Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2257: You Better Fried Your Mind Instead

Episode Date: December 13, 2024

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the end of the Winter Meetings, then discuss the rest of what down in Dallas: the Max Fried signing and where the Yankees roster stands, the Garrett Crochet trade, referring to a single player as a “Red Sox,” the Andrés Giménez (and Spencer Horwitz) trades, the Rangers re-signing […]

Number one fan grass baseball podcast. This stat cast is that blast. TOPS plus when the stats need contrast. Zips and steamer for the forecast. Hello and welcome to episode 2257 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fan Grafs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from FanGraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer,

joined by Meg Rowley of FanGraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello. So you're still speaking to me from Dallas. We're recording here on Thursday afternoon. Yep. No, Thursday morning. That would be more accurate. Whatever. And the meetings-

They wouldn't have known. No, but the meetings technically have concluded. Whatever. They wouldn't have known. No, but the meetings technically have concluded and shortly after we finish this podcast, you will be joining the industry exodus from Dallas as everyone flocks back to whence they came and I guess we can say based on what's happened so far, barring any late breaking news, which I'm sure there will be as soon as we finish recording, because that's the way that these things tend to go, pretty eventful meetings.

Can't say that we got cheated. Can't say that these meetings that this week was a letdown. We cannot say that. It would be inaccurate to say that it was a letdown. There was a lot, Ben. There were so many things. Many things happened.

So, you know, I don't know, man. It was busy. It was a busy time. It was. I hope you had some good meetings in addition to reacting to and editing everything as you were doing right up until the second we started podcasting. Hardly everything, you know. We would be remiss to not acknowledge the great efforts of Matt Martell. I did not edit everything. One could not edit the entire site alone. That'd be crazy. Well, lots to read and lots to discuss. And I guess we can probably just pick up

right where we left off. Because we kind of caught up last time. And then as soon as we wrapped, teams decided to do a whole bunch more stuff. So we can just do our transaction roundup here starting with the biggest move, Max Fried is a Yankee. And I guess I'm glad that we didn't do an in-depth discussion about what the Yankees should do. What should they pivot to? Whom should they sign in the wake of missing out on Soto? Because that quickly would

have been obsolete though. Maybe we would have said, hey, they should they sign in the wake of missing out on Soto? Cause that quickly would have been obsolete though. Maybe we would have said, hey, they should go get Max Fried and then we would have looked smart. But that is what they did. And even if we had said that they would do that, I doubt we would have predicted the terms. Because they're pretty, man, just yet another prodigious deal here.

I guess it should cease to be a surprise at some point. And we should just sort of. No, no, Dylan Cease is a cadre. Sorry, sorry. He's not the former White Sox ace we will be discussing on this episode who was traded to a contender. Plenty of those to go around. But yeah, Max Reed is a Yankee and not only is he a Yankee

but he received the most raw dollars of any left-handed pitcher ever. So yet another record-breaking contract here. And it's an eight-year deal, an eight-year deal, $218 million. Mercifully, it's yet another simple one. No different money, no opt-outs. There's a no trade clause, but they've kind of given us a reprieve here in all of the complicated contract term breakdowns.

I am so fascinated by this deal. I wish that there were some sort of oracle we could consult to tell us what percentage each of the following factors I'm going to name played in in Freed ultimately getting this deal. And I want to start by saying I like Max Freed a lot. I'm going to sound like I'm, you know, taking a dig at him, which I'm not doing. But this was a lot of money. It was a lot of money, Ben. It's a lot of money. There's a lot about Freed's profile that could give one pause about that much money just because he's one of those guys who I think has been a fascination to

To folks because he's not like a huge strikeout pitcher, right? And so you're like, what is this guy gonna be long term there happen some injury concerns, but also he shows secondary characteristics that would suggest that he can sort of defy that lack of strikeout and still be very, very good. We've seen him be very, very good. We've seen him be, there's been debate on the internet about this lately, but like I would put Freed in the same category that Michael Rosen did a couple of weeks ago, where I would call him a very, very good pitcher, but I wouldn't say that he's like one of the top,

you know, three or four in the league, his war bears that out, but you know, he does a good job of suppressing hard contact, he doesn't give up doubles. It's not like he has a bad FIP, but there are things that he does that FIP isn't particularly sensitive to, right?

Which might be a thing that a smart team like the Yankees is able to parse successfully and say, this is our guy. So some large percentage of his deal is Max Fried human pitcher, right? And the skills that he brings to the New York Yankees. Some percentage of Max Fried's deal is the New York Yankees not having signed Juan Soto and either because they have resources now

to commit to other players or because they feel a need to project, no, we are doing things to get better as a team. He is a Yankee with this contract in some way, shape, or form because of the peculiarities of Soto. And then there's some part of Max Fried's deal that is the result of this being seemingly a pretty robust market for, for starters, for everyone, but like particularly for starters, you know, I was talking to some team folks in the meetings and one of them thought that

team folks in the meetings. And one of them thought that their club might have a chance at say a guy like Matt Boyd. And then Matt Boyd signed his deal and they were like, wow, we really didn't necessarily have the chance we thought or at least not the chance that would have been as inexpensive as we thought it would be. Cause like, wow, that's what Matt Boyd's getting. And then you see Max Fried and you're like, whoa,

he's much better pitcher than Matt Boyd to be clear, which isn't meant to be a knock on Matt Boyd's getting, and then you see Max Fried, and you're like, whoa, he's a much better pitcher than Matt Boyd, to be clear, which isn't meant to be a knock on Matt Boyd, it's just like a statement of fact. So I would love to know kind of what, the breakdown is what stirred the soup the most, and I imagine the bulk of it is, the Yankees like Max Fried, because he's good, you know? But these other factors definitely played a part and I wish I could get a precise tally, you know?

Show me a pie chart. Yeah, it's funny because when you express a willingness to sign someone for 51 mill a year, which was the AAV that the Yankees offered, one Soto, then you have advertised that you have that amount of money to spend. Right. Which- You can't be like, look, we can have advertised that you have that amount of money to spend. Right. You can't, you can't be like, look, we can't afford that. Right.

It's like, you can afford everything. You have expressed that publicly. Exactly. Yeah. So that doesn't mean that you just want to spread that money around willy nilly, but also if you miss out on a guy who was a cornerstone of your team in 2024, and then you admit, you concede that, hey, we have all this cash on hand,

then you kind of have to spend it somewhere. I mean, you have to just because like, they actually need players to get better. But also- They have a number of needs. Yeah, but in terms of public perception and fan sentiment, you can't just dangle the 51 million, the 760 million out there and then take it

back because Wonsodo is no longer on the market. You have to do some splurging at least. So part of it's probably that. And it's funny that signing Max Fried, that would be a big deal. It is a big deal. It is a big deal, literally. Yes, but it seems like less of a deal just because it's kind of the consolation prize for missing out on one Soto. It's still great. He's still a fantastic pitcher to have, but any other one free agent you're going to sign

at this point is not quite as exciting as just resigning Soto would have been. So you have to hope that you can sign or trade for multiple people who, as I joked last time, you're kind of recreating Soto or Soto's value in the aggregate. But any individual headline is almost just going to seem like you're settling for Max Fried, who is one of the best pitchers in baseball, but it just, it doesn't have quite the same impact when your cross town rival just stole one Soto out from under your noses and outbid you and then you say, aha, but we have Max Fried, which is again, like a coup. It's great to have

Max Fried. It's great to have Max Fried. It's just not quite the same as Siding Soto. So I do think that Fried is maybe a little underrated. I was talking about that with Willy Adamus the other day, how I assumed that he's probably like the lowest Q rating. You and Willi are good friends? Yes. Not, uh, wasn't talking to Willi Adamas, but, uh, he was the subject of what I was saying, which is that he's maybe the least decorated player to land a deal like that. And Free doesn't quite in that category.

He's been an all star a couple of times. Uh, he was a gold Glover. Willie Adamus hasn't been a gold Glover or a silver slugger. Max Reed was both of those things, though. I guess the silver slugger doesn't help him so much anymore, but he has gotten Cy Young votes. He, he was a runner up in the Cy Young voting, but I think just because, as you said, it's the lack of bat missing. It's not that he's like a pitch to contact guy or anything.

And people might still think of Corbin Burns as more of a bat misser because he had that strikeout ceiling in the past. But the last couple of seasons, Max Reed has matched Corbin Burns' strikeout for strikeout. They have essentially the same strikeout rate over the past couple of seasons. So it's not like he can't get you some punchies, but when you're signing to someone to the biggest deal ever for a left-handed starter and what, the fourth biggest for any pitcher period, maybe you hope and expect to see some more Ks, some more whiff.

