Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2095: Soto Voce

Episode Date: December 8, 2023

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about a lackluster punning performance by Scott Boras at the Winter Meetings, then (12:03) dissect the momentous trade of a big Boras client, Juan Soto, from both the Yankees’ and Padres’ perspectives. After that (1:04:00), they discuss Eduardo Rodríguez bolstering the Diamondbacks’ rotation, Jeimer Candelario joining the Reds’ overcrowded […]

Hello and welcome to episode 2095 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Raleigh of Fangraphs back in Arizona. Hello, Meg. Hello. joined by Meg Rowley of Fangraphs back in Arizona. Hello, Meg. Hello. So previously on Effectively Wild, last time we talked, we left off.

You were bound for the Scott Boris scrum. I was. And you made it, but it didn't work out quite the way you intended. Not even a little bit, you know? So, like, here's the thing, Ben. I don't want to speak ill of TV people because, like, they have their job to do, you know? They have a job that they have to do. But when you surround Scott Boris with a wall, a flotilla, a phalanx of TV people and their cameras, you as a writer, and for me, a not tall writer,

you end up at a meaningful distance. And then they don't mic him. They don't put a mic on him. They should just have a little lavalier. It's odd. Yeah, they roll out his backdrop, his Boris backdrop. You'd think that he would want to be audible as well as visible. He was on a little platform. He was on a little platform.

He was on a little platform. Like a soapbox. He's on his soapbox. And so I couldn't hear even one thing that he said. I was there. I had my phone ready to record it and be able to tell you a bunch of juicy quotes. And I couldn't. I couldn. And I couldn't do it. I was like, Scott, why don't you project? Michael Bauman was like, this is why we need Asians to be theater kids, I guess. You got to play to the back row. And that did not happen. And so, I was all ready to tell you delightful tales of puns. And instead, I abandoned my effort. I was defeated. And I can't tell you, Ben. I can't tell you. I can't tell you.

Yeah. I saw some photos of this because the obligatory Boris press conference, you have to tweet out that it's about to happen. And then you tweet out when everyone shows up for it to happen. And then you tweet out the quotes. So I will link to a couple of tweets from various angles. I was looking for you in this vast sea of humanity here, but didn't see you can't really make out anyone because it's just outstretched arms holding digital recorders as if it's that song at the concert where you hold up your phone or used to hold up your cigarette lighter, right? But it's the Scott Boris scrum. But yeah, it seems really inefficient because you have dozens, if not hundreds, of media members each holding up their individual recorders at various distances.

And you'd think that he would just maybe have someone transcribe what he was saying, right? Like, when players do press conferences, there's an automated service, or maybe it's not automated, but there's a service. There's a person there. Yeah, and you can look up online. It's circulated to everyone so that not everyone has to transcribe it individually. That's extremely inefficient, right? And maybe hard to hear as well. So, yeah, because this is such an institution, you would think that he would have figured out these things by now, but no. Yeah, he's got to call the people at ASAP Sports and have someone sitting there transcribing. And I wonder, you know, and I don't want to be prone to conspiratorial thinking here,

but like what would probably make the most sense is for them to just put Boris at the front of the media workroom with a mic set up and he could put his backdrop there and people could ask questions and it could all be mic'd. And as you said, like transcribed. And I do wonder if Major League Baseball is perhaps uninterested in facilitating that. It could be that. And so, you know, it doesn't seem like the best possible setup. And it is not as if he is without resource, you know, even if Boris Corp just decided, look, we want to have this in a place where everyone can sit in here. We're going to pay for AV. Like, don't they get sufficient bang for the buck? You know? So I was deflated. You know, I was so ready, Ben, to tell you a tale. And I have no Boras said, I would imagine. And this will not take long. There were not actually many writers tweeting Boras zingers. And I was wondering whether it was because he had an uncharacteristically muted performance. Maybe he was

busy with his star client, Juan Soto, being in the midst of being traded. Or maybe it wasn't that he was distracted. Maybe it was just that no other writers could hear him either. Or maybe, I don't know whether the writers might have banded together and said, this has gone far enough. Like we need to stop just monopolizing baseball Twitter with very silly Boris quotes at the same time. But the number of photos of the scrum I saw argues against that. So I don't know if that's actually why, but I only have a few collected quotes from various tweeters. And one of them is so inscrutable that I don't understand it. One of it is amusing and also semi-nonsensical. And then one of them I enjoy quite a bit. So I'll give you

the one that I enjoyed the most. And it was a Bellinger line. I think there was a Bellinger line back at the GM meetings as well. And maybe he just used up too much of his material at those meetings and hadn't refreshed the caddy, right? But he said, as far as Bellinger, we know that the belly button has been pushed. And there's a lot of inners, more inners than outers, no doubt. Terrible. So it's been an aggressive campaign for elite talents in these winter meetings. I like how he goes from like using the belly button analogy to just shifting into something that a normal baseball person might say. Person would say, yeah.

Right. But I kind of like this one, except do you say inners and outers? No, you say innie and outie. Innie and outie. Right. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

Maybe it's a generational thing. Maybe it's a regional thing. I don't know. I don't know. But you, you know, you famously from the East Coast. I am famously from the West Coast. And it sounds like we- Yeah, we got both of the coasts covered here.

Yeah. It sounds like we refer to these things the same way. I don't think, this isn't like a kitty corner, catty corner situation, you know? Right. Yeah. Or a sophomore, sophomore. Right. No, that's not a- I've been questioning everything since you called me on that the other day. That's a different thing. That's a different kind of thing. That's a Ben thing versus not. Apparently, it's not even regional. It's like individually, it's highly localized to a single specific person who is apparently the only person who says it that way. He also,

okay, so here's a quote, Scott Boris, who once complained about the Blue Jays' blue flu due to their lack of spending. The new quote is, their bird feeder has arrived and they're spreading their seeds throughout Canada, no doubt. Okay, so, okay, so, okay. Here's what I know about birds. They're important, Ben. They're important to, like, ecosystems and pollination. And they do, you know, they get seeds and they eat the seeds, but they don't eat all the seeds.

Like, they're sloppy because they're birds. You know, they don't have hands, famously. And so, the seeds will fall and then, you know, seeds will spread. And this is important, I think I understand the actual bird piece of it that I think he's going for. So I don't know. Don't they eat the seeds? They eat seeds, yeah. I mean, I guess they eat them and maybe they poop them out.

And so they spread them that way. I think that there's some like spillage on both ends, you know? Yeah. Well, I'm glad he said spreading their seeds instead of spreading their seed. It's probably better this way. Only marginally though because you're still thinking of the other thing, you know? Exactly. Yeah. And then this is the one that I just didn't understand at all.

And this was reported in the Associated Press, which deemed this worthy of being in the wire that gets sent out to every paper, right? Excellent. So, here's the quote from the AP. Snell, they're talking about Snell. Snell followed his 2018 AL Cy Young Award by winning this year's NL honor. Quote, when you flip the coin, it always comes up on both sides. What? Boris said.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, first of all. I've been trying to puzzle that one out. It always comes up on both sides? The confusing thing is there's an ellipsis in between comes up and on both sides. So I don't know if there was more to the quote that was elided for some reason, but as it is, I don't know if this is referring to the fact that he won a Cy Young Award in each league. Yeah. It doesn't come up both sides. Like it comes up on one side or the

other, right? Like he could have said, everything is coming up heads? Coming up snell. Snell? I don't know. I liked, I liked mock snell from, from before better. I did not. I didn't like that either. Yeah. The other thing I noticed in both these quotes, the Bellinger quote and the bird feeder quote, after he does the line and gets the punchline out there, he says, no doubt, after it. He says, their bird feeder has arrived and they're spreading their seeds throughout Canada, no doubt.

And then the belly button has been pushed and there's lots of inners, more inners than outers, no doubt, which is, it's like his signal. It's like the coda. I just, it's kind of like, I just told a joke. Maybe that's how he signals that that's where you're supposed to laugh. That's like the studio audience, like the laugh sign gets lit up when he says no doubt, or maybe it's sort of a self-conscious tick, like somewhere inside him, he does think it's absurd and silly that he's this immensely powerful super agent who says things like this in public and everyone crowds around to hear it. So no doubt that's how he ends these lines. into our main topic of the day. Soto and Judge are Gotham's new dynamic duo, which is really kind of a low effort. I mean, that's basic. That's table stakes,

new dynamic. He didn't even say like new Batman or anything. I don't know. It's just very, very uncreative. But I guess it gets the sentiment across. And also, Aaron Judge is not his client, right? So it's like a half effort, right? Because he didn't have to. It's a good thing that he does not represent Aaron Judge because he would have had a field day with that over the years. Sorry, is Juan Soto supposed to be Robin in this scenario? You could argue that Judge is Robin. I guess the projections would suggest that, but they are a dynamic duo. It's just, it's not particularly inventive, but I don't think any Yankees fans will mind that Scott Borst didn't have a great line for the situation because

they're pretty pleased that they have this dynamic duo now. And it is a dynamic duo. So, fair enough, Scott. The Yankees traded for Juan Soto. It was an all-day drip of news. Yes, also an all-day drip of news. It appeared to be done at various points. Yes, it sure did appear to be done, Ben. That it was walked back for a while and then it was held up for mysterious reasons. Yep. For a while, and then it was held up for mysterious reasons.

