Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2431: Hitters Who Podcast Together, Play Together

Episode Date: January 24, 2026

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the MacKenzie Gore trade, the trajectories of the Rangers and Nationals since their respective World Series victories, and why the White Sox signed Seranthony Domínguez. Then (29:38) they bring on baseball buds Brent Rooker and Vinnie Pasquantino for a wide-ranging conversation about their scrapped podcasting plans, the Royals remodeling Kauffman Stadium, how Sutter Health Park played, the good and bad of bat-speed training, the challenge system, Brent’s sinking strikeout rate, the best breakfasts, the Pasqwich, A’s outfield defense, Nick Kurtz and Jac Caglianone, playing with Rich Hill, A’s extensions, playing 162 games, why they haven’t become 30-30 guys, arbitration, players’ pre-lockout messaging, an offseason signing deadline, Vinnie’s interactions with Shohei Ohtani, the WBC, the weather, and more. Finally (1:38:25), Ben shares listener responses about Andruw Jones and outfield diving. Audio intro: Dave Armstrong and Mike Murray, “Effectively Wild Theme” Audio interstitial: Austin Klewan, “Effectively Wild Theme” Audio outro: Harold Walker, “Effectively Wild Theme” Link to FG post on Gore trade Link to FG post on traded prospects Link to “jersey guy” discussion Link to team losses post-2019 Link to team SP projections Link to Ben on Sale in 2018 Link to Sox pen rank Link to MLBTR on Domínguez Link to first Rooker pod appearance Link to second Rooker appearance Link to Episode 1875 Link to Episode 1988 Link to lowest WARs in April Link to Brent’s Twitter taunt Link to Vinnie on the canceled podcast Link to story on Vinnie’s slow start Link to story on Muncy’s eyewear Link to bat speed article Link to Brent on bat speed Link to bat speed data Link to Vinnie on the fence changes Link to Brent on breakfast Link to Vinnie on Italian breakfast Link to Pasqwich tweet Link to Pasqwich article Link to Baseball Savant park factors Link to FG park factors Link to Kauffman batter’s eye comments Link to more Kauffman batter’s eye comments Link to visibility by ballpark Link to Brent’s lone Royals hit Link to Lowe comments Link to story on Vinnie and Jac Link to MLBTR on Brent’s extension Link to MLBTR on A’s extensions Link to Vinnie on extensions Link to Vinnie on arbitration Link to iron man Rooker Link to sprint speeds Link to signing deadline tweet 1 Link to signing deadline tweet 2 Link to Soderstrom article Link to Vinnie’s “WTF” tweet Link to Vinnie and Ohtani Link to Brent and Ohtani Link to Team Italy WBC roster Link to Brent’s weather tweet Link to Trout’s response Link to Brent’s “weather boy” tweet Link to “weather boy” meme Link to Bledsoe Agency Link to Pham suspension story Link to Pham Insta post Link to Episode 2430 Link to Bloomquist on Ichiro Link to Pillar/White article  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

If baseball were different, how different would it be? And if this thought haunted dreams, well, stick around and see what Ben and Meg have to say philosophically and pedantically. And pedantically, it's effectively wild. Hello and welcome to episode 2431 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from FanGraph, presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of the Ringer, joined by Meg Raleigh of FanGraphs. Hello, Meg.

Hello. We have a couple of cool guests in store for everyone today. Brent Rooker. We'll be back on the podcast, Brent Rooker of the A's for the third straight off-season. He will be joining us for an update on Brent Rooker and the A's, but also many other subjects. And this time, he will be joined for the first time by Vinnie Pasquantino of the Royals,

who is also a guy that we have liked a lot from afar, but he has never had on the show before, and he and Brent are buddies. And so we have them on together, and they make a great tag team. So that'll be fun. Always nice when we can have someone we have done a meet a major leaguer segment about and then meet them for real in a way.

Way back in episode 1875, July 15th, 2022, we met Major Leaker Vinnie Pasquentino. And today we will meet him. in person, or at least on a podcast close enough. So that's coming up shortly, but we have one more trade to talk about. As promised, we had so many transactions to discuss last time that we did not even get around to breaking down the McKenzie Gore trade between the Rangers and the Nationals. So let's talk about that one. That's a big one. That's one that's, we've been waiting for the other shoe to drop on a McKenzie Gore trade for years at this point. It finally happened.

It did, and I think told us a lot. A McKenzie Gore trade in isolation tells you a good bit. And then if it is followed by other trades, we'll tell you even more. Earlier this offseason, they made a move to acquire Harry Ford from the Mariners. And that's a like, address your big league roster as it stands right now, kind of a move, right? Because their catching situation was really bad. We talked all about it. Harry Ford is blocked by a big dumper and now we'll get big league run and seems like an obvious improvement over their existing sort of, you know, tandem.

So, okay, that's about the here and now, 2026 and the immediate future. But trading Gore, particularly with the return that they got, is future casting on their part, right? Because all of the guys they got back, and we can talk about the prospects in specific if we want to, Eric Long & Baggin. Five-player package. Right, five players. As Eric Longanagan noted when he wrote that group up for Assev fan graphs, a lot of those guys are not likely to have an impact on their roster this season in some cases because they've been injured and others because they're a little further away just naturally in their progression. With the exception of Abby McElag-Ortiz, you're probably not going to know what the nationals got out of this group for another couple of years, which isn't to say that there aren't promising. guys in here they have a former top 100 pitching prospect they have their rangers uh first-round

draft pick from last year and so you know there's there's an interesting mix of of sort of upside and risk in this group but sort of across the board marked by their distance from their big league impact gore obviously had this incredible first half of the 2025 season really fell off in the second half and we can talk about what that means for the rangers and not for the first time either in his career. Right. And so we can talk about what that means for the Rangers, but to me, this suggests that the new group, the Poboni, has sort of maybe decided that we're riding again on a rebuild. And I can appreciate the ways in which that would be incredibly frustrating to Nationals fans, right? Yeah.

Gore was sort of along with Abrams, like at the center of this Soto deal, right? Let's launch into this new era of contention and it just has not borne fruit yet and you know they still have Abrams on the roster he stills a couple of years of team control left but if you're moving gore you have to wonder like how long is CJ Abrams for this group not that they have to rush to move him just given how much team control he comes with are they really punting on this window and the answer to

that increasingly seems like it might be yes partially driven perhaps by a lack of confidence on the front office's part that they're going to be able to retain those guys via extensions or in free agency. So that piece of it is like kind of a bummer because when you have a new group come in, one that seems like it is standing in marked contrast with the Rizzo era in terms of like the tenure, the approach, the pedigree, the analytics bent, you know, it's all these young guys. That isn't to say that they, can't put a positive imprint on the organization, but I think that we are still maybe budding up against, will this group be able to persuade the existing ownership to spend

money on the team? And this might be one sort of negative indicator. And that's cool. Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking about that too in relation to other trades that we've talked about recently, the Marlins shipping out pitchers and just perpetually. rebuilding. And then the brewers shipping out Freddie Peralta, obviously different sort of situation

because the brewers have been so successful, but they do also ship guys out in many cases and keep their eye on the future. And it has largely worked out for them, even if there is some cost to that. Because we have talked before about the idea of the Jersey guy, just the guy that you can buy his jersey and count on him being around and being a fan favorite. As opposed to the Jersey guy who is what Jersey boys grow up into. Exactly. And there is value to the Jersey guy. I think there's also just a lot of value to winning.

And I think winning Trump's jersey guy, if you had to choose one or the other, just because I think winning generates jersey guys. Right. And that ultimately fans are fickle. Players are semi-fungible if your team keeps winning. And ultimately what fans want. is for a team to win. And I'm not saying there's no difference in the fan experience based on how that team wins. And it can be super rewarding to see a guy come up and be promoted from within and

and improve and develop and just stay around and spend a whole career. I mean, that's a core pillar of why we watch sports and enjoy sports. But I think if most fans had to choose between keeping a guy around and losing versus trading that guy and winning, then they take the winning. There's nothing that says that you can't do both, in theory. Why not both? And that does require some spending, usually, because to keep that guy around, you do have to invest in them long term.

And there are some teams that have a little less willingness to do that, shall we say. So I put this in a slightly different category than, say, the Marlins, where it's just, okay, they might have a plan. Maybe they really are building towards something. But it's just, it's hard to trust. given their track record because this is what they have always done. The other thing, though, is that the Marlins were kind of in contention this past year. You know, they weren't a great team, but they seem close-ish, and so that made me sort of side-eyed them a little bit. I know they

have pitching depth. They're trying to improve the other side of the ball. Okay, again, maybe it's not just about saving money, but they're close enough that if you're subtracting from your current roster, well, there is a cost to that. And with the Brewers, even though this has worked out for them long term, you know, they're going to be in a tight division race again, in theory. They have never won a World Series. They could use Freddie Peralta this year. So there's an aspect to it that's kind of frustrating, especially when reports come out about how they're concerned about the payroll. If it were just that they think, oh, we're selling high on Freddie Peralta, and he only has a year left, and this will benefit us in the long term, that's one

thing. But if it is at least partially about payroll constraints, self-imposed payroll constraints, then that changes the tenor of it. With the nationals, I agree. It's got to be frustrating because this is one of the proceeds of the one Soto trade, McKenzie Gore. This is one of the guys you got back. That was supposed to be the trade that restored your foundation. Right. It helped you build a winner.

And that trade could not have worked out any better for the nationals. They got all these guys back. They got James Wood. They got Abrams. They got Gore. And yet they have been both unable. to develop enough players to surround those guys with a complementary core and also unwilling to invest in the roster. And, you know, I've made some allowance for that because, A, they did sort

get screwed over by winning the World Series in 2019 and then having zero attendance the next year, you know, not getting to take the victory lap, not getting the revenue boosts that comes after winning a World Series. That's a setback for sure and partly helps explain why they have suffered a pretty steep descent since then for a World Series winner. So, okay, make some special dispensation there. But they've been so bad since then. Like only the Rockies have lost more games, I believe. And their payrolls have been low. And if your payrolls fall for a while because you are in a rebuilding phase, okay, you know, I get it, right? Because there's only so much marginal value, I guess, to like, you know, adding some free agents when you're kind of in the down cycle.

but then if you're just stuck in that down cycle for a really long time and your ownership is cheap and hasn't invested in infrastructure and isn't probably or at least you can't believe that they're just saying well we're saving some money while we're bad and we'll certainly splurge when we get good again i don't know why anyone would really believe that that's the case with the nationals the mass and stuff is is behind them now for a while that was part of the explanation or the excuse and so yeah it's really frustrating to feel like you're starting over after having started over. That's, I don't know, it's kind of like, I'm trying to liken this to, it's like when

the tigers were rebuilding and then they sort of restarted their rebuild. Now, you know, maybe that's a positive comp for the Nationals because the Tigers got good again after the second start of a rebuild pretty quickly. And it's tricky because if you're a fan, you have a fairly consistent or at least continuous experience of the team that you root for, right? You're a Nationals fan. You were there when they were struggling. You were there for Harper. You were there for the World Series when you were there for the downturn for the trade of soda. Right. You've been there the whole time. Pultaboni hasn't been, right? And that group hasn't been. And I do think that, like, they deserve an opportunity

to demonstrate that they know what they're doing and that they can make smart baseball moves and that they can improve process and sort of rectify some of the development deficiencies that have plagued the nationals for years now. They're brand new to this. They get a chance, but their understanding of what they both are able to do with the mandate they have from ownership and want to do to bring the next good nationals team to D.C., that's happening on a brand new timeline for them. That is fresh. It's not fresh for the fans, you know.

