Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2108: What We Might Remember About 2023

Episode Date: January 6, 2024

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about multiple Mariners trades and follow up on a previous conversation about teams with the most work to do before Opening Day, then (21:07) talk to Pebble Hunting author (and former host) Sam Miller about what (if anything!) will be best remembered about the 2023 baseball season. Audio intro: Daniel […]

Hello and welcome to episode 2108 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought Sometimes that's how I'd describe it I was like no I'm gonna still go let's see if she falls down and you know what steered out of the skid feel steered into the skid I steered in a way that did not result in a crash I heard the the slight falter mid fan graphs and I thought is she gonna make it I was like nope we're gonna keep and high wire artists teetering back and forth and then ultimately avoiding the fall is Is that what they are? Are they artists? Are they athletes? They're doing stuff on wires. We worry for them as do their moms.

Ben, how are you? Well, I'm excited because old friend Sam Miller is rejoining us on this episode today. We're going to talk about what we will remember 2023 by in baseball. We're going to talk about what we will remember 2023 by in baseball. I know we're almost a week into 2024, but we can still look back at what will last, what will stay with us about 2023. It's an exercise that Sam performs every year. Every year.

As always, thought-provoking. So we will provoke some thoughts and express some of our thoughts shortly. But we had to postpone Sam slightly because some news broke shortly before we were going to speak to Sam. Yes. And even though we just had the intro theme to this episode, I think we have to play another little ditty here. We have to roll out Michael Bauman to play What Did Jerry DePoto Do? What did Jerry DePoto do? What did Jerry DePoto do? What did Jerry DePoto do? We're going to talk to Mike Rowley about a trade or two.

Because what did Jerry DePoto do? He did a lot. He did a lot. Well, we know he did for sure one big a lot. And there is a potentially looming further allot to be had here. That's not been confirmed yet. But one of the allots has had a press release attributed to it. So that one, that's a done allot, you know?

Yes. He's done allot. So the one trade that has been confirmed, the Mariners have traded Robbie Ray. And his tight, tight pants. confirmed the Mariners have traded Robbie Ray. And his tie-tie pants. And his tie-tie pants to the Giants for Mitch Hanegar and Anthony DiScafani. Yep.

And then the possible second trade that is being worked on. And look, if Jerry's working on a trade. It's probably almost done. Yeah, I believe he can complete it, but may have been completed by the time you're hearing this. But as we are recording, it is conditional that the Mariners and Rays working on a trade that would send Jose Caballero to the Rays and would send Luke Raley back to Seattle. Yep. Out of nowhere. I guess that's typically how a Jerry DePoto trade or trades works. Just drops on us all at once, often on a holiday or the eve of a holiday, but in this case, shortly after one.

So what do you make of this Mariner move or Mariner's moves? Here's the thing I'm going to tell you, Ben. Yeah. I like it. Wow. I like it a lot. You know, I like it. Wow. I like it a lot. You know, I like it. Now, now, now, I want to preface this analysis by saying, could the Mariners have done more? Yeah.

Could they continue to do more? Yeah. Should they continue to do more? Yes. But are they better right now than they were this morning i think that they are ben and i think that they're better in like a way that's uh kind of important so i'm here to say this good job jerry you know wow i gotta hand it to you i'm handing it i'm handing it to you and it is praise wow handing it right over i would like to note one thing that will amuse

maybe only me but that was remembered by friend of the podcast and friend of both of us mike farron which is that jordan schusterman is on his honeymoon and before he left he tweeted about how he expected to come back to either no moves or a lot of moves. And I said that he was daring Jerry to do a move. And you know what Jerry did? He did a lot of moves, potentially even more moves than we are sure he has done as of today. Yeah, you cannot dare DePoto. No, don't dare him. He will take that.

He will take the dare every time. Every time he's going to take a dare. He will take that. Yeah. He will take the dare every time. Every time he's going to take a dare. He is, and I in this particular instance mean this in a praising way. He is the jackass of GMs.

And I don't mean like he is a jackass. I mean he is like the show Jackass. Yeah. Where they're like, let's go do some stuff, you know? Will it hurt? Sometimes, yeah. Will it be always something we look back on with pride? No. But will we make people laugh sometimes? Yeah, yeah. Will it be always something we look back on with pride? No.

But will we make people laugh sometimes? Yeah, we will do that. And today, I mean it in a – I'm in a good mood. I don't know, man. Robbie Ray and his tight, tight pants were only maybe going to help the 2024 Seattle Mariners. And I think – and I mean this as a compliment to Robbie Ray and his representation. I think, and I mean this as a compliment to Robbie Ray and his representation, I think that Robbie Ray rode one really good year in those tight-tie pants into a bigger deal than his production necessarily merited. It happened to be with the Seattle Mariners,

who, as we have said several times this offseason, do not have, well, have decided they do not have unlimited resources to continue to sign big league players. And so it is too strong to call his contract an albatross, because it is not big enough for that. And because when he comes back from Tommy John surgery, I expect that Robbie Ray will be a productive big leaguer, if not quite as good a big leaguer as that one good season or this contract

entailed. But here's the thing. He wasn't going to help the 2024 Mariners until maybe mid season. And the Mariners, as we have noted are very good at developing pictures and helping pictures improve and they have a really good rotation they had a really good rotation without robbie ray you know uh and so now they have satisfied at least one of their big big needs which was a corner outfielder is it hilarious that the corner outfielder that they have is literally Mitch Hanegar?

It is indeed hilarious, Ben. Because I don't know if people remember this, but Mitch Hanegar has previously been a Mariner. He has been at times for them, he was a quite productive Mariner. He was an oft-injured Mariner. But when he was on the field, he was generally productive and useful to their team. I think that having him in the lineup lengthens it considerably. I think that if they complete this trade with the Rays for Luke Raley, that further deepens their lineup. Do I imagine that Luke Raley is necessarily going to be you know the 130 wrc plus player that

he was in 406 plate appearances with the rays last year i mean like you know i don't know maybe maybe not but i think that he is um i think he's a good big leaguer i think he's sorry no offense i think that both of them are better than taylor tramm and Cade Marlowe, even though Cade Marlowe, I'm just like, what a cool name. That's like a spooky season name, Cade Marlowe. Doesn't he sound like a villain in an Edgar Allan Poe story? Or like a private eye. Oh, yeah, doing a little auditory approximation there, but I'm picking up what you're putting down. So I think that having, we'll just assume for the purposes of this conversation that by the time people hear this, yes, Hanager and Luke Raley will be members of the Seattle Mariners organization. I think that Hanager, Raley, Julio outfield is a meaningful upgrade from the Trammell, Julio, Cade Marlow outfield is a meaningful upgrade from the trammell julio cade marlo uh outfield and even if all of those guys aren't either as good as they were last year remain healthy which are questions that we

can have for both of them there's like just considerably more depth here than there was uh 24 hours ago in a way that i think is good and makes them better. And they did it by trading a player in Robbie Ray, who wasn't really going to probably be a huge, huge help to them in this season anyway. Whatever they get out of Di Scolfani is sort of like, you know, extra from my perspective like that's a nice thing they do clear some room beyond 2024 the way that this trade uh is gonna work is that like from a 2024 payroll perspective they are i think basically perfectly balanced um versus where they were at the beginning of the day where san francisco sending a little money to seattle and so between hanager and De Scalfani, you know, with the, the, the ray of it all, like it all kind of offsets, but they, you know, they have some

additional payroll flexibility going forward. Wouldn't be a marriage trade without cash considerations being involved. And like, whatever, that part doesn't matter so much to me, but like, in terms of the improvement of the big league roster for 2024 this feels like it has accomplished that goal and that hasn't necessarily been to my mind the primary motivation behind some of their other moves this offseason particularly in the trade market and so i appreciate that being a focus here and while they haven't had really great position player depth like moving caballero like they have a couple of those guys you know um like that kind of depth is something that they have a fair amount of on the roster and so i think that they will you know not miss cabby although and he has not responded because he is a professional who i am

