Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2258: 99 Manfred Balloons

Episode Date: December 18, 2024

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the qualifications for being a superstar, the Kyle Tucker trade from the Astros’ and Cubs’ perspectives, the Devin Williams trade from the Yankees’ and Brewers’ perspectives, and various other transactions, including the A’s trading for Jeffrey Springs and the Orioles signing Tomoyuki Sugano, plus thoughts on Caleb Durbin’s […]

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I'm Meg Raleigh of FanGraphs and I am joined by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? Doing all right. How are you? Doing all right. Here we are. Yeah. Here we are. Yeah. Here we are. I have a question for you that we may have previously considered, but I can't recall. And this will segue into probably the biggest news item that we have to discuss. Joshian, in his excellent Joshian baseball newsletter, Joshian.com, wrote this sentence,

the Astros downgrade from Kyle Tucker, a superstar who projects to be worth six wins and who is a free agent after 2025, to a combination of Esauk Paredes and Hayden Wisneski, worth a combined four wins per steamer. The word that I am asking you about is superstar. Can we call a player a superstar if he has not actually attained superstardom, despite playing at the level of a superstar. No quibble with that. But Kyle Tucker is in that zone where everyone says he's underrated and maybe he's reached the point at which

when we all say that, it's no longer true. But I think we say that online, but I think the kind of casual mainstream baseball fan probably still is not as aware of Kyle Tucker as someone of Kyle Tucker as someone of his production would call for. So can we call someone a superstar if they provide superstar level performance, but not so much the stardom?

I think yes, but I'm glad to have this conversation in conjunction with Tucker because we've absolutely talked about this. And it's not just that like, it's weird that there isn't greater awareness of his skill and talent among casual fans just because of how obvious that talent is when you look at the stats. It's also weird to me because this dude has played in like so many post seasons, just so many over the course of his career. A shocking percentage candidly, given how young he still is and how many years he's been in the league. So I invite the conversation only because I want us to end it with people having a greater appreciation for him. And he's one of those ones where when media folks will say, oh, this guy's like underrated, he's underappreciated.

I always feel a certain sense of frustration with that because I'm like, well, is that an us problem more than it is a fan problem, right? Like you'll be watching MLB Network, you know how you're always glued to MLB Network, Ben. And they'll be like, this guy's underrated. I'm like, well, you know how you're always glued to MLB Network, Ben, and they'll be like, this guy's underrated. I'm like, well, you're literally on state TV, so maybe just talk about him more. You know, this sounds like something that you have the means to remedy.

Jared Sussman And I guess they are, in a way, if they're bringing it up on the air. Lauren Ruffin In a way, but there's more time spent on the underratedness than the just like, hey, why don't you tell people about Kyle Tucker though? But I do want to grant a certain amount of amnesty to media folks around Kyle Tucker because I think we do talk about him a lot. I think we talk about him a fair amount. I think the people talk about Kyle Tucker and, you know, Joe Davis and John Smolci have talked about Kyle Tucker. There's just like a lot of people who talk about Kyle Tucker because again, he's very talented, he's done a lot for the Astros,

and he's played a lot of postseason ball, and yet I think casuals maybe don't know him. And some of this might be a bit of the Mike Trout effect where Kyle Tucker does not seem particularly interested in being a known entity, right? I think there's been reporting from various folks on the beat about this where he's not a guy who's trying to be front of mind for people. He wants the work to sort of speak for itself. Maybe he's shy. I don't know Kyle Tucker. I don't know him,

Ben, despite his great production and noted postseason appearances. We certainly know of him. That is what we're saying here. We are well aware of him. We are familiar with his work, but not with the man. We don't know the man. And that might be how he wants it. And I think that if that's the thing, then he gets to have that perspective. But yeah, under known anyway. Yeah. And I remember that there was some coverage, I think maybe Chandler Roam wrote something about how actually, Cow Tucker is funny and he's letting his personality shine a little more. And I think the fact that he isn't more famous, it has to do with maybe the fact that he is

overshadowed a bit by the big names and personalities on the Astros. So they've just always had bigger stars during his time there, even if not necessarily better players always, but just players you associate with the Astros because they've been there longer and they've played at a high level like Altuve, like Bregman, like Verlander just because he's Verlander, like Jordan Alvarez, who if you're going to know one of the Astros sluggers on the younger side, it might be Jordan just because he's just so imposing as a physical presence and he just hits the ball so hard and so far and he's been so dominant in the postseason. So all of these things have contributed to him maybe being better known. And maybe it's also a little bit of just being good

at everything without being the best at anything. A ton of black ink on Kyle Tucker's B-Ref page. He led the majors or no, the AL in RBI in 2023. He led the AL in triples in 2020, but that's it. He's, he's again, like a really great all-around player who is not necessarily going to lead the league in something prominent. Now he got off to such a monster start this past season that it seemed like that might change, that there might really be the, the Kyle Tucker appreciation. And we were trying to come up with a nickname for him and, uh, just trying

to help him get better known. But then of course he had the shin injury, but kept him out for an improbably long time and he was out from the beginning of June to, uh, early September and more or less picked up where he left off, I guess, but because that turned out to be sort of a half season for him, it wasn't really the breakout that it could have been necessarily. And maybe we also mentioned that he hasn't hit free agency yet. So maybe next year, if the Cubs don't extend him and he actually hits the open market and people see what teams are willing to pay for Kyle Tucker, then they might say,

oh, okay, well, I better know this guy. And I don't want to overstate the case. He's been an all star a few times. Gold Glover and Silver Slugger and has gotten some MVP votes, not highly ranked. So people know Kyle Tucker, but the point is, he's not a superstar, just purely in terms of his fame. So can we call him a superstar because he has the production that one might associate with a superstar

without the clout. He's got the clout at the plate to be clear, but. Yeah, I think again that we can because to your point, he in addition to, you know, just sort of looking at his stats, like he does have accolades. He's been an all star multiple times. And so I think that that we can, if only to forgive ourselves for not being able to make a more compelling case to the casual fan.

But I think that diehard fans know Kyle Tucker, and I think that Kyle Tucker's reputation within baseball is very strong. I also wonder if he had these little 20, 25 game cups of coffee in 18 and 19. You know, 19 was his first postseason, but he got like 15 plate appearances, you know, it wasn't a ton. And then I think that in addition to all of the actual known stars on the Astros, that a lot of these young guys just had to swim upstream against the sign stealing stuff in terms of there being room for a conversation about an Astros player who was good and unimplicated in any of that, right? For those guys, there just wasn't bandwidth for them for lack of it. And Jordán sort of forced the issue because he was so good, the bat was so dominant, and

to your point, he's had these like big postseason moments. There are plenty of people, just like speak for Mariners fans, for instance, there are people who during the Mariners postseason series against the Astros, in the initial going, like they'd be a little discerning. They would boo during player intros those Astros who were implicated and big lusty boos for Bregman and El Tuve. And then in the first game, I think they kind of restrained themselves with Jordan. And then he walked him off and after that they were like, get him in there. Boo, boo. And Tucker, I think by comparison was just lower key. He wasn't a villain and he wasn't as obvious a hero. And I think that there was just, you know, he kind of

fell in between the, in the cracks for, for those who were keen to have a reason to boo the Astros. So although, you know, you go to Dodger Stadium and they'll boo Astros prospects who were barely born when that happened, you know. So it sort of does depend on the audience, but I think that has something to do with it too. Yeah. Tucker, by the way, was not an All-Star starter the two times that he played in the game, but I believe he would have been last year if he had not been hurt because he was the third leading

vote getter in the outfield in the American league after Judge and Soto because he had started just so hot. It felt like that was going to be the year then. Okay, Kyle Tucker is undeniable and his name is on everyone's lips. But yeah, and it is again now because of this trait and we can talk about that trait. And to be clear, I think I have probably and would probably describe a player as a superstar based purely on their performance. I think it is really a proxy often for saying

just he's a great player. It isn't even so much meant as a referendum on their fame or their Q rating, though obviously those things often go hand in hand. They don't always. And so I would certainly say that someone is a superstar, even if they don't have that level of stardom. But clearly, Kyle Tucker, a coveted player, not just by the Cubs who got him, but by other teams too. And the rumors were out there and we've addressed that at least briefly, maybe in the context of the Yankees pursuit of Kyle Tucker, because we were somewhat

flummoxed that he was on the market at all. Because as we were saying, the Astros sure could use Kyle Tucker too. He's the Cubs best player now, I think, but you could certainly make the case that he was the Astros best player too. Yeah. And I guess this, you know, the trade itself. So it's again, Isak Paredes, Hayden Wisneski and Prospect Kim Smith, who was the Cubs first rounder last year, bunch of first round picks from, from 2024. I can't even say last year yet, but the last draft, it's almost time. We're so close, I cannot wait.

