Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2412: It’s the Most Punderful Time of the Year

Episode Date: December 10, 2025

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley break down Scott Boras’s Winter Meetings wordplay and discuss the Kyle Schwarber and Edwin Díaz deals, a smattering of starting-pitcher signings, the Pirates as supposed spenders, the latest on the Ippei Mizuhara TV series, a Lane Kiffin canine conspiracy, and a Johanfran Garcia nickname. Audio intro: El Warren, “Effectively Wild Theme” Audio outro: Guy Russo, “Effectively Wild Theme” Link to Boras on EW Link to Boras on Imai Link to Boras on Suárez Link to Boras on Bregman Link to Boras on Alonso Link to more on Alonso Link to “Wood” song Link to Boras on Gallen Link to Boras on Skubal Link to Boras on Bellinger Link to Bellinger quote transcription Link to quote about news timing Link to FG post on Schwarber Link to NL fWAR leaders Link to FG post on Díaz Link to Friedman’s “heavy lifting” quote Link to over/under draft results Link to Pirates offer story Link to Boras on the Pirates Link to Pirates/Marlins spending story Link to Ippei show update Link to FG post on Matz Link to MLBTR on Grissom Link to MLBTR on Ponce Link to MLBTR on Weiss Link to MLBTR on Kay Link to MLBTR on Anderson Link to HUAL on Kiffin Link to Kiffin dog story 1 Link to Kiffin dog story 2 Link to report on Juice Link to post on Juice’s account Link to Cruella de Vil wiki Link to Garcia brothers story 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

It's Effectively Wild It's Effectively Wild With Ben and Back Back Rally Hello and welcome to episode 2412 of Effectively Wild A FanGrafts baseball podcast brought to by our Patreon supporters I'm Meg Rally of Fangraphs And I'm joined by Ben Lindberg of the Ringer, Ben

How are you? I am relieved that we have some stuff to talk about because we ended our last episode with me prodding you to tell teams to do something because we had to record the day after our preceding episode. Sometimes if enough news is not accrued in the interim can be a scramble. We have to dig deep, but we don't have to dig as deep as I feared because some news has happened as we record here on Tuesday afternoon. And, of course, I refer to one of the most powerful figures in baseball, entertaining the assembled writers with his latest puns. Yes, Scott Boris set up his little backdrop, and he delighted everyone with his latest lines.

And I assumed that you were not able to attend the Boris Scrum. Yeah, it was a busy time. Yeah. Because some other agencies stole Boris's thunder a bit by leaking news or news having happened while Boris was up there. The spotlight is on him, and then the news comes out that the Phillies have re-signed Kyle Schwerber. Yes. The Dodgers have signed in with Diaz.

Mm-hmm. And suddenly probably people had to flock elsewhere to file stories while Scott was still standing there doing his spiel. But we will give him his due here, as we always must. But, yeah, you had to scramble, I assume, to assign some posts. or get some people who pre-wrote posts to spruce them up with the specifics. So we have a couple of signings to talk about after we do our pun review. Yeah, you know, this was the rare pre-write double-up where J. J. Jaffe had both Diaz and Schwerber in his little group of assigned guys. And so Michael Bowman took the D.S. signing so that we could get going, keep the trains moving as it were.

But yeah, I was as a result of that not able to attend to Boris's scrum. Because look, the puns will pun, but the news is going to news. And as much as it might annoy Scat, the one is a much bigger priority than the other. Yeah, the puns are either evergreen or never green, depending on your perspective. so that won't change. Yes, agreed. We're pot committed at this point. We're pun committed.

We must report. We're duty bound to report the latest Boris puns. And maybe I'll be breaking Boris news to you here. If you weren't there and you haven't caught up, then maybe you haven't heard these. Not even one single pun. I have not heard even one. Okay. Well, we'll get your real-time reactions to hearing these things for the first time.

and I'll read them to you, but where available when we have clips from someone who captured them, and thanks to those who do for whatever reason, the SNY Twitter account posted a lot of the clips, the actual delivery, really does add something to see and especially hear Boris deliver these lines. So where we can, we'll have producer Shane drop in the original line readings by Scott Boris here, which are not the smoothest, I will say. he has to fumble for them a bit, which is understandable because he's got so many, and he has memorized them, I guess, and yet he has to wait for someone to ask him about these clients.

His worst nightmare is probably he prepares a line and nobody asks him about that particular free agent, and he just has to leave that line on the cutting room floor. So you can see how happy he is to be able to deploy these things, but he also has to summon them from his memory and sometimes you can hear him kind of reaching for the line a little bit and sometimes he flubs the delivery but then he just powers through and gets to it eventually anyway and he has this mischievous little grin flitting across his face as he does it it's just you got to see it or hear it at least it it helps but but here's what we got from scott so remember last time we said well he's probably not going to do this with tatsuya imbiased

even though there's obviously a lot of material there. You know, maybe cultural sensitivities and he'll refrain. And then I realized that, no, he hadn't refrained, actually. He had gone for one. But it was the lowest hanging fruit. Yes. It was like, oh, my, instead, you know, I, oh, my. Here's his latest on Tatsuya Imai.

Like Iemi, you have a 27-year-old pitcher who throws 98, 99. You know, teams look at that and say, you know, that, believe me, in my wildest dreams, I never expected someone to be available like that. You know, look, I'm going to allow it. I'm still not enthused about these, and I'm holding fast in my belief that he should just take a year or two off. And look, next year, there probably won't be any deals done because of a lockout. And so perhaps he feels the need to get them all out now. Yeah. Yeah. Because he might not be able to pun in the same way. Lockouts are serious business. You can't be out here making

jokes. But, you know, I'll allow it. I think that it's of the potential in my puns. It's an acceptable one. You know, it's like we talked about. You are in, you, you're in potentially dangerous territory when you're punning on, on names like that. But I think this one's okay. But again, not great. I'm not glad. I didn't chuckle. Maybe he sought permission from IMAI before he deployed these puns, perhaps. But it's funny, this is a little pulling back the curtain. Shane will have edited this out. But the first time I read this to you, hotel Wi-Fi disconnected you just as I was starting to read the pun

and then all I heard when I finished was protracted dead silence and I thought that that was your natural reaction to hearing that fun that you were just totally no selling it and then I looked and I thought

oh Mac is gone but that wouldn't have been a terrible reaction either that's great you're like wow she's really committed to the bid here okay this was on Alex Breggman who seems to bring out the best in Boris.

You're talking one of the few regular everyday players that has eight consecutive postseason appearances. So, you know, in October it's Alex and Wonderland. And it's a regularly scheduled event, no doubt. Okay, so you're right that I think from a pure joke construction perspective, he seems to really be locked in on Bregman, right? He's like, he's in a zone when he has Bregman to work with. And there is a sort of a wisdom to acknowledging that this is another pass through.

But also, they're hoping that this isn't regularly. Is that what he went with? Regularly. Yes, he had a hard time getting that out. Yeah, because it's hard to say. Regularly scheduled events. They're hoping that it's not a regularly scheduled event. I did much better on the second pass.

I'm so proud of myself because they're hoping that he's going to sign a long-term deal, right? Well, that's true. I guess I think he's saying that if you sign Alex Bregman, it will be a regularly scheduled event for you to be playing in October.

I see, I see, I see. Okay, so he's not, I see, I see. But it has been a regularly scheduled event for him to have to say puns at Alex Bregman. I think, you know, I think the Bregman pun work is pretty strong. Yeah, I think so too.

I wonder, is he getting an assist on those ones, you know? You can tell when he brought in someone to punch up the puns? Yeah, yeah. He's like, okay, I'll go to my writer's room on this one. Maybe he has a sensitivity reader in the writer's room, and so he's like, these and my jokes are fine. Yeah, that's probably it. Yeah, I was speaking of regularly scheduled event,

it's odd that he has to go back to this well so soon after the GM meetings because the two big events, and I guess the offseason, is sort of the season for Scott Boris. This is the main event for him. But he has to empty his pun bag in November at the GM meetings and then turn right around in December at the winter meetings and have a whole fresh set. So I wonder if we could compare, and I guess we kind of have,

but I wonder whether he saves the best material for the winter meetings. I don't know that I've discerned a real difference in the quality of the puns from one event to the next, but does he come up with the... all at once and then he says, okay, here's my GM meetings material, here's my winter meetings material, or does he get through the GM meetings material and then sort of read the room, assess the reaction, and then use that to workshop the winter meetings material? If we ever have him on again, we'll have to dive into that. We'll just have to make sure no one in his office listen to any of our past episodes about it because the reviews are getting a little more critical

as time goes on. Yes, although I feel a bit better about the latest crop of puns than I did about this year's GM meetings set. So another thing I've noticed about him and we heard it in that Bregman one and I'm about to give another example. He has a little tick when he does this.

