Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 334: The Fielder-Kinsler Trade/Australia’s Asia Series Cinderella Story

Episode Date: November 21, 2013

Ben and Sam discuss the Ian Kinsler-Prince Fielder trade, then talk to Baseball South Australia’s Drew Samuelson about the incredible Canberra Cavalry.

Well, I want to be in the cavalry if they send me off to war. Well, I want a good steed under me like my forefathers before. I want a good mount when the bugle sounds and I hear the cannon roll. Well, I want to be in the cavalry if they send me off to war. Good morning and welcome to episode 334 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives. I am Ben Lindberg, joined by Sam Miller. We do have actual news to discuss today. We are going to get into the Kinsler Fielder trade.

We also had an interview scheduled with Drew Samuelson from Baseball South Australia. He's also an international scout for the Rays to talk about the team that won the Asia Series earlier today. And you may not know any of what that means. I didn't a day ago, but Drew will explain it. So first we will talk about the trade and then we will bring you that interview. You are writing right now about this trade and we're taking a break so that we can talk about this trade. And this came together very, very quickly. This is one of those times when you hear that a team is discussing something almost at the same time that you hear that those

discussions led to a trade there was no real no real rumor mongering period uh which is nice i appreciate when the news doesn't really happen before before the actual trade and it's not that the news didn't come out it's that this wasn't a thing until yesterday, which is kind of surprising that something this major could happen that fast. for like an hour and a half where like the girl is chasing some guy. And then like with, you know, 12 minutes left, she realizes that her best friend was actually the guy for her the whole time.

And it's so obvious that we all saw it from the, I mean, we didn't see it, but I mean, it's so obvious that we should have seen it from, from the first minute. And then as soon as they, they realize that they're meant to be,

there's really no point drawing it out. They just go go kissing so the yeah the nice thing about it is that it sort of resolves uh situations that we've been speculating about for it feels like i don't know two years now um the rangers sort of uh surplus in the middle infield and how are they going to to play Jerickson Profar and Ian Kinsler and Elvis Andrews all on the same team? And what trade are they going to make to free up a position for one of these guys?

And then the Tigers with, oh, they're going to get old and they're going to have too many DHs to fit on one team. And they're just going to have all of these albatross contracts with players getting old and unproductive at the same time and now uh i don't know that the decks are kind of cleared we know we know what the resolution to those situations is finally jericks and profar can can start at second base and the tigers can move Miguel Cabrera back to first base and have something resembling an actual defense again. And we can all stop, stop wondering how they're,

how they're going to fix these, these quandaries. Yeah. Like the end of my best friend's wedding. Right. So what is, what is your take on this trade? I've actually, I'm sort of surprised by how much disagreement there is. It seems just sort of surveying people's reactions on Twitter or on the Internet, it seems like people are sort of divided, or at least there's no real consensus yet on who won. Is that your sense? That's been sort of my sense. That hasn't been my sense. My sense has largely been that everybody has sort of feels like both sides win simply by resolving roster spots, that both sides were kind of getting, they were all

running on sort of 80% efficiency now. So even if there's a little bit um lost in the transaction one way or the other they both had a lot of um they both had a lot that they could kind of lose without actually losing they they both have you know kind of big gains that are intrinsic in this deal even before you start talking about the players so i haven't gotten a sense that there's a lot of punch. I see a couple of people who are going on about it, but not really. What is the opposition that you're seeing? the money more efficiently somehow that they could have used the extra money that they're now going to be paying Prince Fielder to, I don't know, sign some other younger person or do something more with that money. I don't,

