Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2099: The Artful Dodgers

Episode Date: December 16, 2023

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Shohei Ohtani’s introductory press conference and getting closure on contract/canine questions, the audience verdict on how to handle Ohtani in the free-agent-contract over/under draft (20:22), the Dodgers-Rays Tyler Glasnow trade (32:09), the latest Royals signings (Michael Wacha, Hunter Renfroe), the Tigers adding Jack Flaherty, and the AL Central, […]

It's the Wildly Effective, Effectively Wild, spin, rain, and long shingle, that's the bad of any war. You might hear something you've never heard before. Hello and welcome to episode 2099 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Rowley of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello.

Well, this is a podcast where we talk about Shohei Otani and the Dodgers every day. Now, I know the first part of that is nothing new, particularly for this podcast, but it does seem like those two keep making moves together and making news for us to discuss, whether it's acquisitions, trades, press conferences, revelations about dogs' names. I feel like we got closure on a lot of the questions that we had about Otani's contract and the negotiations and how he ended up here. We know his dog's name now.

We don't know his surgery's name. We don't. That'll be the next thing. Although his doctor called it Tommy John, but he and his agent insist it's not quite Tommy John. It's Tommy John adjacent. Anyway, we did get answers to most of our other questions about specific clauses in his deal and what the timeline was. So is there anything that struck you as particularly interesting or surprising or anything that's still on your mind?

Well, I think that if we were looking for a free agent signing, marking sort of a new era of disclosure in the Otani saga. This was maybe a point in the opposite direction. Obviously, we did learn the name of the dog, and that is clearly the most important thing. And to your point, we have heard directly from Otani's physician, so we have some sense of the surgery he had. But I think that there was a sense among some that like because he would be removed from the negotiation process because

he would have made his decision he's putting on the jersey he has the cap that we might get more direct answers and we did get some answers but you know he he didn't really want to give much in the way of insight into the other teams he spoke to what was maybe compelling or not about their offers and how they positioned um his place in their organizations um you know we had this sort of like funniness around the surgery thing so like like that, you know, I'm not alarmed by that, but I do think that like, you know, that was the thing I maybe noticed about it. Um, it looks great in Dodger blue. We thought that would be true. And I think that, you know, the, the piece of it that was clarifying for me is that, you know, it seems obvious to me that like a huge, a huge part of his ultimate decision came down to the fact that like the Dodgers are just so kind of the class of the major leagues in terms of their willingness to commit resources, whether it's money, whether it's, you know, developing players, whether it's trading players in pursuit of pieces

to complement their existing stars on the big league roster, they are committed to winning. And they have the expertise in their analytics group, in player dev, et cetera, to put those resources to work in a way that's going to be maximally impactful and that matter to him. I'm sure that he is like happy to have structured his contract in a way that allows him to claim the biggest one and also maybe defray some of his tax liabilities eventually.

But I think that we can pretty earnestly say that the winning piece really matters to him. And I think and we're going to talk about some of the things they've already done since his press conference concluded to to bolster this. But the Dodgers are putting that money where their mouth is, right? They are not content to sort of rest on their laurels. of, you know, regularly being in not only the playoff field generally, but in the World Series many times over the last 10 years that with that one World Series win, they sort of view this past decade as a failure. And I think that we as people who encourage folks to like take satisfaction and interest and joy from things that aren't just winning the championship like we might you know have quibbles to to that assertion but like that was compelling to him right that this is an era of

dodger baseball that they obviously view as unfinished and a sort of project that's not yet finished and that he could be a critical piece in that i'll let you uh say something about substantive uh this and that and And then we got to talk about the dog, you know, because this is effectively wild. We got to balance the very serious, what does this say with that weird dog? Yes. I don't agree that the dog is weird, but there's something wrong with that dog, Ben. There's something wrong with it. You're alone on this corner. This is Otani's dog is weird island population. I'm right.

I'm going to convince people, you know, I hear this is an era for conspiracy. So here we go. Now that the dust has settled and we've seen him in the jersey, it really seems like how was it ever not going to be the Dodgers? Right. I know they were always the favorites. And if pressed, people would say, oh, probably the Dodgers. But it seemed like there was some uncertainty. We never knew exactly how he makes these decisions.

But in retrospect, it seems like anyone else could have done whatever they wanted and it just wouldn't have been enough most likely, right? Because the Giants say that they more or less match the terms of the Dodgers deal. The Giants say that they more or less match the terms of the Dodgers deal. It was divulged at the press conference that the Angels maybe did not quite match the final, final offer that Otani and his agent went back to them and gave them a last chance. And maybe Artie Moreno didn't do it. But realistically, even if he had, why would Otani have chosen the Angels? You know, like why? Give me one good reason other than just comfort level or something. He knows the way around, but he's not even going that far.

It's just like, why wouldn't he want to go to the Dodgers? Unless like people might think, oh, it's too easy to go to the Dodgers and you're joining a team that's already great and has all these resources and everything. Got to earn it. Well, I think he has earned it by putting his time in Anaheim. Right. So I don't think you can really call him a bandwagon jumper or a Kevin Durant super team joiner or anything like that. He has served his time and the Angels failed to win with him.

He did everything that was humanly possible and maybe more than that and now he wants to win as we say that we want most free agents to do and he has put his money where his mouth was but but why not the dodgers like they were the closest team to the angels they win they're competitive all the time they They help make players better. Just what reason they have as much money as anyone else, right? Like how was anyone going to woo him away from them realistically? And I don't know whether his mind was made up from the start and he always knew it was going to be the Dodgers and just had to make it look good so that there was a little leverage. But really, looking back at it, I just kind of wonder, what could anyone have done? And I wonder whether any of the teams involved in the process thought they had a chance.

It certainly seems like. Maybe Toronto was thinking, hey, we might actually pull this thing off at one point. That was one thing we learned or heard from Otani and his agent, That was one thing we learned or heard from Otani and his agent that the Dodgers offer that he ultimately accepted was extended on the Friday morning of the fake flight day and that he decided to accept it that evening. So that entire day he was just sitting, chilling with decoy and just not flying anywhere. sitting, chilling with decoy and just not flying anywhere. And he was asked what he was thinking about all of the flight tracking saga. And he said he was just hanging with his dog and laughing. So that's kind of what we assumed he was probably doing.

Credit, by the way, to Kyle Kraska, who was the one with Fox LA who finally got the answer. I'm sure a million other people were prepared to ask that question if he hadn't. Maybe he just got the first crack at it, but he was the one who got Otani to open up about the talk name. But yeah, that was the big takeaway for me. It's like, I don't feel like anyone else was even realistically in the running. I do want to be careful not to sort of overstate the case because there are other teams in baseball that are really good. You know, there are other clubs that have incredibly competitive big league rosters as they're currently constituted. I mean, we just ran the brave zips this week, Ben.

And like, I'm going to do a swear because I said this to Dan. I was like, holy shit. Like, this is wow. You know, it's very unusual for the projection systems to peg a team for 100 wins. But that's kind of where Atlanta is sitting right now. So there are other teams that are really good. There are other teams that have good player development. There are other teams that have financial resources, you know, and I don't think that,

you know, every move that the Dodgers have ever made has been perfect, either in terms of their understanding of the talent involved or the people like, you know, we had to spend we had to spend a number of episodes talking about the the failure of talent assessment they engaged in with Trevor Bauer right so like this is not a team that has always done everything perfectly but I think that you're right that you know if we are kind of giving odds on his best chance to win multiple world series over the next 10 years that it's it sits with the dodgers for sure and i i don't understand the idea of like oh well it's easy um you know he took the easy way out what is i don't

understand even what that argument is meant to convey because like he um even if you don't care about the last uh six years of his big league tenure where he's not only had to contend with the angels of it all but multiple injuries it's like just look at the last 10 years of the dodgers they said it right they have one world series win and it was in the shortened season which some people view as sort of asterixy uh even if i don't baseball's just really hard you know i think that we would all be well served and i I don't think you necessarily disagree with this, to be clear. But, you know, as as commentators, as fans, what have you like, there is no shame in just trying to bring all your resource to bear to bring a ring home at the end of the year.

Like that's doing that is actually very hard. You know, whether it's developing players or drafting well or scouting guys and trading for the right dudes or convincing your ownership group that like you're just going to spend money and it's going to be worth it. All of that stuff is hard. And then once you've done all of that on the back end, these guys still have to go play against other very talented big leaguers, which is famously quite difficult. So I don't know. What is that? Like, that's a that's a goofy that's a goofy ass argument. If ever I heard one, he took the easy way out. What does that even mean? What is that stupid?

