Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2411: The Ozone Player

Episode Date: December 9, 2025

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley deliver a correction to the preceding episode’s draft results, ponder the mystery of a bigger John Brebbia fan than Ben, remind listeners to sign up for EW Secret Santa, and banter about Sonny Gray, Brian Cashman, and gloriously nonsensical sports beefs, Bryce Harper’s ozone therapy, two trades centered on blocked prospects, and Jeff Kent’s Cooperstown induction. Audio intro: Sean .P, “Effectively Wild Theme” Audio outro: The Gagnés, “Effectively Wild Theme” Link to EWStats thread Link to competitions/drafts sheet Link to EWStats site Link to FanGraphs Walk-Off Link to Gray article 1 Link to Gray article 2 Link to Dobbins dad story Link to Schlittler article 1 Link to Schlittler article 2 Link to Cashman on Stanton Link to Harper Insta post Link to Baumann post about Harper Link to Baumann’s cycling newsletter Link to Redd post about Harper Link to Harper photo 1 Link to Harper photo 2 Link to Redd’s site Link to Ozone therapy wiki Link to Bastyr U wiki Link to FG post on Ford trade Link to FG post on Password trade Link to Pirates/Marlins spending story Link to 2025 team catcher WAR Link to team SP projections Link to Jay on Kent Link to Sheffield’s explanation Link to 2B JAWS Link to 2000 NL fWAR leaders Link to 2000 NL bWAR leaders Link to “C’mon, do something” meme Link to MLBTR on Wade 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

Hello, Hello, Hello, Hello, a baseball, infactes me wild, infactes me wild, infactes me wild,

I'm Ben Lindberg of the Ringer, rejoined by Meg Rally of FanGrafts, who is in lovely Orlando for the MLB winter meetings where as we speak on Monday afternoon, no major moves have happened except for Jeff Kent into Cooperstown. And even Jeff Kent is not actually moving to Cooperstown, presumably. Just a plaque of Jeff Kent will be hopefully a good likeness, but we'll see. I cannot believe how disrespectful you're being to Mike Soroka. I just like, I'm offended on behalf of his entire family. I had a whole little

Mike Ziroka thing planned and you were just like doesn't matter doesn't matter it's a big league deal Ben you have no respect for a big league deal but yes it has been quiet so far yes I was going to say it was going to blow up your spot because before we hit record

you were bemoaning the lack of moves so you're not exactly Miss Mike Soroka appreciator either yeah I mean I'm here for a good joke as we all know and I now desperately need them to trade for Mike Sorota, which, you know, unlikely, given that he's a Dodger now.

But give me a Soroka-Sorota mashup. I believe that Soroka is actually going by Michael Soroka, which perhaps indicates that he doesn't like all of our little jokes, but I'm going to keep enjoying the Mike Soroka potential. Or maybe I should just switch to, Mike Serota because we haven't quite tapped that well yet anyway. Or maybe Mike Saratka could come out of retirement. I'm just saying there's so many possibilities.

They're just so many. All we are limited by is our imaginations. Mike's with similar last names. Well, when and if something does happen, you can assign the Fangraph's reaction via your voice potentially instead of via

Slack message. So that will be completely different. And I'm sure you have some good David Appelman funded dinners on tap, which I'll wish that I could join. And if you have the Branzino, then I hope that it's not interrupted by a major signing this time. Thank you. Yeah, we got through our dinner last night, which was lovely, without any major interruption, no big signings or trades. So I am appreciative. I did not have Branzino, but that's because it wasn't on offer. But we had a lovely meal. You know, we're at an official Disney World property here, Ben, although for the real winter meetings heads, not the swan and

dolphin, which was the venue of choice for many years, although I never attended winter meetings there. This is my first Orlando winter meetings. We are at the Signia by Hilton, which, as we maybe discussed at one point on the pod, has inspired a low-level vibe of rebellion from the assembled baseball industry folks because where are my Marriott points nowhere to be found in this Hilton property. But yeah, we're here. It's a it poured last night. It was torrential. My hair can only be described as attempting to exit my head via humidity. So there's that. I can see the tower of terror just out the out the window here from the hotel. There it is. There's a tower. of terror. I don't think that we're going to have any opportunities to go into the parks.

But I can see that. I can see the Tower of Terror. There it is. Well, I would not be patronizing the Tower of Terror, even if I had time. I prefer not to be terrified, if possible. You're not a drop ride guy? No, not particularly. I do have some big news to break here on the podcast. Really, it's a correction to issue. Not a mistake of my own, of course, just a correction to relay, which is that on the last episode, which you were absent for due to travel, I was joined by our pal and former co-host Sam Miller. And I was also joined at the start of that episode by Effectively Wild Scorekeeper Chris Hannell, who wanted to remind me and Sam that we had conducted a draft of 25 and under pitchers

way back in the year 2015 on episode 669. and Chris told us what the results were of that draft. Or so we thought. Yeah. Yeah. So there was a miscalculation. So what happened here evidently, which Chris detailed on Blue Sky, the official EW stats account in something like an 11 post thread. If you want all the gory details, I will link to it here.

And you could give that account a follow if you care to. But there was a bit of a misread of some cells in a spreadsheet, evidently, because the surprising result seemed to be that I had been winning this draft for years. And then it seemed to turn out that Sam won, and that seemed to be a result of the warp model changing and that warp being calculated differently had changed the results and had bolstered Sam's draftees. It turns out that was not actually the case. What happened somehow was that Kendall Graveman's stats were confused with Carlos Martinez's stats. And so there was some warp misallocated because of this. And thus, I should have won and did win. And it was just a bit of a misread of the stats.

And this was noted by the eagle-eyed Raymond Chew. Chen, Patreon supporter, and effectively wild wikikeeper, who frequently spots my mistakes and tells me about them. But in a constructive way, of course, unfailingly. But this mistake led to Sam being labeled the winner when he was actually the loser and the actual final scores, according to Chris, were 74.3 wins above replacement player for my draftees and 63.7 for Sam. So Chris actually mentioned in that appearance that there seemed to be something wonky going on with Carlos Martinez, that his calculations had taken a huge hit and he had dropped by more than six warp. And what actually happened is that he went up by more than six warp. But Kendall Graveman's stats, somehow there was a substitute there. So it was a real roller coaster to be reminded that this draft had taken place at all, because I had not.

I thought about it for many a year and to be informed that I had lost and then to subsequently be informed that, in fact, I had won. So I experienced all the emotions. And don't worry, I will not monologue about this one at length because I'm not nearly as invested in this as I was in my minor league free agent draft triumph, which I will remind everyone, was not just that I won. It was the way that I won going 10 for 10 in case anyone forgot that that happened. That was that was why I took several victory laps. This one, I'll just say that the record has now been corrected, but I will gloat no further. Sure, sure. How refined of you, really.

As opposed to the last time when you behaved in a way that made me question whether you had been raised right, you know? I started having doubts about you and your entire family, Ben. But, yeah, I think that, you know, mistakes happen. We correct the record and we move on. Yeah, no big deal. Yeah, we had a nice time talking about it with Sam regardless. And we're all about accuracy here at Effectively Wild. So those are the actual results.

Now we know. And I have to report to you another result, which I'm somewhat miffed about because I was evidently the runner-up, really, in what is the most important competition, which is number of times visiting John Brebeah's FanGraphs Player page in 2025. You were the runner-up? I was number two. So for those who did not know, I've been wondering that all weekend. So the equivalent of Spotify wrapped in all the end-of-year podcast listening stats came out for fan-graphs last week for fan-grafts.

subscribers and supporters so fan graphs walk off you can check that out and it'll tell you your stats about all the pages you visited and the parts of the site and the authors you read and the player pages and all the rest and one of the fun things is that it tells you which player pages you visited most often and my top three my my top ones were very basic very standard errand judge show hey otani cow rally okay sure i'm the most normy fangraphs player page visitor, I can imagine. Number eight on my list, however, was John Brebeah. Right.

But I was not the most prolific Brebeah visitor in 2025. I was number two, having visited his page 21 times, which, and that's, you know, I don't know if I was logged in for 100% of my Brebeah visits, but let's say I was. Yeah. Who could have possibly outvisited me? could it have been John Brebia himself? Or maybe his agent? Or his agent?

And I'm sure that, you know, there's a strict secrecy and privacy and all the rest. And I just, you know, if we could pull some strings and I could just see under the hood here and, you know, you're seeing Appelman this week in Orlando. If you could maybe just ask Appelman, you know, check the IPs. Yeah. Is that, is it John Brebia himself? Because I'd feel fine about John Brebia visiting his own. player page more often than I did or his agent, someone who has a direct financial stake in John Brebia's performance.

