Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2456: The Hierarchy of Power in the MLB Universe is About to Change

Episode Date: March 25, 2026

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Randy Arozarena making up with Cal Raleigh, the response to their announcement of the podcast’s new freemium model, whether they would try to issue the official first ball/strike challenge in MLB history, the challenge system vs. the pitch clock, several straggling WBC topics (the Team Italy espresso machine auction results, great TV ratings, a Team USA strawman, reframing the hierarchy of high-level baseball competition, projecting future WBCs, and a non-called shot, plus NPB “ghost wins”), how Ben’s anti on-field-front-office-meddling rant resonated with readers, why Kevin McGonigle and JJ Wetherholt made Opening Day rosters and Konnor Griffin (and John Brebbia) didn’t, Pete Crow-Armstrong and Cristopher Sánchez extensions, and how politicians should talk about sports fandom if they want to sound authentic. Audio intro: The Gagnés, “Effectively Wild Theme” Audio outro: Daniel Leckie, “Effectively Wild Theme” Link to “hierarchy of power” supercut Link to Arozarena statement Link to freemium model announcement Link to written explanation Link to EWStats site Link to espresso auction Link to Jac jersey auction Link to WBC TV ratings Link to Rosenthal comments Link to Webb quote Link to Acuña quote Link to Kay comments Link to McLean/Holmes story Link to NPB “ghost win” story Link to NPB “ghost win” tweet Link to NHL overtime rules Link to Ben on front-office meddling Link to Ben on the foul lines Link to The Athletic on Griffin Link to Pirates hitter projections Link to MLBTR on Brebbia Link to FG post on PCA Link to profane PCA profile Link to FG post on Sánchez Link to FG post on Strider Link to Mamdani quote Link to Adams cap Link to de Blasio cap Link to Hillary caps story 1 Link to Hillary caps story 1 Link to “trash revolution” story Link to HUAL on Mamdani Link to statue prizes Link to MLFAD picks Link to Meg on HUAL Link to observer effect wiki Link to four playoff teams article  Sponsor Us on Patreon  Give a Gift Subscription  Email Us: [e-mail]  Effectively Wild Subreddit  Effectively Wild Wiki  Apple Podcasts Feed   Spotify Feed  YouTube Playlist  Facebook Group  Bluesky Account  Twitter Account  Get Our Merch! var SERVER_DATA = Object.assign(SERVER_DATA || {}); Source

O' Tarni, the Stap Place, the Bifoy is so shweets, the avi pettance and super, a fete, I think that it's effectively cool, I think that it's effectively wild, effectively savage, effectively savage. Hello and welcome to episode 2456 of Effectively Wild, a fan grass baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon,

Freon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of Fangraphs and I am joined by Ben Limburg of the Ringer. Ben, how are you? Doing well, but just wanted to clear the air. You know, there's been a bunch of controversy lately and just wanted to put out a statement. Because I understand that with opening day a few days away, I don't want it to be a distraction. And so you and I have talked and I apologize for what I said after the game and nothing in the WBC takes away from the fact that we're siblings, we're teammates, we're co-hosts, your family, and we're both focused on helping the Mariners win the World Series. Well, maybe not that last part. You are actually pretty focused on helping the Mariners win the World Series. I mean, I have nothing to do with

it, to be clear. You're still focused on it, though. You can't actually do anything to make it happen, but... Yeah, to an unhealthy degree, one could argue. Am I to understand that this means that there will not be bad blood between Cal and Randy? Yes, they have figuratively shaken hands, maybe actually physically shaken hands. This was, yes, this was the statement. I was paraphrasing the statement that Randy Rosarena made about Cal Raleigh after the fallout during the WB. BC. So how much of that statement do you think Randia Rosarena wrote or composed himself?

I don't know. You know, it does, I imagine that it is imparting, faithfully imparting his, the sentiment of what he thinks about the thing. Yeah. It does, it does lack a certain amount of randiness, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Not to be confused with randiness. a different feeling that I can't speak to on behalf of Randy or Rosarena. But, you know, I'm sure there was a little massaging. The fact that Cal's comments also invoked family perhaps suggests a coordination. But I think that that's probably fine. Here's, I think, where I've landed on this. And I'll allow for the possibility that I'm grasping, you know, to try to make it go away.

on behalf of my beloved Mariners, but I think on any given team, at any given time, there are guys who don't really get along very well. And I don't know if that has historically been true for Cal Raleigh and Radio Rosarina. I don't know if it's true right now. I think that it on some level doesn't matter if what you're able to do as like grown-ups and professionals is be like, well, yeah, I don't want to like, he doesn't need to be the guy I go get dinner with after a road game, but like, we're good enough to not have, uh, have issues in the clubhouse. And that strikes me as, as what's going on here.

Yeah. As long as we can shake each other's hands, bump each other's fists during the post game meeting on the field. Then, uh, yeah, but Cal will, will deign to, uh, make physical contact of some kind. at that point. And they can just all write it off as a big WBC fever dream. I don't know. It was just tempers were running hot and things were heated and the stakes were high. And that was it. It's all in the past.

Yeah. So who knows whether there were any large language models consulted in any generation of apologies there or just some agents. Yeah. PR staff. That's what they're there for after all. Yeah, I think it's fine. And, you know, here's the thing. Families do fight.

It's true. You can be family and still come to, well, hopefully not blows, but be at odds, even if only temporarily. So, you know, hey, guys, you know what I think will make you feel just really great about the whole business is go win some baseball games? You're probably not even going to remember it, you know? Yep. just have a few handshake lines that go without incident and we'll forget about it all. What does they make out? What if they're like, no, we really mean it.

Yeah, that would be overcompensating probably as you say, only if they want to. But if they really wanted to, in order to convince us that everything is fine and they get a long great. Not necessary. Yeah, not necessary. They could do little, they could do little, you know, Dom Kanzone could teach them how to do little Italian kisses, you know. Little Italian kisses. Hardly the only culture, to be clear, that does little kisses. But, like, one of the cultures that does little kisses.

So Don could be like, hey, I also learned something at the WBC, how to press the button on the espresso machine. And also to do little kisses. Yes. And speaking of said machine, since we talked about it last time when the auction was still very much in progress, it has been completed now. I assume you saw the final figure, whether or not you placed that winning. bid or not. You know it, it's a little suspicious the timing. We just raised prices and suddenly there was a resolution and $16,510 the winning bid for the WBC espresso machine. You are denying all responsibility for that. It was not, it was not me. As I said on our draft episode,

I certainly support raising money for a good cause. But I, I don't have any. desire to own that. Right. Which is what you would have said last time if you were trying to discourage people from placing other bits. Who would even want such a thing? Who would even want that? I do love that I'm like, I don't want this thing in my home.

It should go in a museum. Yeah. That's normal. Yeah. So the timing maybe looks a little suspicious, but a complete coincidence. Meg is not funding her team Italy, WBC memorabilia habit. No. But it did indeed go for $16,510.

And congrats to the winner. And it went for considerably more than the Jack Caglione jersey, the Team Italy game-use jersey that we were also tracking on that episode, which was higher than the espresso machine at the time because it started sooner, the auction. Sure. But it wound up at just 11,120. And, you know, I think this espresso machine was a good deal, a bargain for someone. Yeah. Maybe we'll all forget about this. It'll be like handshake gait.

And, oh, yeah, that was fun for a couple weeks. But now it's like, I splurged on this espresso machine. Okay, it was for a good cause, but who even remembers? And you're like going around. Remember that espresso machine they had in the dugout? That was me. Yeah, I have that. See, look, cool.

It's just looks like a regular espresso machine with some stickers on it. How much did you pay for that? No, it was this whole thing. like people were really into it, you know? So maybe it'll turn out to be that in retrospect, but maybe it'll appreciate because it was sort of a signature item of that WBC and that WBC was a great success. So I would say that's sort of a steal in the grand scheme of auctions for baseball-related memorabilia.

I mean, I think that there are an infinite number of ways to spend your money kind of questionably, and this is sure one of them. But it does go to a good cause, so it has that going for it. But again, like, you're just like, where do you put it? Where do you place it? It's not a beautiful object, you know? Like, and I understand that that's not really the point. The point is that it is... It's imbued with beauty by its experiences. Right. It has, you know, like the essence of little kisses. But it's not a beautiful object. And there are, Ben, as I noted on that same pot, some beautiful espresso machines out there that are quite expensive, but I got to say also less expensive than this one.

Yeah. This is now among the more expensive espresso machines. But also, who am I to judge the aesthetic preferences of others? I famously love very ugly hats. So, you know. Well, we have some news to discuss. I have some other straggler WBC. items that I want to bring up. And then we've got some players making rosters. Some players not making rosters. We've got some extensions, et cetera. And I will just say when it comes to spending money, we did implore people to do that on a little PSA that we published not too long ago in the feed.

I won't rehash that whole appeal here because that's what that little mini episode was for. But if you somehow miss that, we are. making a change to the podcast distribution. The podcast itself is not changing, but one of our three episodes a week will be for subscribers only from now on starting at the end of this week. So, if you have not yet seen that announcement, it should be in your feed. There's also a written version of it. I will link to those on the show page in the episode description for this episode. but thanks to everyone who has given us good feedback. Thanks to everyone who's given us any kind of feedback, frankly.

And most of it has been good. And I didn't expect people to be hailing us as heroes and throwing us a ticker tape parade or anything. Didn't expect great rejoicing. But I think people have, for the most part, at least understood why we did what we did. and in many cases have supported that, whether with words, with dollars, with both. And we are appreciative of that.

And we hope that more of you will be able to join us. But please do keep your questions coming if you have them. And we will continue to work out all the details and make sure that people who sign up get all the episodes in one feed. And we'll all go smoothly, hopefully sooner rather than later. But thank you all. for bearing with us. Yes. And, you know, if you're an existing Patreon supporter and you haven't listened to that episode,

make sure you look at your email because you've got information both from us and from Patreon on the changes so that you can understand sort of how this all works for you. And yes, if you have questions, please feel free to ask. And again, we appreciate everyone for their support and for bearing with us. And, yeah, to your point, you know, people have largely been lovely and supportive and even folks who didn't love the decision did so respectfully. And it's just another reminder of our great community here. So thanks to everyone for that.

