Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2435: Oddsball Ideas

Episode Date: February 4, 2026

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about MLB owners avoiding the Epstein files, preview the season preview series, bemoan the insurance issues preventing some stars from playing in the WBC, and break down the Luis Arraez and Eugenio Suárez signings, the Brendan Donovan trade, the latest White Sox moves, and their major takeaways from the release of the 2026 playoff odds. Then (1:22:00) Ben brings on historian Richard Hershberger to discuss the 150th anniversary of the National League’s founding, followed by (1:41:02) a postscript. Audio intro: Philip Tapley and Michael Stokes, “Effectively Wild Theme” Audio outro: Luke Lillard, “Effectively Wild Theme” Link to Epstein files sports roundup Link to season preview series wiki Link to insurance article Link to Ben on WBC injuries Link to Arraez signing FG post Link to Dan S. on Arraez Link to Sam on Arraez Link to team 2B projections Link to Arraez offers report Link to Arraez defensive stats Link to Moneyball quote Link to Washington hiring Link to Ben on Arraez Link to “gotta hand it to them” tweet Link to “It’s Been Awhile” Link to Suárez signing FG post Link to over/under draft tracker Link to palindrome post Link to Donovan trade post Link to Dipoto trade story Link to “WWJDD?” Link to Dipoto hospital story Link to Cijntje specialization story Link to Cijntje splits Link to Becker on three-team trades Link to Rays ballpark funding info Link to Sam’s trade post Link to Sam’s original Rays post Link to “White Soxer” post Link to FG offseason tracker Link to Baumann on the White Sox Link to BP on the White Sox Link to Slater “top target” quote Link to Murakami bidets story Link to Sasaki bidets story Link to Mamdani bidets story Link to Ben on bidets Link to team payrolls Link to Dan S. on beating the Dodgers Link to Dan on the Pirates/A’s Link to the playoff odds Link to Clemens on the playoff odds Link to projected team WAR Link to Strike Four Link to Richard’s SABR work Link to projected team WAR Link to Past Blast wiki Link to Richard’s NL post 1 Link to Richard’s NL post 2 Link to Richard’s NL post 3 Link to 1876 NL Link to prediction markets update Link to team broadcasts update Link to 2025 player earnings data Link to original Stat Blast Link to new Stat Blast data Link to $/WAR by year  Sponsor Us on Patreon  Give a Gift Subscription  Email Us: [e-mail]  Effectively Wild Subreddit  Effectively Wild Wiki  Apple Podcasts Feed   Spotify Feed  YouTube Playlist  Facebook Group  Bluesky Account  Twitter Account  Get Our Merch! var SERVER_DATA = Object.assign(SERVER_DATA || {}); Source

Hello a catch and a slog with me in a virtual rise. From small sample size, these fun facts must lie. It's effectively a strange but could hang. Hello and welcome to episode 2435 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindbergh of the Ringer, joined by Meg Raleigh of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello.

You know, I don't say this often, but I have to hand it to MLB owners because they have done a decent job of staying out of the Epstein files. Oh, my God. Oh, my God, Ben. Bet you didn't see that coming, but it's true, you know? I should have. I should have seen it coming because what other circumstance would we possibly have handed it to them? I've handed it to them other than... Not being implicated with Epstein.

Yeah, they aren't in there, evidently. I mean, I haven't personally perused the millions of files released in the latest batch, but there is a handy-dandy aggregator at front office sports that has headline all the sports figures in the latest Epstein emails. And they're updating it as others come to light. And, you know, not a lot of baseball in there, I have to say. There's a stray Sammy Sosa mention. Yeah. Because Sammy Sosa evidently attended a party in the Hamptons 20 years or so ago that was attended by Epstein and Donald Trump.

But beyond that, there are some baseball adjacent figures, one of the sports figures who was implicated in this latest release is Casey Wasserman, who is best known for being the chair of the organizing committee for the LA Olympics, but also founded and is the CEO of the Wasserman agency that represents a lot of athletes and also baseball players. But really, like a lot of other sports owners and prominent figures are in there with various degrees of this is kind of concerning too cringy, to maybe he was just emailing them and they actually wanted nothing to do with him, but they're in there anyway. And, you know, ranging from Steve Tisch, who is the giant co-owner and chairman, who is in there the most in the most unsavory way. And the NFL is investigating that now. But Rob Manfred has not had to issue a statement

about how he is investigating any of the people that he works for because evidently they're not in there. Or if they are, it just hasn't really come to late. So, you know, it's a low bar to clear. But an important one to clear, you know? Of all the celebrities and prominent people and government figures, just not a lot of baseball. And so we can not say that these are baseball Epstein files, I think. And, you know, that's good. And I don't know why. I don't know what to attribute that to.

It does seem that maybe Epstein just wasn't a baseball guy, which, you know, happy not to have had him. Oh, God. So maybe it's that, that he was just not seeking out baseball figures to curry favor with them the way that he was with other sports figures that he was either more interested in or just thought were more powerful, just movers and shakers or whatever. Maybe this is a sign of baseball's fallen status in the culture, you know, someone who just was always kind of trying to curry favor with powerful people in society. just baseball was beneath his notice. Who knows? But for whatever reason, I have not had to consider

and contemplate connections to Jeffrey Epstein and baseball. And, you know, we take our wins where we can get them, I guess. Yeah, I suppose so. Suppose so. Beyond that, we don't often have to hand it to MLB owners,

but on that score, at least. I didn't know where you were going with it. And shame on me, really, for not being able to anticipate it, given the privacy of the Tish News and in the news. But wow, hmm, what a time to be alive, man. Sure is. Yeah.

So we have some transactions to discuss. Yeah. We have playoff odds at fan graphs unveiled this week. And what a perfect time because we are about to embark on our season preview series. That's right. And, you know, players are about to report pitchers and catchers. reporting to spring training, podcasters reporting to team previews.

It's almost time we're getting some blurry photos from afar. That's right. Through fences, just proof of life photos of players in Florida and or Arizona. So it's that time. And I know that it's sort of a right of spring and a signal that baseball is returning that the effectively wild season preview series also kicks into gear. So next time, we will be embarking on the umpteenth annual. season preview series, and that'll take us through mid-March, and we will wrap up before opening

day. I'm going to defeat the purpose of my own question by asking it, but what player do you anticipate being the most surprised is on the team he's currently employed by? Oh, you mean that I will have forgotten that he's there? Yeah, where you're like, oh, my, you know, because we, I like to think that we do, how do I want to put this, the appropriate amount of prep for this podcast every single time we go out, tend to do, at least in my experience, a good bit more prep for the previews. Because, you know, we need to have a sense of the relevant changes to the team, the guys who've emerged, the guys who've been traded.

And reliably, I'll be like, oh, my God, that's right. They did trade for that guy. The transactions, like the signings, I feel like sneak up on me less often. Like I had the experience not too long ago and this little sort of dovetail with one of the transactions that we will talk about today, but where I was reminded in the context of editing the Brendan Donovan trade reaction piece that Ben Clemens put together for us that Wilson Contreras is a red sock, you know? Red soccer. Yeah. I have such affection for Sam and he gets so many things right, but that one is not landing for me. I got to tell you.

Red soccer. No. No, because it sounds like soccer. Soxer? Soxer? Like a Bobby Soxer? Red Soxer? No.

Why would that be better? I mean, maybe. You're like, oh, allow me to cast about. Yeah. We got a Patreon email from supporter Jeff who suggested. Sorry, Jeff, but no. Soxer. And I guess other people have said sockser.

So you could do that. Have they? Have they and felt good about it, you know? I don't know if they felt good about it. But yeah, I was like, oh, yeah, Wilson Contreras, now shipping up to Boston or probably shipped and then down to Florida at this point. But yeah, it's illuminating for all of us, I think, is the point. Well, yeah, I guess if I could anticipate which player will most surprise me, then they wouldn't surprise me because I would already be aware of it. So we'll all find out together.

And for those who have been with us for previous previews, it will be the same, more or less. A lot of the returning previewers, same sort of format. For those who have not been with us before, it'll be 15 episodes, two teams per preview pod. And we will start, I always say we follow the middle out method. And so we use those fan graphs playoff odds. And we start with the most mid teams, the teams that are just projected to be smack dab in the middle. And we work our way to the extremes, and we end up inevitably with the Dodgers and the Rockies being the final one. So we will do that.

Twinned once again. Yep. And we will talk to many of our regulars, but typically beat writers, people who are covering teams in some sort of journalistic in person on the ground fashion. And we will get reports from camp when camps begin. And we will ask people what would constitute success in this coming season. And, well, most of you know the drill. So we will do that again. And yeah, it's a bit of a grind.

But I think it's good. It gets us up to speed. It gets our listeners up to speed. There's a little less time for nonsense, perhaps, when we are previewing. It's a little more meat and potatoes, perhaps. But maybe people have reached their nonsense quota by the end of the offseason or at least by February. So it's good, I think, also to onboard people for the podcast. People find us that way.

They're working for primers something to get up to speed or people who are on to preview a team, promote it to their audience, and then people find us. And they think that we're just a normal baseball podcast that just talks about baseball all the time. And then they're much surprised, perhaps, later on when we get weird. But effectively, wow, it contains multitudes. So we'll be doing that next time and for the next six weeks or so. It's a good way also to fill the slow news days that's to. to pile up late in the offseason. Okay, so a few other things.

We are getting the official unveiling of World Baseball Classic rosters this week. And, of course, most of that news has dribbled out one way or another. But I think rosters have to be submitted today. We're recording on Tuesday, and then they'll be announced officially on Thursday. And I'll probably do some sort of statistical comparison or we'll do some sort of deep dive into the rosters versus past WBCs. The only negative note here is that, as we're recording at least, there are a number of players who will be sidelined due to insurance issues. Correct. And potentially an entire team.

Yeah. Team Puerto Rico is kind of TBD right now because something like 8 to 10 of their players are at risk of being denied coverage and they don't want to put out sort of a subpar lackluster squad out there. So stars like Francisco Lindor was evidently denied coverage because he had a couple minor surgeries on his elbow, but he's healthy. He's expected to be ready for spring training. He could play. And evidently, there was a piece about this at The Athletic by the Woodward and Bernstein crew of Rosenthal and Drelick, the sign stealing the banging scheme breakers. And they're on the case with the WBC insurance issues too. and they write, the heightened insurance concerns stem from injuries to Jose Altuve and Edwin Diaz.

