Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 793: The Emergency Mailbag Edition

Episode Date: January 8, 2016

Ben and Sam banter about Kenta Maeda’s physical, then consult an official scorer and answer emails about a market correction, the Dodgers’ spending, the Yankees’ and Cubs’ bullpens, and Dave Stewart.

And the gold rush of gold is on And another one will come And the gold rush of gold is on And another one will come Hello and welcome to episode 793 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Prospectus, presented by the Play Index, BaseballReference.com. I'm Ben Lindberg of FiveThirtyEight, joined by Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus. Hello.

Yo. So the other day when we said that Kent DeMida's contract would definitely have an opt-out, what we meant was his physical definitely had irregularities. Yeah. So does the fact that his physical had irregularities explain this contract to your satisfaction? Depends how irregular. Must be pretty darn irregular. Right.

Must be like R.A.a dicky levels of irregularity which i mean at this point in one's life it's hard to imagine like why what would even matter like i mean if if you could see like if you could if the doctor could point and go yep that's the one thread it's hanging by one thread literally one thread and it's about to burst, then I could see. But if they open it up and they're like, oh, wow, that's interesting. He's got the elbow of a goat. Who cares at this point? He's 28 years old. He's been pitching forever. It wouldn't matter. It's not like if R.A. Dickey were a free agent and no one knew about his thing, and all of a sudden he went to go sign a deal and they're like oh wow whoa you don't have

a ucl then i don't think a team would go oh well can't touch him now 43 43 years oldness 7 000 innings under his belt can't touch him now so it feels like the only thing that I could see being a valid irregularity would be that he's right on the brink of – I mean that it seems very obvious and very clear that he's right on the brink of it. Maybe he is Greg Holland, right? Yeah. But even then, even then, it didn't show up last year unless it – I mean so far as I can tell, it didn't show up in his stats last year. last year unless it i mean so far as i can tell it didn't show up in his stats last year and even then why would you sign an eight-year deal if you were if you were him right wouldn't you when you wait oh right if it's anything that could be rehabbed you would wait yeah or even corrected

via surgery yeah i mean yeah sorry rehabbed or a fixed i meant to say yes if it's anything that could be fixed yeah you would wait you you'd do a one year you'd either sit out a year or you'd at the very most maybe sign like a two-year uh one of those two-year injury contracts that these guys all sign where somebody pays for their rehab and then they play the second year for them so i guess the answer your question is no okay i mean what there's a secret opt-out So I guess the answer to your question is no. Okay. I mean, what? So there's a secret opt-out. What could it possibly, like...

Every pitcher has some sort of damage in his arm. You always hear that, that there's fraying or wear of some kind. So maybe his is more extreme than the typical pitchers, but you're right. If that's all it is, I don't know. I wouldn't advise signing an eight year deal unless you think it's all downhill from here, unless it's some kind of degenerative condition of some, of some sort. Yeah. Maybe the MRI revealed a, uh, a note that said that said, I can't be trusted. Yeah, he's an imposter. It's not the real Maeda.

Do you think we'll find out? I think we'll get details. We got details about Brady Aiken that kind of came out. Uh-huh, yeah. Yeah, although Aiken is, I don't know if it's a different case or not but Aitken is sort of relevant because Aitken was going to sign a contract a year later and so the other 29 teams all had an incredible interest in knowing what that irregularity was whereas Maeda is not going to sign another contract forever or until the opt-out kicks in the secret opt-out and this suggests and we should

by the way we should note that joe mannin had that opt-out in his contract and didn't know that he had that's true if joe mannin could not know about his own opt-out maybe i mean it's not that crazy to think that none of us would know about maeda's opt-out. Yeah, could be. Okay, now it's all making more sense. There's no reason for the club to tell us there's an opt-out. In fact, why do we find out? I guess contracts, just because they don't have to be made public, doesn't mean that the other 29 teams don't have it. I assume the other 29 teams probably have full access to other contracts.

