Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 578: The Free-Agent Contract Over/Under Draft

Episode Date: November 21, 2014

Ben and Sam banter about Jose Molina, Pat Venditte, and non-revelatory rumors, then draft free agents whose contracts they expect to be above or below published estimates.

Over and over again, my love Over and over again with you Over and over again, my love Over and over again with you Good morning and welcome to episode 578 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives presented by The Play Index at BaseballReference.com. I am Ben Lindberg of Grantland, joined by Sam Miller of Baseball Perspectives. Hello.

Hi. How are you? Okay. I just realized that you didn't send me this in like a spreadsheet. You could have sent it in a spreadsheet, and then I could have seen all of it in one view instead of scrolling down through all the graphics. But on the other hand, I had enough lead time that I could have put it in a spreadsheet myself.

So really, who's to blame here? Are we talking about today's topic, which we have not disclosed yet? Yeah, that's what we're talking about. Okay. Well, we will be doing a draft of a sort today about free agent values and predictions. So we'll get to that shortly. Anything you want to discuss first? Yeah, a couple things.

First of all, Jose Molina was going to be DFA'd tonight. I assume that happened. That was the report. So what do you make of that? I hope he goes to St. Louis and forms a two-man Molina tandem. But what do I make of it? I make of it that he is very bad at most aspects of baseball at this point. Well, do you think that he's got a future with any team?

Yeah. I mean, well, on the one hand you'd think if if any team were going to give him a chance it would be the rays the team fit signed him to a two-year deal and gave him a starting job when he had been a career backup and yeah you might you might you might think that a team that had it maybe maybe they figure they have their catcher they have their particularly they have their catch with that skill set is there any benefit if you know you're going to have two catchers on your roster and one is going to be primarily your starter and one is going to be primarily your backup is there any benefit to having them uh have different skill sets or is it really just the case that you know you know which

skills are most desirable and you know that it's not like they're going to be playing at the same time, and they're not like a point guard and a shooting guard where they might have complementary skills in a given play. If you've decided that one skill is more valuable, should you just get as much of that skill as possible? Seems like that's what teams have been doing with the framing guys, right? The Astros trading for Conger when they already had guys who were good at framing or have been pretty good, Castro and Corporan and Stassi and all these guys.

And the Pirates, well, the Pirates traded for Cervelli, and that was when they had Chris Stewart, and that was clearly preparing for losing Russell Martin. But, but I don't know, we talked once a long time ago about like maybe some catchers are good at framing pitches in a certain part of the strike zone, like low pitches and others high pitches. And maybe with certain pitchers who tend to throw up or down in the zone, you could pair framing catchers with starting pitchers

in some optimal way. Maybe that's something. But I don't know. Probably you just want the best guy, the guy who's best at doing the things that you've identified as valuable. So at BP, we have not just overall framing stats for a catcher, but we have the battery stats.

So all the framing runs added or given away by our framing methodology for every individual pitcher catcher battery. What do you think of that? Is that real? I like it. I like to look at it. It's fun, yeah.

It is definitely very fun to look at. But if you had two catchers, let me ask you this. You have two catchers. One of them seems to be like a plus-five framer with the pitcher. The other one seems to be a minus-five framer with the same pitcher. How big a gap in catchers would it be for you to to start that guy or would you just assume that probably you regress a lot of that because you know it's by definition going to be a small sample yeah i i probably i don't i don't know you can tell how

good a guy is in general from how he is with all pitchers. And if someone were going totally against that trend with one particular pitcher, I probably wouldn't buy it over a single season maybe. Uh-huh. Yeah. But I don't know. It'll be interesting to see whether Molina gets a job somewhere. People have speculated that he would make a fine

catching coach someday, so maybe he can do that, but I'm holding out hope for the double Molina catching combo. Yeah. Be fun, I guess. Would it be fun? Would there be anything fun about that, really? I think there was that time last year when they were playing each other. Was that really?

