Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2279: Season Preview Series: Blue Jays and Padres

Episode Date: February 5, 2025

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley introduce the 13th annual Effectively Wild season preview series, then banter about the Tigers signing Jack Flaherty to a smaller-than-expected deal, a long-awaited explanation for the gambling-related firing of umpire Pat Hoberg, and the death and legacy of former commissioner Fay Vincent. Then they preview the 2025 Toronto Blue Jays […]

It's the Zombie Runner Bobby Shands, Bobby Shands, Bobby Shands, Effectively Wild! Joey Meneses! No! Walk off three run digger! Stop it! Walk off three run shot! Oh my god! Meg, he's the best player in baseball.

Effectively Wild! Hello and welcome to episode 2279 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from FanGraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Rowley of FanGraphs. Hello Meg. Hello. Well, here we go again. Once more unto the breach, it is season preview series time. 13th annual Effectively Wild season preview series.

And we will be following more or less the same format that we have for the past few years. We're going team by team, two teams per pod. We will have guests who cover those teams on to tell us about them. And we're going loosely in projection order as the projection stood a couple days ago, at least, and they're in flux. Moves will be made. Projections will change between now and opening day. In fact, I think they've changed even since I drew up the schedule because the Tigers signed Jack Flaherty, which we will talk about in just a second. But I think that may have leapfrogged them above the Padres, who were the second team that we're talking about today.

So we're starting with the Toronto Blue Jays. We're gonna talk to Rob Longley at the Toronto Sun, and then the San Diego Padres with AJ Cassafle of mlb.com. And the way that we've done this is, I always make the joke, it's like the Silicon Valley middle out method, except not like that, but like that in the sense that we start with the teams that are projected to be mid essentially. Mid. And then we work to the extremes and we end up with the best projected team and the worst

projected team. And this is just again, relying on preliminary steamer standings and not even factoring in strength of schedule. It's really like projected true talent more than projected standing. So don't read too much into the order of the teams. It is loosely correlated with how good these teams are projected to be, but yeah, don't parse it too fine. And we'll start with the J's and the pods, and then we will work out from there. And this format seems to have worked for people for the most part. And so we will stick with it throughout the adventure of spring training and

trying to arrange interviews with people in press boxes with music playing in the background or recording in their cars and not having wifi. It's always an adventure, but we thank all of our preview guests for making time for us. Yeah. It's always an adventure, but we thank all of our preview guests for making time for us. Yeah. I'm laughing because I love when we spend time doing a long, hey, don't yell at me about something.

Hey, no, this is a great fun time of year. I always feel like I am on much better footing going into the season as a result of being one of the interviewers as part of our preview series. So I hope that other people feel like it's illuminating and elucidating and all of those good words. So here we go. Yeah, it's good prep for us, good prep for our listeners. People always tell us or often tell us that they enjoy this, that it's just a rite of

passage. It's a sign that, hey, baseball's almost back. It's right around the corner. And a lot of people tell us that they find the podcast through the season preview series. Maybe it's promoted by a guest and then they check out this podcast and they listen to us talk normally about baseball and then they have no idea what they're in for most of the rest of the time. So focusing on previews, it's a little more meat and potatoes than we typically are a lot of times over the off season, especially.

And so there's a little less time for tangents and weirdness or longer episodes sometimes when we try to make time for those things, but we will do our best and we will proceed as usual. And we hope you're all happy to have the previews back. So just a few news items that we've got to get to before we start our previews. We have a free agent hiring, we have an umpire firing

and we have sadly a death to discuss of Fay Vincent. So we can start with the signing and that does pertain to Jack Flaherty who is now a Detroit Tiger and given that We do have a Tigers preview segment coming up in the not too distant future I guess we don't need to go too deeply into what this means for Detroit But we can talk about the signing and what it means for Flaherty's market and the terms of this deal and what we expect From him because in the context of the market

for starting pitchers this winter, I think you could say that Flaherty got less than expected, less than projected. So this is a two-year deal, 35 million guaranteed. It's front-loaded, so he gets 25 million in 2025. He can then opt out of the second year of the contract and he will earn at least 10 million in 2026 if he stays, though he could unlock an additional 10 million in incentives if he makes 15 starts this season. So it's one of these kind of complicated structures, but whether you treat

this as a two-year deal with an opt-out or a one-year with a opt out or a one year with a player option, more or less the same thing. But the point is that he got a little less in terms of total dollars than was expected. And in fact, propelled me back to respectability in the free agent contracts over under draft because MLB trade rumors had him at 110 and I took the under. So it's a big gain for me. I'm nowhere close to you. I'm not gonna catch you,

but it just makes me feel a little bit better about the degree to which I will lose the magnitude of my defeat. Anyway, what do you make of the fact that Flaherty, I don't know if we wanna say settled for this deal, but this is the contract that he got. I think that it's a reflection of a couple of things, one sort of near term trend and one longer term trend, which is that Flaherty has been pretty inconsistent since his one

like really standout sterling year, right? And he had that great 2019 season where he was worth like five wins. He had a 275 ERA. And then it's been stretches of good and quite poor production from him. He hasn't always been able to be on the field. I think if you're gonna take anything

like really encouraging from the last two years of him is that he has been able to pitch like a full compliment of starts. And you might look at the top line results that he got in 2024 and be like, wow, it's weird that he didn't get more because he had a 317 ERA and a FIP that wasn't that much higher than that and he was worth three wins. He was on, you know, he was good enough for the World Series winning Dodgers to trade for him at the deadline, right? Game one starter of the World Series winner.

You wouldn't think that there'd be much question, but we are aware of the state of that rotation at the time too. Sure. But like, you know, they gave up two guys who depending on the rankings you're looking at are top 100 prospects to acquire Flaherty at the deadline. So you know, all of that would point to a longer and more lucrative deal, but you know, his performance started to wane as the season went on. Um, and you know, we saw him be very sort of back and forth coming and going in

terms of the quality and consistency of his starts in the postseason. And so I think all of that combined put him in a position where he wasn't likely to get as long of a deal as you might have thought after certainly his very good first half or the fact that he was acquired the way that he was. So I can't say that I'm totally surprised by that, but good on you. I think that if you are Jack Flaherty, you have to be thrilled with how the last year went. Set aside the fact that this contract is sort of underperforming your expectation

relative to what, you know, May or June Jack Flaherty might've thought, but like you put in a year with good top line results, you got traded, you got a ring. If you're the Tigers, you have to be thrilled with the last year of Jack Flaherty, right? Cause you got a great first half performance from him that really did help bolster their results

in that part of the season. They were obviously able to figure it out, but like they missed Flaherty after he was gone. Part of why they had to lean on their bullpen as much as they did particularly in the second half was that his innings weren't there to be thrown. Yeah, Trey, Jack Flaherty, who you clearly like, you get again two guys who are top 100, top 100, a Jace prospects.

You get Trey Sweeney, who was a part of their making the playoffs and then another top 100 prospect. Yeah. And somehow you make the playoffs anyway. You make the playoffs anyway. And you are like, we still like Jack Flaherty and want to be in the Jack Flaherty business. And so you bring him back as a free agent on terms that are fairly favorable to you as a team. Like that seems great. The only part of this

that is like a downside scenario is the fact that Jack Flaherty didn't make as much money as he wanted, which I would imagine he views as a pretty profound downside scenario, but he got a ring. But if you're the Tigers, yeah, then you sign a consensus top 10 free agent, you get him back and you don't even have to commit for that long. So yes, quite a nifty sequence for Detroit. You know, when Dan wrote about this signing for us, like he acknowledged some of the reasons to have concern about Flaherty, but also reasons

to think that he might be good. You know, he, despite the second half, like if you look at say the ratio of his strikeouts to walks, like things were looking pretty good there and half for the last couple of years. He experienced a down taken strikeouts last year, but like when you look at some of his underlying contact metrics, it was a more dramatic dip than you might expect. So it's like, maybe he'll look better on that score next year. So you know, I think that even if you are only looking at his last year, you might still

say like, this guy is, this guy was still an above average starter. So, you know, I think that this is, this is nice. Yeah. Yeah. It's exactly what the Tigers needed really, just to minimize the uncertainty that they had in their rotation down the stretch, which again, they made it work, but it would be tough to sustain that over a full season. And are you going to get just as good production as you got out of Scoobble last year, and then what are you going to get out of Job and how aggressive do you want to be and what workload can he tolerate? And then you got Casey Mize and you've got some other guys who are maybe promising,

but how much can you depend on them? So to add someone like Flaherty, who has upside, like he has a high ceiling if everything worked out right and he was healthy, he could be a well above average starter, but there's a downside too in that he could of course just get hurt. That's really the only way that this would be a deal that the Tigers rue is if he suffered some serious injury early on and just didn't really pitch this year and then was also under contract for next year too. But anything short of that, if he's just dependable and not peak flarity, but good enough, just a two or three win starter, a guy who can spare some innings for your relievers and

your young starters, that's perfect. That's the kind of rotation depth that they needed and not just depth, but someone who could be potentially like in a best case scenario, at least a number three, number two type starter. So yeah, it's a good pairing of pitcher and team. And there is the sense that, oh man, you're on thin ice, is walking on a tight rope and the Yankees were reluctant to trade for him because of a back concern at the deadline last year. And then there were shoulder

issues, there were oblique issues. You mentioned the velocity down the fastball getting hit harder, not performing quite as well after the trade to LA. But yeah, pricing all of those concerns, and clearly teams did here, hence the contract. And it's a smart signing by Detroit that could work out well for Flaherty. If he has a good year, then okay, he has a single season, decent AAV, and then gets to test the market again. If he has a third season where he's mostly healthy and barely misses a start and there aren't any serious concerns, well, then he'll hit the market again next year. And he's young enough that he could cash in then because he's still just

29 years old and a young 29. He turned 29 in mid-October. Happy belated birthday, Jack Flaherty. We're a few months late, but yeah, happy birthday. Okay. We'll talk more about the Tigers soon. Now the firing that I alluded to, really it's an upholding of a firing. It regards Pat Hauberg, disgraced major league umpire, and we finally figured out why he

was disgraced because there was just a lot of mystery and secrecy about why Hauberg wasn't umping and why he was fired. And then he appealed that decision and we were really largely in the dark. We knew it was something betting related, but we didn't have details. Now we have a lot of details because MLB announced that after the appeal, after a neutral review process, Rob Manfred has decided to uphold the earlier decision

to terminate Pat Hoburg's employment. He is eligible to apply for reinstatement in a year, though given what we've learned here, I think it's fairly unlikely that that would be granted. So sort of sad for me as a former fan of Pat Hoburg to the extent that one can be a fan of umpires. I followed his career with great interest because he really rated well by all of the umpire accuracy metrics, particularly the pitch calling ones. And he just seemed like a top umpire prospect.

And then of course he had his umpire perfect game according to ump scorecards accounting. And that was something that I had hoped that we would see one day. And we did an interview about that, not with Hohberg, but about that. And so he was consistently rated as one of the most accurate umpires, but none of that matters that much anymore because he clearly exhibited some truly terrible judgment here at the very least. So I'll read from the MLB press release. The disciplinary action was taken due to Hoburg's failure to uphold the integrity of the game by sharing sports betting accounts with a professional poker player and friend who bet on baseball and whom Hoburg should have known bet on baseball and due to Hoburg's intentional deletion of messages

central to MLB's investigation into his conduct. So the sequence of events here is kind of complicated, but we'll see if we can lay it all out. You can correct me if I get anything wrong here. So Hoburg had this friend, a close friend, someone he was associating with frequently and was staying at his house fairly frequently. And prior to the legalization of sports gambling, Hoburg had this person placing bets for him, illegally, one would assume, although that's not really why he's

getting disciplined here. And then when gambling was legalized, they had joint accounts where at first, Hoburg was having this friend place bets for him through this account with a legal sports book, and then later was also placing some bets himself. And the bets that Hoburg is documented to have placed himself were not on baseball. And MLB's conclusion here is that there is no evidence to suggest that Hoburg did personally place bets on baseball. However, the friend who was using this joint account

was betting on baseball in addition to the other sports that he and Hoburg, I assume it's a he, does it specify that it's a he? But yeah, maybe not, but this person, I'll just say. I think they do. Individual A, which is how they refer to Hoburg's friend, used his accounts to do so. All right, so yeah.

