Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2249: Our Bold Preseason Predictions, Revisited

Episode Date: November 26, 2024

Ben Lindbergh, Meg Rowley, Ben Clemens, Michael Baumann, and podcast scorekeeper Chris Hanel convene to play “College Baseball Player or Fictional Republican Politician?” and reveal the victors of the 2024 minor league free agent draft and bold preseason predictions game, including recaps of each prediction. Audio intro: The Gagnés, “Effectively Wild Theme” Audio outro: Gabriel-Ernest, “Effectively Wild […]

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Effective moral sauvage. Effective moral sauvage. Effective moral sauvage. Effective moral sauvage. from FanCrafts presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindbergh of The Ringer, joined by Meg Rowley of FanCrafts. Hello, Meg. Hello. Boy, do we have a full compliment of podcast guests on this episode.

Full house, five people in total, because it's time for a tradition. A tradition that started last year, but has already become important to all of us, which is the episode when we recap our pre-season picks and find out which ones we got right and wrong and by picks, I mean, predictions, the bold ones that we did back before opening day.

And so we are joined by the same people who made those predictions with us and then also scored and graded those predictions, namely other Ben, Ben Clemens of FanGraphs. Hello, Ben. Hello. Michael Bauman, also a FanGraphs. Previets. And Chris Hannell, the official scorekeeper slash statistician of Effectively Wild who kept track of all of our predictions because we definitely didn't. Hello, Chris. Hello, may I say five time effectively wild guest appearance, Chris Hann.

Welcome to the club. You're usually the one who tweets at the five timers to tell them they're in the club. It'll be a skate now, but yeah. Pat yourself on the back. You had a little anecdote to share related to today's intro theme. Oh no, oh, I have to tell this story.

Yeah, I requested that Ben use today's theme because I was in the grocery store a few months ago and when I am shopping, I have my AirPods on, I'm masked, I have ADHD, I'm tunnel visioning. I just kind of forget that the rest of the world is there and I'm listening to a podcast, I'm shopping, one podcast ends, the next starts. It's effectively wild.

The French electropop theme comes on. It's one of my favorites. And just in the middle of the meat section, I just say out loud in front of all these people, Effectivement Sauvage. And everyone just kind of stops, because that happened. And there's a family next to me, and the dad kind of looks over, and I look at him and we share this look, and he goes, Effectively Wild? I'm like, yeah? And he goes, that's a really good podcast.

I've never met anyone in my town that knows about Effectively Wild, so I'm like all excited, but I was just really weird in a grocery store. So him and his family are like, well, gotta go. And I'm like, no, come back. Please wait. CB It's a really deep pull by that guy to recognize what that was. Just one little fragment of one intro theme under your breath in a grocery store. And he picked up- JG Oh, it was not under my breath. CB Well, okay. JG To be very clear. CB At the top of your lungs, regardless.

JG Something like that, yeah. But still, pretty impressive recognition. So if you're listening, grocery guy, send us an email and we'll connect you to Chris. It'll be a little misconnections, but that's nice. I was like hearing an organic story of a podcast encounter in the wild, just a little knowing nod. That's pretty cool. I like it. Well, you are here not solely to tell us that story, though.

That was fun. You have kept track of our drafts and competitions. You have inherited that role from John Chenier, former effectively wild stat keeper who works for the Mariners and eventually decided maybe that wasn't part of his job there and you can hand this off to someone else and you volunteered. The requirement was that he be credited as scorekeeper emeritus.

Emeritus, okay, perfect, yes, forever and always, yeah. And I wanna thank him for, I had emailed him, I was like, hey, I have this idea for wanting to do this thing and I'm working on building some more tracking software to make this easier. And he, that was the point where your reflection was like, you want to just do this? Because this, I'm, I'm happy to turn that over, but thank you to John for trusting me to take over some of this stuff.

I do want to say, uh, we are working, we, the Collet, the Royal we are working on taking the current competitions Google sheet and trying to turn it into a proper website. Ooh, fancy. That's gonna work with the preseason predictions game and the minor league for agent draft and be able to show projections and mid-season standings. If there are as many musicians making Effectively Wild themes out there as they are,

I have to believe there is just as many web developers. So. Oh, if not more. I think our audience might be 20% web developer. I think there's a Facebook group called effectively compiled. Yeah. Yeah. So if you're interested in helping out, please let me know. Email me at chrishandel at gmail.com would love to hear from you and see if

we can put something together before next season. All right. Yeah. John kept track of our stats for many years, but you have got forms, you've got graphics, you've got threads on social media to keep track of all this stuff. And I have not kept track of anything. And I'm guessing that that goes for everyone else on this call, except Chris. Ben, before we get started, can I ask you about something else you're not keeping track

of? Uh-oh. Have you're not keeping track of? Uh oh. Have you made a game for me? Yeah, I got you something. It's a game called College Baseball Player or Fictional Republican U.S. Senator. Fictional Republican U.S. Senator. That's right. Okay.

All right. Okay. I can play this game. All of these fictional Republican senators are from major TV or movie releases. So I think you've seen at least one of them. Okay. All right. Your first name is Cam Canarella. Cam Canarella. That definitely doesn't ring a bell, so I'm going to go college baseball player. That is correct. Cam Canarella is an outfielder for Clemson. Yeah. That doesn't sound like a Senator of any party particularly, but Cam Canarella. Okay.

How about this one? Rafe Framhagen. That's a good name. Rafe Framhagen. Sounds like a sleeper agent more than anything. Yeah, that can't be a real person. That's got to be a Republican senator fiction. That is a fictional Republican US senator. For those of you who watch the West Wing, this is Brian Dennehy's insane perpetually drunk orange juice and vodka swilling Republican Senator who threatens Cliff in the Castro episode.

Oh, the cat? Oh, season six? Is that? Oh man, that's the deep cuts of West Wing. It's where I learned the word pulchritude. It's a good word. It was not a highlight of my West wing watching, but glad I nailed it. It's an insane performance.

It's just complete. He's in a completely different show than everybody else. It's one of my favorite guest characters of the show. Okay. All right. Number three, Crocker Jarman. Can you spell that or would that give it a Crocker Jarman? Like Betty Crocker.

J-A-R-M-O-N. That can't be a real person. That's got to be another Senator. Ben, you're on fire. Crocker-German is the incumbent Republican Senator from California in The Candidate from 1972 starring Robert Redford and Peter Boyle. Vote once, vote twice for Bill McKay, you middle-class honkies. How many times do you vote for Crocker Jarman?

Well, Bill McKay wins at the end, so not enough people to- Not enough. Yeah. Okay. Wow. Three for three. I'm playing with house money here. Number four, Jasper Irving. Jasper Irving, that sounds like, that could be a baseball player, but we're doing five? I've already- We're doing five, yeah. You've already over 500. You're already over 500.

You're doing way better than the Tyler Hacklin ones from the World Series live. Oh yeah, yeah, I'm going baseball player. Oh, that's your first miss. Jasper Irving is the Republican Senator played by Tom Cruise in another Robert Redford movie, Lions for Lambs. Oh boy. It's such a bad movie, my God. I think I missed, I must've missed that one.

28% on Rotten Tomatoes. Yeah, it's not very good. It's really bad. It's really bad. Okay. All right, and last one, Paxton Kling. Paxton Kling, okay. That sounds, that sounds, that could be a baseball player.

Paxton Kling, yeah, that sounds baseball-ish. Paxton Kling, yeah, let's go baseball. Paxton Kling is an outfielder for Penn State, having transferred there after two seasons at LSU. So Ben, really good performance. Four for five, yeah. I thought I had you on the mat the last couple of times, but. I'm particularly impressed that the one you missed

was not a baseball player. Like you had your college baseball names really dialed in on that one. Well, I'll say this. If there's one thing that Ben watches even less of than college baseball, it's the 2007 war on terror film, Lions for Lambs. That is true. I have seen less of that than I have of college baseball. Well, great game as always, feeling good. I don't know if I'll be feeling good by the end of this episode when Chris tells us how I did on our preseason predictions,

but so far so good. Maybe Chris can mark this down somewhere. Maybe we can have a official statistician of our college baseball player, or I'd like to know my lifetime record on that one. Raymond Chen has been keeping track of all of those on the Wikis. No way.

I pulled up our predictions from the Effectively Wild wiki and right before that has been getting Henry Godbout wrong in college baseball player or character from Shogun. Oh man, Raymond's the best. I am grateful for his Effectively Wild wiki work, although I guess it doesn't include all of the college baseball ors from the ringer MLB show days. So those are lost to posterity. I don't remember how many times I've made you do that. So, yeah. Okay.