Yes, indeed. And I must also remind people I would be remiss if I did not note that the actual episode that we did before that where we did our preseason predictions. Yes. Chris Handel would take me to task if I did not remind everyone that voting is still open and will remain open until the first pitch of real opening day on 30. day. So if you're hearing this before then and you have not yet weighed in on our preseason predictions, Chris and we would love to have you do so. You can go to eWStats.com. And you can

pass judgment on the likelihood of the predictions we made. The more the merrier. And I would recommend listening to the episode in addition to just looking at them because it was a banger. Ben. It was. It was fun. I think it was a good one. So. Yeah. So. Speaking of first pitch on Thursday, well, really first pitch on Wednesday, this will be more relevant, the Netflix Giants Yankees game. If you were in that game, would you want the historical distinction of being the first player to issue a challenge? Because I think I would be tempted by the prospect of being the Ron Bloomberg of ABS, essentially.

You know, first DH, right? and then you dine out on that for the rest of your life. I don't know if this will be equivalent exactly, but you will be the answer to a trivia question for time immemorial. As long as people are remembering things about baseball, they may remember that you were the first to issue a challenge. I could see it going another way where if eventually we get full ABS and it turns out that the challenge system was just a stop along the way,

than maybe the first player to have a strike assessed on them or have a pitch call made solely by a computer on them. That would be sort of a historical distinction too. But I would be kind of tempted, even though there would probably be blowback and I would probably suffer some mockery at best by my teammates and maybe some kangaroo court finds going on here if I just leaped at anything close. and just said, yeah, I'm going for it. First official challenge in a Major League Baseball game ever. But it would be kind of a cool thing to be the first to do, because this really is a significant momentous thing to go from trying our best to approximate the strike zone to actually having some recourse to cameras and computers.

It's a long time coming. There have been people imagining sci-fi scenarios with, robot umpires and constructing machines that could mimic umpires for more than a century. And now that seal will be broken. On the one hand, yes. On the other hand, I think we are maybe underappreciating the degree to which this feels kind of like old hat to some percentage of guys on opening day. Because not just because they've had two spring trainings of it at the big league level now.

And not just because like every big big. leagueer who went, well, maybe not every big leaker, but many big leaguers who went on rehab assignments, probably had some interaction with it in the minors, but it's just been floating around the miners for a while. Like if you're, you know, we're going to talk about some of the guys who didn't, did not make their opening day rosters. But like, if you're Kevin McGonagall, I'm sure you're like, well, yeah, challenge system. I'm familiar with that.

Yeah, your whole career maybe. I mean, they started testing ABS, I think, in 2021, I want to say, in the minors. and then the challenge system the year after that. So it's several years, yeah, it predates plenty of players' arrivals in pro ball at this point. Right, right. And, you know, they maybe got a taste of it in the Fall League. And so I don't know that it is going to hit with players quite the same way that it is for us. I also think that, like, we're challenged system like sickos,

me in particular, like famously kind of a sickover challenge. So I'm very excited, but I don't know if it's going to wash over them quite the same way. And I do think that even, even though it's a long season, it's opening day, like, it is a precious resource. Now, if you think you're right, if you think yourself to be correct and likely to prevail in the challenge, well, then maybe you don't worry about it because and you can sort of let the moment wash over you more and have that guide the way because if you are successful, well then you didn't cost your team anything, right? In fact, you gained them something. How nice. But I do wonder if the league has had any conversation with guys about the sort of the way they want this to go because, you know, we've

seen it in spring and I think it's been generally well received. But I do wonder if in the back of Rob manfred's mind, he's like, it wouldn't be great if like we ended up adding like 20 minutes a game time to the first game of the season through challenges, successful challenges, right? So I do wonder if there's been any, maybe not directive, but just like, hey, you know, we want everybody be having a good time with this thing. I don't know why they'd talk like they're a 70-s swinger, but. Yeah. I think that we probably will quickly not notice it and it'll just become kind of part of the scenery, you know, beside from the occasional controversy, but it is a landmark moment, I think, and it's sort of similar

to the introduction of the pitch clock in that these are both cases of a long-anticipated, long-tested technological solution to a problem of being able to perfectly enforce a certain rule. Right. And people always said, oh, there's no such thing as clocks in baseball. But there had, of course, been rules on the books about how long it was supposed to take between pitches. It's just that no one was really policing them for the most part. And when they did, the enforcement was pretty lax. And there would be immediate backsliding.

And as soon as you put that pitch clock in place, problem solved, pretty much. They've tweaked it every now and then. But it was one and done. It was fully formed. It arrived in the major. as a solution, essentially. And this is a little bit different, but also similar in the sense that it is really a solution

to the problem of, well, we've had a strike zone on the books forever, but it has been imperfectly enforced because it couldn't be perfectly enforced because of the limits of the human sensory system, essentially. So this is now a way to, call those things that had already been on the books basically, but just had not been perfectly reflected on the field, even though the umpires had certainly improved dramatically in that respect over the years. So I wonder whether we will look back and say, this was the beginning of the

ABS era. Is that improbable? The way that I just mentioned Ron Bloomberg in 1973, and we still say the DH era sometimes. I don't know whether we'll say the pitch clock era, but I I suspect we will. Yeah. And I suspect we might also refer to the ABS era, which could be kind of complicated if this is not the end. And either this goes so well that it essentially makes the case for more, hey, if we're calling some pitches correctly, why don't we call them all correctly? This has gone so smoothly. Or whatever happens.

If it backfires in some way and their controversial moments. where there are no challenges remaining, and the system sort of fails, at least, in the goal of getting all the calls right, which is not the only goal here, but if that then highlights that, hey, actually, it's better if we can get all the calls right, and thus one way or another, ABS,

whether through its sheer popularity or through perceived failings of the system, leads to the next stage. Maybe that complicates it, because if you're saying ABS era, and you get full ABS, I don't know, five years down the road, then you always have to clarify,

well, we're talking about the challenge system era or the full ABS era. There's already some confusion when it comes to that technology. But I think that these are really meaningful moments that future generations

will look back on and say this was sort of a step change. This was, there's before and then there's after. And I don't think that the challenge system will be as noticeable on a pitch-by-pitch basis because the pitch clock, at least initially, was extremely notable because it affected every pitch, or at least the time between every pitch.

It was very apparent that it was really moving the pace along and it was shortening games and it was making the length much more predictable and it was just so tangible. Whereas the challenge system, about 1% of pitches get challenged, something like 7% of borderline pitches. So it's not quite as in your face. It won't be quite as much of a time suck or a time saver. So I think it is similarly significant, but a little less impactful and a little less salient when it comes to the spectator experience. I think that that's right.

I do think that the sense of relief that you are likely to experience at some point, and it might not come on opening day. I think that we, because the most meaningful use case for the challenge, system is to prevent the like game ending bad call, right? That's the highest stakes potential moment where we'll see the challenge system, but that won't be most challenges, right? I don't know that most fans will necessarily have this experience, but like just imagine how differently the end of that Team USA, Team Dominican Republic game might have felt had they had access to the challenge system in the WBC. Well, then no one's, mad, you know, Perdomo, to be clear, might have rolled over the next pitch and ended the game.

Like, we don't know that it would have changed the outcome, but it would have changed the outcome of that particular pitch. Maybe DR rallies to win. Maybe Presente has no reason to do a whole ad campaign about, as a really good campaign. I missed the Presente Golden Light commercials on Leadom Action. They were good. Bring those back. Give me the DR commercials again.

I miss those. them will be. But, you know, I think that some of the highest stakes implementations of this, we won't necessarily experience on game one. We might not experience them for a whole week, a month. You don't know how long it's going to take. But I do think eventually there's going to be this sense of feeling relief that an injustice was like averted. And I think that it will lend a confidence to the whole proceeding in a way that is like kind of important. We've talked about this in other contexts, but we're in this era of, I think, increasing lack of trust when it comes to the sport that we're seeing. There have just been too many gambling scandals that we know about,

and there's seemingly too much vulnerability in the system, even if it's not playing out with a frequency that makes the whole thing come on done. And I think that's the same thing, think knowing that it can that problems can be fixed in real time and also getting a sense of just like how good the average home plate umpire is without the assistance of the challenge system i don't know like i think you're right that we will move past it and we'll kind of get used to things but i i do wonder if there's like a you know like settling into a warm bath kind of an aspect to this like yeah i get to sink into this and and just feel a little less on on edge about the entire thing because there's this objective intervention that can take place.

And, you know, it doesn't address all of the issues with like sports betting, right? Like this, the challenge system doesn't cause us to catch a manual class as alleged indiscretions any faster, just by the nature of them. But I do think having like that sort of real time feedback is is valuable to the whole thing. I think people are going to like it. Class A spiked pitches in the dirt would not have been challenged. No. Though if they had been challenged, it could have uncovered other malfeasance, I suppose,

if you're really committed to being called in a weird way. Well, I think it'll go down easy. And I think much like the pitch clock, it'll be a moment where we think, well, we can't go back, really. Right. And maybe even how did we live like that? and what took so long. In this case, even though I think the philosophically and historically, I think it's sort of a similar introduction of a technology to address a longstanding complaint. It's different in the sense that the technology is actually much more demanding.

The pitch clock was literally just a countdown clock. It's just a clock. They were testing these things in the 1960s. Like, we had the technology for, I don't know, half a century or more. But this we could not have done quite as effectively before recent times. And you have to hand it to, I think, MLB for the painstaking testing process that it went through with both of these technologies, which was similar in both cases. Just let's roll it out across several levels, several years. We'll test all the possible permutations.

We'll get buy-in. We'll normalize it. We'll make it seem like, oh, this is nothing special, nothing risky. this is just the way it works. And then when they are fully confident that the thing will not just go haywire and ruin the perception of it forever, then we will be ready to introduce it. So I do think that they have done a decent job of that better than decent. And we will see who makes history by calling for the first challenge. Yes, another reason to tune in.

It'll be Burt Kreischer. Maybe. Why are we being asked to hang out so much with Burt Kreischer? In a baseball content. I understand he's like a Netflix comedian, but... Yes. Cinergy. Burt Kreischer.

The final ratings for the WBC were bonkers. Yeah. They were huge. Yeah. Obviously, we knew that it was quite popular. Yeah. We sensed that it was a sensation. But this blew away the numbers from 2023, which were themselves big.

And we thought, wow, Japan and the U.S. And granted, the global rankings there were pretty impressive. So when you're comparing domestic to global, obviously, many people were watching the final in 2023 in Japan. But in the U.S., and that part was constant, at least the U.S. participating in consecutive WBC finals, it was an average of 10.78 million viewers that was on Fox and Fox Deportes, which is by far the most, the previous high. was the previous Sunday's USDR semi-final on Fox Sports 1, which was 7.37 million. The Venezuela win in the final,

the peak was 12.15 million viewers, and that more than doubled the previous WPC final, the indelible Trout Otani game. Right. That was 4.97 million average across FS1 and Fox Deporte. So this was huge.

