← Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
Effectively Wild Episode 2398: Free Agent Class is in Session
01:38:24
Ben and Meg banter about the Rockies reportedly hiring Paul DePodesta as their new head of baseball operations, another managerial hiring, MLB’s World Series ratings bonanza, the resurgence of the splitter, the Royals extending Salvador Perez,
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- [00:02]
A
We're gonna crunch those stats. We're gonna talk about baseball, sticky stuff and torpedo bats. We'll talk about it all. If you want good takes on baseball and life, just tune in to Ben and his lovely co host, Ben and Meg. It's Effectively wild.
- [00:30]
B
Hello and welcome to Epis, episode 2398 of Effectively Wild, a Fan Graphs Baseball Podcast, brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Riley of fangraphs and I'm joined by Ben Limburg of the Ringer. Ben, how are you?
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A
I'm okay. How are you?
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B
Slept for like nine hours last night, so I feel great. As I told you off mic, I feel like at least a third of my brain has grown back.
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A
And as I said, we can work with that. That's all we need to podcasts. You don't need your whole brain to podcast. People, people have listened to podcasts.
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B
Yeah, you don't need. You don't even need that much. It's kind of a brainless activity for a lot of folks. A lot of the time. We try to bring a rigor though, to effectively wild an improved standard. Has it resulted in a massive Spotify deal for us? No, but, you know, it has its benefits, it has its upsides.
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A
I work for Spotify, so I don't know if my deal is massive, but. But I'll take it. Anyway, we'll put our thinking caps on because we have some baseball to discuss and we will be jo by a second. Ben a little later on the pod. On our last episode, we welcomed on Eric Logenhagen to talk about this off season's class of international professional free agents. And this time we will talk about the domestic ones. Well, Ben also ranked the international ones, but we won't talk about them as much because we already did that. But we'll talk about this year's free agent class and some of the players Ben is higher or lower on than the consensus and this year relative to past years and how the prospect of a work stoppage in a year looms over everything. We'll get to that that shortly. But the NL west making moves. We've got some hirings here now, so be a little out of sequence because when you listen to our second segment, if you listen to our second segment, you will hear us react live to the news that the Rockies reportedly are hiring Paul D. Podesta to be their new popo. So we'll get our, our Peter Brand, our Moneyball jokes off when we're live reacting to this. Yeah, but a little slightly More substantive reaction to this here out of sequence. Rockies, they just, they always Rockies in some way to their credit. I guess they did go outside the organization and in fact, they went outside the sport entirely. They thought so out of the box that we. They thought, yeah, screw baseball. Let's just go to football and get a guy who has been working for the Cleveland Browns. You know, cream of the crop, really.
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C
You want to.
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A
You want to poach the people from the best organizations. Now, there was a time when Paul Podesta was thought to be among the class of the best baseball executives. Sure. That time was quite a while ago. And I guess that's kind of in character with the Rockies, too, that they're hiring the guy who was kind of on the cutting edge 15, 20 years ago.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Because Depot obviously was one of the lieutenants of Billy Bean with the Moneyball A's and featured in the Moneyball book and then ran the Dodgers for a while and was kind of drummed out of town there, perhaps prematurely. You know, he did some good things there. But baseball has changed quite a bit since he departed to join the Browns, which was in early 2016, and they've been Brownsing ever since. Basically, like, you know, it was. Can he be the guy who fixes the Cleveland Browns? Nope. No, he could not. They have had two winning seasons since then, one of which was behind a quarterback that they then jettisoned in order to trade for and sign to a massive contract. One of the most reprehensible and also poorly performing quarterbacks and one of the worst moves in any sport maybe made ever. Deshaun Watson trade and signing.
- [04:27]
B
So I. So, okay, so like, right here's the thing. Like there, if, if, if one were inclined to revisit like the, the early 2000s flame wars, David s tenure with.
- [04:43]
A
The Dodgers and during the Frank McCourt era also. Yeah.
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B
Being called Google Boy, as I guess.
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A
Yep.
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B
There's a, there's like a rich baseball tapestry that we could unfurl. They're not particularly relevant since, again, that happened in like, I don't know, 2004, 2005. But yeah, like his year. There's the, the moral piece of trading for and then giving to desean Watson what was at the time the, the largest contract in NFL history and the one with the most guaranteed money in NFL history. Because for, for those of our listeners who do not pay attention to the NFL, like, it's not, you know, like, not like me. You know, it's not like I'm pretty cool. You're like an expert now.
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A
Yeah.
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B
You know.
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A
Yep. I'm a sports pundit. All purpose.
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B
You're, you're, you're grinding film. You know, you watch the full slate on Sunday and then you're, you're up waiting for the all 22 to hit true media. And then you're like, I'm getting in on my true media. I'm getting in on my all 22. In football, like, contracts are not typically guaranteed the way that they are in baseball. You know, if we're just going to use a hypothetical player here, like, you know, if, if a star player, call him San Woto, were to break both his legs tomorrow and not be able to play for two years, wouldn't matter. You get paid regardless. Right. Because his contract is fully guaranteed. That's not the case in the NFL and there's all kinds of shenanigans that teams get up to and a lot of this has to do with the fact that it's a salary cap sport. Sean Watson, for those who are unfamiliar with this particular saga, was suspended during the end of his tenure with the Houston Texans because I think upwards of 20 women credibly accused him of sexual misconduct while he was receiving massages from them. He's been sued multiple times, served a suspension. He was acquired by the Browns in 2022 with the help of Adipodesi. He helped to facilitate that deal. And they traded for Watson and they sent the, the Texans their first round picks in 2022, 23 and 24, and then I think some supplementary picks in later rounds for those same years. And then Watson signed a new deal which was worth $230 million. And they structured the deal such that the first year of it came with the lowest salary because there was anticipation of additional suspension for Watson. And then Watson has proceeded to suck and then get brutally injured subsequent to that. So it has been a disaster of a trade front to back. It was a disaster from a football perspective. It was a disaster in terms of the draft capital that was to make it happen. The expense that they will be weighed down by for years to come yet. And also this guy and I feel comfortable using this expression, I will do a swear and ask to be have it left in is a piece of shit. So it's just like a bad look all around. But good news, he doesn't play baseball. So I guess that Paul Dipodesta can't reacquire him. But I'm just like, what are you do. Come, come.
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A
Yeah. And you know, he's, he was not obviously solely responsible for that or probably even primarily that's, you know, probably Jimmy has some ownership thing and DiPodesta wasn't the GM either, but he was involved with that trade.
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B
It was reported at the time.
- [08:16]
A
Yeah. So I guess the positive spin would be that his better days were in baseball. So maybe go back to his. His original specialty. Perhaps that will be better. So, yeah, I mean, Deep Desta, he definitely talked about like the dud diligence on DeShawn Watson at the time and, and how comfortable they were with that acquisition, everything.
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B
So his hints are not acquisitions came out subsequent.
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A
It's just such a. Yeah, that's bad. So look, you know, who knows what the state of his baseball thinking is or, or how much rain he will be allowed and will he be able to kind of clean house there and bring in his own people? And who would his own people even be at this point? I don't know. The Rockies still need a manager. I mean, maybe he can just hire Kevin Stefanski when. When he inevitably gets let go by the Browns. That could just kind of be a package deal. But yeah, I, I don't know. It's just. It's rare, obviously not unheard of, but fairly rare for a top ranking executive in one sport to go to another sport, but then to come back. It. It has happened, but it's like a time capsule situation. It's like, you know, who knows? Even like, I assume he's not just like, oh yeah, Bas. I haven't really paid attention to that for the past decade, but I'm sure I can get up to speed again. You know, probably he's kept an eye on baseball and he's familiar with everything that has happened while he has been away. But it does sort of seem like a. A Rip Van Winkle, you know, if you were cutting edge 20 years ago, the edge has moved quite a bit since then, but. But it hasn't for the Rockies as much as for everyone else. So, you know, if he comes back and. And introduces Moneyball ideas to the Rockies, then that could really help modernize them. I'm sort of exaggerating, but. But not really. So look, you just knew they were going to do something weird. And it does seem like the more conventional hires, they were interviewing the assistant GM of the Diamondbacks and the Guardians, and then it was reported that they either turned down an offer or they dropped out of the process. So it sounds like it was maybe mutual, but also them just not really wanting to run the Rockies. And you know, we, we talked about this when the job became available because there was this prevailing idea that, oh, this challenge be pretty seductive for a lot of top ranking execs. Like they will want to run the Rockies. They will see this as a great challenge to win in Coors Field, or at least they would, if not for just possibly being hamstrung by ownership and just the generally regressive way that that organization operates and the almost to a fault loyalty that the Rockies have employed. So perhaps it turns out that maybe that wasn't quite as coveted a position as some people were suggesting. Or maybe the Rock, you know, they just had high standards when it came to whom they could make their popo. So we'll see. You know, they never cease to surprise us. And I've said this for years that on some level I'm glad that there is still one sort of stuck in the past organization because it's, it's more fun for everyone. You know, like we are we punching down perhaps, but at least there's a punching bag because it just seems like so many other organizations, they're just moving in lockstep and they all sound the same and they're all kind of more or less looking at the same things with, with varying degrees of proficiency. But you know, philosophically they're more or less aligned. And then there were the Rockies. And so it's nice that the Rockies remain an outlier, but maybe they'll be a little less of an outlier than they were. Who knows?
- [11:51]
B
I've been a bit snarky here because we already got our jokes off. People just haven't heard them yet. But you know, I am mindful of the fact that like, their ability to attract talent is different than like the Dodgers and that they are not necessarily going to be able to pull from the same pool of people. I do think that that tends to be a little overstated. And so if only because they're. I know we joke all the time about title inflation on all of the senior executives that exist within baseball, but like there. There are only so many pobo jobs or robos or hobos or pro. What was the other one that we came up with? What was our other.
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A
Well, there was the one for if you're the head of business operations and also baseball, that's the P.O.