He didn't go straight to the Dodgers either. He could have joined the Dodgers several seasons ago. And maybe he would have won a World Series with them. And he certainly would have had several postseason appearances. And he didn't do that. So he didn't try to skip straight to the top. So, yeah, I mean, I think there's a little bit of a disappointment at other teams' fan bases that didn't get him, obviously. And just a little bit of envy slash resentment of the Dodgers and just how everything's kind of coming

up Los Angeles right now for them. Right. And they have kind of earned it. Yes, they have institutional advantages and resources that other teams don't, but they have also deployed those resources so well that they have given themselves an advantage on top of their other inherent advantages because people want to go play for them because they know it's their safest ticket to the postseason, not to a title, but to the postseason. And when Otani was asked what his goal is, of course he said winning a world series, but he also said making the playoffs. I have not made the playoffs. He's never made the playoffs in MLB. Not in MLB. Yeah. So. I'm just looking, I'm looking at their stupid depth chart again.

I know. I mean, but here's the thing. And perhaps this is a good way for us to transition into the move that they made subsequent to his presser yesterday. Like here we are talking about, they're the best, they give him the best odds. And I think that that is a true statement. And there are still things about this team for 2024 that like I could offer notes on, you know, and I think that that's true, even subsequent to them having traded for Tyler Glasnow. So, you know, again, there's, it's hard, you know, You can have Betts and Otani and Freeman and Smith at the top of your lineup, and you're still rastering Miguel Vargas. You're counting on Gavin Lux being able to play shortstop every day. Every team has the potential for areas of weakness,

but in aggregate, with everything that backs it, I just think that we're kind of, you're right. It was silly to think he was going to go anywhere else maybe uh should we talk about the dog and then we can talk about tyler glasnow i don't mean to give tyler glasnow a short shrift i don't want to imply till after we talk about the dog tyler glasnow yeah yeah uh but we should talk about the dog so amazing decoy fantastic um i know that that is like an English version of the actual Japanese name for his dog. I do think that it suggests that his dog didn't have anything to do with his free agent signing.

Like in terms of the name, it's not named Vin. It's not named Scully. It's not named Dodger. He didn't name it Walker. No, it's not. Yeah. Robert Herjavec was a decoy, I guess, going to Toronto. But other than that, no. No. Yeah. So the dog's name, to clarify here, so decoy is not really a translation of the Japanese name.

It's a different name, a different word, a different meaning. Correct. He's just going with decoy because it's easier to pronounce basically for English speakers. But I got the lowdown on this from Portia of the Showbase,

who I have to hand it to her because she knew the name of this dog like a month before the collected baseball writers of America. She was calling this dog decoy in mid-November. And at the time, I wasn't sure if she knew

or if she was just guessing. I didn't ask her about it. This is, by the way, my guest on episode 2090. I'd encourage everyone to go listen to that if they haven't. But she was calling the dog Decoy. I wasn't sure if that was the dog's name because the breed calling the dog Decoy. I wasn't sure if that was the dog's name because the breed that the dog is, which is kind of a rare here, at least Dutch breed, is kind of nicknamed Decoy because it's like a decoy duck dog. And so it's kind of just called Decoy generically, the breed sort of.

And so I thought that might've been the deal, but here's what Portia, Portia knows that the dog's birthday somehow. She knows when Shohei got the dog. She knows where he got the dog. She just, she knows everything somehow. So the way that she knew initially was someone tweeted that they knew the name of the breeder of the dog and shared the name decoy in that message.

But it was quickly deleted, perhaps at Shohei's behest. Who knows? But because she is monitoring all Shohei related content on the Internet, like-seeing eye of Sauron never closing the eye. She saw the tweet before it was deleted, and because it's a rare breed, she was able to track down the breeder and found that the breeder follows Ipe and Shohei on Instagram, I guess. So that kind of clinched the case.

So she knows the dog's birthday. Instagram, I guess. So that kind of clinched the case. So she knows the dog's birthday. Now, she thinks that the breeder was just kind of lazily referring to the dog as decoy, which is, I think, kind of what Shohei was saying, that it was just what the dog was called, and he's just going to use that for simplicity's sake when he's talking to English-speaking people. So they just didn't really change that kind of default name. Apparently, the dog was born in May. Shohei got the dog in September. And Portia speculates that maybe his injury made him sad and he wanted a dog.

Right. So that's so nice. The now named dog made him feel better after his unnamed injury and surgery. And apparently they were looking for a new owner. The original buyer backed out and Shohei ended up with the dog. The Japanese name, which I probably will mispronounce, is Dekopin, which is basically the name of a gesture of endearment and affection, which you will see if you watch a lot of Japanese movies or anime. Portia sent me several GIFs of this in action. People just kind of flicking someone's forehead. It's just kind of like a way of being cute

and intimate and familiar, more or less. And so Shohei's nickname in Japan is like, he's very playful and kind of like a prankster. And so I think this fits him. And I guess it's something you could do to your dog fondly. And so it's a different name. And I would probably use that name if I were going to use that name. So this is just for everyone's ease.

But just kudos to her for scooping every baseball writer in the U.S. by a month or so. Just she's the authority. Portia of the Showbase just knows all there is to know about Shohei Otani. But now we've all caught up and we know what the dog's name is. And I thought it was quite cute when he was being asked about the dog. Subsequently, he did an interview on the field with Sportsnet LA and he was asked if he was surprised how much attention the dog has gotten. And he said he wasn't expecting decoy to get all this attention i'm just trying to live a normal life with him he's my best friend

that i live with that is that is how that's how ipay translated it which was great just just so adorable yeah it's charming yeah definitely charming oh I, yeah. Wow. Lovely. Lovely. I mean, like, again, I gotta say, it's a weird dog. It's too perfect. This is just too perfect of a dog, you know? It's fine.

It's cute. It's just weird. It's definitely something wrong with that dog. I'm happy that they're happy together. Yeah. I'm glad that he gets to live with his best friend or that it is his best friend who he lives with, which suggests like, who is his best friend who he doesn't live with? You know, does he have one of those? Is it a person? Is it someone else's dog? Is it

his agent's cat? Uh, we, we, uh, we have a long time to find out, you know? Another little bit of closure that we can have now. The results are in on the listener referendum on how we are to handle Shohei Otani's contract for the purposes of the free agent contract over underdraft. Yeah. And it was a semi-competitive vote. Yeah. But ultimately, the breakdown is 65.9% in favor of it being over MLB trade rumors estimate of 528 million. So 34.1% supported your position of having it be under. And I guess I can claim victory here. A lot of people just cited, hey, we can't change the rules midstream. They were sympathetic to your viewpoint and the specifics of the situation, but it was just kind of a, in fairness, we always did it this way. And apparently someone said that on that episode, before we even started the draft, I said we do not use any net present value calculations.

Oh, really? Which I don't even recall. I don't remember you saying that, but I believe you. I specified that. But people gave us food for thought, I think, about how to handle this in the future. Yeah. There were people who advocated for, oh, we should split the difference, or maybe we should cap the amount that you lose on this, or we should just drop it from the record or something. So I don't know. I guess this time it'll count, but we can also kind of count how it shakes out

with all the other moves, maybe just to see how competitive you would have been if not for this weird black swan kind of contract that came out of nowhere. And another valid point that people made, I think, was that we are saying the over based on how MLB Trade Rumors is predicting and MLB Trade Rumors is predicting the total guaranteed dollars, not the net present value. And so we're sort of bound to predict what they are predicting to keep things consistent. They have since updated their top 50 free agent page with the number 700 so that they put 700 there. That is what they believe the contract to have been. And so, yeah, if it's going to be apples to apples, then I guess we've got to kind of do it the way they do it or else we would be predicting different things, really. So we'll reevaluate in the future. But thanks to the

hundreds of people who voted, weighed in on this controversy. Appreciate your input. Well, I think that that is fair and I am happy to receive the results and congratulations on your over under draft victory. And, you know, ultimately I think we said while we were recording and I'll reiterate now that, you know, especially in a year like this, where we took so many unders, cause we were, we were pretty pessimistic when it came to a lot of these deals, you know, I'd rather be wrong in that direction than in the other direction. Cause you know, I'm not rooting against anybody getting paid. That's, that's not our project here. So yeah, well congrats Ben. Yeah. And the last thing, cause we didn't get to talk about this last time. I don't think it had been divulged yet, but the,

the key man, the key person or persons that he has in this contract where he has no opt-outs, but he gains an opt-out. He can opt out if Mark Walter, the Dodgers controlling partner, or Pobo Andrew Friedman leave for any reason, seemingly. If they leave of their own volition, he still gains an opt-out here. Yeah. And that is, as far as we know, unique among player contracts.

