Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2506: All-Star Showers Bring Second-Half Flowers

Episode Date: July 17, 2026

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, please visit our Patreon. With Ben Lindbergh serving jury duty, Meg Rowley is joined by Baseball Prospectus editor-in-chief Craig Goldstein. The pair discuss the perils of hotel pillows and showers, then turn their attention to the 2026 All-Star Game, how the in-person experience compares to the TV one, and the challenges of making it a fun event relative to the Home Run Derby. Then Craig offers his thoughts on the CBA negotiations and Rob Manfred’s approach to communicating (38:58), before he and Meg discuss a few of the things they are looking forward to (and one thing they’re dreading) about the season’s second half, including the White Sox, good teams playing well, a potentially weird deadline, and Pete Crow-Armstrong. Audio intro: El Warren, “Effectively Wild Theme” Audio outro: Josh Busman, “Effectively Wild Theme” Link to the Five and Dive episode where Craig discusses the Rays Link to Craig on the weird deadline ahead Link to Steven Goldman on the All-Star Game Link to Jake Mintz on the All-Star Game Sandlot tribute Link to Jayson Stark on the AL’s All-Star pitching dominance Link to Andy McCullough on the All-Star Game Link to Michael Baumann on Philly as the haters’ All-Star Game Link to Katie Woo on Jordan Walker Link to Ben Clemens on Dillion Dingler Link to Davy Andrews on Pete Crow-Armstrong Link to Ryan Blake on Lance McCullers Jr. Trade Link to Dan Szymborski on an AL team with a losing record making the postseason  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

It's Effectively Wild Hello and welcome to episode 2506 of Effectively Wild A Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters I'm Megrelli of Fangraphs And I am joined today by Craig Goldstein of Baseball Perspectus, Editor-in-Chief of Baseball Perspectus, Craig, how are you? I'm doing well, how are you? I'm doing well.

I have a bit of hotel-related banter for you we are going to talk about the All-Star proceedings, some, and then we're going to look ahead to the second half, not technically a half of season, but the second half, as it is colloquially known, and some things that we are intrigued by, looking forward to, perhaps dreading. You are very gamely subbing for Ben Limburg,

who hopefully is not being selected to serve on a jury as we speak. Have you ever served on a jury? I not only have never served on a jury. I have never been called to sit on a jury. Like, I have never had to even go in. I've never even had to get a, like, I've never had to get a phone call or called in, in D.C. at least, when I lived there, which is, it's shocking to me. I didn't get this because it's not the biggest population. Right. Actually living in the city. I never even had to, like, call in and be like, oh, my number doesn't have to come in or whatever. Got it. Okay. A charmed life, one might. Yeah. The one time that I've had to, like, present myself actually was when I was living in New York. So depending on where he got called, I might have a sense of the exact room that Ben is sitting in right now. You know, I sat there with a book for most of the day. They had Fox News on in the big room, which I didn't, that wasn't for me. And then when I got called in, I was asked questions because I, I don't remember if it was a civil or criminal case that they were impaneling a jury for. But as soon as I told them that my mom is a practicing attorney and that her wife was a public defender for a number of years, they were like, thank you for your service.

Yeah, they don't. You say public defender. Yeah, they don't. The prosecutor's like, get out of here. We don't want you. Which might be, well, I guess it shouldn't prevent me from being called. But I did work for the larger, the public defender office at the administrative office of the U.S. courts for several years. So I don't suspect I would be high on a prosecutor's list, I suppose.

Yeah. And your wife's a lawyer. They don't want people who, not because we actually know anything, but because we might know enough to be dangerous or annoying, you know? That is the extent of my knowledge as it pertains to anything. To be dangerous and annoying. Well, we will try to soldier on in Ben's absence. This is our, weekly Patreon episode. So we are in the lovely free preview portion of our time. We're going to say so much wild stuff. You guys have no idea. But I think that this is the optimal moment for me to engage in a low stakes rant, which is actually a feature of our Patreon monthly bonus episodes. So you're really getting good preview content here for our,

our lovely listeners who are not yet Patreon supporters. What's with Hotel Pelos? What's up with Oh, I didn't know you were going pillows. You told me it was hotel-related, and I immediately thought of your posts recently about showers. We're going to get to the showers. I had no idea the nerve I was tapping with that particular complaint. I have thoughts about the showers, for sure. I want to hear your hotel shower thoughts, certainly. I appreciate that, you know, of all of the linen-related and adjacent accoutrema that are in a hotel,