Or do you think they don't? I mean, they have to know the money. The amount of money that they're paying has to be known because it is now part of the gameplay of the league, right? Because you have salary restrictions or you have luxury taxes on teams. And so in that sense, the amount of money that they are paying each year has to be known but do the clauses within because it would be it seems like it would be a disadvantage to a team to have the rest of the league know when the opt-out is well no it wouldn't i was going to say because then if you didn't know if you if they didn't know the opt-out was there then you'd have

more leverage trying to trade them but then on the other hand they'd have to know that you're trading them an opt-out guy uh so never mind forget forget that whole thing only for planning purposes if you are if you're looking ahead to signing some guy oh yeah yeah right that would give you slightly more leverage if they didn't know that you were about to lose your ace or whatever all All right, so then. Whatever the irregularity is, it must be obvious to everyone. Sometimes there are cases where one team will interpret the physical differently from other teams do. And one team will say, this guy's going to get hurt.

And another team will say, he's fine. We're not worried. But in this case, the fact that he signed this contract makes you think that he didn't get a much bigger offer, which also makes you think that everyone who paid the posting fee and was able to negotiate with him concluded the same thing about whatever it is. Have you seen any details about what the irregularity is? Because I have a guess. If there are none, then I have a best guess. If there are absolutely none.

Better than goat elbows? Yes. I saw a vague report about elbow and shoulder things. Dang it. See, because I was going to say. That was your guess? It was elbow or shoulder? No, no, no.

Dang it. Because that is against my guess. My guess was going to be conclusive but early stage degenerative arthritic hip. Yeah, that kind of thing might make sense. Yeah. Is there something, I don't know if there is an equivalent for a shoulder. This is like how 24, the TV show 24 was always like, you know, like every hour had a ticking time bomb in order to justify the use of, you know, torture and violence and stuff. Yeah. And then you'd read like articles about it and they'd be like, well, the ticking time bomb is an extremely rare instance that probably has never happened in American history.

happened in american history and like it seems like the only way that this makes sense is if there is the equivalent of a ticking time bomb kind of a thing here but i think that's pretty rare i i think it's pretty rare that you can look and go oh yeah he's fine now but in 18 seconds right yeah usually you you go in stages i think in most cases or if you break you can't necessarily predict the breakage i mean there's troubling signs on every pitcher's mri every single one who's ever thrown a pitch has bad bad things if you look at their mri and you just have to sort of figure out well what are the chances those bad things are gonna turn up because a lot of them end up not being anything or they hit you 10 years later like wasn't it matt kane who had has had like what matt kane was pitching through something for like 11 years and then and then finally broke but like 11 years. Yeah, right.

Well, we'll probably find out more at some point. All right. I Googled goat elbows, and as always, Yahoo Answers comes through. How do goat elbows taste like? I am invited to my girlfriend's house next weekend, and we are having goat elbows. I was wondering how they taste like so I can brace myself. First of all, the answer is

like lamb. Second of all, if you cook them slow enough, they'll be good. Third of all, taste like? How do they taste like? Yep. How do they taste like? Answer from Olivia, I don't think goats have elbows, but the rest of the goat is pretty good. This was posted in singles and dating. but the rest of the goat is pretty good. This was posted in singles and dating. That's pretty much the only result on the internet. Yeah, answers never fails.

What do you think he really ate? Yeah, it wasn't that. I mean, it's just a joint, right? Right. I mean, you know, like, I wasn't that. I mean, it's just a joint, right? Right. I mean, you know, like, I don't know. My guess is that there's just some joint in the goat. I don't know. He probably had.

Sounds tasty. My guess is he had goat shank. Okay. All right. Well, other than that, it's sort of a slow news day. So we're going to answer some emails That we didn't get to last time Unless you want to talk about the definitely happening Deadwood movie Are you kidding?

