Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2455: The 2026 Preseason Predictions Game

Episode Date: March 20, 2026

Ben Lindbergh, Meg Rowley, and FanGraphs authors Michael Baumann and Ben Clemens (accompanied by podcast scorekeeper Chris Hanel) play “College Baseball Player or Driver in a Formula 1 Support Series” (5:07), banter about an auction for Team Italy’s WBC espresso machine (10:09), explain the fourth annual preseason predictions game (19:20), and then make 10 bold predictions apiece (22:20) about baseball in 2026, to be voted on by listeners. Audio intro: Benny and a Million Shetland Ponies, “Effectively Wild Theme (Horny)” Audio outro: Kite Person, “Effectively Wild Theme” Link to vote on predictions Link to preseason predictions game wiki Link to Anton’s mash-up song Link to original song Link to EW Episode 2383 Link to “College Baseball Player or” games Link to Baumann on Herta Link to espresso machine auction Link to other Team Italy items Link to Ohtani Cy Young story Link to For All Mankind Link to FG playoff odds Link to Artemis II story Link to Perry/moon landing story Link to Neckzilla Link to Schulte’s SABR bio Link to Manfred/Harper/DeRosa story Link to AO3 Link to new managers story Link to team WAR projections Link to 2024 2B innings leaders Link to active postseason droughts Link to 2025 Royals WAR leaders Link to Garcia breakout comment Link to old-SP leaders Link to Quinn’s SABR bio Link to Verlander outing article Link to young, homegrown SP leaders Link to Pirates SP article Link to Baumann on Mlodzinski Link to MLB partnership announcement Link to MLB partnership announcement info 1 Link to MLB partnership announcement info 2 Link to MLB partnership announcement info 3 Link to vote on predictions (do it!)  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 and welcome. What do I say next? Too effectively wild. I hope that's not what I say. Leave it in. Well, it's moments like these that make you ask, how can you not be horny about baseball? Every take hot and hotter,

entwining and a budding, watch them climbing mountain. Nothing about nothing. Every stitch wet with sweat, breaking balls back, dormie on effectively wild, Can you not be horny? Comes to podcasts, how can you not be horny? Hello and welcome to episode 2455 of Effectively Wild,

a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of the Ringer, joined as always by Meg Rally of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello. But we are joined by a trio of guests who are not always with us, but we are always happy when they are. A couple of your fan grafts colleagues, one Michael Bowman. Hello, Mr. Bowman.

I don't think you're always happy when I'm here. I am. We might have this little combative dynamic going, but it's based on mutual affection and respect. Speaking of mutual affection, I would like to thank Anton, who emailed you my recitation of the musical compositions I made the last time I was on here. What we were referring to is when you made a Travis Kelsey slash Taylor Swift in Spitz. fired effectively wild lyrics, and they have been set to music. This pod should come with a parental warning. You're about to have your world rock, my friend.

Getting all hot and bothered here. He makes all the d'clock before seem timid and mild when he bends me over and goes effectively wild. I'm effectively wild in the bedroom. He's known to be wild and he's good with the glove. With his fingers and his teeth, he's tearing off my garters, saying, I'd like to thank a couple of our Patreon support. Just leave it all up to the imagination. Woo!

Physiological and sexual prowess. My man's effectively wild. He's got me screaming with a purpose. I get on top. He does a stat blast on my cervix. Well, now you've put more pressure on me. Is that it? You have more for me?

Also with us from FanGraphs is other Ben. Ben Clements. Hello, Ben. Hey, Ben. How's it going? Do you have any Travis Kelsey, Taylor Swift-Spirt, inspired lyrics to share with us today. Zero, but I do have a game that we're going to play during the drafts. That's fun. Is it the 2026 effectively wild preseason predictions game?

Oh, no. I guess this is a great time to announce it. My predictions have a hidden theme. And if you guess them, you'll get a guest subscription to the website. Oh, wow. Oh, my God. We have an ARG inside the game. Wow. Chris, not everybody plays magic. You got to remember, buddy. At me on blue sky, perhaps. Is that that's the right way, the first person to figure it out, we'll get it. That's one way. Or you could email us at podcastopengraphs.com, maybe, and I will get forward to other Ben. The interloper who just chimed in before he was announced on this podcast goes against

every rule. Don't speak unless you're spoken to. It's Chris Hanel, effectively wild. Scorekeeper, a statistician. I don't know which official title you prefer, but you're welcome one way or another. I'm allowed to talk now? Yes. Hi, everybody.

You have been introduced. Yay. I'm so glad to be here for what is my favorite day of the year in many ways and for many listeners as well, I am told. Yes, this is Chris's Super Bowl. A lot of preparation goes into this. A lot of post-podcast work on his part and the part of the Effectively Wild stats team goes into this. So it's all been building up to this and it will all continue to build. after this as he tracks all of our predictions throughout the year. It is an exciting time.

This is our fourth annual preseason predictions game. Yes, we have all aged. Time has passed. I'm close to running out of things to predict, Ben. Yes. Seriously. Yeah, we tried to avoid repeating ourselves, but it's hard to be as fresh and creative and original as so we have tried to be in the past. But we'll do it again. We'll see how it goes. And I also always think that it's the bold preseason predictions game or the preseason bold predictions game, but that's not officially in the title. It's just implied that the predictions will be bold. Even for me, I will do my best to be bold. And this is a really fun exercise for us, also for our listeners every year, because there is a major listener participation component.

Indeed. We could do this without you technically, but we'd prefer not to. It wouldn't be as fun if we did. We'd be the same. No, not nearly. And so we hope that you will all participate. And Chris will explain what exactly we are participating in here. But Bauman, I assume that you have come prepared with a pre-predictions game of your own. Yeah, we're going to try to keep this moving quickly because it's about people who move quickly.

Ben, today's game is college baseball player or driver in a Formula One support series. Oh, wow. So these are minor league racing drivers, essentially. There are Formula 2, Formula 3, and so on. Okay. You are like the undercard races for F1. And these are the Formula 1 drivers of tomorrow. At least that's the idea.

Okay. I was going to say I know a little bit more about F1 than I used to, which was nothing, because I have kind of covered it in a professional capacity on Hang Up and Listen from from time to time. But our coverage has not extended to the minor leagues of F1. So I don't think I will know these names and you know I won't know the college baseball's names. So I will be just firing in the dark here, but fire away. Name number one is Colton Herda.

See, Colton sounds more baseball coded to me, but that last name sounds maybe more F1-ish. So I'm not sure which way to go. But I guess I'll stick with Colton being a baseball name and I'll guess college baseball player. No, he is a driver for the high-tech Formula 2 team, former IndyCar race winner, and Cadillac Reserve driver for the F1 team. I've been, when we worked together, I wrote a big feature article about him as one of the potential next Americans in F1. That's embarrassing for me.

Yeah, you don't read any of my stuff, man. I read much of your stuff, but I may have missed the F1 prospect piece, I will confess. Did you, did this go into your thinking at all that Colton sounds? Like a baseball name? Okay. So you are actually trying to trick me here. Not only that, but this is a guy who you could plausibly have heard of in your limited capacity as a sports generalist. So I was trying to shoot the moon and get one that maybe our listeners might have.

If that was my best chance, then that does not go well. Yeah. All right. Continue. You always figure out the rhythm before I do. So number two is Gianno Marlongi. Are you refusing to spell? Can I get you to spell?

G. B-I-N-N-O-M-E-R-L-O-N-G-H-I. Okay. See, now it's almost the opposite, where that I would say F-1, and so I'm going to guess that you are trying to flummox me again, and I'm going to say college baseball player. He is a college baseball player. He's an outfielder for Central Connecticut State. Number three, Paris Pridgen.

Paris Pridgen. Paris Pridgen. And there's some chance that I would have heard of someone with that name in college baseball. It just seems like a memorable name and does not ring a bell. So, going to go F1. No, Paris Pridget is an infielder for Austin P. The Austin P. Governors, let's go pee. Is that the actual slogan?

Yeah. Number four, Peyton Westcott. Peyton Westcott. Wow. This sounds so preppy, so aristocratic. I'm torn on this one. I guess I'll go F1. Yeah, Peyton Westcott, she is an F1 Academy driver.

Threw me for a loop there. For Prima Racing and in the Mercedes F1 ladder. All right. All right. And the last one, Titan Kamaka. Oh, my goodness. Titan Kamaka. Titan Kamaka.

Titan Kamaka. Titan Kamaka. See, Meg's giving me extra information here because... I'm just delighted by the name. I'm giving you no information. Yeah, if I'd gone in cold, I would have guessed like AEW wrestler. I'm just thinking, yes, true, but I'm just thinking Meg is more likely to have heard of a college baseball player than I am. And it sounds as if this might be new to her too.

So I'm going to go either way. I won't attribute this to Meg chiming in, but I'll go F1. No, Titan Kamaka is an infielder at Mercer, where he's currently hitting, he's currently hitting over 500. Had you heard of Titan Kamakameg? No, I really just was delighting at the name. Titan Kamaka. Titan Kamaka. I feel good about this.

I feel like you had gotten a beat on me recently, Ben. Yeah, I couldn't read you this time. Yeah. Did I, how many did I get two? Two. All right. That's not bad. Yeah, I'll take two.

I'm just happy to get on the board. on any of these, really. Once I get one, the pressure is really off. So I'm pleased with the outcome of this. We'll see if I will be equally pleased with the outcome of our flagship game today, our main attraction, which is not to suggest that people don't come to hear

college baseball player or, because I know that's a big draw too. And I will just say one thing that I wanted to apprise Meg of, though she may already be aware. And I hesitated to bring this up on the podcast, because by bringing it up, I am potentially making it harder for you to win this auction yourself because I'm creating many potential bidders. But the espresso machine.

Oh, they're auctioning the espresso machine? Shouldn't that go to a Hall of Fame? Yeah. Should it be a Hall of Fame, Nisproso? Yes. That should be on display in like the Italian consulate in Washington. Everywhere that there is a statue of Christopher Columbus, tear it down and build a platform to temporarily display the Nespresso machine. Erect this coffee machine at Columbus Circle just high on a pedestal where you could barely see it from the ground.

But no, it is true. They are auctioning this thing off. That's a crime. I guess it's a crime, although it's also ostensibly for a good cause. So there's that. Okay. What's the cause? But still, let me be the judge of that.

Yeah, you'll evaluate whether this is a sufficiently good cause. It says all net proceeds from this auction will benefit the Southwest Autism Research and Resource Center. That is a good cause. That is a good cause. Yeah. I'm unequivocal on that one. Well, maybe whoever wins the bidding will donate it to the Hall of Fame or put it publicly on display. It'll be like you get Shohei Otani's milestone baseball or whatever and then you display it in a glass case with a bunch of security guards around.

So I almost want to ask you to guess what it's going for right now. I'm not sure exactly when it started. But as we speak, there are four days about remaining in this as we record here on Thursday afternoon. When did it open? March 17th. So that was Tuesday, early Tuesday morning. Okay. And it closes on the 23rd.

I'm going to guess $10,000. Not quite. It could get there. It could get there. There's time. $8,000. This is what you would pay, I think, but this is not what the market currently is. But there's plenty of time. We know, you know, auctions, like there will be a flurry of bids. I don't think it's, it's not at all unrealistic that it could end up there because, in fact, there have already been 46 bids. But the bid increments are 10 bucks. So it stands right. now as we speak at $1,130. Oh, okay. So here's what I'll say about this.

And I'm going to reveal myself to be a particular kind of snob. I appreciate the sentimental value of the espresso machine, but can't we do better than an espresso pot's like so. Right. Yes, you did say you wanted a fancier machine next time around. That's how you know these guys are Italian-American and not actual Italian. Did you guys read Hannah Kaiser's? story on the Italian guy.

You say he wants six Italian-born players on the next WBC team is like an interstitial measure. I think getting a proper, especially a machine should count as one of the six players. As I said on our last episode, I think

that they should just have a barista in the dugout. And not a branded barista. I want them to go to Italy and find preferably a small Italian man and I want him to

just like blow the socks off of Jack Caglione in terms of like what a good coffee can be because I think Vinny probably already knows but I think you know Jack's from Florida he probably has a culinary education ahead of him if I had a hazard

guess. Well quantities are limited there's only one of these in the world I mean I'm sure it's a mass produced item but there's only one that was actually in the dugout. This is not one of those things where they authenticate a bunch of different models or something. They didn't swap in a bunch.

I think there can only be one. It's Highlander and it's the Team Italy espresso machine, but it says that it's authenticated to three WBC games, the pool play quarterfinals, semi-final. And shipping is actually pretty pricey on this thing. If you're not in the continental U.S., you've got to pay 150 bucks to get this thing.

