Effectively Wild Episode 2428: Scalded by the Stove

Summary

Effectively Wild Episode 2428: Scalded by the Stove

Date: January 17, 2026
Hosts: Ben Lindbergh (The Ringer), Meg Rowley (FanGraphs), Ben Ringer (guest co-host)
Theme: A frenetic day of blockbuster MLB transactions and the implications for baseball’s landscape, focusing on the Dodgers’ signing of Kyle Tucker, a rapid cascade of superstar signings, and deeper conversations about contract trends, competitive balance, and free agency’s future.

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Episode Overview

This episode revolves around a whirlwind 24 hours of MLB transactions, namely:

• Kyle Tucker’s record-breaking deal with the Dodgers
• A complex three-team trade (Rays, Angels, Reds)
• Bichette to the Mets and its domino effect
• JT Realmuto re-signing with the Phillies
• The hosts analyze these moves, how they shaped the free agent market, and their broader significance for team-building and MLB’s rich-get-richer dynamics.

The conversation is light, witty, and occasionally chaotic, with the hosts’ characteristic warmth even as they dig into high-level transactional analysis.

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Major Discussion Points & Insights

1. Transaction Chaos and Reporting (00:12–08:54)

• Quick Succession of News: The news broke almost simultaneously—Kyle Tucker signing first, followed minutes later by a blockbuster three-team trade.
  • “Jeff Passon…tweeted and cited sources. The three team trade, literally two minutes after he broke the Tucker signing.” (Meg, 06:16)
• The Reporters’ Dilemma: Behind-the-scenes anecdotes about Jeff Passan juggling which piece of news to break first, reflecting the pandemonium of the modern MLB news cycle.
  • “I did a little mock up of Jeff Passon's situation: Break the Kyle Tucker signing or break the three team Lux/Lo/Lowe trade.” (Ben Ringer, 06:25)
• Trade Details:
  • Josh Lowe (Rays → Angels), Gavin Lux (Reds → Rays), Brock Burke (Angels → Reds).
• Impact on Social Media: Discussion of tweet engagement stats for Tucker’s deal versus the trade, as a barometer of baseball fandom’s priorities.

2. The “Cascading” Free Agency Dominoes (08:54–11:13)

• How One Signing Sets Off Others: The Dodgers’ acquisition of Tucker triggers a chain reaction:
  • Mets, having lost out, pivot to Bo Bichette; Phillies, having missed on Bichette, pivot to JT Realmuto.
• Illustrates the interlocked nature of high-profile FA negotiations:
  • “So, you know, it was kind of contingent on either/or…once Tucker signed somewhere...suddenly a whole flurry of free agents had signed.” (Ben Ringer, 09:49)

3. NL East Fan “Crash Outs” and Billionaire Posting Drama (11:16–15:29)

• Fan Meltdown: Descriptions of Mets/Phillies fans’ meltdown (“crash outs”) when losing out on superstars.
  • “The posts are very funny, but they are also suggestive of a population...made deeply unwell by the proceedings.” (Ben Lindbergh, 12:20)
• Steve Cohen’s Social Media Flailing: Critique (with humor) of Mets owner Steve Cohen’s cryptic, excitable, embarrassing tweets during negotiations (“let me know when you see smoke” in reference to papal elections).
• Contrast in Ownership Styles: Dodgers’ Mark Walter keeps statements formal; Cohen “hunt-and-pecking out his interesting syntax”.

4. JT Realmuto Re-signing: Stability Amid Turmoil (15:30–22:38)

• Term Sheet: $45 million over 3 years.
• Philly’s “Pot Committed”: Analysis of why the Phillies had little choice but to bring him back given market scarcity, despite age and potential for declining skills.
  • “You probably don't want to go into the year with Raphael Marchan and Garrett Stubbs...what are you going to do?” (Ben Lindbergh, 19:10)

5. Bo Bichette to the Mets: Positional Maximalism and Contract Novelty (22:39–34:20)

• Details: $126 million over 3 years, with opt-outs after years 1 and 2, $5M opt-out bonus, full no-trade, no deferred money.
• Defensive Spectrum Shuffle: Bichette to third, Polanco to first—“maximalist” roster design, favoring bats and shuffling skills.
  • “They're kind of lousy with infielders. ...Positionless? Not quite...position full.” (Meg Rowley & Ben Lindbergh, 30:25–30:30)
• Contract Structure Trends:
  • Short, ultra-high-AAV “opt-out fests”
    • “One year of Boba Shet is not inexpensive...you are also forfeiting draft pick compensation...I'm just fascinated by that contract structure.” (Meg Rowley, 33:17)
• Free Agency Musical Chairs: The effect of “either/or” pursuits on player ego and fit.

6. The Expensive, Short-Term Deal Era (34:21–43:00)

• “There's no such thing as a bad one-year deal. These aren't literally one-year deals… but the idea applies: the shorter, the better for teams.” (Meg Rowley, 39:42)
• Mega-short contracts favored (by players and teams) for flexibility, betting on rebounds, and to potentially exploit a dry future market.
• Macro Perspective: “Teams at the top of the market see this as their last opportunity to land a frontline bat in free agency for years.” (Ben paraphrasing Jeff Passan, 45:20)

7. Dodgers’ Roster-Building & Spending Philosophy (43:00–65:13)

• Spend, Spend, Spend—With Intent: Dodgers as perpetual motion machine, piling stars atop stars (Ohtani, Yamamoto, Snell, Sasaki, now Tucker) to build not just a winning team but to avoid “windows” closing.
  • “If you're already spending as much as they are...there's an argument to just keep spending...maximize the value from each individual contributor.” (Ben Lindbergh, 51:51)
• Kyle Tucker’s Fit:
  • $240 million/4 years, opt-outs after years 2, 3, $64M signing bonus, only $30M deferred (highest AAV ever at $57.1M net present).
  • “It made all the sense in the world...they needed outfield upgrades, and Tucker is the prime-aged bat who fit their needs.” (Meg, 60:10)
• Prospect Pipeline is Intact: Despite big spending and lost draft picks, LA still has arguably baseball’s best farm system; luxury of over-stocking and churning talent.
• Lineup Firepower: Ohtani, Betts, Freeman, Lux, Tucker, Smith, Muncy, Hernandez—“like a 10-team (or even 8-team) fantasy lineup” (Ben Ringer, 87:27)

8. Free Agency: Threat of Drought and the Cap Debate (44:42–53:19, 96:44–101:44)

• Market Outlook: Discussion of how a talent “dry spell” in upcoming FA classes (per Passan) leads teams to front-load now, possibly overpaying for the few remaining elite bats.
• Should MLB Have a Salary Cap?
  • Acknowledgement of huge payroll gap (Dodgers $429M, Marlins $69M), but suggestion that “bottom-end” cheap teams are more of a concern than LA's aggressive spending.
  • “I'm not advocating for a salary cap here...but with the appropriate floor, as a fan, I'd accept it.” (Ben Ringer, 97:39)
• But: Both hosts are skeptical a fair cap/floor balance would ever materialize from actual collective bargaining.

