Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2283: Season Preview Series: Cubs and Giants

Episode Date: February 14, 2025

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the Red Sox signing Alex Bregman, the Padres signing Nick Pivetta, and Anthony Rendon’s latest long-term injury. Then they preview the 2025 Chicago Cubs (29:35) with The Athletic’s Sahadev Sharma, and the 2025 San Francisco Giants (1:14:41) with The Athletic’s Grant Brisbee. Audio intro: Jimmy Kramer, “Effectively Wild Theme” […]

Hello and welcome to episode 2283 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from FanGraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindbergh of The Ringer, joined by Meg Rowley of FanGraphs. Hello, Meg. Oh, hello. We will be joined by two other friends shortly. We're doing two more previews today.

We'll have Sahad of Sharma talking to us about the Cubs, followed by Grant Brisby talking to us about the Giants. And all we have to do before we get to those previews is talk about a couple signings. We have one player leaving the Red Sox, one player joining the Red Sox, last big free agent off the board. We can close the book sadly for me

on the effectively wild off season free agents over under contracts draft. Alex Bregman is off the board finally. He has signed with the Boston Red Sox. I would just like to note how modest, how beneficent I am being, how humble in victory, despite the fact that if one wanted to pay attention to the margin of my victory, one could be quite sassy. But I'm not going to do that. I'm a Bryn Mawr

gal, Ben. And at Bryn Mawr, we were bound by a strict honor code, one that encouraged competition with oneself, you know, over those around them so that you understood your learning, your education, your advancement through the world as a process of personal self-esteem building, the acquisition of knowledge for its own sake, not to measure oneself against one's peers. It's why we didn't have Phi Beta Kappa. We didn't need all of that. We had the Honor Code. We had Bryn Mawr, Anasakata. So I'm not going to brag. I'm simply going to say well fought, we agonize over the contract over under draft, we prep for it for at least 15 minutes. And those efforts were not wasted even in your defeat, you know?

Well, I wish I could say it was well thought. It wasn't that well thought really, or at least you fought much better. I didn't go to Bryn Mawr, so I can share. Wouldn't have been allowed. No, the degree to which you cleaned my clock. It was a clear and convincing victory, and the Bregman contract only adds to that. So the final tally, I ended up with 100 million bucks, which that's nice, you know? It's good walking around money if it were real.

And you ended up with 327.05. bucks, which that's nice, you know, it's good walking around money if it were real. And you ended up with 327.05. And again, for those who weren't with us, this is taking the MLB trade rumors, free agent contract prediction and saying whether we think it's over or under. And then if you guess right, you get the difference. It's added to your tally plus a $10 million bonus. So you were almost completely right about everyone. The only misfires on your board of 10 were two guys who had exactly the same contract prediction, I believe, Blake Snell and Willie Adamis. And you

took the under on their deals and they did not go under. But other than that, you nailed it top to bottom. And I definitely did not. I'm just happy to be in positive territory after the way I started. Yeah, you mounted quite the comeback, really, because you were in some deeply negative territory for a minute there. I gotta say, I'm always happy when I'm wrong directionally the way that I was. I'd rather take the under and have a player make more money because it does feel, you know, there's a part of this exercise that always feels

a little yeshy to us because it's like, we're not rooting against these guys getting paid. Yeah. No, no. Well, you did take the under on Alex Bregman and you were right about that one because the prediction for him was 182 million. He signed for 120 with the Red Sox and based on the reported offers, some of which the total dollar values were much higher than this offer, but still under 182.

So I guess regardless of which he had chosen would have paid off for you here. But this is along with the Nick Pivetta signing, which we'll talk about in just a second. These are some unusual contract structures, or I guess the Bregman one isn't that unusual these days. This is just what contracts look like, but a little bit. It's three years, 120 million. So hey, 40 million average annual value, that sounds nice.

But there is a large amount of that that is deferred so the present value of it is closer to 90 million and then there are also multiple opt-outs he can opt out after each of the first two seasons so he gets less guaranteed money but more freedom more adventures he can choose here compared to the other deals he was offered. Reportedly, the Astros and the Tigers offered him six-year deals and then the Cubs, which we will talk about with Sahadev in just a moment, offered four years. So I don't know if there were deferrals or opt-outs or whatever in those contracts too.

It's kind of hard to compare without having all of the dollars, but he doesn't lack for self-confidence, so he is betting on himself to some degree here. I don't know that I, I think he'll necessarily do better over the next six years than he would have if he had taken that tiger's offer, for instance, based on what we know, but I do believe that he will be a good fit for Fenway Park. So perhaps that played into his calculus. This is one of those times of year where I end up editing like a very specific suite of content, mostly our prospect week content, and then thankfully have Matt Martel to handle

the rest. And so I got to read Ben Clemens's React to the Bregman signing after it had already gone through editorial. And I didn't realize, I think that I was underestimating the degree to which this is a good fit from a ballpark perspective. And you know, Ben doesn't overstate the case because I think sometimes park effects, like we can, we can make too much of them when there's a feature that plays as extreme as like the Crawford boxes do, or say as extreme

as the Green Monster can at times. But he's like a pretty good, pretty good little fit for Fenway. If I were Bregman, I would want to avoid a long deal for two reasons. One, I think you're right that it doesn't seem like the guy lacks for confidence and perhaps he thinks that, you know, this structure will allow him to hit the market again when he's sort of, no qualifying offer to, right. Right. But I also, I don't know how to quantify this and I don't know how self-aware a person Alex Breitman is. So this might not factor into the calculus at all for him.

But if I were someone who were viewed as a central character in one of the biggest cheating scandals the last 20 years, I would be very nervous about my production in my downside years because I feel like the relationship that we have with the guys who were part of the banging scheme, it feels tenuous, you know? And I don't know that the fans in Toronto have like super turned against George Springer for instance, but Braggman's like way more of a heel and then he like gave people a reason to dislike him, right? He was a heel before we knew about the banging scheme. And then I was like, dude, like what were you working through that you were acting that way while you were doing this banging thing?

So I think Shorten and Sweet and Lucrative is probably the way to go because maybe you just avoid the gnarly part of the contract. I don't know. Yeah. I have a feeling that he will be quite popular in Boston. He's look. He just feels like, you know, he has that Dustin Pedroia type of edge to him, you know? And obviously contingent on him playing well, but if he plays well, people are going to like him there, even if there's some initial, do we want this cheating guy? But

he has hit in 98 career played appearances at Fenway 20 games, 375, 490, 750. It's a 1240 OPS, seems sustainable. So, you know, just pencil in that type of production. I think that Ben noted that if you drop the minimum number of at-bats low enough to 80, he's the all-time leader in OPS at Benway. Yeah. Probably won't be true at the end of the season, but we'll see. So yeah. And you know, even if you should perhaps hold the cheating against him, you

can't say that he was a product of it because of course he hit much better in subsequent seasons. Now there are concerns about how he hit last year, which was his worst offensive season since his rookie year. And there's some warning signs there. His walk rate dropped a lot. He doesn't pull the ball in the air quite as often as he used to, which means that maybe he won't benefit from Fenway quite as much, but he will still benefit quite a lot from it, I think.

And I don't know whether that's a sign of decline. I don't think his bat speed has slowed at least last year relative to the previous year, now that we have data on that. So it's tough to say. Like he still makes a lot of contact, doesn't strike out a lot. Squares it up good.

Yeah. So the, the 319 expected weighted on base, not great, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's a bit of a bounce back coming here, you know, he struggled against non-fastballs, his swing rates, his chase rates were higher and you could certainly paint a picture of, oh, maybe he, he thinks, uh, his plate discipline is going or maybe he's cheating a little and you know, I don't know, but well, yeah, not that type of cheating, guessing on what pitch is coming and, uh, you know, dialing up for that, but he's only 30 years old till be 31 in March.

So I think there's every chance that certainly he could remain productive for this season, which is potentially all that he'll play in Boston, especially if he's really good and even for the next few, yeah, you might worry about the back part of that contract, but now the Red Sox don't have to, because there is really no backend of that contract. So we can talk about the Astros more next time because we have an Astros preview coming up on our next episode. But I do really like this fit for Boston and they've had a good off season.

Yeah. You know, we have a Red Sox preview ahead of us too, but you put this together with crochet and I guess it would be ideal if they extended crochet before opening day or at some point, but they've kind of kept up like the Yankees even losing Soto. They've been busy. The Orioles, not so much, you know, the Rays, the Bouges, some of them tried and succeeded more than others, but the Red Sox could be the most improved team in that division, you

know, coupling the additions they made with the prospects that are on the way. Like things are looking up for them. Yeah. I want to, I want to preface what I'm about to say by acknowledging one that at least as we have them estimated right now, like their luxury tax payroll is almost 250 million. They obviously just committed big money to Bregman. I think there was frustration in Boston about these moves were good, but there is an expectation that the Red Sox should be spending even more than they are. I think there's a part of that that's understandable. I think that there are some sort of organizational wide considerations that maybe aren't getting factored into that. They do have an incredibly strong farm system. This is going to be a good team with a sort of influx of young talent

in the coming years. But I really like the fit for Bregman. I like the fit for the Red Sox. Some of this is to your point, how long does he actually stay there? But look, Rafael Devers is a tremendous hitter. He's a sub par fielder and has been for a while. So I really liked the idea of them having reinforcement on that side of the infield. I, you know, there's the potential for Bregman to, they're going to play him at second, but for them to slide him to third if the need arises, if something were to happen to Devers. So they have, you know,

sort of greater reinforcement and depth there. I like it a lot, you know, Bregman's not one of my favorite players to watch. And I will admit that, like, of all the guys implicated in the banging scheme, Bregman's definitely the one where I've, like, kind of remained a little sore about the whole thing, just because the guy's mugging in the dugout after home runs and you know what pitches come on like, come on dude, you know, you gotta have a lot of confidence. You're never going to get caught to behave in that way. I guess is what I would say about it. But I think this is a really good fit. I'm sure he's disappointed that he wasn't

able to sort of get the deal that I imagine he anticipated being able to get, but you know, $40 million a year. That's not bad cushion. So yeah, even if some of it's deferred and if some of it's deferred, maybe it ends up like the Adrian Beltre signing the classic pillow contract where he has a fine season in Boston and then goes elsewhere. But yeah, everything they've done though. I mean, they've added other guys too. They added Bueller, they added Sandoval, they added Chapman. They've done a bunch and with the younger guys coming along or you hope that you have a healthy Trevor Story for once, then maybe, maybe there's an improvement there. Their offense being good isn't dependent on that.

And I think that that's one of the things I like the most about some of the moves that they've made, some of the guys they have, and some of the internal options that they have, um, coming up through the farm. Like you're not depending on, you know, I swear I didn't mean this in a punny way, writing a new chapter to move into a place that is competitive with the Yankees. I know that Pacota likes them a little less than we do, but we currently have the Red Sox as the second best team in the East. They're three games back of the Yankees, which is, you know, based on how closely all of these teams are clustered, not just in the East, but across baseball feels like an enormous gap to me at this

juncture. But we have them a little bit better than 50% odds to make the postseason. Like I think that this is an improved team and one that has, in addition to a roster that is good now, certainly has the depth in the farm system to, if they decided they needed to, go out and get more guys at the deadline if they're in a competitive position. So that's exciting. Aileast will be a beast yet again. That's going to be a competitive division. Yeah. And I do think like maybe the Red Sox would be a better team on opening day with Bregman at third base, not moving him to second, which it seems to be what they're going to do. And I get why that might be the solution for now because Devers is like your franchise

player. He's been there for a long time. He's signed for a long time. It's an awkward conversation to have. He's just not very good over there and Bregman still is. So it's not that I don't think he can play second base. I expect that he can, even though he hasn't had to for several seasons, but I would think the skillset will transfer and, you know, he's not like a cannon

arm type of third baseman anyway. But there's always an adjustment there, different angles, different tactics required to play that position. So if they had moved Devers to first base, let's say, or if they had moved him to DH, I guess Yushida is the sticking point there because you just don't want him in the field. Right. That's very spotty. You definitely don't want him in the field.

