Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 960: Theo Sets a New High Score

Episode Date: September 30, 2016

Ben and Sam banter about a wild night in baseball, the morality of forfeits, and the triples record, then discuss Theo Epstein’s record-setting extension.

Too much rain falling, there's been too much rain falling, there's just been too much rain falling down on me. Only me in baseball last night. Do you know that for the first few years of this podcast's existence, I think our iTunes podcast description said something like, we discuss last night's games or something. Like, we just go over the action from last night's game. That's what we do on this podcast.

Can you imagine if that was what this podcast was? We just reviewed actual games and talked about actual baseball. No one would want that. But there was some weird baseball last night. There was a tie game. There was the Indians-Tigers day-long rainout. And there was the ending to the Cardinals-Reds game. Did you see or hear what happened in that one?

Heard. Have not seen it yet. Yeah, well, seeing it doesn't really add all that much because it's not really a, it's not controversial what the call should have been. The ground rule double that ended the game, or it was not a ground rule double, but Yadier Molina doubled with Matt Carpenter on first and clearly should have been a ground rule double. It hit off some signage over a wall and that signage is out of play, but there was no ground rule double signaled and Carpenter came all the way around from first to score. And then evidently the umpires just like immediately disappeared off the field. And so Ryan Price was trying to find them to initiate the replay review, but couldn't find them because they were not on the field anymore. And the umpires were asked about it.

And they said that Price didn't signal his intention to perhaps review within 10 seconds and then didn't actually call for the review within 30 seconds, which is in the rules. But I guess maybe with the Cardinals dogpile behind home plate and the umpires leaving the field, he couldn't. You'd think that he would have known immediately that it was worth challenging because why not? It's the last play of the game. Anyway, weird wrinkle of replay with possible playoff implications since the Cardinals are still in the wild card hunt. Yeah, I got to describe that play to somebody. Even though I didn't see it, I described it. And it's a joy to describe it to somebody.

And they just look at you like they cannot possibly believe it happened. So I would just recommend find a baseball fan you know who's not familiar with that play and just describe it. Just describe it. Just have a little fun with it. Yeah, and they'll say, what? The manager has to call for a replay? They don't just do that themselves?

If there's a blown call, no. I might have made up a detail. I don't know if I made up a detail or if I read a detail and if that detail was right or wrong, but that Brian Price actually ran down the tunnel looking for the umpires and the umpires were like, no, we're done. I don't know if that was true, but I recommend in telling the story, I recommend including that detail because that gets you a good reaction. All right. Anything else you want to talk about? Well, I guess while we're at it, I mean, should we talk about the Indians-Tigers forfeit question that we got? Yeah, sure. We got a question from Trevin.

And the question was basically, should Cleveland have forfeited yesterday's game? MLB obviously wanted to get it in because now they might have to schedule a game on Monday and Cleveland might have to go to Detroit and play the Tigers on a day that would have been an off day for them. Obviously, they would like to have that off day. I guess we can still talk about whether Cleveland should forfeit Monday's game if it comes to it, right? It's the same decision, essentially. Should they just give up this game they've already clinched the central so they don't really have much incentive to play and they have lots of incentive not to play so uh and there's i guess there's a compromise too which is that you go you travel but with 40 man rosters

you can play a spring training lineup and you know you're still you still have guys hustling out there uh not not your best team you're not really trying to win but you've got guys hustling out there Not your best team You're not really trying to win But you've got guys hustling And you've probably got a 20% chance of winning And you could argue that you made the trip So I guess that's the third option So if they did, if they forfeited If they just outright forfeited

Didn't play the game, would you be outraged? I wouldn't really I talked about this briefly with Michael Bauman At the beginning of today's Ringer MLB show, and we were sort of just endorsing whatever Cleveland wants to do here. At least I'm definitely okay with the playing it like a spring training split squad game and having the scrubs travel to Detroit. If they do that, I don't mind at all. travel to Detroit. If they do that, I don't mind at all. Forfeiting is obviously a little bit different. I don't know if I would be outraged, but I could certainly understand it. Of course, the argument against it is that there are other wildcard teams in this race, and it's, in a sense, not fair to them that Detroit wouldn't have to play this game. We'd just get an automatic victory or an easy victory. But question is what is the indians obligation to those teams why should the indians have to

hurt their own postseason chances they are already hurting and shorthanded and they've got guys on the dl and they could certainly use the rest so why should they feel obligated to other teams that are trying to beat them whenever they play the Indians. So hard to say. It's just, you know, should the Indians have some larger interest of the sport in mind? Baseball obviously wants competitive races and wants everyone to be trying, but the Indians have different incentives here. So would I be outra be outraged no I would probably opt for the Send the scrubs instead of The outright forfeit I wouldn't be

