Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2240: We’ve Got Options

Episode Date: November 5, 2024

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about team/player option/opt-out decisions involving Gerrit Cole, Cody Bellinger, Blake Snell, and Eugenio Suárez, the Royals re-signing Michael Wacha, the players who received qualifying offers, the Minasian brothers as rival GMs (and potential PoBros), Carlos Santana’s historic Gold Glove, an international signing scandal (on multiple levels), evidence of racial […]

Effectively Wild, Effectively Wild, Effectively Wild, Effectively Wild. Hello and welcome to episode 2240 of Effectively Wild, a Fanangraphs, you're Ben Lindbergh of the Ringer. I have one phone call for you. I'm so sorry. It's okay. It's okay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm they bring you the show. I'm Meg Rowley of FanGraphs. You're Ben Lindbergh of The Ringer. I have one functional brain cell. Let's do a show. How are you? Hey, I'm fasting for a colonoscopy currently, so at least you have that going for you. You can eat whatever you want right now. Take advantage of that for those of us who can't. I did a little grocery shopping today before we started recording.

Figured maybe not the worst idea to have some provisions in case Arizona decides to get especially weird over the rest of the week. You know what my philosophy was on this? My final grocery shop before election day? What's that? If I saw a thing and I was like, that looks like a little treat, it went in the cart.

Oh, that's nice. Treat yourself. Gotta have some little treats. Could be a really long week. Dropped my ballot off. Got a, I got an in-person sticker. Nice. Yeah, they also send you stickers

with your ballot in the mail. So I have voted only the one time, but multiple stickers. One of the little stickers has a cute little lizard guy on it, Ben. He's got like the state Arizona on his back, and the state says, I voted today. And I technically voted yesterday. It took two hours, Ben. Two hours. Ben Shepard Well, don't let any of your fellow Arizonans see those multiple stickers because there may be some conspiracy theories, including one of the candidates potentially. But let's move along.

You did some democracy. You did a little light hoarding. You did some consumerism. I wasn't hoarding. I went grocery shopping. Some of us are not doing downstairs business tomorrow and we need to food at that house. Not hoarding, but prepping.

Prepping. We can call it that. That also has a connotation here. I'm doing a kind of prep too. I'll say the following. You know, there's a lot of, in our internet age, so much misinformation, disinformation floating around. But I will tell you Ben, that the craziest thing that I saw on the internet this week, this week, and we are recording famously on Monday the day before the election, was the guy in the comments of the top 50 free agent

post being like, one soda's not that good actually. That guy, that guy, I want to know where that guy was on day 26. What was the rationale? I mean, look, Ben, who wants to even give airtime to such nonsense? But basically that he's overrated, not that good a hitter. Not that good a hitter. I was prepared for, he's not that great in the field, he's not that great on the bases. I mean, there was that too. The first person who responded was like, you realize you just said he had a 156W or C+, right? And I don't think that guy was moved. I don't think he was moved. You

can just say so many things on the internet and there are no repercussions. I'm a lot more tired than I realized before we started recording. We're talking about Gold Glove finalist Juan Soto there, so put some respect on his name. Not Gold Glover though, not this time. Anyway, if anyone wants to know more about my colonoscopy prep, they can hear all about it on our Patreon bonus pod that we put up this weekend. That's one of the worst teases that I think anyone has ever done for any kind of content. EG Talk about other stuff too, but I was like, I did get to a point in your description, because look, it's an important thing for people to do when they're either at the right age or if, as you mentioned, there are risk

factors and all sorts of stuff. So I don't want to come down too harshly on your protracted description of the colonoscopy experience because it's important that people get colonoscopies. Like I remember when Katie Kirk going on TV and getting one on TV was like a big deal, you know? Like people were like kind of nervous about damn sources. Yes, I'm trying to erase the stain, erase the stigma. Stain is such an unfortunate choice. I know. Try to put the PSA out there if you've got any family history, even if you don't, just

be vigilant. And my takeaway was, you know what, it's not that bad. So don't be worried. Don't let the reputation dissuade you from doing this. But ultimately I'm saying you can pay us money to hear me talk about getting a colonoscopy. So that's probably not super compelling, but you know what? We had fun and hopefully I'll have fun being unconscious and anesthetized for part of election

day, which is really the way to experience it. And as we sit here and wait for election results, now that we've done our PSA, go get your colonoscopies, go vote if it's not too late. We are also waiting for news about Garrett Cole's future with the Yankees. And this is fortuitous timing in a way, because we're recording at 415 Eastern time. Oh yeah, we're going to know. Yes, people will have to take our words for that, but we are recording about 45 minutes before the news is supposed to drop or the deadline is supposed to pass

for when the Yankees have to make a decision about whether to keep Garrett Cole under the terms that his contract calls for. And so in theory, we will know what decision they made before the end of this episode. Now, everyone listening knows what the outcome of that was. So no suspense for them, but slight suspense for us. So we can test ourselves and say, should the Yankees pick up this option?

Now, can we call it an option? It's not exactly an option, but should they keep Garrett Cole and will they keep Garrett Cole? And I'll just lay this out for everyone. Right. So he had an opt out in his deal that he exercised, but he is not a free agent yet because the Yankees can void the opt out. They can counter the opt out.

They can say, ah, not so fast. You're opted back in by tacking on an extra year because his original contract was $324 million over nine years, just $36 million per starting in 2020. And he had the opt out after five years and he could walk away from the final four years and 144. So essentially the Yankees can keep him for five years and 180 million. So should they and will they do that? I think the answer to both of those questions is yes. So do I. I assume you want me to say more than that though. Yeah, elaborate. It is a podcast so we have to talk. I mean, it's that or colonoscopies and

God knows what Jack will say. I got more material on that though, hopefully not much material when I go in for the colonoscopy. It's just like 10 minutes maybe of colonoscopy talk. It was just so, and you know, I do this active listening thing so that people think that my mic doesn't get disconnected and just because that's how I, you know, learned how to talk, I guess. But I was like, wow, this is really,

that's really going for a while. Much like a colonoscopy. So here's what I think about this. I think it's fairly obvious that they will do it for two primary reasons. One, I think the cost of them replacing coal on the open market is going to be high enough that it's worth just keeping the guy you know in house. You know, when you look at sort of that top tier of available free agent starters, you know, your Corbin Burns's and your Blake Snell's and your Max Freed's, I don't know that I think that coal is going to be even with the

additional year that much more expensive than those guys. Now some of those guys are younger, but like the guy, like Corbin Burns is probably going to cost more than Cole, I would imagine. I could see that being true. And so I think that it would be a fairly risky proposition for them to not tack on the additional year because you don't want to be in a position where you're scrambling to replace high quality innings. And if you look at this free agent class, like there are a lot of really good third starters in this group.

If you were a club in need of a guy to go three or starters three through five, there are a lot of those dudes on offer in this market, but the group at the top is fairly shallow. Would I be totally shocked if in a couple of minutes we find out that the two sides have agreed to some sort of restructuring? Yeah, that's possible too. That they're both happy with? That would not surprise me because the counter argument is that Cole is in his mid thirties and we saw him this year, you know, dealing with injury, dealing with ineffectiveness, the VELO was down, although it was back up in the postseason.

I can see why there might be some amount of hesitation, but I think ultimately just from a pure pitching perspective, they need Garrett Cole. So they're going to figure out a way to get Garrett Cole done, whether it's just tacking on the additional year or some kind of contracts or structuring that he's satisfied with. I think that the second reason is Juan Soto. If you view yourself as being competitive in the Soto market, and you know, I guess we'll see how serious the Yankees are about that, but if you view

yourself as being competitive in that market, I think it sends a bad message to Soto as a potential long-term guy to build around to say, but we're going to cheap out on the pitching. Like, what are you, what are you doing? Like you just lost the world series. You don't get worse after that. If you want to bring back the guy who you want to be sort of a franchise cornerstone

for the next probably what 15 years. Yeah, it's interesting you could say, oh, well, you could not keep Cole and get all this money for Soto, but then it might make it tougher to sign Soto counterintuitively because he might not want to stick around in a Cole-less Yankees world. And I don't know how good you feel about how Garrett Cole will be pitching in four or five years. Because as you said, the trajectory, it's downward. It's a decline. It's gentle. It's graceful as these things go. So far, yeah. Yeah. He's been a good signing for them. I don't know if it's quite a national signing,

Max Scherzer level success, but that's setting a very high standard. Yeah, that's an N of one for agent signing in my opinion. So they signed him because he was the best pitcher in baseball. They signed him to continue to be the best pitcher in baseball. If he has been at all disappointing, it's because maybe he has not been quite the best, but he's been close to the best. He is by fan graphs war, the sixth most valuable pitcher in baseball since the Yankees signed him.