He'll say the line and then he'll add a no doubt at the end or without a doubt. It's like he can't just let it land. he's yeah i think it speaks to a certain lack of self-confidence in the material that you're right yeah because you could you should just end with it's a regularly scheduled event but he always he appends this no doubt to the end of it it's almost like to signal that the pun is over or to signal that it was one yeah because i don't know it's just a thing that he does and i think

the delivery would be improved if he could excise that and just let the pun stand on its own And here's another example of that. In the postseason, when you add a Suarez, I think everyone knows you're, you know, you're armed and rangerous without a doubt. Okay. I think if he didn't have the without a doubt, it would work. Yeah. But not, but it, rangerous. Armed and rangerous.

I don't know what that sounds like to me, but it sounds problematic somehow. I can't quite put my finger on it, and I don't think I'm inclined to give a ton of explanation, but something about that doesn't sit. Yeah. Right, as I sit here with it longer, you know? Yeah.

I just, next year, well, again, we probably won't have one of our meetings next year because of a lockout, But the next time he does a stand up like this, I need to make sure I can go. And I don't think I'm going to even really look at him. I want to stand like off to the side a bit and watch these wash over, you know, our colleagues in the assembled media. Yeah. Because I'm curious if anyone like really cracks a genuine smile or if they're just like, oh, scat, man. Yeah, there's a lot of snickering or obligatory chuckling.

I don't know. It seems like media members insist that they're over it, and some of them are just too cool for school, too cool for Scott, and they're kind of jaded, cynical about this whole exercise. But then there is some laughter, and I don't know whether it's just that it would be awkward not to laugh, and they're kind of humoring him, or he's a source for them, they're buttering him up, right?

So, yeah, I'd like to see how this would play to a different audience, because the audience of people who dutifully gather around to transcribe these things and capture them, they do have sort of a vested interest in staying on Scott's good side. So I don't know how genuine it is. Okay, here's another one on Pete Alonzo. You know, Pete lives in Tampa. It's rather warm there. so the polar vortex of last year is kind of thawed so you know the the prior market you know this market is that prior bear market is exhausted so now we kind of have the the running of the bulls in Tampalusa oh my god oh my god I think okay first for

I'd be sure he's done bare market before. He's absolutely done bare market before, but mostly, Scott, you're doing, you're doing, you're doing, he's stacking them on top of these. You're stacking too many things, Tamplusa? Yeah, that's, was this a flub by him? Because, because it's Pamplona is where they do the running of the bulls. So should it have been, should it have been Tamplona? Right. I assume, unless I'm missing some other extra joke here, but.

But. But, no, Ben, no, short-circuiting. I'm so bad at this one. Read the first part again? Okay. You'd have no idea how many tabs I hope you've been here. Okay. Pete lives in Tampa.

It's rather warm there. The polar vortex of last year has kind of thawed. This is referring to Alonzo's bear market last year. That prior bear market is exhausted. Now we have the running of the bulls in Tampusa. Okay. So Tamplusa makes no sense. He had to have just, he had to have just goofed that.

Yes. Because it doesn't make, Tampusa, Tamplusa isn't, and there is a, Tampluza's wrong. That's wrong. He, like, he just got it wrong. I wonder if he made a face after he got it wrong. That was like, I got that wrong. He got, because he got that wrong. So, so that's, that's one thing.

But so you, the polar vortex has thought, but a, but a bear would thrive in a polar vortex Because it's a polar bear. So you want it to be cold. They like the cold. You're right. So you don't want to thaw. And I understand that he's making a bear market joke, but also like, but he's the bear. But he's the bear.

So you don't, you don't want them. I'm so mad. I don't like that one at all. Okay. Okay. I am, I do not support that one. I think, I think he, I think he tried to do too much. And then he bifted at the end.

Yes. And that's, I'm sure there was someone in the scrum who was like, is that? But that's not where they run the bulls? I thought, yeah, is he working on some other layers? Is this like another pun that I'm not even getting? But I don't think so. He was also, he was asked about the fit for Pete Olanzo in Fenway and the Green Monster. And he said, the numbers illustrate.

that Pete hits really well there, sees the ball well, big man in small quarters, it's nice to be the redwood tree in the forest, I guess. I can't read about redwood trees anymore without thinking about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey. So that's ruined for me forever. I do love that you're like, look at this beautiful manifestation of nature. It makes me think of Travis Kelsey's dick, you know? That's a weird life to be living over there. That's a, it's not your fault. You deserve financial compensation from Taylor Swift, I think. So, okay, so wait. So, but, but he's not a, why would he be a redwood?

Why is he, he's not a, he's a polar bear. Right. We're mixing metaphors here. He's the redwood tree in the forest. I guess that means he's just, he's big. He's like a really big tree in a forest, but some forests are huge. Sure. You know, some forests are very expensive.

Yeah. And he's, he's not that big. I mean, he's big, but as big leaguers go, big leaguers are big. I think of him as, I think of, this is still Alonzo, right? I didn't miss this switching to a different player. He's like, I mean, he's a big, I would describe him as stocky more than I would describe him as big. 6.3, 245. It's, you know, he's playing in the same city as, as Aaron Judge and John Carl's Stan. It's tough competition. my perspective on it. There are some, some of the front office folks walking around the lobby, they are very tall. And they all seem to work for the race. It's just like a, see a very tall raise. Was one of them, Jeff Sullivan?

One of them was Jeff Sullivan, but he also had other colleagues in stuff. And they were similarly very tall. Oh, they were all so tall. So tall. Must be a market inefficiency of some sort, just height among front office executives. Probably not. Usually height leads to people being overrated, if anything. Right, like play better work.

Yeah, Alonso. This is my canonical example of this. Yes. Handsome or just tall? You know, we have to ask these questions. Alonso in 10 games in Fenway has an 893 OPS, which is fine, but he has a career 857 OPS. Right, it's not that.

Nothing spectacular. Different from his, I am furious about these. I really am. Well, let's keep going. All right. Okay. This one, I think I have to hand it to him here maybe. He's talking about Terek Scoobel.

Okay. Scouble is metrically dominant, both in advanced and traditional measures. I mean, he's truly a saber-proof tiger. when it uh if you want to look at the tail of the tiger without scobs they're uh you're a mystery machine okay so here's the thing one of those would be fine but he is again he's doing too much why are you stacking yeah also it's a hat on a hat as they say it's a hat on a hat he is he is definitionally a hat on a hat i just so here's the other part of okay so he's he's he's metrically dominant so that's a weird way to phrase that i i understand what he's going for

yeah and we do refer to some stats as metrics but like metrically dominant is that's that's that's i'd ask for a rephrase if you were filing copy with me yeah so there's that piece and then he's a he's a savorproof tiger that part that part i'd ask for a rephrase if you were filing copy with me yeah so there's that piece That part is, I think, quite strong because it suggests that, you know, his traditional stats are not undone by less flattering advanced stats. And I think that's quite strong. So, okay, good. You could, you could have a better, a cleaner second pass, but fine. But you can't then do the Scooby-Doo.

You can't do Scooby-Doo too. Especially because he did Scooby-Doo, I think, at the GM meetings. Right. I mean, I like that the tigers are a mystery machine without scoobble. That's not bad. That's not bad, but you have to pick. You have to pick a darling and stick with it. Because you can't, if you're sacking your darlings, well, that's crazy, you know?

Yeah, you're supposed to kill them, at least some of them. Right, you're supposed to kill your darlings, which, you know, outside the context of writing would be a terrible thing to say. But in the context of writing is good advice. But this is true. He needs a room. you know what do you think we could charge scott boris to be like his writers i think he's just so he enjoys this so much that i'm not sure he would want that but i've i've made that case before i've i've written that the the star wars fellows felonian favro they've done some good work but

they do it solo or together and they don't have a writer's room and they could clearly benefit from one and generally i am in favor of just having a room and scott's It's just unclear that he's running this by enough people. Do you think that any of them are AI? Like the people he's consulting or just that he's getting this from AI? Yeah, do you think that any of his are him going, you know, chat GBT? I'm going to say no, because he was doing this well before the Gen AI era. And I don't know that the quality has changed appreciably for better or worse.

