Effectively Wild Episode 2409: Hindsight is 2025

Summary

Effectively Wild Episode 2409: “Hindsight is 2025”

Main Theme This episode, hosted by Ben Lindbergh (The Ringer) and Meg Rowley (FanGraphs), delivers their signature blend of baseball analysis, transactions banter, mailbag Q&A, and meta-baseball statistical discussion. The show spotlights the latest free agent reliever deals, the persistent FIP versus ERA debate, projection systems, team performance retrospectives, and a wide-ranging, characteristically geeky and humorous look at baseball’s terminology and quirks.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Reliever Market, John Brebia & the State of Rockies Baseball

• [00:47–03:20] Ben opens by jokingly hyping the Rockies’ minor league deal with John Brebia as the latest “massive” reliever signing, contrasting it with Devin Williams's contract. This segues into musings about Brebia’s career arc, the unglamorous realities of Rockies minor league deals, and playful personal investment in certain obscure relievers.
  • “Congrats to Brebia, though, I guess qualified congrats because it seems like a minor league deal with the Rockies is sort of the last step before... calling it a career, heading back to indie ball, maybe becoming a podcaster.” — Ben [01:40]
• [03:37–05:29] Conversation shifts to Nikki Lopez, also on a Rockies minor league deal, with Meg humorously stating she has “not a single human thought about Nikki Lopez.”
  • “There’s only so much base up there. And I have to remember details of, I don’t know, Mike Zunino’s career, probably.” — Meg [04:07]

2. The Devin Williams to Mets Signing and the Evolving Reliever Market

• [05:34–14:29] In-depth analysis of the Mets’ $51M/3-year signing of closer Devin Williams:
  • Extensive discussion of contract structure, particularly the impact of salary deferrals and their effect on net present value (“It’s like $2 plus million per year. So instead of $17 million per year, it’s something like $14.8M… for competitive balance tax purposes, if the Mets are currently caring about that.” — Ben [14:20])
  • Recurring theme of “ERA vs. FIP gap” as a measure of underlying pitcher performance and free agent value.
    • “He makes the ERA minus FIP gaps that we talked about with the last few guys look teeny tiny. Cause his [gap] was more than two full runs…” — Ben [13:10]
  • Meg’s take: The deal is a win for the Mets and not a regrettable underpay for Williams; she praises the flexibility it offers the Mets for possible Edwin Díaz reunion and relief core upgrades.
    • “I just think that he’s going to be pretty good and he might be really good. And if you’re getting a really good back-end reliever...that’s the ninth inning guy for $14 million a year, my goodness.” — Meg [10:40]
• [14:30–16:17] “Can’t hack it in New York” trope dissected—Ben notes the narrative is common for Yankees (with their facial hair rules and perceived pressure), less so for the Mets.
  • “It would be funny if there were a ‘can’t make it in New York’ guy who just went across town [to the Mets] and was fine. The spotlight’s a little less bright or something.” — Ben [16:09]

3. The FIP vs. ERA Debate, Projections, and Evolution of Player Evaluation

• [19:25–25:07] The hosts vent about relentless public debate over FIP-ERA gaps, joking about the minutiae taking over fans’ lives, and field a mailbag question asking if the superiority of FIP for prediction is actually “useful.”
  • “When both ERA and FIP are about a run off on average in their predictions, does it matter that FIP is slightly better?” — Reader Tom [20:15]
  • Both agree front offices care about even “small” improvements, and that modern projections (Steamer, ZiPS) now synthesize many inputs, raising the level of public discussion.
    • “We don’t actually really need to limit ourselves to a single data point… Projections know repertoire, age, ballpark… now you can just look at projections all the time.” — Ben [21:24]

4. Yankees’ Bond Sweetheart Deal — MLB Team Finances Unpacked

• [26:43–30:01] Follow-up discussion on Hal Steinbrenner’s complaints about Yankees stadium bond payments, debunked with new information showing the Yankees are actually hugely benefiting financially from municipal bonds.
  • “If anything, the last time we talked about this, we understated what a sweet deal the Yankees are getting… The deeper you drill down, it becomes a better and better deal the closer you look.” — Ben [29:22]

5. Baseball Miscellany: Canadian Money & Tactile Design

• [30:04–31:31] Light segment on how Canadian bills use color and Braille, making denominations more universally accessible.
  • “So even if you cannot distinguish the different colors of the bill, they’ve got Braille…” — Ben [30:44]
  • “Good job, Canada.” — Meg [31:30]

6. 2025 Team Success Review — Did Teams Meet Preseason Goals?

• [31:31–55:01] A lengthy, entertaining review of each MLB team’s 2025 preseason “success” criterion, as compiled by Raymond Chen, including whether teams met their guest-set standards and a discussion of “victory conditions.” Some highlights:
  • Dodgers (establish a dynasty): Success — “They did that.” [33:45]
  • Yankees (win World Series): Fail [33:48]
  • Blue Jays (make playoffs + win a game): “Stirring success… They were the second most successful team in baseball and relative to expectations, probably the most.” — Ben [40:47]
  • White Sox (avoid embarrassing records, etc.): “Less terribly done than in the prior year.” — Ben [54:59]
  • Meg and Ben banter through “barely” calls (Tigers: “bare minimum… to be a success” [42:16]), “fail miserably” (Twins [39:07]), and “smashing success” (Mariners [36:56]).
  • Calls for “strict constructionism” abound and running jokes about “shifty” grant brisbee predictions.
    • “He’s so tricksy, that Grant.” — Meg [44:13]

7. Mailbag: Baseball Language, Projections, and Cultural Reference Deep Dives

• Corners and Edges ([55:01–58:03])
  • Listeners debate whether “corner” in pitching always means the literal corner of the strike zone or includes edges; consensus is that it commonly refers to both edge and corner of the plate.
    • “In my baseball idiolect, corner means edge of the plate…inside corner and outside corner.” — Listener Ben via email [55:15]
• Oppo Taco & Opposite Field ([58:13–62:41])
  • Why is it called “opposite field”? Hosts read from the Dixon Baseball Dictionary: it’s simply the field opposite where the batter stands — not a cricket borrowing, but an early 20th-century term.
    • “It’s called opposite because it is the opposite of the direction in which a batter would naturally pull the ball.” — Ben, citing Dixon [59:43]
• Whiff ([65:21–67:26])
  • Has the meaning of “whiff” changed? Discussion of whether it refers to any strikeout or only swinging strikeouts; conclusion: both have always existed, but “whiff” has shifted to almost always mean a swing-and-miss pitch in modern usage.
    • “It might even start to sound weird if you said that you whiffed someone on a looking strikeout.” — Ben [67:36]

8. Meta-Baseball Topics: Offseason Date Spans, Umpire Throws, and More

• Offseason Span Syntax ([69:10–73:09])
  • Meg and Ben discuss the best way to notate multi-year offseasons (“2003–04” vs. “2003–2010”), ultimately favoring clarity and tradition.
    • “Mostly I’m just happy that our league year occurs over a single year. What a joy.” — Meg [69:50]
• Do Umpires Practice Throwing? ([73:09–78:11])
  • Do umps actually practice those throws to the pitcher? Hosts speculate that they probably do and discuss reasonable accommodation if a future ump couldn’t throw due to disability.
    • “You would want to break in the arm instead of breaking the arm.” — Ben [74:48]

9. Guardians "Sustained Success" Without a Title — Is It Enough?

• [78:11–88:49] A Guardians fan asks whether regular season wins really matter if a franchise never wins a World Series, as is now the case for Cleveland (sixth-most wins since 2000, no titles).
  • Both Meg and Ben counsel appreciating regular season excellence — “a tremendous joy to have your team feel like they’re in it” [82:12] — but understand the frustration of never making a “big swing.” They distinguish between smart low-budget orgs (e.g. Rays, Guardians) and simply cheap, hapless ones, noting it’s valid to want more.

10. Automated Balls and Strikes System: Challenges, Strategies, and Clubhouse Dynamics

• [88:49–100:15] A pair of mailbag questions examine the ABSS “challenge” system (catchers framing vs. hitters challenging), the possible psychological strain, and how it changes on-field dynamics.
  • Meg: “You have to receive the baseball… everything’s happening out of their control [for hitters]. That’s what the act of hitting is.” [89:55]
  • Both expect catchers to control and optimize challenges, and embrace the added strategic and analytical complexity.
    • “I think it’s going to be fun. And I’m kind of happy that catcher value will be preserved if not enhanced…” — Ben [98:22]
    • “We might be in a whole new frontier… I heard a guy yell, ‘Way to go, blue.’ Never in my entire life” — Meg [100:15], on the crowd possibly applauding umps for correct calls under the new system.

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Brief Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Of all the people that we could have a strange fixation about as a program, Brebia — not that bad, in fact wonderful.” — Meg [03:23]
• “You don’t want your ERA to start with nine, Ben.” — Meg [08:21]
• “We shouldn’t have to talk about FIP this much in November.” — Meg [19:41]
• “We are so lucky...I give thanks for [the league year being Jan-Dec] constantly.” — Ben [69:50]
• “Less terribly done than in the prior year.” — Ben [54:59], summarizing White Sox “success.”

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Reliever chatter / John Brebia & Rockies – [00:47–05:29]
• Devin Williams signing analysis – [05:34–14:29]
• “Can’t hack it in New York” narrative – [14:30–17:17]
• FIP-ERA gap and projections discussion – [19:25–25:07]
• Yankees stadium bond financial deep-dive – [26:43–30:01]
• Canadian currency design – [30:04–31:31]
• Team success goals review (full loop) – [31:31–55:01]
• Mailbag (corners/edges language, whiff, oppo taco, etc.) – [55:01–67:26]
• Offseason span syntax, umps throwing – [69:10–78:11]
• Guardians “good without a title” debate – [78:11–88:49]
• ABS system, challenges, clubhouse dynamics – [88:49–100:15]

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Episode Takeaway

This episode is a classic “Effectively Wild” cornucopia: deep dives into player performance metrics (with customary FIP-vs-ERA ruminations), fun with baseball’s oddest corners and terms, a tongue-in-cheek but sincere review of what makes an MLB season “successful,” and anticipation for how automated strike zones will further complicate and vivify the game’s drama—both on the field and among the stats-minded faithful. Always, it’s delivered in Ben & Meg’s engaged, nerdy, and humor-laced voice—a perfect companion for baseball obsessives and casual fans alike.

Transcript

[A]

How are you? I'm okay. We got so much to do today. Breaking balls and Flakin Snells and those stats won't blast themselves. Effectively wild. Effectively wild. Effectively wild. Effectively wild. Effectively wild. Hello and welcome to episode 2409 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs, presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindbergh of the Ringer, joined by Meg Riley of fangraphs. Hello, Meg.

[B]

Hello.

[A]

Another day, another episode, another massive reliever signing by a free agent. I refer, of course, to the Colorado Rockies signing John Brebia to a minor league deal.

