Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2109: And Teoscar Goes To…

Episode Date: January 9, 2024

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Teoscar Hernández signing with the Dodgers, how other teams can compete with L.A., and the Mets signing Sean Manaea. Then (33:07) they answer listener emails about whether the Royals or Tigers will win more games in 2024, the basis for believing the Cardinals will bounce back from their […]

If baseball were different, how different would it be? And if this thought haunts your dreams, well, stick around and see what Ben and Meg have to say. Philosophically and pedantically, it's Effectively Wild. Effectively Wild. Effectively Wild. Hello and welcome to episode 2109 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Raleigh of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello. How are you? I am, well, I'm fine, Ben. I'm nervous about how the Washington Huskies

will fare in the national championship game, but that is a sport that you don't care about. Don't have strong opinions on that one. Can't really banter about that topic, unfortunately. However- You can just say, go Huskies, Ben. You can just say, go Huskies. You'll alienate the Michigan fans who listen to our podcast, but you'll make a friend of me. Maybe I should say, go Michigan, so that we can please everyone who's rooting for someone in this game. I guess that's fair. Don't want to drive away anyone. Yeah. They can both go. They can come. They can go, as far as I'm concerned. Makes no difference to me. However, we do have a bit of banter about a pair of transactions. There hasn't been a ton of news since the last time we talked, but both Dodgers West and Dodgers East have been active with signings for the Dodgers, the actual Dodgers, as well as the Mets, who aspire to be like the Dodgers someday.

But what team doesn't, I suppose, especially after yet another signing by the Los Angeles Dodgers. This time, Teoscar Hernandez is putting on the Dodger blue. This would have been a big deal for you in the free agent contracts over under drafts results if Otani hadn't already blown up your draft boards, because I believe you took the under on MLB Trade Rumors prediction for Teoscar Hernandez, which was a robust $80 million. I think they thought he was going to get maybe a four-year deal for $80 million. Turns out, just a one-year deal for Teoscar. I don't know whether this

qualifies as a pillow contract. Maybe we can debate whether it does or whether it's just yet another example of someone really wanting to play for the Dodgers. But Teoscar Hernandez has signed just a one-year deal, a single solitary year. He has signed for $23.5 million, but it's the Dodgers, Signed for $23.5 million, but it's the Dodgers, so the terms are kind of complicated. He will be getting $15 million of that salary in 2024. The rest, the $8.5 remaining, is going to be deferred, and it's going to be deferred for quite a while. So it's going to be paid out in installments from 2030 to 2039, which is one thing when you're talking about a long-term deal, but this is a one year deal and the deferrals go way beyond that one year. Like the time between when his time with

the Dodgers ends, or at least the year he assigned for, and the time when the deferrals start is several times longer than he is actually signed to be a Dodger. So that takes the present day value of the deal because we've all just gotten so used to doing present day value calculations this winter down to what, something around 20, slightly under 20, I think is the consensus. So that's not really a lot when you think about it. Like 23 and a half might have sounded like a lot. But when you consider that it's for a single season and So he passed up the potential for more money. So is this another example of everyone wants to be a Dodger or is it partly that and partly that he thought I'll have a bigger bounce back year and then I can hit the market again and really cash in? Based on what I've seen, the other offers may have been something on the order of two

years and 28 million from the Red Sox, for instance. So he may just have figured I can make more going year to year. Probably some combination of factors, but the end result is that the Dodgers are even better now. I think guys like really want to get a ring, you know? I think a lot of guys are like, I have enough. And it's not like he's signing for the league minimum or whatever uh and to your point like if things go well for him in la and he can count on the dodgers to uh help him maximize and also to put him in a position where he succeeds right that he can hit the market again and maybe make some more money but once you have a certain amount maybe you're just just like, I'd like a ring, please.

You know what I'd like? I'd like to get a ring. And it's not guaranteed in Los Angeles. As Dan noted when he did the Zips projections for LA, you can't buy a championship in baseball. It's too volatile a sport for that. But if you were going to lay odds, I think that you'd feel more confident with the Dodgers than with pretty much any team except maybe the Braves.

So I like it for him. I like it for them. It seems like it addresses a very obvious need that they had. Yeah. What a team. What a team they're likely to be. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. It does kind of tell you the way that players think about contention because some fans might say, oh, the Dodgers, yeah, they're there every year, but they never really break through. They've had all these early playoff exits. They only won in 2020, which some people discount. Maybe Dave Roberts isn't the best postseason manager, right? So there probably are plenty of people who pay attention to baseball who think that that means something, that the Dodgers just are not a good playoff team, that there's something choky about them or that they aren't constructed to win in the playoffs or whatever.

But I think that we can say, based on Otani and Yamamoto and Hernandez, it's like players know how much randomness there is in October. And they know that going to the team that will get them there year in and year out, that is the safest bet. It's not a guarantee of anything, but it is the safest bet. Like you would rather go for the Dodgers who are going to give you more bites at the apple than go for some team that has won a championship more recently, but has a little bit more uncertainty about getting back to the dance, right? So, I mean, that's the way that I think about these things. And I think when it comes right down to it, when a player has to decide, this is where I want to play.

Now in Hernandez's case, it's only for a single season, but in other players' cases, it's for many, many seasons, then they're going to bet on the Dodgers because they have the most consistent track record. And I think that the logic still applies in a single season because you got to get there. You got to get to the postseason and see what you can make of it. I do think that players relish the idea of being a difference maker on a team that has had a lot of postseason success, but doesn't have a lot of rings to show for it, right? I can imagine that feeling really good and being appealing. I think that you're right that, you know, players talk to one another and they are pretty candid in communicating like what a

clubhouse is like and sort of what the approach of the organization is. And then you just have the obvious willingness to spend and to invest on the part of ownership. So I don't think that there's much that they have to do to really sell themselves if they're the Dodgers. And I wonder, you know, you brought up the Dave Roberts thing. I know that this has been like a bugaboo of his. I do wonder how players perceive his postseason management, because I wouldn't. It kind of depends on the year, right? But I wouldn't struggle to think that some of the things that we maybe are weirded out by as analytically inclined types maybe bother players less. I don't mean to suggest that players can't be analytically inclined, and I actually don't really know much about how Tay Oscar as an individual views that stuff. But like, you know, sometimes we're like, oh, he's leaving him a guy in too long,

or he's leaning on his starters in ways that he shouldn't. And I could see that actually being something that appeals to players, because I think they get annoyed by all the... Yeah. I would see them being more likely to be annoyed by like the raise approach to the post season or to pitching generally than they are necessarily to like the way that the Dodgers have conducted themselves. Right. Like they're going to be more worried about cash,

like pulling out Snell and I'm like, Oh my God, I can't believe, you know, rather than being like, Oh no, Dave sometimes leaves the guys in too long or like some of the reliever stuff is a little weird. Like, I don't know.

I wonder. And I don't know the answer, to be clear. Like, it could be that they all talk among themselves or like, oh, my God, can you see what Dave did the other day? Like, that's perfectly plausible to me, too. But I wonder how that stuff plays with the player population, because I suspect that it could be different than it necessarily is with like folks online. So yeah, I think so. Right. Not that players don't have the capacity to analyze those things, but I don't know if they care as deeply about teams that they're not on. Because while the Dodgers are playing their playoff games, some players are playing in their own different playoff games. So it's tough to pay attention to what's going on in another series

that's happening at the same time. And if you're out of it, if your season ended at the end of September or beginning of October, then maybe you've checked out of baseball at that point. I don't think that every player is tuning in to postseason baseball necessarily, at least not religiously. Some of them are off on an island somewhere going golfing or whatever it is. Right. So and I would think that what matters more to them is it might going to get along with this guy. Like, how does he treat the players? You know, do players respect him? Is he a player's manager? Which maybe most managers are these days, at least by historical standards.

But Dave Roberts, like, you know, people don't really talk about him losing the clubhouse. There mostly aren't like huge public blowups that happened there. He kind of he keeps that team running on a pretty even keel with big personalities and all unorthodox roles and, you know. Occasionally, yeah. Team pretzel stuff and people playing multiple positions or moving from one position to another, even superstars like Mookie Betts. Yeah. I know exactly what you're talking about, but now I'm envisioning like Clayton Kershaw and Mookie Betts like playing Twister, you know, like they've got to stretch. And Clayton's like, my back, my back. Don't make me do it, my back. He's not a dodger at the moment. So it's sort of rude of me to bring him up at all, but yeah. It'd be good for him to stretch. I'm sure he stretches, but yeah. I mean, Mookie wanted to. He should stretch, Ben, you know, he should stretch.

Maybe if it's not static stretching, I suppose there could be some value to it. Anyway, yeah. So Dave Roberts has like he's, you know, kept that team kind of working well. And it's not a gimme. I mean, they go into the year with great talent every year. But we've seen other teams blow up and things go wrong and people don't get along. And that hasn't happened so much with the Dodgers. So I imagine that's more what a potential player for Dave Roberts would care about. How is he going to treat me?

