Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 507: Javier Baez’s Call-Up and What’s to Come for the Cubs

Episode Date: August 5, 2014

Ben and Sam talk to ESPN Chicago contributor Sahadev Sharma about the arrival of Javier Baez and the future of the Cubs.

Look out, the saints are coming through And it's all over now, baby blue Good morning and welcome to episode 507 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives, presented by the Play Index at BaseballReference.com. I'm Sam Miller with Baseball Perspectives, and with me is Ben Lindberg of Grantland. Ben, how are you? Okay. Excellent. And we have a third person with us today, Sahadev Sharma of ESPN Chicago, a contributor

for ESPN Chicago, is with us to talk about the biggest story of the day, which is the promotion of Javier Baez, but also a little bit to talk about what might be one of the bigger stories in the next four or five years, which is the rise of the Cubs, or at least the Cubs' planned rise of the Cubs. How are you doing? I'm doing great. Looking forward to finally watching Baias in the big leagues. So, yeah, it seems like if you're writing about the Cubs for the last 18 months or so,

like 92% of the words that you write are like updates from the farm and or updates on when the farm is going to arrive. This has been probably fair to say the most interesting thing for Cubs fans to follow over the last few years oh yeah I don't think there's much debate to that it's uh whenever I'm covering the Cubs obviously you kind of have to talk about the the what's going on with the major league club but inevitably by it seems like it gets sooner and sooner in the in the season by July this year. But even by June this year, most of my postgame stuff when writing for ESPN Chicago

ended up having some sort of slant mentioning the kids coming up through the system. And they're finally starting to filter through. We have Alcantara finally came up last month. And Tuesday night, I guess, Baez is going to be coming up in Colorado. So that'll be – it's great to finally not have to talk about the future and actually watch the future. And, you know, I've been a full supporter of what these guys are doing, Theo and Jed and Jason McLeod.

But it also gets a little frustrating watching bad baseball day in and day out and wondering if this is actually going to work out. Is the major league team tired of talking about prospects or are they kind of repeating the company line about how it's exciting? Not that the company line has been all focused on prospects because it seems like Hoyer and Epstein have been kind of careful not to pump up the prospects too much or not to make the prospects the entire story. But is the team, particularly members of the team who might be displaced by those prospects at some point in the future, are they happy to talk about that? Or would they sooner focus on the games that people care about less than the prospects in the future? Are they happy to talk about that? Or would they sooner focus on the games that people care about less than the prospects in some cases? You know, I've gotten the feeling that most of the guys that kind of get it that know they're around long term,

they're fine with it. They understand it. They've seen a lot of them play. You know, Baez has been up the past two springs and he's been pretty impressive in the spring so much so that people have called for him as much to come up even last year at certain points because he was just dominant in this in spring training which we but we all know that that doesn't mean much but it's still it's fun to watch and and the guys around him saw that yeah this kid clearly has talent and the same with Solaire. And they know that these kids have talent. And I haven't noticed anyone getting sick of it.

If anything, some of them have been calling for them to come up sooner. Rizzo's been talking about how, you know, just bring them up. The best way to learn is to get up here and play. You know, I don't completely agree with that. And there's a reason, you know, Rizzo's out on the field and they have a player development staff set, set up to take care of those things. But, but he has a point to an extent that, yeah, some of the, the, you know, the rail test is in the big leagues and now we'll,

we'll really get to see what these guys have. But I haven't, I haven't noticed any real discomfort with anybody and especially a guy like starling caster who could lose his job to bias in the long run uh has been all about bias and wants to wants to kind of take over that role as mentor even though he's he's still pretty young himself uh but you know he was mentored by alfonso soriano and soriano kind of took him under his wing a guy that wasn't really looked at as a leader, but kind of developed into a leader. And I think that helped Castro kind of thrive early on. And hopefully I think Castro could learn to embrace a role where he looks after a younger player.

Has each Cubs fan kind of picked a prospect at this point to sponsor with his or her heart. You were introduced on a radio show earlier today as the herald of Javier Baez. Is Baez your guy? Is he more so than the other guys? Because it must be hard to pick one at this point because, what, Jorge Soler was just the MLB.com Minor League Player of the Month, and Bryant was Player of the Week, and Baez was an honorable mention, and all of these guys are hitting really well at AAA.