And the tweets about it by the newsbreakers were phrased in so many ways that were just short of definitive. Yeah, turned out that way. I was thinking of collecting all the phrasings. Like, you know, it's not quite like, okay, deal is done and here are the terms. It's like just short of that. Like, there was an Andy Martino one that was maybe my favorite. quite like, okay, deal is done and here are the terms. It's like just short of that. Yeah. Like there was an Andy Martino one that was maybe my favorite. This was at 5.15 p.m. Eastern. The proposed Soto Yankees trade has not yet advanced to the point where the teams have told each other they have a deal and no players have yet been informed that they are on the move.

Yeah. The point where the teams have told each other they have a deal. So that's like a roundabout way of saying that there's no deal. The deal's not done, I guess. We scrutinized Mr. Martino's language when it came to describing the state of negotiations between the Yankees and Soto recently. So he's maybe the master of this genre. He's in Soto recently. So he's maybe the master of this genre.

He's like the Shams Sharania of MLB when it comes to his phrasings, at least. But the important thing is that it did eventually and ultimately progress to the point where the teams told each other that they had a deal. Yeah. They said, hey, we have a deal. Yep. And then I unclenched. Yeah. They said, hey, we have a deal. Yep. And then I unclenched. Yeah. As people may have noticed, FedGraphs was first on the news.

No, we didn't. That's not how. I know you didn't report that it was done or intend to report that it was done. No, we did not. But FedGraphs had the early reaction on the Juan Soto trade. Yeah, we sure did. As it turns out, you know, everyone just got to read what Ben Clemens thought about the trade a few hours early. So that was nice for everyone, except you maybe.

Yeah. And I just slowly came. Look, I thought it, Ben, I thought it was done. I thought it was done. I was like, we're going to run it. It's done. Yeah. And then it became clear that it was, in fact, not quite done.

And then we did a little headline editing magic. And then we sat and were very stressed for a couple of hours. And then it turned out that it was fine. But your good old friend Meg learned a little lesson in restraint. So as not to have a stressful evening or put her writer in a weird spot. So if anyone's like, hey, you ran that right quick what was that is because there is because i thought it it's because i thought it was done ben right i thought it was done based on john morosi tweet and then it became clear that no it was not quite yet done and uh and then i had to get on a plane. And yeah, it was a little tense there for a second.

And I think it's fine. It all worked out. But your old pal Meg was sweating it on the plane a little bit. Yeah. I was editing the Ringers trade reaction at the time by Zach Kramer. I was fielding it. And then I saw the Fangraphs trade reaction go up, and I was wondering,

when are we going to publish this thing? And then I saw you went up. It was like, oh, bold move, Meg, but not entirely intended. However, you got to parse those trade tweets closely, like that Morosi one is another example of the genre. Juan Soto trade agreement is being finalized now, source confirms, which I guess

there's a vast difference between being finalized now and is final. As it turned out, yes, there was a bit of a difference. Yeah, yeah. Gotta read these things closely, I guess. Yeah. So it got done, ultimately. It got done. No sweat.

With the same guys, you know? Yeah. With all the same guys. You know, part of why I was like, oh, it's done is because like those were the guys. And I was like, these are the guys I've heard from other people. And he has those guys and he makes it sound like it's done. I'm not, this is not John's fault. I'm not blaming John.

I'm blaming myself. But I am grateful that it was not reworked. Certainly grateful that it wasn't spiked. Because then we would have had to do a little walking back then. And that would have been embarrassing for me. So instead, it worked out fine. And I felt like a ghost had brushed up against me. So there's that. No walking back for you, but plenty of walking for Juan Soto in the Bronx. Excellent. Terrific transition. Thank you for that. Yeah, yeah. My best work. But the Yankees got Juan Soto and Trent Grisham for Michael King, Drew Thorpe, Johnny Brito, Randy Vasquez, and catcher Kyle Higashioka,

the rest of them all right-handed pitchers. And amusingly, Soto is younger than multiple members of the trade who are going back to San Diego, right? He is considerably younger than Michael King. He is, I think, younger than Brito and is about a week older than Randy Vasquez. So it seems like Soto's been around for so long that surely we can't still be doing the so-and-so is younger or older than Juan Soto fun facts, but we are. A lot of the players who had rookie of the year votes this year were older than Juan Soto. He, but we are. A lot of the players who had rookie of the year votes this year were older than Juan Soto. He is still that young. He just turned 25, and now he will play for the New York Yankees for at least one year. So this is seismic. Literally, when a player like Soto changes teams, or specifically this player, Soto, which has happened before and may happen again, I feel like the ground has shifted under my feet as a fan of the sport.

I have to get my bearings again because he is one of baseball's main characters, and it changes the balance of power in both of these divisions potentially to have him move like this. And it's also so extraordinary that he is on the move as often as he is. It is absolutely wild. It's unreal. This player has played for this many teams or is about to have played for this many teams and may soon play for another, right? Because there is no precedent for this. There's no comp. Not that there are many players who have been as good as Juan Soto at as young ages ever, but among those who have, no one is on the move this much. This is going to be his third team, and he may very well play for a fourth team by his age 26 season,

even though he's been incredible. And partly because he's so good, he came up at 19. But even if you said first X number of seasons instead of by age 26 or something, it's odd because usually a player of that caliber, well, for most of baseball history, pre-free agency, you would have just kept him forever because there was a reserve clause and you could do that. Or you would sign him to a really long extension in more recent times or failing that, keep him until he hit free agency or was just about to and then deal him maybe.

Sear was just about to and then deal him maybe. And so I don't know what to chalk it up to that he has been the exception here in so many ways. I guess it's the specifics of these situations. We can talk about why the Padres were motivated to trade him. The Nationals had their own situation that motivated them to trade him. And I guess it's a combo of that and Boris and the specter of, oh, he's not going to sign an extension or he actually will not accept an extension offer that was handed to him. So it's a bit of both those things. Like, it's no reflection on Juan Soto whatsoever. It's not like he's some kind of like, oh, he's talented,

but he's not great in the clubhouse. He's not wearing out his welcome Alex Verdugo style. Everyone wants Juan Soto. And yet the teams that have had him have not held on to him for very long. You're right that he's been around long enough that it feels silly to keep doing that. And he's younger. But Ben, he's younger.

Ben, he's so young. He is so young. He is only now 25. He's like a month into being 25. One month into being 25. That's so bizarre. He's been worth almost 30 wins above replacement by Our Reckoning of War. And he's only now 25. He has not played an affiliated game as a 25-year-old yet. No. Yeah.

That's wild. That's wild. Yeah. And you don't need us to tell you how good one Soto is. If you listen to this podcast, you're probably well aware. We've done this trade react before, basically. Yeah, right. Exactly. It wasn't even that long ago. No. But from the Yankees' perspective, they really could not have acquired someone who addressed their needs more directly in a more targeted way and the desires and complaints of their fan base, right? Because what everyone wanted was let's get some left-handed hitting. Let's get some contact hitting.

And also let's get some star power because we're the New York Yankees. And you got all of that in one guy right here. Like, they needed Juan Soto so badly because they had no other hitters who were good other than Aaron Judge. I mean, that is a slight exaggeration, but like an extremely slight exaggeration. Yeah, it's not much of an exaggeration. No, not at all. And obviously, he occupies only one lineup spot, but he is one of the best hitters in baseball. And that back-to-back, that dynamic duo of Judge and Soto, Soto and Judge, boy, like if you need OBP and the Yankees desperately needed some OBP, well, there's no better source of it than Juan Soto. well, there's no better source of it than Juan Soto.

He's just pretty much your prototypically perfect hitter. He does everything well. He walks more than he strikes out. He's got good power. He's got preternatural plate discipline. He makes decent contact. Like, he does it all, right? At least at the plate.

He is an offensive savant. And he's also a joy to watch because he makes it so entertaining with the shuffle and with the facial expressions and with the way that he watches pitches, right? Like, I don't want to take it too far, but like watching Juan Soto just take pitches and spit on pitches is really fun, you know? I mean, it's probably more entertaining when he swings, but not by much, right? So, to get Soto and pair him with Judge, this is just, it's a huge coup and it's kind of a classic Yankees move of the sort that they just have not made much lately. It's almost like, you know,

embracing the evil empire in the dark side last week with the tribute to Henry Kissinger tweet. I said like, hey, this is the Yankees, you know, be in the heels. And here they are doing the Steinbrennerian thing. The senior, the elder departed Steinbrenner of just going out and getting the best player, even if he costs you a bunch of prospects and salary. So, I mean, they have a lot of moves still to make and we can talk about that. But man, that team just, it looks a lot different. It feels a lot different. You know, those poor downtrodden Yankees fans who haven't won a World Series since 2009,

they can hold their heads up again. They can say, we're the kind of team that goes out and gets someone else's superstar for the first time since we did that with Garrett Cole. And Judge and Cole has not been enough, at least not reliably been enough. It's not so different from the Angels with Trout and Otani. It's a little bit different, obviously, like they've been a winning team, but they missed the playoffs with like stars and scrubs, like best couple players in baseball and then a huge fall off from there. So even to get a third superstar, even with all the other holes that have to be filled here, it's huge. Projects for, at least by, and this projection is being driven mostly by Steamer at this point, but I find it unlikely that Zips will disagree just based on how he projected in the Padres-Zips piece. Like, I'm pretty sure he projects for almost like seven wins next season.

