Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2350: Back in the Swing-Off Things

Episode Date: July 18, 2025

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about a rare prediction by Ben, related to two players who were recently swapped by the Pirates and Royals, Adam Frazier and Cam Devanney. Then (13:52) they mark the podcast’s 13th birthday and launch a “2025 in 2025” plea for Patreon support before (24:19) discussing several of the most […]

With Ben Lindberg and Meg Rowley, come for the ball, banters free. Baseball is a simulation, it's all just one big conversation. Effectively wild. Hello and welcome to episode 2350 of Effectively Wild, a FanGraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Raulia of FanGraphs and I am joined by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? I am moved to make a prediction, which you know I am loath to do.

Your least favorite. I think I'm going to take the plunge and make a minor low stakes prediction. It's almost a bet, but a bet without stakes, but predicting and betting both things that I rarely do. But I'm gonna do one I think related to the Royals who have still not called up Rich Hill, who struck out 10 Toledo Mudhens in five innings of one run ball before the break,

becoming the first 45 year old with double digit Ks in a pro game since Nolan Ryan, according to MLB.com. Yeah. But this prediction is not actually related to Rich Hill. I just wanted to support him and take a shot at the Royals for letting him languish in triple A. Yeah. But I guess he will not have a new teammate now, but a former teammate of Rich Hills will be on the move

to the Pirates because the Royals and Pirates made a trade. I know it's about the least exciting start to the post All-Star break trade deadline season that one could possibly imagine, but it is technically a trade. The Pirates traded Adam Frazier to the Royals for Cam Devaney. I saw this trade and when I woke up

from spontaneously falling asleep after reading the headline, I then analyzed what I knew about Cam Devaney, which is not much. But I think that this is the rare case where a team trades a player and the guy they traded, I think is actually worse than the guy they got. That's the bet that I'm making here.

I think I would rather have Cam Devaney than Adam Frazier, which is not what the Royals are thinking here because the Royals are the contender or or at least the quasi-contender in this trade. Ostensible contender. Yeah, they're a bit of a long shot there. They're at 47 and 50. They're at 12.3% chances to make the playoffs, according to FanCrafts on Thursday, but they're trying to juice those chances.

Actually, that's probably post-Frasier bump. Yes, it is. If there was a Frasier bump, I'm not sure that there would have been, but this is a team that's totally out of it, trading with a team that is still, at least on the fringes of contention, trying to return to the playoffs

and hoping that Adam Frasier will help them get there, as he did last year, I suppose. Then again, it's debatable whether will help them get there as he did last year, I suppose. But then again, it's debatable whether he helped them get there or he just happened to be there when they made the playoffs. Not sure he actually furthered the case. Adam Frazier played 104 games for the Royals last year. He had 202, 282, 294. So he may have actually been an impediment

to their playoff run, but, you know, 0.1 wins above replacement this year for the Pirates. Negative 0.6 for the Royals last year. So again, perhaps a hindrance, if anything. This year he's hit a little bit better. How could he not? He's gone up from a 64 WRC plus to an 82 WRC plus. I was kind of perplexed when the pirates signed him in the first place. I don't have a personal

axe to grind with Adam Frazier here. It really sounds like you do though. It does. I'm just offering that you do sound like that. I feel like I'm being mean. He's just, you know, he's not that great by big standards. He's had a few years where he was average or even a little bit better. He had that one year, 2021, he was pretty good. He was an above average hitter and, you know, he brings defensive versatility, etc. He's a veteran, I guess he's 33. But this is a case where I think I'd rather have the guy that the quasi contender aspiring playoff team gave up to the team that's totally out of it. The younger guy than the older guy in this case, because Cam Devaney this year in

triple A playing with Rich Hill for Omaha in the international league, he has batted 272, 366, 565 with 18 home runs in 288 plate appearances. And don't get excited. He's 28 years old. You know, this is like his fourth year at that level. So I'm not saying Cam Devaney is great. I'm just saying when the competition is Adam Frazier, I would bet on Cam Devaney to out hit Adam Frazier.

That's a 137 WRC plus. Yeah. In AAA this year. Not too shabby. Yeah. And even if you look at the translated stats, so Clay Davenport, who is one of the founders of Baseball Prospectus, and he still maintains his own site and stats at claydavenport.com. And he has minor league translations where he takes the minor league stats and then he kind of AAA stats this year, and you put them on the

same playing field, then Devaney certainly has been better. Clay has a stat called equivalent average, which is an old baseball prospectus stat EQA that's sort of centered around a baseline of 260, which was kind of the historical average for batting average. It's an all-in-one offensive stat like Woba or whatever. And Cam Devaney has a 283 equivalent average for Major League Adjusted and Adam Frazier 248. So significantly below average, significantly above average.

And then I went to look at the projections because I was thinking, gosh, is this just a very nice 69 games for Cam Devaney this year? Is it a complete fluke? Maybe. So I looked at the Zips rest of season projections. Yeah. Adam Frazier's rest of season projected WRC plus 81, Cam Devaney 80. Yeah. So Frazier does have the lead, but they've made this trade for one point of projected WRC+. So Devaney, he's five, five plus years younger. He has a few minor league options remaining. He's making the minimum.

He's under team control for whatever that's worth. Right? So Adam Frazier, he's not making a fortune, but he's making about double the major like minimum. I guess you could say that he might be a better fit for the Royals roster in that he's a lefty and they don't have a lot of lefties. They don't have any lefties on the bench. Not that he's like some, some big Southpaw slugger you're bringing in to pinch

it, but, and he has a little more outfield experience than Devaney. They've both played in the outfield, but Frazier has played a bit more, but they can both play all over the infield and they can play shortstop and all the rest. And so my bet, my prediction is that Cam Devaney will be better over the rest of this very season. This very one. Yeah. For getting any future seasons, but just for 2025, which is what the Royals are acquiring Adam Frazier for. I think Devaney will be better. And Devaney was already on their active roster. He was called up before the break and he didn't get

into a game for the Royals. So he's still a phantom major leaguer and the Pirates optioned him to AAA so he won't be in the big leagues immediately for them. But I assume that he will be at some point, maybe Isaiah Kiner-Fleffel will be traded, who knows? And that'll open up some playing time for Devaney, who by the way, attended the same alma mater as the great John Brebbia. So that's just another point in Cam Devaney's favor.

Yeah, yeah. So I don't know how to judge whether I'm right here. I guess I'd say rest of season WRC Plus, I think. Probably. Devaney's will be higher. I don't know, like probably Frazier will get more playing time. Almost certainly.

Yeah, and Frazier's not really in there for his bat, so you could say maybe WRC Plus is misleading. It should be war, not that Frazier's any great shakes in that category. You know, I'll say just because Frazier, who I just have a vendetta against evidently, I haven't thought about him for months, but suddenly, I just wanna just slack him off as much as I possibly can.

But I will say Devaney has a higher WRC Plus over the rest of the season and a higher war per 600 plate appearances. Let's say that just in case he doesn't get as much playing time as Frazier. Although frankly, more playing time does not necessarily equate to more war for Adam Frazier. Cause as we established war counting stat also

an accumulating stat. Is that what the listener suggested? It can go down after it goes up. Yes. I have three thoughts here. The first of which is that yes, it does. It being the the Royals playoff odds do take this into account and they moved from 11.6% playoff odds yesterday to 12.3 today. So that is the value of one Adam Frazier.

It's more than I would have guessed. More than I would have guessed also. I don't know if they were like, maybe that's just the number of runs in the simulation. There's some variation in there. Maybe there were other changes to the depth chart in the AL Central or the AL Wildcard race in that time. I don't know if we can attribute the entirety of that to the Adam Frazier bump, but maybe, maybe. But maybe. But that is how much their odds moved from 16th to the 17th. And so there's at least some Frazier in there, right? Maybe, maybe the system is accounting for several

clones of Adam Frazier that can be deployed at multiple positions, even in the outfield because boy howdy is the outfield very bad. So that's one thought. The next thought is we simply must take a moment to acknowledge how splendid the combination of Adam Frazier's new mustache with the Pirates uniforms were. And so we have to take a pause and say our RIP to that combo because boy did he just look like he should be playing for the Pirates like in the 70s. It was a really, really-

Yeah, the pillbox hat and the school uniforms. Yeah. Strong combination. And I don't mean to suggest that should he continue to wear the mustache that it will not elicit a similar response with the Royals, but probably not one quite as good. And then also I would just say, like, you know, Cam Devaney, he was a 48 plus future value prospect and, you know, he was a 15th rounder. He signed for $10,000.

So I think that should he prove you right and out produce Adam Frazier, we should take a moment to acknowledge how good an outcome that is given, I mean, not for Adam Frazier, who apparently we're at war with. I wish you had told me I would have come with something other than a compliment about his mustache. Please pile on Adam Frazier with me here.

Sixth rounder, Adam Frazier. Yeah, I didn't enjoy him as a mariner, if that makes you feel any better. You'd think the Royals can't have enjoyed him either. I mean, maybe on a personal level. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the guy. Maybe he's a cool guy. He could be, yeah, he's got playoff experience.

Yeah, he does. Veteran leader, maybe, who knows, but the Royals have seen up close and personal that he can't hit so well. By the way, Adam Frazier, all-star during that 21 season for the Pirates, I suppose. He split that season with the Pirates and the Padres and Padres acquired him and then he was less good for them.