Baez in the big leagues now. It must be hard to pick a favorite. So is Baez your guy? Don't forget Addison Russell. Yeah, there's plenty more. So is Baez your guy? And if so, why? You know, my guy, I think the introduction there was more about just the excitement with Baez.

And I write a lot about prospects. So I think they were just kind of ribbing me a little bit there. But for me, my guy is Chris Bryant. I hate hyping guys. I hate putting expectations way too high, but I'm just convinced he's going to be a superstar. The type of guy that year in and year out is contending for MVPs. I've talked to him multiple times. I've watched him play a lot, and I've talked to scouts who I really trust inside and outside the organization and I can't find a reason to to think that he he's going to fail every flaw I'm convinced that he has he's

going to figure out in some way because he's got this insane makeup and work ethic that that you just you wish every player had and he's and he's also, you know, he's got the stuff on the field that you want. He's got the stuff off the field that you want. And then he's going to have his face plastered all over the place because he's a good-looking kid. He's got a great smile. And he's just personable. So he's got all three things that you need that you want from a player

to really become a superstar. They're going to market the hell out of this kid, and he's going to deliver on the field. I'm just convinced of it. I'll tell you a quick story. When he was drafted and he was signed, the big question about him other than the strikeouts is the defense, right? But he just loves working on his defense.

He loves to get better, and I saw it when he got signed. He went and was taking ground balls during batting practice. And, and Jason McLeod kind of waved him off the, waved him off the field. You know, he's like, you know, you're come on, that's enough. You can, you can relax now. And Bryant looked at him and he said, five more minutes, five more minutes, like a kid talking to his parents to stay out to, you know, play with his buddies. I just, I saw that and instantly i was intrigued by him he just has a severe love for the game you know his dad was i think a minor league player uh you know his dad's a coach so he's he's been raised right and just i'm excited for him to come up which is probably

next april late april after they get that extra year of control. Okay, so I'm glad you mentioned that because I have, this is probably going to be like a three or four part question so you can answer it just by talking for 21 minutes and then we'll end the show. But we're sort of conditioned to look at these moves as being so, I don't know, calculated maybe is the nice way to say it. Cynically is sort of the slightly less nice way of saying it. But essentially the understanding that when a guy makes the majors doesn't always have to do with when he's ready for the majors or what's going to be best for him in the majors, but for service time considerations.

And so the Cubs are not the Rays. The Cubs are not the Pirates. They ought to be a rich team that should be able to spend a lot of money in the future, especially when they start winning again. So are they immune to having to play these service time games at all? Is there any feeling that they might just actually play these guys sort of honestly and bring them up when they're good enough? Or is it going to be the same situation as you alluded to with Bryant? Secondly, along the same lines, what does it say about the Cubs situation that they

brought Baez up? There's no real need to bring him up. They could have held him until next year, and nobody would have filed a grievance or anything like that, I don't think. And thirdly, why Baez? He's the youngest of the trio that we've been talking about. And to some degree, maybe correct me if I'm wrong, but to some degree kind of the rawest in terms of demeanor and style and probably the one who's going to have the hardest time, I would think, in his first few weeks or months or maybe a year. So why him instead of one of the other two?

And also not to mention that it's a positional blockage that he has to move off his position. And in fact, in moving to second, he has to move another guy off his position, if I'm reading this right. Okay, let me take the last one first since I'm going to forget the other two. And you're going to have to kind of refresh my memory.

But so why him over Bryant and Soler? Well, for Soler, he just doesn't have enough at-bats. The reason they're going to call Soler up in September is because he just needs playing time. It's also an interesting contract situation with him. He's already on the 40-man. He's going to have to be up in 2016 they'd lose all their options by 2016 so you'd rather you kind of have to force the situation with him and get him up you don't want to have to his first taste of the majors being

when you can't send him back down if he struggles and just kind of needs to get clear his head and get back to triple a or something so it's it's a situation where he needs at-bats, he needs playing time, and they believe he can handle the challenge of the major leagues. So there's no reason to rush him right now because he can get those at-bats at AAA, but he'll be up in September to get those at-bats. With Bryant, it's a combination of service time and you can also say development because he has some holds in his offense as far as the inside pitch and up high you can kind of get him to swing and miss it's not like he's a he's not a big chaser like

Baez has a tendency to do but he does have some very small holes in his in his offensive game and they still want him to stick at third so they're they're hoping that his defense will continue to improve and like I said I talked about his work ethic, and it sounds like he's working his butt off to get to a level where they believe he could be a plus third baseman in the long run. And I think, adding the fact that Boris is his agent, and then you really have to consider the fact that he's not, in all likelihood, it's going to be hard to get him to get that, that extension that you want to get for the young players like they did with