Yeah. Like, that's so many wins, Ben. Like, that's great. You know, his projection is for a 170 Wc plus that's absurd you're right like this is the kind of move it is in the category of move that i have say said that the mariners ought to pursue which is like a and then excuse me i'm going to do a swear and the big one like it's a let's go move? There are a lot of moves where the return from a prospect perspective is weighty. And there are a lot of moves where the potential salary implications for the following season are weighty. And not every team is willing to entertain a scenario where

they are doing both things at once, where they are really committed to absorbing cost as we understand it and its various facets. And this is one of those, like he's projected to make almost $30 million, maybe more than $30 million in arbitration or something. Yeah. Yeah. Next season. So it's not as if he's on, you know, the league minimum or anything like that. The guys they sent back are impressive. Some of them more than others, right? But like they, they got a good haul here. When you have the expectations that come with being the New York Yankees, and you look around at this free agent market, they could fortify their roster on the pitching side in free agency. But like that was not, you know, that's not their big problem as it stands right

now. And the only way that they could really replicate this kind of production was to go trade for it. And that's what they did. Part of me does think that like, they're so stuffy as an organization that like, you know, Soto's effervescence will have to fizz a little bit. Yeah, well, thank goodness he doesn't have facial hair. Can he even grow facial hair, Ben? He's barely 25. So yeah, I think that it's a great move, and the only knits to pick are knits.

This does, at least as they have described, their outfield alignment for next season involves a lot of Aaron Judge and center field but if that doesn't work they do have the redundancy of having acquired Grisham so they have an actual center fielder I don't know if the Padres have an actual center fielder we can talk about that in a second but the the Yankees have that fail safe built in if they decide either because of wear and tear or defensive acumen or whatever, that they would rather have somebody in the market should they decide they want or need to pursue them. And as I just said, there wasn't another, other than Otani, this kind, I don't it feels weird to praise the Yankees just because like, you know, you want I do like the idea of new names, you know, new new franchises being ascendant. Like I'm not I'm not one of those people who thinks that like the health of the sport is dependent on specifically the Yankees being good, but it probably is good for the sport for the Yankees to be good. So it's good that they're like, that they agree, you know, and I'm trying to do something about that. Yeah. It's almost impossible to get someone like Soto and not be glad you got him. Yeah. It's like you can tell yourself, yeah, it's one year and he

makes a lot of money. And odds are because Boris represents him, he won't sign an extension, though you can certainly whisper in his ear and try to convince him for the next year. And yeah, these prospects could be good and we have holes without them. All valid concerns, but then you picture Juan Soto playing for your favorite team and getting to see him shuffle and put on a plate discipline clinic and hit the ball hard. And in Yankee Stadium, I'm feeling a 40-homer season. I know he's not a pole hitter, much like Verdugo, as we discussed yesterday. It's not like his spray charts would suggest he's suddenly going to be popping a bunch of balls over the wall that he wasn't before. Although, he's Juan Soto.

He's so skilled, maybe he could adjust to take advantage of the park. He's Juan Soto. Like, he's so skilled, maybe he could adjust to take advantage of the park. But just from being there instead of San Diego, I could see him hitting for more power. And it almost feels like we just haven't seen Pete Soto as incredible as he's been. Right. And maybe it's just that the short 2020 season and how amazing he was, that sort of skewed things, right? Like, if that had been a full season, maybe he wouldn't have had a 202 WRC Plus that year, right?

But then even the next year, he was in the 160s. And since then, it's like 140s, 150s, like a year in and year out. His worst year ever is a 143 WRC Plus, which is ridiculously good. But it still almost feels like we haven't quite seen the absolute best of Juan Soto over a full season yet. So who knows? Maybe it's this year. And if you're the Yankees, like you have Cole and Judge who are, what, 32, almost 33 now.

And you have Gleyber Torres, who's going to be a free agent soon. It's not really a young roster. You've got some younger guys coming along. But the stars, the guys who are going to get you to October, they're getting up there. Like, they're still among the best players in baseball. But this is when you want to win and you want to surround them with other players who can help you win. And so, yeah, if you have to overpay and prospect capital or long-term expected war or whatever, you absolutely do it, especially because you're the Yankees and you can

do that kind of thing and you can pay competitive balance taxes. And that's okay. They've just weirdly acted like it wasn't okay for a little while, but it was always okay for them before and it probably still is. And I think it's a testament to them that they seem to have had a bottomless well of appealing pitchers, right? Like, not best prospect in baseball kind of pitchers, but pitchers other teams are interested in. They have sent out so many pitchers in so many moves just this week with Soto and Verdugo. They've given up several pitchers. And then even like going back to trades that they've gotten nothing out of, like Frankie Montas, like they just seem to have almost an inexhaustible well of pretty good pitchers,

bullpen guys, swing men, just guys who are good, at least in short bursts. And I know that their hitting development has come in for some criticism, but they just keep pumping out these pitchers. And Kylie McDaniel just wrote something for ESPN about the Rule 5 draft because they lost three minor league pitchers in the Rule 5 draft. And that has been a consistent pattern, too, that the Yankees have lost a ton of Rule 5 guys. He wrote, the Yankees have been hit especially hard by the Rule 5 draft in recent years, more than any other MLB club. Over the past eight Rule 5 drafts, Yankees minor leaguers have accounted for 20 picks out of the 120 picks made, or 17% of the total. That's wild.

If all 30 clubs had equal ability to sign developed players, the share of players drafted should be evenly split among 30 clubs or three percent from each club. So disproportionately, other teams have looked at their talent and said, yeah, we want some of that. And some of those guys have been good, like Garrett Whitlock, for instance. So that has been a real strength for them that, A, they manage to make their bullpens pretty effective most of the time with guys you've never heard of before. But also, when one guy goes down or gets traded, there's just another one behind him somehow, and they just keep them coming. So maybe it's not the most valuable player development skill you could have, but it seems

to have served them well. Like, they couldn't have gotten Soto for salary alone. They had to have this stockpile of pitching, and they have had it whenever they have wanted it over the past several seasons. Yeah, it's pretty impressive. The Rule 5 stuff is so funny because Rule 5 picks don't generally work out because, you know, they just don't but like to extend your developmental dominance

even down to that level where it's like well we gotta take flyers on these guys one of them might work out is just I think an incredible testament to what they've been able

to do you don't hit every time I mean not hit Juan Soto almost hits every time or at least it feels like that there are gonna be times

where the guys you bring up aren't as good as you thought or they get hurt or whatever. But I think that it is like there's just like a run of dominance there that's really hard to argue with. I don't know. I don't have any more to say about that. I don't know. Well, Juan Soto's one weakness is that he does not defend very well. And for a while, I've been kind of confused about whether he defends well or poorly because the metrics have been all over the place, particularly OAA, the stat cast base stat, where he has been either great or bad in alternating years,

except for the last couple of years when he was just bad both times. So his percentiles in the outfield higher is better. 2018, 10. 2019, 91. 2020, 13. 2021, 88. 2022, 1. So it's just alternating years, great and terrible. And then 2023, 3. So that was the first time that he'd had two consecutive years that rated that badly. So obviously he's not the candidate for center field. But of the other candidates, I find this fascinating because the Yankees have a few ways they could go with this. And each potential solution has a drawback. And it sounds like from what Brian Cashman has said that they're probably going to go with Judge, but you have a few options. A few guys who have played center with varying frequency and varying skill. You have Verdugo, who we talked about last time

and we thought was likely that he would be flipped, that maybe he would even be going back to the Padres. That didn't happen. I suppose he could still move somewhere, but maybe not. It seems like they might just keep him around. He hasn't played center in a while, and he's not such a great defensive corner guy that you'd think he would be good at center. Then you have Grisham, who is an excellent center fielder, but hasn't hit so well the last couple of years. And then you have Judge, who is maybe the best hitter in baseball or very close to it and is a capable center fielder.

Right. But also there are concerns that that would hurt his durability. He's a big guy. He missed some time last year, although that was kind of a fluke thing. And also he was playing right field at the time that he ran into the wall. So it can happen anywhere. But it's true. Centerfielders, they run more, they cover more ground. So if you think that that's a problem for him as he advances into his 30s, then there's some risk you take on there. Although if you can play judge and center, then you're getting the big bat there.

And I do really love it when you can play a big bat at a traditionally defense first position. It feels like you're getting away with something. Yes, it does. Yeah, but maybe they wouldn't get away with it. Maybe it would actually make him available less often. So what would you do? And then there are other guys waiting in the wings.