We are so, so close. When I was talking about Kyle Tucker's 2024 season and I caught myself, and I said this past season, and I was thinking, oh, if I could just say last, just give it a couple more weeks, I'll be able to say it. So close. Yeah, anyway, Cam Smith was 14th overall pick for the Cubs. So overall, given the fact that Tucker is entering his walk year,

he's an impending free agent. I don't think it's a terrible return for him to get a good player in Paredes and a decent pitcher in Wisneski and a guy who is a top 100 player, right? I don't know where he ranks for fan grass, but you probably do. But a lot of places he's a top 100 guy and probably the Astros top prospects at this point, which is maybe says more about their system than Smith, but still. So I don't think it's an awful return, I guess, but I do think that the Astros are worse in the short term and it's not like they have a lot of leeway or a big buffer

in the AL West, even if it's not a great division. And also you'd like to see them if you're an Astros fan saying, we want to continue to employ Kyle Tucker for years to come. So the fact that this is clearly a, we can't or won't try to extend him or don't think we can convince him to resign or afford what it will take to resign him. That seems like kind of a break with the past in a sense. The Astros have definitely let a lot of prominent players leave. Sure.

But usually via free agency. It's usually they will leave, you know, Korea, Springer, Verlander, like people will leave, but they aren't usually preemptively trading them with the anticipation that they will leave. So it seems like one of a few concerning signs about the direction of the Astros. It's a weird trade for this reason. I think that they did fine on the merits of the trade. I think the Parades is going to tuck a bunch of little home runs down into that corner.

Parades and the Crawford boxes, match made in heaven. Match made in heaven, beautiful, the start of a beautiful friendship, right? In terms of them getting good offensive production out of him, they have picked a player that their ballpark is optimized for in the event that they don't resign Bregman. He's not like a great defender out there, but you can stick him at third, it'd be fine. So I get that piece. I like the pitching return. I think Cam Smith was just outside of the top 100 for us. He was like 45 plus, but you know, fine prospect, right? But I don't get it from a broader perspective because I think that Kyle

Tucker is just obviously better than all of those guys and might even be better than all of those guys in the aggregate. And I am sympathetic to the notion that it's very easy for us to say, well, just keep Kyle Tucker and extend him or just keep Kyle Tucker and resign him in free agency. And Kyle Tucker has to want to do that. And the Astros have to want to spend that money, but their general vibe this off season has been a lot of coming and going at the same time, you know, they're moving on from Tucker,

but their rumors are that they still kind of want to sign Bregman. I don't know why you do that now. Um, not just because of the presence of parades on the roster, but just because if you want to bring Bregman back because you think Bregman is part of an, an important piece of sort of a championship core, then you don't trade Kyle Tucker. Cause like you have championship aspirations. If you don't bring Bregman back and you just go with parades, like again, I, I, I like him. I think he has demonstrated that this is a real skill that he has.

And, and he is now back in a ballpark where he can make the most of that skill. He was a weird fit for the Cubs. So like them moving on from him makes sense to me too. But I just think that Kyle Tucker's like a really, really good player. And even if you can't extend him, if you say to him in the course of the season, Hey, like we, we know you want to test the market. That's fine. But like you're our guy and we want to have you be the centerpiece of our

offense as we transition from one Astros core to the next, but you know, that just makes a ton more sense to me than like, now you have an outfield with like Chaz McCormick and Jake Myers and that's fine. But like, and Taylor Tramiel, like, I mean, the offensive downgrade out there is meaningful and you know, you're going to can like go stand out there but they're not going to play him much in the outfield and he is such a huge defensive downgrade that I get that. I don't know. It's just this is a team that it's in a weird transition in terms of what is the identity

of this franchise. You're presumably going to be without Bregman. If they bring Bregman back, then this makes even less sense. So I'm just gonna assume for now that they're actually gonna end up being out on Bregman and that he will go somewhere else, because if they resign him, then I really don't know what the hell they're doing. But like, you know, you have a team that's sort of in transition from an offensive perspective.

Obviously, El Tuve's still sticking around, but you have this like, weird mix of guys, like there's a lot of, you get past the top three in that lineup, top four, cause I should, I should get, be respectful toward Diaz and what he can do with the play. Cause it's not like he's, you know, a great defender. He's there because of his bat, but like Singleton, Jeremy Pena, like Chaz, Taylor Tramell. I have affection for Taylor Tramiel is like a former Mariner, but good God. And Jake Meyers like, and then you look at their bench and it's like, it's not like, yeah. So they're not in a position at least as they're currently constituted where they're particularly

imposing as an offense. Now I think that they have a lot of interesting guys in their rotation and that group really rounded into form. I think that Spencer Arrghetti is going to be a good starter. I think that they got interesting stuff out of Ronald Blanco. Hunter Brown is good. We'll see how Luis Garcia is. But they're a team that for the first time in a long time doesn't feel like it

has a particularly strong identity to me in terms of the players on the field. And it also doesn't feel like a team that has a particularly strong identity as a front office, you know? There, there feels like there's a lot of meddling going on here from an ownership perspective. Like, Crane is very involved, got advisors who are very involved. I don't know that he's like really letting Dana Brown cook. And so where you once had this team that was hyper efficient, ruthlessly committed to analytics, now what are they? You know, who are the Astros?

So I think that if I were an Astros fan, I would find this really frustrating, not because they lost the trade, but because the trade suggests that they are kind of adrift. And I say that and then they'll end up winning the West anyway, and the Mariners will miss the postseason by one game and the world will continue to spin. But this group as it is right now does not feel particularly imposing to me, at least in terms of the bats. And they're still unknown on the rotation side. Like I said, I like a lot of those guys. I think that they've, they really started to round into form as the season went on. But you know, with a couple of exceptions, you're mostly looking at guys who have had like a half season of good production. And this all assumes that they don't then just go and trade Framber. Like if they trade Valdez, then then we're, then we have to reevaluate

sort of how the Astros understand themselves. Because if they do that, then I would say that this is a team that is like trying to do, even if it's not a hard rebuild, like at least a temporary reset. But then why did you give Josh Hader all that money? Like it just, if this is part of why they feel sort of rudderless to me too, where it doesn't feel like there was sort of a cohesive five-year plan. And, you know, you have to adjust to how guys perform, free agency, what have you. But if you know that you're going to not be able to get an extension done with Tucker and that you might trade him, why are you spending, you know, like a

hundred million dollars, not quite, but basically a hundred million dollars on a closer? It's just, they really feel like they're coming and going. They're adrift. They're lost in space. Yeah, it is really hard to pin down their identity, not just because they're maybe about to be altuve sort of the last link to the pre, I guess, 2018 or 2019 ish Astros just in terms of prominent players, but yeah, also because that whole Astros front office way of operating, which in many ways was not a bad thing to

move on from that way of operating. But the philosophy clearly led to a lot of success, even independent of the sign stealing. And once James Click got forced out and there was all the bad blood seemingly between him and ownership. And then when Crane was just basically like, I'll do it myself and also Jeff Bagwell will help me. And yeah, just, it seems like an older school organization and do they still

have the knack for player development that they used to have and finding diamonds in the rough and polishing up these gems and do they have a farm system and not so much. And so, yeah, I don't think the window is closed. I guess even without Tucker, if you were to run the projections right now, they would probably project to win the AL West, I assume. I don't know if Dan has done that since the move,

but they've certainly got a good shot to be back yet again, but I don't know how long you could keep saying that. And people have been forecasting the window closing for them for a few years now now and they have kept it going. So they still can. But yeah, this is a disconcerting sign that they at least, you know, there's no publicly reported great effort to keep Tucker or to have him commit to the future of this franchise. But we should probably talk about the team that acquired Tucker because that's a feather

in their cap. The Cubs have Kyle Tucker now and he's exactly what they need, I think. He's one of the things that they need. Yeah. Yeah, because they, well, it's true. Yeah, it's not a mission accomplished necessarily, but- No, definitely not. It's a big leap for them, especially because even if you did the war calculation and you

subtracted Wisniewski and Paredes, it's not even that because the way that they're configured with their depth and anything, I don't know that they'll feel the loss of those guys as much as the Astros will feel the gain. And so it's more of a net improvement for them, I think. And they have really been lacking star power. And by that, I mean mostly star production. So they have gotten the star production now from someone who we just opened the episode by discussing whether he's actually a star,

but he is that level of player that they have lacked. They have had good depth and a bunch of supporting pieces. And here are the, I think maybe Shiyin put it like they've got the bottom 23 guys on a like championship caliber roster, but we're just lacking that really championship level core of guys who are perennial all-star, like MVP contender type players. They just, they haven't had that guy and they have shown some unwillingness to go get that guy via free agency. And they kind of said, or it was reported that they were essentially taking themselves out of the market for say a, a Soto or Burns or someone like that.

