Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2247: Manfred on a Mission

Episode Date: November 22, 2024

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Rich Hill’s latest (and hopefully not last) pitching exploits, then discuss how Rob Manfred’s desire to craft his legacy as commissioner could shape the sport’s direction, why sports commissioners’ tenures last so long, what qualities of the World Series-winning Dodgers rival teams might try to emulate, rumors surrounding […]

It's Effectively Wild! Hello and welcome to episode 2247 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from FanGraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Raleigh of FanGraphs. Hello Meg. Hello. Well, Rich Hill is an American hero. Yeah. Not that he wasn't before, but he has confirmed his status by pitching well for Team USA in international competition. He went up on, I guess it was Tuesday morning US time against the Japan team in the

Premier 12 tournament and he was starting against Hiroto Takahashi who was 22 years old and Rich Hill literally twice as old, twice Takahashi's age 44 years old and Rich Hill literally twice as old, twice Takahashi's age, 44 years old. And he did well. Now Team USA did not do well, but that was not Rich Hill's fault. I was scared when I saw the final score, which was nine to one Japan. I thought, uh-oh, what happened to Rich?

I did not set my alarm to wake up early for this one. Apologies to Rich Hill. Yeah, but it was the first super round game of the Premier 12, and it was Thursday night in Tokyo, but Thursday morning in the US, and therefore I was not awake. However, all the scoring happened after Rich Hill left the game.

So it was a pitchers' duel at first and Rich Hill held Team Japan scoreless for the first four innings, allowed just one hit, struck out five, and Takahashi was matching him. And then those teams went to the bullpen and things went south for Team USA from there, but not Rich Hill's fault. No, it's been fun.

What I've watched of Premiere 12, you have to get the zone, you know? Yeah, you went in person to a game, right? Did you? I did not end up going then. Oh, you didn't get to go, okay. I didn't. See, to say you didn't get to go implies

that there was an obstacle placed in front of me, like a slippery banana or a work commitment. But really what happened was I felt tired and so I ended up staying home. That's a meg failure. Was it a Rich Hill start or was it not? Couldn't tell you. Assume no. Why don't we say no so you don't feel like it was a missed pod opportunity to offer an

in-person report on what his stuff looks like, which I'm sure is phenomenal, you know? Yeah, we don't want to hurt his feelings if just fatigue alone was enough to prevent you from attending. In my defense, it had been a very busy time. I was on one functional brain cell, my last bit of rope. So to say fatigue, you know, that makes it sound like, oh, I didn't sleep well, one of the cats is in the way. No, this was in my bones, you know?

And you know who I bet can relate to that kind of tiredness? Richell. Richell. That's right. That's right. Well, I excuse you. I will link to a montage. I saw clips of his strikeout pitches.

I love a montage. From his most recent start. And he has said that he's interested in continuing to pitch in 2025. Yeah. And I'm interested in him continuing to pitch. So we'll see. He'll turn 45 in March. And it sounds like if he does do it,

he might not do what he did or attempted to do this season where he sort of sat out the first half and then weighed his options. And again, still sort of confused about why he signed with the Red Sox because it seemed like his priority was to pitch in the postseason if he could. And then he ended up going back to Boston,

which was a long shot for the postseason. Then again, he may not have had as many options as he thought he would have. And he didn't remain on the Red Sox that long. So I don't know whether his performance in this tournament is enough to get teams interested or the prospect of him having a regular ramp up and off season and spring training and all of that.

But he said he was just gonna give it a little time basically that he would make a decision maybe in the next month or two based on what sort of interest he gets and maybe also how he feels, how fatigued he feels. It sets in, you know, and then you're like, will a couple days of good sleep make it better? And then you wake up on like the fourth day and you're like, I mean, yeah, marginally, it's less a characteristic I'm actively complaining about than I was a couple of days ago,

but like on a more fundamental level, I think this is just a condition I live with, right? I obviously love the game of baseball, he said. I love the work and competition, or I wouldn't be doing this. So we'll see. And he said, uh, if and when he's done playing, he'll be open to non-playing roles in the game coaching or some other off field position. So it sounds like he'll still be around even if he's not active anymore.

He said he'll know probably in a month or so. Yeah. The suspense, we won't have to wait that long. Maybe he'll become attorney general. I guess the position is open as we currently record. So I've been thinking that maybe the next few years in baseball will be determined not solely by whether Rich Hill is pitching or not, but by Rob Manfred being a man on a mission, a Manfred on a mission, we might say.

Because it seems to me that he is out to define his legacy over the next few years before he retires, before he calls it quits. Of course, he could change his mind about retiring. That has certainly happened before. But he has framed a lot of the things he's talking about in terms of he wants to get it done before he goes. And that can be a powerful force at times when some powerful person wants to burnish their legacy and leave something behind. And he's been talking in recent days about some of the big issues facing the sport, expansion

and the whole broadcast conundrum. And it sounds like he really wants to get that stuff settled before he goes. He wants that to be part of his legacy that we look back and say, Robb Midfred steered the ship through uncertain times or he set baseball on its path to its next era. So he was talking about the Rays and the A's and trying to reassure people about John Fisher and how serious he is and how competent he is, probably with mixed results in terms of the reassurance there. But he said, and we talked about this last time about whether this has been just a huge setback to the plans to expand the current uncertainty about both the Rays and the A's.

He said he wants to have two new teams locations picked out by the time he retires in 2029. So obviously they won't be playing by then, but maybe it will be decided that there will officially be expansion and we'll but maybe it will be decided that there will officially be expansion and we'll know where it'll be. And then he can kind of claim credit for that. And also 2028 is the year that the league wants to create a national package for streaming companies to build on, which we've talked about that possibility too, but it's just even more explicit now because the league's national television deals with ESPN and Fox and Turner are set to expire then and the remaining teams that are still on Bally slash FanDuel will be expired by then. And so Robin Edford really has set his

sights on making this his thing. I guess you could also throw in ABS and figuring that out because it seems like that's a priority for him. So it seems like he really wants to get these major questions facing the sport settled. And that I guess makes me feel somewhat more bullish on it actually happening just because it's prompted by his personal sense of leaving something behind, leaving the game better than he found it, erasing some of the stain on his legacy from earlier missteps in his administration. So we'll see,

but he's sort of setting a high target here and almost making it a referendum on his success as commissioner. I wonder what he views as the relative sort of ordering of those priorities from a legacy perspective because I am skeptical he'll be able to get it all done, you know, before it's like, it's just not that much time, right? This is not that much time. And we assume, you know, relatively stable state to the league, but as we've seen over the last couple of years, like the league gets buffeted about by events, you know, even the relocation stadium conversation, right, got buffeted about.

Yes, a literal buffeting. Yeah, quite forcefully. So I wonder what he understands as sort of the relative priority of those things. You know, if it were me, I've been fairly critical of Rob Manfred at times. And I think that a lot of that criticism was well earned. But I do think that an area where he has been both forward thinking and sort of has his arms around the issue in a way that I think is to his credit is the TV rights streaming kind of question. Now, obviously, like I think that he is operating

from a motivation of profit maximization there. And there are probably going to be parts of the ultimate implementation of a national streaming, whatever it ends up being, that sort of rank goal or strike people as being overly expensive or restrictive or what have you. But I often feel the need to defend him around the question of blackouts because I think that there's this sort of instinct to be like, remember, he's blacking out the baseball. And I don't really think that we can lay that at his feet. And I think that he's tried pretty hard to undo that situation. So if I were him that would be at the top of my list, both because there's all of this groundwork that's

already being laid. It's a pressing issue. And I think that if you solve that problem, you will improve the accessibility of the game in a pretty profound way. And in a way that you will be credited with. The expansion thing seems so much more muddled to me now because of, well, you know, he has to stand up there and say that John Fisher is like, you know, a stand-up guy. Good on his word. Vegas, baseball, let's go baby. But like, I'm skeptical of that. I remain skeptical despite his reassurances. So expansion seems like a murkier question. I think the streaming thing, he could get that done. And they have to figure it out, right?

