Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2495: Rank Amateurs

Episode Date: June 23, 2026

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Joey Meneses and John Brebbia being back in the big leagues, Mike Trout’s hamstring strain, Dillon Dingler’s dominance, a Blue Jays All-Star voting update, the latest Home Run Derby format change, MLB’s radical amateur drafts proposal, the DOJ’s MLB investigation and the York Revolution’s Pride event, Rafael Devers vs. Tony Vitello, and the struggle-bus swan songs of Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander, plus (1:40:06) a postscript. Audio intro: Xavier LeBlanc, “Effectively Wild Theme” Audio outro: Garrett Krohn, “Effectively Wild Theme” Link to MLB.com on Meneses Link to MLBTR on Meneses Link to MLBTR on Brebbia Link to Ben on Meneses Link to Brebbia on EW Link to “Cecilia” Link to MLB.com on Trout Link to latest All-Star tallies Link to AL “as 2B” leaders Link to “primary 2B” leaders Link to team OF rankings Link to AL WAR leaders Link to FG framing leaders Link to Savant framing leaders Link to on-pace leaders Link to catcher batting leaders Link to Derby report Link to Derby format wiki Link to The Athletic on MLB’s proposal Link to ESPN on MLB’s proposal Link to Cohen tweet Link to BA on MLB’s proposal Link to Dan S. on MLB’s proposal Link to DOJ investigation story Link to DOJ investigation story 2 Link to player reaction to investigation Link to York Revolution statement Link to York Revolution news story Link to York Revolution wiki Link to York Revolution news segment Link to Teter clip Link to story on Treinen Link to Manfred letter Link to York County voting results Link to York County voting story Link to Devers/Vitello interaction Link to Devers/Vitello story 1 Link to Devers/Vitello story 2 Link to MLB.com on Scherzer Link to Verlander quotes Link to Verlander’s 25 things Link to Upton story Link to Verlander’s pitching splits Link to Fleisig paper Link to “tree of liberty” quote Link to “rigor mortis” quote Link to Worthington obit Link to Episode 1505 Link to Shreiber obit Link to Draft No. 4 Link to One Writer’s Beginnings Link to Red McDermott at B-Ref Link to Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed  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

Joey Menaceus, Bobby Shands, Bobby Shands, Effectively... Joey Manessus, walk off three-run digger. Stop it. Walk off three-run shot. Oh, my God. Meg, he's the best player in baseball. Effectively wild.

Hello, and welcome to episode 2495 of Effectively Wild Baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of the Ringer, joined by Meg Raleigh of Fancrafts. Hello, Meg. Hello. Well, if I sound in a chipper mood today, it's because former best player in baseball,

Joey Manessas and John Brebia are both back in the big leagues, double whammy, Manessus and Brebia back, and all is right with the world. Not that last part. Well, yeah. It's far from being all right with the world,

but these two particular things, all right. I am quite pleased. pleased that Menessus and Brebe are back. I'm just going to say citation needed on the rest of it, but I am curious, do you think you're happier about it than they are? Probably not, but close, right? Probably not. Yeah, it's kind of a photo finish situation, I think. But yeah, I really did not expect to see Mr. Manessus back in the majors again, because it's been a while.

Oh, boy. Caught myself in the middle of it, but a little too late. He hadn't been in the big league since 2024, and now he's on the A's after slugging 348. Well, he batted 348. He slugged 539. 348, 401, 539 in an extremely nice 69 games in the minors prior to the call-up. Pacific Coast League, thin air, don't care, count it. He's up on the A's. And Brebia is up on the Rockies.

Of course, he started the season with the Rockies, sort of, or he was with the Rockies this spring, and then he was with the Twins, and then he was cast loose or opted out, and then went back to the Rockies. And it would not be an exaggeration to say that I have been checking Brebia's box scores daily. It's appointment viewing for me, just because... Brebia, you're breaking my heart. I'm checking your box scores daily. That doesn't scan, really. It doesn't scan. It's not right.

I've been listening to a lot of Paul Simon lately because I'm going to see him next month. So Cecilia came to mind. I didn't continue singing both to spare everyone and also because the next line would be, Obrebia, I'm down on my knees. And I thought I should probably stop where I stopped if I ever hope to have him back on the podcast. But he was pitching up a storm for the Albuquerque isotopes in AAA after he had returned to the Rockies. He had, I think, an eight-game scoreless street going for them, which he has now extended to a ninth game in the big leagues because they called him up and he pitched a couple scoreless. So I'm pretty pumped to have these two guys back for however long it lasts, hopefully the rest of the season slash time.

But really nice to be reunited with these two today. Well, you know, it's funny in the case of Manessus at least because you're like, hey, it's a PCL. but like, I don't know, how does his new home ballpark play, right? Right. Yeah. Not the worst. He's really just acclimating. It's getting used to things.

It's, it is a little, they've had a real flurry of moves that he's team in the last couple of days, both on the hitting and pitching side. We see Reno, 60 Day. Not the best. Not the best. It's too bad they didn't call them up in time for that Las Vegas visit. Oh, my gosh. juice the stats further. Can you even imagine? I'm sure he'll hang on and still be a staple in the lineup when they move to Las Vegas permanently. So that's something I look forward to. Anyway,

I was riding high because of those two call-ups, and I guess the price of this is everything else that's wrong with the world, but specifically Mike Trout going on the IL, which we had warded off for so long. He had missed but one game. And now he's on. on the IL with a hamstring strain, which he suffered while running out a ball. Never do that. Lolligagg everyone at all times. Never hustle.

You won't get hurt. And it's sad because he was still keeping up a pretty impressive performance and durability. And now his availability for the All-Star game is in question, which is especially sad for him because it's going to be played in his other. home park basically in Philly. And so, you know, he's excited about being an all-star near Millville. So fingers crossed, hamstrings cross that he can come back. And he declined to put a timeline on things because he said, if I put a timeline on things,

I've done that in the past. And it's just frustration, whether you do hit it or don't hit it. We've been there, Mike. He's not questioning the entire concept of timelines the way that Aaron Judge was. He's not a time frame. truther. He's just saying for him personally, he finds it unhelpful, so

we can keep our expectations in check. He did seem to downplay the severity of it and said it got a lot better even overnight after he suffered this injury. So here's hoping that he can be active by next month. But yeah,

come back soon, Mike. Do you think he's done enough that he would be an All-Star regardless and they'll just name an injury reserve? I think so. Yeah. Now, he's not a Blue Jay, which will hurt his chances. But for our non-Patriot sports, we had an extended discussion last time about All-Star voting

and the history of certain teams being overrepresented in All-Star voting, prompted by Blue Jay's fans just really showing up to, as David Puddy said, you know, got to support the team. And they've really been doing that. Yeah, they sure have. And we talked about how they had basically the top spot or second spot on every position in the AL. And there has since been an update. Yes. We just got an email in our inboxes about the latest tally of All-Star votes. I was not aware about the new sponsorship for the All-Star voting.

But now I am, thanks to this email. It's kind of a crossover with my other podcasting occupation of video games because it turns out that it is not just the MLB All-Star balloting. It's the Konami E-B-B-B All-Star balloting. The update is that the Blue Jays have either widened their leads or narrowed the gap between them and their leaders. Ernie Clement is now leading all vote getters with more than two more. million votes. I love it. He's lengthening his lead. He's pulling away from the pack, Ernie Clement, as if he had Narda already built up a pretty big lead. He is just, he is lapping the league right now. Ernie Clement. And look, no disrespect meant to Ernie Clement,

you know. I think there should be more Ernie's, you know. I think Ernie is a fun, and that's a fun named to say, Ernie, you know, has sort of an old-timey ring to it. And as we've established, part of his vote advantages coming from the fact that he is getting the Hobbit contingent, because he looks like Tomlinagmonic Monaghan. I'm not saying he's unusually small as a person. He's six feet. But this, but Ben, here's the thing about, another thing to say about Ernie Clement, in addition to us liking his name. He has a 106 to be RAC plus. You know, He's been worth about a win by our accounting of things. He has seven home runs, you know.

He's hitting under 300. None of these things are bad. These are all, this is, I mean, I'm sure he wishes it were slightly better, but it's like, this is a useful, productive big leaguer, you know. I'm sure the Blue Jays are thrilled to have him, defensively versatile, as we know. But also, if we're being, like, really kind of honest about it, if we are applying a critical lens to the voting. We might suggest that the All-Star voting portal is the only website that works in the entire country of Canada. You know, that might be a thing we have to entertain that.

Like, the Internet is shut down but for the All-Star ballot. Nothing else to do. So they just got to keep clicking. So anyway, I remain steadfast. I think that some fan involvement in the process is good. We got emails in defense of fan participation in All-Star balloting. And I am not a of the opinion that they should be removed from the process entirely. I know a great many fans, including some of the folks who emailed us, they take the process very seriously. They want the All-Star team to be a representation of the best guys, you know, and we got a couple different definitions of what that means, both in our conversation, but also from some of our listeners,

but they wanted to be the best guy. And I applaud their careful consideration of the ballot and the field and also would just suggest that Ernie Clement's presence suggests not everyone is applying the same rigorous standard. They are satisfied by is Blue Jay or not Blue Jay. And then they vote accordingly. And to be clear, a fine way to interact with the process. You're a fan. You want to see your guys?

You like your guys. Those are the best guys as far as you're concerned. They're your guys. Yeah. But also. I'd appreciate a little perspective, not complete impartiality. just, you know, maintain some sense of who might other people want to see. Because you get to see Ernie Clement play every day.

That's a real treat for you. If you're a Blue Jays fan, you have that honor and privilege. Right. You should say, you know what, I don't want to share Ernie Clement with the rest of you. He's our special second baseman. You all got to appreciate him in the playoffs last year. He was so good. Maybe this is some belated reward for that.

Last time we talked about him last week, I noted that it was a weak field for AL second baseman. Yeah. I think he was third in war at the time. He's fifth or sixth now, depending on whether you look at his primary second baseman list or as second base, the actual games that he and others have played second base in no other position. So he's fallen down that list a little, but he has climbed the voting leaderboard.

And there's no stopping him now, I think. And so the Blue Jays are either first or second at every non-outfield position. in the AL, and they have also improved their standing in the outfield rankings. They now have three outfielders in the top 10, Dalton Varsho, Hesu Sanchez, and Miles Straw, our seventh, eighth, and tenth, respectively, on the outfields AL voting leaderboard. No. Trout still clinging to second there. So, anyway, it's extremely Blue Jays-oriented.

