Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2289: Season Preview Series: Mets and Angels

Episode Date: February 28, 2025

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about some members of last year’s Yankees and Dodgers still sniping about the World Series, Max Scherzer’s objection to the challenge system, how ABS has broadly been received so far, and assorted tactical considerations concerning when to challenge. Then they preview the 2025 New York Mets (29:08) with The […]

How can you not be, predented? A stab blast will keep you distracted. It's a long song to death, but we're sure to make you smile. This is Effective in One. This is Effective in One. This is Effective in One. Hello and welcome to episode 2289 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from FanGraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Raleigh of FanGraphs.

Hello Meg. Hello. Got a couple meaty preview segments for you today. We will be talking to Tim Britton of The Athletic about the New York Mets, followed by Sam Blum, also of The Athletic, about the Angels. Briefly, before we get there, first of all, I've been a little flummoxed

by all the discourse about the 2024 World Series. Have you followed some of this back and forth, the jawing, the war of words between some Dodgers and then Aaron Boone also, and most recently, Nester Cortez, who's not even a Yankee anymore, but just about the Dodgers criticizing accurately, but perhaps not tactfully, the Yankees performance in that World Series.

So this became a thing because Aaron Boone came out earlier this month and he kind of took a shot at the way that some Dodgers had talked about the Yankees because it was Joe Kelly who's always willing to speak frankly. Okay. But he's not even a Dodger anymore. I know. That's the thing. It's like Joe Kelly is the self-appointed spokesman of the Dodgers.

It's like, sir, you were barely a factor for the 2014. You weren't on the postseason roster. I guess maybe because of that, he could speak freely, but, and he always speaks freely regardless. Yeah, I was going to say, I don't think that he's doing that calculus. Yeah. Chris Taylor also talked about this, I think on Mookie Betts's podcast and said that the Yankees down their leg during Joe Kelly he

Disparaged the Yankees defense and base running and said that their issues in those areas were well known which you know fair They weren't perhaps that acute as they were in game five. But anyway, Aaron Boone came out recently and said, the reality is we didn't play our best in the series and they won. So they had that right to say, whatever, hopefully we're in that position next year and handle things with a little more class. So the little more class that sort of revived this controversy. And then he went on to say, you know, it's a great team. A few people sounding off isn't necessarily how I would want to draw it up. And he drew a distinction between the people

who did sound off and then Mookie and Otani and Freeman and Kershaw, like the actual faces of the team who did not publicly roast the Yankees. He said, sometimes you're coming off winning the world championship and some guys are more inclined to spout off and be a little more colorful than others. And that's their right. They won and again, hopefully we're in their position and do things a little better. So Joe Kelly then responded to Aaron Boone's comments and there was another mini news cycle about this.

I was also, Nester Cortez who's on the Brewers now, he talked about the Yankees performance in that series in sort of an amusing way and said, we had done enough to win that game. Game one, I guess he was talking about, they can talk whatever they wanna talk, but we win game one, which we should have, we lost two and three, we win game four,

and we should have won game five, then we go back to LA up three to two. So it's this alternate history of the series where if they had just won the games that they lost, then they would have won the world series. That's how these things work. But you know, he's the one who gave up that grand slam in game one, the walkoff. And again, I don't think he should have been in that position. Right.

He, he thinks he should have, uh, he has no problem with being used in that spot. But, you know, yes, they could have won game one and they could have and should have won game five if they hadn't self-destructed, but they did. So he went on to say, so people can say it slipped away from us, people can say we made a lot of mistakes, which we did. But at the end of the day, we were the better team. I see it that way. And I'm sure everybody in that clubhouse sees it that way. The reality could have been going back to LA leading three to two. It didn't happen that way and they deserve all the credit in the world. They won the world series while he's like actively taking credit away from them or attempting to at the moment they showed they were the

better team, which seems to contradict at the end of the day, we were the better team. I guess he's saying like they were the better team over the long haul, but the Dodgers were the better team in that series. I don't think either of those things. I don't think the Yankees were a better team than the Dodgers last year outside of that series either. But look, ballplayers say the darndest things, but what do you make of all of this? Oh, how goofy.

What a goofy, how goofy. So okay, I think a couple of things. First of all, very funny for Joe Kelly to like decide to pop off about this stuff because you note that he, you know, is not a super significant contributor to that World Series. He also is a free agent as of right now, Like he's not signed with the Dodgers or- He may be retiring, yeah. Right. Or anyone else. So, you know, like there's that. I, on the one hand, am delighted to see Chris Taylor exhibit any kind of personality at all because he tends to be a pretty-

Yeah, he's stoic. Stoic? That's such a nice way of describing it. That's a much nicer way than what I was going to say. So there's that, I guess, like good for you, Chris, but also, look, here's the thing. You are a World Series champion and you have been like a very good player at points in your career, but you also posted a 74 WRC plus last year and you hit 231 in the postseason. So I don't know if you are necessarily standing on your strongest leg running down it or not when you criticize the Yankees. The back and forth around this stuff is so funny.

You've noted in the past, the tendency that players will exhibit to say, I'm not making excuses and then immediately make excuses. And this feels like a variation on that theme where I'm not saying that they're being classless jerks. I'm just saying that if we win the world series, we will act like wonderful angels while they are acting like sad miscreants. You know, it's like that's the vibe. Whenever you preface a statement with not taking anything away from or no offense, that means that's exactly what you're doing. Yes. I think that like this Dodgers team winning the World Series despite the payroll they

came into the season with despite the fantastic lineup that they had, you know, in some ways was a genuine surprise just because their pitching was so hurt. They were so compromised relative to prior versions of themselves. But this is a very good club and it is the one that again famously won the World Series. So like that part of it is funny when you're doing the Nesta of it all. Mostly I just wish that like, I'm not going to even say that this is like a trait that is more prevalent among men because I think that humans do this. You know, sometimes it would just be good for us to be able to say, I feel disappointed, you know, I'm disappointed we didn't win, and I'm mad about

it, and I feel like they're being rude. So, that's my reaction, you know? Rather than doing this weird like, kind of trying to have it both ways, coming and going, they get to say what they want, even if what they're saying makes me think they weren't raised right, you know? It's like, just say, I think that's rude. We lost, that was bad enough. You don't have to rub it in or something. You know what I mean? Like it's just, but I didn't know that this discourse

remotely existed. So that's nice, I guess. It speaks well of you, I think, and your news consumption. Joe Kelly clapped back at Boone's comments and said, he essentially said cry more. He said, he's just so hurt. It's so sad when your fearless leader has fear. It's a little tough to see feelings are hurt. It's kind of funny. I'm sorry. Look, I do think it's ridiculous that a guy who is unsigned and did so little to secure that World Series is talking like that, but like maybe unparalleled in his ability to be a sh**ster. It's incredible.

BOWEN Yes, down the leg especially. Yes. And he went on to taunt them, say they should be doing pictures fielding practice, getting over to first. His son's nine-year-old travel team is better at breaking to first than Garry Cole was. So anyway, look, there's an aspect of act like you've been there before. I guess the Dodgers literally had been there before and won a World Series a few years earlier. But, you know, I didn't think there was anything that bad about Aaron Boone's comments. It's okay, I guess to say. It seems fine. I mean, look, it's all very silly and sort of low stakes. And I guess I get what Nestor means in the sense that even though the result in the series was

lopsided, the Dodgers won in five games, the games were close. The one that that Cortez lost went to extras. And, you know, other than game four, which the Yankees won, they were all within two, three runs and the Yankees actually out hit the Dodgers in that series. They out OPS them by about 40 points. So yeah, like there were a couple of games that the Yankees let get away from them, whether it was mistakes on the field or managerial mistakes or whatever else. And you absolutely could construct a alternate scenario where they don't throw those games. They don't just self-defeat and shoot themselves in the feet and they win. Yeah, I get that. But also, yeah, trying to tread that line, not trying to take anything away.

They were the better team, but also we were the better team, but also we should have won. But hey, they won third square. It's kind of a fun way to frame those things anyway. Wanted to ask you briefly also about Max Scherzer, who sounded off about ABS, the challenge system. Yeah. And Scherzer is not a big fan, and maybe that's just because a couple challenges did not go his way. We actually, we talked about a scenario, I think a listener sent in a question about whether a pitcher could get deep into challenging on a pitch that they should not have challenged on by a good framing catcher who basically fooled the pitcher and

made something look like a strike. And I think we kind of downplayed the idea that that would happen regularly, but that might very well be what happened here with Scherzer because Alejandro Kirk, who's an excellent framer, was making things look to Scherzer, at least like strikes that were not. And so off of those unsuccessful challenges, Scherzer at least like strikes that were not. And so off of those unsuccessful challenges, Scherzer had a good outing, but he had a couple challenges go against him. And he said, I'm a little skeptical on this. I get what we're trying to do here, but I think Major League umpires are really good. They're really good. So what are we actually changing here? We know there are going to be strikes that are changed to balls and balls that are changed to strikes.

So we're going to basically be even. So are we actually going to improve the that are changed to balls and balls that are changed to strikes. So we're going to basically be even. So are we actually going to improve the game? Are the umpires really that bad? I don't think so. And he also said, can we just play baseball? We're humans. Can we just be judged by humans? Do we really need to disrupt the game?

I think humans are defined by humans. So Max Scherzer speaking up for the human element, your thoughts because Scherzer's, it's kind of a lone voice in the wilderness, it seems like. It's kind of a single discordant, strident opponent to the trial thus far this spring of the challenge system because it seems to have gone pretty swimmingly otherwise in terms of the fan response and how players have handled it. I think his response is fine. I don't agree.

I like the challenge system. I think that it is a really useful midpoint. It maintains a version of the strike zone that sort of comports with my understanding of it, which is sort of inherently probabilistic. I think we've talked about all of the different things that umpires do that fans maybe don't necessarily appreciate to help games move along and to keep, you know, tense moments competitive. And we like all of those things and we don't want important games to end on a blown call. And so here we are. And we like all of that and we think it's good. And I think we're right to think that. But I don't

find anything particularly objectionable in the perspective of, I think that these guys are pretty good at their jobs and I would like to preserve this as a space where we don't have the intrusion of technology. I think that's fine. I don't agree, but I think that's a valuable perspective. It feels very relatable to me. And I like the idea of him being like, I want a person to decide my faith or something, like, that I find very warm about that. Like, it feels like a reaching out to, you know, his brethren to say, like, I'm in it with you, even if I sometimes disagree with calls. It's not like Scherzer is shy when he disagrees with an umpire's call, like he can get feisty out on the mound. And so, it's not like he's completely stoic. I find

this, to have been a sincere take on his part, I also will say that it sort of is an accidentally strategic take, potentially, right? Because somewhere there's an umpire who's going to be like, I don't remember that Schrozer, he thinks I'm good at my job. I don't know, I liked it. This feels like a fine kind of dialogue about it. I said to you off mic a couple of days ago that I've been a little confounded by just the discourse around this topic, not because I think that people have been unnecessarily resistant to the challenge system or have been opposed to it. And this is perhaps portraying my bias as someone who watches fall league baseball and

has seen this at play in the fall league for a while, but a lot of the coverage of the challenge system makes it sound like the challenge system is brand new. And I know it's new to fans and you have to do the explaining part and that is useful. But some of the interviews, they were like talking to big leaguers and like, first of all, a lot of the guys who are young big leaguers have been dealing with the challenge system at various AAA stops and like guys go on rehab assignments. It's not like this is brand new, you know, it's like when people were like, have you heard of this thing called the pitch clock?

And it's like, what are you talking about this Ben and the Minors forever? Anyway, I think it's fine, Ben. I think it's all fine. Yeah. Well, I'm sure as a big booster of the challenge system, you've been heartened by the fact that there doesn't appear to have been any significant blow back from spectators. It seems like as you were converted to the challenge system when you saw it in action, it seems like that's been the broad response as far as I can assess it, that everyone said, oh, look how quick this is and how simple and it doesn't really delay the game that much and this is okay. And so it seems like, if anything, thus far, the path has been paved further for this to be introduced potentially in 2026.

Once you see it in action, I don't think it takes very long to kind of convert you to the cause. It works really well. It's a pretty seamless thing. It doesn't take very long. And it was interesting, I, you know, this is ties into one of the previous that we're doing today that I had family in from out of town. I took my dad to a Mariner Spring Training game. They were playing the Angels. We went to Tempe Diablo. And they are not set up for the challenge system at Tempe Diablo because that ballpark

has seen better days. And you can tell how quickly everyone has adapted because this is early in spring training action, mind you. And Victor Robles didn't like a strike call and he went to challenge. He did the tap, tap, tap. He was ready. He's like, okay, let's, let's enact justice in this moment. And he was not able to find that justice because they weren't set up to do the challenge system. But I think that people, I think people like it. I think people are on board. It's nice.

Yeah, the interesting thing to me about Scherzer, well, for one thing, even if he's right about the calls evening out on the whole, which I'm not sure will be the case, but even if it were the case, I don't think that would necessarily be an argument against it, because if you're switching a bunch of incorrect calls to correct calls and they just happen to cancel out, you're still improving the accuracy significantly, right? So it's the point. So yeah, even if it's a

wash in terms of its overall effects on offense or something, it would not necessarily be a wash in terms of its effects on getting the pitches called correctly, if that's what you're trying to do. That point is an important one, even if you end up at sort of zero, because all of the balls and all of the strikes have canceled each other out. It doesn't mean that you got more correct as time went on. I will also say, I don't know if you've experienced this, I don't know how much spring training baseball you've been watching, Ben, but you know, they talk about challenge system on the broadcast because again, the broadcasters have sort of an educational role in moments

like this to help fans who are new to this get up to speed about what to expect. And a number of them, a number of booths have remarked upon the fact that, you know, they think one of the knock on effects of this is actually going to be a greater appreciation on the part of fans for how accurate umps really are, right? Because there have been calls that have been upheld, a good many of them have been upheld, and some of the ones that have been overturned, you can see like just how close it really is, right? The distances between the zone and the ball.