I don't really feel that way, but that's been money. Yeah. Money is hard to spend. Yeah, it is. And, and this does kind of come down to money because it

it fixes both teams problems in a way it seems to sort of as you said i don't know whether it makes them both better but it makes them both more efficient at allocating resources, I guess you could say. So the question then is, I don't know, like how worried you are about the fact that the Rangers now have to pay Prince Fielder several years from now. Yeah, so it works out to like seven years and $135 million or something. $138, yeah, something like that. That seems like he'd get that if he were a free agent right now i think so that's that's pretty reasonable that's that's under 20 million

per year uh yeah that i don't i mean we might we might we might complain about it a little bit if he did but i i imagine he'd get that if he were a free agent right now he's still young he's still he's still pretty young he's 29 29. And, you know, I don't know. I mean, everybody talks about his fatness, which he is fat. It's true. And I don't know if that's, I mean, I don't know. That's sort of a, that's kind of like, I don't know, like snow in a football game where it's kind of unpredictable. It's not automatic that it's going to hurt you, it's it's unpredictable he's got a he's got a fatness right um but um i don't know i mean i would think that the fatness would um be more troublesome in the like like i would think it would keep him off the field more than it would make him a bad player or it would make him you know unplayable at first base.

And he's been on the field. The last two years haven't been troubling in that sense for him. I mean, I don't think the decline in the – what are you laughing at? You can't be on the field more than Prince Fielder has been. I mean, he's played 162 games for three straight years. And the year before that – Oh, see now i thought that was a i thought that was a yo mama so fat joke right no like he covers more of the field no i wasn't going for that i was he i mean he's missed one game in the last five seasons so

yeah so then he did right he he did you know he had a down season this year he had a down season for two reasons right one was that he didn't walk as much. And you could maybe make the case that that's intentional if he's trying to be the run producer in a lineup that really falls off after him and with Cabrera ahead of him. You might claim that that's somewhat intentional. But regardless, walks, he didn't walk as much. You wouldn't think that's a fat thing.

And he hit fewer home runs per fly ball, which, again, you don't really think of that as a fat thing. That might be a decline thing, but not necessarily a fat thing. So I think that his fatness is probably no more of an issue right now than it was two years ago and arguably is less of an issue right now than it was two years ago because we have two more years of data with him, you know, not really showing any particular, particularly specific effects of that. Yeah. I mean, you could, you could, without bringing up his physique, you could say that last year was a concern and there were, there were off the field issues that, you know, like going through a divorce or whatever that people could attribute that to um we have no idea how much of that is responsible of course but yeah i i mean when i i mean kindler is is clearly the one who is declining right and and what right and he what what what no he was he was a five win player this year

yeah he i mean he he he did technically have one six win year in his career so i guess technically he is declining but he was a he was a five win player this year he was 5.2 win player i mean you could you might say oh well that's because of his defense and who you know who can really say about defensive metrics over the course of a single season but he's been um you know he's been a plus depending on your metric he's been a plus 40 to a plus 60 defender over the last five years they've been pretty consistent um and so i mean he there's no reason to think that he is not a very good defender um and you know his true average i'm looking at right now was 285 his career peak was in 2008 when he was 26 he had 297 but otherwise 285 fits right in with his his prime from 27 on 279 289 285 and then 255 was his down year in 2012 and then back to 285 so uh yeah you know it's i i would

say that kinsler is probably um i'm i would bet more that he's going to decline because of his age his position yes but but i would not bet i would not say that he is currently showing more signs of decline by any means i guess i'm thinking thinking more of 2012, which was a down year, and then he missed a little time last season. But yeah, you're right. I mean, still playing at a very high level. So does this make one of these teams better for 2014, do you think? Better than the other or better than they were?

Well, does it make both of them better than they were, do you think? Yeah, I think it makes both of them better than they were. So which... Just with the personnel. Even if neither one uses any sort of financial flexibility to sign anybody else, I just think the players that they have on their rosters are currently better than they were at the start of the day. Yeah.

How much does Kinsler's road record concern you? It doesn't. Not at all? No, not at all. Because he hasn't been, I i mean he's got something what his lifetime he's like 312 on base 399 slugging away from texas which i don't know and he's kind of got like a sort of an uppercut swing and maybe the the ballpark has helped him disproportionately, possibly. I don't know if that was kind of my first thought.