Pillows are probably a bit of a conundrum because, you know, if you have people sleeping on them regularly, they probably have to be replaced at some semi-frequent interval. Also, as an aside to our listeners, you should replace your pillows every now and again, you know? Like, they get gross. They get squished in non-reflufable, re-squishable ways. We're disgusting just as people. You've got to change them out. You got to change them out. How frequently are you guys? you guys swapping out your bed pillows. So this is where I reveal myself as like schmancy. And I've actually talked about my pillow situation on social media. So it might not be a surprise to some. But I have like one of those cooling pillows. Oh, yeah.

It's cold. Yeah. I have like what was billed as like the coldest pillow ever. Because I'm hot. I'm hot. It's, I don't even remember what it is. I should have looked up what it's called. But it's something like ice storm or something insane.

Yeah. But basically, those things lose their shape after a certain amount of time. So I'm just changing it out once it lose. And again, it's schmanty. It's not cheap, but I'm so, I'm hot all the time. Yeah. And I even have a pillowcase that is supposed to allow the coldness. Because if you just wrap one of those things in a regular pillowcase, you're mitigating its effectiveness.

Right. Yeah. So I have like a pillowcase that's designed to allow that to come through. I take sleeping and being cold at the same time very seriously. Yeah. And so that is one place I'm willing to really go all out for. So it loses its shape kind of faster than I would like, but it does keep me changing out the pillow pretty frequently. Yeah.

I think we're at like every six months kind of an interval, maybe a little longer. Yeah, I think mine's longer than that. It would be expensive to change that. It is, people will get me on this because they'll look it up. But I'm trying to be honest with you all. Yeah. My pillow is called night ice. Night ice.

I get them as gifts. Like, I never know. People are like, what can I get? Speaking of which, you know, if people just want to send me gifts, my birthday's tomorrow. So. I was going to wish you a happy birthday, but I was going to do it off mic because I wasn't sure. Oh, it's okay. I don't mind.

So I asked for it as a gift every. however often I need, basically, and a family member or several family members can partake, and that way everyone's happy. Yeah. Here's my returning to the hotel of it all. So I understand. Like, there's an expense. They're not putting the, what is it, the ice max?

Is that what you called it? Night ice. Night ice. That sounds like a men's deodorant scent. I know. It's really aggressive for a pillow. Night ice. It's by bedgear.

It's all very, it feels very man-coded in a lot of, in so many ways. Yeah, this is like dude wipe adjacent. I worry about you guys. I get it. Like they, they cost money. Nice pillows cost money. And I imagine that, you know, pillows, sheets, the various this is and that's in a hotel room have to be replaced. And at a big hotel like the Philadelphia downtown Marriott, hundreds of rooms, two towers of rooms.

You know, you had to know which side to go on. It was a little flammuxing when I checked in. So I'm not indifferent to the way that this expense might stack for them. And, you know, they're hotel chain. They're trying to make as much money on you as possible. And I think that even in reputable hotel chains, they're like, we didn't give you bedbugs, so we fulfilled our obligations. Why are all the pillows so bad, though?

They are terrible. And I generally am quite satisfied with, like, the caliber of mattress that one is presented with in a hotel situation. Like, if you were staying at a reasonably nice hotel, and thankfully, like, the Marriott that they selected as the Media Hotel for the All-Star game was, it was perfectly nice. Had a great little convenience store in the lobby. Super friendly employees. All those gals were great.

Shout out to them. But these pillows, they're substandard. They're horrible. So when you, let's get some context around substandard. What is it you don't like about? I'm not, I'm with you. But I also, aside from not being freezing cold, my main problem with most pillows, I am a firm pillow person. So here, here we are.

Here we have arrived at the real, the real issue, which is, why are they so. soft. They are providing a mere whisper of support. The, the simple suggestion of it, you know, like, like, like, like the teaser of a, of a freemium podcast, what more might be behind the pillow? Nothing, nothing is behind the pillow. We say in the, in the free section of, of, which, you know, we provide substance after the suggestion, unlike these pillows, which are basically flat. You know, and no wonder they have to stack so many of them on the bed Because you have to stack them to get any kind of support I was like, what if you simply bought nicer pillows?

