Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2510: The Desire to Acquire

Episode Date: July 28, 2026

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Ben’s daughter’s first MLB game, and Ben briefly interviews the four-year-old Sloan about her spectator experience. Then they discuss the MVP races (with an emphasis on Pete Crow-Armstrong’s status as the NL frontrunner over Shohei Ohtani), the Nationals and Red Sox swapping Curtis Mead and Connelly Early, a Kerry Wood trick pitch, John Kruk’s Sunday Night Baseball attire, teams’ tendency to covet Tarik Skubal vs. their reluctance to trade top prospects for rental players, and the biggest pre-deadline positional strengths for non-contenders and positional weaknesses for contenders. Audio intro: Grant Brisbee, “Effectively Wild Theme” Audio outro: Jimmy Kramer, “Effectively Wild Theme” Link to Dodgers vs. Mets game Link to “if baseball were different” wiki Link to Goodnight Baseball Link to Decoy Saves Opening Day Link to Moana box office Link to Maui’s nipples article 1 Link to Maui’s nipples article 2 Link to Disney nipples history Link to Mario nipples article Link to FG WAR leaderboard Link to B-Ref WAR leaderboard Link to Roberts on MVP Ohtani Link to Ohtani pen session news Link to top baserunners Link to Paine on PCA Link to Witt injury article Link to MLBTR on the Nats-Sox trade Link to FG on the Nats-Sox trade Link to Red Sox HR leaders Link to Breslow quote Link to Friedman quote Link to winner’s curse wiki Link to team SP projections Link to Mead injury article Link to Wood Reddit post Link to Wood tweet Link to “what kind of move” tweet Link to Meg’s Kruk post Link to article on Kruk broadcast Link to Sheehan on rentals Link to Cooper on traded prospects Link to Paine on deadline deals Link to Dan S. on deadline importance Link to irresistible force paradox Link to Juggernaut meme Link to replacement-level killers series Link to FG playoff odds Link to projected positional WAR Link to Ben’s color-coded spreadsheet  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

Effectively wild, effectively wild, effectively wild, Effectively wild, effectively wild. Hello and welcome to episode 2510 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of Fangraff, and I am joined by Ben Lindberg of the Ringer. Ben, how are you? Yeah, I guess I'm the urban juror, which is not quite as confusing. That's not funny.

It's true. I am still on jury duty, also on podcast duty, and we have begun our deliberations and paused for the day. And so I am podcasting, and then we will resume our deliberations. So we'll find out how deliberate our deliberations are. I wish you well, and I hope that you and your fellow jurors, whatever particular climb and locale they may hail from, you know, to be carried by the winds of justice. to a fair and just verdict. We will do our darn-dust, so yeah, I report for jury duty, I report for podcast duty, then I rinse and repeat, and we do it all over again.

So it's hard for me to remember a time before I was on jury duty, but it did happen, and I'm sure it will happen again someday, perhaps soon. So we went to a baseball game this weekend, and by we, I mean I and my wife, Jesse, and my daughter, Sloan. And I teased this last time. I mentioned that we were going to be going to a game. And it was noteworthy for us because it was Sloan's first ever baseball game of any kind. And we just jumped straight to the majors and went to a Dodgers at Met's game at City Field. And I just so happened to have an exclusive with Sloan on this interview. And I have a few minutes of her regaling me with her recollection of the game. This was on Sunday that we debriefed. We went to the game

on Saturday. And I tried not to do too much kid talk on this podcast because no one's kids are as interesting to anyone else as they are to them, right? Sure. And so people have a limited tolerance, perhaps, for hearing about other people's kids. But look, I think maybe we can make an exception briefly this time to hear Sloan tell it. And just to set the scene, this was a great pitcher's duel, or at least the matchup was. Not that that was really, I mean, that was sort of lost on Sloan, I guess, the fact that, hey, it's Yoshinobu Yamamoto versus Nolan McLean. This is big time. But it was, and so that was exciting for me. And of course, Shohe Otani, who seems to be her favorite player. I have no idea how she came by that belief.

or that attachment. It's a mystery to me, but she has formed a bit of a bond with Shohei. And, of course, I had hoped that he would be pitching in this series so that she could see that. But he didn't. But he hit. So we did get to see Shohei play. And it went well. And I guess I'll just tee up Sloan here.

And then I'll follow up with a few more details. So you went to your first ever baseball game. How was it? Good. Yeah. Who was playing? Shoahe O'Donair. Were you excited to see, Shohei?

Yeah. How did we get there? We took a subway. Yeah. And where were we sitting at the game? I was singing in the four seat. You were singing in the five seats. That's true.

And Mommy was singing in the three seats. Yeah. And were we high up or where were we? We were high up. behind home plate, right, where we could see the whole field? Yes. And what did you think of the game and the big ballpark and all the people? Good.

Good. Give me a little more than that. Great. Great. Okay. Well, great's better than good. What did you do or see at the game? Lots of players? Yeah. And did you have anything good to eat? Yeah. What?

Ice cream and popcorn. And what did the popcorn come in? Um, a hat. Yeah, big baseball helmet. And did you stay for the whole game? Yes. And did you get tired or want to leave? I got tired.

Yeah, but you still wanted to stay? Yeah. And did you have to stay up way past your bedtime? Yes. That was a good thing about baseball I guess you get to stay up late to watch it And were there any other surprises that we saw in the game Anything with lights maybe

Yeah there were fireworks in a light show Yeah that was pretty cool too And were the lights really bright? Yeah Because it got dark so we need light brights I mean light light Bright lights Yeah bright lights

Oh, you figured out why it gets colder at night. Yeah, because there's no show at night, so it gets colder. It's not getting closer to winter. It's just getting colder. Did you just turn back into a baby all this? What happened? And had you ever seen that many people in one place before? No.

It was a lot of people. Now, were you rooting for the Mets to win or the Dodgers or did you not care? I didn't care which one won. Yeah, I think you were chanting, let's go Mets and let's go Dodgers at different times. And Nix. And Nix for some reason, even though they weren't playing. Even though they weren't playing. It was just making me chance as Nix.

Was it too loud or was it the right? amount of loud. The right amount of loud. That's good. Some people think ballparks are too loud these days. They do play a lot of music. Oh, what was your favorite song that they played? Golden.

Yeah. You said that was going to be your walk-up song, and then they played it. And was there anything you wanted to see that we didn't get to see? The Apple. Yes. None of the Mets hit a home run, so the Apple didn't go up. That was disappointing. Maybe next time.

Did it remind you of any books that we read before bedtime? Yeah, the one with Decoyed in Shohei. Mm-hmm. And the Good Night Baseball book? Yeah. Yeah. Did it look just like it looks on TV or did it look different in person? A little different.

How? Well, not as different, well, not. It's the same a little. Like it's the same a lot, but it's just a lot. but it's just a little different. That's what we talk about on the show sometimes. People ask us, if baseball were different, how different would it be? And usually the answer is not that different.

Do you like going to the baseball game more than you like going to the movies? Um, yes. How about going to the diner? No. No, the diner is pretty great. So you think you like baseball? Yes. You want to go back to a game sometime?

Yeah. Okay, we will. Is baseball your favorite sport? Yes. It doesn't have to be. It's okay if you like another sport bed. It is. It won't make me sad if you like another sport better.

What do you like about baseball? Why do you like it? Because I like hitting the ball's really far. Mm-hmm. And my T-ball sets like funny. Yeah. This podcasting thing is easy. This is what I do for work.

I just talking to this microphone about baseball and people listen for some reason. You think you could do this job? Maybe. Yeah. Let's see. What else can I ask you? I don't know. What do you mean?

What else can you ask me? You just know what you can ask me. me every day. You ask me something every day. Not for a podcast with a microphone, though, usually. Usually we just talk. Are we making two of these podcasts? I make three of these podcasts every week. That's a lot of talking, huh? Yeah. Did your voice get tired? Sometimes, yeah.

Well, that was a good conversation. Yep. Can I listen to it? You like listening to yourself? You're a born podcaster. Tell me when I can put them in my... Okay. So we answered a listener email not too long ago about putting your thumb on the scale

to try to turn your kid into a baseball fan or your daughter specifically, I think the questioner was asking about. And we were saying not to be too heavy-handed about it and just lead by example and hopefully your enthusiasm will be contagious and they will pick up on it from you. And that's kind of the way that I've gone about it.

But I think it's worked. I think it's working. I think that we may have made her into an incipient baseball fan, so that's exciting. And she made it through the whole game, as she said. And that was the big, well, I don't know if it was a surprise or an upset, but it was a pleasant outcome that we actually made it through the entire thing because the first pitch was 715 Eastern. And normally she's in bed at eight, or at least theoretically, that's kind of the target.

It varies around that. But she made it all the way to the end and only got sleepy in the later innings. And even then, we offered her the option to leave. And she declined. She wanted to stick it out. and see the whole thing. So that was exciting. That's pretty remarkable, I think.

In my experience, taking little kids to games, I mean, you took, you engaged in a high risk, although ultimately high reward proposition here, because I think that when we took the girls to a game in Seattle, the girls being my nieces, we like went to a Mariners' Rockies game. nobody was very um affordable venture for us uh not a lot of demand for those tickets because you know we just you just don't know you don't know if kids are going to be game for stuff for nine innings this is i will have to check my memory of this with my sister but i think this was pre-pitch clock so who you know who knows how long you're looking at um and you just have to accept i think that you'll you got to you

You got to leave when you got to leave. Yes. And that might be like the fourth inning. You know, you just don't know. Because kids get hot. Kids get sick from too much candy. They get bored. They get scared by the mascot.

Like you just don't know how it's going to wash over them. And we really lucked out that day because the girls had a great time. And I think we ended up staying for all of the game. If not, you know, and if not all of it, like eight innings, you know. So job well done. by everyone. But yeah, paying up to see the guy. You were joking right about why she likes Otani, though.