I think that would be excusable for me to be the runner-up. But if there's just a bigger Brebeah fan out there who is not either Brebeah or affiliated with Brebeah, then that would disappoint me. So I'm just consumed. If there is a bigger Brebeah visitor out there, out yourself, tell me, show me the screenshots. I want to see the evidence. of you as the number one Brebeah, man.

You know, I'm, I'm sorry. I don't think that we can violate you for trust like that. Like, we, you know, we take seriously the notion of some amount of data privacy. So I don't think I can, but isn't it fun, though, to think, you know, sure, the likely answer, Ben, the likely answer is that it's either Brebia himself or based on sort of the, the vibe of the man that we've gotten, both from other coverage and your conversation with him, more likely his agent, because Brebeah didn't strike me as the kind of guy to dwell on his own player page, you know?

No, definitely it could be a frequent fan grafts visitor, though. So I would hope that he's a paying subscriber, you know. I mean, look, let's be honest, if I were a player, I would be visiting my fancraft's page pretty often. Oh, sure. And I don't mean to say that I'm, look, I don't mean to say that there would be anything wrong with interrogating one's own player page and even delighting in it. But he just doesn't, he didn't strike me as the type. You know, he didn't seem like a guy who was going to be, despite being a guy who has fluency in, you know, stats and whatnot, it doesn't seem put off by them. But it just didn't seem like the kind of guy to be like, oh, I got to go check. Also, perhaps one would want to avoid one's stats if they looked like John Brebe is in 2025. Sorry, John. Yeah. But isn't it more fun to imagine than rather than it being Brebe as agent, or as a man himself,

but Brebeas agent in all likelihood, that perhaps it is some other enthusiastic fan of the podcast who has now become an enthusiastic fan of John Brebeah? your advocacy on Brebeya's behalf. That is a nice thought. Yeah. Or there's just a bigger Brebia fan who got to Brebia way before I did and is like, oh, now you've just discovered John Brebia. Finally, you're the John come lately, I guess, to John Brebeah. I mean, it's, yeah, I'd like to think that there's someone out there who's just as into John Brebeah as me without actually being John Brebeah.

So it's possible. but I was a little perplexed by that result. Here's a more predictable result. Another nice thing is it gives you a little awards and it tells you which parts of the site and where you've ranked overall. I got a little award for visiting all of my quote-unquote articles in 2025 because I pitched a perfect game.

If you read all of one author's articles, then it says, perfect game. And it gives you a little logo with a star. And so I went 144 for 144. And, of course, I couldn't have been otherwise because I post the podcast myself. And so I have to go to my pages because it's the only way that the podcast gets posted. So, yeah. Yeah, it's not that I'm just obsessed with myself necessarily, or at least this is not a manifestation of that.

It's purely a product of my posting the podcast. But I enjoyed that I got the little perfect game. I would guess I'm the only person who got a perfect game for Ben Lindberg posts at Fancrafts who went 144 for 144 on the podcast posts because, you know, you don't actually have to go to the post. You can download the podcast elsewhere. Right, right. Sure, sure, sure, sure. Yeah.

Okay. Also, I will just remind everyone that effectively wild secret Santa, you still have a chance to sign up if you care to. But registration ends this Wednesday, December 10th. So you've got to sign up in the next couple days if you want to. I already have. It's a nice little thing every year for the effectively wild community. Whoever chooses to participate, you get randomly assigned someone else in the community who signs up and you can send them a little gift. I think it's like a $25 suggested maximum, but you can do whatever you want.

Just send a little gift and hopefully get it to your recipient before or by or around Christmas time. And as I will always say, if you do intend to sign up, please only sign up if you intend to follow through. Do not give your recipient coal. Just every now and then, you know, there's some risk you sign up. It's just on the honor system. We can't really penalize people who sign up and don't deliver. The vast majority do, I think. I always do and I always get something.

But some people get skunked every year and it stinks. So don't be the person who signs up and then leaves someone. giftless. But if you do intend to participate, it's a fun thing. And you're welcome to post photos in the Discord group or the Facebook group if you care to, but no requirement to. But yeah, spread some baseball holiday cheer with a fellow podcast listener if you care to. And you can check the sign-up sheet, which is linked on the aforementioned podcast post or in the episode description, in your podcast app, wherever it's there. And this has been run by an effectively wild listener, Zach Wenco's for many a year now.

And I like it. I like that it still happens. So, yeah, get your sign up in now if you are going to. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. Okay. So we have a little bit of baseball news to discuss a few trades or a couple trades that I want to touch on that happened last week that have not been discussed on the podcast. And we could talk a little bit of Jeff Kent. And also, can I just touch on sort of the dumbest drama that I've enjoyed lately?

Oh, sure. Yeah. So I always appreciate when a player goes to a team and then panders to that team's fan base, especially if that team has a real natural rival and really leans into that rivalry. And that has happened with Sunny Gray, who was traded to the Red Sox and immediately came out and kind of trashed the Yankees. And, of course, he is a former Yankee. And his time in New York didn't go great. He didn't seem to be happy there.

He didn't pitch his best, and then he moved on. And he came out and said, New York, it just wasn't a good situation for me. It wasn't a great setup for me and my family. I never wanted to go there in the first place when I was there, which was from mid-2017 through 2018. It just didn't really work for who I am. Yeah. And then he said it was an immediate yes when he learned that the Cardinals wanted to trade him to Boston. What did factor into my decision to come to Boston, it feels good to me to go to a

place now where, you know what, it's easy to hate the Yankees, right? It's easy to go out and have that rivalry and go into it with full force, full steam ahead. I like the challenge. So, I mean, what could you do to endear yourself to the Red Sox fan base than to say, yeah, I was a Yankee at one time, but I didn't like it, couldn't wait to get out of there, and now I'm happy to take the fight to them and to be on the other side of the Red Sox Yankees rivalry. I mean, you know, good messaging, right? A good way to ingratiate yourself. I guess he did say, I do appreciate my time in New York.

He said that at some point. But mostly he was like, Yankee sucks, New York sucks. So down with the Yankees, let's take them down. Okay. And if it had ended there, fine, whatever, you know, would have been tabloid fodder in New York and probably when Sunny Gray pitches against the Yankees so people would regurgitate it on the back page of the post

or on talk radio or whatever it is. However, I did not account for Brian Cashman and the potent force of off-season Brian Cashman who will just say whatever. And I've celebrated this aspect of Brian Casper before. He just doesn't care. He'll say whatever. Like, he's more frank.

I think, than the typical baseball executive because he's been doing this job for so long. So long. Yeah. And he has such job security. And he can just, he can shoot from the hip a little bit. He can, he can say things. He will be more open about things than other executives. And, you know, sometimes it'll just be how he'll basically acknowledge that, yeah, Jean-Cross, Dan, he's going to get hurt at some point.

We know that. You know, he'll just say things like that. And sometimes he'll kind of. bad mouth players a little bit and it's fun like he's you know kind of combative like not in like a really vindictive like but you know he'll go toe to toe with the media a little bit and kind of rag on people a little bit and and i enjoy that and so he comes out it's like the petty brian cashman you know yeah and he's not going to let these sunny gray comment stand so he fires back I mean, I don't know if he volunteered this or he was asked maybe,

but he's talking to reporters at the winter meetings on Sunday. And he basically says that Sunny Gray was lying about never wanting to pitch in New York. Yeah. So he says, when he was with the A's, he was telling our minor league video coordinator, you got to get me over to the Yankees, Cashman said. Tell Cash, get me over to the Yankees. I want out of Oakland, I want a championship. He went on to say that Gray was communicating that to a number of different people

that he wants to be a Yankee. And then Cashman disclosed in his second season in the Bronx. Gray told Cashman that he was surprised that the Yankees hadn't traded him at the 2018 deadline. And Cashman said, that's when he told me he never wanted to be here. He hates New York. This is the worst place. He just sits in his hotel room. And then Cashman says when he reminded Gray that he had told people he wanted to be traded to the Yankees, Gray then blamed his agent, Bo McKinness.

So we got people throwing people under the bus in every direction. McKinness told me to do that, Gray said, according to Cashman, Cashman said, Gray told him McKinness told me to lie because it wouldn't be good for my free agency to say there's certain places that I don't want to go to. And then the next act, there's another chapter in this saga of where Sonny Gray said he wanted to play and actually wanted to play. Bo McKinness, now he's had his honor and his integrity impugent. So he has to put out a statement. And he says to the athletic, in 2017, Sunny did not have no trade rights with the Okinaise. So he had no legal right to have input as to where he would be traded or if he would be traded. as such he made no statement that he did or did not want to be traded to any specific team.

