Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2118: The Call-Up is Coming From Inside the House

Episode Date: January 31, 2024

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about what would happen if top prospects could promote themselves, the Mariners-Twins trade involving Jorge Polanco, Photoshop mockups of players in their new teams’ uniforms, Byron Buxton returning to center field, the Blue Jays signing Justin Turner, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. as an MLB The Show cover model, the surprising […]

It's a long song to death, but for sure to make you smile, this is Effectively Wild. This is Effectively Wild. This is Effectively Wild. Hello and welcome to episode 2118 of Effectively Wild, the Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Raleigh of Fangraphs and I am joined by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? Well, I've been consumed by a question for the past couple days,

and I think it's a question that will segue into the first transaction we have to talk about. So here it is. This was prompted by a tweet by John Marossi a couple days ago. He said, A tweet by John Marossi a couple days ago. He said, the Twins plan for infielder Brooks Lee, number 18 overall prospect per MLB pipeline, to begin 2024 at AAA, GM Thad Levine told MLB Network Radio today. Levine continued, quote, when he tells us he's ready to go, we're going to get him up to the big leagues, end quote. And I was wondering, what if prospect promotion worked that way? What if it was just a matter of the prospect telling the team that he's ready to

go? And as soon as he does, he says, okay, call me up. And the team says, okay, we were just waiting for the green light from you. Now you get to come up. Okay. So how much earlier do you think prospects would call themselves up? Now we should probably stipulate this might have to be limited to certain highly rated prospects. Obviously, if you're an org guy who's probably never going to make the majors on your own performance. Yeah. Day one. I'm ready. Yeah. Yesterday even. Very ready to make the major league minimum instead of the relative

I am making now. Yeah. Even if they know they're not going to be good, even if that might be mildly embarrassing, that's life-changing money. Right. But what if you're Brooks Lee? So Brooks Lee,

he's a highly-rated prospect. He got to AAA last season. He has every expectation of making the majors. So, if you're someone like that, where you're not that far away, you do have some incentive to come up at the right time, right? Sure. right time, right? Because A, you don't want to be bad. No one wants to be bad and embarrass themselves. And you could possibly hurt your standing if you came up too early and were bad. I don't know if you could then get sent down again or whether you could veto in this scenario. Right. Yeah. That was going to be a question I asked. Yeah. Okay. So you can't have like a lifetime roster spot, but it's just, you get to say go or no go. And then after that, maybe if you don't do well, they could still demote you, but you get to say when you start. So if you're someone like,

he was a first rounder, I don't know offhand what his bonus was, but he was an eighth overall pick, you know, I'm sure he has made a decent amount of money more so than someone who's not a high pick, right? So maybe it's not quite as pressing to start making that major league money, but you got to be just raring to go when you're at that point. What do you think would happen? Would most guys say, all right, let's get going? Or do you think they would have the restraint? Well, there'd be so many things to consider, right? You know, there's the bit you're talking about where like nobody wants to feel embarrassed. But if we want to afford people the generosity of a self-aware understanding of their own talent, like I think that it wouldn't surprise me if a number of guys have a sense of like, I've accomplished all I can here. You know, like I need the next challenge. Like, there's no more that the AAA pitching can really show me about my swing, for instance.

It's time to go play with the big league club would if we assume that guys want to put themselves in a position to be called up and then stay, presumably. in instances where maybe the team and the player have a similar understanding of the season in which their promotion should occur, the considerations would be around, you know, some of the deadlines in the calendar that matter for participating in the prospect promotion incentive program, being on the right side of super two, you know, stuff like that, where you would, you know, if you're the prospect, you're like, well, I'm gonna get mine. You know, I'm gonna make sure that assuming I am good enough to stick, that I do that and that I do it in a way that is gonna be the sort of most beneficial to me, either in an immediate monetary sense or in an eventual free agency sense. So, there's that. And then you would have, Ben, a couple of guys,

and I don't want to call them bozos because I think the instinct to get there and realize your dream and make big league money, that's all very legible to me as sort of motivation. But I think that there would be some guys who maybe have outsized belief in their readiness who would go too soon, and then they would learn hard lessons, and then they would end up back in AAA. And then we would sort of have to see what they make of those lessons and what adjustments they're able to

affect. But I don't know, maybe I'm giving more credit than is due, but I think they have a reasonably good sense of when they're ready. You know, if you're in low A, working on your breaking ball recognition, I think even a professional athlete, even a young person, even, you know, I don't want to say that they're all the same kind of, you know, masculine, but like a macho guy. Some of them are. You know, I think that if you're like, wow, I'm still, I'm not laying off like a low A slider. You're not going to go. I think it's time for me to see DeGrom, you know, see what he's got.

So, it's like, you know, I think that people have a sense of this stuff. It's hard when you are faced with your own failure to not feel that very innately and want to avoid it. And, you know, people delude themselves all the time. that these guys have to do between confidence and sort of self-awareness because I imagine that that's a that is a tricky needle to thread at times because you're being asked to do this incredibly difficult thing that only a tiny slice of the population is capable of so I think you have to have like pretty substantial self-belief you know and it has to be durable in order for you to weather like the inevitable failure that comes with playing against other really, really good athletes. But I don't know. I think that a lot of these guys, they know. All you have to do is watch them on the backfields to know.

When they've had a bad at-bat, they know that. When another guy takes you deep, there's a change in the body language. So, I think that the assessment of readiness would probably maybe, you know, front run that of the org a little bit, but I think that this would probably come down to more practical concerns about getting your clock started toward free agency and, you know, being able to maximize your earnings and stuff like that. But I don't know, maybe I'm being, maybe that's optimistic with me. No, I'd like to think that not too many players would be irrationally confident about how ready they are. And hopefully they and the organization are roughly on the same page and are kind of communicating about, here's what we're seeing,

here's what we think you have to work on. Hopefully that's a mutual thing that they've agreed on and set goals together so that they're not on totally different pages. This would do away with any lingering vestiges of service time manipulation, at least, I suppose, right? In those cases where someone is obviously ready, if the player had the decision, then they could call themselves up. And if you're Brooksley, he played 38 games at AAA last year. He hit 237, 304, 428. Not bad, but not world-beating either to the point where you could imagine someone, even in these days of paying attention to expected stats and batted ball quality, if you had some fluky BABIP stretch at AAA, let's say, you might

think, oh, I got this. I can get called up now. I'm ready. And you might not dig too deep into the numbers. So I could imagine that happening at times. And I guess you could say, well, what's the downside? Okay. If you get called up a little too early, yeah, you then face some harsh realities, but ultimately you make it back. Maybe the consideration with player development always has been, well, are you going to hurt someone's development long term if you call them up too early? Is that going to get in their heads? Are they going to change something that then hampers them long term? Will it affect their psyche somehow? So that would be the downside. Obviously, there's a downside to the team and that if the player is not good,

then that will not help the team. But also, it could hurt the player long term. It might not just be, well, I make some cash to suck for a little while and then someday I'll be back. There actually could be a cost to you long term. But that'd be really interesting. Yeah, I don't think it would be later. I don't think they would call themselves up later than the team. If it's going to be one or the other, they're going to call themselves up earlier. But I agree. It's almost in all cases, I think, not going to be so dramatically earlier that we would see guys coming up like a year ahead of when they would

otherwise be called up, right? Yeah. I have two more thoughts about this. The first of which is that the guys who are really wrong, who are wildly overconfident, who've just so badly failed at self-assessment, I think would do so in spectacular fashion. Like, they would be such outliers and it would be so uncomfortable. Like, it would not be, you know, it would not be pleasurable to watch them brought low by big league pitching or big league hitting. Like, it would just feel, it would feel bad, you know, and I don't know that it would feel any different as a result of the fact that they've sort of inflicted this upon themselves. So there's that piece of it.

Guy gets drafted and immediately he's like, let's go. Let's go tomorrow, you know, tomorrow. Put me in coach. Yeah, I'm ready to go. So there's that piece of it. I also think that, you know, it would be really interesting to see how this would affect, you know, like the Francisco Lindors of the world where like the, the sort of beat on him was that like, you know, he ended up struggling at times in the high minors because he was just bored. He was like ready to be a big leaguer. And like, they, you know, it was like, promote me. I'm, you know, like this is, again, I've, I've accomplished everything I can here. And I think that that has, you know, he's not the only guy for whom that's been true, but it's certainly, you know, he's sort of one of the more notable examples to my mind. And so I would appreciate having more sort of test cases of that thesis to see what that does for guys and sort of how meaningful in their performance it can be when they have sort of moved beyond the level at which

they're currently playing. And, you know, is that always a good thing or does it, you know, do they get kind of bored with it? And, you know, it's hard to be, you know, full effort when you're in an environment where you kind of feel like things are a little bit on easy mode. So, just because I find that phenomena and interaction between sort of, you know, physical ability, psychology and level to be so interesting, I would appreciate having more sort of data in that area. Yeah. It's almost like the test that researchers will do with little kids sometimes, the cookie test, like you can have one cookie now, or if you wait and don't eat that cookie, then you can have two cookies in a little while.

