Rates & Barrels - Hank Aaron's legacy, the next steps in Toronto, and Hall of Fame voting fatigue

Episode Date: January 22, 2021

Eno, Britt, DVR discuss the legacy of Hank Aaron before considering the next steps for the Blue Jays, J.T. Realmuto as a possible fit in Atlanta, Eno's recent article about seam-shifted wake, and fatigue with the Hall of Fame voting process. Rundown 1:18 Hank Aaron's Legacy 10:17 What's Next for the Blue Jays? 18:33 Trevor Bauer and Starting Every Fourth Day 29:34 Assessing Atlanta's Interest in J.T. Realmuto 33:46 Is the Universal DH Situation Holding Up a Marcell Ozuna Deal? 36:19 Eno's Latest Article: Seam-Shifted Wake 43:58 The History of the Baseball 50:31 Hall of Fame Voting Fatigue Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Britt on Twitter: @Britt_Ghiroli Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic for just $3.99/month to start: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Want visibly glowing skin in 14 days? With Nuole Indulgent Moisture Body Wash, you can lather and glow. The 24-hour moisturizing body wash is infused with vitamin B3 complex and has notes of rose and cherry creme for a rich indulgent experience. Treat your senses with Nuole Indulgent Moisture Body Wash. Buy it today at major retailers. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is Friday, January 22nd, 2021. Derek Van Ryper, Rich Roley, Eno Saris here with you on this Friday.

A lot to talk about with the Blue Jays getting in to free agency earlier this week. Nice to see them actually get a couple of players after they fell short a couple of times. So we'll talk about what might be next for them. We had a question come in about Trevor Bauer and the possibility of him starting every fourth day, the impact that would have on a rotation and for his fantasy value. So we'll get to that as well. We're going to talk about JT Real Muto for a little bit because maybe we can narrow down, kind of play an old game of guess who and figure out where he fits at this point with Houston adding Jason Castro to their catcher mix earlier this week.

And then Eno's got a piece about seam shifted wake, which if we talked about it on the podcast before and you didn't quite understand it, it will help to have visuals. It will help to have written words. But we'll go through that piece again and talk about some really cool stuff that was included there as well. So a lot to get to today, but Friday morning we received terrible news in the baseball world. Hank Aaron, baseball's home run king, passed away at age 86. And as I was watching the tributes roll in, guys, it's I had to make a list of players that I wish I could have seen, Hank Aaron, if he's not at the top of that list, is like second. It's like Willie Mays and Hank Aaron. I wish I could have seen them

both play at the same time. And seeing the tributes roll in, you realize how much Hank meant to baseball, to people that grew up in that era especially, right? He was around before any of us got a chance to watch him. I'm just crushed seeing this news in the baseball world today. Yeah, I'm with you. He's one of the guys that honestly, I wish I had met. I don't know, Eno, have you run into him at all at a field? He was around a decent amount. But to me, the last time I saw him in the news cycle was recently. He got the COVID vaccine, and it was a big headline to convince some of the black community who were hesitant, like, hey, I got the COVID vaccine, we should

all be vaccinated. And to me, Hank Aaron is kind of bigger than baseball. You know, you see him out doing these kinds of things. He's a guy who obviously you think about the home runs, you think about what he meant to this game. I'm just really sad that I never got to interview him. I never got to interact with him. And now I just don't get a chance at all. And the hits keep coming. It seems like every week, two or three great baseball giants leave us. And I don't know how much more I can take personally. I don't know how you two feel about this, but Hank Aaron, to me, I just didn't see this coming. Not at all. Yeah. You know, growing up in Atlanta, he was kind of a god. And, you know, I think the one thing that really comes across to me and came across to me as a kid,

like the word I think of when i think of him is like class and grace and i think that some people uh kind of interpreted that as like him being above uh the kind of racial problems that that he dealt with the racism that he dealt with but i i kind of dealt it i i saw it a little bit differently that he that he was dealing with it as best he could but that he was dealing with it i mean there's there's plenty of times where he's spoken about in interviews like it was definitely something that growing up in atlanta we knew that people had been super racist against him and that he'd gotten death threats like like people don't know that like people know that he got death threats right when he was trying to break the record like

he like he had he dealt with a lot And I learned a little bit even more today about how his daughter, you know, couldn't leave the dorms in college at that time and how it was affecting the rest of his family. But I knew that he dealt with this. And I just, Harry Pavlidis shared an interview where he said, you know, sometimes he wonders how many home runs he could have hit

if he didn't have to deal with all that crap. said, you know, sometimes he wonders how many home runs he could have hit if he didn't have to deal with all that crap. But, you know, still the coolest thing about him, I think, was how he managed to talk about that stuff and deal with that stuff and just seemed so calm and collected and classy. And it's a bit of a, it can be misread, I think, you know, it can be misread as being like, uh, you know, he laughed it off or whatever, but no, no, I'm sure it, I'm sure it hurt. Um, and so I'm, I, I hope that, um, he felt celebrated enough, um, in the latter parts of his life. Um, I think that, you know, we did a decent job of that. He was classy in handing

over the baton to Barry Bonds, I think, even though he may have had some of some thoughts about that as well. So, you know, that he managed to he managed to get his point across a few times without while still remaining sort of, I called him a statesman today. I think that's how I think of him as, as sort of like a, a venerable, you know,

man that has, has gone undergone a lot. So I, I, today's a sad day. Yeah. I mean, we're talking about just a legend and I think in my mind in baseball,

especially, you know, legends never die. It's the line famous in the movie, the Sandlot, of course. Okay, good. But you think a player like Hank Aaron will live forever. Maybe it's unique to kids that grew up with the Sandlot being a really vital movie in their love for baseball, right? But the thing that I've always been struck by as I've looked at Hank Aaron's numbers, 755, I could see it on the side of an apartment building and think

of Hank Aaron. I could see it on a license plate that isn't even a vanity plate and just see the numbers in order and think of Hank Aaron. 25 all-star games. Our game that we love is really defined by its stats, and at least we think about the numbers constantly. We'll never see another 25-time All-Star. That's never going to happen again. That is impossible to do. Longevity. Yeah, multiple gold gloves, multiple batting titles.

Excellence and longevity, yeah. Yes. 2,297 RBIs. These numbers are crazy. They're crazy. The best stat that people were putting out there earlier today was that you could take away all 755 home runs from Hank Aaron and he still had 3,000 hits.

And 3,000 hits is obviously a huge milestone in baseball as well. So, I mean, just an incredible player and by all accounts an amazing person like you guys, someone I wish I would have had a chance to meet. You see stories. Rob Beer Temple covers the Pirates for the Athletic. He was at the Hall of Fame ceremonies a few years back. There was an empty seat next to him for one of the events,

and a man came up to him and said, Do you mind if I sit here? It was Hank Aaron. So he got to talk to Hank Aaron just for 15 minutes, and Rob described that as the best day ever. And I don't think he's kidding. I think that's just the types of moments that some people were lucky enough to have with him are truly remarkable. Yeah, I got a thing. What about this? What a great way to honor his legacy and deal with the kind of festering sore that's still left in baseball rename the team the atlanta hammers i think you can repurpose i think you could even i don't want

them to do the tomahawk chop anymore but like i think you could repurpose a lot of the the the things that you've used like the the kind of, the kind of the hammer down, right? Like, yeah. Hammer, right. You know, find, find some different words to the song or whatever, or make it a hammer song or whatever it is.