And I had forgotten last time that John Schneider will be managing the AL squad, of course, as is his privilege because the Blue Jays won the pennant last year. So it's just going to be one grand reunion. They can all just charter a plane together and fill up the whole cabin maybe. Yeah. I mean, it's just like among, and again, this is a crude, not a crude measure, but it is one measure among many we could apply to the question. But like you have to go down to 19th on the American League Outfield Leader Board

and here I'm using the positional split as outfielder, right? Maybe it's a little different to your point with primary. But you have to go down to 19th before you get to a Blue Jay. That's Dalton Varsho. I'm just saying, and in their, you know, ties ahead of Varsho. You know, he has the same war at this moment as, say, Wyatt Langford and also Henry Bolte and Cam Smith. and you know but but a tenth of a win separates him from jackaglione and and two a tenths of a win from colton cowser and taylor ward and wryly green you know and it's it's not a huge spread at this point you know there's a lot of compression in those there hills but i just you know what it would be nice to do i want you to decide blue jays fans like who are your most important guys and then maybe just concentrate your voting for them he's 14th for sure

is if you're in the primary position outfield or split. So I don't want to, you know, I don't want to. Yeah. The Blue Jays outfield collectively is smack dab in the middle, 15th in the middle, which you would never know, judging by the Jays representation in the top 10 here. But yeah, it's like when my daughter wants to take every toy with her when we leave the house.

Yeah. And I just say maybe you could pick two or something, you know, just pick a couple. They can have more than two well-stars if they want, but maybe not, maybe not, quite this many. So, you know, consider the entertainment value. Consider the privilege of being named an All-Star. Consider preserving the importance of it and making the honor something special as opposed to something slightly silly. Anyway, enough said about that. But one of the shames of it,

that maybe is overblown a bit, but third on the AL-catcher leaderboard for All-Star votes, is Dylan Dingler. Third. I know. And Dylan Dingler, you can't stop Dylan Dingler. You can only hope to contain him. And yet,

he has a little more than half as many votes as Alejandro Kirk. That makes no sense. And I'm as a big and appreciator of Alejandro Kirk as anyone but a Blue Jays fan. But this season, he has hardly played. He's hardly played. And he has been replacement level when he has. And meanwhile,

Dylan Dingler is almost single-handedly carrying the Tigers back to contend. intention. It's kind of incredible what he has been doing lately. He is the fourth most valuable player in the entire league. He is that good. He is not only has he swung a big bat lately, and we've sung the praises of Dylan Dingler before, and I know that we had Jason Benetti on, and he talked up Dylan Dingler, and I'm pretty sure on our preview pod this spring, we talked about how Dylan Dingler was just about the only tiger who did not decline offensively over the course of last season. He just got better.

And that improvement has only continued this year. He is not only posting a 141 WRC plus with 18 homers, which is more than he hit in 126 games last year, and that's in 70 games this year, fewer than 300 played appearances. And last year he was quite a good hitter, but he has really upped his offensive of output this year. And meanwhile, he is also leading the league in framing runs. So he's holding his own defensively, too. He's almost doubling the closest contender according to Fangraphs.

It's closer, according to Savant, but both sources have him at the top of the league or the top of the majors, for that matter. He has a 378 Wobah and a 400 expected Wobah. So if you're thinking, oh, is he getting lucky or something? No, not really. No, not really. He's just raking. He's just a star somehow.

And he wasn't a complete non-prospect. I know he was a second round pick. I know he played in a futures game. But he was not a top 100 guy. I don't think anywhere, really ever. And he has certainly surprised me. I know catchers sometimes come along late. They have a whole lot to learn.

But what he is doing here last year was his first full season, anything close to a full season, in his second season period in the majors. And now he's 27 and he is just completely tearing it up. So it's pretty impressive. It's also wonderful that third and fourth in the American League in FanGraphs War are Cam Schlittler and Dylan Dingler. Just names you see on MLP leaderboards. What names?

Just a general appreciation for Dylan Dingler and what he has done. And maybe he should get more All Starbribs. at least relative to Alejandro Kirk is all I'm saying. Yeah. Dylan Dingler. And to your point from last time, you know, look, I understand you love your guys the best you want to support them. They have a sense of pride and they're not completely like divorced from reality. Alejandro Kirk is intimately familiar with the season that he's been having.

What marked by, you know, not yet being up and running and then getting hurt and basically not playing. Like he knows that. I'm sure that Alejandro Kirk is well aware of how ridiculous it would be for him to make the All-Star team. Like it would be very silly. And as you said, we love Alejandro Kirk. This is no knock on Alejandro Kirk. It is simply an acknowledgement of reality, which is that the guy just hasn't played. He's been injured.

It's not his fault. He didn't join the circus. He's not, you know, he's not derelict in his duties. He's not getting reported to teacher as a truant. He's just been hurt. You've been hurt. Yeah. Yeah.

And he is not only leading all catchers in framing runs, but he is third in WRC Plus, and that's minimum 100 played appearances. The only two guys ahead of him are Ryan Jeffers and Ivan Herrera. And each of them has played about half as many games as Dylan Dingler has. So he's basically leading all regular everyday catchers in offense and defense. And he has missed, I think, seven Tigers games. I know we're sort of spoiled by what Cow Raleigh did last year, barely missing any games and hitting 60 bombs and all the rest of it. This is not quite cow level, but it's the next best thing. Cal was like a nine-war season.

And Dylan Dingler's on pace for 7.5-4 and is only getting better seemingly. And I would just say the following to Dylan Daylor. I understand that the tigers are in uncomfortable territory as far as their place in the standings and some tough decisions are coming Detroit's way and fast as it pertains to their posture at the deadline. But maybe take Cal's 20206 season as a cautionary tale and take some days off, buddy,

because it sure seems to wear. It sure seems to wear on them. And then they're not as good and then they get hurt. Yeah, not that the tigers can afford to be without him often. understand. That's, you know what, that's always the justification, though, isn't it? That's always the reason that they will take a day off. Yes, that's how you get yourself in trouble. It's true. That's how you get yourself in trouble. Well, one way or another, I imagine he will be selected to the team. And who knows, at this rate, maybe we'll get Dylan Dingler in the home run derby, which will reportedly feature yet another new format, which in this case is seemingly the old format. This news broke shortly after we recorded last week.

It just, it amuses me that we just cannot ever settle on a home run derby format for more than, say, two years at a time. If you just, if you go to the Home Run Derby Wikipedia page, there's a lengthy history section and then a lengthy format section where it chronicles all the changes. And if there's one constant with the homerun derby, it's that there is never a constant with the homerun derby. And we just tweak constantly and then we tear it up and we go back to what it was, which we all decided at some point that we wanted to change it. And then we change it to the thing. I guess it's a grass is always greener situation with the derby.

But reportedly, according to a athletic piece that was published here, hitters are. are now going to go back to swings and outs instead of the clock that we have had. So the clock has not been seen in the home run derby since 2014, I think. So we have now a number of swings rather than a clock. What I mean to say is the home run derby operated without a clock for the last time in 2014. That was the last time it was clockless. I was going to say, have I completely misremembered the derby? I got that back.

Yeah. So we're going back to what it was. And now they're going to get 20 swings in the first round and then 15 in each of the final two rounds. And there are always little wrinkles and bonuses. And if you homer on your final hack, then you can just keep going until you fail to Homer. And so it can be an infinite number of homers in theory if Dylan Dingler is up there. And then in the first round, ties are broken by whichever guy hit a longer home run. And then after that, in the second and third rounds, tie would be broken by three extra swings apiece.

So this has not been formally officially announced. And MLB and the union have not commented as far as I know. They're a little bit busy with other proposals and changes. Yeah, we'll get to that. But it's just so amusing to me that. that every time everyone says, we nailed it, this is it. We have perfected the home run derby.

Then a year or two goes by and suddenly, well, what if we could tweak this? And then suddenly we wind up with the system that we had previously that we decided we wanted to do away with. So it's just, I mean, there have just been little tweaks. Like literally, I think it was 24 and 25. It was stable. But before that, there were changes entering the 2024 edition,

and then it was the same format from 2021 to 2023, and then there was a change going into 2021, and it was the same from 2015 to 2019, and then there wasn't one in 2020. And so every few years, we just got to go back to the drawing board with the derby. And I do understand, I guess I sympathize, because there are always some complaints, I guess, is the thing. Even though I said sometimes it seems like,

We finally cracked it. No one ever really agrees that it's perfect. And you're never going to get everyone to agree on the ideal derby format. So you're just looking for a consensus, a majority, a plurality of some sort. Right. And this is presumably Netflix driven, I would imagine. Netflix has some significant input here because Netflix is broadcasting the derby. And I don't know whether the players wanted this too because the sluggers get gassed sometimes.

Yeah. Because they are. swinging an awful lot. Yeah. And from a spectator perspective, the thing that has bothered me and the thing that makes me mildly pleased about this, I guess, is that it was just frantic. Yeah. Because you were just doing it based on the clock, you were incentivized to swing as frequently as possible. And so people wouldn't wait for one ball to land before the next lob would be coming in there. And then the next meatball would be going out.

And so you wouldn't have any time to appreciate the trajectory of the dingers, which I think was a loss because it just felt so frenetic. And it was like, wait, where did that one go? And how far was that? And suddenly he's swinging again. And I can't keep track of this. And maybe in person, that's not so hard to manage. But when you're watching on the broadcast and you've got a kairon here and a kyrn there.

And there's a bottom line and there's stat cast stats. over the screen and everything. It's just hard to track what's happening. So part of me is pleased that we're going back to a set number of outs or swings, homerless swings. But there was a reason why we changed from that to what we have had lately, right? I guess part of which is that it took a really long time. Yeah, it could drag sometimes. Yeah.

And it still has. I mean, it's still like a real, it's a marathon. not a sprint. It's like you're really settling in. Even if you don't have Chris Berman out there, it's just, you know, you're in it for the long haul. Yeah. So maybe it'll be an even longer haul. But I kind of like it just in a keep it a bit more manageable for viewers at home. Yeah, I think it can, it can be really hard to sort of keep track of what's actually happening when it's purely the clock. It can really drag ass though. So that's like the, and not, you know, just when cal's in it i don't know quite what the right mix is i do think that the swing

format offers the greatest even with the clock from a from a home viewing perspective i think that the tension ratcheting is easier to follow with the swing format than the time format necessarily because it's really it's just so hard to keep track of like you're trying to watch both the land and the guy hit. And that can be kind of disorienting with the clock. I think it's just a lot easier to keep

track of where he stands and his potential to keep hitting homers if it's a matter of swings. But yeah, I can, it can kind of drag. But I'm with you. I think all of them are at least fine as formats go.