And thus, there was no statement that could have included a lie. The athletics had no obligation to inform Sonny of any trade communications they had with other clubs. So they never told him they were potentially trading him to any particular team. As an aside, if a player does not want to play for a particular club, thus potentially not performing at their best if they were with that team, it does not help their career and future free agency to lie their way into a trade to that club. Then the story says, a short while later, McKinness sent another message to the athletic. So not content with that original statement. He elaborates and says,

So Brian is trying to make people believe I told Sonny to, in Cashman's words, lie to the minor league video guide to try to get Sonny to the Yankees, even though per Cashman, Sonny did not want to be with the Yankees, to subsequently somehow help Sonny's free agency. This makes zero sense. Further, the words, I want. out of Oakland have never been said by Sonny, he loved his time with the ace. Cashman goes on to say that he told Gray that he wished that Gray had told him beforehand

that he didn't want to be in New York, that they tried to do their homework, I guess their homework didn't turn up that Sunny Gray hates New York, and Sunny Gray in his introductory press conference upon becoming a Yankee, said I couldn't be happier with how it all played out, and I couldn't be happier to be there, which we now know couldn't be true. He could have been happier. I mean, I guess I couldn't be happier to be there. I guess if you to be here, if you parse that, that could mean that he's actually unhappy to be there, but he couldn't be happier to be there.

Like, there's no way he could be happy about it. So he's actually miserable, but that's the happiest he could possibly be. But he also said, I couldn't be happier with how it all played out, which would seem to be contradicted by his subsequent statements. So we have, yeah, we have Sunny Gray asserting something. We have Brian Cashman asserting that Sunny Gray lied. We then have McKinness, Gray's agent, asserting that Cashman lied about what Sunny Gray said about where he did or didn't want to play. This is my favorite low-stakes off-season drama so far because this is all so silly and mostly meaningless.

But it seems to be pretty important to the people involved. Okay. I don't want to imply intent, like that there is an intent to deceive on anyone's part involved in this. But here's a question for you. How reliable do you think that either of their memories are of some of these events? Because it strikes me, one thing about the Cashman of it all that struck me as odd, is the notion that Sunny Gray would refer to Brian Cashman as, cash prior to him being a member of the Yankees. That seems a little odd to me. That seems potentially unlikely. And so I just, I, I'm

wondering, you know? I'm wondering about whether people are remembering all of the things correctly in this and the sequence. And ultimately there is a big like kind of I feel like if the team on the

other end of the I didn't like get there and never wanted to be and don't care for New York, was any other team but the Yankees that we wouldn't have really gotten any turn on this, right? It is a very Yankees

specific sort of situation potentially. So I just don't know, you know? Yeah, because it stands in contrast to the typical I always wanted to put on the pinstripes. There's nothing like the pinstripes. There's nothing like New York.

And so, yeah, it's like we got to stand up for the honor of the city and the franchise. Yeah. Or, yeah, kind of cast aspersions on the character of someone who would not want to be a Yankee because who couldn't possibly want to be one. Oh, my God. Yeah. It's possible that in putting the word cash in Gray's mouth, maybe it's a paraphrase. Maybe Gray didn't actually say cash and he wasn't quoting. him saying cash but just kind of referring to himself as cash or i guess i don't know a lot of people

in baseball probably call cashman cash but i don't know if you didn't know him and hadn't play for his team maybe it would be weird to call him cash but i don't know it's not a smoking gun in my mind i'm inclined to believe cashman i guess just because i have found him to be fairly frank when it comes to this sort of thing though i guess he has some motivation to You know, because this is a trade that didn't really work out that well for the Yankees. Yeah, so to kind of make Gray seem duplicitous or make it seem like Cashman was snookered into trading for Gray or misled into thinking that he really wanted to be a Yankee when, in fact, he had reservations the whole time. Right. I mean, I guess what doesn't seem to be in dispute is that Gray did not want to be a Yankee, and he did say at least publicly that he was happy to be a Yankee.

now what else are you going to say i guess if you get traded to that team you know he didn't have a say in being traded there and so if he came out and said well this sucks i didn't want to be here that's generally not the best PR strategy much better to say yeah i love being here and i can't wait to stick it to your historic rivals but yeah this is all just so silly and it adds fuel to the fire of the rivalry and we'll add another layer of intrigue when gray pitches against the Yankees. And this is why I think it's good to have rivalries in sports, because we just get nonsense like this. And it gets blown up into being meaningful and who that cares really. But it's just, you know, another little layer on top of the decades of

Yankees, Red Sox rivalry. It just gets blown all out of proportion because in sucking up to your team and its fan base, then you have to just, you have to dump on the rival. And then the rival fires back. And now you have to question, well, does Gray really want to be in Boston? Does he really, does he love being on the Red Sox? Does he really want to stick it to the Yankees? Is he an unreliable narrator? Well, he say whatever you want to hear because he knows how to worm his way in because he's all about just making you think pulling the wool over your eyes and then later we'll find out he never wanted to be in Boston either. I mean, in this case, he did have to waive a no trade clause. So he did have an opportunity not to be in Boston.

Yeah, yeah. I think that I do think that there is like some amount of buy-in here that is unusual relative to your typical trade because he did have to wave the no trade clause. So if he had really wanted to throw his weight around, he supposedly could have. But I don't, I think it's fun. I think there should be more, I don't know, I don't want people to be jerks. But I've been watching, you know, we were into conference championship play for college football. And I watched the Indiana Ohio State game. And, you know, Indiana won and this big exciting thing. And da, da, da, da, and they're talking to the quarterback, Indiana's quarterback after. And, you know, these dudes are, like, media trained to within an inch of their lives. Yeah. And it just results in them really saying nothing, you know, which is part of what they're trying to do. They're trying as best they can to not say anything that you remember at all, right?

But it makes for really boring interviews. It makes for really boring, you know, engagement. And so I just think that it was, I don't know, I think that it's nice when they're like kind of a little bit nasty about it, you know? And that can be fun. Now, it's high stakes, right? Because, or it, I mean, to be clear, it's the lowest possible stakes. But within the realm of trash talking, to talk, I'm going to do swear. To talk about the Yankees, when you are now a member of the Boston Red Sox, you know, I said that this back and forth doesn't get much play if the Yankees aren't the team on the other end of it, but the Yankees are the team on the other end of it.

And Gray famously now plays for the Boston Red Sox. He's going to hear about this every time he pitches in the Bronx. Oh, yeah. Right? Like, every time. And if he has a bad start, it's going to be loud and brutal, and they will be very rude about it. And so I just think that it denotes a real confidence and is hilarious. And so there you go.

Yeah, Yankees fans and really any fan, but Yankees fans perhaps in particular, they don't like to be spurned like this. And especially by a guy who didn't pitch up to his usual standards in New York. And this just adds fuel to the fire of like, well, he couldn't hack it in New York. He was not built for New York. That's why he hated it so much because he just didn't have the mindset. said he didn't have the temperament. But think of all of the storylines that the Yankees Red Sox rivalry has given us this year, this drama, this back and forth. And then we had the Cam Schlittler back and forth about how, you know, he grew up in Massachusetts.

And his family and friends were on the other side of the rivalry. And then the whole conversation about, well, could they actually root for him having been Red Sox fans before or could they root for him but not root for the Yankees? And then there was, like, Twitter beef and, like, people tweeting at his mom and all this, you know, direct messages and all this, all this drama about that bad mouthing and beef. Yeah. And then there was the weird Hunter Dobbins story where Hunter. Oh, yeah, with his dad. Yeah, Hunter Dobbins was like, I'd rather retire than be a Yankee. And then it was all about how there was this, like, generational beef that he had inherited from his father, Lance Dobbins.

but then it turned out that there's like no reason for Lance Dobbins to have had this beef and that either he had exaggerated his record or Hunter had misunderstood it or whatever it is. All of this nonsense comes out of this rivalry. And this is what sports is all about. I mean, yeah, it's also about like the games and the winners and losers. But it's also about the trash talk and all the cultural aspects. And so what could be better than this stupid stuff? of it. Yeah. And it's like, you know, it's, it's calibrated right because I guess you could

interpret Gray. I mean, he is like trashing the entire organization, but like the person responding to him is the GM. And so it's like Gray is like picking on some, I don't know, dev coach or whatever. And it's like, that guy's, no, he barely hits them all. And Cashman is the embodiment of it. So it like generalizes it, but specifies it in an important. way and he started it so cashman's like within his rights to say something i don't know i think it's perfect um i think it's great and something about look uh sunny guy's not a big dude sunny gray isn't a big guy sunny guy no that's not right sunny gray sunny gray is not a big guy by professional athlete standards right and so there's something about like a shorter

statured pitcher being kind of red assy about it that also adds a dynamic that's good, you know, and then cash, I would never, I would never feel comfortable calling him that. It feels unprofessional, like to his face, you know, as a immediate member to be like, hey, Cash, it's like, no, that's wrong. That's not right at all. A lot of them do. Yeah. Yeah. So, I don't know. I think it's, it's pitched in just the right way, because there are times when trash talk can feel overly mean, right? There are, there are moments where you're like, Okay, hang on now. Hang on now. But this isn't one of those. You get to punch up at the Yankees. And granted, he's a professional baseball player. And he plays for the Boston Red Sox. So it's not as if, you know, he's a Pittsburgh pirate or anything. But it's like, I don't know, you get into the rivalry. And I like it. I think it's good. Me too. Okay. Another little bit of offseason drama that we could perhaps touch on. Should we talk a bit about Bryce Harper and how he's doing? Oh, we sure should.

