Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2275: Stop the Stop Signs

Episode Date: January 25, 2025

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Meg’s memories of Ichiro and his sensational MLB debut, Ippei Mizuhara’s letter about his work with Shohei Ohtani, Roki Sasaki’s dog, the misleading name of “Sluggball,” Jurickson Profar and the prospect of a Braves rebound, which players will get “shorter” thanks to the challenge system, two new rules […]

Let's play ball. It's effectively wild. It's effectively wild. It's effectively wild. Hello and welcome to episode 2275 of Effectively Wild Baseball Podcast from FanGraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I'm Ben Lindberg of The Ringer joined by Meg Raleigh of FanGraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I'm Ben Lindbergh of The Ringer, joined by Meg Rowley of FanGraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello. I meant to ask you last time to share your Ichiro memories. We didn't really get to talk about that in depth. We devoted the entire episode to the Hall of Fame.

We talked a bit about Ichiro, but didn't really get a personal reflection from you. And it's meaningful when a star from your formative years as a fan or your impressionable years as a fan or your peak years as a fan gets the nod. So how do you feel about Ichiro getting in? And what do you remember about Ichiro coming over

and becoming the star in MLB that he was. I love Ichiro. Controversial take. It was so interesting because, and I'm going to admittedly sort of blur some of these memories in terms of their timing, but I strongly recall his rookie year. I don't know if people know this, but like 2001 was sort of a good year to be a Mariners fan. Except for the very end of it. CB I remember that part very well, I was going to say. LS I don't. Locked it out. It doesn't exist. What are you talking about? What are you even talking about? Okay? What do you mean? CB My primary ITRO memory from 2001 is my team beating yours probably, but soon suffering

its own extremely painful for me downfall. Yeah, things are really rough for the Yankees fans among us. No, but I mentioned that because it's hard to sort of disentangle him from that year. I think I've maybe mentioned this on the show before. I don't have, I think I've maybe mentioned this on the show before, I don't have any memories of the Mariners losing in the regular season. Part of that is they didn't do very often, right? But like, I don't have like a signature loss in mind from that 116 win team. So much of it was like how obviously special Ichiro was and how distinct he felt from some of the other great Mariners position players who we had seen previously, right? Guys where you like associate them with power and with sort of an offensive profile that's

driven by, not driven by that, like that doesn't give credit to like how good an overall hitter Griffey was or Edgar was or how big an on-base threat those guys were. So I don't mean to say that they weren't, but like, you know, Ichiro was like, was like batting average and on base and stolen bases, right? He was like this little guy and he had the and stolen bases, right? He was like this little guy and he had the really cool batting stance that like every kid in Seattle was doing, you know, like getting ready to go as a little leaguer in Seattle at that time was to like extend your arm and pull back the sleeve and do the thing, right? That first year was just so magical. And there had been all of this like consternation in the broader baseball media. And, you know,

this filter down to some of the Seattle specific media too about like, well, what's it going to really look like when he comes over and like, how is it going to translate? And, you know, is he going to be able to make his mark on the league? And then it was just like, yeah, you know, turns out the answer to that question is a resounding yes. And so it was just this really special thing. And I think that it started to foster this feeling of connection between baseball in Seattle and baseball in Japan. And, you know, Seattle is a

city that has a very large Japanese American population. And so I think that it felt particularly special for that reason. Like there was a connection to a community there that I think was something special and that the team worked to foster, right? Like you can still get, I don't know if you can still get them. I don't want to say you can't because that, you know, but like you could get Mariners pocket schedules in English, Spanish, and Japanese. And it was just like this really cool thing. And I have a really strong memory actually of my, my little brother. I'm 12 years older than my half brother. And so he was just like a little guy, you know, in the early 2000s when he got old enough to like talk and stuff.

And we would go to games, you'd ask him like, cool, who are you going to see today? And he'd go, Ichiro! And it was the cutest thing there's ever been. He was so obviously skilled. He had this personality that he would reveal when it suited him. Everyone is familiar with his funny interviews and the rat f***er thing and like, you know, like it's just, um, sorry, big swear, leave it in. Um, and so he was just like a very, he was a very special player. And then, you know, sort of famously, uh, it was all downhill after 2001, although, you know, in the early years of sort of the Mariners wandering in the wilderness as it came to the postseason, like it wasn't clear right away that that was going to be the case, right?

Like it wasn't obvious that they were just going to be this like historically inept franchise from a winning perspective and from a postseason perspective. You know, the Mariners in 2002 and 2003 won 93 games. They were a good team. They were a competent team. They were a second and third place team, but they were a competent team. But then once it started to dawn on everyone that things were going to be bad for a while. Well, you know, at least you had Ichiro. His offensive performance was sort of vacillate a little bit, but he

was a good player. The Mariners in 2004, the year that I graduated from high school, only won 63 games, but Ich I put up a seven-win season, you know? And like, I wasn't thinking about baseball in those terms at that time. I wasn't like, oh yeah, each year I was war, you know, and I'm putting my glasses up. But like, he was so good. And so I think that like he was sort of, he felt immediately special, immediately transcendent, like the next great Mariners player. And then for many of his seasons after that was sort of a bomb when the team was bad.

And that was a really special thing for him to sort of foster too. And then, you know, like it tailed off and he went to New York and I will say like the, the, when, when Ichiro was treated to the Yankees, I was living in New York still. And I loved Ichiro, right? Like, oh my God, Ichiro, he was not good for the Yankees. Like, at least as a hitter, like he had, you know, his first full season in New York, he had a 72 WRC plus, and I will admit to being satisfied by that, you know? I will admit to being like, well, he ended up being comforting in a reverse way,

in a way that like isn't very flattering to me as a person, because there's this feeling of like, there've been stretches where to be a Mariners fan is to feel like you are like a kind of a farm team to other better franchises. And I remember, like I remember a coworker, I think I've told this story on the pod before, who was like convinced that the Yankees were going to trade for Felix. And then they didn't. And I felt great satisfaction. And so there was something like weirdly comforting about being witnessed to it, like not working out the way that Yankees fans wanted it to. So sorry, Yichiro, that's a little bit of petty business on my part, but yeah, he was just like, so cool and so different from the guys who had been big, important offensive players for Seattle before. And it felt very special and it was definitely a source of comfort at times when the team

overall was like not performing particularly well. Yeah, he's just like the coolest guy and also cool in a way that felt very particular to him. You know, it's like he was continuing a tradition of being like a really cool Mariners guy, but he was cool in a different way than Griffey, although he and Griffey had this special thing, right? So like, you know, that came later, obviously, but, you know, he and Griffey had this special thing, right? So like, you know, that came later, obviously, but you know, he and Griffey had this special thing. And now he's like, just always around. It's very, he's just like around the Mariners all the time. And like he and Julio have a relationship.

And so he has ended up being this like really important connective tissue through different iterations of Seattle. And even when he has gone away, he has like come back and it has, you know, it has provided some continuity in a way that is really cool too. So I don't know, he's just like a cool, weird guy and he's, you know, he tells you as much about himself as he wants you to know. And there's something very cool about people who remain mysterious. I don't know. It was just like this great privilege. I think I said this when we were talking to Jay, maybe between you and I during the intro, but it's like the Mariners are not an important

franchise in baseball's history, right? Like I feel okay saying that. I think they, you know, like they're young relative to a lot of others, although comfortably into their middle age compared to some. And they have not had a lot of success. They have not been important players on the, on the postseason stage, although they have a couple of obviously notable memories, just ask them. They have not appeared in a World Series, let alone won one, but they have been home to players who in our lifetime, I think have been important to the sport beyond, you know,

this little city tucked into the, you know, upper left corner of the country. Yeah. Just the coolest string of stars during that era when you were coming of age as a baseball fan. I know John Boyce made a documentary about this. It's the dichotomy of the Mariners have had all of these really excellent players and have not had the success as a franchise that one would forecast for a team that has had those stars. But still, to have been a fan when you were a fan of the Mariners, and you were a little young, obviously, when Griffey first came along, but still he was there. Yeah. And Edgar and A-Rod and Idro and everyone else, Jamie Moyer, just like all of the cool players.

A stretch of Randy Johnson. Randy Johnson, yeah. Just some of the most watchable, coolest, most distinctive characters that baseball has had in living memory. And you got to watch them all at least for a while and that's something. You can't discount that. Yes, you would certainly like to have won a pennant and ideally a title at some point, But I'm not going to say it's, it's better than like a boring team that wins a title, but it is compelling in its own really valuable way to have seen that sort of star power and those unique talents, even if it didn't quite culminate in what you want it to culminate in.

even if it didn't quite culminate in what you want it to culminate in. You know, it makes the case for the hyperlocality of baseball, right? Because we have not experienced like the great franchise defining success. It has largely been a time where I think a lot of people in the Northwest, it's a source of a lot of frustration, like the futility of the franchise feels so profound at times. But also, you know, it has been really special in a lot of really meaningful ways. You know, we have our guys and they're not, even though it's about like this, this thing that feels so local, it also isn't, you know, cause you know who Ichiro is and he's going to wear a Mariners cap in the hall of fame. Like, you know, we got him.

I remember of course, Ichiro mania and Ichiro being the sensation that he was. What I don't really remember is the doubt, the skepticism about Etro before he came over, which was pretty pervasive. Yeah. And I just either I wasn't that conscious of it because I wasn't a Mariners fan and maybe I was more parochial, more myopic in my paying attention to baseball. I was a Yankees fan at that point and perhaps I wasn't fully conscious of the conversation about Etro or maybe I was and I've forgotten, but it was very present.