That was kind of a fluky, babbip start to that season, I think, and he's hit fairly well for Pittsburgh lately, which is belied by his full season line, but that's how bad he was at the beginning of the season, but he's had a very babbip-boosted last hundred plus play appearances. See, trying to save it at the end so that Adam Frazier doesn't come for us, you know? Anyway, I guess that sums up my thoughts on Adam Frazier and Cam Devaney. So this is something to follow.

We're going to talk about rest of season storylines on this episode. There's one for you. The great Frazier Devaney race of 2025. Do you think that if your prediction proves true that Adam Frazier will respond by going, Oh baby, I hear the blues, not the same different spelling. Yeah but still. Never mind a Frasier reference. Never ever. Okay, I'll have to look up what the Fandgraf step charts are projecting Adam Frasier for.

Ah, they are projecting him. Well, let's see, I guess I have to add up his various plate appearances at various positions. Six plate appearances at third base. You can look at his player page, it should have the aggregate line. Yeah, I guess that's true, right? Yeah, so let's see. His rest of season, Fangrass depth chart.

Yeah,.1 more. 76 played appearances, an 82 WRC+, he is forecast for. Steamer, a little higher than Zip's evidently on Adam Frazier's bet. All right. Yeah, so really it's Dan who's evidently on Adam Frazier's bat. Yeah, so really it's Dan who has it out for Adam Frazier, not you. Thanks, Sam Borske, we trust. Okay, well, happy birthday to us, to Effectively Wild. We are recording on the day before Effectively Wild's birthday,

but when most people are hearing this, Friday, July 18th, that will be the official 13th birthday of Effectively Wild. This podcast started on July 18th, 2012, which was a lot of years ago, 13 to be precise. So this podcast is a teenager now. Effectively Wild is a teenager. That's a long time for a baseball podcast to continue for any podcast, but particularly a sports podcast, a baseball podcast. Haven't missed a beat, barely missed an episode, much to your chagrin, and we're still going strong. And thanks to everyone who has made that possible and who has been listening, whether it's from the start or this is your very first episode and you're wondering why we're talking so much about Adam

Frazier and Cam Devaney. It's not totally out of character for us to just like bury the leads so deep that it will never be exhumed. But I just wanted to make a little plea. We're not doing a pledge drive or anything, but this is the time of year when our Patreon support, it doesn't flag exactly, but the new subscribers tend to tail off and peter out. It's not that our support declines necessarily, but it tends to plateau at this point in the year, probably because people are checking out of baseball in some cases if their team is not doing well. And thus they check out of baseball podcasts, though there are people who have checked out

of baseball but have not checked out of Effectively Wild. We hear from them sometimes too. They just consume the sport solely through the lens of Effectively Wild, which is sort of a scary thought. Yeah. That's how you end up thinking that Adam Frazier is big news. Although he did merit a fan-craft post, right? Michael Bauman did a post about Adam Frazier.

He did. Although I will admit that when the trade hit the transom and Bauman claimed it, I said, I'll allow a post on Adam Frazier, but I do not require one. Yeah. Are you sure? If you insist. But then he made the excellent point that it is the opening bell. We got to mark the occasion.

I think despite the big discrepancy in size and import, it is a bit of a stretch to say that Devers was traded during deadline season. And so we shall commence our coverage. It is our commitment to you all that we will try to write up every transaction, large and small, although we don't always quite get there, but pretty close most of the time. Yeah. I guess you could say the Orioles raised Brian Baker trades last week kind of it depends So maybe that more of a draft season trade than a deadline trade

Maybe it's second half of July not second half of the season, but second half of July. I cannot believe this We are here second half of July so we can say that much for support from those who have not yet become Patreon supporters, I'mively repelling people probably. We must be pedantic. I suppose we should just be true to ourselves. So we have a little slogan here. We have a little, we've branded this plea for Patreon support, which is 2025 in 2025. It's catchy.

And the second 2025 refers to the year, which is 2025, in case you haven't caught up yet. But the first 2025 refers to the number of paid Patreon supporters we hope to have this year, or perhaps soon if people respond to this plea. As we record, Thursday afternoon, we have 1,966 paid Patreon supporters at various tiers. And I think this is a modest goal.

This is not even like a stretch goal. This is 59 additional Patreon supporters. It's like a 3% uptick in total Patreon supporters. That's not a lot, I don't think. I mean, we appreciate every one, but it doesn't seem unrealistic, I hope. And we hope that people who've been on the fence, maybe they will be so energized by this branding, because we have this cool motto, and hey, 2025, and 2025. Now you could be one of the additional 59 who make that happen. You can be one of the 20, 25.

We're not offering tote bags or anything, but we're offering what we usually offer our Patreon supporters, which is a good slate of stuff, I think. I agree. Not only do you get the satisfaction of having funded this podcast and enabling us to continue for 13 years and counting now,

but you also get access to a big backlog this podcast and enabling us to continue for 13 years and counting now. Wow. But you also get access to a big backlog of 44 episodes. Amazing. Just sitting there, not that there's any shortage of episodes as it is, but if you are someone who might be moved to financially support us, you might be in the market for even more. And as soon as you sign up at, I think, the second lowest tier even, you can access the full library of 44 episodes. And you could even just sign up for one month, download them all,

and cancel, and just listen to them to your heart's content. We hope they stick around, obviously, but you can do that. And we talk about all manner of things on those bonus episodes, sometimes baseball, but often not. Often not. Often, very often not. Everything and anything under the sun, really, we have touched on at some point in those bonus episodes.

And we do a lot of listener emails and some guests and interviews. They're fun. Good compliments to the main feed. And then you get access even at the lowest tier to the Patreon Discord group, where almost 1700 of those 1,966 page supporters, they're in the Discord group. It's just a hive of activity. It's buzzing.

It's quite collegial, quite inclusive. People making good online friends in there and just channels for everything you could conceive of when games are going on. There's a lot of good discussion of that. There's a good trade discussion. There's off-topic discussion. There's podcast discussion.

There's stat-plus discussion. You can get it all in there with like-minded fellow listeners. And you know, just kind of the cream of the crop when it comes to baseball fandom. class discussion, you can get it all in there with like-minded fellow listeners. And, you know, just kind of the cream of the crop when it comes to baseball fandom, people who have paid for the privilege of being in there. So not a lot of bad apples, not a lot of trolls in there. I think one person in the history of the Patreon Discord group has been banned and no one else has really risen to that level.

So it's a good, good group and lots of other bonuses too. Lots of, you know, prioritized email answers, as many emails as we answer on the show. That's the tip of the iceberg. We answer many more that don't make the show. And if you email us through the Patreon system, then it's easier for us to find them and prioritize them at a certain tier.

And there are playoff live streams coming up in just a few months now. We do a couple of those just for Patreon supporters in October. And personalized messages. People have had us do recordings, audio or video, just announcing their draft order for their fantasy league, whatever you want, within reason. We will do that for you. Just lots of extra fun perks. Plus if you sign up at one of the higher tiers, you can get an ad free fan graphs membership.

It basically pays for itself. You can support both sites at the same time or both entities. There's just a lot of great stuff there. So do check it out, please at patreon.com slash effectively wild. Help us achieve our goal. Get to 2025 in 2025. Maybe, maybe even very soon. Very soon. And we, as Ben said, appreciate every single person who signs up to support the pod. It is, you know, we, we do the occasional partnership with your what if sports with your baseball reference but it is a tremendous privilege to not have to read gambling ad copy.

We are grateful for it every single episode and or a copy of any kind. But let me tell you, that's the that's the money in the sports space. Yes. And so being able to have the show be what we want it is really special and we are grateful for it and really appreciate it. So you've been on the fence. This is as good a time as any, if you're able. Yeah, it's an oasis in a sea of ad-littered podcasts. Yeah, it is nice.

We are once again ad-free at this stage as we always are, but that is a really nice thing. And yeah, even out of the kindness of your own heart, if you want to keep making that possible for other people to enjoy, to draft off of your financial largesse and keep enjoying an ad-free podcast, that's not as of now, or we have no plans for that to be a Patreon only perk, which is something that a lot of podcasts do, but we, we want to make that available to everyone. That's our preference. So yeah, it's great.

And if you can't afford that right now, then that is perfectly fine too. We know it's always going to be a subset of minority of listeners supporting the podcast in that way. There are many other ways one could support the podcast just by listening and downloading and recommending and rating and reviewing and interacting and all the rest. And there are plenty of things that I'm on the free tier of even though there's a paid tier.

So we understand, you know, a budget allows support for only so many things. And there are just so many people and independent producers and writers and podcasters out there who also deserve your money. But we hope that some of you will deem us worthy as well. Yeah, we understand. And yeah, if you want a tote bag, like we know that your local public radio station or PBS station is going to be in need of your help.

So we understand we exist in a landscape where a lot of people are trying to do cool work and have it be listener supported. So we understand that it's not going to be for everyone, but we appreciate everyone who listens and we appreciate everyone who sends us money, whether it's a little bit or a lot. Thank you so much. Okay. So let's talk about what some sites might label as second half storylines, but we will, of course, dub rest of season storylines. I feel like I disappoint you every day.

