, get in the box, come on, let's go. You know, I'm on record as being an Angels hater.

So, you know, I have enjoyed watching the Angels implode. Sorry to any of our Orange County. Sorry, not sorry to our Orange County fans. You know, tickets can be, you know, they can be returned at point of purchase. And, you know, I've really enjoyed watching the Reds this year. You know, it was painful to kind of lose a prospect like Noel de Marte to the Reds. But at the same time, you know, we got Castillo out of the deal. And, you know, it's always fun when these kind of secondary or tertiary market teams, these like low budget teams kind of come out of nowhere with a youth movement that is enjoyable and unexpected. And, you know, I mean,

you have to, you know, your heart has to be dead to not enjoy watching Elie de la Cruz, you know. So I often find myself, if the Mariners are out of it at some point, which, you know, let's face it, has been the story for most of the last 20 years. You know, there always needs I always need to find a bandwagon team to jump on in the postseason. And my hope is always that it's one of these like smaller market teams. I have a lot of friends from Wisconsin who are big Brewers fans, and I feel that as a Seattleite, it is acceptable to root for the Brewers because they're technically a Seattle team. Sure. So it's like it's okay to embrace the Brewers, of course,

unless they're playing the Mariners. So, yeah, I mean, I'm just hoping for, you know, I'm hoping obviously the Mariners win the World Series, but if that doesn't become the case, you know, it would be nice to see the Reds or the Brewers kind of make a real run. So I read somewhere that when the conversations initially started about the tour that you were about to embark on, that there was talk of we could make it two separate tours, that Death Cab could tour and play Transatlanticism, and then the Postal Service could tour and play Give Up and that you said, no, people would want to see both together. That would be so much more fun. And the first time I saw when I saw the announcement that this was happening, I thought, well, he is now a two-way player. I mean, literally, he is playing two ways.

He's playing with both bands here. So it seems like that made all the sense in the world if you were able to schedule it that way. And it also sounds demanding for you, although I think I read that you noted somewhere else that this will actually be less total time for you to play than at a typical Death Cab concert because you've got two 45-minute albums, right, with a break between. So this is actually easy for you to play two ways,

unlike Otani, I guess. This is actually a bit of actually easy for you to play two ways unlike otani i guess this is actually this is actually a bit of a break for you you know i let's let's try to get this let's try to get this trending that i am the otani of indie rock the show okay i'm talking about i i you know i really like i this is very self-aggrandizing and ridiculous and i really like it so let's see if we can kind of get this going in the world, you know, and it can just start with anybody who's listening to speed like, yeah, you know, I, yeah, I mean, I heard Ben Gibbers doing, you know, both bands. He's kind of like the Shohei Otani of indie rock if you really look at it. Yeah. Um, that would be, that would be nice. Uh, you know, I prefer, hopefully no Tommy John in my future. Um, but yeah, I, you know,

it is going to be about the same length of show or at least time on stage for me and you know roughly the same amount of material as far as like a song count so i'm not i'm not super concerned about that um i think the thing that's going to be the most not so much difficult but it's going to be the strangest element of this tour is just the context switching you know like you know 11 songs into a you know, when normally Death Cab would be literally halfway through the main set. OK, let's leave stage. And here are two new people that are coming on stage and you are playing a different set of material. I think it's going to be weird for a couple of nights and then it's going to kind of we'll get into a rhythm with it.

Will you do a wardrobe change to distinguish between Death Cab Ben and Postal Service Ben halfway through? There will be a wardrobe change. I wouldn't, I wouldn't call it a wardrobe change with a capital W capital C it'll be just, you know, as much for my own comfort changing clothes, but it won't go, it's not like I'm going to go from, you know, my typical stage, you know, attire into like a, you know, a, like a tuxedo or anything like that. It's going to be just a fairly modest change of clothes. Yeah, I was going to say, I don't think either band strikes me as tuxedo vibe.