Here's another no-doubter, and by that I mean one where he said no doubt at the end. There might be plenty of doubt about the quality of the puns, but here it goes on Zach Gallen. I think for Zach, it's high quality, never crude, always refined. And when you pull up to the pitching pump, you know, a gallon is always premium. So he's exactly a rotation fit, no doubt. I think the structure had an issue here because he started in with the gas analogy before he really explained that. So he started with never crude, always refined, but he didn't say gallon before that. So I wasn't even thinking about that.

He's just for Zach, it's high quality, never crude always refined. And at first I'm not sure where he's going with this until he gets to the when you pull up to the pitching pump. A gallon is always premium. I feel like he should have lead with that and then used the never crude always refined or he could have could have gone with the price of a gallon, something about that these days. It's weird to make it about, you know, like a gallon is a unit of measure. And so it's weird to say a gallon is always premium because, well, it doesn't have to be at all, you know, like you can go and get regular. Yes. And they will sell you a gallon of it, you know.

I mean, they prefer you put it in your car first, but they will. sell you a gallon of it. And so that one's not quite, that one's not working for me. I don't think, I think you're right that structurally, it is a little crude to use, to use Scott's word, could use some refinement.

I was able to anticipate who he was talking about. I think that would have been true. I told you. I primed you at the pump for that one. Yeah. But I think I would have gotten it anyway, because it's like, well, who else could it be a gallon? You know, who else has a possible

yeah that may have been more of a delivery issue i guess i get what he was going for but it didn't come out perfectly i wonder he should have like if you want to be in like gas gallon territory you should have like a pedal to the metal kind of a thing or i feel like there's unexplored potential there but that one's pretty poor i think just in both the writing and the execution i i don't think he's yeah i don't think he nailed that that one, you know. Okay. I think we're up to the last one now, mercifully, probably, for some of our listeners.

And if I missed any apologies to Scott, I will update in the outro. But here's Scott Boris on where talk stand with Cody Bellinger. Belly is, you know, he's, I mean, it's not for me to judge, but. you know great players see red if they don't that they lose a you know that they have a big bat yanked out of their lineup um i haven't met a team that dodges a five tool player is he just naming teams at this point The center field need is a giant step towards the playoffs. North and south, outfielders that fly with power, their rare birds. In the off season, there's a lot of startup to organizations.

And for that reason, there's a lot of angel investors that are looking for very versatile outfielders. So other than that, Belly doesn't have much interest. So he's speaking in code, a very easy to crack code, to be clear. I cracked it, you know? I cracked. I cracked his code. He's implying that there are a lot of teams in on Cody Belliger here. There are a couple ways in which this falls apart, not the least of which is, so he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he

named a bird, a bird. He named a bird. So he must be, this feels like you're being very rude to Victor Scott. Right? Because it can't be the Blue Jays. They have Dalton Burr show. I think he means the Orioles because. Oh, yeah, okay.

Yeah, because the Cardinals, they're birds. You're right, you're right, you're right. You're right, you're right. You're right, you're right, bird, bird, bird, bird. The rest of the episode should just be me going, bird, bird, bird, bird, bird. Bird, bird, bird, bird. People would love that. It got colder in the workroom today.

I don't understand what to happen. It got colder all throughout this hotel. I don't understand. Isn't this hotel normally frequented by children going to Disney World? I mean, I guess they're not here most of the time, if that's the core audience. Like, they're in the park. But it's so cold today, Ben. I was just from the minute I went downstairs to go to the BBWA meeting, such a chill BBWA.

A meeting we had, by the way, no controversy at all, which has not been true for the last couple ones. People have been fighting in the aisles. But not today. Everyone was like, great, let's get out of here. But anyway, I don't like this one at all. I think it is too much work. It also isn't highlighting one of the best parts of Cody Bellinger's profile, which yes, is that he can play like a good center field, but also it's sort of not nodding at his positional versatility in a way that seems very strange to me. Yanked. I I don't think we should talk about yanking. That feels bad.

I don't know. I am kind of impressed that he managed to get that all out. I don't have video of that one, I don't think. I haven't seen. So I don't know if that all came out cleanly. It could be that the transcript is doing him some favors. But he did work a lot of teams into that. He did.

Okay, so take us through the teams again. Take us through the teams again. So we have the Yankees for sure, the big bat. yanked out of their lineup and also it's not for me to judge and then i guess the reds great players see red i guess the reds i haven't met a team that dodges a five tool player so that's that's the dodgers and then we have the fillies and their center field needs that needs to be filled and then the giants the giant step toward the playoffs and then the birds the rare birds and then the angel investors so we've got the angels in the mix here

too. So I guess that's all of them. That's a lot of teams. That is a lot of teams. And, you know, I think most of them are right in terms of their needs. I am curious if any you know, the internet sucks so bad now.

I just want you to know that the internet is like so useless so much of the time. I was curious if any of the teams that he was naming had as their projected opening day starting center fielder at this moment

another client of his which I would imagine Scott has the foresight to not do but I was curious who Colton Couser's agent is because I don't know that one off the top and the AI overview on Google

is Colton Couser's agent is not publicly specified but he is likely represented by a sports agency that handles baseball players. That's that's helpful yeah Okay. That checks out. What a dumb timeline we're living in Ben.

Just the goofy is dumbest little timeline. But anyway, I appreciate the effort that is being expended here. And I think that I mostly agree with his assessment in terms of the teams that he's listing here needing, needing in some cases quite desperately, a center fielder. But I think we're in, we're in dicey territory because we liked the Bregman ones. we thought those were good. We liked half of the scuba ones, or at least we liked each half of the scuba one independently, but gave him a big downgrade for once again wearing a hat on a hat.

And we liked this one on Bellinger's behalf. But the Alonzo stuff is a catastrophe. And I think it means he fails the exercise. Like, I think the exercise receives a failing grade because of how bad that answer was. You know, I found a video of him delivering that line, that very long Bellinger. Was it better? Yeah, so people will have heard this already and maybe been confused by my saying that I couldn't find video. I have found it, as you now know.

And I think we've got to include the Mets in the list of teams because when he said I haven't met a team. yeah yeah okay yeah he he stressed that so okay we can lump them into so every team is in on belliger seemingly so that's good to know i guess i i just think it's uh december we're here in well i don't i almost admit not the happiest place on earth because that distinction belongs to disneyland but we are you know within within the line of side of the mouse at it a lot of junctures and again, I can't see the Tower of Dare. I'm surprised I can't see more. You know, I was thinking this the other day.

I'm like, why can't I see? Is that really the tallest structure? Anyway, but so, you know, we're all having fun here. Schwerber's signing and Diaz is signing and business is getting done, albeit at a slow clip. But like a thing that has been a topic of conversation in every conversation I have had here, is that we are so unlikely to have winter meetings again next year. Because if there is a lockout, there's no purpose to having a major league phase to the winter meetings.

They still do, I think, the trade show and what have you, but they won't do it. And apparently, Ben, next year was supposed to be a San Diego year. What a loss. I am, I am furious. Hopefully they won't skip it in the rotation. They'll just do San Diego. the following year. How dare they put San Diego on the chopping block like that?

How dare they? Furious. So anyway, but it's like, it is casting something of a pall over the proceedings, right? There's just this understanding, even as guys are signing multi-year contracts, even as, you know, the Dodgers are spent, we'll get into the D.S. And shrubber of it all here shortly, but it's like, this is, there is a keen awareness of the precarity of the sport after. this CBA expires. And, you know, maybe they get a deal done. Maybe they are able to avoid a lockout. That seems incredibly unlikely. Maybe they're able to avoid missing games. That seems more likely, although I have heard some very pessimistic guesses from some folks on that score. So it's,

you know, there's a seriousness to the future that I think everyone is very cognizant of. And so that is also part of why this is kind of fallen flat for me. Because, you know, you you know, you've got to have a sense of humor about things and find fun, even in the face of difficulty. But it just feels like it's sort of missing the, it's, it feels low feel to me is what it feels like. It's like it's got sort of the other way that we got to appreciate the puns while we have them. That the puns are precious will be wishing that we had the Boris stand up next year when we have no winter meetings potentially. I think I'm going to be home for the whole month of December. Think about how much easier it's going to be scheduled a podcast.

We won't have anything to talk about. Right. Yeah, exactly. But we won't have any scheduling conflicts. So that's good. That's the primary consideration for people, our recording logistics. Anyway, I'm still optimistic about not missing games, but not about avoiding a lockout. And next year's Scott Boris punts.