Outraged because it's not an emotion that I feel Very much these days right I tend to feel not outraged but Like troubled I feel Troubled about things and I would Say that this I would feel severely Troubled about it I think that This is I think it would be Immoral it would be I Would say that it is I would feel severely troubled about it. I think that they, I think this is, I think it would be immoral. It would be, I would say that it is a bad thing to do to forfeit.

It is not as though you are being asked to play 163 games. Every other team had to play 162 and, you know, more or less. And it is, it is a part of your contract at the beginning of the year. Not you. I mean, I'm not trying to be literal here. But like the implied contract is that you agree to play 162 games just like everybody else. And so I don't think that you can claim to be put upon because you have to play this game, even if it is an extra day. Especially because there are, what, three days, three or four days cooked into the week before postseason, before the playoffs begin, before the Division Series starts anyway. Yeah, they play Thursday.

Yeah, okay. So, I mean, it's not ideal. The rain did you a disservice. You got a little bad luck. That's what rain does. When rain falls on your brand new hat, that is also bad for you. But you just roll with that. You can't, you know, you can't fight the weather. And so I would say that, which is a long way of saying, I don't

think the Indians can claim that they are being asked to do anything burdensome, particularly burdensome or unfair. And I do think that it's, it is bordering on cruel to the Tigers opposition. Now, I guess in a, in a certain sense, there's no like, you know, the, the Tigers or the Blue Jays or the Orioles or any of the others, they're all like, none is better than any of the others. Uh, and if the Tigers get lucky, then it's not like, you know, the bad guys are sneaking in or anything like that. But I mean, I think that the Indians should do, uh, you know, should, should do unto the Blue Jays and Orioles as they would have the Blue Jays and Orioles do unto them. And so I don't like it. I think even the Scrubs lineup,

I would find to be a problem. And I also think that there'd be something fun about playing a, you know, to play a Monday game that has playoff implications, that is the only game going on in the sport that we all want to watch and be excited about. And so you're doing something damaging to us, to me, to the fans, not necessarily your fans, maybe they're Tigers fans, maybe they're general baseball fans, but we're all out here trying to like your stupid sport and you're going to take away one of the potential highlights of the season because, uh, you know, you want, uh, you want to have a, an extra day to, to take infield and cleave in, in, you know, in wherever you're going. So I look, I, I mean, that last thing I said,

downplays the benefit that they would get. I get that there's some simple self, there's some simple profit motive for them. And so like in this world in which we're living, where it is just assumed that everybody is going to go get theirs and that profit is the only moral good. I get it, but I don't like it. I don't like it in any context. I don't like it here. Okay. It's sort of similar to the dave roberts discussions i guess that we've had at least the ross stripling one or maybe even the rich hill one where it's everyone wants to be entertained with the no hitter or the perfect game attempt but his obligation is to the team that pays him and you know would fire him maybe more likely if he doesn't make the playoffs or win the World Series or whatever.

And so you have different incentives for the fans and for the team. And so I don't know, if you're the Indians and you haven't won a World Series since 1948, I wouldn't really blame that team for wanting every little extra edge. So I wouldn't be all that troubled even, I don't think, by the send the scrubs option. The forfeiting, I would not do. Seems extreme, seems potentially destabilizing to the sport. So not that, but the other option, I'd be okay with that. Let me make one swing at making the self-interest argument for the Indians playing. I don't know, the math might not add up.

