Effectively Wild Episode 2411: The Ozone Player

Summary

Effectively Wild Episode 2411: The Ozone Player

Hosts: Ben Lindbergh (The Ringer), Meg Rowley (FanGraphs)
Date: December 9, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode finds Ben and Meg discussing the notably slow start to the MLB Winter Meetings, the minor but amusing drama surrounding visit stats on FanGraphs player pages, the latest and weirdest health trend from Bryce Harper (“ozone therapy”), and a smattering of notable offseason news including trades and Jeff Kent’s induction to the Hall of Fame. The episode is filled with the hosts’ humor, skepticism, and characteristically thoughtful baseball analysis.

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Main Themes & Discussion Points

1. Winter Meetings Vibes: Slow News Days and Industry Grumbling

• Setting: Meg is recording live from the Signia by Hilton in Orlando, not the usual Winter Meetings venue, which prompts minor protest from Marriott loyalists among baseball personnel.
• Weather Report & Disney Ambiance: Heavy Orlando rain and the Tower of Terror outside Meg’s window.
• No Major Moves… Yet: Other than the Jeff Kent Hall of Fame news, it’s a quiet event—prompting the hosts into joking about smaller transactions (e.g., Mike Soroka).

Tone: Playful, lightly snarky about the need for action.
Notable Quote:

• “You're not a drop ride guy?” – Meg to Ben on theme park rides. (04:11)

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2. Scorekeeper Snafus: The Great Pitcher Draft Correction

• Background: Ben shares a correction from last episode regarding a 2015 “under-25 pitcher draft”—turns out, due to spreadsheet error, he actually beat Sam Miller, not the other way around.
• Chris Hannell, the Scorekeeper: The error stemmed from a warp (Wins Above Replacement Player) data misallocation, with Kendall Graveman’s stats being incorrectly credited to Carlos Martinez.
• Fan Involvement: Eagle-eyed listeners/patrons spotted the mix-up and got it fixed.

Notable Quotes:

• “It was a real rollercoaster to be reminded that this draft had taken place at all because I had not thought about it for many a year and to be informed that I had lost and then to subsequently be informed that in fact I had won.” – Ben (07:41)
• “How refined of you, really. As opposed to the last time when you behaved in a way that made me question whether you had been raised right.” – Meg teasing Ben about previously gloating (08:02)

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3. FanGraphs Wrapped and the Brebia Dilemma

• FanGraphs Year in Review: Ben reviews his end-of-year stats as a FanGraphs user—his most-visited player pages being normcore choices (Judge, Ohtani) but also John Brebia, whom he visited 21 times, making him only the second-most prolific Brebia browser in 2025.
• Data Privacy Jokes: Meg quips they can't check whether it was Brebia or his agent for privacy reasons.
• Community Feature: Brief plug of FanGraphs' "Walk Off" feature and the Effectively Wild Secret Santa.

Notable Quotes:

• “If there is a bigger Brebia visitor out there, out yourself, tell me, show me the screenshots. I want to see the evidence of you as the number one Brebia man.” – Ben (11:14)
• “Isn't it fun, though, to think the likely answer... is either Brebia himself or, based on the vibe of the man... more likely his agent, because Brebia didn’t strike me as the kind of guy to dwell on his own player page, you know?” – Meg (11:43)

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4. Low-Stakes Drama: Sonny Gray vs. Brian Cashman

• Background: Sonny Gray, recently traded to the Red Sox, publicly trashed his experience as a Yankee, saying he never wanted to be there and is now happy to “hate the Yankees.”
• Cashman’s Rebuttal: Yankees GM Brian Cashman aggressively refutes Gray’s account, claiming Gray once clamored to join the Yankees, later saying he lied about it per his agent’s advice.
• Agent Involvement: Gray’s agent Bo McInnes issues statements denying Cashman’s account in detail, highlighting the general “silliness” of this back-and-forth.
• Meta Analysis: Meg and Ben poke fun at the intensely parochial aspects of the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry, loving that narratives like this persist no matter how low the actual stakes.

Notable Quotes:

• “This is my favorite low stakes off season drama so far because this is all so silly and mostly meaningless. But it seems to be pretty important to the people involved.” – Ben (24:49)
• “[Sonny Gray]’s going to hear about this every time he pitches in the Bronx. Right. Like, every time. And if he has a bad start, it’s going to be loud and brutal and they will be very rude about it. And so I just think that it denotes a real confidence and is hilarious.” – Meg (31:02)

Timestamps:

• (17:01–33:46) Full segment on Gray v. Cashman, media training, and baseball rivalries

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5. The Ozone Player: Bryce Harper’s “Wellness” Adventures

• Topic Title: Ozone Therapy—Snake Oil or Secret Weapon?
• Bryce’s Instagram Post: Harper shares a photo of himself having a third of his blood removed, “ozonated,” and replaced—a debunked “ozone therapy” procedure, administered by a chiropractor/naturopath.
• Host Reactions:
  • Deep skepticism and concern about athletes falling into wellness pseudoscience, with both empathy for the underlying pressures on aging athletes and alarm for the risks/or platform effects.
  • Discussion of broader issues: the tendency for alternative medicine to catch on even among the wealthy and resourced; the dangers when high-profile figures promote these practices.
• Light-hearted Moments: Meg compares the prevalence of Arizona med spas to their representation on John Oliver exposés; ribbing about the word “chiropractor.”
• Deeper Points:
  • Concerns about the Philly’s organization and other athletes being influenced, the challenges of aging in elite sports, and the risks of alternative medicine “communities.”

Notable Quotes:

• “I want all my blood inside.” – Meg (58:15)
• “This is dopey. I don’t think it’s doping. It’s not performance enhancing. You hope it’s not performance impairing.” – Ben on the procedure (47:22)
• “He is just. There are few people in the world more completely and profoundly backstopped by resource and expertise than this guy... and he is fallen prey to some real hooey.” – Meg (65:14)

Timestamps:

• (35:06–67:52) In-depth discussion of Bryce Harper’s “ozone therapy,” celebrity wellness culture, and baseball’s susceptibility to fads

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6. Recent Trades and Prospect Blockage

• Overview:
  • Mariners/Nationals: Harry Ford (Mariners, blocked by Cal Raleigh at catcher) traded for Nationals reliever Jose Ferrer (under-the-radar but intriguing arm).
  • Pirates/Red Sox: Johan Oviedo (Pitcher, Pirates) goes to Boston for Jostenson “Password” Garcia, another prospect who’s blocked (this time in the OF).
• General Point: Both deals involve prospects “blocked” by established MLB talent, showing classic trade logic.
• Analysis:
  • Ford: Not the best prospect, but solid; Mariners needed a lefty bullpen arm.
  • Ferrer: Liked by both, potential for more via Mariners’ pitcher dev.
  • Password Garcia: High risk, high reward—Pirates taking the right kind of swings for their club.
  • Kiebert Ruiz’s stagnation as a Nats “solution” at catcher: disappointment.
• Steamer Projections: Red Sox now project as the #2 rotation in the AL by FanGraphs.

Notable Quotes:

• “I thought it made better sense for both sides than it initially seemed.” – Meg (73:01)

Timestamps:

• (67:52–78:43) Trades; blocked prospects; implications for teams

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7. Jeff Kent, the Hall, and the Broken Process

• News: Jeff Kent elected to the Hall of Fame by the ERAs Committee (not BBWAA), the only inductee from his ballot.
• Host Perspectives:
  • Ben is indifferent, noting the overall lack of consistency in how the Hall and various committees (re-)evaluate candidacies; notes more deserving players (Bobby Grich, Lou Whitaker) not even up for consideration.
  • Meg: Finds Kent's election as a solo honoree “weird,” wonders about the overall purpose and fairness of the committee process, laments Fernando Valenzuela’s snub.
  • Larger issue: ever-shifting Hall rules, the purgatory of players with PED ties, and the oddity of a process that cycles candidates endlessly.
• Meta-Commentary: They muse about the impossibility of getting it “right” and wish it could be less drawn out, more decisive, and more transparent.

Notable Quotes:

• “I’ve just sort of soured on the whole process.” – Ben (92:21)
• “The Hall just seems so kind of brazen in the way that it is trying to tilt these committees away from someone like Bonds or Clemens ever really getting an honest and thorough... consideration.” – Meg (88:22)

Timestamps:

• (78:48–94:10) Hall of Fame musings and Jeff Kent's case

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Memorable Moments & Notable Quotes

• “If I were a player, I would be visiting my FanGraphs page pretty often.” – Ben (12:09)
• "Just a third of your blood." – The running joke about Harper’s ozone therapy (38:24)
• “There’s woo and then there’s woo. Some of the woo is you should be enthusiastic about Bryan Woo. You should not be enthusiastic about this woo.” – Meg (56:52)
• “This is my favorite low stakes offseason drama so far… all so silly and mostly meaningless, but it seems to be pretty important to the people involved.” – Ben on Gray vs. Cashman (24:49)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:14–04:03: Winter meetings scene & vibes
• 04:13–08:25: Pitcher draft correction discussion
• 08:25–16:38: FanGraphs “wrapped,” Secret Santa plug, John Brebia anecdote
• 17:01–33:46: Sonny Gray vs. Cashman (Yankees-Red Sox rivalry)
• 35:06–67:52: Bryce Harper (ozone therapy), wellness culture, risk analysis
• 67:52–78:43: Trade round-up (Ford/Ferrer; Oviedo/Password Garcia)
• 78:48–94:10: Jeff Kent & Hall of Fame process musings

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Takeaways for Listeners

• The Winter Meetings are off to a slow and soggy start, but the hosts keep things lively with analysis and banter.
• Behind every error in baseball stats analysis, there’s a devoted listener or wiki-keeper ready to set the record straight.
• Baseball fandom gets delightfully weird in the margins—like tracking who visits John Brebia’s page the most.
• Sonny Gray and Brian Cashman’s tiff exemplifies the enduring, sometimes hilarious, drama and petulance that keeps Yankees-Red Sox fresh.
• Bryce Harper is walking—or bleeding—down a concerning alternative medicine road, raising real questions about athlete wellness trends and influence.
• Trades often aren’t about who wins or loses instantly, but about organizations finding paths for blocked players, with matching needs.
• The Hall of Fame has never been more arbitrary or the subject of more resigned banter from even the most devoted baseball wonks.

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Summary prepared for those seeking a rich, engaging overview with flavor, context, and key moments from Effectively Wild Episode 2411.