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Notable Quotes & Highlights

“I'm not going to say the reason Kyle Tucker ultimately signed with the Dodgers was Steve Cohen's post. That's ridiculous. Or at least if it was in the soup, it was a minor ingredient, the flavor of which one could barely detect.”
– Ben Lindbergh, 12:56

“The shorter the better, as far as teams are concerned...and teams seem to have higher tolerance for the high average annual value than for long-term risk.”
– Ben Ringer, 39:52

“We call this... 'maximalist' roster design. We're not doing clean lines, not black marble...more like, 'all at shortstop,' or 'all in the rotation.'”
– Ben Lindbergh, 29:42

“The Dodgers...they have arguably the best farm system in baseball. They've managed to keep things moving on parallel tracks, so they never get bad at the big-league level, but are always strong in the minors too.”
– Ben Ringer, 72:51

“The salary gap isn't ideal, but what's worse is...lower-payroll clubs, even successful ones, who just stubbornly spend below their means and cash checks from teams like the Dodgers and don't put it toward payroll.”
– Meg Rowley, 93:53

“How dare you, of course!”
(Ben Ringer reacting to a tongue-in-cheek slander of Dodgers prospect Andy Pages, 64:33)

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Key Timestamps

• 0:41–3:03: Comedic, slightly chaotic opening: intro jokes, host banter about “The Ringer/Lindbergh/Limb”.
• 3:35–5:00: Overview of the day’s main news: “The stove is scalding...the Dodgers signed Kyle Tucker.” – the straw that stirs the transactional drink.
• 5:01–8:54: Transaction sequence, social media “meme culture” around Jeff Passan’s reporting.
• 15:30–22:38: JT Realmuto to Phillies—aging star, no better alternatives, Philly’s all-in window.
• 22:39–34:20: Deep dive on Bichette to Mets, positional reassignments, contract structure, and what it means.
• 34:21–43:00: Discussion of the “short-term, huge-AAV” free agency era and the forces driving it.
• 43:00–65:13: Dodgers philosophy, perennial contention, how they both spend and draft/develop perfectly; deeper dive on Kyle Tucker.
• 86:29–88:36: Sheer power of LA’s lineup projections—anticipated “lapping the league”.
• 92:34–98:07: Ownership spending disparities, history lessons about payroll imbalance, and “what is to be done?”
• 104:25–108:35: Bonus: Wild tangent involving cockfighting, the Classé-Oritz scandal, and the unintended consequences of legal rooster betting.
• 109:04–110:05: Humorous anecdote about a Mets fan friend processing news of Bichette/Tucker in real-time.

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Memorable Moments

• Host banter about “the Ringer” meaning—“People still wonder what a ringer is after all these years, so why not?” (Meg, 01:08)
• Sincere sympathy for Mets/Phillies fans enduring whiplash and posting crises during the transactional flurry (“deeply unwell by the proceedings…” —Ben, 12:20)
• Jeff Passan’s “sweaty meme” dilemma in reporting two blockbusters at once; the “smoke” tweets as Twitter high comedy
• Stat blast-worthy digression: The oddity of Bo Bichette’s 2024 outlier season (“all those 120s and 130s WRC+ and then that 70, probably stat-blastable…”)
• Meticulous breakdown of contract structures, opt-out bonuses, and their wider economic effects, showing the hosts' signature blend of sharp analysis and mild exasperation at MLB’s economic contortions
• Debate on whether MLB would benefit (or actually ever get) a fair salary cap/floor
• Cockfighting defense in the baseball betting scandal (“All roosters, all about roosters, boy.” — Meg, 108:18)
• A tired but triumphant signoff: “I'm tired of writing reactions to Dodgers signing and winning things, so I get it... once more unto the breach...” (Meg, 89:09)

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Conclusion

This episode encapsulates:

• The Dodgers’ ability (and willingness) to outspend and out-plan the league,
• How the ripple effect of a single super-signing can reorder entire divisions,
• The larger structural issues of payroll gaps, contract innovations, and free agency’s uncertain future,
• MLB’s increasingly creative and maximalist approach to roster construction,
• And the persistent “content fatigue” that comes with chronicling juggernaut teams—offset by sharp analysis, humor, and affection for the ever-chaotic world of MLB transactions.

Whether you’re a Dodgers fan, a “crashed-out” Mets/Phillies diehard, or a neutral trying to trace the logic of modern roster-building, this supersized episode delivers humor, insight, and plenty of baseball nerdery.

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For Further Exploration

• For stats & breaking news referenced: FanGraphs.com and MLB Trade Rumors.
• For the “rooster defense” in the Classé betting scandal, see current legal coverage.
• For projected team WAR and farm rankings, consult MLB Pipeline and FanGraphs’ org reports.

Transcript

[Meg Rowley]

How do you calculate more?

[Ben Ringer]

Does it come from the heart? Should we use defensive Run Saved or.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Follow the OAA way?

[Ben Ringer]

Who's gone away.

[Ben Lindbergh]

With their quips and opinions? It's Effectively Wild. Hello, and welcome to episode 2028 of Effectively Wild, a Fan Graphs baseball podcast, brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of Fan Graphs, and I am joined by Ben Ringer of the Limb. That's.

[Meg Rowley]

That's a new one that had exited it.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Well, Ringer of Lindbergh, I say we leave it in. I think that's pretty. I think that's pretty funny. You're Ben Lindbergh. You work for the Ringer, which we.

[Meg Rowley]

Are rebranding as Lindbergh Lindbergh.

[Ben Lindbergh]

People are going to be like, what is the Lindbergh? And you're like, well, Ben, people still.

[Meg Rowley]

Wonder what a ringer is after all these years, so why not?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Well, they don't know what a ringer is.

[Ben Ringer]

I mean, it's a movie. It's a thing that no one really.

[Meg Rowley]

Activates on their phones anymore because it's always on silence.

[Ben Lindbergh]

You bring in a ringer. Right? Like that's.

[Ben Ringer]

It could be that. I don't even know.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Is that not what it's in reference to?

[Meg Rowley]

I don't know.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Oh, my God. We are falling apart. We are crumbling at the seams.

[Meg Rowley]

We're turning 10 as a company this.

[Ben Ringer]

Year, so I will make it my mission to find out what the ringer refers to.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I thought it was like, oh, we're bringing in a ringer. I thought that that was what it was in reference to.

[Ben Ringer]

Maybe, but doesn't.

[Meg Rowley]

I guess I should ask someone who knows. If anyone knows. It's open to interpretation. You know, it's. Once it's out there, then the reader can draw their own conclusion. But I like that you're innovating in.