Diaz, by the way, is coming back for more. Yeah. So he's not dissuaded personally. Maybe he will be celebrating in a slightly more restrained fashion. Yeah. But he's signing up for another tour of duty during the last WBC in 2023, which created aftershocks that will lead to fewer star players on the field in Major League Baseball's international tournament this spring. Since the last tournament, insurance for Major League players has grown considerably more.

expensive and the league's insurer has become more stringent about which players it approves. People briefed on the underwriting process who were not authorized to speak publicly said. We get emails sometimes from people who just want us to shed a little light on insurance in baseball in general. And I wish we could. I'd like to because it's all very inscrutable to me, too. It's just you don't tend to see a ton of details reported, but I would like at some point if we could get an underwriter or someone who has been involved in.

that area of things and could sort of school us on it because it's a pretty important part of the business of baseball that is not often really in public view. But Carl's Correa, Jose Berrios, Victor Caratini, these are other Puerto Rican players who at least were not cleared to play initially. Their cases are still under review. I'm hoping that some of these players will be able to participate and then it will kind of come together at the last minute here. But obviously it would be a huge loss not to have a team. Puerto Rico or to have a much diminished one. And I don't really understand exactly why this is the case. It's national financial partners is the official partner of MLB that brokers the insurance policy.

And they declined comment and MLB declined comment and the PA declined comment, I guess, are they lobbying the insurer to change some of the decisions MLB and the PA. So maybe it's out of their hands to some extent. But I don't know why the coverage would have. have become much more expensive since 2023. Okay, yeah, there were Diaz and Altuvae. There are always some cases of players getting hurt, but I don't know whether it was more than before. Maybe it was just more notable instances.

I wrote several years ago, and I did a little study, and I tried to find any backing for that prevailing at the time perception that the WBC increased injury risk, and I couldn't at the time find any support for that idea, because we know that players just in regular spring training camps often get hurt. It's like the peak injury time for pitchers as they ramp up and guys come back from a long offseason. And maybe their elbows were barking late last year. And they thought, oh, well, we'll give it an off season to rest.

And then they start stretching out again and they realize, nope, actually, it didn't heal itself. And now I'm sort of screwed. You know, people sproying. It's like peak sproying season, sadly. So I don't know why it would have been increased aside from maybe a couple. couple notable examples or just people paying more attention to the WBC because it was so popular last time around. I also just, the concentration on a particular team is the thing that I find kind of film mixing. Like I understand, I mean, Diaz is playing. It's not like some of the,

some of the guys who had like the worst go. I have, have been able to get insurance. And so I don't know, I don't know how to account for that. Now, maybe in his case, it was because it wasn't, in his arm. Right. But why would it make you worried about other people then? Right. Right. I don't understand. If the story is suggesting that his injury played some part in this, then if he's getting coverage and also he had kind of a freak accident. So yeah, I don't get it. The story goes on to say, yeah, the insurance policy pays back the major league club for a player's salary. If the player gets hurt during the WBC, players are not at risk of losing their salaries. For approved position players, the insurance covers 100% of their salary for two years. years. For pitchers, it's four years. No cap exists for how much salary can be covered in total across MLB, as source said, emphasizing there's not a game of musical chairs in which one player's insurance approval could reduce the chances of another's. It says trips to the 60-day IL and recent surgeries are typically disqualifying, but it's kind of case-by-case. And yeah, there are plenty of

players who did have recent injuries or surgeries who did get cleared to play. So it does seem, Otani, for instance, is hitting but not pitching. Yeah, so maybe he's not cleared to pitch because of insurance, it suggests. But then Miguel Rojas, who is Venezuelan, he did not get coverage. He, I'm quoting again, echoed Saturday a sentiment raised by some in the Puerto Rican media that the process is inconsistent and U.S. and Japanese players are being treated differently. Right. I'm not trying to attack anybody or attack what's going on.

But if I can still play in the big leagues for the Dodgers, why am I not? going to play for my team in Venezuela and represent my country. And I guess in his case, so he turns 37 and it says the insurance does not cover players once they are 37, a difference from previous WBC's. So, yeah, 37, ancient, just too high a risk, the actuarial tables. You know, we're basically at death door. The two of us, we could not possibly get coverage for WBC rosters. So if you're 37 or close to 37, then that's a possibility.

Yeah, I guess like, anyway, I wish this weren't the case. And this is not unprecedented. Remember, Clayton Kershaw wanted to pitch last time and he didn't get coverage. And now I guess he can just do what he wants because he's quasi-retired. He doesn't have a major league team. So he can just play even though he's older than 37. But I guess no salary is at stake for him or for his team. Or he is 37, I guess he's about to turn 38.

positively ancient. Anyway, I hope some of this gets straightened out. It's disappointing for the players because there's just so much pro-WBC sentiment now. And it's also disappointing for fans, especially as we see the U.S. squad have way more pitchers than ever before.

And it seems like everyone's sort of sending their best if they are allowed to. But now some of them are just disqualified. So I don't want that to be the case. It does seem like a real, shame and like I don't want to allege that there's like some sort of systemic thing

that's letting all the Americans through and all the Japanese players is if there's some sort of conspiracy and I know that these sorts of things probably don't factor for them but it's like no like it probably now more than ever feeling like it's a both a representative

competition and like a truly global one and obviously like there are differences in the political situation to Venezuela Way low than there is with like Puerto Rico where those guys are American citizens. But I just, you know, hey, insurance guys, we got other stuff going on. Why don't you pay some attention to the other stuff? Let that guide the way here.

Because of course, like the instinct that I think a lot of people had before the insurance of it all got revealed was like, is there something going on here? And so that's lousy. Yeah. I don't know. And I don't know how much latitude, say MLB. would have to incur this risk? Right. Can they self-insure?

Yeah. I don't know. We'll take the risk because we are trying to, and I guess, you know, it says MLB and the Players Association co-owners of the tournament are lobbying the insurer to change some decisions, but if they can't get them to, then I wonder how much freedom they might have just to be able to say, I guess for individual teams, maybe there's not as much benefit to, say, taking on that risk. but for the league itself to promote the product of the WBC and its players,

then I wonder whether they could just kind of foot the bill for that if they were willing to or what that would cost. But we'll see how it shakes out. Maybe we will have an update next time. And we do have some transactions to discuss. Also, I should have mentioned this earlier, but we'll have a little pass blast at the end of this episode, bringing back the past blast and our past past blaster, Richard Hirschberger, to mark the 150th anniversary of the National League,

which just happened on Tuesday. So we'll talk a little bit about the founding of the league and how it has endured all of these years. But let's talk about a player who just signed with a National League team, actually a few of them. And maybe we can begin with Louisa Rice. Louisa Rise is a San Francisco Giants now. Yeah.

And there had been some suggestion that maybe the Giants would acquire Brent. Donovan. But no, the Mariners have acquired Brendan Donovan. And before that happened, the Giants filled their hole and it was a pretty glaring hole at second base. It's just apologies to Casey Schmidt, but it was one of the weaker projected positions for a team that was anywhere close to contention. And now they have filled that hole with a rise, although that does depend on him actually playing second base, which he has not done well for a while. Well, hasn't done for a while.

Hasn't done well, maybe ever. I don't know. But they now project to be 17th best at second base, which is an improvement, I suppose. And I don't know why every bit of Louisa Rice news needs to be some kind of culture war. I don't know really why he provokes these strong reactions in people. I guess I know why, but I just, I wish it weren't the case anymore. But it seems like we should have moved beyond that maybe because. was when he was at his best, he was a good and valuable player.

And it was kind of confusing because he just didn't fit the mold of a modern major leaguer. And I wrote as much. I did a feature on him and how he was viewed as a prospect and why he wasn't a top 100 guy. And what if anything scouts could learn from an outlier like him? But in 2022, 2023, when he was a 130 WRC plus guy and something like a three-win player, then he was fun and also good and maybe overrated in some quarters just because the batting titles and the high average and just the general old school. We wanted to look like Louisa Rise now. And so maybe that led to some pumping up of a rise in some quarters and then other. people hastening to say, well, he's overrated because it's kind of an emptyish average or there's

not a ton of pop there. And maybe there was an overcorrection there because at that point, he actually was a pretty good player. Right. And also, why do we need to reign on everyone's parade? Because Luis Reyes ruled. Like, he was awesome. He was fun. Like, I want poor players like that. We can be clear-eyed about what he was worth. But I think as long as you don't oversell it, and maybe some people did. We could still celebrate him. You know, we could all come together and bond over enjoying Louisa Rise. And now I guess it's kind of complicated because he still hits for a high average or high-ish average.

He failed to win a batting title for the first time in a few years last year. But he still hit $2.92, which is a high average in this day and age. But with the usual lack of walks and even more extreme lack of power than in some season. And so if he's slugging sub 400 and he's on basing 330 or less and he is not good defensively or on the bases, he's a limited player and, you know, kind of one-dimensional. It's a really cool, quirky dimension. And I enjoy that. But anyway, I think he's an upgrade for the Giants, but also it's still not a strength for them because especially if they're forcing the square peg into the round. hole of second base, given his defensive limitations.

Yeah. There are going to be some drawbacks there. So unless the bat really rebounds, then, I mean, he's been a one-win player the past couple of years. So that's not exactly what you want either, though he's projected to be a bit better than that. Yeah. I think that our projections are generally optimistic about there being a little bit of a

bounce back there. I think it's fine. You know, I struggle to get too exercised about a one year, what, $15 million. deal. I think it, was it even that? It was 12, yeah. 12 million. 12, Ben.

Why did I think it was 15? Why did I think it was 15? Well, maybe you were thinking of Aohenio Suarez, who signed a 15. Maybe I was thinking of Aohanosu. In fact, I think I probably was. I think I did a little cross in my brain. Yeah, I think it's fine. I think that you're right to say that there is like weird, always weird baggage

associated with discussing this guy. there is something sort of like galaxy-brained about signing a rise to play his home games in that park that I like. It's like, well, it doesn't matter that I don't hit home runs. How many people hit home runs in this ballpark anyway? You know what I mean? Like just there, there is something that is kind of cozy about the fit for him with that park. I think that you're right to say that he is not going to like win a gold glove out there in all likelihood. But I think compared to their available option, certainly an upgrade, they can kind of live to fight another day and see what they have a year later. So I think it's fine. Yeah, I'm looking at his advanced stats. And it's been a while since he played second regularly, but 2023 was the last time he did. He got me. He was negative. I'm always waiting. I'm always waiting. You're always ready to pounce. A beat longer to respond to a question from you than you would expect. It's because I was processing. is there an opportunity for

and it's been a while joke in there that's why. And there was and you found it. Didn't pass you by. Yeah. It's like you want to be selectively aggressive I guess with the it's been a while opportunities.

It's like you don't. You don't want to come to just pass you down the middle of the plate when I just leave it up there. You're ready to swing. Yeah. And so is Luis Arise generally sometimes to his detriment.