Every day. I actually, I've appreciated, I don't know whether this is me or whether this would have happened anyway. Joshian the other day in his newsletter, he credited me for his not saying first half or second half or at least alluded to the fact that I would be disappointed or something. And then I saw that in a fan grass post published by Michael Rosen on Thursday, the headline was seven trends that defined the first half.

But first half was in quotation marks. And the very first paragraph made the point that it is not nearly half of the season. And I feel like, you know, I don't know whether I'm driving editorial decisions here. I hope not. But I did appreciate the caveats and the quotation marks. Rosen came to that all on his own. I do know that he listens to the show.

Yes. So I think that you've had your influence there, but no, I did not. I did not I did not Intervene, you know, we have stats and those stats a first time second half and they are But yeah I was even reading it in ESPN run down by David Schoenfield about the top storyline so far and The first sentence was the first half of the MLB season is in the books

But the second sentence was well, actually half of the MLB season is in the books, but the second sentence was, well, actually we've played nearly 60% of the schedule, but everyone still denotes the first and second half of the season around the All-Star break, which is, yeah, someone in our Discord group, the aforementioned Patreon Discord group, Andrew M, I believe, said, why do we even talk about haves so much? Why are we so obsessed with haves?

It doesn't seem like other sports talk about haves and divide the season into haves so much. Why are we so obsessed with haves? It doesn't seem like other sports talk about haves and divide the season into haves so much. And I guess historically and even presently, it's because of the All-Star game, because of the All-Star break, but other sports have All-Star breaks on All-Star games too. I don't know if it's just that there are so many games in the baseball season and there are so many stats and 162 games, it's unwieldy and we need a way to divide. I don't know, but it is kind of odd that we feel the need to constantly divide like this.

But we sure do though. Regardless, I'm interested in what we're interested in the rest of the way. So I don't know what comes to your mind first. I would say that one of the things I am most interested in is how the AL East sort of sorts itself out. Because there's been late movement here, you know? There just really has been.

So again, as we are recording, I love how I'm saying as we are recording is if baseball games are gonna be played today and then it's gonna change the results here. That's the other thing. We are in the second dead day of the off-file break here, which is perhaps part of why we led with Adam Frazier and Cam Devaney, but not necessarily.

You just never know what we're gonna start by talking about. Right, you gotta get your vendettas out early and then shift to positive stuff. We've seen this division shake up quite a bit in the last couple of weeks. There was a time where I just assumed that the Boston Red Sox were likely to be deadline sellers, right? And not in a dramatic sort of teardown way, but that they might be on

a path to at least some sort of reset or step back or whatever jargon we apply to these things where you're not dealing your very best guys, but anyone sort of on an expiring contract is likely to find himself out the door. And now, there are three games back in the East and, you know, very much alive in the wild card race. And I think if you're Boston, the idea that you would trade, you know, Jaron Duran is just out the window. Right. So what are they going to do and how do they understand themselves relative to the team they were, say, when they traded Rafael Devers? So you have the Red Sox in flux, you have the Yankees in this very strange position where

they were just obviously the best team in that division for much of the first half, both literal and metaphoric, and then have fallen on hard times and find themselves with injuries and an offense that has been sputtering and a pitching staff that finds itself heard. And then you have this ascendant Blue Jays team, right? And, you know, the Rays have flirted with a playoff position such that the league was like, oh, we got to figure out what we're going to do with these guys if they have home playoff games, right? And then you have the Orioles. So I think that a division that seemed kind of disappointing in terms of the excitement and inter-division competitiveness that we were expecting at the beginning of the season has

kind of rounded into form. I don't know sitting here who I think the favorites to be. I do think that New York's pitching injuries might be getting to the point where it is simply too much for them to bear. Cam Schlitler's aside. injuries might be getting to the point where it is simply too much for them to bear cam Schlitler's aside God That kid's gonna just he's just gonna get called a shitter. You know, it's gonna happen. He's gonna be cam shitter I will see how bold the post decides to be you know, that has happened in his life

Oh, it is absolutely happened in his life, but I just mean that like there is Oh, it has absolutely happened in his life. But I just mean that like, there is, you know, a weird part of being a baseball player where if you have a remotely punnable or jokeable name, it is going to be deployed to devastating effect in a professional context in a way that I won't say is unique to pro athletes, but has to occur at a disproportionate rate. So you know, they might be in a position where if they aren't able to go snag one of the better pitchers available and like all of those guys have warts,

you know, I don't know what their second half or post all-star break time is gonna look like. And all of those teams in that division have vulnerability. So I think how that shakes out is going to look like. And all of those teams in that division have vulnerability. So I think how that shakes out is going to be super interesting, not only for the stakes within the East itself, but if all of those teams decide that they really want to make a run at it and add talent at the deadline and push each other, it's going to have huge implications for the rest of the American league because we were thinking, oh, we might end up with four central teams in the playoff field.

And that seems unlikely at this juncture. We might go back to just having a bunch of representation from the East. But that was the one that really jumped out to me. How is this going to resolve itself? Because I think that, um, the potential for movement pretty much top to bottom with Baltimore accepted is, um, is the greatest of any of the divisions. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it is really compelling.

We talked about the vast Gulf in run differential and base runs record between the Pujes and the Yankees. So will that equalize or not? I think the Bouges are a fun story, trying to make it back to the playoffs this year, trying to advance in the playoffs. And I honestly might say, well, pending deadline activity that the Red Sox are the best team in this division now. Yeah. Obviously, they could use some pitching help.

Who couldn't? Who couldn't? But they really could, too. And the thing is that they have the foundation to be busy at this deadline. Whether they will be or not, I don't know. Yes. But having traded Devers and freed up that money,

and then boldly saying, we think that we might win more games without him than we would have won with him. And, you know, things have ticked up for them, obviously recently. I don't think we can look back and necessarily say, oh yes, vindication, it was the right move to trade Devers. I think probably you have Rafael Devers if he's healthy and hitting, which is kind of in question,

but if he is, then that's just gonna make you a better team, even if he doesn't fit your roster all that well. And you could have said, oh, well, but the clubhouse discord and everything, but they lost a bunch of games immediately after the trade. So I don't know that you can look at it and say, ah, freed of the cloud of the Devers drama, they have finally played up to their potential or something.

That's kind of tenuous in my mind. But they just have so many good young players. They're set for the future, it seems like, and more prospects coming. And so I don't know how much is really going to be available. Rotation topping or a compliment to crochet or great bullpen help. I don't know what's going to be out there, but whatever's out there, they certainly would

seem to have the financial wherewithal and the prospect capital to get any deal done. Yes. I was just about to say, I think that, you know, when you look at the farm systems in that division, they are very easily the best. I mean, they're probably just the best farm system in baseball. And some of the guys who are helping to buoy that ranking are, you know, guys like Roman Anthony and Extra Extra.

I don't think they're going to trade Roman Anthony, but even beyond sort of the top guys who are either have had big league experience and are in the high minors or are in the majors now, they have a tremendous amount of talent that they could try to consolidate to make a move and bring in someone who would help them. So yeah, I think that I would agree with you that they are, to my mind, the best team in this division and certainly the one with the greatest potential

to add at the deadline in a way that maybe helps them pull away a little bit. So, and it almost seems like they could help themselves by subtracting if they find a taker for Yoshida. And I don't mean that I'm not anti Yoshida the way that I am evidently anti Frazier. I like Masataka Yoshida, but he just does not fit this roster right now. Not right now, no. There's just such a logjam and he has returned and now the logjam is worse. And it's just like they had the DH spot previously because they had like four players for three outfield spots

and they could just kind of rotate someone through the DH spot. But now he's back occupying that slot. And it seems like someone could use him. He can hit, even if he doesn't give you any defensive value or versatility. So if they could just even do a one-for-one with some team that maybe has a reliever to spare or something, they might have to pay down some of the salary.

But they should be willing and able to do that. Whether they're willing, I don't know, but they certainly should be able to, especially after the Devers deal. So yeah, if they want to make good on like, hey, we suddenly have all this financial flexibility and it's not just going to go into John Henry's pocket, then put your money where your mouth is at the deadline.

This is the time to act. So, and then the Orioles, I mean, they will be interesting at the deadline, this is the time to act. So, and then the Orioles, I mean, they will be interesting at the deadline too. I think they're squarely in the selling camp at this point, one would think, not that they have that much to move, but they have some guys, they have Mullins and Morton and O'Hern, et cetera. So they will probably be busy.

And then the Rays, you mentioned, like having to figure out where they're gonna play if they make the playoffs, seemingly the plan is at least, I think Manfred said that like they had the option or the opportunity to play home games at Steinbrenner Field. I don't know what other option or opportunity they have, but that is kind of my heart's desire. My greatest wish is for the Yankees to play the Rays in a playoff series in the Yankees Spring Training Ballpark. That is just

what I want to happen. So that's kind of my fondest desired outcome here. So yeah, if all four AL East teams can make the playoffs somehow, just so we can get the Rays in there and have them maybe potentially face the Ickys at some point in Tampa, that'd be fun. It would be so much fun, yeah. Okay, that is a good one. I'll just go for the obvious, which is Cal, of course. Yeah. Cal's just been the story of the season or a large part of the season thus far. That continued during the All-Star break with his home run derby win.

And I am really fascinated to see whether he can keep this up because you would think that he couldn't, both because he's just playing so much above his previously established level, which was quite high as it was, but now he's just become this pulled fly ball monster and the best home run hitter in baseball seemingly. And can that continue with the workload that he is shouldering here?