[B]

Oh, you got me, Ben. You tricked me. I was like, are we really describing Devin Williams contract is massive.

[A]

Yeah, well, by free agent reliever standards, certainly much more massive than John Brebia's deal, presumably with the Rockies. Haven't heard the terms on that one, but I'm going to guess that it's a little lower than Devin Williams's deal with the Mets, but happy to see him catch on. As I've always said, Paul Dipodesta can do no wrong. Really just a perfect choice to be Pobo. Not just because we can call him Paul de Pobo, but because he has excellent taste in relievers to give minor league deals. So congrats to Brebia, though, I guess qualified congrats because it seems like a minor league deal with the Rockies is sort of the last step before. I don't know what, calling it a career, heading back to indie ball, maybe becoming a podcaster. We can hope. But yeah, that seems like kind of the last stop on the hierarchy of Major League Baseball. I mean, it's. It's not even Major league baseball. It's a minor league deal with a team that is coming off a historically terrible season. But you know what? We Brea fans will take it. We're just happy to see him get a job somewhere playing baseball.

[B]

Yeah, I wasn't gonna try to yuck your yum, but it's like he can't even break into a major league deal with the Rockets.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. I know that it would be wrong to attribute much of anything to this. In terms of what it says. What does it say about Depodesta? The answer to that is probably not very much at all. When you're signing guys to minor league deals, relievers to minor league deals, I feel comfortable asserting that that is the level of decision making operating beneath the gm. And I don't mean to say it's. It doesn't merit his notice, just that, you know, it's not like you're having to bust out the big bucks for it, but, you know, we love John Brebia. I mean, like, you really love John Brebia? Yeah, like a lot.

[A]

Yeah. And you humor me in that at least, which I appreciate.

[B]

It just seems a delight, you know, of all the people that we could have a strange fixation about as a. As a program. Brabia. Not. Yeah, not that bad. Great. In fact, wonderful. Good.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. What about Nikki Lopez? Because the Rocky signed him to a minor league deal, too.

[B]

I don't have. I don't have. I don't have one solitary opinion about Nikki Lopez. I don't have a single. I don't have a single human thought about Nikki Lopez. And that sounds like I'm being pretty mean to Nikki Lopez. And I guess I'm being at least a little mean to Nikki Lopez. But I only have so much room, you know, there's only so much base up there. And I have to remember, like, you know, details of, I don't know, Mike Zanino's career, probably. Like what? I'm going to push that out, Ben. I'm going to. I'm going to. I'm going to take away knowing that in 2014 he had as many walks as hit by pitches. I'm going to remove that very useful factoid from my brain. I think not.

[A]

Nope. That's understandable. And I have not constructed my minor league free agent draft board. We have not yet set a date, though. We'll have to have that conversation sometime soonish. But having looked at the Baseball America list of minor league for agents, I can tell you that both Nikki Lopez and John Brebia were on it. So I can select John Brebia on my minor league free agent draft team if I so choose. And, you know, he might not be the worst pick because he didn't get a major league deal, it sounds like, but he got an invitation to spring training and it is the Rockies after all, so he might not be a bad pick. I don't know if I want to, you know, cross the personal and professional in that way where I'm just. I'm rooting for John Rebia as a person and maybe it would be kind of double counting. It would be too much to also have some professional stake in his career.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

But a signing by the Rockies, historically, that's been a good sign. That's.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Really, it bodes well, you know, for your possibility of major league playing time. It would bode better to get a big league deal somewhere to be Clear. But yeah, you know, beggars can't be choosers. Rea can't be choosers when it comes to major league teams that are interested in his services, at least provisionally. We could talk about the actual big reliever deal of the day, which is Devin Williams signing with the Mets. This is a three year deal and the guaranteed dollar figure is $51 million. Though there's going to be a lot of Groundhog Day deja vu. Broken record about this conversation, I think probably following our Dylan Cease and also Ryan Helsley and to some extent Sonny Gray conversations because there are deferrals here, as there were in the cease signing and there is a gigantic ERA minus FIP gap. So what else is new? I feel like we could just run back some of the stuff that we said in some recent episodes about that, but the net present value is something like $15 million lower, I believe. Right. Because he gets a $6 million signing bonus that gets paid in installments. And it's nice to get the signing bonus because you get it up front or you get it not contingent on there actually being baseball played. And if there's a work stoppage then guys to get more of their money in signing bonuses that they could still get in that event. But he gets $15 million annual salaries. But 5 million of each of those annual payouts is deferred. So there's also a bonus in there in the event of a trade which Ryan Helsley had as well. So the net present value is a little lower. But that doesn't affect your showing so much in the free agent contracts over under draft. I mean, it does, but either way you're a winner here because you took the under on the MLB trade rumors projection of 68 million.

[B]

I did. Which felt unkind of me. It didn't feel generous. I felt bad about it because I quite like Devin Williams. I like Devin Williams even though the year he had was sort of underwhelming. Right. At least relative to what he's typically done. You know, it was such a strange showing because he was, he was quite bad in the beginning of the year.

[A]

Oh yeah.

[B]

Just like, you know, an early, a first month ERA of nine. I think you don't want your ERA to start with nine, Ben.

[A]

Yeah, that's bad.

[B]

That tends to be pretty bad. And you know, he's a reliever, so this is like small samples regardless. But it's still bad. It's still bad. It doesn't suggest that things are going well and then, you know, things were Less bad than that at the end of the year, but he had a little bit of kerfuffle toward the end, too. But the peripherals are not. Are not bad. And there was some tipping. There was maybe some. Was there not some tipping stuff with him, too? At one point, wasn't there a concern about tipping?

[A]

When isn't there really.

[B]

Am I misremembering the pit, The. The reliever? That applies. I know it applies to applied healthy, but. But didn't it also maybe apply to Devin?

[A]

I can't keep track. I think so. Yes. There was. There was a Devin Williams.

[B]

Is he good tipping?

[A]

I remember stuff and I think that he didn't think he was tipping or the Yankees didn't think he was tipping.

[B]

Someone thought he was tipping.

[A]

It was a rumor. It's at this point, whenever everyone's tipping. Yeah. When any pitcher is ineffective over a certain stretch or even in a single game, you're going to hear pitch tipping. It's going to be surrounding that. And I am a skeptic, as I have said.

[B]

Yes. And that's fine, I think, to be a skeptic. So there was this concern about tipping, but all of that to say, even at the times when his ERA was really very bad, his FIP was much more palatable, but not quite what it had been when he was at his peak with Milwaukee, but more palatable nonetheless. And so, you know, Ben, I really like it for the Mets and I don't dislike it for Devin Williams. You know, I think that even with all the deferrals and whatnot, like, he made a nice. He made a nice chunk of change here. But I really like it for New York because particularly with the deferrals, particularly given what his AAV is, I just don't think there's a version of Devin Williams that we're likely to get where you're going to look at it and say, God, what a horrible mistake that was. You know, I just, I don't know that that version of him is likely to be on offer. It doesn't mean that, as Davey noted when he wrote up this signing for us today. Doesn't mean that, you know, there was no smoke at all to the concern about him. Right. Like his fastball and change up lost some induced vertical break and there was horizontal break off the fastball, too. And it was just, you know, it was like a straighter offering than it has been historically. And you're dealing with a straighter fastball that is also one that is a skosh below sort of the average velocity that you see on fastballs across the league. Which isn't to say that he has lost Filo. He hasn't. He's remained pretty consistent. But it's not like he's throwing 99 is the point that I'm trying to make. It's not like this insane heater. Right. But I just think that he's going to be pretty good and he might be really good. And if you're getting a really good back end reliever, a guy who you could assume, assuming he looks more like the version of himself he was in Milwaukee compared to the one he was for stretches in New York, that's the ninth inning guy for $14 million a year, my goodness. And it's interesting because I've seen his signing being used to just both justify them bringing back Diaz because, my God, Williams so cheap. And also remove the need for them to bring back Diaz because, my God, he's sure to cost so much more than Williams. And I don't really know one way or the other. I think they just have maintained flexibility here. Right. This isn't a signing that's going to preclude them from bringing in other very good high leverage arms, which in this year's class mostly means Diaz and Robert Suarez. But he didn't cost $100 million, he being Williams, which is what a lot of folks think Diaz will check in at. So I really like it for them. I think that it meaningfully improves their relief core. I think that it's not such an insane underpay that I feel like, you know, Devin Williams got jobbed. It's always fun when you have a guy go to the other New York team that is good for narrative and drama and goodness knows we love that. We should embrace relief drama more. Not in the, like feeling nervous about your guy blowing a save, but in terms of, like, it being a sight of a fun bit of pettiness. I think that there's unexplored potential there. So I don't know, I just like it. I think it was smart, you know, I think. I think that's a good, smart signing. It's not shocking to me that he would want to reunite with the, the leadership of that front office. Like, it just seems like a good move all around, you know?

[A]

Yeah, well, last time we talked about a late inning reliever the Mets acquired earlier this year that didn't go so great for them or for Ryan Helsley. So better luck this time, I guess to both. But yeah, I think he will be good. I Don't know if he'll be as dominant as he was at his peak, which is about as dominant as a pitcher can be. But he makes the ERA minus FIP gaps that we talked about with the last few guys look teeny tiny. Cause his was more than two full runs and there were only two guys last year, minimum 60 innings pitched, who had a higher gap or bigger gap than Williams. Jordan Hicks and Cole Reagan's and all the other peripherals reflect that too. So yeah, he had some shakiness. He gave up some dingers. Dingers on the air bender over a. A kind of compressed period. He gave up a bunch of them. So I don't know how much that means. Maybe he just lost the feel for it for a while. And the ERA looks worse because he had some bad luck when it comes to bequeathing runners. I always say I, I feel like I'm putting on airs when I say bequeathing runners, but that is the term or a term. And he did well when he was inheriting runners.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Anyway, I think he will bounce back and yeah, I don't know if it will behoove the Mets to sign both Edwin Diaz and Devin Williams, but now they have the option not to and still have a pretty solid option back there and.

[B]

Right. But they also have the option to.

[A]

To. Yes, they do, they do. And. And I may have overstated the degree of the deferrals or how much that would lower the net present value. It's. It's like 2 plus million per year. So instead of 17 million dol in per year, it's something like 14.8 I think according to John Becker's calculations for competitive balance tax purposes, if the Mets are currently caring about that. But we'll always remember Devin Williams if not for how distinguished a season he had with the Yankees, because he didn't by his standards. But he was the guy who did in the facial hair policy was at least the proximate cause was the guy who drove the nail into the coffin of the facial hair policy. And you know, it's funny, initially when he was struggling early in the year, this subsided somewhat because he finished the season really on a roll of scoreless outings. But there was a time there where he was getting demoted and not getting his save opportunities and leverage outings. And there was some he can't Hackett in New York buzz about him. It's funny, I think there's a lot less of that with Mets than there is Yankees. Amusingly, it seems to be, I don't know if that's. Yeah, it's not a hundred percent true. It's been said.