So I think he has he's taken the contact stuff perhaps too far. And Sam has written about that. Dan Zimborski has written about that. Maybe there's a happy medium where he could maybe not prioritize swinging and making contact with absolutely everything because even though he often can make contact with it, it is not always to his benefit.

Yeah, the last time he played second regularly in Miami in 2023, Stackast had him at negative eight, but DRS had him at plus four. So who's to say? He's not a plus second. basement. He's never really been a plus second baseman. He struggles, you know, when he's at first base, he isn't great to his right. Uh, he's worse coming in at second. He doesn't have a strong arm as part of the problem here. I don't think he's unplayable at the position. They have hamstrung themselves in terms of their defensive flexibility because like they already have a DH and they have a first baseman. So, they're not going to be able to necessarily do much there. But as Jay Jaffe pointed out in his piece on this, I think didn't the Giants hire Ronald Washington?

Yeah. So Wash can, you know, maybe Wash can get him sorted, you know? Sure. Yeah, it can help them up. Maybe it can. It's easy. Yeah. Right.

It's easy. But I think that, you know, when you're looking at his metrics over the last couple of seasons, whether it's at first base or second, as Jay noted, he had a couple of, like, games at third in in 2020 with Minnesota, but hasn't played there in a number of years. They won't play them at third. It's not good. It's below average,

but I don't think it's unplayable. So, you know, they'll kind of roll the dice and see what they got. And it's not as if there aren't other capable defenders on that infield. So I think that some of this might be like, yeah, surely chappy and Willie Adomis will be able to bail

them out if need be, you know. And there's probably something to that line of thinking. So I think it's fine. Okay. Well, first base, not that hard. We'll see if second base is not that hard or incredibly hard. And what Wash will say, evidently, he really wanted to play second base because it was reported that he passed up multi-year offers from other teams because he wanted to be at the Keystone. So we'll see how that goes. I guess it fits into the general vibe of Giants' moves. Just not a lot of impact players coming into that team this offseason. And not a lot of moves that you think. think, ah, this will catapult them above the 500 region where they have been so stubbornly stuck for a few years now. Yeah. But at least you might have some fun watching an outlier in this era in Louisa Rise.

Okay. Well, I guess we can talk about that other infielder who did sign the one-year $15 million deal with the Reds. Hey, we got a chance to talk about the Reds. We talked last week about teams that we hadn't had much opportunity to talk about and teams that had had disappointing off-seasons. And we mentioned the Reds. We also talked about maybe the Mariners. We considered whether they should be considered disappointing.

And maybe we lit a fire under those front offices. All it takes is the phrase load-bearing Ben Williamson. And then Justin and Jerry are like, we got a hop-to-on that one. All reporting suggests that this deal took a shockingly long time to get done and has been in the works for quite some time. Yes, yes, we can talk about the circumstances of the three-team trade.

But Gino is leaving Seattle and continuing his reunion tour, just playing with all the teams that he has previously played for. Who was it who said on Blue Sky or somewhere that he just needs now to go back to the Tigers and he will complete his palindromic career because he went from the Tigers to the Reds, to the Mariners, to the Diamondbacks. And then he went back to the Mariners. Gosh, I'm losing track of all the different place. Yeah, and then he was still in the Diamondbacks,

and then he went back to the Mariners, and now he's going back to the Reds. So he needs to, yeah, somehow he has to go back to the Tigers at some point. That would be nice. Anyway, he signed a deal that is significantly below what he was predicted to sign for. And this was a windfall for you in the free agent contracts over underdraft. I feel bad, though. This thing's, it's not over yet.

We kind of thought it was maybe over after the big blows because I had the under on Tucker at 400 and then King Tuck, Tuck Ever Blasting. He signed for that short-term deal and that was a huge boon to my team. But now you have really narrowed the gap here. And you had the under on MLB Trade Rumors prediction of 80 million. No, 80 million you had the under. for Zach Allen. That's still in play. Yeah.

Suarez, you had the under on 63. So with 15 guaranteed plus the $10 million bonus for being directionally right, you get a $58 million added to your total there. And you're now at 197 on the winter, and I'm at 238. So you're making me sweat here suddenly. I thought I was out of reach. But now, I mean, this is, you're still within striking distance because we eat. have one player still on the board. I have the under on Justin Verlander, which even if that hits, it's not going to be big because he was predicted at 22. And I could even go in the wrong direction,

possibly. And you still have the under on Gallen at 80 and were separated by 41 million. So if Gallen similarly settles for a short-term deal, some sort of pillow arrangement. Yeah. Trampoly. You could actually take the lead here. So this might be quite a topsy-turvy draft. We will see. It has moved in several directions over its course. Yeah.

But I guess the more important ramifications or implications here is why he signed such a deal and where he signed it. There is, of course, a mutual option with a small buyout. So, you know, he gets the guaranteed buyout, I guess. But I'm glad that the Reds did something. But why do you think Suarez settled for such a comparatively small deal coming off of a season where he hit 49 dingers? He hit 49 dingers. I'm sure that teams are smart enough to know that some portion of his struggle in the second half might have been just that T-Mobile is a difficult place to hit. But, you know, A.ohenio did A.ohenio stuff where he was on.

fire. He was a super desirable trade deadline target. He had a pretty underwhelming second half with Seattle. I think he had a 91 WRC plus for them. So I think that the volatility attendant in his profile,

regardless of where he was in his career, age-wise, is always going to be something that kind of gives teams pause. And then I think that when you are getting to the age that he is, you worry about the cliff, right? Like, is this a temporary trough is this part of the ebb and flow of his season and, you know, sure, there are

going to be times when it's frustrating and you wish that he could reliably make contact and even just move the line along, but you look at his season and the aggregate and you're like, well, that's a great hitter, you know, and that's a super useful bat. And a bat that we know plays in that ballpark and a bat that, you know, the Reds need, like they need more thumpers. they could have used a couple more 125 WRC plus guys last year. So you wonder, or maybe it's the start of the fall for him. You know, maybe this is the decline that doesn't arrest itself and that we, you know, you don't see the bounce back.

He's fascinating because, like, in 2024, he really was close to being non-tendered, like cut in the middle of the season by the Diamondbacks because the first half was so bad for him. And then, you know, things turned around in hand. had this really hot second half and like they I mean they almost like made the playoffs on the strength of of his performance and you know the fact that everybody else in that lineup started hitting but it's like you look at his 2024 and you're like why don't you look at his 2025 but I just want to highlight the extremity here like in 2024 his monthly WRC pluses went 87 39 67 and then 202 110 181 right the contrast was an 87 versus a

54 in the second half. And so he's always been super streaky and the power is undeniable. But like he's swinging and missing more. He's swinging just more generally. You can look at the contact profile and see where the decline might come. And he's, you know, I just talked about how you look at a rise. And just because he's below average now doesn't mean he's unplayable. I think that Aeohenio fits into sort of a similar bucket where like he's not an especially

great defender at third base. I think you can stick them there and it would be fine. The Reds don't have to worry about that. They'll just deach him. They have a Cabrayan Hayes. He's a phenomenal defender. If they could like do mad science stuff and moosh them into one player, well, you'd still have a guy with contact issues, but one who hits 49 home runs and plays a plus third base, terrific. So, so like I think he's a good fit. And just like I don't, I can't get fussed about a one-year $12 million deal. I really can't get Fustabato one-year $15 million deal. And I have more confidence in the ceiling that Suarez presents to the Reds than I do that

arise presents to the giants. So I think it's fine. But, like, I'm not surprised that he underperformed relative to expectation. I'm a little surprised that he underperformed this dramatically. But I think that you can look at this guy and be like, well, you know, you know, He's going to be 35 in July, and you just don't know, like, how, what the sort of totality of the production is going to be, nevermind its shape. And, you know, these things happen. Yeah, I remember talking to you before the deadline last year.

I think it was before the deadline. And we were talking about how Suarez was maybe the best bat available. But also, I think we said, well, would you be surprised if he just was not an impact player? Like, if you need a bat, he's the best bat. he's the best one out there. You got to go get him. But also, would it surprise you if he just sort of slumped and didn't add that much after the deadline? And that is essentially what happens. And so that is a risk. You know, I haven't quantified whether he's more volatile than the typical player. But it does sort of seem that way. It's like, you know, look at his ALDS and his ALCS last year. Obviously, it's five games. It's seven games. Anyone can be cold one week and hot the other week. But it was kind of, the Aohenio experience, I guess, encapsulated 374 OPS in the ALDS and then 956 OPS and the ALCS. So he can do both, unfortunately, sometimes. Yeah.

So he's 34. Arise is still only 28. So yeah, and I guess with Suarez, it's like has he kind of maxed out the old player approach and he already just, he pulls everything and tries to yank it over the fence and he's done that well. but maybe there's nowhere for him to go, really, but down or no other way for him to compensate for declining skills from here. But that's okay on this kind of deal. If his skills do decline,

he's been, as much as we're saying, he's kind of volatile, here are his war totals over the past four years, 4.3, 3.5, 3.8, 3.8, 3.8. So in another way, a very important way, he's not at all inconsistent. So if he were just a three-win player or a two-win player, for that matter.

He would be well worth it on this kind of contract, and he does just add some extra oomph to the Reds, a team that's close enough to contention. They squeaked into the playoffs last year. They absolutely should be signing people and spending some money. So I like it for them. Yeah, and like, you know, by all accounts, just like tremendous clubhouse guy.

Great hair, as you've covered. Oh, the hair, man. As long as he doesn't go back to the black and white cookie look, I didn't care for that. one. I thought that looked a little. I mean, like, be bold, oh, honey, but you just have such beautiful hair, you know, it's like really something. Grow it out, let it be, you know, I think he was on my list of guys who look like they could credibly star in a reboot of the Three Musketeers in part because of the hair. And it's important for the Reds to have one of those guys because, you know,

they used to have Jonathan India to fill that need and then they traded him. So like, who's going to tell you you're going to save the king. That's what aio honiose for. You know, you need aeohenio for that. So I like it. I'm not bothered by it and wish them well, you know. Okay. And now the Mariners. Yeah. What did Cherry DePoto do? What did Cherry DePoto do? We're going to talk to to Blake Rally about a trade or two because what did Jerry DePoto do? They have replaced the bat. They have upgraded themselves at an infield corner at third base. They have brought in Brendan Donovan not only at third base. He can play a bunch of positions. That's part of the fun of Brendan Donovan. But the Cardinals obviously tearing down, shipping people out.