- [12:38]
B
Both or you could be the bisbo. No, that doesn't work. So anyway, all that to say there are only so many of those jobs. And so I do think that it's not like they can't get anyone, although they clearly had some difficulty here and So I want to be mindful of that. And I also, I want to be careful to note that, like, just because there was broad institutional dysfunction here and under resourcing doesn't mean that, like, there aren't smart people who work for the Rockies or absolutely are. So I want to be fair in, in both those regards. I don't know that you need to then hire Paul de Podesta to, like, continue to be fair in both those regards. And, you know, I don't know what kind of job he'll do. I don't know what kind of job he'll do. I have some issues with both the football and, and moral resume as it is constituted. You're right to say that those were not solely his doing, but they weren't. Not his doing either. Right. So it's. I'm underwhelmed, Ben. You know, I find myself underwhelmed because the jokes, they'll be done by the end of the day, but he'll be around for at least a little while.
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A
Yeah. I don't know if I'm underwhelmed because Rocky's adjusting what my expectations were to begin with. So I'm, I'm whelmed. You know, they, they didn't promote a.
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B
Month or so European of you. Yeah. It's like we, you know, we're sitting there and it's a real monkey's paw kind of situation. Right. Because we're like, please go outside the organization.
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A
And they're like, yeah, I don't know, maybe. Maybe the other candidates dropped out because Colorado just raised taxes on. On high income households to fund free meals for public school students. And they were just like, you know what? Nah, I don't think so. I don't think that's probably the primary impediment to the Rockies recruiting talent. I think that is more of a self own generally. But we will see. We'll see whom Depot hires. Depot Pobo. Oh, man, this is good. This is good. We've got the Pobo Depot, the Depobo. The.
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B
The Depot.
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A
We could just call him Depot.
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B
See, the pobo Depot needs to be. This is the. This is. Again, I'm not advocating for him getting, you know, another better job, but it's like, if he's going to be the Pobo Depot, if he's going to be that he needs to work for the Rangers because their stadium looks like a fulfillment center.
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A
Yeah. Well, that's the sole remaining managerial vacancy. The Rockies. So now Depot can go get whoever his person is. What.
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C
Who is.
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B
And this is. Who is his person? Is he just going to be like, how or something? Oh, my God, that would be. I don't know, something.
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A
Anyway, they hired him just in the nick of time because GM meetings start on Monday. So now they maybe have a GM to send or a popo.
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B
They should get Miles Garrett to manage the color.
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A
Yeah.
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B
There's not a ton of overlap in the season, just some. It's not like he needs to be available in October. Oh, I got another joke. I got another joke off. I got another joke off.
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A
Okay. Well, we had our fun at the Rockies expense. Now we have some kind of closure in that hiring process. And I. I did want to say, because when we were talking about managerial hirings the other day, we skipped over one Skip Schumacher, who was hired as the manager of the Rangers. And now we have another manager to add to the pile. Craig Stammon was hired to be the manager of the Rockies or of the Padres.
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B
I was like, wait a minute.
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A
That would have been. No, that's. That was not the Rockies. But it was also somewhat surprising, though I think probably less surprising than Deep Desta. But Jeff Passon, when he tweeted out this news, he said, in a season of shocking managerial hires, this one tops the list.
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B
Does it?
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A
No, I don't think it does. I would dispute that.
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B
Jeff, what's going on with you? What's going on with you, buddy?
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A
I think Tony Vitello having no major league experience of any kind and basically being an unprecedented. Yeah, yeah, that. That seems. I mean, maybe he means, like, Jeff.
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B
Doesn'T watch college baseball either.
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A
Maybe he will when his kid is playing it. But I would think that maybe he means just in the sense that, like, you could understand why they might want to hire one of the most accomplished coaches in college baseball.
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B
Sure.
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A
There's less of a resume for Craig Stammon. There's no managerial resume. It is unusual in the sense that, well, he is. He's a former pitcher, former reliever. We don't get a lot of.
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B
We don't.
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A
Pitcher managers.
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B
That's right.
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A
And between that and the fact that he also has no coaching or managing experience. Right. He was a special assistant to Preller in San Diego. But yeah, this. We've had many surprising ones to choose from. I mean, there was the Kurt Suzuki hiring, which was surprising partly for his resume, but also because it was just a one year deal and they just angel stuff, that whole hiring process. But so now this kind of fits in with what we were saying last time about there just being no mold for managers because I neglected to touch on Schumacher. But, you know, he's more traditional in that he was a major player and he's been a previous manager, and he was even a manager of the year a couple years ago, and then he was in a front office special assistant sort of role with the Rangers waiting in the wings for Bruce Bochy to retire, presumably, and sort of understood. Yeah, that was sort of, I guess, adept for him to anticipate that and. And know that there would be an opening sooner rather than later and to just slide into that spot. So that's kind of in the predictable. Yeah. Skip Schumacher, he. He fits the mold of a major league manager and Stammen a little less so. Just different experience and background and everything. But, yeah, it just really runs the gamut. Just takes all kinds, evidently, to become a major league manager. And this is the. The latest, so we'll see. I mean, yeah, I would. I would disagree with this being the most shocking. It's top two or three most shocking. But now the Rockies can say, hold my beer, hold my course, and maybe they can make an even more shocking managerial hire to follow up the deepa test.
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B
I'm telling you, Miles Garrett, there's something to this idea of mine. Um, I find the Padres managerial approaches over the years so fascinating because they do seem to, like, vacillate pretty wildly. They had Jace Tingler, which I'm. I miss being able to remind people that the Padres manager's name is Tingler every day.
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A
I know. Although it sounds like he. He may be joining the Giants staff with Tony Vitello because he was college teammates with Tony Vitello.
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B
That's fantastic.
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A
That's.
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B
What a delight. What a delightful little piece of news you just gave me, Ben.
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A
Yeah.
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C
What did.
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B
Tingler. Oh, Tony V is gonna have such crazy freaking nicknames for that guy. And so it's like you. You know, they've. They've had sort of the. The Tingler end of things. Having. I'm having fun again. I got. I got all worked up about Paul de Podesta and Deshaun Watson. Now I'm having fun again. Okay. What a nice way to end the week from a POD perspective. So, you know, you have the, like, the. The Tingler of it all. There's no. There's no unfunny way to mention him. There's no. There's no. There's no serious way. There's just. The mind reels. But you have, like, that kind of end of things, and then you have, like, the. The Bob Melvin Schilt side of stuff. And there's been sort of a back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and like what kind of a voice do you want? And we don' know what, what kind of a voice Craig Stamen's going to be in, in the locker room in the dugout because he hasn't had one before because he's, you know, at least in a coaching capacity because he's been like, you know, he's been Preller. I was about to say special boy. And that sounds terrible too. Special assistant is the, the title there. And so, you know, this would seem to be them moving at least from an age perspective and what we might assume based on experience, which might be unfair, like he could be a total hard ass, I don't know. But you know, seems to be a move back that way. And so I just find it interesting because there's been some coming and going on that roster and there will be some more this, this off season. But the core group remains relatively intact and has been bandied about from one end of the spectrum to the other. And as we talked about at various points, their clubhouses seem to be really great and happy vibes and also has seemed to be wildly dysfunctional. And some of that is sure the manager and a lot of it probably has to do with how the team was performing in any given time and you know, background concerns about payroll and what have you. So I'm, I don't know where he'll fall, where Craig Stamen will fall or how this will go, but it is interesting. I don't know if it speaks well of them as an organization to be willing to be adaptable and try something not totally new but different than what you just had or if it speaks to sort of an inability to land on something. You know, that job seems attractive, right? You sure like the roster is kind of in flux and you don't quite know where you're going to fall relative to the Dodgers. But like if nothing else, you have to live in San Diego. That seems great on big league manager money so you can actually afford to live there.
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A
Also good if anyone is interested in stats that I shared last time about the number of managers hired by one, one front office executive. I shared that on our most recent episode and AJ Preller is up there not quite at the top, but he has hired among the most managers during a single stint with one team. So you can check that out if you want to go back to it. And you know, I, I think the Rockies I think it was wise for them to maybe. I don't know if they leaked it or what, but to float the Adam out of vino rumor. Because in comparison to that, no, I would have.
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B
I would have rather they hired Otto.
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A
Really? I don't. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, they're both unusual, to say the least. But I. I think hiring someone who at least was a GM and was a front office executive for multiple teams for years, I think that is maybe a little more understandable than hiring someone who played this year and has zero experience with anything else. Really. I think this makes maybe a bit more sense than that, but I could be persuaded that it doesn't. Anyway.
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B
Wow.
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A
What.
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B
What do you think Paul De Podesta's familiarity is with the notion of the reliever familiarity effect? You know what I mean?
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A
I mean, like, you know, if he was listening to national broadcasts with John Smoltz in the most recent postseason, he.
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B
Probably had them muted.
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A
Well, maybe.
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B
Look, I think that, like, he's made some morally dubious choices as an executive. I don't think that he's a. Not saying that he probably had it muted.
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A
I'm gonna guess he has maintained some attention. I bet he's. He's reading the blogs.
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B
They even know to ask him about that?
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A
Well, that's another. That's a separate question. Yeah, yeah, that's.
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B
People would. But ownership, I mean, like the front office, people would know.
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A
If he has been out of touch with baseball and fallen behind, then they would not necessarily be the best equipped to assess. That is the thing. So maybe they. They're a good match in that sense. I did see it reported this week that in advance of the wbc, there will be a couple days of exhibition contests between WBC teams and MLB teams. So, yeah, I think that'll be fun. March 3rd and 4th. So you get like Great Britain versus the Milwaukee Brewers.
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B
That's great.
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A
You get Cuba versus the Kansas City Royals. You know, it's just. It seems fun. And I guess in some of those cases, you'll get guys on WBC rosters playing against their teammates in. In major league camp, I guess.
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B
Right.