sure is busy but i will say that i did message jeff and ask if this is simply so that he can get a death cab for caballero promo of his very own you know he didn't confirm that but i think we can assume that this was this trade maybe had that side benefit in mind. So I like it. Again, we'll close with the same thought I opened with, which is like, I hope that the Mariners continue to do more to improve their big league chances for the coming season. I continue to invite John Stanton to remember just how much money he has individually and how that money could be deployed to make his club better if he decided he cared to. But within the confines that they have been given, I think that this, like I said,

makes their roster for the coming season appreciably better. And to that, I say, good job, Jerry. Wow. Well, this is refreshing, man. Yeah. This is unfamiliar. A positive reaction to a Mariners move. We haven't had one of these in a while. And I don't want to overstate things, you know. Like, I don't think that this move takes them from being, you know, like, where they were in the West to, like, the best team in the American League. I don't think that this makes them the best team in their division. team in their division but when you look at this roster now all of a sudden you know your lineup has like it has some jp crafter and it has some julio and it has mitch garver and it has mitch

hanegar we just love mitch's it has cow early and maybe has luke rayleigh like there is this is a considerably better starting group than uh it was 24 hours, assuming that they get the Rayleigh piece done. And I'm happy to be able to say that because I hate having to keep telling my dad, so about your expectations. Now he can, you know, you can raise them a little bit in a way that I think is good. So that's good. I continue to invite Jerry to think about the timing of his transactions and what's going on with that but that's not my business i understand this move less from san

francisco's perspective in terms of the um like super great appeal of robbie ray but they had a lot of outfield surplus um and they deepened that outfield surplus when they brought in Zheng Huli. Yeah, it just became, what if we made the whole team out of outfielders? Right. And so now they're like, what if we made the whole team out of some outfielders and also Robbie Ray and his tight, tight pants? So that's a different question than at the beginning of the day. And so, okay, good. Yep. Yeah.

So we'll see whether Ray recovers from the flexor tendon and UCL reconstruction repair, I had elbow surgery after three more innings. So it didn't go great, but maybe it'll go better in San Francisco. And I guess the Razor may be sort of selling high on Raley. I know that he was a little bit of an ex-Woba, batted ball quality over performer. But then again, Caballero really sort of sank as the season went on. Right. The second half, the post-All-Star break, the last few months were pretty rough, whether that means the league catching up to him or not. I don't know.

But yeah, it didn't end as well as it started. So maybe they're both sort of moving on before things get worse. But I guess each thinks that they'll be better off with the one they're getting or at least that it'll better fill their positional needs. Yeah. Yep. Okay. Well, Jerry gave us some excitement today. And I also saw an amusing tweet by Andrew Baggerly that apparently there was a no trade clause that Robbie Ray had.

Is this right? That he had a no trade clause in 2022 and 2023 that then converted to a $1 million trade assignment bonus in 2024. Yeah. And I think Mitch had a trade assignment bonus of a million dollars also. Okay. And so this is part of the cash perfectly offsetting. I see. But he waited, I guess, less than a week after the no trade clause didn't apply to trade him. Yeah. That seems like it is true. Yeah, you better get yourself a no trade clause if you're going to go play for Seattle. I mean, assuming you like playing there and want to stay there.

Right. Yeah. I'll say this. Maybe you want to not have a no trade clause. That was a disjointed way to say maybe you don't want to prioritize that in the contract because sometimes it sounds like people enjoy leaving seattle so maybe you want to leave your options well i hope betcha digger didn't enjoy leaving seattle and now he's like just when i thought i was out yeah they pulled me back in is this this continues a proud and i'm doing air quotes here tradition of mariners gms like maybe kind of kidnapping a guy who doesn't want to be in the org anymore question mark because jack z like they made an offer to kendrys morales and and kendrys was like no and then they were

like how about a qualifying offer and he was like once again no and then he didn't sign until like june in 2014 because you know he had the qualifying offer as like this millstone around his neck so he signs with minnesota and then and then and then he got traded he got traded to the mariners and so i was like jack are you kidnapping this guy this is a kidnapping situation yeah it's like taken we have talked about that apparent tendency for pobo's gms when they go to a new team, sometimes they acquire guys from, yeah, like David Stearns trading for Adrian Hauser or others, right? That happens sometimes. But in some cases, maybe both parties are willing.

In others, maybe it's like, I can't get away from this guy, but you do not control your own fate as a professional athlete. So if some pobo fixates on you and decides that he really wants you on your team, then he could just keep going and getting you, even if you escape for a while, unless you get a no-trade clause that you can prevent that from happening.

But hopefully Mitch Hanegar is happy to be back or at least not upset to be back. Yeah. I mean, people like Mitch Hanegar. I've heard Ryan Divish describe him as boring and a nice way because he just plays baseball and does baseball. Again, would we bet the over on how many games he'll play? No, we wouldn't do that.

But when he plays, Ben, he's good. He's a good baseball player. You know, does he always play? No. But like, and I don't want to know more about some of the injuries again. Now I have to think about this again. But like, I think it's good. I like it.

I think it's good. Okay. Well, happy for you that you can feel happy about some Mariners moves. It's a nice change. And when we talked on our last episode about teams that needed to do something, that the pressure was on, that to satisfy their fans, they had to finish the offseason strong. I think you mentioned the Mariners. Yeah.

But I moved on very quickly. Yes. I moved on very fast. But we talked about a bunch of other teams. I guess the Giants were one of those teams. I don't know whether this gets them closer to satisfying fans, but they did something. And then we talked about the Mets and we talked about the Cubs, maybe most of all, and the Blue Jays, et cetera, et cetera. It dawned on me afterward that maybe we could have mentioned the Orioles and the Twins. I hadn't considered them maybe because they've set expectations so low. That's

the thing. Like, you know, if the Red Sox come out and say, oh, we're going full throttle, then you expect them to do something. I just never really even expect that the Orioles will do anything until proven otherwise, right? So, I mean, they have a good team, I guess, without doing anything. So maybe that takes the pressure off them somewhat. But also, they really just haven't done much of anything except adding Craig Kimbrell, which is possibly subtraction by addition. Who knows?

It doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. Possibly subtraction by addition. Who knows? It's not it doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. So and, you know, meanwhile, a few players moved on Gibson and Flaherty and Hicks and Frazier, etc. So, you know, they've been squarely in the OK, are we going to spend at some point? Are we going to trade some of these excellent young players we have to shore up some positions where we have needs and they haven't shown that they are willing to do that yet. So I would say some pressure is on them or should be on them. They certainly have oodles of payroll room to make upgrades with and they, as good as they are, still have areas to upgrade. So, and the twins also. Much of their rotation. Yes, exactly. And the twins also were one of the teams that was like, probably going to trim payroll. Yeah. And so, yeah, I didn't think of them initially because I was thinking of teams that had talked a big game or at least like seemed likely to do things.

I wasn't thinking so much as teams that maybe should or could do things but were less likely to. But, yeah, those came to my mind belatedly. And the Mariners, they did some stuff too. So that's nice. Yeah. All right. Well, we will take a quick break and we will be back to talk to Sam Miller about what we will remember from 2023. But wait, before we take that break, here I am again in the slightly less distant past

over the sweet strains of what would Jerry DiPoto do to confirm that he did, in fact, complete the Caballero for Raley trade. Caballero's got a good glove. He could play all over the field or perhaps at shortstop. And then the Rays turned right around and showed that Jerry DiPoto isn't the only one who can make multiple trades in the same day. They sent Andrew Kittredge to the Cardinals for Richie Palacios. Maybe that's not quite as exciting. But here's something exciting. Sam Miller, coming right up.

What did Jerry DePoto do? What did Jerry DePoto do? We're gonna talk to Meg Rowley about a trade All right. We are rejoined by Sam Miller, co-founder of Effectively Wild, former host of Effectively Wild, current author of the Pebble Hunting Substack. Hello, Sam. Welcome back. Hi, Ben. Thank you. How's the newsletter life suiting you? Hmm.

