Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2409: Hindsight is 2025

Episode Date: December 3, 2025

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the John Brebbia and Devin Williams signings (in that order, obviously), share a few follow-ups, and (31:33) assess whether each team satisfied its season preview guest’s conditions for a successful year. Then (58:18) they answer emails about the origins of the concept of the “opposite field,” the meaning of the word “whiff,” how to refer to offseasons, whether umpires practice throwing, how much stock to place in regular-season wins without an accompanying championship, and two takes on the challenge system. Audio intro: The Spaghettis, “Effectively Wild Theme” Audio outro: Beatwriter, “Effectively Wild Theme” Link to MLBTR on Brebbia Link to Brebbia on EW Link to minor league FA Link to FG post on Williams Link to present-value calc Link to Petriello on Williams Link to biggest 2025 ERA-FIP gaps Link to contracts draft Link to team SP projections Link to Canadian currency details Link to Metrodome demolition Link to preseason team goals Link to Dickson on “corner” Link to Dickson on “opposite field” Link to Dickson on “whiff” Link to FG top 50 FA Link to team wins since 2000 Link to Andrews on ABS and catchers Link to Tango on ABS and catchers Link to listener emails database Link to MLBTR on Manoah Link to MLBTR on Ponce Link to Patreon gift subs Link to Secret Santa sign-up  Sponsor Us on Patreon  Give a Gift Subscription  Email Us: [e-mail]  Effectively Wild Subreddit  Effectively Wild Wiki  Apple Podcasts Feed   Spotify Feed  YouTube Playlist  Facebook Group  Bluesky Account  Twitter Account  Get Our Merch! var SERVER_DATA = Object.assign(SERVER_DATA || {}); Source

How are you? I'm okay We got so much to do delay Breaking balls and blaking snails And those stats won't blast themselves Effectively wild Effectively wild Effectively wild

Effectively wild Effectively Wild Hello and welcome to episode 2409 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindbergh of the Ringer, joined by Meg Raleigh of FanGraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello. Another day, another episode, another massive reliever signing by a free agent.

I refer, of course, to the Colorado Rockies signing John Brebia to a minor deal. Oh, you got me, Ben. You tricked me. I was like, are we really describing Devin Williams' contract is massive? Yeah, well, by free agent reliever standards, certainly much more massive than John Brebius' deal, presumably with the Rockies. Haven't heard the terms on that one, but I'm going to guess that it's a little lower than

Devin Williams' deal with the Mets. But happy to see him catch on. As I've always said, Paul D. Podesta can do no wrong. Really just a perfect choice to be Pobo, not just because we can call him Paul de Pobo, but because he has excellent taste in relievers to give minor league deals. So congrats to Brebia, though, I guess qualified congrats because it seems like a minor league deal with the Rockies is sort of the last step before, I don't know what, calling it a career. heading back to indie ball maybe becoming a podcaster we can hope but yeah that seems like kind of the last stop on the hierarchy of major league baseball i mean it's it's not even major league baseball it's a minor league deal with a team that is coming off a historically terrible

season but you know what we brebia fans will take it we're just happy to to see him get a job somewhere playing baseball. Yeah, I wasn't going to try to yuck your yum, but it's like, I can't even break into a major league deal with the Rockies? Yeah, yeah. I know that it would be wrong to attribute much of anything to this in terms of what it says, what does it say about Deepaesta. The answer to that is probably not very much at all.

You know, like when you're signing guys to minor league deals, relievers to minor league deals I feel comfortable asserting that that is a level of decision making operating beneath the GM and I don't mean to say that it's it doesn't merit his notice just that you know it's not like you're

having to bust out the big bucks for it but you know we love John Brebea I mean like you really love John Brebea yeah like a lot yeah and you humor me in that at least which I appreciate it seems

a delight, you know, of all the people that we could have a strange fixation about as a, as a program, Brebia, not, not that bad. Great. In fact, wonderful. Good. Yeah. Yeah. What about Nikki Lopez? Because the Rocky signed him to a minor league deal, too. Do you think that's one where, I don't have, I don't have, I don't have one solitary opinion about Nikki Lopez. I don't have a single, I don't have a single human thought about Nikki Lopez. And that sounds like I'm being pretty mean to Nikki Lopez. And I guess I'm being at least a little mean to Nikki Lopez, but I only have so much room, you know. There's only so much space up there. And I have to remember, like, you know, details of, I don't know, Max Zanino's career probably. Like, what, I'm going to push

that out, Ben? I'm going to, I'm going to take away knowing that in 2014 he had as many walks as hit by pitches. I'm going to remove that very useful factoid from my brain. I think not. Nope. That's understandable. And I have not constructed my minor league free agent draft board. We have not yet set a date, though we'll have to have that conversation sometime soonish. But having looked at the Baseball America list of Minor League Free Agents, I can tell you that both Nikki Lopez and John Brebria were on it. So I can select John Brebria. on my minor league free agent draft team, if I so choose. And, you know, he might not be the worst pick because he didn't get a major league deal,

it sounds like, but he got an invitation to spring training. And it is the Rockies, after all. So he might not be a bad pick. I don't know if I want to, you know, cross the personal and professional in that way, where I'm just, I'm rooting for John Rebria as a person. and maybe it would be kind of double counting. It would be too much to also have some professional stake in his career. Sure.

But a signing by the Rockies historically, that's been a good sign that's really, it bodes well, you know, for your possibility of Major League playing time. It would bode better to get a big league deal somewhere, to be clear. But, yeah, you know, beggars can't be choosers. Brebia can't be choosers when it comes to major league teams that are interested in his services. at least provisionally. We can talk about the actual big reliever deal of the day, which is Devin Williams signing with the Mets. This is a three-year deal,

and the guaranteed dollar figure is $51 million, though there's going to be a lot of Groundhog Day, deja vu broken record about this conversation, I think, probably following our Dillon Seas and also Ryan Halsley, add to some extent sunny gray conversations because there are deferrals

here as there were in the C signing and there is a gigantic ERA minus FIP gap so what else is new? I feel like we could just run back some of the stuff that we said in some recent

episodes about that but the net present value is something like $15 million lower I believe right because he gets a $6 million signing bonus that gets paid

in installments and it's nice to get the signing bonus because you get it up front or you get it not contingent on their actually being baseball played and if there's a work stoppage then guys may want to get more of their money and signing bonuses that they could still get in that event but he gets $15 million annual salaries but five million of each of those annual payouts is deferred. So there's also a bonus in there in the event of a trade, which Ryan Halsley had as well. So the net present value is a little lower, but that doesn't affect your showing so much in the free agent contracts over under draft. I mean, it does, but either way, you're a winner here because you took the under on the MLB trade rumors projection of $68 million.

I did. Which felt unkind of me. It didn't feel generous. I felt bad about it because I quite like Devin Williams. I like Devin Williams, even though the year he had was sort of underwhelming, right? At least relative to what he's typically done, you know, it was such a strange showing because he was quite bad in the beginning of the year. Oh, yes. Just like, you know, a first month ERA of nine, I think.

You don't want your ERA to start with nine, Ben. Yeah, that's bad. That tends to be pretty bad. And, you know, he's a reliever. So this is like small samples regardless, but it's so bad. It's so bad. It doesn't suggest that things are going well. And then, you know, things were less bad than that at the end of the year.

But he had a little bit of kerfuffle toward the end, too. but the peripherals are not are not bad and there was some tipping and there was maybe so was there not some tipping stuff with him too at one point it wasn't there a concern about tipping when isn't there really am i misremembering the the the the reliever that applies i know it applies to apply to healthy but but i didn't it also maybe apply to devon i can't keep track i think so yes there was there was there was a devon williams is he tipping yeah i remember stuff and i think that he didn't think he was tipping or the Yankees didn't think he was tipping. Someone thought he was tipping.

It was a, at this point, whenever, everyone's tipping. Yeah, when any pitcher is ineffective over a certain stretch or even in a single game, you're going to hear pitch tipping. It's going to be surrounding that and I, and a skeptic, as I have said. Yes. And that's fine, I think, to be a skeptic. But so there was this concern about tipping. But all of that to say, you know,

even at the times when his ERA was really very bad, his FIP was much more palatable, but not quite what it had been when he was at his peak with Milwaukee, but more palatable nonetheless. And so, you know, Ben, I really like it for the Mets. And I don't dislike it for Devin Williams. You know, I think that even with all the deferrals and whatnot, like he made a nice, he made a nice chunk of change here. But I really like it for New York because particularly with the deferrals, particularly given and what his AAV is,

I just don't think there's a version of Devin Williams that we're likely to get where you're going to look at it and say, God, what a horrible mistake that was. I just, I don't know that that version of him is likely to be on offer. It doesn't mean that, as Davey noted

when he wrote up this signing for us today, it doesn't mean that, you know, there was no smoke at all to the concern about him, right? Like his fastball and changeup blossom-induced vertical break, and there was horizontal break off the fastball, too. And it was just, you know, it was like a straighter offering than it has been historically.

And you're dealing with a straighter fastball that is also one that is a scosh below sort of the average velocity that you see on fastballs across the league, which isn't to say that he has lost, he hasn't. He's remained pretty consistent. But, you know, it's not like he's throwing 99 is the point that I'm trying to make. It's not like this insane heater rate.