If you go by FanGraphsRA9-based, RunsAloud-based war, he's at fourth overall. So he's been on the short list of best pitchers in baseball, and that's even missing as much time as he did in 2024. And he's pitched pretty well in the postseason too. He has a sub three ERA in the postseason with the Yankees in almost 70 innings, although the FIP is higher. But I mentioned 2024 and yeah, that's a little disconcerting. He missed months with the flexor strain and then came back from it and looked a little

rusty initially. And then after that pitched more or less like the Garrett Cole of old, I guess a little less than more, but still quite effective and better as the season went on, pretty effective in the playoffs. But yeah, you don't just look at the stuff, although he has lost a couple of ticks on average since his peak, but also it's the strikeout rate, it's the strikeout minus walk rate. There have been declines for three consecutive seasons. And if you throw out 2020, you could say four or five potentially.

He was just such a monster with the Astros in his last season for them that anything compared to that looks pretty pedestrian. He struck out almost 40% of hitters that year. He was just so dominant. He was so good. Yeah. And then now he's down to 25%. Yeah.

You know, maybe it rebounded a bit as the season went on, but that's still not that great. Of course, people will point to Sticky Stuff potentially during his Astros tenure, and maybe that has something to do with it, which in a weird way, I guess would actually bode well for him. It's like, well, you know, if part of it is that he's, you know, Sticky Stuff was banned, then at least it's not like a health or age related thing. It's, it's almost like he was never that good if he had abided by the rules, but he was always good to be clear, just, you know, he was otherworldly at that peak.

But he's basically delivered what the Yankees have wanted. And there aren't that many starting pitchers you would project to be better than Garrett Cole next season. And look at the Yanke be better than Garrett Cole next season. And look at the Yankees rotation without Garrett Cole, and it looks light. So you take him away, you either end up spending just as much or more to go get someone who might not be any better, or you really have a hole there. So I think if you're the Yankees, you should absolutely be spending on someone like

Eric Cole, like you did several years ago, do it again. Maybe you won't get the dollars per war that you got to this point. Maybe it won't be the most efficient use of those dollars, but you're the Yankees. You can or should be able to afford to pay a premium to keep marquee players like that so that you can remain in contention. And look, if you want to make the argument that yeah, you would pay up maybe on purpose to get someone like a Burns or Freed who is three or four years younger than Cole is now. And I suppose there's something to that argument, but you're not guaranteed to get any of those guys, right? Whereas you can make sure you have a Garrett Cole. And a Garrett Cole in the hand is worth more than a scrubbing birds in the bush. Isn't that

how that expression goes? CB And Burns, as we've discussed, he has some of the same sort of ominous signs in his performance profile too, which I'm sure we'll return to in an upcoming episode. So yeah, I think you got to go for it. And I think they will. And I know that with the Yankees and with the competitive balance tax, they're probably paying 75 cents on the dollar or something like that on top of the actual money when all is said

and done, assuming they signed Soto and they're over the thresholds again. But that's the cost of doing business as the Yankees, or at least it should be. And hopefully they're willing to pay that price, which they haven't always been. But Joshian pointed out that it's basically the DeGrom contract, more or less. This is sort of what de Grom got from the Rangers. And that was obviously full of risk and that risk was justified.

And he had Tommy John surgery and he's missed plenty of time and who knows how he'll do over the rest of the life of that contract. But of course, he gave them six brilliant starts in 2023 and they won all of those starts and they won the world series and they may not have done that if not for those several starts he made and flags fly forever. And so that might've been worth it if that made the difference. And of course he came back healthy and looking good at the end of 2024 and hopefully he will stay

healthy and they'll continue to reap rewards of that. But you know, you have to really risk something anytime you sign a top pitcher. That's just the way these things go. I don't want to make too much of it, but it's like, I don't know, do you respect yourself? As a franchise, I understand that the organizational philosophy toward payroll is different than it was back in the day, or at least has been streakier in terms of the willingness to spend money. And I am sensitive to the fact that they are probably trying to prepare to back up a Brinks truck for Juan Soto. So like there is that piece of it. I want to be fair to the Yankees because we estimated their final payroll for this year

at $300 million. It's not like they were running a hundred million dollar payroll this year or anything like that. And they have a lot of that payroll concentrated in their top guys and for as brilliant a season as he had, like Aaron Judge is 32 and Cole is 34 and Stanton is 35 and you know these are the guys that are gonna be around for a while and they're trying to bring in Soto and like he is famously only 26 even though the guy in the comments thinks that his true age and he doesn't mean that in like a weird like international prospect age truth or way, but in a like his body sucks kind of way. This guy, I really, oh, what a, what a little gem of a person

he must be. But anyway, you know, they're trying to like keep this hyper talented youth in house, but they are an older, more expensive team when you look at where their payroll is allocated. And so, like, I get it. But also, you're like the most valuable franchise in professional sports, right? Like I'm pretty sure that their most recent valuation put them ahead of the Dallas Cowboys. So can you imagine how much money this team would make if they had actually won the World Series? They also just had a deep post-season run

and that had to have been incredibly lucrative for them. So go to the keeper, Garry Cole. You have a Garry Cole at home. You don't have to go get one on the market. I'm just gonna do memes and hope I'm doing them right. I don't know if I am. Well, we will wait for the news to break and hopefully it will as scheduled.

News to us, news to no one listening, unless again, you consume baseball news exclusively through Effectively Wild, in which case you can wait with bated breath along with us. But while we're on the subject, I guess we could run through a few other options, decisions and signings. We've got options, we've got more than one here.

So if you were not to keep Garrett Cole, then one of your options for a top of the rotation replacement would be Blake's now. Yep. We're doing that again. We're running back for agency. Blake's given it another go. Yeah. Blake and Boris, they're, they're going back for a sequel, which they hope will end better than the first installment did.

So I expected this again, this was not super surprising. It would have been surprising at a certain point of the season, but Blake Snell had about as up and down a season as you could possibly have, or I guess, fortunately for him, a down and up season. It ended on an up note and thus he has voided the second year of his deal. He signed the two year, $62 million guaranteed deal with the giants. And he would have had a $30 million salary for 2025 if he had stayed, but he did not. He exercised his opt out. He's a free agent.

stayed, but he did not. He exercised his opt out. He's a free agent. So do you think that round two of Blake Snell being a free agent will go better than the last one did? Because of course he finished the season on an incredible heater as a few other pitchers can do as well as Blake Snell. When he returned for good from the injured list, July 9th, from that point on, he posted a 1.23 ERA with a 1.77 FIP in 80 and a third innings over 14 starts. That was, that was quite good. That's a 3.1 FanGffs War that was tied with Chris Sale for the best in baseball from that July 9th point on. So it's not the first time that we've seen Blake Snell

rip off a run of being the best pitcher in baseball, but it's coming on the heels of him starting the season really in a rough way and then also getting hurt and spending time on the IL. So I guess the book on him or the knocks on him are essentially the same as they were a year ago, more or less, right? Like when he's going well, he is as good as anyone, but he's kind of inconsistent.

He doesn't give you a ton of bulk. He is prone to injuries at times, and also just inefficiency because he's going to walk guys. And all of those things were true last off season when he was coming off a Cy Young season. Although maybe he was even better in his season ending stretch in 2024 than he was when he won the Cy, but more or less the same guy, but a year older. So is there reason to think that round two will be better? LS Jelinski I think that the answer to that is yes. And I'm cheating a little bit in my answer because, I mean, clearly he has expectations

that he will outperform what remains on his contract. And I think that that is almost certainly true. But I would hazard a guess that there is also an appreciation for how the process can sort of play out that is maybe different this go around both on his end and on, well, I guess he's not a board. is he? Wait, he's stuck with Boris. Yes, Montgomery did not. Snell and Bellinger, who I guess we'll talk about in another minute here, they've stood by Scott. That's right. And Snell got kind of heated on Boris's behalf, if I recall correctly, right? He likes ol' Scott. I think it'll go better, one, because I think the expectation setting has probably been maybe calibrated more carefully this time around. I also think that like, look, it never hurts to show you can do it another time,

right? I think that the teams that will be interested in him will know what they're getting and be happy that on balance when it averages out, you're going to get a couple of really good stretches from him. If he's available, he'll probably win a Cy Young. And if he's not, well, then hopefully you have other depth. But I think it'll go better this time around. How much do you think the no-hitter enhances his market just because he showed he can actually do it the one time?