And of course, there's the possibility that Jason Dominguez, who had Tommy John surgery, could come back at midseason, although will he be able to throw well at that point? I don't know. So how would you handle this for now? If what they're trying to do is maximize the offense that comes out of that outfield while maintaining a reasonably robust defense, I think that the alignment that they've talked about with Judge and Center makes a lot of sense, at least initially, because Trent Grisham has had good seasons, but his bat has been so anemic of late that if you can use him to spell judge on days the judge needs it and then be sort of a late inning defensive replacement as necessary, that's fine.

I'm not particularly enamored with Verdugo. I think he's perfectly average, but I do think that he's a better hitter than trank risham at least as currently constituted so you know you start with judge you start with verdugo you start with soto and then you know they've they've done this smart thing like i said where they've built in redundancy where if something happens if they're concerned as the season progresses about the wear and tear that this is putting on Judge if like Verdugo's bat really bottoms out you know they have Grishin there to kind of spell as they need to and then you know you can decide when the time comes what you want to do with Dominguez my suspicion I don't say this knowing anything in particular about his medical or like what he's going to be able to do when he comes back, I imagine that if he comes back and is able to hit like the job he's probably endangering isn't anyone in that outfields,

but rather Giancarlo Santans, right? Where if they want to get him into the lineup, you know, I would, I would imagine that they will DH him at least to begin. And, you know, we say all this now on December 7th, and all of it is going to be dictated by how well these guys play and how healthy they stay, because that's the most boring answer possible, which means it's probably the right one. But like, I think that what they're doing here makes some amount of sense. Judge does play a capable center field and is particularly impressive when you consider like what he is able to do at the plate and coupling that with an acceptable defensive performance. I'm not breaking any news when I say that really good,

really good center field defense can make a tremendous difference for a team. And I don't know if it's just because of, like, the configuration of playoff teams we had, but I feel like I've been, like, center field defense pilled where I'm just, like, maybe overrating some guys because they can play, like, a really good and capable center. And, like, Judge is fine, but he's not... Think about your playoff field.

Like, he's not Alec Thomas, right? He's not Johan Rojas, right? It's perfectly good. And I don't know if you know this, but Aaron Judge hits a lot better than either of the two guys that I just named. Yeah. A lot better. And so I think you can deal with acceptable if it means that like, this is the configuration you have. But I like this. I feel like they've built in the fail safe by having Trent Grisham come over in the deal if they had

if they had Soto and Judge and Verdugo and no Grisham and then they're looking at some of the other guys that they have tried out there uh in the in the past little bit like I would feel much more nervous about it but But I think that this is, I think I like this, you know? I think I do. I feel like Trent Grisham is underrated or potentially I overrate him, but people were spinning it as like, well, this is just salary savings and maybe it is from the Padres perspective, but I don't think it's like dead weight from the Yankees' perspective. I'm sure they want Trent Grisham.

I would want Trent Grisham. I used to think he was really good when he was hitting well for a while. And even now that he's not, I think he's average-ish. I mean, he was last year, right? They were running him out there more or less every day. They were running him out there more or less every day, and he was like a two-war guy, much like Verdugo, but differently shaped production, but amounts to more or less the same thing. He's only 27. He just turned 27.

Maybe his bat bounces back a bit, but even if not, he's such a good center fielder that if you did just throw him out there every day, like I've seen a lot of people saying, oh, you know, fourth outfielder defensive replacement. That may be what he is. But if they started him or if they had to start him, I don't think it would be a disaster. It's just he would have to make up for it with the glove. And I don't know that Yankees fans would enjoy the Trent Grisham experience

because he has batted under 200 the past couple seasons. And that's obviously not good, no matter who you are, even if you're Kyle Schwarber. But there's no convincing some fans, I think, that someone could still potentially be valuable or worth playing if they're batting under 200, even in a low batting average era, even if he's winning gold gloves. But it does kind of work out that it might be useful enough. It would be better, I guess, if he were like a big platoon split guy

because he's a lefty. And so if he like struggled against lefties and really raked against righties or something, that would work out because you could start him against righties and then Judge could go against lefties and really raked against righties or something, that would work out because you could start him against righties and then Judge could go against lefties and you'd have a productive platoon. At least to this point, he's only got like 2,000 plate appearances in his career, but he's actually been a significant reverse split guy so far. So he doesn't suggest himself as an obvious great platoon candidate. But I think you could do worse.

Like, you know, you could do Aaron Hicks, who was basically giving you Grisham offense without Grisham's glove. And Yankees fans did not enjoy the Aaron Hicks experience when he was playing like that. Although they then felt somewhat stung when he went to Baltimore and played pretty well for them. But yeah, if he made some spectacular catches out there, maybe it's just like, okay, you can live with him. And he walks like he doesn't have the worst OPP ever. So it wouldn't be so bad. And at some point, Stanton will probably get hurt and that will solve the logjam. And I've even seen suggestions that maybe they should just preemptively cut bait.

Even though he's got years left, maybe he is just so unproductive now and so undurable that you might as well just make room for someone else. just make room for someone else. But at the very least, like they have maybe a surplus of average left-handed hitting outfielders or better, whereas before they had none of them and they really needed some. So better to have too many than not enough.

I'm trying to think of if I believe this ranking. Stay with me. But I think outfield misplays are like a top five bad feeling experience as a fan. Right? Don't you think they are? And so you just need guys who can actually feel that they're in.

You're right, Aaron Hicks. Aaron Hicks couldn't do it, Ben. I'm whispering, he couldn't do it, Ben. Yeah. And so I would invite Yankees fans to look at this whole thing and say, they built in redundancy. They built in good depth. And last year, you know what they didn't have? Any depth at all, really.

Yeah. They've had barely any depth. And this is good depth. So will you feel annoyed watching Trent Grisham only hit like 200, maybe a buck 90 next year if he has to play. You'll feel annoyed, but just remember, it's good depth. And you know what doesn't happen very often? Balls getting past him in the outfield, which we might not be able to say about the San Diego Padres. Are we ready to talk about the Padres side of this? Almost. I'm almost ready to transition to San Diego. And you can keep whispering if you want,

because I am going to follow through on my threat to title this episode Sadovochi. I said I would do that when we talked about a one soda trade, and here it is. So we could whisper the whole time. It would be appropriate, but probably people wouldn't want us to do that. But the thing is that they now have depth in an area

where they didn't have depth, but they also lack depth in an area where they used to have more, at least. Right? So, their rotation, Garrett Cole, so far so good. Awesome. Carlos Rodon could be... Could be fine.

Could be good. Yeah. Could be good. Could be... Not even there. Could be terrible. Who knows? Who knows?

Then Clark Schmidt, Nestor Cortez, like, ooh, you know, it projects like with the depth guys that they somehow still have, even after trading so many of them. They have the 12th best starting pitcher projection right now, which is ahead of the Padres at 17th, even with all the guys from the Yankees they just got. But I think in order to make this make sense and to capitalize on this year where you've gone all in on Juan Soto, knowing you might not have him beyond that, you got to go get some pitching. You got to go get someone. Presumably, they will. And the nice thing is that there are a lot of options on the pitching market. Whereas, as you said, there was really only one of this caliber on the hitting market

who plays a position in the field. So they could go get Yamamoto if they really want to splurge. They could go get one of the other talented pitchers, but they got to go get someone. They got to go get someone. Yeah, it would be not mission accomplished if they go into the season with this group of starters. No, I feel confident grading the outfield situation as complete and giving it a strong grade, but the rotation still needs enforcement. It's like that scene in Ocean's 11 where Danny Ocean asked Brad Pitt's character, Rusty, Rusty, you think we need to get one more? We should get one more. We'll go get one more. It's like that. It's like that scene exactly. You know? Yes. So, San Diego. San Diego. Hmm. I've seen all manner of opinions about their end of this deal. I've seen people

say they won this trade. I've seen people say they should not have traded Soto at all, that this was ill-advised. It's hard to say because obviously this is salary-driven and finance-driven. And usually you would skewer a team that trades Juan Soto for salary-related reasons. And our pal Craig Goldstein, he had a pretty critical take up at BP about the Padres trading Soto. I don't know that I have it in me to hold this against the Padres just because they've earned a little goodwill. You know, it's not like they're the Mariners or the Reds or the Orioles or something like

they're the team that's been spending, if anything, beyond their means maybe lately. And also they have suffered some slings of fortune or whatever that line is, right? Slings and arrows. Outrageous fortune. That's what it is. They had outrageous fortune in 2023, right? I mean, their clutch stats, their underperformance of their underlying metrics, outrageous. Absolutely outrageous fortune. And also, they had their Bally's Diamond Sports Group broadcast deal fall out from under them. Yes. And that was mostly backstopped by MLB this year, but will not be next year, I believe. And then Peter Seidler just died as well.

And now his share of the team is in a trust and may not be as predisposed to spend as he was. So things have changed and most of those things are not really their fault. And so it's hard for me to give them grief for doing this on like a competitive standpoint. You could still quibble with like, where does this leave them? And where's this going to get them? And are they kind of caught in between here? Because this creates a significant hole for them.