Transcript

[Meg Reilly]

Effectively Wild.

Effectively Wild.

Effectively Wild.

Effectively Wild.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Hello and welcome to episode 2411 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from FanGraphs, presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindbergh of the Ringer, rejoined by Meg Reilly of fangraphs, who is in lovely Orlando for the MLB Winter meetings where as we speak on Monday afternoon, no major moves have happened except for Jeff Kent into Cooperstown. And even Jeff Kent is not actually moving to Cooperstown. Presumably just a plaque of Jeff Kent will be hopefully a good likeness, but we'll see.

[Meg Reilly]

I cannot believe how disrespectful you're being to Mike Siroca. I just like I'm. I'm offended on behalf of his entire family. I had a whole little my Soroka thing planned and you were just like, doesn't matter, doesn't matter. It's a big league deal. Ben, you have no respect for a big league deal. But yes, it has been quiet so far.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Too quiet. Yes, I was going to say I was going to blow up your spot because before we hit record you were bemoaning the lack of moves. So you're not exactly Ms. Mike Soroka Appreciator either.

[Meg Reilly]

Yeah, I mean I. I'm here for a good joke, as we all know. And I now desperately need them to trade Mike Sirota, which, you know, unlikely given that he's a Dodger now, but. Gimme a Soroka Sirota mashup. I believe that Soroka is actually going by Michael Siroca, which perhaps indicates that he doesn't like all of our little jokes. But I'm gonna keep enjoying the Mike Siroca potential. Or maybe I should just switch to Mike Sirota because we haven't quite tapped that well yet.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Anyway, Mike Sirotka could come out of retirement.

[Meg Reilly]

I'm just saying there are so many possibilities.

[Ben Lindbergh]

There's just so many.

[Meg Reilly]

We are limited by is our imaginations.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Mics with similar last names. Well, when and if something does happen, you can assign the fan graphs reaction via your voice potentially instead of via Slack message. So that will be completely different. And I'm sure you have some good David Appleman funded dinners on tap, which I'll wish that I could join. And yeah, if you have the branzino, then I hope that it's not interrupted by a major signing this time.

[Meg Reilly]

Thank you. Yeah, we got through our dinner last night, which was lovely, without any major interruption, no big signings or trades. So I am appreciative. I did not have branzino, but that's because it wasn't on offer, but we had a lovely meal. You know, we're. We're at an official Disney World property here, Ben. Although for the, for the real winter meetings, heads, not the Swan and Dolphin, which was the venue of choice for many years, although I never attended winter meetings there. This is my first Orlando winter meetings. We are at the Signia by Hilton, which as we maybe discussed at one point on the pod, has inspired like a low level vibe of rebellion from the assembled baseball industry folks. Because where are my Marriott points? Nowhere to be found in this Hilton property. But yeah, we're.

Poured last night. It was torrential. My hair can only be described as attempting to exit my head via humidity. So there's that. I can see the Tower of Terror just out the, out the window here from the hotel. There it is. There's the Tower of Terror. I don't think that we're going to have any opportunities to go into the parks, but. But I can see that. I can see the, the Tower of Terror.

[Ben Lindbergh]

There it is. Well, I would not be patronizing the Tower of Terror even if I had time. I prefer not to be terrified if possible.

[Meg Reilly]

You're not a drop ride guy?

[Ben Lindbergh]

No, not particularly. I do have some big news to break here on the podcast. Really? It's a correction to issue. Not of a mistake of my own, of course, just a correction to relay, which is that on the last episode, which you were absent for due to travel, I was joined by our pal and former co host, Sam Miller. Yes. And I was also joined at the start of that episode by effectively wild scorekeeper Chris Hannell, who wanted to remind me and Sam that we had conducted a draft of 25 and under pitchers way back in the year 2015 on episode 669. And Chris told us what the results were of that draft.

[Meg Reilly]

Yes.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Or so we thought.

[Meg Reilly]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah. So there was a. A miscalculation. So what happened here? Evidently, which Chris detailed on BlueSky, the official EW stats account, in something like an 11 post thread. If you want all the gory details, I will link to it here and you could give that account a follow if you care to. But there was a bit of a misread of some cells in a spreadsheet, evidently, because the surprising result seemed to be that I had been winning this draft for years. And then it seemed to turn out that Sam won. And that seemed to be a result of the warp model changing. And that warp being calculated differently sure had changed the results and had bolstered Sam's draftees. It turns out that was not actually the case. And what happened somehow was that Kendall Graveman's stats were confused with Carlos Martinez's stats. And so there was some warp misallocated because of this. And thus I should have won and did win. And it was just a. A bit of a misread of the stats. And this was noted by the eagle eyed Raymond Chen Patreon supporter and effectively wild wiki keeper who frequently spots my mistakes and tells me about them, but in a constructive way, of course, unfailingly. But this mistake led to Sam being labeled the winner when he was actually the loser. And the actual final scores according to Chris were 74.3 wins above replacement player for my draftees and 63.7 for Sam. So Chris actually mentioned in that appearance that there seemed to be something wonky going on with Carlos Martinez, that his calculations had taken a huge hit and he had dropped by more than six warp. And what actually happened is that he went up by more than six warp. But Kendall Graveman's stats, somehow there was a substitute there. So it was a real roller coaster to be reminded that this draft had taken place at all because I had not thought about it for many a year and to be informed that I had lost and then to subsequently be informed that in fact I had won. So I experienced all the emotions and, and don't worry, I will not monologue about this one at length because I'm not nearly as invested in this as I was in my minor league free agent draft triumph, which I will remind everyone was not just that I won, it was the way that I won, going 10 for 10. In case anyone forgot that that happened, that was, that was why I took several victory this one. I'll just say that the record has now been corrected, but I, I will gloat no further.

[Meg Reilly]

Sure, sure. How, how refined of you, really. As opposed to the last time when you behaved in a way that made me question whether you had been raised right. You know, I, I started having doubts about you and your entire family, Ben. But yeah, I think, I think that, you know, mistakes happen, we correct the record and we move on.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, no big deal. Yeah, we had a nice time talking about it with Sam regardless. And we're all about accuracy here at Effectively Wild. So those are the actual results. Now we know. And I have to report to you another result which I'm somewhat miffed about because I was evidently the runner up really in what is the most important competition, which is number of times visiting John Brebia's FanGraph's player page in 2025, I was number two. So for those who did not know, I've been wondering that all weekend. So the equivalent of Spotify wrapped in all the end of year podcast listening stats came out for fan graphs last week for fan graphs subscribers and supporters. So FanGraphs walk off. You can check that out and it'll tell you your stats about all the pages you visited and the parts of the site and the authors you read and the player pages and all the rest. And one of the fun things is that it tells you which player pages you visited most often. And my top three, my, my top ones were very basic, very standard. Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, Cal Rally. Okay, sure. I'm the most normie fangraphs player page visitor I could imagine. Number eight on my list was John Brebia.

[Meg Reilly]

Right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

But I was not the most prolific Brebia visitor in 2025. I was number two, having visited his page 21 times. Which, and that's, you know, I don't know if I was logged in for 100% of my brebia visits, but, but let's say I was. Yeah. Who could have possibly out visited me? Could it have been John Brebia himself?

[Meg Reilly]

Or maybe his agent?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Or his agent. And I'm sure that, you know, there's a strict secrecy and privacy and all the rest. And I just, you know, if we could pull some strings and I could just see under the hood here and you know, you're seeing Appleman this week in Orlando. If you could maybe just ask Appleman, you know, check the IPs.

[Meg Reilly]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Is that, is it John Brebia himself? Because I'd feel fine about John Brebia visiting his own player page more often than I did or his agent. Someone who has a, a direct financial stake in John Brebia's performance. I think that would be excusable for me to be the runner up. But if there's just a bigger Brebia fan out there who is. Is not either Brebia or affiliated with Brebia, then, then that would disappoint me. So I'm just consumed. If there is a bigger Brebia visitor out there out yourself, tell me, show me the screenshots. I want to see the evidence of you as the number one rebia man.

[Meg Reilly]

You know, I'm, I'm sorry. I, I don't think that we can violate user trusts like that. Like, we, you know, I, we take seriously the notion of some amount of data privacy. So I don't think I can. But isn't it fun, though, to think, you know. Sure. The likely answer, Ben, the likely answer is that it's. It's either Brebia himself or based on sort of the vibe of the man that we've gotten both from other coverage in your conversation with him. More likely his agent, because Rebbe didn't strike me as the kind of guy to dwell on his own player page, you know?

[Ben Lindbergh]

No, definitely. It could be a frequent fan graphs visitor, though, so.

[Meg Reilly]

Sure.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And I would. I would hope that he's a paying subscriber, you know, I mean, look, let's be honest. If I were a player, I would be visiting my Fangrass page pretty often.

[Meg Reilly]

Oh, sure. And I don't mean to. I don't mean to say that I'm. Look, I don't mean to say that there would be anything wrong with interrogating one's own player page and, and, and even delighting in it, but he just doesn't. He didn't strike me as the type, you know, he didn't seem like a guy who was going to be, despite being a guy who has fluency in, you know, stats and whatnot and doesn't seem put off by them, but he just didn't seem like the kind of guy to be like, oh, I got to go check.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Also, perhaps one. One would want to avoid one's stats if they. If they looked like John Prebias in 2025. Sorry, John.

[Meg Reilly]

Yeah, but. But isn't it more fun to imagine than. Rather than it being Brebbius agent or the man himself, but Brebia's agent? In all likelihood that perhaps it is some other enthusiastic fan of the podcast who has now become an enthusiastic fan of John Brebbia via your advocacy on Brebia's behalf.

[Ben Lindbergh]

That is a nice thought. Yeah. Or there's just a bigger Brebia fan who got to Brebia way before I did and is like, oh, now you've just discovered John Brebia. Finally. You're the John come lately, I guess, to. To John Brebia. I mean, it's. Yeah. I'd like to think that there's someone out there who's just as into John Brebia as me without actually being John Brebia. So it's. It's possible, but I was a little perplexed by that result. Here's a more predictable result. Another nice thing is that it gives you little awards and it tells you which parts of the site and where you've ranked overall I got a little award for. For visiting all of my quote unquote articles in 2025 because I pitched a perfect game. If you read all of one author's articles, then it says perfect game and it gives you a little logo with a star. And so I went 144 for 144. And of course I. I couldn't have been otherwise because I post the podcast myself. Right. And so I have to go to my pages because it's the only way that the podcast gets posted. So, yeah, yeah, it's not that I'm just obsessed with. With myself necessarily, or at least this is not a manifestation of that. It's purely a product of my posting the podcast. But. But I enjoyed that I got the little perfect game. I would guess I'm the only person who got a perfect game for Ben Lindbergh posts @Fangraphs who went 144 for 144 on the podcast posts. Because, you know, you don't actually have to go to the post. You can download the podcast elsewhere.