And was betting on baseball games, and including five games that Hoburg himself was umping. And there's a lot of detail laid out in this press release to support the idea that Hoburg did not do anything untoward in these five games, and that his calls were accurate and that there was nothing out of line with his typical pattern, and there was nothing odd about the larger betting patterns. However, he was sharing a joint account with someone who was betting on baseball, and when this investigation got going, Hoburg and Individual A both deleted their message history on Telegram, where they were keeping track of their bets and their ledger and supposedly settling their accounts in cash in person. But we don't

know. MLB doesn't know what those messages contained because they were deleted and they were irretrievable. So that's not great. And Hohberg himself says that he deleted those messages just because he was embarrassed about the volume of the bets. There were a lot of bets here, hundreds of thousands of dollars in bets and tens of thousands of dollars in losings, which is kind of a consistent theme. When all these gambling scandals come to light, one thing we learn is that people are not very good at gambling for the most part. Pretty bad at it.

The house famously always wins or just about always, unless you're some sort of sharp and even then, you're probably just going to be banned from gambling because they don't like to lose money. So gambling continues to be a bad idea, both in terms of trying to get money, but also in terms of just ruining your career if you're someone who's involved in baseball.

And Hoburg says that he doesn't know, he wasn't aware that individual A was placing bets on baseball, but he certainly should have been at the very least. And Emmaby concludes that either he did know or he absolutely should have known. I'll just read this paragraph. Throughout the entire process,

Hoburg has adamantly denied betting on baseball or knowing that individual A was betting on baseball and the data provided by the sports books does not show any baseball bets from his electronic devices. However, based on the record of evidence, it is found as a matter of fact that Hoburg knew or should have known that individual A bet on baseball.

He had unfettered access to the account that reflected his own bets as well as his wins and losses. Individual A's bets as well as wins and losses could easily be distinguished when compared to the telegram ledger. Hohberg admitted that given individual A was a sports gambler, he had reason to believe that individual A bet on baseball and thought he could have bet on baseball. So it seems like there was some inconsistency in that story. And Holbrooke said he never told individual A not to bet on baseball and also said it didn't occur to him to ask if he had done so.

So again, there's some either irresponsible behavior or willful ignorance, or perhaps not complete truthfulness here. And it's just murky enough given the shared account, the missing messages, the fact that even some of the bets and I think some of the baseball bets that individual A placed on his account on his device were placed in Hauberg's home. It's just, I completely support the dismissal of Hauberg

and the upholding of that dismissal. I think from a policy perspective, this is the best possible outcome. I would be curious to hear, and this is, I would imagine, likely an artifact of the particulars of the CBA and existing policy under the rules that pertain to betting, which I think they do reference in reference to the ability that Hoburg has to apply for reinstatement, although like you, I would be very skeptical that such a reinstatement would ever be forthcoming. I am curious why it isn't just an outright ban, but setting that aside, I think that from a policy perspective, this is precisely what you want to see.

Hoburg, if we believe Major League Baseball doesn't seem to have demonstrably bet on baseball, but what the league is saying is if you do chicanery related to this stuff, if you aren't forthcoming or if you're in a position where you, a reasonable person ought to know that there is baseball betting going on in this account, you're going to get fired, right? We don't have to demonstrate that you have actually bet on a game in order for you to suffer severe employment consequences. Yeah. Manfred said, however, his extremely poor judgment

in sharing betting accounts with a professional poker player, he had reason to believe bet on baseball and who did in fact bet on baseball from the shared accounts combined with his deletion of messages creates at minimum the appearance of impropriety that weren't imposing the most severe discipline. This is the line that MLB has to hold around this stuff. And I think that, you know, we, we had this conversation or a version of it, uh, last year when, you know, players were found to have bets and were either banned for life or were going to be suspended for a year. And I think when that happened, there was a lot of sort of public consternation around, you know, how silly it feels for major league baseball to say,

have an official betting partner and still be imposing sort of a morality around this stuff and a ban around this stuff for their employees. And we said at the time, and I'll say again here, like whatever you might think of the sports betting piece of this, and I think bad things that I have laid out in detail on this podcast, you just have to know that one of the things you cannot do when you are associated with the game is bet on bat to ball sports. That's it. There can't be exceptions to that. There can't be a plea of ignorance. You sports. That's it. There can't be exceptions to that. There can't be

a plea of ignorance. You simply can't have it. As important as that is for players, it's just as important for individuals like Hoburg who are in a position to either be directly officiating a game, as was the case in several of these games where individual A was placing bets on a game where Hoburg was involved involved or if you're in a replay position Which was the other scenario that was laid out here, right? your integrity simply has to be Above reproach and if it's not you're done. That's it Like we cannot we can't have any alternative to this

I will say that I feel a little bit like, how obscure do I want to go with this reference? Ben, have you seen the David Lynch Dune? CBL. Yes. LS. Okay. Do you remember in the early parts of the David Lynch Dune, they're going through the Lynch Dune, they're going through the palace in Arrakeen to find sabotage devices that the Harkonnen might've left behind for Duke Atreides and his family. You recall that scene? They're like looking to find all the, you remember that? Sure. Okay, great. So in their search, they're finding a bunch of these sabotage devices and a member of his

staff says, we're finding these too easily, right? That there is a concern that the, I think it is Thufir, how it says that, that there is a concern that like, ah, we're, you know, we're finding these too easily. There might be guys we aren't seeing. Now, that's not fair of me to say because a guy who bet with illegal sports books also famously got got, although not by MOB, by the feds. And then this seems like everything in the surveillance apparatus is working exactly the way that we would want it to, right? Like the sports book is the entity that brought these transactions to the attention of Major League Baseball. But part of me does worry a little bit that there's still the potential for chicanery here because there are illegal bookies. But that's one thing

that like I can't really lay at the feet of Major League Baseball because that's not them embracing sports betting. They've always had distaste for that, right? So. Yeah, we've talked about that with baseball. I talked about that on Hang Up and Listen this week as it pertains to basketball and the ongoing issues there, John T. Porter and Terry Rozier. And it's not in my mind hypocritical for MLB to be promoting its relationships with betting partners while also disciplining players and personnel for their betting behavior because that's a clear distinction. That's a clear line to draw if you're involved in the actual outcome of the games as opposed to being a fan, then different behaviors are allowed. That said, am I happy that sports leagues are in bed

with gambling entities to the extent that they are? No, obviously not because we're just inundated in this stuff constantly and we're personally not interested in it. And also if you have the greater availability here, which is not exactly MLB's fault or the NBA's for that matter, but clearly they've gotten on board here and they've promoted it, that when you have the ease of access

here, you've got this stuff on your phone, you have apps, it's all legal, then you're going to get people who otherwise wouldn't be betting who are betting. And yes, the upside of that is that hopefully it'll be flagged if you're going through the legal channels as it was in the NBA, but there's just going to be more problematic behavior, more scandals surrounding this stuff. If it were me, if I were in a position like this, I just, I wouldn't take any chances. I wouldn't bet on any sport. Forget about just bat and ball. I wouldn't have an account at these places. Easy for me to say because I don't currently bet on any sports or anything or have these accounts. But if I had an umpiring position or were a player, ah man, you're making decent money, certainly as a player, as an umpire less so,

but probably not bad as a big league ump relative to your typical job. And it's a hard job, I get that. But still, I just would not even draw any attention to myself and he just did this so incautiously. And it was like, you know, he had this joint account and then the umps were told, hey, don't have people placing bets for you. If you're gonna be betting,

then create accounts in your own name. And I guess he did that, which is ultimately maybe how he got caught here. But still, it's just so misguided. You just have to question his judgment. You can't question his strike zone judgment because he seemed to have been among the best at that. But yeah, there's just plenty here to say

that you just can't have this guy associated. It's too bad. I mean, imagine how hard he worked to get to that level, how proficient he was. He was raising the bar for umpires and then he just totally shot himself in the foot here. So it's a shame, but this is inevitable given the way it went down.

Yeah, I think that this is very unfortunate. It is a shocking error in judgment. I don't want to comment on Pat Hoperberg's intelligence because I don't know the man, but sometimes these guys get caught and I'm just like, you're like the dumbest boy in school. Like what are we doing over here? I mean, I guess there's some value in like doofuses being the ones that violate these rules because they do tend to get found out in a way that the savvier operators might struggle to. And you're right, like every time we see one of these,

there's always a line in there where it was like, the losses on this account were $50,000. And I'm like, why are any that's, and as I said, like this is a, this is influenced by a professional poker player. Like what are we, what are we doing over there buddy? The baseball bets specifically, I guess, were not losers on the whole. And the bets on the games that Hoburg was involved in did not lose money. They made money again, not really in suspicious ways that anyone could tell. They made money again, not really in suspicious ways that anyone could tell. They were not profitable in the aggregate,

although there were individual ones that yielded. Right, yes, that's right, yes. But the baseball bets, I guess on the whole paid off more so than the other sports bets. But yeah, it's just, it's a losing game. Just don't, it's just, unless you're doing it for fun and you're doing it with small amounts that you can afford and you're not going to get fired if it comes to light, then fine. If it's purely

recreationally for you and you have the self-control to cut it off before it becomes a problem, then that's okay. I don't know where the line is because I think it seems safe to say that Ipe Mizuhara had some sort of problem with gambling, gambling addiction. Now he had to start down that dark path before it dominated his destiny, but still like it seems like it just got out of control in a way that maybe it wouldn't for everyone. And I don't know whether that's the case with Hauberg or not. He was placing a good number of bets here for fairly large amounts of money, but it wasn't seemingly quite as prolific and compulsive as say Mizuhara's behavior was. So we can't always just excuse mistakes like this as, oh, gambling addiction. Cause in a lot

of cases it is. And I have some sympathy for people who deal with that, even if you kind of got to get yourself into that trouble to begin with. But I get that not everyone can cut it off at a certain point. I don't know whether that's the case with Hobart or whether this was just purely poor judgment, but it was poor judgment regardless. I do think it's worth saying every potential sports better is an N of one. And I don't want to say that like, everyone who gets into sports betting carries within them the potential for a loss of control. I will offer though that like, as this stuff is studied more and more, a lot of the evidence coming out of it is fairly damning in terms of the problems that it causes people, right?

That you know, after sports betting becomes legal in a state, like on a fairly predictable timeline, we start to see bankruptcies rise in those states, right? I just say that because like, if you're having a fun time betting on sports and you're doing fine, like good for you. I guess I'm happy for you. I spend money on all kinds of stupid shit. So like, who am I to judge that piece of it?

But I do think that people should go into, into these things with like a certain amount of, have your guard up a bit, I think, because I think it gets a lot of people and it gets more people than go in expecting that, right? If everyone knew that they were going to develop sort of a debilitating dependence on sports betting, no one would do it. Everyone thinks they're going to be the of a debilitating dependence on sports betting, no one would do it. Everyone thinks they're going to be the exception and a great many people are, but I just think it's, it's worth us like encouraging people to, you know, a lot of people think they're only going to be social smokers and then, and then a different thing happens, right?

So I just, I think a certain amount of caution is, is warranted and, and when a professional poker player, which admittedly is different than like being a professional sports sputter, I guess, I don't, you know, when they're accruing losses like this, like perhaps an indication that even the ones who have perceived expertise in gambling writ large can kind of get sideways on some of this stuff. So it's a real shame, but like I am comforted, I suppose, by how obvious a thing to not do this is, right? Like if you, if you are a player or an official at this point and you get got by this and, and you're right that we should,

you know, have some nuance in the way that we are parsing people who have obvious addiction issues versus those who are just being dopes. But like, come on now, like, come on now, there have been enough of these that you gotta, you know? Well, no one's perfect, not even perfect Pat Hohberg. We all have feet of clay and it's quite a fall from grace for him. So say it ain't so, Ho. Aren't you? I don't know about that one. I think you leave it in because, again, none of us are perfect, right? That's the point here. Aren't you glad you don't have a Pat Hohberg jersey now? Yeah, I guess so. All right. Speaking of someone who was tough on gambling and warned of the dangers, Faye Vincent, that was one of his constant refrains.