He left the thing on home plate for Yadier. That was cute. I guess. They probably would be fun together, I guess. Yeah, I don't know. I think so. There was some news in Pat Vendetti, a Pat Vendetti development. Yeah.

He signed a minor league deal With an invitation to spring training With the A's So he is finally out of the Yankees organization Where he has been Since 2008 He was drafted in 2008 And has been

Pitching in their minor league system For seven seasons now And has pretty good numbers really good numbers at lower levels kind of middling numbers at higher levels but probably worse numbers than some people who have gotten a cup of coffee at some point during that better yeah i said yeah better um but it it seemed clear that he probably was not going to get a shot with the Yankees for whatever reason. He is 29 and maybe he just wasn't worth a spot on the 40 man or whatever. They just didn't didn't think that his stuff would translate and that unlike for us, the novelty value would be worth promoting him.

But for an actual team, perhaps not. value would be worth promoting him but for an actual team perhaps not so does this raise his chances that he will make the majors at some point or lower them given that the A's probably will have a good bullpen again and have had good deep bullpens and don't particularly need Pat Vendetti but at the same time it's a different organization and if the old one was not going to give him a shot then there has to be a better chance that the new one will. If I've learned anything about the A's, it's that when they pick up some team's unwanted veteran who the internet kind of likes, they probably won't keep him for more than a week or two in the offseason. So I think we really need to ask this question again in April when he's actually on his final team.

I would say that there is maybe less than a 50% chance that he is on the A's on opening day. Not because they're going to waive him. You mean in the organization or on the Major League roster? In the organization. I assume that he'll be put on waivers again in a week and a half. Let's see. I would guess the Orioles maybe. No, the Blue Jays.

The Blue Jays will get him, and then he'll be put on waivers again three weeks later. I think that he's the Casper Wells of the offseason. That's what I'm saying. Okay. So we'll see. I remember Philip Umber was a guy who the a's got and um one of the things he told me when i wrote about him uh was uh like i i mentioned that he had been on the a's and he sort of almost forgot for a second and he said yeah i never even i never even owned a jersey he was on

the a's though it's true i don't know if they ever paid. I guess they wouldn't have paid him because it was the offseason. But, like, at some point he was in HR. Like, they were kicking into his health care at some point. He did get compensated in some way, I assume, because they were probably putting 401K contributions or something for those, you know, two and a half weeks that they had him. But never got him clothes. That's sad. anything else uh you don't have any uh relevance uh non-relevant

non-revelatory rumors what did i say relevant which is not totally different but yes revelatory yeah i do have a few as it happens so we talked a couple days ago about the ken rosenthal rumor about the orioles and how they may consider shopping bud norris we concluded that this was a non-revelatory rumor i have... Every time it's like a drill in my ear. What can I do though? I'm committed now. I've got to stick with it. My girlfriend works for Oxford and she sent me the OED definition

which I forwarded to you which suggested that the US pronunciation is my way and that the British pronunciation is your way. Which is my way and that the British pronunciation is your way which is interesting so that would I would suggest that I'm on the right continent to be

pronouncing it this way but at this point I'm committed so we talked about the may consider we concluded that that was that qualified for this exercise so now we have an are considering so this is a John Heyman rumor about the White Sox. The White Sox are considering a pursuit of free agent outfield star Melky Cabrera.

So they're considering, but they haven't committed to the pursuit. I saw that. I actually saw that earlier in the day. I think I saw a may consider earlier in the day. I think I saw a, uh, uh, I think I saw a may consider earlier in the day. Uh, well the, the MLB trade rumors post about this rumor was called white socks,

weighing pursuit of Melky Cabrera. And the, that's what, yeah, that's what it was. It was way. So that wasn't exactly what Heyman wrote. The top comment on that MLB Trade Rumors post was,

couldn't this be said about literally every team for every player? So that person has the right idea. I bet MLB Trade Rumors, I bet they hate this that we're doing because I bet they get this. I bet this is the equivalent of slow news day in their world. Probably. Oh my gosh, I just realized how annoying it is slow news day in their world. Probably. Oh, my gosh. I just realized how annoying it is, what we're doing.

