Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2400: There’s No Such Thing As a Free Agent

Episode Date: November 13, 2025

Ben and Meg banter about a hotel-lobby shrine to Addison Barger and Scott Boras wordplay at the GM meetings, Stat Blast (25:50) about Paul DePodesta’s comeback, POBO percentage, postseason questions, and Mike Greenwell, and (1:01:07) conduct the 11th annual free agent contract over/under draft, plus a Boras postscript. Audio intro: Beatwriter, “Effectively Wild Theme” Audio outro: Benny […]

Room, room, here's your primer on Beef Boys, Baseball's Inn, Roger Angel, and Super Pretzels. Lillian's Astadillo and Mike Trout hypotheticals, waiting for the perfect bat from a volcanic corruption. Ladies and gentlemen, the Effectively Wild introduction. Hello and welcome to episode 2400 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of Fangraves, and I'm joined by Ben Lindberg of the ringer. Ben, a lot of pod, man. We've done such pod. There's a lot of pods. I wasn't happy with the quality of my whistle there.

Let me try again. No. Just air. It's not great. Not a good whistling day for me. I pride myself on my whistling, but not today. But I do pride ourselves on getting to yet another round number milestone 2,400. It's a lot of pods.

Here's a question for you. We talked a lot during the postseason about Addison Barger. You learned that he's a lot. He's a lefty and how to say his name and other important facts about him. We also talked about his predilection for pull-out couches, how he insisted. Well, didn't insist. He had permission, but he really wanted to sleep on Davis Schneider's couch rather than obtain his own hotel room. And we talked about his reasoning for that.

Here's something I saw, the pull-out couch on which Addison Barger crashed before hitting his historic pinch-hit, Grand Slam in Game 1 of the World Series will be on display at the Toronto Marriott City Center Hotel overlooking the Rogers Center. If you want to see the quote, now iconic pull-out catch, I don't know that that way to be that far. But if you want to see it, you can go to that hotel and it will be on display in the lobby. Actually, it's already too late. Well, maybe if you hear this right when the pod goes up, it'll be. be there until November 14th Friday.

So if you can get to that Marriott in Toronto by end of day Friday, I guess. You can see the very pull-out couch where Addison Barger slept the night before his heroics. What do you think? Is this a draw? Is this an attraction? Would you go out of your way to see the pull-out couch? No, that's insane. Look, I also think, I don't want to feel bad, but kind of a bold move on the part of

Marriott. Look, here's my experience. Even with nice-ish hotels, I don't know that you want to submit your furniture to, like, close lobby inspection. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know that that's going to bear the weight of scrutiny. But also, like, I know that he had an amazing moment the next day, right? Like, in the immediate aftermath of the couch, and we're saying pull out so much more that I'm really comfortable with, but in the immediate aftermath of this, he had a great moment, but they did lose the world series. You know what I mean? They did, but it was not his fault. He gave his all. Hardly suggesting that it was Addison Berger's fault. It was, it was not his fault. And I would just like to issue a small correction to your statement. It's not

that we learned he batted lefty. We remembered he batted lefty. And solidified that preexisting now. Right. And insisted on reminding others of that fact over and over and over again. But so I don't know, Ben, you know, I don't know about that. I think we're doing too much with too many things. You know, the couch, it's a good story, but the couch is just the couch. How do you know? First of all, how do you know it's the couch? How do you know it's the couch? Addison Partier, pull-out couch, truther, that could be just any pull-out couch. It could be just any pull-out couch. And, again, I'll return to my earlier statement that it is perhaps not the best idea to submit and subject hotel furniture to prolong up-close scrutiny. Yeah, you don't want to take a UV blacklight to a hotel furniture, probably. Speaking of pulling out. Okay.

Wow. Wow. Yeah, you probably don't want to do that. So maybe some clever person who works for that particular Mary raised their hand in the staff meeting and noted that fact to their boss. And then they were like, you know, we got a new couch, though, in the loading dock, ready to go into a different room. And then the boss goes, well, you put that, you put that sucker in the lobby.

They'll never know the difference. They'll never know the difference. Because here's the thing, is Addison Berger going to come around and be like, that wasn't the couch? Would he even be able to tell? I mean, one, he might not be able to tell. And two, even if he could tell, he's probably off being offseason Addison. You know, he's got family to see.

He's got activities to do. I'm making him sound like a child on winter break. But you know what I mean? Like, he's got other business to attend to business that does not involve a couch in a hotel lobby in a city that he probably doesn't live in in the off season. So I'm just saying there could be some couch funny. business you know like a different kind of couch funny business than a hotel couch might normally see a oh see how i did that but didn't make it i let the the listener make it gross i didn't make it you got a you know much more tactful yeah yeah you know how to be graphic all the time some

sometimes it does it does require that yeah but this time not so much so anyway a little to the imagination i think it's cute i like that the the press release from Marriott said... I just love that there's a press release. There's a press release. And it worked. Here I am, a member of the press talking about it. I know, giving them exactly what they want.

Speaking of release, no, I'm not doing that. Oh, God. What started as a humble spot to lay his head has now become the stuff of baseball legend. And fans can now get up close with the sofa that helped fuel one of Canada's most talked about recent moments. Get up close? I don't know how... What do they? Yeah, I'm not sure if this is like when you go to some,

European palace and everything is roped off. I'm not sure if you get to lie in the pullout to get the full Addison Barger experience or if it's just on display and you just sort of survey the pullout and say, ah, yes, history happened here. He slept there the night before his home run. And I don't mean to suggest that Addison did anything untoward with couch. I'm not trying to, he's not J.D. Vance. Like, come on.

This is a respectable young man. I'm just saying, like, what comes after? people see the couch in the lobby, right? They come into the lobby. They see the couch. You probably have to rope it off because typically when you see a couch in a lobby, you get to sit down on the couch because you're wary. You know, you've been traveling all day. You've been, maybe you've had to deal with, with customs. Maybe you've had a flight canceled. You know, it's, you don't know. People might, people might have been a very early, you know, and so they come into the lobby. They have not seen this press release because why would they say,

this press release, and they go, and there's a line. And they're like, oh, God, I'm so tired. I am worn by my travels. Oh, boy, how convenient. A couch. I'll sit on this couch. I'm going to relax on this couch. I'm going to lounge on the couch. A docent comes over yelling at you because you violated the sanctity of the display. This is a priceless artifact. You befouled to the couch. Yeah, I know. Did they, did they like refuse to tuck in the bed sheets? Is it like, did they leave it the way that he left it, or did they make the bed? You know, did they get turned down service on the pull-out couch after, or would that be tampering with history?

No, I don't think they typically do turn down. I guess not with a pull-out probably. Here's the thing. It's not that there aren't pull-out couches in nice hotels, but hotels that do turn-down service, like real turndown service, they're not emphasizing the pull-out couch. And here's another question. Did Marriott know he was going to be sleeping? there? Did they add an additional guest? Were they like, why? Yeah, was there a surcharge because

there was an extra occupant in the room? And at that point, it's like, just get your own room. I mean, to be clear, the moment when Addison should have gotten his own room was like at any moment before he was sleeping on a polo couch in the middle of the postseason. Yes. But he didn't avail himself of that option for reasons that were still not satisfied by. Anyway, it's a one week exhibit in the lobby of a Marriott. They probably don't have a whole lot of history. It's not as if they sent the couch to Cooperstown. I was about to say, did they feel the need to display the couch and release and put out a press release because they were like, well, we can't, we can't let the Hall of Fame

have all the fun. We got us. And again, did the local Marriott have to clear the language for the press release with corporate? They don't have a, I can't imagine that the hotel has like a PR person. Communications professionals. Right. No, maybe it'll be a traveling.

exhibit and they'll send it around, or maybe if they had won the World Series, would it be like the Stanley Cup and every Blue Jay would have a night in the pullout couch? I don't know, but I like that they have tried to make this a thing. I'm sure it's a little bit tongue-in-cheek and hyperbolic and how often really is history made in a hotel that you get to have a display in the lobby? It's all in good fun, I guess. And hey, baseball writers and sports writers, they love their Marriots, right? They love their Marriott VIP rewards program. So if they're doing an off-season Marriott tour, they could stop in Toronto by Friday and see the couch. Can I pick a very particular bone that I'm going to get no sympathy for from either you or listeners? I've already

complained about the fact that the Winter Meetings Hotel is the Hilton. What's up at that? What are you doing? Yeah, you may have mentioned that. What is that? Why are they doing this? No your audience, folks. It's a Hilton. And look, I am sure that. they don't care about my satisfaction with the accommodations. They obviously don't care because they booked the media hotel into a place that has like four rooms, all of which have already been booked real dire streets for some of our pals in the media. Not me, I booked early, but, you know, for other people. So, so there's that.

But also, it's not just media people. You ever meet a scout that didn't want Marriott points? You sure have not. You ever meet a front office person who doesn't want Maripot? Marriott's? No, you haven't. You don't how many people who work in baseball go on their honeymoons because of Marriott points? Stay in very nice places that they might not otherwise be able to afford because their Marriott points. It feels aggressive. It feels targeted. It feels purposeful. You know, they're already making me fly to Orlando.

I remember an article that Jolomeyer wrote about the origins of the sports writing media's fascination and love affair with Marriott, which I will link to if anyone's curious, which they probably aren't, so we can move on. I mean, there's every, oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, you made me talk about the couch press release, so I get to, I get to beef ever so briefly. I'm just mad because I know that I'm going to go and get like some paleolithic version of COVID when I have to go to freaking Florida. You know I am.