They're sitting there going, oh, here we go again, you know. I think that these transition points and franchises can be really uncomfortable for everyone involved because the decisions that are being made about guys aren't. necessarily wrong. And I want to be clear, I don't know. There's a lot of, we're, flyer is too strong for this return. But, you know, there are a lot of guys, like I said, who are farther away from being able to contribute on the field in D.C. This wasn't a package for, for big leaguer. So I don't know if they're going to help or not. We're going to learn about what the front office is good at. Are they good at identifying talent? We also,

I think should keep in mind, you know, as it pertains to Gore in particular, that like, Gore is a Boris guy, the odds that he was going to sign a pre-free agency extension were low to begin with. And it doesn't seem like there was a lot of like love loss between him and the last regime. And that stuff carries over into your relationship with the front office even when it's new folks. Because if you're McKenzie Gore, hey, guess what? Your experience of the nationals has been continuous also, right? Well, I mean, first it was with a couple of other. things, but, you know, like, so these, these can be sort of fraught and uncomfortable and tense situations, and it's hard because restarts like this do tend to take a while, and judging

how good this group is at finding its way toward a competitive roster is going to take a while, and the fans are impatient. and the really uncomfortable part of it, if you're not someone who's, like, employed with a team, but someone who just wants to buy a jersey and sit in the sun and watch a good club, is that this one isn't guaranteed to work out either, right? And you might just find yourself right back where you were

with a new pobo and nothing to show for it. So it's just kind of an uncomfortable, tense thing. I think in a vacuum taking a sort of diverse acquisition approach where you are bringing in guys who are either big leaguers now or near ready big leakers and a volume approach of promising guys with ceiling but also guys who might not be ready right now. I think in general that's a sound strategy. You have to pick the right guys obviously. but like having two threads going at once, two paths going at once, I think is good.

This is a firm system that needs reinforcement, right? So, you know, I don't think that in a vacuum, it's like a bad approach. And I don't think Toboni has said anything that makes me think he's like bristling at this or, you know, taking, is on the defensive about it. But it just takes time to build trust in that, right? And they haven't, they haven't earned that yet. They're trying to. And I think that when you look at the personnel moves they've made away from the field, it makes sense. Like, I can see the logic in it and think that like having fresh perspectives and new folks in there was necessary given kind of how the organization had stagnated.

But we just don't know yet, you know. Yeah. Yeah. And for Nats fans, it's not like this trade changed their understanding of the organization's direction, probably. This was kind of clearly coming maybe. You know, it's like it wasn't working. The rebuild stalled. Hence Rizzo's dismissal and all of the rumors that have surrounded Gore for months, years, et cetera.

So maybe this is just to rip the band-aid off. It finally happened. It's still upsetting, I'm sure, but not unanticipated. Plus, they do still have a Jersey guy in James Wood. And, you know, yeah, the package they got back and people can read Eric's take if they want all the details. But I guess the highest profile guy. is the ranger's first rounder from last year, right? Gavin Fine, who's not yet 19 years old.

I think it's fiend. Yeah. I think it's fiend. It may very well be. And I don't know because he's not even 19 yet. And I won't need to know how to say his name for years, even if everything works out. So he's a shortstop. He was the 12th overall pick.

Yeah. But, yeah, like none of these guys is a high ceiling sort, according to Eric's projections. Well, I think that there's, I think. they're sealing, but there's a good bit of risk. Yeah. Right. Like, these guys have, you know, particularly the, the fiend, Rosario, Fitzgerald, which everyone, you're just going to have to get used to it.

It's Fitzgerald. I know. That's, it's not Fitzgerald. It's so cool. Yeah. Names are cool, man. There's so many different ones, you know? Like, it's great.

How many different, how many different human names are. I'm getting my weird out now because I was trying to be like really normal when we were talking to Brentworker and Vinny, Pasquitino because like Vinny doesn't know us yet. And I, I'm convinced that Brent forgets how weird we are. Like, because we space out the conversations far enough apart that he's not like, the haunted pool people. I don't know if I need to talk to them again. Yeah. I wonder if he warned Vinny. But you were, you were restrained. You, you didn't get too deep into your shared Italian heritage with, with Vin. I just didn't, I don't know him, you know. I don't know him. Maybe next time.

Maybe. But like, what am I going to be like, how Italian are you? Like, yes, relax lady. Do it. Gravy or sauce, gravy or sauce. Anyway, I want to, like, give a warning to Nat's fans if you haven't yet read Eric. He is the low man on fiend. So, like, and he has good reasons and also acknowledges the potential ways he could outperform his expectations. But, like, he can just be forewarned. He's, like, he's the low guy on fiend.

Doesn't think he's a phenom? Phenom. Phenom. Phenom. I think it's fiend. All of that to say. go read the reports here. Like, Rosario was so dynamic and interesting,

and then got hurt and clearly needed T.J. And then there was a very long layoff. He got hurt, you know, sometime after the 2024 season. His elbow injury was announced in spring training, although the timeline of it was left vague. And then he has not yet had T.J. So he's going to miss a great deal of time. You won't see Rezari.

Mario in 2026, probably not until late into 2027. So it's just, you know, there's stuff kind of attendant with each of these guys that could give you a pause. We'll just see where they, and then there's Ortiz who might end up being on the big league roster at some point this year, either at first base or in the outfield somewhere. So, you know, there's him you might see. Abbey Malik, another great name. Yeah. As for the Rangers side of things, so things have not. on great for the Rangers since they won the World Series either. And they had a losing season

in 2024. They were 500 in 2025. And if they wanted to make at minimum one more run at this thing with this core, then McKenzie Gore kind of exactly what they need or or some sort of McKenzie Gore like player. Some version of McKenzie Gore. And which one will they get? Yeah. It is, it is strange. And other Ben document. at this in his blog post. It's not just that his numbers have tanked later in the season, but also his stuff has tanked. And so I don't know why. It's kind of perplexing. You had this man in the gym. Maybe. Maybe it's that. I remember writing years ago about Chris Sale and how he had a pattern of breaking down later in the season or wearing down. And with sale,

everyone assumed, well, he's so skinny, of course. You know, like he just lost strength or something. I don't know what the answer is for Gore. And, you know, it could just be random or something. something, but I'm sure that he and the Rangers will be thinking and talking about that, because if he could sustain, it's almost like we talked about with Kyle Tucker, who's had kind of a tale of two seasons in each of the past two seasons. So has Gore, if he could be that first half guy for the full season, then he would be probably one of the most valuable pitchers in baseball. So that's what the Rangers hope for. But whatever they get out of him, they really did need some security there, because you have de Grom and Evaldi at the top of that rotation, and those guys are pretty good.

They're not as good as they once were, but also if those are your most dependable pillars of the rotation, Jacob de Grom and Nathan Evaldi at their ages with their track records, injury-wise, that's not ideal. And so having Gore in there to be kind of the mid-rotation bridge to the Vandy Boys and whoever else, Jacob Lats, Cody Bradford, you know, it looks a lot better than it did before, both in terms of talent and depth. I was hoping that the Vandy Boys would be better last year than they were. Lighter was pretty good. I was disappointed that Rocker, because I was excited about him the previous season when he

came up and looked good for a while. So it'd be nice if those guys would be good, too. But just to have someone who's a little younger, Gore has not yet turned 27. and again, he has the talent to be a top of the rotation guy. So if the Rangers are going to make another run with a pretty old core, then I guess good for them for trying to go for it again. But a pretty young gore. Oh, yes.

It's true. Good one. Is it good one? I don't know. It's better than phenom, I think. I'll give you that. I think it's fiend. I hope so.

That's the only way that play on words works, but it wasn't that great to begin with. I am just fascinated because I do think that, you know, the Rangers have shown some capacity to help pitchers get better. Rosario is a good example of that. You know, he ended up blowing out, so, you know, there's that. But he was very bad in college. And then he got to Texas, and they totally changed him and changed his slot. and then he ended up being a top 100 prospect before he blew out. So they might be able to do some work with Gore that puts him in a position to be better.

He also doesn't have to be, you know, barring injury. He doesn't have to be the number one in that rotation. So maybe that helps a little too, like you take some of the pressure off. But I don't know. He's fascinating. It's on some level not surprising to me that the return that the Nationals got had the sort of shape it did, because I think there's a reasonable argument to say that, like, you don't fully know what you're getting with Gore. Yeah. I mean, this was a rotation that needed an emergency Patrick Corbyn last season. And they actually turned out to really rely on him.

So, yeah, it's been so perplexing the Rangers, just their offensive decline post-world series. That was just such a stacked lineup. And it was just never the same after that. And some of the younger guys getting hurt, not panning out. but I'd like to see them make one more go at it. I don't know if you as a Mariners fan feel exactly that way from your fan perspective, but this makes it a little more feasible for them to give the Asteris and the Mariners run for their money. I still think that they have limitations in their lineup to contend with. There are some question marks there too. But yeah, I mean, like, looky, your team's your favorite team has to be able to play

against good teams to win. So, you know, trying to make the whole division, the AL Central doesn't seem particularly feasible to me. And Gore, of course, has a second season after this one, still under team control before he reaches free agency. So it's not a one-year rental a la Peralta. Okay. The only other transaction I wanted to touch on briefly is the White Sox signing Sir Anthony

Dominguez to a two-year $20 million deal. Not as much to say about this. not as much import to it. But I thought it was kind of interesting because this feels like a move that you might make to polish off a contending team, sort of. Like, I always wonder about that with a team that's not great, but is making bullpen moves. And the White Sox have done that. They signed Sean Newcomb.

They signed Sir Anthony Dominguez. They've been fairly active this offseason. Obviously, they traded Luis Robert. But, you know, they brought in Anthony Kay. They brought in Munitakemura kami. we've talked a fair amount about the White Sox kind of maybe turn in the corner and looking promising and rebounding from bottoming out, but also having some pretty compelling young players. And I always just think, like, if you're not expecting to make the playoffs, then what value is there to

you of shoring up the back of your bullpen, getting kind of a closer type? And I'm not saying there isn't any. And maybe from a spectator perspective, there is. because the White Sox last year, by war, at FanGraphs, they had the 12th best bullpen, middle of the pack, but they were dead last by bullpen win probability added. And so it was frustrating. Like the bullpen was blown a lot of games. You know, they didn't have that many leads to blow in to begin with, I guess.