You know, it's not the energy that you're, that you guys are really bringing to either set. I'm curious, like what has the, as you, as you talk to people, like what is their response to this, Ben? Cause Because when I saw that you guys were doing this, I was thrilled and then felt very old. But also delighted because we've talked about this. Your music has been important to me. It's been important to Lindbergh. It's like, it's a sort of foundational text for a lot of people who like this kind of music and are of a certain age. So what has, what has the response been like? You know, I certainly have gotten a lot of like, oh my God, 20 years. Like, you know, one of the things about growing older in a, in a rock band is on one hand, I'm parroting something I said earlier. Uh, so forgive me, but you know, you're, you kind of become not so much a keeper of people's memories, but like a trigger of memory. And, you know, for, I, and I find that it's really like music

and smells are the two things that really kind of trigger memories. You know, I have this like very formative memory of listening to freewheeling Bob Dylan with my dad, you know, my first Thanksgiving home from college. And I hadn't really listened to much Dylan at that point. And when the girl from the North Country came on, I could see him disappear into another place and he was thinking about somebody that wasn't my mom. You know, it had this like very transformative,

like time machine element, you know, in his life. And that's I found that to be very true about music in my life. The other side of that is sometimes people don't like to be reminded that they're older now, you know. And I think that part of the indignance that sometimes comes from like, oh, my God, can you believe that that band still around or they're still making records? They're still touring. I think there's an element of it, which is like, I don't want to be reminded of the fact that 20 years have passed

since I was a young person, you know? But, you know, I think that, like, for example, I just went and saw The Cure down in San Francisco in June. And, you know, they've been one of my favorite bands since I was 12. And, you know, I think when you have a relationship with a record or a band or whatever, you know, it not only marks time in your past. But I think if this music, I think a lot of music that's really kind of timeless in one's life is the kind of music that you carry with you throughout your life. that you carry with you throughout your life.

And it starts to kind of like, it marked moments in your life when you were younger, but it also slots into experiences you're having as a now older person. And I think that just by the sheer nature of the fact that we're doing this tour and the response to this tour indicates to me that these records have those places in some people's lives.

And that's an incredibly humbling thing to be a part of. You know, I kind of keep coming back to this William Gibson quote that I love, you know, where he says something about, you know, somebody's asking him about his Neuromancer trilogy, and he says something like, well, you know, it's like, I feel like these books are kind of like my children who went off in the world and had great adventures. You are the author of them. You are the creator.

But at the same time, how they exist in the world is very unique to the people who experience them and has in some ways nothing to do with you. Yeah. There are a lot of bands that are just on the nostalgia circuit full time, right? are just on the nostalgia circuit full time, right? Whether it's bands that have very few or sometimes no original members left and are still kind of clinging to the name or a band that just hasn't recorded for years and years, but they're still kind of touring on the old warhorses. And I wonder if the fact that that is very much not the case with you and with Death Cab, that you are very actively recording and have had a fertile creative period that you're coming off an acclaimed new album, Asphalt Meadows, that we talked to you about last year. You've been touring on that.

You put a new single, An Arrow in the Wall, out this month. I wonder whether that makes this more palatable or appealing to you that it's not like I'm just reliving past glories here. You are actively, you know, an artist making new art, but also giving people the experience of hearing these old songs that they really like, too. It certainly feels better to be doing this tour on the heels of, your words, not mine, like a critically acclaimed record. You know, I think I might feel differently, or I might be a little more defensive if Transatlanticism was the only record that we made that anybody ever cared about. And, you know, we had been just making bad music with terrible collaborations and chasing recent trends and whatever, you know, having weird features and things like that in like an attempt to kind of remain current.

So I think that, you know, the response to Asphalt Meadows in particular, it really emboldened me that this was a good thing to be doing. It's like, yeah, we've made a record that, you know, the people who care about these things like for the most part. And I've always felt as a music fan, even more so than, but also as a performer that, you know, we've all had that experience where you go to see a band, you know, that you're excited about a performer and they have a new record and they're far more excited about the new record than you are. It'd be like if you went to see the Rolling Stones and they didn't want to play Goodbye Ruby Tuesday or Satisfaction. They wanted to hit you with an hour of new material

before they played a song that you recognized, which would be completely not in keeping with why people were there in the first place. And I think that as a fan, I've certainly had those experiences when I've gone to see a band that I love completely not in keeping with why people were there in the first place, you know. And I think that as a fan, I've certainly had those experiences when I've gone to see a band that I love and they've pulled that kind of thing and it's frustrating. So, you know, very early on in our now what I guess I would call a career, I realized how important it is to kind of make sure that, you know, when you make a record, you can do whatever you want.

