Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2292: Season Preview Series: Braves and Marlins

Episode Date: March 7, 2025

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about a fresh wave of “breakout candidate” crimes, Jerry Dipoto’s latest Meg-maddening comments, the rise of the “kick change,” how ball/strike calls differ from other boundary calls, Barry Bonds’s comments about Shohei Ohtani, and more. Then they preview the 2025 Atlanta Braves (50:56) with 92.9 The Game’s Grant McAuley, […]

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

Effectively Wild! Hello and welcome to episode 2192 of Effectively Wild, a FanGraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Riley of FanGraphs and I am joined by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? I'm doing okay. We've got two more previews for people today. It's an all NL East episode.

We will be talking about the Atlanta Braves and we will be talking about the Miami Marlins. So stay tuned, look forward to that. But before we get to that, I have a quick breakout update for you. It actually pertains to the two teams that we're previewing today and breakouts will come up in both of our preview conversations. But we have yet another abuse of breakout. And I think it's an instructive one because again, it is a social team distorting an actual article that is unobjectionable and twisting, twisting words into something that's that gets my hackles up. So a few people have flagged this for us. It was an ESPN notification, I guess, ESPN app.

And evidently a bunch of people have been alerted about possible breakout candidates. So for instance, someone tweeted us to alert us to this notification, Braves breakout candidate, question mark. What has scouts buzzing about Atlanta starting pitcher Spencer Schwellenbach as spring training heats up? And then it attributes that to Passen ESPN+.

So Spencer Schwellenbach, clearly not a breakout candidate. He broke out last year. If this had been a year ago, that would have been a great notification to get probably, but he had a heck of a season. Perhaps he could build on it, but wouldn't call him a breakout. We also got an email from listener Morgan, who wrote in.

Morgan. Yeah, Morgan, different one. Munoz, a breakout candidate. And then- Like the Mariners Munoz? Mariners Munoz. No. Andres Munoz has the same text. It has the Mariners Munoz? Mariners Munoz. No. Andres Munoz has the same text.

It has the Mariners logo. What has scouts buzzing about Mariners reliever Andres Munoz as spring training heats up? Pass in ESPN+. Someone in our Discord group was also discussing one. Alcantara breakout candidate. Sandy? What has scouts buzzing about Marlin's pitcher

Sandy Alcantara as spring training heats up? Passon, ESPN+. So we have a former Cy Young winner here. He has been a break candidate. He has broken, but breakout, that has happened already. And he's looked good, as we will talk about on our preview segment. So the culprit here is not in fact Jeff Passon,

because when I saw this the first time, I thought, Passon, Passon, you're calling Sandy Alcantara a breakout candidate. What are we doing here, Jeff? Well, it's not Jeff. This is not Jeff's fault. He is innocent in all of this. In fact, the article he wrote,

so it's headlined MLB Spring Training 2025, 10 players scouts are buzzing about. Buzzing. And yeah, and nowhere in the headline, nowhere in the article text does the word breakout or breaking out or anything like that appear. Jeff Passon is not arguing that these guys are breakout candidates.

He's just saying scouts are buzzing about him. They've looked good for some reason. In a sense. Yeah, whoever's handling the push notifications for the ESPN app, they are changing that, just guys who've looked good into, everybody is a breakout candidate and just same template for each team,

change the name, change the logo, boom, breakout candidate. And this seems to be happening often where sometimes it's the article itself that is the offender and someone is actually writing that someone's a breakout candidate whom I would not consider to be a breakout candidate, but sometimes it is purely the packaging and the messaging. And it could be because of obliviousness.

I would hope that whoever's doing social stuff for ESPN knows something about sports, but maybe they're not big baseball experts. Remember Rob Manfred complaining about ESPN not featuring baseball? Maybe the push person didn't read the article closely. Or maybe they think that looking like you're gonna have a good season is the same as looking like a breakout candidate. But maybe I'm being too nice by saying, oh, they just didn't know any better.

Ascribing this to an innocent mistake of mis miscommunication instead of malice, a forethought. And really it could be because breakout must just have a good click through rate. Just must be good SEO. People must see breakout. And I used to click on breakout things too. I was excited by the concept of breakouts. And because we've had this breakout creep where anyone and everyone is a breakout candidate, that's why I would no longer click on that. That's why I'm so jaded and cynical about this entire exercise because I've been told it's a boy who cried breakout over and over again. And so now I don't click because it's just going to be the top prospect in baseball and

someone who was a rookie of the year and also are something. So I think that it's been distorted in order to maybe rile up podcasters, in which case I have fallen for it. This is bait. I've taken it, but whether it's me, swelling hook line and sicker, just bait or people who are genuinely interested in exciting about, Hey, let's read about a breakout candidate. I think that's what's happening here. They've manipulated the algorithm. They have found the cheat code.

It's like one weird trick. This is how we can get people to click on baseball coverage. But I would suggest diminishing returns. This is not going to work indefinitely because people will learn. You can't keep fooling them by calling non breakout candidates breakout candidates. Eventually people will just stop clicking on the bait. Yeah, I mean, you'd think that, but here's the thing, Ben. Here we are, months later, months later.

Ben, it's been months, you know? And so like that feels like maybe not, maybe we can't, you know? No, maybe, but we just gotta keep pushing back. We gotta have a pushback. We have to look, there's a lot of more harmful disinformation and misinformation out there than labeling breakout candidates. But still we gotta, we gotta call it out when we see it and hope that we can curtail this activity

somehow. At least in a couple of cases, we did have people seem to talk to the perpetrators and find out what was happening and discourage it from happening again. So, you know, be the change you want to see. LS. Precisely. And I do think that, you know, like, look, there could be people who just have like a legitimate, distinct understanding of what a breakout is. I think those people are wrong, but I think that one could construct a breakout definition that is different than ours, the correct one, and not be in search of clicks, right? Or at least not purely in search of clicks, that

you have real conviction behind the notion. But I don't think that that's true for many of those who are working the social media push notification game these days. And I don't think that that's true for many of those who are working the social media push notification game these days. And I don't want to insult them. That is a profession, you know, that's a skill. It's one I don't have. I can barely headline our our pieces at fan grass.com. Right. I'm not casting stones, just dispersions really.

So I would say everyone should. Andres Munoz, he pitched a playoff like years ago. Okay, like years ago. He's been closer, you know, he's been in the game long enough that people watching Andres Munoz on national broadcasts who do not watch Mariners games are no longer confused when they see a 91 mile an hour pitch and think, Oh, that's his fastball. They know that's his slider now, Ben. They used to get confused by that, which was silly because it's like you look at it and you're like, I'm most like outsider.

So like, why would you anyway? I just think it's ridiculous. And we are all owed an apology and I'm yelling at them because I am given to understand that if I yell about Jerry DePoto anymore, people will be bored. You didn't tell me that, but my internal monologue did. I want to yell about it. I'm all worked up about him today. You mentioned the Mariners. This is my end, but I'm going to pass. I'm going to pass. Jared Ranere Yes, so you're referring to a piece that Sam

Blum, whom we spoke to recently, did on Jerry DePoto and his tendency to put his foot in his mouth and the fact that he is seemingly not pleased about that. And then he's like, why are we so angry about it? Surely I can talk around my foot. No, Jerry, you can't. You seemingly cannot do that. You are incapable of talking around your foot. So, ugh.

It was an interesting article because it's all about how he knows that he keeps saying the wrong thing and that people keep reacting negatively to it, but yet he persists. And then- Wait, he's the principal skinner, man. He's like, are the children wrong? No, it's me. No, wait, the other way. He thinks the children are wrong.

He's doing fine. I'm all worked up, no. Yes, at the end of the article, he says that he anticipates that he's going to get roasted for his comments in the article. And I guess he already has been roasted by you on Blue Sky, so you might as well. But I got all worked up. Here's the thing. Here's just like, there's a lot about Jerry that we've

talked about in the past. And, you know, you could, you could raise a number of points to either direct quotes are like, obviously they're, you know, it's Sam's prose, but he's clearly responding to the way that Depoto presents himself the way that other people have sort of reacted to him. There's like this sense of, I know this is like a loaded word right now, but grievance in this piece. Like, why don't people just understand what I mean and take me at my word? And like, there are a couple of issues with Depoto where it's like, first of all, despite

the fact that being a clear communicator is literally part of the job of being a POBO, he's not good at it, right? Even though he talks a lot, like there's volume, but it's not always articulating exactly what he wants it to. There's also the part where it's like a lot of GMs or POBOs have the responsibility of sort of running interference for their ownership group. And I think that none among them are as burdened as Dipoto, or at least none among the teams that are sort of contending are as burdened as Dipoto is in that regard. But you got to persuade people. And so if you're going to, if you're not going to throw ownership

under the bus, if you're not going to say, well, the reason we're in this fix is because they will only let us spend, you know, $11 million or whatever it was this off season. If you're not going to do that, you have to be able to clearly persuade your fan base or at least articulate a positive vision of your team. And Jerry does this thing where he thinks that sort of like trafficking and analytics speak is going to make him, this is my read on it, right? He didn't say this, so I should clarify.

This is my read on Jerry, that he thinks that by trafficking and sort of analytics speak, that he is going to sound smart as a primary benefit. And even if people don't understand what he means, like they will be so confounded by it, that they will just like assume he knows what he's talking about or

get bored and move on or something. And it's like, Jerry, people understand you. That's the problem, right? Like we know what you're saying. We get what you mean when you're talking about the, you know, 54% or whatever constructing sustainable rosters. We understand all of that. But here's the thing of it. Like,

you're talking about how in this piece, he talks about how, you know, the projection systems have a minute in the ALS. And he's right about that. That's not a falsetto or a fabrication, as we talked about on the various preview pods of the ALS. The Astros, Rangers, and Mariners are by our playoff pods, and I think it's pretty similar with baseball prospectus, you know, separated by fractions of a win, right? They're all right in there. Any one of them could win the division. But the Mariners have one of the best rotations in baseball. And we talked about the park effects and all that, but that is a very legitimately talented pitching staff. The starters, breakout candidate, Andres Munoz, the whole nine, right?

They're fantastic front to back. You have a 24 year old Julio Rodriguez, and you have a weaker than usual Houston Astros, and a front office executive and an ownership group with an ounce of ambition would look at all of that, look at what they have and say, I'm gonna do a swear, I've done this swear before. They and say, I'm going to do a swear. I've done this swear before.

They would say, let's go. And they would have a sense of urgency. And I think the thing that people react to the most with Jerry is that it doesn't seem to have any urgency. All of his analytics speak, which he seems to think is super sophisticated. And actual analytics people are like, okay, no, Jerry, we get what you mean. We're not new to this. But all of that stuff is going to make it sound like they have a plan and it's well

reasoned. And the thing of it is my grandfather died never seeing the Seattle Mariners, which had existed for more than half his life. Never saw them in the World Series. This is a team that has a historic postseason futility, that had a postseason drought that was the joke of other sports. Your bar for what you do just needs to be higher, and you need to, however you communicate it, communicate that you have a sense of urgency, that you understand the stakes which are for your team, different than they are for many others, because you

have been so bad for so long and you have, by the standards of a ring, accomplished very little in your franchise's history. So stop grossing about how people don't understand you on Twitter and stop being defensive and just go win some October baseball games. I am done now. Frustrated. Good rant. I just cleared the floor and let you take over. Julio's such a young 24 too, right Ben? Like he's just, he's so young and we talked about the ways in which like it hasn't all come together for a whole, But it will. I have confidence in that. And this group on the pitching side is so good. And there are so many people who work so hard and want that team to win. And then they are not met with the same energy from their ownership

group and Jerry runs cover for them. And that sucks, Ben. You know, It just does. And I have ended up feeling really bad about the way I talk about Donovan Solano. It's not Donovan's fault. I'm not trying to pick on Donovan. I think he's a fine complementary player. I think it's a nice addition. This team doesn't always have depth, and they've needed it at times, and they haven't had it. And a guy like him is fine, but that can't be your big move. Bringing back Wherry-Pelanco can't be your big move. You gotta do have ambition! Have ambition! Because this is a good year for it. You're not going to always have

your constellation of good stuff and the Astros and Rangers constellation of either down or questionable stuff line up at the same time. And when they do, you have to take advantage of it every single time, Jerry. And you might not succeed, right? You might not succeed because baseball's really hard, random stuff happens, guys get hurt, guys on the Astros or the Rangers could have career years all at once. You know, I get that. But I think people would look at this group and have a very different sense of them if they felt that there was real ambition. Because

if there's real ambition and then you fail, you've tried. You've done the thing that we can ask of you to guarantee, which is to try. And they haven't, they have not been able to do that. He hasn't been able to persuade ownership to spend money. He hasn't been able to articulate a clear vision. He hasn't been able to red paperclip his way into like a good, solid, productive lineup. And all of it seems to be predicated on the notion that I'm going to forget that Robinson Cano and Nelson Cruz played good baseball for the Mariners at the same time. And they ran a payroll that was just outside the top 10 and that was not that long ago. Don't make me long for Jack Sorensik.

That's a dirty trick. I am furious. Okay, second rant over. Thank you. No lies detected, but plenty of passion detected. Yeah, look, it's a tough spot to inherit a franchise that has a record of futility or at least of failing to make a world series, which is pretty important. But you know, coming in, that's what you signed up for, that fans are going to have those expectations. So even though it's not your fault that those decades happens and it's been a while at this point. The last decade is your fault, largely, or part of your fault. So yeah. And like, okay, one last thing. I just want to be clear because I want to be fair.

I'm not, I'm not blaming Jerry DiPoto for my grandfather dying. I want to be clear about that. That would be absurd. And it's not like grandpa was like such a diehard, but it's just like, you know, this man lived a life and raised a family and saw his grandchildren like grow into their thirties. And then like, what, you know, when it came to October baseball, very little as it's, as it's accounted for. And that's not all that matters, you know, and I want us to care about stuff other than the postseason. But at a certain point, you just gotta get it off your back, man. You gotta get it off your chest and your back. Like, get off of

me. I cast you out, ghost. Feel haunted. Yeah. Well, for anyone who is wondering, how does Ben feel about breakouts and Meg feel about the Mariners and Jerry DePoto. We have finally answered your questions. Serious. People have been wondering how we stood on those subjects. Yeah. Until now, we finally clarified. Just a couple other quick things,

speaking about the Mariners and of Andres Munoz, for that matter. He's one of the players who has added a kick change. Suddenly can't go anywhere without hearing about kick change ups. It's just everywhere. It's just the new pitch. It's the it pitch. Every time, remember when the death ball was the thing that we were hearing about

and we critiqued whether the death ball was a good name or not. We spent like a whole episode on that. Yeah. And look, these things go in phases. And a few years ago it was, oh, suddenly everyone's sweeping. It's a sweeper. Now the sweepers just old hat. We're all used to the sweeper.