And even last November, in one of his last interviews speaking to the athletic, he called it a gambling infestation. He said the gambling infestation, which is really the right word of our culture, is a tragic one. He warned gambling always leads to corruption. Corruption always leads to problems

that are very difficult to fix, and when you're trying to fix them in the heat of the white light and the stress and the pressure, you are likely to pay a very big price in terms of delay and an overstatement or an overadministration of absurd redress or punishment. So if there were one piece of advice I'd give to anybody reading your piece, it's please do not think that the clock is not a ticking problem. It is. Faye Vincent died on Sunday at 86, former commissioner of Major League Baseball, the predecessor to Bud Selig. And there have been a lot of salutes to Vincent

and remembrances of Vincent. And gotta say, we will not see his kind again in baseball or really in sports leagues in general. Because when people think of sports commissioners and they have this outdated idea of someone who is actually above the fray, who's looking out for the best interests of the game, who's invoking the best interests of baseball clause, not just in service of the owners, but pursuing some independent line and, and taking the long view and taking stands on issues, even if it angers owners, that's not what commissioners are anymore.

And that's what Fay Vinson was. And I don't agree with every stance he had and every way he handled certain situations. He was anti-designated hitter for one. So we differ on that. And maybe I don't love how he handled Steve Howe's suspension and banning for drug issues and the way that he kind of came down heavy on people who testified on his behalf. He could be hard headed and was not always great at winning friends and influencing

people, certainly not major league owners. However, the fact that he, A, came from outside of baseball. So he was the deputy commissioner, basically because he was besties with A Bartlett Giamatti, who was the commissioner before him for only five months before he died of a heart attack. And so they were longtime friends and associates and Giamatti brought him in, and then he ascended to the top spot when

Giamatti died and he had only a three or so year run himself. And that's because he got on owner's bad side and because he was actually looking out for the best interests of the game, whether that was the fans, the players, and that is not what owners wanted from their lackey, which is what commissioners are now, or commissioners are owners themselves in Bud Selig's case. And we talked not long ago about how long the typical tenure of commissioners is now, not just in baseball, but across sports leagues. And that is largely because they do the owner's bidding. They know which side the

bread is buttered on and who's buttering it or whatever that expression is. And so they are taking their marching orders from the owners for the most part. And so no wonder they have decent job security. And Vincent, he just ran his own way out of the game by not siding with the owners, his own way out of the game by not siding with the owners, by stepping in when there was a lockout in spring training in 1990. Most of spring training was canceled and the owners were pushing hard for a salary cap and he intervened and came up with a compromise that was not unfriendly to the players. And the owners did not like that and they held a grudge about that and some of his other decisions. But you look back and he was sort of on the right side of history or he was sort

of taking the right stance on a lot of things, strong stances, even though he was getting a ton of blowback, even though that led to his, his resignation after a no confidence vote. And he was forced out by Bud Selig and Jerry Rynsdorf and Peter O'Malley and others. And they took him down and they installed one of their own, Bud, in charge. And that was just a pivot point.

That was an inflection point when it comes to the commissionership of Major League Baseball. And so he called himself, he was labeled by the New York Times, the last commissioner. And he titled his memoir, The Last Commissioner, because he kind of was the last of that kind of commissioner. And I'll just read a brief excerpt

from his letter of resignation, 1992. I accepted the position, believing the commissioner has a higher duty and that sometimes decisions have to be made that are not in the best interest of some owners. Unique power was granted to the commissioner of baseball for sound reasons, to maintain the integrity of the game and to temper owner decisions

predicated solely on self-interest. The office should be maintained as a strong institution. My views on this have not changed. I remind all that ownership of a baseball team is more than ownership of an ordinary business. Owners have a duty to take into consideration that they own a part of America's national pastime in trust. This trust sometimes requires putting self-interest second." Can you imagine Rob Manfred saying anything like that? No. And

Giamatti and Vincent, they really loved baseball too. And Vincent, post-commissioner ship, he did oral histories of baseball players and published books on that. So clearly had an affinity for the game, but he was really looking out for it and not the owners necessarily and not himself. So salute to a real one, Fay Vincent. I think sometimes morally righteous people can be a little hard headed, perhaps insistent. I've never been stubborn. I don't know if I'm like as morally righteous as Faye Vincent, but you know what I'm trying to say. The good and the bad feel like linked concepts

and linked features to me, I guess, is the point that I'm trying to make. But yeah, he had a fundamentally, I think, different understanding of maybe the way to put it is like who his constituency really was in a way that is completely discordant and out of line with the way that commissioners understand their constituencies today. The game is poor for that. You know, I don't know if realistically that perspective is ever one that's likely to sit in the commissioner's seat, but having an ombudsperson, that's hard to say, would have some real value. And I think that the sport would be better for it and is poor for it not being there.

So yeah. And hey, anyone who can look at the landscape of baseball and the existence of sports betting and just say like, Hey, this is bad. And that seems obvious, you know, that's worth, that's worth celebrating. So he scolded the owners when he came in, he told them this is a quote from him, how he summarized it to them. I told the owners, the single biggest reality you guys have to face is collusion. You stole 280 million from the players and the players are unified to a man around that issue and

many of you are still involved. So he kind of rubbed their noses as, hey, you did a bad thing, you behaved badly. They didn't like that. And some of the architects of collusion engineered his ouster and then took control themselves. Selig, Reinsdorf, etc cetera. So it's maybe not a coincidence that Rob Manfred's statement that he put out about Vincent, it was not effusive, I would say. He praised his handling of the 1989 World Series and talked about a few of the issues he faced,

but it just said, Mr. Vincent served the game during a time of many challenges and he remained proud of his association with our national pastime throughout his life. So he was proud to be associated with us. It doesn't really say we were proud to be associated with him so much, but it's really kind of a travesty that he got run out of the business and Bud Selig is in the hall of fame just given, you know, like collusion and the stances that they took on various issues. So yeah, the last commissioner indeed. So condolences, RIP, farewell, Faye Vincent, but your watch was ended

fairly early. But I think he did a good job with the responsibility that he was entrusted with. And I think he did a good job with the responsibility that he was entrusted with and I wish others had followed his lead. I guess it's not unreasonable maybe to expect that if owners are paying this person's salary that they would serve his interests, but it is still sort of sad that there is not some more impartial person who could stand up for the best interests of the game and not just the best interests of the game and not just the best interests of baseball. I think that it's useful as we think about what our aspirations and expectations of particular institutional positions like a sports commissionership are to have seen an alternative.

I think it gives you room to imagine and request something better even if it's unlikely to materialize. And so I think that as sort of a jumping off point for future imagination, it's useful and should be celebrated. So there you go. CB Yeah. Joe Pasnanski also wrote about how he was the first commissioner to apologize to Negro leaguers for the way that baseball treated them, which again, overdue, belated, and insufficient perhaps, but at least he just acknowledged that wrong on the part of the entity that he represented. All right. So let's take a quick break and we'll be back to talk about the Toronto Blue Jays, followed by the San Diego Padres. All right, it is time to talk Toronto Blue Jays.

And with us now is Rob Longley, who covers the Blue Jays for the Toronto Sun. Welcome, Rob. Hey, nice to be here. Thanks, guys. It's nice to have you here when our countries are not currently on a trade war footing. We can conduct this in a more peaceful atmosphere than we might have otherwise. Yes, friendly neighbors once again.

Yeah, no tariffs on this podcast interview. I'm a dual citizen, so I'd be at war with myself if such a scenario came to pass, but I'm glad it hasn't yet. So, the Blue Jays fan base was probably at war with this franchise at times over this off season, but I'm glad it hasn't yet. So the Blue Jays fan base was probably at war with this franchise at times over this off season, but things are looking up, I'm sure, in terms of the mood of fans given some of the recent additions, but maybe we could kind of track the ebbs and flows when it comes to how Blue Jays fans were feeling about this team as the offseason started with more snubs, more Blue Jays being in on every big free agent and being the runners up. We're going to talk

about the Padres later on this episode, so I guess we're previewing both teams that were finalists for Roki Sasaki without actually securing his services. So how were Blue Jays fans feeling prior to let's say Santander and Scherzer and of course, Hoffman as they were being the bridesmaids yet again for another winter? Yeah, I mean, it's certainly been a volatile offseason for the franchise, for the fan base, especially. You almost have to backtrack two or three years to sort of document the build of this frustration. It started following the 2022 season with that frustrating playoff loss and then another frustrating playoff loss

in 2023 with the controversial decision to take Jose Barrios out of the game early. And then a 2024 season when there were decent expectations and the team lost 78 times and sort of 88 times make that felt like 108. The franchise base got angry, you know, and frustrated at the front office, especially given the promises of the two previous off seasons and given some of the high profile, quote unquote, losses in the off seasons. And then it began anew. The chase for Juan Soto, by all accounts, the Blue Jays were right in the middle of it and predictably i would suggest they lost that one as well. As you mentioned roky sasaki obviously a near finalist in that pursuit and it didn't end the toronto's way and frustration was at an all time high in my opinion at that point and you can almost see it not just in reaction on social media and other outlets, but if you look at the ticket sales for the upcoming season, the

fans are, in my opinion, in very much a wait and see mode to see what happens with this team. And I think that will extend through spring training into the start of the regular season. A slow start by this team could be near disastrous for them in terms of the support from what has been a pretty loyal fan base dating back all the way to 2015. They've done very well with both television ratings and live attendance. And I think this is the angriest I've seen the fan base since then. So to what do you attribute those failures to sign some of the top targets in free agency because the J's do not seem like one of these teams that's just paying lip service to trying

to sign guys and saying, oh, we attempted this and we didn't actually make a competitive offer. It seems like they have and yet elite free agents have consistently chosen other organizations. Is this an institutional disadvantage? Does this have to do with exchange rates or other complications with taxes or not wanting to relocate north of the border or are there other issues here? How can they overcome that challenge? I think it's a little bit of a couple of those. The taxes are a little bit higher here, but not out of line with a lot of states.

The conversion rate almost works in their advantage. The Canadian dollar is so weak vis-a-vis the American dollar, and all MLB salaries are paid in US dollars, doesn't matter where you're playing. So that shouldn't be a factor. I think there's a perception still, less than it once was, but there is still a perception that it's cumbersome to navigate the border with families and such. And yes, you do have to clear customs every time you arrive in Canada, but it's pretty

seamless for these teams that travel on charters. It's not as big a nuisance as the perception is. Once you talk to players who've been here for a while, they love it. The team is very family friendly. The stadium renovations have been good, especially on the player side in terms of arguably one of the better clubhouses in all of Major League Baseball right now when you extend it through some of the facilities that are available from a permanent barbershop for the players to the family rooms, to the weight rooms, to those types of things. That perception is there a little bit, but I wonder if the perception around baseball

is that maybe the franchise isn't on as solid footing as it was fairly recently from a competition standpoint. I think when you look at most of these elite free agents, they're going to get money from a good number of suitors, life-changing money, money to set them up for the rest of their lives. And if it's anything north of six or seven years in terms of term, they're going to want to go to a team, most of these guys anyway, that they believe can be a contender for multiple seasons. That you're going to a franchise where you're going to win World Series, where you're not going to be just chasing a wildcard

berth in the American league. So I think that perception is fairly strong, especially given those factors that we talked about off the top that have sort of hindered the team the last two or three seasons. Now countering that ownership here, Rogers Communications over the last three or four years has shown that they're willing to be ambitious players in terms of the salary that they're offering. They're willing to spend. Rogers owns the Blue Jays, but they also own the television network that carries the games and the radio network that carries the games. And they routinely draw a million viewers because it's not just a Toronto fan base.

