Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2264: Team Performance Review

Episode Date: January 2, 2025

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the latest on Roki Sasaki’s posting process, the NL-AL imbalance, and why the active homer leader doesn’t have more homers, then (50:44) review the team goals from the 2024 season preview series. Audio intro: Kite Person, “Effectively Wild Theme” Audio outro: Cory Brent, “Effectively Wild Theme” Link to Sasaki update […]

Take me to the diamond Lead me through the turnstile Shower me with data That I never thought to compile Now I'm freely now the scorecard With a crack at shot with a smile Effectively wild Hello and welcome to episode 2264 of Effectively Wild, a FanGraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of FanGraphs and I am joined by Ben Lindbergh of the Ringer. Ben, how are you? Well, it sounds like you have perhaps picked up a cold, but I am doing great.

Travel cold, holiday cold, a cold of, of vague and unknown provenance, but, um, a cold nonetheless, but we're, we're doing okay. I sound worse than I feel. I feel mostly tired. Okay, that's not so bad. Well, our holiday travels are concluded. We're both at home. We've got our home field advantage going again.

I'm never leaving again. You say that. When I say that, I might mean it, but you actually have to leave your house at times. But happy new year. Happy new year year to you and to our listeners. And thanks for following us from 2024 into 2025. It's been a slow news period in baseball and just in general, as tends to happen at this time of year, but we've got some stuff to catch up on and we. And we have a minor league free agent draft to do early next week.

So that is, yeah, that's coming soon. Something I look forward to. Me too. Yeah. A lot of good stuff on the docket and we will do some emails sometime soon. Today, we don't usually do some sort of like gimmicky New Year's resolutions for every team kind of thing. But maybe next time we could talk about things we're looking forward to in 2025, just things about

baseball we're anticipating. That might be fun. I'm not a New Year's resolution guy just in general in life. So not in podcasts either, I suppose. But here are a few things we could discuss today. So although there wasn't much news, there was an update on Roki Sasaki and how his posting process is going and there wasn't a ton of insight into where he will land, which is what everyone is interested in. But there were some updates about the number of teams interested and the timeline. It's going to be at least a couple of weeks until he makes up his mind, maybe more. And he's already done six or seven in-person meetings, it sounds like. And I guess the headline was that 20 teams had made their interest official, had formally

submitted some sort of presentation, a PowerPoint, a short film, a book of some sort. It was like the Roki Film Festival, his agent Joel Wolf said, and we're familiar how these presentations tend to go. Although in Sasaki's case, he has limited teams to the same amount of time and the same conditions to ensure a level playing field. I guess there's never really a level playing field when it comes to free agency, but in terms of the meetings at least, he is limiting everyone to the same amount of time under two hours and having everyone meet with him at Wasserman, his agency's office in Los Angeles, which of course a lot of people are like, oh, Los Angeles, we told you he was going to the Dodgers.

That's where their offices are. Don't get excited. Yeah, it's just where the, yeah. But he has also banned players from coming to these meetings, because that's often a big part of these presentations is that you draft some stars. And so people are thinking, oh, well, the Dodgers, they'll have Yamamoto and they'll

have Otani and the Padres will have Darvish. And no, he doesn't want any of that. They didn't circumvent that, some teams by sending video messages, but nothing in person, which I guess is an interesting way to approach it. Just kind of try to keep the conditions consistent so that what stands out to you will be the quality of the pitch. Although I guess, you know, having players come to your pitch could be part of the quality of it, right? That has some bearing on your experience with your prospective teams. Yeah. Maybe he's just like, I don't know,

I'll just go over to roster resource, see who's there. Uh, the Twix in between, I did find it funny that every, well, not everyone, that some people are getting very excited about the LA of it all. And it's like, I, I spoiler alert you guys, all the agencies, New York and LA, that's where they're based. If we were going by that, then everyone would be a Met, a Yankee or a Dodger. Which is, you know, it's just true to some extent, but not entirely true. And to be clear, could well be true of Sasaki. But I don't think that that is a particularly telling indicator one way or the other.

I do find the decision to not want other players in there to be really interesting. I don't know that it means anything. I might find it more interesting than it actually is, you know, if that makes sense. I would want to hear from the guys, you know, and, and see what they have to say. Now, Sasaki might quite reasonably counter, well, they're only going to put the guys who say good stuff about the team in, in the team videos in the meetings, you know, that's all they're, you know, they're not going to put the disaffected guy who's been shuttled back and forth from AAA and is annoyed, like that guy's not going to make an appearance. So I get it on some

level, but you know, seeing who is willing to sort of offer a testimonial is interesting, I suppose. And I don't know, like I think that if the young man decides that he wants to strike out on his own and be the only Japanese player in a clubhouse, like that's, that would be understandable to me as a like, you know, thing that a person might want to do. If he was like, I would like there to be at least one other guy in the clubhouse who is a native speaker. I would get that too. I don't know, there's like a lot of ways to do it. These are always so funny. And we had this with Otani too, where it's like, we're trying to ascribe meaning to these little decisions

of a person we don't know, you know, and we're wish casting the whole time as fans, right? Oh, this means that he wants to, you know, he wants to be in our city. He cares about the same things that we care about. And that's why he'll be, uh, we just don't know. We don't know them. They're not, they're not, uh, on our holiday card list. Can I just say this is completely unrelated to Sasaki and I, I want to be clear, amnesty for all on this particular, but boy did Thanksgiving coming as late as it did push the holiday card timeline back for folks this year. I got, I got, I got holiday cards yesterday.

And you know what? We haven't put the decorations away, so there's it now. Yeah, no, I, you're good as, as long as it's before New Year's, me neither. Yeah, no. That's it. This weekend. You're good as long as it's before New Year's, it's close enough, right? And I'm not even a holiday card sender. I've been in fact and I act together so I can't complain. I can cast no stones.

Because every year I'm like, oh, it would be so nice to do a card. And then I don't, Ben. I don't. No, me neither. So if you didn't get a holiday card for me, no offense, nothing personal. No one, no one got one. Yeah, you weren't excluded.

I mean, everyone was, but you weren't individually. Did you do anything for New Year's Eve by the way? No, I did not. I guess we're past the point of having New Year's Eve plans basically. My New Year's Eve plans just like, will I stay awake? I mean, in my case, yes, almost certainly, but- LS. I did not. I normally do. I normally make it till at least midnight, but you know,

it's just cold circulating through the household. And I will say, oh God, you know, Ben, Weco is a three-time-a-week podcast. And sometimes the episodes are long enough to only be described as roguiness, although thankfully not in terms of their content. I've never thought that anyone wants to hear from me as much as the people who were putting lighten off fireworks in my neighborhood last night. My God. You know when you can hear a firework and go, that one's definitely not street legal. There's no way that you got that like a target. Also, Ben, here's the thing about Arizona. And then we can go back to talking about Sasaki, but like, what is there to say? You know, well, hold

on, let me finish the firework thought. And then I will say one more thing about Sasaki. Maybe this has changed. I don't want to speak to how jurisdictional mores might have shifted in the greater Seattle area since I moved. But I don't remember ever being able to go and just buy actual fireworks at Target when I lived in Seattle. You know, sparklers- Yeah, I can't in New York. I can't go to New Jersey.