They, the teams, there's just all of this incentive to do it. And it's a place where, unlike some other areas of potential legacy building, or even just the ins and outs of the business he has left to do. I think that the owners and the players have incentive to largely pull in the same direction when it comes to the TV stuff because it is the most obvious and I think potentially abundant source of revenue and everybody wants to make more money and the only way to do that is if everyone figures out the TV deal. So I think that area, that seems like legacy building stuff. And then, I don't know, like ABS,

I don't think that Rob Manfred gets to claim credit for the challenge system. Some of us have been champions from the jump, Ben. That should be part of my legacy. I mean, that's an absurd thing to say, but it's as much my legacy as it is his. I was out here saying, I was out in the streets saying challenge system, go.

Did I tell you I finally saw the check swing thing in practice? How was it? It needs work. My feedback is that it needs work, both in terms of the definition of what is a swing, but also just like the visual that they were using. I only saw it one time.

So in fairness to this project, I've only seen one instance of it and maybe my opinion of it would have changed if I had seen it more, but it was, it came in the fall league championship game, which had a lot of challenges in it, but that real up and down night for the home plate umpire there. And the crowd reacted to that, you know, all kinds of ways. Sometimes he got cheered. They were like, when to go blue. And other times he was just getting like relentlessly heckled, just like a brutally heckled by the crowd. But then they did the check swing thing.

It came late in the game. And if I'm remembering the sequence correctly, the hitter challenged that it had been a swing. And then they basically like, okay, you're not a driver, but when you hear red light, green light, you think red stop, green go, right? Yes, I know that much. Yeah, so like, and like you're a pedestrian,

so you have to interact with that. That's like, right. I'm not trying to give you a hard time, but I'm just saying like that's like instinctive, even to a non-driver. Green, go, red, stop. In the challenge system, when a challenge is, is it when the challenge is successful?

If it's a strike, I think if the challenge is successful, green. Anyway, they're deferring to the color schema of the challenge system, but it's counterintuitive because to me, like a swing should be green and a non-swing should be red because, you know, like he didn't go, right? Like that's the framework I have. I'm not describing this very well.

Anyway, they need to work on it. Like it's still, it's interesting, but it requires further refining both in terms of how they present the visual on the screen. Cause it was like, he didn't swing, but it was green. And I was like, that's confusing. But I think anyway, I'm doing a great job. You know, I'm doing a really good job. Everyone's going to write in and be like, I, I'm seeing it, Meg.

It's like, I was there in the ballpark with you. But anyway, they need to do some more. I did take video of it. I wonder if I can dial this up while you're talking about something else. But anyway, Rob Manfred's legacy, it's gonna be so complicated because, first of all, legacy according to whom, right?

We always have to ask this question of like, what is the perspective on the legacy? Because if you're a player and you're looking at Rob Manfred's legacy, like you might have some notes, but if you're an owner, you're largely pretty happy with Rob Manfred, I would imagine. You know, you might also have a couple of minor things, but you've, you've basically gotten what you wanted.

And even in the last CBA where the players sort of stood firmer than they have, and I think we're able to recoup some gains, they still are on a relative basis, I think, worse off than they've been in a while. So legacy according to whom? It's like, well, the league survived the pandemic, but was that really ever in question? You know, there've been big things that have happened during his tenure. And some of them, I think he's handled better than others. Like, you know, the Astros thing, I think, will be a thing that probably looms larger in retrospectives of his legacy than I'm appreciating even right now. Like when Rob Manfred dies, and I'm not saying that'll be soon, I'm not rooting for it,

I'm just saying that like when he dies and his obituary is written, I bet that his handling of the Astros thing will be pretty high up, um, in the discussion of the league, just like, you know, sticky stuff and the ball being inconsistent, but maybe that'll fade, you know, because it matters to us a lot, but it's, it's not as big as the Astros thing. Or some of his faux pas sort of, uh, misspeaking instances. Do you think it'll be, it'll be so intense that he is called gaff prone in his own obit, do you think?

Yes, maybe so. Wow. But things like the hunk of metal. Yeah, that was the gaff. Ultimately, maybe that'll, it was bad, but maybe it'll fade. It doesn't really have that long-term. Maybe it was telling, maybe it was revealing, it was a kinsley gaff or something. But maybe that would not have that much of

a long-term impact. But maybe that sort of thing has galvanized him and said, I want to put this stuff behind me and no one will remember all those little flubs if I deliver baseball from this set of challenges and position it well for the next decades to come. So I wonder then, I do think yes, expansion is quite murky now, but it's also, it's so clearly overdue and it's almost just, well, where's the right place, but no one's questioning whether it's the right thing really, or whether it should be done, or whether it would be beneficial. So I don't know what the order of operations is either or how he sees the sequence playing

out. But I do think the broadcasting, if he could do that, that would be big. But it's a heavy lift, I think, for him to do just to get all the owners on the same page there. So if he could do that, that would reflect well on him because one thing that he hasn't really had to do or hasn't excelled at is being someone who can really play diplomatic games well and get everyone on his side and persuade people and kind of corral all these owners who have their own personal incentives that might not align with the leagues.

And that was something that Bud Selig as an owner himself was known for being good at, that he could just work the phones and be in the back rooms and he could get deals done. Do a little collusion. Maybe do a little collusion in the process, between friends, what's a little collusion and build the kind of consensus and persuade people

or use the carrot and the stick. And Rob Manfred hasn't really had to do that much of that or hasn't certainly been known as someone who had that as a strength. So if he could do that, if he could somehow bridge the big market, small market divide and get everyone on the same page and all the

teams that have their own RSNs and big markets and favorable profit margins and somehow get them to pull in the same direction as the other teams that are being hit harder by the cable bubble bursting. That would be an actual legitimate legacy burnishing accomplishment. And I guess he doesn't have to get all 30 teams on board. If you got half the league, maybe you could still sell some sort of package based on that and then- They're on their way.

Yeah, build from there. But that's the sort of thing that, well, this is an actual big problem facing the sport. Expansion seems like it's an opportunity maybe that they're not seizing, but it's not as if the league is going to go out of business or have some huge turmoil or upheaval if they continue not to expand. That's just been the steady state now for the past, you know, almost 30 years at this

point. So that's just more like, well, can they build on what they have? Whereas the cable question is more, can we preserve what we have? Can we weather this next challenge and come out in a financially secure place? So that's pretty big. Because to this point, you'd have to say that his greatest legacy on the positive side is actually affecting change on the field with the rules changes which mostly worked well or didn't do harm. And that was the thing I was most optimistic about when he took over for Selig. I was thinking, okay, it's a younger guy.

He at least says the right things about trying to bring baseball up to speed and modernize it in some respects. And I didn't always agree on how he seemed to wanna go about that with targeting the shift. He mentioned that like day one on the job, he was talking about being anti-shift and that kind of concerned me. That's his priority, but, and I still feel that way about the positioning restrictions,

but ultimately he did deliver really significant rules changes that on the whole I think have been positive, even as he also delivered things like the zombie runner, which I continue to hold against him. But on balance, I guess he has made baseball better as a spectator sport and that's good. And that's something that baseball had a lot of trouble doing.

And he did it in a way that ruffled the fewest feathers and took his sweet time and introduced it and tested it at various levels and you could sort of say the same about ABS even if that's not his idea or his personal initiative or maybe it would be coming up at this point whoever was Commissioner because how could it not? You have that technology. But he is shepherding it in what seems to be a fairly responsible way and not pushing for full ABS when it seems like most of the stakeholders don't want that and taking his time and introducing it at minor league levels and then, oh, we'll test it in spring training and the AFL and not trying to just rush it through and force it through over objections or before it was ready.