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A
But. But one that stood out to me. On Wednesday, March 4th, we get the United States versus the Colorado Rockies. It seems like a slight mismatch. And, you know, I can't imagine that many Rockies will crack the US WBC roster, but I like the idea of just the entire country's worth of stars going up against the Colorado Rockies in Scottsdale. You know, you could go. You could take in that game in person, perhaps, and seems like, yeah, slightly lopsided. I don't know if that's even a tune up. Is that really the warmup that you want going into the wbc? Yeah, we'll just test our mettle against the Colorado Rockies before we take on the Dominican Republic or Japan or somewhat. You know, it just doesn't seem like the. The best match when it comes to the caliber of competition. But I also wanted to say when we talked about factors from the postseason that other teams could pick up on that might be influential and might shape how rosters are constructed or anything, one thing that maybe we could have mentioned is splitter usage. Just because that was such a story this postseason and the splitter usage was way up relative to any previous postseason on record. And that's a product of the personnel, obviously. Like, that's just. You happen to have Kevin Gossman, Andrea Savage and Yamamoto and Ohtani and Jeff Hoffman and all these people who are very splitter forward. They were all just up until the World Series, they were throwing tons of splitters. So, yeah, that reflects just the. How it, it shook out, how the cookie crumbled. More so than everyone suddenly decided that splitters are great, but splitter usage is, is up. It was a record this past season in the pitch tracking era, 3.3%, you know, during the regular season, and 3% the season before, which was up from 2.2%, which was up from 1.6%. So the splitter usage has more than doubled in the past couple years. It's just doubled to still a very low percentage. But, but seeing those guys strut their splitter stuff on the postseason stage and have great success with it, in some cases, I think you might get some, some teams or, you know, maybe it'll be like there's a pitch that's in vogue every year, or maybe this year it was just about having lots of pitches. So we'll probably get some. When spring rolls around next year and the WBC squad is playing the Rockies, we'll probably get some. I'm working on the splitter stories. You know, I think that'll happen. And, and some of like the classification sometimes is that entirely consistent across the span of time? Perhaps not. And, and Rob Nyer believes that what we call splitters are, are in many cases what we used to call fork balls. And so there's always that squishiness. But yeah, the, the splitter is kind of coming back to the four. I guess after there were some fears about maybe the impact that it would have on arm health, et cetera.
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B
So, yeah, splitters.
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A
And many, many people were watching everyone throw those splitters because we got the ratings, of course. We got a press release from MLB bragging about the ratings in the World Series specifically. And the ratings were bonkers. It was a ratings bonanza. Many, many people tuned in to watch the World Series and especially game seven. So game seven had 51 million average viewers. So that means even more. We're probably watching it at the peak or over the span of the game, and that's in the US And Canada and Japan combined. It was the most watched MLB game globally in 34 years. And it was just for the entire World Series. 34 million average viewers combined in those three countries. Most watched Fall Classic globally since 1992. Largest World Series viewership outside the U.S. in history. And, you know, like 18 million in Canada and Japan on average. And, you know, healthy ratings in the U.S. of course, too, like 16.1 million on average for the entire World Series. And, you know, it helps that there were seven games, obviously, because the stakes rise as the series goes on and more people tune in to watch those climactic, decisive games at the end. So long series gonna translate to higher ratings and having the Dodgers in there with the LA market and having Toronto in there with the Canada market. So, you know, I've seen a lot of people comparing MLB World Series to NBA Finals and showing that the MLB ratings were far higher than the NBA ratings this year and also last year. And I don't get into too much of the sport exceptionalism, hey, our ratings are higher than your ratings kind of conversation, I guess, partly because MLB does not usually get the best of that conversation or hasn't during the time that I've been covering the sport. And so this is kind of a corrective. It's just, hey, don't sleep on Major League Baseball and, you know, don't anoint the NBA as the second most popular league in this country. MLB absolutely holds its own. Not just when you add up all the local ratings, but even now in the national ratings. And, you know, obviously the, the NBA matchup in the most recent Finals was OKC and then the Pacers. You know, it wasn't like the biggest market, so it's not apples to apples, obviously, but Canada came through, obviously, and Japan did too. And we've talked about just the, the share, like the percentage of the population that watches, say, the WBC in Japan, and how there's a perceptible uptick in toilets flushing, you know, like during the commercial breaks. Because so many people in the country are, are in unison watching these games. And I've been kind of envious of that, really. Like, I, I wish that we had that atmosphere in the US where they're just. There's so many sports and so many teams and so many people and so many interests that you're never going to get that kind of monolithic attention the way that you used to. But in Canada, for instance, Game 7, I think, averaged about 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and 18 and a half million Canadians watched some of the game. It peaked at around 14 million at any one time. And there are 41 million Canadians, period. And across the seven games, 23 million Canadians.
- [31:31]
B
Amazing.
- [31:32]
A
Watched, watched baseball. And who knows if that's even fully, completely accounting for people watching in group settings. They do make some effort to correct for that. But, you know, if you have a bunch of people in a sports bar or whatever it is, are you fully measuring that? So the majority of the population was watching that World Series. And that's, that's fun. I wish we, we had that. We didn't quite have that. But this World Series did give a sense. You know, I got that sense of like, oh, this is kind of broken containment. Like, people are paying attention to this in the general culture and it snowballs and it builds on itself. Because when, you know, you have attention worldwide like that, then you get more news stories, you get more coverage. You get more people who normally wouldn't be watching or who were casual fans at most, and they're saying, oh, well, I know someone who's watching and I better pay attention to this so that I can talk about it and know what's going on. And it just, it builds. There's kind of like a tipping point where it feels like you have to pay attention to this even if you wouldn't normally. And it did feel like MLB briefly got there.
- [32:33]
B
Yeah.
- [32:33]
A
In this series. So that was fun.
- [32:35]
B
Yeah, I agree. It felt I'm generally content with baseball to, like, occupy whatever niche it does. I think it occupies more than a niche, but, like, I appreciate how it is different in terms of its broader, like, cultural impact than, say, the NFL. Right. But I, I thought it was just so fun. Like, there were a lot of people on, like, Blue sky who were post, who I do not follow for baseball, who were posting about the game and seemed like they were having a good time. And it's a beautiful sport and it's nice when people can enjoy it. It just had a good kind of vibe to it. And it was an exciting series as we discussed. So I thought that it like, it put, it put the sport in a place of cultural primacy that it hasn't been lately. And it was a lot of fun. And I thought it like, you know, kind of like showed well.
- [33:30]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [33:30]
B
I was like, look at our, look at our sport. We're so beautiful and talented. We've got just the sweetest, you know, most beautiful time. And that was, that was a lot of fun. I thought that that was pretty great. I did have the thought and this is probably a longer conversation, so we can save it, but, you know, it's like this, this was so successful and everybody wanted to watch. And it feels, it does feel like even with all of the complication that the RSN collapse has caused in terms of people's ability to watch games, it also has opened it up for some folks and people are going to the ballpark. We get. Feels like every other day we get a press release about how many people went to a game, blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, not today because no one's going to games here today because it's November 6th. But, you know, it feels like the sport has really recovered and gained relative to where it was, you know, in the days sort of immediately after the pandemic or in the stretch immediately after the lockout where, you know, it was just like two back to back, like kind of cataclysmic events. I don't mean to equate them in terms of their broader impact, to be clear, but in terms of their impact on the sport, like two, you know, kind of damaging events. And it feels like the sport is in a really good spot. And so I sat there and I thought, owner's really going to want to risk all that by locking out folks, you know, it. And I think if they're determined to try to break the union and get a cap, they're going to do what they're going to do. And you know, the sport feeling like it's in a good spot on Blue sky is no more dramatic a driver for the next set of negotiations than like the Dodgers winning the World Series. But, you know, it's like you're in a good place. And I think that, you know, gate receipts are like, low key, more important now than they used to be because of the uncertainty in the TV market. And it's like you really want to risk on that, like maybe you don't have to.
- [35:30]
A
Right? Yeah. These are hard numbers and actual data, but subjectively and nebulously it does seem as if MLB has sort of shook the reputation, the stain of a sport in decline, which was just the predominant narrative about baseball. Well, forever, really, but especially lately. And there was some truth to it on a national level, certainly, and it was always a bit overblown, but it was just kind of tiresome. Again, like, we don't think everyone needs to love baseball, and plenty of people, enough people love it for it to be sustainable, but it. It did. It was a drag to just constantly be reading and hearing about how the thing that you both love and follow for fun, but also cover professionally. It's just like circling the drain, essentially. And now it sounds like things have changed and everyone's saying, hey, baseball. And people are checking that out. Again, the youths are into this.
- [36:20]
B
Yeah.
- [36:21]
A
You know, have things completely changed? Not as much as people are saying, but. But no, there. There is a vibe shift, and it's not purely a vibe shift. It's. It's also a measurable shift, but it. It's. It's welcome because we haven't. We haven't had this. It's so often doom and gloom surrounding mlb, and now things are cheerier and more upbeat, and we'll see if they continue to be. And, you know, if. If you. If you want massive ratings, I guess forget expansion. What if we go the other way? Contract 29 teams so that everyone has to watch one team or contract 28. Canada can keep its team.
- [36:58]
B
I was gonna say, who are they gonna play?
- [37:00]
A
Yeah. Contract, contract 28. And then there's just one US team. And then we can have one team per country and massive ratings. Can you imagine the ratings if everyone is watching one team in the entire country? I think I just reverse engineered. I just reinvented the WBC and the Olympics. I just invented the concept of. Of international competition.
- [37:22]
B
But then they have to play the Rockies, so.
- [37:24]
A
Yeah, that's the catch. Okay, well, we'll get to Ben. Yeah.
- [37:29]
B
Yes. Before we get to Ben, because it will be relevant to our conversation with Ben, which he, of course, didn't know when we recorded that conversation. We are coming back from the future. So much. Thirteen players have received a qualifying offer. Is this the full list?
- [37:44]
A
Looks like it. Kyle Tucker. Kyle Schwaber.
- [37:48]
B
Sure. You can read it. I was gonna read it.
- [37:50]
A
Go ahead, go ahead.
- [37:52]
B
From Valdez. Dylan Cease. Ranger Suarez. Edwin Diaz. Zach Allen. Shota Imanaga. Michael King. Trent Grisham. Trent Grisham surprises me a little bit.
- [38:00]
A
Yeah.