It's coast to coast in Canada from Vancouver all the way to Halifax and every province in between. So ownership has shown a willingness to spend and I think they've even shown a willingness to spend a premium to attract these players. But when it comes to the final decision, we've seen guys like Soto and Otani go to teams where they and even Teosca Hernandez again this year go to teams where they feel they have a better chance of winning a World Series. Well, I don't want to pour more salt in the wound of Blue Jays fans listening, but there does feel like there's a good bit of urgency around this season because there are a couple of looming departures in free agency that might further exacerbate that perceived competitive

disadvantage. I'm talking of course about Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Beau Bechette. So first I want to ask sort of what your impression is of the likelihood of those guys signing extensions, returning in free agency. And then I wonder if you can talk a bit about their sort of diverging 2024 trajectories because it felt like every time I did a radio hit for a Blue Jays segment in 2023, there was hand-wringing about what was wrong with Flattie. And then he had a phenomenal 2024 at the plate, 165 WRC plus, you know, he slugged over 500,

he had a batting average in the 300s. He was a five and a half win player by our estimation of war. And Bichette's season took a dramatically different turn, right? He was hampered by injury. He had a 71 WRC plus, barely above replacement level. So let's start with the likelihood that these guys remain Blue Jays beyond this year and then maybe talk a bit about what the team is expecting from each of them come 2025. Yeah, that's obviously a huge point of conversation with this team. In fact, as you suggested, if we were having this conversation a year ago, it would be a completely different narrative because their season sort of flip flop.

I probably should have mentioned in my last answer that I would suspect that free agents would be one of the factors that they would have considered when they were pondering the Blue Jays this off season is, well, what about Vlad? If you're not gonna keep your big superstar, why would we want to go there? Vlad has set that in his own internal deadline of,

essentially we've figured it out to be February 18th, the first official day of full team workouts that that will be the last moment that he'll discuss an extension. So is Roger's going to bring that big money, big enough money? I don't even know what it's going to take. I'm pretty sure it's going to be north of 400 million, but does Vlad want 500 million? I don't know. Or given what he's seen over the last two off-seasons in terms of some of the money that's been spent, does he want to just walk the free agency and have that moment on his own? I suspect that's what his mindset is. He certainly hasn't revealed

it publicly. What he has revealed publicly, not just at the end of last season, but repeatedly in his time in Toronto, is that he does love the city and he does love the country. And I believe him to be sincere about that. I've known him since he was an 18 year old. The first time I met him was when he was with the AA, the AA rather, New Hampshire Fish and Cats and certainly chronicled his career ever since. And he's been very sincere about his love for the city and the country. He loves the fact that Toronto fans are fairly respectable, that he can go out in public with his family and have a meal and not be bothered too much. So he does love a lot about being a Blue Jay and he has said that he

is willing to be a Blue Jay for life. But having said that, he's not going to take a hometown discount to do so. And who could blame him given what we've seen in free agency over the past two winters. In the case of Beau Bichette, it's a little bit more complicated obviously for all the reasons that you mentioned, the season that he had last year which was un-Beau-like in so many ways, particularly in his performance at the plate but also in his inability to stay healthy and contribute regularly. I've known Beau for a long time as well.

And I would expect that he would have a massive season this year. If you were able to stay healthy, he's just that driven kind of a guy. He's throughout his major league career. He hasn't had very many slumps. And when he has, he's been able to keep them brief because he seems to be a find a way to work out of it. And I would guess that he's going to come into 2025 as motivated as anybody to keep them brief because he seems to find a way to work out of it. I would guess that he's going to come into 2025 as motivated as anybody in Major League

Baseball, not just because he has the opportunity to walk to free agency when it's over, but because he has a lot to prove to himself and to people around baseball and to that inner drive that has gotten him to this point in his career where he went on as one of the better hitters in baseball. So in the case of extending Bowe at this point, I don't think it makes a whole lot of sense to either side. From a Blue Jays perspective, they certainly wouldn't want to spend anywhere near the money that he would want. And his value has diminished because of what happened in 2024. So of the two, I think it's almost certain that Vaux would make it to free agency with a possibility of Vlad being settled here in the next couple of weeks.

And if an extension isn't settled before training camp starts, it's certainly going to be an ongoing part of the narrative surrounding this team for throughout the 2025 season. It's going to create a distraction if it gets to that because every time the team goes to Boston, people talk about Ladd Gravo Jr. being a Boston Red Sox in the future. Well, you know what's going to happen there, the media is going to be questioning him and making it sort of a distraction around the team. But it's on Blue Jays management, sort of their responsibility for having it get to this point.

And some ways you can't blame them, again, for the reasons that you mentioned at the top of this segment that, you know, he didn't have that huge 2023 season. There were some questions about his performance. It's easy to forget he's still a young man. He's only 25, but there have been fitness issues in his career as he sort of navigated his way into through the major leagues. But the Vlad Guerrero Jr. that I got to know last year was far more mature than the one who broke into the major leagues in 2019. So you could sort of understand the reluctance on the front

offices part and not extending him prior to this, but they've probably let it get too far to solve anything before he walks to free agency. 25-year-old who's a year away from free agency with possible fitness issues, are we talking about Luka Doncic or Black Guerrero? Some parallels here. So if you think if you're betting on a Beau Bichette bounce back, then maybe this would be the time to strike if you're the J's by a low on Beau. But then again, he may not want to do that. He probably wants to restore his value if he believes in himself, as his track record would suggest that he should. So we talked about the ones that got away.

We should also talk about the ones that got, because the BOOJAYS, they didn't lose a whole lot of significant members of the 2024 team, and they did make some gains. They signed Jeff Hoffman, they signed Anthony Santander, they signed Max Scherzer, they brought back Jimmy Garcia, they traded for a couple of guardians, Andres Jimenez and Miles Straw, which was more about the bonus pool money, which didn't work out quite the way

that the Blue Jays had hoped it would, I suppose. But still, that's significant additions. So even if those weren't the guys at the top of their list, that's not nothing. So has this at all assuaged the sting that fans felt about being spurned by some other guys and how do they imagine these new additions fitting into the mix? Yeah, I think that the fan base has certainly calmed over the last little while, especially since the Santander signing. And if you're a realist as a fan, you have to realize

that you're not going to get all the top guys. Your odds of getting the top ones are longer than sort of the mid-range guys. And at this point, as we talked today on February 4th, you could give the front office a passing grade on what they've done so far. I think I don't believe that they're done. And I think there's a real need and a real desire to get one more bat to help that offense. It was the worst that it's been production-wise in terms of runs since 1997, which is quite a fall really from what they were three years ago. You take your way through all those players that you mentioned, the players that they've

acquired this offseason, there's a lot of benefit in each of them. There's some questions among some of them, but there's certainly a lot of benefit. And Jeff Hoffman is essentially a swap position-wise for Jordan Romano, who was one of the most popular players in that clubhouse for a lot of reasons, his personality and his backstory and the fact that he grew up a Blue Jays fan not too far from the Rogers Center in Markham, Ontario, a suburb of Toronto here. And as I said, one of the big fan favorites of the team had surgery last summer and I guess the Blue Jays didn't want to bank on his return. And they felt that maybe they had to go into another direction and walk away from the Canadian closer as we call them up here. And the guy you get in return, Jeff Hoffman, I mean, it'll be, I think fans will have that

sort of internal debate all season. They'll be looking at the box score each morning and seeing what did Hoffman do for the Blue Jays and what did Romano do for the Phillies. It'll be sort of a fun thing to watch as we go along. But certainly a guy who has the potential to be elite at the back end of what already looks like a better bullpen from last year. I think Chad Green will be a big part of that. Getting Jimmy Garcia back, who was both popular and effective here in his previous time with the Blue Jays.

It's certainly been shored up from what we saw the past couple of seasons. Santander was a must get. They had to get an impact bat like that, even with some of the flaws that he brings performance wise. This team just simply did not score enough runs and they didn't score enough game-changing runs with home runs. It feels like every game I covered the last couple of years

was a three-one game or a two-one game. And as one of my colleagues quipped the other day, prior to the Santander signing at least, it seems like they're on a mission to win every game one to nothing or zero to minus one, as facetious as that is. It's just a commentary on their emphasis on run prevention, which while noble, it's nice to have somebody in the lineup that can change a game in one swing of a bat and Santander can certainly do that. He's familiar with the American League East. He's familiar with all the ballparks. He likes the Roger Center.

He likes the renovations. He says it suits his eye visually when he's at the plate. And I think he's going to be a real popular guy guy. I don't know him that well. I mean, I've certainly covered enough games with him with the Orioles, but when he had his introductory press conference with us, he just seemed to be the kind of guy that would be a really good fit in that clubhouse. A veteran guy who's accomplished some stuff. And I think the clubhouse needed more of a veteran presence to sort of provide that leadership. And I guess if we're talking about that, we should, for the next acquisition, we will skip ahead and go to Mack Scherzer. And you know, he brings all that and more from a guy who's done it

all in a future hall of famer and a Cy Young Award winner and a guy who will probably help everybody in that clubhouse. The question with him obviously is what are you getting out of that arm? What's left in that arm? We all know that Max Scherzer, the competitor, is as good as they come, as intimidating as they come, as locked in as they come when he's on the mound. But the Blue Jays are still going to need some arm in there for that 13 and a half million that they've given him for the one season deal. I like the deal. I like the contract. I think they needed at the least some depth in that rotation because they were lacking that in some ways last year. But it also looms as potentially the long and the tooth rotation. When you look at Chris Bassett, he's getting up there in terms of

experience and especially innings pitched throughout his career. A good veteran, a good gamer, a good guy whose personality wise is probably not that far off of Max Scherzer. Kevin Gossman, I think, is the one in there that looms as more of the ace potential and he's looking for a bit of a bounce back season. He came into spring training with some fatigue in his shoulder last year, tried to fast track it all the way through, missed one start at the beginning of the season, but never really recovered into the true Kevin Gosman form

that we had seen the previous season. And I think he's another guy that's a candidate for a big bounce back, but Scherzer will mesh nicely with those guys. So that's a candidate for a big bounce back. But Scherzer will mesh nicely with those guys. So that's a good acquisition. And the other big one in a lot of obvious ways is Andres Imenes. Like how, not only is he an elite defender, which we all know what he can do in the middle of an infield playing second base, he'll make everybody around him better. He'll make the pitching staff better. He'll make Flagler a junior,

a potential gold glubber again over at first base. Vlad, he wasn't as good defensively last year as he was the previous year, but I blame that more on the other guys in the infield. The throws the first weren't nearly as crisp in 2024 as they were in 2023. So Jimenez obviously gives them that. And Jimenez also potentially gives them the short stop of the

future. If we go back to a previous conversation, that if Bobuchet walks to free agency, they could slide him over to shortstop. Obviously, they need him to be a little bit better at the plate at minimum than he was in his last year at Cleveland, more towards what he was in 21 or 22. I forget which year was his better year at the plate. He seems to think that he'll be able to do that. He feels that he struggled once the season began last year and as many baseball players will tell you, for a lot of them anyway, it's difficult to make changes in the middle of a season and get back on track.

He feels that he'll have a fresh approach through the offseason and heading into spring training and hopes to hit the ground running and be more of an influence offensively for this team. And if they get that, then they've got a real great acquisition, arguably the best of all of them that the general manager Ross Atkins has been able to do this offseason. Miles Straw, I don't know, was he going to be in New Hampshire? Fischerkatt or a Buffalo? Bison when the season starts out will be interesting. I suppose he provides the opportunity

for to start the season at center field as well because it's unlikely that Dalton Varsho will make it for opening day as he recovers from shoulder surgery. That anticipates one of my questions. I was curious what the latest was on Varsho, because obviously when he was on the field last year, he continued his superlative defense in center, won his first gold glove. I want to ask about the rest of that outfield though,

because I'm curious if there is any optimism about a return to form for George Springer because the decline seems to have come very quickly, right? In 2022, he had a 133 WRC plus. He was still a productive big leaguer, but 104 in 2023 and 95 in 2024 batting averages that continue to decline. The power seems to be on the way down too. So I'm curious, what are their expectations for him this season? And are there any adjustments or potential changes he's talked about that might be able to get him back on track to being a more productive hitter? To me, George is one of the big stories of the season for the Blue Jays. To your point,

I think when you sign a six-year deal with a guy who's into his 30s, you always expect that you realize there's going to be declining production. But this started two or three seasons early and he hasn't been able to snap out of it. I'm really curious to see what's going to happen with the leadoff position. Does George automatically get that again heading into 2025? Or does he have to earn it? Or do they order they give it to start the season and have a short leash if he's not performing if his numbers are similar to what they were the last couple seasons and i mean quite frankly he was unsightly at the plate and a lot of situations last year and i still think george springer driven athlete and i still think that george springer has some. still think that George Springer has some merit as a hitter. He was one of the greatest leadoff hitters in baseball for a couple of seasons, but it certainly hasn't been visible the last couple. Can he summon something to get some of that back? Is the declining bat

speed a mirage or is it something that he can fix easily? I don't know. I think there's going to be some really close eyes on him throughout spring training, especially in the opening weeks of the regular season because They can't afford to have a guy hitting in the number one spot who's gonna be a liability like he was for most of last season especially if they believe that the offense has a bit the ability to turn it around a little bit and especially if you've got the potent mix of Anthony Santander and flat girlgaro Jr. and Beau Bichette right below him.