Castro and Rizzo. Baez, on the other hand, what you said about he may struggle early on, that, that may be a reason to bring him up now, you know, let him kind of figure things out, let him, he's kind of raw. He, he early at AAA. He struggled early last year when he opened the season at high A Daytona last season. It just takes him a little while to adjust to a new environment, and I think that could be a reason to bring him up right now, get his feet wet for two months, and then hopefully he'll start 2015 off running. And maybe you could make the argument that they're showcasing him. Maybe this isn't a guy that they plan on being around in the long term.

Let him feast on September pitching. Hope he gets hot and really shows that, hey, this guy's ready. And they don't have to worry about service time because they're going to move him in some huge deal. Who knows who becomes available if uh you know it sounds like gene carlos stan isn't going to be available but things change quickly and who knows we always see we're always surprised by the pitchers and and big names that end up uh becoming available in the offseason so maybe that's that's uh something that happens there uh and what i've forgotten i think no i think you i think you got them all.

The only thing is I started with if the Cubs are immune to having to do the service time game. But it sounds like with Bryant, at least, they are going to do that probably or arguably. Yeah, you know what? I'll say this. With being immune to it, I think if they were contending right now, that bryant would be up i think bryant would be up i think so lair would already be up if they believed he's you know he can he's ready for the challenge and i think uh they'll always have the excuse of development if they're not uh if they're not competing so i yeah you could argue that uh some teams should be immune to it but i don't i mean b Boston does it too.

St. Louis does it. Good money-making teams still do it. I think it's just a smart thing to do, and it's something that needs to be addressed in the CBA. I'd like to see it just change so teams aren't forced to do it because it's just the smart thing to do. Waiting three weeks, why would you not wait three weeks to get an extra year of control of a top five prospect like Brian? I can understand if it's

a bottom 50 prospect or something like that, bottom half the top 100 type prospect, a guy that isn't likely to make $20, $25 million a year down the road. But top 10 guys, you really have to get that extra year of service time. So Baez is currently a shortstop. Russell is currently a shortstop. Castro is currently a shortstop. Bryant is, of course, a third baseman currently. So there are kind of two, I guess there are three schools of thought about this. One is that this is going to be a problem,

that this could somehow lead to inefficiencies that the Cubs will rue. One is that this will all shake out. One guy will move in one direction. One guy will play left field. Everybody will find a position, and or someone will flop anyway. And the third is that they have all this surplus and that they're going to use it to trade for pitching, which is the one thing they don't really have when they're planning to compete. So what's your take? Which of the three do you subscribe to?

I'd probably lean towards the last one you said. It's a surplus. I keep looking at it as they have options. They can do whatever they want they could keep all three and try and figure out a way to to make it work however they want to my opinion i think edison russell ends up being the long-term shortstop i like i'm a big caster fan of you know i've watched him develop uh you know go through struggles and really struggle last year and for half a season before that and kind of come out of it this year and he's a he's one of the better short stops in the game if you really if you really break it down but maybe maybe he gets moved to third base maybe he gets moved in a trade they

but the fact is they don't have to make that decision right now it has to be made soon i think you know we're seeing this process kind of speed up and go a little faster than I think some people in Chicago media or maybe even nationally expected the Cubs to do this. But things are happening fast now with Alcantara coming up and Baez coming up and Solaire soon and then Bryant early next season. It's all happening pretty fast. So the window's opening for their contention. So you need to figure out what you're doing. But they're going to have to make some hard decisions. I think there will be – this is going to be a huge offseason for this team. They're going to be spending – payroll is going to be below $50 million.

So they're going to be spending. There's going to be some big trades, I think. And one of those three, I'd have to guess, is not – by the end of next season is not part of the organization. I, I really hesitate to say which one, if you, if you made me,

if you forced me to choose, I'd say bias right now with Russell ending up being the shortstop. And I don't know what that means for Casper. Does that mean he moves to third and Brian ends up in the outfield somewhere? That's very possible, but I think this is a great situation. I don't think this is a bad thing to happen.