[Ben Ringer]

Intros after all these years.

[Ben Lindbergh]

You know, I. It did fall apart. It did kind of break down for me there, but it is amazing how smooth that was for a moment.

[Ben Ringer]

I know.

[Meg Rowley]

That's why I thought you were making.

[Ben Ringer]

A joke about how scrambled our brains are.

[Meg Rowley]

But it was sincere.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Scrambling sincere. I am, Ben. I am sincerely scrambled. I am all mixed up over.

[Ben Ringer]

Me, too.

[Meg Rowley]

We're tuckered out.

[Ben Ringer]

All Tucker ads. So we have a lot to discuss.

[Ben Lindbergh]

We have so much to discuss. We have a series of cascading crash outs.

[Ben Ringer]

I know.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah.

[Ben Ringer]

Dominoes. Knocking over other dominoes.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I'm a cascading crash is a crash.

[Meg Rowley]

Now Siri is getting in on the Action.

[Ben Lindbergh]

What is happening?

[Meg Rowley]

True Friday show chaos.

[Ben Ringer]

My goodness.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I don't even have a. I don't even have a beer. I should, I. It's only 1:30, but if ever take.

[Meg Rowley]

A break, you can run to the Coors.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Oh, no. I'm gonna, I'm gonna really feel like I've earned it by being done. Oh, boy. Sorry. Wow.

[Meg Rowley]

We should start talking about transactions or we'll never finish. But I'm, I'm concerned that we might not have enough time to devote to.

[Ben Ringer]

The Rockies signing Willie Castro. I just, I don't want to give short shrift to that signing.

[Meg Rowley]

Under normal circumstances, we could lead in.

[Ben Ringer]

Episodes with Willie Castro. We could. That's a solid 15 minute move. But today it's gonna have to take a back seat.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Relegated.

[Ben Ringer]

We've got signings. We've got a trade. We have. The stove is scalding right now.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Piping hot. I think we should save the trade because I haven't thought about that trade for even one second. Ben. I, I. That trade, which is a three teamer that sees Gavin Lux on the road again, you know, and everyone getting to.

[Ben Ringer]

Spend a moment low on the move.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Right. I was just gonna say everyone getting to spend a moment trying to remember if it's low or Lao broke moments before the Tucker signing. And so I was like, that happened. Bye. That was my sequence.

[Meg Rowley]

You know, this is, it's really disrupting.

[Ben Ringer]

My mental image of the raise as a team that has a low and a Lao. And I had straightened out in my mind which one was low and which.

[Meg Rowley]

One was Lao and, and now neither.

[Ben Ringer]

Neither one is a Tampa Bay Ray. They've been a low budget team for years and a loud budget team and.

[Meg Rowley]

Now no room in the budget for either.

[Ben Ringer]

So, yeah, that was a raise, Angels, Reds, three team treat.

[Meg Rowley]

We might not be able to talk about that either, but if you're interested, I'm sure you can look up the details. Josh Lowe went to the Angels and.

[Ben Ringer]

Gavin Lux went to the Rays and the Reds got Brock Burke.

[Meg Rowley]

So that's the headline headline news for this episode, actually.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Extry extra.

[Ben Ringer]

What?

[Meg Rowley]

I wondered about that because those transactions.

[Ben Ringer]

Broke in such quick succession. Actually, Jeff Passon, I don't know if he, if he broke the three team.

[Meg Rowley]

Trade, but he tweeted and cited sources. The three team trade, literally two minutes.

[Ben Ringer]

After he broke the Tucker signing. And so I wondered about the sequence.

[Meg Rowley]

Of events there on his end and.

[Ben Ringer]

I, I texted him and I sent him, you know, the, I think it's called the Daily Struggle meme. But it's the two buttons meme. You know, it's like the, the sweaty guy with his finger superhero.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Or is he.

[Meg Rowley]

It's like a webcomic Tumblr thing. So I, I guess like he's costumed.

[Ben Lindbergh]

But superhero chin, you know.

[Ben Ringer]

Yes. And, and builds. Yeah, he's got the very gigachad kind of jawlined, but he is.

[Meg Rowley]

Has his finger hovering over.

[Ben Lindbergh]

The beginning of this episode is incomprehensible. 90% of the country's population.

[Meg Rowley]

Well, more than that I'm not listening to Effectively Wild.

[Ben Ringer]

Unfortunately though, they're all welcome, especially if they support us on Patreon. But sure, I, I asked Jeff, I. You know how you can make the meme. Like you'd find the meme generator online. So I did a little mock up of Jeff Passon's situation around 9:50pm Eastern on Thursday.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Right.

[Ben Ringer]

Break the Kyle Tucker signing or break the three team Lux SL low trade. And I sent it to him and I said, was this you last night?

[Meg Rowley]

And he said it was literally within seconds. I mean, not exaggerating. I'd been waiting an hour on the trade too. Yeah. Because one thing he said when he.

[Ben Ringer]

Was on the podcast recently is that he does not like to break news on Twitter if the player has not been notified or sometimes he'll tell the.

[Meg Rowley]

Player, but he just, he wants the.

[Ben Ringer]

Player to know and be informed somehow before he puts it out there for the public.

[Meg Rowley]

So he'd been waiting an hour on the trade because apparently Gavin Lux was at Reds Fest and he had not.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Been at Red Fest.

[Meg Rowley]

At Reds Fest. What a thing to learn that you've been traded. What do if you're at like fan convention for the team that you no longer play for? It's like, can you just change uniforms and go to. Go to Raise Fest or something?

[Ben Lindbergh]

It's like amazing.

[Meg Rowley]

A player gets traded between games of a double header or something. So anyway, he was busy at Reds Fest and so I guess no one had told him that he had been traded. So Passen was waiting and he considered.

[Ben Ringer]

Calling him but relented and didn't.

[Meg Rowley]

And so he just waited. And I don't know whether someone scooped.

[Ben Ringer]

Him on the three team trade or not, but I don't think it matters.

[Meg Rowley]

Very much because he did break the Kyle Tucker sighting, which was slightly bigger.

[Ben Ringer]

News in the grand scheme of things. And somehow we have managed not to talk about it yet because. So we've just been on a bunch.

[Meg Rowley]

Of nonsense since then.

[Ben Ringer]

I've been trying to, I'm looking, looking.

[Meg Rowley]

At the the performance of those two tweets sent at 9:51pm Eastern and 9:53pm Eastern or something like that.

[Ben Ringer]

Yeah, let's see.

[Meg Rowley]

It's 19,000 retweets or quote tweets on.

[Ben Ringer]

The Kyle Tucker news and about 24,000 faves and 7,000 replies.

[Meg Rowley]

And the three team trade has just.

[Ben Ringer]

Under 2,000 retweets slash quote tweets, under 10,000 faves and about 600 replies, which always amazing me.