Yeah. Because probably everybody who does these is like, come on, give me a break. I give you nine good ones, and the tenth one you're picking out the may-might discrepancy. Right. Well, I'm going straight to the source here. I'm not talking about their phrasing of Heyman's rumor. I'm talking about the rumor itself. Anyway.

They are considering a pursuit. They are considering a pursuit. Yeah, to me that is good enough. Okay. To me that is a pursuit. I think if you are considering a pursuit, you are pursuing. It might be a short pursuit. You might not be the person at the table most likely to win the hand. It might be obvious from your betting pattern that you have the third pair on the board. But nonetheless, it is a pursuit. They are pursuing. They are talking about it. I guarantee you they're going to talk to that agent. They're going to see what he's into. There might be a number thrown out there.

They've got their stat guys looking at his, you know, Babbitt or whatever. That's what stat guys do. Just pull up the old Babbitt, stare at it for a while. It's a pretty easy job, uh you got another one yeah so this one comes from thursday this was tweeted by two different people this is tweeted from by carrie muscat the mlb.com cubs beat writer and bruce miles the daily Herald Cubs beat writer nine minutes apart with exactly the same phrasing,

except that miles used a period and Muscat did not use a period. So the quote is sources say Cubs have not inquired about Nick Swisher. Uh, so we've got a not inquire. Where'd they put the period? Muscat did not put a period anywhere. Miles put a period at the end. Oh, at the end?

Yes. Oh, hmm. Hmm. Period at the end, you say? Yeah, they must have different sources. One of them came to a full stop at the end. I wish that Muscats had said sources say they are whatever and then said period like she had actually written out period

um all right uh not pursuing not haven't inquired have not inqu that's, I mean, if, yeah, sure, why not? All right. Well, I guess it's open to the objection that you could say this about, you know, every team with most players. But, of course. And, again, I would say that, first of all, I would say that there is, again, a presumption that there's some baggage in uh-huh talked about it that they have been somehow linked uh in some speculation uh there was another rumor that the indians had talked about trading swisher for other bad contracts or something and people had speculated about the cubs but yeah the implication is that marcais is relevant to the Cubs. Swisher.

Sorry, Swisher is relevant to the Cubs. And I am accepting that on faith when I see that. Now, it could be that this is just some algorithm spitting out verbs, nouns, and sometimes punctuation. But I'm assuming that it's not, that there's a reason that those two have been linked and that they are throwing a little bit of cold water on that linkage. But it could certainly be overdone. But yeah, it seems interesting to me. I mean, you know, I don't know.

There's only 30 teams, right? And so a have not contacted is not as valuable as a have contacted, but it does narrow the pool down. It does give you information. I suppose. All right. We're setting a low bar here, but both of these rumors clear it just barely. Okay. Anything else?

That's it. What about the one I sent you? You didn't like that one? What one did you send me? It was Bob Nightingale's. Oh, yeah. I think I was doing something and I didn't look at it or didn't absorb it at the time. What was it? Let me pull up the internet. This one is veteran Nats pitcher. Nats is hashtagged. Veteran Nats pitcher Doug Pfister, who like Zimmerman also is eligible for free agency in one year, also is available if a deal makes sense. So let's take out the excess words doug fister is available if a

deal makes sense so yeah yeah that's that reveals nothing i the thing that i love about this one is that to me a good a good non-revelatory tweet is that you can replace the player's name with any player but a great one is that you can replace the verb with any verb or you know the descriptive action with any action so uh so player uh is player if a deal makes sense or i guess not is player but but player is a thing or team will do thing if it makes sense is basically what but player is a thing, or team will do thing, if it makes sense, is basically what that is. That is team will do thing, if it makes sense. Yeah, okay. That's a hit for sure.

