Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2281: Season Preview Series: Orioles and Royals

Episode Date: February 8, 2025

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the Dodgers’ overstuffed 2025 bobblehead lineup, Ippei Mizuhara’s sentencing, and the Angels’ tireless pursuit of players who were good several seasons ago. Then they preview the 2025 Baltimore Orioles (35:55) with the Baltimore Banner’s Danielle Allentuck, and the 2025 Kansas City Royals (1:08:21) with the Kansas City Star’s […]

Hello and welcome to episode 2281 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from FanGrafts presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer joined by Meg Raleigh of FanGrafts. Hello Meg. Hello. We are cranking out the team previews. We're doing our third in a row. We have the Orioles today. The Orioles, the

Orioles, the Rorials. Anyway, the Orioles and the Royals are our teams today that we are talking about. We will be joined by Danielle Allentuck of the Baltimore Banner to talk about the Orioles, followed by Jalenuck of the Baltimore Banner to talk about the Orioles, followed by Jalen Thompson of the Kansas City Star to talk about the Kansas City Royals and briefly the Chiefs. But before we get to our previews today, do you know or would you care to guess,

or would you guess even if you don't care to, how many bobbleheads the Dodgers have on their 2025 promotional schedule? They have a bunch of bobbleheads the Dodgers have on their 2025 promotional schedule. They have a bunch of bobbleheads. How many bobbleheads would you guess that they're given out to fans this season? What a fun question. Okay, let's see. Let's see.

Okay, let's see. So let me pull up the Dodgers depth chart and see what I can muster in terms of an educated guess here. Okay. You can pull up the depth chart, but nothing else. Nothing else. I'm not going to look at the schedule. I'm not a cheater.

Don't accuse me of that. Okay. So definitely one for Shohei. So that's one, at least one. They might do like a weird two-way kind of option, but we'll count it as one. One for him as a player. I bet the Mookie Betts gets a bobblehead. Two. I bet that Freddie Freeman gets a bobblehead.

Three. I bet that Roki gets a bobblehead. Four. I bet that Yamamoto gets a bobblehead. Five. I bet that Blake Snell gets a bobblehead. Six. Do I think that Tye Oscar gets a bobblehead six. Do I think that Tye Oscar gets a bobblehead? You know what? I bet Tye Oscar gets a bobblehead seven. I'm guessing seven. All right. Try tripling that. No way.

21 bobbleheads. 21. You get a bobblehead. Wow. You get a bobblehead. You underestimated the number of Shohei bobbleheads, even though you guessed two. It's more than that.

Yeah. Okay, let me read you. I'm Control F-ing bobblehead on the website for the Dodgers promotion. So here we go. April 2nd, Shohei Otani MVP bobblehead. Okay. Sure. Okay, he's holding his trophy.

That's fine. All right. Next, April 11th, Freddie Freeman bobblehead, as you guessed, all right. Looks like he's doing his bat hold up where he's holding it by the knob, iconic celebration stance. Sure, why not?

That should be a bobblehead. Definitely. Dave Roberts bobblehead, April 26th. May 13th, Mookie Betts bobblehead, as you guessed. He's running, it looks like. He's maybe stealing a base. Okay. May 15th, well, it's been about a month and a half

since the most recent Shohei bobblehead. So it's time for another Shohei bobblehead. In this case, Shohei Otani 50-50 bobblehead. Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah, makes sense. It's his first player in the 50-50 bobblehead. Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah, makes sense. It says first player in the 50-50 club. He's sliding.

So we had the MVP and we had the 50-50. All right, next up, May 19th, Vin Scully bobblehead. Oh. Sure. Why not? Okay. Okay. May 21st, two days after the Vin Scully bobblehead, Will Smith bobblehead. Okay. Yeah. June 2nd, Tommyulley bobblehead, Will Smith bobblehead. Okay. Yeah.

June 2nd, Tommy Edmond bobblehead. Nice. Yeah. Just signed him to an extension. He'll be around for a while. Why not? Yeah. Why not give him a bobblehead. June 16th, as you guessed, Blake Snell bobblehead.

All right. June 21st, Ice Cube bobblehead. All right, July 2nd, another one you guessed, Yoshinobu Yamamoto bobblehead. Okay. All right, who else is left? You're probably wondering at this point. Well, we have so many more bobbleheads to go. Yeah.

We did Vince Gully, so you've got to do the air to Vince Gully in the Dodgers broadcast booth and on July 6th, you have to have a Joe Davis bobblehead. Really? Look, this isn't, I'm not trying to knock Joe Davis. That's not the source of my reaction. It's just interesting to me, particularly for a team with a guy like Vince Scully in the bobblehead rotation in the history of the franchise, that you would do an active broadcaster bobblehead.

I do find myself surprised by that. And again, not a knock on Joe Davis. I think that Joe Davis is great. I was just about to call Joe Davis Joe Kelly, which would have been wrong and very strange as a bobblehead choice. But yeah, I mean, like good for, I wouldn't want it that if I were, I think my relationship with fame is just fundamentally different than a lot of these people's, you could say that sort of writ large, but okay, well, you know what, good for you, Joe.

I say good for you. Based on my Googling, Joe Kelly had a bobblehead in 2019 when he was with the Dodgers. Didn't he have a mariachi-themed bobblehead? Maybe, I don't know. Maybe he had multiple too, because I'm not seeing that one.

There might be more than one. Oh, maybe that was the year before. So, okay. Yeah, I would say absolutely Joe Davis bobblehead, although you could just space it out a little bit. He's probably gonna be around and again, you have 20 other bobbleheads. You don't necessarily need to shoot that bobblehead

this season, but all right. I mean, July 2nd, you know, it's four whole days before you get to the Joe Davis bobblehead. So you don't wanna keep your fans too bobblehead deprived. Okay, July 18th, Legends of Dodger Baseball bobblehead. So this is a throwback to Ron Say. Ron Say gets a bobblehead.

Yeah, these are all really Legends of Dodger Baseball, but this is more of a past legend. So, all right. So we've got Ron Say having himself a bobblehead. We're like halfway through. Can I throw another guess in one that I'm surprised I didn't put on there? Do they have a Fernando Valenzuela bobble head on? Indeed they do.

And in fact, it is the day after Ron say Fernando Valenzuela has his bobble head. July 19th. Yes. Okay. Okay. Wow. Wow. July 22nd, you were on. Yes. Okay. Wow. Okay. July 22nd, you were on the fence. You weren't sure whether to go for it.

Teasca Hernandez bobblehead. Okay. Yeah. Why not? He loves being a Dodger. Why not? Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. And by the way, there's also like world series player rings being handed out and all sorts of world series celebrations. So- You know my thought on that. Yeah, I do. But it's funny, like there. But it's, it's funny. Like there's other stuff to celebrate.

You don't have to, to load up the schedule with bobbleheads, but they're doing it anyway. Okay. August 4th, as you anticipated, Roki Sasaki bobblehead. Now it's a, it's always a bit of a risk when you're making the bobbleheads. Now it's happened before that you've made bobbleheads of someone and then either they don't have a good season or they get traded or something before their bobblehead day or that or yeah, they get released.

It's awkward. Do you still go ahead with the bobblehead day? So a guy coming over and coming off by his standards, sort of a down season and a lot of adjustments to make. Will he live up to the hype? Will he justify the rookie season bobblehead? Hope he does. I'm excited to see him.

Yeah, his rookie season is notable regardless of how it ends up playing out. So I think that there is a little bit of risk. It does feel like pressure, but also being in the rotation of the Los Angeles Dodgers is pressure. So what's one more thing really. It's also a situation where there's really no rush

for Roky though. You could keep your powder dry. Like you have this team full of superstars. You got Mookie and Freddie and Shohei and all these other guys. You could wait until his sophomore season. You're like, let's see how he does and let him settle in and not put extra pressure on him.

But no, we're going with the Roky bobblehead. Okay. We have a Shohei Otani World Series ring giveaway on August 6th, but that's not a bobblehead. The next bobblehead after Roki is a Kobe Bryant bobblehead on August 8th, followed on August 16th by a Blake Trinen bobblehead. So, somewhat problematic figures there in some senses, but Los Angeles icon and also Blake Trinen.

Who's a good- And also Blake Trinen. Yeah, okay. August 27th, another Shohei Otani 50-50 bobbleheads. Oh, another one. Okay. Yeah, I don't know whether it's the same one that they're handing out again,

or I hope there's no picture here. There's usually a picture, but there's no picture for this one in August. One would hope that this is the one where he's hitting and the other one was the one where he was sliding. Oh yeah, so you have like a you have a pair you can have a little bit of a collector. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then September 10th, Shohei Otani Bobblehead. Right. So. This one doesn't even specify, because we had the Shohei Otani MVP Bobblehead, and then the two 5050s,

and this one is just Shohei Otani. It's just nothing special. It's just, you know, it's just the standard vanilla Shohei Otani Bobblehead. Yeah. So is that the last bobblehead on offer? Not quite. There's one more.

September 18th, Tyler Glasnow bobblehead. Okay. Yeah. He's very handsome. He is. Got great hair. And quite talented when he's healthy. Yeah.

Yeah. Bobble hair. They should have a bobble hair for Glasnow where the hair just flows. But yeah, all of these while supplies last, giveaway is limited to 40,000 units unless otherwise noted, one giveaway item per person will be given to the bearer of the ticket upon entering the stadium,

schedule subject to change without notice. So that's the fine print, but yeah, 21 Dodgers bobble heads. This is the closest I've come to hopping on the Dodgers are OP overpowered. They have too many stars. We're talking about 21 bobbleheads in a single season. See, I saw a blue sky post by Patrick Lyons who covers the Rockies. And he noted that the Rockies in the past decade, 2015 to 2024, have had a grand total of 22 bobbleheads. So the Dodgers are almost equaling the Rockies

decade in a single season. Now, is that purely related to the star power or is it related to the proclivity of bobblehead giveaways. Maybe it's just, there's an organizational tendency to just, let's err on the side of more bobbleheads. And maybe this is another way that the Dodgers are flaunting their wealth and are saying, look at our incredible manufacturing power that we have such deep pockets that we can produce 21 bobbleheads. I mean, it's kind of a cool move, also kind of a curious one, because it's not like the Dodgers are going to have trouble drawing. It's not as if, and neither do the Rockies for that matter, but it's not as

like we have to give people a reason to come out to Dodger Stadium to see the super team, so we better load them up on bobbleheads. I think you're thinking about it backwards. I think you have the goal here exactly backwards. They know they're going to draw like crazy. And that one way to make sure they don't have riots is to have a ton of bobblehead giveaways dispersed throughout the year. And I have to say, so they're not quite giving away the capacity of the ballpark, which I

think is like 56,000, but like 40K, that's pretty, if they're doing 40,000 each run, I think that this is actually like some of the most well-considered fan service I've ever heard of in my entire life because there's just going to be, and you have to do, what a small mind I've revealed that I have, right? What a narrow focus. What picky dreams I have revealed for myself. Of course you have so many Otani giveaways. Again, part of this is just like a crowd control strategy because people love Otani. And man, I'm going to do a big swear, people love bobbleheads. And I say that as someone who loves bobbleheads.