Like they had three outfielders basically in 2023 and they just traded two of them. So Fernando Tatis is very good and a great glove out there, but he can't cover all three of the positions. So, they need some outfielders, and they still intend to compete, want to compete. Like, they just have too much invested in so many other stars that they've gone and gotten. And they've sent some signals about spending, right? And going and getting a closer or going and getting Lee maybe even, right?

Which I think kind of confused people because they're like, wait, I thought you were salary dumping and now you're going to take on salary. So if they really want to cut like 20% of payroll, then even getting rid of Soto and getting that money back, they still have a lot of holes to fill. And like you have to make up the wins that you lost by trading Juan Soto and getting that money back, they still have a lot of holes to fill.

And like you have to make up the wins that you lost by trading Juan Soto, right? So where do you see them right now? I see them as full of some holes. I see them as having some kind of meaningful holes. I do suspect that they are not quite done. I do suspect that they are not quite done. I understand people being confused about, like, you move Soto, but then you're bringing in Lee. Potentially, that hasn't happened.

That hasn't happened yet, Ben. I have no news to report. I'm so glad that that trade happened to the same guys. My God, I would have felt so bad. Anyway, I get that. I think even in a team where they are trying to bring projected payroll down, the number that we have kind of heard is like where they want to land is somewhere around 200 million, at least. That's what I have seen reported, right? And I think we currently have their estimated payroll at about $156 million just on a pure payroll perspective, but it is slightly over $200 million from a luxury tax perspective. So, you know, there's like trimming that could theoretically still happen there.

I do think it hits ownership differently when you're like investing in a guy in a multi-year deal versus one guy getting $30 million. You know, Zheng ho lee's not gonna i think jung ho lee's will have a good contract i believe i took his the over on him right from the yes rumors estimate but like he's not gonna make 30 million dollars next year right um so they have some uh potential room there i know that they do have some outfield prospects so like i think that they are they are incomplete and all of this assumes that, like, Fernando Tatis Jr. can continue to play centerfield well, both in terms of his availability from an injury perspective and also that, like, he's really, truly settled in that position. So, there's that piece of it to consider. to consider. But I wouldn't be totally shocked if they were like, hey, you know who we could trade? Jake Cronenworth. And part of that is that they've been tied to potential trades of Jake Cronenworth.

Yeah, that would make it considerably less shocking. Yes. Right. I'm going to be so nervous now, Ben. I'm just going to be such a nervous gal for the rest of the winter. The place where we knew that they had work that had to get done from a roster building perspective was in the rotation, right? They needed to reinforce that rotation. They had like two starters. They lost most of the starts that were made for them last year. Most of their starters, right? And so they really had to do that, and that's what they have done, right, with King and Vasquez. So, they have that piece of it settled. You know, maybe they have a lot of faith in Cal Mitchell, which I could potentially understand, even though I think we were maybe a little lower on him than than some but like they they do have wow jason has jose azekar in here okay okay sorry i'm grappling with our depth search for the first time live on air um so they still have work to do on the position player side but i think that like you you look at what they needed they needed to reinforce the rotation even you know they needed to have some some backup on

the catching side so they have that with higashioka that'll be that's relatively inexpensive we have talked a lot in the past about their sort of surplus of infielders um and even though some of that surplus is thinned out when you send tatis to the outfield like yeah i think that there's still you know room to maneuver here and so maybe they do move on from cronenworth and they get a little more payroll flexibility there so like i just view them as like incomplete i don't think it's fair to grade their offseason yet i'm sure that like given their druthers they would rather have a juan soto on this team than not but that mandate from ownership didn't sound particularly negotiable so there's that they also have been tied to some of the other they really really tied to Harrison Bader a little bit, you know?

And you know what Harrison Bader does? He plays center field. So there are other options still on the free agent market that are going to be considerably less expensive than one year of Juan Soto that they might entertain, right? Maybe they decide that they like Harrison Bader. Maybe they get in the Michael A. Taylor business. Like, I think that there are options here.

And if they do sign Jung Ho Lee, like, he can play center field and then tatis can go to a corner and it'll be fine so they have some they have some room to maneuver yet even as they are dealing with this like seemingly quite real payroll restriction um but i i like you um inclined to i don't want to give them a pass and i think that like craig's broader point is very well taken that it is just like Juan Soto is a future Hall of Famer and he has been dealt twice like before his age 25 season. And that is unfathomable, like in a macro sense. I don't hold the micro circumstances of the Padres against the Padres because I do think that they have shown a real genuine desire to compete in their market. I think we want to continue to ask the question of how strong is that desire now that Seidler has passed and they have a new control person. now that Seidler has passed and they have a new control person. But I don't think that this is like, I'm not looking at them going, oh my God, these Padres, they're just like the Mariners.

It's like the Padres are like, we have to trim payroll to $200 million. And the Mariners are like, we would like to spend no money on players if we possibly can. So, you know, they're in a different, they're operating in a different area, even if this is a dramatic reduction relative to what they were doing in 2023. Yeah. I've seen some people make comps to the Mookie Betts trade, which is timely in light of Verdugo, the prospect in that trade going to New York too. And it's apt in terms of how great Soto is and how close he is to free agency, but obviously not in terms of his history with the franchise that dealt him, for one thing. He hasn't been a padre for all that long and the financial situation. And Betts was older than Soto because everyone always has been older than Juan Soto. But, yeah, that's a different situation.

That's a homegrown guy. That's the Red Sox, presumably flush with cash, a guy who wants to stay there, right? It's different. I think it's comparable only in the sense that you rarely have young guys who are this good getting traded, which I think I wrote at the time that like no one as young and as great as Mookie Betts had ever been traded before. And you could craft a similar statement about Juan Soto certainly with the multiple trades. Sure.

Yeah. The counterpoint that I saw Joe Sheehan make in his newsletter is he argued that this was penny wise and pound foolish because basically the Padres are now in the position of having to drum up their own business. If they're not going to get just those payments from the cable bundle that you've been counting on, then they have to appeal to fans. They have to seem exciting and they have to directly appeal to people who are going to sign up for a subscription to watch them or buy tickets to come see them,

which people have done in recent years. So if trading Soto makes people think, oh, we blew it because of our outrageous fortune, we missed our chance, and now we're salary dumping and it's all over, and that would probably be a bit of an overreaction. But if someone said, hey, I would have liked to come see you play with Juan Soto and now I'm a little less motivated to, then who knows? You sell fewer tickets, you sell fewer subscriptions

and suddenly your savings are not actually savings in effect because you're bringing in less revenue too. So I don't know exactly how the math works on that, but that was Joe's argument at least. And that's an adjustment,

I guess, teams will have to make that mental adjustment as opposed to like, we're just going to get built-in cash no matter what we do here. Now it's like, well, we have to put a compelling product on the field. We have to have good players that people want to pay to see, right? Or else the gravy train is not going to keep running here. I think that that is the place where there actually is the strongest sort of thread of kinship with the Mariners. I promise I will stop talking about them. Like, I will. But like, I think this is a relevant example where, you know, I understand in the case

of Seattle that they have this RSN-generated pressure on revenue as a result of being moved out of like the basic cable subscription. But, you know, one could make the argument, and I think Joe's is a compelling one that like, you then really need to give people a reason to tune in to Padres baseball, right? Because it's like, if people want your sub, and they're going to give you money you got to give them a reason you know and Juan Soto is a pretty compelling one and I think that the the possibility strongly exists that because of what they were able to do on the pitching side that like they might end up in at least the same place from a win perspective you know that they would have if they had kept Soto and like I don't

like who would have pitched like who would have pitched, like who would have pitched Ben? They had, they had no one to pitch, but like, imagine they get some guys to pitch and they're less good than these guys. Are they going to end up in sort of the same neighborhood from a win perspective? Like, you know, maybe that could be true because I think that the King and Vasquez are good, but I think there's a good question to ask about whether it will be as compelling an on-field product, even if the win total ends up being the same. And I think that you just have a greater chance of outperforming and sort of exceeding ceiling when you have a superstar player on your roster than you necessarily do when you don't and like it's not like they don't have

anybody like xander bogarts is still a padre right manny machado is still a padre you know fernando tatis jr is still a padre they have dudes and they have good complementary players around those guys but they are you know they're down a star. And does that alter their trajectory? Like it conceivably could, even as this made an important and appreciable difference to at least how we're projecting their rotation relative to where it was before the trade. So you got to think, though, that if that outrageous fortune hadn't happened, if they just had neutral fortune, right, that this probably would not have happened. Right. 90-something games instead of 80-something games. So maybe that changes the course of their history as a franchise. Who knows? But I think they did decently well. If they decided that they were going to or had to trade Juan Soto,

the package of players they got back was fine for one year of him, I think. And some of those guys might work out. King certainly is exciting and pitched really well in the rotation once he moved back there. Hasn't really stayed healthy historically, so who knows if he will. But if he does, then they got a good one.