And so you could just say, you know, what's the point if you're in the White Sox situation where you're getting better, but you're not really good yet in the short term. Why sign Sir Anthony and Newcomb? How does that help you? Of course, there's always the option of flipping one of those guys at the deadline, which I guess is open to the Rangers too with Gore, right? Because, you know, if things don't go great for the Rangers this season, first half, trade deadline, he could find himself back on the block again, which I'd feel bad for him

because he's just been constantly a trade candidate for his entire career, essentially. It'd be nice if he could sort of stay in one place. I guess he'll get to pick his future employer soon enough. Yeah. But yeah, with the White Sox, I wonder if it's kind of a play to just, you know, stock up on some trade chips you could flip at the deadline. Or if it is about, well, we might not be great, but you know what? It's one of the most frustrating fan experiences to lose a lot late and blow whatever leads you do manage to generate. And so our team has been through a lot.

Our fans have been through a lot. Let's at least try to protect some leads and lock down some wins. So I don't know which is more the motivation. Maybe it's a bit of both. It's hard to not tie it directly to having moved Lewis Robert Jr., right? Because it's the same amount of money that he was going to make. And so it does kind of feel like a one-for-one salary swap, which I don't know is totally fair to them. But it's like, is this how you're reallocating this money?

I mean, I guess the thing about it is that he's not the pitcher he was at sort of his peak with the fill. please, but he's still useful. I don't know that he's the, and he was sort of the best remaining free agent bullpen arm who you could have confidence was going to throw meaningful innings, right? Like, I think, like, Kopec's better on pure talent, but, like, how many innings is Michael Kopeck going to throw on 2026? I have no idea. And if you just feel like you need a stopper back there, okay.

But he's also kind of fallen down the bullpen hierarchy of every team he's been traded. to. And so is he really going to be the guy that like nets you a meaningful prospect at the deadline if you're bad and he's good and you're looking to offload him? So that part of it I'm like not that sure of, but also it's two years and 20 million total, right? So it's like it's $10 million. I don't know. How does that matter? Okay. Well, let's get to a couple of good sluggers and a couple of good yackers. Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back with Brent Brooker and Vinnie Pasquantino. We're joined now by a man who is passionate about breakfast and another man whose nickname, well, one of his nicknames, is Italian breakfast. The former is a two-time all-star, despite somehow not making the team

in his best season. And until today, a two-time, effectively wild guest, it's time to complete the trilogy. It's the return of the Rooker. Brent Rooker of the A's is here for the third time. Welcome back, Brent. Good to be here, guys. Always a pleasure to catch up and talk some stuff, so I'm excited to do it. Yeah, somehow we haven't driven you away yet. It's amazing. And making his EW debut, a guy we haven't previously talked to, but have previously talked about. In fact, back on episode 1988 in March of 2023, this guest was dubbed by Meg Rally as a guy. as quote, maybe the most charming man in baseball. Maybe.

Wow. We'll find out. Yeah, we'll find out. That's what a nice thing to say. She hedged a little. You know, she'll reach a conclusion after this conversation, maybe. And no shots at how charming Brent is either. He is also the 2024 major league leader in sacrifice flies.

That just speaks to his character and his selflessness. He is Vinnie Pasquantino of the Royals. Welcome, Vinnie. Thank you for having me. excited to be here with Brent, who, wow, I've got some making up to do when it comes to getting on this show. Ben, what were your sack fly numbers this year? Did they go down? Were you more selfish this year? I was way more selfish this year. I think I had three maybe. Oh, my goodness. I knew going into the year, I need to average like 10 over the next 10 years to like break the record. So that's kind of my career goal, a sack fly record.

Yeah, you had five actually. Don't sell yourself short. How many of those sack flies are homers now with the fence is moving? That's the thing. Well, already, though, I mean, last year he hit 19 homers, so he had to drive some other guys in. Now he just drives himself in because he hit 32 bums last year. I was trying to be more like Brent. You were actually a better version of me than me. So good job. Hey, you said it.

You said it. Well, you can already hear the banter back and forth between these two, the repartee. It sounds like they're naturals for a podcast. And in fact, VIII. Vinnie, earlier this month, when Brent was ragging on you on Twitter about how the fence changes at Coffin could cut down on your triples hitting potential, someone tweeted that you two would be great together on a podcast. And Vinny, you responded, if I wasn't literally the worst player in baseball in April, we would have one. So first of all, in your defense, by Fangraph's War, you were only the second worst player in baseball in April. Thank you.

Andrew Vaughn was last. And look how his season. Both you guys. Real turn around's there. Look at that. But take me through this. So were there, are there plans for an actual Pasquantino Rooker podcast? There was a show that had been created and we haven't come out with a first release date yet.

And when I was sucking so bad, I just was like, I think this is probably a bad idea for me. Hard to talk every two weeks about the state of baseball when. you're actively making the game of baseball worse. So it was totally my decision. Brent is way more mentally tough than me. I don't know how he was doing at that time of the year. I don't remember now, but... Better than you, obviously.

Way better. Yeah, that's for sure. You can say that about 99% of the league. But yeah, so I pulled the plug on it. It doesn't mean it'll never happen in the future. It just means it's not currently happening. Well, you guys are always welcome on Effectively Wild, if you just want to join our little platform here.

But I hope that happens at some point and hope that you get off to a stronger start. Yeah, I hope so, too. I'm trying to figure that little number out. Well, tell us a little bit about your history. You have the same agent, the same representation, but do you guys go back a bit? How do you know each other?

Van, what year did you move to Nashville? 2019. Yeah, so we worked out together in the off-season, 2019, 2020, all the COVID shutdown, all the stuff. We worked out and hit together. from a safe distance, of course. We followed all the rules and then always wore masks and kept our distance from each other during our workouts and our hitting sessions. And then 2021 also, and I guess 2022, too, right?

Yeah, because I moved back home summer of 2022. So there were four off-season there. We did all of our off-season training, lifting, hitting, and all that stuff together. So that's kind of when we became tight and became friends and started the current version of our relationship. Yeah. Wow. And your agent just match made you at that point? Or is that how you got together the first time or you were just in the area together? So, like, Vin, you can jump in there. But our agency, like, kind of what sets them apart or one of the things it does is they have like a, they have like a training facility for in Nashville for all their guys that live locally. So we all have a place to kind of work out and train together, which creates a cool environment and a cool dynamic to have a group of guys that you know you're going into the off season to work out and train with. And I was there for, I think, five years.

And then we started having kids and moved back home to Memphis, where me and my wife's parents both are, just be closer to family with the kids and stuff. So we left, but I was still there for a good four or five years taking advantage of that. And why do you guys get along so well? Because we're both hilarious, I think. That's definitely our one. I think we view things very similar when it comes to. baseball and social media and the way I think we have similar ideas on how the game should be promoted and viewed

and it's in a less serious not that we don't take it serious but it's in a self-deprecating like hey you actually can have a good time and play baseball because I think forever baseball was always the sport that was more like hey I'm a sportsman I go play that's it I show up, I do my job, I go home. And I think Brent and I more look at it from a, again, we take our job super seriously. Like it's really the only thing I care about.

But we try to look at ourselves like entertainers too, of how can we get people engaged and actively involved in the game of baseball instead of just, hey, we're going to stay quiet, we're going to show up, we're going to do our job, we're going to go home. And that's a perfectly fine way to do things. I think we just try to have a little bit more. more fun than that of like, hey, this can be fun and we can take it seriously at the same time. Well, this might be a kind of awkward transition away from that, but you know one thing that's fun is home runs. And one thing you might do more of this season is hit them, not that you have struggled in years past, but I'm curious about the wall changes at Kaufman and more precisely the process by which players were sort of informed or involved in that decision. Like,

did you wake up one morning and you saw, huh, the walls are going to be. shorter in some spots and closer in, or were you guys in conversation with the front office about those are maybe a little too far away? Well, I think every single player that had played for the Royals forever had said, hey, these fences are,

like, why is this place so big? Right. So, and, you know, Brent had a lifespan with the Royals. I'm sure he thought the same thing. I think I had, like, my only hit with the Royals, I think was a double, like, off the base of the wall. So maybe if the fences were shorter,

at that point, I might still be a royal. Was that the day that we were wearing the red uniforms? Yeah, we got beat like 40 to 1 by the Dodgers, but I did get two hits. I remember that. So I think it was one of those things where every single person

had complained. And it wasn't even a complaint anymore. It was just, you're talking about it. Whenever former players would come back, you'd bond over how far the fences are. It was one of those things where I think about in August of last year, I was kind of informed that this was being looked into.

It doesn't mean it's going to happen, but what would you think about it? And obviously my initial reaction is, yeah, I'm in. So then it kind of came, well, this is what we're thinking. This is how it might get done. We don't know if it's going to get done.

And then we got a text a few weeks ago. It was titled Stadium. We have a Zoom call on this day. We want everybody to be on it. We're letting you know of something happening. That's when I was like, okay, well, this is 100% what it is. So I actually had somebody text me and say that there is construction crews at the fence, probably a few days before that, so I had been tipped off that something was happening.

So it's definitely interesting, and I think their reasoning behind it is cool. They have an entire PowerPoint showing us why they're doing it, how it affects us, who it could affect individually, how it affects the pitchers, different things like that. So they put a lot of hard, you know, work into this, and it'll be interesting to see how it goes. The interesting thing is that, yeah, the walls are deep. The outfield is big, but it's not an extreme pitchers park overall. It's, if anything, maybe slightly a hitter's park just because it has historically increased other types of extra base hits. Plus, there is the reputed advantage of the batterer's eye out there, right?

because Kaufman has the best strikeout factor, if you look at the park factors on baseball savon. It's Coors Field where, you know, the pitches don't move very much. And then it's, it's Kaufman really number one. So I'm curious if you think that that reputation of that hitter's eye, that hitter's background is deserved. Is it really easier to make contact there? And then do you think that the other aspects of how the park plays up for hitters

balanced out the difficulty of getting the ball over the fence, or is it the sort of thing where the... that would get you out of whack because you'd be trying to swing for the faraway fences, and then that could sort of screw you up in other ways. Well, so I'll answer the last part of the question first. I think there's a few different ways it could go. You could try to hit too many homers, and you hit a bunch of fly balls, you get out, whatever. Or it could go the other way where it's, hey, I'm not trying to hit homers.

Maybe you hit more singles. I think there's a whole bunch of things that can go through your head at any given time at the plate. to address the batters eye, I think it is a great batters eye. It's massive. The scoreboard is very tall, so you're not really seeing the scoreboard. You're just seeing the batters eye, which is great. But I think sometimes, too, and I don't know in terms of the park factor, in terms of strikeouts, I don't know what it's looking at because I just, I don't have the knowledge of it. But I think it's just like comparing performance there versus performance elsewhere, basically. I know that it's like in relation to the rest of the league at their other parks, but the Royals have always historically been a team that looks for guys that don't strike out a whole lot.

So is that an organization decision that is now affecting the park factor or is it the ballpark that's doing it? You know, because from my knowledge, at least, park factor has to do with what actually happens at the stadium over the past three years, right? Yeah. You could look over any span, but yeah, it's often three years. And in theory, it should kind of account for the makeup of the players playing there because it's comparing the same player's performance there and elsewhere. The rest of the league, yeah. That's the idea anyway.