So I think he does deserve some kind of credit for that. So I was fairly optimistic when he started not really knowing him the way that we do now and not knowing how he would be from a media perspective, which is fairly important for a commissioner, for someone who is, for better or worse, one of the public faces of your sport and one of the spokespeople of your sport, and he has not really excelled at that. But when it comes to getting certain kinds of results, he has done fairly well. So if he were to leave the sport in a place where expansion was set up and ABS or a challenge system and also they figured out how to handle broadcasting.

Then maybe we would look back at Ron Manfred and say, yeah, he had a pretty transformative commissionership even if he often put his foot in his mouth and had his clearly profit driven priorities and just the way that he has signaled that he thinks that yes, it's good to have baseball be a bigger blip on the national radar as opposed to just purely extracting as much money as you can from the existing dwindling diehards, but also that he wants to expose the sport to more people or expose more people to the sport. And whether that will happen or not, I don't know. And it's not that he has necessarily changed his views or seen the light or something.

I think it's just that maybe we're in an era where that initiative aligns better with the profit maximization. Because I think they've realized that maybe you actually have to do that to keep getting customers, keep pulling people into the tent. But I have found myself less at odds with him on that specific point of late. Well, and it's hard to assess. It's going to be hard to assess that one right away, right? Like knowing how successful he was at bringing in young people, other kinds of fans. Like it's, that's a real kind of time

will tell assessment that we'll have to make. So, you know, maybe we won't know the answer to that until we are reading his obit. I make it sound like I think he's going to die really soon. That's not what I'm trying to say at all. I think that they decided it was a no swing. I'm looking at the video, but it's green. The bat is green. And that's because the success failure coloring on just the challenge system general is like red, green, but it's confusing to say no swing and then have it be green. Cause that as it feels like green, like, oh, and you know what else you do? What else is go with swinging? So it's confusing, Ben. I think they need to, and like the line isn't right where they determine it. I don't know, man. They got some work to do there, I think.

I was thinking how odd is it that commissioners have the kind of tenure that they do? Insane. It's almost like a lifetime appointment. Yeah. You have to really, really move. Yeah, you do. Get bounced, yeah. Yeah, I'm not saying commissioners should be term limited or something.

I guess it's fine if they still wanna do the job and the people who basically are their bosses think that they're still doing a good job, but it surprises me that there is so little turnover in this pretty high profile job and a job that you get tons of criticism for, even if you are quote unquote a good commissioner, there are plenty of people who will be ragging you for the job that you're doing. And most people are not popular in this job.

That's part of the purpose of the job is that you are just the meat shield. You know, you are just like the- I beg your pardon. The human shield, we could say. Meat shield. I mean, oh my God, Ben. You're just kind of taking the blows that the owners don't want to. You're just the public punching bag. But there is so- Meat shield. Little turnover. In January, Rob Manfred will hit his 10th anniversary because he took over in January 2015. And that makes him the least tenured of the current big four men's American sports commissioners

because Adam Silver started, I think, a little bit before Manfred. So he's been doing it since 2014. So he's already at a decade or so. And then you have Roger Goodell who's been NFL commissioner since I think 2006. And then Gary Bettman has been NHL commissioner for like my entire living memory, essentially, like he is, he is just, you'll never get him out of there. He's been there since February of 93, more than 30 years. Yeah, that's wild. Yeah. Especially while considering like just how resoundingly he gets booed.

Yes. At every opportunity. I mean, like, I thought that, I thought that we had it figured out with baseball and that football fans had it figured out with baseball and that football fans had it figured out with Goodell, but my God, they just, I think that they want to hurt his feelings, you know? It seems like they're intentionally trying to hurt his feelings. I'm sure that they are. You have to have a thick skin and maybe once you develop that thick skin, then the boo's

raining down on you don't hurt as much anymore and you might as well stay on the job. But it's not even anomalous really because the predecessors of the current holders of these positions were also there forever. But Selig of course was officially commissioner for less than 20 years, but acting commissioner, de facto commissioner for more than 20 years. De facto. De facto? Did I say de facto commissioner for more than 20 years. De facto. De facto? Did I say de facto?

De facto? De facto? I thought you were doing a little joke. I thought you were doing a little de facto. David Stern was commissioner for 30 years before Silver. And then Paul Tagliableu was commissioner for I think a little less than 20 years, Gadel's predecessor, but then Pete Rizal was commissioner for 30 years to himself. And age.

It's unbelievable, right? And these are not jobs you typically get as a young person either. So these people are sticking around until advanced ages. I mean, it really is like, I wonder if you compared the average tenure of say a Supreme Court justice to a sports league commissioner. It's got to be close. It's really, it's unbelievable to me. And a lot of these people who become commissioner, these are like creatures of the league.

So they've been at the league a lot longer than they've been commissioner. Manfred of course was Selig's right-hand man for years and going back decades and decades to when he was a council for the league. And then, I mean, same thing with a lot of these guys. Like Gadel has been at the NFL. I think he started as an intern when Rizel was still commissioner. So he goes back at the NFL for 40 years or more, I think.

So I wonder what it is exactly that leads to so little turnover. Because why would it be that you would be judged the best person for that job and best man for that job, we can say in the men's sports leagues. Why is that, I wonder? Because so many things go wrong for these leagues and the public perception, there are all sorts of PR hits and you could imagine the commissioner being the sacrificial lamb, being the person who is just offered up as, you know, burned in effigy, just like, oh, we'll jettison the commissioner and someone will pay and a head will roll. That just does not happen.

I have a couple of theories about that. In terms of your individual motivation as a person sitting in the commissioner's seat, like, first of all, it's a very lucrative job, right? So there's that piece of it. You have a lot of power. I think that even though commissioners are disliked, there is a lot of social cachet to being in senior leadership for these leagues. It's perceived as a cool job, even though these guys get booed mercilessly at their various drafts. Yeah. There's cachet. There's prestige there. Yeah. There's definitely prestige. I think from the ownership side of things, you're right that there are scandals and there are various issues and some of those scandals and issues do pose real existential threats to these different sports. But I think two things about the stability. One,

I think that having the same person in place just from a practical perspective, does give you institutional memory and knowledge that might be useful in navigating crisis. And I think that even if I don't always approve of the way that crisis is managed, I do think that that institutional memory is useful in trying. I also think that saying that the bar to dismiss a commissioner over scandal, whatever, is really high. I wonder if owners view that as a way of sort of blunting the perceived seriousness of different scandals, right? Like, well, this doesn't raise to the level of needing to fire the commissioner. So how bad can it be really?

You know, and people make their own judgments about these things. And we've already pointed to an example of a scandal that people were sort of dissatisfied with in terms of the way that Manfred handled the scandal. But it's like, I don't know, man, if the NFL isn't firing, get dealt over concussion stuff. Like, what do you have to do around here to get dismissed? Right? Yeah. And when they do go, they generally go on their own terms or they retire, or at least it's reported that way, whether it's Seelig or Tagliabue or whoever. And maybe in some of those cases, it's sort of a put out to pasture situation

or, hey, it might be a good idea for you to move on. And if they didn't voluntarily do that, then perhaps they'd be jettisons. But it's rare that even when you do leave, you get kicked out. Yeah, it's an odd thing. And look, on the one hand, I get it, because as we've said, the roles are lucrative and you get to say, I'm the commissioner of Major League Baseball. That's a cool thing to get to say.

But I don't know that it's all that much more cool than getting to say, I was the commissioner of Major League Baseball. And so I simply invite all of these guys to contemplate, do you like your families? And why don't you want to spend more time with them? Answer those questions for yourself or with a licensed therapist. Because it's weird that you're hanging around so much. Let a, let a new generation of leadership rise. Although I say that and it's like, do we know that the new generation will be better? We don't know.

They might be, they might be worse. They could be worse. We don't know. And as you said, it is a position that comes with power, but also maybe less power than people might think. If, if you think of the Kennesaw Mountain Landis kind of commissioner, if that's what you think the commissioner is, which I think a lot of people still do think of the commissioner that way, as if there's some sort of guardian of the game or watchdog or that they

have ultimate power and that they can just do best interests of baseball clause and exercise that left and right. Ultimately, you can't really do that. And if you do do that, that's one way you might actually get kicked out. You might end up in a Faye Vincent sort of situation. If you do try to exercise too much control, then that's not what your bosses want.

