Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2102: The Dodgers Are Buying a Waaampionship

Episode Date: December 23, 2023

Ben Lindbergh and Baseball Prospectus editor-in-chief Craig Goldstein discuss all the fallout from the Dodgers’ record-breaking signing of Yoshinobu Yamamoto, including how it affects fan perceptions of the Dodgers, whether it’s good for MLB to have a heel, whether there’s a more virtuous way to win, the terms of the contract and their expectations for […]

Romantic, pedantic, and hypothetical. Semantic and frantic, real or theoretical. They give you the stats and they give you the news. It's a baseball podcast you should choose. Effectively Wild is here for you. About all the weird stuff that players do. Authentically strange and objectively styled. Let's play ball. It's Effectively Wild. It's Effectively Wild. It's Effectively Wild. Hello and welcome to episode 2102 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, not joined today by Meg Raleigh, who is traveling, also traveling from the Oryx Buffaloes to the Los Angeles Dodgers, is Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

Yes, the Dodgers have done it again, signing him to a 12-year, $325 million deal that some might say is the most important signing in Dodgers history since last week. And here to discuss that is a friend of the show, Craig Goldstein, editor-in-chief of Baseball Perspectives, co-host of Five and Dive, and yes, it must be said, fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Hello, Craig. Hello, Ben. How are you doing today? Doing well. Just us guys, just bro-ing out here. We were joking about the masculine energy that we're bringing to this podcast just a moment ago. The two of us dripping with testosterone as usual. Very curious about whether you're going to embrace the heel role here as a Dodgers fan or defend the Dodgers. What will your energy be during this episode? Suck it, losers. We got all the good players and you didn't. Or will you attempt to maintain the Dodgers non-villain status?

I think in just the worst cop-out possible, probably some of both. I think the thing about being a Dodgers fan over the last, mean really since the guggenheim partners or whatever the company is actually mark walter and his group bought the team is that like i that that was a moment at which i i mentally said like okay like you're gonna have to be comfortable with being disliked because of what it means right and and this is essentially the culmination of what it means, right? And this is essentially the culmination of what it means, not even factoring in kind of the success of the last 10 years, which I think a lot of people, I get tired of the teams in other sports and in baseball

that are just routinely successful, except for my favorite team, right? But I have to understand that other people are going to get tired of this too. And I think like my internal mental dialogue on that is like well you know i understand it but like too bad so sad or whatever yeah um but but i also like i will defend i i will defend them on the grounds that like i think teams should be doing this right but i think people are understandably mad when it's like just the one team is. And that's a frustrating experience, right?

And I'm not going to discount that. But I will also somewhat defend that, like, it's not a bad thing for a team to do it. Yes, right. That's kind of where I've landed. And we can get into the specifics, but I suppose it's not that the Dodgers have actuallyspending everyone, though they certainly are cumulatively. They are presenting a more appealing package seemingly to players. Now, part of that obviously is because of their money and their success and their institutional advantages and everything, but it's also because they've been pretty good at this for quite a while.

And so in that sense, they have earned it, which again, is not going to make people resent them any less. I bring this up because all the reactions that I saw in the immediate aftermath of Yamamoto's going to the Dodgers were, well, the Dodgers are the baddies now, right? If they weren't before, which I think probably they were in some circles, not just Giants fan circles, but more broadly, but they hadn't quite ascended to the level of heel or villain as the Yankees, at least when the Yankees were operating like the Yankees used to and having the success that the Yankees used to, or the Astros. If anything, the Dodgers got some sympathy points because they were ostensibly an Astros victim,

some sympathy points because they were ostensibly an Astros victim, right? And now it seems like, okay, no more leeway for you Dodgers. Plus the fact that so many early playoff exits, right? I think that's a big part of any kind of lingering non-resentment was due to the fact that they really, they only won the 2020 title and I I don't think I've done it here but I've done extensive defenses of that as a I know people like to say it's a Mickey Mouse championship or whatever I think there are a lot of reasons it's not and it doesn't make any internal internal sense to say it is but that's not what hating is about so I you know I I have ended that rant with if you're just trying to hate like then I respect it.

That's fine. And you get to say that because that's the point. And I think the Dodgers are going to get a lot more people who are just going to try and hate right at this point. And look, they've they've done this on purpose. Right. They've put that target on their back. I've written this in a couple after the Glass Now acquisition and after this, but the goal here at this point, and they will be made fun of, is I think from this point forward, so not even counting 2020, if they don't get multiple

championships out of this, I think you're going to get people who will mock them. And by their own standards, they'll have failed, right? That's what Otani said in the statement that the team put out. He said parades, plural. And Andrew Friedman has talked repeatedly about the failures of the playoffs, even though, you know, I see a lot of success. Like we talk about the success of the divisions, all the wins. They've been the most successful team regular season wise of the last decade. And I think that would wear on people, but I do think the fact that they've had so many high profile flame outs in the playoffs has, I don't think it's engendered like a good feeling towards the team, but it's, and it's, it's certainly been mockable, but it's, it's kind of withheld the vitriol that kind of stirs inside of people when you compared to the Yankees, right. And there, there are four championships in short order

in, in terms of, even if you want to go to other sports, the Patriots, the, uh, the Warriors, other sports, the Patriots, the Warriors, you know, teams like that, where it's just like, it's, and again, like, as a more passive consumer of those sports, I'm like, get these teams out of here. Like, I'm tired of seeing them. It's not even that they're bad. It's not, you know, it's not undeserved or anything like that. I just want new, I want fresh blood. And the Dodgers are essentially saying after 10, what is it, nine division titles and one 100 six-win season, they're saying, no, you're not getting fresh blood. We're never going to be rid of the Dodgers.

At least until the playoffs, which I don't think there are any sort of lock to move on. I think they're helping their chances, but you're going to see them in the playoffs every year. And I think people are justifiably going to groan at their shit. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Even though there are more playoff teams now, it's still when you're seeing the same cast of characters. And of course, it's a different cast of Dodgers specifically, but it's those uniforms year in and year out. And so it did seem to be just a very reflexive reaction, like, okay, well, that's it. We hate you now. Like, not even just among the hoi polloi, you know, the mainstream normie fans. I'm talking about effectively wild fans in our Patreon Discord group, you know, the cognoscenti. Everyone just was like, well, that's it. You know, you're

the bad guys now. And I think, again, I think, well, the fans are not opting for this, right? Like I didn't say, I don't get any say into whether they sign Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Now, I'm happy they did. But so the fans are not so much opting into this, but the team is, right? The team is putting that marker on their back and they're doing so knowingly. Now, again, my defense of this is that every team should be trying to win like this to your point the Mets matched the or the Dodgers I suppose match the Mets bid here and he chose the Dodgers farhan zaidi said that the Giants accepted the terms for otani so you're right the the they are not doing things other teams didn't do essentially no. No one cares, right?

Like, no one cares. And I'm not saying anyone should care. You know, maybe logically it matters, but this is not, I don't think this is purely about hating, but it's also not about logic. It is about emotion, right? It is that gut reaction that you're saying among anyone. It's just like, well, you know, like everyone kind of thinks like, don't you have enough? Haven't you done enough?

Was Otani and Glasnow not enough? And now look, I would sit there and say, look at their starting rotation before Yamamoto was slotted in. No, it kind of wasn't. Yamamoto was slotted in. No, it kind of wasn't. But they also, it's not like they just said, let's go do our Dodgers thing and fix Lucas Giolito, right? They said, no, we're going to go get like the 25-year-old potential top of the rotation guy and sign him for 12 years. And also, by the way, it's a record deal and he hasn't thrown a pitch in the majors. Right. Like there, there, there is a manner in which they've gone about it that I think naturally and understandably rubs people the wrong way. Yeah.

And, and again, like I get it. And this is where I'm trying to say, and it's both things where like I defend the process, but also I get why it bothers people. And also, sorry,

it's not your team doing it, I guess. Like, I don't, seriously, I'm sorry it's not. And I think on some level, and I felt this, right? I have had this thought when the Phillies signed Bryce Harper. There are other moves, like, when they happened, I'm annoyed by it. But I'm annoyed mostly, like, it manifests a little bit in like, oh, of course they did that. Or, you know, whatever it is. Or maybe it's some of the Padres moves the last few years.