Whether he's okay, because he's not, I mean, Ben, we can answer that question definitively right off the bat. Is he okay? Absolutely not. Well, we know that his blood is bursting with ozone, so I don't know whether that's a good or bad thing, but I lean toward the ladder. So we have kind of clowned, to use a Bryce phrase, clowned on the raw milk advocacy. And we've talked about how Bryce Harper has kind of become this, like, neuropay.

Homeopathic, homeopathic, healing, like sort of woo-woo, you know, just health influencer kind of guy. Like, he's, you know. It's all very maha-coded, you know? Yeah, he's put it that way. Very like, yeah, the raw milk and the hydrogen water and just all this. And it's, you know, he's had a few photos come out. And I don't want to, like, pick on a player's appearance too much. But it's raised some eyebrows.

as it's taken people aback, both because at least in one recent photo, he seemed to have lost a considerable amount of Wade, at least it appeared that way. And, you know, he's been a big strapping guy historically. And also seems to have aged facially and, you know, who among us has not. But, and baseball players, they get a lot of sun, you know, can make you look weathered. But the crow's feet, they have. really spread significantly noticeably in Bryce's case. I don't know whether any of this is connected, to be clear,

but it's just he has a bit of a mountain man look going on, and it's not just the facial hair, but I don't know, something about his appearance. He seems to look a little older than his years subjectively and older than he used to, which obviously he is, but he's not old. You know, Bryce Harper, he's, 33, right? He turned 33 recently.

Right. Anyway. That's all perhaps related, but perhaps beside the point. But he seems very into these alternative treatments. And the latest is ozone therapy. And to be clear, he's not, it's not like coming to light in some expose or something. He's putting this out there. No, he's posting it on Instagram.

Yeah. He wants everyone to know about this. He wants everyone to know. So we're not like doing anything invasive. or digging into his private life or his medicals or anything. He's broadcasting this very much. And so he put on Instagram

this photo of him lying in a chair with just like blood coming out of him and into him simultaneously, blood being cycled, filtered, outside of his body, a procedure that I was not familiar with,

I think, for good reason. Because you go to an actual doctor, then. Right. you go to an actual doctor, credentials. But I've become familiar with in recent days. But yes, it's ozone therapy. It goes by other names.

According to his post, it's a procedure in which one third of your blood is drawn from your body. That's a bad start right there. That's a lot of your blood. That's a lot of your blood. And to be clear, it's replaced because if it were not replaced, that would be potentially fatal. That's a lot of blood. A third of your blood. Ben.

Yeah, but it's drawn from your body, pass through a quote-unquote filtration and ozonation device, and then returned to your bloodstream. According to Bryce, circulates your blood outside your body, exposes the blood to ozone, 03, and will oxygenate or filter the blood before returning it to you. This will improve circulation, reduce inflammation, fight infection, support immune function, and remove toxins, increase energy. Sounds great. I'm sold.

Is there any evidence that this works? Nope. Not exactly. No, this is not FDA approved. It's seemingly... Not even this FDA. Yeah, it's seemingly been widely debunked. It sure seems to be snake oil.

And, you know, look, there are things that are outside of the medical establishment. Sure. Everything that's in the medical establishment, establishment was at one point outside of the medical establishment, I suppose. And there are things that the medical establishment frowned upon and jeered at. And then subsequently, it was discovered that, no, there was actually some merit to this. So, you know, you can't immediately rule out everything just because it's not FDA approved, I guess. But what studies there are do not seem to confirm that there is any efficacy to this.

And the person who is administering this treatment to Bryce, just the credentials don't speak to me as someone who I would necessarily want to entrust a third of my blood to, just saying. And, you know, like a guy who became a doctor of, he was a chiropractic doctor. That's like what his degree is in, which I don't think. is really related to having your blood drawn and filtered. So, you know, like health and wellness type of guy. And I'm just imagining if you're the Phillies and you're seeing this post. Or, you know, Price Harper's like friends and family, but for all I know, they recommended this to him.

But if you're like the Phillies and this is a player you're counting on and have made a major investment in, and suddenly you see him doing some sort of like Silicon Valley weirdo-wanky treatment. I would have some concerns. I don't really know what the policies are when it comes to, like, does he have to get approval to do this? Like, does he have to inform the Phillies if he's getting some sort of medical procedure? Did they green light this? I have no idea.

But it's a somewhat concerning turn that Mr. Harper has taken here. Uh-huh. Okay, so I have, I, oh, Ben, oh, Ben, boy do I have some, boy do I have some things to say about this. So you're right. The, the history of modern, quote unquote, Western medicine is rife with treatments that are misunderstood and then become legitimate. And the way they become legitimate is through scientific rigor. And process through careful peer-reviewed studies, through, in some cases, large-scale clinical trials. They don't tend to involve, like, a weirdo chiropractor who's not an MD, take him third of your blood out and saying, this is good, you should put this on Instagram the way you'd put on, like, you know, getting your first pumpkin spice latte of the fall.

And so I don't want to, I don't want to make any sort of claim that there aren't problems, shall we? we say with major medical. They sure are. They're sure. But guess what? They don't have all taken a third of your blood out from some chiropractor. Yeah. He doesn't have a medical degree.

Yeah. If I were the Phillies, I would be incredibly concerned about this. And here's the thing. I have no idea. I am not a doctor. And so I will not assert the potential drawbacks of a treatment like this other than the obvious, like, hey, you took a third of your blood out of your body and are putting it back in. That seems bad, you know?

Your blood, famously, it's better when it's in your body. You know, it's like a good thing to have it be in your body. But so that piece of it, I don't want to assert that I know exactly what this will do to him. You know, I guess if you're the, if you're the Phillies, the thing you're rooting for is that it does nothing. Yes. Right. Because it's almost certain to not do the things that he is claiming it does, but we don't, I don't know. I don't know.

It seems, I know that ozone is bad in general. You don't want ozone. You know, we do all this work about ozone. So do you want ozone in your body? Seems like the answer to that is no. Right. That's the thing, whatever you hear about toxins. Now, there are certain things that are actual toxins and are toxic to you.

And ozone is one of them. It's one of those things. At least in some context. But when you hear remove toxins 90% of the time, it's just some kind of quackery, usually. Because it's like your body does a good job of things. filtering out toxins. Like, we have organs that do that, you know. Right. He's like, hey, I'm doing, you know, when he first put it up, I thought he was doing, like, voluntary dialysis or something.

And I was like, Bryce, I'm going to assume that you have functional kidneys. My guy is just let your kidneys do that work, filter out toxins. You have a liver, sir. You have a, so there's, if you're the Phillies. I just love it. Darren Dumbrosky's going to get asked about this. He's going to get asked about this. Rottonson's going to get asked about this.

They're going to be like, hey, where's all the Bryce's blood? Do you know? Bryce being rice. Where's that blood? What's going on here? You know, they're going to spend part of their manager availability, any GM availability they do talking about Bryce's blood. So that seems fantastic.

But if you're the Phillies, you're hoping that this doesn't really do anything at all. Yes. The part of it that's the most alarming, well, there are a couple of things, Ben, if we're being candid, there are a couple of things that are alarming about it, one of which is the third

of the blood out of the body part and then back into the body. It seems like too much blood out and in at the same time. It is suggestive of Bryce Harper operating in a truly horrifying information ecosystem, right?

For you to get to take a third of my blood out of my body, chiropractor, and please suggest that you are swimming in some real weird waters. And we already kind of had a sense of that, right? Because, again, this is a man who was like pasteurization, not for me, which seemed not good. This is a digression, and I will not dwell on it, but it is very weird to me.