So, but I just think that he's going to be pretty good and he might be really good. And if you're getting a really good back end reliever a guy who you could, assuming he looks more like the version of himself he was in Milwaukee compared to the one he was for stretches in New York, like, that's the ninth inning guy for $14 million a year. My goodness. And it's interesting because I've seen his signing being used to just both justify them bringing back Diaz because my God, Williams so cheap and also remove the need for them to bring back Diaz because, my God, he's sure to cost so much more than Williams. And I don't really know one way or the other. I think that they just have maintained flexibility here, right? This isn't a signing that's going to preclude them from bringing in other very good high-leverage arms, which, you know, in this year's class mostly means

Diaz and Robert Torres, but he didn't cost $100 million, he being Williams, which is what a lot of folks think Diaz will check in at. So I really like it for them. I think that it meaningfully improves their relief core. I think that it's not such an insane underpay that I feel like, you know, Devin Williams got jobbed. It's always fun when you have a guy go to the other New York team that is good for narrative and drama. And goodness knows we love that. We should embrace relief drama more. Not in the like feeling nervous about your guy blowing a save, but in terms of like it being a site of a fun bit of pettiness. I think that there's unexplored potential there.

So, I don't know, I just like it. I think it was smart, you know? I think that's a good smart signing. It's not shocking to me that he would want to reunite with the leadership of that front office. Like, it just seems like a good move all around, you know? Yeah. Well, last time we talked about a late-inning reliever, the Mets acquired earlier this year,

that didn't go so great for them or for Ryan Helsley. So better luck this time, I guess, to both. But yeah, I think he will be good. I don't know if he'll be as dominant as he was at his peak, which is about as dominant as a pitcher can be. But he makes the ERA minus FIPP gaps that we talked about with the last few guys look teeny tiny because his was more than two full runs.

And there were only two guys last year, minimum 60 innings pitched, who had a higher gap. or bigger gap than Williams, Jordan Hicks, and Cole Reagan's, and all the other peripherals reflect that too. So, yeah, he had some shakiness. He gave up some dingers on the airbender over a kind of compressed period. He gave up a bunch of them. So I don't know how much that means.

Maybe he just lost the feel for it for a while, and the ERA looks worse because he had some bad luck when it comes to bequeathing runners. I always say, I feel like I'm putting on airs when I say bequeathing runners, but that is the term or a term. And he did well when he was inheriting runners. Yeah. Anyway, I think he will bounce back. And, yeah, I don't know if it will behoove the Mets to sign both Edwin Diaz and Devin Williams, but now they have the option not to and still have a pretty solid option back there.

Right. But they also have the option too, too. Yes, they do. They do. And I may have overstated the degree of the deferrals or how much that would lower the net present value. It's like two plus million per year. So instead of 17 million per year, it's something like 14.8, I think, according to John Becker's calculations for competitive balance tax purposes, if the Mets are currently caring about that. But we'll always remember Devin Williams, if not for. how distinguished a season he had with the Yankees because he didn't by his standards. But he was the guy who did in the facial hair policy, was at least the proximate cause, was the guy who drove the nail into the coffin of the facial hair policy. And, you know, it's funny initially when he was struggling early in the year, this subsided

somewhat because he finished the season really on a roll of scoreless outings. But there was a time there where he was getting demoted and not. getting his save opportunities and leverage outings. And there was some, he can't hack it in New York buzz about him. It's funny. I think there's a lot less of that with Mets than there is Yankees amusingly. It seems to me. I don't know if that's not 100% true.

It's been said of Mets. But it's definitely said more often of Yankees. At least that is my sense, you know, it's just, it's like, yeah, can't. Can't do it in New York. It's like a Bronx versus Queens, pinstripes versus non-pinstripes. It's very much. And it probably comes down to that. Seriousness versus not so seriousness.

Right. That's sanctimonious. Yeah, that's sort of like exceptionalism. Yes. Which, you know, all New Yorkers have to some degree. No. But Yankees fans, I think, more than Mets fans, given the track records of those respective organizations.

And so you do tend to hear it. a bit more. But it would be funny if there were a, he can't make it a New York guy who just went across town to another borough, because still in New York, still very much in New York, but it seems to be slightly less of a concern. I don't think it was a huge concern about Williams. I don't know how legitimate that is in most cases when it is said of someone. There are certain cases, perhaps, where I will allow that there is a smitten of truth to it maybe without being able to know what's in someone's head. But yeah, I don't think you can really slap that label on him.

But it would be funny if there were a can't make it a New York guy. And then he just went across town and just played for the Mets and was fine. It's like spotlight's a little less bright or something. I think that the idea, you know, I never pass up an opportunity to invite the good people of New York, best city in the world, baby to take themselves a little less seriously because like, come on. But I think, and I think the idea that you can't hack it in New York is often nonsense. Having said that, like, it is a degree of scrutiny that is perhaps unparalleled in the sporting world, certainly for baseball, which isn't to say that there aren't other, you know, media markets where the players are under extreme scrutiny. but there does seem to be something about the combination of New York media because there's just so many folks in that group, right?

It has the highest concentration of media members and a ton of the sporting news, not the publication, but the sort of general demographic, is concentrated there. And so the idea that the pressure of that, the act of being perceived so publicly, would, would affect some guy seems completely reasonable. I do think that it is pointed to as an explanation for underperformance when other things might have greater descriptive power, in part because of the previously referenced self-seriousness. I'll also say that, like, I loved living in New York, and Queens is great, you know. I lived in Queens the whole time I lived in New York. I liked it very much.

It was great. Wonderful food, good people, vibrant community. You couldn't handle Manhattan. You just wilted under the... those bright lights. Look, man, I was like, I'm a grown-ass woman. I'm not sleeping in a full bed. And that meant that I couldn't afford to live in Manhattan. And I couldn't afford to live in Manhattan, you know, working in finance. So the affordability problems, they persist. Devin Williams probably can, if he cares to. I don't know where he was living, but he could

keep living in the same place if he wants. It seems like a son of my business. But yeah, I don't know. I think it's good. It's good signing. Good, you know, good, good. Okay. So that's Devin Williams. We've covered that. Better luck with the ERA estimators and peripherals and actual ERA next time. But, yeah, it's striking, just this run of demand for guys with high ERAs. I think we shouldn't have to talk about FIP this much in November. I saw people, I saw, I saw some people been debating the FIPEA gap as a general concept, like the day before Thanksgiving.

And I just want to invite you to do anything else with your one precious human life, you know? Like, yeah. Although, if you need to get, if you need to either get out of or start a fight with your family and they know the right combination of things, then that that FIPERA distinction can be worthwhile, you know, that can really get them going. Yeah, we got a message from Patreon supporter Tom in response to last episode's mini-stap blast about big. ERA minus FIP gaps, and Tom said, yes, FIP is better at predicting next season ERA, but is either good enough to be useful. As a researcher, I often read papers that show improvements but are so small as to not actually be useful when both ERA and FIP are about a runoff on average in their predictions. Does it matter that FIP is slightly better? Is that actually significant

to analysts or front offices? And I think it is. I think it certainly is. There's a meaningful difference there in the predictability or the repeatability, the stickiness from season to season, and certainly that does matter to front offices. But one thing that made me think, because in that stat blast, I was just kind of comparing last year's ERA slash FIPP slash XVIP, slash Sierra, slash XERA, slash whatever, right, to last year ERA and then comparing that to the next year's results. And we don't actually have to limit ourselves solely to last year stats because we have projections. We do. And projections should be better at predicting those things than probably even the best of the ERA estimators just looking at a single season because the projections know that. They know

whatever the ERA estimator knew, but they also know lots of other stuff. They know the pitcher's repertoire, perhaps. They know the stuff. They know previous seasons before that most recent season. They know age. They know ballpark. They know all this stuff, right? So in a way, we don't actually ever have to do this test that we were performing for Staplast purposes, where we just limit ourselves arbitrarily to either one piece of information or another slightly better piece of information. And the thing is that we have projections pretty much year-round now. Yeah. There was a time, well, there was a time when we had no projections, or at least no scientific objective named projection systems. We just had people who thought they knew

something about baseball, and maybe they did. Maybe they didn't. They were going with their guts, or they had some personal system that wasn't really tested. But even in the projection era, the advanced projection era, which now dates back more than 20 years, certainly, to when Pocoda showed up at Baseball Perspectus, and Dan Saborsky was doing zips and all the rest. For a while there, you would have to wait until, like, you know, well into the offseason or when spring training was rolling around even, because you didn't just have year-round projections that were maintained and updated, it would be a big thing

when the Pocotas would come out because they weren't already out and you would have to maybe wait for the baseball prospectus annual to get them or you could get them on the site if you were a subscriber and then there'd be big releases and fan graphs and all the rest.

But now you can kind of just look at projections all the time. Yesterday, when we talked about the CIS signing, I cited the projected best starting rotations at FanGraphs, and that's, it's based on steamer now, and then later Zips is folded in, and, you know, there may be better playing time estimates, we know where all the players are, we know what the depth charts look like, so it's very provisional, it's just a rough cut, but you can basically, at any time of year at FanGrafts.com, see projections, and you can look up multi-year projections, and so we're never without the ability to look at those things.