Am I going to like being around him? But it really, it's kind of repeating ourselves because we said the same thing when Yamamoto signed. Really, it's just over and over again, the message has been, I wanted to play for the Dodgers and granted every free agent or someone who signs an extension with a team is probably going to say something complimentary about that team. Wait, sorry.

Can I interrupt you? It would be so funny if they didn't, though. It would be like, well, look, here we are, you know? They gave me the most money, I guess. Yeah. I guess I'll go back. Or it's like, you know, that episode of Hot Ones, like, who thought we'd be here? Not me.

Yeah. Now I'm thinking about which baseball players I want to have on Hot Ones. Anyway. Good question. Sorry for interrupting. Go ahead. No, but, I mean, we have heard just effusive, I want to be a Dodger or I want to play with Shohei or, you know, I like L.A. or just whatever.

And it's just, how do you beat this? It just feels like more so than we've seen in baseball in recent years that it's not just about the spending, though it is certainly about the spending. They've spent a ton and they have the favorable situation with their broadcasts and everything that they're going to be getting revenue from that as other teams have considerably more uncertainty. But in each of these individual cases, again, there aren't maybe many teams that could have signed all of these guys or traded for an extent of these guys. But each of the individual moves could have happened. Someone else could have done it. Other teams at least matched some of these offers.

And in each case, it's, you know, why would I go to your team if I could go to the Dodgers for roughly the same amount of money? So I just don't know how you trump that if you're another team. Like, how do you get someone the Dodgers are targeting unless they're going to be not offering something close to the top? It's like if they're getting anywhere close to being a high bidder, you can't really outbid them. You can't just outspend them because they're just a more desirable landing spot. And I don't know how that changes because now they've got all these guys.

So they're probably going to continue to be good. And they still have prospects and developmental acumen that convinces players to go there. So, man, it's just if I were in the NL West, it's a really daunting prospect because they've been so good for so long. And I don't know how it ends. And I don't know how you persuade someone to sign with you instead of them. Well, you know, it's interesting because on the one hand, if you're a GM, right, you're like a, you may be downcast about this, particularly if you're a GM in division. But I could also see it being a really good path to job security on the part of a GM, because if that's the time, if the time horizon that you have to it's 10 years is maybe ambitious but if you're

viewing it as this like really intense sort of like institutional shift that has to occur within your team or at least recalibration right because it you know i i don't i'm not gonna make fun of the rockies but like the the diamondbacks are not a bad team right like the giants aren't a bad team the potteries aren't a bad team. And these aren't franchises that are completely starting from zero. But for each of them to be comped systematically to the Dodgers and have us say, oh, yeah, this lines up one for one. These franchises are in exactly the same place would require some doing.

The location of the doing kind of varies team to team, right? But like, it would take a little bit of work, at least a little bit of work for any of those clubs to be able to say, yeah, we're, you know, we're ready to be in the spot that the Dodgers are where all the other pieces are in place, but for, you know, comparable spending, let's say. But imagine you're the GM of one of those teams, you're Mike Hazen, and you go to your ownership, and you're like, look, if what you want is a club that can go toe-to-toe with LA on every free agent,

we're not going to end up signing all of them. We don't have limitless roster spots, but we can say with a completely straight face and a nod from their agent, yeah, that's the same. Well, that's going to take

a little while, but you know who's the guy to help you do it? Right. It's me, same. Well, you know, that's going to take a little while, but you know who's the guy to help you do it? Right. It's me, Mike. And then you, you know, you orient your vision as a team around that. of torture me about it, particularly if I were relatively new to the organization, is the realization that you effectively lost that race, you know, five years ago, 10 years ago. And it's not that no one could have persuaded him to sign with a different team. He famously was an angel

for a while, you know. But like, if what it is, is this complete picture being able to say we are as good at, you know know the raise at scouting and development but we also spend with the might of a team that has the you know the tv not only the tv deal that we do but has guggenheim partners to fall back on if something goes south with their rsn right like their ability to weather that potential I think, is probably better than almost any other team in baseball. So, like, that's a big long-term project. But GMs love big long-term projects because that's how you get job security by saying, look, this is a big long-term project. But you know who's, like, how to do it? It's me. I am the project manager. Either that or you sign Shohei Otani and he has

a clause in his contract where if you leave, then he can leave. That's also good job security. that there are plenty of po-bo's who actually get better purchase from their ownership group by saying the dodgers are nuts can you see how much money they're spending i can get you to within 10 wins of them for half the price and i bet that that's a really successful pitch in the room but yeah i invite people to have ambition you know just like a little little invite from me to them so that's what i have to say about that what What would the successful pitch be to a player, to a prospective free agent who has the Dodgers interested and is swaying and saying, oh, I could go play with Shohei and all these great players and Freddie and Mookie? What would you say, you know, assuming that you can more or less match the finances, then what's your pitch? Like, man, have you seen the traffic? The traffic is terrible. Like, even if you're super rich, you're still stuck in traffic unless you can just take a helicopter to the game.

Don't take a helicopter. Irresponsible. Yeah. Well, I guess like one thing that I would say, and I think I said this the last time too, is like, you know, they are gifted with so many wonderful talents, so many resources. But the one resource that the Dodgers have that is completely equal across the league is the number of roster spots. So like at a certain point, doesn't this problem kind of take care of itself? I mean, I understand that Tay Oscar is only on a one year deal and they have guys who are going to be free agents next offseason. And it's not as if, you know, these guys are all signed in perpetuity, but they have a lot of very entrenched long-term contracts on their roster. And so I would take some amount of comfort in the knowledge that they are limited to 26 guys on their active roster and 40 on their 40 man.

And they have, you know, prospects within their own organization who they're really excited about, who they view as like contributors to the championship aspirations of the Dodgers and not as, you know, a means of acquiring other big league talent. But as players in and of themselves who they hope will, you know, take the field in Dodger blue. It's funny that we focus on the blue because it's really a small part of their uniform. You know, we say the Dodger blue and I get it's the hat. But like, you know, like most of most of that uniform is white or gray, you guys. So anyway, I guess like you're comforted by roster dynamics at a certain point. You could appeal to their egos, right? Right.

by roster dynamics at a certain point. You could appeal to their egos, right? You could say, yeah, you could go be one of several superstars with the Dodgers. And if you win, you won't really get any credit for that because they're expected to win. You could say, hey, come to us. You'll be the guy, right? We'll construct our roster around you. You'll be on the cover of the media guide. I don't know if free agents care

about media guides, but you'll be front and center. We'll have you in the murals out in front of the stadium and we'll be advertising you and we'll use you then as the hook to convince other big free agents to sign. And if you deliver this team to the promised land, then you'll be beloved. You'll get all the credit for that. It won't just be a group effort and you'll be one of many. So for some players, they might not need that. They might want to be part of a team. They might even like the idea of being a little lower profile than they would be elsewhere and not being the person who has the high expectations heaped on them.

But others probably would. They probably do want to be the face of the franchise. Yeah. And it's tough to be the face of this franchise because it just has several very recognizable faces. I am constantly confronted with differences in both skill and temperament between me and professional athletes. And this is definitely one of them because I would be like, oh, I can be a guy and not the guy. I don't want to be a guy. Being the guy to be perceived, terrible. Yeah. Like you're the only editor for Fangraphs.com right now. And you're like, hey, let's hire another editor. Oh, yeah. That is my dearest ambition at this particular moment is to hire another.

It's going fine. But, like, you know, you need more than one. I just think you need more than one. Don't worry about it. I'm not stressed. I am just accurately responding to stimulus. No, but what I was going to say is that you can also, if you're really intent on trying to sign a guy and you are up against the Dodgers, like, I think that if the player is really intent on being a Dodger, and you've mentioned that they had a number of players where other teams made sort of similar offers but like i don't know that we've heard of anyone making the like blow you away offer above and beyond what the dodgers have offered a guy so like those are

nice uniforms it's a beautiful if quietly kind of dated ballpark and we don't talk about that but we should you know those dodger dogs guys i have a take about that but you know it's uh in a like dynamic city you get to be the star all that is great but 20 million dollars above ask would also be good right so like i i think the idea that there's no way to compete with los angeles is a little overblown even above and beyond just like the realities of roster construction. But I think that the idea that a player might be swayed by more than just money and that what it takes to really appeal to free agents is a sustained, at this point, is a sustained, at this point, more than decade-long commitment to winning,

along with, you know, a really robust front office, scouting apparatus, player development wing to your organization. Like, I think we're right to point out that the combination of those things as a potential requirement to really compete in free agency is probably more threatening to various owners around the league than the pure dollar number that we have seen bandied about by the Dodgers. I don't want to downplay the dollar number because I know a lot of people who are like, whoa, what a big number because it's a big number. But I think the idea that players might reward ambition and aspiration is deeply unsettling to some people in Major League Baseball because they're like, oh, do we have to do that?