Like I'm with you, I see you bobblehead enthusiasts, right? But I think that they know in order to keep things as mellow as they can be in a season where they will be decidedly on mellow, they must do as many as they can be in a season where they will be decidedly un-mellow. They must do as many as they can and they must give away a great many of them at every turn. I'm with it. I'm here for this. I might quibble with some of the individual bobblehead honorees, but I think it's, I think this is just good business. I agree with you that if they wanted to, they could just wait to do a Roki one, but I think it's probably fine. Here's the other thing to

consider that is wild, and I don't know if there's precedent within the Dodgers context specifically for this, but these are just the announced bobbleheads, right? This isn't the, hey, These are just the announced bobbleheads, right? This isn't the, hey, Yamamoto threw a no-hitter, so we're gonna do Yamamoto no-hitter bobblehead day, you know, in addition to the one we already have on the docket. That's not here at all. That's not even accounted for. Amazing, spectacular. I think it's fantastic.

I should have, I wonder if they're, well, I guess it's, I'm answering my own question in real time. So I guess Conforto didn't get a bobblehead, right? No, not yet. Conforto didn't get a bobblehead. Kim didn't get a bobblehead. I don't know saying that that's like a wrong choice. Yeah, no Tanner Scott bobblehead, no Kirby Yates bobblehead.

No Kirby Yates, but like many, many of the new guys got bobbleheads. But in order to be a new guy who got a bobblehead, you had to be either literally Roki Sasaki or, you know, are you a new guy or are you just like a returning face, right? Like there's affection in history with Teyasker Hernandez. There's affection in history, even though it's limited, with Tommy Edmond, who I still like, Tommy Edmond not being a Boston Red Sox just like really robs me of one of my better bits, which is Massachusetts Sports Talk radio caller wanting to talk about f***ing Tommy Edmond, dude. We could have had it, but no, you just had to be a Dodger. Fine, I'm in actually, the Dodgers are too over overpowered because they've robbed

me of such a good impression. It's a perfect joke. Everyone says so. I think it's great. I do wish that they would stop giving replica rings away. It's a promotion that I don't care for, but I know that mine is a minority opinion. I'm not saying it should prevail. I do think it's right, but, um, I like this take. I don't really share it, but I, I like it. I like that you're on this corner of only the players should have rings and no one can have even replica rings.

I just, I think that it should be something that should be for people directly affiliated with the organization. And for those who have not yet heard this take just to expand, I think that teams should be very liberal with their definition of affiliated with the organization. Like I think it's really cool when, you know, ballpark staff get rings and, you know, like they should, it's a, it's a big team effort and, um, there's a lot that goes into winning a series. And like part of that is how you feel at home.

So like, I do think that a lot of people should get rings, but I don't believe in replica ring giveaways. It's, it's, uh, it's a bridge too far for me, but anyway, all the bobbleheads one could ever want. Can you imagine if you were like a, I know a lot of people who have like season tickets to MLB teams have, you know, they'll have like a limited run of tickets. They're not necessarily there every day, but can you imagine if you're like a full season season ticket holder and you're just like, what am I supposed to do with all these? Yeah, my shelf space is limited. Right. When I was a, I don't know if they still do this. I am not offering it as a criticism

if they don't, but when I was a partial season ticket, season ticket holder of the Mariners back in like 2015, they would, if you bought enough games, they would send you this big box and it just had all of the promos. So if you had missed one, it didn't matter. But then I was like, I now have two of so many of these bobbleheads. And so I just wonder, if you're anyway, you might be, if anyone's wondering who's supplying the eBay market for these bobbleheads, look to the season ticket holders. But eBay market for these bobbleheads. It'll look to the season ticket holders, but. Yes, when I was an intern for the Yankees, I wrestled with this because one of the perks,

I guess nominally a perk of the job was that we got all the giveaways. And so it would be like blue light specials we call it. It was like blue light days. We'd just go and get all the giveaways. And then you quickly realize you don't really want them or at least a lot of them you don't want, but it's like free swag, I guess I'll take it

and then it'll just be cluttering my house forever and that's not great. But yeah, bobbleheads perpetually popular. So my only note here is a lot of these guys are signed long-term, don't be hasty, space out your bobblehead giveaways, but they can just give them away next season with maybe a different model. And people won't be like, no, we already have a Mookie Betts bobblehead,aways, but they can just give them away next season with maybe a different model.

And people won't be like, no, we already have a Mookie Betts bobblehead. We don't want another one. No, they'll say, give us more. Give us a fifth and sixth Shohei Otani bobblehead. So I would love to be able to do a bobblehead stat blast. And just, I'd love to be able to say like, this is the most bobbleheads ever given away

by a team in a single season. I don't know if that data exists anywhere. If anyone knows of a, a bobblehead giveaway compendium, or if anyone wants to do the work and compare the Dodgers bobblehead giveaways this season to every other teams combined, I'd be kind of curious about how they measure up. So please write in if you care to do a guest stat blast on bobbleheads. We will share it. I did find on the Dodgers website, they actually have a record of all of their bobblehead giveaways for the past 25 years dating back to 2001. And it looks like there are

three distinct eras. So from 2001 to 2010, they gave away between two and four bobbleheads per year, average of 3.3. Then 2011 was a transitional year, they gave away six. And then the next phase, from 2012 through 2017, they gave away between 10 and 12, average of 10.8. Then 2018 was another transitional year, they went up to 18. 2019, 20. Then came the pandemic, only one bobblehead in 2020,

12 bobbleheads in 2021, but then the four years since, 21, 21, 19, 21. So this is tied for their record. So from 2022 through 2025, they've averaged 20.5 bobbleheads. I'll graph it. I'll put it on the show page, but they have worked their way up to this. Definitely Dodgers bobblehead creep happening here. One legend of Dodger baseball who will not be receiving a bobblehead is Ipei Mizuhara. Instead, he will be receiving. Hold on. That was a very dark intro, but I was like, if Ben is about to tell me that somebody died by using the bobbleheads, I'm going to, I don't know what I'm going to do with that.

Okay, hold on. You just mean jail time. Being dead does not preclude you're receiving a bobblehead, clearly. No. But no, Ipe instead received a 57-month jail sentence, which was what the government asked. So his representatives asked for 18 months, government asked for 57. Judge said, I'm going with the government on this one and laid down, well, not really the maximum, I guess, you know, he was initially subject to an even longer term, but this was the sentencing request by the government and it was granted and based on the judge's comments, that letter from Ipe did not go over well whatsoever.

Oh really? No, it backfired. So we talked about the letter that Ipe put out there, a plea for clemency, ostensibly not to say that it wasn't my fault, but more to sort of give a more complete picture of the circumstances that led him down this dark path, this mistakes that he made. And the judge did not at all take to that explanation.

In fact, the judge seemed upset about it because it played as Ipe not being as penitent as he should have been, that he was trying to make excuses, which he said he wasn't trying to do, but also kind of was. It's like when baseball players say they're not trying to make excuses, but then they start making excuses and sometimes they're legitimate excuses. And I'm fine with it, but just a cop to it. You're making an excuse.

It's okay. But that's sort of how this played as if he was blaming Otani for overworking or underpaying him and, and laying the blame at his feet for forcing him into his life of crime. Essentially, that's kind of how the, the judge perceived this. And also seems to have maybe misrepresented certain things. The judge said that his pre-sentencing letter was filled with misrepresentations and omissions and said, I give it no credit.

And some of those omissions, cause a lot of it was like, E-Pay was claiming to be living paycheck to paycheck and paying multiple rents and paying for airfares and such, and then it comes out that actually Otani was paying for a lot of those things, which E-Pay's lawyers didn't really deny. And, uh, yeah, he pay was like, you know, given big bonuses and tips also like Ohtani was given him a car and paying his rent and paying for airfare for him and his wife. So it just seems like he was misrepresenting some things. Ohtani gave him a Porsche and a five figure lovesure. Otani loves to give people Porsches. Yeah, he does.

That's one of his moves. Yeah, that was the Joe Kelly? Was that the Joe Kelly? Yeah, for the uniform number? To his wife, yeah. Yeah, right. And Otani was paying for the rent and the airfares and the judge agreed that Ipe wasn't really making

a good faith effort to pay Otani back or any effort because he was pocketing the winnings while continuing to take from Otani to cover losses. So even when Yipei won a bet or came out ahead, it's not like he gave that back to Otani. He didn't like put it back in the account. Right. And so he had money in his personal bank account at all times. And Ipe's attorney acknowledged that part of Mizuhara's letter was poorly worded. So, yeah, so that just didn't go great. So he's in line for 57 months and also is supposed to make restitution to Otani and the IRS

and supposed to pay back many millions of dollars, which it will be difficult for him to do. Also, Ipe or his lawyer kind of made the argument that Ipe only stole so much because he was given this massive line of credit because of his connection to Otani. And therefore, like it wasn't Ipe's fault that he stole so much because he wouldn't have been able to steal so much if he hadn't been given the opportunity to steal so much because of his association with Otani, which is certainly one interpretation of the sequence of events here. So yeah, he just, he didn't do himself any favors here.