But let's say that the Tigers are their division rival, and every dollar that they allow the Tigers to earn is a dollar that the Tigers are going to be able to spend on the free agent market or extending their players to defeat the Cleveland Indians in future years. So if they were to win the World Series, for instance, I don't know what the current estimate of what that is worth to an organization is. And maybe, I guess, maybe technically there's actually a perverse way that the Tigers winning the World Series might be the best thing for the Indians because then Mike Yelich would quit, you know, signing whatever he could possibly convince to play for him. But let's just say that that's not a factor. What, 70, 80 million dollars, you think, as an estimate for

what it's worth to an organization to win a World Series compared to missing the playoffs? Yeah, right. I see what you mean, yeah. Yeah, so that's, you're basically giving, if you let the Tigers, you know, if you let the Tigers win the World Series, you're basically giving them, you know, eight to ten wins probably in the future that they're able to buy. And those eight to ten wins are going to affect you as their division rival more than anybody else.

Now, of course, they might not win the World Series, but regardless, they're going to get some money out of this that they wouldn't have gotten if they were knocked out of the playoffs. And, you know, the further they go, the more money they're going to get. And so maybe for the Indians, that one extra off day is worth, you know, X dollars. And maybe X is, you know, not is smaller than whatever the probable Share of a World Series title The Tigers are likely to get From you letting them walk to it Is

Okay, that's a reasonable argument It's not the one I prefer though I don't care if it's a reasonable argument I still don't like it Final Shohei Otani update Just his regular season stats are finished Now his season is over And he ends it with a 1.86 ERA Update just his his regular season Stats are finished now His season is over and he

Ends it with a 1.86 ERA in 140 innings and 21 games 20 starts He struck out over 11 batters per nine And he finished with that 1000 plus OPS

So just I think this season Is this is almost like a Barry Bonds type baseball reference page attraction. Like in future days, I will go to Shohei Otani's page to just look at this season and how great it was and how it fills up both of those boxes, batting and pitching. So you mentioning Babe Ruth reminded me of a, of a very short thing I wanted to read from Bill James' abstract It's not about Babe Ruth, but it's about another one of the great, amazing records of that era So can I do that? Okay, sure

I just read it today, so that's why Okay, Ben, do you know the record for the most triples in a season? No Okay, well it's 36, and it's by Owen Wilson Wilson who did it in, I don't even know what year, doesn't matter what year, 1912. And I've known that record for a really long time. It's always been unbreakable. Just as 67 doubles, it never gets really approached. And just like 61 home runs was always the record when I was growing up for a very long time. And I always knew 36 triples.

And I always thought, well, that's unbreakable because that's not how baseball is played anymore. It's not a triples league the way it used to be. Back then, sure, 36 triples. But now it could never happen. And I learned something today reading about this record that Bill James wrote. And since this is one of the, well, it turns out, I think this is one of the great, like, well, I'll just read it. It's short. All right. Owen Wilson's record of 36 triples in a season is one of the most remarkable standards in baseball and

one of the game's greatest flukes. That's why I was interested because I didn't realize it was a fluke. I thought that was just the way that was played. All right. Wilson played regularly in the major leagues for seven seasons during which his triples totals read 7-12, 13-12, 36, 14-12. The record for home runs in a season is 61, but other people have hit 60, 59, 58, 58, and 56. This is 1986 baseball abstract, by the way, which explains those numbers. Eight minor league players have hit more than 61 home runs in a season Actually seven, Joe Hauser did it twice The record for doubles is 67 But other people have had 64, 64, 63, 62, and 60 The minor league record for doubles in a season is 100

The major league record for hits in a season is 257 But other people have had 254, 254, 253, 250, 250. And the minor league record is 325. But no player in this century has ever challenged Wilson's record for triples. The 10 highest totals read 36, 26, 26, 26, 25, 25. No other player in history, either in the minor leagues or the majors, either in this century or last, has ever hit 36 triples in one season. Yeah, I learned a little something about that record. Yeah, I didn't know that.

I didn't even know the record. No, that's true. All right. Okay, so I just wanted to talk a little bit about Theo Epstein's new contract, which is sizable. And the reporting is, reporting varies a little bit Executive contracts don't get reported in quite the same detail

Or disclosed in quite the same detail as player contracts do Although I wonder if that will change If this trend continues of inflation in executive salaries And what we know is that Theo is getting somewhere In the neighborhood of $50 million over five years, might be a little less guaranteed with incentives. By the way, what do you think the incentives for a GM slash president of baseball operations would be? Just team wins, playoff appearances, that sort of thing? thing yeah okay so we have that and we know that this is much much more than he was making in his last deal and this is also much much more than andrew friedman got in his deal from the dodgers which was reported as around five years and 35 million again with incentives so this is basically pushing the highest ever salary for a baseball executive from $7 million a year to $10 million

a year, which is a huge, huge bump. That's like a 43% increase. If you were to have a 43% increase in player salaries right now in the peak, that would be going from Clayton Kershaw's $34.6 to like $49.4 million. Like you'd be having a player making almost $50 million next season. That's sort of the equivalent, at least in percentage boost. So it's interesting.