That sounds hard and expensive. And it's like, yeah, you know, this is the project. So you gotta get ready for it. So Teoscar, I don't think he like puts them over the top or anything. They were already pretty at the top or close to the top, but he's coming off a down year. It was not a bad year, but it was not as good as his usual. And he's a bat first player. He's not like a liability necessarily in the field, but not a great glove, but okay. You put him in a corner, he'll hold his own out there. And really he has a strong

arm. Right. And he really still hit like his usual self more or less on the road. So his offense was sort of swallowed by T-Mobile Park. it seems like. He kind of underperformed his expected weighted on base based on his batted ball quality. And T-Mobile is still just one of the toughest parks for right-handed hitters. And he did not do well there. So it probably wasn't entirely park effects, but it was partly park effects. And really like 2020 to 2022, minimum 1,000 plate appearances. He was 21st in more like his typical range. And if he does, then he will upgrade and lengthen a lineup that was already stacked. And you can just stick him out in left field. That lets you put Chris Taylor in more of a rover role, bench role, which he's well suited for. And man, just top to bottom with some of the platooning that's going on there,

you know, with Margot and Hayward sort of interchangeable out there based on the opposing pitcher. Teoscar gives you another right-handed bat in what had been and still sort of is a lefty-leaning lineup. He's definitely a lot better against lefties, but he's not unplayable against same-handed pitchers. Everyone else is or has been a star, more or less, or at least has the potential to be. Maybe there's a little bit of uncertainty in the middle infield, or hey, Max Muncy at third base, is that something we're actually committing to? I am, as an aside, very worried about that, but it seems silly to complain about given the rest of their roster and how stacked it is but like i i am i am worried for him in the field in a in a real way because it did not yeah like

for his his safety like his health you know more not just like for the dodgers defense but like yeah he'd be okay but also for the dodgers defense, just to be completely clear. That too. Yeah. So other than that, though, we could pick. But I don't know if the Dodgers are done. You know, would it shock me if they pulled off some other swap here? Because, you know, with Teoscar in the outfield picture, they have some younger guys who maybe don't have playing time right now. So could they swoop in and pick up a Dylan Cease or someone? Sure.

Can you imagine if they trade for Dylan Cease? Oh my gosh. I think that the commissioner might intervene, actually. I think that he would find some pretext to be like, no, you said that via fax and it had to go in e-biz in a different way. And so you are not allowed. It is disallowed. Yeah.

Or if not Manfred, maybe mobs with pitchforks would descend upon the Dodgers offices. But yeah, I don't know if it's that or, you know, maybe signing Clayton Kershaw. Maybe there's a finishing touch to put on this thing. I would like that so much. The Dodgers, they might be done. They could be done. They're just about done. So it's a hell of a roster, hell of an offseason that they've had.

So, man, it's just yet another guy. Teoscar, like, kind of lost in the lights of everyone else that they've added. But just in case you thought that they could only add top of the rotation pitchers and top free agents on that side of the ball. They can also go get a good bat, too. And the Mets signed Sean Minaya. Yeah. They signed Sean Minaya to a two-year deal, albeit with an opt-out after the first year. So he's, you know, two years, $28 million guaranteed.

He had a decent season. Two years, $28 million guaranteed. He had a decent season. He was in and out of the rotation in San Francisco, but was good later in the year. He started sweeping, and sweeping suited him well. So, has the sweeper, had a bit of a velo boost, and was pretty effective in both roles. So, obviously someone who's had some health durability concerns, what pitcher hasn't these days. But yeah, the Mets rotation, I don't know if it's done now,

but it's looking more fully stocked than it was until recently. Not really a lot of long-term commitments in this rotation. But other than Senga, it's kind of short-term Kitana, Severino, Minaya, Hauser. A lot of these guys are going to be free agents soon, which maybe makes sense for this roster. Because, again, as we talked about when they signed Bader, it's just, I don't really know. Are they in? Are they like, let's see if it goes well and then we'll add. And if it doesn't go well, as it did in last year, then we will have some players to dangle at the deadline again.

So it's, yeah, it's kind of a in-between year for them potentially. But picking up a little more defense and pitching to at least give themselves a shot at a wild card, if not challenging Atlanta. And I think that if you view Severino and Hauser and Manias like of a common project, right, where it's like, I would imagine that not all of those guys will be like top line dudes, but that among the the three of them like one of them is likely to break in a way not break in terms of getting hurt but like take a a step forward to really claim a rotation spot you know they are the other two potentially are are useful guys i like this i think that some of mania's struggle at times um last year was just the sean mania of it all but like he was deployed the way he was by san francisco in large part because of roster need not because of any

particular like dip in performance on his part so i would take some comfort in that if i were a mets fan i would be comforted by the fact that like he sustained that velocity increase regardless of role like he was his average fastball velo across his relief innings and his starting innings was pretty similar so you know i think that he's like an interesting guy um and particularly with more time with that sweeper like he he's he's like a cool what if he does though you know like what if he takes a step forward? What if he and Severino are able to like, you know, really bring something together? What if Hauser's like really like there's a version of this rotation that looks considerably better than than any one of these guys individually would make you think and you know it could not work at all but it could be that in july we're looking back and we're like wow you know they really found some dudes in this off season and for not very much money i mean when ben wrote about this signing for us today like he did note the opt-out is a little bit weird because you know if mania is what

they hope him to be like presumably he will just opt out because he will be able to make more money than this. He's sort of in the mid-tier one-year range at the moment. And if he is what they are, I'm sure, hoping he will be in a position to go get more. But they can always just extend him. If he's really good and the fit is right, well, then they will have, you know, a lot of confidence in the kind of pitcher he can be and they can just offer him an extension. So it's a little odd from a sort of balance of risk perspective, but I don't think it really matters all that much. So I like it. I think it's good. Good job, Mets. Yeah. Refreshing to see someone other than the Dodgers signed someone. I guess the Dodgers let the Mets have that one, you know?

They're like, sure, you can have that free agent. We won't take all of them. Mets fans are like, we wanted Yamamoto. What we wanted was Yamamoto. And then, you know, who signed Yamamoto? Not the Mets. But that doesn't mean, you know, love the Shaman I have, right? Like that's how that old expression goes from oldie times.

Sure. All right. Let's answer some emails. We can start with a couple team-specific questions, including one from Samuel, Patreon supporter, who says, A discussion with my brothers about the Royals offseason led to a dinner bet between two of us on whether the Royals, his pick, or the Tigers, mine, would have a better record in the coming season. We'd be interested in hearing some prognostication if there's time on an upcoming show. And here we are. Here's that upcoming show with some time. So, Tigers or Royals, better record in 2024 because the Royals have been the busier team. Sure.

They've made the headlines. The headlines have not been like a massive size. It's not like you bump the font up that much for Hunter Renfro or whoever, but they're making headlines even if it's not like taking over the entire front page. The Tigers, they've made some moves too, but they haven't been quite as active as the Royals. It's like, oh, the Royals are going for it. So do you think that they're going for it will actually lead to a better record than the Tigers? Or will this be a win the offseason team that disappoints or at at least win the AL Central offseason team that

disappoints. How do I answer the question of disappoints? You know, like, what are my expectations? I guess finishing with a worse record than the Tigers would be disappointing for the Royals, probably. Well, sure. I expect them to finish with a worse record than the Tigers, but that's not a knock on their signings, necessarily. I just think that there's more upside potential in that Tigers roster than there is in the Royals. I think that the Tigers' fortunes will largely depend on the young pitching that they have and how good that little trio ends up being. And if they take a step forward, then they're going to be really happy that they have Kenta Maeda. They're going to be really

happy for whatever they get out of Jack Flaherty. But I think the guys they have on their roster already are going to largely dictate their fortunes. I think that when you compare their roster to Kansas City's, like Bobby Wood Jr. is a star and he really took a step forward and I think cemented his place in baseball. You know, people were kind of like his rookie year was just not amazing. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't like, wow. And he took a step forward. I think he can be a shortstop, which was one of the questions that he had to answer. But like the rest of that roster is like like it's a lot of role players in addition to bobby with junior i guess would be the um charitable way to say it now there's still potential for upside there right like i'm really

excited to see like i'm so excited for cole reagan's season like i want to know what cole reagan's season is going to be like because I mean, like the boring answer and probably the most likely answer is that it will fall somewhere between what he was with Texas and what he was in Kansas City. And then we'll all go, that's boring. But like, he could be like, he could establish himself as like a dude. And then like, how exciting would that be? If you're a Kansas City Royals fan, you're like, oh, we have a dude. We had so few of those before but i like uh you know like waka's fine and hunter renfro is fine and you know seth lugo is fine and like they have a lot of fine and that's that is a step forward for them right because they had much not fine previously um but there aren't a lot of guys on Kansas City's roster right now where I'm like, there's another gear of two wins in there. I don't think there's a lot of that on their roster. So I don't think it's disappointing. Don't think of it that way.