There could be something it's not capturing. Yeah. So I don't know. It could. Like, I think it's a great place to see. You know, Brin can talk about it too because he's now played there. He hasn't played there as much as I have. So probably an easier question for him to answer.

As far as like batters eye stuff and visibility, I think. Yeah, I mean, I think it's got, I do think they're, I mean, with every, y'all have, there's some, there's some decently bad shadows at times here in the summer, though. But, I mean, that exists, that exists everywhere. I think it's interesting, like, you asked the question, is, like, moving the fences in, going to cause guys to try to hit more homers and maybe have an inverse effect. And I thought it was interesting this year for my,

the first thing I thought of was, like, personal experience. I went from the Coliseum being, obviously, a very picture-friendly place to Sacramento know being very hitter-friendly. And my strikeout rate went down like six and a half percent, which I thought was kind of interesting and kind of the opposite of what would be the easily predictable thing. I don't know what the reasoning behind that was, but that's kind of the first thing that popped into my head when you brought that point up. Yeah, I was going to ask about that because when we had you on last off-season, we asked you

how you thought Sutter would play. And you said you thought it would be a hitter's park, but that you didn't think it would be anything extreme. You didn't think it would be top five. According to Fangraphs, it was the fifth best hitters park. According to Baseball Savon, it was the second best. So I'm assuming it played a little more offense friendly than you thought. Yeah, it did.

It for sure did. Especially down the line and left, it stands out a lot. Right field, I don't know, I don't know what the exact numbers are. Right field felt kind of normal. It was pretty wind dependent too because there were some days where the wind was going out. Anything that got up in the air was going to go. but there are also some days much or more specifically early in the year where the wind was blowing in and like it was a graveyard. So it's definitely a hitters park in terms of the whole run factor more than just like a big outfield or allowing a lot more hits.

But yeah, it turned out to be a very good place to hit. I'll say that. One thing that I find super interesting about this conversation in general. And Brent, I'm not saying you did this. But baseball is very funny because. There are some guys that play in hitters ballparks. There are some guys that don't play in hitters ballparks. And if you are a person who does play in a hitter's ballpark,

you almost have no choice but to get defensive when talking about your ballpark. Because people are like, say you're a left-handed hitter at Yankee Stadium. Like Bellinger, for example, I think he had way better numbers at home, right, than he did on the road. What do you want him to, I'm not saying you guys are saying, what do you want him to do, apologize for where he plays these games? like, hey, if next year I hit 40 home runs and I was supposed to hit 25 home runs, according to the expected stats, I'm going to take those points of OPS and I'm going to be so happy. Whereas, like, for my career, in terms of home runs, I've always underperformed home runs.

I'd rather overperform. Everybody would rather overperform. So I always think it's such an interesting conversation because the guys that play in more hitters ballparks, which, you know, according to the next. numbers. I play in one of those. I would disagree, but I get why it is that. But I think it's such a funny conversation because we work out with Brandon Lau, who played in Steinbrenner

this year, and he is convinced it was a pitcher's ballpark. Convinced. Ridiculous. It's ridiculous. He hit a homer this year and slammed his out of the ground. And the ball went out. I think I saw like 10 different videos of Yandy hitting balls, like 87

to right field that were homers. Because guys take it very personal if you say that you're in a hitter's ballpark because, like, oh, you think I can't hit homers? So I am very fortunate that I hit over 30 home runs this year because now I can actually speak on it and not sound like I'm begging for home runs. I don't like expected home runs because I just think it's misleading and that like it's only basing it off the distance the ball actually traveled. Yep.

Instead of like the launch conditions and how the where you were playing affected how far the ball went despite the launch conditions. Like, I hit a ball in San Francisco. It was like 112 at like 23 degrees. And like, that should be an expected home run, but it didn't go anywhere. And it was caught at the wall at dead center field. But I don't get an expected home run on it because it went 390 or whatever. But like, if I hit that ball at the exact launch conditions, anywhere else, it goes 420.

And so it's just, I don't, I don't buy the expected home run thing. I think it's misleading. I don't like it. How does an extreme hitter's park? like that kind of wash over the clubhouse because obviously you're excited right you're hitting home runs you'd be hitting them anyway but you're hitting home runs the conditions are ideal everything's going great but your pitchers have to deal with that also so how does what does it do for sort of clubhouse morale to either of us care about what pitchers think our pitchers complain a lot

but you know they can sort out their own problems yeah within a clubhouse like no matter what It's kind of like being an umpire almost where somebody's going to be mad at you. Like one side of the ball is going to be unhappy at something. So like as a guy who never has pitched, I don't care what they think. I think they have all the advantage in the world. So they're the ones playing offense. We are reacting to what they do. So I look at it like, dude, just strike me out if you can control that.

I saw an umpire get cheered in the fall league this year. because the challenge system is in place, and it was the first time a lot of the retirees in the Fall League had seen it. And there was a guy who just called a really great zone, and every challenge went his way. And by the end of the game, a guy said, way to go, Blue, which is the first time I think I've ever heard that happen in my entire life. The umparis probably had no idea how to respond.

He's like, oh, my goodness. He's just, I don't know what's going on. Brent, you did have some pitcher teammates who expressed some disapproval of Sutter Health Park and various conditions there. I do wonder, though, just how it played in terms of the Major League quality of the facilities and everything when you're upgrading a minor league park. What were some of the difficulties and how did that evolve over the course of the seasons? I think the, I mean, they did, obviously they built us a whole new building in left field

with the amenities with Clubhouse, with food room, kitchen, weight room, training, and they did a great job with it. So all of our facilities themselves were for sure Major League quality up to Major League standard. They're great. The only downside is not having them connected to the dugout, which has obviously been well documented. But that's kind of outside of our control and something that was definitely – I mean, I think it definitely played a factor early in the year. I think we got used to it. It just kind of becomes second nature, and you don't really think about it anymore when you get in the second half, which we'll have the luxury of the advantage of kind of going into the season knowing what to expect this year.

so it shouldn't really play a role anymore. But yeah, I mean, with the upgrades and things they did to our space as players, they did a very good job, and they were definitely plenty adequate. You guys had me looking up splits at Steinbrenner Field last year. And the race did hit quite a bit better at home, but there was a lot of complaining early in the season about the wind. Yes. And, yeah, Brendan Lau, yeah, it's not an easy place to hit by any means.

I'm sure everybody thinks that it's just like Yankee Stadium, and it's not. The wind blows in almost every single game. It's hard to see at night. And it's kind of proven to be a little bit more difficult than people were originally thinking. Is that a Brandon quote? That was a Brandon quote. He is always complaining about everything.

About everything. Well, I guess he doesn't have to worry about playing there now. He's in Pittsburgh. Which is a way worse park to hit in. Way worse. Serves them right, I guess. Brett, you reference your decline in strikeout rate or decline makes it sound bad. It may be good, if anything.

Decrease. It's lower than it was. I was just kind of comparing your 2023 stat line with your 2025 stat line. And in some respects, it's almost identical. And in some respects, it's completely different. So you hit exactly 30 homers in each of those seasons. You walked exactly 9.3% of the time in each of those seasons. You had roughly the same, you know, Woba and X Wobah and WRC Plus and all that stuff.

the difference was you struck out 10.5 percentage points fewer, less in 2025 than in 2023. So you were like a way better contact hitter and yet sort of the same hitter overall in a sense. So how did that happen? Is that good? Did you mean to do that? Yes, I think it's good. I think if the end stat line is going to be pretty close to the same, all else equal,

I think you take the line with less strikeouts. I think that that's true. But no, I didn't, there was never a point where I was like, okay, I'm going to do this now for the sole reason of trying to strike out less. Like, I never made a specific conscious adjustment to try to decrease my strikeout, right? I think it just became, it just came from becoming a better hitter and getting more major league at bats and more majorly experienced and understanding how guys pitched before two strikes, how they pitched me with two strikes and being able to kind of put together plans to counteract those different things. So I there were when I compare I like you said the stat lines of the two seasons were pretty close to the same. When I think back on how I felt throughout the years in both seasons, I felt like a significantly better hitter this year than I did in 2023, even though the stats look fairly similar. And I think a lot of that had to do with the strikeout rate being lower was a reflection of putting together.

more competitive at bats more frequently and never really being overmatched. There were times in 2023, which was my first year, obviously, with consistent playing time, for an extended period of time, that I walked up to the plate and just kind of felt overmatched. I was just like, I don't really have a chance here. And I kind of know how this at bat's going to end. And that was never the case this year, or kind of the back app of 2024. I think that just comes from evolving as a hitter and, like I said, learning how guys are going to attack you in different situations and being able to

compete with different types of arms and different types of situations with different types of stuff and things like that. Yeah. Speaking of evolutions as a hitter, you guys have both been sharing some progress footage and work in the cage this offseason, and it seems like you're both doing various kinds of bat speed training. And I wanted to ask you about that, Vinnie, because I know that was something you worked on going into last season.

and it seems to have paid dividends and your swing speed was up. But there was an article in the Kansas City Star early last year that suggested that maybe your increase in bat speed actually played into the slow start to the season, that you were still sort of getting used to that. So could you tell us a little bit about that? And, you know, is it a good thing to increase your swing speed and is there some sort of adjustment period? Yeah, so that article stems from a TV spot. on MLB Network where we talked about some things. And that interview was scheduled like two weeks in advance. And like we've already talked about, I was terrible in April.

So when I went in legitimately, like they didn't tell me this, but they were definitely just looking for something that was good. Like 100%. I'm telling you, they were like, what do we, we want to have this guy in. We know he's going to talk. We know it'll be good. But what can we say? Because literally nothing is good.

So your bat speed's up. Great. So they asked me about it, and that was me real time trying to work that out in my head. I do think swing speed is important. I think it's one of those things that is very similar to exit velocity, where it creates room for error. The faster you swing, the less often you technically need to square up a baseball because you're giving yourself more opportunity that when you do square it up, it's going to go. the same way if I hit a lot more balls at 100 than I do at 90, I'm probably going to get more hits.

But those are such simple things to say because there's so much more involved. Well, what's the angle of the ball off the bat? What's my attack angle? What's the tilt on my shoulders? What's the connection to the barrel? Where's my contact point? What am I swinging at? So there's so many different things to think about that, like in that, in that,

article I think I was quoted as saying well maybe I need to lower my bat speed to help out a little bit which you know to an extent is can be true for somebody I don't think Freddie Freeman has one of the higher bat speeds in in the league but he's obviously one of the best hitters so I do think swinging the bat fast is important it's just finding a way to make that work for your body and at that moment like I had rehabbed all off-season on my thumb I had the month off because I broke my thumb, came back for the playoffs, continued to rehab the thumb, got another surgery on my thumb, and then didn't start hitting until, you know, middle of January or whatever. And it was mostly in rehab settings where I'm trying to get it back.