We understand the sweeper. So now everyone has a kick change. That's just the new pitch that's in vogue. Whatever team you follow, you could probably Google that and kick change. And you could come up with someone who's working on one this spring. And maybe it's Munoz and maybe it's Clay Holmes and maybe it's Jack Leiter. Everyone's adding a kick change, experimenting with a kick change.

They're all kick curious and these things, it's like, they become the new just buzzwords basically and the kick change, most, you know, quote unquote new pitches are not really new. Like people have been throwing them, they just went by a different name or they didn't have a name at all, or they're just being quantified or analyzed and labeled now. And the kick change, it's something associated with Brian Banister and also with Tread Athletics, one of the advanced pitching development organizations.

And so it just sort of spreads like wildfire and one pitcher has success with it and then they tell a teammate or someone trains at Tread and then it just gets passed around. It's just like a game of telephone, you know, kick change up, oh, I gotta try this thing. And you see someone throwing one and no, I wanna try this thing.

And I guess it's not that hard to experiment with to mess around a little bit. And ultimately, I don't know, whenever we hear about these things, it's like the implication is, oh, everything's going to be different now there's a kick change and really pitch types and their usage just rise and fall. And if something's new or it's not much used, then it could be effective at first cause hitters just haven't seen it that much. And then everyone gets on board and then suddenly it's not so effective anymore because everyone's getting used to it and they just acclimate to that movement.

But it is kind of a fun process. Like I'm sure you could do just a year by year. You can make some interesting chart where it's like, what was the cool pitch that year and what pitch was out of everyone's good graces and you know, it would change pretty quickly. And it's just up, this pitch is up, this pitch is down and the kick change. I don't know how to describe it exactly. I guess. I'm like doing it and like you can't see it and neither can our listeners.

Can I read something? Sure. Can I read something? So last September, David Laurella talked to Davis Martin and Matt Bowman about the kick change. Yeah. It kind of caught on last year, last summer. That's when I started really hearing about it.

Yeah. Yeah, it kind of caught on last year, last summer. That's when I started really hearing about it. Yeah, and like Brian, to your point, Brian Bannister had talked about it at Saber seminar last year. So I think it kind of started to circulate among the attendees of Saber seminar. So, Lorela asks Davis Martin, what is a kick change? And Davis Martin says, it's basically for supinators. I've never been a pronator. So he's talking here about whether you're, it's leaning inward or outward, is the difference between pronation and supination. I've never been a pronator. It's for guys who have really good spin talent and have always had the ability to get to that supination plane. But pronating is very unnatural for us from a physiological standpoint. I've never been able to pronate, and post-TJ, it got even worse. I'm more of a supernator now than I was before surgery,

so the kick change, basically you kick the axis of the ball into that three o'clock axis. You kind of get that saucer-type spin to get the depth that a guy who could pronate a change-up would get. You're not using a seam shift method. You're not truly pronating. It's kind of this cheat to get to that three o'clock axis. And then Laurel asks, you're not using a seam shift method. You're not truly pronating. It's kind of this cheat to get to that three o'clock axis. And then Laurel asks, you're spiking a seam with

your middle finger, correct? And Martin says, yes, but the spike isn't this huge thing. Basically I grab the two seams and trace the seam up to where I feel comfortable. A lot of the times it's just a nice little arc so I can feel the fingertip on the seam. Then I throw the crap out of it. I joke with pitching coach, Ethan Kratz. I don't want to look at it. I don't want to see it on Edutronic. It does what I want it to. I throw it hard and don't want to think about it any more than that.

Yeah. That seems like one of its virtues, simplicity, that it's fairly easy to try out. And it's really, I guess it's good for righties in many cases. Maybe you throw a slider and a cutter and you can keep throwing the way that you throw, but if you've struggled to refine a change up, then maybe this can help and you can pick it up fairly easily, I guess. And the kick, I mean, it's kind of like a circle change grip, I guess, with that twist that you spike your middle finger up to press it on the seam and then that finger kind of kicks the ball forward on release. So that's where the terminology comes from. And then that

tilts the axis of the ball forward, I think, and it gets more resistance in flight that way. And so it kind of comes out with a slider like rotation, but then it tails to the pitchers arm side and sinks and it has a lower spin rate and spin axis. I'm just throwing around a lot of terms here, but that's basically it. And so, you know, I don't know that it's something that we've never seen before,

but it's just something that is currently the hot pitch. So if you're seeing this, you're like, what the heck is a kick change? Yeah. Like, so Laura went on to ask which finger is generating the spin. And Martin said the middle finger as I'm releasing the ball, that middle finger extends out, pushing the ball into this axis. If I had a normal grip, it would be like a 12 45 rather than a three o'clock. The middle finger is the last thing to touch it, which spins it into that axis.

The middle is kind of the prime motor with the pitch. So we'll link to this, we'll link to Tread has a video. You'll be shocked to learn saying how to throw a kick change. So you know, people might have an easier time with it if they're able to actually see it rather than I'm like doing pronation and supination. You're like, can't see it. So that's not helpful at all, is it? But yeah, the new old hotness, not to be mistaken with a kick ball change, which is about dancing.

Yeah. Trent seems to be good at branding these things so that suddenly you're hearing about it everywhere. I'm not suggesting that there's not utility to it, but yeah. We took exception to death ball. We did not think that death ball was the best. We had other notions on that one. And I guess the movement is kind of like a split change. So you got your, your straight change and you got your circle change and you got

your split change and now you got your kick change. So the more, you know, when you see this term bandied about, you will understand what it refers to. And I don't know how big a deal it is. I'm sure for some individual pitchers, it will make a difference. But is this some sort of a league wide revolution? Probably not. We're probably too quick to call things revolutions. We get a little overexcited about some of this stuff. But you mentioned the new hotness. I noted the other day and tweeted, I think that in men in black two, which is from 2002, which is where that new hotness exchange comes from the meme of, you know, old and busted versus new hotness where Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones agents, J and K they're talking

about driving their new fancy car, the new hotness. And Will Smith is saying that Agent K, he drives the old busted John, and Agent J, he drives the new hotness. And also, it is supposed to sort of refer to themselves, and Will Smith is the new hotness, and Tommy Lee Jones is old and busted in this scenario. I noticed that Will Smith is now one year older

than Tommy Lee Jones was when they made that movie. This is my contribution to that genre of like when there's a reboot or something, it's like it's been less time since the reboot than it had been since the original when the reboot came out. Or it's like if you updated this period piece, you know, that 70s show was the 70s were longer away from the 90s

when that sitcom aired, and now the equivalent of that would be X, and it just makes people feel old and reminds them of their mortality. So that was my contribution to that genre. Yeah, I often think when we're doing these previews, there's often like some notable news about the team that we just previewed right after we've previewed them.

It's almost like we could do a catch up when we're all done with the previews to be like, well, here's what happened after we previewed those teams. Cause I was just thinking about the guardians preview that we did yesterday. And then suddenly it's been announced that the guardians have signed Tyler Naquan to a minor league deal, not as an outfielder

as he was formerly, but as a pitcher, he's converting to pitcher now, which is always compelling to me. And he always had good arm strength, but there's always something like that. It's like we talked about the twins and, oh, will they be bought by Justin Ishbia? Nope. Turns out no, he has actually increased his ownership stake in the white socks, which is a ouch, I guess, add insult to injury. I don't know if the twins were just a stocking horse situation all along or what, but things

like this will happen. We did the Nationals preview recently and they announced that their Massen dispute has finally been resolved. Finally, finally, this time it counts. They have developed an arrangement for this year. And then as of next year, the Nats can split off on their own and they can pair with some other broadcast partner potentially. So, or Jose Iglesias, he was signed by the Padres.

You know, we were talking about who will sign Jose Iglesias, these old guys who were pretty productive last year and you're just not getting gigs. Now the Padres signed him to a minor league offer. It's, you know, it's tough for a guy who is as good as he was last year. Anyway, just also to follow up on the conversation we had about the challenge system last time, we had someone write in about the Hawkeye precedent in tennis, which is something that we did bring up on Hang Up and Listen, but not unaffectively wild.

And Kevin wrote in to talk about how, you know, it applies to all of the line calls now and people like it and it's seamless and it's fine. And that seems like it could be a reason why there's more evidence that we will be heading for full ABS eventually. I just want to draw the distinction, I think, between the strike zone and other boundary calls,

because, yeah, it is just a boundary call. Is it in the strike zone? Is it not? Is it a ball? Is it a strike? But it's a little different in my mind from a lot of similar things in other sports, or maybe they're not actually that similar, or in baseball, even boundary calls like, was it a home run or was it not? actually that similar or in baseball even boundary calls like was it a home run or was it not? Was it fair or was it foul? And I think they're for a few reasons

it's different. One is that the strike zone is just it's very sensitive to change and there was that old Bill James line I think it was the 1988 abstract where he said something like an inch in the strike zone matters more than 10 yards in the outfield. I don't know how you would quantify that or verify that exactly. But his point was basically like the real estate in the strike zone. It really affects the game much more so than any significant area in any other portion of the field. You shrink the strike zone, the expand this strike zone. It has huge effects and possibly unintended effects. So that's one of the reasons,

but also there are just strategic implications and considerations there that there aren't with other boundary calls where it's just like, okay, was it in or was it out? Was it fair? Was it foul? You're not really playing differently in any way because of that. It's just you're doing what you're doing and you'll either get the call correct or not. And there's not really a player component in it either. It's just did the umpire screw up or did the umpire get the call correct? In the strike zone, all of those things are at play. Yes, it's did the umpire get the call correct, but it's also

what was the player's technique and not just one player, the catcher and how he received the pitch and presented it, but did the pitcher read the scouting report about this umpire's tendency and try to exploit that? And did the hitter do something? Did the hitter know that he couldn't take that pitch in that spot on that day? And so it affects player behavior and there's a player skill component to all of it. And because even though it's a boundary, it's always been very amorphous. And yeah, there's a strike zone and it looks like a rectangle,

but the actual strike zone has never looked like that. So the actual strike zone has always been a bit of a negotiation and it's always been fuzzy. And it's always been affected by player performance in a way that many other kinds of calls and height. Yeah, we've talked about that one way that baseball sets itself apart is by having this very important boundary that responds to the player's size. Right. And you know, that was when we were talking about baseball exceptionalism and how is baseball unique or at least highly unusual. That's one way in basketball. we were talking about baseball exceptionalism and how is baseball unique or at least highly unusual. That's one way in basketball.

They don't raise or lower the heights depending on how tall the guy shooting is right at the basket is, is that the same place regardless? Whereas the strike zone, that thing, it moves, it shifts. There's also the expanding and contracting depending on the count and the implications that that has for the competitiveness of plate appearances. And if the player who is behind in the count is getting a little boost, a little helping hand, whether subconsciously or not, because the zone just shrank or it expanded, well then maybe that keeps them in the plate appearance, it extends the plate appearance.

There are all these things. I'm not suggesting that any of this should necessarily persuade someone that we shouldn't have Robo-Ump's or if that's your position, I understand it and I think it's logical and rational and you may well get your way, but I'm just saying that it's a little bit different from just get the calls right. Yes, I am generally in favor of getting the calls right. I'm in favor of replay review, but the strike zone is just a little bit different because there's more at work there than just did the umpire see something accurately or not. There are a lot of other implications, some of which I like and some of which I think enhance the entertainment value of baseball and the analytical possibilities. So that's why I think it's different from Hawkeye in tennis, where I can't really construct an argument other than, well, you don't want the line judges to lose their jobs, but in baseball, we're

not even saying we're getting rid of the umps. They're just doing a little less or doing things differently. I can't really construct an argument for why, yeah, tennis is better if some of those calls are incorrect and it's just, there's more strategy or it's not like, I don't think tennis players were somehow influencing the inner out call by like, you know, I don't know, maybe like the English they put on the ball or something was more likely to get certain balls perceived as going long or not. But I just, I don't think it would have that big an impact. So it wasn't really something where I thought, Oh, this deepens my appreciation of the game. The fact that this call was out as opposed to in,

but it's a little different with balls and strikes. That's all I'm saying. Yeah, I tend to agree. I think that, you know, some of this is definitely, this is how we've done it. And if we had had a fully automated zone since the inception of baseball, first of all, the early baseball players

would have been like, witchcraft, burn them all. And then, and then after they got over that, that would just be the way that we had always done baseball, but we haven't. And so we have developed the sport the way that it is. And we've talked about, you know, all the things you just talked about, the tendency to sort of keep one side in it in a close battle and move things along. And I like when a pitcher executes a really good pitch and, you know, maybe it isn't right actually on the line, but it is a good pitch and it, like, I want that to be rewarded. I want hitter strikes on judgment to be rewarded. And I want us to have the ability to intervene when like we are going to inspire

a generation of insanity as a result of a playoff game ending on a blown call. So I think that these things are important and they can kind of sit with each other in a way that is really cool and distinctive about baseball and to your point is quite different than the way that that stuff unfolds in other sports. And like, I am okay with that. And I get why some people aren't. But I think that we can persuade them because they'll see the challenge system and be like, that's cool, we should do that. And then all will be well. Okay. And lastly, I will note that Barry Bonds has been talking about Shohei Otani lately. He's been on a couple episodes of podcasts and they've asked him about Otani. I don't

know why really, I guess, because he was- I was going to ask about this because it's like, did Bonds bring up Otani the first time and then, you know, it's a good clip and so he keeps getting asked about it. Or did a bunch of independent podcasters decide, you know what we like to do? Stir the s***. Yeah. Maybe it's that or maybe it's just you ask the greatest of his era or arguably any era about the greatest of the current era or arguably any era.