It's like a test of self-control or delayed gratification. Maybe something similar would come into play here if you think that if you wait until you're really ready and then you hit the ground running and you're good from the get-go, then that will help you. You know, maybe it helps you in arbitration later on down the road if your stats are really strong from the start. So there are a lot of considerations. Or if your family really needs money immediately, then you're like, all right, let's go. Hopefully this will go well, but I need to help out my parents. So there are all kinds of considerations. I think a lot of people, you know, even with all that's been written about sort of the state of minor league play and even with the improvements that we've seen in that score, like I think we have we all have this mental image of minor leaguers as being like, you know, recent draftees or like, you know, for some people even like recent international signing guys. Like it's it's an image of a very, very young person. And like a lot of these guys have families, you know, they have kids. They like have people that are depending on them. So, yeah, I do think we'd probably see some of that where people would be like, I got to go. You know, we need to pay bills more comfortably than we're paying them right now.

Yeah, you got to get that good health insurance. I mean, maybe now minor leaguers are unionized. So who knows, maybe it wouldn't be quite as acute a need to come up immediately. But the other thing is that if you is that even if you can call yourself up, presumably you can't control your playing time once you get there. So you could end up being like a bonus baby or something. You know, back in the old days, you could come up to the majors, but then you'd just be on the bench and not developing. And that would be frustrating too. And meanwhile, I guess you would cost someone else a job if you get called up, someone else has got to go down. Maybe you'd feel guilty about that. I guess that's always shortstop, right? And they have Royce Lewis maybe playing at the corner. They have Edward Julian, right? They have all of these good infielders who maybe will not give Brixley any playing time.

So that's a consideration. I mean, if you are ready and you're blocked by someone, then you might just decide to call yourself up to start making that money anyway. But also, if you can't actually slide into the starting lineup immediately, then you have to consider, well, will I be better continuing to see AAA pitching and getting reps and fielding ground balls, et cetera? Yeah, I think that that would really, that would definitely be a consideration because like, you know, I think that most of these guys i know that people you know everyone likes a day off and sometimes uh it's nice to like go to work and not have to do anything this is why i always liked working the day after thanksgiving when i worked in finance

because it's like the market closed early and nobody did anything so i like went to work and didn't have to use a vacation day but i got to wear jeans they would send an email ben they would send an email being like by the way friday is a jeans day. And I was like, this place is hopeless. But yeah, it was like, I get to wear jeans and look at Black Friday sale stuff and just be here in case something breaks, which was really what I was there for. But I think that most of these guys, they're raring to go. They want to play. There's the part of it that's practical and financial and business and all of that. But like, I think they also just want to be able to be like, I'm a big leaguer now. Here's what that looks like, you know? So, there's that. I think that

those marshmallow and cookie studies kind of got debunked later. I think that what they found was that they were really under, they were really measuring the kids' perceived level of like an understanding of scarcity in their own lives. So they were sadder, Ben. They were much sadder. Good to know. Well, there's a little more scarcity in the infield in Minnesota these days because the twins made a trade. Beautiful. Wonderful transition.

With the Seattle Mariners. Holy cow. And that means that we have a little jingle to play to set up this transactions because Jerry DePoto was involved. What did Jerry DePoto do? What did Jerry DePoto do? We're going to talk to Blake Rowley about a trade or two. Because what did Jerry DePoto do? Apologies to Derek Falvey that we don't have a What Did Derek Falvey Do song. He did this just as much as Jerry DePoto did, right?

It takes two to transact, and we always give the credit and the song to Jerry DePoto. But I usually assume he's the instigator, you know? I assume that he's the one picking up the phone, sending the text to get things started. But maybe not. Maybe that's just a stereotype, and everyone's coming to him because they know that he's the one picking up the phone, sending the text to get things started. But maybe not. Maybe that's just a stereotype and everyone's coming to him because they know that he's willing to deal, right? But one way or another, we have a trade here, a multiplayer trade. The Seattle Mariners have acquired Jorge Polanco and they have traded quite a few players for the privilege of employing Polanco. So here is the full deal.

The Mariners have traded Justin Topa. They have traded Anthony DiScofani, who had a distinguished month or so as a Mariner after coming over in the Robbie Ray trade. And two prospects, Gabriel Gonzalez and Darren Bowen. And two prospects, Gabriel Gonzalez and Darren Bowen, as well as the all-important cash considerations. The Mariners are sending money this time, not getting money sent to them, but they are sending $8 million to cover two-thirds of DiScofani's $12 million salary. I know the Giants are still paying part of DiScofani also. So it is a four for one, two big leaguers, two prospects, some cash. The Mariners have gotten their man.

They've gotten a second baseman. What do you make of this deal from their perspective? It's so funny that you say they've gotten their man because they've been trying to get this man and some of it is Jorge Polanco specifically and some of it is just like theanco specifically and some of it is just like the archetype that jorge polanco occupies for like jerry depoto's entire tenure with the city of seattle i'm sorry he doesn't work for the city he works in the mariners um so i think a couple of

things i want to try to thread a needle here much like the mariners are trying to throw out a very specific needle. In isolation, I like this move. Like I like Jorge Polanco as a player. I think that he is useful. I think particularly if we see his offense either sustain or tick up a little bit, like great. Is he like the best second base defender you've ever seen in your whole life? I mean, like sure sure surely is not but you know i think that he indicates to me that this mariners team is trying to get better for 2024 they want to they want to win some games in 2024 and they think that jorge polanco is going to assist them in that endeavor and so when i look at Seattle's lineup today versus what it was the day the season ended, this is better. This is better than it was, Ben. I think that I will use that statement to transition to my second point, which is how much better?

question mark? The place that I've landed in trying to describe the Mariners' approach to the offseason is, like, they seem to be playing on hard mode. It is clear that either by virtue of the reality of their RSN situation or the perception of their RSN situation from their ownership group that they have been instructed to spend very little money. They have done an awful lot of shuffling around in service of trying to get marginally better while still spending very little money is jorge polanco like meaningfully better just with the bat we can talk about the positional fit in a second i guess but like from a you know just a hitting perspective like is he meaningfully better than like a johannes suarez right right so so like that's a a question that one could ask and i think probably should and when i say that they are

playing on hard mode what i mean is when you're when you're this cash strapped right when it's this tight, your range of moves is quite narrow. You have very few of them. And I think that you put yourself in a position to maybe give up a little much for the privilege of employing like Jorge Polanco. will not pretend that I am like an expert on either Gabriel Gonzalez or Darren Bowen. I know that they are, these aren't like 35 plus prospects, you know, depending on the publication you're looking at. Like some pubs have Gonzalez as a top 100 guy. I think that Eric has been a little bit lower on him than maybe some other places. But like think he's still like a 40 plus and Bowen is promising. So you're giving up those two guys in the future. You're giving up Justin Topa, who looked like a high leverage guy last year and pitched very well. And I think you're giving up useful rotation depth in De Sclafani. So when the teams that you're out there trading with know that this is your primary avenue of talent acquisition,

you're going to get jobbed a little bit sometimes. And I don't think that this was like a crazy overpay, but I think that at the end of the offseason, we're going to look at this in aggregate and feel like seattle ended up paying a premium on their moves in general because of how tight the cash piece was and i know they sent money in this deal um which also kind of makes us think a little bit differently about the ravi ray trade which is like not really as maybe neutral as we initially thought but um within the confines they have set for themselves, I like this move. And as I said, I think that this team is better today in the lineup than it was at the start of the offseason.

And they desperately needed to improve in that regard. But I also think that, you know, when you look at some of the guys that they have who, if it goes right, we're going to say, wow, awesome. You guys are brain geniuses. Also have not small downside potential, right? Like, what if Mitch Gerver gets hurt again and can't play or can't hit for as much pop? You know, what happens if Ty France doesn't rebound? What happens if Luke Raley's season really was kind of a mirage? What happens if Mitch Hanager gets hurt again,

right? So I think that, and like, you know, we can ask questions about Polanco's offense as well. So I think that there is a road to like an extreme downside scenario for these guys in all likelihood, if they can get reasonable production out of some of the guys that they have effectively placed bets on and they can keep their rotation relatively healthy i think that this will this can be a potent club like that mariners rotation is stacked and it's still stacked even with descafani gone. And, you know, at some point, their, like, reliever magic will wear off with somebody. You know, I don't think that we can just count on them forever being able to develop these guys. And so, I don't want to discount the potential loss of Topa because he

is, like, we know he is good, right? And we might need to see if some of the other options that they have available to them end up being good. But, you know, they are, in theory, trading from a position of strength. I certainly like, you know, some of the guys who they have in the minors on the pitching side. Like, I'm really excited for Prelander Barua, for instance. Like, there are definitely guys here who I think are going to become names that we all know at the big league level within the next year. But again, they're playing on hard mode. And I just organizationally, philosophically think that that's a bad decision because baseball is already so hard.