Those are potentially three dynamic bats. And if you've got a sort of a soft guy leading off, it'll be an issue. And I think it'll be incumbent on management to look elsewhere. But yeah, George is one of the big stories going into this season. He can play right field fine. His defense is still strong and he can move over to center when needed. But what he does at the plate will define the 2025 of George Springer. Yeah. This team defensively was just fantastic last season and now adding probably the best

defensive second baseman in the game to that mix. Obviously you want pitching upgrades, but the gloves are going to be great. And I know that this park has played a little bit more pitcher friendly since the renovation, but that's kind of the common theme here. These guys can go get it. So you hope they'll hit, but they will definitely field. I also wanted to ask you another commonality here between the Blue Jays and the next team we're talking about, the Padres, is that they have a bottom tier farm system according to most sources. Keith Law and Kylie McDaniel both have the Jays ranked 24th, which maybe adds to that sense of urgency.

We got to get something going with this current core, but are there any players who could provide reinforcements either at the start of the season or mid season or players who could potentially be dangled for midseason upgrades. Not as much depth as in the past, of course. I'll always remember early in their tenure that Ross Atkins and team president Mark Shapiro maintained that their blueprint for success, which many teams like to have, is that we're going to get good, we're going to have a good farm system, and we're just going to keep replenishing it, which is the aim of any good front office, but it hasn't materialized. In terms of names that could have an impact, I'm not so sure there's going to be much off the top

of this season, but Ricky Tiedemann, whenever he gets healthy enough to pitch again, he was our big story. He was the big story at training camp last year. Many expected that he would be in the rotation by mid-summer and then he got hurt. So he remains perhaps the most elite prospect amongst them. And then Oralves Martinez, a kid who can hit, a kid who can hit for power, a kid who was touted as one of the top prospects in the Blue Jays organization for a couple of years now. Days after he came up, was called up last summer, he was suspended for a PED violation and you wonder how much that would stunt his career or if he can overcome it. I don't know that he'd be fighting for a roster spot during spring training, but

if he were to have a good spring training and then a strong start at AAA, he'd be a candidate to get up there and offer some support offensively. But beyond that, there's no real obvious candidates. We'll see if any have developed much over the past year, but they're not deep in guys that they could bring up right away and certainly not deep in guys that they can use on the trade front. I think in a different world, if they had that kind of depth, we might have seen a different type of off season.

We might have seen the Jays more aggressive in the trade market, but they just didn't have the assets to go about it that way. We talked about Scherzer, we talked about Gosman. You also have a couple of solid mid-rotation options in Bureaus and Bassett, but I want to ask you about two intriguing guys more toward the back end, 27, 28 years old, we have Bowden Francis, Mr. Near No-Hitter who caused quite a stir last season, and also the ever mercurial and perplexing Alec Manoa coming back from internal brace surgery at some point this season. So what are the Boudre's hoping for and expecting out of those two?

I think hopes would be high on Bowden Francis for sure. Obviously, he was the big story of the team in the last month when he had those near no-no's and even back those up with some solid performances. The challenge always when you see a pitcher come on like that, one strong month, can he pitch back to it in the following season? I suspect that he can. It's a bit of a show me situation with him. But having said that, you know, he came into last season, they had fairly high expectations for him then. And he was sort of on the fringe of being a regular in the rotation. In fact, he was in the rotation from the start of the season and he struggled a little bit, which is something that you would expect from a rookie. But he was able to regroup.

He went down to AAA Buffalo and got his game back and gradually improved as the season went along and then had that spectacular finish to the season. And getting to know him a little bit, he's got a great competitive personality to him. He's a little quirky, which is amusing to some of his teammates, but he's worked really well with guys like Bassett and Gosman kind of took him under their wing. And I think he learned a lot from being around those veterans. And that was invaluable to his progress. And I would expect that he comes back and continues to contribute. And maybe by midsummer is not just a bottom five starter, he's closer to the top of that rotation. Alec Manoa, I don't think they can expect anything

from him because I don't think that he'll be throwing with any degree of seriousness until July and that would require a rehab stint in Buffalo obviously. But Manoa himself has said this off season. I like Alec Manoa, by the way. He's always been a favorite of mine for whatever reason. I just like the competitive side of him. His first couple seasons in the big leagues were pretty impressive. He's probably matured a little bit since some of the things that he went through and certainly humbled a little bit because he struggled last year before his surgery. He has said himself that his mission this year is to be the

equivalent of trade deadline acquisition for the Blue Jays, that he'll be ready to go after the trade deadline and can be a big force for them down the stretch. And if that were to be the case, I think that the front office would consider that a big win in the case of Alec Benoa. I want to ask about a 2023 feel-good story who had a bit harder time in 2024, and that's Davis Schneider and his fantastic mustache. Put up a fairly remarkable WRC Plus and limited action in 2023, but then when Preston two more games and more games started struggled last year. I don't want to make too much of Schneider because obviously some of the acquisitions that you've mentioned push him probably to a bench roll. But just because he was so remarkable in his debut and I think does seem to have a warm spot in many Blue Jays fans hearts,

what are you expecting from him this coming season? And has he talked about any adjustments that he might make to get maybe not back to a 176 WRC plus but something more closely approximating a league average bet? What a great story he was for sure and you hope that he wasn't kind of that baseball version of a one-hit wonder. Yeah, he certainly did struggle in 2024 and he was frustrated by it. I would suppose that Blue Jays would hope that maybe he's one of these guys that just couldn't make the adjustments in mid-season, got too frustrated and down on himself and couldn't battle his way back. That maybe a fresh outlook to a new season will be the difference and that he comes into spring training with some adjustments and ready to make an impact.

Having said all that, even if he does that, he's going to have to really earn his spot on the opening day roster, in my opinion, because of how much he struggled last year. He's a guy that you can use defensively, but he's not a must have defensively, obviously. He's a guy that you need to have that bat producing and producing consistently, much like it did through the heart of the summer of 2023. But he's a guy that his teammates like to root for. He's certainly a guy that the Blue Jays fan base likes to root for. And even the media likes being around David Schneider because he's a fun guy and as you

say, a spectacular mustache. But a good story. He really made the fans get excited about him through that burst. And his backstory is so good too, of course, because there were low expectations through most of his career. He almost quit baseball. He had fallen that far down on the depth chart in terms of the system. But he'll have to have a big spring if he's going to make his way back to the roster. And there'll be a lot of people throughout the organization and outside of it that will be rooting for Davis Schneider. Is Will Wagner the 2024 version of Davis Schneider or is there hopes that he'll be better than that?

Obviously, he performed quite well in 24 games, another high babbip guy. So what are the hopes for him? I think there's a lot of high hopes actually. And I think there, you know, if the front office were being honest, they would suggest that maybe he is the Davis Schneider of 2023 and, but not only that, a player with more upside. There was always, there were always question marks about Davis Schneider, but I think there's a sense within the Blue Jays front office that Will Wagner has a little bit more depth to him.

And, you know, upside is a word that we hear a lot, but his breakthrough last year was solid. I think if he can build upon that and then sustain it, the hope would be that he could sustain a good run and make it more the norm than a flash in the pan, feel a good story. And I think there are definitely high hopes that Will Waggoner can be not just a regular contributor for this team, but a steady force. Got to maintain the consistent supply of sons of big leaguers. The last guy I want to ask about is Yariyahu Rodriguez, who debuted for the Bujays and in MLB last year and was solid in the rotation.

But with the signing of Scherzer, I guess he is seemingly relegated to the bullpen. Of course, teams don't get through seasons with five starters, especially if one of them is Max Scherzer. So is he going to be one or the other starter reliever or is he going to fill more of a swingman emergency starter role this season? I think it could be sort of a combination of all three. Definitely he provides the depth as you're waiting for Alec Manoa to come back and you're hoping that the other five that you have remain healthy. He's a natural six starter and probably good and valuable enough to keep on the roster rather than being down in AAA and have him be ready for a call-up.

I think he could use him in that swingman role. If Scherzer needs a break of a start, he could certainly slide in. Fully capable of being a long man and the Jays don't really have any natural solid long man in their bullpen right now. So he sort of looms as that guy that offers the versatility that every pitching staff needs has proven that he can start a Major League Baseball game, has proven that he can give you some electric stuff out of the bullpen and certainly has proven that he'd be the ideal long man in a better bullpen with a rotation that has more depth. So I would expect that he will be considered an important arm in the Blue Jays pitching

staff. Just how it's utilized will depend on how spring training unfolds. As Kevin Gosman noted the other day on another radio program, he said, you know, we have a lot of optimism right now, but let's wait and see what happens over the six weeks or so of spring training, because a lot can happen health-wise and performance-wise.

And the more arms you can have, the merrier, obviously, and especially guys that are on the rise, like a young Yeriel Rodriguez, who the front office still has high hopes for. They went to a lot of work to acquire him, and they certainly want to continue to nurture him and monitor his development and see him as an important arm. Well, speaking of optimism, we always close with the same question, which is what would constitute success for this team this season? How should Jays fans evaluate whether this season met its goals? Oh boy, that's a good one, right? Because after coming off of last season, you can't be too

rosy in your optimism. But I think that, you know, I think the fan base, if they were evaluating, they would say, at minimum, a wild card spot, and then try to do some damage in the playoffs and maybe win a baseball game in a playoff series, which they haven't done since 2016. But whether that's realistic or not, it depends on so many things. I believe that the potential is there for this team to be a playoff competitor, to be in contention, to grab a spot. But as we sit here, so much has to go right. We talked about George Springer has to bounce back a little bit offensively. We have Anthony Santander has to be that influence at the plate. Bo Bichette has to have a really, really big

season. Gladgrier Jr. has to be at least close to what he did last year. Dalton Varsho has to come back and he has to contribute more offensively to complement that brilliant defense. Every team has questions. The Blue Jays have more than most, it would seem. The talent is there. The capability of being a playoff contender is there. But a lot of things sure have to go right for them in 2025 to make all that happen.

Well, we will find out whether that happens by following the team through the coverage of Rob Longley at the Toronto Sun. Thank you so much, Rob. Hey, my pleasure. We'll do it again sometime. After a quick break, we'll be back with Ben and Meg from Fangraphs. Effective in life. Effective in life. Effective in life. All right, we are back and we are rejoined by AJ Casvel who covers the San Diego Padres for MLB.com and unsurprisingly is here with us to discuss the Padres. Welcome back AJ. Thank you for having me.

I appreciate you guys doing these things so I can kind of catch up on the other 29 teams and I'm happy to help enlighten what I can about the Padres. We appreciate it. And so there is some enlightenment required because I was just looking at the offseason transaction tracker at FanGraphs for the Padres and putting aside players who have returned, here are all of the additions listed for this offseason. It's a short list, so don't get too comfortable. Martin Maldonado agreed to minor league contract, JB Wendelkin agreed to minor league contract, Ron Maranaccio acquired from White Sox for cash, and finally, Juan Nunez selected from Orioles in Rule 5 draft. We have now reached the end of the editions for The Padres this offseason. Is AJ Preller okay? Have you spoken to AJ? Have you seen him? Is there proof of life? How is he handling this inactivity, which seems like anathema to him?

