Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 994: The 2017 Minor League Free Agent Draft

Episode Date: December 21, 2016

For the fourth consecutive year, Ben and Sam draft the 20 minor league free agents they hope will earn the most major league playing time next season.

Good morning and welcome to episode 994 of Effectively Wild, a daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives brought to you by The Play Index, Baseballreference.com, and our Patreon supporters. I'm Sam Miller of the ESPN, along with Ben Lindberg of Ringer. How are you, Ben? The ESPN. Yeah, I spoonerized my articles there. Doing well. I'm excited. This is a big day. Yeah, so I'm going to just throw some names at you here. Wade Kirkland, Tyler Ladendorf, Casey Cerna, Justin Masterson, Jonathan Escudero, Silfredo Garcia.

These are names that I've seen recently. I've read all of these names. Gerwins Velasco. What are we talking about, Ben? What are we talking about here? Minor League Free Agent Draft. Fourth annual Effectively Wild Minor League Free Agent Draft. This is a big day.

One of our favorite episodes of the year. Was this our first draft? Was this our original draft? You know? Probably wasn't, right? Yeah, I think we must have done something before this. But this goes back a ways. We've been doing this,

we've done it three times before. The idea is that we draft minor league free agents and the person who's draftees, we each pick 10 players and these are mostly obscure players like the one Sam just named. And the winner of this contest is the person whose minor leaguers collectively accumulate the most plate appearances or batters faced or plate appearances plus batters faced in the following season. So we have gotten better at this.

Well, yeah, especially you. The first year we mostly just winged it, as anybody listening would have been able to hear in the extremely long pauses between picks. But you've built your network, your scouting network. You consult with multiple major league teams, I believe, before doing this. When I told you yesterday that this was on the docket, you said something like, okay, I will spend my 13 hours of research starting tonight. And last year, you crushed me, you got 898 plate appearances. In case you're new to this, the scoring is simply how much a player plays,

not how well they play. Because if you play in the majors, that's a success for a minor league free agent. So plate appearances for batters and batters faced for pitchers. And last year you had 898, six of your 10 made the majors.. Six of your 10 made the majors. Only three of my 10 made the majors, and I only got 303 played appearances.

One of my players announced he was going to Japan roughly 20 minutes after. One of my players was literally Jarrett Groob, and I did not. I didn't do so well. Although in our first year, I think 303. Yeah, I actually have the total. So the first year that we did this, the two of us combined for 446 plate appearances plus batters faced. Second time we did this, we went all the way up to 1189. And I won that time, but narrowly.

But narrowly. That was a good one. Down to the wire. Only 69 plate appearances differentiated us. Nice. And then this past season, we totaled 1201. So a slight increase from the previous year, but most of that was me. All of that was me.

I guess you lost from the previous year. So it was a good year for me. And I will say that I think probably partially we've gotten better at this. We've put more effort into it and we've figured out what makes a good minor league free agent. Partially, it's probably just some luck. And partially, I think it's also maybe the timing of when we have done the episode because the first year we did this, we did it in November, like early or mid-November. And the last two years, we did it in early February. So that was a pretty big difference.

And obviously, you have a better sense of where guys are going to sign and who's actually going to have a job and who's going to be in spring training. So that is probably part of it. And so this year, we're sort of splitting the difference and doing it between those two dates. So I'm not sure. We might regress this year. I think we might. Last year you had a, as I recall, you were able to draft a number of guys who were already on 40 mans and who were already on depth charts. And I could, I could scarcely find a player who was on a depth chart this year. Yes. I had a much harder time this year, I will say. I'm not nearly as confident in my list as I was last year,

and I didn't put quite as much effort into it this time. I had some other obligations, so usually I have an ordered spreadsheet. This year I only have a disordered or unordered spreadsheet, and I did not talk to any scouts, So I'm flying solo here. I used whatever internet resources I could, but that was it. So got some names. I'm not as confident this time, but I am looking forward to the draft. And just to clarify, a minor league free agent is not the same as you heard about a guy signing a minor league deal. Anybody could sign it. Edward

