Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2273: Dodgers Dominance Discourse Redux

Episode Date: January 22, 2025

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley revisit and update their recent discussion on the Dodgers, competitive balance, and what’s good for the game in light of L.A.’s latest additions, then (1:06:18) discuss the Blue Jays’ signing of Anthony Santander and the outlook for Pete Alonso, followed by (1:20:02) a Stat Blast on Bob Uecker and the […]

Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Hello and welcome to episode 2273 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from FanGraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindbergh of The Ringer, joined by Meg Raleigh of FanGraphs. Hello, Meg. Meg Raleigh Oh, hello. Ben Lindbergh Well, we are recording on Monday afternoon

a little bit before the Hall of Fame announcements, which is fine. Meg Raleigh I hate to break it to you, but it's Tuesday, Ben. Ben Lindbergh Oh, you're right. It is Tuesday. That whole holiday thing really screwed me up. Well, it's Tuesday afternoon a little bit before that. I'm on the ball today, clearly. A little bit before the Hall of Fame announcements, that part at least I got, right?

Yep. Which is okay because we're going to be devoting part of tomorrow's episode, the next episode, to a Hall of Fame discussion where we will be having Jay Jaffe of Van Graaff's and the Cooperstown Casebook Hall of Fame expert on the podcast in his annual appearance to discuss the Hall of Fame results. Often we have him on early in Hall of Fame season and once in a while we've had him on after the announcements. And this is actually

good, I guess, because we can get a breakdown of all of the trends and who gained and who didn't gain and what the takeaways are and the next ballot and all the rest. So stay tuned for some Hall of Fame talk with Jay next time. But this time we can't do that, which means another round of Dodgers discourse. Apologies in advance because all the people who are pissed at the Dodgers for signing players that they wish their team had signed understandably, probably also not thrilled that they have to continue to hear about the Dodgers constantly. That probably just rubs salt in the wounds. They're good. They're better than everyone, they're taking all the free agents. And now the podcasts that I listen to are just nonstop Dodgers discussions. I'm sorry, but it is the biggest story in baseball

these days. It's something people are pretty passionate about. Look, I personally appreciate the opportunity to sort of refine the take. You want to allow for new information to change your perspective. That hasn't happened here, but I do- There's a Daily Dodgers edition every day, but otherwise. But I appreciate being able to sort of hone my perspective on this because I do feel fundamentally like this is a problem, not with the Los Angeles Dodgers, but with the rest of baseball. But as our email inbox has shown, I haven't persuaded everyone on that point. And so I'm glad to get another bite at the apple. But yeah, like those Dodgers,

if they are going to make a liar out of me, it is potentially with the notion that they have a roster limit at all. Yes. There was a little more room in the inn at the inn, apparently, in the bullpen at least. And what is the bullpen but the sort of outbuilding of a grand property? You know? It's like the manger that you stay in when the inn is full and the babies got to be born. Yes, sure.

And so in that respect, I was wrong. And look, I will agree with the Dodgers and A-Stayers in this respect, if we come to discover that they are actually allowed to roster more than 26 players at any given time or have been given special dispensation beyond 40, that I do think should change in the next CBA. But I remain unpersuaded, unmoved by the argument that something must be done. Can I, first, I guess we should lay out the latest signing, but then I will take another crack at it if you'll allow. Sure. I'll take another run at the issue.

Yeah. I had a long run at it myself because I wrote about it this weekend after the subsequent signing, not the Sasaki signing, but also the Tanner Scott signing, which, you know, if you weren't upset about the fact that they got Sasaki, then you may have been upset when they then added yet another desirable player, probably the top free agent available on the market this off season and the most valuable- The top relief free agent, not the top free agent. That would absolutely.

Yes. That would be a lot to say to Tanner Scott. Relief pitcher only. And the most valuable reliever over the past two seasons, according to FanCraft's war, I wouldn't say he projects to be the most valuable reliever, but he was the most valuable reliever. And the Dodger signed him to a four year, $72 million deal with the standard $20 million signing bonus and $21 million in deferrals. It's just the Dodger special. And then on Tuesday, because that is the day that it is,

and as I am well aware, they have reportedly, according to some reports, reached a tentative agreement with Kirby Yates. Others have couched that and said that they're coming closer to it, I guess. Bob Nightingale is the one who said there was a tentative agreement pending physical. And to use a famous Nightingale tweet, it does seem that no one is moving as the two sides moving ever so closer.

So they appear to be deep in talks, but nothing is official as we speak. Perhaps it will be by the time people hear this, but he is of an advanced stage, but still quite an effective reliever. So the Dodgers didn't have a bad bullpen before with Scott. And if they do add Yates, that's at least three quality back of the bullpen arms to

go with Blake Trinen or counting Blake Trinen as one of them whom they resigned earlier this offseason. And they would project to have, if not the best bullpen in baseball, then certainly top three or four. Yeah, it is going to be a formidable group. If you are in search of a Dodgers problem, I guess you could say that it is a pretty unmovable group. I think that Alex Vesia is the only member of the Dodgers bullpen as it is currently constituted, who has any options remaining? And you know, they have guys on the injured list, Brewster Graderol is not going to be

ready until the middle of the season. They have all of these starters they don't know what to do with who, you know, another team might put in the bullpen, but who LA will have to sort of sift through and make some decisions around, you know, your Emmett Sheehan's, your Michael Groves, those kinds of guys. But they are in a really good, if quite fixed place. Sheehan had Tommy John surgery, I guess, along with a few others, but yeah. I thought he was closer to returning than he is, but no, in fact, it was May. It was May of last year.

My apologies. But anyway, like they got a bunch of guys who were hurt, right? And so they got guys who were hurt, but it is a pretty fixed group. So maybe you say, oh, that's a problem. But maybe you don't, you know, maybe you don't because you don't care that the doctors have problems. You want them to have more problems. So like you're annoyed because like if you were going to say what's one area where LA

could potentially regress relative to last year, you might say the bullpen because the guys they had in house were older and you know, some of them have been hurt and some of them have been hurt and ineffective for stretches of their careers. And so you go, ah, no, you're showing up your last weakness. And that might contribute to a feeling that you have that something must be done about the Dodgers, that it is bad for competitive balance. I'm going to try new tact in my persuasion. I'm going to concede that it is bad for competitive balance.

I don't think it actually is, but let's pretend for a moment that you can in baseball assemble a super team that's like the Warriors, right? Or like the Chiefs or like any of these other... It's bad. Bad. Still doesn't make it the Dodgers problem, right? And I would offer this. I don't think that that means it is easy for other teams to necessarily compete for all

of the free agents. I get it. The Dodgers have all this money. The Dodgers have all this talent. The Dodgers have all this promise, right? They've got a great farm and they've got great player development. They just want a world series. They have all these stars. And if you're a free agent, where do you want to go? You want to go to LA and you want to play for the team in that general region. That's good. And so you want to be a Dodger.

And I would say to that, that I think it's okay. In fact, I think it is good for the rest of the week to suffer some consequences in terms of not doing as much as they could historically to be, um, attractive as a potential free agent landing spot. Because what's happening here is not just like a one year thing, right? This is one manifestation of the cumulative impact of other teams not trying as hard, which doesn't mean that there weren't other teams that tried. There were, it doesn't mean that there weren't other teams that tried, there were. It doesn't mean that there weren't other teams that spent, there were.

But to put all of it together in one compelling package, to say over and over and over again we're going to make it an attractive proposition to be a Los Angeles Dodger. You might just have to eat it for a little while, rest of the league. And I'm not saying that all other 2019 teams are sort of equally on the hook. Their piece of pie might be bigger or smaller, depending on their level of effort, their level of want, historically. But this is what happens, right? We talked about it last time. You build an attractive situation, and if you really are willing to put your money where your mouth is, then you're just going to have an edge for a while and it is incumbent upon the rest

of the league to pursue their own edge. The most straightforward edge on a going forward basis is probably to spend more money. But that's not the only edge that the Dodgers possess. And so I think rather than queuing and crying about the current situation, it's time to invest. It's time to demonstrate want. I also, wait, I have one more thing. I also would point out a point that I think I saw Mark Normandon make, which I think is a good one, which is that one could interpret all of this behavior on the part of the Dodgers as them assuming that the next CBA and potentially

the next broadcast deal that they are subject to might not be as favorable. So push your chips in now and press your advantage now, understanding that at future dates, that advantage might not be as readily available to you. Is that satisfying to fans of other teams? No. And I will remind everyone, including the person who emailed us to be very upset, that last time I said that other fans of other teams should hate this team, I invite you to dislike them

and dislike them with a vengeance. But to say that something must be done about them in like a structural CBA way, I think one overstates the certainty of dominance and the potential for that to last and last and last because we, I think know historically that that has not been true. We know that parody in baseball is much better than in other sports, even when you have teams spending a lot of money. And I would also say another thing, if I could remember it, but Ben, I don't know that I could. Oh, no, I don't remember. Oh, no. Wait, no, I've forgotten again., it's gonna come back to me though. And then- It'll come to you. Yeah, no, wait, the email, we got the-

While you're noodling. Overseeing the case, yeah, I'm noodling. You noodle, but out loud for a little while, okay? Okay, so you're saying that essentially the rest of the league is reaping what it sowed or it has gotten what it paid for or in many cases didn't pay for. Yes.

