Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2251: The Playoff Payoff

Episode Date: November 28, 2024

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about a Nolan Arenado rumor, then (5:15) answer listener emails about fandoms that are overrepresented in baseball media, Formula 1-style “pay players” in MLB, whether players should be paid overtime for the postseason, whether MLB will ever classify foreign leagues as “major,” a Disney Channel baseball scene, fan-elected baseball […]

A baseball podcast, analytics and stats, with Ben and Meg from Fangraphs. Effectively wild, effectively baseball podcast from Van Graaff's presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Rowley of Van Graaff's Hello, Meg. Hello. Usually more time has elapsed between when we say goodbye and when we say hello again, but not this time because we've got a compressed recording schedule this week. So we have essentially picked up where we left off, went and got some water. And that's about all that happens between episode 2250 and episode 2251.

So I ate an entire plate of pasta 2250 and episode 2251. So. I ate an entire plate of pasta actually. Oh wow, okay. You carbo loaded for this one, because we need it, because we're doing back to back pods, because how often does that happen? So usually a day or two, maybe more,

elapses between episodes. We learn things, news occurs, we have new banter to talk about. Now nothing at all has happened except that you just ate a plate of pasta and thus there's no new banter and thus we will proceed straight to emails, I suppose. So this is sort of a time dilation effect. I don't know whether someone who's listening to this, for all we know, hours, days, weeks, months, years went by between episodes 2250 and 2251 for them. And for us, it was mere moments.

It's some sort of interstellar situation. They're sitting there. Yeah, the tears are running down their faces and here we are. It's like not a moment has passed. So we're just rolling right into a second episode. So we'll see how that goes. Cause you were expressing some loopiness in the first one. This might be pushing things. Hopefully your COVID hasn't progressed too much while you were eating that pasta. The only thing that happened is that I went to MLB trade rumors to see if anything had happened and nothing had.

Except that I saw a new headline, which was a sad headline. And it says, Nolan Arnotto reportedly willing to move to first base. Oh, that is sad. It is, right? It cites a report by the excellent Katie Wu of The Athletic who reports that Arnado is willing to move to first base with a new team or to play third less often. And this is sad. It's a sign of the passage of time that Nolan Arnado, one of the wizards of third base, one of the masters of that domain, might consider moving from the hot corner to the cold corner. That just makes me feel old.

And I guess Arnado has been made to feel old by not playing quite like Piquenal and Arnado anymore. Though this seems sort of counterproductive to me because the issue with him hasn't been the third bass play, right? He hasn't perhaps been as superlative as he was over there for the longest time, but he still grades out as a significantly above average third baseman. It's the bat has flopped. He's basically been a league average hitter the last couple of seasons.

So moving to first base would not really rectify that problem, right? Having him at third being a plus glove over there, that makes him a valuable player at first base, if he's running a 102 WRC plus, well, that's nothing special at all. So I get why you would express willingness to do that, just to signal, Hey, trade for me. I'm willing to do whatever it takes and we can make this happen. But usually it's a player signaling their willingness to move to a position

where maybe they would be more valuable. I guess it's about just kind of fitting the roster needs. But, but if you had a first base hole, would you want to fill it with Nolan Arnato? That seems like sort of a waste of what he still does well. Yeah, it does seem like you're not making the most of his obvious talents. I mean, I suppose that it really depends on the team now, doesn't it? Maybe you're like, we like Nolan Aronado, but we have a third baseman.

But also like how many other basemen are there that are like better in the field than him? It's still, to your point, it's still, I mean, he's not a wizard anymore, but he's still a very good defender over there. So that seems odd. That's our reminder of mortality for today. Nolan Aronado's days at third base might be numbered,

though I think he would extend his days in the majors if he remains over there as opposed to hastening them by going to a less premium defensive position. But we will not move positions. We will continue to host this podcast and we will continue to answer emails that people send us with excellent questions that they direct our ways, including this one from Daniel, Patreon supporter, who actually I think intended this for a Patreon bonus pod and AMA episode, but I think we could answer it here. Daniel says, I feel like Mariners fans are overrepresented on the baseball internet. And I'd be curious to know if A, you all think that's true,

B, assuming that is true, is it just a function of Dave Cameron and Jeff Sullivan being really good, really early, or is there something unique about Mariner's fandom that causes this? And C, if it's not true, is there a different team that you think is overrepresented? So there definitely was a time when this seems true to me.

I do think that the team has produced a lot of notable baseball rating types over the years. I think it's disproportional in two ways. One, just like the size of the market share, which doesn't say that like Seattle and the Pacific Northwest more generally, right? Because it's not just Seattle, that's their territory quote unquote. You know, they're not the Dodgers in terms of the size of the media market. And they're also not the Dodgers in terms of having been really good. So in that respect, it's sort of surprising. I do think that having a couple of very good writers early on, you know, Dave and Jeff, we should remember Matthew Caruth. Like there was the whole bunch of folks out of Lookout.

Landon Stegg, USS Mariner. Yeah. Yeah. So like, you know, there were a lot of folks who found them fascinating. I think that one way to account for bad teams producing sort of a lot of baseball writing talent, I think it's a good, I've maybe talked about this on the show before, but I do think it's a good exercise as a writer to like have to find something interesting to say about a bad team. Yeah. Cause like when, you know, when your team is the Dodgers, like first of all, you got all these amazing guys to write about, you're successful, you're going into the postseason

a lot, you know, sure, maybe you're not winning the world series as often as you'd like, but you have big postseason moments. Like it's just, you know, it lends itself to writing. And I think that if you have to really grapple with a bad team and find something to say about them, that's a productive exercise. And I also think that it gives you, I'm sure there are exceptions to this and I don't think that you have to be a bad team to be a writer who can do this, but I do think that it gives

you a certain clarity in your writing. Because what would we have said about the 2015 Mariners that would make them sound better than they were? Impossible to do, Ben. Bad team, you know? Yeah. I remember in the Lookout Landing Slack that year, Colin O'Keefe, who used to write about the Mariners for Lookout Landing, would say in the Slack just once a day, like, I can't

believe they have to play baseball again today. Because they were going, they were going like perfectly 500 for a while, which was like an improvement, you know, they were like trading wins and losses. And it was just like, they were just treading water. They weren't, they weren't going anywhere, you know? And, and yet SB Nation expected us to produce like four blocks a day, you know?

Part of it was we couldn't believe that they had to, to play, but we also were kind of confounded by having to write about it. So it's a good exercise. And certainly not the only team that has inspired very good writing, but I do feel like they are overrepresented. And I would imagine that it functioned for other people the same way that it functioned for me, where it's like when that quality of writing feels like it's part of your orbit, even just as a fan, I think it inspires you to try it out yourself. I'm sure that there

are a fair number of people who Jeff and Dave inspired. Every time we do a job posting at Van Graff's, there's at least one Jeff imitator in the bunch, you know, there's just like a person who's trying to write like Jeff. Just like there's always someone trying to write like Sam. It's hard to do in both cases. Philly's blogosphere also very well represented at F. Hangros and elsewhere, you know, and they're not the only two teams, but those are the ones that come most immediately to mind for me.

I think the Royals also in my mind with Rananny Gisareli and some of the people in the local media, the then local media, now national media, Joe Pasnanski and Jeff Passan and people coming out of that area. And I do think, yes, sometimes it's just there's one particular person in the right place at the right time and then that person becomes influential and other people flock to their banner and they start a early influential site. And that's all it takes really. And then they can be overrepresented because then there are copycats and people who wrote for that particular site.

And that inspired others to write there. That inspires a Meg Rowley to write for Lookout Landing. So that could be all it is, but I do think it has something to do with the plight of the team. And there's just, this is kind of a commonality with the Royals at that time or with the Mariners at all times, not all times, but a lot of times when you're sort of this star cross team that hasn't won, you're constantly trying to process why that is and where you went wrong. And particularly if you're a team, and this has not always been the case of the Mariners, but the Royals certainly back then were just sort of backward and late adopters and old school.

And so that led to some frustration, I think, where people were trying to just kind of work out their feelings and emotions on the page, digitally or physically. And it's extra frustrating when your team stinks and also you feel like they don't know what they're doing and you're just trying to, it's like a creed of core. It's like, you know, this is where I would just get some guys who get on base. Like, it's not, you know. These are the basics, these are the

fundamentals and that just drives you to write. You have to put that out in the universe hoping they'll see it or that someone will and the situation will correct itself somehow. So I do think that frustration, it could drive you away, but I think for certain people, it ropes them in. It's just like, I gotta keep blogging until morale improves basically. So yeah, I think that has a lot to do with it. If things are going great, then what is there to write about? You know, it's just, yeah, we're the best team. And I grew up watching the Yankees who were the best team in a dynasty and everything.