Like, oh, you know, of course the Padres are trading for Juan Soto. But the core of it was I wanted the Dodgers to do it. Right. Like I wanted my team to do it. Yeah. And it is like, oh, now I'm like really annoyed at the Padres, but like, I'm annoyed that the Padres are just the stand-in instead of my team. Well, you can make the case, many people have made the case that that strong reaction is a good

thing, right? That that's why we watch sports, that we want to feel emotions. And that is an emotion, even if it's a resentment, even if it's, okay, I have an enemy now. It's someone we can all collectively root against. That's why people always say it's better for baseball when the Yankees are the Yankees, the Dodgers are the Dodgers, right? Now, maybe there is a point at which it's not better for baseball. It becomes bad for baseball. at which it's not better for baseball, it becomes bad for baseball, but those strong reactions that this signing and the previous moves provoked, that's why we're in this to some extent for the theater of it, for there to be good guys and bad guys, and for us to feel elated or infuriated, right? So in that sense, it is good. Now, because Yamamoto comes from outside the MLB ecosystem, maybe it feels a little less

like the Dodgers are just collecting and hoarding a disproportionate share of a finite amount of talent. They aren't bullying another fan base directly in the way that, say, when Otani goes from the Angels to the Dodgers, Angels fans say, that's our guy. Now he's in their uniform. Or when Mookie or Freddie goes to the Dodgers, that it's extra painful for Red Sox and Braves fans. Not that those two teams pulled out all the stops in trying to keep those players. In this case, it's just that some other teams had the idea, the dream of Yamamoto that the Dodgers are stealing away, excluding Oryx Buffalo's fans,

of course. And I guess as someone who's a neutral party here, who's not rooting for any particular team, but is talking about the sport, writing about the sport, it is interesting, right? It is to have a super team as the Dodgers have been to see that kind of collection of talent on the field at one time. There is something to that excellence. Like we're drawn to Major League Baseball because it's the best people in the world at playing this sport and the best team of the best teams. That's something that your eye is drawn to, right? I'm obviously excited to see Shohei Otani do whatever Shohei Otani does, wherever he does it, but to see him do it on the same team as Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman and Yamamoto and Glasnow and on and on and

on. Maybe it's an embarrassment of riches. Maybe it's spoiling people. Maybe it's excessive. But also, I'm going to be watching a lot of Dodgers baseball. Yeah, I think that's right. Well, and I think the other part of this, I think there's two things. Like you said, good guys versus bad guys. And I think some of what's held the dodgers kind of the enmity towards dodgers back a little bit is you look at this team and and one notable extremely long suspended player aside like there is not a lot of people that you the way that they play on the fields or or kind of behave generally off the field are are drawing a lot of ire yes there there are there are elements of it even beyond the guy i mentioned i mean like you can get into kind of the the whole situation uh this summer with clayton

kershaw and various things like that but like generally speaking i think this is a group of players people like um now they might be on a team they don't like, or they might be the fact that they are on a team together is not liked, but people like Mookie Betts. People generally, I think, like Clayton Kershaw, people like Freddie Freeman, or at least find them inoffensive. People like Shohei Ohtani. Yeah, right. I'm saying before this, but yes, Shohei Ohtani, I don't think people have strong negative

feelings around Yamamoto yet. I've seen that reaction yet, that conflicted sense, like, well, I guess I've got to hate them, but also these specific players and personalities, I'm sorry that I have to root against them because who doesn't like Mookie Betts? Like who doesn't like Shohei Otani, right? And so they're not leaning into the heel mentality or persona the way that maybe the Astros did, partly intentionally, partly unintentionally. But someone like Alex Bregman, for instance, who's like, you know, he was a heel before he was known to be a cheater, right?

He's just that kind of player who pisses off opponents. And if you root for him, then you like him. And the Dodgers don't have so many of those guys no they have like face a baseball huggable well for you certainly joe kelly is is the guy who turns you into the joker but yeah for most people you would be inclined to like the dodgers and so now if you're like a big shohei otani fan then you're probably feeling like man it was easy to root for him when he was on the angels and you felt bad for him. He was great, but he was an underdog and he didn't have the supporting cast. And now he goes to the Dodgers. And, you know, if you're listening to Effectively Wild, you're probably not the sort of fan who's just going to be mad at a great player for making a great salary. I think we understand how the economics of baseball work with some people.

It's, oh, these players are spoiled and they make too much money, right? But even aside from that perennial refrain, now it's just he's joining a super team. And again, I don't think you can really begrudge him or anyone for that. Like, if we were in their shoes, why would you not pick the Dodgers if you're choosing between the Dodgers and the Giants, let's say? You know, if the money is the same and the Dodgers are giving you just every year you're going to get to the playoffs, they're going to be the best at making you better, right?

I mean, all the advantages that any other team can offer, seemingly the Dodgers can too. And so they've kind of earned that to some extent, like they have the big city setting and the ballpark and all those things. But also they have the track record of we're gonna improve players we're gonna maintain this winning team which is difficult to do even if you're a big spender you know the yankees are big spenders and the mets are big spenders and it still doesn't work out sometimes i don't i might be wrong right this very moment i guess post yamamoto signing, but I thought I saw somewhere that said that they're third in the spend. I believe so, yeah. So they're not even first overall.

Now, again, that is in terms of the CBT. In terms of luxury, yeah, luxury tech, CBT, right. In overall payroll, I guess they're first now by like a million over the next. Yeah, and look, there are reasons that that's a again like you can make that defense i don't think anyone cares but it is valid to say like look they're not spending kind of more than than some of these other teams and i think i i think the best defense i could mount on this on a level people might that might actually resonate with someone who who by all means doesn't need to care if you're listening to this is that they've saved a lot of money on like you know their player their vaunted player

development system churns out a lot of guys right and and it's whether it's will smith or walker bueller or or fixes max muncy or uh you know turns up james out, or whatever it is, right? But what they're doing is, by the way I always conceptualize the idea of surplus value, back when I was first learning about it and reading it on Fangraphs and BP and things like that, is that you focused on development to get these cheap guys so that you could go out in free agency and potentially overspend. It wasn't always about finding a surplus value guy on the market, right? It was to say, we're saving in one area so that we can be a little lavish in another and ultimately build the best team possible. And to me, that is what the Dodgers are doing.

Now, they have more means, right? Like, even if Pittsburgh took this approach, they would probably not be able to do it to the same scale as the Dodgers. But they can still do a lot of it, right? I think it's more of the difference in scale is not as big as people necessarily think. But I guess the idea to me is still like, they're doing this. They're doing this in a way that actually, I think is the execution of a strategy we all kind of internally understand. And that is not only understandable, but like the right way to do it. If you are able to generate so many low cost guys at the beginning of their career. To me, again, maybe that doesn't resonate with people, but like this, this is what it's supposed to look like. Right. And like, to your point about putting all these guys on the same team

and all this, like on our free agent list for our top 50, Otani and Yamamoto were one in two. Yeah. And I think anyone has like that reflexive, natural reaction of like, okay, they both went to the same team. And that team just, by the way, won 100 games in a quote unquote step back year. There's a mental kick there that's like, oh, come on. Like, you know, let someone else have the ball, kind of, you know what I mean? On top of Tyler Glass now and his extension. So that's that's one point two billion dollars roughly. Now, when people say the Dodgers have spent one point two billion dollars this offseason, they've committed to spend it over the course of many, many years, like 20 years in some cases. Right. But it's still it's a big number, no matter how much is deferred. much is deferred. Yeah. And again, I think you're going to get into, and it's hard for me to probably fully adequately explain this mentality because I have somewhat intentionally like just decided not to fully understand it. But like there's the whole buying championships thing,

right? Where you're saying like, why wouldn't Otani go to the Dodgers? And why is that any, like, why wouldn't he make that choice? and I think what people who disrespect what it is that that the Dodgers are doing would say is like he he's taking an easy route yes by by joining uh Mookie and and Freddie and obviously then you know recruiting Glass now and uh Yoshinobu Yamamoto and all these other you again, it was a hundred win team last year. By doing that, he's taking some sort of easier path. And look, I guess he is taking an easier path. I just don't know why I should care about that. You know what I mean? Like I, and certainly I'm biased in this case, but I mean that in general, like if he had gone and joined the hundred win Braves, I would have groaned because I, you know, the Dodgers and Braves, I don't want to have to face the Braves with Shohei Ohtani as a Dodgers fan.

But beyond that, like, I don't fault him anymore for it. But there are people who do, right, who say, like, he should go out and essentially do this, like, there's more validity to a championship where you're not surrounded by other stars, essentially, is the argument. Yeah, right. You could make the comparison to Kevin Durant joining the Warriors, right? Yes. Which is like, oh, he's only won championships with Steph and Klay and Draymond and so on and so forth. And people respect that less. Yeah.