I joke around, maybe the Cubs have a new extreme shift where everyone just plays shortstop, but I think this is just something fun that will work out for them. I don't think Theo and Jed are wringing their hands and saying, whatever are we going to do with all these elite shortstops? Right. There was an Epstein quote earlier this year are wringing their hands and saying, whatever are we going to do with all these elite shortstops? Right. There was an Epstein quote earlier this year where he said, we're trying to build a behemoth of position players. And that was prior to the Russell trade. So clearly this is the goal. So does that mean, do you expect that there will be a splurge on pitching at some point? You

imagine that someone might be traded, but even so, that might not be enough to fill out an entire competitive staff. Does that mean that from this point forward, the Cubs are going to be, if not the favorite, certainly one of the favorites for any free agent starting pitcher who hits the market? Yeah, I think if you look at what their rotation is, and you kind of guess what's heading into next season you feel very confident that arietta can man at least the number two spot in the rotation you know whatever let's just say we'll put him at the top there as the one guy and at the back you have kyle hendricks who's who's looked real nice but you know i'm not i you know i think he's the type of guy that's going to

get hit hit hard every once in a while when his command isn't there. But, yeah, he can fill a rotation spot, and he's definitely going to eat a lot of innings, and he's a smart guy that knows how to pitch. Then you question, like, is Edwin Jackson going to be part of the future? Is Travis Wood part of the future? Is Dallas Beeler or some of these other guys at AAA that aren't elite arms or elite prospects but can eat innings?

Are any of these guys going to be there. You probably need to add at least three or four starting pitchers in the offseason, but they're good at adding guys. I think they're going to, I don't think they'll be in on Scherzer. You know, they'll check in on the price and realize this just isn't what we're, what we're looking for. I think Lester's the guy it's, I don't think there's any secret with that. what we're looking for. I think Lester's the guy it's, I don't think there's any secret with that. Lester's, they're going to go hard on Lester. You know,

obviously there's the Red Sox connection there. They're looking for some veteran leadership. They're looking for guys that have won before they, they believe in that. That's something that I think Theo and Jed and all these guys have kind of learned throughout the years. Makeup is hugely important and they, they may have underrated that in certain moves in the past and now they're now they're uh very very conscious of that and very aware of of what a guy brings into the clubhouse and how hard he's working and what he does to

really improve himself and and uh stay in shape and is this the type of guy that can have a longer career and they weigh all those things and i think lester fits that mold and they appreciate that and and maybe they'll you know i talked to hoyer about this last uh at the winter meetings last year about uh spending in free agency and what does it mean to to over overpay and is there a right time to do that and he basically told me you know in in theory, he's like, just by when you win, when you get a guy in free agency, you're overpaying because you're the team that paid the most.

So, yeah, it looks like you always have to overpay to get the guy. He's like, there's a time and a place to do it. He basically was telling me, you know, this isn't the time for us, but maybe that'll come soon enough. I think it's this offseason and even next offseason, depending on who's available. But you can't, they've said it too, you can't wonder and guess that, oh yeah, David Price will be available next year, so we can wait. Jordan Zimmerman will be available, so we'll wait until next offseason.

You've got to pounce when someone's available. The guy that's available now is the guy you have to go after sometimes. So I think L there, the guy that's available now is the guy you have to go after sometimes. So I think Lester is a guy, I think you should look at, look at Masterson and McCarthy is kind of the lower tier guys or second tier guys that they may look at too, because those are guys that Chris Basio would love to get his hands on. If you look at his history,

he's, he's taken guys that have had success in the past, but have had rough recent, you know, a few years of rough patches and really worked with them well, especially guys that have splitters, sinkers that work low in the zone and can induce some ground balls. And McCarthy and Masterson certainly fit that mold.

I think Basia would love to work with those guys and really get the best out of them. But, yeah, look for the pitching and maybe a big trade for a big bat would be the two things I'd look for. And maybe a catcher, too. All their catching depth is in the lower minors. So I know some guys like Wellington Castillo, but they seem kind of split on what they expect from him. I wanted to ask you about some of those

buy-low pitching acquisitions that they've made that have worked out really well. Is that a coaching thing? Are you giving the credit to the coaching? Because we often talk about when do we give credit to coaches? Is it too easy to credit a coach with being some kind of guru

based on a year or two and things going right? Is it mostly coaching, do you think, or is it mostly acquiring guys who, for whatever reason, fit a statistical profile of a pitcher who would be a good buy-low option, who might be in for better things? I think it's a combination of the front office identifying who their coaching staff can work with best. So I think, you know, they obviously, they look at, you know, peripherals and they say, well, this guy was, you know, underperforming based on his peripherals. He could definitely pitch better than this.