- [38:01]
B
Anyway. Yeah, I. I just. I'm just saying he might say yes to that. Gleyber Torres and Brandon Woodruff Griff. Also surprising to me. You might say yes to that too.
- [38:11]
A
Well, those 13 guys have the option of accepting $22.025 million for next season, but most of them won't. But maybe a couple of them will. All right. And I'll just give a recommendation. Also, because we're talking about this looming work stoppage situation. I think it's. I don't have a whole lot to say about it yet because these are sort of developing stories. But if you want to just bring yourself up to speed with all the issues and all the stuff that's confronting the parties and the Players association and everything, there were a couple stories that surfaced either during or after immediately after the World Series. And so they didn't get a ton of attention. But I'll link to reports. There's a report at ESPN by Don Van Natta Jr. And Jeff Passon about how the feds are investigating the mlbpa. This has been kind of like an ongoing thing, but there were some details. There's this like, like for profit venture called Players Way that's supposed to essentially like promote live events for kids and baseball stuff for, for youth players. But it hasn't done a whole lot and yet there's been a lot of money that the MLB PA has put into there. And so there's some question of like, is this some sort of self dealing that's going on? Is like, you know, is there nepotism? Are these execs and Tony Clark and others kind of of funneling money to themselves or, or others by kind of having this front almost, which is not really doing very much. So you know, that's being investigated and we will see what comes of that. Could turn out to be a nothing burger. Could turn out to be a big scandal. But yeah, there's a lot of intrigue at the Players association and you know, we'll probably have to get like Evan Drelic or someone on at some point to break down all of that. The power struggles for the union, like can they get their house in order before they have to go head to head with mlb, which will probably start this offseason. And then there was also a story about an agent named Jim Murray who was banned for a few years because he was essentially a mole. Like he was feeding information to Rob Manfred and and executives at MLB. This was in 2020, especially like when they were, you know, negotiating a big about how and when to open up the game again. And Jim Murray was basically like giving information to MLB and helping MLB craft its proposals and like seemingly being on MLB's side in everything despite being a player representative, it's, it's kind of enlightening. Just, you know, I'll, I'll link to Evan's story on it, but just to see like all the back and forth and all the, you know, just like, like trying to find out information about what's going on on the other side and some of the sort of nefarious stuff that, that people get up to here. So, you know, it's high stakes and it's, it's inherently pretty adversarial. And so there's just a lot that goes on here sort of beneath the surface. And, and it's good to, to read up on this stuff just to see where things stand as all of this starts to, to come to a head. So I'll, I'll link to those on the show page. Maybe we'll do a deeper dive as those stories merit at some point in the future. And also just want to shout out Salvador Perez and his extension with the Royals because I, you know, like there's a baseball. There's a purely baseball case to be made for extending Sal.
- [41:31]
B
Sure.
- [41:31]
A
It's, it's mostly just that like, they just want him to be on that team and, and he wants to be on that team and he's a leader and he's a fan favorite and he's meant a lot to that organization. And so, you know, there was one point where they had a super team friendly extension with him and then they kind of tore it up and just made it more player friendly. And now they have extended him into 2027, which they didn't really need to do. You know, like there was an option for 2026 and, and they just did the thing where they add on a year essentially and then it's a lower aav. But given his age and, and defensive performance and on base issues and everything, despite still slugging, he's, you know, wouldn't have been super in demand probably to the point where they needed to like sign him to an additional year right now if they were just trying to be efficient spending wise. But that's clearly not the priority with, with him. And you know, he can be the bridge to Carter Jensen, the, the catcher of the future and they've got a bunch of other younger catchers in the mix, but, you know, and who knows, he might just DH a lot more, play first base a lot more. That might be, be best for him and for the organization, but, but I. I kind of like that. You know, it's just like, there's a point where loyalty becomes counterproductive. We talked about the Rockies already, but. But with Salvi and. And the Royals, it's kind of nice, you know, it's just like, who doesn't want Salvi to, you know, now if he, like, completely collapses as a player, then I guess there's a point where you can be a little too loyal to a player, too, if you're still giving them playing time. But if you just want to say, you know what, you've meant a lot to us, and we want you to be a career royal, and so why the heck not? You know, we're not trying to win the. The AAV Awards here. We're trying to keep Salvador Perez in. In our team. So it's. It's unusual, I think, how they handled that, and I kind of. I'm charmed by it.
- [43:26]
B
Yeah, it felt like a throwback, and it feels very consistent with sort of the way that they have conducted themselves as an organization in the past. You know, I think that we could pick knits. There have been times to your point where, like, the loyalty has. Loyalty can kind of get away from you. And I won't say that it's always been done perfectly, but they do have a reputation for, like, treating their people well, and this feels like a continuation of that theme. So. Yeah.
- [43:56]
A
All right, well, let's take a quick break and we'll be back with other banners to talk free agents baseball, podcast.
- [44:05]
C
Analytics and stats with Ben and Meg from Fan Grass.
- [44:30]
A
Okay, we are back, and we have doubled our Ben quotient because other Ben. Ben Clemens has joined us fresh off of his 2026 top 50 MLB free agents. Technically, it's not 2026 yet, but we knew what he meant. The free agent class will stretch into 2026, and the way things are going, probably a lot of free agents won't sign until 2026. He is one of our top ranking guests by total appearances and guest quality, too. You would hope that those things are correlated. He's Ben Clemens. Hello, Ben.
- [45:06]
C
Hey, Ben. How's it going?
- [45:08]
A
Okay, so this is the fifth year of your labors when it comes to free agent rankings. And as you noted at the top of your piece, not the sexiest top of the list this year. That's. It's not a commentary on Kyle Tucker's appearance or raw animal magnetism or anything like that, but just compared to the past few years where we had Judge and Ohtani and we've been spoiled.
- [45:33]
C
I think the last three years are. They're the three biggest free agent deals ever, right?
- [45:37]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [45:39]
C
And that can't. And they were increasing every time too, and to really ridiculous numbers. So it makes you think that. But no, Kyle Tucker is not as good as those guys.
- [45:48]
A
Yeah, he's gonna do well, but I don't think he's gonna. He's not gonna top the Soto contract, I don't think. Well, as you noted, even though you had Kyle Tucker number one, which just about everyone will, I imagine there are some reasons why he won't top the aforementioned trio and partly they're related to his performance, but I guess mostly they're related to his recent availability. So what kind of concerns might you have if you were one of the teams that's considering breaking the bank for Kyle Tucker?
- [46:19]
C
Yeah, I mean, I think one thing really interesting about Tucker is he really broke out to a new level in 2024 and people thought, oh, like, hey, maybe he will be in that Soto kind of level of free agent. Well, probably not Soto, but like get a Judge kind of deal. And then he's just been hurt. You know, he missed the majority of the 2024 season. I remember he. He broke his toe, I believe on like June 2nd. And I was talking to Meg because we were writing an article the next day and he's like, I will be back in a few days. I am day to day. Then he missed three months. It was really bad. Breaking your toes, like very tough for baseball. And then he had some injury concerns this year. His hitting took a little bit of a step back, although it's hard to tell how much of that's from injury. But basically the upshot is that, I don't know, Tucker is now a. A 29 year old guy who's a very good hitter, 40% above average for his career, had that same stat line last year and might even have upside above that. But he also hasn't played that much and that puts you in an awkward situation because, you know the Judge deal. Yeah, Judge has had some injury and availability concerns in his career and even has since signing his deal. But when he plays, he's the best player in baseball and Tucker just hasn't done that enough, I feel like, to get into that class of like crazy good contracts. But he has been really good. I mean, he's been kind of the power average combo that you want. It just he hasn't put that together for a length of time while healthy. And so I think his deal is going to Reflect that.
- [47:49]
B
Another thing that you noted and that I was struck by as we were starting to vet out the list is just. This is, I think, the second year in a row where it is largely dominated by pitchers. There are a number of very good hitters and we can talk about some of the other ones beyond Tucker, who I imagine will be paid and paid handsomely. But there are a lot, there are a lot of pitchers on here and you've noted it as part of a trend. What do you think is driving sort of the prevalence of the most injury prone of positions being so dominant here?
- [48:20]
C
I mean, that's actually one good way to think about it is that teams need a lot of pitchers, but I look every year at the top 50 contracts signed to get an idea of who teams think are the best players.
- [48:32]
B
Yeah.
- [48:32]
C
As opposed to who I think are. And, and almost always two thirds are pitchers. That's been the case for the last three or four years. And it's like a trend, it's heading in that direction. My take on it is that teams often feel pretty good about using their farm system to get decent value on the position player side, particularly like up the middle positions and defense positions or platoon DH's. There's these roles that teams think they can fill okay. From their minor league system system. But one of those roles is not like high leverage relief farm or medium leverage relief farm or starter who we think can go every five days. Those are really hard to find in your farm system. Obviously every team is using all they can, but they're just not making enough reliable ones. And that's how you end up with World Series teams who don't trust their bullpens.
- [49:20]
A
Yeah, I've been waiting for top pitchers to start making less money. Not that I'm hoping for that. I'm like, when will they finally stop paying these pitchers so much? But I do wonder about that just because. Because top pitchers tend to be less valuable than the top pitchers of yore because they just don't pitch as much. We had three guys make it to the 200 inning threshold this past season and barely. They were all about one start away from not doing so. Maybe next year will be the year when we have no 200 inning guys. And so I guess as long as.
- [49:52]
B
Logan Webb's around, but.
- [49:53]
A
Well, hopefully, yeah, but even he was at 2:07, you know, barely cleared it. So I keep thinking, okay, sure, you need just as many innings to get through a season as before and just as many starts. And so you still need just as much pitching and maybe that pitching is harder to come by as you said, in some ways, although in other ways I guess it's easier. But I keep expecting that that will lead to a decline in just the per player value or the average annual value for the pitcher contracts. And it just, it doesn't really seem to be the case. And I don't know whether that's because like the entire pitching class has gotten less durable. And so if you're still relatively more durable than other guys, then you're just still going to get paid a lot even though you're not as durable as the previous generation of pitchers. How do you sort that all out?