As a number of people pointed out, Joe Maddon had the same deal with Tampa Bay with the same person, Andrew Friedman. Yeah, how about that? Maybe it tells you something about Andrew Friedman that multiple people now have had this unusual in baseball clause that's like, hey, if this guy leaves, I want out, or at least I want the ability to leave. And that's how Madden ended up leaving Tampa Bay and going to the Cubs because Friedman

had gone to the Dodgers and Madden opted out. And then he went to Chicago and won a World Series. So I guess it worked out OK for him. So I doubt that Shohei will exercise this, but there is some chance that he would. I mean, 10 years is a long time in the lifespan of a baseball executive in terms of their tenure with one team. And I've got to think that Andrew Friedman already had about as much job security as a person possibly could this side of Billy Bean a few years ago when he was in an equivalent position, but got to give him a lot of leverage too. He was asked what his contract situation was, like when his term is up and he declined to answer. But unless he's signed for

the next 10 years already, which is unlikely, whenever his contract comes up again, assuming Shohei is still a superstar and someone the Dodgers still want to have on their team, what kind of leverage does that give him? It's like, if you don't keep me, then Shohei can leave. So you kind of have to keep me because that's a drop in the bucket compared to what Shohei is making and maybe making you as an organization. So, again, this is sort of a singular clause as far as we know when it comes to players. And I doubt that this is something that many players would demand or would have the leverage to demand. I understand why he would want to, if he could get it, he might as well. I don't know how you value this exactly, but it has

some significant amount of value, presumably if you could calculate it. And having been through GM changes with the Angels and Artie Moreno's meddling, maybe he just doesn't want to leave it up to chance, right? Like that's basically what he said. He said it was a safety net for him. And he is just a player with a unique kind of status who can extract this kind of concession while also giving up some concessions of his own. So I doubt this is something that's going to catch on and suddenly everyone's going to have clauses like this. This is just, he's the unicorn contract and the unicorn talent. It's just, it's one of one. He's Otani. Yeah. I think that this is even less likely to become a trend than either the length or

magnitude of the deferrals that we saw in his contract. It is, I mean, like it's a little weird. I don't think it's like good or bad necessarily, but it is, it is interesting. And to your point, good or bad necessarily, but it is, it is interesting. And to your point, like, it's not like he has to opt out if like, you know, Friedman decides he wants to be done or go somewhere else, but he does have the option if like, he's not in enchanted with whoever comes in to replace him. Or he could even ask for some sweetener not to exercise it at that point. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that it's so interesting. Like, you know, there's a way to interpret his contract, which is just like, it's only $2 million a year. I know that the CBT hit is more significant.

But in terms of the actual outlay, like, it's only $2 million a year. And like, that's not much, right? But he has introduced a number of points of very compelling leverage into his time with the dodgers and like good for him i wonder how this stuff like strikes other players i don't mean to suggest that they're like oh my god otani i can't believe that but like i i wonder like for other superstar guys you know um is anyone like is Bryce Harper sitting there going like, oh, I should ask for that. Why didn't I ask for that? You know, like asking for an extension.

Yeah, maybe we'll have a key man. But yeah, the key man. I wonder whether other players are calling their agents like, hey, can I get me one of these things that Shohei got? And it's like, no, that's only for Shohei. Sorry. Yeah. And, you know, I think that's only for Shohei. Sorry. Right. Yeah. And, you know, I think that they probably would go, eh, fair. Probably. Yeah. Well, he has taught us all a lot, I think, about the intricacies of contracts and the CBT and the CBA and California

tax codes and what has to happen when there's this amount of deferred money. And yes, there's the $2 million a year that he's going to get, but then the Dodgers are obligated to basically show that they are good for the deferred payments in advance. So like two years after the year when those future deferrals are triggered, they have to have a large amount in basically in a fund of some sort. There are various options that people have said escrow. I don't know that it has to be an escrow account, but they have to kind of have it tied up to show that they will pay when the time comes. Right. And granted, they can probably do all sorts of accounting trickery and invest that money and make more.

Right. So but it's not just the two million. They also have to set aside some funds. Like these are all things that we would not have known before Otani forced us to investigate the fine print in the CPT and the CBA and figure out how this affects everything. And I feel like the reporting on that is still ongoing. This affects everything. And I feel like the reporting on that is still ongoing. And our conclusions about what this all means will probably all be digesting this for some time.

Yeah. I mean, I had to try to remember financial math. I resented it every second. It was true. Thankfully, I didn't have to remember very much of it because Ben remembers all of it. But other than that, it's sorry. Definitely not me. And I don't mean that as a knock. I really mean it as it as a compliment you know because like it just goes to show that one of us had to take the series seven and it wasn't you it was me well would i

pass today probably not uh forgotten all that stuff it's way back in the way back but um we've learned a lot um about money and the potential points, as I said, points of leverage a player can introduce into their contract. And like I'm ready to be done talking about it and not because I don't think it's important. ways to exercise control while also lending flexibility to their clubs to try to get better to see a player like really be able to say no you're gonna you're gonna win and if you're not then we have problems like is is cool it's really cool to see a team respond to that but I am mostly very excited for us to progress through the winter for other people to sign and for us to be able to just return to thinking about otani as a player because while the other stuff is important and we have to talk about it and i don't want to say it's not part of baseball i do like the baseball part

the best so i'm looking forward to being yeah more keyed in on that. And when we focus onler reported that the Dodgers. In no less a publication than literally the Wall Street Journal. Yeah. An august publication. Yes. The Dodgers gave Shohei Otani and his dog Dodgers themed dog toys during their in-person meeting before winter meetings. So yeah, that happened. All right.

So elsewhere in Dodger land, the Dodgers got another good player. We knew that they needed some help specifically in the rotation and they got some, although they also had to give up some to get it. So they have made a trade with the Rays and it's a trade for Tyler Glasnow. And in return, the Rays have received Ryan Pepio and Johnny DeLuca. And because every transaction involving the Dodgers is unusual these days, this trade was contingent on Glasnow signing an extension, signing an extension, which is unusual and which he did in fairly short order. So now the Dodgers have taken care of that rotation spot for several years. It's a five-year, $135 million extension, though it replaces the $25 million deal that

he already had in place for 2024. So it's really four years and 110 in extra money. And then there's a two way option in the last year. The Dodgers have a 30 million dollar team option after 2027. And then if they don't exercise that, Glassnow has a 20 million dollar player option. Kind of complicated. But the point is that they got on an inning per inning basis, which is a very important condition and caveat. One of the best pitchers in baseball, which bolsters the top of their rotation. But they had to give up some significant depth and then sign Glasnow to a contract that doesn't really have a lot of discount built in, I wouldn't say, given that they are... I don't think it has any discount built in, in fact.

No, no. And usually if you sign a player before he's actually a free agent, maybe you get a bit of a discount. But in this case, it was contingent on an extension. So it wasn't all that different from, well, you're a free agent and you're negotiating with the Dodgers now. So Glasnow goes to the Dodgers and now we wonder whether he can stay healthy. But that fills a rotation slot, at least provisionally. Although I wouldn't be totally surprised if Ryan Peppio pitches more innings than Tyra Glassnow over the next several seasons or next season for that matter. Sure. But it does help to be able to look at the top of that rotation and project, OK, what might the Dodgers playoff rotation look like come next October?