Ultimately, it's a very fun event that doesn't matter very much. right? And I know it matters to the guys. And it certainly can be like an important stage for a player like sort of announcing himself to a national audience. So I don't mean to downplay the role it can have in a guy's career. Like, you know, our understanding of Pete Alonzo was like fundamentally altered by his derby performance. Right. And even guys beyond that, like, remember Julio's good derbies? Like that was really cool. And Cal winning the home run derby had this like was like a part of his. narrative last year. And so it can, it can mean something to guys, and it can bring guys to fans' attention who they might not otherwise know. But ultimately,

nothing's being decided. Like, I don't think of the results of the derby as, like, determining my understanding of who the best home run hitter in the major is, right? Like, a lot of times, some of the very best ones don't even end up participating.

So, you know, I think that there's room for experimentation there. I hadn't thought about the Netflix of it all. So we are going to have a new crew for that. Hmm. I'm going to reserve judgment on that piece of, is James Winston? Why are we doing so much James Winston?

Why is he everywhere? I don't understand. They're putting him and Gronk on a soccer podcast. I'm sorry, but like, not our best and brightest necessarily, those two, you know? I don't believe he's on the derby crew. Because he was on the opening night crew, remember? Or he was there. We had to spend a lot of time with him during that game for reasons that I'm still not quite clear on.

So I don't know. Yes. It is a cast of thousands or at least several, though. We actually got an email the other day, offering us availability for interviews with members of the Netflix Home Run Derby announcing crew, including El Duncan, Anthony Rizzo, Matt Vasgirgin, C.C. Sabathia. Hunter Pence, Lauren Shahati, Michael Irvin. Just throwing in Michael Irvin. in there. Michael Irvin's on the end.

Why? You have to have someone from another sport, apparently, just to... Okay. It's a Netflix special. It's just, what if people don't like baseball?

Let's just throw a football player in there. People will capture the football audience. We have not exhausted our two sport athletes. You know what I mean? Like, that's the other thing about it. It's like... It's true. Can we at least get Dion or Bo or someone in there?

Brian Jordan? I don't know. Someone who played both, maybe. Anyway, so yeah, According to the athletic report, this was done in consultation with players in the league. Netflix sought feedback from the interested parties. And apparently the players were worried about getting wiped out. Players wanted this because they would wear themselves out trying to take as many hacks as possible.

If this does do anything to encourage more players to participate, then that might be worth it. If there are players who are worried that they're going to hurt themselves. retire themselves out and that made them more reluctant to participate. I would accept a different format, even an inferior format, if it meant a superior participant field. I don't know whether it will or not, but maybe. And I guess it does also mention that there's the opportunity to build some drama because you could step out before your final swing or something as opposed to just the clock

mercilessly counting down. Then again, that's why we want a clock to kind of keep it more. I guess pitch clock famously popular innovation in majoring baseball, maybe less so in the home run derby. But yeah, anyway, I wonder if it's just like, look, we've had the home run derby idea. The TV show was 1960 and the concept goes back before that. And we've had continuously a home run derby involving major leaguers for 40 plus years since 1985. So you'd figure haven't we fine-tuned this by now? but maybe it is a selling point that it changes every now and then

because you have a new generation of viewers and they think, oh, we could do this. And the old heads are saying, no, they used to do that. And we change to this. And believe me, it's better. But then more people will come in to say, oh, it's different, right? Maybe it's just changing it in any way because it's an exhibition and ultimately pretty meaningless.

Maybe just not having the same format makes sense. it more entertaining, regardless of whether the format is actually better or not. Yeah. I don't know. I do think you're right that probably the thing that is determining it more than anything else is the fact that it's on a different broadcast network than it was previously. Most likely. But hey, maybe that's an opportunity to reevaluate and say, is this still the way the best way? Is this the way we like it the best? I don't know. Well, one of these decades, centuries, we will nail this thing. We will all agree.

Ah, this is the perfect home run derby format. No, that'll never happen. Okay. Speaking of controversial proposals, we got some more exchanges ongoing here, but MLB made a proposal to the Players Association pertaining to amateur talent acquisition and development. And just blanket disclaimer here. This is early days. These are just first proposal.

This is just let's throw something out there and see if it sticks. And we'll start extreme and then we'll compromise. But even by those standards, this proposal, or at least part of it, was met with a chorus of condemnation, at least in the public sphere. and even going by anonymous quotes from, say, scouting directors, I don't know that I saw anyone really approve of this. I don't know if I saw a single person say, great idea, great proposal, MLB. I don't think this is for anyone except the MLB owners, and they are the ones who are dictating these things at this stage.

So that checks out. But this is a fairly radical overhaul, though I suppose in keeping with recent trends, but really taking it to an extreme to overhaul the amateur draft and the whole way that player procurement would work and also instituting an international draft, that's not the surprising part

because that was discussed at some length and in great detail in the last round of bargaining. And I wouldn't say they came close to an agreement, but they were close enough that they sort of broke it out from the other CPA negotiations about everything else. And they said, okay, we can agree on this stuff. Let's revisit the international draft in a few months and kind of kick the can down the road. And then they got to that point and they decided that they were still too far apart. And then they kicked it another four years down the road.

But there is at least some agreement on the part of both parties that an international draft might be acceptable, depending on the specifics, and they were still pretty far apart on how big the bonuses would be, and that's pretty important. But the players were receptive to the idea of an international draft. And I know that there were some objections even within the union because there wasn't great representation of non-American players on the bargaining committee for the players, the executive subcommittee. and there were players who said, hey, our interests, our thoughts are not being really represented here. So I don't know how that will all shake out. But in principle, they've at least kind of agreed

that there might be something to the idea of an international draft. And it's so complicated that it's hard for me even to say what the ideal solution is. But I think everyone agrees that the current state of affairs is not the ideal solution. Yeah. Yeah, you just, you don't want kids signing so young making these handshake deals when they're barely into their teens, if that, and then all the just exploitation that goes on and just, you know, even if they've ironed out a lot of the age and identity issues, there's still, it's just, it's a mess. And so maybe an international draft would help and would be a net benefit. I don't know. There's certainly some downsides.

So that's not the surprising part that they have brought that back and reproposed the international draft. But these amateur draft changes. Yeah, the domestic draft changes are profound. And some of them would be kind of fun, expanding the scope of which draft picks can be traded, for instance, I think would add an interesting dynamic to the exercise. but sort of in total taking together. I mean, I just think it's fundamentally a non-starter. This is a place where ownership interest and team personnel interests, to your point, often diverge pretty radically.

I also don't know anyone on the team side who is in favor of this particular approach. Some of it is concentrated in the scouting community, which has concerns about some of the aspects of this. get into the specifics here in a second. I don't know many enthusiastic player dev people who like it or are enthusiastic about it. So let's maybe run through some of the particulars here and then we can chat through potential ramifications. So the proposal would cut the draft further. Listeners might remember it used to be 40 rounds, went down to 20. Even before it was 40, it used to be 50, upwards of 50. It's just it's dwindling. But, you know, But the more modern incarnation of it that I think a lot of people were familiar with was a 40-round draft. Obviously, they only did five in 2020. They cut it down to 20 rounds subsequent to that. This would reduce it further to 12 rounds.

It would eliminate draft eligibility for high school players. It would impose a framework where you have both a distance from high school and age requirement. So draftees would need to be at least 20 years old and two years removed from high school, which means the idea of going one and done at a juco is over. As an aside, like this isn't getting going to be like the most sort of newsworthy part of this for a lot of folks. But I do really worry about what this does to the future of juco baseball. They were already getting hammered by NIL and not being able to compete in that space. and if you remove the incentive to go there because it moves up your draft clock,

I don't really understand how that's going to be a viable path for some of the best prospects. So now, on the flip side of that, you know, the part of this that is for guys who were going to go to college anyway, they are draft eligible in theory a year earlier, right? Yeah, after their sophomore year. After their sophomore year because there'll be two years removed. And there are draft eligible sophomores now. but they are relatively few and far between. It would also introduce a hard slotting system.

So right now, major league teams are allocated a bonus pool. And as our listeners know, no doubt know, those pool, the slot amounts for each pick are not hard-slotted. So you can reallocate money from some slots to others, depending on the draft strategy that you want to employ. So if you have a very high pick in the draft, which comes with a high slot value, but maybe you're not enthusiastic about the very top of the draft,

you can sign a guy under slot with your high pick and reallocate that money further down the chain to attract players who you think are better than where you would necessarily take them but aren't worthy of that top slot, right? So this does away with the current slotting system requires card slotting. The estimate based on what that reduction in pool would do is we would be looking at $400 million coming out of the draft pool just from this year to next year alone, right? Because

you're reducing the number of rounds. And so the draft pools would be correspondingly reduced. Part of the justification that is being offered for that is that part of the objection to the league's proposal around the international draft in the last CBA negotiation was that the pool values were quite disparate from one another, right? Where domestic amateurs were positioned to make a good deal more money out of a draft system than international amateurs. And so part of the league's justification for this is to bring those pools in alignment with one another have the same amount of money in them. I don't know that we're clear on the number of rounds that would be present in the international. national draft, so I don't know that we know exactly. I think they said 12 in that also was the proposal.

Yeah. But to put it in perspective, like the average domestic pool for draft bonuses last year was a little over 13 million under the new proposal. The average pool would only be like six and a half, a little over six and a half. And there were, I think, seven or eight guys last year, seven guys who on their own got draft bonuses in excess of $7 million. And like I said, there are changes around the way that the slotting system works. You would be able to trade draft picks.

This proposal does away with comp picks, which is more about the revenue sharing changes that were proposed elsewhere by Major League Baseball. But you would be able to trade picks. And there are, you know, restrictions on how many picks you can acquire, how many years in a row, you can trade away. first round selection. So they're, you know, they're putting some guardrails in there around that. It would change, you know, the draft lottery. It would change the combine situation. It would require greater participation in medical evaluations at the combine. It would change some of the stuff around Rule 5, which we don't have to get into.