Of course, it's hard to argue that Theo Epstein doesn't deserve all the money that you could throw at him because he has made the Cubs into a juggernaut after making the Red Sox into a juggernaut. After making the Red Sox into a juggernaut, he has shown that making teams into juggernauts is a repeatable skill that he possesses. So we've talked about executive pay before and front office pay before. And Louis Paulus, before he was hired by a team,

did his senior thesis on how much teams should pay their executives and wrote about it for Baseball Perspectives. And his argument was that teams should be paying executives much, much more. That a single decision that a GM makes can be worth many, many millions of dollars to a team. One Jake Arrieta trade can be worth Whatever Jake Arrieta is worth To your team basically And so you should be paying executives

Much much more On the other hand The counter arguments against that Is that you can't really quantify exactly What an executive is worth Because there's no established replacement level You can't say that Theo Epstein Is X wins over a replacement level

gm so how do you know what he's worth and at the same time that they extended him they also extended gm jed hoyer and jason mcleod that's kind of the three-person team that they have assembled and so they're sort of acknowledging in that sense that this is not just a Theo Epstein operation. He has right-hand men, and they are worth money too. And so if they're worth something, then, well, you know, what would— maybe it's a package deal in this case with these three guys since they've worked together before, but you have the precedent for a GM who gets hired and then hires lots of other smart people and puts a system in place. And then it's sort of a self-sustaining operation and maybe you don't even need the

original person anymore. So what would you pay Theo Epstein if you had to make this decision about whether to keep him or not, just based on what we know and based on the fact that he's hired lots of other smart people and the Cubs are set now for years, probably. Like if you just brought in someone else, like how badly could they screw up the Cubs right now? They seem so set. They have so much young talent that maybe the marginal value of Theo Epstein now is not what it was a few years ago when the Cubs still needed to be rebuilt. So what are your thoughts? Well, I mean, I always liked Louie's piece and Louie's work.

I also was never fully convinced, like, by the scale. I thought I never sort of really bought the scale that he offered, and it mainly goes to the replacement level issue. I tend to think that there are a lot more qualified GMs than there are GM positions. That is not true of catchers. And, you know, that's not true of starting pitchers. And that's why the idea of a replacement level is so important for measuring baseball players. And I don't know. I mean, I don't look,

I haven't done the work that other people have done, that Louie has done, but I just never get the feeling that, you know, the world is facing a severe shortage of qualified GM candidates. So I think I'm saying that just to first clear the air or whatever, clear my throat and say that, like, I don't really buy any argument that, you know, like you should pay him like $75 million or whatever, like if I can just, if I can just introduce a straw man. So now with that said though, I don't think like if you're, if you're a free agent catcher, and you want somebody to give you $10 million, you have to show them that you will produce $10 million worth of value. Like you have to basically say like, well, you guys know what

$10 million buys in a catcher, and I'm likely to give you that. And I think that with GMs or with front office guys, it's not really that it's like, I don't quite know how to put this, but for Theo to get 10, if I were the owner and Theo came in and said, I want $10 million, like all he'd really have to do, I think is convince me that like, I should give him $10 million. Like he'd just have to do i think is convince me that like i should give him 10 million dollars like he'd just have to like like he'd have to threaten to leave or say he really wants it and and like like i i think that it seems clear that the difference between 7 and 10 is not going to break the cubs as a franchise like these teams are constantly choosing to spend an extra, you know, 30 or 40 or 100 or 300 million dollars on players where they shift course. And within minutes, they might go from, you know, 60 to 75 million for a pitcher or whatever.