And you have Walker Bueller and you hope that he'll be back to something resembling his old form by then you have bobby miller the best of their young guys and now hopefully you have tyler glass now and that's a pretty strong top three if they're all healthy and functional at that point yeah and and then you look ahead to the year beyond that and and it's like, oh, right, Otani pitches. Yeah, that too. You get to add him in. I mean, I really like Tyler Glass now. I enjoy watching him. As Ben Clemens and I were sort of chatting through this trade when it broke last night,

we obviously didn't know the full terms of the extension last night, but we ended up talking about like what would they have been what would their options have been in free agency if they had just said we know we're gonna have to sign glass now to an extension because otherwise like the years don't really make sense him versus pepio and so what if they had just gone out and gotten like blake snell and i was like but then we'd have to watch blake snell pitch for the Rodgers I don't enjoy watching Blake Snell pitch but he does pitch you know not exactly like a workhorse but certainly more of one than than Glasnow has been but when Glasnow is right and healthy like he is so fun to watch and very dominant I think that because of the quality of the roster around

him you know they can say with a fair amount of certainty, like what it is that they want from him are postseason innings. I know some people have been like, he's been bad in the postseason. It's like he isn't really, it's fine. Like he's a very good pitcher. Don't worry about that. I don't think that means anything. It just has been the thing.

Plus, like, do we not remember the 20 error game that the Rays had that he pitched last year? I do. I remember that game. Wasn't that one of those games that he pitched? One of the error games. You know, I don't remember if it was the first or the second one. They had multiple in the postseason.

It's part of why they got washed out so fast. Anyway, I think that he's really good. I think that he doesn't stay healthy. I think that they can kind of dial his innings up and down as they need to during the year to make sure that he is in a position to contribute once October rolls around. And I think that I will like this whole thing a lot more if they aren't done and bring in someone else, either in trade or in all likelihood in free agency. else, either in trade or in all likelihood in free agency. And I think that there's precedent for them kind of looking at the luxury tax and being like, this is a blowout year, right? This is a year where we're really not going to be overly concerned with incurring CBT penalties. Like when, and I'm going to talk about this positively in terms of the like philosophy toward payroll and I don't mean it

in a nice way about the particular person I'm about to name so I want to be very clear about that up front okay it's gonna sound like happy tone and that's true but it's not about the person who I don't have nice things to say about but like lest we forget they you know they had the year that they signed bauer and that was not their only like free agent addition in that offseason right they signed bauer and then if i recall correctly that was when they also the offseason when they brought justin turner back right they were look, we've already passed the threshold where we're going to have to pay penalties. And the worst approach to managing that situation

is to get through it by just like a little bit and then not accrue the value you need for those signings to have real impact. So just accept that you're going to pay penalties and blow it out. I don't know if they're going to blow it out, there's precedent for them being like screw it like let's go so i suspect that that is at least the approach that they are trying to take now does that mean that they're going to sign yamamoto no no but it sounds like they're still in on yamamoto which is like pretty incredible given that again every time I see an estimate for this dude's contract it grows by at least 10 million dollars like it is

remarkable when we talked to Eric about him you said that and Eric himself I think raised the bar I think yes he dropped 350 right right so yeah it does keep increasing. He's really good. But Glaston is probably the best pitcher who could be had on the trade market unless Burns is available. Correct. But if they get Yamamoto now, people are going to be pissed. People are going to be pissed. People are going to be up in arms because it's going to look like the Dodgers are just completely running the table and building a super team. And people are probably going to blame Otani because they'll say it's because of his contract or because they got a break in the short term. And that's a little bit true, not entirely true, but people are going to be upset if they go and get another ace now, which would not surprise me in the slightest.

Yeah. I mean, it would not surprise me in the slightest and people will be mad and I don't care about that. I mean, like, look, you can either be mad about it and the who is mad kind of depends here, right? Like that, that dictates some of my response because I understand being a fan of another team and feeling sort of envious of the situation that LA has and wishing that your team did that and if you end up being a little shirty on social media because you're feeling frustrated like that's fine because you're a fan and you get to feel frustrated because teams are often frustrating did I look up the relative difference in luxury tax payroll between

the literal Kansas City Royals and the Seattle Mariners this morning I sure did and then I felt frustrated Ben I felt frustrated so it's fine to feel frustrated but like if you're an exec for another team and you're getting all bent out of shape about this like I don't care you take a lesson from it right go convince your owner that you know if you are willing to put real money into the club, like, does it always work? It doesn't always work, but you might attract a bunch of really exciting players. And if you sign them for long enough, it's probably going to work one of the times because you know how many times you get to go to the postseason. If you sign someone to a 10 year deal, you get 10 times, Ben, you get 10 whole times. You get to do it 10 times. People will freak out.

And I'm sure we're going to hear all kinds of people talking on background to all the scoops men and they're gonna be saying oh we need a new rule of the cbi and we we made a mistake calling it the cohen tax we're gonna call it the guggenheim tax and they're all gonna sound like that because that's exactly how they sound like muppets i make them kind of sound like muppets but okay like you know what if they're willing to pay the penalties and they're willing to pay salary and they just really want to go win a World Series, then I say God bless. Yeah. Rosenthal did a piece for The Athletic, I think with Evan Drellick, where they talked

to a bunch of agents and other executives and they got their thoughts on the Otani deal and half of them, it sounded like sour grapes and this is a joke. and half of them, it sounded like sour grapes and this is a joke. And then the other half was complaining about the other half whining and basically being like, stop whining. They didn't do anything untoward here. Right. So I don't think they really did. They are just maximizing their advantages.

And I understand why people wish that they didn't have so many advantages or that they hadn't created so many for themselves. It is frustrating to see them doing baseball so well, I imagine. I mean, I suspect that part of what is at issue here, too, is that when you think about like, let's say that let's take Otani sort of at his word in terms of the kind of stuff that mattered to him and not only what like he and his agent have indicated, but what's been reported on background that he was considering things like, you know, not just payroll, but like player dev and farm system depth and quality. And like, you know, he really wanted a it sounds like a complete organizational audit for each of these clubs that he was seriously considering signing with and if I were an executive of a team that didn't get Otani and wanted him and maybe was

willing to do a deal that looked a lot like what the Dodgers ultimately ended up giving him I think the part of it that would be the most frustrating to me would be like you didn't you didn't lose that sweepstakes this offseason you maybe lost that sweepstakes five, six, 10 years ago, right? Like a lot of the things that seemed to really matter to him when it came down to it had to do with stuff that takes time to develop, right? It takes, you know, resources over a number of years and expertise and weathering people leaving your organization and players getting hurt. Like this wasn't just a oh I I was offered 700 million dollars with the deferrals I wanted and the team is good now like he was looking at

stuff that you had to be working on for a while and so I would find that frustrating if I were an exec particularly if I hadn't been with the org when those decisions were made and be like you hamstrung me and I didn't even work here yet you know but like okay run a better baseball team you know these are the choices you have you can be whiny or you can run a better club yeah or or an even better club right because again many of the teams that he was looking at were like our quality organizations they are in sort of the upper echelon but but, but yeah, I'm pretty sure I neglected to mention that the Dodgers also got Manuel Margot in this deal,

but that happened too. So basically it was a pitcher and platoon outfielder for a pitcher and platoon outfielder. Yep. And the Dodgers got the better pitcher and roughly equivalent outfielder, maybe better, but more expensive. I don't know. I don't know.

I think it's sort of six to one half dozen the other one. And that might describe some of the team control remaining, too. Right. Exactly. So Margot, I think, is a pretty solid platoon partner for Hayward. They are each pretty decent at hitting opposite-handed pitching and also good gloves, so that should be a pretty productive platoon

if that's how they use those guys. I guess DeLuca could have been that too, potentially, for the Dodgers. I don't know that he's any great shakes, but he is under team control for quite a while, of course, and not making much money. And Pepio, you could say the same. He's 26, so he's not super young, but a lot of team control years. We know that that's what the Rays value.

This is standard Rays MO. If they don't sign you to an extension day one or before day one, then odds are they're going to get rid of you at some point once you start getting super expensive, once you start nearing free agency. So not surprising that they traded Glasnell. And they go for lower ceiling guys who should still be productive, average-ish players for them for years to come at low salaries.

And that is how they perpetually make this work. So Pepeo, I think, is pretty decent. Like he's been sort of a swing man. I assume he will start for the Rays because you don't even have to be a good reliever to start for the Rays and be good at that somehow. So given the caliber of some of the guys that they've converted to starting, I assume that he will do that for them. And he refined his third pitch, which was kind of a key for him this past season, going

from relief to the rotation and has a pretty nice cutter slash slider now. So I assume that he'll make that work. And I don't know how high his ceiling is but he should be a solid dependable guy for them for years to come and perhaps he will pitch more than tyler glass now who knows it won't be as spectacular when he's doing it and then the look uh sort of the same thing you know just like he'll make contact and he'll get on base sometimes and he doesn't have a huge amount of power, but he's just sort of solid all around. You know, it's just extremely razy.