Encarnacion could sign a minor league deal if he wants to. But a minor league free agent is a specific category of player who originally you get your minor league free agency once you've spent, I think, six years in an organization. And so you become declared a minor league free agent after a certain amount of service time if you're not on a 40-man roster by that point or on a major league roster by that point. I can't remember which. There's also a difference between declared free agents and elected free agents. And so declared happens basically automatically if your team doesn't put you on your roster, on the roster. By the end of that, then you are declared a minor league free agent. Certain players elect minor league free

agency. And I think these are players who've already reached minor league free agency in a previous season and can elect to become a free agent after maybe, I don't know the exact rules. I'm speculating here that it's if you haven't reached six years of major league service time and you wouldn't ordinarily qualify to be a major free agent, but if you're not on a major league roster at the end of the year or something of that nature. Anyway, there's a mix. It gets confusing. Every year, there's someone who I can't tell if he is, if he qualifies or not. So there was some confusion over which list we were going to use. I thought we were using one Baseball America page. Sam

thought another. I said something misleading. So we are now going to go with I think the one that is consistent With what we've done in the past I believe And I will link to it In the Facebook group and the blog post So that you know which list We're working off So we're going off a single source

We're going off Baseball America's list From November of minor league free agents Posted by Matt Eddy And he got's list from November of minor league free agents posted by Matt Eddy, and he got the list from MLB, and it's 534 players. Hopefully this won't handicap you too much, but if it does, you will have a built-in excuse. I will. All right. All right.

Let's do it. Who's going? You can go because I may have impaired you here. All right. Let's see for my first pick i will pick jared group no he is he is i think he is uh is he on this list yet he's on the list you were looking at yeah the one i'm looking at yeah okay uh all right uh for my first pick i am going to uh take uh jacob turner All right. Tell me about Jacob Turner.

Well, Jacob Turner is... Is this the former Tigers prospect? It is, yeah. Jacob Turner? Yeah. So he is still young. He is only going to be 26 this year. He is, of course, he is so in demand that he's been on...

How many teams have already employed him? This is his fifth team already. And so he is, clearly that tells you a little something about how appetizing people like Jacob Turner are. Turner was a former ninth overall pick, former top 20 overall prospect, and has had, you know, has thrown hard and has had good stuff in his career. But the results have never been there. And the speed at which he has changed teams has been a picking up quite a bit, but he had a pretty good year in AAA last year. He got his walks under control. He, you know, he was a starter. He stayed healthy. And then things went really bad on him when he came up and pitched in relief for the White Sox. But again, he's 26 and he's the sort of guy who I feel extremely confident

will face one batter. And you got to get the one under your belt just in case everything goes sideways and one wins it. Yeah. All right. Well, as you mentioned, there don't seem to be as many guys who got major league contracts or are on 40-man rosters as there were last year, maybe because it's earlier in the year or later in the year than it was last time we did this, but there are a couple. So this strategy worked out well for me last year. I feel like this was my money ball, so I'm going to stick with it. And for my first guy, I'm going to go with Lee Salverto Bonilla. Oh, that was going to be my first pick. What happened? Why wasn't he?

Here's what happened, Ben. Originally, I wrote my list. He was number one on it. And then I went through all the elected free agents that I thought I was going to get to pick. And I got a lot of names. And he started falling down that list. And then when I had to take them out, I sort of just reshuffled crazily and he got sort of he was there I almost said him I I just thought who's Ben likely to pick I thought he's not

gonna pick Liso Berto Bonilla he's that's such a good pick that's a great such a such a typical Ben pick I give I I'm already you know what I'm going for the loss now I'm, I'm already, you know what? I'm going for the loss now. I'm going, I'm going to now just pick fun guys. I'm picking Johnny Venters. So Luis Alberto Bonilla, I would not have known was a good pick if I had just looked at his baseball reference page, because he has not pitched in the majors since 2014. He only pitched in five games then. And for the last couple of years, he's been in AA and AAA and he's been with the Dodgers and just, I mean, he hasn't been that great. Like he's, I mean, his strikeout rates have been pretty good, but you know, he had a 4-2-8 ERA in AAA last year, Oklahoma City, PCL, but still. Anyway, Oklahoma City, PCL, but still. Anyway, I'm taking him because the Pirates signed him to a Major League deal, $575,000,