Hold the start. Yeah, Contreras, as mentioned earlier, and Sunny Gray also to Boston and Eleanor Anato to Arizona. And now Brendan Donovan. So Heim Bloom is just kind of putting his stamp on the team by disassembling the team and just bringing in as many prospects as he can and presumably that will pay dividends down the road it has in Boston he hasn't been around to reap the rewards unfortunately for him but the team has in his absence so this is a three teamer and it involves the raise and as john becker of fan graphs noted three team trades almost always involved the race these days they're the the three team specials So John found that dating back to the 2023 to 4 offseason, there have been six three-team trades,

and the raise have been a part of five of them. So this is clearly a raise thing in addition to just being perceived to win trades in general. I think when Jonathan Mayo at MLB did that piece, that survey of front offices last month, maybe, and who has the best farm system, the Dodgers, and who hoards, prospects the most, the guardians, and who trades the best? I think the race were the most popular answer. I don't know how much of that is inspired by the famous Sam Miller tweet, or I guess Sam Miller's famous tweet was inspired by the race winning trades or people thinking that they had won trades. And Sam actually reprised that tweet, I think, just this week. He did a callback on

Blue Sky to it when this trade was announced before we even knew the terms or, what the raise had given up or gotten. Sam did a love this trade for the race. So the trade is the Mariners send the aforementioned infielder Ben Williamson to the race, along with a couple of prospects, notably Duranelho Sancta, who we should talk about a bit more. He is the famous, well, formerly amidextrous pitcher maybe. Yes. Still semi-ambidextrous. Going to the Cardinals, to be clear. The only player going to the raise in this deal is Ben Williamson. Is Williamson, yes. And Sanger and Tai Pete and a competitive balance round B pick going to the Cardinals. And then the Cardinals are shipping Donovan to the Mariners. And then they're also getting Colton Ledbetter from the raise and a competitive balance pick. So the rays are just, they're getting Williamson and they're shipping out Ledbetter and the competitive balance pick. So yeah. So that's the deal. And the headliner, of course, is. is Donovan.

So pretty good player. What does he bring to Meg's Mariners? I really like this deal. I got to hand it to him. Which is now a tainted phrase. Well, so most immediately he brings a credible presence to third base. The Mariners have a really potentially interesting infield situation that they're sorting out. So before this deal, they had obviously Nailer at first base.

They had J.P. Crawford at short. They had Cole Young, likely to assume the starting second base job coming out of camp. He exhausted rookie eligibility last year. Swooned at the plate, capable-ish defender didn't grate out great, but like, you know, getting his feet under him at the big level. And then the aforementioned load bearing Ben Williamson at third, who as I noted in our last episode, I think is a very nifty little defender, cannot seemingly hit a lick. So that felt underwhelming for a team that was so close to going to the World Series and that, you know,

even though it had retained Naylor, still had what looked like a light offense. And I will tell you that when the Reds managed to sign a Johani Oswaras for only $15 million, Mariner's social media, not the official team account, that would be weird, but its fans had a mini crash out, as the kids would say, about how, well, if it's only $15 million, why aren't you bringing A.ohenio back? And the answer is that they were trading for Brandon Donovan, who I think is certainly a more stable player

in terms of the shape of his production, definitely more defensively versatile, doesn't have the kind of pop that Aohenio Soros has, but is like a capable hitter. And I think as, you know, as Ben noted in his write-up of the deal, doesn't really strike out tremendous contact profile, enough power that he's like a good singles and doubles hitter. And, you know, that kind of distinguishes him from some of the other like high contact

light bat guys that you might put him in the same group with. So I think that for one thing, If we're just comparing Donovan to Williamson, the offensive upgrade there is obvious, even if he never hits a home run in T-Mobile Park, which like he might not, but he probably will. I also really like the flexibility slash insurance policy that this gives them because the other piece of that potentially sort of shifting and complicated infield is Cole Emerson, who is the Mariners' top prospect, a shortstop by trade now, but if you read Brendan Golowski's report on him from our recent Mariners list, hey, by the way, teams, thanks for trading involving a list that we already have

published, certainly capable of sticking at short, but might be a better long-term fit at third base where he'll be quite good. He is a non-raster invite to Bigley Camp and seems to have the option to sort of press and force the issue in camp and make the opening day roster, but he doesn't have to. I think the other looming question for Seattle to answer is J.P. Crawford's pretty bad in the field now, Ben. And this is his final year with the club. You know, obviously an important member of that team, and I don't think that like there's any danger of J.P. getting cut in camp or anything like that.

But, you know, as things shift around and they think about sort of their ideal defensive configuration maybe in late innings maybe if Cole Emerson makes the team like he comes in a short later on and you have you have Donovan at third base I don't imagine he'll have much opportunity to play in the outfield but he does have some versatility out there albeit in the corners but that's fine because they have Julio and center so I really like it I think it addresses a lot of problems that they had it certainly lengthens their lineup I think that he's a really as Ben I thought Ben did a good job of noting this. You know, we don't want to get too bogged down in like how much lineup

construction matters, but I like the idea of him sitting at the top of that lineup ahead of Cal and Julio, you know, this sort of like grinding contact bat who is going to get on base more often than not. So, I mean, not more often than not, it is baseball. He probably won't get on. If you got on base more often than not, he'd be very bouncy. He'd be very valuable. Yeah.

He'd be super valuable. I mean, that would make this an amazing trade. but I think is a really nice guy to have at the top of that lineup ahead of sort of the big bopping bats and you know it's just like a Ben I don't know what to tell you man this is like a respectable group we're going Donovan into Cal into Julio into Josh Naylor into Randy or Rosarena also you know who's been pretty bad in the field lately is Randy or Roserina and Brendan Donovan can play left so I just think that he is like a really good Swiss Army knife for them and layered on top of that

is this like obvious offensive upgrade from the guys who seemed likely to get a lot of time. And you know, you can, and you still got the option to platoon Ruff Snyder with Josh when they're like tough lefties. So I just, it feels like a more cohesive group. I like it a lot. It came at a reasonable cost from a prospect perspective. But I think that like the Mariners are at the point on the wind curve and in the, sort of life cycle of their rotation where, you know, press your advantage. They already projected

as the best team in the West by our playoff odds. I think this move moved them up like a win, but when you're looking out and you see, you know, an Astros team that is not what it once was, although it doesn't project as a bad team, you know, a Rangers team that projects pretty middling, an A's team that has great hitters, but still, as we've discussed really not very much in the way of, of pitching, this is the time to be like, no, we're going to go win. And to do that in a way that gives you a bunch of versatility, that gives breathing room to your prospects as they're coming up, that gives you flexibility in the event of veteran falter underperformance.

I just think that it's a pretty elegant piece of roster construction. So, yeah. Yeah, it's a nifty trade. Wow, it said so many nice things. Yeah, yeah, nifty player. It's just, you know, he doesn't have a lot of power, but he's a pretty well-rounded offensive player and play a lot of positions competently and get on base in front of your boppers. And unlike the other players that the Cardinals shipped out this offseason, he is not old and he's not particularly pricey. All the other guys were veterans on bigger deals.

And Donovan just turned 29 last month. And he's still in his arbears. He's making, what, 5.6 million or something this year? He's got a little team control left. So it is quite a nice move for them. You know, they've turned over part of their infield going from Polanco and Suarez to the current arrangement. But yeah, I like the moves they've made. You mentioned we should talk about the prospects they sent out.

Like, Sanja is so fascinating. There's long been this question of like, how is he going to be honest? optimally deployed. He is a much better pitcher as a right-hander than he has as a left-hander. And the Mariners had said that, like, they are, they were going to use him as a right-handed starter in camp. And then he would throw his bullpens left-handed. So we'll have to see if the Cardinals sort of progress on that same trajectory.

But, like, he has the potential to be, like, a number three as just a right-handed pitcher. he might end up being a fascinating reliever. You know, there's like a lot of ways that it could go for, for Gerangelo. And it's such a cool story. It's sort of exciting in and of itself. And I like it for St. Louis because my impression of the Cardinals is just that they are always defined by this sameness, right? There is this consistency year in and year out, the kind of guy they like, the sorts of teams

they're putting on the field. And until recently, that has been an admirable trait of theirs, right? They're, like, always in the mix from a playoff perspective. They're pretty boring. I think that as they are embarking on this rebuild, embracing some greater variance, if St. John ends up just being a reliever, maybe you feel disappointed by that. He's a top 100 guy for us. And I think for most publications.

But, like, even if he doesn't end up being just a full-time starter, even if he doesn't end up being an ambidextrous pitcher, there's a lot of potential for positive variance in him. And I think that that's true for Taipei to a lesser degree, right? Like, he is, I mean, he looked really good in center field in the spring when I saw him last year. The strikeouts are concerning, and he might never really hit. But he is an incredible athlete. He made this transition to center field and has really taken to it. And so there are upside scenarios where he is like a consistent big league contributor, even if he's not like a super flashy player.

then, you know, I guess the last thing I'll say on St. Louis's behalf is they're also giving themselves a bunch of dart throws at the draft, right? Because they got these two comp B, comp round B picks. The combined bonus money that comes with those is probably going to be around like 2.4, 2.5 million. We don't have slot for this year yet, but that's kind of where it landed last year. So it'll probably be in the same neighborhood. That is enough money to help you float a guy who is supposed to go higher in the draft, then you are picking down to them at 13, or they can spread money around.

Like, it just gives them flexibility in the draft. And so I think that, like, we never love to see a rebuild. And I think one of the things that has made the Cardinals, like a model franchise for a long time, is that they weren't really inclined to do, like, the hard resets. But if this is the sort of direction that their rebuild is going to take,

like, this seems like a smart approach to me. And so I like that for them. I'm going to let you talk, but I do have to tell you, Ben, that at some point, we are going to have to talk about the most unhinged Jerry DePoto Coat I have ever heard. As it pertains to this trade, it doesn't have to do with the substance of it, but I need to talk about it with you because I worry I'm going to be haunted by it for the rest of my days. Okay. Well, I will say I did a double take when I saw that St. Joe was in the move in the trade because I had just seen headlines. about him specializing as a righty because the Mariners declared him as a right-handed pitcher on his invite to spring training.

And then they shipped him out. I guess you could read into that off. He's a righty now and also we don't want him. But no, they used him to get something else valuable. And I get it. It's kind of a why can't we just have nice things? Why can't we just enjoy the ambidextrous pitcher? Well, we can't because have you looked at his splits lately?

I can't fault the Mariners Slash the Cardinals Assuming that they handle him the same way And he'll him Because he just got creamed Basically anytime he wasn't Throwing right on right Last year, it was ugly

So against Ritees as a Ritey He allowed a 480 OPS last year. That's excellent But against Righties as a lefty 1103 OPS. That is very, very bad. And versus lefties as a rightee, that wasn't great either.