And I do wonder if it will inspire some folks to be like, oh, you know, they do a good job with this generally. You know, there are bad calls and thankfully we have this mechanism now that will once it's implemented at the big league level, help us to course correct on those. So that again, we don't have games ending on really bad missed calls. But in general, what they're able to do given how fast pitches move, how much they move, the break that they get, it's pretty

impressive. Now I say all of that, but I am realistic that it will not prevent anyone from booing an umpire when it hits the big league level. Because we do love to boo. I mean, not you and I, we've talked about that, but people love to boo. And they love to boo someone who's given them bad news. And so I think they will continue to boo. I think we will still see booing as I think I've mentioned on the pod. Like we've seen players, Geraldo Perdomo did this in the fall league a number of years ago.

He got called out. This was a full ABS game, not just a challenge system. And he turned around and flipped double birds to the track man. He was mad. You know, it's like people are going to have their feelings. They're going to, you know, they're going to rib the Yankees when they've won the World Series and then they're going to be like passive aggressive little shits back know, humans are gonna do their feelings. That part's a given. But I do think that betwixt and between the feelings will be maybe a greater sense of appreciation

for just how good big league empires actually are. And you might not see that many pitchers challenge because when we talked about this last year, the thing I noted was that when they implemented this in the miners, and of course it's gone through many permutations of how many challenges are allowed and how do you define the zone and the top and the bottom and the width and the plane of the plate and all these things. How do you deal with crouching, you know,

all sorts of stuff, yeah. They seem to have come up with a system that they're mostly content with, but one of the things we noted was that soon after this was really implemented in the miners, teams quickly decided that pitchers weren't really gonna challenge very much, that it was gonna be catchers who were more responsible for that

because they just seemingly have a better vantage point and also are maybe a little less, you know, self-interested in that situation. And so, yeah, they can be a bit more impartial about is this actually a sensible challenge to make. And there is a good piece that was written for Down on the Farm, the substack, by the minds behind oyster analytics,

Maxfield Lane and Owen Riley. They just wrote a piece on Thursday about challenge strategy, which is something that we should probably get into at greater depth at some point in the future. But their findings from studying the AAA data from this past year is that hitters and pitcher-catcher batteries challenge with roughly equal frequency and success, which you might think would be sort of surprising that hitters when they challenge are not much less successful than catchers, sledge pitchers.

They weren't able to split out catchers and pitchers initiating the challenge, just the way the data was structured. But I think it's overwhelmingly catchers who are initiating those challenges. And so this was probably a case of look, it's Max Scherzer, you know, he can do whatever he wants to do. He's Max Scherzer. How are you he can do whatever he wants to do. He's Max Scherzer. How are you going to stop him if he wants to challenge? And also maybe major league teams,

players who have not had challenge experience extensively, maybe they're just still feeling out how we're going to handle this. But I think it's overwhelmingly catchers who've handled that. But yeah, the success rate, not all that different from hitters and the proportion not all that different from hitters and the proportion, not all that different from hitters. But they also found that teams are probably too stingy with the challenges.

They're too cautious, too conservative because they kind of, they hoard them. And then as the game goes on, they, if they still have some leftovers, then they use them a bunch like in the later innings, you know, and they're probably too cautious. They don't challenge enough of the edge cases and, you know, they challenge more in higher leverage spots as they should and higher leverage counts as they should, but there are still a lot of challengeable pitches that they are not challenging on. Interesting. Yeah, they probably should be. And there's also some evidence that if there's something at stake,

like if it's a plate appearance ending call, like you might make more questionable challenges. Like if you strike out and you're the hitter, then you're more likely to challenge on that pitch, even if it wasn't really a good challenge opportunity. Now, obviously again, what I mentioned with the leverage, if you just struck out, well, a corrected call could really swing things some way you're not out. So you should probably have a lower breakeven point, a lower bar for challenging there, but it does seem like, you know, if a pitcher walks someone or a hitter strikes out, then that decisive last

pitch, they're pretty likely to challenge even if it's not really that questionable a call. But mainly it seems like, yeah, teams are just, they're sitting on these things. They have leftover challenges more often than they probably should, given what the stats say. And this reminds me of when the challenge system was implemented, just like when replay review and challenges on non-pitch calls were implemented. One of the things I remember talking about on the podcast was like people sort of saying, oh, this could be a disaster because we're going to have so many challenges because it

just, it makes sense. Like, why wouldn't you challenge? You might as well, you have them. And so we'll be bogged down in all of these sort of silly senseless challenges because, you know, use them or lose them. And so you might as well. And that hasn't really happened. I guess because, A, you don't want to embarrass yourself

by challenging something that clearly the call was correct. And B, you know, it's a whole production and there's a replay review and you're slowing down the game and it's kind of an imposition, which is less the case for challenging pitches because it's just so quick. So maybe there will be less of an obstacle there and teams will be willing to just use them. But also, I guess when it comes to the replay reviews, like the way that they implemented

it, you didn't have to make a snap judgment. You had the replay tech who was looking at these things from a zillion angles and then calling you and there's enough time that you can actually tell with some certainty before you even decide to challenge. And so, you know, if there was less certainty on the part of teams, they might say, yeah, let's go for it, you know, might as well. But they have a decent idea about like, this is not worth challenging because, you know, we've seen it and we have enough time to review the replays before we actually initiate.

But that's not the case with pitch challenges either. So I do wonder at this point, it seems like it's the opposite of anything that teams should be using these more aggressively. But you know, the analytically minded approach to this would be challenge earlier challenge more often because you got nothing to lose really. There does seem to be like an intuitive restraint on the part of teams and players. They want to get the calls right, but I think they do have a sense of like the stakes of a given moment. You're going to get hothead challenges because like that's just going to happen. But I think particularly as you know, folks get more and more used to them.

We're not going to, we're just really not gonna see as many of those and you're right, like it happens so quick, like they don't get to rely on, you know, the replay room for it. They just have to, they have to go, they have to go, go, go, go. And it's beautiful, Ben, you know? The thing about it is it's beautiful.

So far, so good, except in Max Scherzer's mind. And yeah, they also found there doesn't seem to be a correlation between like how good your eye is, at least in terms of like how patient you are, how much you walk or don't walk players. There doesn't seem to be a strong signal there in terms of, oh, these guys are better at deciding when to challenge because you've always heard about players, Ted Williams on down, guys with great eyes where the umpires, you know, these possibly apocryphal stories where it's like, if Mr. Williams said it wasn't a strike, then it wasn't a strike or something. If the catcher or the pitcher complains, that kind

of thing, umpires deferring to the judgment of a Joey Votto or someone like that. But yeah, it seems like maybe there's just too much at stake for you personally, or your perspective isn't that great, or your emotions are running hot or something, but no clear indication there. They also found that challenging on inside pitches doesn't tend to pay off that often, maybe because umpires are usually set up there, and they have a clear view. And so, you know, that's why often, at least in the past, umpires have gotten better more conforming to the rulebook zone. But there was more space off the edge of the plate typically, where you know, pitchers could get something extra. And yeah, that doesn't pay off as often hitters, they get better ROI when they challenge on high pitches or maybe just not inside pitches. That just doesn't seem to be very rewarding. The umpires are usually right on those calls.

And you know, like there's the part of it that is what the player on the field is doing. And then you're going to have, as this gets closer and closer to actual like big league implementation, you know, there are going to be guys who I think make this a real part of their, they're going to talk about how they're good at this, right? And they're going to work with the front office about like, where are the parts of the zone where you're, you're more likely to both be correct, but also to be successful. It's going to get optimized some, but I do like that they just have to, they have to be right on the field. Like that part of it appeals, I think, even to people like you who are like, no cards,

no coaches, no rules, your own wits. This is pretty wit dependent, you know? That's nice. Yep. There's definitely tactical aspects to it and a player skill as a differentiating factor. So I like that. And I like that catcher defense still matters. If a little less, you know, I'm sure we'll see maybe

the framing values compress even further in a challenge system scenario, but not all the way to zero, which warms my heart at least. Alright, let's take a quick break and we'll be back with Tim Britton to talk about the Mets followed by Sam Blum on the angels. Have a catch and a slog with me in a virtual rise. From small sample size, these fun facts must lie. It's effectively wild. A strange book could hang Effectively wild Tim Britton is a senior writer for The Athletic. He covers the New York Mets, who give him a lot of material to work with, and also us in this preview segment. Welcome back, Tim.

It's great to be here, thanks for having me. Seems like a common theme of these segments so far has been why didn't Team X do more over the off season and who of the holdovers could possibly be better since they didn't add anyone interesting. That won't be the case in this segment. We could probably devote this entire time just to new faces or at least to off season activity and we might as well lead with the headliner. Nick Madrigal.

There was a time when he was foremost in my mind, but that time has passed sadly. Maybe he'll come up. But yeah, Juan Soto is a New York Met. Was there ever a scenario where he wouldn't have been a New York Met or was Steve Cohen just completely determined to outbid everyone for him? What did the Mets do aside from offering him a fortune to convince him to sign with them? And what was it about him that convinced them to pull out all the stops in their courtship? You know, was there ever a time where he wasn't going to sign with the Mets? Yeah, I mean, I think the Mets themselves did not, were not particularly confident during their courtship of Juan Soto that he was going to end up there. Cohen's talked about having a, I think it was his second meeting with Scott Boris and

walking out of it and thinking it was, it had been one of the worst meetings he'd ever been at and saying like, we've got no chance at this guy. And then hearing from Boris the next day, hey, great meeting, we're one really loved it. We came out of it really positive about you guys. Cohen wasn't sure really until the night, that Sunday night when Soto did decide on the Mets Cohen did not know. I think if you would have asked me

at the start of the off season, I figured Cohen and the Mets would be all in the way that they were. I did not expect the Yankees to match them quite as far as they did. I and a lot of other people would have thought if the Yankees did go to that point that Soto probably would have just stayed there. To see him choose the Mets, the Mets did have the better offer, the stronger financial offer. It didn't blow the Yankees out of the water. It's possible that if the Yankees matched this offer, the Mets would have gone even higher and that just could have continued in perpetuity.

But Soto liked that the rhetoric from Steve Cohen was not the rhetoric from Hal Steinbrenner in terms of what the payroll was going to be long term. You could imagine Hal Steinbrenner a few years from now saying, well, we signed Soto, so we can't do X. The Mets will probably feel that way about various things, including Vladimir Guerrero Jr. next winter, perhaps. But I don't think Soto ever got the impression that he was going to be held up as a rationalization

or an excuse for restraint from the ownership moving forward. The Mets, they had kind of this special feel going for them last year after the month of May where it was really a good vibes clubhouse. And having covered this team for this is my eighth season now and I've covered teams in Boston, another big market, like you don't get that in a big market very often, a good vibes clubhouse.

They became a place that seemed like it would be fun to play. They have a pretty good youngish core. You know, Francisco Lindor is going to be here for a while. A guy like Marc Vientos and Francisco Alvarez coming up through the system and being pretty good players already. The Mets have worked hard under Cohen's ownership to be a place where players like playing with some of those softer factors. You know, they've been better to players' families than, say, the Wilpons were beforehand. Players who have been here the entire time have expressed that and how much they appreciate

what they've done behind the scenes to make it a better, more comfortable place for players to play. Soto did his research on that. So I think the number one reason he's with the Mets, they paid him the most money. But the numbers two through four or five were some of those softer factors. Well, if he wasn't a sure thing, there were times when a more familiar face definitely didn't seem like a sure thing. Walk us through Pete Alonso returning to the Mets.

It was not a surprise that it took this long. The way that Alonso and Scott Boris, again, his agent, viewed him, like they were talking about putting him in that upper tier of first base free agents, not even the Freddie Freeman tier, but the Prince Fielder Mark Teixeira $200 million tier. Especially coming off of the last two seasons that Alonso had in 23 and 24, that was never gonna be how the Mets were gonna value him.

The Mets said dating back to last winter, we're okay with letting Pete explore what's out there, coming back to us with maybe the best thing that he's got and we can decide whether we want to do that. That's the exact approach they took with Brandon Nimmo a couple years earlier when Nimmo, like Alonzo, had fired his agent and moved to Boris the year before free agency. That was really that blueprint and it worked out pretty well for Nimmo. We got an eight year, $160 million deal. Uh, and Alonzo, it did not work out quite the same way because the market

just wasn't there for him. I thought there would be some teams that would go a little bit more aggressively after him, but once we had, I forget when that weekend was, when every team that needed a first baseman acquired their first baseman in a 48 hour period, it did really just seem like it came down to either Alonzo was going to go back to the Mets who represented the best fit for him, or another team was going to try to shoehorn him in because his value had dropped to such an extent. It really did make sense to me at that point, even as the Mets were saying that we've pivoted, we're going in a different direction, we're spending that money elsewhere.

When they signed Jesse Winker and AJ Minter, those were still not guys who replace alonzo in your lineup. It did make sense that he would eventually end up back there on one of those shorter term deals. That's where they're at a two year deal with a first year opt out. Alonzo is going to make thirty million dollars this year that is more than david stern's paid for his first baseman in milwaukee over an eight year tenure. I paid twenty nine million dollars for his first baseman over eight years in Milwaukee So it's not a position. He is historically valued. That's where the tension was. It's you know, we've seen in the past I think this happened with Nimmo It happened a little bit with Francis Goulendor that Steve Cohen has kind of said like, you know, let's

we he could be An agent like Scott Boris could get him to pay a little bit more for a player that he wants to keep in New York. And I think Stern's really held a harder line this time with Alonso and put his foot down to keep it to a shorter term deal. He benefits a little bit higher AAV than they initially expected. And there are worse things in the world than having to settle for a $54 million deal. But in the baseball firmament, that is not as big a deal as he could have commanded at an earlier era or could have commanded frankly if he had accepted that reported extension offer earlier.

So there was a lot of conversation about how he would feel about all of this. Has he addressed how the free agency didn't quite go the way that he had envisioned or whether he has any regrets over how it was handled. I mean, he changed agents to Boris after that extension offer, so maybe he had some regrets about how some things were handled. But I wonder whether he sees this as motivation or whether he sees it as a slight or just generally how he's approaching this season in the wake of what went down. Yeah, he has not expressed any of that in what you would describe as a candid fashion. He's kind of towed the company line so far of like, oh, I'm just, I'm so excited to be back.