Well, sure, but it's probably going to be someone in the continent. Yeah, they... probably have to hire a private plane and security and just like, you know, it's going to be chained to a briefcase that someone is holding in first class or something. Well, how does it work with shipping something authenticated like that? Like, I could ship you an espresso. Yeah.

How does it work shipping anything to that part of the world right now? God, what a tragedy that would be if the Italian espresso machine was shot down. Yeah. Yeah. No, we can't have that happen. But I do wonder, anyone cared a hazard to guess where the bidding will end up? Do you think. There's four days left, you said?

Four days left, yeah. And this has been viewed as we speak only fewer than 6,000 times. So I feel like by mentioning it on effectively wild, I'm potentially really juicing the bidding here, which I guess is a good deed if you're the Southwest Autism Research and Resource Center. But not great if you were hoping to just pounce on this thing at the last. second. I think my answer to that question depends on whether or not Meg is going to ask me to borrow money in the next

four days. It's like, why weren't you able to buy a house? Well, funny story. I'm going to say more than five, but less than 10,000. Okay. Like more than 5,000, less than 10,000 will be where it ultimately lands. Do you think

that they flew it on the charter when they went to Miami? Like, do you think that it got a seat on the charter? Oh, I would think so. Yeah. I would assume so. Like, you don't want to, I don't know if you guys saw this, but Danielle Medvedev, who almost won the tennis tournament at Indian Wells, flew commercial to Miami and lost his tennis records. What? Yeah, he, like, tweeted at United.

I would carry them on and just be like, I'll play naked. Like, what are you going to do? This is the most important piece of equipment I'm bringing. I can go to Dix for the other stuff. Well, if you play naked, everyone's going to be going to Dix if Dineel does it, at least. But it says it's sold in as is. condition. Well, sure.

Yeah. They're not going to refurbish this thing. No, it's going to be covered in all the grime that you would want it to, which adds value, I think. If you restored this somehow, it would actually would remove the value. But does it have one of the little holographic stickers? That's what I want to know. It is.

It is festooned with stickers and it does not appear to have been tampered with at all. And the interesting thing is that there are other game used items, like if Meg wants to pick up another team Italy item. And they're all going. Most of them are going for more than the espresso machine. If you want to get a game, that's crazy. Yeah, if you want to get a game used jersey that was worn by, say, Jack Caglione or Michael Lorenzen or Francisco Cervale, it's going to run you much more than this coffee machine currently. The Jack Caglione jersey is at 8,000 plus right now. Now, okay, it's closer to being done. So maybe that's it. Maybe it's just that started earlier because I got to think this for that are they also going to

let me check but I it looks like no so so I just pocketing the jack money yeah I guess so yeah but this is up a up forbidding through the MLB auctions site and yeah the jerseys are actually closing today so that's probably why but it would it would be wrong if the jerseys went for more than the espresso machine which was the signature item And that actually makes me think. So if a Jack jersey is going for $8,000, then I'm probably taking the over on the espresso machine, which sounds preposterous because I don't know what the actual model number of this espresso machine is,

but the list price, the retail price for this piece of equipment is, I'm guessing about what the shipping costs or probably less. Yeah, I think it's a sub-200 model. I'm laughing at Jack jersey as a, I'm just, look, it's funny, okay? I have one working brain cell. I'm trying so hard to not have every word that comes out of my mouth, like laced with just fatigue and bitchiness. Well, Meg, you still have a few days to get your bid in if you care to.

And we'll see how high that number goes. And maybe we can place a prediction on that at Polymarket now that MLB has partnered with its official prediction market partner. So I'm sure we're all pleased to see that news. Can I share a fun meg fact as I choke on water and samosa? I already have a team Italy jersey and it's a Pat Vendiddy team Italy jersey and it is one of my most prize possessions. Yeah. That's great.

Oh, that's cute. Okay. Well, let's get to our main game here. We have come with some predictions about the 2026 baseball season and we are about to share them with you and you are about to weigh in on how likely. you think they are to come to pass. And Chris, since you're really the ringleader here, you are the originator of this game. You got us into this mess and you handle all of the administrative details. Would you care to run us through the rules, refresh everyone's, and I'm including myself in that memories.

Absolutely. All right. So, 2026, preseason predictions game. The way that this will work as each of our four panelists are going to make 10 predictions, about the 2026 baseball season. And they are going to earn points if they come to pass and they're going to lose points. If they do not come to pass by the end of award season,

theoretically when the MVP awards are given out in November. How many points they win or lose is based on viewer voting, listener voting. So what's going to happen is you can pull it up right now as you're listening. Go to eWStats.com and you will see a ballot of all 44.4.4.5. predictions that have been made and you're going to grade them how likely each one of those you think it is and those will be averaged out to determine the number of points that can win or lose. The less likely that you all think a prediction is, the more points they will gain and the less points they will lose. And we are adding one more wrinkle to this season.

Each of our panelists is going to cast doubt on one of their fellow panelists's predictions. And they will get to take the other side of that point. prediction. Any points the other person loses, they will gain towards their own point total. So you want to be listening for something that you think listeners will grade as likely, but will still not happen. We will get things underway, and we are going to go by reverse order of last year's contest. So that means our order is Ben Lindberg, Michael Bowman, Ben Clemens, and last year's winner, Meg Rowley. So, Ben, where shall we begin? All right. And I should say, I'm glad you're gracing us with your presence for this podcast because in previous editions, you have not actually participated in

the initial podcast. You have joined us on the recap pods where you reveal all the scoring and grading at the end of the year, but you have not been on the initial podcast. And so by being here, you can immediately chime in. You'll probably mostly lurk as we go through this exercise. But if there are any points of contention, anything we need to clarify, adjudicate, we can do that in real time instead of via frantic post-podcast recordings and maybe exchanges. And so we can get that all straightened out as we go. It's all on the record. Let's get gone. All right.

Well, I'm going to begin with a challenge system prediction because I'm sure I'm not the only one who has one holstered. so I figured I'd get ahead of it. And I'm going to kind of take, it's a little bit reminiscent of my prediction from last year, which actually paid off about that there would be a sarcastic challenge, that someone would tap their helmet, even though there was no actual challenge system in place. And that one did pay off for me eventually. So I'm going to say, and we bantered about this not long ago, Meg,

but I'm going to say that the challenge system will incite a bench clearing. at some point this season. Now, I'm already anticipating perhaps Chris's questions here. I think this is sort of a, you know what, when you see it, it will be provoked, sparked by a challenge or by the manner in which a player challenges. Maybe it's their body language as they're challenging. You know, maybe it's what we talked about with Willier Obreu, just taking it for granted that he was going to win the challenge

and striding down to first base before the rule. ruling was actually relayed and maybe teams would take offense to that and there'd be unwritten rules and there'd be some jawing and then the benches were clear. Or maybe it'll be about the time when someone does it. Maybe, you know, you're up in a blowout and you challenge and it's considered unbecoming to press your advantage. Something like that. Now, there could certainly be intra-team discord sparked by the challenge system, but that would probably not prompt a bench clearing. Maybe we'll hear about it. Maybe there will be some arguing in the dugout or something. But this is specifically, I think, interteam. This is one team to the other. And I'm going to

say that the challenge just has to sort of spark it. You know, like obviously there could be additional developments. Like maybe someone takes issue with the challenge and then there are words exchanged and then it heats up and then it graduates to bench clearing. I think that still counts, as long as it starts with the challenge system. Can I offer a bright line? The bullpens have to come out. See, that's bolder. That's bolder than I was going to go. I wonder what percentage of bench clearings also include bullpen clearings. It's not 100. Obviously, a lot of them do, but it's, I don't know. I think that's a slightly different prediction than I care to offer here.

and you can score it accordingly. But yeah, I'm going to say just benches clearing, not necessarily bullpens, but there will be general milling about and people will be on the field and there may or may not be tussling. There may or may not be players asking other players to hold them back or demanding that they do.

But yeah, that's what I'm going with here. I will allow it. I think that that, I think you're right. I think we'll know it and we'll see it. Okay. All right. going to eat those words immediately. But, yeah.

Bowman. Okay, I'm going to go with a prediction that I had to revise, actually, on the fly. Every National League Cyong vote getter will either be listed at 6 foot six or taller or at 6 foot or shorter. So that get, it was originally every Sayong, NL. Sayong finalists will be of those dimensions. But that actually happened last year with Paul Skeen's Christopher. Sanchez and Yoshinobu Yamamoto. So I'm doubling down on that trend. Get you Chris Sails, Spencer Strider, Andrew Abbott, who's my dark horse guy for this year, Jesus Lazzardo,

Freddie Peralta is listed at six foot somehow. So basically everybody, but Logan Webb and a few other people. I'm guessing we're going to get my favorite thing in sports, which is a picture of a tall guy next to a short guy. It's interesting that there's a height gap among the aaces there. But only in the National League. Right. Okay. Yeah, because I guess you have, how tall is Terrick Scouble, 6-3?

So he's right. Like smack dab in the middle there. Yeah. Okay. All right. That's a fun one. And other Ben. All right.

I'm going to start with some, I'd call it WBC topical stuff. So here's my, here's one. The WBC is complete, right? You'll see. It's things that are top of mind because of, the WBC. I see. Very recent. Yes, but it has concluded, which makes WBC predictions complicated. I promise I saw this Italy thing coming. You'll see. All right, let's start. And this is not your theme. You're not giving away your secret theme that it's all WBC. But some of my predictions relate to things that we were all made of aware of during the WBC. So let's start. And also your theme is not that there are all things that you're predicting about the 2026 season. It's more specific than that. It might be that, but I won't give you the subscription for that. Okay. So you'll have to do better. Okay. On their game on opening day, six or more distinct Cleveland Guardian's batters will extend their hand, arm, and or bat towards Cal Raleigh in a way that either makes contact with Cal Raleigh or in the judgment of a neutral baseball observer invites Cal Raleigh to touch the thing that they extended towards him. I love this.

I tried so hard to come up with a way to make this, make a Cal Raleigh handshake prediction. This is so good. Wonderful. Okay, so I'm also thinking that I will explain why I think my predictions are bold on each of these. Because that's kind of what we're doing. I think this one's bold because baseball players aren't good-natured trolls like we are. Like, if baseball players were like me, this would have happened 27 times in the next three games. Like, only Josh Naylor, who is a good-natured troll.

Yes. Did it. But the point is, almost everyone didn't. I, like, if I were running these teams, if I were these players, this would be a 100% uncertainty. But no one does this. I really want them to, but I just don't think it's going to happen. I'm trying to manifest into the world.

But aside from Bow Nailer, who I'm hoping to take something from his brother, I'm guessing that everyone's just going to ignore it. But God, it would make me happy. I think it's the wrong team to do this, because the Guardians are a team of anonymous nobodies managed by a really nice guy. That would make it much funnier. I mean, it would be awesome. It would make it way cooler.

but like if it was the Giants or the Padres or something, I would be slamming this. I'm with you. I had to work a while. I'm getting the wording, right? Well, now we know that Chris will be watching the Guardians game on opening day, I guess, very closely. It's scrutinizing the video footage from every angle. He'll be Zapruding this thing.

Hey, at least it's not year-long. Yeah. I'm going to have to get someone to attend the game for me and catch stuff that didn't make the telecast, I think. Yeah, you don't have to go that far, I think. But if this happens, I think we would know because it would be newsworthy. I think it would be reported. Yeah, but one or two might do it and no one will say anything about it.

But if they all do, we're going to know. I could see one guy doing it, but it's the, what did you say, six of them doing it? Yeah, six or more distinct batters, not the same guy four times than two others. Which would be a great bit if they all committed to it. But yes, it does seem unlikely and therefore bold. All right, it fits the description. Okay. let's wrap up round one here with Meg Raleigh.

And I'm I'm closing the round because I won last time, right? That's right, yes. That's the logic behind the draft order. That is exactly why. You were victorious. You trunched us all. And therefore. I'm saying it once and then I'm moving on because unlike some people, you know,

view Adrian Brody's approach to speeches as aspirational. You know, it was a nice win. It wasn't historic. Anyway, anyway, my, I'm going to open with this because I'm a little nervous that it'll get scooped. I think that I'm predicting that Connor Griffin will break Mike Trout's rookie F-war total of 10.1 more. Oh, spicy. This is a vault. This is so bold record.

And by a guy, you know, who had had time in the majors the year before, we don't even know for sure Connor Griffin's making the opening day roster, folks. which suggests that he might have to do this in less than a full season. But also, the neck is so big. It's just an enormous neck. And he's incredibly talented. So I'm going with Connor Griffin, more than 10.1 war. And Chris, just to reiterate, I am specifying fan grabs war. Oh, yes.