[Meg Reilly]

Right, right. Sure, sure, sure, sure. Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Okay. Also, I will just remind everyone that Effectively Wild Secret Santa, you still have a chance to sign up if you care to. But registration ends this Wednesday, December 10th, so you got to sign up in the next couple days if you want to. I already have. It's a nice little thing every year for the Effectively Wild community, whoever chooses to participate, you get randomly assigned someone else in the community who signs up and you can send them a little gift. I think it's like a $25 suggested maximum, but you can do whatever you want. Just send a little gift and hopefully get it to your recipient before or buy or around Christmas time. And as I will always say, if you do intend to sign up, please only sign up if you intend to follow through.

[Meg Reilly]

Right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Do not give your recipient coal. Just every now and then, you know there's some risk you sign up. It's just on the honor system, we can't really penalize people who sign up and don't deliver. The vast majority do. I think I always do and I always get something, but some people get skunked every year and it stinks. So don't be the person who signs up and then leaves someone giftless. But. But if you do intend to participate, it's a fun thing. And you're welcome to post photos in the Discord group or the Facebook group if you care to, but no requirement to. But yeah, spread some baseball holiday cheer with a fellow podcast listener. If you care to. And you can check the signup sheet, which is linked on the aforementioned podcast post or in the episode description in your podcast app, wherever it's there. And this has been running by an effectively wild listener, Zach Wenkos, for many a year now. And I like it. I like that it still happens. So, yeah, get your sign up in now if you are going to.

[Meg Reilly]

Yeah, it's a lot of fun.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Okay, so we have a little bit of baseball news to discuss. A few trades or a couple trades that I want to touch on that happened last week that have not been discussed on the podcast. And we could talk a little bit of Jeff Kent. And also, can I just touch on sort of the dumbest drama that I've enjoyed lately?

[Meg Reilly]

Oh, sure. Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

So I always appreciate when a player goes to a team and then panders to that team's fan base, especially if that team has a real natural rival and really leans into that rivalry. And that has happened with Sonny Gray, who was traded to the Red Sox and immediately came out and kind of trashed the Yankees. And of course, he is a former Yankee and his time in New York didn't go great. He didn't seem to be happy there. He didn't pitch his best. And then he moved on and he came out and said, New York, it just wasn't a good situation for me. It wasn't a great setup for me and my family. I never wanted to go there in the first place when I was there, which was from mid-2017 through 2018, it just didn't really work for who I am.

[Meg Reilly]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And then he said it was an immediate yes when he learned that the Cardinals wanted to trade him to Boston. What did factor into my decision to come to Boston? It feels good to me to go to a place now where, you know what, it's easy to hate the Yankees. Right? It's easy to go out and have that rivalry and go into it with full force, full steam ahead. I like the challenge. So, I mean, what could you do to endear yourself to the Red Sox fan base than to say, yeah, I was a Yankee at one time, but I didn't like it, couldn't wait to get out of there. And now I'm happy to take the fight to them and to be on the other side of the Red Sox Yankees rivalry. I mean, you know, good messaging, right? A good way to ingratiate yourself. I guess he did say, I, I do appreciate my time in New York. He said that at some point, but mostly he was like, Yankee sucks New York sucks down with the Yankees. Let's, let's, let's take them down. Okay. And if it had ended there, fine, whatever, you know, would have been tabloid fodder in New York. And probably when Sonny Gray pitches against the Yankees, people would regurgitate it on the back page of, of the Post or on talk radio or whatever it is. However, I did not account for Brian Cashman.

[Meg Reilly]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And the potent force of off season Brian Cashman, who will just say whatever. And I've, I've celebrated this aspect of Brian Cashman before. He just doesn't care. He'll say whatever. Like he's more frank, I think, than the typical baseball executive because he's been doing this job for so long.

[Meg Reilly]

So long.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah. And he has such job security and he can just, he can shoot from the hip a little bit. He can, he can say things. He, he, he will be more open about things than other executives. And, you know, sometimes it just be how he'll basically acknowledge that. Yeah. Jean, Carl, Dan. He's going to get hurt at some point. We know that. You know, he'll just say things like that. And sometimes he'll kind of badmouth players a little bit and it's fun. Like he's, you know, kind of combative, like not in, like a really vindictive like. But, you know, he'll, he'll go toe to toe with the media a little bit and kind of rag on people a little bit. And, and I enjoy that. And so he comes out, it's like the petty Brian Cashman, you know.

[Meg Reilly]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And he's not going to let these Sonny Gray comments stand. So he fires back. I mean, I don't know if he volunteered this or he was asked maybe, but he's talking to reporters at the winter meetings on Sunday and he basically says that Sonny Gray was lying about never wanting to pitch in New York. Yeah. So he says.

When he was with the A's, he was telling our minor league video coordinator, you got to get me over to the Yankees. Cashman said, tell Cash, get me over to the Yankees. I want out of Oakland. I want a championship. He went on to say that Gray was communicating that to a number of different people, that he wants to be a Yankee. And then Cashman disclosed in his second season in the Bronx, Gray told Cashman that he was surprised that the Yankees hadn't traded him at the 2018 deadline. And Cashman said, that's when he told me he never wanted to be here. He hates New York. This is the worst place he Just sits in his hotel room. And then, Cashman says when he reminded Gray that he had told people he wanted to be traded to the Yankees, Gray then blamed his agent, Bo McInnes. So we got people throwing people under the bus in every direction. McInnes told me to do that, Gray said. According to Cashman, Cashman said gray told him McInnes told me to lie because it wouldn't be good for my free agency to say there's certain places that I don't want to go to. And then the next act. There's another chapter in this saga of where Sonny Gray said he wanted to play and actually wanted to play Bo McInnes. Now he's had his honor and his integrity impugned, so he has to put out a statement. And he says to the Athletic, in 2017, Sonny did not have no trade rights with the Ocones, so he had no legal right to have input as to where he would be traded or if he would be traded as such, he made no statement that he did or did not want to be traded to any specific team. And thus there was no statement that could have included a lie. The Athletics had no obligation to inform Sunny of any trade communications they had with other clubs, so they never told him they were potentially trading him to any particular team. As an aside, if a player does not want to play for a particular club, thus potentially not performing at their best if they were with that team, it does not help their career and future free agency to lie their way into a trade to that club. Then the story says, a short while later, McInnes sent another message to the Athletic. So, not content with that original statement, he elaborates and says, so Brian is trying to make people believe I told Sonny to, in Cashman's words, lie to the minor league video guide to try to get Sonny to the Yankees, even though, per Cashman, Sonny did not want to be with the Yankees to subsequently somehow help Sonny's free agency. This makes zero sense. Further, the words I want out of Oakland have never been said by Sonny. He loved his time with the ace. Cashman goes on to say that he told Gray that he wished that Gray had told him beforehand that he didn't want to be in New York, that they tried to do their homework. I guess their homework didn't turn up. That Sonny Gray hates New York. And Sonny Gray, in his introductory press conference upon becoming a Yankee, said, I couldn't be happier with how it all played out and I couldn't be happ there, which we now know couldn't be true. He could have been happier. I mean, I guess I couldn't be happier to be there. I guess if you. To be here. If you parse that, that could mean that he's actually unhappy to be there. But. But he couldn't be happier to be there. Like there's, there's no way he could be happy about it. So he's actually miserable. But that's the happiest he could possibly be. But he also said I couldn't be happier with how it all played out, which would seem to be contradicted by his subsequent statements. So we have, yeah, we have Sonny Gray asserting something. We have Brian Cashman asserting that Sonny Gray lied. We then have McInnes Gray's agent asserting that Cashman lied about what Sonny Gray said about where he did or didn't want to play. This is my favorite low stakes off season drama so far because this is all so silly and mostly meaningless. But it seems to be pretty important to the people involved.

[Meg Reilly]

Okay. I don't want to imply intent like that there is an intent to deceive on anyone's part involved in this. But here's a question for you. How reliable do you think that either of their memories are of some of these events? Because it strikes me one thing about the Cashmen of it all that struck me as odd is the notion that Sonny Gray would reflect. Refer to Brian Cashman as Cash prior to him being a member of the Yankees. That, that seems a little odd to me. That seems potentially unlikely. And so I just, I, I'm wondering, you know, I'm wondering about whether people are remembering all of the things correctly in this and the sequence. And ultimately there is a big like, kind of. I feel like if the team on the other end of the. I didn't like it there and never wanted to be meh and don't care for New York. Was any other team but the Yankees, that we wouldn't have really gotten any churn on this. Right. It is a very Yankees specific sort of situation potentially. So I just don't, I just don't know, you know?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, because it does. It stands in contrast to the typical. I always wanted to put on the pinstripes. There's nothing like the pinstripes. There's nothing like New York. And so, yeah, it's like we gotta stand up for the honor of the city and the franchise.

[Meg Reilly]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Or, or yeah. Kind of cast aspersions on the character of someone who would not want to be a Yankee because who couldn't possibly want to be one.

[Meg Reilly]

Oh, my God.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah. It's possible that in putting the word Cash in Gray's mouth, maybe it's a paraphrase. Maybe.

[Meg Reilly]

Sure.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Gray didn't actually say Cash, and he wasn't quoting him saying Cash, but just kind of, you know, referring to himself as Cash or. I guess, I don't know. A lot of people in baseball probably call Cashman Cash, but I don't know, if you didn't know him and hadn't played for his team, maybe it would be weird to call him Cash, but I don't know. It's not a smoking gun in my mind. I mean, I'm inclined to believe Cashman, I guess, just because I have found him to be fairly frank when it comes to this sort of thing, though I guess he has some motivation to, you know, because this is a trade that didn't really work out that well. Yeah. So to kind of make Gray seem duplicitous or make it seem like Cashman was snookered into trading for Gray or misled into thinking that he really wanted to be a Yankee when in fact he had reservations the whole time.

[Meg Reilly]

Right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I mean, I guess what doesn't seem to be in dispute is that Gray did not want to be a Yankee, and he did say, at least publicly, that he was happy to be a Yankee. Now, what else are you going to say, I guess if you.