I mean, it is weird to me. It's weird to me that the raw milk thing has caught on because you would think that if you're in this sort of woo space, the fact that it's just heating it up, it would appeal to you because it's natural, right? There's not an additive, you're not putting anything in the milk. You're just, I mean, I'm not saying they never put stuff in milk, but they're not, this process is just you're heating it up,

then you're going to back down. So that part of it I find concerning. But I worry about the other things Bryce Harper believes about his own well-being. I worry about the vectors of information he has to other potentially more damaging things. I think that, you know, I've seen before and afters floating around of Bryce. And like, look, that looks like 20 miles of bad road, brother. But also, sometimes people are comparing Bryce Harper today to like Bryce Harper. as a 19-year-old

debuting for the nationals. And I'm like, well, he's 33 now and has multiple children. Yeah, the photo of him as a 19-year-old on photo day with professional lighting versus him outside at 33. They are going to look different

even without raw milk being involved. So that feels like you're, this shit's weird enough. We don't have to grasp at that particular straw. But yeah, he looks like he has lost weight or mom. muscle mass, he kind of looks like the liver king. You know, he's got kind of, he's, he's trending in an alarming liver king direction. Well, yeah, the fact that you mentioned that, and I don't

mean to cast aspersions on what Harper is doing here. And this, you know, some people thought, oh, is this some sort of like cycling blood doping type thing? This is dope-e. I don't think it's doping. It's not performance-enhancing. You hope it's not performance-impering. But it does, does kind of concern you because if he's taking whatever advice to do this, is he being careful about whatever other procedures are being done or substances? You know, you'd hope that if he's taking any supplements from this person or anyone else, that he's getting those tested and cleared or whatever. But you kind of question the judgment. Like when you're in this alternative medicine space, like what else could that potentially lead him into? I'm just, I'm reading the

credentials of this guy, Dr. Josh Redd, on his website, and there's a lot of language on here. It says most recently he graduated from naturopathic medical school and completed his residency in regenerative medicine and stem cell injections through Bastille University, which is actually, I guess, in Kenmore, Washington, if you want to check it out sometime next time you're home. But it says some of Bastille's programs teach and research topics that are considered pseudoscience quackery. This is not still on his website, by the way. I'm on Wikipedia now. That would be amazing. Truth in advertising. Yeah, no, but pseudoscience, quackery and fake by the scientific and medical communities, numerous

citations. Quackwatch, a group against health fraud, put Bastier University on its list of questionable organizations as a school which is accredited but not recommended. And this guy's website does brag that he is managing the care of a growing number of professional athletes from around the world. It doesn't specify how many. It could be one, maybe zero grew to one, Bryce Harper. But it does say including those in the NFL, MLB, NBA, and professional soccer. In the U.S. and Europe, he helps them create medical plans for diet, nutrition, strength training, recovery, and for necessary medical interventions. When injured, it notes that he has treated numerous high-profile athletes from around the world, some with contracts exceeding 100 million. We know one of them,

at least. So one imagines that Word has circulated, much like Bryce Harper's blood in this machine, among these ultra-rich athletes, and they have lots of income to spare. And some of them spend that unwisely in ways that plunges them into debt. And some of them, I guess, circulate a third of their blood. Not great either way, seemingly. So you hope he's being careful. And, you know, I hope that this is not, like, in response to other ailments that we don't know about. And who knows what's happening with his health that has driven him to make these changes. Or whether this is, like, sort of a baseball midlife crisis kind of thing.

It's like, you know, he's still a good player, but not as great as he was. And we even had that conversation about the Dave Dombrovsky quotes earlier this offseason that kind of got blown out of proportion where Dumbowski was talking about. out how he's been better and he's maybe past his prime. Hopefully he'll be better again. So who knows, maybe that sort of stuff for a guy who was basically a baseball prodigy and was on the cover of Sports Illustrated when he's 16 and has been hailed as the great Bryce Harper since he was a teenager and has largely made good on that. You could imagine that when the skills start to slip a little bit, you know, maybe you cling

extra hard to them and someone says, I can make you young again. We just have to rid your system of these toxins, how you might be susceptible to that. But it parallels, you know, just to like extend it a bit. Like it parallels a trajectory that is pretty common for folks who end up in this, operating in this space. And I would argue being taken advantage of by operators in this space. Now, Bryce Harper is an incredibly wealthy. athlete, Bryce Harper has access to medical care that does not require him to engage in this sort of untested, unverified pseudoscience. And so I'll acknowledge the limitations of sort of the

analogy here, but the way that a lot of people end up pursuing this kind of, quote unquote, treatment is when they feel that they have been, they feel a degradation in their own health or, you know, in Harper's case, potentially in his performance as an athlete. And they are not satisfied with the solutions that are being offered to them by major medical, by mainstream sort of nutrition and training techniques.

And they are in search of alternatives that will help them to alleviate what else them. Now, for most people who find themselves sort of on that path, it's stuff like, you know, cancer treatment not working or they aren't being tended to in a health care system that is wildly flawed and not serving anyone particularly well. It's not, you know, I've lost 30 points of batting average or whatever, right? So again, like a strained comp potentially. And to your point, we don't know what is going on with Harper from a medical perspective away from. what we know of him as a baseball player who's, you know, hamstring strains or whatever get reported

on the injured list. But you get how people get in a mindset like this, but you hope there's someone to help pull them back and sort of ground them in something that is more concrete, more rigorous and less likely to result in in some sort of, you know, potential problem or catastrophe. Because like I said, the thing you're hoping for if you're the Phillies is that this is a bunch of nothing that doesn't do anything. But like any time, I don't want to overstate the risks to Bryce Harper, like as far as we know, all the blood's back in, right? But anytime you're getting stuck there's you run the risk of infection anytime you're pulling it there to your blood out of your body it seems like there's some sort of potential for something so this isn't stuff that like

people should just do willy-nilly particularly when they're being attended to by people who don't have i think appropriate credentials to be administering health care and the other thing i'd worry about if i were the fillies is like you know guys talk in locker rooms is brice Harper going to be the last raw milk drinking blood out of my body, Philly? Right. Like, you don't, you don't want this stuff to. Influential. He's a leader. Right. Yeah, he's a star. Right. And so there's, I just think that, that there is a good bit of, of Hocum involved here. And that's, that's not good, right? Like, you know, people, there are, I think, relatively benign beliefs in sort of, you know, the kind of crunchy granola alternate healthcare space. And I want to acknowledge what you said earlier once again, which is that, like, I don't think, you know, I'm not naive to the, to the perspective that there are likely to be beneficial treatments that, you know, are sort of.

naturopathic and were they to be put to a rigorous sort of peer-reviewed approach might stand up to scrutiny, right? I'm not out here like beating the drum for major medical, but I do think that there is stuff in that space that isn't benign. And if it inspires other people to pursue it, either because they are engaging in a treatment that is actively harmful to them or potentially eschewing treatments that have a recognized benefit in favor of untested speculative treatment. Like, this stuff can go fast in a bad direction. And I do wish that Harper would be more responsible with this stuff

because he does have a massive platform. And I think a lot of people who do not have his research, sources to backstop them in the event that this stuff doesn't work or leads to some sort of issue are at much greater risk to have it go sideways. And he seems completely indifferent to all of that. And I know that like his perspective on on major medical is having a moment and that moment is directing federal policy right now. But you know, it doesn't mean that it's that it's good or healthy and as sympathetic as I am to the frustration. that people have with our health care system.

She says as she prepares to pay two grand a year more in health care premiums, you know, I do think there needs to be pushback on this stuff. And like, there are jokes to be had here. And I hope everyone gets to have the experience of being like, isn't that blood doping? And then having Michael Bowman flip his lid on you because this is not blood doping.

And boy, will a guy who has a very good cycling substance. stack tell you about it yeah i don't think i don't know that he's on substack anymore but uh newsletters um but you know like once you're in these waters yeah it can be bad it can get really bad really fast and you know i have skincare products that i put on my face i call them my potion do they work i don't i don't fucking no man you know so we all have some susceptibility to the stuff, right? But there's woo and then there's woo. And some of the woo is, you should be enthusiastic about Brian Wu. You should not be enthusiastic about this woo. And I think given the option to voluntarily remove a bunch of your blood or keep it inside, I think keep it inside 100%

of the time. You know, that's the right answer, 100% of the time to keep the blood on the inside. I would say so. A third of your blood, Ben. Bryce Harper. Did he pass out while this was happening? Like, I know it went out and comes right back. It seems like it went out and came right back in, which, as Bowman told me, is one of the distinguishing characteristics from this being blood doping versus not,

because you're not doing the red blood cell production. Anyway, it's a lot of blood. That's too much of your blood. I want all my, I want all my blood inside. Wikipedia does say that it has been characterized as pure quackery. The therapy can cause serious adverse effects, including death. Now, you know, what kinds of therapy can't, I guess, right?