And so we don't actually really need to limit ourselves to a single data point. You know, I don't need to say will Devin Williams's ERA in 2026 look more like his FIP or his ERA from 2025? We could just look at his Fangraph's player page and see what his steamer projection is for next year. And, spoiler, it's 3.14. That is his projection. So that is higher than his FIPP last season, which was 2.68, but a lot closer to that FIP than to his ERA of 4.79. So, yeah, it's almost a distinction we don't need to make in that very binary way anymore because we kind of all the time have that better option with more information and better calibration and everything. And so I'm still sort of mentally adjusting to just being able to look at projections.

at any time of year, even the dead of the off-season. They're there for us. They're just there for you. And you're right. I think that we do our depth chart projections using a blend for a reason, but, you know, steamer on its own tells you stuff and zips on its own tells you stuff. And both systems, I think, are made better for having been, at least when they get to the depth chart projection piece of it, having used our roster resource playing time.

and Dan is always tinkering. He's a constant tinkerer, and the amount of stuff that has been folded into projections over time is really remarkable to see. So, you know, I think that nothing is going to give you a completely accurate sense of what a player will do in the following season. They have to play the games.

We don't know if guys are going to get hurt. We don't know if other players might emerge that challenge them for playing time. Maybe, you know, their grandma dies. Like all kinds of stuff can have. happen that the projections can't account for, guys, you know, sometimes guys just get bad, you know, sometimes you just get bad. Or they add a new pitch and then they're way better. But the thing I always try to remind people of with projections is we are trying to give as

accurate a forecast of what a guy might do as we can. I think that all of the various prognosticators have gotten meaningfully better at that over the years. The data they're able to fold in gives them meaningfully more insight. And it would be super boring if they know. It nailed it precisely every time. You know, we want there to be surprised in the game. We want them to have to play the games for us to know what happens. So that's what I said about projections. Another quick follow-up, we talked a few episodes ago about Hal Steinbrenner

and his comments about how it's not safe to assume that the Yankees made money, but he's not really willing to disclose the details of their finances. And we went through an article that Rob Mainz wrote for Baseball Perspectus about how actually the Yankees are doing just fine and even the things that Hal Steinbrenner specifically complained about he's overstating the case a little misleading

a little not full disclosure there so for instance Steinbrenner cited a $100 million payment that the Yankees have to make on bonds issued by New York City for Yankee Stadium and so he complained that they have to make payments on these bonds every

year even in 2020 when the season was shortened But as Rob noted in his piece, and as we then relayed on the episode, that's not specifically a Yankees thing, that it's not unique that the Yankees have to pay back their creditors. Also, the indebtedness in 2020 was refinanced at a much lower rate. And then the big thing was that the bonds, Rob pointed out, are called pilot bonds for payments in lieu of taxes. And according to a report from Sports Business Journal, the Yankees in 2024 made bond payments of $84 million, which is close to what Hal was saying about $100 million. However, they received tax exemptions of $122 million, which means that they actually got a $38 million net benefit, which is not something that Hal's going to tell you. But one thing that we didn't tell you because Rob didn't tell us in that article, but he told us in an email to us after he heard,

our conversation. He emailed us to thank us for talking about it. And also add, he says, a detail that I didn't get into that makes the Yankee Stadium refinancing even more egregious is that the bonds were issued by the New York City Industrial Development Agency, a municipal entity. That means the interest paid on them is exempt from state and city income taxes, which in turn means the interest rate is considerably lower than what the Yankees would have had to pay had they issued taxable bonds on their own. And by an order of magnitude, Vanguard currently has a 3.9% yield on its taxable money market fund, 2.72% on its New York tax-free money market fund. And that's on top of the fact that they're saving more in taxes than they're

paying in principle and interest. So if anything, the last time we talked about this, we understated what a sweet deal the Yankees are getting. So every little. layer you peel back, it becomes a bigger bargain for the Yankees. And again, probably not uniquely the Yankees. A lot of teams get sweetheart deals from municipalities and have favorable rates of borrowing and all the rest of it. So that's not uniquely Yankees either. But the point is, the deeper you drill down on those claims and those cries of, oh, woe is us, we have to pay all this money, it becomes a better and better deal, the closer you look at it. Which is why teams would prefer that people not actually look too closely at it and just take them at their word.

Mm-hmm. And one more follow-up, you were concerned that people might not be able to distinguish among the various denominations of Canadian currency. Yeah. Because you said that that is a problem in American currency because all the money, the paper bills. Yeah. It's not only the same size, but the same color. Yeah. But Canada's got it figured out in so many ways.

You know, and I say that with some pride as a dual citizen. But they not only have the different colors on the bills, as we covered last time, but multiple people wrote in to assure us they've got Braille on the bills. Do they really? They do. They've thought of everything. So even if you cannot distinguish the different colors of the bill, they've got braille. and it varies. So the $5 bill has one six dot symbol,

and the $10 bill has two six dot symbols. Makes sense. And the $20 bill has three. I guess we're doubling. And the $50 bill has four. It's more six dot symbols, the higher the domination. And then the $100 bill has two symbols

separated by a smooth surface that is wider than the one on the $10 note. So they have thought of it all. And you will never confuse Canadian bills or not easily. That's so nice. It is. I like that. Yeah, good deal.

Good job, Canada. Well done. Yeah. And here's one follow-up. This is kind of a blast from the past, but when we were doing our year-in-review stuff and reviewing our preseason predictions and the minor league for agent draft and I was taking my perhaps over-long victory lap. One thing that I meant to preview. Perhaps.

It's debatable. But one thing that I meant to review preseason predictions-wise was our preseason preview guests stated goals for the respective teams that they previewed. This is something that effectively wild wikikeeper and Patreon supporter Raymond Chen compiles every year, as he is doing the summaries for the wiki pages. He records what the guests say, because we wrap up now not by asking us. for the win total prediction, but by asking what would constitute success for that team in that season.

And so Raymond writes that down, and he reminds me of it at the end of the season. And he has weighed in on whether those teams actually succeeded based on the standards that their preview guests set. So we can review these, and we can see whether we agree. Sometimes they're a little vague. But sometimes it's tough to pin down the exact victory conditions. Sure, sure. So, okay, we'll just take it.

I guess this is probably roughly in order of the previews we did. Dodgers' goal was a lofty one, understandably. Establish a dynasty. And I think we can say that if they had not done so already, they've done so now. Yeah. So that's a success for the Dodgers. And also they just won the world series. It's hard for a season not to be a success when you do that.

Yeah. But that was an even higher standard. I mean, maybe not. I guess it was sort of the same standard because if they were going to win the World Series, then it was going to really lay to rest most doubts, at least, most reasonable doubts, I would say, that they qualify as a dynasty. So they did that. Yankees win the World Series, that's kind of their perennial goal, I guess.

They did not do that. They did not achieve that goal. No, that's a fail. Braves win a playoff series that's a fail they did not appear in a playoff series

so did not come close to achieving that one Phillies win the world series didn't do that fail the highest projected the best projected teams

and the most successful teams they tend to have kind of boring predictions because it's just like well you know

you're in the playoffs every year you kind of have to win the world series or go deeper into the playoffs at least for it to qualify as a success, so

there are only so many standards you can set there. Okay, Diamondbacks, make the playoffs. Not quite. Not quite. Close, though. Just about as close as you can without achieving it. I would just offer, and perhaps this is going to mark me as something of an

apologist, but given how hurt their rotation was kind of incredible that they got where they did. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And given that they subtracted significantly at the deadline. Right. They traded away all of there, yeah. Mets, make the playoffs with a bonus, advance out-of-wild card round.

Neither of those things happened. They did not make the playoffs, although they really came as close as you could, but, yeah, did not quite make it. Red Sox, 90-plus wins, and make playoffs comfortably led by young players. They did not do that. They came close to doing those things. They won 89 games. that's very close to 90 plus, but just short of it.

They made the playoffs not comfortably, I guess. I mean, it depends on your level of comfort. There were teams that squeaked in with even smaller margins for error, but it was in doubt at least until very late. So they came as close as you can come to a success without achieving success. 89 wins instead of 90 plus. They made the playoffs, but perhaps it was. wasn't quite comfortably led by young players.

I think certainly there was a component of that. They had a lot of young players who were integral to their success. So it's a tough loss for them there, I think. They came quite close. Rangers, I guess the prediction was win as many World Series as possible under Bruce Bochie. I guess they did do that in a way. They won one under him. And that turns out to have been as many as was possible.

But, I mean, I guess theoretically, more were possible. Now, more or not possible because he is no longer their manager. But they did not add to their total of World Series 1 under Bruce Bochie. So I think that's a failure. And they can't even do like a shifty, well, he's still in the U.R or is a special event. No, isn't he, isn't he back with San Francisco now? He's back with the Giants, yeah. Yeah.

So that door is, at least for now, closed. Yes, and the Rangers did not make the playoffs, of course. So, yeah. Mariners make the playoffs. Success. Smashing success. They did it. Yes.

And for some teams that might seem like an unambitious bar, but for the Seattle Mariners, it's pretty ambitious to project that they will make the playoffs. And they did. And now they should, in theory, go into next year as I, would say the favorite in that division, they should make the playoffs again. And in fact, their bar for success next season, I think maybe it should be even a little higher than just make the playoffs. It should be, well, I mean, I guess they cleared that bar easily this year because they then made a little bit of a run too. Yeah, one as far as they've gone, Ben.