You know? He could go deep into games. Yeah. Or game, as the case may be. can actually do it the one time. You know, go deep into games. Yeah. And, or game as the case may be. At least one game, but he had a FIP that was about a full run lower in 2024 than in 2023 and that's, that's even including his early season struggles, which I would imagine teams might be more likely to discount just because late start to the season, rusty, etc. Spring training. Right. struggles, which I would imagine teams might be more likely to discount just because late

start to the season. He didn't have a normal spring training. Right. So even though his ERA was higher, we know teams are not paying based on that primarily. And so maybe he does have a stronger case based on the rate basis in per inning. The strikeout rate was higher. The walk rate was lower, the peripherals were improved. And that's even if you don't remove the worst outings from his season, which is kind of cheating,

although in his case kind of fair because of how his season was sequenced. So maybe there are more reasons for optimism there. Yeah. Now Bellinger, who is the other Boris client, he has not opted out. He has decided to stay with the Cubs. He exercised his player option, which is for $27.5 million. And he signed the three-year $80 million deal with the Cubs last winter, which was not bad as the Boris deals went, just because it gave him some security if he wanted it, it gave him the opportunity to opt back out and there was a lot of uncertainty about how Ballinger would perform. And I guess those concerns were vindicated by his performance this season, which was fine.

It was fine. Yeah, he was okay. He was a little bit better than average. He missed a little time too, but when he was on the field, he was fine, which really it's the first time he's been just fine for a while because he's either been just barely playable or well below average or really good,

but in a way where he wasn't actually hitting the ball in such a way that it seemed sustainable and it proved not to be sustainable, at least in 2024. So the power was down, but he still contributes in kind of an all around way. He's still a guy it's good to have. And I would imagine maybe he could have gotten more if he had gone for a multi-year

deal at a lower average annual value, 27 and a half million, but certainly wasn't going to sniff that on a yearly basis. So probably he's hoping maybe I do have a bounce back here and I get back to being star Cody Bellinger or if I don't, well, he's still just 29 years old and he can hit free agency. If he's coming off another solid year at 30, then he could still do decently for himself at that point, but it's the first time in a while, the first off season when there hasn't just been a lot of wondering who is this guy and where will he be and how will he play?

So maybe that'll help him somehow. been a lot of wondering who is this guy and where will he be and how will he play? So maybe that'll help him somehow. He's just a little settled down, a little more certainty this year. Well, and I think that, you know, obviously I don't know Cody Bollinger personally, but like he's got a family. I think that for these guys where, you know where they don't have an obviously great platform year, the decision to leave, as you said, might've yielded something with more years but at a lower AAV. If I'm him, I just don't want to do it again. I think that it's very understandable to me that he would say, look, let's run it back

with the Cubs. Let's see how I do we can make a decision You know like maybe he'll play great and they'll extend it. Maybe he'll play great and he'll have obvious suitors Maybe you know he'll he'll just settle into being just okay But I get the argument for doing it when you're someone like snow where you've had this year that I think maybe appreciably changes the calculus in terms of what you're going to get. But with a year like Bellinger's, just run it back, collect your millions and see how 2025 treats you. That seems perfectly reasonable to me. And then you don't have to move your kids, you know, and they do spring training here, he's from here. Like,

I don't know. I think that when you are, it's not like he's making a million dollars next year, right? Like he still has a very lucrative contract and I can completely understand taking the certainty attendant with that and being content with it. Now, another decision that I suppose falls into the Snell category of not that surprising now, but would have been surprising earlier this season is the Diamondbacks picking up the option on Eohenio Suarez. Yeah, how about that? Yeah.

$15 million option had a $2 million buyout, which they decided they didn't want to do and he had a heck of a turnaround too this season. If we just sort of split the season in half, he was just really rough in the first half of the season. And then from July 1st on, he was pretty darn good. So this ended up not being that tough a decision, I guess, for them. I know that the Diamondbacks missed the playoffs this year,

but their offense in the second half was blistering. And a fair amount of that owed to the fact that Corbin Carroll remembered how to hit. And they had Cattell who had this incredible year, but Eohanio was very good. I know that he credits some of that with, he was using a trajectory to do his BP. I think that a friend of the pod, Nick Pacoro reported on that, that, you know, he credits at least some of his turnaround to like having a better feeling before he gets in the box because he had more specific sort of

scouting insight from that. But yeah, he was fantastic. I think that, you know, $15 million for not only what he can do offensively, but for like surprisingly good third base play. That just makes a lot of sense. Just makes a lot of sense. It's not that much. It's just not that much money, you know? Like, and, and particularly when you look at the other infield options, the guys who could really play at third, like they can have Eohenio for 15 million, or what are they gonna try to like sign Alex Bregman? Yeah. You're gonna go get a utility guy?

No, you're gonna exercise your option on Eohenio Suarez, who also is like a great clubhouse presence. And you know, he's got great hair, got great hair. Eoinio Suarez, drop the haircare routine, you know, because like it's lustrous, especially now that it doesn't look like a black and white cookie. That wasn't my favorite look. I was like, are you trying to do Cruella de Villa or are you like, I don't understand

men and their hair sometimes I think is what I'm learning about myself. But anyway, it just seemed like a no brainer. Because even if he looks more like he did, let's not say at the low of the first half, because there were times in the first half where it's like, I don't know, they should be playing a Jujube. But if he looks like the midway point between his two halves from an offensive perspective, that's a perfectly productive and useful hitter.

And you add in the fact that like he's decent in the field still and they don't have like a really obvious alternative right now. I think it just makes a ton of sense and you know, he can hit home runs and they need that. They need guys who can, who can hit home runs because not all their guys, some of them can't, some of them can't need that. They need guys who can hit home runs. Because not all their guys, some of them can't do that. And you're not going to count on, I don't know, like, what are you going to do? You're going to put Jordan Lawler at third base? I don't know. You're going to count on Jordan Lawler? Like he spent all last year injured, although he's looked decent in lead him so far.

But you know what I mean? Like their internal options are sort of underwhelming in terms of the alternatives. So I like it. Through July, he had a 66 WRC plus. It was really bad. Yeah. Exactly replacement level. I would have bet the under on replacement level if he had a 66 WRC plus.

Staggast really likes his defense. Yeah, I guess that's it. He has a reasonable floor because of how he grades out defensively, which you can take or leave, I guess, but that's why. And it seems like maybe the Mariners thought he was on the downside and he's approaching his 33rd birthday mid-July. You wouldn't have expected any sort of super turnaround.

And yet from July 1st on, Eugenio Suarez was the fifth most valuable position player in baseball. Yeah. That's really, I didn't even realize he was that high. It's Bobby Witt Jr., Aaron Judge, Francisco Indore, Shohei Otani, and Eugenio Suarez just above Juan Soto. Yeah. 3.8 war, 162 WRC plus, and that's half a season.

Yeah. He hit 216 in the first half, he hit 307 in the second half. He slugged 366 in the first half, he slugged 602 in the second half. Breaking. I got extra, extra. Right-hander Geirkoel is remaining with the New York Yankees on the four-year $144 million deal that he opted out of, per Jeff Passen. Discussions on a potential contract extension will continue. Essentially, it's the same as if Cole did not opt out. What? Huh.

I mean, okay. What did Garrett, Garrett, buddy? All of that, we bantered for nothing. We had to change the top 50. You made me do, as an aside, you guys, get your option stuff sorted and be clearer about it because you say that you imply that Travis Darno is getting his option picked up. We don't put him on the top 50. Then you decline his option and I'm like, oh, he probably is better than Danny Jansen.

Anyway, that's neither here nor there. We didn't make a mistake, I just want everyone to know. Well, I'm sure a little more will come out of this, but that's- Why would you, wait. It doesn't make any sense. That's a weird way to play your leverage, I guess is the point.