I get to complain about Florida because I live in Arizona and we're like kindred's in a way that I'm not comfortable with. The couch is iconic. Don't denigrate to the human interest appeal of the couch. So we have a draft to do. We're going to do our annual free agent contracts over underdraft. I have a little stat blast to give you. And speaking of the winter meetings, of course, Scott Morris will hold court there at the non-marriott.

But he also gave a little a teaser, a taste of the material that he is workshopping because the GM meetings are this week. And he sort of splits it up now. And I don't know if he saves his best material for the winter meetings where there's a bigger crowd. But, you know, he tests the waters. And so we got a couple bits of Boris wordplay, at least, on Wednesday. On Alex Breggman. Nobody wants a Breggsit on Alex Breggman, possibly departing Boston. Nobody wants a Brexit.

And then, as reported by our pal Auxpeer, he then weaved a lengthy explanation about Duncan and Starbucks into his description of Breggman providing the right blend in Beantown. So I guess you sort of see what he's going for there. Maybe it's not always clear. I think because of Alex didn't transcribe it fully, but yeah, he's talking about coffee and then he's... But he's not suggesting that you should like get a Dunkin' Donuts cup of coffee and get a Starbucks cup of coffee and then do like a blend of those cups of coffee. He is simply... Well, I don't.

Then why did... I hope that. He bring up Starbucks at all. It's a good question, but I'm not that interested in the answer. And he also touched. on Cody Bellinger, another client of his, Alex Blue Sky posted, Boris at Palooza at the GM meetings, begins with a lengthy celebration of Top Gun in describing Cody Bellinger, an urban maverick with no qualifying offer attached to Bellinger, Boris says, that goose is gone.

Okay, okay. I feel like I need more, I need more context. I need a full transcript to get where he's going with this. You, you, but, okay, but see, here's the thing. Goose in Top Gun Goose died Spoilers Yeah it's true

Goose oh yeah Sorry to spoil Top Gun I'm so sorry to spoil the 1986 film Top Gun Yeah Goose dies

He doesn't make it He No RIP crashes and then it's And it's very tragic Yeah it's sad Played by a young

Anthony Edwards Okay but so So Goose dies and it's like a bad thing in the movie when Goose Dies. It sort of motivates the whole back half of the movie and then is like a propulsive element to the sequel, which is fantastic. What a good pair of films, those two are. Enjoy it every minute of it with them flying in an ambiguous enemy's backyard in the second one.

That was great. They're like, where are they? We don't know. We can guess, but we don't know. It's a weird way to put it because it's like, okay, so I assume that in his, you know, because he's calling him an urban Maverick, so Alex Bregman is the Tom Cruise character, which makes sense because they're the same height. So, you know, you see a good comp there.

That's a joke about both of them being short little kings, the two of them, short little men. They're very small. So Maverick, he's Maverick. He's an urban Maverick. Okay, okay. And then the goose is gone. But like, Alex Breggman should be happy about not being burdened by a qualifying offer anymore. But Maverick is canonically devastated by goose dying.

So, Scott, I don't think that you've seen that movie, or at least maybe not in a very long time. So I'm not with him on that one. He could do something like, he could be like, no, negative ghost writer, the pattern is full. Like, that was the qualifying. He could have played with that, you know, as like that was the qualifying offer,

like the being another stuff on the deck, you know, because they can't land when the pattern is full. Right. You know, if you brought this up and you're like, you're like, no, I will not yes and you. I've seen Top Gun. You're not spoiling anything for me. I cannot spoil a movie as old as I am. There's no way to do that. Top Gun and Meg, same birth year. It feels a little played out. And, you know, maybe we've done our part in playing it out. But he really has, he's fully invested. It's not played out for him. And really it's for an audience of one to some extent. I know he's doing this to get attention for his clients and to get people to post about it and talk about it on a podcast and maybe he's doing it for his client, sort of, but I feel like he's doing it largely for himself as we talked to him about when he was on this podcast and we interrogated him about it.

Yeah. One that I did like, Scott, on Dylan Cs, unlike the other Dylan, he is exclusively electric. So you got your Dylan going electric wordplay there from Scott Boris in the year 2025. That's clever. That's creative. The amusing thing is that he's dropping all these lines and everyone's faithfully transcribing them. And if you look at Alex Spears timeline here, he's reporting the Brexit and the Bean Town and the Irvin Maverick and that goose is gone. And then it just says, Boris says, Imai will post on November 19th.

He said, he had nothing for Tatsuya Imai with Amai. Honestly. He could have gotten any number of directions. I mean, maybe for cultural sensitivity reasons. Yeah, I was going to say, for the best. I think, yeah, I think it's probably better to just stay away from wordplay with like the Japanese and Korean players' names because I'm not saying it can't be done in a way that isn't problematic, but it can go so fast in that direction. And so I think it's better to just play that one straight. It is interesting that he's going to post on the 19th because that means that his deadline.

to sign is like right after new year's just a weird you're in a strange spot but whatever whatever his deadline to sign is like a saturday because new year is on like a thursday or something this year he had some lines about tarik scubal as well the the fans in detroit want the tigers to build a taric barrack you know as in you know barracks where i think a soldiers stay i guess you can't just you can't just rhyme it and be like oh that's close to a word that's really you're I think a barrack, I think that's a word. I think, I mean, usually it's barracks, but I think you can have a singular barrack, a single barrack. I think so.

But barracks, it's not, it's not an S. No, wait a minute. I think it's just that usually you have multiple barracks, and so you say barracks, but I believe barrack is a word. So I'm giving him credit for that one. It's a little unusual. It's a word. It is a word, but it's not the way. Ben, Ben.

It's creative license, you know, and he also said, this one makes even less sense to me. Little Caesar's running around town saying, say, sigh. That's not like sigh rhymes with pizza or something. That's not even... No, no, no. He also said he's, of course, talking about the potential for an extension for Scoopo in Detroit. You know, we, when you're in these situations and you go through it, all we know, is that we hear mostly from the fans and the player hears from the fans and and and it's kind of like

it should be scooby done right and and if not I think the fans would certainly think it's a Detroit doink if they don't okay that's better that's better I guess it's better yeah he's going for it you know but like I think that this is outlived it's huge usefulness. And I think on some level his people know that. And that's why despite the increasing popularity of his stand-up at these events, they are continuing not to mic him. They don't want this to circulate that widely. They don't mic him. It's wild. And some of these have made me laugh over the years. And I thought the Brexit one was good. I liked the Brexit. The Brexit one almost redeems the entire exercise this year because I think that one is strong, although it is evidence that

This is mostly about the, you know, the references and enjoyment of, like, a middle-aged white guy. Because it's like, is Alex Bregman like, you know, you should do make a Brexit joke? Like, in the year of our board, 2025. It's really relevant humor, sort of like topic. Yeah. So I think it's, I think what he should do is he should play the winter meetings availability straight. you know, he should just talk about his guys and where their markets are and what he's hoping to get done that week. Just play that one straight. Do a couple in a row where you're just like,

you know, telling the assembled reporters about your dudes. It's not like people are going to stop going to his availability. It's still a newsworthy event. But like let people, you know, let people kind of take a, take a breather and then come back. It's like how, you know, you watch the same I'm an I'm a believer in despite my capacity to enjoy repeat viewings of things like you should you should take every other year off from the Muppet Christmas Carol because you'll get played out you'll get you'll get tired of it and then you can emerge Scott Boris like a year from now and be like my pawns which did not die you're not enjoying my references today it's really something you're like no I'm not going to yes and Meg no interest in that today I'm giving you the reaction that perhaps people should give Scott Boris. But we're as guilty as anyone. Last one I saw, this is not so much word play. I mean, this is just pure alliteration here on Pete Alonzo.

I think Pete at this point in his career, he's about winning, no doubt. Had that question a lot. There's no doubt that Pete's pursuers are primed to pay the Power Piper. You know, Pete picked a perfect period. play preeminently at a, really a primary position. A playoff parched plethora will pounce to participate in the polar plunge. Okay, wait. No, no, no, no, no.

You can't do the piper thing and then recommit to the polar bear thing. You can't do both. You need to pick a lane. Oh, yeah. Are you doing the literative thing? Are you doing the polar brain thing? Are you doing the pipe paper thing? You can't...

The answer is, yes. Yes, he's doing all of the above. The impressive thing, I watched a little clip of that. He does not appear to refer to notes in the midst of that recitation. Isn't that more embarrassing? Yeah, he's off book. He memorized his lines here and he's waiting for people to tee him up and he has this grin on his face, you know, just waiting to deploy these lines.