A guy like Feldman fits that role perfectly. Hamill was, you know, coming off some injuries and had kind of gone away from some of his better pitches. I think Bozzio has input on that. I think Derek Johnson, their minor league pitching coordinator, former pitching coach at Vanderbilt, has input on that. And I think their scouts do a great job of identifying these guys and really pinpointing who best fits what they're trying to do. And,

uh, their coaching staff can really extract the most potential out of. So, so yeah, you know, I hate saying it's all Basio because Jake Arrieta isn't, isn't a great pitcher now because of only because of Basio. It's Arrieta is,

is great because he was willing to listen to Basio and he was willing to put in the work to get better and notice that, hey, I need to make some minor mechanical tweaks and really listen to the guy and take his advice and then execute that. So it's hard. It doesn't always work out. There's also Scott Baker and there's Chris Volstead and other guys that they've signed that just haven't worked out. always work out you know there's there's also scott baker and there's chris volstead and and

and other and other guys that they've signed that just haven't worked out but edwin jackson so you know it doesn't it's it's not a perfect science but and and even they'll admit they can't rely on this always working out they know they've been pretty lucky they've with the health of these guys uh mahalam and and f and Feldman and Hamill, them staying healthy and them performing. There's a little bit of luck involved with it too, but the scouting's done great. I think there's going to be, in a couple years,

we'll start mentioning Chris Bozzio in the same breath as Don Cooper and guys like that when Dave Duncan was around. Guys like that, I think he's on the cusp of doing that because he's consistently really bringing out the best. Jeff Samarja will credit Bozzio a lot for helping him go from being just a pure strikeout guy to pitching to contact and knowing how to work low in the zone and really commanding his pitches and conserving his stuff early.

And then if you look at his starts this year with the Cubs, what he was doing was he was getting a lot of weak contact early, and then he was racking up the strikeouts late in the game when he still had plenty of energy and he was keeping his pitch count low and he could go deep into the seventh, eighth, ninth inning. And it seemed to work for him. To go back to Baez for a second, if you look at his monthly O OPS splits this year it looks like a very clear progression 617 738 815 999 and then three for ten with two homers in August is the is the scouting progression as clear from talking to scouts is the is there a clear trajectory there where he has improved since the start of

the season yeah i i heard there was a slight minor uh like a slight mechanical tweak uh early in the season i i saw a video of it and i and i talked to a couple scouts and they said uh people inside the organization wouldn't you know flat out confirm it but they said but if if he did that it was more to keep his head straight uh his head still well you know he has a wild bat waggle i'm sure you both have seen that uh and basically what he did was he to you know pre-load he kind of just set the bat on his shoulder and that helped keep his head a little still he still has the bat waggle but it's it's a little less pronounced, and I think that helped with the wildness. He's not chasing the slider down and away.

He was taking more pitches. He was having a lot more long at-bats. I talked to plenty of scouts that said just watch his progression from early on in the season to what he's doing now. You don't see those one-two pitches at-bats as frequently still he's still an aggressive hitter it's it's what you know he needs to be to succeed i don't think you can completely take that away from him but he's not swinging it was really recognizing the breaking ball and not swinging at the stuff that was just going to be in the dirt or you know away, away or just complete garbage that, you know, AAA pitchers can really expose a guy like Baez. And they took advantage of that for the first month and a half. He adjusted well, and it definitely was him learning the pitchers and learning what to

swing at and what not to. And I think he's going to have to go through that again because, you know, obviously major league pitching is significantly better than AAA pitching. So I always said, you know, he conquered the biggest level in the minors in AA, but the real test obviously is major league baseball. So let's see what he can do with major league pitching. I think it's going to be a struggle. I think Cubs fans are going to be a little disappointed at first because he may hit a couple 450-foot bombs, but there's going to be a lot of strikeouts

and that on-base percentage may be sub-300 for these next two months. So the Cubs have been bad for many years now, and part of the reason that they're about to be good is because they were really bad and in a way they were fairly deliberately bad so uh why do you suppose there isn't quite the same hand-wringing and soul-searching about what it all means that we've seen with the astros uh as far as why are they tanking or is it like the hand-wringing of they're losing intentionally so that's bad for baseball? Yeah, well, like how much – I don't know.