And what bearing will that have on the Mariners playoff hopes as well? I mean, the stakes of this are the Mariners season, and then also the MVP race, and then also his various record chases. Most homers by a catcher, most homers by a primary catcher, most homers by someone who is actually catching, most homers by a switch hitter,

most homers by an American leaguer even is still potentially in play at this point. And you would think that it would be hard, not just because it's hard for anyone, but because he's a catcher and because he's a catcher who barely takes a day off. So all the time. Yeah. My God. And the research has shown Jeff Zimmerman did a little study on this that appeared, I believe in Ron Chandler's baseball forecaster several years ago. And Jeff shared it with me. I will link to it. It was just short and sweet,

but he basically looked at catchers post all-star break and do they actually wear down or do they hit worse? And he found that they do and that there's a measurable offensive decline for catchers that is not measurable league-wide just for non-catchers. Gotcha. And so, and you could summon examples like Salvige, for instance, to your mind.

Yeah. He certainly had his seasons where he looked lost and tired down the stretch, even though he also had huge postseason hits, et cetera. But overall, he's been more of a pre-break than a post-break hitter. But Cal, just the opposite. So I don't know how he does it,

but 2023 he was way better after the break, like more than a hundred points of OPS better. Last year he was 30 plus points of OPS better after the break. So can that continue as there's more and more mileage on him, he's only 28 obviously, but just such heavy workloads, so much pressure on him now,

just the added scrutiny of his excellence this season, just another year of wear and tear, and then being busy during the All-Star break. He wasn't an All-Star the last couple seasons, even though in retrospect, seems like maybe he should have been at least one of those years. But yeah, there's just, I don't know, the odometer ticking up. So I certainly hope

because it would be fun for him to really make those chases interesting and the AL MVP race and obviously to bolster the Mariners hopes. But yeah, can he defy that historical catcher trend of wearing down late in the season during the dog days. Yeah. And it's just so hard to say like what, you know, you point to his second half performance over the last couple of seasons. And it's like, I just, it's not that it doesn't matter, but I just don't know how predictive it is. I mean, I don't know how predictive it is generally, but particularly given how different the distribution of his production in the first half has been relative to prior years, right?

You just don't know. But I will say he's a big guy. These are the moments where you're like the physicality piece of it really does matter. And there's a reason that when catching prospects are coming up and they're smaller of stature, nevermind their hinders, we will point to them and worry about sort of how the wear and tear of the position is going to wash over them over the course of a full season. I wouldn't be surprised, particularly if they are able to better entrench themselves into the wild card race, you know, because they're like sitting right on the edge there right now and dealing with teams around

them that are likely to try to press their advantage, improve at the deadline, really make a run at these things. Tampa's right there, just a game and a half back of Seattle. But if they're able to move up a little bit and get out to a greater lead in that race. Or if the Astros swoon and they're able to somehow claw their way back to the top of the division, which I don't find to be likely, but if they're able to do that, I wouldn't be surprised if we do start to see the team say to Cal, hey, you're going to get more days off here, buddy, because we want you to be the best version of yourself come October.

We feel like we have enough wiggle room for Mitch Garver to get back there a couple days a week, or maybe they finally decide that they're going to pull the trigger on Harry Ford and bring him up and get him a little bit of seasoning before a playoff push or what have you. I say that without knowing anything about their plans at this juncture, but they have some options there that if they're not desperate for every win, they might be more willing to sort of deploy and see what they can do.

So yeah, you'll be shocked to learn. I too fascinated by what Cal does for the rest of the season. And I wanna see if I can persuade Sam that that is in fact a historically good ass, because I think it's an important, I think it's a good case to make. I feel confident in my persuasive abilities. I am not so much an awards race guy at this stage of my life, but this is also a pretty compelling one. If he can keep

it up and if he can keep nipping at judges' heels here, he is just about one win above replacement behind judge per fan graphs accounting. I know the gap is bigger at baseball reference because of the lack of framing, but I think people appreciate the value of framing at this point and just generally that it's hard to catch and that catching has a lot of defensive value. And so I think he would certainly get a boost for that. And maybe there'd be a little judge fatigue perhaps among some voters who knows. So that could be a fun race.

Really both of the MVP races could be fun, because as it stacks up right now, you have PCA in the NL who's neck and neck with Otani. Amazing. Yeah, Otani had a little mini slump at the plate before the break, but of course is pitching now, and pitching pretty well. He's picked up 0.4 war in his one game's worth of pitching essentially.

So will PCA get that boost because of his excellent defense which is widely known or just because he's new and there's Otani fatigue if there could be such a thing or it depends maybe how much Otani pitches and how well the rest of the season but Armstrong gets the, you know, he's new and it's a breakout and it's exciting and the power and the speed and he does it all and the Cubs are good. And so yeah, that could be a fun race as well. And then, I mean, even the

Cy Young race, even if it comes down to scouple and crochet, let's say, or another Skeen's Wheeler battle or whatever it is. Like, there are some individuals having sterling seasons this year. So, it's just too early to call a lot of those races, but they do figure to be quite interesting. Yes, I think the fact that there's some dynamism to them is exciting because, well, first of all, like, two months ago, it just seemed like it was going to be boring and settled, although I continued to ask, I was like, why are we talking about the MVP race? It is literally made like we could, we could pump the brakes on this. We want to burn all this content now,

like on your confidence that stuff's going to be interesting forever. Get out of here. But having them be actual racist will be exciting. And I don't say that to have a contrarian Homer take about Cal and say, well, he's clearly the MVP, better than Judge. It's like, I probably would take Judge at this juncture, but I think that it's going to be tight and there are no laurels to rest on, let's put it that way. And that's pretty exciting. And we are finally getting into the time of year where talking about it seems remotely appropriate. So that's good too.

Yeah, right. Okay, what else is on your radar? Well, I hate to do another division one, but I am very curious to see how the other East shakes out because well, for one thing, we have bounced back and forth between the Phillies and the Mets a couple of times now. And both of those fan bases are, they enjoy drama, shall we say. They are prone to catastrophizing.

I don't know what's going on with the Northeast that that feels like a thing that happens so often, but Philly's fans and Mets fans are prone to loving their teams fiercely, also despising them, but are ready to fight you if you point out any of their issues. So I'll be curious to see kind of how that shakes out. I'm really interested in what Philly does at the deadline. They have obvious places to upgrade their roster. You know, part of this is that I have our Jay's replacement level killers series on the brain. But boy is that Philly's outfield just meh. You know, some of that is not entirely Nick Castellanos'

fault, right? Like he should just be-ing, this is the perpetual issue with Philly. They have a good one and so he just has to be out there. But the bat is serviceable but not very good right now, or at least not sterling. So they have opportunities to course correct and then I'll be curious to see what the Mets do and how they understand their roster and their opportunities to kind of get better. But yeah, like it is a, it's going to be a tight one. And I think a very exciting one. And you know, part of the joy of the Schwerber swing off was watching Pete Alonso embrace

him so warmly. That's over now. We don't have any time for that kind of affection. No more hugs between rivals. So I think that that race will be pretty exciting and I can't wait to see kind of how it shakes out even though, you know, some of the, we thought coming into the year again, that this might be a more contested division than it ended up being. I don't think that I'm happy for Braves fans that they got to have the excitement of the All-Star Game, even if I take issue with the backtracking on some of the politics around it, because I don't think they'll be seeing their club in October. No, though, yeah, to see whether they have come to terms with that fact over the next couple of weeks, that would be kind of intriguing because Alex Anthopoulos last month did make the bold pronouncements that we are not selling. And, you know, I think he caveated it like

if we just go on a horrendous run, then you have to reevaluate. And they've been just a bit below 500 since then, but they needed to be better than that to get back into contention. And so can he resign himself to missing the playoffs for the first time in a long time and just not even being in things at the deadline and reverse that previous proclamation, probably, I guess, but we'll see. Yeah, and can I do a little bonus one to tack on here that is Atlanta-related while we're talking about them?

Sure. I am very keen to watch the continued evolution is probably the best way to put it at this juncture of Strider over the course of the back bit of the season. We've seen him, he came back, he was not good. And lately he has been better, but he is a different guy in terms of not only his mechanics and delivery, but also his usage.

The effectiveness of his fastball has not really recovered. But as Davy Andrews noted, just really getting a lot of play on that slider. And so seeing how he continues to come back is going to be interesting. And he's in, I don't think that anyone with Atlanta would say that this season has gone the way that they want it to, but I do think there's, you know, for drawing a silver lining from them being kind of out of contention, like, you know, he has room now to, to figure it out. Right. And if he and the Braves decide to try a couple of different things, if they want to alter

sort of his release point again, if they want to try to get him more up above the way he was, they don't necessarily have to win every game because they're not going to sound like R.F.K. Jr. That sucked. You know, they're not in a position where they're going to be challenging Philly and New York. So how does he use this time to sort of get in a position where when spring comes around next year, we're hopefully talking about like a Spencer Strider

who really looked like, even if it's not the old version of himself in terms of his exact mechanics and usage, as good a pitcher as he was prior to the injury. So that I'm really keen to keep an eye on as the rest of the season unfolds. Mm-hmm. By the way, you mentioned Sam, I meant to wish him a happy birthday

because I always remember his birthday because it's Effectively Wild's birthday because we recorded the first episode of Effectively Wild on his birthday. I guess technically his birthday is Thursday. I guess we probably recorded on his birthday and then published the day after his birthday or maybe it was still his birthday on the West Coast when we recorded. But I was just reminded of that because he wrote in his sub stack, Pebble Hunting, about Rich Hill. And Sam is in that cohort, he's a little older than us, he's in that cohort of people who really have a lot riding on Rich Hill

because Rich Hill is the only player older than they are who has a plausible, conceivable case to be a big leaguer this year. So he's the last line of defense, essentially, than they are who has a plausible conceivable case to be a big leaguer this year. So he's the last line of defense essentially before Sam and others his age are older than any big leaguer. So a lot riding on that potential promotion Royals. Don't screw it up. Don't screw it up, man.