Go through a spring training. I was awful in spring training. So now I'm tinkering with the swing as spring is going, but I'm, you know, I'm hitting the ball hard. I feel good about my work. And then we get into the season, and it was like I got punched in the face because of, He was like, oh my God, none of the things that I've tried to work on are working, other than that I'm swinging the bat fast. So in my head, I'm like, well, that's great, then I'm swinging the bat fast,

but what else is working? And the answer was nothing at the time. So it was like every day I'm trying to work on new things. And then eventually I just got to a point, which I haven't ever said this publicly, but on May, I think it was May 18th last year, I got contacts, which is kind of an interesting wrinkle to the season. I had a moment where I went to a trainer and was like, hey, because in spring, I mentioned something to them about my eyes. And then we were in Houston, I went to him.

I said, is that clock blurry to you? And he said, no. And then, you know, a few days later, I went to the eye doctor. A few days after that, I have contacts with me. And I put them on that night. And then it was kind of like things cleared up a little bit better. So there's so many different things that can go wrong with the swing. It could quite literally be anything.

So that was a long winter. way of saying, yes, I think you should swing the bat fast. Yeah, that's really interesting because so we've talked about that before with guys who get contacts or they get LASIC or whatever. Like Max Muncie had a big turnaround this past year after he got some treatment for vision. And I've done that myself. I had contacts. Then I got LASIC.

It definitely made a big difference for me. Not that I need to see very well to do a podcast. But I wondered about that sort of thing, not just being determined. kind of routinely? Like, are there not just regular eye exams? Because it seems like to see and hit, you know, see ball, hit ball. The seeing part is pretty important. Well, so for, for my specific case, it was weird because I had always had like perfect vision. And then this spring I didn't, but I still had good vision. So it was more about, it's not that I'm not seeing well. It's that I'm not seeing at the level that I'm used to. Like even the eye doctor

said, if you didn't play baseball, I wouldn't be giving you contacts. But because, you have to see at an elite level every single day, this will be good for you. But I was also very, I hate excuses with my entire life. So because of how bad I was, I didn't want to like say anything about it because it's like, oh, he sucks. He thinks it's his eyes. Or he thinks it's this. He thinks it's that where it's like, all right, I, like I waited until I started to hit a little bit better and then got contacts because I didn't want it to be a thing. Yeah. Yeah. I always say some excuses are good excuses though, you know? They're just explanations, but I get it from a PR perspective.

And Brent, I know you have thoughts on bat speed and bat speed training because back in October, you brought this up on Twitter. You said the fact that the idea of swinging the bat faster is better is considered new age analytical thinking is insane. Gaining speed, power, force production has been beneficial for every athlete in every sport since the beginning of time. And you had some caveats beneath that. But I guess the idea that swinging harder is like something, you know, super advanced or or sabermetric, I guess does seem sort of silly. Yeah.

I started, so I kind of came into this offseason the last month of the year, kind of did a deep dive on what was different between my 2024 and my 2025 because I felt like I felt kind of similar throughout the year. Obviously, just the power numbers didn't necessarily match up with what I did last year. They were still, you know, productive and solid, but not quite. to the level of what I did in 24 and I dove in and tried to figure out what was going on there. And Bathfrey was the exact same pretty much, swing direction, attack angle, basically every single measurable thing that I could find was identical. The only thing that was different was my

average contact point in 25 was a little deeper than it was in 2024, which led to me being able to make better swing decisions. So I chased less, I struck out less, I swung and missed less, but I wasn't producing the same power numbers because obviously the more you catch balls out front, the easier it is to backspend and pull side and that's when the home runs come in. When you can backspend to the pole side is where home runs come in. It's where hard hit devils come in and things like that.

So power was down, everything else was improved, so I came up with this theory basically that, okay, well, if I can keep everything the exact same and just swing the bat slightly faster and push my contact point back out front by just the bat moving faster and not having to make earlier decisions or anything like that, then I should kind of be able to keep the best of both worlds.

And that kind of was my plan going into the offseason. We just try to gain very marginal improvements in my bat speed and how quickly my bat was accelerating and things like that. And then I get deeper into the off season. And that's all going great. I feel like the program has been good. My swing feels like it's got a good place. I see a tweet that basically says,

after you turn 31, your bat speed just falls off. a cliff and I turned 31 in November. So I spiraled and I panicked a bit and I basically shifted my mindset from like, okay, because I saw the graph. It's like bat speed by age. It's flat. It hits to 31 and then it just 45 degree downward spiral. So basically my mindset shifted now to where like if I can just maintain what I've been doing, I don't even have to improve it. If I can just keep it the same by doing some of this training, then like I'm winning and I'm ahead of the curve. So I think it's kind of, it's been a good way or a good perspective shift for me and that I just kind of need to find the way to maintain what I've done for the past three years for the next several years and I'll be in a

good spot. But yeah, I mean, I think all things equal in a vacuum, swinging the bat faster is always better as long as you're able to maintain your direction, maintain your swing mechanics that you believe in, maintain your approach and things like that. I think that that kind of physical training in just terms of just being able to be more explosive and faster moving is always going to be good. You take in all these inputs during the season. You're doing work during the season on your own swing. You're making adjustments and training all through the offseason. And all of that is based on input that is specific to you. The path you sort of chart is one that you're determining. But you also have to contend with broader structural changes to the game, ones that I imagine will have

a much smaller impact on any individual hitter but are going to have an impact on the same. And I'm curious what you each think of the challenge system and whether you think that you will each be reliable challengers in the months to come because they think we're going to see some guys who really excel. They have a great sense of their own zone. They know where that pitch was. And then we might have some guys who challenge from a more emotional place potentially. And I'm curious where you think you will each fall along that continuum and whether you're looking forward to this change. Vinnie will be better at it than me.

He has a far greater understanding of the strikes than I do. I've given it a lot of thought, but I think I'm going to have my blind spots like everybody else. Like change up's low. I'm going to think are way lower than they actually are. Fastball's up. I'll probably think her higher.

I don't know. I wish I had a better answer. I just don't know because I'd like to think I'm not emotional about it, but in the heat of the moment when it's one-one and you think, you got screwed on a call and it can make or breaking it back going 2-1 to 1-2. You try to do it. You know, I know that there's some pitchers with, you know, whether it's crazy release heights or whatever, they can make pitches look very different than they are to the point they fool

the umpire, full the catcher, and they end up being strikes. So I don't know. The most excited I am for it is to watch other people do it to see if they're right or wrong. Like I think there's some sneaky drama with that. Yeah. And what are teams going to do? Because I think the easy thing for teams to do would be like, all right, guys, the veterans can challenge because they're the veterans.

When you think about it, the guys who should be challenging are the young guys, the rookies, because they've done it before. Like some of these guys that come up from the minor leagues now know the strike zone better than ever because they've just been training it for years now. So, you know, you have older players who are on record as saying that they think they should get. different strike zones than other people, which I think is a wild thing to say, but it's also what they grew up with. So that's what they know. So it'll be, I think it'll be like a two or three year adjustment period. But I think after like two, three years, I think walks might skyrocket because apparently the zone is small. That's everything that guys from the minor leagues have said, is that this ABS zone is small. So we'll see what happens. I'm, you know, I'm excited to find out.

some of the input you hear from fans is like it kind of removes the art of framing and I think that's incorrect because I think so much of at least for me so much of where I perceive the pitch is like I'll take a pitch I think I know where I think it is and then I look back in the catcher's gloves in a completely different place than where I thought it was and it could just be because he caught it well so I mean that could prevent framing can still prevent challenges I think is what I'm trying to say like if a guy catches the low ball really well by the time you look back and track it into his glove and the gloves at a good height it could definitely prevent a challenge from happening. You get what? Three challenges a game? Like it's not like every close pitch is going to get challenged. I think there's a misconception with, oh, it's a close pitch, we're going to challenge it. If it's a second inning and somebody burns a challenge on a O-O pitch, like guys are

going to be so angry that, you know, if you get it right, nobody's going to care. But it's just one of those things. Like the result matters a lot with that. Like, you better get it right if you're going to do it. I think there will be certain guys and certain teams that get banned from challenging? 100%. Like we had a meeting last spring because we were able to do it last spring of like, hey, guys,

pitchers should not be doing this. I swear, this pitcher came out. The first pitch he threw, he challenged and was wrong by six inches. Shouldn't be allowed to. Zero like, ever. But in the heat of the moment, are some of these guys going to do it just because they're angry? Right.

Yeah, I think what we've seen with a lot of the minor leaguers is that, you know, they start out saying, well, anyone can do it. And then a couple of games into the season, the pitchers are no longer allowed to challenge it has to come from the catcher. Because for exactly the reasons that you're saying, there can be a little more emotion involved from their end. Plus, as you guys said, you don't want to know what pitchers think anyway. So why should I be allowed to express their opinion about the strike zone? Yeah. Meg makes fun of me sometimes for never taking an episode of this podcast off.

And I feel like I'm with a couple of kindred spirits here because you guys did not take a lot of time off of work in 2020. And in fact, Brett, Brent, you never took a game off. You played it all 162. Vinny, you missed two games, slacker. And I want to know about the toll that takes on you, Brent. Like, how do you have to prepare differently? I assume at some point it was a goal for you. In fact, I think I read an article to the effect that you had set your sights on it and actually turned down a potential day off. But, you know, did that wear you down at all? Yeah, it was never a goal until I got probably half, like, into August. And then I was like, okay, the end's kind of in sight here, and we've done it to this point. So let's just, you know, if I'm physically capable, let's go ahead and finish this out. I do not want to take the same credit to play 162 as guys who play defense do, because that is not the same thing. I think I played defense 28 times. So there should be some kind of weighted scale there.

And the 162 turns into less than 162. Hey, they already weight that scale on your war, big fella. So it's getting waited. That's fair. But I think the 162 thing, like, I think for me it was, I mean, just because, like, again, I'm dehing almost all the time besides those 28, 30 games, whatever it was, I think for me it was more of a mental exercise, like, because there were definitely, like, times where I had a rough five games, and I know we're going into the first game of series against a pitcher that, like,

I do not match up with well. it would have been pretty easy to be like, all right, give me my one day off here, whatever it was. And there were times when that popped into my head. But I kind of put my head down and I just did it and I got through it. And I played every one of them. And I was proud of myself in the end. So again, I don't want to take the same amount of credit as like, I think Ellie played all 162. And that's a lot of playing shortstop.

And other guys did something similar. I know Pete runs out there to first base every day. Olson does the same thing. The other guys who play every game, I don't want to take the same amount of credit as they get. But it was something that I felt accomplished in doing. And I'm glad that I did it. And I'm planning on trying to do it again this year. So we'll see how that goes.

Yeah. We do 150 plus episodes of this podcast a year. So, you know, that and playing 162 major league games seems similar to me. We're both Iron Men in our respective fields. I can't think of any differences really. Same thing, really. Yeah. Yeah.

Ben, I was just saying you don't have to podcast on your wedding day. I think that's just being a good friend. You know, I don't think I'm speaking out of school there. Yeah. I have a non-serious question. We've talked about training and bat speed and the challenge system and never taking a day off. Brent, we ask you this every time you're on the show. And Vinnie, I would love to hear your thoughts in your own experience this year.