They just slot these guys in one after another and they keep the line moving. So I guess it was a pretty decent return for them, given that they lost one year of Glasnow, who's making a lot of money by Ray's standards. So what you were just saying about how the Dodgers maybe could have just spent some money on a free agent and not given up these guys, then again, I guess they only have so much room on their roster. They have so many good players, they got to make room on that roster for all the good

players that they have. So, yeah, if they go get some other good pitcher, then this will all work out swimmingly for them. And most likely for the Rays, too, who, as Sam pointed out, this extends the Delmon Young trade tree indefinitely because they could get several seasons worth of production out of Pepeo and DeLuca and Glasnow was part of that tree. So two more branches just sprouted the trade tree that will never die. I think that from Tampa's perspective, I totally get this. I had to really update my priors on Pepeo because like my memory of him was very firmly in his debut year and he was not good in that season and like the command was all over the place and he was continuing to exhibit the knocks that he had had against him as a minor leaguer where it's like there's not you know there's there wasn't a third

pitch at least not one that was really um gonna help him get oh same-handed hitting out as he went through and then this last year went better you know and how sticky those changes are I think you know remains to be seen obviously but depending on the pitch model you're looking at it really likes the like slider cutter thing that he has now so there's that his command was definitely sharper in 2023 than it has been previously. So, you know, I get the appeal there. I weirdly this is like the least important part of the deal from my perspective. But like I have a soft spot for for Manny Margot that also needs to be updated, not because he's like a bad guy as far as I know, but because like I had, you you know he's maybe better in my mind's eye than he actually is on the field and so if i'm la maybe i don't love the fact that i basically traded younger more cost-controlled manny margot for more expensive

manny margot but i also clearly really wanted um tyler glasnow so you know i'll take I'll take it off Tampa's hands if you know that contract off Tampa's hands if it means I can get this deal done so yeah I think um it's a very as other Ben put it is both a very Dodgers and a very raised trade simultaneously and yeah like as soon as the structure of Glasnow's prior extension or current extension, I don't know how we view where he sits now in terms of the extensions. But like he is he is technically on an extension right now. Right. Like he signed a two year extension coming off of TJ the first year this past season, 2023. It'll be so nice once we've passed the new year. And I can say last season.

Yes, we're almost there. I don't know what I mean. But, you know, his 2023 year was only like five million dollars as soon as we knew that this coming season was 25 million i was like well they're gonna trade him so you know they made that decision a while ago even as they tried to pretend it wasn't a for sure thing to maintain some amount of leverage in their negotiation so i think that they did pretty decently um like you said and if Pepe pitches a full complement of innings like he will do what they most need which is fill innings he'll probably do it pretty well and you know I'm skeptical that there's like another gear of development in him that the Dodgers weren't able to unlock that Tampa Bay will not

because Tampa's not great at pitching dev but because the Dodgers are't able to unlock that Tampa Bay will not because Tampa is not great at pitching dev, but because the Dodgers are also good at that. But who knows, maybe they can help him further refine his command and tweak, you know, the the slider cutter thing. And, you know, we'll go from there. Well, maybe the Dodgers will do something else by the next time we record and we'll just perpetually start each podcast with the Dodgers. They'll do something right after we're done recording this. That too. That's when they'll, yeah. And we'll have to rerecord this entire thing and no one will hear anything we've just said.

And then I won't remember anything that I said. I won't make any good jokes. Not that I necessarily have made any now, but, you know, I'll be so confused about what I've actually said versus not. Okay. So, and I guess Clayton Kershaw is still out there too. Says he's doing okay as far as he can tell. So they could bring him on board too.

Why not just get the whole gang back together? A few other stray transactions. Maybe we can mention, we already talked about the Royals. The Royals demand to be talked about every episode suddenly, along with the Dodgers. It's the Royals making moves. So we talked about multiple Royals moves last time. They have made multiple more since then. So they went out and got Michael Wacca, signed him to essentially what his Padres deal was that he didn't stick with them. He got himself another opt out after they declined to keep him around on those terms. So now he goes to the Royals and they also signed Hunter Renfro, not to be confused with

Hunter Dozier, Hunter Renfro. And not to be confused with Mike Trout. No, although easily done. But I guess there's nothing really new to say because the big picture Royals conversation that we had last time for ballpark funding, whether it's part of that, trying to put a not terrible team on the fields while asking for money. Right. Well, having their handout looks good to have also extended your hand in some money. Right. Sure. But but yeah, there will be a lot more competent if unspectacular pitching and play on the royals and their payroll is is up you know it's not i think any higher than it it was several years ago but it's uh higher than it has been of late so good for them i guess i don't know how good they

are but i don't know how good they have to be in the AL Central. I think they still have to be better than they are in the AL Central. And we actually just ran an interview that David Lorela did with JJ Piccolo on sort of the progress of the organization and sort of his reflections on this past season, which was obviously a disappointing one. And one of the things that he mentioned to David was that they had all of these young guys and they were really dependent on their play, both in terms of their availability, but also the quality of their play. And he didn't feel like they had like the veteran reinforcements complimenting that core that they maybe needed. And I thought of that as I was seeing these transactions sort of flow through this morning, where it's like, I think they still have a lot of questions to answer as an organization, particularly on the pitching side, in terms of what they're able to do themselves to develop,

optimize, improve pitching. And they, you know, they've had, you know, Witt took this big step forward, that's good, but the other position players are kind of, you know, in limbo. So I think they still have to sort of solidify that core and improve that core group of young talent before I would look around and be like, you know, it was a sleeper wildcard candidate, the Royals. Yeah. think that having sort of steady competent veteran complementary pieces to that group does raise the floor pretty considerably it certainly puts a more watchable brand of baseball on the field it gives you some insurance against injury and you know I don't know how I don't know man like it seemed like every time I watched a game where a team was playing the Royals at the end of the year, the home broadcast would talk about how scrappy they were, how they were a tough, you know, they were a tough competitor,

even though they weren't winning a lot, like they were they were scrapping. They were in it. So I think there is this perception that like they are primed for a step forward. Does that put them in line to like really challenge for the central i mean never say never right but last time we talked about how you know it didn't it didn't seem likely but it was possible because it's essential and like is this enough i don't think so but also like it's essential so this plus, you know, either additional signings by Kansas City or in all likelihood misfortune for the other teams in that division. And who knows, maybe at the deadline, we're like, you know, maybe Kansas City should add

so that they can like make a run at this thing. Like it doesn't again, doesn't seem likely, but it wouldn't be the most surprising thing to me if that ended up being true. Yeah. Well, not to be outdone, although I suppose they were, the Tigers signed Jack Flaherty. They did. It's a pitching influx to the AL Central. It's a one-year, $14 million deal, which no such thing as a bad one-year contract, as everyone always says. Really not, yeah.

If he pitches like he has recently, then I guess it might come close. But they might think that he can be better. Presumably, they think that he can be better. And it would be nice if he'd be better. I'd like to see good Jack Flaherty again. But I don't know. I don't know if he's still in there or if they can unlock it but they must think he's going to be better than he was after the Orioles got him

and maybe before that even so we'll see I guess they are another organization where it's like this is perhaps an interesting test case to see how the the pitching development has progressed although like if the Tigers don't turn jack flarity into like what he was before i don't think i'm really going to hold that against their pitching dev because he has looked pretty washed at times but you know like does he replace the innings they could have gotten out of eduardo rodriguez no but he will help to fill innings and i think as michael bauman wrote when he was looking at sort of the Kenta Maeda signing and what that means,

like I think what they supplement that young group with is really important, but like the fate of the Tigers rotation in 2024, I think is going to come down to their young homegrown talent and how healthy, effective step forward. It proves to be rather than anyone that they bring in on the free agent side. And then the last notable transaction, the Rangers gained a pitcher and lost a pitcher in a manner of speaking, at least for part of a season.