And then he tries to make it seem off the, cuff. Like, oh, good question. Didn't realize you'd ask me about P. Alonso. Huh. Let me think off the top of my mind. What can I come up with here? And then he breaks out this, which he evidently memorized and practiced to use another P word. I'm going to deploy an analogy here that might be a little strained, but I'm going to do it anyway. So there's this phenomena that you see. It's spring training games and also at full league games of the autograph hounds who will try very hard. to get players to sign cards and caps and balls, etc. And, you know, some of this is all like excited fan behavior. Some of it is degenerate eBay guys and the children that they deputized

to their project. And the other day was out of Folly game and I saw two guys. They were middle-aged men. So, you know, like presumably they have taxes that they have to worry about at some point in their year. And they had their big book. They had their big book of things, and they, you know, they are going from dugout to dugout side to side, depending on, like, who's going to be exiting the field potentially with the ball to throw. And also to, like, kind of pay attention to the bullpins. Can they get a guy as he's, like, getting ready to come in or out of the bullpen or as he's

stand in there, et cetera? And they were, they were, like, fast walking, you know, they weren't running. They were trying to still be at a speed that one could. describe as walking, but clearly with the urgency and intent of a person who wants to break into a sprint that can only be facilitated by real running shoes. And I sat there and I thought to myself, just run. What you're doing is more embarrassing because it suggests that you are aware of the optics of what you're doing and understand them to be at least a little socially off given your age. And so you're trying to fly under the radar, but you're still

basically sprinting. So just commit to the bit and run. So maybe Scott Boar should just keep doing his thing. Maybe. Maybe that's what it means. That's a good note. We'll see if he takes it under advisement for the winter meetings. But it's like the reason it's the same is like you're memorizing a script, Scott, but you're trying to stay like a peer off book, but spontaneous. I don't know. It's not watching over me the same way that it normally does. I'm not, I'm not feeling the charm the way that I'm often willing to find. Maybe it's just that you're not yes-anding me. And so I'm not yes-anding Scott, you know?

It's really your fault. Yeah, if the charm is wearing off for us, then that's not a great sign for Scott because we were firmly on Boris Island when it came to monitoring these bits of wordplay, if you can call them that. Okay, I wanted to mention a few things. One is that I wrote a lengthy ode to,

takedown of the Colorado Rockies, hard to say which it is. It's kind of both. It's kind of an appreciation plus a lament all wrapped up together because I do kind of appreciate that we all collectively have the Colorado Rockies as just a shared punchline. You know, not Rocky's fans. They'd probably prefer that they just actually watched a good competently run baseball team. But at least they've got some things going for them. Of course, field is nice.

you know there's some cheap beer there sometimes good scenery etc but i appreciate we talked a little bit about the depoto or not depoto de podesta that's the one i meant hiring and i kind of went long on that and talked all about how just weird the rockies are and just how one of a kind and singular and behind the times they are and i'm glad that we have an outlier because i think if DiPodesta modernizes the Rockies, and it's not like he's going to snap his fingers and suddenly they're going to be good and whether they will ever be good

and competitive and forward-thinking while Dick Montfort owns that team and medals in it, I have no idea. But I think if and when the Rockies eventually start operating more or less like other teams and sounding like other teams, I think I'll miss that

because there is so much conformity in the front offices, is not just the demographic makeup, but the way they talk and the way they operate and evaluate players and acquire players. And then you have the Rockies

who are just doing their own thing, just march into the beat of their own drum. And it has not worked out for them. And they do seem to finally belatedly realize that they can't just keep doing what they're doing. And they did finally make an external hire. But even then it was weird.

And as we said, like they tried. They tried to take a more conventional approach. to getting their next baseball operations leader and they had a bunch of finalists and people they were interested in and talking to that were very expected and any other team if they had been interested in the same candidates,

you would have said, yeah, that makes some sense. And then ultimately those candidates didn't get the gig and reportedly dropped out and pulled out of the process in some cases or turned down an offer. And then they pivot to Paul de Podesta, who of course had been entirely out of baseball for almost a decade

and has not run a baseball operations department for two decades. And that was weird. And there was a part of me that was pleased that the Rockies are still strange and just still an absolute outlier. And I really will miss that because someday the Rockies will be good again and they'll be normal again. But the headline on my piece was the Colorado Rockies cannot and must not be normal. And I find that I'm now invested in them staying not normal, that I want them to. be weird for as long as possible so that we have won because there used to be a number of teams that were seen as sort of behind the times or old school or like they didn't know what they

were doing and the Rockies are kind of the last bastion of that where an outsider could credibly say I could do a better job than they're doing right now and I kind of appreciate that that's still out there so you know long may they be weird is what I'm saying yeah I think I think I'd like them to be weird in a little different way than this, you know, if I were being honest, because here's the thing, they'll always be some weird. They play on the surface of the moon, right? True. They have environmental weird.

I'd like to see that weird manifest in a fun way where it's like, oh, wow, we hired like a good and well-resourced front office, and it important. involves them coming up with creative ways of overcoming the obvious environmental deficits attendant with where we play baseball. That'd be great. That would be cool. Yeah. If there were one weird trick to conquer Coorsfield and they figured that out and it became an advantage instead of a disadvantage, that would be, yeah, that'd be interesting. Or even just several.

But instead we have this. I don't know. I see what you mean, but I do think that, like, I don't want to be a negative Nancy, but there's just only the 30 of them right now, you know? And so, like, seeding a whole, a whole franchise to bad, weird, that strikes me as defeatist. I don't care for it. I kind of think, though, that, yes, I mean, the Rockies, the vibes are bad in some ways, but compared to other teams, they're not as bad because, like, you know, You know, they're not John Fisher or Bob Nutting. Sure.

Yeah, they're not as bad as the A's, although the A's on-field product is like, you know, it has some stuff to recognize it. Far better than the Rockies, yes. But John Fisher is incompetent and callous or cruel and Bob Nutting is incompetent and miserly. And Dick Montfort is merely incompetent. You know, they're trying and failing. And in some ways, that's more wholesome than the teams. that aren't trying. So, and, you know, it's not like a dead in course field.

It's a nice place to see a game. There's some silver linings and saving graces. And I just feel like, you know, if the last holdout modernizes and there's no longer a team that kind of becomes a punchline, they're always going to be bad teams relative to other teams. I mean, that's just the way that competition works. Some teams are up, some teams are down. Some teams are better run than others.

But to have a true outlier like this, I'll miss that kind of lingua franca, kind of just common shared reference that we all have to the Rockies, just not knowing what they're doing. Dick Montfort just emailing fans back whenever they reach out to him, taking their suggestions about player acquisitions. It's just, it's wild. So some part of me is sort of nostalgic for when teams didn't know what they were doing. because it's like the war has been won to the extent that there was one about, like, how to run a baseball team. And so just having one isolated, and it's not even like the Rockies are out there being anti-analytics necessarily. It's not like they're crusaders, you know. They're not saying, like everyone else is doing it wrong.

And we think that, you know, you have to have some traditional baseball values or something. They're just so divorced from everything. They're on their own wavelength. And so there's not. much at stake in it, whereas in the past, it was kind of a culture war. And if whoever at the time was seen as regressive, if it was the royals or whoever else, you know, it was more adversarial and it was more of a just, oh, we have to teach them the right way to do this or they're dismissing us and we're right and they're wrong. And now it's just like, you know, the Rockies, we don't have to feel that way about them. We can hope for the sake of their fans and their players that eventually they get good and figure out what they're doing. But when they're there's just no team anymore that feels like it's from the stone age. I think I think I'll miss that. Now, I will point out that you are bemoaning the potential loss of a lingua franca for incompetence to beheaded by the man who was prominent in literally the Cleveland Brown's runoff as most recently. Yes, it's true.

So I think, you know, you're going to have some time to adjust, put it that way. Yeah. Well, you can all read my Rockies treatise if you're interested. I'll link to it on the show page. But one little stat blast that I did for that article with the help of Kenny Jacqueline from baseball reference. So we all knew it was weird that Paul DiPadesta was coming back to run a baseball operations department after so long away. And it will be 21 seasons. When next season starts, it will have been 21 seasons since his last season at the helm of a baseball operations department with the 2005 Dodgers. so long ago that columnists were calling him a computer nerd and Google Boy and people were actually paying attention to columnists. That's how long it was. There were columnists in newspapers. Was it Plachkey? I love how he's just getting side swipes. It was partly Plashky, yes. And also the late T.J. Seimers. That's how long it was ago that he is the late T.J. Symers now. But I wanted to know, was there precedent for this, for this long a gap between seasons as the head

of a baseball operations department and I asked Kenny about this and he used the baseball reference database to answer this question and the answer is no this is unprecedented and not only that but this is a 50% longer gap

between years at the helm than anyone else has ever had 21 seasons. The previous record was actually Paul Di Podesta's predecessor in Oakland and then boss in San Diego and New York

Sandy Alder who went 11 years between his time with the Mets and the A's, or no, 14 years. 14 years was the previous record. That was Sandy. And DiPodesta is half that longer again, 21 years. So 14 years was the record, and there were 10 gentlemen. They were all men, as you might imagine, who went at least a decade between stints at the helm of a major league front office.

And that's it. So no one has even come close, which just cements in my mind that the Rockies are just doing their own thing. And so it's Sandy Alderson going to the Mets. It's John McHale with the Expos in 1979. Bill Stoneman with the Angels in 2000. Dan DeKette with the Orioles in 2012.

Whitey Herzog, best known as a manager, but was a GM with the Cardinals in Angels. Henry Peters with the Orioles, 1976. Mike Port, Red Sox, 2002. Sid Thrift with the Orioles. in 2000, and Bill DeWitt with the Reds, 1961. These were all the comebacks from a decade or more of not running a baseball operations department.

And there is some reason for hope there. There's some positive precedents there. Even Sandy presided over the Mets winning a pennant. And Mikhail and Duquette helped bring their teams back to the playoffs. And Bill Stoneman won the Angels' first world championship in 2000. And Gene Michael is on the list also. and he, of course, engineered the foundation of the Yankees dynasty when George Steinbrenner was suspended in the early 90s. So, you know, Frank Lane, Trader Lane gets in there, too, with the Brewers in 1971.