So did we have to spend quite so much time on this? Perhaps not, but you know what? We might not get another batch of these until who knows when. So we'll savor them and also mock them while we can. Okay, let's talk about those two big signings of non-Borris clients. We don't have to talk about which teams might hypothetically, theoretically, be interested in Scott Borris clients when we know that the Phillies, in addition to extending manager Rob Thompson, have essentially extended, re-signed, really, Kyle Schwerber. Big deal. Long term. Five years and 150 mil. And Kyle Schwerber going back to the Phillies are really just staying put. And you know what? That feels right. I'm glad. He just, he feels like he is a Philly and should continue to be a Philly. It is a lot of money. 30 mil for five years. For a DH, a very good DH, but still a DH who is turning 33 in March. But they're keeping the band together. together here. They're just going to make more runs with Schwabes.

I like it. I like the first two or three years of it very much. I have confidence in Schwabers' ability to maintain his tools. But you're right. Like he's, he is DH only at this point. I mean, you can. Really at every point. Right. But like, he's really, he's a really, he's a really, he's a really. He's a really. Really DH only. He is real, real, real, real D.H. Only at this point. Birds, birds, birds, birds, birds. But I think that he is, you know, I saw a number of, I just follow so many Phillies fans on social media I'm realizing. But, you know, I think that in terms of what he brings to the field, you know, he's been a meaningful contributor to them in a way that is funny because you think of Bryce Harper. and all his blood as the sort of spiritual leader of that team, right? This super important signing, them kicking off this, this, you know, long era of contention. But I think that Schwerber has an argument to be just as vital to their success and efforts over the last couple of years as Harper, at least on the offensive side of the ball. So, you know, I think he's a really important part of their team and Clubhouse. I think his production would have been difficult for them to replace in quite the same way.

And I also think that, like, he seems like an important, and this is what I saw a number of Phillies fans remarking on, and, you know, I think this is the sort of thing that fans tend to have a better bit of insight into than I do as like a national observer, like an important sort of culture carrier and stabilizing force in that in that clubhouse. And so I like it. I think it's more money than I anticipated him getting, although, you know, we've gotten a number of we tried. in the stretch just after news of his signing broke. I mean, Rosenthal has reported that the Orioles match the Phillies offer to Schwabur. The Reds were also at five years. Some of the quotes about the Reds in this piece are like, why are you letting people know about this? But they're like, it'll drive ticket sales. I'm like, you guys, they're so fucking tacky sometimes. Anyway, I like it.

I think that I underestimated Chorber's Market. I had a brutal day in my over-under draft, Ben. My God, just getting whacked from both ends here. Yeah, let's see. So you had the under on Schwerber at 135. And the over-on-D-S at 82. Yeah. Yeah, this might be the year.

We said it when we did the draft that we felt like MLB Trade Rumors was pretty spot on and that we weren't super confident in our picks. So we'll see how it all shakes out. But we might not even end up ahead this time, not by much at least. I think that I really maybe misjudged his market. You know, I think the back couple years of this could look kind of gross. I think that potential exists. But I also think that the Phillies have an appropriate sense of urgency about the state of their own roster. And they are, not content to just be a we've been to the world series we've been you know a perennial postseason contender they want a ring and they have a bunch of guys who are aging and i think that spending up

to try to lengthen that window as much as possible uh is worthwhile and then like you know if the back two years of his deal he's not a good player well at that point you're probably looking at a mini rebuild for them anyway. So you have to spend the money, but they seem like they're happy to spend money. There are other needs on this roster. And, you know, I guess that Boris has reminded us of one of them. But I do think that, you know, this was a meaningful bit of business for them to get done. I think that, you know, some of their other options and some of their other needs, they're going to be able to kind of maybe sort out so i i don't know like they got to get they got to do something about that outfield they have they don't have a starting catcher on their roster right now the state of

their rotation is dicier than it was a couple of months ago ranger swars is a free agent and wheeler is going to be out and then who knows you know what he'll be like upon his return and nola's season was a freaking disaster so it's not like they don't have other stuff that they need to get done But I do think this is one of the things that they needed to get done. So they went and did it. And that's great. Yeah. I feel like Schwerper's a bit overrated, which I don't want to come off as a Schwerber

hater. I really like Kyle Schwerper. I enjoy him. But it's almost like somehow he's exempt from the change in the way that teams evaluate players or media members evaluate players where he is just sort of an old school slugger and he hits lots of dingers. and not that he's one-dimensional at the plate, he's patient, he draws a lot of walks, but he's still just a DH, a really good DH, and he's coming off a career year, great

timing on his part, but it's still like a five-war season, that's kind of his peak, and unless you think that that's not accurate, that's the positional adjustments or something that are doing him dirty, you know, like he was number two in NL MVP voting this year, and he was 14th in NL FanGraphs War. Right. So there seems to be something about Kyle Schwerber, and maybe it's just that he's had all these big moments. Right.

Or maybe it is just, yeah, like he's, he's well known. He's been clutch at times. He has that clubhouse leadership. Right. Halo effect. I don't know what it is, but it's just sort of like the way we evaluate players these days has kind of hurt the perception of players like Schwerber, but not. Schwerber himself.

Yeah, he's somehow immune to that. Yeah, and look, like, I think that it's funny because we as an industry, and I think this is true of fans, too, right? Like, especially in the last couple of years, we have been spoiled by the power available in baseball. You know, there are all of these guys who are hitting home runs. They're hitting a lot of home runs. But you can see guys hit a home run. Schwerber is in that tier of dude where it's like he hits a home run and you're like, holy shit. that is a that is a big home run that you just hit sir and and big both in terms of the frequency

with which they they have been clutch both in the regular season and the postseason and also like impactful right like he is a feel it in your chest kind of power hitter that moves people it's an incredible story because like you know there were points after that you know that cubs tenure where he looked like he looked like he was done or maybe not done but diminished considerably. So, you know, he's, I'm sure, like, exceeded his own wildest expectations in terms of being able to realize this deal. Yeah. And he doesn't just hit long homers.

He hits lots of them. Lots of them. Almost no one hits more homers than he does. Yeah, he just hit 56. He just hit 56. That's a huge number even now. And over the past five years, only Judge Anotani have out homered him over the past four years. he's tied with Otani behind Judge.

So he's an incredibly prolific home run hitter. But yeah, how will that age? I just, I don't know. So I like it for now and I like it for the Phillies. And they don't seem like the kind of team that will say, oh, we can't do anything else because we have Kyle Schwerber. They're trying to trade Nick Castiano's in his $20 million salary, but they're not getting much out of Nick Castellanos. I don't know whether they'll be getting much out of Kyle Schwerber by the end of this deal. but that's how free agent contracts tend to go.

I just hope you get that front-loaded production. And if you can keep cranking those dingers for the next couple seasons while the Phillies are in the midst of this window and they're old and they're only going to get older. But yeah, if they can just run it back for another couple of years, then maybe that will be worth whatever happens after that. Yeah, I think that, like, he strikes me. I think you're right that, like, there is a bit of a gap between the way that

his profile is typically talked about and the way that Kyle Schwabber as an example of that profile is talked about. But he strikes me as a guy who's like really well suited for what the where the Phillies are now and where they might go in that like, you know, providing remains healthy, but blah, but like they will get all of this production while they are still in it and really trying to win a World Series. And maybe the Phillies will just position themselves as like a perpetual motion machine where they'll kind of dodgers and metts it a little bit where it's like we're going to just

spend a lot we're just always going to be a team that spends a lot and like we're going to buy our way through what would otherwise be fallow periods on the roster but assuming they don't do quite that you know it's like you get probably two or three really good years from Schwerber and then you know in the back in the back two of that deal

where you're maybe taking a step back back or you know trying to dip under competitive balance tax stuff while you're um hopefully bringing up prospects or young players or whatever well then you got a you got a guy everyone likes as a clubhouse guy to kind of help ease those dudes in and sort of bridge a gap and what have you so i think it's i think it's an overpay in terms of his likely production like i don't think that this deal will probably count out in a great way from a dollars per war perspective but i also think that like he does have attributes that are not captured in stats like war he's a great hitter

it doesn't seem like he's about to fall off a cliff he you know he's like when we talk about a big dude like he's taking good care of himself you know like i i like schwerber and i think it's a great fit i think he has meant a lot to that franchise and i do think that they are getting a little they are paying up a little bit relative to what was likely strictly necessary because you know i don't know if he had an interest. As an aside, like, what, the Orioles, go sign a starting pitcher. What on earth? Anyway.