And if they have to lose to Los Angeles for a while, that's their just desserts. That is the comeuppance for the owners who are not appropriately aggressive. Yes. And that maybe they'll learn their lesson now because their faces will be rubbed in it and their noses will be rubbed in it by how good the Dodgers are. Eggs everywhere. Okay. So I just wanted to see if I am picking up what you're laying down.

I think that could be true, but also, and I don't know that you would disagree with this, I don't know that that benefits fans in any way, right? So maybe that is what the owners deserve in many cases. Maybe that's what Bob Nutting deserves. Maybe it's what Bruce Sherman deserves. But in what way does that make baseball better for fans? Unless you're saying that owners actually will learn their lesson and that if they continue to get dominated by the Dodgers or get dominated to an even greater degree, then they will

say, okay, well, we have to be more like the Dodgers now. And then they will spend and they will compete. And in the long run, fans will benefit from that painful lesson that the owners learned. Is that what you think will come of it? Or are you just saying, well, it's only fair. It's retribution. It's righteous revenge for those owners not being appropriately aggressive. Because in that case, I would say you might be right, but also if they're not gonna change their ways, if they're not gonna be better about their ownership,

that won't actually help fans at all. And fans are the people I'm most interested in being pleased because this is a spectator sport and baseball is our game and also the player's game and also the owner's game sometimes regrettably, but it is for the people. And I want from a utilitarian perspective, the most people to enjoy baseball and be invested in the season. And if we were to say that the Dodgers being

too good reduces that enjoyment, then I don't know if that's a net positive, even if the other owners get hoisted upon petards. I don't think that this will inspire anyone who isn't already inclined to put as competitive a product as they possibly can on the field to do anything different. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not new, Ben. I'm not a rube. I'm not so naive. I'm not a, you know, I'm not ignorant to how this

thing, this, this thing tends to work. I am. You have learned your lesson from watching baseball for many years. I'm not now. And I imagine that when it comes time for ownership and the players association to sit down to hammer out the terms of the next CBA, that these same Dodgers will be pointed to as a problem and that proposals to quote, fix that problem will be put forth by ownership.

Um, and actually on that second point, Mark's point that you raised there, which I also mentioned in my piece, it could be that the Dodgers do foresee that the good times will not continue to roll for them. And that there will be who knows? So limits on deferrals, the percentage of a contract you can defer, or there could be some other change to some other aspect of the sport that the Dodgers have used to their advantage. And so maybe they're making hay while they can, but what I wonder is, are they hastening the end of the hay by becoming such a spectacle, by drawing so much ire, by

placing a target on their backs, are they then bringing about that reality? Is it a self-fulfilling prophecy where other owners will band together? Now, to be clear, owners have wanted a salary cap for decades. So it's not new. They tried to get that in the last CPA negotiations and they had a pitifully low floor that they proposed as a stop to the players and that went nowhere. But their desire for a salary cap persists and always will unless and until they get it. But will the Dodgers now unify smaller mid-market owners or even some of the bigger market owners like the Cubs who are a big market team but seemingly see themselves as in a different class, which we could quibble with, but that is the way that they talk about themselves publicly. Will they then have all of these owners arrayed against them and say, well, we can't compete with the Dodgers, therefore we must smack down the Dodgers and then it becomes an Icarus situation where they flew too high and they

get burned because of that. Or perhaps even they weaken the players resolve to some extent when it comes to opposing the salary cap. I'm less convinced of that because players, they want players to get paid and the Dodgers pay players. Now, in many cases, the Dodgers are assigning players who maybe got more money offered to them elsewhere. Now, in many cases, the Dodgers are signing players who maybe got more money offered to them elsewhere. So it's not necessarily that the Dodgers are breaking the bank on any individual deal, but they still do have by far the highest payroll in baseball. So generally that's something that players are in favor of and players don't seem anti-deferral or bonus or anything. They and the agents generally seem to like having the option to take those

things if they want to. But if there are certain players who feel like a lot of fans do and say, the Dodgers are cornering the market on all this talent and we can't compete and we're just down here looking up at the Dodgers and it's not fair. And you know, if you're on the Padres or you're on the Diamondbacks and you're like, Hey, we're pretty good teams, but we're not nearly good enough in this division and that stinks and someone needs to get the Dodgers under control, will there be players whose resolve will be weakened because the Dodgers are an outlier and they'll say, oh, they have to be corralled or

controlled here? So that's what I wonder. Just in way that Steve Cohen a couple of years ago, his spending seemed to help bring about perhaps the so-called Cohen tax, which in retrospect, again, those Mets didn't even make the playoffs, but there was a lot of ire just because he was spending a lot and other owners got nervous about that and maybe they did a little something about it. So if the Dodgers are engendering similar reactions, then maybe they will also engender a similar response and that could backfire for them. I'm less worried about it on the player side because while I agree that there are likely individual players who are annoyed by the general state of affairs, your Padres, your Diamondbacks, even your Giants, right? Your San Francisco Giants. I'm sure that their players are on

some level annoyed. I have reasonable confidence in the union's ability to keep that unit sort of together around the notion that while you want to have an opportunity to win. The purpose of the CBA negotiation is to ensure the best sort of material circumstance for players, and you want there to be a high upper bound that is at this moment really made up of like the Dodgers and the Mets for that purpose. So I'm less concerned about that piece of it. I do think that there is some amount of hazard, at least in how the rhetoric will be pitched and the potential for there to be fracture amongst the owners around this stuff. But I also am conscious of the fact that while, you know, like, so at the moment, the Dodgers

projected payroll, not their luxury tax payroll, but like their real payroll, there's not much gap between their projected payroll and their luxury tax payroll for next year is $369 million, which outpaces the Mets at $297 million by a not in substantial margin. The gaps are a little bit smaller on the luxury tax payroll side where you have the Dodgers, you have the Phillies, you have the Yankees. And there's still a gap, right? There's like a 60 some on million dollar gap between the Dodgers and the Phillies. But we have seen the Phillies willing to spend. I would point to Middleton as sort of one of these owners where he is there to try to

win a World Series. They seem to be competitive on a lot of these deals, even the guys they don't sign. They're willing to spend money. I think that the real sort of pain point for the big market high spending team group is not the Dodgers, it's not the Phillies and it's not the Mets, it's potentially the Yankees who have more than any of those teams expressed a desire to spend less attention to some of the payroll stuff and the tax thresholds in a way that, you know, if I were them, I would find embarrassing and beneath me, but they apparently are quite comfortable with. So yes, I think that there is some risk of that. We have largely seen

the big spenders respond by wanting to spend and being willing to spend, but does this harden the resolve of the bottom of sort of the mid tier of team where you're like, I don't know, I'm not sure if we can really hang in this way, maybe it would be helpful to us if there were more stringent taxes, whatever, sure. But to your point, they were going to ask for that anyway, you know, and, and I'm sure that like, as happy as the Dodgers are to spend this money, like if you went to them and said, hey, by the way, we're going to cap spending for everyone in a way that exerts some amount of down pressure, having conducted their business, they might be like, okay, fine, whatever. We've, you know, we've done our work and we're kind of set now. But is there some hazard to that? Yeah, I guess. Do I think that it changes like how likely the prospect of a cap is or the likelihood

of it being asked for? No, not really. Because they were going to ask for it anyway. Of course. Yeah. And I think generally speaking, most fans are often in favor of a cap. If you pull them as MLB trade rumors did, and maybe that was skewed, it was two thirds, I think in favor, and maybe that was skewed somewhat by all the uproar

about the Dodgers, but I think generally that is what most fans would say most of the time, even though the media has become much more pro labor in its coverage and perhaps the average fan has too. Generally speaking, I think fans think it would be better and fairer if teams were constrained or if they had a level playing field in terms of payroll. And that's in part because they're conditioned by the other sports that they follow. And the other major North American men's leagues, they all have caps. And so fans- And less parity. And arguably less parity.

I don't think fans think that that's true, but I believe that. Yes. And I have now remembered the second part of my thing here, which is to say that I think it's worthwhile to have clarity about where the quote unquote fault in these situations lies. Not because it necessarily is going to change the experience that fans have of their team that isn't the Dodgers or that it is likely to necessarily move the needle on the ultimate direction that the next CBA negotiation goes. But for the very reason you're describing, right, that there is still this persistent belief that a cap would be a preferable situation. I just think it's important for us to be like clear-eyed about this stuff. And I'm not one of the people who says that

every team is equally well positioned to spend as much as the Dodgers are. I know that there are pro player folks who say that. I don't think that that is accurate to say. I think that it is undeniable that the budget capacity of the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Tampa Bay race is different, right? And it would be naive and I think disingenuous to suggest otherwise, but that doesn't mean that there aren't teams, the Cubs being perhaps a really good example of this, that are positioned to spend much more than they elect to because of the mandates of ownership. Both of those things are true simultaneously. And one thing that we have seen on the part of say, the Rays is that they know we can't spend what the Dodgers have, but we can spend on, you know, scouting and front office staff.