845 OPS allowed. So he's going to have to deal with that, too, just platoon splits from his good side. But versus lefties as a lefty, even left on left from his weaker side, 1114. So he was just getting tattooed by lefties and righties alike as a lefty. And also, sure, some of these splits can be small samples and everything, but the scouting matches, the stats in that case, because he's just, he throws way harder. He has much better stuff from the right side. Unfortunately, I wish that he were a bit better balanced, but he's just not the same. So could he have that in his back pocket or something and maybe we'll see him do a switcheroo for fun sometime? Maybe, but this is probably the end. So sometimes things that are fun, get less fun. because it's like Louisa Rise and when it was working really well, it was fun, and now it's kind of marginal and fringy, and maybe he's taken it too far. And then in Sanchez's case, it was always fun conceptually, but in practice, it always seemed somewhat tenuous. And yeah,

now it's kind of a, well, the hitters will tell you whether it's working sort of situation. So I can't fault him, even though it's a little less fun. But if he becomes a good right-handed pitcher for the Cardinals, then that's still valuable for them. Yeah. And the raise, you know, they just kind of dip their beak. They're just, they, they're the intermediaries, you know, they, they're the trade brokers. They just, they take their cut. They facilitate. They make it work. Now they are hoping that the public will facilitate yet another new ballpark plan that they're announcing. And all they want is a mere billion plus dollars in public funding. So here we go again. with the race and trying to find a permanent home and also trying to extract as much money as they can from the populace.

But that's a story for another day and also some past days when we have discussed that trend. But I guess lastly, we can just touch on the White Sox here because the White Sox made a couple moves. We can, but wait, we have to do the- Oh, right, Jerry. Yeah. We have, okay. Right. So the Jerry, this was one of those, Jerry made a trade in a weird place sort of stories.

I think this was a Rosenthal thing because. The Mariners, it was like, what, Cal Raleigh was being honored at the Washington State Capitol. Yeah, they're like dedicating the day to Cal or something. And so. Jerry and GM just in Hollander were there. So they had to scramble and find a place to text and call to consummate this trade that had been in the works for a while. Yes. They're up in the galley.

I think Dan Wilson and maybe someone else from the team was like down on the floor and there's the ceremony and they're sitting up there and they're on a text thread with the various. parties and they get it done, here's the line. Well, to start, to top it all off, Monday was DePoto's 35th wedding anniversary. Quote, it was a good day

like most other groundhog days in my adult life, he said. What, Ben, what does that mean? It was a good day like most other groundhog days in my adult life. What?

What? That seems extremely random. What? I mean, it was Groundhog Day. He didn't just, like, bring up Groundhog Day. But what? I think, okay.

Well, maybe what he means, maybe the preceding sentence is the key because it was his wedding anniversary. So I guess is, wait, is Groundhog Day the same day every year? I don't think so. I don't remember. It's not a very important holiday to me as it is to Jerry Depoto. I was thinking, if it's the same day every year, then maybe he, which it should be, because it's Groundhog Day. Oh, yeah, on February 2nd of every year.

So I think that's what it means, right? It's just it's his wedding anniversary every year. But then it's weird in a different way because it suggests that there were some wedding anniversaries that were bad actually. Like he says most other. Yeah. What does this mean? What does this mean?

Most other groundhog days in my adult life. What does it mean? You could have a bad day on the wedding anniversary. What happened on the bad wedding anniversaries? It's not automatically a good day. not because it's your wedding anniversary, but maybe other things go wrong. Who knows?

Like most of the other... It sounds like he's a huge Groundhog Day fan. Yes! He's just excited for Pug Satani Phil. Right. My wedding anniversary is dictated by the fortunes of this small animal. Right. What is it?

What? What does that mean? What does that mean? I'm sorry, I'm yelling. Because he said in my adult life, I think he's specifying post- wedding because the way but it's so weird it's phrased so so weird most other most what happened on the what was it bad because the well it's this 35th wedding anniversary i mean in 35 years it stands to reason

you might have a bad day on on one wedding anniversary it's a lie about that though well you can't you can't be telling ken rosenthal that you've had Bad wedding anniversaries. Also, if you've had bad wedding universities, is it because you're doing trades on your wedding anniversary, Jerry? Well, that's also possible. All of these men need to stop.

This happened with Surns, too, as we discussed, he's, like, doing deals on his wedding anniversary. Well, this is tame for Jerry, because he's done deals from his hospital bed and all sorts of extreme scenarios. They told him he shouldn't do that. Yeah.

Like most other Groundhog days in my adult. life then. Yeah. It's just going to be knocking around in there, you know? This is in my brain. This is Craig's fault. I didn't know about this. I was blissfully ignorant of this because I hadn't, I saw that Rosenthal had like a TikTok piece about, not a piece on TikTok, but you know, like with the TikTok of the trade. They should ban that absolute. People aren't confused by what I mean. I have no opinion on that. They almost did, but not for that reason, really.

Not for that reason. But anyway, I didn't know about it. And then Craig was like, have you seen this? And I was like, what does this mean? By the way, the rays have made so many moves this offseason. If you go to the offseason tracker at Roster Resource, you can look up transaction types. Like Jerry on his wedding anniversary. Yeah.

Well, it's good to see Trader Depoto back at it and to have an opportunity to play the Bowman song jingle again. But if you go to the transaction tracker, The Mariners have not been very busy, really, this offseason in the grand scheme of things. I guess they've been among the busiest teams, but they've made 56 moves. So the way it is, you can look, you can sort by transaction type, you can isolate additions, subtractions, neutral, which is just bringing somebody back. Right. And the raise lead the majors by a lot in just number of moves as classified by the folks at Roster Resource here. 93. They have 93 entries in the offseason tracker, and the next most is the Mets. We've certainly

talked a ton about the Mets active offseason. Seventy-six entries for them. And then it's a step down from the Mets to the next, the third team, but the Rays are just number one by a ton. And yet, if you asked most people what the Rays have done this offseason, would anyone be able to come up with anything, really? Like, they just, they haven't made that many major moves for famous players or big additions, really. They haven't signed big free agents, like Cedric Mullins, Stephen Mats. That's, that's it, aside from minor league deals.

So I guess this is very typically raised. This is what they do. They're just constantly churning and they always have 40-man crunches and they're just always just tap dancing as fast. as they can and acquiring people and getting involved in three-team trades where the headliners going and coming, you know, from other teams or two other teams. But, but yeah, they're always busy one way or another, even if most people probably can't even recall what they did. So, all right. Speaking of one more team that has been a bit busy lately, the White Sox, they've

gotten in on the act two. And they have signed Austin Hayes, not Austin Slater. I have to keep my Austin outfielders straight here because I had a moment of confusion because I remember talking last winter about how Austin Slater said that the White Sox were the first team to reach out to him and they told him that he was their top target because we bantered a bit about that at the time the idea of Austin Slater being your top target and whether that was true and he felt very flattered by that as I probably would if a team told me Austin Slater that I was their top target. Anyway, different Austin, but also, I guess, a target. So the White Sox have signed Austin Hayes, and they have also made a trade with the Red Sox, and they have acquired Jordan Hicks.

Yeah. So this fits into, we were talking about the White Sox recently because they signed Sarenthea Dominguez. And we were talking about, well, what are the White Sox up to here? Why are they acquiring Sean Newcomb and Sir Anthony Dominguez and sort of what you might think of as almost finishing touches, supporting players, complementary pieces. Right. Why are they doing this? And so now you can add Hicks and Hayes to the mix. Decent players could be contributors.

Hicks could set up for Sir Anthony, I guess. And I get from the Red Sox perspective, they're just trying to clear a little money. And, you know, they're sending some money to the other socks as well. but they clear like 16 million of the 24 million that Hicks is owed over the next couple years, and that lowers their CBT to just below the threshold as of now. And the White Sox got a pitching prospect, David Sandlin, in here, and players to be named later and also cash, and then they sent back a righte and a player to be named later.

Anyway, I was trying to puzzle what is happening here, because we were talking about dark horse teams candidates last week, And I was thinking, well, are the White Sox? Are they vaulting themselves into Dark Horse Territory? Is that premature? They've gotten better. They've got a lot of interesting players coming up. There's a core taking shape here.

And now they're adding these more established players, not stars or anything, but contributors. Have they even entered Dark Horse territory? Are they still too far from qualifying as a Dark Horse? And if they are, then what are they up to here? because we were saying with Sir Anthony, with relievers, okay, the White Sox, they've done this before. You can just sign someone with an eye toward trading them. They have a decent start to the season,

and then you flip them and you get some prospects back. But now they're doing this with even more guys. So do they see themselves? This is, I guess, a question for James Feecon when we get to the White Sox preview podcast. We're starting with the Astros and the Diamondbacks, by the way. I should have said that earlier.

They're the first two teams up. But the White Sox, they'll be later in that series because of where they stack up in the projections. But I don't know. Are they thinking they could maybe make some noise here in the Central? Or is this just they had to spend some money on someone because they traded Louise Roberts and their payroll is still pretty low? Their fourth lowest payroll, $86 million. So maybe it's avoid a grievance or maintain revenue sharing status sort of. move, maybe that's all that's happening here or some combination of all of the above?

Well, I think it kind of depends. So I think that with with Hayes, it's, we have had a persistent black hole here. Let's cover it up for pretty cheap. And I think, you know, always with with a team like the White Sox, there's sort of a nod to, and hey, if he's really good, we'll flip him at the deadline. Like if he's a useful bat, we'll flip him at the deadline and we'll get a prospect back from or whatever. You know, for Hicks, like the way that I am thinking about this deal is less that they are super enthused about Jordan Hicks and more. They like David Sandlin, and this is how they got him, is to take Hicks and the money coming to him sort of off the Red Sox's hands. And I know that Boston is sending some money to, right?

So it's not like it's, right? Cash. Yeah, there's cash in the deal. But I think that primarily this is as much about, you know, them getting David Sandlin, the prospects here as it is them feeling like, oh, well, we can return Jordan Hicks to his former glory. Poor man never should have tried to start, you know. That was the thing. Although, you know, he was not good last year, Hicks. He was worse once he got to Boston. but he also had shoulder stuff and so like maybe that explains it but also you know he had shoulder stuff

so you know what I mean like that could kind of cut it either way gosh this is just like an episode of handing it to people lower stakes ways now than at the beginning certainly but I like Chicago's winter man I mean not the winter in Chicago

that seems like it has been quite cold and unpleasant But the offseason that they have put together here, I have generally liked. We could quibble about whether they got as much as they possibly could have for Luis R. Robert Jr., but other than that, they're sort of taking bites at the Apple. They are bringing in veterans to see who might be either useful to them or flippable at the deadline. They're doing stuff like signing Murakami because this price tag is low. and let's just see what we have here. You know, is the contact stuff

really going to be such a problem? Or did we get a good player for cheap? Let's reinforce the farm. Like, I don't know. I think that they're kind of, they're doing some interesting stuff. So that's good. But I think the Hicks was about David Sandlin, mostly.