So there have been trades and signings and news and so forth, but we will table that until next time, because we have serious business to take care of today. So Chris, I guess first you have to maybe inform us of the results of the minor league free agent draft, which involved me and Meg and other Ben, but not Bauman. And then we will get to the main event, which is our bold preseason predictions. Yes, and I do want to shout out Sean Dolinar and Jason Martinez, who both answered more questions than they really needed to, than I had about being able to get data from fan graphs

and be able to do my tracking. So thank you to them for their time. It was really appreciated. The Minor League Free Agent draft during the preseason was actually really fascinating because you're making the picks before the depth charts comes out. And when things got started throughout the preseason,

being able to watch it update every day. Before the season started, Ben Clemens, you were way in the lead because fan graphs really liked Joe Ross. Yeah, me too. Presumptive lead, hypothetical lead. There was no actual lead established. Spiritual lead.

Projected lead. Yes, the projected lead. Spiritual lead. He topped out at 481 projected plate appearances on April 2nd. But we go to our final results and we have in first place, Ben Lindbergh with 1,080 total plate appearances and batters faced.

Second place, Meg Rowley, 681. And Ben Clemens in third with 593. And I think that we can credit this win to Ben Lively. Ben Lively is the real winner of this. Ben Lively. 632. Wow. Yes.

That's some Wade LeBlanc performance right there. Yeah, did you say that was a historic minor league free agent draft result? It was coming close and at one point it was within the margin of error that he could eclipse Wade LeBlanc but I believe he fell 20 or 30 behind something like that. It was close. That's a shame. But historic performance.

Your hit rate was actually really good all across the board. We talked about this when I was on the 10th anniversary episode that you tend to hit more than you miss. Ben, you had six of your 10 players record at least one appearance. Not bad. Because one of my players was ineligible from the start, right? Because he's assigned KBO. Yeah. And Ben, you had five.

So everyone had at least five players actually appear in the major. So great job there. All right, not bad. So that was episode 2103, the 11th annual Effectively Wild Minor League Free Agent draft. If anyone is somehow unfamiliar with this tradition, we draft minor league free agents. It's a certain kind of free agent, a select list from Baseball America that we use as a reference. And then we are just drafting for playing time, purely playing

time, not performance. Though the better you perform, presumably the more you play, but not always. And, uh, you just try to accumulate as many batters faced plus plate appearances as possible with your 10 draftees. So this is a cherished tradition, which will continue probably some time next month, I suppose, when we reconvene for the 12th annual Effectively Wild Miner League free agent draft. So that's not bad. I guess we all did better than, than some of the worst drafts that have happened in the past.

I don't know where my, my showing ranks all time, whether that's particularly good or not, but it's good enough for me. It was, it was better than yours. So that's, that's what matters. I, you know, I don't care about the all-time leaderboards. I just need to beat you two in this particular year. Wow. Wow.

Hard to argue that. Really setting the tone before we shift into bold predictions. I got it. Yeah. Well, I have no idea which way this is going to go. So I could be singing a different tune by the end of this episode. So yes, you have consulted with us at various times. You'll ask me, do you want to know what happened?

Or do you want an update on the scores or something? I never want to know anything. I just want it to be a surprise at the end of the season. Yeah, tell me about it. Yeah. Well, it's funny because last year I was having a lot of fun keeping people up to date and posting scores all the time. And this year, real life just kind of got in the way and I wasn't able, like I was still

tracking but actually posting on social media. I couldn't prioritize as much, but that adds to the deliciousness of this recording because we're going in without, you know, having that information in front of us. So we get to have a big ending. Yeah. Unless any of the other three of you has secretly been compiling the results here. I think Chris told me I lost at some point during the season. No, I did not. Okay. On general principle. Yeah. Bauman was kind enough to do an interview with me for the sequel to the twins video that I'm working on. And we were checking in and having discussions about whether there had been social media apologies and whatnot.

We could not agree on... We both agreed that that had not happened at that point, so... I thought that was a free square. We can get to that later. Well, we will. We will absolutely spend much time on that. Yeah, we did this recap pod later last year. We did it in mid December episode 2100 because some of the results were still up in the air, but now it's finalized.

We were just waiting for the awards votes to come in because there was a prediction or multiple predictions that pertained to those. Yeah, which I actually wanted to suggest for next year, can we make it that the day that the MVP is awarded is like that's the end so we have a very clean, this is when predictions can go until, and then not have it where it could stretch

into like December, January, so like the World Series and all the awards are fresh in our minds. Probably, probably. Yeah, I will absolutely agree to that now and forget about it by March. Yeah. So you'll have to remind us when we reconvene for next year. Yeah, you never know.

Sometimes there's one that's like a winter meetings or something, but I guess we could steer clear, but we'll see, that's a question for a few months from now. So now we are rewinding to several months ago to see how we did. So how do you want to recap these predictions? Well, let's start by explaining what the hell it is we're doing here.

Okay, so how this works. Before opening day, each of our four contestants made 10, yes, 10 predictions about the 2024 baseball season. Each correct prediction earned up to 100 points. Each correct prediction earned up to 100 points. Each incorrect prediction lost up to 100 points. How many points won or lost was determined by listeners who graded them on how likely they were to come to pass. Bolder predictions earned more points if they happened,

lost less points if they didn't, and vice versa for chalkier picks. Highest score at the conclusion of the season wins. This is the fastest we have ever explained the rules on the podcast. I appreciate you explaining them and then how my brain refuses to process what I ought to ascribe the appropriate stakes

of my predictions being. So I look forward to goofing that again next year. I'm like, should I make them harder, easier? I don't know. That is the eternal question of this game. Yeah. Last year we had listeners simply say goofing that again next year. I'm like, should I make them harder, easier? I don't know. I don't know. That is the eternal question of this game. Yeah. Last year, we had listeners simply say

whether a prediction would be true or false. This year, in order to achieve a more satisfying spread of odds, we asked for a percentage from zero to 100, and the averages of those submissions determined your potential scoring in this game. The listeners were also competing against each other in their own contest, which we will cover at the end of the show.

We received over 1200 submissions this year, 300 more than 2023. My goal for 2025 will be 1500 submissions because if there's anything a fan graphs podcast loves, it's predictable trends and larger sample sizes. And I will say they will remain anonymous, but we did have at least one ballot from a verified MLB front office employee. You are playing against professionals.

Why? Tell me that. How did they do? Bad. That makes me feel better. But still, I look, here's the thing. I always am so genuinely appreciative when I encounter folks who work for teams who are like, Hey, listen to the pod. And it's great. And I go, thank you.

Cause it's nice to hear that you're doing work that people like. But then I remember that when they, they hear you singing the theme song in the grocery store and I don't know, cause that would require me listening to the podcast after it's finished, which we know I don't do because why would I? It's just so much of my own voice. But then I'm like, oh, look at it. Do they think I'm very stupid or not funny? But they don't tell me that. Maybe the ones who think I'm stupid and not funny are not telling me they listen to the pot. Maybe that's the takeaway. I got that embarrassment beaten out of me

when I found myself alone in an elevator with Jerry DiPoto and he whistled the song at me. Yes, have you told this story on Effectively Wild? You may have, but- The song is part of Effectively Wild, or at this point not. Yes, it's made the leap, yeah. All right, I didn't know if it,

to what extent it had crossed over. So in, I want to say 2017, the Mariners made a bunch of trades and Ben and I were co-hosting the Ringer MLB show. And we just talked about a bunch of Mariners trades for like three episodes in a row. And I got the idea to write a song called, What Did Jerry Depoto Do? Which we've established. You didn't need to peer at any of that backstory because we're already in the circuit. Anyway, we actually had Jerry on the podcast a couple of weeks later. And not too long after that, the Mariners were in Houston, and I was taking the elevator down from the press box at Minutemade down to the basement to go to

the clubhouses. And Jerry DePoto was riding with me and I said, hey, you know, introduce myself. I said, you were just on the Ring Around MLB show. It's good to meet you in person. And you know, we could have bonded over both being from New Jersey, but I didn't want to take too much of its time. And as we were leaving, I turned right to go to the Astros Clubhouse. He turns left to go to the Mariners Clubhouse. And I hear him whistling the song as I'm walking away.

Wow. What did Jerry Depoto do? What did Jerry Depoto do? We're gonna talk to Meg Rowley about a trade or two. What did Jerry Depoto do? That is great. I love that he didn't say anything until you were leaving. And then you just hear the power. What do you say at that point? I just, you know, I would have expected a heard your song. Thanks for the song, something like that.

Lovely voice. But no, wait until you had left. And then you just hear like Omar in the streets of Baltimore or something. Yeah. I love it. I love to think that he just whistles that wherever he goes when he's about to make a move. I mean, I whistle that wherever. Just sings it to himself. So do I. Yeah. Writing that song is one of my greatest regrets in my career.

It's just been stuck in my head the whole time. Okay. Well, now that we got that story, we got the story time episode today going here. So how should we proceed through these predictions? I do have to correct myself. The MLB front office employee got 51st place out of 1200 people. Oh, that's actually pretty good.