But Bonds in this most recent interview, he was on the All the Smoke podcast and he praised Otani. He definitely wasn't like an Otani detractor or anything or saying that he wasn't good or questioning his talent or any of that. But he did do a little bit of Back in My Day, which you expect from former players. There's no more time-honored tradition than players talking about how back in their day people were tougher or they cared more or they loved the game more or they were better. I don't know that he is claiming that they were better. That's the one that always makes me most skeptical or roll my eyes like, come on, we know that players are generally

getting better over time. Bonds has taken these opportunities to advise Otani to stop pitching, to which I will say, Barry, shh, stop, let him pitch. I want him to pitch. But also, this is something he said in this most recent appearance, the game has just changed. Well, that part is inarguable. The game is way different than it was when I played, all right, with you so far. The same way Michael Jordan talks about it or anybody does.

So he is kind of acknowledging there that a lot of people say this, that this is a frequent refrain. Otani is not gonna hit two home runs without seeing one go by his ear in my generation. I don't care what he does, he's not gonna steal two bases without someone decapitating his kneecap to slow him down.

Can one decapitate a kneecap? That seems like a bit of a mismatch. Yeah, it seems like that. You can dislocate it in a way that I'm given to understand can be pretty permanent. Right. I guess, I mean, maybe you can decapitate a kneecap because you have, do you have a head of a kneecap? No, we can be, it's fine. I think of it as being something that happens to your head or hopefully doesn't, but... Okay. He's not gonna steal two bases without someone decapitating his kneecap to slow him down. I think of it as being something that happens to your head or hopefully doesn't, but okay.

He's not going to steal two bases without someone decapitating his kneecap to slow him down. It's a different game back then. So I don't know what the point of bringing this up is. I mean, he said the pitching and hitting has been outstanding for what he's done. Base running, he's a complete player. There's no doubt about the type of player he is and what he's accomplished in his career, but there's a little bit of a but there, which is basically like back in my day, I don't know, like he wouldn't have gotten away with this or like,

Like in the middle of this conversation is an assertion on the part of Barry Bonds that back in his day, pitchers were maniacs who would like throw at the head. And look, there were guys who threw at Barry Bonds, you know, like there were plenty of guys who, he's experienced some things, but also like at the heart of this conversation is an assertion not that players were better, but that they were bigger ass hoes.

Like, you know, like I just, I. I do, I mean, I, I do. I mean, I think we hear this in all walks of life, in all aspects of society, things used to be tougher, people used to be tougher. And you hear this every single generation, which suggests that it's not actually true. Or I guess that we are just generally getting nicer

over time, which despite all recent evidence, I think probably has been the case over the long haul over millennia, I think is technically true. And when one generation, often it's a pride thing or it's lamenting that the next generation has it easier. Now you'd think that to some extent you'd be happier that the next generation had it easier because wouldn't you want people to be spared the hardship? But then again some sometimes we already did a patreon pot about this

We can't do it again. I can't really get it again Sometimes hardship is helpful because it teaches you important lessons And you have to go through some struggles in order to excel in order to be well adjusted as a person perhaps So you don't want to make things too easy. But when you have the, back in my day, we walked to school uphill both ways, that kind of thing. Well, it's nice to not have to do that if you don't have to.

And so I think it's partly just the way that people always lament that things have gotten worse and people have gotten more immoral and they're less honorable or whatever over time and generation after generation says this and I think it's because we all form an impression of the world when we're kids and things seem good to us in some ways and people seem nice and then we find out that's not necessarily the case. It's not that people got worse necessarily.

I don't think that over the course of a generation, for the most part, the species entirely changes or devolves, but I think there's just a tendency to say, oh, back in the days, back in the glory days of my youth when I didn't have a care in the world, and you extrapolate from that to, there were no cares in the world when of course there were. But the thing that Banz is saying here, I'm not exactly sure what he's talking about other than

to say that maybe like it would have been harder for Otani to do what he's doing because if he was good, if he was going 50-50, people would have been kneecapping him and or beating him. Right. Right. Just in reprisal for his being good. Now, Bonds also talked in the interview about how, the antics of modern players that players of his era weren't allowed just the celebration and how they would have been dropped in the dirt

if they'd done those things. And obviously there's some truth to that. And those standards have changed, I think for the better. But I do find that this impulse to say, oh, we were tougher and we were meaner. It's often very exaggerated, I think, to say, oh, this generation is soft and they have it easy because you look back at that and the old saw about how pitchers they would get hit if they hit people. And there was all sorts of like head hunting and mutually assured destruction going on. And the studies like Sam has written about this,

Rob Maynes has written about this, and there just doesn't really seem to be any evidence that that would be true or that pitchers would be less likely to hit batters if they had to bat themselves. Like there's just not much to that or Bob Gibson and his reputation for being so mean on the mound and he'd buzz you and he'd drop you and he didn't hit many batters at all. And so I think a lot of this tends to be exaggerated after the fact, but I don't get it because like people hit 50 home runs in Barry Bonds' day. Lots of people did.

Barry Bonds did, but also a lot of others did. People used to steal more bases than they did until the rules changed just recently. So like, what is he saying? Was it actually harder to do? Cause plenty of people did it back in the day. People hate homers, people stole bases. So I'd like to think that if Otani were transported back to that time, would he just be like so bruised? He'd be out of commission? Cause people

would just be constantly drilling him. It's not like Otani is even someone who's doing demonstrative celebrations or like, he's not really a bat flipper. No, he's not like rubbing people the wrong way. Like just, which isn't to say that like if he were a bat flipper, it would be fine for him to get beaten. But like he's, he's not really much of a, a demonstrative celebrator. I mean, he does on occasion. He's not like it's unprecedented, but yeah, not in any way where anyone feels showed up by him. It's, he's not cam and arrowing it or anything like that. You know, yeah. So you know how that's a verb now it is. Yeah.

So I just don't know what the lesson here is other than the usual player refrain, which you can go back to the 19th century and players talking about how their successors are not as tough as they were. And I'm sure there's like a little bit of truth to some of these things. Like they used to have spikes that would just rip your entire leg open and you'd like get gangrene or something. I mean, not usually, but they didn't have antibiotics back then. And you'd be like out of commission.

I mean, they had these sliding spikes that would just rip you up. They would just tear you apart. And so, yeah, now we don't have that and that's a good thing. And so I guess in that sense, players are a little less tough now because they don't constantly get gashed and miss months at a time and maybe be affected for the rest of their lives. And that's a good thing. That's progress. But yeah, this particular performance argument that I'm hearing here about how it would have been harder for Otani because he just would have been like constantly hitting the deck or something. I'm not saying like, you know, guys got buzzed from time to time and you know, you'd, you'd drop someone. It's not like non-existent, but I just, I think it's exaggerated.

I think it always has been exaggerated. I haven't listened to the pod segment because I only saw that this was like a controversy. I like went on a rant about the Mariners on blue sky and then it was like, hey lady, you got a prospect list edit, go do your work. And so then I logged back in quick to make sure that nothing new had happened

to either the Braves or the Marlins before we were gonna record their segments. And I saw this referenced. So all of that is long preamble to say, I haven't listened to it yet. But does he talk about like the stolen base environment being different now? Cause I could see an argument like,

hey, Otani like everyone else is a beneficiary of recent rule changes. Oh, that absolutely. I made that argument. So yeah. Yeah, we've made that argument. But like, is that part of Bonza's sort of rationale for this? Doesn't seem like it. Okay. I just think, so there's like a couple of things here. I think, I do think that his like perspective on this is less immediately grouchy than it seems. I also think that it's

just a weird strategic choice to be like, my relationship with baseball fans right now is sort of fraught still. I'm going to, you know, get, talk about Donnie being like unable to do what he did back in my day. That just seems like a flawed strategic choice. Yeah. Well, I guess if he were better at being diplomatic and ingratiating himself with fans, then the relationship wouldn't be as fraud as it is. It's like Jerry DePoto. If he were better at talking, then fans wouldn't be mad at what he says. Yeah.

But like, I also just think that part of why people talk about Otani with the sort of awe and fascination that they do is the combo, right? Which isn't to say that we wouldn't be in awe of Otani were he, you know, just a hitter, we'd still be in awe of him because he's an incredible hitter as we just saw, like he managed to win the NLMVP unanimously as a designated hitter, which like doesn't happen before, unprecedented, right? And he put up an incredible season. He put up an incredible season because of his steals, because of his home runs, just like his full offensive ability at the plate was amazing.

And if you want to measure it in terms of WRC+, like Barry Bonds had many seasons in the course of his career, some of which are obviously tainted by a belief that he was taking PEDs, some of which preceded that, where he was at least by WRC+, like a better hitter than Otani was. And- Oh yeah, better than anyone has ever been. Right. And then he had years where he was like really, really good.

But if you stack that season up from a WRC+, perspective against Otani, like Otani was better last year. They're both incredible players, but again, part of why we talk about Otani the way we do is because he is that guy at the plate and he does also pitch, right? Not last year, but like at a high level as a starter, you know, like in a way that is remarkable. And so I think to only focus on what he did last year, which again was historic, is still to somehow miss something. Now we can contextualize his season last year

within the broader rule environment, which I think is responsible and important to do, but it was still amazing, you know? And it's like, there's stuff about Otani that is obviously amazing just within the context of Otani. Like, look at him. He's enormous. He's a big, enormous guy.

And yet he had incredible base running value, even beyond the stolen bases, right? He's just like an amazing base runner. And you look at him and you think that that guy should be lumbering because he's gigantor and his arms are buff and he's become swole honey and yet he's the way he is on the bass bass is amazing. So all of that to say, I think that let's not overreact to Bonds because I think that, like I said, it sounds like this was a little less meant to be confrontational or goading than it maybe seems just by the headline. But also like, come on Barry, you know?

And also Barry, be like a little strategic here. I have PR out. It's not like there's any widespread skepticism about Otani's skills that we have to stand out for him, stand up for him here. It's more that it amuses me that it just never fails. That no matter what the era is, there were people in Banz's day saying, players now are not as tough as we were and now it's just, the cycle never ends. Yeah, and to be clear, I think that there are parts of what Barry is saying that are probably fair.

And there's also parts of it that are demonstrably silly because they're just so good, you know, and the pitching that Otani is facing is so good and it is coming in with more movement and greater velocity on average than even what Bonds was seeing at the tail end of his career. So, you know, you have to, if you're going to contextualize the base running using the stolen base rules, we should also contextualize this hitting within an environment where it's amazing

that anyone ever hits anything ever because it's coming in at 98 miles an hour or with insane induced vertical brake. So, you know, like they got got Ben, they got kick changes now. I know. I was like very bonds seeing the kick change. I guess Ryan Bannister was around, but yeah, I'm sure he could have hit it if he did. But yes, that is important context. Plus there are more hit by pitches now than there were during bonds his career. Maybe not intentional hit by pitches, maybe not hit by pitches in the head. Who knows? But

batters get bruised more often than ever. More hit by pitches buy faster pitches, and Bonds' hit by pitch rate was a little higher than Otani's is, but Bonds of course had that big elbow pad, that whole arm protector, which probably wouldn't even be allowed today. So batters back then, they had it so easy, so soft. Okay, let's take a quick break and we will be back with Grant McCauley to talk about Atlanta. And to do that, we are joined now by Grant McCauley, who always joins us for these segments. He's the host of From the Diamond. He's a Braves reporter at 92.9 The Game. He writes and talks about the Braves in many places, including at least every spring, effectively

wild. Welcome back, Grant. Thank you for having me. This is kind of one of my annual rites of spring, talking about what I think will be an intriguing season for the Braves and intriguing can be interpreted a lot of different ways, because 2024 certainly was that, but not what they expected in so many ways.

Hopefully better health, it would be hard to have worse health, but I think because of that maybe, and because it was a fairly quiet off season, people may be sleeping on the Braves a bit, just how good they are, just because you look at the projections and okay, the Dodgers are kind of in a class of their own,

but then it's the Braves right after that. And maybe we've overlooked that just because they were so short-handed last year. And then they didn't do a whole lot this off season other than the Jurics and Profar signing, but maybe we can start with the fairly quiet winter. I guess this is kind of a case of, well, if we just get our guys back,

that's gonna be the biggest addition we could make. So were there many opportunities to upgrade that they didn't take? Were there players they pursued and didn't end up landing? Are you at all surprised by the way this offseason went down? Yeah, I'll answer the last couple of components of that question first, because I think what caught the most attention after the jerks and profar signing was that the Braves did go after a couple

of rather high profile or I would say useful pitchers for them. Certainly Tanner Scott decided to go with the Dodgers and that was understandable. So did a lot of players. So of course the last offseason and really the last decade plus. But outside of that, I think they had their eyes on Jeff Hoffman and the medicals didn't line up. The Braves weren't comfortable with that deal. He also went elsewhere.

So those are a couple of arms that as you look at the Braves bullpen, which no longer has AJ Minter, which has lost Joe Jimenez for the season quite possibly. I mean, it seems unlikely that he's going to make a big impact this year. Those were the kinds of moves I expected. And then you had Max Frieden-Charlie Morton leave, and that's 30 starts and 340 plus innings. Where are you going to get that from? Spencer Strider is part of the answer, but can you expect enough out of Crisale and Ronaldo Lopez and Spencer Schwellenbach and whoever is the fourth, fifth starter before

Strider gets back. That's kind of where I was looking at areas where I expected them to do a little bit more, but they just really, for whatever reason, I guess weren't able to. They weren't able to line up on those deals. So the pro far signing obviously highlighted the winter. I think it does make them a better team. It's a switch hitting all-star that can play every day for them. Then you get Ron Lacuna Jr. back.