And there's been some reminiscing about that in recent days. And you look back and it seems silly in retrospect, this guy who is in his physical prime, who batted 387 in 2000. Why would he not be good in the big leagues? But I get it. I understand just because we had not seen an NPP position player, we hadn't seen a hitter come over. And so there's always going to be a little bit of skepticism about the

first guy to do it and because he was such a throwback, he was just a dead ball era player transported to the steroid era and I do understand, you know, you look at the slight frame and you say, oh, that worked there. It's not going to work here. He's going to get the bat knocked out of his hands or something. It's hard to forecast, at least if you haven't scouted in him in person, if you're just a fan who's heard about, oh, there's this Japanese player who's coming over and he hit for high batting averages over there, you might say to yourself,

yeah, but that's not going to work so well over here. He's, he's going to have to hit for some power. And of course I'll the etro lore about how he could have hit for power. If you want to do it, the legendary batting practices. I know I've written about it. I'm intrigued by it too. I saw those BP's with my own human eyes. He could have done it.

There is a difference between batting practice power and in game power. But look, I'd love to have that hypothetical answered too, but I think he'd be hard pressed to have been more valuable than he actually was, the type of player he was. And also, why should we wish for him to be more like everyone else? Because the great thing about Yichou is that he was unlike everyone else. So he was just this player out of time. And so I certainly see why people might have thought this won't work here. This won't work nearly as well. And then it very quickly became clear that actually it would work quite well. And that I get, I didn't get really so much when Shohei Otani came over more than

15 years later and people were questioning whether that would work. Cause he wasn't even like a different type of player. He's this giant, this strapping guy who hits hard and throws hard and does everything hard. And in my mind, like he had the performance track record and he also had all the tools and the physical traits. So, and that was after many other Japanese hitters had come over and had success.

So that I don't think was even really that defensible at the time, but when Ito came over, I do kind of get it. And he very, very quickly laid those doubts to rest. And I think we got a better sense of who he was and his personality as time went on. Maybe again, maybe Mariners fans had a better sense of this early on, but he's kind of morphed into Ricky Henderson in a sense almost in like just what kind of character he was, how many stories there are about him and also just the way that he never wanted to stop playing and he's still just constantly

around the game and everything. Early on, he was just this figure of mystery and he still is to some extent, as you said, like he can be private, but also like he gives us these glimpses of his personality and clearly he's like a hilarious guy. And you hear from all other players about they have their Ichiro stories and their Ichiro encounters. And I don't know whether that was like right out of the gate, whether that was clear. I don't think it was at a national level at least. And maybe he opened up over time. Maybe it just took some time for those anecdotes to circulate or for him to be covered in just like he's a human being and not some sort of, you know, exotic import or something, which was probably how a lot of people portrayed

him at the time. But we got to know him as a person to the extent that he allowed us to. And that only enhanced his charm. Like that's a big part of why everyone loves Etro is not just because he was such a singular player, but because she's such a cool cat and such a nice sense of humor. Yeah. I think, you know, unpacking why people reacted to him as a player and as a person, it's like a mix of things. I mean, I think you're right that there is like a benign good faith. Like, hey, we just haven't really seen this profile work in the modern game. Recently, we don't know how it'll translate because we haven't had the opportunity to scout him in person. I do think that like, especially when you read some of the coverage from the time, like

there were a fair number of people who did not cover themselves in glory with the way we talked about Ichiro and you know, sometimes you have to untangle like the assessment from like the way that it's phrased and it's like, you know, there, there was a lot of like talking about a human being, like he was a rug or a tea set kind of stuff. Um, that was pretty gross. And so like that definitely was there. You can tell that it was a shifting time in terms of the way that we talked about athletes. Let's put it that way. That's maybe a forgiving or gracious way to describe it. But yeah, like he was really in control of how much he wanted to let you know and how much he wanted to reveal and sort of the time, you know, he sort of took his time with it. My sense of it, and I say this not having had the opportunity to chat with him about it, was that like that he kind of wanted the US media to earn it a little bit. I think that he was mysterious, but he also didn't seem out of

remove to fans. That was the other thing where it was like he seemed present and game and would sign autographs and all this stuff, you know, it wasn't that he was indifferent to or, or sort of trying to distance himself from the fan base. I think that he was just like very controlled in, in who he talked to and how he talked to them. And you know, whether he was willing to do some of that media in English versus have an interpreter, you know, there was an interpreter. There was a getting to know process and I can appreciate why there might have been hesitance on his part for any number of reasons, not the least of which was that, again, some of that Earthly coverage

was like, Jesus Christ, it wasn't that long ago, you guys, come on. But I really think that he is such an important ambassador for the game, not merely between sort of Japanese fans and Major League Baseball or Japanese American fans and baseball here, but he's just like a really important global ambassador for baseball to a lot of different communities and constituencies. And I think that it's just a really special, it's a really special thing. It's a really cool, special thing, man. Yep.

We love Etro, everyone does. Congrats to him. So talking about to global ambassadors for baseball and Shohei Otani, there was some Ipe Mizuhara news. Yeah. There is some release of information and sound clips and the Justice Department put out this clip of him posing as Shohei Otani talking to the bank and trying to get the

green light on a wire transfer for $200,000. And the call isn't really all that interesting. It's kind of what you would expect. He says he's Shohei Otani. He says that the 200,000 is for a car loan, which that's gotta be a pretty pricey car. Didn't seem to raise any eyebrows for the bank that he asked for that much money for a car loan. But I assume this was just some special hotline for high rollers or something. This is probably not like when one of us calls the bank, This is probably for high dollar accounts or something. Maybe you, you get directed to some special VIP line or something where they don't bat an eye when you ask for a $200,000 car loan. But he said, uh, possibly when he was asked whether there would

be any future wires to his friend. He was claiming that this was just to a friend. He released also a letter, his plea for mercy, for clemency in sentencing, which is coming up soon. He talked in this letter about how overworked he was as Shohei Otani's do everything personal assistant and gopher, et cetera. The full text of this letter to the judge came out and he goes on and on at some length about the work that he was doing for Otani and he says, I understand that I've made a decision that will impact my entire life and I'm not making excuses for what I have done. I'm not trying to justify my actions in any way. I'm asking that you will look at me as a man and believe change can happen, et cetera." He is kind of trying to justify his actions on some level or

making some sort of excuse or trying to put in context why he did what he did in addition to just having a gambling problem. The way that he frames it is he got into this plight because Otani was working him so hard that he had no time. He couldn't see his family. He had no time off and he couldn't even make ends meet like he was having trouble making rent. And he talks about how his wife had issues with visas and she would have to stay in Japan and then he'd have to fly her back and forth and visit her and maintain multiple apartments and everything. But also he was ultimately making quarter of a million, half a million bucks, what most people would consider pretty lucrative

salaries. And I fully believe that he was working hard. I don't think he's the most credible source, obviously, at this point. So kind of have to take with a grain of salt whatever he's saying about what his duties for Otani were. But the way his job was portrayed was that he was kind of doing everything for Otani were, but the way his job was portrayed was that he was kind of doing everything for Otani. Like he wasn't just his interpreter, obviously.

He was his confidant. He was his driver, his chauffeur. He was like arranging his meals. He was working on his workouts. He was, you know, just like handling endorsements and scheduling stuff for him and everything. Like I'm sure there is an element of truth to that when he says that he was severely underpaid and on call 24 seven and I only saw hope in life while I was gambling. He's kind of like trying to paint Shohei as a bad boss kind of here.

And you know, he's also saying like he's happy for Otani's success and he wants to continue to see him do well, et cetera, but also not portraying him in a very positive light here, making him look like a cheapskate and making it look like he was running Ipe ragged. Now, even if that was true, that doesn't even come close to justifying what Ipe did here. That's not really an excuse. We've all had jobs where we felt like we were underpaid and overworked, and maybe we had a bad boss or something. And most of us didn't then steal many millions of dollars from our employer. So it's not really a justification, but he's trying to explain why he was in this headspace or what drove him to do it, what made him make that connection to the bookie who he claims he didn't realize was an illegal bookie for years and then only had to do this to dig himself

out of the financial hole because he couldn't afford to maintain his lifestyle while working for Otani constantly. I'm sure there's an element of this. Probably he didn't have a ton of time with his family or Otani had to be his top priority and everything. And the best way to handle that probably would have been to have a heart to heart with Shohei and be like, hey, Shohei, I need some help here. It's kind of confusing because also Otani has been portrayed as someone who was fairly generous with him and just like writing a check for 60K for what he thought was dental work for e-pay. And so I don't know how to square that exactly with like the idea that he was not paying

him enough. And I guess partly he was being paid by the team too, at least during the season. So it's kind of a combination of employers. Anyway, the upshot is if you find yourself in a situation like this, where your work is not rewarding or you're underpaid and you're, you're overworked, then you have to either move on. And I get that there was a personal dimension to this relationship, but she says like he had other opportunities and he was just loyal to Shohei and faithful to Shohei. And if you are in a situation like that, ultimately you got to be

loyal and faithful to yourself and your family first probably. And so if that is actually happening, then the best way to handle it would be to talk to your employer and say, I need some help here. You're a wealthy person. You can afford a staff. I shouldn't be doing everything for you. And he's talking about how like he was the point person for agency, for endorsements, for Shohei's mother, who was running some of his business affairs in Japan, and a lot of that is plausible given what we know about how he was able to deceive people for so long.