Yeah. So that's now the expectation that they've got to go at least as far again to be a success. Okay, Astros make the playoffs and young players take a step forward. forward. It did not happen. They did not make the playoffs. So we don't even have to consider the young players taking a step forward. Although I think there's an argument to be made that they had young guys who improved upon their, upon my baseline expectation for them. So I don't want to give the young guys who did well short shrift just because they didn't make the playoffs, but they did not make the playoffs. Yeah. Raymond didn't record if there was any additional level of detail. I don't know if it was specific young players who were supposed to take a step forward

or it's just more than one young player. And probably a lot of teams would pass that. But Cubs make the playoffs and young players take a step forward. I think we've got to give them a success on that score, on both, probably. Twins avoid late season collapse and play meaningful games in September. They did not do those things. They avoided a late collapse because they had already deflated so profoundly. Yeah. Yeah. Like your souffle can't fall if you never make one, you know?

Right. Yeah. And it wasn't so much a collapse as it was a planned demolition. Right. I guess, right? I mean, it was like, yeah, it's like, I don't know, the Metrodome being blown up after the roof was deflated. Exactly like that. Yeah. So in that respect, I think that we can give them a pass. but not on not on the second thing on the second thing they they failed miserably because they did not play meaningful games in September their games it would in fact be hard for them to be less meaningful than they proved to be I don't know if they blew up the metrodome I guess they sort of exploded the roof a little bit after it was depleted it's like collapse in on itself right like yeah but the whole point of those building demos is that they shouldn't go out very much

that they should collapse in because for safety, Ben. Yes. They had to haul it away gradually. I guess you have to do that even if it does explode or implode, probably. Okay. Orioles win a playoff series.

Didn't happen. Didn't play a playoff series. Rays make the playoffs and resolve stadium situation again. They did not make the playoffs, so fail. But sort of some resolution. and the sense that they will be back at the trap in 2026, but they have not resolved the stadium situation beyond that.

They have sort of resolved the ownership situation. I guess there's some question about where exactly they'll play under that new ownership. But there were some resolution of various situations, but they failed to make the playoffs. So fail. Blue Jays, make the playoffs, bonus, win a playoff game. They won many a playoff game. That's a stirring success by the Blue Jays.

Well done, Blue Jays. Yes. They were the second most successful team in baseball and relative to expectations, probably the most successful. I just remembered how much money Dylan C's going to make. Wow, that's cool. Good for him.

Yeah, Ben, good for him. Yeah, if we had made a preseason prediction or set a standard for success for Cs, probably he would not quite have cleared it from a performance standpoint, but from a money-making standpoint, I think he would have exceeded it nonetheless. I think you're right about that. Okay. Padres, win division, and beat Dodgers. Didn't do either of those things, which I guess they would go hand in hand if they had done them,

but they didn't do them. Didn't beat them in the division race, at least. They beat them in individual games. But that's probably not what the previewer was saying. Probably. Brewers, win division, and a playoff series. They did it. Done and done.

Yep. All set. Well done, Brewers. Royals, win division and make a deep playoff run. Didn't do either of those things. Didn't do either thing. Tigers, make the playoffs. Yep.

Barely. Yeah, that standard for success probably would have changed if you had asked a little later into the season as opposed to preseason. because for a while they're merely making the playoffs would not have seen like such a success because they seemed like a lock to win the division. Right. And then the lock was unlocked and they did not win the division,

but they did make the playoffs and so they have satisfied the standard. They have done the bare minimum here to be a success. Giants contend for wild card and fill in missing pieces for 2026. Well, I think this is an incomplete. yeah it's it's tough to pin down mr brisbee when it comes to the predictions but his predictions are often in the vein of did they develop their next core or do they put pieces in place that give you confidence that they can be good again and i don't know fill in missing pieces maybe he mentioned specific pieces that i don't have on hand here i guess they probably did some i mean contend For wildcard, technically, I guess, depends on how late, how close you have to be contending.

But they were in the mix. I don't know that anyone was really taking them super seriously as a wildcard contender, very late in the season. And then they did end up kind of in the same place they always end up, which is 500 exactly. So 81 and 81. Yeah, maybe. Maybe barely passing grade. I'm not enthused about whether this was a win, and I doubt Grant would be either. That's kind of a maybe. Yeah, it's just hard to say because so much of it depends on like the future performance in 2026 of guys who might not even be on their roster yet, right? It doesn't say that they have to have been added to their roster this year. Right. Yeah. It could be guys who performed well in the minors.

It could be guys they signed this offseason. We, you know? Yeah. So, yeah. He's, he's so tricksy that Grant. Yeah, he is. We got to pin him down next time. We got to pin him down.

Come spring. We got to have him lay out some specifics. Yeah, we got to really nail him down because it's a very tricksy. So squirly. It's tricksy as it's written. We can ask him whether he thinks the giant satisfied his criteria. Hmm. He'll answer, honestly, because he's quite harsh on them sometimes.

Yeah, I will predict that Grant will say that it was not a success. So we'll see. I'm putting words in his mouth here. But, yeah, I'm going to go thumbs down on this, but barely. It's like Tigers was thumbs up, barely. Giants, I'm going to say thumbs down, barely. Cardinals, Raymond had this listed as a maybe also contend in September, and young players take a step.

forward. Like, they weren't eliminated early, you know, if it's like the dates where they were, they finished in fourth and the central. They were 78 and 84. Yeah. They were kind of like on the periphery of the race until quite late, but not seriously. So it depends when in September, I guess we're talking about. I'm going to say, no, maybe I'm being a harsh grader here, but I'm going to say it's hard to call that season a success.

It was it was a treading water. It was getting one year closer to hopefully another successful Cardinals team that fans will actually want to come out and see. And, you know, it's the playing out the string of the Mosealac era. So it felt like a filler year for them. I don't know that we can call it a success exactly. It feels like the definition of a transition year. I mean, those are the terms they put on it, right? Yes.

And a transition year can be a success. Well, they made the transition to bloom. So in that respect. They did. And that wasn't really like in doubt. It was just, you know, if the world didn't end. I said it was definitionally a transition year. And then you were like, well, they were successful.

And now you know what I mean, don't you? Yep. okay and the reds make the playoffs they did it check they even scored some runs yeah another barely but complete passing grade success and and sort of a surprise success at the end yes it wouldn't have been a great surprise that they squeaked into the wild card round at the beginning of the season it was a legitimate possibility but given where they were at various points it was something of a late surge or at least it was mostly taking making advantage of late collapses in their case, more so than a surge. But nonetheless, they made it success. Pirates, winning record, and show progress toward making the playoffs. I don't think so. No.

That sounded more like an eh than a eh, which is what I wanted. Oh, okay, yeah. I think that you made an important auditory edit there. Thank you. You're welcome. That's a no. Guardians, repeat success of 2024, and look like a content. all season.

That's an interesting one. Well, the second part, I think, is not true. No. I would argue that there were times, even when it became clear, that they were going to win the division, that they didn't necessarily look like a contender. It was a sloppy, accidental sort of thing at times there. But I also am mindful of the fact that they, you know, they did well. They managed to knock Detroit out of race.

range, which had as much to do with Detroit failing as them succeeding, I suppose. But, hey, they were there to take advantage of that failure. And they did, even if it was only ultimately by a game. And we should acknowledge the sort of background institutional headwind that was the gambling, this and that. So I think they did very well given challenging circumstances, Some of which are typical of the guardians and self-imposed from a payroll perspective, and some of which I think were really quite not their fault. Yeah, but if we're being originalists here, strict constructionists, strict constructionists, if we're going by the letter of the law and being hardliners,

I think we have to say no. Because they repeated the success of 2024 in the sense that they won the ALS. again. They did repeat, which was quite a surprise. And certainly it seemed like a success if you sort of lopped the season into a couple parts. The latter part was more of a success than anticipated. But they won four fewer games and had, I think, ten fewer Pythagorean wins. It was just, it was not as good at team, clearly. And yeah, they did have other things going against them. Yeah. But they did not look like a contender all season. That's true. And the fact that they've turned out to be a contender ended on a positive note, or at least prior to the playoff exit.

But yeah, we can't give them looked like contender all season, I don't think. No, definitely not. Okay. Athletics, be a 500 team, play meaningful games in late September, and break ground on new stadium. No. They didn't really do any of those things. I guess technically they had sort of a sham for show groundbreaking, but not much in the way of actual progress and funding and construction.

And we're not a 500 team, did not play meaningful games in late September. Yet, it sort of felt like a success in some ways on the field. They were an entertaining team. They developed or bolstered a quite impressive. core of young position players. Nick Kurtz had one of the all-time great offensive rookie seasons. They had a couple of the top rookie of the year guys, number one and number two, in fact, to go with their other holdover position players.

So there were certainly reasons to feel good about the A's, but they did not satisfy these exact conditions. So that's a no. Okay. Angels break playoff drought That was a tough target And they did not come close to hitting it Fail

Nationals winning record Nope Marlins Avoid 100 losses And build hope for the future From Edwards Norby and Alcantara I guess they success

I think they succeeded Yeah I think so I think it's I think they succeeded in a way that I might argue is fairly unqualified. They almost finished 500. They were in mathematical contention until very late. They weren't a last place team.