[B]

Absolutely true.

[A]

But it's definitely said more often of Yankees, at least that is. That is my sense. You know, it's just. Yeah, it's like, yeah, can't. Can't do it in New York. It's like a Bronx versus Queensland, pinstripes versus non pinstripes. It's very much. And it probably comes down to that.

[B]

Seriousness versus not so serious.

[A]

Right. That's sanctimonious. Or. Yeah, that sort of like exceptionalism, which, you know, all New Yorkers have to some degree. But. No, but Yankees fans, I think more than Mets fans, given the track records of those respective organizations. And so you do tend to hear it a bit more. But it would be funny if there were a. He can't make it a New York guy who just went across town to another borough because. Still in New York. Still very much in New York, but seems to be slightly less of a concern. I don't think it was a huge concern about Williams. You know, I don't know how legitimate that is in most cases when it is said of someone. There are certain cases perhaps where I will allow that there is a smidgen of truth to it, maybe without being able to know what's in someone's head. But, yeah, I don't think you can really slap that label on him. But it would be funny if there were a can't make it in New York guy and he just went across town and just played for the Mets and was fine. It's like, spotlight's a little less bright or something.

[B]

I think that the idea, you know, I never pass up an opportunity to invite the good people of New York. Best city in the world, baby. To take themselves a little less seriously. Because, like, come on. But I think. And I think the idea that you can't hack it in New York is often nonsense. Having said that, it is a degree of scrutiny that is perhaps unparalleled in the sporting world, certainly for baseball, which isn't to say that there aren't other media markets where the players are under extreme scrutiny, but there does seem to be something about the combination of New York media because there's just so many folks in that group. Right. It is the. Has the highest concentration of media members and a ton of the sporting news, not the publication, but the sort of general demographic is concentrated there. And so the. The idea that the pressure of. That the act of being perceived so publicly would affect some guy seems completely reasonable. I do think that it is pointed to as an explanation for underperformance when other things might have greater descriptive power, in part because of the previously referenced. All seriousness, I'll also say that, like, I loved living in New York and Queens is great. You know, I lived in Queens the whole time I lived in New York and I liked it very much. It was great. Wonderful food, good people, vibrant community.

[A]

You couldn't handle Manhattan. You just built it under those bright lights.

[B]

Look, man, I was like, I'm a grown ass woman. I'm not sleeping in a full bed. And that meant that I couldn't afford to live in Manhattan and I couldn't afford to live in Manhattan, you know, working in finance. So the affordability problems, they persist.

[A]

Devin Williams probably can if he cares to. I don't know where he, where he was living, but he could keep living in the same place if he wants.

[B]

Seems like it's none of my business, but. But yeah, I don't know. I think it's good. It's good. Signing good, you know, good, good.

[A]

Okay, so that's Devin Williams. We've covered that. Better luck with the ERA estimators and peripherals and actual ERA next time. But yeah, it's, it's striking, just this run of demand for guys with high eras.

[B]

We shouldn't have to talk about FIP this much. November, I saw people, I saw, I saw some people been debating the FIP ERA gap as a general concept, like the day before Thanksgiving. And I just want to invite you to do anything else with your one precious human life, you know, like. Yeah, although if you need to get, if you need to either get out of, or start a fight with your family and they know the right combination of things, then that, that FIP ERA distinction can be, can be worthwhile. You know, that can really get them going.

[A]

Yeah. We got a message from Patreon supporter Tom in response to last episode's mini step last about big ERA minus FIP gaps. And Tom said, yes, FIP is better at predicting next season era, but is either good enough to be useful. As a researcher, I often read papers that show improvements but are so small as to not actually be useful. When both ERA and FIP are about a runoff on average in their predictions, does it matter that FIP is slightly better? Is that actually significant to analysts or front offices? And I think it is. I think it certainly is. There's a meaningful difference there in the predictability or the repeatability, the stickiness from season to season. And certainly that does matter to front offices. But One thing that made me think because in that stat blast I was just kind of comparing last year's era, FIP slash, xvip Sierra slash, XCRA slash, whatever, right, to last year ERA and then comparing that to the next year's results. And we don't actually have to limit ourselves solely to last year's stats because we have projections.

[B]

We do.

[A]

And projections should be better at predicting those things than probably even the best of the era estimators just looking at a single season. Because the projections know that they know whatever the era estimator knew. But they also know lots of other stuff. They know the pitcher's repertoire, perhaps they know the stuff. They know previous seasons before that most recent season. They know age, they know ballpark, they know all this stuff. Right? So in a way we, we don't actually ever have to do this test that we were performing for stat blast purposes where we just limit ourselves arbitrarily to either one piece of information or another slightly better piece of information. And the thing is that we have projections pretty much year round now. Yeah, there was a time, well, there was a time when we had no projections or at least no scientific objective named projection systems. We just had people who thought they knew something about baseball and maybe they did, maybe they didn't. They were going with their guts or they had some personal system that wasn't really tested. But even in the projection era, the advanced projection era, which now dates back more than 20 years, certainly to when Pakota showed up at baseball prospectus and Dan Saborski was doing Zips and all the rest for a while there. You would have to wait until like, you know, well into the off season or when spring training was rolling around even because you didn't just have year round projections that were maintained and updated. It would be a big thing when the Pagodas would come out because they weren't already out. And you would have to maybe wait for the baseball prospectus annual to get them or you could get them on the site if you were a subscriber. And then there'd be big releases and fan graphs and all the rest. But now you can kind of just look at projections all the time. Yesterday when we talked about the cease signing, I cited the projected best starting rotations at fan graphs and that's it's based on Steamer now. And then later zips is folded in and you know, there may be better playing time estimates. We know where all the players are, we know what the depth charts look like. So it's very provisional. It's Just a rough cut. But you can basically at any time of [e-mail] see projections and you can look up multi year projections. And so we're never without the ability to look at those things. And so we don't actually really need to limit ourselves to a single data point. You know, I don't, I don't need to say, Will Devin Williams's era in 2026 look more like his FIP or his era from 2025? We could just look at his FanGraph's player page and see what his steamer projection is for next year. And spoiler, it's 3.14. That is his projection. So that is higher than his FIP last season, which was 2.68, but a lot closer to that FIP than to his ERA of 4.79. So yeah, it's, it's almost a distinction we don't need to make in that very binary way anymore because we, we kind of all the time have that, that better option with more information and better calibration and everything. And so I'm still sort of mentally adjusting to just being able to look at projections at any time of year. Even the dead of the off season, they're there for us.

[B]

They're just there for you. And it's. And you're right. Like I think that we do our depth chart projections using a blend for a reason. But you know, steamer on its own tells you stuff and zips on its own tells you stuff. And both systems I think are made better for having been at least when they get to the depth chart projection piece of it, having used our roster resource playing time. And Dan is always tinkering, He's a constant tinkerer. And the amount of stuff that has been folded into projections over time is really remarkable to see. So I think that nothing is going to give you a completely accurate sense of what a player will do in the following season. They have to play the games. We don't know if guys are going to get hurt. We don't know if other players might emerge that challenge them for playing time. Maybe, you know, their grandma dies. Like all kinds of stuff can happen that the projections can't account for. Guys, you know, sometimes guys just get bad. You know, sometimes they just get bad or they add new pitch and then they're way better. But the thing I always try to remind people of with projections is we are trying to give as accurate a forecast of what a guy might do as we can. I think that all of the various prognosticators have gotten meaningfully better at that over the years. The data they're able to fold in gives them meaningfully more insight. And it would be super boring if they nailed it precisely every time. You know, we want there to be surprise in the game. We want them to have to play the games for us to know what happens. So that's what I'll say about projections.

[A]

Another quick follow up. We talked a few episodes ago about HalSteinBrenner and his comments about how it's not safe to assume that the Yankees made money, but he's not really willing to disclose the details of their finances. And we went through an article that Rob Mainnes wrote for Baseball Prospectus about how actually the Yankees are doing just fine. And even the things that Hal Steinbrenner specifically complained about, he's overstating the case. A little misleading, a little not full disclosure there. So, for instance, Steinbrenner cited a $100 million payment that the Yankees have to make on bonds issued by New York City for Yankee Stadium. And so he complained that they have to make payments on these bonds every year, even in 2020, when the season was shortened. But as Rob noted in his piece, and as we then relayed on the episode, that's not specifically a Yankees thing, that it's not unique that the Yankees have to pay back their creditors. Also, the indebtedness in 2020 was refinanced at a much lower rate. And then the big thing was that the bonds Rob pointed out are called pilot bonds for payments in lieu of taxes. And according to a report from Sports Business Journal, The Yankees in 2024 made bond payments of 84 million, which is close to what Hal was saying about 100 million. However, they received tax exemptions of 122 million, which means that they actually got a $38 million net benefit, which is not something that Hal's going to tell you. But one thing that we didn't tell you because Rob didn't tell us in that article, but he told us in an email to us after he heard our conversation. He emailed us to thank us for talking about it. And also add, he says, a detail that I didn't get into that makes the Yankee Stadium refinancing even more egregious is that the bonds were issued by the New York City Industrial Development Agency, a municipal entity. That means the interest paid on them is exempt from state and city income taxes, which in turn means the interest rate is considerably lower than what the Yankees would have had to pay had they issued taxable bonds on their own and by an order of magnitude. Vanguard currently has a 3.9% yield on its taxable money market fund, 2.72% on its new York tax free money market fund. And that's on top of the fact that they're saving more in taxes than they're paying in principal and interest. So if anything, the last time we talked about this, we understated what a sweet deal the Yankees are getting. So. So every layer you peel back, it becomes a bigger bargain for the Yankees. And again, probably not uniquely the Yankees. A lot of teams get. Get sweetheart deals from municipalities and, and have favorable rates of borrowing and all the rest of it. So that's not uniquely Yankees either. But the point is, the deeper you drill down on those claims and those cries of, oh, woe is us, we have to pay all this money, it becomes a better and better deal the closer you look at it. Which is why teams would prefer that people not actually look too closely at it and just take them at their word.

[B]

Mm.

[A]

And one more follow up. You were concerned that people might not be able to distinguish among the various denominations of Canadian currency. Yeah. Because you said that that is a problem in American currency. Because. All the same. Yeah. All the money, the. The paper bills. Yeah. It's not only the same size, but the same color.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But Canada's got it figured out in, in so many ways, you know, And I say that with, with some pride as a dual citizen. But they not only have the different colors on the bills as we covered last time, but multiple people wrote in to assure us they've got braille on the bills.

[B]

Do they really?

[A]

They've thought of everything. So even if you cannot distinguish the different colors of the bill, they've got braille and it varies. So the $5 bill has one six dot symbol and the $10 bill has two six dot symbols. Make sense. And the $20 bill has three. I guess we're doubling. And the $50 bill has four. It's more six dot symbols the higher the domination. And then the hundred dollar bill has two symbols separated by a smooth surface that is wider than the one on the $10 note. So they have thought of it all. And you will never confuse Canadian bills or not easily.