Like clearly he was maybe the only point of contact and that is maybe on his agency and his money people to some extent, but also probably on Shohei for not being more aware of what could happen here or just entrusting other people with, you know, like if you're in Shohei's position and you have that sort of prominence and those demands on your time and that sort of celebrity and also that sort of income, then you can afford to delegate to more than just one person, even if you have trust issues or you really want to make sure that someone has your best interests in mind, which obviously ultimately wasn't the case with eBay. But some of it was semi-relatable, even though nothing about this is really what any of us has encountered, but some aspects of it are like a lot of jobs.

If you're in that sort of job, there are just healthier ways to respond to that. Just ultimatum time like, hey, I need some help here. You need to hire someone else. There's too much on my plate or you need to move on and go do something else with your life before you get to the point of embezzling a fortune and impersonating someone in an extremely illegal way. So I have some sympathy for people who have gambling addictions, even if they had to take the first plunge and got themselves into that plight. I recognize that to some extent it's kind of out of their control and it's hardwired,

but yeah, you can't get yourself into this spot. There are just way better ways to respond to this than the way that Ipe did. I struggle with it because there's the part of it that is plausible but unknowable to us, right? It is hard with a person who has committed a crime that is a breach of trust to take at his word when he's like, I had the worst boss. It's hard to, but also we should allow for the possibility that like a global celebrity might be demanding, and like that person might transgress normal employer-employee boundaries in

terms of his expectations of time or availability or whatever. That seems completely plausible to me. At the end of the day, this guy is a mega celebrity who has a ton of money and is singularly talented. And he's so baseball focused and obsessed that it seems like he just delegates everything else in his life because he wants this singular focus. Even, I guess, Ipe is like breaking some news in here that Shohei has a prenup. Like he mentioned in this letter that he was arranging the details of like Otani's prenup. And if that's all true, that seems to probably go beyond the bounds of what someone in Ipe's position should have been doing.

Yeah. And so I think that one of the consistent things for me in this entire saga has been what exactly is the deal with the other potentially fiduciary individuals in Otani's life? And I don't say that to let Otani off the hook if he was a bad boss. I just don't know. And so I don't like we, it's really hard for us on the outside to like say, because the only person who's talking about it has literally done embezzlement. Yeah. And when I say bad boss, I don't mean like abusive on a personal level in terms of like berating or throwing things, just in terms of maybe making too many demands.

Making too many demands of demands of eBay's time. And so the only person who we have rendering an account of that is a guy who has done embezzlement. I don't even think that you have to bring the gambling piece into it, right? Like the embezzlement was in service of the gambling, obviously, but like it sounds like eBay has a real problem and he had a gambling addiction. We're not, we want to be careful to not like armchair diagnose this guy because we don't we're not you know, like psychologists and we don't know him and we haven't assessed him but like the the facts point to that as a Potential issue for this guy but even if like

You don't have to cast a moral judgment on that piece of it to be like, but so hey, he did embezzlement though, right? And we have him on the phone doing embezzlement. So we can bring his trustworthiness into question without really having to touch the addiction piece of it. But so again, I'm wondering like, hey, Nez, what's the deal, dude? You know who negotiates prenuptial most of the time? Lawyers, right? You know who deals with endorsement deals? Agents. You know who deals with money? Finance

people. Like, I just feel like there is a huge unaccounted for piece of this entire story, which is, eBay did bad stuff. eBay is not off the hook for that. Maybe Otani was too demanding of Ipe, but like there is a sprawling staff of people who seem like they should have had a finger on the pulse a lot more, who might have looked at this and been like, hey, why is the interpreter involved in the prenup other than to be the guy in the room to make sure that any communication going on between potentially English speaking lawyers and our Japanese speaking client is clear and well articulated. I just don't understand why all of the other professional helpers, some of whom do have a fiduciary responsibility to Otani, some of whom probably

have an attorney client relationship with Otani were like, I don't want to say they were asleep at the switch because it, it does sound like Otani had a preference for eBay to be involved in all of these communications, but it's just weird. Like that piece of it remains very strange and unexplainable to me. I will also offer this. If you are Otani, of course you have a prenup. That is like, people need to not be weird about prenups. Prenups are good idea for people who have the kind

of financial resources that Otani has. It doesn't mean he doesn't love his wife. It doesn't mean that there's suspicion of her or anything like that. This is just like, that is pretty standard operating procedure when you have this much money involved. It is a way for you to not be nasty to each other later

if your marriage doesn't work out. It's just like a good, so nobody, don't be weird about that the way I'm weird about the dog. Okay, I am weird about the dog, but don't be worried about prenup. So that's pretty normal. We found out that the dog was a part of the pitch process to Roki Sasaki, that Dekoi Dekopin was present at the meeting.

And we have also learned that Roki has his own cute dog. Are we ready to talk about Roki dog? Yeah. I have a take and I shared it with you and I'm gonna share. So Roki has this dog. That dog is adorable. I think that dog's a real pet. Okay. going to share. So Roki has this dog. That dog is adorable. I think that dog's a real pet. Okay? I don't have a weird theory about that dog. I think that dog's just a dog.

CB It's very big of you to concede that he actually owns and cares about his dog. KS I'm not saying Otani doesn't care at all. I'm just saying that there is a weird thing going on with that dog. That dog is a- CB I think the only weird thing going on here is this theory, but- No, I am right and I am not alone. I am not alone. Another thing that Ipe and his wife had to do was take care of Decoy sometimes. So again- See? See? See? See? Anyway, I'd like to think that this recording will quiet the conspiracy theorists out there

who still think that eBay is taking the fall for Otani, but it hasn't, at least judging by the Twitter replies that I saw, which think that he was put up to this call. I just don't get it. My understanding is that the feds are looking for eBay to serve at least five years. Is that right? Yep. Okay. Look, people can believe what they want to believe. I believe weird stuff about the dogs. So I'm not saying that like there's not precedent, but you don't do five years in federal prison, even what I imagine will be like a relatively as these things go, not terrible time because

you, this is a nonviolent offense. Uh, you don't do five years in federal prison as a favor. That's not real. This isn't like Goodfellas, like relax everyone. I just, I will say, and I'm trying to, it might've been, it might've been Mark Normanden again. I'm sorry that I'm not recalling where I saw this, this take on Blue Sky, but I thought it was a good one. You listen to the call, you go through this whole thing. I won't say that this is like a criminal mastermind at work, right? And I think that it was Mark who said like part of the initial suspicion in this whole thing, part of why people were perhaps ready to believe that Otani was in fact the one placing the bets, responsible for all of this nonsense, worthy of suspension as a result of that, was that it seemed so

stupid, right? It seemed like the plot of a bad criminal. And I'm not saying that eBay is a stupid person, but like this isn't Lacosa Nostra at work. And so it turns out that that's true. It just was eBay doing it and not Otani. So people are going to ask like, Meg, what's different about Roki's dog than Otani's dog? Because I got to say like MLB posted Roki's dog on Instagram and I was like, well, I guess I'm spending 15 minutes of my life doing this because one, I knew I would be asked and two, I was like, is this another decoy?

I will say this about Roki's dog. First of all, much more photographic evidence of the dog with Roki like from further back and maybe that's unfair, right? Otani is a private person and Otani's dog is young. I don't know how old Roki's dog is but So there's that but like you watch Roki's dog Interacting with footage of Roki you see him sitting there. He's a less perfect dog You know, he's still like a very cute little guy. I'm not knocking this little dude. He's got his little tail wagging back and forth because

he sees his dad on the screen. He's barking and he's like some kind of like little poodle, it seems, like some kind of, but he's not perfectly well-kempt. Like there are times where he's got like little floof off to the side. I just think this is a real pet. A little less manicured, a little less Insta-ready. And maybe I'm being had, maybe Roki's dog. I love that the possibility I'm entertaining is not that Decoy is a real beloved pet, but rather that Roki's dog is... Do we know the name of Roki's dog? I don't know if we do. I don't know if we know what this dog is called,

but I love that the thing I am entertaining is not that Otani has a real loving bond with his dog, but rather that Roki's dog is also a false flag. I understand how that sounds. I want everyone to know, I know how I sound, but I still think I'm right. But I think that this little guy is just like Roky's little guy. And maybe if he is in fact meant to be like a false flag dog, that this is just good planning on Roky's part because he picked a breed that is more believable, even though poodles can be fancy. But there were times when this little guy's got like, you know, there's like a little floof of hair on his ear. Anyway, really cute dog.

I think genuine to Roky in terms of being a pet. I know I sound insane. I don't care. I get to believe this one. This is a harmless conspiracy theory. Everyone gets one, as I've said. You get one benign conspiracy that you are allowed to believe even though you know it's silly and that's fine. You can believe this one and it doesn't make me worry about how you're going to vote. The dog has the same birthday as Sasaki. That's so cute. They can celebrate together. That's so cute. What is, I need to know its name. I keep saying little guy. I don't know if that's- Yeah, he didn't divulge it. He kept it secret too. There's some rumor-mongering out there. I

guess maybe Chibolote had divulged the dog's name at some point, but it's kind of not, not officially out there and Sasaki didn't put it out there. So I guess we'll respect his dog name privacy, but happy to know that he has one and that it's a cutie. Oh, a little guy. Now I'm just watching his little tail go back and forth. Sorry, I'm distracted by the dog. Yeah, I tried that. I've been on MLB network and my wife has put me on the TV to see if my dog would recognize that it was me. And I don't think she did. She does get mad when she sees other dogs

on the TV, but I don't know what she put two and two together when it was me on there. You know, smell matters more to them really. So if they can't smell you, then it's like you're not really there. So few other banter topics. I have just a Congarees, a Gallimafri, a girl dinner of banter topics that I've assembled here that maybe we can run through quickly or quickly by our standards.

