Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2354: Nothin’ But News

Episode Date: July 29, 2025

Well, almost nothin’. Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Ichiro Suzuki’s Cooperstown induction, Nick Kurtz’s four-homer game, Aaron Judge’s injury (and Cal Raleigh’s MVP candidacy), Bryce Harper’s showdown with Rob Manfred, Emmanuel Clase’s implication in baseball’s brewing pitch-fixing scandal, Royals, Tigers, Braves, and Yankees trades, and the unsettled standings. Audio intro: Jimmy Kramer, “Effectively Wild […]

Hello and welcome to episode 2354 of Effectively Wild, a FanGraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Raleigh of Fangraphs, and I am joined by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? Well, our plan for this week was to front load our podcasting to avoid big news later in the week. We thought, oh, we'll get ahead of the trade deadline and then we won't be overwhelmed with news. And then we've just stumbled into quite a big baseball news day.

This day has it all. Do we talk about Hall of Fame inductions? Do we talk about the guy who hit four homers? Do we talk about the Aaron Judge injury? Do we talk about Bryce Harper getting in Rob Benford's face? Do we talk about the latest wrinkle in the possible pitch fixing scandal? I guess the answer is yes.

Probably we talk about all of those things. I don't even know where to begin, but you were just watching the Ichiro induction ceremony. So should we start there while you're just off the good vibes of watching one of your baseball heroes having his big moment in the sun? I just think that it is a really kind of remarkable thing all told that the Seattle Mariners,

a franchise that has largely been marked by failure, right? Failure to reach the postseason for long stretches, failure to reach the postseason for long stretches, failure to reach the World Series ever, has these guys in its history who are important not only to the franchise, right? Who are not only franchise icons, but are just baseball icons. They're guys everyone knows. Like you say, one of my favorite players. I mean, sure, but like,

One of everyone's favorite players. Yeah. Other than the one person who left him off their hall of fame ballot, which if we're feeling generous and I am because I just listened to each of his speech and it was great. And I just enjoy him so much. And we'll get into some of the particulars here, but we can be generous and maybe say that they were engaged in some wayward strategic voting perhaps, felt they needed to concentrate their efforts on candidates who were less likely to continue to advance perhaps, or who were right on the edge of being inducted. We'll be generous.

We'll say that's what's going on. But like, I think that Ichiro was a cultural phenomenon and beloved by so many in the game sort of across the board. Such an important figure in the game's modern history, right? Bridging this gap between NPB and the majors and really redefining I think people's expectations for what Japanese position players could do at the major league level and just being a great hang pretty much the whole time that he was doing that, right? Like this very rare combination of on-field talent and just tenacity

and then a personality that I think he was careful to sort of give us windows into sort of at his leisure and kind of left people wanting more in that regard. But I think that what stories we do have from him and of him are just tremendous. You know, I just think it's a really cool thing when a player like that gets their moment to shine. You can just see every time you watch these ceremonies. This is part of why I like, I insist on there being a reverence for Cooperstown, not only for its position as one of the guardians of the game's histories, but as, as a site that is holy to so many, including the, the guys lucky enough to sort of walk through the door and have a plaque on the wall.

Right. And including Etro himself before he was a member, he had a reverence for that place and the game and its history. Yeah, and so I think that you see him up there giving this great speech and sort of marking different chapters, offering his appreciation for the many people who helped him to get to the moment that he was in. And doing it with sort of characteristic humor, right? Just being like genuinely funny. We give ballplayers a hard time for not being funny and each year was funny, you know? And he's sort of come full circle in terms of like where he is in the American baseball

context because, you know, obviously he starts in Seattle. He has his brief tenure with the Yankees, he has his brief tenure with Miami, which was very humorously rendered in his speech. But he's just like around now, you know, he's like at T-Mobile all the time. I think he and his wife live in Seattle full time now. They are very much back in sort of the warm embrace of the organization. And I just think that it's so nice when you have that connective tissue from the team's past to its present. You know, I know he and Julio have a very special relationship. So it was just really lovely. And, you know, I don't want to by any means discount the

other speeches that were offered or the other folks who were inducted because they had their merits also and some of them were quite moving. But also, it's just, this is one of my guys and it is, to your point, it is funny. It's like, my guy, that's why I'm not right. Wow, what a hipster. You heard of this Ichiro guy? I think he might be pretty good. Yeah, just I know he had a 99.7% approval rating, but really he has a 100% approval rating. Even the one voter who voted against him might have had their reasons. I'm sure their reasons weren't that they don't like Etro

or think he was good, whatever their reasons were. So he's just the coolest. He's just the funniest. He is just the most admirable, one of the most iconic, just a great player, incredibly exciting, very valuable. And his excitement style value outstripped his value, as great as his value was, Hall of Fame worthy. He was just so much more exciting than that even.

So yeah, we're all lucky we got to see him and that he is an excellent ambassador for baseball and remains one to this day and just keeps himself in shape and in uniform and promotes the game and promotes the women's game. And he just, he does it all. It just, no one seems to have a bad word to say about Etro. There's not gonna be any, like, controversies subsection

on his Wikipedia page. It's just, you know, just great anecdotes, both on the field and off. Love Etro. And it is, it's always too bad. Like, sometimes you get skunked on the Hall of Fame induction class and no one gets in or no one who's living and there's just an embarrassment of riches this year. Just the concentrated cool. And unfortunately, of course, Dave Parker didn't make it to the ceremony and Dick Allen didn't get elected while he was still alive. But each row, Allen, Parker, Cece, I feel like

Billy Wagner's like, you know, the fifth guy, but no shame in being the fifth guy in that group. Like that's just a heck of a concentration of talent. Yes. But also just like personalities and guys who kind of punched above their weight just as as personas in baseball as good as they were at the sport. So yeah, nice to see each row. in baseball as good as they were at the sport. So yeah, nice to see Etro have his day, have yet another day. And he was kind of, I know Wagner's the closer, but Etro was the closer when it came to the actual election ceremony and the speeches. And that's as it should have been

because Guy's a global superstar and did a lot to turn baseball into a global sport or at least enrich its global following. So yeah, we're all lucky to have seen him and to still have him be around the game the way he is. Yeah. You know, it feels like he'll, he'll just be around forever. So and I realized that's not how time progresses actually.

But it's just, it's hard to imagine the game in the United States not having him in its orbit, which is for saying something. So yeah, just a special, special guy. And you're right, like not everyone was able to be there, obviously. And I think it does stress the importance of like, if the guy's a Hall of Fame, really, let's get him, get him in there so that he can enjoy that moment because I think that it's a pretty special one. I am glad that Dave Parker at least knew

he was a Hall of Famer before he passed, but. Yes, and wrote a poem for the occasion. But yeah, it's those Mariners, just so many stars, so little success. Someone should make a documentary about that. Maybe a YouTube multi-part series. I don't know. Yeah, just something that franchise, but you know that better than I. Yeah. I was also thinking we've talked about Etro and how he had doubters when he came over from

NPB and how legitimate it was to wonder whether that would translate. What I had forgotten if I was ever even aware of it was how he had doubters even in Japan. Because it wasn't just that, yeah, he was the first position player to come over from NPB and establish himself. And so he had to be a trailblazer in that respect. And people questioned, oh, is he big enough?

And will this game work? Cause he was such an anachronism. This guy out of the dead ball era comes over in the midst of the steroid era and just plays like no one else played. But even when he was in Japan, he was a fourth round draftee and people questioned even then, even there, would he be big and strong enough to play in the Japanese majors? And then his first couple seasons, granted he was still a teenager,

but obviously pretty naturally talented, and his first manager questioned whether his unorthodox hitting mechanics would work. Cause you know, you think of Ichiro, okay, he has sort of, you know, there are certain stances that are associated with Japanese players, pitchers and hitters, but even by NPP standards, his whole hitting style and just kind of get a running start, you know, that was kind of unconventional

even there and then. And so he was kind of up and down in the minors over there. And it wasn't until his team got a new manager that he just really, they let him run literally and he established himself immediately as a great player. So he had to overcome some resistance. Yeah. Even there, it wasn't just racism slash xenophobia slash just, he was the first of many. And so maybe there'd be some natural skepticism. It was also just, he was one of a kind,

basically everywhere he went. So the best, love you, Itro. Yeah, the best, very special guy. Okay, well that was a nice warm positive note on which to start this episode. So which labor battle slash injury slash scandal do we cover now? I don't know where to go from here.

Maybe, well, maybe we can catch up on Kurtz because I think it's, it's very amusing in retrospect that we were talking about Nick Kurtz when we were talking to other Ben on Friday afternoon, hours before Nick Kurtz went off and had one of the best offensive performances ever in a single game. We were talking about how there just weren't really standout rookie performances this year. And we gave Kurtz's due and we noted, gosh, he's sure hit well lately.

And maybe he's even the front runner now taking over for Jacob Wilson in the rookie of the year race. And then man, just absolute fireworks on Friday. That was something. Cause four homers, six hits, double in a single in there, tied Sean Green with 19 total bases, most ever. Definitely best single game rookie batting performance, but up there in the conversation for best ever with no qualifiers. And now since he came up and really, especially since like late May,

he's been basically the best hitter in baseball. He's been like right up there. And he looks the part. He's huge. He's a giant. He hits the ball super hard. He hits the ball at optimal angles. He has just, he's been incredible. So he has certainly distanced himself now probably from Wilson, his teammate from just about anyone else in that pack. If he keeps this up, then this really is a legendary rookie season. And that was a legendary performance. Yes.