And if they're not going to play in, in that water, like they should, I think they should be able to dive into the deep end of that pool. They're the Cubs. But if they're not going to, then they got to go get a star level player via trade. And that's what they did here. And I think Tucker really helps them and we'll see if there are subsequent moves. And I'm sure there will be, there should be, because as you said, I don't think it's a done deal now here for them, but this is what they have lacked. They have lacked someone who could just go give you a five, six-war season with consistency. And that's what Tucker can do. Yeah.

I think that they were a team where it wasn't that they were bad, but they were as they were currently constituted, sort of difficult to upgrade, right? Because they had a lot of acceptable production in a lot of places, but they needed to be able to park six wins in one guy. And you know, like we say, as they're currently constituted, and I think that that is an important sort of caveat to apply to any of this analysis because by the time this episode goes live, like Cody Bellinger or Seiya Suzuki could be out the door, right? They definitely don't seem done either in terms of what they need or who they might send out.

So that's important to keep in mind here too. But yeah, I think that Tucker is a great fit for them. He's a great fit for any team. Any team would be lucky to have Kyle Tucker. You know who could use Kyle Tucker? The Houston Astros. No. Um, but I think that he really provides, um, a big impact to a club that was, you know, not bad, but wasn't really sort of pushing the way it needs to. Now, I still think that they could use some more help in their rotation. I'm thrilled that they like Matthew Boyd as much as they do.

And I thought that Imanaga had a great year and, you know, Steele really seemed to take a step forward. I know he had to deal with some injury stuff, but like, it's not like it it's it's bad, but there's not very compelling depth there on the pitching side. So they have some work to do there. But yeah, I think it's good. Like I agree with you that it is very silly that this club refuses to spend in a way that seems commensurate with their available resources or their market. Particularly because, and I'm sorry, White Sox fans, they are in a lot of important ways, like kind of the only baseball game in town, just because there's not a very compelling product on the South Side. And I don't mean to suggest that people are going to bop back and forth. I know that lines are drawn and, you know, malort is consumed and everyone picks their side and

that's fine. But, you know, they have a chance to really be, continue to be sort of the dominant baseball story in the greater Chicagoland area if they choose to be and they should because like, come on though, come on. Yeah. Not that they would have been able to outbid Steve Cohen necessarily. I'm not saying that they could have gotten Soto, but they did kind of take themselves out of the running before we knew that it was going to take 750, 800 million bucks to get Soto.

Yeah. You know, famously, while he was certainly the biggest free agent on this market, not the only one, right? And they're funny in some ways because on the one hand, they're taking themselves out of the market and they're not really participating up to what we imagine their capacity to be, but they're like, we really want to give Matthew Boyd $29 million. And I'm like, what? Like, no disrespect to Matthew Boyd. I'm so thrilled for Matthew Boyd. It has been a long and winding journey for that guy. And so to be able to like have a place and be there and make some good money, Like good on you, Matthew Boyd. But I just find it very

funny. But again, like maybe that's the level they think they can play. They want to go get their guy. I don't know. Go be better. Yeah. I mean, mid-rotation, back-rotation starters, the going rate these days seems to be pretty high. So- I mean, yes, but also they helped to set that market. True. But yeah, like Tucker's a great fit. He's a great fit for any team, as I said, and I think that he appreciably changes the

look of that lineup. And that'll be true even if they ship out Suzuki or Bellinger, although it sounds like things remain kind of far apart for them and the Yankees on the Bellinger score. He is a great fit for the Yankees. He is. Yeah. Though I don't think that the Cubs need to trade him from a fit standpoint. No, if, if they trade him because they need to get pitching back and they think

it's a better alignment for their roster, fine. But if they trade him for financial reasons, if they cheap out and say, well, we went and got Kyle Tucker and so now we're not going to carry Bellinger too. I think they're still a better team with Bellinger than without him. And yeah, pending the return obviously, but Tucker's not breaking the bank here. His projected arbitration salary is 15.8 million, which is a steal for Kyle Tucker. Assuming the shin is fine. And he played fine. He hit fine, certainly when he returned last year. So I said it again last year. Damn it.

Got to get to 2025. But- We're very close, you know? That's the good news. We're almost there. Yeah. But I think they could keep him and have that depth and that flexibility because he's a good player. And I know that Pete Crow Armstrong was kind of had a breakout a bit in the second half last year. And I guess post all-star break, he had a slightly above average WRC plus. He had that one month, I guess it was August where he was on fire. And then in September he was back to being a little bit below average and he was kind of, he's kind of hot and cold last year, but finished strong in a way that made people think, oh, okay, if this is the real Pete Crom Armstrong, then he's not just a good

glove, not just a defensive specialist, but also he's just a really good all around player. He could be, I guess jury's still out a little bit on that, right? He's, yeah. My read on PCA is that he is always going to be prone to being a streaky player. You know, even if you get season lines out of him that look really good where he's, uh, you know, on the year and above average hitter, there's just enough chase there that he is, I think, going to be prone to long stretches where he's not hitting well at all.

Now, he is a really, really special center field defender. He's really quite special out there. And so he's always going to have, I think, a pretty meaningful and robust value floor. And like, look, if you think that trading for star level production is hard, try trading for a good center fielder right now. Like there is just, there is a real dearth. And as our listeners know, I have been center field defense pilled for a while now. And I think that if you have a guy who can really just go get it out there, if he can hit at all, a lick, a hit, a lick, you just, you can eat it, you know? And guess what allows you to put a glove for centerfielder

out in the field? Kyle Tucker. Cause then you're getting production from the corners that really bolsters the whole project. So I agree with you. They don't have to move on from any of these guys. And I think that having better depth there, having the versatility that Bellinger brings on the defensive side of things, um, makes a ton of sense. But I like PCA and I think he has a role and potentially like, um, mostly everyday role on a big league roster. But I think that you should bolster your

lineup and not assume production out of him. Cause then everything you get after that is gravy. The Cubs also a little less notably, but still worth noting, signed Carson Kelly to the same contract that basically every catcher has signed this off season. At least all the backup catchers. It's just sort of like, uh, yeah, here's your standard backup catcher contract. So he got two years, 11 and a half million with some incentives in there. So he can back up Miguel Amaya or maybe that'll be more of a timeshare depending on how Amaya plays, but it's another box to check. So another hold to fill. And don't forget that they brought in Gage Workman from the Tigers

in the rule five draft. How dare. Yeah. I would never forget that. Definitely did not forget that. Yeah. But thank you for reminding everyone else. Right.

So we'll see. Cubs probably far from a finished product still. So maybe we will return to this topic soon, but got to be heartening, got to be encouraging to see them actually sign a player of Kyle Tucker's caliber. And again, like the division, it's not a powerhouse either. And so it doesn't take that much to be the favorite going in. But just be ambitious. Have ambition. You got a bunch of MBA types in baseball now and no hustle

from any of them. A complete dearth of hustle, a deficit of hustle, plenty of good enough. Stop biohacking and start roster hacking. You know what I mean? Like go get some, don't do that. Terrible. No, I hate it. I regret introducing it as a concept. I like the term. I like un-ironically. I like lighting a fire under front offices.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm lighting a fire. I want, I question your want, you know? I just am saying, like, do you have any want? Do you have any? You guys? I want to make them mad so that they sign good players and then try really hard. A lot of them are trying hard. This is the

thing. It's like, I think the Cubs are one of those teams where the issues with and constraints on roster construction are coming from ownership in a way that makes very little sense and I feel annoyed by, but I am willing to be obnoxious and question their want and come up with terms. I used the word synergy like four times on Ironically last week at one of our meetings and it didn't feel good, Ben, you know? It was the right word, you know? It was the perfect word, but I felt the need to explain it every time. I felt the need to go, I, this isn't my, but that is what we, you know.