So some good news, some bad news. Yeah. Largely good news, Whitey Herzog in his second go-around when he was with the Angels, he was kind of, you know, had all sorts of strife and discord with ownership and then didn't last long. And then I had a quote from an agent who said at the time that, like, he just couldn't. couldn't cross the bridge to this new era, essentially, of the 90s instead of the 80s. And that's a concern with Depodesta, too, because it's night and day, 2005 to 2021. But even if you look at the last time he was in an MLB front office, which really was functionally 2015, early 2016 was when he went to the Browns, that's a long time, too.

That was like one season of stat cast. The ball has changed multiple times since then. The rules have changed. player development has changed the major league meta the tactics that are prevailing everything has changed and he said in the press release

he had a quote about how I've always kept an eye on baseball it's like good that's something he would want probably in your top baseball operations executive keeping an eye on the sport that's good you know maybe even multiple

eyes if you have them might be better but you know he's like oh yeah baseball I still I've paid it I've kept up on that. But, you know, look, I'm sure that he has, and he has people who can help him with that. But that's a lot of catch-up to do.

And if you're hiring someone specifically to help catch you up as an organization, you know, Walker Monfort, his quotes, we're all about, like, we have to look at what other teams are doing, and we have to import their best practices, and we have to learn from them. And so we'll go get someone who can tell us what we're doing wrong and help us do the things that other competitors that have had more success are doing. and then you hire someone who's been working for the Cleveland Prants for almost 10 years.

It's just so very Rockies, so quaint. And look, you know, I've made my thoughts on his hiring known and I'm skeptical of it working. And I think that like there are parts of his time with Cleveland that he needs to account for and probably never will or at least we'll answer vaguely about. And I find that disappointing. But like I want for Rockies fans for this to work. you know and i would like there to be another competent front office i do think that like having a uh maybe for reasons that are a little different than the ones you put forth in your column but like having a wacky group can be useful because it's like when you get to a point where everything is

so optimized and and there's you know so much consistency like it can get kind of boring so i guess sure you know weirdness as you put it although again i'd like the weirdness to be the result of like you know, environmental factors that they can't do anything about, then, you know, ownership and competence, but fine. Like, does he know what a trajectory machine is? Right? Can he describe... The Rockies do have one of those, to their credit. Can he describe how, like, induce vertical break works? And again, like, you're right to say that he can, he can learn these things. He's obviously a smart guy. I don't mean to say that he's a, he's like a dope. But he's just been worried about, like, cover two for the last couple of years.

You know, he's, this isn't, this isn't his thing anymore. And it's, again, so much of putting, putting a good baseball team on the field

from the front office's perspective, isn't the GM being able to sit and build the model himself. It's hiring the right people and asking the right questions of those people and being able to, you know, grease the wheels in trade and do all of this. other stuff, but he's not primed to do that other stuff well, at least from the, from jump anyway, right?

Like he doesn't, who are his contacts in the industry? Yeah. You know, can he call? Does he know who to call in, I don't know, name a front office? No, he doesn't know. And again, he can learn, but it's like if he, if, if that's what this is about, you know, it's about this guy who you think once he's up to speed is going to be able to like steer the front office in.

a good direction. Like, why are you bringing him in as the pobo, right? Bring him in in a more junior capacity. Now, he probably doesn't want to do that because he has a senior role with a storied NFL franchise. But, like, that's the trajectory that would make this work. And so, again, it suggests that they can't do that because they aren't able to get an actual pobo. Right. Sutter candidates rejected them. Right. And so I just, I just. I have not been convinced that this is going to work. Now, maybe it will, you know, and I, again, for the, for the folks of Colorado, I hope it does, you know. And I think it's bad for baseball to have a dope franchise.

And we have a couple. I do think it's better to have a dopey franchise that occasionally spends money on players. And the Rockies do do do do that, even though, you know, somewhere. Because, yeah, dope could be construed as good. But dopey franchise. I can't pull off that application of dope. I'm aware of myself. You know, that doesn't trip off the tongue in a way that, like, people view as credible.

So, you know, I'm embracing my own limitations here. I do think that the Rockies, you know, they do occasionally spend money somewhere in this free agent class is a reliever who was like, but I was counting on. Yeah, exactly, right. I'm not going to get my bag now. So that sucks, you know. We'll talk about that in a second, I guess. Yes. I also, as I was working on this, I discovered that I don't know how this shakes out in Fangraphs were, but by baseball reference war, the 2025 Rockies had the second lowest team war total of the modern era, just going back to the advent of the AL, essentially, or 1900. The fun fact was spoiled by the 1954 Philadelphia A's who were at like negative four baseball reference war.

And this year's Rockies were at negative 3.8 within range of, you know, once they recalculate the park factors after the fact. And maybe they'll end up at the worst. But that suggests that it really can't get much worse, right? So that's the silver lining, the saving grace, I guess. If this goes badly, well, it's already going about as badly as it possibly could. One thing that will go well is that we can continue to call him Paul de Pobo, which I appreciate. And a little bit. of analysis that was done by listener and patron supporter Andrew M on our Discord group, he pointed out, because, you know, we've had a lot of fun with Buster Pobo and now Paul to pobo and you have Jerry to Pobo. There's just a lot to work with here. And Andrew, yeah, and Andrew pointed out that Poe and Bo are dramatically overrepresented in the Major League Poebo population, which I think we're up to 22 Pobos now. It's kind of incredible how it feels fairly recent that we were all saying pobo what president of baseball operation what is that what happened to GM the title inflation has happened so quickly

that now it's like if you're just a GM you're in a distinct minority if you're a GM who is actually the the top dog in the front office that right the yeah that's fairly rare now so which I guess makes sense because once it catches on it snowballs like once you have a couple Popos, then the GMs are like, well, wait, I have the same rank as this person. Give me the, yeah, even if I'm not going anywhere, I just want it on my business card. Especially if you're not going anywhere, right? Like, that's true. Part of why we have the title creep that we have is that like, this is the primary mechanism by which they deny interviews to promising front office folks who want to go elsewhere. They're like, well, we'll give you a title bump. And they normally get a little bump in pay too. But it's like that that's part of what has driven the. title inflation and also just title madness. Some of these titles, Ben, they're bonkers. Andrew found that surnames containing Po or Boe make up five of the 22 teams with a pobo.

So that's 22.7% of poeboes have a Poe or Boe in their last name lending itself. Yeah, it's really unlikely because we have Jerry to Poebo. We have Buster Poebo. We have Paul to Poebo. we have now Paul Toboni who's I guess Paul Tobobo Paul Tobobo that's the best one of all Yeah Paul Tobobo I guess it depends if you need to encompass the full name then it would be like Paul Topoboni right we have to bring rigor to this exercise that's right yeah and then there's Alex Anthopolis who has the Po but it it doesn't sound like Po usually when you say it and so it's kind of awkward if you're like

yeah you can't include anthopopolis no no no Yeah, Alex Anthopoulos, it doesn't quite, but it's, it works in writing a little bit better. Anyway, Andrew, found five or 22. Sound like you're about to say, he's a pusher with no brain. That unstoppable song? Remember that? Yeah, I was not. But I do.

I will yes end that cultural reference of yours. So, so Andrew. Finally, thank God. He said, as a comparison, the MLB player pool, 1469 players in 2025, only 1.77. percent of them, thank you for going out to multiple decimal places, had either Poe or Bo in their surname. And so this is dramatic overrepresentation, Po in particular. Yeah. So he finds that only 0.68% of the player pool has a Poe, but 18.2% of the Pobo pool. It's just, I mean, I don't know if this is nominative determinism or if it's just chance, but I really

greatly appreciate this. You're not sure if it's just chance. You're not, that's not your go-to explanation for this. Maybe in the back of your mind, it's just a subliminal po. I appreciate the apo-er tunity. That didn't really work. But yeah, I thought it worked. You get my point. There's just a lot of, a lot of poe potentials here. I thought, I think it works. See how I'm bringing all this generosity to the pod today. Thank you. I appreciate it. I think that this is, is a profoundly meaningless finding, but an interesting one nonetheless. And I also appreciate going out to two decimal places because, like, you got to have rigor, you know. You can't just be winging it.

If you're winging it, you'll never be a pobo or a poe pro or a, wasn't somebody ahead of baseball ops? And we were going to get to call him the hobo. The hobo. Yeah. Well, we weren't sure. When the nationals hired Paul Toboni, it was not immediately reported that he was a pobo. he is but yes for a while I was I was hedging with hobo they are all technically hobos but it's just not their actual title no I think I think there's a hobo I think that there's a hobo I think that there's a hobo

somebody texted me about this oh yeah okay wait I'm finding it so Buster only tweeted on october 22nd about the news that new angels manager Kurt Suzuki has a one year deal an executive with another team notes with the Rocky seemingly headed toward a hobo. Oh, maybe this is a, maybe this is a typo, toward a hobo hiring. Okay. It is funny to envision Paul DePadesta, like showing up in Denver with a bindle, you know? Yeah. We could refer to, they are heads of baseball operations, but that's not their actual title.