I'm not one of those people, so I don't know how that works exactly, but, like, they absolutely do. I'm not one of those people. So I don't know how that works exactly, but like they absolutely do. Well, my rejoinder to that is and has been a he hasn't done it three times or whatever, like Durant has done it. But also he hasn't forced his way out of any less advantageous position. He signed with the Angels. He could have signed with the Dodgers six years ago. Right. And he chose not to, and he suffered the consequences of that. I think we all did, honestly. We all did, in a sense, yes. And so having been in that situation, I find it hard to fault him for saying, you know what? I'm not going to take any chances here. I went to the Angels. I did

everything that a baseball player could possibly humanly be expected to do and more. And that was not enough. And so, yeah, I'm going to go to this team that has won a lot, but it's not like he demanded a trade or said, I've got to go here. Like he put his time in and he got to go to where he wanted to go. And also it's something that we say we want about players and free agents, that we want them to win, right? That they really want to prioritize that. And given where he went and how he structured his contract, I think you can certainly say that about Shohei Otani. Maybe you can then complain that he didn't make it harder on himself by going to another team that was worse. You could also say, like, he could have gone to some other team where he would have been the only star, right? He would have been the guy kind of

carrying that team. And that in a sense, it's unselfish of him to go to a team like the Dodgers that has so many stars. He might still be the biggest of them, but he's going to have to share the spotlight somewhat. So yeah, I find it tough to fault him for that, which is not to say that I don't understand why people are pissed about it. Yeah. And again, like, I think it's a real clashing of a number of things that we, and when I say we, it's like, it's a ton of voices that want somewhat different things. So, but generally speaking that we say we want out of athletes, right? Like we want them to want to win we want them to make sacrifices for winning right and you could argue i mean maybe he didn't actually make a sacrifice he's going to

get what he was going to get no matter what but in his structure right in in the way otani structured the contract it is highly unselfish right like well i it's unselfish financially it is it is selfish uh on the competition level like i've i i wrote this and said this like there is something very self-serving about the way he structured this contract and it's not there initially because the the so much of the money is delayed but he's going he got a commitment from the dodgers who are following through on that commitment to build out more you know to not stop with him right and and essentially to not stop you're gonna he said i want you to be you know as competitive as possible while i am here well that's to his benefit right like if he wants to think long term and have a legacy great now he's going to be in the playoffs every year and he's also going to you know so he's going

to try and win multiple championships and he's going to give himself the best opportunity to do that and then when he's done with the dodgers in 10 years you know potentially they're going to have obligations to him but he won't be there and that's not his problem anymore so in a way it is self-serving to structure the contract this way but it is also self-serving in the way we want athletes to be self-serving, right? To focus on winning above all else. And so the way he did that was, again, to obtain a commitment that they would keep going. Them trading for Glassnow and extending him and then signing yamamoto is is them following through on that right which is again arguably what we want out of our sports franchises to actually to not

care about things like the luxury tax and repeater penalties and and all of this stuff and to just say let's build the best team we possibly can. And that is clashing with our general, and again, very human reaction of like, not these guys again. Like enough, enough of these, like, yes, but you've already kind of been doing it. So let's, again, let someone else have the ball for a little bit. And, and again, I get it. I get it. I don't fault anyone for feeling that. There's just, you know, to say it's contradictory isn't to say you should change how you feel. It's just that, like, we have these kind of conflicting emotions, generally speaking, in situations like this. You know, you could say the same thing.

I probably felt the same way when the Braves traded for Sean Murphy after getting Matt Olsen. It's like, Oakland again? Atlanta again? Like, why? And then got the extension immediately. Yes, right. Right, exactly. And it's obviously, look, it's hypocritical as a Dodgers fan.

Like, Dodgers, you know, whatever. But like, you know, do I want the easiest path to championships possible? Yeah, a little bit. I mean, again, I don't want people to discount any championships they might win, but I also, I want to win them. And I want to have the best chances to win them. Yeah. It's funny that this is coming on the heels of a season when money was anything but a guarantee of success. As we've talked about in this podcast, as I've written, it had almost no correlation. I mean, the lowest correlation between spending and winning in

decades and many of the teams that attempted to quote unquote buy a championship to kind of, you know, accelerate their timeline by spending that backfired spectacularly with the Padres and the Mets and the Yankees missing the playoffs. Of course, you had the Rangers as the counterexample. They spent, they got good enough to get into the playoffs, and then they won a World Series. So mission accomplished. But by and large, this season was an argument against the idea that you can just buy your way to winning. And I think baseball is protected from the stigma of buying a championship by the randomness

of the postseason, which gives and it takes away. I think there are things that are bad about that. I think there are things that are good about it. And one of the things that's probably good about it is that you really can't buy a championship. There's no guarantee whatsoever, even for the Dodgers, as they've demonstrated over and over again. You can kind of buy your way into the tournament, at least. You can give yourself a lottery ticket. Again, not in a foolproof way, as the Padres and the Mets and the Yankees just learned, but the Dodgers have demonstrated that not just through spending, but also through their acumen at constructing a baseball team.

But obviously, money gives you a buffer. It enables you to compete despite some contracts that didn't work out. It gives you a better shot of being there year after year, but there's essentially no chance at a dynasty happening in MLB anymore. So you can get sick of seeing the Dodgers every October, but you're probably not going to be sick of seeing them hoisting trophies and going in parades because that probably isn't going to happen that many times. Now, I think the reason that they have catapulted themselves into a higher tier of heel and villain here is because this is kind of uncharacteristic free agent spending by the Dodgers standards, right? Because people think

of the Dodgers as big spenders, and they are, but they often haven't been the biggest and even with all the moves that they've just made is this their highest payroll team maybe not by much if it is at all but typically they're not blowing everyone away they have made some major commitments but on the free agent market especially under Andrew Friedman it was mostly like you know Rich Hill and AJ Pollock and Chris Taylor and Ken Lee Jansen and Justin Turner. Let's not forget the Brandon McCarthy and Scott Casimir season. Yeah these are like 50 60 million dollar deals right now then there was the regrettable Trevor Bauer contract and then there was the regrettable Trevor Bauer contract. Yep. And then there was the Freddie Freeman deal.

And of course, there was like Zach Granke and Kevin Brown years and years ago. Granke extending Mookie. Right. Now that's the thing. Yeah, they have certainly extended people. But in the free agent market, it's almost like it was a relic of Andrew Friedman's Tampa Bay days. He typically wasn't going to be the high bidder.

He wasn't going to be the high bidder. He wasn't going to be the one with the winner's curse. Like the Dodgers came up short on Garrett Cole and Bryce Harper, right? Like they were not blowing people away in that arena. And now they have, like, this is, this is a different dimension. So yeah, there was the Mookie contract, but again, like the Mookie contract, you know, they traded for him and then again they had the the payroll flexibility quote-unquote to make that move because they have so many players who are underpaid relative to their production because they've done such a good job of just developing prospects and developing players and now this is a little bit different they just set their sights

on the two best players probably available on the free agent market and they said yeah we're gonna go get those guys so i think that's why this is maybe a different kind of hatred for the dodgers just because they haven't done it in quite this way like they i think they still have the reputation of doing what they're doing but it wasn't as earned and deserved as it is now yeah they had hyper i mean they're they're at, but it wasn't as earned and deserved as it is now. Yeah, they had hyper. I mean, they're at least per cots, their CBT 40-man figure for 2022 was 293 million. I think we currently have them, again, per cots at 288 right now. So they're slightly under that. I think Fangraphs might have them even a little bit lower. I think I saw someone quote it might have been like 282 or something like that. 282 right now, according to Raster Resource. Yeah. So I mean, total and again like that's a

lot of money right like the the year before they were at 280 essentially 286 right like this is this is payroll that dwarfs other teams but you're right they they have not they've generally stayed away i mean the freddie freeman contract even I mean, it's very reasonable, right? Like in so many ways, like, and the Braves decided they didn't, you know, they were going to do, go get Matt Olsen. And then no one really pushed the Dodgers on Freddie Freeman that year. And it was just kind of like, okay, thanks, I guess. Like, here's a potential Hall of Famer.

You know, it's in his 30s. But like, yeah, it wasn't exactly like they went out and were the villain of the offseason, right? They just kind of took what came to them. And that was their path in a lot of offseasons. Super strong free agent class last offseason, and they essentially sat it out. They let a ton of talent leave.

For this, by the way. Yes, with this in mind. Now, they wanted to get under the tax, and they didn't. Right. But they basically said, and again, as a fan, I think this is what you'd want any team to, well, your team to do anyway, is to say like, okay, we didn't do do our finance like our financial machinations didn't work but our plan is still available aside from the money so let's go do it and and as much as they i went through this on on our transaction analysis and again it's based on cots and other figures might differ slightly but they're now going to be in the fourth time repeater penalty, and they're

going to pay anything over 297, which I have to imagine they'll clear potentially. They're going to pay a 95% tax on that money. It's 62% on money between 257 and 277, which they've obviously surpassed. Or sorry, anything over 297 is 110%. They're already at 95% on some money. It's all of it. It sounds like a lot. It's $33 million, which is both a lot. And also, like, if you're the Dodgers, should you care that much?

Now, there are there are draft penalties. There are you know, there are these things draft penalties there are you know there are these things but like that's all of these by the way as as much as this i feel like this podcast was supposed to be a bit about yamamoto like yes we will get to him all of these are reasons that yamamoto made so much sense for them to go so hard after he he is he's 25 You don't get 20. I thought Joe Sheehan said this really well in his newsletter on this last night. But like, we don't know what teams will offer to 25-year-old top of the rotation potential starters. Because we don't see it. Ever.