We can press our advantage in other ways. They haven't won a World Series, but I will remind everyone that the time before the most recent time that the Dodgers won the World Series, who are they playing against? Like that was a tight series. You know, Tampa competed. I would like Tampa to spend more. I'm sure the people who work for the Tampa Berries would prefer that they spend more.

Is there a disadvantage? Yes. long as we are allowing groups like Guggenheim Partners to own a team, what's the purpose of having them as a potential ownership group if we're not letting them spend money? If you want every team to be like the Pirates, to be like the Rays, then you've got to kick out these other groups because what's the point of having them there? And like that would suck. That would be bad. It's good for players to make money. They generate value. They should be paid in a way that is commensurate with that. Yeah. If we're ranking problems and there can be more than one problem with different severities, but just this past weekend, you had the Dodgers

signing Sasaki and then you had the Dodgers signing Scott. And meanwhile, you had Tom Ricketts, Cub's owner, talking about how their goal is to break even. And again, if you're the owner of a multi-billion dollar asset, you don't necessarily need to break even every year because in the long run, you're breaking much more than even. So Ricketts saying, oh, we can't spend what the Dodgers or the Mets or the Yankees do. Well, why not? You're the Cubs. Now the Cub spending is not egregiously low. They've run fairly high payrolls. They often take themselves out of the running for the tippy top free agents and that's frustrating. But then you look at the payroll and it's not low, but it's also frustrating that they don't see themselves as part of that group

because I think they could be there, the Cubs, and they shouldn't necessarily be worried about breaking even on a year in year out basis or cashflow. I'm sure that they could borrow something if they need to make payroll. They're the Cubs. And then of course you had the Pirates who had their FanFest this past weekend, which sounds like it went great. And they misspelled Andrew McCutcheon's name on his label, which he had fun with because he's Andrew McCutcheon and he's a good sport. But that was sort of emblematic. There were people chanting, sell the team. There were executives making sort of half-assed excuses for Bob Nutting, who was not in attendance. And what other sorts of excuses could you make really?

And Ben Charington, GM of the Pirates, who was asked why the Pirates haven't signed an outside free agent to a multi-year deal during his tenure said, we've tried and we'll continue to try. And he went on to say that at some point, the team will sign a free agent to a multi-year deal. It's not Ben Sherrington's fault, I'm sure. So I don't know what he's supposed to say. He took that job.

He sort of has to run interference for Bob Nutting, but really thoughts and prayers with the Pirates. Hope you guys can someday sign an outside free agent to a multi-year contract. And meanwhile, you have the Marlins, Tanner Scott's ex team who just have barely made a move this off season and have hardly signed anyone to a major league contract. And they're getting in revenue sharing more or less essentially what they're spending in player payroll at this point. It's just embarrassing. And yes, at least they seem to have a plan now and they're rebuilding and they're stockpiling talent, but really it's been going on so long for

the Marlins that they've been through so many cycles of this and so many rebuilds that it's just hard to have a whole lot of hope. So if we're ranking, which is worse for competitive balance, the Dodgers or that kind of behavior, I think Dodgers or that kind of behavior. I think it's clearly that kind of behavior. Yep, that doesn't mean they can't both be problems to some degree. And it doesn't mean that people can't be mad at the Dodgers because they should. If we say be mad at your own team's owner, be mad at Bob Nutting if you're a Pirates

fan, well, people are, I'm sure. They don't need us to tell them to do that. And also being mad at Bob Nutting does not make him spend his money, sadly. And you can spend your own money on putting up billboards to say, sell the team, and he still won't because that's his prerogative and it's his asset and he just does not want to invest in it. So you can be mad at Bob Nutting and that will get you nowhere. Not that it's going to get you anywhere to be mad at the Dodgers either, but I

think you can be both. And as you were saying, you are all for people seeing the Dodgers as a villain and being mad at both. So it's not mutually exclusive. You don't have to choose one to be mad at, but I also think it's okay to be mad at the Dodgers because hey, if your team's owner isn't going to spend, well, there's nothing you personally can do about that. And at least if the Dodgers aren't snapping up all the players, you could imagine one

of them falling to you somehow. So to the extent that they're making it harder to do that, or that Roki Sasaki, let's say, is someone who would actually be in your team's budget, and you could dream that he might be in your team's uniform, and then he that he might be in your team's uniform and then he signs with the Dodgers anyway, because the Dodgers are just the most desirable destination even when you take the money out of the equation. That's frustrating. So do I think that baseball, nebulous concept of baseball would be better off if say, Roki Sasaki had signed with the Blue Jays? I do sort of think that and we can talk about the guy the Blue Jays got.

They did actually sign us for agent consolation prize, Anthony Santander. Not a bad player, but yeah, there comes a point where just from a utilitarian spread the wealth around, let's distribute the talent so that every team can have hope and can get to see superstars. distribute the talent so that every team can have hope and can get to see superstars. Yeah, I guess if I were assigning players to teams based on need or who I thought had suffered the most or deserve them the most or something, and that's not the way sports work and that's clearly not the way capitalism works. And a lot of people are fine with that when it's not sports. And then when it's sports, we don't want that to be the way that they work.

But I get it because why would you be happy if you're the fan of any other team that the Dodgers can keep signing guys, whether it's money or whether it's just where the Dodgers we win, we have a good location, we're close to Asia, we are good at development. We have a giant TV deal, which is the one thing that they have that most other teams don't. And that's what you were saying about, yeah, not everyone can match the Dodgers dollar for dollar when it comes to that because they do have that huge institutional advantage at this time of uncertain revenue and the broadcast bubble. The Dodgers are set with

that $8.5 billion deal that runs for almost another 15 years. Will the willingness to backstop payroll to the same degree be there if the TV deal isn't as good? I mean, probably not to the exact same degree. I also, like, if you want another reason to be pissed at them, like Google and I partners just has a lot of money, you know, they can, they can float a payroll or two, um, you know, over and above whatever TV revenue that they're in possession of. So, you know, the, the, the fun doesn't stop there. I think a couple of things can be true simultaneously. There's like the emotional reaction that fans have to juggernauts. And you are within your rights to feel about the Dodgers however you want to, you know?

For one thing, it doesn't really do much. So feel whatever you want, because it's not like your spontaneous emotional response to the Dodgers has like policy implications. It doesn't. I think that you should, if you are a fan of another team, view LA as a villain. I think that you should view them as a juggernaut to be brought low. They are Goliath and you are varying degrees of David and you can react to that however you want to. I spent this weekend watching the Los Angeles Rams play football.

And the things that I thought about that team while they were doing it would fundamentally alter people's opinion of me as a human being I Dislike that team in a way that I am made uncomfortable by that. I acknowledge is disconnected from reality of the team as it is constituted now and candidly of the team as it was constituted when it was the most annoying to me as a Seahawks fan. I get it, right? Like, I'm not saying you have to like them. You don't have a moral responsibility to like the Dodgers.

Are you kidding? If you're a Padres fan, you should wake up every day and hate that team. You should wake up every day and hope that Guggenheim Partners goes bankrupt. I get it. Like, I'm not saying you have to like them. I think the place where there is value in having clarity about the relative hierarchy of problem is when we all go from feeling away about a particular organization to expressing policy desires related to that organization, right? And like, ain't none of us going to be in the room when the CBA is negotiated, but I think fans having clarity about the relative impacts of certain team behaviors on the competitive

landscape is important, right? Because part of, we don't want to create a permission structure as fans and observers of the game for the Bob Nuttings of the world to skate while the people who are actually trying to win are doing everything that they can to do that, right? I think you're right that multiple problems can exist at once, but the ones that really threaten the competitive integrity of baseball are much more heavily concentrated in the underspenders than they are in the overspenders.