And you want to keep Cassis, so even though they dangled him at various points over the offseason. So yeah, I don't know if it's the ideal alignment, but maybe from a clubhouse soft factors perspective and you can see how Bregman takes to second and how that goes. Yeah. And they have Christian Campbell coming along too and Yeah. And, you know, they have Christian Campbell coming along too and Marcel Meyers, of course, also. So they've got young guns up and comers at those middle infield spots. So there will be further movement in future seasons in

this infield, certainly. All right. The Pivetta signing, I have a little less to say, but it is an interesting structure. The Padres have signed Nick Pivetta and this one is heavily backloaded. So it's a four year, $55 million deal, a $3 million signing bonus and a $1 million salary for 2025. And then after that, 19 million, 14 million and 18 million plus an opt-out

or two opt-outs after the second and third years. So yeah, I guess this it's reassuring that the Padres signed someone. We did our Padres preview and talked about the fact that they hadn't really signed any one of note. It is maybe somewhat disconcerting that they signed someone to this kind of contract structure, which maybe makes you think that cashflow still potentially an issue, at least in the short term, if they're signing them to this heavily backloaded

a contract. But when I initially saw this signing, I thought, oh, maybe this makes it more likely that they will trade Dylan Cease or Michael King or someone as they've been rumored to be considering all off season. But there's been some subsequent reporting from Dennis Lin, I believe that they are planning to hold on to those guys. So if they indeed do, then I like the addition for them.

And I wonder, Pavetta, he got the qualifying offer from the Red Sox. So I wonder whether he prefers this to that, or whether he would do things differently knowing how everything played out. And I assume if he opts out after, I mean, the backloaded stuff stays, right? So maybe that makes it less likely that he opts out given that he's making very little early in this deal. But he is the kind of guy that the Padres need in that rotation, I think, to give them, you know, he's always been kind of tantalizing, like maybe there's more there

and he's uneven. Great stuff. Yeah, great stuff. But even if he's just the same guy he's been, if he's like your fourth starter or something, that's solid. Yeah. And they also brought in Kyle Hart, who's a KBO retread. Folks might remember him from Boston's organization a couple of years ago. I mean, the way that I'm looking at it is like, I hope that

the Padres don't trade Dylan Cease because Dylan Cease is really good. I think Dylan Cease makes the Padres better. I don't know if I believe them that they are not still actively shopping Dylan Cease because like, isn't AJ actively shopping everyone all the time? Isn't that sort of his default mode? I do think that the combination of these two contracts, I mean, particularly the Pavetta one, but we'll see what they get out of heart. There was some thought early in the off season that he might be the next like Eric Fetty, you know, successful retread guy. And they signed him for one year and then an option, I think a club option for 26. It gives them depth enough in the rotation that I think they have the option to be blown away

by an offer for Dylan Cease, put it that way, right? Where, you know, they were in need as, as you just noted now, as we talked about on the preview, like they kind of needed another arm, even with Cease still in-house, you know. Maybe this is making them have a load bearing Kyle Hart, but I do think that they have pretty interesting depth in that group now and they kind of can see if somebody calls. As I put it to Jay Jaffe, who's going to be writing up this as a tandem, I was like, you know, you got to trade Dylan Cease so that you can acquire prospects so that you can trade for Dylan Cease. And the perpetual motion machine kind of continues, but it does give them the option, like I said, to be

kind of blown away by an offer if they want to. So I just hope this doesn't mean less Matt Wildrin because he just said he's going to throw more knuckleballs. So if he's going to throw more knuckleballs, then I don't want less Waldron. So please find some space for my man. I heard a smart guy once say that you can't have enough pitching. And so I think it's going to be fine, Ben, you know? It won't be fine for whoever he's probably replacing

in our rotation, but the odds that you see Waldron at some point this year, they seem pretty high, you know? Lastly, you forwarded an email to me, the announcement of who those mysterious angels, five bobblehead subjects are. And for anyone who has been just waiting with bated breath to find out. Yeah, it's Ben Joyce, Zach Netto, Nolan Shannwell, Logan Ohope, and Mike Trout. Those are the five bobblehead subjects this season. No Anthony Rendon.

I was just, I was just about to ask you, do you think that Anthony Rendon was originally going to be announced as a bobblehead? And then he got to camp and he's like, the hip, it bothers me. And they were like, I'm gonna do a swear. God, f*** it Anthony. I do think they said that, but gonna do swear god f*** Anthony.

I do think they said that but I don't think it was because. Not because of the bobblehead? No, probably not. That was low on their list of concerns with Rendon not being able to play? A Rendon bobblehead, you'd have to have his head fall off or something if it was bobbling. I've been a defender to some extent of Anthony Rendon. I certainly defend his right to put other things above baseball. I mean, when he comes out and says, you know, I'm my family first and all these other things, I think that's fine. I'm in favor of normalizing, you know, even though I'm someone who works a lot and cares about work, you know, to not make your job the be all and end all,

I think is perfectly fine. Now, there are certain times when he said some things that he probably should have kept to himself just in the interest of how those things would be perceived by fans. But I appreciated his candor in some of those circumstances. And there was an episode where we went through the whole history of discourse about Anthony Rendon caring about baseball or not liking about baseball in just his whole career,

even when he was one of the best players in baseball, this dogged him and it's partly like an affect thing, just his manner and then obviously it's morphed into an injury thing and when he was hurt again, of course you had lots of people saying, how can he get away with this? He's not even quiet quitting, this is loud quitting. I'm gonna give him the benefit of the doubt

and say that he is actually hurt here and that he would prefer not to be hurt. If he's having hip surgery just so he doesn't have to play, that would be quite a commitment to the bit. And the angels did have multiple doctors evaluate him according to the reporting. So look, it's pretty frustrating because this happens at the start of every spring training where you find out about all the injuries that you weren't aware

of. And that's always a bit of a bummer. Someone shows up, oh, Alex Cobb is hurt. Oh, okay. Well, this stinks. And Anthony Randall. And I mean, the season hasn't even started yet and his is over seemingly. So he's out for the season that hasn't started. This is going to be a long-term thing. We know for sure he's out for the season, but it seems like the writing's on the wall. Sam Blum at the Athletics seemed to say that he's pretty much done for the year. It's not like official, official, but you know, even putting aside his history of slow recoveries, let's put it that way. I think with this injury and the timing of it. And, you know, it's frustrating that this would happen now when the

season starting, when you just had a whole off season to have a surgery and recover, I guess it's something that rose up when he was getting ready for the season or, you know, rehabbing from other ailments and this started to bother him and then got evaluated for it. So that always stinks when there's a preexisting problem. I mean, I don't know if it was preexisting, but sometimes there is, and someone will kind of downplay it

at the end of the previous season. That's one reason why we see a lot of elbow injuries, arm injuries in the spring. Partly it's because guys ramp up and that adds extra stress, but also sometimes it's like, there was an issue at the end of the previous season. And then they just thought, eh, I'll have a whole off season to rest now.

And then you get stretched out again and you realize, oh, whatever that problem has not resolved. But yeah, look, he wasn't in camp to address questions about this. Ron Washington, who's, you know, never averse to kind of throwing his players under the bus from time to time. But in this case, he tells it like he sees it. He certainly does. It's not always great diplomacy or politics, but it is what Wash thinks. I think that we can say. He said he called Rendon when he heard about the injury and had not gotten a call back

yet and that a lot of things are going on with Anthony and he's confident that he'll hear from him at some point, which is nice. So he's not expected to be in camp at all. And Sam said he may not even be around the team at all this season. That's still uncertain. So yeah, look, I certainly don't blame any angels fan for being frustrated at this point, the extremely low return on investment. And also just the way

that Rendon has gone about this. There are certain aspects of his frankness about these things that I appreciate and respect and even wish other players would pursue, but he does himself no favors when it comes to the public perception of his work ethic and his desire to be there and everything. So at this point, like if he is done for the year, I feel like it might almost be better to just move on and just say, yeah, there's still one more year he's under contract for 2026. But I mean, at some point just like give up the ghost. And that's the thing with him. If he doesn't want to be around, then just retire. And you know, maybe, maybe he does, maybe he's making a good faith effort to be

back and his body has betrayed him, but it's hard to come to that conclusion when he's always unavailable and also isn't always saying I I'm trying so hard to be back out there, you know, you want a certain amount of eyewash in this situation, I guess, as a fan and maybe as an organization too. So yeah, I don't know, maybe they come to some arrangements, maybe there's a buyout. I was going to say, I do wonder if we're starting to get into the territory where they really try to negotiate some kind of settlement to move on.

I like you am fine with a player having priorities beyond baseball in their life. That seems very reasonable to me. I don't think that that makes you a bad player. It doesn't make me question your want. But I think even if you take Rendon entirely at his word, and I'm not saying people shouldn't, but like that this is just a series of very unfortunate events stacked back to back to back to back. The guy hasn't been available for them in any kind of real way for years, you know, and it doesn't seem like that's likely to

improve. He's just going to keep getting older, you know? What is, you know, is stuff's going to stop hurting? That has not been my experience of my th what is, you know, is stuff's going to stop hurting? That has not been my experience of my thirties. You know, I do wonder if they're kind of going to get to a point where it's like, all right, let's, let's be done with this so that it stops being a narrative about you. It stops being a facet of camp for us every year so that we can plan to move on as an organization and really look at that position as one that doesn't have Anthony Rendon attached to it.

And it's not like injuries weren't a part of this guy's life before. Injuries were a part of his life when he was in college. This was a knock on him from some evaluators, but it's getting to the point where it's farcical and I think that the angels have enough farce. I don't know if they need this. This feels like predictable farce, move on from this farce, maybe be done with this particular farce. I don't know. Pete Slauson There's a surfeit of farce with the angels. Julie Penner A surfeit of farce. Did you make a bobble

hat about that? You should do a surfeit of farce tote bag. I bet it would, people go to that game, you know, to get their angels surfeited of farce. And hey, you have Johan Munkata at third base. So the picture of durability. It should be fine. It's right that they have Johan Munkata. Here's, you know, I've been pretty harsh about the Mariners this off season.

I have at times been a little sassy, perhaps rude. I will pay them what is truly a backhanded compliment, but I do mean it this way. Shocking that that guy's not a mariner. Thought that that was going to happen. I was like, no, my God, it's going to end up on a deal, one year deal. No, he's an angel. No, a perfect angel. Okay, let's take a quick break and we'll be back with Sahadav to talk Cubs, followed by Grant on the Giants.

Cubs followed by Grant on the Giants. ["Cubs on the Giants"] Does baseball look the same to you as it does to me? When we look at baseball, how much do we see? Well, the curve balls bend and the home runs fly. More to the game than meets the eye. To get the stats compiled and the stories filed Fans on the internet might get riled But we can't break it down, uneffectively wild

All right, it is time to talk Chicago Cubs baseball and we are joined by a staple of the team preview, Rotation, Sahadav Sharma, who covers the Cubs for the Athletic, writes about them there, also podcasts at Northside Territory. Sahadev, welcome back once more. Thanks so much for having me.

Always love this annual tradition. It's been, what, like it feels like a decade of doing this now, geez. It's a really long time. A decade ago, you were hosting part of the podcast. Yes, exactly. Sahadev did the second part. Sam and I would talk to the BP annual author of the team chapter, and then Sahadev did the interviews with the beat writer types, and then he became one.

Now he is a guest every year. I think the timing is good, as I was saying to you before we hit record, because we don't need to devote part of this preview podcast to Alex Bregman speculation. Sadly, that signing occurred too late for you who told me that you recorded a podcast partly about Bregman and then had to shelf the whole thing. So that's in the can on the cutting room floor. We'll never hear Saharov's most recent thwarted podcast

about Bregman, but at least we know that he will not be a Chicago Cub. I'm sure we'll devote a sizable portion of this preview to a former prominent Houston Astro who is now on the Cubs. So we could start with Bregman maybe. And Jeff Passon had the reported terms that Bregman was choosing among. So he chose the Red Sox offer which had the highest AAV,

and then according to Passen the Tigers offer was the biggest and longest in terms of total dollars, and then there was the Cubs offer which was neither, and as Passen said, tough to win when you trail all three, it was four years for 120 million. So as it stands, just glancing at roster resource, the listed third baseman is non-roster invitee Matt Shaw, who does not quite have the same name recognition as Alex Bregman. So how big a blow is it to the Cubs to Cubs fans to miss out on Bregman and is the fact that they were not willing to offer top dollar for him emblematic of an organizational pattern? And is that something that should worry or frustrate fans?