And you know, he almost got another home run. Yes, he did. Like he was very close. Now, am I right to remember that his final home run of the evening came against a position player? You are right. Yeah. I I right to remember that his final home run of the evening came against a position player? You are right. Yeah, I was going to bring this up. So it wasn't in Sacramento. So you can't cry minor league park caveat. Doesn't count. It wasn't Houston. And you can't even

cry Crawford boxes because it wasn't really a product of that. His home runs, they would have been gone anywhere. They were emphatic. Yeah, and he has power to all fields and he showed it in that game, but it is true. So he almost had five homers, the one that was off the wall, the double, I think Stat Kess said it would have been out of six parks and that's not the first time that a four homer guy

has almost been a five homer guy. I know that in Lou Gehrig's four homer game, he came very close to a fifth in Mike Cameron's four homer game to invoke another treasured mariner. He almost had five. And so I guess it's just a matter of time and maybe it will happen sooner or it's more likely to happen because of the position player pitcher caveat. Now that you can kind of ding him. I mean, I'm in the mood to just celebrate what a performance that was. But there is a slight taint to it as there was in Otani's great game last year when he went off in the 50-50 game. The last homer was off a

position player pitcher. And I guess you're just going to get that these days, because if you are going for a fourth home run, then odds are your team is probably winning by a lot. It's probably late in the game. And so odds are pretty decent that you're going to be facing a not real pitcher in that final plate appearance. And that ups your odds of hitting that fourth homer, but it does also lead to what you just did, which was, yeah, now it was a position player pitcher,

which that's how I think about it too. It does detract a little. I guess it's not like you were ever getting the cream of the crop in the late innings in a probable blowout, but there's a difference between there's a difference, mop up man who's an actual pitcher and outfielder who's moonlighting as a pitcher. So I guess it's good that it's more likely that we get these extreme performances, but it's also bad that there will be this slight yeah, but to it.

Look, it's still a remarkable single game offensive performance position player or no, and I feel comfortable saying that would it be Still more impressive if the final home run had come off like, you know, the lowest leverage arm In that in that bullpen Yeah It's so be more impressive because even the lowest leverage arm you got, even the guy who's coming up and down and then going back to the minors

because other guys are tired, like, that guy's a professional pitcher and position players famously aren't. So I do think that it's fine to note, but I mostly note it for the, like the sake of the historical record rather than to diminish his performance in particular. Because it's funny, like over the course of a career, when you have a guy

who puts up milestone numbers, whether it's hits or home runs or doubles or what have you, like if you go, if you were to go back and inspect every single one of those, whatever's they are, you know, you are likely to find not good pitchers in the mix. You know, maybe guys who get like DFA'd the next day. You might find a position player or two in there, right? You might find a guy right before he blows out. You might find a guy as he's blowing out. You might find the lowest leverage of Ben's, you know, all of the various low leverage, whoever's. And so I think anyone's record subjected to that kind of scrutiny, you know, you're going to find at bats where you might say, well, this one was if we were to apply like a, like

a degree of difficulty index number to each at bat, right? Independent of leverage, but just like, how hard is it to face this guy in this moment? Like, Deregan, there's gonna be a spectrum. You're gonna occupy all along the range, the potential range there. Over the course of a career, that kinda smooths out in a way that doesn't merit scrutiny.

When you're talking about a single game, I think it's fine to say, like, oh, look, I'm not gonna do it look, but he also almost hit another one. So, you know? Yeah, it's true, it evens out kind of. Kind of, and it was phenomenal. Like he just looks, well, mostly, I think that we can all agree

that the most important part of Nick Kurtz's fantastic performance, both over the last couple of months and specifically on Friday night, is that he's making me look very smart you know and really what else are we here for other than that? Yes one bold preseason prediction that you actually do remember. I do remember yeah I do remember that one. Out wore Travis Bazana which is it's not even close because Travis Bazana has not accrued anywhere he's sitting pretty well in AA, but that doesn't get you any big league war, unfortunately.

It doesn't. Yeah. No, okay. Well, we have marveled at Kurtz. It was also fun because sort of snuck up on us because he hit the first one in the second, but then he didn't hit the second one until I think the sixth,

and then he kind of crammed them in. And so I was not prepared for this to be a four home run assault, because he kind of backloaded it a little bit. And then I was following it and it was like, wait, I was, he hit the fourth one. Wait, this was the third one. He hit another one. Wait, OK. Yeah. So that was fun. All right. Nick Kurtz. Nick Kurtz. Well done.

Yeah. OK. Now, I guess we should talk about another American League player. Nick Kurtz. Nick Kurtz. Well done. Well done. Yeah. Okay. Now, I guess we should talk about another American League player who has also had a big bat this season, but will not be wielding that bat for the time being because Aaron Judge, out of the lineup on the IL, he has a flexor strain in his elbow. Could have been worse. It's not UCL. They say UCL is okay, as we know.

UCL tear. Sometimes flexor strain can be a prelude to something more serious with pitchers at least, but this was good news. I guess this qualifies as good news once you heard that he was not playing, that he could not make throws, that his elbow was hurting, that he was going for imaging.

This was not the worst case scenario, but it's not a great scenario when you're the Yankees and you've been struggling and you've been surpassed in your division and you depend on this guy as about as much as any team depends on any one player. And he's gonna be out, you know, they've said it could be maybe the minimum,

but I'm gonna take the over on that. And whenever he does return, assuming that his return proceeds smoothly, he's gonna have the H for a while, which means that we might get Jean-Carlo Stanton back in the outfield, which that's an adventure. I hope his lower body will survive that experience. But this is a blow to the Yankees, a team that's already been reeling a bit.

And obviously a blow to Aaron Judge's MVP campaign. This is a boost to Cal. I'm not touching that. I'll go there. You can say all you want about that, but I do not want anyone to get the mistaken impression that I am in any way happy about this because I'm not. The game is better when Aaron Judge is playing and I want to be on record about that. So you are right to say that when we were thinking of ways in which there might be a

shakeup in that race, even though Cal has been tracking very well, obviously hit more home runs over the weekend. Yeah, up to 41 now. Yeah, kind of. Wow, Cal. Wow, Cal. But you know, I think one of the potential avenues for him really making it a neck and neck sort of endeavor was a potential injury to judge.

And we were careful to say that and we'll say again now that like we didn't want that, you know, and we don't. So I don't want it Yankees fans. Don't put it in the newspaper. And I was saying that I did because I don't it's a bummer. And you know, hopefully it will be I think you, I tend to agree with you, a fellow non-medical professional, that it just seems likely that he will need at least a little longer than the minimum stay.

And then obviously we'll have to see how he progresses once he's back in DH-ing, but hopefully it won't be too terribly long that he's out. But I don't know, man. I don't know if Ahmed Rosario and Ryan McMahon are going to be enough. I think they might need to make some bolder moves now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, Rosario, the latest acquisition by the Yankees, he's a good guy to have around. Sure. Don't want him to be, as you would say,

a load-bearing Ahmed Rosario, I guess. No, definitely not. If he's a fill-in, if he's a super sub, super utility type, he's well cast in that position. Oh, sure. You know, he can be a league average-ish bat, and he can play a bunch of positions, maybe not at an elite level, but he can stand out there,

which is maybe more than John Carlos Stanton can do. So, sure, that's a good addition, good depth guy, but yeah, it's not gonna make you feel that much better about losing Aaron Judge. And then you hope that when Judge returns, that A, he won't be out that long, that B, it won't affect his bat that much when he returns the rust plus whatever soreness he might have.

And then, yeah, if he's DH-ing, even if he's really raking, that does affect his capacity to compile war, which would have some bearing on, well, the Yankees winning, but also on his- Yeah, most importantly on that, I would imagine from his perspective. Probably, but also on his MVP case.

And yeah, look, we talked last time about the enigma of Spencer Jones and hey, when will he get a shot? Could this be the impetus? I don't know. I assume they will try other things and not want to rush him. But if he keeps raking and he is an actual competent outfielder, sure, you know, they want to get Stanton's bat and Judge's bat in the lineup. But how good is Stanton's bat at this stage? So you might think that Spencer Jones is will be better.

I don't, you know, Stanton, he started slow this year. He's come on like on the whole. He's he's hit very well. I have my doubts about how long he'll be able to actually play outfield physically. But if he's running a 140 WRC plus, then yeah, you're gonna want him in there, even if he's kind of faking the defense.

But yeah, we speculated, we were like, well, where's the hole that Spencer Jones would fill? Well, this makes it a little easier to come up with a call up excuse at some point. It does potentially, although I will note and I don't think that it is such a problem that he will necessarily require an IL placement, but he has been dealing with a bit of a balky back apparently. So he might not be in prime fighting shape. And I imagine they will absolutely not call him up if he is not able to play.

There's no point in them starting that clock. So I don't say that in an anti-labor way. I just say they're not going to do it away. So I don't know what that will mean for them. And they have other needs as an organization. And if they feel confident confident the judge is going to be back, particularly if he can do more than just DH at some point, even if right now they're going to have to couple together an outfield, I imagine that they will sort

of bow to those other concerns rather than like a fill-in outfielder. But who knows? They might get a wild hair in them, and then all of a sudden, you know, because they're more accepting of wild hairs now. Yeah, that's true. Although Ryan McMahon still shaved when he showed up. I don't know if anyone didn't tell him or what, but yeah.