I believe he said the word stoked like five or six times in his initial spring training press conference. Look, it's a deal that works out for both sides in the very short term. The Mets get Alonso back. He really does make their team better in their lineup significantly better for this season than it would have been without him.

He gets a chance to break the franchise all time home run record. I think he's 26 shy of Darrell Strawberry's record. He should get there this season, barring an injury. He gets to, hopefully for him, go into free agency off of a better season than he had in 2024. You know, I think he probably thought maybe what he did in the postseason, nearly having a thousand OPS, literally saving the season in the ninth inning

of the wild card game in Milwaukee might have done more for that than it ended up doing for him. But right now that both sides are saying there's no hard feelings, you know, Alonso, I think last year going through a platform season for the first time, it seemed like it affected him. He never said that. No one has said that on his behalf. But just to my eye, like, you know, this is a guy who was generally very good with runners in scoring position earlier in his career. And he was not last year. That was where the biggest difference between his track record and his performance last year showed up. And obviously the home runs were down from being a 40 plus home run hitter to only 34,

I know, only 34 home runs. But I wonder if going through the kind of pressure of a platform season a second time, if it just, you know, if it eases naturally and doesn't feel quite the same way that it did last year when he went through it for a first time And obviously bringing him back into the fold has implications for the rest of that infield It looks like mark vientos will be the third baseman Coming out of camp. I have to say if I were gonna choose between him or Brett Beatty when they were prospects I probably would have taken Beatty is the one to take a step forward But vientos had a fantastic year at the plate last year, a 133 WRC plus. The defense wasn't particularly sterling. So what are the team's expectations for

Vientos in 2025? And what are they asking him to work on and take a step forward on? Yeah, I mean, the defense is where they focused. They've talked a lot about lateral quickness for him and just being quicker in his reaction time. He generally made the plays that he got to You know wasn't a bunch of balls through his legs or anything like that or throwing errors It's just there's you know the ball that gets by him where you think oh, you know Maybe someone else would have gotten that I think for a pitching staff that is not Necessarily going to be among the league leaders in strikeout rate Having a third baseman who gets to a few more ground balls than he did last year would be really beneficial.

So that's the main thing they're working on. I don't think you're alone in thinking that Beatty was going to be the one to emerge at that position over the last couple of years. That's why he got the opportunities ahead of Vientos. This is a guy who in 2022, when they could really use a right-handed DH, they didn't give him much of an opportunity late in that season. In 2023, when they could have used some spark to line up earlier in the year, they didn't give him that opportunity. He was kind of buried by the previous administration here

and had to really play his way into a role multiple times to really get run. And he took advantage of it fully last year and had an excellent postseason on top of that, which kind of makes you feel better about how sustainable that is. I don't know if there's a statistical significance to that, but watching him have the kind of postseason he did against good pitching makes you think that he could repeat that kind of success he had last year over a full 162 game season.

And you parlay those numbers out over 162, that's 35 home runs instead of 27. And that's another big bat in the middle of their lineup. And not to denigrate Grimace, but it seemed to me that Vientos and also Francisco Alvarez had a lot to do with the Mets run last season. And Alvarez is one of the holdovers that you could ask, well, is there more in that bat and how good could he potentially be?

So how much of a step forward are they expecting from him? Yeah, I mean, there definitely is more in the bat than he showed last year. 2023 was kind of a year early for him to be their everyday catcher, but he hit 25 home runs. The average and on base were not what you would want. was kind of a year early for him to be their everyday catcher, but he hit 25 home runs. The average and on base were not what you would want. Overall, the WRC Plus was better last year, but he just kind of got to it differently than you would have expected. He only hit 11 home runs last year. There were several longer droughts without much power when there was a lot of swing and miss. He spent basically his entire off season in Atlanta working with

a different hitting coach, a guy recommended to him by JD Martinez, we talked to throughout last season. That's like the general introduction to a story about how he's turned things around, is like it started with a conversation with JD Martinez, that's worked for a lot of other guys. The Mets expect, you know, Alvarez to be a guy who probably starts the season

hitting seventh for them, but could be hitting fifth by the end of it, if things go a certain way. He's never gonna be a guy who hits 300 or gets on base at a 400 clip, but they think the average can get up above 250, that the on base can get up above 330. And then you throw 25 home run power into that for a guy who's held his own defensively as a catcher more so than his prospect pedigree would have suggested. And that's a really valuable all-star caliber player.

Since I invoked Grimace, do you expect any of the Mets bits from 2024 to carry over into 2025? Like is Grimace and the pumpkin and the, oh my God, like is that all gonna be, oh yeah. That was 2024. That was last year's thing. We need a new thing for this year. And I guess if

Jose Iglesias is not around and it seems like the Mets are not that interested in having him around, then maybe, oh my God, is kind of trademarked. Maybe that's copyright Jose Iglesias. I don't know. But will they feel pressure to develop new bits or will they say why mess with success? Yeah, I am actually curious if OMG gear is still available in their store at City Field once the season starts or if that all just sits in a warehouse somewhere because they didn't resign them. The thing about last year and all of these, like you call them bits, they kind of happened

organically and a lot of them happened like outside the clubhouse. Like Grimace was a fan thing. That was just, you know, he throws out the first pitch because someone in the Mets marketing department was a big Grimace fan and knew when Grimace's birthday was. It was just like, hey, we should invite Grimace to celebrate his birthday here. And, you know, they go on a winning streak

immediately after that. And I remember doing a story about this later in the year and like talking to Brandon Nimmo. And he's like, yeah, we didn't kind of understand the Grimace thing until like three weeks later. Like no one knew what was going on. I think there will be, on behalf of the fan base, a openness and a willingness to kind of jump on whatever.

Like already, there was a day in spring training where Ryan Stanik had handed out bread that his wife had made to several players. And fans on various social media platforms were like, this is it, this is the new thing. It's rally bread or whatever. It's February 20th. So we'll see what actually clicks for the fan base. It's funny because you think back to other seasons that you cover, and like there's always a thing at some point in the season that you're writing about. You know, one year for the Mets,

it was they had a giant salt and pepper shaker because they were going to grind you out as an offense. And that was, I think that was a Todd Frazier thing. And that was, you know, early 2018 when they jumped to like an 11 and one start and then were 10 games under by mid-June. So a lot of those generally peter out. Last year they didn't.

And that's what made it such a fun special season for people in Queens. But I don't know who is like, who's another corporate mascot that they can commandeer this season and make into their own totem for success. And you just have to be and I say this with affection, I do run fan graphs. What a particular kind of nerd to know Grimace's birthday, right? Like that is a very specific expertise. I felt like Mr. and Mrs. Met got shunted to the side. I felt bad for them. It's like, you got these, you have existing mascots, You know, bring it in, McDonald's one. Well, a man who might be in search of a bit to turn things around is Jeff McNeil. Does

that work as a transition? We'll find out. McNeil was, you know, very successful early in his career, driven by contact. WRC Plus is well above league average and things have sort of settled into league average or slightly below league average place. So is there something that McNeil can do to kind of turn things around and look like the guy who was putting up a 130 WRC plus with Babips around 300 or higher or are we seeing him sort of firmly in his decline phase? Yeah, I think that that's one of the bigger questions the Mets are interested in seeing the answer to as this season transpires.

The good news for him is you look at the splits last year, the second half, he was much better than he was in the first half. The OPS was over 900 in the second half of the season. It was a shorter second half because he got hurt in early September and then came back in the middle of the playoffs. But during that second half, he had kind of taken a different approach. Mick McNeil for so long has been a pretty unique hitter,

a guy who sprays the ball all over the field. His peripheral stats had never really justified the success that he had. Was always on the lower end of exit velocity, lower end of barrel percentage. The BABIP was not just 300, it was 370. And you know, had seasons where he performed especially well when teams shifted him. So seemed like a guy who might have been hurt by the fact that teams could no longer shift against a

left-handed hitter. Since the All-Star break last year, he's kind of put a renewed emphasis on doing the things that most other hitters try to do, which is pull the ball in the air a little bit more. And we saw him hit for a little bit more power in the second half last year and you know just hit the ball harder in general and and increases bat speed. He's been in the Mets hitting lab already this spring working on ways to speed up his bat. You know there's some some optimism that there's a blueprint for and a roadmap for him to get back to being as productive a hitter as he used to be but perhaps in a different fashion but if it doesn't work out this is an area where the Mets do have some some prospect capital behind him they have Luis

Angel Lecunha came up at the very end of last season and basically played like Francisco Lindor for the 10 games he replaced Lindor in September after having a pretty mediocre triple-A season. Brett Beatty not answer at third base, but has played a little bit second base and could be an option there down the line. Jett Williams is their top prospect or was going into last season, is a guy who can play second base long term for them. And then Ronnie Mauricio is coming back after missing all of last season with the torn ACL. And Mauricio had debuted at the end of 2023, hitting the ball 117 miles an hour.

And so as a guy who win healthy, the Mets think can be a useful player for them somewhere on the infield. And second base feels like it's going to be the first spot to open up there over the next little bit. You mentioned McNeil's resurgence late in the season. Brandon Nimmo had the opposite trajectory. He was his usual self in the first half and then really struggled. 72 WRC plus after the All-Star break.

You wrote recently about how he responded to that slump. Is that just a blip, a low babbit blip or was there more to it and what adjustments has he made? Yeah, I mean there was more to it. Nimmo had slumped in April and you could look at the numbers and say like, man, he's hitting into some hard block, like it is as a low babbit blip. And then the second half of the season,

like he was just not hitting the ball hard. He went, I believe a month between barrels, which is not something you want to do when you're hitting in the middle of a lineup. His average exit velocity had dropped more than a mile per hour. I think two miles per hour actually. He was hitting the ball on the ground a lot more.

It was a lot worse overall in the second half of the season. A lot of that was concentrated in one like six week period where he was especially bad. He was better in the playoffs, especially in the wild card round and the NLDS. He had recurrence of plantar fasciitis at the very end of the series against Philadelphia and into the NLCS against LA and was not at his best for that series. He thinks basically what happened was he got pitched tough coming out of the All-Star break, but basically teams had adjusted to Brandon Nimmo no longer being this guy who's going

to draw his walks and hit singles, but had become more of a home run hitter over the previous calendar year, a guy who'd hit from All-Star break 23 to All-Star Break 24, close to 30 home runs. He was no longer seeing fastballs in prototypical fastball counts. He had to get used to that change and dealing with some minor physical things here and there. He developed some bad habits. He tinkered a little too quickly. By the end of the season, his swing felt unrecognizable to him. He spent time in the offseason getting back to what feels comfortable, getting back

to the swing that had really worked for him for that stretch in 23 and early 24 and being ready to be a guy who can hit fourth for this team. After so many years being kind of the prototypical leadoff hitter, they now want him to hit in the middle of the order. He feels he can be that kind of guy. And again, hit, you know, 25 ish home runs. Meg mentioned Madrigal, a lot of former favorites of mine in camp here between Madrigal and Joey Meneses. But Madrigal's hurt and people thought, well, maybe now the Mets will be

interested in Jose Iglesias and seemingly not so much. So why is that given how good he was on the field for them and then the clubhouse aspects, the OMG, the Nick Castellanos crediting Jose Iglesias for turning things around in the clubhouse and fully unlocking Francisco Endor, which seems like sort of shortchanging Francisco Endor's own agency in his excellence last season, but he clearly was a hit and also recorded one while he was with the Mets. So why wasn't there or isn't there more interest in bringing Iglesias back?

Yeah, I think part of it is the number of prospects that I mentioned earlier who can play the middle infield for them and that they feel like they need to keep a space open for moving forward. And another part of it is David Stearns has talked about requiring some level of roster flexibility with his position player group. Right now, if you look at their bench, it would be Luis Terenza is their backup catcher,

he does not have any options. Starling Marte would be essentially their backup outfielder, along with Jesse Winker splitting time at DH, those guys can't be sent down. And then you've got, it would be Iglesias is a guy who doesn't have options. They would feel kind of stuck with that group. Whereas, you know, if it's, you know, Madrigal before the injury, he had an option, they had signed him to a split contract. If it's Beatty or Acuna in that spot, you can have a little bit more maneuverability

with your roster than you would if it's Iglesias. Is that a good enough reason to make that decision? That depends on probably your evaluation of how replicable Iglesias' season is or what is a reasonable expectation for him. That was a best-case scenario kind of season from Jose Iglesias. You know, do you expect him to be back to his usual 700 OPS or might he be a guy who can give you a 750 again while playing pretty terrific defense up the middle and providing something in the clubhouse. It's a reasonable debate to have and the Mets at this point still feel like that the flexibility is worth whatever downgrade there is from Iglesias to a younger player.