Yeah. I mean, we just saw him over the weekend at FanFest and he looks like AJ Preller and he even was sitting up there on the stage talking to the fans during their kind of forum and he said that they need to add another arm or two and add a bat or two which seems pretty obvious that if you look at what they've done so far this offseason it's not completely crazy they obviously need to get things done. If you look at their roster last season on February 1st, there were kind of some of the same questions.

They had obviously traded Juan Soto at the time, but there were so many holes on the roster and they ended up trading for Dylan Cease at the end of spring training. They ended up signing Jurikson Profar. They moved Jackson Merrill to center field. Now that was kind of, I don't want to say it was fluky. That was like, that was not the plan going into spring training and then all of a sudden he was Jackson Merrill. center field. Now that was kind of, I don't want to say it was fluky. That was like, that was not the plan going

into spring training. And then all of a sudden he was Jackson Merrill. So they, they filled that hole and then they traded for Louisa rise and signed Donovan Solano, David Peralta. So they made all these moves anyway, like late in the spring and into the season that helped them be as good as they were last season.

So I would still expect there to be some wiggle room for, for Peralta to be AJ Preller. That being said, it's been kind of crazy to sit here and not know exactly how the Padres are going to fill the question marks that they have. CB 0530 Yeah, tough times for beat writers when that's all you have to talk about. And there have been some subtractions and departures via free agency. Profar, he mentioned Tanner Scott, Hassan Kim, Solano, Perez, Sagashioka, et cetera. Some of these guys are additions from last year

who have departed, but still some holes to fill there. And when I saw how the projections and the projected standings shook out and I was making the schedule, I was kind of like, darn, I'm sorry that the Padres are so early in the series because as you said, they're not done. So what do you think we are missing by doing this segment so early? What would you project that will happen?

I know that you've written about trade rumors swirling around Cease, so Cease arrives, Cease leaves. What would be the goal of trading him? What would they be hoping to get back? And what else might they still do? Yeah, I think that's the thing that we're kind of waiting on is if the Padres, the Padres right now are kind of right up against the luxury tax. And it seems like they're kind of keen on staying below that number.

And so if that's the case, like they have these holes to fill in the outfield at either first base DH, they need extra guys in the rotation. And so then you start to think, well, who are the guys that they could trade to recoup some value and Cease is probably one of like four or five different guys that would be tradeable, but he's the guy that would get you the return, probably the biggest return because he's an ace and kind of free up that money to spread around on different guys. It's such a delicate needle to thread what AJ Preller did last season with Juan Soto

where he traded literally Juan Soto and got like a pretty good return for him. Like he got Michael King who had got Cy Young votes and then he got some guys that helped them get to the playoffs and Kyle Higashioka was good too. Like he was maybe the throw in in the deal and he was their starting catcher. Like they kind of got the Wansoto deal right,

which was a deal where you're trading a guy who's making more money and who only has one year of control but is clearly elite. And you're getting multiple guys to fill multiple holes at a cheaper price. And that's what I think like the goal would be of a Dillon cease trade. I just don't think it's that easy to do like the Padres pulled it off last year's Juan Soto. I don't

think it's that easy, like for them to just go and do it again. And so I mean, understandably, all reporting shows that the Padres have been asking for a lot for Dylan cease. And I think they're within their right to do that because he's a really good pitcher. I don't know if other teams are going to do that because Dylan cease is not Juan Soto. And so I guess that's kind of the thinking there. There's this guy who's making $14 million and the Padres have these holes. If they want to remain kind of payroll neutral right there against that CBT number,

he's maybe one of the better options to move, but he's also Dylan Cease, and he's a huge part of your rotation. And I would argue that right now, the biggest, probably the biggest need of the Padres is the rotation. So you're subtracting maybe your best arm, certainly one of your best arms and the guy that you would hope to carry you.

How much of this inactivity would you attribute to forces that are sort of outside the front offices control, right? You have sort of dueling problems that are hanging over the Padres. You have the TV situation and then you have conflict within the ownership group that is nasty enough to require litigation. So how have those two things sort of influenced the behavior of the baseball offside this offseason? I'm not sure if it's like slowed it down too much. If the Padres weren't going to go out there and kind of spend lavishly like they did after the 2022 season, maybe you get some of the better deals and I don't know, you force the issue

a little bit and you get some better bargains later in the off season. This was something that I kind of heard had heard earlier in the off season that that's where they thought they would be getting those kind of players and make those kind of moves happen like a don't see straight. That being said, like all this stuff factors into it. Of course it does. Like it's like, if there's questions over control of the team and if there's questions over TV, like those things are clearly part of the Padres calculus and who they're and how they're paying guys

and where the money is being allocated. But I don't know if it's, I wouldn't say if it's too much. I really think it's kind of more just a matter of like the Padres are trying to read this market and figure out where they can hit the numbers that they want to hit while still maintaining this roster like they managed to do it last season. They shed payroll and we're still really, really good and got the guys that they needed in the offseason and into the season. Obviously like the number

that is being set, if it's the first CBT number, that is maybe part of a product of all of this. But if they kind of know that going in, like this is them trying to figure out how they can use that money and I guess field another team that can compete into October and take the Dodgers to the limit again. I won't make you speculate about the sort of outcome of all of this back and forth between Sheila Seidler, who is Peter Seidler's widow and her brothers-in-law, Matt and Robert. But do you imagine that one side of that sort of resting control of the team from the other might have implications for payroll for the

Padres going forward? Does one side of that seem more interested in spending than the other? Is that a fair question? Yeah, I think it is. And I don't know the answer to it because all we know right now is kind of what Peter did. The ownership has kind of been in transition since Peter passed away in 2023. And so they haven't spent to that number. But again, I think in 2022, Peter kind of laid out that they wouldn't be spending the kind of money that he had spent when they saw the window opening then. They wanted to kind of make it a little more

like kind of sustainable long-term. And so I guess like we'll kind of see going forward. It seems like neither has kind of had the chance to make their to make their mark and to assert their claim over kind of That being the the like how they want to spend going forward how they view the team going forward But but both sides have clearly indicated that they just want to kind of kind of honor Peters wishes and and if you look at the way Peter spent on the Padres and really kind of spent on like the organization and the stadium and the fan base and invested that kind of thing,

that's kind of what I would assume every fan of every team wants. Yeah, what lessons if any should we draw from these tumultuous past few years of the Padres? Because when they started spending as much as they did under Peter Seidler, they kind of became the poster boy for, see, teams can do this. If they have the right owner who's actually willing to spend some money, then they can do it. It doesn't have to be just a few big market teams. And then there were other people who were saying, oh, they'll ruin the day.

They will collapse. They won't be able to sustain this. And I guess you could look at the past couple of years and say, well, those naysayers were right. Look, now we're talking about competitive balance tax and they want to stay under the threshold and all these guys they're traded for, now they're trading away, et cetera. But you could also say, but look at what happened in the interim. Of course, Peter Seidler sadly died and there was all this broadcast uncertainty and the

Padres had just incredible, terrible luck or timing or sequencing or whatever you want to call it a couple of seasons ago. So all these things went wrong and that's why those plans got derailed. Or you could even say, well, they don't have to be derailed. If Peter Seidler were still here, he would be operating the same way. It's just the fact that he's gone and his successors have not been equally aggressive. So what should other teams, other fan bases, even Padres fans take away from all of this? Yeah. I think like with anything, you can't just draw

massive conclusions from one very specific circumstance. But I think like, I went to those postseason games this year and the ballpark was sold out every night and I've been in some like pretty loud environments in New York and Philadelphia and Dodger Stadium and the playoffs and I don't know that I've heard any as like fun and rowdy as what Petco Park was was like in in the postseason and like isn't that kind of what this is all for like the the Padres still, despite maybe last season shedding payroll and not, and trading Juan Soto before their time with Juan Soto ran out and like having to restructure some things, they were still a really good team and they still have this fervent fan base that supports that team and they're selling out games on a nightly basis and the ballpark is rocking every night. Like that's, that's kind of, I think the point of all this. And so I guess the conclusion is that like that investment was a very good thing because I, you see it in the city on

an, on a daily basis. Like people here love the Padres care deeply about the Padres. And I don't think any of that would have been possible without like this level of that would have been possible without what Peter did. You mentioned a couple of places that the roster could use reinforcement additional targets that they might be interested in. And this is such an interesting team because they have a lot of really bright, bright lights, big stars who I think we can expect to be productive in the 2025 season, but there are the holes that you mentioned.

And I want to start on the infield and ask, well, maybe I'll ask this question in an optimistic way for Padres fans, which is when might we see Ethan Salas in the big leagues? Because I am underwhelmed by the current catching situation the Padres are putting forth. I like to give Ben a hard time because he always forgets to note that Elias Diaz was an All-Star Game MVP. But apart from that highlight, not much to write home about. Campusano hasn't really grabbed a starting role or been especially productive in his big league career.

So how long do you expect this catching situation to sort of persist as it is currently constituted? And do you imagine that we might see some reinforcement from the minor leagues, particularly in the form of Salas at some point this year? Yeah, I don't know if this is the year I think some Padres officials have kind of envisioned this as maybe being the year for Salas. His bat wasn't kind of at the level that that trajectory would necessitate. Like last season, he's an 18 year old playing in high A. Like that's not an easy thing to do. And so I would just, I would temper it by saying probably 2026.

But these are also the Padres who have moved Jackson Merrill here fast and CJ Abrams and Fernando Tatis Jr. So like guys get here fast and AJ Preller is not afraid if they're very clearly ready. That being said, the catching situation as on the whole is like it kind of clearly could use an upgrade if they could find it. I don't think now that they have signed Elias Diaz, I don't think it's like the top priority anymore.

Like there was a time where it was somewhat dire, like they needed a catcher very badly because they want to go after free agent pitchers. First of all, like they kind of want to know who they're throwing to. I think that they could go into spring training with this catching group, which is Diaz and Campasano who hasn't broken out and hasn't reached the level that I think a lot of us in San Diego kind of thought that he might, but he's also 26 and catchers notoriously, like it can take some time sometimes.

So I guess we'll see with him, but he's also maybe like a change of scenery candidate. And then maybe there's like a trade out there and that could shake up the Padres catching situation because right now it's probably a weak spot on the roster. It's not like the most glaring need, but it's a weak spot. And so if those are the two guys competing

for your starting job, well, like last season, those were your two guys who were competing for the backup job behind Paralhagashioka. They could use an upgraded catcher. I'm not entirely sure that we'll get into the season and they will have had one, but I think they're looking. So don't expect immediate salus salus is what you're saying. I guess it's useful for all of us to remember that he doesn't even turn 19 until June.

The funniest thing about the Padres roster is that there was some uncertainty about who would play shortstop and how well they would play it after famously AJ Preller just being infatuated with short stops and having short stops or ex short stops at pretty much every position last year with the departure of Kim, there were some question marks and maybe there still are about at least the quality of the defense you're going to get from that position. So who's going to play it and how well? So it's going to be Xander Bogarts.

We learned that over the weekend at FanFest. I think everyone kind of saw that coming. There might've been like some hope in the Padres camp that they could have come to some sort of deal with Kim just because he had the shoulder injury and maybe that scared some other teams away and the price wasn't as high. I mean, he ended up getting what he was worth. He's a really good defensive player and so Tampa Bay saw that and signed him. There was some hope the Padres could have him, but if they didn't, like they obviously have a ton of short stops on the roster. And we've been asking,

like we pretty much ask every season, every off season, whether Fernando Tatis Jr. might move back to shortstop. And every off season we get told emphatically no. And now we can kind of throw Jackson Merrill into that mix also. Like we're also asking that question. And we also get told no.

And so that's like, those guys are staying in the outfield. Xander Bogarts moves from second base back to shortstop, which is what happened after Kim's injury last season. And then Jake Cronenworth moves from, I guess he played first base and second base. He's played these kind of moved around for a while, but he gets the most value at second base. Like given that he's a strong defender there

and his offensive profile is more of a second base profile. Xander Bogarts like defensively, he's not the greatest defensive shortstop in the world, but he's actually graded out as kind of league average since he's come to the Padres. And since he's been playing shortstop, obviously he's getting older and short stops don't tend to age well defensively, but the Padres have Leo Dallas DeVries. And I think he's viewed as the, like he's as, as the next guy at shortstop. And like Ethan Salas, he's also 18 years old.