Now I think the group of teams and the fan of teams that are sort of on the strongest like footing when it comes to saying there's a problem here are the clubs that don't have as lucrative a TV deal and don't have an ownership group with such profound reserves who are really trying to win some of these guys, right? And are offering competitive deals and are just losing out because the Dodgers have that annoying thing of being pretty and smart and popular all at the same time, right? We all lived through high school. We know who those people were the worst. And so, like, if you're a Blue Jays fan, I get being frustrated and I get saying, hey, like, we are trying to,

our team is trying to do the right stuff. They are trying to sign free agents. They are trying to pay people in service of winning and we just keep losing out. And like, I get that being really frustrating, but the sport is worse off if the things that would really limit the Dodgers ability to be the Dodgers as they are currently constituted, get put into practice. Because then it becomes player salaries being constrained artificially by a cap and owners pocketing profits over and above that in a way that isn't necessarily guaranteed to be reinvested into teams and will be constrained from being reinvested into teams

at a certain point by the existence of a cap. So, and you're not getting a floor without a cap. And that's the problem, right? Like I'm all in favor of a salary floor. Let's do that tomorrow. Ownership isn't gonna do that without a salary cap, right? And I think that long-term salary cap is worse for baseball. So I still feel like I haven't quite gotten

my elevator pitch on this right, which I am sorry to say means that the Dodgers have to sign another good free agent so that I get another bite of the apple. CB Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, I would be fine with a salary cap with an acceptable salary floor. And I think it's tough to combine both of those things. I think one way in which

the Dodgers are bad for baseball is that they do strengthen the perception that there's a competitive balance problem in baseball. Now, I think that's more of a perception than it is an actual reality, but I don't think it's good for baseball that people feel that way, whether that's completely backed up by the results or not. And you can argue till you're blue in the face and you can say, Josjean tweeted or blue sky this the other day, like the past four seasons, 23 of 30 MLB teams have made the playoffs, 12 of 30 have won their division, four different teams have won the World Series,

seven have played in the series, 10 have reached the LCS round. What is parody if not that? And I think that's a good point. And I also think that people completely disregard that when they see that the Dodgers are spending four times more than their team is, which is again, maybe more their team's problem than it is the Dodgers. But it's just pretty impossible to convince people. This team is dramatically drastically outspending that team. And also this is all fair and you can compete even though you can cite those numbers and

there's a lot of truth to them. And to be clear, I don't think there's no correlation between spending and winning. There's clearly a correlation. It's not a perfect correlation and no, it doesn't buy you a championship, but it certainly buys you insurance. It buys you a high floor. It buys you a better shot of getting to October. The Dodgers have done that a dozen seasons in a row and it can get you out of a lot of

bad contracts. Not that the Dodgers have handed out that many bad contracts frankly, which is part of their success, but it does give you the freedom to spend and have that not work out and say, okay, we'll just go get someone else. So there hasn't been a repeat champion in a quarter of a century at this point. So when I call the Dodgers a dynasty, I'm talking about regular season really. So I don't mean to pretend that money doesn't get you anywhere. It absolutely does. It doesn't necessarily get you to the World Series or to a championship, but baseball is a regular season centric sport, or at least it used to be. It's trending less in that direction, which I'm not

thrilled about, but the regular season is still the majority of the season. And so if you're a Padres fan or a Diamondbacks fan, and those are two organizations that have spent in a way that's commensurate with their markets, if not more so. And so how frustrating is it then if you're a fan of those teams to say, well, we're going for it. We're doing what people want owners to do. And here we are. And we're so far behind the Dodgers, even so that everything would have to go right for us and wrong for them for us to win this division. And does that decrease your interest in watching baseball over the next six months when from the start, essentially, you're pulling for a wild card? Yeah, I think it could. I do think when the season starts, we'll all

relax a little bit just because we'll be more distracted and the only news won't be just who did the Dodgers sign today. We'll have games to watch and the Dodgers will lose some of their games and we'll move on for the moment. But if you're a Padres or Diamondbacks fan and you're looking up at the Dodgers right now and you're saying, well, what more could you want an organization to do than the Padres did? And everyone was saying, oh, they're going to be bankrupt. How are they doing this?

And then things don't go great for them. They have an unlucky season. They miss the playoffs once. Their owner dies. Their broadcast situation is uncertain. Then suddenly they're cutting payroll again. Whereas the Dodgers just don't have to worry about that. They can invest and their broadcast deal is not going to go away at least anytime soon.

So they have that built in buffer basically. And I don't think that's good if you're a Padres or a Diamondbacks fan, it's not good. I don't think it's ruining baseball. I don't think it's horrifically bad for baseball. But if I, as the benevolent entity who's trying to arrange baseball to everyone's best interest, would I distribute talent in the way that it's being distributed or would I sprinkle some love around? Would I say, yeah, you get a Roki Sasaki, you get a Tanner Scott, you get a Kirby H, yeah, I'd probably prefer that.

And I'd probably say that would be better on the whole for the spectator experience of this sport. Sure. experience of this sport. Sure. I just think that like we are two years removed from the Los Angeles Dodgers losing the NLDS to literally the Arizona Diamondbacks the last year. And the Padres beat them too. Right. I was about to say, and the year before that they lost. So it's like, you know, sure, if I were designing a system from scratch where I, benevolent, the benevolent baseball god Meg, got to distribute talent across baseball, I would, you know,

sure, let's John Rawls it and we'll just, we'll construct a baseball system in which all of the teams are fairly well matched against each other. Great. Except that we don't live in that system and we do have this, we have to make a determination when it comes to the distribution of salary of whether we are going to allow players to largely negotiate deals that reflect their market value once they reach free agency or we aren't. And there might be things that we care about more than that, right?

Competitive balance potentially being one of them. But since I'm not persuaded, and neither are you, The competitive balance is really that big of a problem, at least at the aggregate level. I'm just not swayed that the things that would need to happen for us to really redistribute the Dodgers and their wins are worth us doing that. In 2022, the Dodgers lost in the DS. They had won 106 games. No, I'm sorry, 111. That was the 111 game year and they lost to what? An 89 win. What year is that?

I'm getting my DSs where they lose to an NL West competitor mixed up. There are a lot of them to choose from a lot of Dodgers early exits and, and that's the thing. You're sort of screwed either way. You're damned if you do, damned if you don't. People are going to complain regardless. That doesn't mean that there isn't one solution that's better than another, but a couple of years ago

when we had a bunch of teams getting eliminated early and we had a lot of postseason upsets. People were upset about that. Right. It's not the best teams. Right. And you get Rangers diamond backs and you get low TV ratings, which you don't necessarily need to care about low TV ratings, but that is a reflection of the fact that there was a little less interest generally league wide. And people felt like, oh, maybe this isn't fully representative of who the best teams are, which the postseason isn't really set up to reflect. But I don't know that people have fully internalized that reality.

But if you get Dodgers Yankees, well, a lot of people watch, but then a lot of people also complain and are essentially rooting against both sides somehow and are saying this is bad for the sport because yeah, a lot of people are watching, but it means that you can buy a championship. Then again, last year we didn't have any super teams during the regular season. We had the Dodgers with the best record in baseball and they won 98 games and there was a lot of parody and there was a sense that there aren't really any great teams this season. And a lot of teams were in it right up until the end.

And some people at least weren't thrilled by that either. It was just, these are a lot of mediocre teams, right? So I don't know, it's tough because the perspective that I tend to bring to this, which I think sometimes is what listeners want and sometimes isn't what listeners want. If you want the podcast where the person who's just as pissed as you are because they're feeling the same sentiment that you are and connecting on that kind of fan level with you, I'm not always going to deliver that. I understand that because look,

I understand- I'll deliver that to Mariner fans. Don't you worry. Yes. You're more connected to your fandom than I am. I understand what it is to be a fan. I was one for the first 20 or so years of my life and was as dedicated to that as anyone. So it's not that I can't conceive of what that's like, but I'm further removed from it. And so I am generally more moderate, more impartial, more disinterested in the Hamiltonian Federalist Papers sense.

Not that I'm not interested, but I'm just not influenced, I guess, or biased. Or buffered about by the Sea of Otani and nothing else. Right. Yes. And maybe I am biased in a sense because if you're covering the sport on a national level, the Dodgers are something to talk about. They're a good story. They're a spectacle.

They're something that we can get multiple podcasts worth of banter about whether we want to or not. They're, they're material, they're interest. And so if you are covering the sport at that remove or from that perspective, then yeah, the Dodgers are compelling. Whereas if you're following it through the lens of your team, which the vast majority of baseball fans are, they're not saying, oh, isn't it wonderful and interesting that the Dodgers are so good and that we can watch Dodgers games and see so many superstars?

Because most people are not going to want to do that. They're going to want to watch their team and they're going to want to see superstars on their team sometimes. So if you want the fan rant that this sucks and I wish my team had signed someone that the Dodgers have, then maybe I'm not fulfilling that need for you. But hopefully also sometimes I'm providing a bit of a corrective where I'm giving the other side of things because sometimes you can get so in that fan sentiment that there are things that you're not considering as clearly. So I might miss something, you might miss something. Hopefully it's a beneficial meeting of minds there. But I completely understand why people are not thrilled about the Dodgers.

And in my piece this past weekend, I kind of did a debate among the perspectives and sort of steel manned each side and tried to, here's the good faith argument that the Dodgers are bad for baseball and here's the good faith argument that they're not bad for baseball. And as I often do, I kind of came down in the middle somewhere, which probably isn't super satisfying to anyone, But I don't think they're ruining baseball. I don't think they're the biggest problem with baseball. I don't think it's necessarily good for baseball that they are stockpiling quite this much talent. Now, do I blame them for not saying, okay, we're done. We're good enough. We have outclassed the rest of the league by enough that we can take our feet off the pedal here.