Cause you are beholden to a lot of people. You're beholden to all of those owners and it's gotta be like herding cats and dogs and it's gotta be frustrating at times to have to talk to all of these entitled rich people and try to like get them to agree on things and then not to mention the players and the players unions and the fans who were perpetually angry at you.

Again, like a lot of those things, I would think you would just get frustrated and you'd say, I don't need this at a certain point. I've built up my nest egg. This is a line on my resume. I don't need this headache anymore, but they just don't seem to really reach that conclusion. I guess also from an owner's perspective, you kind of, you want someone who's probably predictable. You don't want some Fay Vincent or Peter Eubroth or someone who's going to go off half-cocked

or try to establish their authority. You want someone you know you can control or at least anticipate. From an owner's perspective, maybe even if you don't love the current commissioner, it's kind of a the devil, you know, sort of situation. And it's probably beneficial to actually know those people. As you said, relationships, that's a big part of this job, like the institutional memory and knowledge and just going back years and years with all of these people and just being able to call them up on the phone and they feel like they know you. That's probably a big attribute for a commissioner, which I guess is one reason why a lot of commissioners

do come from the ranks of the league and they're kind of groomed for that role and they're the second in command and then they ascend to that chair eventually. Maybe the other reason that there hasn't been that much turnover over the past few decades is that generally times have been pretty good for sports owners and for sports leagues in terms of revenue, certainly, which is ultimately the most important thing.

So some of these leagues have seen their fortunes, well, I was gonna say rise and fall, but not really. Mostly just rise. Mostly just rise. Rise and fall in terms of maybe your hold on national attention or ratings or something, but when it comes to,

are we still making money hand over fist? Mostly yes. And yeah, you look at Goodell and there was a period there where it looked like maybe this will be an existential question facing football If people don't want to play this anymore, and there's still something of that when it comes to the youth level and okay Maybe we're transitioning to flag football and non tackle football and what it will this look like down the road But the NFL is more dominant than ever. It's just

Minting money and it's the ratings juggernaut. It's really ascendant for sure. Yeah, it's the last vestige of the monoculture. So whatever turbulence there's been along the way, every now and then people wring their hands about the fact that these players are putting their lives on the line for our entertainment. But ultimately people are still forking over money and giving their time and attention to this. And that's what matters when it comes to deciding does this person get to keep their job. So maybe that's just a reflection of the fact that it's basically been a boom time or at

least it hasn't been a bust time for any of these leagues really. And so as long as that continues to be the case, then maybe the job security is there. Now, if this broadcast question does become destabilizing at a certain point and franchise values are actually endangered, then maybe you would see change, but that ingredient mostly hasn't been there for our lifetimes.

Well, and I think that the mileage is gonna the mileage is going to vary on that pretty profoundly league to league. Like the pressures, it's not that the NFL is immune to those pressures, but the economic sort of situation for the NFL and its broadcast deal is like fundamentally different than it is for baseball, right? So like that, and they do occupy this place in the monoculture. I think that people will pay up to watch football in a way that, you know, might be a little more variable for baseball,

but mostly things have been very profitable and really good. And there have been scandals and there have been issues, but the gap between how much those things matter and the amount of money being made is wide enough that it hasn't altered the real footing of any of these guys and it hasn't really even altered Manfred's footing. Now there's more variability in the long-term picture for baseball than there is for some of these other sports, but also he's going to be out of there before that happens.

He doesn't care. I mean, it's not that he doesn't care, but it's like, I don't think that his job security depends on that. And he's largely managed to, you know, move them through. And I think that even in instances where it looked like maybe a season of play was in some sort of jeopardy, I think that the ownership groups would have largely been okay with sticking it, you know, losing a season if it meant sticking it to the players in a meaningful way and sort of compromising their position long-term. I think that's another thing to keep in mind. Their ability to sort of navigate that stuff is pretty strong. I think the union's ability to weather a protracted

work stoppage is much better than it's been for a long time. So like, I don't want to discount that part, but you know, I don't know. I think they're doing pretty well. And I think that all of these blips and scandals and moments where we have perceived there to be some sort of existential threat to the sport. Those chickens haven't come home to roost and barring them doing that was a lot

of golden goose's. I don't know. I was trying to do a bird thing, but I wasn't prepped for it. You know, I wasn't ready as is often the case, like when you're making already very rich people a lot of money, you just have a lot of job security and you kind of get to write your own ticket for how long you stay. And it remains remarkable to me that they stay as long as they do just because like at a certain point one must be tired. And I would want to spend time with my family. I sound like I think Rod Manfred is both going to die soon and hates his family.

And I don't know either of those things to be true, but I often wonder, I'm like, hey guys, don't you have like, cause it's not like Rod Manfred makes like half a million dollars either. Like he makes a lot of money. That man has a lot of money. He's not rich on the scale that like his bosses are, but I mean, he's

starting to compete with some of the players in the league at this point, you know, even the really wealthy ones. Like, yeah, he makes what? Close to 20 million a year, I think, or maybe more when you count bonuses and such. I think, yeah, I think 25 million even has been a term that has been floated for him. So and yet I lack a house with a library or a conversation pet. What's that about? And I, I should get credit for the challenges. That's ridiculous.

I really don't think that I don't want people to think I do. I think I'm still kind of tired from my cold. I feel like I'm at a low level today. I'm trying to, I'm trying to have some pep though, cause people, they come to the pod for pep, I think. Yeah. People expect pep on a podcast. They want pep. to have some pep though, because people, they come to the pod for pep, I think. Yeah, people expect pep on a podcast. They want pep. They want some pep.

Pep is a podcast prerequisite. That was a difficult sentence to say. Pep. Yeah. It's also possible that his reputation will be in tatters by the time he leaves, in which case he will either be forced out or he will not want to leave and he will try to extend because if the next round of CBA negotiations is as contentious as expected, and if that works out either not in the owner's favor or not in anyone's favor really because we get an extended work stoppage that doesn't do any favors for the sport, then he will be blamed for that. And if he doesn't

solve these issues that are facing the sports, then it's not just that he has an opportunity to go out on a high note and leave people having hosannas to Rob Manfred and saying, what a wonderful commissioner, but also they might just kind of kick him out. And that might be his legacy. So you want to avoid the downside of that almost as much as you want to see is the upside. Yeah, I guess you just have to make peace with the fact that like two fans, there will probably not be Hosein as to be had, you know, you just, I think you make, you have to make your peace with that on day one. I'm not defending any of the decisions he's made, but I imagine if you're in that job,

you're like, you know, again, legacy according to whom. And I think for a lot of these guys, like fundamentally, they'd like to be liked, I suppose, but I don't think it's as big a deal for them as we want it to be. We want them to really care what we think. And a lot of the time they just don't. I mean, he has his moments, Manfred, I mean, of seeming kind of thin skinned, which I think is why he gets flustered in these moments. Like he takes personally questions that really are just like, well, yeah, Rob, they're going to ask whoever's in that chair that question. Like this isn't, no one's trying to get you, buddy.

I mean, sometimes people are trying to get him because he can make himself kind of gettable. But more often than not, it's just like, whoever's there, you know, if it's Morgan in a couple of years, we're going to give Morgan the business too. Yeah, we'll give Morgan grief, I'm sure, when the time comes. But I did think it was interesting that he actually referenced media trading that he had had Manfred in his recent comments. Because people have said that at times, just kind of cast out on the idea

that he has done any media trading. It's like, how is he not prepared for this question? Are you not coached here? Are you not prepped for this at all? And at times it has seemed as if he is not, but he did reference that because he was asked some question. He was like, I could just sidestep this entirely. They would tie, I think it was maybe Sasaki because, you know, there's been questions about like, is there some sort of under the table deal? Did the Dodgers agree to some sort of nefarious thing with Sasaki because, you know, there's been questions about like, is there some sort of under the table deal?