From what I've heard that the total number is a little lower than what Passon has, I think it was close to 120, but I don't think it actually got to 120, which is remarkable because that means they're below the total number of what the Red Sox are paying for three years and they were offering that for four years. Look, they tried to get creative. I think they tried to push the budget. The fact that the budget constraints are what they are is what should frustrate fans.

The Ricketts family is not treating this like a top five organization. They should have a top five payroll. I would accept every few years kind of going below that and dropping to 10th or 12th, but right now they're comfortably 8 to 12th every year. That's where they sit in payroll when it comes to the luxury tax and that's just not acceptable in my mind and I don't think any fans should accept that and think that that's okay and that's where the frustration comes from and I think the front

office would like a little more flexibility. Should they be with the Mets and Dodgers? I think fans would love that. I don't think that's realistic to expect to behave like the Dodgers and Mets, but behave like the Yankees? Why not? Why can't it be those two teams at the top that I mentioned and then the Yankees, Red Sox and Cubs right behind them? That's how it should be. Somehow they're behind teams like the Padres, Atlanta, the Phillies, Houston has been regularly ahead of them.

That just should not happen. And I think that's where the frustration comes from from fans, that's where some in comes from from fans. That's where some in the front office wonder, why can't we be more aggressive with these things? And that's how you get this kind of offer that they wanted to be in on this. He was a perfect fit for them. And it's just not really a competitive offer when you look at what else was being put out there. Is it a pattern? I think it's just the reality of what, what, what this front office, uh, baseball operations has to work with and they're trying to be as creative as they can be

and as aggressive as they can be. Um, and they kind of have to behave, uh, in a manner where they're looking for every marginal bit of value, uh, you know, they, they can't just like bludgeon the opposition with their financial might, which was kind of where it felt like it was heading back in like 16, 17, 18 when they were spending aggressively. That's just not the case anymore. As far as third base goes, look, I like Matt Shaw. I think he's going to be a really good ballplayer.

I think he has a chance to be pretty impactful, especially on offense. I just don't what's the floor there. It could be pretty bad, right? As a rookie, you don't just don't know. And then the depth behind him is, is a lot of question marks. John Bertie, Fidal Brujjan, Gage Workman, a rule five pick. I mean, these guys like that's the, those are replacement level or below talents, right?

I think Bertie's a good bench player. I think it's a good ad when you're talking about filling out the bench, but it's just, you would have liked to have seen in a year where that's really important for this front office, them continue to be aggressive and fill that final, what kind of feels like that final hole on the roster at third base.

Well, and it sort of casts an interesting shadow on the Kyle Tucker trade, right? We should talk about Tucker and his roster fit just on its own because I don't want to completely bum Cubs fans out. Like you got an incredibly exciting player who's going to be patrolling right field for you, but it does make you wonder, you know, they traded away Paredes, they have Tucker. Do they really only have him for one year? Do you think that there's any possibility that they end up being the team that is employing him in 2026 if they're not willing to go above and beyond to bring Bregman in for this run? I mean, maybe not getting Bregman makes it more likely

that they spend money on Kyle Tucker because they won't be spending money on Alex Bregman. But philosophically, it does make you wonder, like, what are the odds that that guy's in a Cubs uniform a year from now? Yeah, I think it's a very fair question. I don't know. I'd put it close to 0% that he extends before he hits free agency, right?

Like, it just doesn't make sense. You see what he's done in his career, and you see what Juan Soto got. It's like a four-year age difference as far as hitting when you hit free agency, three or four years. That's the biggest factor as far as the money. He's not going to get a Juan Soto deal, but he's going to get... Someone's going to be super aggressive, and someone's going to give him probably over $400 million, something like that.

At least that's what he's going to have his, he's going to set his sights on that, that type of deal. Whether he gets it or not, I don't know. I guess we'll see what the market's like. I don't know. I just don't know if the Cubs are willing to do that. I think they know that they need to have, obviously they know they needed a bat like Kyle Tucker.

We've been hounding Jed Hoyer about that for years now since they traded that core away. My focus has been where do you get a superstar bat? Do you have that internally? Do you think you can turn one of these guys like Seiya Suzuki? Does he develop into that or do you have to add an established star? And Jed Hoyer was always playing coy, right? He's never going to say until he has that bat, he's not going to say you have to add an established star? And Jed Hoyer was always playing coy, right? He's never gonna say until he has that bat, he's not gonna say we have to get that guy

because then it puts more external pressure on him, right? He can say like, oh, you know, maybe one of these guys develops into that or you get creative and you have a lot of really good players and you can win in that way. But now they have that bat and they spent a lot of capital to get that bat. And I think that it makes all the sense of the world

to spend big to keep him. I just don't know if they're gonna win a bidding war. And I do wonder what Ricketts is willing to do as far as spending beyond 2026 with the lockout looming in a big CBA battle that everyone expects to occur. What is his willingness to spend whatever it may take to keep Kyle Tucker in a Cubs uniform? Does he have that willingness?

I don't know. He may be of the mindset that what's this new CBA going to bring and how much money am I going to be able to save in keeping whoever the next star to hit free agency is or whatever that may be. That may be the mindset of a lot of owners, not just Tom Ricketts. I think pretty much every owner that's not, you know, the Dodgers or the Mets

probably is thinking similarly, like what can we do in the new CBA that restricts our spending and makes it easier to either keep players or spend or you know not spend an insane amount on the best of the best. Well they do have Tucker for this season and he's the kind of offensive star and really all-around star that maybe they've lacked lately and I wonder how you think the rest of the offense will shake out? Getting a star like that, that's huge. Will that put them over the hump offensively or do they need some lower profile players to make some significant

strides? Whether that's Michael Bush, whether that's Pete Crow Armstrong continuing his success from late last season, whether that's Miguel Amaya leveling up, who of the holdovers has the best chance to take a step forward? Yeah, that's a good question. So first of all, I like this offense. I thought it underperformed in a sense that Wrigley played terribly last year. Wrigley was, it's going to sound like an excuse, but I've been going to that ballpark for 30 plus years and it just hasn't played like that for a full summer.

Every single time I came into the ballpark, I was like, again, the wind's blowing in again. It was insane. I just have not seen it like that. I kind of kept tabs. I kind of asked around to make sure my memory was right. Like it was blowing out a lot when they were on the road. It was just really weird.

So it's not just like the weather patterns have changed or the video boards have changed the way things work. It really was like a bit of randomness. And I don't think it'll play like that again. Again, of course that's gonna hurt the pitchers. But my point is I think this offense is better than what those numbers showed last year. And it was a slightly above average offense.

It wasn't a terrible offense, but it wasn't the offense that they had in 2023. I believe they were the six most runs in baseball, just a really productive offense. I think it's a good group. And I think Kyle Tucker really levels them up. As far as who needs to step up, well, first of all, you cannot have performances like you did

at the bottom of the lineup, like they did to start the year last year. Danesby Swanson was terrible. Miguel Amaya was just not good. And then Piqua Armstrong really struggled. All three of those guys had much better second halves. We learned that Danesby Swanson was dealing with an injury for pretty, sounds like the entire season.

He said he was dealing with that injury for a year and a half. Miguel Amaya changed his mechanics. Something clicked. I don't know if he's a 120 weight or runs created plus guy like he was from basically mid July on, but if he is, obviously that changes things. PCA was about the same from the end of July on as far as if he's a 120 something weight or runs created plus guy, that's MVP caliber with his defense and base running. Right. Yeah. That any day?

I don't know if he's that I'd be surprised, but he also like, it's not like it was just like, it was a combination of learning the MLB pitching and, and he made a mechanical tweak. So like when you see stuff like that, it intrigues me when I see, when I can point to why a change happened. It makes it more interesting to me. I just don't like it makes me hard. It's hard for me to believe that you can put that up for a full season. If he does that, like I said, he's a superstar.

I do think both of them will be better as far as full season numbers. I think there's a good chance of that and that helps a lot. Dan's be healthy helps a lot. But I do think Michael Bush is probably the guy that I'd point to and say like, you know what? He was, he's pretty advanced, right? He was ready for the big leagues, advanced offensive player. I saw huge strides defensively where at a certain point in like April and May, I was like, Ooh, this is rough to by the time September rolled around. I was like, is this guy gonna compete for a gold glove at first base?

That's how dramatic the turnaround was defensively for me that I like it, it was just glaring and it was impressive. He was making every play and he looked like a standout for his basement defensively. Offensively, he was hurt a lot by Wrigley. Lefties are in general, the wind blows off the lake, it's coming in from right field a lot. It's just it's hard that crosswind kills them, especially it doesn't hurt righties as much. But again, if it's not as extreme, I think he could be a guy that you're talking about, like breakout first baseman type. It's like, oh, this is why you don't get pedal on. So because you have this guy, I'm not sure if that happens. I just, I like him. I like his approach. I like the way he is, you know, he's at the right age.

He's old enough that it's like, it's time to like see like how good is this guy? And it was a really good season last year. Perhaps he can, he could be like the heartbeat of that. The guy that kind of backs up Tucker and Suzuki and Happ. And that's another guy. Suzuki, I think is one of the more underrated offensive forces in the game. If he can stay healthy, when he's healthy, he gets locked in and he just crushes the

ball. He's a monster. And I think people don't fully understand how good of an offensive player, say, a Suzuki is when he's at his best. Yeah, I wanted to ask about him because it sounds like his usage is going to be primarily at DH. And I wonder, how does he feel about that? Because he hasn't had the best luck in the field when he has played, but it seems like he wants to maybe play the field more than he's going to.

So how is the team thinking about balancing those desires? Yeah, it sounds like obviously his agent had some thoughts about that and shared them at the, that was the winter meetings, right? And, yeah, and that's fine. Like he's supposed to do those things. Joel Wolf is supposed to share those types of things. I'm glad he did.

So it wasn't hidden and we had something to write about, but I don't think it's like this huge contentious issue in the clubhouse. My understanding is there was no issue last year when he was a full-time DH. If you look at the numbers, he was a stud when he was DH-ing. I do think there was some mental block

kind of going on defensively. I think the miscues got in his head. They were happening far too often, like very basic plays. He was dropping fly balls. I mean, everyone remembers the one in Atlanta at the end of 2023 that basically cost them a playoff spot. Like that crushed their playoff hopes because they ended up losing a game they should have won

because he dropped an easy out fly ball. That wasn't even the first one. And it wasn't the last one. Like he's dropped easy out fly ball that wasn't even the first one and it wasn't the last one. Like he's dropped so many fly balls it's hard to say like yeah you should play over Kyle Tucker. Who's he playing over? There are three guys that are gold glove caliber in the outfield right now. You're not like PCA hasn't won a gold glove but he's the best defender of the group and then Kyle Tucker has a gold glove Ian Happ has two. Like he's just not playing over any of those guys, not regularly.

And counsel's message to him is like, look, you're our DH, it's gonna help us win right now for right now, but things happen. Who knows where he'll end up playing the most games by the end of the season. He can handle left field, I'm sure. So if there's an injury there, he'll play. I'm sure guys need days off. Council likes to give rest, mix things

up. I just think that like, assuming health, I just don't see how he's gonna get like his his playing time comes to DH. That's that's where it comes. As long as everyone's producing and they're winning, my guess is say is going to do whatever it takes to win. And we'll be happy with it. He may not be thrilled that he's no longer in right field, but it's as simple as go look at what you did. You know what you did. He's well aware of how he struggled. He's well aware of the issues. He had to talk to us about them a lot. So I don't think you can make much of a... There's not much of a defense of saying, oh, he has to be out there.

There's just not like there's not a good argument for it. Like he needs to hit. And that's he's a special talent on offense. I think if they can just ride that this offense can be really good. Speaking of counsel, what impact did he make in his first season with the Cubs? He was the top manager on the market and the Cubs season didn't go quite the way that they had hoped, which maybe says something about just the limitations of a manager and how much of a difference a manager can make. But what did he do differently?

And was there any apparent improvement that he made? And does he need to do anything differently this time? Yeah, I'm not sure if he needs to do anything differently. I'll say this, back to back 83 win seasons, one with David Ross and one with Craig Council. I can't sit here and tell you, he's this huge difference maker, obviously, right? The similar rosters, he got similar results. He came about it in a different way, right?

