Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2256: We’re So(to) Back

Episode Date: December 11, 2024

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Roki Sasaki’s destination, follow up on their previous discussion of the Juan Soto signing, and discuss several more transactions, including the Giants signing Willy Adames, multiple Dodgers and Orioles moves, and a trio of starting-pitcher signings, plus reactions to the Hall of Fame elections of Dick Allen and […]

If baseball were different, how different would it be? And if this thought haunts your dreams, well stick around and see what Ben and Meg have to say. Philosophically and pedantically, it's effectively wild. Effectively Wild, a FanGraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of FanGraphs and I am joined by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? Ben Lindberg of The Ringer Doing alright.

How are your meetings proceeding? Meg Rowley of FanGraphs You know, they're taking place in the not winter, but other than that, you know, they're taking place in the not winter, but other than that, you know, they're fine. I remain at times disappointed that the AV setup isn't better for these things. You got a lot of people, a lot of reporters trying to hear various dignitaries, managers, Roki Sasaki's agent, Scott Boris when the time comes. And sometimes they are not miked at all,

which is, you know, not the best because there's so many people, there's hustle and bustle, there's the MMOV network set right there. Sometimes they are miked, but the mic doesn't work. That's also annoying because then it'll do that thing where, you know, cuts in and out. This happened during Roki Sasaki's agent's standup. That was hard to say today where he, you know, because Sasaki hadn't been formally posted, his agent really wasn't able to say anything now that he has been formally posted. He was able to take questions and they gave him a mic, but it was cutting in and out so then we could hear parts of it. It sounded like the teacher from Charlie

Brown was up front. Anyway, I'm just saying like, uh, this is a big, big show. Uh, there's a lot of production value in various aspects of baseball. And then it can be a little rinky dink when it comes to the meetings. So I wish that that were better. Listener, Patreon supporter Ari, by the way, pointed out that while it is not astronomical winter yet until later this month, it is meteorological winter. Yes. Begins on December 1st. So,

yeah, I tried to make a pedantic correction and then Ari pedantically corrected my pedantic correction. So it is one kind of winter at least. So that is accurate, accurate labeling for those winter meetings. And yes, you saw the gaggle clustered around Joel Wolf, Sasaki's agent, and you at first thought it was Boris. I thought people were assembling for Boris. There were people sprinting Ben from the back of the room. And I thought that was treatment that only one agent got.

And I would like to apologize to Wolf for my mistake because clearly that was not the case. People really wanted to hear from him, understandably, because Sasaki's very exciting. We've dedicated whole episodes to the guy, so. Yes, well, maybe Boris' pun session is still to come, and if so, perhaps you can attend in person and let us know how it goes. Joel Wolfe did say about Sasaki,

it was very much caveated and couched, and he said he hasn't really talked to Sasaki in depth about where he wants to go, which seems like probably a conversation that they should have sometime soon now that he hasn't posted. But he did say that Sasaki has not had the most positive experiences with the media in Japan, whether that is just the hounding or the questioning of his durability and his toughness and his health, etc. And so he allowed for the possibility that it might be better for Sasaki to go to a smaller or

mid-market place as opposed to a big city or say specifically Los Angeles where the Dodgers play. So again, that wasn't necessarily coming straight from Sasaki, but if Sasaki had told him, yeah, I want to be a Dodger, then maybe he wouldn't have said that unless it's a smoke screen and he wants to throw people off the trail, people who suspect that there's some sort of deal done already with the Dodgers,

but he doesn't really have much incentive to make anything up here because Sasaki can go wherever he wants and the money doesn't make that much difference, which is something that Wolf said he had advised Sasaki that these pretty small in the grand scheme of things, differences in the bonus pools don't really matter compared to the long-term arc of his career. But I guess that gives hope at least to teams that might not usually see

themselves in the market for a top free agent starting pitcher. In Sasaki's case, obviously, money is not the determining factor or may not be and you might have just said, well it'll still be the Dodgers, but Wolf is at least sending the signal here. Hey, have hope, so don't count yourself out. Put your PowerPoint presentation together. Well, and it's interesting the timing. We have so many moves to get to and we'll get to them, but this is a good day to highlight this aspect of his free agency because it won't be relevant in a couple of days.

The timing of his posting is interesting because he now has the ability to straddle both international free agent periods to remind everyone the current international free agent amateur period ends December 15th. So players who are subject to bonus pool restrictions have until the 15th to sign to be part of the 2024 class. And then that signing window closes for 30 days until January 15th when the 2025 class will open and the bonus pools reset. And this has been part of the dynamic that we talked about with Eric Long and Hagen

when we were considering sort of where Sasaki would sign and how much the bonus pool stuff would really matter. And I think ultimately you're right. and it sounds like Wolf kind of confirmed this, that this isn't a decision that's going to necessarily come down to a $100,000 difference in bonus pool capacity, right? But there are different teams with different amounts of bonus pool space remaining in the 2024 period or with money in the 2025 period. And that might make some amount of difference and it might also make a difference to other international amateurs. Those players will be true amateurs, unlike Sasaki, who

has obviously played pro ball in Japan. But if they are unlucky enough to potentially have their handshake deal bonus sacrifice to the pursuit of Sasaki, that's much more likely if he signs after the bonus period rolls over than it would be now where we have sort of most of the big name amateurs have been long signed. Most of those guys have played, you know, pro ball already. They haven't come to a domestic affiliate, but you know, they've played for their team. Not true for the 2025 kids, although a lot of those kids are working out on the complexes down in the DR. Just to remind everyone, Sasaki, because of the timing of his posting, has until January 23rd to make his decision. So that's all the news that's fit to print on Sasaki much more clearly delivered than the mic allowed me to have So really who's the winner all of you? Well, we'll have a Sasaki signing to that soon enough

But now we have some other signings to discuss and just a couple of follow-ups about Soto based on our prior conversation listener patreon supporter C tar wrote in to say do you think that if these were the final Mets Yankees offers at the end, the 760 over 16 years and the 765 over 15 years, and it was subsequently reported that the Yankees didn't get an official chance to match that final Mets offer, but again, I don't know that that would have made a difference

because it just, it seemed like Steve Cohen was a man on a mission here and wasn't going to be outbid, but Citar wondered if these were the final offers, would Soto have chosen the Yankees if, say, Luis Severino's health hadn't held up or Sean Manaya hadn't pulled off his Chris Salem impersonation? Just the general competitive vibes around the Mets are way different if they had just coasted through the 2024 season the way it vibes around the Mets are way different if they had just coasted through the 2024 season,

the way it seemed was the plan last off season versus the, oh my God, grimace version of the Mets. So it came down to the final day of the regular season, whether the Mets were gonna make the playoffs and how. And so if they had missed, do you think that that could have been a determining factor? We have no way to answer this, obviously, but I would think that the pitch would have been easier to Soto, given that the Mets just one playoff series made the playoffs at all,

than if they had been on the outside looking in versus the team that he was on that just won a pennant. You know, if you're yourself as, we can be a contender, we can give you just as good a chance to win a ring, that might be harder to persuade someone of if you just miss the playoffs entirely. So I wonder whether that photo finish actually determined the photo finish in the Soto sweepstakes as well.

I doubt that it determined it, but I'm sure it helped, you know, to your point. It allows them to tell a much more compelling story about the team's fortunes as they currently stand. And then when you marry that to the financial story that Cohen is able to tell, not only within the confines of Soto's specific contract, but just sort of the general resources

that he has that he can bring to bear on behalf of the roster. I do think that makes a big difference to say, like, hey, this was a year where we thought we were going to have to rework the roster. We weren't going to be that competitive, but we managed to sort of squeak in there. We saw strides from some of our young guys. We saw players like Lindor really turn it on and be able to succeed. We think that we have really positive momentum

going into the future. That's what we were able to do in a year where we thought we weren't gonna really do much of anything. Imagine what we can do with your help and with these resources. I think that's a really compelling picture. I don't think that if you're the Yankees, you're hurt by the fact that you're like, well, we won the AL Pennant and we lost in the World Series, but we were a World Series team. That's not hurting you, but I do think that the presence

of a more positive story momentum, as it were, on the Mets part probably helped. The vibes do just seem really different between the two teams, which is wild to say. Maybe I was wrong about Grimace, Ben. You know? Maybe I was wrong. It's happened before. Ben Felixen So much McDonald's related news these days.