I don't think, like, on the listing on the mast head. No, but like hobo. Yeah, I like them both. You know, I know that there's, like, sensitivity around hobo. I don't mean to be insensitive to our. unhoused neighbors. I'm imagining like a cartoon, like Great Depression era hobo with a bindle, like riding the rails, you know? And like Paul Day Podesta took an extra day to get to Denver because he had to find a train that one from Cleveland West. Yeah. You know? Like a hobo,

like a like a hobo. I'd appreciate it if someone went that way. Okay. And just catching up quickly, there was a question we got during the playoffs from Nathan. Did the Mets just set a record for most days in playoff position without making the playoffs. I put this to Michael Mountain, Patreon supporter, sometimes stat blast correspondent, who said, I'm not confident enough in my ability to retroactively calculate tiebreakers to say definitively most days in playoff position. However, I counted 178 days this season where the Mets were either leading the NL East or no worse than tied with the Wild Card 3 team, March 28th in a four-way tie with a one-in-one record and every day from April 5th to the end of the season, including

At the end of the last day of the season, true, they lost on a tiebreaker. And he says that that 178-day figure, at least nominally in playoff position, ties a record for a non-postseason team set by, of course, this probably won't surprise Mets fans, the 2007 Mets, who held a seven-game lead on September 12th, but lost 12 of their last 17 games to hand the division title to the Phillies. Yeah, that did happen. It did happen. I, you know, if it wasn't the Mets, though, it would have probably been maybe a different Mets team. It was always going to be the Mets. You've always been the Mets. Lightning has struck that team repeatedly.

It's true. Also a question from, yeah, Patreon supporter Jack Morris, not that one, I assume. In game five, the Blue Jays. That would be wild. Quite a plot twist, yes, if you were a Patreon supporter. I would be shocked by that jump scare, you know? I really would. I would welcome his support, but I don't expect it.

In Game 5 of the World Series, the Blue Jays had scored two runs in three pitches. Turns out that was enough scoring to win the game because the Dodger scored one run. Is there any way to figure out if that's a World Series record for the fastest winning run scored in playoff or World Series history? And Michael found that including this year's game five, there are 16 games in World Series history where a team scored two or more runs in the top of the first inning. and didn't allow more than one run in the entire game. The quickest of any of them getting there got their last necessary run before this year was 2018 Game 5

when the Red Sox scored two runs in the first six pitches of the game and one five to one. That's not just the World Series record. It's the record for any postseason game. But this year's Game 5 is now the record because it took even less time than that. And the game it took the record from

was also a simultaneous record holder for both the World Series and the postseason as a whole. All right, we sorted that out. And the last one here is a question that we got from Patreon supporter Robert, who says, in his cup of coffee newsletter, this was in mid-October. Craig Calcutera noted Mike Greenwell's passing. With this observation, Greenwell was a third round draft pick by Boston in 1982.

He broke into the Biggs in 1985, and after some time moving up and down between the minors and the majors, stuck for good as the Red Sox everyday left fielder in 1988. he had big shoes to fill as Boston's three previous everyday left-fielders Jim Rice, Carly Ostremski, and Ted Williams would all eventually be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Greenwell wasn't quite on their level but enjoyed a fine career

all the same, all 12 seasons of which came with the Red Sox. So here's Robert's question, in the modern era, what's the longest stretch in which a team's primary left-fielders have played their entire careers for that team? So sort of this unbroken

string. And I guess it's so worth noted that it was not entirely unbroken. Robert did note that, according to baseball reference, there were a couple of years between Yaz and Rice when Tommy Harper was the primary left-fielder. So the Red Sox can't claim a consecutive streak of single-term left-fielder from 1946 when Williams returned from World War II to 1996, the last season for Mike Greenwell, the Gator.

So what team would have the longest streak? and I put this to Michael as well, and he found I'm not sure exactly how baseball reference makes their primary fielder determinations for the team seasons pages, but the metric I chose to use was which player made the most starts

at this position for the season. Seems reasonable. For cases where multiple players tied for the lead in starts, if any of them was a single franchise player, I counted it as valid. Fifty years would be an incredible streak, but as Robert noted,

a few things conspire against the Red Sox here, even after Ted returned from World War II, his streak of patrolling the green monster was interrupted by a return to active duty in Korea, during which time, hoot evers, hoot evers, was acquired from the Tigers to fill in. What a hoot. Then, Yaz's tenure was interrupted twice, once when he was moved to center field for a season to let the rookie Tony Klingliaro try out left field.

Then Tommy Harper was the primary left fielder in 1973 for one year before Jim Rice debuted. So the Red Sox longest streak of primary left fielder's being single franchise guys is actually 18 seasons from 1974 to 1991, Yaz, Rice, and Greenwell. Baseball reference indicates Tommy Harper as the primary left fielder in 74, probably because in their calculations they first lock in Yaz at first base. While that is the position he played most often that year, his playing time was split, 57% to 43% between first and left, and he still started more games and played more innings in left than Tommy Harper did.

So Michael says I don't have any problem with including 74 as part of the streak. 18 seasons is the record for. any team having a streak of primary left-fielder's being single-franchise guys. It is not the longest streak at any position, though. That honor goes to the Yankees shortstops of 1932 to 1954, a 23-year span, comprising the careers of Frankie Cressetti, The Crow, and Phil Rizzuto, plus one year of wartime call-up Mike Milosevic to connect them. Another 18-year streak is currently active.

Cincinnati has not fielded a primary first baseman who wasn't a lifetime Red since Scott Haddeburg in 2007, the year that Joey Votto was a September call-up, since Votto's retirement, the tradition has been carried on by Spencer Stier. The streak is currently at 18 seasons, but if Stier ends up moving to another team, it would be reset to 15 years through 2022. That would reinstate the twins as the longest streak of single franchise first basement at 16 years with Kenter Beck and Scott's DeHoviac from 1982 to 97. So the longest streaks at other positions, 18 years for the Detroit Tigers at second base,

Lou Whitaker alone from 78 to 95, snubbed yet again from the Hall of Fame eligibility. We've got to get into that with Jay J. Jaffe at some point. Third base, 18 years for the Orioles, all Brooks Robinson, 1958 to 75. Rightfield, 18 years for the pirates, all Roberto Clemente, 195 to 72. Catcher, 17 years tied between the Yankees with Bill Dickie and Mike Garvey. Garbark, 1929 to 45. Garbark? And the Cardinals, Yaddy alone, 2005 to 2021, Yadir Malina.

And Centerfield, 17 years for the Yankees. Makes sense. Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, 1946 to 62. And lastly, several teams have never had a single franchise player be the primary fielder for them at a given position in any season, mostly expansion franchises, but a few surprising ones. The Diamondbacks never fielded a career long diamond back as their primary catcher, first baseman, second baseman, third basement, or left fielder. The Reyes have never fielded a career ray as their primary catcher. The Rockies have never fielded a career rocky as their primary left fielder. The Marlins have never had a career long Marlin as their primary first basement, second basement, third basement, or left fielder.

The Blue Jays have never had a career Blue Jays as their primary centerfielder or right fielder. The Mariners have never fielded a career mariner as. as their primary shortstop or right fielder. The Padres never had a career Padre as their primary left fielder. Washington, never a career long national or expo as their primary right fielder. The Mets, never a primary right fielder

who was a met only. The Rangers, never a career long ranger as their primary first basement or shortstop. And the athletics have never had a primary center fielder who was an A-only dating back to 1901. So that's fun. And if you want the shortstop,

shortstop streak limited to integration era only, then the record belongs to the Big Red Machine and Davy Concepcion 16 seasons, 70 to 85. I was sort of sorry to see the news about Mike Greenwell, because I had fond associations with Mike Greenwell for whatever reason. I don't know why, because I wasn't a Red Sox fan, and I barely remember actually watching Mike Greenwell play because his last season was 96, but I think, you know, a lot of Red Sox fans felt fond of him because he came up and he had a big rookie year

and then he had a huge almost MVP year in 88 he was a runner up in the MVP and an all star that year and the next year and aesthetically pleasing stats like career 300 hitter you know like just walked more than he struck

out was just like you know not quite as good as maybe he seemed like he was going to be originally and then retired after his age 32 season but he was he was fun for a while he was i had like maybe it was because i had baseball cards of him and i i've ascribed a lot of value and prestige to having been an all-star when i was sorting my baseball cards and mike greenwell was an all-star so i i think you know there's like he's punching above his weight in in how fondly

fans remember him even me who i was the opposite the antithesis of a red sox fan also helps to have a good nickname gator that's a good one so r-p mike greenwell i don't think we need jack morris's Patreon support, although he could be doing penance, maybe. Maybe he'd be doing penance. Maybe we could change his minds about some things if he listened. Who knows? Maybe he'd change our minds. Maybe. Maybe. But R.P. Mike Greenwell. Also, R.A.P. Jesus Montero. We never mentioned that because we were in the middle of the playoffs. But like, you know, he obviously had importance to us as, as Yankees slash Mariners fans. And those were the two franchises he played for. And yeah, so young, you know, he got into a a motorcycle accident in Venezuela, and he was 35 years old.

And, I mean, yeah, you look back at his career, like, he was just such a huge prospect for the Yankees and then came up in 2011 just for a cup of coffee and was amazing in that cup of coffee. And then they traded him right away to the Mariners. And obviously, you know, they kind of had some doubts about his career long term and his defense and whether he could catch and all the rest. It was sort of like a preview of what would happen when Gary Sanchez. came up, kind of, but like, Yankees fans were so excited about Jesus Montero, and then, yeah,

he went to the Mariners in the Michael Paneda trade and didn't play all that well or last all that long with them and was just sort of a sub-replacement level guy for him. So it was, it was sort of a sad story of a prospect not panning out the way that he was expected to, but then it became a sadder story of someone who was taken away quite young. Yeah, it feels like, you know, unfortunately, every offseason, there's a guy or two who has like a vehicle-related tragedy. And yeah, it's just so sad. And a poor guy, I mean, 35, that's way too young. It's way too young.