It was six of the seven largest audiences in the history of the WBC. And I know Nielsen has changed the way that it gathers data and that has in some cases boosted sports ratings. Not that the NFL needed a boost, but they're doing a better job maybe of accounting for group viewing and people who are watching the game together or they're at a sports bar or whatever it is. So that has sort of across the board bumped up the numbers a bit, but not nearly to this degree. So this speaks to the continued growth of the event. And I know that there are people who disregard ratings and just say, well, we don't really need to care. Like, that's a business thing.

Why do we care if the ratings are higher, the ratings are low? And I sometimes understand that. But other times I think, well, this is a pretty good objective bellwether of how popular this thing is. And like it or not, we tend to care about things in part based on how many other people care about them. And so it's not irrelevant to know that this is gaining in popularity. And if you enjoy something and you want more of it and you want it to succeed, then I think it can be heartening. You're rooting for rankings. You're not a network executive. You're not directly benefiting from that.

But you might indirectly benefit in the sense that this thing I like, it's clear that a lot of other people like it. And that means that they will make more of this thing. They will market it more prominently. and that I think can be something to celebrate anyway. The percentage increase here and just the steady growth, it's pretty impressive. This is a major, major event. Yeah, I think just on the, like the how much do we have to care? How much do you have to care about the ratings for like the national broadcast for a major league game? Very little.

Like you want, to your point, you want things to sort of clear. and probably quite comfortably, given the amount of money involved, the sort of threshold for viability. But I think that in the context of the WBC, it does behoove you to care a little bit more, not only because it's still a relatively young event. And you want every time there's a conversation in the league's offices in New York for them to be like, well, and it did so well. And, like, move on, right? for its continuation to be sort of a given, an obvious thing for them because I think there is

sort of a decision that's being made kind of every time to re-up and some of the champions of the event I think have been with the league a long time and will be with the league for a long time, but like one of the primary champions of the WBC is

Rob Manfred and we know his tenure is going to come to a close at some point. So I think you want there to be good institutional momentum around the continuation of the event. I also think, and this is a more sort of diffuse potential benefit, presenting a vision of baseball that is backed by Major League Baseball and is, in the instances of many of the teams, although not all of them, exuberant and fun and loud and, you know, full of espresso machines. And some of the just, yeah, loudest, most raucous engaging audiences you've ever seen at a baseball game. Yeah. And I think that it's good for the league.

It's good for people who play in the league and also people who watch baseball to see different versions of it. I think it sort of opens up the field of vision for what baseball in the American context can look like. And it's not like that's the only benefit or the primary benefit. I don't think that the reason like the DR should participate in the World Baseball Classic is to serve as an education for American audiences. But I do think that that kind of education has some value. And it's it's a lot of fun to see different cultures interact with the tournament and with the sport. And, you know, when the tournament does well and you have surprise runs from teams like Italy, as we discuss with Kiri, like I do think that it invites further investment from now. national programs that have a less well-established baseball tradition.

And that just seems like it could have a snowballing effect that would be positive for the tournament. Like, what if, you know, what if next time, I don't know, like, what if Italy wins it? What if one of these tiny European countries that doesn't do baseball most of the time comes through and, like, makes it to the semis? Like, that would be really cool and exciting. So I think that you don't need to worry about or maybe not worry about, but care about, like, the dollar and cents component of it. Because, like, that is business nonsense that doesn't need to worry you as long as you're able to find the games on.

Maybe the real benefit to having good ratings is we won't have to go to FS1 or FS2. Yeah, right. It would be easier to find them not relegated to whatever secondary tertiary broadcast network. Why? I don't want any. Tubey was free if you signed up for a trial or whatever. So, yeah. But that can be kind of a.

as we have discussed. But yes, it was just huge numbers. It was the title game was, was the most watched baseball telecast outside the World Series since the 2015 All-Star game. Wow. Yeah, it was, it was pretty big. And that just mirrored the enthusiasm that we had for it and that a lot of people had for it. And by the way, when Rob Manfred's tenure will end, we do, we do know when he says it will end, at least, which is January 2029. That's when he's Walking away, his work will be done, we will see. But I also think that this has some bearing on what we're talking about, the WBC versus the World Series and all those quotes and Aaron Judge and Julio and suggesting that this matters more. And Patreon supporter Ezra wrote in to point us to a Ronald Acuna Jr. quote, who said, personally, I think this championship is number one in my career.

And of course, he won one with the Braves. Now, he did then say, when we won the World Series, I couldn't play because of my injury. So a caveat. But he said, today I finally made my people proud. So no shortage of quotes along those lines. And I was talking about how, gosh, I wonder if this will be a bit controversial when you have Julio saying it on a team that famously has number one a world series. Or Aaron Judge saying it's the captain of a team that is always expected to win the World Series. Though it has fallen short of those expectations for quite some time now.

And I did see my impulse was to mock this, and maybe that's fair. But I actually thought there was almost a genuine intellectual effort to try to reckon with the significance of what Judge had said on the part of Michael Kay, who of course is a broadcaster for the Yankees and also hosts an ESPN radio show. And he responded to Aaron Judge's comments. And he read out that quote about how it's bigger than the World Series, et cetera. And of course, he's looking for grist for the sports radio mill. But he said, I am somewhat taken aback when they go that this is bigger than winning a World Series. And he said, I'm just saying that I'm not advanced enough or evolved enough to wrap my mind around it. Which is just a very funny reaction, I thought.

He was just so flummoxed. He was just, this does not compute. This was like Star Trek, the original series, when they talk a computer into having some contradictory inputs and the steam comes out of its computer ears or whatever. He just did not know how to process this. And I think he was sort of sincere in that because he did a whole segment and he was talking about, he wasn't dumping on the WBC. He was talking about how much fun it was and it was a great, great tournament and everything. Now, he did say that it wasn't literally. better because Home Depot Park, Lone Depot Park, Lone Shark Park.

Home Depot Park. If it were Home Depot Park, I'm sorry, will you allow a quick, a quick digression? That is what it actually says in the article I'm reading, so that was not my sip at the tongue. It says Home Depot Park. We're getting, yeah, we're getting corporate sponsorship without even having to pay for the naming rights there. Congrats home to Depot. Just so, so, so quick. So it's, it's Lone Depot Park. Yes.

The P is stylized lowercase. Yes. I hate it. Yeah. I'm like, you're not like ironically posting. Why is it a low? What? And I know that it's loan, lowercase, L Depot.

So did they just get to the P and they're like, we don't know what to do? Like, we couldn't possibly make it. uppercase and then people think that the L is balls to be uppercase. And also, why isn't the L uppercase? Why is it loan, loan depot, lower case? You're selling mortgages. Be it. Be professional.

Yeah. Be an adult. Anyway, I'm just like, this feels like a recession indicator to me. And I don't know why, but I don't think I'm wrong. Well, it's just earn themselves some publicity for their type of graphical choices there. But Michael Kay, was taking that very literally judge's claim and saying, well, the capacity there is 36,000, and Yankee Stadium holds X and Dodger Stadium holds Y. So it's not actually bigger. I don't think he was belaboring that point. And I think it was clear to him that it was not about the literal capacity or attendance. But he was really just sort of, I think, sincerely wrestling with all of this. Yeah. And just said he was born and raised to think that a World Series ring, especially if you're a Yankee. That's the be-all end-all. That's the summit. That's the apex. And so he's trying to rewire his brain here the way that Judge's brain got rewired. Judge didn't even play in previous WBCs. And all it took was one experience playing for that team in that tournament to say, wait, this is bigger. This is more momentous. So once you're in it, I think maybe that becomes clear to you. And maybe it's a little harder to understand from afar. And so my impulse was.

sort of to mock and say, you know, does not compute WBC importance. But if this was actually a sincere attempt to understand a changing baseball competitive landscape, I think it is sort of relatable because none of this is inherently significant. None of this actually matters. Who wins a baseball game does not have some sort of ground truth meaning. It has the meaning that we ascribe to it. We decide that it's important. who wins and that it represents something and it says something about the human condition and

society and we get invested in it. And that lends importance to it that it does not just inherently deserve. It's imbued with that. I already used that word imbued today, but I'm going back to the well for one more imbued because we do that. And that's why I think it is somewhat meaningful that 12 million people or whatever we're watching that game because there's kind of a consensus that gets built. about this is important.

And even if you don't personally care about the Super Bowl, you feel like you have to watch the Super Bowl because it's the Super Bowl. It's an event. And zillions of other people are watching it. And it's built up into this massive thing. And if you have a water cooler to converse around, then it's going to be the topic of water cooler conversation.

And so it becomes important because of its importance at a certain point. And the WBC, at the very, beginning, it was sort of an industry plant. You can't just conjure an event out of thin air and say, this is suddenly important. Right. It takes some time and the participants have to treat it as something important and the fans have to buy into it as something important. And the more players participate and treat this as something important, the easier it is for everyone else. And it gives Michael Kay permission to reevaluate his understanding of the baseball hierarchy. But

this is a process. And maybe K is a little bit behind everyone else who just understands, oh, yeah, this is national identity and culture and all of this is wrapped up and it's at stake. And obviously, this is super important to the players. And this is probably a distinctly American perspective, just because there's not as much of a legacy of international baseball competition for a team USA, whereas this is something that is well established and well understood in the Caribbean, in Asia, et cetera. So maybe that you could just kind of, hey, here's this new international competition.

You're already bought in on the concept of international baseball competitions and how they can be an embodiment of national pride. But this is sort of, okay, let's take Michael Kaye by the hand and we'll explain that, yes, baseball, yes, Virginia baseball can be real and important in other contexts than the one that historically, by a state,

certain segment of fans has treated as the utmost. And so maybe the next WBC Michael K will be fully on board and won't even have to just be taken aback and try to process this. So I thought that maybe he was giving voice to it in a specific way that made me laugh and made you laugh. But also I think there's something authentic about that that I think each of us has come to it. I don't think I was a huge WBC enthusiast the first time it was played. I don't think I was a hater or anything, but I just, I wasn't nearly as invested in it at the start. And so I've undergone this epiphany too. I think a lot of people, when you go from many fewer millions to that many millions, obviously, at some point along the way,

people had this road to Damascus moment and the scales fell from their eyes or whatever. And they're like, oh, yes, this is actually super exciting and wonderful. So, yeah, good for you, Michael Kay, maybe, to try to reckon with that, at least. Well, and I think part of why stuff like this, you know, you're right that within the American context, like we just, it's not that there isn't international competition and particularly at the amateur level guys play like for Team USA and against international opponents a good amount. but it doesn't occupy the same level for, I think, most American baseball fans that, like, Olympic sports do when they're in an Olympic year. When you introduce a new tournament like this, it can feel kind of corporate and cash grabby. And like you, I wasn't, like, opposed to the WBC, but my appreciation for the event has really grown over time. And I think part of that is like it ends up being this relatively generic vessel that all these people then like pour their oddity into and their passion and their understanding of the game.