Yeah. I walk into Target, you know, coming back from the holiday because you got to get stuff. You're like, oh, you know, the kitty litter is out, you know, the cats that are used all of it. And we need a regular size shampoo, new tube of regular size toothpaste. We can no longer be the giants we are when we travel. And I walk in, giant fireworks display, you know, just like TNT prominent in the advertising. And they were not selling the things that I heard last night, I'll tell you that. There's like little poppers and sparklers and what have you,

nothing that would like take off a finger or harm an animal. So that's good, that's fine. People can have a little, I don't wanna be a grump, but the cats hate the fireworks. They really do. These ones last night, granted, I didn't see them, Ben. I didn't see them. But I could tell from the sound that these were not ones that you light off because they give you a beautiful display. You know, they send a fountain of light and wonderment into the air. No, these are just loud.

This was about the Shakanah. Yeah, the purpose is loud. And like, I, again, have never thought that anyone wants to hear from me that much. And my job assumes that people want to hear from me at least a little. Well, I guess it didn't keep you awake. Sounds like it. So there's that. But Sasaki signing fireworks, still to come.

Still to come. And to just finish the thought and also to try to relate it to fireworks and hearing from people. Amazing that not every team is doing a presentation, right? Like what's up? Yeah. So I have something to say about this because this was the really attention getting the headline probably from this is that only 20 teams submitted presentations. Yeah.

And there was some other stuff. I mean, they each had a homework assignment. The agent didn't specify what it was, but there was some suspicion or reporting or implication that probably it was about how to improve his pitching because Wolf did say that pitching development is one area he's interested in and he wants to get better and you know, he stressed that he's open to any market size and he could land anywhere. But yes, the 20 teams, that was the really headline generating thing because everyone thought, well, why in the world would you take yourself out

of the running? Cause every team could use Roki Sasaki and every team can afford Roki Sasaki. Yes. So I did do a little digging and legwork and reporting here. And I talked to, how can I say this? I guess a person close to the situation, I don't know, a source familiar with the process and the negotiations. And the response I got was off the record. So I can't quote exactly what I was told.

But the phrase Twitter brain thinking was used to describe the outrage, I guess, about the idea that 10 teams were not in this. Because the- Love that. Yeah about the idea that 10 teams were not in this because the... Love that. Yeah. The impression I got basically was that there had been preliminary conversations and groundwork laid. Gotcha.

And I'm not saying that Sasaki or the agent officially told people they were out and don't bother, but from what I gather, it wasn't entirely like, we have no idea where he's going or where we stand. And so let's just, you know, play a lotto ticket and try, right? So there was, you know, anytime with a player like this, high profile posting, someone who teams have known is probably going to be coming over at some point for quite some time. There have been discussions going back years in some cases with some of these teams when executives have gone over and seen him pitch and you know, there's like tampering and everything, but you know, with his team or just expressing interest or just expressing interest by being present at his

pitching appearances, et cetera. So what I gather is like you can't just kind of, it's not as if everyone is starting from scratch at this stage in the process. Yeah, so that's my feeling. Like if teams didn't submit a presentation, it's probably because they had received some sort of indication that maybe they shouldn't bother or, you know, again, I don't know if it was like formal like that exactly, but informally there had been enough conversations, I guess, that teams sort of had some sense of where they stood or what the interest level was and whether it would be worth the effort for them to make

the effort, essentially. Got it. Yeah, that's because I was pretty perplexed too. Like why wouldn't you take a crack at this, right? Because I think 27 teams submitted presentations for Otani, which was even, I don't remember whether we ever learned who the three were, but again, at the time it was like, why in the world? Why would anyone, he's like going to be making league minimum.

So why, why wouldn't you go for it? So yeah, I think there's a reason. So I don't know whether the list of 10 will ever come out. And if you're on the list of 10, I'm not saying there was no fault on your part. Like maybe you failed to demonstrate interest prior to that, or maybe you failed to make yourself an attractive destination. Right, right. I really have no idea about the specifics of the teams or what criteria

he's using to decide, but yeah, it wasn't like there was total radio silence and then 10 teams were just like, eh, nah. Gotcha. total radio silence and then 10 teams were just like, eh, nah. Gotcha. Okay. Well, every time that we can be humbled and encouraged to not think about the world through the prism of the internet, I think it's time well spent. So that's, and look at you doing reporting, like the reporter that you are.

Well, I was, yeah, I was curious because again, I had the same reaction, which was only 20, I mean, yeah, I was curious because again, I had the same reaction, which was only 20. I mean, 20 is a lot. I guess 20, it sounds like 20 was like more than was expected maybe in some quarters even. So, so again, like a lot less than, than the typical person reading that news expected because 30 out of 30. And yes, if, if the specific teams do leak at some point, then I would imagine those fanbases will be up in arms because it's one thing to not be in the running for

one of the top free agents who's going to be getting top dollar, but a top free agent who's going to be getting minimum dollar, there's just no excuse for at least trying unless I guess there's something that has led you to think that you don't have a shot at that point. So again, I don't know exactly what it was, but there's, there's something to that. So wow. Okay. Well, I feel a little bit better, although to your point, like it doesn't necessarily mean that the 10 teams that didn't submit formal presentations are off the hook. They could have still goofed it up in some, in some way, but, um, that makes a good bit more sense.

This, uh, takes some of the force out of my, you should always take the meeting rant that I was going to do, but you should always take the meeting, you know, you should always take the call. Yeah. If you can. Yeah. You know, I, that's, that's good advice for all of us. Uh, even if we're not, um, you know, high profile international free agents

in the baseball space. Like just always take the call because you never know. Like you're probably not going to do anything with it. You're probably not going to change jobs or whatever, but you just, you never know. You should always take the call. Take the call. All of you. Yes. And if it was purely like, well, we're probably not going to get him, then I would condemn anyone for not taking that shot because look, if you're, I don't know, the Rockies or something or the pirates or I don't even want to pick on particular teams, but there are particular teams that

what is their compelling pitch going to be to someone like Roki Sasaki? It's just, it's tough. Like if you're going based on winning or track record of improving players or investments in the roster, like what is the factor that is going to make you stand out when you're competing against all these other teams? Maybe you have a better shot than you do when it's about money. If you're not a team that tends to spend because then you're at a disadvantage financially in addition to everything else.

But even so, if it's not about money, even if the playing field is fairly level there, aside from the small differences, relatively small differences in your international bonus pool money, what's your pitch going to be that is going to be more compelling than some of these teams that tend to compete every year and spend a lot. Unless it turns out that he just doesn't want that. Like unless it turns out that he wants to go somewhere slightly more under the radar, he wants to take a team to the top instead of joining a team at the top. He wants to be the face of the franchise.