Nicer pillows? It's a real issue. It's a real issue. I have to think with the amount of use the pillows get, that they just lose shape immediately. But it does, it does feel like these pillows tend not to even have ever had shape. Right, right. do not think that the issue with the pillows is a matter of wear. I think it is a baseline

lack of support. It is, they came out that way from the pillow factory. As an aside, the amount of particulate in the air in a pillow factory has to be intense, right? Down little wisps of cotton and whatever else the filler is artificial down. Anyway, I like a nice, hotels stay and even sometimes at the nice hotels they have the worst pillows and then you get a weird crick in your neck and that crick might be exacerbated by the fall you take in the shower yeah look i again i understand that it's just it's a bunch of rooms it's a lot of rooms and a bunch of plumbing that you have to sort out but they are out of control the people designing hotel showers and and the hotel shower at the downtown

Marion in Philadelphia, it was like, it was fine. It wasn't the worst. It had a, the ability to fully enclose yourself. It did have one of those rain shower heads where you're just like, this is not enough water. You know, this isn't enough water for me.

Although it was, it was, I say a rain shower head. It wasn't the ones that are in the ceiling. Those are evil because it's like sometimes you don't, sometimes you just need to rinse, Craig. You don't need to wash your whole head. You don't need to wash your hair. The rain ones specifically, I'm like, I don't feel like I'm getting enough force to wash, like to wash the shampoo or conditioner out necessarily. It's not doing.

Yeah, give me a little more pressure. Often they are going to this formula for them where there's, it doesn't close all the way. There's, you get half a wall. My family took a vacation in June and we went to, uh, the, the, the showers in this situation, it's exactly what you described online. The door just ends so early. Yes. And in a place where you've positioned the showerhead to spray water far beyond the door.

Yes. The door. And then I feel like I have to be like the floor guardian. Right. Like I have to position my body and angle it in a way such that the water spray goes back into the shower because otherwise you're just, you're soaking in the floor. Yes. And I understand, I think you can do the open, the thing where the door, there's no actual

door and it's open, but you have to cover a significant portion of the length of the layout so that it is, the water pools back into, you know, is angled and pulls back into the drain. It's absolutely insane. I do have to tell you, I stayed somewhere last year. I don't even remember, but they had done something I liked, which was stunning in the hotel shower space. And it's that they had cut out part of the, it was another one of these situations where there wasn't actually a door. But they had actually, they had covered a fair amount and they had cut out a little hand, like opening by the handle to the shower. Okay.

Because if you have enough glass or whatever it is to protect the floor, and the entire situation from the water, then you have to get, then if you're the person getting in the shower, you have to get in and turn on the shower, and it takes, you know, even in hotels, which have very good heating, water heating situations, it takes a minute to heat up. Right. You're then stuck there, like, either squeezing against the wall or trying, you know what I mean, like trying to avoid getting cold. You can, they had a cutout where you could turn it on from outside.

You could just reach in and turn it on. That's great. Yes, I was enthralled. Wow. Enthroled. Enthroled. That's quite clever because, yes, that is part of the problem. It's like you're, first of all, you're dealing with unfamiliar naps, you know?

Oh, you don't know which way. You don't know. What's turning on what? You don't know how hot, immediately hot the water's going to be. So you're in a freezing or scalding situation a lot of the time. you have to do all of that while trying to keep yourself dry before you get in because you don't want to get water all over the floor. I'm like, how many, it is shocking to me that hotel showers are not a prominent part of attorney advertising for like local personal injury, right? Like how is the husband and wife law team not telling you, have you had a hotel shower slip and fall?

Don't let Mary all get there. Wait, that's not what she sounds like. the husband and wife law team are one of our local personal injury lawyer purveyors in the valley an official partner of the Arizona Diamondbacks. I love their commercials so fiercely. They are completely bonkers. But it's, it's, I'm just like, how are people not slipping and falling and hurting themselves constantly? And I think the answer is some number of them are. And then there's never a little, and this is, this is not going to be, and we will move on here shortly, I promise everyone. But this is not going to be universally applicable.