What were your favorite road meals that you ate in 2025? What were the highlights? It's a good question. Brent does a good, like a much better job than I. do of getting out i'm more of like get up get some dunked donuts coffee and go back to the room and sit in there until i go to the field um heathen wow yeah toronto's got some great food yeah i also never remember where we go like i don't write down anything there's this place in minnesota that's really good like the butcher's tail i think that place is really good trying to think

of where else we go. We like, we'll do, they're in Detroit, right next to the hotel, there's a place, the team dinner that we always do. That place is really good. I'm a terrible person to ask this question, too. The Tim Hortons, I Uber eats. I have my breakfast stuff that I eat this year. I always keep track of that.

I have a few notables. Yeah, laid on us. Yeah. The Baja Breakfast Hash in Milwaukee from Uncle Wolf's Diner is very good. good. Oh, in Minneapolis, there was a new breakfast place. I think it was new, because I hadn't been there even from the times that I lived there.

Hope Breakfast Bar had a smoked salmon and pimento cheese scramble. And I love pimento cheese. And so that was delicious. Hot honey, shrimp, and grits from Skillet in Seattle. I also have on here, which was very good. So those were three ones that made the list that

stuck out to me. And then, I mean, I know I had some good dinners here and there, too, but I only record the breakfast one, so I'd have to take a little bit of time to go back and think about some dinner spots. But I love the food. I love the travel aspect of our job, with the fact that we get to go to different cities and try different restaurants. And it's, you know, it's one of the perks for sure. Well, despite not being a foodie, Vinnie does have a food item named after him. So, Brent, have you eaten or would you eat the Pasquit, which consists of shaved Italian

beef topped with two slices of provolone cheese, two strips of bacon, crispy golden brown hash brown patties, and Jardinara Aoli, all served on a buttered and grilled brioche bun. I have not eaten it, but I absolutely would eat it. I'm going to send you one over pregame this year. Please, that would be fantastic. That's what you need in your stomach before a game, so I'll send it over about an hour before. I have a semi-serious question for you.

You both hit 30 plus homers this past season, well done. However, we have to ask you the tough questions here. And based on your stat-cast sprint speeds, you're both roughly as fast as or faster than Juan Soto and Josh Naler. What's your excuse for not swiping 30-plus bags? I'd like to say I've never been thrown out, though. So my efficiency, in terms of efficiency, I'm about as good as it gets. You're basically Carlos Beltran.

But I actually am planning on stealing more base. I haven't told the Royals this yet, but seeing those two guys steal bases, like, you're correct. There is no excuse. Yeah. Why are you not 30-30 guys? What did Josh do, though? Because he didn't steal bases. I'll tell you what he did.

He just fell like 15 in a week. I asked him, I was like, Josh, what are you doing? And he was like, well, stolen bases are important. So, like, I figured I'm going to try to steal bases. And then I realized I'm pretty good at getting a read on what guys are. doing so I just started doing it and it's worked out. So he his answer was amazing because his answer was well I'm smart enough I can I can have an idea of what the pitcher's going to throw I'm reading the count I'm reading the hitter I'm reading the situation I'm just going to take a shot here and

yeah even though he had 30 like he was still able to steal you know he got to 15 people knew he was stealing bases but if a guy is smart like you know Bobby everybody knows he's a threat to go every time he still steals bases these guys are smart they know what they're looking for and they take their shots. Yeah, it's like where there's a will, there's a way. I wonder whether it will inspire people because they look at those guys and they're like, I could beat them in a foot race. So why can't I steal 30 plus bags?

Now, I think base stealing is more fun than it is valuable, at least as the stats would have it. And so I guess you could say, you know, if you're getting banged up, there's injury risk, but you just want to keep your bat in the lineup. You've got to play 162 games after all. So maybe it's just not worth it. but maybe anyone has the capacity to do that, or at least many more people have the capacity to do it than was previously believed, you know,

under the new, the rules and everything. Yeah, I'll give a shot. I'll run more. I've still 11 and 24. I think that was, I got the double digits and I was proud of that. So we'll see. Yeah, do it.

All right. I also wanted to ask you, since you mentioned not playing much defense, Brent, there were a couple guys I wanted to ask you about their defensive acumen on your team because when Denzel Clark came up, and started making circus catches every other game. That was kind of a phenomenon.

We talked about that a lot here. Also impressive was Tyler Soderstrom, going from being a catcher, playing some first base, then going to left field where he had never played as a pro and becoming a gold glove finalist. So how much fun is that for you guys to get to watch those guys to put that clinic on out there? Watching Denzel in the center field is a experience unlike anything I've seen.

I mean, he went on that like two-week run where every single catch, or every single game he made like a sub-5% catch probability catch. It was bizarre. Just how many chance, like, one, how many chances he was getting to make the catches? And then he converted like every one of them. And it was truly insane.

And then watching Tyler do what he did too was awesome. And I was fired up that he was so good at it because it means I didn't have to do it as much. So he went out to the left and turned out he was really good at it and it was great. It made our team better because obviously we want, you want to get Nick Kurtz in the lineup when you can because he's pretty

good as well. So having Tyler go out there and do what he did was super impressive to watch. Yeah, wanted to ask about Nick Kurtz. He comes up in late April and from that day forward, he is the best hitter in baseball not named Aaron Judge or Shohei Otani. So did you see that coming? Did you know he was going to be that good? How impressive was that?

I think we got glimpses and free. training last year. He was super impressive during spring training. He had some hungers, but it was just kind of the quality of the abat during spring that impressed everybody so much. And then he came up and took like two weeks to get his first extra base hit.

And everybody was, it was kind of like, okay, I mean, it's a different sport up here. And we know he's going to struggle a little bit, but the quality of the abat and the approach was still really, really good. And you kind of see it coming. And then he had the series against Houston where he hit Homer.

or walk off homers off Hayder and Abraeu and back-to-back nights, I guess. And that was like, okay, this kid is different here because those were two elite, elite relievers. And he just did that in high-level situations. And then from there, he kind of never looked back and went on one of the more impressive runs I've ever seen. Yeah. Finney, I wanted to ask you about a young teammate who came up to Jack Haglione, your Italian brother, who it seemed like you really took under your wing. and I kind of admired that because, you know, sometimes the hot shot rookie comes up and people feel threatened by that. It's like this guy could take my playing time.

You could replace me or something. But you seem to become kind of a mentor for him. You developed a celebration when he hit a homer. You kissed him on each cheek. You didn't get to kiss him as often as you probably both would have liked because, you know, like rookies have since time immemorial. He had a hard time acclimating to that level. So when a guy goes through that, how do you help as more of a veteran to kind of keep his head straight and help him get through that? Yeah, it's tough because you try to remind him how good he is.

You remind him that he has support. But when you're like, I don't know, I think I speak for a lot of people when I say this. Like sometimes your rookie year is the hardest baseball ever is. just because you're learning so many different things about the game, about the culture surrounding the game, about how to be comfortable within your own skin. And, you know, for Jack and rightfully earned, I mean, he was pushed and pushed quick.

And honestly, like, he never said this. He would never... I don't know if Nick Kurtz having such a great ear didn't affect Jack. Because same draft class. called up quick and just you know i mean brent said he had two weeks without hitting an extra base hit like and then he took off and he was one of the best hitters in baseball and if you're jack you're sitting there and like man this guy's doing this and i'm not having the success that he is um you know that could wear you down a little bit because you're you're always comparing yourself to your peers and i

just think he had a tough you know he had a he had a tough year he did he did what i think is normal to happen when you're a year out of college and you get thrown into the big leagues, which there's not a whole lot of people that have ever walked to the earth that has happened to. And he earned it. He earned the right to get to get called up as quick as he did. There's probably a piece of him that think he was held down a little bit because of how good he was. So I think you just try to put your arm around a guy, tell him you love him, that, you know,

he's just got to keep working. But there's also times where you use things as learning experiences of what were you thinking that at bat? What was going on in your head? What were you trying to do? What was the situation? So I think you got to kind of play both parties of like friend and I care about you and let's make you better. But then there's also the team had aspect of like, hey man, we're trying to win ball games here. Like that's what the goal is. And we need you at your best to win ball games. So how do we get you there? Because in order for the Kansas City Royals to have success from last year moving forward, we need Jack Caglione at his absolute best because he is an important piece to our lineup.

So that didn't really answer the question of like, what do you do? Because the answer is I'm still trying to figure it out of how can I help him get into the best situation possible to make him his best? And maybe that's leaving him alone. Sometimes it could be as simple as leaving a guy alone of letting him get comfortable within his own skin at the level that he's at. Or maybe the answer is, hey, we're hitting it this time and we're going to talk about this, this, and this. And we're going to take this very seriously, and we're going to lock in, and we're going to try to help you figure it out. So I think there's a whole range of things you can do to try to help the young player get better. Both of your teams this offseason have committed to young players on the rosters with long-term extensions.

Obviously, you know, the A's Kansas City, these are smaller market clubs, but ones that have been starting to invest in the roster. I'm curious, what does that do for veterans like you in terms of your assurance of the sort of competitive drive of the front office, the desire to have good players in-house long-term? How do extensions like that tend to wash over you? I think it gives us a sense. The feeling within our clubhouse is that we're headed in the right direction that we have the right group of people together to do what we want to do. And when ownership and the front office kind of confirms that and reaffirms that they believe the same thing by expressing their, desire and then going out and actively keeping the same group together. I think it kind of makes it clear that everyone's on the same page and that like I said, all right, like we've got the people

here that we want to be here. We believe in the group we have. We think if we keep these guys together that we're going to be able to go on a run of success to the level that we want to. And I think it just kind of builds the clubhouse culture. It makes everybody feel confident in the fact that we all feel the same way. And then that breeds a good environment to come in and work and, you know, go out of the field with. Last time we had you on, Brent, I think last offseason we made you promise to inform us first if you ended up signing an extension and then Ken Rosenthal reported it. Yeah, you didn't do it. But, you know, we forgave you.

Yeah, that's okay. But the nice thing about that is that you don't have to go through the arbitration process. Vinnie, you haven't signed an extension yet. You do have an arbitration hearing looming. You tweeted recently, I'm about to go into a room and hear how awful. I am. That is kind of how it works. So what have you heard about that process and how have you prepared yourself for it if it ends up happening? Yeah, we're preparing for it. That tweet was supposed to be more sarcastic than it came out. That's why that tweet no longer exists on the internet.