Let's try hard. Sorry, Ryan. Come on, you didn't ask to be there. You were gonna have to acquiesce to these people. Don't, what you think that the good people of New York don't like some stubble? No, that's not just the Colorado thing. Come on.

Would amuse me very much if Aaron Judge went down and the Yankees just called up another six, seven guy. They were just like, yeah, we had another one. Delightful, it would be so funny. It's like, what, you think we're out of these? We'll never run out. Just have him wear Judge's jersey. Just, yeah, it might hang a little loosely on him,

but less so than on most people. So yeah, but Cal, last check, according to fan graphs were at least, which accounts for framing, he's only about half a win behind Judge as it is, because Judge has slumped a little, don't know whether he's been hurt at all by the flexer, but Cal's continued to hit.

He's up to 41 homers, as we said, and he's a catcher and a good defensive catcher, so... And he plays all the time. He does, yeah. He has like neck and neck plate appearances, a swize with Aaron Judge. Too behind at the moment. Yeah, the other thing about Judge is that

not only is he somehow seemingly getting better with age, but he's getting more durable with age. So that's another reason why this stings, because he had kind of conquered the sporadic unavailability that plagued him earlier in his career, and hopefully this is not super serious. But that's been a big part of why he's been so valuable, not only is he basically very bonzing,

but also he's just been a staple in that lineup, and they sure need him to be. But yeah, if you're Cal, I don't know whether Cal cares that much about the MVP race, but if you're kind of handicapping that, then you're thinking, well, judge, I'm gonna miss 10 days minimum and also be DH-ing for some indeterminate point beyond that.

So that's gonna help Cal close that gap, if not pull ahead if he continues to hit, which is of course the big question. Can he defy the tendency towards catchers losing a little late in the season when they wear down? And can the Mariners weather that if it were to happen? So suddenly that race even more exciting than it was, but we do wish Cal well, but also wish Judge well here.

It's a good outcome either way. The thing about it is that I can't really speak for Cal Raleigh. So this is speculation on my part, but just in terms of my understanding of him from the way he, he carries himself and kind of talks about things. Like I imagine that he would take greater satisfaction from, from winning the MVP, having bested Judge on the field, right? And then having both been available for him to do so. Now, injuries play a role in awards races all the time. So it's not like we look at those and go, oh, well, you know, it's not really an MVP

win because the other guy got hurt. It's like, you know, availability is a skill and, or at least an important attribute, even if it's not one. And a lot of judges' injury stuff in the past, at least the most serious of it has been flukey, right? Like it's not his fault that the wall at Dodger Stadium was designed the way that it was, but I think it's, it is just a remarkable thing to think that the guy who might end up, even injuries aside, playing the most is a catcher, just because it's sochets and balls in the dirt and what have you. Like it's just, I imagine really hard to get in your legs.

Yeah. And he's done it well, a bunch and specifically 41 times. Yeah, he is on pace for 63. Oh my gosh. If Judge is hurt later in the season, this would free him up to follow Cal around and do the Maris. And that was the thing. I wanted Aaron Judge to just be inspired by his love of the dumper to be like, look, I

am sorry, but I must abandon my brethren in order to go follow that ass around, you know? And I wanted him to say it just like that. I'm sure he would have, yeah. That would have been great. It is one of the nice things about baseball, so one of the frustrating things about baseball, that you can have these great individual standout seasons as Mariners fans know well,

without it leading to team success. And granted, the Mariners have rarely really bottomed out. Their lows have not been that low, but well, compared to, well, recently, some of the lowest we've seen. Yeah. They've had some bad teams, but generally not the worst. And they have been in contention more times than they've actually made the playoffs, which in some ways is more frustrating. We've had that conversation before, but it's one of the nice things I think

about baseball that any one player can't make a team or sink a team, but judge has come as close to making or breaking the Yankees in the past few years as any player can. And, and that's, I guess, one of the lessons of Etro and Cal is that you can't single-handedly propel your team to the top, but Cal would be the first Mariners MVP since Etro back in his rookie season back in 2001, which was obviously a season when they won a lot of games. Yeah.

And a surprising number of games. It did kind of come out of nowhere that they were like best regular season team of all time. So that's another little feather in Etro's cap that they did that. I can't believe that some people didn't have faith. I mean, that sounds like a you problem. I'm not gonna lie. After some of their other superstars had departed via one method or another,

and suddenly Etro comes in and 116 wins. And they were, you know, a couple tough losses away from just an inarguable, maybe best regular season team of all time. So yeah, that was quite a wild season. But point is you can have a bunch of great individuals and still just, it's not enough to put you over the top, which it's frustrating sometimes when someone is stuck on a terrible team. But I still would never say that they wasted someone even as frustrating it is as someone

like Felix just never gets to pitch in the playoffs at all. And as fans of the sport, we are deprived of that, let alone Mariners fans. But also, you still got the joy of Felix Day or Ichiro, which was every day when he was with the Mariners, or Cal this year. And that's tougher to quantify, but that's almost as much, if not as much, why we're there, why we're watching. Oh, yeah. Well, and those guys end up being your guys in just such a profound way because

they feel like you've been given, you know, a life preserver in the middle of a sea of suck. That's nice to have one of those. You're like, oh, I'm not going to drown in this abomination. It'll be, well, maybe not fine, but better than it would have been otherwise and that's sure something. All right, should we talk about working class hero, Bryce Harper, Bryce Norma Rae Harper, just going toe to toe, jawing at the commissioner, Rob Manfred,

according to a report by Jeff Passon. So Hannah Kaiser at the bandwagon had reported that things got a little heated, a little contentious when Rob Manfred met with the Phillies recently and she talked to Nick Castellanos and she didn't get all the details. Castellanos didn't want to dish completely, but it was clear that there were some strong words expressed

but that it didn't quite come to blows. But now we find out- It seems like it was close. Yeah, it came closer than I would have thought, evidently. Yeah. So I guess I'll read from Passant's report here at ESPN. Quiet for the majority of the meeting, Harper, sitting in a chair and holding a bat,

eventually grew frustrated and said, if MLB were to propose a cap and hold firm to it, players quote, are not scared to lose 162 games and quote sources in the meeting told ESPN, Harper stood up, walked toward the middle of the room, faced up to Manfred and said, if you want to speak about that, you can get the fuck out of our clubhouse. Manfred sources said responded that he was not going to get the fuck out of our clubhouse." Manfred, sources said, responded that he was not going to get the fuck out of here, saying it was important to talk about threats to MLB's business and ways to grow the game. Then evidently Castellanos diffused things and tried to pivot to asking

other questions. So this is part of Manfred's tour of all teams. And we talked about this recently because Manfred just essentially stated what his strategy was, which was, I wanna try to divide the players here. I think the MLPPA is vulnerable. There's discord between the higher earning players and the younger lower earning players. And I can drive a wedge between them.

He was very explicit about the strategy. He also has a program of ambassadors or alums, MLB veterans who were kind of working for the league and the PA has had some concerns about that potentially swaying some impressionable players. So here's Harper speaking, not softly and carrying a big stick, just standing up to the commissioner in this meeting where I think Hannah reported that Manfred had danced around the words salary cap. He had not actually said the phrase. Perhaps he's not even really allowed to get into specific bargaining points, but clearly talking about that, advocating

for that, probably trying to say that the players could have had a better deal or could have a better deal. We know exactly what his tactics are, thanks to his broadcasting them. So Harper, kind of a quiet season for him. I mean, he missed some time, but when healthy, he's been very good again. He's, you know, just pencil him in for a 140 WRC plus year in and year out and says something about how great he's been that I could call that kind of quiet. His career has really sort of settled into a consistency because early on he had injuries and he would kind of ping pong back and forth between MVP best hitter in the league and not that great. And now he's just really good year in and year out, you know, not, not quite an MVP

type guy because he's playing first base and everything, but just, just a great player, just padding a hall of fame resume. And now, you know, standing up as a labor leader, really, which has not been something that he's been particularly outspoken about, I don't think, right? He's not like a executive subcommittee member, player rep even, you know? I don't really associate him with being loud

about this in the past, but evidently he had his fill. He was fed up with Rob Manfred's politicking. I am so fascinated by these guys because, okay, I'm going to speak in generalities. I think a lot of this applies to Harper specifically, but just like taking a broader view, You know, obviously the players in the majors are part of a union. They are also, I would say, the majority of them, there are exceptions to this. We don't know exactly where everyone falls or self-identifies from a political perspective, but a great many of them are fairly conservative people. And it seems like it creates the possibility of some amount

of tension, right? Because you're a conservative, but you're also a union man. And there are conservatives in unions of all professions and stripes, right? But this one is a prominent one and one where the money involved is like quite stratified as Manfred has noted and big money when it's big. So it's just, you know, I don't really have like a point about that. I just think it's an interesting tension that the, I'm sure that the union has to navigate to some degree. And so, you know, maybe Rob Manfred went in there and didn't think that the raw milk guy was going to like get up in his face about labor. And I've seen some commentary from like, oh, well, it's easy for Bryce Harper to say we're

willing to lose 162 because he's already gotten his and he doesn't have to worry about a strike fund making him whole or whatever. And sure, there's something to that. But also, I think that you want the franchise icon signed to a big contract to be the guy who gets in the commissioner's face. That doesn't excuse the raw milk. That remains a problem. But I think there's something to guys in that position being the ones to sort of step up

and draw a line and seem to invoke a, we have a collective understanding of our position and what is good for us and you are bringing a thing that is bad for us into the conversation. And if you want to do that, you can get the f**k out. Like also speaks to, or at least invokes some sort of, you know, collective spirit and solidarity that I think is probably a good thing for them going forward. So I can't, I wish, I so badly wish I had been there. I don't want anyone to walk away with the idea that I am taking delight in Rob Manfred being menaced or the face that he would have made, but I would be curious

what that face looked like, you know, just like as a point of interesting science. So I also think that big semi-public blowups like this are a potential opportunity for the union to continue to message around issues like a salary cap and any other issues they imagine to be both important to the upcoming CBA negotiations and particularly contentious because I think that we think about this stuff a lot and I think about it sometimes at like 3 a.m. wondering like, well, there'll be baseball. There'll still be fan grass members. If there isn't baseball, what will that mean? Can I pay rent?