Okay. Well, look, the Rockies, we must mention the Rockies as a rest of season storyline. Will they surpass or fail to surpass the White Sox win total from last year or loss total more relevantly? They had kind of righted the ship and played a little bit more respectable baseball in June

when they went 10 and 16, but then they started July 3 and 9. They're now 22 and 74. And this is a case where the first half second half fallacy, it actually works in favor of the fun fact because if you if you take this as oh, we're halfway through the season and they have 22 wins then you might discount their chances to have the fewest ever or you know 74 losses or whatever but they are they're now at 60 percent of the way through the season and so they're they're not even on pace for double it and hey 22 wins it's a lot less than that. They're on pace for what, like 37 or something. So even though they've played a little bit better,

obviously since like, you know, four and 22 April or five and 25, I guess, counting the games in March and then four and 24 in May. So if they play, if you extrapolate their winning percentage over the rest of the season, then they'll be the worst ever. But if you extrapolate from their, let's say June and July performance, then probably not.

They'll probably squeak across the bar for not being the worst ever. It's just the lowest possible bar, but it's a pretty important one. And you know, the deadline's coming up. I guess there's not that much for them to move. It's not a case of like, oh, and they're going to get even worse because that was a big question with the White Sox.

I remember I wrote about it and talked about it on this podcast, how intrigued I was by their deadline because they were the worst team in baseball, one of the worst teams ever. And yet they kind of controlled the deadline or potentially did because they had a number of players to move. Ultimately, they didn't. They didn't go for the full move crochet, move Robert, et cetera. So it didn't really pan out.

But they did make some moves and they traded Fetty and other guys, right? So I don't know who on the Rockies, you never know what the Rockies are going to do with the deadline. They might take some obvious trade candidate other guys, right? So I don't know who on the Rockies, you never know what the Rockies are gonna do with the deadline. They might take some obvious trade candidate and sign them to an extension or something.

They've done it before, but they're not gonna be getting better, presumably, unless I guess they're prospects they could promote or prospects improving or something. Presumably they'll make some sort of trade and subtract from their roster and on paper get a little bit worse. Not that their true talent is 22 and 74, but whatever their true talent is, it will be slightly lower perhaps when August begins. I like the idea of them being like, we're going to trade for a reliever because that

seems to be their favorite. And then we're going to extend him inexplicably. We're going to sign a reliever to a three year, $60 million contract on the back of trading for him. That would be the most Rockies possible move that they could make. But yeah, I will be fascinated to see that. I have another like kind of franchise future related one. This is perhaps cheating. You can tell me if I am stretching the bounds of the exercise in a way that is a problem. But you know, famously, the Nats fired Mike Rizzo and I, I saw a piece that went live in the Washington Post today about, you know, potential candidates.

And this is, these are the times where you're like, oh yeah, I recognize a lot of those names. And then sometimes there are guys you don't know as well. But looking at external candidates who might fill the Pobo spot and then also whether they'll elevate their interim guy. I'm curious what direction they end up going and how much of that scuttlebutt we see playing out over the next little bit versus stuff that unfolds over the winter. So they got through the draft. I perhaps closer to the spirit of the exercise will be fascinated to see what they do at

the deadline, although they don't really have anyone to move. You know, I guess that if you're the learners, you're like, oh God, will this front office be able to deal with Josh Bell? I don't know what we'll do. Um, but if they, you know, kind of move on from a couple of guys, that'd be interesting, I suppose. Yeah. Gosh, I was going to name the Brewers and I guess that's a good segue because

Brandon Woodruff just pitched against them in his second start back and struck out 10 of them in four and a third innings. He's looked quite good in his first two starts back. Sure has. Now the Brewers who started the season with Freddie Peralta and not much else in that rotation, suddenly they have Peralta who's having a great year. Woodruff, who seems to be back in something close to his previous form. And Jacob Mizorowski, you don't want to face that top three

in a playoff round. I mean, that's sort of scary. And it's just, it's really surprising because like they have demoted. I mean, Chad Patrick was sent back to AAA after not doing so hot for a while, but he was a big patch for them in that rotation. They have a bunch of rookies.

The NL rookie of the year race will not be one of my rest of season storylines, because it's just, it's not great. And in the AL, it sort of seems like Jacob Wilson has things sewn up unless he really slumps, even though Carlos Narvaez has been roughly equally valuable according to Fangrass. But the Brewers have a whole host of rookies who are not big names, but have

been pretty productive for them. Isaac Collins and Caleb Durbin and Patrick and Logan Henderson and all these guys. And I don't, it's like, surely they can't keep doing this year after year. The Cubs have been good as expected and yet the Brewers are right there. They're one game back. They just will not give any quarter to anyone in that division year in and year out. It's just how do they keep doing it? Burns leaves, they don't miss a bead. Adonis leaves, they don't miss a bead. They just, they somehow keep plugging and playing well. You're in and you're out. They haven't been out of the playoffs and bad, at least in the same year

for a long time. And it's just, it's never names that you think it's going to be. It's not like Jackson Trujillo has had a huge sophomore campaign coming off of his big rookie year. And yet there they are again, even though the Cubs go and get Kyle Tucker and make other moves. It's just, you cannot shake the Milwaukee Brewers somehow. So whether they can actually stick it out, they have just like an average-ish offense this year, but that's been enough because they have just scrambled together a pitching staff that is actually pretty good somehow. So yeah, I think that that's a good one. Oh gosh, where do I want to go next?

I don't know. What other ones do you have? Do the Dodgers get healthy? Do they peak at the right time? Right. And do they add pitching at the deadline in anticipation of not being able to do that? And if so, who? It's preposterous that they are looking for bullpen help and yet, it's just, and remember

the there's no room at the end conversation from this spring and then they signed Tanner Scott and then the... And who said that that was ridiculous? Who said it wasn't me? I think it was. I think it was me. Yeah, and I guess there's room because people keep vacating. People keep checking out and entering the IL. And so even though they did seemingly achieve pitching staff redundancy and they go get Kirby Yates

and they got Tanner Scott and they just like sign guys to extensions and they get Michael know, they get Michael Koepke, whom they traded for last year. And it's just, they have not been healthy and, you know, quite trying in just about back. And it's maybe they'll be fine, but they're not going to leave anything to chance. And you know, maybe if they stood Pat, I think they will make the playoffs and then the question is just, I know going out on a limb on that one.

Oh my God, two bold predictions in one episode. What will we do? But the fact that that was even remotely in question at any point during this regular season was sort of a surprise that the Padres and the Giants were making it as interesting as they have. And so, yeah, it's really just about triage and about just the rehab timelines and can you cobble together the top of the pitching staff enough to get through October? Can you get Otani stretched out? Can you get Snell back? Can you just preserve Yamamoto? Can you preserve Glasnell? Can you get the back of the bullpen in order? Does Roki Sasaki even return and contribute or does he just get shut down and you wait for next year? Like, you know, probably

they'll be fine when the dust settles on the regular season and last year they weren't and they still won the World Series but yeah that's the whole season long initiative for them really is not so much to to be dominant and to set records during the regular season but just to be at their best or close to their best when October rolls around can they round round into form? So that's, that's something I will be watching. I have one related to the NL West, which is what their division rival Arizona Diamondbacks elect to do at the deadline. I was listening to a local sports talk radio back home. And I don't remember which loud, they're all very loud guy made

this point. But despite his volume, I think it was a good one, which is that like the worst possible thing for them would be to be right around 500 at the deadline, right? Because if you're just sort of treading water, you kind of want to have a firm direction if you're Arizona. Do you think you're going to be able to be in it? Do you push in or do you think to yourself, eh, it's not our year? Because they're 11 games back in the division, they're three games under 500, they're not living up to what we hoped they would do when they had all this pitching and da da da. So they have a number of the most sort of attractive trade candidates. And so one could imagine that if they think that they're not going to be able to do anything

this year, that Eugenio Suarez is out the door and potentially Josh Naylor is out the door and someone looks at Zach Galin and thinks that he might be a little bit of a reclamation project and that they might move some of their guys. And if they don't, then Baltimore really has a ton of control over how active the deadline is going to be, I suppose. But what is Arizona going to do? And here, I would just say, it would be so fun if Eugenio Suarez ended up a mariner again. I'm just saying that. I'm just saying that,

you know, I'm just offering that as a potential suggestion to somebody somewhere. So I will be very curious to see what the DBEX do. And then I have another deadline related one for a team in a very different set of circumstances, which is like, do the Tigers feel like they need anything? And do they go out and try to add? Because we have for a while now been saying the Tigers are just a good baseball team. They are not good in AL Central adjusted terms. They are a good team. They have played tremendous baseball.