And I don't know, I guess I ended up writing anyway, so maybe it's not one to one exactly. grew up watching the Yankees who were the best team in a dynasty and everything. What? I don't know. I guess I ended up writing anyway, so maybe it's not one-to-one exactly, but it's just everything is celebratory. Gosh, are rosters the best? Is this the best team ever? Are we going to win every year in perpetuity? It's just a little, not that I really believe in the tortured artist or tortured writer

idea, but you do need something other than, well, we won yesterday, we'll probably win today, we'll probably win tomorrow. Writing about a good team presents its own challenges, right? Because no team is perfect. And so finding clarity about what isn't working or putting into context what is working so that, you know, you're properly diagnosing, well, is this just a good team? Is it a very good team?

Is it a historically good team? Is it the best ever? Like, you know, especially when you are a fan and you're trying to answer that question can be very challenging, you know? So I don't want to discount that. And I think there are a lot of people who write about good teams, like who start sort of in that fan blog area and write about good teams and they find their way to be in really good writers. So there are a lot of ways to do it. But I think you're right that when you're

like, how, when you're trying to answer the question of like, how is this happening? Yeah. You know, you get in an inquisitive mode. I think that your team being a loser makes you curious in a way that winning a lot doesn't always do in the same way. And again, like there, I don't mean to paint with too broad a pressure, but sometimes when I wanna understand, like when the Seahawks were really good, I vacillated between two modes.

One was like, there was no piece of writing too detailed for me to read. I just wanted to consume all of it. But then there was also part of me that was like, if I look too closely at this thing, it's going to ruin it for me. And so maybe I just want to be, and now I'm like, I just want to be dumb about this. I mean, I don't, I want to understand how football works and I enjoy that piece of it, but like it's a different project, you know, then, then my job is thankfully I made good thing. And if your team is incompetent or is perceived to be so, then you can offer

advice and you could delude yourself into thinking that maybe that advice would be taken and maybe it's not even a delusion. Maybe it'll happen once in a while. Remember the instance where Dave Cameron wrote an open letter. This was in 2007 on USS Mariner. He wrote an open letter to then Mariners pitching coach, Rafael Chavez about Felix being too predictable with his pitch mix early on.

And then it turned into this whole saga where Felix ended up reading it because I think someone handed it to the pitching coach and then he shared it with Felix and he gave him a copy to read. And evidently the pitching coach, I think had already been trying to hammer this home with Felix. And so the blog posts was just, it was corroboration. It was, hey, this guy on the internet is saying the same thing, but you could at least tell yourself, hey, I might know something they don't. Maybe they'll listen to me or maybe someone will. And so I will send this out into the universe in the hopes that it will help.

Whereas if your team is run really well, then you're just thinking, well, what do I have to offer? They know more than I do. They have better access to information. If you're a Dodgers fan these days, are you really thinking, I know better than the Dodgers do. They'd just let me run this team. If they'd put me in charge, I could finally right the ship here. How much better could it go realistically?

That would be kind of silly of you to think. Depends on the era too, right? Like being able to, as a public side analyst say like, well, I know how this works is different in 2008 than it is in 2024. I sometimes envy writers and analysts who cover other sports who are still sort of navigating their analytics revolution. Like, oh, you get to like, what's your version of on base percentage? Like, cool, good for you. It's like, oh yeah, we should pass more and maybe run a little less. Yeah. Well, now Dave Cameron just works for the Mariners so he doesn't have to write open letters on his blog, presumably, hopefully. But anytime you want to, Dave, you let me know.

Here's a question from Nate who says, I wanted to share a potential banter topic inspired by formula one racing that I'm curious if you would find interesting. Now I know sometimes you, you feel put upon that you need to know so much about Formula One, but in this case- I don't feel put upon because I've not learned even one thing about it. So I feel fine. Well, you're about to if you open your mind because Nate is going to school us here. I've been thinking lately about how in F1, some drivers secure their spots on teams, not purely because of skill, but because they bring significant sponsorship money with them.

These sponsorships can improve the team's resources, even if the driver isn't among the best on the grid. Some drivers are the only drivers representing an entire country or continent, so their presence on the grid opens up huge fanbases and corporate sponsors trying to reach those fan bases. To be clear, these drivers do have to be good enough to acquire a super license. It's very funny that it is called a super license. I don't even have a regular license, a super license. The average Joe cannot touch a formula one car.

You have to know what you're doing, but some drivers are better than others. And some super licensed drivers keep getting opportunities because of their connection to big sponsor dollars slash euros slash pesos slash pounds slash yen slash yuan. For instance, Red Bull's Sergio Perez has really struggled for a couple of years, but many wonder if he's kept his seat because of the way fans in Mexico adore him and have no other representation on the grid so his presence opens up interest from fans and therefore companies in Mexico to get behind Red Bull. Pundits openly talk about how Red Bull would never let him go before the Mexico Grand Prix, suggesting a

real tie in between a driver's popularity and revenue. This is so openly discussed in F1 that there's a term for it, pay drivers. I'm curious what you think would happen if MLB had a similar dynamic. What do you think it would look like if players could bring personal sponsorships to their teams or even have a designated sleeve where they could advertise corporate sponsors who are behind not the entire team but just that player? Which players would thrive in the system? Could someone like Shohei Otani effectively pay for an entire team's roster upgrades? Would charismatic players like Jazz Chisholm or Mookie Betts bring in deals that overshadow

their already impressive talent? Would we talk less about who is on the MLB the Show cover and more about whose sleeve MLB the Show advertises on? How might this change team construction? Would marginal talents with niche appeal get roster spots over more skilled players with less marketability? What replacement level players would get more run because of their popularity at home? Would eTro still be an MLB? Would players choose teams based purely on sponsorship opportunities? Would free agents find themselves more or less free to go wherever they want because sponsors would go with them? Would managers get hired based on their commercial appeal?

They do get lots of screen time. I can now easily spot Dave Roberts or Aaron Boone in public. How crappy could a manager be if they were also bringing in truckloads of endorsements and would catchers suddenly become more valuable since they also get so much screen time and could theoretically help the team pay for a better pitching staff or other good players. So I guess this is a case of a very thorough explanation and then also consideration of some of the factors. So you've anticipated maybe some of the things we would have said, or maybe

I'm giving us too much credit to suggest that we would have gotten there, but this is a fun question and my mind did immediately go toward Otani because he is the best comp, he is a singular personality in the sport in terms of his ability to generate attention and revenue for himself and also for the team. And that certainly did govern the shape of his contract. I mean, the deferred money that he was willing to stomach, and then maybe also the money that the Dodgers were willing to invest knowing that they might reap the rewards overseas. STACEY That's all true, but in some ways it sounds

like yes, he is the perfect comp, but in other ways he's not because part of why it all works is that he's also the best player in baseball. And so, and I think that there would absolutely be room for players who, you know, either because like the kind of athlete they are, like maybe they're, you know, I think average fans really like big home run boppers. Maybe there's more sponsorship revenue opportunity there or because they do like come from a particularly baseball obsessed region of the world. You know, I can think of all kinds or they're like super charming or really handsome or

you know, whatever. Like I can imagine a lot of non-play related things that would make a player really popular and bring in money over and above whatever their skill is. And I do think them being good really does matter a lot. I think part of that, and here's where I'm gonna betray some of my ignorance of F1, you know, I don't mean to say that the sponsorship stuff wouldn't matter in MLB, but you also care about like how good the team is and the gate. And I would imagine that that I don't know how that compares to Formula One, like in terms of, of revenue. Like do they, do you make a lot of money in F1 on attendance? Like I know you have to,

like people have to pay to go and I imagine that those tickets are fairly expensive, but I don't know how that factors. So, and I think people are more likely to go if the team is good, although obviously there are exceptions to that too, because you know, the Rockies draw really well and they are often not very good. There definitely would be opportunities to bring guys in. Part of it though is like your roster spots are so precious. So there would be a limit to how many of those guys

you could have and how bad they could be, you know, because you still have to field a competitive roster. Also, I wonder about the, I do wonder about the catcher thing because you're right, like they're on the field all the time and you do have that shot right down Main Street, but they're masked. You know, we don't see their faces. Like, does that matter? I don't know. That it's a really interesting question. I feel like, um, what do they call it? A super license? Super license. Yeah. Super license. Maybe I like F1 after all. Super license. I would not be worthy of a super license.

And I know how to drive. So it's good that they have... I'm a very average driver. So it's good that they have a special license. Because yeah, you'd have to... Plus they're so expensive. Those cars are like millions of dollars. Yeah, I think there are aspects of this that are the case. I think teams do consider whether someone will be a draw if you have two players who are equally skilled, but one is just more charismatic or more famous, or you think will sell more tickets when you sign them.

Granted, they might cost more to sign in that case, but you might be more interested in generating that excitement. So that exists to some extent. And Otani, yes, he's the outlier in every respect. He's an outlier both in his popular appeal and his global appeal and also in his skill. So as you said, that's a, an important difference here. I guess I'm glad that you can't essentially have, what is it? Pay drivers, payola basically, because that could only lower the caliber of competition. If there were, there were sort of a pay to play situation in MLB.