Did the Dodgers agree to some sort of nefarious thing with Sasaki here? And he referenced like, you know, media training would tell you just to no comment this, but I'll just say, you know, there's no evidence of that. And he was saying also that it appears that he's gonna be posted late enough that the bonus will come out of the 2025 pool, not the 2024 pool, which probably will not help the Dodgers. Will it hurt them? Who knows, but he has been given some form of media training, it seems.

I don't know whether part of media training is acknowledging that you have received media training. Seems like maybe not, but he did, so. I don't know what to say about that. What is the right, who's doing the media training as an aside? They should let me do it. I'm just giving myself all kinds of jobs and credit in this episode. I don't know what that's about, but here I am.

I don't know how you would determine objectively. You can't really say like who's the best qualified commissioner or this person is not the best qualified commissioner. And so I can't really say what the optimal turnover rate would be or at what point you should bow out. And again, as long as things are generally on an upward trajectory, then I guess you could say, well, how much better could it be? But it just does seem like, are you telling me

that Gary Bettman has been the best qualified person to have this job for more than 30 years at this point? Is he so singular a talent that no one else has come along in those years that could possibly rival his acumen in this position? But again, maybe it's the qualifications for the job are different from a lot of other jobs and that varies. There are certainly jobs where you're very capable

of doing it for decades and decades and decades and having the experience and the memory of doing that, that is very beneficial. And in other cases, not necessarily, a new blood and a fresh perspective can be very helpful. So I think it's important to have someone who has that perspective at the League, at least, who's being listened to, even if it's not the top dog. But that, I guess, can be a segue to the last thing I wanted to bring up here

because Theo Epstein, who has often been touted as a potential commissioner if he were to want that job, he always said, citing a Bill Walsh maxim that you should not do a job for more than 10 years, which I guess is disconcerting as someone who's been co-hosting this podcast for more than 12, but he cited that as a reason to walk away from his positions with Boston or with the Cubs even specifically, just to say, you know, you need change. People need change every decade or so. And maybe also your organization needs change and you need someone who's hungry and still

has an edge and hasn't gotten set in their ways and isn't kind of complacent, someone who will be really motivated and will bring fresh ideas to those things. And I was thinking about Theo because often after the World Series, we revisit a Theo quote from almost a decade ago after that year's World Series where he talked about the fact that the World Series winner is often emulated or other teams will try to, you know, the classic copycat league, other teams will say what can we learn from this team, their example, what can we copy here? And the actual quote was, the only thing I know for sure is that whatever team wins the World Series, their particular style of play will be completely in vogue and trumpeted

from the rooftops by the media all offseason and in front offices as the way to win. So if we win the World Series, it's going to be a necessity for every team to develop their own core of young homegrown position players. If the Mets win, it will be required that you have four ridiculous young starting pitchers on the same staff. If the Royals win, you need to have speed and athleticism in contact up and down your lineup. If the Blue Jays win, you need to fill your lineup full of right-handed epic mashers and

make a huge trade at the deadline. I think that's the only thing I can say with certainty. This game is too nuanced and too complicated for there to be any one way." So this was 2015, so this was the year before the Cubs actually did win, but this has been a quote that we've returned to a number of times. And actually I've been linking to the same article that contains this quote in many episodes since then on the show page. And for the first time this year, that link was dead. So yeah, the link rot has come for this article because it was an NBC Sports Chicago piece and NBC Sports Chicago ceased operations shut down

last month, I believe. So the link rot deepens. It's really, you know, I look back at all the links that I put on the show pages and it seems like listeners are appreciative of that effort, but... They are. But you look back at old podcast posts and probably half the links or more don't work already, and it hasn't been that long. Not great as someone whose life's work is mostly on the internet.

You know, you think like, oh, it's all digital. It's all on the internet. It'll live forever. No, definitely not. And can I just interject to say, as someone who is often like GIF heavy, that's a, yeah, slaughter every time. A lot of the open old stuff I wrote at BP

and I'm like, I bet this was funny, but I don't even remember what it was. Couldn't even tell you, man. Sucks. It stinks, yeah. It stinks and I've been lucky. All the websites I've written for are still online and my author archives are still there,

but even so, yeah, you go to some old articles and stuff is missing and it's only a matter of time until all of our works are erased and we are all forgotten. So there's your little dose of mortality for today. Throwing it back. Yeah. Feels like an old school episode with that between the quotes and the contemplation of our existence.

Yeah, the Wayback Machine took one single snapshot of this article that I've been linking to, so it still exists as long as the Wayback Machine does. And I guess this quote has appeared elsewhere on the internet. Yeah, I bet you could find it. If you really had to put your mind to it, I bet you could find it.

Yeah, but I was thinking about this because we didn't really have that post-Dodgers discussion of what lessons will teams draw from the Dodgers or what will they copy, if anything. And I was thinking of this because Louis Paulus, a former Effectively Wild Guest, former front office member, he wrote something at his newsletter, the Looz Letter, about whether teams will draw the conclusion from this year's playoffs that we've reached a, we've gone past the tipping point when it comes to how bullpen centric postseason pitcher usage should be because he had kind of

this method where he looked at how much offense you'd expect or how you'd expect pitchers to perform in the postseason, given the distribution of playing time, given how well those pitchers performed in the regular season and also the hitters and just kind of looking at the distribution of playing time to pitchers and hitters, how they did during the regular season and then how they did during the postseason. And this year was somewhat anomalous in terms of just the hitters overperforming based on like how good they were and how good the pitchers they were facing were.

And Louie speculated, postulated that maybe this was because teams have taken it too far and they've just become too bullpen reliant. And even if you have good, deep bullpens, it's just too much. And they're gassed and whether they're just tired or there's just a familiarity effect and they're working too much or whatever it is, it just wasn't working as well this particular postseason. And so he was suggesting maybe teams will realize actually there is some virtue in going deeper into games and starters pitching more and will this be some sort of impetus for change? And I'm skeptical and you know, Louie was somewhat skeptical too,

just because we've seen things moving in a different direction now for decades and especially over the past decade. So is it too late to actually kind of correct things without some sort of rule change, which that's another area that Manfred seems to be motivated to do something about. So we'll see whether he accomplishes that. But the Dodgers, I guess, would argue the opposite because they were extremely relief reliant and it worked. At times it looked like it wasn't going to. It looked pretty tenuous, but ultimately they made it through with three starting pitchers,

none of whom was really at his best in October. And so I wonder whether teams will then reach that conclusion. Like, yeah, we actually can just white knuckle it. We can just have a, you know, three starters. And if, if our bullpen is good and deep enough, then that's all you need to win a World Series. So I think that you're right, that there will be teams that are like, you know, we, we don't want to fundamentally rebalance the innings between starters

and relievers that we're moving toward, but we do feel like they were maybe, not that they flew too close to the sun, but they were in danger of their wax wings melting. It was a very fortunate thing that they were able to muddle through the way they did. And part of that was that they just scored so many runs that they were able to absorb games where they got blown out a little bit. So, I wonder if the thing that people will take away from that is sure, you can rely heavily on your bullpen

if you have a lineup that has Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman and Ohtani in it. But I wonder if the reason that teams will not try to do any sort of profound emulation of the Dodgers is that it would require them spending money. The real takeaway from this Dodgers team is be really good at everything and also get a blank check. And I'm sure there are plenty of people who work in front offices who are like, yeah, that would be great. Have your takeaway be payroll? Where we're going, we don't need payroll. Or we do. We don't need to worry about payroll limits. There you go. That's the, that would

make the movie quote make sense. If anything is going to be a gating factor, it's not going to be differences in pitching philosophy. It's going to be differences in payroll philosophy. And like Theo's quote was prescient. I don't know that it's like a huge leap to say, hey, it's good to have young cost controlled position players when they won the world series. Like that was important, but it's like Theo couldn't develop pitching. Like they couldn't develop pitching.