Big developments going down in McDonald's. Let that sail on by. Yeah, let that sail on by. Another thing that some of our Patreon supporters were discussing, we were talking about how this, it seemed like we leapfrogged a couple of contract milestones. Yes. We just, we never really had a $500 million man or a $600 million man before we got to the $700 million man.

And by that, I mean specifically Soto, not so much Otani and the deferrals and everything. And maybe one reason for that is, well, all the extensions that get signed these days. So it's never been common for a player to reach free agency at the age that Soto is and as accomplished as Soto. So every now and then you get a Bonds or an A-Rod or a Soto. But now, if anything, it's less common because a lot of players get locked up early. And so they never hit the market or at least they don't hit the market until much later in their careers. And one player that Andrew M, Patreon supporter mentioned specifically is Mike

Trout, now Mike Trout had the record contract prior to Otani, but he took a couple extensions and discounts and was never really on the free agent market. And so if he had hit the free agent market, the pre injury Mike Trout at 25 or 28, then he could have been the guy who could have pushed it up to the $500 million range at least. But maybe that's one of the reasons why Soto's number is so big. It's just that there are so few players available. You look at Acuna or Tatis or Witt and all these guys, you're not going to get them. They're off the market. They're off limits. And so it is quite rare for a Soto to come along and will probably

continue to be rare, rarer than it ever has been. So maybe that is why we skipped some steps there and also why it might be a while until we see another contract of this size. Yeah. I think it's a point well taken. I do think that that matters in terms of how these things kind of get distributed. You know, if you never, if you never have the big moment for some of these guys, like it, it doesn't reset the market. Um, you know, perhaps a, another argument for why they make sense for individual players. And I do think they raise, it's not like the presence of big pre-free agency extension

doesn't have some positive upward push on player salaries because many of these deals, at least the ones that happen once a player has gotten into their arbitration years tend to be pretty lucrative on the player side. It's not like they're all, we tend to think of Aussie Albies, right? But they're not all like that. Some of them are quite meaningful in size, but they are a player negotiating

with one team instead of all 30. And that surely has some exert some downward pressure on sort of their upper bound. So yeah, it might, it might be another reason why it's like, are these always the best, you know, to ask that question. Okay, new business. Although I guess it is older business than the Soto signing that sort of brushed some previous signings aside. Yeah.

The way that one Soto leapfrog people from a contract perspective. He also skipped the line when it came to transaction reactions on Effectively Wild. And I felt a little bad for Willie Adamis, not really bad because he just signed the contract. He's doing fine. Yeah, he's doing quite well for himself.

But he was instantly swept out of the news overshadowed by Wansoto. I saw people report that Willie Adamis' $182 million deal with the Giants, seven years, was the third largest free agent contract ever for a Dominican born player. And I thought, give it a day or two. And he might get moved down that list a little, there might be a new number one there. And so yes, so merely the fourth biggest, still the biggest deal that the Gi giants have ever given to a player. Technically, again, not inflation adjusted. I think we should just, we should generally do more inflation adjusting when we talk about

record contracts. I often think about this with box office figures too, because people just pretend that inflation doesn't exist when we do box office records. I get that it's a hassle to have to do these adjustments, especially if you're talking about baseball specific or sports specific inflation. Anyway, the previous record for the Giants was the eight year $159 million deal

that Buster Posey signed with the Giants. And Buster Posey enabled Adamas to break Posey's own record by handing out this hundred eighty two million dollar deal. I think Adamas is a really interesting player to sign this sort of contract so we can talk about that and I guess we can also talk about competitive implications for the Giants and everything that I have heard about Buster Posey, not on a personal level, just in terms of how he will be running

this baseball team has kind of concerned me or would concern me if I were a baseball fan, just the general old schoolness of Posey's mindset seemingly. And again, I'm not saying he's closed minded or that he's not open to new ideas or anything, but he has talked an awful lot about to new ideas or anything, but he has talked an awful lot about runs batted in and sort of sacrifices and situational stuff, not just him, but also Bob Melvin and like getting the gang back together and bringing Madison Bumgarner on board and all these things that, well, it's kind of a shock to the system after Farhan Zaydi's regime. And again, maybe that's what the giants were looking for to some extent here. So while I have been kind of concerned by that, and also,

by the way, bringing back Bobby Evans and Posey's former agent and all these people, he's sort of surrounding himself with the ghosts of giants past, which the giants, they have a rich past. They want a lot of world series. So maybe that's not the worst thing in the world. Maybe there's a correction that makes some sort of sense here. But given that he has so little experience in doing this sort of job, it's just for him to kind of come on board and be striking this sort of tone would worry me a little.

However, it is perhaps a positive sign that one thing he has succeeded in doing thus far is handing out big contracts, which was something that Zidey was criticized for being either unable or unwilling or maybe both to do. And Posey was seemingly kind of the closer when it came to Matt Chapman's extension and now the Adamist

deal. So whether you like the specifics of those contracts or not and whether you think that Posey is currently well-equipped to be a Pobo, I guess it's a good sign that he is able to tease open those purse strings and that is a quality of a baseball executive that can make up for some other sins. You would want the spending to be wise and judicious, of course, but there's something to be said for just convincing your owner to pay for players or convincing players to take your big contract offers because you can be the smartest person in the world, but if you're always playing it safe,

and then, you know, it's the Andrew Friedman quote that I cited recently, if you just take the rational approach to free agency, you're gonna finish third every time, so maybe that is a positive indication that Posey has some Dabrowski in him when it comes to landing large deals. Bauman talked about this a little bit in his reaction to the Adamus signing for us, you know, expressing maybe not quite the same concerns, but noting that there is like a

story you could tell about this contract going to Adamus that would make you wonder what kind of executive Posey is likely to be and how well he's going to manage that payroll. There are a couple of things that are important about it. And I don't know what kind of executive Posey is going to be when it's all said and done. I think you're right that there are some indications that feel a little ominous, but I like Willie Adamis. Like, spoiler alert, I'm out here on an island. Like everybody likes Willie Adamis.

But like I like Willie Adamis, I'm less concerned about some of the declines that we saw in the defensive metrics than those declines might indicate. Like I still think he's a good shortstop. I think getting your ownership group to spend money is very valuable. I think that it is a skill as we have discussed. You know, it's not like he gave this money to a reliever or a bat first left fielder who's going to tumble down the defensive spectrum even further and his bat's going to fall out from under.

Doing a little bit of an overpay, which I don't know if I even necessarily think that Adamus is an overpay, but doing a little bit of an overpay to get a guy you're excited about when your market has had a hard time for whatever reason, whether it was the personnel in the front office, the way that your offer stacked up relative to some others on the market, this sort of ephemeral weird

people being worried about San Francisco thing, which I still don't know how real a concern that was for any of these guys. But if you've had a hard time kind of closing the deal on some of these dudes and you think Willie Adamis is one of your dudes and you don't want to worry about the composition of your infield for a while, getting that deal done I think is a positive sign. Will it remain good throughout the duration of the contract? I don't know. Will every move of the contract? I don't know. Will every move be like this? I don't know. But like, I like Matt Chapman and I like Willie Adamis

and Buster Posey had a hand in extending Matt Chapman and signing Willie Adamis. So that seems fine, you know, and like, we'll just kind of take these signings as they come and then a year from now we can check in, we can see sort of how his tenure corresponds to potential changes on the field from a strategic perspective. We're going to be able to see whether the way they handle their bullpen is different. Are they still so platoon heavy? Did they platoon in interesting ways and not just based on handedness? Like I think it's fine to reserve judgment on both his work as an exec bringing players in until we've seen more of them and the disposition of those contracts. And then in a couple of months, we're just going to see these guys go play Giants baseball

and we're going to have a much better understanding of what that really looks like under the new regime. And it might not be that different. Who knows? I continue to find it very weird that Buster Posey is the general manager of the San Francisco Giants. Pete Slauson Pobo, please. Lauren Ruffin Pobo, sorry. Excuse me. Pete Slauson Buster Pobo.