It's interesting because this is a team that was clearly willing to spend big, has spent big, but also has like a load-bearing Jose Syri in its lineup. You mentioned a couple of the names that are sort of floating around in the outfield as backups, but talk to us about the Syri trade and then what it says about Starling Marte and maybe some of their other outfielders floating around. Nimo and Soto are going to be in the corners on a pretty regular basis for them. And then Siri, I think will be the primary starter in center field, kind of playing the same role

that Harrison Bader did for them last year as a premium glove in center. They especially like that between guys like Nimmo and Soto who are not necessarily plus defenders in the corners. They'll kind of carry the bat. Bader was reasonably good for them the first half and then kind of fell off a cliff in the corners. They'll kind of carry the bat. Bader was reasonably good for them the first half and then kind of fell off a cliff in the second half. And Tyrone Taylor, who's still here,

took over in the playoffs and started most days in center. Taylor will get a good amount of run in center again this year as he's kind of a guy who enters every season without a set role and then gets 250 to 400 at bats. So I think that's probably in the cards for him again. And he's the guy who can spell in the corners as well Marte and Winker kind of start the year and as a DH platoon My colleague at the athletic will salmon has reported basically back since December that the Mets are willing to trade starling Marte

They're willing to eat a little bit of his salary to move him But there hasn't been a robust market for him coming off the last two years that he's had. He's still a little bit slow in spring training with a knee issue. I thought it was interesting that the Mets made a small deal for Alexander Canario from the Cubs just the other day as maybe more outfield depth. Another guy who doesn't have options so would need to make the club out of spring training. So you can draw your inferences from that as well. They do have a lot of different pieces here. They think that they can do a little bit to help Siri raise that batting average back above 200 maybe and cut down on the strikeouts a little

bit. He's made some pretty big swing changes himself to just try to make more contact. That is not an easy thing to do at this point in your career when you're 29. But I think in general, they think if he plays, lights out defense center and hits 15 home runs that that's good enough for them. So we should ask a question that is solely centered on Francisco Lindor who had such a fantastic season and kind of carried the Mets late. What was if anything the secret to his fully being embraced? Not that he'd been bad with the Mets before, but it felt like he fully came into his own. And if it wasn't Jose Iglesias just unlocking somehow the full impact of Lindor, what was it? And is this Lindor's team now? I mean, that's sort of a nebulous concept. Obviously there are a lot

of players on this team, but is he the acknowledged leader or is it more Alonso or how does Juan Soto entering the mix change things? That great clubhouse that you talked about, how integral to that is he? Yeah, I mean, I think obviously it was a Glacius one, Grimace two. I think Lindor's had this kind of a habit in New York. It hasn't been every season, but definitely in 2021,

a little bit in 23, and then for sure last year in 24, of like the first five or six weeks are tough. When he came over in 2021, April and May were the two worst months of his career. That is a tough thing to break out of perception wise in a market like New York, especially when the season overall for the team was disappointing.

And then last year, you know, it's really like May 15th or right around there is when his seasons kind of click and pivot. And that was definitely the case last year. The OPS was over 900 from that point forward after being like 650 before. One of the focuses for him in camp is how to do that from opening day on rather than having to wait till May 15th. But the way that he kickstarted the offense and it was really, he moved to the leadoff position by the end of May.

They put Brandon Nimmo second for a little while and those two carried the offense really from that point through the All-Star break. Nimmo slowed down as we talked about and Lindor did not. And he was in a year in which Shohei Otani stole 20 fewer bases, I think Lindor's got a reasonable shot of winning the most valuable player in the National League. He was every bit that valuable to the team. And I think you did see it become a team more in his image in the clubhouse. I talked to Nimmo about this later in the season that he and Lindor had taken on a larger role in terms of leadership. Brandon just said, yeah, we had Max Scherzer, we had Justin Verland, or we had guys who had a lot of cachet with them in here, and now we don't. So we kind

of had to be those guys. JD Martinez, as he's been elsewhere, was another vital part of that and kind of loosening the group after the kind of start they had over the first two months. But Lindor set that tone. I thought it was really interesting in the playoffs seeing, you know, I think when they won the division series, in part because Edwin Diaz did not want to be at the center of a celebration again, that the Mets piled on Lindor at shortstop. It wasn't like the traditional pile on of the pitcher.

And that was kind of a metaphor for his centrality to their success over the course of the year. It does feel more and more like his team. And it's crazy to think that in the middle of April last year, there's fans calling WFAN here in New York being like, what can we get for Lindor? What is his negative trade value? What good prospect do we have to attach to get out from this contract? And now it looks like he's worth every penny. Everyone could chill out a little bit, you know?

Everyone could just bring it down ever so slightly. Let's transition to the rotation because this is a really interesting group, both because of who is in it now and who might be in it a little bit later. Maybe we can start with a returning face and then talk about some of the new additions, the state of their health, et cetera. Where is Kodai Senga? How excited are the meds to have him back and sort of how uninterrupted did they expect his progress to be? Because he obviously had a tremendous first season and then he got to throw five and a third innings and then that was it for 2024. So talk to

us about Senga and what they're expecting from him in 2025. Yeah, it was funny early in camp, I asked Carlos Mendoza, you know, about, you know, he didn't see Senga up close in 2023. And I said, you know, I know you only saw him for five-ish innings in the regular season, then just a couple here and there in the playoffs. Like, you know, what can a healthy Senga bring to you? And he goes, man, those were five really good innings. And he meant it like it sounds like a joke, but he meant it entirely earnestly. Like, like, you know, when Senga had come back for that game against Atlanta in early August, you know, the Mets did not have an ace at the top of the rotation.

Sean Manaya had only just started pitching like Chris Sale and getting Chris Sale-like results. And Senga, you know, striking out, I think, eight or something hitters, looking dominant in that start, seemed to be like, well, this is going to be the final piece for the team to move forward. And then he strains his calf and is out for the rest of the regular season. And so I think going into this season, they are cautiously optimistic. I think, you know, they don't want to bank on him being their number one starter for 32 starts. They're going to run a six-man rotation for a lot of the season. He will start occasionally on regular four days rest, but I think he did that I think

three times in 2023. That will probably be the number he hits this year right around there again. And they don't want to put too much pressure on him. I think that was something that he felt last year when he was attempting to come back, was this idea of not wanting to interrupt a really good stretch for the team and maybe putting too much pressure on himself to be a savior at the end of the season.

If he was coming into the rotation, he was gonna replace someone who had been pitching well, and he felt a burden from that. So I think both sides kind of know each other a little bit better now. It seemed at times last year that the communication between Senga and the team was a little strained. I think they're in a better place with that now

and their expectations are a bit more cautious for him. I don't know if he's gonna be the opening day starter. You would say probably on pedigree he should be, but they might not put that on him right now. He should be making his Grapefruit League debut in the next seven to 10 days. So he's on track to be a part of the opening day rotation, if not the guy that day,

but they're hopeful they can get for the most part that the late 2023 version of him that was a down-ballot Cy Young candidate and not the guy that they missed so much of last year. And then let's talk about the new M&M boys in New York, Sean Manaya and Frankie Montas. First of all, tell us a little bit about Manaya's mid-season reinvention and how well it worked and Frankie Montas. First of all, tell us a little bit about Manaya's midseason

reinvention and how well it worked and why the Mets wanted to keep him around. And then, Frankie Montas, what attracted the Mets about him and each of them dealing with an injury at this point. Not totally shocking, but you could give us updates on their health. Yeah, I mean, Man I was having like a solid season through the first three and a half months of last year You know I'd struggled a little bit at the beginning of the year with his efficiency and his command But I'd said, you know was was basically living up to the contract that they'd given him And then he's watching a game against Atlanta in late July and he sees Chris sale

He's watching from the first base dugout and getting a really good angle on sales delivery and he'd always thought about kind of dropping down a little bit and he says, man, it really works for this guy. I wonder how that would work for me if I simplified everything, went basically to fastball sweeping slider and saw how it worked. Most people when they do that, like, you know, when I went out in my backyard as a kid and like got into Jeff Bagwell's stance, it didn't mean that I hit the wiffle ball over the fence every time. Most people, it doesn't work out imitating a guy and you start performing like him, but it did for Manaya really for the last two months of the season and into the

playoffs. Like he ran out of gas in that last start against LA, but was, you know, pretty close to a number one starter for those two months. They liked what he brought off the field as well but they thought that most of that change was sustainable. They were a little bit concerned about what it would mean for him physically to do that over the course of six months rather than just a shorter burst like he did at the end of last season. You know he's already dealing with an oblique strain. They think it's only going to cost him a few starts in April, maybe a couple weeks.

They were able to get him back on a shorter term deal than I think most people expected and think he can slot up, you know, number one or number two in the rotation, be a guy who starts games in the playoffs for them. With Montas, that contract surprised me at the start of the offseason, that they went as aggressively after Montas as they did. They really liked the changes he made when he went from Cincinnati to Milwaukee. They thought the velocity was back. It's a guy who has a real pedigree from the time he was a prospect in the Red Sox organization, has had really good seasons in Oakland, came back from the shoulder issue with the Yankees. This is

now his second year back from that injury. So they thought that there could be a little bit more in the tank there. They've got a lot of confidence in their pitching infrastructure now after the success they had last year with Manaya, with Luis Severino, they could extract as much as they could from Montas. You know, he's got a high grade latch drain, which probably means a trip to the 60 day IL eventually and a first start sometime in June, which is not ideal and kind of the risk you take with a guy like him who recently had a pretty significant shoulder injury. It's not off to the best start, but they do think by the end of

the season that he could be another guy who's again starting playoff games for them. I think one of the recent trends that has become a point of fascination for this podcast are relievers who move back into the starting rotation and the Mets are trying to get on trend with Clay Holmes. So what about Holmes' time with the Yankees made the Mets confident that he could start and what changes might they introduce to his repertoire to sort of fill it out and put him in a position where he'll be able to bear a starter's load for them this year. Yeah it was really the the shift in his mix as the season went on last year. It was the

addition of a four-seamer late in the year. The season did not go the way Clay Holmes wanted it to go last year as the Yankees closer so he added the four seam kind of really in September into the playoffs. He's been playing around with the change-up. The change-up is probably the bigger piece to the puzzle right now. It's looked very good in spring training so far in two starts that he's made. They think that could be a real weapon for him especially against left-handed hitters which is always what you worry about for a sinker baller.

Pairing that with the sinker, the slider and then having the four seamer as a fourth pitch they're also working with him on a cutter. Basically they've explained it as he's going to work on the four seamer, the slider, and then having the four seamers, a fourth pitch, they're also working with him on a cutter. Basically, they've explained it as, he's gonna work on the four seamer and the cutter in spring training, and then decide which one's better, and then ditch the other one. So they think he's got the mix,

that he's got the frame and the stamina to be a starter. He came up pitching as one in the minor leagues. It is a little bit longer of a gap between starting for him than it was for Reynaldo Lopez last year or Jordan Hicks even. It would be interesting to see like what, how many innings they can get out of them. But again, they, they had so much success last year

with Manaya Severino and even Jose Quintana coming off an injury. Like those three guys combined to throw 300 more innings in 2024 than they did in 2023. They think they've got a little bit of a secret sauce to getting the most out of their pitchers and keeping them healthy as much as they can. I know it's a weird thing to say after we just discussed injuries to two other guys, but they're putting a lot into the Clay Homes basket at this point, but they feel pretty good

about it here at the end of February. And then who else is in the mix if that doesn't work out or if these injuries persist? Yeah, so they entered spring training with kind of a three-man competition for the sixth and final spot. And it was going to be Paul Blackburn, who they acquired at the trade deadline last year from the athletics, Griffin Canning, who they picked up in the offseason after he'd been traded from Anaheim to Atlanta, and then Tyler McGill, who has entered each of the last four spring trainings now Not as part of the rotation and will be a part of the rotation at the start of the season because of a pitcher injury You know Blackburn and canning are guys who have a bit of a track record at this point Kind of are what they are. I think they have some excitement that they can switch around cannings mix a bit

He's throwing a cutter again for the first time in a little while They think if he throws his fastball a little bit less and the cutter a little bit more maybe they can get some better results for him. But they are very excited about McGill finished last season taking Blackburn's spot in the rotation when Blackburn got hurt. I think he made six starts down the stretch and that's one all six which was pretty significant given that they made the playoffs by a single game. You know he added a sinker to his mix that really worked well for him. He's probably got to narrow that mix a little bit. He's got, I think, six pitches now because he just keeps adding new things like most

pitchers, but figuring out what works best for him against lefties, what works best for him against righties, simplifying the process for him. He's in that old mold of a pitcher who's always had great stuff without the results to match. He started to get those results a little bit at the end of last season. There's some metrics that suggest that he is a guy who, you give him enough run in the rotation that he can probably outperform, say, a free agent that's still available like Quintana. That's the reason the Mets haven't gone out and signed Jose yet, is they think someone like McGill can be better than him moving forward. I don't want to say that Edwin Diaz had a bad

2024. That's probably an exaggeration, but it was bad relative to his 2022. And it might carry some concerning signs. His average fastball velocity was down. He struck out fewer guys. He walked more of them, posted a higher ERA and FIPs. So where do things sit with Diaz right now? And then talk to us about the rest of that bullpen because there are some new faces there as well. Yeah, it certainly was a down season compared to 22, but it was an up season compared to 23 for Diaz. So I think you got to take that into consideration.

He did pitch, so he had that going for him, yeah. Yeah, you know, it was a weird season for him last year because the, I guess this happens with closers. Like it would be like these hiccups that he would have like three or four straight outings where he struggled. Then he'd get back on the horse and be okay. And then a month later, he'd have another stretch of a couple outings

where he wasn't very good. Everything you mentioned is true. The fastball velocity was down. 2022 set such a high standard for him, the same way kind of 2018 did when he was in Seattle, that it's gonna be tough to live up to that version of himself, but I would expect Edwin Diaz in 2025

to be better than he was last year and more consistent than he was last year. As much as any player says that an injury is not in their mind, that first season back, I think that probably still was a little bit of that lingering in his knee at the start of last season, or just in thinking about it a little bit at the start of last season. Being another year removed from that is probably helpful. The Mets think they will not need to rely on him quite as often for various stretches of the season as they did

last year when their bullpen really got into a difficult spot in stretches of May and June especially. I think he looks really good in spring. He looked really good in spring, this time last year too. It's tough to gauge a reliever in February on the backfields. Looks great. I can't hit it, but it's a little early to suggest anything beyond thinking he'll be better than he was last year. The rest of that pen, a lot of it is returners from last year, guys who at this time last year

you would not have thought would be important relievers for the Mets, guys like Reid Garrett, Jose Buto, and Daniel Nunez. Nunez had a really impressive run of 30-ish innings where the peripherals were phenomenal and then missed the last two-ish months of the season with an arm injury and they're taking it slow with him in spring training as well. So, you know, that's another one of those. Man, if healthy, that's a really valuable, important seventh slash eighth inning piece for them, but you can't bank on that just yet until you see it happen. And then they brought back Ryan Stanek, who they had acquired at the trade deadline and who had pitched basically in low leverage for them in August and most of September. And then by the time the playoffs rolled around was, along with Diaz, the only reliever they

trusted, which is funny how that works. But he had made some changes to his delivery after getting kind of out of sync with the Mariners before the trade. They feel better about where he is now compared to where he was when they acquired him. Minter, who I mentioned earlier, they signed from Atlanta, comes over to be kind of the primary lefty, a kind of high quality lefty that they've lacked since Brooks Raley went down at the start of last season. He's coming back from a hip surgery, another guy who's taking it slow in spring training,

and that's kind of a theme that they've had in camp so far. When he signed with them, he actually pointed to the success that the Mets had had rehabbing David Peterson from the same surgery with his hip and Minter is a couple months ahead of Peterson's schedule. So he thinks he can be ready on opening day or very close to it and to provide another one of those late game arms for them. We talked about the Mets resurgence and how they made it to the playoffs by the skin of their teeth. And maybe that enabled them to land Juan Soto.