And it looks a lot of different ways and it comes in a lot of different forms. Like we didn't even talk about the guy who had the stovetop espresso pot and was using that as a noisemaker. Yeah. Ben, that's genius. Yeah. Brilliant. I mean, like, I was like, oh, yeah. Some MacGyver.

That's just use whatever tools you have on hand. That's terrific. And so this thing can happen when you get a critical mass where whatever version of the event, whatever form its organizers thought or hoped it was going to take, sure, that's still in there. Because, boy, we're still thinking. about how Lone Depot park stylized its name, but it stops being theirs at a certain point and starts to feel much more like the people who decide that it's important. And that's a really cool kind of transition.

And I think that I do think I feel like I'm handing it to the league so much today. And I don't care for that, Ben. But I will say that, like, I think that the league has been pretty responsive to, like, how, fans want to come to the event and how they want to show up for it and care about it. And I think that, you know, whatever stodgy affect Team USA might have had this year, like there wasn't any diminishment of other traditions. However, raucous or silly, they might have been being put front and center in the tournament. I also think that, like, for folks who care a lot about Major League Baseball, and we've talked about this,

like, this time of year, it starts out so fun and people get excited. trying to make a case for people caring about spring training as like a lower stakes on-ramp. But like you get to a point where it's like March 15th and you're like, oh, my God, like, really I'm seeing these guys again, you know, how many days in a row am I going to be asked to care about who's the fifth starter? And so to have this like interjection of world series like energy in March is like so incredible. Yeah, yeah. And just putting a bow on the WBC in a couple other ways.

We had talked about the broadcast quality, the Fox broadcast, and how it was sometimes sort of shoddy seemingly. Well, we have a listener in every industry with every expertise. Just wanted to explain why that was, because we got a listener email, Patreon supporter, Sean, who said, in response to the question on the WBC pod about the Fox broadcast, bad cuts, etc. Fox wasn't the actual provider of the game broadcast. They were working off of what's considered in the TV.

TV world, a world feed. The feed is as basic as you can get in order to provide a main source of the game to be distributed to the world's broadcasting partners. When networks have world feed broadcasts, they aren't in control of the cameras or replays and often have very scaled-down camera compliments. They'll often send out only two to three cameras that they can control in order to be able to get isolated shots of individuals their talent wants to talk about. As far as the bad cuts, the Fox broadcast probably had a list of.

line into the world feed director and jump off of the world feed to their camera to storytell whatever they were trying to do at the time. This often leads to random jump cuts that look like mistakes you normally wouldn't see during a traditional broadcast. So if you go back and watch the WBC broadcast after perceived mistakes or cuts, the same two or three camera angles followed. These are the Fox controlled cameras. So that's when there was sort of a handoff from this world feed, this generic feed, to the Fox controlled cameras. And Sean says it's sadly a cheaper way to do certain broadcasts and other networks do it. ESPN does it. It saves you from having to send your own cameras at times. Maybe in this case, you need a world feed because

the world was watching. Right, right. So maybe that was part of it and it wasn't purely a cost-saving measure. But that explains it. That is why that happened. Yeah. I'm, I don't. I don't. I don't, don't love the answer, but I do appreciate knowing what it was because I was just like, what is happening? Why am I seeing warm-up pitches again? That hasn't been relevant for two badders. And then you're, you know, you're trained as a viewer to expect the images you see to like have meaning to get back to the meaning making voice. You're like, what am I looking for? And I felt like I was like watching like trying to make um you know those uh what are they called the the the the books and you cross your eyes and then all of a sudden like oh it's a flower oh yeah there the like magic eye

book magic yes yes i was like what am i what am i supposed to be looking for did he get hurt is there is there what's going on what's going on yeah couldn't i couldn't tell yep so yep that's the explanation that's the explanation also just want to clarify I don't know that anyone needs this clarification from us, but because there was so much conversation about Team USA and the way it played, after the tournament when everyone was rehashing that, there seemed to be a secondary side sort of straw man conversation where I guess it was Ken Rosenthal and maybe A.J. Prisinski were talking about this,

and they were sort of like, let's set the record straight here. Team USA did care. and people were saying that they didn't care. And it felt like this weird kind of disconnected conversation from what... Yeah, people are kind of talking past each other a bit. Yeah, I thought so. And maybe there were people in Ken Rosenthal's mentions of the horrors that must exist in there. I hope he doesn't even stare at them directly.

I think he does, and that's sometimes a problem. Maybe so, but it would be Indiana Jones just like Ark of the Covenant scene just like tovert your eyes from the Menchies probably. But he did say something about the ridiculous narrative that Team USA didn't care. To say that the U.S. players didn't care is one of the bigger fallacies that I've ever heard.

It's absurd. It's so absurd that I didn't even hear anyone say it. So I'm sure someone said it somewhere that he was responding to here. But to be clear, this was not the complaint that anyone was levying against Team USA here. As in here on effectively why. here or there or anywhere as far as I'm concerned.

So I think that what people were saying were that Timiosay didn't look like it was having any fun. Yeah. That it was super martial and sort of jingoistic and all this stuff. We started the episode talking about Cal not shaking hands because he had to be so serious in businesslike. That's what anyone was saying. If anything, they were taking it too seriously. Yes. So I don't think anyone questioned their will to win, their want.

I think we all understood that they really wanted to win and they played hard and, if anything, too hard, maybe and could have stood to loosen up a little. But yeah, I wouldn't conflate that with saying that they weren't trying. No, they wanted to win, absolutely. Mark DeRosa, I mean, he wanted to win. I don't know that he went about it in the best way. so you could say that maybe TBSA should have been more serious, had a more serious manager or something. This is what I, and this I did say,

like I thought that they needed to lighten up and some of them needed to tighten up, but that was mostly a DeRosa complaint. And I guess, like, I should, you know, it's okay if some people's relationship to baseball is, like, serious. I don't have an issue. with that being like a part of a rich tapestry. I just thought that the particular version of it we got here was like pretty one note. And I think that one of the things that international

competition should accomplish, and it certainly isn't the only thing, but like one of the things is it should feel like kind of representative of a broad swath of the country that you're representing, because you're representing them. Like your team, U.S.S. And they seem like a bunch of funny-duddies. And in a way that felt purposeful and I don't know if top down is quite the right way to describe it, but certainly like part of a culture that DeRosa was trying to cultivate because we all have seen individual members of that team be funny or self-effacing or silly or like happy to shake hands. You know, so I just, I just don't want it to be the only way, particularly given some of the, like, geopolitical implications of the way that that oneness was manifesting in this time. But if people want to be serious, you can be serious.

If you want to be Dower, there are plenty of very useful grumpy gusses out there, right? And they can be very good at baseball. But when it's like the whole crew, it's kind of a drag. It's just, yeah, that's a different. an argument that as far as I'm aware, not many people were making. So it is a ridiculous narrative and possibly a non-existent one. That is not the way in which we were questioning Team USA to be clear. I think it probably was clear, but just in case. And, you know, it's shocking because I have never made the mistake of mistaking a volume of discourse for it being a

representative discourse. I've never done that, not even one time. No. Yeah. And And then Logan Webb came out, and I don't know if he was responding to Rosenthal and Prisinski's discussion or whether he had heard this. But it's just one person says, this is a ridiculous narrative. And then everyone's like, who was having that narrative? And then someone else picks up on it. So Logan Webb said, I feel like there's a narrative that we didn't care. That's complete BS. I think we probably cared the most out of every team, to be honest with you.

Which, yeah, Logan. You're playing right into what we're talking about here, which clearly. Clearly, all the other teams cared very, very much. So that is not really a competition. The games were a competition, but the caring is just a 20-way tie. Like, you all cared very much and wanted to win baseball tournament. Yeah, so I don't know why he had to make that itself a competition. But look, maybe this is something these players were actually hearing.

Maybe this is a game of telephone, and they're sort of misinterpreting what the criticism actually was. So, to be clear, that's not what it was. was on this podcast, at least. Also, another important thing to clarify here. So, you know, I've been pretty good this spring, I think, with not going back to the breakout candidate well. And I'm not going to now. I have done a good job. People have tried to bait me with breakout picks. Yes. They've sent me. And it's always like, don't let Ben see this. Like, you just tweeted it at me. If I hadn't seen it, I've seen it now.

But people are trying to get a rise out of me. They're trying to do it, Ben. Don't do it. And I've refused. I've refused to be baited. And I will continue to. I'm just, it's not good for me or anyone. No.

I'm just not dignifying these breakout articles with my clicks. However, another thing that we have. But. Yeah. This is unrelated. It's linked only because it's kind of been a hobby horse for me. or we have talked about this many times. And so at a certain point,

I just kind of had to close the discussion because there wasn't that much new to say about it. But the habit of baseball players predicting everything and then getting credit for said predictions, even though it seems that they are just firing off predictions willy-nilly left and right. And yet whenever they happen to hit the target, then they get hailed as some sort of soothsayer

when really it's just that they predicted every possible outcome at every single time, and it just happened to work out this time. But this one, this is, I think, stretching even the definition of what a prediction is. And this was WBC related. So I read this in the Daily News and the New York Daily News. Here it is. I'm just going to quote this. This was about the final when Nolan McLean exits the game and the U.S.

trailing two to nothing before Bryce Harper hits his homer. So, okay, U.S. down two-nothing before Harper, even the score with a two-run homer in the bottom of the second, a shot that right-hander Clay Holmes called just moments before the ball left the park in Miami. Quote from McLean, me and Clay were standing next to each other. Clay said, pretty good moment for a homer right here, McLean said. Next pitch, he gets into it. I'm standing on top of the rail and I just kind of blacked out from there on something. I don't know what happened, but I was definitely on the field at some point. So what I object to here is the idea that suggesting pretty good moment for a Homer here

qualifies as calling the shot. Yeah. Which, to be clear, is the language that the author used. That is not part of the quote. We don't have McLean on record here saying, yes, Holmes called it. But that's the implication, I think, that, oh, he actually, he suggested that. that this was going to happen. And maybe the author who's writing this up is taking their cue from McLean saying that Holmes had called this.

Just remarking that a home run would be beneficial right around now. Yeah. That's not a prediction. That's not calling it. No. No, absolutely not. And look, probably six different people on the bench called that homer because that's just what baseball players do as we have established. Yeah.