Lauren Ruffin Buster Pobo. Oh boy. Oh boy. I still think that's weird and I don't want me not being like either concerned about Willie Adomis or this particular contract to take away that central point. Weird choice. It was a weird, it's a high risk choice. You can't fire that guy. You just can't. It's bust. It's literally Buster Posey.

Yeah. Even I, someone who's written a big feature about the fact that, yeah, we're getting former players back in high ranking front office roles and running some front offices, even I was taken back by Buster Posey because again, he didn't work his way up from a front office perspective. It was more like he's a great player, he's a franchise legend, everyone seems to like him. He's personable, he seems like a leader of men,

he's got the good face, maybe he's got a firm handshake. It's one of those things more so than he's proved himself in any kind of comparable role. So you hope that he can learn on the job, although usually the learning happens before you become the Popo. than he's proved himself in any kind of comparable roles. So you hope that he can learn on the job, although usually the learning happens before you become the Popo, that's the point. But yes, I am really fascinated by the Atama's deal.

This was what else is new this off season, a little over the predicted amount. And in fact, you took a small hit on that in your free agent contracts over under draft. I don't know that it will matter because of the windfall that you and Juan Soto received due to his deal, but He had a 160 million prediction from MMOB trade rumors and you took the under on that and similar to the the Blake Snell was a

Under on 160 and then they got over and I guess it was really just that he got an extra year. It was sort of the same AAV as the predicted, but he got an extra year. And I will remind our listeners that during that draft, how many times did I say the thing I'm really taking an issue with here is how long some of these contracts are more than the AAV. Check the transcript, it's in there. I said it. It didn't matter because of W Soto. Did Juan Soto wipe

out all of my prior losses? Am I like neutral or back to positive now? Yes, you are. Yeah, by quite a bit. Oh, nice. Good job, Juan. Wow. Juan Soto, Scott Boris, great job. And this was another simple large contract. No deferred dollars, no trade clause. And I think the thing is, and you know, if more people had time to focus on the Willie Adamus contract, if Juan Soto hadn't been hanging over everything when that was signed,

I think probably a lot of kind of casual fans might've been like, who? Willie Adamus got a $182 million deal. I don't wanna downplay his name recognition, but it can't be great, both because of the markets he's played in and the teams he's played for having slightly lower national profiles.

Yeah, I think that's a big part of it, Rays and Brewers. I think it's also the kind of player he is. Never been an All-Star, never been a Gold Glover, never been a Silver slugger, no bold ink on his baseball reference page. It hasn't ever had a MVP finish higher than 10th, which was this year or 16th prior to that.

And he's kind of this classic player who gets underrated like the, the Bill James Ken Keltner test. It's kind of like someone who's good at a lot of things, but not really that great at anything or not like a league leader, a standout, superlative at any one aspect of the sport. And so he's kind of like that. He's a good shortstop. He's been a very good shortstop in the past.

Maybe now at 29, he's just a good shortstop. He's been a very good shortstop in the past. Maybe now at 29, he's just a good shortstop and he's got good power, especially for a shortstop. And so he's a good hitter. You know, he's like, well, he's been a little bit above average generally, but not an incredible hitter and, you know, kind of like a league average-ish batting average guy and on base guy. And, you know, he, he stole 21 bases this year, which was a lot for him. He had never stolen more than eight in any previous single season.

So prior to that, it was more like, well, he's, you know, he's got a little speed, but he's not a burner. Like I think maybe in an earlier era, he would have been more overlooked or he wouldn't have been the kind of guy who gets a deal like this, but he has been incredibly consistent. He's just been a three to four win player year in and year out, and there's a lot of value in that, just not really star level value. So I guess the Giants, they have yet to land or at least keep a huge name maybe, but they have gotten themselves a very good player here, and perhaps an underrated one, but not underrated inside the sport.

STACEY Right. I mean, like it's funny because I think you're absolutely right that to the casual fan, he is a less well known guy and probably underrated in their estimation to the extent that they have one of him at all. But he was like a five one player last year in what was to your point, like a down defensive effort, um, relative to what he's done in the past. And he still looks good out there. I am willing to concede that as we age, we become less fleet a foot and that he might be a worse shortstop now at 29, although young 29. Every time I say the number 29, I want to say it like Schmidt on New Girl. 29? Pete Slauson It was obnoxious then, but he knew, so it was knowing, you know, part of his evolution

as a character. That was part of the appeal of Schmidt. Right. Obnoxious in a charming way. Yeah. Anyway, Willie Adama seems charming in a non-obnoxious way. What a nice combination. I think that he is sort of lesser known, but he's a good player. I love I love solid all-around players. I Don't think that's like a unique perspective I'm not trying to have a take here lay claim to an identity others do not share

but I'm glad when we talk about them because I Just think one it's really hard to be a good baseball player And so being at least like above average at all of the parts of the game is so cool. It's such a cool thing to be able to say you can do. And I think that those guys occupy a really important place on most rosters where they give, even if they are sort of locked at one position, they do bring a versatility to the lineup where it's like, I don't have to substitute for that guy late in games because he's a competent defender and I don't have to worry about pinch hitting for him because

he can handle himself. You know, it's not the flashiest form of versatility that you can bring, but I think it's a good one. And I like that. And I like Willie Adamus. Plus, we should remember, and I don't know, Ben, I couldn't tell you if this was real or not, but I know that Willie Adamus thought that playing at the trap was a problem for him and that the lights made it hard for him to see the ball. And so, who knows who knows what who Willie Adamis is really we like

Were the first three and a half seasons of his career indicative of his potential. I mean he had a 126 120 wrc-plus in two of those years, although one of them was 2020 So like, you know, we make our adjustments so like it was bad But then I remember that 20 21 season he gets traded to Milwaukee and all of a sudden he has like a 136 WRC plus. And I was like, maybe those lights are a problem. They should take them out. And then I guess they have been taken out terrible circumstances. So anyway, I just, uh, I like Willie Domus. It sounds from everything I've heard that he is a great clubhouse presence. Um, and that people have a lot of respect for him.

I'm excited. I'm excited to watch him play. I think that one of the things that I have decided I root for, this is a pro Meg stance, this is one of the things I am looking for in any given season for me to consider it successful is I want to be able to go into the year and say, you know, might be a, might be a difficult year in the NL West. I don't want, I don't want any of these seasons where we're like, it's the Dodgers to lose. And often Ben, it's going to be the Dodgers to lose, even though there are good teams in that division. But I really appreciate when teams in the NL West are like, no, we will not be taken for granted and we will not take their championship for granted. We will, we will try to do things.

Now the Giants need to do many more things or at least some more things to really be given them the business. Like a lot of a rotation would be nice, you know, they still have some work to do on that side of the ball, but you get more Matt Chapman, you get Willie Adomis. We'll see what we get out of Jung-Hoo Lee. I hope that guy has a nice bounce back, you know? I want a mulligan for him and I'd like it to go well. So, I don't know, it's good. I think it's good. Jared Sarkissian Adomis's home road splits, by the way, have been much more normal since he became a brewer. He had those extremes. It may have been the subject of a stab blast at some point, but

he's way, way worse at home. Yeah. And as a brewer, he has had pretty normal looking home road splits. He's been a bit better in Milwaukee, which is what you would expect. So yeah, there was maybe something to that. And I just, I don't know what to make of the Giants still. Obviously I don't think Adamas alone is enough to get them out of this 500 realm

that they just can't seem to escape. This unremarkable realm of being kind of the perfectly average baseball team. And every now and then you think they're gonna go on a run and then they do, but then they also go on a losing streak and they end up back at 500 again, other than 2021, which maybe raised expectations so high that it led to wholesale changes over there.

They've just been hard to pin down the identity of that team, its competitive prospects. And I don't know that that has changed yet, but Buster Posey is working on it. He's on it. So we'll see what other moves he makes. We'll see. And Farhan Zaidi, reportedly there was a rumor that he is in talks to return to the Dodgers front office, and I guess that could help us segue to talking about

a couple Dodgers deals. The Dodgers signed or re-signed Blake Trinen to a two-year $22 million deal. And then they added a San Francisco giant, Michael Conforto. So maybe they're not just getting Zidy back, but also bringing over Conforto. This is a one-year deal, $17 million. And I guess it's more of a platoon arrangement. Yeah. It's hard to...