Ben might be able to help me articulate this better. But sort of how much they deserve their ultimate success, whether it's good for the sport that they're able to do what they're doing, whether this is the new face of analytics, basically tanking for three or four years, and whether that's a good thing or a bad thing for analytics, whether it's sporting, I guess. Yeah. Honestly, I think it's because of who's in charge. I think there are some people that aren't big fans of what Lanao and everybody there is doing, and they think they're you know you you guys have read the same stuff and seen it all they they they think they treat people like robots

there's no real uh there's no real these these players aren't real people they treat them just like you know pieces of paper and spreadsheets and all that whatever you want to say that those awful stereotypes that you hear i don't agree with all of that, but I think that's what it is. Theo Epstein, Jed Hoyer, Jason McLeod, they have their reputations. They've done it. They've proven to people that what they do works. They haven't done this. They haven't done what they're doing with the Cubs right now,

but they have a long history of success, and they've earned their respect already. You could argue that Leno has with what he did with the Cardinals as far as with their scouting department, but he hasn't been in charge, and Epstein did it in Boston. Hoyer was his right-hand man in Boston. McLeod, and Theo calls McLeod his secret weapon. So these guys all have the media's respect, and it kind of, you know, I think things get kind of slanted when you have these guys like Lanao

and Sig Magdal that people don't really know, and they're like, who are these guys trying to change our game? And then all of a sudden you have certain columns written that just seem over the top and rip them apart. And they've made some missteps. You can't deny that this season there's been some stuff that makes you wonder what exactly is going on. I think I heard on your podcast, Kevin Goldstein said, we know less than 8% of what's actually going on behind the scenes. Even with all the insider reports, we know very little.

So I don't want to say that what the Astros have done is awful this season, but on the face of it, PR-wise, it looks bad. And I can understand why they're getting bad press. That's a deep cut. That's episode 100. That's a good recall. Have there been any missteps along the way for the Cubs? Has this taken longer than they expected or anything like that? Is there anything where you think if they could have done it over,

we would have seen a different kind of rebuild? Yeah, there's certainly been some missteps. There's been minor things like the Ian Stewart, not so much the Ian Stewart acquisition, but they re-signed him after he bombed, you know, for the first year and they should have gotten a better read on his makeup. That's one of the guys that I think that they kind of learned their lesson about really doing their homework on makeup because that guy was not a positive influence and really,

you know, kind of showed his true colors with certain incidences. That was just a minor one. But I think people were frustrated by the lack of spending. When they took over, when Ricketts took over as the owner, I think spending was up to like $135 million, $140 million. And it's gone down. And you look at what revenue is, and you look at all these reports of how much the Cubs are making,

however accurate those are, the Cubs are certainly doing better than a lot of teams in baseball. I think that's hard to argue as far as money-wise. So it's hard to justify them not spending money. But I understand whether or not you don't just spend money for the reason of spending. You don't just go out and buy Shinsu Chu because okay we have the money let's go get him it doesn't really fit the plan probably not you know could he help the team win yeah but what's why do you want to get to 80 wins what's the point of that what does that help with it appeases the the fan that's looking for immediate gratification but it doesn't doesn't really help the long-term goals and and

people quickly forget how angry and how quickly they turned on Jim Hendry because he did that. He built winners in 2007 and 2008, but it really hurt the team long-term. People just completely have forgotten about that and jump on them. They're being cheap. They're just pocketing the money. And I've heard people call Theo Epstein a fraud and stuff like that. So, yeah, there's certainly people that aren't happy about this.

I think I'm trying to think of what, you know, it hasn't been perfect. There's been, you know, last season for about a there was like a year stretch where about four trades got leaked and then they never happened. It started with Dempster. That was it was that last season or two years ago? Dempster was supposed to go to the Braves for Randall Delgado. That got leaked and then he vetoed it. So people were upset about that. And it ended up working out because they got Kyle Hendricks in a deal for Ryan Dempster.