A frequent refrain on this podcast. Jesus, weas. I mean, I know you got to keep multiple balls in the air at once this time of year, you know, and like going after Schwerver does not preclude them. But also, my God, Mike. Reportedly, they're moving on to the polar bear in the vortex and the vortex and the, all the rest of it anyway Schwerber was, according to

Fancrafts, were the fourth most valuable Philly last year, let alone in the National League. Were the three ahead of him all pitchers? Two were. Trey Turner was ahead of him. Okay. Yeah, that's funny. Anyway, keep him away from the

ozone therapy, and I say therapy in air quotes. Well, I mean, like talk about I don't know Schwerber's deal. I don't know Schwerper's deal, but having a potential countervailing force doesn't strike me as the worst idea either, so. Yeah, we've gotten some responses to the ozone therapy, Bryce Harper discussion. None of them has stood up for ozone therapy.

They've all been like, yeah, to be clear. People who know much more about medicine than we do are like, yeah, this is not a good idea. That's the opposite of a therapy. It is not good, actually, to do that to your blood. It's like slowly poisoning himself. Seemingly. Okay. So, yes, so the we tried tracker for Davy Andrews is lighting up on this one.

Because, yeah, it's not just the Orioles and the Reds, but also the pirates and the reported, evidently, they did actually make an offer on this one. So it's not quite like Naylor where they were primed to make an offer reportedly. They actually did here. And they went to four years and 120, so same A.V, but one less year, which is, you know, not a bad offer. I mean, it was topped, but that's not a unreasonable amount of money to offer Kyle Schwerber, I suppose. It's probably not going to get it done. It didn't get it done, and it isn't going to get it done if you're the pirates, and you probably have to pay a premium, which you're extremely unwilling to do.

But what free agent is, if all else is equal, who's going to choose the pirates at this point? I don't really see why you would. So you might have to kick in a little extra to get someone to come play for you. And will they be willing to do that? Who knows? They are certainly willing to make some headlines about how much they have to spend and how willing they are. And for anyone who is wondering why Bob nutting is maybe nutting a little less and turning over a new leaf here, I don't think it's just because he has

resolved to be a better owner. And he's had some sort of end of the Christmas Carol Scrooge-esque epiphany for the Christmas season. I think that there's a motivation for him to do this. One is just to avoid another grievance from the Players Association, not spending enough, but even that hasn't motivated him in the past. But Evangrelic and Kedin Rosenthal wrote about this at the end of last month in a piece for the athletic headline, The Pirates and Marlins have a sudden willingness to spend. Here's what could be behind it. And it acknowledges that they have every reason to spend, just competitively speaking.

Right, especially the Marlins. Yeah, I mean, they're 29th and 30th in committed payroll for 2020. and they could both be contenders if they've actually decided to invest in their roster. The Pirates, they've got good pitching. They just had no offense. If they could somehow make up for that shortfall, they wouldn't be an unreasonable dark horse kind of pick, potentially. But it seems like there are ulterior motives here. So here's what they say.

In the view of some player agents, the surprising entrances of the Pirates and Marlins into the marketplace are curious. and with the sports collective bargaining agreement set to expire after next season, no coincidence. Quote, there is a possibility of a fight among clubs over revenue sharing, with the smaller markets seeing a greater contribution, Agent Seth Levinson said, the payers, large market clubs, will argue that insufficient revenue sharing funds are being spent on player acquisition. Hence, it wouldn't be a surprise if the smaller markets compete for talent in the free agent market to convince the payers that they are committed to putting a better product on the field. So instead of spending just to appease the Players Association,

maybe they're spending to appease fellow teams, the franchises that are basically bankrolling Bob Nutting not to spend anymore on player payroll than he's already receiving in revenue sharing. And the Pirates and the Marwins say, no, it's all about opportunity and wanting to be good and everything. But that casts it in a somewhat different light. And, you know, we'll take it, I guess, like any spending. If you're a Pirates or Marlins fan, you might not even care exactly why it's happening.

But, yeah, it does seem that they're thinking long term about the CBA and the negotiations and revenue and revenue sharing and all the rest. So that could be behind this. Yep, that seems about right to me. Seems about right to me. Yes. Okay. Well, another team that typically. is a payer in revenue sharing, to say the least.

The Los Angeles Dodgers, they made a move. I was so excited when this happened, but I was like, all people are going to get all worked up. I can't wait for them to get all worked up. You love the drama, the Dodgers drama. I do love Dodgers drama. I've become something of a troll about it. You're a provocateur.

I think I am a little bit of a Dodgers provocateur, not of the Dodgers, but of the Dodger haters and it's shocking because I don't think I care that much but I care enough to do it so what do you make of that? Well, amusingly I saw some quotes that Andrew Friedman gave

to reporter Bill Plunkett the other day this was two days ago I think in the Arge County Register quote, I think we feel really good about the team we have as we sit here today so it's not as much heavy lifting required Friedman said that being said we're going to stay open-minded

to opportunities that present themselves and I guess one presented itself and it was signing Edwin Diaz so that quote I would imagine will be more ammunition for Dodgers haters it's not as much heavy lifting required and then they sign a free agent who's probably the best reliever best closer on the market and and what is that like double the biggest free agent contract the pirates have ever handed out I mean right so it's all relative this actually isn't that heavy lifting for the Dodgers by recent Dodgers standards. This is a drop in the bucket.

But, yeah, Dodgers, Edwin Diaz, I guess it makes sense because they are indeed the Dodgers and they did have a really lousy bullpen last year. And so they're throwing more money at the problem. It's such a Dodgers signing. I'll say, you know, three years and 69 million for the top bullpen arm on the market isn't like cuckoo bananas or anything like that. No. And, you know, they're not.

knits that one can pick with Edwin Diaz, right? We could talk about his age. We could talk about the slight decline and velocity that he's had over the last couple of years. We could talk about how his performance has been a bit mercurial. Volatile. For someone who's been as good as he's been generally, he doesn't inspire the most confidence at all times.

Right. And so I think that there are nits to pick. but I also think that like the amount of money that is being being spent here is like pretty reasonable all things considered certainly goofed me in the free agent over underdraft so you know how about that but also it's a very Dodger signing insofar as like they do have some needs on their roster but they don't have a lot of needs and they don't have a lot of places to put needs right like their rotation is pretty well. set and you know their position player group is pretty well locked in and they could make some upgrades if they wanted to they could do a little little light lifting with kyle tucker potentially they could do a little light lifting with kyle tucker after the not as much heavy lifting required to us him saying that is the most confident i've been that they won't sign tucker but also it could be a complete misdirect so who knows but i mean they didn't spend more than a billion or

committed more than a billion in total spending in the winter of 23 to 24. Yeah. Otani Yamamoto, Glassnell, Teosker. And then last year was Snell, Sasaki, Confordo, Scott, Yates, kept Hernandez and Trinan around. So, yeah, comparatively speaking. Comparatively speaking. Yeah.

But also, they managed to win a World Series with a bullpen that was frankly terrifying. you know they're just pot committed to big payroll man so it's like you know if you're gonna if you're gonna spend another 23 million a year go sure go get the best bullpen arm and like maybe maybe tanner scott'll be better next year they i mean it wouldn't take much for him to be better next year but like there's a reason that yamamoto was throwing on no days of rest in the the final game of that World Series. It was because Dave Roberts couldn't trust anyone else in his bullpen and had already sent out the few arms he did trust. So, you know, I think that there was a real need and it is a need that a team like the Dodgers can afford to have where if you're not an incredible

team, if you're not a team that's having to consider not only what does this, what does the composition of this roster look like during the regular season, but how does it lend itself to the roster composition we need come the postseason? you're not spending money on an Edwin-Diaz, right? Pirates have no use for Edwin-Diaz. Edwin-Dias is useless to the Pittsburgh Pirates, which isn't to say that he couldn't save games for them, but what games is he saving, right?

So I think that, like, they are the kind of team where they don't actually have a very long shopping list this off-season, and they can spend up for a guy, even if he's only a one-in-in-in-guy. And, like, Edwin-Diaz works best when he is all. only going an inning at a time. And, you know, we have seen what, like, heavy usage can do to him in the playoffs, which isn't great and might concern them a little bit.