Well, all of that business that they have conducted has amounted to a 1.2% chance to make the playoffs, according to the FedGrafts playoff odds, which were released on, Monday. Nothing shocking because we tend to have some idea how good the teams are and how likely they are to make the playoffs. But any takeaways, any reactions from seeing the actual numbers out there? I have been surprised that there has not been more of a reaction to the Dodgers projection. The lack of reaction to the Dodgers projection makes me think.

that we still have worked to do to explain how inherently conservative projections can be because they are projected for, I mean, they're projected for 99.5 wins. So like, let's round up to 100. Eat wins clear of the second best team, the Braves. They project incredibly well. It's not surprising that they project incredibly well. But I've been kind of surprised that people aren't like throwing this is another log on the fire of Damn the Dodgers, embrace a cap. This is a pretty, you know, it's like everybody's pretty tightly clustered, but a lot of this, I think, is pretty predictable based on the way that the offseason has unfolded.

The A.L. East is supposed to be really strong. We thought that they would project that way. They projected that way. You have a pretty tight spread in the centrals. The Mariners seem like the class of the division in the West. You know, I think that people continue to be surprised that the brewers don't project better than they do. They're a good example of like a known blind spot kind of in the way that our projections are done. We've talked about this with Ben Clemens before. We've talked about this just between ourselves before. The depth that they are able to bring to bear really bolsters their group and they pretty consistently outperform our projection for them. So it seems dramatic for the team that won the most games in baseball to be down to like 83 wins.

I think that it's fine to anticipate that they will do better than that just because some of the things that they're really good at, both in terms of their depth and also like the particular skill set of their roster, there's lots of defense and base running. And these are things that I think tend to be a little undervalued in our projections. I think, honestly, the most surprising thing to me was, look those pirates, Ben. Look at those respectable-looking Pittsburgh Pirates. 82 and 80. That would be a winning team. That's a 37.5% chance to make the playoffs.

Yeah, not too shabby. I mean. It's funny. So Dan did a piece, as you know, because you run fancrafts, that kind of added up the worst teams' rosters and figured out how many teams you'd have to smush together to have a team that would be favored to beat the Dodgers. in a seven-game series, and he found that you would have to take the seven worst teams, is that right? So you'd have to combine the Rockies, the Nationals, the Angels, the White Sox, the Pirates, the A's, and the Rays. And if you add all of those together, then you have a 57.2% chance to beat the Dodgers in a World Series or a seven-game series. And to be clear for those who haven't had a chance to read it, the way he did it was, you know, he started with what, you know, he told Zips, build the best 26-man group that you can out of just the Rockies. And then he folded in the, you know, then he folded in the White Sox, then he folded in the Angels. And as he was doing that, he's still sitting with a static number. He's not like allowing this underdog team to have 100 players on it. But, you know, the best guys are sort of feeling.

filtering to the top. And I think by the end, we didn't have any Rockies left on the team, for instance. Right. That's the thing. It's like some of the teams in the seven are doing a lot more work than others. Yes. And that's why I brought it up because the A's and the Pirates, so we were talking about this last week. And I was talking about how lopsided the A's and the Pirates are in different directions. Yes. So the A's have all these good hitters and the pirates have all these good pitchers, but they are both lacking in the other thing. And I saw Dan mention on Blue Sky that he did run projections just for the Pirates and A's Smushed together, which was the hypothetical that I was proposing the other day. And just taking them, the United Team, 89 wins projected, wins the AL West, 26% of the time

or the NL Central, 31% of the time. So it's true. They each do have at least half a contending team, and you put them together. and they're pretty solid. They're probably a playoff team. And yeah, even the pirates all by their lonesome, they're not out of this thing. They have a pretty rosy prediction as these things go.

The A's are down at 76 projected wins and only a 12% chance to make the playoffs. But yeah, if the pirates just had been a bit more active this offseason, then you could really start to consider them. Maybe they're too good for Dark Horse status now, as we were saying, last week. So, yeah, nothing stood out to me as shocking. Yes, it's the usual suspects who maybe get underrated. It's the Brewers, the Guardians, of course.

You know, I don't know if any social media accounts have been bringing this to light, but I'm sure Guardians fans are not surprised to see that the projections don't think a whole lot of them. We'll see whether the team can beat that, but they're down at a 14% chance to make the playoff, 75.6 projected wins, really, and this is not. surprising, but the AL East, as I said last week, I think, meat grinder. And it is just, even by ALE standards, I think. And we'd have to do some comparisons to past ALE's because it's perennially pretty strong.

But they're so closely grouped together. And they're all just beating up on each other, of course. And so some of these teams are projected to be the best war-wise, but because they're all going head-to-head all the time, they're all clustered between 86.2. wins, the Yankees projected to be number one in that division, and then the Orioles are at 83.8. So you're talking about two and a half wins separating the first best and fourth best projected win totals, and then the raise bringing up the rear of the projected cellar dwellers at like 78 wins. So there's just not much of a difference, not much of a gap.

And that's not particularly surprising. If you take the top four teams, they all have better than 50% chances to make the playoffs. which doesn't mean that you're going to get four playoff teams from the ALEs, but it's conceivable because I mentioned the robust, optimistic Braves bounce back projection. The Orioles also have their own bounce back projected here. So, yeah, there's just not a lot of daylight among these teams. And maybe some people would be surprised to see the Yankees at the top just because they've had a comparatively pedestrian and tame winter. when you stack them up against the socks and the Jays and the Orioles,

but they were a strong team last year. They did have the best underlying numbers in that division. They are getting some reinforcement, some returns. So it doesn't shock me really to see them there. But yeah, that is just going to be a dog fight all season long. Or at least it looks like it will be. Who knows how it will actually play out? And top of the NL East, similarly.

Oh, yeah. Nothing new there either, really, but the Braves, Mets, and Phillies all projected to be good. all have playoff odds of 65% or better. Yeah, Braves just expected to come all the way back with better health. So we'll see. But, yeah, the Dodgers are like 17 wins clear of the next best team in the NOS. The Padres, that's not a great projection.

They're down at 79 wins below, actually, the Giants and the Diamondbacks with a 21% chance to make the playoffs. So that might sort of surprise people, I guess. Yeah, I think it will until you remember that they, like, they lost guys from their group last year, didn't really do much to replace them. So maybe it's not all that surprising when you put it that way, you know? Yeah. Okay. Well, always fun to have that as a handy reference and to structure our preview series accordingly. I always enjoy perusing the playoff as when I get my fan graphs wrapped equivalent at the end of the,

year. It always tells me I'm like the lord of the playoff odds. Yeah, yeah. I'm always like, always scrutinizing the playoff odds pretty closely. Ben, I have to say, I'm surprised that you didn't bring up the White Sox most important acquisition, which is they're bidet people now. They are, they are bedaymen. They've gotten on board with the bidetes. Yeah. This past weekend, we did a bonus episode for Patreon supporters. Our 51st, we got 51 bonus episode. So just sitting there. If you sign up now, you can access all of them. And we talked about badees on that one, of course, because...

Of course. Yeah, my mayor, Zoran Mabani, has endorsed and embraced the bidet and is trying to install some bidets at Gracie mansion, the mayor's residence. So Zoran, Mamdani, big bidet guy, but also Munitaka Morikami. And, you know, he was visiting the White Sox facilities, so to speak. You know, they were, they're upgrading the clubhouse now. at Rate Field. They should upgrade that name. But they're adding a bidet or bidet

to the home clubhouse. And this was something that Murakami when he visited, he noticed no bidetis. And this is not even the first time that bidets have come up with players and signing free agents

because Roki Sasaki told the Dodgers that installing bidets would influence his signing decision. I don't know that that was actually the difference maker, and that's why he chose the Dodgers, and everyone else was a finalist. They were not as willing to embrace the bidet.

I don't know. But obviously, this is important to him. Bade is very common in Japan, in Korea, in many other places around the world. And so you got to get the bidet. Like, don't do it after the fact. You know, okay, they managed to sign Sasaki and the White Sox managed to sign Murakami, but do it proactively. Just go get the bidet, at least have the option.

You don't need to impose bidet usage on players who don't prefer it. How would you enforce it if you did? Well, you could just take out all of the traditional toilets and just give them... Right, but you don't have to use the bidet function on a bidet equipped toilet, do you? True, true. Yeah, it's always optional. Yeah. So, yeah, at least provide it because it's a global game. And, you know, you're recruiting players from all over the world and places that are more bidet friendly than the U.S. is, though hopefully that. that's changing.

So this might be rude on my part, Ben. I'm willing to acknowledge that it might be rude. I need the Phillies to put bidets in there, their clubhouse. One, you got enough raw milk in there that just seems wise. And two, I need to know what Bryce Harper thinks of a bidet. I need to. I'm like a weird sicko now. I'm a sicko for his sicko, right?

I don't actually want to know about the raw milk. I mean, it's not as bad as the booby milk. It's like horrifying. I think the raw milk is, it's worse from a health perspective. It is worse from a health perspective. That is true. That is true.

But I need them to do it. And then I need, I need Gelb to go ask him about it. Oh, we should warn Gelb how much we're going to talk about the raw milk on the Phillies preview. You should let him know before you ask him so that he can say no if he wants to. Okay. All right.

Well, we will be previewing next time. I will be back in just a moment with Richard Hirschberger to talk a little bit about the 150th birthday of the National League. Happy birthday to the National League. Happy birthday to the National League. Happy birthday to the National League. Happy birthday to the National League. And many more. And many more.

Yes. Let's hope we can discuss how many more. anymore there will be. But here to blow out the candles on behalf of William Holbert, the former Chicago White Stockings owner, who is often credited for being instrumental in the founding of the National League, which occurred on February 2nd, 1876, just about five miles south of me at the Grand Central Hotel in New York City, is Richard Hirschberger, who of course graced us many a time with his past blasts, and also has graced the baseball community with his book, Strike 4, The Evolution of Baseball.