And there were people who were on the field and getting significant playing time, not because they were the best player for that spot, but because they generated more revenue, well then the baseball would be a little worse. I don't know if it would be so much worse, so degraded that we would notice the difference, but that wouldn't be good, right? We want the best players to play. You've celebrated that aspect of the sport on our previous pods that for some people they listened to a long time ago and for

us was mere minutes ago. But I guess I'm glad that this is not really a thing so much that it's going to govern playing time, but it certainly does affect players' personal fortunes and endorsement opportunities. And if it is a case of someone who's going to unlock an entire international market, then that's something that's going to make a team pay attention to also. Yeah. And I do wonder, and again, this is going to betray my ignorance of the sport. My sense is that Formula One,

it's been around for a long time, but that there was an elevation of its profile around the pandemic when people started watching that Netflix show. And I'm sure there was other stuff too, but people really liked that. Yeah, it was broadcast also, the races in a way that I think made it more accessible.

Oh, had they not been broadcast before? I think it was more broadly available. I see. Okay. But that helps. It certainly helps. Yeah, the combination of that, probably more that, and then a little bit the Netflix show, you know, it really took off.

And I wonder if part of what would kind of limit this in major league baseball is that like, you know, it's not that there aren't markets that base that major league baseball specifically is trying to branch out into or like areas that they're trying to cultivate, but it is a mature sport and a mature sport across the world. You know what I mean? Like, but who knows? Like maybe, maybe they'd be like, Oh, this, this guy is only medium good, but he's going to unlock all of Europe for us. Well then that guy. That's, you know.

Or you had a Yao Ming level baseball player who's suddenly like, we're going to be bigger in China than, you know, would that be a big deal for the league? Certainly. Yes. For an individual team, maybe. Would that be a big deal for the league? Certainly yes. For an individual team, maybe. Would it get to the point where you'd play that person? And maybe someone's not, I guess that's the part that's kind of curious. Like if this person isn't actually that good, I guess maybe it surprises me somewhat that they would be so beloved.

I certainly understand the power of representation and rooting for the hometown person. But if that person is consistently struggling, then that seems like it would be a little less fun. If it's just like a mascot situation, if it just does, we like rooting for this guy because he's where we're from, but also he just constantly loses. It doesn't seem like it would be all that uplifting after a while. Right. You would think maybe not, you know, maybe not. I guess we've kind of covered it or maybe it was kind of covered in the question itself, but I don't think it would. It is a fun question. I always like a question that asks us to consider the way something works in another sport that is different from baseball and how different would baseball be if it worked that way?

I especially like it when it's a sport that I don't know anything about. Here's sort of a related question from Jonathan who says, I was glad to hear a reputable source. I think Jonathan's referring to us here. Actually, John is how the email is signed from Oak Island, North Carolina, long suffering brewers fan. But John says, I was glad to hear a reputable source discuss the compensation that professional athletes make when they are part of postseason tournaments. Since this can often be the key to understanding some players preference not to participate in such overtime work and their performance often shows it. The poster child for this way of operating is James Harden in the NBA, though I imagine they're analogous cases in all the major sports, including MLB.

The issue is easy to understand but goes against the meta-narrative about championships foisted upon us by the media, by ownership, who stand to make a lot of money during a postseason run. We all know why ownership wants postseason play, but apparently all pro athletes are obliged to care about rings. Why? Here's the problem with this. As with any other career that one does for financial compensation, the postseason is merely, let's call it, overtime. It is beyond the scope of normal compensation, except in pro sports, this overtime works exactly the opposite of how overtime works for most people. Normally, overtime pay is some multiple of their regular earnings. Imagine if we said to the grocery clerk, can you work some overtime this week on account of Thanksgiving

rush? And oh, by the way, instead of making making your normal wage that wage will be cut by 75 percent. No, but surely that's an exaggeration. Pro champs must make many many times their normal compensation to work often months past the regular season in service of their owners. Here are the numbers more or less and there are some variations in the reporting on this but the differences are nothing substantial in my opinion and he he links to a sporting news piece, which I will link to about how much players make for winning championships. So in the NBA, a championship roster divides between six and eight million and splits are not necessarily even. Regardless in the NBA, there are 15 players and a mess of coaches and trainers, et cetera. So the compensation for winning a ring is essentially peanuts relative to the overall compensation schedule for NBA players, which is pretty lucrative. And MLB thematically mirrors

this. The bare minimum for an NBA player with zero years experience is around 1.2 million. The big money is reserved for the stars. So let's take our example of Harden. How much does he make for the 2024 regular season? 33.6 million. Let's divide that by the 82 games he's contracted to play during the regular season. That's over 400,000 per game. James isn't even gonna earn a game check for the entire playoffs, including winning that precious ring.

Just look at Harden's numbers in the postseason, dreadful, and he gets a lot of grief about it. I don't wanna impugn Harden if there are other reasons why he struggles in the postseason, but if this is part of the narrative about him. Can I just say, sorry, can I just quickly say about James Harden? He looks really good right now. Like, I mean, like he looks like physically the best that I've seen him in a while.

I've been watching more NBA and I was like James Harden, look at you. It's not the postseason yet. So maybe that's why, but the reality is, John says that if we want pro athletes to perform their profession at the highest level possible in the postseason, when supposedly it matters most, then all things considered the revenue generated, the broadcasters making bank, the fans more invested than ever. Shouldn't the actual people doing the work make many multiples more, not less for their postseason overtime work?

A further point is the question about what a championship really is in the NBA and MLB, the regular seasons are long and difficult after all these games, a ring is won if a team manages to win a brief tournament that obviously doesn't determine which team is the best team. So since champions is sort of a construct designed by ownership and vast institutions with much to gain for the sake of their own compensation, if we want the actual workers to partake of this fantasy, shouldn't they get paid accordingly? So I think, yeah, I know John had a lot to say on the subject, but I think it's an interesting

question. So the most recent MLB postseason pool, which was just announced this week, the pool was a record for the players, 129.1 million in the third year of expanded playoffs, which was up 20 plus million from last year. A full postseason share for the Dodgers totaled $477,441, which was down a bit from the winner's amount in the last couple of years, I guess, because they handed out more shares. So they voted 79 full shares, 17.49 partial shares, extremely precise, and a bunch of cash awards because their pool was 46 and a half million, essentially.

So they just split it up a bunch of ways. So yeah, if you're the Dodgers, if you're getting a full share, you're getting less than half a million for that. And you played a lot of games, right? I mean, if you're someone who is making a lot of money, if you're making league minimum, great. You came close to doubling your salary there

in not that many games. But if you're one of the better paid Dodgers, then I guess the per game rate is probably nothing really to write home about. Cause the Dodgers played what 16 games. It was a five plus six, 11 plus five. Yeah. So they, they played, I think 16 games. And if you're getting, what did I say, about half a million per share, it's, you know, as these things go, not really that much, I guess, if you're one of the higher paid players. So yeah, it's like a mere 30,000 bucks or so per game.

Why even show up for that kind of cash? Right? But, you know, some players are making significantly more than that. So what's the motivation? Have they all been hoodwinked into working for less than they should? Have they been sold a bill of goods by everyone telling them that it's all about the trophy and the rings? And really, they should say show me the money. So look, my default position is that people should get paid for working and paid fairly. And I'm sympathetic to the overtime comparison, but I also think the notion that won the quote

unquote compensation for postseason victories, postseason play is purely monetary, sort of misses the point a little bit. I think it's nice that there's a thing that is not just about the money. They obviously care about the money some because they get paid postseason shares. But I think that having this notion of like the postseason being a place where you really cement a legacy

in the sport above and beyond what it means to be a great Dodger, for instance, or Brewer or Mariner or whatever, but a great baseball player. Like it is this unifying thing. I also think that like there's maybe more indirect monetary benefit to postseason participation. Cause like you build a legacy, you get into the hall of fame, maybe your sponsorship opportunities are greater. Plus you get the ring. You can always sell that thing later. Yeah. You do have to pay taxes on the ring. So that's kind of weird. I wouldn't know because the Yankees didn't give me one. I know famously.

I'm not mad about it. You're allowed to be mad about it if you want. I was an intern. I knew I wasn't gonna get one, but still, you could've. If I were the Yankees, I would give it to everybody. I would be like, but I've shared my take on rings, right? Have I shared my take on rings on this podcast? I don't like the teams give out replica rings to fans.