The best therapies can cause death in small numbers, but it doesn't seem like there are benefits here that make it worth whatever small risks there are. But, you know, maybe if you're Harper and you're an athlete and you've had people poking and prodding at your body parts your whole life, maybe it seems sort of normal to you. Bryce Harper has had PRP injections. He's had platelet rich, plasmatory,

and that's, you know, you take some blood out of you and you spin it around and you get the platelets all thick and just inject it back into yourself and hopefully it helps you heal a little bit more. So maybe he's thinking, you know, they take blood out, they put blood in. What's the difference, right? I mean, the quantity is, is the one difference. But this association seemingly goes back a bit. This post just went viral. But I'm looking at doctor, quote unquote, not medical Dr. Josh read Instagram, and I see a post from last November that says I've known Bryce and K. Harper for a few years now. They are so passionate about longevity, clean living, and optimizing their health. I'd even be willing to bet there isn't another athlete out there that

eats cleaner. They are both dialed. Anyway, this... They are both dialed. Yeah, not dialed in, just dialed. Diled. They go back a bit. So whatever this relationship is, it's not a new one for better or worse, but, you know, I'm assuming that this was not like someone the Phillies hooked him up with. We don't know exactly how this happened. Maybe we'll learn more. I'd be skeptical. Yeah, but yeah, what you were saying before about how people can fall prey to this sort of stuff, and it's easy, and you start Googling, and you go down a rabbit hole, and maybe you don't have great care, or, you know, you've been stymied by the medical establishment who hasn't believed in your symptoms, and so you turn to alternatives, and that happens. Yes. But if you're

If you're Bryce Harper, you know, I don't know if this is an indictment of him or the Phillies medical staff or either, but it suggests, like, if this was not done at the Phillies behest, then, like, what's the communication going on between Harper and the Phillies like? Like, does he trust their input? Because he has all the resources in the world, unlike most people. Not only does he have a lot of money, but he also... He has great insurance. Great insurance. He's got a medical staff that is devoted to keeping him healthy. He's got, you know, dietitians, I'm sure, nutritionists, trainers, all the rest. So if he wanted to get the skinny on like, does this actually work? What's the evidence here? What should I try? Yes. It's their job to help him with this and they have made a major investment in him. So if he has turned his back on that or if he has not explored those resources that are available to him, then I'm less forgiving of that than I am. for just average person who has average resources. I can only imagine the desperation that the Philly's medical director must be feeling in

these moments to be like, Bryce, buddy, I'll take your call on Christmas Day rather than have you do this shit, you know? And again, like, I have a tremendous amount of sympathy for, you know, the feeling of through no fault of your own, through the simple process of aging, just lose in a step. I feel the impact of that. I have had, like, you know, not dark thoughts, but, like, you grapple with, like, wow, is my back just going to feel like this for the rest of my life? And, like, I'm a baseball writer, you know, sit and I don't have to produce on the field, you know.

And so it's a thing that starts to stare you. you down a lot earlier in your life than you necessarily anticipate, right? And like, Harper's younger than I am. It's like, I'm going to be 40 next year. And like, I have back issues now. And anyway, I don't have to bore our listeners with my, my chart. But, you know, so I get how it can feel really disorienting. It, like, comes on you faster than you think it's going to, even when you're like, I'm, you know, I'm pretty active. And I take good care of myself. And I eat, you know, a balanced diet. and I don't overdo it on substances and all this stuff, right? And like, you can, you can feel like you got sideways on yourself in a way you didn't anticipate it at a much earlier age than you

were expecting. And so I have sympathy for that. And I can't imagine the pressure that he feels to be Bryce Harper, right? And so, like, I don't want my read of this to strike people as, like, completely uncharitable. But also, as you said, he just has so many people around him who are super invested in helping him figure out, like, how to be the best baseball player he possibly can be. And it's not like he's unplayable or anything. He had a 131 WRC plus last year, you know, like he still hit 27 home runs. And I know that he's dealt with injury and he's, He's had, you know, back and forth from the aisle over the last couple of years. And so, like, he's starting to be a baseball player in his mid-30s, right?

And to your point, when you've been, like, this golden god since you were 16, I can imagine that feeling profoundly destabilizing to, like, who you are as a person. There's no hiding from the contrast because you've been the best. And, yeah, any little tick of bat speed or foot speed or anything you lose, It's highly apparent to everyone. It's tracked. It's public knowledge. Yeah, it's tough to reckon with that.

And you got, you know, people on the internet, putting up pictures of you at 19 and 33 and saying, my God. And it's like, what am I supposed to look exactly the same as I did? Now, again, Bryce, buddy, you need some of my face potions because something not good is happening over here. So I don't want to downplay it either. But, you know, I have some sympathy. But he is just, there are a few people in the world more completely and profoundly backstopped by resource and expertise than this guy. And he is fall and prey to some real hooey. I want him to be a good baseball player because he's so fun to watch when he's on.

I want him to be well as a person, both physically and mentally. but I also want him to, you know, shoulder some responsibility for the platform he has and keep in mind the people who are not in the same position that he is, who aren't so well-tended and who are going to look at him and go, yeah, maybe I should put some raw milk in here, you know? And I would invite them to not do that. I would invite them to embrace paste pasteurization, keep your blood on the inside of your body, you know,

And there's just, like, so many red flags in that statement committed to longevity. Is that what he said? Yeah. Like, the Instagram algo of these people has to just be rancid, you know, as deep and dark as raw milk maybe, you know? Yeah. So, I don't know. There is a part of it that is objectively very funny. And then there is a part of it that is just like, oh, my God.

We're in such a freaking dark age for this stuff. And, you know, it's not good, Ben. It's not good. Be careful, Bryce. He's probably fine. He'll probably be fine. But I hope he'll be fine because I enjoy Bryce Harper's career. It's probably not going to do anything at all.

And who knows, maybe he'll have some, like, placebo effects experience. But it's like the likely benefit is nothing. And the grossest downside is that, like, this, I am clearly demonstrating how much respect I have for chiropractors and the way that I keep saying the word chiropractor, like it's a slur or something, but, you know, that this guy doesn't, like, clean his needles and then he gets, like, a flesh eating. That happens to people. Don't go to med spas either, everyone. You stay away from those med spas. You don't know who's in there doing what. You don't know where they've been.

I don't mean that in, like, a weird way. I just mean, you don't know what their credentials are. You stay away from med spas. They are everywhere in Arizona, Ben. There are so many med spas. I couldn't believe that they, John Holliver did a segment on med spas and I'm like, there's a lot of those Arizona in this than I anticipated there would be.

I thought there would be 100% more Arizona. We play a little game where we're like, are we going to be one of the bad states that gets illuminated on the map? And almost without fail, Ben, almost without fail. Yeah. Okay. I have a note about two trades that I don't have a tough. to say about, but I will lump them together because I think they're sort of similar in a way,

and that's the Mariners and Nationals trade, which is primarily Harry Ford to the Nats for Jose A. Ferrer and also a right-handed pitching prospect going to the Nationals, too. Their 10th rounder from last year, yeah. And then there's also the Pirates Red Sox trade as the big spender got some money to burn to do away with their grievances and change the revenue-sharing agreement. Pirates motivated to spend more than the pirates typically do. But they start off with a trade with the Red Sox. They send Johann Oviedo to Boston for primarily Yostinson Garcia, better known as password.

Password. Yes. And there are other prospects in this trade as well. But those are the headliners. And I think the similarity here is that the... headline prospect in each deal was blocked. And that's one of the time-honored ways that you get trades and trades of younger players is that there's just no path to playing time for them. So Harry Ford still a decent prospect for the Mariners. She's been a top 100 guy for a few years

running. And I mean, I guess a few years running, that's not always a good sign because it means that you have not yet lost your prospect eligibility. And maybe you haven't had a chance to because you are hopelessly blocked by Cal Raleigh, who never takes a day off, basically, and signed a six-year extension. And so where the heck are you going to play if you're Harry Ford? Yeah. And, you know, now they don't have a vacancy.

They signed Naylor to a long-term deal, too. So you can't really stick forward at first base or anything. I know they were kind of toying around with him as an outfielder. Yeah, first base would have been sort of a waste of Harry Ford's athleticism, in my opinion. And if you can catch, And he can, seemingly. He can be a competent catcher. Then he's of the most value doing that as long as he can.

And so he was not going to be of the most value to the Mariners. And so they traded him for Jose Ferrer, who, you know, was probably pretty under the radar because he was on the Nationals. Right. For one thing. And his surface level stats aren't particularly sterling. Yeah. Another just broken record, every pitcher we talk about these days.

Oh, ERA minus FIP. It's the same with Gray and Helsley. and Cease and Williams and all the rest, but same deal with Jose Ferrer. He has underperformed his FIP for now three years running. I mean, you know, parts of years at least, and his career ERA is 4.36, a run higher than his FIP, 3.33, and it was almost a run-and-a-half difference in 2025.

But he was the Nationals closer for a time, which, you know, says maybe more about the Nationals then it says about Frere, but I like Ferreira. He seems to be a guy with some potential, you know. High ground ball rate throws hard, what reliever doesn't these days. But, you know, through 76 and a third innings, decent strikeout rate for a guy who gets ground balls 60% of the time or more. Good walk rate, too. I mean, he kind of does it all.