It's fine. Yeah, it's fine. I don't get it. I mean, it's fine. Here's what I'll say about Michael Conforto. Man, good for Michael Conforto. What a lot of money that guy has made in the last couple of years for being either hurt or kind of just okay.

And I mean it. like, whatever, man. Take, take when, when stuff gets goofed and the giants feel like they need to make good with Scott Boris for something. Why not Michael Conforto as a beneficiary of that? Fine. Fine. You know, the, the Dodgers decide they need a platoon guy. I guess. Fine. Sure. Whatever. Like it's not a bad deal because I posit there are very few bad one-year deals at all. And I think that when you have the resources of the Dodgers, the hurdle you would have to clear to really constitute a bad one-year deal. This high. Like, it's not even a hurdle anymore. You probably wouldn't call it that. You know, I'd assume. Hurdle suggests it has, hurdle, hurdleable. Leave it in, leave it

in. You have to be able to hurdle it for it to be a hurdle. At a certain point, it's just like a brace, you know, like a, for a joist in the wall or something. I don't know. I don't know about construction or hurdles, but I do know that, uh, I find this deal, I find it weird, kind of a mystery, but I feel like the Dodgers are good for a couple of these every off season where they're like, hey, we're going to give that guy money. Why? I don't know.

We need a platoon guy. We're going to trade for Miguel Rojas. Then we're going to extend him. Is that a good idea? I don't know. We're going to do it. I just think that they play a different game. And I'm not saying that in a let's freak out about their deferrals kind of way, but I just think that like their

Gauge of what is a bad deal is like I said different than other teams I think they just view these things a little bit differently because they're like whatever we'll figure it out either It'll work or it won't we'll cut them or we don't use them or we won't and what is a hurdle? We don't know Yeah, you can't say it any better than Meg can of course. There's a We don't know. We can't say it any better than Meg can. Of course there's a deferred money in this deal too. Even though this is a one year deal for 17 million. 8.5 is actually 8.5 is the signing bonus,

but also there is deferred money. So every deal has to be maximally complicated. But yeah, I mean, it's kind of underwhelming, I guess, because the Dodgers were in the running for another left-handed hitting outfielder represented by Scott Boris. And then you can't even call Conforto Wonsoto at home. This is just a stopgap. And I guess it doesn't preclude them from also bringing back Te Oskar, who is still

a free agent as we speak. It does sound like they are a ways apart though. Yes. And the most recent reporting. It seems to cement Mookie Betts' presence in the infield, specifically at shortstop. And so, yeah, this is just kind of the Jason Hayward role, I guess, but maybe not as gifted defensively.

So I don't know, it's hard to be excited about it. Like Conforto, he had a bit of a bounce back from the injury plate period. 15, 113 WRC plus. Yeah. Yeah. He was useful. And if you put two in him, then okay.

You know, it's like, I guess this is how depth works for the Dodgers. You sign a guy with a $17 million AAV that might be too rich for the blood of some teams for a role like this. But sure, you just have Andy Pahis and Chris Taylor in the mix and can kind of compliment those right-handed hitting role players and, you know, he can hit righties pretty well. So that's, I guess all he'll be asked to do. Fine. I will always root for Michael Conforto because he's an Northwest guy, Redmond high school

zone Michael Conforto, you know, I love it when the PNW guys make their way. But yeah, I think you platoon him. He'll do what he does. We'll see how it goes. It's fine. Okay. I think it's fine. So we talked about two Dodger signings. Now let's talk- We didn't really say anything about Trinen, I guess, other than like- Oh yeah, he's good. It looked like his sweeper was back to being godlike in the postseason.

It did. And I'm sure that that is very exciting for the Dodgers because boy, when that pitch is working in Good luck. Yeah. And he's getting up there in years and like every other Dodger, he's had plenty of injury issues, but it's just, just add another one to the pile. It's just that's how Dodger's depth works. You just keep signing people and all of them are individually good and some of them will get hurt.

And then you hope that you have enough still standing at the end of it to make your way to the World Series. So sure. Add Blake Trine into the mix. He was obviously a- Yeah, need another, need another, righty. Okay. I'll let that one sail by.

He was a big part of their post-season run, just looking like vintage Trinen. So- Yes, he looked fantastic in October. That would be the case again. Yeah. So having talked about two Dodgers moves, we can talk about two Orioles moves,

also headlined by, I guess, kind of a platoon-ish outfielder, although I guess you hope that Tyler O'Neill is more than that when you're signing him to a three-year $49.5 million deal. So he's sort of the Anthony Santander at home, I suppose. He's a free agent. And I don't know if the expectations for Santander and O'Neill would be that different. Like, you know, they're both coming off big years. Santander has a better track record for staying healthy and consistently producing. And so maybe the-

Meaningfully better health track record than Tyler O'Neill, who has really struggled with that. Yeah. So maybe the talent's not so different, but the availability, pretty different. Not that I would bank on Santander repeating last season necessarily, but I guess they're moving on and they're bringing in Tyler O'Neill, who had his own bounce back season in Boston. And they also signed Gary Sanchez to be the backup to Adley Rutchman at Catcher. So I don't know, I also thought the O'Neill deal was kind of curious, I guess. Yeah. Kind of a odd fit, maybe. I sort of see it, but you do have to wonder how he fits in

to wonder how he fits in like with, with Hessen Kirstad. Like is this a, a timeshare? Like if you don't probably sign someone to platoon for this kind of contract, right? So you're probably expecting him to be more of a regular player. So I don't like he mashes lefties like career WRC plus of 152 against them, 215 in 2024, but you don't sign someone to a three year, almost $15 million deal to be the short side of a corner outfield

platoon. Right. It's interesting as it pertains to CureStat for sure. It's interesting just as it pertains to their young outfielders sort of more generally, because you know, maybe you think to yourself, I know that O'Neill's defensive metrics were not particularly good last year. I think they were actually pretty poor, not just generally, but especially for him. But there have been times where O'Neill has been a plus defender. Now you might say, is he ever going to be that guy

again given the injuries? And I think that's a fair question to interrogate, but maybe you think to yourself, okay, we saw, you know, how Mullins kind of struggled. Is he insurance for Mullins where they can put, you know, O'Neill in center? But I don't know, they're not like, O'Neill isn't that much younger than Cedric Mullins. I don't know that he's actually a viable Center field option. So then what does that mean about what they think of like Colton Kouser? I just, how these pieces are all fitting together is sort of interesting to me. It's not the most obvious fit. I also think that like Santander isn't that much older than

Tyler O'Neil. He's like six months older than him. And I imagine even though teams will be aware that he probably won't have quite the same offensive season he did last year that like his market is probably more robust than O'Neil's for the reasons that you cited, but it would have been nice, I guess, to just bring, I don't know, there's something about bringing Santander back that feels nice to me, because then you keep this guy around for what you hope to be a real competitive run. He was there for so many years of the Orioles, just like, I'm gonna do a swear sucking that it would be nice to give him more time with the good version of the club. So I don't know, it just, I don't think it's a bad signing. I like Tyler O'Neill. We get to talk about, you know, his biceps and how he plays piano.

And you know, to your point, like from a platoon perspective, there are situations where he is like a really potent offensive force. But I don't know, it didn't feel like the most, it's like what else are you gonna do? Also, I just really do think that their biggest need is still pitching, which this doesn't preclude them from going out and getting a whole bushel of starters if they want, but I do wonder, what is their payroll look like?

I don't know, it was just, it was not a bad signing. It was just like, is this the most important bit of business you have to do this off season? But also it's December, you know, it's December 10th. It's not as if they have to be done, you know? And just cause you do things in an order doesn't mean that it's necessarily like how you understand your priorities or areas of greatest need.