[Meg Reilly]

What else are you going to say?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Traded to that team, you know, he didn't have a say in being traded there. And so if he came out and said, well, this sucks, I didn't want to be here, that's generally not the best PR strategy. Much better to say, yeah, I love being here and I can't wait to stick it to your historic rivals. But, yeah, this is all just so silly, and it adds fuel to the fire of the rivalry. And we'll add another layer of intrigue when Gray pitches against the Yankees. And this is why I think it's good to have rivalries in sports, because we just get nonsense like this. It gets blown up into being meaning full and who the heck cares, really? But it's just, you know, another. Another little layer on top of the decades of Yankees Red Sox rivalry. It just gets blown all out of proportion because in sucking up to your team and its fan base, then you have to just. You have to dump on the rival, and then the rival fires back and. And now you have to question, well, does. Does Gray really want to be in Boston? Does he really? Does he love being on the Red Sox? Does he really want to stick it to the Yankees. Is he an unreliable narrator? Will he say whatever you want to hear? Because he knows how to worm his way in. Because he's all about just making you think, pulling the wool over your eyes and then later we'll find out. He never wanted to be in Boston either. I mean, in this case, he did have to waive a no trade cost. So he did have an opportunity not to be in Boston.

[Meg Reilly]

Yeah, yeah. I think that, I do think that there is like some, some amount of buy in here that is unusual relative to your typical trade because he did have to waive the no trade clause. So if you had really wanted to throw his weight around, he supposedly could have. But I don't, I think it's fun. I think there should be more. I don't know, I don't want people to be jerks, but I've been watching. You know, we were into, we were into conference championship play for, for college football.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah.

[Meg Reilly]

And I watched the Indiana Ohio State game. You know, Indiana won and it's this big exciting thing and da, da, da. And they're talking to the quarterback, Indiana's quarterback, after. And you know, these dudes are like media trained to within an inch of their lives.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah.

[Meg Reilly]

And it just results in them really saying nothing, you know, which is part of what they're trying to do. They're trying as best they can to not say anything that you remember at all. Right. But it makes for really boring interviews. It makes for really boring, you know, engagement. And so I, I just think that it was, I don't know, I think that it's nice when they're like kind of a little bit nasty about it, you know.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah.

[Meg Reilly]

And it can be fun. Now it's high stakes. Right. Because. Or it, I mean, to be clear, it's the lowest possible stakes. But within the realm of trash talking, to talk. I'm going to do swear to talk about the Yankees when you are now a member of the Boston Red Sox. You know, I said that this back and forth doesn't get much play if the Yankees aren't the team on the other end of it, but the Yankees are the team on the other end of it. And Gray famously now plays for the Boston Red Sox. He's going to hear about this every time he pitches in the Bronx. Right. Like every time. And if he has a bad start, it's going to be loud and brutal and they will be very rude about it. And so I just think that it denotes a real confidence and is hilarious. And so there you go.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, Yankees fans, and really any fan, but Yankees fans, perhaps in particular, they don't like to be spurned like this, and especially by a guy who didn't pitch up to his usual standards in New York. And this just adds fuel to the fire of, like, well, he couldn't hack it in New York. He was not built for New York. That's why he hated it so much, because he just didn't have the mindset, he didn't have the temperament. But. But think of all of the storylines that the Yankees Red Sox rivalry has given us this year. This drama, this back and forth. And then we had the Cam Schlitler back and forth about how, you know, he grew up in Massachusetts and he has family and friends who are on the other side of the rivalry. And then the whole conversation about, well, could they actually root for him, having been Red Sox fans before, or could they root for him but not root for the Yankees? And then there was, like, Twitter beef and, like, people tweeting at his mom and all this. This, you know, direct messages and all this. All this drama about that badmouthing and beef. And then there was the. The weird Hunter Dobbins story where Hunter.

[Meg Reilly]

Yeah, with his dad.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, Hunter Dobbins was like, I'd rather retire than be a Yankee. And then it was all about how there was this, like, generational beef that he had inherited from his father, Lance Dobbins. But then it turned out that there was, like, no reason for Lance Dobbins to have had this beef and that. That either he had exaggerated his record or Hunter had misunderstood it or whatever it is. All of this nonsense comes out of this rivalry. And this is. This is what sports is all about. I mean, yeah, it's. It's also about, like, the games and the winners and losers, but it's also about the trash talk and all the cultural aspects. And so what could be better than this stupid stuff? I love it.

[Meg Reilly]

Yeah. And it's like, you know, it. It's. It's calibrated, right? Because I guess on. I guess you could interpret Gray. I mean, he is, like, trashing the entire organization, but, like, the person responding to him is the gm. And so it's not like Gray is, like, picking on some. I don't know, Dev coach or whatever. And it's like, that guy's. No, he barely hates them all, and Cashman is the embodiment of it. So it, like, generalizes it, but. But specifies it in an important way, and he started it. So Cashman's like within his rights to say something. I don't know. I think it's perfect.

I think it's great. And something about, look, Sonny Guy's not a big. Sunny Gray isn't a big guy. Sonny Guy. Sonny Guy. No, that's not right. Sonny Gray. Sonny Gray is not a big guy by professional athlete standards. Right? And so there's something about, like a shorter statured pitcher being kind of redassy about it that also adds a dynamic that's good, you know? And then Cash, I would never. I would never feel comfortable calling him that. It feels unprofessional, like, to his face, you know, as a media member, to be like, hey, Cash. It's like, no, that's wrong. That's not right at all.

[Ben Lindbergh]

A lot of them do.

[Meg Reilly]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I don't know. I think it's. It's pitched in in just the right way. Because there are times when trash talk can feel overly mean, right? There are. There are moments where you're like, okay, hang on now, hang on now. But this isn't one of those. You get to. You get to punch up at the Yankees. And granted he's a professional baseball player and he plays for the Boston Red Sox, so it's not as if, you know, he's Pittsburgh Pirate or anything, but it's. I don't know, you get into the rivalry, and I like it. I think it's good.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Me too. Okay, another little bit of off season drama that we could perhaps touch on. Should we talk a bit about Bryce Harper and how he's doing?

[Meg Reilly]

Oh, we sure.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Whether he's okay, because he's not.

[Meg Reilly]

I mean, Ben, we can answer that question definitively right off the bat. Is he okay? Absolutely not. Right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

We know that his blood is bursting with ozone, So I don't know whether that's a good or bad thing, but I lean toward the latter. So we have kind of clowned, to use a Bryce phrase, clowned on the raw milk advocacy. And we've talked about how Bryce Harper has kind of become this, like, neuropathic homeopathic healing. Like sort of woo, woo. You know, just health influencer kind of guy. Like, he's.

[Meg Reilly]

It's all very Maha coated, you know?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, he's put it that way. Very like, yeah, the raw milk and the hydrogen water and just all this. And it's, you know, he's had a few photos come out, and I don't want to, like, pick on a player's appearance too much, but it's raised some eyebrows. It's taken people aback both because at least in one recent photo, he. He seemed to have lost a considerable amount of weight. At least it appeared that way. And you know, he's been a big strapping guy historically and also seems to have aged facially. And you know, who among us has not? But. And baseball players, they get a lot of sun, you know, can make you look weathered. But the crow's feet, they have really spread significantly, noticeably in Bryce's case. I don't know whether any of this is connected, to be clear, but it's just he has a bit of a mountain man look going on. And it's not just the. The facial hair, but I don't know, something about his appearance. He. He seems to look a little older than his years, subjectively. And yes, older than he used to, which obviously he is, but he's not old. You know, Bryce Harper, he's 33. Right. He turned 33 recently.

[Meg Reilly]

Right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Anyway. And that's all perhaps related, but perhaps beside the point. But yeah, he seems very into these alternative.

And the latest is ozone therapy. And to be clear, he's not. It's not like coming to light in some expose or something.

[Meg Reilly]

He's putting this on Instagram.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, he wants everyone to know about. He wants everyone to know so we're not like doing anything invasive or digging into his private life for his medicals or anything. This is. He's broadcasting this very much. And so he put on Instagram this photo of him lying in a chair with just like blood coming out of him and into him simultaneously. Blood being cycled, filtered outside of his body. A procedure that I was not familiar with, I think for good reason.

[Meg Reilly]

Because you go to an actual doctor.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Right?

[Meg Reilly]

Because you go to an actual doctor.

[Ben Lindbergh]

But credentials become familiar with in recent days. But yes, it's ozone therapy. It goes by other names. According to his post, it's a procedure in which one third of your blood is drawn from your body. That's a bad start right there. That.

[Meg Reilly]

Just a third of your blood.

[Ben Lindbergh]

That's a lot of your blood.

[Meg Reilly]

Third of your.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And to be clear, it's replaced because if it were not replaced, that would be potentially fatal. That's a lot of blood.

[Meg Reilly]

A third of your blood, Ben.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, but it's. You can't draw from your body, passed through a quote unquote filtration and ozonation device and then returned to your bloodstream. According to Bryce, circulates your blood outside your body, exposes the blood to ozone O3 and will oxygenate or filter the Blood before returning it to you. This will improve circulation, reduce inflammation, fight infection, support immune function, remove toxins, increase energy. Sounds great. I'm sold. Is there any evidence that this works? Not exactly, no. This is not FDA approved.

[Meg Reilly]

It's not even this fda.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, it's seemingly been widely debunked. It sure seems to be snake oil. And you know, look, there are things that are outside of the medical establishment. Everything that's in the medical establishment was at one point outside of the medical establishment, I suppose. And there are things that the medical establishment frowned upon and jeered at. And then subsequently it was discovered that no, there was actually some merit to this. So you know, you can't immediately rule out everything just because it's not FDA approved, I guess. But what studies there are, do not seem to confirm that there is any efficacy to this. And the person who is administering this treatment to Bryce, just the credentials don't speak to me as, as someone who I would necessarily want to entrust a third of my blood to just, just saying and you know, like a guy who became a doctor of, of he was a chiropractic doctor. That's like what his degree is in, which I don't think is really related to having your blood drawn and filtered. So you know, like health and wellness type of guy. And I like, I'm just imagining if you're the Phillies and you're seeing this post or you know, Price Harper's like friends and family, but for all I know they, they recommended this to him. But if you're like the Phillies and this is a player you're counting on and, and have made a major investment in and suddenly you see him doing some sort of like Silicon Valley weirdo wonky treatment, I would have some concerns. I, I don't really know what the policies are when it comes to like does he have to get approval to do this? Like does he have to inform the Phillies if he's getting some sort of medical procedure. Did they green light this? I have no idea. But it's a somewhat concerning turn that Mr. Harper has taken here.