They're not necessarily obligated to do that, but I absolutely see the case and even subscribe to the case that yeah, it would be better if they just laid off a little bit, you know? And, and I think even if you decided to try to legislate against them to some extent, what I was trying to get at last time is that it's hard to do that, at least in the short term. It's hard to tie their hands because even if you restrict the amount of spending they can do, well, that will hurt them in the long run, especially now that they're in this cycle where they aren't homegrown anymore.

And yeah, they still have prospects and they still have a farm system and perhaps they still draft and develop well, but that's not even something they're doing that much now, aside from the fact that they're still trading prospects away to get more established players. But once you get in this cycle, it's sort of like the Yankees were in 20 years ago when you're not really homegrown anymore. And maybe you have some homegrown guys on big contracts who are still around, when you're not really homegrown anymore. And maybe you have some homegrown guys on big contracts who are still around, but you're supplementing with free agents and then you're getting older and maybe some of those free agents are declining. And so you're trying to supplement

with more free agents and most free agents are going to be fairly old once you get them because they haven't hit free agency before then, which is not the case with Otani to some extent, Yamamoto, certainly Sasaki, et cetera, which makes it the case with Otani to some extent, Yamamoto certainly, Sasaki, et cetera, which makes it even more frustrating because it's like they're Gavin Belson in Silicon Valley. They're getting infusions from youth to stay young, but they're getting old. Wow. Just to make them as villainous as possible. Well, yeah, they are villains. They have brought that upon themselves and they've accepted that even. I think they became villains when they signed Otani and Yamamoto and then won the world

series and now they've sort of upgraded to super villain, at least in terms of perception. That was kind of the, the tact that I took in my piece. But the point is, even if you said, okay, we're lowering the payroll for now, at least that doesn't necessarily hamstring the Dodgers because they are still the most compelling pitch. Now maybe when your team is so free agent and veteran centric, they would run into issues at that point, but clearly they are not only securing the services of free agents because they are out spending everyone.

They also have managed to make their location the most desirable, which is partly because they have all the big buffer and they have the big payroll and they have the deep pockets and they have the TV deal. And that's part of how they have compiled this incredible, really unparalleled in an era adjusted sense record of winning year in and year out. I'm not suggesting that those things are decoupled.

Like money has played a part in that certainly. But for now at least, even when you take away spending or money as an incentive, as was the case for Sasaki, they will still win. They will still win for now. I mean, like I think last time I brought up the notion that like they will get old. They're kind of old now like, you know

Sasaki and Yamamoto aside like this is still an older team a Lot of your biggest stars who you have a lot of money committed to are on the wrong side of 30 Sometimes in like kind of a meaningful way They're not gonna be good forever I bet they'll be good for a while. And like, unless something fundamental changes in their perspective on payroll, like I do think that they will be in a position where they will be as competitive

as their ownership group decides they want to be. And the answer will often be, we'd like to be competitive for a World Series. So like, again, I get it. I'm not saying you have to like them. I'm not, no. I told people to be mad at them and we got an email calling, effectively calling us lazy last time. And I resent that because, you know, being angry is like a very caloric emotion.

Like that takes energy. Lazy person couldn't be that. But I'm- Can be cathartic too. It can be. I think that like, you know, at a certain point you got to go do something though, because you'll feel more productive that way, just to say. Again, I'm sympathetic to the notion that there's a tilt in the competitive landscape.

I don't think it's as profound a tilt as people are making it out to be for all the reasons that we have discussed, but I get it. I'm not saying that you want all the talent concentrated, but one, I don't think that's true. I don't think it lasts for very long. And also, like, I don't know, let's be fair. People do yell at their owners, the owners of their teams that don't spend money. People do get mad about that.

Like John Fisher can't be seen in the Bay Area, I think. Like that guy's like on alert. Not that he wants to be, seemingly, John Fisher can't be seen in the Bay Area, I think. Like, that guy's like on alert, but- Not that he wants to be, seemingly, but yeah. And so I want to acknowledge the emotional condition, and I want to acknowledge the frustration of the fans of teams and of the people who work for teams that are really trying to like be in the running for these free agents and are losing out. But here's a counterfactual, right?

Famously, this year, the Yankees wanted to sign Juan Soto, right? They offered him a lot of money. They were, they made what I would characterize as a competitive offer for Juan Soto services and they should have thrown in the sweet, right? Clearly they could have done a little bit more, but I don't think that anyone can in good faith say that that was not a competitive offer that the Yankees made and they lost out and rather than be completely wounded, they went out and they signed a bunch of guys.

They were just like, okay, we are still committed to winning. The primary motivation for trying to retain Juan Soto was that we want to win. We just lost the World Series and that sucked and we'd like to not do it again. So we will go and we will get a bunch of guys and will they in the aggregate be as productive as Juan Soto? I mean, I guess we'll see, but like there's a good argument that they can be, right? And they made their team better. Is it going to be enough?

I don't know. That's why they play the games. There's so many of them and guys get hurt and then, you know, then the Dodgers lose to the Diamondbacks. Like it happens. It happens recently. And the Dodgers took from that, we want to have so much depth and we want it to be so good that we never have to hear snakes alive ever again.

Teams do take motivation from these things and they go and they try to win. And sometimes maybe you think it's going to be too much. Maybe you look back on the Yankees from our childhood and you were like, that sucked. But guess what? They weren't like that forever. And now they're like doing sometimes weird penny pinching stuff, but then they lose out on a guy they like and they go spend some money. So like-

Yeah. It didn't suck for me because I was a Yankees fan. Right, you were a fan. But that was in a way worse than what we have here. The Yankees of the 2003 Onion article about signing every major linker to guarantee a pennant, which they did win a pennant that year. They did. Now they went some years without winning a World Series, but the 2005 Yankees-

But they did win the pennant. Yes, they did. And they were always in the running. The 2005 Yankees spent 68% more than the next highest spending team. That's so much. The second ranked Red Sox. The 2006 Yankees spent almost 12 times

as much as the most miserly team, which was the Marlins as it is now because some things never change. By contrast, the 2025 Dodgers are projected to spend only, I use air quotes, 24% more than the second ranked team, the Mets, and five and a half times more than the Marlins. Those are big disparities, but not nearly as big as they were a couple decades ago. So revenue sharing and other ways of suppressing spending have had an effect for better or worse. So this is not new exactly. And it is certainly attention getting because of the collection of superstars

here, just because it's not new doesn't mean it's fine. And you could say, well, that was bad too. That was worse. This is also bad. And I do think the Dodgers are just a whole lot less sympathetic than they used to be. They were a fairly sympathetic super team, I think for years, longer than most teams that are as good as they were because, well, various reasons. They had a lot of likable players.

They had a lot of early exits from the playoffs. They lost a lot. That's why they were sympathetic. Yes. That's the big part. Yeah. And I kind of came down on, I think the Dodgers are much more a bad look for baseball than they are bad for baseball.

And whether it's their fault that they're a bad look or whether MLB should change as a result of that. I see what you're saying about maybe the remedy would be worse than the disease in some respects. Yes. Look, we've talked about this a lot. I wrote about it a lot. I'll link to that if you want my words in print. I have one more thing to say and then we can move on, which is that I think my takeaway, I have two takeaways from this conversation. The first is that my pitch is still not right and I got to get it dialed in because I think

I'm right. If you're hoping to persuade people that this is fine actually, I don't think it's happening. I'm not saying it's fine. I'm just saying that it shouldn't rise to the level of having policy prescriptions. I think that's the big takeaway. I am imploring people to hate this team with everything that they have. I am asking that of people. I am saying go forth and have grudge. Do it. The things that I wanted to say about the Rams, man. I know Matt Martell, who is my colleague at FanGrass,

he's a Rams fan. I want him to be happy, but I hate that team, I hate it so hard. And I know it's not rational all the way, some of it is, but a lot of it's not. And so I do get it. So one, I need to do a better, tighter job of articulating this and I am going to work on it and I'm going to get you all, I really am going to get you. Here's the second thing. I think that mostly my takeaway from the discourse around this subject is that we, and by we I mean you and me and all the other people in the media, we have some work to do, right? We have some homework over the course of this season, which is to clearly and persuasively

articulate the state of the competitive landscape. And that does not mean that you, fans, listening to this show cannot have whatever feelings about the Dodgers in particular and big spending teams more generally that you want to. You should feel however feels right. But I do think that we have some work to do as an industry in properly articulating the relative competitive balance of this league compared to others and where the disjoint is occurring in terms of better competitive parity, whatever you want to call it. Because I think you're right that there is this persistent belief that this is

bad for baseball, that this could be a bad look for baseball suggests that people don't like really have their heads around what the competitive landscape looks like and where the problem lies. And so I think we have some work to do because it's an important question for fans to have intellectual clarity on going into the next CBA negotiation, which I will say one last time and then we can move on. Does not mean that you are obligated to like this Dodgers team, root for this Dodgers team, think this Dodgers team is funny or attractive

or has the shiniest hair. No, no, you can hate them. You should hate them if that feels right. But I just want us to have clarity on the policy piece of it. And I'm realizing that I just sound like a democratic strategist, which is terrifying. I hope I'm going to do a better job in my campaign. Let's put it that way. Probably not really resonating with listeners in that sense then. All we need is persuasive data and then everyone will make good choices. That'll do it.