This just might be the deal you can get done. So I don't want to make too much of it, but I also was like, oh, okay. Yeah, there's no prescribed sequence of events, order of operations, as long as you get your guys, you can do it at any time in any order, but hopefully this is a sign of more spending to come because that was one of my big questions about this off season. Will new ownership and where the Orioles are competitively means that they will actually make more moves and more signings. And there's been some reporting that

maybe they're reluctant to sign qualifying offer free agent starters. And look, if that just means that they bring back Corbin Burns or get some other guys who don't have QOs attached, fine. If they use that as an excuse not to sign anyone because they just, they got to hoard those draft picks and prospects so much, then that would be bad. But I believe that they will sign some guys. But there was a commonality here between O'Neill and Sanchez. You know, you got your big right-handed, low contact,

high power bats. And I don't know whether they had signings like this in mind when they moved Baltimore back and these might be two guys who have so much power that they would not be dissuaded by Baltimore, but whether this helped these deals happen or whether that happened in anticipation of deals like this or whether that's a coincidence, I don't know, but now you have these guys in the mix and you need someone to back up Adley Rutchman and I sort of assumed that they just bring

back McCann because he seems to have been pretty popular there, but they could maybe upgrade on him offensively. And I guess the thing was that maybe he wanted more than one year and Samuel Besayo, who's one of the Orioles top prospects, catcher, he's coming along and say, you don't want to commit to a backup long-term. And I quite enjoy how Sanchez has rehabilitated himself on the field. Like he's had such a strange career. It's just.

So weird. It really is. It's profoundly odd. We've done El Gary check-ins here and there. I mean, there was a time when it looked like he's just on his way out of baseball fast and like, does anyone want him at all? He's like free talent.

Should we talk about like the angels, the Mets, like should they take a flyer on Gary Sanchez? And he has very much restored himself here. You know, he hit well for the Padres in half a season-ish and then last year for the Brewers he was okay. He's a league average bat and he seems to be a competent defensive catcher now and that's the thing. Like he's just gone such up and downs from like debuting as star level hitter, who the perception was he couldn't field, although maybe that was a little unfair.

The framing has been up and down, but he has rebuilt himself as a catcher. The Brewers are known for helping catchers defensively, I guess, specifically with framing, which is not an area in which Sanchez excelled last year, but he's not so bad by that metric as people have sometimes thought and he had blocking issues and of course he had the good arm and everything. So now he's sort of settled in, I guess, as like a pretty good backup or just kind of like an average-ish catcher all around, which if you can get that guy as a backup, I guess that's good. But it's just so odd. Like I'm glad he hasn't flamed out. And that he's having this second act to his career. I didn't even realize he's 32 years old. He just turned 32.

Yes. He's a new 32. Happy, happy belated birthday, Gary. Yes, but maybe he could continue this phase for a while. So it hasn't worked out the way that he probably thought it was or that thought it would or that Yankees fans expected it would early on, but it also hasn't been as big a disaster as it looked like it might be for a little while there last year looked like a perfectly Serviceable backup which is what he was asked to be right? He wasn't ever gonna be the primary catcher in Milwaukee and that's fine. And so yeah, if he can kind of continue along Often I imagine serving this role where he is like a bridge between The current entrenched starter and the likely

backup behind that. You know, that's a good living. You can be that guy in the majors for a while. And as long as the contact doesn't totally bottom out on him, like it has points in his career, and as long as the defense remains serviceable, which it has not always been, then I think he'll be fine. I think it's a good fit. I don't really have a strong opinion between him or McCann. And so if McCann wanted another year and the Orioles are like, yeah, we only need one, a guy for one, then that works out great. I think it's perfect.

They'll probably have at least one Titanic home run in Yankee Stadium, and that'll give people something to talk about for a couple of days. You hope that Adley will rebound because he started off looking like his usual self. And then a lot of people thought, well, it was the thumb injury from late June because he just didn't hit at all from that point. But the Orioles have, have said it wasn't any specific injuries. So I don't, you'd feel better if it were that. Yes. And if you said, okay, that healed and that won't be a problem anymore.

Whereas if it's not that, then you wonder, well, what was it and will it be better? But I would expect that he'll be better. He's, he's a very good player. So that was weird that he finished on such a cold snap. So that was weird that he finished on such a cold snap. I expected that it would be like, um, we see every time a team is, is done where a team ends their postseason run. And then a couple of days later, you find out the guy who had been underperforming for seemingly no reason is like, and this guy is going to have off season

surgery on this part of his body. He is expected to be ready for opening day or by the time pitchers and catchers report. And that just never came with him. Like we learned more about some of his ailments as the off seasons kind of got underway. But yeah, like there was never, he needs to have this ligament repaired or perplexing. It's hard back there. I mean, you'd still just get the, I'm gonna do a swear, she kicked out of you every day. So, sometimes you're just a catcher

and that's enough of an ailment, I suppose, but it is a little concerning. I don't know if I would say alarming. That might be too strong, but I am concerned, Ben. I find myself concerned. We touch briefly on the Met signing Clay Holmes during our Soto episode. Yeah.

I was all ready to lump that in with what seemed like a trend towards starters, relievers, like the differential there being almost, the distinction there almost being without a difference at this point. It just seems like the rotation bullpen barrier is more permeable than before. And we talked so much last season about Garret Crochet and Lino Lopez and I guess, Jordan Hicks for a little while there and Seth Lugo.

And, and it didn't always work. There were some, some AJ pucks in the mix too, but there just seems to be a greater willingness to at least try this, which I speculated was partly just the fact that the job description of starter isn't as different from the job description of reliever as it used to be, because you're just not expected to go that deep

into games as a starter, and you're airing it out right away the way that relievers do, or it could be something having to do with pitch design and repertoires and evaluating what would work and figuring out new things that a pitcher could do to complement their existing repertoire. Mike Petriello wrote about the home signing from that perspective too. And he looked historically to see if there has been an uptick in starter to reliever conversions.

And he didn't really find anything actually. So it seems like there maybe hasn't been a notable trend toward this that it has been happening a lot always. And that maybe we just talked about it more because a few guys happened to succeed in really noteworthy ways lately. But, you know, he was defining it not just as like the standard, you have a young starter and maybe you break him in the bullpen for a while and then you move him back. He was looking

at guys who were exclusively or understood to be relievers or understood to be starters and now are occupying the exactly right. Had at least a couple seasons where they were exclusively or almost exclusively relievers and then had a season where they were primarily starters. And yeah, there was no clear signal that this is happening way more often than it used to, but Holmes is the latest to at least try. And I guess it's good to have the fallback plan of if it doesn't go so well, then he can just remain an effective reliever, sometimes a really effective reliever. And that's not such a bad thing to have either. And the Mets, they've been kind of cobbling together their rotation lately and it's worked out quite well.

So maybe this is another way they can do it and they can steal another player from their Crosstown rival. And Holmes, I guess, has the repertoire that you think it might work. And in some ways, like he wasn't totally cut out to be a closer as more of like a ground ball sinker type of guy than a big bat misser. So maybe that'll play. And as Mike mentioned, a lot of the players who've had success going from the rotation to the bullpen, they kind of pitched more like starters as it was. They had more than the usual number of pitches.

Yeah. More than the typical compliment of just like the prototypical fastball slider, late inning guy. They might have more offerings than are strictly needed in one inning outings. So yeah. Oh, Michael King was another one, of course. Michael King. Yeah. So yeah. Oh, Michael King was another one. Of course. Michael King. Michael King. I know that no one else thinks about Michael Kane the way I do when Michael

King's name is mentioned, but I think that's cause none of you are trying hard enough. You know, it's really a you problem, not a me problem. I also think just with these, there is some roster spot opportunity cost to signing these guys, because obviously you only get so many. But when you have a guy who's been as good recently, and I know Holmes had his issues last year, but he is a valuable, high leverage guy in a relief capacity, particularly if he can sort out what was ailing him

last year. And so it gives, it gives you the opportunity to really limit the downside of the signing, particularly for a team like the Mets where, you know, they could use more high leverage guys to be a bridge to Diaz. So if things don't work out for him as a starter, well, they'll put him back in the bullpen and that's still going to be valuable for them. You could argue that like there is again, some cost only to him occupying that roster spot although they need a guy like that. But also to like, hey, you know, are you using your time in the off season to sign Clay Holmes

to be a starter and then he can't be one. And you're like, oh boy, we need more starters. Cause as we discussed in the context of Holmes and soda signing, like they could use a couple more guys in the rotation. But also again, it's December 10th and there are still plenty of good starters to be signed as free agents and you can trade for them too. That's legal. Shane Bieber because he signed with the Cleveland Guardians, which is not super surprising. Reportedly, he turned down more money elsewhere to return to Cleveland. I talked a little bit about this in an outro last week. This was another guy I had the over on in the over-under draft and I got a slight positive gain there because he signed for a little more. The guarantee was more than he was predicted to get.