Like there's really nothing wrong with just making it a little bit easier on yourself. It's not to say that they haven't done anything to improve the club. It's not to say that they haven't spent any money. Like, lest we forget, they spent money on Christmas Eve, right? But like, their big free agent acquisition of this offseason signed for $224 million. So so like that's the you know that's like yeah that's nothing um so that's a lot of words to say i like this move on its own i do think it was rich a little bit even within the terms of itself i think this team is better than it was i think that it could end up being bad it could end up just being kind of boring and mediocre. It could end up being like plucky and good. And we'll all look back and be like that Meg, she was too pessimistic. But I think it's worth keeping an eye on sort of like the

organizational philosophy that is sort of undergirding all of these moves, which is, you know, just needing to move the same $10 million seemingly over the course of the entire offseason. And, you know, that's Jerry's red paperclip, I guess. Yeah. Their payroll now is $135 million-ish. They were at $137 million last year. So they have basically like they saved money here. Then they took on money there. They have basically the same amount of money committed, but just to different players who are maybe better than the players that they had before, but not as much better as they could have been if they hadn't been so bound to that number and could have just said, let's go get this guy, that guy and keep the good guys that we already have. So, yeah, I think I'm with you on the overall impact here.

It's been another busy winter for Jerry. He never gets to hibernate, but I don't know how much better they've gotten. I guess they've gotten a little bit better. It's maybe a more efficient alignment of those almost identical resources that they're spending. And like, look, I think that, you know, if things go well for some of these guys, like, they're more than just a little bit better, right? Like, again, I don't, I feel bad. I feel like I'm picking on the young man. Imagine a man named Hag Sammerdy. Okay. I just like to pick a guy out of the clear blue sky, a pretend person, a completely made up man, right? That made up man was the starting DH for a

team that was just a couple of games out of the post season. And now their starting DH is Mitch Garver, who is famously a real person who hits the ball better. I'm so sorry, Sam. You seem like a very nice young man. And you are a useful player to have in the organization on the bench. You were just being asked to do a lot. And that was not your fault. That was the org's fault.

Okay? That's not your fault, Sam. Sam. Right? And so, like like it's mitch garver he's a you know we have seen him be a very good big league hitter we have seen mitch hanager we've seen both mitches be quite useful right very productive and you know do i think that luke rayleigh is a true talent 130 wrc plus guy no but i don't think he's a 79 wrc plus guy either right just to pick what he was able to do in like 72 plate appearances in 2022 so like there is a version of this that goes really well for them and they have just a ton more depth i i'm not like crazy go nuts for many of their outfield options but they do do, you know, admittedly have meaningfully more depth there than they used to.

I think they could still use another outfielder, but that's not going to be there. So like, you know, there is a version of this that goes really, really well, you know, and then you look to that rotation and it's like Castillo, Gilbert, Kirby, that's great. That's great. And then you get, you know, Bryce Miller and Brian Wu in their sophomore seasons, like really getting to have had that experience, hopefully take a step forward. You got Munoz and Brash. Like, I just think that this is a, and you know who we didn't talk about? Austin Voth. Who, can I just take a tiny cul-de-sac of silliness? Ben, how many, what percentage of big leaguers would you say you can conjure an instant mental image of their face when I say their name to you? What percentage do you think? from just the guys who were getting shuffled in the back of bullpens where I'd say maybe like 30% of like all big leaguers who play in a season, which is way more than a thousand. It's like 1200 something or maybe more than that. Right. So yeah, that I'd probably say like 30% ish for, for that. And if we're talking like starters, like regulars, maybe 60%? Yeah, let's say regulars because we want to be like reasonable. Okay, so like I would say that my, I have unusually good mental recall of these guys' faces.

Okay. And it tends to be the right guy. And I don't, I have been imagining the wrong face for Austin Voth for years. The wrong face. And I've seen him pitch. I've seen him pitch in person. Whose face is it? Is it someone else's face? I don't know, Ben. I don't know. Can you do like a police sketch of your version of Austin Voss? We will figure out. It would look like that. That meme police sketch though,

where it's just like not a human face. It's like something a child draws. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I will like be doing something else on the couch, editing, look up,

see a guy in like quarter profile and be like, oh, that's so-and-so. But I've had the wrong human man's face in my head for Austin Voth for years, years. And I don't know whose face I'm seeing. It's probably another national. It doesn't matter. I mean, it does. It drives me crazy. I think about it at least once a week. But anyway, anyway. 1,457 major leaguers in 2023, by the way. Wow, that's a lot.

Yeah, arguably too many major leaguers in twenty twenty three. By the way, that's a lot. Yeah. Arguably too many. And you think that I'm going to get Austin Vosface right because like he's a Washington guy. He's he was born in Redmond. Mm hmm. It's very upsetting. Anyway, I think that, you know, I think that this could go really well. well, I think that they could be a team where, you know, a couple of months from now, we're talking about how, you know, they executed this offseason plan with aplomb. And, you know, they

made the best of incredibly limited resources. And they are good vibes. And they're all hitting great. And their sequencing is good. and the pitching remains superlative and then everyone's gonna be like you were wrong and i'll be like cool i'm so happy to have been wrong because that means that my family gets to watch baseball that they enjoy but i just you know i would invite the ownership group to like let their guys play on just like you don't have to play on easy mode just like the factory settings is that the right way to describe like what the default is when you start a video game what's the meat what's the just right it says just the default yeah okay standard difficulty

sure what's the latest in the fake pokemon game saga a lot of people still play in it are they really well good for them on the twin side of things, I'm sure it was difficult to part with a player like Polanco, who's been on that team for 10 years, been in that organization for almost 15 years. Lifetime twin since he was a teen, signed out of the DR. He's been a good player for them, but they've had such a glut of infielders. They had a glut of infielders when they traded Luis Arias for Pablo Lopez, which worked out fairly well for them, even though Arias got more of the headlines and had himself a fine season. So did Pablo Lopez and the twins

probably needed a Pablo Lopez more than they needed a Luis Arias. And you could probably say that about what they got back in this deal, too, because, again, just too many infielders. So this opens up more regular playing time for Edward Julien. Don't know if they will still insist on platooning him or whether he'll get more of a chance to start all the time. But with Correa, with Julien, with, you know, Brooks Lee able to call himself up at a moment's notice, right? Correa says he's healthy and more ready than he was after his strange saga last offseason. Royce Lewis, hopefully healthy. So you could see why Polanco at 30 is the odd man out, you know, making a quite reasonable

$10.5 million this coming year. There's a team option. Well, sure, he's a Mariner now. Of course he's making a reasonable $10.5 million this coming year. Well, sure, he's a Mariner now. Of course he's making a reasonable $10.5 million. Yeah, there's a team option for 2025. But you can see why if they have also sort of set payroll constraints for themselves and have said that we have to trim, if anything. And so they are operating on hard mode as well.

And so they are dealing a good player from a surplus here for what they need, which is pitching. And they have lost some pitchers to free agency and they could really use some more. Kenta Maeda's not there. Sonny Gray's not there. Right. So Di Scafani is certainly not as good as those guys. And Topa, you just hope that he will stay healthy, which he has had trouble doing in his career. Just Topa's almost 33 years old. He seems like a fairly recent arrival, but that's what happens when you have multiple Tommy John surgeries and flexor tendon surgery, right? So. Yeah. Like he was one of those guys where last year I was like, hey, we do actually have to put Justin Topa on the prospect list

because he is still rookie eligible. You know, he's one of those where you're like, how does that guy still have prospect eligibility? Yeah. Crazy. Now, I haven't given the Twins as much grief as I have the Orioles, who have been similarly inactive prior to this trade. The Twins hadn't done much either. And I think that's because we did mention them when we had an earlier conversation about, hey, who's the pressure on? Which teams really need to do something between now and opening day? We mentioned them. I think it's partly that they have set expectations low, which doesn't make it better exactly, but just means that no one really ever had their hopes up that the Twins were going to make major moves this offseason. They sort of came out and said it, or at least it was reported early

on that they were looking to lower payroll, if anything. So it's not the Orioles out here being like, we're being as aggressive as any team or, you know, the Red Sox saying that it's going to be a full throttle offseason or anything like that. They had a more measured approach to the messaging. That's part of it. Also, they have big time broadcasting uncertainty going on. I believe as of now, they do not know where their games will be broadcast in 2024. And also they're in the AL Central, which you hate to use that as an excuse for not spending. But the fact is, there's just less competition than there is for the Orioles and the ALEs.