So they weren't really able to repeat. So I don't know, maybe the lesson you learn is like, what's the thing that you, maybe the way to draw a lesson is like, what's the thing you want in spite of? Go fix that thing. I don't know, maybe the lesson you learn is like, what's the thing that you, maybe the way to draw a lesson is like, what's the thing you want in spite of? Go fix that thing, you know? I don't know. I don't know, I don't wanna question Theo's perception

in 2015 of how front offices work because he was certainly positioned to know. Oh yeah, yeah. I wonder how that has changed. They won a World Series. They won a World Series to be clear. And like one that had sort of excess value over and above your typical World Series win just because of the franchise situation that that

team was in. So yeah, I'm not trying to take anything from that Cubs World Series. I will note that it opened a hell mouth we still haven't been able to close, but other than that, it seems like it was a good time. But I mean, even in terms of his perception of how front offices respond to a team winning and whether they actually like Lemmings, you know, just like, oh, we have to do that now or Goldfish, right? Their memory is only as long as the most recent World Series winner and every year they just

reinvent how you think you win a championship. That's probably hyperbole. And probably there's a little less of that type of thinking now. I could imagine say in the NBA maybe there's just so much randomness in MLB. And so I think teams are aware of the fact that who wins a World Series in any given year, you don't want to tether your strategy entirely to just who happens to win a series of coin flips in October because it's not necessarily reflective of, oh, this is the way to win. In the NBA, where it's a lot less randomness dependent, if you have, say, like the Celtics last year who were this dominant team, one of the best teams

ever and then you know shot so many three-pointers and they matched up in the finals with the Mavs who also shot a ton of three-pointers and now the Celtics still are doing that even more so this season but also everyone is doing that and the three-pointer percentage after sort of stalling for a while there has now been resurgent and threes are on the uptick again. That's a case where I could see much as with the Warriors who years ago they were doing that and they won and they were so successful and everyone said, okay, yeah, we could do this more. And then maybe the Celtics raising it to an even higher level.

Teams are looking at that and saying, we could do this more. There's still plenty of room to shoot more from downtown. But in MLB, I don't know that there's A, enough stylistic, tactical, roster construction, diversity or variety at this point that you could even see teams having such starkly different philosophies that someone might look at a World Series winner and say, oh, we got to do an entirely different type of baseball business. But then also, you wouldn't really want to draw a conclusion based on whether you want a best of three or a best of five or a best of seven in baseball because that doesn't necessarily mean that you were well-constructed to win.

It might just mean that you happen to have a better week. Well, and I also think that it probably depends at least in some part, how close to the existing saber metric consensus your winning roster is because I think teams were a lot more inclined to look at the success of say the Cubs and be like, yeah, having a young, strong position, player core that gives you payroll flexibility elsewhere on your roster, like that seems smart. That seems more akin to the broader consensus than like, we're going to build a zoom, zoom roster like the Royals had and we're all in a great bullpen and we're all going to go

win World Series. Like I didn't see as much emulation of Kansas City's approach to roster building in part because I think what they were doing was seen as like maybe not optimized in the same way that some of the other World Series winners were. And so yeah, even when you take into account the randomness, I do think that there's just like an existing like, hey, does this comport with how we understand good rosters to be built? Yeah, we can do some of that. I wonder how much that factors into it. I don't mean to pick on Kansas City either,

to be clear. I'm not trying to pick on anyone except maybe Rob Manfred, but only a little bit. Well, yeah, those teams were incredibly fun at the time and they did go against the orthodoxy and that was what made them fun, really, but also frustrating in a narrative sense just because there were media members who were saying, see, you know, and stick it to this eggheads and the stat heads and this is how you build a winner. And they were a winner, can't take that away from them. And they were a highly entertaining team. But also it's difficult to replicate formula and maybe less margin for error and, you know, tough to repeat it.

And it was for them specifically even, right? They didn't keep it going that long. So I think that if you do something, if you break the mold, then yes, maybe you could change minds. The mold seems to be pretty set in baseball these days and until there are rules changes that Shake everything up. But if you're looking at the Dodgers specifically, yes, I think as you were saying a lot of the Dodgers formula isn't easily replicable just because They do everything well and they also spend and so, you know, they're just such an institution in October.

Be a model franchise. Okay, I'll work on that. Like, yeah, everybody is. Have the, you know, best player development and one of the highest payrolls and also have all of the institutional advantages that make it easier for them to do those things and have a big market and have a rich tradition and history and have a really favorable broadcast deal and have a huge international footprint because of things that happened decades ago to begin with.

Yeah, it's tough to just do the Dodgers approach to winning. You can certainly still take some lessons from that. So one lesson you could take is to be aggressive, maybe not quite as much as the Dodgers were, but more so than some teams have been, and say you can build in some layers of redundancy there where even if you are very short-handed by the time the playoffs roll around, you can just slug your way out of it because you do have that depth. They had entire rotations worth of starters on the IL, but they were still able to at least throw three guys out there, which a lot of teams might not have even been able to do that,

but the Dodgers started with such depth. And yeah, each individual link in the chain and the fence was weak on its own and that was kind of known coming in, but they just had so much redundancy, so many lines of defense built in there that they could afford to have eight or nine people on the IL and still have a kind of credible starter or three to throw out there when they needed it. So that's one thing. I mean, that's not new either. That's again, the chestnut that I threw out there on the podcast at some point this season, I made the original observation that you can never have enough pitching. And so I think that probably changed some minds in front

offices when they heard me say that and said you know what that's true Actually, we thought we were full up on pitching, you know No more needed for us and then actually on effectively wilds Ben pointed out that actually You could use more and that really made us rethink things Yeah, you made them think differently about pitching and I made them think differently about the challenge system The real question is why aren't we the commissioner? Because what they could do is they could hire two of us. We could co-chair the commissionership much like we co-host this podcast. They don't have to double the salary. We'd be content with splitting his existing-

No, we'd split main fruits. Yeah, that'd be all right. Yeah, I'd be fine. I could buy a conversation pit with that, you know? Like probably more than one. Would you want to have more than one or would that just... That would be confusing. You want everyone participating in the conversation in the same pit. Right, it's to have everyone together having a conversation about what? I don't know.

What are you talking about in a conversation pit? I want to find the answer to that question. I need the pit first. You got to have a pit. I also think that it's worth differentiating between like the media narrative of a particular team versus like how other front office people perceive that team because we have a lot of really smart colleagues and I think they make really good points.

And also some of them have a more kind of old school perspective on baseball than we do. And so the way they describe a team and its construction and its like, you know, replicability and the desirability of replicating its approach, like that might vary and diverge quite meaningfully from the way that, you know, someone sitting in a competing front office understands that team. And that's important to note also. I do think though that even given all of the almost singular advantages that the Dodgers have, you could look at what they did during the postseason and say, well, they push the envelope. It's weird. I say envelope, but then when I say push the envelope, I want

to say envelope. I don't know why that is, but one way or another. Oh, okay. You keep talking about that now. I'm going to sit here and mumble to myself. Envelope, envelope, envelope. Louis in his newsletter, he pointed out it relievers through 52% of the postseason innings this year.

Have you reached a conclusion? No, I've talked myself into both. Now I've said it enough times that it doesn't mean anything. Yes, you've reached the semantic satiation point. God, what a hard word to say. It really is. Harder than envelope slash envelope. Satiation. What a stupid word. Sationation. Yes, harder than envelope slash envelope. Satiation. Satiation.

What a stupid word. Sation. I'm surprised that that word survives, you know? Like over time, words, they come and go, and well, how did that one make it? That's impossible to say. Is there some- Yeah, it's survival of the fittest linguistically,

and yet somehow satiation is something we're still expected to say. Did the person who came up with that word have like a very particular shaped mouth? Like did they have or like a weird tongue? I mean, I don't want to judge their tongue, but like was it unusual? Like a Mordecai three-finger brown sort of situation where it's like, look, it's easy to impart the spin on the ball. It's easy and you're like, it is decidedly not.