The vault door was left open. What was I supposed to do? Not steal? Yeah, right. So look, there are ways in which I feel bad for the guy and I do believe he had a gambling problem and the government stipulated that he had a gambling problem. There was some dispute about how long standing the gambling problem was because his lawyers tried to say that he had a gambling addiction since like high school and there didn't really seem to be any evidence of that until recent years. So again, it was just kind of an effort to spin things a little bit in a way. And Otani wrote his own letter,

which was sealed. So that's not visible to the public, but kind of a victim impact statement that was given to the court. So kind of a victim impact statement that was given to the court. So we don't know what he said or how that influenced the judge, but there was not just one side of the story. I mean, like, look, it sounds like there wasn't really a good, like there wasn't a good version of this story that was going to necessarily result in leniency for him. I just don't know why his lawyers weren't like, hey, that's materially not true. The court really doesn't like it when you like fudge the truth. That tends to get you in hot water a hundred percent of the time. So

it feels like a thing that his lawyers probably should have intervened on. I don't dispute his right to like try to make a plea, but it doesn't sound like this one was particularly well considered. I am glad that we don't know what was in Otani's victim impact statement. Yeah. It's probably pretty sad, I would guess. Yeah. I'm going to speculate here in a way that like inadvertently proves my point perhaps. But I, just speaking for myself, would, I

would really struggle to be a trusting person after something like that. Accounting for that kind of psychic damage feels like a thing that should be left to him and his representation and the judge in the case and not something that we need to particularly grapple with. But I hope that my instinct around that is wrong and that he's doing okay with that kind of stuff. I would really struggle to trust people again after that if it were me. So, yeesh. Jared Sussman Yeah. And another thing that weighed against him, I guess, was because he was saying that he was remorseful and that he cooperated, which to some degree he did. But initially, of course, there was, I mean, not just the impersonation, which he and his lawyer didn't dispute, but also that initial

lying and the confusion that I think fueled some of the conspiracy theories, which would have existed anyway, but the initial messaging and the way that he tried to play it off initially and say that Otani knew about it and putting that message out there first, I think, did shape the public perception. And so it's not as if from the very instant that he was caught, he said, okay, you got me and I will completely come clean. There was an initial scramble to try to save himself, which was doomed.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it's, you know, it's not the, uh, maybe the worst part of all of this, but it might end up being one of the longer lasting pieces, which is like, there are still people who believe that this guy has taken the fall for Otani, that these were Otani's bets, that there is a conspiracy at play here. And that carries damage with it, even if it's silly. And even if I think most people at this point, particularly since he has been sentenced and is going to do actual like federal jail time, are probably like, yeah, I don't know that I would do that

for a buddy no matter how much I liked him. But you know, there are going to be people who for the rest of Otani's career just refuse to believe that he didn't do this. And that stinks. Yeah, that was something that the government said, quoting from Molly Knight here, who was covering the proceedings, government closing and focusing on how this has impacted the victim's reputation, how people online are selling merch, calling Otani a gambler and disgraced former ballplayers and conspiracy theory writers are also piling on. So, yeah, look, Otani, he's got a lot of good things going for him,

obviously, but still stinks that if he was blameless or if his only source of blame was being naive or being too trusting, not being vigilant enough that he is being labeled with far worse transgressions. And that will probably stick with him for some time because facts and evidence don't seem to matter much anymore. It is a dark time. He will probably, by the way, Ipe, that is, will be deported back to Japan because he's a legal permanent resident of the US,

grew up in Southern California, but he's not a citizen. And now that he has committed a felony, that could be grounds for deportation, though that might not happen until he finishes his prison sentence. So yeah, dark days ahead for him. And I hope that, yeah, I hope that he does reform and like, you know, gets back on the straight and narrow and has some sort of redemption story or second act to his career. Cause you know, it stinks, it's sad.

Like he did the crime, he's gonna do the time, but I don't wish ill on him beyond that. Yeah, I think we've said this before and you know, even him trying to wiggle out of it right at the end doesn't change my impression here. Like, it's a tragic story. I don't say that to absolve him of responsibility for his own actions or anything like that, but like, it's a tragic story. It's really, really too bad. And I'm sure if he had it to do over again, he might've chosen a different course, but this is the path that he, he elected.

So yikes man. Bummer. Yep. All right. Before we get to our previews, one last thing about the other Los Angeles team, the team that used to employ Ipe and Shohei, the Angels, we're not going to get to the Angels preview until I think the very end of the month. So I will note that A, the Angels have a mere five bobbleheads on their promotions and giveaway schedule

for this season. And on the website at least, they don't specify what those bobbleheads are. They just say giveaway bobblehead. So maybe they've announced it elsewhere, I don't know. But this isn't about bobbleheads. It's about their off-season signings. It seems to me that they are trying to assemble

an all-star team from maybe 2021-ish. That might actually be too recent, maybe more like 2019. I don't know if they know what year it is or if they're stuck in some sort of time warp here. I guess if they wanna hand out Bobbleheads, they do have a bunch of guys now who used to be good. So maybe they can make bobbleheads of them. They just signed Joan Moncada.

And that is the latest of their editions of guys who once were good, along with Tim Anderson, JD Davis, Carter Keeboom, I guess was never really good, but he was supposed to be good at one time. He was supposed to be good. Kyle Hendricks, another good one.

Kevin Newman, I don't know if he even qualifies as used to be good. I guess he had his moments. 2019, you know, he was pretty good back then. So solid role player for most of his career. I think it's a fair way to describe him. It's not his fault he was miscast. You know what I mean? He's one of those guys who I think gets a bad rap and it's like, he should have only

ever been a complimentary player. It's not his fault that teams are like, you're going to be a starter because that's what we can afford. He was asked to do too much. Yeah. It's the Angels and the Pirates, Newman's former team. I feel like they've probably been bidding against each other in their efforts to sign over the hill veterans.

It's just like Adam Frazier going back to Pittsburgh, Tommy Pham, who I hope did not hear me sing over the hill because I might be scared for my safety. But other than that, really, it just moves up the margins. But the Angels, I don't really know what they're doing. And I'm sure that we will talk about that when we get to the angels preview, but it's just, they're always making moves and they're always trying more so than some teams do, which I applaud, but the way that they try, sometimes it seems like a solid plan and it just backfires in very angels fashion. But in this case, I'm not even sure.

You say Kikuchi fine. Good signing, good pitcher. Travis Darnoe. Okay. Yeah. Good, good backup. Certainly to go along with Logan Ohapi, who I like a lot. All these other moves, it's just like banking on bounce backs and not just

after a down year, but after a few down years, a string of down years in many of these cases. So I don't know, just like get the gang back together here and hope that they find the fountain of youth seems to be the plan, including Mike Trout. I hope that Mike Trout finds the fountain of youth and durability too. You can tell how the last couple of years have gone because I was like, who do they even have on their team to have a Bumblehead for? It's like, oh yeah, that's my trip. Definitely gonna, one of them is going to be my trip. Yeesh.

Yeah. I just, I wonder how they came up with these targets, whether they thought, Hey, there's still a little life in this bat, like Tim Anderson. Remember when he was really good and fun? Forget about the last couple of years and what happened there. Maybe he will be revitalized. Maybe we will unlock the secret to bringing back their primes.

I don't know. They have a plan, seemingly. They have a type. I just, I don't know that this is gonna work out for them. This is kind of a bold strategy, cotton sort of situation that the angels are pursuing here. Yeah. Jorge Saler also in the mix.

Oh yeah, Jorge Saler is a good one. Okay, yeah, okay, that's respectable. Oh, Scott Kingery, let's throw him into the mix too. Scott Kingery is another one. Feels like pressure, feels like unwarranted pressure. Jorge Saler can do it though, he's a bopper. Jorge Saler is a perfectly respectable. He's been productive more recently than these other guys I'm naming here.

Wow. What a mix of off-season additions. I can't wait for that preview, but we will wait for that preview. However, we will not wait any longer for today's two previews. So after one quick break, we will be back with Danielle Allentuck to talk about the Baltimore Orioles. And with us once again to do that is Danielle Allentuck, who covers the Orioles for the Baltimore Banner. Welcome back, Danielle. Thank you. is Danielle Allentuck who covers the Orioles for the Baltimore Banner. Welcome back, Danielle. Thank you.

So, it's not as if the Orioles didn't spend this offseason. I think they committed the eighth most money to free agents, but they didn't exactly sign marquee guys. When Tyler O'Neill and Charlie Morton are your headliners, maybe that's not what your fans were hoping for. O'Neill is the only guy to sign more than a one-year deal. Was this the way the Orioles drew up their winter or do you think they had other designs that didn't come to fruition? I don't know if this is necessarily the way they drew it up, but they

certainly, as far as I know, were not competitive enough to go in on any of these big guys. If you look back at the trade deadline last year, it looks very similar to what they did as offseason where they just want quantity over quality. They just got a ton of guys at the midseason trade deadline and hoped that would fill their problems. And it seems like that's what they did as offseason as well. They got signed a lot of free agents, probably more combined than they have in the past five or so years, but they did not get any top guys or anybody to replace Corbin Burns or Anthony Santander.