[Meg Reilly]

Uh huh. Okay, so I have, I. Oh Ben. Oh, oh Ben. Boy do I have some. Boy do I have some things to say about this. So you're right. The history of modern quote unquote Western medicine is rife with treatments that are misunderstood and then become legitimate. And the way they become legitimate is through scientific rigor and process, through careful peer reviewed studies, through in some cases large scale clinical trials.

They don't tend to involve like a weirdo Chiropractor who's not an MD, taking 30 year blood out and saying, this is good. You should put this on Instagram the way you'd put on, like, you know, getting your first pumpkin spice latte of the fall. And so I don't want to make any sort of claim that there aren't problems, shall we say, with major medical. There sure are. There sure are. But guess what? They don't know if I've taken authority or blood out from some chiropractor who doesn't have a medical degree. If I were the Phillies, I would be incredibly concerned about this. And here's the thing. I have no idea. I am not a doctor. And so I will not assert the potential of drawbacks of a treatment like this, other than the obvious like, hey, you took a third of your blood out of your body and are putting it back in. That seems bad. You know, your blood, famously, it's better when it's in your body. You know, it's like a good thing to have it be in your body. But so that piece of it. I don't want to assert that I know exactly what this will do to him. You know, I guess if you're the, if you're the Phillies, the thing you're rooting for is that it does nothing. Yes, Right. Because it's almost certain to not do the things that he is claiming it does. But we don't. I don't know. I don't know. It seems. I know that ozone is bad in general. You don't want ozone. You know, we do all this work about ozone. Do you want ozone in your body? Seems like the answer to that is no.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Right? That's the thing. Whenever you hear about toxins now, there are certain things that are actual toxins and are toxic to you, and ozone is one of them, at least in some contexts. But when you hear remove toxins, 90% of the time, it's just some kind of quackery, usually because it's like your body, your body does a good job of filtering out toxins. Like, we have organs that do that, you know, Right.

[Meg Reilly]

He's like, hey, I'm doing, You know, when, when he first put it up, I thought he was doing like voluntary dialysis or something. And I was like, bryce, I, I am gonna assume that you have functional kidneys. My guy is just let your kidneys do their work. Filter out toxic. You have a liver, sir. You have a. So. So there's. If you're the Phillies.

I just love the dear Dombrowski is going to get asked about this. He's going to get asked about this. Ron Johnson's going to get asked about this. They're going to be like, hey, where's all the Bryce's blood? Do you know? Where's that, where's that blood? What's going on here? You know, they're going to spend part of their manager availability agm, you know, any GM availability they do talking about Bryce's blood. So that seems fantastic. But if you're the Phillies, you're hoping that like this doesn't really do anything at all. Yes, the, the part of it that's the most alarming. Well, there are a couple of things, Ben, if we're being candid. There are a couple of things that are alarming about it, one of which is the third of the blood out of the body part and then back into the body. It seems like too much blood out and in. At the same time, it is suggestive of Bryce Harper operating in a truly horrifying information ecosystem. Right. For you to get to take a third of my blood out of my body. Chiropractor man, please. Suggests that you are swimming in some, some real weird waters. And we already kind of had a sense of that, right? Because again, this is a man who was like pasteurization, not for me, seemed not good. It's sort of, this is a digression and I will not dwell on it, but it is very weird to me. I mean, so it is weird to me. It's weird to me that the raw milk thing has caught on because you would think that if you're in the, in this sort of woo space, the fact that it's just heating it up, it would, would appeal to you because it's so it's natural, right? There's not an additive. You're not putting anything in the milk. You're just, I mean I'm not saying they never put stuff in milk, but like they're not. This process is just you're heating it up, then you're going to back down. So that part of it I find concerning. But I worry about the, the other things Bryce Harper believes about his own well being. I worry about the, the vectors of information he has to other potentially more damaging things. I think that, you know, I've seen before and afters floating around of, of Bryce and like, look, that looks like 20 miles of bad road, brother. But also sometimes people are comparing Bryce Harper today to like Bryce Harper as a 19 year old debuting for the nationals and I'm like, well, he's 33 now and has multiple children. You're. Yeah, the, the photo of him as a 19 year old on photo day with professional lighting versus him outside at 33 on. They are gonna look different even without raw milk being involved. So that feels like you're this weird enough, we don't have to grasp at that particular straw. But yeah, he looks, he looks like he has lost weight or muscle mass. He kind of looks like the liver king. You know, he's got kind of. He's. He's trending in an alarming liver king direction.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Well, yeah, the, the fact that you mentioned that, and I don't mean to cast aspersions on what Harper is doing here and this, you know, some people thought, oh, is this some sort of like cycling blood doping type thing? I, this is dopey. I don't, I don't think it's doping. It's not performance enhancing. You hope it's not performance impairing. But it does kind of concern you because if he's taking whatever advice to do this, is he being careful about whatever other procedures are being done or substances? You know, you'd. Yeah, you'd hope, hope that he's, if he's taking any supplements from this person or anyone else, that he's getting those tested and cleared or whatever. But you kind of question the judgment, like when you're in this alternative medicine space, like, what else could that potentially lead him into? I'm just, I'm reading the credentials of this guy, Dr. Josh Red, on his website and there's a lot of language on here. It says most recently he graduated from naturopathic Medical school and completed his residency in regenerative medicine and stem cell injections through Bastyr University, which is actually, I guess, in, in Kenmore, Washington, if you want to check it out sometime next time you're home. But it says some of Bastyr's programs teach and research topics that are considered pseudoscience quackery. This is not still on his website, by the way. Wikipedia.

[Meg Reilly]

Now, as an aside, that would be truth in advertising.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, no, but Pseudoscience, quackery and fake by the scientific and medical communities. Numerous citations. Quack Watch, a group against health fraud, put Bastyr University on its list of questionable organizations as a school which is accredited but not recommended. And this guy's website does brag that he is managing the care of a growing number of professional athletes from around the world. It doesn't specify how many it could be. One, maybe zero, grew to one. Bryce Harper but it does say, including Those in the NFL, MLB, NBA and professional soccer in the U.S. and Europe, he helps them create medical plans for diet, nutrition, strength training, recovery, and for necessary medical interventions when injured. It notes that he has treated numerous high profile athletes from around the world, some with contracts exceeding 100 million. We know one of them, at least. So one imagines that word has circulated much like Bryce Harper's blood in this machine among these ultra rich athletes. And they have lots of income to spare, and some of them spend that unwisely in ways that plunges them into debt. And some of them, I guess, circulate a third of their blood. Not great either way, seemingly. So you hope he's being careful. And, you know, I hope that this is not like in response to other ailments that we don't know about. And who knows what's happening with his health that has driven him to make these changes or whether this is like sort of a baseball midlife crisis kind of thing. It's like, you know, he's still a good player, but not as great as he was. And, and we even had that conversation about the Dave Dabrowski quotes earlier this off season that kind of got blown out of priority proportion where Dumbowski was talking about how he's been better and, and he's maybe past his prime. Hopefully he'll be better again. So who knows, maybe that sort of stuff for a guy who was basically a baseball prodigy and was on the COVID of Sports illustrated when he's 16 and has been hailed as the great Bryce Harper since he was a teenager and has largely made good on that, you could imagine that when the skills start to slip a little bit, you know, maybe you cling extra hard to them and someone says, I can make you young again. We just have to rid your system of these toxins. How you might be susceptible to that.

[Meg Reilly]

But it parallels, you know, just to like extend, to extend it a bit like it, it parallels a trajectory that is pretty common for folks who end up in this, operating in this space, and I would argue, being taken advantage of by operators in this space. Now, Bryce Harper is an incredibly wealthy athlete. Bryce Harper has access to medical care that does not require him to engage in this sort of untested, unverified pseudoscience. And so I'll acknowledge the limitations of sort of the analogy here. But the way that a lot of people end up pursuing this kind of quote unquote treatment is when they feel that they have been, they feel a degradation in their own health or, you know, in Harper's case, potentially in his performance as an athlete. And they are not satisfied with the solutions that are being offered to them by major medical, by mainstream sort of nutrition and training techniques. And they are in search of alternatives that will help them to alleviate what ails them. Now, for most people who find themselves sort of on that path, it's stuff like, you know, cancer treatment not working or they aren't being tended to in a healthcare system that is wildly flawed and not serving anyone particularly well. It's not, you know, I've lost 30 points of batting average or whatever. Right. So again, like a strained comp potentially. And to your point, we don't know what is going on with Harper from a medical perspective, away from what we know of him as a baseball player whose hamstring strains or whatever get reported on the injured list. But you get how people get in a mindset like this. But you hope there's someone to help pull them back and sort of ground them in something that is more concrete, more rigorous and less likely to result in, in some sort of, you know, potential problem or catastrophe. Because like I said, the thing, the thing you're hoping for if you're the Phillies is that this is a bunch of nothing that doesn't do anything. But like, any time, I don't want to overstate the risks to Bryce Harper, like, as, as far as we know, all the blood's back in, right. But anytime you're getting stuck, there's. You run the risk of infection. Anytime you're pulling a third of your blood out of your body, it seems like there's some sort of potential for something. So this isn't stuff that like people should just do willy nilly, particularly when they're being attended to by people who don't have, I think, appropriate credentials to be administering healthcare. And the other thing I'd worry about if I were the Phillies is like, you know, guys talk in locker rooms. Is Bryce Harper gonna be the last raw milk drinking blood out of my body? Philly. Right. Like, you don't, you don't want this stuff to influential.

[Ben Lindbergh]

He's, he's a leader, right? Yeah, he's a star.

[Meg Reilly]

Right. And so there's, I just think that there is a good bit of, of hokum involved here. And that's, that's not good. Right. Like, you know, people there are, I think, relatively benign beliefs in sort of, you know, the kind of crunchy granola alternate healthcare space. And I want to acknowledge what you said earlier, once again, which is that like, I don't think, you know, I'm not naive to the, to the perspective that there are likely to be beneficial treatments that, you know, are sort of naturopathic and were they to be put to a rigorous sort of peer reviewed approach, might stand up to scrutiny. Right. I'm not out here beating the drum for major medical, but.