That's actually pretty good. Yeah, that's fantastic. May have had inside info, who knows. Yeah, how should we start? So what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna go through all 40 predictions ranked by how likely they were. So we'll be bouncing back and forth among all four panels and at the end we'll get to the scores.

So that means we will be starting with Ben Clemens. All right. For number one, for 9%, so a potential 91 points, a player will hit at least 70 home runs in the regular season. Nine percent, wild. Okay, we're going in ascending order of likelihood. So this is the least likely?

Yes, this is the least likely thing, and as you see, this means we will end very strong. Okay, wow. Yeah, okay. Yes, nine percent, a player will hit at least 70 home runs It will end very strong. Yeah. Okay. Yes, 9%, a player will hit at least 70 home runs in the regular season. Aaron Judge hit 58 and was never really truly on pace

because of his slow start in March and April. Maybe if he had started with his May pace in March, we'd be having a different conversation. But yeah, this one was false. But you only lose nine points because it was so unlikely of a prediction. Right. Yeah.

Okay. All right. I think 9% was frankly way too high. It's happened so rarely. Yes. Yeah. And under such circumstances. Such circumstances.

I won't specify the circumstances. Everyone recalls the circumstances. They are simply such of them. Yes, they are. I'm just writing down for 2025, while we're doing this draft, Ben will complain about how our listeners don't know how to do math and don't understand probability. Yeah, I amended my approach this year, right? Because I said something, which I don't remember now, but I think I said something about how you get penalized. I was speculating if your picks are too remote or was it the other way around? You were saying that you weren't being properly rewarded for really unlikely picks.

Yes. And at the end, we'll talk about the scoring methods because there was a difference and there's actually some really fun stat blast stuff that I wanna get into with that. Okay, next. Next is Meg. Meg, number two, 10%.

Jackson Job will throw a no-hitter in the major leagues in 2024. Yeah. Yeah. Job was only called up late in the season and made two relief appearances. So that is a false. He didn't do that. Was either of them hitless?

I remember them not being bad, but I don't know if they were hitless. Yeah. Well, that's not the definition of a no-hitter. So I think it doesn't really matter. They were good enough for him to make the postseason roster. They were. It's true.

Although he didn't perform particularly well once he got there. You know, still some work to do that, Jackson. I had a Jackson's prediction. I remember that. You did. And Jackson's probably factoring into that. Number three, sticking with Meg, 12%. Jordan Montgomery will be unsigned as of opening day,

but will still finish in the top five of Cy Young voting. So. Yeah. Much close. I got half of that right? Yes. Yeah, half of that was right. Yes, and much like last year,

we got to have some suspense regarding something happening while voting was still going on. Yeah, yeah. And as always, and we'll be saying this so many times, how can you not be pedantic about the bold pre-season predictions game? Montgomery agreed to terms with the Arizona Diamondbacks

on March 26th, two days before opening day, but did not actually sign until March 29th. As I believe Bauman pointed out correctly, he didn't wanna be stuck with a QO at the end of the season, so he didn't sign on opening day. So that was correct. Sadly, Montgomery's pitching was not good enough to warrant inclusion in the NL Sayang discussion,

earning an ERA over six, over only 117 innings for a grand total of 0.6 fan crafts more. Yeah. Yeah. You know, could have gone better for him. Probably for the best, certainly for the worst for the Diamondbacks and for Jordan Montgomery, but maybe for the best to avoid any kind of controversy with this prediction. I think it would have counted because by the letter of the law he did not sign, but it was reported that he was signing prior to opening day,

right? Is that the same thing, Ben? It's not quite the same thing, but it would have been, I don't know, there would have been slight taintedness going on there, but I think we would have ruled in your favor certainly. I think- What's this weight? I'm sorry, I think you're speaking your truth and not my truth.

I would have jumped up and down and celebrated. So I don't know, mind your business. Jackson Jobe, by the way, his second regular season outing, he threw three hitless innings. So that was a third of a no-hitter. He's gonna be a good pitcher. I feel comfortable saying that. All right.

Number four, we now turn to Ben Lindbergh. 16%, Joey Votto will out Homer 2022, All right. Number four, we now turn to Ben Lindbergh. 16%. Joey Votto will out Homer 2022. Albert Kuhlfels, yeah. Oh, that didn't happen today. That was sad. Sadly, Votto never saw time in the majors after starting the year injured

and never finding a groove in the minors. Once he returned, leading to his sad untimely retirement before the end of the regular season, this is false. I just wanted to root for Joey Votto to come up and have a great last hurrah. I would have been rooting for that regardless of making this prediction, but would have been fun if it had happened. Sadly, not to be. Sticking with Ben for number five at 17%. For the second straight season, there will be a first time World Series winner.

This was a repeat of a correct prediction from last year, but with the proviso that there's obviously now one less team available to cash in. Zips graded this prediction at 9.9% probability at the start of the season. But interestingly, the odds of one of those five options out of a total of 30 comes to 16.67%, which listeners graded it at 17%.

So if you were to do a blind pick, they'd be correct. However, obviously the Padres were the last viable option and they fell in the NLDS. This result is false. BOWEN A Dodgers Yankees World Series is about as wrong as this prediction can possibly get. BOWEN It's true. JADE Yeah. BOWEN But so close to Padres Yankees World Series.

JADE Yeah. BOWEN Sort of. Well, maybe. Not that close. Not that close. Number six, Meg. 18%. The Pirates will win the NL Central. Central. Yeah. I was like, I wasn't like, hi, when we recorded. I was just bold.

Your mic cut out during the recording at the time and everyone thought that you had said they'd won the NL. Oh, that's right. That's right, it did. Yeah. Yeah. They didn't do either of those things though. Yeah. Moving on to number seven, Ben Clemens, 21%. Alex Minoa will pitch at least 150 innings and have a sub-four ERA.

You got half there. Alex Minoa did have a sub-four ERA, but did so only over 24 innings before exiting a start in the second inning at the end of May, which would subsequently be the end of his season. Alec, Alec Minoa, unless Ben Clemens said Alex, in which case it would have been invalidated from the start. Wrong, just on general principle, yeah. I wrote that down wrong. I had it correct down below.

It says Alec Minoa, and then I had Alex here. I'm always sad about Manoa because like, Alec Manoa, his live interview while pitching in the All-Star game and shouting three punchies is like one of the most memorable All-Star memories for me. And so that was like me really being introduced to him as a player. And it's been all downhill for him ever since

And I just want to see him rebound and be that pitcher again so badly Yeah, well we can predict it again next year. You know, I'll just keep going for it. Number eight Michael Bowman Oh, I'm awake 21% there will be a combined perfect game this season. Did not happen. Closest we came to this was the combined no-hitter thrown by the Cubs against the Pirates in a 12-0 blowout. Shota Imanaga only gave up two walks.

The next closest was an Orioles-Tigers game on September 13th. Four Tigers pitches combined for 8.2 no-hit innings with only a single walk given up by Brandt Herter before Tyler Holton gave up a hit while recording the save in the ninth for a 1-0 win. We wouldn't get any closer than that. MVP vote recipient, Tyler Holton. Which gave me so much hope for O'Neil Cruz

when that got announced, but we'll get there. Ben Lindbergh for number nine, 23%. We have points. The regular season schedule will end with the first ever three-way tie for a playoff spot. Points. Yes, yes, that's right. This was my grievance against the lack of tiebreakers. This was an informed

prediction. It was based on just how tight everything was projected to be. And it ended up kind of working out that way to some extent. You laid out a very strong case for it, which cost you points because I was like, yeah, that makes sense. cost you points because I listen and I'm like, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, that's always the problem. But proud of myself, I evaluated, I took the lay of the land and we ended up there. Yeah. And it was like, people were disputing throughout the season, like, does it have to be three way or could it be more than three way? And I think I said like just more than two, I think.

Or at least that was kind of the spirit of the prediction. And then it had to be, yes, like something with playoff implications, not just any three teams finishing with the same record, right? Something that would have required a tiebreaker under previous formats. Well, to give people some inside baseball, no pun intended, on how we do this is, I get the recording from Ben, I listen to the episode before it goes live, I write out the text of the syntax of the predictions,

and then I get everyone to verify, this is the way it's going to be presented, that's very important, is this good? And then you sign off on it and the text of yours was the regular season schedule will end with the first ever three way tie for a playoff spot. So, so it did have to have playoff implications more than three. I think I still would have taken it because that's just, I think that yeah, I might've even specified that also in sort of a supplementary part of the prediction,

but I don't really recall. But regardless, it came true. But yes, Mets, Braves, Diamondbacks all came together to tie for two playoff spots, which other people were like, no, they tied for two playoff spots. This prediction is false. They all finished at 89 and 73, and even then you had some insurance in hand over in the American League, but the Mariners and Twins both couldn't keep pace with the Royals and 73, and even then, you had some insurance in hand over in the American League, but the Mariners and Twins both couldn't keep pace with the Royals and Tigers, which is a sentence that would have earned you a ton of points had you predicted that back before opening day.