They had, I think, meaningful improvement from some of their position players. Now, do I think that they're going to all, you know, be consistently as good as they were last year? I don't know about that. But I think this is a better group than we thought, is it enough? I mean, I'm not saying that. But by the parameters of the prediction, I think they did quite well for themselves, in fact. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I think so, too. And Edwards had a decently valuable year. Yeah. Norby, not so much, but Kyle Stowers kind of surprised people had a good year. And, yeah, the standard was to avoid 100 losses. Well, they did that handily. So, okay. And, yeah, I build hope for the future from Alcantra.

I guess that was presuming a trade and that they would do well in that trade. and they did not trade him because he didn't do so well. They still have the potential to trade him. Yeah. Okay. Rockies. I mean, do I even really have to read what the Rockies one? What was the Rockies one?

I don't know. It was a failure regardless. But unless the standard was don't lose more games than the White Sox did in 2024, then it's hard to construct a scenario where it was a success. But it was avoid 100 losses. Find a team leader slash superstar and find out which young players can contribute in the next few years. Oh. Yeah, I don't know that they did any of those things.

No, I don't think that quite worked out for them. No. And lastly, White Sox, at least half of, because Fegan must have made this kind of complicated, at least half of non-embarrassing record, make good trades, organizational progress, improve player development Luis Robert plays really well and is valuable at the deadline okay well didn't do the last one

but nine embarrassing record I think they kind of got there I mean they set the standard so low because of how embarrassing their 2024 record was but there were times where I thought and even said on this podcast

you know what they've turned a corner I can sort of see the light at the end of the tunnel they did still lose 100 games, 102, to be precise, but that was a big improvement after losing 121. So I'm going to give them non-embarrassing records just because they had really just lowered the bar or raised the bar for embarrassment so much the previous season. Make good trades, organizational progress, improve player development.

I don't know. Hard to assess some of that stuff from afar, but I would say, yeah, yeah, I'll give them. I'll give them enough of these, I guess. How many conditions was that? One, two, three, four, five. So they had to have at least three of these to win. I'll give them non-embarrassing record. I'll give them improved player development, I think.

I don't know that much about how the process changed, but the results seem to improve. Sure. organizational progress is kind of vague, but yeah, why not? I'm going to give them a success. Good on you, White Sox. Well done. Good on you. Less terribly done than in the prior year.

Good on you. Okay. Just got a bit of feedback from Patreon supporter Ben. This message came in while we were recording, and Ben said, I almost never think you guys get it totally wrong. That's nice. That is nice. That's good praise. Yeah, totally wrong.

There's like some saving grace in what we say, you know. There's like a shred of correctness at least sometimes. We might be mostly wrong. On balance, we're wrong. But there's a little bit of rightness there. But I was floored by your takes on the use of corner in baseball. I waited for episode 2408 because I was sure you'd get lots of emails saying what I wanted to say. And you started the episode with that refrain.

But all the discussion was of a different, far less pedantic question about extra innings. Maybe I'm totally weird, but in my baseball idelect, corner means edge of the plate. The most common uses are outside corner and inside corner. These don't need to refer to the geometrical corners. I was stunned when you and Meg seem to agree that people use corner, only to talk about the well corners of the zone. Again, maybe I'm weird, but I don't think that I'm out of the ordinary. The baseball almanac gives mine as the first definition of corner for baseball.

Also, I doubt the original email was right that we are thinking. thinking of a 3D zone when we use corner in the way that he and I agree we do. First, I competently used inside corner and outside corner long before anyone told me the zone was 3D. Second, in geometry, one doesn't usually call a place where two planes come together a corner. Usually it's called an edge. So I think the original emailer might not have been quite pedantic enough in that respect. Rare that we get the not pedantic enough critique.

Yeah, we didn't really get many emails about this, if any. I may have seen a comment in the Discord group from someone who made the distinction between corner of the zone, corner of the plate. And I think that's valid. Sure. I think, yeah, like I often say edge of the plate, but I think the edge refers to the edge of the plate, right? It's not just the – I mean, it's sort of the same when you're talking about the edge in an east-west horizontal direction because the – The strike zone is set at the edges of the plate. So I guess if you're talking about the corner, it is kind of the corner of the plate, I suppose.

And you might hear over the black, two, or on the black. But yeah, that's fair, I think. It's plate related, for sure. Sure. I think a bit more specificity is nice because I think it paints a more accurate and descriptive picture. but I don't think you're like a monster if you use it this way. I just have our preference for it being more limited in scope. We didn't really get any emails about that.

I don't think. Yeah, not many. I guess I don't know. Others were not so convinced that we were totally wrong. They give us a little bit of credit on that one. Sometimes we are totally wrong and no one says anything. And I'm like sitting here waiting. I'm waiting for the emails to come in and they don't.

and then I'm emboldened to be even more of a goofess. Yeah, hold us accountable. Keep us honest. Yeah. Okay. Question from Mark, who notes that, like him, we have heard MLB explaining what the term Apotaco means more than a thousand times this year, depending on how often you listen to the radio broadcast digitally.

This actually came in earlier in the year and has been languishing in the mailbag for a while. And so Mark says, slightly worrying that we're a quarter of the way through the season. and they're still explaining that one bit of lingo. Will we ever find out the meaning of other baseball slang terms? No. No, not really, Mark. Sorry. I mean, now you know that that was a preview of the rest of the season two,

that they were not going to actually inject some variety into those between inning definitions for inexplicable reasons. Anyway, Mark continues. MLB says Apotako means a home run hit to the opposite field. What's missing is an explanation of what opposite. field means, do you know why a right-handed hitter hitting the ball to the right of center is deemed to be going the opposite way? As an England-based MLB fan, I wonder if there might be a cricket connection where the two sides of the field are the offside, opposite

field in baseball and on-side, for reasons I can't remember. Is opposite field a relatively new term, or was it around in the 19th century? Any info you can give would be greatly appreciated. I'd never discount the possibility that there's a cricket connection with some baseball terminology. And perhaps our 19th century expert Richard Hirschberger could weigh in on that if he hears this. But I don't know that we need cricket to provide the reasoning here because I think it's fairly simple. And the Dixon Baseball Dictionary would suggest the same. And I will read you the definition of opposite field in that dictionary. the side of the playing field that is opposite the side of home plate from which a batter bats.

For example, right field is the opposite field for a right-handed batter who bats from the left side of home plate. It is called opposite because it is the opposite of the direction in which a batter would naturally pull the ball. A right-handed batter naturally pulls to the left and a left-handed batter naturally pulls to the right. Now, I would add, I think that there is sort of a misconception because when you hit a fly ball, when you hit the ball in the air, you actually usually hit the ball the other way to the opposite field, which might make it sound like that should not be opposite because if part of the rationale is that you pull the ball more often, well, when you actually hit the ball to the outfield, and opposite field can be infield too, you hit it the opposite

way. But yeah, when you elevate, when you get the ball in the air, actually you tend to hit it to the opposite field more often. Now, you know, when you completely crush it, maybe you're more likely to have pulled it. But yeah, most fly balls go to the opposite field, which I think many people don't actually realize. But there is this perception that you're just so likely to pull the ball in all cases. And it depends on the batted ball type. But that definition makes sense to me i don't know that i actually would have been able to easily explain that it but it sounds obvious now that i've read it that it's just about which side of the plate you're standing on relative to where the ball is going but uh it says the first use is 1902 okay and you never know if

if that's actually the first use but if if that's true then i guess it probably wouldn't be a cricket origin, but that's good to know. But it's interesting because one objection we got or one bit of feedback we got when we talked about the incessant apotaco definitions and redefinitions was that the complaint from some people was not just that they kept repeating that over and over again, but that if the point of that whole segment or, you know, doing that as a. between inning time waster, time occupier, is to educate a fan who would not know the term Apotaco, then maybe it wouldn't be safe to assume that they understood opposite fields either.

Right. Because in the definition, they do not define what opposite field is. Now, I guess you have to draw the line somewhere, and if someone's listening to a baseball radio broadcast, maybe, you know, it's like when you were talking about the, like, do you have to define In the indictment for Class A and Ortiz, where they're talking about, like, what is a strike and what is a ball? At some point, you perhaps have to presume some knowledge of someone who is consuming your product. But maybe you can't completely take it for granted that someone who doesn't know Apotaco would know opposite field. I think that opposite field is far better known than Apotaco, just because it's been with us way longer.

Apotaco is a fairly recent vintage. Whereas Dixon says that the term opposite field was definitely used in the current sense as early as 1920, if not earlier, so more than a century. And, you know, you grew up hearing opposite field. But it's true, you can't necessarily take for granted that someone hearing that who doesn't know Apotaco would know opposite field. And even if you know what the opposite field is, you might not know why it's called that, which seems to be the boat that Mark was in here. So now we know. Man, I can't believe how many times you said apo taco. No, just piling on to the many many times.

Once again, I want a chaco taco taco. I really, I have to inquire. I keep meaning to inquire about why the heck they just kept repeating over and over and over and over again. The same between inning content just made no sense. You know the other thing, Ben. I hate to say this because we were early proponents of this as a feature. they've really lost the threat on the baseball zen stuff too. Yes.

I feel like this is... They are not Zen. Yeah, it's true. I feel like people... There was like a brief window where the baseball Zen was actually Zen and then... Yes. Almost immediately it morphed and people started complaining that it was not Zen enough. Yeah.