[Meg Rowley]

I, I know Jeff has like a million something Twitter followers, but like 10,000 people likes that. There are a lot of people who like baseball, I guess, and that's ultimately a small percentage of his followers. But I think he made the right.

[Ben Ringer]

Choice is what I'm saying. Breaking the Tucker signing prior to the three team trade based on the performance of those tweets.

[Meg Rowley]

But the Tucker signing has caused subsequent transactions.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Right.

[Ben Ringer]

Because there were other teams that were in the running for Kyle Tucker and when the Dodgers signed him, by the way, we buried the lead. The Dodgers signed Kyle Tucker.

[Meg Rowley]

In case you were just waiting, you know, 10 minutes into this episode waiting.

[Ben Ringer]

For us to tell you who signed.

[Meg Rowley]

Kyle Tucker, it was the Dodgers.

[Ben Ringer]

I know you're shocked. Sorry to be the one to, to break that news and maybe be the bearer of bad news to you, but.

[Meg Rowley]

Because other teams were, were waiting to hear what would happen, including the New York Mets. And so when the New York Mets.

[Ben Ringer]

Did not successfully sign Kyle Tucker, they.

[Meg Rowley]

Then pivoted to Bobichette. And when Boba Shet signed with the Mets, then the Philadelphia Phillies who were.

[Ben Ringer]

In the running for Boba Shet, they.

[Meg Rowley]

Then pivoted to J.T. realmuto.

[Ben Ringer]

I mean, I don't know exactly the sequence of events, but I'm assuming this is more or less the way it went down. Yeah.

[Meg Rowley]

So you know, it was kind of.

[Ben Ringer]

Contingent on either or. Right. The Mets probably were not going to sign both Bobaette and Kyle Tucker. And the Phillies, it had been reported.

[Meg Rowley]

Were not going to sign both Bobaette and J.T. realm Muto. So once Tucker signed somewhere, once the.

[Ben Ringer]

The smoke went up, as Steve Cohen's.

[Meg Rowley]

Tweet referenced, sir, then that everyone else took their cues from that and suddenly a whole flurry of free agents had signed.

[Ben Ringer]

And I guess we picked the right time to do our free agent fits episodes last week.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I guess.

[Ben Ringer]

Yeah.

[Meg Rowley]

If we had waited until now, we would not have many more free agents to fit into teams because as we.

[Ben Ringer]

Record here on a Friday afternoon, we're a framber and a bellinger away.

[Meg Rowley]

From most of the dust having settled.

[Ben Ringer]

On the free agent market. I mean, yeah, you know, apologies to Ewen U. Suarez and Zach Gallen and oh, De yeah, some other significant free agents are, are out there. But, but the top 10 types, you know, there are two more of those.

[Meg Rowley]

Guys left and, and maybe it won't be long until they sign to. Perhaps they have by the time you're hearing this, who knows. But where do we even begin? Should we save Tucker for last, even though it's maybe the most significant just.

[Ben Ringer]

Because we might have the most to say and also people might be sick of hearing us talk about the Dodgers.

[Meg Rowley]

And they could just check out at that point if they want to.

[Ben Lindbergh]

You can take them in whichever order. I I want to make a broad point here before, before we do, which is. And I know how fun it is to hear people sort of read their posts from social media, but are we sure that the NL east isn't like a psyop? You know, like I. Again, we can, we can. The crash outs from Mets fans last night that I was seeing Ben and then when Bichette signed with the Mets, the crash outs from Phillies fans that I was seeing both in response to the news that Bichette was not going to be affiliate and would thus, you know, thus suggesting that, say, Alec Bohm will remain one and that there appeared to be a maybe potentially slightly panicked signing for Real Muto, who was I think always in Philly's plans for this offseason. But if we came to find out that Real Mutos people reached out to Philly in the moments after the Bichette news broke and was like, so one more year. So one more year though. And they were like, yeah, there's no time. Yes, one more, one more. Yeah, it was people look. And again, as I said to Liz Rosher on On Blue sky, it's not that the posts, I mean many of the posts are very funny, but they are also suggestive of a population of people who have been made deeply unwell by the the proceedings of the last 24 hours. Really the last 2012.

[Ben Ringer]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

So let's start with the Bichette of it all. We can also take a moment to say that as Michael Bauman put it in his Bichette write up, if you're worth as much money as Steve Cohen, if you have $500 million, you should just not be allowed to be on social media. I'm not going to say that the reason that Kyle Tucker ultimately signed with the Dodgers was because of Steve Collins post that's ridiculous. Or at least if it was in the soup, I imagine it was a minor ingredient, the flavor of which one could barely detect. But Steve, you're embarrassing yourself, sir. And, and I say that as someone who is familiar with the alleged financial shenanigans that Steve Cohen has gotten involved with. I don't say that like I have seen special inside knowledge, but simply as someone who was an observer of SAC Capital at one point. So I, I'm just like, someone needs to take Steve's phone away. You know, it's not the worst billionaire posting we've seen in the last year.

[Ben Ringer]

No, certainly.

[Ben Lindbergh]

But it might be some of the most embarrassing sports billionaire posting we've seen. And I say that as someone who's been observing Mark Cuban crashing out for quite some time. So take his phone away. But let's.

[Ben Ringer]

I hope they don't, because I enjoy it. I'm not saying it reflects well on him, you know.

[Ben Lindbergh]

You know, it could be a useful corrective because there have been times when Mets fans have really, in a way that they like to pretend as ironic, but seems to be quite sincere, leaned into the Uncle Steve stuff. And I appreciate that. Steve Cohen appears to want to put money into his ball club. You know, as we have noted, a quarter zip and a hat. This, this guy is serious.

[Ben Ringer]

But also, hey, fan graphs is selling quarter zips now, right? You can't make fun of quarter zips anymore.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I can't wait for mine to. I can't wait for mine to come. Speaking of being embarrassing, I'm going to wear that to a degree that people are like, should you be wearing it that much? How do you wash that? Okay, so Bo Bichette, third baseman, this is. I. Okay. Do you want to talk for a minute? Because I feel like I've talked a lot already.

[Meg Rowley]

I was just going to say that the contrast between owners is clear in.

[Ben Ringer]

That when Mark Walter, Dodgers owner, wants to make a public statement, which he doesn't do often, right?

[Meg Rowley]

He. He does it through at Dodgers and.

[Ben Ringer]

There'S a whole mock up with a.

[Meg Rowley]

Graphic and a background and text on top of it. Whereas Steve Cohen, he's just hunting and pecking out his interesting syntax, which, you know, billionaires, they're just like us, except with worst spelling.

[Ben Ringer]

Except for all the in the billions.

[Ben Lindbergh]

But I guess there's a possibility that he had just watched Conclave and was possible to, you know, interested in the conclusions of Conclave, you know.

[Ben Ringer]

Yes, I like that.