Maybe it makes you a little nervous that you don't, but he's been doing this for a while now. Right. And it has been working for him. It's not the way that it is with Burns, where he used to have that arrow in his quiver and he's kind of lost it a little. Yes. It's like, Fried's never had that, which I guess seems bad, but also like he's not declining. You can't really make a case that, oh, he's on the downside or he's slipping or he's losing some stuff or effectiveness.

This has always been his profile and maybe the upper end of the range of outcomes for that profile is not quite as high as the upper end of what Corbin Burns used to be. But clearly like Adamus, I suppose he has been incredibly consistent, but better than Adamas. I mean, he's really good. Yeah. And you know, he's a lefty, so he's got that going for him. You can't look at Freed and paint a decline story, right?

That's not what's happened here. He has been pretty consistent in his approach to pitching over his big league career. I don't know that the Yankees necessarily are tacking on extra money for this, but a guy who has pitched big postseason innings, I'm sure that that is at least part of, it gives them a nice thing to be able to tell their fans. So like that's something, it's a thing. But yeah, it's interesting. Like he's not a guy where you look at some of the stats

that I think a lot of fans look at and go, oh yeah, obviously incredibly dominant. But once you peel back the onion a little bit, and again, it's not like, I'm making it sound like he's like a Kyle Hendricks, like, fiftifier. That's not the assertion here, right? Like, his stats are still good, but you're right. He's not like striking, he doesn't have like a 13K per nine,

but you're right. You're also right to say that he's not a pitch-to-contact guy. I'm right about so many things, this is great. Well, yeah, you're doing great, Ben. For all my pedantic nitpicking about your sentence structure in the last couple of minutes, because I am incorrigible, I think you've hit the nail on the head, bud.

I really do. Thanks. Yeah, he has beaten his FIP for five straight seasons. Not by a ridiculous degree. It's like, yeah, three-tenths of a run, ERA better than FIP. I guess it's more like half a run compared to his ex-FIP. And he does have this demonstrated track record of eliciting weak contact, which I think you could probably say it seems safe to say at this point that that is a skill of his and it's pretty repeatable, not necessarily sustainable indefinitely, but I do believe

that it's more than just randomness that over this stretch he has demonstrated an ability to induce soft contact. And that's why he has had lower than average babbips and good ground ball rates. Those things go hand in hand, at least the soft contact and the grounders. And that is why he has been able to beat the FIPS. Even if he had pitched to his FIP, he still would have been very good. So it wouldn't be the worst thing if he suddenly lost that capacity to induce soft contact and was just the guy that the defense independent stats said he'd be. He'd still be really good. And he throws hard enough, he throws 94, which for a lefty starting pitcher, even these days,

is not bad for an average figure, especially because by the standards of modern day starters, he goes pretty deep into games. Yeah, he does. And he can go a third time through the order, and he has been one of the more effective starters when he has been left in a third time through the order. So given that he is, I don't know if he's max efforting or if he's holding something in reserve and he has a good four pitch mix and that probably helps because he's able to show batters something new each time through the order. But that you could even add a little extra maybe to the VELO there. If you kind of compare him to pitchers who are not lasting as long in games

and are not getting fatigued as they go. And I think I was more wary of his injury record than I deserve to be, or then it merits, like it's kind of concerning what pitcher isn't and 2023 is cause for concern and he's had elbow stuff, forearm stuff, whatever it was, like, you know, you definitely worry about all that, but he did make 29 starts this year and 30 starts in 2022 and 28 starts in 2021. So it's not like he's perennially unable to pitch. And I guess, what was it, at the end of this season, he was unavailable to pitch,

right? Which maybe makes you a little nervous, but that's going to come with the territory of basically any pitcher. So comparing to the baseline these days, it's not that scary. Yeah, I think it'll be, I mean, it might be catastrophic to be clear to say it'll be fine with a pitcher seems completely ridiculous. But I think you're you're right to say that while there is an injury track record, it isn't one that I think is, I mean, clearly wasn't a problem for the Yankees, although I don't know if he's technically past his physical yet, but it's not so alarming that I would worry that large chunks of this are going to be lost to injury any more than I would always worry about that with a pitcher. You know, there's always that caveat attack on the back end. It's like, it's fine-ish

for now. Who could say one pitch tomorrow could be totally different. But you know, you mentioned up top that it's good that we didn't do our sort of post-mortem just feels so premature and I'm about to make that point, but our sort of diagnosis of where the Yankees should go now that they've lost out on Soto because we would have missed the Freed deal. But I think arguably this club can't be done yet. Max Freed, whatever past silver slugger glory he may have is not a potent offensive force. I don't think that you necessarily want to roll with like, Ben, have you put

your arms around the lineup of the New York Yankees as it is currently constituted? Because there's a lot of, I feel bad making jabs at folks, but there's a lot of Ben Bryce on here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hoping that he performs up to his projections or that Jason Dominguez does. There's real risk of Bronx bombing in a bad way. And Jason has Caleb Durbin

on their projected opening day roster, who was a total standout in the fall league this year. I think Caleb Durbin on their projected opening day roster, who was like a total standout in the fall league this year. I think Caleb Durbin is very good and I think will be very good, but these are the New York Yankees. They could, apart from anything else, use a lot more certainty of production in their lineup and there are guys on here where like maybe Dominguez like really finally puts it all together.

He stays healthy. He looks more like he did in that incandescent like eight game call up before he tours UCL. Maybe Ben Reiss takes a step forward, but there's like a lot of maybe here other than Aaron Judge. So I think that some work could be done to improve it. And and first base is a spot that seems obvious. you know, they're in fields in general could use some Upgrading. Yeah Correcting myself from a moment ago. Freed was not the one who was unavailable in the playoffs

That was sale and another Atlanta pitchers what I was remembering was that he got blown up in his one wild card start and He did also miss a few weeks in July. Yes, he had a left forearm issue in July. Yeah. So there's still stuff to be concerned about. There often is with pitchers. And you could look at that Yankees rotation, which looks very strong, but, and there's some depth there, but they are committing something like a hundred million bucks to the trio of Cole, Rodan, and Freed, and then I guess also Marcus Stroman,

and then you have Louise Heel, you have Nessar Cortez, you have Clark Schmidt, right? So there's some guys there if someone goes down, but what are you gonna get out of that top trio out of Cole Rodin Friede if all those guys are healthy and hit their higher expectations? Well, then you've got a dominant rotation on your hands. If they're hurt, which would not be unheard of for any of them, or if they're a little less effective, then they're question marks. But again, when are they not question marks and they do at least have a little bit of

depth there. But yeah, it does seem like they are trending back toward being more of a run prevention team, which is what they were prior to trading for Soto. And that sometimes didn't go so great. And it's also just not the best spectator experience when it's just judge and hope for the best with most of the rest of your lineup. So yeah, they really could use at least another bopper in there and they've been connected to Teoscar and others like they will definitely make more moves and it just seems like they have a good portion of a lineup still to procure here and they're

over the tax thresholds already. Right? I mean, you know, no one cares. It's the Yankees. They're used to it, although they don't always express the same willingness that they once did to outspend everyone. But they definitely do have some work to do here. And can you count on Judge to give you exactly what he gave you the last two seasons?

It's just like all-timer seasons where he was healthy and out of this world with how good he was. And I know the plan is to move him back to a corner, which is probably prudent, but it doesn't mean that you have to figure out your center field situation. And maybe it's Dominguez and maybe it's Grisham or some combination of the two or maybe there are more moves to make there. But yeah, it's just losing Soto, you know, like Soto, the presence of Soto in tandem with Judge just really did paper over a lot of cracks and flaws in the foundation and made up for a lot of sins.

And yeah, you're going to have to import multiple players to hope to try to make up for the production that you're losing with Soto. Yeah. They're, they're in a spot from a luxury tax perspective where at least as we have them sort of estimated now, they are through the second luxury tax threshold. So, Rasta Resource has them at $264 million and change for their 2025 luxury tax payroll. And I would argue that not only do they have room up to, I mean, they have to be clear, however much room they have the will to spend because they are literally the Yankees, but you know, just in terms of the strategy of this stuff, it would be very silly to go $3 million

into the next bucket and no more, right? That doesn't get you anything when you have a team that has this many holes. Like at a certain point, you just have to commit to the bit. And if they decide that, I don't know, 281, which is the next threshold, is their upper bound, I might argue that that's silly, given how many things they have to address here.