It is objectively hard to say satiation. I do say pushing the envelope, but I would say I need to get an envelope for this. Yes. Whatever. What is it? It must be... What's that about? We have so many linguists who listen to the show.

Tell us this. Ben Zimmer or someone will write in and tell us. It's probably about where, you know, where your tongue is in relation to the roof of your mouth or something when you're saying pushing the, as opposed to pushing the on. It's probably like an easier transition than when you're just saying envelope to start with. Something along those lines. But yes, probably there is someone who had that particular mouth shape and is like, I don't see what's so hard about saying satiation.

Seems like a skill issue that you're working with over there. And it's like, no, you got a weird mouth. Yeah, I do think we underrate the extent to which like the shape of your fingers and your hands, you know, people always talk about like Pedro Martinez's long fingers and he was able to impart such spin on the ball. It doesn't have to be some sort of like industrial accident where you lose fingers or you're born with extra fingers. Shout out to Antonio Afonseca.

Yeah, right. Yeah, you know, oh, Spider-Man's real and he's a pitcher, you know? Wouldn't you be an outfielder? You know, oh, Spider-Man's real. And he's a pitcher, you know? Yeah. Wouldn't you be an outfielder? You're a Spider-Man. I guess so. You're a girl at the wall. This isn't even the Friday show,

as you often say. It's not even the Friday show, but I had to locate Pep and I, I don't know, this was the skit I steered into. Yeah, wasn't, there was something similar with the like hand shape also going on with Blake Trinen I learned too. Oh, sure. Yeah. Oh, no, he's got a hand. I mean, talk about hand shape. He's like missing part of a finger.

And that's how he gets the movement. Speaking of things that are tough to replicate, if you looked at that and you're like, well, how do I get that specific movement? Well, lop off a tip of your pinky or something. Don't do that. No, don't. Don't do that. I guess it could be lucrative in the long run if you actually manage to do that. But maybe there are better ways.

But then what if it doesn't work? Right. Then you've cost yourself part of a finger and you haven't really gained anything. Anything except a really weird story that's going to be, you have to lie about that for the rest of your life as an aside. If you do that and it doesn't work, you have to lie about that for the rest of your life, as an aside. If you do that and it doesn't work, you have to lie about it for the rest of your life, especially when you're dating. Cause if you tell someone that and it didn't work, they're going to be like, you're a lot. Yeah. Yeah. There's been a lot of lopping off of fingers in my media consumption lately

cause I watched like a dragon Yakuza on prime video. and Prime Video, a lot of finger losses there, and then Landman, the new Taylor Sheridan show, Billy Bob Thornton, essentially self-amputates at one point. So, yeah. No, see, you know, you said Sheridan and it's like, that's not my business anymore. You know, that's not my business. Sometimes you're just like- That's very much my business. You know, I know that you're really into Yellowstone. I've heard very mixed reviews of the new Dune show, and part of me is disappointed.

I haven't had a chance, and part of me is like, okay, fine, I don't have to do it. That's fine. Yeah, it can be a relief at times, too. My review would be mixed as well. Anyway, we've gotten somehow sidetracked here. What I was saying, I think, what was I saying? What were you saying?

Hand shape, mouth shape, satiation, envelope, pushing the envelope. Pushing the envelope, that happened. What kind of envelope? Where are we? What's my name? It's nice that we don't have to lick the envelopes anymore. That seemed both unsanitary and not appetizing because the licking didn't help very much. And now that you have sort of the sticker.

Yeah, it didn't taste great. And it wasn't that effective. The sides of the flaps would always stick up. I would often taping them. I'd tape it too. And it's like, why don't we just cut out the part where we're salivating. And yeah, now we have the self-sealing envelopes. This is great. It's sort of like, and then I promise I will let you finish whatever point you're trying to make if you can remotely remember it. But you know how like a couple of years ago, the sheet companies started putting a little

thing in fitted sheets that was like head or foot of sheet? I hope the person who came up with that got a million dollars on the spot. Why did it take so f'ing long for that innovation? Because you always had to hunt for the tag and maybe the tag was telling. Right. I guess like sometimes, you're right, there was a tag and so it's like, well, there was a tag. Why didn't you just look for it?

Because sometimes there wouldn't be a tag. You'd have to end up cutting out the tag. Why didn't you just look for it? Because sometimes there wouldn't be a tag. You'd have, you'd end up cutting out the tag, whatever, whatever. There was now reliably, even when you're buying like, you know how sometimes you buy sheets for the guest room and they're like not as nice as the sheets you buy for your actual bed? You know how you do that? Cause you're, I don't know, you're a little cheaper, you're on a budget or whatever. Anyone who comes in the States without story, the sheets are soft in the guest bed, but they were a little scratchy to begin with because they came from Target. But even though sheets had a head or foot little tag

sewn into the top of them, and I have never since then made a mistake even one time, not even one time, Ben. And it's like, why did that take so long? Can the person who came up with that innovation get on tippy bar tables? Like, we need to deploy their skills to improve humanity, you know? Yeah, right. And I know you're not, there's the message on the mattress tag that says

don't remove, which I think has maybe come up on the podcast somehow before, but- That's a recall thing. That's- Yeah. Well, you can remove it. People make fun of that. Right. And once you get it make fun of that. Yeah, well, you can remove it. Right, and once you get it, you can. Once you get it, you can remove it. The seller's not supposed to, because it informs you what's in the mattress,

and it used to be that they could stuff any old thing in there, right? And so they have to disclose. It was a consumer safety thing. Yeah, legally, what's actually in the mattress, which is important, and then maybe it also tells you, okay, this is new, I'm not buying this slept on already anyway. So yeah, I don't like a big tag or a big label on my consumer goods.

I think what I was trying to say is that the Dodgers in many respects are like a Mordecai three finger Brown or a Blake Trinen where it's not really replicable because it's just something unique to you or you know, the person who has the mouth that is perfectly shaped to say satiation. But in one other respect you could say, well, yes, but they rolled with the punches then and they demonstrated it was a proof of concept that you could get through the postseason and you could win even being extraordinarily reliant on relief as they were, because as Louis pointed out in his newsletter, 52% of postseason innings this year,

second highest percentage in history went to relief. And this is a modern thing, right? At least in like large sample post seasons. I think it was the fourth time ever that bullpens outworked rotations. And of course, these definitions themselves are slippery now because what's an opener and how do you classify them? But the Dodgers, they, and I have some data I could link to here, the Dodgers had such

a high percentage of postseason usage that they were unprecedentedly reliant on their bullpen for a champion. So they had 57.8% of their postseason innings coming in relief. I think if you don't count openers as starters, if you define them as relievers as well, then it pushes them up to or over 60%. And there had never been a postseason champion, a World Series winner that had a percentage that high. The only team in postseason history prior to this postseason that played 10 or more games and had a higher percentage of relievers accounting for their innings than these Dodgers, the 2021 Astros who lost in the World Series,

and they were at 58.6%. So someone could have said prior to this postseason, hey, you have to have starters at some point because you cannot throw 58% or 60%, depending on how you define it, of your postseason innings from your relievers and actually make it all the way, because you're gonna burn out, it's just not gonna work,

you have to get some length from your starters at some point. And these Dodgers would argue, no, you don't. And as you said, it could be, well, yeah, as long as you have the Dodgers lineup, you can do that. Helped a lot anyway. Yeah. But still, I could see someone, if they wanted to push that relief reliance even further, whether out of choice or necessity, they could say, there's precedent.