And so it looks to me right now, like Xander Bogarts will be that bridge until De Vries is ready whenever that is. I can't say that I blame the Padres for not wanting to mess with a good thing and move Merrill back to the infield. So Jackson Merrill obviously had a superlative rookie season, a rookie of the year season,

most years. Bad luck for him that Skeens exists. What, if anything, do they want Jackson Merrill to work on in the 2025 season? Because you could look at what he did and say, well, he's fully cooked. But is there any aspect of his game that they're hoping will take an additional step forward in 2025 and further solidify his status in the league. Yes, I think you guys had an excellent story on FanGraphs about it, about kind of improving his walk rate. And that's what he said. And he's like, you can't really look at Jackson Merrill season and say anything he did was like not good enough. Because if his full hitting profile is what makes him the player that he is, and he's hitting all these clutch home runs, all these like, Jackson Merrill's rookie season

was unbelievable. And I know Paul Skeens was incredible, but I don't know that like we're talking and I, maybe this is my like San Diego bubble, but what Jackson Merrill did in moving to center field is just insane to me. Like he'd never played it at any level ever. And then they came to him and they didn't even come to him

in spring training. They just put his name on the board with center field next to it and he saw that and went out and played center field and looked really good in spring training and then they were like oh hey we might have a center fielder the whole skill set like you said is like really good i think he looks at his season having talked to him as like man there's some areas that could really get better in and i think the number one thing that he looks at in that regard is just kind of being a little more patient at the plate, upping that walk rate a little bit. I don't want to say making it easier or making it harder on pitchers because I don't think

he made it easy on them by being as aggressive as he was. But just I think there's some within like his pitch selection, what he what he wants to get better at is forcing the pitches that he can drive. He's got a lot of pop, he's got a lot of power. There were some question marks when he was in the minors about whether he would like his swing would translate, would allow that him to grow into that power. And it like it did right away in the major leagues. And so I am very excited to see what year number two brings. I think there's some disappointment in San Diego

that he didn't win rookie of the year, even though Paul Skeens was as good as he was. I know the Padres had the longest rookie of the year drought and like this guy just had a rookie of the year season. He doesn't care. He's told us multiple times that he did not care about rookie of the year. And I'm just very,

I'm very excited to watch what year two is for him. So we talked about last year's big prospect promotion. We talked about DeVries and Salas who are probably the only two guys that you're going to see from the Padres on most top 100 prospect rankings this spring. The organization as a whole has dropped down the rankings. Keith Law had the Padres 25th, Kyle McDaniel had them 26th. And I guess it's been a while since they've ranked toward the top just because they have been so aggressive in dealing from that system to make major league upgrades.

Do they still have the capacity to do that in season given what they have unless they want to surrender one of those top two prospects? And what would the plan be for beefing back up that system? Yeah, I'm hesitant to say that they don't have like they always seem to beef the system back up. There have been like so many times in my this is my 10th season on the beat and it goes in these AJ Prel or cycles where his farm system is barren. He doesn't have anyone.

And then all of a sudden, like a year and a half later, he has he's trading all these guys to get Juan Soto or trading them to get Matt Kemp or whoever it is, like whatever whatever the trade is. Yeah, they seem to whether the system gets back to that elite level, it's been like a first or second system in baseball a couple of times, but it's also been like middle of the pack, but still with enough prospects to get you guys like Tanner Scott at the trade deadline. CB Yeah. If you look at a list of Padres prospects traded over the past several seasons, it's another full farm systems worth basically.

And I appreciate that. AJ Prelars told us multiple times that we know some of these guys are going to go elsewhere and become excellent major leaguers and we might face some blowback for that. And we don't care because we're looking at right now and we're looking at, and we think we can rebuild the system and I like I appreciate that way of operating maybe mostly because it's interesting like it's fun that way but I appreciate it that being said I think the Padres feel like their farm system like they're they're 2024 draft class they're very happy about they like kind of where it's headed it's not it's it's in the bottom 10 right now

by most projections, but I think they feel like there are some guys that are interesting enough where they can beef it back up. And they have, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, even though they traded away a lot at last year's deadline to go for it, and it came very close to paying off. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt

of being able to rebuild their farm system because they've done it in the past. That being said, there's just not a lot of like upper level guys right now. There's not a lot of guys in AA, AAA that are that are close to the big leagues. And if teams are going to be looking for that, like they frankly don't have it. Let's see if I can properly execute this transition on one of our early preview pods. One of the places they might want to deploy prospects in trade is to reinforce left field. Eh? Does that work for everybody? Obviously, we'll have Tateason right. We've already talked about

Jackson Merrill, but absent a trade, what is their plan for the left field spot? I think they have to sign someone. I don't know if that someone has to be like one of the biggest names left. I think it could be like David Peralta, like a platoon type situation. Like David Peralta played some there last season, or I guess he played in right field. You find a left right platoon and figure it out. They have Tiersower Nellis right now who like I know I just got done talking about how they don't have anyone in double A or triple A or any of those kind of older level prospects and he might be the one guy that they're interested, like they have that is kind of MLB ready, he's on the 40 man roster. So I think they want to see how he plays in spring training. They need to add a bat, starting caliber bat. I don't know if that bat is a first base DH kind of guy or if it's a left fielder, I think they just kind of know that they need to add a bat and then beyond that, they need to bolster like their bench and their platoon situation because I don't think that they're going to go out and maybe make a splash in left field.

But I've been proven wrong before and as with everything, like the minute you settle into thinking that this is the Padres left field plan that they're going to run out to your Sauron Ellis and figure out a right-handed option to platoon with him. Like that's the minute that AJ Preller on March 26th goes out and swings a trade because he's known to do that. So for right now, I think the biggest priority is probably on the pitching side of things. And so the left field situation might be treated with, you fill it out with guys that can platoon and make the team better and could be in bench rolls. Because if you look at this lineup,

it's fairly complete and they have the middle of the order thump that they need. Where do you allocate those resources? I'm not sure at this point. It's left field. And I think that's kind of pretty obvious if you look at like they didn't allocate those resources to jerks and pro far. There was so much talk about Padres under performance in 2023. They won 82 games. They had the Pythagorean record of a 92 win team, nine in 23 in one run games, lack of clutch performance. And there were multiple deep dives, post mortems written at the end of that season

that we talked about it in the podcast at the time about is this a lack of clubhouse leadership? Is it a lack of clubhouse leadership? Is it a lack of effort? Is it discord between the front office and the field staff? And we were somewhat skeptical, not just that those things existed, but that they were really responsible for those results because so often there's kind of a post hoc justification or things go wrong and you look for reasons why they went wrong or things go wrong and that leads to disharmony and it's not so much the other way around.

So we sort of expected a lot of people projected, okay, they'll regress to the mean, they'll be kind of a normal team. And they were more or less in 2024 and that helped get them back to the playoffs. So was that purely just bad luck regressing or were there actual problems that were addressed through changes in personnel, through Mike Schilt coming in, et cetera? Yeah, I've spent so much time thinking about that 2023 season because I still can't wrap my brain around the things that happened. And I think, like you said, it was just things going wrong that may have led to some of the dysfunction or discord or just

disappointment. I think more than anything it was a regression. It was just it was regression of the mean. This was a team that was like that had a lot of really talented players that was projected by a lot of people to be like World Series contenders or even World Series favorites. I think they were favorites in the division that season over the Dodgers. That weighed on them and when things weren't going right it became more difficult and it became not very fun in the clubhouse. Like I think a lot of those guys knew that they were supposed to be playing better and I don't know baseball's like it's a weird sport like you show up every single day and if it's not very fun you're probably not

going to play as well as you as you should or as you can and this year there was none of that burden. I think a lot of people came into last season expecting that the Padres were gonna win 83, 84 games, compete for that last wild card spot. And you get Jackson Merrill in that clubhouse who strangely enough, even though he's 21 years old, is like, he's somewhat of a leader in there already. And not in like a rah rah sense,

just in like a, that guy has a lot of fun playing baseball. I think Jorick Soprofar was part of it and he's not there anymore right now. But they're just, they were just, it was just a lot more fun to be at the ballpark. And as a result, the Padres played to their potential. I know that's just, that's more vibes than analysis, but they were a fun team to be around

and they were a fun team to watch last season. That was not the case in 2023. And I really just mean that from like a, the burden and the weight that, that existed in that 2023 season, uh, from what the expectations were. And, and yeah, Mike Schilt was, that was very successful in his first season. He was a part of that. Some of the guys they brought in were a part of that. They managed to strike this kind of weird balance of, like, I think their playoff roster,

only 12 of the, or maybe it was 13 of the guys, were not actually on the roster at the start of spring training, because they made so many in-season moves, and they still, like everyone that came in, kind of just fit. Long way of saying, I still don't really know exactly what happened in 2023,

but I've kind of come to accept it as a, as just like a, as a weird thing that exacerbated itself. Yeah. And and in 2024, the Padres just kind of put that behind them and went out and played to their potential, sort of a black swan season, I suppose. So we're half an hour into this interview, and we have not said the name Roki Sasaki, which is not what the Padres hoped would be the case. And if they had managed to sign him,

that would have changed the tenor of our conversation and the outlook for the season. So in retrospect, or really even before the fact, a lot of people looked at this and said, oh, slam dunk, he's going to the Dodgers. And then when he did, everyone took that as confirmation that yes, he was always going to be a Dodger. The Padres were kind of co-favorites or second favorites,

maybe because of Prelor's longtime scouting of Sasaki and Sasaki's relationship with Hugh Darvish. And clearly they thought they had a real chance and he was a finalist or they were finalists, whatever that meant. And it was disappointing for them and for Padres fans that they missed out on him. I know one of the dueling lawsuits by the control people alleged that perhaps that ownership

instability was a factor that led to Sasaki choosing the Dodgers because he cited the stability of the Dodgers as a factor. I don't know how credible that is, but why did the Dodgers feel like they missed out on him? Do they have a clear read on that or is it just, we can't beat the Dodgers feel like they missed out on him? Do they have a clear read on that? Or is it just, we can't beat the Dodgers? I think the Padres like legitimately felt they had a chance.

They really felt confident in their pitch and he chose the Dodgers at the end of the day. Like it just, like there were so many external factors cited as why he didn't choose the Padres, but I don't know. I can't get inside Roki Sasaki's head, whether he had, whether he was set on going to the Dodgers, whether he was open to coming to San Diego. Like there were a lot of people in the organization that when Roki Sasaki was posted, were, I would say, hopeful borderline, like optimistic that he would be, he would like what

they were, that what they had to sell. And then maybe kind of by the very end of the process, we're less confident in that, maybe based on what they'd heard from him or based on who knows. It comes down to a guy making a decision with what he wanted. And maybe we don't know exactly what factors played into it. He did cite the stability of the Dodgers and you can't not look at the situation and tie those two things to the situation in San Diego and tie those two things together. But I don't think the Padres feel like that was the reason why this happened.

I think they just, this is just a guy who made a decision to sign with the Dodgers and obviously a disappointing one for the Padres, probably more disappointing based on the way they felt on December 15th than the way they felt into January as the thing came toward a close because I think they were maybe kind of understanding where it was headed. So he will not be in the rotation and Dylan Cease might not be in the rotation come opening

day, but there are other people in the rotation. And I want to focus on three of the guys who are less well established. Obviously, Udavish wasn't available for a lot of the year, but he pitched well when he was. But what are they expecting from Michael King, Randy Vasquez, and Matt Waldron? By the way, Matt Waldron is someone I tried to have on this podcast throughout last season and just didn't make it happen. And so I assume you have had the pleasure of interviewing Matt Welchern. So I wanna just bask in the secondhand speaking

to Matt Welchern because of course I'm fascinated by him. We're very normal. He is a fascinating person to cover because he has this knuckleball, which is like everyone loves knuckleballs. But he doesn't necessarily view it the way we all view it. Like he just kind of thinks of this pitch as like a pitch that he has. And I think the Padres have spent a lot of time convincing him that like, you should throw this pitch a lot more, you should

throw this pitch, you should be maybe more convicted in the fact that you're a knuckleballer and that that works. And he kind of came or he's came or he came around to it and to some success and then toward the end of the season, kind of fell off and I think going in the next season he's maybe one of the bigger question marks like he could is he the first half version of Matt Waldron was awesome or is he like toward down the stretch version of Matt Waldron like he's a Chiefs fan I know this and he had Patrick Holmes posting posting I think it was on Twitter about like him throwing knuckleballs like Matt Waldron that was reallyballs like Matt Waldron.