I can tell you what the players have shared, what I've heard when talking to front office coaches and players. One thing would be with the bullpen. Look, David Ross was a little bit more old school there and he'd ride guys as much as I don't think 2023 was on David Ross. I think it was more limitations with the bullpen and the personnel. I do think there were times where a manager sometimes needs to be was on David Ross, I think it was more limitations with the bullpen and the personnel. I do think there were times where a manager sometimes needs to be willing to lose a game

in July or August to win more games in September, something like that, right? To put it simply. And I think sometimes he would ride certain relievers a little too much while counsel will just be like, you're down. I'm not asking your opinion about how your arm feels you're down today like it's been too much you're down and that's how counsel runs his bullpens that's how he runs his pitching staff go look at his history when it comes to starting pitchers he's he's one of those guys that and I think it's becoming

more common across the league there his starters a lot like they don't go on regular rest what's traditionally you know lot, like they don't go on regular rest, what's traditionally four days rest. They don't go on that as much. A lot of guys get five and six days rest. Now some of that was because of Shota Imanaga last year, but it's a big part of what he's trying to do. He's trying to get a guy, he's trying to look for ways to give guys breaks whenever he can.

He understands how long a season is. If you remember when rosters could expand to 40, however many years ago that was, I felt like that's when Council was at his best. That's when he has all these toys to play with and he can mess with the roster a ton and just get guys breaks. That's really what he, the Brewers would always catch the Cubs in September because Council was just a master of that. Now he doesn't have that luxury as much anymore, but he's really good at finding guys breaks, getting guys rest.

And the guys believe in him. Is he a rah rah manager? Is he gonna get in your face when things get bad? Is he gonna scream and yell? No, from my understanding, the players love that. He's very open about communication, lets them know what is expected of them, what their role is from the start.

He's very open about it. And he's open with us. Like there are some things that he, he said over the course of the year, I was like, wow, you're being pretty frank. Like this is all on the record. But it's all because he tells them that. He tells tells the players that like, this is what I expect. This is your role.

This is who you are. These are your limitations and these are, this is how you can help us. And he's super honest about it. And he just like it acts. It can come across as a little like, how did that guy take that? You know, but like, it's just like, that's just who he is. And because he comes with a rep now, because he has this kind of gravitas, they all, they're all bought in like guys, like when they were struggling last year, I kind of talked to

some players and I was like, what do you guys think? Like, you know, this is, has the same feel as last year. And they're like, listen, we're not performing that's on us. And they're like, we're all in on council. Like the guy's legit. He's a winner, he knows what to do. Everything I get from the players is they're fully bought in and think this guy is like a difference making manager. Let's maybe turn to that bullpen that you mentioned

because it has some new faces, although I guess one of them is not new to Craig Council. So they went out and traded for the Ryans, Ryan Presley and Ryan Brazier. They signed Caleb Bealbar, they brought in Colin Wray. So how do you imagine he's going to piece this together? Obviously, it looks like Presley will serve as the closer, but how are they going to bridge the innings between a starter and Presley? Yeah. So Presley gets first dibs on the closing job, right?

This is a much deeper bullpen, probably more talented bullpen than last year. Certainly one of the deepest bullpens I've ever covered, like coming into the season, like a decent amount of optionality, not a ton with some of these guys at the back end. But behind Presley, I really like Porter Hodge. He figured some things out last year.

He's pretty nasty. He kind of has that demeanor that you like. He's pretty confident out there. I think he came into camp early, really early, from what I understand. He's been in Arizona a lot. Some of the guys I talked to out there made it seem like this guy came in on a mission.

And that was before Presley arrived. He seems fine that for my understanding, he's fine with the addition. Like he, you know, he was going to have to compete. He wasn't going to be handed the closers job either way. But I think he's a legit, like very interesting young reliever. We all know that I don't need to say this to you guys or your audience. Like who the hell knows with relievers, right? That it can go south quickly or some guy that none of us have heard of suddenly becomes

the best reliever in baseball. And we're all like, who's that guy? Where did he come from? Okay, apparently he's the best reliever in baseball now. That's just kind of how it works. And so I'm always willing to say like, this could be a great bullpen, this could be a terrible bullpen.

I think it's really deep and I'm intrigued by it. I like Julian Merriwether if he can stay healthy, really good in 23, not healthy in 24, just wasn't effective. Like I don't think anytime when he was out there he was really very healthy. He didn't look like himself. When we're talking about the volatility of relievers, look, Tyson Miller was awesome when he came to the Cubs, but he was a DFA pickup. Like he was a small, he was DFA'd by the Mariners and traded to the Cubs. I don't

know if you're going to see a repeat of what he did with the Cubs last year, because he was pretty shut down when he came to the Cubs, but he's going to be a big part early on. There are some really intriguing younger arms. Nate Pearson, obviously former top prospect. They're strong, using air quotes when I say stretching him out. I think they're going to look for him to be like a multi-inning reliever. He's not going to start. They see him as a reliever.

I think they saw some tweaks that they wanted to make them started to make them last year. He was a little bit more effective does give up the long ball still but there's some things I like this pitching infrastructure and the guys that they have there probably a little underrated in my opinion compared to the love they get nationally or lack of love they get nationally. I think they saw some things with Pearson that they're going to fix.

He's someone I'd keep an eye on. Then they have just like all these young arms that just have a ton of stuff. And it's like, can they click like Porter Hodge did? Can they click? Daniel Palencia, Jack Neely, Obviously there's younger prospects, you know, AAA and below. Porter Hodge wasn't on the radar last year and he pops up and he was the most impactful reliever. So I'm curious how those guys do, who pops up. And then there's other veterans like Caleb Thielbar, Eli Morgan. Just a good deep bullpen. I think the key for me is you don't want, as you're figuring these things out, and because council

said this last year and pretty much every manager that gets it has told me this, like the three guys you trust the most in April, probably like very unlikely that they're the three guys you trust the most in September. It's just not how it works, right? Bullpens evolve, pretty much every bullpen across the game evolves over the course of the year. So I'm not sure how it looks. What you don't want is what happened in April and May of last year, mostly May, where because of the bullpen,

you're losing games, right? You can, if you win a game nine to eight and the bullpen gave up five runs, but you're figuring out who you can trust and who you can't, it almost feels like a double win, right? It's like, okay, well now I know like I don't trust these guys as much or this guy just doesn't have what he had last year, whatever it is, right?

So you figure that out. You don't wanna lose games, but you wanna figure out who you can trust and who you can't over the course of April and May. So if they can do that, if they can really get like locked in by June without losing a bunch of games in April and May, that's I think really the ideal situation because bullpens are just so weird.

So you just wanna know who you can trust by the summer without it costing you a ton of big games and falling behind in a very winnable division. The rotation is mostly the same with the exception of the subtraction of Kyle Hendricks, who was the last link to the 2016 team, and the additions of Matthew Boyd, and Cody Poteet, and Colin Ray.

But maybe we can just focus on the top of the rotation for a second and talk about another guy who had his first year in Chicago in 2024, Shota Imanaga. It was mostly quite successful. There was a lot of concern that, oh, ball park when the winds blowing out, Wrigley when the weather warms up, he's going to be super homer prone. And that wasn't entirely untrue. He did give up 1.4 homers per nine.

He gave up nine home runs in August alone, but he had such great control that it didn't hurt him that much. So he is a guy whose FIP and ex-FIP were significantly higher than his ERA. Are those more in line with what you're expecting from him in his second go-around? Or what do you think he can do to follow up his MLB debut? Yeah, I mean, if he has a sub- RA again, I yes, I'd be surprised. He was amazing, especially the first whatever two months. That's some of the best pitching I've seen outside of like Jake Areata at his peak, as

far as in a Cubs uniform in the recent past, he was pretty dominant and really impressive. I'll say this, the guy know he's really smart, right? So he's got good stuff. It's not like mind blowing fastball or anything like that, but the stuff is there, but he really knows how to pitch. I mean, he gets a decent amount of chase too, right? I'm pretty sure he gets a lot of chase. He just doesn't walk guys.

Once he gets to three balls, he's not gonna walk you. He knows how, like he's just a very cerebral pitcher. So he knows how to adjust. He quickly learns from mistakes. I just really enjoyed watching a pitch. And then like even with the language barrier, talking to him through a translator, it can be really difficult when you're talking to any player through a translator. But it still felt like there was a, like you were getting deeper with him than you normally do when you're talking to any player through a translator, but it still felt like there was a like you were getting deeper

with him than you normally do when you're talking through a translator. And I really appreciated the thoughtful answers, his ability to kind of explain his thought process. There's a lot there. You know, sometimes I can go too far where you get like these overthinking pitchers that just kind of like are out on the mound over thinking every decision they make and it leads to failure. That's not him.

And I think the big thing is, yeah, it was his first year playing in the bigs, but he's a veteran and that mindset came across clearly to me. Like I do expect the actual ERA to probably dip. It just, it's really hard to be a sub three ERA guy for 180 innings. But I do I do think he's going to be like a pitch like a two three over the course of the season, which is kind of like what his ceiling was, right? Nobody expected this guy to be an ace, a number one, but like a two or three was like if he could be a tour three, that's a huge win at the price that he comes comes at, that's nothing, right? And he's affable.

He's a good clubhouse guy. Like I said, there's a language barrier, but he was loved in that clubhouse. There's just a lot of things to like about him, and even little things. Defensively, he did things where I'd see him very confidently call off the first baseman, like, I got this, and go and grab a ball and flip it to him.

He's a leader on the field, and he just knows how to play the game. I just really appreciated watching him and felt like I learned a lot just with one season of covering the guy. Certainly going to be hard to replicate the season, but I think he's going to be a very productive pitcher. We'll see if a different weather pattern at Wrigley hurts him. I mean, it's going to, but I think you nailed it. Like the walks, he just doesn't walk guys.

So it's not going to crush him. It's gonna be, it's one of those guys that wasn't, Mack Scherzer at his peak, like gave up a crap ton of home runs over the course of a season, but like he was so good, it didn't matter. I think that's kind of how you want to look at Shota. Like, yeah, he's gonna on a home runs over the course of a season, but he, like he was so good, it didn't matter. I think that's kind of how you want to look at Shota. Like, yeah, he's going to give up home runs, but I very rarely is going to give up the crusher. Yeah. And you said, you know, he's not an ace, he's a two or three.

And that's kind of the knock on the Cubs rotation, which isn't horrendous by any means, projects to be 20th by Fancraft's war. And the problem is that there isn't really an ace, a league-wide type of ace. There are a few guys who were kind of in that two, three category, Imanaga, Steel, Tyone. So who would be in the mix if there are depth issues? I guess you have Boyd, you have Rey, you have Asad coming back.

Who else is kind of on the depth chart if they need to dig deeper? Right now, you have Boyd locked in as the four, right? So you have those three that you mentioned, Tyone, Steele, Imanaga and Boyd's fourth. Asad had a little setback, it sounds like, to start spring training. Doesn't sound as devastating as, you know, an oblique injury can be mild. We'll see if that keeps him from starting the season. If he doesn't start the season I'm curious to see who gets that fifth spot. Just based on like optionality and all that stuff maybe it's Colin Ray right? Because council loves talking about

pitchers in very like basic terms like they're out getters. I'm trying to find a way to put it together to get 27 outs. I like to think of Colin Ray as a guy like, if Colin Ray's in your rotation all season long, that's probably not the best thing, right? But if he's in there for 12 starts over the course of the year, and then eating innings in other ways,

that's acceptable, right? If you get him to like 100 and 100 plus innings, like a little over 100, that's probably like a best case scenario. Like I don't know off the top of my head, but I would venture a guess. If you look at his first 100 innings last year, they're much better than whatever remaining innings he had. Like he was awesome to start the season and then kind of fell off a cliff. And like he's that prototypical guy in my mind that council kind of loves to have on his pitching staff that isn't like going to blow you away, but can give you quality innings

if you don't overuse them. Like once he hits a wall, like he's kind of done for the season. But beyond Colin Ray, I think there are a lot of people on that coaching staff and in the front office that are excited about Ben Brown. Right now he's just a two pitch guy. I haven't talked to him this spring because I'm not out there. Patrick Mooney, my partner on the beat at the athletic is out there currently. Last year when he was healthy, he was pretty confident that he could be a two pitch starter

and still succeed. The death ball slider that he has, the gyro slider, whatever you want to call it. There are people in that organization that think it's one of the best death balls in baseball. He's very confident when he's healthy. He believes he kind of carries himself in that manner when he steps on the mound, like I'm going to dominate you. He's got you know, upper 90 stuff. He's kind of the type of pitcher that they don't have in that rotation. I'm curious to see what he can do. Like how good can this guy be? Like what has

he developed a third pitch that he can use more often that he's confident in? And if not, can he just succeed in that fashion and be a six inning starter and give them something they just absolutely don't have in this rotation? He's obviously interesting. You know, beyond that Jordan Wicks is a, is another option. We'll see where Caleb Killian is. Caleb Killian has gotten a lot of shots. He just hasn't, he shows these flashes and he has this stuff and you're like, wow, this

guy's, this guy looks good. And then he just, he gets out there and it doesn't work. And you're like, why is this not working? It seems like it should. Beyond that is Kate Horton, right? The former, like one of the top prospects, pitching prospects in the game that kind of struggled last year.