And one pretty key evolution, I suppose, is the founding of the National League. So welcome back, Richard. Thank you, Ben, for having me. So some people, many people, will date the beginning of Major League Baseball to the founding of the National League. Others will credit the beginning of the National Association, the predecessor to the National League with being the first major league, and then that would take us back to 1871. And I guess maybe in some way they're both kind of right, because as usual, the story is

kind of complicated, and everything that is founded on the back on the shoulders of something. And so the National League did grow out of the bones of the National Association. But why don't you give us the short capsule summary of how and why the National League came to be formed when it did. Sure, thank you. Well, first of all, the National Association has a better origin story because they were founded in the back room of an Irish bar on St. Patrick's Day. National League doesn't have that.

Why was the National League founded? It's a more difficult question than you would think is why wasn't the National Association cutting it. There were a couple structural flaws with the National Association. The largest one was that they had no idea of limited membership. It was envisioned as comprising all the professional clubs in the country, and in 1871 that was a manageable number, but it didn't really define what a professional club is.

So that turned into any club that thought they might be able to throw their hat in the ring could send in 10 bucks and send a deli. get to the meeting. You ended up with a series of clubs that had no business being in there. That is the thumbnail version of why the National League was founded because it restricted itself to financially more stable clubs in larger cities. And that was the major point. There also were, the National Association had shenanigans, quite a lot of shenanigans. I'd expect nothing less of 19th century baseball. Well, some of them are quite modern.

One of the biggest was the issue of players throwing games for gambling purposes. So that will feel very 2025. Good thing we've put that behind us forever. Thank goodness that doesn't happen anymore. Yeah. Five years of it. ago, we could say that without laughing. An interesting question is how much of this was actually going on and nobody knows.

If you read the papers from the time, you would think that it was happening constantly. And it's actually very much like if you think back to the turn of the century, to the steroid era, guy comes to the plate and hits a ball into the upper deck and everybody looks at each other and says, hmm, broids, all that happened is he got good wood on the ball and maybe he was on steroids, but maybe he just got good wood. Because it's not like people had never put a ball in the second deck before the steroids are out or since. So the National League very much wanted to tell people that it was founded to put an end to that.

And this is one of the fascinating aspects of the question of why the league is, was founded because a lot of it was obvious propaganda. These were talking points. We can tell that this was not the serious reason because they talked about, oh, we're going to keep out the crooked players, and then they didn't. If you're going to keep out the crooked players, this implies that you're going to have some sort of system to determine who these are. They never did that. So that is, to put it succinctly, bullshit. At the same time, there were shenanigans in the National Association era that the league did put an end to. And one of the problems was that it was difficult to know who a player was actually signed with.

There was no central repository so a player could sign a contract. You know, in, let's say, November, then in December he gets a better offer. So he signs another contract. Sure. And, of course, a contract has a date on it, but that doesn't mean it's a real date. They were fully prepared to backdate contracts. That went on quite a lot. So how did they sort that out?

Well, there was a judiciary committee, and it would collect evidence and make a ruling. And that actually kind of worked. not that the rulings were necessarily the best ones possible, but there was a consensus. Everybody agreed to abide by them. After the 1874 season, you had one of these disputes over shortstop Davy Force who had been playing with Chicago, but then he signed with the Philadelphia Athletics, and then he signed with Chicago, or perhaps the other way around. and the Judiciary Committee for the 1874 Judiciary Committee met and determined that force should belong to Chicago. Then the 1875 Judiciary Committee met and ruled that he should go to the athletics.

Oh dear. And William Holbert, whom you mentioned before, was president of the Chicago Club, and he felt with some. justification that the 1875 committee had been stacked by the president of the National Association, Charles Sparing, who was a Philadelphia. So he called shenanigans. But force played with the athletics that year. Then in 1875, you have more shenanigans. This time was Holbert doing it, because there was a rule against player tampering, just like today. There's a point before which you cannot negotiate with a player under control of another club. And Holbert just blew right past that.

He signed four of the best players from the Boston Club and did it during the season. You will sometimes find people tell you that Holbert wanted to found the National League because he was offended by shenanigans. And this is not true. He was offended by being at the wrong end of shenanigans. Yeah. If he had been the shenanaghanaghaner, then he would have been okay. He never saw a conflict of interest that he wasn't able to embrace.

He was a really interesting guy. And he didn't live much longer. He died in 1882, but he did get into the Hall of Fame via the Veterans Committee more than a century later in 1995 for his founding role. And rightly so. I mean, if you're going to put executives in the Hall of Fame, he clearly belongs. Yeah. And he was the president of the league.

until his death. Now, I suppose that the league was founded to be enduring and kick out some of the weaker teams and keep some of the stronger teams. And of course, there was plenty of turnover and new franchises coming in over the years. But they wanted this to be built to last. And so if they could hear us now, 150 years later, talking about how this still survives, I guess they would be pretty proud. They would say, once we explained what computers and podcasts are and they wrap their heads around that, they'd probably be pretty happy that their handiwork was still around. And I wonder how much of that is just a happy historical accident and how much of it was present in the foundations they laid down. Because I'm thinking of,

you know, sometimes you'll hear Paul McCartney say, well, we didn't think that our music was going to endure. We didn't think that people were still going to be listening to the Beatles. We thought we would just be a flash in the pan. And sure, maybe that's just false modesty. But also, at the time, they were so young, rock and roll was still pretty young, that whole form of popular music had not endured. So how could they possibly know that they would still be popular all these decades later? But Beatles' music was really good.

So it was ultimately built to last. So would you say that the National League was structured in such a way that it sort of makes sense that it lasted for 150 years, or is that kind of a fluke and it could have gone in any number of directions? I think it could have got in any number of directions. It clearly had the flexibility to adapt, which is half the battle right there. But they were there to make a buck. And, you know, there certainly was a sense of building the game, that the game itself had intrinsic value, but these were also businessmen. They also were interested in promoting their cities.

There was a strong idea that a strong baseball club would put the city on the map. And, you know, that seemed to have been a genuine sentiment. Did they think that this would be a permanent institution, a hundred or fifty years later? I'm guessing they would have been astonished. Yeah, because baseball had not been, well, of course, you've documented the actual origins of baseball and how far back it goes. But baseball in recognizable form and obviously professional baseball was a fairly recent innovation. So how could they possibly think? It was about a decade old. Right. Professional baseball. Yeah. So I would imagine that that would

be quite a surprise to learn that it had endured and thrived for a century and a half who could have really anticipated that with any kind of confidence. Now, I want to throw out a what if. We like those here. Yeah. My counterfactual. You pointed out that there's disagreement. Did Major League Baseball start in 1876 or 1871? Mm-hmm. So one of the questions about the National League is why did they not simply revise the National Association constitution?

Mm-hmm. Eight clubs finished 1875 in the National Association. Six of them were in the National League, you know, the following year. And so you sometimes have people kind of assume that the National League was founded in competition with the National Association, but it really wasn't. It was a reorganization of the National Association. Yeah, they both start with National even. And there are two ways that you can do that. One is you can do what they did, which is say, okay, we're going to take our bat and ball and we're going to start our own group and do it our way.

or they could have showed up at the National Association meeting, which was scheduled to be in New Haven in March of 1876. They could have showed up. These would have been the clubs that mattered. They would have had the votes to just ram through it. They won it. And it's actually a very difficult question why they didn't do that. And I think that it was just easier to present the baseball world,

with a fait accompli, rather than show up in New Haven and having to look these people in the eye and say, no, you're out. So my counterfactual is that suppose they had gone that route instead, then it would have been a footnote in baseball history that there was this reorganization of the Constitution in 1876, but nobody would have suggested that it didn't go back to 1871. It is purely an accident of bureaucratic decision. And I guess if they could see the League of today, they would not really recognize it. Maybe Holbert would say, oh, Chicago White Stockings.

Well, you still have Chicago White Sox, though it's a different franchise. And it's not in the National League anymore. And maybe they'd say, oh, Cincinnati Reds. We had a Cincinnati Reds in 1876, and you still have one, even though they never talk about them uneffectively wild. there is a Cincinnati Reds in 2026. Different franchise, but same name, same city at least. So some things at least have endured, I suppose. But in all the other sort of structural ways, it's not really the same. I was kind of wondering when we would say that the National League will end. I mean, on one level, I guess as long as Major League Baseball indoors, the work that those founders did in 1876 will endure because the Major League Baseball of today grew out of the National League of 1876 in a roundabout way. But of course, there's no real national league in the way that there used to be when the leagues were separate. And they had their own presidents who had actual power and they had different umpiring crews and they had

different rules. And now they're unified under the MLB banner. And there's even some possibility, I suppose. I doubt this, but it's possible that when there's expansion and all the the teams are reorganized and regrouped, they could even do away with the names National League and American League because, of course, it's kind of a relic now. They're essentially the same. I suspect they'll keep the nomenclature around just for old times' sake, but it won't have much meaning to the extent that it even does now. So I guess you'd say as long as MLB indoors, the National League will have continuity dating all the way back to 1876. But it's all the also so different from the way it was 150 years ago, unsurprisingly.

Well, first, let's preempt the emails. Yeah. And note that the Chicago Cubs are the Chicago White Stockings. Okay, yes. The same club. And that the Atlanta Braves were the Boston Red Stockings, by way of Milwaukee. Yeah. Baseball reference has them as the Boston Reds for 1876, but I trust you.

It's a theological debate. Yeah, right. But your point that the National League doesn't really exist anymore is very, very well-founded. Certainly, once they merged the home offices and you no longer had league presidents, Major League Baseball is the league. I compare it to the NFL, the NFL and the AFL merged. They had a meeting, they said we're emerging, then they called a press conference that said we've merged. And the old NFL became the NFC and the AFL became the AFC.

Baseball has done the same thing, but without the press conference and without the name changes. This is also why I don't get nostalgic or upset about interleague play. That's like complaining that AFC and NFC teams play each other. It's the same league. It's just how we're going to do our scheduling. But you're right. The National League in the 1876 sense does not exist anymore and hasn't for a couple decades now.

But it is the father of Major League Baseball in all its glory for better or worse. Yeah. And well, that's my last question for you maybe for better or worse. I think we're happy that there's major league baseball, but could there have been some better version of major league baseball, some alternative to the National League? And we would all be happier today, and the sport would be an even better shape if we had to not traced the origins back to 1876

and William Holper. Because, of course, all these challengers come along, and there are other leagues in the 19th century that are designated as major, and then there's the players revolt and the Players League, and later the Federal League. And so, as you said, it could have gone in any number of directions. Was this a good direction? Was this an upper percentile outcome, I guess,

if we wanted baseball to survive and thrive for all this time? I'm sort of a fan of the 1884 Union Association, and that's controversial. But I'm not a fan because they had their act together. Say what you will about the National League, and it was run by a bunch of rat bastards. but they pretty much had their act together, and that's pretty much a prerequisite for survival. Yeah, being cutthroat can be beneficial. It's competitive, and maybe they did some things that would certainly seem unsavory now,

but they did ensure at least that baseball would become as prominent and popular and enduring as it did, or at least they contributed to that. Maybe it would have done just fine without them, because it's a great game. But the structure that we have today certainly does date back to then. So we owe some sort of debt, I suppose. I am a big believer that the proof of what a great game baseball is, is that it survives the owners. Right. Yes.