You're, you're, you're now honoring, you know, Hank Aaron's legacy, like the greatest brave of all time. And you're, you're really flipping the script on racism. I feel like you're really,

you're, you're honoring, you know, you're honoring instead of and i know that some people think that the atlanta braves name is honoring but um i don't know man having seen that that chant and and i don't know if people know about like chief nakahoma have you ever heard of this guy uh the braves used to have a mascot named Chief Nakahoma that had just like the most ridiculous facial features. Just like super racist looking.

Just big lip black Indian thing guy thing. It was so bad. It was so bad. And he would have like these like sort of Indian regalia and stuff and come out there and do the tomahawk chop and stuff. And like if you guys saw Chief Nakahoma today, it would like he'd be canceled in five seconds. And so that's part of the Braves legacy. So I think, you know, flip that all on its head. Change it to the Atlanta Hammers.

I'm into that. I love that. And I grew up a Braves fan. Like, you know, I will remember those memories as Braves memories. It's okay. There's room in my head to remember them as Braves and to honor them as Hammers, you know. So that's something I'm into. You know, this is the first I've heard of this.

Just write a column about this. This is a great idea. And you don't have many for those who have listened to the show. I don't have many good ideas. Thank you. Guys, this is a huge moment

here on this podcast. No, seriously, it's a great idea. Like all good ideas, I stole it. Oh, you did? Yeah, I saw that going by

on Twitter today, too. Damn it, Eno. It would be the perfect tribute, though. And it's something that Atlanta needs to do as a franchise. So do it the right way and make it happen. But again, just crushing news in baseball today with the passing of Hank Aaron. Looking at some of the other things that we were going to get to today,

Hank Aaron. Looking at some of the other things that we were going to get to today, the Blue Jays were the 2021 baseball transaction story of the week. Obviously, far from the front page now for good reason. For a moment, when we recorded on Wednesday, just before we started recording, it looked like Michael Brantley was also going to go to Toronto with George Springer, and that followed Kirby Yates' signing the day before. Brantley actually ended up with the Astros in between the time we stopped recording that episode and the time it became available. So we timed it perfectly in the sense that we didn't have him on the Blue Jays on the show. But it leaves me with this question, are the Blue Jays still looking for a bat? Because when we talked about the possibility of fitting him into their lineup, it didn't make a lot of sense. It didn't seem like they necessarily needed one more bat, even though he would be an upgrade, even though it would have been good for the offense as a whole. So Britt, as you look at the Jays, do you get the sense that someone else similar to Brantley might be on their radar, or do you think they've turned their attention to maybe getting an upgrade for the rotation? Yeah, I think if you look at Toronto and you close your eyes and you're like, what makes this team better?

It's got to be that frontline starter, right? And you look at Trevor Bauer, and we've talked about this on this podcast. Can he fit in Toronto? We know Toronto has money. That Michael Brantley news cycle, I don't know how you guys felt. It was surreal, right? It was like, oh, he's going here. Wait, it's not done yet. Oops, he's going back to Houston. And there is a danger, I think, in people trying to be first and not trying to be right. Look at the Blue Jays. To me, if not Bauer, what about Jake Odorizzi? What about some of these next level behind Bauer type of starters who can make them better?

I think an infielder would certainly help them as well. Some bullpen help. I think when you look at, like you said, Michael Brantley, you're like, okay, but he's kind of a square peg round hole, right? They were just kind of adding another bat to get better, to do something else. I feel like if I'm Toronto, I'm looking at getting a pitcher because I think that has more of a ripple effect

the way this team is set up. And we know they have money, right? Toronto has put a lot of offers into a lot of free agents. And up until now, they were like the bridesmaid, right? They were never the bride. They just kept losing. So hopefully this Springer acquisition will help kind of springboard other free agents. I do think sometimes they're at a disadvantage trying to sell free agents to come there. But I think if you look at Toronto, the best thing they can do is add a Trevor Bauer

or an Odorizzi, Some kind of pitching to that lineup. Yeah, that was excellent. A bunch of excellent ideas there. It makes me want to say a bunch of different things. One thing that comes to mind is that, you know, as much as I hated the Eric Hosmer deal for San Diego, I think Eric Hosmer signing there made it easier for them to sign Manny Machado. Yes. I think that nobody wants to be the first guy to sign with a team that really hasn't spent.

Because they don't want to be the only guy on that team that has the money. And then they don't spend on anybody else, right? They don't think that team will be good, first of all. They're going to be stuck on that team forever. And so Hosmer, as bad as that deal was, it did open the door for other people, I think. So I think Springer could open the door a little bit for Bauer. And people even said with the Brantley thing, that it was going to be like an NBA style thing that like, you know, it was going to be a package deal like Springer and Brantley, and they're going to come together. And I'm sure it came down to money at some point. My guess is the Blue Jays offered something like three and 35

or something. And he was just like, I'm going to take the 2-32, stay in Houston and see if I can get another deal on the end of that. But the other thing that I wanted to think about was Jerickson Profar. I don't know why there's all this Padres stuff, but Jerickson Profar signed today to the Padres. And they gave him the weirdest deal. It's like 3-21 with three opt-outs. You have to give Jerickson Profar three or two opt-outs? Okay. Yeah. Was the market

that saturated for him? That was weird. Yeah, right. But you could look at that team and a little bit like Brantley be like, yo, they've got Grisham, Myers, and Pham. So they've got a starting outfield and they've got

cronenworth and hasion kim uh for second and maybe some outfield work like why did they sign profar so i think you could look at the blue jays adding brantley and saying just make the team better like dj lemay here to the yankees just make it better just add more we need depth you know you need we need multiple options at every spot. And so Brantley would have allowed us to have depth. And I think the same is true for the Padres, where Myers actually only projects to be about a win. So he's not projecting to be like a league average guy.

So you could pro-far and Myers it up on that side. average guy. So you could pro far and Myers it up on that side. Fam got stabbed and and has like a, like I think he had some other issues too. I forget what he had to hand me. And maybe something else, but so, you know, he's coming off of injury. You know, why not have somebody there? I don't think you want to stick pro far and center, but you know, still having another outfielder, I think makes sense. I don't think that was

building up her trade. Last thing I wanted to say was that if you added Brantley, I think the Blue Jays would have been able to trade one of their young bats that wasn't core as much. So maybe trade Teoscar or trade Rowdy and go get Herman Marquez or go get Sonny Gray. If there's been whiffs that those guys are available, use one of your young bats to get an under-cost-controlled arm. So I think that would have opened up that sort of opportunity for them. Now, I think they will just spend. I think they should be considered the frontrunners for Bauer. Last I heard, it was Angels and Blue Jays.

So they're going to go to war against each other and see who's going to put the biggest number down. I keep thinking if you're going to add Bauer in Toronto, obviously it would be great. You would make that rotation a lot better. You'd have a lot of innings because I think in terms of projections, you look at Trevor Bauer and say he's probably one of the least likely, if not the least likely, starting pitcher in the league to break.