Were you in the room when he came by when we were at the combine? I told the story, like, on seven different podcasts. I was so happy. It's the biggest neck I've ever seen on a child. It's the biggest neck of, thank you. Thank you. I'm so happy. I'm so happy for you to verify my experience because when he walked in the door to talk to you,

I was relieved that I have at least enough social skill to not go, oh, my God, your neck. And it's a combination of the neck and tiny ears. Yeah, he does have small ears. You're right. He's sort of like Bryce Miller has really small ears, you know? Have you ever noticed that? Who was the, there was an NBA player with really, really tiny ears, like back in the 90s. I'm not going to pull it, but.

I'm glad you included the condition for a child because I was going to say there's a bodybuilder who's known as Nexzilla. And I think Nexzilla comfortably has a bigger neck than Connor Griffin. Yeah, I'd have to see what it was like when he was 18. But like, like, all these 18-year-olds are six inches taller than me and, you know, gigantic. Except for Weatherholt. Yeah, he was little. All right. That's a fun one.

We do 10 of these each. Is that what we do? So many. Right. So many. This is one, I think also, because Chris keeps the voting open until first pitch, right? Yes. Oh, I should clarify it.

We're doing real opening day. Oh, okay. Thursday. Thursday. We're doing when everyone starts playing. Get out of here. Giant Yankees. Everyone's, okay.

That doesn't know. Yeah, I was going to say that at some point over the period between when this podcast is posted and first pitch. There will be clarity as to whether Connor Griffin is making the Pirates Opening Day roster, which will, I suppose, skew things a little, the early voters versus the late voters, but probably not that much. Probably not that much. Because this is still super bold either way. It's so bold. It's, you know, it's really bold.

It is. Chris, I don't think there's anything wrong with playing magic, by the way. Like, magic is cool. I'm just saying not everyone plays it. I felt like I was kind of rude. An ARG has nothing to do with Magic the Gathering, but I appreciate your concern. But you know what I mean? It's like they're friends.

The whole thing is friends. So I felt like I was a little rude and I felt bad about about it. I also just want to make a plea and appeal here because, you know, people will probably be listening, I hope, to this whole thing before they vote. And maybe I will repeat this plea later. But I hope people in the spirit of the exercise do try to actually assess the likelihood of these respective predictions because they're always too high, which I guess goes with the territory. and maybe it's fine because it's all relative anyway. But we are always sort of surprised by like how not bold we are judged to be. And we always feel like we were bolder than the crowd says.

And it's like you don't want to just zero out every prediction. Like you want to have some fun here. I get that. But also some of these are going to be extremely unlikely. So keep that in mind. Keep it in mind. It's just generally inflated across the board, which is fine for the purposes of the game. But I want credit for how bold we're being.

That's all I'm saying. All right. My second prediction is one that I toyed with making on last year's episode, but I decided not to because the time was not yet ripe. And it's probably not ripe now, but it's riper. And here it is. You're going to hear the first part of this prediction. You're going to say, Ben, that's not nearly bold enough, but it will get bolder.

Shoha Tani will win the National League Cy Young Award. And if he does, I guess that'll score. grew up Michael's prediction too. Unless he grows. Unless he grows. Or shrinks. But he's merely 6'4. But that part is not especially bold.

Okay, the odds aren't in favor of that happening, but he's a leading candidate. And he has said that he wants to do it. He has set his mind to doing it. And who are we to bet against Shohei Otani doing something he sets his mind to? Here's the twist. He doesn't win most valuable player. He wins Say-Young, but he does not win MVP. How could this happen?

You're wondering. Well, probably it couldn't is the answer. But there are some scenarios where it could happen. One is that in a reverse of the situation we've had in the past where he could hit but not pitch, he sustained some injury that prevents him from hitting but not from pitching, which is unlikely but possible. And we actually had a listener email about this on episode 2107, and I consulted Glenn Flycig at the American Sports Medicine Institute to ask what would be some sort of injury that could presumably prevent him from hitting, but allow him to continue to pitch. And he said that there are

some possibilities. And I was mentioning this too on the podcast, like if he had some issue with his left arm or wrist, like his non-throwing arm, something that wouldn't prevent him from wearing a glove while he's on the mound, but would prevent him from rotating his hands, his arms, comfortably, his wrists, whatever, so that could be something. And Glenn Fleissig said, I certainly can see a hypothetical situation where a person can throw but not bat. For instance, certain injuries in the lead arm or in the trunk may prohibit batting, but be okay in throwing.

And from time to time, we see something like that with a pitcher or we used to when pitchers hit when they were instructed not to, as Sam Miller memorably wrote once. So I think that could happen. Obviously, I hope that doesn't happen because I want him to hit too, but that's one possible way that this could pay off for me. Another is that Connor Griffin has the best season ever, maybe, and Meg's prediction comes true. And everyone just wants to give him the MVP. And there's a little voter fatigue maybe when it comes to Otani and we want some new blood here. And maybe even if Otani has his best pitching season, he has a little bit of a down year offensively. And so that

feels kind of like a let down. And so someone else just has an amazing year. and he actually doesn't have the overall war lead somehow, or it's close enough that there's a desire among the voters to give that award to someone else. So that's what I'm going with here. And this is the first time, really, that he has been unconstrained entering a season since 2022. I guess 2022 is the only MLB season

in which Otani has just gone wire to wire as a two-way player and hasn't started or finished compromised in some way. And he's been pretty explicit about the fact that he's going for it and he wants to be the first to NPP player, Japanese player, to win a Siyung Award. So that's the prediction. All right. I've reordered mine again because I feel like it's, I don't want to give away where I'm going to use my doubt card, but I'll just read my prediction out.

Jake Mangum produces more war for the pirates this year than Connor Griffin. Oh. Ooh. Now, I think Jake Mangum is a fascinating player, a weird player who probably should be, be getting. plenty of playing time for the Pirates. I love Connor Griffin and his freakish neck. I think he's going to be an incredible big leaguer,

but like we had this incredible freak athlete, you know, high school shortstop come up. Bobby Wood Jr. just a couple years ago and he hit 20 home runs, stole 30 bases as a rookie, and he also had a 294 OBP and finished with 2.3 war. And he was two years older than Griffin is now.

So Griffin could still be like future inner circle hall of famer and not be that good as a 20-year-old rookie, assuming the pirates even bring them up early enough in the season to challenge the Mike Trout war record. So I'm shorting Meg's first prediction. Okay. I like that genre of prediction where it's like someone was traded for someone else or someone was signed to replace someone else and everyone assumes that the higher profile. sexier signing or acquisition will be better than the other guy. It's like Meg's Isok Paredes will be better than Kyle Tucker

prediction from last year, which didn't quite work out, but looked like it might for a little while. Nick Kurtz one worked well. Yeah, Nick Kurtz, Travis was on it. I like that genre. Okay. Other Ben. All right. Last WBC one for me, but this is more writing a wrong.

I was sad that Kyle Teal got hurt. That was a bummer. So here's one that is, that draws up that. Kyle Teal will lead White Sox hitters in war, despite not finishing in the top five for plate appearances among those hitters. I love that. Why is this bold? It's because of the correlation, right? Like, if he has the most war, it's often because he batted a lot. And if he didn't batte a lot, he often didn't rack up a lot of war. It's kind of like Ben's with the, the Syung MVP, you know, Sayung, not MVP for Atani. Like, Syong and MVP very positively correlated. This one very

negatively correlated. But yeah, yeah, I don't know. Teal is awesome. I like him. And, And that was just so sad that he got hurt at this exhibition on a fun team. That was a big bummer. But I hope he bounces back strongly. And, I mean, Munantaka Murakami is our projected leader for the White Sox, which is really good reason. I think that that makes sense. That's who I would predict. Actually, I guess he's the predicted hitting leader and Colson Montgomery because of defensive value.

He gets a little ahead of him. Teal is not that close to those guys. I just think that he's better than advertised, that he will produce more defensive value than we project, and that maybe somehow he will still not finish top five on plate appearances, despite that, which is, again, possible. Yeah, they'll make the most of his plate appearances.

That's what I'm hoping. Arrived late, but make up for a last time. Okay. Meg. Neither Aaron Judge nor Cal Raleigh will lead the American League in home runs. Neither of them. One of them does, then it doesn't, it's not true. They have to both miss.

I get it. Both of us. Yeah. Okay. And you might think like, hey, Junior Caminero exists. And I would say, yeah, he does. But he hit a lot fewer home runs than those guys. So, you know, it's going to be tricky. There is some boldness. I think it is like a nice hedge for me rooting against something as it pertains to cow so that if like it goes badly, I get to have something nice. So maybe this one's just for me. I wonder what the actual probability of that happening is. I'm not going to look it up. I mean, it's probably very high. Right. Field, usually field over, even if it's too spectacular guys, is usually going to be higher. I'm not going to check on MLB's new prediction market partner to see if that's the case.

But I think, yeah, that maybe undercuts the boldness, but also it feels hard to envision anyone but one of those guys doing it in a weird way. So, yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. I am going to predict that four American League East teams will make the playoffs. And this has never happened. We've never had four teams from a single division.

Technically, I think it couldn't have happened prior to what, 2022 or whatever. So that doesn't mean that much, but obviously it's still sort of difficult for it to happen. We need the AAL East teams to run the table and be better than all of the potential wildcard contenders in the Central and the West. So on the one hand, I believe that as we record on the Fangrass playoff odds page, each of the top four teams in the AL East has a better than 50% probability to make the playoffs, which might make this seem chalky. But if you put it all together, I think the odds are that at least one of them will miss. but I'm going to say that they don't.

And I think this is going to be, even by AL East standards, a really strong race and potentially a close and exciting race. And I'm going to say that four of the teams, maybe I don't know how good the race will be, but maybe all the teams that are actually involved in this race will win it by one definition, by making the playoffs. All right. Ben, you like space? You know I do. So I've got a launch, a space launch related prediction.

Okay. Which is that Artemis II will launch before the first regular season batted ball with an exit below of 117 or more. Artemis 2 has been driving back and forth from the launch pad all winter. And it's supposed to be April 1st. April 1st. Yeah. This could be off the board pretty soon. Last year there were 32 batted balls at 117 or more, which felt.

low to me. I thought there would have been more, but the first came via John Kenzie Noel, possible AL home run leader on April 13th. So we'll see if the rocket gets, if the moon rocket lifts off before the very first 170 mile and our batting ball. And the Yankees could make a fool out of me very, very quickly. Yeah. It was, I think, wise of NASA to schedule this in honor of season five of For All Mankind debuting. I think this is, this is a, a sponsored tie-in. It's not actually, but it is appropriate. I mean, if this was for all mankind, that thing would blow up. That's... Well, I mean, for all mankind, way ahead of our timeline when it comes to moon base building, but I think... To my everlasting annoyance. I know, but this is a fun one. I don't

know what the typical number of scrubs per launch is, because for those who have not been following this as closely as maybe Michael and I, this is... a crude mission. This is, we're going back to the moon around the moon. We're doing Apollo 8 again. Going really close to the moon. And so this is significant. This has not happened in a while. And obviously, they're always going after this is going to be the moon landing. In theory, yeah. They're going up there, but they're not landing. No, they're just shooting around and coming back, we hope. But. And I don't like your tone about that, Meg. I think you're being a little snooty about mankind leaving low Earth orbit for the first time.

1972. I mean, let's be real. If this was on for all mankind, it would blow up in air, but they would somehow fix it also in air. It's not even suggests that that could happen. But look, if we can put a man on the moon, then surely we can put a man near a moon. I mean, we're putting a woman near the moon now. Exactly. Imagine that. Okay. Back on board. So. I mean, a lot of you guys have been up there, you know?

That's fair. It's true. Not as many as I would have liked, but the gender skew has been, it's been a bit Lopsided, it's true. Another way in which we lag behind for all mankind. But, I mean, we're going to get a woman at least 79% of the way to them. You're always going to get some scrubs in these things. If there's so much as a cloud, if there's so much as a gust of wind, you're going to wait for the... Boister content in the air.

Yeah, if there's a lightning bolt 90 miles away, if there's some static electricity and someone shock themselves anywhere near the launch pad, then you're going to scrub the launch because you want to be absolutely certain there's a lot of expensive hardware at stake, but also in this case, human lives. And so even though it's April 1st, and hey, I hope it goes off without a hitch, I'm guessing that's going to be April fools and it will not actually... This is me being optimistic. I mean, it didn't used to be that way back before NASA went woke. We launched Apollo 12 and it got hit by lightning on the way up and we still landed on the moon anyway. And we were fine. Yeah, nothing's ever gone wrong with launches or landings. So I think they will be

careful, they will exercise the utmost caution, and that will build in more time for you to have additional hard hit batted balls, is what I'm saying. I have two questions. Okay. Badded ball, does that count foul balls? Balls and play. It has to be ball in play. Okay. My second thing is the launch window is very wide. And if this ends up happening midgame, my friend at baseball Savant is going to be getting a lot of phone calls from me. That would be thrilling, actually, if it comes down to like a matter of minutes, the difference between the launch and the, man, imagine if the ball goes out while Artemis II is clearing the tower.