And so when you're talking about an extra $3 million a year for your team president or for your GM, it seems like a lot because it's 43% more than Friedman got and because it's literally $3 million. But with the numbers that teams are actually paying for their entire organization's worth of personnel and for the amount of revenue and the amount of expenses that these teams are working on, $3 million is not that much. And so it seems like you don't have to even put together a case for why Theo is worth it. You just have to find an owner who goes, okay, sure. And I don't think the Cubs are any worse off because they're $3 million less rich now than they would have been if they'd given him seven. And I don't think you can make any real sort of case that he shouldn't be getting paid that much. Just like, I don't think you can really make a good case that he should be getting paid that much. He'd like, sure. Yeah. Okay. Like

that seems totally reasonable to me. And if he had signed for four, I wouldn't have had any, it's like, I don't know. It's like, you know, when the moon is coming up and it's like right over the horizon, sometimes you're like, wow, the moon is huge today. And's like, you know, when the moon is coming up, and it's like right over the horizon, sometimes, you're like, wow, the moon is huge today. And then like two hours later, it's up in the sky. And it's like, oh, that No, I guess that's just a normal looking moon. And it's because like, you have no perspective, you have nothing to compare it to. And to some degree, these GM figures are like that, like, I don't have like, we don't have really any means of saying it's great or bad. I think that having Theo in your organization is good, like undeniably much more so than I would

even say about, you know, your average $10 million pitcher or your average $10 million third baseman or whatever. And that $10 million relative to what you'd pay for somebody who's not Theo Epstein is not that much. So I don't know. It's a long way of saying, yeah, sure. But it's mostly a reflection of him being able to sell himself to the guy who writes the check. Yeah, well, from what I read, it wasn't as if he took a hard line stance in this negotiation or that there even was a negotiation like uh i think i read the exchange was that rickets or whoever said you're the the best gm or you know we love having you or

something and and theo said you know like i'm just gonna keep coming to work no matter what happens or something so like they both sort of surrendered their leverage right at the beginning of this, and the Cubs are riding high right now, so it's not like they would be inclined to maybe haggle over the last dollar. Or if you're Ricketts and you handed your investment to Theo, and Theo has turned what was an aging team and a not very promising team and then rebuilt it completely and it was bad and now it's the best team in baseball acknowledged by everyone, World Series favorite and set up for the future. So sure, if I were a mega rich owner and Theo Epstein were available and I could just

not have to worry about whether my baseball team was being run well. Everyone acknowledges that Theo Epstein is really good at this. We don't know exactly how many wins he's worth over someone else, but you can't go wrong with Theo Epstein. And if you are owning a, you know, maybe billion dollar franchise or however much the Cubs are valued at, then you don't want to take any chances. And the difference between seven and 10 is peanuts. And so, sure, you might as well give it to this person for that much money. And that's the argument for why GMs or these executives should be making so much money is that these franchises are worth a ton of money. And they are very important.

They're like the CEOs of a big, valuable company. And those people have always made tons and tons of money. Yeah, and I mean, the way that you describe that, it sounds like, I don't know. The first thought I had when I heard this was, oh, I wonder if this was about keeping the cloud. And that more than anything else, you start worrying about brain drain when you have a franchise that's too successful, a front office that's been, you know, seen as extremely successful and extremely progressive. And you start having all these GM candidates who leave. And it seemed like

pretty inevitable that McLeod would get lots of offers. And maybe you'd even lose Hoyer to another team's presidency. And so I wondered whether this was intended to keep all of them. presidency and so uh i wondered whether this was intended to keep all of them and so uh so there's that but uh yeah the way you describe it sounds to me like just really fun and awesome like if i were a billionaire if i own the cubs i could totally see just bringing in my gm having no idea what he's worth or i mean he's not my gm my president having no idea what he's worth exactly to the dollar and not bothering to care just being like like, you know, you've done a great job. This is the most fun year of my life. Thank you very much. I'm giving you a big raise. And then the GM not saying, not trying to figure out exactly how much he's worth, but going, thank you. That's fun. Like we're having a good time together and we didn't bother to

figure out to the nickel. And I think if you do get to the point where you figure out to the nickel, again, my guess is that you'd have some guys like Theo would probably get paid more. And probably some guys would get paid more even though they're not worth it. Like how you hear about the CEO of Home Depot getting a $440 million salary, or buyout, even. Yeah, that's like a 13-year-old example. I don't know why I went there. But yeah, there would be some guys who would get overpaid.