and he's on the 40-man, and maybe this is some sort of Ray Searidge-type project, and I don't know whether they just confused him with a different Bonilla. They like Bonillas there, but the story in the Post-Gazette said that they've had their eyes on him since before he signed with the Dodgers last winter. Their scouts saw him a couple times, which doesn't really mean anything, right? I mean, every team's scouts see everyone in AAA at some point, but they saw him, and I guess they didn't dislike him. And Neil Huntington called him a, quote unquote, prospect pitcher, which I guess he's 26 already, but he will be stretched out during spring training and compete for a spot in the active roster.

Evidently, he throws in the mid-90s, and Neil Huntington says we like the quality of pitches, and he gets some grounders. I guess he's a typical Pirates-type pitcher. So, Luis Alberto Bonilla. All right. Okay. I can't believe I lost that. All right. I'm going to take Craig Stammen, who is a very good reliever,

who last year was hurt with a torn flexor tendon in his right forearm. He had surgery. He was throwing almost full effort by the end of summer. I assume that that means that he's on track. And the Nationals could have brought him back, but it was going to cost $2.4 million to do so. To me, and I mean, Stammen is just, I don't know, I just don't see how Craig Stammen isn't in a major league bullpen this year. He was very good before he got hurt. I mean, he was good. He was good before he got hurt. And unless he just doesn't come back healthy,

he's a guy who's got five more years in him. This seems like an easy one. Yeah, I saw his name as I was browsing and I thought, oh, Craig Stammen, he's a name I know. And then I don't know what happened. I think I looked and saw his low innings total and didn't do the research to see what the story was and figured he'd been hurt and didn't know what happened. I think I looked and saw his low innings total and didn't do the research to see what the story was and figured he'd been hurt and didn't know he was coming back. So

good pick. All right. I will take Ryan Lamar, who is, I think, the only other guy who fits this major league contract 40-man roster category. And last year, the Angels signed Rafael Ortega as this kind of guy, minor league free agent, who was an outfielder on the 40-man major league deal. And I took him, and he got me 202 plate appearances. So big win, although not that big a win for the Angels, really, because he was sub-replacement level. But anyway, he played. So I'm hoping for the same from Ryan Lamar, who is now on the Angels also. And he's 28. He was with the Red Sox. He did pretty well in Pawtucket.

Briefly was in the big leagues. He's got some powers, got some speed. He can play center. So I'm hoping he accumulates some sub-replacement level time himself. All right. I'm going to take Michael Clayto. Clayto? Yeah.

Michael. Michael Clayto. Uh-huh. Okay. Michael Clayton. Michael Clayto. I'm going to take Michael Clayto, who has these as his K-9 rates in his career as a major leaguer.

12.5, 15.0, 19.3, 9.8. And in the minors, he's got a career strikeout rate of, well, it's much less. I don't know why I'm looking at those now. Those are discouraging. But last year in AAA, he struck out 31 batters in 21 innings. He's always been wild.

He will always be wild. But the Cubs have already signed him. And he seems like a guy who at 28 years old only needs to have about one month of relatively good control for me to cash this in. All right, then I'm going to take this next guy because I'm worried he might be on your radar. It is Orlando Calixte, who he was signed by the Giants recently. Not a major league deal or anything, but he is 24. In 2024, he was with the Royals in the Royals system. He briefly made his big league debut in 2015 and then was in AAA all last year. And he has some speed and he can play a bunch of positions. He can play center. He can play infield. He played shortstop and also center field and second and third and right. And I don't know, I'm hoping he was kind of blocked by other Royals outfielders and that he'll have a better chance in San Francisco. So yeah, Orlando Kalik's day.