That'll do it. That'll do it. Everyone will accept that parody is just fine if you just show them some data, some graphs. I'm pretty sure that's an unwinnable one. I have parody qualms, but again, they ain't with the Dodgers. There are certain things that are just straight up misconceptions, I think, such as some of the misunderstandings about the deferrals and yes, are there ways in which maybe the Dodgers are more equipped to hand out bonuses to go with the deferrals than other teams?

Yes, because of their financial resources. But if you're someone who thinks, and there are a lot of people who think this, that Shohei Otani was going to get $70 million a year for 10 years, and then he just said, no, I want that over for 10 years. And then he just said, no, I want that over many more years, that he was just going to get 10 in 700 and out of the goodness of his heart and the desire to compete and his endorsement dollars. He just said, no, spread it over more years. Then I think that that's just wrong, that that's just misinformed.

He was never going to get that deal. And so you can perhaps try to persuade someone of that. Although we know from reporting that he got big offers from other teams. There were other teams that were like, sure, sign us up for some of your nonsense. Or I guess he offered himself to them perhaps at the same terms and ultimately just chose the Dodgers anyway. But there are some things that are just factually wrong that I feel-

He just has such shiny hair, I guess. Well, he certainly does, but I feel a compulsion to try to correct in the there's someone wrong on the internet kind of way. And that maybe mine's could be changed, but I think on the larger issue, you just gotta kind of concede that people aren't

going to accept that. You don't think that if we give people license to feel a way about it, that they can't feel a way about it, but also think a different way about it, we can't do those at the same time? I really am a Democratic strategist. God. I don't think that's human nature for the most part. I don't want to be condescending, but it just doesn't seem like that's the case. And look, sometimes something you're feeling, there's a kernel or more than a kernel of truth in that and someone who's downplaying that sentiment is maybe missing something. I just think another thing is that there's always going to be inequality among teams and you're always going to have bad teams and you could have a salary cap and we've

seen this in other sports and you can be the chiefs and you can still make it like seven years in a row, right? You can do the asterisk thing in a salary caps league and there are always teams that are terrible. Now, maybe it's a little harder to do and to sustain that than it has been for the Dodgers to do, but there are always teams that are bad and there are always teams that are good and there is sort of a seesaw there. And sometimes that is you're bad because you're not investing. Sometimes it's you're bad because you're just not good at this. And I guess-

Right. Your evals are off, guys get hurt, whatever, stuff happens that is separate from the money piece. Totally. And maybe it doesn't matter how you get there. Maybe if you're making an actual effort and trying and you're just not good and you're just signing the wrong guys. If you're the pirates versus the Rockies, let's say, does it matter ultimately, which you are, if you're still bad and finishing last year after year? Maybe. Well, I think it matters because it matters in so far as it changes the prescription, right, for how to improve. And some of these things I think are a little more immovable And some of these things I think are a little more immovable as tendencies than others. But yeah, I get what you're saying.

I get it. I really do. CB Yeah. I just think there's kind of this conception that, oh, if we could just equalize the spending, we would equalize the results and everyone would be competing year in and year out. And there's this utopian vision and it's just never quite that way in a salary cap league. It was never that way in baseball. I don't think it could be that way. Maybe it could be closer than it is now. And I don't want to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I'm not saying it's

either this or utopia or there's no need to nudge things in one direction or another. I just think that you're always going to get teams that are bad perennially and you'll get teams that are good. And it comes down to factors other than money, but money does matter. And I certainly will not pretend otherwise. And money mattered to Anthony Santander because he decided to sign with the Toronto Blue Jays. And I'm happy that they got their guy, even if he wasn't their first choice or their second choice or their third.

I don't know where he was on their preface. It's kind of like the Jeff Hoffman signing where I said, if you're the Blue Jays, you can't really afford to be picky at this point because I do believe that the Blue Jays have made a real effort to sign top tier players and they have been rebuffed. And I feel bad for their fans that that's the case. And so maybe you have to settle for Jeff

Hoffman, who's a good pitcher. I'm not saying he's not a good pitcher, but also there are teams that have concerns about his physical. And maybe you have to go get Anthony Santander, who he has some warts. He's a good player. He's not a great player and probably wasn't their first choice. He was the guy that they got because they couldn't get other guys. He can still make them better. He can still improve them. So this is a five year deal guaranteed 92 and a half million, although there are deferrals because not only the Dodgers can do that. So for luxury tax purposes, the average annual value is more like 14 million.

So the net present value is closer to 70 million or so. And then there's an option for 2030 and he can opt out after the third year. And if he does, the team can void the opt out by picking up the option year, et cetera, et cetera. Right. So really Santander is a limited player in the sense that Big Bat, at least some aspects of having a Big Bat, he hits dingers.

He hits lots of dingers. Last year in particular, he hit lots of dingers. He hits lots of dingers. Last year in particular, he hit lots of dingers. Now, if I were a betting man, which I am not, I would probably bet on 44 dingers being his career high. Sure. Which there's nothing shameful about that. That's a lot of dingers. So he is not a defensively gifted player. He's not a defensively horrendous player in the short term, but at some point during this contract, yeah, he'll play some right field. Maybe he'll, he'll spell Springer. He can DH, perhaps he could play some first base at some point.

Maybe he could play some first base at some point. Yeah. We'll see what happens with Fladdy, of course, where he plays positionally and geographically. And so in a sense, I guess you're buying high on Santander and you're getting him off this 44 home run season when he was about 30% better than the league average hitter. He has flaws obviously, which is that he doesn't get on base that much.

He had a 308 on base percentage this past season. Doesn't really strike out a lot, but he had a fairly low batting average and low babbip. He's not a speedy guy. So, you know, he's not going to do much for you on the bases or in the field, but he's going to be a solidly above average batter and he's a switch hitter and he hits pitchers of opposite handednesses about equally well. So he slots in well to the Toronto lineup and they're the kind of team that just needed someone like they are on that bubble where they could be at

least a wild card contender and adding a couple of wins, if that's what you're getting from Santander, raise your floor, raise your ceiling accordingly. That helps. It's maybe not your floor, raise your ceiling accordingly. That helps. It's maybe not super sexy, maybe not super exciting. Anyone's going to be a step down when you're going after the biggest fish in the free agent market and you're not hooking them, then you're not going to be quite as excited about Jeff Hoffman and Anthony Santander. If you can somehow put out of your mind that you were a finalist for Roki Sasaki,

that you were in the running for these super exciting players, then maybe when it's all said and done, and I'd like to see them do a little more if they can, if they can persuade some players to sign with them, then you say, well, if we're not comparing ourselves to others, which I guess you kind of have to do because it's a zero-sum sport, then on the whole, it won't be a bad offseason. Yeah, like he projects for about a 122 WRC+, depending on which of our projection systems you're leaning on. I think that at the end of this deal, he is likely to be playing first base, unless I'm really mistaking the likelihood of Vladdy staying in Toronto, which I could well be.

I think Santander is a good player. I really like saying his name. I decided there are very few things. I had this thought today as I was editing Michael Bauman's piece on Jimmy Rollins and how he's like his guy, even if he doesn't think that Rollins is a Hall of Famer. And he made the point about Rollins and how he was pretty much equally Rollins is a Hall of Famer. And he made the point about Rollins and how he was pretty much equally adept from both sides of the plate as a switch hitter and how rare that is.

And I, you know, as you mentioned with Santander, like especially last year, pretty even splits between both sides. I think there are very few things I enjoy more in a hitter than like someone who is a true good switch hitter. Cause more and more you watch a guy and you're like, you should probably just hit from the one side though, buddy. And you can't say that of Santander.

He's like pretty good from both sides. So is it exactly what they wanted? Clearly not. It wasn't their first choice, but I think that as consolation prizes go, he's a pretty good one. Good for him making some money. It's not fair to him to say, can't hurt, right? Like he will be a, I think a useful, yeah, he will help in a meaningful

way. And yeah, that's kind of what I have on that. I really like the last name, Santander. It's just like a fun- Yeah, it is quite fun to say. It's like a, it's got a nice, it's nice. It's nice to say. See, we're saying a positive thing about a name associated with a Blue J. It's not all mean over here. I feel like I've been very confrontational on the pod lately and I don't mean to be.