Do they feel like there's anything they can do to sort of fortify? It's exciting to have a central team that clearly has ambition beyond just like, oh, we'll make it to the wild card and get knocked out or we'll be the weakest division winner and then we'll kind of just make an early exit from the postseason. No, no, that's not what they're going to, Ben, no, that's not what they're going to do. So I think that that's pretty exciting. And I will be curious to see sort of how they understand themselves because like, they're pretty complete team. Like they're good. They're a good club. This is a good, good club. You have the best record in baseball.

I know. The Detroit Tigers. I was gonna name the Tigers as a storyline. Just, yeah, can they make it? They haven't won a World Series since 1984. Can they make a real run, a deeper run, than they did last year after that Cinderella end to the season?

And then they've surprised everyone by fully following up on that, even improving upon the team that they were last year. And it just seemed like they were both behind schedule and ahead of schedule, I guess. Like, behind a previous scheduled rebuild, but maybe ahead of the current one. So, yes, to see if they can shore up any weaknesses there, if Scoople can complete a season for the ages,

and if they can actually really make a run, that definitely will be holding my interest. Because they do feel like very solid to me, but they are being, like they're being bolstered by performances that I could not possibly have seen coming at the beginning of the season. Right. Like I know that his bat has cooled and like bias is down to like a 110 WRC plus, but like Javier Baez was a starting center fielder for the American League All-Star team. You know, like

so to get good performances out of him to have his value really rebound to have Torkelson have a good season, right? Like they're just, they're doing things in a Zach McKinstry has a 133 WRC plus Ben. He's a three win player. That's a, he's a three win player. He, Ben, Ben, did you hear me? He's a three win player. Glamour Torreys has a 133 WRC+. Also, they do feel solid,

but because there are parts of it that are not what I foresaw, there does feel like there's like an unsustainability or an instability there. And I don't know that that's entirely fair. And so I just will be very curious to see sort of what we learn about how they understand themselves two weeks from now because... It's not even something we didn't foresee, it's something the Tigers didn't foresee. Absolutely not. Because a lot of these guys weren't slated to be starters until they were pressed into service when someone else got hurt.

And so then, yeah, given that they're off to this great start collectively, do you proactively forecast some regression and bring in backups or have safety nets? But then how do you handle the clubhouse dynamics of that when you have guys who've been all stars and who've been a big part of your success so far this season, and you don't wanna broadcast that you don't have confidence in them. So you don't have confidence in them. So you don't want to mess with success,

but you also want to be ready if that success stops or slows. So that is a difficult situation to navigate. But as they say, the prototypical good problem to have, I suppose. Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah. So, and I was just going to cite the deadline just in general. I mean, it's always, I guess,

a post-break storyline that's of interest, but this year, just given the muddled middle, the amorphous mass of mediocrity in the center of the standings, just... Yeah, how many teams end up above 500? Will my bold preseason prediction about that come true? How many teams are in it until the last few days of the season and how does that affect

who is actually dealt at the deadline? So that will be pretty interesting to me. And will we see even some like late, you know, August cuts or something, even though we don't have the same like post deadline deadline that we used to have now, you still do still have some canery, some machinations, some, you know, angels shipping out a bunch of people late in the season sort of stuff.

Could something like that happen if someone falls out of it late this year? Who knows? I guess there's also ownership intrigue. So it seems like the raise sale is solid. It's not final, final, but it's been agreed to, it's expected to be done in the next month or two. Yeah, and it sounds like they'll be staying in Florida, but perhaps not in St. Petersburg,

that maybe the goal is to move them to Tampa eventually. But what will happen with the Twins? Will the Twins sail get done? Or will they enter yet another offseason with their hands tied or tying their own hands because they're in the midst of this sail process? And Manfred alluded to knowing about things that are happening there and that maybe we'll hear something soon. So I'm sure all Twins fans are just hoping for resolution.

You can't necessarily bank on your next owner being better than your current owner, even if you don't like your current owner, but you can probably bank on your next owner being better than the pole ads in the midst of exploring a sale, which when they just will not do anything. So yeah. Yeah. I think that that's right.

There have certainly been times where I think people have enjoyed them as owners or thought that they were good, but it's been sort of rough, indifferent sledding lately. Was my prediction at least two or precisely two changing hands? Do you remember? Probably at least two. Yeah, so I'm quite invested in this space as one might imagine. Mm-hmm, yep. All right, well that's a good smattering of storylines.

Of course I have my idiosyncratic ones, the great Devaney-F Frazier race of 2025, Louisa Rise and his quest for a historic K percentage plus, which has barely budged since we discussed it. I think it was 12 then and it's 13 now. He's still under a, he's at a sub 3% strikeout rate still. Of course, will John Brebbia be back in the big leagues? He's pitched in a handful of games for AAA Gwinnett for Atlanta. So maybe they'll need him post deadline, who knows. So there's always effectively wild specific stuff

that we're monitoring here. Right, sure. Yeah, like we wonder about any outfielders sprouting hands or arms out of their heads, you know, and then what kind of hair is it? The clown question will continue to vex us, I imagine. But yeah, I think that there's just a lot of really great fun stuff that has gone on in baseball so far this year.

I have found myself more entertained by this season than I anticipated. And I think it's been a really great mix of like standout individual performances, teams that have surprised me, either in how good or bad they've been, or the way in which they've managed to do that. And so it's just, I give the first stretch of the season, high marks and I really like it. So yeah, that's what I have to say about that. Okay. Well, we're back in business. Games will be beginning again. We'll be back in the swing of things, back in the swing off things. Oh boy. There's an episode title, even though we didn't actually discuss the swing off this time,

probably would have been better last time, but now that I've thought of it, can't let that just languish like Rich Hill in AAA. Have to use that one. I will ask you one swing off related question, or I guess it's more of a Derby related question, but either or, this was from a Patreon supporter named Michael Hoffman who asked,

how certain are we that the best home run derby competitors in the world are MLB players? When Ben asserted, this was with Davey, that O'Neil Cruz is great for the derby despite not being good at baseball as a Pirates fan, hurtful. Did I caveat that at all? He's certainly good at some things about baseball. Sometimes he's good, I hope he'll be good. But he wasn't an all-star, he was just a Derby participant. I started wondering how correlated hitting Derby Dongs is with being a valuable baseball player.

Are there beef boys out there who could never hack it in the majors, but who spend a lot of time jacking BP? Could they compete? Because one thing I brought up with Davey is I think it's nice to have a non-all-star in the derby field. Even if they feel a little sheepish or out of sorts, I don't know that Cruz did, but I probably, I'd have imposter syndrome in that situation.

It's like everyone else is an all-star and I'm just a pretender. But I like that because the derby is solely about mashing dingers. And so we want the guys who are best at that, as opposed to the best overall players, who also are good at hitting home runs. There's a lot of overlap there, obviously, but not perfect. So I'm all for having non-all-stars and non-well-rounded, great all-around players in the derby,

if they're just great at jacking dongs, and we just wanna see them hit 513-foot homers, like O'Neil Cruz did. So I think what Michael is asking is less about other big leaguers than just, like, are there non-big leaguers? Is there someone in beer league softball? Is there someone in that traveling derby competition, home run derby X or whatever it's called?

Yeah. You know, is there someone who specializes in batting practice displays basically and can take a batting practice pitch deep even more reliably than a big leaguer can because that's their sole skill or their sole goal or that's the thing they practice all the time. I mean, I can't think of a particular person. We wouldn't even know the person probably. We wouldn't even know the person,

but I mean, it stands to reason that the answer is maybe. You know, it seems, well, it certainly seems possible, I suppose, which is different than saying no. Yeah. You know, maybe quite obviously. So it seems possible to me that that might be true. And I don't know that there might be a player in another league, another high level league internationally that we're not accounting for.

But yeah, like, sure. Now, I do think the part of the appeal of the Derby isn't just, we're doing jacking dongs, we're comfortable with that as phrasing. We think that's good? We're not doing phrasing anymore. I think that part of the appeal of the Derby is that you know who the guys are, you know, and maybe a complete unknown, being able to just come out of the woodwork and compete against O'Neill Cruz. Maybe that would be thrilling in a way that I'm not appreciating where you're like, who was that gal who was on the singing show, who had the voice of

an angel and everyone was so mean to her? Do you know who I'm talking about? Oh, Boyle? In England? Yeah, Susan Boyle. Susan Boyle, right? And this is perhaps a slightly different thing because people were like, how could a person who is in like a supermodel sing so good? And I'm like, I don't think those are correlated skills at all. But you know, like having a moment of true, joyful surprise, I think does have a lot to recommend it. So maybe if we were able to see a person emerge and just like,

you know, Cruz goes up there and Cal goes up there and Judge goes up there. I'm mushing together several derby fields, obviously, but you know, Tani goes up there and then they're like, and here's Raul. And then Raul takes it all the way out to center and he gets blooper and he knocks him over into the fountain. Now he's exciting for different reasons, but everyone would just be like, excuse the big swear but Shane, leave it in. Who the fuck is that guy? People would be like, who is this?