It doesn't seem based on reporting that he's necessarily the self-aggrandizing type who like doesn't want to share the spotlight or something, but maybe he wants less of a spotlight. So I guess you could come up with scenarios and you might as well try because the Angels signed Shohei Otani. So that's kind of the argument. No one saw that coming and their pitch at the time, the Angels weren't as far removed from being a competitive team as they are now. Even so it wasn't the team at the top of the list as far as we assumed. So the fact that they surprised everyone, including themselves, seemingly by

signing Shohi Otani would suggest that yeah, throw your hat in the ring. Unless your hat has already been removed from the ring for some reason, or your hat is just so beat up that I guess it would be embarrassing to throw it in the ring. I don't know. It's not as if there's no opportunity cost because it probably takes some work to prepare one of these pamphlets or booklets or presentations or videos and to do whatever deep dive you're doing on how can we make this guy better? But really you have a whole front office and it's December. So you should probably have the bandwidth and the capacity to generate that when

there's the potential for many millions of dollars of surplus value dangling out there, even if your, your odds are one in 30 or realistically in some cases, probably worse than that, still worth the effort. You probably have some analysts out there who are twiddling their thumbs more or less and could put together a compelling presentation. I'm sort of talking out of both sides of my mouth here because I'm of the opinion that you should let people rest at the holidays. You should let people have a chill time. You know, I'm happy for you that you signed Corbin Burns, but like that couldn't have waited until the

new year. This is why we need a transaction freeze, but because left to their own devices, they're just going to do it, Ben. They're just going to do it. I didn't get to talk about Corbin Burns, but yeah, man, that's cool. I can watch that guy like in my local market. How nice. Don't get to watch Christian Walker, but I That's cool. I got to, I got to watch that guy like in my local market. How nice. Don't get to watch Christian Walker, but I'll take it. The Sasaki prep probably happened pre-holidays. So there was that.

It was. Exactly. And I don't think that it's act that one strikes me as the situation where you're probably just ready to go on that. You know, I think you're probably ready to go on that prep. So you, cause you're like, If you can't put together a couple slides talking about how good your player dev is, what are you doing? What are you doing? Yeah. It's not a surprise that he's available. It's not a surprise that he's been a great

pitcher for a long time. And if you don't even have to get a whole posse together and a whole contingent of representatives flying out there that you have to coordinate, then even easier. So, yes. All right. Well, hopefully that, uh, in a very vague, unspecific way, cause I don't have all the details myself and also I couldn't say exactly what I was told, but hopefully that kind of calms down the, the, what are they thinking, what are they doing? Like sometimes there's stuff that we don't get to see or hear about involved in these processes.

So if I were a person who had talked to you on an off, in an off the record capacity, I would not feel as if you had done me any injustice with the way you described that. Cause I have no way, I have no idea who you talk to. So there you go. Sometimes people are like, I talked to someone off the record and I'm like, was it this guy? Because like, it can only be that guy. But I don't know who you talk to, Ben. Good job. Yeah, thanks. So where he signs will be interesting for any number of reasons. But one reason is that if he were to sign with a National League team, if he signs with the Dodgers as people think he will, or some other National League team, then it would further

swing the league balance of power toward the National League. And this is not something that I've thought about a whole lot just because who even thinks about leagues anymore. Just, yeah, it's kind of, it's an appendix. It's the appendix of baseball, the fact that we still have the American league and the national league. It is just this leftover limb, essentially. It's a coccyx. It's our little nubbin of a tail that is leftover. I think we should use coccyx and not, first of all, no, we shouldn't, that's hard to say,

but we should do that instead of appendix because the appendix in your body, you know, could take it or leave it, hope it doesn't burst. An appendix in a book, very important, you know? So that's confusing. Yeah. Is that a Meg has a cold thought? Couldn't tell you. It's some sort of a, it's like a vestigial structure that is leftover from when league

distinctions meant something. It's not entirely meaningless, obviously, like it helps, I guess, to determine how many teams make the playoffs or, you know, you could have divisions, I guess, even without leagues. Once the DH went away, that was kind of the last real vestige of this is significant. And now, especially with a more balanced schedule and constant interleague play, again, these distinctions don't mean nearly as much as they used to, which is why I probably couldn't have told you a couple of weeks ago, which league had the better interleague record this season. I just didn't know.

I haven't paid attention to that. That like, that's been a big talking point at times in the not too distant past. Well, it was the American league for such a long time. That was why it was a talking point, because there was just like AL domination. Yes, everyone was aware of the AL supremacy and the hierarchy of the leagues, and we would talk about why that is and when will it change. It was years and years. It was like from the early 2000s to, oh, sometime late last decade, I think, was when the NL finally actually had a better record in inter league. And the theory was that it was the Red Sox and the Yankees basically, or it was the AL

East. And they were kind of putting pressure on other American league teams to keep up that upward spending pressure. And the national league didn't really have a powerhouse like that. And so you could kind of get away without pushing the envelope in spending. And so a lot of the big free agents would go to the AL that was kind of the leading hypothesis. There was also stuff about DH advantage in internal play, which there's something

to that, but that has swung and Rob Maynes did an update on this on Christmas Eve at baseball prospectus and the NL did have a better record in interleague play this year, 369 and 321. Not total dominance, but that's an 87 win pace, which is not bad. And that persists even if you take out the White Sox, who were 11 and 35 in interleague play. Yeah, you do have to, you do have to White Sox adjust everything. Yes, yes you do. That's even worse.

That's a 239 winning percentage in interleague compared to their 259 overall, which I guess is further evidence that the national league is better than the American league, they beat up on the white Sox even more, but yeah, take that out and the AL still has a losing record. It's a 334, 310 in favor of the NL then. And as Rob pointed out, the Juan Soto signing that tips things, maybe a little even further. I mean, you know, only so much with any one player, even a great player, but he went from the NL to the AL for a year.

And then now he's back to the NL and Corbin Burns. Same thing. He went to the AL and now he's back in the NL. And I guess there haven't been that many guys going back the other way. There have been plenty of people staying put or staying within one league, but I guess Max Fried would be the exception who has a prominent player who's gone NL to AL. But if anything, it seems like there's been more of an exodus of talent from

the AL to the NL. So that advantage will persist and we'll see if Sasaki will add to it. I don't know that it'll persist. So sometimes young guys come up and guys get hurt and people improve and get worse. And who knows, but, uh, for now it does seem like the NL has the upper hand. And I was thinking of this also because Joe Pasnanski in a recent edition of his newsletter observed it's amazing to me how the National League West and to a lesser extent, the National League East

has taken all the mojo away from the American League East. The entire sport used to be driven by the eternal battle for dominance between the Red Sox and Yankees. Now I'd say that the five best teams in baseball on paper are the Dodgers, the Phillies, the Diamondbacks, the Braves and the Mets, and the Padres and Brewers and maybe even the Cubs have to be considered in the mix too.

All of them obviously are National League teams. Yeah. I guess one could quibble with that, but yeah, I don't really disagree that the best teams are certainly in the NL. And I guess the one exception to this was that probably the best players were in the AL or the best player when you looked at the war leaderboards last year, like Shohei Otani won the national league MVP again because he was not in the American league. And you did have judge and you had Soto and you had Gunnar Henderson, et cetera.