Why? When Angelos was there, there was always the question of, is this an ownership issue or is it a front office Michaelias issue? So now we have new ownership and granted new ownership that's in favor of a salary cap, but still new ownership that talked a big game about spending more. So some of the responsibility seems to have shifted

to Elias and people have been critical of his mindset, maybe shifting from a rebuilding prospect stockpiling to actually going for it philosophy. Is that fair? Do we know how to apportion the credit and or blame here? Yeah. I mean, this new ownership group, they have money, you know, point blank. There's a ton of billionaires on it. You have David Rune side and Michael Bloomberg's involved and Cal Whipkin Jr. So it's not like the team doesn't have money anymore. I think the problem is more so, like you said, you know, Mike Elias is still the guy running it and controlling who gets what money. And the way Mike's brain works is I

won't have a winning team this year, but I also won't have a winning team next year, any year after. And I think for him, that means like, oh, I can't go trade all my prospects because then who's going to help me next year or I can't spend all this money because what does that means I can't go get this thing that I need in the future. So I think his brain is just he's not able to go all in on one year. He's trying to be, I guess at this point, you know, a pretty good team for the foreseeable future instead of going all in for one season. I understand that as a sort of broader approach. I don't know that I agree with it as the most

efficient way for them to take advantage of the young guys who they have on the roster who are cost controlled. But I also am just a little flummoxed by some of the individual roster decisions that were made this off season. If you only have so much money to spend, I know that they need to address Santander's departure, but what does Heston Kirstead have to do to be on a starting depth chart? My goodness, like you bring in O'Neill, you sign Ramon Larianno. Basically, it seems like they are creating depth oppositions where they arguably already have depth within the organization. So can you talk a little bit about how they see these young guys interacting with some of the veterans

they've signed and how they are thinking about playing time, particularly in the outfield? That outfielders stock, they have seven guys right now competing for four or five spots. And I have a feeling they'll go five outfielders on the opening day roster, just because I think that some couple injury players from last year won't be quite ready this year. But right now, Heston Kirkstead is not on that opening day roster, and he looked great

when he was healthy last year. He had that concussion that held him out. But I don't see right now a path for him cracking this team, because they'll come up with some excuse. They'll say, oh, Dylan Carlson, the switch hitter, he can play there. Why would we need Heston? Or this guy is a better defender than him. So he needs to go to AAA and work on his defense a little more. Heston Kirk said he does not need to go back to AAA. He is well advanced at. And even if he makes the team, I don't know how he plays because theoretically you're going to have Cedric Mullins in center, Colton Kalter in left field and Tyler O'Neill in right field and maybe Heston can platoon with Tyler

O'Neill but I could also see a scenario where they you know don't put him on it at all he doesn't get to so I don't quite understand what they're doing. I am curious if there is an injury to somebody that we don't know about in that outfield group and that they felt like they had to go get more veterans like as a kind of security measure. But you know, I asked my Goliath that we spoke to him on Friday and he didn't have any injury updates for us at this point. So it just seems like they want insurance there in case, you know, something happens. While we're talking about one of the young guys whose positional future is uncertain, maybe we could cover Kobe Mayo too. Where does he fit in

and win? Yeah, he's another interesting case. He did not hit his stride in the majors, you know, very limited experience last year. But I could see a case where he goes back to AAA. His defense, you know, is not there yet. I think he is somebody who could actually use a little bit more time working on first and third. And they've also floated the idea of giving him some experience in the outfield as well. But you know, the positions he plays first base, Ryan Mountcastle and Ryan O'Hurne have that covered. And in third base, Jordan Westberg will start there. You have Ramon Uribe, you have Jorge Mateo. Gunnar can play third if needed.

Like there's just not currently a pass for him to crack the roster anytime soon unless he can really figure out the bat and make that defense surfaceable. Maybe we can keep the young guys who struggled, Hit Train going or lack of Hit Train. This is my intro to Jackson Holliday. I don't think that this went the way that either he or the Orioles were hoping in his major league debut. And I'm curious where the organization sees him going forward, not so much from

a position standpoint, but has their baseline projection for him changed and what did they tell him to work on in the off season? Because there are a number of options at his disposal. I guess the good news for Jackson is that it can only get better, but how do they see him sort of charting a course forward where he can be not only a viable big leaguer, but a guy who is contributing to the heart of that order like they were hoping he would when he was first coming up? They still see him as their starting second baseman. You know, they never ravered from

that last year when he was up in the majors. They gave him, you know, every opportunity to show that he could do it. And he did improve in that second stint when he came back up but still wasn't you know anywhere near anybody's expectations of him. So what they told him to do this offseason was pretty simple just work on his strengths. You know he still is I think he just turned 21. He's not nearly as strong as some of the other guys and he really gained strength this year. I saw a video of him the other day where he hit a ball off a tee 110 miles per hour. I don't think that they've changed their perspective. I do think that this year they would be a little bit more quick to bench him if needed, especially if some of their backup second

baseman are healthy, which they did not have the fortune of last season. But he's still their guy. They still believe in him. They still think that this year is going to be much better. And if you look at other Orioles prospects, you know, Colton Cowes are struggling in his first year. I didn't look great last year, you know, you had the same of Gunnar Henderson to an extent. So they are pretty used to this and they've found that if they just keep throwing them out there, one day they're going to figure it out and they'll be okay. How did he handle those struggles psychologically? Because he is a guy who hasn't struggled that much on his way up through the minors, but he's also a guy who's the son of a big leaguer and has been around the game his whole life and so probably understands how these things go,

at least in theory. But in practice, maybe it's a little bit different given all the expectations that were heaped on him. I'll just say I have been so impressed with Jackson's maturity and its ability to handle anything that's kind of been thrown at him from the media circus to you know, all the attention on him and his dad and He has handled everything much better than I would have anticipated that he would considering his age but you know, he said he spoke with his dad a lot his dad is definitely his mentor and Is really supportive of him and you have seen, you know, he was obviously bummed, but you know, he point blank said, like, I knew I wasn't playing well, you know,

he's not immune to that. He knows how this business works. He's seen his dad get treated and, you know, go through struggles. And I think that he handled it really, really well. And he just went down and said, what do I need to do? He did it and he looked better when he came back up. Guy who struggled down the stretch, but was obviously quite established on the team last year was Adley Rutchman. And if you look at his monthly splits from a WRC plus perspective, it's fairly dramatic. It's dramatic enough that I was a little surprised

when the season ended that we didn't get news that he had been playing through an injury and required some sort of off season procedure to address it. So is this just catcher wear and tear grinding on Adley? What do they expect from him this year? And has there been any change to the way he's thinking about conditioning or nutrition to maybe try to buoy him in the second half? Because the decline from a 135 WRC plus in the first month of the season to a 70 in the final month is a little alarming.

That question about nutrition and conditioning is something that I have on my list to ask him when I see him next week. They have not revealed anything about an injury, which is pretty surprising because there were a couple instances where he missed a game for a back, he was hit in the hand, and you can't help but wonder the timing of those with the timing of a slump, you kind of start to think, was that it? But they never said anything. Him and Michael I, as a brain that I had been asked about that multiple times, and nothing's ever come out of it. I really think it was just he slumped, and he has never really slumped, and he didn't know how to get out of it. And, you know, he was catching a lot and I think that it all just kind of took its wear on him.

He hasn't really said what adjustments he's made this offseason. I'm looking forward to hearing more, but I would imagine that he went in and made some serious changes this winter. Yeah, when I had to rank the top 10 catchers for MLB Network, I put him number one just betting on the track record and the fact that he was a top five position player in baseball, not just catcher really, up until the middle of last season. And then it was so tempting to draw the line

when he was hit by that foul tip, because June 27th before and after, before he had a 137 WRC plus, he was his usual great self. And then after 63 WRC+, replacement level players. So it's so easy to make that connection and then the back too. So I was also surprised that they didn't say

that it was an injury, but I don't know what incentive they would have to hide one after the season is over. So just betting on a bounce back. Orioles have to bank on that too. How do you see his playing time shaking out when it comes to catching, DHing, getting rest days? McCann is gone, Gary Sanchez is here. What sort of time share do you foresee?

When they signed Gary Sanchez, Michael Ayas said, Adley and Gary's split is gonna look very similar to what Adley and Jayden McCann split looked like last year where Adley is going to play in almost every game. He'll catch about half of them and then DH about half of them. I would imagine that split might be a little different this year, you know, might be a little bit more drastic with Adley catching a little bit more. But you know, I think that's to be seen. But I've also noticed, you know, Adley has matured a lot last year. And I think he is starting to, you know, communicate a little bit more when he needs that rest days. You

know, you very rarely in his first year saw him take any complete days off. And we saw that a little bit more last year, which could be the wear and tear, could be Adley standing up for himself and saying like, my body needs this. But I would imagine this play is going to look pretty similar to what it did the past couple of years. They also have a number of catchers at AAA, none of whom I think are on the 40-man at this juncture, but one of whom, Samuel Passaio, is a very well-regarded prospect. So do you think that there's any chance that we see reinforcement from the minors at the catcher position if Gary forgets how to hit again or if Adley needs more time off his

feet? I mean, they love Samuel Pezayo. The way they speak about him is the way that they spoke about Adley four years ago, where they see this guy being a star, a potential Hall of Famer, you know. They just think that he is going to be the next it guy for them. I think Samuel is a little bit far off in terms of his catching skills. They're a lot farther behind his bat, but I do think that he has a really good chance of debuting this year, maybe not till the second half. Maybe he comes

up as a DH, gets his feet wet, goes back down, then comes up as a catcher, but he's close. You know, he's going to be here either the end of this year or early 2026. And I think the reason they signed Gary Sanchez till one year deal is deal is knowing that Samuel Psy was right there and going to take that spot. And I'm very curious when Samuel Psy gets there, if he is as good as they say he is, how does that change his split with Ali Rushmi? Who is going to be the number one, who's going to be the number two, or is it more of an even split when he gets up there? CB 0530 Gunnar was so good last year.

He fully blossomed. Is there any perception that there's still something for him to work on or something for him to improve or is it just, yeah, keep doing that for the next decade or so? I think Gunnar at shortstop still has a little bit of a way to go. UCM make a lot of dumb errors that he just gets in his head about. It's just not something that you'd see somebody of his caliber make. And I think that will come from maturity and not trying to be the guy who does it all for them. And that's kind of been their big message to him is when he had bad games, it was because

he was just hacking at everything, trying to be the hero and they just need him to go out there and be Gunner. And sometimes you have to get the single and not the homer. So just shifting that mindset for him. But I do think he has more in him. I do think he's more in him. I do think he's going to be better. You know, I always speculated that they didn't need to get another bat like Anthony Sontendera because Gunnar Hederson could maybe step up and be that guy next year for them.

I told Ben we had to ask a happy question after going through all of the guys who had struggled or been hurt last year. Now I'm going to pivot to something that is maybe a little less happy, which is the state of the starting rotation. And you mentioned they really weren't in play for a like-for-like replacement for Corbin Burns. The group as it's currently constituted involves Zach Efflin, Grayson Rodriguez, Charlie Morton, who they did sign, Dean Kramer, Segano. I'm curious about Grayson Rodriguez in particular because his season last year was pretty interesting to me. He had a step forward from a performance perspective. His results when he was on the field were stronger than they were in his rookie season, but he obviously

struggled to stay healthy. So first, what is the state of his health right now? And then how are they thinking about both his usage and his development in year three, because they kind of need this guy to be a frontline starter if they're going to compete in the East. So as far as I know, he had a healthy off season and is entering spring training healthy, full go. His injury at the end of last year, they shut him down, not because his injury got worse because he didn't have enough time to come back fully healthy. So if they had made it farther into the season, I do wonder if he would have been able to come off the IL.