So did he just really not wanna become a free agent? And he's like, I guess we'll see. Sounds like he likes being a Yankee and they like having him be a Yankee. And I guess maybe whatever discussions they've had to this point, they're confident that they'll get something done. Maybe there's some sort of verbal assurance that's been made, but they weren't able to work out the details by the deadline, but yeah, I mean, you do sort of give up your leverage at that point, but I guess also if you've gotten some sort of commitment or good faith of vouching for we're going to give you something here, then

you don't want to anger your ace probably. That's dangerous business though. That's dangerous business.. That's dangerous business. There must be some sort of assurance happening here. I mean, I'm sure there was an assurance, but until it's in writing, what is it worth? Nothing, Ben. It's worth nothing. The Yankees say Steinbrenner's word is their bond, evidently, according to Garrett Cole. So I'm sure we'll hear more. But okay, Garrett Cole, staying with the Inquisites

as we thought, not exactly the way that we thought, but all right. So that's that, suspense over. So I guess we can move on to an actual new signing. I'll just say I'm setting up a step last year, but that Suarez, that first half, second half split, and by that, I mean like actual halves of the season, not all-star break, although I'm sure if you did it that first half, second half split. And by that, I mean like actual halves of the season, not all star break. Although I'm sure if you did it that way too, it'd be pretty striking also, but that's, that's gotta be one of the biggest first half to second half upticks that we've seen in some time coming from replacement level to top five hitter in baseball.

That's something good for you. Hey, Juanjo, you get 15 million bucks for your trouble. The notable signing that we have seen involves the Kansas City Royals who are entering this off season the way that they spent most of last off season in aggressive spending and signing mode, and they have re-signed Michael Wacha to a three-year deal. They didn't even let him hit free agency. He is getting a three-year deal with a club option for the 2028 season. The three years, it's at least $51 million in guaranteed money.

And this was a case where he signed a two-year $32 million deal with the Royals last off season that included an opt-out. was a case where he signed a two year $32 million deal with the Royals last offseason that included an opt out. And so they just headed him off at the pass, didn't have to exercise the opt out, just said, here are three more years, take it or leave it. He took it. So that's nice. They are remaining in business together for a few years and he was a big part of their success this season. So I can see why they want him and why he wanted to stay. He's, I guess someone who looks a little better by the runs allowed than the FIP and the peripherals, but he's been fairly effective and you know, he's not giving you a high innings total exactly,

but this was the most starts that he's made in a season since 2017. It was his most innings total exactly, but this was the most starts that he's made in a season since 2017. It was his most innings pitched in a season since 2015. So he was kind of turning back the clock to his Cardinals days, had himself a nice season, an important one for the Royals. So will he be that good again in the three years to come? I don't know. But at least they brought back their guys who were heading up that rotation for them this past season.

And that was just a huge part of their success, what they did with Regans and with Waka and other signings that they made. Some of them didn't work out, but a lot of the important ones did, Seth Lugo, of course. So they will retain that trio. I think it's fine. I think it's fine. I don't think that it's an amount of money that sort of prevents them from doing anything else that they might want to do. I think it shows continued commitment to being competitive. I think it shows continued commitment to being competitive. I think of Waka from a true talent perspective as being closer to his FIP than

his ERA. And I know that ex-ERA and ex-FIP weren't particularly glowing, but he eats innings. He seems like a good clubhouse guy. He's a perfectly serviceable starter. And if you get, you know, a year or two that looked like this one, awesome. And yeah, it's not so much money, it's going to prevent him from doing anything else. It did, again, cause me to have to rejigger the top 50. And so in that respect, it is quite rude. But I appreciate that that's not the barometer for Michael Wacha when making decisions about his own life. So I've accepted that Ben, cause I'm an adult, you know, I'm a big person.

All right, well, those are the notable moves or the most notable moves that have been made. Guess a few other things we can mention. I teased this the other day, I mentioned it briefly, but the Giants have a Minasian general manager now, just as the Angels do. So we've got two California teams, both with GMs named Minasian. And this is not a no relation situation. This is a relation.

They are brothers, right? Yes. Perry is the Angels Minasian and Zach is the Giants Minasian. He was their scouting director. He was now promoted to be the GM under Buster Posey, Buster Pobo. Now, I guess their seniority, their authority is a little different because even though they are both GMs, that means more for the Angels than it does with the Giants. He is the number two, the second in command of the front office with the giants. Whereas Minasian is in charge of the angels, at least as in charge as any

executive can be with the angels where ultimately Artie Moreno is going to do what Artie Moreno is going to do. And evidently I hadn't even realized this, but I saw Sam Blum note that the angels went all of 2024 without an assistant general manager. So not only was there no one above Perry Minasian, there was no one immediately below him either. So I guess they're just so confident. I mean, we were sort of surprised that they decided to keep him around, not

because he's done such a horrendous job or anything, just because the angels have kind of been horrendous collectively. And there wasn't even someone waiting in the wings. Maybe that's why they had to keep him around. There was no heir apparent, there was no assistant GM. So now evidently he has gotten clearance to hire an assistant GM, which is very big of Artie to let him do that. Many teams have multiple assistant GMs. These are all titles. I'm sure there was someone who was filling an assistant GM-like role for the angels, but I don't know that we've seen this that often. Brothers being

GMs. It seems like we see all sorts of brothers being players, but brother GMs going head-to-head or brothers in rival front offices in senior baseball ops roles. Patreon supporter, Aaron emailed us to note or to ask if the younger Manasian, this is a Perry's little bro, if the younger Manasian ever gets a promotion, will we have po bros? And we absolutely will have po bros and- Oh, do we call them pro, pro, pro? Bro, bro, bro, bro, pro bros and- Or do we call them pro, pro, pro- Bro, bro, bro, bro-

Pro bros, pro bros. Pro bros, po bros. I think pro bros is better. The difficulty of saying it is sort of undermining it catching on, huh? It's making it a little harder. I like it. But wait, is your proposed,

oh, that was hard to say too. Is your proposed acro Pro Bros or Po Bros? I think it's Po Bros. I think you want to keep the Bros in there. Yeah, right. Because what would Pro even be? What would that even Bros? The point is yes, I think if you were to obtain such a promotion. I haven't taken any edibles yet. I want you to know that. I know that like 5% of you is wondering if I've started streaming my edibles in anticipation of tomorrow. And the answer is no, I'm waiting. I'm waiting until tomorrow. CB. So I wonder if those two connected in

trade talks or they were competing for the same player. We know, we know all about player rivalries, but I wonder what that would be like at the proverbial Thanksgiving table or the literal Thanksgiving table that they might connect at times. Cause it depends on the team. Sometimes your GM, even if the GM is not the number one, might handle trade talks. And so you might have the Mininesians talking trade, texting trade. I wonder, cause sometimes the teams will handle trade talks based on existing relationships. It'll be like, Oh, I used to work with this guy or I used to play with this person.

So we'll be the point people for this negotiation. Even though the, yeah, even if you. Even though the final say necessarily. We don't, we aren't the po bro. Right. But in this case, I wonder whether you'd be more likely to do that or less likely. Cause there's, I don't know what their relationship is like, but often there's a brotherly rivalry.

Maybe you know too much about your sibling. You know what gets them going. I wonder whether Minasian junior would be assigned to interface with Minasian senior or whether it'd be like, I'm recusing myself from this negotiation because it's going to make things awkward or something. But they're not junior and senior, are they? They're not brothers and fathers. One is older than the other.

They're not, I can't think of a, they're not po bro. Oh, that was good. You should laugh at it harder than you did. You should find that funny. There are no dragons involved in this situation. They're not Targaryens or anything. They're Minasians. So this is a normal one brother is older though.

Perry is older. So I wonder whether that would ease their negotiations or whether it might hurt because like you have a sibling, I don't have siblings. And so what do I know? I'm an only child, but as I understand it, it varies very much by the sibling. But sometimes, you know, your older brother, a little brother situation, there's a lot of heckling. There's a lot of picking on.

There's like a little brother syndrome. I love that you're just envisioning Perry being a bully, apparently. CB. I know, this is not universal for all I know, that was not part of their sibling dynamic, but it might be. LS. It might be. If I had to hazard a guess, I would probably say that they will each delegate responsibility for negotiations in a situation like that to someone else in the front office, just to avoid even the appearance of there being some kind of a conflict and remove it as a question that everyone is worried about. That would be my guess as they embark on their new relationship as po-bros.