That was really cool for Matt Waldron. So anyway, like I just just from a story perspective, and because I know like, this is a guy who was a throw in in the player to be named later in the Mike Clevenger trade. And so like the Padres just kind of got him and he was messing around with a knuckleball out on a backfield in spring training. They're like, hey, you should do that. And now he's in the major leagues throwing knuckleballs. So from a story perspective, I would love to see this kind of work and pay off. I think they're looking for the sweet spot with how often he throws the pitch. And I think it's probably half the time. So not like a traditional knuckleball sense. But yeah, he's he's a guy that I think like if he steps up that helps stabilize

the rotation that helps for any Vasquez steps up that helps too Michael King is viewed as like like maybe the ace like I think if the Padres were to trade Dylan Cease They would feel comfortable that that Michael King could be the guy because he was so he was so steady and consistent last year as a Starter he looked the part like he has all the pitches and he throws them to the quadrants and like he he is a starting pitcher Who just kind of hadn't been given the chance to be a starter until he got to San Diego. And then he did really well. Like I had him on my Cy Young ballot last year.

And so if you put King, Darvish, and potentially Cease into one bucket, and then you have Randy Vasquez, Matt Waldron filling out the rotation, like you'd like to add a couple guys to push for those back end spots. And maybe the Padres accomplish that by trading Dylan Cease and getting two to three of those like younger pitchers that are that are question marks. They've done a pretty good job of developing

those kinds of pitchers. There's also maybe some thought that like guys like Brian Hoeing and Stephen Kolick and the bullpen could be converted to starters. They're younger guys that haven't gotten really a run as starting pitchers. So I guess they're just trying, they're just, they view Michael King and Eudarvish as kind of the foundations and then Dylan Cease obviously if he's here. Michael King's also been mentioned as a trade candidate. I don't think, I think that's significantly less likely than Dylan Cease. But yeah, Vasquez and Waldron, like if those guys have big seasons and the Potters have been pretty good at major league pitching development under Ruben Niebla,

that would go a long way toward kind of solving those rotation questions that they have. It's not going to make them forget about Roki Sasaki, obviously, but like they really need some, because even if they sign a guy or two, they need some internal options to step up in the rotation. And the bullpen projects to be middle of the pack, but it does have a pretty dominant back end with Suarez and Adam and Jeremiah Estrada, who probably hasn't gotten enough attention for just how nasty and unhittable he was last season. So even without Scott, pretty good seventh, eighth, ninth inning trio there. How does the rest of the pen shake out?

They recently committed to Adrian Morihoan in the bullpen. So I think he takes over that left-handed role. Like obviously no one's like Tanner Scott's maybe the best in baseball, but Adrian Morihoan had a really good season and there was some speculation about whether he could fill one of those back end of the rotation spots because he came up as a starter and he the Potters have tried him as a starter a few times and it's always kind of been Set back by bad injury luck. They think he's found that bullpen niche And so he and Jeremiah Estrada both kind of broke out last season and Estrada's obviously his stuff's filthy he struck out 13 guys in a row and like some of those guys were like Aaron Judge and Jeremiah Estrada's stuff is I think as good as any back- guy at baseball. Kind of hear the way other guys talk about him.

Maybe he's the closer of the future and maybe Robert Suarez and Jason Adam are the guys that you look at to lock that down and not give those younger guys the kind of burden right now. But I would look at the bullpen as a strength of this team, kind of understanding that bullpens are obviously volatile and you never know what's going to happen with season to season with injury luck and with with I guess variants but stuff wise Jason Adam Robert Suarez Jeremiah Estrada and then I throw Adrian Morihoan as the lefty in

In the back end because right now it's a little imbalanced in the bullpen So we always end these segments by asking what would constitute success for the team in question in the coming season. And I guess after you get to the point of knocking off the Dodgers, then the next rung up would be actually doing so. But then again, they've sort of lowered expectations based on the off season inactivity and some of the departures. So what's a realistic outlook for this team

and what would be a successful season? Yeah, I mean, they'll say winning the division and beating the Dodgers. It's funny to kind of think about that and think kind of how unlikely it is statistically, probability wise right now, but then you go back to last off season and in Mike Schilt's winter meetings,

media availability set our goals to win the division and he was pretty adamant about that. And everyone, and that was when they were trading away one Soto and when the Dodgers were signing Shohei Otani. And I think everyone kind of thought that was a little ridiculous. And then they took the Dodgers to the final week of the season. So I'm not going to like rule out the possibility that there's some tight NL West race down the stretch, but I think a successful season for the Padres is getting to the postseason and maybe a season similar to what 2024 was just with a different ending, where they kind of get over that hump. And I don't know if they beat the Dodgers or the way the way the playoff bracket shakes out. But I think in a lot of senses, you could say that

the 2024 season was a successful one, aside from obviously the way it ended and then who it ended against and what that team ended up doing. And obviously the way that team is viewed in San Diego, like they're, they don't, they don't like the Dodgers very much here. And so like last, if, if the Padres can replicate what they did in 2024, in a lot of ways, I would say that that's, that's a success making the playoffs and, and kind of making some noise in the playoffs. CB 05.00 Well, they've been an entertaining team. Rob Manfred announced last year that they had 40,000 paid subscribers through the league-owned TV rights, which hard to see how you get revenue from that that equals what you were getting before, but also was the top figure among

teams that MLB was controlling at the time because they've put a pretty compelling product on the field over the past few years. So that was both encouraging and also discouraging because it paid off in a sense, but also that's the best you can do. So I am curious to see if that number goes up. If we get any transparency about that, I'm curious to see how they handle Luis Arais, impending free agent. Will he move on and win a fourth batting title with a fourth team? That would be fun. Although I'm sure Padres fans are excited to see him and watch him while he's there. Any other storylines that we haven't mentioned or players that you want to shout out before we wrap up?

Yeah, I think Arais is an interesting one one because he's so kind of uniquely viewed throughout the sport. Like what kind of value does he bring? The Padres love him for a lot of intangible reasons. He fit in their clubhouse and he was maybe a reason for the good vibes we saw this year. I'm very hesitant to draw the Tony Gwynn parallels because Tony Gwynn is a different category of player, but like batting titles in San Diego are still a thing that are viewed very favorably and and people and and like people here want to see Luis Arayas win another batting title in San Diego and I think

Padres or like organizationally they've made that joke that that we want to see him win a fourth batting title but keep it with the third team. So we'll see what happens. He's obviously been mentioned in trade rumors too. He's an interesting guy. Manny Machado coming back from elbow surgery, Fernando Tatis Jr. Like coming back from a leg injury. Like if both of them are healthy,

can they be like who they have been historically? It could be, I mean, it'll be interesting to see maybe what happens with some of these guys that were, because Araya's dealt with injury issues too. If these guys are all healthy, what they can accomplish in 2025. Well, we hope that AJ Prelor continues to hibernate until we can post this podcast, at least. But after that, maybe he can take the reins off, take the leash off and give AJ some transactions to cover. And you can do that

of course by following him all season long at MLB.com. Thanks as always AJ. Yeah, thanks for having me. Alright, thanks to Rob, thanks to AJ, and thanks to you for listening. We're probably going to go heavy on preview pods at the start of the series because it's just so much easier to schedule and control the audio environment before people report to spring training, before spring training games begin. The downside of that is that there are still some significant moves to be made. But that's always a hazard with this series. Probably Rays and Brewers next time. A few follow ups, a couple video game cover model related notes. I had mentioned that maybe the baseball video game cover model era had begun

with Reggie Jackson baseball in 1988. Listener Dennis noted that Dave Winfield's Batter Up came out in 1985 for Commodore 64 DOS and Apple II. There was also Steve Garvey versus Jose Kenseco in Grand Slam baseball for the Commodore 64 in 1987. Listener Kyle notes that Bobby Witt Jr. technically is on the cover of a game. He appears with several other players on the art for Topsbunt 24,

which is a mobile baseball collectible card game. Not really the kind of game we were talking about, but worth noting. I mentioned Luka Donchich earlier. If you want more thoughts for me on Luka, I know you're all clamoring for that. You can check out the latest episode of Slate's Hang Up and Listen podcast,

which we discussed that trade at some length. You think the Dodgers have a knack for collecting top talent? Check out the Lakers history of trading for superstars they didn't draft. I don't think there's a perfect comp for a baseball equivalent to the Luka trade. Baseball and basketball are just so structurally different. Though I did on that podcast make a Mookie trade comp, just in terms of the demoralizing effect that those trades had on the fan bases of the teams involved.

Listener and Patreon supporter James wrote in in response to our discussion of Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer's careers on the last episode and Verlander's robust innings totals early in his career. James notes just wanted to add that one factor with Verlander innings pitched is that those good Tigers teams had notorious bullpens that got exposed every October. Teams today would not be forced to use Verlander as long because they all have more decent options for innings 6-8. And that is true, that is absolutely one factor behind the lighter workloads for starters,

along with the growing awareness of the times through the order effect. I replied to James that the 2011 Tigers, the team we were talking about because that was the year Verlander had his career high in innings pitched, they won their division by 15 games, so it's not like their making it to October wasn't enough doubt that they had to push Verlander that hard even with a weaker pen. I suppose there might have been some postseason seeding implications. And actually, Detroit's pen that year ranked fifth in ERA-, 12th in FIT-, and 16th in FanCraft's War during the regular season, so it wasn't that bad. To illustrate the change in eras and pitcher usage, I probably should have mentioned that

the 2024 Tigers also needed innings pretty desperately, and also had a Cy Young winning ace who was roughly the same age that Verlander was in 2011, and also had a Cy Young winning ace who was roughly the same age that Verlander was in 2011, and Tarek Skubal averaged more than an inning less per start than Verlander did, which is one sign of the times. And finally we received several emails, not as many as we did about Bo Jackson baseball, but a bunch, in response to our conversation on our previous email show about a scenario where one World Series participant is predetermined going into the season so you know years in advance one of the teams that will be playing

in the World Series and what would the implications be? A number of people pointed out that there's kind of a parallel to this in sports. In Canadian junior hockey, the Canadian Hockey League, Patreon supporter Matthew writes regarding the idea of a system with known World Series berths in advance, there's actually a direct parallel to this in Canadian junior hockey. The CHL is made up of three constituent leagues, and the champion of each league competes in the Memorial Cup, and the fourth and final birth is automatically awarded to the host of the tournament.

Or, if they qualified the normal way, to the runner-up in the host league. The host teams are known some years in advance. What we see in these leagues is that host teams will time their builds to peak in the year that they will host, and that they will push all their chips in to maximize their teams for that tournament, typically through trades for other team stars. Another wrinkle here is that since this is a junior league made up of 16-20 year old players, it's a lot easier to time your team's peak, realistically, when your team is mostly 19 year olds, and there are no salary or aging curve complications. Patreon supporter John says

that this format was implemented to boost attendance starting in 1983, in that time nine teams have won the Memorial Cup as the host team despite not winning their league. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash Effectively Wild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad-free and get themselves access to some perks. Brett Knight, Daniel Stuttered, Drew Amaday, Chris Gale, and Mark Harpster, thanks to all of you.

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and production assistance. We'll be back with another episode a little later this week. Talk to you then. Effectively wild It's war with a smile Effectively wild It's the good stuff It's baseball nerd stuff, we hope you'll stick around for a while. I'll effectively wild, effectively wild, effectively wild, ha ha ha, effectively wild