As much as you can mitigate injury risk in a starting pitcher, Trevor Bauer seems to have done that. So you put Bauer up there with Ryu, and you still have a group. Nate Pearson, Ross Stripling, Robbie Ray, Tanner Roark. There's some guys in there like Roark who can get you a lot of innings. There's some guys in there even like Robbie Ray who might get you a lot of innings. But he's not necessarily efficient, so you're going to tax your bullpen. I think they would almost still add one more piece if they're going to add Bauer. If you add Springer, you add Bauer, you add Yates, maybe you also go out and add

James Paxton as well. I think Paxton's one of those guys that maybe because of the nickname, Big Maple, maybe because he's Canadian, I just want to put him on the Blue Jays. But I don't think it's that. I think he's actually a pretty good fit for them because they do have some high-variance, risky arms in the back of their rotation. And I think with Paxton, when he's healthy, he is really good. He is an above-average starter.

He's like a number-two caliber starter by most measures when he's actually healthy. So I could see them possibly adding two starting pitchers. And if they don't get Bauer, I think Paxton is probably the most likely good fit to try and replicate something close to Bauer's numbers, even though it'd be stunning if Paxton were to match Trevor Bauer's workload in a season at this point.

Yeah, the Rays are in on all these guys. The Rays were apparently second on Kluber, and I'm sure the Rays will be in on Paxton. They're looking to replace Snell a little bit with a one-year starter situation, do the Charlie Morton type move. So I think the Rays will fight him for paxton um at this point but um you know one thing that we can slide in here is the mailbag question we have about bauer because uh i think it has fantasy and real life implications and what are we but a uh podcast that walks that line um but you know you have bauer come in and Bauer has been publicly saying that he would love to pitch every fourth day instead of every fifth day, that he thinks he can throw like 300 innings. And he's got, you know, his whole, you know, I think the reason that he thinks he can do this is that he monitors his health on the level of like taking, um, you know, blood often he wears catapult around everywhere.

Catapult is like this thing that just tells you how you're breathing and how you're moving and like how you're, how much stress you're putting on your body. Like he, he basically has a rundown almost daily. I think that like tells him all these important readouts. And when he throws, he wears wearable technology and he's got all the real-time stuff.

So if there's any sort of, you know, okay, let's dial it back today. Or, you know, if there's any sort of wobble, he spots it really early and he's on top of it. So that's why I think he thinks he can do this. In a way, I think the Blue Jays would be ideal for this because if they didn't get that extra pitcher, right? And you just had Bauer and Ryu at the top. Having Bauer be a every fourth day guy allows them to

use those high variance young arms that you're talking about in a really interesting way that we have not necessarily seen. I kind of wanted the Padres to do more of this. They did a little bit of it with Morihan, but Pearson, Hatch, Merriweather, these are all guys that throw really hard, that have enough pitches to be starters, but Command and have we seen at the major league level, you have those guys pitch two or three innings at a time like Morahan. And you kind of piggyback one or two spots because you can, because Bauer's going to go every four days. days he's gonna save your bullpen in a way so um i think that would be cool for the blue jays if bauer did it on a fantasy side uh we haven't had a three inning 300 inning starter i i would want to like look at what

a 300 inning starter would look like if you had like a four or five era like what that value would be like in fantasy um I'd kind of... I think it would be interesting because it wouldn't be the best ERA. It would be a ton of strikeouts. It might be something you'd rather do in head-to-head where you're going to punt ERA or something.

There is some risk with Bauer's ERA. We've seen it in his career. But if he turns out 300 innings at a 2-8 or a 3-2 ERA, then he will be the most valuable player in baseball this year. Yeah, he'd be the number one ranked fantasy player at the end of the season if he came anywhere close. I think he could probably get up to like a 3-5 ERA and like a 1-15 whip if he did it over 300 innings. And like 350 strikeouts. Right, and think about the wins too. He's probably going to win 20 games easily if he's taking the ball every fourth.

You don't have to win games at a higher rate if you're just starting more often to be a 20-game winner. So that's hugely valuable in our game. It shouldn't be as valuable as this. Almost gone. The 20-game winner is almost gone. Yeah, so he'd stand out. I mean, even if the ratios weren't as good as DeGrom and Cole, possibly Bieber, the counting stats would just jump off the page and make him the most valuable pitcher in the league. So let's be clear.

When it comes to shipping internationally, can I provide trade documents electronically? Mm-hmm. The answer is FedEx. Okay, but what about estimating duties and taxes on my shipments? How do I find all the— Also FedEx. Okay, but what about estimating duties and taxes on my shipments? How do I find all the... Also FedEx. Impressive. Is there a regulatory specialist I can ask about? FedEx.

Oh, but let's say that... FedEx. What? FedEx. Thanks. No more questions. Always your answer for international shipping. FedEx, where now meets next.

This episode is brought to you by Peloton. Forget the pressure to be crushing your workout on day one. Just start moving with the Peloton Bike, Bike Plus, Tread, Row, Guide, or App. There are thousands of classes and over 50 Peloton instructors ready to support you from the beginning. Remember, doing something is everything. Rent the Peloton Bike or Bike Plus today at onepeloton.ca slash bike slash rentals. All access membership separate. Terms apply.

You know, Britt, you cover baseball. Like, how, like, and like for different teams, you've been, you've like the Nationals, the Orioles. Like, you've seen a lot of different teams up close. the nationals the orioles like you've seen a lot of different teams up close like how likely do you think it is that that are like a player with a radical idea like this would be allowed to do it almost zero especially if you just handed him almost i mean first off you just handed him like 200 million dollars right yeah and so like if you broke him just imagine now like, if you broke him, just imagine now, like, even if it had nothing to do with him pitching, right? If he stepped on a curve, you'd be fired.

Exactly. What do you do? And I think, I think Buck Showalter talked once about Randy Johnson, maybe wanted to go every fourth. I think it was Randy Johnson about wanting to pitch more often and about how they looked at getting like those four starters and just just getting this group and going through it. And people would never agree to it. I mean, because what you're doing now is you're putting more innings, more workload on these guys.

Are they being paid to make all these extra starts? Now you're screwing over all the other teams who, okay, this team, they all made 40 starts each. How do you factor that in with all these guys who made 30 in a five man? Arbitration. Arbitration. Arbitration. All the ripple effects that that has. Other players wouldn't be that into it. Exactly.

And then what do you do in that fifth spot? Do you have a bullpen game? Because now you're crushing your bullpen every few days. So those four starters better go deep. Yeah. You'd better be careful with it. I think, and you wouldn't want,

Ryu doesn't want to go every four days. So I think you'd like keep Ryu on like a-day schedule and bauer would just like sort of jump around and you'd have to have like somebody that basically just managed the rotation yeah there'd be have to be some front office guy that was like yes and i think i think it's more more likely guys in our lifetime we see six starters that we see that extra day because you're gonna see a lot of yeah you look at the eras of a lot of these guys when they get the extra day rest and you look at guys who come from japan or korea and they are not used to throwing on the five day rotation they're used to the six or even the seven and they do much better the more rest you give them i think we're

gonna see it trend the other way where we have six starters. We have a guy who maybe floats. Maybe he's a young guy. You want to keep his innings in check. And he makes, you know, 10, 15 starts to give the rest of the rotation a blow. I think that's like and like a fake. Yeah, like a fake six man to where, you know, early in the season, you can use off days and stuff. Sometimes people do the fake four man where they like we don't have it. We don't use the fifth starter until, you know date right like the coming out of spring sometimes they won't even name

a fifth starter because they're like well we're not sure we'll name one when it comes so you could do it with six where the sixth guy doesn't really start in april you know and then you know he he kind of ramps up yeah i i think that's much more likely we've already seen we've already seen i think the royals are going to do it uh we've seen some teams announce they're going to do it, like the Mariners. And do you remember? We talked about this a little bit, Derek. What was the other team?