But just more generally, whether we are going to have a season is something that folks in our position think about a lot. And I imagine that players think about a lot, but some of the particulars of the issues on the table, you know, I think you still take every opportunity you can if you're the players association to try to do education around that stuff, right? Because I think that they do a good job of messaging and I think that the sort of labor legacy of the PA

is well understood, but like these guys are baseball players, they're not labor lawyers and they see, I'm sure other pro leagues where players do have to play under a salary cap and like some of those guys get paid fine, they might think right like I do think that you when you are an outlier in this way It's just incumbent upon you to do what you can to continue to educate your guys as to why no actually this tends to Whether immediately or over the long run

Really just were down to the owners benefit rather than the players You know you take that chance every time. And then like Bryce Harper gets to just be kind of cool. Raw milk guy. Yeah, raw milk is there in the weightlifting community? Is there special vernacular around raw milk? Are those guys like, I don't even want to speculate what they would say because I know how borderline sexual some of the other stuff is and like you're getting into uncomfortable

territory there. I don't associate that with a particular bro science sort of. Oh come on. I think it's bigger than bro science. I think I don't know. Well yeah it's a shock bro science. I think, I don't know, it's probably a whole... It's a shockingly large problem, candidly. Yes, so, but I'm not sure that it's specific

to fitness or bodybuilding, as far as I'm aware. Though I'm sure that there are those who do engage in it. It seemed to be something that Harper was doing ostensibly for nutrition or health or something, but whatever his motivations. I'm just saying that like, it's not just the liver king in that Venn diagram, you know? And I don't know for a fact that the liver king

is a raw milk guy, but don't we, you know? Can't we, don't we feel comfortable making that guess? Doesn't that feel like a... Raw everything guy. I mean, you know, the primal lifestyle or whatever it is, which is mostly just gobbling inordinate amounts of all sorts of P.D.s. But yes, anyway, Manfred, I was thinking that Harper. Yeah, in some ways, he's an imperfect messenger because I guess Manfred

could try to use that to deepen his wedge and say, sure, Bryce Harper. Yeah, he's he's up in arms against this. So he got his he got paid. But what about you? deep in his wedge and say, sure, Bryce Harper, yeah, he's up in arms against this. He got his, he got paid, but what about you? And there was a statement that Scott Boris gave to Evandrelik at the Athletic, and Boris, who's Harper's agent, said, young players need to talk with veterans like Harper.

Harper has been fighting the consequences of caps his whole life. Harper received the potential for a total of 10.99 million, $9.9 million plus $1 million in roster bonuses for his draft signing in 2010. Two years later in 2012, a draft cap was implemented and the top paid player in the draft, Bayern Buxen, got $6 million. 15 drafts later, the top player is receiving $9.25 million, well below Harper. Harper knows what caps can do to players' rights, especially young players. And that's true, I guess Harper got Harper knows what caps can do to players' rights, especially young players. And that's true, I guess Harper got his,

he got in under the wire, but you know, he was a top pick, big bonus, big contract that I think he has certainly earned, but still it's a lot of money. So you could say, oh, he's not like us, he's kind of in the 1% of baseball players, but also he is exactly the sort of leader in the clubhouse guy who's accomplished a lot in the game, who other players probably

respect, look up to, would be fired up by his passion about this issue. Because that's something that the union, that any union is always fighting, just kind of complacency, apathy, uninformed members who just don't really understand what's at stake and haven't been through some labor battles before and might not understand the history of it all. And meanwhile, you have Manfred, who's this accomplished labor lawyer

and who's been in those trenches for decades at this point and has that kind of continuity and institutional knowledge and everything. So there's an inherent advantage there, and you kind of have to get your members riled up to remind them what they're fighting for here. And to have Harper, now early in his career, he was kind of a controversial, divisive figure.

And he was seen as brash and, oh, you gotta earn it, Rook. Like when he was young and he's on Sports Illustrated cover and he's the phenom and everything and other players would say he was overrated. And now I think he's, while still being very productive, has aged into the veteran leader kind of stage of his career. And it's hard to say he's overrated because he's been so great. And also, you know, he's proved that in every which way

and all the big hits and the playoffs and all the rest of it. So if he speaks up, then you got to think that the younger players will listen and maybe be motivated by that. And Castellanos' quote or quotes were pretty funny. He said, It was pretty intense, definitely passionate, both of them, the commissioner giving it back to Bryce and Bryce giving it back to the commissioner. That's Harp.

He's been doing this since he was 15 years old. It's just another day. I wasn't surprised. That Phillies Clubhouse, they must have some fun times in there. It must be. I just think that like, you know, we've been spending all of this time lamenting the fact

that Nick Cassione's obvious designated hitter has to play the field with such frequency. And I think we've been fundamentally misunderstanding his role. He's not a DH or an outfielder. He's a philosopher king. And surely that is his most valuable position. Yeah. And surely that is his most valuable position. Yeah, I mean, he gets dismissed as a himbo, not dismissed, but embraced also.

I was gonna say, I think that people have a great deal of affection for the Phillies himbo, all of them. And there are several. But you wouldn't necessarily expect profundity or like a deep grasp of labor issues to be coming from the himbo's. But the Phillies just they're there. They do it all. They just really best of both worlds, I guess. They're, they contain multitudes. The himbo's are union men too, you know, they, they will stand with their brother on the line.

That's, that's sort of the thing here. I had another thought, but it's escaped my brain. Maybe it'll come back. Well, I'll read you another Castellanos quote in the interim. He said, Rob seems to be in a pretty desperate place on how important it is to get the salary cap because he's floating the word lockout two years

in advance of our collective bargaining agreement expiration. That's nothing to throw around. That's the same thing as me saying in a marriage, I think divorce is a possibility. It's probably going to happen. You don't just say those things. Yeah. You know what?

Philosopher King Castellanos is right on the money. Yes, he does have a point there. I think he has a point there. I've recovered my thought that had flitted away and now it has come back and landed on my finger like I'm Snow White. I think that as it pertains to Harper and whether he is an appropriate vessel for this sort of thing, I do think that it's fair to offer sort of an incomplete grade on that question because I think the moment as it is set forth right

now is, hey, stand up in that room and tell the commissioner to go f*** themselves. And that's your opportunity, right? That's what's in front of you in the moment. A year and a half from now, what might be in front of him or two years from now, God forbid, what might be in front of Bryce Harper as an opportunity is generously giving to the strike fund so that they can hunker down and continue to fight for a contract that they think is fair. So Bryce, you might have to walk softly and carry a big stick, but mostly yield a big pen, you know, like to sign a novelty check. I don't know if they

would probably have him sign a novelty check for a strike fund. That might seem a little tacky, you know, that might not, but there will be other opportunities for leadership that veterans who have made a good deal of money might need to rise to. But for now, I think it's fine for him to stand there and all around to get the fuck out of the clubhouse. I look, I think there's something to the notion that like, I don't think there's anything objectionable about what he said.

I think that if, if we had more Bryce Harper, it's not the raw milk part, but the like standing up to management part, like maybe it would be better for American workplaces more generally. I do think that there is something to the fact that like the Phillies have always given me, or at least this group has always given me the impression of like, we don't really give a f**k if what we're doing is making any sense to anybody else. It makes sense to us, right? Like they're not, it's not that they don't appreciate the stakes at the moment because clearly like Bryce Harper does and clearly based on the quotes that he's giving sort of Nick Castellanos, but like they have had that kind of himbo.

Hey, like we're just guys being dudes dancing on our own. And the top button of your jersey will unbutton three. button, the top button of your jersey, will and button three. Right. And you know, you can knock a lot of bodies down with that if you, if you deploy it, right. Sometimes you might describe it as like not being intimidated even when you should be right. That you have like a kind of like, whatever, let's, let's we ride, you know, kind of attitude. And I think that like that has served this Phillies group well during various postseason runs. It might serve them well in the coming

labor conflict as well. So keep it up, Himbos. Yeah. What the ESPN report and the New York Post had a report on this as well. I don't think either specified whether Bryce put the bat down when he stood up because he's holding a chair.