But if he's really only going for one inning, well, you just have to make sure Dave Roberts doesn't do anything wackadoo, which, you know, you know, no, no, no, time. But, like, they, they're, as, as Bowman noted in, you know, in game seven, they threw every guy in their playoff rotation. and five of the six dudes had mostly been starters depending on how you want to describe Emmett Sheehan. So, like, he didn't trust any of the guys or they were exhausted, but it was like he can't go in

with a load-bearing, you know, version of Blake Trinit. Like, no, why are you making part of the power, and then I'm going to shut up and I'm going to let you talk, but part of the power of the Dodgers is the ability they have to throw money at problems that are otherwise annoying. Why not make yourself, make your life easier? If all it costs you to feel more confident going into October, it's $23 million a year, and you're the Los Angeles Dodgers,

that is tidy, easy business. So just go do it. Yep. And that's what they did. And they do tend to shop at the top of the market, which they can do more easily than any other team. But other teams that could probably do better, they will sometimes mess around with the middle tier

where you can kind of get in trouble sometimes not just the low price bargains but if you have a need the Dodgers will just go get the best guy when they do spend on a free agent or trade for one sometimes it's elite talent they tend to sign and Michael Conforto

that backfired but generally yeah there are some exceptions to this rule but it's so funny that they signed Michael Conforto he was pretty bad he was pretty pretty bad Yeah. Apologies to the pirates, by the way. I said that this Diaz deal was double the record free agent signing for the pirates. Not quite. Their record is still Francisco Liriano's three-year, $39 million deal, which was 11 years ago. That was December 2014. They have not exceeded that record. They've signed bigger extensions since then, but that's the record for a free agent. And by the way, Scott Boris weighed in on the pirates and their seeming willingness to spend. He didn't actually have any. puns for this one. You can tell when someone asks him about something else that he was not prepared to talk about,

he doesn't just have these things off the cuff, right? They're not coming off the dome. If he has not prepared them beforehand, then he's not necessarily, like, he's not the best at improv, but he said, Ben Cherrington and the Pirates have reached out to us on a number of players. They've made us very aware that they're going to be active in the free agent market, and they intend to add free agent talent to the roster. I would say it's the right step.

I certainly don't want to limit them for future years, but it's good to see a few of the clubs that we don't normally hear from in free agency be active in it. Amusingly, it then says, Boris prefers not to share publicly which teams are talking to his players. Not unless he has a prepared spiel

about every single team that's talking to Cody Bellinger, seemingly. Right. Anyway, I guess he prefers not to because he's saving that material for when he's standing in front of the scrum. Okay. And when we talk about free agents and spending these days, we do tend to talk about it more in terms of opportunity cost

from a roster standpoint than from a spending standpoint. And we've talked about this shift in the past, but it used to be that we would really just obsess over the terms and the salary. And then it got to a point where we figured, well, teams could probably spend more mostly if they wanted to than they do. And so why stress over the salary? Mostly it's about, is this guy a good fit for the roster? And would there have been a better player that would have served this team's needs better?

More so than sort of, I guess, playing into the team narrative of we can't afford this guy because we got that guy. And yes, some teams do have constraints more so than the Dodgers do. But we tend to break this down based on how good is the player and how well does he fit the roster and how much will he improve this team. And I do have some concerns about Diaz. Just, you noted it. I mean, there's some signs of slippage there. Yep. But he's still elite.

He's still really good. He's 31. He'll turn 32 in March. Yeah, like right before opening day. Yeah. On the surface, 1.63 ERA doesn't get much better than that. And you compare that to say 2022 when he had a 1.31 ERA, and you might say, oh, he's essentially the same guy. But a little different, you know?

He's striking out a mere 13 plus per 9 instead of 17 plus. plus per nine. Just ridiculous. Like Diaz's peak stats are about the best thing since, I don't know, peak Kimbril or something. And he was sitting 99.1 three years ago, this year, 97.4, which again, I'm poo-pooing sitting 97. But, you know, there's a marked decline there. And so even though the ERA is not so different, there's a pretty sizable FIP difference. A big one, actually, like 2022.9 FIP, which is ridiculous. this year, 2.28, and the X-FIP was more than twice as high. So on the surface, sort of the same, but under the hood, not quite. And so, you know, he had a three war in 2022, and this year,

two war in about the same number of innings more, actually. So he's not quite as good as he was at his peak, probably, and maybe there will be further decline. And the Dodgers tried to shore up their bullpen last year. Like you just said, you can't have a load-bearing, Well, that was the plan to have one, and it wasn't that bad a plan at the time. It was just that he buckled under that load by the time October rolled around. So they thought that they had really short up their bullpen last year. They went and got Tanner Scott, who was probably the best reliever available, right? And Kirby 8s, and yeah, they had Kopeck and they had Trinan.

And then guys got hers or they stunk. And then suddenly they're having to use starters in relief constantly because they just have no reliable relievers. So that could happen again, but I guess what are you going to do if you're the Dodgers other than just trying to hedge against it happening again by going out and signing the best guy you can and hoping for the best. I mean, yeah. He is just, he's like a one inning at a time guy. And, you know, most kind of designated closers are. But that's what he's going to give you, you know, aside from when he missed the entirety of 2023 after the WBC injury, he's going to give you 60 plus innings. and they're all going to be save situations for the most part,

and maybe you can stretch him a little longer in the postseason, but he won't really have been conditioned to do that. So, yeah, you kind of, well, I was going to say you know what you're going to get, but you don't really know with Diaz because he kind of alternates fantastic seasons and kind of like, I'm not sure about this one. So anyway, that's the news thus far. Apparently there are deferrals in the Diaz deal, roughly

$4.5 million annually for the three years. So for luxury tax purposes, this is Joel Sherman reporting that it'll sort of calculate out to roughly $21.1 million annually. And you mentioned roster fits, and I would like to return to Shorber

ever so briefly, because I do feel like we would be remiss if we did not mention that one potential downside to the Schwerber of it all is that, as we've noted, D-H-only, D-H-only, D-H-only. And eventually, that might also describe the blood man himself.

That's true. Bryce Harper. And so what are you going to do when you got some competition? The blood man himself, I don't know how I feel about that. I did it just off the dome. I'm not sure it's my best work. I don't know if it's, you know, Scott Boris pun bad. The blood man.

Not great. Anyway, he might need to. the DH at some point in his career. And so then you have a little bit of working out to do, you know, a little shifting around. And you're limited in your ability to do that because of the presence of Schwerver. But I imagine that they're not that worried about it right now because the thing of it is, when both of those guys, when both of those guys have to be DH and maybe your team's not very good. Right. Yeah.

While we're still on the subject of the Dodgers, there were some news about. the IPE TV drama that is coming, slowly coming, remember that? The scripted drama about IPEA, not drama related to IPE and a television. Yes, the dramatization of IPE that has been in the works for about a year and a half. It was May of 2024 that this was first reported that it was being developed by Lionsgate. And now it has finally landed somewhere at Stars, which, you know, maybe means that it's not going to be the most high profile or prestige show. And I say that as someone who has seen every episode of Outlander and the Outlander spin-off.

So no shots and stars. There's an Outlander spin-off. A lot of my blood, baby. Good show. Blood of my blood? It would be hilarious if the name of the show. Also, if the name of the show was actually Blood of My Blood, Baby, comma. Like, that would be, that'd be fantastic.

No, wouldn't really be period. appropriate. I shouldn't even, yeah. Okay. Anyway, I've seen my fair share of Stars series. And I guess if this one actually comes to fruition, I'll be seeing this one, if only to just see how it turns out. But I just don't know.

So it lands at Stars, which I think used to be part of Lionsgate, and there was a split there. And so it comes from Lionsgate, two stars. And there's some pedigree here. It's coming from the screenwriter of air, Alex Convary, and Justin Lynn is involved from The Fast and the Furious and the Hell Divers movie, evidently. But Convry is like he has this niche, I guess, of sports dramas.

He's also working on a Tiger Woods thing. The Tiger Slam about Tigers Peak, 2000, 2001. Yeah, but. I don't know about that. So, well, that's what it was called. But that could refer to any number of things, I suppose. But this, I don't, like, if it actually happens and doesn't just get stuck in development, hell, by the time it actually comes out, it won't really be that newsy and ripped from the headlines because it hasn't even been written yet. I don't know what's happening for the past year and a half.

I guess they've just been trying to figure out who wants it and where it would go. But Justin Lin is attached to direct and will co-write. So it hasn't even been scripted seemingly yet, let alone shot. So this is a ways out. And by the time it finally comes out, if it does, will it seem like old news? It will literally be old news. The logline says the potential series will, quote, tell the inside story of Shohe Otani's translator Ipe Mizuhara, who journeys from unemployed drifter to international icon, only to find himself tangled in a

gambling scandal that rocked the sports world. First of all, are we describing IPE as an international icon? Also, was he an unemployed drifter? I mean, I guess that our drifter seems strong. He was unemployed at one point, but international icon. When I read that the first time, I thought they meant show hey, but I don't, it journeys from unemployed drifter. That's to international icon. That implies that Ipe is the international icon, only to find himself tangled in a gambling scandal. Icon seems strong. I just, I don't know, like, how entertaining it could be to watch someone gamble on their

phone or, like, call their bookie. It just doesn't, I, we talked about how there was kind of an uncut gems quality to reading the indictment. Yeah. But, like, would it be the, and, okay, you have the Otani orbit and then you got to get someone to play Otani and, like, and, like, and. And, okay, is it a baseball show, how much baseball is actually in this? And then, like, are we following IPE as he's driving Otani to the ballpark or whatever?