But you walk away with 77 points on question nine. Right. Someone's on the board. I love it. Number 10, Ben Clemens. 24%. Alejandro Kirk will post the highest WRC Plus among AL qualified catchers to record 300 plus at-bats. So, Ben, before we dive into the results, who among you wants to guess how many catchers in the American League actually qualified as a hitter? Uh, wait. Actually qualified or with 300 plus actions?

Actually qualified. Zero. Anyone else? Uh, primary catchers? Two. Didn't that, Adley get over, I would say, yeah, one or two. I thought, yeah, one or two. Oh, I was thinking as a catcher, yeah, because like Adley surely did and Salva probably did.

Oh, as a catcher? Oh, I might not have that information. Just two at all. Yeah, at all I think is good, I might not have that information. Just do it at all. Yeah, at all I think is good. The answer is six. Six. Cal Raleigh, Salvador Perez, Yonar Diaz. Yeah, I was gonna say Cal.

Rutchman, Logan Ohapi, and Shay Langiliers. Heh. You will notice that Alejandro Kirk is not one of those. Is not on that list. Well, he didn't have to qualify. Yeah, he could have been on the 300 plus plate appearance list. Well, he didn't have to qualify. Yeah, he could have been on the 300 plus plate appearance list. But he also didn't hit very well.

He didn't do that. No, he only, it's wrong anyway. So I misunderstood, but yeah, he only had a 94 WRC plus. Not good enough. He had the same war as, as Rutchman in 250 fewer plate appearances, but the difference maker there was Kirk was a much better defensive catcher. as Rutchman in 250 fewer plate appearances, but the difference maker there was Kirk

was a much better defensive catcher. As we all have always predicted. Yeah. Number 11, Meg, 25%. Yes. Aaron Judge and Juan Soto will kiss. No, will both hit 50 home runs. They, in your defense, they did total 99.

Yeah. Really close, yeah. But Juan Soto came nine short of keeping his end of this prediction alive, finishing with 41. Additionally, I will say that I did continue to keep an eye on this in the postseason, because if we wanted to be extra pedantic, the prediction did not specify

that the home runs were hit in the regular season. I know, but that's not in the spirit of the prediction. I would have, if someone had defended me on those grounds, I would have said, stand down. You probably, you thought you were being bold by predicting they'd both hit 50. You should have predicted that they would be like the best one, two teammates ever.

Yeah, but that seemed too obvious. You know, Bauman was tooting that horn before the season even started. Yeah, that happened. That would have come true, but not quite the 50 a piece. Soto did, he did start pulling more, which- This is what I'm saying. Yeah, he was trying to help you out there

because that was like, I thought Soto was going to have a big year too, but people pointed out that- Wait, oh my God, what a bold prediction. I know, but- Juan Soto's going to have a big year too, but people pointed out that- Wait, oh my God, what a bold prediction. I know, but- Juan Soto's going to be good, my God. Big by Soto standards even, but people pointed out like his swing is not tailored to Yankee Stadium.

It's not like he's going to be taking advantage of that short porch. He doesn't pull that many balls in the air, but he did. I don't know whether it was a conscious adaptation to Yankee Stadium or not, but he did pull many more balls in the air and some of them went out, but not enough. I will say the following thing about Wonsodo, even as I've just given Ben grief for saying he'll be good, which is like, well, yeah. I think that he continues to be a little underrated as a power hitter. Like it's not the part of his game that people think about the most, but he does it.

He did so much, he's good. Yeah, that huge home run he hit in the playoffs with one of them, I guess the last one was kind of a testament to that skill as well as the plate discipline that enabled him to take a bunch of close pitches and foul off a bunch of it. So like the bat control and the plate discipline were both on display and that got a lot of attention, but also just the fact that he hit that pitch, whatever it was, 95, 96 mile per hour high

fastball out easily. That was some Titanic raw too. Meg, number 12, 26%. George Kirby will win the AL Cy Young Award. Kirby's now, Kirby's 2024 season, which was great, was almost a carbon copy of 2023. No, no, no, I'm gonna go one better. It absolutely was a carbon copy of 2023. It's actually really wild if you go and look at his stats, like everything down the line, the number of innings he pitched his ground ball rate is FIP

like all of it is like exactly the same as 2023 the one real difference was whereas he'd finished eighth in the ale-sai young race last year He failed to snag a vote this year due to much, much different competition, so. Which is surprising, because the pitching across the league was kind of a lot more meh in general this year. But I'm a believer, I think he'll do it, I think he'll do it at some point in his career.

I think he's a special sort, that George. Number 13, Ben Lindberg. Yes. 30%. The Angels will win more games this season than they did in any year with Joe Hayotani on the team. That was bold. Hoo boy. 30%, come on. 30%.

This should have been more remote than that. 30%. As previously noted on the pod, in order for this to pass, what he needed was for the Angels to just finish with a 500 season and they did not. I will use this moment to try and say nice things about the Angels and so I will note that Zach Neto truly looks like the first real young player

to try and build around in ages and they still remain the one franchise in baseball to never lose 100 games and they've been surprisingly active this off season so far. They just signed Kikuchi, right? Did I just see that? But past that, I am left with taking 30 points from your score. I'm very sorry. Yes. They set the franchise record for losses. They just did avoid their hundredth loss, but they did lose 99. So yeah, this didn't come close to being true. I don't know why it wasn't deemed to be more unlikely than it was. I feel like I should lose fewer points for this one. In retrospect, pretty bold. Meg Rowley, number 14, 31%. Gabriel Marino will finish the season

as the most valuable starting catcher in the National League. So, we get to play trivia round two. There were only six catchers in the American League who qualified for the batting title. How many did it in the National League? Four. Oh, I just had this... Was it three? It was three.

Yeah, I just had the leaderboard up. Will Smith, at least one Contreras, so probably William. Yeah. I looked it up. It's Tyler Stevenson. That was a tough one. Yeah. And like the last time we did this game, the player in question was not one of them qualifying.

Wasn't a requirement here. He had a slightly above average performance at the plate to go along with his excellent defense, but only appearing in 97 games hurt him. Finished with 2.5, Fangraph's War, which was sixth out of National League catchers. So that is false. Wow. Minus 31 points. We move on to number 15.

Ben Clemens, 32%. Patrick Bailey. Hey! You're right. 30 runs of defensive value according to fan graphs. Come on, Patrick Bailey, come on down. Not content with simply getting his toe across the line, Bailey destroyed it,

finishing with 36.7 runs of defensive value. Excellent work, Ben. You have earned 68 points. Nice. Is what I would say if this prediction was correct. But sadly, you are wrong and I instead must deduct 32. Why? We are going to revisit the text of this prediction.

Patrick Bailey will be the first player in the 2020s to put up 30 runs of defensive value according to fan graphs. Oh no. Oh. Jose Trevino, 2022, recorded 30.9 defensive runs. Wow. Brutal.

That is brutal. What a schmuck. Hey, the definition of the show. How can you not be pedantic about baseball? Yeah, no kidding. Chris asked me about this one because he was thinking that maybe that had changed after we did the prediction. Like maybe.

Not entirely possible, but. Yeah, we might've had an adjustment. Yeah. No, but we consulted the way back machine for, I think it was Trevino's page or maybe catcher leaderboards or something. And it was, there was an archived snapshot of that page from prior to the predictions pod when he was still showing 30 plus defensive runs. Wow.

That's a heartbreaker. It's pretty tough. Wow. If that, I don't know whether that ends up making the difference. If this is decisive, then that's tough because clearly you were right on the spirit of the prediction, but on a technicality disqualified. This is also why I was explaining how this works. I'm like, I verified the text. I'm like, is this your prediction? Yes. Okay. To be fair, I did not realize this until well

into the season and I was tracking. I'm like, oh, he's on pace. That's great. And then I went to go look it up and I went, wait a minute. Yeah, just didn't even need to specify that he'd be the first. I just said 30 plus, he would have had it. But, uh, that's, uh, that's life. If that loses on this one, I'd feel bad about it. Can I give you a pick me up? I hope that's not the case. Okay, yeah. I'm gonna give you a pick me up because our next one is Ben Clemens, 32%. The second semi-final of the home run derby will go to a tiebreaker.

And Ben Clemens, you said that this pick was one that you made because you wanted to prove you were a sorcerer. Yeah. And we didn't even know the rules for the event yet. That's true. They weren't set. No, they weren't.