Are you pro or against? Pro, sure, pro It's not like it ended It's not like it ended It was perfectly satisfying Other than it ending It didn't end dissatisfyingly it's not like it had a bad finale i don't you're not suggesting it had a bad finale it was somewhat

rushed i mean well it ended it just ended yes right it ended like a season would end yeah like we have a somewhat of a story wrapping up and we don't have an episode next week basically i guess i'd love to see it i'd love to be in that world again sounds like you're gonna get to good your favorite drama of all time tv drama you don't count freaks and geeks as a drama no then yes yeah okay all right let's answer a question from sean in atlanta i have a theory as to why we aren't hearing all that much about Justin Upton, Jonas Cespedes, and Chris Davis. A market correction in terms of the way teams value all-around players

versus offense-first sluggers. Thoughts? I would say that two out of three of those guys are all-around players. They are in the immediate. You could argue that if you're signing them for five or six years that they become decreasingly so. Uh-huh. Well, sure.

I guess everyone does. And also in the sense that, I mean, they're corner guys. And for the most part, you can almost just replace that word, offense-first slugger. You can kind of just say replace it with corner guy, right? Because it doesn't give you the flexibility. If there's some base running value, fine, but it's not like the base running value has like a multiplicative effect

or anything on the rest of your team. It's nice. But it essentially is a way of saying that they don't provide you extra flexibility, and they don't necessarily have a place to age down to on the defensive spectrum. And their job is essentially to stand at the least demanding position and then four times a game hit a ball a long way.

Now, you could argue that Cespedes is not even that at this point, but over the course of their contracts, I feel like calling all of them offense-first sluggers is fair. Uh-huh. Okay. $150 million offer. So if that's the case, then the holdup is him, not the lack of an offer, because that's a pretty attractive offer for a guy who's been great and terrible in alternating years a couple times now. And also, Ben Zobris signed a contract for what seems like below market rate for a player of his value. Alex Gordon signed a deal that I think most people considered a very good deal for the value he's been and likely is going to continue to create.

And he had to wait almost as long. I mean, he basically signed not because the market was like banging down his door, but because it got to January. And he's like, okay. And Dexter Fowler is not an offense first slug to January and he's like, okay. Uh, and, uh, Dexter Fowler is not an offense first slugger and he's still waiting. Denard span had to wait until January and signed a deal that, I mean, depending on what his MRIs look like or his physical looks like is arguably possibly a bargain for his value. Uh, so it's not like all the other non-offense first sluggers on the market went and

got deals two days into the offseason for you know way more than we expected it's like hitters haven't signed yeah and and hayward hey we're gonna bring up hayward even hay, who is also not an offense first slugger, signed a deal for what? 184 guaranteed? Yeah. With multiple non-secret opt-outs? showed me uh there if you look at hayward's value relative to uh to his contract it's it's essentially like he's getting paid for his bat more than for his glove as it is i mean if you that seems like a really good deal to me is what i'm saying if you believe in his defense and so yeah it's kind of just that every all the hitters are finding little market for themselves, all the position players.

Yeah. So I guess I would say I don't buy it. Nor do I. All right. It's not that well-developed a theory, to be fair, Sean. It's one sentence with a colon. Yeah. And a one-word question.

All right. Michael says, As a Dodgers fan, I'm conflicted as to how the Dodgers should use their supposed riches. It would be wonderful to have signed Granke, but that contract is insane. Instead of signing free agents to play for them, could they sign free agents to play for other teams? For example, Alex Gordon just re-signed with the Royals for approximately $70 million. Jordan just re-signed with the Royals for approximately $70 million. Could the Dodgers have signed him for $80 million,

traded him to the Royals, and paid $20 million of the contract? The Royals send back one or two prospects and save $10 million. Obviously, there are additional complications with the Dodgers losing a draft pick in this scenario, but could it work? How much would it cost for the Dodgers to get a team's third best prospect, best prospect? If there is no rule against this, would the league immediately outlaw something of this nature? If teams are willing to trade big prospect packages for two months of a star, why not a big package for five years at a 30%, 40%, or 50% discount? Well, there's technically a rule against this exact scenario,