All right. I remember that name. Yeah, I think he's a toolsy type. You know what's interesting about the names that you see on these is there are some guys who used to be real prospects, who used to be first overall picks, who you knew before they even had a team. And it's not that surprising to see them on there because you've sort of tracked the decline of their career. And, you know, oh, yeah, Gio Meyer, that's how long he's been there.

of their career and you know, and so yeah, Gio Meyer, that's how long he's been there. But then there are other guys who you only know from like team prospect lists. And for some reason you liked him at the time, like you read a blurb about him or I, in my case, uh, this was a guy in the angels farm system when I was covering the angels. And, and just for some reason, I had a natural affection for him and liked him more than everybody else did. And then I just forgot about him. And like, you forget about a thousand of those guys in your lifetime. You remember, you think about them for a day, you decide you like them, maybe you like them for a week, and then you just forget about them. And they're all out there waiting to be seen again by you. And unfortunately, where they're going to be seen again by you is here. So like Daniel Tillman is a guy who like I thought, you know, I probably if you'd asked me

to bet on the chances of his career, turning into something good, I probably would have guessed like one in six. So there's no surprise that he's here. But everybody else had him at like one in eight. And so he was my guy. And it's kind of disappointing now to see that he's just still anyway i will take brett oberholzer uh who is a starting pitcher who faced 321 batters last year which is uh pretty good to know like if he's only going to be 27 this year if you know that he has averaged four or five hundred batters three three three or 400 batters per season in his career, and that he's only 27, that's a good sign. He wasn't very good last year, but it was mostly home runs. I mean, it was really crazy home runs. He gave up 18 home runs in 70 innings.

That hasn't been a particular bugaboo for him in his career. And so you might hope that that's just a fluke. He's a control pitcher. He's been a control pitcher. His strikeouts have gone up a bit. I don't know. I don't think he's likely to start many games for any teams, but he could. He could. He could also continue converting to relief as he started to do last year and have it work. So Brett Oberhalter, major league player in the prime of his career. Okay. By the way, Orlando Calixte is on the 40 men with the Giants. I didn't know that. They must have added him. Who was your second pick? Ryan Lamar. That's three words, Lamar. All right. My fourth pick

is going to be Michael Choice. Oh my gosh, really? Probably a name people know. He is a former, what, 10th overall pick? Yeah. And is now a minor league free agent. He was in the majors for a few years and was not last year. He was in AAA. He did okay there. Not great. So Michael Choice, I'm hoping that he just still has some prospect shine attached to him. And he is only 27. It's his age 27 season. He just turned 27 in November. So it's either going to be one of those sad age 27 seasons that you write an article about or he will actually be useful or used. I don't need him to be useful. I just need him to be used. So Michael choice. I, uh, I actually have a list of sad age 27 seasons for this year already, already made. And he is, he is on there. I feel like, I feel like he was on my list last year. Uh, and I, but I didn't pick him last year, but maybe I'm wrong. Yeah. choice that is a that is famous um okey doke uh all right i'm going to next pick i'll take tim fedorovitz okay who is a backup catcher signed by the giants and they got

a good performance out of their backup catcher last year, Trevor Brown, but it's not a guy with a whole lot of pedigree. There's not obviously a lot of opportunity for him to be playing regularly in San Francisco, of course, but I think he's third string and the third string catcher is not terrible. But the other thing is, even if the Giants let him go, this is a guy who played 17 games for the Cubs last year and the Cubs had a lot of catchers and good catchers. And so if he was able to muscle through and get 33 plate appearances for the Cubs, then it seems like he's a survivor. He's a guy who gets picked up. So I'm going with him. Okay. All right. I will take a catcher too then, I think. I will take Michael Fort McHenry, who was signed by the Rays, minor league deal, invitation to spring training. Of course, Wilson Ramos, I don't think will be ready for opening day, so maybe they'll need a catcher to fill in for a while. And he has been in the majors every year since 2010 for some amount of time, only three games last year.