You feel good about that. Austin Riley's healthy from that broken hand that he dealt with last year. A lot of guys went through a lot of things and when we talked to him last spring, there was this prevailing message of, hey, it's World Series or bust for us. I don't think that was breaking news. I mean, this was a club that expects to win the World Series, would like to win the World Series and is in usually positioned to do that, but they hadn't been able to get the job done the last couple of Octobers coming into 2024. Then they went through all their challenges and now they came into spring training and basically said,

look, we don't need to make any statements. If we're healthy, we know how great this team can be. And that I think is the head space where the Braves are, coming off that season of all those challenges and a winter in which maybe they weren't able to get all of the components They would have liked to have gotten on their shopping list I think the Braves fans would like to avoid breaking news of any kind going forward hasn't always

Worked out great for them. Maybe we can start with with Acuna and Strider Where are they in their process of return? And then what are you expecting each of them to be able to contribute from a playing time perspective? Obviously, if they are fully healthy, we know what a fully healthy peak version of each of them looks like. But what are you kind of expecting from them in terms of how they will be eased into playing time? How much rest they might end up getting? What does 2025 look like for those two guys? That's kind of the operative term was just easing them back in and making sure

that whatever timeline was set. And this is all internal, mind you, was going to be customized and specifically tailored for how each one of them was coming along. Now we can start with Acuna because this is his second time dealing with a torn ACL, the experience of his first one, the challenges, the rehab, everything that came with it, and the fact that it was more of his, one, the challenges, the rehab, everything that came with it, and the fact that it was more of his, you know, his plant leg that he had to like rotate a lot more on and torque a lot more.

I think he's been able to A, take the lessons from the previous experience and B, the fact that it's the other knee, not possibly. I mean, this is my theory. I think this is his theory as well. Deal with some of the residual pain throughout the course The year but they will manage that he's not gonna play any great fruit league games The idea is for him to get all his work tons of it bats on the minor league side Continue to train continue to do all of the running that he needs to do when I talk to him at spring training as the Braves

Reported he was there early. He was excited about just getting started and said he was running at 90-95%. That's a really good thing to hear when you've got five, six weeks at that point before the season, but I still don't anticipate seeing him before late April or early May. He'll need that rehab assignment. He'll get that rehab assignment, and then we'll see, you know, what Ronald Acuna, Jr. we get. Even the 2022 version, which admittedly was not the player that Ronald has been when healthy or in any of his other seasons in the big leagues, was still an acceptable year or a productive year by most players' standards. So I think you have to probably set the bar somewhere in between what he did in 2022 and

what we've seen him be capable of otherwise. And for Strider, the goal is for him to pitch in Grapefruit League action, get at least one exhibition outing. That could happen here obviously in the next week or ten days. And then he'll need to go out and get that full, you know, 30-day rehab assignment, I would imagine, get those five or six minor league starts. And they'll watch the innings, the workload, all those things throughout, and just build him up and have him ready. And DeBray's did something last year that I think particularly benefited Chris Aile

and Reynaldo Lopez among others, and that was mixing in a six starter, even if they weren't calling it a six man rotation, but mixing it in throughout the year. Brian Snicker told me that's something that they felt was a benefit and something they're gonna look to do again this year. So the Grant Holmes, the Ian Andersons,

the AJ Smith-Schauvers, the Hurston Waldripp's, the Bryce Elders, they're going to tap into as much quantity and quality of their depth as they can to help try to keep this rotation healthy and moving forward. And obviously anticipating Spencer Strider getting back in there, that's going to make a huge difference along with Sale and Lopez and Spencer Schwellenbach, who's a guy that I think opened a lot of eyes last year. Yeah, I will be very curious to see whether we get the speedy Acuna,

or not so much speedy, he's not exactly a burner, but the base stealer, that's what I mean. I know that he said he's planning to take it easier on the base paths as he returns from surgery, and I wouldn't expect to see 73 steals again, but will he still be a power speed threat, or like a lot of power hitters, will he just focus on the power as he gets older and plus the D's and everything and it might make sense for him too. I would just miss the Ronald Acuna who could beat you in a number of different ways. Maybe we can talk about another player who is currently injured and also has been injured before and that's Sean Murphy who will miss a good chunk of the start of the season himself with a cracked rib, not the first time that he has been hurt early on.

I've just been so confounded by Sean Murphy really, since the Braves acquired him since the middle of 2023. That was really the first half of that season was the last time that he hit. Like the Sean Murphy that we used to know that the Braves thought they were getting when they traded for him. And he was one of the best catchers in baseball, if not the best catcher in baseball when he had that bat. So is it just health or are there other issues going on here?

What has happened to Sean Murphy? I think it's all health, honestly. I mean, there's always going to be, and there can be, whether it's Sean Murphy or Matt Olson, I mean, Austin Riley, Michael Harris, Ronald Acuna, even when these guys were on the field, we saw them struggling for long periods last year. And I think it was even more of a stark contrast

because of what the 2023 Braves did as a unit. I mean, you don't see seasons like that very often and get onto a short list where it's you and the 27 Yankees and maybe a couple of other teams that did the kind of things from a team slugging Perspective that the Braves did however for Sean Murphy in particular. I know that he hits the ball extremely hard I think that he started hitting the ball on the ground more in the second half of 2023 and that obviously sapped his production. But coming into 2024, the expectation was that Sean Murphy was going to catch, I would say, three out of every four games, be kind of that everyday catcher, if you will.

I know that's kind of a loose term to use for such a demanding position, but he's somebody that benefits from being back there and having that routine and being in there every single day and the Braves felt like they could hand that to him. And then in the sixth inning of opening day, he strains his oblique, misses two months, and was just never the same after that. And Sean talked about this at the start of spring training. It was a, you know, I wasn't hurt anymore. The oblique wasn't an issue anymore, but my swing was never right.

I just never could find it. And that I think was something that seems pretty obvious when you ramp up for an entire season, you do the whole spring training thing, and then you got to sit for two months. That was going to be difficult on him. So I know it was an awful year for Sean. I don't think anybody's looking at it and saying, you know, this was the kind of production that he wanted or the season that the Braves are really Braves fans or anybody out there expected from him. But I think there's so much more still in there and he's just got to figure out a way to stay

healthy and there's not much you can do about getting hitting the ribs with a pitch in spring training. So if he's a four to six week timetable, you know, starting about a week ago, maybe he only misses the first couple of weeks of the year. But I think that's kind of the best case scenario in this and that's going to have the Braves test themselves in the catching depth department, whether that's a Drake Baldwin and Chadwick Trump that does the work there, or if they look for somebody with big league experience like Sandy Leone or Kurt Casale and, you know, try to just get through that first couple of weeks and not start Baldwin's clock and give him the time to continue to improve at AAA so that when that call comes, he's truly ready. But it's a question the Braves didn't want to have to answer, I can promise you that. And they certainly didn't want to have to do it in the middle to early portion of March. AMT – Yeah, I wanted to ask about Baldwin because he's the top rated prospect in Atlanta's system. He was the top 100 guy for us and everyone else. And, you know, I think has made some really impressive strides. Defensively, the power is very obvious. Absent the Sean Murphy injury, what do you think the

timeline is for him getting to the majors? And is this the sort of situation where he will be entrenched potentially once he's there, if he proves himself? Or will they kind of play around with it depending on the duration of Murphy's absence? Jared Ranere Yeah, I mean, the duration of Murphy's absence, I guess, is the thing we're kind of talking about right now. But when it does come to Drake Baldwin's future, I think you have to look at the duration of Sean Murphy's contract. I mean, he's got multiple years remaining on that extension that he signed and you expect

him again, as the Braves have talked about, to be the main starting catcher for you. So where does that leave Drake Baldwin has kind of been the question I think everybody has asked because the hitter profile for him and a left-handed hitting catcher with power in all fields approach and the productivity that he had making the jump to triple A, he homered in the futures game. I mean he's done some things that have gotten him a lot of attention and I think he's a very impressive young player who is hungry to learn more, has spent a lot of time trying to really pick the brains of longtime big leaguers. When I sat down with him in spring training, Drake Baldwin talked about, hey you know I'm Lockard right here next to

Sandy Leone, there's so much I can learn from him. Kirk Casale is here. I mean he was even crediting you know minor league journeyman catchers that he could learn from and all the major league players that were at the AAA Gwinnett level for the Braves last year about helping him slow the game down, see the game differently, to plan differently. And I guess it's just all part of that process of coming in as an amateur and then learning how to be a professional. And he, I think, went to polishing school last year. So there's a lot of excitement about him for a lot of reasons. And the question I think is going to be playing time in the long term. But the Braves,

from my understanding, in a couple of different places were approached about different trades and opportunities to you know get major league players back over the course of the winter, but were not interested in parting with Drake Baldwin. And as much as you like having a catching prospect, they believe in this bat, that he can be a productive major league hitter. So is he somebody that could potentially be DH-ing in catching?

And Marcel Azuna is a free agent at the end of the year. Now, can you expect Drake Baldwin to fill Marcel Azuna's shoes with that production? Well, of course not. But is he the kind of young player with upside that is really gonna be productive for you with upside that is really going to be productive for you and it doesn't necessarily have to be tied to being the everyday guy at the position to get some kind of value out of him?

I think that's kind of what the Braves have to evaluate this year. But some time at AAA, I expected that. If Sean Murphy has a lengthy absence, I think that Drake Baldwin is the obvious answer to the Braves question of who can help us out at catcher. And I don't think he really has too much to prove at the minor leagues over the course of the next six months. I think he could be ready to help the team at any time this year, and that Baldwin has said, I came in his spring training, that's my goal. Whenever they call, I want to be ready to help them win games. Well, let's talk about another premium defensive position that's not normally

known for big bats and certainly wasn't for the Braves last year, that is shortstop. I was kind of hoping that the Braves would sign Hassan Kim just to keep the buddies together because he's besties with jerks and profile, but Braves fans may have been hoping that they had signed Kim or someone so that Orlando Arcia was not the starter heading into the season, but he is. Now he was a league average-ish hitter in 2022, 2023. If you're getting that out of your shortstop, that's fine, but he was well below that last year. So what happened to him

and what are the prospects for a bounce back? Well, a bounce back would be the best case scenario. And the way the Braves have kind of couched this over the last couple of years is that, you know, Orlando Arcia is a quality defender for them and he's not really a featured hitter. So if you've got the other eight spots doing what they're capable of doing, I mean, again, I don't want to point at 20-23 and say you can expect that every year, but if you have at least that lineup healthy with a chance to produce, you don't notice Orlando Arcia

batting ninth for you and hitting anywhere between what, 220 or 260, really. I mean, like all the production you can get, I will point that out. And Orlando's year was forgettable, particularly with runners in scoring position. It felt like there was an at bat just about every night, and that might be anecdotal or it might have been the way it was, where he would come up with two on and two out and you just knew it wasn't gonna go well and so it was a forgettable year for him but he was one of the guys that was actually out there

on a regular basis and I think with with Hasan Kim if I understand just based on the health of his shoulder he was going to have to play some second base to fully rehab and to be able to you you know, give whatever team he signed with some value and that's what he's gonna do in Tampa Bay. Not really an option with the Braves because of the presence of Ozzy Albies. So I just don't think that he really fit there. They weren't gonna give out a long-term arrangement with him just based on the circumstances of that injury, but there are obviously other options and I think the Braves would be open to upgrading, but I think that in some respects you looked at 2023 and thought, well, if he could just be a league

average bat and a decent defender at $2 million a year, this helps us level out a whole bunch of other things on the payroll. So I think there's a lot of math that went into it, but that's not going to be the only reason that Orlando Arcia gets to keep getting at bats. At some point, you got to produce. And I feel like Orlando knows that and hopefully he can be somewhere close to the player that he was in 2023 again just to be a useful big league player and let the Acuñas, the Olsens, the Riles, the Harrises, the Albies, the Profars, whoever you kind of do the heavy lifting for this lineup. Let's talk about Olsen because speaking of guys who play every day, you have Matt Olsen, who literally played and started every single game for Atlanta last year, but obviously failed to match his production from that superlative 2023. So what went wrong for Matt Olsen last year? And

how is he approaching trying to course correct for 2025? He might not match a 161 WRC plus, but I imagine that the Braves and their fans are hoping for something better than a 117. Yeah. And I think we can all agree. I mean, he's a better player than he was last year. And that felt like one of the statements that fit the 2024 Atlanta Braves. Well, this guy's better than he's playing right now.

But asking Matt about it in spring training, it was an interesting answer because it's something that you're, it matched what you're seeing with your eyes. There were a large component or contingent, if you will, of Braves hitters, whether it was Austin Riley, Matt Olson, whoever it was, that I feel like once the club started to struggle offensively, it just kind of snowballed, individually and collectively for anybody not named Marcelo Zuna seemingly. But putting him aside, everybody else seemed to be going through it. And with Matt, and talking about his second half resurgence after the All-Star break, he said he had just gotten too much into the mechanics of his swing and was just carrying that to the plate with him. He needed to stop doing that and just

go up there with the confidence of what his abilities are and knowing that he's a done it before and B is in the prime of his career and capable of still doing it and just kind of simplify his game. And I think that's part of what Tim Hyers, the new Braves hitting coach is coming in to do to help guys with the game planning, the situational awareness, and the daily approach and just kind of remind that not that it was necessarily a blind spot for Kevin Seitzer, but I think sometimes a new voice, a different message, maybe even the same message with a different voice can kind of change things for them. And Matt Olson might be the poster child of all of that, just in terms of the daily grind of the game not becoming too much and

snowballing the way that it did a year ago. I think it was way more mental than it was physical to make a long story short. Well, also it's not the only Atlanta brave who has played a lot. It seems like the Braves under Brian Snitker have kind of gone in the opposite direction of every other team that has prioritized load management and days off. And the Braves, when healthy, they're just in there every day. He just kind of had his A line up and no B line up really and and that was understandable because they didn't really have a great bench or great backups which was exposed last year and I guess is still potentially a risk this year but I guess

you could also say that perhaps it has contributed to the injury issues that maybe playing so much it wears guys down. Do injury issues that may be playing so much. It wears guys down. Do you think that would be a possible interpretation that they would have? Do you think they will change, especially as some of these guys get older, that they'll say, Hey, why not sit a day here and there, and maybe it'll benefit you and the team in the long term. Maybe as they start to age, I could definitely see the case for that.