because you can't trade a player that you signed as a free agent for some amount of time right yeah uh and there have been instances where that has been waived in the case of what rafael soriano because of his qualifying offer situation but it would have to be waived by mlb and that would probably not happen if the Dodgers were clearly exploiting a loophole. system dynasty where they have the best farm system year in, year out, and are able to continue to be promoting elite prospects from within and having incredible depth from within. One way to do it while flexing their financial muscles, since they can't now go spend all that money on international free agents and traffic, is yes, to sign more major leaguers than they need and then trade the excess for prospects.

It seems like kind of a pretty good idea. Yeah. I like the idea. They can't do it. They can't do it quite so brazenly as this, but they could have signed Alex Gordon if they'd wanted to. And then, you know, they'd have been able to, like, for instance, if they had signed Alex Gordon, they could have traded him in July, assuming no trade, no, no trade clause, or they could have traded, you know, Puig. And then if they wanted to trade Alex Gordon for more prospects, and they've already traded Puig, they could sign another outfielder and then trade that guy. And then keep on, yeah, absorbing money.

It seems like a reasonable possibility. Their margins, I mean, you'd have to, like the mark, the realistic application of this would depend on the market following you in this plan, right? Like people would have to, like it depends. First of all, it depends on the premise that $20 million to the Dodgers means less than $20 million to the Royals. That is probably true. That is probably, therefore, an advantage that they can leverage,

that they can absorb these costs more than the Royals and teams that are cash strapped or cash limited would be willing to give up other resources in order to have the financial flexibility. So that would probably work. But, I mean, it would just depend on whether it worked in practice, whether it actually worked, whether teams would line up for your veterans and give you more prospects than in a vacuum those veterans might be worth. Okay. Question from Greg. On August 14th through 16th of 2015, I witnessed a wonderful sweep of the Mets by the Pirates at Citi Field. All's good with that, and it would have blended into the bittersweetness of the Pirates' early-ended 98-win season. That is, if it weren't for a

particular play during the Sunday day game, the only game for which I was keeping a scorecard. With Juan Ligaris on first and one out, Cespedes pulled the ball to third baseman Aramis Ramirez. The ball was to Aramis Ramirez's left. He fielded it, paused, hesitated, and lobbed to Walker at second. Ligaris, who must have had a good jump, slid in safely to second, and while I'm not sure whether or not Walker made the turn or held the ball, Cespedes was safe at first. The official scorekeeper called fielder's choice in the stadium, and the MLB game day app agreed, saying Lagaras advanced to second but without giving any reason for him to have done so. My father and I were dumbfounded. No hit for Cespedes, whose batting average dipped

due to the fielder's choice. No error for Ramirez, whose status as a superior defensive third baseman to Pedro Alvarez remained untarnished. The play resulted in the Mets' win probability, granted in the bottom of the first in a game they would go on to lose 8-1, jumping 3.7% to 54.7% to 58.4%, which I know it would have done anyway, regardless of the scorekeeping. But still, I've been bothered by this since that day. I've checked several record-keeping sites since, at first expecting amended statistics and then hoping for them in vain. Am I missing something from a scorekeeping perspective? What is going on here?

from a scorekeeping perspective, what is going on here? So I emailed the official scorekeeper of Effectively Wild, friend of the show, Darren, who is an actual Major League scorekeeper. I didn't know that. Yeah, and he took a look at the play, and he has given me his ruling. He says, in reviewing the play, Cespedes hits a slow roller but routine ground ball to third base. Ramirez makes a slow throw to second base but not in time to get Ligaris. This is still scored as a fielder's choice because in the scorer's judgment, had they not attempted to get Ligaris at second,