But they said he wanted to do winter, OK, fully ready to go. And the thing of him is he did look better last year. He had a couple of really good starts, but he has not been able to put it together for full season in a number of years. Even before he hit the majors. He struggled with injuries, and it's been kind of a constant battle for him. And it's all kind of the same region for him in his shoulder, arm area. So they are expecting him to be their guy, especially with Kyle Bradish out

for most of the season. The pressure is on him. And I do wonder if they have all these starters, if potentially they would consider a six-man rotation where Grayson could get that extra day off or skipping a start occasionally. Because I do think that could only benefit him at this point. They do have Zach Efflin for next year and Zach Efflin was great for them, you know, a year ago and he really bonded with the team. He's actually living with all the young prospects to spring training, which I think is pretty funny as a guy who has, I'm pretty sure, three kids under three. But he is kind of the true leader of that rotation right now. And so if Grayson Rodriguez isn't able to perform, they do at least have Zac Efron there for them.

CB Let's talk about the two veteran additions to the rotation. How do the Orioles see Sugano's stuff translating from Japan? And as for Morton, who's been toying with retirement for years and hasn't wanted to stray too far from home, how did the Orioles end up convincing him to sign in Baltimore? And is he excited about this change of scenery? Sharlene Morton, you know, Baltimore is obviously not that close to his home, but his spring training, he at least doesn't have to move. You know, he can stay at his house in Bradenton, which is about 20, 30 minutes away from Sarasota.

So I think that was key. But I think they see Charlie Morden the same way that they saw Kyle Gibson or Jordan Lyles. Just kind of that veteran guy who can be the leader and can just eat up innings for them. That's kind of, I think, what they need from him. And I think Charlie understands that role. Somebody asked him what he saw in the Orioles. He gave a six minute uninterrupted answer, which for baseball players is just insane. You're usually lucky if you get like 20 seconds out of them. In terms of Sugano, I don't think

they know quite what to expect from him. You know, there have been other players who've come over from Japan, but he's a lot older than that. He's 35, and it's his first experience pitching in the U.S. So I think that they have high hopes for him. Adam Jones, who is now a special assistant to the GM, played against him a little bit when he was in Japan and spoke very highly of him and the way that he went about his business. And I think that they're just kind of taking a chance on him. And if it works out, it works out. And if any of these guys falter, they'll turn the ball over to the bullpen, which has some returning faces, obviously, one of whom is really returning in Felix Bautista. So what is the state of Bautista's health? You know, how heavily do they anticipate they're going to

be able to lean on him because he was phenomenal in 2023 and they clearly missed him last year. Felix is almost there. He is not going to be full go first day of spring training, but they expect him two, three weeks into spring training to be ready and that would still give him enough time to get ready for opening day because relievers don't need quite as much time to ramp up, but they're going to be really careful with him. They're not going to give him the closing title going into the season. They just want to ease him back in and let him get adjusted to pitching again because it will be over a year since he had been in a major league game, but they do have high

hopes that he will return to the form that he is. It's just always a bit of a gamble after Tom and John's surgery. You never quite know for sure. And if he can't do it, you know, they do have a couple other guys. Serenity Dominguez was their closer last year after Craig Kimbrell wasn't able to do that role anymore. Andrew Kittredge was signed and added. You know, Gregory Soto, you know, had his up and downs, but I do think he has potential

to as a left-handed reliever for them. So they have a couple other options, which should take some of that pressure off of Felix Batista. What's the rotation depth looking like if there are more injuries or underperformance? Who would be the next up? There are a couple guys who had Tommy John surgery last June, Kyle Bradish and Tyler Wells. Wells had internal brace surgery, so I don't know if either of them is looked at as a second half option or anyone in the minors who would be the sixth, the seventh, the eighth guys. This is where it kind of goes back to that quantity over quality where,

you know, if something does happen, you know, they do have a lot of arms that they can pull from right now because you're kind of picturing, you know, your five guys to start the season, Rodriguez, Evelyn, Sugano, Morton, and probably Dean Kramer, with maybe Albert Suarez going to the bullpen and doing his spot start as needed. So then in the minors, you have Cade Povish and Chase McDermott, two of their previous top prospects who both debuted last year. You have Trevor Rogers, who was traded over from the Marlins, really, really struggled with the Orioles, but did a little bit better when he got down to the Miners.

So you have a couple additional options who can fill in there. And then we've already gone through some of the position players who might find their way to Baltimore, but are there any other guys in the Miners who strike you as likely to either debut or to play a role should any of the established starters go down with injury. This is very different for the Orioles than what we've seen over the past couple of years where it always felt like there was a top prospect there and ready to take the spot of somebody.

You don't really see that this year. You have Samuel Bisayo, as we already talked about, who could come up as a D.H. or a catcher, but all their other guys are decently far away. You've got a couple outfielders who could potentially be ready. Jude Fabian is one of those guys, but he struggled last year in spring training, so he's not even quite there yet. They have people who could fill in, but they don't have any more of those top prospects just waiting for the shot anymore.

Can you tell us about the decision to change Baltimore? What are the actual changes to the dimensions? What were the motivations for making them and how do you expect the park will play and how might that impact particular players? I mean, I saw Ryan Mountcastle the other day in the airport actually, and I asked him about it. He was so excited, you know? Players are just like over the moon about it. And basically what Mike Elias said

when they made a decision is that they over-corrected. You know, they pushed the ball back too far and it was hurting them, you know? Just as much as it was hurting other people. It's gonna be pulled in either nine or 20 feet, depending on, you know, which part of the wall we're talking about here. And it's really just going to benefit those right-handed power hitters. You saw so many balls go into that left field press where you're just like, if this was a couple

years ago, that would have been a home run. So I think that they're really just trying to correct that and make it a little easier on defenders out there too in that corner. We talked a bit about their sort of posture toward payroll at the beginning. They have a number of really exciting young guys. We've run through the list, Gunnar, Adley, etc. Is there any possibility that they will, rather than spend on free agents, look to try to extend some of their young corps? Because these guys have been around for a little while now, Gunner less than Adly, but we're entering year four for Retchmen. And I'm curious if maybe, you know, that's a way that they could zig where other people are zagging with their payroll and still do something that makes fans feel like there's

investment in the franchise going forward. The part of that question that's tricky is Jackson Holliday, Gunnar Henderson, and Jordan Westberg are Boris guys. And Boris historically does not encourage his guys to sign extensions. And you know, when he was asked about them specifically signing extensions, you know, he gave this long spiel about how for a lot of guys, it's not the right move. And he stepped in for that. He's probably encouraging those guys not to sign extensions with Orioles. But Adley, you would think that would be a great case for an extension, that the Orioles would have probably been able to get it done a little bit cheaper this off season, considering

how his second half of the season went. They may have been able to save a little bit of money, but it's just not something that the Orioles have done. And you would think, new ownership, okay, it's a fresh start, but it's still the same front office and it still kind of goes against their philosophy. So you know, as much as it makes sense to lock up these young guys early, you know, pre arbitration extensions before they get too expensive, but I just don't see the Orioles doing that.

What's the level of fan frustration about all of this, about this inability or unwillingness to shift into more of a win now, really aggressively go for it approach. It's very high. And I think you saw it. I think in 23 fans were just so excited to make the playoffs. Rebuild we're going to be great now. And then they get swept. And then last year, they make the playoffs again, but they don't win the now." And then they get swept. And then last year, they make the playoffs again,

but they don't win the division, and then they get swept again. And fans are like, clearly you need more. Clearly you're not quite there yet. And you saw this frustration start to build there in the fan base. And then this off season, you see the Orioles, they've made a lot of moves,

but they didn't make a lot of moves early. You saw all these high-end starters go off, and then you find out that they really weren't even that in on Corbin Burns and fans are just like, what are you doing? Like you needed an ace and it just seems like fans are like you, you should have money now. You should be spending it. So I think that, you know, they're very frustrated at like, you have these young guys who are your future, but they're only here for so long if you don't extend them. So what is the plan here?

How are you going to supplement, you know, these stars that you have and be able to finally win a playoff game for the first time in a decade? Yeah. And Burns, maybe you couldn't assign them anyway. Who knows? It takes a two to tango and he clearly wanted to be close to home, but he wasn't even a guy who would have cost them a draft pick to keep, which I know might be a consideration for Elias. But is there any realistic expectation that they could make that kind of major upgrade

at the deadline if it turns out that they're in a position to do so? You would think, but just their track record doesn't show that. Last year, they really needed help with all the injuries they had. And Zach Gufflin was a great ad, but they traded two top prospects for Trevor Rodgers, and that one didn't really pan out great for them a year ago. I truly don't know. I don't see them doing it, but maybe if they find they need it, they'll finally be willing to cough up some more of their prospects. It does feel a little odd. I have sympathy for Baltimore fans, because you have this frustrating off season, and then you find out that there's going to be a bobblehead of the owner. And

that just feels like bad messaging to a fan base. If you have all of these prospects, you can do consolidation trades, but they haven't really been willing to do that, at least not with their top guys. Maybe if they are happy with the play of O'Neill and Ramon Larianno, Kiershad finds his way out of town. But it is also, like you said, the farm system isn't quite as rich as it used to be. So you also wonder if the door is kind of closing on their ability to do those sorts of trades to the same degree of impact that they might have been able to in years past. Like who's trading top guys for Jackson Holiday now? You know what I mean? It's just a, I wonder if they missed their window on that as a productive source of talent acquisition. And a Major League or for Major League

or trade, you know, could happen. They have some spots where they have a lot of depth and they don't need it. You mentioned Hudson Kirk said, you know, also for a space, if you feel like Kobe Mayo is ready, Ryan out trade, Ryan Mountcastle, Ryan or Hearn, you know, also for a space, if you feel like Kobe Mayo is ready, why not trade Ryan Mountcastle or Ryan O'Hairn? You know, you don't need to just keep hoarding all your players for doomsday, you know, why not go for it and then backfill as needed? Well, if we could end or come close to ending on an up note, you wrote last month about the international program and the strides that the Orioles have made there from essentially not having one to really ramping things up. Can you talk a little bit about what they have done there and what dividends it has