Fewer teams pushing them, right? So they can maybe kind of coast or at least there's a better chance that they can coast back to a division title in that division, even though you do have some teams being more aggressive in that division these days. So for all those reasons,

they haven't come up as much, but they certainly did need some pitching. They needed to do something. They saved money in this move and they have said subsequently that they will be spending that money on player payroll that they are not done. So we will see if they live up to that

and what they do. But I get it, again, just from an alignment of similar resources perspective. If you're not going to spend more, then you might as well spend it on something you really have a need for, as opposed to another pretty good infielder when you have a whole lot of those. Yeah, I would like it if the entire Central sort of forced each other to compete on more recognizably big league grounds than they tend to. But I think that you're right, that they're just in a fundamentally different situation than the Orioles are in the East or even than the Mariners are in the West, right? I think that the AL West is a more competitive division than the Central, even with the Angels doing whatever they're up to and the A's situation. So, it just reads differently when you have the one versus the other. Polanco is well-regarded. I guess I should say that that is maybe part of why there was a bit of a premium play to get paid. It does sound like Seattle just has really wanted Jorge Polancoanco for a while now so there's that piece of it but this does clear the way for Edouard Jullian and if we're going to sing the Jerry DePoto song I would be remiss

if I did not point everyone to the piece of original music that our own Davey Andrews wrote in Jullian's honor when he wrote about Jullian recently so please check it out. Cause it's just like,

it's so delightful and I just enjoyed it very much. He's a twin. He's a Canadian twin and he rakes until the left. He comes in. He won't swing. If it's out of the zone, that's one thing. I just got to know.

Edward Julian, are you going to rule again? Edward Julian, are, going to be very good for them for a while. So I understand there being an obvious sort of sub there. You know, I still think that they need more pitching. But I think that this certainly helps. So there's that you know and i think that the prospect piece of it is pretty pretty interesting too so i don't i think they did pretty well all things considered um again we always want everyone to spend more than they are but um you know given their their options here this was pretty good. He was just like, he was good for Team Canada, you know, in the WBC, Edward Juliano.

I was like, oh, that guy seems like a big leaguer. And then you know what, Ben? Yeah, he's really good. He was. Then he was. Congrats to the seven baseball writers who teamed up in various permutations to break the details of this trade. Yeah. You know how MLB trade rumors, to its credit, at the bottom of a post will credit and link to all of the people who tweeted or wrote about the various details.

Here's the paragraph, the full paragraph at the bottom of their post about this trade. Mark Feinstein of MLB.com first reported the sides were finalizing a trade, sending Polanco to Seattle. Jeff Passan of ESPN confirmed an agreement was in place. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported the twins were acquiring four players, two of whom were big leaguers. Robert Murray of Fansighted reported Topa's inclusion, while Dan Hayes of The Athletic had Discofani's and Gonzalez's involvement. ESPN's Kylie McDaniel reported the twins were receiving Bowen and the presence of cash considerations, which Rosenthal specified

were coming from Seattle's end. Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times reported the Mariners were paying upwards of $6 million in cash considerations. Hayes and Rosenthal specified the M's were including $8 million in cash considerations. Can you imagine the volume of texts being traded about the details of this trade? We'll never know because no one's ever going to give up their sources, nor should they. But I would love to know the full text traffic as people were trying to break this trade. Totally.

Because some of these reporters must have been texting the same sources, right? Oh, yeah. You have two front offices involved here, and I'm sure, I mean, you have local writers for the Twins, local writers for the Mariners. They're going to be texting their sources in those organizations, presumably, whereas the national sources, who knows where they're going to get this info. And, you know, agents are involved. I mean, who knows? But some people must have been fielding multiple inquiries from

writers, I would think. And so I wonder then, did they decide, I'm going to give this tidbit, this morsel to this guy so that he'll owe me something and I'll give this other little tidbit to this other guy? Yeah. I would love to know just like if we could map out the full contacts list and exchange that it takes to break this single trade. That would be fascinating. And also, like, who gets credit for breaking this trade then? Do you give it to Feinstand, who said they're finalizing a trade involving Polanco to Seattle? Do you give it to Passon, who confirmed that an agreement was in place? Like, I guess that's kind of the official

break that the deal is done. But then if you don't have the full terms of the deal, you know, it's sort of a semantic debate. Who gets credit for breaking this thing? It's such a team effort. It should be put to a philosophy class, really. You need the experts of an academic mind. Yeah. Another question about this trade that came up in our Discord group. What's your position on photoshopping players into their new team's roster? I hate it. Okay. Okay. Because the twins took different texts to this, where the Mariners tweet, I believe, did have Polanco photoshopped into the Mariners uni.

I think that might be right. Yeah. And they did a pun. Oh, yeah. They did a pun. And I think they showed him in his twins uniform in the background and then more prominently in the Mariners uniform. Whereas the twins tweet, they didn't bother photoshopping Di Scolfani and Topa into a twins uniform.

I don't know if it's just the prominence of the player plays some part in this. Like, do we really need to see Justin Topa as a twin? What he will look like? Or can we just wait? Because you were just asking, like, how many like, or can we just wait? Because you were just asking like how many people can place the face, right? Yeah. More people can place the face of Polanco than Topa or Di Scolfani probably. Oh, sure. So maybe it's just the more prominent the player, the greater the temptation to Photoshop the uni,

but I could go either way on this. I understand wanting to give your fans a taste, a sneak peek. What is this going to look like? I also, again, the delayed gratification, you know, wait, wait till spring training, wait till the press conference, wait till whenever we see him put on that jersey for real. Yeah. I don't, I don't like it, you know, in this age of misinformation to be doing Photoshop's. Ben ben can i tell you something really exciting i just figured out whose face i've been seeing oh wow who you're never ever i could give you one million guesses and you would not guess you wouldn't guess with one million guesses is it ham sagarty i assume that he haunts your dreams. I just feel bad because I feel like I've been a little jerk to Ham.

And it's not Ham's fault, you know. Ham didn't build the damn thing. Ham! It's Austin Bibbins Dirks. Okay. That's whose face. You're right. I have been seeing in my mind's eye when I have thought of Austin both all these years. That's not who, that's a different human person. Was Mariner, you know? Yeah.

So maybe that had something to do with it. Probably not. I would love to be able to untangle the wires in my brain that led to that misfire but I was just like and you're you're thinking to yourself how did you figure it out in the course of this podcast and I just googled white nationals reliever okay because you know I was like I bet he was a national i don't know why anyway and there was austin bibbenster he was coaching in the fall league um okay for the blue jays yeah he's uh he's been coaching for the blue jays for the last year that the mariners social people they just have a

template whenever the mariners acquire anyone, they show the old uniform and the new photoshopped uniform. So they did this for Austin Booth, in fact, when they signed him. And they did it just recently. Another thing Jerry DiPoto did even more recently was acquire Samad Taylor from the Royals for a player to be named later or cash considerations. And even for Samad Taylor, no pun, no hip-hip Jorge equivalent here, but they did show Samad Taylor in his Royals uni and then also in his Mariners uni. So it's not just that Polanco is prominent enough to get this treatment. This is just the default template for the Mariners gotta guy. I don't hate it as long as it's well done and doesn't look weird. But then again,

if it looks weird, I think they should go all the way weird and unnatural and just do the old fashioned baseball card company airbrushing where you can very clearly tell that this is not a uniform that the player has ever actually worn. I think we should keep that tradition alive. The pre-Photoshop, very shoddy, very rushed. Oh, our card set is about to go to print. Let's just slap this logo on there and call it a day. Yeah, I just, I don't know. Something about it feels, you know, I know this isn't the spirit in which it's intended,

so I don't want to attribute like anything nasty here, but it feels disrespectful to me. Like the time that the guy has spent with his most recent team, you know, you're going to get plenty of pictures of him in your uni very soon. Very soon. And I think that part of why you should not do the Photoshop thing is that, you know, there are guys who end up returning to an organization after a couple of different moves and it's always funny when like when mitch hanegar got when they traded for hanegar

yeah they didn't have to photoshop him they just have a million pictures of him in a mariner's uniform and it's like that would be funny if all of these teams didn't photoshop their guys because you would know oh right he was ainer. And then it would be funny. But instead, you didn't have to know that to understand that. Yeah. So I just don't care for it at all, Ben. I really don't. Yeah.