Yeah. It's one of those words that initially sounded like such business speak that it was just anathema to me. And it has now maybe I've just gotten used to it. And also it is sometimes useful. I cannot deny there are times where you just, you want to deploy a synergy. Cause that is sort of what you're talking about. Some maybe eventually it just enters circulation and it's something that you're not hearing exclusively in a PowerPoint presentation somewhere.

And then it becomes kind of societally acceptable to use it in other contexts without someone groaning or raising an eyebrow. But some words are certainly still in there. I think I did on a Patreon pod a low stakes rant about learnings. And I'm hearing that more and more. Many people are saying, and I still haven't quite acclimated to learnings because there are just other words that mean the same thing that we could still use. Often you can just say, what did you learn or something? Here's what I learned. Or you could say insights or even takeaways, which is mildly businessy, but better. We just don't need to say learnings, but many people are.

We just don't need to say learnings, but many people are. What are we? What are we? British, Ben? With maths? No. No, we're not. There's a certain charm in a Britishism. I don't mind that, but a businessism is a little less charming to me.

No room for it, but you know what we have? Room for want. We have room for want and vision. And the Yankees have room for Devin Williams. We should talk about another trade for a prominent player who is also an impending free agent. So we'll be hitting the Arpwood market, if not extended at the end of 2025. Devin Williams going to the Yankees in a trade that also involves Nestor Cortez. So a couple of pitchers who gave up just back breaking

home runs in the postseason, just being traded for each other. Little swapsies. Yes, they did great service to their teams during their 10 years with the Brewers and Yankees respectively. So it's sort of sad that on the way out, maybe that will be remembered.

But nonetheless, Yankees are getting, if not the best closer in baseball. I don't know who else would even be in that conversation other than Emmanuel Classe, who has his own October struggles now to discuss, but Devin Williams for Nestor Cortez and Caleb Durbin and a couple million in cash. So Yankees, after all the talk about how they had managed to convert Luke Weaver into a closer who was effective down the stretch and in the postseason, they've now just gotten out.

Except for that, except for his struggles. Well, yes, everyone has one eventually. I think everyone just gets amnesty for the last postseason. It didn't happen. I mean, it did, but like, yeah. Yeah. So he was a great find for them, but now they have just gone with the brand name, just the guy who has been the best or close to the best for a few years now. We talked about it when Pete Alonzo hit that homer and just how improbable it was or just how unusual it was to see someone actually get Devin Williams because except for some injuries he has had, some of which are sort of fluke things or I guess not fluke, but

self-inflicted like when he punched the ball for instance. And then there was the back, like literally back breaking injury that he returned from to pitch about as well as he ever had. So it didn't seem to affect him. But other than that, I mean, he's awesome. So like getting, you know, there's always sort of a saber metric,

like you can find a closer, you can find a back in, a late inning guy and the Yankees have, they have done that very often and they go out and they trade for Clay Holmes and they turn him into that guy. And then when he falters, they turn Weaver into that guy and they've had a lot of success building relievers. And so you might say, oh, you don't have to go get the already established reliever, but I think in this case, because he's just so good, Williams is just so good. And I don't know that they gave up so much that I'd feel bad about it either.

So that helps again, like missing out on resigning Soto, everything else feels like a consolation prize. You go get Freed, you go get Williams. They're among the best at what they do. You still need some hitters at some point, and I'm sure that they're working on that. We just talked about maybe Bellinger or maybe it ends up being Santander or Teasquer or someone else, but from a run prevention standpoint, they were pretty good and they've gotten better. I want to make an effort to be clear right and fair about the Yankees because

I think there is a temptation that I have a temptation to just dismiss everything that you do because they lost out on Soto. And like we can, um, I was about to say we can make space for, leave space for. Does anyone understand what happened with the Wicked Press Tour as an aside? Doesn't matter. Anyway, I don't get it. But even the principles involved don't seem to. Hold space, right?

Or holding space. We can hold space for the loss of Soto for the Yankees. We're still acknowledging that like, you know, Tevin Williams is really good. Tevin Williams is really good. And Max Freed is really good. Devin Williams is really good and Max Fried is really good. And I still think they need to do work to have less Ben Rice in their lives. But man, I feel like I'm picking on Ben Rice a lot. I don't mean to do it. Ben, it's not you.

It's the Yankees. It's about them. Don't worry. You're fine. You're fine player. It's just that you're stretched. You're overextended in that role. I want to allow for a real acknowledgement of the stuff that they are doing to improve

their team. And I think that Luke Weaver's story and the way that he managed to round into a different form the role he played was very important for them going as deep into the postseason as they did. I think that if they had managed to win the World Series, like I might have been annoying and been like, I don't know, maybe Luke Weaver should be World Series MVP, which would have been silly, but it would have been a thing I would have been happy to be annoying about. But it's good to just have a guy where, you know, he's really, really very good. Um, I think that when you're the Yankees, there are places where you can like find a reclamation project and turn them

around. And it's good to have that skill. And, you know, it's one of the things that say a team like the Dodgers does well where it's not just the money and it's not just the drafting, it's the player dev too. And being able to really bring these guys along is important. But sometimes you just need like a hammer, you know? Sometimes you need, I'm gonna do a big swear, a f*** you guy at the back of the bullpen. Like every team that has serious playoff ambitions should have one of those.

And now they do, and that's great. And now Caleb Durbin gets to be a brewer in a way that is like, it's shocking he wasn't one before. Can I sing a few bars about Caleb Durbin? You should talk about Durbin Williams, but when you're done, I have a Durbin thoughts. Jared Ranere I've been continually calling him Chad Durbin, so by all means, please try to establish him as a, no relation as far as I know, but no, Caleb. Kasey Scalise So, okay, so here's the thing about Caleb

Durbin. People went crazy, go nuts for Caleb Durbin in the fall league. I think that one could reasonably say that Caleb Durbin got a little overhyped in fall league, right? That people were talking about Caleb Durbin as if Caleb Durbin were an all-star, a future star, superstar in the league. And some of that was, you know, he stole 29 bases in the fall. He set a new folly record for stolen bases. He looked great.

And I think that you can reasonably criticize the notion that he got overhyped and say, this return feels like Timmy for someone like Devin Williams. But here's what I'll say. I really liked Caleb Durbin in the fall league. I don't think Caleb Durbin is like an all-star, but I think Caleb Durbin is a good little player. And I think that sometimes when a guy gets a little bit overhyped and the helium is too much, we like go too far the other direction.

And then it becomes he has no merit because his merits might have been a little bit overstated. And I'm here to say, Caleb Durbin, I like Caleb Durbin. I think Caleb Durbin is good. I think he's going to be a good little player. Is he going to be the best hitter on the Brewers? I sure hope not for the Brewers sake, because if he's your best hitter, then something has gone very wrong, but he's a useful guy and I think talented. It's fine. I'm not saying that it's necessarily enough for Devin

Williams, but that wasn't all that they got back. Nestor Cortez makes a lot of sense. I'm excited to see what the Brewers do with Nestor Cortez. That might be fun. CB 05.00 Yes, he does seem Brewers-y and they need innings. LSF And Dermot definitely seems Brewers. CB 05.00 Oh, yeah. LSF So Brewers-y. Shocking he wasn't one already. CB 05.00 Yeah, the whole process of trading a closer for some less sexy guys. Now Cortez, he's a free agent after this coming season, right?