Boy, what a complicated question. That is an outrageously complicated question. Yeah, I guess that's not your standard greeting that you can answer without thinking about. Yeah, I mean, I enjoy it and it suited me very well. I'm a person who feels a real void when I don't have an authority figure in like my life or in the world. So there is something sort of like I constantly feel like I'm trying to find where the ground is. And so is it unsettling at times? Does it suit my lifestyle and creative brain as well? Yes. And has has response been gratifying and fulfilling?

Very much so. Yeah. It seems nice to just write when you have something to write about and to only write about things that you're interested in writing about. Those seem like good things. Yeah, it is. Yeah. Well, you just wrote about one of those things, which is the thing that you write about every year for the past several, which is what we will remember the past year in baseball by. And you've been doing this every year since 2017. And I guess you were wrong right off the bat, although it wasn't really your fault because 2017 is the sign-stealing year now,

which you could not have known in 2017. So I think that... I could have. It was actually, in retrospect, it was very obvious. I don't know how we didn't know it. It was super-duper obvious. Yeah. You didn't listen closely enough.

Yeah, like random White Sox relievers noticed it. Why didn't we? I watched more Astros baseball than the White Sox did. I should have figured it out. Yeah. Well, I guess that the year of Aaron Judge and Jose Altuve, because one was very big and one was very small, and they were both very good at baseball, that has since been supplanted by side stealing. Can I just real quick interrupt about that? Because I think I actually specifically said, maybe, I think I specifically said it was the year of the Altuve Aaron judge picture. Okay. Where they're on the base and, uh, but I might not have, but I think I might have.

And, uh, on a slight tangent, well, we're going to, I don't know, on a slight tangent, we're going to talk about, I think how, Shohei Ohtani was this breakout phenomenon, but also in some ways was not because he didn't really escape the baseball world all that much. And one exception to that is that he was the AP male athlete of the year, which I thought, oh, wow, okay. So he was the AP male athlete of the year. That's a pretty big deal. male athlete of the year. That's a pretty big deal. And then I noticed that, in fact, five of the last 10 AP male athlete of the year were baseball players, which like, what is going on at the AP? Like, no, they weren't. Come on. There have not been five baseball players in the last 10 years that were the global athlete of the year, not a chance.

And one of them- Was it Otani a few times or? Otani twice. Otani only twice. And Judge. Judge, which makes sense. And then Madison Bumgarner in 2014. And then. That's weird. And then, but then the reason that we're bringing this up and Jose Altuve in 2017.

And I was talking to someone about how that happened. And I said, it's the picture. He was in the picture. Yeah. The picture is still pretty big. You still see the picture all the time. I mean, it's big and small. That's why we like the picture. Yeah. But that was a weird case in that what turns out to have been the biggest story of that year didn't surface until two years later, which I guess happens from time to time, usually related to cheating scandals, but that's not the norm. So how good do you think you are at this? Aside from that case where the thing that turns out to be the biggest story wasn't even reported in that year, which is, again, unusual.

Do you think you're good at assessing while a year is still happening what the biggest story of that year was? Or if you were to go back, like, what's your hit rate, do you think? Oh, man. Yeah, no, like, I was really good at the 20th century. Like, I'm looking at that list and I nailed them, all of them. Very little has changed about how we remember the 1938 season. I got that one right. But otherwise, I think pretty, pretty bad. It's either super obvious or I did pretty bad. I still get people, well, anytime I

deign to mention the 2021 Giants, I still get people going, Shohei Otani was a bigger story that year. Like, cause I had said that I thought that it could be that NL West race that turns out to not be a popular opinion and probably not an accurate one. So what else have I said? Do you, did you check? No, but I do wonder. Did you want me to prep for this segment where i didn't know what question you were going to ask me first i did not prep you to answer that question but i just wonder whether you need the historical perspective or whether we're actually pretty good at telling maybe we need a bigger sample because you've only been doing this for six or seven years but should we should we should we go back i mean can someone edit this so that it's

not quite a horrible slog if we just go back and figure out what I said? Sure. Oh, man. Well, my 2008 pick is awful. My 2008 pick is obviously wrong. Yeah, I was going to say Barry Bonds got blackballed. No, no. Sorry, sorry. I meant 2018.

Okay. I was going to say that in my mind, at least, 2008 is the first year of PitchFX, but I don't know that that is true for many other people. But 2018, what was your pick that year? The Supreme Court ruling that gambling, sports gambling was legal, basically legal, you know, in any state that wanted it to be. Wow. I think that's a great pick. in any state that wanted it to be. I think that's a great pick. It's the most consequential thing that happened that year,

other than, you know, I mean, maybe other than other things, like Otani debuted. But is it known? Like, does anybody know that that ruling came out? If you had asked me what year that happened, I would not have known. Yeah. I knew. So, okay, so maybe that is the right answer, and I got it. It was the right answer to me, okay good all right i because i knew i'm haunted by sports gambling

every day every day i feel like there's a ghost and it just keeps running around my office 2019 i said juiced ball yeah yeah that's pretty good The question at the time was always, will we remember 2019 as the juiced ball year or we will remember like maybe 2017, which was another peak juiced ball season, or maybe 2015 when the juiced ball debuted midway through, or will we remember the whole five-year period, four-year period? But I think juiced ball, there's a lot of home run things that year that happened. And otherwise, unless the Astros scandal broke. Yeah, the story breaking. Yeah. think juice ball there's a lot of home run things that year that happened and otherwise unless it the astros yeah the story breaking yeah yeah it's a pretty big deal yeah um then 2020 was obvious so yeah no credit for that and then 2021 i i said the nls race and others said the i think i was actually on this show and i also may have said the Otani MVP, his first like sort of full flourish season, which is reasonable. But I do, going back to what I wrote and what we'll probably talk about, I do think players, you know, time compresses.

And I think that players do tend to get remembered for a season or like a sort of a, you know, like how biopics these days, they no longer, now they focus on one, like, steep jobs, like giving the presentation or whatever. And so, players, I think, tend to get remembered for one burst, one season. And I think that 23 has definitely surpassed 21. And so, 21 kind of fades a little bit yeah yeah okay yeah I yeah I still don't I don't know if the DNO West race I mean maybe that was definitely it was more good was one of the most enjoyable storylines of the season even for someone who's not a Giants fan but like if they had ended up winning the world series maybe but i think i'm i think the fact that both teams were immediately eliminated like as quickly as they could be upon facing each other made it better i have a very i mean you know i have a very specific relationship to that season

that is the season i will remember over all other baseball things in life, except for 2015 Pacific Association. So, I have, I just don't have the necessary distance from that season. I think that it's justified. I could write, you know, I could write a defense of it, but people don't feel that way. And so, I'm wrong. Yeah, this is kind of about how other people feel. That's exactly right. Yeah. And I don't know where I said 2022, my thought about 2022. And I don't know that I remember. Oh, well, yeah.

Aaron Judge hit 61 home runs probably was the thing. Well, I think that's pretty much right. Other than, I guess, again, 2017, maybe, which wasn't your fault, really. So, yeah, that's pretty good. Although I guess, if we revisited this in another five or 10 years, maybe we would have changed our minds by then.

But the thing that you started this year's edition with was your realization that normies won't remember anything about baseball this year, which was kind of a depressing, anything about baseball this year, which was kind of a depressing to me way to start this, I guess. And also different from how I felt and maybe also different from how you felt until very recently, because it seemed like this was prompted by your listening to two year-end wrap-ups, one on Jeopardy. How I get my news. That's how I put my finger on the pulse.