Like, just standing there interpreting, it just doesn't seem like it would be to just watch him spiral and throw his life and his bank account and Otani's bank account away. I don't know. I don't know that I'm really hooked by this premise, even if they play it straight and don't do some sort of. conspiracy stuff and like invent you know i'm imagining legal issues probably they don't want to like invent implicate otani in some way here so they have to sort of stick to the facts or what we know of them i assume and how exciting would that be to watch i just i have my doubts so i have my doubts that this will actually be made and come out but if it does i don't know we'll certainly watch it i'll try it we'll talk about it just

to see what it looks like, but I don't know. Not super optimistic. Don't commit us to watching the whole thing that is. Yeah, we'll try it. Because like, you know, if my seven-day trial runs out before I've been able to. You're not already a star subscriber is what you're saying? I'm not already. What is the, what is the spin-off about?

Is it their children? Is it time-traveling children? It's about their parents, Claire and Jamie's parents, actually. And there's time travel taking place there as well. This is like a genetic trait that they have, the time travel I thought it was because of the rocks or whatever. Well, no, you have to have the quality. You go through the stones and you have to have a piece of jewelry that enables you to go through the stones, but you also have to be sort of a person who can journey through them. And evidently, it's kind of a retcon because in the original Outlander series, Claire's parents were killed or they were in a car accident, but then they retconned that into actually they time traveled.

and that's why they disappeared. Oh, and that's why they disappeared. About the Outlander franchise than most people want on a baseball podcast. I mean, like, I'm fascinated. I mean, I'm not, to be clear. I watched one season of Outlander, and then I was done.

You know, I was like, I don't need to. I was just getting started. I don't need to continue with this. I'm good. Fair enough. I'm good. Okay. Yeah.

So we talked about the big L.A. move, by which I mean, Von Grissom, getting traded to the Angels. No, we didn't talk about. that one and it wasn't that tick. Just like, what a, that news broke, it came across the transom and I started laughing very hard. I was like, you, you guys, you can only be yourselves.

Yes. We can only ever be ourselves. The big von Grissom trades, your thunder was stolen by the Dodgers, D.S. signing. And there's been a flurry of pitcher signings. The Rays signed Stephen Mats, which is appropriate because I can't remember whether he's a starter or reliever. And with the Rays, it's almost a distinction without a difference. you never need to know.

Maybe he'll be a bit of both. He kind of got lost in the Cardinals' Vortex. Speaking of Vortex's, vortices, last year, can't remember how anyone other than maybe Mason Wynne performed for the Cardinals last year. He did okay for them. And then, yes, he went to the Red Sox and continued to do okay. And did much better for the Red Sox even. He pushed very well for Boston.

So, you know, he'll give you his usual decent number of innings in and around injuries, probably, maybe. So like a lot of other race starters and pitchers, there's also been kind of a run on pitchers coming back from Japan or Korea. So the players who were posted, they're still working through the posting process. But we have seen some Western pitchers returning from the East, and the real prize was Cody Ponce. And he went to the Blue J's further strengthening that already strong rotation. But we've seen a whole bunch of lower profile signings from NPB and the KBO. So the White Sox signed Anthony K.

And the Astros signed Ryan Weiss. Yes. And then the Tigers signed Drew Anderson. And these are all guys who were coming back from stints overseas and not as high. highly prized as ponds clearly, but I always like the go over there, make good, learn a new pitch, pitch really well, and then come back and see if you've actually changed or whether your stats just appear better because it's an extreme deadball era in Japan or the competition is lower in Korea and we find out whether it's real, whether they've really made strides. And that's always a fun little exercise. So teams kind of going, bargain hunting, I guess, with the pitchers who've been away for a while. And now we'll see how they perform.

Do you think that they went bargain hunting because they were nervous to have the my ponds associated with their franchise? Do you think it was that? Probably not. That probably wasn't the main motivation. They probably like what they see in these guys' profiles. But, yeah, they've been away for a while, so we'll see. Okay. Been a while.

I didn't exactly say it. I said been away for a while. It's a stretch. Putting words in my mouth or taking words out, I guess, in this case. And the last thing that I have to put to you, and I saved the football for the end. Oh. Yeah. And it's not even really football.

It's football adjacent. But have you followed the Elaine Kiffin? fake dog saga because this is this is exactly what you were imputing to otani yeah he has a PR dog PR dog and it appears to be now there's some discrepancies in the accounts so there's some mystery still surrounding juice kiffin the dog of lane kiffin and for those who have not followed the Lane Kiffin saga. Couldn't be me, of course, because I've followed it closely and discussed it on Hangup and Listen, as Hang Up and Listeners know.

But Lane Kiffin in the latest act of his itinerant career, every time you count him out, he somehow resurfaces and makes even more money than before. But he ditched his previous team, Ole Miss, on the precipice of the college football playoffs. They made it into the playoffs, and rather than continue to serve as their hands, head coach. He left for LSU and got a ginormous contract and it was a whole big controversy and drama and he was seen as something of a phony because he had talked about how you have to appreciate where you are and he's not going to be the guy who's just going from place to place anymore and there was a whole ESPN documentary about him a couple months ago and he was a changed

man and then he did his Lane Kiffin thing again and you know from all accounts I guess good coach, well, except for accounts long ago when he was, like, dismissed multiple times in disgrace. But, like, after that. And, like, inspiring letters from past employers, warning future employers about the kiffin of it all. Yes, and questioning his. We do not have time. No, we really don't.

It's a whole documentary and more. And, uh, but yes, his integrity has been questioned by past employers, his honesty, et cetera. So it came out that Juice Kiffin, who. it seems like, you know, Kirk Herbstree from on down, it's just like people in football they kind of use their dogs for clout. It's not just in football, obviously, but it's quite prominent in football. But, you know, it's like, I love dogs. I have a dog. But when you make your dog your whole personality or like at least your whole social media personality, I guess it's because people generally like dogs. And so it. And don't like Lane Kiffin. Right. And so it humanizes you

canineses you canines that's not going to work but to have a cute cuddly dog Yeah Regularly It makes people Maybe like you more

Or at least that's the idea So Juice Kiffin has like Well followed social media accounts But then it came out That he might not actually be Lane Kiffin's dog I mean it seems clear at this point That he's not laying Kiffin's dog

So Lane Kiffin has kind of denied that And you can take that for what it's worth But not much Yeah there have been reports So the dog came from a kennel Called Wild Rose Kennels And then it seemed to be the case That the dog was not going

With Lane Kiffin to LSU Or at least not initially And that there were reports that Actually he continued to Reside at the kennels Or at least spent a lot of time at that kennels. That's a lot of time.

Where he came from. And that maybe Lane Kiffin was just sort of masquerading as juices, owner, person, whatever, and that maybe he wasn't so much a part of the family as he was represented. And this was seen as another sign of Lane Kiffin's inciscerity. So this was the exact conspiracy theory that you subscribed to slash perpetrated initially about Perpetrated. Well, you know, was it out there and you glommed on to it or was it, did it originate with you? I don't even really remember.

I don't know if I originated it. I might have been its, you know, I was its strongest soldier. Yeah, I hesitate to say popularized because I'm not sure it ever became popular outside of your mind. I still get DMs about that dog. Well, I do. I still get DMs about that dog. I guess help your case, not necessarily in the. case of Otani and Decoy slash Decopin, but at least it establishes that maybe this is a thing

and that Kiffin was kind of like renting out this dog. It was a marriage of convenience kind of thing or it was a sham dog relationship. It has since been reported by an NFLPA certified agent named Aaron Reinaldson. I don't know why he's the person who is reporting. this or how reliable it is, but this person said, here's the truth on Juice Kiffin. Yes, he's Lane's dog. Lane got him from Wild Rose Kennels. Juice is essentially a high-energy hunting dog that needs constant attention.

Lane doesn't have the time. So the breeder became Juice's handler and babysitter. Juice would spend several nights a week at Lane's or at the kennels. No idea if Juice is coming to LSU. I think it has been subsequently suggesting. that juice is, in fact, coming to LSU. There was, like, a popular viral skit about Lane and juice and about him being a fake dog. And Lane Kiffin, I think, quote tweeted that with, like, cry laughing emojis or something and

acknowledged it. Anyway, I mean, even if that report who's like, yes, he's Lane's dog, however, it's still basically being handled and babysat by the kennel and is, like, splitting time, it's like a Time share, I mean, it's... Time share dog. It's not your typical dog human relationship here, right? Like, I don't think, I mean, even if there is, like, even if the papers are in Lane's name. Yeah.