Cespedes would have been out with ordinary effort at first. Rule 10.056b, the official scorer shall not credit a base hit when a fielder fails in an attempt to put out a preceding runner, and in the scorer's judgment, the batter runner would have been out at first base. In reviewing the video, I agree with the judgment to award a fielder's choice and no hit. So this is a pretty common play though not that not that specifically where you usually see it on a bunt where a guy is bunting a runner over from second to third particularly and they attempt to cut down the runner at third and the throw comes too late uh and in that's in that case you would get credit for a sacrifice fielder's choice and uh even though no out was made uh but yeah the basic uh play is it probably happens a couple times a week across major league baseball maybe slightly less

the there i guess there are two things to wonder about here uh from a scoring perspective or from a record-keeping perspective one do you agree that it shouldn't be an error on the fielder as the fielder has erred in his choice right he chose the base where he could not get an out so why is that any better than if he had chose to throw the ball 15 feet higher than the second baseman the second question which uh we can answer after, is whether, or I guess an observation, is that we do give, you and I, give credit to the batter who reaches on an air. We know through research and history that the ability to reach on an air is not an arbitrary event, that it is actually a talent that some guys have, that speed, well, first of all, that certain attributes like speed help, but also that errors are kind of nonsense and that putting

the ball in play and reaching base, uh, however you do it, uh, is a, uh, is a, is a positive accomplishment. And that there's not really a big difference between hitting a ball right at the third baseman and he throws it away versus hitting the ball four feet to the left of the third baseman and it goes under his glove from the batter's perspective, from the perspective of how hard you hit the ball and how much you were trying to do that. It's essentially the same thing for the batter and the same results. So we don't treat them differently. This seems to be a blind spot where, so far as I know, there is no tally of reached on fielder's choice. But also, I don't think that even in something like true average or WOBA,

which gives credit to every possible thing a batter does, I don't believe that this makes it. I don't think there is a reached on fielder's choice in any of these calculations. I think that this just goes into the memory hole. And it doesn't almost certainly matter that much because this probably happens twice a career, but all the same. All right, so go ahead and talk about those two things. Well, so the first one, should an error in judgment be counted the same as a physical error where something just goes wrong and you're uncoordinated?

I would say yes, probably should be. If an error is in a sense a penalty on the fielder for a mistake, I don't know that you want to be incentivizing an aggressive play. If a guy throws, whatever this play was, if Aramis Ramirez attempts this play 10 times, and six of them he cuts the runner off, well, that wouldn't be enough. But let's say eight of them he cuts the runner off, and wouldn't be enough but let's say eight of them he cuts the runner off uh and two of them he doesn't that's still a net positive like you might want the fielder to be aggressively looking and so you're kind of playing uh the odds when you choose to cut down the runner you it's just like trying to take the extra base for a base runner but on

the flip side sometimes you'll get thrown out But if you're never thrown out Then you're probably giving up bases by not being aggressive enough So it might be that you don't want to Create Or you don't want to De-incentivize what is In the aggregate a smart play

It is not simply If you throw wildly to first Well that's just an error You're always going to throw to first and you always want to throw it accurately. And it's not like you're necessarily taking a risk that led to that error. You're just making a bad throw. Whereas in this case, you're taking a risk that had a potential payoff. And therefore, the fact that it didn't work out in the single case

doesn't necessarily mean that the process was bad. Yeah, that's true. And the second question, you're asking... I don't know what I'm asking. It's not really a question. It's an observation. It's an observation. But I don't know about every stat, but true average includes situational outs.

Like if you advance runners, that gets counted. Oh, okay. I remember a Colin Wires post about productive and unproductive outs and how for some guys that makes a difference because it is counted that they make outs that advance runners. So I would assume that this would also be reflected in that so while we were talking i asked rob mccune who um oversees statistics at baseball prospectus uh about this and in fact ben and reassuringly i think true average actually

does treat this as a non-out it it basically, so true average distinguishes between air outs and non-air outs, or air hits and non-air hits, as I understand it. And so this, as Rob puts it, pretty much any ball hit on the ground where the batter reaches and nobody is out are treated the same way.