You can, it can be 45 minutes of fart songs if that's what you want. But at the same time, the shows are for the audience. The concerts are for the people who paid to see them and you owe them access to their memories through your music to a reasonable extent. Yeah, it's interesting. I've seen Paul McCartney many times, and I would like nothing better than if he were to play a B-sides and deep cuts concert. That would be amazing. I'd love to hear something other than the hits that everyone knows that I love too, but I've heard him perform many times. But probably most people would riot and say, what is this? And I paid how many hundreds of dollars to hear this song that I don't

know. So of course you have to make that calculus. Plus you have to relearn those songs. I think people probably think, oh, well he wrote that song. So of course he knows how to play that. But if it's a 20 year old song, you, I imagine have no idea how to play it. Although you've, of course, been playing some of these songs in your regular set list, but I'm sure there are some here probably that you've had to go back and relearn and replay for the first time in years. I know you toured on the 10th anniversary of Give Up as well, but how long do these things actually remain in your repertoire without having to go back and relearn them from scratch? You know, they're in there and they just need to be coaxed out. You know, they're in there and they just need to be coaxed out. But I think, you know, you mentioned Paul McCartney, you know, some years ago, you know, going to drop a name here.

Sorry, have to do it. I played this kind of little show with it was Pete Townsend was putting on this kind of variety show at the Troubadour. And the angle was like, yeah, pick a couple Who songs or Pete Townsend songs you want to play, and you'll play them with Pete. And I had met Pete a couple times at that point, so I wouldn't say that I knew him, but I felt comfortable picking a couple songs. And I picked one of my favorite Who songs, a song called Mary Ann with the Shaky Hands that's on the Who sellout.

It's one of my favorite songs. And we're kind of rehearsing it in soundcheck. And, you know, I don't mean to, like, I'm not trying to insult Pete Townsend here or blow up his spot, but I looked over at him and he was saying to himself, what are the chords to this thing? And I just was like, and there was a moment where I was like, how does he not know this song?

He wrote it. Yeah, in 1967. Yeah, I'm sitting here with my own song. I'm like, what are the chords to this thing? Yeah, right. It's a weird thing to be called upon to revisit these things that you wrote when you were in a very different place in life. And I think there are some people who feel very connected to their younger selves. Like I feel more or less the same as I always did. There are also people who look back and think, I don't even recognize that person. I don't like that person. I'm completely different from that

person. And musicians, I think maybe uniquely among artists, just are constantly reminded about who they were when they were in their teens or their 20s. I mean, you're playing songs in your mid-40s that you wrote and performed for the first time in your mid-20s, and you're not the same person. So I wonder whether you still connect to those or whether there are things that you feel like, gosh, this is an alien sentiment to me, or whether some of it rings even more true than it did at the time. Well, actually, in this case, Ben, I'm exactly the same person. Yeah, I mean, you look the same. I have not aged or grown emotionally in the last 20 years, and I've done that on purpose because I am a musician, and we don't do that. We don't try to evolve in any way whatsoever.

I mean, yeah, it is. It is. There are certainly sentiments in some of those songs that I don't cringe over, but I certainly would not write a lot of that. That's some of those songs now. And I would kind of come at those songs that those kind of moments or people that I wrote about in a probably in a different way and in probably a more sympathetic, compassionate way. But, you know, I always think about this. I don't know if either of you or any of the listeners have seen Walk Hard, the Dewey Cox story. Oh, yeah. Which is, there's a great scene in the beginning of the film where, like, you know, Dewey Cox is like, he's got his hand up against, on his head, he's kind of leaning against the side of the stage, offstage, and somebody says, like, don't bother him. Before he goes on stage, he has to relive every moment in his head, he's kind of leaning against the side of the stage offstage. And somebody says like,

don't bother him before he goes on stage. He has to relive every moment in his life, you know? And it's this like, and then the movie kind of goes from there. And it's, it's not so much that it's not so much that, that I have to do that,