[B]

So nice.

[A]

It is.

[B]

I like that.

[A]

Yeah. Good deal.

[B]

Good job, Canada. Well done.

[A]

Yeah. And here's one follow up. This is kind of a blast from the past, but when we were doing our year in review stuff and reviewing our preseason predictions and the minor league free agent draft, and I was Taking my perhaps overlong victory lap. One thing that I meant to review over long perhaps it's debatable, but one thing that I meant to review preseason predictions wise was our preseason preview guests stated goals for the respective teams that they previewed. This is something that effectively wild Wiki keeper and Patreon supporter Raymond Chen compiles every year. As he is doing the summaries for the Wiki pages, he records what the guests say. Because we wrap up now not by asking for the win total prediction, but by asking what would constitute success for that team in that season. And so Raymond writes that down and he reminds me of it at the end of the season. And he has weighed in on whether those teams actually succeeded based on the standards that their preview guests set. So we can review these and we can see whether we agree. Sometimes they're a little vague. Yeah. Sometimes it's tough to pin down the exact victory conditions. Sometimes not. So. Okay, we'll just take it. I guess this is probably roughly in order of the previews we did. Dodgers goal was a lofty one, understandably. Establish a dynasty. And I think we can say that if they had not done so already, they've done so now. Yeah. So that's a success for the Dodgers. And also they just. They won the World Series. It's. It's hard for a season not to be a success when you do that. Yeah, but. But that was an even higher standard. I mean, maybe not. I guess it was sort of the same standard because if they were going to win the World Series, then it was going to really lay to rest most doubts, at least most reasonable doubts. I would say that they qualify as a dynasty. So they did that. Yankees win the World Series. That's kind of their perennial goal, I guess. They did not do that.

[B]

They did not achieve that.

[A]

No. That's a fail. Braves win a playoff series. That's a fail. They did not appear in a playoff series, so did not come close to achieving that one. Phillies win the World Series. Didn't do that. Fail. The. The highest projected, the best projected teams and the most successful teams, they tend to have kind of boring predictions because it's just like, well, you know, you're in the playoffs every year, you kind of have to win the World Series or go deeper into the playoffs, at least for it to qualify as a success. So there are only so many standards you can set there. Okay. Diamondbacks make the playoffs. Not quite, but just about as close as you can without achieving it.

[B]

I would just offer. And perhaps this is going to mark me as something of an apologist, but given how hurt their rotation was, kind of incredible that they got where they did. So.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And given that they subtracted significantly at.

[B]

The deadline, traded away all of their. Yeah.

[A]

Mets make the playoffs with a bonus advance out of wildcard round. Neither of those things happened. They did not make the playoffs, although they really came as. As close as you could, but yeah, did not quite make it. Red Sox, 90 plus wins and make playoffs comfortably led by young players. They did not do that. They came close to doing those things. They won 89 games. That's very close to 90 plus. But just short of it, they made the playoffs. Not comfortably, I guess. I mean, it was. It depends on your level of comfort. There were teams that squeaked in with even smaller margins for error, but it's. It, it was in doubt at least until very late. So they came as close as you can come to a success without achieving success. 89 wins instead of 90 plus. They made the playoffs, but perhaps it wasn't quite comfortably led by young players. I think certainly there was a component of that. They had a lot of young players who were integral to their success. So it's a, it's a tough loss for them there. I think they came quite close. Rangers, I guess the prediction was win as many World Series as possible under Bruce Bochy. I guess they did do that in a way. They. They won one under him and that. That turns out to have been as many as was possible. But I mean, I guess theoretically more were possible now, more not possible because he is no longer their manager. But they did not add to their total of World Series 1 under Bruce Bochy. So I think that's a failure.

[B]

And they can't even do like a shifty. Well, he's still in New York as a special event, isn't he? Back with San Francisco now with the Giants.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. So that door is, at least for now, closed.

[A]

Yes. And the Rangers did not make the playoffs, of course. So, yeah. Mariners make the playoffs. Success. Smashing success.

[B]

Smashing.

[A]

Yes. And for some teams, that might seem like a unambitious bar, but for the Seattle Mariners, it's, it's pretty ambitious to project that they will make the playoffs. And they did. And now they should, in theory go into next year, as I would say the favorite in that division. They should.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Make the playoffs again. And in fact, their bar for success next season. I think maybe it should be even a little higher than just make the playoffs. It should, it should be. Well, I mean, I guess they. They cleared that bar easily this year because they then made a little bit of a run, too. Yeah.

[B]

Went as far as they've gone, Ben.

[A]

Yeah. So that's now the expectation that they've got to go at least as far again to be a success. Okay. Astros make the playoffs and young players take a step forward. Did not happen. They did not make the playoffs. So we don't even have to consider the young players taking a step forward.

[B]

Although I think there's an argument to be made that they had young guys who improved upon their. Upon my baseline expectation for them. So I don't want to give the young guys who did well, short shrift just because they didn't make the playoffs. But they did not make the playoffs.

[A]

Yeah. Raymond didn't record. If there was any additional level of detail. I don't know if it was specific young players who were supposed to take a step forward or it's just more than one young player. And probably a lot of teams would pass that. But Cubs make the playoffs and young players take a step forward. I think we gotta give them a success on that score. On both, probably. Twins avoid late season collapse and play meaningful games in September. They did not do those things.

[B]

They. They avoided a. A late collapse because they had already deflated.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. Like. Like your. Your souffle can't fall if you never make one, you know?

[A]

Right. Yeah. And it wasn't so much a collapse as it was a planned demolition, I guess. Right. I mean, it was like. Yeah, it's. It's like, I don't know, the Metrodome being blown up after the roof was deflated.

[B]

Like that. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So in that respect, I think that we can give them a pass, but not on. Not on the second thing. On the second thing, they. They failed miserably because they did not play meaningful games in September. Their games. It would, in fact, be hard for them to be less meaningful than they proved to be.

[A]

I don't know if they blew up the Metrodome. I guess they sort of exploded the roof a little bit after it was.

[B]

Deflated in on itself. Right. Like.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But the whole point of those building demos is that they shouldn't go out very much, that they should collapse in because for safety. Ben.

[A]

Yes. They had to haul it away gradually. I guess you have to do that even if it does explode or implode. Probably. Okay.

[B]

Explode.

[A]

Orioles win a playoff series.

[B]

Didn't happen.

[A]

Didn't play a playoff series, raise, make the playoffs and resolve stadium situation. Again, they did not make the playoffs. So Fail. But fail. Sort of some resolution and sense that they will be back at the Trop in 2026, but they have not resolved the stadium situation beyond that. They have sort of resolved the ownership situation. Yeah, I guess there's some question about where exactly they'll play under that new ownership, but there was some resolution of various situations, but they, they failed to make the playoffs. So.

[B]

Yeah, fail.

[A]

Blue Jays make the playoffs Bonus Win a playoff game. They won many a playoff game.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That's a stirring success.

[B]

Well done, Blue Jays.

[A]

You know, they were the second most successful team in baseball and relative to expectations, probably the most.

[B]

Oh yeah, Yeah. I just remembered how much money Dylan Cease is going to make. Wow, that's cool. Good for him, you know. Good for him, Ben. Good for him.

[A]

Yeah. If. If we had made a preseason prediction or, or set a standard for success for Cease, probably he would not quite have cleared it from a performance standpoint, but from a money making standpoint, sure, he would have exceeded it nonetheless.

[B]

Right about that.

[A]

Okay. Padres win division and beat Dodgers. Didn't. Didn't do either of those things, which I guess they would go hand in hand if they had done them. But they didn't do them. Didn't beat them in the division race. At least they beat them in individual games, but that's probably not what the previewer was saying. Brewers win division and a playoff series. They did it.

[B]

Done and done.

[A]

Yep. All set. Well done. Brewers. Royals win division and make a deep playoff run. Didn't do either of those things.

[B]

Didn't do either thing. Yeah.

[A]

Tigers make the playoffs.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Barely. Yeah, that standard for success probably would have changed if you had asked a little later into the season as opposed to preseason, because for a while they're merely making the playoffs. Would not have seen like such a success because they seemed like a lock to win the division.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And then the lock was unlocked and they did not win the division, but they did make the playoffs. And so they have satisfied the standard. They have done the bare minimum here to be a success. Giants contend for wild card and fill in missing pieces for 2026.

[B]

Well, I, I think this is an incomplete.

[A]

Yeah, it's. It's tough to, to pin down Mr. Brisby when it comes to the predictions, but his predictions are often in the vein of did they develop their next core or put pieces in place that give you confidence that they can be good again and, I don't know, fill in missing pieces maybe? He mentioned specific pieces that I don't have on hand here. I guess they probably did some. I mean, contend for wild card technically, I guess. Depends on how, how late, how close you have to be contending. But they were in the mix. I don't know that anyone was really taking them super seriously as a wild card contender very late in the season. And then they did end up kind of in the same place they always end up, which is 500. Exactly. So, yeah. 81 and 81. Yeah. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Barely passing grade. I'm not enthused about whether this was a win and I doubt Grant would be either. That's kind of a maybe.

[B]

Yeah. It's just hard to say because so much of it depends on, like, the Future performance in 2026 of guys who might not even be on their roster yet. Right. It doesn't say that they have to have been added to their roster this year.

[A]

Right. Yeah. It could be guys who performed well in the minors and it could be.

[B]

Guys they signed this off season. We, you know.

[A]

Yeah. So, yeah, he's.

[B]

He's so tricksy, that Grant.

[A]

Yes. We gotta. We gotta pin him down. We gotta pin him down come spring. We gotta have him lay out.

[B]

We gotta really nail him down because it's a very tricksy.

[A]

So squirrely.

[B]

Tricksy. As it's written.

[A]

We can ask him whether he thinks the Giant satisfied his criteria.

[B]

He'll answer honestly because he's quite harsh on them sometimes.

[A]

Yeah. I will predict that Grant will say that it was not a success. So we'll see. I'm putting words in his mouth here, but yeah, I'm. I'm going to go thumbs down on this, but barely. It's like Tigers was thumbs up, barely. Giants. I'm going to say thumbs down, barely. Cardinals Raymond had this listed as a maybe. Also contend in September. And young players take a step forward. Like they weren't eliminated early. You know, that's true. The dates where they were, they finished in fourth in the Central. They were 78 and 84. Yeah, they were kind of like on the periphery of the race until quite late, but not seriously. So it depends when in September, I guess we're talking about. But I'm gonna say no. Maybe I'm being a harsh grader here, but I'm gonna say it's hard to call that season a success. It was. It was a treading water. It was getting one year closer to hopefully another successful Cardinals team that fans will actually want to come out and see. And, you know, it's the playing out the string of the Mosaic era. So it felt like a filler year for them. I don't. I don't know that we can call it a success. Exactly.