And then opinions are pretty split, it seems like, on Thorpe. Like, he's a good prospect, but I've seen some people think he's a great prospect and other people think, eh, like the fastball's maybe not going to play so much, like maybe more of a high floor than a high ceiling sort. So I don't know, but they got themselves some innings and a bunch of chances to get a good pitcher out of that group. Yeah, I think that that's right. And they really needed those innings, my God. And like to compare it to another team that like desperately needed innings,

this is unfair because like who gives, who cares,'m gonna do it anyway like i'm more excited about the the return that say san diego got here and what it might be able to do from a pitching perspective than say you know the innings eater guys that the cardinals signed right and that was probably the the part of the market that they would be playing into backfill innings if they had had to go out and sign it. So I like this. It's always going to suck to let Juan Soto go. There's just no way for that to not suck. But I think that in terms of what it tells us about sort of a commitment to win on the part of the franchise and what they might be able to do with the players who they received in return, I'm not hating this for San Diego, even though I really wish that their fortunes were different and they could just

keep spending money forever because I think it's good for baseball when a smaller market team is just like, you know, we want to win a World Series. Try to stop us. I feel unambiguous about that as opposed to the Yankees where I'm like, yeah, it's probably better for the sport, but I'm less invested in it. Well, we talked about that for a while. And why wouldn't we have? Because Juan Soto got traded to the Yankees. I don't know if you heard, but that's a pretty significant development in the sport of baseball. And hey, how often does Juan Soto change teams? Actually, pretty often, I guess, but it doesn't seem like he should. So there were a few other slightly less interesting,

but still significant and worthy of discussion developments here. And I suppose we should start with the one closer to your home, elsewhere in the NL West. Arizona Diamondbacks made a major signing here, which was kind of overshadowed by the fact that it was happening while the Juan Soto saga was going down. So maybe they didn't get quite the pop from that that they would have liked. But they signed Eduardo Rodriguez to a four-year deal. And it's 80 million bucks with a fifth-year vesting option.

So he did well for himself. He had turned down, what was it? He had like three years and 49 or something that he could have triggered to stay with Detroit. So wisely, he got himself a whole bundle more cash and he goes to the Diamondbacks who needed a starter. And now they got a pretty good one. So just imagine how much different things would have looked for the Diamondbacks in the playoffs if they had had Eduardo Rodriguez, right? Because it was like, okay, Gallin and Kelly and hmm, right? Until Fott stepped up at least and added Eduardo Rodriguez to that mix.

Suddenly things look a lot different. And now that's exactly what they've done. I am glad we're starting with this deal because as opposed to the signing that the Reds made, I actually understand the motivations here. And we will get to the candelario of it all. But I like this so much, Ben. I like it so much in terms of the fit for the organization and what they needed to do. It turns out you do, in fact, need more than three starters in order to win a playoff series and to get through most of a season.

Dan's react to this ran, and he made the note that, like, Zips liked this contract just fine in terms of, like, comparing what the computer would have maybe given to Rodriguez based on anticipated production versus the actual deal that he signed. And, you know, Dan made the point that the computer is probably underrating his eventual innings pitched because it doesn't really know how to contextualize his absence from the team in 2022 when he was dealing with some family stuff and was on leave, basically. And so it might be under uh what he is actually able to do from an innings

pitch perspective and it it is confident in what his performance will look like going forward i like it when teams like have a thing that ends up i mean i'm i don't want things to be painful for anyone but when they identify a painful thing that has happened to them and they're like we're gonna we're gonna go get the thing to resolve the painful thing so we don't have to feel that pain again we have learned a lesson about yeah that like you know like looking at twitter one more time to make sure that like our deal is done for instance like if one could name an example that is relevant to me personally um and so i like that they correctly identified that they needed rotation reinforcement i think that they have some interesting young guys,

but with the exception of the step forward that I think Fott has taken, which I think to be real for him, they have a lot of dudes who still have not proven it yet, right? And haven't been able to be good for long. They've had injuries to that rotation that are yet to be resolved. And so I think that this bolsters the club in a really important way for next year and i like that they were like hey we just went to the world series that rocked let's try to go again you know um i think that that is a if we're tallying the things that are good for the sport that's that's a good thing for the sport, you know? So I like this very much.

The only note that I could offer is that it would, I guess, have been cool to see them play in an even richer part of the market. Imagine if the Diamondbacks had signed Yamamoto. That would have been really rad. But I don't think they were ever looking at a deal in that range um and it seems like every time i see a new contract estimate for yamamoto it's gone up by like 20 million dollars so i don't you know i'm not going to begrudge

them for not playing in that space because i think um them committing like real money on the back of the world series to improving the roster in the way they needed to i think is the direction you want to see them going and i like it very much i think it's great i'm excited and selfishly like if they had signed blake snell i would have to watch blake snell pitch more and i want blake snell to get his money and I hope he has a good season, and I hope that his fans delight in that good season. And I personally do not enjoy watching him pitch, and now I don't have to do that quite as much in person. So, you know, coming up, Meg, really. This is a good-for-Meg kind of situation. Yeah, well, this just makes sense. Makes sense for team and player. And

hopefully they get better than Bumgarner results from this deal. It would be hard not to. Oh, man. But the Bumgarner deal seemed bad at the time. That didn't seem like a good idea at the time. I think that Rodriguez, there's obviously been some consternation with the time. I think that Rodriguez, like, there's obviously been, you know, some consternation with the absence. And I know that, like, he hasn't stayed perfectly healthy either. So, it's not as if he is completely immune or has a flawless track record from a health perspective. But I'm just, we talked about it at the time, I'm just not super inclined to hold the family thing against him. I'm not super inclined to hold the no trade clause exercising against him because that's what you have it for, to use it. I know that in the reporting around this deal getting done that there were, it sounds like there were teams that were just kind of out on him because of all of that stuff.

But he was, you know, I'm glad he was still able to get a lucrative deal. And I think he's a good pitcher. And I think he will help Arizona quite a bit. And so I give it an A. I give it an A grade. It's a good signing. Okay. Well, what do you give the Cincinnati Reds signing of Jamer Condolario? Like a wing ding? You know, can we put some sort of symbol in place of where a grade would go? Because do you understand this, Ben? I was like, glad that they got someone because I felt bad for them after Ken Rosenthal, I believe it was, tweeted that the Reds and Diamondbacks were finalists for E-Rod. And then he quote tweeted it and was like, nope, actually the Reds aren't finalists. Sorry. Yeah.

Which was like, oh, that hurts. I thought we were going to get someone. And then we didn't. But then they did. So, yeah, we've been talking about teams that don't have enough of something. Right. And now we're talking about a team don't have enough of something. Right. And now we're talking about a team that has too much of something. I believe Candelario is the first player we drafted in the over-under draft to sign.

Oh. And that went my way, I suppose. I think I took the under on the MLBTR estimate of, I think they had him at 470. Yeah. Which seemed a little rich. It seemed too high. It was, I suppose. I think I took the under on the MLBTR estimate of, I think they had him at 470, which seemed a little rich. It seemed too high. Was, I suppose. Well, Ballinger was the first one off the board. Right, yes. Yeah.

And ultimately, he got three years and 45 with a club option for a fourth year. And I don't think anyone has a problem with signing Jamer Candelario or even for the amount of money that they signed Candelario for. It is just an exceedingly strange fit of player and team, at least as the roster is currently constructed. Because even before they signed Candelario, everyone was wondering what they were going to do with an excess of infielders. Yes. And now they went and got themselves another one. Right. So that's a little perplexing.

I mean, it is nice that they are spending on some guys. Yeah. Because they have declined to do that at all. But are they spending those dollars in the most efficient or sensible way? Right. I could not go quite so far as to say that. Right. Because like, here's the thing, you know who else needs starting pitching depth? The Cincinnati Reds, you know? And so that seems like a place where it would have been good

to, you know, bolster your rotation. Because like, when you look at what we have on Roster Resource, like we're just assuming nick martinez to mostly be a starter next year and we talked at the time about i'm not sure that that's going to end up being feasible so um they could have used starter depth but instead they have just like you know we've joked about the padres just having all the short stops but like the reds are just like a team of infielders like they're you know you have you have mclean you have steer you now have candelario you have jonathan india who i have to imagine is going to get traded at some point i mean one of these guys has to be on the move right because

you also have ellie de la cruz and you have noel v marte and like then you have you know christian and carnosi on strand and it's like where these are all this is all a bunch of infielders and you know I think a lot of these guys are good um but it does seem like a weird way to allocate resources given the other existing strengths on the roster and like you're gonna end up with one of the in all likelihood it seems like you're gonna end up with one of these guys who can play a more valuable position than first base, playing first base just out of necessity. So, you're like, are you really maximizingxed, Ben. I'm perplexed. And I agree with you. It's nothing against Candelario.