Somebody might be able to generate enough data that I would be convinced, but that ain't it. That wasn't it, just my saying that. That wasn't conclusive enough. No. Okay, I accept that. Okay, so what other dominoes does this touch? What falls as a result of this move?

Would you play Fielder at first, or would you DH him and play Moreland at first? Or trade Moreland? Well, you know, Fielder doesn't have much range. I would think that Mitch can cover more land or well you know fielder doesn't have much range i would think that mitch can cover more land okay uh no i uh i i'm not sure i i um i mean fielder is the worst fielder is the worst i would i would, the worst first baseman currently holding a glove. So, yeah, theoretically, he shouldn't be playing first base. But I don't know. I don't know if Moreland's playing there on April 1st.

So, you know, maybe it's easier for them to worry about the DH if they pencil infielder at first and move Moreland for something. It's hard to say where this goes now. We don't know whether Castellanos is in third or left right now. We don't know if Peralta is coming back. Um, we don't know, you know, if profile is, um, you know, if there's any feeling that he needs to have insurance behind him or if he's ready to take the job. I mean, there's lots of things that I would guess I would still want to think about. Um, I don't know. I mean, my guess would be that the, I don't know.

I would, I would, I would, I would like to see castellanos playing third and i guess i'd like to see the tigers sign a left fielder probably i was getting kind of excited because the tigers left fielders have been so bad for like really like 13 years or so 11 years i was sort of hoping that castellanos would come up and hit and be a good left fielder and now though that seems like a slightly inefficient use of him I think I would play him at third as long as I as long as I had a hope that he could say that so yeah so maybe they I mean if they take the money that they saved from from getting rid of fielder and put it towards, I don't know, Chu or Granderson or something, that would make them pretty good.

Or they could put the money toward extending Max Scherzer, or they could sign a closer, Joe Nathan or someone. They could get another first baseman. Yeah. They could sign Kendry Morales kendris morales maybe yeah probably they could put him at dh possibly you know what i what i think is interesting about this trade is the same thing that i thought was interesting about the dodgers trade and the same thing that i think maybe has ramifications for everybody and it's that um there are

contracts are not really immovable anymore. There's so much money that even the deals that we think are terrible when they're signed and that look worse two years later are still pretty easily moved. I mean, the Tigers, yeah, they had to eat some of the money, but they got a really good player with a good contract back for him. And, I mean, Fielderder that contract looked horrible the day it was signed and he was a he was a one and a half win player this year um so if you can move fielder for value right now it's almost like if you're a team that is worried about signing a long-term

deal you should just sign everybody and then trade them after two years. Yeah, I guess it's, I don't know, all of these, all of these deals now make me think of what you wrote when Josh Hamilton signed with the Angels about how everyone just has so much money that, that we don't even really need to worry about the money anymore. That, that teams just can afford to pay to overpay people as far as dollars per win goes if it makes them a little bit better in the short term or and so that always kind of i don't know how to analyze things because that's like one of the components of these moves is we analyze not just how much better it makes a team but whether they got a good deal and if they have so much money that it doesn't really matter whether they're spending efficiently or not then uh that sort of takes away a line of analysis yeah well i mean but then on

the other hand we have bronson arroyo and the reds couldn't offer him you know a very reasonable qualifying offer because they were you know so scared that they'd get stuck holding on to him. If I remember it correctly, I think what I wrote in that Hamilton piece is that we don't know each team. I mean, the gap between teams is so huge that it's conceivable that a team like the angels or the tigers or whatever can spend 10 million dollars for a win and not really mind because they don't have any money uh you know anywhere to spend their money anyway whereas a team like the reds you know can't spend four million dollars on a win because they're they're constantly you know keeping such

a small margin so it's really hard to compare any of these deals because all the alternatives are like dramatically different contexts. It's actually hard to pin down any sort of reasonable number that holds true across the league. All right. Is there anything else we need to cover? No pro far for Stantonanton i was looking forward to talking about that this offseason yeah me too um okay well you can read uh sam's written thoughts about this trade if you'd like they will be up today thursday at baseball prospectus oh maybe maybe

also finishes can i is do you think we're going to be having a—the Rangers have—Odor is their best prospect right now and also plays second base. Maybe they will trade Profar. Wouldn't that be something? Yeah. All right. Well, fun one. Fun trade. Okay, so now we are joined by Drew Samuelson, who is the performance manager at Baseball South Australia.