Other positive Twins news. Byron Buxton said at Twins Fest that he will be back in center field in 2024. Oh, thank God. Yes. Right. Now, how long will he be back in center field in 2024. Oh, thank God. Yes. Right. Now, how long will he be back there? Who knows?

But at least he intends to play there. He's feeling well enough to play there. Good. That is a great relief because obviously last year he seemed sort of wasted as a DH. Now, he wasn't great as a DH. And whether that was because he wasn't out in the field, which can affect some guys offensively or just the fact that he wasn't fully healthy and he had knee issues all year that prevented him from playing center field. And then ultimately he had knee surgery in October. Right. So if Byron Buxton is not raking or playing center, then he's not a very valuable player. But

even if he were raking and not playing center, it would be a letdown. It would be disappointing unless you thought that was really going to keep him healthy, then it might be a sacrifice worth making. But they kind of had the worst of both worlds in 2024. And I would love to see him out there making incredible plays and being valuable, however well he hits because such a great glove if he is still yeah you know hasn't lost a step or anything and everything is fine knee-wise i just like the period at the beginning of the season where we are able to like you know imagine what it would look like over the course of an entire season and i don't say that

like he can't stay healthy or like i mean because he i don't say that like he can't stay healthy or like i mean because he can't stay healthy but like he won't stay healthy or like it will go badly but you know it's it's just a lot more fun to contemplate the the good days with him than the bad because the good days are so good this is part of why it's been so disappointing that he hasn't been able to stay healthy uh because like when he is healthy and is playing center field and is hitting like he's one of the most valuable players in the sport because he's that good yeah um so this this part of the calendar where that feels like it's still a possibility is really exciting i'm only just now realizing like how terrible a turn uh white nationals reliever could have taken

yeah you gotta be pretty careful when you say that. Yeah, brush up against a ghost there. Pat, Pat. And by the way, that didn't reveal his face, but then I was like thinking in my head, like who did pitch for them? Anyway, Meg's brain, Stark in there. Don't know, man.

Now that you're such a gamer and you're so aware of Pow World. Meg knows one game and so is a gamer. Thank you. I feel so welcome. I've been tempted multiple times when we've been talking about a player with a knee injury, whether it was James Paxton or Byron Buxton, to say they used to be an adventurer like you. And then I took an arrow in the knee.

Would that ring a bell for you if I said that? I don't know what that is. What's that from? There was an Elder Scrolls Skyrim NPC, you know, non-player character. I know what an NPC is. Okay, I don't know how much I have to explain here. I know what an NPC is. I learned that acronym in like the last year.

Yeah. But I know it. Somewhat famously or infamously, the guards in that game, sometimes you'll run into them and one of their stock lines, their shouts, as it's called, the NPCs, if they have kind of a pre-programmed bit of dialogue, is, I used to be an adventurer like you. Then I took an arrow in the knee, dot, dot, dot. And so arrow in the knee or arrow to the knee became a meme because that was just sort of a strange fate

for someone to suffer. I would not be surprised if Byron Buxton took an arrow in the knee somehow, but hopefully that won't happen in 2024 or ever for that matter. It sounds like they're getting ready to do more The Last of Us, Ben. Yep.

They're going to make more The Last of Us. I don't know what happens. I don't want to know. Don't tell me, please. No email about it. I will not. Okay, thank you. I don't know what happens. I don't want to know. Don't tell me, please. No one email about it. I will not. Okay, thank you. I wouldn't dare.

People are really concerned. There's some, I don't think there's controversy about the actor, but there's been casting and people seem very nervous for the actor who was cast for a role that I don't know.

Yes, Caitlin Deaver. Yes, as Abby. Yeah, I feel nervous, but I can't go find anything out about why because then I'll know stuff I don't want to know

it's like very too much yeah yeah I don't want to know too much if you want my thoughts on that I did a podcast about that recently

it's called Butt Mash and it's on the Ringiverse feed Butt Mash Butt Mash Butt Mash another thing that

it is important to pronounce fully and precisely. It's not shortened to butt mash. We have not shortened to that now, but the butt mash, I think that's what the Eagles do to, to try to convert fourth down is the butt mash. That's what Mario does. They do the butt stomp. They do the tush push or the brotherly shove.

And I love how they were like, the brotherly shove is better. And I was like, I think both of those sound like they could be dirty if you were really interested in making them. So, but butt mash would have been really, really maybe pushing the line too far, I guess. It's a family friendly show, mostly. Okay. So, while we're talking about designated hitters, one was signed. I thought you were going to be like, while we're talking about designated hitters, one was signed. I thought you were going to be like, while we're talking about butts. Well, he has one. Justin Turner is a Toronto Blue Jay. Yeah. He has signed a one-year deal to probably mostly DH for the Blue Jays. Although, perhaps could spell some corner infielders as well.

Yeah. Shouldn't though. That would be an adventure. He used to be an adventurer like us and then he became a DH. Yeah. But he is still a pretty good hitter, you know, still kind of consistently turnery works.

The count is seen as a good clubhouse guy, good leader, et cetera. Yeah. And I don't know if this blocks a Matt Chapman reunion or not, because again. It's only $13 million. Yeah. And it's not like he is really a third baseman at this point.

So I guess that's still theoretically a possibility. If this is an either or situation, then perhaps you could be a bit disappointed. But Justin Turner, still a good guy to have around, you know, and I guess one concern is if he is the Brandon Belt replacement, then he's a right handed hitter. Unlike Belt, it's been a pretty righty heavy lineup. But I tend not to stress too much about platoon leans. If you're a good hitting team, I think that's more important. Ideally, I guess you'd be more balanced. But I would prefer just a bunch of good hitters who hit from the same side to a bunch of not as good hitters who are more evenly distributed handedness wise. Anyway. Yeah. Justin Turner, Toronto Blue Jay.

Yeah, I like it. I think it's nice. I hope that it does not preclude a Matt Chapman reunion because, and I do not mean any particular disrespect to Kevin Biggio. I'm not even going to make up a fake person's name to refer to him. But I think that, you know, as we talked about when Isaiah kind of came into the fold, like it's fine, but I think you want like a real third baseman, you know, someone who can really pick it over there. And it's like, there's Biggio, and there's Davis Schneider, and there's Varshow, and there's Kiermaier, where for differing reasons, depending on the guy, you're like, what are you going to get out of them? You know, what are you going to get? Like, it could be really good, or it could be pretty mediocre. pretty mediocre and so I don't want to like make anyone feel sad preemptively about Davis Schneider but like look at how the end of that season went for him because it wasn't how the beginning of his season went so I think that Turner you know having him behind Guerrero is like a really nice addition and if they can bring Chapman back all the the better. We would have to have a very different conversation about them than we had with the Mariners or the Twins or the Orioles.

Where it's like, you know, right now we have their luxury tax payroll at like $250 million. So they're like into penalty territory, right? But I don't know that they are quite done. At least not in the way that I would want them to be um so yeah the blue jays and justin turner and you know my favorite thing about this signing it's gonna be my favorite thing all the times except when they wear the red tops which i don't care for anyway they're not my favorite uni of the blue jays unis i understand the significance of the red because they're Canadian. So I'm like, I don't need that explained to me.

But they're literally the Blue Jays. Yeah, not the Red Jays. But I think that when they are not wearing those tops, which are already bad, you know, what a nice little contrast for Turner with the beard, right? It's basically like being a Dodger, except you're a Blue Jay. Yeah. for Turner with the beard, right? It's basically like being a Dodger, except you're a Blue Jay. Yeah. Well, Turner is still capable of spelling Vlad at first base every now and then, if necessary. And Vlad, by the way, new cover model for,

I mean, while we're talking about video games, this is basically a video game podcast, but he's the new cover model for MLB The Show 24. And, you know, riding on this Vlad season. Obviously, MLB The Show banking on Vlad to bounce back. The Blue Jays banking on Vlad to bounce back. Vlad banking on Vlad to bounce back. He's had a couple decline years in a row after the big breakout. And I know he's made some mechanical tweaks. There was some footage of him showing off a slightly altered, simplified swing. I know Bauman blogged about him for Fangraphs recently. There's been a lot of consternation. What's wrong with Vlad? What is holding him back? Yeah. Is it some sort of batted ball spin mystery? Is he just hitting the ball on the ground too much? Is it close?