I think that's right. I think so. Yeah, but Dermott, you're getting a team control guy and this is what they do. Yeah, has not yet debuted. Yeah, so you trade, you get rid of hader leaves and you replace him with Williams and then Williams leaves and you replace him with McGill and that'll probably be okay. Or Adamus leaves and you just slide over Ortiz, whom you have already acquired for Corbin Burns and maybe Durbin replaces where Ortiz was playing last year and you have both of them

now. And so that's just what they do. That's how they, it's almost razish, but it has worked well for them. Like they're perennial contenders and often it's not the players that you appreciate or anticipate will provide that value, but they do. And they just keep the machine moving. value, but they do and they just keep the machine moving. And yeah, Durbin, by the way, he's listed at 5'6", 185. Now, do you think the 5'6", are we at a place where we can believe in minor leaguers listed heights at least? Can we trust that now? Yes. They all got, they, I mean, I think we can trust his listed height. They all got measured

last year, but yeah. Right. But precisely now, right? Because of the, the Statcast and the Robozones and everything. Like it's not just, you can't fudge it the way that you used to be able to or not as easily, right? So when someone says they're 5'6", it's not Altuve saying that he's 5'6", right? So, so if he is, he's listed 5'6", 1'85", and to bring up another Joshian line here, Durbin is listed at 5'6", 1'85", and seems more likely to get the bat knocked out of his hands in the majors than to sustain an 11% walk rate. Cause what Joe is saying is that he's suspicious of guys whose minor league production is boosted by walks that that's where their OBP comes from. That 20 years ago he would have loved that, but he's since learned that often

that's not sustainable necessarily just because it is based on some selectivity. And then if that player doesn't have the physical skills, if they can't hit the ball hard, if they can't intimidate pitchers, then once they get to the big league level, pitchers will challenge them and they won't nibble and they have better control and you can't just draw those walks anymore. You actually have to hit the ball or put some scare into the pitcher. And if you can't do those things, then that walk rate might just evaporate. walks anymore, you actually have to hit the ball or put some scare into the pitcher. And if you can't do those things, then that walk rate might just evaporate.

Sure. Now, I don't know whether Durbin's bat will translate or not, but to me, five, six, one, eighty five. Okay. That's a little guy in terms of height, especially by major league baseball standards, but one eighty five is, that is like a preposterous weight to be. Yes. If you're five'6 and athletic, right? And you look at Durbin and he's solid.

He doesn't look like he's, yeah, please, you saw him in person. So to quote Eric Long and Hagen's report on Durbin, and I think this is a very apt way of describing it, Eric says, Durbin is short, really short. He's five foot six, but he's not small. He's built like a little tank, like an extra small Tyler O'Neill. And I think that that is the perfect way to put it. So he's, you know, he's definitely stocky and he is small, but like he is able to stay really short to the ball and on time. So I can appreciate what Joe is saying, but I think that it's more than just the height. Like this guy has, yeah, like, yeah, if you look,

if you saw him, you'd be like, oh my God. Yeah. Look at that little tank driving around. Yeah. It doesn't look like the bat's gonna be knocked out of his hands. Like he's not, no. No, definitely not. Yeah. When I saw those dimensions, I went to his Instagram It doesn't look like the bat's gonna be knocked out of his hands. Like he's not, no. No, definitely not.

When I saw those dimensions, I went to his Instagram or I Googled him or something, and there was a picture of him and some sort of Nike athletic wear, you know, figure hugging. And I did like my Admiral Ackbar, it's a trap voice, because like his traps were like bursting out of his neck and his shoulders. It's like, okay, I get it. But that to me, because we talk a lot about just how big professional baseball players are and major

leaguers and you go in a clubhouse and just what you see on TV, it just, it doesn't translate to TV totally. Like, yeah, you know, in an intellectual way that they're big, but then you stand next to them and they're just, they're so big. And five, six, one 85, like they're just, there aren't that many people you'll just meet in the wild like that. And again, I'm talking like built and one 85, you know, just like athletic in shape. One 85. Like I'm five 10 and I'm in good shape and I work out and I lift and everything. I don't think I've ever weighed 185. The only time I came close to that maybe was when I was in college and had a meal plan and I got the most of my money. It was bulking face, bulking phase. It was like freshman 40 or something.

I mean, like on purpose, cause I was a little willowy guy prior to that. But, but even then, like at my, my max weight, I don't think I would weighed 185 or, you know, it would have been close at most. And so to be that short and 185, like that's like bodybuilder dimensions. Like, uh, like Arnold's bestie in the seventies and eighties, Franco Colombo. I was looking up cause I knew like, you know, he's a famous short bodybuilder. He was listed at five five and he was 185. Granted like contest weight, so shredded, but like off season,

he was 195 and that was when they were using at least a slightly less potent steroids than they're using now. So you know, Phil Bickford or someone like that, who's a big bodybuilder now, but a small big bodybuilder is going to be way more than that. But like you could be a champion bodybuilder with that weight at that height. And I don't know whether weights are any more prone to exaggeration than heights or whether in the past, because I've marveled at like Jose Altuve's weight because he's listed, I think, as 167 and he's short.

I mean, he's like in reality, like what, five three or something maybe. Like he's Rosenthal sized, you know, five, four, maybe tops. I mean, he is, but I've seen them next to each other, but these are just like thick people, you know, not, not thick in that sense necessarily though some of them are, but, but just very solid, very like horizontal, very wide. And I think that impresses me more, or drives home just how large these people are, even more than the height of the tall guys. Yeah, the tall guys are tall,

but the weight of the short guys and the strength of them, I think that, Travis Hunter, the Shohei Otani of college football is listed at 185 and he's six foot one. You know, and he's like running around and he's so wiry and you wouldn't look at him and think, oh, he's built or something, but you wouldn't think he's going to fall over in the wind or something either. And so to be five, six and 185, I just, I marvel at that.

So yeah, little, little, little tank out there. Fast, like a fast little tank, a speedy little tank of a guy. And he's got defensive versatility and like he's a very Brewers player. I like, I look, accepting the realities of their roster. Like do I wish that the brewers were in a position where they were given the latitude to sign it? Like, this is another ownership thing where it's like, this is the budget that has been set. And I'm sure that the brewers wish that they still had a Devin Williams. But I think getting like a useful utility guy who's just, again, so brewers, peak brewers, such a brewer. Why do I say brewer like that? I don't have trouble like enunciating the sign syllable.

Brewer. Brewer. Anyway, I think we can contain multitudes when we react to trades like this. We can be disappointed in the sort of financial picture that puts teams like this in a spot where they trade guys like Devin Williams. We can appreciate prospects to an appropriate degree without being either over or under enthusiastic about them. And we can remember the Néstor Cortés can be quite useful, provided that he is not deployed in a completely ridiculous way in the postseason. So, that's kind of my thought on it.

You should embrace whatever version of Caleb Durbin you think is best, but just remember, speedy little tank that guy. Yes, and Caleb, not Chad. I got to remember that too. Not Chad. Those are very... I mean, I know they're both C names, but they're very different names. Caleb- Yes. The Durban part is the same.

The Durban part is the same. Is there a Chad Durban? Yeah, Chad Durban. Chad Durban. Yeah, the former Chad. Oh yeah, Chad Durban. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but different than Caleb.

Very different, yes. Yeah. You got to keep your Durbans straight and call them the right thing, which is Caleb, not Chad. I mean, like, shouldn't it be easy? Because like one of them was a pitcher and one of them is famously not. One was six foot two. Right, yeah.

Not a speedy little tank, you know? Different kinds of guys. Yep, it's true. All right. So just a couple more transactions to round up here. The A's made another one. Look at those Sacramento A's, Wheeling and Dilling. They have traded. We have an A's raise move.

So we've got, I guess in this case, you can't say that the player is going from a big league park to a... It's just kind of a lateral move in terms of facilities maybe. But Jeffrey Springs and Jacob Lopez are going to Sacramento. The Rays are getting right-hander Joe Boyle, the A's pick in competitive balance round A of the upcoming draft. And then a couple of minor league players, Reddy Jacob Waters, first baseman outfielder, Will Simpson.

Just a lot of depth, I guess. No one who's gonna crack the Rays top prospect list unless you're Eric Long and Hagan and there's probably like 62 guys on there. But probably not even like a top 30 or something. Hey, I appreciate, of all people, I appreciate comprehensiveness and detail, but just saying. We are completists by nature, but if this is a dig at us managing to put 38 guys on the angels list and 51 guys on the D-Vex list, well then, all right.

How many were on the race prospect list last year or this early? Only 49. Yeah. Yeah, not bad. Yeah, 49. You are remembering correctly a year where I think we had like 62 guys. Yeah, that's what I thought. But anyway-

There was a year like that, but that was not last year. We only had 49. We were barely there. That's how the raise operates. Exactly. It's bulk. it's depth. They just, they get a lot of guys and a few of them turned out to be good. And then they continue to be competitive.