He's also an international scout for the Tampa Bay Rays. So I asked Drew to come on to tell us about a story that I really knew nothing about until this morning when someone, Tom Fee, tweeted at me that it was worth checking out a great baseball story that the Canberra Cavalry are about to become the Asia Series champions, which they did shortly after that tweet. And there was almost nothing about that tweet that I understood without looking up the information in that. So as it turns out, this is kind of a cool story. And Drew's going to tell us a little bit about it. First, I guess, tell us a little bit about you and about Baseball South Australia. Yeah, no problem. Basically,

I'm responsible for all the baseball operations in the entire state, both amateur and professional. We have an ABL team locally here in Adelaide, the Adelaide Bite. They play in the same league against the Canberra Cavalry. And we also have approximately 3,000 amateur athletes in the state. And I guess we should also explain what the ABL is while we're at it. Yeah, we should. The ABL is the Australian Baseball League. It is a joint venture between Baseball Australia and Major League Baseball. And this is its fourth year in operation. It is technically it's classed as a winter league by Major League Baseball, but it's a little bit

different in that it's composed. It's kind of a hybrid. So what that means is you've got affiliated minor league baseball players. You also have a handful of imported players from indie ball and from Asian professional leagues. And then you also have local Australians making the roster. So you got a little bit of everything and that's kind of what makes the Canberra Cavalry story so special is instead of a dedicated professional team, you know, worth X amount of millions in payroll, they have an extremely meager payroll. And some

of these guys, you know, are still working nine to five jobs in addition to being ball players on the weekend. And some of them are affiliated minor leaguers some of them are indie ball guys some of them are guys that are australian and used to play pro ball and are kind of in the twilight of their career and that sort of thing so it's it's really kind of this fun interesting mishmash of ball players coming together for a common cause okay so uh we should probably tell people what the asia series is because I don't know that people are aware. I mean, people, I think, know about the Caribbean series. Probably gets a little bit more attention in the States. But the Asia series is sort of a similar tournament.

So can you tell us a little bit about that? And also, if you can answer all subsequent questions in a fake Australian accent to add authenticity, that would be great. I will. I'll work on that. I'll have to work up to the accent. I'm starting to throw the verbiage in. I just don't know if I can do the accent. is basically the champions of the Taiwanese, the Korean, the Japanese, and now the Australian League all get together at the conclusion of the Northern Hemispheric seasons and play.

Now, the way this makes things a little bit different for Australia is we are constantly grappling with being in the Southern Hemisphere. So the Canberra Cavalry team that won the ABL last season, that concluded in like February of 2013. So fast forward nine or ten months later and they're playing against the Rocketen Eagles and the Korean representative and the Taiwanese representative that just wrapped up their full-fledged pro season of 100-plus games. So when does the ABL season run from? When does it start? It basically starts in early, early November. We're, I think, three weeks into it right now,

and it'll wrap up in kind of mid-February. And then all the affiliated guys, which make up kind of roughly 25% to maybe 33% of the league, all those affiliated guys then kind of just dovetail straight into camp. Okay. And so there are limits in how many imports each team can have? There are, yes. Four of the six teams have have a baseline so perth brisbane sydney um and melbourne all have like a baseline players which i believe is 10 this year and it's up from eight um we get a couple more here in adelaide because we're a smaller population

center and then camber gets even more than us because they're a smaller population center still so cambra definitely has more uh imported talent than the other teams are. They're permitted to do that. But yeah, we get 12 and they get 14, I believe. Okay. And what's roughly the quality of play in the ABL? Is there an analogy you can draw to some other level? Kind of.