But the problem with that scenario is that in our modern media environment, you're not keeping that guy under wraps, you know? And we would know, we'd have social media video of him and his like beer league team hitting jacks and we'd go, oh. So I think that you would need the true element of surprise for an unknown to really hit in the metaphorical sense, the way that a guy we know is. Because, yeah, it's like you get amped because you're like, look at O'Neill Cruz, like, holy sh... man.

You know, that's part of it. I will say, I don't know if this tracked for folks not there. I do think they broadcast this part of it, but you know, they do the... It is a swing-off, right, between the high school or the amateur kids. I think they're high schoolers in like the midst of it. But you know, they do the, the, the, it is a swing off right. Um, between the high school or the amateur, um, kids, I think they were high schoolers in like the midst of the Derby. They'll do like these guys did the high school home run Derby and here are the final two contestants. And then one of those kids hit more home runs than jazz did. And Eric was like, these are real prospects. Like both of these guys are like,

you know, potential draft prospects. Like they're not just guys, but I was like, these are real prospects. Like both of these guys are like, you know, potential draft prospects. Like they're not just guys, but I was like, oh, chance that's not the best buddy. Yeah. You know, I think it's plausible. And I think to have that wild card entrant, who's just a guy and sort of an audience proxy, you identify with this person. Cause well, look, it's hard to hit a home run out of a major league ballpark off of any pitch. It's just, you know, most people cannot do that. You give them as many pitches as you want. They just wouldn't have the strength or the bat speed. But there are

many people who could do that. And I think I could even believe that they could do it better. And people would be into it. You know, I wouldn't want it to take away time, I guess, really from an actual star player slugging away. But people like the, you know, have a fan come out on the court and try to sink a basket from half court or whatever. People like that, right? And there's money riding on it and bragging rights. There's some stakes you see yourself in that person.

I guess the Derby, that works in basketball because you need some sort of halftime diversion. You need entertainment. And in baseball, I guess you could do something like that between innings maybe or whatever, or between Derby rounds if you wanted to. I don't know, they have to keep it moving as long as it is.

But yeah, no, if you had someone with a credible skill, but kind of an every man background, I think that would be really interesting. And I do think that, look, that person, I don't know if they would win the Derby. But I think- They don't have to win to win though, you know what I mean?

They just have to credibly compete and people would be like, oh my God. Yeah, right. They wouldn't embarrass themselves because I'm sure, yeah, like every batting cage, there's probably some dude who goes every day, you know, is just like super serious about it. And MLB players, one of the reasons why players sometimes opt not to participate in the derby, or at least so they say, is that they don't want to screw up their swing. Like, they don't want to be in that mindset of, I'm trying to hit a home run on every swing. I think that some players do that in games,

even though players always say, ah, you never should go up there trying to hit a home run. It's counterproductive. Maybe it is counterproductive, but I think some of them still do it sometimes. Anyway, you know, it's all, we all want to stay within yourself, don't want to try to do too much. And the Derby is about doing too much, except it's not too much, it's just enough,

because the whole event is predicated on doing the most, just hitting it the farthest. And so when a MLB player takes batting practice, yeah, they're probably cranking some homers over the fence, but that's not how many suggestive verbs can I use? Well, you didn't pair it with dong. So I think you're in the clear. Yeah. Cranking a dong is perhaps one of the more suggestive things we've ever said on this podcast. And

somehow I led myself into this trap. Yeah. So I think that they are not normally in the mindset of, even if they maybe finish off their BP by hitting a bunch, you know, they're, they're still like, they're trying to hit to all fields. Maybe they're even doing some show me bunts just for, you know, kind of eye wash more than anything at this point. Maybe they're trying to just like get their stroke, get their stroke, right? You know, just maybe they're trying to hit the ball back up the middle, whatever it is, right? So the home run Derby is different.

And someone who does like a late stage, Jose Canseco even who would show up at a stoppers game or whatever and hit home runs in a home run Derby. Not saying he would be better at it than a big leaker, but someone like, where it's just sort of a sideshow, that's their one weird trick. I think they could do that probably better than a big leaguer or as well or be a credible competitor. Yes. And again, I don't think you actually have to hit the most in that circumstance to be seen as winning. I mean, we kind of have a version of this with

the Derby already among the guys who are actually competing where it's not uncommon. I think Cruz was this year's version of this, even maybe more than Junior Caminero who had a great Derby, where it's like there will be a guy who has one round that is so spectacular, but that's what people remember about that Derby or one of the things they remember maybe as much as whoever actually won because it was just like so impressive even if it didn't ultimately lead them to victory. Like I think about Julio in both the first year he participated, but then also in the Seattle All-Star Game Derby, like he was so electric and he totally wore himself out.

And that was part of why he didn't advance. But people, and maybe I'm betraying a bias here because he was on my favorite team and is on my favorite team. But yeah, I think you can win the Derby without winning the Derby. Yeah, I think so too. Okay, oh without winning the derby. You know? Yeah, I think so too.

Okay. Oh, and last thing, because I don't know whether this will hold up until the next time we talk, but we got a question. I guess this will bring things full circle. We started with the Royals, we can end with the Royals. This is a question from Nick,

subject line, Royals are perfect, not until they call up Rich Hill, but Nick's specifically referring to their lack of pitch timer, pitch clock violations. So Nick says, I was looking at the pitch violation leaderboards at Van Graaff's and noticed that the Royals are perfect up to the All-Star break. Not one pitcher, batter or catcher violation up to this point. Is this impressive?

Obviously we don't have much historical data, but based on the frequency of violations league wide, is there some way to estimate the likelihood of a team being perfect halfway and some, thank you for the parenthetical and some, through a season. Can we estimate the likelihood of a generic team doing this for a full 162 game season? We probably could, but I haven't. Should we be on Royals perfect season watch?

Should this be a rest of season storyline that we're watching the Royals lack of violations? So the fan grass leader board has the pitcher, pitch timer violation, the catcher, pitch timer violation and the batter pitch timer violation. Then there's also the batter timeout violation and the disengagement violation and the defensive shift violation.

The Royals have none of the above. They have no violations of any kind, at least when it comes to this particular leaderboard. Very rule abiding. Yeah, they have not transgressed in any way. And so is this impressive? Well, I guess so in a way, right? It's kind of hard to think about it.

One way to assess its impressiveness would be to say, well, how much do they stand out? Are there other teams that came close to doing this? And yeah, I would say, I guess the next closest to perfect team has four total violations. So the Reds, the Reds have one pitcher violation and three batter violations. And then the Pirates have two of each of those. And the Royals again, none of any kind. I did look at the break last year

to see just what the best team through that point was. And the Rockies last year had three pitcher violations. That was the fewest. They also had four batter violations. And so I guess the fewest was the A's who had four pitcher violations and two batter violations, six in total. So it's unprecedented in the, what, three season sample,

not even three season sample we have here of Major League Pitch Clock action. And obviously players have gotten better at avoiding these violations or they certainly did from season one to season two or over the course of season one. I haven't checked to see how different things are this season compared to last season. But yeah, how impressed are you by this? I'm medium impressed. I'm less impressed this year

than I might've been in prior seasons. I feel like this is a thing that gets dialed in pretty well over time, you know, like, and we even saw it, if memory serves, this is sort of how we saw it evolve even in the first season with the clock, where by the end of the year, violations were fairly few and far between. Guys who hadn't had exposure to it in the minors, either as minor leaguers or as big leaguers rehabbing, really kind of dialed in the pitch clock piece of it on both sides.

And I don't think you have maybe as many guys as I anticipated trying to like, gain the clock, right? Like the the Jose Caballeros of the world are few and far between in terms of guys who are really trying to basically induce a violation by how they come to when they come to attention in the box. And so I think that like, teams have gotten very good at this players have really adapted, but also like has their attention, slip away from them at work every now and again. So the fact that it's literally zero is, I guess, somewhat surprising to me and commendable that there's a martial energy to the whole thing, I suppose. Yeah, it's not worth that much, I guess, if you want to look at it in terms of run value.

It doesn't make that much of a difference. So I don't know exactly how this is calculated. There's a metric on the Fangrass leaderboard, which is like total net run value for player slash team and the Royals are at zero. There are actually a couple teams that are barely positive. The Reds and A's and Rangers and Pirates and Ray's they're like 0.1 or 0.2. Maybe this is accounting for leverage or something or no, maybe that's okay. Maybe that's accounting for the opposing team as well. And so what I want maybe is the other stat,

which is weighted team value, which is just the total run value of violations committed by the player slash team. So by that metric, I guess this doesn't go into positive territory maybe, it's just zero is good. You haven't hurt yourself, so the Royals are at zero. And the worst, the Marlins, they're at negative 1.5 runs. So that's what they've cost themselves. And even that's not

that bad. It's like, you know, a tenth of a win or something like that. The Marlins have committed 10 pitcher violations and I guess also three disengagement violations. The Mets have the most pitcher violations at 14, and then the Yankees and Astros are tied with five batter violations, and no one has more than one catcher violation. So the margins aren't that big, and the value isn't that big,

but it is kind of a cool accomplishment, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. The only thing I'd say is that maybe you're being too cautious. If you never screw up, it's like the old Sam Maxim. It's not solely a Sam Maxim, but it's something that he said and maybe lives by, which is like, if you're never late for a flight, then you're going to the airport too early. And we've...