That was a little dry humor from you. Perhaps. I may have extolled his virtues to her from time to time. But, yeah, it was two hours and 48 minutes, so it wasn't the speediest game, but it didn't drag too much. And it was a pretty good game. It was, I guess it would qualify as a pitcher's duel.

it was 4-3 in the end, and Yamamoto was better than McLean, but the Mets scored a couple runs late, and it ended up being a one-run game, and so people were into it, and it was a fairly full house because the Dodgers were visiting. There were a lot of Dodgers fans around, and it was a perfect night. It was 77 degrees at first pitch,

and not too humid or anything, and then it got cooler from there. And she was pretty into it, to my relief, and we were fully prepared to pull the ripcord and just get out of there whenever. And that never happened because we took her to her first movie recently, which was Moana, the live action Moana, which. I'm so sorry. I know. Will you indulge me for a brief moment?

I understand that what we're doing is trying to make money and maybe, you know, this will be like a dog getting its nosewacked with a newspaper and they'll finally understand. Moana, the animated film is beautiful. Like, it's a great, you know, I think it's one of the modern classics from Disney. We don't, did we, also, was there just an animated sequel? Yes. Okay, so anyway, this is like when you go on Instagram and you see pants you like, and you look at the pants, and then you decide, do I, I don't know that I need these pants right away. and you've put the pants in the cart,

but you've thought better of the pants, or maybe you've thought better of your budget for frivolous stuff that month, and you're like, eh, I don't need these pants so much. And then you immediately get an email, an email, mind you, an email that's like, hey, didn't you leave those pants in your car? And you're like, can you lie to me? Can you let me forget that I had a whole, like,

budgetary calculus around the pants and have made a decision? This is like moments later. practically instantaneous. Anyway, it's like that, but with The Rock. The market has spoken that it has roundly rejected this particular live action. Some of them have done well, which is why they keep making them, although they all seem somewhat extraneous. But this one, we went because basically we got free tickets. And my sister-in-law, through her work, got some tickets to the premiere.

And so we went to this big fancy premiere and Lin-Manuel was there. and the rock was there, and they did a duet. Again, not that that meant much too Sloan, but we went and we made it about half an hour into that movie before we had to leave because she just burst out in tears. It was like the theater was loud, and there was a storm, and then the rock had no nipples, and that wasn't actually what scared her, I don't think.

That scared me a little bit. Yeah, the rock has no nipples in the movie, because, you know, it's a Disney movie. It's like a reverse Batman. They're not, I'm sorry, I'm going to say a sentence that I already know I'm going to regret. They're not sexual nipples. No. Why is this a concern?

You've made it, you've made it weirder by making it weird, Disney. Like, it could just be, they were just present nipples. And now you've made them ambiguous nipples. Why are you making them any sort of, why are you offering any modification to the nipples at all? that also sounds deranged as a sentence, but here we are. He had a whole body suit, a big prosthetic thing, and they would not allow him to free the nipple or even a fake nipple with the body suit. Anyway, she was apprehensive about that.

We've watched some movies at home, but she's never done it in a theater. We didn't know. Would she be okay with that? And it was pretty loud. And ultimately, she wanted to leave, and we weren't too broken up about not seeing. You were like, oh, thank God. Yeah. So I was entirely open to the possibility.

that the baseball game would go the same way. And I would pay a fortune for these tickets, and then we would quickly leave, and I would just suck it up and say better luck next time. And we waited until she was four, figuring maybe she might actually remember it, or at least she might have the attention span to sit still and enjoy it.

And it worked. It didn't blow up in our faces. She had a great time. We plied her with snacks, as she said, and so that helped. And, you know, we complain about the decibel level at ballparks, And I think a lot of that is for the youths, and that's the stated purpose. It's either for the use or for Aaron Judge. I mean, you know, it's for the players in some cases, but they're youths, relatively speaking.

But I think there's a perception that kids just need to be blasted with stimuli constantly. There need to be noises. There need to be songs. There need to be flashing lights. And maybe those of us of the adult persuasion don't enjoy that so much. But, you know, I have to hand it to them. I think that helped. with a four-year-old because they had some fancy flashing light shows where they turned out all the lights,

and then there were patterns of lights that ran around the various displayboards, and there were a couple fireworks in the middle, and then, you know, constant songs. And she was kind of into that. We were worried it might be too loud. We brought her over-the-ear-ear-muff-style headphones just in case we needed to mute it somewhat. But it wasn't too loud, and that was part of why we went to City Field instead of Yankee Stadium, because Otani was at Yankee Stadium a week earlier, and I thought I won't subject her to that,

to the long lines, to the inability to get in or out to the constant bombardments of noise. So it all went well and were very relieved, and there was nothing nearly as scary as the storm or the rock's absence of nipples in live-action Moana. There was Jorge Polanco's OPS. That was pretty frightening,

but I think that didn't really get Sloan too terrified. So I'm pleased to report that maybe we are in the process of making another baseball fan, that we leave it up to her. Sure. It's her choice, ultimately, whether she wants to be. But if she is, I would not be upset about that. So I'm glad it all went well. Yeah, I'm so glad that you guys had a nice time. That's very special.

So that's Sloan Lindberg, four years old. I think this is technically not her podcast debut because I think she was briefly heard on an earlier episodes maybe or a live stream or something. but I think she has the distinction of being the first effectively wild guest to be seated on my lap during their podcast appearance. Probably so, yeah. I can't think of an exception, although you would know better than I would, I suppose. Yeah. And, you know, she did mention at the end, I mean, while we were watching this, she asked why it was all boys playing baseball. She did wonder about that.

And I was pleased to be able to tell her that there did. that there just so happens to be a women's professional baseball league launching this very week, which we will be discussing on the podcast later this week. We'll do a little season preview. So that was convenient for me to be able to assure her that women can't play baseball. And in fact, many of them will be. And I'm sure we will watch some of that with her. Now, when you were becoming a fan, I'm sure that you've talked about this on the podcast or elsewhere.

But I could not or anyone you may have asked at the time, could not provide the same answer to you necessarily, although there have been previous professional women's baseball leagues. But was this an impediment to you getting into the game in any way? No, not really. I mean, I will admit that there were, you know, other experiences of sport that were, I won't say that they were more emotionally resonant, but they were differently emotionally resonant than, than basically.

to explain to the youth of today, the optimism of the early 90s. You know, it just felt like the baseball was for the boys, at least at the professional level. And I'm just old enough that like the little league softball, you know, distinction was a bit firmer. When I was a kid, I didn't play little league. I didn't play youth softball in a way that I have regret about it. unlike youth soccer where I'll continue to dodge that outstanding warrant for the rest of my life. But I did enjoy the World Cup. Everyone relax.

But I played youth basketball. I played rec league basketball and played basketball up through middle school. Not well, to be clear. I was a fine little defender and a pretty good ball distributor, but just like not able to generate anything like the kind of force you need to be able to, well, certainly to drive against girls who were bigger than I was, my rec league coach called me Shrimpo. Like, that was my nickname on the team.

Because I was just, I was a little, a little wisp of the thing, not very tall. And then, you know, I didn't have a great outside shot. And so I was just kind of useless. And that's fine. You know, I, I did other things, like model Congress. But I say all of that

because it was like, well, you know, we have like this emerging professional women's basketball leagues, really. I mean, I'm sitting here in my office looking up at a Seattle rain pennant from the ABL. And then, you know, the W comes along and sadly the ABL won't as a result of that. But it felt like the opportunities in women's pro sports were expanding. And I think part of why it didn't matter as much for me is that I was like not under any illusions that that was, the lack of the league wasn't what was holding me back from.

professional ambitions, you know. It was the fact that I tend to be bad at those things, or at least bad enough that I had to go pro in something else. But I like very much being able, that you're able to offer Sloan a different answer. And like I know, you know, my nieces are playing softball. They, the specifics of it obviously are a little bit different, but my sister took them to a U-dub softball game. The players gave, like, did an autograph line after and signed. And, you know, some of those

young women, like, look like my nieces and that meant something to them. And so I do think that that, you know, being able to see yourself reflected, part of representation is important. It's not, you know, a sufficient condition, certainly. And there's

obviously a lot else that goes into who can access sport and what have you. But I do think it's an important one and having it not only present, but, you know, having women's professional sports increasingly taken seriously more generally, I think that that means something to people. And it, it does deepen your appreciation for it. So yeah. Well, fact-checking myself here. The Rock has claimed that Maui has nipples, but it's divided the fandom because it's tough to see. It's divided the fandom. It has because it could be that they are obscured by markings that make them because he has tattoos on the prosthetic chest.

So it could be that they're just difficult to see. Maybe I could weigh in on this more authoritatively if I had seen the whole movie as opposed to escorting a crying child out of the theater after half an hour or so. But doesn't the animated character? I mean, the animated character, first of all, you're dealing with an abstraction of a person. He has, he has what we are meant. And a demigod, no less. Right, there you go. He has what we are meant to understand our pecs, though.

So it's like, yeah. Does he, here I am. I'm like zooming in on, I don't think that the animated version of him has nipples, but also on the animated version of Maui, his tattoos like moving stuff. Yeah, there's a, you know, they like do little dances when he's, singing you're welcome and what have you. I have not seen the second one. I don't know if the nipple

debate is settled come Moana. Is it just Moana too? Yeah. They really don't You guys. The first one of these, I mean it's not a perfect movie, but it's just Moana too.

That's right. There is a whole history of male animated Disney characters. Well, obviously, female ones too, but male ones not having nipples or not consistently having nipples. They don't put nips on the ladies either, to be clear. They're not like, hello, which is good because Moana's like clearly a minor. And I don't know how old she's meant to be in the second one, but that would be very upsetting if she were.

Sometimes with these characters, it's like, does Mario have nipples? That's like the longest thread in the history of forums. Italian men famously have nipples. And guess what? there's probably hair on there, okay? Just get used to the reality of that chest, all right? That's not, there's, there's no mistake in that for a seal or a dolphin. It's not smooth.