Yeah. And Bobby with junior don't disrespect Bobby. Bobby with junior right there too. Yes. So the, the top almost handful of players in baseball last year were American leaguers and then you had Soto and Lindor, et cetera, in the national league, but other than that league wide, certainly seems like the NL is, is winning right now.

And maybe that is because yeah, the, the nexus has shifted. I feel like, uh, like the rock saying that the hierarchy of power in the DC universe has shifted with black Adam. But in this case, it's actually true that the hierarchy of power. Do you feel like that? Exactly. In every respect, I feel like that's the poll. Yeah.

But, uh, but what I'm saying is more accurate than what he claimed because it does feel like the National League West right now. Like that's where you have the big powerhouse of the Dodgers and the teams that are trying to keep pace with the Dodgers. And meanwhile, you have like the AL Central where, you know, a bunch of teams made the playoffs, but, uh, just not big spenders in that division for the most part. So yeah, it has swung, you know, I don't know how much to make of that because again, leagues, who cares at this point, but I considered it noteworthy on January, January 1st. It is interesting because you're right, like six of the top 10 by our version of war on

the position player side, we're in the AL. version of war on the position player side were in the AL. What is it on the NL side? One, two, three, four, five. It was a little more evenly split. It was actually exactly evenly split from a starting pitcher perspective. Man, that Seattle rotation was good. Shame they weren't in the playoffs. I might quibble ever so slightly with Joe's list, but only because I feel like he's disrespecting the Padres a little bit. And he's not doing that, that there's no intent to disrespect in his listing. Well, the Padres along with the Mariners have been so absent from the proceedings this winter, which is weird that we just, it's like almost wellness check time. Like it has someone knocked on AJ Preller and Jerry DiPoto's doors to make sure they're

okay. Well, like you look at AJ's team and that's a pretty complete little club right there. Could you say the same for the Mariners? I mean, you could, but would you be telling the truth? I would submit that you are not wow It's just like we just have like a lot of Dylan Moore and Ryan Bliss on their roster resource chapter Yeah, cherry come on, dude. Like I don't look I don't Listen you Mariners fans out there. I'm not disrespecting Dylan Moore

I know everyone loves Dylan Moore the Mariners love Dylan. And I like Ryan Bliss, but what are we doing? Some of it's fine. I don't know about this. We have a lot of Austin Shenton, you know? We got some Austin Shenton in the mix. I don't want to diss the Yankees, far be it for me. They just were in the World Series and then, yes, they lost one Soto, but then they made a whole bunch of other moves. They did a whole bunch of things, you know? They're in the conversation, certainly. Yeah, they're making moves.

This is a team that's probably going to be pretty good, I would say. I still don't know if they have quite the right mix at third, but this is a better club today than it was the day after Juan Soto went somewhere else. And I think like appreciably better, you know, meaning, meaningfully better. But I also think that they probably need a third baseman, you know, sometimes I feel like I'm sounding vaguely Irish today. I don't know what's going on with my cadence. Well, as we've discussed, the super teams are not what they were.

Now the best teams in baseball are not what they were now. The best teams in baseball are not separated that much from the next tier down. So really you could say that other teams are right in this mix, whether it's the Yankees or the Orioles or, I don't know, I guess there aren't that many that are kind of in the conversation with the Dodgers and the Phillies, for instance. Those are in Atlanta, if they are not hurt the way that they were last year. Finally, we can say last year, not just Happy New Year, but happy being able to refer to last season as last year. That is the greatest thing about this time. But yeah, just in terms of like perennially contending and being

among the best and having a solid base heading into next year and having been busy enough this off season, then yeah, it does seem like things have swung toward the NL for now and I'm sure they'll swing back at some point. Yeah, you know, it's a for now and these things come and go, but sometimes they persist for a while. I mean, like the AL was just better for like a decade.

Yeah, at least. And the NL had its own period of supremacy for just as long, if not longer earlier than that. Yeah. These things shift around and I imagine that some of it, you know, is going to correspond to retrenchment either from a talent or payroll perspective. You know, the ALs really hurt at the moment by the fact that both the athletics and the White Sox are AL teams, but not too long ago, we were looking at the Wobegon Nationals, you know?

So these things, I guess they still have the Marlins, but these things come in, they go, you know? It's like the tides, they have been flow. I have two other topics, one which is prompted by the passing of Jimmy Carter, RIP, which led to a tweet by Codify Baseball. No, it's not a no-no. It's just a fun fact. Codify was tweeting about Jimmy Carter, really expanding their, in terms of their aggregation.

As fun as a fact can be that is prompted by someone's death, but it was a RIP Jimmy Carter, Babe Ruth hit 430 homers after Jimmy was born. So this was just an observation. Hey, Jimmy Carter was old. He was a hundred years old. Yeah, he lived a long time. Yeah. And Babe Ruth hit 430 homers after his birth. And Jeremy Frank, who used to be, well, still is the at MLB random stats guy on Twitter,

but works in analytics for the Cubs these days. So doesn't tweet as many random stats as he used to. All the stat teams work for teams now, Ben. I know. It's just, you know, it's, I'm not saying it's bad, but I am saying it's weird, you know, washes, washes over you in a weird way. I'm. Yeah, they own their skills.

They earn their chops, uh, generating fun facts. And there's not always a perfect correlation of like fun facts who team would be interested in this sort of insight. Those are often parallel lanes, different lanes, but in some cases, the programming skills that it takes, the data wrangling skills that enable one to be good at generating interesting stats also map onto things that would be useful to teams. Yeah. And then like Devin just works for the Orioles now and you run into him at winter meetings and he's wearing an official team badge and you're like, you were in high school when we hired you.

We had to like sit there and wonder, like, did we, were we legally allowed to hire you? Like, this was a conversation that the Applemen had to talk to a lawyer about. Yeah. Anyway, sorry. So Jeremy came out of a semi Twitter retirement hibernation to note that Babe Ruth, he piggybacked on this codified tweet to say, Babe Ruth hit more homers in Jimmy Carter's lifetime than any currently active player. So, Babe Ruth, 430 homers during Jimmy Carter's lifetime. No active player has hit that

many home runs. Now, like a lot of fun facts, this one doesn't lie, but it's just barely true because John Carlos Stanton has 429 home runs. So, his next home run will change this, that he's not the, he's, well, I guess it won't really change it because sadly he will not hit any more home runs during Jimmy Carter's lifetime. But he is just one behind Babe Ruth. And the interesting thing about this is that 429 is quite a low number for an active home run. is quite a low number for an active home run winner. And I've been trying to puzzle out why this is true. And that enables this fun fact to be true

that there's not someone who has hit more home runs than that. Now, partly it's just a quirk of timing that Jimmy Carter, he entered hospice a long time ago and he lasted quite a while. And there were other players who retired late in Jimmy Carter's life, who obviously would have rendered this fun fact null if, if he had died while Albert Pujols was still active or Miguel Cabrera even.