It's just like a prickly time and people are out here being weird about the Dodgers. Santander, if you stat-head this, if you go by baseball reference, where he does have one of the 10 least valuable 40 homer seasons in baseball history, which again, any 40 homer season or almost any 40 homer season is pretty good and he's a 10th. So worst 10, but close to outside the worst 10, but that's the thing. It's just, you look at the 44 homers and you think, well, how could he not be worth more than three

war or so? And then you look at everything else, but still, if he's going to give you that and look, if he's not that great by the end of the contract, I don't know whether the Blue Jays will be great by the end of that contract. That could go either way. What they need is someone who can help them now

because they have this season with Fladdy. They have Bichette and you got to get a bounce back from Bichette if you want to go anywhere. Yeah. So they hope that happens. And so you want someone who can help you now and hopefully propel you back to the playoffs while you have this core and maybe convince that core to stick around. And so Santander fits that bill. And will he be productive

five, six years down the road? I don't know, but that's probably not really what they're thinking and worrying about at the moment. STACEY Yeah. Yeah. I think that if any team is in win now mode or should be, it's the Blue Jays because the Son of Stars era is coming to a close one way or another. Can I offer a pause, a potential balm to some of our Blue Jays listeners? And look, this being comforting is predicated on the notion that you like both Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette and would like them to stick around. But, you know, one place you can spend money is on extensions or signing your guys. So maybe, maybe this is fine. Because like now you're not given money to Juan Soto, you're given

money to your own guys. Maybe that's satisfying. Maybe this is, maybe that's the way to, they have to actually do that. And you have to want them to do that. You have to persuade them to do that. Look, I'm not saying it's a foolproof plan. Should be an easier sell if they've been there, at least. It's easier to convince them to stay than to convince them to come for the first time, one would think. And you've just demonstrated that, hey, you wanna win, you know? And that's part of it.

So think about it that way maybe. I don't know. I'm trying, I feel badly and I don't feel badly. I feel bad. You don't feel badly. I mean, some people feel badly. I guess that's what therapy is for. I worry about Pete Alonso and where he's gonna go.

Where is Pete Alonso and where he's going to go. Where is Pete Alonso going to sign, man? I really do wonder because the reports that are out there. You could be a mariner. I won't really believe that he's not a New York Met until he's signed somewhere else. Yeah. But I don't know that signing Jesse Winker takes them out of the running for Pete Alonso necessarily if they can. I would be very surprised. Yeah, if they can come to terms with him.

It feels like maybe the biggest impediment though is that they reportedly offered him much more in the past and he turned it down. If that report is accurate that they offered him seven years and 158 million as an extension offer during the 2023 season. And if that's true and he turned it down to test the open market. Oh, that would be so bad. Yeah. You got to question the advice he was getting if that's true or his willingness to take that advice. But also it does make it tough to stick around. Even if he's not

getting a bigger offer from someone else, it just seems like it would be tough to swallow your pride and take, let's say, half of what that same team offered you less than two years ago. Even if that's what the market is saying as a whole, it's tough to do that because you'd kind of be kicking yourself and saying, gosh, I could be here in the same circumstances, except making much more money. And so if, as has been reported, the Mets aren't going beyond a short-term deal now, three years and 70 million or something along those lines, that's tough. Now, could he do a Bellinger kind of contract and get it an opt out and

maybe be back on the market, but is it going to be better for him? Yeah, I know. I just, is he going to be a more compelling, appealing player in a year than he is right now? One wouldn't think so. Or if one did think so, one might be more willing to sign him. So it's just, it's tough. Like at some point, he's going to have to accept the reality unless he can, I don't know, do an end around, around a front office and find an owner who just feeling particularly generous that day.

Nicole Soule God, I just feel bad for the guy. I think that if like that reported extension offer really was made, this might be one of the places where I'm like, Hey Scott, what were you doing, dude? Right? Cause this is a, Alonzo's a Boris guy, right? Yep. Yeah. So like if he was offered that and he didn't take it, I think that might be one of the few times where I really would say to Boris, you, you made a bad mistake here. Like you really did a disservice to your client because like lest we forget, Alonzo was, he came up late. He's defensively limited and not just

because he's already a first baseman, but he's not like an amazing first baseman. He's fine, but he's not like, he's no Christian Walker, right? I don't know. I just, when you have- In defense of Boris, Boris became Alonso's agent in October of 2023. Okay. Okay.

So he had different representation at that point. Important clarification. I bet, okay, yeah. Cause like that would be, that would have been bad. That would have been, that was bad advice. And maybe, maybe that's why Scott Boris is his agent now and whoever was representing him before. He is definitely one of those players who the combination of coming up late when he did and it meaning that his free agency didn't start until he was entering his age

30 season and he's a first baseman. Like it's just, it's a tough, it's a tough profile, um, to get a lot of money in the free agent market. He might have to adjust his expectations downward in a pretty profound way, I think at this point, and that sucks. Cause he is like, it's not that he's not a talented player in his way. It's just like a very limited profile. And that's hard. It's not that he's not a talented player in his way. It's just like a very limited profile. And that's hard. It's just hard.

And like he's, ah, boy, polar bear, you know? Yeah. All right. As a little episode ending palette cleanser, I'll give you a quick stat blast here, inspired by Bob Euker and also by a question that was posed in our Facebook group. So let's cue the song. Okay, this question was posed by listener Terry Spencer who said, possible stat blast,

three of Bob Euker's 14 career homers came off of Hall of Famers. Sandy Koufax, Fergie Jenkins, and Gaylord Perry. Did anyone else with at least 10 home runs ever hit more than his 21% off of Hall of Famers. I just wanted to do it. You know what I'm saying? I just wanted to do it. I don't know why I did it.

I could have done a lot of other times, but those three home runs against those guys, I mean, I apologize to Sandy Koufax to this day. I always thought that might keep him out of the Hall of Fame. So I always tell him I'm sorry I did it. Gaylord Perry, every time I see Gaylord Perry, he tells everybody, or if we're sitting in a restaurant, he'll point me out in the restaurant and say, there is the worst day of my whole life. Not his baseball life, his whole life, because I hit the home run against him, but it was really good.

So, yeah, that's a saving grace. He was not a great hitter and he got a lot of mileage out of that after his playing career, but he did hit well against Sandy Koufax, well, at least that one time, I guess, not so much overall. But I think he had a grand slam off of Perry. So I guess it would make you feel good probably if you weren't a good hitter and you did a disproportionate amount of your damage against Hall of Famers, would that make you feel good or would that? Yeah, I think it probably would do it.

I would feel like a million bucks. I would tell people about that at the grocery store. I would be like, you know what? It's great for stories. And I would be, I would be so obnoxious. I'm already obnoxious. I would be like, you know what? It would be, right. It's great for stories. Yeah. I would be, I would be so obnoxious. I'm already obnoxious. I would be so much worse. But would you, would it cause you to question, well, wait, why, if I can hit Sandy Koufax and Fergie Jenkins, well,

why can't I put this together? I have this in me to hit the very best in baseball. And so I wonder whether it would almost frustrate me more. Like if I were clearly outclassed by pitchers of that caliber, I'd say, yeah, that tracks, but maybe it would confuse me if I had some success against the very best in baseball. And yet I was flailing with some regularity against the mere mortals. It might keep me up at night. Like, hey, I hit Kofax, I hit Perry, I hit Jenkins. What's happening here? Why couldn't I do this more consistently? That would be the glass half empty

view of this, but didn't seem like Bob Euker was a glass half empty guy. And he was a great storyteller and these were great stories. So I put this question to frequent stop-glass correspondent Ryan Nelson and he did some of his retro sheet wizardry. And I do have an answer and I do have a spreadsheet which I will share on the show page as usual. So first thing I will note is that there are some players who homered exclusively off of Hall of Famers. So there are 54 players, I guess this is probably ALNL, who hit a hundred percent of their home runs

against Hall of Famers. Now that I think is something that might frustrate me because if I were someone who hit a home run one time and it was against a Hall of Famer, I guess it depends on how long it took me to hit that one home run. But if I had a cup of coffee and I hit a home run off a Hall of Famer and then I never got another opportunity, that might miff me. I might be miffed by that. So of these 54, there are a few who had multiple homers and they all came against Hall of Famers. But the only guy who hit more than two career home runs and had them all come against Hall of Famers

was Ray Rower, if that is how you say Ray Rower. And I guess it's a testament to his lack of name recognition that I'm not sure. Yeah, Ray Rower, Rower, it's R-O-H-W-E-R and Ray, I'll just refer to him as Ray, he played for the Pirates in 1921 and 1922 and he got into 83 games and he had a 103 OPS plus and he hit three career home runs and all of them were against hall of famers, Burleigh Grimes, Pete Alexander and Jesse Haynes. And if I were Ray, and I had been an above average hitter and I had hit my homers exclusively against Hall of Famers, I think I would feel that I had deserved a longer leash. Now, he didn't make his debut until he was 26. I think his debut was delayed by World War I. And then he did go on to his debut was delayed by World War I. And then he did go on to have a professional career for years afterward. He played and did some slugging in the Pacific Coast League. And back in those days,

that was quite an appealing option. There were players who might decide that they preferred to play in the Pacific Coast League. It was a high level league. He was a Californian and perhaps that was just a better situation for him. It may have even been a comparable salary, et cetera. So he had, okay, he played until 1931, his age 36 season playing in Seattle and Portland and Sacramento. So he did not disappear once he was gone from the big league stage. And then he lived to the ripe old age of 92.