The Dodgers did this and they survived and they even had some real pitching exploits, some periods where they just totally shut out other postseason teams and like to an almost historic degree. So I think that's one thing you could say, even though that wasn't how they drew it up or how they wanted to do it. They ultimately had the depth that they got it done and they showed that that could be done, but you know, is anyone going to go into a season with that being the blueprint saying, yeah, we're just, you know, is anyone going to go into a season with that being the blueprint saying, yeah, we're just, you know, screw starters. We're just going bullpen game from the start. Could you do

that for an entire regular season without burning out all of your relievers? I don't know. It, you know, it'd be really tough to do and it still is beneficial to get a little length from your starters at least. So I don't know whether this will be really an inflection point or, you know, a postseason or a champion that people look at and say, we have to change what we're doing here. Look, I would like it if the part that is easily replicable caught on where it's like, yeah, it's going to take a while to like build up a player of infrastructure and to get the guys who can be flexible like this between the

Rotation and the bullpen and the guys who can go but you know what we could do right now is spend money Right, you don't need to do it. You don't even have to be that clever about it I mean trying but speaking of the the Dodgers and also hands the the handshake deal that rookie Sasaki's agent is denying Having very offended by the suggestion. Yes, the quote, he took umbrage. He said, while a bunch of executives who should know me better and do a lot of business with me insult my integrity by insinuating that I would be a part of some type of nefarious agreement, in reality, this is just poor sportsmanship.

It was almost like the gentleman doth protest too much, like the level of how insulted he is here. This is Joel Wolf of Wasserman, which is representing Sasaki. Also interesting phrasing, I thought, that poor sportsmanship almost makes it sound like he's saying that the Dodgers will win and these are like sore losers who are suggesting that the Dodgers had some sort of, you know, banned deals done here. But I guess it's sportsmanship in the sense that it's a competition and you have some people who are insinuating and, you know, talking to the league

and suggesting that they've heard that there's smoke about the Dodgers having some sort of deal. Now, you know, there are like tampering rules and yeah, you're not supposed to have a deal with Sasaki at this point, just as you're not supposed to have commitments to teens in Latin America as teams do nonetheless, right? Now, you know, if they did have some deal, I guess, ultimately, like, would it really make a difference? Like, if they just go through the charade guess ultimately, like, would it really make a difference? Like if they just go through the charade of meeting with every team and then he picks

the Dodgers anyway, as long as they're not, you know, giving him some secret perks or bonuses or extension or money or something, then what would this really consist of this deal other than the fact that he just wants to be a dodger, which like, whether he decides that prior to being posted or post posting, like ultimately the upshot is the same. He just decides he wants to be a dodger. So I don't really know what difference it makes. Like, yeah, you're not supposed to, you know, you're not supposed to have preferential like access to the player. And so if that is happening, if it's that like the Dodgers have, you know, been able

to talk to him or share information with him, or, you know, pitch him on joining them before other teams were legally allowed to do that, then yes, that would be bad. And MLB, you know, did change some things about the nature of its relationships with foreign leagues and partner leagues to try to minimize tampering. So there have been some concerns about that. So I see why teams would be up in arms if they thought something like that would be happening. But ultimately, if he responds to the Dodgers pretty compelling pitch, then I don't

know that they even need to cheat exactly, you know, like if they do cheat, then yeah, throw the book at them. But if it's just, Hey, we're the Dodgers and here are all the reasons why you would want to pitch for the Dodgers, then there's not that much you can do about it. It's not really against the rules to just be really successful and well positioned to persuade a player to sign with you. Well, I guess it sort of depends, like you said, which accusations he's really responding to. Because I do think that there has been an insinuation from some that like, oh, they're

promising him this and that in violation of the rules, like explicitly. And in that case, that would be bad. And there are any number of parties who would get, I imagine really worked up about that, not the least of which being the Marines, as I pointed out when we raised this question. Because if they are gonna like do their little deal with a capped bonus and then immediately sign him to like a $200 million extension,

if I'm the Marines, I'm like, excuse me, where's my part of the posting fee, right? I always sound so indifferent to these things. And I worry that it makes me sound like I don't care about there being some amount of like real and rigorous competition among teams for the services of the best players. And like, I think the Dodgers are above reproach and I don't think that either of those, like, like, I think the Dodgers are above reproach. And I don't think that either of those, like, I don't think that Dodgers are above reproach. And I, I want there to be like a robust, real competitive market for the services of very

good players. I think that's important that they not all end up concentrated on one team. I think that the way the rosters are constructed makes that hard to do, but it like, that's important. I want to say that. But also at a a certain point if I were the Dodgers I'd be like I don't know skill issue get it together like Put together a better sales pitch if the angels can sign Otani you can do anything right? Yeah, anything is possible Everyone's lesson if the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim I know that's not their name really,

can sign Otani, then you can do whatever you want. You can do anything. You can go to the moon. I mean, don't, it's weird. We don't belong up there. We should be down here. But we shouldn't go to Mars. That's crazy.

Like that's so crazy. Everyone's like, oh, it'll be fun. No, you're gonna die so horribly and so fast. Don't go up there. I don't personally wanna go. I think humanity's so crazy. Everyone's like, oh, it'll be fun. No, you're gonna die so horribly and so fast. Don't go up there. I don't personally wanna go. I think humanity should go. I don't think we need to go. Not to stay, to visit.

As people say about my city, New York, nice place to visit, wouldn't wanna live there. Just to say you've been. You are way less likely to die in New York than you are on Mars. Well, that's certainly true. I feel like Mars is gonna have 100% fatality rate, at least in the early going.

Yes, these are extremely inhospitable places to human beings. Yeah, we're not supposed to be up there. No, but you know, it's not part of our appeal as a species that we do things. That's what the moon is for. Go to the moon. That's fine. But we choose to do these things not because they're easy, but because they're hard. Someone once said, sort of.

Yeah. I cleaned up the quote a little as a lot of people do, because it's, you know, he didn't, it wasn't quite as pithy in its original form, but. And you didn't do the voice and I'm so disappointed. No, I didn't. I'm sorry. Yeah. You should try.

Is it cause you have a cold? Would you do the voice if you didn't have a cold? Although I, on a recent video game podcast, I did a Master Chief and I think the cold actually enhanced it because we were talking about Halo. Wow. Other pods get a voice and the world gets a noise and I see how it is. Short-changing my impression work. Yeah, no, it's just you know, the added resonance of the cold I think enhanced my Spartan soldier sort of vibes.

But yeah, anyway. It is weird, I think Rosenthal wrote about this, that Roki is treated the way that a Latin American teen is treated. I mean, the whole thing is like, you know, obviously it's meant to suppress salaries and everything. It's like, you know, the whole system. But it's so odd that Roki Sasaki is lumped in with a teenager who has not

really played at a high level before that, you know, Rosenthal suggested that maybe there should be some sort of, you know, if you weren't totally toppling the system, you could have some sort of mechanism, some kind of carve out where he would be separate from these international bonus pools, but not like unrestricted free agent. You could still cap his bonus at like the sum of the pools or something if you didn't want to, you know, force the poor owners to really reach deep into their pockets. But it does seem like, you know, if you've been a major leaguer, right, in your country, right,

your respective league, NPB, this is the second highest level league in the world, this is the major leagues of its country, and that would apply to, you know, KBO or CPPL or whatever else, right? Like, it seems like if you reach that level in your native country, that like that should, you know, you should be treated differently from just a pure amateur because he's not an amateur in any way, right? Not in terms of his skill and certainly not in terms of his actual professional experience. So it's just a very strange kind of lumping like and unlike together. It's almost as if the logic of it isn't about the players being like to like at all. You know, like the only similarity that they share as

you've noted as Ken noted is that the owners would like to suppress their salaries as much as they can. But that's that's pretty much it really. All right well we've sure covered a lot of ground in this episode, and I guess that's probably sufficient. So thanks to everyone who has written in with suggestions for baseball jobs, by the way, for an upcoming possible podcast series over the holidays where we talk to people who do sort of unsung, under the radar, semi-obscure, just not well publicized baseball jobs that would be interesting to hear more about. A lot of people have written in with suggestions.

Feel free to continue to do that. Keep them coming. And we will be back with another episode later this week. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash Effectively Wild, as have the following five listeners who have gone to the Patreon site and signed up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad free, and get themselves access to some perks. Ben theAnimate Rockpile, Niels Bekkendorf, Jesse Thorne, Eric Peters, and Chris Hilton.

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