but in order to kind of perform the songs and some way, even remember the lyrics, I have to kind of in my mind's eye be in that headspace again i have to i have to i have to see those people in my mind's eye i have to remember those scenarios after i sometimes put myself in the place of where i was when i wrote it you know like literally like i'm writing the song on a friend's piano in a basement in Seattle and I'm performing Passenger Seat and I'm in that basement, you know, playing that, you know, wonky piano. And to me, it's really about to visualize those people in those places is also to honor them again. to kind of, you know, one of the most important, one of the reasons that Kerouac had made such an impression on me is that I really loved how he kind of created these like larger than life

characters from these very normal people in his life, you know. And in my own small way, I've wanted to do that with people who are important to me in my life to kind of, you know, to have the mythology of some of these songs be like, yeah, who's Kelly Huckabee, you know, song for Kelly, who's that guy, you know? Um, and then maybe somebody is like trying to find him on Instagram or something, uh, you know, uh, he's there, he's living in, he's living in Lusaka, Zambia right now. Um, but, uh, but yeah, no, it's, it's, and so that's an enjoyable, sometimes I would never say painful, but sometimes a complicated experience. And it's going to be the entirety of the experience on stage in this particular tour. Yeah, I was going to ask about that because, you know, you're someone who writes about relationships, even if it's not explicit.

It's inspired by something you experienced in real life. And it's got to be different tapping into that vein over and over and over again over decades. It's got to be different tapping into that vein over and over and over again over decades. It can't feel quite the same today as it did when it was fresh in your mind and your first writing and touring this. So I wondered whether it became kind of divorced from the original sentiment eventually. But it sounds like you do your best to tap into that original motion. And I guess there are some things that you might change. And I guess there are some things that you might change. I know you would change your third quarter to third period in Nothing Better to appease the hockey fans out there. Or, you know, there are songs I know you've talked about. If you do a Plans 20th anniversary tour, I know you've talked about Someday You Will Be Loved as not your favorite song in your oeuvre, right? Yeah, that one was a little lazy. But I guess you can't change it now. It's sort of set in stone or set in wax, right? And people expect the words to be the same.

There are definitely, you know, people perform songs differently than they sound in the original record. Although sometimes if you stray too much, if you do the Dylan where you don't even realize that it's that song until halfway through, right? Then people feel like they're not getting the authentic experience. So that's something you need to navigate too. I guess it has to remain interesting to you, but recognizable to people who say, I love this album. I want this to sound like the album did. Yeah. And I think you have to honor that. And I would also say to that point, you know, there are people, you know, who exist across both of these records. They're they're they're written about on transatlanticism and give up.

And, you know, one of the kind of, you know, you know, there are certainly things about getting older that are frustrating. You know, waking up in pain every morning is kind of, you know, just like, oh, God, like just getting out of bed. You know, I don't remember waking up sore when I was 22. I would I could do without. But one of the, you know, beautiful things about getting older is you look around and you realize that, you know, if you're a halfway decent person, you know, you've had relationships with people for decades. And, you know, there are, you know, people who exist in these records who they might have been people that I was with romantically or that, you know, had had falling out, fallings out with at a certain point. But then now are like people who are very near and dear to me. And,

you know, it's it's kind of a beautiful thing to kind of, you know, reach out to somebody, you know, who's on these records and be like, hey, you want to come to the show? It's like, yeah, I'm bringing my kids. They're super excited. And it really is like a testament to how, and maybe I'm waxing a little too romantic about this, but that music is kind of a living organism. It continues to kind of, these songs, any song really,

it continues to kind of morph and change and its meanings tend to kind of, you know, they are augmented over time as one ages with them. Yeah, yeah. And I guess the circumstances that produce these albums, a fairly happy, harmonious time for you and your bands, right, as opposed to some others that were more contentious or more rushed. that were more contentious or more rushed. So people think sometimes that you need that conflict to produce great art. And I guess that can be true sometimes, just as in baseball, sometimes you have teams that are at each other's throats

that are great. And sometimes you have teams that get along great, like these Mariners seem to. And that plays into their success, or at least maybe it stems from their success. But hopefully the period of recording these albums is a happy one to return to in your mind more so than some. But I did have one last kind of weird one for you, which is that you're someone known for very literate lyrics and very emotional lyrics, but you're also a fan of poppy songs and 60s songs and the monkeys. And you are not afraid