So the A's have gotten Jeffrey Springs, who was sort of one of those successes of the Rays in terms of converting a reliever into a starter and going from a swing man to be pretty effective. And then he had Tommy John surgery in April, 2023 and came back last July, but then got shut down again in September because of fatigue in his throwing elbow. So that's maybe a little worrisome,

but that'll happen sometimes when you're coming back from TJ. And it's not always a sign that something else is wrong. I was going to say, by the way, in theory, the Brewers are adding innings by getting Nestor Cortez. I wouldn't say I'm completely confident in the state of his elbow and arm either, just given the way that he came back in the playoffs last year and was like, everyone's telling me not to do this. And you know, like my friends and family were like, don't go back, don't jeopardize your future earnings. And yeah, it didn't seem like he was necessarily a hundred percent or like totally out of the woods, but I guess the Brewers are fairly confident and I guess the A's are fairly

confident in Jeffrey Springs, who was also one of those Rays who refused to wear the Pride Night Jersey, but I guess he doesn't have to go to the Bay Area now to be an A's player, so I guess that's nice for him. I think there are still gay people in Sacramento. Yeah, you know, pretty much anywhere you play. Yeah, how about that? The rotation has been upgraded, certainly, with the additions of Severino and Springs. And I know there's been reporting about how the A's are basically just spending to avoid a

grievance because their payroll was so low that they were very much in the revenue sharing recipient zone of, hey, you know, if you're going to get all this money, you actually have to spend some of it at some point. So grievances, like even when there have been basically like slammed on cases of this team is clearly cheaping out, there aren't really direct repercussions so much as I understand it, it's often just kind of folded into CPA negotiations. It's like a little bargaining chip that the union has like, Hey, we have this grievance that still is unresolved and they can deploy that as leverage to get something else.

Like, okay, well, this grievance will go away if you give us this or that concession. So sometimes that is what it actually results in, if anything. But that seems to be why the A's are by their standards on a spending spree here, but they are also meaningfully improving in their rotation, which is nice. Yeah. Okay. So franchise level disaster of an organization on the field.

Kind of interesting. Like I'm just saying they're kind of interesting. Are they good yet? I wouldn't go so far as to say that. I wouldn't be so bold as to say they're kind of interesting. Are they good yet? I wouldn't go so far as to say that, you know, I wouldn't be so bold as to say they're good. I don't know that they will be one of those teams that appears as like a trendy dark horse wild card pick, you know, every year when we do staff predictions, you can see that there is even among the dark horse wild card picks, like a little bit of, I don't want to say group think, but there's

hurting, you know, where it's like, oh, maybe if a couple of things break right in a division that's weak and like the AL West, not what it once was, right? But they're interesting, Ben, you know, they're an interesting club. They got some interesting guys. Jeffrey Springs is one of them, which has a personal belief system were a little more tolerant to be clear, but I think that you're looking at a rotation that is meaningfully better. Is it good enough to be a playoff rotation? I am not asserting such a thing. I am making no such claim. But I think it is appreciably better. And the only thing that I was a bit surprised by when grappling with Jeffrey Springs is that he is older than I thought he was. And guys with Tommy John, this happens with them where it's like, oh, I kind of lost track

of you for a minute and now you're entering your age 32 season, because it's his September birthday. He didn't really establish himself as a starter. That was like his age 29 season. So that's kind of when we became more familiar with Jeffrey Springs. So yeah, between that and it's classic raise, they signed him for a little while and then he's getting more expensive and so they're ready to move on but the A's have him now for what he signed for three more years or or two more with a team option I think and you know it's again

like they're still the lowest payroll in baseball with Springs now what 10.5 million per year is what he's making for the next couple of seasons. Their competitive balance tax number is. Like 88. Third lowest, yeah. Just a little higher than the Marlins and the White Sox. So they're still down there and they still have some room to spend to get out of that grievance danger zone.

So they may have more moves to make. And as for the raise, yeah, it's kind of classic. Okay. We found this guy basically free talent and now he is actually making some money and we feel like we can replace him. And they do in theory have depth. They have McClanahan and Pepeo and Bradley and Baz and Littell and Rasmussen. And it seems like there's a rotation there, Sons, Springs, but then again, you have said that about the Rays in the past. And sometimes all those guys get Tommy John at the same time. And then suddenly they're doing openers

or they're moving people to the rotation as they did with Springs and others. And as has worked out sometimes for them. But yeah, I don't know, given the injury track records of some of those players, will they have an issue where at some point in the coming season, they wish that they had springs on hand still? Maybe, but I get it. I get it too.

One more pitcher move to mention, the Orioles have signed Tomoyuki Sugano, who is an NPB legend and incredibly accomplished pitcher in Japan, but is, I guess we can say on the downside of his career, you look at the career stats and the accolades and you wonder like, how was he not over here before? I mean, he was posted previously, but didn't sign and he signed a one year, $13 million deal with the Orioles. And he is 35 years old and he throws, I think like his fastballs like 94 or something, but it's not a great fastball. It's not a great fastball.

And he doesn't throw it that much either. So he's coming off a season with the Omoriori Giants where he had a 1.67 ERA in 150 plus innings. And you look at that and think, wow. And then you look at the fact that he has a career 2.43 ERA in NPB and almost 2000 innings. And he's won a couple of Sawamura awards, the Ziyang equivalent. Like he's, he's been a star and an ace level pitcher for a long time over there, but there has been the ball deadening, which I think has helped a lot of pitchers obviously there, but

maybe especially him and that kind of pitcher who's not missing so many bats and it's a little lower strikeout rate league, but he doesn't stand out in that respect. He's very much a control and command kind of guy and keep the ball on the ground and finesse, especially at this point in his career. So could I see that working in the big leagues? I could. I don't know how well, but I think if they're signing him to be just a back of the rotation guy, which is the kind of contract that they gave him here. He signed.

Yeah. And he won two central league MVP awards and I mean, and like the Saho Amur awards were I think in different years. I mean, he led the league in ERA four times. He's been an eight time all-star. He led the league in strikeouts a couple of times over there. Like he's been an incredible pitcher, but he hasn't gotten the buzz that a lot of Japanese pitchers have just because of the age and the stuff and the idea

that it wouldn't translate as well as some of the guys who have also been successful, but just like had such nasty stuff that you just knew it was going to work really well. So yeah, you know, it's, it's a rotation depth move. Katie Grant Clements is going to write about this deal in greater detail for us, I think for tomorrow, but there's a report for him on the international player section of the board right now. And Eric noted kind of exactly what you said. Like he's not, his stuff might not be good enough for him to like crack a playoff rotation, but the combination of eating innings, avoiding walks,

he does have a very good splitter, shouldn't make him a valuable regular season guy. And the thing that'll be interesting to see is, you know, what does the combination of a potentially livelier ball and then also, you know, our baseball has a slightly different size and the seams can be a little different. So there will, we will potentially see an adjustment period for him for all of his breaking stuff. Um, but yeah, I think, you know, if this ends up being the only pitching addition that Baltimore

makes, that would be bad. But if this is them sort of bolstering the back end of that rotation, bringing in depth that should help them weather injuries for what they signed him for, team signed, you know? Yeah, it's a work in progress still. So, you know, we'll wait and see. He might be preemptively sad about the demise of Baltimore. He might long for the return of Baltimore, but I think it's fine. He never got to experience that. But yeah, the Orioles right now, they probably have maybe two guys you would want in a playoff

rotation or settle for in a playoff rotation. So they have some work to do there. And, and again, there's been some reporting that they're fussing about qualifying offer guys and giving up those draft picks and everything. And that has led to almost some preemptive criticism of like Elias, it is time to flip the switch, like we get that you like prospects and you did a really good job building back that farm system and having all these young guys, but you're at the point where you can't be stressing about qualifying offer compensation picks that much. Yes, there's value, like factor it in, absolutely, but that should not be preventing you from making a move. And so the fact that this is

their pitching addition so far that they went and got Tyler O'Neill, who I guess somewhat surprisingly maybe certainly in retrospect, didn't receive a qualifying offer. So this is not something that should be making them stay their hands here like they should be. And Corbin Burns, of course, would not cost the Orioles a qualifying offer because he was just an Oriole. So if they bring him back, there are only so many guys really left on the board who would impress you. There's still

some maybe players on the trade markets, but yeah, the number of options to really say, okay, they did it. They went for it. It's dwindling. It's not non-existent, but yeah, you got to make one of those moves at some point and maybe they will. Maybe they will. They probably will. I hope they will. But bringing but you know, bringing on burns was good, but that was a one season rental and they did get a, they gave up a good deal to get him. Right. And you know, the Trevor Rogers trade, at least in the short term was sort of a

disaster. So yeah, they've, they've got more work to do. Yeah, there's, there's definitely more to do there. Cause we've, we've now seen them get swept out of the playoffs two different ways. One was the pitching not being up to snuff and then they didn't really hit this year. And so I think they should try to avoid both of those fates. Um, that's my suggestion to the Baltimore Orioles. My brave take is that they get better and then win in the bus season. And again, like Mike, I'm questioning your want, you know, I'm just throwing out a little, what question to answer those questions.