Just coming off of Tommy John surgery, he has a $10 million salary this year with a $16 million player option for 2026 that comes with a $4 million buyout. So it's a $26 million guarantee over two years. But if everything goes well, if he has a big bounce back and come back at some point in the coming season, then he can take the $14 million for year one and hit the market again. And the Guardians could really use a healthy and effective Shane Bieber again, so they could still afford to do some more work starting pitcher wise as well.

Yeah, I agree with all of that. And I hope that he gets a do over because Shane Puper has been like really important to that franchise. And it would be nice to leave a different taste in everyone's mouth, you know? Yeah, he had his TJ in April last year. So you never know.

There are all these variants of Tommy John surgery, different recovery times. Generally players have been taking more time to return in the sort of standard traditional Tommy John surgery and teams haven't wanted to rush it, but you will presumably see him at some point this season. And if he looks like his old self, his pre-injury self, that would be great for them. And then one more AL Central starter signing that I guess we should discuss is Alex Cobb going to the Tigers.

It feels appropriate that a Cobb is going to Detroit. All Cobbs should play for the Tigers. I was actually looking, there have been four big league Cobbs all time. There have been three in addition to Ty. This is just ALNL players modern era. And now we've got Ty Cobb, the Tiger, Alex Cobb, the Tiger, Joe Cobb, a lesser known Cobb.

He was a Tiger too. He played for Detroit in 1918 only. He played in one game. He got one plate appearance, just a little cup of coffee, he walked, so he was a teammate of Ty Cobbs, no relation, just the lesser Cobb on the 1918 Tigers. But spoiling the trend is Herb Cobb. Herb Cobb.

Herb Cobb, who pitched one inning in one game for the 1929 St. Louis Browns. So he spoils the clean Cobb sweep. It's just a three out of four situation, three out of the four ALNL modern era Cobbs have played for the Tigers. So the Tigers clearly needed some rotation help too. I know they seemed like who needs starters

at the end of last season, but it does help to have them. The Tigers, literally the Tigers. Always the Tigers. Yeah. Still the Tigers. Yeah. So Cobb is not necessarily the guy you want if you want to guarantee that you'll have healthy pitchers available and you won't need to do what the Tigers did down the stretch last year. So how much insurance have they provided themselves here? Who's to say, but they've at least added another name to the mix and it's a one year deal, right? I think the terms haven't been reported as we speak, but it's a short term deal and you just hope that he's more effective than he

was at the end of last season for the guardians and then also just generally more available than he has been over the past couple seasons. Yeah, I think that that's the right way to think about it. It's like, Hey buddy, get through passing your physical first, but eventually you're not guaranteed to hit on some of these guys, but like sometimes you hit on one of these guys who's been hurt hurt but has shown he can be a very good starter when healthy, and it ends up making a meaningful difference.

And I'm distracted by all other thoughts because I was like, should I make a, it's not a cup of coffee, it's a side salad joke? So anyway, here I am. Yeah. Yeah. Well, sorry to step on that. I was mulling over some sort of cup salad situation as well,

but I just, I didn't go for it some sort of Cobb salad situation as well, but I just, I didn't go for it. So, yeah. To eat or to do as a joke? Some sort of wordplay. I typically pass on the Cobb salad to eat as well. Me neither. Yeah, I'm always a little let down by the Cobb salad.

So I just, I didn't reach for the wordplay either. He did get to around 150 innings in 22 and 23. He made 28 starts in each of these, those seasons. It was more 2024 that he was largely unavailable, but he's kind of your hurt or fairly effective guy. He's generally when he's on the mound, you're happy to have him there. Yeah, that's true. Okay.

And I think we've almost covered all the major signings. I guess there was the Jordan Romano deal for the Phillies, just another banking on a bounce back of a guy who had an injury plagued 2024, but was a staple of the late innings for Toronto for a few years there, effective closer and now being added to that late inning Phillies bullpen mix. So never hurts to have another potential power arm and who knows what the state of that arm will be, but it's just a one year deal.

So again, can't be that bad. No, can't be that bad. Again, takes a lot for a one year deal to be a truly bad deal. And when you're a team with resources, that hurdle goes all the way to the ceiling. We don't know what it's called, because again, not a construction gal, but I think the same logic applies.

And yeah, Ramon has been a good reliever, like quite recently. So hopefully he has a year that is more, more in keeping with his historical norms. 8.5 million for him with a incentive if he throws 60 innings. So I guess we have covered the big transactions. I guess we should also mention big Mike Bauman signing with the occult swallows.

So he's going overseas, he's going to Japan, which was not something that he necessarily had in the cards when the other Mike Bauman and I had him on the podcast not long ago, but he had such a journeyman 2024 playing for as many teams as he did that I understand the appeal, even though he was about to have a baby when we had him on the podcast last.

And so young kid and family and uprooting them and everything. But I guess that's the time to do it. If you've got like a newborn, you don't have to pull the kid out of school and separate them from their friends or anything. They won't even remember it if you're not there that long. And you get to broaden your cultural horizons,

see the world. And generally with a player like that, maybe you get to get a little raise, make a little more money, and probably also stay in one to get a little raise, make a little more money and probably also stay in one place for a whole season, which after the season he just went through, I think you place a lot of value on that. So maybe he can be the new size need for the swallows. There you go.

There you go. And we also had two new Hall of Famers that just want to shout out. Congrats to them. This was the whatever the veterans committee is called now. I just apologies to Jay Jaffe. I can never quite keep straight what all the various committees are called, but this was the one the voting on players who played before the 80s, right? And so Dick Allen got in.

This is the classic baseball ballot. The classic baseball ballot. The name of this one. Classic baseball ballot. There we go. Thank you. So Dick Allen belatedly has earned an enshrinement and also Dave Parker. So, you know, a couple icons of that era.

Of course, everyone lamenting that Dick Allen not around to receive this honor. And you know, that was something that was lamented when he came close to getting in the last time. And then when he passed and you know, there was sort of a sense that he was going to get in eventually. And it is always better if the player is around to bathe in that adulation. But I think it is overdue recognition of Alan, who had a bit of a short career, but was just a dominant offensive force and probably got a bad rap from a kind of personality clubhouse perspective

and maybe some racism going on there. And, you know, could be prickly at times too, but generally was a good teammate and a guy that players like to play with. And, you know, media didn't always get along with or appreciate him. And maybe that was held against him, who knows. But now he's in a little too late,

but still nice for his family and his fans. And as for Parker, look, Parker was a star. He was among the best players in baseball for a while. Not that long. He had a mid career dip. Of course he had the cocaine issues and he had injury issues and everything else. But look, he's got a cool nickname. He's a Cobra.

He's, you know, he's got the, if you hear any noise, it's just me and the boys bopping t-shirt. Like, you know, just he's a cool guy and he is still around. And you could point out that his career war is not much higher than Harold Baines's. One might point that out if one were inclined to be less charitable, but higher peak and just, you know, higher name recognition, more of an impact player when he was at his best.

You could say that he was one of the best players in baseball for a while, if not quite as long as your average Hall of Famer who gets in via the BBWAA ballot. I've really softened on this stuff. I mean, I was a big hall person to begin with. I don't really feel qualified to like litigate all of the, mostly like the experience of the player when he was, you know, sort of playing contemporaneously. Like I was born toward the tail end of Dave Parker's career. I don't have any memory of Dave Parker playing. I'm happy to defer on that score. But I think that if you

were very good and you had a cultural impact like that and you're something of a borderline case, but one that someone on a committee somewhere thinks is likely to eventually be enshrined, I think err on the side of doing it while they're alive. Like Dave Parker has done a lot of work to raise money for Parkinson's disease. He suffers from Parkinson's disease. He's trying to aid in that research effort. So, let folks enjoy their day in the sun. The peak of Dave Parker from a statistical perspective was very special. And he clearly had, you know,

real impact on the game. He, he had his struggles. He overcame those. I just like little guys have a day where they feel really good about themselves. I don't know, man. I think I'm into that. So yeah, and I'm so glad that dick Allen is finally in the Hall of Fame like for that Oversight oversight trivializes it. I think wrong is probably a more apt way of describing it but for that to be corrected even if it is unfortunately after he would be around to see it like You know Jay mentioned that his family members of his family are here You know, I I think that they're even when the player is gone

They're still likely to be people who for whom it is a very personal thing and to be able to Finally sort of rectify that I think is meaningful. So yeah, and the way the math works on these air committee ballots It's hard for anyone to get elected. It's just, it's almost... Yeah. It's really, it's set up in a way that seems like it is meant to guarantee no one make it. It's not the best. Yeah. I don't know if that's intentional or not. Or if they just didn't realize how hard it would be for enough players to clear that bar because there just, there aren't that many ballots and that many votes to go around.