So he's 25. He's a potential top of the rotation starter. The stuff justifies that. And he's not going to cost them additional draft penalties to sign other than the tax ones which they were essentially already incurring so there's not a draft pick penalty associated with it and at 12 years which again like people are going to look at the money and say and and the fact that it's a record deal and look i think with these record deals they're just they're doing what the player obviously wants

and what the agents want, right? The agent wants to be able to say, I got the record. Yeah, it's so funny, actually, how transparent that is because it's always like topping it by just enough, right? Oh, I mean, the J.D. Romuto one to me was like the biggest one. But yeah, it's a million dollars here. It's obviously three more years than then uh but but again i i go back to joe sheehan's newsletter where he talks he kind

of compares him to aaron nola and like i had no problem with the aaron nola signing and you look at like the dodgers are getting 31 to 37 from yamam, assuming he doesn't opt out. I don't know where the opt outs are. I don't know if that's been discussed yet. But like, I know there are two of them, but I don't know where. But they're potentially getting 31 to 37, which is what NOLA is signed for. But they're also getting 25 to 30. And they're essentially getting it all at just about the same average annual value as NOLA is getting only for 31 to 37. And it's hard for me to think that's anything but an incredible deal,

even if he's a good third starter or a low number two instead of potentially a number one. Yeah. So the actual terms here, 12 years, $325 million. That includes a $50 million signing bonus. It does not include the almost $51 million posting fee that the Oryx Buffalos get. So that takes the commitment for the Dodgers close to $400 million. So it's a lot, right? And it's not just the dollar amount, but as you said, it's the length, particularly for a pitcher. And if you saw that through his age 36 season. That's how young he is. So many of the long-term deals that we've seen signed in recent years, we're talking 39, 40, into the 40s. This is going to take him through his mid-30s, right? Now, who knows if he'll hold up over the next 12 years, but just purely based on the age, that's why this is the longest deal for a pitcher and the

biggest deal for a pitcher by $1 million over Garrett Cole. So not really the biggest. In all likelihood, Cole is reclaiming that at the end of this year, right? He can opt out. And if he decides to, then the Yankees can keep him by adding on another year to that contract. So that would take, I guess, the guarantee, depending on how you define guaranteed dollars. But yes, just as it probably wasn't a coincidence that Otani ended up at 700, which was just enough to clear Messi or anyone else. It's not a coincidence that Yamamoto is at 325. You know, it's just a little bit of one-upmanship. And not only 700, but even the backed out, right. You back it out to net present value. It was still, it was clearing trout.

It was clearing average annual value of, of Scherzer and Verlander. Right. Like he, like the, the reason it made so much sense once you sat down and thought about it, that like the reason they got to 700, the reason they got to the 460 net present value is, and the reason it works over 10 years, is because the agent, he as a player, and the agency, and agent gets to claim three different records, essentially, in the process. And I'll also say, there is a narrative out there, there has been, that Japanese players,

pitchers specifically, when they come over to MLB, don't last that long or don't age that well, that they kind of hit a wall after their first couple seasons. And you can certainly list examples of Japanese aces who have come over and who have been great at first and then didn't do so well after that. I wrote about this when Otani signed and people were saying that, and I guess Otani hasn't really countered the case of maybe they won't be that durable. But what I found is that that perception seems to be entirely a product of the age when Japanese stars tend to come over, because that's what people don't factor in. By the time most Japanese stars or aces get to MLB, they're typically in their late 20s at least already. And so what I did at the time was I came up with a group of comparable players who were roughly the same performance and the same age. And relative to those pitchers,

that cohort, the Japanese pitchers aged perfectly fine, if anything, better than most. So I think that's what people don't factor into that reputation, if it still exists, is that, yeah, by the time you've proved yourself and you've become a free agent and you've come over, you're already essentially past your prime or at your peak maybe, but nearing the decline phase. And that's not the case with Yamamoto. I mean, there's a real parallel to free agency there, right? Yes, exactly. I mean, just in general, that the guys who make it there are certainly special in a way, but also almost everyone is subject to aging and the wear and tear and things like that. And again,

and things like that. And, and again, like, you know, Aaron Nola is relatively young for some, you know, for free agents that he's going to be 31. A lot of the younger free agent classes are 29, 30, 31. And it's like, well, you've, you've already done a lot, you know, there's a lot of wear and tear at that point. And so it is, yeah, right. I mean, it's the same reason people say free agency doesn't pay. And it's like, well, maybe not, but like, you can't get the other guys because they're under team control. So like, this is what you're dealing with. And it's a little bit the same with the guys who come over from Japan. Yeah. And I'm a big believer in Yamamoto. I'm interested in your thoughts on how good he'll be, but he's just been absolutely lights out, obviously, even when you adjust for the fact that it's been a low offense era in NPB

lately. Just completely dominant. Not as much of a strikeout monster maybe as some guys, but incredible control, incredible command, home run suppression, which maybe won't transfer over completely in a higher home run rate league, but he's got it all. And he also has the stuff, which you mentioned earlier, the critique that he hasn't thrown a pitch in the majors. Well, yes, that is absolutely true, but we know he throws major league quality pitches because we've seen them. And there's a, you know, Saris article about this that i will link to but you just look at the stuff and we have access to the stuff from his wpc performance this year and it marks him as a top of the rotation guy an elite guy if you want a deeper scouting report

on yamamoto we had eric long and higgin on on episode 2098 and talked about him at length and Eric said and I think I agreed like he's probably like a top five pitcher in baseball without ever having been an MLB before maybe you think that's aggressive maybe there's more uncertainty than there would be with someone who has done it in this league obviously you know different schedule different ball, language barrier, cultural assimilation, all the challenges that come along with that, of course. But he is just fantastic. You look at the stuff that he has and the grades on those pitches based on a small sample, granted, and maybe going all out because it was the WBC. But even so, the guy sits mid-90s. He can get up to the upper 90s. He probably has a better fastball than Otani, for instance, who throws harder or can throw harder,

at least, but doesn't have the kind of movement and deception that Yamamoto has. So it's an elite four-seamer just because of the rise, quote-unquote, the arm angle. It's just giving guys a different look than they typically have, paired with the elite command that makes all of his stuff better. Eno forecasts that he probably has the best splitter in MLB on day one. He's got the slower curve, and that grades out very well too. The only pitch in his arsenal that doesn't grade out so well is the cutter. But again, it's just another pitch that he can throw in there to give you a different look. And not only are all the pitch everything. It's just, it's so hard to say what that means because it's like a Russell Carlton N equals one example, right? Where

clearly it's worked for him. He hasn't had arm issues. He's barely had any injury issues whatsoever. A lot has been made of his routine, I guess. Yes, right. Yeah. He doesn't lift weights. of his routine, I guess. Yes, right. Yeah, he doesn't lift weights. He's very into the, you know, flexibility and stretching and yoga, et cetera. Yeah, I mean, if you wanted to maybe take a more dour view of it,

like the name that comes to mind to me, and again, if you're worried about the 12-year commitment, is a lot of this sounds a little bit like Tim Lincecum, who was listed 5'11", probably close to 5'10", about the same height, and relied a lot on his freakish kind of flexibility,

athleticism, not physicality, but other parts of it, and also had different training methods than most of the league at the time and things like that so and again like there was an incredible peak for for tim lincecum i don't think but you know if you're committed in 12 years like you want you you're going to want to get more than than lincecum ended up lasting right um if you want i just i'm i'm trying to think off the top of my head like like you're right this is n equals one, but if you wanted to expand it out to nearest neighbors or whatever, I don't know the actual statistical method,

I apologize, but there's something like that, right? And I think Lincecum would probably be up there. Yes, I think that makes sense. And there's some evidence, Jeff Zimmerman did a study on this years and years ago at this point, that maybe shorter pitchers are more prone to injury. Again, it's just a small sample. And also like the guys who make it, who are in that group, they probably do a bunch of stuff that makes them special so that they even got that opportunity. But yeah, Lincecum, I mean, he had a high effort delivery. Like it was smooth, but like you could tell that he was getting every last ounce of energy out of his frame and that long stride he had and everything whereas Yamamoto just

deceptively easy delivery like especially before he really gets going like the small step he takes like his he's looks so low effort and then you get that just like he swings into action and suddenly the pitch comes out way faster than you're expecting it to. I don't know whether that bodes well or bodes ill. I guess you could say either. It is a big difference, though. It is a big difference. Yeah. Patrick wrote with Jenny, Patrick and I combined for a T.A. on this last night based on when it when it broke.