So first, have you heard of Slugball? Have you heard of this new variant called Slugball? What is Slugball? It is a four-on-four baseball competition. It was co-founded by Ruben Amaro Jr., former bat boy and GM and broadcaster and many other baseball positions and player. And he has started this baseball variant

that's essentially pitched as pickleball, but baseball, it's kind of that sort of thing. It's just like a more accessible, less strenuous just version of baseball that focuses on situational hitting entirely. That's the whole gimmick here. You get together and it's kind of like you're hanging out with the bros and maybe you have a baseball background and you want to get out there, but you don't want to run or field because you're

getting up there in years perhaps or you haven't been in training. And so the whole gimmick is that you're taking batting practice from someone who's on your team. And there are four rounds and you're just supposed to hit the ball to different places, to the pole side up the middle, opposite field, around the horn, whatever that means in this context. And you're just trying to hit targets. It's basically like just a skills competition, but for only one skill, I guess.

And the idea is it's like old school. It's, you know, we're bringing back contact and back to ball ability and you get out there and there's food and there's drinks. And so it has sort of a softball like beer league vibe. You know, it's sort of a softball like beer league vibe. You know, it's kind of about hanging out as much as the strenuous competition. And a bunch of other people are involved or are investors and Kenny Lofton's an advisor

and you know, like they're trying to set up this whole thing and they're going to various venues like minor league parks this year and they're just trying to make slug ball a thing. And, okay, you know, I'm fine with trying this. I got no problem with it. I don't, it's not super compelling to me, but I do like just hitting the ball and, uh, trying to make contact is it's kind of fun. So I guess I'd enjoy it in a low grade way. But what confuses me is the name slug ball. Now that's, that's with two G's S L U G G ball, which again, like to differentiate

it from a slug, the creature, I guess. And also slugger, slugging two G's obviously that sounds like exactly the wrong name for this thing to me. The whole point of this thing is we're bringing back, making contact and bat control and situational hitting. We're not just swinging for the fences. And I've watched some of their promotional materials and that's the way they describe this. And yet they call it slugball, which to me, that sounds like a home run derby. That sounds like you're swinging as hard as you can. You're trying to poke the ball over the fence. This is not slug ball. This is

like, I don't know, like poke ball or this is like try to hit the ball. You got to workshop that now. Yeah. That's not my final suggestion either. I'm just saying slug ball seems like exactly the wrong thing. When I saw slug ball, I assumed something completely different from what this actually is. So I really think they got to go back to the drawing board with the name at least. The concept, fine, give it a shot, but this cannot be called slug ball. Okay.

So you want to be able to hit and you don't want to have to run. It is solely hitting. So I guess it does suggest hitting at least. Can I ask a question? I don't want to be dismissive of anybody's good time, but can you just go to the batting cages? Like why do we need a new thing? Yeah. I guess the advantage this has is there are teams and so there's a social aspect to it.

Oh yeah, you can go to the cages with your bros. Yes. Get your bros. Yep. Get your bros. And here I'm using bro as like actually a kind of gender neutral term to involve the various dudes, which is also to my mind a gender neutral term. Yeah.

This seems to be a male only thing, which I don't really know why it needs to be, but at least in the promotional materials and videos and stuff, it was just dudes. And Amaro has said it's like pitched towards former players. Like, you know, if you played in college or something and you're trying to like, you know, get on the field, but again, in a way where you're less likely to hurt yourself or something and you're trying to like, you know, get on the field, but again, in a way where you're less likely to hurt yourself or something. That's the idea, but it seems like it should be open to anyone. I guess it could be if it's a success. I think it's also like kind of a top golf copycat where it's sort of, it's like going to the driving range basically. And also you get food and it's like catered kind of, and it's just a social outing.

I just continue to think it's just a really bad name. Aside from the fact that it conveys that it's hitting focused and it's solely hitting, it just seems like should be like contact ball. I don't know. It's just, it's just not, not about slugging at all. Slug ball, slug ball. Also like slug ball. I know.

Good mouth feel, you know? Slug ball. It makes me think of something slimy. Yeah. Because it's not slugging. It's not slugger. It's slug ball. And there are two G's.

Yeah. I just think it needs some work when it comes to the branding and marketing, but slug ball, slug ball, slug ball. Just very on brand for Amaro, I think to be old school and to say like, it's not a home run Derby, it's we're bringing it back to say like, it's not a home run Derby. We're bringing it back to bat control. But again, slug ball, that just makes me think of the opposite of what it is. So that's my note on slug ball, but now you know that slug ball exists and I hope they have fun. Next up on my little list here, this we could have probably led with, but there was a somewhat notable signing. Jerks and Profar has signed a contract with Atlanta and it's a three year,

$42 million deal, which is really good for that guy. I guess it's slightly below the estimates. It's very slightly below MLB trade rumors estimate, which means that I, who took the under on Profar in the draft, I'm back in the black now, at least like I'm not in negative territory anymore. I'm still well behind you and I'm not going to catch up, but at least, at least I'm not in the red anymore. At least I'm in the right direction. But this is a pretty incredible glow up for him salary wise, given where he was a year ago, where he had to wait until February to sign

and then signed a one year, $1 million deal. Someone asked in the Discord group, like, is there precedent for someone either, I guess in raw dollars there would be, but like percentage increase from one free agent contract to the next going from, and in just one year even to go from 1 million to 42 million. Yeah, Padre's got a great return on investment last year and Profar, it is nice to see someone like that make good. He seems to be an enjoyable player and person, but beyond that, just to see someone who was so far removed from being the top prospect in baseball and who had been an established big leaguer and had stuck around, but had never been a star and had kind of had like on years and off years, but none of the on years was remotely close

to what he did last year. And I definitely didn't see that breakout. Yes, it was a breakout coming and I hope he sustains it. And that's one of the more intriguing questions, like can he? And it seemed like the underlying numbers and everything like pretty real. It was not a fluke. We debated whether a fluke success is actually a breakout. This was not that. The underlying numbers, like he hit the ball harder than he ever had before. He didn't really luck out when it comes to the expected stats. They were right on the money. Right on the money.

Yeah, he declined, tailed off a bit as the season went on, but he definitely didn't crater or collapse. And a lot of that was just a babbip decline. So the underlying numbers, they really were there, which doesn't mean he can keep that up, but at least doesn't make you think it was a mirage. You know, he definitely ran a full season babbip

that was ahead of what he had managed in prior years, although not like to such an absurd degree, he had like a 302 babbip, you know. Plus if he's hitting the ball harder, you'd probably expect the babbip to be higher. Exactly, so you know, there was an explanation explanation for that bad bit increase that didn't just feel like it was like fluky C&I singles or anything like that. I would not use the word breakout to describe Pro-Far season, but we don't have to relitigate that. It just wouldn't be the

first one I would grab. It's not the first word off the bookshelf, but, um, I, I still love profile splits in 2023 so much. And I understand, I understand that like he played 111 games with the Rockies and just 14 with the Padres. And so that is like doing a lot of the work here, but it is just funny. It's funny to have a 74 WRC plus while you're playing half your games in course and then have a 119 somewhere else.

That's funny, that's funny. Even if it is only like 49 Play to Princess. Don't look at that part. That's not the point, that's not the point, Ben. It's just funny. So anyway, yeah, I don't know that he's gonna sustain a 139 WRC plus, but he doesn't need to do that to be a useful addition for Atlanta.

They have enough question marks from a health perspective. We talked about this during the Minor League for Agents draft. It motivated some of my choices in that draft. Do I think that he is a useful supplement for them in the event that, you know, once Acuna comes back, he gets hurt again. Harris has been dinged up at point. Kellnick like really tailed off last year. So he just seems like a really good roster fit for them to give them, you know, competent

depth. He's gonna, I imagine, be in the lineup every day, at least to start the year. And I really like it. I think that it is a really useful, good complimentary signing for them. And that he's getting $42 million. I don't want to downplay what the impact is for him or how much they're committed to him. They're not bringing him in solely to be like depth, but he is just, I think a really nice complimentary piece to that Atlanta team. And so yeah, I like it a lot. I think it's a good fit. I, I do feel bad. I went on a Royals podcast and was like pro over would be a great fit for Kansas city. And that remains true, but that's not going

to happen. So sorry guys. Yeah. When we did that exercise where we looked at the weakest projected positions on contenders, we noted that left field was a weak one for Atlanta. Right. Also I think said that shortstop was too, and it still is because I was saying that I hope that Hassan Kim and Profar get to stay together because they became besties when they were in San Diego. And there's still an opportunity for that to happen because Orlando Arcia, he was kind of

the weak point for Atlanta last year. He was the strong point in the sense that he was actually healthy, whereas so many other craves weren't. Right, yeah, I was going to say he played 157 games, so he was useful in that regard, but he had a 72 WRC plus. Where they could improve. So if they wanted to bring in Kim, there's still potential for that. We just, we haven't talked about Atlanta hardly at all this off season because they've barely done anything. And that is partly, I think, because they're trying to get under the competitive bounce tax threshold and reset after some years being over it.