to just throw in a bop-bop or some sort of just marking time, making a sound with your mouth that is not a word, which was standing out to me as I was re-listening to Transatlanticism. And, you know, it's the sound of settling papa and then it's you know ivory lines lead wahoo which is uh that's an unusual one at least i guess you couldn't go with wahoo that wouldn't fit the song so well but but i wonder what the art of sticking in a ba-da-ba or a doo-doo or some sort of nonsense sound that can often be very memorable. That can kind of give you your hook and your chorus, but it's like, I'm Ben Gibbard. People are expecting, you know, profundity and, uh, and like letting out all my, my feelings here. And I'm just going to say,

and that'll be incredibly catchy. But how do you know when it's time to do that? Is it like a placeholder that becomes permanent? You know, that's a really good question, Ben. I haven't really reckoned. In the 20 plus years since I wrote Lightness, I've never thought about what an odd thing to sing ooh-wah-ho is. It's really not. I'm not going to sit here and say I invented it or something like that. But I'm racking my brain to think of where I pulled that from. I'm racking my brain to think of where I pulled that from.

Right. And it doesn't feel like the kind of thing that, I'm sure there's, you know, there are certainly ad libby kind of non, well, I guess they're verbal, but non-word based kind of ad lib things that exist throughout pop music. You know, there have certainly been times where I have thrown one of those in there

rather than write a lyric. And it seems like very much like a feel thing. Yeah. But then there are there are moments where and I'm struggling to kind of give a good example right now that, you know, you'll hear a song out in the world that like barely has any lyrics. And you kind of go like, I'm really trying too hard. This is really like, I, you know, it's like, I'm not saying that if we wrote less words, we would be more successful, but clearly you don't need this many words to sell a lot of albums, you know, at least, or a lot of streams or whatever. Um, but at the same time, every time I try to, there are moments where I try to write minimally.

Like I, you know, we will be doing, and you know, in the band, when we were making Asphalt Meadows, during the pandemic, we would do these weekly kind of songs together, which, you know, we talked about a lot at the time, kind of file sharing. And we would often give ourselves directives.

Like a directive might be like, play an instrument that you don't, you've never played before. You know, don't play your bass guitar, play something else in your studio that you've never used on a recording before. Let's see where we can get with that. And, you know, a couple of times the directive would be like, as few words as possible. And I just learned, you know, over the course of my career as a songwriter that using less words to evoke a similar feeling or emotion or tell a similar story is incredibly difficult. It's really one of the most difficult things to do in songwriting. And it's one of the reasons that somebody like Randy Newman is such a genius, is that he's able to use so few words and tell such evocative stories.

And it's something I just lack the ability to do. So what are you listening to these days? See, I am super into the new Blur album. It is really hitting with me right now for a number of reasons. And, you know, I've always been a huge Blur fan. But I think because our career has been as long as it has, I have a vested interest in career

artists, usually over, not at the expense of younger, newer artists. But, you know, when a band full of old people makes a really transcendent record and shows they have new things to say, that's really inspiring to me because that's where kind of I'm at in my life. There's a band from Seattle called Sea Lemon that just put out a new EP that I'm really enjoying. They kind of have like a 90s, you know, big shoegazy downstroke kind of energy to them that I really enjoy. Yeah. And then I and we're actually, you know, we're taking our friends out in this band called The Beths from New Zealand who are phenomenal.

They're wonderful people. They're such a great band. I think that Liz is arguably the greatest songwriter of her generation. No hyperbole. I think she's just phenomenal. And, you know, I want them to take over the world. That's what I want more than anything.

I saw them live in Phoenix when they rolled through, and they are fantastic. They play a hell of a live show, too. Like, they're really great. And they're so funny. Like, they are the funniest. I don't know if they were funny on stage, but they are so personable and so wonderful. And, yeah, I'm just really looking forward to kind of seeing, playing with them a bunch. I saw them in Seattle on that same tour.

Yeah. Like the day after we got back from Europe. And it was, we had toured with them in Europe. We had taken them out a couple of years before the pandemic. And, you know, I don't get a lot of opportunities to see bands in front of their own crowds. Not that because I'm adverse to going out, but just a lot of times I'm on tour or I'm not in a place to go see a show. You know, we just got back from tour.