But going over by a couple million dollars isn't a particularly efficient allocation of payroll resources, because you're still paying penalties, and you still have Ben Rice at first base, right? So having committed the kind of payroll they have I would argue that they aren't actually Using it to its full effect if they stop now and there's no indication they're gonna stop now like for all their grumbling I think that you know, it sounds like the Kyle Tucker sweepstakes is coming down to them and Chicago

Chicago being the Cubs, I should say, just in case that require clarification. So I think that they know that they have additional needs. Now, Kyle Tucker doesn't play for space famously, but he's really good. I think, you know, if I were the Yankees and I could like cast a spell to get one move done for the rest of the off season. I would, I would use that spell to trade for Kyle Tucker and then immediately

extend him because I think that if you were to do that, you can make it an argument to your fan base that is, is a pretty good faith argument that yeah, we lost out on Juan Soto and that's really disappointing. And I'm not saying Kyle Tucker is Juan Soto. Kyle Tucker is really good. Like talk about underappreciated guys. I don't know Kyle Tucker is Juan Soto. Kyle Tucker is really good. Like talk about underappreciated guys. I don't know if it's because he looks like Ikebukuro Crane or what, but like, I still think that the average fan doesn't have the appreciation for Kyle Tucker

that they should, which is surprising given how much of that guy's career he has spent playing October baseball. But that's what I would do. There's an argument that Cody Bellinger is a good fit for them. It doesn't really solve in a way that you feel super confident about their offensive quandary, right? Because his bat has been wildly variable over the last couple of years, but he's got versatility both in the outfield and at first base.

So maybe you say that's a good move for them. There are moves to make even separate from the free agent market that seem like they are potentially in play. And I imagine they'll avail themselves of some of them, but they still have, they have work to do, you know, they got some work. Yeah, no, you could make a credible case that Tucker plus Freed is at least equal to Soto, if not greater than Soto. I really like Kyle Tucker.

Yeah, he's great. And his projected arbitration salary, it looks like, is only $15.8 million, according to MLB Trade Rumors. So you put that $16-ish million together with 27 for Freed, and you're still below Soto's AAV and have a little more room to maneuver. And the total projected production there is going to be higher than Soto's, I would imagine.

So yeah, it would, I mean, it sort of surprises me that Tucker is even available. You know, like. Yeah, like we should save, we should save this conversation for when, if and when they actually like get that deal done. But I have, I have a lot Astros thoughts because I don't, I don't, coming and going that team. Yeah.

Pick a lane. What are we doing? You were just saying like the first thing you'd do is you'd get Tucker and extend him. Well, if I were the Astros, I'd extend him. Yeah. You have a Kyle Tucker at home and it's literally Kyle Tucker.

Yes. I don't know if I deploy that meme right. I'm not confident I know how to do it. That's okay. He doesn't turn 28 until January and- I know. That Astros core is old largely. And so, you know, Bregman is maybe, he's still a free agent.

So yeah, that almost mystifies me that that's just kind of a bumping up against a payroll constraint, I suppose, a self-imposed one. I mean, kind of, but they need Kyle Tucker. But then they're still trying to sign Alex Bregman. Yeah, there aren't many teams that need Kyle Tucker more than the Astros do. So it's just a little odd. But if you're the Yankees and you can take advantage of that, then you might as well. And so, yeah, even though Fried is eight years and he's what 31 and so.

He'll be 31 soon. Yeah. He's almost 31. You know, that makes you nervous, but I think part of it is just a competitive balance tax thing. Yes, it's eight years, but really maybe it's just tacking on an extra year or two essentially to lower the AAV. And I don't know, Joshian advanced a theory.

I don't know that I buy this, but he's basically saying that pitchers these days are just so, you know, you can't count on them being available. And so maybe you just sign them for a lot of years expecting that at some point they're probably going to miss a year or two. And this way you kind of, you guarantee that you'll get them at some point. Yeah. Obviously like father time still applies and the aging curve still applies. So Max Fried at 39 might not be pitching at all.

So you might not actually get anything good out of him at that point, but that was kind of an interesting way to frame it at least. So that's the Yankees, that's Fried. And I guess we should talk about the Yankees rivals who acquired an excellent starting pitcher and the lefty to boot in their own right and probably made the biggest trade acquisition of the offseason. The Red Sox acquired Garrett Crochet. The Red Sox were runners up for a number of moves and signings. There was a lot of, we tried floating around Boston and maybe they did legitimately try.

Reportedly they offered 700 million to Wonsoto. That's a lot of money, even if it was well short of what he ultimately got. But they came up empty on some players they couldn't succeed in signing. And so they said, all right, let's try the trade market. And that one worked. So now they have Garrett Crochet,

who is only 25 years old and is under team control for a couple more years and looks pretty good at the top of that rotation. Now the most pressing matter probably, and this is something that multiple people messaged me about and brought to my attention as if it hadn't already come to my attention organically, but Jeff Passon's tweet when he tweeted about this news is Garrett Crochet is a Red Sox. He is a Boston Red Sox is how Passon

phrased it. And we've had this conversation before, but it still, it makes me deeply uncomfortable. Multiple people said to me that they were somewhat disgusted by the phrasing. He is a bust and red socks. I would never write this. I would never say this. I would maybe try to write around it at times. I have, yeah, I have sometimes said red sock singular, which I know is also odd because then it sounds like you're just saying he's like an article of clothing and it's just, it's weird. I know, but also red socks. He is a red socks. I don't care. Like it's a, it's plural. It just, it doesn't fit. Like you wouldn't say that Max Fried is a Yankees. You would say that he's a Yankee.

And I know that it's not exactly the same, but it's not that dissimilar. So I just, I don't like it. I would say that the Red Sox signed him. He's on the Red Sox. Right, he's headed to Boston. Yes, any of those things. He's shippin' up there if you wanna make a bad joke,

you know, he got all kinds of options. Any alternative to saying that someone is a Red Sox, it just rubs me the wrong way. Okay, look, you're not wrong. I wanna make clear, you're not wrong. And from my perspective as like an editor, if someone in their piece had written, he is a red socks with X, I would have suggested we write around that and do something different.

But here's what I've decided about this question. Because this came up in the media room yesterday, I think in response to Passon, although I didn't know it at the time, I think that what Jeff did is wrong. Just a great sentence out of context. Love you, Jeff. CB Yeah, sounds like you're discussing something super serious and somber. LS Yeah, very serious. I think that that is an unpleasant usage of Red Sox. I think it is an awkward one. Mostly one guiding principle for writers is, is my use of language, whether it's particular vocabulary, sentence structure,

whatever, distracting from the actual information I am trying to communicate such that people will say, spend five minutes of the podcast talking about your phrasing rather than jumping right into the fit of Garrett Crochet in Boston. And so you should avoid that because what you're trying to do is communicate an idea. And so as a grad school professor of mine said, shave off the sideburns in your writing, they distract from your face. He really didn't like sideburns.

I don't know what to tell you. I think they're fine. But all of that to say, I wouldn't have done this if it had been me, but Ben, I think that it is important to know and to note that the original sin here lies not with Jeff, but with the Boston Red Sox. And so there is a certain amount of amnesty

I am willing to grant people in these moments because we were given a completely absurd team name. And then they were like, we should have two of them, you know, we should make this a problem twice in everybody's writing. And so on some level, are you going to blame the individual? Are you going to blame the system, Ben? You know? And I think the bigger ill is the system here. And I think it is funny that this is a socks double whammy of a trade. And so a question we have to contemplate arguably half again as many times. But yeah, Jeff, don't do that. Jeff's suits looked great the whole week, I will say. When I saw. When I saw them, very spiffy, as he often is,

but the spiff didn't save him. The spiff didn't save him from red socks. He is a red socks. No. Yeah, no. No, I have room in my heart to blame both the system and Jeff Passan. The edit that lets him keep this is Garret Crochet is now a red Sox pitcher.

And that saves it. You know, that saves it. Although that almost makes it sound like he's converting to pitching. It's like, was he not a pitcher previously? You can have faith in your audience to know that Garret Crochet was a pitcher before, remains a pitcher now. He simply has different colored socks. Although I gotta say, I don't think that, you know, it's not like either the white or red socks seem to insist upon particular sock colors.

Sometimes these guys are wearing, they're not always red and they're not always white, you know? And so maybe he will wear literally the same socks while wearing a different uniform. Now we're getting really in the weeds. But we should probably talk about Garrett Crochet. I don't know.

We should. Yes. We've discussed the hosiery sufficiently. Now we can discuss whether either team got hosed on this deal. So it is your kind of classic good player for prospects trade. We've got four prospects going from the Red Sox to the White Sox, that I can say. That you can say.