Think about it in a, it's better than it was. It's fine. You know, last year, I bet Royals fans would have been really happy with fine. They had fewer than 60 wins. Like, fine would be like, that'd be great, you know? I don't know if it's a fair comp, Ben, that the question assumes. And, you know, that's because, like, the Tigers won 78 games last season. And the Royals famously won far fewer than that.

So here's one. Will they be better than the White Sox? Oh, man. That's a good question. Yeah. I mean, I think there's less of a separation than the records from last season would suggest, because I do think the Royals were unlucky and underperformed the record that they should have had. They were still bad, but not historically terrible. And I think if you look at the Fangraph's depth charts projections right now, which I guess is still just Steamer. And of course, these rosters are unfinished, but the Tigers, only a couple wins above replacement projected over the Royals. So I don't think there's a vast gulf in true talent between

these two teams. But yeah, I would still say the Tigers. The White Sox are actually second to last on that list of projected war, better than only the Rockies. So I think that both of these teams have a pretty credible case to be better than the White Sox, which is sad for the White Sox. both of these teams have a pretty credible case to be better than the White Sox, which is sad for the White Sox. But I'm with you. There's just more of a core in Detroit and with the steps that Green and Torkelson took, right? Like, yeah, it's just hard to say who the Royals core is aside from Witt. There are some guys who could potentially take a step forward, but right now it's just a little too uncertain and unsettled. So I would also go with the Detroit Tigers for 2024. Yeah. All right. Next team-specific question concerns

the St. Louis Cardinals. And this question comes from Brian, who says, so the Cardinals were bad this past year, but whenever their poor year is discussed, it seems to be paired with an assumption that they'll bounce back in 2024. I don't think the bounce back has been given a hard look. I get that there's the whole devil magic of it all and the run of success, but if we're being data-driven here, was there something in the numbers that suggested a bounce back? Do players who see declines in performance like Goldschmidt offensively and Arenado defensively really bounce back at their ages? Is Tommy Edmund really their best option for center field by the metrics since he's the starter for 2024? I could go on and on, and this is already too long an email. To sum it up, is it—that's him saying that, by the way, not me. That'd be insulting. To sum it up, is it data or is it reputation that provided the confidence or assumption that the Cardinals would be competitive in 2024?

So are we just defaulting to the Cardinals are always good? They'll probably be good again. Or is there some real basis to saying that they'll probably be better than they were? What a good question. There is probably some amount of like, well, don't they always kind of you know finish with around 90 wins i think some of that is maybe a little bit lazy on our collective parts i do think that there is there are two sort of macro things i would point to and then we can talk about some of their individual players or moves so far this offseason and see if we find them persuasive to improvement

but i think the the first sort of macro thing that we could point to is like you know they play in the central that always gives some amount of tailwind is that the right headwind would be bad tailwind is good wind at your back there's So, that is an important thing to keep in mind because their ability to claim a division crown is aided by that just taking fewer wins. Although, as we discussed, I think last time, you know, it's not like it takes 60 wins. Like, it still takes some wins, you know? You got to be respectable. But relative to their fellows in the other National League divisions, tends to take fewer wins, right? They don't have to deal with the Dodgers. That's Arizona's problem, right?

That's San Francisco's problem. That's not the Cardinals' problem. Yeah. I think the NL Central has been more competitive and probably will be more competitive than the AL Central. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like, there's no terrible team in the NL Central anymore except possibly the Pirates. Right.

And there are some reasons for optimism maybe about the Pirates. Yeah. But, yeah, like, the Brewers are always pretty good and the Cubs were not bad and seemed like if they would do something already, they'd be good. And the Reds are certainly on the upswing. So, yeah, like, there's no super team in that division, but there aren't really a bunch of bad teams as there have been at various points. Right. It's respectable, but not formidable would be the way that I would maybe describe the NFL Central. So there's that piece of it. I think that when you're looking for data to add rigor to that sense, like we can look to the Cardinals' Zips projections,

for instance, and Zips anticipates something of a bounce back from them, even from players like, say, Goldsmith and Arenado, who, you know, they just keep getting older. It's a funny thing about baseball players. But even there, I think Zips is relatively optimistic about at least what their offensive production will look like going forward. I think you always have to contend with where age-related decline might be affecting a player's performance in the field, but I think that it's not unreasonable to look at St. Louis' defensive metrics from last year as a group and just assume some amount of regression because they typically are a strong fielding team and they had a pretty tough go of it

last year. And so I imagine that some of that will improve. Again, we have to account for age in all of this. And, you know, like I think that if you wanted to look at me and say, well, yeah, sure, Jordan Walker will probably be better, but he's not going to be a gold glover. I'd say, like, touche. But also, he was like the worst fielder in baseball last year and was sort of pressed into outfield service in spring training and has had an off season. And they've talked about kind of getting him sorted out. I know Tommy Edmond had surgery this off season, so who knows what role injury might have played. You know, they're going to have hopefully like a whole healthy year of Lars Knupp bar, right? Like there, I think if you look at this group,

there are reasons to have reasonable optimism about them improving just from a fielding perspective. And then when you look at the rotation, it's like, you know, they desperately needed starting rotation help last year. Adam Wainwright really was one of their better options, despite having a just abysmal season is testament to that. And, you know, they might not have

made all of their moves like of a sexy kind, right? Like Kyle Gibson is like Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn is Lance Lynn. And to be clear, I'm talking about their skill as a pitcher, whatever you think of their sexiness as people, that's your business. You know, it's not for me to judge, but like Sonny Gray is a top line starter. Is he like the best starter in that division? No, but like he is a, he is a quality pitcher and I think he will, he will do well for them.

So when you combine some amount of just positive regression, when you think about their defense lot of, but who Zips projects quite well, even if the system anticipates their production being better in future seasons than if they were pressed into service next year. I think that you can look at this Cardinals team and be like, yeah, like they'll be better than they were last year. Are they going to be a 95 win team? I mean, I'm skeptical that that would be true, but I think that they will be a strong contender for the division, and I think that we will see potentially steps forward from some of their young guys. Imagine if Jordan Walker and Mason Wynn both take a big step forward

and are positive big league contributors, and Nolan Gorman continues to hit well, and they have less weirdness, right? There's also just vibes regression here that I think a lot of St. Louis fans are counting on. And does that count for anything in terms of how many wins they have? I don't know. I mean, probably not. Like, that seems unlikely.

But, like, it can't hurt. Yeah. Less weirdness with Ali Marble and Wilson Contreras. And just so much weirdness. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe Yachty Molina just rides in to save the day, just being around the team. His aura rubs off on the Cardinals.

Vibes, man. Yeah. It was so weird to see the Cardinals tied with the Rockies for the majors' worst defensive efficiency. So that's just the lowest percentage of batted balls converted into outs, which always low in Coors Field because it's just a really big field. But you don't typically see that with the Cardinals and they were negative by whatever metric you look at. So I guess you could say, well, it's going to be largely the same defenders, but that was just so out of character for them that you do expect that to bounce back. And I think there could be some addition by

subtraction, not in the sense that getting rid of Tyler O'Neill on its own, that there's something wrong with Tyler O'Neill, but they just had so many players for a certain number of positions. And so people weren't getting consistent starting time. And who knows if that leads to some bitterness or resentment or questioning why you're not playing every day. So it's kind of hard to quantify that. But just having some players be able to maybe settle into some regular roles and be more confident of their standing with the team, that could potentially help. So, yeah, the rotation right now projects to be the 13th best in baseball, which is not great, but would be better than what it was last year. Leaps and bounds. Leaps and bounds better. equivalent of innings eating is out of those guys. And it would help if they could field more cleanly behind them. That would help them eat those innings and help them digest them without them coming up the wrong way, which was often the case for their pitchers last year. But yeah, you look at the team and it seems sort of solid, even if I'm somewhat biased by the fact that it's the Cardinals and they always tend to be good. But looking at the depth charts projections, just with Steamer and not taking into account schedule or anything, it looks like they're seventh in baseball and projected war, which is higher than I would have said.

But yeah, they've got some talent there. And maybe it'll be better aligned and less unlucky and just weird than it was last year. And hey, they have Heimblum now, right? They just hired Heimblum as an advisor to John Moselak. So I don't know whether that means anything for Moselak's job security. He got an extension before everything went wrong last year. But sometimes when it ends in not the best way for a GM or a POBO or a chief baseball officer, you kind of go and moonlight in some special assistant or an advisor and you learn how some other team does things and you keep yourself in the job market as a potential candidate for other jobs, which I imagine he could get someday. So maybe it's just a little bit more brainpower in that front office. Who knows if that helps at all? But I think that they will be better.