I don't want to go to a show. I just want to watch Criterion Collection and just not leave the house and watch baseball. Um, but going, I saw them at Numo's here in Seattle and seeing them play in front of their own crowd. Criterion collection and just not leave the house and watch baseball. But going, I saw them at Numo's here in Seattle and seeing them play in front of their own crowd. It's like such a wonderful thing to see a band that you love and that, you know, that you consider friends in front of a group of people who just absolutely adore them. And yeah, I just, I want the world for them. I think that, you know, they should be headlining arenas should be headlining arenas if there was any justice in this world. Well, you can go see two bands headline some arenas and other places starting soon.

September 5th, the tour kicks off in D.C. 31 dates goes through October 17th, sometimes with the Beths and Built to Spill and Iron and Wine and other openers. And some people are calling our guest today the Shohei Otani of indie rock. So make sure you don't miss this chance to see both of his bands and his two-way act. And if you are in the front row for one of these concerts while the Mariners are playing a postseason game, then yell out loud what is happening. He does not mind spoilers, it sounds like. Man, I want to be clear.

I'm not the one saying that. I'm not the one saying, I'm the Shohei Otani of New York. I have nothing to do with that. People are saying this. Yeah. People are just saying this. In the ether. Yeah.

Word of mouth. All right. Thanks, Ben. Good luck with the tour. Thank you. And just to update everyone post-interview, the Mariners did win on Death Cabbie for Cutie Day. So they remain tied for first place with the Astros. It's a two-way tie now. And according to Sarah Langs, it's the third time since divisions were formed in 1969 that three teams in the same division were within one game or less of the lead entering September.

1969 NL West, 1980 NL East, 2023 AL West. Ben, this Ben, Ben Lindberg, my co-host Ben. The one who can't talk. I'm going to take us to conclusion with the future blast, if you'll allow, because you should stop talking. I would welcome and encourage that, yes. Yes, so here is the future blast. The future blast is brought to you, as always, by Rick Wilber. Rick is an award-winning editor, writer, and college professor and has been described as the dean of science fiction baseball.

And this future blast comes to you from 2053. from the terrible New Madrid quake of the previous season, the St. Louis Cardinals were the darlings of the pundits as they marched their spring training in their new-slash-old facility at refurbished Al Lange Stadium in St. Petersburg, Florida. The Cardinals had trained in that ballpark from its opening in 1947 until 1998 when the Tampa Bay Devil Rays took over in their inaugural big league season and the Cardinals moved across the state to Jupiter, Florida. Ultimately, the Rays left for Nashville and Al Lange Stadium became the home of the 2nd Division Tampa Bay Rowdies

Soccer Club. In 2053, the Rowdies were promoted into Major League Soccer with their new stadium in Clearwater and the Cardinals and the City of St. Pete spent $47 million refurbishing Al Lang and the nearby campus practice fields of the University of South Florida at St. Petersburg to big league spring training standards. It was a huge success as the Cardinals sprinted to a sparkling 25-5 spring training record and historic Al Lang Stadium sold out all 15,000 seats game after game. Perhaps St. Pete had belatedly embraced baseball after all those years of low attendance with the race. Alas, reality caught up with the Cardinals in the regular season, where injuries to slugger Ernesto Delgado and a mediocre second season from pitching phenom Eric Mink were indicative of the team's troubles

as they slid into a modestly successful 89-win regular season, a playoff wildcard slot win, and then those four straight losses to the London Monarchs to end their season. The Monarchs went on to win the World Series in six games over the Los Angeles Dodgers for their second world championship.

Okay. That'll do it for today. I'll play us out so Ben can rest his voice and simply remind everyone that 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 and get access

to a few special perks. Richard Old matt longo casey reed paul and kirk craker thanks very much those patreon perks include access to the effectively wild discord group monthly bonus episodes access to our playoff streams and much much more you can check it all out on patreon.com you can follow us on twitter at ew pod or on blueski using the same handle. You can also join our Facebook group at Facebook dot com slash group slash Effectively Wild and you can rate, review, and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and other podcast

platforms. Keep your questions and comments for me and Ben coming via email at podcast at fangrass dot com or via the Patreon messaging system if you're a supporter. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his production and editing assistance. Ben and I will be back with another pod a little later this week, provided Ben can speak. Until then, have a great week, and thanks for listening.

Effectively Wild