[B]

It feels like the definition of a transition year. I mean they, that those are the terms they put on it, right?

[A]

Yes. And a transition year can be a success.

[B]

Well, they made the, they made the transition to bloom, so in that respect it did.

[A]

And that wasn't really like in doubt. It was just, you know, if the world didn't.

[B]

I said it was definitionally a transition year and then you were like, well, they were successful and, and, and now. You know what I mean, don't you?

[A]

Yep. Okay. And the Reds make the playoffs. They did it.

[B]

Check. They even scored some runs.

[A]

Yeah. Another barely but complete passing grade success and, and sort of a surprise success at the end that they actually. It wouldn't have been a great surprise that they squeaked into the wild card round at the beginning of the season. It was a legitimate possibility, but given where they were at various points, it was something of a late surge or at least it was mostly taking advantage of late collapses in their case more so than a surge. But nonetheless they made it. Success. Pirates winning record and show progress toward making the playoffs. I don't think so. No. That sounded more like a eh than a. Which is what I wanted. So.

[B]

Okay. Yeah, I, I think that you made an important auditory edit there.

[A]

Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. That's a no Guardians Repeat success of 2024 and look like a contender all season. That's an interesting one.

[B]

Well, the second part I think is not true.

[A]

No.

[B]

I would argue that there were times even when it became clear that they were going to win the division, that they didn't necessarily look like a contender. It was a sloppy, accidental sort of thing at times there. But I also am mindful of the fact that. That they did well. They managed to knock Detroit out of range, which had as much to do with Detroit failing as them succeeding, I suppose. But hey, they were there to take advantage of that failure and they did, even if it was only ultimately by a game. And we should acknowledge the sort of background institutional headwind that was the gambling this and that. So, yeah, yeah, I think they did very well given challenging circumstances, some of which are typical of the Guardians and self imposed from a payroll perspective and some of which I think were really quite not their fault. So.

[A]

Yeah. But if we're being originalists here. Strict constructionists. Strict constructionists. If we're, if we're going by the letter of the law and being hardliners, I think we have to Say no, because they repeated the success of 2024 in the sense that they won the AL Central again. They did repeat, which was quite a surprise and certainly it seemed like a success if you sort of lapped the season into a couple parts. The latter part was more of a success than anticipated. But, but they won 4 fewer games and had I think 10 fewer Pythagorean wins. It was just, it was not as good a team clearly. And yeah, they did have other things going against them, but they did not look like a contender all season. That's true. And, and the fact that they've turned out to be a contender ended on a positive note or at least prior to the playoff exit. But yeah, we can't, can't give him looked like contender all season. I don't think.

[B]

No, definitely not.

[A]

Okay. Athletics be a 500 team, play meaningful games in late September and break ground on new stadium. No, they didn't really do any of those things. I guess technically they, they had sort of a sham for show. Groundbreaking, but not much in the way of actual progress and funding and construction and we're not a.500 team did not play meaningful games in late September. Yet it sort of felt like a success in, in some ways on the field they were an entertaining team. They developed or bolstered a quite impressive core of young position players. Nick Kurtz had one of the all time great offensive rookie seasons. They had a couple of the top rookie of the year guys, number one and number two in fact, to go with their other holdover position players. So there were certainly reasons to feel good about the A's, but they did not satisfy these exact conditions. So that's a no. Okay. Angels break playoff drought that's. That was a tough target and they did not come close to hitting it. Fail Nationals winning record nope. Marlins avoid 100 losses and build hope for the future From Edwards, Norby and Alcantara. I guess they success they succeeded. Yeah, I think so.

[B]

I think it's. I think they succeeded in a way that I might argue is fairly unqualified.

[A]

They almost finished 500. They were in mathematical contention until they.

[B]

Weren'T a last place team. They had I think meaningful improvement from some of their position players. Now do I think that they're going to all, you know, be consistently as good as they were last year? I don't know about that, but I think this is a better group than we thought. Is it enough? I mean, I'm not saying that, but by the parameters of the prediction, I think they did quite well. For themselves, in fact.

[A]

Yeah, I think so too. And. And Edwards had a decently valuable year.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Norby not so much. But Kyle Stowers kind of surprised people had a good year. And yeah, if the standard was avoid a hundred losses, well, they did that handily. So. Okay. And yeah, I build hope for the future from Alcantara. I guess that was presuming a trade and that they would do well in that trade. And they did not trade him because he didn't do so well. They still have the potential to trade him.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay. Rockies. I mean, do I even really have to read what.

[B]

What was the Rockies target was?

[A]

It was a failure regardless. But unless the the standard was don't lose more games than the White Sox did in 2024, then it's hard to construct a scenario where it was a success. But it was avoid a hundred losses, find a team leader, slash superstar and find out which young players can contribute in the next few years. Oh yeah, Yeah. I don't know that they did any of those things.

[B]

No, I don't think that quite worked out for them.

[A]

And lastly, White Sox, at least half of. I guess Fegan must have made this kind of complicated. At least half of non embarrassing records make good trades. Organizational progress, improve player development. Luis Robert plays really well and is valuable at the deadline. Okay, well, didn't do the last one.

[B]

No.

[A]

But nine embarrassing records. I think they kind of got there. I mean they set the standard so low because of how embarrassing their 2024 record was. But. But there were times where I thought and even said on this podcast, you know what? They've turned a corner. I can sort of see the light at the end of the tunnel. They did still lose 100 games. 102 to be precise. But. But that was a big improvement after losing 121. So I'm gonna give them non embarrassing records just because they had really just lowered the bar or raised the bar for embarrassment so so much the previous season. Make good trades. Organizational progress, improve player development. I don't know. Hard to assess some of that stuff from afar, but yeah, I would say, yeah, I'll give them. I'll give them enough of these, I guess. How many conditions was that? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. So they had to have at least three of these to win. I'll give them non embarrassing records. I'll give them improved player development. I think. I don't know that much about how the process changed, but the results seem to improve.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Organizational progress is kind of vague, but yeah, why not? I'm I'm gonna give them a success. Good on you, White Sox. Well done. Less terribly done than in the prior year.

[B]

Good, Anya.

[A]

Okay, just got a bit of feedback from Patreon supporter Ben. This message came in while we were recording, and Ben said, I almost never think you guys get it totally wrong. That's. That's nice. That's.

[B]

That is nice.

[A]

Good phrase. Yeah. Totally wrong. There's, like, some saving grace in what we say. You know, there's like a shred of correctness at least sometimes we might be mostly wrong. On balance, we're wrong, but there's a little bit of rightness there. But I was floored by your takes on the use of corner in baseball. I waited for episode 2408 because I was sure you'd get lots of emails saying what I wanted to say, and you started the episode with that refrain. But all the discussion was of a different, far less pedantic question about extra innings. Maybe I'm totally weird, but in my baseball idiolect, corner means edge of the plate. The most common uses are outside corner and inside corner. These don't need to refer to the geometrical corners. I was stunned when you and Meg seemed to agree that people use corner only to talk about the, well, corners of the zone. Again, maybe I'm weird, but I don't think that I'm out of the ordinary. The Baseball Almanac gives mine as the first definition of corner for baseball. Also, I doubt the original email were was right that we are thinking of a 3D zone when we use corner in the way that he and I agree we do. First, I competently used inside corner and outside corner long before anyone told me the zone was 3D. Second, in geometry, one doesn't usually call a place where two planes come together a corner. Usually it's called an edge. So I think the original emailer might not have been quite pedantic enough in that respect. Rare that we get the not pedantic enough critique. Yeah, we didn't really get many emails about this, if any. I may have seen a comment in the Discord group from someone who. Who made the distinction between corner of the zone, corner of the plate. And I. I think that's valid, I think. Yeah, like I often say edge of the plate, but I think the edge refers to the edge of the plate. Right. It's. It's not just the. I mean, it's sort of the same when you're talking about the edge in an east west horizontal direction, because the right strike zone is set at the edges of the plate. So I guess if you're talking about the corner, it is. It's kind of the corner of the plate, I suppose. And you might hear over the black too, or on the black. But yeah, that's fair. I think that's, you know, it's plate related for sure.

[B]

Sure. I think a bit more specificity is nice because I think it paints a more accurate and descriptive picture. But I don't think you're like a monster if you use it this way. I just have a preference for it being more limited in scope. Yeah, we didn't really get any emails about that, I don't think.

[A]

Yeah, not many, I guess. I don't know. Others were not so convinced that we were totally wrong. They gave us a little bit of credit on that one.

[B]

Sometimes we are totally wrong and no one says anything and I'm like sitting here waiting. I'm waiting for the emails to come in and they don't. And then I'm emboldened to be even more of a goofus.

[A]

You know, hold us accountable, keep us honest. Yeah, okay. Question from Mark, who notes that, like him, we have heard MLB explaining what the term oppo taco means more than a thousand times this year, depending on how often you listen to the radio broadcast digitally. This actually came in earlier in the year and has been languishing in the mailbag for a while. And so Mark says, slightly worrying that we're a quarter of the way through the season and they're still explaining that one bit of lingo. Will we ever find out the meaning of other baseball slang terms? No, not really, Mark. Sorry. I mean, now you know that.

[B]

Now you know.

[A]

But that was a preview of the rest of the season too, that they were not going to actually inject some variety into those between inning definitions for inexplicable reasons. Anyway, Mark continues, MLB says apo taco means a home run hit to the opposite field. What's missing is an explanation of what opposite field means. Do you know why a right handed hitter hitting the ball to the right of center is deemed to be going the opposite way? As an England based MLB fan, I wonder if there might be a cricket connection where the two sides of the field are the offside opposite field in baseball and onside, for reasons I can't remember, is opposite field a relatively new term or was it around in the 19th century? Any info you can give would be greatly appreciated. I'd never discount the possibility that there's a cricket connection with some baseball terminology and perhaps our 19th century expert Richard Hershberger could weigh in on that if he hears this. But I don't know that we need cricket to provide the reasoning here, because I, I think it's fairly simple. And the Dixon Baseball Dictionary would suggest the same. And I will read you the definition of opposite field in that dictionary. The side of the playing field that is opposite the side of home plate from which a batter bats. For example, right field is the opposite field for a right handed batter who bats from the left side of home plate. It is called opposite because it is the opposite of the direction in which a batter would naturally pull the ball. A right handed batter naturally pulls to the left and a left handed batter naturally pulls to the right. Now, now I would add, I, I think that there is sort of a misconception because when you hit a fly ball, when you hit the ball in the air, you actually usually hit the ball the other way to the opposite field, which might make it sound like that should not be opposite. Because if part of the rationale is that you pull the ball more often, well, when you actually hit the ball to the outfield and opposite field can be infield too, you hit it the opposite way. But yeah, when you elevate, when you get the ball in the air, actually you tend to hit it to the opposite field more often. Now, you know, when you completely crush it, maybe you're more likely to have pulled it. But yeah, most fly balls go to the opposite field, which I, I think many people don't actually realize. But there is this perception that you're just so likely to pull the ball in all cases. And, and it depends on, on the batted ball type. But that definition makes sense to me. I don't know that I actually would have been able to easily explain that. It, but it sounds, sounds obvious now that I've read it, that it's just about which side of the plate you're standing on relative to where the ball is going. But it says the first use is 1902. Okay. And you never know if that's actually the first use. But if, if that's true, then I guess it probably wouldn't be a cricket origin. But, but that's good to know. But it's interesting because one objection we got or one bit of feedback we got when we talked about the incessant apo taco definitions and redefinitions was that the complaint from some people was not just that they kept repeating that over and over again, but that, that if the point of that whole segment or, you know, doing that as a between inning time waster, time occupier is to educate a fan who would not know the term apo taco, then maybe it wouldn't be safe to assume that they understood opposite fields either.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Because in the definition they do not define what opposite field is. Now I guess you have to draw the line somewhere. And if someone's listening to a baseball radio broadcast, maybe, maybe, you know, it's like when you were talking about the, the like do you have to define in the indictment for class A and Ortiz where they're talking about like what is a strike and what is a ball. At some point you perhaps have to presume some knowledge of someone who is consuming your product. But maybe you can't completely take it for granted that someone who doesn't know apo taco would know opposite field. I think the opposite field is far better known than Apotaco just because it's been with us way longer. Apotaco is of fairly recent vintage, whereas Dixon says that the term opposite field was definitely used in the current sense as early as 1920, if not earlier. So more than a century. And, and you know, you grew up hearing opposite fields, but it's true. You can't necessarily take for granted that someone hearing that who doesn't know Apotaco would know opposite field. And even if you know what the opposite field is, you might not know why it's called that, which seems to be the boat that Mark was in here. So now we know.