Right. So this is kind of a quirk of timing. This would not have been true until fairly recently. Yeah. And yet if you look at the home run active leader history, just kind of like the running tally of who's the active home run leader at any time. And baseball reference has a handy, dandy page for this, uh, progressive leaders and records for various stats where

you can look up who was the all-time leader, who was the active leader in any single season, that sort of thing. And that saved me some work. But this is the lowest number at the end of a season for the active home run leader since 1991. Wow. Yeah. since 1991. Wow. Yeah, when Dave Winfield was the active leader with 406 and before that 1990, so okay, same period.

1990, it was a tie between Dwight Evans and Eddie Murray. They had 379. Before 1990, you have to go back to the mid 50s. 1954, Ted Williams was the active leader with 366, the only ones lower. And this is of course, since like the, in the live ball era, basically, you know, if you go back to the dawn of people, obviously fewer, fewer and dead ball era, fewer. But if I cut it off at say 1928, which is when Babe Ruth crossed 400, I think,

and you'd had the live ball then since 1920 and people had built up higher totals since then the only times when you've had a lower total for the active leader, 1990, 91, the late forties and early to mid 50s. And that's it. That's it. And the late 40s and 50s and Ted Williams, 394 and 1955, Ted Williams and Johnny Mize and Joe DiMaggio, they were the leaders then with fairly low totals, but that was a wartime thing.

That was why the leaders then, because Ted Williams missed several seasons in World War II and the Korean War. And you add on how many homers he would have hit, then it would not have been that low number, obviously. So that was purely a World War II Korean War artifact. And then 1990, 91, I guess that maybe was just, you know, it wasn't like a high offense, high home run,

specifically era for the most part, with the exception of like 87 when there was the rabbit ball year, but mostly, you know, that time was known for speed more so than power. And I guess that was a big part of it. And it wasn't until like 93 or so that you started to get big upticks in power, which people attribute to PDs or to smaller parks or some combination of many factors. Expansion, of course, played a part.

I think the ball changed. I'm pretty sure that the ball changed around that time, but this was pre that ball change. So I guess that had to do with it. But why now? I mean, it could just be random. It could just be, ah, we just lost Pujols and Cabara to a tournament and maybe that's all it is. But why would now be a time when you don't have a 500 Homer Guy active or even a 430

Homer Guy active? It is counterintuitive because there's such a prioritization for hitting for power, right? And such a comfort with strikeouts, right? I mean, people would prefer to not strike out, but the way we think about strikeouts is really different now than it was when Jimmy Carter was still just an elderly man. Maybe people were inspired by his modesty as a person and thought that the total was gaudy. They were like, we can't do that. What a humble peanut farmer who used to be the president. Jimmy Carter. I'm sad about that. I think that's the only one I'm going to be sad about for a while.

Somebody posted that Jimmy Carter was the only US president who seemed to appreciate that being the president meant that you had to spend the rest of your life atoning. I feel like that nails it. Like it was, not that it's nice that he died, but it was nice to be like, oh, there can be like a collective sense of mourning around these things that, and I don't mean to say he was a perfect guy or even a perfect politician because he definitely wasn't, but you know, it's nice to know. It was a very different vibe on social media than like when Kissinger died. Well, yes. Yeah. Which was in its own way, but you know.

On all sides of the aisle seem to agree. Decent guy at the very least. Decent guy. Good man. Anyway, I don't know how to account for it. I mean, I do think that you've probably landed on the most likely explanations, which is just like a weird bit of timing relative to his passing and retirements. But that I guess could go for any year in the past. Right, it could. You would have had some year when someone just happened to retire. I know.

There was just always someone there to step up with a higher active total. In fact, even if you go back to 1890 even, so the average number of home runs that the active leader has had at the end of any season, starting in 1890 is 432, which is more than we are now, or the median is 492, because you have some outliers with very high totals there. Sure. And if you do just like since LiveBall era, then it is 524. Yeah. And again, you know, there are a few guys who drag that up, but still it's really low. It's like almost 100 lower than the typical average over that time.

I wonder if some of it too is that if you look at the guys who are active right now, some of them are who are big boppers and putting up big totals. Some of them are still relatively, I won't say young, but they're like relatively new in their major league career, right? Like, you know, your Otanis, your judges, they've been around, but they haven't been around that long. You know, there are candidates to join the club among our active players, but they're just not there quite yet, you know, because of where they are in their careers relative to where Jimmy Carter was in his life. And it's funny to say about a guy like Judge,

because, but he was 24 when he came up, so some of it is that, 2016. Remember that when he came up in 2016? I do, I do. Well, it wasn't for very long. No, I don't remember 2016 that well. I remember 2017 very well, but yeah. 2016, yeah. When he showed up, it was more like, oh, that guy's big, but it wasn't immediately impressive in other ways.

But he was like, that guy's big. He was one of those ones where you kind of do a voice when you talk about it. You're like, that guy's big. You're like leaning back while you give the pronouncement. We've said about John Cross at times too, but I think now part of it, hate to put this on him, but part of it is Mike Trout, frankly it is. Wow. You know, when we're talking about active leaders, sometimes it comes down to like,

did that one guy fall off the pace or not? Right. And Mike Trout is 51 homers behind John Carlestanton. He's second on the active leader board. He has 378. Right. And if he had stayed healthy. Now part of this is COVID.

That's a, that's a little bit of it. That's also part of it. Yes. Yes, yes. Even a single season where you're, you're going from 162 games to 60. Makes a big difference. Yes. In fact, you know, presumably John Carlos Stanton would have hit a couple

more homers that year, and that would have rendered this a fun fact, not, not true. So we wouldn't even be talking about this probably if he had played a few more games that year, hit a few more homers. And this would not be as notable. So that is part of it. And if you look at Trout, so he averaged 37.4 homers per year in the five years leading up to 2020. So 187 total homers in those five seasons.

So if he had just repeated that total over the past five seasons, then he'd have 472 right now, which would not be super high, but also would not be so low that, again, we would be talking about this. And instead of repeating his 187 from those five years, he hit 93 and so he fell well short, almost a hundred short of repeating that total, which is partly COVID, but mostly just his unavailability. So I think that's a big part of it. Part of why it's so surprising is as you said, the homerun is really emphasized now and we're in a high homerun era, even though we're down a

tad from the peak of that era, the 2019 and 2017, it's still, it's still high. And the boppers are still boppin', you know? Yes. Yeah. As these things go, high home run rate historically. Of course, one thing we talked about at that time was that maybe the ball being more lively benefited the less powerful hitters more so than the more powerful hitters.

So it was that there were tons of guys hitting 20 and no one hitting 60 before Aaron judge did. So maybe that doesn't help so much with the leader, which is what we're talking about. And I guess you could say that with the humidor, with ballparks becoming a bit more homogeneous, there are fewer extreme environments. Plus, speaking of expansion, we haven't had any for more than 25 years now, the longest stretch without expansion in the expansion era, so there hasn't been a watering down

of the caliber of competition, which might enable the leaders to stand out more from the pack. All those factors might limit the outliers. Plus the change in the aging curve post-PD era, the upticks in pitch speed, it seems like guys are aging out earlier, so a little less longevity. Still lots of homers being hit. However, I guess prior to the ball changing in 2015-ish, there was that low offense era. Oh yeah. You know, and it wasn't like total dead ball, but it was, you know, there was less than a home run hit per team, per game, like, uh, you know, 2014, 2013, 2011, 2010. That whole time, post PED testing, pre ball changing, like from 2007 to 2014, essentially, which is a time when

the guys who were talking about as active leaders now were active, at least for, for part of that time, Drunk Host and debuted in 2010. So maybe that's part of it is that our memory of that low ebb for offense and for home runs has been displaced, replaced somewhat by the more recent home run hitting. So that's, that's part of it too. Like if we could fast forward several years and we had players whose careers encompassed just this whole high offense or at least high home run rate era, then I think the active leaders will probably look more like they have in the past.