So they've signed Tyler Malley to a two year, $22 million deal. So they've signed Tyler Malley to a two-year $22 million deal. He is recovering from Tommy John surgery and maybe back in the second half of the season, though I wouldn't count on it necessarily. He had his surgery in May, was it? So, yeah, given how long it takes guys to come back from that, it could be back for the playoffs, right? Which is maybe what they think they'll need now Max Scherzer unfortunately has what is it a herniated disc in his back he has had some back issues befitting his age and status I suppose and he's going to be out at least for a

couple months to start the season and I don't know that I would take the under on that estimated recovery time. So the defending champs, they have a whole lot of good names in the mix. But they also have some who are sidelined to start the season, including Scherzer and Malley and DeGrom. So you could imagine that being a pretty overpowering group by the time October rolls around. But it might also be a bit of a bumpy path to get there. But speaking of teams who have imported pitching, they just never met a free agent starting pitcher they didn't like

or at least wouldn't kick the tires on. And they've made a lot of trade additions too. So they just go get guys like this. They they've made a lot of trade additions, too. So they just go get guys like this. They go get guys. It's worked out fairly well. They just won a World Series. Yeah.

They famously just won a World Series. I don't know if you know about this. You hear this crazy thing with them winning a World Series. And it's interesting because it's not like they don't have some like quality prospects who could help. But like, I don't think that anyone's looking at like Jack Leiter and it's like, oh, the savior of our rotation, Brock Porter. Like you're an A-ball. Surely you will help. We drafted you in 2022. You know, like a lot of their best prospects, at least as I currently understand them, are on the position player side. So, you know, it's not that they don't have interesting guys further down the minor league ladder, but they don't have like a prime guy. You know, they have like Jack Leiter. He's a 50.

He might, you know, who knows? So the opening day mix is like kind of interesting and underwhelming. But like come July, potentially, you're like, wow, look at this rotation. It's incredible. I guess you're really happy that you signed like Andrew Heaney, you know, that you have like Dane Dunning, you know. Yeah, maybe a little point of vulnerability in the first half of the year. We don't know if they're done yet, I guess, but it could be a soft spot. You know, it's so funny, Ben,

because it's like, I'm going to make this about the Mariners. You know, the Rangers potentially have this like soft spot, you know, and the Astros, maybe they have some soft spots and you know who's not primed to take advantage of that?

The Seattle Mariners. Yeah, you're not wrong. I'm not wrong. I'm not always right, but I am right about this. So I do have one single solitary stat blast to end on that is related to our trade talk today. But I believe you have a little something to say about those San Francisco Giants and the city of San Francisco. I do. That's right.

I even told you I wanted to do this and then I totally forgot. So people might have seen that in the sort of aftermath of Ohtani signing that there was conversation from the Giants front office about sort of what happened there and the deals that they extended and not. And Buster Posey had some comments on how like the sort of perception of the city of San Francisco by free agents is potentially hindering their ability to sign guys. And here I'll quote what he said. Something I think is noteworthy,

something that unfortunately keeps popping up from players and even the players' wives is there's a bit of uneasiness with the city itself as far as the state of the city with crime with drugs posey said in an interview with the athletic here i'm quoting from a usa today post because that's what i pulled up whether that's all completely fair or not perception is reality it's a frustrating cycle i think and not just with baseball baseball is secondary to life and the important things in life but as far as a free agent pursuit goes, I've seen that it does affect things. And, you know, this generated some response on social media as,

as these things are want to do. I think that like a couple of things are probably true here simultaneously. It would not surprise me given what we understand in terms of the sort of average baseball players, political orientation, and the media that they might consume as a result of that, that there is a perception among baseball players and their families that San Francisco is unsafe, that there's a lot of crime, that there's a lot of drug use, issues around homelessness and the unhoused is not in Posey's comment here but I imagine that that is sort of percolating in the background of that perception on the part of players assuming that it's true and I just found myself very frustrated by this because one like I don't

know how easy or hard it is for the Giants as an organization to be persuasive on this question. I suspect that if free agents were to go to San Francisco, they would walk around and see that San Francisco does have problems like most cities do. And that some of those problems might make people feel uncomfortable to see because visible poverty makes us bummed out because it sucks, right? When you see unhoused folks and you can't help them, you know, that elicits a reaction of discomfort. And I think that if you're not sitting with that in sort of honest terms that it can pivot to fear, right? And say, oh, I'm unsafe in this situation, even though San Francisco as a city

has pretty low rates of violent crime, all things considered, and certainly isn't at the top of the list in terms of major league cities. But I just find this frustrating because it's like, you know, cities in America do have problems and people do need more resourcing than they're getting, and they do need help from social services. And, you know, is this a reason that the Giants can't sign Otani? I mean, I don't really think so. I think Otani just wanted to be a Dodger, you know, and they clearly, it didn't prevent them from signing Jung-ho Lee. But it's frustrating because it takes the focus away from what it ought to be around this conversation, which is that like there are people who need help and resources and we are not mustering our sort of municipal politics to meet that challenge and to try to take care of people in our society and view folks who are unhoused as neighbors, even if they aren't living in a house. So I just found it frustrating, Ben. I found it frustrating. And I'm not trying to like really go at Posey here. I think he probably is pointing to a real perception on the part of ballplayers. But I hope that if that is a

perception that front office folks find themselves met with when they're having conversations with potential free agents, that they will, first of all, disabuse them of whatever wild hysteria they have heard on some, you know, media channels. And I'll say it's not just the ones that lean right. Given who Giants ownership is, I wonder. Right. This is the other thing. It's like the ownership groups of these teams are not apolitical and the people they support with their campaign contributions are actively undermining the social services that could potentially help, you know, address cheaper housing easier to build. And all of these guys live in Marin County anyway. So like, what is the problem here? Excuse my very strong swear. But you know, it's like, there are players who do live in the city. And I bet they could tell you like, yeah, it's a city, it's got problems or people who are struggling. So does every city, you know, like this isn't. So anyway, I don't live in San Francisco. But I know that a lot of the same sort of fear mongering that happens around San Fran gets directed at Seattle. And I find it very frustrating. And so I wanted

to take a moment to stand up for the city of San Francisco. And that isn't to deny that there aren't issues and there aren't a lot of people who need help and assistance and support, but let's make it about that. If we're going to talk about it, even in a baseball context, rather than like, oh my God, we couldn't sign Ohtani. He wanted to be a Dodger. Be realistic, you know. So anyway, here I am all fired up. I hope it wasn't Ohtani that he was specifically referring to.

And we don't know that it was. And I want to be clear about that. They've lost out on plenty of free agents. It could have been. Right. And I don't know if he was even saying that this is why or if it's just well, this is something that has been raised. So I don't know whether Giants fans are interpreting this as excuse making or not. Or, you know, if he's hearing it, I believe him that people have

raised the question. Although you're right, if we're talking about free agents at the top of the market, if you're at that level of wealth and your primary interest is insulating yourself from any unpleasant experience, then you could do that. You know, like you're in the bracket of earnings that you can make sure you never see a poor person if that's your top priority, probably just about. So, yeah. And like, I like i think you know if they really earnestly perceive this as some sort of competitive disadvantage you know because everyone's been brain poisoned by cable news then you're a civic institution whether you view yourself that way or not you are so like take it upon yourself and they do charitable work so i don't you know i don't want to like

ride on the giants too much specifically but i just think that like baseball teams they ask for public money for their stadiums they have an expectation that they will have a seat of influence and power over zoning over you know how municipal budgets are allocated, how resources are dispersed in the course of the season. And if that is the expectation, and they see themselves met with this kind of perception, then I hope that what they will do is take it upon themselves to say, yeah, there, you know, there are some problems in American cities, and all of them would at least be bettered by increased resourcing. And so we're going to prioritize that. And if we have to understand it as a competitive advantage to like get ourselves in the mindset

to do it, then OK, fine. I don't really care if that's the, you know, the way you justify it to yourself. But, you know, I just if it feels frustrating when these teams that do have a lot of power and influence in the cities they operate in seem to remove themselves in important ways from, you know, the goings on of the cities that they live in and that and the problems that their neighbors are affected by. And we saw some of it with the Mariners during the All-Star game, right? Like I know, you know, the city of Seattle definitely swept camps and did all of that stuff in advance to try to present a very sanitized version of downtown,

which they didn't totally succeed in doing because oddly enough, you know, people can move around on their own, but it's like be a municipal leader or don't ask for things from us ever again. You know, that's where I'm at. Let's end with a stat blast. But discuss it at length and analyze it for us in amazing ways. Here's to Deist of Lust.