But when one needs to shave one's legs, if one is a person who shaves their legs, you need a little ledge to put your foot up on so that you can do so without contorting yourself or having to rely on a single leg, leg up on the wall situation, which never works. You always end up with either a catastrophe or just a strip of hair that you. you've missed and then you just have like a one random strip of hair that you couldn't get to because by the time you would have gotten to it you've lost your balance and you need to move on. So anyway, it's just, this is a simple, this is a simple thing. It's just a, it should just be a shower. And I understand there are going to be some rooms where, you know, they have a half wall situation because they need to make the, the shower accessible.

Like there are good reasons to have non-standard shower designs, but that's not the reason for most of the non-standard designs. It's not that they are trying to make them easy for folks to get in and out of if they... It's in now. Right. I mean, it's just like the thing that people are doing. And I also, we can move on. But I do, I would, if people have knowledge of this, I would love to know, like, what are hotels getting out of this? Yeah.

What is it, is it to just save money on not having a door or something? I think, I think ultimately even these, the hotels where they just have a curtain, you know, or whatever, that gives you the, that have the little weights at the bottom so that they, they stay where they're supposed to when you, when you pull the curtain. Where it is a better situation than the, than the half wall, whatever, unless you do it right. If you do it right with the little handle cut out and, and enough actual space, terrific. But otherwise, we're better off keeping it simple. Okay. Well, we will do a little baseball talk before our free preview concludes here. Craig, how much of the All-Star festivities did you watch?

We watched the Home Run Derby. My wife is a big Home Run Derby fan. And we got a few innings of the All-Star Game. I can't bring myself to force someone else to watch the All-Star Game. Like, you couldn't even come up with a reason, right? Like, a convincing, like, I have to, I don't have to do it for work. You know, it's the all-star. They're barely trying.

I don't think I have to give it my full dedication. So I did see parts of it I saw. Mugav Argus its home run. I enjoyed that, even though it was off Justin Robleski. It sounded like I did not miss much. I think that we need to have a. a real kind of come to Jesus about what we want that event to be. And I will acknowledge that the stakes of that conversation within the broader

landscape of the things we need to have sort of a reckoning around in baseball are pretty low. But I think that there are a couple of things wrong. First, I think that there is a growing gap between the in-person experience of these events and the television experience of these events. And that's a problem for the league because the vast majority of the people who are going to be engaging with the derby, the All-Star game, et cetera, are going to be doing so from home. So it's all well and good for me to say, and I would actually, that some of the things that I think probably maybe didn't play as well as folks would have wanted on TV seemed to go pretty well in ballpark. I have enjoyed immensely every single all-star game I've actually attended or every all-star festivity.

We just have goofy simplistic brains. And so even if you are aware of like the limitations of the iconography you're being presented with, even if you have maybe a bit of cynicism in your heart, like it is hard not to be moved by some of the, you know, nostalgia and wistfulness that they put in front of you at these games. And I'm, you know, prone to cynicism. But like, I know that the decision to do the Sandlot tribute with the kids riding their bikes out on the field and what have you didn't, it got a mixed reception. Because it did introduce a long delay into the game. Their decision to pause it introduced something of a long delay.

But I think that the reason that that delay felt pronounced to people was just that there was so little offensive action in the game that they felt like they were missing out on a game. And I'm like, you were, but it was mostly because everyone was striking out. You know, it's because the entire National League lineup was just so K-Pro in that entire evening. Yeah. But it looked really cool, you know.

You're never going to, I'm never going to be mad to be here. Ray Charles. Like, I'm just, I'm, I'm not. I don't mind them trying something in an All-Star game. It's actually the right place to try it. I agree. But I also think some of the displeasure with stuff like that is because people aren't really thrilled to be there from home, to your point, in the first place. It's kind of like, why am I watching this? Well, it's baseball, but it's like, what am I doing? Yeah. I enjoy watching players interact with children. in a way that's sweet. Like, that is nice.

It's also funny. You can tell often, like, who are the guys who have kids and who aren't the guys who have kids? The guys who have kids are like, oh, yeah, I've met a child before, you know, after a point where I was one. I'm sure that he was instructed to play catch with the kid. But, like, I wouldn't be shocked at Freddie Freeman just was like, why don't we play catch, you know? Yeah.