As mainstream a source as you could come up with and then hang up and listen, which is more for sports diehards. And neither of them mentioned a baseball story in their highlight reels of things that happened in 2023. And so you said that this was the year when it just finally dawned on you that there's no crossover potential for baseball anymore, that it just doesn't make much of an impression on anyone who is not already in the tent and a baseball fan, which was sort of sad to me. I don't know that it needs to be sad. But you've talked before, I remember on the podcast, just about how you think there needs to be a certain critical mass of people caring about something, right? In order for you to care about it or for you to enjoy it as much as you can, right? Like you need to have a feeling that it matters in a larger sense, that it's not purely something you care about, right? Or that it, that enhances things at least, if there's a sense that it's not purely something you care about, right? Or that it,

that enhances things at least, if there's a sense that there's kind of a larger cultural interest in a topic. Am I imagining this? No, no, that's right. I mean, there's, I think that, so there's a, there's a concept called mimetic desire that says basically that humans are the only species that needs to be told what to desire. And we basically take our cues from other people's interests, other people's desires, tastes, etc. So I do think that like a lot of, I mean, I don't think a lot of, I think like literally every thought that we have is socially constructed. And so when the social construction changes around an idea or a topic or whatever, then so too do our relationships to it.

And baseball, yeah, I think that it isn't that you need to have it be football. It doesn't need to be the monoculture for you to love it. We love all sorts of things that are kind of niche tastes or sort of siloed off. In some cases, we love them more because we feel like they are ours and that we aren't sharing them with our grandparents or whatever. But it changes things. And I think that there are a handful of institutions or topics or I don't know. I don't know what word I'm looking for here. topics or I don't know, I don't know what word I'm looking for here, but where even if you're not into them, you feel a social pressure to be up on them, to be kind of aware. Like they're part

of the national story and you don't want to be left out. So you're sort of following it. And I kind of came to the conclusion this year that baseball has left that. It is no longer that. Football is that. And maybe the NBA is that and certain other things. Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift is a great example. But baseball is not that. It used to be, and it's not that anymore. And as I wrote, I don't think that that means that baseball is failing in any way as an enterprise. There's plenty of energy on this planet to grow lots of food for us all. It's just that like we are now an isolated planet. Things do not escape our planet. They just, we live for us. We watch baseball for us. And it's a little bit of a shift, I think, that probably has ramifications that I haven't fully thought through.

I just thought that was a surprising year to have that epiphany in, because to me- Well, that's why I have the epiphany. Yeah. It was this year in particular. I guess that's true. Yeah. I guess I just felt like this of the examples that you mentioned that were mentioned on Jeopardy, for instance, like a Jake Paul boxing match or Novak Djokovic winning three Grand Slam titles, which, you know, that's big global news. But in the U.S. specifically, I wouldn't say that that's bigger news than, I mean, baseball rules changes were a big story this year in the U.S., I think. They were like a pretty big mainstream crossover story that even people who don't care about baseball heard about and maybe cared about to some extent. I know that

people were asking me about it anecdotally or I was doing interviews or whatever about Shohei Otani or about rules changes, things like that more so. Like the WBC obviously was big on a worldwide scale, but maybe didn't crack the U.S. sports consciousness beyond baseball that much. But the rules changes specifically and Otani to some extent, too. I mean, I think those should be on those lists. Maybe it's just that rules changes is sort of a diffuse thing. It's not like that all happened one day and it was a single day story. It was a season long story. But in terms of like cumulative magnitude of that, I think that was a crossover mainstream story.

So I just disagree. I actually, I don't disagree. I mean, either it would have been perfectly like I, if baseball had been mentioned in those roundups, I wouldn't have thought it was weird. But you know, the fact is that they weren't. And there is, I do think that it is to us, we have that a little bit of that Pauline Kael quote about how everyone we know follows baseball. So, what do you mean baseball is not popular? Which is not what she was talking about. She was talking about, I think, Nixon. Anyway, what was I saying about Nixon? Were we talking about Nixon? Yeah. Our perception skewed because people talk to us about baseball stuff. So, let me just tell you this, that the New Yorker in late 2021 profiled Jake Paul as a boxer. And the New Yorker, I think since then, has had one baseball piece in their pages in their magazine. And it was about the yips, which is not exactly like, I mean, that's like a pretty New Yorker. That's like a pretty esoteric New Yorker topic to write about. And so

you're probably underestimating how many more people you know, or you are eating at the diner who are aware of Jake Paul's boxing career. And then under it, I mean, the rules, come on. Like the rule, nobody who doesn't follow baseball cared about the rules, I don't think. I don't think, I don't think. I think they cared. I think they cared, but I think you're right

that the fact that it was this like persistent sort of everyday shift in the way that people consumed baseball and experienced baseball was the difference like if the biggest baseball thing had been something that happened in the world series i think that makes the highlight real but like yeah the rangers won a world series and that you know that hadn't happened before but it wasn't uh an individual event it was sort of the thing you had to pay attention to every day and then the thing about the rule changes is like as you know like they happened and they weren't they were a lot but they also weren't anything right like it didn't change the strategy of the game in a fundamental way it didn't you know have any of

the big potential side effects that we were thinking it might. It just like made things zip along better and faster. And so we didn't see it anymore because we were like trained to not to, right? We forgot about the pitch clock. So I think that that's a big part of it too. Like it speaks to the success of the thing, but also as part of why it maybe faded from people's notice. So that's my theory. Yeah. I don't underestimate Jake Paul's fame. Like I think Jake Paul's probably better known than any baseball player. We should never underestimate how many YouTubers are known to how many people because you're shocked every time you look at the numbers and you're like, how many people follow this guy? Like what's going on? Yeah. That boxing match specifically, I think 450,000 people watched or at least paid to watch which is just that's a

lot how much do they pay like six dollars what is the cost it generated 27 million dollars in revenue i guess what 60 bucks is what it says the ppv price for paul versus diaz is 59.99 okay so like can i sorry can i be distracted be distracted by Jake Paul for a second? So like how, what percentage of that audience is, I'm going to do a story, just like really hoping to see him get the shit kicked out of him though. Like what is the, what is the hater looking audience for something like that? I don't think it's that big. I think he's, I don't know this.

I don't know anything about this except for a magazine article I read two years ago. But I think he's kind of affable and he has taken it seriously and sort of like earned some grudging respect. Wow, that's terrifying. I mean, he is literally, I mean, he is putting himself out there to get hurt. Like he is risking it and he keeps going back. I think there's a, anyway, I said what I had to say. Yeah. Wow.

No, I think you might be right. I don't disagree. I mean, I don't share that view, not with you, but anyway. Yeah. The New Yorker, by the way, had a cover that was pitch clock centric at least. I don't know if there was a story that went with it, but there was a cover with an umpire holding up a clock in his hand. So there's that. But yeah, I don't know. I mean, Jake Paul's more famous for non-boxing related reasons, I guess. I don't know how many people would pay to watch him,

60 bucks out of spite. So probably the people paying maybe were actually interested in him for other reasons. But I just, I don't know that that, I mean, I'm sure it was a bigger story in some segments of the population than baseball's pitch clock was, but I just, I don't know that that or Djokovic or whatever really was bigger on the whole. I don't know. Maybe my perception is skewed, but this was clearly the year that baseball was a bigger crossover story than it had been in some time. So, if your conclusion is that even when it's at its biggest, it's just not that big, then I understood that. It theoretically would have been at its biggest crossover status in quite some time, but I'm not sure that it was. And just to be clear, I'm not like rooting for this. I'm defending the thesis to some degree, but I'm not like trying to convince everybody. Well, I am a little.