So this actually would be treated in true average as if not exactly a hit, or if not exactly a reached on air in that family. Okay. So we thought we had found an inefficiency that could have been worth literally ones of runs. Yeah. And we haven't. We haven't. Okay.

Good to know. All right. Let's take a question from Mike. So the Yankees look like they're going full Royals with their bullpen construction strategy. The Cubs appear to be going for a different strategy, which is based more on versatility. I count four former starters among those in the mix for, and indeed likely to make, the pen. Cahill, Warren, Wood, and Richard. I guess the thinking there is that the Cubs can

tinker with the rotation if Hamill or Hendricks struggle, or maybe even go to something that approaches a four-man rotation. What I find most interesting about these two strategies is that the clubs have essentially confirmed that this is what they're doing with their moves, most notably the Yankees actually trading Warren to the Cubs. So what are the relative merits of each strategy? Which team is doing it right? Or is that a dumb question, which is to say, can they both be right? We've talked about the Yankees and we also talked about what the Yankees are doing even before the Yankees were doing it when we talked about the almost to the Dodgers chap and trade, right?

Yes. And I don't know that either of us said whether we like it as a strategy. I think I don't necessarily like the Yankees. Oh, we did. I did. We did talk about whether we liked it or not. And yeah, we were kind of on the fence or I was kind of on the fence. I just a minute ago, I said, I don't think I like, I don't, I don't think I don't think I like, I don't think I, Just a minute ago, I said I don't think I like. I don't think I don't think I like. I don't think I like. I think it's fine.

Let me put it this way. Okay, I have no opinion about, I have no strong opinion about the philosophy that the Yankees are doing, and I think the Yankees have the right pitchers to do it with, if you're going to do it with. If you're going to invest a lot in having three of the five best relievers in baseball in your bullpen, then the key is to make sure you have three of the five best relievers in baseball. And to me, it's not enough to try to get three of the 12 best because by that point, by the time you get to nine, 10, 11, 12, I start to think that

they're not those or the relievers that aren't worth the investment but if you have three of the top five I think I'm good with it that so now that's out of the way go Yankees fine all right now uh as to which is better I it's sort of I this is like a not an acceptable answer but it depends which one works if they both work i'd much rather have the cubs yeah model not just because it's cheaper although that's a big part of it but you're less dependent on all three of your guys being great because you can theoretically swap more guys in and out it's going to be very for instance if the yankees they they don't but let's say the yankees are 100 dependent on this plan working. Like they invest everything in the idea that from the seventh inning on,

or maybe even the sixth, like let's say they only got starting pitchers who could go five and two thirds. And they planned to win every single game by pulling that guy after five and two thirds and then getting the final three and a third from their big three. after five and two thirds, and then getting the final three and a third from their big three. And that like, if they had to leave any other starters in for a 18th, 19th,

20th out, they, it wouldn't, it couldn't happen because their, their pitcher has a bomb in their elbow that would blow up or something like that. And they were dependent on this strategy. Well,

in that case, you would be, it would be very hard to replace Chapman in July and keep the strategy going, right? Because there's not going to be another Chapman. There aren't other Chapmans. There aren't other Batances. There aren't other Millers out there.

Whereas with the Cubs strategy, there's a lot. I mean, you can theoretically get a bunch of guys like Trevor Cahill and see which ones work and flip them in and out. But also the flexibility issue, having depth for your rotation, having the ability to pull Jason Hamill in the fourth inning when it's the third time through the order and knowing that you have length in the bullpen is good. I mean, I would guess that the – I want to hear your answer because mine makes no sense.