Yeah, I believe Baseball Savant has timestamps on every single event. So I think I can, I think I got that. I think we're good. This will be like the famous prediction, Alvin Dark, predicting that a man would land on the moon before Gaylord Perry hit a home run. And then Gaylord Perry hit a home run like minutes after Apollo, 11 landed in a nice bit of serendipity. So yeah, maybe it'll be sort of similar to that. Probably not quite as famous. Probably not, but it will be among effectively wild listeners.

Other Ben. I'm switching to some bold pitching claims. I was at first worried Bowman was going to take maybe both of these, but now, definitely not because of their height. So this one, Chase Burns will finish the top five of cyan voting. He's 6'3, so we've ruled that one out. He doesn't look as tall as 6'3. Yeah. Our predictions can be, I suppose, internally inconsistent, right? We can hedge our bets. Bowman can bank on some mid-height guys winning in a different prediction if he wants to. Yeah, going into this one, I was actually worried that Michael was going to take a Chase Burns prediction. I do love Chase Burns. You were correct to worry. I moved him up early in my order for that reason. But then I heard your Salyang one, and I was like, I could have done later. Why is this bold? Because Chase Burns hasn't pitched in the major leagues yet, and he's not currently one of the five best pitchers in National League. That's pretty straightforward.

This is bold because in the natural course of things he would not, but I think it would be really fun if he did. He's super fun to watch. He is, if there was like a picks-to-watch list, he would be very near the top of mine. I really like the way he, I like the cut of his jib. So I figured that the right thing to do about that would be to plant a flag. To be clear, he has pitched in the majors just inconsistently.

Yeah, that's incorrect. He has not pitched at the level of a top five starter in a major. Yes. He's had flashes for sure. That's fine. And he looked really good for like an inning or two. Yeah. Yeah.

But he has certainly not established himself as one of the five best starters in the National League. I'm not sure he's established himself as one of the best, you know, like 50 starters in National League. Because of Mike you said. I think he's barely established himself as one of the five best starters on the Reds. I was going to say, yeah. Yeah, we still project him for eight relief appearances. But the point is, it would be sweet if he got top five side on votes. And so I'm saying it's going to happen.

Okay. Meg. Corbyn Carroll becomes the first. 5th, 20, 20, 20, how many 20? 4 20s, 420s, a player in Major League history. That is, Chris, for your note-taking, 20 doubles, 20 triples, 20 homers, 20 steals, and obviously totals in excess of any of those at 20 would count for the purposes of this prediction. There have been four other guys who have done it.

Frank Shuttle in 1911, Willie Mays in 57, and then Curtis Granderson and Jimmy Rollins in the same season, 2007. So this is bold because it doesn't happen very often. And despite the fact that Corbyn is somehow back to dehing after breaking his handmate and having surgery, we don't know how that's going to potentially compromise him in the campaign to come. But he got kind of close last year. So Corby and Carol. Frank Schulte actually might be Schulte, not positive. I have heard it both ways. Wildfire. Wildfire. Shulte. Yeah. That's right. Put some respect on wildfire. ours name and nickname. Yeah, me mispronouncing a name is definitely about

disrespect and not me being exhausted. Okay, back to me. All right, I'm going to make one about the playoff field and the playoff landscape because my gut sense is that we're not going to get a ton of turnover in the playoff field or at least we're not going to get a ton of what I would label surprise teams.

Obviously, if I anticipated them making the playoffs, They would not actually qualify as surprise teams technically. So maybe I will be surprised. But it just doesn't seem like there are that many dark horse candidates or teams that have been bad for a while that suddenly seem ready to make the leap. There are some potential candidates. But I would say fewer maybe than in a typical season. So my prediction is that no team that has missed the playoffs for the past two or more seasons will make the playoffs this year. essentially no team that has a drought of more than one year will end that drought this year.

So essentially... What about a trout of more than one year? Well, I don't think the trout drought is going to end either. That would definitely qualify as a surprise team if the angels make this prediction wrong. But essentially, I'm saying the playoff field will be the same teams as last year with the possible reintroduction of teams that made it in 2024 but missed last year. So that would be if the Orioles bounce back or Braves bounce back happens, if the Mets avoid a collapse, if the Astros make it again, if the royals make it back, that does not invalidate the prediction. But it does mean that the following 13 teams, which have missed for the past couple seasons, will continue not to make the playoffs. The Angels, Pirates, Rockies, Nationals, A's, White Sox, Giants, Cardinals, Rays, Marlins, Twins, Rangers, Diamondbacks.

So I'm ruling out 13 teams on almost opening day. Take that Bud Seleague. Hope and faith denied for all of you. And this is somewhat bold, I think, because some of those teams are actually pretty good. And individually, I think each of those teams that I'm saying won't make the playoffs. Doesn't project to make the playoffs, but collectively, it's pretty dicey. In fact, at first I thought about saying teams that made it two years ago could come back in, which would allow the Diamondbacks, Rangers,

twins, Marlins, and Rays in the mix, but that's not bold enough. So, no, they are excluded also. That's my... Big market Ben over here. Yeah. Yes, and maybe this will bring about an extended workstoppage and a salary cap

and the monkey's paw will curl and what have I done, but probably not. All right. Back to Bowman. All right, out of all of the former number one overall picks in the majors this year, the one who will hit the most home run, is Mickey Moniac.

Yeah. Okay. Remind everyone who the player pool is. Position players include probably Travis Bezano, Jackson Holiday, Henry Davis, Spencer Torkelson, Adley-Ruchman, Royce Lewis, Moniac, Dansby Swanson, Carlos Correa, and Bryce Harper. That does not include pitchers such as Garrett Cole and Paul Skeens.

Skeens, of course, was a position player in college, so maybe he gets the. the bat out and hits 30 pinch hit home runs. But Moniac, I was writing about this in the positional power rankings for DH, which I think will come out at some point. I hope so. But he... It's set to go on Friday. Okay.

Yeah, well, some subtext there. Boy. No, I'm just... Douting Meg's... I don't know what day it is. We'll see how long this podcast goes. I just know when my deadline was. I don't know what happens in the interregnum. I met the deadline.

You did. It's out of my hands now. So Moniac was drafted as this quarter sort of on-based table setting contact hitting center fielder. And he's turned into like a bit of a hacker power guy. And to say nothing of the fact he plays in course field. So he hit 24 home runs last year. The leader among those number one overall draft selections in home runs was Spencer Torkelson at 31. Dan Svyswanson, I think, hit 24, Harper hit 27.

So Moniac is like right in there. And I think we're like one hot streak away from him being a better home run hitter, at least for one season than a couple of guys we think of as having like serious power. Yeah, Coorsfield. He's got that going for him. That's fun. I do like the idea of Paul Skeedons just saying, I'll do it myself. I've prayed for it every night before bed for the past three years.

and God is not listening. Okay, other bin. This one is also a pitcher who is between six foot and six foot five. So, and I think this would get him Sy Young votes as well. So I guess I'm just picking against Michael again. Zach Gallen will bounce back big with a season of 150 or more innings pitched and also an ERA of three and a quarter or lower. So why is that bold?

Because he's almost never done it, even though he's been really good in the past. he's done this once in his career a very good career I love Zach Gallen I was actually sad not to get to make a prediction about Gallin last year I kind of had a few that I didn't do so I figured I'd make one and then he was terrible last year

so it's a little easier I've written about Gallin a lot and what I've always said is it's really hard to figure out what went wrong because always you would look at Gallin and go well if you look at the like the stuff and command and stuff numbers he should not be succeeding and then he was

and then he continued to look like he couldn't do it and stop being able to do it. So I don't actually know how he's going to get back to doing it, but a good pitching gallon is great. And it's one of those things where it's way more than the sum of his parts, right? He throws like five like kind of bad pitches. His best pitch on our models is not very good. But the way that they all work together is awesome. So I invite you all to follow along with Zach Gallen this year. Hope he bounces back. But even if it's not likely, he's super fun to watch. So this is kind of a, I'll get to watch a bunch of Zach Gallant starts by predicting this.

Yeah, I wouldn't be miffed even, you know, with you picking against my short guys and tall guys thing. But you're – even if I were, I really appreciate how hard you're going for guys from New Jersey in your first couple rounds with Zach Allen and Kyle Teal. Yeah, maybe that's the theme. It's not. No. It's not. I was terrified that I had accidentally stumbled upon it. You could get yourself a free Frank Graph subscription.

That'd be nice. No, Ben told me not to guess. Okay. All right, Meg. The Pirates will finish in second place in the NL Central, but will not make the playoffs. Well, how could they with every team from the AIL East getting in? Well, they play in the National League to that probably. I don't know.

It's bold. It's the Pirates. Second place in the Central? Even the Central? Come on. You're all just stunned that I would predict something like that. You're like, wow, that is too bold and to make it a compound. You are a fan graph.

And fan graphs is currently predicting this, I think. Oh, really? I think so. Hey, I was busy editing Michael's DH blurbs for no thanks. No, I haven't gotten to your blurts. I'm sorry, but it'll come a later in the day. See, I remember questioning the boldness of when you said that the A's would finish second last year, I think. And then that turned out to be fairly bold because they weren't as good as I thought maybe they could be.

They kind of salvaged it. but they did not finish second clearly. So I will withhold my judgment. Of the boldness. The funniest outcome in all of this is that the pirates make the playoffs thanks to 10.2 war from Connor Griffin and 11 more from Jake Mangum who wins MVP preventing Shohei Otani for winning MVP despite a Siong-Galmer pitching season.

Now I'm rooting for that. Well, I have some pirates. predictions too, but not that one. Not that one. No. I think, well, I won't I won't give away anything else

what I think about the pirates. But okay, I will say that at least four players with lowest quartile, first quartile sprint speed, steel 30 plus bases. So last year we had two, famously, Juan Soto,

tied for the National League lead and Josh Naylor, of course, and they both have had comfortably first quartile sprint speed, by which I mean, I guess, 25th percentile or below. And I guess they could both repeat, but it might be harder this time because they won't really have the element of surprise. I think probably it took teams a while to catch on to, wait, these guys are base dealers now.

So it might be harder for them to do that without elite or even average speed. Then again, I guess maybe they learned something from that experience. I think that they will inspire copycat. So I don't know whether they will do this again. And for all I know, they will say, well, I checked off that box. That was a story I can tell the rest of my life. And I don't need to do that again. But other players who are similarly on fleet of foot will be inspired by their success.

And we'll try to swipe 30 themselves. My fifth prediction, by the end of this season, the website archive of our own. Has anybody heard of this website? Oh, my God. Already apprehensive about where this is going. It's a clearinghouse for those of you who are not familiar with it for fan fiction stories. It will have at least 10 entries of erotic fan fiction about Giants manager Tony Vitello. Or it will have at least one entry of erotic fan fiction about Tony Vitello and 49ers head coach, Kyle.

Shanahan. Oh, boy. Yeah, the famous Tony slash Kyle fiction. Wait, Michael, what if you write? Oh, yeah. He can't write it. I promise I will not do it. He can. The rule specifically state he can, but if he's

saying he won't. We'll never know because the Tony Vitello, Kyle Shanahan slash fic, I'm not sure I can. I'm not sure my gifts in the literary space extend to... Would you say it's Vaitan? Ooh. Yeah, I think so, probably.

So, Titanahan. Chanel is not bad either. A little peek behind the proverbial curtain. I came up with nine of these predictions in the past 24 to 48 hours, and this one I've been sitting on since about 10 minutes after the Giants were first rumored to be hiring. Tony Vitello so much so that Kyle Shanahan was originally going to be Pat Burrell. but he does not appear to still be in the Giants organization. I really enjoy the fact that I now have an explanation for why your reaction to that hiring in copy was not hornyer.

Because I was like, this is pretty not horny for Bowman writing on Tony. I'm surprised by it. So, like, I've interviewed him. Like, I try to be professional about people who I'm going to encourage him. counter at work. Not so on this podcast, I guess, but I'm just banking on there being one super horny four, you know, four-team, San Francisco Bay Area sports fan with an AO3 account. Yeah. All right. Well, it'll be hard to establish that this is not some sort of sock puppet, some sort of alt that you have created, your AO3 burner.