And partly because they're just banking on better health, which is reasonable. Obviously they have extended like most of their position players. So they only had so many positions where they could upgrade. Now they've lost starts in the rotation. Obviously they've had departures there and there's work that could be done or could have been done there. They don't have a whole lot of leeway right now. I think they're five, six million under the tax threshold right now. And that's before you factor in any

deadline additions. So there's not much breathing room if they actually are committed to staying under there. And right now, based on just projected war, they're second only to the Dodgers, which might surprise some people just given that they were what an 89 win team last year and they haven't done anything this winter until now really, but that is because just they had just really vast losses. It was terrible. Yeah. The fact that they made the playoffs at all, even though it took until the last day for

that to happen, that was quite an accomplishment given how many wins were off the board. And yeah, they still have some weaknesses and Acuna won't be back for opening day, but yeah, Acuna, they still don't have great depth. And so if they have the same sort of injury issues that they had last year, it'll still be tough for them to weather, but Profar does give them someone who could be a backup them to weather. But Profar does give them someone who could be a backup at multiple positions. He hasn't played a whole lot of infield lately and he's not much of a left fielder, but he can at least play those positions semi-competently in a pinch. And that

really helps, I think. And then you get Strider back mid-season and that's hopefully a big boost for them. So if they get all those guys and they have healthy Strider and healthy Acuna who are back toward the peak of their powers, then yeah, they're absolutely still going to be a powerhouse and maybe we're sleeping on them because they haven't been busy. But I think Pro-Far is a really good move for them. There are still areas like, I am flummoxed by Sean Murphy. I just don't know what to make of Sean Murphy and the way that his hitting has collapsed really for the past season and a half. I just, I don't know what to make of that.

I don't know if it's injury related. He's not old. Did he change something mechanically because of injuries? It's just not since the first half of 2023 has he hit really, but it's just a really solid team. I don't know that you can bank on getting as much out of sale as you did last year. And, you know, I, I like Schwellenbach and Reynaldo Lopez again, is another guy who exceeded expectations last year.

So there are some question marks there. You know, you never know what you're going to get if anything out of Ian Anderson, Spencer Strider, you hope he'll be back and be at full strength, but you can never completely take that for granted with someone coming back from surgery. So yeah, there's some issues potentially there. And then like Joe Jimenez is out and got hurt. And so, yeah, it can't be as bad as it was last year,

injury wise, and they managed to make the playoffs anyway. So I think they'll be fine, but they were, they were an absolute juggernaut prior to all the issues they ran into last year and they could be that again. Yeah. And like with Strider, you know, I think Anthopolis has said that he is not going to be available come opening day, but it sounds like his rehab is going well,

like he's throwing, you know, he's had a couple of bullpen sessions. They're not gonna rush him because he's just so important to the organization. So they won't rush him back. But like he had the internal brace instead of the full T-jack. So weird. So, you know, who knows?

I say all of that to note just that like it might not take all the way till mid season for him to return. I'm sure they won't rush him, but he, you know, I'm sure they want him to be pitching. So they'll have to balance those somewhat competing desires. But yeah, like it would, I hesitate to even say because like, I don't, if the comet hits, I don't want to be held responsible, but it would be hard for their injury luck to be worse than it was last year. It was just so catastrophic.

I mean, the only, the only thing you can say about it that's positive is that Strider getting hurt as early as he did is going to facilitate him pitching for much more of the season than he might otherwise have been able to, right? In some way, he's not going to have a full and normal season, but he will have something much more closely approximating that because he went down in early April. So that's basically the only positive note that you can strike. But yeah, if they have better injury luck, even if they see some regression from Profer, which it seems likely that they will, you can imagine that he's still going to be a good and productive hitter for them if they get something like a normal year out of Sean Murphy. I don't know. Regression can work in

both directions to your point. It might come for Chris Sale and it might come for Ronaldo Lopez, but I really like Spencer Schwalembach. So I took Spencer Schwalembach in my sim league round one, baby. It's not a good draft. It's fine. I picked in the middle of the round. It was like, eh, what am I going to do? And then I was like, there's Schwalembach. I'm going to, I'm going to call him Schwelly. Is that bad? I don't know. Sound off in the comments. Also, Evandrelic reported on the procedure for recording player heights. So this spring you're going to get the challenge system and ABS will be in operation in the cactus league and the grapefruit league and thus players must

be measured and they must be measured rigorously and there will be no more height inflation. Even if you wanted to, even if you cared more about your listed height than your strike zone, if you were so vain that you wanted to appear tall, even if it meant that you had to cover a greater area, which would negatively impact your career, you still can't do it. Because here's the process that's in place. I'm quoting from Evan at the Athletic here. All players in Major League Camp have to have their height

measured by mid February, so the zone will work properly. And MLB has brought on a third party company to try to ensure players don't game the system. Two methods will be used to ensure accurate heights are collected. MLB wrote in the presentation to players, which was obtained by the Athletic, a team of independent strength and conditioning personnel will perform manual measurements using

standard protocols and equipment. Representatives of the Southwest Research Institute will use biomechanical analysis to confirm the manual measurements and safeguard against potential manipulation. Even if you thought, you know, they're going to be paying off the, you know, someone will pay the strength and conditioning personnel to fudge their dimensions or something, or I don't know, they'll be stretching out or bending over or slouching or something, who knows? In theory, this biomechanical analysis will just measure you from afar and you just won't be able to fake it or so it says. So, okay. If we assume that the system can't be beaten, I just wonder just what changes we're going to see. I feel like we should almost have like a pool or a draft or something of players who are going to get shorter. Thank you for reminding me to bug Apple and to take a snapshot of our database.

Yes, please. Right this minute. Yes, I want, because Eric, Eric Langenhagen did this with the minor leaguers. Yes. He, he showed the changes in heights when, when this happened with the minor league players, because they've been testing ABS in the minors, obviously. And so I feel like we need to, like, I don't know, listener submissions, like we need to put together an all exaggerated height team.

And I'm not a height shaming or short shaming here, you know? No, we love our short kings. Yes. And, you know, for most players, when we say short by big league standards, we're not saying short by average male standards, though in some cases. Though in some cases. Yeah. So look. Though in some cases, Ben.

We know that the first round draftees are going to be Alex Bregman. Yeah. Who, wherever he signs, it sounds like he's got a lot of offers out there. He has a lot of suitors and whoever signs Alex Bregman will not be getting a six foot tall player. No. Not even in spikes. He will lose a few inches in translation here. He'll sign as a six footer and then he'll debut as, I don't know what, but not a six

footer. Five-ten. Okay. Maybe. I put five-ten on him. Look, I'm not giving anybody the business. You're as tall as you are. That's just, you know, that's just your height. It's, it's a simple fact about you. It is not meant to be freighted with moral judgment. It is, if you are fibbing about your height,

if you're giving yourself a little boosty, you are a part of a proud tradition of men Boosty, you are a part of a proud tradition of men dating back to women noticing how tall you are. This is very normal stuff. I understand the social pressure around it. We ascribe all kinds of stuff to it that is completely unhinged. And so I understand the pressure. And for athletes in particular, I understand why you would want to stand up straight and give yourself a little boost. Yes.

I get it. Also. But also, we can see you, sir. Wait, sometimes you share an infield with Jose Altuve. I'm just saying like you share a whole infield with him and I can see you. You are not as tall as you say you are. You're just not. Yes. That's the thing. You can list yourself on the apps as whatever you want and maybe it helps

you get the first date, but then you have to show up at the date. Then you have to show up at the date. Unless you're doing a George Seinfeld where you're wearing Timberlands on your first date and forever, and you can never take them off, or you're doing some sort of Ron DeSantis style, tailored, lifted heel of some sort, whatever it is, like if you're a baseball player, now you get to wear cleats. I guess that gives you a little bit of a, but everyone gets cleats. And so it's all relative. And also you have to stand next to Ken Rosenthal at some point.

And if you're Jose Altube and you're essentially the same size, then maybe you're not actually five, six. So, you know, Altube, will he be a second baseman? Will he be a left fielder when they bring Bregman back potentially? I don't know, but will he be five, six next season? I have my doubts. So- Is that, is that a- It's a rumor.

It's a rumor out there that they have not put their offer to Bregman. Now I wanna see that. Yeah, now I kinda wanna see that. But look, we know about Bregman. We know about Altuve. Who else? Travis Darnoe came up recently, I think, listed at 6-2. And I don't know, but look, let's take, let's take submissions here because you all watch your own teams and you have your eye on particular players.

And so, you, you know, like like who's the guy on your team's roster that maybe is adding an inch or two. And maybe we can compile a list of these potentially too tall listed heights and we'll check that. We'll see, we'll take a snapshot of all the data prior to these tests. And then when we get the new feed from MLB, presumably, when everything is measured and recorded and we'll be able to assess how well the Effectively Wild audience did when it came to pegging people at their actual height.

So podcast at fanagraphs.com, submit your choice for secret shorter than listed kings. It was interesting with when Eric did his study of the minor leaguers and you know, like you will link to that piece or a bunch of appropriate caveats that he put on it. You know, you appreciate why there is going to be upward high pressure for prospects on both the prospect side and the team side, right? Because if you're a prospect and you're trying to compete and advance and make the majors, like you probably rightly know that there is or assume that there is going to be a positive bias toward taller players, even at positions where historically players have been

shorter relative to some of their other defensive counterparts, right? And if you're a team, you have incentive to fudge the numbers a little bit because height is often a variable that is going into team models and might impact how a player is perceived and his potential desirability as a trade target, et cetera. So you get it. And you get why big leaguers would do it. But I just want to say we're going to know about it and it's going to be what we don't. We're not trying to be mean about it.