Yeah, the Mariners were absolutely in it. There were other teams that we thought were good fits that didn't necessarily commit to it yet. Let's see. Who else jumped off the page? That was the Royals on that list. Marco Gonzalez yesterday refused to comment on the six-man rotation.

Really? I mean, also, guys, they keep adding to the 25-man is the 26-man. This year, it was the 28-man. The more people

they add to the roster, the easier it becomes for them to do that. Right? Like, remember when bullpens now can be 13, 14 arms. Remember when it was like

eight? You know? So I think it's like a... I mean. I think it's like a I mean, I think it's like a much I think it's just trending that way as you get more guys on the roster. Like how many backup infielders do you need?

If you get 28, 29 guys. You're just going to start looking for ways to maximize these guys. And some of these guys, most of these guys that aren't Trevor Bauer, do better on more rest. I mean, what are Trevor Bauer's I feel like, what are his teammates going to think of that? Now it looks like they don't want to go because they want to pitch in a five-day rotation. You know, like what do you want?

Yeah. These are the kind of things that end up like stifling innovation, honestly. Like he could be right. He could be the way to go. It used to be the way we did things, you know. Guys threw 300 innings. We used to have fewer starters, you know, but, um, uh, but you know, like once you start unpacking like arbitration and teammates and how this works and you like, you have to think about these things. And I just don't, I don't think it's likely. So I would give, I maybe, I do know that he's a force of will.

And so I would say like, I might give him 5% likely that he would like somehow negotiate it into his contract or something. Maybe, maybe give them something, like maybe give them something back in the contract. Be like, if we do this four man thing and I get hurt, I give you back $5 million or something. Or I give you back X amount or something. Yeah. That'd be really interesting. He would do that.

He would do that. Like backwards sort of incentives, like team incentives from the players. Like, I want this. You're going to give me more if this works. I'll give you a good chunk of it back if it doesn't. You know, something along those lines. I'll give you a good chunk of it back if it doesn't. Something along those lines.

A $36 million deal becomes an $18 million deal if he's not as good as advertised. Okay, maybe that works. Maybe that speaks to ownership. And you know he wants that 36.5. He wants 36.5. You also know that most of the league, though, how many other players in the league want to even go down that road at all?

If I underperform, I'm going to give some money back. Or if I get hurt, I'm going to give some money back. The union would never let that happen. That's not going to go down like that. But I do think maybe having some sort of reverse opt-out scenario, that's probably why he wants the shortened deal in some ways. He can go out and prove it and then go make more money because he stayed healthy.

If you can prove this works, you are enhancing a team's rotation. Well, I'm definitely interested in what his contract looks like. He's talking about doing one-year deals and this sort of four-man thing. If he comes out with just a normal old contract with one opt-out, I'll just be like oh okay yeah i mean but it's hard to sit here from where our perspective and be like if someone offered you a a seven-year deal or something you know and you're like shoot i'll i know like rather than a year-to-year contract that some people have like okay sign me up where do i sign you know i would take paintballs to the nuts, you know, for, you know, $200 million.

Yes, I would. Yeah. So, like, I don't know. I get it. But also, like, I don't know. What kind of agent would advise him to be like, you know what, Trevor? Let's just take this. I don't know.

I mean, and I know Rachel Lupa well. I really enjoy her. I think she's great. However, like, in good conscience, it comes down to the client, right? If he says, forget it. This is what I want to do. I would just have a hard time thinking that she would advise him to not take a more guaranteed security type of deal. But who knows? He can go rogue. Well, what he can do, he's not going to be able to give money back to a team if it goes wrong,

but he could give his agent a larger cut if he wants a shorter deal and say, look, I realize that you depend on me. The commission on my deal is how you make money. If I get hurt trying to push myself this way, that costs you a lot in the long run, so I'll give you a better percentage of a shorter deal and we'll keep doing shorter deals. Maybe that's how it works. I mean, again, we're just talking about something that's very unique in terms of what Bauer wants to do and how teams might be interested in that. But I think you guys are right. I mean, Angels and Jays seem like two really good fits for him at this point. I just hope he signs before the end of January. I want to keep this momentum going.

Keep signing players because we have another big free agent still out there. There's a few other ones also, but JT Real Muto has been recently linked to the Braves, which I didn't look at that team and say, that makes a lot of sense. But Travis Darnot is in the last year of his contract. He's got a pretty extensive injury history. And as good as Darnot has been the last couple of seasons, JT Real Muto is better. He would be an upgrade. So this, to me, would just be a huge kick in the shins for the Phillies. If Real Muto not only leaves but ends up in division in Atlanta, that is a horrible outcome for the Phillies. So while I still think the Phillies are the favorite

now that the Astros are no longer an option, how realistic is Atlanta as a fit for JT Real Muto? Don't you guys kind of feel like this is maybe some posturing at a Real Muto's camp? Like, oh, there's some interest here to kind of force the Phillies to up their offer, which Jason Stark reported was what, five years, a hundred million. I do think that, you know, the Braves could make a move and find another home for Deernod, and then they are okay. But to me, I think he ends up in Philly. I think this is a whole lot of posturing back and forth. We've seen this with some of these bigger free agents, right? Where it comes, oh, there's other interests here. Oh, there's a mystery team. There's so much smoke this time

of year. I just have a hard time believing that Atlanta's going to pony up the kind of long-term commitment that Philly is, just given where they are. Atlanta's made moves. People forget because it was like really early on in the winter. They're like the only team doing anything. But to me, the way Atlanta's set up, yes, Real Muto makes them better. But do they need him? They're already a really good team.

Like you said, the Phillies need Real Muto. The Phillies are probably not even a good team with Real Muto. I still think they're a fourth place team in the NL East, maybe even a fifth place team in the NL East. The NL East is fascinating to me, but I just don't see Atlanta getting him. I mean, maybe I'm wrong. I read the reports as like, oh boy, eye roll. Let's drum up some more interest. Yeah, I definitely thought that was an agent leak right there. But I mean, I guess the way I could argue that it could work for the Braves is they just need another bat. And they just need to find a bat. So they are positioned in certain parts of the field where they could just move guys around. parts of the field where they could just move guys around. And I think,

I think it'd be fascinating to find out like, you know, they, one day the DH is announced, the universal DH is announced. And the next day, the Braves signed Nelson Cruz to like two, two and 30 or something,

you know, like that's, that's kind of how I see the Braves as being set up. They're waiting for the market or news or something. And then they're just going to jump and, you know, and, and just add one more bat

i mean that's that's how they're they're set or and or maybe they signed azuna yeah i mean he just fits it just fits a little better you know um so i i the the real muto thing requires like i don't i don't bet on like i don't try to make my fancy teams where i have to make two or three moves after the move i make i don't like try to just acquire a bunch of players and all trade away later because then you're depending on future things to happen and you're depending on other people to give you value and stuff like that. So the Braves would sign Real Muto and be depending on other teams to give them something for Darnell.