But still, we're at the part in the draft where having been in the majors for a number of years is about the best you can hope for, I think. So not only that, but he was really good last year. He played in AAA and he slugged.500 with a.426 on base. He played in AAA and he slugged 500 with a 426 on base. So I'm hoping that he gets a little more playing time than he did when he got two plate appearances with the Cardinals last year. And the Rays have been, historically speaking, a good team to break through if you're a catcher because they haven't had any good ones, which might change, but not on opening day. And I hope he takes advantage of that. had any good ones, which might change, but not on opening day. And I hope he takes advantage of that. By the way, Michael Choices' Twitter handle says, I'm going for 30-30 this year.

Michael Choices' Twitter handle is at Vinny Choice. Okay. Do you think that's a Vinny Chase from Entourage reference? No. Okay. I don't know why else he would have Vinny in there he doesn't have a middle name vinny or anything i think it's an entourage reference i mean i don't know was i don't feel like vince was generally called vinny he was called vinny by turtle by turtle and by well by turtle maybe by ari ari ari yeah but that's it it's not like he's he's not famously he's not a famous vinny no oh i don't know why else would it be vinny it's probably a perfectly good reason but

i don't know what it is all right uh that's a strain did you know that rinku sing uh the one of the pitchers from the Million Dollar Arm experiment. Did you know that in his career, he's got a 297 ERA? No. Yeah. I mean, as a minor leader, he's got a 297 ERA and three strikeouts per walk as a reliever. Wow. Yeah.

What's his highest level? Sally League. Okay. Well, still. Yeah. Okay. I will take Jaff Decker. So Jaff Decker is another name that some people probably will know,

partly because he was a prospect, but mainly because he has the kind of name that really makes your prospect status play up. Like he's the kind of prospect that you remember. He was a former first rounder. He was a top 100 guy a long time ago and it's not that he's in he's he's demonstrated that he's he's good or about to break out or anything like that but since the padres let him go he went to the pirates who are you know very you know that the pirates are a type of team and then he went to the rays who are also

a type of team and then he he signed by the's, who are the exact same type of team. He is one Cleveland Indians stop away from finishing the square. And that, to me, just tells me that somehow he's got a good projection on him. And the A's, oh, the A's, right? Like, if anybody is going to give Jeff Decker plate appearances, it's a team like the A's, a roster like the A's. In fact, I'm surprised that Jeff Decker is not currently starting at all three outfield positions on their depth chart.

He plays a center field, so that's good. So I think that he's in a, to me, if he hadn't signed with the A's, like if he had signed with, you know, one of 23 other teams, I probably would have just passed him right over. But to me, the Pittsburgh, Tampa, Oakland shuttle route or whatever is particularly telling information and tells me that somebody is making a case for him. Like there is, there is a report on Jeff Decker in which somebody said, this guy's going to be good.

Put their neck on the line for Jeff Decker. And most players on this list, I don't think have a backer in an organization. I'm confident Jeff does. Okay. I'm going to take JB Shuck. And I don't know why JB Shuck deserves playing time in 2017, but he has gotten playing time in every year since 2013, plus 2011, and substantial playing time. He

played in half of the White Sox's games last year, and basically the same in 2015. And he was not good. He was, last year, Baseball Reference had him at negative 1.8 wins above replacement in 241 plate appearances, had him at negative 12 in the field, and he also had a 547 OPS. So I don't know what it is about JB Schuch that keeps getting him playing time, but I'm counting on whatever it is continuing to get him playing time. He was signed by the Twins to a minor league contract with an invitation to spring training. So possible that there is some playing time to go around there and probably won't be to the Twins' benefit, but it will be to mine if he gets any.

So JB Shuck, this is purely past results, maybe an indicator of future performance pick. Uh-huh, good luck. I am going to take Lane Adams, who is the guy that every team that considers JB Shuck should go get instead. Lane Adams is 27 this year. I think he's got like three career plate appearances in the majors, but he is a center fielder with great speed and enough pop that he's not going to embarrass you. Last year,

he bounced around. He was in in i guess he was in two different organizations the yankees and the cubs two teams that could afford to spend on a guy like lane adams i don't know what what that means um uh but he uh in between these two organizations he had 10 homers and 44 steals and as a you, as a 26 year old in AAA, 44 steals only caught five times. And he plays center field. So he is a, he is, you know, that that's a, that's a profile for a fourth outfielder, right? If you didn't know anything about him, except that you'd say that's a fourth outfielder.