But you get even less credit. If you're not even going to say he's going to hit a homer here, you're just. just going to make the incredibly banal and obvious observation that this would in fact be a pretty good moment for a homer. That's sort of an understatement. And maybe it was said sort of facetiously. But you don't get credit after the fact for remarking that this would be a pretty good moment for a homer. That is self-evident. Yeah. It seems like it does stretch it ever so slightly, you know. And maybe there's a slight implication. There's a suggestion. I don't want a jink. anything, but I'm just saying this might be the moment, this might be the guy, okay, maybe that's

kind of what he was getting at. But if you want to predict something, just predict it and also be somewhat sparing in your predictions so that you are not the person who predicted every outcome, in which case you were bound to be right at times. I'm just saying the bar is low enough as it is. We don't need to reduce remarking that this would be a pretty good moment for a Homer to some sort of Nostradamus event here. Sorry, Clay and no one. Sometimes I hear the way that we are persnickety. And I'm like, you know, if a normal person, an average person who isn't familiar with the pod were given the choice, would they rather hear from us about baseball or Bryce Harper about raw milk?

Like, which would it be? You know, you're at a dinner party. You walk in. You are presented with two doors. And over here, some fantastic losers. And over there is raw milk Bryce. Which door are you choosing? I don't know the answer to that.

Yeah, I know. I was saying, oh, Michael Kay, his sports talk banter. You know, you kind of have to project a certain persona or something. Not that this is anything less than sincere, but it does bring something out of me when the microphone is on. Yeah. And I get a bit more heated than I do just sort of sitting around. reading this quote, but even so, it made me sit up and say, no, you do not get to count that. We have to draw the line somewhere.

I have to draw the line. Yeah. And speaking of being prismiccity, I won't belabor this either because I have previously belabored it. But I wrote up my treatise. You did. It was very well done. Thank you. Well, I thought this was just going to be a blog, just sort of a silly.

And then it ended up being 5,000 words because I had so much to say. Yeah, I mean, I know, really, who could have seen that coming? But I went on a real journey as I was writing this piece of self-discovery and changing my mind about things. This was my point about how we need to get the front offices off the field. We need to let the players play. I'm obviously not anti-information and analytics and preparation, but you've got to be off-book when you're in the game. I don't want to see you with your scouting card. I don't want to see you pulling out a piece of paper to tell you where to go between batters.

And I don't want to see coaches via front offices calling pitches every individual pitch from the dugout. So I put this into words and I tried to make it to the extent that I could kind of logically consistent and not just a reflexive reaction. Sure. And I tried to provide some historical perspective about how all of this has evolved. I got to say, something about that piece really resonated with people. I thought this was going to be, I am not a crackpot. People were going to be wondering what has happened to me. Am I okay?

But I have to say, this almost became a kind of rallying cry. There were a lot of people saying it was as if by being bold enough to go out there and provide the permission structure to criticize our own essentially. you know, the stat heads to say we've taken things too far, not literally us, but our ilk inside front offices. And there is something of a revolt happening here. And it's the most progressive baseball thinkers you could come up with who were, quote, posting and reposting and replying to this thing. It really seems like this has kind of touched a nerve and there's a silent, I don't know if it's a majority or minority out there, but there's a, but there's a, There are people I have a constituency for this take. I thought I was all alone on this island.

And it turns out that, no, plenty of people are on this island with me. I don't know that it's going to lead to any kind of change. I don't know that there's going to be a groundswell of support for, say, banning the cards. But I am heartened to know that I am not alone here. And I almost had to question. Like, gosh, maybe should I pivot to being a full? on anti-analytics guy? Like, is there a lane for me here?

No. Just, like, carve out my corner as the ex-saber metrics true believer who recants his stathead status, embraces the old school. This could be a profitable, at the very least, grift for me. I was going to say, we have seen proof of concept in other walks of life. Exactly. A version of this, unfortunately. Yeah, someone gets, quote, unquote, canceled, perhaps.

on purpose for the purpose of pulling off such a pivot. And then they pivot to grievance grifting. Yeah. Right. Now they're running CBS. Yeah. Or, you know, maybe it's just you leave a cult or something and then you come out and denounce it. And then that can maybe be a little less sort of cynical.

But, you know, then you kind of become the party that is best positioned, really, to open people's eyes. because you are the best messenger because you used to be in that camp and then you realized that your ways were wrong and now you have some real credibility. And so I'm wondering, I don't know that we have seen anyone

pull off that pivot from stathead to old school and just decry all of the analytics things that they used to. We have our critiques, of course, but to become the classic, and maybe there's not as much of a market out there for that sort of old school sports talker period, regardless of your background. I'm just saying the way that this was embraced made me think, you know, if we did not have

our Patreon supporters who really were stepping up to the plate for us and I just had to put on an act of some sort, this could be perhaps profitable for me, something to consider. I think the part of it that actually resonated with people was, I mean, like, I think the substance of the argument. And we disagree on some of it. I'm less offended by like the outfield positioning cards than you are. But I and like sometimes I worry that you just want every coach fired. Not fired, just confined to the coaching area.

Yes. But I think the piece of it that really resonated with people is I think earlier versions of of Saber Metrics were perceived, and sometimes I think this was a fair criticism, and sometimes I think it was a bit of an overreaction, but we're perceived as like fairly dogmatic, right? I think that as we have continued to learn more about baseball, especially as we've been able to like measure more things, we have realized that like some of the received analytics wisdom was like mostly right, but but maybe limited in its applicability. or maybe we were too dogmatic about some things and maybe, you know, maybe there is a time every now and again where like it, it does make sense to bun, actually, you know, and not in a sacrifice way, but like we, there's a little bit of a baby out with the bathwater, I think, in the early days.

Bunting for a hit. That's fun. That's exciting. That can sometimes be smart. Yeah. But it became sort of a casualty of the like never bun hit dingers. And it's like, well, never bun in these circumstances. And so I think when folks who.

are understood, not that you were necessarily so dogmatic, but what are understood to have sort of been around for a while, are able to say in a way that isn't like defensive, hey, here, you know, I was maybe wrong about this part of it or I didn't, you know, I didn't anticipate like how far it would go and this version of it is bad. And it's bad not because it's like not analytically sound, but because like it's interfering with the aesthetics of the game. And so I think rather than reading it as an opportunity grift, what you're really seeing is sort of like the maturation of a conversation that has been in progress for a really long time. And I also think there's just like an appetite culturally for people to be like, I was wrong about that. Here's what I think now.

And like not go and ruin CBS News. And I tried to tie it into just larger trends and work. all feeling just constantly bombarded by the algorithm or the AI or whatever it is. And so maybe this is sort of a manifestation of that trend. It's at least adjacent to it. And my argument was not purely aesthetic. It was also based on, well, what effects do you think this has on the game if you're arming the defense that already has a leg up with all of this extra information.

So it was a multi-pronged approach. But I think that my background, it made me an effective messenger. for this position because I had the credibility coming from a former true believer, the guy who co-wrote a book about stat nerds being in the dugout and running a baseball team and is now maybe saying, perhaps we've taken things too far. So, you know, maybe this was this was simmering. This was percolating. It just needed a standard bear. You know, I hesitate to say hero, but someone, I think had to step up and sort of knit these threads together. And it was incumbent upon me. So now, you know, I will let other people pick up the mantle, perhaps, and carry this forward. But I actually,

I heard from the purveyors of this information, I heard from people who work for front offices. I heard from someone whose job it is to prepare the cards or work with the cards in some capacity and was very conflicted and was trying to reconcile the fact that their job actually pertains to the preparation of these cards. Yeah. And yet they also sort of agreed with me. And so I said, well, your only option, ethically speaking, is just to symbolically burn all the cards and quit and just walk off the job. And they said pass.

And I said there. But, you know, I think the fact that even people who are sort of on the inside that, that some of them. I was hearing via back channels from people saying, you know, I can't come right out and say this. No. It's just too sensitive for a person in my position. But here, here. Here, here.

That you spoke up. And when I do these deep dives, I like tying it back to the history because there is always precedent for everything in the world and certainly in baseball. And this strain of thinking, it's not new, either the strain of thinking, that I am rebelling against or the strain of thinking that I am expressing. And I feel like there are kindred spirits throughout history. One of the reason why I like doing these newspaper deep dives and archives, it's like these people who are long gone who had the same thoughts that I did. And maybe that makes me feel less special or original.

But it's also kind of reassuring to know that these are common to the human condition. It's like when I wrote a few years ago about how maybe MLB should widen the foul lines, because outfield defense has gotten too good, maybe partly because of those positioning cards. And so to bring Babip up, you just make more fair territory. And then through my research, I discovered that I was the latest in a long lineage of visionaries who had dared to dream big about bigger fields with wider angles. Now, it made me realize that I'm fighting a losing battle here because this war has been lost on all fronts for more than a century, and specialization is essentially undefeated.

And whenever you're going to get an edge, then you will. But it was sort of heartening to know that there have been people resisting from the start. And in fact, at the very beginning, I won't go through all the history because it's very involved. But it was quite controversial when coaches and managers would give signs at the start. There was absolutely a position, a belief system that said only the players, only the people directly involved should have. have this sort of input, this sort of influence on the game. And that's partly because the role of the manager has evolved. And often they were sort of business people at the beginning or logistical people. And one way this evolved, one reason why we still have managers wearing uniforms is because

player managers were so pervasive. So you had this nebulous distinction between players and managers at the start. They were often one in the same. And there was a moment, though, in late 1878, just early in National League history when Hallfamer Harry Wright, who had been a great player manager but was now retired as a player and was still coaching or was managing the Boston National League team was banned from the bench. And all managers were because of Wright, because his opponents were saying, well, this is like we're facing 10 men now. He's not even in the game and he's over there helping them out and he's coaching their base runners and everything. This isn't fair. we're outmanned here.

And so they actually did take steps to say, no, you can't be on the bench if you're a manager. And that didn't last very long. And by the early 20th century, it was sort of cemented as, yeah, managers are going to do this in one way or another. And there have been many experiments throughout history with coaches or managers calling pitches from the dugout.