You'll have to take my word for it. I will have to take your word for it. I make my solemn vow however if anybody out there listening wants to try their hand at it. Yeah. This is the prediction that's the revenge for the Colonels Baseball player Star Wars Universe game from last season. You don't have to like monitor it, Chris. You just have to go in there. Just check it once.

I've managed to never visit this website. And now that's, yeah, that's all over now. I mean, you're missing out on a well-haired, wonderful fanfiction. It didn't have to be erotic. I mean, there's plenty of non-erotic. I mean, Ben, I did. I think it did. It did have to be a word.

Well, yes, for you, I knew where your head was going to go, so to speak. But that's why I kind of groaned when you mentioned archive of our own. But I'm just saying. And I hope people will groan while reading it, so to speak. Oh, my God. That would be the goal, I guess. Now it's too much. So there are only three AO3 Pat Burrell works, which, I mean, to kind of calibrate expectations here, you said 10?

Yeah. So, yeah. I mean, there's three Pat the Bat entries. And evidently, Gabe Kapler zero tags on AO3. That doesn't surprise me. Gabe Kapler is so, Gabe Kapler is so orientated towards the male gaze. Yes. Thank you.

Which is not to suggest that. And my sense of Pat Burrell is like, why would you bother writing fiction about Batman? The reality already just suffices. But yeah, I mean, well, you. could have male gays going on on a.O3, right? I mean, you're not limiting anything. That's sure. I don't mean to be sexist to better. We are saying gays as in to look upon me. Yes. Yes. But it works either way. But evidently the Gabe gays, it has not happened. People heard the ice cream story with Gabe and they were out. They're like, you got stuff you need to work on.

Gabe Kapler was the everyone's hot, nobody's horny of different managers. Okay, so let me just make sure I have the wording of this correct. By the end of this season, the website archive of our own will have at least 10 entries of erotic fan fiction about Giants manager Tony Vitello or at least one entry of erotic fan fiction about Vitello and Kyle Shanahan. Yes. All right. All right. The other, the problem here is that even if you don't put your thumb on the scale, all that has to happen for this to come true is for one listener to this podcast. to write a Vitanahan entry.

I mean, then you win, right? Fingers crossed. I feel like that's a lock almost. Like, someone's going to make that come true for you, I think. It doesn't even have to be good. I mean... I haven't spent my entire professional career living in mortal fear of your crazy fans to not profit from it every so often.

Hey. Said with affection. Dedicated fans. Enthescentic fans, eager. Sure, sure. I apologize. Dedicated is way better. All I'm saying is as someone who has a pretty good knowledge of what this community looks like, I would move the slider to the right.

That's all I'm saying, yeah. Yeah. And look, you know, I'd say let's let this be a natural experiment. And, I mean, I guess the prediction encompasses. And that's not a bad first line for a Vitana. Yeah. I'm just saying there's a lot of potential for manipulation here. and the predictions have always, I guess, allowed for that, technically,

so it wouldn't really be breaking the letter of the law. But I do think it's not in the spirit. Yeah. So I'm, you know. I resent the implication. Like, my thumbs are going to be in plain sight all season. No, I'm not suggesting you. I'm just suggesting a listener.

That's another way that the article could start. I don't think you could fake it if you try. I think I think your prose is so identifiable. It would be like the Unabomber life. If you cut it out with magazine letters and mailed it in, I think we would still know. All it would take is a headline and they'd be like, oh, that's a bowman joint. That's a bowman line right there. So I don't think you could fake it if you tried.

I'm just suggesting our listeners, you know, let the experiment play out as opposed to making it come true, so to speak, yourself. Okay. Yeah, my next ones are about, you know, subverting expectations, like getting bolder as what I'm hoping to do. This one, Marcus Semyon will turn back the clock and fight aging by leading all Major League Second Basemen and defensive innings at second base this year at the age of 35. I like it. That's like pretty rare. That's not really how this tends to work because when you're old, you don't play as much. That's why it's bold.

The reason that it's even worth predicting is that of all the people you could imagine, this is the guy most likely to do it because he's very durable. He was not in 2025. He was durable for a 34-year-old in 2025, but he did not finish first in defensive innings or even second. He also missed a lot of games, and the Mets have stated that they are going to hope to manage his innings more. So we project him for 149 games this year, which is like the first time it hasn't been 160 in a long time. So it can happen, and yeah, honestly, like, I think this is one of my more likely picks, but it's pretty unlikely, I think, just because he's old. Not because he doesn't want to, but because I think that the team will try to not let him. Yeah.

Yeah, it's kind of like Otani winning the Siyang. He has the talent, but the Dodgers might skip him from time to time. They're going to want to keep him fresh. He's still a two-way player, et cetera. But I'd say to reduce the perceived boldness because that's in my best interest, yes, it's historically unusual for this to happen, I guess. But it's quite common for Marcus Semyon to do it. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

He did it as recently as 20. 2024 and 2023 and 2022 but not 2021. He was the guy and then he kind of hit a bump.

So the question is can he fight the passage of time to regain his previous level? On a new team where the replacement level

was perhaps higher. Is this leading all MLB second baseman that their primary second baseman? Innings played at second base. Okay. So they have to be a primary

second basement and lead at their team? They do not have to be a primary service. Okay. Yeah, just innings standing at second base. Yeah. Got it.

To leave this, you will be a primary second. You will. Yes, that's true. But it's not a condition of the reaction. Yeah. Thank you. But it's defensive innings at second base. Meg.

People were underwhelmed by my pirates pick, and so now I feel... By your most recent one, the Connor Griffin one was bold. Yes, that's true. I would have said something, but I was told to lurk. Thanks, Chris. No problem. Not the you not talking, the you being supportive. I appreciate it.

them. Okay. Michael Garcia will lead the royals in war. Take that. Take that. Oh, I love this one, Meg. Thank you. I love Michael Garcia. Like, support? Yeah. See, Chris, I told you that we shouldn't do any new mechanics in future years, but maybe we should have like a thumbs up and thumbs down, you know, like on each other's ballots. I don't, I don't mean this in any way to disrespect Bobby with you. Jr., who I, you know, like my favorite thing about the WBC, well, there were a couple of things that wore ahead of Witt, but just the early March reminder of how good Bobby Wood Jr. is amazing, spectacular.

But you know what? Michael Garcia is really great. And I think that the gains he had at the plate last year are real. It does seem like a real change to the swing in a way that's important. And he's such a good defender. as everyone always says, he would just be the royal starting shortstop. That's hard to say. If it were not for the presence of wit, so I think that he is spectacular in the field.

And, you know, he's going to carry the good vibes of the WBC through the whole season, and he's going to outwar wit. I'm not putting any conditions on how it happens. I would like to say in the presence of the baseball gods that this is not me wishing anything bad happening to Bobby Wood Jr. I don't want him to, like, pull him. Hammy or decided to change careers. Injure his wrist while perusing

A.O.3. Jesus Christ. Do you think they let the Royals look at A.O.3? I think they're worked. They're just like... Not on Dayton Wars Watch. Yeah. Do you like the Jeff Kent truck washing incident? Oh, my. I was on A.O.2. That's great.

During the Dayton War years, you needed a VPN to access sites like that from Royals facilities. probably. Yeah, they were very, they were very serious. But yeah, Michael Garcia, future royals war leader. Let's go. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I guess he only has one guy standing in his way, really. I mean, of course, you know, there are lots of other royals too. But yes, like something, the reason why it's kind of a dark prediction is that like something has to befall Bobby White Jr. basically. Or Michael Garcia just, yeah, Michael Garcia is just the best player base. Bally could have. And Bobby Witt's as good as usual. To the baseball gods. And you're out here like coming up. He's going to get struck by lightning.

He's going to become a youth pastor. By far the most likely way that this could come true is if Bobby Witt Jr. gets hurt or has a bad year or something. Maybe he just have a bad year. You know? He might just have bad year. He could forget how to field. We haven't seen any recent evidence of that.

He looks spectacular in the WBC. But maybe he'll forget, you know? Maybe he'll bump his head after. Wait, here's a much less grim one too. Maybe he'll feel just like always, but the models will disagree on how good he is at that fielding. Oh, yeah. Like they always seem to and say that he's terrible this year for no obvious reason instead of great. See, this is why other Ben's the better Ben, you know?

I'm kidding. You're most wonderful. It's just because I got triggered recently by a Michael Garcia breakout prediction. And of course, I've been steaming about that ever since because. So long is it to use a breakout candidate? Yeah, because, obviously. I'm not going to. No, I'm just saying, you got to keep this moving.

He was by far the second most valuable player on the Royals last year. So like, yeah. The competition is mainly one guy. But I don't want people to down. Or maybe Jack. Jack will have his breakdown or his predictable. He could break out, but he's not going to be. He's not going to surpass Bobby Wood Jr. If Jack Hague-Leon has more war than Bobby Wood Jr.,

in 2026, then I think Bobby Wood Jr. is dead, you know? Like, I think that that might be the only way that happened. No distrust. Okay. I will pick. What will I pick? Okay. Here's one.

There are nine new major league managers this year, which is, I think, a record. That's a lot. A lot of record. I don't think I really even need to stipulate modern era. Or I don't know, maybe like the first season of the league, I guess maybe. But even then, there weren't as many teams. So there are a lot of new managers. is what I'm saying.

So my prediction is that one of the nine new managers will be fired before the end of the season. That's very good. And by season, I will include postseason, just like presumably one of these guys is not going to get fired after having made the postseason. But just to allow for, I'm not saying they have to be fired before the regular season concludes if they're fired the day after or something. that still counts. But one of the nine new guys will be fired. I guess we could say just by the time we do the recap pod, by the time the awards come out, though. you know, if you're going to get fired, it's probably going to be right after the season as opposed to November or something. But there are a bunch of candidates, right? Because maybe it turns out that hiring a college coach doesn't work out that well. And there is some sort of actual scandal not related to archive of our own. And maybe Tony Vitello crashes and burns. I don't think that's going to happen. I'm just saying there's a little more uncertainty when it comes to a unprecedented. did hire like that could go wrong. I do like that you're pegging Tony's potential downfall.

I like that you're pegging. Come on, Meg. Frasing. We're not doing phrasing anymore. But I'm not even saying he's the likelyest candidate. That would probably be Kurt Suzuki, who is, of course, on a one-year deal and also the manager of the angels. But, you know, there were some surprising managerial hires.

So Vitello and Suzuki and, and, you know, you know, know, stammer, and there's going to be a Padres sale, probably, who knows? Maybe they clean house, they bring in someone else. There's a new manager, whatever. There are nine candidates, I'm just saying something goes wrong for one of them, and he loses his job. Munitaka Murakami will have more strikeouts than any member of the White Sox has hits. This is so mean.

I like it so much. But to who? Right. Well, everyone. Everyone. Yeah, you're right. Everyone. Okay.

Yeah. Are you doubting Colson Montgomery's capacity to, well, I guess, I mean, he could rival Morikami's strikeouts, but this is about hits, really. So, yeah. I just don't think. I mean, like, there are some white socks players I like. Yeah. Kyle Teal. Well, I mean, he's going to miss some time.

And also, he's a catcher. Yeah. He may have good rates. But I just, I'm slamming the under on Murakami and just generally. I still want to believe. Yeah, I want to believe, but I think it's going to be ugly. I think, like, it could take like a 200-hit season. I don't want to pour too much cold water on this, Michael.

But Murakami is projected for 60 more strikeouts than any White Sock is projected for hits. Yeah. I was going to say, like, Murakami could actually be pretty good and still have this come true. Or Murakami could get hurt. High strikeout slugger. Yeah, this is with us projecting for a 120 WRC plus. Right. But he could get hurt for sure.

This condition could be satisfied, and it doesn't mean that he was terrible. I'm going, so I will say generally I'm going a little more conservative this year because I came very close to getting shut out last season. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's fair. And that was not a good feeling. So. Yeah, unlike you, to pull back a bit. But, yeah, okay. Other Ben.

I'm going to go back to the NL Center. because that's a fun division and say that the leader in the Brewer's Outfield War will be not Jackson Juryo international superstar and WBC winner but Sal Freelick who has at times played full seasons before.

Why wasn't he on team Italy? Yeah, great question. I really wanted to say International WBC Breakout Sal Freelik and then I was like, that's not true. That's not true. It's really disappointing. For some truth in advertising,

this happened last year on Ford, Jackson Juryo. In 2025, I'm not going to try to misleady that that didn't happen. But that was by far the best year of his career. And Churio was, you know, largely considered to have massively underperformed his expected metrics. He is projected to be much better than Freelich this year. And, of course, the brewers would vastly prefer to give, you know, the quantum of playing time to Churio over Freelich. Is that the new Bond movie?