But yeah, it's one of those things, right? It's a business decision. I was at a number. They were at a number. We, you know, we didn't agree. And that's why arbitration exists is for me to try to capitalize on the value that I can and, and for them to put me at a spot where they think I belong. So, you know, as personal as it seems like it is, because it's just like talking about the money that I'll make this year, like at the end of the day, I'm going to do fine. So we just go into a room and we figure it out. That's really about it. So, you know, in this game, you got to do some things that are a little uncomfortable. This is one of them. But, you know, it is what it is. And at the end of the day, when May rolls around, when April rolls

around, none of it will matter. So we just try to win baseball games. One more for you, Vinnie, we asked you about one of your youngest teammates. I wanted to ask you about your oldest teammate briefly last year who made his professional debut before Jack Caglione was born. That is, of course, Rich Hill, who is a favorite of ours former podcast guest, made a couple of starts for the Royals last season, which seemed to have maybe been his last major league starts, because it seems as if he is done now as a player, do you have any Rich Hill stories from his brief tenure in Kansas City and what was it like to have him show up at age 45? Yeah, so one of the people I got closest to this year was Luke Maley, catcher for us, and he was

in AAA when Rich got to AAA. And he just kept telling stories about how competitive he is and how he'd be in a bullpen. and he's working on new pitches, trying to figure out how to make his pitches better. It's not just like show up, throw a bullpen, yeah, feel good. Like, Eric, he's screaming in his bullpins. He's trying to figure out what he needs to figure out. And when he got to the big leagues, I saw it firsthand. I mean, that guy is unhappy if he has a tough inning.

And it's old school. He's down there throwing things. What a pleasure it was to play with Rich Hill, just to be able to see the work ethic. I think everybody kind of knew that unless he was throwing perfect games every time he went out there, that it probably wasn't going to be the longest stint because we had some guys coming back from the IL. So it was just kind of a cool experience to get to play with him. He was giving us competitive starts. He was giving us everything he had. And if that was it for him, I mean, what a phenomenal

career. And I'm honored to have shared a field with him. You mentioned that your arbitration tweet doesn't exist on the internet anymore, but both of you are very happy to chat with fans, sometimes put fans in their place, but often just share your experiences of the majors, your training. That is positive and part of any way you said with baseball should be fun, and you guys can be accessible and tell the fun parts. There is a potentially very not fun thing looming over this season, which is the pending end of the CBA, the next CBA negotiation. I know, Brent, you've talked on Twitter about your thoughts on assigning deadline and what that would do for players and their salaries. I'm curious kind of how you guys are thinking about talking with fans directly about labor issues because I think that fans are maybe more pro player than they've been historically, but they are still a lot of, you know, pounding the table for ownership and salary caps and signing deadlines.

So how do you look at sort of social media as an opportunity to talk to fans about, you know, your perspective on labor issues and the CBA negotiation that's pending? I think it'll be important to just present facts and accurate numbers and things that accurately depict kind of the situation of where the league is at business-wise and what makes sense. I think these topics, it becomes very easily to get emotional over them. from both sides, even from the neutral third-party side of the fan. And I think as players, it will just be our job to communicate in a very objective, very level-headed way. But I look, here's a situation. You know, here's why X, Y, Z doesn't work.

Here's why we feel it's bad for the league as a whole. Here's why we feel it's bad for growth. Here's why we feel it's bad for competition. Or on the other side, you know, things that we want to accomplish. Here's why we think these things are good for competition or are good for parity or good for the league as a whole. And if we can kind of present those things, like I said, with a level-headed perspective without getting emotional in a way that makes it very clear and easy to understand why we are positioned in the way that we are, then I think that will have a positive effect on the outcome of the CBA negotiations. It's a tough one because when it comes to PR, we have been losing that battle forever.

I'm not 100% sure that everybody knows that a lockout means that the owners have shut us out. Yeah, that needs to be clarified for sure. Yeah. That's like, we are not the ones doing this here, guys. Yeah. But I also think that players in general have not been willing to speak publicly with the fear of, what if I say something wrong? What if I'm not around when this happens?

There's a whole bunch of things that could be negative about speaking directly about these issues. Sure. And also because it's a legal battle, I guess there's things you're not supposed to talk about legally or publicly. But I just think it's tough because we're the ones that play, so we're the most visible when it comes to this. So the fans don't really see the owners. The owners speak through their lawyers. They know what they're doing. They're very buttoned up where we as players, we're out there every day.

So if we're not out there, it seems as if it's our fault. And it's tough because people know how much money we make. Right. And we make a lot. We do. Now, I do think that they, I'm not, in no way am I defending the amount of, like, whatever. That doesn't matter. But our salaries are public, and people can see that and be like, oh, well, this guy's being greedy because he's making 10 million, and now he wants to make 25 million.

Isn't 10 million enough? And it's such a weird argument to be like, well, it's not about, is it enough? It's about what the market value says it is the same way it is in any free market, which is what we currently have. And it's just such an interesting conversation because I completely understand it from a fan side of thinking that this is on the place. players. Completely understand. Because technically speaking, we could just say yes to a really bad deal. That wouldn't make any sense, though. Because we're not, the goal of this isn't to protect ourselves as players. It's to protect the 10-year-old kid that's playing baseball right now to make sure that when he gets to the major leagues, he's not taken advantage of by the other side. So I think what

what Rooker said is super important that it doesn't need to be emotional. It's just, We're trying to get to a point where both sides can agree on an agreement, essentially. Somewhere where both sides are happy, which the problem is, is neither side is really ever happy. But what we'd like to do is get to a point where we find a spot where we as players are happy and don't miss games in 2027. But like I started this conversation, this would be a lockout. This is not a strike. So that is ownership making a decision to lock the players out.

And what that means is we cannot have any contact with anybody within the organization. And that's their choice that they're making. There's nothing that says that they have to lock us out. That is a decision because the agreement would have ended. They don't have to lock us out. We can keep negotiating and try to figure something out. But they look at it as like that's a way for them to use their leverage of locking us out to get us to the table. And to be honest, like in my personal opinion, I think that's kind of a strange thing, but maybe, but I'm also not a business major who, you know, is strong suit is negotiation, which is why we have our own team of people that are helping us navigate this situation.

So it'll be interesting to see what happens, but it's, it's not a simple, it's not a simple conversation, which kind of sucks because you want to try to give people honesty and be transparent, but there's some things you can't really be transparent. parent about because there's so much behind the scenes going on. Yeah. And Meg alluded to Brent's tweet about the signing deadline idea. You called it pretty close to the most anti-player idea you could possibly have. I think we're with you in multiple ways, not just that this would favor ownership, but also, which you subsequently tweeted about, that it just doesn't seem to make that much difference from an entertainment standpoint and also has some drawbacks in the sense that nothing would

be happening in baseball for months at a time. You tried to sort of seek out contrasting opinions or why would people want this or why would this be better for fans? Did anyone talk you around at all or give you anything to think about that you had overlooked? Quite literally the only reason a fan could give me or anyone for why they would want this in place is so they are slightly less bored for like three weeks. And that's literally it. Like there's no other logical reason to do this besides like I'm bored nothing's happening on Twitter and I want things to be happening. So what does that mean exactly in a sport that has so many transactions? What would a signing deadline actually do? Because what if nobody offers you a contract? I guess that's the idea.

That's it. You know, you have to take whatever because that's why the leverage. That's why our leverage. It's like the middle class free agent who wants a one for seven deal at the end of their career, it becomes signing deadline day. And some teams like, well, we'll give you one for three. And then you're like, you're worth eight, but we'll give you three. But that's my question is. What if nobody offers you anything? Yeah, then you don't have a job.

But we do the minor league deals with invites to camp and things like that. Could you sign one of those? Or like, what if somebody was willing to give you eight after the deadline? Like, are you not allowed to sign anymore? I don't know. I still know those answers for those questions because other sports have these things. I just don't know what the answers are. Yeah.

Yeah. even if it would make you a little less bored for a few days, then it would make you more boards later. Exactly. It's like, okay, well, now from January 1st to, I said this yesterday, like, okay, the deadlines, whenever, from the deadline until the season's starting, then nothing's happening. So now you guys are forgetting you can't put out your graphic

with your mock lineup for your team if the guys aren't signed by the signing day. That is true. I mean, I literally got a push notification during an NFL playoff game that I would rather have paid attention to that Mookie Betz will be retiring when his contract is over in like seven years. I needed to push, did I need to push notification for that? That's all we would have. Right. That would be the signing deadline future, just learning that Mookie will not be retiring early.

Yeah. I think we're good. Okay. Just a couple more for you. One Otani related question for you, Vinnie, because we have talked to Brent about Otani before about the fact that he has taken Otani deep and then wanted to get an autograph photo of the home run when he went to the All-Star game in 2023 from Otani. You had an interaction with Otani in October, Vinny, because of a couple of previous interactions.

This was going back to the summer when Jeff Passon tweeted that the two fastest pitches Otani had ever thrown were both against you, one in a game in the regular season and one in the WBC. and you quote tweeted that and said WTF. And then when you were doing some media stuff around World Series time, you got to ask him about that. So why is Shohayotani picking on you specifically? I don't know. I don't know.

It's a great question. He tried to say like, oh, you're a good hitter or something. We'll get to the bottom of it. But at least it's good. I know what to look for off of him. He tries to throw as fast as fastball. So I'll be ready. Yeah.

Well, you might, I suppose, have a note. other WBC matchup coming up. You are, of course, playing for Team Italy again. Give us a preview of the Team Italy squad. What can we look forward to in a couple months? And just like, how hyped are you in general after the breakout WBC of a few years ago? It seems like everyone wants to play now and that there's just so much buzz around this. Yeah, well, so when is this episode going out? Very soon. Okay. So I can't tell you who's on the roster because it hasn't been publicly released yet. Okay.

It's not me. It's not, Brett. I can tell you that. Yeah, it's going to be cool. It's going to be a good team. We're going to have some good pitching, going to have some good hitting, going to have some speed. It's going to be very left-handed

dominant from a hitter's perspective, which is going to be funny. Like, at times there could be eight hitters in the lineup that are left-handed. So it's going to be interesting in that regard because I'm assuming other teams are just going to load up with left-handed pitching to face it. We're ready to see Garrett Clevenger, buddy.

Yeah, yeah. So we'll be ready for that. Yeah, it's going to be super cool. The last WBC was one of the best baseball experiences I've ever had, and I'm expecting no less from this one. So I'm really excited about it. And, yeah, I think it'll be great. I'm excited too, and maybe this can be our closer here.

Brent, I know that you're the new Mike Trout. You've gotten into meteorology lately in meteorology Twitter, So we're heading into a weekend. A lot of precipitation in the forecast. What do you think is in store for us across the country? I don't know. I'm watching it closely here in southwest Tennessee. So, I mean, if I go to my iPhone app, which obviously is not always the most reliable thing,

but it's still got us for like 30 inches of snow. But the more reliable European models tend to have us at like five to six inches of snow with a bunch of ice on top of it. So either way, I don't think I've leaving my house for a few days, which is okay. We're going to hunker down here. I got plenty of firewood things in case we lose power. But, yeah, so being active on social media, like, sometimes I have an idea before I tweet something. Like, I think this one will do pretty well members-wise or this one will blow up.

I did not think that one was going to do anything. Like, I had no expectations for it at all. And it really took off there. We got deep into meteorology Twitter. Learned a lot of stuff. So thanks guys for having me. All the other people out there and on that side of the internet. It was a, it was a good experience for me. So I appreciate it. Yeah, you referred to the at Weather Channel official account as Weatherboy.