Okay. Well, anything else you'd like to add before we complete our birthday mini-celebration? Happy birthday. Okay, a few closing updates for you. First, we talked not too long ago. about the implications for sports and society of prediction markets, polymarket, kalshi, et cetera, which are increasingly popular and also potentially dangerous, not really regulated, ostensibly regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Well, the head of the CFTC, Chairman Michael Seelig, who took over in December, not sure if he's any relation to Bud, said on Thursday that the CFTC will write new rules for the prediction market industry, for better or worse. In 2024, under a previous chairman and, of course, a previous presidential administration, the agency issued a proposal that called for banning sports and politics-related wagers on prediction markets, while the new chairman is formally withdrawing that plan, as well as a 2025 staff advisory that caution businesses from offering sports-related contracts due to ongoing litigation. So not sure if this will be good or bad, but it'll be different, maybe. Still very much a fluid situation. As is MLB's broadcast picture, we talked about the ongoing. going death spiral of Main Street Sports Group, which was in position to televise nine MLB clubs

games in 2026. They've been missing payments. And as a result, six clubs that did work with Main Street last year, the Reds, Royals, Marlins, Brewers, Cardinals, and Rays announced on Monday that they will let MLB oversee production and distribution of their telecasts. The Tigers may soon join them for the Braves and the Angels. Things are still sort of up in the air. But MLB was already handling the broadcast for seven teams. The Diamondbacks, Guardians, Rockies, Twins, Padres, Mariners, and Nationals. So add six to that, the league's portfolio is up to 13 teams. And if those remaining three, the Tigers, Braves, and Angels were all to go under the MLB umbrella, then the league would be operating broadcast for more than half of the teams.

So got to catch them all. Rob Bancred is trying, but it's going to take some time to put that package together. It's just a matter of how much time. And of course, how much money. MLB says that for the clubs that lost their RSN deals, the broadcast deals replacing them, have on average paid out about 50% of what clubs had received from their former cable deals. Of course, especially with a CBA about to expire, the league is incentivized to suggest that it's not making as much money as it was. Then again, when it comes to the broadcast contracts, that is probably true, at least to some extent. And lastly, speaking of baseball economics, the MLBPA publicized the final figures for 2025 and found that the rate of increase for MLB's average salary slowed to 1.4% last year, while setting a record average at 4,000, 7,7.7.5.5.5.5.5.5.5.5.5.5. $721,393. So it was the smallest increase since the average dropped in four straight seasons before 2022, but still a new high, albeit not really keeping up with inflation. And this dovetails with something listener and Patreon supporter Michael Mountain sent me this

week. He posted this in the Discord group as well for Patreon supporters. He writes, this is the most anti-Labor thought exercise I've ever gone through, but I wanted to take a different look at a past stat blast from episode 1834. The question was about which players' career earnings have most close. match their value provided on a dollars per war basis. Ben used fan graphs dollars per war calculations, which go back to 2002, and applied those yearly figures to the seasonal production of players, then added up their career totals and compared them to actual earnings. However, as he acknowledged in the

episode, this is an imperfect calculation because the dollars per war numbers are based on free agent contracts. Obviously, the career arc for most good players is that they're underpaid in the beginning of their careers and then they cash in once reaching free agency, where teams are routinely willing to pay $10 million for each projected win above replacement in most cases. But from a team perspective, part of what drives the dollars per war calculation in free agency is scarcity. There are only a handful of impact free agents available at a given position in a given offseason. So using those scarcity-boasted numbers to derive a dollars per war number that can

apply to every player every year is not quite apples to apples. If free agent dollars per war represents one plausible end of the player valuation spectrum, this exercise represents the other end. It's obviously impossible to know how much teams would spend on their payroll if every player had free agency rights regardless of their service time, but I think it's fair to say that teams would spend at least as much on payroll as they currently do. It stands to reason that compared to the current system, increased player freedom of movement, would not result in additional wage suppression barring some elaborate form of collusion,

and absent any other economic changes to the game, it seems logical to expect that if owners were given a choice of maintaining the current overall level of expenditures versus taking their ball and going home, they would at least be willing to pay players in the aggregate what they pay now, albeit with a different distribution within the player pool. Michael says, now I do firmly believe that on the whole, teams can afford to pay players more than they currently do, but without speculating wildly on how much more, it seems irresponsible to throw a fixed multiplier on these numbers and say that's what players deserve. So I'm left with only the evidence in front of my face, MLB owners collectively decided it was worth their

while to operate 30 teams at a combined payroll of $5.35 billion in 2025. If the players wanted to split that money up differently among them, in theory, it shouldn't impact the owners willingness to spend that bottom line figure. So I calculated a new player value baseline using league-wide payroll data going back to 1988, which he found at the website the Baseball Cube. Mapping it more closely to wins above replacement, now players are worth salary above replacement. So a player's deserved salary in a given year is the league minimum plus their season

fan graphs wore times a waiting factor. And the waiting factor in a given year is determined by the following formula. F equals parentheses p minus m times R, close per se, Renthases divided by total war, where P is total league-wide payroll, M is the minimum salary, R is the roster size, and total war is total league-wide war. So he finds, by this calculation, the dollars per war number has risen by about $130,000 each year remarkably consistently going back to 1988. In 2024, it reached $5 million per war for the first time, and last year it was $5.3 million

per war. Not adjusted for inflation, there are five player seasons worth, quote-unquote, 50 million or more. Aaron Judge in 2022, 2024, and 2025, Shohay Otani in 2025, and Bobby Witt Jr. in 2024. Since 1988, the players with the highest total deserved career earnings in millions? Well, it's a bunch of really good players. Mike Trout at 358 million. Clayton Kershaw 309.

Justin Verlander, Freddie Freeman, Max Scherzer, Mukie Betzer, and Judge, Francisco Indoor, Jose Ramirez, Mani Machado, Zach Granky, and Jose Al-Tubei. Regardless of method, whether this or the original stat blast, Ryan Domit is at the bottom with a career deserved. earnings of negative 19.9 million. Well, that's fan graph's war for you. Framing does not treat Mr. Domet kindly. The smallest positive, deserved career salary for someone who debuted an 88 or later and played at least five seasons is a nationally reliever from the mid-2000s Mike Gosling. Negative.

7 fan graphs wore for a deserved career payday of $2,825. The next step, Michael says, is to compare these numbers to actual career earnings, which I obtained for him from Dan Hirsch at Baseball Reference, who helped us with the original. Stap Blast. He sent all the career earnings for now retired players going back to 1988, players who've had their whole careers during that span. Their salary data isn't comprehensive, but he gave me everything he had. And the most quote-unquote overpaid players in terms of career earnings exceeding their deserved total by at least 100 million. Derek Jeter, 265 million actual 154 million deserved. Albert Pujols, David Price, Ryan Howard, Chris Davis,

Alex Rodriguez, Steven Strasbourg, and Miguel Cabrera. Most underpaid. players, quote-unquote, deserved career earnings exceeding actual earnings by at least 50 million. Jonathan Lucroy, 26 million actual, $118 million deserved, another framing guy. Followed by Ryan Dozier, Whit Merrifield, Corey Klooper, Tyler Flowers, a Ben Lindbergberg favorite, another framerer, another framerist, Jose Fernandez, Kevin Kiermeier, and Brett Gardner. And the closest matches between actual and quote-unquote deserved salary, well, for no minimum salary, it's relief pitcher Dave Moorer, who pitched about 22

innings over four seasons. He made $20,000,500 and deserved $202,585 bucks. For guys who made at least a million dollars, it's Eugenio Veles, at least $5 million Dominic Leone, at least 10 million Buddy Groom, at least 25 million, Eric Young Senior, at least 40 million Milton Bradley, and at least 100 million, Annibal Sanchez, who made 103.1.1 million, and deserved

$103.432 million. Most quote-unquote overpaid by percentage among players with positive fan graphs were. Otherwise, you just get a bunch of guys who were not very good and made a league minimum. Number one, Roger Sedanio, 30 million actual earnings, 820,000 deserved, then Rusni Castillo, Bionho Park, Turk Wendell, Pat Mears, Pedro Borbon, Jeff Brantley, Yuji Fujikawa, Chris Davis, and Lenny Harris. Other interesting names, Michael notes, whose quote-unquote deserved earnings were within 1% of their actual salary, B.J. Upton, Chipper Jones, Rondell White, Tim Hudson, Daniel Hudson,

Edinson, Volquez, Eric Burns, Carlos Gonzalez, Darren Fletcher, Tim Wakefield, and Aaron Hill. All of this is, of course, available in a spreadsheet, which I will link to. Thanks to Michael for the follow-up, and he also stresses, please relay my insistence on putting the word deserved in quotes and my general discomfort with presenting data in such a light as to lend credence to ownership claims of being unable to spend more money than they currently do. And those claims are at least as old as the National League. If you'd like to spend more money than you currently do on Effectively Wild, you can do so by supporting us on Patreon. Just go to patreon.com slash Effectively Wild and sign up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad-free and get yourself access to some perks, as have the following five listeners.

Alex C, Shane Conklin, Nikil Patel, Christopher Yang, and Liam Sullivan. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, monthly bonus episodes, playoff live streams, prioritized email answer, personalized messages, shoutouts at the end of episodes, potential podcast appearances, discounts on merch and ad-free fancrafts memberships, and so much more. Check out all the offerings at patreon.com slash effectively wild. If you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. If not, you can contact us via email, send your questions, comments, intro and outro themes

to podcasts at fancrafts.com. You can rate, review, and subscribe to EffectivelyWild on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube music, and other podcast platforms. You can join our Facebook group at Facebook.com slash group slash Effectively Wild. You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at our... slash Effectively Wild, and you can check the show notes in the podcast posted fan crafts 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.

As mentioned, we will preview the Astros and the Diamondbacks next time. We typically don't post the full schedule because it's sort of subject to change. We don't update it based on the projections as the projections and projected wind totals change in the lead up to opening day, but sometimes we have to reschedule stuff. So usually I'll tell you at the end of one episode. Who's up next? and we will bring you that first entry in the 26 season preview series a little later this week.

Talk to you then. Just a couple of baseball nerd. They'll still be speaking statistically, rambling romantically, pontificating pedantically, banter and bodily, drafting discerningly, giggling, giddling italy, equalling effectively wild.