In all honesty, the talent talents all over the map you have you have guys that are former big leaguers um some of them are you know kind of past their prime if i may be so bold um and then you've and then you've got guys that have you know just signed pro deals down here that are 17 and 18 and then you've got guys that are kind of you know club baseball weekend Uh, and then most of the affiliated guys are mostly affiliated guys are from some level of a ball. Uh, and then a couple of them are from double a, but overall when it's all goes through the wash, I would say the quality of baseball is pretty close to, you know, a, or maybe advanced day. So it's somewhere in there. Okay.

And so, all right. So Canberra wins the ABL last February. So they are the reigning ABL champions. And so they get to represent the ABL in the Asia Series. But the cavalry team of today, it's not the same makeup as the team that actually won the ABL back in February. No, it's not the same makeup as the team that actually won the APL back in February. No, it's not. No, it's not because you get, we get completely different, uh, imported players every year. There's no consistency of the roster. So the team that won in February is, is very

different to the one that just won now, which makes it so interesting at the end of the day, it's still a pretty good underdog slash cinderella story because you're you know you're talking about this mishmash of amateur and pro guys going up against you know these teams that have you know multi-million dollar payrolls um but the yeah the the funny thing is that the camper team that is partying and drinking champagne up in taiwan right now is is not not exactly the same roster as what it had before. And then add to that, interestingly enough, they were granted access to a couple of really good players from both the Perth and the Sydney team this year.

So in addition to Canberra winning, they actually have players from a couple other teams as well. So just to kind of help bolster their chances. And it worked. So, you know, good good on you as they say right uh okay so then so the the first four asia series and this this began in 2005 it looks like so the first four were won by japan and then taiwan and south korea and then taiwan again uh or i guess no i guess taiwan south, South Korea, and now Canberra.

So what is it that made Australia such underdogs in this series? Because they, before winning at all this year, they had not won a game in their previous appearances in the tournament. Correct. That's mostly because of just simply the roster construction. Like I said, Perth won the first two championships here in the league, and then Canberra won last year, and then we're in the fourth season right now. The Perth team was bringing, at the time, only eight affiliated imports,

and like I said, some of those might even be indie ball guys. And then the other, you know, whatever that would be i don't know 15 16 17 guys were all local australians and so a lot of those guys are amateurs so at the end of the day you're pulling some guy out of you know the guy works at bunnings from eight to five which is our home depot by the way okay so i don't think so yeah so we'll just yeah i'm gonna i'll throw in gumtree too gumtree is our craigslist so uh but Craigslist. You get these guys that are purely weekend warriors. They've got 9-5s and then they happen to win this league and then they get told, hey, you get a free trip up to Asia

to go play against the NPV champion. At the end of the day, it is a bit of a David versus Goliath kind of a thing and that's what makes the Canberra story so kind of special right now. Yeah, even if the Canberra team did, in fact, have a few more imports, it's still a pretty good story. And, you know, for a team of, you know, half pro, half amateur guys to, you know, to beat these dedicated pro clubs, it's pretty impressive. guys to you know to beat these dedicated pro clubs it's you know it's pretty impressive uh so who are the the cavalry players that people might have heard of who are listening to this podcast um i saw that none i don't think there are any i saw i mean mike ekstrom is on the team uh yeah who has has been a big leaguer.

Yeah, but he's not normally a Cavalry player. He's on loan from Sydney, I believe. And then Mitch Denning is, I believe, also on loan as well. And those are kind of the two biggest names on the team, I think. Based on my reading, it like the the breakout star of this performance is jack murphy maybe uh who i love the conviction there that's good piece this together from from many uh news reports that i read and jack murphy is a a 25 year old catcher in the Blue Jays system.