[Meg Rowley]

He, he followed up, he clarified for anyone who he said, let me know when you see smoke.

[Ben Ringer]

That was at 6:57pm on Thursday and then at 7:56.

[Meg Rowley]

For those who don't understand the Pope election reference. We are waiting for a decision. That's all I know. Clearly people flummoxed by the first tweet.

[Ben Ringer]

And he followed up anyway. Yes.

[Meg Rowley]

So. Well, I guess, you know, the real Muto move is.

[Ben Ringer]

Is probably the least interesting and consequential and surprising of the three. So we could.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah. Although. Wow, that's a long time.

[Ben Ringer]

Well, yeah, but we could more quickly dispense with that, I guess, because it's.

[Meg Rowley]

Just player remaining with team where he has been for some time and, you.

[Ben Ringer]

Know, not entirely unanticipatable that the Phillies might bring back JT Realmuto. So it is $45 million over three years. Yeah. With some incentives to. Yeah.

[Meg Rowley]

So, yeah, I mean, cash, 15 million or whatever.

[Ben Ringer]

It just. It sounds like chump change now.

[Meg Rowley]

You know, now that we're dealing with 40 plus 60 million, plus all the CPT taxes, that basically double those 15 million.

[Ben Ringer]

That's a drop in the bucket. I mean, who could even. It's a rounding error. Who could measure that amount of money? But it is true that Real Muto is 34 years old and coming up on 35. He will be 35 during spring training and he is coming off a year.

[Meg Rowley]

When he was a below average hitter for the first time.

[Ben Ringer]

Really.

[Meg Rowley]

He's been a really good, productive hitter.

[Ben Ringer]

For a long time by catcher standards and was at one time a good defender. Not. Not so much now, and had some speed at one point and, you know.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Not so much now.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah, you know, he's. He's lost some steps, let's say, and.

[Ben Ringer]

Some frames along the way. Who hasn't? But they are committing to him for. For quite a while now in that role. So, I mean, he was still. I don't. I guess when you factor in the defense, like Baseball Reference, not considering the framing, has him as a 2.5 war guy this past year, and even Fangrass has him as a 2.1 war guy. So, okay, that, you know, that's playable, that's fine. But not a lot of room to.

[Meg Rowley]

Slip further before he's not really someone you want playing 130 games a year and then you're paying 15mil or whatever for a backup catcher, presumably, if he's prepared to transition into that twilight of his career.

[Ben Ringer]

It's not like you'd really want that.

[Meg Rowley]

Bad at another position at this point, so.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And where would you play him anyway?

[Ben Ringer]

You have Bryce Right, exactly. Yeah. I mean, you could D him, but. Yeah, I guess. Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Bat doesn't really support that either, though.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah. Yep. So you're hoping that he reverses the decline and arrests the decline at least, and, and stays well preserved and, and you know, he's been there for, for a long time. They've had a lot of success with him. The pitchers are used to him. You know, clearly they're comfortable with him in the clubhouse and, and all the rest of it.

[Ben Ringer]

But.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah.

[Ben Ringer]

Yeah, I don't know what plan B or, or the future successor will be for real muto because seems unlikely that he'll be at 37, going on 38 and, and still the starter.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It's a funny one because they needed, on some level, you know, they probably needed real muto, at least in the short term. Right. Like they. The catching market is quite thin. He was the best available free agent backstop, certainly. And you probably don't want to go into the year with like, I don't know, Raphael Marchan and Garrett Stubbs. And so it, it made good sense on some level for them to bring him back. But I just don't know that I'd want to be in that. The real muto business for as long as they're going to be. But, I mean, you had to do something. You were panicking. You know, you, you didn't get any of your boys. Yeah, I mean, they could trade for a catcher, I guess, but it's a very thin system. And so part of their problem is that like, they really. Their best available options were on the market. And those aren't good options. So you pick the best of those ones, which is a guy you have a relationship with. And I guess you're just aware of the fact that you're going to probably eat year three and feel not awesome about it, but what are you going to do? I mean, you got to, you got to do something. You're in your crash out here. I'm worried about saying that word. Siri is going to be like, I have a lot to say about crash outs.

[Meg Rowley]

It's in for a penny, in for a pound. I guess it's just you're, you're the Phillies, you're getting older, you're getting pricier.

[Ben Ringer]

But you're pretty pot committed at this point.

[Meg Rowley]

Right?

[Ben Ringer]

Like you're, you're in your window.

[Meg Rowley]

You don't know how much longer you will be.

[Ben Ringer]

And so you gotta bring back the guy who will be the stop gap at least and whatever, if he falls.

[Meg Rowley]

Off a cliff or something figuratively speaking, then you could kind of just write that off.

[Ben Ringer]

I guess at that point, you know, you were prepared to hand a hall to. To Boba Shet. So it's kind of comparatively not a ton of money, I guess.

[Meg Rowley]

And, and they're the Phillies. You know, they've shown some willingness to.

[Ben Ringer]

Eat money and spend money. So that's one of the things that.

[Meg Rowley]

A bigger market, higher payroll club can do.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah. Can't advise anyone eating money. It's. It's quite filthy, as the case may be. I, I do feel for them because they are in now. I think they were anticipating having more of a. An infield surplus to deal from and have that further some of their pitch angles. So I will be curious to see. Okay, you're not spending money on Boba Shet now. So do you. Do you go after, you know, Fromber and try to shore up the rotation that way? I mean, it's not a bad group, but it's a shallower group than it was before Ranger Soares became a Red Sock, also Red Sox. What are you going to do now? All kinds of problems, I guess. You're going to make a trade with the Cubs? In all likelihood, but yeah.

[Meg Rowley]

In the most recent edition of Pebble.

[Ben Ringer]

Hunting, Sam referred to a White Sox player as a white soccer.

[Meg Rowley]

And I kind of like that. I might steal that because I always.

[Ben Ringer]

You know, we struggle.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Oh, nightmare.

[Ben Ringer]

Yeah.

[Meg Rowley]

And so I don't care to say.

[Ben Ringer]

A White Sox, which some people do. So you always end up sort of writing or speaking around it and you.

[Meg Rowley]

Say White Sox player or, you know, Chicago or whatever it is. But white soccer, I'm kind of into that. I might adopt that.

[Ben Ringer]

We'll see.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I'm thinking about it.

[Meg Rowley]

Okay. So I always wonder what it's like to be a free agent in a.

[Ben Ringer]

Situation like this where it's clearly either or.

[Meg Rowley]

It's like obviously a behind door number one, behind door number two. And you know that if you're real.

[Ben Ringer]

Muto that they were choosing between you and Bichette, presumably.

[Meg Rowley]

I mean, I don't know.

[Ben Ringer]

I guess they were both, I think. Yes.

[Meg Rowley]

I read some reports that it was an either or thing, but it didn't.