This Marlins initiative that has now been adopted by a bunch of teams. This seems to be more sweeping than in the past and certainly more data-driven. But there have absolutely been teams that have dabbled in this forever. But just saying you pick up on these echoes when you study any sort of history, but certainly a sport, yes, with the deep history of baseball, because people are always up in arms about the same things over and over and over again. And now that I have studied history, I am I am doomed to repeat it nonetheless, even though I am aware that I am repeating it. But, you know, I just got to fight the good fight about this one, I think, even though it's probably a losing battle. Also,

one last WBC thing here. We got this question. This sounds like something that could probably be answered with some sort of rigor, and perhaps this could be a Dan Simborski-style question. But we got a question about projecting WBC performance for future WBCs,

presumably, hopefully in 2029, we will have another WBC. And we got a question from Chris, who said, I was hoping you'd make the jump after your team preview series from thinking about the window to compete with such and such player core from the big leagues

to these world baseball classic teams. Obviously, Akunya Jr. Being healthy and in his prime meant this was a window for Venezuela and they had talent around him to compete on the field, at the bat, in the bullpen, etc. I have a feeling this will be a model

for other baseball nations, Puerto Rico and Korea in particular, but also countries that can rely on Caribbean associations like the Netherlands and England that look to get a piece of this championship down the line, who can we get together for this run type of thinking? Italy obviously did their research in this regard,

this go-round, as did Canada. So yet, recruiting obviously matters a lot. And that's why Italy and Canada did better. They just had stronger rosters. They had more major leaguers. They were projected to do better before the tournament began. And so maybe there really is an edge toward identifying candidates, players who might want to play in the WBC,

might not even immediately think of your squad as the one. But hey, if they don't make this other one, we'll be ready to swoop in potentially. But also this idea of just who had a championship caliber core that could compete in future WBCs. And I haven't really broken that down. Presumably one could look at the average age and project what will these guys be like in 2029.

You know, that's why I was saying this is Taylor Made for Day. potentially, but that's interesting to consider now that this is such a meaningful event for everyone. You could kind of forecast there's so much uncertainty about who'll be available and who will be willing, at least, but now that there's a little less uncertainty about will players want to participate, it'll be about, well, are they healthy, are they free, but also are they still good? Are they still in their prime who will still be viable candidates for that team. It's like people were saying about Salvador Perez. Well, this is probably his

last WBC. I don't want to doubt Salvi, the ageless Salvi. But, yeah, there are certain teams that are younger and probably built for the future. But then again, when you're projecting anything three years out, the error bars are so big that who's even to

say who the best candidates will be at that point. So I think this would be a pretty error-prone exercise, but it would be interesting to evaluate. Who might actually stack up better. And it might just turn out to be, well, the perennial powerhouses, probably. Because, you know, like, well, they're going to have Leodivri's or whoever coming along, right? It's just there's going to be a next generation for the Dominican team or the Venezuelan team or whatever it is.

So probably it'll just amount to, yeah, it's the typical powerhouses, just power housing. But if there's anything to the chemistry, the having been there before, which I kind of doubt that there is, but, you know, maybe you could say that a team would have an advantage from having bonded around the old espresso machine once before and going back into the breach. I think it would be an incredibly difficult exercise prior to having confirmed rosters. And then, of course, like, you have guys who maybe you can count on playing for sort of less well-established international programs, but you don't have like a base of. stats to project from.

Like, for guys who are primarily professional at other things and happen to come together for the WBC, you wouldn't really be able to say much. Now, you might be able to say a lot by virtue of that fact. And maybe you don't need a projection system to be like the team that has an electrician on the mound. They're less good than Japan. It's like, well, yeah. I mean, tell me something else.

I don't know. But it would be, I think it would be a fun. exercise. I know that the Dan is keen to do some amount of projecting for it. And at least as it pertains to teams whose membership is, is primarily constituted by folks who like have pro experience in other leagues, even if it's not major league baseball, the only instance we're referring to MLM. It doesn't matter. I was going to do a pedantic thing. And then I was like, that's annoying. Don't do it. I think that you could say a lot and it might be kind of illuminating. But I also, I think part of what makes the WBC fun is that it does have pretty big error bars.

But even though you have a good sense of who the good teams are going in and like you do end up having a lot of, you know, sort of consistency. And once you get out of pool play, that there is potential for, you know, it'll lead a pop off and do little kisses and opera. Yeah. I like that there's uncertainty. I think it sort of heightens the atmosphere in a way that's pretty fun. Yeah. And one other thought I had last thought for the nonce about international baseball, but it's reminded me because you were talking about the Japanese team. And there's a slight tweak to the playoff format in NPB where they have this tradition of the ghost win so that the higher-seeded team in the NPB playoffs starts with a one-nothing advantage.

So the higher seed has to win only three games, whereas the lower seed has to win four games. And then if there's a tie, the higher seed has to win only two games after that. So they have adjusted that where if the one seed wins the pennant by 10 or more games, they will receive two ghost wins instead of one in the climax series final stage, which is not actually the climax. but if a sub-500 team qualifies the pennant winner also gets to Ghost Win. So if there's a huge mismatch, then the favorite gets an edge. And this is something that I know has come up on the podcast before when there's been playoff randomness and when there's been conversation about, is there too much randomness? And are we rewarding teams for being good in the regular season enough?

Because sometimes you'll have a team that was better than some other team in the division or whatever or a team that it beat out in the wildcard race and then suddenly it finds itself playing that team in a short series and losing to that team. And you think, well, what was that prior six months for? Right, right. And people sometimes suggest, well,

what NPB does is it gives the better team a leg up and an extra phantom win. And I think that the American mind cannot comprehend this. This is, it turns an entire country into Michael K. Our brains don't work so good. Yeah. I don't know if it's just like the wanting to have some sort of fiction of a level playing field or what because in NPB they have ties too, which I'm fine with ties if the alternative is zombie runner.

But again, the American mind rebels don't like always got to have a winner. Don't they have ties in hockey? Can you have a tie in hockey, right? In some sports. In regular season hockey? There's, yeah, I mean, there have been all sorts of right. You can have them in football. Yeah, the format has varied.

over the years. And, you know, they have like a points system, of course, in hockey. So now... Right. This is why I can never understand hockey rankings. I'm like, I have no idea who's good in this. Sorry. They don't have ties anymore. They used to have ties in the NHOM.

So you know, you do shootout? Then there was shootout and then there's overtime and there's like three on three. And, you know, they have their own version of the zombie runner. Right. That's right. Okay. And then, yes, there are the points. So...

Go cracking. But, and there's some wrinkles to this new playoff format. I saw someone else mentioned that the series gets extended along with that to win advantage. So the advancing team needs five wins in this scenario. So the pennant winners don't start halfway to advancing. They still need to win three. Yeah. So it's clever.

I guess it does the trick. But I think that it would just never be accepted here. If you were just like, well, you win a certain number of games. and you're facing some 500 club that just squeaked into winning a wild card. So therefore, you will start with a win. I think people would hate that and would object and would say, well, this defeats the purpose of having a whole random tournament, which arguably is true, I suppose. You could also say, well, doesn't it defeat the purpose of playing the whole regular season not to have some sort of advantage other than maybe home field advantage? So I just, look, I like that people have different baseball traditions and that countries do baseball differently.

And sometimes we can learn from each other. And sometimes the cultural barriers are just too high for them to be transcendent. But it is an interesting idea to keep in mind. Next time we're doing playoff randomness conversation, this is one potential solution. Okay. Okay. So we mentioned that we would tease the roster cuts and who made the opening day roster and who didn't. Obviously, some notable decisions here, some controversial decisions led by the fact that the Colorado Rockies have released John Brebia. He did not make the opening day roster. Do you need a minute?

I've had many minutes since I saw this news. I love how we're making this about you and not John Brebribe and not having a chance. I know. I hope he's doing okay if he's listening, which he probably isn't, but it's not inconceivable that he might be listening to his number one fan podcast. But this was another case where 20 people sent this to me and said, I hope Ben doesn't see this. What? You, not that this was going to evade my notice. There is no way. You did bring it to my attention. But yes, he has been released from his minor league deal. I don't know it hadn't been reported whether he opted out. But. But. it became clear, I guess, that he was not going to make the opening day roster, which that's a tough pill to swallow probably if you can't crack the Rockies roster. And, you know, we talked about this on our Rockies preview, and he had been pitching pretty well. So maybe it's not the best sign for your career prospects.

Maybe he'll be more available for podcast appearances, potentially. I guess that could be a silver lining. But, yeah, condolences to John. Hope he catches on somewhere if he still cares to. but slightly bigger headlines elsewhere, major prospects either making or not making the opening day roster. So JJ Weatherholt made it for the Cardinals. Not a surprise, but was expected and did indeed happen.

Kevin McGonigal made it to the Tigers. So that's your maybe number three and number two prospects, perhaps. They're starting the season on their team's opening day rosters. and then the number one, he is not jeopardizing your prediction about him, perhaps surpassing Mike Trout's rookie season war total, which was in some jeopardy because it was quite bold, which was in keeping with the exercise. That's the point. He will not be making the pirates. He has been moved to minor league camp. Yes.

Doesn't mean that he couldn't make it soon. He could be up soon. It really depends. Obviously, if you were to sign an extension, I imagine magically some of the pirates' reservations could be overcome. But also, there's the prospect promotion incentive. This is not necessarily a have to wait months until like super two deadlines or whatever. Like, you know, we have the prospect promotion incentives now. And the pirates did not immediately promote Paul Skien's either.

And then because of those incentives, or, you know, he got an extra year of service time. because he was so good and so decorated. Right. So in a sense, I guess it, you could say that it backfired that the pirates were not aggressive in promoting him sooner. But then again, who's to say? Maybe he benefited from that time. It has worked out quite well, at least in terms of his development. Yeah.

So I don't think this is a case of clear service time manipulation or the pirates cheeping out necessarily. It's disappointing because, of course, everyone wants to see Connor Griffin showing off. and hit him onsen and his huge neck. But I think it's understandable and defensible because he is so young. He is so inexperienced at the higher levels. And also, he didn't have a very good spring training. He didn't.

Which means only so much, but it means something if you want to crack an opening day, big league roster, despite barely having any upper level experience and still being a teenager. I think this is fine. I do think, you know, the prospect promotion incentive and the way it interacts with Super 2 is a little interesting

because the pirates from an incentive's perspective, I think they basically have like two weeks to get him up and still put him in position to accrue enough time and for them to get a pick if he ends up being rookie of the year. And then there's an argument to be made that like, if you don't bring him up then, maybe leave him down until he's for Super 2 so that you don't risk him getting risk.

I'm doing your quotes, him getting a full year of service and you not getting a draft pick. How they sort that out, I think, will be determined by a number of factors, not the least of which is how he responds to, you know, the high minors. But I don't think that this is like a is really evidence of service time manipulation. And we all know, I'm very happy to call that out when I think I see it. But like he is not yet 20. He turns 20 at the end of next. month, a month from today, in fact. Happy early birthday, Connor

and your big neck and has played, you know, 21 games at AA and he hit a buck 71 in spring. So I think that if Connor Griffin had come to spring and lit the world on fire that he would have been their

opening day shortstop and I imagine that they have, or at least I would hope that they have sort of learned from their experience with skeins where it's like, hey, you might end up like just with this guy getting a year of service anyway, and you getting nothing for it, but really impressive play. And so I imagine that that will inform something of their strategy going forward, but I don't,

I don't think that Connor Griffin forced the issue. He hit some bombs, obviously. He had some. The tools were pretty apparent. Right. You can see why this guy is going to be a good big leaker. If that was apparent in camp, you also could see that he was, like, overmatched. I don't think that that will be true for very long.