And like in some ways as well, like we got, I lost the crossover, the feeling that baseball was a crossover sport this year to some degree. But we did also gain a real recognition. I think, I don't know, maybe some people knew this from previous WBCs, but there was a real sense that our sport is an international phenomenon in ways that maybe it hadn't quite broken through here. Like to see the WBC ratings and see the WBC ratings even from previous years actually was really eye-opening. And to have that shared experience with international baseball was great. And so, in some ways, the sport really did expand for us this year as well. And I think now everybody's really looking forward to three years from now. Three years? Two years from now? Is it every three years? Yeah. It's not often enough. It's 2026,

right, is the next one, I think. Yeah. But that was heartening. That was refreshing just to see the enthusiasm for baseball in other countries because it's just so often the story about baseball in the U.S. is that it's dying, as you know, for more than a century, right? And that can, even if it's not true to the extent that people think it's true it's still just you you never hear anything other than that and so to see that it's not just like doing well but it's maybe like the most popular thing in other places you know that everyone is using the toilet at the same time in tokyo because it's an innings break in the WBC game, like that was nice to know that that is happening somewhere at least. I think also this was also a year

where I became sort of more aware. I didn't become more aware, but people wrote about how ESPN in general was in terms of its non-live broadcast programming was focusing more on a few big pundits. Like that was sort of one of the business stories of the year as ESPN was putting a lot more behind, like, the sort of, yeah, Pat McAfee, you know. Baseball just isn't really a topic on those shows.

And so, it further kind of created the sense that baseball is siloed away from the rest of sports in a way. And, you know, another thing is that Hang Up and Listen mentioned that Travis Kelsey, Taylor Swift, is one of the sports stories of the year, which it undoubtedly was. Maybe the biggest, actually, to be honest, from a crossover perspective. But even before that relationship, Travis Kelsey had seven national ad campaigns going. And Travis Kelsey is a tight end on a, I mean, he's a good one on a very good team, but a tight end in a Midwestern city. And he had seven national ad campaigns. You couldn't escape him. Whereas, can you think of seven national ad campaigns featuring baseball players? I can't think of any featuring non-Derek Jeter baseball players, except for, I guess, Shohei Otani doing New Balance.

And maybe is Clayton Kershaw still doing Handcook? I don't know if that's still running. I don't think that's still running. I think they got our notes about how the pitches were described weirdly and they're like, we got to hang it up. Yeah. Well, that aside, I think this was also a strange year in that the things that it's most likely to be remembered for were pretty easily identifiable as those things before the MLB season started. Because we knew the rules changes were coming and that those were going to be big in baseball circles, at least. And we knew when the WBC breakout happened that that had happened.

And we knew that the climax of the WBC was going to be almost impossible to top, which I think maybe you wrote at the time. And we said at the time that that was just probably going to be the baseball highlight of the year, Otani versus Trout. And I think it was, I mean, not for Rangers fans, but for many other people, at least. So I don't know how unusual that is. Presumably we're going to get robo zones in the next couple of years. And that maybe will be the story of that year in baseball. And we'll know that going in, but it's probably not in baseball, and we'll know that going in. But it's probably not usually the case that we would know, maybe just because there haven't really been big rules changes recently.

So just the fact that there were any, we knew that was a big story. And then the WBC happened before the MLB season started. So I guess if you had asked us what the story of 2023 in baseball would be on April 1st, we would have been just about as right probably as we are now, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's probably true. So, Otani, as you said, your theory is that superstars, legendary players tend to be associated with one season and Otani has already had a few that he could have been associated with. I guess the case for this year is that A, it was his best season. B, it was the WBC season. So we finally got to see him play in meaningful

games that were meaningful for reasons other than the fact that he was in them. And also he signed the big contract and also the weird, unusual contract, possibly precedent setting contract or maybe not, maybe unprecedented and will continue to be without precedent contract. So put all of those things together. continue to be without precedent contract. So put all of those things together. And I guess that's a pretty good case that this will be the year that we think of. Plus you mentioned the fact that he got hurt, right? Which to me, I think if he had not gotten hurt and if he had finished the season strong, then you could have had an even better case based on his on-field performance because he might have had, you know, best season since whenever, as opposed to just most impressive season since whenever,

because he was on pace to get up into pretty rarefied territory, war-wise, where we could have said it was the most valuable season since whenever, and he was sort of deprived of that. In July, I think he was on pace to have the second best season since Babe Ruth's record season. And yeah, that would have been a whole different thing if he'd done that. And we also might have, I mean, I don't know.

He probably wasn't a Cy Young contender if he'd been. Probably not. Probably not. But yeah. So the fact that the season sort of ended with a thud a little bit just because he wasn't pitching and I guess offensively like didn't quite keep up the home run pace that he had there for a while. That sort of sapped from it in that sense. And like winning another unanimous MVP award, I guess it's historically impressive, but maybe not quite as memorable as the first time he did it. So I don't, if it were purely the on-field performance aspect of things,

I think maybe 2021 would still stand out as just the first time he put it all together and proved that it could be done in MLB. So I have a question for, I guess I have a question for you, Meg, So I have a question for you, Meg, and for you, Ben. But I hear people who have assignment editors, assigning editors. I mean, all I heard this year was how the thirst for Shohei Otani content was like nothing that we've seen in baseball since, maybe since Barry Bonds was simultaneously breaking home run records and also being indicted. Like, that was the last time that the media was basically following a player the way that Shohei Otani was this year. And that there would be like, you know, that the news meetings would basically just be like, okay, what are the next 10 Shohei Otani pieces? Meg, my question for you is, did Shohei Otani pieces, like, kill numbers-wise?

Or did it just feel like we were supposed to be writing about him because that's what everybody was talking about? No, people really wanted to read about Otani. Those pieces did very well. um those pieces did very well i don't obsess over the page use for every piece that runs at fan graphs but one barometer that i use that i feel like is a pretty reliable indicator is like the the trending player uh list if you go to like search um for a player page or or the blog more generally you know like right now people are really interested in dylan cease because like he might get traded. And Michael Brantley just retired.

And Harrison Bader just signed. And Robbie Ray and De Scalfani and Hanager just got traded. So Luke Raley, too. So, like, you know, these are like the folks who our readers are searching for. And it could be a day that Otani wasn't scheduled to start and was like getting a random day off and he would almost always still be on the trending player page um so people were just like what's he up to you know what do his stats look like now i think particularly before he got hurt and it and it did seem like he might set new sort of war uh milestones people were, they really wanted to know about him all day, every day, every day. So, yeah, I don't think it was artificial. And people had, you know, our staff just like had

new stuff to say about him. I didn't have to prod people to write about Otani very much. People were just like, hey, you know who's really good? Otani. I'm going to go see what I can say about him that's new. I don't think anyone really good? You know, Otani. I'm going to go see what I can say about him that's new. I don't think anyone ever asked me to write about Otani because I was already writing about Otani. Please stop writing about Otani. People might have checked in on Ben for other Otani-related reasons to be like,

hey, so do we need to talk about this? But yeah. Yeah. And Ben, I said I had a question for you too, but I was just trying to include you in the conversation. I don't. Yeah. And Ben, I said I had a question for you too, but I was just trying to include you in the conversation. I don't. Okay. Well, yeah.

Initially, I thought, well, maybe if he goes to the Dodgers and he gets in some postseason games and he has a big series or something, then that will be the year that we associate with Otani. But I don't know that that's true, because actually when you cited the single seasons that we associate with a bunch of famous players, usually not because of postseason heroics.

And I guess there was less postseason in most of those cases, but we don't remember Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams 1941 because of postseason, or Henry Aaron 1974 because of postseason or Mike Trout 2012 because of postseason. Most of those, some of them, maybe we do kind of Willie Mays 54, Bob Gibson 68. But, yeah, that would have been memorable even regardless. Right. So it helps, I guess, but it's not a strong correlation probably. The easy way, though, for him to top himself, I mean, along those lines,

if he simply has a better year than this one, you know, he doesn't necessarily have – if he hits 50 home runs, even 50, like, I mean, maybe he hits 60, but if he hits 50 home runs, then maybe that's the number that elevates one season ahead of another. Certainly, I think if he wins a Cy Young, if he were ever to win a Cy Young. Yeah, if he won MVP and Cy Young as a two-way player,

then I think that might do it. Because otherwise it'd be pretty tough because I think he's raised expectations so much that just having another spectacular two-way season would not be enough to move the needle. He's already done that. So I think probably the first time he did that and proved that he could do it would still be memorable for that reason. But yeah, the combination of WBC, the Trout Showdown, the season he had. And as you said, like the wild stuff the Angels did to try to win and then immediately give up on winning, mostly because it was their last shot with Otani.