[Ben Ringer]

Have to be necessarily so maybe that's less clear cut.

[Meg Rowley]

But then if you're Boba Shet, for instance.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Right.

[Ben Ringer]

And the Mets are very much in the running for Kyle Tucker and everyone knows it, and then, you know, Tucker.

[Meg Rowley]

Sides with the Dodgers and then sudden, suddenly, I guess you get a call from the Mets or whatever they up the offer, it's, you know, it's very clear that you were the backup, you were the consolation prize.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah.

[Meg Rowley]

And. And I guess that's fine because they're paying you an enormous amount of money.

[Ben Ringer]

To be the consolation prize and it's no shame to be not the number.

[Meg Rowley]

One free agent on the market. Kyle Tucker's really good, so.

[Ben Ringer]

Yeah. But I always wonder, you know. Yeah, he goes.

[Meg Rowley]

Competitive athletes, they never want to think.

[Ben Ringer]

That they're someone's fallback plan. There's their safety school.

[Meg Rowley]

Right. So I always wonder about that dynamic.

[Ben Ringer]

But yes, when someone offers you as much money as the Mets did, which.

[Meg Rowley]

Was $126 million over three years, there are opt outs.

[Ben Ringer]

Multiple opt outs.

[Meg Rowley]

Opt outs after this coming campaign.

[Ben Ringer]

Yeah.

[Meg Rowley]

And after 20, 27.

[Ben Ringer]

And this was an interesting little wrinkle that if he opts out, he gets a bonus.

[Meg Rowley]

So not only does he get to.

[Ben Ringer]

Test the market again, but he gets.

[Meg Rowley]

An additional 5 million bucks if he opts out.

[Ben Ringer]

Just. Wow, tacked on. Yeah, you don't see that every day.

[Meg Rowley]

So.

[Ben Ringer]

True.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Don't.

[Meg Rowley]

There's a full no trade clause, but.

[Ben Ringer]

No deferred money in the Bichette deal. And by the way, I guess, you know, at some point we should consider the, the Blue Jays implications of all of this because that's a blow to the Blue Jays to miss out on both of those guys. I mean, know they've done well for themselves.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah. More a blow as it pertains to Tucker than it necessarily does to Bichette. They seemed like they were moving on, you know, from. They seem like they were moving on from Bo.

[Ben Ringer]

A lot of Blue Jays fans are. Are sad to see him go, but yes, perhaps the front office was ready.

[Meg Rowley]

For that and maybe they'll make another move or they'll just content themselves with all the moves that they've made already.

[Ben Ringer]

It's a little bit different than previous.

[Meg Rowley]

Times that they have lost to the Dodgers, whether that be the World Series or Sasaki or Ohtani or whatever. In those cases, they didn't necessarily already.

[Ben Ringer]

Have multiple birds in the hand the way they do this off season. And I think maybe still have committed.

[Meg Rowley]

The most money of any team this off season. So they have, they have plenty of prizes.

[Ben Lindbergh]

26 birds in the hand, as it were.

[Ben Ringer]

Exactly.

[Meg Rowley]

So the Mets signing Boba Shed, that is third baseman.

[Ben Ringer]

Third baseman, yes.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I mean, that's what they say.

[Ben Ringer]

First baseman Polanco, I mean, that's less an eyebrow raised.

[Meg Rowley]

But yeah, yeah, it's all because they were at one point Talking about run prevention and wanting to tighten up the defense and everything.

[Ben Ringer]

And, and I guess this could have that effect because both of these guys are, are moving down the defensive spectrum from more challenging positions to less challenging ones. Bobichette was a shortstop, so he's sliding over to third presumably.

[Meg Rowley]

And Jorge Polanco, he's played second, he's played other positions. He could slide over to first and presumably he could pick that up.

[Ben Ringer]

And it's not like a mid season move. You have spring training to prepare for this.

[Meg Rowley]

So for all we know they, they might be defensive pluses over there.

[Ben Ringer]

But it's a little uncertain just because Bobichette has not played third base professionally.

[Meg Rowley]

I think and Polanco has played first base for one pitch. So I guess this probably isn't the way they drew it up. But it's one of those things where players fall into your laps and other players are on other teams laps. And so you just do, do what.

[Ben Ringer]

You can to get your lap dance, I guess even if it's from a.

[Meg Rowley]

Position that you would not have penciled that player in to that position when you drew up your off season agenda.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Congrats immediately. You should have them immediately.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah, I do. But anyway, it's just odd. Like they are sort of stacking second baseman but just playing them at other positions.

[Ben Ringer]

I mean Bo hasn't been a second baseman really. He maybe should have been, but wasn't, but could have been if he had gone somewhere else.

[Meg Rowley]

But they're just betting on the bat. Betting on the bat seems like a pretty safe bet because Bochette can hit.

[Ben Lindbergh]

So from Beau's perspective, I like, like this for him playing out of position is always risky. But I think the odds of him kind of giving reassurance to potential suitors next winter from third are better than they would be if he had been playing short or even second. I think that given sort of what was going wrong for him at shortstop, which was a lot of range related stuff, that that makes some sense to play him at third. His arm seems fine. So you're kind of getting him not off his feet but minimizing the impact that the lower body injuries have had for him over the years. I think their lineup is more interesting and dynamic now. You do feel bad for some of their more junior guys because you know, like, you know, I, I joked about the, surely the, that the Red Sox are going to trade with the Cubs. The other thing that they could trade, the other team they could trade with is the Mets and go get, you know, Vientos or Beatty or what have you.

[Ben Ringer]

So any number of guys.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah, it's just like they're kind of lousy within a. Ronnie Mauricio. Yeah, you want Ronnie Fielders just everywhere.

[Ben Lindbergh]

But being able to go Lindor, Soto, Bichette, Polanco, Semian, even the diminished version of Semian that we saw last year, that'll play, that's pretty good. You know, that's a, that's a really potent lineup. I, I like the. Bauman noticed this in his write up of the deal, but I really like the contrast that they're going to be able to draw between Soto and Bichette because Soto is so patient and methodical and Bichette is so aggressive and so that seems like a fun dynamic to get to play with. I like is very much not where I expected him to end up. I mean, positionally, sure, but just team wise, like if you had given me, you know, 10 guesses, I probably wouldn't have gone with.

[Ben Ringer]

With the Mets.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It is another example. I'm gonna try something. You tell me if this is. I think that we might be in a period of maximalist roster design.

[Ben Ringer]

Ooh, explain.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Well, it's just, you know, the, the teams that are adding guys are adding a lot of guys and in many instances, although not every instance, they are adding a lot of guys such that they are creating positional surplus on their own rosters. I don't know if my understanding of maximalism is accurate, but you know, we're not, we're not doing clean lines, we're not doing black marble, we're doing bold colors, all at shortstop or all, or all in the rotation or all on the infield. More broadly, I don't know if it works. We're going to give it a try.