All right. Let's dispense with our draft. This is an annual tradition for us that we've been doing for more than a decade. I believe 2014 was the first free agent contracts over under draft. And as usual, we will be working from MLB trade rumors, top 50. They've been doing their free agent rankings for something like 20 years. And we've been piggybacking on them for this exercise where essentially we try to identify points of disagreement with their projections for the free agent's earnings.

And then we say over or under. And we each pick eight players. And the way the scoring works is if we are directionally right, if we are. If we say that someone was over the amount that MLB Trade Rumors projected and they do indeed make more than that, then we get the difference between what MLB Trade Rumors predicted and their actual total contract amount and also get a $10 million bonus for picking in the right direction. And that applies to if we pick an under and we're correct on the under, it's like the absolute value sort of. It's like the total discrepancy between the predicted and the actual. if we picked in the right direction, then we get that discrepancy added to our tally,

plus the bonuses for being right, and that's it, essentially. And then we add up all of those totals at the end, and whoever has the most on their ledger wins the draft. And you won the draft handily last year. I did. Yeah, you clean my clock. You had a total of more than 300 million,

and I had a mere hundred million. And so you wiped me out there. You made bank on taking the over on the one Soto prediction and taking the under on Pete Alonzo and the under on Alex Bregman. Those were big gainers for you. And if you get it wrong, by the way, I guess we should note that that gets subtracted from your total, too. So if you pick over and it's actually under,

under, yeah, then it's debited. And last season, that looked like it was going to be devastating for me, because I took the under on Snell, if you recall, and he went way over. And I was like, I'm cooked. My goose is thoroughly cooked. And then Juan Soto was like, I got you, girl. And I one-handedly. Snow was a rounding year for you, yeah.

Yeah. I am far less confident, though, this year, I got to say, because, and I don't want to be, I don't want this to read as like, um, a knock on trade rumors, because that's not how I mean it. But, you know, in a lot of years, there are some obvious, at least to my mind, unders to be had. Um, and some of that is that in a lot of years, you have a more impressive free agent class than this one. And so there's just, there's just a lot more room to take an under and feel good about it. And sometimes it over, sometimes and over. Those are always more fun, although they're rare to be candid.

But real tight a lot of these this year. I agree. Yeah. It feels like they've really refined their process in a way that is probably good, but might make this draft a little less fun. So if it turns out that they just nailed all of these predictions, then maybe we'll have to retire this draft. But we'll give it one more year and see because last year there was still some significant discrepancies.

But yeah, they have four bylines on their list now. And, you know, it's kind of like, their wisdom of crowdsing it a little bit, like, you know, they've got multiple people and they're going through multiple revisions and bouncing things off each other. And maybe that leads to just, you know, some less exuberance, perhaps when it comes to certain cases or over or underestimating, you know, through that debate process, you're probably getting fewer outliers, I guess. So whether it's actually more accurate or not, I don't know. But it's definitely closer to my own

barometer. So, yeah, I don't have a whole lot of picks on my board here where I'm like itching to get the number one pick here because I think it's such a slam dunk, really, which I guess I will get the number one pick because we usually just, whoever lost the previous year, gets it this year.

Because I cleaned your clock last year. Yes, exactly. So, yeah, I guess I will go and, boy, it's like number one pick and nothing's like jumping out at me. is the most obvious one. Right. What are you going to do?

I mean, I guess, and this feels roughly right to me, but I guess just because there's the most potential maybe for it to be under, I guess I'll take the under on Kyle Tucker. Yeah. Just because, you know, it feels reasonable. I mean, they picked, and by the way, we're going total contract size. That's it. Right.

You don't have to nail the number of years. Yeah. Yeah, don't have to get years and deferrals and opt-out. and incentives, it's just the guaranteed top line number, that's it. So they have 400 million for Kyle Tucker over 11 years for what it's worth, and it doesn't feel way off to me, but I think there's room just because it's such a big number, and a much bigger number, like almost double the next biggest number, and because of that, there are bigger error bars, I think, and so if it ended up being 350 or something, you know, that would still

be a big quote unquote gain for me, even though it wasn't wildly off. So I think I'm going to take Tucker and, you know, he could end up in that range. I think this exercise is useful. I mean, as we always say, it's not like we're rooting for anyone to do worse in free agency. It's always a weird one because I'm like, I want the boys to make their bag, as the young people say. Yeah, I'm not hoping Kyle Tucker makes less than $400 million or anything. We do this because it's kind of a fun intellectual exercise. And it's something to track and talk about as the offseason unfolds. And maybe sometimes we just are high or low on a particular free agent and want to kind of go to the mat for them a little bit. And that's interesting to talk about. So yeah, I'm taking under on Kyle Tucker.

You know, it could end up being fewer than 11 years maybe, right? And maybe the AVA is spot on, but it's just shorter term. Or maybe some of the injury concerns the last couple years or or him being like a great all-round player but not dominant in any respect. It wouldn't take a lot for him to end up under 400, you know, just because we've had Shohei and Soto, you know, with huge numbers, we can't be anchored to that as we talked to Clemens about last week, you know, our streak of like having a new high score every offseason probably going to be snapped this winter. I often, when I diverge from an estimate, it is on the effect of the years on the total guarantee

rather than the A.A.V. Like, I think they dial in the AV piece of it pretty well most of the time. But when I'm taking an under, it's generally because I think that the contract that they're putting forth is just going to have a shorter duration than what they're proposing. All right. Who you got? Okay. Oh, gosh.

I don't want to be this person, but I'm going to, so I'm going to take the under on Murakami, who they have at eight years and 180 million. I do think that he will get. a long deal, but I think that, you know, it's so funny the way that the conversation around him is evolving. I know that, like, the contact concerns with Murakami are becoming a greater part of the conversation with public-facing folks. Teams have been aware of his contact issues for a long time. Like, this is not new information to them. And as we talked about with Eric, like, I'm sure there will be a club that looks at his, you know, health issues over the last couple of years

and their own player dev, and it's like, well, the combination of a swing change and just improved health are going to let this guy actualize all that power against big league velocity. But I think that enough teams will be skeptical to put sort of a dampener on his market. And so I'm taking the under there. Yeah. Okay. I think that's a good one. I'm intrigued by Murakami, obviously.

And if you'd ask me a few years ago. And again, I want him to come be like a, I want him to come be like a power goof. Like that would be. Oh, me too. That would be so fun, but I, the case that Eric made, I find persuasive that it will be a little, it'll be a little iffy. It might be iffy in a way that affects his market. Yeah. If you had asked me a few years ago, I would have taken way over on this, but now there are a few more concerns.

Okay. I'm going to take the under on Trent Grisham. Trent Grisham, they have at 66 million over four years. Now, part of this is that, as we record, the quality. Offer decisions have not been rendered. So there's some chance that he could accept. I saw a report that he probably won't, and I think he probably won't, but, you know, he hasn't rejected it yet. So if he were to take it, well, that would be an easy under for me.

But also, even if he rejects the qualifying offer, is he going to do that much better than that? With the draft pick compensation attached at that point, I just, I don't know, because offensively, he was kind of a one-year wonder, at least when it comes to the power output that he just showed. And if he's not as elite a defender, like 34 homers, I mean, that was double his previous single-season high. So I don't know whether that's the new normal for him at 29 years old. And so if he just goes back to being what he was in the previous three seasons, which was good glove guy below average bat, teams aren't going to pay a ton for that. Like, he was almost kind of an afterthought in the trade, right, and wasn't even starting as regularly until this year.

Obviously, it was very valuable and worked out for the Yankees. But, yeah, combination of qualifying offer potential plus draft pick compensation, plus teams maybe not buying the power bat. I could see it coming in under. I was surprised that he got Q-out candidly, but, yeah, that was just me. Okay, I'm going to be bold. I'm going to take an over. I'm going to take an over-bend.

I'm taking the over on Edwin Diaz at four years and 82 million. I'm taking the over. Okay. I think he's going to get more than that. That's why I'm taking the over. I think that the gap, you know, I'm aware of the age piece of it, but, and, you know, he has vacillated in terms of his performance some, but I think he's just clearly the best relief arm. And as we discussed with Ben, like, that is a segment of the market that tends to do a little bit better than you might expect.

And I think particularly for the premium guys who have obvious postseason utility in a way that can really make that kind of play up, I think that they tend to do better still. And I think that, like, my sense of the Mets this offseason is that, like, they obviously there isn't another $700 million and change deal on offer for anyone out there. But even if it were, like, I think they will still spend this off season, but the way that they will do it will be a little more strategic. and I don't know. A lot is going to depend on if Pete Alonzo really thinks he can get seven years or if there will be a posity of participation in his market. See how you, Scott Boris. See how I just had that.

Yeah, and you didn't practice it either. Yeah, that's what a Gilmore girl's rewatch will do for you. I just, I think he'll do a little bit better, even if it's not a lot better. I think he'll do a little bit better. So I'm taking the yes, yeah. All right. I am going to go with Glaber. I'm dancing with the question.

qualifying offers again here. I'm sticking to my guns on Glaber being underrated. They are projecting him to accept the qualifying offer. I think he'll just take the Q. He very well might, in which case this will do nothing for me. It won't hurt me. No, it'll be a push. So there's no downside risk here other than the opportunity cost of not making anything, but won't subtract anything. And there's a chance that he won't accept the qualifying offer. The latest reporting I saw was that he hadn't made a decision. So that doesn't help either way. But I think he. might reject it and then do better, and if he did reject it, I just, I still think like he's worth more than that, and, you know, not on an annual basis maybe, but if, if he wanted to

maximize the term and get a longer term deal, I think he could or should, and thus would get more than $22 million. So this is purely an upside play, just banking on the possibility that he will not accept the qualifying offer, in which case I think he could, who know, is double or or triple this amount, maybe. I kind of overestimated his market last year, and I don't know whether it's... You and everybody else. Yeah, I don't know whether it's any more robust this year,

even coming off of a solid season. But, yeah, I'm just, I'm going to take a flyer on that. I don't feel good. I don't feel good about what I'm about to do because I want a rebound from him. But I'm going to take the under on gallon at four years and 80 million. Yep.