It's so hard to say, Ben. It's so- It's hard to say, po-bros. It's so hard to say, Ben. It's so- I find it hard to say, po-bros. I find it so hard to say, po-bros. I think it's because my mouth wants the first syllable to be the long syllable. It wants it to be pro-bo. Cause that- I see. I guess like the city in Utah, but different. Sure. like the city in Utah, but you know, different. I have never worked with my sister or my brother

for that matter. So I don't know what it would be like to interact in a professional capacity. I mean, I think that you're right. Like there's a lot of different, that dynamic can really vary. And I'm sure that it can vary. It might come to vary in a new way as they embark on this new dynamic. I said dynamic too many times. I started it. I said dynamic too. They're a dynamic duo. Pobros, but not George Sheeran Sr. It's like a really twisted word puzzle, you know? Like you get those at the back of Highlights magazine. That would be a pretty dark one for a kid though. They are the first brothers to be GMs at the same time in MLB history, if anyone was wondering. They've both been in baseball for a very long time and they've worked for rival organizations,

so I guess they're used to that to some extent, but they are the first simultaneous GMs in MLB. So we've never quite seen this before. I don't know if we've seen, you know, the title inflation is such that being a GM on the giants now does not mean what it used to mean or what it means currently for the angels, as I said. So now I'm reading the LA Times piece about this, which actually has some insight into their relationship.

So it says, tight family, no doubt, but don't expect Zach to get much assistance from Perry, his older brother of four years. People always say, Oh, look at those loving brothers all trying to help out each other, Perry told USA Today. I don't know which Perry, one of the Perry's got to specify. It's the furthest thing from the truth. We want to beat each other's asses as much as possible. Oh, my goodness. Sounds aggressive. We're not trying to beat each other's asses as much as possible. Oh my goodness.

Sounds aggressive. We're not trying to hurt each other. Okay, that's an important clarification, but we're sure the hell not helping each other either. As kids, Zach would get annoyed when he believed Perry was cheating during Madden NFL video game marathons. Okay, beyond annoyed, we would sometimes come to blows. Okay, so you were trying to hurt each other sometimes,

Zach said, I'm not even joking. Sometimes we would literally be fighting. Perry doesn't deny his brother's recollections, although these days they generally behave like adults. At that point in time, Perry said, I was out of my mind. I would do anything to win. There would be fights all of the time. We would come to blows.

You know, sometimes I'm kind of grateful that I'm an only child. You know, my sister and I tried to kill each other on multiple occasions as children and now we're best friends. So, you know, like it can work out fine, but yeah, that does sound like being a brother. I am sort of surprised that this hasn't happened before though. What with the nepotism in all industries, but in baseball specifically in sports. And their father was a clubhouse manager for the Rangers for years. And so he had four sons and they were all bat boys and clubhouse attendance and they were all around the game. And three of them went on to work in baseball. Calvin Minasian is clubhouse

director with Atlanta and they've all been around and done various things in the game. But yeah, it almost surprises me given how many brothers we've seen make the majors and sons of fathers, et cetera, that this hasn't happened before. So yeah, I don't know. Given that relationship, maybe you'd think that you would actually sort of sick each one on the other, just the competitiveness might be ramped up, although maybe they'd be on tilt. Maybe this would be counterproductive

because they'd be trying so hard to make up for those Madden games that they've won or lost decades ago that it might actually be a distraction. I don't know. I feel like it's such a great opportunity that you're probably not going to let the evolution of your relationship with your brother undermine it, right? I'm sure that they, I bet they have a whole little plan in place. I think it'll be fine. I wonder if there's any way you could kind of collude. I guess probably not really. What incentive do you have to do that?

Yeah. Well, you know, help out your bro, right? I know, but like, what do you think you're going to come together for? I don't know what holidays the Menazium family celebrates. You know, it's not like their mom is going to be like, you can't believe you didn't facilitate that trade. You know, like, come on. Yeah. Perry, why'd you pick on Zach? Why'd you get the best of him in that trade? Right. I guess in theory, each side will win a trade. I mean, they both want to win.

They both want to do better. So it's not necessarily a zero sum game here. They can both emerge better than they were before the trade. So, you know, maybe, uh, you don't have to do the scorecard that way, but really I guess it's not so much that any particular team is trying to screw over a trade partner. They're just trying to make themselves better. Does that sometimes entail winning the trade quote unquote? You want to get the better player probably, but mostly you just want to make your team better. If in the process you also make

the other team better because they have different needs than you do, then that's fine too, as long as they're not a division rival or something, which they aren't in this case. I think it'll be fine, you know, and we'll all have a laugh about it at GM meetings. Also, I don't care particularly about gold gloves. So all that news just sort of washed over me mostly. I think gold gloves are awarded to the more deserving players than they used to. And we just, we have better defensive stats now, though they don't always agree depending on the metric. And so I, I just don't look that closely at awards voting in general anymore because, you know, we can do our own research.

We can come to our own conclusions, but I do think it's cool that Carlos Santana won a gold glove. I think that's cool. Like, you know, for most players, I don't care that much, but for Carlos Santana to win one at 38 years, 38 and a half years old, the oldest position player ever to win his first career gold glove award, and the third oldest overall behind only pitchers Phil Negrow, who was 39, and R.A. Dickie, who was an older 38. So that's pretty special, I would say. And he deserved it too. And we

shouted him out at various points this season, because he was a top stat cast leaderboards for fielding at first base at an advanced age for someone who's playing the field. That's pretty awesome. I've just enjoyed Carlos Santana's career in general, but this is a really cool capper. I also think that like, I know that, um, you know, the metrics have kind of spooned in the last couple of years, but like Carlos

Santana can pick it at first. He is a good first base defender. He is really good over there. And so I'm happy about that. It feels like hardware that was a long time coming. So very exciting, good stuff. And it's the kind of thing that maybe it would have been harder to do in an earlier era where gold gloves were just so based on reputation that once you won one, you could keep winning one. Or it was all about the

halo effect of were you a good hitter, which is not really what the gold gloves purport to decide. But nonetheless, it did. And so now it's probably easier with the Sabre defensive index playing part of this and more of an objective basis to the award and maybe just more informed inputs to the thing that if you deserve one at 38 years old, you can win one. And I mean, he was a plus 11 in fielding run value according to the stack as this year and plus eight defensive run saved and rated well last year too. Like he, he earned this one. It wasn't some kind of career achievement or word or something like, you know, he's, if anything gotten better as his career has gone on, I don't know if that's a positioning thing or if he's just improved with many reps.

I don't know if it's the range or just the sure handedness or what, but he was, you know, I guess a decent defensive first baseman in his younger days, but not really a standout as evidenced by the fact that didn't have any hardware, didn't win any gold gloves, and now he's winning one and earning it and deserving it. So that's great. It's terrific. Would you like to know the full list of players who receive qualifying offers per Jeff Passant? Sure.

Hit me. Here's how we're going to make this remotely interesting. I'm going to say a name and then you're going to tell me if it's surprising to you or not that the player got a qualifying offer. Because there are a couple on here that are a little Surprising to me. Okay ready Juan Soto Not surprising despite that comment on the fan crafts article Corbin Burns not surprised Alex Bregman Not surprised Max Fried not surprised Willie Adamus not surprised not surprised Pete Alonso

Not surprised Anthony Santander. Pete Alonzo. Not surprised. Anthony Santander. Not surprised. Teasca Hernandez. Not surprised. Nick Pavetta. Well, you kind of coached me there with the change in your intonation, but also I was going to say, yeah. Isn't that a little surprising?

A little, yeah. It's a little surprising. What's the qualifying offer thresholds this year? 21. 20-ish. 21 million. 21.05 for one year. Yeah.

If this is the going rate for Michael Wacha, then I guess 351, then Pavela would get more than that probably. But yeah, that's, that's a little, I mean, he started the season well, right? And then like a lot of Red Sox pitchers, he kind of ran out of gas. Yeah. Yeah. He's been an average-ish pitcher for each of the past few years. So is that enough to justify this? I guess, okay. Yeah, slightly surprising. It is a little surprising. Christian Walker, that one's not surprising. Yeah, I guess. Okay. Yeah. Slightly surprising. It is a little surprising. STACEY Christian Walker, that one's not surprising. CBTCH Yeah, not surprising.

STACEY I would not be surprised if Walker took the QO. I think Becker convinced me on that. I think it's a good, it's good. I think that he might do that. Sean Maniah. CBTCH Not surprising after his mid-year reinvention turning into chrysal light. STACEY Luis Severino. Not surprising after his mid-year reinvention turning into Chris Sale light. Luis Severino. Luis Severino. That's closer to surprising. He had quite a solid season, but obviously not the track records.