There's, that man has a sweater on under his sweater, you know? Differ's depending on the depiction anyway. While I'm doing corrections. No, he chronically has hair. He's Italian, Ben, okay? I don't, I don't know what, which of the, Chris is it, Pratt? Is it Pratt? I don't know what that guy has going on.

I don't remember if he is ever shirtless in any of the Guardians movies or whatever. But I'm just saying, I'm just saying that Mario, an Italian man has hair on his chest. Okay? Yes. Yes. Pratt is pretty shorn in the original Guardians set, at least, because he had to show off his gym work. You know, he had to display his gains. As if you can't tell that a man has specs if he has hair on his chest.

Like, what do we... Got to expose the definition. I was a young... I talked about the optimism of the early 90s. I was a teenager in the early 2000s, okay? Which was like a body image war zone. A minefield. That's what I want.

Also a war zone. Okay? So I'm not saying that like it's all the same thing, but like, why... You don't all have to be shorn. You can be unshorn. It's fine. Be on... You know, that's...

While I'm doing corrections, let me relay one from Patreon supporter Austin, who says, incredibly minor and perhaps pedantic. That's okay. Correction on your transition. This is on the preceding episode from Dodgers White House discourse to talking about James Wood. I was surprised when I saw the Dodgers at the White House because they were not in town to play the Nats or the Orioles, for that matter. Looks like they were in Philly and decided to use their off day to visit before the Mets series. I thought I had checked that, but evidently not.

So, no, they went out of their way to visit the White House. So perhaps that doesn't make it better, but to be accurate. So the only disappointments that this game really, no Mets hit home runs. So the Apple was not raised. And also, Shohei went 0 for 5. It was probably a bit of performance anxiety, I would think, just with me in attendance, with Sloan out there, depending on, you know, the first game she's ever seen. Obviously, he would want to show up and hit a homer for her or something.

and he was probably pressing, but it's okay, we forgive him. He has not played particularly well with me in attendance, which is, I have rarely witnessed his excellence in person, unfortunately, for me. That's. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, he was not moving very well because he's still dealing with this knee issue. And in fact, I think it was earlier that day, they reported that there had been, I don't know if you'd call it a setback exactly.

I think Dave Roberts referred to it as a bummer, maybe, that he had been a close. expected to throw another bullpen session, and then they pushed that back indefinitely because the knee was still bothering him a bit. And Robert still said that they expect him to pitch this season, which is sort of scary, that that's even in question. But it does seem like a little bit of load management, as we discussed previously. But also, even when he was hitting, even when he was returning to the dugout after flying out, he was not moving very fluidly. He was moving a little gingerly. And I bring this up because Dave Roberts said that regardless of whether he pitches,

he should or will be the National League MVP. But I think Peter Armstrong might have something to say about that. And we might have something to say about that because if the season ended today, which would be weird and tragic and surprising, well, PCA has cleared show hey, by a fair margin here. I mean, this is getting to the point where you might say it's outside the margin of error, even with something that's not perfectly precise like war. I mean, he has a full win on him at this point. At Fangraphs, as we speak, going into Monday's games,

Pete Gromstrong sitting pretty at an even 7.0 in Shohei languishing at 5.7. and baseball reference has the gap a little less than that, but still PCA number one and Shohei number two, well, number three, technically behind Christopher Sanchez, but baseball reference pitching more. What are you going to do? Anyway, Sanchez has been good. I mean, not as good lately, but good.

Yeah. But that's about a win difference there too. And if Otani is hobbled at all at the plate by this knee ailment, then you might expect that he won't be his usual excellent self as a hitter. And as we've covered, PCA seems to really have leveled up offensively and seems to have developed a new dimension to his game with the patience and the walks and everything. And so unless he suffers a late season swoon the way that he did last year,

which is not out of the question, but if he keeps this up or maintains this margin, he's going to have an excellent case, is he not? I think he has a couple things going for him. Well, he has a lot going for him, to be clear. But bear with me for a second. So I think that in general, would you agree, and here I'm putting things to you like you're back in court.

That's just bringing me back to court. But, you know, guys who derive a lot of their value from their fielding, I think tend to do a little less well in end-of-year awards votes than guys who are, you know, probably good fielders, but also dominant at the plate. Would you agree with that as a general? Yeah. I think that's probably less true than it once was probably because people are looking at war and war would be accounting for that. Well, I mean, there was an era in MVP voting where it's like, ah, he's a great glove guy and he has a 280 on base percentage. MVP, right?

I mean, you know, and that was based on reputation and everything. But, yeah, more recently, I would say, certainly offense has been prioritized and more fairly or even inflatedly valued. So that even now, all else being equal or wars being equal, probably the big hitter is going to get the edge. Right. And I think that, you know, some of that, some amount of skepticism there probably still makes sense. And it certainly made a lot more. more sense in earlier eras of war where, you know, we just should acknowledge the the amount of

error that might be present in single season defensive metrics, right? So I think that there was a often inappropriate amount of skepticism that those numbers were quite as well calibrated and, you know, quite as descriptive as what we saw on the offensive side. I think that as those metrics have improved over time and certainly as they've become aided by statcast, that some of that imprecision has fallen away, although, you know, it's still there and we always give the appropriate caveats, what have you. But I think that there are a couple of things working in PCA's favor. First, you can't dispute what he's doing at the plate. Like, as we are recording on Monday, you know, afternoon, he has a 155 WRC plus. He has 23 home runs. You know,

he's slugging over 540. His strikeout rate is manageable. He's famously walking now, right? And so he's putting forth a much more well-rounded resume. And he's literally the best guy at being a center fielder. And so I think that there is, you know, there was this window where we had made a shift, at least for a significant amount of the voting body. And here we will remind people that, like, those end of year votes, it's only 30 members of the BBWA and it's on a rotating basis and it's not the same electorate every time.

So, like, you know, we should be careful in drawing two broader conclusions about sort of the trend in voting. But if you're in the New York chapter, you'll get selected to serve on multiple juries before you ever get an end of season award for. That's right. That's right. That's bananas. But I think there was this window where we had seen a significant amount of the electorate, at least taking war into consideration in its vote. And now, you know, end of season war leader boards and ultimate and sort of the ultimate distribution of votes for year and stuff is like very closely correlated to each other. It's like real tight.

There's very little daylight there. But there was this period where it's like, okay, we don't want to overindex on the defensive piece of it. And now we're more comfortable with a defensive piece of it. And also, you don't need, like, OAA to say PCA is the best guy. You just have to watch him do it. And you're like, oh, oh, this is a different sort of thing working here than even other guys who, you know, might be plus at their position or might be plus underfielders. It's like there's PCA and then there is, you know, a smallish gap, but a gap, a meaningful gap.

between him and Sadan. And, you know, I'm sure that that's going to fluctuate back and forth. I don't think that there's, like, such a profound true talent difference between those two guys that we might not see those, our understandings of it flip around a couple of times, provided that they keep him in the outfield. More likely to do that now, as the Red Sox are, based on our trade that we'll talk about in a second. But, you know, it's like those two guys and there, I think that this year is a gap between them.

And then there's like the rest of the good gloves. of center fielder. So I think that he has a strong case and, you know, we'll see how it all sort of shakes out in the end, how long show his out, you know, what are, what are the propensities of even the war-inclined voters, right? Are they fit-based folk? Are they R-A-9 folks? Like, we're just going to find out. But I also think at play in the NL field will be the same phenomenon we discussed on the AL side, which is, you know, particularly if you have a guy with a good case, at this point, you know, if the season ended today, as you said, we'd all be very confused. And once we had gotten over that and decided to vote on end of year awards, like, I don't think anyone voting for PCA would be wrong. And I don't know that they'd have to be particularly defensive about it. But I think people are kind of keen to have an opportunity vote for somebody else, you know? I don't think that it's an irresponsible electorate in general. And I think that if at the end of the year, everyone looks around, And it's obvious that like despite being limited on the mound and injury and what have you, that Otani's the best guy.

Well, I'm sure people will vote for him. But I think that given an opportunity to cast a reasonable, responsible vote for somebody else, people are going to jump on that. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not sure tie goes to Otani at this point because he has won so many times. And if he had done something new and different as he seemed to be doing earlier in the year when he was pitching so spectacularly, then I think that would have been enough to overcome any Otani fatigue among voters. I know it seems silly to suggest that one could get tired of Shohei Otani, and perhaps one should not get tired of watching him play or appreciating his stats,

but casting the same vote for the same guy year after year, even if it's generally different voters in each electorate. Nonetheless, I think people would be eager to give a statistically deserved award to someone else. It's not like they're going to reach to find someone else, but if PCA is right there and he is, or he ends up ahead as he is, then, yeah, people might be interested in doing that. And at this point, PCA has outhit Otani. And yes, Otani has the better underlying numbers and quality of contact and expected weighted on base and all of that. But the actual results, he has a better WRC plus PCA, that is. And yes, he has a high Babbitt, but he's also out-homered Otani impressively. So, and look, even if Otani doesn't throw another inning in the regular season, having 85 plus innings of a sub-2-ERA, three-war performance, well, that's not nothing. Obviously, that's not something that PCA can claim, but PCA does have the glove. That's just a different form of defense.

Plus he has his wheels. He's second in the National League installed bases. He's top 10 in base running runs. That has not been an element of Otani's game this year because he was probably trying to pace himself doing the two-way thing and now has the bum knee. So yeah, you put it all together. And it's a pretty darn compelling case for PCA.