But I'm saying, like, if they have an incremental plate appearance to the handout, like, Churio is much higher in there. hierarchy, of course, because he's their best player, and they want to be their best player. So I think this is not impossible, obviously, it just happened. But I think it's unlikely just because of who they are, what the projections are, their ages, and their relative health and whatnot. I think it would be really fun if it happened, though. I wanted to add that I would still rank Jackson Truro higher in trade value, but that felt unfair. Because, like, even if Freelick outperforms him again, people will definitely still think Churio's better.

Like, that could happen for four years in a row. I think they'd still think that. But I think it's really fascinating. Because Chirio has never really quite, like, hit it big, you know? He's like, okay. He's really interesting. Whereas a lot of the guys in the Brewers kind of have in recent years, but I think Churio still projects the best by a mile, and I find that fascinating.

James Paxton will pitch an affiliated ball this year. Yeah. He looked great in the WBC. Yeah. It would be a waste if he did. Really good in the WBC. Somebody tells Zach. cram. He was throwing heat. He, the body looks great. Is James Paxton technically retired? I mean,

I think he, he said he planned to retire. I don't know if a transaction went through. Has he not pitched in affiliated ball since 2024? Yeah. Is he made of candy glass? Also, yes. So this is bold, but he also looked so good. He looked so good. You're telling me. You're telling me that they're... I don't know who I'm even fighting with. I'm so tired. I'm so tired.

Anyway, James Pax is going to pitch it and a little ball this year. Okay. That would be exciting because, yeah, I've messaged my former Ringer MLB cohort, Bowman and Cram and Bobby Wagner, after that star appearance for Team Canada. Oh, it's so good for Team Canada. Yeah, because it was, we had a running bit on the Ringer MLB show. where Kram always thought that Paxton was going to be great, and Bauman always thought that Lance Lynn was going to be great,

and there was a Lance Lynn versus Paxton undercurrent, a heated debate going on for years, and usually Paxton would get hurt after Zach got seduced by the whiffs and the stuff, and then Baumann would just ride Lance Lynn to his typical 180 innings of pretty good ball. But enough about fan fiction. But Lance Lynn has sailed off into the sunset, Having already dominated the WBC three years ago. That's right.

If anything, James Paxton's just getting there late. Yeah, it's Paxton's time. Okay, back to me, right? All right. Okay, how about this? I'm going to predict that Justin Furlander will have the best age 43 or older season by a non-Nolan Ryan non-knuckle slash spitballer.

And this is specifically for starting pitchers, I should make clear. So he will be the best starting pitcher ever in a single season at his age or older who is not named Nolan Ryan and who did not cheat father time by throwing a knuckle ball or a spitball. How many?

I have questions. How are you? Okay. You have questions. Are you defining best? How many knuckleballs would Justin Berlader have to throw in order to invalidate this? I think, well, I meant it more as non-primary regular. If he works in one just for fun, I don't think that would like that invalidates this.

I think he'd have to throw 10% or more knuckle balls for him to be a real knuckleballer. Second, how many times would he have to get caught using sticky stuff in order to not count as a spitballer? Sticky stuff is okay. Sticky stuff is acceptable. I mean, it's not for MLB, but no, if he uses spider tack or something, go back to the old Astros days, then I think that that's okay for the purposes of this prediction. Any other kind of cheating is acceptable. Okay. So if he takes his shirt off and has the Eddie Harris, like, Bartle, Vagicil, that's cool.

That's not spitbally. I don't know that I needed vagusil to peer on the pod today. Well, I mean, look, if he were caught with some sort of Vaseline substance and he was, I, no, I think even if he was doctoring, if he's not literally spitting, I think. Okay. Yeah, if the substance is not produced by his own body and don't have your. Yeah. Is Vagosil Vaseline based? I don't know.

Ben are we measuring by fan graphs war? Yeah, I'm measuring by fan graphs war. And we are measuring starting pitching. I'm saying starting pitcher only. So if you were to say shift to the bullpen and become a bullpen ace or something, I guess that probably still wouldn't count. So I'm saying best starting pitcher season. So what this boils down to basically the number to beat because the best starting pitcher were via fan graphs for an age 43 or older pitcher, Nolan Ryan, 1990. 5.2 war, and then Nolan Ryan, 1991, 4.9 war. And then Jack Quinn, 1928, the ageless Jack Quinn,

four war, but he was one of the last legal spitballers. They banned the spitball, and then Jack Quinn was like, what if I just keep pitching forever, though? You'll never get rid of this thing. And so I think he was the second to last legal spitballer. I think Burley Grimes outlasted him by a year. Yeah, but Jack Quinn was benefiting from the spitball legally. And then Phil. Necro comes in forth at 3.8 the knuckler. So, the number to beat really, that's

84 for Necro, which was not his age, though he looked at it at times. That was the year. But Randy Johnson, the big unit, 2008 for the Diamondbacks, before his final swan song Giants year, which it looked like last year might be for Verlander, but no,

Randy Johnson had 3.6 fan graphs were in 2008. So that's the number to be. he has to, I guess, top 3.6. And look, it's a long shot, but I think it's possible because he basically pitched at this pace for half of last season. Like over his last, you know, starting in early June, like his last 15 starts, he was pitching it roughly this pace. So not saying he can necessarily sustain that. He's even older now.

But maybe it'll be the fountain of youth homecoming. He's going back to Detroit. presumably he'll be pitching in games that matter and for a playoff spot and maybe he'll be energized by going home again and he will tap into the old young Verlander and best Big Randy. So that's my prediction. I like that I end all my predictions by saying that's my prediction. Jack Quinn and Austin Hedges have basically the same career batting average. I just thought you guys might be curious. I saw it on his Wikipedia page and decided I should look this up.

Okay, Bowman. All right, the A's will give out at least a hundred million more dollars in contract extensions this season, meaning before we reconvene. Okay. I guess this could be imminent. This could happen any day now, maybe. Who knows? This is peak extension season. If they get Nick Kurtz to bite, they get Shay Langaleers to bite.

I don't know who else they have coming up. Leo DeVries. They call him up, say, here's $100 million. There are many paths to victory here. Leo DeFries looks great in spring. Oh, my God. Her me good. Justin Furlander looked great the other day, too.

He still got it. Okay. How much older is Justin Verlander than Leo DeVries? An entire lifetime. One Leo DeVries, yeah. More than one Leo DeVries. Justin Verlander is Leo DeVries's grandfather. It's Leo DeVries's dad.

Okay. Back to Ben. Okay, we're going increasingly bold now. Carrie Carpenter will post the weighted runs created plus of 120 or higher against left-handed pitching. That's simple. Okay. I mean, this is like insane. This hasn't really happened.

No more. Mr. Platoon for me. I mean, if you want that, you should probably put some money down on Carrie Carpenter for ALMVP. Can this be in like 10 plate appearances? Do you need a plate appearance minimum? Yeah. Why don't we look at his actual past years? His actual highest before is 89.

He's never come close to this. And the most he's gotten in a year is, why don't we say minimum of, like, I don't know, 50? Okay, yeah, just as long as we're ruling out. I don't mind getting proven wrong, but he's top 50. He gets a hit on opening day and then he gets hurt or something. Yeah. He's topped 50 more often. Why don't we say 40?

Because he's topped 40 more often than not, it looks like. And he doesn't bat that much against lefties anyway. But this would be, like, wildly out of character for him. is Mr. Platoon, his career batting line against Wrighties is scintillating 140 WRC plus like MVP candidate and his career WRC plus against lefties is 70. It's not very good. That's crazy. I'm like I understand the platoon advantage, but like how does that mess you up that much?

It's truly shocking. He hits for no power, no power at all like against lefties. He doesn't strike out less or one. He strikes out less against lefties and walks the same amount, and he's this much worse. Like, the true talent's foot might be worse. Is he, like, blind in his right eye or something? Maybe he has Karatakonis, like Tommy Fan. That definitely messed with Pham's ability to see some types of pitches for a while.

But it's wild, right? Yeah. But, yeah, 120 WRC plus or higher in a minimum of 40 plate appearances against left-handed, left-handed pitching for Kerry Carpenter. Love it. Okay. Wow. All right, Meg.

Bryce Terang will finish in the top five in NLMVP voting. I like that one a lot. I've heard enough times in the last week that he's incredibly underrated and not enough people have seen him to think that he's no longer underrated. He's properly rated. Was John Smoltz one of those people who told you, though, because that's going to make me feel bad about myself? Absolutely. But I think John Smoltz had never seen Bryce Terang before he won. He barely paid attention to him while he was on the field in all likelihood.

That's what I'm saying. I think you're good there, actually. He was like, wow, this guy's great. Holy crap. The thing about Smolz and the WBC was that I was like, do you have any idea what the end of your sentence is before you start it? Like, just like the trailing off for a minute. I don't think he does, yeah. Coming back.

I was just like, buddy, what are we? Surely there's golf to be played. That can be entertaining in some hands or mouths, but so in Smolts's. I was begging when he specifically said that he, likes a rise more than guys who hit the ball 120 miles an hour but strike out 150 more times, that he would just continue the thought long enough

for Aaron Judge to bat. Yeah. Like in the same game? Yeah. But it got lost somewhere in translation. It did. It did. But yeah, like, I think that, um, I think Terang's pretty good.

You know, I think he's pretty good. Although it was, he was like kind of, um, flood prone uh, in the field in the WBC. in a way that I was kind of surprised by. He had a rough 2025 fielding, I remember, for my voting. Yeah. But I still think he's great.

Yeah, I still think he's good. And I think he'll finish in the top five. He was like a top 15 vote getter, I think, last year. So we got some votes. But I think he's going to make a big leap. And people are going to be like, Bryce to ring. And then we're all going to have to remember how to spell Bryce. All the braces, all the Jarrett's, Gerrits.

Yeah. I do better with Bryces than with some of the others. Cairns. Zonters. The one for me. Yeah, Zach's always tricky. Yeah. She should just lop off the fourth letter in all the Zaks and just make them all, Zach.

I am going to do one of my pirates predictions, and it'll be kind of the polar opposite of the Verlander prediction, an old pitcher prediction. This will be more of a young pitcher prediction. And I am going to predict that the Pittsburgh Pirates amassed the most war by starting pitchers. Now, there are going to be a few qualifiers here, but brace yourself. The most war by starting pitchers, 30 or younger, who never pitched previously for another team. So they are career pirates. And I'll say in at least half a century. I wish I could do it like divisional era or something, but it doesn't quite cleanly match up that way.

But I'm going to say in more than half a century, they will have the most starting pitcher war amassed by pitchers 30 or younger who never. previously pitched for another team. And so the number to beat here basically is 18.18.0 fan graphs were thank you to Michael Mountain, Patreon supporter for stat blasting this for me. I will share a spreadsheet for anyone who cares to see it. But the 2018 Mets accrued 18 war from Jacob de Grom, Zach Wheeler, Zach with a K, Noah Sindergarde, Stephen Mats, Seth Lugo, Matt Harvey, Chris Flexen, Drew Gagnon. How do you, I don't even remember how to say. Genome.

Ganyon. P.J. Conlon. Corey Oswalt. They had a whole lot of guys. Some of those guys got negative war, but that counts. And some of those guys, things didn't go great for them after that year. Nothing bad ever happened to any of those guys after that. I had season tickets to that team.

What happened next, Ben? Yeah. Well, look, they had some good homegrown guys. And, yeah, I'll look up sometime what befell them after that. But. the pirates have a whole lot of candidates to do this. Obviously, it starts with Paul Skien's who could get, you know, if he really goes off, he could get me almost halfway there himself. Who knows? But really, it's just that everyone who seems slated to make the Pirates rotation out of spring training is helping me here because they all qualify, I think. You do have Jose Orkidi hanging around. You do still somehow have Mike Clevenger hanging around. But it looks like as we speak, it looks like the rotation. is going to be all homegrown guys. It's going to be Skeens and Keller and Bubba Chandler and Braxton Ashcraft and a Bowman favorite, I believe, right?

You have... Carmen Maginsky? Yes, you love your Maginsky. Go Cox. Carmen Maginsky might have the inside track on. Did you team me up for that just so you wouldn't have to try to pronounce his name? I maybe partly, yes, but I can't say that I knew he was a cock, but I'm... Hey, Jared Jones, do you back?

And Jared Jones. And Jared Jones would count. And Hunter Barco, who's actually pretty good, I think. And Thomas Harrington is around. Like, there are a lot of guys who could help me satisfy this prediction. It's just a matter of will they be good, basically. And, you know, obviously some of them will be innings limited. But if the entire rotation is composed of guys like this, then the innings have to come from somewhere.