I don't think they should do that. Oh yes, right, yes. I think it should be something for the org. Yeah, for people who work for the org. And I don't think they should do that. Oh yes, right. Yes, it should be just reserved for the real deal. Yeah, for people who work for the org. And like, I think they should be generous with who they give it to. Like, I think concession people should get a ring, but I don't like that they give ring, fake rings to fans. I don't know. I feel like there should be something about it that is just for the folks who are like really affiliated with the team. Anyway, I think it's fine is my take. I get, again, I get this instinct,

but I think that the people for whom the money makes the most difference are getting difference making money, right? And so when you're a player and you're a first year player, you know, you wanna be a great postseason contributor, you wanna ring like you've been working toward that your whole life. It is a competitive endeavor by definition and these guys are wildly competitive, at

least for the most part. But I also think that once you move beyond being a pre-Arbor Arb guy and you're on a free agent deal, you've made the life changing money. And now you get to care about other things over and above that. And so you're still being paid some, but the fact that it doesn't like move the needle for you in terms of your annual salary,

well, it's okay, because you're doing a different thing now. Your project is a little bit different. You know, you've gotten your bag as a, I've never said that. I don't know if I pull it off. I don't know. I don't know. CB Yeah. The quantities of cash that we're talking about here are such that I don't know how well it maps onto the grocery store clerk example because, I don't know. Yeah, you could say, okay, you're saying, oh, you get to play on the big stage in the spotlight and have these special moments. You could say it's analogous to telling a writer that you're

paying them in exposure. You get to be seen and read by everyone. And so you're not actually going to give them any money because, hey, this will all work out for you down the road, right? But in that case, the writer who's being paid in exposure is making no money whatsoever. Whereas in this case, you're making a good deal of money. And also, I don't know whether it's fair to do this divide by the number of games math, because part of the contract, part of what you're being paid when you're being paid that massive salary is the possibility that you will work that over time. Yeah. And so it's true that, yeah, you, you don't get less if you don't make the

playoffs, but also they are signing you with the goal of making the playoffs. You're preparing to make the playoffs. So you're, you're kind of budgeting that for that in your mind that the season you hope lasts through October, because if there were no playoffs and teams didn't stand to make that extra revenue, then they wouldn't pay you as much for the regular season, right?

And so I think that is kind of reflected in that regular season rate. It's sort of amortized, and is that the right term to use here? Probably not. Yeah. Business. I'm out of my depth immediately, but you know, pro rated, I don't know.

It's, it's distributed. It's kind of built in there, right? It's baked into the, yeah. You understand that the duration of your contract is variable and it has an outer bound and you know what that outer bound is But I'm okay with this one. I think it's okay I mean, I'm always I'm always in favor of like the players making more money to be clear But I don't know. I also think that like in order to do this you'd have to like scale it, right?

So like I take the Dodgers Otani bad bad example, his contract's weird. Mookie Betts would be making so much more in the post season than like Brent Honeywell, right? But winning in the post season, like that's a collective project, you know? That's a team endeavor. And I think having you all participate

and be like get the same stuff as part of that effort. Now you could say the same thing about the regular season, I suppose. And I would say that the young players should make more in the regular season. But I, they're all trying to win a ring together and hoist the trophy and clawed away from their owner up on the thing there. So I don't know. I like that they're all getting the same thing, that they're all kind of in that together. If the players worked it out somehow so that

they would be paid for the regular season and I guess spring training, but then after that, you had to pay them some higher rate per game in order to convince them to work over time. Like if that's how contracts worked. And I think we've answered hypotheticals about this before. We've talked about some sort of mercenary player who signs single game contracts and just roves around the league and goes from clubhouse to clubhouse. And in theory, aside from the fact that there could be clubhouse issues, you could always just charge the maximum amount for your services because you can go where you're needed most.

But if you did something like that where, yeah, if the standard baseball contract where just this covers us through September, and then if you don't make the playoffs, you don't get any more. And if you do make the playoffs, then suddenly you have the owner where you want them. And you have them over a barrel and he's got to pay through the nose to convince you to keep playing or something. You know, you could have a holdout, you could do a walkout on the eve of the playoffs and ask for a raise or else we're not showing up for the postseason or

something. I don't think fans would particularly approve of that. It would be a pure disaster. Right. But if that were the way things worked, then I don't know, maybe you would make more overall, but there'd be so much uncertainty and American sports owners or sports owners in American major leagues, they hate that uncertainty. They don't want that.

They want the certainty of knowing that they're going to be making a certain amount and they're not going to get relegated. And they would not want to be in a situation where they were essentially set up to be held hostage every time the playoffs rolled around. So they would never go for that. And it also doesn't seem to be a problem when it

comes to motivating players. I can't speak to what's going on in James Harden's head, but in MLB, do you ever hear that a player wasn't playing hard in the postseason? No, because they were pissed that they weren't making as much on a per game basis. Yeah. I don't recall ever hearing that. Right. So it doesn't seem to me that there is any issue

with motivating players. And so, you know, maybe John would say, well, that's cause, you know, they've all been so thoroughly brainwashed by the system that they don't even think to question it. But it certainly doesn't seem to be an issue now. I don't think you have any owners out there saying, we better give these guys a raise

when October rolls around or else they'll just quit on us. That doesn't seem to be something that happens. Yeah. I think it's mostly fine. And I think that there's just so much emotional relief for them when they're able to play in October and have left a stamp on that part of the season. It really does mean a lot to them. All right. Here's a question from JJ, Patreon supporter, using the official opening of Hall of Fame season to port over this question from the Patreon Discord group while considering the

whole of Ichiro's career, if slash what would have to happen for MLB to classify NPB and KBO as major leagues. Some causes discussed in the discord included the expansion of TV access and greater player movement between countries. So I guess in the wake of the Negro leagues being reclassified as major leagues by MLB, might the league look ahead and say, well,

these are major leagues in their respective countries. They're viewed that way, they're described that way, they're the highest level leagues in those countries. So maybe we should just classify them as major leagues right now too, and then they would be under the same sort of statistical umbrella. What would have to happen in order for that to take place? I don't think that it would ever happen because I don't think that NPB or the KBO would have any interest in participating in that, right? Like many people raised issues with the way that major league baseball talked about finally

acknowledging the quality of play in the Negro leagues by designating them as major leagues because they managed to put their foot right in their mouth when they did it. But I think that, you know, part of that decision was an effort to rectify a past grievous wrong. I don't think NPB seeks any such validation for major league baseball. They're their own league. They have their own professional organization, their engagement with the game and history with it. It's not that it's totally distinct from baseball in the United States, obviously, but like it's a, it's a very, it's a categorically different kind of relationship than major league baseball, maintaining a color barrier for players, both domestic and then in the American hemispheres. So like, I just don't think that it needs to try to do the same

thing. It feels like imperialistic to me to try to bring, you know, um, NPB or, or the KBO, uh, under that sort of moniker, which, you know, it's just not, it's different. I think it's fine that it'd be different. Yeah. I'm trying to think how that could change. Like if those leagues were struggling somehow, if they wanted that validation, just, uh, MLB is just saying, yes, this is a major league to kind of bolster the standing of that league. But again, that's not in question currently in those countries. And it's not really in question in like international play either, right? Like,

Japanese players take international competition very seriously and samurai Japan's been like dominant on the international stage for a long time. Right. So I try to refer to these leagues as major leagues, just lowercase, right? Not major league baseball, which refers to this specific business entity of the AL and NL, but you can have major leagues of their particular locations. And in fact, yeah, I mean, these are listed as major leagues in some places, I think, baseball reference. So maybe you could say, yeah, part of it was, well, the Negro leagues existed because of segregation, because of the color barrier. And so this was a bulleted acknowledgement of that or of the fact that

this was high caliber baseball and that these players were major leaguers that they could have played in MLB if they had been allowed to many of them. Right. It was a way of saying like their exclusion was a result of racism, not a result of lack of talent, right? They weren't held out because they weren't good. They were held out because the owners and the commissioner were racist and the society was too. They were hardly alone. Yeah. You could draw parallels there given that there were not Japanese players in the majors for years and years. I mean, between the sixties and the nineties, and then there were certainly some racism, you know, when people were doubting Ichiro and this will never work over here. Right.

So you could say, and maybe the desire wasn't always there to come over here either, but there was kind of a barrier, right? There was no real mechanism to go between those leagues. And so you could say, I guess that that was in some respects, sort of a similar slight, but I just, I don't know. Like these leagues, they have a partnership, they have a business relationship now. Right. So, and obviously Japanese players, many of them want to come to MLB because they see

it as the highest caliber league or they see it as a route to more money or just proving themselves or whatever it is. And so I guess you could say, well, if individual Japanese players or Korean players want to do that, then would those leagues just want that sort of MLB seal of approval? But they wouldn't want to be sort of sucked into the umbrella of MLB because that would jeopardize their own business, much as when integration finally happened with MLB and the Negro leagues that spelled the end of the Negro leagues.

So, and we've talked about that. We talked to Jim Allen about that. Well, what will happen to Japan if all the stars just keep coming over and perhaps earlier and earlier in their careers, would that be bad for Japanese baseball? Is that bad for the health of those leagues and those sports? So I don't know. I guess I'm sort of struggling to see. There are some similarities there, but I don't know what the impetus would be to reclassify that, unless it were just to say, like, man, each row was really good. Like, clearly he was a major leaguer all along. He had major league talent. Like,

you could just say, yeah, that was a major league too where he was playing. And then, you know, just knock Pete Rose off the hit king leaderboard, right? Because we count the NPB hits. That's something. LS. Right. I was just about to say, if this all ends with Pete Rose being dethroned as the all-time hit leader, then go on. And you're totally right to point out that it isn't as if the history of professional baseball in the United States interacting with players from Asia, whether it's Japan, Korea, where have you, is free of racism, it's obviously not. But I think that the context of those leagues is different enough and they grew up as distinct

traditions in such a way that, yeah, I don't know what the impetus would be for something like that. So. I guess maybe if there were international expansion, you know, we keep MLB plays these exhibition games in Tokyo if they somehow at some point decided, man, Japan baseball's mega popular over there. They are crowing about it in their own press releases. How many people in Japan are watching MLB playoff games?