But my guess is that if you actually, like that figuring out replacement levels for GM would not raise all ships. Like I would kind of guess that it is not, if they were a union, that it would not be in their best interests for anybody to try to calculate how much the 30 of them are worth if that makes sense like i think like theo theo is probably i don't know maybe like nba salaries are a decent comp where yes lebron is worth like five times whatever the max salary is

But on the other hand, if he were getting what he was paid Then the scrub at the end of the bench wouldn't be making $2.1 million And the scrub at the end of the bench is probably more replaceable than he would like to admit Right, yeah So it's interesting because one of the things I think maybe Louis speculated about in his article Or at least one of the issues is that you can imagine that there's sort of some pressure maybe among owners to keep these salaries down because you don't want to start an arms race. bidding war and high stakes negotiations with every front office executive because suddenly if you're paying Theo Epstein $10 million, well, then Jed Hoyer is making some number of millions of dollars and so is McLeod. And then everyone in the front office gets pulled

up down to the lowliest stat person perhaps is making more money. I don't know whether that's true. Maybe you just have a bigger differential between the higher and lower level executives in the front office. But anyway, you can imagine why one team wouldn't want to go out and just, you know, spend an enormous amount of money to assemble all of the best baseball executives because you'd bring up prices And then sort of almost Not quite a collusion But just a sort of subtle pressure Hey, you know, don't give your GM

Ten million dollars because now I've got to give My GM ten million dollars and I don't Want to do that so now I wonder whether this will Cause that sort of inflation Whether Theo is just Unique, he is in a special Category by himself and No other GM will use him This will cause that sort of inflation, whether Theo is just unique. He is in a special category by himself and no other GM will use him as leverage or, you know, in negotiations.

Oh, Theo got 10, so I should at least get eight or something, you know, something like that. So I wonder how it will impact future salaries. impact future salaries. And if it does, if this just starts to be a thing now that GMs or presidents of baseball operations make double digit millions, then we could get to a point where you do start to see the best teams able to stockpile the best front office talent in a way that hasn't been the case for the last couple decades. And maybe you could say that the Dodgers are sort of doing that already with their many, many GMs. But there are teams at least like the Rays, for instance, who have assembled huge staffs of scouts and stat heads because they can. They can't sign the best free agent player, but they could sign the best free agent brainpower because it

didn't cost all that much. And so for a while there, they could be the best free agent brainpower because it didn't cost all that much. And so for a while there, they could be competitive doing that. Whereas now, if everyone starts to follow the Cubs model and starts to give executives five-year deals for tons and tons of money, then you would start to see the best executives concentrated in the highest payroll, biggest market teams, which ultimately could be bad for competitive balance, especially because this is not regulated. It doesn't count towards revenue sharing or luxury tax or anything like that. So I wonder what the implications will be. Yeah, I don't think there would be any implications. I think a lot of the fire for this deal would burn out before it got to the assistant GM in Colorado or whatever. Uh-huh. Okay.

All right. Well, that's all I want to talk about. Epstein is clearly the best in class at building baseball teams, which is something that should be very, very valuable. baseball teams, which is something that should be very, very valuable. But now we kind of have a dollar figure that we can say, well, this is what the Mike Trout of baseball executives is worth to an owner, to a team. Well, let me ask you, let me ask you a quick question. What it, let's say Theo declared, let's say that Theo declared that he was listening to offers. Do you think any other team would have given him 11? Yeah, I mean, sure. Right. If, if, if there had been a bidding war, I mean, maybe a team that is rebuilding, maybe if you're, I don't know, not the angels cause they just hired

new people. But if you're kind of in that situation where you're stuck and you need to be rebuilt, you'd think that Theo Epstein would be more valuable to a team that needs to get its act together than he is now to the Cubs, who have gotten their act together thanks to Theo Epstein. So you would think that another team would be willing to pay more for the best executive than the team that is already

in the best situation of any franchise. Yeah, I guess I just am not sure whether I think that this, again, this decision was made based on deciding that Theo Epstein was worth $10 million exactly to the Cubs and not like we, I just am swept up in the moment. I'm a billionaire swept up in the moment. I like this guy. I like working next to him. I like what he has done for my family and my hobby.