But I mean, even the jerks and pro far press conference the media availability after he was signed one of the first things that Alex Anthopoulos said that they liked about jerks and pro far was he can play every day. He played 158 games last year We can plug him in we know who he is We know what he does and they I just don't think that they love moving parts if they can get a lineup that they like They'll ride with it if they have to kind of adjust it, they will. But I think it's an organizational approach to just finding guys that you really believe in and letting them do their job. And you know, the season now, I do think, is because of the way that things have kind of been negotiated over the last, what, decade or maybe more in the collective bargaining agreements of they're more off days than there ever were

So you kind of even if you play 162 you get more off days than you did say if you were doing it in the 90s Or the 80s or before just because the schedule spread out a little bit But you know every club I think it looks at it differently and has their own criteria It would be nice to have some better backups But another thing to your point been that Alex talked about I think two years ago was when we go out and try to identify players to fit here, we have a harder time or a challenge signing veteran free agents without being able to tell them, hey well we're gonna be able to give you X amount of playing time. We can't guarantee that and that makes those guys want to go

look for opportunities to play more and I don't blame them. So that I think is probably the double-edged sword if you will. You want all the production you can get out of your stars especially in the prime of their career but you probably, I mean failing just you know opening up the payroll some more and really overpaying for some bench bats and backups. I don't really know what the answer to that is. I mean the Dodgers or do what the Dodgers do and it's an impressive thing that they've managed to you know spin this kind of money and put together the 26 men that they have. But I think everybody else is operating under different parameters and just kind of trying to make it work for lack of a better term. Maybe we can talk about one of the younger guys on

the roster now who you'll be shocked to learn also dealt with terrible injury last year, limiting his production. I'm talking about Michael Harris the second. Do you just look at his 2024, see the injury and say, wipe it and move on or are there things that preceded it that he might be looking to improve upon this season? I think he's always looking for improvement. And I kind of joke about this that Michael Harris the second is going to be my breakout candidate every year until he just does it. Because I think he's a potential 30 homer hitter, I think he's a guy that can steal 30 bases, I think he's going to win a gold glove, if not multiple gold gloves.

I mean, there's just, there's a ton to like about the overall game that he brings. But you know, he really struggled the first couple of months in 23 and had the back injury. And then right around the start of June, he just caught fire. I hit 335 with a 900 plus OPS the rest of the way. I mean, I kind of thought, all right, he's here. All right. Michael Harris has figured it out. There it is.

And then you get into 2024 and he just kind of went through a whole nother thing. It was a hamstring this time, but it was right about the time he started hitting. And he just kind of had to fight through it. But the last couple of months, I think, were more indicative of who Michael Harris II is, but I think it's fair to ask, you know, A, can he stay healthy? I mean, that's a question for everybody. But B, if he's healthy over the whole season, can we finally see him string it all together? I think that the answer is yes. Age is obviously on his side. There's a whole lot that he has to offer that the Braves love, and we'll see if perhaps this is the year where it all comes together and we see that transcendent season from Michael Harris II, because I really do think that he's just a superstar waiting to happen.

We have very strict requirements when it comes to classifying breakouts here at Effectively Wild, so we can't, if you've, if you won a rookie of the year award, you're ineligible to be a breakout. But I take your point that, uh, that was, he was so good in that year that he didn't even play a full season. That was 114 games. And so we haven't seen him sustain that level of production over a full season. So whatever you want to call it, I see what you mean that he could have an even higher ceiling than we have seen.

The career year. I'm waiting for it. Yes, the career year. We can agree on that one. All right. Should we talk about Albies, who has had his own injury issues? Who will be leading off? I guess is one question until Acuna returns. If Acuna remains a lead off hitter as perhaps a different guy post-entry, we'll see. Would that be Harris? Definitely. Would it be Allsby's? And is there anything that Allsby's can do to stay in the lineup longer? Yeah. I stopped breaking bones is the answer. Yes. That happened twice last year. And it happened the year before. I mean, he's just been going through it. And I know, you know, the best ability is availability.

I mean, there's that phrase that gets thrown out there a lot. And for Ozzy Albee, some of this stuff is just freaky, flukey injury that you just can't, you know, you can't look at, okay, well, he was tired or, you know, whatever it is, it's just he's breaking bones. And so hopefully he's able to get out there and get healthy and just be out there and be the everyday guy that for a second baseman, I mean, he offers a certain amount of power production, run production that not many second baseman offer. That's for sure. So the Braves would certainly

like that 25 to 30 homer guy that can knock in 100 runs, maybe score 100 with 40 doubles and steal a few bases to be the guy that they have in there every day, but he's got to go out there and get that done. As far as leadoff, I think Jurikson Profar is going to get a look up there, and Michael Harris II is an obvious option, Wendell Ronald Lacuna Jr. I think Harris did a little bit of that last year in the second half especially, and I kind of like him up there, at least in one of the top couple of spots. But I think Profar is probably gonna get the first look at it. And then I do think, and maybe it's a discussion for later in his career, there's just something about Ronald Acuna Jr. That just in the lead off spot, it just I think energizes him.

It immediately plugs him in. He's clearly, I think we all can agree, one of the best players in baseball and the best player on the team. I want that guy getting as many plate appearances as possible. So unless or until they need to make a change there, I think Ronald's the long-term answer. But in his absence, there's not as clear an answer as you'd like there to be, but there are some pretty good options. I wouldn't put it on all these. I really feel like he kind of profiles more in that five, six spot where we have seen Michael Harris a little bit this spring training. And I don't know, I'm interested to see what Brian Snicker ultimately lands on or if he does have more moving parts than the Braves usually do, at least in terms of his lineup construction. We talked about Harris, we've

talked about Okunia, I want to talk about the rest of that outfield. You mentioned obviously the signing of Pro-Far first. As it pertains to him, I'm sort of curious what version of ProFar Atlanta thinks it's getting because it seemed like he took a genuine step forward last year, really started to realize that long dormant prospect potential. But I think many would say the odds of him repeating a 139 WRC plus season as he enters his H32 season? Maybe not. So what do they actually expect from Profar? And then how are they thinking about piecing the rest of this together? I think we have Jared Kellnick currently slated for them in right field on

roster resource. I know they have Brian De La Cruz floating around. Luke Williams can play the outfield sometimes, but how are they thinking about that other corner prior to Acuna coming back, I suppose? I think Kellnick gets the lion's share of that playing time. I mean, Brian De La Cruz was a signing that for a long time, it felt like the only signing of a player that Braves fans knew over the course of the winter. So it kind of became like a running gag of, okay, well, we got our one outfielder, I guess we're done. And then the pro far signing happened.

But you know, I'm not going to take anything away from De La Cruz. He has a lot of power. And when you look at what Kellnick is, I think from a potential standpoint, it's tantalizing. But we can all look at the back of the baseball card to use the old Brian Snitker saying, and it kind of tells you that this is a player that hasn't ever really been able to put it together. He had a couple of really, really, I think, good months for the Braves last year where you kind of thought maybe he was figuring that out.

But that was kind of the same story with Seattle prior. So I think in right field, it's his opportunity, but Dela Cruz could certainly make this team as a reserve outfielder and be a platoon option, a la Adam Duvall a year ago, and serve that role. Profar is gonna play every day in left field. Obviously, you got Harrison Center. When Acuna comes back, I don't think that they're going to be looking to give him a bunch of off days just to get other guys in the lineup.

So it may be kind of a tough time finding it bats after that when you have a DH locked and loaded like Ozuna. But with all of that said, then you have the season the Braves had a year ago where injuries changed their plans time and time and time again. So you may not use these guys initially or ideally, but at some point it might be nice to have them and it would certainly be nice to see you know Kelnick really be able to put it together because he's another guy that you know the talent's there but the results have really not been able to match that yet. We should talk about some pitchers. The Braves did lead the majors in fan grass pitching war last year, and they did suffer some departures. One of the reasons why this offseason was

undermelowing for Atlanta beyond the lack of big additions was also some of the subtractions. Travis Darnoe, I guess, would be looking pretty good in that catcher spot right now, given Murphy's entry, but also in the rotation, you lose Charlie Morton, you lose Max Fried. So take us through that rotation because it seems like it could be great. Seems like there are questions. Michael Bauman just wrote about that for fan graphs. Today as we speak, his headline was, do you know how good the Braves rotation is going to be? Because I don't. So do you, Grant, do you know how good it's gonna be? Well, I don't know.

I'm sure Michael did his homework on this, but it is a good question, and it could have a lot of different answers because obviously Chris Ailes showed that he still got gas in the tank last year, winning comeback player of the year in the National League Cy Young. And I didn't.

When he was acquired, I just assumed that he had won a Cy Young. And then I went back and looked and was like, wait a minute. So that was surprising to me. But a great first year. Ronaldo Lopez, meanwhile, is kind of this fascinating case study in a lot of his desire to go back to starting, I think was kind of wavering until his wife really pushed him to go for it when he was a free agent and find a team that would let him do it and the Braves did and I think that they're thrilled that they allowed him to do that. So his goal now this year is to throw 200 innings. Now will he get there? I don't know but how often do you go to spring training now and hear pitchers saying well my goal this year throw 200 innings. You know make all my starts do this that and the

other you just don't really hear that. It sounds like an old school kind of a goal. And maybe it's just old school because we don't see too many 200 inning pitchers anymore, but that's a different discussion for a different time. But I think being able to springboard off of all of the experience and the success that he had in his first year back in rotation, that he's really lined up to be a positive member of this rotation again and really go out and produce. And they're going to be counting on him too. There's no two ways about that. So, Sale and Lopez and Schwellenbach who came on and just opened up eyes and just exploded onto the scene last year. And he was so quality.

And it was surprising because you would talk to him about his pitch mix and different things. And he was adding pitches last year at the big league level. A kid that was mostly a shortstop in college and did some closing and then came into the Braves system and didn't really have a lot of innings before he made it to the major leagues. What a fascinating success story. So he's going to be in that mix and going to be counted on big time as well. Then you get into when can you get Spencer Strider

back? What is Grant Holmes going to be? He could be in the bullpen and be helpful and miss bats, or they could count on him to start, which he made some big starts for them in the second half last year. So I'm fascinated to see how much runtime Grant Holmes gets and Ian Anderson, who has pitched some of his best baseball in the postseason, is he going to be a guy that can basically win a spot this spring because he's out of options? So is his time in Atlanta going to be drawing to a close? And he's basically missed the last two years thanks to Tommy John surgery. So a few different moving parts there. And I don't know if it answers the question of how good they are right now, but how good can they be? I think very good

if you can get this whole group healthy at the same time. And then they have a couple of guys who are starters on the 40 man in the high minors, many of whom have gotten big league experience. So if they should suffer, you know, another wave of injuries, who from the AJ Smith, Shauver, Hurston, Waldrop, Bryce Elder, Dylan Dodd group, how are they thinking about stacking up the depth that they have at AAA behind the opening day rotation? Yeah, if I were to tier them and put the quality arms toward the top, I definitely think Smith, Shauver is at the top of that list. After

that, I think it's kind of a toss up for some of the other ones. I mean, Bryce Elder has gotten some opportunity. Obviously, he had a big first half in 23 and you kind of wondered, all right, well, maybe he doesn't have overpowering stuff, but he just has great pitch ability. But clearly the book has kind of been out since then. So I'm not sure that there's really any big standout prospect. I mean, you know, from looking at these prospect lists that just jumps off the page and says, this is the heir apparent. But I think you could also say, where did Spencer Schwellenbach come from? And then Spencer Strider a few years before that. So maybe as we talk about

this group, the answer is not even in there because I certainly didn't spend much time last spring training talking about Spencer Schwellenllenbach and now I don't know where the Braves would have been without him. Was sales resurgence, was that purely just better health or were there things that the Braves had him do or that made him more comfortable in this setting? Because it really looks like when they signed him to an extension before he had thrown a pitch for them, I kind of raised my eyebrow at first and then I was convinced, okay, yeah, this probably makes sense. But now it looks brilliant in retrospect. I think there were a

lot of people that were wondering if Alex Anthopoulos's gambit was going to pay off with Chris Sale, but Chris Sale never seemed to wonder. I think he just felt like after getting through 23 and making 20 starts again and throwing 100 innings that he was just primed for something big and as soon as he got acquired by the Braves he went straight to Northport and started throwing bullpens. So he definitely had a chip on his shoulder and something to prove but the Braves didn't really change much about what was going on for him. The only thing that I would say that may have been the most beneficial of anything that Chris Sale did in his first year in Atlanta was the Braves just kept mixing in arms where they needed to

and using off days to give him that extra day of rest. So if you go to a baseball reference, for example, and where how many days of rest have you had between starts? And Chris Sale only threw on regular rest a couple of times heading into the second half, if not into September, and he was mostly throwing with five days rest. And that was a benefit for him. And I do think, I'm talking to Brian Snickker and Alex Anthopoulos both, that that's something they're aware of. That's something that benefited him. It benefited Lopez. I think it'll benefit Spencer Strider. Just being able to give them the extra time to recover. You know, we kind of were talking about

the position players and playing a lot. I think that they're kind of a different breed. And with the pitchers, there's a lot more of looking at ways to give those guys rest throughout the season so that you could maybe, possibly, finally, perhaps get to October with pitchers that you like lined up and healthy so that you can go into a postseason series and feel like you really have everything you need. That would be quite the day. I do feel bad. I feel like FanGraphs kind of jinxed the Braves because last year when we were trying to think about sort of a depth adjusted version of the playoff odds and how we might account

for that, Ben Clemens used Atlanta as his example. Like you'll never believe what happens when you remove all the best players from this team and then like two days later Acuna got hurt and then a week later it was Strider. So I feel like this is our fault. We have to apologize to the good people of Atlanta. Let's shift to the bullpen because as you mentioned, there are a couple new faces here. There are also some injuries, but a lot of returning folks. So how are they thinking about piecing the innings behind Reis Helleglesias together?

And then who are some of the guys who you think could potentially surprise people in this group? Yeah, it should be interesting to kind of watch a couple of these arms in spring training. Angel Pridomo is the first one that I would circle and say I'm very curious about what he's able to show because he's six foot eight and about what 270 pounds so when you see him you know exactly who it is immediately but it's he's not a guy that throws 104 miles an hour but he has great extension and I think that has made him a very good strikeout pitcher and somebody that the Braves and this has

kind of become a thing across baseball find a pitcher that has to him a very good strikeout pitcher and somebody that the Braves and this has kind of become a thing across baseball. Find a pitcher that has to rehab, pay him to do that, and then pay him a little bit less for that comeback year that they have and see if you don't get yourself a bargain. They did that with Kirby Yates a couple of years ago. They're doing it again here and we'll see what the results are. But a lefty with big strikeout potential after losing AJ Minter, I think you'll take all the help you can get there. They've got some veteran guys in camp, some non-rosters, invitees of Jake Deekman, who's got a long big league career, could be a lefty option.