If at some point they decided, well, we just want to have a team in Japan and, you know, maybe we get some supersonic jets and the travel time is reduced. And obviously there's the appetite for it. And if they just said, well, instead of installing our own team there that would, that would compete with the existing teams and maybe there'd be bitterness. What if we just merged? What if we just absorbed an MPB team? What if we were just one big global baseball?

Then at that point, might there be a desire to merge the histories and the statistical records too, even if you do that, there's a certain amount of, uh, artifice obviously, and there are different levels of competition and everything, but if at some point those leagues combined, which is, you know, not in the near future, but you could, you could imagine it, uh, decades down, down the line potentially. If that happened, then maybe they'd just say, Hey, retroactively, you know, we're together now, why not make it official that we were always major leagues?

And maybe that would even sort of justify that decision to expand there by saying, yeah, it was always major league quality. So we're just merging with an existing major league quality team. Maybe, but I don't think they should do that. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think it's imminent or anything, but as always, uh, interesting thought experiments, that's what we do here during the off season.

And here's one, this one came with a clip and we will link to the video clip. We will embed the audio, although you can't completely tell what is happening through the audio alone. But nonetheless, you'll get some slight sense, but yes, if you can watch it, then do. But this question comes from Rachel, who directs us to an episode of The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, which

was a show that I was aware of, but not a show that I watched because we were a little old for The Suite Life. Yeah, it was after my time. Yes. So this is from season one and this was 2005. So I was, I guess, graduating from high school, starting college at that point. So I was not watching the Disney Channel

and the teen shows, although I was still a teen, I suppose. But this was a season one episode called Big Hair in Baseball, season one, episode 16. And it's about a minute long clip and I guess I will set the scene. We can play it here but Rachel says the episode involves Mr. Mosby reaching onto the field of play to catch a ball. The batter is called out and the game ends.

This stinks. It's the bottom of the knife. The socks are losing and now we'll never catch a ball. It's the bottom of the ninth, the socks are losing, and now we'll never catch a ball. It's not over yet. If he hits this, we still have a chance of winning. It's coming to us! No! Don't catch that! No! Whoa, hey! I caught it! I caught it!

I caught it for you. No thanks! Oh, I insist. Keep it! Oh caught it! I caught it for you. No thanks. Oh, but I insist. Keep it! Oh, but you wanted one. Not that one. Why not? Man in appearance. The batter is out. Get your keys when. That's why!

To think I shared popcorn with the likes of you. Nice going, Mr. Mosby. You lost us the game. You are going to be the most hated man in Boston. Oh, pitchfoss. I think you're blowing this all out of proportion. Look. Rachel's question is, this strikes me as strange when I looked at the spectator interference rules, they say, in every case of spectator interference with a batted or thrown ball,

the ball shall be declared dead and the baserunners can be placed where the umpire determines they would have been without the interference. When a spectator clearly prevents a fielder from catching a fly ball by reaching onto the field of play, the batter shall be ruled out. The key word here is clearly, in my opinion, the Yankees fielder was not going to catch this ball, let alone clearly catch it. What do you think should Mr. Mosby

be the most hated man in Boston? So yes, this game is taking place in Boston in a fake Fenway and the Yankees are playing the Red Sox and Mr. Mosby. I'm clearly lacking some context here too about Zach and Cody. Yeah, who is Mr. Mosby? And what is his relationship to them? I don't understand. The premise of the show, I believe, it's set at a hotel and these twin brothers, Zach and Cody are living in the hotel suite.

And there's like an heiress who lives there and there's a candy counter girl and it's just, you know, it's like, it's all set in the hotel. And Mr. Mosby, played by Phil Lewis, is the manager of the hotel. And then the boys, they have a single mother who's the lounge singer at the hotel. So their personal and professional lives are intertwined. So they're not related to the heiress. I don't think so. And so I guess Mr. Mosby, he's around, he's the manager of the place where they're living.

And so Mr. Mosby is trying to catch this ball for them, but he reaches into the field of play. And he deprives a Red Sox outfielder of the opportunity to catch the ball, theoretically? Well, doesn't he deprive the Yankees outfielder? Oh yes, the Yankees, that's right. Yes, yes. And so, yes, the batter is ruled out. It's the bottom of the ninth. Yes, exactly. So the Red Sox are up and he interfered.

He clearly reaches into the field of play. He clearly interferes, yes. He doesn't do what happened with Mookie in the postseason with the- No, he doesn't mess with the guy. There's no wrestling, there's no glove being grabbed or anything, but yeah, he's reaching over the fence and he is interfering

with this play. And so Rachel is questioning whether this would be the ruling because yeah, the, the ball shall be declared dead. The base runners can be placed where the umpire determines they would have been without the interference. And I think Rachel's right, probably that the Yankees fielder was not going to catch this ball, certainly not clearly catch it. And so in that case, this probably should have been ruled a double or something. Right? Like the batter should not be out because the batter was not going to be out. So I, I think I would agree that this is

a bad call. LS. Yeah. When I watched it, my initial thought was, well, okay, yeah, he definitely interfered, but that ball looked like it was going to tuck right into the little corner. And like when he reaches out, if I recall correctly, and like, do I, I don't know, did I watch it? I did. Was it that long ago? It wasn't, but you know, we're pretty sure I have COVID. So it seemed like the Yankees field really wasn't even in frame when he reaches out. Like, I don't think that he was anywhere close to catching that ball. Now, it seems like he would have been able to field it without too much trouble and get the ball back in relatively quickly because he then comes into frame not long after the reach.

Yes. But it seems like the hitter should just be on second base in all likelihood. Yeah, I think so. So yeah, kind of a bad rap for Mr. Mosby here. I mean, he was just trying to do a solid for these kids. I think all these other fans are upset at him. And I get wife, I guess, given the outcome here, but this does seem like an unreasonable call. And granted, I guess this is, you know, this is pre-replay.

This aired in 2005. So sometimes there were just bad calls. Sometimes things were not called correctly. Even now, even to this day, it sometimes happens. So back then you wouldn't have been able to rewatch that. Sometimes things were not called correctly, even now, even to this day, it sometimes happens. So back then you wouldn't have been able to rewatch that and maybe he would have been wronged like that. I guess this was Bartman inspired.

This was not a foul ball, but given when this aired in, I think early 2005, I guess it was maybe like a year and a half post-Bartman or something. So I assume. Poor Bartman. I know poor Bartman. Catching strays on the freaking Disney channel. Probably what inspired this. But yeah, I agree.

Mr. Mosby, even aside from the fact that I think his intentions were good, he probably should not be the most hated man in Boston. I think the fans should reserve some of that ire for the ump who made a pretty clearly incorrect call here. And to be clear, I think fans are capable of being completely irrational about these things. So just the, you know, the mere fact that the umpire made the wrong call doesn't preclude people from giving him a hard time. I do doubt, well, I don't know if I doubted at the time. I don't think that today a team would put his picture on the Jumbotron.

Jared Svelte Immediately after the play, just to scapegoat him. Lauren Ruffin Yeah, I think that they would be aware that they were like, basically encouraging this poor guy to get harassed everywhere he went. So I'd like to think, and I don't really know that they would have done that back then either, candidly, but it seems more possible back then than it seems likely to happen now. And then one of those kids went on to be on Riverdale. Do you think that his upbringing in the hotel

inspired his hat choices on Riverdale? They're not the same character, but I like to think that Jughead just was like growing up in a hotel with a bunch of zany characters and then they had to move to Riverdale and he was like, well, I guess I have to wear this hat now because I don't have any zany characters and I need a personality. I don't even know which of the brothers it is. It's one of them. I think it was only the one guy in Riverdale.

I don't think they were doing a swap. Usually we're not critiquing media representations of baseball almost two decades after the fact, but I'm glad we got there eventually because again, I was not watching live, so I had not seen this before. So thanks to Rachel for flagging it for us. Yeah, I did end up watching some of that era of Disney Channel because I'm quite a bit older than my younger brother. I'm 12 years older than my younger brother.