[Ben Ringer]

Maximalist, kind of like a, like a.

[Meg Rowley]

Positionless baseball sort of idea.

[Ben Ringer]

Just like we like the bat, we'll. We'll find a fit.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It's not positionless, it's position full, you know. Yeah. Anyway, I'm playing with it. So all that to say, I don't know. It's certainly not where I thought he would be, somewhere I thought he would be. But I appreciate the ways in which it might end up being like, surprisingly elegant, despite the logjam that has been created. Here's a question for you, and this is less about Bichette's specific fit, so if you'd like to put a pin in it for a moment, feel free, but I am trying to decide what I think these are. Multi year, multi opt out deals mean it's particularly interesting in Bechette's case because I, I understand like someone like Imai, right? And you have to pay a posting fee. So maybe I'm drawing a distinction without a huge amount of difference. But with someone like Imai going to the Astros, you're at least not contending with the qualifying offer of it all. But you, you do have to do the posting fee. But that doesn't come with like draft picker bonus pool implications for you. It's just money. But with someone like Bichette, you know, Bichette got tagged with a qualifying offer and so signing him comes with, with draft pick compensation. And the Mets will have to pay it because they're a payer, they're a luxury taxpayer. And so it's just interesting to combine those things because one year of Boba shed is not inexpensive. You are paying potentially additional money on top of that from a luxury tax perspective. And then you are also forfeiting draft pick compensation and he might be gone in a year. And so I'm just, I'm, I'm fascinated by that contract structure. Like, is it a vote of confidence? Is it we just love this guy so much we have to have him? Is it desperation? Right? Is this again, just a symptom of crash out? Like, or. So anyway, I'm trying to decide what I think of it, because we think about contracts, the most straightforward way to think about sort of the value trade that teams do when they sign a free agent is they are anticipated to generate this much value. We are paying them this much. Is there any surplus in that value? Is there a clean fit? From a dollars per wor perspective, that's sort of the most straightforward way to do it. But when you involve a qualifying offer, it's, it's the cost of the contract itself. It's the potential luxury tax implications for teams like the, the Mets and the Dodgers, et cetera. And then you're also forfeiting draft picks. So it's like when you're, when you're putting all of that together into your value model, how are teams sort of thinking about this stuff? And I'm not saying it's bad like this. This Mets lineup is better with Bichette in it than without him. And it could be that Beau has a great time and decides to stay, right? Or maybe he opts out, but they get a new deal done or whatever. Like, there are any number of ways in which he might remain a Met, but you gotta think he thinks he won't be a Met this time. Next Year. Right. That he will be, you know, inking a five year, seven year deal and able to do sort of the, the Bregman two step. Right. So I'm just, just I'm, I'm interested in it as a data point in terms of how teams are thinking about sort of those value trade offs and is it worth it, quote unquote to get guys into these short term deals with optionality versus just giving them a longer term commitment, albeit at a lower aav. So I just think it's an interesting little. And we've seen a couple of them this off season, so.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah, yeah. And, and having Tucker and Bichette sign.

[Ben Ringer]

Sort of similarly straight structured deals and Tucker breaking the record for average annual value even after accounting for the deferral.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah.

[Ben Ringer]

How could you not ponder that?

[Meg Rowley]

I was doing some pondering myself. It's interesting from the team's perspective, also.

[Ben Ringer]

From the player's perspective, because historically guys.

[Meg Rowley]

Often have a preference for signing the.

[Ben Ringer]

Longest possible deal they could and it's not as if that's gone entirely out of vogue or something.

[Meg Rowley]

The Mets signed Juan Soto to a 15 year contract last offseason. Same.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Just last offseason. Yeah.

[Meg Rowley]

So that still happens quite often, but we have seen shorter term deals for the most part this off season and.

[Ben Ringer]

Maybe that's because of the caliber of.

[Meg Rowley]

Player that was on offer on free agency this off season.

[Ben Ringer]

Maybe you'd think that if there were concerns about a work stoppage that could lead to a shortening or a bridging of the 2027 season, that if anything players would want some security. Not, not that they're going to get paid if there's a strike or a lockout or whatever. But you know, if like baseball loses a season, if there's no MLB season and the finances are a wreck after that, then they probably would have been happy to have signed a long term deal in the pre cratering era.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah. Although a deal like Bichette's or Tucker's is sort of an interesting in between on that stuff. Right. Because you know, they, they would be like, let's imagine the worst case scenario comes to pass, we lose the entire 2027 season. Well, you just, you don't opt out and then you're gonna make the. Particularly if you look around and you see the market as depressed, will you just keep opting in? Right. And, and not exercising the opt outs. Now for someone like, you know, am I, it's a little bit different because you have one less year and certainly a lower AAV and Maybe you just decide, hey, I'm just going to roll the dice and opt out anyway. But it's interesting because it isn't, again, there isn't super definitively clear signal on this stuff in terms of being able to interpret how the different camps are thinking about that season. So anyway, it's just fascinating.

[Meg Rowley]

Part of it is the specifics of these two, because as good as they've.

[Ben Ringer]

Been, they could be better.

[Meg Rowley]

They, they could have a better season to build off their, their free agency because I guess, you know Tucker well, we'll talk a little bit more about him, but, but both he and Bichette.

[Ben Ringer]

Are coming off seasons that were marred somewhat by injuries. You know, Bichette didn't miss that much time, but he missed much of September and then obviously was far from fully operational in the playoffs. And I assume that the Mets and teams are fairly confident that he won't.

[Meg Rowley]

Show any ill effects from that. But it's true that the last time.

[Ben Ringer]

Everyone saw him, he was just kind.

[Meg Rowley]

Of hobbling around, which, you know, probably.

[Ben Ringer]

Doesn'T help your value as, as excellent as he was prior to the injury last season. So he could be saying to himself, if I just hit like I did last year, but finish healthy, then maybe I, I can do even better. And maybe Tucker, same thing, he had.

[Meg Rowley]

The hairline fracture in his hand that wasn't immediately diagnosed.

[Ben Ringer]

And then he had the calf issue.

[Meg Rowley]

And missed much of September. And so maybe he's thinking.

[Ben Ringer]

And then, you know, of course he had the, he fouled the ball off.

[Meg Rowley]

His shin in 2024 and had the fracture.

[Ben Ringer]

And confusion about that too.

[Meg Rowley]

Just so much uncertainty surrounding fractures of various body parts of Kyle Tucker.

[Ben Lindbergh]

The easiest part to be like, yeah, that's, that's what that is.

[Ben Ringer]

Yeah. And I guess there's like, is it a bone bruise? Is it a fracture? Are those ultimately the same thing in certain parts of you anyway, but he missed a few months there.

[Meg Rowley]

And so maybe he's thinking, if I.