It was a smart signing by the Nets. They got him bargain price because he was coming off another injury-plagued year and a very ineffective year, which was kind of a first for him. He'd always been a hurt or good guy. And then in 2023, he became a hurt and bad guy, which is not really what you want. And then Nets signed him and he threw 182 innings and made 31 starts and just really wasn't hurt and was effective, but not great. Yeah. Still sort of like an average-ish pitcher in the Pavetta range, but yeah, I guess

I could see him accepting it potentially. So closer to surprising, but not gasp worthy. My jaw didn't drop. And then lastly, Nick Martinez. Nick Martinez. Well, you know, he's, he's coming off quite a strong season. So I don't know. I might consider Severino more surprising than Martinez just because Martinez was, he was quite good.

He was, you know, he didn't pitch as many innings as Severino and he's not a strikeout guy either. Not a strikeout guy. Yeah. But, but he was, he was good. Yeah. I mean, those would be the three that are a little less predictable. Severino and Martinez and Pavetta.

Okay. Well, I don't know if I made it interesting, but I tried, you know, I was. Change your inflection a little on a few of those names. This is a Breaking News podcast now is what we've established. We're going XT, XT, I have my little press hat on, it says press. Recorded podcasts, perfect for Breaking News. That's the medium you want to follow Breaking News in. Does that maybe speak to what you were saying about the starting picture market? That, well, you were saying it's pretty thin at the top, right? That's not a lot of rotation topping, but then everyone's kind of a mid

rotation guy after that. And these are more or less mid rotation guys with maybe some, some top of the rotation upside if everything breaks, right? Well, I think it's important to remember too, that like some of these guys, so like our sort of top tier of starters in the top 50 went Burns, then Cole, even though we figured he would not be, you know, Snell, Freud,

and then Jack Flaherty. I understand not giving Jack Flaherty a qualifying offer. Snell and Cole not eligible for qualifying offers. So I don't know, seems like the top, top guys get QOs, makes sense. And then, I mean, I am surprised by Nick Martinez. I don't know that I would have done that. You get why Bieber's not going to get a qualifying offer because he's absolutely going to take it but then like the next guy below him for our top 50 is Manaya.

He got one. Kukuchi's not eligible because he was traded and then you get like a bunch of relievers and then Severino's surprising and Nick Martinez is surprising. Yes, it does speak to my point because I'm brilliant, clearly reinforces the point. CB 0 So we just talked about the aged Carlos Martinez, though still obviously playing like a young and wanted to ask you about someone on the other end of the baseball age spectrum. This story about the Padres prospect or the would have been Padres prospect, Cesar Altagracia, who is 19,

despite the fact that documents said he was 14 and evidently the Padres believed them. It was revealed that he was significantly older than he was believed to be. Now, A, I don't know how you convincingly pass yourself off as a 14 year old when you're 19. That seems like scouting issues. A lot of ways to present as a human person. I think is the answer to that question. Yeah. You know, a lot of different ways to be a person. I looked a lot younger than I was at that age. Maybe I still do, but that was cause I've like hadn't had my gross burden if you hadn't have your gross birth, then you're probably not going to get a big verbal commitment from a team.

Those things kind of go hand in hand, but evidently a youthful looking player. And this has been reported. So MLB conducted this investigation and found that the paperwork was falsified and the Dominican baseball federation is investigating this as well. And this sort of thing, we know that it has gone on before and used to be probably more rampant and prevalent. And this is one of the reasons why people advocate for a draft. I don't know that the draft would necessarily solve every issue, but you know, just that this has been something that has happened in the past. Now, in this case, it was widely reported more that the intrigue was that this prospect is older than he said he was.

And yeah, that's newsworthy, I suppose. But most of the stories either didn't mention or didn't really dwell on the fact that, hey, you're not supposed to be signing someone as old as you thought he was in the first place. Right. So you're not supposed to make a commitment to a 14 year old. Even if he's not actually 14, if you think he is, you're not supposed to be able to do that until the player turns 16. Now, again, we know that this is rampant too, and this is prevalent. And I guess that's why it wasn't even really considered newsworthy on that score, right?

It's like more newsworthy that Prospect is five years older than he said he was than Team committed to sign player who was years younger than you're supposed to be able to commit to sign a player at. But this is something that goes on because there's so much competition and just, you know, it's such a shady market and teams can make these verbal commitments to a prospect and then hide them away at their academy for a couple of years so no one else sees them. And then they have the ability to renege and sort of screw that player over if they want to, obviously, in this case, you know,

there were extenuating circumstances there, but why hasn't it been reported more as like, but you're not supposed to do that anyway. So like the Padres made an oopsie here, they broke the rules too. Is it like just so accepted that everyone does this, that it's like not even worth noting in these news stories for the most part? I always struggle in moments like this to care that a kid is actually older than he purported to be because to your point, it's like, turnabout is fair play. Is that the expression? Yeah, the more profound scandal

from a moral perspective is that this behavior is rampant. Every team does it. Some of the ages of kids that they see are wild. They are wildly young. 14 is not the lowest that teams will go 14 is not the lowest that teams will go in terms of scouting these guys. And it's super out in the open. Once names start circulating for kids, and I'm using that word intentionally, who are garnering interest and seem to have a verbal deal done with a team, they go and work out on their facilities. You look at the kid on, like if you see the kid's Instagram, he'll be in, pick your team's gear on their complex in the Dominican. Like

this is how it operates. And it's super out in the open. So yeah, did the Padres like get got? I guess they did, but like, I don't know. I don't know that the Padres are the ones I'm necessarily having sympathy for here. I think that the responsible way to talk about this stuff is to know. And many of the stories that I saw on this incident did note the rules as they are written versus the rules as they are observed, which is that they aren't. CB There was like a sentence or a paragraph, but it was as if the scandal is the fact that this kid was lying about his age more so than, and I guess the Padres did it, everyone's

doing it, so to single them out and to pretend that you're outraged. I mean, you might be outraged, but for MLB or anyone who works in the game to be like, I cannot believe that this is going on in this establishment. But it is more of a scandal in a sense that there was any kind of commitment there to begin with. LS It's definitely hard to know how to report on this stuff. We've struggled with it and gone round and round because the names get circulated and are known pretty widely. This doesn't end up being state secrets. You might have insight into not just the class that is going to start signing in January, but the couple of classes that come before that.

I don't want to have those kids on the board necessarily, because those deals shouldn't be getting done. Is there value to reporting them so that people have an understanding of how pervasive this problem is? I don't know. We've gone back and forth on the right way to approach that, because I don't wanna,

I don't think that the way that the media interacts with it is necessarily doing much on either end to like dissuade teams from doing this, but you want to talk about it responsibly and these are literal children. So it's a weird, it's a weird thing to like grapple with. It's a weird thing in the amateur space in the US too, but like the, the ages are older, the exploitation feels more severe. You have a draft. And so there's like very strict rules around when you can actually get those deals done and there doesn't, you know, you can't cut in the same way. So it's just like a different thing. But like, I don't know, I'm not super excited about a draft as a solution because it

removes player agency, but like, if the player in question is 14, like how meaningful is that agency? Like these are, you know, there's like stuff to be said about that and it sucks that like the proposed rules that MLB put forth for a draft did have the bonus pool for international folks. It was smaller than it would be for domestic amateurs. And some of that was the size of the draft and some of that was the age of the signee, but like, you know, that feels yucky too. So nobody's hands are clean in this space.

And I think you're right that like thinking about this as a scandal of this kid fabricating his age is putting the emphasis on the wrong syllable as it were, as opposed to like the gross exploitation of very, very young players in this space. And the kids who end up getting signed, those aren't the kids that are the worst off in this scenario, right? It's the kids who hope that they're going to get signed, drop out of school, train, and then don't end up getting a deal or don't end up getting a deal for life changing money or like, you know, they have a verbal agreement, but to your point, like a team goes back on that verbal agreement because somebody else pops late and they only have so much money to spend in the space.

So the age thing, like those rules exist for a reason. And there is an aspect of the age requirement piece that is trying to safeguard the wellbeing of the athletes involved. But the scandal isn't that this kid was 19, you know, that's not the scandal. And like that doesn't necessarily mean that he's going to be a bad baseball player either. It's old for the international space, but like he would be, you know, if he were a, um, a high schooler, like teams would be like, yeah, that's about, that's about normal, you know, depending on how old of a 19 he is. And like, that feels gross to say.