I guess they could come from the bullpen. So that's what could hurt me here. Whether or not these guys get hurt, they might just not have the innings. But there's so many of them who could satisfy this condition. And they seem good. And I want to believe that the pirates can just have a great, just all homegrown, nasty rotation. Because that would be fun for everyone. And most of all pirates fans.

So, yeah, I'm going to say that they do this. And I said more than half a century, basically, because I guess, you know, prior to that, You had the 1973 Cubs who had 19.1 war with Rick Russell and Bert Houten and Fergie Jenkins and other guys. Yeah. So the all-time record, by the way, is 22.8 war, the wartime, 1994 Tigers, led, of course, by Dizzy Trout, Hal Neuhauser, stubby Overmire. I'm not going to go that high, but, you know, and it's annoying because 1973 was the first year of the D.H. So I couldn't say D.H era and, like, I couldn't do divisional. era. So I just said more than half a century, but that'll, that'll work. Okay. Back to Bauman.

I'm glad you did all the research for that, because that was definitely going to be... Or at least outsourced it to Michael Mountain. Yeah, you outsourced it to one of your devoted fans, because that was definitely going to be more annoying to figure out what the bar was. Didn't want to make Chris have to do the work. So I made Mountain do it instead. Okay. All right. So I've actually continued to improvise because I've, had this list of, you know, broadly speaking, judicious, objective predictions, and I found myself getting bored. So I'm pulling in for my reserve army of- I knew you couldn't be conventional, conservative, Mr. Chuck, Michael Bauman for this entire episode. I say that after you made a prediction related to fan fiction, erotic fan fiction

about a manager. You know how last year, apparently Bryce Harper got into it with a member of MLB's staff while they were touring the clubhouse. My prediction is that this year, someone will actually physically assault one of Rob Manfred's clubhouse emissaries. And so assault here in the broadest form of the word. I'm not saying he actually hits him with a bat or causes grievous bodily harm. It could be anything as a shove or a hand on the chest or the forehead to forehead contact that soccer players do, any kind of physical confrontation between a player and one of Rob Manfred's mandarin's. So the confrontation was with Rob Manfred himself, right?

Because there was also the, I mean, Mark DeRosa was involved. DeRosa made some comment that was maybe misconstrued. Maybe he misspoke. We know he does that sometimes. He told Bryce we're definitely making a round two. Yeah. But the actual confrontation was with Manfred himself, right? But you're saying it doesn't have to be...

But that was just words, yeah. Rob B. Amford or some other MLB executive. And, okay. And Chris, do you have any clarifications here or this past muster for you? I have my predictions. Then there's a column that says trackable. So it's like, it's full. This is implied.

I just have sigh written next to this one. This is going to get reported. It has to be reported. It would be reported. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just waiting for there to be a he said, she said about, oh, it didn't actually touch them. and then one person saying, oh, no, he touched me.

No, I didn't. But in that case, I'm prepared to fight that out, so to speak on a case-by-case basis after this. I prefer to basically count it if they get to a he-said-she-sa. Yeah. You know what? I agree with you. I agree with you on that.

I think I'm comfortable with that as a rules determination for this one, too. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. I'm going to go super bold for my last three. I'm trying to. Here's the first of them.

Spencer Strider will get optioned to the miners. Woo! What? Oh, boy. Well, there goes my sub-six-foot Sy Young candidate. Given that every other pitcher on the team has heard already, he really has to be bad.

Yeah, this would be catastrophic. I think people get fired if this has to happen. So to be clear, this does not count injury. That's not being optioned to buyers. And it does not do rehab assignments. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, rehab assignments are not when you're optioned to the minors.

That's a different thing. Spencer Shredder still retains options. Yeah, he still hasn't because he's been so good. But I'm predicting that he will, that something will have been so wrong. Yeah. It's shockingly so that they will option him to the miners to work on his mechanics. This is bold because it's absolutely insane. It is completely insane.

I don't think it's as insane as you think. Wow. Yeah, we do see this, you know, like we see Kodasanga went down. Yeah. You know, you get the resets like the Jake Burger and... But they're just so thin. Francisco Alvarez. This is a lot different than Francisco Alvarez getting optioned to the miners, though.

Yeah. This is Spencer Strider. He has a giant contract. Yes. Given the way the rest of this direction, this episode when I thought giant was going to go to different direction. Man, me too. I didn't expect this episode to be so horny. I don't know what you guys are talking about.

I'm sorry to all of our listeners. Okay. Oh, it's my turn. Jesus Christ. Okay. I'm distracted by my own nonsense. My Spencer Strider's giant contract. Those are some tight pantsy wears.

They're so tight. This is like arrested development. Level of misunderstanding. Okay. Okay. Let's regroup. Let's regroup. Okay.

We're going bold. We're going bold. A high school pitcher will go one one in this year's draft. Ooh. Now, I have no idea how likely this is because I have no idea who the draft prospects are. It's not likely. Based on the profile seems pretty unlikely. Well, I think it's very, very bold.

Yes, thank you. That's what we're going for you. I thought about qualifying it and doing something that has literally never happened, which is that a right-handed high school pitcher will go on one, but I was like, it's bold enough. It's bold enough. I almost predicted, like, the top four picks will all be college shortstops. Yeah, that seems closer.

One of the college shortstops has my favorite name in the draft in a while. Rock Chilowski? Rock Chilowski? Incredible. There's so many. gigantic high school pitchers in this year's draft. They are huge. They're all huge.

They're so huge. They're like all six, four and above. It's crazy. Savion Sims is six foot eight. Yeah. It's a great name. Yeah.

And also, how tall? I mean, just like, you might be like, oh, he's going to go one, one. And it's like, is he talented or is he just tall? We always ask. Has this happened since Brady Aiken? is he the last guy, the high high school? The most recent.

Uh-huh. I still have the page up. Wait, no, no. I have it up. I have it up. It would be Brady Aiken. He was the most recent. And then it was Brian Taylor in 91.

It was 2014. And yeah. Neither of those cases worked out so well. So, yeah. Yeah, it's never good when there's not a link in the table, you know, when you're looking. Or what it says did not sign. Yeah. Yeah.

When you're like, oh, boy. Fun fact, those are two of the three number one overall picks who are no longer playing professional baseball and did not appear in the majors. Yeah. Brady Aiken and Brian Taylor. Sensing a theme here. Yeah. Okay. Well, Brian Taylor at least got in a fight. He came by it violently.

So that's one way to bust. Do you think he was mad that his name is spelled with an E instead of an A? It does make it easy to remember. All right. I am going to go with my second Pirates-related prediction here, and this is probably not one of my bolder ones, but it's still less likely to happen than it is not to happen. So I'm going to say that the A's and the Pirates, who are two of the, hey, these are frisky, feisty teams, their things are looking up. Maybe they could make a run. This could happen.

This could be a dark horse candidate, et cetera. someone might even predict that the pirates would finish second in their division and be backed up by the playoff odds. But I'm saying that the A's and pirates both miss the playoffs, but A's hitter war plus Pirates pitcher war amounts to a top 10 team war total. I like this. So the A's and the pirates project, I think they're neck and neck. their 20th and 21st in projected team war, which is probably not going to cut it if that's where they end up. But I'm saying that if you take ace hitters who are pretty good and Pirates pitchers

were pretty good and you smush them together, then you will get a top 10 team war total. But all for not, because the A's and the Pirates in this scenario will both miss the playoffs. And so we will just wonder what might have been if indeed you could have vivisely. them somehow and and turned them into one roster. And I think Den Saborski ran the numbers on that earlier this year and came up with an 87 win prediction if you actually did combine the two teams. But you can't do that in real baseball. But yeah, it's not wildly bold because they are projected to be something like 12th, if you take A's hitter war plus Pirates pitcher war.

But saying top 10 plus they both miss the playoffs. and, you know, the higher their war totals, the unlikely it is that they will both miss the playoffs. If Connor Griffin makes Meg's prediction come true, then I think the Pirates would probably make the playoffs. Though it sure would be something if he did and they didn't. But yeah, I think they will be a top 10 team if you could just smush them together. Caleb Durbin will get at least one MVP vote. Mm. All right.

I invented a tool this offseason called the Perdometer, which I tried to identify which players would where the next Geraldo Pardomo or Michael Garcia came from. You mean a Royals war leader, Michael Garcia? That's correct. Well, you know, assuming Bobby Wood Jr. steps in a bear trap or something. Not only injured, but violently. I ran the predometer over Caleb Durbin and it started clicking like crazy.

And he has recently been announced as the Red Sox starting third baseman. So we are all in. He's going to hit 50 doubles off the greed monster this year. But that's not the specific prediction. The specific prediction is he will get at least one MVP vote. I could even see a bold, Durbin, more productive than Breggman prediction. I also considered Okamoto being better than Bichet, but I'm not. I'm not making it. Someone could, but I'm not. Okay. Ben.

The Baltimore Orioles, Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, Sacramento A's, and St. Louis Cardinals will each miss the playoffs in 2026. Whoa. Who's even left to make the playoffs in 2026? That's so fun. All right. This one is... That's bonkers. They're connected in a thematic way that I'm not going to mention. Give us the list again. Baltimore Orioles.

Yeah. Boston Red Sox. New York Yankees. So that's tough right there. I don't love that part of this. Yeah, this is incompatible with my four ALE East teams make the playoffs. Sacramento A's and St. Louis Cardinals. The Cardinals are kind of a tossing, but the others, it's not great.

Even if you think that these are all independent and independently distributed, it's incredibly unlikely, but they're obviously not. If the Yankees do poorly, that's really good for the Red Sox and Orioles. I don't even have logic for this. I just needed to link these five teams for my theme. thing. I was like, oh, crap, it's these. Okay. Yeah, I don't know. It can happen. It's definitely technically possible. Yeah, I mean, it's almost the opposite of my prediction, kind of. It's like only one

playoff team will come from the ALE East, probably, unless you're high on the raise, maybe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. I wrote, I want to do this one, but I wrote it in a dumb way. So we're going to workshop what I mean. Okay. Okay. That's what Chris is here for. together going to workshop what Meg meant by this. The A's rotation will finish in the fat middle of the league by FIPP. What? What does that mean? What did I mean by that when I wrote that down?

The middle 10 teams? Yeah, but that's obvious. So why did I call it a fat middle? So they'll rank somewhere between 11th and 19th or inclusive or something like that? Inclusive of 11th and 19th. 20th. 20th? Yeah.

Okay. Well, hey, Meg, 14 teams had starting rotations last year with a FIP minus between 95 and 105. So maybe you meant that the middle is actually like pretty big. Yeah. Maybe I did. I don't know what I meant, you know. It's like the time that I wrote a note in my phone make the baseball guy's brothers. What?

What is that? What does that mean? How? How do you make them brothers? Yeah. Impossible. Okay. Well, we worked it out.

It's bald because that rotation is bad, and that's a hard ballpark. Although maybe I was just inspired because Luis Suverino looked pretty okay during the WBC. I think I have some recency bias that it. is WBC inspired maybe. So this is my final prediction, right? I've got two that I want to make, so I'm not sure which one to choose, but I, they're both NL East related. I guess I'll go with this one.

Each of the three former Yankees closers on the Mets will amass more war than they did in any season with the Yankees. So each of the three four. former Yankees closers on the Mets will have their best season in New York and their best, a better season than they had when they were with the Yankees by Fangraph's war. Clay Holmes has already done this. I guess he did this last year because he was a starter and had a higher war than he had for the Yankees in any season.

But I'm saying he'll do it again. And also Devin Williams will, which you might think that wouldn't be hard after his single season with the Yankees went. But by FIP, he wasn't actually that bad. And so his war wasn't that bad with the Yankees. So he would actually have to really bounce back and be in fine form. And then Luke Weaver, I think, makes it harder because Weaver had an excellent 2024 with the Yankees and, you know, through 80-something innings or something. Like it would be pretty tough for him to top that. But that's what makes it bold. And also, I guess because he's the setup man, he'll maybe have a higher leverage than he did, higher leverage index than he did in 2024, because

2024 he kind of worked his way up to being the closer by the end of the year, but was not for most of the year. And so he sort of earned his way into the circle of trust. And so if he starts as maybe the primary setup man for Williams, then he'll be in higher leverage role. And that should help his war somewhat. So maybe he'll have a higher war, even if he doesn't have better surface stats. But yeah, there will be sort of cross-town rivalry. Crosstown envy Yankees fans looking from the Bronx, not that most of the Yankees fans are in the Bronx, over to Queens and saying, where were these guys when we had them? Or probably also using it to pump themselves up and say, ah, see, playing for the Yankees, it's different

from playing for the Mets. You know, the bright lights of the Bronx, it's not the same as playing in Queens. If you can't make it in the Bronx, you can't make it anywhere or you can make it anywhere. That's how it goes. Anyway, probably Yankees fans would turn it around from being bitter that these guys weren't better for the Yankees to use it as another example of Yankees exceptionalism and the Mets being an inferior organization. Nonetheless, I think that's what will happen. I think we need to get Meg out of here as soon as possible. And also, Ali has stopped respecting the podcasters to taunt and is now agitating for dinner in a way that might be audible on the recording. We can't hear him.

so far. Michael's cat, to be clear. Well, he's, yeah, right at my feet, meowing. So, all right. My last prediction is that one current MLB player, manager, or GM will separate from his partner,

after which one party will publicly blame politics for the split. You always have some sort of political scandal, political apology, apology for a politics-related tweets. There's always something in there. Yeah, I mean, It was either this or Eugenio Suarez getting deported. So that's...