[B]

Man, I can't believe how many times you said oppo taco.

[A]

No, just piling on to the.

[B]

Once again, I want a choco taco.

[A]

I really, I have to inquire, I keep meaning to inquire about why the heck they just kept repeating over and over and over and over again the same between inning content just made no sense.

[B]

You know the other thing, Ben, I hate to say this because we were, we were early proponents of this as a feature. They've really lost the thread on the baseball Zen stuff too. Yes, I feel like they're not zen. They are.

[A]

Yeah, it's true. I feel like people. There was like a brief window where the baseball Zen was actually Zen and then yes, almost immediately it morphed and people started complaining that it was not Zen enough. So it's, it's not newly not Zen, but.

[B]

I know, but like, yeah, I agree with straight and straight so far. We are whole miles from God's light. I mean it. They are. I feel sometimes like they're picking ones now that are loud on purpose or it's like a really. I'm. It's. It's. I don't care for it. They shouldn't make me look up from whatever I'm editing to go, my God, what was that? They keep making me think that the Cats did something. Ben. It's not. It's the baseball Zen or lack thereof, as the case may be.

[A]

And here's a question from David Patreon supporter, another definitional one. Is it me or did the meaning of the word with change. I remember it as a synonym for a strikeout and a strikeout of any kind, not the current meaning of a swinging strike. Am I just remembering wrong? We may have touched on this previously. I don't think that David is remembering wrong. I think that the meaning has shifted a bit. But I think both meanings have been present the whole time. Yeah. Since the start. Again, going back to Dixon here, the first definition laid out is to swing at a pitch without touching the ball.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And. And that's listed as 1912.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And. And origins dating back even earlier in. In golf, maybe in the 19th century. But then the second definition is for a pitcher to strike out a batter. And the example given from 1914 is I whiffed eight men in five innings in Frisco yesterday. So that the first use is listed as 1905. So it seems like around the same time they both were popularized and adapted and they were used for both meanings essentially from the start. And then the third meaning that's listed is for a batter to strike out. And then the fourth meaning is just a strikeout. So I think all of those things are true, but I do think it has shifted more toward the swinging strike definition.

[B]

Yeah, I think that that's right.

[A]

Probably because we now have whiff based stats.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And so that has. When we talk about whiffs now, there's confusion if you don't specify because there's whiff rage, there's whiffs per swing, there's whiffs per pitch, and because we can track the outcomes of specific pitches and it's all clearly recorded and listed as whiff rate or whatever. I think we now tend to default more towards the. The single pitch, the swing, and a miss.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And it might even start to sound weird if you said that you whiffed someone. Like, it would sound weird to me if you said that you whiffed someone on a looking strikeout.

[B]

On a cult. I would be like, what do you.

[A]

I would be like, no, wait, yeah, I'd still allow. I'd still allow a swinging strikeout. But even then, it it might sound just a little weird to me if you just said that that he had eight whiffs and you meant eight strikeouts. If, if you said that he whiffed someone and and you struck him out and, and you know, he got the swinging strike, it could kind of be both. You got the swinging strike and it was strike three, so you got the strikeout too. But yeah, when I say whiff now, I do tend to default to the the single pitch meaning. And it's tough because, as we've noted, always helpful to have synonyms as writers and podcasters and editors and so you want as many terms as you can to mean these things and they're they're only so many. But. But yeah, I I tend to reserve whiff for as David is saying. So I think it's I think it's shifted in recent years. But. But they've both been there. Okay, Chris Patreon supporter Chris Handel in fact, Quirky writing Question when writing about MLB off seasons, how do you typically denote them? If you're referencing a single off season, it's pretty easy to say something like 2003 to 04 off season, but when you're referencing a range, it feels clunky to write from the 2003 to 4 off season until 2010-11. But if you only use single years, it can be misinterpreted pretty easily as including periods of time you're not intending. What's your general approach to this? Is this just one of those things where you rearrange your syntax to avoid having to refer to a Red Sox player in the singular?

[B]

I don't have any objection to the span as a description of an off season. I think it's the most clear. So you know we are in the 2526 off season.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So no, I don't avoid it from a syntax perspective, but I also am not bothered by it. So there's that. I think that it is easy enough to when you are writing about ac single off season, particularly when you're in it to denote what you mean. Mostly I'm just happy that our league year occurs over a single year. What a. What a joy.

[A]

I give thanks for that. Constantly. Just it's yeah, we are so lucky.

[B]

We are so fortunate.

[A]

The NHL and the NBA and even NFL, you just see constantly it spins years and and it's just like us and the W. Less clean and it's yeah, it's right. We've got it good when it Comes to just being able to say a single year.

[B]

And that might be part of why. Referring to them as sort of denoting a particular. Using a span to denote that it, you know, sort of goes over the January 1st line doesn't bother me all that much. But again, I think that most of the time, unless you're referring to multiple off season periods, you can avoid using the year at all if you want to. If you're really committed, like this winter.

[A]

Or.

[B]

You were joking about the. We're almost to the point where we can safely say last year. Once you get past January 1st, you're in really great shape. Right. Because you can say last season, you can say, you know, last off season. People know what you're talking about.

[A]

Yeah, last year I probably do fairly rarely rate, I guess. Yeah, I. I would say, yeah, the span, if I'm referring to. Yeah, a long ago off season. But. But generally, if I can, I will just say last off season or. Yeah, whatever it is. So I can avoid the span entirely.

[B]

But are you bothered. Are you bothered by the span?

[A]

No, I think it's. It's fine. It's accurate. But. But yeah, it's. It's just neater not to have to say it, I guess. But. But then I mentioned this when we had Ben Clemens on to talk about the free agents ranking. You do headline that 2026 top free agents or 2025 top free. So you don't always go with the span there where.

[B]

Because they're referring.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Yeah, you're right.

[A]

Right.

[B]

You're right, we don't. But that's because I have confidence in people, you know, to know. And sometimes Ben, something's just been that way for a really long time. And so you don't change it. Yes.

[A]

Yeah. You want to maintain some continuity.

[B]

Continuity.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Because if we changed it, then people will be like, well, how does this differ from prior iterations of the list? What do you do then?

[A]

Yeah, now we're considering free agents who will still be free agents after New Year's. That's actually how it's always worked. But.

[B]

But it refers to the league year they're going to play in. They're gonna. You know what I mean?

[A]

Yes. Yeah, because I do. I. That does confuse me sometimes. I will say with free agents, because I always have to check myself because Baseball Reference will list the year that someone becomes a free agent. And I always have to remind myself, wait, is it. Is that the season after which he will become a free agent or. I have to clarify. Yeah. And we have A tool tip. Right. That is helpful, I think, because otherwise.

[B]

A free agent after. Yeah, I clicked on Dylan Ceases and now it's so funny. Becomes a free agent entering the 2033 season after the conclusion of the 2032 season.

[A]

That's so funny because if you just said 2026 free agents to me and I wasn't aware of the history of the series or something, I, I could conclude that that's guys who would become free agents in 2026. It's. Yeah, it's, it's a little tough. Okay. And question from Brian. Do you think umpires practice throwing? They sometimes throw the ball back to the pitcher and it's not that hard a throw, but if I were them, I wouldn't want the mid game throw to be the only throw I had made in a while. If they do practice, do they play catch with each other before each game? I don't know why I've never considered that all umpires would own a mitt. Yeah, we've had umpires on the show multiple times and I don't recall asking, ever asking them. Yeah, now I wish I had. Yeah, I do get the sense that they pride themselves on their throws sometimes. I think we've talked about that. I know we had Dale Scott on twice and maybe we talked about throwing with him. And of course we've had other umpires on, albeit briefly. But I, I think they must practice throwing probably, right? I mean, if you, if you've been off all off season and it's spring training for umpires two and sure, probably mostly that would have meant just getting your sense of the strike zone dialed in again. But I'm gonna guess that you'd throw some balls, right? You know, you'd warm up the arm, especially because some umpires are up there in age, right. And you wouldn't want to get rusty and you'd want to break in the arm instead of breaking the arm. So I would think so.

[B]

I think that they probably practice. It's funny to me, like the. I have this thought often when I'm watching football. You know, football officials tend to be in pretty good shape in part because they, they have to run a good bit and a good bit more. And I don't mean to denigrate the average level of fitness of big league umpires, but I can't recall a big league umpire that people have responded to the same way they do with some like long standing football officials where they're like talking about their guns and how. But you know, it is a physical Endeavor. And you have to. I imagine that they have to stretch a good bit. Right. Because you're to be hunting like that behind home. You know, if you're going to have any home plate duty and most of them do you. You would certainly want to be able to have some amount of flexibility. You'd have to make sure your lower back's in good shape.

[A]

You know, your knees mobility is important. You got to get in the right position to get the good vantage point to be able to make a call. So.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Yeah. Not as much running required as for officials and other sports, but still some movement at least. And what is interesting, imagine someone couldn't throw it, just had no arm, but was otherwise an excellent umpire prospect. Do you think that would hold them back? Would that. Would that, like, be a. A demerit on their umpire scouting report? You know, just got a great eye. Just really accurate zone cannot for the life of them make that throw.