But I will say I think that the Yankees will have a better bullpen this year I think the Cubs Will have More ancillary benefits to the team That's what I would say Well the Yankees Strategy really really is the Royals strategy because it's not just

That they're getting good relievers It's that they have the shaky rotation with a bunch of guys you can't really count to go deep into games or even to pitch games at all. And so it seems like they're trying to compensate for that with this bullpen. And the Cubs way seems more potentially efficient. Like you can find maybe not quite a chapman or a baton sis but

pretty close i mean you can find a ken giles if you're lucky and or smart just by stockpiling these failed starters and seeing how they do in the bullpen so the cubs way is more efficient i would guess because you could sign dozens of these guys for what it costs you to sign one andrew miller well not real kind of but also you don't know where to put them yeah i mean like it's not like guys like warren i don't know what did they get i feel like guys like clayton richard and trevor cahill they're they seem like free talent. And maybe those guys were. I'm looking up to see how they acquired them. But they're also guys who have started not that recently.

And it wouldn't surprise me if I looked them up and went, oh, they paid them $3 or $4 million, which is a not totally inconsequential investment. You can't sign dozens of guys for that necessarily. But yeah, your point is right is right and your point you might specifically be right with richard and and yeah you could get dozens of clayton richards if you want them uh-huh uh yeah okay so yeah richard was signed to a minor league deal before the season by the pirates and acquired by the cubs for cash so yeah they probably invested next to nothing in there yeah okay so if you wanted i

mean you could uh you could just have a separate spring training camp for failed starters and just invite a bunch of clayton richards and put them in the bullpen and see which one of them have the bullpen mentality or the bullpen stuff that ticks up when they're pitching and relief or something, and then keep the three best ones. And maybe the best one of those will be as good as your good reliever that you paid $12 million for. Are we overstating the extent to which the Cubs are doing this?

Because it like Richard sucks. Like Richard's not, Richard's not even a good example of this working out, in my opinion. Yeah. He is fine, but he is basically the last arm in a bullpen, which is what he's always been. Every team's got a Clayton Richard. And then you have Cahill, which was undeniably successful

and eye-opening and shocking. It was also 14 innings, and Cahill has a long history of not being a great reliever before this. And so it's not totally confirmed that this is going to work. And then you have Travis Wood, who was squeezed out of the rotation in a sense, and is a good enough pitcher to start i think for major league teams and so he's a guy who you're just reapportioning the resources but it's not like they found a guy that nobody wanted and got value out of him they lots of guys would want travis wood if travis wood were a free agent right now i would bet that he would sign i don don't know, I bet he would get a multi-year deal as a starter. And then I guess Justin Grimm is an example of this.

So this is basically the idea. And then Adam Warren, same thing. Adam Warren is a guy who would probably start for a lot of teams. He certainly has value. He might start for the Cubs. In fact, I will bet you that Adam Warren starts a dozen or more games for the Cubs this year. And so I don't know that I'm counting that one as a Cahill example. So really this is riding on 14 innings of Trevor Cahill and Justin Grimm. And I don't know that that's really a trend yet.

Yeah. And maybe it comes from the Cubs picking up relievers who were bad and then those relievers being good like Fernando Rodney and Pedro Stroop. But that's a different thing. So is Neil Ramirez an example of this? Yeah, Neil Ramirez was also a Rangers minor league starter. Yeah, I guess. But, I mean, Neil, yeah yeah it's yeah all right but but now we're just naming pitchers who were failed starters who became good relievers right which every every team has right every team has those i give you go deep enough you're gonna find that a number of those

on every roster all the time uh i mean really the ones that are notable are from a personnel standpoint are wood richard and cahill because they were veteran starters who you know were in a in a in some organizations and certainly in other eras would just have kept starting forever yeah and uh you know probably a lot of teams would have looked at clayton richard and gone i don't want that guy starting not touching him and the cubs maybe you could say you could argue said i want that guy relieving and picked him up but i again like i'm not that i'm not i don't want to give him that much credit for clayton richard like that one's not that exciting to me. So like it goes back to Cahill and maybe Justin Grimm. All right. So we're not quite ready to