paid or they hope it will pay? Yeah, they've made great strides there. So essentially under previous owner, John Angelos, he truthfully did not put any effort into the international scene at all, didn't really care about it. They had a facility because everybody has a facility in Dominican Republic, but it was just not great. It was super outdated, super old. So when Michael Ayas took over, one of the first things he did was hire Kobe Perez, who

became their VP of international scouting. And he has done just a phenomenal job building up that program. Daniel Bisayo is one of the big guys that they have, you know, he broke their signing bonus a couple years ago and they have a couple other big guys who they use in trade pieces, you know, that helped them get some of their current team. But now you're really starting to see their prospect list is nearly filled of half of international signings. First is when Kobe Perez was hired back in 2018 or 2019, they

had none. So they're really filling it up that way. Last year, they opened up a brand new state of the art academy. And they've been able to use that as they start recruiting players in that region, which has really helped them get some more top guys as well, in addition to helping with their training and resources that they have available in the Dominican Republic. And this year, you kind of start seeing them make a push into Asia. You saw the Sugano signing, but you've also seen smaller ones like Albert Suarez, who was a great piece of their rotation last year. He was a signing out of Japan who had made the majors, but then went over to Japan and South Korea for a couple of years. And that was a guy that their scouting department had found and brought over. They've been working on their international program, but it really took until last year for it to really

start seeing the results. Well, our usual closing question, what would constitute success for this team this season? What should Orioles fans be holding this team to looking ahead to the rest of 2025? I think Orioles fans are going to hope for a little bit more than what I'm going to say. I think they need to win a playoff game. They have to just kind of get that grasp. They need to win a playoff series. I think if they don't, some jobs need to be on the line this off season. Yeah, I wonder about that. I mean, obviously the playoffs are random

and you can have a great team and get swept out in the first round. We've seen that happen to others, but it's a little easier to swallow if you've at least pulled out all the stops and done whatever you can so that you can just say, well, we tried, we legitimately tried and we just ran into October's a crap shoot.

And I don't think the Orioles can say that at this point. So if that were to happen again, could Elias be in jeopardy or would it be Elias's lieutenants or would it be field staff or has he just convinced ownership that he's doing the right thing here? Cause clearly they're not pushing him to spend money. The fault guy would probably be manager Brandon Hyde if they don't win a playoff game, because I think they would say, you had to piece this, even if you can argue that they didn't. It was the manager who wasn't able to put together a winning lineup to pull them through.

So I think it's Hyde whose job is on the line this season, and they fired their bench coach last year, but how much is that really going to make a difference this year? The pressure is really on Hyde to kind of pull this together for them. Yeah, I guess it's fairly rare for the rebuild, the tanking manager to last into the contention period very often. We need someone who's good with the young guys and then they kind of shepherd that team through the downtime.

And then they get to, oh, now we're supposed to win. We have to go get a veteran guy who can take us over the hump, that sort of thing. So they have continued to have young guys and they have continued to prioritize player development at the big league level, but maybe that makes him more vulnerable. But yeah, if he were the scapegoat, I don't know if he is a great manager or not, but I think it would be tough to make the case that he was given all of the tools that one would want to have. Okay, well, we will follow the Orioles for better or worse via the coverage that Danielle will provide at the Baltimore Banner. Always enjoyable to read you and to talk to you. Thanks for coming on again.

Thank you. Thanks for coming on again. Thank you. All right, we'll take one more quick break and we'll be back with Jalen Thompson of the Kansas City Star to discuss the Kansas City Royals. Well it's moments like these that make you ask, how can you not be pedantic about baseball? If baseball were different, how different would it be? On the case with light ripping, all analytically, who covers the Royals discuss the Kansas City Royals with Jalen Thompson, who covers the Royals for the Kansas City Star. This is of course the Kansas City team that everyone is talking about right now, the Royals. Thank you for being here, Jalen.

Yeah, glad to be here. Thank you guys for having me on again. I love this show, so I'm excited to talk to the Royals. Appreciate it. Maybe we can get your Super Bowl predictions at the very end. I know you're doing double duty, two-way player. You're writing about multiple Kansas City teams right now, but let's focus on the Royals first

because this is a baseball podcast, even though Patrick Mahomes is a big baseball fan. The Royals, to their credit, just had an extremely successful season last year. It went the way they drew it up. They were aggressive, they added to their team, they went for it. A lot of people doubted it would work and it did and they had a historic improvement. This off season, they were not quite so busy, quite so active and aggressive. So we know that the history of teams that improve by a lot

in one season, they tend to take a step back the next. It's not an ironclad rule. In fact, you could cite the team we just talked about, the Orioles, improving by 30 plus wins from 2021 to 2022 and then getting even better in 2023. It can be done, but historically that's not the pattern. So were the Royals too complacent this offseason? Do you think there is a possibility of regression and what's their theory of the case for why they will ward that off? When we talked to World's general manager, JJ Piccolo, he mentioned at the recent World's Rally

where they were getting ready for the season, basically like their fan fest, that the team went from zero to 60 last season. And this year they wanna go from zero to 60 last season. And this year they want to go from starting at 60 to about 65, you know, at that little extra layer because that could be the difference between being a wild card team and then winning the American League Central,

which is what they want to do. The world's date, like you mentioned, they made a big jump last season. Making a 30 win improvement is rare around the league. Winning 86 games, the team was really healthy as well last season making a 31 improvement is rare around the league winning 86 games. The team was really healthy as well last season they had a lot of good starting pitching that really manifested itself. You saw Seth Lugo had an all-star season finish second in the Cy Young.

Cole Regan's all-star season finished fourth in the Cy Young. You have Bobby Wade Jr. and what he was doing as far as being second unanimously in the AL MVP race. Vinny Pascuantino had a great year, so did Salvador Perez. So you have these pieces that the world's just started to accumulate and they all started to click at the same time. Now, as you guys mentioned, it is common for teams that have made a big jump to kind of sort of regress, but I think the world's were aggressive this off season by going and getting Michael Wacha resigning him. He was a big part of that team's success as far as being the veteran in that starting

rotation to help some of the younger pitchers along. Michael Lorenzen came back. He's going to be the number four starter this year. And then you got Carlos Estevez, which is really a great, savvy move because he's going to help be a veteran in that bullpen and he can work with Lucas Erceg. So I think the Royals have put their foundation on pitching and then that's going to take them further. And I failed to mention Jonathan India too. He's another guy to be that lead off hitter for.

Yeah. I wanted to ask about India before we get into the pitching. Some have argued that Cincinnati waited a little too long to trade India, that they could have perhaps garnered more in return if they had traded him before. What do they see in India? How big of a boost do they think he can be to their lineup? And what do they see in him that made it worth acquiring him now? They really wanted a leadoff hitter. They wanted someone to command that top of the lineup. When you look at what

the Rose did last season, they had about five or six guys that they tried in the leadoff spot. There was times when Freddy Firmino even had a start as a leadoff hitter. They just couldn't really get the right mix together to hit in front of Bobby Wood Jr, Vinny Pascantino and Salvador Perez. When you have three guys that were nearing at or nearing 100 RBI's, you want someone to kind of help fuel that. So they believe that in this competitive win now kind of mode that they're in, they wanted to have a tone setter at the top.

So they scoured the market and they settled on Jonathan Indian. And if you look at some of his numbers, he has had great numbers, especially hitting in great American ballpark in Cincinnati. I believe he had 15 home runs last season, 28 doubles. You expect those doubles to be consistent or maybe even go up. There's a there's power alleys at Kauffman Stadium that he can take advantage of. He offers speed, he offers the on-base percentage, and that's what the Royals needed.

Because if you look at when they played the New York Yankees, you had Bobby Wade Jr. coming up, but he didn't have guys in front of him. So they couldn't really create that offense that they needed to keep up with the Yankees. And if you're gonna be a playoff team, you're gonna have to see the Yankees, you're gonna have to see probably the Cleveland Guardians

and the Detroit Tigers and the Min of the twins in your own division. You got to have someone to help create that run production. And if you can start off the games one nothing with that pitching staff that they have coming back, that's a great advantage for you to have. There are a few other guys in the mix that they brought in. Joey Weimer was in that trade too. And then guys on minor league contracts, Kevin Biggio, Harold Castro. It was reported that they made an attempt at signing Anthony Santander, though I guess it was a three-year deal, which probably was never going to get it done. But

if they identified someone like him as a target, someone who would make them better, then do they still see a need that he would have filled? And was there anyone else that you're aware of who was on their radar or that they made a run at? Certainly Santander. I saw some things out there about Jerkett and Profar. They had interest in him. Dating back to the last season, they had trade interest in guys like Taylor Ward from the Los Angeles Angels.

We saw a report of Alec Bohm in Philadelphia with the Phillies. So they were just looking for a middle of the order bat. So they did their due diligence. They looked all over the best they could from different tier points trying to find someone to fit in the middle of the order. They just couldn't get that done this off season. And it was something that JJ Piccolo said was kind of a little disappointing that they weren't able to land that impact bat in the middle of the order. But what they decided to do was pivot. And that's why I went towards Estevez because it will be able to help the bullpen and help them win games.

So they just kind of shifted their focus at the very end to that relief group. I wonder about some of the alternatives they might have looked at in the outfield because Kyle Isbell is one of the best center fielders in baseball. He's one of the best outfielders in baseball, full stop, at least from a fielding perspective. Good enough that you can kind of tolerate what he is able to do with the bat, but the outfield corners are pretty desolate in Kansas City. And I'm curious, if they continue to get under performance from MJ Melendez and Hunter Renfro, where did they see opportunities within their own organization to kind of upgrade in those corners? Because Melendez didn't hit particularly well.

He's not a talented fielder. Renfro seems like he's on sort of the back nine of his career. So what are their internal alternatives if those guys continue to flounder? The world's really would like to see Melinda and Red Road bounce back because they understand that in order for them to be successful, those guys have to play up to their capabilities. Now what you're going to see this spring is the worlds are going to try out Jonathan India and Michael Massey in left field. Can they garner some innings out there in games and get some work out there?