So it's not newly not Zen. I know, but like... But yeah, I agree with it. They have strayed. And strayed so far. far. We are whole miles from God's light. I mean, they are, I feel sometimes like they're picking ones now that are loud on purpose. Or it's like a really, it's, I don't care for it. They shouldn't make me look up from whatever I'm editing to go, my God, what was that? They keep making me think

that the cats did something, Ben. It's not, it's the baseball's end or lack thereof, as the case maybe. And here's a question from David, Patreon supporter, another definitional one. Is it me or did the meaning of the word with change? I remember it as a synonym for a strikeout and a strikeout of any kind, not the current meaning of a swinging strike. Am I just remembering wrong? We may have touched on this previously. I don't think that David is remembering wrong. I think that the meaning has shifted a bit, but I think both meanings have been present. The whole time. Yeah, since the start.

Again, going back to Dixon here, the first definition laid out is to swing at a pitch without touching the ball. Yeah. And that's listed as 1912. Yeah. And origins dating back even earlier in golf maybe in the 19th century. But then the second definition is for a pitcher to strike out a batter. And the example given from 1914 is I whiffed eight men in five innings in Frisco yesterday.

So that the first use is listed as 1905. So it seems like around the same time, they both were popularized and adopted, and they were used for both meanings, essentially, from the start. And then the third meaning that's listed is for a batter to strike out. And then the fourth meaning is just a strikeout. So I think all of those things are true, but I do think it has shifted more toward the swinging strike definition. Yeah, I think that that's right. Probably because we now have whiff-based stats.

Right. And so that has, when we talk about whiffs now, there's confusion if you don't specify because there's whiff rage, there's whiffs per swing, there's whiffs per pitch. and because we can track the outcomes of specific pitches and it's all clearly recorded and listed as whiff rate or whatever, I think we now tend to default more toward the single pitch, the swing and a miss. And it might even start to sound weird if you said that you whiffed someone. Like, it would sound weird to me if you said that you whiffed someone

on a looking strikeout, on a called strikeout? Yeah, I would be like, what do you? I would be like, no. Yeah. I'd still allow a swinging strikeout, but even then it might sound just a little weird to me if you just said that he had eight whiffs and you meant eight strikeouts.

If you said that he whiffed someone and you struck him out and he got the swinging strike, it could kind of be both. You got the swinging strike in. It was strike three, so you got the strikeout too. But yeah, when I say whiff now, I do tend to default to the single pitch meaning.

And it's tough because, as we've noted, always helpful to have synonyms as writers and podcasters and editors. And so you want as many terms as you can to mean these things. And there are only so many. But yeah, I tend to reserve with, as David is saying. So I think it's shifted in recent years. But they've both been there. Okay. Chris Patreon supporter, Chris Hamill, in fact, quirky writing question.

When writing about MLB off-season. how do you typically denote them? If you're referencing a single off-season, it's pretty easy to say something like 2003-0-4 off-season. But when you're referencing a range, it feels clunky to write from the 2003-to-4 off-season until 2010 to 11. But if you only use single years,

it can be misinterpreted pretty easily as including periods of time you're not intending. What's your general approach to this? Is this just one of those things where you rearrange your syntax to avoid having to refer to a Red Sox player in the singular. I don't have any objection to the span as a description of an off-season. I think it's the most clear.

So, you know, we are in the 25-26 off-season. Yeah. So, no, I don't avoid it from a syntax perspective, but I also am not bothered by it. So there's that. I think that it is easy enough to, when you are writing about a single off-season, particularly when you're in it to know what you mean. Mostly, I'm just happy that our league

year occurs over a single year. What a, what a joy. I give thanks for that constantly. Just it's, yeah, we're so lucky. We are so fortunate. The NHL and the NBA and even the NFL.

You just constantly, it spans creators and it's just, yeah, it looks less clean and it's, yeah, yeah, it's Right. We've got it good when it comes to just being able to say a single year for a season. And that might be part of why referring to, referring to them as sort of denoting a particular, using a span to denote that it, you know, sort of goes over the Jan 1 line. Doesn't bother me all that much. But again, I think that like most of the time, unless you're referring to multiple offseason periods, you can avoid. using the year at all, if you want to, right?

If you're really committed like this winter or, you know, the, you were joking about the, we're almost to the point where we can safely say last year. Once you get past January 1st, you're in, you're in really great shape, right? Because you can say last season, you can say, you know, last off season. People know what you're talking about. Yeah. Last year. I probably do fairly rarely right.

I guess, yeah, I would say, yeah, the span, if I'm referring to a long ago offseason. But generally, if I can, I will just say last off season or, yeah, whatever it is. So I can avoid the span entirely. But are you bothered? Are you bothered by the span? No, I think it's fine. It's accurate. it. But yeah, it's just neater not to have to say it, I guess. But then I mentioned this when we had

Ben Clemens on to talk about the free agents ranking. You do headline that 2026 top free agents or 2025 top free. So you don't always go with the span there where you could, I guess, right. Yeah. You're right. You're right. We don't. But that's because I have confidence in people, you know, to know. And sometimes, Ben, something's just been that way for a really long time, and so you don't change it. Yes. Yeah, you want to maintain some continuity there. Right, because if we changed it, then people will be like, well, how does this differ from prior iterations of the list?

What do you do then? Yeah. Now we're considering free agents who will still be free agents after New Year's. That's actually how it's always worked. But it refers to the league year they're going to play in. They're going to, you know what I mean? Yes. Yeah, because I do, that does confuse me sometimes, I will say, with free agents.

Because I always have to check myself because baseball reference will list the year that someone becomes a free agent. And I always have to remind myself, wait, is it, is that the season after which he will become a free agent? Or I have to clarify. Yeah. We have a tool tip. Right. That is helpful, I think, because otherwise. He becomes a free agent after.

And I clicked on Dylan Cases and now it's so funny. Becomes a free agent entering the 2033 season after the conclusion of the 2032 season. That's so funny. Because if you just said 2026 free agents to me and I wasn't aware of the history of the series or something, I could conclude that that's guys who would become free agents in 2026. Yeah, it's a little tough. Okay. And a question from Brian.

do you think umpires practice throwing they sometimes throw the ball back to the pitcher and it's not that hard to throw but if i were then i wouldn't want the midgame throw to be the only throw i had made in a while if they do practice do they play catch with each other before each game i don't know why i've never considered that all umpires would own a mitt yeah we've had umpires on the show multiple times and i don't recall asking them yeah now i wish i had I do get the sense that they pride themselves on their throws sometimes. I think we've talked about that. I know we had Dale Scott on twice, and maybe we talked about throwing with him. And, of course, we've had other umpires on, albeit briefly. But I think they must practice throwing, probably, right? I mean, if you've been off all off season and it's spring training for umpires too and And probably mostly that would have meant just getting your sense of the strike zone dialed in again.

But I'm going to guess that you'd throw some balls, right? You know, you'd warm up the arm especially because some umpires are up there in age, right? And you wouldn't want to get rusty and you'd want to break in the arm instead of breaking the arm. So I would think so. I think that they probably practice. It's funny to me, like I have this thought often when I'm watching. watching football, you know, football officials tend to be in pretty good shape in part because they have to run a good bit and a good bit more. And I don't mean to denigrate the average

level of fitness of big league umpires. But I can't recall a big league umpire that people have responded to the same way they do with some like longstanding football officials where they're like talking about their guns and how but you know it is a physical endeavor and you have to i imagine that they have to stretch a good bit right because you're to be hunched like that behind home you know if you're going to have any home plate duty and most of them do you'd you would certainly want to be able to have some amount of flexibility you'd have to make sure your lower backs in good shape you know your knees. Mobility is important. You've got to get in the right position to get the good vantage point to be able to make a call. Right. Yeah. Not as much running required as for officials and other

sports, but still some movement at least. And what is interesting, imagine someone couldn't throw, just had no arm, but was otherwise an excellent umpire prospect. Do you think that would hold them back would that would that like be a a demerit on their umpire scouting report you know just got a great eye just really accurate zone cannot for the life of them make that throw back to the this would be a really interesting question for an employment law lawyer like is there a reasonable accommodation where yeah you don't have to throw and i think the answer is probably yes right because you're able to vocalize so other than needing you know the the catcher to get replacement balls to the pitcher for you,

you'd be able to call the zone. You wouldn't gesture, right? You wouldn't be a gesturing up. You'd have to figure out ways, whether it's what you say or having it like a different sort of timbre, tamper? That's right. Is that the word I want, Ben? Tamber to your voice?