I don't think we're fully just defaulting to, it's the Cardinals, they'll be good. Although there's probably a little bit of that. Sure. Yeah. There's definitely some of it, but I think that there is greater rigor behind that assumption than you might suspect. So, okay. Yes.

Always assume there's a secret rigor behind our answers. Oh, yeah. Even when they're whimsical, I'd like to bring rigor to them, right? Like if you're not watching 10,000 of a thing so that you can write two sentences, are you really writing that? So we've answered Tiger's question and Cardinal's question. Now we have two Expos questions, naturally, in 2024. questions, naturally, in 2024. So one from Jacob, Patreon supporter, who says, have to assume you have seen the Tom Brady Expos Tops commercial. And I actually hadn't when he sent this to us, but now I have because he sent this to us. So maybe we can play a little snippet of it.

Do you know why Tom Brady won seven rings? It wasn't because of his game calling or his arm. It was because of his hitting. 649 home runs. What a power hitter. Jacob says, this seems like the most if baseball were different piece of advertising I can imagine. Lots of Easter eggs and cameos.

I got a little verklempt at the end, but I suspect maybe this hits different for heartbroken, nostalgic, multi-generational ex-Expos fans like myself than it would for fans in the Boston area. To which I ask, in the universe of this ad, where Tom Brady, who of course was drafted by the actual Expos in 1995, but went on to a fairly fruitful NFL career. And it would appear Pedro Martinez sticks around too. Yeah. Yeah. You have other ex-expos in this ad as well.

Oh, yeah. That guy just never let us lose. Except to the Giants. Twice. Yeah, twice. Do the Boston Red Sox cure their curse? We know that Brady wins seven World Series titles over 23 years. And we can assume those are the same 23 years as his NFL career, 2000 through 2022.

So it would be simultaneous with the four Red Sox titles in 0-4, 0-7, 13, and 18. It might be hard to knock off all four, but the seven Expos titles alone would take a bite out of the Red Sox chances. Plus, no Pedro. And quite possibly without Pedro, no David Ortiz. Wow, would Big Papi even be a hero in Montreal if they had him? At the five-second mark of the ad, there's a shot with a bunch of championship pennants over the bar. I can't make them out, but maybe someone with an HD copy could. Are they the same as Brady's seven Super Bowls?

That's 0-1, 0-3, 0-4, 13, 15, 17, and 19. If so, that would knock out so many championships. If that would knock out two of the four Red Sox World Series wins, the first and third, the Red Sox won in 2018 without Pedro or Ortiz. So maybe that series happens in Expo Brady World in 2013. They wouldn't have lost to the Expos. They didn't have Pedro in 2013 either, but that was Ortiz's big MVP series. I would predict that the Sox would have one 21st century World Series, the Pats probably zero Super Bowls, and Boston would generally be a sadder place than it is today. I think that seems safe to assume from a sports perspective because, yeah, you're subtracting all the Pats titles probably or most of them. And then you've got to subtract some from the Red Sox. It certainly seems like in this ad that Brady is a lifetime expo.

He spent his entire career in Montreal. is a lifetime expo. He spent his entire career in Montreal. So, yeah, I mean, that just eats up a number of the available championships that the Red Sox have won. And then if the expos are a dynasty, the likes of which we haven't seen, then who knows how that changes other things. Other people want to go to the expos to play with Tom Brady the way that they want to go to the Dodgers to play with various stars. Right. So, yeah, this changes everything. It changes everything. And look, I know that the focus of this question is on the specific ramifications for the Boston Red Sox. I am interested in a slightly different question, Ben, because I think that your analysis, the analysis here is right. Like at most you're looking at two. And it's like if you don't win that first one, you know, and break the curse, like what is the sort of posture of the organization, right? Like, how does that change things for them? How do they think about spending and how do they, you know, go into free agency? And what is their sort of base understanding of themselves, right?

If they don't rally back and then win, wow, you know, like that is a heavy question. But here's what I want to know. Okay. What personality does anyone from the city of Boston have in this alternate timeline? What has happened to them? We've asked, are they sadder? I mean, yes, they are obviously sadder. Although, do they know themselves to be sadder? Because they don't know that they could have had the best quarterback of all time, but instead another city is having a really good catcher you know they don't know that they just are like i guess we have to think about true blood so more so there's like that piece of it but it's like the look i don't want to make anyone from boston feel bad okay that's not my project here but i just i think we can all acknowledge even people from boston right something happened to you guys right like the the red sox did the red sox stuff and

and the patriots did the patriots stuff and and the bruins are good and the celtics are good and like it did something to you all and it changed you and um some not all but some not small segment of you became the most annoying people alive like just the worst human people when it comes to sports no i'm sure you're lovely in other aspects of your lives i'm not saying you're bad people i'm saying that even compared to yankees fans you would be hard-pressed to find a more obnoxious fan base than the the special intersection of people who have um somehow managed to feel sad this season when the pats have been bad and they have been bad and like belichick might be done who knows

he could be done by the time this podcast goes ben but i was like maybe they'll have perspective on like all the things that they've had and it's like no the answer is no so i i think about that you know like what would they have you, but you've got to fill, you got to fill voids in your personality. You know, that's one of your projects is like a grown person. So like, what would they have filled it with? You know, what would they, you could have still been excited about the Bruins and also the Celtics, but like the, the big Tom Brady size hole, you know, the 12 hole in your heart where what would you have filled it with you know yeah yeah so now that i've insulted all of our listeners from new england

sorry not again not all of you but some of you oh boy you know so and and you know what here's the thing the ones who fall into that special you, overlapping circle of sports fandoms, they know, like on some level, they know and they enjoy it. They enjoy being annoying. This is part of the problem. So, you know, yeah, that's what I have to say about that. Yeah, I have heard some Red Sox fans and Patriots fans who I think have the proper perspective on this. For instance, Michael Schur of TV and the podcast fame who has said, Totally. pre-success mindset of we're the cursed team that never wins, even though they keep winning more so than anyone that city in the past couple of decades. Yeah. You have to be like, okay, well, we waited our turn. We certainly waited a while, but it has been worth it now for those

of us who made it. But yes, in this scenario where Larry Walker stays with the Expos and Vlad Guerrero Sr. stays with the Expos, clearly, obviously the Expos still exist. So that's a big difference, presumably, right? And that means, I guess, that the Nationals don't win a World Series. So that one's up for grabs. Yeah, or unless the Expos won that one, too. Oh, yeah. I mean, I guess Brady won in 19. So I guess he gets, maybe he just gets that one instead of the Nats. The Expos win that one.

That's kind of a freebie. Yeah. Yeah. But obviously, I think that franchise is still there. So that's a big difference over and above how it affects Boston or not. It certainly affects Montreal. So, yeah. Boston or not, it certainly affects Montreal.

So, yeah. And, you know, I think the Red Sox, maybe they still win one over this period just because we're talking about a period of more than 20 years. Sure. And it should be a big market team, at least it has been. It's not acting like it so much these days, and maybe it wouldn't have without some of those championships. This is my question. Yeah. Odds are, unless you believe in the curse, that they do win one during that time. But it's not a given. Yeah. I mean, I am sitting here with my entire life experience being like, yeah, I guess people do just kind of assume that over 20 years they'll probably at least go

to a World Series, right? Normal people, people who've had a normal time. I hope everyone knows they're mostly kidding about Boston sports fans. Not entirely kidding, because there needs to be some accountability for your guys' nonsense, but

every fan base has its nonsense. You just have a lot of it. You know like you know more than you have it's so much you know and like for new yorkers you just have the jets like as a humbling grounding influence right it pulls you down or the knicks right yeah yeah but Boston, something happened to you guys. I mean, we know what it was, but boy, it sure happened. It's been a charmed couple decades. Okay, and... I'm sorry for the emails we're going to get about that.

Then the next Expos question comes from Thomas, Patreon supporter, who says, as part of the continued disintegration of Twitter, it's randomly started showing me tweets from the Montreal Expos account recently. No clue how official it is, but it is followed by the Blue Jays account. One of the things they've been tweeting lately is cheeky photoshops of Ohtani at various locations in Montreal wearing Expos uniforms acting like he's going to sign with the team. This was prior to Ohtani signing with the Dodgers.

This gave me an idea for a hypothetical. Let's say that among Ohtani's many secret and privately held interests is a burning passion for the expos in the city of montreal he loves pedro martinez he actually does admire pedro martinez vladimir guerrero bagels smoked meat and the hockey sweater was his favorite book growing up what if this hypothetical otani made his free agency contingent on playing for the Expos, either as an expansion team or relocation? He'll waive his salary to help cover expansion fees and relocation costs and agree to play for league minimum for the rest of his career, just so long as he can wear that iconic hat on the mound. Would teams bite? Would a team moving or an expansion be more likely to succeed? Is Otani good enough to essentially create a team out of thin air to sign him if he wants to? So pretend he didn't sign with the Dodgers here. Does he have the sway?