Because if they can, that gives them added versatility to move guys around. As far as the defensive positions and alignment, they're going to just have to work through that. It might be something that takes all of spring training. It could go into the regular season, but they're going to try both India and Michael Massey in left field for first first first first of spring training. And then they're going to try Michael Garcia in center field as well to kind of spell Kyle Isbell on certain days. They really like Michael's versatility. He can play third base, he can play shortstop, he can play second base. So they're

going to see if he can try to try out the outfield centerfield and just use his bat as well when they have to mix and match with guys. But like you said, if they really want to compete and they really want to take that next step for four, it's going to have to be on the run throw getting back to hitting 20, 25 home runs like he's accustomed to doing in his career. And MJ Melendez finally tapping into his potential to be a great power hitter. It's funny. It's like sometimes you just want MJ to think he's playing the Boston Red Sox because every time he plays the Red Sox, he hits three home runs or something like that in the series. So you know what's in there. They want him to tap into that power.

And I think if they can do that, then they will be okay. Yeah, I was going to ask of the holdovers who is best positioned to make a leap, whether it's Pascuentino who was good last year and then got hurt at the end. But could he be better or Melendez who's made some swing changes this winter, or Garcia or Renfro? We've mentioned some of these candidates. You got to get more out of at least a couple of those guys you hope. So who's the best candidate to do that?

I asked Rose manager, Mackle trail this question and I said, do you envision Vinny Pasquantino being a breakup candidate this year? He's, he believes that Vinny kind of broke out last year and I can see where he's coming from on that. If you look at his numbers, the 19 home runs, the 97 RBIs, he was really great. When you have runners on base in scoring position, he would be the guy to get the sacrifice fly and drive him in. I think that with Vinny, there's another level that he could get to. I think he's really coming into his own.

If you look at where he was in the RBI race, he was two or three before he went down with the thumb injury last August going into September. That kind of cost him the rest of the last month of the season. So I think he can be that RBI run producer for the Royals. I think he'll step up and continue to do what he did last season. And really outside of Vinny, I think it has to be MJ Melendez.

If he can reach his potential, and we've seen it one year in the minor leagues, he hit 40 home runs. He showed the power is there. If they want to go further, he has to be better this season. Sounds like Matt Quattaro is a man after my own heart when it comes to defining breakouts because I have very strict definitions of what constitutes a breakout and I'd even allow if someone wanted to say that Vinnie could be a breakout guy. So even tougher than I am in Matt Quattaro's case,

I salute that. So if there is such a thing as back-to-back breakouts, that is what Bobby Wood Jr. has done the last couple of years, going from semi-disappointing first rookie break-in to then becoming just a great player in his second season. Again, don't know if I'd call that a breakout just because he was the best prospect in baseball and everyone expected that he was going to be better. But then what he did last year, just becoming one of the best players in baseball, improving

across the board, Is there anything left for him to work on or is it just, yeah, you're our franchise player, we signed you to an extension, you immediately delivered the sort of season that we were envisioning and now we just want you to keep it up? Yeah, it seems kind of crazy that Bobby Wade Jr. still has to work on some things at the big league level given what he's done the last two seasons. And then you can look at his first year too. He had 20 home runs. It's pretty strong for a rookie as well. But he said that he is working on his ability to

be more efficient as a base runner, making sure you take the right jumps, get in the right positions to take a base and steal a base, which is crazy to think of that there's more room for him to get better as a bass runner because he had 30 stolen bases last year to have his second 30 30 campaign. But that's where Bobby's at. He's always trying to find to find tune things. He's always trying to get better at his craft.

And I think that's why you're seeing the production that he's always trying to get better at his craft. And I think that's why you're seeing the production that he's been having that past season where he was second in the AL MVP building. And I think there was one stretch of games, I want to say it was July, where he came off of the All-Star break and he hits like over 400 for that weak stretch or two that he had. And I think that was what Bobby Wood Jr. can do when he's firing on all cylinders. He's just impossible to get out on the base pass. He's impossible to get out at the plate. As he continues to play more MLB games, he continues to see more pitchers and understand exactly what it takes to win and to win at a high level. I think you'll continue to see

him potentially be back in that AL MVP race again. We definitely can't classify Salvador Perez as a breakout candidate. That would be a bit ridiculous, but we might describe his 2024 as a bounce back because after a disappointing 2023 at the plate, he had a 115 WRC plus, he hit 27 home runs. He actually graded out fairly well defensively, which has been an up and down proposition for Salvi throughout his career. But this is the last for sure year of his contract. The club has a 2026 option. So I'm curious what they expect from Perez in 2025 and then how they are thinking about the future of the catching position in Kansas City.

That's going to be a good storyline to watch as we go through this year and beyond, because as you guys know, the Royals have Carter Jensen, and they have Blake Mitchell in the minors that are coming up, and they're among their top prospects. And you have Salvi that he's beloved in Kansas City. They're going to do whatever Salvi kind of wants to do because he's Salvi or Perez. He stayed when they first went to the World Series in 2014 and 2015. He stayed around through the rebuild and then they the revival last season. So Salvi is beloved here and everyone is thinking, oh, it's going to be a drop off. When is the drop off going to come? And it just hasn't come for Salvi. Salvi just continues to play hard. He continues to be the leader that the team needs in the middle of that lineup as a

catcher on the field. I think back to certain games in AODS where Lucas Erceg was on the mound in the ninth inning and Salvador Perez came out and he calmed him down. He got his head right back into what needed to be done. I believe Erceg might have gave up a walker hit or something like that. And then Erceg got the save. When we talked to Erceg, he said that having Salvi come out there and challenge me and get me back into the game was big because that allowed me to continue to pitch at the way I wanted to pitch. And he appreciated that. So that's just little things that Salvi does to come out and help guys along as he continues

to be the leader of the team. And Salvi is a free agent at the end of the season, but I guess there's a team option, right? So the Royals, I assume, are going to keep him around as long as he wants to stay and as long as he can play at all. But when one day this team transitions to being Bobby Witt Jr.'s team, not just in terms of performance,

but also in terms of leadership, is Witt that kind of guy who can take on that mantle and step onto that role, or is he more of a lead by example type? You saw a little bit of Bobby's leadership grow as the season went on last year. He's always going to be available to answer any questions, answer the hard questions. And you've seen on the field just how players gravitate towards him. In the clubhouse you've seen like he's taking a step as that leader and he's worked alongside Salvi to grow those skills and develop those skills and you can tell that he's at a point now where he knows that this is his team and he's willing to do whatever is possible to

help this team go forward. If we were looking for another potential leader on a going forward basis, we might look to the top of the Royals rotation. I think that 2024 probably silenced a lot of doubters who might have looked at Cole Regan's second half in 2023 and thought that was a flash in the pan. He had a phenomenal season for Kansas City through 186 innings, which is impressive in its own right. I'm curious, what if any work they see Regan still having to do to further cement his status as a frontline starter, or if they view him as largely a finished product? Because he's someone who has,

quite famously, adjusted his game a fair amount over the course of his big league career. Is this the final version of Cole Riggins or might there be other things he has that he's thinking of for 2025? And speaking to Cole, he said that he wants to continue to work on his slider and the roads have a phenomenal pitching staff with Brian Sweeney and Zach Bove. The players rave about what they've done to help the young staff get where they need to be in their MLB careers. And it's really just something where they come with ideas and it's open communication and they figure out

what each player needs to be successful. With Cole Regans, he just was someone that he had to get back on the mound. You, you go through two Tommy John surgeries and that's, that's tough to come back from, but he's proven that he could come back from it. I remember talking to Brian Sweeney, he said when they acquired Cole Regans, they looked at him from a whole holistic view and they looked at the character. They looked at his, his athletic traits. They looked at how he would fit in with the organization. And he got rave remarks across the board. And the worlds, they were really satisfied with being able to land Cole Reagans

in that deal for Aroldis Chapman in 2023. And they worked with him. They sent him down to AAA. He developed the slider and everything. He has just a mentality where all he wants to do is win. The stats don't matter to him or anything, he just wants to go out and win the game. If you see him before he starts, I've noticed this on occasion, he will sit in the dugout and he'll just visualize and just have a couple of moments to himself where he's looking out on the field and just getting prepared, getting locked in to go out and pitch that night. With the ability that he has with Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha, and now Michael Arunson here for a full season, to help if he has questions or advice, I think that's going

to really help him go further. I know you weren't on the beat yet during the Matheny era or the Dayton Moore era. I guess he's maybe running for governor now. We'll see anyway. But how have you seen the Orioles player development philosophy or their resources or their pipeline, their organization evolve between when you started in Matt Quattaro's first year to now? From what I've seen, they have really made that investment into pitching.

Just looking at their recent draft class, they had some guys that they had drafted early in the first rounds that didn't necessarily pan out the way that they might've expected. So you've seen kind of a collaborative effort to work on the pitching staff, work on getting some of these young guys more reps down in the lower minor leagues. The worlds are really big on Noah Cameron this year. He was added to the 40-man roster and he's going to get an opportunity at some point to pitch in some big league games.

He had a really great year at AAA last season, so he just continued to grow and come along. And then also, you look at AAA last season. So he just continued to grow and come along. And then also you look at the position players, Jack Caglione, we all know what he did at Florida, but he's starting to show that same type of power and continue with in the minor leagues. We saw we did the Arizona fall league with those five home runs in 21 RPIs. So in 21 games with Caglione and you have Blake Mitchell's

and you have the Carter Jensen's and you have position players that are coming up now that can potentially feel and help the major league squad. And I think that is going to be key for the Royals to sustain the success around Bobby Blake Jr. Because he signed that long deal and the Royals have to make sure that talent is around him. Speaking of Caglione, it seems like the Royals have committed to him as a hitter only, is that right? I'm always sad to see a two-way player specialize even though it's usually inevitable, but what's their thinking there or their development plan for him? The Royals are planning to have him be a hitter only at this point in his career,

and it's to help him matriculate faster through the system and help the team in the big leagues in the upcoming years to come, because they understand that his power is so immense that it could be something that could be beneficial to the lineup. He was a solid pitcher at Florida and the Royals have not closed the door on him potentially pitching down the line. But for right now, they want him to focus on hitting. If all goes right, maybe he'll get some reps in the outfield as well to see if he can learn that position that it could be used maybe as early as 2026 or somewhere down the line there.