I do think that there is stuff in that space that isn't benign. And if it inspires other people to pursue it, either because they are engaging in a treatment that is actively harmful to them or potentially eschewing treatments that have a recognized benefit in favor of untested, speculative treatment, this stuff can go fast in a bad direction. And I do wish that Harper would be more responsible with this stuff because he does have a massive platform. And I think a lot of people who do not have his resources to backstop them in the event that this stuff doesn't work or leads to some sort of issue, are at much greater risk to have it go sideways. And he seems completely indifferent to all of that, you know, and I know that, like, his perspective on, on major medical is having a moment, and that moment is directing federal policy right now. But, you know, it doesn't mean that it's. That it's good or healthy. And as sympathetic as I am to the frustrations that people have with our healthcare system, she says as she prepares to pay two grand a year more in healthcare premium. You know, I do think there needs to be pushback on this stuff. And, like, it's there. There are jokes to be had here. And I hope everyone gets to have the experience of being like, isn't that blood doping? And then having Michael Bauman flip his lid on you because this is not blood doping. And boy, will a guy who has a very good cycling substack tell you about it. Yeah, I don't think. I don't know that he's on substack anymore, but newsletter, Cycling newsletter. But, you know, like, once you're in these waters, yeah, it can be bad. It can get really bad really fast. And, you know, I have skin care products that I put on my face. I call them my potion. Do they work? I don't know, man. You know, so we all have some susceptibility to this stuff, right? But there's. There's woo and then there's woo. And some of the woo is you should be enthusiastic about Brian woo. You should not be enthusiastic about this woo. And I think given the option to voluntarily remove a bunch of your blood or keep it inside, I think keep it inside. 100% of the time. You know that's the right answer. 100% of the time to keep the.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Blood on this quantity. I would say so. Third of your blood, Bryce Hart Harper.

[Meg Reilly]

Did he pass out while this was happening? Like, I know it went out and comes right back. It seems like it went out and came right back in. Which as, as Bauman told me, is one of the distinguishing characteristics from this being blood doping versus not because you're not doing the red blood cell production anyway. It's a lot of blood. That's too much of your blood. I want all my blood inside.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Wikipedia does say that it has been characterized as pure quackery. The therapy can cause serious adverse effects, including death. Now, you know what kinds of therapy can't, I guess, right? Sure, the best therapies can cause death, sure, in small numbers. But it doesn't seem like there are benefits here that make it worth whatever small risks there are. But, you know, maybe if you're Harper and you're an athlete and you've had people poking and prodding at your body parts your whole life, maybe it seems sort of normal to you. Brace Harper has had PRP injections. He's had platelet plasma treatments. And that's, you know, you take some blood out of you and you spin it around and you get the platelets all thick and just inject it back into yourself and yeah, hopefully get those thick platelets helps you heal a little bit more. So maybe he's thinking, you know, they take blood out, they put blood in. What's the difference, right? I mean, the quantity is. Is the one difference. But. But this association seemingly goes back a bit. This post just went viral, but I'm looking at Dr. Quote unquote, not medical. Dr. Josh Red's Instagram. And I see a post from last November that says, I've known Bryce and K. Harper for a few years now. They are so passionate about longevity, clean living, and optimizing their health. I'd even be willing to bet there isn't another athlete out there that eats cleaner. They are both dialed anyway.

[Meg Reilly]

They're both dialed? Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Not dialed in, just dialed.

[Meg Reilly]

Dialed.

[Ben Lindbergh]

They. They go back a bit. So whatever this relationship is, it's. It's not a new one, for better or worse, but.

[Meg Reilly]

Right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And, you know, I'm assuming that this was not like someone the Phillies hooked him up with. We don't know exactly how this happened. Maybe we'll learn more.

[Meg Reilly]

Skeptical.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, but. But yeah, what you were saying before about how people can fall prey to this Sort of stuff, and it's easy, and you start googling and you go down a rabbit hole, rabbit hole. And. And maybe you don't have great care or, you know, you've been stymied by the medical establishment who hasn't believed in your symptoms. And so you turn to alternatives, and that happens. But if you're Bryce Harper, you know, I don't know if this is an indictment of him or the Phillies medical staff or either, but it suggests, like, if this was not done at the Phillies behest, then, like, what's the communication going on between Harper and the Phillies? Like. Like, does he track. Trusts their input? Because he has all the resources in the world, unlike most people. Not only does he have a lot of money, but he also.

[Meg Reilly]

Great insurance.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Great insurance. He's got a medical staff that is devoted to keeping him healthy. He's got, you know, dietitians, I'm sure, nutritionists, trainers, all the rest. So if he wanted to get the skinny on, like, does this actually work? What's the evidence here? What should I try?

[Meg Reilly]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yes. Who. It's their job to help him with this, and they have made a major investment in him. So, yes, if he has turned his back on that, or if he has not explored those resources that are available to him, then I'm less forgiving of that than I am for just average person who has average resources.

[Meg Reilly]

I can only imagine the desperation that the Phillies medical director must be feeling in these moments to be like, bryce, Buddy, I'll take your call on Christmas Day rather than have you do this, you know, and again, like, I have a tremendous amount of sympathy for, you know, the feeling of. Through no fault of your own. Through. Through the simple process of aging, just losing a step. I feel the impact of that. I have had, like, you know, not dark thoughts, but, like, you grapple with, like, wow, is my back just gonna feel like this for the rest of my life? And, like, I'm a baseball writer, you know, sitting. I don't have to produce on the field, you know, And. And so it's a thing that's. That starts to stare you down a lot earlier in your life than you necessarily anticipate. Right? And, like, Harper's younger than I am. Like, I'm gonna be 40 next year. And, like, I have back issues now. And anyway, I don't have to bore our listeners with. With my. My chart. But, you know, so I. I get how it can feel really disorienting. It, like, comes on you faster than you think it's going to. Even when you're like, I'm a. You know, I'm pretty active, and I take good care of myself, and I eat, you know, a balanced diet, and I. I don't overdo it on substances and all this stuff. Right. And, like, you can. You can feel like you got sideways on yourself in a way you didn't anticipate at a much earlier age than you were expecting. And so I have sympathy for that. And I can't imagine the pressure that he feels to be Bryce Harper. Right. And so, like, I don't want my read of this to strike people as, like, completely uncharitable. But also, as you said, he just has so many people around him who are. Are super invested in helping him figure out, like, how to be the best baseball player he possibly can be. And it's not like he's unplayable or anything. He had 131 WRC plus last year. You know, like, he still hit 27 home runs. And I know that he's dealt with injury and he's had, you know, back and forth from the IL over the last couple of years. And so, like, like, he's starting to be a baseball player in his mid-30s. Right. And to your point, when you've been like, this golden God since you were 16, I can imagine that feeling profoundly destabilizing to, like, who you are as a person.

[Ben Lindbergh]

There's no hiding from the contrast because you've been the best. And, yeah, any. Any little tick of bat speed or foot speed or anything you lose, it's highly apparent to everyone. It's trapped fact. It's public knowledge. Yeah, it's. It's tough to reckon with that.

[Meg Reilly]

And you got, you know, people on the Internet putting up pictures of you at 19 and 33 and saying, my God, and it's like, what, am I supposed to look exactly the same as I did now? Again, Bryce, buddy, you need some of my face potions because something not good's happening over here. So I. I don't want to downplay it either, but I, you know, I have some sympathy, but he is just. There are few people in the world more completely and profoundly backstopped by resource and expertise than this guy.

And he is fallen prey to some real hooey. I want him to be a good baseball player because he's so fun to watch when he's on. I want him to be, well as a person, both physically and mentally, but I also want him to, you know, shoulder some responsibility for the platform he has. And keep in mind, the people who are not in the same position that he is, who aren't so well tended and who are going to look at him and go, yeah, maybe I should put some raw milk in here, you know, And I would invite them to not do that. I would invite them to embrace pasteurization and keep your blood on the inside of your body, you know, and there's just like so many red flags in that statement. Committed to longevity. Is that what he said?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah.

[Meg Reilly]

Like the Instagram algo of these people has to just be rancid, you know, as. As deep and dark as raw milk maybe, you know?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah.

[Meg Reilly]

So I don't know. There is a part of it that is objectively very funny and then there is a part of it that is just like, oh my God, we're in such a frickin dark age for this stuff. And you know, it's not good, Ben.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It's not good. Be careful, Bryce. He's probably fine. He'll probably be fine. But I hope he'll be fine because I enjoy Bryce Harper's career.

[Meg Reilly]

So probably not gonna do anything at all. And who knows, maybe he'll have some like placebo effect experience. But it's like the, the likely benefit is nothing. And the grossest downside is that like this, I am clearly demonstrating how much respect I have for chiropractors. And the way that I keep saying the word chiropractor like it's a slur or something. But you know that this guy doesn't like clean his needles and then he gets like a flesh eating. That happens to people. Don't go to med spas either.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Everyone.

[Meg Reilly]

You stay away from. You stay away from those med spas. You don't know who's in there doing what. You don't know where they've been. I don't mean that in like a weird way. I just mean you don't know what their credentials are. You stay away from med spas. They are everywhere in Arizona, Ben. There are so many. There are so many med spas, I couldn't believe that they. John Oliver did a segment on med spas and I'm like, there's a lot less Arizona in this than I anticipated there'd be. I thought there would be a hundred percent more Arizona. We play a little game where we're like, are we going to be one of the bad states that gets illuminated on the map? And almost without fail, Ben. Almost without fail.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah. Okay. I have a note about two trades that I don't have a ton to say about But I, I will lump them together because I think they're sort of similar in a way. And that's the Mariners and Nationals trade, which is primarily Harry Ford to the Nets for Jose A. Ferrer and also a right handed pitching prospect going to the nationals too, their 10th rounder from last year. Y and then there's also the Pirates. Red Sox trade as the big spender, got some money to burn to do away with their grievances and change the revenue sharing agreement. Pirates motivated to spend more than the Pirates typically do. But they start off with a trade with the Red Sox. They send Johan Oviedo to Boston for primarily Jostenson Garcia, better known as Password.

[Meg Reilly]

Password.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yes. And there are other prospects in this trade as well, but those are the headliners. And I think the similarity here is that the headline prospect in each deal was blocked. And that's one of the time honored ways that you get trades and trades of younger players is that there's just no path to playing time for them. So Harry Ford still a decent prospect for the Mariners. He's been a top 100 guy for a few years running. And I guess a few years running, that's not always a good sign because it means that you have not yet lost your prospect eligibility and maybe you haven't had a chance to because you are hopelessly blocked by Cal Rally who never takes a day off basically and signed a six year extension. And so where the heck are you to going to play if you're Harry Ford? Yeah. And you know, and now they don't have a. A vacancy. They signed Naylor to a long term deal too. So you can't really stick for it at first base or anything. I know they were kind of toying around with him as an outfielder, but.