And so we were waiting to see, would there even be, you know, there are rounds in the home run derby where there aren't one-on-one matchups. And so maybe a tiebreaker doesn't factor in. But then we all watched as Alec Bohm drew even with Teasca Hernandez in the second semifinal on his final swing, and then failed to record a go-ahead home or in bonus time, thus necessitating a swing-off diebreaker.

The only one during this year's event. And I was talking with Clements in Discord as all of this went down. I have never been more excited about the Home Run Derby. So take your 68 points before we all burn you at the stake for being a witch. That one felt good. I'm so happy for you, Ben, and I don't want to diminish your triumph at all. And I don't want to make light of her issues if in fact, like the gal who sang the anthem before the Hummer and Derby did have substance abuse issues that necessitated rehab. But I will say that my favorite part of that day was Alec Bohm trying to keep it together

during the worst anthem that any of us have witnessed, both in person or on television, because he wanted to laugh really hard and he had to work really hard not to do it. Because I think he was like, I can't laugh at the anthem. And he only barely succeeded. So that was the best part of that day for me. Would you put it above or below the Carl Lewis national anthem? It was worse because it was a professional. Yeah.

Right. And I, I worried that that, that gal's like music career has been negatively impacted. Although I keep calling her that gal cause music career has been negatively impacted, although I keep calling her that gal because I don't remember her name. Do you worry that her music is... I mean... Do you think that face planning is so bad that you said that you went to rehab on national TV is going to impact her musical career?

I've never been so uncomfortable in person. I've never felt so many people's shoulders scrunch up as they just cringe. It was the worst thing I've ever heard. So I do feel bad. I mean, you never want someone to be embarrassed like that. I don't know anything about her. I have no reason to wish her ill other than, you know, that anthem really sucked. But it really did suck though.

Well, you get points. Ben Clemens, congratulations for what I think is one of the better picks in my regard. That was really fun to watch and that was really satisfying to watch happen. Okay, number 17. We move on to Ben Clemens, 33%. O'Neil Cruz will receive MVP votes,

but will still finish behind Ellie De La Cruz. Ellie De La Cruz came through and earned MVP votes, but sadly, O'Neil Cruz and his 3.5 fan graphs wore just one 10th place vote, and this would have been on the board. Yeah, although it deservedly did not. But I had hope, I had hope that there would just be one really weird 10th place vote,

because the fact that the MVP ballots go 10 deep, you never know. Tyler Holtan got an MVP vote. Yeah, exactly. Yes. And the ale got announced first, and the reaction was Tyler Holtan got an MVP vote, and then I was like, oh, this is possible.

Please, please, please, please. I'm mad because I was reminded by Raymond Chen, effectively, while at WikiKeeper the other day that I had wanted to issue an Ellie slash O'Neill prediction of my own, but I stood down because Ben did his first and I didn't want to do one of my own, but I evidently wanted to predict that either Ellie or O'Neill would double the other's war, but I didn't specify which war, because they had entered the season with very similar stats, I think. And by baseball prospectus warp, Ellie was 3.5 versus O'Neill's 0.9, so he almost quadrupled it. And then by baseball reference war, LE 5.2, O'Neill 2.5, so he just barely did double it. But by fan graphs were LE 6.4 versus O'Neill 3.5, which is only 1.82 times. So if we had done fan graphs war, I guess

I would have whiffed on this one anyway, but still it would have been a pretty solid prediction if I had gone through with it. Number 18, Meg. 35%. The Orioles will make the postseason but will be swept out of their first postseason series. What more can I say but how much one of my favorite tropes of Effectively Wild has been Meg's heel turn when it comes to Orioles fans. And this plays right into that. STACEY I just want everyone to relax a little bit because you're all very upset about our playoff odds and you know, I'm sorry, but relax. BOWEN Did they participate enough in that series to count as getting swept? BOWEN Wow! Wow! From the top rope!

BOWEN I'm just saying, like I was there, I was only barely aware of non-Corbin Burns Orioles having taken part in that series. Yeah, they bowed out of that playoff in a different way than I expected them to. Because my recollection of that series and bowman again, you were there, so correct me if I'm wrong. It wasn't just that the pitching was, I mean, the pitching was actually kind of okay. Couldn't hit a lick that team seemingly. Just completely oomph-less with their bats. Is that a correct recollection? Yeah. It was fun. I was sat next to Jake Mintz in the press box and I, this is something

that I try to keep, when I'm covering a Phillies playoff game, I try to keep my partisan hat off as much as possible, but there's still, you know, you still have a lifetime's worth of feelings when your team is messing up in front of you with the season on the line. And I got to watch Jake get progressively more frustrated as that series went on, and it was very amusing

to watch somebody else go through that struggle. Yeah. But Meg comes out with 65 points out of that prediction. So well done. Thank you. Number 19, Bauman. 35%. A relief pitcher, as defined by 50% or more of their appearances were in relief, will win as many games as one of the Cy Young winners. I really dug this pick. Cy Young winners, Tarek Scoobel and Chris Sale,

both had staying power. They both notched 18 wins over the season. The top relievers in the win column were Hector Naris and Ryan Walker, both with 10. So that is a no. Yeah, I didn't anticipate the voters rolling back the clock to 1981 and just picking the two guys who led the league and wins. But the bigger problem was that they were just the best pitchers.

If you say so. But the other thing I want to say is this is number 19 out of 40 and this is only my second prediction. Yeah. And I think I've been- Chuck? Mr. Chuck. Well, I've been disadvantaged, I think, because of the dead bird prediction from last year. I think the listeners have imbued me with a reputation for having the gift of prophecy, and my score is suffering as a result. It's weird because I was going to predict that you would complain about the numbers being too high. It's weird because I was going to predict that you would complain about the numbers being too high. I would have nailed that one too.

No, I don't think that this is like a general innumeracy among the listeners. I think that they just think that I'm a guy. They respect you too much. Yeah. Yeah. They think you're so prescient. Would you say that your biggest weakness is that you try too hard and care too much? Predict too well. Oppressions. Would you say that your biggest weakness is that you try too hard and care too much? Predict too well. Well, you know how I said at the top of this episode

that this is ordered so that we'd end strong? Yeah, that was kind of what I was referring to. Okay. Number 20, Ben Lindbergh, 36%. No pitcher will reach 200 innings pitched in the regular season. Yeah, one of these years. Yes, I wanna know,

I also had made this prediction independently of Ben. And as a fun gag, I had recorded a video with twins blogger, Tom Froming, who is excellent and people should go check out, where I had made three of my own bold predictions. This one was on my board, sadly for both myself and Ben, but I think happily for the league. I think they're very happy that four players

crossed the 200 innings pitch barrier. Well, no, three did. Zach Wheeler finished with exactly 200.0 innings pitched. I'm kind of seeing this as like football rules. Like if you break the plane, that's over the barrier. Yeah, I think so. Well, and Ben's prediction was no player will reach 200. Right, Yeah.

And still only four and Logan Gilbert led the majors 208 and two thirds. So we were coming off, I was making this on the heels of 2023 when I think there were more guys who made it, right? Yeah, because there were five guys. Yeah. And Logan Webb topped out at two 16. So we got closer to it being true. The max was lower.

The ceiling was lower. And also we went from five to four Chris Bassett was at exactly 200 last year. So yeah, we're, we're circling the drain for the 200 inning guy. I think maybe, maybe run this one back next year. You're just ahead of your time on this one, I think. If anyone cares to know what my other two predictions were, they were that both World Series teams would finish third or lower in their divisions, which I nailed exactly,

and that the twins would sweep the Yankees in the postseason, which I decidedly not. We stick with Ben Lindbergh for number 21, also at 36%. Sixto Sanchez will become the first player to earn rookie of the year votes in non-consecutive seasons. I wanted this one so bad. Yeah, I like this one a lot. Yeah.

Sixto having a rookie of the year caliber year would have been a really great story, great narrative, but he immediately started out rough in the bullpen, didn't record a strikeout until his fifth appearance. Then he got moved into the rotation a month into the season. Things didn't get much better. He started seven games, never made it past five innings, pitched an appearance and then went on the IL

for the rest of the season. So that is not a rookie of the year campaign you can get behind. So that's a false. Well, a less. Number 22, Meg Rowley, 38% to Texas Rangers. Will finish in the top five for MVP voting. So Meg, honor system time.

Did you mean New York Yankees and I just misheard it? Cause if that's the case, I'll just go ahead and mark this one correct. Nope, I did not. Okay, Corey Seeger, Marcus Simeon, strong seasons, but were 11th and 12th respectively in FanGraphs War for position players in the American League. That one is a false.