So it's sort of, it's still depressed by a period that now is, you know, almost 10 years ago at the late end. Yeah. I guess maybe a little bit as like a load management, you know, people not playing quite as much as they used to, although maybe that pays dividends in rest. Stanton himself, of course, has been plagued by plenty of interest too. So, yeah, it's not just trout, but Stanton and, you know, he's still managed to add on the last four years, 35, 31, 24, 27.

So he's still adding to his total, but not, uh, you know, I weirdly, I guess still adding to his total, but not, you know, I, weirdly, I guess Stanton, he had the, the 59 homer year in 2017, but he's never hit 40 in any other year. He topped out at 38 after that in 2018, which is, I guess, partly the park, partly that he was playing in Miami and partly availability issues. So yeah, maybe it's just, uh, guys with injuries being the big sluggers right now, and do you look down the list like Paul Goldschmidt running out of gas, seemingly Nolan Arnado running out of gas, Freddie Freeman, not running out of gas, he'll keep adding many Machado is not old.

He's fifth. Bryce Harper is seventh. So yeah, it's a combination of, you know, like Carlos Santana, Andrew McCutcheon, JD Martinez, guys who are sort of at the tail end, and then Aaron Judge and guys who will keep climbing. Where is Otani on this list? He's down 28th.

He's, yeah, he hasn't played enough to be at the top of that. He has to tap into his dad's strength. Okay. So maybe we've covered the factors there, the explanations. You're like, I'm not going to, I'm not going to indulge that because she's just going to talk about the dog again. I get it, Ben.

I understand. Yeah. I'm just not a big believer in dad's strength. Yeah. It's so silly. The whole thing is ridiculous. It's just not a thing really. I could see it being a thing maybe if, yeah, like if you don't exercise regularly, then

I could see it being a thing because having a baby or a toddler forces you to lift kind of. Sure. You got to do a lot of lifting there. Yeah. But if you're the professional athlete, you know, we joke, it's in good fun. When we talk about professional athletes and dad strength and they come back from paternity leave and they, they go off and they hit a big homer, sometimes players joke about it, it's fun, but, uh, we do get people emailing us to ask if it's like a real thing and I don't think it's a real thing.

I mean, like, I think that it could be a real thing in like discrete situations. Like if your baby's under a car and you're like, I don't want to lift the car. The adrenaline, yes. Do people even do that though? I think most people are like, wow, I can't lift this guy. That sucks. I don't mean to make light of this hypothetical baby's plight, but I'm just saying like, I think it's pretty hard to lift a car.

They're really heavy. It's a problem. And lastly, so yeah, maybe next time we can talk about, I don't know if we need team goals, cause we're going to get to team goals when we do the season preview series, presumably, but that's, uh, but we can do sort of what we're excited about this season, maybe we can say this season now, this coming season. Oh, it's just what a relief. But Raymond Chen, effectively wild wiki keeper,

whose work documenting all the inanities that we discuss here is just invaluable. He reminded me that we did do goals for 2024, or rather we solicited goals from our team preview, our season preview guests, because we went away from the specific win total predictions. Yeah, and this started last year, I guess. And so we've just been asking what would constitute success for this team in this season? And I think we did review whether they got a pass or fail at the end of last year, so now we can do the same.

And Raymond has handily summarized the predictions and whether they were successes. So I'll just run down the list here. And I guess we'll go from the teams that had the rosiest predictions to the teams that had the worst ones. So the Dodgers, the goal, win the world series. You know what? They did it.

They pulled that one off. They did it. Well done. Mission accomplished. Good job. Success. Yeah. Yankees, be a World Series contender.

Okay. Yes. Yeah. Comma extend Soto. Well, no. Yeah. One out of two. One out of two. That's a fail.

It's not bad, but yeah. No. Yeah. If you have to succeed in all of these metrics, then you have failed to extend or resign. If they had just resigned him, I think I would have given them the passing grade here. Cause who cares if you extend or resigned, but. Right, yeah.

He was the one who got away, so fail. Tough, tough. You win a pennant and fail, but you know, that was what our preview guest decided. Braves win the world series. No, did not do that. In a way it was, it was almost a success even to make the playoffs given the injuries that they had.

So, yeah, I think that's defensible. It was a failure, but in a way it was a triumph. It was, you know, once you adjust for the circumstances of the season, look back at the Braves and think, what a failure. Other than the fact that they had lots of injuries, which is a way to, to lose games and fail, but maybe one that you blame management a little less for at times, unless it's a repeated pattern. Astros win the world series, big improvements in farm system.

I guess they didn't really do either of those. No. Probably. Okay. All right. This one might be a bit painful for you. Mariners make the playoffs. They didn't do that.

They didn't as discussed earlier. They did not do that. Rays win a postseason series. They did not do that. Orioles win a postseason series. And do that. And do that. Close. No cigar.

They weren't even especially close, Ben. Well, they were in a postseason series. They were. They participated. They got closer than the Rays. Yeah, that's true. And they got closer than the next team. But they were not close.

The Blue Jays, whose goal was also win a postseason series and they did not do that. They didn't. So it's good, I guess, when your goal is not purely to make the playoffs, it's to win a postseason series. Right. But, uh, yeah, that, that suggests that you have made the postseason at some point. Because again, I'm sorry, but the Mariners, their goal was not win a postseason series, it was make the postseason, which they did not do that either.

But, but it tells you something about their recent history of success or their their goal was not win a postseason series. It was make the postseason, which they did not do that either. But, but it tells you something about their recent history of success or the lack thereof, what the goal is. Okay. Phillies stay in the division race. Well, they certainly did that. In fact, they won the division and make a deep playoff run, which they did not do. But you know, it's again, it's hard to fault the team for

losing in the playoffs and not having a deep playoff run. If they could have combined their previous deep playoff runs with the stay in the division race goal, then, you know, if we did a little mix and mixing and matching, then they could have been a success here because they were a better team and they won the division. And so that was an improvement. And the fact that they didn't make the deep playoff run, I mean, I fought them less for that. Or I, I guess I consider their, their one out of two here to be more encouraging than discouraging because you can't predict or ordain the deep playoff run, which they had with inferior versions of their team,

probably in the preceding two post-seasons. And I know that they were kind of like 500-ish for a long time, and maybe they weren't the best versions of themselves by the time the playoffs rolled around. But like winning a division and a tough division, that's, I don't want to say harder, but just like that's something you can actually be judged by fairly. Like whether you did that, that's a success.