And I only need him to be a fifth. Yeah. All right. By the way, he's also signed by the Braves. Ah, that's always good. Exactly. So that's another. Yeah. All right. By the way, he's also signed by the Braves. Ah, that's always good. Exactly. So that's another one. Yeah. All right. I'm going to take Ben Rowan. I was going to pick Ben Rowan.

Sorry, you can't have Ben Rowan. I have Ben Rowan, who has a minor league deal and invitation to spring training with the Mets this year. He is a submariner, and he's spring training with the Mets this year. He is a submariner and he's good against right-handed hitters. And he pitched three innings in the majors last year, but he was in AAA with Milwaukee and Toronto for 58 innings and had a 2-3-3 ERA. He is also one of the best ground ball guys, believe in the minors there was a mad eddie post about people who were the best relative to minor league levels like percentile wise and ben rowan had the best ground ball to fly ball ratio on the list so well yeah he's a good pick because he

there's a lot of there's a lot of it feels like there's a lot of people writing about Darren O'Day and Brad Ziegler. And particularly if the strike zone remains the strike zone and the game remains the game as it's been being played, then it just feels like there's also somebody in every front office who thinks that Ben Rowan is going to be the next, you know, Brad Ziegler. I'm banking on it. That's a good pick. Thank you. All right. I'll take TJ House.

Okay. Don't know if he is signed or not, but I guess I like 27-year-old pitchers with recent major league experience. House was a good starter two years ago with the Indians. He had a 3-3-5 ERA as a starter. He's with the indians he had a 335 era as a starter okay he had a 335 era as a starter he had almost four strikeouts per walk he was a good 24 year old rookie uh and then he uh hurt his shoulder and it it was a disaster he came out i tj house was like a sleeper for me that year, I remember, in my two-person

league. And he came out and just got absolutely crushed in his first four starts in Cleveland and then spent the rest of the year basically, I think, with shoulder problems, I think. Came back this year and it wasn't all great, but he made an appearance in the majors. I mean, he made an appearance in the majors. He is a lefty. Even if he doesn't have a starting future anymore, I feel like he's got a full year in him as a, as a loogie and maybe that'll be this year. Okay. Yeah. Good pick. All right. Hmm. I don't know where to go with this one. I've got a bunch of guys I'm not super excited about, but who have had a bunch of major league time. I guess I'll take Cesar Ramos, who has been in the big leagues every year since 2009 and has had substantial time in each of those years. He had 47 innings last year, and that was the fewest he had had since 2012. He was also pretty terrible.

I think I'm looking it up. He might have had the worst FIP in baseball. Yeah, he was not good, but he keeps getting jobs and not even just like briefly at the end of September or anything, but real jobs. And he was signed by the Tigers, I think. No, that was in July. They signed him to a minor league deal. So I don't know where he is now, but I am hoping that one way or another, he finds his way back to a big league roster and hopefully does better than he did last year.

And he was fine. Like the few years before that, I mean, from 2011 to 2015, he threw 276 innings with a 3-4-9 ERA, 109 OPS plus, sub 4 FIP was pretty good. So it's really only the most recent season that looks bad. And I'm hoping someone will look at the previous seasons and hope that he'll be better. So Cesar Ramos. Yeah, he had the fourth worst FIP in baseball last year. But the great thing about him too, is that every hit he allows is another batter that he faces. Like if he came out and got three up, three down, it'd be like, all right, your day's done. But he gives up a few runners for you. Yeah's true it's a very canny strategy thanks uh all right so we got i think we have two more picks each i will take i'm gonna this is a this is this is not a pick that's gonna pay off but we're in the ninth round of a minor league free agents draft i feel like i can gamble a little bit so the same i think the same day that the Mets signed

Ben Rowan, they signed Corey Burns. And Corey Burns is a independent leaguer who had a very good year last year as a reliever in the Atlantic League. He had a 2.170 RA, struck out 60, walked only eight. And so he got signed. he's never done really anything uh otherwise he had two extremely brief brief appearances in the majors in 2012 and 2013 and then he's been a minor league reliever ever since but i want to i want to root for the indie baller yeah all right by the way ben rowan got a major league invite cory burns did not and okay. So you win that switch. All right. Okay, I'm going to take Cesar Valdez, who is a guy who was out of affiliated ball for like five years.