Number 23, Ben Lindbergh, 41%. The Four Jacksons, Holiday, Job, Churio, and Merrill will produce more FanGraphs War 23 Ben Lindbergh 41 percent the four Jackson's Holiday job Churio and Merrill will produce more fan crafts war than the four jacked sons yandi Diaz Tyler O'Neill Adalus Garcia and Michael Lorenzen your final tally for the jacked sons Yandi Diaz 1.9 Tyler O'Neill 2.5 Ad Adalus Garcia negative 0.2, Michael Lorenzen 0.7 for a total of 4.9. And your Jacksons, Jackson Holliday, zero. Jackson Job, zero. But Jackson Churio 3.9, Jackson Merrill 5.3

for a total of 9.2 points on the board for you. 59 points. At a boys. Yeah. I'd like to apologize to John Carlos Stanton for not including him as one of the jacksons because, because at the time he had slimmed down in spring training and he was, he was looking lithe compared to his usual self. And I think the idea was, you know,

a little strain strain off the legs, right? A little smaller frame, but he still looked pretty massive by the end of the season. So he should have been a jacked son. Well, very cleverly did not include Aaron Judge, which really would have blown this off. I was gonna say, I actually, Ben, think that you were observing a correct category distinction

between Stanton and the guys you're describing. Because it's not just the jackedness, it's also like he's taller than Tyler O'Neill. I think Tyler O'Neill has about as many muscles as Stanton. They're just all squished onto his arms. Yeah, it's not as proportionally distributed. Right, yes. Yes, and Yandy to a certain extent too,

although not as dramatically as O'Neil. So I think you were actually correctly categorizing the various physiques involved here. That's true. I don't think you owe an apology. You were just viewing him as being in a separate, he's like more akin to Judge and like Joey Gallo than he is. Yeah, because Judge and Stanton are known for being giants. And yes,

jacked giants also, but particularly that they're just so big. Agreed. Whereas, yeah, I was going for guys who are known for their muscularity more so than their- They look like running backs almost. Right. Well, I was going to say, yeah, the, the Jack's son or judging and Stanton look like not running backs, but like, like defensive ends. Yeah. And the guys that Ben's describing look like cops who have been on suspension for police brutality. Oh no. What a level against, well, you know, like Tyler's Canadian, Yandhi, it seems like a sweetheart.

Like, what are we doing? Do you want to sing a couple bars about Saquon, Bauman, or will that just derail us? No, we can move on. Okay, well. Just give me my points. Yep, 59 points for you. We now turn our attention to Michael Bauman for number 24.

41%, either Hagen Smith of Arkansas, Chase Burns of Wake Forest, or both will surpass the 15.3K through nine achieved by Paul Skeens in 2023. Hagen Smith finished with 17.3 over 84 innings pitch, Chase Burns finished with 17.2 over 100, and all further analysis and insight into this occurrence will need to be supplied by Michael Bauman. Well, these were the first two pitchers drafted in the draft. So I was going to say smarter people than me, but the White Sox picked Hagen Smith. So

they think these are really good pitchers and it's possible to really dominate in the college game. But that one was correct for you. You also earn 59 points. Sticking with Bauman for number 20. Wait, if we're gonna be incredibly pedantic. Yes, by all means. Well, it's not true. What do you mean? I mean, either implies not both.

No, it says or both. It does say in the text or both. An or both rescues it. All right. I take it back. Yep. Giant attempt. Piss off, Ben. Number 25, sticking with Bauman, 42%.

Spencer Strider will strike out at least 300 batters. If there is any satisfaction. Just short. Yeah, if there's any satisfaction to be derived from this whole exercise beyond the game itself, on my part, it's that I inadvertently sent Bauman on a spiritual journey to figure out if a pitcher could strike out 300 batters in a single game.

That's true. Yeah, this did result in probably half of the good interviews I did this season. Yeah. And a really good piece. Yeah. I got to talk to Dave Jouse. Yeah, for those who haven't read, I will link to it.

But yeah, you bugged a bunch of pitchers to ask if, cause time was running out on your prediction and you were hoping that Strider could come back and what, pitch one game or something and strike out 300. One 100 in game and recording. Yes, and you actually asked a bunch of pitchers whether that was possible. And mostly they said no, I guess, but they entertained the idea.

Yeah. I got messaged by a bunch of people being like, you're in fan graphs. I'm like, what? Because I got name checked in the article and many of the readers and commenters called this one an Alzheimer's. So great job. Yeah. It shows how much we care about these bold predictions

that it kind of put you on tilt. I'll do whatever it takes to keep them alive to the end. Moving on, number 26, Ben Clemens, 44%. Jacob DeGrom will finish with a higher fan graphs war than Lance Lin. Ooh, I actually don't know who won this one. So to recap, in 2023, this group's inaugural pick was Michael Bauman predicting that Lin would finish

with a higher war than de Grom on the basis that de Grom would end up missing time. And he did, but his 1.4 fan graphs war was still enough to come out on top. This year, Clemens built on top of Bauman's riff and made the opposite prediction. Lin only produced 1.3 fan graphs war, which was definitely a bar low enough

for a partial season to clear. But sadly for you, de Grom's timetable kept getting pushed back, kept getting delayed. The number of projected starts shrunk from, I think it was at nine at one point during the season, and it dropped all the way down to the three that he actually made. He finished with 0.4 fan graphs war,

so this one sadly is a false. Can I have the points that Ben lost since he made this prediction specifically to hurt my feelings? Yeah. Yeah. No, no, I don't know. Okay, well, nothing venture, nothing gain.

Yeah. Number 27, Ben Clemens, 44%. No player will reach eight fan graphs war, and I wish to quote you. I don't have to phrase it awkwardly this year to make sure Otani breaks it by virtue of being two-way Otani. Well, insert meme of Otani being pasted over Michael Jordan's face and saying, and I took that personally.

Yeah, this was not the year to make this prediction. He did it fair and square. He did. He recorded 9.1, FanGraphs War as a designated hitter, which would have been the greatest season ever by a DH affair and judge. Also hadn't come along and put up 11.2. And they were also joined for the purposes of this prediction by Bobby Witt Jr., Juan Soto, and Gunnar Henderson. So that one's a false.

Yeah, that's a lot of eight-war guys for one year. Number 28, Michael Bauman. 46%. The Atlanta Braves will win at least 49 more games than the Chicago Whites. So, let's paint the picture for everybody. Final day of the regular season. All of baseball tuning in to watch the Braves and Mets play a double header that would determine

whether either or both of these teams would play October baseball. However- Except us, because we were recording a pod about the Whites. Yeah, we were recording a podcast, Ben. But few of those observing these contests knew that the stakes were much higher

than simply a post-season birth because the White Sox found whatever willpower was left in the tank to pull out of their nosedive and they won five of their last six games, meaning that in order for this prediction to come to pass, Atlanta needed to sweep the double header. It was that close. Famously though, they split,

sending both of them into the postseason, leaving the Braves 48 games ahead of the White Sox. This is not the one that I'm most surprised to have gotten wrong, but it is the one that hurts the most. Yeah. Yeah. That's a heartbreaker.

Photo finish. Wow. Oof. Number 29, Meg Rowley, 47%. At least one position player drafted in July will play in the 2024 regular season or post-season. There were actually a couple prospects that I was keeping a rather close eye on

through August and September. Did they all play for the Angels? One of them did. They felt like they were on track. The most anticipated was Angels second baseman, Christian Moore. The year after the Angels had made Nolan Chanwell the quickest debut for a position,

which is the inspiration for your pick, I believe. Moore was drafted eighth overall, played exactly two games in single A. Over those two games, he had 12 plate appearances and recorded a slash line of 545, 583, one, and a 306 WRC plus, at which point the Angels said, you know, I think he's ready for a promotion. Over 25 games in double A, still over a 900 OPS.

Angels are a team known for being aggressive with their promotions. There was actually buzz about if this would happen. The ingredients were all there. And then Moore injured his leg, and that ended his season. So... That one was a false. Sticking with Meg for number 30.

50%. Shota Imanaga will finish with a higher fan-graphs war than Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Points for Meg. Yeah. Imanaga recorded three fan graphs war, just barely surpassing Yamamoto's 2.8. The difference maker being that Imanaga pitched

nearly double the innings of Yamamoto. This actually kind of sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole in terms of my stats comprehension because at first blush these players had similar ERA, similar K rate, similar walk rates. Why are their war values so similar when one player is logged far more time? And the answer is that Yamamoto's FIP was 2.61 compared to Imanaga's 3.72. So 50 points for Meg. Thank you.

Nice. Yeah, that one came down to the wire. Yeah. It did, yeah, I barely, it was a squeaker. Yep. Number 31, Ben Lindbergh. And I should note we're on question 31, so now we are now into the questions

where the audience graded them as more likely than not. 51%, the average age of MLB batters weighted by plate appearances will be lower than in any season since the 1970s. So the target for this was to surpass 2019, which had an average age of 27.91 years. So back in June, I checked in on this and it was 28.1, which for the numbers that we've seen so far is actually a pretty sizable margin.