You'll have to help me out here with the prospects. Now, I guess if you're not an expert prospect knower, and I would put myself into that category, well, even more so than you, but you might know a few Boston Red Sox prospects and- They weren't the ones in this trade. Yeah, you might not have known these guys, which it doesn't mean that the White Sox got a bad return here, that the Red Sox fleeced them or anything,

but what have you gleaned from your conversations, your editing, your conversations with prospect knowers? What would you say about this package of catcher, Kyle Teel, outfielder, Braden Montgomery, infielder, Chase Meadroth, and right-hander, Wickleman Gonzales. Okay, so I will say the following, which is that we will have a full prospect-specific post

on this trade going up at fangraphs.com just as soon as Eric has done writing it. There were some trades, there were some moves. And so we had to- Yeah, got to cover those rule five picks first. Yeah. Wow.

Okay. Rude. I will say this in my conversations with Eric about this deal. So you're right to note that some of the prospect names that more casual prospect knowers might be familiar with, your Roman Anthony's, your Marcelo Myers, your Christian Campbell's, they were not included in this deal. But Kyle Teal is the top one under prospect. And I think that the way I would characterize sort of the return in general is consistent

with how Ben Clements described it in his piece, which is they went with a depth of return. It's not like Kyle Teal is bad, but they didn't get Roman Anthony. They could have gotten less, I guess, and tried to get Roman Anthony, although I don't think the Red Sox were going to trade Roman Anthony. But you know what I'm trying to say. They could have gotten fewer guys if they had maybe held out for one of the top dudes, but Teal's a real prospect, and all of the other guys that they traded for here have the potential for, I think, significant positive variance in a way that fits a rebuild

like Chicago's well. When we were talking about it in the media workroom yesterday, it's like Eric likes this return much better than what they got for Cease, for instance. And I think that because they have, they have so many holes everywhere and they are so far away from being ready to field the next good Chicago White Sox team that prioritizing, you know, a couple guys who are are better known names like Teal, but then also going for guys who have the potential to give you

variance to the upside in their performance and more of them. I think that's a defensible approach to this. I don't think that they got fleeced here. And if you don't like Kyle Teal, you probably feel worse about this than that. But I think it was unlikely that they were going to extract Roman Anthony from Boston. And so, you know, I think that they did all right here. It's funny because the prospect of this group that I have seen the most is actually Braden Montgomery. Before he transferred, he was just a Stanford guy. So the last time I saw Braden Montgomery was when he was still a two-way player.

So he was, in addition to playing the outfield, he was Stanford's closer, and he looked freaking great out there, but the Velo dropped and once he got to A&M, he was just playing the outfield. He had a great season for them. He got hurt right at the end of it. So if people watch the draft, you might remember that he hurt his leg in the college playoffs. And so he had to use one of those little wheelie carts to put his leg on, but like is expected to fully recover. It should be fine. I like Braden Montgomery.

He seems like a really smart guy. Alex Spear, I'll try to see if I can find a link to it. Alex Spear did a nice interview with him and his family right around the draft last year. And he just seems like a smart young guy. And he's interesting because I do think that they will continue to develop him as an outfielder. When he was drafted, he was announced only as an outfielder. But there is this like, if Chicago gets to a point where like, for some reason, the outfield stuff isn't working, they might try him on the mound

again. And I say that not having like inside info I just wonder if like part of what they were thinking about when he got thrown in was like, you know There is also this option, you know as a potential check down if we need it Definitely have to tweet that Braden Montgomery is a White Sox pitcher just to clarify. Yeah, right He had a great year at A&M I love that I'm talking about Braden Montgomery who who's clearly not the most important part of this, but he's the guy I've seen, Ben. He's the guy I've seen. But yeah, he had a great year at A&M,

and he was a first rounder last year. He went 12th overall to Boston. So anyway, that's Braden Montgomery. Kyle Teal's a top 100 guy for us. So I don't think that you look at this and go, oh my God, what is that front office doing? This doesn't read as a fleecing to me at all. Yeah. The White Sox, as you said, they're in this position where they kind of need everything. They need everything.

Which doesn't mean that you take anything back. Sure. You don't want to end up making some fantasy trade where it's one good guy for several guys that just aren't wanted by your trade partner, but you can slot these guys in and you do need depth, obviously some combination of depth and ceiling, which you're getting with at least some of these guys. So people might always wonder whether they could have done better if they had dealt crochet at the deadline and then the team acquiring him could have gotten another postseason out

of him, but there was just- But they might not have gotten another postseason out of him, but there was just... But they might not have gotten another postseason out of him, right? Like it would have been... Yeah, there was so much uncertainty about how he would pitch, whether he would pitch at all in the absence of an extension, what that would look like. So maybe their hands were sort of tied there and maybe it doesn't make that much of a difference. I do think it's interesting how the White Sox used crochet

down the stretch last year. Which they never shut him down. They just, cause he made 32 starts. Like he made pretty much all of his scheduled starts, but he pitched 146 innings because after his excellent first few months where he was maybe the most valuable pitcher in baseball, they just kind of throttled down. They just sort of took their foot off the pedal. They never shut him down, which I like. I like that they didn't just arbitrarily say,

he's done for the year because I don't really believe in that in the absence of some specific complaint or discomfort. Of course, if a player is complaining about something, then don't push it. But if it's more just a concern about innings totals and building up your workload after having missed a lot of time and not having started for a long time, I say just keep throwing them out there in moderation.

Don't make them too gassed, but don't shut them down entirely, especially if you're thinking of shutting down and building back up again, which is sometimes a consideration. I just feel like that maybe does more harm than good, if anything. So they kind of just kept him out there, but he was almost a long reliever, essentially, or like an opener, basically, for much of the second half of the season where he just like wasn't going even into the fifth inning most of the time. So will he now having established that

baseline of 146 innings, can he, if healthy, vault up to 170 or 180 or something if all goes well and he stays intact? Maybe, potentially. So the Red Sox could use that. We talked about their rotation a lot last season and it was a strength of theirs, especially early on. But much like Garrett Crochet, I guess, they kind of collectively ran out of gas a little bit. And they had a bunch of guys who were converting from relief or from more of a swing man role and it worked really well early on. And then they got tired or it just stopped working so well and their strategy of shelving some four seamers and throwing more off speed stuff eventually, it just wasn't working quite as well as it was early on in the season. And Nick Pavetta is a free agent, so they had to hold a fill and could have used an upgrade regardless. So yeah, it's pretty

big. And we were talking about extensions, Crochet seems like another guy that you should probably start talking to about that, especially since he expressed some reservations about pitching deep into the season or postseason without having his financial future assured. So if you can work something out that is to the benefit of both sides, you don't want to have that hanging over your head if you're making a playoff run in 2025, but it's a big acquisition. So if you can't sign someone, then make a swap

trade for, for one of the best pitchers on the market. I really like it for them. Crochet obviously really dazzled, as you noted in the firstchet, obviously, really dazzled. As you noted in the first half, things kind of waned. We don't know how much of that was, just even though he hadn't been shut down, the innings getting to him. I'm curious to see how Crochet interacts

with Boston's new pitching dev, because I don't know if I believe that their new pitching dev is good yet and I don't say that like it's bad but it was like they had they're like hey we know how to do pitching dev now and first half was great and then it was like oh maybe you do have to throw a couple more fastballs I don't know I'm curious about that I do think that they should extend him I think it would make good sense for both sides Ben noted this in his write-up, like a year from

now we are just likely to know so much more about Garrett Crochet. And if you're the Red Sox and the answer to what kind of starter is Garrett Crochet really is a Cy Young contender, well he's not going to sign an extension then, right? Because he's just going to want to wait it out and go to free agency. Even though his arbitration salaries will still, might still remain low relative to his production just because of where they started. And if you're gear crochet and the answer a year from now is hurt or not able to go deep into games or ineffective relative to how incredible he was for the

first half of the year, well, then you're going to be bummed you didn't sign an extension. So I think that they should try to get that done. That seems like a good idea to try to get it done now. They still need more reinforcement in that rotation, but he's a great start. They should be in the market for an ending zeder guy. I think that would be a good fit for Boston because you just don't know how much you're getting out of crochet. He really didn't pitch even when we were looking at it to get Ben's reaction ready.

Like he noted this in his write up and I went back to look like he didn't even really pitch that much in college, you know? And then he debuted in the postseason and then, you know, he was hurt. And then he was suddenly a starter. And so I think there's a lot that is still unknown about Garrett Crochet starting pitcher for the Boston Red Sox. But we're gonna have a lot better idea

barring like a significant injury that keeps him out. We should have a much better idea of what kind of starter he is a couple of months from now. And I think it will be a good one. And I wonder if Boston clearly thinks that too and if they're going to be like, hey, so can we get a little extension work done here? There was another trade in the American League East that we should talk about.