Well, I'm glad you went with this one. Yeah. What do you know? What's your inside info here? Are you secretly a relationship counselor for Michael Ius or someone? Just to name a name? I mean, I'm sleeping with his wife. Well, it sounds like we don't blame politics that might.

That's true. I think Michael Iis and I have different enough politics. that he might. Yeah. This is interesting because because I believe, you know, I have a worldview

that believes in sharing and compassion. How do you feel about trading for pitching? What if you have to get some of your own prospects? In exchange for your wife? My Google nose alerts

are about to get so weird. So weird. I think this will be less difficult to... Yeah, I'm with you. It's going to be much easier than the pedestrian getting struck by a master. Yeah, or the songs playing in the Phillies Clubhouse or whatever.

Yeah, I feel like if this happens, we'll know about it. Or the Otani press conferences versus stolen bases. Yeah, this is. I think we should probably go to mine because I've got one for, I've got one for you as well. Okay. Well, this is, yeah, usually if a GM or Pobo or whoever breaks up, we might not even know about that. Or if we do, we probably wouldn't know why. So it would have to be some sort of truly scandalous situation.

Right. That's why I said publicly. They were, you know, social, and Instagram post probably. Yeah, all right. Ben. A picture of a notes app. Philip Rivers will not throw out a ceremonial first pitch

in an affiliated regular season baseball game in 2026. Does he often do that? I don't know. Russell Wilson will. Oh, yeah. Okay. Wait, what? Philip Rivers will not throw a ceremonial first pitch

and affiliated baseball, but. Regular season. Okay, ceremonial first pitch. during a regular season affiliated baseball game. So, you know, a level of the affiliated minors that has ceremonial first pitches, which I think is not many, but all of them. Is it all of them? Like the D.A, I guess maybe not every single one.

But, yeah, there are some that I've seen. The DSL or something. Yeah. If there are fans. Yeah. In any case, like, it's affiliated with the team, including the majors. Philip Rivers will not throughout a ceremonial first pitch in an affiliated regular season baseball game in 2026.

However, Russell Wilson will throw out a ceremonial first pitch. pitch during an affiliated regular season baseball game in 2026. That's interesting. Okay. All right. Does Philip Rivers have, what percentage of the active professional baseball players are Philip Rivers' children? I couldn't possibly tell you, but I don't feel comfortable saying zero.

Certainly wouldn't rule that out. Okay. Well, this will be news. This will be publicly reported if it happens. Sure. It's reportable. I don't know if there's a list of everyone who's turned out of first pitch. I think if you're looking for one per person.

Yeah, Chris will get a pay about it. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like there's going to be some PR person for Phillip Rivers that will make sure it ends up somewhere. Yeah, right. I agree. I mean, for Russell Wilson, certainly. You know, he's a grandfather.

Russell Wilson? No, no, Phil Burbers is really easy. I'm just like, what? That would be quite precocious. But, yeah, I guess. Prococious is such a nice way. It gives a whole new meaning to revergantification. Oh, no.

This episode. It is so weird. I know what team song will be playing this time. Yeah. Okay. How many will Kyler Murray throw, I wonder? Okay. Maybe he'll be busy.

All right. So this is our final prediction, right? Yeah. Yeah. And in a weird way that you didn't plan, Ben, we are coming full circle because my final prediction is that Vinnie Pasquantino will use espresso by Sabrina Carpenter as his walk-up song at some point this summer. delightful. Yeah.

So the second straight year, we've had a Sabrina Carpenter themed prediction. Yes. Bowman would predict that he might date Sabrina Carpenter probably. But Vinny's married, so I would never. Not a friend of the pod. Well, until he breaks up with his wife because of politics. Well, that doesn't count. He's not a pobo.

No, I said player manager. Oh, player too. Oh, player. Oh, okay. I thought it was more limited than that. Okay, that's more plausible. Yeah. Also, the number of times that I sang Grecepho, like I was singing espresso during the WC.

It's right there for me. I enjoyed it. It was nice. Nobody has placed a bid on the espresso machine, including Meg, while we have been recording this podcast. I don't need that, you know? I don't. You're not a big memorabilia person. Neither am I, right?

but I have, no, I have a, I have some stuff, you know, I do. It would be a nice, that'd be a cool thing to have. It's just not a cool thing to display. You know what I mean? That's why I think that the jerseys are going for more money. Because I'm thinking of like, like the local car dealer guy. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. Like you can put the Jack Aglione thing in a frame, like the coffee machine just looks like a coffee machine. It's not easy to find a shadow box for an espresso machine. Exactly. Yeah. It's also not a nice. espresso machine? I feel like that.

That's part of the charm. Yeah, but you can construct a shrine of some sort of. Like, I guess what I'm saying is, like, I could imagine being like, I'll overpay for this espresso machine and I want a nice espresso machine anyway, and money's no object. Yeah. Right.

But I wouldn't get an espresso if that were the case. Do you use it or do you just display it? Right. Well, you... I mean, I would not buy it and not use it. Yeah. I don't think I would buy it and use it. Yeah.

But then I want it to be nicer than an espresso. It is, I mean, it's, it is amazing because is you can, you can just, you can do, they can do better, you know? And they have the money. Like, get a bravall. I don't know. They could have had a barista in the dugout. This is, well, this is what I was saying.

I think the jankiness, the low budget jankiness of it was part of the charm. But I'm, I agree with you for next time. Does anyone have $3,000 they want to give me so I can buy this espresso machine? All right. The one that I wanted to do or consider doing was that Jerks and Profar would out war his replacements at DH for the Braves or maybe even to be bold DH and left field

because that's conceivable possibly too because we got Dominic Smith and Mike Ostremski right now I'm not sure and I guess technically it's like if you don't play do you have zero war or do you have no war? Is it undefined or is it a zero? I don't know but

you all know what I meant and maybe that makes sense because if he has replacement level players they would in fact be replacing him so that was that was my last cut that I kind of wanted to squeeze in there. So that's a bonus for everyone. But this was great. I think we got some good predictions here. I'm surprised that I got all the predictions that I wanted. I thought we were going to have to fight over some or that we would end up with sort of similar ones, but we didn't. Shockingly, no one else had the Tony Vitello

A-O-3 prediction. Well, you guys were all interested in the pirates. Yeah. I guess I had a pirates production too. Very pirates heavy. I'm surprised we had no other challenge system ones. I thought just because it's so top of the minds we would have... I completely forgot that the challenge system was happening in this list. I think every AL Central

team is in here except the twins and I don't know how to feel about that. We wanted to free, liberate you if you wanted to be, you know? Like you end up having to track so much of this. We didn't want to. Very desired, I think, at this moment. I don't want to go up on that rant at

this moment. I think we've all been pretty clear about our predictions and also they're trackable. You won't have to do too much math, probably famous last words, but yeah, compared to past years. So please remind everyone where to go, what to do, because I know you want more people participating. Every year we've done this, we've had more people voting and it's just, it's more fun for everyone. Perhaps voters, but also for us when this becomes a big group activity. Yes. You go right now, go to eWStats.com and fill out your ballot. You must do so before quote unquote real opening day at first pitch. We had over 1,500 submissions last season. Our goal this season is 1,800. I'm going to be very annoying on Blue Sky, rooting for all of you to come and contribute. The top, you'll all be scored, and there will be a leaderboard that you'll get a link to so that you can follow your own progression and see where you were ranked amongst your fellow listeners. And first place, we'll earn. free swag from the effectively wild online store. So get over there, make your prognostications or judgment of said prognostications. And we will be following this long, all season long.

And I will link to where you can do that on the show page and the episode description. Would you care to tease a prize you have prepared, or would you prefer for that to be a surprise? There's going to be a surprise. We're looking to do a thing for the top three listeners, but it is, it is still being developed, but we're trying to do something a little bit special and unique. So stay tuned for that. I will announce it on the blue sky if that's going to happen. Okay. And we will now each pick our doubt cards after we record, but we will keep those secret, right? Those will be secret. And then you get to disclose those. So you get to dunk, you get to dunk on your fellow contestants at the end and the recap. Only you will know for now. Yes. For now. I will hold that

information very tightly. Okay. Well, this was wonderful. Thank you again, Chris, for both originating this thing and also just doing all the legwork to make it so much fun to follow throughout the year. And we will obviously have you back on to recap it all when it's all said and done, if not before. I say quite literally, it is my pleasure. And thank you, other Ben and Bowman. No, it's my pleasure. The entire topic of this podcast, in fact. Yeah. Wasn't your pleasure, Ben, huh? This was misery for you. All right. Well, everyone, please go vote. Make your voice and your assessment of the probabilities heard. And remember, a lot of these are bold predictions, or at least intended to be.

Score them accordingly, however likely you think they actually are to occur. And Chris wanted me to relay his thanks, and I will also relay mine to the two developers on the EW stats team, Michael Fasio and Sean McNamee, plus Raymond Chen and Michael Mountain for their research assistance. I guess it's ironic that I alluded to MLB's partnership with a prediction market in the episode in which we're doing predictions and asking people to gauge their likelihood. But of course, there's no money at stake here. This is just for fun.

And bragging rights and pride. The terms of that deal, by the way, not entirely clear, but MLB will reportedly be getting something in the vicinity of $100 to $150 million a year from Polly Market. And this is not really a surprise. We had mentioned on an earlier episode that Manfred had already sign signaled his receptivity to this. Leagues have largely changed their tune, if not outright partnered already. MLB is not the first. The NHL, MLS, UFC, beat MLB to it. Of course, a lot of media companies, news outlets, et cetera, also have partnerships with polymarket, Kalshi or some other prediction

market. But you know it's a completely unproblematic partnership when much of the announcement deals with integrity concerns. I like this line in the athletics report. The deal can be voided if courts rule that prediction markets violate state law, a league official who is not authorized to speak publicly said, confirming a report from ESPN. So that's always good. Hey, if our new partner is found to be acting illegally, then this can be voided. I guess that might be the case with many partnerships, but the fact that it has to be signaled here, because there are still significant questions surrounding the legality of prediction markets, very much in flux, as we have discussed. Seemingly not a ton of appetite by the current presidential administration to crack down on these

things Donald Trump Jr. invests in them. MLB is positioning this as a proactive move to ensure integrity, but it's also making money. MLB has a memorandum of understanding with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which Rob Bnford says is an imperative step in proactively managing the new and rapidly growing prediction market space. Protecting the integrity of the game on the field is our top priority. By engaging in this community, we are able to work together to create clear boundaries with the goal of mitigating risk while providing fan engagement opportunities. Look, I suppose there There's an argument. Keep your friends close, your enemies closer, your official prediction market

partners closest, that MLB will have some oversight here. Polymarket and the CFTC are supposed to share info with MLB that's supposed to help flag suspicious activity, which, as we know, didn't exactly work perfectly in Emmanuel Class A's case. Polymarket's president of sports business told the athletic, we will work collaboratively with MLB to identify what types of markets pose unreasonable integrity risks for the game of baseball and try to get those out of the market with the goal being how do you protect consumers? Polymarket supposedly has partnerships with companies that are supposed to identify suspicious trading activity. MLB said it would work with Polymarket to restrict markets that present an integrity risk to MLB such as individual pitches, manager decisions, and

umpire performance among others. The league had already issued a memo reminding players that they're not allowed to use these things, as is the case with sports betting, which this essentially is, with some slight distinctions that the current case for largely unregulated legality rests on, the deal does not include minor league baseball. But supposedly, Pollymarket will work with MLB regarding any minor league markets, which to the extent they exist, probably even more subject to manipulation. Anyway, I'm sure it will all be fine. That will do it for today and for this week.

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And you can check the show notes in the podcast post of Fangraphs or the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we cited today. Thanks to Shane McKean for his editing and production assistance. We hope you have a wonderful weekend, and we will be back to talk to you in the week of opening day. Take me to the diamond, lead me through the turnstile, shower me with data that I never thought to compile, now we freely knell up a scorecard with a cracker jacket with a cracker, Smile