give the, give the Cubs a credit for pioneering a new bullpen paradigm. Uh, not yet. Although, I mean, I, I don't know. It, it, there's clearly something intentional going on and it's clearly something that worked quite well last year and i think they'll have a good bullpen this year and it is also the thing that i would recommend teams do it is a model that i think makes sense has made sense other teams have gotten part way with and um and it's not at all surprising to see that the cubs are doing this i just think it's a little too early to declare that they're just banking wins off of it or that it is as efficient as it looked last year. Yeah. All right. And very last thing from Dan in New Jersey. Dave Stewart recently said that he

will not sacrifice another draft pick by signing another player who declined a qualifying offer. However, it would seem to me to make sense to sign more than one such player in any given offseason so that the compensation is mitigated. If you were going to sign three qualifying offer players over a five-year window, it would be best to sign them all in one offseason so you could give up a first, second, and third round pick instead of three firsts if they were spread out. Furthermore, this is exactly what teams do with international amateurs. Teams often exceed the cap by a large amount in one year and handcuff themselves in the next two years. Other than possible financial limitations, why wouldn't teams go on shopping sprees in free agency every two to four years? I'm sure Dan will hear us recommend in February that some team that's already given up its pick should sign the remaining free agents. We did last year, we did the year before. It does

seem fairly obvious that that should work or that they should do that. I think that probably the reason that it doesn't happen more often is that there aren't that many free agents and you still need the team to want the free agent. More than any other team wants them. Well, what it is is almost as much as any other team wants them. I mean, what we're really talking about is if a team that hasn't signed a free agent is going to lose its 24th pick, the 24th pick, and a team that has is going to lose its 24th pick, the 24th pick, and a team that has is going to lose the, you know, say 53rd pick. Well, that's a difference, but it's only a difference of like,

what, four to $6 million in value. Yeah. And so a lot of guys, you know, like it's not like every team values a free agent within that narrow band of offers anyway. So if you're, say, I don't know, the Orioles, and you would only lose your second round pick, and you value Justin Upton at $144 million, well, it only takes one team that values him at 148 or more or 150 or more or whatever the case may be for it not to actually make sense for you to go get the guy so yeah i it's it should be in the math i mean i guess the answer to dan's question is yes dave stewart has badly mislogic this one said something like dave's dave stewart's right dave stewart's quote makes no sense so So you're right, Dan, about that. Whether there's actually an opening for a lot more different baseball things to exist because of this, I would say not really. Whether there is an opening to make fun of Dave Stewart for just getting it exactly wrong, just like exactly wrong, like it's the exact wrong thing, then yes, fair enough. Okay, agreed. the exact wrong thing, then yes, fair enough. Okay. Agreed. There is a slight, there, I think

that there is a very slight point to that Dave Stewart maybe is right on, which is that the less money you have in your draft slot budget, the harder it is to do anything with the rest of it. And so if your, if your pool, your draft pool is, you know, 7 million and you drop down to 4 million because you gave up your first pick, you can still sort of do certain things. You have some leverage over your later round picks. You might be able to still make signability picks. There are various ways that you can kind of use the size of your draft budget, not just to sign players, but to spread those resources around and have leverage over your picks and that sort of thing. Am I explaining this right, Ben? Yeah. Okay. And so if you start dipping too low, you also lose those leverage gains. So there is a point that Dave Stewart is making

where probably the further you go, the more hurtful it is or harmful it is for your ability to sign your third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth round picks as well. And so he's probably right about that. I think that he is, if that's his point, then don't make fun of Dave Stewart. Okay.

Otherwise do. Sure. All right. Please continue to send us emails at then don't make fun of Dave Stewart. Okay. Otherwise do. Sure. All right. Please continue to send us emails at podcast at baseballperspectives.com. It's really helpful on these January slow news days to have the option of dipping into the mailbag to do a show. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash

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