The Blue Jays acquired Andres Jimenez. Yeah. A trade with the Guardians. Weird deal. A four-player trade. It was. Yeah. A trade with the Guardians, a four player trade. It was. Yeah, so the Jays got Jimenez and Nick Sandlin, a reliever, traded Spencer Horwitz and outfield prospect Nick Mitchell

to the Guardians, no cash in the deal. So the Jays are taking on the final five years and what is it, 96 million? Something like that, yeah. Jimenez contract, he got an extension a couple of years ago and since then his offense has subsided, would be one way to put it. They signed him to an extension coming off a career offensive year, sort of a surprise offensive performance from him.

And since then, the defense has remained superlative. He is the best defensive second baseman, one of the best defenders in baseball, period. And he is not old. He is 26 years old. But the bat is nothing special. It's been significantly below average the last couple of years, especially last year. And so as many gold gloves as he has gotten, maybe the overall package there, you know, he's still quite valuable is the thing, depending on your defensive metric. Baseball reference had him as a four-win player, even with a 82 OPS plus, 81 RBAT plus. So he's that good at defense, arguably, and also stole 30 bases with five times caught

stealing after essentially doing the same thing in 2023. So he's giving you some value there too. So speed and defense and relative youth, just not a whole lot of offense. And this seems like a move, not for the first time for Cleveland, that is motivated mostly by a desire to slash salary. And maybe that's the impetus doesn't mean that the move won't work out for them or that they necessarily got worse. Could mean that, but. And we should note that there was in conjunction with this trade, a move that moved Horowitz to the Pirates for a trio of pitching prospects,

which is the most Cleveland thing imaginable. Yes, this is Luis L. Ortiz, and then Michael Kennedy and Josh Hartle are also making their way to Cleveland. There will be a post about that trade also, but all of their prospect reports are already on the board. So if you're curious, like, hey, what's going on, you can just go over to the board, you

guys. You can go to our board at fangrass.com. So that should factor into our understanding of what Cleveland's return was in this trade, because they were really, it was really a three team deal. It just happened as two separate transactions. So on the one hand, it's frustrating that Cleveland is still making moves prompted by a desire to spend less. And they are down there among the lower spenders now, still slightly ahead of the Detroit Tigers,

who you'd like to spend some more money at some point soon. That's the AL Central for you. Now you can't criticize the results really, because even though you'd certainly like to see their ownership invest in that roster more, the front office has mostly made it work and they have been a contending team. They have been a division winning team. They have been perennial playoff team, maybe as a slight exaggeration, but they have certainly been a fairly regular presence

in the playoffs. And so it's sort of a raise-esque situation where, yeah, you should spend more. Yeah, you might be even better if you did spend more, but you have to hand it to the front office at least for working within those constraints and still making it work. And part of making that work for Cleveland has been doing well on trades and swindling some teams and also doing well in pitcher development. And that abandoned them somewhat when it came to their starting rotation in 2024, which was very injured and they weren't really able to do what they've done in the past, which

is just keep finding guys and bringing guys up to fill those holes. So they had to compensate with an incredible bullpen, one of the most effective bullpens ever, which was good enough for them, but you would like to see more starters. And maybe you just, if you still believe in the Guardians pitching factory, then yeah, you just throw a few more arms into the mix. And they have some guys who could replace Jimenez and maybe do a kind of credible job of that and not lose a whole lot on that side of things and more grist for the pitching mill.

And I do like to think maybe they invest some of that money that they saved elsewhere, but that's probably over optimistic, but they have made this work. Just cutting salary, making smart deals, doing good stuff on the player development side to make up for it. So until that really falters and they fail to do that, I guess there's a limit to how hard you can come down on them collectively. You can absolutely still say you should spend for and this sort of salary should not be a barrier. You should be able to do this, especially as a team that keeps making the playoffs like this

should be within your means. But yeah, they have managed to make it work somehow. So I'm going to say a couple of things about Cleveland as an organization, because I like a lot of pieces of this Guardian's team. I also think, and I'll leave it to the reading of the blurbs on the board and also Eric's eventual post on this to let him diagnose the ins and outs of it, but it sounds like there is an argument to be made that some of these guys coming from Pittsburgh back to Cleveland are guys who fit in the Cleveland pitching optimization mold, right? Where Cleveland should be able to do something with them. Ortiz has been a top 100 guy for us in the past, but even when he was a top 100

guy, I think Eric noted that he was likely to be frustrating and inefficient and that he might end up in a bullpen roll eventually and things did not go well in Pittsburgh. So we'll see what they can make of him. But you know, this was a team that you're right to say like it had a playoff run. They went deeper in those playoffs than I imagined that they would. They had some big home runs in moments, but like, this was a team with a 100 WRC plus as a team, right? They have not had a really good offense probably since Lindor was there. And that's not to say they don't have individual guys who are good. Like we, we all know that Jose Ramirez is excellent. I think the addition of Lane Thomas was good. You know,

hopefully David Fry recovers from his elbow surgery, but they are relying on guys like David Fry to take big at bats in the postseason. If you wanna paint an uncharitable narrative around this, it does kinda suck to trade away the best part of the Francisco Lindor return before his deal is done. That kind of sucks. So I don't know. I think that on the one hand, it feels repetitive to bring this up with them every time. And this is just the way that they're going to

operate. It doesn't seem like having made the postseason is going to change that. It doesn't seem like a deep postseason run which presumably brought more revenue into the organization is going to change that. I think that you are right to put them in the same category as a team like Tampa where it's like they still, they being the people who work in the organization on baseball, still manage to find ways to be competitive and win. And so I don't want to knock that effort. And I think they have guys that we like, but it is frustrating because like they have guys

that we like and I'd like things to be a little easier for all of them. I'd like it to be a little easier for Jose Ramirez and Steven Kwan and Lane Thomas. I'd like it to not be so hard. I'd like the Naylor brothers to not have to do so much or sometimes they hit better than they do. So there's that.

And did Andres Jimenez meaningfully contribute to the offensive side of that equation? You've laid out the case that he wasn't a bat first guy. The defense was really good, but they are a team that has like a lot of middle infielders and the miners to sort through. So you know, in terms of covering like that side of things, I think they'll probably be able to find their way to something that makes sense. We'll see what they can make of Mitchell, I suppose.

But it's frustrating because like I think a lot of really smart people work for that club and I think there are a lot of players on their team who are really good and I think they are still good at Developing pitching, you know, I think a lot of what they dealt with last year can be chalked up to injury more than anything else so You know, this is a club that like I don't even think that they would have to run like a Yankees payroll Like if they just ran a league average payroll, I think that it would be, it could be a really special thing. And that division is getting harder, you know.

So I find myself frustrated with them because I think there's potential there for them to do so much more. And like Tampa, I think the people who work for that club are smart and are trying really hard to win. And I wish that the resources that ownership brought to bear matched that expertise. So that's my thought on that. As for Toronto, okay, sure. Karashas, you have an Andres de Menes. That's exciting. I feel like they got used to drive up Juan Soto's market, the Blue Jays. I feel like they were used to drive up his market.

I'm glad Juan Soto signed his, he passed his physical. He's officially a MET. So our comedy scenarios where he fails his physical and somehow ends up like a San Francisco giant. Off the table now, Ben. They're not there anymore. But Toronto's sort of in an odd spot. That's kind of an old team. That's kind of an old team. That's

sort of an old club. They're going to have to figure out what they're doing with Latty. They have to see if Bo can bounce back. But I don't know. They're in a sort of an odd position and I don't know what the future will hold for them. They have a lot of holes that they have to fill too. Yeah. Now they were the best defensive team in baseball probably last year. They love trading for defense. They love a glove. Yeah.

They love a glove. They led the majors in defensive run saved and in stack cast fielding value. Oh yeah. And second base wasn't even their strong suit. It was like an average defensive position for them. So imagine not that everything else carries over perfectly replicated, but imagine adding Andres Jimenez to the mix. Okay, even better run prevention. And yeah, because he's 26, I know there's a perception that this might be a last hurrah for the Jays, that it all just sort of depends. Can they keep Flattie? How does Bo Bichette do? Is this like the last run for this core or can they keep it going?

And maybe Jimenez and his edition gives you optimism that they have eyes toward extending that window and don't want to just tear it down if things don't go great this year. So that's good, I guess, if you're a Toronto fan and you're hoping that this is not the end of what has been a fairly disappointing run for a team that had high hopes and expectations. And if Bichette doesn't bounce back from his odd, unanticipated down year, then you have the option to slide him in his over to short potentially in 2026, because he's that good at second base.