Banking on him for a big year. We talked last year at this time about the choice of Jazz Chisholm as the MLB The Show cover model and how he was sort of anomalous in what he had accomplished in his career to that point. He was not as much of a star and as established a productive player as the typical

cover model for this game. And he didn't, I guess, justify that choice from a performance standpoint in 2023. Vlad, much bigger name and bigger star and better known, but is coming off a less valuable season than Jazz Chisholm was when he was chosen. So, you know, maybe it doesn't really matter if he has a big year or not as far as how many copies this game sells when you choose someone to be on the cover of your game. He has a lot of name recognition. If people were trying to place the face and you said,

can you picture Vladimir Grigor Jr.? Yes, almost everyone could picture him and would not confuse him with Austin Voth or Austin Bibbins-Durbix or any other Austin. So that's probably the primary consideration. But I do hope that Vlad has a good year. I hope that he mashes like Vlad again because it just feels like he should and he kind of has to to be a great player at least yes yeah he had to be a great player to be you know the kind of player who ends up on um the cover of the video game um it's important that he um yes so i hope he goes back to mashing a couple smaller transactions that caught my eye really for contract-related reasons.

So one was Hector Neris going to the Cubs. Now, I mentioned this really only because I had seen a report about what Hector Neris was seeking in free agency. And then what he actually got was vastly less than that. Now, what he got from the Cubs was a one-year $9 million deal. Although there is, I think, a vesting option that seems like it very likely could vest. I think he has to clear 60 games, which he has done a bunch recently. So maybe it'll end up being two guaranteed years, who knows in the end. But he was said to be seeking, this was a report earlier this month

by Hector Gomez, who is not always accurate, but can be pretty plugged in, particularly with Dominican players at times. And he cited a source on January 17th saying, relief pitcher Hector Neris is seeking a three-year, $50 million deal. Wow. The hashtag Yankees showing a lot of interest in him, the source said. Now, $50 million, that would be a lot for Hector Neris. And so this did raise my eyebrow even when I saw it. If this is accurate, or really even if it's not accurate, because I mentioned this recently, Sam Miller did an article years ago for ESPN where he when a source just claimed or it was rumored to be seeking. But he found that the players got 87.5% of what they were seeking in terms of total dollars and guaranteed years.

So this is a much lower percentage than that. Again, like I'm sure all the reports that Sam used, they weren't confirmed. They were just, you know, said to be seeking. And this was a report about what someone was said to be seeking. And ultimately, I guess he got 18% of what this report said he was seeking. So in that sense, it's surprising. On the other hand, it would have been very surprising

if Hector Neris had gotten a $50 million deal because, you know, he's been a good, consistent reliever. And he's coming off a year when he had a 1.71 ERA, but the peripherals are probably going in the wrong direction. The stuff may be going in the wrong direction. He's 35 years old or almost. So, you know, it's a reasonable contract. That lodged in my mind when I saw 50 million and then I saw 9 million and I said, that number is a lot lower than that other number. It does seem like those are different scales of numbers. You know, those are like, just thinking to our recent Patreon episode, like the houses, those are different houses, Ben, you know? The one versus the other. And to be clear, they're both very nice houses, but they're different houses. One of them might not have a conversation pit, you know?

Like, yikes. Then what kind of house even is it? The kind I have right now. But, you know, like, it's a nice house, but like, it doesn't have a conversation pit, Ben. No, we were talking about mansions and what we would like in our mansions if we could design our own. Yeah. Yeah. Like if we were to win Powerball or something, you know. Yes. So if that were the case that he were seeking 50 million on January 17th and then he signed for 9 million like 10 days later or something. That would be quite a – calm down.

That would be quite a mental adjustment to go from seeking $50 to getting $9. But perhaps he was not actually seeking $50. The other reliever contract situation that caught my eye is Adam Adovino's. Yeah, I thought you were going to start here. Yeah, Adam Adovino signed with the Mets, re-signed with the Mets, one year, $4.5 million deal. And this is odd because he declined a $6.75 million player option with the New York Mets. So he declined a bigger option and then signed a smaller deal with the Mets. Granted, some of that 6.75 was deferred, right? And according to John Becker's calculations, the difference is only about $900,000 less

in present-day dollars because $4 million of that 6.75 was going to be deferred. So it's still unusual, I would say, to decline an option and then get less and not only get less, but get less with the same team that you had the option with. If you didn't want to be with that team, that's one thing. But if he was content to stay with that team, also extra strange because he had talked about why he declined the option. And he said that the Mets situation was sort of unsettled, right? And he didn't know if they were planning to contend. And I guess at the time, their manager situation was also uncertain. And that's no longer the case. They do have a manager at least, but I wouldn't say their competitive stance is that much clearer than it was when he opted out.

It's not like they've gone back all in or anything. So it would seem from a competitive standpoint that not all that much has changed. And so to opt out and I don't know if you could say bad mouth the organization. Jarrett Seidler did put it that way, trashed the org. And I guess you could kind of call it that. At least, you know, it wasn't the rosiest interpretation of the Mets these days. And then for those two parties to find their way back to each other, that was somewhat surprising and strange. Yeah, it's weird.

It's a weird thing. And you wonder, like, did something in his perception of the org change? somewhat surprising and strange. Yeah, it's weird. It's a weird thing. And you wonder, like, did something in his perception of the org change? Did he just, did he and his people misjudge the market? Like, I don't know. It's a weird, it's a funny one. It's a funny one. Because this doesn't happen very often. Like, if for no other reason than I think that guys to our earlier discussion tend to have a good sense of these

things about themselves, like where their market kind of stands. So yeah, odd. I don't know. Yeah. He said he liked being part of the organization. He's 38 years old. He's from New York. He pitched pretty well for them. Again, like if he had picked up the player option, I would not have been surprised by that. But the way he went about staying is what's weird. Yes, is what's weird. And it's not like, like a couple years ago, am I right to remember that the Dodgers intentionally didn't tag Clayton Kershaw

with the qualifying offer sort of as a courtesy to him to like not hinder his market? And then they just ended up resigning him am i remembering the mechanics of that correctly yeah that might be right yeah or there was still some uncertainty about like whether he wanted to pitch or how he felt right but something like that and they like you know they kind of did you know a guy a solid and obviously auto's relationship with the with the mets is different than like Kershaw's with the Dodgers but like that that's sort of the form that you kind of expect this stuff to take

where it's like we want to let a guy who's meant something to us sort of explore his options but there's a way back for him but for a player to be like no don't give me that money give me less different money yeah it's weird yeah weird yeah something must have changed in the interim also the tigers signed colt keith yeah extension colt keith sounds like he should be on a taylor sheridan show but no he is on the detroit tigers and he has not yet made the majors no although he probably will now. Yeah. I would think even more than Brooksley.

He could probably call his shot when it comes to making majors now. But six-year extension that guarantees him $28.6 million but can max out at $82 million over nine years because there are three club options. That's a lot of club options even for a deal of this sort. And then there are various incentives involved as well. So Colt Keith, Tigers, top prospect, 22-year-old infielder, probably second baseman, who is more of a bat first prospect. Yes. baseman who is more of a more of a bad first yes yeah i think the way that that he has been thought of at fan graphs is like probably second because he can be hidden there more effectively um i'd like to point out that colt keith almost killed me one time you know so that yeah yeah with a with

a batted ball yeah at the futures game last summer like the ox box was out in the outfield and um i almost died uh until my computer a couple of times in fact um despite that i testified to his his batted ball quality then yeah i was like i think i made the following noise in front of just a lot of people because i almost Because I almost died, Ben. Like, I just almost, you know, like in Death Becomes Her, where she has a hole in the middle of her. It was going to be like that. And also through my computer.

So, yeah, there's definitely pop there. You know, I think that they have an interesting sort of infield puzzle to sort out over the next little bit with Keith and with Jace Young, Josh's younger brother, and like where he ends up playing ultimately, you know, they're going to have to sort that stuff out. But yeah, like he's a 50 for us, so he'll be a top 100 guy. He's not the top prospect in their system, but he's a top 100 prospect. I saw that he had some just very clear-headed comments about the whole thing, where it's like he knows that if it doesn't work out from a playing perspective, well, the worst that happens is that he and his family are kind of set up.

So, Cole Keith. Yeah, he does sound like he should be in Yellowstone or not the young Sheldon. Wrong name for that franchise, because apparently that's what we're doing. But yeah, Colt Heath. with these, it's always similar if he's good and he's not projected, at least by Zips and Dan Zaborski's breakdown, to be a superstar or anything. More like an average player, which is what a 50 is, right? But even if he is an average big leaguer for years to come, then the Tigers are getting quite a good deal. So that's what you hope for. There's always some slight extra uncertainty when the player has not even made his major league debut yet.

But I'm, if anything, surprised that this sort of extension doesn't happen even more often because from a team perspective, it can be a big win. I'm going to take this all a step farther. I actually don't think that there's a version of deals like this that is bad. I mean, there's a version of deals like this that are bad for the player because there's a scenario where he ends up being like an all-star and amazing and he's even um you know when you start to factor in the years that would be under team control like probably not making enough but he's making he's mitch garver but over longer you know in terms of the money.