I defended our right to be a little bit mean the other day, but that's not the spirit of this exercise. In Bregman's case, it is going to be funny and funniest because again, he has for the last several years shared an infield with Jose Altube, who is his own unit of measure for many people. It's funny. I wonder how players will react to it because Altuve is a great example, part of why people love Altuve, and I understand there are people who don't love Altuve for

various reasons, but like the people who love Altuve, part of what they love about him is that he is atypical within the Major League landscape and has had a fabulous career despite being short relative to not only the big league average, but he is shorter of stature compared to like the national US man average, right? And so we love that about him. It's like cool and it's really, it's really beautiful. And it's one of the things we love about baseball that like a bunch of different bodies can succeed at the sport and be really

superlative. But even within that like kind of democratic small D democratic understanding of the different kinds of bodies that can play baseball. Well, he is still something of an outlier and we love that about him. And so I wonder if there will be players who, well, I wonder if there will be players who are well, I wonder if there will be players who are like, no, that's wrong. You know, there are going to be at least a couple of those guys. I wonder if there will be players who do the bashful like, well, okay, I guess the secret's out.

And then I wonder if there will be like a new army of short kings who like try to do that and like lean into that as part of their, you know, identity as players. I'm just, I'm really interested to see, cause it is like, it's both simultaneously very personal because it is like a sort of defining attribute of you, particularly if you're an athlete, but also so obvious. It's just like a thing that we see about you out in the world, right? And then like, we have a sense of it like right away because we just see you as a person. So anyway, I so excited. I cannot wait. This is going to be a highlight of the spring for me. And yeah. CB Yeah. All right. Well, submit your nominees. Yeah. Marcus Strowman is someone who comes to

mind as someone who's really kind of embraced and owned that because he was told he was too short and he couldn't be a pitcher and he would never make it. And so he's sort of used that as motivation. It's been kind of a chip on his shoulder. And yeah, there are others though, who just kind of try to keep it quiet. So let us know who you think they are. All right. I want to just flag a couple of very minor rules changes, which I don't have much to say about, except for the fact that you heard it here first. It came up on Effectively Wild first. We have our finger on the pulse, just little minor tweaks to baseball that could potentially be made. If you want a sneak peek at some

of those things, you got to listen to this podcast because you might hear it first. So just two little changes that the rules committee enacted this week with seemingly no resistance from the players. One involves defensive positioning and the other to a base running scenario. So this relates to the penalty for a shift positioning violation. So if you're over the line as a infield defender, if you go past second base as a shortstop, for instance, the penalty now is slightly steeper. So just reading from MLB trade rumors, the rule change now allows a hitting team to accept an awarded base if a defensive player violates the shift ban and is the first player to feel the batted ball? Teams are required to keep two infielders on either side of the second base bag

Previously if a fielder violated the shift band likely a middle infielder starting on the opposite side of the base The hitting team could either take an automatic ball or accept the result of the play They'll now be able to take the free base Or the play result if they accept the free base or the play result. If they accept the free base, any runners would move up one base, the fielder will be charged with an error, while the hitter will not be credited with an at bat. So I guess this would be another weird way you could have a plate appearance without having an at bat added to the list. But this reminded me of something that we discussed in response to an email on episode 2169, not

that long ago. And we actually discussed a scenario that arose in a Twins Guardians game with Carlos Correa. And I think we came down on the side of the questioner who was suggesting that maybe this was not enough of a penalty, that you might be willing to risk not being called for this because it only happened like two times last season. And maybe that means no one ever stepped over that line or maybe it just wasn't detected or punished.

So you could push the envelope a little bit and hope that you didn't get called for it. And maybe with an automatic ball being the penalty that just wouldn't be enough to dissuade you from testing the limits a little bit. So I think we endorsed, yeah, maybe this, if you're going to have this policy at all, then maybe it should be enforced a bit more than it has been. And now it will be. So again, this won't come into play very often, but if it does, now you know, and you got a little heads up

about maybe that this was something that should be rectified from Effectively Wild. The other one, the base running rule, this pertains to the practice which has become increasingly common though not frequent of a player deliberately overrunning a base other than first to beat out a force play and therefore allow a run to score potentially. So there were only certain scenarios where this really was advantageous.

We talked about this, thanks to Wiki keeper Raymond Chen for looking this up for me, episode 1863 and also 1864, which was prompted by a play by the Cardinals, Nolan Gorman specifically. This was sort of a Cardinals tactic, but it spread and other people have done it. And basically if you overrun the second or third base bag to beat out a force play, because you might be more likely to beat that out than you would be if you slid, then the runner is called out for abandonment, for abandoning the bag. And players, you really only have incentive to do this if you're the trail runner, and there's a runner on third base with two outs, let's say. And you think that if you'd be forced out if you slid, then instead you run through the bag and you'll probably be tagged out shortly

after that. But because you negated the force play, you might allow the runner who was on third base to score before you were retired, before you were tagged out. And thus that run would count. And so maybe, you know, even if you are still out, even if the end is still over, maybe that runner could score, you could buy a little time. And again, specific circumstances that this would happen, but it was starting to happen a little more often. And now that will not work so much anymore. Now the replay official can determine whether the runner from third base touched home plate

before the trail runner officially abandoned the bag, which is defined as having both feet on the ground beyond the base. And if the lead runner has not scored by that point then the run will not count. And there's also an adjustment to replay review. Previously if the umpire had incorrectly called the trail runner out on the initial force play a successful challenge by the hitting team would call the runner safe, even if the runner had gone through the bag. In that scenario, the replay official can now call the runner out by abandonment. So I guess you don't even have to be tagged necessarily. And so you can go to the videotape and basically, if you ran through the bag and you were fully off the bag,

then that counts as you're out at that point, even if you hadn't been tagged. And so it doesn't really buy that much more time for that trail runner or lead runner to score. So it probably makes that not worth trying anymore. And I kind of thought that was a clever, cool little trick, especially when it was new and novel. The only downside really, which we acknowledged, I think in episode 1864 in a follow-up, was potential injury risk,

because if you have the runner running through that bag at full speed instead of sliding, and maybe you have a shortstop or a second baseman there, and they could just get steamrolled. Like, it wouldn't just be a takeout slide, it would be full steam ahead kind of contact. So generally I'd differ in the interests of safety, especially if it's a rare marginal advantage like this. But I do applaud just like looking for any little legal edge. It's a heads up play.

It's kind of a cool thing. And sometimes, I don't know if this is associate, I don't know if we can call this like the Nolan Gorman rule. We did that whole episode where we talked about rule changes that were inspired primarily by one player or one person. I don't know if this is connected to one person enough that we could give it that label, but it is, it's kind of a cool thing, a short-lived, fun, little nifty trick that now won't work as well anymore.

But again, you heard about it here. You heard it here first. Wanted to mention one little Dodgers banter topic. I know, dangerous territory, but different Dodgers. I'm fine. It's everyone else who's a problem. I'm doing great. It is the children who are wrong. This is something that Joshian just wrote about and also someone emailed us about. Now, no one will be sympathetic toward the Dodgers here, but the thing is that they are going- I'm not asking.

I know, I know you're not. I'm just saying there's a conundrum that the Dodgers here, but the thing is that they are going, I know, I know you're not, I'm just saying there's a conundrum that the Dodgers face here because they are fully embracing the six starter rotation. And it makes sense for them to, given the personnel and easing in Sasaki and some of the injuries and the light workloads that other guys have had, but they're really leaning into that. And it's become more common across the league. And it really has gotten to the point where it's like something's got to give, like we're

giving starters more rest, longer breaks between starts, but also they're not going as deep into games. And the same thing is happening with relievers where teams are reluctant to pitch relievers say back to back to back anymore. And also most of them aren't going more than an inning. So it's like, the impulse behind it is good, I guess. Lighter workloads will prevent injuries, but clearly that's not the way that it works. And you give guys longer breaks, they just go more full throttle all out next effort. And then counter-intuitively that seems to lead to just as many injuries, if not more. And meanwhile, we're seeing good players less and we're having to do these AAA carousels and constantly

calling people up and down and optioning people. And you never know who's in a bullpen at any given time. The thing is with the Dodgers, they have this six player rotation and one would expect that like these guys aren't going to be going super deep into games, even though you're using them on this lots of rest schedule. They don't really have track records for the most part of going deep into games and they have had injuries, et cetera. And their bullpen is basically entirely composed of one inning guys. They really don't have long men and also they have very few pitchers with options in that pen. And so it'll be-

I think Vessia is the only guy who has an option remaining. Yes, Vessia is one option remaining and everyone else does not, cause they're all veterans, whether Kirby Yates is part of that group or not, they're almost all over 30, mid thirties, other than Kopec, who reportedly, at least according to Nightingale, is maybe still dealing with some forearm inflammation or something. So other than him, they're all, you know,

veterans established types, except for Vesya, who has the one option, but these are not guys who are gonna give you length. And if these are like one inning at a time relievers and you can't so much do the cycling through them and like constantly demoting them and calling up someone else, then how are you going to get to the 1400 plus innings that this team will have to throw? It's like, it's an interesting math problem. Just like where

did the innings come from unless you either work these relievers harder or you work these starters harder on a game to game basis. And again, they have so much talent that they'll figure it out probably somehow. And I guess they could always just cycle in different starters or something, but it almost feels like a formula for like a tandem piggyback rotation type thing except where do the roster spots come from? Right, where do they come from? Yeah. Now they will get an extra one after April, I guess, when Otani gets reclassified as a

two-way player. He has to throw 20 innings or whatever it is, and then they'll essentially get themselves a free space. So that'll help. But even so, because if you had unlimited roster spots, then you just say, you could have each guy, you could almost go to like what people talk about sometimes where it's just like positionless pitching staffs and everyone throws three innings or something and no one's a starter and no one's a reliever, or you just have a piggyback set up where someone is paired

with Landon Nack and someone is paired with, I don't know, Gonsolin and someone is paired with, you know, whoever their depth, Kershaw, right? And you could kind of have like a second rotations worth of guys who are the backups, but you can't really do that. And also have your late inning, one inning at a time type. So I don't know exactly how that works with the number of roster spots and pitchers you're allowed. I hope it leads to being willing to push starters a little deeper into games,