So it's really about can he keep it up all year? Because he certainly seemed to be neck and neck with Otani, if not ahead, through. the first few months of last season, but then he kind of collapsed, and Otani just kept on trucking. So if this is the new and improved PCA, as he does appear to be,

and he can more or less sustain this performance to the end, and Otani is not able to return to the mound soon and keep pitching at that level, then, yeah, I almost feel like it's PCA's award to lose. Well, and I think that people also enjoy, like, a compelling narrative in the vote, and the story of he's finally able to put it all together and be a consistent offensive force

and marry that with this already existing superlative defense. Like, that's just a, that's a compelling story. Yeah. It'll be interesting to see how it shakes out, but I think we're in shape where we might have, um, for the first time in a while, like, not that it hasn't been compelling. Like I think last year's ALMBP,

race was compelling until like the final month when it became you know the distance started to become starker and more clear between judge and and cow but you know we might have some real some real shakeups there and it would be very funny if this year we end up with a catcher MVP which I'm not saying will happen but like Dylan Dingler yeah it could yeah we could he's having one heck of a season he and and yorda are basically the same and Bobby what junior's not far behind. And then there's Cam Schlittler who's, you know, maybe Cam Schlittler will do do something wild. Maybe he'll, maybe he'll win both. He won't win both. He almost certainly will not win both, but maybe he will win both. And then we get to hear all kinds of people try to

say Cam Schlittler correctly. Although, would it even be Schlittler or cease? I guess Schlittler has more innings, but yeah, they're kind of neck and neck war-wise. I thought that this was Witt's year, but now he's on the injured list for the first time in his career and it's very much up in the air. It's a three-way race right now at least among the position players in the AL with Dingler and Witt and Yordon. So we'll have new blood there too because of the absence of Aaron Judge. So a bit of a shake-up potentially and maybe that makes it more interesting

to talk about as I'm sure we will again. Part of me does want Cam Schlittler to win at least something because I know that it's not always the commissioner that says it, but the minute that he mispronounced Rochelowski's name, I was like, Campholour definitely needs to win a freaking award this year, man. I just got to see what Rob's got. You know, what do you got, Rob? What do you got? Yes. I'd like to see him sweat at least while he just as careful not to say it that way. Okay. Well, as you alluded to, we did. have a trade consummated this weekend.

So if the trade deadline was not already officially in swing, maybe not in full swing, but it is now in some sort of swing because two teams have swung a trade, the Red Sox have traded commonly early to the Nationals for Curtis Mead. This is a pretty exciting trade. I like this. This is a fun one.

Challenge trade. Cad is made. I like getting to do my voice. I know. for one, pitcher for position player. Yeah. Strength for strength, weakness for weakness. This is how trades are supposed to work, I suppose.

And two players at somewhat similar stages, at least age-wise, early, who is, of course, a left-handed starter. He is 24 years old still. Curtis Mead is 25. And he's been around a bit longer. He's had, well, dare we call it, a bar. breakout? I think we could. I think it might qualify. It's a breakout in progress. We'll see how he finishes this season. The Red Sox hope that when the dust settles, it will have been a breakout. But, you know, he's been roughly a replacement level guy to this point, and he's on track to be

quite a valuable player, and mostly due to the bat. And that's what the Red Sox are acquiring him for. And the nationals, well, they needed an arm. As we discussed last time, actually I brought up, I entertained the hypothetical if the National's brain trust could go back and rewind their offseason and undo some of the pitching trades they made then when they shipped out some pitchers, including one who went to Boston and has been doing fairly well, right? So this is sort of, you know, Jake Bennett goes from the Nats to the Red Sox, and he's been sort of a stalwart for the Red Sox rotation. So I wondered, even if they were totally justified in making,

those trades and the nationals have exceeded expectations and how could they have known that they would be in contention like this, whether if they could just flip a switch and say, actually, you know what, give us back Bennett, give us back Gore, give us back Ferrer or Soriano or whomever. And I wasn't sure that they would. And they obviously got some good prospects for those guys. And they are looking long term and everything. And also, you don't want to buy too much into what could be a fluky flash in the pan or at least ahead of schedule. Maybe we're not ready yet and we don't want to go all in before we're really ready. But obviously they did want some pitching one way or another and they went and got some. They went and got calmly early who is on the IL, of course.

He's been dealing with some elbow inflammation, which doesn't seem to be anything more serious, but he is a pitcher. It is an elbow. So I suppose you never know. But He made quite an impression with his few starts down the stretch last year and started strong this year. And then he ran into this inflammation issue. But on the whole, he has been a very effective pitcher in his young Major League career. And the Nats staff sure could use that. So you can understand why each team would want the guy that they got. Certainly the consensus, the reviews have leaned toward.

the nationals getting the better of this deal? Do you agree with that interpretation? I am going to offer a very annoying answer, which is that I don't think we can say that with any certainty yet. I don't think we can offer it. I understand the concern around Mead. I find it so interesting. And I'm wondering, we'll never get, I think, a direct answer about this out of Breslo. But like, if Caleb Durbin doesn't, doesn't turn around the last couple of weeks. Do you think that they make this deal? Right? Because there's an argument to be made that they've made a version of this deal very recently, right? Which is buying what looked like kind of high on Caleb Durbin after he had the 2025 he did with Milwaukee and they sent off Kyle Harrison.

And obviously Kyle Harrison's injury is sort of clouding some of that. But as is Durbin's recent turnaround because he's been much better since the start of June. but one could argue that perhaps they are selling kind of low on a guy who is quite good and entered the year as a global top 40 prospect for a guy who had prior prospect pedigree but really hadn't been able to actualize on it and maybe you're catching the best couple months of his career. So that's interesting. But also, I don't think we have a good answer yet, or at least not a definitive answer on how much of this turnaround that we've seen from not just

Mead, but a number of the other Nat's young hitters is like the result of them having really figured something out organizationally, right? And obviously there's familiarity between these front offices and you certainly would,

and it's not like everyone who's working in D.C. now is a former red sock, I think. that, you know, there's obviously a lot of overlap between those groups, but they've hired well outside of that circle, right, and brought a lot of new people. And there's so many new people they almost definitionally can't all be former Boston folks. Yeah. Paul Toboni, Poboni, as we have called him at times. I mean, he was overseeing drafts, right, for the Red Sox. I mean,

early as one of his guys, kind of. Kind of. So, like, he has a lot of familiarity there. You might say that Breslow's group has familiarity with the acumen of some members of the NASS new staff, and maybe that gives some greater confidence. I don't know. So I think that we, as we probably always should be with these sorts of trades, we should grade it as an incomplete because we don't know. You know, the way that Bauman put it at the end of his right above it, I thought was really astute, which is that these kinds of challenged trades are as much about the work of the organization as a whole as they are, you know, anything else. Like stars for prospect deals are won and lost by scouts and challenged trades like this one, and I'm quoting Bowman here, are one

and lost by the entire organization. So some of this is going to come down to early's health long term. It's going to come down to how well the Nats are able to help him continue to actualize and refine his repertoire. He is this massive expansive repertoire. Maybe it makes sense for him to pair some of that down. Maybe it makes sense to make alterations to some of his pitches. Like, you know, we don't know yet. And Mead's ability to sustain his gains to make the next adjustment is going to dictate a lot of how we think about this for Boston. Now, Boston's situation has been made urgent in a way that like two months ago really didn't feel like it was because they were in such bad shape. And now it's like, yeah, this makes a lot of sense. You have a huge need on the infield. You have got

who might come back at some point, but they're injured. You don't know what they're going to look like when they're back. And even if they do come back, like, you still need guys. You know, you need some guys. So see what you have in Mead. I'll say this. And Bowman wrote about this. Other people have written about some of the adjustments that Mead has made to his setup,

the way that he is standing in the boxes, mechanics, what have you. I saw Mead live in person when the Nats came through a couple weeks ago. and the guy just looks like he's pulled it together right like his body looks great the way he was moving in the field was definitely better he's not like a short stop

like he's a third basement and you know we'll see how they end up sort of figuring out the Durbin and meat of it all I think that Brussels said they're going to play meat at second and keep Durbin at third

because Durbin's quite good at the hot corner we'll just see how that all shakes out but, you know, I think there's an urgency to the Red Sox situation that he has to be better than some of their alternatives right now. But we just have to wait and see. That's not satisfying. But we should do it anyway. And in the meantime, you can satisfy yourself by saying care is made in an Australian accent.

I was going through the photo database to find a picture of him. And there was a photo when the national sports. play, I think it was, it had to have been the Nationals playing Cleveland. And it was Cadizmade and Travis Bizzana. Get all the Aussies together. It's not a good accent, but I can do like the, I can do, I can do, I can do the names. I can't like, I couldn't like converse convincingly as a person born and raised in Australia. I wouldn't try.

It would be insulting to them. You know, they have their own voice. Yeah. And it's pretty impressive that they have, at the very least, that the nationals turned Curtis Mead into someone they could trade for Connolly early. And credit to Mead too, obviously. He's the one who's doing it and putting the work in. But nonetheless, the Nationals Acquire guy, and he was with the Reyes, right?

So it wasn't like, oh, he was with some backward organization and they plucked him off the scrap heap or something. Like, he had chances elsewhere. And they picked him up. And I think Blake Butera, National's manager, was somewhat familiar with Mead because he had maybe coached him in the race organization. but they get him from the White Sox directly. And actually they traded with the White Sox,

they traded Boston Smith to the White Sox. He went to the wrong socks, though. I know. He should have gone to Boston. It just would have been, yeah. But Boston Smith, who's a catcher and outfielder in AA, and he's raking there. He's 23.