It's a word, yeah. Pitch and tamber. All of that to say, I feel like there's like a, you'd be able to do it. Now, you would probably face obstacles in terms of convincing people of your fitness in ways that would probably be unfair, candidly. But it seems like you'd be able to figure out workarounds fairly easily, you know? Yeah, it's pretty immaterial to the core aspects of the job. Now, there obviously is an element to being able to, like, for fair or foul calls, you'd have to come up with an alternative gesture because you, you know, it's so loud

in a ballpark, you wouldn't necessarily be able to rely on your voice alone. But again, I think you could, like, you could kick out a leg, you know, or something. I think you could figure, I think we could figure it out, you know. Or if an umpire got yips exclusively when it came to throwing the ball back to the pitcher, which catchers have had yips at times just on those really routine, easy throws. Could happen. for an umpire but umpires always have the option of handing the ball off to the catcher yeah yeah some of them i think like to show off their arms if they've got a good one yeah and then they like to kind of whistle it back to the pitcher but if you don't have a great arm you're self-conscious about

your arm you can always just hand the ball to the catcher yep my my sense is that it's gotten less common for the umpire to make the throw as opposed to handing the ball to the catcher during my time watching baseball. I don't notice. I don't know if that's true, obviously, but just my intuitive sense is that you're a little less likely to get the throw back to the pitcher

than you once were. And I don't know, maybe the ball is being replaced so often now. There's so many foul balls in modern baseball. I guess you'd have to make more throws, maybe. Maybe their arms would get tired. So maybe they just hand off that responsibility. But yeah, I think there would be

some accommodation made and you could very easily just not do that if you were good at all the other aspects of the job. But I would guess that most of them do a little warm up, a little practice just to make sure they've still got it if they are someone who likes to make that throw. And yeah, there's potential for embarrassment there and it could be a point of pride. So you probably would want to just, you know, it's a physical activity. So not that I would advocate warming up necessarily prior to a physical activity, but I would advocate practicing your skills. Okay. Sam, Patreon supporter, this is relevant to what we were talking about with the Guardians earlier.

And this email, as you could probably tell, was from June, kind of before the Guardian's season turned around. So Sam was not in as good spirits as he probably was a few months later. But Sam said, I'm a Guardians fan. And over the past few years, I've seen some takes make the rounds to where I'm ready to call them recurring and not reactionary. There are three that I disagree with so strongly that reading them takes me to nails on a chalkboard territory. One, a belief that there is something dignified about winning with a low payroll. Two, the everyone is out to get us, us versus the world, victim sentiment shared by a lot of small market fans. Three, in the context of the 1948 title drought, winning a lot in the regular season is enough to consider the Guardians a successful and well-run organization.

Regarding item three, I saw a tweet pointing out that Cleveland has the seventh most wins since 2000. And I will say that I just updated that. And they now have the sixth most regular season wins since 2000, or including 2000, after the Yankees, the Dodgers, the Cardinals, the Red Sox and the Braves. They're one win ahead of the Giants, so they probably pass them after Sam's email. Every other team, he says, in the top 10 of that list, has at least one World Series ring, including the Angels, LOL, except Cleveland. I can't decide if that is a positive or negative thing.

On one hand, it's cool that they've won a lot of regular season games over the past 25 years. On the other hand, I don't think you can ignore just looking at your peers on a list and being the one team the room without a title and not have the takeaway be that you are doing something wrong. Just curious to get your two cents on that thought. So should Guardians fans be pleased that they have a lot of regular season wins over that span? Or should they look at the other teams in that same territory and say, yes, but we alone do not have a title. And thus, we should not take much pride or joy out of the regular season wins alone.

I'm of two minds about this because I, and I think we've talked about this before, many people have written about it, I want to encourage people to take greater joy and meaning out of regular season success. I think that losing sight of its value is to our detriment as enjoyers of the game. And so on the one hand, having a lot of regular season success is, I think, a tremendous joy to have your team feel like they're in it. And, you know, the guardians have been postseason staples as well. So I think that there's something to the idea of learning to savor that good regular season performance and find value in it. I also think that it's fine for fans to sort of division and expectation adjust that enjoyment. So it isn't wrong to note that some amount of the Guardian's regular season success has come as a result of playing in a pretty lousy division for a number of years, that they have been the beneficiaries of other teams in the central not being.

you know, particularly interested in contending or being interested in contending, but being content to contend. That's terrible against other clubs in their own division and, you know, then make a relatively quick exit come October. In some ways, you guys have it the best. Remember when you played in a World Series and then you lost and we opened an interdimensional portal to hell that we still haven't managed to close? So there's the central piece of it all. And then there's the fact that, you know, what could a team that is good at player development that is sort of savvy at extracting value at the margins? What could that team do if it were, you know, set free from the constraints of limited payroll? So I think, you know,

you can be both, right? You can be, I think, pleased at regular season success. You can acknowledge the value of that baseball and the joy that it brings you and still want more. I think that's fine too. You know, I think it's fine to note that there's nothing about playing on hard mode, which is what I think being as payroll constrained as Cleveland is. There's nothing about sort of advancing through the postseason under those constraints that makes the wins more exciting or noble, you know. So when you say, like, no, not everybody agrees with me, right? I think there are people who look at what the Dodgers have done and really do find it to be funny enough considering the team they're talking about sort of a cheapened endeavor because they're just

buying a World Series ring. Now, I don't think that's an accurate description of what the Dodgers are doing. And I don't think that deploying resources is, um, is cheap, you know, is less than. But I know there are people who disagree with that. But, you know, like, think about how easy it is to want good things for Jose Ramirez. So easy. He's such a delight. Nothing wrong with wanting that for him.

So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think you can be a have in terms of regular season wins and a have not in terms of titles and also payroll sometimes. Right. And you could be in both of those camps. And I think you can have a well-run front office that is constrained in spending. I don't know that I, if you say well-run organization, maybe that encompasses ownership. And so maybe I wouldn't go that far if ownership is constantly drawing the line.

I think one reason why it's frustrating for Guardians fans is that they are generally good. And they are generally in the neighborhood of contending. And yet they seem to never get the. infusion of funds that would allow them to really take the big swing. They managed to convince Ramirez to stay, but often they're trading someone, Lindor is leaving, they're not going and getting the free agent, how many years have they had obvious outfield holes that they had ample opportunity to fill just by throwing money at the problem and they didn't.

And so it's more frustrating, I guess, when you're constantly in the vicinity of contention and you can theoretically win a World Series finally and your ownership will not splurge will not come close to splurge and will not shell out that last little bit that might put you over the hump. So I think that is, in a way, extra frustrating, in another way, less frustrating because at least you're seeing a pretty good team most of the time.

It comes down to the old debate conversation we've had about, it's like, you know, is it better to have loved than loss, basically? It's like, is it better to make the playoffs? lose in horrendous fashion and be disappointed, or is it better to not even think that you're going to be good? But the downside of that is that you just have an entertaining baseball team to watch all years. It never gets your hopes up, but that's kind of a double-edged sword.

So ultimately, I'd rather have the team that's good. And they've done a good job of managing to be pretty good and not terrible perennially, even with low payrolls at times so they certainly have a knack for that but yeah no need to really valorize winning without spending it's just well if you're not going to spend it is better to win than not probably but for their sake i hope they do win a world series one of these centuries me too and and you know i do i want to make sure to distinguish between clubs that invest in other aspects of their operation in service of trying to win versus those that just seem like

they're being cheap across the board and that isn't to let the limited resource but still ambitious team off the hook for like making their lives harder but I do think that there's an appreciable difference between and the razor the example that we always point to here and I think they remain

a gold standard in this regard like the you know the teams that have good player development that draft well they are savvy in their trades versus those that just seem completely hapless. Like, there is a, there is a difference between those, because guess who you got to watch play postseason baseball this year, Cleveland Guardians? Guess who didn't? Pittsburgh Prides. You know,

that's a meaningful difference. Yeah. Okay. A couple paired ABS questions. Brian says I have what may be a slightly weird take on the ABS challenge system. I have long been in favor of some kind of ABS usage because I think catchers have too much of an advantage with framing. I agree with y'all that framing is cool. But my problem is there is no batter equivalent. you would sometimes hear about a guy that had such a good eye he would get calls but i feel like that is rare these days and applies to so few guys if it does exist and yeah i've seen some studies on that and i've pestered people about that is there a batter framing equivalent and it doesn't seem like there's much to that really that's uh actually repeatable or significant just in terms of

like getting extra calls because you have such a good eye or a great reputation or whatever it is it's certainly not to the extent that it is with catchers. And so, Brian says, a batter has no way to combat a good frame job. Until now, only batters should be able to challenge balls and strikes. Catchers get framing. Batters get challenges. Now we're on an even playing field. No, you're not on an even playing.

You have to receive the baseball. This is the part of this argument that never makes sense. You have to receive the baseball, right? And you can, by your receiving, negatively impact whether or not it is called a strike, we see that, right? Where a guy has to, sometimes it's because the, you know, the pitcher misdelivers the pitch so badly that the catcher has to reach across the zone to just get a hand on it. And even though they catch it as a strike, it gets called a ball because the umpire is interpreting that amount of action as them having missed badly to the point of it not being a strike, right? But guess what? It's fine.

It's not like bad calls only, first of all, not all frame jobs or bad calls. Many of them are just getting those pitches that are right on the border called strike, right? It's or keeping a strike a strike. But in terms of like blatant misses, those go in the hitter's favor too. It's not just going in the pitcher's direction. It's true. Yeah, I guess on balance it has hurt hitters probably. over the years because catchers have improved across the board.

And so they're getting more calls net net than they used to through receiving and framing because they've worked on that skill. And batters didn't really have a counter to that. They couldn't anti-frame as the catchers were improving their framing. And it's true that it's like out of their hands. It's out of their control. It's happening behind them. But everything's happening out of their control.

That's what the act of hitting is, you know? Like you're on the receiving end of the execution of the. other team. And so you just are at a natural disadvantage when it comes to that. It's true. But you can counter the pitch. Sure. You might not counter it effectively, but you can hit it or not. That's within your power theoretically. Whereas, yes, someone who's receiving a pitch behind you, there's not much you can do about that. You can anticipate it. You can and should study the scouting report for the umpire and the catcher and know where they're likely to get a call and and then respond to that sort of proactively.