All right. I'm glad we started this segment. I don't know if the listeners are, but I'm enjoying it. We're about nine, yeah. Yeah. Okay, so that concludes the banter portion of this podcast. So moving on to the meat or the actual topic, we're talking about free agent predictions. In this case, Jim Bowden's free

agent predictions. This is his fourth year of doing free agent predictions. And he sort of, well, he already had a name for himself. He was a GM, but he made a name for himself in this predicting free agent space in his first time doing it, 2011, when he just nailed it. He just really nailed everyone. Creepy, creepy almost. Yeah. Like John Axford's Oscars. Yes, pretty much He came very close on all the top guys And I don't know whether this has continued I vaguely recall someone looking at his next year

And it was pretty good too But he's done it three times now I don't know whether he's actually any better at this Than the crowd or any other pundit I would lean toward probably not You would? I would After toward probably not overall. You would? I would. You would?

I would. After he nailed it. He did, but that was one year, right? I mean, it was impressive. I guess you could say that it's not, you can't dismiss it completely as small sample because it suggests that he at least had a good handle on where the market was.

It wasn't just that he happened to hit on certain predictions, but he was in the right range with everyone. It was impressive. It was very impressive. But one off-season of predictions, I don't know if that's enough for me given how we've seen your stuff about the executive survey and how over many years executives don't seem to be able to predict where guys will go or what they'll make or whatever. It's hard for me to believe that he is that much better than anyone else, even though he is more experienced in the role of someone who hands out contracts than most people who are predicting contracts. Anyway, there's no reason to think he's worse.

He might be better. Non-revelatory analysis of former GM. Yeah, right. So his new predictions came out on Thursday, I think. They're out this week. They're ESPN Insider, so they are paywalled, but I will link to the article in the places where we link to articles and so he predicted destinations and contracts for top 50 free agents and so what we are going

to do is draft the guys that we think will be most different from bowden's predictions. So we will each pick, we'll take a guy, we'll say whether he's over or under or what we think he'll end up being. And then at the end of the offseason or when all these guys have signed, we will compute the absolute value of the differences between Bowden's predictions and these guys' actual contracts. And we'll see who picked the guys that Bowden was predictions and These guys actual contracts and we'll See who picked the guys

That Bowden was most wrong about So we are predicting that we are Better at this than Bowden At these specific guys So let's figure out the scoring here so let's Say that Bowden thought that James Russell was Going to get two years and eight million

Dollars and I took the Over If it's two years and $8 million. And I took the over. If it's two years and $10 million, then I get credit for $2 million. And if it's two years and six, then I get docked $2 million. Is that right? And if it's two years and eight, I just get zero. And since it's a counting game, that's a wasted opportunity. Well, so that's what I was asking.

Because if we're doing absolute value of the differences, then even if you undershoot by $2 million, then that's what I was asking, because if we're doing absolute value of the differences, then even if you undershoot by two minutes, then it... My answer was dumb then. When I told you absolute value, I misunderstood. Yeah, it's... Okay, so... I was thinking... So we will say over or under,

and it will only count if it is in the direction that we said, right? Will it count negatively if it's in the opposite direction? I think it probably should, yeah. All right. Okay, so that's how we're doing this. So we have to pick the right direction, and if we pick the right direction, then it counts in our favor, the difference.

If we pick in the wrong direction, it counts against us. And we're doing total dollars. Total dollars. In this scenario, if James Russell signed for five years and $9 million Even though the average annual value is tiny tiny I would still get credit Yes

So I don't know about you but Going through this list Bowden in his intro Seems to suggest that Salaries will be going up He says industry revenues continue to grow, which causes inflation of players'

salaries. He mentioned that the qualifying offer price rate increased, which will have an effect on some free agents, although that could be a negative effect, that it will cost them, but he's saying that it sets the market higher, potentially. And he's saying that

the fact that two wildcard teams made it to the World Series might result in more teams bidding for players. I don't know whether that's true, but the point is that he is seeming to suggest that salaries go up. And yet, as I looked through this list, I found myself taking the over on a lot of guys. Well, don't give away too much. Oh, so you're saying that even though he's already presumably baked this in,

his estimates, they've been even higher. Yeah, well, I'm looking. Let's see. Russell Martin signed for more. I wrote those down. Although he almost nailed it. He basically got the number two offer for Martin so far as we've heard it. Yeah, so he projected four guys, I think, who signed already.