And andrick kind of wrote the section about what he actually throws and and he says uh he basically he said that he puts less effort into his like initial step uh in his motion than like the backup catcher throwing in you know pitching in a blowout which is it's kind of true and then he says like in in the blink of an eye the motion transform and he ends that sentence with that that section with a sentence that i absolutely loved which is a gun doesn't need a backswing um because it is there there's no it's he's i mean like there's no backswing right it's just this like very light low effort thing and then all of a sudden he's throwing mid to upper nineties and that it is not only

deceptive, but it's just, it's, it's wild to see, honestly. Yeah, you watch him and he doesn't blow you away immediately. Right. Especially because of that. I, again, I don't know if that's good or bad because I guess, yeah, no one knows, right. But I guess the Dodgers think it's good, but you know, if you have a high effort But I guess the Dodgers think it's good. But, you know, if you have a high effort delivery, that's often regarded as a bad thing. But if you have a low, like the force has to come from somewhere, obviously he's imparting that explosive force on the ball. And so you could say, well, maybe it's better if you're leveraging your whole body, right? Like if maybe it's putting too much stress on his arm or something, but again, maybe it's, you know, like people say with batting stances,

where you start in very different positions, but like once you actually get to the point of, of swinging, you're all sort of in a similar position. Maybe it's not so different, at least with the delivery where, yeah, he, he has that low effort first step, but then, you know, obviously the force has to be generated. So does the fact that it's generated in a shorter time or in a different way, is that bad? I don't know. Is it good? Like we're all kind of guessing, especially when we're talking about an individual pitcher. And, and to your point about like N equals one like he he is someone who seems very attuned to exactly what he needs and wants to do right like he patrick

mentioned this but like he changed his motion between 2022 and 2023 to be more repeatable to get even you know even more fine-tuned command and control. He does these various different workouts because he's determined, you know, what his body needs to do to be able to do what it does. And that is something – and, you know, you mentioned the pitches, and I do recommend the article from Eno as well. Like, the pitches, like, maybe, you know, I don't know what every team told him. I'm sure they all said, you can do whatever it is you've done because you're great. But maybe the Dodgers pitched them their pitch design, right? Like they've had, if you want to compare them to

the other teams in the finalists who were finalists, you know, the Mets have someone new in charge. They haven't had as many kind of pitch design or or rehabilitative pitcher wins and the yankees who actually do a very good job of of getting the most out of arms like it's they still have tended to be it's been a lot of relievers it's been a specific type of guy through their player development system and less like we've brought a guy in at the major league level and fix them there are obvious examples examples, Clay Holmes, et cetera, that they've done that. But I feel like the Dodgers track record on that is a little bit longer. And maybe they said like, look, we've got ideas for your cutter, right? Like, you know, they've introduced cutters for a lot of guys

and fairly successfully, right? They've done this or, you know, or other pitches, right? They know how arm slots work, how, you know or other pitches right they know how how arm slots work how you know pronation versus supination all of that and and look the yankees and and mets know this too but they have a different reputation right now and i think they're leaning on that and potentially taking advantage of it for someone who obviously is into the minutiae of these things right um by the way he goes about. That has helped the Dodgers sign some guys who are more in the reclamation project mold, like Noah Sindergaard, for instance, which didn't work out so well. Which went great.

Yeah. I don't know that he was the most apt or willing pupil, to be honest. My understanding, for what it's worth, from just public things Friedman has said, is that he was extremely willing. He's just not able. So that helps if you're the Dodgers and you have that track record to get that kind of guy. I don't know if it helps more or less with someone like Otani or Yamamoto who are at the top of their sport. On the one hand, they don't need help necessarily in the short term. But maybe they got to that point because they are willing to do whatever it takes to be great. And also if you're signing for a decade or more, you know that at some point

you might need to make some adjustments because you're going to lose some stuff. You look at Kershaw, right? Who came up with the fastball and curveball and developed the slider well with the team, right? This team that helped him adapt. And while he's been hurt a lot, age very gracefully over the course of his career in terms of performance when he's on the mound, right? That should give you some confidence if you're looking at these things. Now, maybe he wasn't. Maybe he's looking at dollar sign and location and whatever. And this is all tertiary or beyond. and whatever, and this is all tertiary or beyond. But we can only really speculate at this point.

The other thing I would say on top of the stuff is that if you look at, I think, any projection system, I don't know if Zips, I saw Dan Zimborski post something about it, but I haven't seen Zips' specific projection for him. But I have Pocotas up. It's on our depth charts. It's on our leaderboards right now. We project him for a 75 DRA minus, which is 25% better than league average.

It's really damn good. I mean, if it's not a number one pitcher, it's just shy of it, depending on your definition of that, like ace versus whatever. It's right around there. Now, that could be wrong. I mean, like the projections from leagues coming, you know, from non-MLB projections tend to have a little bit more noise for all the reasons you said. It's a different ball, it's a different schedule, all this kind of stuff. But even if you discount that some, right, you're getting,

you should be getting a really, really good pitcher. So I think when you combine something like that, what projection models say, what stuff models say, what scouts clearly say, right? Like, I don't want to appeal to authority that you just say, oh, the Dodgers are smart and good at this, and they gave him a lot of money. But that's at least a factor, right? Oh, yeah.

That if they didn't actually believe in him, then they wouldn't have done this. But the money can be overstated, right? They are very much in a place as a franchise that is we're willing to burn some money for this talent upgrade, whether the money is maybe a little over our valuation or moderately over our valuation or not.

So the money might overstate it somewhat, but they wouldn't be doing that if he wasn't worth most of it, I guess. Yes. And clearly a lot of teams were similarly interested, right? So, and I think it's important for the Dodgers because even though it seems like they are, as I've said recently, a perpetual playoff team, there is no such thing in the very long run, extremely long run in the Dodgers case. But even though they keep this going and they still have a strong farm system, they do have kind of an older core, right? And a lot of their guys are, you know, 31 Mookie,

34 Freeman, even though he seemingly gets better with age. Max Muncy is 33. Chris Taylor is 33. Jason Hayward is 34. He's not maybe part of the core, but you know, and Bueller is... Even the rookies are old. James Altman's 26. Right. Yeah. And you know, even like Glasnow's 30, Bueller is 29 coming off an injury and I guess also not under contract for much longer. right? And so to get someone like Yamamoto, who's just 25, not that the Dodgers were in any danger of having a window closed or anything, but if you were to try to concoct a scenario where things went south for the Dodgers, it would have been that. Like, everyone's at an age where potentially they could decline or they could get hurt.

And so this gives you some insurance right just another mid-20s guy who's at the peak of his powers it's just you know like there will be rookies coming up who are Yamamoto's age even though he's done so much and pitched for so long already so it future proofs them in a way that they weren't already. Again, having no knowledge of it, I have to think that was behind some of Otani's like, you need to commit to spend more now. Because, look, everyone who said like they don't need to do this is right on some level, right? I think if you add Otani, even with all the question marks around the rotation, right? If you sub in Pepeo for glass now uh as it was before that trade etc like are the dodgers winning the division and making the playoffs in all likelihood yes

right like so he's he would have gotten his crack at the at the playoffs anyway in all likelihood but i think i think that recognition that mookie is 31 and freddie's 34 and and all of this kind of stuff is is you know, Will Smith is under 30, but he's going to be a free agent in two seasons, I think. There was a recognition that like, yes, you'll make the playoffs, but you actually also kind of need to make the most of these two seasons coming up. Yes. You know, in a lot of ways. Then you have to churn and figure it out after that too. But like, you really do to push now uh to make truly the most of it and and i i did want to say this when when you were talking about kind of the randomness of the playoffs and the way that it is

it is a kind of more of an equalizer in baseball than it is other other sports i i couldn't agree more and you know i think there's a lot of people that roll their eyes at the kind of Moneyball era cliche of like, the playoffs are a crapshoot. But I think people need to understand that, like, it is a crapshoot, right? But even more than it was when Moneyball came out. So yeah, absolutely, that it is. But that that sentence doesn't end there. Right? Like, this is what I keep falling back to is the playoffs are a crapshoot. But that doesn't mean you can't increase your odds of winning, right? Like what the Dodgers are doing are in a way loading the dice, but that doesn't guarantee a specific or particular outcome.

It just increases the likelihood of that outcome. And those outcomes are still extremely diffuse, right? But the point of the playoffs being a crapshoot to me is to then say, go do what the Dodgers are doing. Load the dice as much as you possibly can, understanding that even then you're not even getting like a 50% chance of winning, right? You're never going to get there, but you still need to do the most you can do. It's not a reason to say let's back into the playoffs with kind of the most mid-team possible and pray. It's exactly the other direction for me, which is the playoffs are a crapshoot. So do the most you can to actually stack things in your favor.

Right. Yeah. actually stack things in your favor. Right. Yeah. Now, if you're a team that has fewer resources, that has a less favorable TV deal, let's say in the days of the cable bundle bursting, then maybe you can't quite have that mentality or it's not as easy to have it. It needs to be the goal. You can't do it the same way. Right. Exactly. And so the Dodgers saw what happened. NLDS sweep, their rotation was decimated, more than decimated. Their big bats went completely cold. And they said, okay, well, then we'll go get another big bat, the biggest bat maybe, and we'll go get two top tier starting pitchers. When the playoffs roll around again, maybe some of those guys will get hurt. Maybe the lineup, as great as it looks, will go cold again or will not come up in the clutch. But as you said, they've made it more likely that things will go their way by just building in more and more redundancy. Like, you know, three guys can not get hits with runners in scoring position, but maybe a fourth guy will get that hit, right?

Exactly. And now you look at their rotation, and who knows how the season will go and how these guys will hold up. But if they enter the playoffs in 2024 with Yamamoto, Glasnow, Buehler, and Miller, that will probably qualify as one of the best rotations in baseball at that point, assuming that Buehler has pitched somewhat like his old self and Glassnow actually is intact at that point. And then you look at 2025 when Otani theoretically rejoins that rotation. Granted, I guess you don't have Buehler under contract currently for that season, but you have Dustin May maybe coming back, Tony Gonsolin, and it's just a monstrous...