Who knows how differently that free agency goes if they are not coming off of a successful playoff season. And we talked a lot about the clubhouse. So how much credit, if any, does then rookie manager Carlos Mendoza deserve for that? What were his strengths in his first season and what, if anything, is he adjusting going into season number two? I mean, I think he deserves a pretty strong amount of credit for what happened last year. There are not that many managers in history, actually, I don't know of one offhand, who serve a suspension before they win their first game the way Mendoza had to last year.

They started 0-5, the sixth game they were being no hit into, I think the eighth inning. They had to come back in the ninth inning to win it. I remember talking to some of the assistant coaches last year, that they were worried that Mendoza's first official win was going to be in the game. He was suspended earlier that week because of a beanball incident with Rhys Hoskins. He gets his first win and it's on a getaway day, double header day, where he's trying to celebrate with the team and his family and they got to catch a flight right away. The thing that stood out about Mendoza was that he did not panic under circumstances that have made other guys panic in that role. You get off to that start, 0-5. You're 11

games under 500 at the end of May where you're starting to get to the time where your front office is evaluating what you have and what you're going to do in July. And he was steadfast in his belief that the team was good, that he believed in the talent that they had and that they would turn it around. There are players who said by the end of the season, like that meant a lot at that moment. When you're down as a team and down individually to have that confidence instilled in you by the manager, it sounds hokey, but it can be meaningful.

And it proved that way for the Mets. Steadfast positivity is not always appreciated in the city of New York, especially during the negative times. But by the end of the season, I think we saw the value that he had in that role. And look, that doesn't come with being naive or being a pushover. Mendoza's ability to toe that line and to hold players accountable when necessary, while still projecting this positive outlook, was really helpful for them last year.

And this year he's talked about just kind of being more familiar with everyone and more familiar with how the season's gonna go. this year he's talked about just kind of being more familiar with everyone and more familiar with how the season's going to go. You know, I think there are other managers I've covered who talked about how fast the game got on them the first couple weeks. Their manager and Mendoza never expressed that. He said, you know, being the bench coach for Aaron Boone for a while, like he was fully ready for game speed and everything. Like nothing really shocked him about the role. Nothing really took him aback, which speaks to his preparation and why they hired him in the first place. So I don't know that there's going to be like a second year leap for him. But I think just that comfort and familiarity with what goes on over the course of a six-month season, really an eight or

nine-month season in New York is there more this year. Lauren Henry You mentioned earlier how little spending David Sterns had sort of expended at First Base in his prior stop. I wonder what you think you've learned about Stern's philosophy in the last year, because I think when he was hired, there was this question of how much of the payroll restraint he exhibited in Milwaukee was a result of the payroll realities that that front office had to operate under, and how much was Sterns' sort of own perspective on baseball and the way that a team should be built. So you've had a year, you've had a very big off season from them this year. What

do we think we know about Sterns at this point? Yeah, I mean, I think actually one question I forgot to answer earlier about Soto, like why did the Mets go all in on Soto? There's the very obvious, like, he's a fantastic baseball player. But the other thing is he's playing the age 26 this season. And we've seen Stearns go really aggressively after two free agents, and they are Juan Soto and Yoshinobu Yamamoto. And the things they have in common is unusually young age for free agency. Yamamoto was a free agent going into his age 25 season. So I think, you know, the first thing we have from Stearns is like, if he's going to go after someone in free agency

really aggressively, it's probably gonna be someone on the younger end, where they're gonna be able to get more prime years when they sign them. The other thing that has stood out so far is just the way that he's addressed the depth of the roster and how it's really an everyday process of addressing the depth.

One thing I'd pointed out when they hired Stearns was if you looked at where the Mets had gotten their wins above replacement over time and where the Brewers had gotten their wins above replacement over time, the Mets consistently had a better top end of the roster as you would expect. Players one through five, one through 10, even one through 15 were better in New York than they were in Milwaukee. But man, the Brewers crushed them from player 16 down. What they got out of guys who weren't on the opening day roster, what they got out of guys

who shifted on to the 40-man over the course of the season was so much greater than what the Mets had gotten over time. You saw that play out for the first time for the Mets last year. Sterns has talked about feeling even better about their depth group so far this year. You go back to 2023 and when Justin Verlander goes down on opening day and Max Scherzer isn't healthy and they suffer a couple other injuries, the guys they had to step in and replace them

did not do the job. And that was the reason that team was as bad as it was. Whereas last year when they, it's not as if everything went swimmingly for them the entire year. They had guys step up and play better and fill in, especially in the bullpen, better as the season went on. Guys like Nunes and Buto that I mentioned earlier. So I think David Stern's team in New York is probably going to be a team that still plays the margins really well and makes those small moves over the course of the season, adds this guy off waivers,

makes this small deal in the off season. Maybe he spends a little bit more money on those guys than you would otherwise, like the canning signing. They gave him four and a half million dollars basically without a spot in the rotation because they thought he could be useful for them. And then making the splurges on the really big pieces like Soto.

I don't know who the next one would be. I don't think they'll be in on Guerrero this time next year, but who knows? That's the early indicators for what Sterns' Mets teams will look like. So last question, what would constitute success for this team this season? I guess there's one obvious answer for a team that signed Juan Soto and spent as much money and was as active as the Mets were this offseason. But is there anything less obvious, any goals either on the field, off the field, when it comes to transitioning to the mythical Dodgers East, not just in terms of payroll and signing superstars, but also becoming a player development powerhouse, which, you know, the Mets are probably underrated as a player development team over the past however long, but they are maybe updating their methods and their

player development pipeline. So how should they and how should fans evaluate the season? Yeah, I mean, I think achieving greater corporate synergy with some other well-known brand would be a success. You know, I think it's been interesting to talk about that, like Steve Cohen was asked this exact question. He said making the playoffs for a guy who came in and said at the end of the 2020 season when he took over the team that if I don't win a World Series in three to five years, I'll be disappointed. And this is year five and you just spent three quarters of a billion dollars on a

player off of an NLCS appearance. You might have expected him to say something more ambitious than that. Stearns was asked a similar question and said that while winning the division is a goal, you know, that that's what you want to do, you still want that by even though winning the NL East has not parlayed itself into any postseason success over the last three years under this new format, that making the playoffs is still like the primary thing to do. It's like getting the dance and see what happens the way they did last year. I think the fan base might, you know, if this team makes the playoffs and loses a first round wild card series, I don't know that anyone is saying, yeah, that was exactly what we wanted to happen this year as a fan. Those ambitions might be a little bit higher, you know, getting back to the NLCS, beating the Dodgers this time and going to a World Series is probably the bar

for a lot of the fan base. But you know, we know how difficult that is and I think the National League as a whole is probably in a tougher more competitive spot going into this season than it was for much of last year. You know, even the Dodgers had kind of a down season last year in the regular season and looked more vulnerable than they had in recent times and obviously the division in the NL East with Atlanta and Philadelphia is really difficult and Atlanta should be better than they had in recent times. And obviously the division in the NL East with Atlanta and Philadelphia is really difficult and Atlanta should be better than they were last year.

So as easy as saying like, okay, get back to where you were last year and take that next step, they kind of moved a little bit further than you would have expected last year. And now it's gonna be tough to replicate that. All right, we will find out whether they achieve those goals by following Tim Britton. That's at least one of the ways, we will find out whether they achieve those goals by following Tim Britton.

That's at least one of the ways that we will find out. He covers the Mets at the Athletic. Always a pleasure to read you and to talk to you, Tim. Thanks. Oh, and thank you for not holding me to like a wins prediction. Oh, I'm so happy about that. We abandoned that a few years ago, both by popular request and because I don't think anyone actually learned that much from those predictions, but we tortured you nonetheless. I appreciate it.

All right. Let's take one more quick break and we'll be back with Sam Blum of The Athletic to talk about the Angels. Alright, it is time to talk about Mike Trout and the rest of the 2019 All-Stars on the Los Angeles Angels. We are joined now by Sam Blum, who covers the Angels, and MLB at large for the athletic. Hello, Sam. Hello, Ben. How's it going? It's going all right.

It's going well for the moment, especially because Mike Trout hit a home run on Wednesday. Nature is healing, we hope. We got Terry Smith's It is Trout of here call. Always well with the world. Hopefully Wright Field will be healing as well. So take us into the decision, the perhaps overdue decision to move Mike Trout to an outfield corner. How was that sold to him or did it not need to be sold to him?

And why right field and not just straight to designated hitter? It's a good question. I think with Mike, it didn't, I mean, I'm surprised honestly at maybe how easily he accepted this because I think even just going back to like the 2022 season when Joe Madden came out before Mike Trout had even arrived in camp and said, yeah, we're thinking of moving to a corner, that immediately became a real problem with the Angels and with Joe Madden in particular. And so I think this was a different situation because it's just you look at the last three

seasons since then, really the last four seasons overall, he hadn't stayed healthy. And so I don't know if this really changes anything for him in terms of staying healthy or putting him in a better position to like last a full season. But I do think that they felt as though they needed to do something different. It just wasn't working. He wasn't staying on the field. I mean, you look at the injuries he had, right? The broken handmaid bone, that happened on a swing.

The calf strain was, I think, running the bases. Last year, I don't think there was even really a pinpointed moment for when he tore his meniscus. So these are not things necessarily related to playing centerfield or playing the outfield, but they're just trying to loosen the amount of strain that he has overall throughout the course of a season. I don't know if this does that or not, but they felt like they needed to do something different. And as for playing DH, Mike and I think the Angels are kind of basing this

decision based on what they know about Mike Trout, which is that he's just very like fidgety, jumpy. He's, you know, he's not someone who likes to sit around and watch a game if he's not playing it. And I think DH is kind of the closest thing to not playing in the game for him. And they were concerned that he would instead of, you know, kind of sitting there, he would go and take like hundreds of hundreds of swings every day. That could possibly lead to injury too.

So they were making calculation that they felt like this is probably the easiest thing. To me, the most important element of what they do next is how many off days does he get? He's not someone that returns from injury quickly. He has issues with recoveries. So just keeping him out of the lineup every once in a while, that to me is the most effective way to keep his bet in the lineup for the long season. And I imagine that part of what sort of stymied a move to DH was the acquisition of Jorge

Soler. So what do they see in Soler? What motivated this trade and what are your expectations for him in 2025? Just slug, right? I think that was what they needed. You know, they didn't have that last year. I mean, even, you know, they're starting first baseman. I think that they're willing to kind of give up some of that power in a normally power-prone position to like get an on-base guy to kind of develop one of their top young players. And so, yeah, they don't really have a ton of like really big power-hitters, especially if Mike Trout's not in the lineup.

You know, so to me that Soler is kind of just somebody who can stick in the clean up spot, which I'm sure is where he'll be if I had to guess. I agree with you that playing, you know, the DH thing is probably, you know, an element of why Mike is, or significant element of why Mike is, you know, not going to DH as much, but I think that they were comfortable doing that, you know, because they didn't want to put Mike as DH full time anyway. But yeah, I mean, Soler, they're going to play him in the field a little bit. Obviously, if you look at any of his numbers, you know, advanced metrics, this guy has not been a good defensive outfielder and that's probably an understatement.

So they're going to apply Stickman right field. I mean, they've got a couple of guys on their pitching staff that are like heavy, heavy sinker, you know, ground ball guys. So if I had to guess, that'll be when you see Solerre in the outfield. It's not a perfect fit, but I think that they just needed Solerre. They needed someone that could hit home runs and that could be a threat to do so every once in a while in a lineup that maybe didn't have as much of that. I think another thing is the Angels, they're not breaking the bank in the offseason. They're having to piece

together a roster based on what they hope happens, based on guys maybe who finished last season somewhat strong, guys who have had good seasons in the big leagues like Kyle Hendricks, right? I think Soler kind of fits into that box of someone who maybe finished last year strong with the Braves and has generally been a successful major league baseball player. Speaking of angels who don't recover quickly from injury, I guess we should touch on your muse, your foil, your nemesis, Anthony Rendon. I guess you haven't had a lot of FaceTime with him this spring because he hasn't shown his face, but take us through the latest in this never ending saga of Rendon's battles with the team and with his own body.

Yeah. I mean, it's like, it's just like a weird scenario at this point. It's like, it almost feels like it's kind of transcending injuries and kind of becoming something that's just like, like Rendon versus the Angels. I think the Angels are like really not happy with this, you know, obviously. I mean, that's an understatement, right? They obviously want him, they didn't sign him to this contract to have this all play out.

But I think even just beyond that, like right now, I think that there's obvious like frustration with just kind of like how he's handled it. Like he wasn't even taught, he wouldn't even respond to Ron Washington and he's not out of spring. I don't know if they're expecting him out at Anaheim at all this year. And he is getting paid $38 million. And so to me, the most interesting thing is what comes next, right? Because there's not really an incentive for either side to kind of end this partnership

right now. But I do think that when you get to this time next year, there will be that incentive, I think, from both sides. And so it might come down to do we make some sort of agreement, right? Like do you guys sit down with Scott Boris and say, okay, what's next steps here? Can we maybe defer some of the money here, which Ling already doesn't really like to do? What's the best way to make him whole with the contract, but also maybe not take away

from the payroll that's kind of hindered them the last couple years because they've had Rendon. So maybe that'll be an option, some sort of deferral payment. The other option I think that would be really interesting is do the angels just cut ties? Do they really want him around? I mean, I think that this year's and last year, they moved on beyond him, right? They moved on past him. I don't think they're expecting anything out of him. They signed you on Moncada, who they would have signed regardless of Rendon's health.