He was with the Pirates in 2011, and then he went all over the place. He was in the Mexican leagues. He was in the Dominican. He was in Venezuela. He was playing the Mexican leagues. He was in the Dominican. He was in Venezuela. He was playing in Puerto Rico. He was everywhere. And then last year, he came back to affiliated ball with the Astros, and he pitched in AAA. He made 18 starts. He threw 138 in the third innings. He threw out of the bullpen also, and he had the best walk rate in the minor leagues. He walked 0.8 per nine,

and he was signed by the Athletics, so I'm hoping that they will be bad and they'll need someone to come up and throw some innings and not walk anyone. And when Matt Eddy did that leaderboard thing for guys who were the best compared to their level or whatever. He was on the leaderboards for walk rate, strikeout rate, home run rate, and ground ball rate. And he was number one on the walk rate. So I'm actually sort of surprised he didn't make the Astros because they needed some pitching help at various times and he was pretty good. So kind of surprising, but hopefully he will make the A's next year. All right.

And for my last pick, I'll take Aaronon Iribarren. I was going to take him. So he is 33 this year. He is a guy who's bounced around and had gone how many years since his last major? He hadn't made the major.

He hadn't appeared in the majors for seven years since 2009, but he got a call up last year. Was it even a call up? He might've been, he played 24 games. Yeah, it was a call up. He got a call up last year, played almost every day in September, although not often starting. And in that month, he had 45 plate appearances. He hit 311. And he had a breakout year, I guess, last year for a 32-year-old. He had his best year in the minors in quite some time. He hit 327, 380, 410 for Louisville. And he played first base, second base, third base, center field, and left field for them. And shortstop also.

So that's all of them except for right field. Let me see. He played right field for the Reds. No, he played right field for Louisville too. So he played, he not only played all those positions, he started every position except catcher and pitcher at least four times. He started 13 games at shortstop. He started 24 games in center field. He came up with the Reds. He played first base, second base, center field, and right field, including four starts in center field and one start at second. And he even pitched four games for Louisville.

And I don't know what the Reds plan to do with this season. So I don't know if that if where they're going is good or bad for him, if they just think, well, why waste a roster spot on him? Why give 350 plate appearances to him? But he seems like the kind of guy who is definitely one of the Reds best 15 position players right now. Mm hmm. All right. And my last pick, I'm going to take Craig Sitton, who that's Craig with a K. Oh, and you know what Craig's doing? What? Craig's hitting.

Why is Craig hitting? His name is Craig Sitton. Craig Sitton. Craig's hitting. Craig Sitton. It's like hard-hitting Mark Witten. Craig Sitton. But he is a left-handed reliever, so he might not be hitting.

But he's a big guy. How hard does he throw? Because I can switch it to Craig. He's 6'5". I could switch it to Craig Sitton at 95. Don't know how hard he throws, but he's a big guy, 6'5", and was very good in AAA last year with the Mariners, 293 ERA, good control. And he was signed very quickly by the Giants.

He has a good track record against left-handed hitters, so he could be a good situational guy. He also spells it with a K. Yeah, spells it with a K. I've never seen Craig spelled with a K. I don't think I have either. So that helps him stand out and perhaps get a chance with the Giants. So Craig Sitton.