Hitters peek. Hitters. They do. That's true, too. They are peek, peek, peeking all the time. Hitters are super peekers. Yeah. And if you, once you turn on.

You can't, you can't peek for framing. Because by the time you're turning around to look, the balls behind you. Yeah. Right. But I mean, I get what he's saying. I get it too, but I like framing. So shut up. Don't shut up.

That was rude of me. I'm with you there. It was rude. No, I'm with it. I'm with you, but, and Brian said he was a fan of framing, too, but I guess not to quite the same extent. The related question was from Neat, who says, admittedly, I'm more of a just get the call right kind of guy, but mostly for reasons I haven't heard discussed. To me, the two incorrect challenges per game introduce a load of concentration, strategy, and team dynamics issues. I hate that modern hitters will have to think about.

Regarding concentration, hitting, as you've often noted, feels impossible. I don't know how they do it, but now hitters will have one more thing to consider while they're up there. Regarding strategy, teams will inevitably become disappointed if they lose their challenge by the time big or late game moments come along. And I wonder if this will lead them to add some strange strategy to save their final challenge for those moments. Yeah, probably. I don't love either of those potential outcomes. The pitch clock only sped up the actual game of baseball, but these concentration and strategy issues would change the game of baseball. So I would rather have normal umpire called balls and strikes or have a computer do it.

But my least favorite potential outcome is team dynamics issues. If I'm Dalton rushing, rookie catcher for the Dodgers, I'm scared to death about incorrectly challenging a pitch while I'm batting, lest I get it wrong and take one away from Shohei Otani, Muki Betzer, Freddie Freeman. There's a natural pecking order on any team, so I wonder if lower-tiered players will feel comfortable utilizing the challenge or will even be directed not to do so. Do you think any of this will be an issue? Will hitters have no problem adding this to their approach at the plate? Do you like adding a strategy component to an already great game? Will these challenges create unintended clubhouse awkwardness? It's fun to talk about, and I think it's all going to be automated eventually.

But since you've seen and studied the challenge system, I would love to hear your thoughts about these issues if they even aren't issues in the first place. And yeah, for me, I don't disagree that this is adding strategy and complexity, but I like all of that. Right. That's part of why it's good. Yeah. I like it as an analyst and as someone who discusses baseball and likes to dig into it deeply. But I don't think hitters would look at it as a hardship. I think they would look at it as, if anything, they now have a counter. They have a way to fight back as Brian was framing, so to speak, the issue. And so I, you know, because you're already like paying attention to where the pitch is coming. you're already watching that and concentrating as closely as you can on the pitch location.

So it's not like an extra cognitive load, I wouldn't think, to then, I mean, then after the pitch is taken, you have to decide whether to challenge, but at that point, you're not worrying about having to hit. So I don't think that would be a big issue, but I think that it will be taken out of the batters hands effectively soon, quickly. Like, we've seen that dynamic in the minors, and I'm sure that it will happen in the majors, too, where it quickly becomes the standard for catchers to challenge just because they have a better view. They never let, they almost never let pitchers challenge. Yeah, right. Because, yeah, pitchers, their heads are moving, their bodies are moving.

They're thinking of all sorts of things. And they're biased more, not that the catcher's not a bit biased, but relative to the hit. in the pitcher, the catcher doesn't really have personal stats at stake aside from framing once. And so they can look at it slightly more objectively and just, yeah, have a better, more stable view and vantage point. And so I think quickly we will see, I'm not saying that some, you know, superstar hitter, veteran hitter won't still challenge from time to time if there's like a really egregious incident or something. But, and, you know, on offense, obviously you'll challenge if you're a hitter but but on defense i think it will quickly become standard

but i could see something like yeah if you're dalton rushing and you're hitting not catching and you're thinking do i want to use up a challenge here when we have all these great hall of fame level hitters maybe you would be a bit more wary and maybe you should be i guess depending on whether your sense of the strike zone is as strong as those guys is i would hope that it's not purely a seniority-based thing. Like, I wouldn't want a young hitter to be afraid of challenging on an obvious call, and I would want to send that message, hey, yeah, if you've got a no-douder here, then by all means do.

But you could be conscious of how many opportunities there are. I'm sure there will be cases late in games where someone runs out of challenges, and there's a close or an egregious call, and it's a high-leverage moment, and people won't like that, understandably, that there's no recourse. But I don't know how often that will happen because I do think teams will hoard their challenges a little bit. And if anything, they won't challenge as often as they should because they don't want to be caught without challenges in a situation like that. Yeah, I think that that's right. I imagine that they will be heavily concentrated toward the back innings, the last few innings.

And there will be leverage and sort of situational exceptions to that, certainly. but I think just your average challenge is likely to come later in the game than earlier. And then in terms of the dynamic with catchers, like I feel like that's probably something that has to get worked out between catchers and veteran pitchers anyway, right? Like there's the catcher's hitter component of it, but even just in terms of, you know, how do you navigate that when you're part of the battery, you know, Dalton has to figure that out for all manner of things, right? for operating the pitchcom,

not the actual physical operation of it, but being the guy to call a game, right? I think there's an adjustment period for that, regardless, and this is just one more thing. Yep, yep, and I think it's going to be fun, and I'm kind of happy that catcher value will be preserved, if not enhanced, which Dave, Davey Andrews wrote about recently for Fancrafts,

and Tom Tango did too, and he broke it down very succinctly at his site and said, in a challenge system, there will be about four challenge calls made, of which two are going to be correct, flipped, and two will be lost challenges call upheld, like in a standard game. Let's assume half the challenges will be by the offense and half the defense, although it'll be more by the defense and the catcher, as Tom notes.

So the average catcher will be one-in-one. Some catchers are going to be good at knowing which pitches to challenge, and so instead of being one-in-one, 50% correct, they might end up being 1.2 to 1.0, 55% correct. In other words, a good challenger will have an extra 0.2 incorrect calls per game corrected to go their way compared to the average catcher, and because they will be careful when they challenge going for the higher leverage, that might end up being worth the equivalent of 0.4 or 0.5 extra calls going their way. And yes, they will lose about 10 percent Tom estimates on the framing side, as some of the calls that go the catcher's way that shouldn't get overturned. but he calculates that it will probably work out to be the catchers being more valuable. And then we'll have to account for that. But, you know, I like to preserve the primacy of the catcher defensively in that very specialized skill set.

And so we'll still get some framing, but we'll get a little less of the very bad kind of call. Yeah. And then we'll have a new thing to analyze and a new way to accrue value via challenges. And then another thing we can analyze and project and assess the true talent of players when it comes to challenges. So I'm looking forward to all that complexity. For me, that is more of a selling point than a drawback. Plus, you'll get the very strange experience that I had a couple of times in Fall League where we had some umps who were very good. And there were multiple challenges in a game.

And they almost all went in the umpire's favor, right? they had called the baller strike correctly and people cheered the umpire ben people i heard a guy yell way to go blue and i'm like never in my entire life never in my entire life i had i heard a guy basically make grumbling noises like you're really gonna you're really gonna challenge this guy he's been having a great zone all day and i was like wow so we're we might be in a whole new frontier when it's all said that's so interesting they'll get extra recognition and validation even though the system is now set up to very publicly and visibly call out their heirs yep that's right all right well meg has some travel later this week in advance of the winter meetings which she will

be attending so i will not talk to her later this week or at least will not podcast with her but i will talk to you about what i don't know but we'll find out together sadly we recorded before the big news broke about Alec Manoa signing with the Angels. Not nearly as major news as the Devin Williams or John Brebeah signings. But I wish him well. I hope he bounces back. I'm sure the Angels are just the team to turn him around. There's buying low and there's buying really low. But man, Manoa was fun when he was good.

So I hope he gets good again. Maybe that's the sort of move that the Angels needed that financial flexibility for that they'll get if they can buy out Anthony Rendon, that big $1.95 million dollar Manoa move. A bigger move made even after that, even later breaking news. I swear so many transactions happen in a couple of hours after we finished recording. Just after East Coast business hours. Manoa, an ex-Bluejay, Cody Ponce, a current Blue J, or soon to be Blue J.

Ponce is coming back from Korea, signing with Toronto three years, $30 million. Wish I had taken the over on the 22 that MLB Trade Rumors predicted. I considered it. If you want to hear more about Ponce and his transformation and success in the KBO, check out episode 2397 from last month when we talked to Eric Langenhagen about him. I'm fairly bullish on Ponce. And now I'm very bullish on this Blue Jays rotation, which we were singing some praises of last time. Now you're talking Cis, Gossman, Berrios, Bieber, you savage, ponds, and good depth, too. That's six. And then you've got Ricky Tiedeman and Eric Lauer and Bauden-Francis, et cetera.

I don't know if all those guys will stay in the rotation or start the season in Toronto. I know that they were talking about moving Burrios to the bullpen last year, potential trade candidate too, but as of now, that is a good group. So the Blue Jays have not ceased spending. You may have made note of our new intro theme today. It's credited to the Spaghetti's, but that's the band name of none other than the aforementioned Davy Andrews of Fangraphs. Writer and Recorder of Edward Julianne, Are You Gonna Rule Again?

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