Speaking of potential two-way players, before Michael Lorenzen signed, I know Ken Rosenthal had reported that his agency was maybe billing him as a guy who could avail himself of the Otani exemption. I'm curious first, just what Kansas City saw in him as a pitcher, which seems like it's likely to be his primary role, and then whether they've entertained using him

in the field at all. We asked him that question and he said that, you know, he just put it out there. He loves to hit. So that was just a way for him to see where he could potentially land as some more value to his free agency. But the Royals always viewed him as a pitcher and he'll be in the starting rotation as a pitcher this year. The Rose, they were really excited for Lorenzen at the trade deadline when they got him from the Texas Rangers because before that he had made a start and the day later he comes in and pitches four innings because the the team needed it. So to be able to pitch one on one day's rest that really like show his competitiveness and to do anything to help his team win. So when the Rose got him, they knew what kind of a player that they were getting.

And he, he backed that up. I believe he had a 1.57 ERA when he came over, just seeing him fit right in. And also having that ability to do whatever is asked. I think the world's wanted to keep that continuity in their rotation and that's why they resigned him. So Singer went to Cincinnati in the India trade, but you bring back Regan, Sluko, Waka, the top guys from last year, also Bubic and Marsh. So what do they expect from the back of this rotation, even behind Lorenzen?

And what sort of depth options are available if needed? It's going to be a competition for that fifth starter spot. The front runners are going to be Chris Bubich and Alec Marsh. But you can't rule out Daniel Lynch, the fourth returning Kyle Wright, who's coming back from shoulder injury. You mentioned Noah Cameron. He'll also be in that mix. Those guys are going to just compete and see who can win that fifth starter spot.

Last year, Alec Marsh won that spot, but we saw throughout the season that it bounced between different people. They like Chris Bubich and what he did coming back from Tommy John surgery. He was a starter before he went down with the injury. He pitched well out of that bullpen. He was a key person down the stretch. When you're talking about Lucas Erceg and John Shriver and the light on that was Earth, but Sam Wong, Chris Bubich was in that mix in those playoff games. So he has that experience from the bullpen plus the starting experience as well. So if he can just remain consistent, he has a good shot at winning that fifth spot, same way, Alex Marsh, Alex Marsh, he's, he flashed at times too.

Then he started pitching more and deeper into the season and you saw the ups and downs that come with a young pitcher, but if he's made an adjustment that's another option that they have there. So they're really confident with the guys that they have in that back end of that starting rotation. And if you really think about it, you need to make 25 starts. So if it comes down to boobish or marsh making eight or nine a piece, and then a couple more filling in,

you just want to get what you can get out of that group to be successful. You mentioned some of the guys who are sort of notable names in the bullpen, but lay it out for us a bit. So they have Estevez and Ursek. How do they think about sequencing the innings to get them from a starter to those guys at the back of the bullpen? So the worlds, they said that they would like to see their starters go six innings and then have the bullpen come in and shut it down after that. And they have the guys to do that. Estevez and Ersteh, they don't have roles coming into spring training. So there's going to be times when Ersteh can come in and close games. There's going to be times

where Estevez gets a chance to close games. And it's really about just having those high leverage relievers. Mack Retrero is no stranger to using his best reliever, whether that's in the top of the eighth inning with the middle of the lineup coming up or the top of the seventh inning. It just doesn't matter. He's going to use his best guy when he can. So we have those two guys there and you have Sam Long who emerged as a non roster invite to you last season.

Left-handed option. He was, he was great. He, he suspected to be back. John Schreiber, they got him from the Boston Red Sox from spring training. Last year he pitched well. They expect him to be back in the on-hours. But you look, let's see what he did in the playoffs. He was the one the first guys out of the bullpen.

And he really was the bridge from when the starters need to come out the game, giving them solid production and innings. And they love his aggressiveness. And he just goes after hitters at the plate. So he's another lefty that they can rely on. But the key is going to be trying to get Hunter Harvey back because the Royals traded their number two prospect to the Washington Nationals to get Hunter Harvey. They believe in his abilities and his pitching repertoire, especially his fastball and how it plays up

at the MLB level. So they're hopeful that he can be healthy and remain healthy. And then that really helps the bullpen continue to be even stronger. So they're really confident in what they have down there. They also have Chris Stratton that has come back. They're gonna mix and match like they normally have been doing, but they have a good mix.

Yeah, if they're trying to reassemble a Holland Davis Herrera trio at the back of the pen, they certainly have two guys at least. Who would the third guy be the seventh inning setup man? It will have to be depending on the matchup. If you're going to have a bunch of lefties that's going to come up, I think you go Sam Long. If you have a bunch of righties, then you might want to go with John Trier or Hunter Harvey

So I think it might be a three man attack for that seventh inning depending on what the situation is and who's available But if I had to pick one person out of that mix I'm probably gonna go Hunter Harvey because like said there was a reason why they traded for him and they didn't really see Everything that he could bring to the table because he got injured so early. But I think he will be the guy that'll be that seventh inning guy if he just had to name a person. Has there been any movement when it comes to new stadiums or has that been pretty dormant? I know that was more of a focus of our preview probably last year and then the past efforts were stymied, but I assume that the desire is still there.

Yeah, they still want to build a new stadium. They're looking at options and where they can put it. There's conversations that are still being held. So they haven't really said anything concrete yet, but they are expecting that potentially by the middle of the year that we'll hear something on that front. But for right now, they're still having conversations and hopefully we hear something soon. I feel like when you're talking about AL Central teams and the competitiveness of the club, you have to think about it in two ways. There's the way that they can compete within the Central for the division title, and then there's what happens once they hopefully reach the postseason,

which can, depending on the club, be a very different proposition, although sometimes in the case of the Royals, it means you win a World Series. So how do they understand themselves within the context of the AL Central, and then how do they view themselves within sort of the broader competitive landscape

of the American League? When we talked to N.E. Pascuantino last year before the 2024 season, he said that the club wanted to win the AL Central. That was the goal. That was what they were going in the 2024 to do. They didn't get that goal, but they made the playoffs. This year, the team wants to get back to the playoffs and they want to get over the hump

and try to go even further and win. They believe they have the team that is capable of winning. They really felt like they learned a lot about themselves during that playoff run where they beat the Boston Orioles and then they competed with the Yankees. They think that this year is all about being focused on that goal. We talked to several players after last season and we even brought up earlier this year and they all said that it leaves a sour taste in your mouth, but they understand that there's more out there to go get. So now they're in the mindset of,

we're going to be focused on going out there and trying to be the best team that we can be. Bobby Boy Jr. said that the team controls their own destiny, which I know is a little cliche, but it's absolutely true though. If they can play to their best ability, they are a team that can be competitive in the AL Central and be a team that can be competitive going into the playoffs and competing in the American League. It's going to come down to having the pitching, having the defense, and having the offense kind of mesh well together. And if they can do that, then they can match 86 wins or even go further. And if there's more meshing to do once they get to mid season and the deadline

is approaching, given that they didn't make many major moves this winter, do you think that there is payroll room and prospect capital to upgrade at the deadline? I think if the roles are in it at the deadline, I could see if the outfield isn't performing like it needs to be doing. I could see them potentially looking to want to upgrade that position because that is something that they have been looking to do. I wouldn't be surprised if they look to get that melody order back. And I wouldn't be surprised if, if needed, they, they add more to the pitching because you can never have enough pitching.

Macklechran says it all the time. You need about eight, nine, 10 guys to, to be able to start games because injuries do happen. And last year, the roads were remarkably healthy. Hopefully that can remain the same this year, but you just, you never know with baseball, people get hurt. I think I coined that saying, unaffectively wild, you can never have enough pitching. I was the one who came up with that. I hope Quattaro has given me credit. Let's end with our usual closing question, which is what constitutes success for this team this season? After really raising the bar last year, what do the Royals have to do now?

And what realistically should fans expect from them? If it's going to be a successful season for the Kansas City Royals, it's to make the playoffs and win the American League Central. They were close all last year. I think this is the year where if they want to go where they want to go as far as being a team that competes for World Series and the like, it starts by winning your division. So I think that's their goal. They're going to success to them would be to win the AO Central and then make a deep run in the playoffs.

All right. Give us a quick preview of Sunday. What do you foresee here? What are your X factors? What's your prediction for the big game? I think that the Chiefs will complete the playoff history, Super Bowl history, first team to win three Super Roles in the Super Bowl era.

I think it'll be a close game. I'm going to go 27-24. I think it comes down to Patrick Mahomes. He'll lead the team down the field late in the game and the Chiefs will find a way to pull it out. Well, it certainly wouldn't be the first time. Exactly. A lot of the predictions, the scores, the margins are very tight, I know. And the spread is obviously very tight and the spreads in Super Bowls have gotten

a lot closer over the years and there have been a lot of close scores recently. So I guess, you know, maybe the odds are it won't actually be a three point game, but it has been sometimes. And that is sort of just the smart money prediction, I guess, even if it turns out not to be the result. What's y'all's prediction for the game?

Ben's not much of a football fan. So I don't want to predict a Chiefs win. It wouldn't shock me. I do think that just from a pure roster depth perspective, I agree with Meena Khayam that the Eagles are the better team on a pure talent basis, but I think that the Chiefs are decidedly better coached. So I will be very curious to see how those things sort of rub up against each other because I am not much of a Nick Sirianni fan. And I think it's funny that the team keeps being good enough that they can't fire that guy. That's, that's my take on the Eagles.

Uh, I will admit to a GoBirds bias, but, uh, I just hope it's a good game. Yeah. I think it will be a good game. I just feel like if you've come this far in pursuit of history, you gotta want to see it through. So I think the chiefs would be motivated to try to get this done. Yeah. I'm sure most other people who don't root for the chiefs do not want them to see it through, but I agree that the Eagles seem like the better team

on paper. And if this were baseball, I would probably be picking them. But yes, there is a Mahomes magic, read magic component to this and being a bit out of my depth, I don't feel super confident, but I'll pick the Eagles just to just to say something different. All right, you can read about the Super Bowl, but also about the Kansas City Royals in the Kansas City Star, courtesy of Jalen Thompson. Jalen, it's been a pleasure. Thanks for coming on. Thank you guys so much.

I hope that can come on again. That'll do it for today and for this week. Thanks to our guests. Thanks to you for listening. Should be an AL Central affair next time, twins and tigers. For now, you can support the podcast 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. Rebecca Lloyd, Tyler Green, Bernard Healy, Sam Johnson, and Charlie Crosschill. Thanks to all of you.

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