And I don't have any problem with him at this, like, price tag. Seems perfectly reasonable for his skills. And it's exciting for him that he got paid. But, like, I don't get this from a roster construction perspective. And, you know, watch. We're recording this in the early afternoon and we will finish and then they will trade one of these guys

by the time the episode comes out, right? And then it'll make more sense. Maybe that could happen. They might need to trade two of these guys. They might need to trade two of them. Yeah. There's so many. I guess India's the obvious one,

but then it's because he has been underperforming lately, which means you're not going to get great value for him. And also everyone knows like, okay, that's probably the one that you want to move because maybe he hasn't been so good lately or Marte, I guess, would be in that mix as well. And I don't know what it does to your leverage that everyone realizes you have multiple more infielders than you can actually play. And so whenever you're talking to a team, they're going to know like, well, they've got to get rid of this guy at some point, right? So I don't know what that does to your bargaining power. But like sometimes I think with a team

like the Reds, they think that they can't play at the top of the market and maybe they don't want to wade into the waters for the truly elite free agents. And who knows, maybe they would have trouble persuading the truly elite free agents to sign. But then you end up signing a bunch of other guys to smaller deals. And so like you sign Emilio Pagan and you're giving him $8 million a year and you sign Nick Martinez and you're giving him $14 million. Right. And they're making Juan Soto money, which is not to say that they couldn't use pitching and they couldn't use a Nick Martinez.

And I don't know if Shugan is actually good, but they could use a guy like him if he is good. But just I wonder whether they feel like they need to spread it around or they feel like, well, the top end of the market, those guys are too rich for our blood. But then you end up just like not getting the best bang for your buck because you're not concentrating it in the truly top tier free agents. You're just kind of like budget shopping, but then ending up spending the same amount that you would have if you had just – and on shorter term deals, of course. So like with the top of the market guys, you're going to have to give them more years and maybe ownership box at that. So who knows what mandate the Reds front office has been given. But it probably wasn't go get more infielders, I wouldn't think. Right. Yeah. I mean, I'm about to make an imperfect comparison for a couple of different reasons.

The duration and size of the deal deal my relative confidence in the player and you know i just think like the baseline quality that they're getting but in some ways it reminds me a little bit of like when the white socks signed andrew benintendi and yeah like that deal was fine right five years 75 million fine like i didn't i wouldn't have paid him 75 million dollars because like i think andrew benintendi is going to be not very good pretty soon. And, like, he didn't exactly have a banger of a 2023, but perfectly replacement level. Cool. Cool, cool, cool.

Wow. 87WRC+. This went worse than I thought it did. That stinks for Andrew Benintendi and White Sox fans. Andrew Benintendi and White Sox fans. But, you know, when that deal happened, we talked at the time about how, you know, when you have an organization like Chicago, and I think Cincy is a version of this, where they're just, they're only going to have, they're only going to spend so much, right? They only have so many free agent dollars they're going to allocate. And we can have issue with, take issue with that, and we have, but like, there is a reality of how this organization conducts itself from a payroll perspective. And so when you have those constraints, deploying them in a way that is going to really move the needle from a win perspective is really important.

not a knock on Candelario to say like he is redundant within this organization and to your point like could they have packaged that money with one of the reliever you know contracts and and gone and gotten someone who was going to have a bigger impact are they looking at this like well we can't spend at the top of the market and we're nervous about concentrating all of that payroll into one person, but you're kind of doing that with Candelario. So it's just a little confusing to me about like, what are we really, what are we really doing here? So it's odd. It's really, it's really odd, Ben. Like I'm still, Ben Clemens and I have been going back and forth on this all morning because, you know, he wrote our reaction to Candelario, a deal we knew to be done. And I just can't keep saying it because if I do, then I don't have to, I can let it go and not feel so antsy about it. But we were just both like, I don't get this.

I don't understand what we're doing here. And it's not because we don't like Candelario, but we're worried that they're boxing themselves in from a payroll perspective. Now, because they do have depth and redundancy on the infield, it's possible that they look at some of those big leaguers, many of whom are pretty recent big leaguers, all of whom are under team control for quite a while and say, you know, we're going to package some of these guys together and trade for something else. And so it will be really nice to have a Candelario when we do that. But, you know, as it currently stands without subsequent moves, it just seems really weird.

So, well, we'll give that an incomplete for now, just as we gave the Verdugo trade an incomplete. And then that elicited a Juan Soto trade. So maybe the Reds will do something amazing now, too. I will end with just a couple questions for you. The first is related to the Cardinals, who have a reunion with Yadier Molina. Molina is back in the organization. Oh, yeah, in an advisory capacity, right? Yeah, he's a special assistant to the president of baseball operations.

And what I'm wondering is, how many games do you think the Cardinals would have to lose to start the 2024 season for Yadier Molina to take Ali Marmol's job. Wow. How long is the leash? Once Yadier's waiting in the wings, Marmol is on the last year. He's a lame duck, and he's coming off of a very disappointing season with the Cardinals. And now you have Yadier, right?

And I don't know if he's the obvious era parent or what he wants to do. Like, I know he said he wants access to work with the major league coaching staff. Moselec said he's ambitious. There is going to be a point in his life when he wants to be a manager. How long do you think that point would be from the start of the season if the Cardinals, I'm not saying they have to lose every game consecutively, but, you know, they get off to another slow start? When do you think it's like, all right, Yachty, come on down? Oh, man. Oh, boy. I don't, I, I don't know.

Moselec said he's going to be a resource for Ali at the big leagues. He's going to spend some time at the minor league level. It won't be catching specific necessarily. He's going to float around. But what would it take for him to go from a resource for Ali to replacing Ali? I can't imagine it would take that long. I think it wouldn't take that long. Yeah.

It would take that long. I think it wouldn't take that long. Yeah. If they're under 500 after the first month, I think they might make a change. Yeah. Is that aggressive? Is that too strong? Maybe not.

Maybe not. I don't know. Ooh, boy. They must envision him transitioning into that role potentially as soon as Marmo leave. Like, if they wantedmol to stick around, they could give him an extension, right? Other managers have gotten extensions recently when they were heading into the final year of their contract. Not Marmol, at least not to this point.

So I'm sure they would like Molina to get some experience on the front office side and see how things work on the other end of things. But also he's Yadier Molina and was treated as kind of a coach and leader throughout his whole career. So how much learning and training does he have to do? We've seen guys go from playing to managing without a whole lot of time in between. So I just don't know how long it would take for them to be like, all right, we wanted to wait a little longer, but let's just go for it.

I mean, I guess the awkward thing is that, like, if there's been a decision on some level within the organization that they, like, want him to, you know, be the be the guy like what are they waiting for like it feels you know i don't have any particularly strong feelings one way or the other about marmal but like if you're like eventually we're gonna want yadi's this to be yadi's team like yeah it feels kind of crummy to have him sitting around it It does. You know, and then, and I don't know, I, again, I don't know Marmel. So maybe like this doesn't face him because he's a big league manager. So he probably does better with pressure than I do, but I would perform worse if I knew my, you know,

potential replacement was just like upstairs. You don't even have to, you don't even have was just like upstairs. Yeah. You don't even have to fit the guy for a new uniform. You know, you know, you just know. Like, that would be very stressful. They had initially discussed a full-time coaching role. Yeah. Not bench coach, I don't think, but some kind of role where he would have worked with pitchers and catchers and game planning and other coaches. And then this worked out.

But, yeah. I don't know. Like, you know, he has a family and other obligations going on in Puerto Rico. And he, I think, expressed a wish for more flexibility. So, maybe he doesn't even quite want to do it yet. Or maybe he wouldn't have wanted to do it as a coach, but he would be willing to do it as a manager. Yeah.

And maybe they just wanted to give him the Stephen Vogt single season, right? Just kind of to acclimate. Onboarding, yeah. Yeah, you know, just to learn the ropes and then it'll work out perfectly and Marmo will leave and then Yadier will slide right in. Yeah. I guess that doesn't always go great. Like the hometown hero, beloved player,

maybe isn't always a super successful manager and then you're kind of conflicted because it's like, I love this guy, but maybe he's not as good at this as he was at that. But he could be a great manager for all we know. I just, I don't think it would take all that long for us to find out if the card will start slow. So we'll see.

I would definitely be looking over my shoulder a bit if I were Ali Marble, but who knows? Maybe he's not wired that way. Yeah. If I were Marble, I would view Yadier Molina the way I, Meg, viewed the terrifying gingerbread man mascot in Nashville. Where is he? Is he coming for me? Yeah. And then the last item today from the Department of News I did not expect to see for several years. Oh. Bryce Harper wants an extension. Yeah. I got to chuckle at this. Yeah. I mean, great. He loves being with the Phillies. He wants to end his career with the Phillies.

Well, good news, Bryce. You're signed for many, many more seasons. You are signed until basically your 39th birthday. You signed a 13-year contract not that long ago. So you have already taken care of this. So it should be a load off your mind. But no, Harper wants to play longer. He wants to play into his 40s.

And also, he wants to ensure that he ends his career with the Phillies, which, again, I would hope that Bryce Harper will age well and he's a great player. And maybe he will still be productive at that point. But typically that is kind of the contract that's like, well, this is the rest of my career. And he didn't get any opt-outs or anything because he wanted to send a signal. I'm here for the long haul. Now he wants to be there for an even longer haul. longer haul, but what do you do if you're the Phillies and your player comes to you and wants an extension when he's already signed through his age 38 season through 2031 or whatever?