but all the trends are in the opposite direction. So you'd have to buck some sort of trend if you're going with the six man rotation and this type of bullpen. Yeah. I am sure that there is at least one analyst who is dedicated entirely to this question. Yep. Yep. Yeah. They have enough of those to go around to analysts that is. I think it does point to an area where again, I am not asking anyone to be excited about the Dodgers except for the people who root for the Dodgers. But I think that when the Tanner Scott signing

for sure and the Kirby Aids maybe came down and Clemens wrote about that sort of tandem for us, he noted that like one of the byproducts of this might be that some other team gets to pick up like a good reliever on the cheap because there might just be a point where like, you know, the roster will not hold everyone. And because of how constrained they are from an options perspective, they might just have to let somebody go who they otherwise would like to keep around. So that'll be interesting to monitor. Like, what does that end up looking like for them? How do they, how do they architect this? They won't all be healthy at the same time. And so there will be some, you know, some amount of relief

that is given just by way of the injured list. And I have to imagine that like the other teams in the league might be paying much closer attention to the use of the injured list when it comes to the Dodgers than they would for any other team. Like there will be people who are trying to spot shenanigans, but yeah, they might just end up at some point having to let guys go who they think are good, productive players, but who they just simply cannot roster. Like I said, they would. Like I said, I was like, hey, you know one of the way, I said that. It's not being weird in the emails, Ben. They were rude. We got these suggestions. Yeah, listener Tim wrote in, I think, after they signed Snell.

Tim's email was not rude, to be clear. No, this was after Snell was signed. This was back in November, and Tim suggested, what if you paired these starters? And again, we just talked about why that might make sense in theory if you had unlimited roster spots. But I'll put Tim's email in the emails database if you want to see the full text. And then listener Rich wrote in to

suggest that one way around this might be you actually like put some of your more expensive pictures on waivers sometimes because that's the thing. To call teams bluffs. Yes, exactly. Because usually you just send down a reliever with options and call up a fresh replacement. The Dodgers can't really do that with most of their guys. But what if you just put Tanner Scott on waivers and he has this four year, $72 million deal with the standard deferrals and bonuses and everything.

If no one was willing to pay that now, and I guess we don't know for sure what the other offers for Scott were. But let's say that the Dodgers outbid everyone, which they don't always do. But if they did, then maybe you could just put an expensive player on waivers. And if someone wasn't willing to sign him with those terms over the off season, maybe they wouldn't be willing to pick him up with those terms during the season. That's risky, though, because you might just suddenly lose a Tanner Scott.

Like maybe someone wasn't willing to pay that amount in the off season, but then one of their relievers got hurt or they were unexpected contenders and suddenly they are in the market for upgrades and they weren't over the winter. And now suddenly getting Tanner Scott for the season, maybe you're willing to do that. So, and there'd just be a lot of uncertainty just kind of going through the year, not knowing if you're going to have some of your best late inning relievers available, cause you're just playing this like Russian roulette reliever, you

know, reliever roulette kind of game of where it's like, we'll just dangle these expensive players and if you want them, you can have them. And we're just betting that no one will call essentially and no one will up the ante here. I don't know realistically whether you could do that. But just the fact that people are proposing this speaks to just how hard it is exactly to see the way this works out. I'm sure they'll find a way, but it is an interesting logic question. LS. I will say, and I don't want this to actually happen because Blake's now signed a deal with the understanding that he would be a Dodger, right? I don't know if he has a no trade or

not, but the guys who signed for agent contracts with the Dodgers want to be Dodgers. And so I don't want them to have that choice, like artificially ripped away because they have to do like waiver wire shenanigans. I will say though, it would be kind of satisfying to have it happen like one time and have one of those guys pass through. And then I could be like, see, I was right. You're all jeeps. Meanwhile, I bet the blue jays would be like, okay, great.

Thank you. Let's take that guy. Yes, please. Yeah. Okay. One last bit of banter here. There is a good study that was published by the down on the farm sub stack this week by Maxfield Lane and Owen, who wrote about the fact that teams are too

conservative on the base paths and they don't test things enough. Owen Riley, that is, they don't test the limits enough. They don't send runners often enough because risk aversion, because they're scared that someone will get thrown out and then either that player or the third base coach or whoever will be blamed for that and there will be scorn and condemnation. And so teams play these things too conservatively and they're not the first to write about this. Russell Carlton has certainly written about this and others. There have been a lot of studies that suggest that A, probably runners themselves, even when it comes to taking an extra base or stealing even,

they probably don't do that enough given the break even rates. And especially in this environment in baseball where we have a low batting average. And so you don't really count on guys getting advanced just through stringing a sequence of hits. It's just short sequence offense rules these days. And so in the past, maybe you made a, made a different calculation if you're on third with, uh, or you're on second with one out or something and you're thinking, oh, well there'll be another base hit. And now that's a little less likely, but basically they went through the math and they showed, I think pretty compellingly that teams don't risk it nearly often enough, especially when it comes to say runners trying to score from second base,

they're just too successful. And that's even if you control for the speed of the runners and you look across teams, not enough guys are getting thrown out. And that is probably because of the backlash when someone is thrown out. Now, occasionally there are really bad sends where it's obvious to everyone that there was just no chance, but not quite that, but something closer to that should be happening more often. And so they're saying teams are leaving runs and even wins on the table here because they're being too cautious. So I wonder how you think teams could encourage their third base coaches or their runners to be

more aggressive or to kind of provide cover for them so that when runners inevitably get thrown out and fans piled on and sports radio says this guy's got to go. And there are examples of that, Phil Nevin with the Yankees, like certain third base coaches, they get the reputation and maybe sometimes it's a bad rep or maybe sometimes it's earned for just, you know, bad sense of being too aggressive. And then sometimes they get run out of town. How could teams provide some sort of assurance to these guys to say, no, risk it, go for it. And maybe it's not a coincidence that the Rays have been maybe the most aggressive base running team and they have had a lot of outs on the bases,

but that might actually be the more optimal approach than a lot of teams are taking. The Mariners are kind of at the opposite end of the spectrum here, where they just don't really send guys and they don't get guys thrown out, but they're probably leaving runs on the table. So if you were a manager or a GM or something, like what would you tell your third base coach if you wanted them to, to embrace this edge and not be worried, what reassurance could you offer to say, yeah, go for it, take some risks, live a little YOLO. I mean, don't you just tell them we won't fire you?

Like, yeah, that might help. But I also think that like the third base coach is going to have to exercise judgment regardless of the organizational posture toward base running. But I think that articulating to fans that this is a purposeful shift and saying like, it kind of giving the third base coach the cover of like, well, he's been given a mandate, you know, he's been given a mandate to, to test borderline base running situations. And so there are going to be times where it doesn't work.

And we know that, but we think that we are leaving runs on the field and we want to, we want to win more games. and we think this is an area where we can press our advantage. And so we understand that there are going to be times that you are frustrated, but you should be frustrated with me, the Pogo and not with Phil Nevin or whoever because Phil's just doing what he was told, you know, that he should let it rip. And we think that that is going to be a more successful brand of baseball. And even if there are times where it's not successful, it's at least going to be exciting.

And so if you want to, you know, leave a complaint in the complaint box, you address it to me and not to him. I think that's what you have to do. I don't know if people are gonna be like, one, if that makes enough of a difference, because people like to boo. And so I think they will be boo-birds regardless of how fair the booing is.

They boo umpires in moments when they shouldn't, and I don't care, because it feels good. It's like, ah, lusty, you know? They're lustily booing. They're not lusty toward the umpires, hopefully. I don't know. Lusting, at least. Lusting, right, lusty, lusty booing.

But even if you are relying on the judgment of that base coach, and even if maybe you are doing the thing that that base coach has wanted to do from day one, you need to sell it to your fans as like an organizational directive so that at least you're the one taking the guff in the event that things don't go well. The Mariners should run more because I've realized there are very few things that bring

me greater joy than watching Luke Railey run the bases because he looks, and I mean this with like all possible affection, like a refrigerator who's literally running. But if like a refrigerator was smiling the whole time it was running, he's having a great time. He's not a bad base runner despite being like a big guy and I'm having a great time because he's having a great time. So just let him run more. He's just like, blah, blah, blah. CB Yeah. And especially if you're the Mariners and you can't count on pushing runs across by hitting. KS Every single time we talk about my preferred baseball

scene, there's just an opportunity to go, whack. CB Hey, we talked about how many cool Mariners there have been at the top of this pod. KS That's true. We just started the episode that way. to go whack. CB Hey, we talked about how many cool Mariners there have been at the top of this pod. So there's that. But you're right. It's also more exciting. People want action on the base pass. Now they want action that ends in a positive way for their team, of course.