Right. And then sell low because teams know they need to get rid of them. So it's not AJ Preller. He's the only guy here. Like, yeah, he would do that to make three more moves. I just don't see Anthopolis doing it.

Yeah. Yeah. Preller does kind of sometimes set up the, set up the next three moves, but yeah. Like, yeah. But Darneau,

like, yeah, he's too good to, to be a backup, I think. So yeah, I don't, I don't know.

I'm also surprised that we're not getting these kind of breathless updates about Ozuna, you know? But if you don't know about Universal DH, I don't know how teams don't know this, how this hasn't been decided. But if you don't know, he's definitely the kind of guy that is going to want enough years and enough money where you can't make that commitment yet. You know, you just can't. And that's terrible for him. It's terrible for the league as a whole to not have this decided yet. Because Marcelo Azuna should at least get a contract in the neighborhood of what Nick Castellanos got from the Reds. I think Nick Castellanos got four years from them.

There were some opt-outs. But it was a big contract. It was like $18 million a year. Should the DH thing really hold up Ozuna? You can't stick Ozuna in the outfield for one year. No, he's terrible. But almost everybody thinks DH is happening afterwards. And even if there's not DH happening this year,

you're going to have some DH games because you're going to have interleague games. So you can't just stick Ozuna out there some days and then stick him with DH every time you can. I don't know. I, the Nats like, I think kind of waited in that water a little bit and he's really expensive.

And it's almost, I almost feel bad for guys like that. Cause it's almost like borderline malpractice. He could have half the league interested in him or the whole league, depending on the DH. There needs to be, and the players union. He could almost have a case for suing baseball. Yeah, and MLB should both be on this because it's like, okay, what are the rules?

15 teams don't know what's going on. They need to figure it out. I know teams that can't announce their spring training invites because no one is positive spring training is starting on time like then it's so i don't know and i think that's that's i think that's what's happening it the the dh needs to be agreed upon between the owners and the the players and i think the owners and players can't even agree on the season yet we're we're hearing a little bit of reporting on this but i think i think that's what's happening. The real problem is the owners want to postpone the season. Yeah.

That's the impression I get. And so I don't know. DH is going to have to happen after they decide when the season starts, I guess. Just to hammer home Eno's point, too. I mean, Nick Castellanos signed his deal. It was four for 64, and there was an opt-out after 2021 that was written into it. So $16 million average annual value. That was before we knew there was going to be a DH even temporarily in the shortened season that he got that deal.

And he's a horrible defender. He's just as bad defensively as Marcelo Zuna, and he's still got four years, four guaranteed years from an NL team at 16 million per. I think you can argue that Zuna is a better hitter, and he's certainly not a worse defender than Nick Castellanos, who frequently grades out near the absolute bottom in terms of his defense in a corner outfield spot. So frustrating for sure that Zuna is still looking for that next opportunity. Let's move over to Eno's piece about seam shifted wake. We teased this topic a couple episodes back.

It was a really interesting concept because I think, you know, this helped shed some light on some players who've been surprising us, or at least exceeding our expectations. Guys that are sort of defying what the advanced metrics suggest their results should look like. So, today's piece, you know, you went through a lot of different things. You

redefined it, explained it with some visuals which I thought were really helpful. What's the best way for someone who didn't hear that episode, hasn't read the piece yet to sort of approach seam shifted wake as they begin to use that as a tool in their analysis. Actually, I think the best way to describe it as deception. I think this is, this is one of the best ways to kind of maybe put a number on deception. And the best way to describe the movement that comes from these pitches is surprising movement.

So when you see Frankie Montas throw his two-seamer, he's way over the top. Everything has no wiggle. And then all of a sudden, this two-seamer has good wiggle. That's seam shifted wake. When you see, you know, it's basically movement that looks like it comes from a different arm slot. If you look at Max Fried's four-seamer, very weird pitch it's a it's seam shifted way and one of the pictures that i have i made an overlay whoo um there's a there's an overlay in there of of of of uh spencer turnbull's two four his four seam and his two seam and they had the exact same spin axis almost the same spin rate and one kind of cuts and the

other one has a decent amount of fade and that is seam shift away he's using the seams to create more movement than you would expect and I think it might be a little bit of the return of the sinker so most sink sinkers have some degree of seam shift awake. Now that we can kind of define how it's created and look at which grips create it and which arm slots work with which grips, that's what the teamwork is being done right now, then you're going to see some really good sinkers come back. And the list of people that have good seam shift awake on their sinkers is really interesting. Lance Lynn, Kyle Hendricks, Lance McCullers, Dane Dunning, Zach Britton, Frankie Montas, Corbin Burns, Alec Mills, Justice Sheffield. I mean, Ben Woodworth throws really hard, but a lot of the other ones don't and yet get good, really good results. And a lot of these guys get good results on their fastballs. You know, a lot of these guys don't even have great secondary pitches. Lenslin is

like a total fastball guy. Zach Britton has one pitch. Zach Britton has one pitch and it does really well. Jared Hughes does so much with his sinker. He year, Jared Hughes got a 14% whiff rate on his sinker, and it's a seam shifted weight sinker. So, you know, I think that this is a little way to get at deception. If you, as a hitter, you look at arm slot and you're like, oh, you look at Frankie Montas and you say, okay, this guy is over the top. He's going to have no wiggle. It's all going to be up down.

So I just need to set my eyes high and look at high and hit everything high and step off everything low. That's what I got to do today. Then you look at a guy like Jared Hughes, who throws from the side a little bit more, or Michael Givens, who has an arm slot that's way out there. And you say, okay, arm slot's out there. Everything's going to dive away from me.

Everything's just going to be low and away,, blown away. I got to get closer to the plate. I got to dive out there myself and I got to get, and I go oppo on these, right? I got to take these to the opposite field. I got to just lay these into the opposite field. And Michael Gibbons all of a sudden throws a cutter that kind of cuts in on you and you go, what the hell was that? So anything that can kind of disrupt the hitter's expectations, I think that's deception. And so I think that's a little bit where this is going. And hopefully some sinkers come back. I like sinkers. Sinkers look cool. Yeah, sinkers and change-ups, right? As you mentioned, are the two biggest pitches. What was interesting to me was that you mentioned not only are they getting more whiffs and the deception, but fewer big hits, which is something that you don't hear a lot

about, right? We talk about strikeouts. We talk about all these kinds of things. We don't, I don't ever read articles and see teams be like, oh yeah, we're limiting big hits, but it makes a lot of sense. Because for a long time, people thought it wasn't possible. They thought that you couldn't, you couldn't dampen, like basically the balls in play, we're going to do what they were going to do. You can't stop it. But we know that some pitchers give up home runs and some don't. Right. We know that's a thing.