The upshot of all of this, like why I think it's useful for us to think about how the league is positioning this, why the league says it's doing this, and then the reality of why the league is doing this. So the league says the reason you do this is, one, to bring a domestic and international amateur talent acquisition system in line with each other. You take care of the worst abuses in the international space. You sort of are further embracing Manfred's notion of one baseball, right, where everything is sort of coming together. It brings excitement into the league because these players who are going to be closer to big league ready at the time that they enter affiliated ball will debut sooner. It makes the draft more of an event.

It makes college players eligible a year earlier. And the majority of players, and this is true, the league's not blown smoke here, are drafted from the college ranks. So it gets those guys into affiliated ball sooner. It deepens the fan connection. And they are putting this forth as exclusively beneficial to the players. Can I take a counter position to that assertion? to that assertion.

I'll tell you what the Players Association said. Please. Their response was that these proposals, quote, are flat out bad for baseball and would cripple the next generation of players and damage the future of our game. So tell us how you really feel. So we just talked about Mike Trout. Mike Trout's a great example. Mike Trout was drafted out of high school.

He debuted in the majors in his age 19 season. Under the league's proposal, he would not have been eligible. eligible to even enter affiliated ball until a year later. Now imagine you're my trout. You're amazing. You're the best. You get drafted when you're 20. Let's say you only need a year in the minors to get up to speed. You're going to be ready to go after a year. So you debut, you know, sometime in your age 21 season. Your free agency timeline is now shifted back a year relative to what it was. don't get Bryce Harper in the majors at age 19. We don't get Juan Soto in the majors at age 19 because part of the other change to the international system is to delay eligibility for those players by year. So under the current system, you have to be 17 by September 1st of the league year in which you sign. Under this system, you'd have to be 18. You don't have to be 18 when you sign, but you have to be 18 by September 1st of the league year in which you sign. So you get pushed back a year. Now, I should also say, because I said that what are some of the good things college players get drafted

earlier, they also indicate that they will not seek a further reduction in the size of the affiliated amateurs in their next CBA negotiation. For now. They would keep it at 120 in the next agreement. But you know that they're angling to lower that eventually. So, and, you know, you're creating this gap where you have the same number of domestic minor league spots, but you have fewer drafted, like drafted guys. Now, there will be undrafted players who make their way into affiliated ball. And that is happening more and more now with the existing

reduction in the draft size, the size of the draft and the number of rounds that it contains. But, you know, will you be able to fill all 120 of those rosters the way you would? I don't know. So, you know, I imagine that further contraction in that space is certainly something they have in mind down the line. But the biggest impact that this has is that it just sets people's clocks back by a year or two. If you can't be drafted out of high school or if your international timeline is set back a bit. And I will say the following. The international space is so freaking gross. I don't know how I feel about the age change on that one.

And I want to think more about that before I like commit to a position. I'm typically anti-draft as a labor exercise, but the problems in Latin America are so pronounced that I'm more sympathetic to it than I would otherwise be because having 12-year-olds do some sort of handshake deal with a billion-dollar franchise is just so fundamentally gross. So, you know, I don't want to be too forceful in my objections on that side because I'm really up to your minds about it. if the league would just enforce their own fricking rules, maybe a draft isn't necessary, but they've shown very little interest in doing that and part because they want to draft. Dan wrote today about

the various ways he used Zips to sort of re-project some of the notable guys who have reached free agency at a very young age when they're 25 or 26 years old.

It makes a difference. Now, it doesn't take someone like Bryce Harper, from the $330 million deal he signed with the Phillies to $100 million deal, right? I don't want to overstate the magnitude on any given contract. I think that Dan had Harper's deal with his existing sort of demographic bits intact, right? So he comes in and debuts at the age that he does. He hits free agency when he does. Zips had him sort of projected for a 13-year, 300,

$14 million deal. So a little less than what he ultimately ended up signing for, but sort of within the ballpark. If you age him by two years, that projection goes from $314 million to $259 million. And if you age him by three years, it goes down to $224 million. We basically wouldn't have any prime age free agents anymore. Yeah. And it's rare to have them now, but you do still have some special dudes who come up so early that they had. the open market when they're still 26, 27, and then they really cash in, and then maybe that

lifts all boats because they get gigantic deals if they want to sign as long-term a deal as they can. And so MLB, I think, wants to tamp down that sort of spending and continue to make it so that free agency is generally seen as an inefficient place for teams to place their dollars. Now, if you don't care about that so much, you could care. about it from the fan perspective, which is that we would be deprived of phenoms. We would be deprived of seeing these guys who come up at such an early age because they're so precocious. Ken Griffey Jr. Under this system, he would have been Ken Griffey Sr. By the time he left, that's not true. That Sussex was taken. But by the time he got there,

he might not have been able to play with Ken Griffey Sr. And maybe he wouldn't have been nicknamed the kid because he wouldn't quite have been as much of a kid. And with someone like that, now obviously he wasn't at his peak when he was 19 or anything, but he was still already a really good player. And we know now in retrospect that we weren't going to get a super long career of productive Griffey after age 30. So it's pretty good that we got Griffey at 19 and 20 when he was still quite a capable player, an All-Star, even Gold Glover, etc. And so, and so, And so that excitement that we get out of comparing the pace of, oh, Juan Soto, he's got the most walks through age whatever, he's on a Ted Williams trajectory, or Mike Troud was off to the best start of anyone through age 27, that would be out the window. And it's a small number of guys, but those guys are the most exciting guys.

They're the most exciting guys. We would just lose at least a couple years of their career and maybe the most exciting portion. Like when Connor Griffin comes up and everyone's excited, Now, obviously, like, it took him a little time to acclimate and everything. But even Kevin McGonigal probably would have come along a little bit later. There's just, you know, it's not even just the teenagers. And there are some teenagers who maybe shouldn't have even been up at that age or at least probably shouldn't have pitched quite as much as they did at that age.

Doc Good and Felix, et cetera. But it's one of the most exciting things that can happen in baseball. And we would lose that. So even if you don't care about the economic issue, which we think you should, It would stink to lose out on that. And I say that as a certified college baseball sicko, who of course would be extremely excited to get to see these guys go to college and play it at my favorite level of the game. Right.

But most people were not connoisseurs of the college game. You were like, I can't believe I missed out on Connor Griffin at LSU. And I can't believe that Kevin McGonagall isn't, you know, a mainstay at Auburn. I can't believe that those things aren't true. me and Michael Bauman and a few others, well, this is actually, huh, okay, you're telling me more college talent. But even so, I'm kidding, of course. But even if you are a college baseball sicko, I think there are reasons to dislike this. I mean, there's just going to be such a pile up of people and roster spots. And of course, there's NIL, but most of the NIL money is not going to

college baseball players and young college baseball players and programs across the country. There's only so much NIL money out there for college baseball players. So I get the college baseball player development has improved by leaps and bounds. And some college programs are super advanced. And players are probably in as good hands with them maybe as they are with lower level affiliates in some cases. They're in good hands with them. Yeah. Yeah. But I think there's still a benefit to getting a guy in your system and having him all the way up the chain, even if he went to some school that's known for its excellent development.

It's still, it's a little bit different from just starting them young in your system and the way that you want to instruct them. And really, MLB's rationale here, and I'll link to some in-depth explainers if your head is spinning about all these proposals we're citing here. There are good write-ups. Jeff Passan and Kylie McDaniel did one. Yeah. J.J.'s was at Baseball America. Baseball America, yeah. Very thorough. And he walks through a lot of these knock-on effects.

So, yeah, there's, no one was fooled by this, you know, like that. I think that was the part of it that I found heartening. And that's not to say that, like, this wouldn't be a boon for college baseball. It would be because, yeah, it's definitely exciting to see, you know, a Connor Griffin-level talent anchoring LSU's infield. And it would be great to see Kevin McGonagle at Auburn. But I'd rather see Kevin McGonagall in Detroit. He's no Dylan Dinkler. but he's pretty good.

I mean, yeah. Who among us is Dylan Dingler, you know? What a name, you know? It's just really such a name. Dylan Dingler. Do you think that his parents were like, no, it goes well together, you know, Dylan Dingler. We want him to sound like a prohibition era gangster. It's good.

Dylan Dingler. It seems that way. But yeah, MLB stated his given name is actually Francis. Dylan is his middle name. So maybe they once. Francis Dylan Dingler? Now he sounds like even more of a prohibition era gangster. Oh, my God.

Yeah. He has chosen to go by Dylan. This is not a choice that was forced upon him. He had Francis available to him. Yeah, but I do not know this of Dylan Dingler. I am merely speculating. I think that sometimes people don't enjoy gender ambiguous names if they're going to be in a hyper-masculent setting. So I wonder if Francis just was confusing to some folks.

Well, MLB stated rationale here. the league's explanation for why it's doing this and why it's good. And as I've said, each side is out for itself and its own interests. It's a negotiation. That's what they do. That's what you should expect them to do. But the Players Association will generally say we're doing this because we think this is good for players or this is bad for players and this will cost us money and here's how much. Whereas MLB will never say that. MLB will never say we're trying to save ourselves some coin here. It's always because of the of competitive balance is always because of this or that.

And the stated objective here, quote, by creating a draft system centered around college-aged players and making most college players eligible one year earlier, more players will benefit from both a college education and an elite development environment while reaching professional baseball and ultimately the major leagues more quickly, we believe these changes will strengthen college baseball

and deepen fans' connection to the next generation of major league stars. So they're making it sound like, we're just looking out for the best interests of college baseball here. We just want these guys to get a good education. But only for two years. Yeah, that's true. What are we going to make them go to class all four? Partial credit they can finish up later.

But, you know, just get a good grounding, you know, start your liberal arts exposure to worldly ways. And then they want to reward the colleges for their elite development, sort of taking shots at MLB teams. suggesting that colleges are more elite at development, which seems somewhat suspect. But really, I don't see how this will deepen fans' connection unless you're a real college baseball fan. And maybe there would be more college baseball fans in this scenario, perhaps, just because we'd have no other way to watch these guys who were sort of artificially prevented from graduating. But I think in most cases, I don't know that it would deepen fans' connection, because to this point, at least fans tend to be more invested in players when they are in professional baseball than an amateur ball.