Like, why would the Phillies have any interest in entertaining that at this point? It's just, it's sort of a strange story. It's sort of a strange story. It's very strange. And his agent is Scott Boris, of course. And Boris said Bryce has certainly expressed to them that he wants to end his career in Philadelphia, etc., etc. And then he wants to keep his personal pursuits in the game there. He's been there five years. He's kind of shown them who he is and why he's a franchise player. I think he's changed the player community, how players view Philadelphia. And so consequently,

he's come in and said, this is something I want off my mind. I want to play well beyond the contract that I have. Why would that be on your mind? Why would it be on your mind, Bryce? This is not even like, what's your five-year plan? He's taken care of for his five-year plan and well beyond that. I would not be worrying. This would not be a load of my mind. First of all, he's already got like, what, $400 million or something in past and future salary. So he's going to be okay. I guess this is about like just wanting to ensure that he's just never not going to be a Philly. But really, it doesn't seem like something that has to be taken care of right now.

He's a free agent entering the 2032 season as currently constituted. We are famously about to enter the 2024 season. Ben, that's so many seasons from now. That's like at least one more presidential election. We'll see if we get any others after that. But we have to joke because otherwise we're afraid.

Leave it in. It's on my mind. So... Yeah, that's the kind of thing that could be weighing on you, right? That makes sense for that to be something you're currently concerned about. I don't know that validating my anxiety is really the way to go with it right now, but here we are. I think that is a more valid concern than what will happen when I'm in my age 39 season?

Will the fillies still want me? I mean, I guess it's touching in a way. Like he just so, so wants to be a Philly that he never even wants it to come up. And maybe there's an awkward situation where he wraps up his age 38 season and he's not the player he used to be. And he wishes that he were under contract longer so that the Phillies would be more likely to keep him around. And he has leverage now because he's a star player and he's made so much to that organization. And why not try to use that leverage? But it just seems so

premature. What I suspect this is, and I'm not saying it is entirely insincere that he wants to just ensure that he's a Philly forever, But it's got to be a little bit about basically renegotiating the contract more so than making it longer. Because when he signed it, it was the largest contract in Major League history for five minutes or so, however long it was. He topped John Carlos Stanton, and then Mike Trout very quickly topped him. And now it's like the seventh biggest contract in total value.

And he's like 24th in average annual value. And he's still a great player, like close to the peak of his power. So I wonder if this is a little bit of wanting to renegotiate, but not wanting to say that he wants to renegotiate. And so he's framing it as, let's tack on more years. And while we're at it, maybe we could make those years a little more lucrative for me, too. It is just curious, though, given the proximity to the injury and the position change, right? True. Bryce Harper is phenomenal. He's fantastic. He is a bright, shining star. I think that he is right and Boris is right to say that, like, that signing was the beginning of sort of the perception of Philly as a market for free agents.

Like, I think he's not wrong to say that. But, like, he had TJ. He's, like, now a first baseman. This feels like a weird time to do it. It would make more sense to me. It would still be bizarre, but it would make more sense to me next offseason, assuming that this year goes well, because then he could say, look, I rebounded from the injury. I've really taken to first.

I'm in a position where I can continue to contribute to this team for a long time, even with this injury history. But maybe he thinks that like going into your age 32 season, that's less compelling than going into your age 31 season. I mean, if I'm the Phillies, like Harper's great. You know me, I've always want players to make money, but he's making money. So, like, Bryce Harper's fine. Bryce Harper is not in a position where he requires us to agitate for him to get more money. He's getting good money.

But if I were the Phillies, you know, you obviously want to maintain this relationship and have it be productive and warm and not fraught to say something like, you know, we don't feel it's the right time given the proximity of the injury and the position change. And, you know, we need to think about what our payroll is going to look like for next year, particularly if they go out and like sign somebody else. But it's a weird request to lobby, you know what I mean? Yeah. Boris brought up Patrick Mahomes, who renegotiated, restructured his contract. And sometimes there are situations in sports where the team gets such a team-friendly deal that it almost becomes a problem. Right.

The player regrets it, resents it. And if it's a player you want a long-term relationship with and you want to be on good terms with, then maybe you willingly accept a less favorable deal just to preserve the relationship. It reminds me of what the Royals did with Salvador Perez, where they signed him to, I think it was a five-year, $7 million deal with three years of options too. And it was super team-friendly. And then basically they felt bad about it. Like they kind of felt that they had sort of swindled him. I mean, you know, it was above board, but like maybe they just felt like he got a raw deal and they wanted to be in the Salvador Perez business for years to come. They liked him.

He meant a lot to the organization. He was a leader. So you just want him to be happy, right? And it's a homegrown guy and everything. So they just like willingly renegotiated it. But that's a little bit different from Bryce Harper because even if he's having some second thoughts about the precise terms that he got here, he's still doing quite well for himself.

So I wonder what the Phillies' reaction to this was. And I wonder if he really feels strongly about this or if it was just kind of like a trial balloon, like let's float this and see. For all we know, Dave Dombrowski will tack on 100 million more. But if the Phillies balk at this, which I probably would if I were the Phillies, like, you don't want to have bad blood with Bryce Harper, obviously. But is this something that's going to escalate to that? It doesn't seem like it's so egregious that it really should. But who knows how serious they are about this or how he would take it.

It's a strange situation. Again, just not news that I expected to see. Like a really unexpected headline. Yeah. And I don't want to like, I don't want to like be overly reactive to this. It just feels like you're creating a problem for your client potentially like and maybe this is coming from Harper but it just feels like it's it's not likely to go anywhere uh at this juncture and then you're you have this thing hanging over

you potentially that you're going to get asked about like I'm sure they're going to get asked about this when they report next February. So it's just like a, what a weird, what a weird thing, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Well, Bryce Harper, Juan Soto, former Nationals, greats, left fielders, both making moves or trying to make moves, and we have discussed them. So, hey, all the baseball writers who were hyperventilating about not enough action,

just wait one more day and the baseball market will deliver lots of interesting action. Let me check trade rumors before we sign off here to see, oh, there might be a buyer for the Baltimore Orioles. Yeah, how about that? We don't have any big league signings or trades of note. So.

You want to announce any moves that haven't happened yet? Ben. Sorry, that was mean. It's okay. We can laugh about it because it ended up being fine.

If it hadn't been fine, you wouldn't have joked about it because I would have had to. I believe the technical term in editing circles is, and Shane, I'm going to do a swear, eat shit in front of people. And we didn't have to quite do that, did we? No, we didn't.

We didn't have to. But you know who's going to be real careful going forward? We! I'm going to be real careful. Yep. Read those Marosi tweets multiple times. Is it close to being finalized? Is it actually finalized?

Is it confirmed? Have the teams told each other that they have a trade? I thought it was done. I do love it when they're like, players haven't been informed. I'm like, players are on Twitter. Like, you know,

they might not know-know, but they kind of know, you know? I'm glad it worked out for everyone, or at least for you and probably the Yankees. Yes. All right. I will leave you with one stray thought.

On our last episode, we were talking about why Shohei Otani might be insisting on such secrecy when it comes to whom he's meeting with. And I suggested, well, privacy is important to him. So he's testing team's capacity to preserve that privacy. But Tanner in our Patreon Discord group had a similar but slightly different thought that I thought seemed astute. He said with Otani in particular conforming to his wishes in this low stakes way might reflect a larger willingness for him to make his own decisions regarding his two-way status. That seemed to play a role in his picking the angels.

Perhaps he's prioritizing that now in his latest selection of teams. So maybe he's thinking if they go along with the way that I want to conduct my free agency, then maybe it means they'll be more likely to defer to me when it comes to my role on the team. It's a thought. And here's another thought. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild, as have the following five listeners who have already signed up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad-free, and get themselves access to some perks. Sam Chess, Andrew Blanchard-Reed, James Morris, Nathan D'Orio Toth, and Ben Llewellyn. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the aforementioned

Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, as well as monthly bonus episodes, playoff live streams, prioritized email answers, shout outs at the end of episodes, as you just heard, potential podcast appearances, discounts on merch and ad-free Fangraphs memberships, and so much more, patreon.com slash effectively wild. If you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site, but even if you aren't yet, you can contact us via email at podcast at Fangcrafts.com. Send us your questions and comments. Send us an intro or outro theme. If you're so inclined, we will add it to our listener rotation.

You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes, Spotify, and other podcast platforms. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild. You can follow Effectively Wild on Twitter at EWpod. And you can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash Effectively Wild. Your penultimate reminder that you can join Effectively Wild Secret Santa. Deadline's coming up December 10th.

Check the last link on the show page if you care to participate. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We will be back with one more episode before the end of the week. Talk to you soon. Effectively wild, effectively styled, distilled over chilled beets. We will be back with one more episode before the end of the week. Talk to you soon. Carrot Top's prop box before he got yoked. Lab League, Banging Ski, Planting Trees and Trampolines,

Minor League Free Agent Drafts, Stat Blasts and Pass Blasts, Minimum Inning, Hall of Fame Donation Shaming, Tyler Wade and Taylor Ward, The Rotten Slot and Rigor Mortis.