He obviously can play short. He's demonstrated that too. So it gives you some options there. I like it for them more or less. You know, we kind of focused on the salary dump aspect of it from Cleveland's perspective, but obviously the Jays, Toronto improving here to some extent too. It's just not quite as different making a move as signing Max Fried or trading for Garret Crochet, but it's nice. It's a nice little stop gap because the Jays have been in that position yet again of being in

the running for big name players and not really landing one yet. So just while you're biding your time, go pick up an Andres Manes. Sure. And then I guess people could try to figure out what the pirates are thinking here. They obviously need some offense too. And Horowitz, maybe he can fake second base, but not particularly convincingly. And so if he ends up at first, he has hit well in his young major league career, particularly in 2024. The thing is that he is old. I mean, not old, but he's older than Andres

Jimenez. He's 27 years old. A new 27 to be clear, but like 27 nonetheless. He's entering his age 27 season. Right. But he arrived on the scene fairly recently. And so you might be surprised to look at the, because Jimenez has been in the major since 2020, and yet he is younger than Horowitz, who debuted in 2023. But he has been fairly effective. And I guess that the Pirates certainly could use bats. They could use a lot of things. And they had some pitching depth.

And there have been some rumors and reports that they're dangling more of that depth. And so I don't know exactly what the Pirates' plan ever is and everything we said about the Guardian spending, we could certainly say about the Pirates twofold. So he's not a prospect anymore. He graduated from prospect eligibility last year, but I think that when Eric wrote him up, his take was that Horowitz can play a passable situational second base, but it's really a first base profile. That's kind of tough because he doesn't have the thump that you typically associate with

first base. He slugged 433 last year. He hit 12 home runs in 97 big league games. So there is sort of a, if he can stay at second and kind of fake it there for a while, in those about 100 games of big league action last year, he put up a 127 WRC plus. He's a useful bat, and you're right, the Pirates need that. But maybe it underscores how much of a defensive upgrade this is for Toronto. That a guy who got some time at second for them last year is a guy who Eric was like, he should probably be a first baseman. That's not typically what you want to

hear about an up the middle guy, You know, that's not, that's not your best. Yeah. And I guess if you want pop at a corner, then you can get that from Jake Berger as the Rangers will. That's a segue to our, our last little pair of major moves here, which is that the Rangers traded for Jake Berger. Yeah. The Marlins continuing to divest and the Rangers also resigned Native Aldi to a three-year $75 million deal. Okay.

So here's the thing about Jake Berger. I do not trust my evaluations of Jake Berger at all because I think that I just like Jake Berger. Is a lot of that the name? You know, Ben, what a good question. Fair to ask, right? Some of it is the name. Jake Berger has had quite a journey to the majors.

Like he has been hurt a lot. He has been hurt in big ways at times in his career. And my sense from a lot of the scouts who have complex assignments in Arizona is that he is just like a lovely guy. And I'm not saying that in a, like, he's an amazing dude who I know personally kind of way, but like he was well, he was very well liked by Scouts in Arizona because I think Bauman used

the word avuncular in his write up, just seemed like a very positive without being abrasive dude and he had gone through a lot and he managed to like kind of have a nice way about him despite circumstances that would have had him be totally justified in being grouchy and you know at times despondent. And so having heard that I feel like I do not trust my eval because if I would have told you that he had in 2014 the WRC Plus that he posted in 2023 and he didn't. He had like a 106 WRC Plus this season, which like, you know, he was like a league average

shooter a little bit better than that. But he does have terrific thumb when he connects. And despite only a 106 WRC plus, it almost 30 home runs this year, right? 34 the year before. Just like a well liked thumper of a guy. And now he gets to be a Texas Ranger. And that's nice. Yeah, it is odd that the Rangers needed Thump because that was, they had so much of that in 2023. And then a lot of it evaporated last year due to injuries and people underperforming and prospects and phenoms starting slow or just not quite breaking out the way they were forecasted to. And so now they felt the need to upgrade and, and Jake Berger to the mix. And he can certainly hit the ball hard and a long way.

And you're kind of banking on a rebound from some of your other big bats from 2023, like you kind of need that, but this is a hedge against that. Not happening, I suppose. Just bring in another thumper. And, you know, the Marlins got some interesting prospects in return. Those are detailed in the report, Acosta being the most notable of them and a guy I got to watch play baseball in the Arizona Fall League. So I like it when I've actually seen a guy. It's nice, you know,

feel a little more confident. But mostly I think Jake Berger was about to hit arbitration. And so the Marlins were like, be well young man, see ya. Yeah, the Marlins, well, that's pretty much par for the course for them. So, you know, they've gotten rid of a lot of the players they acquired in those deadline moves, Berger included. And yeah, for them, it's just, it's always kicking the can down the road and saying someday in the future, and you hope that this administration, the Bendix regime that they'll be able to do what the Rays have done and copy their, their fellow Floridian team and have that sort of sustained success, but sort of a,

won't believe it until you see it situation with the Marlins, just because we've got decades of history here of just trading anyone who isn't nailed down the second they get expensive. So. Yeah, that part's not fun, but you know who's fun? Jake Berger. Yeah, Jake Berger is fun. It is kind of incredible that the Rangers had a 95 WRC+. It's so weird. I mean, they had some injury stuff. That was part of it, but yeah. 22nd in WRC+. So weird. Yeah, and 18th in Homers. Yeah, that was just not what I expected. No.

That's why they went from winning a world series to missing the playoffs. So that was part of it. Yeah. In 2023, they had the fourth most homers or tied for the third most, I guess. And the third best WRC plus. So that was a pretty precipitous decline. Yeah. Wow.

Adulis only put up a 92 WRC plus buddy. What are we doing there? You know who was still really good last year though? Corey Seeger. Oh yeah. He was. Yeah. Native Aldi also. Native Aldi. Still pretty good. And 25 million a year. I don't know. Maybe that sounds like a lot, but these days it's just, it's not for a competent starting pitcher on a not extremely long-term deal. So was it above expectations and predictions? Yes. But what else is new?

I was mostly struck by the length, honestly. Three years exceeded my expectations because Ivaldi's already 34. Yeah, he'll be 35 right around the time pitchers and catchers report. So that's, it's going to take him into the back end of his 30s. Don't worry about your back being hurt. Nate, it will. It'll just get hurt. It just gets hurt when you get into that part of your 30s. I like this. I don't particularly care about the contract term, so it's easy for me to say, but they have a lot of just unknown in that rotation. You don't know how much you're going to get out of de Grom.

You're sort of banking on one of rocker or lighter, both taking a step forward and being able to sort of hold up under a starter's load, which seems unlikely to me. And then you have guys like John Gray and Tyler Moly and Cody Bradford, a young 26. But that rotation is pretty old. And again, you don't know what you're going to get from DeGrom. And so I think having a guy who has shown that he can throw like a starter's compliment of innings is pretty useful.

And will they be the very best starters innings that you're going to get? No, but they're not bad either. So I think it makes a lot of sense. I do wonder like how Texas, how they like internally are thinking about their place in the competitive landscape of the West. But I also think the ALS is going to be not very good next year. So being able to just like have a guy who takes the ball every five days and hopefully gives you some amount of, um, certainty, which is funny because like that was not always, um, what of all they could give you. Yeah, no, I was just going to say, and, and does he, he goes by Nathan now?

I don't know. Apologies. Yeah, we've been shortening that. I think he, he prefers the full name, but he has really an unusual trajectory and I guess kind of an encouraging one if you're thinking about pitchers just being prone to injury and how can you ever count on them. He's someone who has made himself appealing, marketable, even entering his age 35 season certainly didn't look like he would be getting this kind of deal, commanding this kind of contract at this age at various points in his career.

It's been very up and down and he's been a flame thrower and he still throws hard, but not quite as hard as he used to. And he still remained effective and fairly durable, durable-ish. He threw 170 innings this past season and yeah, he'll still miss some time now and then, but compared to some of the other pitchers in that rotation, he's fairly dependable and here he is after all. He's gone through and all the injuries and everything and he's still able to get a high AAV deal through his age 38 season. So good for him for keeping it going this long.

Well, I think we hit the major moves there. We snubbed Yimmy Garcia. Apologies to Blue Jays brought him back to a couple of years. Yeah. Yeah. They, they, they did. I think we wrote him up. I think we wrote him up.

Did we write him up? I don't know. Maybe we didn't. I don't know. I don't know. I barely know my own name now. It's been a, yeah, we did write him up? I don't know. Maybe we didn't. I don't know. I don't know. I barely know my own name now. It's been a... Yeah, we did write him up.

I knew Michael Bauman wrote him up. I knew Michael Bauman wrote him up, and you know what? He did. So if you would like to know about Jimmy Garcia, don't stress. Michael Bauman's got you covered, friends. Okay. I'll link to that on the show page. So just a couple of closing observations. One,

when the Mets joined Blue Sky and immediately their first post I think was, hey, we're on Blue Sky and also we signed Juan Soto, which is, that's one way to make an entrance. Also, it just, it stood out to me. I don't know if you have thoughts about this as someone who is the managing editor of FanCrafts and insists on camel case. But the lack of camel case in Blue Sky, it bugs me a bit. And for people who don't know what we're talking about, we're talking about capitalizing mid word.