But it has to be going back to Montreal or wherever, you know, team of his choice. Can he can he do it? Does he have the juice to it for a second before you give that no answer you know it's like it's a very expensive proposition you know even if what you're doing is relocating like that's that's the less expensive proposition because like if you you know if you said to the race like hey guess what your stadium deal didn't come through oh Now you are the Montreal Rays. You know, you have like a, you have, you don't have the physical infrastructure in place in Montreal. But like you have, you know, you have people. You have a whole staff. You have a front office. You have players.

Like you have an existing fan base. You can leverage the fan base in Montreal. fan base you can leverage the fan base in montreal like you have the ability to sort of hit the ground running i think faster and and thus recoup um expense more quickly than you would if you had nothing um which is kind of where um a potential montreal franchise sits right now but like you still you got to build a ballpark ben you got to build a whole a whole ballpark and offices you gotta you know design a logo um you got to print shirts uh you got to do all kinds of stuff when you add the the expansion fee or the relocation fee into that like it would it would eclipse i think even what the the the Dodgers gave to Otani.

Even if you just said like, oh, he's getting all of this right away. Easily eclipse that expense. So, no. But it would have been cool if he had been like, someone should do this. Yeah. But he didn't. That's okay. Olympic Stadium, still standing. Could just move right in there. That's wild. this, you know, but he didn't. That's okay.

Olympic Stadium still standing. You could just move right in there. That's wild. No, you could not. You would still think about how expensive that retrofit would be. There's no way that it's to big league standard now. Yeah. Yep.

I agree. I think there's some limit to Otani's powers and this is it. Okay. Question then from Jason, Otani related. He says, listener from the start, but I think this is my first time emailing. Wow. That's a true first time, long time. Just 11 plus years have gone by. And then this question occurred to Jason.

He said, this is the day I'm going to email Effectively Wild. Jason says, was thinking about Otani's comments at his introductory press conference. In sum, all the teams I met with are great. In the end, I had to choose one. What if he didn't? What if he could play for multiple teams? What will that look like? Would he choose a team based on competition?

Who needed him most? The time of year with playoff implications? How many teams? What else? And this doesn't have to be Otani specific. It could be any free agent. I feel like at one point we may have discussed some scenario with a mercenary player who just like you sign him for a start and he goes from team to team, kind of like a late career Roger Clemens, but more so just, you know, you're signing him for a week or whatever. And then he takes his talents to the next team.

I don't know if there's anything preventing this exactly, like CBA wise. I mean, can you sign a contract that's just like for part of a season? Let's say I'm signing with you for a week and then I will leave. I don't know that anyone has tested this. Yeah. But if you were to say, yeah, I'll just, I'll be a traveling roadshow.

I'll basically be barnstorming, but in the major leagues and you can sign me for some period of your choosing that I agree to. And, you know, maybe I'll get to play for every team. Right. I think one impediment to that is just kind of a clubhouse concern. Like, I don't know, maybe you're happy to get Otani even if it's for one start.

But if you're that much of a mercenary, then is it just sort of like naked self-interest? Like, obviously, you're not going to have any team spirit. You know, you're going from one team to the next and you're going to be playing for your opponent potentially later this season. I'm just, I'm here for the day, basically.

You know, will you give your best effort? Will your teammates be receptive to this interloper coming in in the clubhouse? And, you know, the rules don't apply to you, the typical rules. Even deferring a lot. So I don't know how this would go over with teammates and a fan base. Yeah. But if you really needed someone to win one game and he, first of all, you'd probably feel compelled to have, you know, one club in the American League and one in the National League. Because if you're, you'd have really bad feelings if your play on your other team, like, interfered with the postseason aspirations of Team 2, right? Which seems like it could be a possibility if you're in the same league. which seems like it could be a possibility if you're in the same league.

I mean, I guess you're still contributing potentially to a loss or a win, depending on how you look at it, of a club that it might matter. But you'd have to have one in each. And then how do you finesse transitioning to the other one? What do you say? Like, oh, well, it's time for me to go over there they're winning now like it just feels like it would i think you would be despised you know i think that players understand that they each want to win and they i don't think they begrudge their fellows the ambition to like go get a ring or whatever but if if it was that abrupt in season we've

gotten to know you we've plant you and the catcher have a bit you know you got a little bit where's the bit gonna go you can't take it you're gonna take your bit to the new catcher i mean it's like having a second family so i think that it would go very very poorly i don't know if there's anything specific i wouldn't be surprised if in the cba in a place that i'm not remembering or in like the So I think that it would go very, very poorly. I don't know if there's anything specific. I wouldn't be surprised if in the CBA in a place that I'm not remembering or in like the some of the standard contract language. Yeah, like uniform player contract. Maybe you can only play be under contract with one club simultaneously. It's like for competitive balance reasons, like it feels like you should only be able to be with one club.

You're like, well, yeah, I think able to be with one club you're like well yeah i think it would be two in sequence right yeah you wouldn't sign with multiple teams at the same time you'd just be like well i'm with teammate this week and then next week i'll be free to entertain offers again you could certainly in theory at least maximize your earnings because if you're going for like your your championship win probability added or whatever would be super high because a team would bring you in yeah to to like start in some meaningful game you know oh we're facing our division rival today you know you wouldn't really get into any games that had no playoff implications, probably.

I guess that's true. You'd only be playing for playoff teams, probably, I guess, unless, you know, some team brought you in just for attendance, just to juice your ticket sales. But would you even go if it's just one game and you feel no attachment to this person, right? Like, would fans even show up to see that? You'd just be kind of a carpetbagger, you know? I don't know that anyone would like you. So it would be, I guess, a phenomenon at first. It would be something unusual, but

you're not going to go out and root for this guy really, aside from how he affects your team on that day. But, you know, he would be in like high leverage games, I guess. And thus he could maybe extract higher salaries on a per game basis. Like he's betting on himself, you know, no security start to start. So if he hurts himself, that's it. He's done for the year and he's not going to make any more money. But if he stays healthy and keeps performing, then in theory, he would just be like, you know, highest bidder every time out. And you couldn't really collude to keep him out of the game, at least not in a way that you'd be caught. Like if let's let's say that this isn't against the current rules, which it might be. But but if it weren't, I could see owners being resentful of

this and saying, well, we don't want everyone to do this, right? So we got to nip this in the bud, but they probably can't actively coordinate to blackball the guy. So maybe each one would independently or quasi-independently say, we don't want to mess with our vibe by injecting this sideshow into our season, right? But it would be tough to resist. I wonder if he'd be idle sometimes. Would he be fully employed and he'd make as many starts as he would with one team? Or would there be some weeks where he couldn't find a taker, but then suddenly it's late in the season and you have a must-win game and it's like, fine, we have to resort to signing this guy because we just really need to win one here. I guess there would be desperation signings, right? I mean, it would sort of depend what role he plays. Like, is he a starting pitcher or is he a, you know what I mean? Like that would dictate

some of it, obviously, but I'm sure there would be. OK, so like here's here's you try this on first. Here's one. You're the Texas Rangers, right? Wow. Congrats. Max Schroeder just got hurt. Oh, no. But there's a mercenary out there. You can bring him in. No cost. I think that there would be like grudging pickup on this. But I think people would just I think people would really dislike him. I think that they would find it tacky. I think that that would be the word that gets thrown around. Yeah. But there is always someone with a need. Aside from the competitive, the thing is, as you're saying it, it's like someone is always shorthanded at

some point in a way that they didn't anticipate. So maybe you went into the season saying, we're not going to be in the market for this player services because we like our rotation. Sure, yeah, we love our rotation. And then someone gets hurt and suddenly you wish you could sign someone, but you can't because typically the best free agent isn't going to be available mid-season. But this guy is because he's just going to start to start so yeah you're the dodgers you're the dodgers again congratulations you have you have one half of a healthy starter come october you go get this guy you know you're like oh i'm gonna you're the atlanta braves you have a historically good offense you're on your

what you're you're just like laying waste to competition but you know you're gonna need more starters because do you want Bryce Elder starting a playoff game I don't know if you do so like I get it but I also think that people would look at it and be like you weren't here you didn't help us you weren't like part of this thing although people do accept like it's not like you know guys who get acquired at the trade deadline like get the cold shoulder in the clubhouse like if they're good and they help then i think that that paper is over a lot of stuff but it might strike people as different because it's not mercenary in the same way and then we have to ask ourselves a question like is that a fair

way to react like why are we forgiving of the machinations of the front office and not of individual players? Is that anti-labor? Do we just think this guy's tacky? I don't know. You know, Ben, I don't know. It's mistake hitter B. Let's define a mistake as any time a pitcher really hangs or rolls a breaking ball, misses their spot by at least eight inches, or even throws a knuckler that stays up. The pitcher badly messed up their intended execution. As long as that mistake is a strike, the perfect mistake hitter is guaranteed a hit. He doesn't miss them. Do most pitchers make a bad mistake in the zone? At least once per plate appearance that our hitter would have an 800 batting average, let's say? And I responded to Patrick and I referred him to an article that Robert Orr wrote for Baseball Prospectus in 2022,