He struggled out of the gate, velocity wasn't where it was. And with him, the fastball doesn't have like the same swing and miss that you would expect from that type of pitch. But once the velocity dipped, they were like, what's going on with this guy? And then he got hurt. From what I understand, it wasn't because of the injury with the velocity. His they were like, what's going on with this guy? And then he got hurt.

From what I understand, it wasn't because of the injury with the velocity. His mechanics were out of whack. He got kind of out of whack in the off season. They were working to get it right in spring and like slowly trying to get it right over the course of the start of the season. We're getting to a better place

and that's when the injury hit. He's a hundred percent now from what I understand. We'll see where his velocity is. I'm very curious to see where his velocity is, what type of season he has a triple A, if he can command his pitches, if he's developed, if they feel good about a third and a fourth pitch. If healthy and pitching like he did in 2023,

he's one of the best prospects, pitching prospects in the game. So we'll see where he's at probably, along with Ben Brown, some of the highest ceiling when it comes to starting pitchers that they have. And then they have another prospect named Brandon Birdsell that I don't have details on it,

but he has a shoulder issue. So that obviously kind of is set back there, but he was the type of guy that like quietly put together a really nice season last year and had some of the best velocity of his career at the end of the season. So that was something that I was curious about. But if it's a shoulder issue, if it's even halfway, you know, severe, then who the hell knows where what's going to happen.

So switching back to the position player side of things, what about Kevin Alcontra and Owen Casey? Where did they sort of fit into the broader picture for the Cubs and how much of them do you think we see this year? Yeah, that's a great question because not only do you have Seah kind of blocked out, right? Alexander Canario, if I remember correctly, is out of options. So that's another wrinkle there.

And I saw someone who... Yeah, I saw someone report that he, I believe Maddie Lee at the Sun Times reported that they're gonna try him at first base. They don't have, technically they don't have a backup right-handed first baseman or any handed first baseman. They just have Michael Bush, unless you count whatever the John Bertie's 20 innings in the playoffs at first base.

Where do they fit? I don't know, right? That fits into the Kyle Tucker being a free agent. You don't want to like trade away all this depth because you don't know if Kyle Tucker is going to be around. Are they, is one of those guys your future? I just think Kevin Alcantara is so valuable on another team. Like his value probably comes in a trade because he can play center field. I really like him and I like his upside and if it clicks, you know, a year ago we were talking about like if there's a guy that could be a superstar in that farm system,

he's the guy if it clicks, right? I don't know if that's still the case. If you can still dream on him. He still has room to fill out. There are some aspects of his game that are just really intriguing and I think he's got offensive upside. He's still young He made his debut at the end of last year I don't know where they fit because they there's just not a lot of playing time and you don't want guys like that on your

Bench, unless they're traded they're gonna play at some point this year. They're gonna probably start the season a triple-a Someone's gonna get hurt and it's gonna make sense to call Owen Casey up It going to make sense to call Owen Casey up. It's going to make sense to call Kevin Alcantara up. I also think there's a good chance either one of them could be traded. Casey, I like Casey and he's ultra confident and he's been pushed every level. Like he's been, you know, every level that he started the season last year at AAA. He was young for AAA. Like every year he's been young for the level he starts at, but they're aggressive and they push him.

And he's not overwhelmed. He's pretty decent. The strikeout rates slowly improve, not like insanely improve. It's still a question mark. And I think that's my biggest question mark when you're this slugging guy that that's your value, right? Power, because he's not a great defender anywhere.

He's an OK runner. That's not a great defender anywhere. He's an okay runner that's the value is the power and when you have that amount of swing and miss I just I worry a little bit about how does that play at the big leagues because the gap is so big now between AAA and big leagues when it comes to pitching like it's just it's just a huge jump he's he's a hard worker and he and he's the type of guy that has shown he can make some adjustments. So I don't want to rule it out. That concerns me and makes me wonder, is he best to be traded while the value is high? I guess we'll find out.

We'll see what they can do at the deadline, really. If these guys come up, if they don't. But right now, you're right. There's no obvious path to playing time in 2025. Like I also wouldn't just say like they have to trade them because of the Kyle Tucker situation, because there's a situation where like, maybe it just makes sense to like be patient with them. And Contra you can be patient with, right?

Like it's not like he has to come up this year. He's young. Yeah. And speaking of having to trade someone or the certainty that you will need depth at some point because someone's going to get hurt, I kind of question why they needed to trade Bellinger. It was predictable that they would after they acquired Tucker, and if they had used the money that they saved from trading Bellinger and put that toward some other prominent free

agent then okay, maybe I see why Bellinger wasn't necessarily needed to start at any particular position to start the year. But you'd think that given his versatility in the fact that he could back up or platoon with so many potential people, that there was still some utility to having him on the roster if he weren't going to get anything back better than Cody Poteet. Yeah, there certainly was depth wise. Yeah, he had a place. I think it would just been hard to put all the pieces together as far as everyday playing time because you have players that you want to play at all, you know, what five of the

spots that you could have played him at. Right. Once you added Tucker It just became really hard to find everyday playing time because you would have been it would have been between Bush Center field with PCA right field Tucker and DH with Suzuki, right? So someone really good would be sitting Semi-regularly it feels like how do you make everyone happy that that's one where it's like I Agree that like it's worthwhile having that depth. I think the biggest issue is they didn't fully use

all those resources, at least not yet. They're gonna add a bench player. I would be a little surprised if one more solid bench player isn't added like in the Justin Turner, Mark Kena role, like that type of mold. I would engage Workman just not. Yeah. I like, I just expect that to happen.

And like Workman is like Workman is like those two guys I mentioned can't play the positions that Workman can play. Right? Like you're not going to play Turner at third base. Maybe like if you're desperate, like I'd be surprised if they don't add a bench piece, but I just don't know how, if they're like, that money like needs to be spent in some fashion. And some of it was,

they just had no financial flexibility. It gets back to what I was saying before, like they needed more financial flexibility. I think if they had Bellinger right now, obviously they wouldn't have been in the Bregman talks and they'd be kind of maxed out as far as what they could spend. They'd be done. They wouldn't even I don't even think they'd be able to add a bench player because I

want to say they're at like 210 ish and that would have pushed them to like almost 240 and that's about where they're going to end up. They're going to end up right below the luxury tax in all likelihood unless they sell at the deadline. That's around where they're going to be and you know, it sounds like they had a little more flexibility to go after a Bregman, but that doesn't mean that they have flexibility to go after whoever they want. Like that's just, they'll make, ownership will sometimes make like these concessions,

like, yeah, go get that player. So I totally understand where you're coming from when you make that point. I just think the playing time issue would have been more severe because those are all starters. All those guys have to play nearly every day. So when you're trying to like mix and match with when none of those guys is a true bench player is when I think it gets, that's probably when you do get like some bickering and the clubhouse dynamic gets a little thrown off. Although every single one of those guys are good are good dudes. I don't know Kyle Tucker yet, but the others

aren't the type that would get super upset. Although, I don't know PCA well yet. He's a young guy and he's got a little bit of an edge to him. So maybe he'd go off. I have no idea. But I think the playing time situation would have gotten weird. All right, so our last question,

what would constitute success for the Cubs this season? What do they have to do to satisfy themselves and their fans? Like the simple answer is make the playoffs. A little more in depth would be, I think this is a successful season. You make the playoffs, not only do you make the playoffs, but you see a lot of young players take a step forward, including guys that may

not even have played much at the big league level, but like a guy like Cade Horton, who maybe gets a cup of coffee or whatever. You want to see a lot of young guys take steps forward, including Matt Shaw, PCA, Michael Bush, all the guys we talked about. You want to see them either show that, okay, we have a young core here along with the veterans that we have on this team. Because like not only is that just good for any organization, but it would ease the potential blow, maybe the likely blow of not being able to resign Kyle Tucker. You want these position players that you sold all your 2016 core for pretty much and the non-tanking tanking that happened after 2021.

That's why you have these guys. That's why they suffered through those average to below average seasons or very bad seasons in some cases to get these younger players and build up the farm system. So you wanna see the young guys step up. Playoffs feel like an absolute must. Otherwise, when I'm talking to you next year, we're probably talking about

a different baseball operations group. Well, I don't know if this will help them reach the postseason, but your beat mate, Megan Montemiro, has posted some photos from camp. PCA has bleach blonde hair, what appears to be a blue star on the back of his head. Kind of like- Yeah, I saw some pics, yeah. what appears to be a blue star on the back of his head.

Kind of like- Yeah, I saw some pics, yeah. Yeah, like he's a star-bellied sneech from the Sneeches, Dr. Seuss book. So I don't know, maybe that's the vibe shift they need. Okay, we'll have to figure out what look he was going for. I'll ask him. Yeah, he does do looks, doesn't he?

He does some looks, that guy. He likes to mess with the hair. He's a fun guy. Well, regardless of whether the front office is the same next year, we hope the preview guest will be, because it's always a pleasure to have you on. So we encourage everyone to read Sahadev's work

at The Athletic and listen to him on North Side territory. Thank you as always. Thanks so much for having me. Always appreciate it. And now we'll take one more quick break and we'll be back with the great Grant Brisby to talk about the Giants. ["Effectively Wild"] It's war with a smile

Effectively wild It's the good stuff It's baseball nerd stuff We hope you'll stick around for a while I'll Effectively wild Effectively wild, effectively wild, effectively wild, effectively wild. Alright it is time for our San Francisco Giants preview and we are joined by the same guest who's been joining us since 2014 to do these things.

And I just went back and listened to episode 409, the 2014 season preview of the San Francisco Giants to evaluate what this guest said. And he predicted that the 2014 Giants would end up with about 87 wins and would contend for the most part. So I think he nailed it. 88 wins, he didn't predict a World Series, even though it was an even year, but I'm going to give him the close to 87 wins and contending for the most part. They contended entirely. Thus, we have invited him back for yet another preview. Now that that prediction has been borne out, Grant Brisby of The Athletic and of The Athletic's Roundtable sub-podcast on The Athletic's Windup podcast is joining us once again. Hello, Grant and Grant's dogs.

Wow. I appreciate you going back and looking at that. I'm pretty smart. I will say it's The Roundtable, which is a subsidi say it's the round table, which is a subsidiary of the windup podcast, which is a subsidiary of the athletic, which is a subsidiary of the New York Times podcasting company and organization. Yeah. Good. Glad we got the corporate structure cleared there. Yeah. We don't have to revisit what you said about Edwin Escobar on that preview, but- Sweet Christmas. Wow.

Blast from the past. Yeah, you were talking about, we were debating whether the Giants would hit a home run that season because they had struggled to do so in 2013. And you did say that you thought Brendan Belt would get one probably that season and he hit 12. So again, you were right. I guess that could come up again in this podcast,

not with Brendan Pelt specifically. We miss you. He was good. He should have been playing last year somewhere, but we will maybe talk about the Giants power output. Speaking of the Roundtable podcast, I was trying to reach you to book you for this segment, which is not always the easiest, but always worth the effort.