So instead of a space and then capitalizing the next word, you capitalize in the middle of a word like fan graphs, where you capitalize the F and then you capitalize the G. And Meg is quite particular about the camel case in fan graphs. I always try to observe that. And something about blue sky, it bothers me a bit for that to be all just one mess of a word without, you know, it's clearly, it's usually two, right? And so for it to be smushed into one without the camel case, it doesn't bother me like referring to one player as a Red Sox, but it's a lower degree of peeved by that. It does make it difficult to read. It's part of why I was able to persist in the false

notion that I've now turned into a bit for so long that you pronounced it blue ski. Right. Because it's like one word. Yeah. Not blue sky. Yeah. But yeah, that's not, I think, the biggest problem facing social media right now, though. So I'm not overly worked up about it.

No, me neither. I like the little butterfly. I like that it's a little butterfly. It's cute. Yeah. It's cute. Yeah. It's cute. And also wanted to note there was some news, which is that the Nationals will be picking first in the 2025 amateur draft because the draft lottery took place at the winter meetings.

And I think they have the fourth highest odds of getting the number one pick, but they beat the odds and they will indeed have the number one pick, but they beat the odds and they will indeed have the number one pick. And you would know better than I how set the top of the college prospects or draft prospects market is right now, obviously before the upcoming season. All of these things are very much in flux as they often are right up until draft day. So who knows? I don't know whether you can pinpoint this and say the way

that you could when the Nationals had the number one pick and they drafted Strasburg or Harper. Sure. Those were good times to have the number one pick. And I don't know that there is necessarily a consensus prospect like that lurking out there that you can sort of set your sights on as a Nationals fan? I'll say the following. I know that there are a lot of people who on their current mocks

have Ethan Holliday going first overall. And I have heard from a little fan graphs bird that that is not going to be the opinion of fan graphs in all likelihood. I'm saying it quietly because, you know, these things do change and I don't know, maybe Ethan will look different, but people are really into Ethan Holiday. But I don't think everyone's going to be as into Ethan Holiday as everyone is, you know? It is the holiday season. Terrible.

Even bad by our standards. It was really bad. It was really was really bad. It was really, really bad. I can't believe that you brought up the, uh, draft order without noting the phenomenal unexpected rise of my Seattle Mariners to three, Cause like that was unexpected. And that's so fancy, Ben. They had to pick third.

How nice for them. I'm excited. I do think it's really, funny is the wrong word. It's an indication that you've been too bad for too long. But there are rules now in the CPA around how long you can be in the top 10. And you might be listening thinking, why didn't the White Sox have the highest chance

of getting the number one overall pick? And it's because they were ineligible for that. They were ineligible. Yeah, it's a little more complicated than it used to be. Don't suck for long. Yeah, it's a little more complicated than it used to be. Don't suck for long. Yeah, I guess it's right. Cause the White Sox had a lottery pick last year and they, I think it's cause they paid

into revenue sharing in 2024, I think. And teams that pay revenue sharing can't have lottery picks in consecutive seasons. But then also if you receive revenue sharing, you can't have a lottery pick three consecutive seasons, which is why I think the A's were ineligible for one. So yes, it's the top six picks are the lottery and then seven to 18 is reverse winning percentage. And then the remaining 12 picks are for the teams that just made the playoffs and

it's determined by how you finished in the postseason. Yeah. And so I'm just saying that you can suck for a while, but if you suck too long, the draft's not going to be a reward for it. That's all. I'm sure the White Sox are like, hey Meg, we also would have liked to win more than we did this year. Why are you being so rude?

And it is rude, but it's also, you know, we started up top by saying that the return you got for Garrett Crochet was good and not bad. And so we should still grapple with the reality of your franchise, which is very bad. Yeah. I meant to mention, by the way, speaking of number one picks, when we were talking about the Guardians and their second base situation, they of course have Travis Bazzana on the way, the number one pick in the 2024 draft. So he seems like he'll move fairly quickly. Right. So that's one reason why Andres Jimenez might be a bit more expendable than he

would have been otherwise. Just wanted to note that also I brought up the Nationals, not just cause it's notable news that they have the number one pick, but also cause there was an interesting quote in David Laurel as most recent Fan Craft Sunday Notes, which I always read religiously. Not a religious person, but I do read the Sunday Notes very regularly. And there was an interesting quote in there from Mike Rizzo, Nationals GM, about the Nationals pitching philosophy and pitching development. I don't know whether this will have any bearing on their number one pick, but Rizzo said to

David, I think our number one criteria is the safety and longevity of the pitcher. We do everything in our power to do what's right for their arm health and longevity. That means tweaking deliveries, using our technology, frame by frame photography, and all of the technology tricks that help keep these pitch pictures on the field because that's what it's all about. We tweak pictures we don't overhaul pictures. When we see something that we think is dangerous it's our job to do what's right for the picture and keep him as healthy as possible. Everyone wants to throw hard and everyone wants to miss bats. If we chase that we have to chase it in the

healthiest manner possible. We're always drafting and developing stuff and natural stuff is better than chasing artificial stuff. If you have the capability of doing it naturally, that is less taxing on your arm. So a couple interesting things there. A, there is that idea that even though teams are better able to change pitchers in some way to optimize them for short-term performance. There is a persistent belief that maybe that's bad in the long run, that maybe deviating from a natural arm slot or whatever it is takes some sort of toll ultimately. I don't know that that's true, but there are people who believe that. it's kind of a credible theory.

And not only that, but Rizzo sort of saying that they're prioritizing picture health, then the way that he's presenting this is not, well, we think it's better for the organization to prioritize durability at the expense of stuff that we would rather have a tick less on the fastball. If it means that this guy's not going to blow out his arm and we can have him around. That's a conversation that we've had. Might it make sense from a team perspective, not just a humane perspective, but competitively speaking to try to preserve the health of your rotation even at the expense of some stuff because you might get more length and you might not have to dip into the dregs of

the bullpen and call up replacement pitchers all the time. It sounds though, as if Rizzo is talking about it more from what's good for the pitcher and the person perspective. And I don't know, maybe it's self-serving to present it that way, but it would be interesting if there were a team that were operating that way while everyone else, in addition to the pitchers themselves often, is saying, no, let's just max effort. Let's just get those readings up higher. Let's get the extra tick. Let's be better in the short term until inevitably spawning. And so if this is the nationals philosophy, I guess it would track with, you know, there was some conversation

a year ago or early this year about the Nationals pitching development and how maybe they were behind the times. And we talked about this on the Nationals preview pod because our guest, Andrew Golden, had tweeted that photo that went viral from National Spring Training about the, he put the signs up Rizzo that said, I don't care how fast you throw a ball for. And there was some conversation about that. And as we noted at the time, the nationals stuff ratings were not very good. So it sort of, it backed up the belief that, well, maybe they're just saying this because

they don't have guys with good stuff, or maybe they are actively not prioritizing it the way that other teams do. That was episode 2142, that Nats preview when we talked about that. And if you look at their stuff ratings for say this year, they were not very good either. That's kind of a consistent theme. Although their average four seam fastball velocity was high, they were fifth highest or tied for fifth highest in Fastball Velocity this year. And also, I didn't actually realize how good Nationals pitching was this

year. If you had asked me, I would not have guessed that they ranked as high on the FanGraph's Pitching War leaderboards as they do. So if you look at the stuff rankings in 2023, they were second to last ahead of only the Rockies. And then in 2024, the stuff still didn't grade out that well. The stuff plus at fan graphs, only two teams were worse, the Rockies and White Sox. And yet, if you look at the value, they were way up there. They actually, like pitching was not the nationals' problem this year. They ranked

fairly high by Van Graaff's pitching war. They were sixth overall in baseball and a little bit better in the rotation than in the bullpen, but not bad in either. And, you know, flanked, surrounded mostly by playoff teams, which they were not. So it seems like they're doing something right pitching wise. And if they could somehow combine this philosophy of, we're not going to push guys to get that extra bid and reach back and, you know, damn the future, damn the torpedoes, we're just gonna go for broke right now. If they could popularize that philosophy and also succeed in the meantime and actually pitch pretty well,

that would be the best of both worlds and maybe other teams could take a cue from that. So don't know whether the war performance this season or the stuff plus performance is more telling and I don't know whether this is something that they'll be factoring into their draft selections next year, but you just, you don't hear teams even say that very often these days. They might say, you know, they might pay lip service to the idea of, yeah,

we want more innings from our starters. That would be nice. But rarely do they say, yeah, we're prioritizing the pitchers long-term health and arm and everything, you know, they're prioritizing the pitchers longterm health and arm and everything. You know, they're not going to transparently say, yeah, who cares, next man up. Like we got plenty of flamethrowers that we'll promote when this guy goes down. But yeah, it stood out to me a little bit. So it's almost old school, but in a kind of refreshing way that I hope could become part of the new school.