So I expect that Marcus Stroman is going to join this list. But, yeah, the change-up list is great, too. Dallas Keuchel, Carlos Carrasco, Johnny Cueto, Zach Gallin, Luis Castillo, Pablo Lopez. It's like a list of the best changeups in the league. So, yeah. So hopefully, you know, I think that'll be a little bit of the newest wave of baseball, too, is like how much can you suppress the big hit? And should we kind of, should it not always be about the strikeout?

Should we like look at these guys and have some of these guys on staff? And you saw the Dodgers, most sinkers in baseball out of the bullpen last year. I think their bullpen philosophy was limit the big hit. Because you're late in the game. You know, if Blake Trinan gives up two singles in a row,

take him out. Right. Right. Versus the home run guys. Blake Trinan goes in and gives, yeah, yeah. Blake Trinan goes in there and gives up a big home run. I wish I'd taken him out. Right. Right. Versus the home run. And goes in and gives. Yeah. Yeah. Like trying to goes in there and gives up a big, a big home run. I wish I'd taken them out. So I think we'll see,

I think we'll see this bubble up. One of the, you know, in terms of like anybody listening for sleepers, Logan Webb and Alec Mills are two pitchers that are coming out of fairly progressive uh organizations that don't have great numbers the giants and the and the cubs though have decent um sort of tech and data behind what they're doing and logan webb and alec mills both showed up as spin mirroring their their breaking balls so they're the spin on their fastball and breaking

ball is exactly opposite and they both showed up as throwing seam shifted wake sinkers and change ups so i kind of see that some organizations already know about this and they're kind of fashioning their young pitchers especially borderline pitchers like if you have a guy like justin verlander who's just blowing everybody away like you're not going to come up to him and start talking about seam shifted wake but you got a guy like logan webb or alec mill, who's just blowing everybody away. Like you're not going to come up to him and start talking about seam shifted weight, but you got a guy like Logan Webb or Alec Mills, who's up and down. You say, Hey, let's, let's, let's, let's get your breaking balls spin mirroring and let's do this and see if we can make a four or five starter out of you.

Yeah. I mean, if you haven't checked out this article, I don't know about you DVR, but I learned a lot. I always learn a lot when you write Eno, but this was fascinating to me. Yeah, it's a cool new thing, yeah. It's the kind of stuff that if when I took physics years ago, senior year of high school, if our physics teacher had used this as an example of applications of physics, I would have done better in that class. I would have enjoyed that class a lot more. I wouldn't have just hidden the corner and looked at baseball stuff on the computer. That's more or less what I did in physics class. Donald Duck with the billiards

didn't do it for you? No. No, we didn't get that video. I would have enjoyed that. That would have worked for me. I thought everyone got that one. I got that one. There's a great link within your piece to an article from Smithsonian Magazine. It's a brief history of the baseball, and you reference it in the intro. I'm blown away at the things that they tried to make baseballs out of in the mid-19th century. I mean, in some regions, sturgeon eyes were used instead of melted shoe rubber. Like, what? What consistency do sturgeon eyes have? Like, I imagine them as being very gooey.

Like, is that the same thing as rubber? Like, what? Yeah. Even if you somehow compress them together, wouldn't the ball still be kind of like a – Smelly? It would be squishy. It would smell. It would almost certainly smell, and it would definitely have a squish to it that you don't want.

I don't know. But it was the mid-19th century. What are you going to do? They melted down shoes too. That was interesting. And then there was like a totally different look to the ball. At first, it had like a lemon peel where it was kind of like four corners put together. And like, yeah, it just like the seams came across as like a cross at the end. Right.

As opposed to like the horseshoe that eventually came to. So I think it was probably like four pieces of leather kind of put together. And then they came up with the idea of like, if we do a horseshoe, we can make two pieces of leather. But if they'd done it differently, then all this stuff would be totally different. Yeah, it's great. You know, if they had a cricket ball or that lemon peel thing,

then we would have totally different pitches in baseball. Like, we'd have totally different pitches in baseball if they had, like, used a different ball. Like, pitches would do totally different things. Yeah, I mean, there was also some part of baseball history where the pitchers were responsible for making their own ball. Pitches would do totally different things. Yeah. I mean, there was also some part of baseball history where the pitchers were responsible for making their own ball. Imagine.

Even if you had some basic constraints. This would be like this big and just like super soft and be like, yeah, hit a homer with this thing. Imagine Bauer getting to design his own ball or any pitcher for that matter. Find something that fits your hand perfectly, is weighted the way you want,

seems exactly where you want them. Extra seams. Can they do that for the all-star game though? That would be so fun. Come on. It's not worth anything anymore. They should all be able to use whatever balls they want, put whatever they want on their hand.

Let's just do it. Throw crazy pitches. I'd love to see an all-star game pitcher throw a pitch where the ball didn't leave his hand because it's too sticky. Would you make your ball out of rubber and then I coated it in honey? Why would you do that, weirdo? I made my ball out of pine tar. It's just the whole thing. I started with a golf ball.

It just sticks to the barrel and doesn't go anywhere. That's one way to deaden the ball. Yeah. What's the strangest ball you guys have ever had a chance to play a game of baseball or softball or wiffle ball with? Think back to when you were a kid or growing up, any point in your life. Because the first thing that popped into my head after reading about the alternative baseball was when I lived in Illinois, I lived there for one year as a kid. It was the year I went to seventh grade. They have this softball variant there where they use an even larger ball.

And the ball is called the clincher. So you play without a glove. It's nice because you don't need that equipment to play, so you can just show up. This particular league I played in as a seventh grader was a co-ed league, so that was cool because it was just everybody could play. And it was pretty hard to hit it because, in addition to being a larger softball, it had a good bit of squish to it. I don't think that really goes outside of the Chicagoland area all that much.

You can hit them in the outfield. I mean, I played out there, and I could hit them to the shallow part of the outfield. I've heard of this. This is pickleball, man. I'm learning about these Midwestern sports. No, I think of that weird wiffle ball that they put on TV sometimes. That, like, the curving one. Is it the one that's all dimpled like a golf ball?

Yeah, and it does, like, crazy things. And, like, I think we played a little bit with that. Over at Fangraphs, we had, God, I want to go back outside. I want to see people. I want to go to bars and concerts and restaurants. Anyway, at Fangraphs, we had a wiffle ball game one year in New York. It was pretty

legendary, and I think one of the balls was weird. But I think of that. I think it's just super curvy, and that would be kind of fun, I think. Even a wiffle ball would be kind of fun to see the major leaguers play with because um you know you know instead of the um softball game maybe like make it a wiffle ball game oh that'd be so just like crazy looking you know yeah i'd love to yeah i've never played with anything weird like a old school pitcher like try

to do yeah i like that i never had an alternative ball no i did i did play softball not college um up to high school but i also before covid we used to play my husband and i in a broomball league have you guys ever played broomball it's basically hockey we'll play that no it's basically hockey but instead of skates you have sneakers and so it's really slippery because you're running on ice and it's this soft squishy ball and it's hard to score and it's also hard to hit the ball very hard it's not like a puck at all um so yeah broom ball is kind of use a brooms or do you use you use hockey you use like hockey sticks um i don't know why they call it broom ball but it's very hard to hit this ball it's

very soft and squishy it's very hard to hit it hard and to get like any kind of arc you know where it's it can maybe go also because you're slipping and falling while you're doing it. Also true. You'll wake up with all kinds of bruises the next day. Yeah. It sounds fun. It is fun. But it sounds like a little bit of a chaotic game, especially as you're getting to learn and people just not even having a clue

how to do everything at once. Like, oh, I can actually run around on the ice and not fall down, but I actually can't hit the ball. Yeah. Oh, I can hit run around on the ice and not fall down, but I actually can't hit the ball. I can hit the ball, but I fall down all the time. Everyone's going to have a different flaw in a game like that. But yeah, the clincher, it's a 12-inch softball, by the way, and I think they make an even bigger one.