And a bunch of pitching prospects too. Yeah, of course. Sheehan, Frasso, you know, I mean, and look, those guys could all go at the door for Dylan Cease. I don't know. Yeah, no, when I wrote the Glass Now transaction analysis, I said, like, the Dodgers have put us in a place where traditional transaction analysis is kind of rendered useless, right, because of the way that they're doing they are they are again by their explicit admission saying this is about championships so the this regular season analysis of whether you know whether i think tyler glass now is is a good bet for this extension and and this trade because of the number of innings he may or may not throw is kind of pointless. It doesn't matter. What they're gambling on is that he will be healthy in October over, you know, four out of the five years he's under contract or five out of the six potentially on the player guarantee or a player option.

But that's their gamble, that he's available when they need him because they're taking for granted getting there. And maybe that, again, that's a thing people are going to hate but if you were in their position it's what you should be doing right like if if you were suddenly andrew friedman that is the approach you need to take to load the playoff dice as much as possible and it all makes sense under that guys and and to the point that you know you're saying you brought up their their flame out of of last year's uh playoffs against the diamondbacks like so much of this offseason already before before i mean like right after it happened everyone's like lol dodgers right like i i saw

chad moriyama saying this and and he's obviously a partisan for you know he's a fan of the dodgers not that he's afraid to criticize them but he is a fan uh probably even more than i am and like i think he made the valid point that like the expectations of the dodgers were basically here already like you know you mentioned people said oh that's it they're they're the baddies now but like they were they were there right i mean like they were maybe likable baddies but they were everyone expected them to win. And when they lost, it was a lol worthy event. Yeah. There were reasons to dislike the organization, whether it was the Bauer signing or the crime spreadsheet or, you know, whatever.

Right. But but the players themselves. Yeah. Pretty likable for the most part. But it was because of the expectations that the the club has created for themselves when when they didn't succeed on and and by succeed i mean win a world series like you know people again say the only one they've won is this this shortened season one it doesn't really count like this this all this stuff is held against them already so to your point about like embracing being the heel in these moves like i, I think, I think that's actually very much what these moves are. They're saying like, we've got these expectations,

uh, both internally and externally, like, let's just go try and meet them as best we can. And, and that's what the motivation here is. And, and I ended our transaction analysis today,

kind of saying like the, the most common refrain I saw from the 2020, about the 2023 Dodgers were along the lines of, you know, remember when they started Lance Lynn in an elimination game and the Dodgers do. Right. Yes. That's what this. Yeah. The Dodgers remember, you know, like this is they remember that and they did not keep him around. They had an option for him and and they went and did this instead. And this is a reaction to that. Yes. And obviously now, if they lose again in the playoffs, then the mockery will be amped up. Absolutely.

And if they win, then everyone will say they bought the championship. You did what you were supposed to do. Exactly. So they can't win from a global PR perspective, but that's not really your goal. Right. I mean, they can't care about that. And, and to your point about kind of where we started on this, like as a Dodgers fan, I can't care about that. You know, I, I like, I just need to celebrate their winning for winning.

Like I, the, the thing I think that drives people nuts about the Astros and maybe other teams in this situation is, and it's true across so much of our culture and society right now, is that winners can't just win. They have to be liked or they have to be told like they did it right. They have to be righteous or justified. And it's like, no, you know, I'm good with the winning. And I don't mean by any means necessary, right? Like, I don't want them to do crimes.xlsx and things like that. Like, I did not want them to sign Bauer. I wrote about that at the time. But like, I want them to win. And I'm not like, I don't, I don't need other people to appreciate it or to like it. Like, I'm a fan. Like, I'm just, I'm happy with the win. You know what I mean? Like, it's fine with me. And I hope, I hope that's the attitude the organization has. And, and if you're a Dodgers fan, I think

like, that's just where you've got to be is that like, you, you cannot expect or want other people to respect it. They're not going to, that's not how, that's not how it works in the long run. They will write like 20 years from this period, if they win three World Series over the next 10 years or whatever, people will look back and say, you know, they went and did this and that's fine. But in the moment, no, like we're all haters to some degree. And it's just not going to come that way. So you just have to appreciate it on your own terms. You can't have it be about what other people think about your favorite team winning. You just have to appreciate that yourself. Yes. And they're obviously going to be Japan's team

now. They have a rich storied lineage of Japanese players going back to Hideo Nomo. Yamamoto himself was a Dodgers fan. Right. So with Otani and Yamamoto on the same roster now, who knows how much additional revenue people have had projections that have said, you know, these contracts are going to pay for themselves in that and the way that Otani's is structured with the deferrals and they can invest that money and they can make bank before they actually have to pay him. Yamamoto's contract is traditional compared to Otani's, no deferrals whatsoever. So it's sort of easier to understand. I saw Cespedes Barbecue, he pulled out the JG Wentworth on them. I need cash now.

Yeah, right. Look, I don't know that they're the best team in baseball even so, Atlanta's still right up there. And I don't know that the Dodgers are done even, which is going to make people even more mad to say that there might be more moves to make here. But there's some uncertainty in the middle infield, certainly. And, of course, there's the Clayton Kershaw question. I don't know how you feel about this. available, including the best player in the sport and also probably the best pitcher available on the trade market and your nemesis, Joe Kelly, returning. Other than that, you've got to be feeling pretty good right now. So is some part of you like, yeah, but there's still some unfinished

business here. Would this feel incomplete if Clayton Kershaw is not a part of the Dodgers? Yes. Yes. My feeling on Kershaw is I want him, and he seems to want to pitch again, which was the biggest concern for me after his last, you know, the game one against the Diamondbacks, which is for his sake, I just didn't want that to be his last outing. Yeah. And that was my big concern was that given the shoulder injury and the surgery that he might just say this isn't worth it. He's gone year to year the last few years anyway. He's just seemed like, you know, he seems so old. Like he seems like he's in a tier with Verlander and Scherzer.

And he's like four years younger than them. Yeah. And it never feels that way to me. And so there's arguably like, you know, four or five plus more years he can do this at least, you know, 15 to 20 starts a year or something like that. And it just would have been really sad to me if that was the way he went out. And I know a lot of people would have taken joy in it because for various reasons. But like it just to me, like it's not the way you don't get to decide how you go out generally. But like he kind of he probably does to some degree.

And it just would have made me really sad. I really emotionally really, really hope it's with the Dodgers. Right. Like I want him to be a Dodger for life. Like that's something I've written about this, about the Juan Soto trades and stuff that I don't, I do understand it. But like, there's part of me that doesn't understand why teams aren't just saying like, be here forever, right? Like be our guy. And because I'm a fan who I've, I've had Clayton Kershaw, right? His whole career with the Dodgers. And I want that to continue. I want him, I want him to be a one team guy. That's so special these days and rare, and it would mean a lot to me. At the same time, the biggest thing, as I was saying, the biggest thing that I care about is that he gets probably the Rangers those are really I think the two teams

in contention I care mostly that that wasn't the last the last thing we see of him right that that Sam's article about how he's just hangs his head in the dugout isn't like I just don't want that to be the last thing and if it's with Texas I would come to peace with that uh there are a lot of reasons it makes sense to be with Texas. I think Chris Young is like his neighbor or something, right? And he lives there, obviously. And I think he travels back home a fair amount during the season. And that's obvious. That's even if you're flying private, right? Like that's, that's a lot of travel. And so like, it would make sense to me. I could come to terms with that. But, but the biggest thing to me with

Kershaw is just getting him back on a mound and hopefully not an excessively diminished version of him is that's the biggest thing in my mind. And if the Dodgers bring him back, it's insurance. Now I know that usually Kershaw is the guy that you're bringing in insurance for, right? But, but if he comes back from the surgery in the second half or late in the season i know it's like playoff kershaw right like it's yeah you know you're bringing in playoff kershaw to be your postseason reinforcement but who knows uh if they'll lose other guys well we know dave likes to bring them in and relief yes there's that i mean yeah the irony of it of course is like the the r Rangers are also kind of this same kind of pitching staff model of like, there are a lot of elite guys and hopefully they're healthy at the right time. You know, it's they obviously DeGrom and Scherzer are going to be out most of the year. They signed Tyler Molle and who's obviously not on the same level, but like he's going to be out half the year or so.

not on the same level, but like he's going to be out half the year or so. Like, will Nathan, you know, Nathan Evaldi is going to miss time at some point. John Gray is going to miss time at some point. And it's like he's kind of it's just piling variants onto variants with either of these staffs, kind of the way you look at it. But yeah, no, I want him to and I don't know how he sees it. Right. I don't know how if he sees this as like I don't know how, if he sees this as like an enticement to come back to the Dodgers to say like, look at all the options we have, it's not

all on you. Or if it's kind of like, oh, you're replacing me. I don't know. I hope he's part of it. Yes. But maybe we can finish by talking about the teams that missed out on Yamamoto here, because there's no one to pivot to who's in that same kind of class, unless, I guess, Corbin Burns is actually available. That's about it. You can't sign some other free agent who's going to replace the production that you were hoping for from him. And obviously, some of these teams had set their sights on Yamamoto for quite some time and had made the trips to Japan and had earmarked that money for him. And in some ways, I think it's less frustrating that the Dodgers aren't just blowing everyone

away with the money so much, but in other ways, it's more frustrating because if they were just outspending everyone, then if you're a Giants fan or a Mets fan, you could tell yourself, well, we just couldn't compete with the money. I mean, maybe you can't say that if you're the Mets fan and Steve Cohen is your owner at this point, but you know, if it were only money, then you could say it was only money. Whereas now it's not only money. The Dodgers have a lot of money, but they also have other aspects, other traits, other attributes that are convincing these players to come to them. And that feels almost like more of a snub. You know, it's like it's personal then. It's like you were spurned, you know? They weren't just chasing the dollars.