[Meg Reilly]

Yeah, first base would have been sort of a waste of Harry Ford's athleticism in my opinion.

[Ben Lindbergh]

But he can catch and, and he can seemingly. He's a competent catcher then. Yeah, he's of the most value doing that as long as he can. And so he was not going to be of the most value to the Mariners. And so they traded him for Jose Ferrer, who you know is probably pretty under the radar because he was on the Nationals. Right. For one thing.

[Meg Reilly]

And his surface level stats aren't particularly sterling.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah. Another just broken record. Every pitcher we talk about these days. Oh, ERA minus fip. Yeah. It's the same with Gray and Helsley and Cease and Williams and all the rest. But same deal with Jose Ferrer. He has underperformed his FIP for now three Years running. I mean, you know, parts of years at least. And his career ER is 4.36 a run higher than his FIP, 3.33. And it was almost a run and a half difference in 2025. But he was the Nationals closer for a time, which, you know, says maybe more about the Nationals than it says about Fre. But I like, like Ferrer, he seems to be a guy with some potential. You know, high ground ball rate, throws hard. What reliever doesn't these days. But you know, through 76 and a third innings, decent strikeout rate for a guy who gets Ground balls 60% of the time or more. Good walk rate too. I mean, he kind of does it all. And you know, he, he like, he even limited home runs last year. It's like, like I look at his stats and I think, how did he not have a better era? And I guess looks like he's had a low strand rate historically. So, you know, maybe there's kind of bad timing or something about pitching with runners on base or whatever. But like a lot of the, the numbers are pretty solid here. And he's 26 years old or 25. He hasn't even turned 26 yet. Under team control for what, four more years? Something like that. So, you know, kind of a good buy low candidate who could maybe be a, a hard worker in that pen for years to come. And maybe they could even unlock a little more with him because he's been mostly a sinker beller to this point, but he seems to have some good secondaries too. So I like that acquisition. You know, usually I guess I wouldn't love trading a good prospect who is a catcher for a reliever, but when you consider the mitigating circumstances, I guess you could say, like, could they have gotten a better deal for Ford either now or at some point in the past, but maybe this was what is available to them now.

[Meg Reilly]

Yeah, I, I think, look, you know, Ford, I think, has been a trade candidate for them for the better part of a year now. And I imagine that, you know, when they were making moves to try to upgrade the team at the deadline, he was probably floated as a potential prospect to be acquired. I can't believe this might mean that I get to live more of the Mitch Garver experience. But we'll, we'll. That part of it's less important. But I think that, you know, you're right, like Cal is, is entrenched there in, you know, a profound way.

So, you know, what, what are you going to do? They definitely needed A left handed arm out of that bullpen. They need a left handed arm bullpen in the playoffs. I think that, that when you take Ferrer through Mariners pitching, Dev, and see what you get with him, that it makes that side of it more appealing. They aren't going to move any of the, you know, the infield prospects like the, you know, the non catching infield prospects, I don't think, unless it's for something very significant. And so it seemed like, like a kind of straightforward swap in that regard. I like it for, for the Nationals, like, like I think that Harry Ford is certainly a capable catcher. I don't think he's the best defensive catcher, but I also think that he is a sure upgrade over anything that the Nationals have on board right now. You can't go into your next rebuilding or contention cycle with Kieber Ruiz as your answer. They had to do something there. I think that they'll be able to give forward a lot of big league run and kind of see what they have with him. The potential for a good left handed reliever out of the, out of that bullpen when you have a team that is still very far from being like a postseason contender makes Ferrer sort of expendable from their perspective. So, you know, I thought it made better sense for both sides than it initially seemed. I think that you can, you can say that they are selling, they being the Mariners a little low on Ford while also acknowledging that like, you know, they're top 100 prospects and their top 100 prospects. Right. I think that that gets bandied about as if all of these guys are the same. And Ford ended up being, I think, you know, sort of higher up for us at the end of the year. But some of that is just like the, the relative strength of the minor leagues right now versus prior year. So, you know, he's a 50, but he's 50. He's not, you know, the best catching prospect in baseball. He would have netted more if he were, but I was fine, you know. And then, you know, you look at the Red Sox moves and it's like, oh, they dealt an outfielder to try to get help other places. Sure they did. I mean like that's exactly what they should do. So I thought a lot of these, you know, all of these moves sort of made sense. I think it's fine. You know, the real question is we, we have the password, but what are we going to call his brother? You know, we have to come up, we got to come up with a nickname for Garcia's brother because I don't know if you know this, but he's got quite the first name. Also can't call him the password. That's already taken. Ben, you know.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, it's true. Yeah. It's a bummer to me that Kbert Ruiz has just stagnated.

[Meg Reilly]

I mean stagnated is generous like it is.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Is gone bad.

[Meg Reilly]

It's gone bad. It's gone real bad there he.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It's. The framing is bad, but the hitting is not good either. It's. He was promising he was a top prospect himself and I thought would be pretty good at one point. And yeah. Yeah. That has not turned out to be the case.

[Meg Reilly]

So this isn't turned out to be the case.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I don't know if they will give him another shot or they'll just slot forward right in there because he hit decently at AAA this season and I don't know if that'll be a timeshare or if they'll just move on from Ruiz, but yeah, we'll see. Anyway, the rotation that the Red Sox have assembled now actually rates as the number two projected rotation at fan graphs according to Steamer.

[Meg Reilly]

So confusing.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I know. Crochet, Gray, Bayo and then I don't know exactly. There's just a lot of guys after that and some guys who were hurt. But you kind of put them all together. Sandoval and Cutter Crawford and Connolly early and Kyle Harrison and now Oviedo's in the mix and Peyton Tolley and Hunter Dobbins. It's a lot of depth. I guess I can't even really identify the bottom of the rotation versus number six and seven and eight. But it, it runs pretty deep in guys who like could credibly be a back of the rotation starter. And yeah, with crochet and Gray, lifelong Yankee hater even when he was one, they even then have a pretty decent top of the rotation. So. Yeah. And. And the Pirates also sort of dealing from depth in that even post Oviedo they have the number five projected rotation and the Blue Jays are at number six. So they've made moves to supplement that, which we've talked about a couple strong rotations in the AL east there I was thinking in Oviedo, not that you could call him a prospect at this point, but I guess you never really can call a pitcher a blocked prospect. You'd never really say that a pitcher was blocked even if a team had a great rotation? Oh yeah, you know, like I guess it happens. Like was Bubba Chandler kind of blocked? I don't know if he was blocked so much as he was just sort of left out. But maybe he would say that he was blocked or service time manipulated or something. But you can't really be blocked as a pitcher for very long because there.

[Meg Reilly]

Are just many more waiting.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, there's many more roster spots for pitchers and so many pitchers get heard and you can slot in as a reliever even if you're blocked in the rotation temporarily. So yeah, pretty tough to be a blocked prospect as a pitcher. But yeah, Pirates are sort of dealing from strength there, their relative strength cuz their hitting is a weakness. So password is kind of, you know, high risk, high reward, I guess, volatile type of prospect.

[Meg Reilly]

But.

[Ben Lindbergh]

But that's the kind of guy that the Pirates should be acquiring and there's just no way that he really would have broken into that Red Sox outfield anytime soon. So. Makes sense.

[Meg Reilly]

It makes sense. You know, it makes, it makes a ton of sense.

[Ben Lindbergh]

What may or may not make sense to everyone, lastly, is that Jeff Kent is a Hall of Famer. He was elected by the ERAs Committee, the only person who was on the ballot who passed muster this year. And I don't know how I feel. Mostly I just kind of don't care anymore. But I think this is sort of illustrative of why I don't care because it's just, it's such a confusing process and the standards are so different. Like, Jeff Kent is far from the least deserving hall of Famer. Sure, he's better than a lot of players who are in the hall of Fame and even have gotten in fairly recently. And if someone wanted to say that their hall of Fame line is, is just below Jeff Kent and he clears it, that's okay, that's defensible. You know, he's in the neighborhood, I guess, statistically speaking. So I wouldn't really rag on that pick purely in isolation. It's just that there's so many more deserving players who are still not in. And if you think he deserves it, then, you know, him not being the best possible inductee is not an argument against inducting him. But it's just so perplexing, even if you just look at second base because like statistically speaking, his credentials, his war, his jaws or whatever, he's not really that distinguishable from say, Ian Kinsler, who went one and done on the ballot last year, or Dustin Pedroia, who didn't go one and done but had a slow start, or and more glaringly, guys who were not even up for consideration. Like, he's clearly not as good as Lou Whitaker or probably Willie Randolph or Bobby Gritch. Like all these guys who were on the short list of Cooperstown snubs and were not even eligible to be voted on in this era's committee meeting, even though they could have been. They were from the right era.

[Meg Reilly]

Right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And then, you know, you could lump Chase Utley in there as well. It's just why Jeff Kent, I guess, and I, I guess I kind of understand why, but there's just. It's such a strange system where you have this kind of back door of the committee system which has righted some wrongs historically, but has also just kind of rubber stamped some guys who had their day had their airing. You know, we're on many a ballot and just were rejected by the writers, understandably. And then they just sail right in. And even like looking at the other players who were on this ballot with him, it's just kind of hard to figure out why, like, Kent got 14 votes. So Ev. And it was 14 members on this committee. Right. So every person.

[Meg Reilly]

I think it's 16.

[Ben Lindbergh]

16. Okay. So 14 out of 16. That's right. 87.5% voted for Kent. Carlos Delgado was second with nine.

[Meg Reilly]

Yeah, he plays surprise surprisingly well. Jay was, Jay Jaffe was quite surprised by his showing.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah. And. And then Mattingly got six, Dale Murphy got six. And it's just, it's like what separates Dale Murphy, for instance, from Carlos Delgado. And I don't really get it. I mean, Murphy didn't have a long career. He just, you know, know, tailed off. I mean, tailed off. He just kind of cratered at a certain point, but still has, you know, like the good peak and, and as good credentials as Delgado. I just. And you know, of course, if you're someone who thinks Bonds and Clemens should be in there, then it's just preposterous that Jeff Kent gets in and Barry Bonds, Bonds, Clemens and Sheffields and Fernando Valenzuela got fewer than five votes, which means that, that they're not even eligible to be on the next ERAS committee ballot. So the soonest they could be voted on again by this committee is 2031. And if they get fewer than five votes again that time, then they're off permanently. In all. Good.