I think the odds of him accepting the QO are low, although I could see him doing it to have a rebound. season but I he's in a weird spot because it's like I think that the concerns about his bounce back are significant enough that the fact that there's draft pick compensation attached to him is going to suppress his market but I also think he's going to be motivated to leave Arizona and just like try to get right with a different dev group but I think if he does that he's not getting 80 million but I think mostly that's a year's thing rather than a AV thing So I'm taking the under on gallon, but I hope he gets right because I really like Zach Allen.

And I enjoyed watching him pitch here. Yep, I considered that one also. And there's some possibility that maybe he takes a pillow contract kind of thing, just like I make a good deal. Yeah, to show that he's healthy and good again and then try to cash in, in which case then you would cash in because he would be under $80 million. Okay. Yeah, almost certainly. All right. Well, I like taking overs.

It's more fun, all else being able to take an over. So I'm going to take the over on Tyler Malley. They have Tyler Malley at one year and 15 million. Yeah, that's low for Tyler Malley. I agree. I think so, yeah. I agree. I mean, he had injuries, obviously, like he had a rotator cuff strain, cost him a few months,

pitched well when he was healthy and then returned at the end of the season, which I think is important, you know, even if you're making two starts, just show that you can, right? And so, you know, after he was. lost most of 2024 and 23 with Tommy John surgery. And there's a lot of injury stuff going on here. But when he's pitched, he's been good. And if teams could be convinced that he's more healthy than not, you know, maybe he, given all the injury issues,

I guess he could try to reestablish himself as a more durable guy and then get a longer-term deal. But maybe he tries to maximize his market. But now you never know what will happen when you've had all those injuries. So, yeah, I'm going to hope he at least gets a multi-year deal, in which case he should have no trouble exceeding 15. I feel so bad taking unders, but so many of the unders are more compelling. I'm going to take the under on Aohenio Suarez at three years and 63. Some of this is a year's thing.

Some of this is obviously, like, the power is so impressive. but I think that there's enough year-to-year variance with him that it's going to meaningfully impact his market and maybe it just ends up being a year's thing as much as anything else and not an A-A-V thing. But, like, it's not that he wasn't good. He wasn't just a first-half phenomenon. He had, like, a year of good performance

from the second half of last year into the first half of this year. But then, like, it tanked so bad when he got back. to Seattle important grand slams in the postseason aside and he's 34 or he'll be next year is his age 34 season so I just think that it's going to end up being a little shorter than that but I hope for his sake I'm wrong because he's just everyone has such good things to say about him as a clubhouse presence and like a mentor and like the hair is so I don't understand how I

don't understand how he does that but I'm taking the under on on Ayo Henney you know, bad as I feel about it, so. Okay. All right. Well, I guess I'll take an under also. I think I might take the under on Michael King. Mm, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't know. This couldn't very well. He's going to be weighed down by my Michael King, Michael King, Michael King, Confucian. Probably not that, but they have him at 80 over four years. Yeah. And I just, I could see him wanting to take a shorter term deal.

That's basically all this amounts to because he's coming off a down year. He had injuries. Another injury year. Yeah, he's basically injured every part of himself or all his, the arm parts, at least. Those are the important parts for a pitcher or among them. So he got a qualifying offer, right? So there's some. Michael King?

I believe so. So there's a possibility that he might just take the qualifying offer and come back next year and hope to be healthier. So that's kind of part of my calculus here that that might happen, in which case, big gain. And then, you know, I guess even if he didn't take the qualifying offer, maybe he'd find that teams were wary. I guess if he wanted to do a short-term deal and then, you know, show that he's healthy and he might as well just take the qualifying offer probably unless he misreads the market and rejects the qualifying offer. And then there aren't really long-term great offers out there for him. Like, if he rejects the qualifying offer and tries to maximize the length, I could absolutely see him getting a deal like $80 million. You know, he's shown a lot of promise and performance in the past.

But, yeah, I'm just, you know, play in the odds that maybe he will settle for a shorter term arrangement. I'm going to take the under. I feel so rude, but I'm doing it anyway. I'm taking the under on Kyle Schwerber. They have Schwerber at five years and $135 million. And that just feels like one year and like $35 million more money than I maybe think he's going to get. He's like, Schwerver's great. Shwerver's great.

Best pure bat available on the market this year? Yeah. Do we think? Yeah. Do we think? Yeah. It seems like it. And I do think that guys like him, you know, speaking of dudes who play up in the postseason, he kind of does because he's got that power. He can be got, obviously.

But it's an impressive skill set. But he's super defensively limited, as in he's just a DH. And so that sort of naturally curbs his market. I think he's just going to end up being a Philly again, if I had to hazard a guess on where he ends up. But, you know, some of the bigger spending teams are probably not going to be in the Kyle Schwerber business, because it's not like he can be a Dodger, can't really be a Yankee. I think that the – well, maybe I'll save this stuff for a later pick. But, yeah, I'm going to take in the under there. Sorry, go.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think if you go by war, probably his contract will look like an overpay. But he's just, you know, there's a mystique to Kyle Schwerper. And, you know, all the big moments and just all the Homer hitting, like, he'll do better than just a straight sort of war-based projection. Yeah, but even so. I think that means he's going to get like $100,000, $110 million. Yeah, I could see that. I wouldn't be shocked if he does.

exceed that? Just, I don't know, like, big, big game player, you know, just like guy who hits tanks. Like, I do believe he could keep hitting tanks for a while. He is one of the best just home run hitters in the game. But yeah, like, you know, you call them the best pure hitter. He is, I guess there are a couple ways one could say that. He is, he's the best pure hitter. He's also pure hitter. And that's it. So, yeah, that does constrain his market. It limits the potential landing spots but but you know they seem to like him there the fans like him like maybe that's kind of a you know you overpay for the marquee value of a guy you like having around yeah so okay hmm i guess i'll go you know this is one of those where the upside isn't great but uh maybe

it's lower risk i guess i'll take the under on justin verlander yeah at 22 million yeah why is he getting more money than he did last year. Yeah, this is like a qualifying offer amount for him, not that he has a qualifying offer, but yeah, that seems a little rich. Now, you know, he did absolutely pitch quite a bit better later in the season and looked, you know, if not like vintage Verlander, at least like absolutely someone you would want to have in your starting rotation potentially, but given the advanced age and some of the struggles this year and, you know, durability concerns and all the rest of it. Someone will want him, you know, he can get a deal.

But would it be $22 million at this stage? I'm skeptical. So, you know, like maybe if it's 15 or something instead, then I'm getting $7 million, but also the $10 million bonus if I pick in the right direction at least. So that's what I'm banking on. I think that's a good pick. Here's my next, hopefully good pick,

which is sort of a counterweight, I guess, to the D.S. selection. I'm going to take the under on, Evan Williams at four years in 68. I almost did that, yeah. Like, I think that Devin Williams is better than he pitched this last year. And he did course correct, right? And things got better for him as they kind of went along toward the end there. But 68, that's, that's too much.

I think that's too much for Williams. I do think that, like, he, you know, if you are looking for a closer and you don't want to pay up for Edwin Diaz, and you're nervous about Suarez's velocity potentially declining and, like, his track record, maybe you look at Devin Williams and are like, oh, well, this is a good, this is a good opportunity, but part of that value proposition is that you can get him on the cheap relative to his press production. So I just don't buy it, you know. Yeah. Yep, I'm with you. I mean, his, like, FIP and XFIP basically looked like old Devin Williams, so I'm sure there will be interest and we know that teams are evaluating not so much based on the ERA and yes you know not

based on wins or whatever for starters they're looking at the underlying numbers but yeah it is kind of tough when you have someone who had a near five ERA lost his hold on the closer rule you know and if the Yankees were treating him that way like they're looking at the underlying stats too and his stuff is pretty undiminished but there are command issues it was just a weird year and it was a super weird year I don't know just like every Everything went wrong and bad luck and New York and who knows, right? But the Yankees did decide that they couldn't keep running him out there. Now, maybe that's partly because when a guy blows a bunch of games for you, like, even if you do believe that he's going to write the ship at some point, it's just like tough to sell to the team and the fans to just keep running him out there.

So, yeah, if this were a year ago, he'd blow by this number. Oh, yeah. And definitely some teams will, yeah, will overlook the weird, you know, volatile mercurial. performance he had this year. But yeah, I think it's a solid pick. Okay. My second to last pick, I believe, what am I going to do here? I guess I'll go. Oh, I don't know. I feel like I'm in the territory where I'm not feeling strongly about anything anymore, which is a credit to MLB trade rumors. And by the way, I love the work they do over there. And this is never meant as a criticism of them, really. It's, you know,

You know, anytime, like, to do a ranking and produce a ranking from scratch is far harder than to isolate single picks, cherry picks, certain picks, and say, oh, I disagree with this one. So it makes sense that, you know, generally we're right on the whole with these draft picks because we're selectively picking the ones that stand out to us. And we don't have to do the hard work of putting the projection on the player in the first place. I guess, I don't feel strongly about this one, but I guess I'll take the under on Dylan Cease. I, you know, they have him at 189. It seems reasonable. And again, like, there aren't great eases available this offseason. You've got cease.