So hopefully a happy ending for Ray Rower? Anyway. Ray Rower, the roger. That's a claim to fame for him. Now if as Terry requested, we set the minimum at 10 career home runs, and this will be the Uyghur group, then I gotta say that Uyghur actually does not stand out. He's there, but he's not toward the top of the leaderboard. I hate to take away anything from Mr. Baseball, but he actually, among the 10 homerun minimum group, he ranks 51st in percentage of homers hit

off of Hall of Famers. So 50 guys ahead of him. By the way, the baseline here, so Uekers' percentage was 21.4% of his homers against Hall of Famers. The baseline is 4.5%. That's just the, the total, the rates league-wide, all time of home runs that have been hit against Hall of Famer. So he was what, close to five times that. So that's pretty good, but it was not the best. The best with the 10 homer minimum is as these things often are, someone with 10 homers, so it's often someone who's right at the minimum and just scrapes by.

Dino Restelli. Dino Restelli. He hit 10 career home runs and four of them were off of Hall of Famers. Which is a nice 40% rate, almost twice as high as Bob Uecker. And Dino Ristelli. He played in 1949 to 1951 and obviously did not distinguish himself otherwise or he probably

would have played longer. But at least I'm giving these guys some belated attention because people knew Uecker for other things. He didn't necessarily need this fun fact. Other guys need it more than Uker. And Dina Rustelli, he played in 49 and 51 also for the Pirates and 93 career games, 102 career WRC plus, just very similar to Ray Rower. So that's Dina Rustelli. similar to Ray Rower. So he, yeah. So that's a Dina Rustelli.

And if we go with someone who has 14 home runs minimum, so that's the euchre group, then the highest percentage is the number two guy on the list in the 10 homers minimum group, which is Jesse Gonder and Jesse Gonder, he cleared that minimum. He almost doubled that minimum. He hit 26 career home runs in his career and 10, 10 of them were off of home runs. That's pretty impressive. By the way, Dino Rostelli, his four homers, they came off of only two Hall of Famers, Warren Spahn and Robin Roberts. But Jesse Gonder, 26 dingers and double digits off of Cooperstown caliber pitchers, that's pretty impressive. That's 38.5% of his homers were off of Don

Drysdale or Gaylard Perry or Juan Marichal or Bob Gibson or Jim Bunning. That's something to hang your hat on, I would say. Oh yeah. Yeah. So Jesse Gonder, he had a little more big league time. He played eight years, 1960 to 67. He was with the Yankees, the Reds, the Mets, the Brewers, or I guess the Braves at that point, and the Pirates, yet again, a lot of Pirates on this list. And here's what the baseball reference Bullpen

says about Jesse Gonder. He originally was signed by the Cincinnati Redlegs in 1955, though he never played for them. He attended the same high school, McClymonds High School in Oakland, as two of the team stars in the late 1950s, Frank Robinson and Veda Pinson. He was a decent hitting catcher who couldn't find a regular job because of his modest defensive

ability. He came up for cups of coffee with the New York Yankees in 1960 and 61, but they already had Yogi Berra and Elston Howard. Yeah, that's a tough position to be in. That's the definition of being blocked. With the Cincinnati Reds, he started hitting well in 1963 and was traded to the Mets and ended up hitting.304 for the season. 1964 was the season with the most at bats. He hit .270 and.341 at bats on a Mets team that hit.246. He also led the National League

with 21 past balls that year, sealing his reputation as a poor defender. He continued to hit well in 65, but was traded to the Milwaukee Braves where he hit only 151. And then he closed out his career with the Pittsburgh Pirates and he lived until 2004. So Jesse Gonder, the hall of fame hitter, He really should have maybe gotten more credit for that. Nothing on his baseball reference bullpen page about him being a Cooperstown killer, I just Googled the Hall of Fame and Cooperstown on his Sabre bio, didn't see anything about that, but I think he deserves,

he served with distinction in that respect. So 95 career OPS plus, not a great defensive catcher. I guess it's a Nichols love catcher's defense sort of situation where he could hit okay, but couldn't field. And who knows, maybe he was a good framer or something and nobody appreciated it back then. Maybe it was a Mike Piazza sort of situation. I don't know, but he did hit Hall of Famers well. So that's a feather in his cap. All right. Well, I will link to the full spreadsheet for anyone who cares to peruse it. I guess if I set some higher minimums just for fun here, if I go 50 career homers,

then, oh, notable name, Art Shamsky, who is well known, but not for hitting Hall of Famers exclusively or specifically, I suppose, but 68 career homers, 17 off of Hall of Famers, that's 25%, a quarter of his homers came off of Hall of Famers. Bob Gibson, Fergie Jenkins, Don Sutton, Don Drysdale, Jim Bunning, Gaylord Perry, Tom Siever, Juan Marichal, some overlap among these names. If I set the minimum at 100 homers, let's see what we get here. The percentages are going to fall. Dennis Menke, Dennis Menke hit 101 home runs and 20 of them were off of Hall of Famers, 19.8%. And man, I guess sort of the same era with some of these guys and some of the same names, Gibson, Marshall, Perry, Bunning, Kofax, Jenkins, Drysdale, Siever, Ryan Sutton.

I wonder whether that has to do with the fact that there were a lot of Hall of Famers playing then. Maybe it was a disproportionate percentage of Hall of Fame pitchers in particular, because that was the era of the real workhorses and guys who were finishing what they started. And so maybe those guys are overrepresented in the hall. And perhaps that's why that same era keeps cropping up here. It could have something to do with it. Although number two on the list is a Hall of Famer himself, Charlie Garringer, who hit

170 and 32 of them were Dinger's 18.8%. And I guess I'm shrinking the sample size here, but I'll go to 200. 200, it's Joe Torre, who actually hit 250, 42 of them off of Homer's 16.8%. If we go to 300 Homers, then it's Johnny Bench, who hit 52 of his 389, 13.4% off of homers. And 400 Homer Club, it's Willie Stargell, Pop with 61 of his 470 homers, 13% off of Hall of Famers. And finally, the 500 Homer Club. It was Willie McCovey, same era,

521 queer homers for stretch, 58 off of Hall of Famers, 11.1%. And again, Kofax, Spahn, Drysdale, Gibson, Necro, Bunning, Sutton, Siever, Jenkins, Ryan, Carlton. There were fewer teams and fewer pitchers back then and those guys were throwing all the innings. So maybe we need an era adjusted measure, who knows? Anyway, those are the stats. So hopefully you enjoyed them. And we enjoyed Uke even if he was only 51st on that particular leaderboard. By the way, the tributes to Uke have been really fun to read and listen to over the past few days. And we reflected on the fact that he was such a celebrity in the way that you wouldn't see with really any baseball figure these days, let alone someone who was such a marginal

player. But also one underappreciated aspect, at least by me, when we talked about him was the fact that he retained such a close connection to the team and to the players because he was a former player and he was just identified as one of them seemingly till the end of his career, even when he was 90 years old, it seemed like the players really embraced him and welcomed him into the clubhouse. And of course he was an icon in an institution, but they just seemed to relate to him on that level. Like he's one of us, which was not something you're getting from Vince Gulley, let's say. I mean, you got plenty of other incredible things from Vince Gulley, but

that was something that was more specific to Uke and that he retained even when there was an enormous age gap between him and the current crop of players. He just seemed to really connect with them and empathize and was just a funny guy in public, but also a caring person in private, certainly. And people really responded to that. And yet, not really known as a Homer so much in the way that, say, Hawk Harrelson, who was a former player and was famous and notorious and infamous for being a homer. Duke didn't have that kind of rap really, even though he was so closely connected to the team. So yeah, it was just, you know, best of all worlds, I suppose he's missed.

Yeah. Well, congrats to Etro, Cici Zabathia, and Billy Wagner. More on them and the Cooperstown candidates who didn't get in next time. For now, you can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash Effectively Wild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad-free, and get themselves access to some perks.

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slash Effectively Wild. If you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. If not, you can contact us via email. Send your questions, comments, intro and outro themes, podcast at fangraphs.com. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms.

You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash Effectively Wild. You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash Effectively Wild. And you can check the show page at Fangraphs or the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we cited today. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We will be back with another episode very soon.

Talk to you then. 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, pass scorecard With a cracker jack of smile Effectively wild