They're interesting as a team, just in terms of where they fit in the competitive landscape and they have some guys who are like real guys you know but they're not there yet. I don't think that like I don't think the Nats are gonna be in a position where coming into the season when we do staff predictions that they're gonna be like a popular dark horse wild card team, right? And I say all of that because when you are building for the future, the temptation to sacrifice it for short-term games in the present, I imagine is a lot lower, right?

That Siren song isn't singing that loudly because what possible incentive do they have to risk any of these guys when they're still trying to get the core in place, they're still trying to improve as a roster. And so it'll be interesting to see if how they talk about that changes over time. Some of that also might change

with like the particular personnel that they have. And so I, and I'm not trying to knock them and say that like they're insincere or anything like that, but it is an interesting thing to note. And it will be interesting to see if that sort of persists as an organizational philosophy or if things start to change and you want to push it a little bit more if like, you know, there's a wild card birth insight or, you know, we're, we think we're competing for the division or whatever.

So I think that'll be interesting to monitor too. Like how, how much is this a philosophy and how much is it a philosophy of right now? Yeah. Last thing, you know how last time we talked about how unusual the trajectory of one Soto has been not just in the sense that he's off to one of the best starts by a young hitter ever, but also that he has changed teams as many times as he has while being such a superlative offensive force. And the Mets will be his fourth team and four teams and four years. And how odd is that?

And as we were saying, it's not the case that teams don't want one Soto or that he is seen as a bad clubhouse guy or that he's getting on people's nerves or something like that. It's not that, it's just a confluence of other factors and ownership issues, etc. But there is a fun example of a player who is more in that vein of, oh, that's why he got traded a lot early in his career while being a pretty productive player, and that is one Brago Roth. I want to bring Brago Roth to your attention. Yes, because listener Patreon supporter Andrew M crunched the numbers in our Patreon Discord group and he found that the highest fan graphs were for a position player to play on four teams through age 26 is

Brago Roth at 14.6 fan graphs war Soto is at 36.3 with a year left to accrue more war because Next year will be his age 26 season. So he is already once he officially plays for that fourth team He will blow bragooth out of the water. But what's Braggoroth's story, you might wonder. Why was- You do wonder. Yeah, why was Braggor on the move so often?

And it turns out that it's because he was a Braggart. That is why- No way. That is why he's nicknamed Braggoroth. No way. Braggoroth, yeah. On baseball reference, it lists his nickname as the Globetrotter

because he moved around so much. But of course his real nickname, I guess, was Brago because that was not his given name. He was Robert Frank Roth. But Brago Roth, he played in the majors from 1914 through 1921. And he was a good young player productive but he played for the White Sox in 1914 and then in 1915 he went to Cleveland and then in 1919 he

went to Philly and also Boston and then 1920 he was with Washington and 1921 he was with the Yankees so he was all over the place. Here's how Brago Roth's Saberbio starts. Bobby Roth, sometimes called Brago, was an often insufferable self-promoter who bounced around among six American League teams in the years surrounding World War I and was on the wrong side of two of the most lopsided trades of the deadball era. A player with diverse skills, Roth won a home run title and also stole home as many as six times in a season, but he was hampered by what one source called the unhappy faculty of gaining enemies, apparently with cold deliberation. Wow.

Yeah. So it wasn't even necessarily that he just, he brought people the wrong way unintentionally and didn't realize how he came off. No, maybe he was intentionally courting enemies, according to his Saber bio, but yes, his Wikipedia page says, he earned the nickname Brago during the 1914 season due to his boastful attitude about hitting.

And if anyone should be boastful about hitting, it's Juan Soto. He should be Brago Soto, but he is not that. And thus he has not been moved around so much. And so Brago, he just, he wore out his welcome everywhere. In Philly, his Wiki says his loud personality clashed with the reserved Connie Mack. So he was traded.

He became a Red Sox player, let's say. And he just kept getting moved because people didn't really like his bragging and having him around. So that's what you would expect if you saw a pretty productive player who was moved as often as Soto has been earlier in his career. He must be a brago Roth, but Soto does not seem to have that problem. Yeah. That is so wild to me. Brago. Brago. I will say that we have lost sight of the best potential nickname for Juan Soto, and it came courtesy of Craig Goldstein, and it was Childish

Bambino. That is brilliant, you know? I don't like to say nice things about Craig because he already thinks so highly of himself. But it's perfect. Yeah, he's a regular brago Goldstein. Brago Goldstein, no. He's not overly braggadocious, but it is perfect. It is perfect. And you might say that we missed our window to use it to its maximum effect because while he is still so young, like soon he will just be normal young for how good he is,

for how much he's moved, for how extensive his contract is. But we shouldn't forget it. It was a stroke of genius on Craig's part. And I have to admit it, you know, got handed to him. Yep. Brago was done as a big league player after his age 28 season, which was maybe because he was losing his legs a little, but also because of his big mouth. The Reach Guide reported, Roth is known as a temperamental player who serves no club satisfactorily for any length of time.

Wow. Yeah. It's really something, you know? Yeah. Wow. It seems to have been an apt appellation, an apt moniker, brago. It tells you the tale of the player and his whole career, really. He had something to brag about, but he didn't stint on the bragging, and that is why he kept being moved.

Don't be a brago. Don't be a brago. All right, meant to mention, we talked a lot about teams that claimed that they had tried to sign someone. We neglected to mention that one team had claimed not to have tried to sign someone. Bob Nightingale tweeted,

Believe it or not, one of the most aggressive teams in the Max Freed sweepstakes were the Athletics. Before he signed his eight year $218 million deal with the Yankees, A's GM David Forst was more in the not camp than the believe it camp. A's beat writer Martin Gallegos tweeted, GM David Forst said the reports of A's aggressively pursuing Max Fried were untrue. Now to be clear, in that tweet, Forst doesn't deny having some interest in Fried.

Maybe he's quibbling with the aggressively part more than the pursued part. Also, Nightingale just said that they were one of the most aggressive teams in the Freed sweepstakes. Maybe they were one of the thirty most aggressive teams. Regardless, it's not so often that you hear a team denying having gone after a free agent. You might think, well, wouldn't the A's wanted out there that they had gone after Freed so that their fans would think they had tried to spend, so that the MLBPA, who might potentially file a grievance against the A's for not spending enough, might think that they had tried to spend on someone? Well maybe, but it could also reflect negatively on a team.

Maybe it would contribute to a perception that players don't want to play in Sacramento. Maybe it would make the GM look to their ownership like they couldn't get a deal done. And what would A's ownership know about not getting deals done? There are reasons you might not want it out there that you pursued and were spurned, but filed away, that's one for the we didn't try tracker. Also on the topic of a team that tried and succeeded, Joshian made a few interesting points

about the Garra Crochet trade in his excellent baseball newsletter, Joshian.com. First, that Crochet is a very foreseen fastball forward pitcher. Doesn't really fit the mold of the pitchers the Red Sox helped early last season by advising them to de-prioritize the heat, and so it would probably be bad if Boston tried that plan with Crochet. But there's reason to think that they wouldn't do that.

It's not as if every Red Sox pitcher shelved their fastball. If you got a good one, that would be counterproductive, and I'm sure they're aware that Garrett Crochet's got a good one. Joe also noted that the White Sox trading for a catcher creates a bit of a positional logjam at the upper levels, because Edgar Caro is one of Chicago's higher ranked prospects. Kyle Teal is perceived to be a better prospect, but you do now still have a couple of catchers who are knocking on the door, which is perhaps curious, interesting, noteworthy, not that there can't be room for both.

Also Joe noted that the Red Sox rich farm system enabled them to make this deal, and as is so often the case, some of those prospect riches are the doing of the GM who is no longer there to make the moves. Teal was Boston's first round pick in 2023 when Heim Blum was still running the show, harkening back to Dave Dombrowski using the players the prospect capital that Ben Cherrington had assembled to improve the roster. Much like how Dombrovsky used prospects from Cherrington's era to land another White Sox lefty ace, Chris Sale. The Red Sox would probably be happy if Crochet pitched like Sale did in his first couple

seasons in Boston. Maybe not so much thereafter if they were to keep Crochet. Also if you signed up for Effectively Wild Secret Santa, you now should have received your match, the information of the person you're supposed to give a gift to, that went out on Thursday. So if you did sign up and you haven't seen that email, check your spam filter, because sometimes the assignments end up in there. And if you did sign up for Secret Santa, then please do give your gift.

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