So as kids, we played with the smaller of the two. The 16-inch one, I think, is the biggest. I don't know if that's just for lumbering people that hit softballs 500 feet with metal bats normally, so they have to do something to reduce the flight, but it's wild. It's a fun game. It neutralizes skill quite a bit,

which is good, or at least forces you to do some things a bit different. One more topic to get to, the Hall of Fame. I've seen some reports and tweets especially from voting writers who don't necessarily want to vote on the hall of fame anymore and i don't really recall a time where several writers shared that sentiment at the same time before but it doesn't necessarily diverge from how I feel about the Hall of Fame,

whereas 10 years ago, every year I would look at the ballot and I'd get frustrated by people who weren't getting votes and by people who were. I've really stopped caring about it. I've found the process to be just exhausting. The Twitter fights are not fun anymore. So I've sort of checked out on the Hall of Fame or at least getting upset about it or real excited about it in any direction. So I think the question I have for each of you is, is it time to overhaul the process? Like if you have longstanding members of the BBWAA, like Ken Rosenthal is among the people who've come out and said, yeah, I don't know if I want to do this anymore. That makes you think twice about the process being any good at all, doesn't it?

Yeah. See, MLB.com for a while didn't count. Otherwise, I would have a Hall of Fame vote and I don't. And I used to be kind of jealous of all these writers that got these Hall of Fame votes, right? I'm not jealous at all. I am glad I don't have a vote. It doesn't seem fun, like you said. It's become an exhausting process of revealing your ballot, of justifying every single choice, of everybody coming at you.

And what's not fair is it's become like the we've suddenly become these writers like the the character and integrity of MLB like why do I have to determine how what like Curt Schilling is viewed in why do I have to determine whether this guy was good on the field but he was terrible off the field does that matter you know either it's to me the criteria is so clouded it's I don't know what the answer is if you don't have writers vote anymore. But I will say, I can tell you guys with certainty, my position has changed so vastly on this. To being jealous of the writers who vote and can't wait till my day comes. To being like, as soon as I'm eligible, I will decline to vote because I simply do not need this headache.

Yeah. And for me, like one of the reasons I was so excited to join the BBWA was to vote on awards and to vote on the Hall of Fame. I thought, you know, I'm coming from Fangraphs. I like I know better. I'm one of the people was yelling at people with votes, you know, just being like, oh, come on. You know, why'd you vote for that guy? Not that guy. And it's not intellectually consistent and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, and then, of course, like there's politics, you know, internal politics. So I end up with the frigging manager of the year award every year instead of something like, I would love to vote on the Cy Young. I would love to vote on the Cy Young, but maybe I don't come to the ballpark enough for some crap. So I get manager of the year, which has no metrics.

And, you know, anyway, that's a side topic, but also I'm salty about this too. Dude, I'm also salty about this dude. So I, uh, so I'm going to get it, I think next year, I'm going to get my, my vote next year. And in the, in the course of, in the middle of these 10 years that I've been waiting, they changed the rules so that you can only be on the ballot for however many years it is. 10 years or something. They change it to five or something.

They change the rules. And I did the math and I realized that Barry Bonds would fall off the ballot the year before I got a vote. And I was like, I hate you people at first. Now I'm like, well, I mean, all that would happen is I would vote for Barry Bonds and like a hundred people on Twitter would tell me to go kill myself. I would also vote for Barry Bonds, though. Like suddenly doesn't Barry Bonds' case seem much better now that we're dealing with some of the nonsense we're dealing with with some of these other guys? But Barry Bonds also has, like, domestic violence in his history. And there's, like, just a total failure of leadership from Hall of Fame.

They just want it both ways. Yes. So they want to say they have a character clause and, yes, consider character. But, you know, I'd almost prefer the NFL model where they're like, don't consider character. Because, A, we all have our own moral sort of hierarchies. And so, you know, where Curt Schilling places on this versus where Omar Vizquel versus Barry Bonds. Like, we're all going to have our own sort of moral, you know, checklist. Right.

And something I was talking about before the show with Derek, like it's my impression and there's some reporting behind this, but it's my impression from just what I know of baseball and baseball players and the way they travel and the way they live that at least more than 50% of them cheat. at least more than 50% of them cheat. They cheat on their spouses. And I've had players tell me that behind home plate, even the people who give tickets in the front office know about this. You give the wife tickets behind home plate, you give the girlfriend tickets behind third base.

Yeah, that's a well-known practice, yes. I'm known of ticket people who got fired because they put the girlfriend with the wives one time and all the wives found out who the girlfriend was and told the other wife that wasn't there that day. Right. So I am not saying that we should keep people out of the Hall of Fame for cheating. However, I'm saying that there might be somebody who has a moral checklist that says, you know, cheating, that's enough. So then are we going to incentivize reporters to go out

there and start breaking news about cheating? Yeah, I think it's a slippery slope. If you start judging character and saying only good guys are in the Hall of Fame, then a lot of good guys are coming out of the Hall of Fame right now. There's a lot good guys are in the Hall of Fame, then a lot of good, a lot of guys are coming out of the Hall of Fame right now. A lot of guys. There's a lot of bad people in the Hall of Fame.

The Hall of Fame is all of a sudden a very spacious. Steroid users. Yes. Densely violent. There's a lot of that in there. Everyone's getting out. But then it was widely accepted and more allowed back in certain generations. So how do you, you know what I mean?

Oh, this guy was sleazy. He did this, that, and the other. Okay, in 2021, what happened? Jared Porter's a great example. That happens 10, 20 years ago. Nobody bats an eye. The guy probably keeps his job. So I agree with you.

Just throw character out the window. Is he a Hall of Fame baseball player or is he not? Or be definitive. Don't do these weird Joe Morgan emails where it's like, oh, let's consider it. It's like, what are you saying? What are you saying? Say it. Right. Say it. Tell us how to vote. some of these people would come back to the table and be more excited about it because then we're having more of a debate about like what numbers are more important and and that sort of

deal but and i like listen when i vote i will probably not vote for kurt schilling um i and i also just don't i don't i don't like this uncomfortable relationship of like how good they were with how bad of a person they were. You know, like I think that Barry Bonds probably did steroids, but he did it during a time when there were no rules against it. And he did it almost in like, he did it almost because he was like, look, all these other people are doing it. I want to like, let's see what I can do while doing it. Yeah. like let's see what I can do with while doing it.