Even putting aside the ethics of it, which is a pretty big deal and just how weird it is to think of a minor signing a contract like this, even if there's some sort of guardian involved. Just imagine trying to project the baseball performance of a kid who's like 12 or 13 years old. I mean, it's preposterous. I know baseball's not unique here and you've got kids going to soccer academies at this age or even earlier, but just like the ramp up to being a big leaguer is so long as it is that you're talking about signing someone, even if things go well, like a decade before they're going to be a big leaguer, right? Or committing to sign someone and that's just like, they haven't even really grown fully

yet physically, let alone psychologically. And like, oh my gosh, the error bars must be so big. Yeah. And like teams, you know, I think about how many prospects coming out of college don't pan out or high school for that matter. Now rewind several years beyond that. I mean, it's ridiculous, right? And so I get why teams do it in this system where you're competing for this talent and you've just like, the competition is more and more and more intense and you have to go younger and younger and younger. Someone else is just going to do it. And so you can be, you know, you could kind of take yourself out of the

market entirely, which I guess to his credit, Angelos did with the Orioles for years, right? Peter Angelos was just like, we're not going to sign people. Like, I don't believe in this, right? Like, you know, good for him sincerely. But then also like it put the Orioles at a disadvantage for years that they were just basically passing up that market. But you would think that like if, if teams hands could be tied in this respect, maybe

they would be happier and better off. Like if, if you stopped them from doing this, if the system were such that they didn't have the incentives to do this, then a, maybe they'd feel better about themselves. But B, also from the perspective that the team owners are often coming from, which is like, are we getting efficient returns on our investments? This can't be efficient to be spending sums or committing to spend sums on kids. Although of course, the kid incurs a lot of the risk, the team, if the kids between 13 and 16 or whatever, like doesn't progress the way they want, they could just tear up that agreement

because it's probably not on paper to begin with. I mean, I think that the way that a team would answer that, and I'm not defending this justification to be clear, but like it's not that much money is the thing of it, especially with, especially with bonus pools capped the way that they are. And you can trade for more, but you can only trade for so much. And so part of it is that it's not that much. It's not all that much money in the grand scheme. Part of it is you don't need every one of those guys to actually hit because sometimes they do. And then they're Juan Soto, right? Sometimes they do and they're Ronald Acuna Jr.

And it's not always the worst in terms of the career trajectory for the really, really good players, right? Like Juan Soto debuted when he was 19. His age 19 season was his first in the majors and now he's hitting for agency at 26. But one guy this like incredible superstar, I don't think justifies or like explains away the suffering that the system has attendant to it. But I mean, the way that they're thinking about it is that there's a certain amount of volume and you're not going to hit on everybody. But some of those guys are going to end up being really good big leaguers and on balance, it's worth it. And there are teams that take a slightly different approach, at least to segments of the market,

right? Like for a while, the Astros were the only team signing older quote unquote pitchers in that space. And they got some really, really good guys for not very much money from a signing bonus perspective because they were willing to, you know, sign dudes who were, oh my God, 18, 19, 20, you know, sign dudes who were, oh my God, 18, 19, 20, you know? And so they were able to kind of get in to that space because teams weren't looking to sign people in that space.

But it's like, do you really want to applaud them for like getting a great pitcher for only 10K? Like, no, I don't want to do that. Like that guy should have gotten more money, you know? So the whole system is just very gross. But I don't know that a draft is necessarily the right answer in that situation because I don't know that that solves the money piece of it from the players. And it does cut down on some of the abuses in that space.

And I go back and forth on my thoughts on a draft in the international space, but it doesn't solve all of the problems. I think it would help to address stuff like this more, and it might help to continue to sort of tamp down on the instinct to give, say, some of these very young kids PEDs, which also happens in that space sometimes. But hey, it's not, it's gross. Like, it's gross. Like it's gross. There are a lot of really talented athletes who come out of the Dominican Republic and

other countries in Latin America. There are some guys who have been incredibly important to the game and like there are plenty of players who have gone through that talent acquisition system who oppose a draft. So I don't think that there's like a cut and dry answer, but one thing that MLB could do is just enforce its existing rules, because it already has rules on the books to combat this stuff. They just never enforce them as evidenced by the fact that this kid fabricating his age is the scandal part of this story and not that, hey, how many deals do you have done San Diego, you know, with who? Like who are the other ones? How many years out from now are they? Like that's the bigger scandal

or it should be, but it's not because everybody does it. CB You know, while we're on the subject of the system not working as well as it should, I was catching up on the episodes you did while I was away. I was listening to your conversation with Eric Longin-Hagan and he was mentioning something that a scout told him anecdotally about how it seemed like there were disproportionately a lot of gringos, a lot of white players at the upper levels of the miners. And Eric hadn't confirmed or corroborated that, but he was speculating about reasons why it might be and does it have what the downsizing of the miners post-COVID and other factors. And that made me think of something that Rob Arthur wrote in

October, Rob of Baseball Prospectus and a former Effectively Wild Guest, semi-frequent collaborator of mine at The Ringer. He wrote something for The Guardian, which was headlined, as the World Series approaches, baseball still struggles with racial bias. And Rob had looked into this in the past at baseball prospectus and he had found that, say, all else being equal, Latin American players tend not to get promoted as often or as reliably or they wash out of the minors more quickly than white players, let's say. I don't know if his earlier study focused on only Latin American players or black players, just non-white players.

But there were other reasons this could be other than pure bias. It could just be the difficulty, the culture shock, having to assimilate, having to learn a language, having to live in a foreign land at a young age and everything that comes with that. It's just additional difficulty that someone who grew up here doesn't necessarily have to deal with. And teams have gotten better at easing those transitions and have more resources available, but maybe it's still something that you have to overcome. And so Rob just did this in-depth analysis for The Guardian where he looked at racial classifications of thousands of major league players that have been done by researchers. And of course, it's not what the player identifies as necessarily, but it's partly based on just subjective evaluations. It's partially based on

skin color taken from headshots and names, et cetera. A lot of data here to try to get as good a gauge as you can. And he found that historically there have been real differences here. Now that's not a shocker that in the past there would have been prejudice and discrimination in baseball, what? Who could have seen that coming? But he didn't just look at years since 1950, he looked all the way up to 2019.

And in some cases he found that these effects persist in a way that was semi surprising to me. Not that I thought racism is solved in baseball or anywhere, but still the degree to which these differences are pronounced. So he found, for example, the disadvantage black players faced was comparable to having an OPS about 35 points lower than they actually had. This effect also stayed the same from 2000 to 2019 compared to 1950 to 2000. Black and Latino players are still promoted less than their performances

would indicate they should be based on a statistical model predicting promotions. MLB declined to comment on the results of this study. So he found this effect and the darker skinned the player was based on their headshot, the more pronounced the effect was. And it's not getting promotions, it's taking longer to reach the majors or the rate at which you make the majors at all. He found that one effect seems to have subsided in the early years and decades post integration, black players got hit by pitches, something like twice as often as white players. And you read about Jackie Robinson and how often he got hit earlier in his career. Maybe that's not such a surprise. That effect at least does not persist,

but this other effect he found does. And of course it's the positional biases too. So we've talked plenty about just positions at which minority players or black players specifically or whatever it is the case may be underrepresented at certain positions and catchers, of course, are the notorious example. He wrote, before 2000, about 3% of players identified as black in the miners were at catcher compared to almost 10% of white players. Each year in the miners before 2000, black catchers moved to other positions about 50% more often than white catchers, even though the black players were hitting and fielding better than their white counterparts.

Once moved to the outfield, however, team shifted black players from the outfield to other positions about half as often as white outfielders. He also finds this being the case with pitchers, being pitchers less often or being relievers more often than starters. So these things are known, but perhaps the extent to which they persist surprised

me even. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised, but I was slightly. So if you buy this analysis, there are still deep-seated institutional issues here. And is it just pure racism among front offices or coaches, or is it some sort of subconscious bias, which could be a form of racism, or it could be something that's baked into algorithms, right? Which are certainly prone to these things also. And maybe there are historical patterns that get picked up on inadvertently. And this is a reported piece, and Rob talks to former players and front office analysts about how these things could have happened. And he also dives into the database of scouting reports that he and I used years ago, the Cincinnati Reds archive that we uncovered,

where we did a whole series digging into that and seeing what we could learn. And we talked even back then in those pieces for the Ringer about the different language that you would see applied to players based on their race. And he did an even deeper dive into that here. And this was scouting reports from the late 90s and early 2000s, but nine times out of 10, the words gamer, leader, and great, or good makeup were applied to white players.