[B]

Back to the really interesting question for an employment law lawyer, like, is there a reasonable accommodation where, yeah, you don't have to throw? And I think the answer is probably yes. Right. Because you're able to vocalize. So other than needing, you know, the. The catcher to. To get replacement balls to the pitcher for you, you'd be able to call the zone. You wouldn't gesture. Right. You wouldn't be a gesturing ump. You'd have to figure out ways to. Whether it's what you say or having like a different sort of timbre. Timbre, that's right. Is that the word, I want, Ben? Timbre to your voice? It's a word. Pitch and timbre. All that to say. I feel like there's like a. You'd be able to do it. Now, you would probably face obstacles in terms of convincing people of your fitness in ways that would probably be unfair, candidly. But I. It seems like you'd be able to figure out workarounds fairly easily, you know.

[A]

Yeah. It's pretty immaterial to the core aspects of the job.

[B]

Now, there obviously is an element to being able to, like, for fair or foul calls, you'd have to come up with an alternative gesture because you, you know, it's so loud in a ballpark, you wouldn't necessarily be able to rely on your voice alone. But again, I think you could, like, you could kick out a leg, you know, or something. I think you could figure. I think we could figure it out, you know.

[A]

Yeah. Or if an umpire got yips exclusively when it came to throwing the ball back to the pitcher, which catchers have had yips at times just on those really routine. Sure, easy throws could happen for an umpire, but umpires always have the option of handing the ball off to the catcher.

[B]

To the catcher? Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. Some of them, I think, like to show off their arms if they've got to get one. Yeah. And then they like to kind of whistle it back to the pitcher. But if you don't have a great arm, you're self conscious about your arm, you can always just hand the ball to the catcher. My, my sense is that it's gotten less common for the umpire to make the throw as opposed to handing the ball to the catcher during my time watching baseball.

[B]

I don't notice.

[A]

I don't know if that's true obviously, but just my intuitive sense is that you're a little less likely to get the, the throwback to the pitcher than you once were. And yeah, I don't know, maybe the ball is being replaced so often now. There's so many foul balls in modern baseball you'd, I guess you'd have to make more throws. Maybe, maybe their arms would get tired. So yeah, maybe they just hand off that responsibility. But yeah, I think there would be some accommodation made and you could very easily just not do that if you were good at all the other aspects of the job. But I would guess that most of them do a little warm up, a little practice just to make sure they've still got it if they are someone who likes to make that throw. And yeah, there's potential for embarrassment there and it could be a point of pride. So you probably would want to just, you know, it's, it's a physical activity. So not that I would advocate warming up necessarily prior to a physical activity, but I would advocate practicing your skills. Okay. Sam Patreon supporter. This is relevant to what we were talking about with the Guardians earlier. And this email, as you could probably tell, was from June, kind of before the Guardians season turned around. So Sam was not in as good spirits as he probably was a few months later. But, but Sam said. I'm a Guardians fan and over the past few years I've seen some takes make the rounds to where I'm ready to call them recurring and not reactionary. There are three that I disagree with so strongly that reading them takes me to nails on a chalkboard territory. One, a belief that there is something dignified about winning with a low payroll to the everyone is out to get us, us versus the world victim sentiment shared by a lot of small market fans. Three, in the context of the 1948 title drought. Winning a lot in the regular season is enough to consider the Guardians a successful and well run organization. Regarding item 3, I saw a tweet pointing out that Cleveland has the seventh most wins since 2000 and I will say that I just updated that and they now have the sixth most regular season wins since 2000 or including 2000 after the Yankees, the Dodgers, the Cardinals, the Red Sox and the Braves. They're one win ahead of the Giants, so they probably passed them after Sam's email Every other team he says in the top 10 of that list has at least one World Series ring, including the Angels. LOL. Except Cleveland. I can't decide if that is a positive or negative thing. On one hand, it's cool that they've won a lot of regular season games over the past 25 years. On the other hand, I don't think you can ignore just looking at your peers on a list and being the 1 team in the room without a title and not have the takeaway be that you are doing something wrong. Just curious to get your 2 cents on that thought. So should Guardians fans be pleased that they have a lot of regular season wins over that span or should they look at the other teams in that same territory and say yes, but we alone do not have a title and thus we should not take much pride or joy out of the regular season wins alone?

[B]

I'm of two minds about this because I and I think we've talked about this before, many people have written about it. I want to encourage people to take greater joy and meaning out of regular season success. I think that losing sight of its value is to our detriment as enjoyers of the game. And so on the one hand, having a lot of regular season success is I think a tremendous joy to have your team feel like they're in it. And the Guardians have been post season staples as well. So I think that there's something to the idea of learning to savor that good regular season performance and find value in it. I also think that it's fine for fans to sort of division and expectation adjust that enjoyment. So it isn't wrong to note that some amount of the Guardians regular season success has come as a result of playing in a pretty lousy division for a number of years. That they have been the beneficiaries of other teams in the Central not being, you know, particularly interested in contending or being interested in contending, but being content to contend. That's terrible against other clubs in their own division. And you know Then make a relatively quick exit come October. In some ways, you guys have it the best. Remember when you played in a World Series and then you lost and we opened an interdimensional portal to hell that we still haven't managed to close? So there's the central piece of it all, and then there's the fact that, you know, what could a team that is good at player development, that is sort of savvy at extracting value at the margins, what could that team do if it were set free from the constraints of limited payroll? So I think you can be both. You can be, I think, pleased at regular season success. You can acknowledge the value of that baseball and the joy that it brings you and still want more. I think that's fine too. I think it's fine to note that there's nothing about playing on hard mode, which is what I think being as payroll constrained as Cleveland is, there's nothing about sort of advancing through the postseason under those constraints that makes the wins more exciting or noble, you know? So, yeah, when. When you say like now, not everybody agrees with me. Right. I think there are people who look at what the Dodgers have done and really do find it to be funny enough considering the team they're talking about sort of a cheapened endeavor because they're just buying a World Series ring now. I don't think that's an accurate description of what the Dodgers are doing. And I don't think that deploying resources is. Is cheap, you know, is less than. But I know there are people who disagree with that. But, you know, like, think about how easy it is to want good things for Jose Ramirez. So easy. He's such a delight. Nothing wrong with wanting that for him. So, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

I think you can be a have in terms of regular season wins and a have not in terms of titles and also payroll sometimes.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And you could be in both of those camps and I think you can have a well run front office totally constrained in spending. I don't know that I. If you say well run organization, maybe that encompasses ownership. And so maybe I wouldn't go that far if ownership is constantly drawing the line. I think one reason why it's frustrating for Guardians fans is that they are generally good and they are generally in the neighborhood of contending, and yet they seem to never get the infusion of funds that would allow them to really take the big swing. They managed to convince Ramirez to stay, but often they're trading someone. Lindor is leaving, they're not going and getting the free agent how many years have they had obvious outfield holes that they had ample opportunity to fill just by throwing money at the problem and they didn't. And so it's more frustrating, I guess, when you're constantly in the vicinity of contention and you can theoretically win a World Series finally and your ownership will not splurge, will not come close to splurging, will not shell out that last little bit that might put you over the hump. So I think that is in a way extra frustrating, in another way less frustrating because at least you're seeing a pretty good team most of the time. It comes down to the old debate conversation we've had about is it, it's like, you know, is it better to have loved than lost? Basically it's like is it better to make the playoffs and lose in horrendous fashion and be disappointed or is it better to not even think that you're going to be good? But the downside of that is that you just have a unentertaining baseball team to watch all year. It never gets your hopes up. But that's kind of a double edged sword. So ultimately I'd rather have the team that's good and, and they've done a good job of managing to be pretty good and not terrible perennially, even with low payrolls at times. So they certainly have a knack for that. But yeah, no need to really valorize winning without spending. It's just, well, if you're not going to spend, it is better to win than not probably. But for their sake I hope they do win a World Series one of these centuries.

[B]

Me too. And, and you know, I do. I want to make sure to distinguish between clubs that invest in other aspects of their operation in service of trying to win versus those that just seem like they're being cheap across the board. And that isn't to let the limited resource but still ambitious team off the hook for making their lives harder. But I do think that there's an appreciable difference between. And the Rays are the example that we always point to here and I think they remain a gold standard in this regard. You know the teams that have good player development that draft, well, they are savvy in their trades versus those that just seem completely hapless. Like there is a, there is a difference between those because guess who you got to watch play postseason baseball this year? The Cleveland Guardians. Guess who didn't. The Pittsburgh Prints. You know, that's a meaningful difference.

[A]

Yeah. Okay. Couple paired abs questions Brian says. I have what may Be a slightly weird take on the ABS challenge system. I have long been in favor of some kind of ABS usage because I think catchers have too much of an advantage with framing. I agree with y' all that framing is cool, but my problem is there is no batter equivalent. You would sometimes hear about a guy that had such a good eye he would get calls. But I feel like that is rare these days and applies to so few guys if it does exist. And yeah, I've seen some studies on that and I've pestered people about that. Is there a better framing equivalent? And doesn't seem like there's much to that, really, that's actually repeatable or significant just in terms of like, getting extra calls because you have such a good eye or a great reputation or whatever it is. It's certainly not to the extent that it is with catchers. And so Brian says a batter has no way to combat a good frame job. Until now, only batters should be able to challenge balls and strikes. Catchers get framing. Batters get challenges. Now we're on an even playing field.

[B]

No, you're not on an even playing field. You have to receive the baseball. This is the part of this argument that never makes sense. You have to receive the baseball. Right. And you can buy your receiving negatively impact whether or not it is called a strike. We see that right. Where a guy has to. Sometimes it's because the, you know, the pitcher misdelivers the pitch so badly that the catcher has to reach across the zone to just get a hand on it. And even though they catch it as a strike, it gets called a ball because the umpire is interpreting that amount of action as them having missed badly to the point of it not being a strike. Right. But guess what? It's. It's fine. It's not like bad calls only. First of all, not all frame jobs are bad calls. Many of them are just getting those. Like those pitches that are right on the board are called strike. Right. It's key. Or keeping a strike. A strike. But in terms of like, blatant misses, those go in the. In the hitter's favor too. It's not just going in the pitcher's direction. So it's true.

[A]

Yeah, I guess on balance, it has hurt hitters probably over the years because catchers have improved across the board. And so they're getting more calls net net than they used to through receiving and framing because they've worked on that skill and. And batters didn't really have a counter to that. They couldn't anti Frame as the, the catchers were improving their framing. And it's, it's true that it's like out of their hands, it's out of their control. It's happening behind them.

[B]

Everything's happening out of their control. That's what the act of hitting is, you know, like you're on the receiving end of the execution of the other team. And so you just are at a natural disadvantage when it comes to that.

[A]

It's true. But you can, you can counter the pitch. Sure, you might not counter it effectively, but you can hit it or not. That's within your power, theoretically. Whereas, yeah, someone who's receiving a pitch behind you, there's not much you can do about that. You can't anticipate it. You can and should study the scouting report for the umpire and the catcher and know where they're likely to get a call and then respond to that sort of proactively.