headlined Crushing Bad Pitches is a Skill. And I will link to this piece. But his conclusion was, and I quote, with over a third of all pitches being crushable, as he defined it, that means a hitter is seeing at least one mistake per at-bat. What separates the great hitters is how efficiently and consistently they're able to punish those mistakes. So yeah, I think based on that, this guy would be great. If you're getting one mistake per bat or per plate appearance, and this guy is crushing every single mistake, then he's going to be great. And I thought this article was good because you do kind of have to quantify what is a mistake. I always think that maybe, you know, we underrate how often good hitters hit pitches that are not mistakes because it's not automatically a mistake. Anytime you see a home run hit, sometimes it was a pretty good pitch and the hitters are really good. And sometimes they

hit one and that's sort of a tip your cap situation. You can't really necessarily put it on the pitcher. It's just you make a good pitch and sometimes the guy takes a good swing. But I think a lot of the damage is done on mistakes as Robert figured out here. And so, yeah, if you're a perfect mistake hitter, then you're going to be a near perfect hitter overall. Because what else can you do unless the pitcher's perfect and can just put it on the black every time? You know, you can't just walk him every time. Then he's going to be the best hitter or most productive player anyway. So you can't just keep it out of the strike zone constantly. He's going to know that you're doing that and he'll just take those pitches for balls. So you do have to challenge him, which I guess you could call a mistake or a cookie as Robert defined it.

And then he's going to crush it. So, yeah, he's going to be amazing. Now I want a cookie. I have a question related to this. There's all this lovely precision with like, what is a mistake? And here's a, I'm going to meet that precision with some squishiness though. Okay. Like imagine you were just like a perfect bad ball hitter.

Do you think a perfect bad ball hitter is more valuable than a perfect mistake hitter? Probably not, right? Because even if you can hit it, you probably aren't hitting it flush and hard. Yeah. Well, I guess if you're a perfect bad ball hitter, maybe you are. Yeah. Because there are more bad balls than cookies probably. Yeah. I guess it depends. If perfect bad ball hitter is you can make contact, but it's maybe not great contact, then I would say that's not as valuable because, yeah, usually you're going to be swinging at a pitch that you can't really drive and then you'd rather have the mistake hitter. But if you're so perfect that you can crush the bad balls too somehow, unless you're – are you then terrible against any non-bad ball? Can you hit bad balls only?

I haven't gotten that far in my thinking, Ben. No, no, no. But like I think – yeah, yeah. You're bad at – that would be so – I think this would be the most frustrating hitter to watch because, you know, he'd be – I'm going to do a – I don't know if we count – this is a swear or not. But, you know, it's like he gets a ball right down the dick and you're like hit it and he can't but then he gets like something like two feet off the zone and you're like how the hell did he i find um people uh hitters like really doing good damage to bad balls more satisfying in a weird way where it's like he managed to hit a right off of the head. That was like,

you know, the plate, like that's the best kind of, um, hitting experience. Although probably not, if that's all you could do, it might be frustrating.

Yeah. Yeah. I, I am using this email segment to ask my own questions, you know, that's the theme so far. That's valid. Yeah.

One more thought occurred to me just about the ultimate mercenary, which is that I think he would be worse. I think his performance would be impaired in multiple ways. A, because people might not like him and, you know, unless he thrives on being the heel and being hated, probably that would take a toll ultimately that he might be booed everywhere. But also, as you said, if he's a pitcher, then he's got to get on the same page with his catcher every time. That's tough. And also, he's never going to have home field advantage really, right? Because it depends what you think home field advantage is, why that happens.

But if it's because you are familiar with your surroundings or it's because you're sleeping in your bed at night, like this guy is just going to be constantly traveling, you know. And now I guess maybe he gets more days off. It's almost more manageable if he's a starting pitcher because otherwise, is he just going from team to team? Is he team hopping every single day if he's an everyday player? If he's a starting pitcher, then he gets to maybe go home sometimes and just relax between starts as Roger Clemens did at the end of his career. But, you know, he's just he's not going to have like a single base that he gets to play in every day. So I think that would probably take its toll, too. in every day. So I think that would probably take its toll too. So I think, you know, he'd be some,

some fraction of how good he would be. Maybe he'd be 80% or 90% as good as he would be if he were just staying in the same place all the time. But I think it would hurt him somewhat. Yeah. And like where, you know, like, does he have friends? Yeah. Right. Okay. We'll close with a couple weird ones. Not that these have not been weird, but... All right, so this one, Jacob, Patreon supporter. This is sort of related to some of the discussion around baseball players on Cameo, which is probably a subject we should revisit. We talked about that years ago, but, you know...

Yeah, but it might be time to take another peek. New prices, some of which are somewhat surprising. So Jacob says, so K-pop companies use a couple of similar services for one-on-one quote-unquote communication with stars. The most famous are Bubble and Weverse DM. Basically for about $4 a month, these services put you in a massive group chat with a given idol, except you only see their messages slash selfies and your own messages. So it creates a bit of an illusion of one-on-one texting. And sometimes they reply to your messages, albeit rarely. You can see that this is different from Cameo in that everybody's chat costs the same amount no matter how big their fan base is

or how often they chat. Since most K-pop stars are signed up for these services by their companies, there's a huge range in how and how often they use them. So you can imagine that there's a ton of fan discourse over whose bubble is most worth it, etc. So the actual question is a multi-parter. One, would you support MLB or even minor league baseball signing every player up for a service like this with the understanding that they have practically no obligation to actually use them and they get a portion of subscription revenue? something like a dollar a month per subscription to which players can you imagine would be most into using this sort of service and related but distinct who do you think would be the best value that is frequent posting lots of replies frequent selfies funny whatever so i i guess this would have a close correlation to who is good at social media and who uses social media generally, right? If they tweet a lot, if they tweet well, Instagram, TikTok, whatever it is, then maybe they would be

good at this or they would embrace this. So I'm not against it in principle, you know, if players want to monetize some other way of interacting with their fans or giving some illusion, at least, of interacting with their fans. I don't think I would be in the market for this. It would be almost kind of annoying to cover baseball and like you'd have to subscribe to this to know what players are saying on these services, I suppose, especially if you're like a beat writer, you would have to be monitoring all the players for that team to know if there's like drama or new is being broken inadvertently or anything. Right. So it'd be another sort of private secret channel of communication that we would either have to monitor or sign up for or be excluded from, which is tough just like with the, you know, the siloing and the balkanization of just all media these days, which like, you know, get yours, obviously, but it does sort of stink that so much is behind paywalls.

Like I support paywalls. I support being paid for your work. But there are podcasts, there are sports podcasts that are much more paywalled than Effectively Wild is, for instance. I mean, we're not really paywalled at all, except we offer some bonus stuff. But, you know, we could, I mean, there are other podcasts that do like one free episode a week and the rest are behind the paywall or something. You know, presumably we could make more money maybe if we switch to that sort of model, but we don't want to be behind paywalls and, you know, Fangraphs and The Ringer are not behind paywalls.

And I'm pleased about that. And people support Fangraphs and make that possible. And people support Effectively Wild on Patreon and make that possible. But, you know, everyone has a newsletter subscription based and so many websites are behind paywalls, which you have to do because, you know, ad rates collapse and people need to get paid. But it also means that browsing the Internet now is running up against paywall after paywall. Yeah. And it's all just sort of splintered and we only have access to some stuff. So in that sense, I would prefer for players to be just like on social media that we could all access for free than this. But if this is the way that they make money, then I guess

it's fine. You know, you can convert your social media into like SpawnCon, you know, if you want to do that, or maybe it helps you get endorsements if you have a big social media footprint by baseball standards at least but i'm sure some players would like this and probably be good at it i think that's right i do worry about like feeling pressure to to do it if you're not into that i don't know i just think that we do a really bad job as social creatures like once we are granted some access or disclosure being like well that doesn't entitle me to like limitless access and disclosure so i wonder how the experience of like you know k-pop stars i guess like there's infrastructure in place that they don't have to do more than they're comfortable with but i don't know like i think it's fine i'm not expressing this well

stick with me for a second though like i as a media member i want players to be made available to the media i think that you know they want us to tell their stories and our readers want to read them and so we need to have some amount of access but i also think that like that system should be flexible enough that people don't feel like they have to always be available or present to their fans i mean like i've talked to players about their experience of social media in the last couple of years and it has been pretty gnarly a lot of the time you know like um and not just like oh you blew this save you know screw off but i had money on this game i've heard that the gamblers are the ones who are the nastiest actually on social media which doesn't surprise me and so i don't know like

if people want to have that kind of interface i get it and i think that that's fine but i wouldn't want there to be pressure around it and i think you're right that like it would become a place where media members would feel like they had to participate and you know the interaction that a player has with a fan and the interaction that a player has with a media member are hopefully going to be really different from one another, right? And so, like, shunting that kind of communication into a space that is understood to be sort of operating on the terms of fandom rather than something else might have knock-on effects we don't quite appreciate, if that makes sense. Hopefully it's not like we're closing the clubhouses because all our players are on bubble, you know.