And one way that I went about trying to contact you was to contact your podcast co-host, Annie McCullough, to ask him for your phone number, which I didn't have, surprisingly. It felt very high school, like, can I get Grant's phone number? And I also said, because I messaged him on Wednesday, which is the day that the roundtable comes out, and I said, if you're recording with him today, you could also just tell him that I'm trying to contact him. And he did that on mic on the show. In fact, I received a message just now as we started recording. Hold on, I'm going to, I'm going to read this to you. Hey, could you give me Mr. Brisby's phone number? This is a Ben Lindberg

from effectively wild. They're close to pro labor, but sometimes they get, you know, kind of pro-ma- You know, we like them. We're friends of Effectively Wild, you know, even though they are a rival show that supports management. Anyway, can you give me Mr. Brisby's phone number trying to reach him for an Effectively Wild Giants preview, but emails slash DMs haven't worked so well. Or if you're recording with him today, maybe you could just tell him I emailed him. So Grant, get your acts together. Which worked really well. I got a message from you promptly, probably right after you finished that podcast. And it was free advertising for Effectively Wild because we don't really have much of

an ad budget here. And so this might be my new strategy to promote our podcast would be to message people who host other podcasts asking them to talk to their co-hosts on the air, preferably mentioning that it's Ben Lindberg, the host of Effectively Wild. So that worked out great. Listen, free advertising for you, but more importantly, free content for us. That's like at least a minute where I didn't have to prepare or plan or do anything. I mean, that's chef's kiss. So, that's like 2 least a minute where I didn't have to prepare or plan or do anything. I mean, that's chef's kiss. So, yeah, that's like 2% of the podcast was on you texting Andy.

Yeah. I'll take it as a free 2%. You're welcome. Well, you're paying us back now by appearing on the podcast. And we should probably talk about the 2025 giants, not an even year, although Buster Posey still features prominently in a different role and he had himself a fine year in 2014. Do you think he'll have himself a fine year now or just generally how would you grade the job that Buster Posey is doing? What is your general take on the fact that Buster Posey, Buster Po' Bo' is now running

the giant's front office very suddenly. How do you feel about all those things, Grant? Yeah, please don't ever say Buster Pobo again. Say it every day. We definitely will. You can say it every single day now. That's a one and done. No, you know what?

It's already too late for it to be one and done because we've said it several times, but. Buster Pobo, Buster Pobo, Buster Pobo. Okay, actually that is kind of, yeah, that does kind of roll off. You can have it. Okay, anyway, I will say, I was thinking about this recently and what is the job of a Po-Bo if you're Buster Po-Bo? People were saying like, oh man,

the Giants are going away from stats and they're gonna go back into the dark ages. And I think that's dumb as heck. I think that is not why you hire Buster Posey, right? He had one of his better years in 2021 where he was all dated up and just, you know, he was looking at the spray charts and the hot zones and the what have you. And he did really well. There is a lot of buy-in there. He was the one managing the pitching staff for a lot of the Farhan years. And so he understands the efficacy.

If there's one thing that they did well a lot of the time, it was pitch. It was get guys who did a couple of things well and say, hey, listen, Kevin Gossman, you throw the fastball on the slider really well, maybe just do that. And Buster Posey was a part of that. So he has the buy in from the analytics, right? It's not just do that. And Buster Posey was a part of that. So he has the buy-in from the analytics, right?

It's not just about stats. It's not just about the biometrics, but he's in. He's seen it work. So I'm not thinking he's going back to the dark ages. I don't necessarily know exactly what his personnel strategy is. But if the giants are going to contend, and they're going to contend in a way where it's sustainable, where they have a conveyor belt,

where they are just not scrambling every year to sign one or two free agents and maybe contend, it's gonna be with the farm system. And so it's going to be synthesizing that ability to have the data, but also know how players like to have it distributed, how players like to have it distributed, how players like to absorb it, how to do it at the lowest levels, how to do it with the prospects, how to do it with teenagers, how to do it with 28-year-old minor league free agents.

That I think is the most important part these days. The data is there for every team. They all buy into it and for more or less. It's just how to get it to players where they understand it and appreciate it. I think that is where he will thrive. So I don't know how he's doing, to be honest. I mean, I can go through the moves one, two, three,

but I don't know. Is he doing a good job about that? He's an affable fella, maybe. That's why we have you back on this podcast every year. You don't know how he's doing. Yeah, well, you didn't even mention in 2014, the part, because I went back and listened to it too. And I was like, okay, so I think they're going to sign Travis Ishikawa, but not as the first baseman, more as an outfielder, and he'll win

the pennant with the home right. Do you remember that? Do you remember any of that? I must have missed, I only listened to the end of the segment. So I probably, yeah, I was probably at the beginning. I'll go back after this, but he does talk about RBI's a lot more than you're accustomed to hearing a front office person do these days. And look, scoring runs is pretty important and generally they do have to be driven in. So we're not anti-RBI as a concept, but he does have sort of an old school way of messaging, which for all we know could be a plus, could help him connect with players, even though players these days are all super new agey

and talking about their release points and their flexion and their pronation and their arm angles and such. But maybe there's that sort of old school spirit about him that would help him from a recruiting standpoint or a connection to players standpoint. I would like to think that that's more marketing, right? I mean, I would like to think that Buster Posey doesn't hop on baseball reference and look at Joe Carter and go, why isn't this guy in the Hall of Fame?

Right? I mean, that would be like the old, that's the old school for the news group heads. That was the guy who everyone, you know, grumbled about. He's not that good, but he had, grumbled about, he's not that good, but he had, oh my gosh, he had like 10 seasons, a full 10 seasons with 100 rebys or more. That's not what Posey's doing.

I just, I refuse to believe that. I think it is about the messaging and the message is for, yeah, on base percentage is great, but if you have a sloth who is on first base and you have someone who is a singles hitter behind him, that run has not as much chance to score. That's not money ball. And so how are you gonna describe that?

It's just getting runs in. And so I think the ribeye talk is just messaging. I mean, there's no rule that says a sloth can't play baseball, Grant. That's why, I mean, they can work at the DMV if you've seen Suetopia. Defy you to find that in the rule book. I mean, at the very least, we know that Buster Posey is good at remembering some guys, right? There is a theme to some of his off-season free agent signings, but not to all of them. And I think

maybe we can start with the one that I think Giants fans should be very excited about. It finally happened. They finally netted a top free agent. What did the Giants see in Willie Adamis to make him their big off-season signing? What do they like here to give this guy $182 million? I think it's a combination of things. The first one being you can look down the pipeline and not see the shortstop of the

future, at least with any sort of confidence. Marco Luciano was never the answer at shortstop and he's been moved off probably to the outfield. Tyler Fitzgerald, very competent. He has a lot of you know technical abilities there but he's not he doesn't have the arm doesn't have the range so you maybe want to maximize him at second base or in the outfield a little bit but he was never going to be that anything above average and he'd have to work to get to average defensively so you're looking at that

okay is this guy going to be the answer for three, four years? Can he be? I think so. Yeah, absolutely. And then you add in, well, he brings a dimension, he brings a speed, he brings defense other than last year's statistical hiccup. He is, you know, a really good shortstop. And so you get that. And then you get to the point where I think Buster Posey really cares about this. And I think Farhan actually cared about this quite a bit and just didn't get enough credit for it, was they're trying to avoid turds in the clubhouse. And me and Bags would talk about this.

It's kind of like a no turds policy. And I'm not gonna go through the turds that have passed through, but in terms of personality, it's a really good clubhouse, and Adomas is like at the top tier 80 grade scouting dude. I talked to someone in the Rays front office, you would know him, he used to write for Fan Graphs, did a podcast for a while, and he said, like unprompted,

that guy is a good guy, like a good dude, just unbelievable. Even when we was a teenager, people were talking him up like, wow, that guy is a good guy, like a good dude, just unbelievable. Even when it was a teenager, people were talking them up like, wow, this guy's special. So that is also part of it, is if you've got Matt Chapman and Domus on the left side of the infield, that's a couple of good dudes in the clubhouse.

And that's not nothing. I know it's not slugging percentage, it's not on base percentage, but you know what? Sometimes, and I'll say this, sometimes I don't think stats measure everything, guys. I mean, and in addition to being a couple of seemingly good dudes, like you look around that Giants infield and this is a good defensive unit, Grant.

I don't know if you know, you know, Matt Chapman grades out well at third base, Patrick Bailey. We might have to come up with new math to describe the kind of defender that that guy is. Would you say that this was a focus of their offseason solidifying, shoring up, cementing the defensive acumen of that group? I think so.

I think that is if you, because it's not going to be as ground bally as last year because you're losing Alex Cobb, you're gaining Justin Verlander, so you're gonna lose some of the ground balls, but I feel confident saying this is still a pretty heavy ground ball-focused staff, especially in the bullpen. If you're gonna get Tyler Rogers,

you're gonna get Sean Jelle, Ryan Walker, but then you also have Logan Webb, you've got just Jordan Hicks, you've got some ground balls on the staff, And if you have Chapman and Adamas, that seems pretty ridiculous. And then if you're going over to the right side, I think Tyler Fitzgerald will do very well at second. And if he has a caddy, it's probably going to be Brett Wisely, who is really good defensively at second base. I'm not sure what the numbers say offhand, but eyeball test, he is pretty fantastic.

So yeah, that would be a good defense. I mean, Lamont Wade, not outstanding, but at the same time, he's not gonna hurt you. So I don't know if it was a focus because you still have an outfield that is average to maybe slightly above average, depending on how much you think Elliott Ramos is gonna learn on the job

and how well you think Jongho Lee is gonna play. But yeah, it's a good defense. So that's gonna be one of their few strengths. I mean, one of their main strengths. The only problem with the no turds policy is that some people are secret turds and then you find out that they're turds later. I'm not saying that is the case about William Thomas.

I'm just saying that that's the downfall of those policies just in general, is that you don't always know who the turds are, but it is still best to avoid the people who are known to be turds. Known turds. You're just interviewing them before suddenly, listen, is there a heel turn in your future?

Are you gonna go weird on us? You never know. Before we started recording, I was reminiscing about a previous preview segment where your dog did not abide by a no-turn policy during our giant preview, and then you sat and stewed in that sense for the entirety of the segment.

Instead of pausing, you just took one for the team and stuck it out till the end of the recording. And as I understand it, it's raining where you are. Your dog rejected being put outside, so that is still in play here. But please do speak up if that should happen again. That was a puppy at the time. She's better, she's better.

I don't remember the last time I picked up a turd in the house. So we're probably, barking is a potential issue, and especially fighting. They get what's called the fighty-bities and they just gnash teeth at each other and they get really loud and I think they do it for my attention. Probably to get on the podcast. But another person that Buster Posey signed was older than Buster Posey and in fact still is and in fact faced Buster Posey when Buster Posey was still a player,

that's Justin Verlander. So tell us what should be expected from the old soldier Justin Verlander. Is this gonna be a late career Randy Johnson on the Giants or is this gonna be better than that? It is, look, if there's one team that should try something like this, it's the Giants, because even with a new front office,

you're gonna have people in place who remember the, not Reclamation projects, but who were around for Carlos Rodin, who were around for Kevin Gosman, who were around for Des Clefani and Alex Wood, and the Giants have a good sort of tradition built in for getting these guys and fixing them up, polishing them, and getting a little spit shine. And I think if you're going to bet

against Justin Verlander, I don't know, why would you do that? Because he's always being written off. He might be 57 years old or whatever, but when he came back from Tommy John surgery, he had one of the greatest seasons of his generation And I don't know what to make of that. That's that's bizarre. Like who does that? Hall of Famer a freak So last year, you know, not not the best year, you know, there's a lot of red flags chief among them

He is I just looked it up. He's 41 going to turn 42 february 20th So a week from now happy Happy birthday there, Justin. But yeah, 42 years old, what do you expect from him? Not much, 110, 120 innings, mostly quality. If you get more than that, that's gravy. If you get to the deadline and you're out of it and he's pitching well, I'm assuming teams might want him, like the Astros might want him, who knows?

So I don't mind the deal at all. I think expectations are reasonable, but I don't see as much downside as some people might. Randy Johnson was 45 during his Giant Swan song, so really not even comparable. Why would I even bring that up? But it is possible that this will be the last ride for Verlander, Scherzer, and Kershaw this season. I mean, I hope not. I hope they're all great. You may not be rooting for Kershaw because Giants Dodgers, but beyond that,

I think we all want those guys to pitch as well and as long as possible. But as we've said previously, I just, I hope that particularly Scherzer and Verlander, but all three of them, I hope they retire at the same time so that they can go into Cooperstown at the same time, because that'd be quite a class. What do you think Zach Granke would be like if he were a closer?

If he could really just max out, do you think that there would be room for him in, I think that the Marlins should try it or something. I'd love to see it. I'd love to see the Marlins sign anyone, but especially Zach Granke, that'd be great. That's a different preview though. You mentioned Zheng Huli and I'm looking forward to him getting kind of a mulligan on his, well, rookie MLB season obviously, he is not a rookie in the strictest sense.