But he was, I don't remember Cole ever being a sweet life of Zach and Cody kid. And I was in college by 2005 anyway. Yeah, I was in college by 2005 anyway. Yeah, I was in college in 2005. How old am I? What's going on? All right. Here's a question from William, Patreon supporter who says, your discussion on episode 2232 about the prime minister of baseball operations got me thinking of a hypothetical in the spirit of election season. And we've put that spirit behind us, hopefully, at this point. But how different would baseball be if po-bos were elected by the fans to

serve four year terms, perhaps also choosing a manager to serve as their running mate? On episode 791, I appreciate the deep cuts and the research here, you answered a question about if managers were elected, but I think if it were done at the POBO level, the results would look very different. Let's assume in this scenario, teams are publicly owned. Okay. So I talked to RJ Anderson about that scenario on one episode when I think you were away. So let's just assume that that has come to pass and POBOs can be dismissed only by the local legislature for gross misconduct. As a political scientist, my assumption is that this would be going to do a

swear, a total sh** show. I am confident this would result in cheaper beer at the ballpark, but I'm curious what other changes you would expect to the on and off field product. So yeah, we don't have to consider the entire hypothetical about the publicly owned ballpark, I guess, been there, done that, but this idea of running for a term as a front office person, or maybe you could call for a vote of no confidence in your front office and force some sort of election, or there could be a recall or something, just, you know, what, what would happen if those members of the front office had to campaign for public approval?

And I wonder how long they would keep it because fans don't have long memories really when it comes to a successive. Yeah. I think four years. Yeah. You'd have to have a four year term because otherwise it would be. They would be out of there every season.

They would be out of there, not every team every season, but many teams every season and a shocking number of good postseason teams every season, I think. I think it would be a real mess. And you know, it's not to say that there aren't povos who get held onto for too long. That definitely happens. But I think this would be an overcorrection in the extreme, in the other direction. What platform would you campaign on? I guess you'd just, you'd be like, you know, make...

Get them to spend more money. I'd get them to spend more money and your beer will be cheaper. I think beer would actually factor really heavily. I honestly think that you would get, what did we decide the best term was for the president of baseball ops who also does business ops on the side? Po both. Po both. I think you would get a lot of po-bo candidates who would represent themselves as po-both candidates. Like when someone was running for class president in high school

and they were like, the chocolate milk will be free. And it's like, you don't have the authority to promise that. Like you're not in control of the milk. We did chocolate milk machine. It was very controversial because there was a lot of sugar in the chocolate milk. Yeah. That was, it was controversial, but we were like, we need the revenue, you know? And so I felt dirty, like I was covered in chocolate milk. Anyway, I think that there would be a lot of po-both campaigning, even though the individual involved would be doing mostly po-bo responsibilities. And it would be like ticket prices and other stuff like that, you know,

beer concessions, the like. There'd be po-both-sides-ism. Oh, boy. I guess you'd have to run on specific moves that you would wanna make probably, right? Like an aspiring, you know, someone who wants to unseat the incumbent Brian Cashman after his long reign would have had to run on a platform of,

we will call up Jason Dominguez and he'll be starting in left field and will DFA Alex Verdugo. Right? Like you'd, you'd have to kind of cater slash pander to what the fans want. So it would probably be self-sabotaging sometimes because I don't know that the fans always know better. So, and then you'd either have to break your campaign promise, which has been known to happen on occasion, or you'd then have to go through with it and, uh, make that move, which might or might not actually benefit the team. And then you'd be blamed probably if it went south, even if you were just, uh,

doing what the fans wanted you to do, what you had campaigned and been elected on. I think that it would be a disaster in part because you're right that I think you would, you would see a lot of incentive to get very specific. And so while that might, uh, endear you to your electorate and ultimately help you win, I think it would put you like sideways with your team a lot of the time. Like I think that there would be players who are like, you know, Hey, I remember you campaigning on benching me. What's up?

Like, you know, so I think it would be a real mess and go very badly for pretty much everyone involved. Also, if you campaigned on a promise to say, sign a specific player, which I guess, could you do that? Would that be like preemptive tampering? Because you weren't in power yet. But if you, if you promise that you're going to sign someone or trade for someone, then would you get in trouble if you then were installed and tried to act on that campaign promise? Or also, I guess you'd give up a lot of your leverage if you announced ahead of time that,

yeah, we're going to trade this guy because fans think he stinks or something. Right. Yeah. Then how are you going to get anything back for that player? Because all the other teams will know that you essentially have to follow through on that campaign promise. And so you've got to get rid of him. And so then maybe you sacrifice some of your leverage before you even take the job. Everyone knows, and I guess the same would be true for all the other front offices too, but everyone would constantly be publicizing their plans in a way that teams are

loathe to do currently. Yeah. It would be so odd. It would be like, yeah, is there like a, a baseball equivalent of the Logan act? We don't enforce that though. So, you know, hatjacked Logan acts. Yeah. Just go nuts, I guess. Barely civilization. I think it would be, I think it would be a real, it would be a real mess. And I think we shouldn't do it. You know, I think we should, this is, this is one place where I think

the democracy has gone too far. Yeah, maybe so. I do generally, I mean, I guess, I guess this belief has been tested, but wisdom of crowds, is there something to that often? So I guess you could say that's a very long podcast and we're trying to get out of here, so I'm going to refrain. But would a fan base, but the thing is though, you've got your low information fans, right? You've got your fans who are just, they're listening to sports radio. They're reading the headlines.

They're not watching the games. They're not studying the data. We're going to get into trouble here. If we pursue this line of thinking, but I think probably you would get everyone feeling like they had a say and in some cases that might be good. Like you don't want someone who is above the law. Boy, this is really becoming much more topical than I had intended it to be. Normally I'm the one who does it and I want, I want whoever decides to leave the iTunes

review to know it wasn't me this time. It was Ben this time. It wasn't me. I haven't checked, I haven't checked those in an age, Ben. I have no idea how they were in the run up to the election. So good luck to you if you looked. There would be perhaps a transparency that would be welcomed because teams are so tight lipped and they're so secretive, but that secrecy does benefit them sometimes you got to admit, like it does help them at times to keep proprietary knowledge and to camouflage their

intentions. And so if you're constantly campaigning on, we're going to give you a say and here's what we're going to do. And we're announcing it ahead of time and we're the change candidate and we're going to give you a say and here's what we're going to do. And we're announcing it ahead of time and we're the change candidates. And we're not going to do things like they did them. We're just going to open it up. We're going to open up area 51 and tell you about the aliens, right? Like we're going to be the cool runners of the front office where we share all the scouting reports with you or something, you know, something like that.

We'll, we'll just open up the vault and let everyone look inside. Then granted, maybe every team is going to be operating that way. If they're all operating under some of the same pressures and incentives here. But then it would maybe secrecy would become an incredible competitive advantage because everyone else, it would be loose lips, sinking ships. Yeah, we can't have any loose lips. We don't want any sunken ships. I don't know.

I think there's a, there's potential here, right? There are experiments. There's the Bill Vek, you know, managing by committee fans, flashing signs to tell the manager what to do. And in that sort of situation, I could imagine maybe it making sense at times. But then I think the impetus would be to make sure that the fans were informed that they were operating with the same knowledge that the manager or the front office has, because if they're in charge, then you don't want them at a

great disadvantage when it comes to the information, because then they'd constantly be shooting themselves in the foot. So I wonder then, yeah, do you open up the books and share with them so that they can make more informed decisions? And then do you even need a po-po? Is it just some sort of like everyone votes? You know, it's one of those like everyone on Twitch like directs a character to do something and somehow it all works out to, you know, everyone just texts the move that they want, you know, it's multiple choice. We could do this, we could do that. And, and we'll just let the crowds decide and the masses will speak and we'll

determine the direction of the team. So I think it would be quite, yeah, I think it would be quite on Twitch. Yeah, I think it would be Dysfunctional in a lot of ways but but front offices are already sometimes quite dysfunctional. So maybe it wouldn't be worse Maybe it would just be a different dysfunction Maybe I think that you want to aim for no dysfunction if you're given a choice in the matter You know, that was my recommendation Would absolutely prefer less dysfunction to no dysfunction. That would be the ideal amount of dysfunction. That's what we strive for here at Effectively Wild. And in the interest of staving off dysfunction, maybe we should end the episode here.

Is that your way of saying that my declining mental capacity in this moment is becoming increasingly obvious? That was a really gentle way to do it. I promise I'll have more pep in my step the next time I record. That's what you've convalesced. No, I meant it more in the sense of not pushing you past your limits if you are coming down with something here. So engendering resentment. I could never resent you, Ben. Oh, thank you. Likewise. We'll give thanks that this episode is over. And so is this week of recording for us. So hold your moves teams. Jerry, we're talking to you directly here.

Come on, man. Do me a solid here. Yeah, you can wait. Don't make Meg edit. Don't make us contemplate emergency one Soto signing podcasts over Thanksgiving. Let's just, let's just hold off and let's enjoy. I will cry. If we have to podcast about Juan Soto over the holiday, I will cry. I'll do it. I'll do it. I'll do it. But I will cry while I'm doing it. So don't... Jerry, do you want to make me cry? Front office says don't make Meg cry. Thank you.