Whether you had an earlier exit from the playoffs, it's just, you know, something you can't really plan for that much. Sometimes stuff happens. Exactly. Come October. Yeah. Twins, the goals were win division, reach second round of playoffs. Well, yeah, 0 for 2.

In fact, didn't make the playoffs at all. That, that was a resounding failure. The twins, this, not to pile on, but probably a lot of twins fans are feeling that way too. Yeah. Yeah. Cause that was, it was eminently foreseeable. I mean, I, I'm pretty sure I still thought they would pull out that division title or at least make the playoffs just because AL Central.

But the fact that they just did not spend and basically rested on their laurels and acted as if they didn't need to do anything. Right. You know, I thought they might get away with it, but the fact that they didn't, you look back and it's not exactly a, how did this happen situation? Right. You know, I thought they might get away with it, but the fact that they didn't, you look back and it's not exactly a, how did this happen situation? Right. It's pretty clear how it happened. You had a bunch of like injury prone guys and you didn't get any depth or make really any effort to upgrade your roster over the off season or at the trade deadline.

Yeah. It turns out that doesn't help, you know? Yeah. Or this off season so far for that matter. Diamondbacks make the postseason. So, so close. They were quite close. Incredibly close, as close as you can come

without doing it. Without doing it, yeah. Better team than their World Series team. How about that? Probably, yeah. Lead the league in runs, as many people have noted. Did not lead the league in runs allowed, I guess, but. But guess, guess what helps with that?

Maybe signing Corbin Bruins. Should. Yeah. Or maybe getting better seasons from the guys that you signed last winter. That would help too. If you get a little more out of. I don't know. Multiple paths.

Yeah. Jordan Montgomery may not be around to prove himself in a Diamondbacks uniform, but Eduardo Rodriguez, just get a little more out of those guys. That would certainly help. So this is a failure in that they failed to make the playoffs, but they did come close. They did improve in some respects, and they have tried to atone for missing the playoffs

by signing a big free agent that people weren't expecting them to sign. Okay. Cardinals win a postseason series. Nope, did not even make the playoffs. Rangers win the division, failure. It's resounding failure there again. Things went wrong.

The Diamondbacks, by the way, they had a lot of clutchness going on offensively, I think. They did? Yeah, they weren't a bad offense just by the underlying metrics, but they were maybe a little over the fundamentals, so there could be a bit of regression happening there, but not bad. And also maybe Corbin Carroll won't be terrible to start the season and other things like that. Real tale of two halves kind of situation for them. So, you know. Yeah, right.

Yes, not just Corbin Carroll as we noted, he wasn't even the most notable turnaround. His thunder kind of got stolen a bit. Hey, Ohenio Suarez, he was terrible in the first half and then really came on. Yeah. Exactly. Okay. Who is next on our cavalcade of teams here? These teams are getting worse so the goals are getting more modest, but Red Sox. Now this was the one where Raymond didn't quite feel qualified to pass judgment. So he left a question mark for us to decide

whether this was a success or a failure. Oh, exciting. Multiple starting pitcher prospects show growth, complimenting solid young position players. I don't know, man. I don't know. I don't know if I'm qualified to assess that. I don't know. Because I think part of that was like, Craig Breslow came in and he was going to improve the pitching pipeline and actually help them develop some good pitching, which they've had trouble doing in a homegrown way. And I, they had some success developing pitching at the major league level, at least for the first half of the season.

Yeah. But as for the, the system or starting pitcher prospects, I'm sure there were multiple starting pitcher prospects who showed growth if we're going very literally here, probably. You mean you think they got taller? Well, maybe not necessarily. It depends how old they are. Maybe, you know.

Do you mean you think they got taller? Ben, is that what you meant? Drafted out of high school could be, but I don't know. When you look at their system, I mean, you're, you're a little more qualified. I guess there hasn't been a Red Sox list yet, maybe. So you're, you're not fresh on, on this system, but is there an imbalance here? I mean, the, probably the most famous Red Sox prospects are still not pitchers, I guess.

Correct. Yeah, the top of their system is dominated by position players. And that's true even after Teal got traded. It's Marcelo, it's Roman Anthony. Yeah, Christian Campbell. Miguel Blayce is in there too, yeah. Yes, right. On the MLB pipeline list, you got to go down to seventh before you run into Luis Perales who...

He ended the year in AA, I think. All right. So, eh, I guess maybe not then. I guess, you know, probably a fail, I guess on this. Yeah, I guess. All right. And, uh, if you had gone with, I don't know, make the playoffs or something else, then that would have been a failure too. They traded for Garrett crochet't know, make the playoffs or something else, then that

would have been a failure too. They traded for Garrett Crochet. They did do that. That might tell you something about how they perceive. And they signed Walker Bueller. Right. That's right. They signed Walker Bueller.

And Sandoval. Right. I'm not going to remember any of that. It's like it's in the ionization blackout period. So yeah, the fact that they have reinforced the rotation, which they needed to do, but suggests, yeah, it's not someone knocking on the door who they're highly confident in assuming a spot. Doesn't necessarily mean that they don't like their guys, but they clearly don't think that they're like, you know, have a bunch of guys who are big league ready.

Sort of looking forward to watching that Netflix documentary that comes out about their season. Cause in retrospect, when the Red Sox were selected as the team to be the subject for that, follow a team throughout the season, sort of exercise, I think we questioned, like part of it was just they were willing to, they were enthusiastic, but also like, will this be a compelling team to follow? Cause they seem like super mediocre.

And I guess they were. I remember at one point walking that back during the season because at least they had like drama going on and they had been surprisingly successful to that point. And there were things that I was looking forward to seeing the behind the scenes of, and I guess I still am. But overall they did end up being fairly mediocre without a lot of extraordinary individual seasons either. So I don't know how much they had to work with there, but again, any team you're getting that sort of access, I would want to watch. Okay.

Marlins, 75 plus wins and stay in the hunt. New. Mets, 83 plus wins, stay competitive for playoff spot. Ding, ding, ding. Ding, ding, ding. M right. Ding, ding, ding. They pulled that off. They didn't get that far over 83, but they got far enough. 89. They got far enough. Yeah. Easily. A six-win improvement over the, I mean, over expectation implies that that lined up with

the projections and I don't know if that's true, but like that's a meaningful gap, Ben. Yep. Give those Mets credit. projections and I don't know if that's true, but like that's a, that's a meaningful gap, Ben. Ben Yep. They did. They did do that. It was not as deep a run as they would have liked, but they, they sort of exercised the demons from 2023, just like the, you know, why is there this cloud over us? Why are we so star-crossed? Why are we cursed? The luck and all that reverted and regressed and they were kind of a normal baseball team. I thought they had a very successful season. I know they didn't win the World Series,

so I'm sure that on some level they view it as not having gone all the way and accomplished their goals. But relative to where they were the year before and I think where people thought they would be at the beginning of the season, I think they had a very successful year. Yep. Cubs, they had a few different goals. Signed major free agent, win division, look like a team on the rise with a young core. Well, that's a no. They did not win the division.