I, I am just, I'm keeping my eye on the hustle and seeing if the analytics MBA guys want to have a little want, we'll see. I don't know if this is a fun bit for anyone. I'm open to retiring it, but I'm just, I am wondering about the want. I wonder as I want to. Do you think that A's fans, they couldn't be more upset and angry and sad about everything that has happened with that franchise, but do you think seeing the A's actually make some moves now? Does that add extra insult to the injury of the team just pulling up stakes and leaving? Because they just didn't really sign anyone. They didn't really make moves even like Severino and Springs

their last couple of years in Oakland. And there was speculation. I mean, it's not really, not really outrageous. You don't really connect a lot of dots here basically that they were just not putting a compelling product on the field because it made it easier for them to make the argument that they had to leave because it depressed attendance. Cause why would you go see the team that they were putting out

there a lot of the time? And now they go to Sacramento and suddenly they're spending, and even if it's just to avoid getting in trouble for not spending, I guess maybe they still had some players on the books who were keeping them out of that range the last couple of seasons, but I don't know if that's extra demoralizing. It's like you get out of the relationship and it ends badly and then suddenly the other person's looking better than ever or something. It makes it hurt even more. I imagine it's fine actually because it's so obviously a ploy to avoid a grievance that it is just kind of of a piece with the, it is, it's sort of philosophically consistent with their approach to roster building. And so I think that if

you're an A's fan and you feel disgruntled and you want to continue to feel that way, you're going to be right at home with these moves. I really, I do wonder like what those, what those games are gonna be like. I wonder what the vibe will be at them. Maybe I gotta make a trip to Sacramento. Yeah, no, it's worth seeing, at least to rub her neck a little bit. Can pitch Greta a baseball movie idea?

You don't have to keep making Narnia. You could write a baseball movie. And you know, I'm just saying if you're like, I don't know, I don't know if she's a sports fan or not. So I don't want to assume that she doesn't know baseball because maybe she does. Maybe she's a rabid sports fan. I have no idea. But, um, if she's not, she's like, I don't know enough about sports to write a sports movie. I'm just saying Greta that like we're available. Um, and we'd be happy to help for what from our perspective would be good money and from your perspective would probably be a modest fee.

And then we get a Greta Gerwig baseball movie. That sounds great. Sounds way better than more Narnia. What are we doing with Narnia? What are you doing with Narnia? I like Narnia, but we've seen it in multiple ways. Yeah. I just don't know that we need more Narnia.

No. Anyway. Lastly, Rob Manfred made some comments. He did an interview with one Chris O'Gorman for the website Questions for Cancer Research. He touched on a number of- I'm really glad I didn't make a joke before you revealed the site name. I was going to be snarky, but now I feel like I must exercise restraint. He touched on a number of topics, one of which was rule changes and

specifically starting pitcher related rule changes. And so this is coming on the heels of after getting everyone hot and bothered about the golden batter idea. He came out and was basically like, relax, like it's not happening anytime soon. And also I don't even like it, which I thought was very funny for him to say that after several news cycles where everyone was just up in arms about all of this, which kind of confirmed my feeling that this was a trial balloon or he was just giving us something to talk about here, since evidently he's not even advocating for that change.

Similarly, the discourse that preceded the golden at bat slash plate appearance slash batter idea was the six inning minimum idea or proposal for starters, which was something that had been bandied about months ago and was very vague. It was sort of like people around the league have discussed or league sources or something. It wasn't something that he mentioned in an interview as he did with the golden batter, but Manfred came out and said, just to blunt an instrument to fix this problem. I don't think it can be prescriptive.

You have to go six innings. I think it has to be a series of rules that create incentive for the clubs to develop pitchers of a certain type. And I could not agree more with that. And then he elaborated on that idea. He talked about the broadcast appeal and the marketing appeal of great matchups of starting pitchers and how he wants to get back to that to some extent. And yeah, I do too. And then he said to me, this needs to be addressed in a more subtle way. I think maybe through rules surrounding transactions.

That is how often pitchers come on and off the roster. One of the things that happens today, guy pitches three days in a row. He gets out righted. They bring somebody else in to give him some rest, as opposed to him staying on the roster the whole time. I think we need to create incentives through things like roster rules, transaction rules for clubs to develop pitchers who go deeper in the game. This is music to my ears.

And you know, it's, it's fairly rare that Rob will say something and I say no notes, but this is one of those times I'm with him on the desire. I'm also with him on the mandated minimums for starting picture outing length, being very heavy handed and just potentially backfiring in some ways. And I'm with him very much on the idea of the way to do this is through roster rules, transaction rules, just make it harder to cycle pitchers in and out constantly and allow a fewer pitchers on the active roster at any one time. And I know that might be tough to implement, but I think that is the way to do it.

And it sounds like Rob Winford is in alignment with me. And that's a nice feeling for once. So you'd say that you think you're both holding space for starting pitchers. Yes, but not prescribing a set amount of space. Yeah. You want their pitches to defy gravity. I don't know. I feel like I'm late to wicked discourse. I haven't seen it. This thing might be over, but yeah. But this is good. It's not over. It was only part one, Ben. They're doing a whole other movie. I'm not anti-wicked, but I'm just saying that stage play is not six hours long.

The press tour, part one. Memes move fast these days. The meme cycle, it's much like pictures cycling in and out of Bickley bullpens. So I think this is the way to address that. And I'm glad that he thinks that. And this just makes me question is the whole, the golden batter fuss, you couldn't blame on say reporters or a writer trying to fill a column on a slow day and drum up interest, because he brought that up himself on an interview. I don't know whether he anticipated the talk and the backlash or whether

that was part of his point. And maybe he even wanted to send the signal that everyone hates this to try to, to fight against it, some faction inside the ownership cabal that is in favor of this. And the report about the minimum outings. So we mentioned at the time even that it seemed to be sourced very vaguely, but some of these are probably just, oh, I heard someone talking about it. Let me put it out there because people will rage click. But some of it is probably also the league leaking these things or even saying these things officially on the record just to,

again, float the idea and have it shot down or I guess embraced, but it hasn't been embraced in these particular cases. I guess that is a useful thing before you put it into practice or start testing it in earnest. You just, you throw it out there and if everyone hates it, then you save yourself some trouble. Can I ask a question about the etymology of trial balloon? I don't know that I can answer it, but yeah. Because like the idea is like a trial balloon. Is that about the Hindenburg?

Like, oh, you got to test your balloons to make sure that they're okay, you know? I think by that point, that was probably beyond the test, although they should have done some additional testing. Right, no, what I'm saying, the day it happened, did somebody go, oh, we should have tried this out more? I mean, I guess it wasn't like the first balloon like that. No, yeah, no, this was, yeah, I think this was maybe a 19th century thing, but yeah, hydrogen is flammable.

I'm trying not to laugh at it because it was tragic. a 19th century thing, but yeah, hydrogen is flammable. But apparently it comes from a French term. It was a small balloon sent up immediately before a man descent to determine the direction and tendency of winds. So, yeah, you send up the balloon to see which way the wind is blowing literally or figuratively in this case.