Yeah. I think media members could lurk on these things maybe and just, you know, receive the communications sent out to fans, but maybe not communicate with the players that way. Hopefully this doesn't seem like it would lead to substantive conversations. Yes. But yeah, if you're just like opted into this as part of the player contract, but you're not obligated to use it, then I don't know, is the revenue like pooled and then it's sort of divvied out to everyone. I mean, would you then feel like you weren't pulling your weight if you weren't sending out these messages or certain players would be resentful because they're disproportionately communicating and are they not getting disproportionate revenue? Yeah. But yeah, I mean, there are a lot of demands on players and their public figures. And that comes with the territory.

And some people really like that. And some people, it's not a perk at all. It's something they have to put up with. So I wouldn't want to put more pressure on people to be public figures in a way that they haven't had to before. But if it were just an optional thing, hey, you can make use of this if you want to, then I guess that's fine. You know, another way of humanizing players for fans and making them more available for fans to help market the game and all of that. I'm in theory in favor of that, but you know, I'm sure

Joey Votto would be good at this if he wanted to. Right. Yeah. Oh yeah. A lot of people get really genuine pleasure out of the connection that they can form there. You know, being able to perform well in front of an audience as a player, I think, there can be really lovely stuff that happens there, but there can also be a lot of not good stuff that happens there. Oh, my God. Okay. Last question, and probably the weirdest of all. Peter in Los Angeles says, how different would baseball be if there were not just two games going on simultaneously, but they were essentially played on top of each other in a strange gravitational environment where the ball could travel up into the playing field of the other? Peter says, I've attached a diagram to try to show what I mean. And look, I got to answer, if you go the extra mile here and attach

a diagram, which I will send to you, Megan, also link for the listeners here so you can see what we're talking about here. I think that we've answered like games going on at the same time on the same field or something. It's like hollow earth. Yeah. This is like one game suspended on top of the other in the other game's airspace. So as Peter says, basically a game is happening right above the player's heads, but the gravity is reversed. The players cannot traverse this gravitational environment, but the ball will through fly balls. More so the rules state that if the defense catches the ball in the other game, it's still an out. Would this be enjoyable? Would ground ball batters

become the most desirable? And the same with fly ball pitchers. Also, to up the stakes, what if baseball were six simultaneous games inside a cube with each game playing on one side of the cube where there could be no home runs because any ball would inevitably be in play on the other field? Please enjoy this strange simulation. Yeah, let's keep it to just two games taking place, one on top of the other. So yeah, the players can't just like jump and suddenly the gravity sucks them into the other game, but the ball could.

So if there's like a fly ball or a pop-up or something, then it does get sucked into the other game. So they're going back and forth like that. So I guess it's set up kind of like a 3D chess sort of thing. It reminds me of the battle simulation rooms in Ender's Gate. I was just thinking that too. Yeah, yeah. Oh, boy.

Wow. We sure are ourselves, aren't we? So, yeah, we have to think three-dimensionally now even more so than we already do. Wow. So, would you have to, like, plan for this or would it just be inevitably? How would you plan for this? I don't know. Because I think we've talked about like a game taking place on the same field like two games at once. And sometimes you get that if like the diamonds are, you know, facing each other or like the outfield of one baseball field is also the outfield of the other one.

And so if you hit a deep fly ball, then it might trickle into the outfield of the other one. And you might just have to be like, timeout, you know, balls on the other field now. And you run into the middle of that other game. But this is, you know, vertical instead of lateral or horizontal like that. So I guess it would be, I mean, if the player can't go into the game that's above or below you, then once you hit it into that other game's environment, it's just out of play, right? Or is it not out of play and then— I don't know, Ben. Well, Peter actually said the rule state, if the defense catches the ball in the other game, it's an out. But what if they don't catch it?

What if they don't? Yeah. Is it a dead ball or is it just in play? Is it just an automatic home run? You're asking me? Because it's not like, maybe Peter needs to clarify the rules here. Yeah. Come on, Peter.

It's not like if it hits the catwalk at the trop. Right. And you have various rules in place and you go over the ground rules before the game, if it hits this ring, then it's dead. If it hits this ring, it's in play or whatever. Like if the defense catches the ball in the other game, it's still an out. But how does that benefit that defense? What are their incentives? Yeah.

Why should they try? Why should they help you? They got to get something, right? Yeah. In order to incentivize them to do that. Yes. And then if it's still an out, if it's caught in the other field, then yes, I guess you would want pitchers who could keep the ball on the ground, right? And maybe you would want fly ball hitters.

the ball on the ground, right? And maybe you would want fly ball hitters. Like we would probably talk about the ground ball fly ball platoon effect much more than we do currently, which it's a real thing, but it's not quite as pronounced as the lefty righty platoon split. So we don't talk about it as much, but it would be everything in this game. You'd constantly be trying to avoid pop-ups or trying to get your opponent to... How would the infield fly rule work? yeah that's a complication and yeah it is a complication a pop-up is another is an automatic out now it's it's the best thing you can do as a pitcher aside

from a strikeout but in this universe if it gets sucked into the other and there's a game going on on that other field. Yeah. So, you know, like you got to have your head on a swivel. Like you can't be constantly looking up or down to see if a ball is coming into your airspace. So, you wouldn't be great at fielding balls from the other environment. You need the bench coach to like be a spotter. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, you'd need to- You'd need to employ someone specifically to be like heads, you know? Right. Seriously. Or feet. Yeah. Yeah, feet?

Depending. Feet? Yeah, you can never really say, I got it, I got it with confidence because maybe you don't got it. Maybe it goes into this other realm this like alternate universe yeah the alternate universe of hollow earth slash ender's game i only have one more monarch legacy of monsters i mean there is only one more but i'm caught up

on monarch the legacy of monsters good yeah we're really concerned about it everyone who listened to our patreon episode is like good for you meg and everyone else is like why are you talking about godzilla meg go see godzilla minus one it's excellent oh i saw poor things so good ben wow see meg's thoughts on these things are paywalled that's uh that's what you gotta subscribe to get if you want more you're gonna have you're going to have to wait. Trying to provide a tease here. Yeah. Trying to get people to sign up.

Well, I need until, I easily need until our next bonus episode to sort through my thoughts about that movie. Because what a movie, Ben. What a weird little movie. Wonderful. Well, I might need until our next episode to sort out my thoughts about vertical baseball. I think that you would need a dedicated coach. Like you would need one person on the whole thing to be on your staff to be dedicated to the heads. Pete. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Peter, maybe fill in some of the blanks here. Some of the details and other people can feel free to speculate about what this would look like. How does this work from an attendance standpoint? Do you get vertigo if you're like-

Oh my gosh, you would have, you would feel, it would be so unsettling because you would feel like you're going to fall through to a Hollow Earth Enders game all the time. Something was going to fall on your head. It would be like Inception when the city starts folding around you, that sort of thing. Oh, man. I think it would be terrible, really. Yeah. I really do. I think it would be terrible. It would be very confusing, at the least.

Oh, man. Now I'm going to be thinking about that and poor things. I'm just going to be all sideways until the end of the week. Well, we were talking about how the Dodgers could be topped or stopped after we recorded the L.A. Times reported that California State Comptroller Malia Cohen had called on Congress to change the tax system that may allow Ohtani to get out of paying state taxes on the deferrals if he has moved outside of California by the time they're due, which could cost the state an estimated $98 million in tax revenue. So California itself trying to shut down the Dodgers. Malia Cohen is from San Francisco. Not that I'm implying anything about where her

allegiances lie. Plenty of ultra-wealthy, tax-allergic folks in her hometown too, though maybe not as many with huge deferred dollar totals on her hometown team. Also, in case you get your college football news from Effectively Wild, the Michigan Wolverines beat the Washington Huskies. Sorry, Meg. If you want to cheer her up, you can support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad-free, and get themselves access to some perks. Joseph Antonetti, Nick, Brendan Bonner, Michael Cohen, and Andy.

Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, the aforementioned monthly bonus episodes, discounts on merch and ad-free fan graphs memberships, prioritized email answers, and so much more. Patreon.com slash effectivelywild. If you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. That way we'll know it's coming from a Patreon supporter.

But you can also email us the usual way. Send your questions and comments to podcast at fangraphs.com. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild. You can follow Effectively Wild on Twitter at EWpod, and you can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash effectively wild. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We'll be back with another episode a little later this week.

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