Yeah, but that's, that's insane. I love Sam dearly, but that is the most unhinged position I have ever heard him take. I simply cannot relate to that at all. Even more than Big Dumper has a sort of standard dumper. Yes. Oh, 100%. With a bullet, you know, just like, I had to fly tomorrow and it is giving me anticipatory anxiety at the notion that I would be late. Yeah. And Sam, I don't think he was the first to postulate this or hold this position. And from an efficiency standpoint, yeah, it makes sense.

If you look at time in the airport as wasted time, then probably, yeah, you should cut it closer. But we've talked about this either on the main feed or on a bonus episode and have kind of rejected that premise because there is an anxiety that comes with missing the flight because that can really screw up your day and you might... Vacation? Yeah, it could screw up a lot of things if you have a connecting flight, if you have to be there by a certain time, can you rearrange, what's it going to cost you? So there's a big downside to that. And the downside to just showing up early at the airport is not always that big.

Like sometimes you can just sit there and people watch or read or whatever, get some food. It's fine. You know, it's not that bad to be at the airport instead of at home for an extra half hour or hour or whatever. Not that I would want to live at the airport. I want to spend a lot of time there, but I don't mind getting there a little early just so I don't have to stress about traffic or something.

But maybe there is something equivalent with pitch timer violations where, as you said, maybe you do want to vary things up. Sometimes pitchers will hold the ball until the last second. They'll try to screw with the batter a little bit, mess up the batter's timing. Oh, you don't know when I'm going to go. If the Royals are so clock shy or clock conscious that they are repeating things so regularly that the batter is never thrown off their game

because the pitcher rushed the delivery or just like held onto it until the last possible second. And you start to question, oh, is there going to be a violation? Is he is he going to pitch? What's happening? What is the clock at it? You know, and you're thinking about these other things and maybe you're distracted in that moment. So it could be, I suppose, unless the Royals have it so perfectly timed. It's just so, so perfectly calibrated that they can do that, but they never quite go over the line. I'd be curious, I wonder whether there has been or will be any reporting about this. Like, have the Royals worked on this especially? Was this an emphasis for them or is it just sort of happenstance? Is Adam Frazier going to screw with their perfect record? Oh my gosh!

You won't be alone in your vendetta. Yeah. If he does, yeah, you'll get lots of support from all the Royals fans that are really clued into this. You know, they're just like really upset. Yeah. So I could see an argument for maybe, maybe it makes sense to have a violation every now and then, or at least having a violation would be correlated with other things that make sense to do, possibly.

I don't know. Maybe. It probably doesn't matter that much. Either way, we just make sure if Adam Frazier has had a violation so far this year, because, gosh, I would hate for this to jeopardize anything for the Royals. Let's see. Adam Frazier, I'm searching. Adam Frazier, zero violations this season.

So. Thank God. Okay, all right. The perfect record, at least. Not under threat by the history of Adam Frazier. With Unreach. Yeah, that's a huge relief to me personally. Yeah, let's see.

See where the Royals ranked last year. Were they good at this, particularly last year even? They weren't like the leaders. Yeah, I guess they were toward the bottom, but they had eight pitcher violations, three batter violations last season, so not spotless. Anyway, thank you for the question, Nick. Something else to monitor,

and I guess end of episode plug again, 2025 in 2025. We hope that you will sign up for the Patreon. We deeply appreciate it. And if people do, then perhaps we will provide an update next time, or maybe Meg will, because I am going on a little trip, just a mini vacation. You're going on vacation, thank God. Yeah, just an extended long weekend, just an extra day or two on either end of the weekend, a little post-all-star break for me.

So I will be missing an episode, so I'm handing the keys to you and entrusting, effectively wild, the beginning of its 14th year to Meg Raleigh. Oh man, I'll see what I can do. I might just talk about kittens the whole time. Um, warning, also reminder to all our listeners, if you're in the Great Phoenix area and you're like, I've been meaning to get a kitten, get at me in the podcast email. Because boy, we got some kittens. We got some kittens that need some homes. They're adorable. Maybe we should have, we should have made the kitten a Patreon perk. I joked about Patreon, but it could

have been, hey, sign up for Effectively Wild. You get a free kitten. I mean, not everyone can get a free kitten. Well, supplies last. Just limited quantities. Three. Three available. But yes, I promise I will not light the metaphorical house on fire while you're gone. And I'm so pleased that you are taking a vacation so that I can return the favor of hosting that you have extended to me so many times. Yes. Looking forward to being a listener.

Well, I just happened to see a story posted at Pittsburgh baseball now by our pal John Peratto, who was our Pirates previewview guest this spring, about Adam Frazier and about how grateful John is to Frazier. So as a counterbalance to my ragging on Frazier the player at the start of this podcast, I will relay John's testimonial to Frazier the person here. John's talking about 2019 when Adam Frazier was first with the Pirates and John was feeling low personally, professionally. He writes, beaten down mentally and physically, I was 90% sure that I didn't want to cover baseball beyond that season. Before one late season game, I was standing on the field in front of the Pirates dugout at PNC Park just aimlessly wandering around. None of the players had come out of

the clubhouse yet for stretching and batting practice. Eventually, Adam Frazier was the first Pirates player to walk onto the field. He stopped and we chatted for a few minutes, commiserating over what a rotten season it was and how we were thankful that it was almost over. Fraser isn't the type of person who engages in long conversations. He's more on the quiet side. However, what I learned about Fraser over the years is that his words matter. He gives thoughtful answers to questions rather than a stream of cliches. At the end of the conversation, Fraser casually asked if I was okay. We did not have an especially close relationship, but he knew me well enough to realize that something was wrong. I didn't bog him down with the details. I just said it's been a tough

year and he gave me a friendly pat on the shoulder. It might not seem like a big deal. At that moment, it meant the world to me. From that moment on, I've had as much respect for Fraser as any player I have ever covered. John goes on to say, I might not be covering baseball if it wasn't for that kindness. So there you go, Adam Frazier, maybe not a great hitter, but maybe a great guy.

When he walks away from the sport someday and someone says he's a better person than he was a baseball player, that might sound persuasive. Obviously he's a great baseball player because he's a big leaguer. That's just always stipulated when we talk about anyone who's in the major leagues, but by big league standards is all.

However, both the Pirates and Royals had him previously and then decided to reacquire him. That seems like a pretty good sign that someone's nice to be around. Really, I guess if I'm rooting for Rich Hill, I probably should root against Adam Frazier and the Royals because if they do completely fall out of contention before the trade deadline, then maybe they deal Seth Lugo, maybe they trade Mike Lorenzen, and then voila, Rich Hill or Dallas Keichel. Why not both?

If you want to give us a Frazier-esque pat on the back, you can do so by supporting us on Patreon, furthering our 2025 and 2025 quest. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad free, and get themselves access and 2025 quest. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad free and get themselves access to all the perks we mentioned earlier and more. Most notably Discord group access, monthly bonus episodes,

prioritized email answers, autograph books. Even if you're a high roller, a potential podcast appearance, Austin S, Rob Myrune, Katie Aitken, Alfred Zhang and Jason Jester, thanks to all of you. If you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. If not, you can contact us via email,

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and you can check the show notes at FanGraph or the episode description in your podcast app to find links to the stories and stats we cited today. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance, which is also enabled by our generous patrons. That will do it for today and for this week, ending the week on a multiple of five,

as we always did in days of yore, when this was a five a week, week daily podcast. Even if you're not flying or going on vacation, we hope you have a wonderful weekend, and we will be back to talk to you for season 14, or year 14, of Effectively Wild next week. Effectively wild, effectively styled, distilled over chilled be wild, effectively styled, distilled over chilled beats, effectively mild.

Followed the plot, Sam's in his garage, Ben with a Reverber-20 in his Minaj. And after 2,000 episodes we got more inside jokes than Carrot Top's prop box before he got yoked. Lab League, banging scheme, planting trees and trampolines, minor league free agent drafts, stat blasts and past blasts, minimum inning Hall of Fame donation shaming, Tyler Wade and Taylor Ward, the rotten slob to rigor mortis Answer a couple of emails, do a play index, call Ned Garver Eddie Robinson, Johnny O'Brien, Ron Teasley, Charlie Maxwell, Bobby Shantz, Kiki Hernandez shit his pants Dilly, I'ma make a swear.

Too late? Fuck it, no one cares. Chris Davis' 247 tattoos are the new mnemonics. Scott Boris' nautical analogies are tragedies. Keep em' honest. Vroom vroom. Here's your primer. On Beef Boys, Baseball's in, Roger Angel and Super Pretzels. Lillian's asked a deal, and Mike Trout hypotheticals. Waiting for the perfect bat from a volcanic eruption.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Effectively Wild Introduction. Hello and welcome to episode 23. Episode? Where am I from? Are you from Philly now? I'm going to eric too much. Let me try that again. I guess so.

Let me try that again. Sorry. Now I have to stop laughing. Goodness. I'm not gonna air it too much. Let me try that again. I guess so. Let me try that again. Sorry. Now I have to stop laughing. Goodness. I'm gonna air it too much.

Let me try that again. I guess so. Let me try that again. Sorry. Now I have to stop laughing. Goodness. I'm gonna air it too much. Let me try that again.

I guess so. Let me try that again. Sorry. Now I have to stop laughing. Goodness. I'm gonna air it too much. Let me try that again. Let me try that again.

Sorry. Now I have to stop laughing. Goodness. I'm gonna air it too much.