Maybe he'll turn into something. He's hit quite well this year. So maybe it'll turn out that they didn't get me for nothing. But nonetheless, to pick him up. up and get him that late. I mean, it was March 28th. That's after opening day, right? Because now opening day is so early. So to pick him up and then flip him a few months later for Connolly Early, you never would have expected in late March that Curtis Mead would be traded for Connolly Early straight up just four months later, right? That's quite a nifty bit of business for the nationals.

and obviously it'll be even niftier if it turns out that meat isn't actually this good and they just traded him at his peak and picked up a guy who's under team control for five more years, even longer than meat is. It's not like either a rental or anything, but you get even more early. Although with a pitcher, yeah, I mean, with a pitcher,

you never know how much you're actually going to get. I was laughing at the name, you know. Yes. Because it's funny because he's laughing, name is early you know that's why it's funny mildly maybe getting getting getting late early getting an early start to the deadline hey yeah yeah i guess i guess we could say that you know it's only a week early but uh it was still the earliest move of significance to be made really that's right to david peterson or whoever else lance mcculler's junior yes that

Lance McCuller Jr.'s has already been DFAed by the proof. Oh, man. Yeah. So Mead, maybe not the most gifted glove guy, but if he doesn't have the best range and doesn't have the best arm, I guess at second, only one of those things will be a problem, really. And he supplies some pop,

or at least if he keeps hitting like this, only Wilson Contreras has hit more home runs on the Red Sox than Curtis Mead has this year. I mean, it's Willier Bray, who was second on this. the socks with 15 dingers and Mead has 17. So he does seem to have made some real changes and improved the plate discipline and the swing rate and the chases and he's walking.

He's not striking out very much. So it's encouraging, I think. And even if he's not an extremely gifted all-around player, he should help. And he does help with infield weaknesses and power deficiencies and everything else. and obviously early will shore up the top of that rotation. It's not a great rotation, even with a healthy and effective connolly early. But it's not better with him than with Adam. It's just I don't see much in the way of downside here for the nationals because let's,

let's entertain the worst case scenario. The worst case scenario for them this year is that early, sufferers a setback is not able. to return to the rotation and they missed the playoffs well okay they were going to they were probably going to miss the postseason anyway and they have early for such a long stretch of team control to your point that they just they get a lot of bites at the apple both to help him improve not that he isn't good already but to you know kind of help him refine his game and also to be you know insulated somewhat from the potential of him missing time with injury. The upside scenario is that he comes back and is effective. They maybe add another arm at the

deadline and they make a surprise wild card run. And sure, maybe you missed Curtis Mead there, but they have a they have a surplus of infielders, as you noted, and they are getting good production out of other guys. So I really, I really like it for Washington. I don't dislike it for the Red Sox. I think that, you know, we've given Breslo a hard time at points this year. And I think he's, deserved it, but I think being nimble in the face of a club that is finally playing the way we expected and is in position to take advantage of a weak American League and to do so in a way that is dealing from a position of depth. And sure, you can never have too much pitching, what have you. But like, I think this was a nice bit of work from both sides. I think the opportunity

cost is higher for the Red Sox. But, you know, when you're in a spot where you can make the postseason this year if you continue to play well and you can sort of write the ship on the infield. I think that that's worth it. So I liked it for both sides. I don't know if it will ultimately work out the way that either is expecting, but I think that the logic behind it is sound. Now, I do want to give Bresol a little bit of the business here. I do think that you do want to be confident in your e-val. Connolly early is good. And, you know, you've done two of these now, you know, where you've potentially bought high on a guy who hasn't been good for all that long.

Now, the guy who you had more information about performing well over the course of a season, Caleb Durbin, well, he was very bad. So, you know, like, who knows? Maybe it's a bad comp in some ways because Scors Meadstrike record is even shorter. but you know I think just like be careful about this and there I think it speaks to sort of a bigger evaluation equation that they have to balance riddle that they have to solve puzzle that they have to piece together pick your you know your your metaphor here which is part of what fueled their their rise was sort of surprising performance from young guys and now you have to figure

out which of them is actually good so and that that extent ends to Caleb Dervin and it probably still extends to Curtis Meath. So the self-evaluation piece of it is not complete from their perspective. But, you know, isn't that our ongoing project in life, right, to understand ourselves and our capacities and the capacities of others? Yeah. And the Sox still have a lot of pitching and partly credit to Breslow because Sunny Gray has been great. Guy he acquired this past offseason. Suarez has been as advertised. He's back from the intro list now. And you still have some youth, too, in Peyton Tolly and Jake Bennett and, well, even Gare Crochet. They could get him back.

He's 27 and signed long term. And then Bayo's back up. Patrick Sandoval's been pretty effective in his return and his first few starts back. So you can never have enough pitching, as some people may have heard me say. But the Red Sox might have enough for now, at least. And I thought that it was actually a sign of some growth for Breslo. he was talking about how this was a tough move to make, but he said a lot of front offices are looking at very similar information. So trying to find an opportunity to win a trade is not nearly

as easy as it maybe would have been at another point. Instead, in this position, I've tried to shift our goal, not being to win the trade. Our goal is to make our major league team better. Sometimes the most straightforward way to do that is a need-for-need type trade. Right. So I think he's on to something there. And she did describe it as, I think, incredibly uncomfortable to make or, you know, who was agonizing for him to do this. Obviously, it's always hard to trade someone like Connolly Early. But that is the right mindset to have, I think, is don't look at it as you want to win the individual move on a dollar per war basis or add up the wars or whatever.

That's important. That's a factor. But you have to take into account where you are and where you are on the wind curve and what the expectations were and what your holes are and your strengths and your weaknesses and everything. And so it's it's like the old Andrew Friedman quote about how, well, the winner's curse, basically, right? If you're always rational about every free agent, you will finish third on every free agent. Right.

Sort of the same thing applies to trades too. Yeah. And I think that we can get a little, we can get a little overly enchanted with the guys being clever, you know, with the dudes being, being, being savant like like oh look at that look at that sometimes like he said you just need that's what we need we need that guy and we have a bunch of these this type of guy so we're gonna pick the one that will get us that guy who we can bear it apart with you know it doesn't always have to be

more complicated than that it's like that meme where he's like look what I can do and then he does a bunch of stuff that doesn't you know the meme you know that meme you know how I'm describing that meme really well I'm pretty sure I know which you're referred to. The tweets, right? It wasn't clear what you're trying to do about it. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. I think. I don't know. There's probably a meme about it. I bet there's a meme. Not clear what move I was trying to do. Yeah, that one. Yeah.

Yeah, that one. Not clear what move. Yeah. I reach it. Okay. I don't know if anyone else does, but I'll link to it. Thank you. Appreciate that.

I want to do some additional research. Yeah. So, anyway, the Nats have had such a powerhouse offense that maybe they won't miss Mead because they have C.J. Abrams, who's just a one-man wrecking crew, he was supposedly being involved in trade talks or coveted at least, but he's just, he's never making it out these days. He's a player of the week. He's not going anywhere, presumably, if he keeps sitting like this and the Nats are making a real run in it. Of course, they could always end up with one of those deadlines where they add here and subtract there

and they get blown away by some offer and they're looking short-term and long-term and trying to balance those things. But as it stands, they have a whole lot of offense the way Abrams has been hitting. And of course, James Wood, one-man lineup himself and is the size of multiple men.

And we talked about him and his unorthodox excellence last time. I did want to ask you about another wood, a good wood gets good wood, but this wood is a pitcher, Kerry Wood, who we probably haven't talked about for some time, but he went semi-viral this weekend

because he suited up for the Savannah bananas. So he was wearing yellow. Kerry Wood is 49 years old, but this was pretty impressive. I don't know if you saw this trick pitch. I just sent it to you. I will link to it on the show page for anyone who missed this.

Carrie Wood delivered a disguised, camouflaged behind the back Ephes. That's what it was called in the tweet from Codify. I think it kind of qualifies. People differ on what qualifies as an Ephis, but he did this move where, I mean, it's not clear what move he was trying to do, right? I guess it wasn't clear to the hitter. Not that this is all on the level. It's a Savannah Bananas game. But just saying, if this were for real, like what he does is he goes into his motion. and meanwhile he hides that he has thrown the ball behind his back, spot on. Like he hit the glove, he hit the target.

It appears to be a strike and was called as such. And meanwhile, he's going through his full delivery. I mean, not max effort. The man's 49 years old. But it was a pretty nifty little delivery, you know, where he's just doing this like little behind the back underhand kind of lob with excellent accuracy. while just having you, you know, pay no attention to that pitch because it's some sort of prestige situation.

This is pretty impressive, no? I know you're constitutionally opposed to praising Savannah bananas. I'm just trying to channel the spirit of John Crook. I'm trying to channel Crook because. I landed on one of the things that I love the most about John Kruk in the booth, which is that he is a grump without being either a dick or a crank. Yep. And that's beautiful and challenging.

Mm-hmm. And so I'm so glad that so many people were delighted by this. It is nifty. Yeah. The batter knows this is coming, though, right? Presumably, yeah. Right, okay. But I could imagine if they didn't, that this would still fool you once,

at least. Right. Right. I mean, fool you twice. Shame on you maybe, but. But so then just, okay, also. You mean do it like he should, you should try out for, for the Cubs again or something? No, he should do it in this game without the hitter knowing it's coming. I imagine the hitter knew that this was coming. Probably. Yeah, but I, but I don't know for sure. And maybe it would have been the same result either way. Maybe. It's pretty impressive to me that he landed this. I think. Yes. That part is cool. the accuracy of it. That's pinpoint command on a behind the back looking strike. I couldn't do that. That's pretty impressive. I couldn't do that either. I couldn't do that either. It is funny, there are, there are a number of people sitting in the seats behind home who like know what they

just saw and are suitably impressed. And a lot of others who just completely tuned out and weren't watching at all. Or there does appear to be a little kid who's standing up with his jaw dropped. or maybe he's just yelling or something in a yellow shirt, I guess unsurprisingly. But he's just like open-mouthed wonder maybe. Yeah, there are a couple of open mouths. There are a couple of gap, a mouth, a gap. Yep. Is this other team sponsored by hot ones?

What's going on with these jerseys? They should do that. And then they could do one of their planned stunts could be debom beyond insanity, except that would require hitters on the circuit to be able to hit home run. Wait, I didn't, I didn't live up to the spirit of crook with that bit of snark. I failed at my own challenge. She's supposed to be a friendly curmudgeon. Yeah, this is just not super for me.