They decided that they preferred this organization. So that kind of hurts, especially if you're a Giants fan, which A, you hate the Dodgers to begin with. So it's doubly worse when you're losing out on a top free agent who's going to your greatest rival. But also when it seems to be part of a pattern, when it's Judge, when it's Correa, when it's Otani and now it's Yamamoto, right? And over and over again. And look, our pal Grant Brisby was saying on Twitter, if you want to attribute this to something, it's probably not the san francisco might have in some circles it's probably primarily the fact that the giants haven't done the job that

the dodgers have done or that a lot of other teams have done in drafting and developing right and so they do not have that core and it's tough to convince the top tier free agents to come there so grant's like look we gotta actually draft and develop well and have an internal core. And then we can play in maybe the second tier of free agents as they did with Lee. And we can convince some of those guys to sign. And then you build yourself up to being able to bring the big guy, right? Who wants the ideal situation. But it's tough. Like if you're the Yankees, obviously they wanted them, although maybe not enough to go to 325. It seems like maybe they topped out at 300. I don't know if that's because they also employ Garrett Cole. Like, do they not want to top the Cole contract? I do wonder if that was part of it, right? That you don't want to.

Yeah. Or if you're the Mets and he's being wined and dined by Steve Cohen and who's meeting with him on multiple continents and it's just not enough. Andined by Steve Cohen and who's meeting with him on multiple continents and it's just not enough. And they've said, or there's been reporting that maybe, you know, they won't just spend that money on someone else. They will hold it, right? We've kind of wondered which way the Mets would be going

after they did their deadline dumping. But I don't know. It's like, on the one hand, it's not great that you have, say, the Rays who are like, we can't afford Tyler Glass now and we'll trade him to the Dodgers, even though we're a contending team that doesn't have a high payroll. And so when you have the Dodgers like absorbing that contract and then also spending on free agents, like it'd be better for baseball probably if a

team like the Rays was willing to just pay Tyler Glass now, you know, you can't complain that much about a team that's always in it. There are plenty of teams that don't spend and don't win and the like the Rays was willing to just pay Tyler Glass now? You know, you can't complain that much about a team that's always in it. There are plenty of teams that don't spend and don't win, and the Rays don't spend that much, as much as they probably could, and they do win. But even so, it'd be nice if they were willing to take that plunge, right? But what do you do now if you're one of the teams that was hopefully penciling in Yamamoto? And the Blue Jays were in the mix too, as they are so often for many free agents. And the Red Sox were reportedly in the running too.

So, you know, they, Tom Werner, their chairman, said they were going to go full throttle this offseason. And I don't know that Tyler O'Neill counts, right? So what do you think the aftermath of this is? Because, like, if you're the Yankees, you've got to get some pitching. So where's that going to come from? signed Blake Snell yeah but everyone I know both in the industry or in the media is kind of just like looking at him through a little bit of a jaundiced eye right like the results are obviously he's won two Cy Young's right like it's but those are the only two seasons he's thrown over 130 innings and again like arguably the Dodgers don't have to care about that but almost everyone else

does and I don't know how many of them want to be on the hook for the kind of deal that Snell is going to get. And again, you're paying for different years, right? That this is, this is Yamamoto being 25 kind of rearing its head again in all these other guys is that none of them are that young. And so you're paying for, and none of them are necessarily necessarily going to be as good even in the short term So you're taking a step down and potential quality and then also buying like more of the downside

Years or not maybe the same number, but you're only getting the down, you know more of the downside here So yeah, it's I mean the trade market is Available to your point about burns. Cease is out there. There are a number of things, but they cost very differently. And that was, that is again, why Yamamoto made so much sense for the Dodgers is that it was only money, right? Like it was only cash. Now it was a lot of cash, but it was only that.

And the other part that seems like a little unfair is like of all the teams if they had missed on him they have a lot of these upper level prospects that don't necessarily have a role on the team right like michael bush is gonna be 26 and might not you know miguel vargas is 23 and might not have a a spot on the team and like they could go out and trade for someone i don't know you know we saw what the yankees already dealt for one soto and for one year of him i it's not that their farm their cupboard is bare but like could it be after they trade for corbin burns or dylan cease it could be close you know i i don't know i i don't think that there is a great option, which is maybe why people are a little more

annoyed with the Dodgers than they might otherwise be if this was kind of a more abundant offseason plan. You know, obviously the Yankees are still looking at Jordan Montgomery. And look, Jordan Montgomery is, I've kind of raised my opinion of him a lot over the last couple years in terms of his ability to Succeed on contact in a way that I I didn't necessarily think was sustainable That's still a rough profile to invest, you know, 180 to 200 million in to me Yeah, you might have to you might just have to swallow it and hope it works But for example, we saw in the world series and i'm not saying he's going to come out like this every year, but he's again over 30. And we saw in the World Series when he was missing a tick and a half after coming back on short rest, he got two whiffs the whole game,

and one of them was a check swing. The margins for him on velocity are, you know, he doesn't need it to succeed like some other guys, but he also is closer to the danger zone than some other guys. You know what I mean? Yeah. And so that worries me, too. And you could just go down the list of available guys and kind of nitpick them like this. So that's the Yankees. that's the Yankees. I, to your point on, on the giants, I saw Grant's colleague, Steve Berman say the giants first round picks since 2010 have accumulated a total of 10.8 war for their careers,

five, 5.4. So half of which came from Joe panic, right? The Dodgers in that time have gotten 68 and a half. Yeah. And it's not like the Dodgers are always getting to draft at the top of the draft either because we're always winning. So, right. So, you know, that is, that is, you're right. That I think that's a huge thing that they need to overcome. And I think, I think a little bit of what it speaks to is, and this is generally not talked about for teams specifically like the Giants, but like the Giants haven't not tried. Obviously they had that 107 win season kind of out of nowhere. But like they've kind of been the same team generally, at least vibes wise, I think around that kind of outlier year.

But it kind of speaks to the value of not that and again, they've tried to swing big, but it speaks to the value of going out and getting someone even if it's not necessarily like the perfect time it's it's to the Rangers strategy right they went and got Semyon and and Seager early and then they went and said like okay you know obviously he got hurt but like Jacob deGrom like look what we have right like we have these guys we're poised to win we're going to keep spending the Giants have made it clear they're going to keep spending but you look at their roster and it's like well what do they have yeah they have some good players like you know wilmer flores has been a huge win for them jd

davis has been a huge win for them they've they've gotten a number of like nifty things they have logan webb but like it's it's not cory seger and marcus semien right like it's they don't have that kind of anchor right and they're trying to get some of these other guys to be in it it's not Corey Seager and Marcus Simeon, right? They don't have that kind of anchor. And they're trying to get some of these other guys to be in it. It's a little unfair, right? They went hard for Aaron Judge. And they almost signed Carlos Correa, right? It's a little unfair in that respect.

Which, yeah, they're probably not really regretting that at this point. No, no, probably not. But you know what I mean? They still don't have that kind of anchor. And they've needed it right they probably needed to go get a different anchor after that and again i know they've tried and they can't seem to get someone to take their money the way that they they want to but it i i do think that's part of it to your point when when you're one of these premium premium free agents like you're looking at the team and saying like okay the money is the same across from from the dodgers to the giants

to the to the yankees to the mets like which team do i want to be on which which organization do i want to be on and who gives me the best chance to win and it's hard to point to the to the giants at that point it's hard to point to the Mets right now. You know, they have different problems. They have, you know, all this kind of stuff. But like, I'm not worried about the Mets long term. But like, if you're comparing them to the Dodgers right now, it's you kind of know where team where players are going to go. Yeah. They're not Dodgers East yet. Yeah. Yeah. I think they'll get there, but not yet. I think the only thing you can say kind of as consolation if you're either of the New York teams in in this regard is Location might have been a factor right like it is an you know