- [50:45]
C
I see it as basically being a replacement level thing, which is that yeah, you're covering less innings now for sure, but the innings of the guy who would replace you have gone down commensurately and perhaps even more. Teams just don't really use bad starters for 150 innings anymore. They just can't. And those guys don't seem to be able to take it. Additionally, I think more money is just generally flowing into free agency pitching. That's kind of what this trend is saying. And so they are paying the other guys more too. They're just putting more money into the pie overall is what I'd say. Like instead of the top pitchers contracts going down, they're kind of remaining stable while teams pour money into the seventh inning guys and the fifth starters.
- [51:28]
A
One pitcher who is not on your list, though I imagine he was until shortly before publication. Feel free to share the story of last minute revisions that Shane Bieber forced you to make. But that was one of the surprises this week of the various option pickups and everything. Shane Bieber exercised his $16 million option to stay with the Blue Jays. He had a a $4 million buyout.
- [51:54]
C
And this was actually a $12 million option.
- [51:56]
A
Yeah, true. And you would think that he would have been in line for much more money on the open market, having returned from Tommy John surgery, pitched pretty well for the Jays down the stretch, made starts in the World Series like, you know, that typically suggests that you're pretty important pitcher and that people will pay more for you than that. So do you think this was just Bieber loved being a Blue Jay, as a lot of Blue Jays seem to this season, or was there more to it than that? Was he forecasting a light market or something?
- [52:25]
C
He may have been. I don't really know. And I will say that, I mean luckily Shota Imonaga unexpectedly becoming a free agent did a nice little Panic. But it doesn't matter because 12 hours later, here's a new person to replace Bieber. That was pretty cool.
- [52:39]
B
And just like at a convenient time, Shoto did it. You know, he was like, hey, I know that you're very busy and you kind of got stuff to do and you don't want to do HTML surgery. I'm just going to announce this so you have time to write a blurb and considerate. It was very rude, Shane. You're not worth it.
- [52:56]
C
But yeah, I, I definitely had a little bit, a little moment of panic. I thought Bieber was going to get like a two year, 16 or 17 million dollars a year contract. I talked with Meg about whether I should lower pitchers in that kind of tier. Brandon Woodruff is the guy who had given the same contract to and I kind of thought that's like the going. It's basically the contract that Bieber had this year which is like a two year deal for not a huge average annual value but some kind of player protection. Either an opt out or some kind of escalator clause on innings. Jack Flaherty had the same deal and I basically thought that's what Bieber would get. I think that's what Woodruff will get. I'm very surprised that he decided to stay. He might just like being a Blue Jay. He might want to hit free agency, not have one of these gimmicky deals like just hit it after pitching for a full year in the same place that he's used to. Like this could be a smart long term deal. But I definitely don't think he's maximizing.
- [53:52]
B
His 20, $26 sort of shifting to back to the position players for a second. How, how did you think about some of the like talented but flawed guys in concert with one another? So we ended up with, you know, Schwaber and Pete Alonso sort of back to back. How did you think about those two guys and their skill sets in relation to each other, the deals they might sign and sort of just generally how do you imagine teams are going to think about sequencing some of these contracts? Because you make the note the point in the introduction to the piece that in part because he is a less sort of generational talent than Ohtani or Judge or Soto, was that that Kyle Tucker doesn't seem likely to hold up the market the way that those guys did. The teams that were in on Ohtani weren't doing other business until they knew that they were going to get him or not. Whereas Tucker is a good free agent and likely to Sign a large deal but isn't going to be the top of everybody's list. There might be other guys are sort of parallel pathing with him. I'm curious how you think the timing of the market is going to shake out, particularly for guys like Schwaber and Alonso, where there's a sort of similarity of profile and flaws attendant with both.
- [55:09]
C
Yeah, I actually think that theirs will be fairly straightforward and that won't be the case for most players on this list. And we can maybe talk about some of the downstream effects of that later. But almost every team can just plug in Kyle Schwarber or Pete Alonso. You know, like maybe the Dodgers can't because they have Ohtani, but it's not like that hard. There's a lot of contending teams who would like to have just pure offense in a camp and Schwaber and Alonso are like really good bets to provide that for you. The reason I have them kind of back to back is they both seem like they're going to do similar stuff. I probably prefer Schwarber for a one year deal, but Alonso's two years younger and you know, Alonso is not bad. Like you can, you can feel really confident that he's going to give you like very solid offense and a lot of power with it. So. So I think both of those guys are going to have a pretty robust market and both of them have this nice thing going for them. I think particularly Alonso in that the team that is like the team that's losing them probably needs someone in that role and there aren't that many guys in that role who are available this winter. Like if you're the Mets and you don't resign Pete Alonso and you also don't sign Schwaber, it's like kind of awkward to add offense, like, right, are you gonna get like Josh Naylor that's not as good and then like he's not as good as those guys and then try to plow the savings into, I don't know, like, are the Mets signing Alex Bregman? There's aren't a lot of options for big bats and Alonzo fits pretty cleanly there and also will have a good market away. So I think that both of those guys are going to like you said, they might be parallel track fact for some teams. With Kyle Tucker, I was thinking about this, like if you already have kind of average corner outfielders, that's like Tucker has had some good defensive seasons, but I don't know, he's been hurt a lot and I just wouldn't necessarily project him as a great corner defender going forward, but. So if you already have average outfield defenders, how different is Tucker from Kyle Schwaber in terms of defensive value? It's like that's honestly kind of zero. Even though our sheets don't say that if you have good alternatives that you'd be happy playing in the outfield. So I think a lot of teams are going to be like, yeah, we'd love to sign any of these great hitters and we'll figure out something to do with them. And the way that they'll go is just like Schwarber's the oldest, so if you want him for just a few years, he'll probably be your preference. And then Alonso's in the middle, although I really think he's going to stay with the Mets. It's just a hunch, but it just feels right. Right. And then Tucker is the guy that if you want, like, you need a new cornerstone. I think teams who don't have good outfielders will just be the massive leaders for Tucker.
- [57:52]
A
Basically, yeah, you are projecting Alonzo to do better than he did last year. We talked about whether this would be the case. Obviously last offseason didn't go quite the way he had envisioned it and perhaps he had unrealistic expectations in this era, but nonetheless. And then he had a bounce back. He started great and then kind of cooled down, but ultimately it ended up being his best offensive season in a while. But also he's a year older because that's how time works and he is still essentially the same player profile. So why do you think things will go a bit better for him this time?
- [58:26]
C
The main reason is that I thought they'd go better for him last time. Yeah, I think that last time a lot came down to the fact that the shape didn't look great, that 2024 was his worst season and. And it was easy to say that it was his worst season because of variance. And I kind of think it was his power played down, but not in a way that made you think he had less power. He still had a pretty high, consistent with his career average barrel rate. Most of the stuff looked fine, but he was ticking down and he was about to turn 30 and the market wasn't as good as he thought. I feel like he was kind of hoping to get a really godfatherish offer from the market. Mets, they add Sodo and then they want everybody to feel good and they give Alonzo a big deal and it kind of fell apart and he had to take Basically a pillow contract and a like, hey, if you're actually only a 120 weighted runs created plus hitter instead of 140, maybe we can't give you a big $100 million deal. And then he like rebounded. I don't think he got better. I just think that 2024 was one of those random down years that just happens, right? Like sometimes you, you just don't play as well. Not everyone has the same performance every year. And I basically think that this year, now that it's pretty clear that that wasn't the start of a new trajectory and he's gone, he's just going to be able to get back to the deal that he wanted because if he, if the Mets knew he would play like this this year, they would have offered him that deal last year.
- [59:47]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. One somewhat surprising thing is that you have one spot below on your ranking, Pete Alonso, Boba Shet, which would probably seem a little low to most people, I'd imagine. And your ranking is a personal ranking, to be clear. And you do have him with the second highest predicted contract total. So why the disconnect between the predicted contract and your actual ranking?
- [60:15]
C
So this is the, this is one that is definitely going to stand out the most. And I spent a long time, I guess I do two things. I project the contracts, which is pretty model based and then I go take a bunch of passes like actually reading like specifics about their each market and then separately I try to rank who I like the most. And I talked a little bit with, with Eric Longenhagen about this and I talked a little bit with some other people who I go back and forth with during this exercise and I just don't know what to do with Bichette. Like he looks pretty good in the playoffs, but you know, limited obviously. Like he was clearly like really hurt. They, they were pinch running for him all the time. Mean like he played second base but not notably well or anything. He looked hurt. His foot speed was shockingly slow. But that trend has been going for a while actually. Like it's not new this year. He's been kind of slowed by injury. I think he's going to hit, like, I'm almost certain he's going to hit. I have no idea if he's like, you know, Jorge Polancos like level offense going forward as a second baseman who can hit or is he going to play shortstop again? And I basically just thought the guys who I have in front of him. So Alonso and Schwaber just, no question I don't have any doubt that they're going to do exactly what I put them on my team to do. Cody Bellinger I just think is a really nice free agency case. Then two great pitchers in Franber Valdez, Dillon Cease, Alex Bregman and Kyle Tucker. I just don't have questions about those guys in the same way. And it felt really weird for me to rank Bichette ahead of any of them given that that I do think he's going to get more money. He's younger, like I, I mentioned it in my kind of commentary on it, but his comps are all really good. You can lean down and shade down on all of them and he's still going to get a big contract. He's a young shortstop who hits for power and average like those guys just get paid. I just couldn't talk myself into, if I were a team wanting that, wanting Bichette more than these seven names. That doesn't mean I think he's like, you know, not good or anything. And I think he'll get that money. The other guys just felt more likely to do the thing that I wanted than he did. And that's actually also why I had Ranger Suarez down at 9 is kind of the same deal. I thought the other two pitchers I'm more in on. And I said, would I rather have Boba Shet or Ranger Suarez? And I went, oh, Boba Shet, okay, so like, great, there's the line. And so I kind of used him like that.