But more plays at the plate is a compelling pitch, even if some of those plays are outcalls. And this is small ball. This is manufacturing runs. It's like slug ball, except slug ball doesn't even have base run. But people would like this in theory. So yeah, I think now you would be giving away your strategy if you made it very public that,

hey, we think there's a competitive advantage here and we're gonna do our best to embrace it. But probably- People notice when you run, it's not like you're going to be able to keep it a secret. It's sort of like being shorter than your listed height. We're watching. Yes. And probably most front offices are aware that this is a potential edge and they just haven't quite figured out how to harness it yet. You could even, I wonder, because with Statcast, you can come up with really accurate estimates

for what's the success rate here. Not in real time necessarily, but after the fact, you can say, here's how far away that fielder was. Here's what that fielder's arm strength is. Here's where the runner was. And you can come up with a really accurate percentage estimate of if we send this guy, here's what the success rate was estimated to be. You could even put that information out there, I guess, publicly if you wanted to. You could even say your manager's given the post-game press conference. You could say, yeah, our numbers guys looked at that one and said that it was X percent

likely to succeed and therefore it seems like it was justified. I don't know. There are some people who would probably just say nerds and would be even more upset if you tried to like shovel numbers down their throats, but yeah, I think taking a public stance and also in private being very supportive and saying, yeah, just do it. We will not be in fact, we will, we will punish you if you are not aggressive enough, if you don't have, because it's the idea of if you never miss a flight,

then you're getting to the airport too early. Now I know. That's insane. I know. That's insane. Because there's an anxiety that you might just seek to avoid if you're worried about. And the consequence of missing your flight is you have to spend another half day in Cleveland. Yes. Well, that's mean to Clevelanders, but yes.

But that's not, if you're trying to leave Cleveland, because you're not from there, then it's not where you want to be. Visit beautiful downtown Cleveland, you're stuck in the airport. Right, you're at the airport. Yes. Right. Now, if you added up the total time in your life that you have probably spent sitting time in your life that you have probably spent sitting at the gate waiting for your flight, it might be an amount of time that might make you think, hmm, was that the best use? If we're talking about like days or weeks of your life when you cumulatively, then you might say, what this have been, but it's all-

Wait, hold on. I'm going to let you take it back to baseball, but I just have to say, I suppose on some level not wrong, and it totally depends on your personal constitution, but no, that's not time wasted, because you go through security, you go to the gate to confirm that the gate exists, even though it, what is it, gonna have moved? I mean, sometimes it moves, but they tell you that,

they announce it several times. You go to the gate to be like, oh yeah, that's our gate. And then, and then you go like have a beverage, you know? And so don't think about it like being at the airport. Think about it like having a snack or like a nice little tipple and you happen to be at the airport. Okay. That's how you do it. And then you don't, Cleveland's a cool little city. I don't mean to not Cleveland. I liked Cleveland the one time I went there. It was really hard to get there, but it was nice. CB Yeah. Yeah. I watched a real pain, the movie the other day, the Jesse Eisenberg, Kieran Culkin movie. Good movie. It was good. It was fun. And Kieran Culkin, his character,

he just likes to hang out in airports because he meets interesting people there. Now is that character kind of aimless in life and possibly depressed? Yes, but also you have interesting encounters in an airport potentially. But yeah, it might just be worth it to you, just the anxiety of not having to worry, am I going to miss my flight? That might be worth sacrificing some time that you otherwise might've spent at home. Now, I guess you could say for a baseball team, the anxiety of getting thrown out

and the condemnation and all that, that's what we're saying. We're trying to minimize that in some way when it comes to your personal, professional outlook and also just publicly, could you normalize getting thrown out that this is an okay thing? And I think one aspect that might make it more feasible and the down on the farm writers

noted this also is that one big effect that analytics, sabermetrics, whatever you want to call it has had in sports has been a greater tolerance for risk. And that's across the board. On Hang Up and Listen this week, I did an after ball, the end epilogue of the episode about goalie goals in hockey, goalie scoring goals, which I absolutely love. And there have been a few more of them lately than usual, which I believe is because there are more empty nets now.

So in hockey, there are teams that are more likely to pull the goalie. And that happens more often and earlier than it used to because the numbers show that it makes sense to get aggressive. If you're down a couple goals. Well, yeah, if you pull the goalie, you might end up down three or four goals, but you're probably not going to win. You're not going to come back unless you get the man advantage. So it's worth it.

And that means you look silly sometimes because a goalie scores on you, right? But also the rate of comebacks could be slightly higher than it would otherwise be. And that extends across sports. So you look at baseball, it applies to say, not bunting, just swinging away or swinging for the fences because it's worth tolerating some swing and miss

because you're gonna get those dingers. Or in football, obviously two point conversions, going for it on fourth down. In basketball, taking three pointers. Yeah, the success rate on the individual shots is gonna be a little lower, but it makes sense. And in soccer, I guess, playing out from the back, even if there's maybe a turnover, it's kind of across the board.

I love that we're like, and soccer exists. Yet again. So it would be in line with all of these other analytically motivated moves that we've seen, where you just have to accept come around to it too, to an extent. And I think the same thing would eventually happen with getting thrown out. It's just, you know, it's not like you're going to be able to do it. It's just, you know, you're going to have to do it. And I think that's the thing about it.

I think it's a little bit of a, you know, it's a little bit of a, you know, it's a little bit of a, you know, it's a little bit of a, you know, it's a little bit of a, you know, it's a little bit of a, you know, it's a little bit of a, you know, it's a little bit of a teams have embraced that more, fans have kind of come around to it too, to an extent. Yeah. I think the same thing would eventually happen with getting thrown out. It's just, it's a really painful example of that because it stinks when you think you're about to score a run and then not only have you not scored a run, but you have lost an out and maybe the inning is over, it's a big blow to morale, but it does make sense, so I think, yeah, there's room there for teams to try to gain an edge. I also think that like, and look, I don't know if I want teams to think about it to

quite this degree because we've spent the last like 10 years trying to reverse the strikeout trend, but I mean, there is precedent for this, right? Where the trade off between failure and potential success is such that you understand that like, yeah, okay, maybe you're going to strike out more, but you might hit for more power with that swing. And so it's worth it to you on balance and it's worth it to your team for you to take that approach, even though it does result in you, you know, whiffing more than you used to, right?

So like, I think that there's precedent for that within the sport. And if you, you know, maybe what we need is for it to, it to there to be a montage and for there to be stirring music and for Brad Pitt to be going, it's a process, it's a process, it's a process. And then everyone will be like, oh, this is fine. Yes. You just see a collection of clips of guys getting thrown out at home and the egghead, the numbers nerd is fist pumping like Jonah Hill. Good send, even. Good process, bad result. Yeah, at least scintillating. Okay. LS. Yeah, it'll be great. CB. All right. Blakes now, by the way, has limited no trade protection. You had brought that up a moment ago.

LS. Well, and I don't even, you know what, how does it, by the way, has limited no trade protection. You had brought that up a moment ago. You know what? Like how does it interact with the way, but like, you know what I'm trying to say? You know what I'm trying to say? Like put your, put your hypothetical money where your waiver wire mouth is. That's a smouthful. And speaking of Boris clients, I match made Hassan Kim with the Braves. And I know that there aren't many Boris clients on the Braves and

Ken Rosenthal wrote about this last year. It's just like it doesn't really jive with the way Boris does business and the extension centric approach to constructing the roster, et cetera. But hey, I think there's room for one at the end. So lastly, a couple of people wrote in to note that there is a term for the phenomenon that I was highlighting with Jeff Hoffman and his kids with the non-traditional spellings, where you just kind of change a letter, but don't change the sound. The term for this is tragedy, for this is tragedy, but spelled T-R-A-G-E-D-E-I-G-H. So in this case, instead of the Y, it's the E-I-G-H because I guess there was a run of kids being named like Bradley, Aubrey, Emily, with a E-I-G-H at the end instead of a Y. In the Hoffman example, we were talking about inserting a Y

where there wasn't one, but I guess the opposite also happens. There's a very popular subreddit, just the tragedy subreddit, which has more than half a million members and points out examples of this. And the dictionary definition notes, it's an instance of giving someone an extremely bizarre or cringe-worthy name, especially one that is a fanciful re-spelling of a more common name, which is specifically the trend that I was highlighting here. So little did I know that there was a term and that there's a whole community of watchdogs for this naming convention or the opposite of convention. Wow.

That's a man. Choices being made. Yes. Yeah. All right. Meant to mention, by the way, when we talked to Jay last time, that you might have to have changing hall of fame standards when it comes to counting stats and career value across the board, not just for starting pitchers, not just for relievers because of some of the trends that we talked

about today with lighter workloads, but also for position players to some extent. We discussed this not long ago when we were reflecting on the fact that John Carlos Stanton is the active leader in career home runs and Mike Trout is the active leader in career war and their totals are both low by historical standards. Some of that, as we said, just a blip, just a snapshot, but also some other trends. The aging curve changing, players not having the longevity that they did in some earlier eras, load management, even hitters taking more days off, increased competition.

All of these things might slightly depress career totals, including wins above replacement totals. So then the question becomes, how much do you want to era adjust? Should Hall of Fame candidates be compared to their peers alone or also to their predecessors who have established the Cooperstown standards? Compelling questions, and by asking and answering them, we hope to compel you to support Effectively Wild on Patreon, which you can do by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild as have the following five listeners who have already signed up to pledge some monthly or yearly

amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad free and get themselves access to some perks. Link Verlander, Evan Davies, James Cubbon, James David Paul, and Bobby Gravitz, thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, monthly bonus episodes, playoff live streams, prioritized email answers, personalized messages, potential podcast appearances, discounts on merch, and ad-free FanGrafts memberships, and so much more, check out all the offerings at patreon.com slash

Effectively Wild. If you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. If not, you can contact us via email. Send your questions, comments, intro, and outro themes to podcast at fancrafts.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 groups slash Effectively

Wild. You can find the Effectively Wild sub-edit at r slash Effectively Wild. And you can check the show page at Fan Crafts 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. Thanks to you for listening. That will do it for today and for this week. We hope you have a wonderful weekend and we will be back to talk to you next week. about these stats we've compiled cause you're listening to Effectively Wild with Ben Lindberg and Meg Rowley come for the ball, banter's free baseball is a simulation it's all just one big conversation

Effectively Wild