So to me, I think that the angels have kind of moved past it. So might they just decide to release him if he doesn't ultimately find some sort of mutual decision to kind of end the partnership? Or will the angels kind of sit there and like hope that Rendon blinks, knowing that he probably has no desire to come and show up and play after sitting at home for a year, come and show up and play a full season of baseball or have to even sit there for a full season of baseball if he's not, you know, if he's no desire to do it, maybe he'll just retire. So I don't think that'll happen.

I think why would you pass up, you know, $38 million for, you know, six, seven months of work? But, you know, I also don't think that Rendell really wants to be doing this anymore. It seems to me that, you know, just this has not worked out. It's a complicated topic and I just I'm curious to see how it plays out after this year, which I'm guessing will be mostly just kind of what it is right now, which is waiting to see what happens later. The guys we've talked about so far are part of the last good Angels team or at least the

last team that the Angels hoped would be good. They might not have much future in Anaheim beyond the next couple of years, but one guy who I think they still hope to be a big part of their future is Logan Ohapi. Wow, that was a long wind up to a not great payoff, but here we are. Ohapi had a down 2024 relative to what he was able to do in 2023, a season that was derailed somewhat by injury. They signed Travis Darno this offseason to a two year contract. What do you think the balance of catching time between those two guys is going to be and how does Ohapi get back on track in 2025?

Yeah, you know, I think Ohapi there's so much excitement. There is still so much excitement about him because he not only is I think, you know, a really good player at a premium position, he's just like this kind of the voice of the team now, right? Like he's the go-to guy, I think, for everything, every topic about this team. People want to know kind of what his thoughts are, which is impressive. I think he's 24 years old to kind of have that stature within the organization. But I do also think like, hey, he's still got to prove himself, right? Like I think that's a very fair criticism because, you know, he's played well at times, but he also really, really,

really, really struggled at the end of last season. I mean, it's, and that's, and I say really like four times there and I think he would agree with that. I mean, it was bad, right? He, like, I think after like August something, he was sending like 100 if that, you know, so it was, it was a tough go. Maybe the last weekend of the season, he had a bunch of hits that kind of picked him back up a little bit. But it was a bad end to the year. And I think that the question is, okay, to your point about splitting time at catching, I think he led the majors in catcher innings last year, which might have wore on him, even

though he said actively that it did not. I think Raymond Walsh have kind of said the exact opposite on that front. And I agree with Walsh. I mean, there's no way, no matter how tough you want to be and how tough you are, that you can just go and do that. It's your first full pro season of catching at the Major League level. It just, it wore on him in a way that, you know, I think you saw in the statistics, especially offensively at the end of the season. So yeah, you get Travis or no, I mean, he's a more accomplished player than Matt Thaiss, right? So he's someone that I'm sure the Angels are going to want

to use more of, maybe twice a week, three times a week, even depending on how many games they play in a week. And just, you know, get, you know, make sure that he's giving Ohapi a spell and you're now having a player that's also been there, done that, you know, champion, right? Like he's really done so much in this game. And so he's, yeah, it's a big step up, I think, and especially for Ohapi to kind of have someone that's a leader that, you know, he can kind of go to that's not a coach, right. And they added Sal Fasano to the coaching staff this year as a pitching coach, but still, I mean, obviously he's a longtime catcher. I think there's some more around Ohapi to maybe bolster it.

And that's, I think, one element of this team that I think you might see. You might see a pretty good year from Ohapi. I think that he's the guy, if I had to pick any of the younger players, that he's the guy that I think might have a really, really good year. Yeah, I've always been a big Ohapi believer. I don't think we've seen his best yet. Another guy that you can actually feel good about and who had quite a season last year is Zach Neto, and he will not be ready for opening day.

But tell us about what his timeline is and how his 2024 went and what the Angels think he could still improve. The Angels have been really weird and even Zach Neto to some extent has been too because they just won't say exactly what his injury was, what surgery he got. And I get, if I had to just read between the lines and guess, Zach is someone that's going to want to sign a long-term contract somewhere at some point in his career. You know, these surgeries, you know, you don't want them necessarily like out there. I'm guessing that's probably part of this, but it's been weird how little information

we've gotten about it. Today was the first actual tangible thing that was ever really said about his injury, which was he's not going to be there for opening day. And then Washington, maybe it'll be a week, maybe it'll be two weeks into the season, maybe it'll be a month. He did say they didn't think it'd be much longer than a month. So I don't know. We'll see.

That's the timeline on what exactly he's coming back from is tough to assess if you don't know what it is. But they seem to think he's ahead of schedule and that around mid to late April seems to be a fair estimate of when he'll be back on the field. But yeah, I mean, in the meantime, I think the shortstop is an interesting kind of dilemma for them. I mean, Tim Anderson is someone they have on their roster. They could use him.

He's ridden really bad in the big leagues the last couple seasons, but can he figure something out? He just hit a ball over the fence today in spring, which is normally I say nothing relevant about spring stats and what they do, but I think Tim Anderson hitting a ball over a major league fence or a spring training major league fence is at least something to acknowledge because it just has happened so rarely for him and it came against a major league pitcher too. So to me that was an interesting sign and maybe given that Netta was not going to be ready for the season, you got to look at Tim Anderson as someone that could be the starting

shortstop on opening day. If I had to guess though, I'm looking at Kevin Newman as probably the more likely candidate there, just because he's got a guaranteed major league deal. You know, he had a pretty good year last year. He's a solid, you know, veteran, just someone you can rely on and, you know, maybe someone that can kind of spell the situation until Netto's back. But then you also have got a guy like Christian Moore, which, you know, if he ends up making the big league roster to start the season, could impact kind of the, you know, the overall, it would be at second base and maybe third, but even that can kind of impact how they navigate

their starting in field defense on opening day. I joked about the 2019 All-Stars at the top of this segment and I actually did a step last. I know, I did a step last inspired by the Angels off-season activity because it seems like, I mean they stayed busy, but it seems like the unifying theme of their moves was, was this guy good several seasons ago? You know, specifically was this guy good in 2019, which is like that year, that was the high point

for a lot of these guys. Yeah. I think Kevin Newman on three war that year, like Tim Anderson was like, Orges Solaire, Jamie Davis, uh, Kyle Hendricks, like on and on and on. And you know, you could have extended that to Trout, sadly too. And also Rendon. And, and, but what was the strategy here if there was one? Cause like they were aggressive, they made a lot of moves and you know, some of

these guys have been good more recently, like Kenley Jansen or, you know, you say Kikuchi is a good pitcher and was a coveted free agent, but like super veteran team, you know, old just betting on bounce backs. I mean, was there kind of a coherent philosophy here? It's almost like, you know, if you unfroze, okay, that's the answer. Well, here's what I would tell you is like, look at the, they're like, the payroll they have to work with is like, you know, they're not going above the luxury tax threshold. They're not operating like a team that should, they should be in the Los Angeles market.

So they're, they're looking at it. Okay, what do we have? Like we lost 99 games last year. That's what that I'm sure is what they're thinking. Lost 99 games last year. You can't just run it back, right? So you're going to have to just like, you're going to have to finesse and they're not working with the biggest payroll, so the only options they have are to get what

I think is two classes of players. One, did you finish last year strong? I think that is something that they look for when signing some of these guys. Kikuchi is a great example of that. He ended up probably getting the contract. He did because of his 10 starts with the Astros, kind of similar to the way that Soler ended last season, or even Kyle Hendricks ended last season, pitching a little bit better than his overall numbers for the season.

I think that's kind of how they, that's the first class of players. Did you play well to end last year? And the other one is, have you had really good seasons in the big leagues at some point? And this has been something they've done for years. I mean, you look at Miguel Sano last year, they brought him in and, you know, someone who obviously probably should not have been on a big league team, but he had, one point in his career been an all-star who hit like 300-something home runs overall. I'm not sure.

Maybe I'm completely making that up. Not in a season, but I mean just his career numbers. He'd had big numbers at one point. I think that's just kind of how they look at things. Have you been good at the big league level or were you good at the end of last year? That's kind of how I think they look at their calculation because they don't really have other options. They're not in the mix for Juan Soto. They're not getting carbon burns. They're going to have to navigate through different means. And they're also like, I feel that everyone kind of tried

to comp them this year with what the Royals did last year. And I think the Royals, what they did last year is going to be kind of a thing that a lot of teams try to, you know, almost kind of like use as a cop out for strategy because it worked. But it's not necessarily adding a couple veterans that just end up panning out. That's not necessarily a viable strategy for any team, particularly the Angels who also don't have a very strong farm system by like any independent metric, right? I know the Angels themselves view their farm system as a lot better than what the experts say.

But at the end of the day, I'm trusting the experts on this because I think that it's just been so consistent year after year and it's coming from different places. It's not one person kind of saying one thing. It's every place kind of saying, this does not stack up with the rest of the league. And so I think these things kind of matter over the long term that, you know, you can't really like win unless you kind of have some miracles play out and pan out and that's what they do. That's the strategy, right?

There's not really, as when I say no, it's because it's not really a viable strategy or a good strategy in my opinion, but it is something that I think is the way that they operate. Just doing your best to like piece together a roster with whatever you can. Well, I feel bad transitioning to Nolan Shanwell after that, but he's sort of an interesting test case, right? Because this was a guy who was, we could maybe say rushed to the majors. He was told to stand all day. So I'm curious how much Nolan is being allowed to sit these days to sort of- He did that on his own.

He's trying to build strength, right? And we can look at the way that his big league career has sort of played out so far and see that like, yeah, it's a not terrible motivation because he's playing first base and he's slugging under 400. So what are you expecting from Nolan Shanwell this year? Do you think that having had a full big league season and then sort of a normal off season, you know, not being rushed into full-time duty is going to be to his benefit or is he a 104 WRC plus guy? It's a good question because I don't think, I don't look at him getting rushed up necessarily as like a detriment to him.

He's just, he doesn't come off as someone that's like overly anxious or someone that's like pressing too hard. The more fair question is, like does he have it in him to become like more than what he showed last year? Which, you know, he's 22 years old. So it's, yeah, I would say that there's probably more in the tank and I know he's put on like 15 pounds and he stopped doing the standing drill, I know

that. So he's done things to, I think, improve his power. But you know, I want to see that on the field because like you said, I mean, he had like, I think I saw somewhere he had like the fewest extra base hits by like a first baseman over the course of a full season, like, you know, since Pete Rose or something like that. I don't know. Can that number get better? Because you want your first baseman to have some power.

Now, does that mean sacrificing a little bit of the on base? Maybe a little bit, but if he could find a way to not sacrifice too much of his on base while also improving his power and turning some of those inside out singles to doubles down the line or you know get him over the fence every once in a while. To me that will be that'll be a huge step for him and that will turn him from like what I think is like a perfectly solid you know player to have on your big league roster to someone like that's a that's a dude. I think he's such a like I said interesting test

case because he's one of the more unique baseball players I ever watched I think in terms of just the way he approaches the game and you know the slow bat speed stuff is interesting and he's just a fascinating baseball player and I don't know if that means he's a really good baseball player I think it's certainly possible I think it's maybe in there but in order to get there he's gonna need to become more power-prone I mean you can't you can't just hit like 10-12 homers a year and you know play that position over the course of an entire career I think without being like you know like Luis Uriah not say for baseman but like someone that's

like really getting on base at that type of clip like an Uriah's type clip. Forgot to mention Yoan Mankata, career year 2019 of course. There you go yeah exactly. It's like yeah it's like you're in a fantasy league or you talk to someone who hasn't paid attention to baseball lately and they're like is this guy still good? Not so much. They had their day. He's your name. Yeah. Yeah. How much of that veteran impulse, you know, partly it's yeah, the lack of a farm system, which we'll get into a little more, but how much of that is Wash himself? Because among

his many controversial comments last season was, so we're going to get some baseball players who may not be superstars, but they know how to play. We forgot to bring real baseball players into the organization. Nothing against those guys here, but they're not big league baseball players and they certainly can't help us win a championship. Ouch. And then I know he subsequently attempted to walk that back, I think, to you and said he misspoke and he just meant that, you know, these guys are works in progress and they're growing into being big league players. But

how much of that is just Wash pushing for that kind of player perhaps, but also just generally Wash's first season in Anaheim didn't go great in terms of win loss record, of course, but it seemed like every time I was aware of something he said, he seemed to be throwing somebody under the bus or at least it kind of came off that way. He's very authentic. I'll give him that. Yeah. I do think, yeah, I mean, like with Walsh, he did do that, right?

That was a doubt that comment. And I know he walked it back. Listen, I'm not going to like disagree with him on the comment because I agreed with him that what they were that came like right before they got swept by this right before they got swept by the Chicago White Sox last season. That's hard to have done. They won 41 games and four of them were against the Angels. Three came back to back to back all to avoid breaking the record at the end of last season. That was when he made those comments, I believe.

It's like, yeah, on the one hand, he's throwing someone under the bus. On the other hand, as a reporter, I'm appreciative of the authenticity that he's kind of coming at it with because I've sat here for years covering this team and I've heard people kind of like gaslight me and others about like where this roster's at. And there have been plenty of things that Walsh has said over the last year that I'm kind of like, I think fit into that category too of like all this growth talk and this and that.

I'm like, you got to show it on the field and it just, they didn't last year. And I think at the end of last season, it was very tiring, very frustrating. You know, some guys who they hoped were going to really progress started to regress. Like we talked about with Ohapi. It's just, and then so many injuries. I mean, at the end of the season,

I think their starting infield was like Michael Stefanik, Eric Wagaman, Jack Lopez. I don't even know who it was at first bay, Nico Cavades. Like that was their starting infield, I think at the know who was at first base, Nico Cavades, like that was their starting infield I think at the end of last year, right? So like, they just, it wasn't a big league ready team by any stretch. I think that was just like a frustration thing, but there were other times where I really strongly disagreed with Wash about how he handled playing players and like the specific

one that stands out to me, which I'm sure you'll know what I'm talking about, was when Luis Guiorme was, failed to put down the squeeze bun. And immediately, like after the game wash goes on a rant about how he kind of failed at that and said that the pitcher who had thrown equal number of balls and strikes was like throwing strikes. It was just like, it wasn't based in reality. I was just like, this is not the way you go about it. This is, you know, you got to own a bad decision.