And maybe, who knows? Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe you don't want those error committees getting too induction happy. And, you know, some of those selections have been questionable. Yeah. But I guess, you know, it's like Tommy John got seven votes, 43.8% of support. And then the other five candidates who were on this ballot, Ken Boyer and John Donaldson and Steve Garvey and Vic Harris and Louis Tiant each

received fewer than five votes. I don't know why Tiant doesn't get more support. We just- I was surprised by that also. Yeah. We just talked about him as well when he passed and there was a sense that maybe he would be recognized at some point too late, but I don't really know why Parker and not Tiant particularly, at least based on their on field accomplishments. And you could certainly make a case for John, not just as a player, but also as like a pioneer.

I do kind of wish that there were a way to blend those better. It seems like you can either be in as a player or a pioneer and sometimes there's just kind of like a life achievement award that has to happen. I guess it's almost like Buck O'Neill getting in, I guess, like maybe wasn't quite there as a player or coach or scout or whatever, but you just kind of combine everything that he did in the Negro leagues in ALNL, everything, you know, he did as a spokesperson for baseball and for the Negro leagues museum and the hall of fame and being the breakout star and face of the baseball documentary, Ken Burns is like,

you just kind of put it all together and it's like hall of famer, even if you can't exactly pinpoint one particular thing that he has a slam down case. So with Tommy John, like given that he's kind of a borderline as a player or arguably deserving, you know, kind of on the periphery certainly would be far from the least deserving Hall of Famer to be in there. And then to have had that first surgery, that alone you'd think like, yeah, just, just add

it on top. You know, if he's close enough that that gets you over the hump, right? I don't know. Maybe being the first to get the surgery, maybe is that less impressive than certainly less impressive, I guess, than being Frank Job or being the pioneer of the surgery, I suppose. Because at that point it's like, what do you have to lose? But you still had to volunteer to be the guinea pig or the big league guinea pig for that

surgery, and then prove that it worked and be the exemplar that so many, many other pitchers have followed in your elbow path. I don't know, footsteps, I guess, sort of, but with an arm. Yeah. I don't quite know where the line is. And I always feel like when it comes to these committees that there is, like on the one hand, it seems likely that it's not a perfectly architected sort of thing because we do end up in these situations where it's not clear like what mother you're meaning to keep people out or not. But I also, I just said we should let like old guys be happy for a day. I don't know that I want like every old guy to be happy for a day. I don't mean like as human beings, but within the

context of the Hall of Fame, like I'm a big hall person, but I do think we want to have standards there. Yeah, the honor has to mean something. I mean, it has to be fairly exclusive or it wouldn't be something to celebrate the way it is. Exactly. So, you know, it's hard to know exactly where that line ought to be, but I do feel like we, how we cluster them and what we're recognizing them for can sometimes be difficult and it feels like you should be able to keep certain things in mind that you're technically supposed to not look at.

And I do wonder if we're at a point where it would be useful given with MLB's belated recognition but final recognition of some Negro leagues as major leagues and the big advances that we've had from a research perspective there. Like it might be time to call the question again on just more Negro league specific ballots so that we can do what we need to to make sure everyone's in who should be on that side of things because we are having this re-examination and reassessment of a lot of their careers. So I don't know, I was like, just do some more committees, I guess. Like, why do we only have, I'm saying this and then

Jay is going to listen to this episode and be like, I cannot write any more profiles in a year. We simply cannot have more committees. But I do wonder if like, maybe we should have some more committees. It's not like we're letting so many guys in off the writer's ballot that if we have more sort of post writer committee selections, it's going to like throw off induction weekend or whatever, you know? So I don't know, maybe more committees. Maybe that's the answer. But take it from me, the political science scientist who loves administrative stuff.

Let's have more committees. That'll solve it. Election by committee. That's what everyone wants these days. So I guess we can walk off by discussing fan crafts walk-off. There are gonna be more moves and signings. We've kind of caught up. There will be others to discuss

and we'll be back to pot about those later this week. Sounds like Max Fried could pick a suitor sometime soon, et cetera, but I have been greatly enjoying and it seems like a lot of people have, the new FanGraphs walk-off feature. So we talked about Spotify wrapped and its ilk and all of the end of year podcasts listening stats FanGraphs has debuted its usage version of that for using the website and all its associated services. And I always enjoy the baseball reference version of that for using the website and all its associated services. And I always enjoy the baseball reference version of this, which just came out,

the baseball reference year in review, but that's more about site-wide usage trends, which is very handy to see. I want to see what everyone is doing on the site, not just me. And you can look at the most visited player pages and the most popular players from each state, et cetera, or in each state browsing-wise. But this caters to my sense of self-importance and everyone else's, which makes it very much of interest to the internet. So what was the genesis of this fan graph's walk-off doohickey? Oh, it's really the brainchild of Sean Dolinar.

And obviously with a good deal of input from David Appleman and Keaton as well. But we thought it would be cool and that people would enjoy it. I didn't appreciate quite how much. And it's so fun to see everyone's, you know, most viewed players and most read writers and the days that they're the busiest and some real sickos out there among you all.

Boy, there are some, you know, there are a bunch of awards that you can win and some of you are, you're really on the site a lot and we appreciate it so much. But also do you love your families? What's going on? No, I'm kidding. But it's, it's been a lot of fun to see kind of what is of interest to people and to have people really grapple with how much they're on the side. Yeah, yeah. Could be quite an awakening for some folks. I have seen some people say,

maybe I should be a subscriber premium if I'm not already, because look how much I'm using this thing. And so it could be positive in that sense or it could make you question your choices in life. But I've certainly made this choice to use fan graphs all the time too. I wish I could separate my four effectively wilds. I mean, you are hardly the, you're the number one example of like your for work fan graphs

usage versus like, I mean, it is your job. You are fan graph. So if you could somehow separate, I wish I could separate like, you know, my making of the podcast posts, right? Because my most read author at fan graphs this year was Ben Lindbergh, just because I've built 150 or whatever it is podcast posts. And so that counts toward my stats. I don't know that I've been logged in

for every single interaction I've had with the FanGraphs website, because if I'm on a phone or on a different computer or something, I might not always bother to log in. So this might be missing some usage, but what usage it captured was sufficient to make me a platinum performer here in the 99th percentile. And the awards that I won, I got, so you're telling me there's a chance,

which was for the people who are among the top users of the Playoff Odds. Yeah. That definitely tracks. I'm a frequent consult of the Playoff Odds. I got the Warrior Award for being among the top war leaderboards visitors. Guilty. And also Leaderboard Legend for spending a lot of time checking the MLB leaderboards, which I definitely do do. Sometimes for stat blasting, sometimes just for fun. Stat blasting itself is fun. But yeah, I was greater than 99th percentile in article reading, playoff odds usage, leaderboards use 98th in homepage, 94th in roster resource,

93rd in player pages, 93rd in projections, 92nd in prospects. So I was up there really pretty much across the boards though. It seems like yours was skewed toward the board, speaking of across the board. Like you use the board a lot, you use minor league pages because you're always working on the rankings, like the lists for sites and everything. So yeah. Yeah, a lot of mine were related to that because you know, it's not like the only content I edit is prospect content, but in terms of like the editorial lift on any given list, it's meaningfully greater than on any given article, right? I do all my editing and then after my first pass, my second pass

is like a fact checking pass to be like, did he really strike out that much? Did he really go through four levels of the minors last year And so you end up spending time, a lot of time on player pages. The ones that are funniest to me were my most searched players because people took it to mean that I was like obsessed with Juan Soto and don't get me wrong, I love Juan Soto. But the players that really occupied my most searched player tab of this are the guys where there are duplicates of that name in the database because, you know, if you've ever read a fan graphs article, you will notice that player names are linked to their player pages so that if you want to say, go see how Wansoto is hit over the course of his career, after reading an article about him, you can

very easily click his name and then it takes you right to his player page. Well, the linker that we use, which pulls in those links automatically so that I don't have to sit and manually link every player mentioned, which is a great invention and has saved time and I know people love the player linker, but if there is a another player in our database with that same name who is still active player It pulls back a generic search URL so that if you were to click on it You would get basically the results of the player search function on the site and see all of the one Soto's and guess what? There's another one Soto. There's another Jose Ramirez. There's famously another Max Muncie because the younger Max Muncie has not been required to throw his middle initial in there.