I wanna imagine. He's in the chair with the bat down when he stood up as he's holding a chair. I wanna imagine. He's in the chair with the bat, which sounds menacing. I mean, it's not unusual for a hitter to be holding a bat in the clubhouse, but did he hold the bat when he went up and told Bedford to get the out of the clubhouse or did he put the bat down before that? Because that escalates the situation

if you're carrying a bat as you are banishing the commissioner from the clubhouse. I guess what I would say is that like, you know, it probably would be better to put the bat down from an optics perspective. And the reason I say that is because like, not that like Rob Manford is like a very short man, but like he's not a pro athlete. And I imagine that Bryce Harper is a sufficiently intimidating presence in the room. He's not super tall, but he's 6'2", and he's got that weird raw milk vascularity to him

these days. So it's just heat, my guy. It's only heat. It's just, this is not a, it's not a chemical process. I mean, like, I guess, I don't know if that's, from a scientific perspective, quite an accurate way to describe it,

because you are doing, it's just heat. Like, it's so straightforward and natural. You could just, do you think if you bring a live cow to the Phillies Clubhouse, that those guys give up around milk like the next day? Do you think they're like, this thing came in is sh** everywhere. We saw how close the one hole got to the other holes

and we were like, oh boy, we gotta start drinking pasteurized milk. I'm worried about it. When the story said that Harper faced up to Manfred, I was thinking, I doubt he was looking up. Probably Manfred. I don't know what Manfred's official listed height is, but I doubt that when he is facing off with Harper,

that Harper is the one looking up. Yeah, I would be surprised. I'm trying to remember a time when like, this is gonna feel like Ken's catching strays here, and I don't mean it to, but like I'm trying to remember what it looks like when Rob Manfred stands next to Ken Rosenthal and like how did their statureures, again, affection. I'm

not, I'm not trying to... Yeah, it's like you use Ken as the measuring stick because Ken has his height in his Twitter bio or whatever. So it's like he's the standard candle as astronomers say. It's like the thing that you can measure everything else by. Right. It's just like we measure other ballplayers in El Tuve's. We measure non... All right. Yeah. That's what we do. Okay. Well, that was exciting that livened up our Mondays, certainly. Anyway, you do have to think like if you're Rob Anfred, if you can't take the heat, get out of the clubhouse,

I guess. And I guess he took the heat to his credit, I guess if he had turned tail and fled in the face of Bryce Harper just telling him off, then that would not have been great for the respect that he commands among players such as it is. Probably not. But there is something skeevy about what Manfred is doing here.

I don't think there's anything, like, illegal about it or that he's bypassing bargaining or anything. You know, it's okay for the commissioner to go around, but it's under the guise of a listening tour really, but it's more of a telling tour. It's more of a just trying to sell his message and divide the union than it is something a commissioner probably should be doing,

which is, you know, going around and taking the pulse of the players. But to use those meetings as a way to sort of do a backdoor advocacy for your position in bargaining, there's just, you know, I mean, you're entitled to do it, I guess, if the union were really upset about that, then they'd protest. I think it might even be in the CBA that he's allowed to do something like this. But you have to be ready if you're going to do that to engender and provoke some strong reactions as he clearly has here.

And if anything, it's maybe surprising that this sort of thing hasn't happened or been reported to have happened more often. If only because it's like one of the oldest management tactics in the books, right? In that respect, it is fairly surprising that this hasn't been a topic of conversation before because as we discussed when Hannah did her reporting, as we discussed when the news broke about his remarks at the Braves Investor Day, like, this is a tried and true tactic of management in the lead up to negotiations where you try to fracture

the union, where you try to convince some members that the union doesn't have their best interests at heart. I'm sure that when Rob Manfred heard about Pablo Torres reporting on the NFL Players Association, he was thrilled. He's like, look at, I, now I want to be very clear. I don't know that he has articulated this thought either to himself or out loud to other people, but I could imagine him being like, oh my God,

look at a literal sports union seemingly acting against the interests of its membership in a way that is likely to get many people fired and might be legal. Yes. And a union that has some ties to the MLBPA, not the specific scandals, but the other scandal, the investigation that's going on, the fact that there's a business entity that the leaders

of the MLBPA and the NFLPA were both involved in and embroiled in. So yeah, you could use that as additional ammunition potentially. I just sent you a Blue Sky post from Andy Koska, who covers the Orioles, and reported on Monday afternoon that there was an actual cow inside of Camden Yards. Is this like a Chick-fil-A promo or something? I think so, probably, because yeah, it looks like...

Oh yeah, because there's a Chick-fil-A... There's a sign right there. Yeah, the filly is not in town, I think so, probably, because yeah, there's a sign right there. Sign. Yeah, the Philly is not in town, so it's seemingly not Harper or raw milk related. Look, it's not enough for them to have the cow in Citizens Bank. They need to bring the cow into the clubhouse. And then they need to close the door. And look, I don't want to panic the cow.

Okay, PETA, don't come after me. I'm not trying't want to panic the cow. Okay, PETA don't come after me I'm not trying to advocate abuse of the cow. I'm just saying I need I need them to see some stuff you know and like you gotta apologize to the clubbies in advance because This shouldn't be their problem, but I'm making it their problem because really really, from milk is everyone's problem. I mean, it's not. Most people just buy pasteurized milk. Mm-hmm. Sometimes in bags, sometimes in cartons.

Right. Bag? Fine. Cartons? Fine. Jar? Fine. Like, I guess a bottle more than a jar. Yeah. Ours comes in a bottle. I mean, like, I have to go to the store to get it, but there's like a local dairy.

And you get it in a glass bottle. And then you have to remember to bring the bottle back so you get your bottle deposit. Yes, also important. Because otherwise, it's just $2 out the door. Yep. Well. I've been giving sprouts the same $2 once a week for like the last five years. And then they give it back to me and then I give it back to them and it's like, oh, I should get a little punch card. I guess we can segue from one threat facing baseball

to another and talk about the latest development in the pitch fixing investigation as we record here on Monday afternoon. We don't know a whole lot more, but we do know one more thing, which is that Emmanuel Classe has now joined the teammate of his who has been under investigation, Luis Ortiz, for pitch fixing.

So he's on the same paid disciplinary leave, and we have not heard any details about Classe or what he is exactly under suspicion of, but this is part of the probe that Ortiz was already enmeshed in and it doesn't seem like it's a good sign that this is extending to another member of that bullpen and a more notable member, of course.

I mean, I guess Ortiz wasn't in the bullpen, but pitching staff regardless. So this is concerning and a name that more people know. And I guess Klasay, this reminded me that he had a PD suspension, a steroid suspension back in 2020, which had slipped my mind. But now there's this, which as of yet is not a suspension, is nothing proven, nothing publicly alleged,

but pretty concerning that this is a second one. And now what we're getting is just more widespread suspicion. I saw people sharing gifs and videos of Class A spiking a pitch, which similar to those Ortiz pitches that were reported to be the source of the suspicion. First pitch of a plate appearance,

a little leverage, just nowhere near the strike zone. And I hope that we're not gonna get to a place where every single time a pitcher spikes a pitch, we all raised red flags. Uh-oh, there's a conspiracy here. But that's part of the danger of this, is that for all we know, it could be pervasive. I mean, we hope it's not.

We hope that when there's suspicious sped activity, that that's flagged and found and prevented, but it does contribute to the perception that perhaps things aren't on the up and up because pictures miss the strike zone by a lot, a lot of the time. So nothing unusual about that, but this brings a new valence to it on the up and up because pictures miss the strike zone by a lot, a lot of the time. So nothing unusual about that. But this brings a new valence to it where you're watching and

you're thinking, huh, was that on purpose? Suddenly that's a subtext that in the vast majority of cases will not be the actual text. But even if it just makes you think of that, that's bad enough. Yeah, I want to make mention of, so I did not record his comments at the BBWA meeting. So I want to be clear that I'm paraphrasing here, but at the BBWA meeting in July, this is still July in Atlanta, that's a more useful descriptor. Steph Epstein asked both Tony Clark and Rob Manfred about these betting issues, scandals, and what it was going to take to purge them from the league and to successfully intervene on them. And they both, I think took took the issue appropriately seriously. But one thing that Manfred said, and again, here I am paraphrasing that I was heartened

by and not just because, you know, I don't always agree with him, but did suggest this, he did raise concern about the existence of these sort of pitch by pitch bets and whether they were strictly necessary or particularly well advised given some of the vulnerabilities that we've seen. And so one thing that I could imagine coming out of all of this, regardless of the outcome of their investigation, because you know, you're right to point out that both of these guys are on paid administrative leave, they have not been suspended. But once you have a concern that a guy might be

throwing a pitch or a game or what have you, like you can't have them out there, right? You just have to, unfortunately for the Guardians and I guess potentially for a class A and Ortiz, like you just have to take them off the field because you can't have them keep throwing pitches if they are in fact doing that. But I wonder if one of the things that we will see as a result of this is that sort of class of pitch, particularly at the books that have an active and direct partnership with the league kind of disappear because they just seem so obviously ripe for exploitation in this manner. And you know, it might not end up being particularly decisive in any given game or even,

you know, a particular at bat, but it has the ability to be an existential threat to this sport nonetheless. I've been going back and forth this morning on whether I'm of the opinion that this particular kind of bet obviously is facilitated by not only sports betting being legalized in so many jurisdictions, but also in the apps just allowing you to make bets quickly, right? That kind of micro transaction.