What is the state of his shoulder? What are they expecting from him in terms of sort of ramping up to normal baseball activity? And what are you expecting from him this season? It's funny because if you're going to evaluate, you know, what's on the stat sheet you're looking at, okay, well, he had mid-six OPS, he had, he didn't do much. Okay, the defense was, well, we don't know what we have

in the defense as far as the metrics. From the eyeball test and most importantly, from reading comment sections right and having your pulse on the fandom, no one was freaking out about him. Giants fans love to freak out and they weren't necessarily saying oh my god what is going on with this guy. You could tell there was something like bubbling, something that was about to maybe show up in the batting average.

His at bats were consistently good, even if there were maybe a few more ground outs to second than you would want. You saw the ability to spray the ball all over the ballpark. So I think he's going to be better than you might have seen last year. I don't think he's necessarily the kind of guy you want hitting third in the order, which according to Andy Bagley He might be doing this year hitting third in the order, which okay that is certainly one of the options I don't think I'll have the power to where that will look like a great decision in retrospect But it's it signals to me that the Giants are very confident in his shoulder

That's they're confident that they are going to get the player that the Giants are very confident in his shoulder, that they are confident that they are going to get the player that the previous front office had so much faith in. It seems to me like they have a little bit of faith in him as well. Do you think that there's anything to the idea that Buster Posey is gonna be this ambassador for the organization who's gonna make it easier

for them to sign free agents, which has been a challenge with some of the top guys that they've pursued over the past few years. It was reported even before Farhan was gone that Posey stepped in and helped engineer the Chapman extension. And then there's Damis and Verlander. I think Posey had even acknowledged some of the difficulties that they had had persuading people to sign there even prior to his ascension.

So do you make much of those issues just in general? I mean, was it more about the city or the organization or the organization's unwillingness to offer certain terms or was it just being outdid by the Dodgers or out angled by the Dodgers essentially? I would make less of it than I think. There's some something to it. The idea that he can sit down with Chapman and say, you know, let's get that Boris guy out of here. That's not nothing.

I mean, that's a big deal. And I got the deal done. Who knows what the offseason would look like for Chapman without that. But that was an important deal. I just, no one's going to the Dodd. Like Shohei Otani is not going, I don't know about the Dodgers, but I got to tell you, Andrew Friedman, I could cut off that guy's jib, right? Like that guy, that guy just seems put together. I'm trusted in him. No, it's the Dodgers.

Hey, he did have that clause that he could leave if Friedman goes. That is true. Okay, so he clearly likes the cut of his jib. But at the same time, it's why are you signing with the Dodgers? Well, they've got the resources. They have, they make players better. clearly likes the cut of his gym. But at the same time, it's why are you signing with the Dodgers? Well, they've got the resources.

They have, they make players better. They've proven that they can adapt when things don't go their way. They have a phalanx of statisticians. They have the scouting. They've got the cache, the cultural cache. I mean, everything, it's everything. And so, yes, it's gonna help that you have Buster Posey

there and he can talk and he knows what players have gone through. But that doesn't always work and that doesn't always make a difference. And when you go through line by line, all the major free agents the Giants missed out on, Bryce Harper, they got in really late on him. And at that point, it was sort of like,

whoa, the Giants are here, now I have to consider this. So that wasn't gonna work. If you're going to Aaron Judge, listen, he always wanted to be a Yankee for life. Shohei Otani, you're not gonna get away for the Dodgers. Carlos Correa, he had termites in his ankles. So stuff like that, that's less about who is doing the negotiating

and more about specific circumstances. So it'll make a little difference, but it's not gonna be some sort of panacea. I wanna talk about the rest of the rotation because obviously Verlander is the new edition, but we have a lot of returning faces. I won't call them old. Most of them aren't. They're some of them older, but they're not old in the strictest baseball sense. Headlined by Logan Webb, obviously you have Robbie Ray, you have Jordan Hicks, you have Kyle Harrison. Tell us about how these pieces fit together, but maybe more importantly, in the event that Verlander gets hurt, in the event that Robbie Ray gets hurt again, in the event that there's

underperformance somewhere, who are the guys that they're looking to in the high minors who might backfill some of those innings? The Giants don't have a very good farm system. They've got Bryce Eldridge and a bunch of players who didn't really get consideration for your typical top 100 or 101 list. I don't know exactly what the pecking order would be, but they do have some depth of guys who are up and you can say, oh yeah, that makes sense. Whether it's Hayden Birdsong obviously has a change up of the gods and a fastball that

maybe is a little too hittable, predictable, doesn't have all the shapes that you want, but that's okay. He is going, he's very young, he's very inexperienced as these things go, especially as a professional. He clearly is a major league arm. His ERA last year and his general performance really doesn't do him justice as far as a lot of those earned runs came late in his outings he would be cruising and then hit a wall weather was with his problem. He has a plus plus change up as well from the left side. He would be an option. You've got Mason Black, who pitched a little bit last year and he was pretty good in his own special way.

You've got Tristan Beck, who came back from pretty weird injury and he's gonna be coming back and he gives them an option for innings. So they will have depth and I know I'm missing someone and someone right now, Landon Roop. Okay, Landon Roop, Trevor McDonald, there's a couple guys named Carson, maybe two or three. Imagining throngs of listeners just shouting,

Landon Roop, why isn't he saying Landon? Oh, finally he said Landon Roop. Well, he's got a good curve ball. And I'm like, you know, he's like, when you go to his projections, he's the one that the projection systems like the most for whatever reason. I don't know, maybe you guys know in your giggling

because you guys just make it up. But he seems to have the most potential and he looked pretty good last year. So it's a quality of quantity, I should say. None of them are going to make an All-Star team probably in their collective careers. Maybe none of them will ever hold down a rotation spot for longer than a couple of months. But when you see them pitch, you're not going to be like, who is this guy and why is he in the major leagues? Get him off of my TV. It's more like, okay, let's see what we got. And so the Giants have a lot

of let's see what we got kind of guys in the minors. What do they have in Kyle Harrison, who was one of those top 100 or top 101 guys for a few years running as recently as last season, and then had his first full, foolish season in a major league rotation last year and it was fine, I guess. It was fine, I guess. Maybe that's putting it charitably, but he's only 23 still, so is that prospect promise still in there? It is, with the caveat that his velocity has varied a little bit more than you would want to see. He's a real confusing sort of guy to analyze, just because the strikeout rate is fine,

everything's fine, the command is fine. I really thought he'd struggle more throwing strikes. He didn't, he was fine. But you go back to his minor league career, he threw, I don't know, 250 innings in the minors. They really, really babied him and didn't let him stretch out. I wanna say his career high in minor league innings was like 110 or something like that.

And that's just not that much experience for a pitcher drafted out of high school. For him to do as well as he did, I think is a positive sign. But the swing and miss stuff wasn't quite there as advertised. And I'm not sure if that's a velocity thing or if it's an experience thing or if it's just who he is. So that's going to be something to watch, just not a high whiff percentage. He wasn't getting batters to chase a ton. There's a lot to question about his off-speed stuff. His fastball plays though, and if you're a left-hander

in that fastball is, you know, that that's probably the best pitch to have in your back pockets. My fastball is really good. Hitters have trouble with it. Let's see what we can get everywhere else. And so that's the prognosis for him. I guess we should dive in on Jordan Hicks too, and see how the team looks at their bold plan to transition him into the starting rotation, a directionality that Flummoxed Ben to know and last year as he was trying to come up with a way to describe all these guys who were going from relief back into the rotation. He obviously dealt with some injury.

His first half ERA was quite strong. I think his peripherals were a little higher, but are they pleased with how the first year of this experiment went? Do they have specific guidelines for him or sort of things for him to work on other than hopefully just staying healthy that might help him to sort of take another step forward, at least in that role this year?

They were impressed enough to where they're gonna try it again, even with the new front office. You would think maybe the new front office would come in and say, okay, that clearly didn't work. But there were enough, like you said, the first half was pretty good. You know, he was really impressive for a while. I think his year was under three, you know, through May.

And I think it was close to under three and a half by the end of June. So halfway through the season almost, you're thinking success. This conversion is a success, there's stuff to work on. And then the fatigue gets him and it happened in July and it was sort of predictable because he didn't have an entire off season knowing he was going to be a starter. He kind of had to have a foot in both lanes when he's training and he's doing his conditioning. And then he had to ramp up real quick

and become a starter again for the first time in several years. So I would like to think that a full off season of expectations of being able to communicate with the team you're going to be with, as opposed to just joining a team in the late off season and having to figure that stuff out. I would have to think that would help.

The velocity was down, obviously, but I think that was by design because at least in the beginning of the season, he seemed able to control his sinker more than I remembered him doing as a reliever. So who knows? It's a weird one. And I'm actually doing I'm starting a series on how weird

the Giants rotation is and going through Robbie Ray and Hicks and Harrison and how they are just, you know, Schrodinger's rotation where it could kill the cat or it could be a happy fluffy kitty. That's, I'll work on the analogy before I publish, but he's a weird one. He's a weird one. They're all weird.

And so I don't know what to make of them, but it's clear that they think something's still there. We should probably detour back to the position players just for a second to discuss two of the most pleasant surprises on any team last year, but certainly on this one, Tyler Fitzgerald and Elliott Ramos. So did those kind of come out of nowhere for you? And do you think that they can maintain some semblance of that performance? Yeah, this is a tricky one. I wrote something about the both of them and I tried to say in gentle terms, don't expect it again because you don't just want to come out and be the columnist is like, these guys are going to be trash. What are the Giants going to do about it? No, I don't

think that that's the case. I don't think you're gonna get what you got last year. You know, Elliott Ramos' OPS against lefties was like 6,000 and is he good against lefties? Sure, but I don't think it's gonna be that good again. He's gonna have to start hitting against righties or lose some of his at-bats to Mike Yastremski or someone else. So he'll be good, I think. He could feel comfortable because you look under the hood and you've got all, everything's there. The bat speed, he's more disciplined maybe than his strikeout rate lets on.

He's got the hard contact. He's hitting balls all over the place hard. So that's there. I feel comfortable he can be at least an average regular. Not an all-star again, unless he fixes his stuff against right-handers. Fitzgerald is a lot trickier. I think there's a lot of room for him to fall back and still be a useful starting second baseman just because of his speed. He's got a high baseball IQ.

But if you look under the hood, it's going like, look, he's not going to have a 400 bap up again. He's not going to hit 280 again. He's going to be a low average hitter. He chased a ton. And you saw it with runners on base. He had an OPS in like the 300s or something because pitchers didn't want to give up damage and looky at that. They weren't because he was chasing so much out of the zone.

So he'll have to fix that. I'm not pessimistic with him, but you can definitely, you know, there was a month where he was like the best player on the planet. That's not gonna happen again, but useful, regular, especially when helped with a left-handed platoon mate or semi platoon mate, or at least backup. He should be okay, I would think.

Their bullpen is down a Rogers, up a Trevino, forcing me to grapple with how good a season Ryan Walker had last year, which I somehow didn't fully appreciate until I was preparing for this. I was aware of how bad Deval's season went relative to his prior campaign. So pieced together this bullpen for us. I know that Walker's been named the closer by Bob Melvin, but how are they thinking about the innings leading up to him? How do you expect this group to shake out? It's a weird situation in that Camilla Deval clearly has all the talent in the world and he still throws hard.

Maybe he could throw more strikes, I think is what they're looking for. And just be more aggressive in the zone. They actually sent him a video of Manuel Closet and say, hey, do this. Like he's not, he's not necessarily trying to nibble corners when he has stuff like that. You do that. And that's when they around the time when he was sent down and to work on a few things. So that's gonna be the focus. That was the last front office.