And I get that, okay, he's busy, and there was a tweet from the at Juice Kiffin account, which has almost 74,000 followers for some reason, that says, can't wait to get down to Baton Rouge with my dad, brother, and sister, and then has a photo of a tiger. So straight from the source of Juice Kiffin's Twitter account suggests that Juice is actually going to be making the trek to Baton Rouge. But again, you'd almost have to have him make the trek now because the fallout from this perhaps fake dog scenario, you'd have to then adopt the dog if you haven't really already. So this is essentially what you were saying, just with a different sports.

celebrity and different dog. Yep. Yep. So I won't call it vindication, but I will say that at least the concept has kind of been vindicated. I think it's a superior dog. You know, I, I know that I hear the denials, and I don't, I think that, I think that, I think he has had very little relation to that dog. I think that, you know, I think that if you were to stand Lane Kiffin in a room, certainly

with the people from the shelter and you were to ask them to call the dog versus Lane Kiffin, I think the dog goes for those people and not to Lane Kiffin. And isn't that the ultimate task? And like people need care for their animals while they're at work. And if you're a college football, the head coach of a college

football program, the size of Ole Miss or LSU, you're gone a lot. I mean, honestly, he shouldn't have a dog. He can't be home enough to be taking care of that dog. You know? I'm just saying

Like, what time do you have for this animal? None, I would argue probably very little. Having said that, you know, people who are busy have animals And they might have people who take care of those animals for them And that's fine because what's really important is that the animal is taking care of But in this instance, I think that he does not have an animal that needs taking care of He has an image that needs taking care of And he thinks that the dog facilitates some sort of rehabilitation, although he clearly doesn't care about that much or he wouldn't have moved to LSU.

Anyway, I hate Lane Kiffin, man. Not for me. You got a lot of country there. Yeah. Hard pass on Lane. And that doesn't really have anything to do with the PR dog. The PR dog is funny. The PR dog is arguably kind of pathetic.

Just be a villain. If you're going to do this shit, you got to, sorry for all the swearing, you got to just got to accept it. You are the guy who is willing to cut bait to go to LSU. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, even having dogs does that make you a good person. You know, you can't purely rehabilitate your image. Even Curella DeVille had Dalmatians. So it's not necessarily a-

Well, I guess. Did she have Dalmatians? Or did she acquire Dalmatians? acquiring Dalmatians, but had designs on them becoming fur coats. Yeah, I don't think she had Dalmatians, you know. She just, she was in possession of Dalmatians. Yeah. Yeah.

What a weird thing to make fur coats out of, by the way. Why Dalmatians? It doesn't even track if you were going to be a fur-wearing person. Why dogs? Yeah, get a show. I mean, don't, to be clear, don't. Don't, for that purpose, and maybe not at all, because they're very difficult, is my understanding, Chouse. According to the Crelella Deville Wikipedia page, the live action Disney film reveals that Corella chooses to skin puppies, a terrible phrase.

Because when short-haired dogs grow older, their fur becomes coarse and does not sell as well as the fine soft fur of puppies. Again, there are animals with... Wait, but why? Yeah. You don't have to do dogs at all. They're historically lots of other animals that have... Right. Why are you in the dog space?

You know? I guess that is... She is named Cruella, which does seem to be a nominative determinism instance where I don't know whether that turned her cruel or whether she was always wired to be a dog wearer, but appropriate, I suppose. And, you know, the puppy skinning really part and parcel with the character. and the name. So, you know, it's a character trait. Does the Emma Stone version of her, like, do the puppy thing? You know? I haven't seen it. Didn't she get, like, a live action?

Yeah, that's the one I'm referring to here. That's a little lower. No, but there was also a live action 101 Dalmatians with going close as Corolla. Yes. And then the actual Corella movie from 2021, it's the whole Corrella extended universe anyway. Right. And we were all clamoring for it. Yes. I wonder whether the Ipe show will show Decoy potentially being taken care of by Ipe and his wife, which per Portia the Show Bay on this podcast, that was the arrangement at least for a time. Okay. Oh, and you mused on the last episode when we were talking about Yostinson Garcia, aka Password, whether his brother has a nickname. That's Johann Fran Garcia, who's a 21-year-old catcher, sometime catcher, in the Reds.

Sox system also. Yeah. That's just an easier name to say and spell. Johan Fron is easier to say, but it's still, you know, so Johan Fran was in Fall League this year. And my, my proposal for his nickname was that he should be called. So they have password and then username, right? Right.

But I think they should call him CAPTCHA, you know, like of a, yeah. And because he's a catcher, so it's like you're capture of the ball, but also his name. Yeah. The username. doesn't work so well, except in concert with password, because there's nothing about Johann Fron that's particularly username-y. Yostinsen is the password because there are just so many letters that we're not accustomed to seeing in tandem.

And, yeah, so Johann Fron, I don't think he even needs a nickname. I just like saying Johann Fron, so I'll take every opportunity to say Johann Fron. Yeah, better name than a baseball player, but I mean, I don't want to. bury the young man based on Fally Glucks, but I don't think he's assumed to be like a top prospect or anything like that. I hope both of the Garcia brothers

pan out and choose to be represented by Scott Borses so that this can all come full circle and we'll see what he can do with Johann Fran and Yostinson. Don't put that evil in the world. What is wrong with you? That'll be the final boss for Boris. That'll be the ultimate challenge. So much material. I think he should have to

pronounce both of their names 10 times in a row without error before he's allowed to represent them. Yes, it's like you must be this tall to ride. To ride this ride, yeah, exactly. You know, it's hard work to assemble the Scott Boris puns, but someone has to do it. Actually, it's not that hard and no one has to do it. But I was wishing that there could be a central Boris pun repository, a database of Boris puns. So it becomes a Boris scavenger hunt because they're just scattered across various social media feeds

that you have to scour to collect them all. And if you don't do it in the moment, they can be tough to track down again. They're so fleeting, so ephemeral. Like a lot of what's precious in this life. So I'm thinking, oh, he has to have used polar bear and polar vortex in connection with Pete Alonzo before. And I could Google. I could try to look it up.

But what if I could just type that in? I'm not suggesting that fan graphs should add that to the player pages. Some stat called Boris pun plus. You have to be a pretty good player to merit a Boris pun. In fact, one thing I'd like to look up, who's the worst client, the worst free agent ever to earn the Boris pun treatment. One and only one inquiring mind wants but does not need to know. But if anyone is in the market for a useless research project

and wants to scrape social media and websites and newspaper clippings to create a comprehensive record of Boris puns, well, it wouldn't be a total waste of time because I would welcome it. And what better way to while away the winter? Again, there are much better ways. Someday, hopefully many years from now, when Scott Boris departs this life, Perhaps he'll donate his papers to some archive, and when they're clearing out his records, they'll just find a bunch of papers and post-its with puns scribbled onto them. Maybe there's an intern at Boris Corp, whose job it is to record these puns for posterity, though there do seem to be some repeat, so probably not.

Whatever additional transactions transpire, we will save for a roundup later this week, once Meg has traveled back to her home base, if, after hearing us regale you with Scott Boris puns, Lane Kiffin, canine conspiracies, and, the canon of Curella de Ville, you still choose to support this podcast on Patreon. Hey, it's the offseason. It's peak offseason content. You can do so by going to patreon.com slash Effectively Wild and signing up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad free and get yourself access to some perks. As have the following five listeners, Caitlin Sweeca, Marco Gasparo, Mike Snyder, Morgan Gray, and Rick Glidden. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, monthly bonus episodes, playoff live streams, prioritized email answers, potential

podcast appearances, discounts on merch and ad-free fancrafts memberships, and so much more. Check out all the offerings at patreon.com slash Effectively Wild. If you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us to the Patreon site. If not, you can contact us via email. Send your questions, comments, intro, and outro themes to podcast at Fangraphs.com. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube music, and other podcast platforms. You can join our Facebook group at Facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild. You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at our slash Effectively Wild. And you can check the show notes in the podcast post at Fangraphs or the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we cited today.

One link you'll find there includes the sign up form for Effectively Wild Secret Santa. This is the last time I'll remind you about the Secret Santa activity because the deadline is December 10th at 9 a.m. Pacific noon eastern. Thanks to Shane McKean for his editing and production assistance. We'll be back with that third episode before the end of the week. Talk to you then. Effectively wild, effectively wild. Effectively wild.