Chasen Shreeves, another one that they signed. Rule 5 picks as well. They're throwing everything that they can at it, but I think that as you sort out what the rotation looks like, with regard to Grant Holmes especially, will he be somebody that could end up helping you in the bullpen or just kind of being a swing man who starts when he needs to the way he did last year because you don't have Joe Jimenez, which is going to ask Pierce Johnson to I think, you know, become the primary setup man, at least in the early going and Dylan Lee might get himself a promotion because he was a very good lefty last year. He was kind of in the shadow of what AJ Mentor had offered the Braves for his entire tenure just

about in Atlanta. So those are kind of the options that I see ahead of Iglesias who was about as rock solid as it gets in the ninth inning. It's a good bullpen, but there are definitely some questions and there could be some moving parts throughout the course of the year. And we can't rule out the fact that Jesse Chavez could end up in a brazen informant anytime. And he'll probably have a two ERA when he does somehow. Is it like Beetlejuice? They just say Jesse Chavez three times and then he appears.

Brian Schnittker said last month, there's somebody we're not even thinking about right now, who is going to have an impact on us this year. So who are we not even thinking about who might who is going to have an impact on us this year. So who are we not even thinking about? Who might come up or might be an unheralded performer for this team? Because we've seen this cast before. They've extended so many of their players that there aren't a lot of surprises in who's lined up to be the starters, but there will be someone who kind of comes out of nowhere, whether it's from the system or obviously we can't really anticipate players

brought in from outside the organization. But is there anyone we have not touched on thus far that you think we should? I don't know that there's anybody that just jumps off the page to me. I mean, there are some interesting names that I think are further away from the big leagues than I would say even the Spencer Schwellenbach or an AJ Smith Schauffer, I mean, there are some interesting names that I think are further away from the big leagues than I would say even the Spencer Schwellenbach or an AJ Smith Schafer, but like, AJ Smith Schafer came up at 20 years old and was way ahead of schedule. And that's just because the Braves believed in him.

So who's to say that, you know, the Owen Murphys and JR Richies and the Drew Hackenbergs of the world don't have a path to the big leagues this year if they are needed now I will stipulate an awful lot of things are gonna have to happen to the depth chart to get to that point Unless somebody maybe is just having a breakout season and they just push themselves into the equation Which is exactly what Spencer Schwellenbach did last year. So there is somebody out there I don't know exactly who it is, and maybe we've touched on them, maybe we just did, but it's always interesting to see who comes out of that system

that maybe wasn't even getting like the national recognition and just shows themselves to be a pretty darn good baseball player that the Atlanta Braves needed at the exact right time. How would you rate that system? As Meg said, she is currently editing the FanCrafts prospect list. Other sources have had them down and they haven't been ranked high for a while now and that's kind of the product of graduating a lot of really good players and not drafting

high because they've been so successful lately. But what do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of the system or of the player development approach in general? Yeah, the strength is definitely pitching and I think that's kind of what they bank on. And if you look at a top prospect list, typically, I think seven out of every 10, if you want to go one through 10 and then 11 through 20 and 21 through 30, you're probably going to end up with about 20 or 21 pitchers. It just feels like because they go quantity all the time with that. And I think that they've gotten themselves some really interesting arms.

I mean, Cam Caminetti coming into this system is intriguing, far off from the big leagues, but at high upside kind of prospect, I think, and prep arms, those can be tricky, and it's hard to project anybody until they come out there and show you who they truly are in the professional ranks. But I would say that the Brave system to project anybody until they come out there and show you who they truly are in the professional ranks. But I would say that the Brave system has improved depth-wise.

There's not the position player depth that you'd like to have, but the international signings that they didn't have for a long time, I think, played a role in that. They have been able to play in that market now for the last few years. Maybe one of those guys will pop. But at the AAA level, I really think that they just try to stack guys with big league experience along with a few high ceiling or higher level prospects and just have a group that's ready to help them out if they have a depth issue or even major injury on occasion. And then you have the Michael Harris's and the Spencer Striders and Spencer Schwalenbachs and guys that just kind of explode onto the scene and maybe change the whole plan.

But I would imagine that, and I'm sure that this is a system that remains entrenched in the 20s as far as the top 30 in baseball, but I think sometimes it's better than it gets credit for and other times I think it's probably exactly as it gets written up. All right. Well, our traditional closing question is what would constitute success for this team this season? I guess one thing would be just not having quite as many injuries as they had last year that would go a long way but what else should fans be assessing and should the organization

itself be evaluating as the season proceeds? Now Braves need to get back to October and they need to start winning again. That's their expectation. You know the first round exits to the Phillies in 22 and 23 left a pretty bad taste in their mouth. There's no way around that. That's an end division rival. The Braves string of division winning also ended last year. They did somehow amazingly win 89 games despite everything that went wrong and Chris Sale said it himself. I don't know how we got into the playoffs.

We shouldn't have probably, but it speaks to the character of the guys that are in this room. So I think their expectation is not to come in and, you know, print world series or bust on everything the way we did a year ago, but just, Hey, if we are healthy, this is a team that can do some special things, but special things in baseball means winning in October, and the Braves have got to find a way to do that again. I know a lot of people have pointed at the pitching as letting them down, especially in 22 and 23. I would also stipulate

you better start hitting again because that's been a huge problem for them in the last three Octobers as well. They've just got to figure out how to get that reversed, and I don't know, it's a great regular season team usually. What's the answer in October? I think to boil it down to one phrase, just get hot at the right time. Well, we always think that you're on a hot streak on our Effectively Wild Season 3P series.

I couldn't wait to see how you were gonna thread that needle then. Me too. We do it live, not really, we record, but it's live when we do it. So Grant is sometimes live on 92.9 The Game, and then you can hear him afterward on From the Diamond, and you can find his writing

and also hear him in so many places. And so the best place to find all of it is probably fromthediamond.com, where you can find lots of links to read and to subscribe. Always a pleasure to have you on. Thanks again, Grant. Thank you so much. All right, we'll take one more quick break

and we'll be back with Kevin Burrell to talk about podcast favorite Declan Cronin and the rest of the Miami Marlins. A baseball podcast, analytics and stats with Ben and Meg from Fangrass. Alright, let's talk some Miami Marlins baseball. We are joined once again by Kevin Burrell, who covers the Marlins as a beat writer and reporter for Fish on First. Kevin, welcome back.

Yeah, thank you guys for having me. So we just talked about the Braves in the first part of this episode and talked about how quiet their offseason was, but it's all relative really, because if the Braves offseason was quiet then, I don't know, the Marlins offseason was a vacuum. It was utter silence. And they did sign a couple of Major League free agents technically, so they have the Cardinals beat in that respect, but those free agents were not super exciting and they did ultimately spend the least amount of money

of any team or at least commit to spend the least this off season. They also have the lowest payroll of any team. Eric Wagaman and Cal Quantrill were their major league free agent signings. So are Marlins fans frustrated about this inactivity? How have the Marlins sold their lack of upgrades to this roster? Yeah, I think he said it best. This is a very, very quiet off season for the Marlins, at

least on the, um, on the signing front where you're signing major league free agents. Obviously they made two big trades in the off season with Luzardo and Jake Berger. But yeah, look, I mean, they're pretty confident that they're going to win more games that they did last year. Bruce Sherman said that he believes this team will surprise many. They think that, you know, with Sandy back and the starting rotation that they have, they'll at least stay afloat for a bit. And but look, this is an offense that's still probably going to be one of the worst in the

majors. And it's really hard to justify not doing anything this offseason despite signing Kyle Quancho and Eric Wagman. Look, they think that with the youth that they have on this team, they're going to maybe be better than what people are projecting them to be, and that's fair. I mean, look, they have Xavier Edwards, who is going to hit 300, steal a ton of bags, and get the guys going a little bit. And then you have Connor Norby, who they're hoping could kind of continue what he was

doing in his short stint with the Marlins. And you have a couple other pieces that he brought in. And Matt Mervis, they're hoping he really gets it going with a bigger opportunity. Then you have an outfield of Hazy Sanchez, the most tenured position player on the Marlins. And Griffin Kona and Kyle Stowers, they're hoping those are some guys that are going to help them out a little bit in the power department. So they think that the youth is really going to help and that is going to maybe keep them afloat or at least just have a better projected record than what they do right now.

Katie Tosca It's funny to do this preview as Ben mentioned sort of on the back of having done Atlantos because when you're talking about the Braves, you're thinking about are they going to be able to successfully challenge for the division? How are they going to stack up against the Phillies and Mets? What do their postseason aspirations look like? And I feel like realistically, the Marlins timeline is significantly longer. And so I'm curious, as you're looking at their projected opening day lineup, who are the guys who you identify as potential foundational pieces for the next good Marlins team? You know, regardless of how the rotation performs, we project Miami to be well out of the playoff

race, but who do you think amongst this group is going to be seen as sort of a core piece going forward? Yeah, I think it starts with someone like Connor Norby. I mean, they acquired him from the Orioles in that trade with Trevor, for, you know, for Trevor Rogers. They also acquired Kyle Stowers in that one. But I see Norby as the main piece of that deal. And that's how they feel. They feel like this is someone who could really be their third baseman for many years to come. He made a really nice impression early on. They believe that, you know, although it's going to be maybe a little bit, a couple rough

patches, just learning the position. And it certainly has been that just throughout spring training, throughout just looking at some practices in the backfields, but they really believe in this guy. They think this guy has the potential to be their, their all star, you know, on the position player side. They think this is a guy who could hit 20 home runs and be the big piece on this, in this offense. And then I think you have to mention Xavier Edwards as another one. They really believe this guy could play shortstop and they're not going to move him off of that until they truly believe that he has completely flopped at that position, if that's the best way to say it. But look, the arm strength has improved with Edwards. It's very

noticeable and that was one of the biggest issues throughout his tenure before joining Miami. And even when he did join the Marlins, just will he have the arm strength just to get short? of the biggest issues throughout his tenure before joining Miami. Will he have the arm strength to stick it short? Right now, early on in spring, it feels like a yes. He does have that arm strength now after going through a certain throwing program that he did this offseason with the Marlins catching director. I think those are the two big pieces to look at. These are two guys who are still in their club control for a very long time, so they're

going to be around for the next big team the Marlins have. They're hoping that with a lot of this youth that they really come to perform, especially in the minor leagues, with so many guys just close to major league ready, that this is a team that will compete a little bit closer to what many have them projected as. But look, again, I think those are the two main pieces on the offense. They are looking at like, all right, look, here for a couple more years, they're going to not just help us bridge our way through these next, you know, through this season and maybe even next.

But, you know, 2027, when a lot more guys are up from the majors, from those trades that they made, those are two guys who are going to be the vets of the team and are really going to try to push the Marlins back into, I mean, hopefully playoff contention. Yeah, it's easier to sell a rebuild if you haven't been perpetually rebuilding throughout the existence of your franchise with a few highlight seasons here and there.

And I know that it's a new person in charge and this is Peter Bendix's first attempt to rebuild the Marlins, but just tough when you don't have that kind of commitment from ownership to know that, okay, when the rebuild comes to fruition, you will actually be investing in that roster and not shipping those guys out and starting yet another rebuild. So your colleague at Fish on First Eli Sussman wrote something last month, headline, Bruce Sherman fantasizes of Marlins contending without paying for good players.

And Sherman, I players, and Sherman, I guess, joked, everybody wants you to sign every free agent that's available. We understand that. Of course, they're very far from signing every free agent that's available. There was some reporting this offseason about the possibility of a grievance, and there was reporting about the A's, and how maybe part of the fact that they did do some spending this off season was to avoid a grievance, which the Marlins have been the subject of before. If you're getting revenue sharing, then you're supposed to spend a certain amount so that you're not just pocketing that cash that you're getting from the other teams.

Seems like they're not overly concerned about that, though, I guess, given how they handled this off season. So do you think that was something that weighed on them at all? Or are they just taking their chances? And is this cheapness or is it an actual concerted attempt to just strip it down to the studs and start over and do it better this time? BD I generally think it has to be a little bit of both. You're right. This grievance is going to pop up soon enough. And we saw the A's make a lot of moves this off season

to kind of reach that, you know, to that, that payroll that they needed to. And the Marlins are going to have to do that at some point, but right now they're not, they don't feel like that's a necessity. It seems like, you know, they, they even traded guys like a Jake Berger, for example, who wasn't even making a million dollars or what is projected to make a million dollars. He's making like $750k, $800k this season. He still was under club control until 2029 and hadn't even reached arbitration yet. So that's just like alright, that's part of the stripping down. Peter Bennex has only signed two major league free agents in his tenure here Tim Anderson last season

Which we spoke about and then this year Cal Quancho and we have to remember Eric Wagamans a split deal So if he doesn't make the roster it turns into I believe a minor league deal essentially They don't seem like they're very like they don't really care about this grievance right now It seems like but I'm sure you know soon enough It's gonna be something that's gonna cross their minds and they still have a little bit of money on the books I believe Avi Garcia still on the books for this year and I think next year after that so they still have some money and they're gonna have to start taking the Stanton contract I believe next season too as part of that so they're gonna have

money on the books but unfortunately it's just not players on the current roster and we'll see what happens with Sandy. Obviously that's a big concern too when Sandy is making 17 million this season, 17 next season if he's still at the Marlins. So that's another thing we'll have to see. But yeah, as much as they are stripping it all the way down, I don't think they're really worried about this grievance right now. That's maybe something that I think will be more of a

worry, I would say next year. So you mentioned the trades, they sent Berger away, they also sent away Jesus Lizardo. The primary return in that deal was Charlene Kaba, who isn't going to be in the majors tomorrow or anything like that. But I'm curious sort of what they saw in Kaba to make him the centerpiece of that Luzzardo deal. Yeah. And to be honest with you, I was very surprised they traded Luzzardo to begin with, just given, first of all, just he was injured. I mean, he's coming off an injury and he wasn't very good in 2024. And especially that they traded him to an indivision rival, which is even like just crazier that they did that. But again, look, they liked Kaba. When Peter Bendix did his media availability following this trade, he said that I think this is the only time

he's used the term all-star. He believes Starlin Kaba could be an all-star for the Marlins once he makes it to the major leagues. And again, look, this is a guy who's going to stick at short. He's probably the best defensive shortstop in minor league baseball If not top two or three, it's an awesome approach at the plate doesn't strike out walks more You know struggled a little bit when he got to low a but I think it's just Still I mean he's gonna he needs to put the ball and play a little more That's one thing that he lacked when he got to low a he was awesome the FCL So they really really really like really like Starlin Cabba.