He pegged Victor Martinez perfectly. He got four years 68. That was what he signed for. Which is crazy. That's good. That's a good one. I would not have guessed that. Oh, yeah.

I would have said the under on that one. Definitely. And that one he nailed perfectly. But the other three that he's projected. The man is a genius. It could be. The other three that he's projected, he has been under on them. So he said Butler would get 218.

He got 330. Of course, I think probably the consensus would have been closer to what Bowden said. And he said Martin would get 464. He got 582. Which is basically he nailed it. Would have been closer to what Bowden said But and he said Martin would get 464 he got 5 What 82 yeah which is Basically he nailed it he just got the one Yeah right and he said Zach Duke would get two years

And 14 I think or I think two and seven Oh two and seven yeah he said two and Seven for Zach Duke and Zach Duke Got 315 or 15 and a half or something that would be a good one to have picked it would be but too late

alright I go first? sure alright I will take I'll take John Lester with the over alright so Lester projected for 6 years and 138

that's an AAV of 23 million so are you So Lester projected for six years and 138. That's an AAV of 23 million. So are you guessing more years or more per year or both? Not that you have to specify. I'm just curious. I think that I would say more per year. Uh-huh. Okay.

I got to say that was not on my short list. Uh-huh. Okay. I gotta say that was not on my short list. Uh-huh. I think with my... I have a strategy here, so... Oh, okay. Are you minimizing risk or something? You always go for the minimizing risk approach and I always go for the... Pick A-Rod.

Okay, I'm... Oh, by the way. Yeah. By the way, Ben, since that's a reference to a hundreds of episodes ago joke yeah i've been meaning to ask you all day whether you've been making pickles i have not made a pickle in quite some time my pick my pickle experiments sort of fizzled, but I'm planning to get back in the game at some point. I'm going to take the over on Chase Headley, I think.

Chase Headley is projected for three years and $27 million, which seems quite low to me. It's funny because the next player on his list, and he ranks these guys by his personal preference for the player, not by contract value. But the next guy on his list is Adam LaRoche at 336.

So he's projecting that LaRoche will get significantly more than Headley despite being four years older and not better. So that seems curious to me. So I will take the over on the headlee projection all right i will take brandon mccarthy ah good one yes so he he projects mccarthy at 220 which does seem quite low particularly since he has Edinson Volquez listed at 220, which is odd. Those guys are not the same. I can't imagine a team or the winning bid for both of those players being the same.

By the way, he was over on A.J. Burnett. A.J. Burnett signed. Oh, okay. What did he say? He had him 1-10. Uh-huh. And Burnett was what? I think 1-8.5, I think. Okay. What did he say? He had him 1-10. Uh-huh. And Burnett was what? I think 1-8.5, I think.

Okay. All right. So, Hedley and McCarthy off the board. I am going to take the over on Hanley Ramirez, who is his third-ranked guy. He has him at four years and $76 million. And he makes a case for why it's not more. He points out that he received a qualifying offer. He says that many GMs believe that he must move to third base and that there aren't a lot of openings at that position.

He says the market could collapse if he insists on staying at shortstop. And it has been reported, John Heymanman reported that he is willing to play wherever there's a need or at least that's what he's telling people in the early stages of the offseason but that's the case for why hanley might not make a whole lot and it's reasonable but i'm going to say that i just find it hard to envision hanley ramirez getting a four-year deal. He's 30. It seems like he's a longer-term guy. So whether he gets more than the $19 million per year or not, I can't imagine that it will be a four-year deal. Yeah.