And that's kind of what his value is to me. That as much as anything, this is sort of putting a value on sentiment as opposed to, again, trying to figure out exactly what he's worth. But I could go either way. These are businessmen, of course. These are businesses. They're run by powerful people who made billions by selling widgets. So probably you're right that that is not only how other teams would see him,

but it's probably more of how the Cubs saw him than I'm giving credit. But let me ask you now a quick follow-up, though. Let's say that every other team, every other GM, president and assistant GM in baseball were free agents. And the way that I phrase this, you're going to be like, well, it would flood the market. So just imagine that each one is a free agent one at a time. So they're not all available at once. But let's say suddenly Andrew Friedman declared he was a free agent. And then let's say suddenly andrew friedman declared he was a free agent and then let's say that you know suddenly um brian cashman declared he was free agent one at a time so they're not competing with each other one at a time how many do you think would get 10.1 million from

any other team like i i guess i guess what i'm trying to ask is if there were truer market forces, would Theo's salary actually not just look low by Louis' way of figuring it or the way we talk about it, but would it actually be low by what the market actually gave these guys? I don't think so. No, I don't think it would look low. Okay. So do you think Freedman, if he were a free agent agent would get paid 10.1 by some team hmm yeah i think probably a few people would i think if if they were seen as available and anyone could bid probably yes maybe an owner could just everyone could say well you're not better than theo epstein you're not worth more than theo so i'm not giving you more than theo but if there were a bidding war and you'd think there would be... I mean, Zach Granke's getting paid more than

Clayton Kershaw. And as great as Granke was, nobody said, well, you're not better than Kershaw, so I'm drawing a hard line. Yeah, so I don't think Theo would still be the highest paid in that scenario. Okay, so would you guess that we're talking about one GM that would get paid more five or 15? Probably only like three. Okay. Uh, one more question. If Theo decided, uh, upon receiving this offer that what he really wanted to do was make more money and that he actually didn't like baseball all that much anymore. And all he wanted to do was make more money and that he actually didn't like baseball all that much anymore. And all he wanted to do was maximize his earnings over the next five years. Could he get paid more than $50 million doing something else, doing something outside of baseball?

That's a good question. I'd say yes, I think he probably could. So even still, even setting by far a record for front office compensation, he is still paying the baseball tax to do the fun job. I would think so. did speaking engagements constantly and did some media, you know, maybe became a commentator or, you know, went on some, some talk show or whatever, or just tried to convince someone in some other industry.

This is what I did in baseball. I can do the same for you. I bet he could definitely through a combination of those things or one of those things. I think he probably could make more. I think I don't, I don't agree with you about it. Any of that, except for the last part. I think if the, if he's going to get over 10 million a year for five years, it would have to be that Home Depot names him their CEO or like, you know, some startup like a Hooli makes them their, you know, names them their CEO or something like that. Like, I think he would have to switch industries and be the head boss in another industry. And I would know. I mean, of course I would. If anybody would know the answer to this question, clearly I would Yeah Alright cool so we will end

There on a multiple of five For the first time in I don't know how long 960 on a Friday That's satisfying okay You can support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com Slash effectively wild five listeners Who have done so already Perry Lubin

Alex McHale Michael Eng Holden Burke and Nathaniel Roberts Thank you. which is fast approaching 4,500 members at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild. You can rate and review and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, and you can get the discounted price of $30 on a one-year subscription to the play index at baseballreference.com using the coupon code BP. I have a new episode of the Ringer MLB show up today. Michael Bowman and I talked to Michael Schor about David Ortiz and the Red Sox and his new show, The Good Place,

and some parallels between sports and TV. And we talked to Oakland A's pitcher, Andrew Triggs, about his unique delivery and his surprising season. So check that out. Appreciate ratings and reviews and subscriptions to that podcast too. You can email me and Sam at podcast at baseballperspectives.com or by messaging us through Patreon. That's it for this week. Enjoy some of this weekend's decisive series. And we will talk to you next week. One more weekend, one more weekend until Contributing to your team isn't only about home runs and great catches. Sometimes it's about moving a runner alone. Hey, careful.

Beating out a double play. Being the most well-rounded center fielder in the game. The best looking man in National League. National League? You know I have a thing for Mike Trout.