So it's just I assert that it is impossible for those kinds of deals to actually be bad. So, yeah, I think someone may have mentioned this in our discord group. But speaking of photos tweeted by team Twitter accounts, the photo that the Tigers used for Colt Keith and the announcement of his extension, a lot of Uggla in him, in this pick, at least. And maybe the player profile, too. Oh, I'm so excited. Just in terms of neck thickness and forearm size. Yeah, I get what you mean.

That's the second coming. That's another incarnation of Dan Uggla. And also in the sense that he's just someone you sort of stick at second base and hope for the best because he hits right now in terms of listed dimensions Colt Keith has the same listed weight as Dan Ugla but is three inches taller so if that's accurate then he's not the quite he's not the full Ugla yet because Ugla was packing that mass in a smaller frame. Although I guess Colt Keith has time to grow into a more ugla-esque dimension, but he's working on it. That's kind of my mental image of him now. I'm just so happy that I figured out who I thought Austin both was. Like, my God, Ben, the mental relief, the clarity. I can just worry about something else at three in the morning now.

I'm freed up. I can just worry about something else at three in the morning now. I'm freed up. Yep. Okay. Couple quick things to end. Harry, Patreon supporter, wrote in in response to our death ball discussions and said, I don't actually want this to happen, but I do think it would be very funny if the death ball became a defining pitch of the 2020s so that we could have both a dead ball era and a death ball era. Yes.

In. Let's do it. So confusing. Let's do it. So confusing. Let's go. Yeah. Again, I don't love the name. I don't think it's descriptive enough. But I am maybe more in now because if we could call it the death ball era, that would be fun.

Oh, it would be so confusing though. It would be so confusing to people. Yeah. Not dead ball. Death ball. I said death ball. Death ball. Death ball. Yeah. Not dead ball, death ball. I said death ball. Death ball, death ball. What we failed to consider in our answer to that question was the other end of the body swap.

The question was, what if you two, I guess both of us somehow body swapped into Dick Monfort and were in control of the Rockies for several years? What we neglected to mention, as listener Pete and others wrote in to say, is that what's happening when Dick Monfort is in our bodies? Now, that is maybe more disturbing to contemplate, which perhaps is why we didn't. We focused on how are we going to fix the Rockies? What is Dick Monfort going to be doing in our bodies while we're doing that? And that is kind of disturbing. That is upsetting to contemplate.

I don't know how that would affect Effectively Wild. I would imagine that it would be clear quite quickly that we were no longer hosting Effectively Wild, that we had been possessed by someone, if not necessarily the Rockies owner. podcast possibly to my writing at the ringer to fan crafts general editorial strategy yeah i would be very concerned that once we return to our bodies from fixing the rockies that there would no longer be an effectively wilder fan crafts or ringer to return to yeah that maybe he would have rockified all of those things while we were fixing the Rockies and we would find our previous places of employment in some sort of smoking ruin. Or at the very least, we would be unemployed, you know, like the publications might save themselves, but I think that we would be on the outside looking in maybe. I don't care for that at all, Ben. No, me neither. Yeah, I think there's a reason why we just sort of memory hold that part of

the conversation. I wasn't actively avoiding it, to be clear. We just were focusing on the aspects and maybe we had an intentional sort of willing suspension of disbelief or belief when it came to that part of the question, because we did not want to contemplate that. Candidly, I didn't really think about it as like a literal Freaky Friday-ing. I kind of maybe thought we've like locked him in a broom closet or that it was more metaphorical. So we're like inside outing Digma. I don't mean that we're like doing anything horrible to him. Wearing his skin.

Yeah. Yeah. No skin wearing, but like the movie Inside Out where it's like there's the multiple emotions. You know, you got a couple different guys. Wow. I think I'd rather stay in my body. Is that okay? Me too.

Can we just like, I'm sorry, Rockies, but I don't know that I think it's worth it. We can agree on that. And lastly, I have been struck by some conversations in other sports in recent days that have mirrored baseball conversations. Are we talking about analytics? Yeah. I mean, not solely, but right. In the NFL these days, you have the whole discourse after the Lions loss and going for it on fourth down. Right. You have the whole discourse after the Lions loss and going for it on fourth down, right? And then in the NBA these days, you have a discourse about scoring and some of the high-scoring games. This is one of the highest-scoring seasons in several decades.

And you're having individual games where players are scoring 60-plus, 70-plus points, right? And there's been a whole lot of hand-wringing about, is this too much? Have things gone too far? Too many three-pointers? Too fast a pace? Too many possessions? Et cetera, et cetera. We've had all these conversations before in baseball and maybe in those sports, too, to some degree. And we've talked before about how, at least when it comes to sabermetrics analytics, that baseball was at the forefront. And so a lot of the conversations that are happening in the NFL these days, it's like, oh yeah, we talked about this 20 years ago. So let's let's let you know how this goes. And you can predict like I saw

baseball people, baseball media members predicting what the backlash would be. You know, I saw like Joe Sheehan and Nate Silver, people who were around for that part of sabermetrics breaking into baseball were anticipating the reactions that there were going to be to that Lions loss. And that did come to pass. And there was a pro football talk piece that just totally channeled that early 2000s baseball, crusty, cranky baseball person spirit. I think we need some sort of independent body, not a sports czar like my boss Bill Simmons has suggested exactly, but like a sports history czar maybe. Not necessarily someone who has the power to legislate all sports, but just provides guidance,

you know, like sort of a, I don't know, congressional budget office sort of role, kind of like a ostensibly nonpartisan authority that comes in and says, well, here's what the effects of that will be, or, you know, here's what has happened in the past, and here's what all the ramifications of that would be. Someone who just know, here's what has happened in the past. And here's what all the ramifications of that would be. Someone who just knew everything about all the sports. And so when people started freaking out about something in one sport, they could just draw the analogy and say, oh yeah, well, let me remind you that this exact scenario played out in this other sport previously, and here's what happened. And that means that this is probably what's going to happen in your sport,

so you can be prepared for that. And if you want, you could skip the whole reactionary backlash stage and just learn a lesson or, you know, learn lessons about what actually did go wrong and what you should be sounding the alarm about, right? I'm just saying all of this has happened before and all of this will happen again, right? Now Star Galactica. I mean, it's just, we talk about this with baseball too. That's why I think it's valuable to know baseball history because so many of the things that we

discuss have happened before and can be instructive to know how people reacted or address those concerns previously. But we need that for all sports because no one's an expert in all of them. And we need some sort of cross-pollination. We need more communication, people talking to each other so that they know what's going to come and we can avoid making the same mistakes over and over again. I like that idea. Or you could spend, you know, an afternoon of your one human life fighting with somebody about it on Twitter like I did yesterday. Just like pick a relevant example. I think, well, first of all, and I appreciate that the humor of this might not land quite as hard with you as it will with some of our listeners who are into the NFL, but it just remains so funny that the decisions of literally Dan Campbell are like being held up as like analytics gone too far. And I don't mean that

as a knock on Dan Campbell. I think that he's done a really great job of adjusting to new information and using it to try to make his team better. It has to be so maddening to be a coach or a manager because you can make good decisions. You can make the correct decision to go forward on fourth down. You can dial up the right fourth down play call. We can talk about the goal line stuff later because like that was wrong, but you know, and the guy just doesn't catch it. Ben, sometimes you just, you know, it still comes down to the players to execute and they don't always do it perfectly. So that has to be so frustrating. I will express it as annoyance.