Yeah. Well, I've learned something. I don't know if it was quite as calculated as being able to call it a trial balloon, but it's probably closer to that than anything else. But yeah, the old golden-at bat, nobody likes that idea. Everyone thinks that's lousy. Yeah. Last thing is, and Joshian, I've cited many times in this podcast, has been banging this

drum too. So we've talked about how it seems surprising that spending has been as robust as it has been this off season, given all the uncertainty about the long-term broadcast future of baseball. And Joe has pointed out that there does seem to be a pretty stark divide in the spending when you look at the teams whose broadcast situations are pretty stable versus the teams that are not so for instance After the Soto signing but before the Freed signing he provided an update So he has divided MLB teams into two categories the stable TV situations in the unstable ones and you could maybe quibble with some of these but The he basically has put it 11 teams he would describe as having stable,

profitable TV situations. The Yankees, Red Sox, Blue Jays, Orioles, Mets, Nationals, Cubs, and Dodgers are all on networks that are built around those teams. And then the A's, Giants, and Phillies are partnered with Comcast, which seems to be somewhat stable. And the A's, that's part of maybe why they wanted to be in Sacramento so they could keep their local TV deal or part of it. And then there's everyone else who are former diamond teams or whatever they're twisting in the wind or MLB is producing their broadcasts and backstopping them somewhat, or they still have diamond deals, but they're reduced amounts or they're getting less from MLB than they were supposed to from diamond initially. So the 11 quote unquote stable teams, this was

December 10th when he sent this out, had made nine signings for a total of 1.365 billion. And a lot of that was Soto. But even if you take out Soto, it was still a lot. It was still like 600 million for the quote unquote stable teams. And then the 19 unstable teams, so more teams, three signings for 156 million in total, much lower. And since then we've seen Freed go to the Yankees so you can add all that money onto that tally. So if you divide things this way, it does seem like there's a pretty, pretty big divide there.

And he mentioned even more recently when he was breaking down some more recent moves, there are four teams that have not made a major league transaction since the season ended, the twins, Mariners, Padres, and Diamondbacks. And three of those are MLB produced streaming teams. And then you have the Mariners who just have a mess of a TV situation. Well, yeah, I was going to say like there is some MLB something or other involved with their thing. Yeah. So the seven MLB streaming teams have combined, Joe said, to commit just 39 million to free agents.

And most of that is the Guardians re-signing Shane Bieber. And then the Phillies have signed Jordan Romano. Again, maybe they didn't have that much to do, but that's it. And then the Cardinals claimed a player, like they haven't really done anything. And we know that they're kind of retrenching, rebuilding re whatever they're calling it currently. So there is something to that maybe and we can see where the dust settles and what the final tally is when the off season's over and all the spending and signings are done. But maybe it's just disproportionately concentrated among certain teams and thus we should not feel relieved.

among certain teams and thus we should not feel relieved. Maybe we should be concerned again about the disparity here and what that will mean long-term potentially. Yeah, I guess it's better than the alternative where we would have like no spending at all. But to have it that obviously bifurcated is concerning. It's, it's concerning. So, yep. Yeah.

Something to track. We will keep an eye on that. And I'm sure Joe will. And I was thinking about this because Patrick Dubuque, he has this refrain, you don't have to care about the money. And he posted this again on, on blue sky the other day, and he needs it in terms of individual signings and transactions. He said, you don't have to care about the money. I've been writing this for years and I'm sure

you're as sick of hearing it as I am of saying it, but it will never stop being true. You don't have to worry about the box office returns on the movies you like, and you don't have to worry about your team's budget. And some people say this about ratings for things as well. Why do you care? You're not a network broadcast executive. I don't totally agree actually, because I think, look, you should care about the box office returns on the movies you like if you want them to keep making more movies like that, right? That has some bearing on whether you're going to see that. And it doesn't necessarily have bearing on whether there will continue to be baseball, but there are cases where, I mean, A, we want baseball to be popular.

We want the sport to be healthy. It's like, you know, there's no danger of it going extinct immediately, barring some kind of a national catastrophe or global one, but we want the sport to be healthy and for there to be a new generation that's watching it and for people to care about this thing that we care about and, you about and listen to our podcast and read what we write, et cetera. So we have some incentive here and these are one way you can measure those things. And I think it's true when it's individual transactions, I think we used to stress about the money much more even when I was starting out as a writer, it was just a bigger

deal. Whereas often I feel like when we talk about a transaction now, we mentioned the money, but unless it's really shocking, we don't dwell on the money because it just, it all feels like fake money to some extent. We're just like, yeah, they gave him this many millions. Like, I think, I guess this billionaire can afford it. You know, there used to be a belief and maybe it was to some extent an incorrect belief, but there was a belief that maybe it was to some extent an incorrect belief, but there was a belief that there's a limited amount that this team, this owner can afford and

therefore there's this cap, not an actual cap, but in effect a cap, a ceiling on the payroll and thus there's an opportunity cost whenever you sign someone, it means that you can't sign this other guy. And now we don't necessarily subscribe to that. We just say, well, they could afford to spend more if they wanted to. And very often they don't want to, and still it's, it amounts to the same thing, I guess, whether it's that they can't or they won't, it's still that they're not going to. But I think it actually made transactions more interesting to analyze. Like there was just another aspect,

there was another angle to discuss where you would talk about, here's the league average rate, here's what teams are paying per win, like here's what this other guy just got per year, and here's what this guy got, and you could compare that, and you could say, does this preclude this team from making that move? And it made for, I guess, a little greater utility

to the analysis, because you could actually just like, provide made for, I guess, a little greater utility to the analysis. Cause you could actually just like, you know, provide some insight into some things, whereas often with transaction analysis these days, I feel like we're just kind of saying, well, they got this player, he will add some value to this team, he, they're better with this guy than they weren't without, which is very obvious to anyone could see that, you know, so it feels like there's a little which is very obvious. Anyone could see that. So it feels like there's a little less to say, but I don't disagree that maybe we just don't need to say all those things or that in this climate, this economic landscape, we don't need to dive as deep into the financials as we used to. But it

does leave me sometimes just feeling like, well, they spent a lot of money. Will that affect them in any negative way down the road? Will Juan Soto be productive when he's 39? I mean, probably not, but so what? Will Steve Cohen be out on the street or something? Will he be even unable to continue to spend on his baseball team if he still owns it at that point and wants to? I don't know, probably not. So to dwell on that probably would be wrong as well. LS. I understand the thrust of it, but I also think it matters some. I think the way that we mean it is you don't have to, it shouldn't like alter your impression of the player. You don't have to let them signing a big contract change the way that you think of them. And you don't need to sort of preemptively fret on owners' behalf. But to say that the money part doesn't matter would be overstating things, right?

Yeah. And it's, it certainly matters on a league wide level when we're talking about the CBA and is there going to be a divide among the owners and how is that going to affect the member battles and work stoppages, all of those things matter. And I'm sure that Patrick would agree with that. Yeah, I was just about to say, I'm sure that Patrick would agree with all of those things. Well I think Meg mentioned the possibility that there'd be a Cody Bellinger trade before

we posted the podcast, and she was right. The Yankees did indeed acquire Cody Bellinger from the Cubs in exchange for some cash and another Cody, Cody Poteet. As Sarah Langs reported, it was the first big league Cody for big league Cody trade in history. So that answers that pressing question that you may have had. This reminds me very much of an excellent song by the band Wednesday called Cody's Only.

And yes, it's the possessive Cody, not plural Cody in the song title, but I'll take any excuse to mention that song. Actually, while I'm recommending songs linked to today's topics, check out the excellent song Superstar by Heinz of Boom Boom Back featuring Beck fame. I'll link to both of those songs on the show page. This does seem essentially to be a salary dump, so we'll see if the salary that's saved is repurposed by the Cubs in some way, or not. But more on that next time, we can also talk next time about MLB's report on pitcher injuries along in the works. Nothing shocking, but confirms my belief that on this issue at least MLB and Manfred more or less

understand the problem and have the proper prescription. Not that it'll be an easy fix. And a little follow up, last time we talked about the concept of camel case, where you don't have a space between words but you start the second word with a capital letter like fan graphs but not like blue sky. That was why we brought it up. YouTube, FedEx, there's a website I sometimes use to find contact information for the PR people, for public figures I'm trying to talk to for a story, and it's called Who Represents, whorepresents.com. So there's no space between

the who and the represents, and in that case the capital R is very important, and if you spell it out or visualize it in your mind's eye, you will know what I mean. You want to make very clear that the break there is between who and represents. A couple people pointed out that if you want to really be specific about it, and this is sort of a programming thing, Pascal case is the more specific way to refer to this multiple capital letters in one word deal. Camel case can kind of go either way. It can be one lower case and one upper case, at least by some definitions. Others are stricter and say, no, if you have

multiple capitalizations, that's Pascal case, but not camel case. I think fan graphs can accurately be called either camel case or Pascal case, but thanks to those who pointed out the potential distinction. And one more reminder if you are participating in our Secret Santa exercise, the matches have been sent out, I sent out my gift to my Secret Santa recipient, so please do that as well if you signed up, and if you didn't get your matching information, check your spam filter, and or let me know. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively

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