He spent most of this last season at AA, and he has, I think, a fantastic mustache, which I assume has something to do with the fact that Sal Fasano is the Blue Jays' catching coordinator these days. And I imagine that he's passing on the gospel of the mustache. But he had a couple big games during the Asia Series. So it's not as if these players are going to be catapulted to stardom by this. This is sort of, although I guess there are scouts who are scouting the Asia Series, right? I mean, this is because there are, you know, NPB players and Kbo players and players that

major league teams would be interested in right this is you know like you darvish was a pitcher in this in this tournament a few years ago yeah and tanaka this year as the eagles were there yeah i would you know it's no there's no such thing as bad exposure um you know especially when you're on this you know kind of you know dream team miracle on ice whatever the you know asia series version of that is um i'm sure it's a great yeah i'm sure it's going to be great exposure for them uh you know a pretty nice notch in the belt and something they can they can always talk about and it's something that camber can certainly hang its hat on for for ages and ages and you know hopefully it's a it's a bit of a

spark that you know generates a bit more interest in abl both both locally and internationally yeah so what is the level of interest here are australians burning cars and riding in the streets or has no one noticed or is it somewhere in between? Well, I haven't, I haven't come out of my bunker since they won the championship. So I can't really comment on the state of riot right now. Um, no, I'm sure, I'm sure the people in Canberra are, are pretty fired up because they, when, when the cavalry won the championship last year, it was a pretty big deal to that city. Um, the Perth Perth fans are fantastic. Um, they come out in great numbers uh there's also a pretty significant american expat culture out in perth uh we we've done pretty dang well here uh

the very first year of the league we uh we actually won the attendance crown here in adelaide which is impressive because we're the fifth or sixth largest city um in australia out of you know eight cities in australia so um you know that's pretty good we you know it's it's very kind of a ball ish you know for for you and me like it's you know a couple thousand people per game um and all the entertainment stuff is pretty similar you know the level of ball play is you know kind of a ball-ish um and it's it's a really good experience for families and um it is it's a it's a pretty good league it's a fledgling league it's a very very crowded um sport landscape here they just they love their sports here in australia and so it's kind of hard to carve out a niche but um but so far so good uh and i i guess can you

you you wrote a guest piece for baseballball Perspectives last year, sort of talking about the state of baseball in Australia at least how efficiently the talent that is there is being found? And as a scout yourself, is it sort of an inefficiency? Are teams missing out on talent here or is it still sort of in a fledgling state? Well, it ebbs and flows like every other international market um this used to and i guess i should i should caveat this with um you know this is just my personal opinion not that of the the rays or baseball essay my but my personal take on it is it ebbs and flows here quite a bit i wouldn't i wouldn't say that this is particularly a market inefficiency in terms of player procurement. This is, in my humble estimation, one of the most thoroughly scouted markets internationally. Now, with the new CBA and the way that that's going to cap teams, who knows what happens?

I think my personal thinking on it is more kids will end up opting for college rather than a lot less money than, you know, what they would have gotten three, four or five years ago. Um, but at this, at this stage, generally this country cranks out maybe 10 to 12 signings a year. Uh, we had two, two years ago, or a year and a half ago was the biggest signing crop they'd ever had. And it was 29 or 30 or 32 kids or somewhere around there. So there's definitely some talent here. The youth development is being taken very seriously here. We're really starting to push the college thing a lot more, mostly just because it's a much more achievable goal. And the reason we see it as much more achievable than pro ball is because the kids here just don't get enough reps. Like they, you know, all the reason we see it as much more achievable than pro ball is because the kids here just don't get enough reps.

Like they, you know, all the baseball here is club based. It's not school based. So you don't get as many repetitions as your American or even your Japanese counterpart would get. And, um, we actually added it up and for ages 14 to 18, we, we came to the numbers that an Australian kid is roughly about 2,400 plate appearances behind his American cousin. And pitchers comes out to be something like around 1,100 innings pitched. And so that's a lot of game experience that our guys just aren't getting.