They believe this is a potential superstar at shortstop. And that's why he was the main piece. But again, and I need to reiterate, I'm very shocked that they didn't trade Luzardo. I thought this was someone who was going to be in the rotation with Sandy, at least up until the trade deadline, we're probably going to trade Sandy and Luzardo at that point. But I guess for a team in contention, like the Phillies, they wanted someone who's going to be around for just a little bit longer than half a season and then whatever was left on his control. They wanted, you know, a full season of Hazel's Luzardo and that's fair.

And now the Phillies find themselves with probably one of the best rotations in the national league and even baseball. Well, I guess we should discuss Sandy Alcantara, that is coming back from Tommy John surgery has looked great, it seems like in spring. What have you seen? What is he showing? Is he doing anything different or is he the same guy?

And if he is the same guy, which would be really good cause he was a good guy, would they ship him out early in the season? Do you think it seems like Bendix is not necessarily bound to waiting for the trade deadline if the Luis Araya's deal is any indication? Yeah, exactly. That's an awesome comparison right there with the Araya's deal. If the Marlins find themselves in a situation like last season where, you know, and I think last

season Bendix was trying to see if this team would compete some way somehow and as crazy that sounds I think he you know He brought in the Tim Anderson thinking maybe the bounce back would happen obviously didn't but I think this year It's a little bit of different different circumstance like they know they're not gonna be good. They know they'll not lose a hundred games I think that's what they're hoping that happens that they win more than 62 obviously any team wants that but I Think they're gonna need to wait this out until the trade deadline. Sandy looks awesome. I got to watch his start in person against the Braves.

He hit 100 a couple times and he did make some sort of change with his slider. It's a different grip now. I think maybe now more towards a sweeper. The Marlins, if there's one thing they need to nail this season, it's that trade. Because San Diego contract will be the prize, the crown jewel of the trade deadline. He's still under contract for next year and then he's on a club option for the following year after that. So it's an extremely team friendly deal.

It's still one of the best deals out there, one of the best pinching deals out there. And maybe Cole Regans recently beats him out on that but still I mean it's a good deal and I think any team would love to take that. I mean all 29 teams should be calling the Marlins to try to acquire San Diego Concha as soon as possible. I really would be interested in what the timing looks like, I know there was a report saying that he will be on an innings limit that was known already before he had mentioned that in a media availability when the Marlins held their media day. He said that the first two months he's going to let the organization kind of play it out, see what it's like, but after that he wants to go out there and compete and he wants to go deep in the games. And Clayton McCullough,

the Marlins new manager, already mentioned that he will go a max of five innings this spring. So in his next start, he'll probably go four and then after that five and we'll see what happens after that. But yeah, I mean mean Sandy's back. It looks awesome. He looks good to go. And I think for any Marlins fan, it's just like, you know, let's enjoy what we have left of Sandy and who knows, maybe the Marlins will keep him. I doubt that happens, but if they do keep him, that would be extremely shocking. But right now, I think the best way to just look at it is like the Marlins may have the best opening day matchup. If Paul Skeens isn't in there, their opening day starter for the Pirates, it'll be Sandy versus Skeens. I don't think you could ask for a better opening day matchup than

that. Let's talk about a guy who will not be on the opening day roster who was put on the 60 day last month. And that's Yuri Perez, who had Tommy John surgery in April of last year, where is Yuri in his sort of recovery? When do they expect him back and have there been any updates on how his rehab has gone so far? Yeah, so I, okay, so Yuri's expected to return after the All-Star break, just after that. That's at least the timeline that they've given the media. I've been able to watch a couple of his bullpens. He's been throwing bullpens every five days. Not like what you're seeing that's been reported with the Morrillans where it's a live BP. He's throwing just a normal side. No hitter in the box this time around. But he's averaging upper 80s right now, low 90s, not going full strength

obviously. But he's throwing bullpens. He's looked good. I got to watch a couple of them in person. And it's just a matter of not just continuing to do that at some point i mean look he's coming back this season for sure and it looks good i mean i spoke to Clayton McCullough recently he says just the progress he's been able to make is awesome and even if he's not throwing out 100% right now it still looks really good And it looked really good from what I saw in person just a couple of weeks back. So I'm excited to see Uri. And, you know, I think every Marlins fan hopes that at some point him and Sandy could once again share their rotation, but it's, that doesn't look likely,

unfortunately, just with the trade deadline and all that. So we'll see what happens. Uri at the moment should be returning just after the All-Star break though. You mentioned McCullough. We should probably talk about him. The Marlins have a new manager. We'll see what happens. Uri at the moment should be returning just after the All-Star break though. You mentioned McCullough. We should probably talk about him. The Marlins have a new manager. They hired him in November.

Tell us a little bit about his background, his qualifications, what made Bendix and Sherman think that he was the guy. Yeah, I mean, this guy comes from a developmental background. He was in the Blue Jays organization for a very, very long time as a minor league manager. He was in the Blue Jays organization for a very, very long time as a minor league manager. He was coming up pretty quickly, goes to the Dodgers as a minor league

field coordinator for a couple of years. In the last four years or so, he's been with the Dodgers as our first base coach. And I mean, all we've heard from Clayton are good things. You know, when you hear Shohei Otani talk very highly of Clayton McCullough, Mookie Betts saying that's one of the best coaches he's ever had. I mean, you take that and you want to hear that, you know, about your manager. And you know, we make this running joke amongst the media. It's just like he's such a nice guy. Like we want to see what he would look like when he gets ejected from a game and he has to give his money's worth because

it's gonna be interesting to see that. But look, this is a guy who seems like he knows what he's doing. He wants to get to know his players. I think this is he brought in a staff that's extremely young, known over the age of 45. So it's the youngest staff in baseball. And I think it's good because they could relate to these younger players, the youth movement that the Marlins are trying to kind of conduct here. It's really different practices than what we see from a usual staff. Like again, as I mentioned, pitchers do in their bullpens as a live BP with a hitter in the box from day one. Then you have pitchers playing shortstop to work on. That's their PFP right

there. And just very different ways of doing BP. So it's really interesting things that he's been able to implement into the organization that I don't think you would have seen with other managers or you don't see with other managers. So I like Clayton McCullough. I think this is a good hire. And on day one of full squad, Bruce Sherman said that he gave one of the best speeches to the team that he's ever heard. So I think he's off to a good start here in Miami and he's brought in a really good staff. A lot of uncertainty with the staff because it's a lot of first timers in certain positions, but early on it seems like

the players have really gravitated towards that staff and they're really excited to see what's to come. I was going to ask about that turnover and some of the new faces on the coaching staff, in the player development infrastructure, in the front office because there's been a ton of hiring and also firing and laying people off. Bendix really took some time, it seems like, to evaluate what he had when he took over this organization and then really pretty aggressively cleaned house. So what did he do in terms of setting up the front office structure? Who else is going to be on McCullough's staff?

To be clear, I mean, you look at the minor league side really quickly, they're all gone. Everyone's gone from the minor league staff. They brought in completely new managers to every affiliate. It'll be a new staff. Just a couple of returners, for example, like Jared Icah, former Phillies pitcher. He was with the Pensacola Blue,

Wahoos, the Marlins double A affiliate. He will return as their pitching coach, for example. Kevin Randall, who was the former Wahoos manager is now just in and more of an Organizational role. So those are just like two guys that kind of stand out at least on the minor league side And then on the major league side, it's a completely new staff. Daniel Moskis is gonna be the Marlins pitching coach He's also a driveline guy So that's one thing to note a lot of driveline People coming to the Marlins organization Brandon Mann who was already here last year now the bullpen coach and Moskis the the pitching coach drive line we put out a tweet about this how much that analytics staff has just grown in the matter of a year and and even the players are noticing they're saying it's a lot more analytical a lot

more numbers that we're seeing that we just didn't see with the previous staff so i think that's what peter wanted to bring in and again you know he turned this whole thing up completely it's completely new staff on the major league level. I mean, travel, travel agent was even fired and they brought in a new one. A lot of clubbies were changed up. So it's, it's a completely new and a lot of new people in this organization. And it's just like, okay, now we got to introduce ourselves to these new people and the, and it's going to be interesting, but I think at early on just the energy is high. I think it's working. It's a lot. It's even a youth movement honestly on just personnel that they're bringing in working. It's a lot. It's even a youth movement, honestly,

on just personnel that they're bringing in. And a lot of this is led by Gabe Kapler, who is Peter Bendix's right hand man at this point. And a lot of these hirings were his. For example, hitting coach Pedro Guerrero was immediately hired right after McCullough's hiring to be the manager was announced and he's the Marlins hitting coach. So he was formerly with the San Francisco Giants. He was on Gabe Kapler's staff and he was on Gabe Kapler's staff in Philadelphia as well. So that's another guy, just a young, youthful guy who was a former minor league player. A lot of former minor league players too. So another one to name, Carson Vitale, who was an angels coach at the Dominican Summer

League and he was with the Seattle Mariners recently. So just a couple of names there to mention on the new staff and just how much turnover has really gone on in this organization. I imagine that one of the young guys they're hoping that staff can connect with is Max Meyer, who had a kind of disappointing big league debut last year. His velocity was well below its sort of prospect peak. It sounds like it has been back up again in spring. What do they have him working on this year or sort of take a step forward and do you have any concerns about the way that his velocity fluctuated last year? Yeah, so Max came up last season.

He started with the big league team wasn't supposed to just injuries happen and he had to come up right away on opening day. He looked awesome that first couple of starts of the season. And unfortunately, I think what really messed with him just was being sent down. I mean, when Max Meyer was sent down in 2024, he was the best pitcher on the Marlins. And when that happens, it really messes with you. He said that that really messed with him is just mentally mentally and I think that really ruined him the rest of the season. Just knowing, you know, yeah you brought me back up but you shouldn't have sent me down to begin with.

This offseason the coaching staff had him add a sweeper to his arsenal and the sinker which he used to throw a little bit, didn't throw too much last season, he's throwing that a lot more now. Look, I mean, at the end of the day Max Meyer needed to add some more pitches to his arsenal. He was going fastball slider and then with the occasional change up, that just wasn't going to work for Max. I mean, and the change up wasn't great last season. It was one of his worst pitches. He was really going slider heavy. He needed to add something else to compliment his current arsenal and it's looked good. The VELO is back up, it's 96, 97.

He's averaging 94 for the most part, 94, 95. So he's looked awesome. He's been one of the bright spots in camp. And I think this is someone who's going to make the rotation. I mean, look, he was fighting for a fifth spot in the rotation. And I think just from the first start he made it, it looked awesome. Everything's looked really good. The sweeper is nasty, gets a lot more swing and miss. And he likes it. I mean, he likes what he's done. He feels as confident as ever. And that's the other thing too, just mentally now he's a lot more confident with what he's throwing. You looked at just the pitch usage last year, so much slider complimented by the four seamer. Now he has his sweeper and sinker to kind of add to compliment

to that and kind of just round out the arsenal a little more, which he really needed to do because it was a lot of reliever risk just last season in the second half where, you know, he could have been a pretty good reliever with the fastball slider combo. Now he gets to add a couple more pitches and it's been working out so far. We're jumping around a little bit, but I did want to ask about Matt Mervis, who was one of the players who was acquired via trade this winter from the Cubs in December. Tell us about their hopes for him. You look at this lineup there,

a lot of question marks, I guess, would be one charitable way to put it. And he is one of them, but they're obviously hoping that giving him consistent playing time could lead to some sort of improvement. Yeah. And when I spoke to him, he even noted it. He was just like, I needed this. I needed a new, fresh start, a new team to go to because in Chicago, I mean, he was a top prospect for them for a very long time, but you acquire Michael Bush, you bring in, I think it was Eric Cosmer,

and you bring in then Trey Mancini at one point, just getting blocked and blocked and blocked. And the Michael Bush thing was basically the nail in the coffin when they acquired him, to Matt Murvis just being blocked and not being able to make it up. He was hurt last season, suffered a broken hand, so he's back from that,

and he's looked awesome so far in spring, and he's gonna split time at first with Jonah Bride and whoever's not at first will be DHing so he's gonna get a lot more consistent playing time I think he's needed this he's off to a great start this spring and he's been the talk of the town and just when it comes to the position players and the newcomers on the position player side you have Griffin Kona and Graham Pauley and then on the minor league side you have a couple other guys so you know it's a fresh start for him but it helps out having some guys that he knows and I think that's also played a factor in just to you know having a different type of

spring a good spring and I think defensively there's still a little bit of improvement yet you know to be done but overall offensively I think he's going to be a fun guy to watch and he he's played in Miami before he's played at Lone Depot at the WBC when he played with Team Israel and he says he enjoys it. He likes playing at Lone Depot. He said right field is what he really likes. He said the ball flies well over there. So hopefully that plays during the season and it seems like maybe the gaps will really

help him to Lone Depot. So he's off to a good start. He's in the lineup today as we're speaking. They're over in Northport facing the Braves and he's in there today So looking forward to seeing what he can do with the Marlins one thing that teams that are in the Marlins position Sometimes do is cycle through their younger guys and see you know Who among them can really establish themselves at the big league level? They maybe get a little bit more run because they aren't trying to secure a postseason spot

We've talked about some of the young guys on the opening day roster, but as you look to the high minors, is there anyone on the position player side who strikes you as likely to see big league time this season? Yeah, it needs to start with Augustin Ramirez, who the Marlins acquired in that Jazz Chisholm Junior trade from the Yankees. So he's looked really good so far this spring. He had a 115 mile per hour exit V lo Really early on in spring. It's still the highest of the violence

Amongst Marlins players this spring behind the plate. I know there's a lot of questions and if that's totally fair There still should be a lot of question behind the plate. He's on this trip at the Marlins So I'm sure he'll probably start Against the Red Sox at JetBlue Park, so I'm looking forward to seeing what that looks like but he did start already a game behind the plate he's looked good so far I think a big thing too is just the ABS how much that's helped all these pitchers and you know we're pitchers and catchers too so he's looked really good Davis and De La Sant was at some points gonna reach the major leagues it's it's been a rough go for him so far this spring

And 11 at bass he struck out six times So that's just as bad as it gets but look I think the Marlins knew what they were getting in Davidson This is a guy who was a high strikeout guy a lot of whiffs a lot of swing and miss and But the power is there. I mean 40 home runs. That's 70 great power More or less what you're looking at and they really like that. They think he's he could stick at first. I think he's a pretty good first pretty good first baseman defensively. So those are those are two guys I'm looking at. Max Acosta has been the talk of the spring.