Meanwhile, comments about questionable makeup, laziness, background, even a player's father or their hairstyle were twice as likely to be applied to black and Latino players, etc. So I guess if this is still as strong an effect as Rob found, then that's more evidence that, yeah, there's a lot of work to be done. And I don't know how the compression of the miners will exacerbate these issues. Because as Eric said on that pod, like if you're coming over from Latin America and you don't have short season ball to get acclimated to things, then maybe the barrier to entry is even higher.

Well, and you can imagine it having an impact on domestic players too. We talk a lot about how so much of the amateur talent pipeline in the US these days is going to showcases, playing on specialty travel ball teams, doing all of this for player development essentially before you're ever drafted. And to the extent that that helps to bring players sort of up to speed faster, if you don't have access to those things

and you don't have as much time to sort of cook in the minor leagues, you could imagine it exacerbating some of these racial and socioeconomic cleavages that already exist. Now, I think it's fair to point out that the jump from even the very best travel ball teams or college programs to affiliated ball is like still meaningful, right? With perhaps a handful of exceptions on the college side, but the less time anyone has to develop, the more pressure there's going to be on being able to be the best from day

one. And this was one of the concerns that people raise. And I think it was a perfectly valid one when we learned of the sort of shrinking of the minors, you know, there are going to be plenty of guys for whom it's enough runway, right? They are, they're far enough along in their player dev, they're able to figure it out, but there are going to be plenty of players who, for whatever reason, whether it's how young they're signed as international amateurs or the access to resources they have when

they're a domestic amateur, you're going to have talented players who aren't just org guys, right? Who could be big leaguers of some stripe. It's not to say that they're all going to be all-stars or Hall of Famers, but they could be big leaguers and they're not going to have enough time to benefit from pro instruction, to demonstrate what they're able to do to catch up if they haven't had an opportunity to participate as much in some of these amateur programs. So you're making a conscious choice to give fewer slots. And we know who ends up bearing disproportionately the burden that that places on guys. And it doesn't tend to be like the rich white kid from the suburbs of Atlanta, right?

So that's an active choice. The game is out here saying that they want to be more diverse, that they want to have opportunity and I think there's a lot, there are a lot of people who are doing really good work there and a lot of those people work for the league and they're bringing league resources to bear. So I don't want to say that it's like not sincere, that it isn't being addressed in some ways, but you are making sort of structural institutional choices and those are going to have an effect on who can play the game and

You know, we should be clear that that is an active decision. So it's a fascinating piece I will link to it on the show page. Check it out and I'll just close by noting just a international baseball news The KBO is over seasons done. Kia Tigers won and also ABO is over, season's done, Kia Tigers won, and also NPB is done. Japan series is over. The inaptly named Climax series is over. It's not quite the climax, but you know, opening day in the Australian baseball league is November 15th. So, uh, Hey baseball, it's a year round sport somewhere, right?

Winter ball is ongoing. Lead on is, is rolling. I brought this up to say, lest you think that randomness is a feature or a bug exclusively of the MLB playoffs, let me tell you who won the Japan Series. So here's what happened. The Yokohama Bay Stars dropped the first couple games of the Japan series and then they won four straight to defeat the Fukuoka Hawks To win the Japan series and be crowned champion of NPB this year They totally dominated the third through sixth games

They outscored the Hawks 27 to 2 the Bay Stars did over the last four games Including an 11-2 blowout in the clincher. They just totally shut down the Hawks offense and this is the first championship for Yokohama in 26 years. This is notable because the Bay Stars were the worst team in NPB's playoffs and the Hawks were by far the best team in NPB this year. So this was a huge mismatch. This was like a 20 game difference in their regular season results.

So the Hawks went 91 and 49. They were first in the Pacific League and even better going by run differential. If you go by their Pythag 97 and 43. Meanwhile, the Bay Stars finished third in the Central League, 71 and 69. They just snuck in two games over 500. This is like some 2006 Cardinals business going on here. They were barely better by Pythag, 72 and 68 expected records. So barely over 500. It took a collapse. I think Hiroshima had kind of a late season swoon to miss. And so the Bay Stars

get in and they are, I believe, the worst winning percentage ever to win a Japan series, to win a title in NPP. So imagine the fretting, the hand ringing going on here, or imagine if this were to happen in MLB. I mean, we've seen something close to this happen. So there are some things that we don't really have analogues for. Like we talked last week about the fact that there's just no Sawamura award winner this year, because Yamamoto won three in a row and then he left and they're like, you know what? No one who's still here is good enough to win this award. So nobody wins.

But this does remind me of what we have dealt with, with everyone worrying about the playoffs being too random. So this is like a bigger mismatch than you'd probably even ever see in the MVP. This is about as wide as it's going to get a team that's 71 and 69 versus a team that's 91 and 49. And then the far inferior team comes back from a two game deficit on the road to beat the big, not so big bad Baystars, to beat the big bad Hawks. That's an incredible comeback and a pretty stunning upset. And so yeah, if you're embarrassed Yankees fans, I guess imagine how Hawks fans feel.

All right, well, we talked transactions. I still think it would be nice if there weren't so many so close to the end of the World Series. We mentioned the other day that it felt quick to go from World Series to Parade in just a couple days, and I guess it almost had to happen on that timeline because free agency gets going, teams and players have decisions to make. But it'd be nice if they didn't, if we didn't immediately have to transition to talking about relatively minor moves in the grand scheme of things after the moments of the most import in the entire season give us a little longer to digest all that went down, to flip the switch in our minds from season to offseason. Granted, I guess players want to get

their offseason started. Plus, most teams have been off for a month at this point. They and their fans are probably eager to get things started again. But as a baseball consumer, I always wish we had a little longer. We could just take a beat and reflect on what we saw before thinking about things with implications for next season. Why must we move on so quickly? But here at Effectively Wild, we always must move on to more podcasts. Last week I mentioned that a One Piece anime had been postponed because everyone in Japan was watching the World Series.

I said, wouldn't it be nice if baseball were prominent enough in the US to bump some huge hit show off the schedule? Well, this isn't exactly what I had in mind, but listener-patreon supporter Triumph reminded me that back in 1998, King of the Hill had to move because baseball was King of the Air Waves because of the Sosa-McGuire home run race. An episode was supposed to air on September 8th, but Fox was airing Cubs vs. Cardinals. So the season 3 episode, Death of a Propane Salesman, had to wait a week, and Hank Hill was upset.

Mr. McGuire, I know you're having a pretty good season, but we'd really like to start our season, so why don't you do me a favor and try to hit a home run tonight, okay? For me? And now King of the Hill is being revived for 2025. Everything old is new again. As I mentioned earlier on this episode, Eugenio Suarez went from being old to new again. I did just stathead his improvement from the quote unquote first half to the quote unquote second half.

This is pre and post All-Star Break as Stathead defines it. I'd prefer actual halves. But if you search for TOPS Plus after the All-Star break, so that's the player's OPS in that stretch relative to their overall OPS for the season, with at least 500 played appearances in the full season and 250 played appearances in the quote-unquote second half, then Suarez's 135 TOPS+, is 58th all time. Not bad. His 2019 turnaround, 131 TOPS Plus in the second half, that ranks 113th all time. But Corbin Carroll put Suarez to shame.

2024, he had a 142 TOPS Plus in the second half. That's 11th all time. Tops was Casey Stengel. 1915, 159 TOPS Plus. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some monthier yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad free

and get themselves access to some perks. Andrew Felton, Zach R, JustAsking27, Matt Thompson, and Shane Allen. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, monthly bonus episodes, including the aforementioned one, which I promise wasn't entirely about my forthcoming colonoscopy. That's just one of 36 bonus episodes you can access immediately. You can also get prioritized email answers, personalized messages, autographed books,

discounts on merch and ad-free fancrafts memberships, and so much more, check out all the offerings at patreon.com slash effectivelywild. If you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. If not, you can contact us via email, send your questions and comments, and intro and outro themes to podcast at fangraphs.com. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectivelywild. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms.

You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash effectively wild. And you can check the show page at fan graphs or the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we cited today. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We'll be back later this week. See you on the other side. production assistance. We'll be back later this week.

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