You know? And, and I think that Bud Selig, who is in the hall of fame, sort of turn a blind eye to it and allowed it to, in order for baseball to come back from 1994 and to, to, to make a bunch of money. So,

you know, I would vote for him based on that. The DV thing makes me feel really bad, but you know, I wouldn't have voted for Omar Vizquel on how good he is anyway. So the DV thing sort of, you know, and Curt Schilling is kind of right there, but you know i wouldn't have voted for omar biskell on how good he is anyway so the dv thing sort of you know and kurt schilling is kind of right there but you know all that stuff out oh ew i know well here's the thing that also bothers me you know it's like barry bond's a big part of it it is he was a jerk to the media right if he was a media darling right we would

have it would have made a jerk to me I'm trying to leave that part out. I think too many people let that cloud the judgment too. It's like, oh, he wasn't good to us. So it kind of creates that line, right? I think that's another issue is too many people that the power that you've given the media and I'm in the media, you're in the media, we're all in the media. The power that you've given to the media, it also becomes like, well, it's kind of close, but he was a jerk to me and he also has this background.

So see- I wonder if that has something to do with Jeff Kent, honestly. I think it has more to do with it than we realize. I do. Jeff Kent's numbers are pretty good, but he was pretty salty, you know? So, you know, it's weird. And there seems to be like a conflict of interest. Like, you know, it's weird. And there seems to be like a conflict of interest.

Like, you know, some news outlets don't even let their people vote for, you know, like the New York Times don't even let them vote because we do these stories. So you could be tempted to like make a vote that is a statement. You have these guys who do the blank ballot. And I just look at that. I'm just like, come on. There's not a single Hall of Famer on this list. You're stuck too far in the past. Like you don't understand. But also that makes a good story. They're in the news. They can write a piece that people will share get accused of being doing that. I've seen this, you know, in the hockey side.

I've seen like Dom. I'm not going to say his last name. Dom L. You know. Does great stuff for us. And I've seen him be accused of voting a certain way on awards to make a story out of it. And I just know he's an analytics guy, so I'm 100% sure that he just ran

the numbers and was like, this is the guy. Yeah. But, like, I'm not biased at all. But I'm saying, like, this conflict of interest creates the opportunity for people to yell at us in a new way. Exactly. You just did this to make a story.

You just voted for Barry to be able to write about voting for Barry or whatever it is. So I don't know, man. As it approaches, I've become a lot less excited about it. As somebody who's not on track at all to ever have a Hall of Fame vote, the thing that I find particularly frustrating, as someone who has consumed absurd amounts of baseball tweets from a ridiculous number of baseball writers,

ever since Twitter started to exist, part of my job when I worked at Roto-Wire was to make a list of all of you, everyone covering the game. I've followed Britt probably since her first day on the beat because I had to cover every team. And, well, see, the worst thing that you guys would do when I had to watch breaking news was spring training live game tweets. When multiple writers on the same beat would say, Chris Davis has homered here on March 3rd in this Grapefruit League game against the Marlins.

Did you just tell me the score? Yeah, it's 2-1 going into the top of the seventh. All right, Derek. I feel attacked. Number 99 is pitching. That's really not that bad. Look, I'm sure it's put holes in my brain, like staring at Twitter as long as I have.

It's part of the reason why I don't enjoy the platform that much anymore, but that's not the point. What just makes my head explode when I look at Hall of Fame ballots, not Mr. Tibbs does a good job of relaying those and tracking those. I see so many names of people who I can't even recall the last time I saw them generate a piece of content about baseball. And I'm someone that has stared into the Twitter abyss hellhole

for more than 10 years. If I don't recognize the name, I'm like, who is that person? I don't even know what media market they're from. The black ballot guy. I was like, who are you? You write about baseball? I'll search and be like,

I seriously don't remember this person even covering. I other sports too i had to watch news for baseball football basketball and hockey on twitter hundreds of writers there are people i've literally never heard of and i'm not saying this to disparage them but when those people are voting or submitting blank ballots me as a fan of baseball i I'm like, who and why? And then when you have writers like Britt, you should have a vote by now. That's ridiculous. Working for MLB should not have disqualified writers from voting for the Hall of Fame. New York Times, Tyler Kepner doesn't vote for the Hall of Fame?

It's ridiculous. That's because of the New York Times thing. But it's like, what is this? But those rules are stupid. It just completely wrecks the process. And to Eno's point, what are we trying to build? Are we trying to build the Hall of Fame just based on the best baseball players or the best baseball people? If it's the former, get rid of the morality clause.

If it's the latter, empty like 85% or 90% of the people out of the Hall of Fame. Just take them out right now because they're not going to hold up to the morality standards and the high bars that we all want to set. Part of it's a condition of being human and we suck so much at dealing with that. Like it's just the worst part of being a baseball fan lately has been watching Hall of fame debates lately. I mean like the last like five years, like the annual stuff that comes up, like who's in,

who's out. It's like, I don't care anymore. And there, and there's a number of reasons why it's a museum. It should be a museum. It's a museum and museums have bad people and good people in it. There are a bunch of artists that you go and you see their art. And so the plaque, the plaque is important. I think put these guys in and put it on the plaque if they had a failed test or if, you know, there was something else in their history that seems relevant to put on the plaque. And then, you know, people are like, oh, what do I tell my kids? Well, it's on the freaking plaque. You know, you can explain it to them. Like, it's's not on me to try to keep you from having hard conversations with your kid. I've already had the conversation about steroids and Barry Bonds with my kids. And there's six and eight.

It was okay. I didn't cry about it afterwards. You made it through? Yeah, I made it through. It's okay. You'll be all right. And to try to whitewash Barry out of the history, if it's because of DV or because of steroids,

I don't know, man. It's just a weird hole. You're going to go to a museum and be like one of the top three, two players of all time is not in here? If we weren't going to strip the Astros of their trophy, we can't. Where's the compass, right? Where where is it yeah it's a it's it's broken and it's it seems it just seems

incomplete and it's and they don't like they don't baseball just doesn't want to like say things on record he doesn't want to be like straightforward you. They kind of want to like... I didn't say that. We didn't say don't vote for steroids. Joe Morgan sent a letter. I don't know. We may have told him to do it, but you don't know that. But not on record.

So maybe just listen to Joe Morgan, regardless of why he sent that letter to everybody. Let's end today's show on a positive note. A hearty congratulations to Britt for her promotion. She is a national MLB writer for The Athletic now, which is well-deserved. We're really excited for you, Britt. Obviously very excited to have you here on the show with us each and every week as well.

So congratulations to you. I wanted to bring it up earlier, and it fits great right here because we needed something very positive to close today's show with. Thank you guys. I look forward. I hope you still have me on. Yes, congratulations. Congratulations. I look forward to collaborating

with you on some pieces in the future. In your future. Yeah, it'll be good. I mean, Eno's stuff's way too smart for me but sometimes he lets me tag along. You know a lot more people than I do. It's why we're a good match. True. So if you want to be on board to read Britt's national coverage now,

not just nationals coverage, but national coverage, $3.99 a month, theathletic.com slash rates and barrels is the URL. It gets you the best deal we have. On Twitter, she's at Brit underscore Jiroli. He's at Eno Saris. I am at Derek Van Ryper. That is going to wrap things up for this episode of rates and barrels. We are back with you on Monday.

Thanks for listening.