I mean, there's not one list out there. Everybody has made a list this offseason, and not one list, including Bowden's, has Hanley below Pablo Sandoval, and yet he has Pablo Sandoval getting more guaranteed money, and that doesn't square to me. Right, yeah, and Sandoval's a couple years younger, but yeah, I agree. All right, I will take David Robertson. Mainly because I don't think the average annual value is necessarily off. What was it?

It's 3 and 39, and I just think he'll get a fourth year. Uh-huh. Yeah. Okay. Or more. Maybe he'll get six years. Maybe seven. All right.

I'm really playing that he'll get an eight-year deal. That might win you this contest. Okay. All right. My next pick. Man, all my top guys are Overs it seems like I'll take

Hmm Not the one I'm gonna take Aoki Two years 12 million Total I mean Aoki at 6 million per year would be Quite a bargain.

So if some team gets him for that, well done team. He's so funny too. Yeah. Alright. I'm going to say I'm going to take the over.

Have either of us taken the under? no right on anything? I've only got like two that I can even sort of talk myself into thinking and yet he's been either right on or over with a couple guys who've signed already but yeah okay

I will say well maybe that's why those guys signed so quickly. Maybe that's why. All right, I'm going to take the over on Nelson Cruz. Okay, what's the projection? 3-48. Uh-huh. And I think Nelson Cruz is going to get more than that.

That's why you picked the other one. That makes perfect sense. Yeah. All right. I'm going to take... Maybe it's just easier to pick the other one. Maybe we're just looking... I mean, I don't know.

If you asked me to pick... If you actually asked me to project all these guys' salaries, maybe two-thirds of them I would be under, but it's just that they don't appear to you. Maybe you just notice the guys who you... What I'm saying is maybe you're noticing guys that you think are good. They're a little bit bolder in this list to you. All right, go ahead.

Okay, I'm going to take Peavy. Jake Peavy, one year, $9 million. Really good one. Yeah, taking me over on him. I can see how he wouldn't get a Giant deal I can see how a team might not Buy into his second half ERA

With the Giants and might have Seen him sort of look worn down In October and all that But it seems unlikely To me that he would Settle for a one year deal And probably the per year also seems a little bit low because you would expect him to be you know like a quality back of the

rotation guy at least so i mean one year and nine million for that would be quite low so taking the over on pv uh how many are we doing five right i've taken four guys you've taken what is this my wait this is my last one why only five seven let's do seven seven wow yeah i want to get an under i i want to get an under and my next two are both overs i don't know if i can get to an under okay uh all right i'm gonna take uh justin masterson okay what's he he is one year seven million all right seems like a good one the only problem is that he's a he is a definite pillow contract contender though yes that is true all right i will take the over on luke gregerson oh okay at two years and 14 million uh-huh i mean that's i understand that there are reasons to be wary of gregerson perhaps the fact that he doesn't throw hard the fact that he throws all those sliders and he's pitched in great pitcher's parks his whole career. So maybe he's not quite as good as his incredibly good numbers suggest.

But I don't know. Given, I mean, if Zach Duke can get 315. Yeah, but if Joe Smith only got 315 last year, are they different? Not dramatically maybe I'd probably prefer Gregerson But yeah well That's my pick Alright I'm going to take

Jason Grilly That was my next one I was worried Yeah so what is Jason Grilly? 1 and 3.5 Yeah that's Interesting Keith Law's is Jason Grilly? 1 and 3.5. Yeah, that's interesting. Keith Law's list had Grilly very low too with a very low projection of what he would be worth.

I wonder why that is. I mean, he's old and he had a bad first half, I guess, and his strikeout rate was down. Sounds like I'm naming good reasons, but there are reasons to like him, too. You like Billy? Alright. Kind of want to take...

No, I'm not going to do it. Man, I did not prepare for seven deep. I was all prepared for five. Usually you want to keep things shorter. Okay. I will take the over on...

You know what? I'll take an under. I'm going for an under. All right. I'm taking the under on Melky. Oh, I actually had that X'd and I forgot. I forgot to get to him. All right.