Freddie has four kids, right? Like, he's. Right. children. He knows what to do. And so, you know, like, there's, there's something to that, I guess. But I think that there is a bit of a gap emerging. And, and some of it, too, is like, there are planned pauses in the action in the All-Star game. And so when you start to, to load up on those, it can feel like too much disruption. You know, when you do the, the America, the beautiful tribute, and then also you have the stand-up to cancer.

It's just like you were doing a lot of... It's the mid-game concert in the World Series thing, too. That remains the wildest thing I've ever seen. And again, well, I do appreciate that the All-Star game is the place to do that, rather than the World Series, in my opinion. Yeah. It is also like, you're already stretching my patience in terms of being here. Like, we're here, I'm here attending from home, to be clear,

a nothing gain. Right. And you're now, like, maximizing whatever it is that you're... The amount of time we spend doing the nothing game. And, like, truthfully, I think, like you said, that there is a difference between being there and watching from home. And part of that is because if I'm watching from home, I could be doing basically anything else. And if I'm there, I'm invested. I have...

Maybe I'm looking at my phone, but, like, I'm present in a way I'm not at home. And when they have your attention, it's easier to buy in, right? You start, it's easier to be sold on some of this stuff. I don't mean necessarily America the Beautiful or Godless America or whatever. But like the rest of it, you are willing to forgive these other parts. Whereas at home, I think you're not willing to forgive. And I think all of that is reasonable for being there and for not being there. Yeah.

And I don't know how you really bridge that ultimately. Yeah, I don't necessarily. either. I also think that part of the problem that the All-Star game is having is that for, you know, for all of its changes in formats, for all of the, you know, nitpicking or quibbling that folks can do, I think a great many people are in your wife's camp where they really enjoy the derby. And so the derby is, you know, it's fun. It has this like accepted spirit of like experimentation in terms of format. When you have that, and it's a thing that we understand to be not real baseball, and it's

doing well, and it's like, well, what is this game by comparison necessarily? I don't know how you kind of fix that problem, because you don't want to make the derby worse so that the All-Star game seems better by comparison, but also, you know, the derby is better. They're just, it's a tough spot. I think every sport is in a tough spot with the All-Star game. No one wants to get hurt. Right.

Like, it can't be, and really in baseball, like, it can't be even remotely close to a real game, right? With, like, no one even goes, you know, two plus innings anymore. Except for your boy, Justin. Yeah. Well, you got to, when you have Justin Robleski on the All-Star team, you got to make the most of them. Right. Because you really only want Mason Miller to face the one guy. That's what the fans wanted, for sure.

They're saying, give me more of this moustachioed, kind of greasy-ish guy, less Mason Miller. Yes. But like, this is the thing, like, as for what Mason Miller is, and also given his injury history, like, the Padres are probably like, please use him as little as possible. Right. But that's, but he's the all-star, he's the attraction.

And there's a tension in that. And I think there's less injury concern. with some other, you know, with basketball or whatever. But even there, they don't, they're not playing hard, right? They're not playing hard defense necessarily. It's, I think a lot of these sports don't know what to do with all-star games right now. A lot of the appeal at a certain point was that you never saw the other league and now you do. And those guys wanted to perform for a huge audience.

But they get a huge, they have access technically to a huge audience all the time now, right? Yeah. The ability is there for people from all over to tune into all games. through MLD TV or various national TV games that just didn't, that inventory didn't exist all the time before. So I think these are just kind of relics in a way that aren't particularly solvable. Yeah, I think that's right. And then you have the issue of the relievers are too good, man, you know? I mean, not to pick on your boy, maybe not just in the busky-al at a time.

And, you know, it's not like that was Christopher Sanchez's best night. I do think you have this real, this real potential issue where if, if a guy can just max out because he knows he's only going to have, not only is he only going to have, you know, one any, he might only have one hitter. Well, you know, you're probably going to strike out a couple of times. So I don't know what you do about that. Maybe the All-Star game should be a proving ground for your guys's idea of like a, you know, a velocity regulator where you just, hey, Mason, you're maxed at 100. That's it. You go above that,

and it's a, you know, it's a ball for the hitter. But if that's the case, like, do the, is that what fans want to see? Right. Two? Right. And I'm not trying to really quibble with your suggestion. It's just, it's, it, that exposes the tension of it all. Yeah. Yeah. Fans want to see them at their best, but also at their best isn't necessarily at the most interesting. Right, exactly. Which is, which is, again, you, you hold that in direct comparison to the derby. And even, even with the changes, I, I prefer the clock. I don't know kind of how you felt about it. Oh, you're a clock guy. Okay. I like, I like the number of swings. I didn't mind the number of swings as much as I thought. I really, I really despised outs.