And, you know, he even limited home runs last year. It's like I look at his stats. I think how did he not have a better ERA? And I guess it looks like he's had a low strand rate historically. So, you know, maybe there's kind of bad timing or something about pitching with runners on base or whatever. But like a lot of the numbers are pretty solid here. And he's 26 years old or 25. He hasn't even turned 26 yet under team control for what, four more years, something like that.

So, you know, kind of a good buy low candidate who could. maybe be a hard worker in that pen for years to come, and maybe they could even unlock a little more with him because he's been mostly a sinker-baller to this point, but he seems to have some good secondaries too. So I like that acquisition. You know, usually I guess I wouldn't love trading a good prospect who is a catcher for a reliever,

but when you consider the mitigating circumstances, I guess you could say, like, could they have gotten a better deal for Ford, either now or at some point in the past, but maybe this was what is available to them now. Yeah, I think, look, you know, Ford, I think, has been a trade candidate for them for the better part of a year now.

And I imagine that, you know, when they were making moves to try to upgrade the team at the deadline, he was probably floated as a potential prospect to be acquired. I can't believe this might mean that I get to live more of the Mitch Garver experience, but that part of it's less important. But I think that, you know, you're right.

Like, Cal is entrenched there in, you know, a profound way. So, you know, what are you going to do? They definitely need a left-handed arm out of that bullpen. They need a left-handed arm out of the bullpen in the playoffs. I think that when you take Ferrer through Mariners pitching dev and see what you get with him, that it makes that side of it more appealing. they aren't going to move any of the the infield prospects

like the non-catching infield prospects I don't think unless it's for something very significant. And so it seemed like a kind of straightforward swap in that regard. I like it for the nationals. I think that Harry Ford is

certainly a capable catcher. I don't think he's the best defensive catcher. But I also think that he is a sure upgrade over anything that the nationals have on board right now. You can't go into your next rebuilding or contention cycle with like Kiber Ruiz as your answer, right?

So they had to do something there. I think that they'll be able to give Ford a lot of big league run and kind of see what they have with him. The potential for a good left-handed reliever out of that bullpen when you have a team that is still very far from being like a postseason contender. makes fair sort of expendable from their perspective. So, you know, I thought it made better sense for both sides than it initially seemed. I think that you can, you can say that they are selling, they being the Mariners, a little low on Ford, while also acknowledging that, like, you know,

their top 100 prospects and their top 100 prospects, right? I think that that gets bandied about as if all of these guys are the same. And Ford ended up being, I think, you know, sort of higher up for us at the end of the year, but some of that is just like the relative strength of the minor leagues right now versus prior year. So, you know, he's a 50, but he's a 50. He's not, you know, the best catching prospect in baseball. He would have netted more if he were, but I thought it was fine, you know, and then, you know, you look at the Red Sox moves and it's like, oh, they dealt an outfielder to try to get help other places. Sure, they did. I mean, like, that's exactly what they should do. So I thought a lot of these, you know, all of these moves sort of made sense.

I think it's fine, you know, the real question is we have the password, but what are we going to call his brother? You know, we have to come up, we got to come up with a nickname for Garcia's brother because, I don't know if you know this, but he's got quite the first name also. Can't call him the password. That's already taken, Ben, you know? Yeah, it's true. Yeah, it's a bummer to me that K. Kbert Ruiz has just stagnated. I know. It's, I mean, stagnated is generous.

Like, it is bad. It's gone bad. It's gone real bad there. It's the framing is bad, but the hitting has not good either. It's, he was promising. He was the top prospect himself, and I thought would be pretty good at one point. And yeah, that has not turned out to be the case.

It hasn't turned out to be the case. I don't know if they will give him another shot or they'll just slot forward right in there because he hit decently at AAA. this season, and I don't know if that'll be a time share or if they'll just move on from Ruiz. Yeah. Yeah, we'll see. Anyway, the rotation that the Red Sox have assembled now actually rates as the number two projected rotation at fan graphs, according to Steamer.

So confusing. I know. Prochet, gray, Bayo, and then I don't know exactly. There's just a lot of guys after that and some guys who were heard. But you kind of put them all together. They're Sandoval and Cutter Crawford and Connolly Early and Kyle Harrison and now Oviedo's in the mix and Peyton Tolley and Hunter Dobbins. It's a lot of depth, I guess. I can't even really identify the bottom of the rotation versus number six and seven and eight.

But it runs pretty deep in guys who could credibly be a back of the rotation starter. And with Crochet and Gray, lifelong Yankee Hater, even when he was one, they have a pretty decent top of the rotation. So, yeah, and the pirates also sort of dealing from depth in that even post-Oviado, they have the number five projected rotation. And the Bouges are at number six. So they've made moves to supplement that, which we've talked about. A couple strong rotations in the Aal East there. I was thinking in Oviado, not that you could call them a prospect at this point, but I guess you never really can call a pitcher a blocked prospect. you'd never really say that a pitcher was blocked,

even if a team had a great rotation. Oh, yeah. You know, like, I guess it happens. Like, was Bubba Chandler kind of blocked? I don't know if he was blocked so much as he was just sort of left out. Right. But maybe he would say that he was blocked

or service time manipulated or something. But you can't really be blocked as a pitcher for very long because there are just many more... Yeah, there are many more roster spots for pitchers and so many pitchers get heard and you can slot in as a reliever, even if you're blocked in the rotation temporarily. So, yeah, pretty tough to be a blocked prospect as a pitcher.

But the pirates are sort of dealing from strength there, their relative strength, because their hitting is a weakness. So password is kind of a high risk, high reward, I guess, volatile type of prospect. But that's the kind of guy that the pirates should be acquiring. And there's just no way that he really would have broken into that red, talks outfield anytime soon. So makes sense. It makes sense, you know. It makes it no sense. What may or may not make sense to everyone. Lastly, is that Jeff Kent is a Hall of Famer.

Sure. He was elected by the Erez Committee, the only person who was on the ballot who passed muster this year. And I don't know how I feel. Mostly, I just kind of don't care anymore. But I think this is sort of illustrative of why I don't care, because it's just, it's such a confusing process and the standards are so different. Like, Jeff Kent is far from the least deserving Hall of Famer. Sure. He's better than a lot of players who are in the Hall of Fame and even have gotten in fairly recently. And if someone wanted to say that their Hall of Fame line is just below Jeff Kent and he clears it, that's okay. That's defensible.

You know, he's in the neighborhood, I guess, statistically speaking. speaking. So I wouldn't really rag on that pick purely in isolation. It's just that there's so many more deserving players who are still not in. And if you think he deserves it, then, you know, him not being the best possible inductee is not an argument against inducting him. But it's just so perplexing, even if you just look at second base, because, like, statistically speaking, his credentials, his war, his jaws or whatever, he's not really that. distinguishable from, say, Ian Kinsler, who went one and done on the ballot last year, or Dustin Padrella, who didn't go one and done, but had a slow start, or, and more glaringly, guys who were not even up for consideration. Like, he's clearly not as good as Lou Whitaker, or probably Willie Randolph, or Bobby Gritch, like all these guys who were on the short list of Cooperstown snubs and were not even eligible to be voted on in this era's committee meeting even though they could have been they were from the right era and then you know

you could lump chase out leave in there as well it's just why jeff kent i guess and i i guess i kind of understand why but there's just it's such a strange system where you have this kind of backdoor of the committee system which has righted some wrongs historically but has also just kind of rubber stamped some guys who had their day had their airing you know, we're on many a ballot and just were rejected by the writers, understandably, and then they just sail right in. And even, like, looking at the other players who were on this ballot with him, it's just kind of hard to figure out why, like, Kent got 14 votes.

So every, and it was 14 members on this committee, right? So every person. I think it's 16. 16. Okay. So 14 out of 16, that's right. 87.5% voted for Kent. Carlos Delgado was second with nine.

Yeah, he played surprisingly well. Jay Jaffe was quite surprised by his showing. Yeah, and then Nottingly got six. Dale Murphy got six. And it's just, it's like what separates Dale Murphy, for instance, from Carlos Delgado. And I don't really get it. I mean, Murphy didn't have a long career. He just, you know, tailed off.

I mean, tailed off, he just kind of cratered at a certain point, but still has, you know, like the good peak and has good credentials as Delgado. I just, and, you know, of course, if you're someone who thinks Bonds and Clemens should be in there, then it's just preposterous that Jeff Kent gets in and Barry Bonds. Bonds, Clemens, and Sheffield and Fernando Valenzuela got fewer than five votes, which means that they're not even eligible to be on the next Eras Committee balance. So the soonest they could be voted on again by this committee is 2031. And if they get fewer than five votes again that time, then they're off for good. Yeah. Unless they change the rules again. Right.