This was prompted by a question from listener Sam, who wrote in to say, I heard the rumor from Ken Rosenthal that the Dodgers might be trading for Tyler Glass now and Manuel Margot. Well, guess what? It happened. Great rumor mongering there, Ken, which prompted an interesting thought. Manuel Margot and Mookie Betts spent several years as members of the Red Sox farm system before Mookie eventually reached the big leagues with Boston and Margot was included in the Craig Kimbrell trade. It made me wonder, should this trade for Glasnow and Margot actually happen, which it did, where would Mookie and Margot rank as far as the longest span of time between being

minor league teammates and eventually actually becoming major league teammates? And he says, the small amount of digging I did turned up a discovery that those two actually didn't spend any time on the same minor league team, save for one game Mookie spent in AA Portland on a rehab assignment in 2015. Mookie being two years older and an American draftee, he was always at least one level ahead of Margot. But I was still left curious about the overall question. So if it's at all searchable, what's the longest span of time ever between two players becoming minor league teammates and then subsequently becoming major league teammates?

Yeah, I was tickled by this question and also very much by the answer to this question. This is a fun one, I think. So I went to Kenny Jacklin of Baseball Reference, a fairly frequent StatBlast consultant. Baseball Reference has got a great database and minor league records to run this sort of query. And I asked him to run it just to look for players who were on the same minor league team and then later were on the same major league team. And there can be kind of complications where you might not have day-to-day game logs for the minor leagues several decades back. So it's tough to tell. Did those guys actually overlap or were they just on the same team at different times in the same season? But that won't actually be relevant to

the answer here because these guys were confirmed teammates long before they eventually became big league teammates way, way down the road. So Kenny says, this was a great question i see two pairs of players who first appeared on the same minor league team 21 seasons before appearing on the same mlb team and each pair included a hall of famer not surprising maybe given the lengthy careers needed to top a list like this if you're going to be playing in mlb at all 21 seasons after you were in the minors then probably you've been pretty productive so two duos here that went 21 seasons between being minor league teammates and finally for the first time becoming major league teammates first tom bergmeyer and joe morgan the hall of of Fame Joe Morgan. So they played in the minors together in 1963 for Durham, the single A affiliate of Houston, probably the Colt 45s at that point.

They were both 19 years old. And then they played in MLB for Oakland in 1984, 21 years later, when they were both 40. And I believe it was their final season for each of them. So how cool is that? I think that's extremely cool that these guys, including one legendary player, played when they were teenagers and then they went their separate ways and they went to all different teams and they kicked around and somehow they found their way back to each other. I guess it wasn't their first professional season that they were minor league teammates. Maybe it was like their second or something. But basically the beginning and end of their careers,

Tom Bergmeier and Joe Morgan were together in very different circumstances. And then the second pair of players who accomplished the same thing tony phillips and tim raines another hall of famer and an excellent player the late tony phillips so they played minor league baseball in 1978 for west palm beach the single a montreal expos affiliate and phillips was 19es was 18 at the time. And then they played in the majors for the Moneyball A's in 1999. I honestly had forgotten that Tim Raines was on that team.

One of the Moneyball Billy Bean years, but 99 A's when Phillips was 40 and Raines was 39. I think that was Phillips's last year. And Raines, I think, didn't play the next year. But then he ended up playing some more after that he was dealing with lupus at that point in his career, although he still had a little left on the tank on the field. So what a full circle kind of arc that is to play when you're a teenager in the low levels of the minors and then not play again, at least in the majors together. And then finally, at the tail end of your very accomplished

careers, when you've done so much in the game, you find your way back to each other. And this was actually noticed and remarked upon and reported on at the time. And I went to newspapers.com and I found just a mention, a piece of the oddity, the curiosity of the fact that these two guys had circled back to each other again. So just quoting here from the Chico, California enterprise record, February 24th, 1999. So this is AP story, Phoenix. When Tim Raines and Tony Phillips were minor league roommates, they were roommates, in fact, two decades ago, they drove regularly from Tampa, Florida, to neighboring St. Petersburg in Raines' wrecked Toyota. and Reigns' wrecked Toyota. One day, Reigns let Phillips do the driving.

Just as they approached the top of a bridge on the causeway leading into St. Pete, the hood on the Toyota flew up, Reigns grabbed the steering wheel, and the two horrified teenagers brought the car to a safe stop. Well, yeah. Reigns told the story this week after showing up at Oakland's spring training camp where he will be reunited with Phillips, and perhaps it's an apt metaphor for what he faces this season as he moves from the champion New York Yankees to the lowly athletics. Reigns, the only member of the World Series champions not re-signed by the team, hopes

to make up in playing time what he may lack in wins this season. That article goes on, but that's the only mention I could find of Reigns and Phillips's reunion. There was a longer article that I found about Bergmeier and Morgan. So Bergmeier, people may not know. He obviously had a long career, though it wasn't Reignsian or Morganian. But he played for 17 seasons in the majors and was just, you know, your prototypical lefty who hangs around forever. He was almost exclusively a reliever and an above average one, not a spectacular one,

but a solid, consistent one for a very long time. Played for a bunch of different teams, was an all-star once. So not as distinguished a career, obviously, as Joe Morgan. But I found an article, Durham, North Carolina, The Herald Sun, May 20th, 1984. Ex-Bulls, Morgan, Bergmeier reunited. Joe Morgan and Tom Bergmeier are enjoying some sort of reunion this summer as members of the Oakland A's. They played together with the Durham Bulls in 1963. Think of the difference in baseball

and the difference in the world between 1963 and 1984. Long careers and a lot changed in society during that time. 21 years later, Morgan is arguably the most complete player in baseball history. Bergmeier is eighth among active pitchers in appearances with 737. The two arrived in Durham under somewhat different terms in 1963 as members of, yes, the Houston Colt 45s organization. Morgan was sent to Durham of the Class A Carolina League as a way for the 45s to hide his talents.

Bergmeier, as far as he can figure, was with the Bulls to simply fill out the roster for prospects like Morgan. It seems that Morgan's talents were too noticeable with Modesto in the Class A California League early in the 63 season. In order to prevent having to protect a Class A player on the Major League roster the following spring, the Colt 45 sent Morgan to play against a higher level of competition. The strategy backfired when Morgan homered in his first three games at Durham Athletic Park, finished the season with a.322 batting average for the Bulls and 13 homers in 95 games. He was in the big leagues by September and returned a year later to start an illustrious career with the Astros, Reds, Phillies and A's.

Sure, I remember that park, Morgan said of Durham Athletic Park last weekend following an A's game against the Orioles in Baltimore. No left handed hitter forgets that short right field fence. Didn't it have an Uzzle Motors sign on top of it? That's a good recall. If so, Uzzle Motors, Aussie Motors. The back wall of whatever it is, Motors, served as the wall in right center field when Morgan was with the Bulls. So I guess he had a good memory that Motors has since relocated just as much has changed in Durham.

Morgan arrived in Durham. Here's an indication of how much had changed. On June 5th, 1963, the very day Durham's biracial interim committee called a special news conference to announce that all of Durham's motels, its leading hotel and over half of the licensed eating establishments had agreed to drop all racial barriers. So this is, you know, the thick of the civil rights movement here even early on in it. I didn't even notice those kinds of things, said Morgan, who lived at the Fowler Street residence of Mrs. I.R. Spalding. Mrs. Spalding says she treasured the company of players such as Morgan more than the $25 a month she charged for room and board. That was my first year of professional baseball, so it was obviously exciting. she treasured the company of players such as Morgan more than the $25 a month she charged for room and board. That was my first year of professional baseball, so it was obviously exciting.

I was having too much fun playing baseball to worry about those kinds of things, Morgan said. The fun began for Morgan when he arrived for his first game with the Bulls in the middle innings, not expecting to play. But Durham manager Billy Goodman called on Morgan to pinch hit in the eighth inning, and he delivered a home run. Goodman's grand slam in the bottom of the ninth lifted Durham over Winston-Salem and set the Bulls on a seven-game win streak and into first place. Throughout the streak, Goodman is quoted in newspaper accounts as saying that Morgan sparked the turnaround. The spark Morgan has provided teams throughout his major league

career explains why he has won two MVP awards, played on four pennant winners, two world championships teams, and is a shoe-in for the Hall of Fame. The 40-year-old Morgan says he learned to play the game as well as he has over the past 21 major league seasons by learning the fundamentals in such outposts as Modesto and Durham. At the asking, Morgan can rattle off the names of Durham teammates such as Walt Matthews, Leon Hartless, Jim Todd Hunter, Tommy Murray, and Paul Runge. I used to see Paul all the time when I was playing in the National League. Morgan says of Rungy, now a National League umpire,

Paul, I think, was trying to keep from showing some favoritism to me because we were once teammates, and I think he went the other way. One day we had a little run-in, and I told him I didn't want any breaks. I just wanted what's right. After that, everything was okay. Most of this article is about Morgan, but here we finally get to a bit about Bergmeier. Everything is okay for Bergmeier now that he has survived 17 seasons in the major leagues with the Angels, Royals, Twins, Red Sox and A's.