Yeah, I didn't like outs. I thought, I think number of swings, Ben and I talked about this on our last episode, you introduce time volatility to the exercise because you might just be down to your last swing and you're contraris and you want to get ahead. And so you're just going to take a couple of pitches. But I think that being able to actually appreciate each individual home run is really nice because I want to see the majesty of it. It was cool in this derby because there was, you know, there's sort of a contrast of styles across the field where you had guys who were trying to, like, do big home runs and then, you know, Walker's just like, line drive, line, line, line, drive on rent. Like, I'm going to just like pepper that same spot and it's going to, it's going to work well for me. So I, I like that format, but I'm also open to us, like, kind of bopping around formats just to mix it up, you know. Yeah, I, I did, to be clear, I liked it. I was skeptical. of the change because I really, it felt more like outs to me. And I really, the outs was just interminable.

But I, I, I, and because I also, I don't love, and I didn't love this when they did this with the clock either. Like all the weird little add-ons, right? It's like swings until you get to your last swing. And then you can keep going as well, like, okay, what is that? I don't know. Yeah. But it's to get the exact result they got, by the way, which was, which was thrilling. It was great.

Yeah. I also would say, like, as a proponent of the clock, I want to be clear. I don't think they did the clock well. It was too much time. There were the breaks. There were, the weird things were, like, if you hit a homer over 460 feet twice, you get an extra. It was way too complicated. But I thought if they had done a shorter clock and eliminated some of the stuff going on,

like it could have been not even better than it was this time around. I thought this was great. But I thought there were improvements to be made with the clock. but I did really love the adjustment to the clock from outs. And I was very happy with that change overall. So I still, it's the best event that they have going. Yeah. Because they actually care about it to some degree, unlike the futures game.

Just making nine innings. It's okay. It would be fine. No one would be bad at you. No one will be bad at you. Or apparently the draft. Do they just not care about the draft anymore? Oh, Craig.

One o'clock on a Saturday? I know, buddy. I know. What are we doing? What are we doing? And you didn't even have to deal with like the kerfuffle of getting in there. No. No.

Well, also, but like I almost was taken aback that the draft was happening because it was one o'clock on a Saturday. Yeah. It was pretty goofy. I will say it was pretty goofy. All right. Well, I think that challenges abound as as it pertains to the All-Star game. They got to think about what they want that to be. Next year, I imagine that some of this will.

sort itself out, if only because, you know, there will be less, um, they won't be doing like America 250 stuff in conjunction with, uh, the event, which definitely was part of why, like, I doubt they do that, you know, Ray Charles, Sanlot, fireworks, spectacular, if they're not in Philly for America 250. So, you know, some of this might just take care of itself, um, by virtue of the venue being different, assuming we have baseball next year. You know? I was going to say, you know, who knows how much of a season we're dealing with. Maybe they're like, we have to get rid of the All-Star game because we've had a protracted lockout. We should talk about the second half of this season and some of the things that we're looking forward to or not curious about.

Before we do that, though, quickly, do you have any thoughts that you would like to share on the Rob Manfred and Bruce Myers of it all from this past week? or should folks check in on Five and IF to hear your thoughts on that? No, I don't mind sharing. You know, this is the game to some extent. Like, they're just going to do this. But obviously, I think the stuff Manfred says is just, it's so aggravating. You know, he's so good at being aggravating. And I don't think it's unintentional, right?