And maybe, yeah, maybe Guilherme didn't do everything he needed to do in that bunt. Maybe he didn't do a you go about it. This is, you know, you got to own a bad decision. And maybe, yeah, maybe Guilherme didn't do everything he needed to do in that bunt. Maybe he didn't do a great job of it. Meanwhile, Guilherme had been there for like four days at that point. I just didn't, I did not think that was handled well at all. And I specifically didn't like that he didn't come back and reflect on it and say, I shouldn't have done it that way. Instead, he came back and doubled down the next day really strongly. And I think that's the one flaw where I see from wash is like, you got to be able to accept your own responsibility of these things sometimes. Amatse, and he's the reason they lost 99 games last year. And I don't think many fans would say

that either. But you know, also, it was a failure. When you fail that badly, it's on everybody. And you know, you got to you got to understand that. I think that's an important element of doing this job. You mentioned that the farm system is not thought to be particularly deep. That's especially true on the position player side. Both of their top 100 prospects for us were pitchers, but I'm curious, you know, who floating around in the upper minors might be called upon to, you know, play some games in the event of either underperformance or injury? It seems like you got a lot of former Phillies floating around. You know, you mentioned some of the bench guys, but who do you think we might see Preston

to service this year? You know, one guy who I think is really interesting on this front is Nelson Rada. And I think he's like 19 years old right now, but I would not be shocked if he's on the big league roster at some point this year. I don't think that's like the intention. And I certainly don't think he's like that close right this moment. But you know, they don't like you, like you said, their position players, especially in the outfield, he's an outfielder, he's a center fielder. And the center field situation right now for the angels is a little suspect that, you know, we don't really know what we're going to, you know, see out of Adele and Moniac. And I think

that someone like Nelson Rada, especially since both those guys also have, you know, gotten hurt over the years, you know, what does that mean? Like, does it, do you then go to your next guy? And I think your next guy? And I think that next guy might be Nelson Rada because he's shown himself to be quite good. He's just a good player. And so I do think that the Angels, I think Perry knows this is an important year for him.

I think he knows that if they don't show some sort of improvement that he might not be there next year, I think to him it'd be very important that if things are going badly, you go down with your guys. And Nelson Rada is one of his guys. So that would not surprise me if he gets called up at some point. Certainly they could see Christian Moore quite early if not to start the season. Like you mentioned, George Klassen, Sam Aldegary, I think both those guys will be in the big league rotation at some point. They'll be guys that get called on for starts. It just depends on how long it takes. I think I wouldn't count on either of them making the big league roster to start the season.

But at some point I would not be surprised if they're there. But yeah, the overall state of the system is not great. I think it's top heavy in some ways. And I just, you know, it's not a way to sustain depth in a major league organization. That's how I look at it. You know, one guy who's really shown out in camp, which is interesting, and I think he's interesting name for for a lot of reasons Because he's the player that was the draft pick compensation for Shohei Otani is Ryan Johnson He's you know He was kind of overlooked in the draft because he's got a really funky delivery

But the people the coaches have really been excited about him in camp and it would not surprise me if at some point this year Maybe he gets called up to so those are some guys who I'm looking at and you know, but overall I mean, it's just a matter of how do they stack up? Are they, you know, are they ready? And, you know, I think some of the experts would tell you like, this is just not, they're not, but you know, they're experts and I'll trust them.

And, you know, sometimes they're right. Sometimes they're wrong. I guess Adele and Moniac even fit into the 2019 theme because people had high hopes for them then. It's very, very good point. Yeah. So Adele, it looked briefly last year, 2019 theme because people had high hopes for them then. That's a very good point. So Adele, it looked briefly last year like he might actually be putting it all together and then not so fast, but they're giving him at least one more shot here.

He is still just 25. He turns 26 in April. Is there any reason to think that now with Trout out of center with a bigger responsibility or opportunity for him that this could be the year when he finally makes some strides or has that ship sailed? Yeah, I wouldn't say it's sailed. I mean, I think that I don't think that the interesting thing about Trout moving is I don't think this is good for Adele.

I mean, he was known as a really lackadaisical outfielder who didn't have good instincts. And he worked really hard at that in right field. And actually, you know, he was a gold glove finalist. And that's not to say he was like a great defensive outfielder, but I think he was pretty good and he was certainly solid enough to play that position every day and not feel like you were like giving up a ton of defensive, you know, credibility. And so, yeah, I mean, you know, he made some offensive adjustments at the end of last season, I think, kind of with his leg kick, which afterward he was like had an OPS of yeah, I mean, you know, he made some offensive adjustments at the end of last season I think kind of with his leg kick which afterward he was he like had an OPS of 800

I think the last like six weeks or seven weeks of the season. So, you know, there's there's some reason for Optimism, especially since he found his power stroke at the big league level last year hitting 20 homers like yeah Maybe he could maybe he takes that next step Is he ever gonna be like that superstar player that was everyone thought he might be in 2019, right? That is a, that is a totally different question. And I think that, you know, you can't really take that step until you see some more improvement. Is he a viable everyday big leaguer? I'm not going to say no to that yet. I think it's possible and I think he's going to get that opportunity, particularly at the start of the season, see how it goes. And I'll be curious to see how he handles center field because, you know,

like I said, he put a lot of work into being viable and right and it's not always easy to just go and change that, especially when you're, you know, there's elements that I think he struggles with, with like taking that first step in or out and, you know, calling guys off and taking command of the outfield. Like these are things I think he might struggle with, just knowing the way he's played defense over the years. So I don't know how that'll translate, but we'll see. Yeah. He had a league average-ish expected weighted on base, whatever that's worth. Clearly still had some power and some speed, so it'd be nice if it panned out. So you mentioned

the fallow farm system. Some sources actually have the angels ranked dead last in their organizational rankings, and that is bad regardless of the circumstances of the Major League team, but it's especially bad if your big league team has been bad for a long time. It's one thing if you're using your prospects to upgrade during the season and you're bringing in guys who are helping you get over the top and okay, and you're drafting low because you've been really good for a while. Those things are understandable, but to be both bad in a sustained way at the big league level and then also not to have prospects, that's just a killer

combination and not the good kind of killer. So I guess the one positive from this though would be that they do have some new facilities, right? And some pretty impressive ones. So does that show a commitment to improving things? Have they modernized their player development process at all? You know, it's not that long since the Angels were kind of notorious for not feeding their minor leaguers well and, you know, just not having good resources

set up for them. So have they made some strides in those areas? I mean, yeah, I mean, you look at the facilities, I think that's an upgrade. But the big concern I still have about that as it relates to player development is that their minor leaguers are still doing their spring training in Scottsdale at this like kind of old Giants facility, which is not an ideal situation at all. You know, like even this week, I mean, they had so many coaches out with the sickness that didn't have enough coaches to run the minor leagues at the time So they had to wait till the afternoon to do moderately camp

You know so to me it's like certain things that like Everything with the angels is like you get the tiniest win and it feels like this like oh wow like they they've figured something out But you know their facilities are still a massive issue in my opinion They they've upgraded on you know in this very specific part of the Tempe complex and it's a huge upgrade. It's really, really nice and I think it will really translate in player development when the minor leaguers get in there and are able to use it. And especially with some of their younger big league players or guys in camp right now, you know, I think it helps to be there. And honestly, I would say you

shouldn't even be cutting players off the big league roster in spring if the means they're gonna it's the good your good prospects just so you can send them to this this place in Scottsdale. I don't think that's a viable or smart thing for anybody to be doing. So yeah I mean to your point I mean their their prospects are still dead dead last. They're you know they lost 99 games. I mean it's it's just bleak. I think the Angels are always kind of looking to try and sell the idea of competing and that's what they're doing this year. You know, okay, they got a couple players, a couple names, you get Kenley Jansen, you get Tim Anderson, you know, you get, you know, you get Usai Kikuchi, you get some guys who

people have heard of. And I think that that perks people's interest up until the point where he gets to like, you know, May 15th and you're, you know, eight games out of first. And it's just, that's just the way it goes here. So I mean, until their player development system really starts working, I mean, just can't, you can't sit here and be like, yeah, this is all going to fix it. It's just, I'm very skeptical of that. And I think I have good reason to be.

It's just they haven't, they, you know, they haven't, they haven't really developed a lot of good players. I mean, you look at Zach Neto, Nolan Chando, Logan Ohapi, these guys were developed in the Angels Minor League system. They played minor league games, but you know, they were there for like no more than a month each, right? A month or two. So it's, it's not like these guys are coming up for years in that system. And, and you see it, you see issues with a lot of players that have come through their player development system time and time again, there's countless examples of guys who have flamed out, not

ever really gotten to big league caliber. I mean, and even some guys in their big league camp right now, especially on the position player side, as you said. So I'm not, I'm not confident in it. And we'll see if that I'm wrong, but I'm, it's where I'm at. Wow. Well, the answer to this might be sad given that answer, but you mentioned Kikuchi, you mentioned Hendrix, you know, Jose Soriano's around, Tyler Anderson's still around, Reid Demers is still around, Cade and Dan is knocking

around the minor leagues. Talk to us about the rotation and the depth behind the guys who might be on the roster come opening day. Yeah, I think they have some decent starting pitching depth overall just because they've got players that they can go to that aren't like last year, I mean, they're like their first guy off was like Zach Plisak, and that just wasn't... It didn't work, right? But I think now they might have some players that they at least feel a little more confident in, be that like Jack Gohanowitz or Reid Demers,

or whoever doesn't make their opening day rosters, Chase Silceth, who, for a stretch in 2023, was as good a pitcher as there was in the big leagues for like 10 starts. But he's really... He had a terrible year last year with like injuries and just not being available. You know, so he's an option. Kawhano, it's Debers. I think those are the three that are maybe competing for that last job more strongly than anyone.

But I mean, you can't overlook like Sam Aldegary either or George Claussen too. I mean, I think those guys will have a chance. Cade and Dana, you know, he pitched well today, I believe in his first spring start, but you know, really struggled as a big leaguer in his brief stint last year. So I'd be surprised if he's on the big league roster to start the year. But I do think they have options and I think that these guys will all get in there at some point. And there is some depth. Like there are, there are names there that you can at least, you know, go to if, if there are injuries. I'd be very, one guy I'm really curious about is Kyle Hendricks.

I think that they're all really confident in him. Hendricks, I think, was kind of expecting like a minor league deal maybe this year. He said he was kind of waiting, expecting to wait the whole season, off season to get a deal and he signed like almost immediately with the Angels. So you know, what does that mean? I mean, I just, this guy has really struggled in recent, you know, at least last year. He hasn't, he wasn't like that all-star caliber player that we saw for so long with the Cubs. But they've guaranteed him a spot in the rotation and I will be fascinated to see how that plays

out and if he really earns that spot or if it's going to be a situation like he pitched like last year and it just doesn't work out as he hopes. Forgot about Scott Kingery, yet another 2019... Look at that, Scott Kingery. You're just going through it. You're looking at every player. You're finding all Scott Kingery. You're just like going through it. You're like looking at every player. You're finding all the good ones.

They're everywhere. Former Philly guys and yeah. One pitching depth guy that I'm kind of fascinated by is Jack Kahanowitz, who is this 24 year old righty and he throws hard. He throws like 96, 97 sitting and doesn't strike out anyone. And just unbelievably low strikeout rate. Yeah, 25 strikeouts in 65 and a third innings pitch. I mean, this is like Aaron Cook, you know, years ago,

like maybe could get away with that for a little while, but not really in this year, in this era. I don't think so. He doesn't walk anyone and he gets a lot of grounders, you know, he's a sinker guy, but how is it that he does not miss any bats? I don't really understand it. Yeah, like he managed to run, you know, 3.99 ERA last year, granted the peripherals weren't as good as that, but like this can't be sustainable, right?

Yeah, he had like two terrible starts in his first three outings. I think with the angels they sent him back down And he came back up and his last six starts were like really good like these numbers wise I mean you obviously alluded to like some peripherals, but yeah, I mean, that's I don't I truly don't even have an answer for it It's 65 innings and 25 strikeouts. It's like nobody does that, let alone a guy throwing 97 miles an hour. I mean, it's, it's, but he might be the guy, right? He might be the guy they go to because, because of how he ended last year and because, you know, he can go innings like that.

This, there's a value to that in not walking and not striking anyone out. Like as long as you're not giving up hard contact every time you can go like he's go six, seven innings, like relatively easily because of it. You know, I do think there might be a value to that, especially when you're comparing it maybe to a guy like Reid Detmers, who I think will probably be the opening day roster guy. But he still is, you know, someone that he's a laborious pitcher. Like he, you know, if he gets out of the fifth or sixth, it's like a win, you know, at least

the way he's pitched the last year. But I think it's a really fascinating competition. Detmers is like an actual big time prospect and Kohanoa is someone that kind of had to earn that. I'm equally as fascinated by what he's been able to do and just kind of like be a sinker guy that gets tons of ground balls. But if he's not doing that effectively and it's just line drives or fly balls, he could be putting himself in a really, really tough spot if he doesn't have the ability to get swing and miss. So, you know, he's talked about it. It's not a big deal for him that he doesn't strike guys out.