And then the contract, you know, for all that to happen in the same year. The contract, I think, is potentially is a really big part of it. The contract, I think, potentially is a really big part of it. Not just that he was a free agent and he monopolized the first couple months of the offseason and signed a big contract, but certain contracts really do kind of last for decades in people's imaginations. People remember, you know, Babe Ruth being paid more than the president. And they remember Alex Rodriguez. I mean, Alex Rodriguez, arguably the most memorable newsworthy thing he did was sign that contract. And so, if Otani is the highest paid player in history for 20 years or 15 years like A-Rod was, then I think that actually is a kind of a permanent part of his story as well, in a way that it's not necessarily for you know

everybody who breaks the previous record yeah so the other possibilities you mentioned other than otani other than the rules changes i guess and the wbc and the climax of the wbc which is related to otani you mentioned some players possibly being banished forever from MLB, Julio Rios, Wander Franco, just the idea that you do something really bad, you might just go away and never be seen again, which remains to be seen whether they will be seen again. But that certainly is a change. I guess you could even say maybe MLB is kind of, I don't know if you could say that it's leading the way there when it comes to like consequences for really long-term lasting, possibly permanent consequences for certain really heinous things. I mean, it feels like in some

sports, football at least, like you can still kind of come back from that. And it's getting increasingly difficult to come back from that seemingly in baseball famous last words, maybe, but another, yeah, we don't know how any of those three stories are going to end. So it's premature, but there, what I kind of maybe wish I'd said more succinctly is simply that the, that the fresh start theory might have died. And like, there used to be the, the fresh start theory might have died. And there used to be the fresh start theory that, well, obviously he can't play with us anymore because he just got arrested for doing something heinous,

but we can trade him to another team where he'll have a fresh start. And that was obviously self-serving kind of nonsense. I mean, how does getting traded and then immediately playing again represent a fresh start? It really is just like everybody wins kind of. Everybody in the transaction wins in their own way. And it felt icky. And I don't know. I mean, we don't know.

All three of those players, for all we know, could end up coming back. And it will necessitateitate a lot of discourse in any case. But I don't get the feeling that there is, like, I don't know. Again, we have small, self-selected acquaintances, but nobody is clamoring for the returns. I mean, I don't know. It kind of feels like non-starters. Like for Bauer right now,

even though he's out trying to get to change public opinion. He's out now actively trying to change public opinion. And do you see anybody? Well, do you see anybody? Yeah. I'm sure you get a lot of replies

saying that he should come back. But people aren't writing in Fangraphs.com saying he'd be a great bargain pickup for the Pirates. No. Like no one is saying that. No, and they're not even pitching it, you know? Right, exactly. No one's even pitching it. I'm not having to exercise editorial judgment on that one. Yeah, yeah.

judgment on that one. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, the fresh start doctrine seems to maybe have expired in the in the 2020 teens. And this year was the year it really kind of became possibly apparent in Major League Baseball. You also mentioned MLB taking over team broadcasts, which just started, but it could gather steam. And if that's the beginning of some sort of league-wide arrangement or the end of local blackouts or whatever it is, then we might look back at that. If we come out on the other side of the cable bubble bursting and that's the new dominant model of sports broadcasting or baseball broadcasting, then maybe this was the harbinger of that. So that's possible. I think that's a good one because it probably wouldn't have even

occurred to me. It was a big story this year in sports business circles, but maybe not really beyond that, but it could have pretty big implications. Yep. And I said everything I know about it in two sentences. all, which seems unlikely, hopefully, but could be until we see otherwise. If Trout bounces back, and some people are probably saying this was the year you realized that Trout declined, but I was with you, I think, until this year because we hadn't seen him play and not be amazing. So he had certainly declined in durability and availability, and that matters a lot. But every time he played, he was roughly as productive as he'd been before until this year.

And it was a different kind of production some years and maybe a way that you thought, oh, this might not work as well long-term, but it was still like on a war per whatever basis. It was still amazing. And then this year it wasn't for the first time. So if he does have another vintage trout year, though, then I guess that erases this as the year that he declined. Does that move it forward till the next year when he declines? Or will this still be the year that he declined in that way for the first time and you'll date it to then,

even if he has a bounce back for a while? Oh yeah, great question. I think that I will not remember this as the year that he declines if he bounces back. If he wins the MVP next year, I will forget this season ever happened. And then the next time it happens, I don't think I will be as stunned or

troubled by it. I think I will have, I will have Hugh glassed it, you know, I've already died. So that was a sad story, though. That was certainly something we talked about a lot this year. Because we knew it was coming. And tried to prepare ourselves for it, I think. Like, we had always said, you know, there will come a day, right? Talking about it since 2014. Yeah. The when will he decline game has been like a permanent part of the conversation. Yeah.

Yeah. And then it happened. And then, yeah. I miss Mike Trout hypotheticals a lot. Yeah. That's what I was going to say. Like, so many of them were like how do we make him worse

what would we have to do to him what weird science would we have to perform to make him a lot worse what if we only let him eat meat and then people started doing that in real life not because of us but probably not people who listen to the show but people started doing that

what if he only ate meat or one time I wrote piece like what if we filled all his pockets with coins and a lot of coins and like would that matter would he hurt himself sliding on the coins you know we like tried to make him worse and at the end of that segment we'd always go you know even though we knew it would come eventually and so i miss i miss those they were fun on their own and also because at the end we would always be like buddy mike trout he's still great oh my gosh i just had the saddest thought what if you start getting hypotheticals about what it would take to make mike trout the best player in the world again okay like what people are gonna ask you like what if he had rocket boosters what if he only had to run 74 feet between bases? Right. How many feet?

How many feet would you have to go down to for Mike Trout to be better than? Right. How much HGH what? Yeah, it would be like. How many coins would have to be in every other player's pockets? Right. How much meat would they have to eat? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. We just, we get as many Otani questions as we ever got about Trout now, but they're... What kind of questions do you get for Otani? What is the general nature of those questions? There's a lot of cloning involved. Some of them have a lot to do with cloning. I think once, you know, Dolly died, like the sheep, Dolly the cloned sheep died. Oh, really? died. Yeah, I think the clone died? I can't remember if it was the Dolly, the sheep has to have been dead for a while, right? Like, how long does sheep live? You know, but like,

or maybe the scientist who cloned Dolly died. Someone related to Dolly died. Apparently. Someone in the Dolly orbit died. Wait, so who died, who died, who died younger? Dolly or the clone? Oh, I mean, probably the...

Probably. Oh, I don't know. Dolly died at age six, less than half the lifespan her species can reach. There's a pretty good chance that her clone outlived her. Oh, the scientist died. The scientist died. And he lived to 79.

I mean, he'd be in both. I was going to say, it makes a lot more sense that it was the scientist because, like, you know, sheep are... This headline is, Dolly the sheep died young. Her cloned sisters, plural, are going strong. Oh, okay. This was in 2016. Right. So, the scientist died this past year, right?