I don't know if y'all got that reference. It's a fantastic reference. Here's like actual customer out here. What's the best kind of firework to buy? Wouldn't you like to know, Weatherboy? Where are your parents? Kids sketching. Back to you guys. Are you actually a weather guy? Like, are you a Mike Trout type? No, not really.

Like, I follow. I mean, I live, where I live and have always lived is always pretty active during tornado season. So in the springtime and early spring, I guess, when I'm home, we always have a few events. And it's fun to track and follow, but I am by no means well-versed or an expert or anything. I just, the, the algorithm on Twitter really just throw me into the middle of these meteorology debates for no reason. And I found it very interesting how hostile they all got. Yeah, it's no different from baseball. I guess people argue about everything.

Yeah, okay. Well, this was a great pleasure. Glad we can keep extending this off-season tradition of talking to you, Brent, and glad we could add you to the mix this year, Vinnie, and you're both welcome back any time. I don't know if this will be like the backdoor pilot for the podcast that you two eventually launch, but the door is always open here at effectively wild. Thanks guys for having us. I had a good time as always. Yeah, me as well. This is great.

Was there a prospective title for your podcast before you scuttled it last year? Yeah, but we're not sharing that information. But it's good. It is. But it's good. Okay. Yeah, I was going to steal it for the episode title, so it's good that you didn't tell me what it was. Yeah, keep it for when you actually debut. Looking forward to it, guys. Thanks again. Sounds good. Thank you. All right. Well, thanks to Brent and Vinny. Those guys are great. Thanks also to their agency for facilitating. That's the Bledso agency, which they alluded to at the start of the conversation.

Apologies for some minor audio issues there. There are some missing headphones, a bit of audio bleed. I'm sure that'll all get ironed out when they start their own podcast. Though something Meg and I are toying around with is the idea of having a regular rotation of players appear on the podcast this season. Maybe once a week or every other week. Just kind of incorporate a player perspective as almost a third quasi co-host. Nothing set in stone.

Just an idea. haven't talked to any of the potential participants about it. But since we have plenty of smart engaging players in our orbit now, those two, and Declan Cronin and John Brebia and beyond, could be a fun feature. We shall see. Not sure Tommy Fam would want to do that, though then we'd really be fam graphs. But listeners Zach in our Patreon Discord group drew my attention to an Instagram post at the Big League Impact account.

That's a charitable organization started by Adam Wainwright. And this week, they posted, in addition to our signature fantasy football league for fans, also host a players-only fantasy football league, giving pro athletes a chance to compete against one another while raising money for causes close to their hearts. In 2025, 26 MLB players and one NHL player took part, supporting more than two dozen charities along the way. You'll never guess who won this league. Well, you wouldn't have, if I hadn't just mentioned Tommy Fam. Yeah, it was Tommy FAMM. He finished in first. He won $40,000 for the National Keredoconis Foundation. That's an eye condition that Pham has. So good, great for the National Caritoconis Foundation, but great to see

that Tommy Fam is still entering and even winning players-only fantasy football leagues. Years after his suspension for slapping Jock Peterson over a fantasy football dispute that did not discourage Tommy Fam from continuing to play fantasy football with his fellow players, who at this point might just decide to let him win because it's probably safer for them. Before we finish, our conversation last episode about Andrew Jones and diving by outfielders prompted much discussion, many responses. For those who missed it, we talked about the widespread belief that Andrew Jones never dove in the outfield and how that allegedly illustrates his skill, because supposedly he never needed to dive because he got to everything easily. So we examined that,

and we concluded that he did dive, at least on occasion, there are documented dives out there. We couldn't compare his rate of diving to other outfielders, but we did get data from sports info solutions that suggested that for outfielders and centerfielder's especially, good defenders tend to dive more often, if anything. Well, I heard from Joe Sheehan, one of the people we cited for saying that Jones didn't dive. Joe says two notes, one, and you basically got there at the end, is if you think of outfielders as having non-diving range and then a diving range outside that, Jones's non-diving range, was so large that his diving range, diving range, not driving range, that's a different sport, was

largely F-7s and F-9s, that is, flies to the left-fielder and right-fielder. He really was that good. Two, referring to the SIS stats at the end, I wonder how much of the numbers are affected by modern positioning, and outfielder's having to dive on shallow fly balls more than they did when they were 20 to 30 feet closer to the infield. To bring it back to Jones, he played more shallow than most outfielder in his era, so that would be a category of batted balls that he likely dove less than his peers and surely less than a modern outfielder. Other responses, one from Oliver, subject line mathematically proving betterfielders dive less. I was listening to your segment on whether Andrew Jones dove less because he had such good range and was surprised by your skepticism. To me, this is theoretically provable to be true if we make some assumptions. Let's assume that a given fielder's range is a circle of radius R.

It's the old simplified scientific model, the spherical cow. The size of the circle for better fielders is bigger than for worse fielders. Dives in this scenario would be balls hit to the edge of the circle. All catches, non-dives and dives, would be contained within the circle. We can calculate the dive percentage based on the ratio. of the circumference of the circle to the area. Dive percentage equals 2 pi r divided by pi r squared equals 2 over R. Based on this, the higher a fielder's range, the lower the chance they have to dive for a ball on any given play.

This intuitively makes sense, as if you imagine a fielder who cannot run, they would dive on basically 100% of place. Obviously, this is an oversimplification, but one that I think illustrates the point. So that's interesting. I asked Oliver how he would square that circle with the SIS research. And he says, unfortunately, theory and practice are different in practice. I would guess guys with higher range are expected to take plays from their corner outfielders more, and thus are taking a greater proportion of plays at the edges relative to less rangey center fielder. Essentially, balls at the edge of the circle make up a greater proportion of their plays.

Not so different from what Joe is suggesting. Other responses, Mulder bat flip in the Patreon Discord group, I agree that even with Jones's range, there are still balls at the edge that are divable. But I can see that those edges have a lower percentage of balls hit to them, compared to the diveable range of the average outfielder, and thus Jones had fewer diving opportunities than the average fielder. Raymond Chen, Patreon supporter, says, I came to a similar conclusion by different logic.

The edges of Jones's range are closer to the ranges of the corner outfielder, so he might not even need to make those plays in the first place. At an extreme, imagine an outfield of players with enormous range. You would get no dives at all because they collectively could cover the entire outfield comfortably. That's if you have three Denzel clerks out there. There was also some discussion about whether diving is even good. Is it more like running through first base as opposed to diving into first base, which tend to be counterproductive? But I think it can be helpful to approach the ball at a different angle.

Plus, you're airborne, you're not sliding, so you're not slowing yourself down. Just kind of gives you better body control. Another Patreon supporter, Zach says the Jones defense discussion had me thinking of Jim Edmonds as a contrast. He would find a way to dive for balls that were hit right at him. And he was pretty great, too. Listener Andrew M. duck up a Willie Bloomquist quote about Ichro. He never made a bad route to a baseball.

He covered a lot of ground. He never dove head first for a ball in all the years I saw him play. That frustrated some teammates every once in a while. But his philosophy was that he was faster running through than he was diving or sliding. So same question. I asked him once, why don't you dive? And he said, do you ever see a sprinter diving through the finish line? When you heard him, it made sense.

I'm sure some divers overdo it. Scott says Grady Seismore was always diving. Maybe you should have stayed on his feet. Perhaps it could have kept him healthy. Michael Mountain says my hypothesis on center fielder specifically, If you have great range and assuming you're well positioned to start with, a greater percentage of your dives will be on balls hit to the left or right compared to a center fielder with less range,

because you have enough range to cover more of the distance forward or backward in your narrow arc of the field. And those balls hit to left center or right center are more likely to have another outfielder backing you up or ready to make a quick pickup and relay throw if your dive is unsuccessful. So you may feel more emboldened to dive on a ball that is at the edge of your range compared to a centerfielder with less range, knowing that the risk side of that equation is lower for you. That's an interesting explanation. Paul on Blue Sky says I think the reason Jones dove less than other centerfielders is that he played much shallower than most. Most of his best diving catches were in front, which many centerfielders did not attempt.

His first step was left or right, and going back on deeper balls, he leapt or reached up. John on Blue Sky says, listening to your discussion about Andrew Jones' defense and lack of diving, and I'm reminded of my childhood centerfielder, Devon White. White was such a good defender that watching him often looked like he was simply snagging batting practice, always camped right under the ball. He links me to a 2015 Toronto Starpiece in which White said he was impressed by then Blue Jay's outfielder Kevin Pilar's work in Centerfield and a diving catch. But it says White did contrast his style of play with the headlong flat-out body launches, which are typical of many of Polars catches. I didn't dive, White said.

And finally, Patreon supporter Brett says, I suspect that Ben is probably right about elite fielders having just as many opportunities to dive as average ones. But I did come up with two possible caveats for centerfielders that I think are at least somewhat plausible. First, if you assume that outfielders are more likely to dive when they're charging in than when they're running back toward the wall, consider the case of a center fielder who consistently has shallow positioning. This is what others said about Jones. He'd generally be less likely to dive because there'd be fewer balls hit in front of him, but if he had top-tier range, he might still be able to track down balls hit over his head. Second, I can imagine that a good centerfielder might have fewer opportunities to dive side to side because his range might overlap with the right and left fielders, particularly if the players on either side of him are also good defenders. If you're a bad center fielder and or you have a bad corner outfielder alongside you, you might need to dive for a ball hit into the gap. But if you know you have another outfielder who can cover ground as well, maybe you don't need to dive because you know there's another glove waiting.

This strikes me as distinct from infielders. And remember, we learned that good infield defense is not positively correlated with dive rate. Infielders, Brett says, are never going to be able to make up the gap to the next fielder on a sharply hit ball and even corner outfielders who have all of foul territory to potentially dive or slide into. It also occurs to me that a fielder who is good at positioning himself based on each hitter's tendencies might also end up diving less because he's consistently in a better position to reach the ball. Thanks for all the thoughts. Really interesting topic, at least to me, and clearly some of you. 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. To keep the podcast going, help us stay ad free, and get yourself access to some perks.

As have the following five listeners. Tony C., Mitchell Kroll, Emily Ross, Reggie Deal, and Steve. Steve Smeaton. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, monthly bonus episodes, play off live streams, prioritized email answers, shoutouts at the end of episodes, potential podcast appearances, personalized messages, discounts on merch and ad-free fancrafts memberships, and so much more. Check out all the offerings of patreon.com slash Effectively Wild. If you are 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 Fancrafts.com. You can rate Review and subscribe to Effectively Wild on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, 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 posted fan graphs or the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we cited today. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. That'll do it for today and for this week. Thanks as always for listening.

We hope you have a wonderful weekend. Weather the winter weather. and we will be back to talk to you next week. If baseball were different, how different would it be? Players growing third arms and infield build a tree. Anything is fair game, even keekers dirty pants. And maybe if you're lucky, we'll cope all by the chance. You never know precisely where it's going to go.

By definition, effectively wild. Thank you.