They did not make the playoffs. Signed major free agent, that's a no. They did not win the division. They did not make the playoffs. Signed major free agents they have not done. They did make a major addition on the trade market. You could say they look like a team on the rise, I would say, with a young core. Well, I don't know. I mean, anyway, that's a fail. The Guardians, underperforming hitters from last year come to life. Well, I mean, they did make some offensive improvements, particularly in the first half and then that kind of petered out. Who were the underperforming hitters from 2023? I guess, well, Stephen Kwan, he came to life. Yeah, he had a fantastic season.

Yes. Other than him, I don't know, Andres Menes continued to... Yeah, low average hitter. Rosario, I guess, would have been included there. Josh Naylor had a good year. He wasn't even on the team. Yeah, Josh Naylor, he was good in 23. And yeah, I don't know,

Miles straw, he didn't even come to life. So, uh, yeah, I mean, the offense came to life enough. They, they improved from a 91 OPS plus in 2023 to a 99. They were average ish, which turned out to be good enough with a good defense and a great bullpen. So I don't know. Raymond put this down as a not really, and I guess that's fair. Collectively, they came to life a little, they came to life enough, they surprised some

people, they won the division again. Like, you know, it wasn't a failure of a year, that's for sure. But on this specific goal, qualified, sure. I guess sort of, but not so much on some individual basis. Brewers make the playoffs. Yes, they sure did. Yep. Even won the division success. Tigers 81 plus wins, stay competitive late in the season.

Did they ever. So that is certainly a success. They got to a whole 86 wins and the angels 77 plus wins, young players improve team heads into 2025 looking competitive. Yeah, that's across the boards. Uh, sort of a no. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the 77 plus wins, they were quite far from that.

And yeah, that's a fail. Reds make the playoffs? No, they did not. Giants, you still care about games in September? I mean, I'm sure some Giants fans cared about games in September, but yeah, no. When were the Giants mathematically eliminated? Because I don't remember.

Let's see. They were eliminated September 14th, it looks like, or right around there. I mean, they were still technically in it, but yeah, I don't know. But not really. Actually, I guess it was even later. September 19th was when they were eliminated in a walk-off lost to the Orioles. So, but now, you know, now they have Willie Adomas. Yeah, they do.

Remember when Willie Adomas signed with the Giants? I do vaguely. Yeah. They were eliminated from the NL West September 14th. So I mean, look, they were playing mathematically meaningful games in September and there were times late-ish in the year when it looked like, oh, the Giants, maybe they're making a run and then they would follow a brief run with a brief flop. So yeah, that's a fail, I think.

Sorry. Pirates in the wild card chase in late September. No, they did not. No. No. Royals get off to a solid start and finish at or above 500. Oh yes, they passed with flying colors. Yeah. A's 75 plus wins fail though, you know, maybe they came closer

than people give them credit for. They were interesting. I think they're interesting. Yeah. 69 wins, you know, which is not that nice for a win total, but it's a lot better than some of their preceding ones. Okay. White Sox, 75 plus wins with good fundamentals.

No, just like, yeah. It's like a season you need to do therapy over. Yeah. They missed that one by a wide margin. Nationals 71 plus wins matching 2023 record, make significant strides in player development. I think we can, we can probably give them that one, right? Sure.

You know, there were some players who didn't make as significant strides as you would have liked, but some did and in the system, some did and they got there on the win total. So yeah, okay. Let's give them that. And finally, the Rockies avoid 100 losses. Ezekiel Tovar and Nolan Jones improve significantly. Yeah, no, I mean, Tovar, you could give him Tovar. Tovar, I think you could give him Tovar. Yeah, Tovar definitely did. And wasn't Nolan Jones hurt for some of the year? Am I misremembering that? Yeah, he was, which I guess is, you know, part of this not succeeding, but.

He didn't replicate a 137 WRC+. He was bad on defense, but he was hurt. I don't know. Like sometimes with these, with these really bad teams, look, they weren't the white socks, you know, they weren't the white socks. And here's what I'll say about the Rockies last year. I feel like they've been doing this thing where they actually play their young guys, see what they have. Um, and that hasn't always been their MO.

And so that seems good. I don't want to, like, I'm not overdoing it with the Rockies. I'm not heaping praise, but you know, it's something. Yeah. Something. But they did not avoid 100 losses. They did not avoid 100. They had 101 losses.

That is a fail. Yeah, that's a fail. So the winners, the successes were Dodgers, Mets, Padres, Guardians, we kind of gave half credit, Brewers, Tigers, Royals, and Nationals. So I guess seven unqualified successes, maybe seven and a half. So I don't know. It's not a great ratio, but I don't know what the typical ratio is. Cause... Right.

What is it? Yeah. Who could say? I don't know. We should check over the past couple of years, but there were a lot of failures last year too. Cause that's going to be inevitable because there's going to be a lot of win the world series at the top. There'd be at least a few of those and only one team can succeed there. And then win a postseason series or, you know, there are only so many teams do that.

So yeah, but, uh, and you like to set a lofty goals for yourself. So I agree. Okay. All right. Teams should try. They should aspire to aspire to greatness. Well, I hope most people would give Effectively Wild a passing grade and say that we were a success in 2024 and hopefully we will be in 2025. So we will talk again soon. All right, that will do it for today. Thanks as always for listening. A few follow-ups

from last week. Talk to Michael Bauman about the fact that Jake Berger has batted 250 three seasons in a row. Bernie wrote in to say, Jake Berger with three straight 250, one out of four, seasons and a reputation for power hitting is begging for the nickname Quarter Pounder. I actually like that very much. Henceforth Jake Berger shall be known as Quarter Pounder, unaffectively wild. Also here's a rocky story we missed on our episode about stories we missed. Corey noted that Chris Bryant's Lamborghini was stolen, and the investigation into that

theft uncovered a luxury car theft ring. On top of everything else that has befallen Chris Bryant during his Rocky's career, a $300,000 gray 2023 Lamborghini Huracan was reported stolen on October 2nd. A multi-agency investigation ensued, the Cherry Hills Village Police Department traced the transport truck to Las Vegas where they teamed up with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department's Viper Auto Theft Team and Homeland Security Investigations to recover the vehicle on October 7th, apprehended a suspect, and uncovered a larger vehicle theft ring which allegedly trafficked luxury cars using fake documents and VIN switching.

So good to know Chris Bryant got his car back. Also we talked about the Dodgers crotch bump, KK Hernandez and Gavin Lux bumping potentially cup protected uglies after a home run. Well I gave KK credit for innovation in home run celebrations, but it turns out that he did not invent the post-home run crotch bump. As chronicled by Ken Schultz of Outsports, this was a David Ross move during the 2016 Cubs World Series run. And, in fact, David Ross claimed credit for the invention of the crotch bump in his memoir, Teammate. Ross recalled watching an ESPN report about Glenn Burke and Dusty Baker inventing the high five and quoting, I thought to myself the high

five is taken, so what can I invent? Suddenly an image flashed through my head, a painless, if slightly questionable maneuver of all the physical gestures the human body is capable of making. Why not the cock bump? Well, why not? The Cubs then hired that man as their manager. What a wonderful game.

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