I don't need to label the feeling for you that there isn't more sort of historical literacy around this stuff as it goes from sport to sport if for no other reason than i think that where we ended up landing as a as an industry was that like it would have been nice if we had done a better job anticipating some of the labor implications of um prioritizing optimization and efficiency and that doesn't seem to be well i don't know maybe in the running back discourse we're seeing signs that that actually is happening a lot in football but like i think that it would be good to get to that place where you're trying to strike the right balance between eliminating suboptimal strategies but also remembering that human beings are the ones who are doing this stuff and i think particularly in football where like the the physical cost of playing the sport is so high. It's really incumbent on folks to be mindful of like,

am I shortening a career? Am I, you know, taking money from this segment of the player population to pay a different one, but this part of the player population, namely running backs and guys on the line are like taking so much physical damage when they're playing. But it's a capped sport, so it's complicated. Gosh, I'm so happy we don't have to understand how a cap works. Like I hear the freaking cap rolls in the NFL and I'm just like, Jesus Christ, that would be so much work. But all that to say, like, it is funny that there is not more sort of historical understanding there and i think that we see it manifesting in a lot of different ways like we see a lot of the same nerd like you're

trying to ruin this boy you don't know ball kind of stuff um that we saw with baseball and i think that we're seeing you know some of the smarminess that we saw from the stat crowd in baseball replicated in football too and since uh i only have like the ear of one of those groups i'm just gonna ask everyone's i've been so smarmy you know like you're not gonna persuade anyone you're not winning hearts and minds if you're calling somebody stupid yeah i just got i got you know it's like george kittle thinks that like momentum is real in a like predictive way right like and uh or at least that's kind of how it read to people and that i think is silly because if that were true like the lions would have won that game

and not the niners but you know we end up in this spot where we're looking at literally george kittle who is like an incredibly talented football player and sort of implying he doesn't know ball and like that seems dumb because it's george k. So like, I think that we, you know, if I could like advise our football compatriots, I might say like going into those conversations with like a spirit of generosity and openness is I think more useful and productive as a means of like advancing a conversation that actually leads to real understanding and enthusiastic adoption rather than grudging adoption than being like, you

know, know-it-all. Yeah, I think there's an even stronger temptation to be dismissive just because this has happened before and we kind of know how it played out. And so especially if you went through the scouts versus stats war the first time around, the old school versus new school, then it's like, are we doing this again? You know, it's kind of tedious. It's like, we know where this is going. And so you're even more tempted to just sort of dunk on someone, which again, maybe makes them dig their heels in even more and makes it worse. But I, I guess I understand where that comes from. If you're sort of aware of, of this as just a repetitive cyclical phenomenon. Right. And so that's why I feel like we need the sports history czar, or maybe it's a sports ombuds person. I don't know, or just like a sports media ombuds person who is just aware of all the

sports coverage from all time. To be clear, this would be useful in all walks of life, not just in sports. It would be great if we all just knew history really well and we're not doomed to repeat it, right? So that would be just great. But, you know, I'm just dealing with our limited purview of sports here seems slightly more manageable because it's always just the same things. You know, something gets out of whack, like some pendulum swings a little too far. You get out of some offense defense equilibrium, scoring's up, scoring's down. It's outside the sweet spot. You have to change some rule to bring it back into line. You know, players exploit some loophole and they're able to be good or teams do or there's some analytical innovation and suddenly it's taken too far. And in football, that could mean more passing. And in basketball, that could mean more three-point shooting and more possessions. And, you know, we've seen this just so many times repeat itself in different incarnations that it would be nice if there could just be some sort of standardized centralized authority that was just like, oh, we've seen this before. You know, we know what happens. It's like the time variance authority from Loki or something.

It's like we got to we got to cut off this this branching timeline here. Like, let's go back to what was working because we know that if we allow this to keep playing out, then things are just going to get worse. And here's seven different examples of how that happened before. Not that all the sports are the same. And not that some analytical conclusion

is equally well-founded in every sport. I know that there are ways in which football is harder to analyze, sabermetrically speaking, and there can be more wiggle room and more uncertainty. And that's the case for almost every sport compared to baseball. But still, some of these principles apply to all of them very broadly. It'd be cool if we could just sort of skip the intermediate stages. Although, then again, why do we pay attention to sports if it's not to argue about them?

So maybe it's not a bug. Maybe it's a feature. Who knows? Yeah. And like, you know, I want to be clear. It's not like I do this stuff perfectly and always like resist the temptation to clap back. Like you can only have your playoff odds misunderstood

so many times before you just feel like yelling at a rando on Twitter. So I get that piece of it. And I think that, you know, like, I understand baseball through a statistical lens, you know? So it's not like they have an ally in me in this effort. Like, I've watched Pete Carroll insist on running the ball when you just throw it, you know?

If you just threw it sometimes. Oh, that's really weird. Pete's gone now. So I feel bad talking about like my frustration with the offense at times. But, you know, I think that there are real breakthroughs and understanding that will lead to a more enjoyable version of the sport to watch. And I think that challenging orthodoxy is like a creative and generative process or it can be and and i get being frustrated by people who just like refuse to even engage with some of the ideas and concepts right but yeah i think that you know one thing that we have seen in this space on the baseball side is that the binary between like stats and scouting or, you know, jacks and nerds, like it's a completely false binary, right? And most of the really good organizations that we see in the sport, like try to view a bunch of different data sources as potentially enriching to their ability to win the game. And, you know, I think that especially in the last couple of years when you're looking at something like how our understanding of pitching, for instance, has progressed even in, you know, just the last little bit.

It's like, I don't know, like think about seam shifted wake, right? Who were the first people who really noticed that it was pitching coaches. Now, they might not have had like the physics vocabulary to describe it. And they might not have always been properly identifying it. And we certainly have a way more precise understanding of what it is and how we can, you know, help guys to alter their repertoire, their mechanics, their grip, whatever, to accentuate the seam shifted weight elements of a pitch. But like there were pitching coaches for a long time who were saying like that pitch is otherwise very ordinary, but it can freaking play. So what's going on here? Right.

What's going on here, right? And that's just the analytics taking a while to of the sport, looking at people who view it through an old school lens and trying to see like what do they understand about baseball or football or basketball that I don't understand that, you know, with some measurement and some rigor could actually be something like, that's just a better way to try to have inquiry. So, that's part of why I've been very frustrated by this whole thing because it's just like, to your point, skip all of this fighting nonsense and get to the part where you both realize that you have something to bring to the table that can help us, you know, understand the sport better. And hopefully when you come to the table together, you are mindful of the parts of that project that might be, you know, bilking the running back out of getting a check because like that guy's getting

his head bashed in every day. So, like, you know, let's focus up everyone and stop being so smarmy. And I say that as a person who's quite sarcastic. And I know that I verge. I steer. I sometimes drive with great purpose and speed into that territory. So, again, I am far from perfect here. But, like, come on. Let's do it. Let's be a little more, you know, thoughtful about this stuff.

And there are times when baseball and baseball media members and baseball fans can certainly learn from those other sports, too. Even if it's not something analytics related, we could certainly learn from their examples. But it's just when I listen and read so much about NBA scoring, it just it reminds me of 2019 when we were talking about, are there too many homers? Is this too much of a good thing? Right. Has it gone too far? Is this spoiling everything for people? And yeah, usually when something swings too much in one direction, then you want it to swing a bit back in the other direction. And then maybe you have to make some sort of change. We've gone through that cycle over and over and over again. And so many sports, I just want someone to compile all the literature and just send over a nicely collated report. Like, here's what you need to

know about what happens when your sport runs off the rails a little bit or when you're undergoing a period of change and conflict and controversy. Here's what's worked in the past. Here's what hasn't. Here are the mistakes you can avoid repeating. That'd be great. It would be great. It won't happen, but it would be great. Well, after we recorded, Jerry DiPoto did one more minor thing. He gave a minor league contract to Nick Solak, who was one of the subjects of the outro on our last episode. As I mentioned then, Solak last season became the first player ever to get into a major league game for more than one team in the same season without making a single plate appearance for either. So here's hoping that that streak won't continue, that he will not only make the Mariners and get into a game, but get to hold a bat in that game at the plate while he's at it. Another thing that happened after we finished recording, slightly bigger news,

it was reported that John Angelos has agreed to sell the Orioles for $1.725 billion. The buyers will be, unsurprisingly, a couple of billionaires and billionaires who made their money in private equity, which is not the same as saying that the Orioles are going to be owned by a private equity company. Presumably, they will just be owned by people who made their money in private equity, which is an important distinction. These guys almost can't be worse than John Angelos. One of the billionaires, David Rubenstein, is a Baltimore native, an Orioles fan. The hope is that he will look at this less like a money-making venture than as an opportunity to win with this baseball team.

Pending further reporting, pending actual results, I would say there's some reason for cautious optimism, at least relative to the status quo. Speaking of the status quo, this sale may help explain why the Orioles have been so inactive this offseason. There's no timetable for the sale, so I don't know that that will change anytime soon. Personally, I'd like to think that John Angelos was so chastened by our recent scolding in multiple Orioles rants that he decided to sell the team. You're welcome, O's fans. We did it. And you know what you can do? Support Effectively Wild. It won't even cost you $1.75 billion. Yes, you're thinking, I would love to support the podcast, but how would I do such a thing? Well, you just go 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. Drew W., Rob Myroon, Scott Hughes, Austin S., and Mike. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, monthly bonus episodes, one of which we just published this week, as Meg mentioned, prioritized email answers, potential podcast appearances, playoff live streams, signed books, discounts on merch, and ad-free Fangraphs memberships, and so much more. Patreon.com slash Effectively Wild. If you are a Patreon supporter, you

can message us through the Patreon site. If not, never fear, you can contact us via email, 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. Talk to you then. Romantic, pedantic, and hypothetical. Semantic and frantic, real or theoretical. They give you the stats and they give you the news It's a baseball podcast, you should choose

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