I think, to be clear, I think Bruce Meyer is very good at being aggravating to a different. crowd, right? I like what he says, so it doesn't bother me as much, but I think I think that's part of his reputation, quite frankly, is that he gets under opposition's skin. So, you know, maybe credit to Rob on that front. But, you know, I'm looking at this, I was just going to refresh my mind on the quotes, and Rob Manfred talked, this is in Evangeloic's athletic article on this. But, you know, he says, like, it's always puzzled, it always puzzled me why people think because one side to a negotiation says, I'm opposed to this, that ought to take it off the table. And that, you know, the beginning of salary cap opposition 40 to 50 years ago, you had owners who said, I'm never going to pay a player a million dollars. But that's because they don't, like,

he goes, well, that doesn't mean it's not going to happen in a change world. So that's a very puzzling thing to me. Like, it's not, it's not puzzling, Rob. Right. Like, this isn't, I just hate the, like, intentionally stupid things. Mm-hmm. They say, like, he's not as frustrating as I find him. He's not a dumb man. No.

And so, like, you just, you come out and say this stuff, and it's so, it's so demeaning. It just, it feels like they think so little of their audience. Yeah. So much of the time. I think they do. Yeah. Yeah, and just, I don't know, he's tying like the resistance to change, like the pitch clock stuff. Look, and I don't think, I think it is one reason to not be unilaterally oppositional to things that the league wants.

I think the pitch clock, I thought it was a good idea when it came out. It doesn't mean I don't have concerns about player health and things like that. But I think it's a thing to say like, oh, you know, let's try it, but let's try and do it as safely as possible, something like that. Like, it's a reason not to be strictly oppositional. Sure. Because now he's trying to say, oh, the PA was opposed to the pitch clock, which has been universally well received. But also, like, the pitch clock and the mechanics of the way money works in the game are just so vastly different things. It's a very frustrating.

The lead up to these negotiations where they're not really negotiating anyway. is some of the most frustrating time for me, and I imagine for you, in terms of having to navigate all of this stuff. Yeah, as I noted on our last episode, you know, the negotiations don't really begin in earnest until the question of the cap is either abandoned or acquiesced to. All of the proposals that the league is making depend, at least in part, on the existence of a cap and floor system. Do you make anything of Manfred saying the ownership group is more united than any group in his entire time in baseball?

They're more united than 94? Right. Yeah. Really? Yeah. I find that a little hard to believe. I imagine that what he is trying to speak to. And I, you know, I think that there is a great deal of solidarity that tends to emerge between billionaires, even ones with as disparate a person.

payrolls as some of the guys in this set of owner groups. But I think there is a popular perception that a potential pain point for the league is the, you know, the Dodgers and Mets sitting at one end of the continuum with completely different incentives and views of payroll than, you know, nutting has. And so I imagine he's trying to massage around some of that stuff. I don't know how accurate that is. Well, you project strength, right? I mean, that is. There's no reason for him not to. It just felt like a wild thing to say when we have like a missed world series on the books because they tried to unilaterally insert a cap during negotiations.

Like that felt, you know, like they had to be really unified to do something like that. I don't know if this group is so bold. Yeah, I don't know either. And I think that there are real divides within the different ownership groups. If you're the Dodgers, it's not even just a question of, like, what is your view of how, how much latitude you should have to operate payroll the way you want? It's like, you know, for some of these clubs, it's like, hey, business is going really well. You know, we do better when there are butts in seats.

That reality actually spans a number of different payroll levels. But, like, you know, on some level, there's great incentive for everyone to want to not miss games. but there are some teams where it's like, we're printing money. We're printing money by having games. So don't, you know, don't mess with my good time. I don't know how important that sentiment will end up being, at least on the part of some of the big payroll clubs.

I think everyone has an appreciation of the importance of games as it pertains to being able to secure their next rates deal. That is the crazy part to me, is to do this posturing ahead and promote such, negativity because really people, my experience in talking to more casual but still baseball fans is like it's just a negative vibe. All of all of this arguing, people just hate it. And so you're doing that ahead of bundling all your rights to expire in 2028. You're going to risk the 2027 season or even part of it. It's just it's absolutely.

insane to me. I agree. Well, we should appreciate the baseball we have while we have it, and it recommenses today. That'll do it for the free preview of today's Effectively Wild. Thank you for listening. If you'd like to listen on and hear whatever wisdom and wit wait, we would love to have you. You can visit patreon.com slash Effectively Wild to access the rest of this episode and plenty of other exclusive content, weekly subscriber-only episodes, monthly bonus shows, our Discord group, our live streams. Either way, we will be back with another episode soon, which will appear in full on this feed. Until then, we wish you well, and thank you for your support of effectively wild, whatever form it takes.