They were like, oh, they're done playing Candy Crush, so we must get them to bet on sports. Obviously, the technology and the regulatory environment facilitates those bets in a way that, you know, I won't say that they didn't happen before at Sportsbooks. I don't honestly know. I imagine they did, but they probably were a small percentage of the overall action on a given game just because you have to be there to do it. I don't know if you can do it quickly enough if you're not able to do it from your phone. All of that to say, this particular kind of vulnerability is certainly being exacerbated

by some of the technological advances, quote unquote, of our current moment. But I just wonder, it makes me wonder how much betting or behavior with an aim to affect the outcome of a bet was going on that we just didn't know about, you know, and that we have a much better feel for in some regards or potentially do because of the monitoring. And I'm not saying that like, oh gosh, these benevolent sports books. But like this is, you know, we've talked before about how this is one of the actual benefits of there being formal partnerships with the league and there being sort of aboveboard

infrastructure for this stuff, because, you stuff because you can go back and say, ah, there was a weird action on that for what it is. So I don't know, maybe we've been naive this whole time, but once you know something, you can't well unknow it, you know? I hope that we're not just suddenly finding out about something that was there all along. Yeah. Though, I guess I'd rather know than not if it was.

But this does feel to me like an area where we need some sort of either legislation or the leagues taking a stand on the prop bets on the parlays on these sort of micro bets, just because we're not gonna put the genie back in the bottle and Pandora's box isn't gonna be closed. I think sports betting is gonna stay legal. I think smartphones are not going anywhere. But if we could curb the worst of it somehow, if we could maybe make the advertising and the marketing a little less pervasive, if there were more regulation

about that, if there were regulation about this kind of betting specifically, which just seems most likely, A, to actually interfere with the games, and B, just the most kind of predatory, you know, preying on people who can't control themselves when it comes to these bets. It just seems like the most likely to get out of hand. That plus the more predatory behavior on the part of the sportsbooks,

when they have like dedicated, you know, VIP services where they basically hound you if you stop betting and try to ensnare you again, even though they're well aware that you might have problematic batting patterns, that's basically catnip to them and they want to get you hooked again if you somehow manage to kick the habit. So even if you win for a while, they ban you as if the game wasn't rigged enough already. That sort of behavior, there's got to be things that could be done around the margins to make this a little less destructive, societally.

And I know some of those things have been done, or at least there's a little political clout behind getting them done in other countries where the legalization preceded ours and thus the harmful effects of the legalization preceded ours. And I wish we could look at that as a bellwether and say, ah, this is where we're headed.

Let's learn a lesson and skip all the pain in between. But of course we won't, but you know, just like hopefully something, just some of the worst, most toxic aspects of this. And obviously the athletes are fed up with the amount of abuse and death threats and messages that they're getting constantly about props and parlays and all the amount of abuse and death threats and messages that they're getting constantly about props and parways and all the rest of it. It's got to be something just to curb

the worst of this kind of behavior. So let's hope, but I'm not really holding my breath. I do find myself frustrated with whenever something like this happens, and it's happening a lot now, you know, not just in baseball, and that's certainly contributing to my sense of its frequency that there have been betting scandals in other sports. But it feels like we have one of these happen. And then the discourse is the same every time. There are the people who say, well, what, you know, it's the hot dog meme, like, we're all trying to find the guy who did this. say, well, what, you know, it's the hot dog meme. Like we're all trying to find the guy who did this. This news brought to you by insert sports book. I'm so sick of that joke, but it's everywhere. I get the spirit of the thing. And I don't know that I necessarily disagree with the notion that like you create a permissive environment around sports betting and it's just going to be in the culture as a more acceptable

thing broadly understood. And you know, players can bet on sports. They just can't bet on bat to ball sports, right? And I do wonder, I'm like, would it be better if they just couldn't bet on any sports? Like does that blur an internal distinction? But like, as we've talked about every time there's been one of these, like they've never been allowed to bet on baseball. It's always been against the rules for them to bet on baseball, regardless of the legality of sports betting in their particular jurisdiction nationwide, what have you. Like they've just never been able to do it. And so I get what everyone's saying in that this s**t sucks and we're tired of hearing about it constantly and it seems obviously predatory on

the part of the sports books, particularly this class of bet. And so it's easy to extend that logic to players. And it wouldn't surprise me if there are individual players who are susceptible to the effects of addiction when it comes to gambling, just like anyone else. Right. And so the, the idea that it doesn't matter at all, and that having the ability to do it on your phone isn't like in there a little bit. Okay, fine. But like, they just have never been allowed to bet on baseball. And we wouldn't say it was acceptable for like, they partner with Budweiser, right?

But we don't say like, oh, well that player could drive drunk because you know, who's to who's at fault for that Rob Manfred? It's like, no, no. Just because this is a thing that has addictive potential doesn't mean that like the behavior is acceptable and just because you as A normal citizen could bet on basketball if you're a pro baseball player Doesn't mean that you can bet on everything because guess what being a pro baseball player comes with

obligations as well as privileges and one of them is you can't bet on your own stupid sport, so like Enough with that guy. I'm like sorry Yeah, but I'm sick of I am so sick of that joke. It doesn't help. It's, yeah, I mean, it's gonna be pervasive regardless. Even if MLB took some moral stance and said, we will not partner, you're still gonna be inundated with this stuff.

Less so, I think, the fact that we're getting it from all sides during baseball broadcasts and it's sanctioned by the networks and by the leagues, that certainly... Sometimes the name of the network. Yeah, absolutely. Or historically. That makes it worse. That exacerbates all of it and probably gives it this veneer of, I don't know, respectability or approval that just probably doubles down on the whole problem. It's not going away and ultimately it's probably a drop in the bucket if you just took any

one league's spend on this or profit from this. But yeah, like, you know, we don't do gambling advertising here just because we think it's bad for the world basically. MLB, you know, I don't really expect them to make moral stances like that. It's nice when they do every now and then, or when they are pressured into doing it, even if they then walk it back. But it's just like, I guess on some level, the leagues felt like, well, we better get ours because everyone else is going to get rich off of this. And it's not like MLB was necessarily at the forefront of lobbying for legalization.

MLB kind of dragged its heels, I think, relative to the NBA. And it was more like a cause and effect, like it's legalized. Okay, well, I guess that barrier fell. And then do you expect them to pass up the millions or billions or whatever it amounts to? Be nice if they did, but no one else is gonna do that. No other big business probably is gonna pass up that revenue. And I just, I don't know if they tell themselves, well, if we do get on board,

then we can monitor it more closely. And thus it will be better this way. And yes, we happen to be profiting, but also this is good. This is making the best of the situation. Maybe they could tell themselves that, and maybe there's even some truth to it. But yeah, like they're kind of complicit,

I guess anyone to any. But yeah, like, they're, they're kind of complicit, I guess, anyone to any extent, that's, and much of the media is funded by this. And, you know, I'm no exception to that the places where I've worked. So it's just, it's tough, even if you're not directly involved in it, you're probably connected to it in some ways, because it just undergirds the whole sports and sports media industry. So I don't know, there's really no extricating yourself from it. It's just all so toxically intertwined.

Yeah, I think that there, you know, there probably is something to the notion that they are able to engage in tighter monitoring as a result of the partnerships with the books. I don't know that that's enough of a reason, would be enough reason for me to do it, but you know, I don't know that that's a completely bogus argument that they would make. But look, like we're just, we're not done with these, you know? The incentives are too profound for some, the ease with which you can do it is too loose given these, you know, outcome driven prop bets. And I think that we're just gonna have enough of these. Now, I do think that like, if Emmanuel Classe and Luis Ortiz did this, they're done. And enough lifetime bands come down, and that maybe moves the needle. Now that doesn't preclude, unfortunately, the existence of, say, a bad actor trying

to threaten or cajole a player into doing something like this. But I do think that there are disincentives at the same time that there are incentives. And I think that the league has to come down really hard when that line is crossed in an effort to maintain its own professional integrity. And I wish that they drop all the sports betting stuff too, because I think it's dumb and gross, but they're not going to do that. So we have to figure out a way for them to continue to police that line and do so effectively. And like, you know, the other thing about it is like the consequences don't just extend to the team. This is going to blow up part of Cleveland's deadline strategy, right? They can't trade Closet now. Who's going to take him?

First of all, he's going to be out until at least August 31st. And so you don't get to enjoy him helping your team, and you're not going to take him if he's just going to end up getting popped and not be able to play baseball again. So the league isn't the only enforcement mechanism at play here. We haven't seen a player as good as Klaus A caught up in this. I guess for the first day of Ohtani, people were worried about him, but like, you know, we haven't seen a player of his caliber placed on administrative leave for one of these things in a while. No disrespected, you know, Marcano, but like this is easily the best guy.

And he was likely to wear another team's uniform next week if it weren't for this. Yeah. And he's had a decent season, not as good as he was last year, obviously, but if you look at the peripherals- Better lately. Yeah, better lately and not so different from what he was the last couple of years, if you look at his ex-fip or something. And that doesn't preclude this sort of thing. And people do that with Shoeless Joe in the 1919 World Series, because you look at his overall series

stats and they look great. But if you do a Series, because you look at his overall series stats and they look great. But if you do a deeper analysis and you look at what he did in high leverage moments, well, it turns out that actually he came up empty in all the big spots. Is that a complete coincidence, given everything that is known about what he actually admitted to?