- [62:42]
B
I am often surprised. I guess I shouldn't be surprised at this point, but I am often struck by the way that reliever free agent contracts seem to continue to defy sort of a straight dollars per war calculation. The top arms just get paid well in part because of the value that they bring in the post season if they're healthy. And you have the top two relief arms on this list stacked the way that I think most people would expect, where we have Edwin Diaz and then Robert Suarez, but then right behind Suarez you have Devin Williams and Ryan Helsley. And I'm sure Yankees and Mets fans listening to this are like, what's that about? Because they were very bad at the at points this year and very bad at the end of the year for Helsley. So talk about the sort of thinking there because I think you, and you note this in the intro, you are a little higher than consensus on those two guys in particular. How did you think about their placement on this list?
- [63:37]
C
Those are the two guys I think kind of stand out and that's because I think that both of them are, are going to be quite good relievers going forward. Just trying to figure out what went wrong and it's like really hard. I just don't know. If you look at like Helsley's raw stuff in 2025, it was like basically the same. His command was like not terribly bad. He wasn't even that bad on the Cardinals, you know. And then he just went to the Mets and imploded just inexplicably. I. I cannot figure it out. He said he was tipping pitch wishes. I don't really know if that was true. Then he started getting shelled with the base is empty. It was very strange season. But I basically think that the stuff there and with Williams as well is good enough that. I don't know. Relievers have weird years and I can't explain why, but guys are very up and down. Some of it's just like the lack of innings that, you know, you can get a smaller sample in every year. But I just feel comfortable with those guys as being like probably the best bets to be good relievers in 2026. No reliever that you can get, aside from, I think Edwin Diaz, which is why he's clearly ahead of them. And Suarez is kind of a different case. He has been extremely up and down. He just happens to be up right now. But no reliever that you're going to sign this year other than Diaz is like, oh yeah, he'll definitely be good. There's no way. All these guys have crazy ups and downs and I just like, like kind of the, the building blocks of Williams and Helsley a lot. It doesn't hurt that I feel like you won't have to give them a four year deal, right? They won't want a four year deal. Honestly, like they're going to want one of these deals that lets them test free agency again if they're good. I just think that the stuff is so good and that the past results are so good that I'd be willing to look through A really down 2025.
- [65:21]
A
We talked to Eric last time about the four international players, KBO and PB who are on your list. Munetaka, Murakami, Kazuma, Okamoto, Tatsuya Imai and Cody Ponce. We talked to Eric plenty about those guys from a scouting perspective. Less so from a contract perspective or potential fit perspective. So with Murakami, where do you see him landing? Or at least how do you see his market shaping up given the incredible power potential. But some of the contact concerns.
- [65:52]
C
I had a lot of trouble trying to figure out what the market for Murakami should be. I think the questions about how he'll be able to hit in the majors being real are scary. Right. For someone that you're going to almost assuredly be giving more than $100 million plus posting fees. But the upside is also extremely high. I think there's very little question. You talked to Eric. There's very little question that he could be great. If you sign this guy when he's great at 26, it's going to be a really good deal. And I basically think that that is going to propel the market for him to be a little bit higher. Higher than you'd expect for what is essentially a prospect. Just because you can't really get guys like this with dollars. Only very often and many times that people have been able to do so recently, it has seemed to work out. Similar deals were signed by Jung Huli, who I think was clearly less good of a prospect than Murakami. From my opinion at least, Masutaki Yoshida got a fairly sizable deal. It's getting these kind of bonus. Reasonably dazed aged players who have a chance to be very good or a chance to really contribute is just attractive to teams. I think that's going to basically widen Murakami's market. Even though there are real questions around him. Because just being able to add your farm system this way is so nice and the other options on the market just aren't. 26. That's just really something that he has going for him. I think that also, if we're being honest, the range of outcomes here is really wide. Right? Right. Like Eric has watched a lot of video of this guy and scouts have scouted him in person. They've looked at a lot of data but you don't know how it's going to translate and we don't know how he's going to develop. It's a really tough question. And the error bars are just much bigger than for your average free agent. So I think that someone's opinion of him is going to be meaningfully higher than ours is and that's going to get him a big deal. I have no idea how it's going to work out. It could end up being the best deal that anyone signs this winter from a team perspective for sure. Because his ceiling is clearly very high.
- [67:43]
A
High.
- [67:43]
C
But I think that's actually going to make a pretty wide market. I don't know what his preferences are for. He wants to play. I assume he would prefer to play third, but I don't think teams want him to. Or at least it doesn't seem like a lot to. So that'll be interesting. Aside from being pretty confident that he will get a lengthy deal. That's the main thing, a very lengthy deal. Because if you sign a guy like this, part of what you're getting is that you can have a ton of his prime. I think he'll sign a very long deal for a solid average annual value. I don't have a good.
- [68:12]
A
Right.
- [68:12]
C
Ton of insight into where we kind.
- [68:14]
B
Of joked about Shota.
- [68:16]
A
And.
- [68:17]
B
Well, first getting his team option declined and then himself declining his player option and becoming a free agent, which I think was a surprise to most people in part because the Cubs are pitching needy and are relinquishing rights to a starter. But what do you make of the decision to let him become a free agent? And then what do you think his actual market looks like? Like.
- [68:39]
C
Yeah, I mean, I don't like it from the Cub standpoint. I don't really understand it. I mean, like, if you were certain that this was going to be a not so great deal, you're probably lying, right? Like, it can't be that far off. I looked at projecting Shota into the free agent class, you know, so that this wouldn't have been a surprise. And I looked at it and I was like, like, how much worse than this deal could he be? Like, why, why would the Cubs give up the chance to basically make this decision again next year for like, why would they give this up for so little edge? And so I just said, ah, they're definitely going to pick it up. Their, their situation implies that they need to. So I missed that. They do owe 15% of the deal to the Bay Stars, his NPB team, from the posting agreement. So they, they do save like an extra $9 million there. That's still like really small. I, I'm, I'm surprised that they didn't pick this up. I do think that his market will end up limited, but I think he's likely to get a qualifying offer. Like that kind of deal doesn't seem crazy if he wants to go hit the market again next year like the Classic, like the Brandon Woodruff deal, basically. It's not exactly the same, but I think Shoto was hurt this year. I think that his stats basically look like that. His fastball velocity was down, his consistency was down. He missed some time with injury in the early part of the year and just didn't look the same when he came back. I think that that just implies one of these, like hit the market again if it all works out well, shaped contracts. He's 32, so that's going to limit the length of his deals naturally anyway. And so to me that just makes one of these shorter deals with a low to middle dollars make a lot of sense. He might just take the qo, but that would just feel a little strange after they declined a long option option.
- [70:26]
B
Yeah.
- [70:27]
A
Sandwiched between Imanaga at 18 and Imai at 20, you have Zach Gallen at 19, who a couple years ago, probably coming off of 2022 and how good he was in 2023. If you were having a conversation about the best pitchers in baseball, he would have been in it at least. And now you have him number 19 on a ranking of this offseason's free agents. So how hard was it to pin down and how good he's going to be?
- [70:53]
C
Very, very difficult. And one of the tough things about Gallon is that it always looks like it shouldn't work. You know, like you're like, what is the good thing here? And it's like, I don't know, he's kind of, he understands his pitches really well, he's got great command, he sequences great. I feel like he's, I'm watching him pitch and he's like tricking the hitter. And I can actually see it. There's a lot of these like kind of soft skills, skills that basically the models that spit out projections haven't done a great job of capturing for Galen. And that stuff's kind of all the same. I mean his pitching bot era has gone down. That's largely a feature of his command. But his stuff's gotten a little worse. But his stuff was never good. And so when it just stops working, I have a really hard time trying to figure out how it's going to come back. It basically did just stop working. Like they had some bad, bad ball luck in 2025, but also he was just worse and he struck out. He is like a career low strikeout rate by a lot. And so I'd love to see like, I like seeing players get a change of scenery when this happens and just figure out if you can figure it out somewhere else. I think that it is in Gallen's best interest to do that rather than try to get a long term deal now. I think that a long term deal for him now would be very low $$ and the teams just might not even be willing to offer it. But obviously like peak. Zach Allen, like you said, is really good. He's just turning 30. It's not too old for a pitcher peak to happen again. But until he demonstrates that the, the trajectory of his career is not, you know, what he put on, what he put down over the past two years. He missed some time last year, but yeah, a worse season on rate and then he had a very bad season this year. I, I think the deal to sign here is a short deal and that's also why I have him a little bit lower, is because I don't know how exciting is it to get Zach Gallen and if he's great in a year, then he's leaving for sure. It's exciting. I'd like to do it, but it's less exciting to me, I think similarly exciting to getting Iminaga for a year, but less exciting to me than some of the very good pitchers towards the top that you could pick up for a long time and be confident that they're going to be good.
- [72:59]
A
Now, we started by saying that the number one is not as exciting as the number one on the list in the past few years. I guess you could say the same about the best starting pitchers available and that there's no one quite as good as Yamamoto was and is or even probably Corbin Burns, despite what happened to him shortly after he signed the best starters. The highest ranking starters you have on your list are Dylan Cease and Franvaro Valdez and those guys, you know, Cease at least has been sort of up and down a little bit and kind of volatile sometimes. I think he's good also, but. But yeah, I don't know if you feel quite as good about these guys as you do typically about the best starting pitcher available. So how do you think they're going to do?