So it's poor draft management on your part. So Melky is projected for four years and $64 million. That's kind of a lot, I think, given the qualifying offer. I'm fairly confident in under. I'm going with under. All right. And I am looking for an under and it feels like there are two or three or four. I guess I could talk myself into four unders here. And one of them is tricky because, yeah, I'm going to go with this one.

And it's just I've heard these numbers so many times that it just feels like he's already signed the deal but he hasn't signed the deal and it seems like a bad contract and it's long is the thing. Even if he signed for that value before, I'd be safe. I'm going to take Pablo Sandoval at 5 and 90. All right. Okay. I wonder, I mean, what's the ceiling on that pick?

It seems like a low ceiling pick. I mean, it could be under 90. That's the thing, though, is that if he signs for 4 and 78, I just crushed whatever you were doing with Luke Gregerson. What's the downside? What are the odds he gets more than 90? It's basically impossible, isn't it? He's not even

asking for it. If somebody offered him 95, I think he would feel embarrassed. He would look away. He would just sit silently until the GM realized that the awkwardness in the room would not be dispelled until they went to sing karaoke. Right. Signed for a reasonable deal like 90.

Just like someone in the Giancarlo Stanton press conference asked him if he was embarrassed to be making this much money, which is just a crazy question. But yeah, okay. All right. I see the argument. Makes sense. All right. So this is my last pick you've picked seven all right gotta make this count huh okay well this pick i think is unlikely to hurt me i think there's a little chance that it will hurt me. So I'll go for it on that basis. Although, on the other hand, it's not going to help me a whole lot either. Wait, is it Emilio Bonifacio?

No, it's not. But it probably has similarly low upside. So I'm going to go with Corota. So he projects. Wait, but what if he doesn't sign? I know, that's the thing. It's unlikely to hurt me because if he doesn't sign, it just won't be counted, right? It's just off the board. Low floor.

Yeah. High floor. Right, high floor. So if he does sign. You're taking over or under? I'm taking over because he's made 15 and 16 the last couple years And he hasn't really done anything not to deserve that I mean, he was not quite as good this year and he's older

But he was still an above average starter So I'll take the over on that I don't feel great about it, but I don't love any of the other opportunities out there. So 14 picks and we took basically two unders and one he might not pitch. And otherwise, all overs. So the others that I considered four and under, and I'm not super confident in any of them.

I wasn't confident in the under I took but the ones i i thought about were volquez um and sergio romo who's at three and 21 and seems like he could it seems like he could do a three and 15 or something or two and 16 maybe uh and um uh uh uh perhaps colby rasmus who who I think could – I didn't want to pick him because I feel like he could get over. Right. But it seems like he could also very easily go over. What was he, 222? 222, yeah. And I could just see him – you know, it's unfair to him, but I could almost just see him completely botching it and just ending up being like a minor league invite.

And everybody's like, what, what happened? And, and like 13 teams will be like, I offered him a four year deal. His dad kept running in. So that's not fair, but I,

I, that's what I was thinking. Okay. All right. So we'll see how it plays out. We will add up the numbers. We'll get some stat guys to look at our Babbits at the end of the offseason

when all these guys have signed or those of them who are going to sign have signed. And we'll see who won. That's how these drafts work. That it? All right. That's it. Okay. So that is it for this week. We encourage you, or I encourage you

to join the Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild. I will post a link to Baden's predictions in there. Lots of activity. Someone from the group saw Smash Mouth live, took a picture with Smash Mouth. Other readers are forming a blog together that they are going to write collectively.

So check that out if you want to get in on it and name the site. And we hope that you will support our sponsor, the Play Index, by going to thebaseballreference.com and subscribing using the coupon code BP to get the discounted price of $30 on a one-year subscription. We could use some emails for next week at podcastatbaseballprospectus.com and we welcome your reviews and ratings and subscriptions to

the show on iTunes. So, have a wonderful weekend. We will be back on Monday.