That whole case has just been whitewashed and there are just so many myths about, you know, him being taken advantage of and everything. And he sort of shaped that narrative after his ban. But you're having good overall surface stats does not preclude you having done something like this. And now people are scrutinizing the percentage of waste pitches that he's thrown on first pitches of plate appearances this year compared to past years and is this the smoking gun and is that the smoking gun? And I don't want

to have to be doing this with players now. I don't want this to be a new genre of analysis. Let's detect the cheating. I mean, I'd rather the cheating be detected if it's happening, but I'd rather it not happen. So the ideal outcome here, of course, would be that Ortiz and Klasay are cleared and cleared in such a way that it's actually convincing that they were innocent and we're all actually confident that they were on the level and this was a false alarm. Great. But if that turns out not to be the case, then yeah, you have to have the hammer come down because maybe that does dissuade another player from doing this because how much money can be in it realistically that's one of the things I'm curious about it's one pitch and you can't bet a huge fortune on this because it's gonna be even more suspicious obviously there was enough betting that it flagged some

suspicion but how much money could it be realistically on the outcome of a single pitch like this? And could that actually be worth just you potentially throwing away your whole career if you see that precedent established with a couple of pitchers? So let's hope one way or another. And there have been cases in basketball and soccer recently where players who were under suspicion for something like this were cleared and they were found not to have done something and that is within the realm of possibility here. But yeah, the fact that they keep extending the leave for Ortiz, the non-disciplinary

paid leave and now they both run through August 31st and it's just extending to another player doesn't seem to bode well. Yeah. And I will say, I'm like, I don't know, I think a question has to be asked and I don't know the answer and I want to be clear that I'm not trying to say that they've necessarily done anything wrong here because I don't know, one, if they have or two, how their messaging around this stuff has differed from other teams in the league to the extent that it has, you know, if there's something more than that could be done.

But I also think that like if you're the Cleveland Guardians, you have to be asking yourself, what the f*** is going on in the playoffs right now? Because if it's, if these two guys are, if it turns out that they have done something untoward here, what, what's going on? You know, and what I do think that teams should ask themselves, as I mentioned, the league isn't the only potential guardrail here. And I'm sure the club officials are messaging with their own guys. But I do think that it's worth them, to the extent that they are able, asking, is there anything more institutionally that we can be doing to, you know, detect,

better educate, what have you? Like I, I do think that some of the language around players with this stuff can get a little like paternalistic. And I'm like, these are grown men and like they've been told this rule since they entered a pro clubhouse. So like, I don't want to discount the effect that like the addictive potential of gambling can have in situations like this. And I'm sure that if they're, you know, I want to, you still have to have a bright line for that role,

but you can have an empathetic response to a person who is struggling with that situation. But also some of, some of this is that some of these guys are going to be greedy. Some of these guys are going to be kind of dumb. Like, you know, like we do need to have them take responsibility for their behavior in moments like this, because this is just such an important issue for the league. And I was, you know, to give another sort of paraphrased quote from that BBWA meeting, this time from Tony Clark, you know, one of the points that he made in that conversation with reporters was, you know, this has always been an area of very heavy education and messaging from both the league

and the union. And I think that those parties, as much as we've talked about Bryce Harper potentially menacing the commissioner with a bat, I think the PA and the league are aligned on this particular question where they don't want players doing this stuff. It's bad for the game. But one of the things that Clark mentioned was that they are trying to be careful in educating guys, particularly around parlay vets, because sometimes what they have heard is that a guy will, have heard is that a guy will, you know, he might have like an eight way parlay or something. What are any of you doing? What are you doing? Don't, that's a bad idea. That is such a bad

idea to do a bet that requires seven different things to happen. What men, what are you doing? It's not all men, but all of them are men. One of the things that Tony Clark said was that like where some guys have gotten in trouble is you know, they're, they're placing these parlay bets and they're maybe not paying close enough attention to each individual part of the bet, right? They there not realizing like oh shit buried in there is like a parlay on some He didn't I'm he didn't maybe say exactly this but like a college baseball game and I can't bet on that You know, you can't bet on bats a ball regardless of the sport softballs included I think they include cricket and you can't do it at any level. And so he's like, I don't want, and again, this is me paraphrasing him, but he didn't want any of his players

to run afoul of the league's rules sort of inadvertently because they're going too quickly through a parlay bet. Now, a thing I would say is that if you don't know what the individual parts of the parlay bet are, why the are you betting a parlay bet? But also like, it doesn't really matter

what the individual bits of the parlay bet are. It's dumb Regardless, don't do it. Anyway, so I think that there have been circumstances I can imagine there being circumstances where the thing that ends up causing You to run afoul of the rule isn't greed. It isn't, you know, malice. It's not that you have a gambling problem. It's that you're being like in an attentive goof on your phone and bing bang boom. Oh no, you've inadvertently placed a parlay bet and it part of what pays it out is baseball. So I guess that's a reality that they have to contend with, but that just seems

like a good reason to not do a part like that. Yeah. The last thing that occurs to me is that when Ortiz came under suspicion, I think we said, well, he kind of fits the profile of a player who might be ensnared by this or tempted by this pre-arb guy who hasn't really been established or gotten paid yet. And Claucer, you can't really say that about. He's made some money. Now, he signed an extension. He probably left some money on the table. Ultimately, maybe he feels like he's underpaid, but he's making several millions of dollars. And it's hard for me to imagine that if this is true, if he was a willing accomplice in this, that that would have been enough money to really move the needle

when you're making that sort of salary. But you never know what's going on with an individual player's personal finances, and you can't just extrapolate from their salary and say, oh, yeah, he's set, you know, sometimes they squander that money. So we'll find out one way or another and probably before too long. I guess we can just quickly end just staying in the central. There've been a couple transactions of note

not long before we started recording. The Tigers made a trade with the twins. They acquired Chris Paddock. And I guess it was then announced that Reese Olsen of the Tigers is out for the year with a shoulder strain. So makes sense. They'd be in the market for some pitching.

And man, we said, okay, we're sure the Tigers are good. And lately they have not been, they have been, they've been 500 for quite a while. Like if you look over the past, I think it's 57 games, they're 500 or under 500. But also they just lost 12 out of 13, right? I mean, it's been a rough stretch for them. They have come back to earth a bit.

So yeah, they need some reinforcements, I guess. Some of the things that you looked at them and their roster at the beginning of the season and said, oh, you know, this team is promising, but I see some holes here. And then suddenly all of the holes were paved over and it seemed like all the second stringers were great. And that hasn't completely continued of late. I still think they're good. I still think they're going to win this division, but they need some assistance and I guess they're trying to get it. Yeah, I think it's interesting. There's been, you know, I might hazard to say that the quote unquote best teams, a lot of them are kind of struggling of late. It's been rough sledding for some of these clubs.

The Dodgers are four and six in their last ten games. Detroit, you mentioned their record two of eight in their last ten. The Blue Jays will never lose again, maybe. And then it's extended down to some of the hopefuls on the wild card side, right? Where the giants are two and eight in their last ten and the Cardinals have just been bad and the Rays have been bad. They're back down to 500 and they were, you know, at one point sitting on top of that division. So it does feel like things are a little more tender, a little looser at the top than they looked not too long ago.

So I don't know. There's still only so many really attractive players. I don't mean how they look. They're all so handsome. But I mean, in terms of the guys who are likely to move between now and Thursday, who are real difference makers and are going to solidify an important roster spot for one of these clubs. But I imagine the competition for some of those guys, depending on what you need most, might be heightened now. I wonder what the Tigers need isn't necessarily the same as other teams, other than the pitching

part. And I don't know, maybe they're very happy with Zach McKinstry, but if you're the Diamondbacks, and I don't mean this with regards to the Tigers in particular, but if you're the Diamondbacks, aren't you glad you haven't traded at Eohanio Suarez yet? Because it just feels like his asking price is gonna go up and up.

Maybe he gets too expensive and then he stays. And then it's fine for me, because I can finally go to the clubhouse and ask him, Eohanio, what's with the hair, my guy? How do you do it? You know? Yeah. No, it does feel pretty wide open at this point, just league-wide, which I guess is not a shock. We kind of knew coming into the season, it didn't seem like there were any really great teams.

The Dodgers maybe had that potential, but that hasn't panned out thus far. And so it was clear that it was going to be a dogfight and we were going to have compressed standings, but it's, it's really compressed now. And it has been so up in the air. I think, I think Zach Krizer had this note that from July 20th through July 27th, there were four different teams that held at least a share of the best record in baseball at the end of the day. So it was Tigers, Brewers, Cubs and Blue Jays could all say, yeah, we have the best record

in baseball. It's been hard to keep track. My head is spinning. It's like this team gets kind of hot, this team gets kind of cold. Suddenly there's a new team with the best record in baseball. Right now, as we record, the Blue Jays have the best record in baseball, I believe the best winning percentage. And it's only 594, which is not veryays have the best record in baseball, I believe, the best winning percentage.