This is the coolest version of the thing that's not for me that I've seen, though. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. If a real pitcher did this in a real game, this would be effective, right? I think even if the- first time. Yeah, the first time. I wonder how many times.

because there is an unfamiliarity effect. That's a big part of why lefties are more effective than righties, all else being equal. And you see a lot of lefties, just a lot fewer than you see righties. And so I wonder how quickly this would wear off because I don't think you could, because with a change up, for instance, the idea is that you're supposed to make it look indistinguishable from a fastball or a faster pitch and your arm speed.

is supposed to be the same and they're not supposed to be able to pick up on it. This obviously isn't a max effort full speed delivery exactly. It might be for 49-year-old Kerry Wood. I don't know exactly. But if you telegraphed it like you're doing max effort and then you kind of do it a little lackadaisical as would did here relative to an actual pitch thrown in anger in the big leagues, then you could maybe pick up on it and because it's a slow pitch, you'd have time to adjust on the way to the plate potentially. So, I don't know. I think if a real pitcher just had this

in his arsenal, and he'd really have to be able to land it consistently, because if not, if you did this in a real high-stakes situation and you couldn't land it, then you would be pilloried by fans, by coaches, by managers, et cetera. So you'd have to be sure you could do it. But if you could do it reliably, which, look, there are a lot of guys who have that knuckleball in their back pocket, and oh, one day, maybe I'll break it out in games, and I throw it in, when I'm doing my throwing session or on the sidelines or something, and I'm toying around with it one of these days. And rarely do they actually do it because there are just so many incentives not to, and if it goes wrong, it backfires horribly, because it looks like you weren't really trying.

You don't want to get beaten on not your best pitch, not even a, a, real legitimate pitch. But if someone practiced and trained and could just work one of these into a regular major league arsenal, that would be highly effective, right? You'd never see it coming.

The element of surprise, I think, would be pretty potent. I think that that's right. I mean, it would come to be understood as part of your mix. You'd have to think of... You'd have to approach it and deploy it like 2025 Josh Naylor stealing a base, right? You can't do it every time.

But it would be a fun and interesting offering to have in your bag. I can't believe you set me up to be a jerk to me. It's fine. It's good for me to remind our listeners that I'm not always nice because sometimes we don't tell them that. And then they send overly familiar emails and then I have to decide how much of an asshole to be over email. And then they're like, oh, you're so mean. And I'm like, well. You know what's interesting?

Josh Naylor has pretty much kept up his stolen base pace. So if you thought it was... Right, she's just on base a lot less often. Yeah, which I guess makes it even more impressive because he had 30 swipes last year in 147 games. And this year he has 21 in 99 games. And as you noted, his on base is like 30 points lower. Yeah.

So that's kind of nice because I was wondering, would this just be a one-season only thing? And then word would get around. And he would be content and say, hey, I swipe 30 bags. Now I can say I did that forever, and everyone will be vigilant from now on. Juan Soto, for instance, has gone down from 38 last year to 7.

Now he has had various calf strains for much of the season, so that's probably a big part of it. But, yeah, for Nailer, at least that aspect of his performance has been perhaps somewhat surprisingly sustainable. So that's fun. I think that it's really nice that you found a nice thing to say about Josh Nailer's 26th season. I think that's so generous of you.

I haven't had as many kind things to say. I'm not at 20-204 Jorge Polanco levels. I mean, it's not an emergency. Yeah. It's pretty close to an emergency. What did you think of Kruk's outfit in the booth on Sunday night baseball? Because when we had Benetion, we did bring up Kruk's upcoming appearance, right? I know.

And why are people subjecting Kruk to a suit? and why are you constraining him? Right. Let, let Kruk be free. Yeah. They won't. They refuse. Yeah.

Look at how they massacred our boy. I'm so glad that you asked Ben because candidly there just wasn't a lot of baseball news for us to talk about. So we're going to talk about Harry Chess and John Crook's ties. I don't understand what we're doing to this man. I guess in some ways what we're doing is setting him up for the inevitable funny screenshot of him looking perturbed at the opening of the broadcast. But if you turn on like an NFL Sunday pregame show,

it doesn't matter what network you're on. And this is true for a lot of the NBA shows too. So, you know, just to pick two other sports that take themselves seriously. You will see men in sneakers. And they're like fancy sneakers or designer sneakers. I'm sure they're very expensive. But they're sneakers. And they have like rubber soles.

Some of them aren't wearing socks. A lot of them aren't wearing socks. Many of them are not wearing socks to the point that they are like bare ass in their ankles on TV. I never understand that. Yeah, there's sometimes a stealthy ankle sock lurking in there. But I never understand, yeah, the dress shoes and no socks or even the appearance of no socks. Just like showing a lot of ankle. Ankle.

Bare ass and your ankles. Just like you are a Victorian lady of. the evening trying to titillate the masses, okay? Yes. It is weird for something so modest to be so unbecoming, but it is unbecoming. You're a grown man, you pay taxes, you know? And socks serve a purpose, not a purely aesthetic purpose. Wait, they keep your shoes from getting stinky, you know? Yeah, protect your feet.

There could be friction, there could be smells. Yeah, you might get a blisty. You don't want a little, you know, and then it's going to rub and it's going to, it's going to bleed on some of your other shoes. and then you're going to be like, ugh. So we allow that, right? We allow all manner of interesting suits. And some of the suits, the men can pull off.

And some of them make them look like Darkwing Duck. I mean, I just like, I don't know how else to describe some of these suits. Some of these suits are bananas. And not the savannas kind. Right, because some of them look good. I did it again. It's just not for me. It's just not for me.

And I'm constantly asked to have an opinion about it. And I know it's not for... When people enjoy things, Meg. I am. So everyone stop asking me what I think. Because if you ask me, I assume you want an honest answer. And what I think is that it's not for me. That's the polite way of saying it.

But so anyway, I just, I get that you want, you know, Sunday night baseball. And we recorded our latest Patreon episode over the weekend. and you were talking about how you have been like, you know, you've been putting on a button down, like a collared shirt when you're going into court. Because you're deciding something weighty. And so you should have respect for the proceedings and for the defendant whose fate you're deciding.

And like you want to treat the whole thing with the appropriate gravity. And so I get that, you know. And I don't think we have to be so fussy about Sunday night baseball. It's not as important as a person's freedom. I can't say for what crime because you are being so, good and not telling me. But, um, but, but you know, like you want to treat it with some gravity and, and, and yet, and yet, we got all these bare ankles. Is it just because it's Sunday morning that we're comfortable with it? These bare ankles on the Lord's day. Scandil. Ridiculous. And then later in

the broadcast, this was what really, really put me over the edge. Although by insisting upon him wearing a suit. We were, we were treated to the saga of John Cruck's ties. And so maybe that makes the whole thing worth it, because John Cruck was gifted by a friend, a number of clip-on ties. He was not wearing a full tie. He was wearing a clip-on tie. I don't know if he had a clip-on tie on in the, in the first, in like the, you know, the opening spiel that they give, where it's Benetti and Joe Girardi and Cruck. Joe Rurati called him Mr. Seingbrunner. And I'm like, what do I expect, but also, oh, come on. So, you know, they do the, they do the opening, hello, welcome to Sunday, baseball. That's not what Benetti sounds like at all. But, and then that you cut to them in

the booth for the first time. And Benetti and Joe Girardi have both taken their jackets off, but still have their ties on. Cruck has taken his jacket off and has no tie. And I was like, that's fine. He's wearing a button down. He hasn't changed into like, you know, a T-shirt. shirt with a fanatic as some mythical beast or like Brandon Marsh potentially also as a mythical beast, you know, some sort of cryptid. He's still wearing a button down. You know him to be, like, he has transitioned to the church basement part of Sunday, right? You don't have to be quite so fancy as you are in chapel, but you still want to look presentable, right? He has this array of ties. And it was, it changed. He finally figured out he was having a really,

hard time with the first clip on tie or maybe it was the second clip on tie and the first one was the one he was wearing on the on the pregame standup unclear to me i don't know if he had like a first his first tie was a real tie because maybe like the wardrobe person assisted him with tying that tie but then he took it off and then he couldn't figure out this clip on it was given him real trouble they got to make a funny randy johnson joke and then he finally figured it out and he had the red clip on tie on and then, you know, the game, first the Phillies scored some runs and then Sanchez got in a bit of trouble anyway, they cut back to the booth at a certain point. And I can't tell you if this was truly the second tie or if it was merely the second tie I noticed. But they cut to him in the

booth. He is wearing a different tie. He has a different tie. And I was just like, how many of these are we going to see? By the way, they were not the best guys. But they were like clipons from Amazon. So what am I expecting? And then, and then Ben. And I'm like, oh, the yuck, yuck, the fun of the ties. Maybe this was all worth it. And then they cut to Costas doing a stand-up on the concourse somewhere in the outfield. He looked like he was like, you know, in left field somewhere. And Bob Costas, who looks great, by the way.

I don't know if he's not a little like nip and tuck down. Bob, you're looking, you're looking great, Bob. You know? And if that's, if that was your path to it, God bless you. Bob Costis is standing in the outfield. He is wearing a suit with a, with a, with a nice sweater, like a light sweater, a summer weight sweater, probably a very, a very light knit sweater. And I was like, so hold on, why don't they let, why don't they let

crook, they should let crook or do that, you know, like suit jacket, fine, but don't make the man wear a tie. If this is one of our options, is this only reserved for, for Costas? Is this only reserved for those in the field? What, what are, what is that all about? Let, let, let, let, let, let, let, let, Kruk cook a little bit, you know? Yeah, we should interview whomever does Kruk's wardrobe. Just, who are you wearing, John, if it's some sort of designer? And is there a negotiation that goes on there? I think there is a negotiation. And I appreciate, you know, they make them wear the full suit with the jacket and the tie in the first thing. They should let them really dress down a little bit further. Like, they should be able to take the tie off because I know that

they're in the booth, but it's open air. And even with the air pumping, I'm sure it was very warm in there, you know, and you got the lights on you. And I just, I feel like we are, you know, we're putting an animal under, in distress, you know, like, I don't mean that. And that sounds like I'm, I'm being dismissive of crux, but it feels like if you're hot, they're hot, bring them inside, you know? Like, it's got that. This is not his happy place. This is not his natural habitat. Yeah, It's like, you want, you know, you have an aquarium at home. You want to spruce it up. You want to have some nice fronds.