In 2023? Yeah. Recently died. Anyway anyway i clearly remember all the details very carefully but i think that it created a vacuum in the in the clone space people were like oh we got to talk about a different potential clone and so some of them are about um like what what if we cloned otani they also like assume that you can like age him up really fast so there's some of that we we came up with a variety of secondary professions for otani like what if he already does two jobs right so yeah

two-way two-way otani um yeah i wanted to make him like a country lawyer oh yeah and i thought that'd be a great show like a country like but is he a big city lawyer who ends up in the country that was one of the the possibilities yeah like he tires of his so i guess i really made a show about him having to commute was what i designed without thinking about it you know it was the writer's strike for everybody i guess but um a lot of them are about that like what if we made him do a different thing in addition to the thing the two things he already does and how good would he be and what would be the most natural two-way two-way otani a lot of them are about about that you know um we had one about like uh what if somebody looked like him but wasn't a baseball player like could it be useful

in some way i think we had one like that right ben yeah yeah we've had them all i don't he's you say that but we're going to keep getting emails. That sounds like a challenge that you're doing. Yeah. What are you doing, dude? He's just such a human hypothetical that I enjoy talking about Joey Otade as people are aware and we get lots of good questions about him. But I don't know. It's a little less fun maybe just because mike trout was so good but he wasn't really good in an unusual way i mean he just did all the things really well it's like a blank canvas to put stuff yeah yeah he kept getting better at things but they were like normal things for a

baseball player to do as opposed to otani who's off on his own island doing things that other baseball players don't even attempt to do so he he was, he's like already, you know, the reality of Otani is the hypothetical, basically. It's like he's post fun fact now, as I think you wrote. I think we said, you know, I don't need Otani fun facts anymore because he just, you know, he is them. So I wrote that. Maybe you quoted me saying that. I think I quoted you saying that. Well, you wrote it technically in a way.

But the I think the only other possibility you mentioned, which is related to the rules changes is the stolen bases, but specifically Acuna's 4070, which was probably the most visible single effect of the rules changes. You actually said that you think it's more likely that the stolen bases will decrease than that they will increase. And I would have said the opposite. I think I might still say the opposite. And you made a good point, which is that it didn't really increase over the course of the season, except for September, I guess you said, was there was more steel in more running than there had been. But generally, the rate sort of stabilized very early on in the season. I would think that it would increase. I mean, it should increase, right?

Because the success rate is too high. It's over 80%. Like, they should probably be running more. And the long-term trend is toward less stealing, which is why we had these rules changes in the first place. situation where people didn't really take advantage of it because it was like, can we really get away with this? I don't know. And they just didn't really push the envelope. Maybe there will be something similar where season two, everyone will actually run more, maybe. Yeah, it's conceivable. I'm not ruling it out.

And as you noted, I noted September was the highest month. But within, I would say, basically within normal range of the monthly fluctuation, I think that a big part of the reason that people don't steal anymore is not just the run expectation matrix. I think that's what sort of started the downward trend. And it's probably the largest driver over the course of several decades that like for a long time, it was seen that giving away an out was too costly. So it's not worth it. But I think that there's now a lot more of just like, it's not worth it because it hurts you, you know, it is, it is tiring, it is burdensome, and you can get injured. I wrote this piece about Trey Turner, when I guess when he had, he still had his consecutive caught stealings without, or consecutive stolen bases without a caught stealing streak intact. And I wrote that, or a consecutive stolen bases without a caught stealing streak intact.

And I wrote that, you know, if he wanted to, he could probably, like he's so much faster than Ronald Acuna. Like he's just so much faster. And he never gets caught. And obviously the math would say he should run more often and kind of sometimes get caught, that there's like stolen bases he's leaving on the table. But it kind of sucks running. Like, it hurts you.

And I think that was somewhat of a factor in Mike Trout going from, like, a very prolific base stealer to not stealing at all. And I think that is more common than we realize. It's like a joint issue. They're like, ouch, my joints. Yeah. Their joints do get hurt. Yeah, like sliding gets hurty. And they even complain about the tags, you know, like I get tagged so hard.

And so I think that there just isn't really that much desire. I mean, what we saw with Acuna this year, because again, like the key thing with Acuna is that he's not that fast. He's fast, but he's way slower than the elite speed in the league. There's like 70 players faster than him or something like that. But he decided he really wanted to do it. And I think that lots of guys right now, if they wanted to do it, could steal way more bags. And the fact that they aren't doing it isn't because they don't see the value

in it. I think that they see the cost in it and they've made that choice already. And like I said, they did not really increase as the year went on. They had the stolen bases they wanted to take pretty much in mind right away. And they took those throughout the year and they didn't go any further. And by the way, with John Lester, we assumed that they were being shy about exposing John Lester. But as the years went on, it turned out that John Lester could keep them from running. He could stare at them and do a slide step. And it was really hard. Yeah. And so, we assumed that anybody could steal at any time against John Lester. And why aren't they? But in fact, we were wrong about that. Yeah, yeah.

I noted on the last pod of last year that C.J. Abrams, just in the middle of the season, suddenly started stealing a ton. He hadn't stolen that much. And then from like early July on, he stole the most bases in the majors by a lot. Presumably he didn't suddenly get a lot faster.

He must've just decided to do that. So clearly that wasn't happening on a league-wide level, really. But I wonder whether some other people will make that decision or flip that switch. Because Acuna certainly got a lot of attention and people celebrated that. And it became a sensational thing that he stole all those bases. I wonder whether other players will want some of that glory for themselves. Or as you said, maybe the wear and tear will outweigh that. And one point in support of your idea that it might go up is that, at least anecdotally, stolen bases were a bigger deal in October.

And of course, the narrative about the running D-backs was a big part of October. I don't know. It could be that stolen bases will just become a bigger deal in high leverage situations, or it could be that the Diamondbacks have some influence across the league and that people show up in March saying that they're going to do what the Diamondbacks did and prioritize athleticism and running and stuff. So I wouldn't rule it out, but should we do a real quick three, one-item draft where we each draft? stuff. So I wouldn't rule it out, but should we do a real quick, a real quick three, one item draft where we each draft? Okay. So we're going to draft stolen bases per game 2024 season.

Okay. And so last year it was 0.72. And I think the last, I think in 2022, it was like 0.51, 2022 it was like 0.51 something like that yeah it was uh it was 0.51 per game. 0.8? Whoa. That's a biggie. I'm going to do 0.75. Okay. And I'm going to say 0.71. Okay.

Okay. Yeah. I think if I remember right, the stolen bases weren't really up in October. Everyone thought they were going to be, and then people talked about them as if they were, but they weren't really. going to be. And then people talked about them as if they were, but they weren't really. Or it became like people associated it with the Diamondbacks. But other than the Diamondbacks, not that many other teams were really running that much, but they were successful. So it stood out. And they didn't run as much as we thought they would. Lastly, I asked the audience if they had any other suggestions for things that could potentially be the baseball story of 2023 that we remember. There were a few possibilities, I think. So, some people mentioned,

and I would have suggested this myself if not for one thing, the fact that it was the year that a lot of teams spent and tried to win and spectacularly flamed out. That was the last thing I deleted was the Mets. Yeah, the Mets, the Padres. The Padres too. If the Rangers hadn't won the World Series, then I think that might have been a possibility. But because they did, I think that kind of erases that to some extent.

But yeah, that's a possibility. Someone mentioned, Scott, I think, mentioned, this might have been the best suggestion the unionization of the minor leagues it's a good one was that this year? yeah that was 2023 it happened so quickly

that was sort of a surprise that's a sea change when it comes to minor leaguers I don't know how huge the ramifications will be like for the average baseball fan long term. But that's it's a pretty big deal in terms of like the business of baseball. So maybe maybe that some people mention the Braves historic offense, which, you know, I mean, it was a really great offense. But I don't think it outweighs the other things.

Yeah, didn't get there. Didn't get there. Yeah, again, if they had won the World Series or something and mashed all the way there, maybe, but that didn't happen. There were others that were like big stories for a while, but just didn't have the staying power like Luisa Reis and the 400 chase. have the staying power like Luisa Rise and the 400 Chase. I mean, it was fun that there was a 400 Chase that even rose to the level of like even remote plausibility that we would even bother to talk about it anymore, which I think you wrote about, right? Like just you were surprised that it was even a story like that we- Me? Yeah. I wrote about it? I'm remembering a lot of things that either I wrote or you wrote about me.

I did write about Louisa Rye's 400 chase. It was the fact that he kept falling off the pace, but then kept coming back, right? Yeah. It is the worst piece I wrote though. So, uh, I had a point that I wanted to make and I did not convey it. And every time I'm, I was thinking about it, that piece I wrote in my head while I was shooting free throws, which I was doing every day for a while until I got so good at shooting free throws that I didn't have to practice anymore. Oh, boy. But every so often I will still shoot free throws. And every time I do, I have this association with that article and I think about it and I stew in regret that I did not get my point across.