I was going to say that assumes that they don't change the committee rules, which boy, do they love to change the committee rules. Yeah. This under five votes thing is a new thing. Right. This year. Yeah. But it's, I mean, I get it. Like, you know, there's, you can make a coherent.

distinction between Jeff Kent and Barry Bonds. Like, obviously it seems sort of silly because Barry Bonds is so much better than Jeff Kent. And they were teammates for years. And Jeff Kent was maybe even partly kind of a product of Barry Bonds, like hitting behind Bonds and having Bonds on base ahead of him so much certainly helped him. And he took advantage of that, of course. But, you know, it kind of puts it in stark relief.

But, you know, if you want to say that Bonds is too tainted by PDs and also, like, off-the-field stuff, then that's consistent, at least, philosophically consistent. It's also, it's, you know, kind of like, what are we doing here? Like, what are we really recognizing? But if you want to go all in on character clause, okay, except that, like, Jeff Kent, you know, and he doesn't have the same demerits, either, like, in a baseball sense or personal life sense that Bonds and Clemens do.

But he was known as not a popular guy, not a, you know, very prickly with teammates and reporters and all the rest. And, of course, there was, you know, the time when he lied again about how he heard himself in a very silly way. So he's not someone you would really make a pro case for based on the character clause, unlike, say, Dale Murphy, who just no one has a negative word to say about. And he seems like, you know, everyone cites him as, well, if the character clause keeps people out, then it should also put people in. And maybe Dale Murphy could be that guy. I also feel bad for Gary Sheffield a little bit, just because he has been lumped in with all the PD people, and he seems to at least have a fairly credible case that he should not be lumped together with them.

That's the only evidence that he used is this, like, one small dollar amount check that went to Balco, but he was training with bonds at the time, and his story is that there was just one time, where he was training with Bonds and he hurt himself and like rip some stitches out and a trainer for Bonds applied the cream or the clear whatever it was and so

Yeah, I think there's the cream. Yeah, Sheffield did not knowingly use PEDs and that was the one time and who knows, of course, we'll never know, but you know he at least has a better argument for not having taken that stuff in a rampant way than some other guys do

and you know he was kind of just a favorite of mine as a player so i like if if he has been like tarred with that brush unfairly then that stinks for him but you know we'll never really know we'll never really know about anyone from that era but yeah it's just it's kind of a weird one it's just jeff kent i mean i guess but there are just so many other seemingly more deserving players that just weren't even under consideration for right who knows why I don't have any strong feelings about Jeff Kent one way or the other. I do think him getting on his own from this class is weird. I think it's a weird group.

And I had had some optimism about what this committee might sort of do because it didn't seem like it was being intentionally loaded to result in a particular outcome in the same way that some era committees are right like there are some connections between committee members and the guys on the ballot but it isn't like some of the years where you either have like a very vocal anti-pED contingent or you know a bunch of guys who played with or more executives with teams that some of the um the candidates played for so it felt like there was you know room for this to be sort of a more independent or honest process uh and i just thought it was odd. You know, I think that these guys, to your point, like, I don't know what I would

do if I had had a ballot while Bonds and Clemens were on the ballot, the writer's ballot. I find Jay's argument that, like, we should distinguish between guys who, you know, were around and potentially using or were tied to PEDs prior to their being a rule and a testing regime. We should distinguish those guys from like Alex Rodriguez who failed multiple tests and surf suspensions, right? That distinction makes sense to me. I don't know where I would have landed on the question because I never really had to consider it in a way that had my name behind it. But I get that distinction. I get if it's just a non-starter for you. I was really disappointed with Fernando Valenzuela's showing on this. You know, I think that we should be a bit more expansive in our understanding of like what these era committees are for and he was so important to the game in ways that went beyond, you know, a very good but probably not Hall of Fame worthy playing career. Yeah, I don't know. It's just a weird result. I find the whole thing very, very strange. I every year find myself approaching the committees, the, you know, the era committees with just like a posture of skepticism.

I don't know. I don't know if we're doing what we should with this. You know, I don't know that it is always ensuring that guys who sort of were hard luck exclusions are getting the consideration that they deserve. And, you know, the hall just seems so kind of brazen in the way that it is trying to like tilt to these committees away from, you know, someone like Bonds or Clemens ever really getting an honest and thorough. a bunch of consideration they want they don't want them in there they you know like it's so clear that they don't want them in there and you know it's their institution but it's weird to have them you know talking about like the the prestige and the honor and it meaning this great thing and then you're constantly changing the rules to keep you know guys like bonds out and I don't know I mean like who knows maybe they'll decide that they really don't want Pete Rose in there and then I'll be like, the wise and thoughtful committees with their perfect decisions and all of their integrity, you know, I don't want to say that any individual voter is necessarily doing anything wrong, but they can, you know, they can stack these groups in a way that guarantees a specific result, although maybe not, because they sure seem to want Don Mattingly in the Hall of Fame, and he hasn't gotten in yet. And I don't, I have not considered that question for myself.

But the way that they keep cycling some of these guys through, it's like, geez, just decide and put them in yourselves. Like, what are we doing? You know, like, you're rigging some of these. Ringing is probably too strong, but putting your thumb on the scale. But like, maybe just press down harder so we can get on with it. This is taking forever. Yeah. So.

Yeah, I guess Kent was kind of outspoken against PDU. So maybe that endeared him to the same people who don't want other guys who took steroids in. But I'm always sort of skeptical of players whose case rests on one fun fact, where it's just like most homers by a second baseman or most wins in the 1980s or something, which most homers by a second baseman is more impressive than most pitcher wins in the 1980s, which was trotted out there for Jack Morris all the time. It's valuable to hit lots of home runs, as Jeff Kent did. even if it's a position that you don't really associate with home runs.

And it's notable because second baseman don't hit a lot of home runs usually. But still, like, that was valuable that he did that. But, yeah, when you have to boil it down to that and you just hear that incessantly, it's almost like you're trying to get one over, you know? You're trying to kind of like do a little slight a hand or something, just hide the downsides of the case by pumping up this one fact that seems Cooperstown caliber. And it's always like when, you know, Kent gets in, probably that's heavily dependent on him having

been an MVP winner. If he never wins the MVP in 2000, then would he have been a Hall of Famer? And in no other year did he finish higher than six than MVP voting. And even then year 2000, he was fifth in National League war, according to both baseball reference and fan graphs, behind Barry Bond. incidentally. I guess it was just like, well, we can't give it to bonds every year. And Kent was close this year, at least. But if that award had gone in a different direction, then probably his candidacy doesn't advance to this point. So sometimes a decision that was made a quarter century ago, that then is the thing that gets a guy in. Anyway, yeah, I'm not really that upset about Kent getting in one way or another. It's more just about the inconsistency of it all. And the two different tracks. to get in and then even the inconsistency within the committee track. I've just sort of soured on the whole process, really.

And I feel like, you know, it's a tricky balance, right? Because there's like a process that has to happen. And so I know that our ability to like rapidly evaluate and elect guys is limited. Like the speed with which we want that to happen in some instances is going to outpace our ability to actually do it. it. If a guy is a Hall of Famer, I want him to be able to enjoy being inducted while he's alive. And so I appreciate why we need to have this like Hall of Fame like bycatch at the end where there's a committee process and we're making sure that guys who maybe didn't get the attention they deserved on the writer's ballot get their due. And so I want that to happen. I also am

conscious of the fact that there is like, you know, probably still a fair amount of of historical injustice that needs to be undone about guys who preceded, you know, integration, who preceded this, you know, who are part of an older committee process. And there is a committee process for that, but that they are not being like considered with the speed with which we might want them to. And so it's like, maybe we need to run the men in committees. Same time. Maybe it should always be a Hall of Fame season. Jay is like, please don't put this idea in the Hall of Fame said. but you know what I mean it's like it is a it is a tricky thing there are a lot of different interests that we're trying to balance here and you know some of these guys you know I think are being it's like they're not getting the attention they deserve on the errors committee everybody's candidacies got truncated to 10 years they're kind of getting done dirty at both ends of the of the process they won't let us vote for more than 10 You know, like, let the writers do more.

Let us, I mean, not you, not you. Yeah. I'm three years away, I think. Three years? Three years. I think it's three. Okay. I think I, I think I'm three.

Well, anyway. Maybe you can go down to the Hilton lobby and prod people with sticks, like in the, come on, do something, meme and make them make some moves so that we can have some more fresh transactions to talk about next time. You know, because we got, we got a podcast. again tomorrow. Get to it, teams. Ben, what are we going to talk about tomorrow?

We'll find out along with our listeners. Well, not a major move, but after we recorded, the Rangers did sign Tyler Wade to a minor league deal, crucially keeping him away from the Orioles Taylor Ward, as the offspring saying, you've got to keep him separated. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash Effectively Wild and signing up to pled some monthly or yearly amount

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