I think this is a guy who's going to stick it short. He's shown it already. And I think, you know, even without any AAA experience, he's looked really comfortable at the plate. I'm really excited to see what he does there. And at some point he's going to be a Miami Marlins Major Leaguer in 2025. Then the last thing is Jared Serna. I've been really impressed with Jared Serna so far.

He got off to a pretty slow start even throughout just the full squad workouts. It was just like, all right, this is a little bit underwhelming, not what I expected. But once he started getting into game action, it looked really good. And just one more name, Joe Mack. At some point he's going to debut. He's going to stick at a catcher. He has the arm. He's good defensively. He got a really big power surge in 2024, hoping that kind of translates in 25. And he's a good offensive catcher. I mean, the Marlins in a very long time have not had two good offensive catchers in their system. So I think they're really looking forward to this tandem

of Joe Mack and Augustin Ramirez to be the future for this team. You mentioned Jesus Sanchez earlier. Joshian recently named him as a breakout candidate, and if he were to have a fine season, I would say that he passes Muster as a breakout guy because he is well established in the big leagues now. He's had more than 1,500 major league plate appearances, and he's been almost exactly a league average hitter. It just has not been very exciting, especially given his positions, but he hits the ball very hard. And I guess as long as you hit the ball very hard, there are people who will dream on you doing better. So can he find a way to not just hit it hard, but also hit it in the air and pull it in the air.

It's not the most favorable offensive environment under the best of circumstances, but he doesn't do a lot of lifting when it comes to getting the ball up, and so that has hurt his power. Is he making any changes or has he at least expressed that that might be a goal? CB He's been pretty quiet so far this spring just in terms of talking to the media. May have spoken to them once. They're trying him out in center field again, which is crazy to think, but they want their guys to be versatile on the defensive side and Sanchez is going to get every opportunity possible to play center field. But look, I think a big issue for him was just facing lefties and that still will be an issue. I think at this point for Sanchez, they gave him the opportunity.

I don't know if they'll give it to him with a new regime. Maybe they will, but at this point, it feels like he's just going to be more of a platoon guy facing Reide's, which he dominated last year and he had a great second half of the season in 2024. And you're right, the guy hits the ball harder than anyone. He has some majestic home runs. Had one a couple years back at Coors as we all remember and I know it's Coors but I mean 498 is 498 and then last year here at Lone Depot he hit an absolute tank. So I think Jesus Sanchez has the opportunity to break out. I just think it needs to be under the right circumstances.

I don't know if they'll put him against lefty pitching. They obviously have because you have to during spring just to get him as many reps as possible. But I am interested to see and I think he, I think many people are putting him down as breakout candidate. He's going to get a lot of playing time obviously with this team and, and who knows? I mean, down the line, if he's playing very well and he's breaking out, this is someone who the Marlins could move at the deadline. Teams would take that type of bat, someone who they put in against a righty, a platoon bat. I would be interested to see what a season for Hazy Sanchez looks like in 2025, to be honest with you, on the offensive side,

but mainly on defense to see where they end up putting him. They really think the center field thing is going to work out because they tried it once and it ended with Hazy Sanchez getting hurt at Tropicana Field and giving away an inside the park homer. So we'll see what happens with Sanchi, but I think he's good to go. He feels really good. He dealt with a little bit of an injury early on in the spring, but he's back. And I think if there's any exciting player to watch on the position player side, outside of the two we've already mentioned, Norby and Edwards, it's going to be Sanchez. So we talked about Sandy, we talked about Yuri, we talked about Max Meyer, you mentioned the signing of Quantrol.

Tell us about the rest of that rotation, both as it stacks up for opening day now and then the depth behind it if one of those guys falters. Yeah, we need to talk about Ryan Weathers. Ryan Weathers has been the talk after Max Meyer. It's just like, all right, the VLO's up. He lost about Ryan Weathers has been the talk after Max Meyer. It's just like alright the VLOs up He lost about 20 pounds of weight. So he looks completely different He says that's just helping him out with extension and and obviously just throwing harder He hit a hundred a couple nights, you know a couple weeks ago and West Palm Beach is making the start today

Against the Braves. So I'm excited to see what Ryan Weathers does This is a guy who unfortunately got hurt at the midway through last season and that basically kept him out throughout the remainder of the season up until really like the last start. He made one more starting game 162 look really good. So I'm excited to see what he does. Edward Cabrera, it's such a frustrating watch because you know, the stuff is there. He has some of the best stuff on the Marlins, but it's just, can you command it? is to death after that you have someone like a Valente Bellozzo who has some increase in Velo now he's averaging 90-91 you know compared to an 88-89 miles per hour he increased that Velo he got hit pretty hard the other night against Washington but look Bellozzo is not going to be someone who's going to blow you away with speed but if he could add a couple

miles and that's helped and he says it's helping. He says, you know, and just from the point of view of the catcher, for example, Nick Fortes says the secondary stuff looks a lot sharper. So that's really encouraging to hear. After that, you have an Adam Mazer who added a sweeper to his arsenal as well. So the Marnes really trying to get the pitchers to add sweepers. He's looked really good. He's going to start, not start start but make an appearance following Ryan Weathers Thursday against the Braves and then you have Robbie Snelling who? Struggled his last time out following Sandy against the Braves last week, but he added a slider to his arsenal So I'm looking forward to seeing what that looks like And yeah, look, I mean the Marlins are gonna have a lot of guys who are really close to making the majors already You know just mentioned to right off the rip there in in major and Snelling.

I think those are two really good pitchers. Then you have Dax Fulton who's returning from Tommy John. He was recently added to the 40-man roster to protect him from the rule five draft. He's up to 93-94. He also added a new pitch. Looking forward to seeing how that looks like. He's looked really good so far this spring. So look, the Marlins have a lot of pitching. They still have pitching even if, you know, what was such a pitching centric development team with the previous regime that's still here. And I think that just adding someone like a Daniel Moskis to this pitching staff as a pitching coach and who they brought in has really helped and is going to continue to help.

I think the Marlins have a little bit more depth than they did going into last season. Obviously no one saw the amount of injuries that they went through that starting rotation happen to the point where they had to roll out a Roderic Munoz or a Sean Anderson throughout the season. But look, I think they're going to obviously prioritize health and I think that'll be a lot better this season and hopefully at the moment, you know, knock on wood, no one gets hurt throughout the rest of the spring. We previewed the Guardians last time and we talked about how their bullpen was the best

in baseball. I don't think that would be a surprise to anyone. We just talked about the Braves. Their bullpen was third best by FanGraphs War last year. After that, it's a bunch of other contending teams. I don't know how many people would guess off the dome that the Marlins were sandwiched between the Guardians and the Braves last year in bullpen war. They were second in baseball. Take us through that group. Obviously there

have been departures, so it's not entirely the same group and Tanner Scott is gone, but there are not a lot of big name pitchers in this bullpen, but clearly it was an effective unit. Where did that production come from and how much can they expect this year? Yeah, and you said it. I mean, Tanner Scott was a big reason why they were so high. You know, as one of the best bullpens in baseball and even AJ Puk once they made him a reliever again

Right before AJ puck got traded. He was on a really like he was on a heater and there's no other way to say he was Only like anything like they had an allow. He had an allotted run God knows how many innings and he still did that with the Diamondbacks He was one of the best relievers in baseball But look Calvin Fauche is gonna probably close out games for the Marlins this season They acquired him from the Rays last season He came in and and you know after the Tanner Scott trade he got implemented into that Calvin Fauche is going to probably close out games for the Marlins this season. They acquired him from the Rays last season. He came in and after the Tanner Scott trade, he got implemented into that closer role and

he looked really good. Then you have a Jesus Tanaka who the Marlins claimed off of waivers from the Cubs mid-season. He looked really good, still looks good so far this spring. Anthony Bender, another guy who will probably get some looks in the ninth inning.'s been around for a while came off of Tommy John last season looked all right probably will be in a bigger role this season he's the oldest player on the team to Anthony Bender one of only two players on the 40 men who are 30 years old but he's the oldest at 30 Declan Cronin you know you look at his numbers the er and the fifth completely different so I think he was just really unlucky last season he was one really unlucky last season.

He was one of the unluckiest relievers. And I know our guy at Fish on First, Lewis Addio-Weiss, wrote an awesome article on just how unlucky Cronin was. And Cronin just spoke to him for a bit about that as well. Just, you know, last season, looking back on it, but you know, with Andrew Nardi suffering a back injury as well now this spring, most likely won't make the opening day roster just because of that. He's far behind, they shut him down completely again.

A lefty I'm looking at is Anthony Veniziano, who the Marlins claimed off of waivers from the Royals last season. He's up to 95-96 this spring, really really looking forward to seeing what he could provide as the lone lefty in the wool pound. And then you have three other names, Lake Bacher,, who the Marnes acquired off of waivers, looked good. Ronnie Henriquez, another waiver claim from the twins, but he's looked awesome so far too.

And then Connor Gillespie, we'll see if he makes the bullpen or not. I think there's a couple of spots in that bullpen up for grabs, but I think for the most part, this bullpen looks pretty set in stone. So just from those names I mentioned, I know those are the ones you guys have projected on fan graphs. So that looks pretty pretty much good to go.

Gillespie is more of a long man. A name I would actually mention is Jansen Junk who looked really good last time out as a reliever. So I'm looking I would like to see him as a reliever. I know he added a sweeper as well and that's another guy who worked with driveline before and he knows a lot of the guys that add driveline and you know on this Marlin staff from that so I think this is going to be a good bullpen I think there's going to be a couple names here like a Fochet, Tanoko, Bender, Cronin that could see themselves in trade rumors come June July so I think this is a fun squad a fun bullpen and I think it'll help them out again the pitching is going to be the

Marlins you know driving factor what will make them a float, win a couple games in 2025. I don't think it'll be the offense by any means, but look, this bullpen is gonna be good and they're gonna have some names just like last season on the move. Well, we have to ask the traditional question about what would constitute success for this team this season and the answer for the Marlins

is certainly not gonna be what it was for the Braves. It's not gonna be a World Series or busts kind of answer here or even October or bust. So with a team like this that is just mid executing a total tear down, how do you even evaluate whether they are moving in the right direction? How should their fans and the organization itself evaluate this season? Yeah, there's a lot of ways, honestly. Look, there's a lot of questions every fan, media member asks themselves going into spring training. And one of those is going to be, for example, how will Xavier Edwards look at shortstop throughout the course of a full season

at the major league level? I think if he looks good and if he's able to stick there, that's a success. Connor Norby, will he be able to be what the Marlins expected throughout the course of a full season? Will the Marlins be able to nail this San Diego-Alcantara trade? Will the Marlins not lose 100 games? That would be nice if they didn't. And again, these young players that the Marlins are calling up are going to call up Augustin Ramirez and Joe Mack. How will that look at the Major League level? If a lot of those questions are answered in a positive way, of course, I think that has to be a successful season. But look, there's so many ways that the Marlins

could consider this a successful season. As you guys mentioned, this is no Dodgers or Braves. This is the Marlins who are gonna find themselves in another year of a rebuild, year two of the Peter Bendix rebuild. And unfortunately, it's not gonna come down to wins or losses. I think think comes down more to individual players and how those guys perform. And if those guys are going to be some players that will be able to remain

on the Marlins for years to come, like will Conor Norby be a Marlin in 2028? Will Xavier Edwards be a Marlin in 2029? For example, just those types of names, will they be a part of the next big Marlin scene as we as we kind of spoke about at the top of the show? Has the level of apathy among fans just reached a new low or is this kind of Marlins fans are used to this sort of thing? Like last year, the Marlins attendance was the second lowest in baseball over only the A's and this year with the A's in Sacramento, lower capacity, but probably some sellouts. And so the Marlins might fall below even teams

that are playing in minor league parks potentially. And it's hard to blame a Marlins fan for not coming out to see this team, especially if they subtract from the roster as the season goes on. If you trade Alcantara, what are you gonna be coming out to watch other than that hope?

So do you see with your finger on the pulse of the Marlins fan base as such as it is that there is just exasperation at this point, that there's hope, that they feel like, all right, this is the time, it's definitely not Charlie Brown and Lucy in the football, or are people just kind of checked out until they have a reason to check in? Yeah, I think it's a little bit of both. I think obviously their fans are just completely checked out and they really don't want to go through another one. But then they're fans that understand.

They understand what the Marlins are doing. They want to follow along. They want to be a part of this because they're going to get to know the team once, you know, hopefully they're fighting for a postseason spot. So a lot of fans are as analytical darlings as the Marlins are, where they're following along, they're looking at the numbers, they're posting these numbers that you wouldn't have seen a couple years back. So it's really interesting to see this Marlins fan base nowadays.

But again, I think every Marlins fan isn't going to be very happy when Sandy's no longer on the team. They're going to be really mad when he's gone. They're going to be probably mad when a lot of these other names are traded or DF8 or who knows. And I think right now the Smarlin's fan base is at a low, but I think they're pretty excited just finally having some baseball back and they're oh and oh. So hopefully it's not oh and nine at the start of the season. And it's a little different this time around. But yeah, look, I think a lot of fans are pretty, you know, they know what's going on. They know that this team isn't expected to be good and it won't be good.

It's just a matter of, all right, let's watch and let's see what happens. They don't currently have a losing record. It is true. There we go. Bring, bring back the home run statue and they'll be good to go. Put it right there in center. I know it's outside, but bring back in the park. At least give people something to look at. Well, you can look at the coverage that Kevin Braul will provide

of the Marlins all season long at Fish on First. You can catch the Fish on First podcast, which is called Fish on First, not hard to find. Thank you very much, Kevin. Yeah, thank you guys for having me. That'll do it for today. Thanks as always for listening. Just two more preview pods to go.

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More to the game than meets the eye To get the stats compiled and the stories filed Fans on the internet might get riled, but we can break it down on Effectively Wild.