And Ben, you and I had talked and agreed this was likely not happening. However, it did drop. And by the end of the year, it had dipped below 28 and it got all the way down to 27.94. Oh, so close. You needed 27.90. This one is false, I am sorry to say.

Man, it wasn't even Joey Vado's fault. He wasn't coming up and dragging up the average. Just needed a few more young guys. I was so close. Oh well. Number 32, Michael Bauman, 51%. There will be at least one ejection in the Super Regional Round of the NCAA tournament, but none in the College World Series. This one came to pass exactly as described with a sequence

that I think Bauman can confirm falls under the category of only in college baseball between Clemson and Florida. I do want to note on a kind of serious note, only because I can see someone bringing it up as a possible omission, there was technically an ejection during the College World Series that was actually newsworthy, but no players or coaches were ejected, and the context was so reprehensible and disgusting that there's zero entertainment value

to act like it deserves being factored into this. So, yes, I do know about it, and no, I am not counting it. Bauman, you get 49 points for this. Thank you. Was somebody gross to a player or something? Yes, it was someone in the stands and they did get ejected by the umpires, I believe.

We talked about this when it happened when I was out there for the combine, the A&M fans. Yeah. Number 33, Ben Clemens, 52%. The Seattle Mariners will not be no hit or one hit in a game in 2024. At the end of 2024, the Mariners finished with the second lowest total hits

in Major League Baseball with 1,195, only eight more than the team in last. I'm sure people can guess who that was. They compensated for that statistic by being fourth in walks, but obviously that does not protect them from this prediction's outcome. It happened exactly once. Yeah, it was pretty close.

On August 18th against the Tigers. So this one is also a false. I feel less bad when I'm close on one of these, even if I ultimately don't get the points. If I'm directionally right. Spiritually right. It feels like like, yeah. It feels like I was onto something as opposed to on something,

then I feel good about it, even if I lost. Could not agree more. Number 34, Ben Lindbergh, 53%. The per team stolen base total will be the highest since the eighties. In 2023, there were 3,503 stolen bases for a per team average of 117. Ben's prediction was that it would increase at least 8%,

surpassing 1990s team average of 127. It did go up, but it only got halfway there. It only went up by 4% and finished at 121. Well, as I was just saying, I feel good about the fact that it went up because there was some dispute about whether it would go up, whether there would be more stolen bases and I thought there would. And then early in the season, it looked like there wouldn't and then ultimately there were just not quite enough for this to come true. We now enter the final six predictions, four of which are Baumans. We start with 54%.

Bauman, the Oakland A's will draw fewer fans to games than the capacity of the Savannah Bananas cruise, 2,402, at least 10 times. So before I say whether this prediction was correct or not, I'm gonna throw it out to all the contestants. How many times do you think the A's attendance was actually that low that it would count towards this? I don't even know how to think about it.

I have no idea. The answer. Zero! Zero, the answer is zero. Zero times? Zero times. The closest they came was a game in early May on a Monday night.

The official attendance was 2,895. But in the end, I think it was just the fact that it was theoretically the last season in Oakland. That was enough for people to come out to the ballpark just to get that last opportunity to see the team before John Fisher pulled up stakes and took his carnival abhorrence to Vegas with a quick pit stop in Sacramento with quick being defined as anywhere from three to an infinite number of years. Yeah, I was gonna say it quick is doing something. We'll get back to you on whether it ends up being quick.

Yeah. I'm happy to get this one wrong. It seemed like everybody got a lot of them last season. Yeah, agreed. Number 36, Ben Lindbergh, 56%. At least one of the Giants free agent additions from the 2023-24 offseason will have a higher fan graphs war than Shohei Otani or Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

So we've already had to discuss the respective fan graphs wars of Otani and Yamamoto. So if you've been taking notes for the quiz after the podcast, yes, there's a quiz, but it's open note, I'm tough, but fair. You will note that the target for the Gi after the podcast. Yes, there's a quiz, but it's open note. I'm tough, but fair. You will note that the target for the Giants free agents is to surpass Yamamoto's 2.8 fan graphs war. Now the way that Ben wrote this prediction, he got eight shots at this.

Nick Ahmed, Matt Chapman, Jordan Hicks, Jung-Hoo Lee, Jorge Soler, Blake Snell, and Austin Warren. Only needed one, you got two. Chapman finished with 5.4, Blake Snell finished Austin Warren. Only needed one, you got two. Chapman finished with 5.4, Blake Snell finished with 3.1. You score 44 points. All right. Yes. See that Giants?

Don't feel so bad about missing out on your top free agent targets. Yeah. Chapman was great. I hope Zhang Meoli is healthy next year. Yeah. Michael Bauman, 37. 58%.

At least one active MLB player will issue an apology in a press release for comments made on social media about the 2024 election or issues related thereto. I thought this was free money. I thought the listeners would vote this as 100% likely to happen. Me too. Yeah.

And I know a couple people who are friends of mine that they said that this was the one that they moved the slider all the way to the right. And they're like, this is 100%. In many respects, the slider's been moved all the way to the right. Yeah, I was about to say, directionally, it seems quite right. The problem with this prediction is that there's a kind of personality in baseball that's necessary to achieve the first half of this prediction, and it so rarely is paired with the kind of introspection and empathy required for the second half.

So we are still left wanting with this, so this one's false. Yeah, there's no need to apologize anymore. You can just say stuff. We now come to the prediction I have been dreading having to recite since I originally heard it. Michael Bauman, 66%. Again, shocked I didn't get this one. There will be a viral or semi-viral moment involving a screenshot of a player's nipples, gooch, and or butthole or the outline of his penis and or testicles being visible through their uniform during a broadcast.

Hi, mom. Hi, dad. I hope you're proud of me. Okay, so there's a story to this. You put someone else in charge of judging this. He was not necessary. He was not necessary, but at one point during the World Series, I DMed him because someone had sent me a screenshot of Shohei Otani putting on his World Series shirt and his nipple was quite visible through the undershirt and a couple people had screenshotted it. So I, wanting to be thorough, sent it to Stephen and just sent it to him and said, nipple alert, and then realized...

With no context? No context. Oh man. And I'm like. You've told a couple stories in this episode that the CIA could not have waterboarded out of me. So then I immediately followed up with, I really hope that you remember why I would be sending this to you.

And he's like, nope, but this is pretty tame. Was this batting around co-assessment? Yeah. Yeah, that's probably not in the 50 most outrageous DMs he gets. Yeah. In that. So then I quickly followed up with explaining why I was saying, he was like, oh, right. Yeah. No. Okay. And he's like, no, this doesn't count.

So yes, he waited and he deemed this prediction false. I am sorry to say. Yeah. Was it Riley Green who had a couple pants ripping? Yeah, there was slides early in the season. Those pants were defective. They ripped clean off him almost. And if Riley Green had been wearing the Borat bikini

and not traditional sliding shoes, we would have been in business. Why would he have been doing that? I don't know, why did baseball players do anything? Instead the pro athlete whose butt I've seen in totality this year is Derek Henrys, who would have thought that was true? And Mike Tyson's.

Oh, yeah, that's true. I wasn't on the stream by that point. I have seen it in screenshots, but that feels like it doesn't count. So the nipple didn't count because it was just an imprint, a nipple. Well, it didn't go viral. Oh, it didn't go viral. Bauman, did you make this prediction after the spring training? The Casey Schmidt picture?

I was going to obscure the name of the individual involved, but yeah. I mean, there was that one. There was also the Padres where we had just like, excuse me to any parents of children listening who don't want this expression floating around your house. But we had like a full dig and balls from the back. The full mushroom mountain. Yeah. Wow. So. Wow.

There's so much work. Wasn't that one from a previous season? Didn't it turn out that that was not from this year? Anyway, that might've been true if it had been a prior year. If you had bet on someone to go viral for that, it would have been Otani, but I guess just the, the male nipple does not suffice. No, perhaps. I think Otani's wearing like temple

undergarments. I think he's very modest. Like you need somebody who's going to dress in such a way that there is a risk of hanging brain during a game. And Otani is definitely not that. Wow, you have so many of these. Can I offer a holiday nipple related cul-de-sac rest to drive down briefly. Has anyone on the pod yet watched the Netflix Hollywood movie Hot Frosty? No, I have not. Okay. Can I just say it's delightful. There's like this whole hallmark Netflix bad Christmas movie universe, right? The Netflix bad Christmas movie universe

is very often trying to establish an extended universe, right? So there is reference to fictional European countries that have appeared in other Netflix bad Hollywood movies that is in this Netflix bad Hollywood movie, but it might've been selected as a like, hey, let's put this on and make fun of it. And then it was too charming. It was just too charming and delightful. And anyway, the basic premise of hot frosty is that there is a snowman as part of a snow shaving contest, sculpting contest.