And I don't think MLB particularly cares about strengthening college baseball. I think MLB wants to offload the expense of development on other parties. They don't want to pay for this stuff. If other teams can do this and take it off their plates, then they're happy to have that happen. if they can further suppress free agency dollars, they're happy to have that happen. If they can cut down on draft bonuses, they're happy to have that happen. They can reduce the size of amateur staffs. Yes, and if ultimately this leads to fewer minor league teams, lower expenses,

then they're happy for that to happen too. And as we have discussed and you have written, we think there is just a good in making high-level professional baseball widely available because it's, it's, It's nice for people to be able to go to a pro baseball game without going to an MLB game, which can be quite expensive and obviously is not conveniently located for everyone. And yes, there's indie ball and there's college ball and, you know, there's lots of great baseball out there, which I'm not downplaying. But to have minor league baseball and affiliated baseball in a vast network across the country,

I think can only help instill a love of baseball in many fans and make you, feel more connected to the majors, even if it's a long way away, even if it's several rungs, even if most of the guys you see are not going to make it to that level, you still feel connected because you follow a farm team. And also college teams and coaching staffs, their best interests are not always aligned with the players. I think just because of the scrutiny that's been leveled against guys who will work pitchers into the ground or whatever, who are actual prospects. I think we see less of that abuse going on there, but sometimes colleges, they just want to win. Those coaches want to win at that level. They don't necessarily have the players'

long-term interests in mind, especially now when there's so much player movement and there's the transfer portal and everything, and it's not like you can count on keeping these guys. Plus, after two years, they're going to be gone anyway. So how invested are the colleges and the college coaches going to be in these players' futures? So, for many, many reasons. This is clearly primarily a cost-cutting move and one that I do think would hurt the future of baseball in a lot of ways, specifically the amateur proposal here.

So it's just a proposal, but even the idea that they had the audacity to propose something like this, which the players were not shocked. They had expected something like this, but still it is drastic. Look, I want to... Someone actually does appreciate college baseball. I want to say the following.

I don't think that the idea that that is a area of baseball broadly understood where there is meaningful and significant growth potential in terms of sort of cementing a relationship to the sport. I don't think that that's ridiculous to say. I know you don't care. And that's fine. But if anyone has been watching the College World Series,

which, you know, concludes later today as we are recording on Monday, the men's college world series, I should say. Softball has been done for a minute here. But people are crazy go nuts for college baseball. It is wildly popular and not just in the South, although boy, is it popular in the South. And so I think the idea that combining the sort of fervor that people, that individuals have for their all, alma maters with the sport is a way to bring more people to baseball. So I don't think that that's a completely ridiculous thing to say. I also don't think it's the responsibility of the MLBPA to facilitate. And so my interest in baseball sort of keeping some of their best guys, major league baseball, I should say, affiliated pro ball, keeping some of their guys in the college game rather than drafting them out of high school. I don't

see that as particularly compelling. But I do want to acknowledge that the place that college baseball has is, I think, important to the long-term health and sustainability of the sport. Having said that. And I think that there are many programs in college ball, especially in the Power 5 conferences, that are doing a very good job from a player-deaf perspective that have, you know, particularly as it pertains to pitching, really up to three. game. We have seen a number of coaches from the affiliated ranks make their way to college ball,

and we have seen them succeed there. But I still think that the yardstick against which they are measured is pro player dev. And if I'm good at player dev, I don't want to outsource that to LSU or Texas or Georgia. No offense to West Johnson. But I want to do that. I want to help that. guy refine his swing. I want to help that guy figure out his optimal mix. I want to be figuring out his natural supination and pro nation tendencies and then building a repertoire on the back of that. You know, it's funny to sort of put this proposal within the context of the league's stated desire for greater competitive balance because, sure, the Dodgers are always in the room with us when we're having that conversation, right? And they have shown.

how an organization with a tremendous amount of financial resource can weaponize very good player dev and use it as part of their sort of perpetual motion machine of contention. But, you know, if I'm the race or the brewers, maybe I just want to get my hands on that guy. You know, maybe I don't want to leave it to Georgia to take care of. I want to do it. And when you combine like sort of delaying for the high school guys, the player dev relationship, I guess you can make the argument that you're expediting it for the existing college player pool. And so I don't want to overstate the case.

But, you know, you combine that with the introduction of hard slotting and what that's going to do to team's draft strategies. If you want to take a go-wide approach in the draft, that's over. You can't really do that in the same way as you could before. You can't underslot your top guy and then go get a bunch of interesting high school arms. So the entire exercise to me seems to be about money, obviously, but the effect of it is to narrow and standardize player dev, draft strategy and acquisition. And I don't think you get a better brand of baseball when you do that.

I think that you get a more monochromatic brand of baseball. And that's even setting aside whether you're going to be able to retain interest from the same talent pool. If you, let's imagine that you are a high school senior Ben and you are a really talented baseball player and you're also being recruited to play wide receiver. and you are comparing the NIL money available to you in baseball or in football, which are you choosing? And this is a dynamic that admittedly already exists. So I don't, you know. We don't even have to pretend. I was in that very situation.

Right, I know. And then you were like, I must write. Yeah. And I just, I said, I have to enter the media, a thriving, expanding industry. Right. One with a ton of security as much as professional sports. So if you want to say we need to make dramatic changes for the safety and well-being of international amateurs, I'm open to that conversation. You know, it's one that neither side was so committed to that they didn't just punt it, right, the last time around.

But I'm open to that conversation because there's some really gnarly stuff going on down there. And it needs to be sorted out in a way that centers the well-being of these kids. before they become pros, right? And we need to understand them as kids first and professional athletes second. But as it pertains to the domestic draft, this is not only a money grab on the part of the owners, but also subtly, like, kind of a weird little attempt

to fracture the interests of the players association. Because if push comes to chef and you have to take $400 million out of somebody's pocket. Yeah, it's going to be non-members of the union. Exactly. You're taking it out of the amateur pool, or you taking it out of your existing membership. And historically, and I get accused of being in the pocket of the union, so I'm going to say something. Historically, they have said, and I'm going to do a swear, and I am being hyperbolic, but when do I get the opportunity to say this? Historically, they have said, fuck those kids.

We're keeping the money for our members. Yeah. And even though you have minor leaguers in the union now, you don't have amateur players. You don't have amateur players. And so I imagine that the version of this that we get, the ultimate direction that the draft will take, is going to look very different than this proposal. Part of what facilitates the money in this at all is their cap and floor system with a 50-50 revenue split. Right. So some of the financial piece of this doesn't really make a ton of sense in an environment where you just have a system that looks pretty similar to what we have now with changes at the upper bounds around the luxury tax.

There's no real need to do any of this. So there's no need to do it in that system either, to be clear. But part of what is motivating this is that. And you're right. when Bruce Myers responded to in sort of longer form to the league's cap proposal, part of what he pointed out is that the money doesn't make sense unless you are dramatically curtailing the amount of money spent in the amateur space. And guess what?

He was right. So, you know, I think that this is, this is bad for baseball. It's bad for the players because they make less money. It's bad for the players because I think that they are better off having the potential, not only to make more money later in their careers, but if they are one of those sort of shooting start, it makes sense to draft them out of high school guys to be in the warm embrace of professional player dev. I also think that like this is, this is not good for player dev staffs.

This is not good for amateur scouting departments. If you are removing eligibility for high schoolers, you can, In theory, maybe you can run a leaner staff or at least justify doing it because if all you're doing is scouting the college guys, well, all that's on video. You don't need somebody to go to a showcase. What does this do to the economic ecosystem that has grown up around the game for showcases and travel ball and all of that? Now, those guys are making a little less money. You're not going to see me crying over it. But, like, there are, the ripple effects of this are fairly profound.

And I think that I won't say that the league didn't think about any of those things. I just don't think that they, in this version of it, particularly care about that because if they can take $400 million of draft bonuses out at the pool and set themselves up to eventually justify a further reduction in the minor leagues at the size of the minors, great, they'll do it. Yeah. Well, I know you and Bowman are taking in the combine this week, so enjoy it. Raffle in the amateur baseball while this is looming.

If I can be a little bit snarky for a second, and I understand that the real motivation around all of this stuff is the money. And so I don't think, I don't want to make it seem like I think Rob Minford is like so singularly obsessed with making the draft a TV event that he is like trying to reshape the entire amateur baseball ecosystem just to get the very best boys there on draft night. but Ben. And there's there are provisions in this proposal where a certain number of players would be obligated to attend the draft and they'd be paid for their time. But I'm like, how is that? Egoly enforceable. But they get like 50K to be there. They held the draft. So everyone will remember the last year. The All-Star game was at Truest Park. The draft was like right next door to the park. So it's in it. Well, it's not in Atlanta, to be clear, but it's in Cod County. It's in Georgia. famously a baseball hotbed next to a bunch of other baseball hotbeds. They didn't have one kid at the draft last year.

They had guys who were 20 minutes down the road and decided they'd rather be at home for the draft. You want to reorient amateur acquisition around that event? Really? Really? Yeah. Yeah. And so I think that

we don't have to linger on it too long because a draft event that rivals in excitement and scope something like what the NFL puts on. I think even Manfred, who really wants the draft to be a big deal, understands that that is a pipe dream. Like, that's not going to happen. And so it's not a primary motivator for this proposal.

But it is hilarious because I was like, oh, yeah, that's really going to be the showcase event. Like, yeah, that'll do it. It was so funny. Like, there were all of these beatwriters who were there, and they're in town for the All-Star game in the derby. But they're just walking around, like, why am I at the draft? Why am I here? I have to go get on the phone with the GM of the team that I cover. Like, I have to go listen to his draft call. I can't even talk to the kid he just drafted. And there's been variable participation, right? So it kind of depends. Like, in Dallas,

which again, the draft wasn't in Dallas. It was at the stockyards at Fort Worth, which, like, I mean, you just need one person in the room to be like, so, hey, we want to do the stockyard thing for a draft event. Anyway, there were a bunch of guys who went to that. You know, there were a lot of guys. there. And it did change the dynamic of that event in person. And I think it made the event more fun to watch on TV, I would imagine, because they had a bunch of guys there. But, you know, when you have to incentivize their participation with money, and I bet some of the NFL guys get paid too, I would guess. I don't know that one way or the other. But anyway, I don't care for a Ben. And it's fine because I think ultimately it's not going to amount to much. But, but. a pain point in negotiations. So there you go. The draft as an institution is already a means of suppressing salary. Just be happy with that. You have to suppress it even more.