Wow. Craig. Craig has a Urban Dictionary definition, but it's one of those ones where I think somebody was named Craig and just went on and made their name something good. So it's not very good. You have any other guys you want to shout out? Just missed the cut? No. Well, Edward Mujica, I guess, is a player who was like, who was a closer with almost the same basic stats that he currently produces in AAA. And the gap between the AAA and the majors

is probably not as big as the gap between closer and seventh man in the bullpen so he seems like he wants to keep pitching and so why not it only takes one team Matt Dominguez seemed like a possible pick if you if you aren't betting on Pablo Sandoval isn't Brian Mattis on this list? I think he is. I think Al Albuquerque is on this list. Yeah, he was. Yeah, Mattis is also. Christian Bergman is on this list.

So those are the ones that I kind of had a little further down. Yeah, I had some more guys who fit the mold of they're in the big leagues every year, like Eric Kratz. Yeah, yeah. He's been in the big leagues for how long? Every year since 2010. And he's still a good framer. And he was signed by the couple framing teams last year.

He played for the Astros and the Pirates. He batted 94 in 87 plate appearances, which between that and the fact that he will turn 37 in June, I thought maybe this is the year that breaks the Eric Kratz streak. Although I hope not. I like Eric Kratz. So he's a guy, Jordan Pacheco, I came very close to taking. He's been in the big leagues every year for a while since 2011. And he kind of gets his 50, 60, 70 plate appearances every year and doesn't do much with them. But he is, I guess, okay defensively, and he's only 30, so he probably would have been a pretty good pick. Matt Dendecker, another guy in that mold. And I wanted to go with Williams Astudio, who's been mentioned on this podcast before because he has the lowest strikeout rate in the majors and or in the minors and also had the 11th catchers, but I think he's going to be in the double A rotation, which he could make it to that rotation, but it's still

a ways to go. So I don't know. Those were my main guys. Casey Lawrence, Nick Tepish. I wanted to take Reid Brignac because he's not on the list. He was on the list you were looking at, but not on the list we ended up using. And he was one of my inaugural picks in 2013, and he carried my team. He got 91 of the 93 plate appearances that I got that year. And his recent career is pretty amazing. He's been in the big leagues every year since 2008. He's been in the big leagues every year since 2008.

And since 2011, like 2010, he got 300-something plate appearances, and he was fine. Since 2011, he has gotten 521 plate appearances in 221 games, and he has a 34 OPS+. He has hit 190, 234, 243. And in like a full season of playing time, basically. So I guess that is how highly teams think of his defense. Although his defensive stats haven't been anything special. So I don't know how he's done it. But I would have taken him for sentimental reasons. Wasn't eligible, unfortunately.

Did you know that Blake Wood last year was the biggest hit we've ever had in this? Yeah, 330 batters faced, and he was not terrible. I think he was like the seventh best Reds pitcher, which is not saying much, but he was actually valuable, which is very rare for this draft. All right, so hopefully our friend and official stat keeper of Effectively Wild, John Chenier, will enter these names on the spreadsheet, the Effectively Wild competition spreadsheet, which if you don't know, you can find in the Facebook group. You click on the tab that says files, and there's this competition's Google Doc with every draft and competition we've ever done updated. So thanks to John for doing that. All right.

It was fun. Mm-hmm. All right. So that will do it for today. Sam is no longer online, so I can't lord this over him in person. But I just did some research on Twitter about Michael Choice's Twitter handle. In April of 2014, Courtney Brandt asked Michael Choice, why is your Twitter handle at Vinny Choice? Story behind

Vinny and Michael Choice, who at the time had taken over the Texas Rangers Twitter account, said, it comes from the main character in Entourage. My college friends decided that I would be Vinny. Sweet vindication. Vinny-dication. You can support the podcast on Patreon by going

to patreon.com slash effectivelywild Today's five listeners Who have already pledged their support Chris Krohn Or Chris Krohn perhaps Colm Atkins Dan Meningen Anthony Apprezazi

And Fadeaway The Baseball History Podcast You can join our Facebook group At facebook.com slash groups Slash effectivelywild And you can rate and review And subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes We'll do an email show next time So so please do keep the email questions coming.

They're looking a little light right now. You can reach us via email at podcast at baseballperspectives.com or by messaging us through Patreon. We will talk to you soon. All right. Minor league free agent draft. Yes. I've been excited for like 23 hours.