It's only 594, which is not very good for the best team in baseball. They're 63 and 43. By the way, Bo Bichette just had a five hit game and I was looking at his stats and thinking in retrospect, his down year last year looks even odder. It was very confusing last year, but now that he's bounced back to be more or less like Bo Bichette again, it looks even weirder that he had that blip. Obviously missed some time and everything. Anyway, it appears that he's back. So, so yeah, you can't even say like, yeah, this is clearly the best team in baseball. It's just that title changes hands seemingly on a daily basis. And who would have thought that two of the teams that would be in that conversation right

behind the Blue Jays from a winning percentage perspective would be two NL Central teams. I didn't think that. I thought that the Cubs and the Brewers could be good teams, but I didn't think they'd be right behind there. They're right behind there. That's crazy. and the Brewers could be good teams, but I didn't think they'd be right behind there. Right behind there. That's crazy. Yeah, and I guess that puts the Royals' decisions

in a different perspective, and maybe we can end there with another central team. Such a weird couple of days for them. Yeah, they've kind of declared their stance, I guess. The Twins and the Tigers have. I guess. It's funny, like the Braves have added in recent days, but I don't think that that's a case of declaring that they're contenders and they're going for it.

I think that's a case of we have no healthy starters. Someone has to start these games for us. So they they just picked up Eric Fetty from St. Louis and Carlos Carrasco from New York because Grant Holmes got hurt and right there entire opening day rotation I know it's on the injured list now and not just on the inner list But I think they're all on the 60 day like a lot of those guys are just they're gone They're out for a while a lot of those guys and you know, that says Strider's back He wasn't on the opening day They are indeed all on the 60 day per their roster resource page.

Yep. All five of them. Yeah, it's extremely short handed. So you wouldn't even say that Carrasco and Feddy are going to help necessarily. Feddy has fallen far since he was a mid-season acquisition last year. But yeah, this is just a case of like, even if we're not going to make the playoffs, we have to have some healthy pitchers. We have to feel the team.

Yeah. Someone who to seal the team, yeah. Someone who can throw the ball. But the Royals, I think, are a case of saying, no, we're going for it. So they signed Seth Lugo to an extension and he was reputed to be or rumored to be one of the potential top pitchers available at the deadline. Like, you know, it seemed like a pretty thin crop of pitchers who could be moving. And Seth Lugo, if the Royals decided to move him, that seemed like he might be the best pitcher available, but he's not available.

Seemingly they've decided to hang on to him and they signed him to a two-year extension with a vesting option for a third year. And good for him and good for the Royals. He's been incredible for them, obviously. He's been one of the best pitchers in baseball over the past couple of seasons. I think he is 12th in FanGraph's war since the start of last season. And baseball reference war, he's eighth, I think FanGraph's RA9 war runs allowed based war. He's fifth since the start of last season, more of a baseball reference war. He's eighth, I think, FanGraph's RA9 war runs aloud.

Based war, he's fifth since the start of last season, more of a baseball reference style war. So he's just been great. And they've gotten quite a bargain with him. And now they're getting him for two years and 46 million with a $3 million signing bonus and then a club option and vesting and everything. But that's a pretty sweet deal for them too. I get that like, he's not a super high strikeout guy. He's older. He's in his mid thirties. But I would think that if he had gone to free agency, he's going to get more than that. Right? So he must like being a royal, presumably. And the Royals have added Randall Gritchock, which I know that's not a major move. It's Randall

Gritchock. He's basically been replacement level, but replacement level would be an improvement for that Royals outfield because man, it has been really rough. They have by far the worst outfield in baseball by war this year. And unfortunately, Jack Caglione has not helped. In fact, he has hurt the situation because when they called him up, and we were excited to see what he could do, and he's had his moments and he's had his big Titanic taters, but few and far between.

He is a 30 WRC plus in 161. And now he's hurt. And now he's hurt, yeah. So he actually has the worst war of any Royals outfielder. So he was supposed to be the reinforcements and clearly he had holes that have been exploited. So that Royals outfield on the whole has been negative 3.4 war.

That is, the Rockies are the only other outfield that's sub replacement level and they're negative 0.2. So they're essentially replacement level. The Royals three wins worse than that. So that's when you get into sure Randall Gertrude, I guess like he'll stem the bleeding maybe. He's been a useful platoon player for a number of years. I don't think that he's gonna like rocket them to the top of the wild card standings or anything like that. But I think that at this point, you just need you just need a guy who can get in there and be useful sometimes, you know, like it's not. Yeah. I mean, I guess it's been hasn't been as good this year. I

don't know that whole D back see mistake, but but like, you know it hasn't been as good this year. I don't know that whole D back seem to sink but but like, you know, there have been times where he has had like, Randall Gritchick last year against left-handed pitching at a 151 WRC plus, you know, he managed to 116 against righties he didn't do that as often but like, you know, he's a useful role player and I think a good addition I I just find their, the sum of the moves is kind of confusing relative to where I understand them to be in that race. But also the entire field is like kind of meh. And so maybe they're like, look,

we'll just push in and get some guys and, and then the chips will fall where they may. I mean, it's not like, you know, the D back scout, like a minor league reliever, um, for Grichak, it wasn't like they, it wasn't like the worlds gave up that much and all they had to spend to extend Lugo's money. So that's fine. Got plenty of money. Yeah. And even if they don't make it this year, they'll want to make it in the

next couple of years and they want to keep Lugo around for that reason. But yeah, there are four games behind the Rangers, another team that's gotten fairly hot, tied with the Mariners now for that last Ale wild card slot. So yeah, the picture changes constantly. We were just talking about the Guardians selling and they're actually ahead of the Royals right now. So it's just, you know, teams reaching different calculuses, perhaps, since the Royals are at, I think, 13% playoff odds, according to FanGraphs. So, yeah, all right.

Just, I meant to mention, by the way, that, uh, A, your mention of Gritchik as a platoon guy made me recall that I meant to mention Ahmed Rosario as a potential platoon bet for the Yankees too. He could pair with McMahon, so that's another use for him. And also the Guardian's statement about Class A did say we have been informed that no additional players or club personnel are expected to be impacted.

So, OK, that's good. I guess that's good. I guess that's better than the opposite. I. Yeah, they wouldn't say they probably wouldn't say anything Okay, that's good. I guess that's good. I guess that suggests that it might stop there. Yeah, they probably wouldn't say anything if they're like, and there's more coming. Can you imagine? Yeah, right. Brace yourself.

This is just the beginning. Yeah, I don't think they would say that. Pack it in, boys. Yeah. I don't know how privy to the details of these investigations. Probably not very. Our right. So I don't know how much it means that,

I guess if they were told that no one else is implicated, that's good, but might be a surprise to them too, potentially. So also I said, stem the bleeding, and I think I meant staunch the bleeding, but maybe you could say either. I don't know. I think you staunch the bleeding and you stem the tide. Yes, that's right. But why not stemming the bleeding or staunching the tide?

Because I think both liquids, both fluids. Yeah, but isn't staunch staunching is is I think specific to blood from a wound. Like I think the primary definition is to literally stop the blood from a wound. Like I think the primary definition is to literally stop the flow of blood from a wound. How hyper specific though. Interesting. Yeah. I mean like there are a lot of really specific words, Ben. You know, they mean very specific things. But you could stem, I mean, stand the tide is a funny sort of little phrase on its own, isn't it? Stem the tide. Also, you can't stem a tide, can you? It seems like it would be hard to stem. Maybe if you have like a-

Yeah, how could you hold back a tide? It's a force of nature. I guess a dam does that. Or like a levee or- Yes. But levees break. There's a song about it. a levee or, or, or they do on occasion. Yeah. And then it can be quite catastrophic or like, you don't, you'll, a lock is to move a ship through bodies of water of different depths, right? That you're not trying to do anything funky with the tide with the lock, right? It's just like, Oh, the boats over there and it needs to go over there and they're not the same. And so you move them. Yeah. Right.

That sounds right to me. Is it? Is it right there? They're locked. How did we get here? How did we end on this note? Because it's our, who, what do you mean? How did we end on this note?

Have you listened to our show before? I mean, a lock like a Scottish lock, like where Nessie is, that's just, that's like, that's just Gaelic. That's just a lake. No, like the Ballard locks in Seattle. Right, yeah, that different. Yeah, it's used for raising and lowering boat ships and other watercraft between stretches of water

of different levels on river canal waterways. Okay? We went we went to the Ballard Lux on a field trip in elementary school We learned about and then you get to see the salmon Yeah, you get to see where the salmon go and it's a whole thing. You know, you get to watch them and go boy We should probably end this episode. Yeah. All right. Some news that surfaced after we finished recording

more Royals related pitching developments. Chris Bubich, not only on the IL, but expected to miss the rest of the season with a rotator cuff strain. So he goes from breakout to broken. Bad news for the Royals and their slim playoff hopes, but good news for Rich Hill's hold on the rotation spot. Gotta look on the bright side, people.

Silver linings. I am aware, by the way, that only one team surpassed the 600-winning percentage last year, and it was the Dodgers. Barely. They were at 6-0-5. So this lack of extreme teams is nothing new. It's just still striking after the super team era that we were in before that.

Also aware that these bets on the first pitches of plate appearances presumably could be placed before a game. Doesn't necessarily have to be updated in real time as if you were betting on some count that you wouldn't know about before it actually occurred. Guess you couldn't be completely sure of which pitcher would be in the game at that point though, but some of this could be done beforehand. Not great at any point. What is great is the fact that a lot of people have enabled us to strike this moral stance

of not accepting money from betting companies or any companies for the most part. It's easy for us to say that, but you help put the money where our mouths are. Something sounds wrong about that. What I mean is you enable us to be high-minded about this by making the podcast pay off for us in other ways And if you want to be part of the contingent that does that the subset of the listenership that makes it possible for everyone else

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