It's not suppressing it quite enough. People were circulating the Steve Cohen tweet from five years ago that I'm sure did not endear him to his fellow owners where he said, education time. Baseball draft picks are worth up to five times. Their slot value to clubs. I never shy away from investments that can make me that type of return. So even if sometimes you have to pay a bit on the back end because one of your

blue chip guys pans out and you were paying him pennies on the dollar for the first several years of his career relative to what he was worth on the open market, because he wasn't on the open market because of the draft and because of the pre-free agency system. Every now and then someone slips through and actually makes some money. Got to crack down on that. And this is the thing about it. And I understand I want to head off some emails here. Not that we always get annoying ones, but I understand how capitalism works, right? And I understand that the sort of driving desire on the part of owners is to make as much money as possible, not only by maximizing your revenues, but by minimizing your expenses. So I understand what they're going for here. But as I've said before on this podcast,

It just really does cost money to run a business sometimes, you guys. It really just does cost money to run a business. And a bunch of you are sitting in parks that you didn't pay for. So put your money where your players are. You know, put your money into your dev staff, put your money into your scouting staff, put your money into your front office, put your money into your business. Because Cohen's right. When you look at the value, sort of accumulated surplus value in the minors relative to the actual cost of running them,

both from a salary perspective and the upkeep of the minor league system. So, you know, they have to house them now. They have to feed them. They have to pay them for training in the off season. Penny's on the dollar relative to the surplus value that's down there. You just sometimes have to spend some money. Okay. Okay.

All right. Well, this I don't want to linger on long because we already did. But just to close the loop and I'm going to accentuate the positive here. Okay. The Giants Pride Night saga got even stupider after the last. time we talked about it. Oh, good. Yeah. Because the U.S. Department of Justice, which is less aptly named by the day seemingly, has launched an investigation into whether Major League Baseball discriminated against three San Francisco Giants players on religious grounds when it warned

them that they can't inscribe Bible verses on their caps. And the assistant attorney general sent a letter to Rob Manfred saying that the matter has been referred to the equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the three players expressed their opposition to MLB's pro-pride orthodoxy. The Civil Rights Act prohibits MLB and its franchises from unreasonably burdening the rights of players with religious objections to serving as the league's vehicle for pro-pride messages. It's a hat.

Never mind the fact that there weren't actual fines that they could opt out of wearing the cap and just wear the regular one if they wanted to. This is now advanced to the point where even the players themselves are. saying this is sort of ridiculous, which, look, maybe they got more than they bargained for, but they did sort of start it. But even J.T. Brubaker is saying, I don't think it's discrimination. It's just people getting a hold of something and turning it into something. I just wanted to put my message and my beliefs out there, and that was the end of it. Well, that certainly wasn't the end of it. Once you put your message out there, it will be seized on by others. But

even the players involved are suggesting that this is sort of ridiculous. Walker said, I wouldn't say I was necessarily pressured by anybody, MLB or whatever. So they're all like kind of mystified by the fact that the DOJ is stepping up to defend their rights here. So this is utterly preposterous and there are so many better things that the government could spend its time on. But the better news, which I'm sure that most of our listeners are aware of by this point, but a study in how you could have handled this or sort of the diametric opposite of how this was handled is what the York Revolution did. So the York Revolution team in the Atlantic League, highest level of domestic independent ball, partner league of

MLB, they forfeited a game, an important game, because many of their players would not wear the gear for their Pride Night. And reportedly, it was most of them, which is, sort of surprising to me that fewer than nine players on the 28-man York Revolution roster were willing to play in the uniforms. This is indie ball, guys. You can't even big league people with this kind of behavior if you're nowhere near the big leagues. A bunch of dopes. What a bunch of jokes. And this just goes to show, right? Because, I mean, Clayton Kershaw sort of started this in the majors, and he's an influential, widely respected guy, and he does it. These Giants players do it. I don't think that's a coincidence. Do you think all these York Revolution guys would have done this,

if not for these Giants players doing it and it becoming a big story? Because this is evidently the 11th Pride Night that York has held. And this hasn't happened before. So this is backsliding. This is what happens when people put themselves forward as an example and share their message. Right. And people will adopt that message or twist that message or whatever it is. So bigotry begets bigotry and intolerance begets intolerance. And now it sounds like I'm quoting a Bible verse because there's all sorts of stuff about begetting and begatting in there. But this has an influence.

And these major league players are influential. And these Bushleaguers are thinking, ooh, I could be. Big League by doing what the Giants are doing or what Clean Kershaw did. Of course, Blake Trinan came out and commented about this too and talked about how he was warned last year when he were the message about Charlie Kirk on his cap. According to Trinin, Kershaw told Trinin that Kershaw wasn't warned when he did his scripture verse. I don't know. That's hearing it secondhand. And for all I know, there was something lost in communication there, but that is what Trinon said, Kershaw said,

which would suggest, if true, that perhaps MLP has not been as consistent as it could have been when it comes to enforcing this policy. It wouldn't totally shock me, candidly, if there was some inconsistency in the way they enforced this. And if, you know, you look at Blake Trinin differently than Clayton Kershaw and certainly differently than Landon Rup,

like it wouldn't shock me. Yeah, Bill Shakin asked the league whether it warned Kershaw and the league declined to comment on that. But yes, Trinan was talking about how he got chastised by the league and he objects to all of this anyway. So it spread to the Atlantic League, to Indyball, to the York Revolution. And instead of saying, well, what could we do and playing on, they decided that they were going to cancel the game. They were not going to concede that the players could sort of set the policy here. And they put out a statement, a pretty strongly worded statement about this. And you might say, well, how does it serve the purpose to just forfeit and cancel the pride tonight?

Well, they didn't. They forfeited the game, but they still hosted a pride event as a free admission event. And so anyone could go to that. And they treated it as a rainout. So anyone who had tickets for that game could redeem them for. for any future game. Yeah. And they talked about how they didn't do this lightly,

but they wanted to be consistent with their partners and the people that they've been allies of. And they said, to be clear, this action by the players is completely inconsistent with our vision as the most welcoming place in York. And they made a $10,000 donation to a local center. They just kind of did everything you could possibly do to express their, disapproval here. Yeah. They did a great job. Yeah. And it's particularly impressive to me because this is Pennsylvania and, you know, this is not like bleeding heart territory, right? This is

a swing state and I might be talking out of my butt about Pennsylvania politics here. So please correct me if I'm wrong. But this was, I think, a county, York County that went primarily for Trump, 62% for Trump in the most recent election. And there was a story that I came across that had a headline how Trump won Pennsylvania and how York County played a key role. So this is not San Francisco. This is not a hotbed of liberal belief, exactly, politically speaking. Or just even within Pennsylvania, it's not Philly.

Right. No. And so that's particularly striking. that they took this stance and that they've been doing this for as long as they have. So that's one way you could go, you know, and not saying that the Giants should have forfeited the game, but I'm just saying this is a very strong message, and their GM was saying I'm disappointed. I think tolerance is not acceptance. I was just asking for tolerance from the team, and they were unwilling to navigate that with me.

and they made no bones about it and didn't really pull any punches with the statement or anything. And actually, I guess this did happen at last year's Pride Night for York, and I guess they did play the game that time, and they decided that they weren't going to do it again, and that this was, I mean, more than the majority, the vast majority of the team, which is kind of incredible. So, yeah. Although I think there was one player who went to the pride event, right? I felt it was important to be present at that event and demonstrate to the fans that the

perspective that led to the cancellation, the forfeiture of the game was not universal on the team. Yes, first baseman Jacob Teeter, who said, I came out tonight. Maybe shouldn't have started with I came out tonight. But I came out tonight because this is a cause that I believe in. This is a wonderful event for a community to come together and just rally around my favorite thing in the world, which is baseball. If I have nothing else in common with a person, but they enjoy baseball, I know that we have a jumping off point. We have a place to start a conversation. And unfortunately, there's no baseball to be played here tonight, but it doesn't mean that we can't make this a great evening on a baseball field.

So that was nice. Yeah. That's the other end of the spectrum when it comes to responses to this. sort of statement. Yeah, I appreciate the unequivocal nature of ownership's response to this, that they still, as you said, went forward with a celebratory event and sort of made additional commitments within the community from a charitable perspective. Again, I don't know, I don't know what's in all of these guys' hearts. You know, I think that when we talked about Clayton Kershaw's behavior, for instance, he struck me more as a mark than anything else. But I do

think that there is this disconnect right now between what folks behaving the way that Rup and Trinen at all are behaving, how they understand our cultural moment and how our cultural moment really is and ought to be. And when you see communities like the LGBTQ plus community undergoing and experiencing very real institutional and legal threat. It's important to try to counteract that legal threat, but also to stand firm and saying that, like, no, these guys are out of step with the way that we understand our community and our community will be inclusive. It will be loving. It will be accepting. It's moving, trying to move beyond tolerance to something that is, I think truly diverse and thriving. So I was really heartened by this. And I also do not know the

particular political makeup of York as a city. So I don't, I also don't want to speak out of turn. I know that it is not in the dead center of PA, but it is like kind of closer to Harrisburg than to Philly. So I can make some guesses about some of the surrounding environment. I don't know about the city itself. So yeah, we don't know. We don't know. But I think that wherever you are standing firm with your community and saying, no, we all belong here is really good. And that first basement, what a great, send that set of talking points to the DNC. Somebody else cook for a minute. Because yeah, this is like you have a point of commonality. It's one entry point to a conversation with someone you might not know or understand. And there will be others, you know. And I think that

that's true in much broader terms and across a much broader swath of the population than we always appreciate. And, you know, it's probably true, maybe, between, say, me and Landon Rup. I don't know. I'm not going to ask Landon Rup about it. It feels like it's violating some sort of professional code. But, you know, we do have a lot in common as people, and we should try to find those points because they're obvious and profound. Yeah, pretty wild that they couldn't even fill out a line up card with enough players who were willing to wear it. Do you sit down with your scouts and go like, okay, guys, what happened here? Like, and just, I'm sorry, what a freaking own goal.

You are an indie baller. Yeah. What are you doing? You are barely hanging on, man. And you want to be known for this? You want this to be the way. This was part of my thing with like Brubaker after the fact where he's like, I can't believe people are still talking about it.