Alright, just been here now and I have one more email to share with you. I wanted to read this earlier even though I had no answer then. I can't claim to have a complete answer now either, but I've come closer to an answer. I have fallen down a bit of a rabbit hole thanks to listener and Patreon supporter Jay Keith, who's the host of the Go Fact Yourself podcast. It's a trivia game show, and Jay Keith sent me a trivia question, which I've been trying hard to answer, and here it is. According to Baseball Reference, seven players have been nicknamed Gibby, all of whom had

the last name Gibson, except for John Gibbons and Earl Pruce. Why was Earl Pruce nicknamed Gibby, all of whom had the last name Gibson, except for John Gibbons and Earl Pruce. Why was Earl Pruce nicknamed Gibby? Now your first question might be, who the heck is Earl Pruce? And that one I can kind of answer. He was essentially the moonlight gram of the St. Louis Browns. He played a single game for the Browns in 1920, his age 25 season, and the Browns had signed him a couple months earlier, I found an article in the Shreveport Journal July 21st 1920 Earl Pruce to have trial with Browns Earl Pruce who has a member of the Shreveport team during the spring did not look good enough to remain in class B company

Showed so much improvement as a member of the Oakdale Louisiana State League team that the st Louis Browns have signed him for a trial and fast company Pruce hit 375 in the Louisiana League and became one of the Little Circuit's leading ball hawks. Proust came to Shreveport as a left-handed batsman, but on the advice of manager Smith, switched his attack to the other side of the plate in an effort to put more punch in his hitting. After leaving Shreveport, Proust again attempted to alter his hitting style, but was so helpless

on a curveball that he switched a second time and was a big success as a right-hander. So September 15th, 1920 rolls around, the Browns are up big, some substitutes come in, including Proust. He enters the game to play right field. He made a couple put-outs, some accounts say he had an assist, and in the seventh inning, he came to the plate with future Hall of Famer Waite Hoyt on the mound, he was wearing one that day, and Proust drew a walk. And even though the Browns were up by 12 runs, he and the man on first did a double steal. Couple batters later, Proust scored on an infield single, and that was that for his major league career. A perfect 1000 OBP, stole a base, scored a run,

credited with.1 Wins Above Replacement by Baseball Reference, though zero at FanGraphs, and he never returned to the majors. Now if you go to Earl Proust's Baseball Reference bullpen page, it mentions J. Keith's fun fact. Pruess had the nickname Gibby, the only major leaguer to have that nickname without actually having Gibson or Gibbons as a first, middle, or last name. And it's true, you search Gibby on baseball reference, you get Bob Gibson, Kirk Gibson, Kyle Gibson,

Charlie Gibson, Norwood Gibson, John Gibbons, and Gibby Brack, given name Gilbert. And then you have Earl Pruess, Earl Henry Pruess, P-R-U-E-S-S, I probably would have said Pruess, but I know better now. Born in 1895 in Chicago, died in 1979 in Missouri, how does Earl Henry Pruess become Gibby? Well I did my usual searching in the newspaper archives, I found articles about Earl Pruess, I found some references to Gibby, but no origin story for the nickname. So I pulled out the big guns, I emailed the Hall of Fame, I found some references to Gibby, but no origin story for the nickname. So I pulled out the big guns.

I emailed the Hall of Fame. I emailed some historians, including John Thorne, official historian of MLB. I bothered these baseball luminaries with the question of why Earl Pruce, who played one big league game more than a century ago, was nicknamed Gibby, and no one could answer the question. The Hall of Fame library had books that contained the

nickname, but no explanation of the nickname. John Thorne sent me Gibby's enlistment papers for World War I. I have Earl Pruess's social security number but I do not know why he went by Gibby. And he was clearly proud of the nickname because you can search for Earl Pruess autographs and he himself wrote Gibby in quotation marks. Now one of the story insite emailed was Jacob Pumranke, former Effectively Wild Guest, and he pointed out that Earl appears to have living descendants. He suggested that one of them might know something. His last living child sadly died in 2018. He was also named Earl Pruce, and he went by Dick. You might wonder, are non-sequitur

nicknames a tradition in this family? Why did that Earl Pruce go by Dick? Well, his middle name was Dixon, so that makes more sense. But he was survived by children, Earl Senior's grandchildren. So I started searching, trying to find a phone number, other contact info for Amy Pruse, Earl's granddaughter. Found a bunch of numbers that didn't work, found one that went through, and I got the voicemail, but there was no message. So it was just a shot in the dark, message in a bottle. I left my message, I had no idea whether I had the right number. And then I was thrilled some time later to check my phone and hear this voicemail. Hi Ben, this is Amy Proust returning your phone call and

I know I was given the answer to this when I was a child. I'm going to go through my grandfather's sports memorabilia and see if I can dig it up and I'll ask my cousins as well because there was a specific reason for it and I just don't know it off the top of my head so let me do a little research and get back to you. Thanks, bye. So bless Amy Prew, she got this call out of the blue from a complete stranger asking about her grandfather's nickname and she immediately started rummaging through his papers, calling relatives, trying to determine where the nickname came from. She was texting me as she went through the scrapbooks. He was a gifted athlete. I

think the nickname Gibby actually started when he played football. We'll get back to you when I can find more info. And then, some time later, I been, after combing through my grandfather's sports memorabilia and articles about him, I couldn't find the origins of his Gibby nickname. If my memory serves, it's possible it started as a childhood nickname. He played football, baseball, and basketball as a kid. He dropped out of school at 14 to support the family. I seem to remember some connection to his playing football when the nickname came up, but I can't be sure. If I find something more definitive, I'll let you know.

An Amy New Earl. That's what the family called him. His friends called him Gibby. She says, he died when I was around 13. My grandparents retired away from the family, so we only saw them once or twice a year. When we visited, I would spend hours going over his World War I and sports scrapbooks. I was young, but knew both were important.

I hoped my grandfather would come in to tell me about his life. He never talked about the war. He saw active combat. I think he had PTSD before they knew what it was. He just wasn't much of a talker. I regret how much information was lost, including, potentially, where the nickname came from. But I did learn a lot of other information about Earl Pruce. For instance, he was an incredible

athlete. Well, yeah, he made the majors. Of course he had to be, but not just in baseball. In virtually every sport, Amy sent me a picture of a signed photo that the great boxer Jack Dempsey gave to Earl Pruce or, as he wrote, Gibby Pruce, the greatest Chicago all-around athlete of all times. That's what Dempsey called him, and I can sorta see why. Amy sent me some old articles about Earl catching up with him later in life. One mentions he played pro football, pro baseball, and was a pro boxer. Mr. Pruce had 70 fights and was never knocked down. Another source says he fought for the fun of it as a middleweight from 1915 to 1924, that's while he was playing baseball

by the way, had 64 amateur and 6 professional fights, losing only one decision. Also, this article kinda casually says, he fell from a cliff while in France, this was in World War I, and broke his back. And this was before he played for the Browns. He entered bicycle races, he played some hockey, he ran track. In his later years he became an accomplished bowler and golfer. And this was all while he worked for the Bell Telephone Company for 38 years as an engineer, despite never advancing beyond eighth grade. He was a revered referee, he was an American Legion official. The guy did it all. Forget about two-way player, this guy was at least a three-way player, playing at least three sports professionally professionally seemingly at the same time.

Amy says it seems impossible that he played so many sports simultaneously and so well. Football overlapped baseball, boxing overlapped football. Sometimes I wonder if he had some kind of sports ADD and just got tired of it so moved on to the next thing. Multisport pro players were more common then, but it's still pretty impressive. Another article Amy sent lists all these accomplishments and more, and then says space does not permit further details on Prus's sports career and we are just skimming it. That article tantalizingly also says, all during his athletic career, Prus went by the

nickname of Gibby. How can you write that and not include just a few more words explaining where the nickname came from? Isn't that fascinating? You see, one big league game and it seems poignant. For one day he reached the pinnacle and never got to breathe that rarefied air again. But it turns out that was the tip of the iceberg. There was so much more to Earl Gibby Proust than that one big league game,

and someone who seems obscure now was an absolute legend in his time and place. One more thing about Gibby. Amy said, my grandfather didn't talk to me much about his athletic career, but he did tell me about the black socks. He played them. He was angry after they threw the World Series because fewer people were showing up to his games as a result. He wrote a letter to the editor condemning bedding on sports. Can't imagine how shocked he'd be with the proliferation of sports bedding today. I found that article and I'll let Earl have the last word. This is what he wrote for the Oakdale Louisiana Journal, July 8th, 1920. Let's abolish this evil. I take the liberty to appeal to the men whose enthusiasm waxes so high

that they wager on ball games. Consider the future of the boys and young men who attend the games. Abolish open gambling at the ballpark. Your broad mind will admit that it is a bad example to set for the young boys, and I know you are interested in their future welfare. Organized baseball is becoming more and more a clean manly sport. You can help its progress by abolishing open gambling. To ensure success and to furnish clean sport for all, the Oakdale team desires and requires the moral support of the entire community. I venture to say, and I know that many people who enjoy clean sport do not attend our games because they see evil of open betting. Think it over and accept this earnest appeal from a ballplayer who is interested in elevating baseball to the highest plane possible, Earl Pruce.