- [73:43]
C
Yeah, I think a little lower. Yamamoto is a special deal. I thought he was really good. He was like number two on our list behind only Ohtani. And I think he would have been number one most years. He was just like, yeah, I mean, he signed the biggest contract in history for a pitcher that was kind of a standout one. But yeah, like, I think I'm probably down on Cease relative to the consensus by a touch, but I don't think by that much. I think he's pretty good. He's pretty wild for a good pitcher, which just always feels a little. It's like not my preferred style of good pitcher for whatever reason. I'm not sure that you can prove that that does worse and didn't feature into my projections or Anything but I don't know. He's not to my baseball watching table paced if that makes sense. But he's got a lot of the statistical markers that get you paid and a lot of statistical markers that mean you're good for a long time. He strikes out a lot of batters, he misses bats. He has kind of fixed his fastfall shape. Early in his career his fast fall shape was just no good. It was really flat for a four seamer and it just got hit like really hard. And so changing that has made me much more confident and his ability to change pitches and improve that way makes me confident that he'll be able to keep doing it for a while. I think of him as a much lower octane Blake Snell in that Blake Snell won two Cy Young Awards. So I don't think that's still on Cease, but capable of striking out a ton of guys, going to walk more than you want and probably not going to games quite as deep as you'd hope. Cease hasn't missed a lot of starts. That's one thing that is really attractive about about him is that he's made the full complement of starts in each of the last five years and he's never even hit 190innings because he just doesn't pitch a lot of innings per start. So those are kind of the limiting factors. But I don't think that means he's not going to get a five year deal like he's turning 30. You can expect him to be pretty good for most of that. And guys with strikeout stuff are just, they're in demand in general. General if you watch the playoffs like those are the guys the managers trust and I think that that is going to. That's what the kicker was for put having me put him over from Revaldez, whose results have been better on the field thus far. But even though Cease says he'll walk too many and when he does it's very frustrating. He's been worse than his FIP over a very long sample. So I think our WAR is probably giving him too much credit. But he's got the really high top end and Valdez is much more like he does have that really awesome strikeout curveball but because of the way he pitches he's just not the same kind of oh yeah, this guy could just throw a 12 strikeout shutout in the playoffs kind of feeling that Cease gives.
- [76:27]
B
You the obvious answer to this is probably the same as it is in most years, which is catcher. But if you're A gm and you're sitting there going, oh, I got some big holes I have to fill in my roster. Where are you the most nervous looking at this free agent class? Because I say catcher? Because it's like JT real muto. And then it's like, how do you feel about Danny Jansen and Victor Caratini, who by the way, was the late sub for Bieber. To answer your earlier question, Ben Prime. But if you're, if you're a GM and you're staring down a hole, where are you the most nervous about the possible depth and quality in this class?
- [77:05]
C
I don't think it's actually catcher because no one has ever gone into free agency trying to fix catcher just like doesn't work. That's just not how catcher. It plays out in the major leagues every year. We're like, oh my God, who are we going to put it catcher in the top 50? I think it's the middle infield. I think the middle infield is quite weak this year. And it's not normally, you know, it's, it's been basically an unending shortstop bonanza for most of a decade and this year I don't have Bichette as a long term shortstop and I don't think many teams do. So, like, I don't know, you, like really, really in on Hasan Kim, like, doesn't feel that likely to be like amazing. Glaber Taurus, like, not really a great middle infielder. There's just not a lot of like, like the Red Sox are a team that I think about a lot and they need to improve their infield. They have a great outfield. They have great starters. They, they're like the drawing of the horse and the infield's the, the side of the horse that was drawn by a child. Like, but their best infielder is the best, is the only infielder other than first baseman that's on the market that I'm really into to. And so for like first, let's get him back. But they're just in this awkward situation where, look, their situation in the infield was so bad, they were using the best center fielder in all of baseball to play second base.
- [78:25]
B
Yeah.
- [78:26]
C
Because they just didn't have second baseman. And that guy is not a good hitter either. Like, he went from being like the most valuable outfield defender in baseball to being like a below average middle infield builder because they just literally have no options and they're just not going to find any this winter either. I don't really Picture them as a Boba Shet suitor just because of the way that they've been handling large contracts of late. Extensions for internal guys only is kind of their model these days. And also with Christian Campbell still kind of percolating around, maybe they can fix second base that way. Although he didn't look like he'd actually play the position in 2024 or 2025. But I guess my point is, like, even if they don't want like a very long, high dollar commitment, well, like, I don't really think Jorge Polanco should play second for too much longer. So I, I don't even think he's a great option there. I think he's more of a, you know, he's a great bat, but I'm more interested in the bat than, like, I might move him to DH pretty soon. Luis Arai is like, not really a second baseman either. Yeah, I just think that's a really weak spot. And it's a spot that like, teams who are nearing contention or like, have a lot of money to spend have been able to just feel secure that they could go pay some shortstop to be an All Star for 10 years if they wanted to. Like, the Rangers did it to two guys in a year. It worked out pretty well. And that's just not here this year.
- [79:48]
A
I do think we were kind of vindicated on being high on Gleyber Torres last year. Not super high. Yeah, there are flaws, there are drawbacks, but we were both surprised. I remember talking about this last year about what he was projected to make and then what he actually made, which.
- [80:03]
C
Is badly on him.
- [80:04]
A
Yeah.
- [80:05]
B
So did our crowdsourcing. You were not alone. And he was dramatically off consensus, I think, across the board.
- [80:10]
A
Well, maybe teams miss, not you. I mean, he was, you know, he was pretty good. Right? I mean, you know, was it great? But 2.6 war and, and you just get a one year deal and he.
- [80:22]
B
Had a sports tourney in the second half. So yeah, that was compromised. He was not good.
- [80:27]
A
So. Yeah, yeah. And he's still somehow 28 years old. He came up so young. And you're still, you're projecting him, I guess, kind of Alonzo esque regression to the mean off season wise, I guess, like you're, you're projecting him for a lot less than you projected him for last year, but also a lot more than he actually got last year.
- [80:46]
C
I had, I thought, I thought a lot about whether I should lower him so much on my list. And I'll tell you what, I ended up deciding after thinking about this, because I moved him from in the top 10 to 15th after he had a better season. That does seem strange. But I do think that he's the kind of player who our current positional adjustments are a little too high on. He's not really a good defender. You don't really want him to play there. Every defensive system thinks he's not very good. They differ in how bad they think he is. And if you watch him, you're like, yeah, so. So he's not like an asset defensively, and he's like 20%, like 10 to 20% above average offensively. That's essentially like an average first baseman. I think that that puts some pressure down in my estimation of him, is that if he's not playing the defensive spot with some value, I think that he's more of a corner guy. And I'd love to see him try third base. But that moved my. My estimation of him down a little. But on the other hand, look, he still is a guy who can play second base. And like I said, it's a weak portion of the market this year. So I think the ability to fake it there will definitely entice some teams who really need someone to fake it there, essentially.
- [82:01]
A
Is there anyone else that you want to highlight here that you think you're a little lower or higher on than the consensus? Some bargain or. I always think the term free agent landmine is, like, a little aggressive.
- [82:14]
C
I will not be using that. That one.
- [82:16]
A
They're not going to. Yeah, so it's tad strong. But. But someone you're a little lower on or higher.
- [82:22]
C
Two people. One lower, one higher. We'll start with lower so we can end on a high note. So Brandon Woodruff is a player who I have projected for a lot more money than the other players around him on my list, which generally means that I think he's. That I like him a little bit less than the people who are going to get paid the same amount of money as him. That is not because I don't think he was a very good pitcher. I'm just worried that he is going. That he is too hurt to ever return to his prior form. So he came back this year and had, like, really good results. I was very impressed by how quickly he bounced back, but under the hood, it was, like, not good. It was like he threw much less hard. The shape of all of his pitches was, like, much worse. He really, I think at his best was a power pitcher who had, like, plus plus command. And the reason that he had These, like, crazy good results was because he paired, like, his command with, like, George Kirby level of stuff, let's call it like, like good stuff, above average. And then if he doesn't have that, it's just hard for me to imagine him being the same kind of elite guy sustainably. Like, he's got really good command, but it's not going to get you to what Brandon Woodruff was at his peak. If he throws like he did this year. And between that and the fact that he still got hurt throwing with this diminished stuff, I would just be really worried that it's just not going to happen. And that just lowered my estimation of him quite a lot. Not because I don't think he can be great, but because I think the risks and the shape of what his performance looked like upon returning both really scared me, basically. So I have him lower than the deal I think he'll get. And look, I don't get to look at his medicals. I could be way off base on this. But that's just from my view, that felt like a kind of deal that if I were a gm, I'd be like, oh, I don't know the other side. The guy who I think I'm definitely highest on relative to consensus is Tyler Rogers. And I think I'm a little higher than consensus on his contract contract. Although I looked at some other people and, you know, I'm at least in the ballpark there. But in terms of where I have him ranked in preference, it's like, really, I'm very in on him. I just don't see why teams aren't even at the trade deadline. He fetched a huge return from the Mets. He had, like, probably the biggest return for a reliever, like, relative to their. Definitely the biggest return for reliever relative to their perceived level. But, like, one of the best returns for a reliever. And also, he was great. And he was great, like on the Mets and he was great with the Giants and he's been really good for a number of years. He strangely does not have platoon splits. And I think basically the reason for that is it's like, you know how over the top guys don't have platoon splits because they're like, they're not like, he's under the top, like, right. He's not a side armor. Like, he's an underhander. And so, yeah, it's not the normal platoon thing about you throwing directly at their eyes. Just doesn't really apply, like. But anyway, like, he's a really versatile pitcher. He throws A ton of innings because he just, I mean, he throws 80, right? Like, it's just not that hard on his arm. He throws a lot. He got traded, you know, at the trade deadline and then he threw another 30 innings in the last two months. That's just outrageous. He's pitching every other day, like, and no one else is doing that. In any case, I think that that profile is just really valuable. You have a guy who gets a ton of grounders, who's good against lefties and righties, and who is rubber armed, who you can always bring in. And he's not going to cost that much. Sign me up. I think our crowd is too low with a one year, $8 million deal. I just think that what the Mets gave up to acquire him implies that at least one or two teams value him more than that. But I would like, I just look at this guy's numbers and he's incredible. He had an ERA below 2. He had an ERA below 3 last year. He's like, very durable. I would really want him on my team as a reliever. He just feels like the most reliable guy you can get for a relative bargain.
- [86:31]
B
He was definitely the guy who I checked the most frequently that we had the right player ID associated with him. And we were joking when we were going through because one of the checks that we do on this list is to look and make sure that nobody's projection looks like, weird. Because generally that implies that there's something like something got goofed with playing time or something like that. And I was sort of to your point and perhaps driving the perception of him from our readers when they did crowdsourcing. I was briefly concerned that his projection and his brother's had been swapped. And the answer was no, it had not been. His brother actually projects better than he does. But from just a results and market perspective, I think that you're going to be right because let's look at how his brother was dealt literally at the deadline relative to him.