Right. You want to have some, it's got to be good quality, water and filtration and food and maybe some hidey holes and rocks to swim around behind. Yeah, hidey holes. You know, we want Cruck to thrive when he is performing for all of us. He is on display and national broadcast. and we just want him to shine and we want him to let it all hang out

both verbally and physically, or at least some of it could hang out a little bit more of it could hang out than was hanging out. So I felt for him. He is so dear, and as I said, manages to thread this needle between being a grump

but not mean-spirited, he's not raining on your parade. He's not trying to bring you down. you know, it's a very particular note to be able to hit and he does it so reliably. And I think that he and Benetti have a really nice rapport in that booth.

It was very funny to watch Joey Votto just trying so hard to say insightful stuff. And he did because he's a smart guy and he has a lot of good stuff to say about the game. But he's like, he was in like serious analyst mode and he was really trying to be so serious. And they're like, hey, you see this Bryce Harper toothpaste thing? They got to ask Kruk about the blood next time, you know,

because I'm still wondering if he has all of it, you know, or maybe as much as he should is all of it the right way to even think about that. Anyway. Crook keeps it loose so you don't want him to be too buttoned up in terms of his dressing because that's not the way that he is when he speaks and he speaks off the cuff so you don't want his cuffs to be too tight. Exactly. Yeah, just let him be himself.

Let everything flow a little bit better. Do you think Costas is dying the hair? Yeah, there's some suspicious gradient going on there with the temples. I mean, I don't know. I don't want to presume. I just I have looked askance at it from time to time. I think that everyone, aging, it does a number on all of us, and our understandings of ourselves change.

And, you know, when you look in the mirror, if it looks real different than what you're used to, that can be unsettling and disorienting. So if anyone wants to dye their hair, whether they're old or not, you do what feels good to you as a person. Allow me to offer, though, gentlemen. I think the gray hair looks really distinguished.

I think when men let their hair go gray, it looks, you all look like you look your age, and that's good. You look like you've had experiences in your life. I think it's a very handsome look for many men. And not everyone's hair gray's at the same rate or at all, but it does reach a point where it becomes kind of implausible. And then that just draws attention to it because you look like you're trying to preserve your youth perhaps. And it's a little uncanny.

Right. Now, I'll say this. My gray grandmother had dark hair until the day she died and she never died it. She had like five hairs total. But they were all very, they were all. a natural brunette. Whereas I feel like every day I find a new gray and they're even curlier

than my already curly hair. And I just am very excited to be mad madame mim, you know? It's coming for me and it feels right, you know? It's like I'm into puzzles now. I've got this hair. Here we go. You know? The change.

It changes the gray hair and the puzzles. That's what that means. You know? All of you men married some millennial women who are like, when they're talking about the change, what do they mean? That's what we mean. We mean puzzles. I got a crick in my, I got a crick in my neck from doing a puzzle. I have puzzle neck. I have a puzzle related injury. You don't get a cruck in your neck. That would be it. Yeah. That would be bad. You can't keep a good cruck down. However he's dressed, he still, he can only be himself,

right? So that's the good news. Last thing I want to say, we do have a trade deadline coming up in a a week as we record this, less than a week even. And we've talked plenty about that. We will continue to talk about it. Frankly, we all talk about it too much. I mean, we give it outsized importance when it comes to how much it actually dictates the outcome of the season. Very rarely does it actually change the course of a season or prove determinative or even alter the course of a franchise in any sort of predictable, measurable way. However, I get why we care because it is a source of some.

intrigue. And I just think, it was that Dan Simborski piece where he wrote early in the season about how if you just get off to a slow start, like you just have a bad week or something, it's like you've already sunk your playoff odds more than you can raise them with a deadline move. And so we kind of underrate just how much teams fortunes can change just day to day, week to week, and we hyperfixate on the trade deadline. But I understand why. Because Because it's a flurry of transactions. And that's always fun to speculate about end track. And sometimes it actually can be exciting.

And obviously it would be exciting if Terrick Scoobal does get dealt. This is compelling to me, not just because he's the best player who is theoretically available at the deadline, but also because it would really buck some recent trends, I think, if the Tigers do deal him because he is on an expiring contract. He is an impending free agent. is a rental, and you just don't get much for those guys anymore. And we've talked about that. Josian just wrote about it again, just looking back at the history of players who have

a couple months on their contracts, they just don't get traded for much anymore. They used to, but you just don't get top prospects for those guys anymore. And JJ Cooper just did a thing at Baseball of America where he was looking at the hit rate or failure rate for prospects traded at the deadline, and the failure rate is high. the hit rate is low. I don't know if it's necessarily different from the overall hit or failure rate for prospects, but the point is most of them don't pan out, even the ones who are the headliners, the centerpieces of the trade.

So JJ was trying to argue that, yeah, just don't be a prospect hugger, deal your young guys to go get the established guy. And then Joe was kind of pointing out that, well, teams don't really deal top prospects for rentals anymore. And others, like Neil Payne have pointed out that you can make big move and it probably will not actually lead to that big a move for your team. So considering all that, I just wonder we talked about the odds that Scoobble would actually get dealt last week. Well, we talked last week about the odds that he would get dealt. We didn't talk about

the odds that he would get dealt last week. That didn't happen. We know that already. But the Tigers just split a four game series with the Royals and they lost on Saturday and Sunday one run games each one. And that's rough. They are still in it. and they do still have pretty impressive underlying numbers. And so it's a question of, can they pry loose a real blue chipper for Terrick Scouple? Is that deal even out there on the market? Even for a guy as good as he is, will a team pay up for maybe, I don't know, nine starts, eight or nine starts or something plus a playoff run?

You hope it's just, and will he have any misgivings about how he's, used or hesitation about how he's used in October with the big payday waiting for him in free agency over the offseason. How do you use him responsibly? So I just wonder, will they ultimately decide, look, we just can't make a franchise altering trade for a rental. Even a guy who's come enough back-to-back Sy Young's teams just know that that is typically not going to push you over the top and it's just not going to be enough. And so if they can't get that guy who's really going to be a big part of their foundation and maybe is going to be close to big league ready and you can just slot him in and you won't miss much this season and he'll

help you for several years going forward. I just, if they can't get that guy, if they can't get the like toward the top of the top 100 type prospect, will they just hang on to him and say, we have a one in three shots, maybe a one and three shots of our making the playoffs and having Terrick Scoobble ourselves a couple years after we saw how we turned things around after we dealt at the deadline. It's basically like the immovable force, you know, it's like it's kind of that thing where it's like the unstoppable object, the immovable force. It's like teams' unwillingness to trade top prospects for rentals. But look at how good this guy is. He's the unstoppable object. He's Terrick Scoople, what do you think?

What's your reads on whether they can get that kind of guy even for Scoople? I'm laughing at unstoppable object. Now I'm imagining Terrick Scoobel dressed as the juggerna. Like the wall of the clubhouse being like, I'm the juggernaut, bitch. I am such a particular age, you know? Like, I'm just right in a super specific sweet spot. I think that, look, from the perspective of having to manage your communications to your fan base, I think that the Tiger's front office is sort of set up in a pretty ideal spot because I think

keeping him is pretty defensible given where both that division and the American League are. And I think you're right that the odds that they get like a really blockbuster return or low. Now, we have seen, there are some times when a guy who's a true rental still yields an impressive return. But they just get smarter and smarter every year front offices. And I don't think Prelor's trading for Scoobel. So that takes one high better off the books. He has been the high man like many of the last couple of times. But, you know, in his defense at least like there were a million years of team control.

left on Mason Miller's deal, so it's a little different. Right, yeah. Not a rental, yeah. Not a rental. So, but I think that you can say to your fan base, hey, we think that this is a winnable division or we think a wild card birth is an achievable

objective and we think that Terrick Scoobal is the best pitcher in baseball and you don't move that guy for nothing and, or at least you don't move him if you're not blown away and we found the offers wanting, and we think we are going to make a run at this thing. And we know that, you know, one really lousy

month kind of put us on our heels, but we think we're a better club than that. We think that the guys in this in this room can play better baseball and have been playing better baseball. We're going to go try to make a run at it with this group that we think is, is playoff worthy and capable. Now, I think if you're, if you're them for that message to really land, you probably need to do a little bit to bolster your group. Their rotation has been better since their swoon, but it's pretty banged up now. I think if you keep school bowl,

you keep Mize too, right? And then maybe you try to add another starter. And then maybe you try to add a bullpen arm because... Maybe they get Jackson Joe back at some point, but... Right, but I don't think that you can go into October. If you go into October with this group, which in fairness to them has been getting better results from a relief perspective. But, you know, Kenley Jansen would be the weakest closure in the playoff field now, right?