You've got Framber. You've got M.I. Like, there's just no doubter top of the rotation type there. So maybe someone who just says, well, we need the best available starter decides that that's Dylan's cease. But this is almost more of a, like, maybe he doesn't get seven years. Maybe he just gets five or six or something. That's basically what this is.

So, yeah, don't cease under it, 189. I'm going to take the over. This is, like, kind of limited impact potentially, but I bet the bonus would be more than the delta. But I'm going to take the over on Tyler Rogers at two years and 18 million. That feels too low. That feels too low. I find, I found Ben's argument about, like, the market kind of giving you a sense of how teams value that guy relative to, like, what the projections might inspire you to think, to be instructive. And I think he does, I don't know that he does better than two years, but I feel like the AV will be a little bit higher than that than getting to 18.

That feels too low. So I'm taking over on Rogers. Yeah. Okay. All right. Yeah. All right. So we each have one pick left to play with.

Yeah, I'm scanning my options here. I don't know. I think I'm tempted to do this, but I'm, you know, I'm going to take an over because it'll make me feel good to end on an upnote. I'm going to take the over on Ranger Suarez. So, you know, I just talked about how the starting pitching market isn't super strong. They have Ranger at 115, which, you know, again, all of these are fairly reasonable. But I could see him doing a bit better than that. 115, five years.

He's only 30 years old. You know, this is like maybe he gets six years or something, right? And so I'm taking the over on Ranger. And, you know, he's had really good results. He's been consistent. He's kind of overshadowed because he's just been in that stacked Philly's rotation where, you know, he'll be like the fourth starter or something. And he's really excellent and maybe doesn't entirely fit the profile of, like,

modern, successful starting pitcher in some respects. But, you know, he's been pretty consistent and pretty durable. And, yeah, I'm going to guess that someone goes a little longer on him. Um, do I want to end up? optimistically, or do I want to be sassy? Or do you want to win? Well, I mean, I want to win, but I'm going to take the under on Alonzo, who they have of four years and 110 million.

Yeah. Okay, so here's the thing about Pete Alonzo. Let me tell you about Petalonzo. I think, well, first of all, he's not getting seven years. I find that to be, and they didn't allege that to be clear, but Pete Alonzo has reportedly said that he is interested in a seven-year. contract, which like, again, I don't want to sound anti-player, but I also want to say, hey, good luck, buddy. That doesn't seem likely to me. I do imagine that there might just be

a great pull for him to go back to the Mets, which might be overstating things because he, here's the thing I actually want to say about Pied Alonzo. Pete Alonzo, you know, he can play first base, but there might come a time where Pidalonzo is just better served to D.H. regularly, and the Mets maybe don't want to clog that. a spot because there might come out of time when he wants soda is best served by D-Hing primarily, although that might happen after four years.

So maybe it would be fine, but if he signs a seven-year deal, that would be potentially disastrous. So I just think that, like, he doesn't come with a lot of flexibility attached, both literal and figurative. I don't know that he'll do a lot less. I don't know that he'll do a lot less,

but we've kind of seen this guy's market evolve. Now, he obviously had a much better season going into free agency this year than the last time. So you figure he'll do better than he did last time. But is he going to do $110 million? Yeah. I don't know. A year older. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, it seems like about the right number, but it could easily end up under that number. So, okay, yeah, this is good. We'll monitor this. We'll track it. We'll have it in the usual places where we track these things. It'll be on the wiki, et cetera. Maybe it'll be on the

EW Stats site, and I listed like almost half the guys on the list on my draft board, which I think you'd think maybe I'd have fewer on the draft board because, again, there weren't that many enticing prospects here. But I think I ended up with more just because I didn't feel that strongly about anyone. So I kind of like listed half the guys. I'm like, yeah, I guess I could see. Anyway, yeah, I considered like under on Emai at 150. I considered under on Polanco at 42, just, you know, maybe.

he gets a two-year-dealers, but coming off his heroics, you know, I had, I had a bunch of other unders. I even had an over on Cody Ponce, maybe some of the reason. Yeah, the transformation. Yeah, I could see that. I had an over on him. I had an over on, you know, I could see Real Muso doing better than two years and 30 million, probably more on the AAV side than the year's side, just because, like, sure, he's

been a two-war guy for the last couple of seasons, but he is the best option at Catcher, like, dramatically. I know that maybe Ben saw less daylight between him and like Carrotini and Jansen, but I didn't. So like I could see him doing better. I could see Woodruff doing worse than three years than 66 million,

just because I expect he'll get two instead of three. I could see Val Fromber's market going any which way. So that's why I stayed away from it. Like earlier in the day I was like, oh, maybe he'll do better than five five years in 150. And then I was like, no, you won't. And then I was like, yeah, he will. And then I didn't draft him. I could see Josh

Snailer doing worse than five years and 90 million. I don't know what Louisa Rice's contract is going to look at so I stayed away from that. All right. Well, we'll see. Play along at home and we will return to this and tally up our scores when all is said and done and also when it's in progress. Okay, meant to say, by the way, I think of the Rockies as a chaotic good team. That's their alignment.

They try to do the right thing, but just in a kind of chaotic way. Also, I'm afraid we didn't fully do Scott Boris's quips justice. We hadn't seen the full transcript of his Bregman and Bellinger comments, for instance, so I'll play him for you. Here he is on Bregman. Now, we learned a lot about Bregman in 25, because in Boston, prior to 25, they had a lot of lineup do not holes. And certainly, prior to 25, Boston has been a kind of a club that's, been has duncan well below the playoff line so I think it was a bad roast in Beantown

and certainly and give the owners credit in 25 you know they went out and spent some Starbucks to bring in a Bregman blend that led them to the playoffs So I'm sure the Boston fans don't want this to be just a cup of coffee. And no one wants a Brexit. It's really something when you watch these videos and listen to them. You hear the repressed snickering from the collected baseball writers in the gaggle. Boris really takes his time unspooling these things because, you know, it's all just coming to him in the moment. And I'll leave you with this full extended Bellinger riff.

Because we were talking about the goose comparison. Actually, he worked pretty much every top gun character or catchphrase into this spiel. I will warn you, this goes on for a little while. Here it is. When you look at 25, season 25, I'd say, among all the free Asian outfielders, he was the top gun of the cloth. You know, he was defensively a, certainly a, certainly a, a versatile viper in the outfield playing both first base and all three outfield positions and he was kind of offensively a middle line of Merlin in the sense that he felt that

you know providing power and production the other thing about Belly that's kind of unique for a guy his age under 30 that you know he's played in all three markets, L.A., Chicago, New York. And so really, in many ways, he's an Irvin Maverick without a job. So I think that when you think about what he's done in an L.A. market, he was kind of Hollywood ringing for, you know, a championship MVP. He was kind of a windy city Wolfman and getting the

comeback player of the year and in New York he was a true ice man cooling any thoughts that he couldn't hit behind Judge and lead the Yankees to a playoffs. So, and the other thing about Mellinger this year is that

he doesn't have a you know, that the qualifying offer is that, you know, that goose is gone. So he's really out of it. So I think that, you know, when it comes to Bellinger, there's no question that, you know, the teams have a need, the need to belly proceed. A need to belly proceed is just diabolical. Also, we said maybe he would stay away from plays on words. Based on Asian names, no, he did not.

He had a Hassan Kim, Quip. Well, I think Kim is a hot song of the shortstop charts, no question. I think the availability of defensive premium shortstops in this market is very, very slim. So if you're looking for a premium defensive shortstop to play, I think it's HSK. You know, as corny and hackneyed as this can be. And it's so corny that it sort of circles all the way around to being kind of funny again. But it still is so absurd that the most successful sports agent of all times, time, an absolute baseball power broker, a guy who's made many millions for players and also for

himself, does this and is just so clearly tickled by doing this. This man is the most successful figure in his field, super agent Scott Boris, and yet it seems like the highlight of his job is getting to regale the writers with whatever tortured quips he can come up with. It is both terrible and truly special. We'll have some awards reactions for you next time, whatever reactions we have to the results announced this week. Maybe we can do some emails. We'll see. In the meantime, you can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash Effectively Wild. And signing up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad-free and get yourself access to some perks, as have the following five listeners. Tom Devere,

Matthew Stone, Timothy Cienko, Christopher Petit, and Joyce Lee, thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, monthly bonus episodes. Prioritized email answers, play off live streams, discounts on merch, and ad-free fancrafts memberships, and so much more. Check out all the offerings at patreon.com slash effectively wild. If you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. If not, you can contact us via email, send your questions, comments, intro, and outro themes to podcast and fangraphs.com. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube music, and other podcast platforms. You can join our Facebook group at

Facebook.com slash group such Effectively Wild. You can find the Effectively Wild sub-edit at R slash Effectively Wild. And you can check the show notes for links to the stories and stats recited today, as well as the site where you can sign up for Effectively Wild Secret Santa. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We'll be back with one more episode before the end of the week. Talk to you then. Well, it's moments like these that make you ask, how can you not be pedantic about baseball? If baseball were different, how different would it be? On the case with light ripping, all analytically,

Cross check and compile, find a new understanding Not effectively while that can you not be pedantic Yes, when it comes to baseball, how can you not be pedantic?