So what we're trying to do here is just increase repetitions and get our guys with an eye on going to Juco because with Juco, they don't have to be, you know, behind some older kid on a depth chart. They can play right away. The chance that they'll get a full ride versus partial ride are much greater. And really they can get caught up on all those repetitions and all that strength and conditioning and all that speed and agility. And, you know, it's kind of the fastest way for them to become better ballplayers. But as it stands right now, we more or less have to kind of export all of our player development past about age 18. And what is the lifestyle like for a scout in Australia? Is it sort of a showcase environment, or are you traveling all over the place to see players?

Because it's rather a large country from what I understand. It's mostly, like the lifestyle of an Australian scout as far as I can see is mostly just steak and wine. I mean, that's pretty much my routine. No, it's actually very well scheduled and very well condensed. We have the national championships in mid-January, so I'll be going to that shortly. And that's for the U14, U16, and U18 age groups. And then about six months later, the MLB Academy is held in Gold Coast every year. That's a program I've worked on the last two years. And what that is, is a six-week um, you know, stay there full blown baseball academy,

uh, complete with tutoring for high school guys, uh, in the afternoon. And they play, they play or practice pretty much every day for six weeks. Um, and then there's an outfit called the school boys. Um, and they run another tournament in may, um, which is just, uh, each state submits kind of an all-star team. And so you've got, you know, six teams, six teams duking it out for a really fancy trophy. And that's pretty much it in terms of the kind of teen amateur circuit. You know, I've got a few bird dogs around, and they keep eyes on things for me,

and I do the same, and, you know, we all talk. It's not a huge baseball community down here. But really the two-and-a-half events you've got are the same. And, you know, we all talk. It's not a huge baseball community down here. But really, the two and a half events you got are the National Youth Championships in January and then the MLB Academy in July and August. And then, you know, if you want, you can go to the school boys in May as well. All right. Well, thank you for explaining all of this to me. I now understand what that cryptic tweet about the Canberra cavalry meant. I've been to Canberra, but I must have missed the cavalry. I will make

sure to see them on my next trip. You definitely should. It's a sight to be seen. They have a beautiful ballpark there, too. Narrabunda Ballpark. It's a good little place to play ball. And they have a mascot named Sarge, who looks like Yosemite Sam, sort of.

Yeah. He's like a drill sergeant or something. We have a shark and his name is Chomper. That's natural. Yeah. And they have a team song called I Want to Be in the Cavalry by

a Canadian country band. Wait, I'm a little jealous. I don't think we have a team song called I want to be in the cavalry by a Canadian country band so wait I'm a little jealous they have I don't think we have a team song that's why they just won the Asia Series and you didn't yeah all right well no one can accuse us of neglecting important developments in the australian baseball league or in the asia series we are on it uh you can follow drew at drew samuelson if you need an australian baseball fix or have any questions about scouting down there or how baseball works down there i'm sure he will be happy to answer and i will talk to you next when when guess the Canberra Cavalry movie comes out. We can talk about it.

Listen, I've already started on the screenplay, so I should have a treatment ready in a day or two. All right. Okay, thank you, Drew. No problem, Ben. All right. Send us emails at podcast at baseballperspectives.com. When the imports come down here, they just don't get it. and emails at podcast at baseballperspectives.com. When the imports come down here, they just don't get it. We've got guys from the Dodgers, Mariners,

and Astros organization right now on our team, and they're like, wait, you don't play baseball all the time? No, dude, I go and work at the post office and then come to practice. And they're like, I don't get it. And it's the same with all of our umpires. Our umpires are guys that are like,

oh, he's an accountant or he's a whatever, and then they just show up an umpire. So you're negotiating? You're saying tomorrow will be 15 minutes as part of the negotiation. So you want to do a 15-minute email show so that we can talk about the Australian winter? I can't even say it.