But I think deep down, you know, any reasonable person understands, like, you know, you can't be successful at this level in that job if you're not at least like, you know, you can't be striking out one batter every three innings. Like that just won't work. Yeah, if they could combine Kohanovic and Detmers somehow, they'd have one of the best pitchers in baseball. Just take Detmers strikeout rate and Kohanovic's groundball rate and walk rate and you've got an ace on your hands, but it doesn't quite work that way. I've been a big believer in Detmers too and my belief has not really been rewarded outside of that early

stretch in 2022. Now, he is a guy whose peripherals told a more positive story than his ERA. It'd be hard not to with a near-seven ERA, but if we regressed everything and gave him a league average bad-happened home run-per-fly ball rate, then his season actually would have seemed respectable, but that's not how it appeared to play. So, what does he have to do? Why has it not come together? Yeah, I don't know if it's mental with him. you know, you talk to him at the beginning of the season

He's like changed a pitch here or he's you know, done a mindset thing I don't really know I mean at some point you just got to go and show it and I think that like he's been given kind of a Lot of opportunities now. I know it was frustrating for him last year getting sent to triple a where you know He lost like a year of service time and you and his career is what they set back because of it. I think they're at the point now with Detmers where you're not giving up on him by any means, but you're also not going to sit here and kind of coddle him into a job. You want the job, go in it. You just got to pitch well. We have got other young pitchers, you got to go in. I think that's

kind of what they're thinking. That's kind of how they look at it. But they also put him next to Hendrix and Kikuchi in the clubhouse. I think that they're kind of how they look at it. So, but they also, they also like put them next to Hendrix and Kikuchi in the clubhouse. Like I think that they're kind of hoping, you know, they had him around like Griffin Canning and Patrick Sandoval, like his two best friends, you know, in past years and like maybe that, you know, the edge wasn't there as much and like now you got these guys who have really succeeded at the big league level in his year all the time. I think that's what they're hoping for. I always kind of look at, you know, spring training, like yada yada, like who's mentoring who. It's just kind of like it's an easy storyline, but you know, he's just got to go out and pitch well.

It's not really any more simple than that to me. It's like he has all the tools. Like you said, the peripherals are better. Like it's just he hasn't been able to like just figure out whether it's a slider is kind of all over the place or the mechanics aren't good. I don't know what it is, but at some point you just got to go and do it and he hasn't yet. Okay. I'm going to ask about another guy whose stats can found me as a way to transition as to just chatting through the bullpen really quick. And that's Ben Joyce because like, why doesn't Ben Joyce strike out more guys though? Because he should strike out more

guys than he seems to. He's not, he had a good season last season, but he averaged 102 on his fastball, but he didn't, why doesn't help me understand. I think that they just think his fastball is kind of flat and he doesn't really throw it as much if you really look at it. I mean, it's interesting to me, like he came up to the big leagues last year without a sinker and then he just kind of started throwing it for outings in after getting rocked his first three. And it was like, oh, this is a revelation. He didn't allow a run for like 20 innings after that. And I think adding the sinker is like that's not his primary pitch for the most part. Like he's he has that fastball. I think he'll unleash

that fastball when he needs to when he knows it can be effective. But it's not necessarily like a great strikeout pitch on its own. And I think that he's kind of similar to Kohanovitz where you know you get some of those ground balls and you're You know you feel better about Kind of his ability to navigate the game if he's using the the sinker as opposed to the you know kind of a strict Diet of fastballs despite how hard they're coming at you or you know how intimidating they might be They're hittable or they were hittable when there wasn't that secondary pitch Well that might foreclose the possibility of him as the closer, although I guess Kenley Jansen's presence on the roster might do that for him. How does the rest of this bullpen

sort of shake out and how are they thinking about bridging the innings to Jansen? I think it's, I think you got Joyce and Jansen kind of as the eight, nine guys. They've got a lot of lefties, which I think is interesting. A lot of lefties in the bullpen that can go to like Brock Burke, Jose Quijada. Garrett Mcies, which I think is interesting. A lot of lefties in the bullpen that you've got to go to like Brock Burke, Jose Quijada, Garrett McDaniels is someone that is interesting. He's a Rule 5 guy, but you know, also a lefty. I think they're giving a real hard look at Jack Dashwood on the 40-man lefty. It's almost exclusively like Jose Suarez will be in the bullpen, I'm sure, and more of a

long man if I had to guess, but also a lefty. So I think it's Joyce and Kenley and then it's everyone else. And you got Swaras kind of as a long man and then it wouldn't shock me if Kohanovic starts the season in the bullpen. I think that's what they did last year with Jose Soriano, who's someone we haven't talked about but someone who I think might be their best, might actually be their ace. And it wouldn't surprise me if they kind of do the same thing with Kohanovic they did with Soriano, which is start him in the bullpen, kind of let him be like a two-inning, three-inning guy. And then when there's a need in the rotation,

you have them go four innings and then you build up from there. So I think that might be the most effective way to kind of handle this. So yeah, I don't know exactly how the bridge will look. I think that that's kind of something they're all competing for right now. Like who's in those leverage roles? Who do you really rely on who's you know? Who's it who's a dude for them? But we know that it's gonna be Joyce and Kenley and those guys are gonna get the eighth and ninth I think Robert Stevenson also pretty Good in 2019 and honestly good two years

He was like what he was their most expensive free agent last year, and he hasn't pitched a game for them yet So he'll be back. I think like and I and I don't think he can come back before June. So some point in June, maybe July. I need his middle name to be Lewis and it's not, and it kills me every time. Carter Keeboom, big prospect in 2019. I could do this all day. Ben is just remembering so many guys. So many guys.

The guy who was the architect of this team, Perry Manassian, he got an extension and nothing personal but I wouldn't say that he was your prototypical extension candidate just given where the angels are competitively and the farm system issues. What was it that led Artie to decide that he wanted Perry to stick around? Is it that he's willing to work with Artie Moreno? I assume that's a big qualification for the job that not everyone has, but what else gave them the confidence to stick with Perry and give him a couple more years?

I mean, their reasoning was, well, we like the direction that they're going with the young players. They have a good young core of players that they feel like will be good. You know, again, I kind of sometimes think that like, and it's not, it's not the thing it's Perry really. I sometimes think that like Artie watches like, you know, again, I kind of sometimes think that like, and it's not, it's not anything against Perry really. I sometimes think that like Artie watches like, you know, his own TV network and his listens to his own radio and it's like these guys are getting pumped up and it's like, maybe, maybe that's all true. But is it? I don't know, right?

Like you're losing 99 games this year. So I don't, I just, I struggle. I struggled as I'm not going to, you can't give credit where it's not due. That's how, that's my big thing. Like I'm not, I'm not gonna, you can't give credit where it's not due. That's my big thing. Like I'm not gonna give Perry credit for like doing anything because he hasn't done anything yet. Maybe he will, maybe that will change. But until it does, like no, right?

Like you've not done, not been successful. He hasn't necessarily, not all his fault I would say, but he hasn't done that yet. So I think that, yeah, I think Artie's just kinda like, all right, like, you know, I keep hearing about how all these guys are doing great. And I, yeah, it's like you're hearing that because I think that's the sources of information that you're seeing are maybe your own sources of information.

It's like Joe Biden's pollsters or something. Yeah, it's, I can't, I can't, I'm like not allowed to talk politics, but I, you know, yeah. I said it, not you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was almost going to, yeah. Either way. Yeah, it's just like, I think, like you said, the point you're making though makes sense.

It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy, I think. So yeah, maybe they're all going in the right direction. I think the other part of it is you can't keep firing guys every year. I mean, you know, you change the manager, change the GM. To some extent, it's like, is it the right choice? Maybe, maybe not, but I also don't think it's the right choice to avoid continuity. If you have an opportunity to have continuity and you think that there is a pathway to it working, then I think that's a better option than just restarting every time.

It doesn't go well. That being said, I don't think Perry would survive another really bad year, but I also don't think it necessarily means the next guy's going to come in and do any better than him if he's working for the same owner. I just think these things are all just kind of relative and we'll see how it plays out for Perry, but, you know, I do think they need to improve at least enough to where people are like, okay, like I see the vision and it's actually tangibly paid off a little bit.

Somehow they still drew two and a half million plus people to Angel Stadium. But it's way down, right? It's way down. Well, it was down a little, like not nearly as much as you'd think given that you lose Otani. I just mean like they went 17 straight years of over three million and then like 2023 they went down and then 2022 they went down even more. Yeah, it's been more robust than you would think.

And we've talked about that mystery before and a lot of people just said, it's Disneyland. It's proximity to Disneyland. You go to Disney and then you're taking a ball game, even if the team's not very good or Shohei Otani's not there. So maybe that just gives them a high floor. It's a nice place to watch a game. I mean, it's not like a beautiful ball park,

it's like an easy to drive in and get out, and it's cheap tickets and it's nice food. Or not nice food, not nice food, yeah, right. But it's an okay place to go watch a ballgame. And, you know, especially if you don't want to go up to LA. And I think they have like, you know, the thing that I've written about this, like this whole idea that they're LA or Orange County or Anaheim. It's an insult to the fans. It's called them Los Angeles.

I think a lot of the way, that's the way a lot of fans feel. And it's, you have a great fan base in Orange County. It's a ton of people that live here. That's why they get good crowds. I mean, it's just like, this is a ton of, this is a huge, huge, huge base in Orange County. It's a ton of people that live here. That's why they get good crowds I mean, it's just like this is a ton of this is a huge huge huge market Orange County And you know you should really should really be leaning into it more, and I think yeah I mean they're fair I do also believe the fan Apathy is at an all-time high right now just based on what I see and I would not be surprised if that number goes way

Down this year, so we'll see I could be wrong, but you know it's that's the sense. I'm hearing from angels fans It's just like okay like whatever at this point like I'm not gonna go buy tickets. I'm not gonna like watch every game. I'm not gonna give my investment in a team that it's not investing back in me. Yeah, tough to blame him. Well, that leads us to our last question, which is what would constitute success for the Angels this season given that they have lowered expectations significantly, failing some discovery of a time-turner that does take them back to 2019, what would they have to do, what could they do to make this an organizational success either at the big league level, below that, or both? I mean I think a lot of people would tell you like what success looks like for the

Angels is a lot of their young guys improving to the point where they're like good big leaguers and you feel good heading into 2026. But I'm just, I'm not gonna give them that. Like to me, if you're not in the playoffs this year, you're not successful. Like you just, you can't, they've had enough time to try and figure this out. It's 11 years now.

11 years of not making the playoffs longer than any team in Major League Baseball. So yeah, that's success in my opinion. You gotta make the playoffs. I think that the conventional answer would be just showing improvement, feeling like you're headed in the right direction. Netto's an all-star, Ohapi's an all-star.

Maybe those are things that would constitute success. But just make the playoffs, man. It's been 11 years, so they've had enough time to kind of play the moral victory games. I think it's time to figure this out now. So if they don't do that, I don't see it as a success. Lastly, I always enjoy when you get a chance to write about something other than the angels as maybe you do too. You don't have to answer that. I like it, yeah. Yeah, but you just wrote a really interesting story about Derek Bender,

the player who became somewhat notorious last year when he was cut from the twins after accusations that he had given away the pitch calls of his own pitcher to the opposing team. And Meg, you were away for this episode, I think, 2217, but I had someone on who had covered him previously and talked about how well-liked he was and what a good guy he seemed to be and some of the mental health struggles and advocacy and everything in his past. And so it was this very confounding situation, I mean, just on the face of it with someone potentially giving away pitch calls, but also just inconsistent with some aspects of his character, but maybe consistent with others. Anyway, you finally tracked him down and he talked to you against the advice of his agency, which subsequently dropped him.

He is still being investigated by MLB. Just want to ask what your impressions were coming away from spending 90 minutes with him and having him kind of answer your questions, but also not really offer a very plausible or compelling alternative explanation for why everyone accused him of doing this. So what do you think about his mindset? What did you learn about him from that conversation? You know, he's such an interesting guy, in my opinion, because you're right. Like, I think that there were times I'm sitting there and I'm believing every word and there are times I'm sitting there and I'm like, why are you phrasing it like that? Like, did you do it? And it's just,

you know, I feel for him because I think no matter what, this isn't, I don't think of it as like a hugely moral, you know, situation. I think that he was 21 years old and he played a very long college season and then went and was playing in a very, you know, hot Florida State League and you're a catcher and it's the second game of a doubleheader and, you know, it's not like, it's not an indictment of like your entire world, in my opinion. So I like talking with him. I think he was, he doesn't come off to me as like a bad person in any way. But yeah, I mean, this is an accusation that if you play Major League Baseball or Minor

League Baseball or baseball in any way, like that's, that's not, you can't shed that. And I think it'd be very, very, very hard for him ever to play pro ball outside of maybe indie ball again, especially since I'm, you know, it sounds like just from talking with the sources in Major League Baseball and like, you know, or league sources rather, like, you know, they're pretty confident in what they have. So I don't know exactly what that means for him. But I do believe that he's not a horrible human being. It's just this is something that is going to stick with him for the rest of his life. And I think that, you know, not just in baseball, but

like jobs and people that get to meet him and like, you know, you Google his name like this is this is going to follow him forever. And it's it's what it is. And he made a horrible mistake. And I think that was the point of the story. I mean, like, you know, it's not just about investigating what happened. It's like like this is like what's the aftermath? What's the aftermath when you when you make him this mistake like this or when you do something like this or you even get accused of something like this? Like how does your life go on? And it sounds like for him not that easily. Yeah, I guess he would say he didn't make a mistake or at least didn't make that mistake. He made some other mistakes about what he said

about wanting the season to be over, et cetera. Although if it were just that, he's probably saying what a lot of people are thinking, and they just know better than to say it out loud. But I was sort of sympathetic on that score, but obviously if you're adversely affecting a teammate and their fortunes because you wanna get out of there, then that's not good.

It's interesting when you sit down with him, like just like, you know, I waited to see if he would proactively say, like I, because we talked on the phone, I had talked, you know, it took a long time to get this interview to actually happen, but you know, but when we sat down, I was like waiting for him to kind of like say it,

and he just didn't until I asked it about 25 minutes in, like, did you do this? And that was part of the strategy of the interview to some extent, to like see how, how do you, how does he handle the questions? How does he like, you know, does he come out and vociferously deny it immediately? Like, because that's how I feel like what I would do if the whole world thought I did something that I didn't do. So, you know, it's interesting. I'm not reading too much into it. We're not the same person, but you know, I just trying to gauge his reactions and responses is, you know, it's not easy. And I don't come out of this feeling like I know anything concretely about if he did

it or not. All right. Well, we have learned some things about the Angels, though they are something of a mystery and an enigma every year as well. And we always enjoy your coverage of them, regardless of how good a team they are. You can find that at The Athletic. Thank you as always, Sam. Thank you so much, Ben and Meg, appreciate it.

That'll do it for today. Thanks as always for listening. If all goes well, we should have Diamondbacks and Nationals next time. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some monthly or yearly amount

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