Still think that we should be taking a page out of SAG's book on this subject and make there be distinction amongst the Muncie's. But yeah, most of my most searched guys were players where there is a another player with that same name in our database and I have had to in the course of editing a piece go and find the right one and make sure that the proper link is inserted into the piece. I had to do that on episode 2255 of Effectively Wild when I was building that post. My most visited player page is, I had a 42-58 picture position player split percentage wise. And let's see, I visited 544 player pages.

I'm sure your total dwarfs that, but Aaron Judge was by far my number one, followed by Blake Snell, Juan Soto third, and probably partly was tagging him correctly for podcast posts. Shohei Otani, surprising, fourth, not on the podium, out of the money, my apologies, Shohei, followed by Luisa Rice, Shota Imanaga,

which somewhat surprised me to have him that high, followed by- Were you really checking up on my bold preseason- I may have, I definitely did, multiple times, your Yamamoto versus Imanaga prediction, but I don't have Yoshi on here. Vlad, Vladito is on here. Barry Bonds, I guess Evergreen. Aroldis Chapman and O'Neil Cruz. Okay.

Who were your top player page, if you have that? Let's see. How many total player pages did you visit? Did you say? 544. 2,800. Yeah. Let's see, who are my most searched? I'm 99th percentile, you must be number one.

Like I wonder if you could tell that. I mean I'm not number one. You're not? I'm not. Look that up to see who was number one. Oh yeah, I think Appleman was the number one user of the site. Okay, that makes sense.

Let's see, my top player page views, Soto, Jose Ramirez, so those are dupes in the database guys, and also very good players, Aaron Judge, Will Smith, a dupe in the player database guy, Jackson Merrill, Max Muncy, Tommy Edmond, he is on my roster for my like, Sim League league team and then Otani. Those were my, those were my main guys. Yeah.

I, uh, I go to the player pages and articles a lot, just a lot. Yep. Just really I'm 99th percentile in articles, prospects, homepage, player pages, 97th and playoff odds, 93rd and roster resource 92nd and leaderboards. Seventh in Playoff Odds, 93rd in Roster Resource, 92nd in Leaderboards, and then 75th for fantasy articles, 70th for projections, and 34th percentile for fantasy tools, but that's because I'm not a fantasy player. I am not going to share my most-read authors because that might cause weird internal politics. I am a platinum user.

I am the 99.9th percentile of fanGraphs and my badges were scouting directors. So you're telling me there's a chance and cross-checker. Yeah. What a fun little exercise. Our experiences and specifically yours, not really reflective of even your average power user of FanGraphs, but if you haven't checked this out and you do have an account, then do. And if you don't have an account, here's incentive for you to sign up for next

year so that you can enjoy these stats in 2025 and a paid account even better. Yes, please. It was very, well, it is a, it is a member feature. So, um, yeah, so get, get on it friends. But, um, it was funny. I mean this With with kindness and affection and my my blue sky account isn't loading right now, but you know I shared my results Or at least some of them On Sunday and someone like quote posted me and was like I'm horrified to learn there someone who uses fan graphs

More than I do and I was like is fan graphs more than I do. And I was like, well, I am a managing editor. It is literally my job. So don't worry about it. I'm not a total freak. The thing that really surprised me, and it made me want to call my mom and tell her that actually my work-life balance is better

than either of us have believed it to be, was that I was not on the site every day of the year. There were days that I did not do it. I did not, I did not nav over to fangraphs.com and I am, I was, you know, I was actually very happy to learn that. I know that there were members of our staff who got the Cal Ripken Jr. Award. So these were folks who visited FanGraphs literally every day of the tracked period. And I was not among them.

And I thought, good for me. Maybe I don't have to go back to therapy. It is funny to see the activity graphed over the course of a year though, because you had and I had just the peak is the peak probably for most people, which is the trade deadline essentially, like July, beginning of August. But then there are the doldrums of the off season.

And that's where we are, not winter meetings week specifically, but off season, definitely lower than on season, unless you're talking about the lead up to the start of the season and opening day and all that. But here we are nonetheless. Here we nonetheless, we're still podcasting during the doldrums and during a busy week of activity, which will continue as well, our week of podcasting. And Hey, just as we're wrapping up the Rockies signed Tyra Estrada.

So that's, that's one notes that we could end on. I guess it's a one year deal. I we could end on, I guess. It's a one year deal. I don't have a whole lot to say. Is it a major league deal? Oh boy, insult to Taira Estrada that you even have to ask that question, but yes. I don't mean it as an insult to him.

I just, you know, sometimes these things surprise you. Yeah, it is a major league deal. Good for him. Yeah, I guess last season wasn't so good for him, which is why you even had to ask that question. It was not. Yeah, but he was good for a few years there. So I guess the Rockies hope that the good times

will be back again for Tyrus. He's only 28 years old, so last year was an outlier. He'd been above average or better as a batter for parts of three seasons in a row prior to that. Fantastic. We started with the Giants more or less and now we ended with someone leaving the Giants too. So it all comes full circle.

Well after we recorded we got the terms for that Alex Cobb signing. 15 million for the one year with one million dollar bonuses if he reaches 140 and 150 innings. But that was not the only information we've since obtained. Tyra Estrada, not the last deal to be done on Tuesday. Max Free did indeed sign with the Yankees an 8-year deal, $218M. Guess it's good that we didn't have our what will the Yankees do after missing out on Soto discussion. Then the Blue Jays traded for the Guardians Andres Jimenez.

The Jays also brought back Yumi Garcia on a two-year $15 million deal. Not sure how much we would have had to say about Yimmy Garcia regardless. The Guardians flipped Spencer Horwitz, whom they had acquired in the Jimenez trade, to the Pirates. The Rangers re-signed Nathan Ivaldi for three years. 75 mil. Clearly, our contracts over Underdraft should have just been nothing but overs. Should have hammered those overs.

So we're wrapping up this one episode and we almost have a whole episode's worth of moves to talk about, but we'll be back to do that with a Winter Meetings wrap up in the not too distant future. Also, if you downloaded the last episode shortly after it went up, you may have heard me mention that Juan Soto, or perhaps Francisco Indore, could become the Mets' first position player to make the Hall of Fame. Obviously I omitted Mike Piazza, a player I quite enjoyed and if anything think was underrated defensively. Well I underrated him too by not mentioning him

as a Mets position player Hall of Famer. I think of him as more of a Marlin so maybe that's why he slipped my mind. No not really. He did produce more career war with the Dodgers though the majority of his playing time came as a Met so maybe that's why I blanked on him. Wasn't a career Met. I guess Carlos Beltran would be in the same boat if and when he gets in. I assume he'd go in as a Met, not a royal. I was also thinking about some of the Met's hitters who seemed that they were Cooperstown-bound.

Darrell Strawberry, David Wright, and then that didn't happen. Anyway, apologies to Piazza as the song says, New York Catcher. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash Effectively Wild and signing up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad-free and get themselves access to some perks. William Figgey, Patchy Beard, Mark Haber, Zachary Gima, and Brian Langford, thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, monthly bonus episodes, playoff live streams, prioritized email answers, 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 and outro themes to podcastatfangraphs.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 Graphs or the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we cited today. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We'll be back with another episode a little we cited today. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We'll be back with another episode a little later this week.

Talk to you then. I'm just a fan who wants nothing less than effectively wild. Oh, wild, oh wild, nothing less than effectively wild.