It wouldn't surprise me if he doesn't take all that long to adjust to the high miners and is good and ready soon. But I also think, you know, we are, we've gotten used to, like, guys coming up and lighting the world on fire right away. And sometimes they do that, and it's awesome. And sometimes they take longer to adjust. And we, we tend to kind of overreact in both directions candidly. but I think because there have been so many recent examples of players being really good from day one,

that we tend to forget that the, you know, baseball is littered with examples of guys who were rushed, and it goofed up their development. And then they weren't right again after that, you know. And so I think that when you're looking at someone who you rightly know is going to be like one of the faces of your, franchise that you can't screw around. Like you need to take his development seriously. And sometimes teams don't take a guy's development seriously in the other direction where it's like he doesn't have anything left to prove at AAA and he needs to be tested by the

majors. Get him up there so that he can make the adjustment and then be a good big leaguer. But I don't think that that's what's at play in this particular circumstance. And I promise I would say, I would be like those dirty pirates and they're dirty service time tricks, but I, you know, when a guy hits 171 in spring, you know. And he sort of slumped at the end and lots of whiffs and yeah. Give him time to marinate. He struck out almost 30% of the time.

He barely walked. You know, like let him, he hit for big power. Like, boy, we weren't kidding. Like, that's in there. And we saw that even with a 28% strikeout rate. But, you know, I think making sure that. you are guarding his development and guarding his future in the franchise is that's like an appropriate stance to take you can be irresponsible in the other direction the part of this that is

i imagine frustrating to pirates fans is that like their sense that there is urgency here for the big league team to be good that's not a false sense right you time the clocks a ticking on skeins and so i get you wanting to have like a really good, you know, five-tool guy to pair with him and hopefully push and be good enough on his own to like elevate the guys around him, especially the guys they brought in, and many of whom are like good, but more complimentary than like, you know, standout. But if you rush it and he gets broken by that, it's a disaster, you know? That's like people lose their jobs kind of stuff. And, you know, this is like a flawed cop in like 90 different directions.

And I will totally own that. But like, Mariners fans will tell you, you know, who wasn't ready for the majors? Mike Zinino. You know, who never could figure it out after that for very long? Mike Zinino. There was Trishers when he was good, as the Barbara boys will tell you. But. Yeah.

The Mariners are, they're doing the full court press PR campaign with the ads, which is obviously a trademark of the organization. I love the new. I love the new dad. I love the new dad one. I thought the new dad one was like kind of subversive in a way. Players in the clubhouse having tummy time. Yeah, with their kiddos.

Yeah. So they need to get Cal and Randy in one of these promos and make light of. Yes. And they are they are doing guys just don't force it. Okay. Like Cal they had a they had a video with. Cal Raleigh and Bryce Miller about Cal's bobblehead.

And it's delightful. And like, I just, you know, there's bias here to be clear, but I don't think he's, I think it's okay. I think you can like Cal Raleigh. I don't think it's like, it's not a, it's not a Brian McCann thing. It's okay.

No. But, yeah. We don't have to cancel Cal. Let's, uh, you know, if this was a blow, this was a setback. Oh, yeah. Public image. But, uh, let's, Give them a chance to redeem himself here. Let's all get back to talking about that ass and see how it goes.

Yes. Yes. So McGonigal and Weatherholt had better springs. They weren't set in the world on fire, exactly. But they were okay. And they're just more advanced. They're a lot older, years older, more polished, more experience under their belts. And so even if they are not quite as highly rated prospects as Griffin is, they're closer. They're ready, presumably. So that's the only thing.

it's hard. You have the anticipation. You want to see Griffin right now. Yes. And yes, when there is actually some competitive pressure on the pirates because they could be a fringy playoff contender and their number one weakness is offense. And Connor Griffin could theoretically supply that. And he has the, I think, second best fan graphs war depth charts projection on the team after O'Neill Cruz. But you don't want to jeopardize anything long-term, and this is someone who is going to be very important to your franchise and him coming up and maybe being the difference between a two-war guy or a one-war guy or something. I don't know. Maybe that ends up making the difference for the pirates, but probably not. So you want to just prioritize his development. Yeah.

He just has not had a ton of time. And a year ago, he wasn't nearly as prominent on the prospect radar as he has. now and there were all kinds of concerns about his game, which he just resoundingly answered ever since. But even so, yeah, not quite a finished product. I think we will see him soon,

most likely. And Fires Fins, understandably impatient, but also I think many of them had the perspective to see that, yes, it's a little disappointing. We want him now, but also we want the best for him. And maybe this wouldn't have been the best for him.

It's also extension season. And we'll see whether the pirates can get in on that. But we have seen Christopher Sanchez sign an extension with the Phillies. And who knew? He could get any longer. Reportedly, Pete Crow Armstrong has agreed to an extension. Hey, Cubs and PCA, you get to interrupt PPRs with extension talk and then you're not going to give us terms. What are you doing?

What are you doing? That's rude. That's rude business. reported to be close and it seems like it is but we don't know the terms but how interesting our extension terms anyway really like we look at the

comps and oh the service time and but for someone like PCA I think it has the potential to be interesting early career extensions are always more interesting to me than later ones because of what they say about the market and the perception of the

players of that same the Sanchez one is interesting because like they didn't have to do anything. He was under contract with options and stuff for another couple of years, but they were like, hey, you know who's really good? You. You should make more. Yeah, that was almost a salvi sort of. Let's tear this thing up or if not tear it up, at least tack on to the end to make you feel a little bit better about this. Yeah. And I, you know, that's nice when that happens. It doesn't happen very often. It's interesting, right? Because it's like teams, they're all about surplus value. Right. If you sign someone to a below market deal, well, you should celebrate

Right, that's the goal. And yet, when that player is good and prominent and important to your franchise, you also want to keep them happy. And sometimes keep them happy and sending a signal to other players to, hey, we're going to take care of you. Sometimes the maximizing the surplus value is not seen as the most beneficial move. I would also argue that there's likely still surplus value to be had in that deal. Yeah, you know what I mean? I think everybody's going to be happy to have Christopher Sanchez around for a while. think they're going to be like, oh, no. Yes, it will be interesting to see how much surplus value

there is in PCA's extension, just because that came up earlier this spring when, you know, he's a very quotable, engaging guy. And there was a feature in Chicago magazine about him. And he was asked about the extension. And I would have to have Shane bleep every other word if I read this quote. But he said, I'm cool with being under team control. He also said, you know, this might be worth just bleeping. League minimum ain't too fucking bad. But then he sort of salvaged it because, okay, that's relatable. Sure, league minimum, that is actually pretty darn good, especially at that age or any age, frankly.

But he is also aware of the fact that he's in a union and he has certainly responsibilities. And so he said, like, I play the game because I like beating other people in a fun way. Yeah, I know. The money will be life-changing regardless. Again, so he's sort of, you can hear his agent saying, Pete, stop, your leverage. It's epping away. But then he said, I would like to get a fair deal so I don't f*** the market up. I want to look out for the other center fielder's who have to go through the same process.

Yeah. Which is why I'm glad Cubs management and my agents are figuring out how to do this. So I like that because it was like, yeah, my impulse is, this is great money regardless of what the terms are. and I like playing baseball. So sure, sign me up. I want to stay here. But he does have the perspective and has been given the guidance to say,

yeah, but you should also look out for yourself here and also look out for comparable players and everything. So I wonder how he will end up balancing those competing concerns. Totally. But basically, what is exciting about an extension announcement is that the player signed an extension. And then, yes, we look at the numbers and everything. But the numbers are always low relative to,

free agent dollars. Right. I always find that's sort of funny, more funny than frustrating when terms of an extension will be announced on Twitter, for instance, like Passen or whoever. And then all the replies are like, why did he sign for that? Because they don't understand the economic structure of baseball and how you don't get paid until you are in your arb years and then free agency years. And so if you're signing an early career extension, you're not getting

free agent money, and that doesn't mean that you signed some massively below market deal. So there's always, and like Brent Rooker, when he signed one, he had to sort of explain to Twitter that this is how baseball economics work. I'm not just an incredibly terrible negotiator. Actually, this is not equivalent to when someone signs a free agent contract. I wish that the conversation around the extension thing, particularly when it's an early career player, focused more on how their money in that extension relates to what they might expect to make an arbitration rather than on the free agent market, you need to consider how much of your

actual free agency you are giving away. Giving away has a value judgment associated with it. You are, how many of those years are being occupied by the extension? Because even if it is a healthy extension, one where we're not like, oh, my God, this is malpractice on the part of your agent, you're still probably getting, the team's getting those years at a discount in all likelihood. So I think that you want to consider that piece of it, but the most like meaningful salary comparison is being, is like triangulating between, you know, your years at the league minimum versus what you might reasonably expect to be able to make an arbitration because I think that that people, and by that I mean like fans more than players or their agents because their agents

are keenly aware of this stuff. But you can make really good money in ARP, you know, even if you're not setting records, right? Even if you're not Scoobel or Juan Soto, like players can make really good money in arbitration. And there is sort of like labor pro social aspects to that, right, because then you're setting good precedence in the arbitration system for the guys who come after you. So like you have to consider that piece of it too, but the choice, again, depending on the terms, which we still don't have, you know? I said that, like, I'm the one who edited Michael's copy on this when it was Matt. Thank you, Matt.

Thank you, Bowman. Thank you to the rest of the paragraph staff for being such good, good folks at your jobs, while I am a PPR Gremlin. But the choice that someone like PCA is making is not between the league minimum and the free agent market. And oh, no, on your way to the free agent market, you fell down a pit. And now you're stuck in an extension. It's between sticking at the league minimum and then finding your way through arbitration

and not having to do the arbitration piece, presumably, with some free agent years bought out. So it is a little more complicated than that, I agree. Yes. Carson Benj also made the opening day roster. Benj, I've never said it wrong. of Mike Talkman, I suppose. Yeah, guys, don't get hurt. You're almost at opening day.