Well, I guess that depends on whether or not the White Sox are in it and Sir Anthony Dominguez is pitching. I promised to talk about the Tigers. But every time I turn on a White Sox game, Sir Anthony Dominguez is blowing a lead. It feels like every time. I don't think I've seen a good Sir Anthony Dominguez pitching performance. performance this year. There have been ones where he hasn't given up runs, but it's still been tense. So they got to do something about that. But I think that, you know, if you decide our posture as we're keeping scoble, okay, but then you need to do some work to reinforce the group

you have and like make a run for it. And I don't think that it's an indefensible move for sort of the long-term trajectory of the franchise because you have all these young, good position players or you have Kevin McGonigal and a bunch of guys and Riley Green and a bunch of guys you're still kind of not sure about

but are good enough and Dylan Dingler you have maybe you have maybe the ALVP on your team come on. Go go go so I all of that to say

I think that their front office is in a position to craft a narrative that is both true to the realities of like trying to move scoble with so little

team control left and compelling for your fan base whether that will satisfy your ownership group, I don't know, but, you know, if they wanted you to move scubel, he would have already been dealt. You know, if it was a, if that was a make or break for them, I think that he would have been out the door, he would have been out the door probably before an arbitration decision

came down. So the fact that they were willing to hold on to him and then bring in Framber, who has been god-awful, by the way, but that's not. Yeah, yeah, it's a tough spot to be in. great, but... No, for Scott Harris because it's hard to pick a lane. But also, you could say, well, it's sort of win-win because either we get to keep

Terrick Scoobel and you get to continue to enjoy watching Terrick Scoobble and who knows, maybe we make a run and we say that we tried at least to make a run. Or if we dealt him, it's probably because we did get a difference-making prospect

or when we thought had the potential to be. And yeah, if you really wanted to get a haul for Scoobel, well, that ship sailed some time ago, but I think it would have been tough for them to make that decision to pull the plug possibly prematurely on contending with Terrick Scouple. So I don't blame them for that,

even if in retrospect it turns out that maybe they might have been better off. I did just for my own reference, mostly, though I'll link to it on the show page in case it's helpful for anyone. I made a little color-coded guide to the positional strengths and weaknesses and teams that are out of it that should be. sellers in theory that might have something to sell and teams that are in it and should be buyers in theory and might have something to buy. And it's based on the handy-dandy fangraphs projected team war page, which I enjoy, which just shows the projected war total for each team at each

position over the remainder of this season. And you can click on the header to sort each column. And really there are eight teams only that are out of it now, I think, that are more than, say, three or so games out of the closest playoff spot. And there are teams that are close, but maybe aren't legitimate contenders and they have low playoff odds. But they're still quite close and everyone's so mediocre that you can't not classify them as contenders. So really, it's only in no particular order. the Rockies, A's, Royals, angels, giants, Mets, Reds probably, and Blue Jays probably, whom you would have to, I think, classify as pretty darn done, barring a miraculous resurgence. So that's less than a third of the league that really should be in that bucket of definitely selling as the deadline is a week away.

That's not a lot. And then you have teams that the playoff odds might not really believe in. like the nationals, and well, they're in it. They're close enough to have a prayer and also maybe to be making moves that might help them, both in the short term and the long term. So I was just looking to see, okay, who has something to trade, for example, because most of the teams here that are out of it that I have classified as done, well, they also don't have a whole lot of positional strengths and hence why they're out of it because they're not very good teams. And I think it's, It's useful to look at this in a prospective sense as opposed to a retrospective sense.

Of course, you can do the backward looking who has had the replacement level killers, as Jay Jaffe does, and you can look at who has had the least productive positions. But I wanted to look at the projected totals because sometimes you have someone coming back from injury or someone has improved their projections or something. So maybe you've been bad to date, but you don't project to be so bad, and you wouldn't really be in the market for an upgrade at the deadline. So in terms of, say, teams that have good starting pitching and are in the done category, and I'm kind of looking at like, you know, top 10, bottom 10 in terms of projected positional strength,

it's really only the reds of those eight that project to have strong starting pitching. And most of that strong starting pitching probably not going anywhere. Right. Because they want to keep that around. So that's tough. Of course, it only takes one eligible player to make a deal get done. So this isn't the, this is sort of a blunt tool to appreciate this. And then say, relievers, the only team that's kind of done,

or I guess there are two teams that are in my done category that are in the top 10 in projected rest of season relief pitcher war, the Mets and the Blue Jays. And they have some guys to dangle. And no one's going to get super excited about that. but we know that there are going to be a lot of reliever deals done. I mean, inevitably, that's always the case, right? But the teams that need starting pitching that really project you that aren't among the done teams, the Padres, number one, really, they have the second weakest projected starting pitching after the Rockies.

Of course, you could debate whether the Padres are really in it or whether they will be buying or selling. And then you have the White Sox. They could use some starting pitching. Yeah. Davis Martin has, you know, come back to Earth a bit. The Astros, if they have declared themselves as in the buying category, which it seems like they have. Dana Brown has said something to that effect. They could certainly use some starting pitching. The Diamondbacks are there. Corbyn Burns, they hope will help at some point, but who knows, the Guardians who have had better results in good health, but, well, it's not surprising, I suppose, to see the Guardians not project well in something. Nationals, even after acquiring Connolly early, they still have the 10th weakest starting pitcher projections. So that's how much they needed him. And I guess a smattering of others maybe where a team has a strength that's kind of out of it. Like, okay, the Blue Jays and the Mets project to be pretty strong at catcher, but they're not going to be doing their catchers. So they're going to be

keeping their catchers around Alejandro Kirk, Francisco Alvarez, right? Or At first base, you know, you have the A's and J's, but don't think Vladie's going to be going anywhere at this headline. Seems somewhat unlikely, right? And don't think Nick Kurtz is going to be on the move, you know? So sometimes these are players that you have committed to or that you build around. They're not really guys who are going to be dangled at the deadline. Second base for the Giants, maybe that's a possibility. shortstop.

We have the Royals. Don't think they're going to be dealing Bobby Witt, Jr., even though he's hurt. Don't think the Reds are going to be moving Ellie. The Mets and Lindor, well, that's come up, obviously. It's not entirely out of the realm of possibility,

but a lot would have to happen for that to happen. Third base, you have the Royals and Mets close to the top of that leaderboard. Also, left field. You have the Mets. I mean, the Mets are in a lot of places because they project to be decent at a lot of positions.

still because the players were supposed to be better than this. And boy, they haven't been. But some of them, the projections still think might be good, even if it's too little too late for the Mets. Now, in terms of who needs something, the teams that are still in it that have particular positional weaknesses, according to this little calculation here. At catcher, we have the White Sox,

who seem to have a surplus of catchers, but it hasn't necessarily worked out that way. Rangers, Red Sox, Nationals, Astros, Phillies, pirates. They all show up in the bottom 10 projected catching strength, something to keep in mind.

At first base, the Diamondbacks have the weakest projected first base projection for the rest of the season. The Marlins, if you can even count them as contenders at this point, they have not been able to

buy a win in their last 12 games or so as we speak, so that's rough. The Guardians at first base, the Nats, the twins, the Brewers, the Brewers. the Tigers. Second base, we have the Nationals.

Again, a lot of nationals weaknesses here. Projection is not fully buying in. The Rangers, the Padres, the Rays, and the Astros. At shortstop, we have the Reyes, Braves, Pirates, Twins, Red Sox, Brewers, Mariners, and the Yankees, all in the bottom 10 projected performance from their shortstop. So it seems like some teams might have a need, might be in the market for a shortstop,

but who's actually out there, we will see. Will the angels say trade Zach Netto? Will the Astros decides? Yeah, we'll actually move to Jeremy Pena after all. Probably not, but who knows. Third base, we have the Nationals also project to be the worst at that position. The Marlins, the Phillies, the Cardinals, the pirates, the twins, and the brewers, all in the bottom ten at that position.

And just rounding things out in the outfield, left field, Padres, Diamondbacks, two worst projected left field squads the rest of the way, the Braves, the Phillies, the Guardians, and the Nats are all in the bottom 10. Center field, the Cardinals

are dead last. That's rough. Poor Victor Scott. The Diamondbacks, the Phillies, Astros, Tigers, Nats, Marlins, some repeated team names here, right? These are teams that are kind of on the fringes of contention

if they count. Now, here's one that's just like glaring, right field for the Phillies, you know? Right. Which is why a lot of people have thought, boy, wouldn't Mike Trout look great in a Phillies uniform? It would be so fun. It would be so fun. Come on, make it happen.

Mike, please, Artie, Mike, please, we all want this to happen. Let's go. You guys probably don't. But the Phillies have the worst projected production the rest of the way from their right fielders. So they really could use some help out there. And then you have the Tigers raised White Sox, Astros, and Marlins in the bottom 10 as well. I'll put that online if anyone wants to look at it and just kind of keep it as a reference and a primer, heading into the deadline, who has what, who needs what, where might there be a match as there was for the Red Sox and the Nationals?

We will find out soon. Well, wouldn't you know it after we recorded, Curtis Mead was hit on the hand by a pitch in the fourth inning of his Red Sox debut and was removed from the game. Maybe we were worried about the injury risk for the wrong guy in that trade. Also, we spent all that time talking about Terrick Scoobble. We should have been discussing Terrick Squirrel. Awful. Sorry. Maybe we'll talk about the tiger's squirrel that was on the loose next time.

And maybe by then, I'll be finished with jury duty. Or maybe I will be stuck in a 12 Angry Men situation, in which case I will be one angry Ben. But at least I'm not sequestered, that would make it tough to pod. Another thing that would make it tough to pod if we didn't get such excellent support from our listeners, especially those who have supported us on Patreon, which you can do by going to patreon.com slash Effectively Wild and signing up to pled some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad-free, and get themselves access to some perks.

As have the following five listeners, Ryan, Cuff, Kyle Quinny, Jeff Johnson, and Kevin Moriarty, thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons-only, monthly bonus episodes. As Meg mentioned, we just published one of those. Our 57th, and all 57 are accessible to you as soon as you sign up. You also get access to a third unrestricted episode each week, our Discord group for patrons only, and exclusive live streams, as well as personalized messages, prioritized email answers,

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 a Patreon supporter, you can message us to the Patreon site. If not, you can contact us via email. Send your questions, comments, intro, intro, themes to podcast at Fangraphs.com. You can rate, review, and subscribe to a Patreon. Effectively Wild on Apple Podcasts, 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 Patreon or the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we've cited today. Thanks to Shane McKean for his editing and production assistance. We'll be back with another episode a little later this week. Talk to you then. Number one, Fanggrass Baseball podcast.

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