- [87:19]
C
But yeah, we talked about that a little bit. I think that this is just not a projection that systems can get right. Yeah, he doesn't strike anybody out. How does he keep running a 278Babip? How does he allow so few home runs? Well, it's because he's not throwing major league pitches. He's throwing pitches from a different game that no one's ever played. But I sympathize with Rejection System's inability to make this, make any of it make sense. Two, like a 2% walk rate, like what does that even mean. I. I don't know. The numbers are just so weird when you're throwing so slow that I. I'm not surprised his projections are bad. I just don't believe them.
- [87:53]
A
Yeah. You have a couple outliers like that on the list, including Luis arise at number 37. How do you figure out what to do with him? I was also heartened to see that Justin Verlander made your list for old time's sake and also for 20, 26's sake sake. He's 50. I mean, he's not 50 yet. He's not that far from 50. He'll be 43 early next year, but he pitched quite well. As I noted, there was a point in the year where he and Kershaw and Verlander all kind of pitched better after starting the season fairly disastrously or unavailably. Scherzer did not make your list. You don't want the Game 7 World Series starter. You don't want to sign that guy. Guy. You want Justin Berlander.
- [88:37]
C
I didn't really like fer was in and out of the top 50.
- [88:41]
A
Yeah.
- [88:41]
C
And I do think that the general idea of signing one of the old starters is good.
- [88:49]
A
You snubbed Rich Hill also, by the way.
- [88:51]
C
I snubbed Rich Hill. Wondering, has Charlie Morton retired? I'm not sure he does.
- [88:55]
A
Yeah.
- [88:55]
B
Hasn't Rich Hill been a free agent for like, four months now?
- [88:59]
A
Yeah. Doesn't mean he couldn't be top a 50.
- [89:02]
C
That's true.
- [89:03]
B
That's. That's generally how it works. They just let them sit at home for a little while, get some rest.
- [89:07]
A
Yeah.
- [89:08]
C
But I guess what I'd say is you'd be pretty happy if you just signed one of the old dudes at random last year. Right. Like, Verlander worked out okay, Scherzer worked out okay in the end, and Morton worked out okay for the Braves.
- [89:20]
A
Yep.
- [89:21]
C
They got something out of it. So basically, like, I. I could have been convinced to put Scherzer on here instead. Said, I feel like teams are just going to keep tossing, like, what is for major league teams a relative pittance of these guys to see if they still have it. And I bet you that managers love it, you know?
- [89:38]
A
Yeah.
- [89:39]
C
Like, it seemed like I would love to have Justin Verlander in the clubhouse for a year or Max Scherzer. Like, Scherzer could have easily been in this spot. I. I don't have a strong view on which of those guys is, like, obviously better than the other. I think that each of them is a decent risk to just, you know, not have. Have it and just be DFA and retire. But if they're not, they're like, it's going to be fun and it won't cost you that much.
- [89:59]
B
Extry. Extry. Breaking news on the pod that will not be breaking by the time people listen to this. The Rockies have a new pobo. Do you want to guess? You're never. You're never going not. You're never. You're not allowed to look at social media or slack. You're never going to guess.
- [90:13]
C
Okay, so this is. Is it like Jeopardy. And the guy leading the search. Got it. It was Monfort's son.
- [90:17]
B
No. Nope, nope, nope.
- [90:21]
A
That would have been predictable, really.
- [90:22]
B
Yeah.
- [90:23]
A
But that's true. Yeah, I. I already saw who it was, so I can't. I can't guess.
- [90:29]
B
Paul D. Podesta.
- [90:31]
C
Whoa. That's great.
- [90:33]
A
Yeah.
- [90:34]
B
Wow.
- [90:35]
A
Yeah. Things are going so great for the Browns.
- [90:38]
B
Yeah. I was gonna say, how do you leave such a storied franchise that. Where things have gone so well since.
- [90:43]
C
He'S still with the Browns? He went there so ago.
- [90:46]
A
Yeah. Still there.
- [90:48]
C
Wow.
- [90:48]
A
Yeah. Do you think the Rockies just read Moneyball and they were. They were like, ooh, this guy sounds like a hot shot free poo prospect.
- [90:58]
C
That would give them. I'd give. That'd be giving them a lot of credit. That means they didn't watch the movie. They read the book.
- [91:02]
A
Yeah, true. Peter Brand was a finalist.
- [91:05]
C
Yeah, Peter.
- [91:06]
A
Yeah.
- [91:06]
C
They.
- [91:07]
A
They tried to sign Peter Brand and then they realized he didn't exist.
- [91:10]
B
So real guy.
- [91:11]
A
He's not a real guy thing.
- [91:13]
B
Wow. Okay. Well, I was like, what are we going to talk about when we intro after we're done with Ben here? And now we're going to talk about this. I think about it a little bit now.
- [91:25]
A
People will hear the. The breaking news on the second segment of the podcast that we already discussed on the first segment.
- [91:31]
C
Wow.
- [91:32]
A
Interesting. Breaking temporal barriers here. This is some Star Trek situation. Okay, my last question, I think for you, Ben, unless another occurs to me while you're answering it, is do you think that the looming prospect of a possible work stoppage next off season, the potential for a lost season, which I think is unlikely, but not out of the realm of possibility, do you think that should or will and. Or will affect how teams and players approach this year's Hot Stove League?
- [92:03]
C
So Meg and I talked about whether or not we should write about that. And I mean, I considered it a little bit for sure, in that I think I kept contract lengths down. I think that you've seen in advance of CBA negotiations in general, contract lengths go down even if they're not going to be contentious. It just kind of makes sense. You want to like I think makes sense for players too that like maybe you want another bite at the apple with the new rules. You know, like everyone wants to know what the rules are when they they sign a contract. So I do think that it's maybe going to keep contract lengths down. It didn't change my inflation of contracts projections. I basically project things in terms of millions of dollars allocated per war in the free agent market and it ticks up over time, as you'd expect. And I don't think that the general trajectory of that's going to change too much. I think that the top end dollars are going to go down this year and you might see less money overall allocated because there's no sodo basically who kind of breaks the model. But I don't think that the potential of a lockout is going to do more than the or strike, but the potential of labor stoppage is going to do anything different than the previous ones, which is like kind of shrink contract sizes down. Now if we get to next win winter and it's like now the chances of work stoppage have ticked way up, that'll be a different story. But in this position, yeah, aside from generally erring on the low side on length, I didn't do much.
- [93:39]
A
All right, well, we will link to your voluminous, lengthy, comprehensive free agent ranking on the show page and we will probably have you back soon because it's almost time to recap preseason predictions and minor league free agent drafts, et cetera. So goodbye for now and we will talk to you again.
- [94:00]
C
Yeah, see you again soon.
- [94:01]
A
All right. One closing note apropos of nothing, or maybe apropos of making fun of the Rockies MLB's Statcast developer Tom Tango did a post on his blog recently in which he developed a challenge probability for the ABS Challenge system heading into next year based on results in the Minor leagues in 2025, which he will update next year based on major league results. But as part of this, he went through some of the extreme individual results results in challenging last year in the minors. Players who were very successful at challenging. Players who were very unsuccessful at challenging. I've been thinking about this ever since I saw it, but didn't have a time to mention it during the playoffs. Rockies outfielder Zach Veen, former Rockies top prospect current Rockies lower ranked prospect not because of this, but this didn't help. Here's what Tango wrote. The worst challenger as a batter was zach Feen with three overturns and 21 lost. So he challenged 24 total times. Only three times did he get an overturn. Given his pitch distribution, Tango writes, we'd have expected 2.9 overturns and 5.6 losses. So he was fairly reckless as a challenger. I'd say with a net net of negative 15.2. He runs through some positive results too, but that was among the more extreme. Can you imagine? How do you have the confidence to keep challenging when your results are that bad? You're three for 24. I'm not sure if he's a true talent. Terrible challenger. We'd have to see how many challenges it takes as a batter to reflect your challenging skill as OPP opposed to randomness. Lots of coin flips coming up one way instead of the other, but this is something that I am looking forward to monitoring throughout next season as we see which guys challenge most and which challenge best or worst and how we credit or debit value based on that. I'll remind everyone that Secret Santa signups are now open. Check the show page deadline to sign up December 10th and I'll put in one more plug for a video I made in a series I'm trying to launch at the Ringer Plot Hole or Knothole? I know some Effectively Wild listeners have already checked it out. I appreciate it. I interviewed Vince Gilligan about a possible plot hole in Breaking Bad. That's the conceit of the series. Have a storyteller on to ask them about a perceived plot hole in their work. See what they say. Is it a plot hole or is it not? Hence the name. But I could use your support to get enough views to make more of these. So check the show page if you're interested in giving me a click and helping me out. And of course you can help me out and Meg and producer Shane and Fangraphs by supporting Effectively Wild on Patreon, which you can do by going to patreon.com effectively wild and signing up to pledge some monthly or yearly out to help keep the podcast going. Help us stay ad free and get yourself access to some perks, as have the following five listeners Liam John Housman, Nick Pierce, Gabrielle Suarez and Andrea Zekis. Thanks to all of you, Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, monthly bonus episodes, the latest of which our 48th was published this week. We talked about our Halloweens. We shared some low stakes rants. We answered some listener email. You can also get personalized messages, prioritized email answers, potential podcast appearances, discounts on merch and ad, free Fangrass memberships, and so much more. Check out all the offerings@patreon.com effectivelywild if you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. If not, you can contact us via email. Send your questions, your comments, your intro and outro themes to podcastangraphts.com youm can rate, review and subscribe to Effectively Wild on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Music Music and other podcast platforms. You can join our facebook group@facebook.com group effectively wild. You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit @r effectivelywild and you can check the aforementioned show page at Fangraphs or the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we cited today. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. That will do it for today and for this week. Thanks as always for listening. We hope you have a wonderful weekend and we will be back to talk to you next week.
- [98:13]
C
Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Baseball Podcast.