See if Atlanta can salvage some of its pitching staff. So many guys. Spencer Strider down now. Just see if you can keep your arms healthy for a couple more days. That's all it takes. And then they can still get hurt. But at least it will be in more meaningful games. My last stray observation here, my moment of Zen,

I wanted to relay a quote that I saw from the mayor of my city, Zoran Mabani. So this was about bus service. I have to get used to not reflexively reacting negatively to the mayor of my city when you're talking. Sorry. It's not. Well, it isn't trained just yet. This is relevant because the transition from his honor, Eric Adams, to Zerran.

What's that weird little guy doing right now? I'm sure something fascinating. Yeah. Something vaguely criminal in all likelihood, allegedly. Maybe so. But he can get away with that now. I mean, he could get away with it then, too, but fewer people are paying attention. Anyway.

Anyway. Put the politics aside here and just evaluate the quality of the quote. So Zoran was talking about bus service and about this particular Bronx bus service. And he said, unfortunately, as the mayor of New York City, I must deliver fast and reliable buses for Yankees fans as well. I love it. I can think of no better way to welcome the start of baseball season than by breaking ground. on a project that will make commutes faster, streets safer, et cetera, et cetera. Regardless of what you think of Zorn Mamdani's political positions, this is how you have to handle this. Yes.

If you are a talented politician, you have to embrace. Just pick your teams, man. Yes, because this is how humans relate to their sports teams for the most part. And if you want to appear relatable and authentic and sincere, you have to embrace that. And guess what? People will accept that and people will even welcome that. Because even if you're a Yankees fan, you're saying, you know, like game recognized game. Like this is okay.

This is how we feel about each other. You are haters. Yes. We hate you. You hate us. It's a sports thing. And if he were a Yankees fan, I would want him to say the same about the Mets. Like, this is what I would say in my own life.

It just makes you appear so much more like a normal human being. and many politicians are not normal human beings and maybe that is why they become politicians and one way that that gets expressed and Eric Adams was among the best slash worst at this with of course his abomination of a Yankees slash Mets hat just the embodiment, the epitome of fent sitting of refusing to take sides

and he had his sentiments and he had his loyalties but so many times the impulses to not take a position. And I did a hang up and listen segment about this some months ago where Jason Concepcion came on. And we talked about how Zarin Mangani had used his Knicks fandom during his campaign and had kind of embraced this. And meanwhile, Andrew Cuomo just refused to ever say anything that might be considered as denigrating another sports team. And when he was put on the spot, hey, whose game would you rather go to? or it's the finals or it's the World Series,

like which game you go into, whatever, he would always just do some mealy-moused. Well, you know, it's like Republicans buy sneakers two, Democrats by sneakers too. I'm not going to offend anyone by suggesting that I have a favorite team. And then, of course, you offend everyone. Right. Because you seem like some sort of person in a skin suit

who is trying to appeal to everyone and is not exhibiting anything remotely like human behavior. I'm sorry. We've seen this over and over and you had to hand it to, and a few people did, but Eric Adams's predecessor, Bill de Blasio. Yeah. He was a Red Sox fan. He was a Red Sox fan. And you know what?

He owned that. And that's a tough spot to be in as a Red Sox fan, who's the mayor of New York. There was one notable time when he donned a Yankees cap. But it was like during the pandemic as a show of solidarity. And there was like, you know, it was a vaccine site maybe in Yankee Stadium. or something along that line. It was, you know, lots of strange things happened during the pandemic that we would all rather forget.

Yeah. If it's a message of, okay, I'm crossing the aisle, I'm trying to bring everyone together because I will wear this hat. As long as you make it clear that this is not actually your loyalty and you're not kind of cosplaying as a fan of that team, you're not trying to pander to a fan of that team. And this just happens over and over again. Yeah.

And this was a whole controversy with Hillary Clinton and is she a Yankees fan and is she a Cubs fan and who's hat is she wearing? And there's probably some sexist stuff mixed up in there with like is she an authentic fan and prove you love baseball because you're a woman or whatever. But I'm just saying this is a masterclass.

This is how Zoran got elected. Despite having positions that many voters would have considered extreme. The guy's really relatable. The guy's charming. The guy has inspired Donald Trump of all people to seemingly have

a huge crush on him. He does seem like you really loves around it. This is political acumen at work. Yes. Just it's a good line, you know? Yeah. Even if you don't like the guy, you have to hand it to him for this line. Yes.

I think that we have an allergy, maybe one that's waning in ways that are kind of concerning, but I think in general people just have an allergy to phoniness. And it's really hard for the fence sitting to read any other way. Now, in the case of Eric Adams, it felt like the latest loop in a rich tapestry of strangeness that Batman was, I, you know. That did redeem it a bit because it was. Because he was just such a weird guy. It was just one more manifestation of his strangeness. I know he did real damage to your city.

I know he was a bad mayor. I know that, you know, it appears. based on the publicly available evidence that he did some crimes. But I do miss him, you know? I am on record as just like generally, really wishing I knew a lot less about New York City mayoral politics because it's, don't get me wrong, beautiful city, amazing place, loved living there. You're right. No one else has ever done a corner store.

But like, I don't live there. And I would just constantly be hearing about the. vagaries of Bill de Blasio. And I was like, I don't know. You don't need to know. You guys go and elect someone normal so I can stop hearing about this. And then you all took that as a challenge to elect the weirdest man alive.

Yeah. And I want our weird politicians to be out of power so that we can appreciate their quirks without them doing damage. And now he's like trying to sell crypto and that part's less good. And look, don't do federal election crimes, okay? Don't do any election hearing nonsense, no political corruption. Just saying. You want an example of political instincts. Yeah.

Just the latest entry in that particular ledger. But yes, just be authentic. People have more respect for you if you just say, I don't like that team, you know? Or like, that's not my thing. You know? And I think especially New Yorkers are bred to believe that a little bit of rudeness is actually a way of saying that you love them. It's the New Yorker equivalent of a little kiss. I think I live there long enough that I can make a little bit of fun, a little bit of fun.

Again, one of the best cities in the world. I'm okay. You don't need to massage my fragile New Yorker ego. It's okay. You guys need to like chill out about some stuff though because, boy, most. special boys there have ever been, but good. And isn't basketball his main sport? Yeah.

Soccer. He's a big soccer guy, right? Yeah, I wouldn't say baseball is his number. He's not like a huge. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, yeah, like lived in Queens, Queens team. Yeah.

Underdog. It's like there's a, there's a consistency to this. That is good. All right. Yeah. Other politicians, like they're trying to take their cue from. Zoran in any number of ways. Why did his message resonate?

Welcome to our trash revolution. The one that really rolls around in my head is from the public safety videos he did when I think he was still with the NYPD and he's like something as simple as a crack pipe. The Eric Adams man, wow, just like really. So many memories. Welcome to our trash revolution. You want to understand the RIS, the personal appeal. Look no further. I don't know what Riz means still, but yeah, I think I got it.

Context clues. Well, we did get those terms on the Pete Crow Armstrong extension shortly after we finished recording. Six years, 115 mill. This starts in 2027. No team option. So he can become a free agent before his age 31 season. As Jeff Passon said, the lack of a club option in PCA's deal with the Cubs is rare.

This is by far the biggest guarantee. for a player with five years of club control that doesn't include an option. So they get four arbitration years, two free agent years. We will find out what kind of player he can become. And yes, cue the chorus of replies to Passon, pointing out that he'll be making less per year than Chris Bryant, John Carlos Stanton, calling it a steal. Why do I feel like that's cheap? One person said, well, because you don't understand service time.

Sick burn by me, I know. I will remind everyone one more time, vote in our preseason predictions game. Go to eWStats.com. Chris Hannell has gone all out. He has designed statuettes for the listener Victor's, which will be 3D printed later this year. Maybe you can get one if you participate. You know, speaking of one of our other competitions,

if I were not John Brebia's biggest fan, which I am, I might have mentioned that his release by the Rockies has some serious minor league free agent draft implications because he was Ben Clemens' fourth round pick. But because I am John Brebeah's biggest fan, I would have happily accepted a boost to other Ben's team if it meant that Brebeah could be back in the bigs. I will say eight of my 10 draftees

are currently projected for Major League playing time on the Fangraph step charts. Could I go 10 for 10 again? Can lightning strike twice? I dare not dream. Quick correction, I mentioned in my preseason predictions

that if the AL East produced four playoff teams, that was one of my bold predictions, that it would be the first time a division had ever done that? Not so. In 2020, the NL Central produced four playoff teams. 60 game season, 16 team playoffs, Cubs, Cardinals, Brewers, Reds, all bounced in the first round. Barely counts.

But yes, technically, that did happen. In my defense, I was cribbing from an athletic article that also seemed to have forgotten that bit of lore, but hey, didn't we all voluntarily or involuntarily forget plenty of things that happened in 2020? Oh, and other Ben's theme in the preseason predictions game, there was something that was uniting his predictions. He kept it a mystery, but the mystery has been solved. and he announced it, it was players from ACC schools.

Obviously, that was lost on me. Seen a disconcerting amount of speculation about Bowman's prediction, about the erotic fiction featuring Tony Vitello. Very worried that the observer effect will come into play here, and someone will tamper with the sanctity of the predictions by producing that fic themselves. I hope that doesn't happen, though. Let's just let the experiment play out.

Finally, if you want more of me and Meg, she joined me on this week's episode of Hang Up and Listen. We did a fun little baseball season preview segment, which didn't duplicate our 15-episode-long season preview series on Effectively Wild. So go check it out. I will link to it. And if you want more Me and Meg on Effectively Wild, well,

you're going to get some for free in the middle of this week. But the third episode of this week will be for Patreon supporters. There is still time to sign up at patreon.com slash effectively wild. Speaking of which, it's the traditional time to plug that. You can go to patreon.com slash Effectively Wild. Wild and sign up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount. To help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad-free, and get yourself access to some perks, a pretty big perk, as have the following five listeners.

And we've had an influx of new names since our announcement, so it'll take me a while to work through these. But let's start with the very iady, Benedict Brothers, Chad Jobin, Maddie B, and Norbert Hartz. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks now include access to a full regular episode of Effectively Wild every week, Monthly bonus episodes, playoff live streams and a new in-season live stream, access to our Discord group, shout-outs at the end of episodes, potential podcast appearances, personalized messages, add free FanGrafts, memberships, and so much more. Check out all the offerings at patreon.com slash Effectively Wild. If you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. If not, you can contact us via email.

Send your questions, comments, intro and outro themes to podcast at Fangraphs.com. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube music, and other podcasts. podcast platforms, you can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild. You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at our slash Effectively Wild. And you can check the show notes in the podcast post at Fancrafts or Patreon or the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we cited today. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. Happy quasi-opening day.

We will be back with another episode soon. Talk to you then. Can you effectively sort through? with these stats and players in your head