And it's like, well, yeah, man. When you, like, invalidate really important relationships in people's lives and a fundamental aspect of their identity, they will keep talking about it. And honestly, it's going to be the thing I remember about you, which is, you know, maybe he's happy about that because the other option was that I wasn't going to remember J.T. Brewbaker's career at all. Quite possible. I wish we could just talk about the controversy of Rafael Devers refusing to be pinched run for

or attempting to. That's the giant subjection that we could talk about now. Dude, what's going on with that club? That team, man. You guys need to, when David Lynch said this, he meant it in a different context, but I will say this to the San Francisco Giants.

Fix your hearts or die. Like, what's going on over there? You guys are a mess in ways very small and very large. What are we doing? It was really a rehash, a microcosm of the whole Devers in Boston situation where that didn't really reflect well on anyone. And this is a small minor matter,

but it was a clear pinch-running situation. The Giants were down by one at the end of the game, and Devers got on, and he is not particularly fleet of foot. And so Betelho put a pinch runner in. And he'd already been announced, so he was in the game. There wasn't really anything you could do at that point. But regardless, Devers is standing there at first base, just like waving him off, just not coming out.

First of all, have some self-awareness about your skills as a player, right? Which I understand it's tough to give up your glove for good and DH forever, but running sprint speed, not your strong suit. Do you want to do the team first thing and score that run? So this didn't reflect well on anyone in this situation either, really, because I'm reading it as, well, gosh, this makes Devers look sort of delusious. slash selfish, but also would he have done this with another manager whom he maybe respected more? I mean, maybe he would have because that whole Boston saga did have it after all.

But you got to read this as some kind of criticism and reflection of Tony Vitello, too, that maybe there's a little lack of respect there, perhaps, that he was so obviously willing to show up his skipper on the field like that. And Betelow, after the fact, said he doesn't believe the situation warrants a conversation with Devers, citing the daily communication they already have and the competitive nature he wants to see from his players. Yeah, I don't know if this is the type of intensity and passion that, I mean, granted, you know, you tie the game. Maybe Devers is thinking, I want to be able to hit and this could go to extras and I could get the big knock or something. But come on, if you're pulled from the game, you've got to go. It wasn't some preposterous pinch running situation or something. But yeah, it's a mess over there.

It's a mess performance-wise. It's a mess interpersonally. And I don't know where the blame lies primarily. Is it Posey? Is it Vitello? Is it players? Is it a little bit of all the above as it often is? But it's not going well over there in any number of ways.

What else do you say about it? Except that clearly, we need more college influence in the game. Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's a cheap shot. But it's such an easy one to take. That's what makes it cheap. It's true. Maybe Tony Vitello would still be coaching in college if all the great young amateurs were still there. Maybe he just would have stayed. Who knows? We can send him back there. Maybe that would be best for all involved. I don't know how many Giants players would be sorry to see him go at this stage. Oh, boy. What a mess. Yeah. And the last thing I'll say, speaking of messes, is that it does seem that we are seeing the sort of sad twilight of Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander's careers. And we talked about this last year and how, well, if it doesn't go great for them and Kershaw, maybe they'll all ride off into the sunset together. And then you'd have a heck of a Hall of Fame class when they all went in together. And then they had a second wind or seventh wind. or whatever it was.

Right. And Scherzer's pitching in the World Series, and Verlander was actually really good for much of the season. And Kershaw was one of the Dodgers' most dependable regular season pitchers. So they salvaged their seasons, and it turned out that they were worth rostering

and that it was worthwhile for them, I think, to continue to play. But this year, maybe you got to say that whatever failings he might have, whatever errors in judgment he might have made otherwise. Perhaps it was wise for Clayton Kershaw to call it quits when he did. Because even though I'm firmly on team play as long as you want to and as long as someone will let you and doesn't really tarnish the legacy or anything, it's not like I'm not

going to remember how great you used to be, it's been pretty bad for Scherzer and Verlander who have barely managed to make it to a major league mound. this year. When they have, it has not gone well, but also they've just had a series of injuries just over and over. Scher just went on the IEL with backspasms, right? It's one thing after another with him. One part heals enough for him to be back in action and then something else breaks down. And Verlander has missed most of the season. He made one start at the start of the season and then has been on the IL ever since he had a hip issue, and he worked his way back,

and he was scheduled to start this past weekend, and then they pushed it back, and now they've pushed it back weeks, seemingly, and he's on the IL with another ailment now because he hurt a hamstring. I'm on record with, can't we just do away with hamstrings? I know we need them, anatomically speaking, but they're quite troublesome.

While he was warming up, he was throwing a pen session, and he hurt his hamstring as he was just about to be back from the hip injury. And now he's weeks away, best case scenario from coming back. And he's going to have to ramp up again when he gets to that point, assuming everything is healed at that stage. And he sounds pretty down in the dumps about it. He said, I've always said that I want to play until the wheels fall off. And I don't know, maybe they are falling off. I hope not, which is, you know, Max Scherzer, I don't know whether he has had the same long, dark night of the soul or whether he has acknowledged his frailty to the same extent. But Scherzer said, if I can't be healthy

and I continue to prove that I can't be healthy, retirement is something that I have to really evaluate. And he said, just really unfortunate man, just sucks. I don't know what else to say. My hip actually feels fairly good. All of a sudden, my hamstring was bugging me and I had to cut my bullpen short. So people who have reached their age. or more advanced ages, I'm sure are saying, welcome to the club, get used to it. It doesn't really get better from here. So, you know, this is what happens. It's one ailment after another once you reach this advanced age for a professional athlete.

And they've managed to make it work far longer than most guys do. But this kind of feels like at the end. And people have said that about those guys before. And maybe they'll have one last hurrah. I'd be nice if they could at least get back in action this season and just show a little flash of something. I know Scherzer got the milestone 3,500th strikeout. So that's good, I guess, but was it worth it? I don't know.

At this stage, it just seems like they're in pain and also that people are pained watching them. I can't believe that you're going to make me talk about them being too old to play major league baseball the day before my birthday. feels targeted. Happy birthday. Thank you. You're so much to look forward to. I mean, my back already hurts. Okay, I'm realistic about my ability to play Major League Baseball, get on board.

I just think it's a really hard thing to know. You know, it's really hard to know if you have one more good season in you. If you have one more league average season in you, guys have bad, weird years in the middle of their careers and they bounce. back, you know. Your entire... Yeah, Verlander did. Right. Verlander looked cooked for a while. And then he wasn't anymore. Then he had Tommy John at an age when some pitchers probably wouldn't even bother to try to come back from it. And then he came back from it and won a Sayong Award. And that was only four years ago.

Right. And after his rough start last season, he was really effective to the point that I made an over-exuberant bold prediction about how productive he would be this season. Don't think that one's going to pin out for me. Right. But yeah, he has been effective until fairly recently, so you never know when it's going to go for good. Yeah, he was a six-win player by our accounting of war in 2022, you know. Like, he was quite good. He was an available quality starter.

And you're right. Like, Scherzer was, I don't know that any. anyone felt really great about him pitching in the World Series last year, but he was able to do it, right? So I just think it's really hard to know. I can't imagine what it would feel like to be staring down the end in a career like this. You know, I remember when we talked to Skeens and I asked him about sort of hobbies and like what he does away from the field. Like how do these guys, you know, Scherzer and Verlander, They're further along in their careers in their lives.

I'm sure that they have a sense of themselves. Yeah, they're like twice as age. But you, all you do is this. For so much of your life, if you're going to be a big leaguer of their recent caliber, this is what you do. And they have families and I'm sure they have interests. But like the core understanding of themselves has to be rooted in this game. letting go of that would be incredibly difficult.

To what? To coach? Like, that's rewarding. And I think a lot of guys, you know, there's a reason that there are so many former players in the coaching endeavor ranks across the league. You know, often they have a great deal to offer. It might be really meaningful to them. It might keep them close to a thing that they're not ready to let go of.

But, you know, if you look at Justin Verlander's player page on Fangraves, he has 20 years of service time. You know, like, I can't imagine. And it's not like, you know, one of the core tenants of building a big leaguer is like, and we will spend the fourth day of the week determining your sense of self away from baseball, you know, like, what are Justin Furlanders hobbies? You know, hanging out with your hot wife isn't a hobby. It's nice, I'm sure, but it's not a hobby, right? So I can't imagine how challenging it would be to let go of it as a core part of your identity.

I have a hard time relaxing on vacation even when I want to. And my job is cool and I'm so grateful to have it. But like I have other understandings of myself, I swear, away from my job. So it's just really hard to know. And as we've discussed before, there just aren't very many guys who get like that one magical final year. Right. And it's really hard on the pitchers. I think that that's far, you know, even rare than like, you know, like, Poulos got to have that nice bounce back.

And Ortiz was great in his final season. And it was just like, but you don't know. You just don't know. Yeah. That would be the only positive spin I would put on this because you could say, oh, better to walk away a year early than a year too late. It's kind of like the Branch Rickey Maxim about trade timing. Right. But the one nice thing about this is that these guys won't have to wonder whether they had something left.

I guess. Because when you've been in the game that long, it's hard. And some guys like Ortiz, like Mike Messina, they just want to go out on top or at least while they're still really good. And they feel good about that. And they just leave with their head held high. But other guys, if they're too good at the end, then they start thinking, huh, maybe I had more left in me. And then maybe they want to come back. and then maybe they're left with some sense of unfulfillment.

I could have accomplished something else. I don't really know what else Verlander insurerser could accomplish at this point. But I would take some solace if I were in this situation. A, I had a hell of a Hall of Fame career. And I had way longer in the game than most people do. But also, well, now I know that the game was telling me that it was time to walk away. And hopefully I can be at peace with that. And so we can walk away from the game.

this episode while I read Justin Verlander, 25 Things You Don't Know About Me, Parentheses, I'm a pretty good dancer published by Us Magazine in 2018. I'm just reading about his hobbies because you question whether he had any. I will say, you making me contemplate the aging process is rude. Me getting an email from my health insurance noticing memory changes? The facts about early stage Alzheimer's. What are you doing? My birthday is tomorrow.

Rude. I can't believe I'm going to celebrate my birthday of the draft combine. That's so funny. What better way. What better way? All right. Well, what have we learned today, class? We learned that rather than inspiring other fan bases to cast their partisan ballots for their favorite players by showing everyone up with those lofty early vote totals, the Blue Jays fan base has only been emboldened by its success, driven to even greater heights of support at the MLB ballot box.