[Meg Reilly]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Unless they change the rules again, which.

[Meg Reilly]

Right. I was going to say that assumes that they don't change the committee rules.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Which in itself love to change the committee rules.

[Meg Reilly]

Yes.

[Ben Lindbergh]

This under 5 votes thing is a new thing this year. Yeah, but, but it's, I mean, I get it. Like, you know, there's you can make a coherent distinction between Jeff Kent and Barry Bonds. Like, obviously it seems sort of silly because Barry Bonds is so much better than Jeff Kent and they were teammates for years and Jeff Kent was maybe even partly kind of a product of Barry Bonds, like hitting behind Bonds and having Bonds on base ahead of him so much certainly helped him. And he took advantage of that, of course, but, you know, it kind of puts it in stark relief. But, you know, if you want to say that Bonds is too tainted by PDS and also like off the field stuff, then that's consistent, at least philosophically consistent.

[Meg Reilly]

Right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It's. It's also, it's, you know, kind of like, what are we doing here? Like, what are we really recognizing? But if you want to go all in on character clause, okay. Except that, like, Jeff Kent, you know, mean he doesn't have the same demerits either, like in a baseball sense or personal life sense that Bonds and Clemens do. But he was known as not a popular guy, not a, you know, very prickly with teammates and reporters and all the rest. And of course there was, you know, the time when he lied again about how he hurt himself in a very silly way. So he's not someone you would really make a. A pro case for based on the character clause. Unlike, say, Dale Murphy, who just no one has a negative word to say about. And he seems like, you know, everyone cites him as well. If the character clause keeps people out, then it should also put people in and maybe Dale Murphy could be that guy. I also feel bad for Gary Sheffield a little bit just because he has been lumped in with all the PD people and he seems to at least have a fairly credible case that he should not be lumped together with them, that the only evidence that he used is this, like one small dollar amount check that was like, went to balco, but he was trading with Bonds at the time. And his story is that there was just one time where he was training with Bonds and he hurt himself and like ripped some stitches out. And a trainer for Bonds applied the cream or the clear, whatever it was.

[Meg Reilly]

And so, yeah, I think it was the cream.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yes, Sheffield did not knowingly use pds, and that was the one time. And who knows? Of course, you never know. But, you know, he at least has a better argument for not having taken that stuff in a rampant way than some other guys do. And, you know, he was kind of just a favorite of mine as a player. So I like, if. If he has been like tarred with that brush unfairly then. And that stinks for him. But you know, we'll never really know. We'll never really know about anyone from that era. But yeah, it's just. It's kind of a weird one. It's just Jeff Kent, I mean, I guess, but there are just so many other seemingly more deserving players that just weren't even under consideration for. Who knows why.

[Meg Reilly]

I don't have any strong feelings about Jeff Kent one way or the other. Yeah, I do think him getting in on his own from this class weird. I think it's a weird group. And.

I had had some optimism about what this committee might sort of do because it didn't seem like it was being intentionally loaded to result in a particular outcome. In the same way that some ERA committees are. Right. Like there are some connections between committee members and the guys on the ballot, but it isn't like some of the years where you either have a very vocal anti PD contingent or a bunch of guys who played with or were executives with teams that some of the candidates played for. So it felt like there was room for this to be sort of a more independent or honest process. And I just thought it was odd, you know, I think that these guys, to your point, like, I don't know what I would do if I had had a ballot while Bonds and Clemens were on the ballot, the writer's ballot. I find Jay's argument that like, we should distinguish between guys who, you know, were around and potentially using or were tied to PEDs prior to there being a rule and a testing regime. We should distinguish those guys from like Alex Rodriguez who failed multiple tests and served suspensions. Right. That distinction makes sense to me. I don't know where I would have landed on the question because I never really had to consider it in a way that had my name behind it. But I get that distinction. I get if it's just a non starter for you. I was really disappointed with Fernando Valenzuela's showing on this. I think that we should be a bit more expansive in our understanding of what these ERA committees are for. And he was so important to the game in ways that went beyond, you know, a very good but probably not hall of Fame worthy playing career. Yeah, I don't know. It's just a weird result. I find the whole thing very, very strange. I every year find myself approaching the committees, the, you know, the ERA committees with just like a posture of skepticism.

I don't know. I don't know if we're doing what we should with this. I don't know that it is always ensuring that guys who sort of were hard luck exclusions are getting the consideration that they deserve. And the hall just seems so kind of brazen in the way that it is trying to tilt these committees away from someone like Bonds or Clements ever really getting an honest and thorough a bunch of consideration. They want, they don't want them in there. They, you know, like, it's so clear that they don't want them in there and you know, it's their institution. But it's weird to have them, you know, talking about like the, the prestige and the honor and it meaning this great thing and then you're constantly changing the rules to keep, you know, guys like Bonds out. And I, I don't know. I mean, like, who knows, maybe they'll decide that they really don't want Pete Rose in there. And then I'll be like the wise and thoughtful committees with their perfect decisions and all of their integrity. You know, I don't want to say that any individual voter is necessarily doing anything wrong, but they can, you know, they can stack these groups in a way that guarantees a specific result. Although maybe not, because they sure seem to want Don Mattingly in the hall of Fame and he has, hasn't gotten in yet. And I, I don't, I, I have not considered that question for myself. But the way that they keep cycling some of these guys through, it's like, geez, just, just decide and put them in yourselves. Like, what are, what are we doing? You know, like you're, like you're rigging some of these. Rigging is probably too strong, but putting your thumb on the scale, but like, maybe just press down harder so we can get on with it. This is taking forever.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, so, yeah, I guess Kent was kind of outspoken against PD use, so maybe that endeared him to the same people who don't want other guys who took steroids in. But it's. I'm always sort of skeptical of players whose case rests on one fun fact where it's just like most homers buy a second baseman or most wins in the 1980s or something, which most homers buy a second baseman is more impressive than most pitcher WINS in the 1980s, which was trotted out there for Jack Morris all the time. It's valuable to hit lots of home runs, as Jeff Kent did, even if it's a position that you don't really associate with home runs. And it's notable because second basemen don't hit a lot of home runs usually. But still, like, that was valuable. That he did that. But, yeah, when you have to boil it down to that and you just hear that incessantly, it's almost like you're. You're trying to get one over, you know, you're trying to kind of like, do a little sleight of hand or something, just hide the. The downsides of the case by pumping up this one fact that seems Cooperstown caliber. And it's always like, when, you know, Kent gets in, probably that's heavily dependent on him having been an MVP winner. If he never wins the MVP in 2000, then would he have been a Hall of Famer? And in no other year did he finish higher than sixth in MVP MVP voting. And even then, year 2000, he was fifth in National League war according to both baseball reference and fan graphs, behind Barry Bonds, incidentally. I guess it was just like, well, we can't give it to Bonds every year. And Kent was close this year at least. But if that award had gone in a different direction, then probably his candidacy doesn't advance to this point. So sometimes a decision that was made a quarter century ago that then is the thing that gets a guy in. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah, I'm not really that upset about Kent getting in one way or another. It's more just about the inconsistency of it all and the two different tracks to get in, and then even the inconsistency within the committee track.

I've just sort of soured on the whole process.

[Meg Reilly]

And I feel like, you know, it's a tricky balance, right, because there's, like, a process that has to happen. And so I know that our ability to, like, rapidly evaluate and elect guys is limited. Like, the speed with which we want that to happen in some instances is going to outpace our ability to actually do it. If a guy is a Hall of Famer, I want him to be able to enjoy being inducted while he's alive. And so I appreciate why we need to have this, like, hall of Fame, like, by Catch at the end, where there's a committee process and we're making sure that guys who maybe didn't get the attention they deserved on the writer's ballot get their due. And so I want that to happen. I also am. I am conscious of the fact that there is, like, you know, probably still a fair amount of, like, historical injustice that needs to be undone about guys who preceded, you know, integration, who preceded this, you know, who are part of a. An older committee process, and there is a committee process for that, but that they are not being, like, considered with the speed with which we might want them to. And so it's like, maybe we need to run mending committees at the same time. Maybe it should always be hall of Fame season. Jay's like, please don't put this idea in the hall of Fame set. But you know what I mean? It's like, it is a tricky thing. There are a lot of different interests that we're trying to balance. And, you know, some of these guys, you know, I think are being. It's like they're not getting the attention they deserve. On the heirs committee, everybody's candidacies got truncated to 10 years.

[Ben Lindbergh]

They.

[Meg Reilly]

They're kind of getting done dirty at both ends of the. Of the process. They won't let us vote for more than 10. You know, like, let the writers do more. Let us. I mean, not you. Not you. Yeah, I'm three years away. I think. Three years. Three years. I think it's three. Okay. I think I.

[Ben Lindbergh]

All right, well, anyway, maybe you can go down to the Hilton lobby and prod people with sticks like in the Come on, do something meme and make them make some moves so that we can have some more fresh transactions to talk about next time.

[Meg Reilly]

I know, because we got. We got a pot again tomorrow.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Get to it, teams.

[Meg Reilly]

Ben, what. What are we going to talk about tomorrow?

[Ben Lindbergh]

We'll find out along with our listeners. Well, not a major move, but after we recorded, the Rangers did sign Tyler Wade to a minor league deal, crucially keeping him away from the Orioles. Taylor Ward as the offspring saying, you gotta keep them separated. You can support effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com effectivelywild and signing 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. Richie P. Becca C. Mht wow, all these Patreon supporters names are rhyming. Trevor Howit. Well, not Trevor's. That's okay. Trevor and Rob Kimbrough. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, monthly bonus episodes, playoff live streams, perks, personalized messages, prioritized email answers, discounts on merch and ad free FanQuest memberships, and so much more. Check out all the [e-mail] effectivelywild. If you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. If not, you can contact us via email, send your questions, your comments, your intro and outro themes to podcastamgraphs.com you can join our Facebook group at facebook.com group effectivelywild. You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at R Effectively Wild and you can check the show notes in the podcast post at fangraphs or in the episode description in your podcast app. Remember, that's where you can find the link to sign up for Effectively Wild Secret Santa. The deadline is December 10th. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We'll be back with another episode soon. Talk to you then.

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