So thanks for sending me on this nickname chase, J Keith. I'm disappointed that I still don't know why Earl Pruce was called Gibby, but I'm glad that I know so many other things about Earl Pruce. thanks to Amy for her help. If she's able to answer the question definitively, I will report back. And if you somehow have information about Earl Pruce's nickname, please get in touch. The Earl Gibby Pruce tip line is open.

And if you wanna know more about Earl, check the show page where I've included some links to these articles and documents. All right, I'll leave you with this, a little bonus stat blast, which appeared earlier this week as an afterball on Hang Up and Listen, the Slate Sports podcast that I've been appearing on for the past few months. Like the previous crossword puzzle afterball that doubled as a stat blast, this one was inspired by a conversation on Effectively Wild on episode 2247, when we talked about

how long sports commissioners keep their jobs, and I mused about whether they last longer in their jobs than Supreme Court justices do in theirs, well, I investigated. And this question I was able to answer. So after the stop last song, you will hear the segment as it appeared at the end of the most recent Hang Up and Listen. The other voices you will hear belong to my co-panelists Alex Kirschner and Lindsay Gibbs. Well, Major League Baseball hasn't expanded since 1998, which makes this the league's longest expansion drought since the so-called expansion era began in 1961, last year MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said that once the then Oakland A's and the Tampa Bay Rays sorted out their ballpark situations, the league would put together an expansion committee, quote, pretty shortly thereafter. Last week, Manfred was asked where those expansion plans stand, given that the A's and Rays are both

slated to play in minor league ballparks next season with considerable uncertainty surrounding their long-term homes, Manfred responded, I'm hopeful that we'll be able to work through the situation in Tampa Bay in a way that keeps me on the timetable that I've articulated, which is to have an expansion decision made before I leave in four years. So this is a legacy building matter for him. The 66-year-old Manfred, who is two months away from celebrating 10 years in office, announced earlier this year that he intends to retire in January 2029, right around the

time that someone will hopefully succeed Donald Trump as commander-in-chief. Unlike US presidents, sports commissioners have no term limits, and they tend to stay in office for a very long time. Manfred is actually the shortest tenured of the current commissioners of the big four American men's leagues. The NBA's Adam Silver took the place of the extremely long serving David Stern about a year before Manfred inherited his job from Bud Selig. The NFL's Roger Goodell replaced Paul Tagliabue in 2006. And as for the NHL's Gary Bettman, Alex, what year were you born?

1994. I only remember one NHL commissioner. Yes. Well, technically there's only been one, the once and forever, the God Emperor of the NHL because he is the first to hold that title, but he took over Gary Bettman before you were born

on February 1st, 1993. So you have never known a world where Gary Bettman wasn't presiding over the NHL and being booed in public wherever he went. Yeah. Comes with the territory. Norms, societal norms. When he goes, I won't know how to walk down the street.

So last week on my baseball podcast, Effectively Wild, we were talking about why commissioners last so long. And I idly wondered which have historically lasted longer, commissioners of the big four men's sports leagues or Supreme Court justices? Both tend to get their gigs when they're well into their careers, but Supreme Court justices have the advantage of being appointed for life. Then again, commissioners might as well be. The last one who was actually ousted was Bud Selig's predecessor, Fay Vincent, back in 1992.

These are both jobs that are hard to get and just as hard to lose. So I have now tackled this crucial justice versus commissioner question. The first thing I had to decide was who counts as a commissioner. Landis, Kennesaw Mountain Landis of MLB was called commissioner,

but the heads of the NFL, NBA, and NHL weren't technically called commissioners until 1941, 1967, and 1993 respectively. Prior to those points, the top execs were called presidents. So I broke down the data two ways. The strict constructionalist approach, where I included commissioners only if they held that literal title, and the loose constructionalist approach where I lumped in those quasi-commissioner presidents too. Even with the more expansive method, I filtered out a few presidents or proto-presidents. I didn't count Ralph Hay, the first head of the NFL whose title was temporary

secretary, like the Paul McCartney song, nor did I count Jim Thorpe, the semi-figurehead first president of the NFL who continued to play for the Canton Bulldogs during his one-season anomaly in office. I also excluded Gil Stein, who was interim NHL president before Bettman became the first and thus far only commissioner. Stein was in office for about a year, during which time he was found to have engineered his own election to the Hockey Hall of Fame. A dubious honor, he was forced to decline. Another edge case was Red Dutton, the NHL's acting president after Frank Calder died, who repeatedly tried to resign to tend to his construction company. I included Dutton because he did eventually accept a permanent position as president, though he drags down the average because he quickly got in a fight with the owners, told

them you can stick your franchise up your ass, and resigned for good. As for the justices, I started with George Sutherland, who was appointed by President Harding in 1922, so he was the first justice to join the court after the 1917 election of Frank Calder, first president of the NHL, and the 1920 hiring of Kenesaw Mountain Landis, first commissioner of baseball, who was himself a federal judge for 17 years, a shorter time than the 24 years he would serve as commissioner. Starting with Sutherland, there have been 43 justices over this span compared to 20 commissioners or 27 commissioners plus presidents, the justices average tenure

has been 17.4 years, with a median of 16.3 years. So those are the numbers to beat. Can commissioners beat them? Spoiler, no, not quite. But they do come close. The commissioners have averaged 14 years in office, with a median of 12.8 years, the commissioners plus presidents have averaged 14.5 years in office with a median of 14.2. So depending on your metric, the justices have tended to serve only two to three years longer than the commissioners,

with the baseball commissioners having the highest turnover rate, followed by the basketball ones, and then football and hockey. The football presidents and commissioners are protected by the shield. Now one might object that including justices and commissioners who are still serving skews things somewhat. If you include all active justices, then you're counting Clarence Thomas, who joined the court even before Alex was born and Bettman became commissioner, but you're also counting fairly recent arrivals like Amy Coney Barrett and Katanji Brown Jackson. If we look only at completed tenures,

the average for the justices rises to 18.2 years with a median of 16.7. As for the commissioners, dropping Betman, Goodell, Silver and Manfred from the sample lowers the average to 13 years with a median of 12.8 or 14 or 14.2 for the commissioners plus presidents. So if you look at it that way, the longevity advantages for justices is somewhere between two and a half and five years. No commissioner has lasted as long as Justice William O. Douglas,

an FDR appointee who served for more than 36 years on the court, and no justice has had as fleeting a term as Bart Giamatti, who died in office after five years as MLB commissioner. Fun fact, Paul Giamatti's dad. Still unbelievable. Yeah, I was literally just going to ask. Yes, I have anticipated that question and answered it. Still, however you slice it, becoming commissioner confers almost as much job security as becoming a Supreme Court justice. And maybe that makes sense. Yes, most commissioners are pretty unpopular, but the job comes with considerable cache,

a lot of TV airtime and a very generous salary. So most people are reluctant to relinquish it. And while it seems unlikely that so many commissioners could have been the best men for their jobs for decades on end, a lot of their duties depend on relationships and institutional memory, so experience is important. Plus, most commissioners are there to provide cover for the

owners and to do the owners' bidding, if they aren't owners themselves, as Bud Selig was. And owners prioritize dependability, predictability, and compliance. They don't want someone who's going to upset the apple cart as long as revenue keeps climbing. We'll see if it continues to, what with all the broadcasting questions we considered on last week's show, but on the whole, business has been good, and thus commissioners have tended to keep their jobs for a very long time. So Alex and Lindsay, there are plenty of people who think Supreme Court justices should have a mandatory retirement age or a term limit. Do you think commissioners also serve too long?

And should leagues be more willing to limit their terms? Yeah, let's elect them by popular vote, but not of the owners, of the society. Yeah, that would guarantee that they'd be pretty unpopular with the owners, I think. I would agree. My answer is yes, and Ben that was phenomenal. Thank you. interested in listening to me talk about other sports every Monday. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash

effectively wild and signing up to pledge some monthlier yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad free and get yourself access to some perks as have the following five listeners, Jamie Garan, Austin Stamford, Brandon Paul Weaver, Colin Sanders, and Sam W. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild discord group for patrons only, and Sam W. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, monthly bonus episodes, the next one of which will be up soon,

play-off live streams, prioritized email answers, autographed books, personalized messages, discounts on merch and ad-free FanGraphs memberships, and so much more. Check out all the offerings at Patreon.com slash Effectively Wild. If you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site.

If not, you can contact us via email. Send your questions, comments, intro, outro themes to podcast at fancrafts.com. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash Effectively Wild. You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash Effectively Wild. And you can check the show page at Fan Crafts or the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we cited today.

Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. Thanks to you for listening. That will do it for today and for this week. We hope you have a happy Thanksgiving and we will talk to you next week. With their quips and opinions It's effectively wild Effectively wild Effectively wild Effectively wild

It's effectively wild Effectively wild Effectively wild Effectively wild