[B]

But hitters, peak hitters, they do.

[A]

That's true too.

[B]

Are peeking peekers. They are peek, peek peeking all the time. Hitters are super peekers.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And if you.

[A]

They pe for location, you can't, you can't peek for, for framing because by the time you turn it around to look behind you. Yeah, right. But I, I mean, I get what he's saying that like, I get it.

[B]

Too, but I like framing, so. Shut up. Don't shut up. That's.

[A]

That was rude of me there. No, I'm with, I'm with you, but. And, and Brian said he was a fan of framing too, but I guess not to quite the same extent. The related question was from Nate, who says, admittedly I'm more of a just get the call right kind of guy, but mostly for reasons I haven't heard discussed. To me, the two incorrect challenges per game introduce a load of concentration, strategy and team dynamics issues I hate that modern hitters will have to think about. Regarding concentration, hitting, as you've often noted, feels impossible. I don't know how they do it, but now hitters will have one more thing to consider while they're up there regarding strategy. Teams will inevitably become disappointed if they lose their challenge by the time big or late game moments come along. And I wonder if this will lead them to add some strange strategy to save their final challenge for those moments. Yeah, probably. I don't love either of those potential outcomes. The pitch clock only sped up the actual game of baseball. But these concentration and strategy issues would change the game of baseball. So I would rather have normal umpire called balls and strikes or have A computer do it. But my least favorite potential outcome is team dynamics issues. If I'm Dalton rushing rookie catcher for the Dodgers, I'm scared to death about incorrectly challenging a pitch while I'm batting, lest I get it wrong and take one away from Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Bets, or Freddy Freeman. There's a natural pecking order on any team. So I wonder if lower tiered players will feel comfortable utilizing the challenge or will even be directed not to do so. Do you think any of this will be an issue? Well, hitters have no problem adding this to their approach at the plate. Do you like adding a strategy component to an already great game? Will these challenges create unintended clubhouse awkwardness? This, it's fun to talk about and I think it's all going to be automated eventually. But since you've seen and studied the challenge system, I would love to hear your thoughts about these issues, if they even are issues in the first place. And yeah, for me, I don't disagree that this is adding strategy and complexity, but I like all of that.

[B]

I think. Right. That's part of why it's good.

[A]

Yeah, I like it as an analyst and as someone who discusses baseball and likes to, to dig into it deeply. But I don't think hitters would look at it as a hardship. I think they would look at it as, if anything, they now have a counter. They, they have a way to fight back as Brian was framing, so to speak, the issue. And so I, you know, because you're already like paying attention to where the pitch is coming and you're already watching that and concentrating as, as closely as you can on the pitch location. So it's not like an extra cognitive load. I wouldn't think to then. I mean, then after the pitch is, is taken, you have to decide whether to challenge. But at that point you're not worrying about having to hit. So I don't think that would be a big issue. But I, I think that it will be taken out of the batter's hands effectively soon. Quickly. Like, we've seen that dynamic in the minors and I'm sure that it will happen in the majors too, where it, it quickly becomes the, the standard for catchers to challenge just because, yeah, they have a better view.

[B]

They never let, they almost never let pitchers.

[A]

Yeah, right. Because think, yeah, pitchers, their heads are moving, their bodies are moving, they're thinking of all sorts of things and they're biased more. Not that the catcher's not a bit biased, but relative to the hitter and the pitcher, the Catcher doesn't really have personal stats at stake aside from framing once. And so they can look at it slightly more objectively and just, yeah, have a better, more stable view and vantage point. And so I think quickly we will see. I'm not saying that some, you know, superstar hitter, veteran hitter won't still challenge from time to time if there's like a really egregious incident or something. But, and you know, on, on offense obviously you'll, you'll challenge if you're a hitter. But, but on defense, I think it will quickly become standard. But I could see something like, yeah, if you're Dalton rushing and you're hitting, not catching and you're thinking, do I want to use up a challenge here when we have all these great hall of Fame level hitters, maybe you would be a bit more wary and maybe you should be, I guess, depending on whether your sense of the strike zone is as strong as those guys is. I would hope that it's not purely a seniority based thing. Like I wouldn't want a young hitter to be afraid of challenging on an obvious call and I would want to send that message, hey, yeah, if you've got a no doubter here, then by all means do. But you could be conscious of how many opportunities there are. I'm sure there will be cases late in games where someone runs out of challenges and there's a close or an egregious call and it's a high leverage moment and people won't like that. Understandably that there's no recourse. But, but I don't know how often that will happen because I do think teams will hoard their challenges a little bit and if anything, they won't challenge as often as they should because they don't want to be caught without challenges in a situation like that.

[B]

Yeah, I think that that's right. I imagine that they will be heavily concentrated toward the back innings, the last few innings and there will be leverage and sort of situational exceptions to that, certainly. But, but I think just your average challenge is likely to come later in the game than earlier. And then in terms of the dynamic with catchers, I feel like that's probably something that has to get worked out between catchers and veteran pitchers anyway. There's the catcher as hitter component of it, but even just in terms of how do you navigate that when you're part of the battery? Dalton has to figure that out for all manner of things. Right. For operating the pitchcom, not the actual physical operation of it, but being the guy to call a game. Right. I think there's an adjustment period for that regardless. And this is just one more thing.

[A]

Yep, Yep. And I think it's going to be fun. And I'm kind of happy that catcher value will be preserved if not enhanced, which Davey Andrews wrote about recently for fan graphs, and Tom Tango did, too. And he broke it down very succinctly at his site and said, in a challenge system, there will be about four challenge calls made, of which two are going to be correct flipped, and two will be lost. Challenges call upheld. Like in a standard game, let's assume half the challenges will be by the offense and half the defense, although it'll be more by the defense and the catcher, as Tom notes. So the average catcher will be one in one. Some catchers are going to be good at knowing which pitches to challenge. And so instead of being 1 and 1. 50% correct, they might end up being 1.2 to 1.0. 55% correct. In other words, a good challenger will have an extra.02 incorrect calls per game corrected to go their way compared to the average catcher. And because they will be careful when they challenge going for the higher leverage, that might end up being worth the equivalent of 0.4 or.05 extra calls going their way. And yes, they will lose about 10%. Tom estimates, on the framing side, as some of the calls that go the catcher's way, that shouldn't get overturned, but he calculates that it will probably work out to be the catchers being more valuable, and then we'll have to account for that. But, you know, I, I like to preserve the primacy of the catcher defensively and that very specialized skill set. And so we'll still get some framing, but we'll get a little less of the very bad kind of call.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And. And then we'll have a new thing to analyze and a new way to accrue value via challenges. And then another thing, we can analyze and project and assess the true talent of players when it comes to challenges. So I'm looking forward to all that complexity. For me, that is more of a selling point than a drawback.

[B]

Plus, you'll get the very strange experience that I had a couple of times in fall league where we had some umps who were very good and there were multiple challenges in a game, and they almost all went in the umpire's favor. Right. They had called the, the, the baller strike correctly, and people cheered the umpire. Ben people. I heard a guy yell, way to go, blue. And I'm like, Never in my entire life. Never in my entire life I had. I heard a guy basically make grumbling noises like, you're really gonna. You're really gonna challenge this guy. He's been having a great zone all day. And I was like, wow, so we're. We might be in a whole new frontier when it's all.

[A]

Yeah, that's so interesting though. Get. Get extra recognition and validation. Even though the system is now set up to very publicly and visibly call out their heirs.

[B]

Yep, that's right.

[A]

All right, well, Meg has some travel later this week in advance of the winter meetings which she will be attending, so I will not talk to her later this week, or at least will not podcast with her. But I will talk to you about what I don't know, but we'll find out together. Sadly, we recorded before the big news broke about Alec Manoa signing with the Angels. Not nearly as major news as the Devin Williams or John Brebia signings, but I wish him well. I hope he bounces back. I'm sure the Angels are just the team to turn him around. There's buying low and there's buying really low, but man, Minoa was fun when he was good, so I hope he gets good again. Maybe that's the sort of move that the Angels needed, that financial flexibility for that they'll get if they can buy out Anthony rendone. That big $1.95 million Manoa move. A bigger move made even after that, even later. Breaking news I swear, so many transactions happen in the couple of hours after we finished recording. Just after east coast business hours. Manoa, an ex Blue Jay, Cody Ponce, a current Blue Jay or soon to be Blue Jay. Ponce is coming back from Korea, signing with Toronto. Three years, 30 million. Wish I had taken the over on the 22 that MLB Trade rumors predicted. I considered it. If you want to hear more about Ponce and his transformation and success in the KBO, check out episode 2397 from last month when we talked to Eric Langenhagen about it. I'm fairly bullish on Ponce and now I'm very bullish on this Blue Jays rotation, which we were singing some praises of last time. Now you're talking. Cease, Gosman, Barrios, Bieber. Yes, Savage Ponce and good depth too. That's six. And then you've got Ricky Tiedemann and Eric Lauer and Bowden Francis, etc. I don't know if all those guys will stay in the rotation or start the season in Toronto. I know that they were talking about moving Barrios to the bullpen last year. Potential trade candidate too, but but as of now, that is a good group. So the Blue Jays have not ceased spending. You may have made note of our new intro theme today. It's credited to the Spaghetti, but that's the band name of none other than the aforementioned Davey Andrews of Fan Graphs, writer and recorder of Edward Julian. Are you going to rule again? He has now joined our Effectively Wild theme rotation along with his wife who supplied backup vocals. Thanks to both of them. New themes always welcome. Keep them coming and I will remind everyone again that you can still sign up for Effectively Wild Secret Santa. Not for too much longer though. Deadline is December 10th. Check the link on the show page. You can support Effectively Wild in so many ways, really leaving us a rating or review. Recording a theme song, telling a friend, giving a gift to an Effectively Wild listener in the Secret Santa activity. But also financially, that's pretty important too. So you can go to patreon.com effectively wild and sign up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going. Help us stay ad free and get yourself access to some perks, as have the following five listeners Alex Lammers, Catherine, Brendan Hill and some other name and Todd Heitman. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only. We won't let just anyone in there. I mean, we will, but they have to have $2 and 50 cents a month minimum. You can also get monthly bonus episodes, potential podcast appearances, prioritized email answers, playoff live streams, personalized messages, discounts on merch and ad free fangraphs memberships, and so much more. Check out all the [e-mail] effectivelywild if and only if you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. And remember, you can give gift subscriptions too. There's a link on the show page for that. There's always a link on the show page. You can also contact us replenish our mailbag by sending your questions and comments and your intro and outro themes to podcastamgraphs.com youm can rate, review and subscribe to Effectively Wild on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Music, and other podcast platforms. You can join our facebook [e-mail] group effectively wild. You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit @r effectivelywild and you can check the aforementioned show page, the podcast post at Fan Grafts, 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. I will be back with one more episode before the end of the week. Talk to you then. Effectively wild, effectively styled, distilled over chilled beats, effectively mild.