Another five hours in the air that some of these guys might not want to do Yamamoto came up a Dodgers fan The Dodgers were long considered Oh Tani's preferred destination Dodgers fan the Dodgers were long considered Otani's preferred destination uh you know heading into this free agency and it might have just been like their agent's ability to to get the contracts that they got right like to pit other teams you know to involve them like this but you could you could tell yourself well it was always going to be the Dodgers and that might that might actually be true but it doesn't kind of change the implied flaws of making that choice, of those free agents making those choices. Yeah. And the Dodgers have picked their spots and they haven't retained everyone. They didn't get Seager back. They

didn't seem to make much of an effort at keeping Trey Turner, right? But they have managed to have that underpaid relative to production portion of the roster that does allow them to splurge and go get the elite talents. And those are the ones that they have really broken the bank for. Right. Like when they're going to spend, they're going to spend on Mookie Betts. They're going to spend on Freddie Freeman or Yamamoto or Otani. Right. And those guys don't come along that often. or Otani, right? And those guys don't come along that often, but when they do, the Dodgers are in a position to spend on them without completely breaking the salary scale because they get more out of some players than you would think given their salary. And that's not really something

you could say about the Yankees or the Mets at this point. They might spend as much, but they're not getting the bang for their buck. So is there any part of you that feels bad about this, that feels guilty? Because after- My heel moment? Yeah, well, after the Mets spending spree last offseason when other owners in front office people were complaining, we had some Mets fans emailing us and saying,

I feel vaguely guilty about this, or I feel like I'm not going to be able to enjoy this as much if they win, which obviously their results show that there's no such thing as buying success with any kind of guarantee. But they felt, and maybe it was because they were coming off of the Wilpon years and it was just unfamiliar to them. And so in one way, it was really refreshing and exciting, but another way it was like, is this the way to do it? Like, do we deserve this? This is not our reputation. This is not the way we operate. Has any of that external criticism gotten to you about we're not doing it in a way that we can feel super proud of, or we're taking the easy way out,

as people say about Otani? Do you know the Stephen A. Smith gif where he just says, we don't care and laughs and then says, we don't, we don't care. That's where I'm at. Like, no, no, I don't. And again, like if that's being the heel, like that's fine. I think you need to accept that on some level. Like people aren't going to like it. And I don't fault them for not liking it I'm not saying they're wrong for not liking it but you don't have to like it I I I'm the fan of the tape of course I like it like I I don't feel bad you know I I don't even again like I don't get the criticism about buying Championships I like I don't none of that makes i shouldn't say it

doesn't make sense to me it doesn't resonate with me like as a criticism i i don't care it is always fun to to win with your own guys right i mean like that there's no denying that but like what i want to see is is great baseball again like the season's yet to be played, but I think I'm really going to get treated to that all season long. And if they do win the title, like that's what people in our sports culture have decided to care about the most. I've jokingly kind of said,

like I'm just going to be an extreme regular season guy because there's safety in that, right? Like if you're a Dodgers fan, there's safety in the regular season in you're a Dodgers fan there's safety in the regular season in that like they've they've won it a lot and also they're they're likely going to win it a lot more but I actually do like it's true also it's a joke but it's true that like I value the regular season pretty highly in terms of my day-to-day experience is going to be really good I've I've I'm obviously not detached myself as a Dodgers fan,

but I've become more, I guess, sane about it. There was a time in my life where the Dodgers winning or losing would substantially affect my mood that day. And for 162 games over six months, that's a lot. That's a lot of emotional swings to put yourself through and I've I've done better at kind of backing off of that but like am I going to be happier more days than not with this team going forward uh even with extremely high expectations during the regular season I am and that's that's a huge win for me um And yeah, I don't feel bad.

Partially because, as you've said, the Mets made this offer to Yamamoto. The Giants accepted the Otani terms. Other teams could have done this, and they didn't. Or they did, and it wasn't winning. It wasn't the winning bid. And I don't know. Why should I feel bad about

that? Um, I, you know, I would potentially get to a point where like, if I thought it was bad for the sport, maybe I would say that, but still not feel bad as a fan. I don't, I don't even think we're there. I think it's possible you can get there, but I, I'm not even sure we're particularly close and maybe I'm biased in that. I don't know if you feel the same way. But no, I don't. Yeah, I don't feel bad. All right. So you heard it here first.

Craig Goldstein will bathe in your tears if you are crying about the Dodgers. By the way, it was reported by Ken Rosenthal, as we've been speaking, that the opt-outs are after years six and eight of the deal. The deal is somewhat backloaded, which is not unusual. So he would be opting out of higher salaries if it comes to it, but obviously won't have to worry about that for several seasons. So thank you for breaking this down with us. And I don't know if you've persuaded anyone with your defenses of the Dodgers here, but much as it's hard to hate individual Dodgers, even if you hate the Dodgers as an entity right as it's hard to hate individual Dodgers, even if you hate

the Dodgers as an entity right now, hard to hate Craig Goldstein as a representative of the Dodgers fan base. So thanks for coming on and suffering the slings and arrows here of people who want nothing to do with Dodgers fans right now. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure as always. And please subscribe to Baseball Perspectives. We love Baseball Perspectives. Pakoda is out right now. You can go get the projections. The coverage is always fantastic. Listen to Craig on Five and Dive. Everyone, please support BP's efforts.

It's a wonderful website. It's where I started. I'll always have a soft spot for it. And you're doing a great job. Thank you, Craig. Thank you. All right. That will do it for today and for this week.

Thanks, as always, for listening. Thanks to Craig for filling in. Thanks also to an uninvited guest, my dog Grumpkin, who couldn't stop herself from weighing in from time to time on this episode. Also, Fangraph's Dan Zimborski let me know that Zips projects the Dodgers for 96 wins in 2024. Not so super sounding. Zips has the Braves a few wins better than that. A few follow-ups from last time, we mused or Meg mused about the appropriate verb to use to describe putting a hockey team on the ice, as in fielding a group of baseball players. Well, listener Triumph let us know it's to dress, as in roster moves are allowed during the NHL's roster freeze if a team can't dress a full squad, as listener Jewfish replied, so they just can't undress a player during the freeze, probably because they'd get cold.

I almost made a joke about the NHL having a roster freeze because it's cold on the ice. We also answered an email from listener Tim, who has been to every ballpark in Major League Baseball or the affiliated minors, except for one. That one, I've learned, is Atrium Health Ballpark, home of the Kannapolis Cannonballers, the Carolina League affiliate of the White Sox. He'd been to the previous Kannapolis Stadium, but got rained out when he tried to go this year. He says he's covered at least 45,000 miles just driving. And we were wondering what mementos he kept.

He says mostly photographs and a big spreadsheet. And he's also documented his travels at a blog, baseballbyways.blogspot.com. I will link to it on the show page. Finally, we talked about the rules surrounding tampering, teams or players expressing interest in another team's players. It's against the rules. However, Brock writes in to say, I thought I had, should it have been considered tampering

when after the Nolan Arnauto trade, he said that he'd been sending friends on the Cardinals his own highlight videos to, quote, show to Moe, as in John Moselec, Cardinals po-bo. Some quotes from a story Adam Wainwright said, the last year or two he's been sending me video when he was trying to get traded over here. He would say, hey, show this to Moe.

He would be in the middle of the offseason taking ground balls down the third baseline and doing his little jump throw from almost the dugout and making a perfect throw. And that's not the only video Arnauto sent. Wainwright says he also by accident sent the entire team a video of him working on his swing late one evening during spring training.

Brock says, based on what you read from the secret rulebook, this sounds like a textbook example of what isn't supposed to be allowed. But of course, the parties are in reverse from the examples we're used to seeing. Rather than a player acting as an extension of a team, lobbying another player to come to their team, this is a player lobbying a team to acquire him, importantly, while still under contract and playing for another team. And yeah, you know, reading the rules, I think that is probably against the letter of the law. I think it might be tampering if you're pitching yourself as a prospective player. But if you're doing it privately, who's going to know?

That's an example of a little story that I don't think I had ever heard, which reminds me to remind you that we are still soliciting submissions for stories that we missed about each team in 2023. It could be an off-the-field story, it could be an interesting stat, something strange that happened in a game. Whatever it is, send it in. We want one for each team and we will run down them all in an episode next week. Meg and I had actually recorded an episode before the Yamamoto news broke that was supposed to be the third one this week. So that one is in the can. Fortunately, it was not an entire episode

of speculation about where Yamamoto would sign. It's a little less time sensitive. So that one is in the can. Fortunately, it was not an entire episode of speculation about where Yamamoto would sign. It's a little less time sensitive. So that pod is wrapped and sitting under the tree. Maybe we'll make it available on Christmas morning as a special gift to those who celebrate, or at least those who celebrate a day off. For now, you could give us the gift of supporting the podcast on Patreon, which you can do by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following five listeners have already done so. They've signed up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad-free, and get themselves some perks. Joe Hildebrand, Christopher, James Eberwein, Thomas Pickles, and Robert Livingston.

Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, access to monthly bonus episodes, one of which we will be posting soon. Meg and I are offering some year-end recommendations, things we watched or read or listened to or played this year. You also get prioritized email answers, potential podcast appearances, discounts on merch and

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and you can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash Effectively Wild. Thanks to me for my editing and production assistance. I handled this one solo. We hope you have a wonderful weekend. We hope you have a great Christmas and Twixmas or Dead Week or whatever we're calling the week between Christmas and New Year's. But we'll be there to keep you company, so we will be back to talk to you early next week. Baseball is a simulation.

It's all just one big math equation. You're all about these stats we've compiled because you listen to Perfectively Wild. With Ben Lindberg and Meg Rowley, you can come for the ball and the ban baseball is a simulation it's all just one big conversation effectively