And now he's part of the rotation. And I don't even know where, like Randallall Delgado is hitting people in the back, right? That was him that hit McCutcheon, or am I misremembering that? Either way, you know, there was a Marmole for Dan Heron trade that got leaked, and people were angry about that. But all these leaks weren't from the front office. So people like to blame the front office and claim that they're screwing up and all this stuff but it's it's really not it's really not on them but they're hardly perfect you know edwin jackson's probably a thing that people point to most and

i think even uh even even the front office may admit that that was probably not their their smartest move and and they uh they they kind of i, had a belief that they'd be able to have, you know, supplement, supplement the team with more talent sooner than they actually could because of all these renovation BS and, and, and getting a TV deal done. And that's, you know what, that's the biggest misstep right there, the renovation, it hasn't happened. And I'm sick of even reading about it, it's supposed to happen right now. There's a possibility that they're breaking ground today or in the very near future. But until I start seeing things actually being built, I'm holding my breath on that. But that's the biggest misstep right there because

it's just been an utter PR disaster where we've had promises for about three years now where something's going to get done. And it looks like it's finally done and they're just going to go forward and not worry about a lawsuit from the rooftops. But, you know, we've heard it before and I just want to see it get done so we don't have any excuses about money being spent. We can just worry about real baseball. being spent. We can just worry about real baseball. All right. So last question. It's hard for me to get outside of the prospect depreciation bubble on the internet, having read Jason Parks and his coverage of Cubs prospects and the responses to his coverage of Cubs prospects, or people who have read your work and your coverage of Cubs prospects. The arrival of Baez seems like the biggest news in baseball.

Is that the case for the typical Cubs fan when Baez makes his home debut or, say, the day after Baez makes his home debut? Is the typical fan in Wrigley excited about Baez, knowledgeable about Baez? Does he or she just know that it's some guy with promise from the minor leagues, or do they know the whole story? That's hard for me to answer as well, because I'm in my own baseball bubble, and especially my Twitter bubble. Because with Twitter, yes, they know, they appreciate it. Some of them are demanding it sooner but but they all know that there's the system is staffed and then that's that's where this team is really uh that's where

the positives are with this team uh the average person that comes to Wrigley I don't know about that because you know there are some there there is a stereotype about the people that go to Wrigley and they're you know it's not always accurate but there are the people that go to Wrigley, and it's not always accurate, but there are some people that fill that stereotype that are just there to drink and have no clue what's going on with the actual game that's being played on the field. I think it's funny. A local writer did a video and was going around Wrigley and kind of asked random fans, hey, what do you think about this prospect?

He was just making up names, and nobody called him out on it. I talked to the guy, and he said there were no outtakes. Nobody questioned him on the prospect. Some of them said they didn't know who they were, but nobody questioned that, hey, that's a BS prospect. So, yeah, there's going to be, I'd say the average fan probably doesn't, but I'm guessing the average fan of most team doesn't really pay attention to the minor leagues, but yeah, there are, there are fans, most of the fans, the fans that care

about the team, they're well aware of what's going on. And I had numerous people and noticed numerous people on Twitter saying they're very excited to go to the game on Friday. I think you'll see a bump in attendance. Attendance has seen a slip. The Cardinals series and when the Yankees came to town last year, those were big draws. I'll be curious to see how much of a bump it is on Friday. I hope it's a nice bump. I hope fans do realize just how big of a deal it is to see these kids finally coming up. This is the best of the bunch in a while. I'd say this is probably the biggest Cubs prospect to make a debut since Mark Pryor,

as far as rankings go. I'm trying to go off the top of my head. I was thinking about this before because Rizzo was never that high. Alcantara was never that high, and neither was Castro. So it's got to be Mark Pryor, which, you know, that didn't end well. But he was amazing for a while. So hopefully people will come to the ballpark and hopefully Baez can deliver for a couple months. All right.

Well, anyone who has been listening to this podcast now understands the full import of this news. And we thank you for filling us in and for filling them in. And we thank you for filling us in and for filling them in. People can find your work at ESPN Chicago on Twitter at Sahadev Sharma. That's S-A-H-A-D-E-V-S-H-A-R-M-A. Thanks again for joining us. Thanks so much for having me on, guys. Appreciate it.

Sure. And please support our sponsor, BaseballReference.com. Go to BaseballReference.com, subscribe to the Play Index using the coupon code BP to get the discounted price of $30 on a one-year subscription. And please send us some emails for tomorrow's listener email show at podcast at BaseballPerspectives.com. We will be back with a new show then. Can I note your podcast? You know what? We haven't done it in so long because we've both been so busy, so it's kind of defunct. We kind of had to shut it down because we both can't.

We both have two kids, and we're both writing constantly. It's just like, yeah, this isn't going to work out. Sam is forbidden to have a second kid. I'm afraid of what would happen. Not remotely interested. This is the one podcast planning issue that Ben and I are in agreement on. Nice.