There's some contest anyway, they're making snowmen and somebody makes a hot snowman as part of a snow shaving contest, sculpting contest. There's some contest anyway, they're making snowmen and somebody makes a hot snowman and then he is brought to life, hence hot frosty. And when he was a snowman, I remarked, wow, really prominent nipples on hot frosty. Like, what are we, why? But then, you know, the snowman comes to life via magic. And then there is the actor and

I was like, oh, they were just like, he has prominent nipples. So anyway, someone can observe that and have a great time. What did Parson Brown think of all this? I don't know, but if you are looking for a fun holiday time, I'm making it sound like it's sort of like untoward and might feature euphemisms that Bauman is introducing us all to, but it's family-friendly and it's delightful and you should watch it if you like bad slash good Christmas movies. So that's my recommendation for everyone. Jared Siffman That I can only imagine were first published

as spec scripts on AO3. Oh, almost certainly. Lacey Chabert is the lead lady in it, and I don't know what the dude's been in, but now I know a lot about his nipples. Well, I've learned so much on this podcast. I've got that tension. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I am worried about topping that next season. Number thirty nine, Michael Bowman, seventy one percent.

Shohei Otani will steal more bases than the total number of games that he has suspended, if at all, plus the number of open media sessions he attends during the season. OK, let's get into this. First and foremost, Mr. Michael Bowman, the person for whom I hold a great deal of respect and admiration as a writer, podcaster, and political agitator. F*** you too.

Whoa. He said, he said f*** you to me for making this program. Because Chris made me do homework. I sent you a Google doc that I was excited about the night before to make sure that you had the rules in front of you. And this was my, this was the first idea. Let's get back to the... Fast forward to the point where I win this one. that you had the rules in front of you. And this was my, this was the first idea. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's get back to the- Yeah, yeah.

So- Fast forward to the point where I win this one. Yeah. So I had to try and track down evidence of every open media session that Otani held this year. And really, admittedly, at first, I wasn't too worried about it because Otani was exonerated rather quickly. He was starting to do a lot more media

and in my mind he was gonna easily just clear a stolen base count. Only Otani decided, apparently on a whim, to just make stolen bases his purpose in life. So this is the brilliant thing about this prediction. And I'm not saying necessarily that Bellman thought of this, but in order for this prediction to be marked false, I have to continue trying to track down more media sessions

and no matter who wins, I lose. So I do wanna say- You can just assume he didn't do them. I did have help. Love Otani, but just assume he didn't. I did have help. I specifically wanna thank Peter Labuza, who's a contributor to Twins Daily.

So very frequently had a DM sent my way. The biggest resources for this is there's a couple of YouTube accounts that just basically make a business about just recording every single open media session. And every time Otani did one, he was in the thumbnail. The ShowBae Twitter account was a huge help for this, as you might expect. At the end of the regular season,

I had managed to find 37 open media sessions, not counting, I did not count the separate Japanese media scrums as separate entries, both because that would be kind of evil, but also it's just much harder to track if and when they happen. There was much less coverage of those, so I couldn't be sure that he was always doing

a separate Japanese media session immediately after the English one. I have not been able to locate any more. 37 open media sessions is less than the 50 some stolen bases he had. Michael Bauman, take your 29 f**king points. Yeah. Whoa.

Oh, he was in Schitt's Creek, the hot frosty. He was in Schitt's Creek, the hot frosty. He was in Schitt's Creek. Yeah, let's go easy with making Chris monitor things next year if we can, hopefully. I made a joke at the- He loves it. Yeah, I made a joke during the recording last year.

I was like, I watched this season in a totally different way because of this game. That was true again this year for totally different reasons and methodology. Yeah. Our final pick, which is also kind of a Bauman pick, but Ben Clemens, 81%, the top pick of the 2024 amateur draft will not be Dubbleed, Michael Massey, Ethan Petrie, or Merrick Houston, and it wasn't. Congratulations. You earn 19 points for you. That brings us to the end. So let's first, before we reveal our winners, let's talk about some listener scores. I want to give special dispensation because of the fact that we did zero to 100.

I am giving out the John Q. Public Award for the person whose predictions matched the public consensus the most. And there were two names that we recognize in the top 10. Kyle Kishimoto came in fifth place in this. And Zach Cram came in 13th. Wow, all right. Hey Zach. Fan graphs and ringer alums or current writers. Yeah, how about that?

But Andrew Hawes, Andrew Hawes, if you count the number of points that they were away, he only averaged like, it was 317 points total which comes down to less than 10 points divergence from than the public consensus across the board, which is actually really remarkable. So great job, Andrew. You have your thumb on the pulse of America.

But our listener leaderboard, our top 10, Matthew Krueger, 447, Alex Elmore, 449, Seth Harrison, 451. Tex Paisley, 456. Ryan Westhoff, who won last year, 460 points in sixth place. That is amazing to me. Josh Oder, 463.

Brian Cronin, 465. Mike, just Mike 471, Steve Smeaton 475, and your winner, who we will be emailing to be able to get a free piece of Effectively Wild Swag, Andrew, last name withheld, 505 points, congratulations to you, you win swag. All right, congrats to Andrew. And now, to our scores.

In last place with three predictions correct, last place Michael Bauman, negative 185 points. Wrong. In third place with two predictions correct. Everyone got multiple predictions correct this year. I do wanna give that shout out. And you also collectively got the same number of predictions correct as last year with 10.

In third place with two predictions correct, Ben Clemens with negative 172. In second place. Oh, the suspense. With two predictions correct, Meg Rowley, negative 94 points, and your winner with three predictions correct, negative 59 points,

Ben Lindbergh is your winner of the 2024 Pretty Susan Predictions game. A clean sweep for Lindy. You're gonna be insufferable. Running the table. Ugh. Wins upon wins upon wins. So I would have been close.

Add a hundred points to my score. Well, this is the thing, Ben, if O'Neill Cruz had earned a single MVP vote, then the Patrick Bailey vote would have made the difference. Okay, well, I'm relieved vote would have made the difference. Okay. Well, I'm relieved that that wasn't the case. So congratulations to Ben Lindbergh. And that puts a bow on the 2024 preseason predictions game. Thank you for tracking all of that. Yes. Thank you so much for keeping track of all of this. I love this game. I look forward to playing once again.

I wanna also thank Dylan Pence, who is one of our contractors at Support Class, my graphics company who helped with the website for doing the forms. He's from New Zealand and I've been teaching him about baseball and it's been really great to watch him get to understand more of this stuff. I did a radio hit in New Zealand the other day. I don't do that much radio anymore, but someone

from New Zealand asked me to talk about baseball and I was like, well, I can't say no to that. How often do I get asked to talk about baseball in New Zealand? Any excuse to talk to someone with a New Zealand accent. Yeah, that too. Such a great accent. Yeah. But yes, thank you to everyone who submitted your forms. Again, like last year, there was some grousing

about the odds that we achieved. My idea for next year is that people have a finite number of points to spend across all 40 predictions. And they can pick one that they're like, this is absolute certainty 100 and it won't count against their quantity. I think that that would probably result

in more satisfying numbers, but this is all in the spirit of entertainment. And also, as I said before, where there's probably a lot of web developers, I'm sure that there's gotta be a few stats people who would be interested in discussing a better methodology. This year we used Brier scoring or Breer scoring. I have seen it pronounced both ways in pretty official places, so I'm not sure which one it is. But the way that it worked was that if you were to go zero or 100 all the way, you would gain 25 points but lose 75. So you were very penalized for going the wrong

way. And that seemed to help a little bit rather than just using a binary yes or no. But I do want to experiment again for next year. Yeah. Wasn't there also something about, people said like the thingy that you were supposed to drag one way or another, like it was maybe people were anchored to where it was by default or something. That sounds like it's on them. Ben's like skill. Skill issue. I mean.

Because we're doing point rounding, there wasn't enough, there wasn't much incentive to go all the way to zero because it only, one, you could go all the way up to like 9% and you'd still be at 24 points kind of thing. Like we would want to experiment with that a little bit more. But in the end, this is all for fun. And this was, you know, entertaining as hell. So we'll mess around with it for next year for sure.

Well, thank you very much to everyone for participating. Thank you to Chris for keeping score. Congrats on your entrance to the Five Timers Club. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yay! This was lovely. Can't wait for next year.

Can I do a quick plug? Of course. If an indie baseball team, a college team needs some score bugs, please call Support Class, supportclass.net. I was on the podcast to talk about score bugs a couple of years ago and that is how we apply and make a living. So if you'd like to see this mad cap chicanery applied to your baseball organization at some kind,

please give us a call. We'd appreciate it. Yes, please. All right, that will do it for today. Thanks as always for listening. Thanks for playing. Everything's coming up Ben today. Ben Lindbergh that is.

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