This front office, everything's the same thing. Just throw strikes, don't nibble, see what you got. We'll take it from there. So that's gonna be the focus there. Ryan Walker really is that good. I mean, I don't know. I watched him last year. He's one of the better relievers I've seen in a long time,

just in terms of ability to command a bunch of nasty pitches. Tyler Rogers at this point in known quantity. Then you get to the left-handers and I don't necessarily know why they would trade Taylor Rogers without a plan for the left side. Eric Miller was something of a revelation, walked a lot of batters, but also owns Shohei Otani. So look for that matchup. That'll definitely continue forever and ever and ever and ever. But they don't have a lefty,

and they don't necessarily have a righty with reverse platoon splits or even platoon splits even. They don't have a ton of options in the minor leagues to say, hey, this is gonna be the guy that's gonna come up. And so it's either gonna be Eric Miller pitching like 80, 90 innings, of options in the minor leagues to say, hey, this is going to be the guy that's going to come up. So it's either going to be Eric Miller pitching like 80, 90 innings, which doesn't seem like the best thought out plan, or it's going to be to toss platoons, not completely out of the window, but to pay a lot less attention to them also doesn't seem like the best plan. So I don't know

what they're going to do from the left side. That is fascinating to me. I thought maybe they would make a trade, trade Camilo Deval and gets something a little bit more predictable. I don't know what they're gonna do. It's just from the left side. The right side, I think, is pretty well locked down and I'm optimistic about that part of the bullpen.

The lefty's not so much. Where does Marco Luciano fit in? You're asking me? Yes. Please tell me. I don't know, man. That is the biggest problem with his ID tenure, I think, is that boy did they mess around with him.

They said he's a starting shortstop, no questions asked. And then that lasted about two weeks in spring training, and then you got Nick Ahmet in there. Come on, either he's not going to be the starting shortstop, or you should know better the year before that maybe there's room for him at a different position. For all of his abilities, all his physicality, all of that tremendous bat speed, he's never really had a good season in AAA, and he's still young to where you shouldn't freak out about that, but how can you project a guy to be an offensive force in the majors if he's never shown that in AAA? I don't know. I mean, mercifully, he has an option this year. So I think the plan

is going to be let him ply his trade in AAA, let him worry about a new defensive position there. I'm guessing it's going to be in the outfield. Maybe it's going to be second base, but let him just focus on hitting. But because he still has all those tools and he's got a But because he still has all those tools and he's got a mirth about him, he loves to play baseball, so let him do that. But I don't think they're counting on too much from him in the majors this year. Since you mentioned Said's tenure, I was going to ask you for the big picture review of how that whole era went. Because Farhan went from LA's front office to the Giants back to LA's front office. Was he a Dodgers double agent the entire time? What went wrong there? Because he was probably the top prospect among front office folks when the Giants hired him. And 2021 happened and Giants fans

will always savor it. That was just an incredible season, but the Giants in his tenure as a whole, six seasons, went 453 and 417 and all of the over 500 in that record was concentrated in 2021. Every other season was 500 or below. So if you had to sum up the majority of his tenure, it'd probably be 500. That seems like it's kind of epitomized the Giants lately. So what did he do well? What did he not do so well? Yeah, when he took over, all right, so let me just float this out there.

This is just something percolating. I haven't really written about this. But so in 2021, that's the most success that he has and he never recaptured it again. Who was one of his best players? An MVP quality player was Buster Posey, right? And then Buster Posey just decides to leave and that starts the downfall of Farhan.

And then, oh, well, who gets to take his job? Connect the dots, people. So that's just one thing I'm throwing out there. But for the most part, look, his player acquisition, his ability to spot someone like Osman, someone like Carlos Rodan, someone on the margins who could make them better, I think was really good. Tyra Estrada, Mike Yastremski. That was a skill set that was important and it helped the Giants win games. I really thought he did a good job taking over a veteran ball club and maximizing the skills of the veteran players on staff or in the clubhouse, whether it's Crawford

or Belt or Posey, later Willem or Flores. So he had an ability to find players to maximize what he was working with. But you look now at 2025, and when he took over the farm system was in shambles. And what are you gonna do with that? Well, they coached up Logan Webb, they got some players out of that. But in that time,

who were the players that were developed in that system? And it's not much, you know, you got Patrick Bailey, you've got Kyle Harrison. He was a big bonus guy in the fourth round, I think. And that's about it. That's about what you're counting on. If you're looking at Luciano or Luis Matos, those are guys from the previous front office.

That's where he failed the most. And I'm not gonna say it's all him, but the people he was surrounded by, the draft picks they made, the draft picks they whiffed on, whether it's Will Bednar or Hunter Bishop, you know, guys that they took big swings on that just didn't pan out. They didn't get a ton from their first round other than Patrick Bailey and by a ton they didn't get anything. So that is to me the legacy of shame that is still there.

Bryce Eldridge could make up for a lot if he's as good as some folks are hoping. But if you're looking at a sustainable roster after the five years, five seasons of Farhan, I'm not seeing that sustainability that's quite there. If you're finding it, it's gonna be in guys like Ramos who wasn't necessarily his doing. So that to me is the biggest negative. And it happens to be the most important too, because you're

not going to catch the Dodgers signing a free agent here and making a trade there and finding your Mike, your Stremsky in the rough. You're going to need to have some homegrown players and they just did not show up under them. You obviously have to deal with the Dodgers in some way, shape or form if you're going to be. Me? You all down there, you know, you all have to deal with them in some capacity. And it's not as if the Dodgers are the only good team in the NL West.

And you might not have an answer to this question yet because the Posey front office might not have an answer to this question yet because the posy front office might not have an answer to this question yet, but if you were trying to come up with a way that the giants could zig where the Dodgers have zagged, what do you think they're going to stake their claim to to be competitive? Because they're not going to outspend LA, And it's not as if money is the only asset that the Dodgers have at their disposal. So as they're kind of trying to figure out a way to deal with the behemoth at the top of the division,

what do you think their approach is going to be for this administration? Count how many RBIs you think the Dodgers will have. And remember some guys. Yeah, and then add a few. No, you have to forget about the Dodgers, really. That is, it's a team that is unlike other, at least in modern baseball history,

and you're gonna go crazy trying to replicate what happened there, the perfect storm of financial might, intelligence, just willingness to build this team from within and without. And you have a situation where, I'm not gonna say lucky, but there's never gonna be, or not never, but you rarely get a Mookie Betts on the trade market, right, you rarely get someone like Freddie Freeman

who's saying, you know what, I thought I was going back to my old team, but they're acting really weird and squirrely. Hey, what about you guys? All these sort of things fell into place for the Dodgers in a way that they were positioned to take advantage of. So luck is not the right word. But when the literal baseball god of the current era is saying, I'm a free agent, who could I play for?

Well, the Dodgers have all this in place already and then they can sign Shohei Otani for a bunch of deferred money that he's willing to take that deferred money. It's a perfect storm and you can't say, well, here's our 16 point plan to replicate that. Forget it, you have to hope they all quit baseball and join a monastery or something. You have to hope they all quit baseball and join a monastery or something.

You have to hope that they all struggle with 100 batting averages with balls in play for the entire season. As everyone gets to point and laugh, you just have to forget about them. You can't replicate it. You have to just build a good farm system, build a conveyor belt of players that are able to build a sustainable roster for the future by virtue of being underpaid because they're so young, and go from there. And if you're trying to catch the Dodgers, you're just gonna bang your head against the wall. I'm envisioning a scene from Conclave

and it's just Buster Posey in one of the little hats. I don't dislike it. I'm okay with it, you know, like one of the little hats. Can you please reframe your answer in a pop culture thing from not the past decade? I'm lost. That's usually what Meg says. Hey, whoa, out of nowhere, just get side-swiped out of nowhere. So we don't end these previews anymore by asking for a win total prediction,

but we do ask them. 82. Yeah, okay, there it is. No, I don't know. All right, sorry, go on. That seems like a safe bet, I guess. I do that at trivia night too. I just go, Eli Whitney.

You know, and that's it. But we do end by asking what would constitute a successful season, and maybe 82 wouldn't qualify. So what do they have to do to satisfy fans and for the organization to look back at this season and say, yeah, that was good, we made progress? I like that question.

Every year I write a variation of what that would be. So this'll get my brain juices flowing. It's the kind of season where enough happens that you can look towards 2026 and they can sign a Willie Adamis type player or acquire someone of his caliber, not a superstar, but a very good player. And the fans can go, oh, heck yeah,

that is the missing piece. That is one of the couple of missing pieces. He's gonna fit well with all these other players that I feel comfortable trusting, right? It's about finding these players you can trust for 2026. It is contending, you know, perhaps for the fifth or sixth wild card or whatever there is now,

and figuring out what you have that is there for next year, whether it's Birdsong, whether it's Luciano surprises in the way that Elliott Ramos did last year, whether it's Ramos replicating a lot of what he did last year, whether it's Fitzgerald finding that contact. You can just, if you get like five, six, seven of these guys where you feel comfortable

that they're gonna be a part of the next good Giants team, that's gonna be a success. And that will help fans appreciate the off-season moves that maybe aren't Shohei Ohtani or aren't Aaron Judge, that they can find some sort of value in the guys that are below that tier, which is gonna be the tier that the Giants are gonna be living with, I would guess. The important thing is that there will be a new opening day left fielder for the 19th consecutive season. So the curse of bonds continues, probably Ramos, but certainly not Michael

Conforto because he no longer plays for this team. See, the worst part is that there's two curses of bonds. There's also the 30 home run thing, right? Right. Yes. So I've had to, like, I catch myself up, like I've used in my articles, two curse of bonds, capitals, and then I'm like, wait a second, I need to delineate between these, so. Yeah, people thought that Jorge Soler might be the one to end one of those, but that didn't happen, but Chapman came close, so. It'll never happen.

Yeah, probably not. All we are is dust in the wind. One last question for you. I saw this when I was going to look at the windup recording schedule. I went to the iTunes page and I saw an iTunes review and I don't know that it's a review of the round table specifically.

It could be about Jason Stark, who knows? But here it is. It's the subject line is know it alls, which does make me think that it's probably about the round table, but I don't know for sure. It's probably about Andy specifically. But here's what it says. Now it's a three-star review, so it's moderate,

but it says know-it-alls and know-it-alls in that part of the review is spelled N-O, know-it-alls, who don't know Jack, exclamation point. For example, did you know Jerry Kuzmin at age 42 through 224 innings to 3.25 ERA in 1984 for the Phillies? You could look it up. So did you know that?

Son of a biscuit, no. No, he was right. They got me pegged. They got me pegged. He was right. Oh man, that is, well, that couldn't have been, I don't think we've mentioned Jerry Kuzman. So I'm just gonna say that's Jason Stark

and shame on him really. There's a reason why he's like the most disliked baseball writer of his generation. Everyone's just got bad things to say about, no, I'm teary. Everyone loves you, Jason. Speaking of the no turd policy, Jason Stark, not one. Not one, no, they got some good guys.

Good guys at the Atlant Coast. All the people. Square Gs. And you're one of them. And that's why we're always happy to have you back here. And we recommend that people read Grant's writing at the Athletic and listen to him on the Roundup podcast, even though he did not know about Jerry Kuzmin's age 42 season. Now he does. So we've rectified that oversight.

Thanks as always, Grant. Juan Samuel had 168 strikeouts in 1984 for that Phillies team. That is wild for back then. Yeah, error adjusted. But 19 triples. So I mean, who are you gonna believe? All right, thanks for having me on.

I really appreciate it. Well, Grant's dog didn't poop during that podcast, but Grant did endure a couple of earthquakes as soon as we stopped recording. He said, oh, earthquake, a pair of them actually. Just small ones, 3.2, 3.4 on the old Richter scale. I guess he's used to it. Fortunately, not a 1989 World Series situation. And so the segment must go on. But now it has ended as has this episode. Thank you for listening. We'll preview the Astros and the Cardinals next time. And you can help us continue this tour of the majors by sponsoring the podcast on Patreon,

which you can do by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild and signing up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad free and get yourself access to some perks as have the following five listeners, Marin, Kevin Windhauser, Allison, Janet Gardner, and Francisco Dominguez, thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, monthly Gardner, and Francisco Dominguez, thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild

Discord group for patrons only, monthly bonus episodes, playoff live streams, prioritized email answers, discounts on merch and ad-free FanCrafts memberships, and so much more. Check out all the offerings at patreon.com slash Effectively Wild. If you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site.

If not, you can contact us via email. Send your questions, comments, intro and outro themes to podcast at fancrafts.com. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. Hopefully your review won't be about how we're big know-it-alls because we're not sufficiently appreciative of late career Kuzmen. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash Effectively Wild. You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r.effectivelywild. And you can check the show page at fan graphs or the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we cited today.

Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We'll be back with another episode before the end of the week, which means we will talk to you soon. How do you calculate war? Does it come from the heart? Should we use defensive weapons? Calculate whore? Does it come from the heart? Should we use defensive run safe? Or follow the OAA way?

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