But his days with the Bulls are not the most memorable. He was three and nine with a four point seven four ERA for Durham and was released by the Houston organization one year later. He later signed with the Angels at the recommendation of a scouting friend and was in the major leagues by 1968. Despite posting less than overwhelming statistics as a left-handed reliever, Bergmeier has remained in the big leagues longer than all but nine active pitchers. He's probably the best conditioned 41-year-old you'll ever see, Oakland manager Steve Boros says of Bergmeier, who jogs four miles daily. When I first saw Bergmeier in the minor leagues, we couldn't decide whether to make him an outfielder or a pitcher. We decided to make him a pitcher. And I guess that worked out. I wonder how much reminiscing those guys did or whether they were friendly or whether they were basically strangers to each other because so much time had elapsed since they had been minor league teammates. I guess Phillips and Raines were roommates, so maybe they were kind of close.

But otherwise, it must be just like such a blast from your past to just Morgan's first professional season and his last professional season. Tom Bergmeier was there at both stops. Can you imagine walking in to the locker room? You're like, oh, my God. Yeah, quite a reunion, right? Yeah, seriously. Lastly, Kenny went the extra mile here. locker room you're like oh my god yeah quite a reunion right yeah seriously lastly kenny went

the extra mile here he said i looked at pairs who shared a team for the first time in 2023 to see who was the largest gap there and this is not quite the same thing but i found eduardo escobar and rafael ortega both appearing forets this season, 15 years after playing for the same 2008 to 2009 Tiburones squad in the Venezuelan Winter League. So that's a fairly long time. And sticking to affiliated ball, we see the following pairs who played for the same minor league squads in 2009 and did not share an MLB team until 2023. and did not share an MLB team until 2023. John Singleton and Darren Ruff went from the GCL Phillies and Rookie Ball Phillies and then played for the Brewers in 2023. Randall Gritchuk and Mike Trout, of course,

AZL Angels and Rookie Ball Angels, played for the Big League Angels finally in 2023. Fernando Cruz and Will Myers went from Burlington rookie ball with the Royals to Cincinnati in the majors in 2023. Cruz was primarily a catcher when they were minor league teammates. Now he's a pitcher. And finally, here, Adrianza and Charlie Culberson went from Augusta single A Giants affiliate and then played for Atlanta in 2023. So that's a fairly long time, I guess, 2009 to 2023. So it, it sounds like, uh, Margot and Betts, I guess, if they play together in 2024, it will have been nine years since that rehab assignment that Mookie

was on on Margot's minor league team. So that'll probably be one of the longer, if not the longest hiatuses between being teammates in the minors and majors of anyone in 2024, but nowhere close to Tim Raines and Tony Phillips and Joe Morgan and Tom Bergmeier. Pretty cool. Pretty cool. Yeah.

Tom Bergmeier, who is still with us. He was born very close to Joe Morgan. Joe Morgan no longer with us. He was born September 19th, 1943. Bergmeier was born August 2nd, 1943. So a little more than a month apart. So yeah, their careers really mirrored each other. I would have been like, hey, you following me? Yeah. It's like it's been 21 years, but you finally caught up to me, Mr. Bergmeier. So thanks for the question, Sam, and to Kenny for the solution. I guess these days it's probably easier, right?

Because if you're if you're fast friends, even if it's only brief, like you can just text and stuff. Right. Yeah. You have so many more. Easier to stay in touch now. Yeah. Avenues for connection and sort of persistent connection than you necessarily would back then. Plus like so much more, you know, interleague play. So it's like, oh, hey. Right.

I mean, like, you know, much of Mookie's career was in the AL, so that would not matter as much, but you know, like, yeah. I wonder if they'll be like oh my god it's so nice to see you again i remember you from that rehab assignment i had both in the same system at the same time at least yeah you know who knows all right well after we recorded it was reported that shohei otani had sent a video to tyler glass now to encourage him to come to the dodgers and sign that extension. Not unusual for a top player to pitch other players on coming to a team. Otani just did it with Yamamoto. Betts and Freeman just did it with Otani. But still, quite a recruiter, right? If I got a video from Shohei Otani personally entreating me to come play for his

team, that'd be pretty tough to turn down. In that Disney documentary about Otani, we talked about it, mentioned that he had been prevailing upon Yu Darvish to join the WBC squad. So power hitter, power pitcher, the power of persuasion, yet another power of Shohei Otani's. I meant to mention when we were talking about the closure that we got this week on the Otani negotiations and the non-existent trip to Toronto that on Friday, Yusei Kikuchi had posted, I wanted to make it clear that I did not have a sushi party last Friday. I can eat sushi for 50 plus people, but I certainly never had a sushi party with 50 plus people. Good to know. Glad he cleared that up. Obviously, once we learned

that Otani had not gone to Toronto, strongly suggested that Yusei Kikuchi had not reserved a room at a restaurant for 50 plus people to celebrate Shohei Ohtani coming to Toronto. I guess he could have made that reservation regardless, but he says he did not. He was probably catching up on his sleep. And finally, I wanted to leave you with a viewing recommendation or at least let you know about something you could check out if you have an hour and a half. Andre Brouwer died this week of lung cancer at just 61. Many have been mourning him. Of course, if you've seen Homicide Life on the Street, if you've seen Brooklyn Nine-Nine, you're well aware of his dramatic and comedic

chops. What you may not know is that he was also a baseball actor because he played Jackie Robinson in one of his first screen roles after Glory back in 1990. He played Jackie in a TNT TV movie called The Court Martial of Jackie Robinson. And in honor of his passing, I just watched it for the first time. It's on YouTube. I'll link to it. I would say worth watching, largely because of Andre Brouwer. Just a compelling screen presence, that quiet, controlled power he had.

The movie itself, well, it's a 1990 TNT TV movie. So adjust your expectations accordingly from a production value standpoint. But it tells some stories about Jackie's time in the army that probably should be better known. There is a book published just a few years ago called The Court Martial of Jackie Robinson, but this was more than 30 years ago. And it talks about the segregation and discrimination that he dealt with and confronted head on while he was in the army during World War II. Even though it's got that historical figure biopic black and white, so to speak, aspect to it, it is fairly unflinching in its portrayals of specific situations. It's not just the time that he was told to go to the

back of the bus on an army bus 11 years before the Rosa Parks incident and refused and then faced the titular court-martial, but also some earlier incidents in the army that are even less well-known. And from what I can tell, it is broadly accurate, at least by TV movie standards. You probably recognize some other actors from the cast, including Ruby Dee, who plays Jackie's mother in this movie and played his wife Rachel in the Jackie Robinson story, the 1950 movie that also starred Jackie Robinson himself. And that movie, product of its time, a fairly sanitized telling of his story, even though Jackie was in it. And that movie didn't even depict this court martial incident and the bus. So this movie is a pretty good corrective to that, fills in some of the gaps.

And if you mostly just know about Jackie Robinson's baseball career, there may be some things that you learn here, things that would go on to have a big bearing on his baseball career. And there's a little bit of baseball in the movie as well. But the biggest selling point is there's a lot of Andre Brouwer. So if you didn't know that there was an Andre Brouwer baseball connection, I'm here to tell you that there is. Check out the film if you feel like it. And check out all the ways that you can support Effectively Wild and get something in return at patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going.

Help us stay ad free and get themselves access to some perks. Nate Potter, Stuart Joyce, Daniel Hurst, Gene Bernardo, and Foolish Baseball, Bailey Freeman. Shout out to Bailey. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, monthly bonus episodes, playoff live streams, shout outs at the end of episodes, potential podcast appearances, prioritized email answers,

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 one way or another, you can send us your questions and comments via email at podcastatfangraphs.com. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. You can follow Effectively Wild on Twitter at EWpod.

And you can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash effectively wild. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We hope you have a wonderful weekend and we will be back to talk to you next week. If baseball were different, how different would it be? And if this thought haunts your dreams, well, stick around and see what Ben and Meg have to say philosophically and pedantically. It's Effectively Wild. Effectively Wild!