So, thanks for bringing it up. in regret that I did not get my point across. So thanks for bringing it up. Well, I didn't know that it was a failure of a piece. So there's that, I guess. I was about to say it is better to have written in stude than to never have written at all, which is where I felt like I landed last year. How many pieces did you write last year, Meg? Oh, God, I don't even know. I'm like fewer than 10. Fewer than 10.

Do you miss it or are you just like, oh. Yeah, but the muscles atrophy in a way that I have like really intense anxiety about trying again. So, it's like a whole thing that we could do a separate hour on or maybe I should just call you. But yeah, it's like a whole thing right now. But if you ever want to bounce an outline off me. Thank you. I'd be happy to shoot some free throws. Maybe that'll help. Yeah, maybe it should.

Someone else mentioned possibly the start of something we don't know yet, which, yes, that's possible. But specifically, like the Orioles becoming dominant or Corbin Carroll becoming baseball's best player. Yeah, sure. You know, I guess you could say that about almost any year that we just don't know yet. But yeah, maybe one of those. And another one, Louis Paulus suggested, and I think he also just wrote about that it was a big year for the MLB non-player labor market. Specifically, Craig Council, David Stearns, like salary scales for managers and executives. That's a good one.

Yeah. And that they let their contracts expire so they could become free agents in order to maximize their earnings. And then also someone mentioned just the Oakland mess, which was certainly one of the stories of the year. I don't know. Yeah, I thought about it, but they're moving in like four years, right? Right. I don't think that anybody in 2067 is going to be paying that much attention to the like 19th out of 23 year Oakland A's relocation saga, even if to us it was like a year where

there were lots of startling new developments yeah I guess it was the year when the die was cast kind of except that it's like still not totally seemingly but yeah I guess you could date it to other years too if you were talking about when did this start or it's been going on for decades in some way but yeah that was one of the biggest stories of the year in baseball without maybe being the thing that we remember this year for. So those were some good suggestions, but yeah, I don't, I don't think they overcome the pretty obvious ones, which I think were probably the answers. So yeah. I want to ask one more question. I always try to think, is there one play, one highlight or blooper that will live forever? And I don't think there was. You know, the play is Otani striking out Trout. I mean, that's the visual.

I like catch. And it's obviously not, it's not this. I didn't even mention it. It's not this. I'm not, don't think I'm suggesting this. I have a follow-up question. But the catch that I will remember the year for is Hunter Renfro's. Yeah.

So, how many times would you guess that you will see that catch for the rest of your life? And what year will be the last year? Like, will it be repeated this year? Will, is it, is it already dead or will we be seeing that catch in some way or another periodically for 30 years? I feel like I didn't see it that much. Even this year after it happened,

it was big when it happened. Yeah. But I, I don't feel like I've been constantly seeing it since. I think that if you live, he signed with the Royals, right? Renfro? He's now Kansas City Royal.

I bet in the Kansas City media market, you'll see it a bunch of times this year because it'll be a highlight that they show in the beginning of the season in particular to be like, I'm a Renfro. He's a Royal now. Not Mike Trout. You're confused. But it looks like the same thumb. But I don't, I wonder if that one will have longevity. I think it really will depend if he ends up on a team in the future that is a playoff team, you know, and then does something similar. That's where you get repeats, maybe. I mean, you know, this week in baseball or whatever, you see them on the Jumbotron, but you'd also see them on ESPN or wherever else.

And on social media, you still see them sometimes, but maybe it's tough to make baseball highlights that have the same enduring appeal that they used to. Yeah. When I wrote about the Kevin Mitchell barehanded catch from the 80s, it was not just on sports stations, but it was on Nightline. That's what baseball used to be like. Right, yeah. I can't think of anything else from this year, except I guess there was that weird Giants-Dodgers play that lasted for a really long time with the, Oh yeah. The infield pop up.

Where it bounced around in the outfield? Yeah. The, the Mookie play and the John Miller, the Jacob Junis one where he threw it into the outfield and then somehow no one scored or it just, it went on and on and on. So. I was thinking of different ones.

Oh, well that was one, but. Wasn't there one where it like bounced along the, the outfield wall or something? Oh yeah. There was, Wasn't there one where it like bounced along the outfield wall or something? Oh, yeah. There was the one where it like skated along the top of the wall. It like skidded along the top of the wall.

Yeah. Yeah. Is that what you're talking about? No. Oh, I remember that play. I mean, clearly not very well, but enough to go. Do you mean that thing? Yeah, that happened too.

Yeah. All right. All right. Actually, Luke really hit that if we're thinking of the same play, Man of the Hour. Well, hopefully we touched on all the possibilities here and people from the future who are listening to this in 2033 are not laughing at us now for our lack of foresight, but always enjoy that piece and the ruminations

about baseball's decreasing significance in our culture, which is mildly depressing. But yeah. I don't feel like it's a bad thing. So if people read it and think that I'm like adding to the defeatism, I don't consider it a bad thing. It just is a fact of life. It's okay. We're like, the sport is great. There's no need to like wish it were something else in my opinion. I mean, you could, and like it, maybe it will someday be something else. Who knows? Who cares? It's great. Yeah. Right. And it's, we're not in danger of getting to the threshold where

not enough people care for us to care, probably. So, as you said, I mean, there are hundreds of millions of people who really love baseball across the world. I said nice things about Jake Paul earlier, being affable and all that. I just I don't aspire for my sport to be Jake Paul. It's great that it is what it is instead. Yeah. Yeah. Jake Paul. It's great that it is what it is instead. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, also great is Pebble Hunting, the sub stack, which you can find at pebblehunting.substack.com. If you have

somehow missed it to this point, you've got a big back catalog to catch up on. Go read everything except the Louisa Rice post, I guess. You can skip that one. But Sam basically wrote a book about fun facts that was contained within this newsletter, but I don't never know whether to call it a newsletter anymore. You weren't really breaking news in here, but whatever you call it, it's a Substack. It's its own thing. It's a subscription-based baseball writing center. Go find it at pebblehunting.substack.com. Thank you, Sam. You're welcome. All right. That will do it for today and for this week. Thanks, as always, for listening.

By the way, one aspect of the Chris Sale extension that we didn't discuss on our last episode, this is the new deal with Atlanta that's going to pay him $38 million over the next couple of years, $17 million of which is coming from the Red Sox. There's also a club option for 2026. As we noted, Atlanta has some rotation uncertainty beyond 2024. Maybe they believe in Sale. Maybe they want to make him happy. Maybe he got some assurances when he was traded and waived his no trade clause. But this matters too. I'll quote from MLB Trade Rumors, there's also the competitive balance tax to consider. Under the current collective bargaining agreement, a player's CBT hit is recalculated when he is traded to reflect what remains of the contract. That means that Sale was going to have a $27.5 million CBT hit prior to this deal,

with the Sox absorbing $17 million of that, but that will now drop to $19 million, leaving just $2 million on Atlanta's CBT ledger this year, but $19 million next year. Going into today, the club's CBT figure was at $276 million per roster resource. That's right against the third tax threshold of $277 million, which is a notable line to cross. By lowering sales CBT hit, the club will have a bit more breathing room to make more moves either now or during the season. And of course, a bit less breathing room the following season. But they'll have some other salaries off the books. They can cross that bridge when they come to it. And in the meantime, the Atlanta Braves Foundation gets that sweet 1% cut.

Love to leave you for the week with some sexy CBT talk. So there you go. And if you want to help ensure our financial security the way Atlanta did with Chris Sale, but maybe a little less lucratively, though that's up to you, you can support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pled some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad-free, and get themselves access to some perks. Brandon Weaver, Colin Sanders, Bench, Kyle W., and Ryan Young.

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They say I waste my time Tracking all these deadlines But it's here I found my kind I'm all effectively wild