We learned that the tree of home run derby must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants and past derby formats. We learned that all my pet players are coming back to the big leagues. Who's next? Rich Hill. And also, yes, I learned some fun facts from Us Magazine about Justin Burlander. Among them, number 19 on the list of 25 things you don't know about me as of 2018. If I wasn't playing baseball, I would be doing sports commentary for TV. Well, maybe that'll be his hobby.

You used to collect baseball cards. It's not very interesting. I binge watch everything, he said at the time. Well, that'll take up plenty of free time in his retirement. He binge watches everything. He likes dogs. He likes dancing. He likes bacon, egg and cheese sandwiches,

Kit cats and Oreos with milk. And going out to dinner in a movie. He also said, I didn't drink at all in high school, but I had a good time in college. Hey, Justin, you don't have to drink to have a good time. He also said, in 2018, number 18, my fantasy is to beat all of the other teams. Well, I've got good news for you.

He has. Justin Verlander has recorded a win against all 30 MLB teams. He almost overlooked the Reds, as we often do on this podcast. But no, he has one win against them. And at least two against every other team. So having fulfilled his fantasy, maybe he can walk way happy. And speaking of Justin Verlander's fantasies, I also read this in a 2017 story from Us magazine. My source for all news about baseball players, Kate Upton said on Watch What Happens Live,

that there is absolutely no sex. That's a quote, before or after. any of her then-fiance Justin Verlander's games. Just the ones he started, I think. And it's not that there's no sex at those times for anyone, just not for Kate Upton and Justin Verlander specifically. She said, there's no sex before a game, absolutely none. What I've just found out is, if he plays too well, there's no sex after either.

He's exhausted. It's kind of a buzzkill for me. So, hey, I guess there's one upside to his never actually getting into games this year, or perhaps hereafter. Congrats on the sex, Justin. No buzzkill for Kate. Also, following up on our episode 2491 about injury prevention and biomechanics, just saw a new study by Glenn Fleissig of the aforementioned American Sports Medicine Institute. He is the biomechanics research director there. And he just published a paper in,

you'll never believe it, sports biomechanics about what else baseball biomechanics, title, baseball has an elbow injury problem. Biomechanics may have the solution. Well, you know, sports biomechanics, the publication was eating that up. The abstract says, as a pitcher rotates his trunk to face the target and externally rotates his throwing arm, Veris Tork is produced at the elbow to decelerate arm cocking. At least Justin Verlander was getting that kind of cocking on his start days and initiate arm acceleration. With today's pitchers being larger, throwing harder, and playing more often during their development years. Repetition of large Veris Tork leads to more UCL injuries.

Pitch count limits for games, seasons, and per year may provide some prevention of overuse injuries, varying efforts of pitching instead of maximum effort on every pitch may both reduce UCL damage and also improve performance by throwing off the timing of hitters. Improving pitching biomechanics can lead to both increased pitch performance metrics

ball velocity, spin, rate, and movement, and reduced to elbow varis torque. The proliferation of baseball biomechanics and professional baseball universities and performance centers has amplified the potential of biomechanical intervention. In addition, a novel proposal

is to modify the baseball itself. Initial research shows reduced torque with slightly increased ball weight and circumference. In summary, baseball has an elbow injury problem. Biomechanics may have the solution. So, some further reading, if you were interested in what we discussed on that episode. And hey, make the ball slightly bigger and heavier. Maybe that'll solve all our problems. I do believe that player development is more efficient than it used to be,

that what with all the technological tools available, players are able to improve without spending quite as much time playing, Which is one reason, I think, that players tend to spend a little less time in the minors these days than they used to prior to a promotion to the majors. You've got pitching labs. You've got traject machines. Plus, teams are better able to tell today when someone's ready to get the call. It used to be that trial and error was how you figured out if something would make you better at baseball. Well, now you've got the batting cage and the bullpen session and all the instant feedback you receive from the tools you have in there. So no, there's no perfect substitute for in-game action.

but there are better substitutes than there used to be. And sometimes you hear, hey, why do we need all these minor league games? Baseball could just move to the soccer-style academy model. We could cut down on the size of the minors, the number of affiliates. This was sort of a Jeff Loonow initiative. Well, that might be true to an extent. But here's the thing. Baseball games are good.

Good for the players involved. Also a public good. Good for the fans. Good for the sport. Even if you could eliminate a lot of games by making development more efficient, well, would you want to? And there are fewer games in a college baseball season than there are in the season of an affiliated minor league team. This is a, your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should sort of situation.

Except MLB has stopped to think if it should. And it has decided, yes, we should because it might save us some money. After all, the point is playing games. Or, as Sam Miller once said, the point is to entertain people and make them forget that we are all dying right in front of each other, that this is just this horrible rotten slog to ricker mortis. Speaking of which, two RIPs to pass along, former Major League pitcher Al Worthington died last week at age 97. He pitched in the 50s and 60s for several teams over a 14-year big league career. But he had a break in the middle of his career because he retired the first time because his team, the White Sox, engaged in some illegal sign stealing.

And he could not, with a clear conscience, go along with the scheme. So he packed up and went home, a man of principle. And I mentioned this not just because, hey, you don't hear about many plays. players who took that sort of stand, Justin Berlander didn't do it, but also because he is a former Effectively Wild guest and a cold call recipient. Al Worthington was featured on episode 1505 of this podcast, Sign Stealing is a Flat Circle. That was an early experiment in narrative podcasting here at Effectively Wild. Still pretty proud of that episode was from early 2020. Go check it out in honor of Al Worthington and another multi-time late Effectively Wild guest, Eddie Robinson. Also,

another death in the extended Effect of the Wild Universe, Gerald Schreiber, the brains behind the Super Pretzel Empire, died at 84. Podcast relevant, of course, because Mike Trout

in his younger days. Used to be a Super Pretzel pitchman. His likeness once adorned all those super pretzel boxes, which we never would have had, if not for, the late Gerald Schreiber.

And finally, I had a few stray baseball encounters over the long weekend. I read two short books, part memoir, part writing guide, one by New Yorker narrative nonfiction legend John McPhee, who's still with us at age 95. It's called draft number four on the writing process. And I read fiction legend, Udora Welty's One Writer's Beginnings.

And I mentioned this because they're both baseball books. Here's page 35 of One Writer's Beginnings. This is Eudora Welty, recalling her childhood and upbringing in the early 20th century in Jackson, Mississippi. In my childhood days, a great deal of stock was put in general in the value of doing well in school. daily newspapers in Jackson saw the honor roll as news and published the lists and the grades of all the honor students. The city fathers gave the children who made the honor roll free season

tickets to the baseball games down at the grandstand. We all attended and all worshipped some player on the Jackson Senators. I offered up my one hundreds in arithmetic and spelling, reading and writing, attendance and yes deportment, I must have been a prig to Red McDermott, the third baseman. So here's literally Udora Welty, voice of the South, winner of all literary awards. towards remembering some guys, or at least one guy. And I looked up Red McDermott. He got a cup of coffee with the 1912 Tigers. And then, just as Udora remembered, he played third base for Jackson in 1921 and 1922, bat at about 340 both seasons. No wonder he was a local hero. Baseball reference says they were the Jackson Red Sox, not the Jackson Senators, at the time,

at least. But Red did play third base, and it just goes to show that Red McDermott, who played all of five games in the big leagues, was a memorable figure. in Class D baseball, a decade after he had been in the big leagues, he was probably a big local sports celebrity. He had been to the show. And you know what? Baseball reference actually has an entry for 1923 with Jackson, no stats, but in 1923, Jackson's team was the Jackson Senators. Sorry for doubting you, Yudora. Then on page 147 of McPhee's book, he's talking about the storied New Yorker fact-checking department and the test that people had to take to get a job as a checker for the New Yorker, and he's quoting a fact-checker here who says,

what we want are people who already know that there are nine men in a batting order, what a Republican is, and that the Earth is the third planet from the sun. That being got past, it helps if you speak French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Russian, read classical Greek, have low blood pressure, love your fellow man, and don't have to leave town on weekends. And it got much harder from there. But it begins with knowing how many men in a batting order. And speaking of fact-checking, one last stray bit of baseball,

I was watching the series Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed on What Else, Apple TV. It's a comedy crime thriller starring Tachana Maslani as a fact checker who gets embroiled in all kinds of crimes. The NYPD gets involved. And there's a police detective, Sophia Gonzalez, played by Dolly de Leon, and she's got a bit of a gambling problem. And here's a short clip from an exchange between detectives in episode five. What do you think of the diamondbacks? I think anyone who cares about a baseball team outside the home. hometown is probably a degenerate gambler.

There is nothing degenerate about my gambling. Our lives are defined by luck, and anyone who ignores that is stupid. You've been mocking me because I've been losing, but eventually the tide is going to come back.

And the real loss is not being in the game when your luck finally turns. Okay, Aristotle. Hope the diamond bags know your philosophy. I think of go with the Cubs. Good show, but very rude when it comes to paying attention to out-of-town teams in baseball. It is incredible how pervasive baseball is and has been in American culture. You come

across it wherever you look, and often even when you're not looking. We know that you pay attention to how the Diamondbacks do, even if you're not a Diamondbacks fan, and not because you have a gambling problem, but because you have a healthy addiction to baseball. And that's why you're listening to this podcast, and that's why some of you support it on Patreon, which you can do by going to Patreon.com slash effectively wild and signing up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going. Help us stay ad free and gambling ad free. And get yourself access to some perks. As have the following five listeners, Ryan Frailich, Jason, Matthew Lehman, Rebecca, and Jay McDuffey. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include a full third episode a week,

a monthly bonus episode, membership in our Discord group, exclusive live streams, prioritized email answers, personalized messages, shoutouts at the end of episode's potential podcast appearances, fan graphs memberships, and more, check out all the offerings at patreon.com slash effectively wild. If you are 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 and fangraphs. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube music, and other podcast platforms.

You can join our Facebook group at Facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild. You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at our slash Effectively Wild. and you can check the show notes in the podcast posted fan graphs or the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we cited today. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We will be back with another episode later this week. Talk to you then.

We're going to crunch those stats. We're going to talk about baseball, sticky stuff and torpedo bats. We'll talk about it all if you want good takes on baseball and life. Just tune in a bed and his lovely co-host. Ben and Meg, it's effectively wild.