[Ben Ringer]

Can just really have a full healthy season where I'm hitting as well as I was when I was healthy in those years, and they're both young enough.

[Meg Rowley]

That they could hit the market again.

[Ben Ringer]

In a year or two and still sign a gigantic deal if they wanted to, because Boba Shet is 27. He turns 28 in March. Kyle Tucker turns 29 on Saturday.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah.

[Ben Ringer]

Happy birthday to him.

[Meg Rowley]

I'm sure it is.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah. What a, what a. Using the, his. Sorry, I, I, I want to continue to be very serious because we've been so serious so far, yes. Do you think that his party plans have changed at all? Do you think that there was like two versions of the party planned and now they're like, go get the sushi trees from Costco. Every single one.

[Meg Rowley]

They have those now. Now that I got the 60 million. Yeah. Now we can just pull out all the stops.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ben Ringer]

Dexter, Cakes and candles.

[Meg Rowley]

Who?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Sushi trays.

[Meg Rowley]

Just K. Tucker doesn't seem to me like the sort to just have like a, a real rager.

[Ben Ringer]

But I don't know, maybe he'd surprise me, who knows? But because they're young enough, yes, they.

[Meg Rowley]

Could hit the market and they could conceivably be coming off an even better.

[Ben Ringer]

Year and they could cash in. So that's a consideration for them and.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah, for the teams. I think maybe this just goes to show we always say it's kind of a cliche.

[Ben Ringer]

There's no such thing as a bad one year deal. These aren't literally one year deals.

[Meg Rowley]

Obviously they might turn out to be.

[Ben Ringer]

Or Bichettes might, Tucker's might turn out to be a two year deal or something.

[Meg Rowley]

But the idea I think applies, which is just the shorter the better as.

[Ben Ringer]

Far as teams are concerned.

[Meg Rowley]

And I don't know if this is just the new normal now, and I don't even know which side is really pushing this. I assume the team side more because we certainly have seen teams be more.

[Ben Ringer]

Reluctant to dispense long term deals, especially to players in their 30s. And there's certain, you know, it was like, oh, the Red Sox actually gave.

[Meg Rowley]

A five year deal to a 30 year old. How about that? And the Giants have sort of signaled that they don't want to do that, at least for pitchers. So teams have kind of held the line more on that sort of thing. But maybe it's what we were talking about yesterday, players betting on themselves, right? We were talking about, well, you could.

[Ben Ringer]

Just go year to year and if you kept having good years, you would profit, you would make even more money.

[Meg Rowley]

But I, I do think it's that.

[Ben Ringer]

The shorter the better and teams just, they have higher tolerance, I guess, for the high average annual value than they do for the long term risk.

[Meg Rowley]

And I guess what we've seen historically, the linear relationship between spending and wins, it, it's kind of, it's always broken down a bit at the extremes because, you know, typically if you study spending.

[Ben Ringer]

It'S like teams will spend twice as.

[Meg Rowley]

Much for a two war guy as a one war guy or whatever.

[Ben Ringer]

And it kind of tracks. But at the extreme Upper echelons. It doesn't really, because, you know, if you have a, an eight WAR guy, not that there are many true talent eight WAR guys, but, but historically speaking, they haven't really made what they're worth on a per year basis. There was sort of a soft ceiling there and you could get more and more years and you could get more.

[Meg Rowley]

And more dollars, but on an average annual value basis there was kind of a compression of the range of possible salaries.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Right.

[Meg Rowley]

Maybe that's just changing now because you.

[Ben Ringer]

Look at what these guys are getting and because it's the Mets and the Dodgers. Now maybe because it's the Mets and the Dodgers, we can actually extrapolate to.

[Meg Rowley]

Other teams with fewer resources or less willingness to spend because these are the.

[Ben Ringer]

Two top spending teams in the game and the two that seem to have.

[Meg Rowley]

The highest tolerance for incurring penalties and surcharges.

[Ben Ringer]

But you look at what they're actually spending for these guys, not just the.

[Meg Rowley]

Draft picks, they're forfeiting and everything, but they're basically paying double.

[Ben Ringer]

I mean, you know, once you're in the highest tax bracket, once you've been a serial repeater and you're, you know, at the highest, highest tippy top threshold, then you're paying like 110% on every.

[Meg Rowley]

Dollar above that threshold. And so the Dodgers, you know, forget about the deferrals for a second. Like, I mean they're, you can just double basically the 60 million or more or even accounting for the deferrals, they're, they're essentially a 50, effectively spending 120 million per year on Kyle Tucker because of where they are.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Right.

[Ben Ringer]

And the Mets too are spending like a hundred million on Boba shed basically at 42 million per whatever it is.

[Meg Rowley]

So that's a lot of money. I mean, even for the vets and the Dodgers, even for really excellent players.

[Ben Ringer]

But I guess that just goes to show that at least these two teams, they will make that trade off. They're just willing to fork over almost any amount of cash, I guess when it's not something that's on the books for a decade or more.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I think that the, the Dodgers and the Mets obviously would strike you as teams that aren't in support of a salary cap, like a hard cap. I do wonder if they look, if they're looking around and sort of putting their finger to the wind and going, we might get one though. And so they're like, let's get it while the going is good.

[Ben Ringer]

Right. That's another thing. Yeah. Because Even if there's no cap, there could very well be steeper penalties.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah. Might end up with more punitive penalties. In fact, I would imagine that the, the little, you know, two step swappity do that the league tries to do in the course of negotiations, if they get to a point where they realize that the union is to trying just not going to cave on a cap is they are going to push for more stringent luxury tax threshold penalties.

[Ben Ringer]

Yes. And so as expensive as this is now, they might figure that this is the best deal they're going to get for a while.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Right.

[Ben Ringer]

The other factor that I meant to mention.

[Meg Rowley]

So I wrote something for Baseball prospectus 12 years ago and the headline was Farewell to Free agency. I think it was possibly premature, but I did have a question mark in.

[Ben Ringer]

It in my defense, Farewell to free agency.

[Ben Lindbergh]

So.

[Meg Rowley]

But the thesis was essentially that maybe the available talent on the free agent market was going to dwindle because teams.

[Ben Ringer]

At that time were signing so many younger players to extensions. And it really seemed like if you just extrapolated from that and they were signing them to earlier and even more.

[Meg Rowley]

Aggressive extensions and it really was starting to seem realistic that there just might.

[Ben Ringer]

Not be that many free agents out there technically. And, and there was actually a quote at the time from John Moselak of the Cardinals and he said, I think the toughest thing facing all of us is the future of free agency and the limited resources that are going to be out there. And so there was this prevailing idea that free agency was just petering out because that the teams were just going.

[Meg Rowley]

To lock everyone up and they would.

[Ben Ringer]

Just never hit the open market. And you know, I did some math and I looked at projections and retrojections.

[Meg Rowley]

For previous year's free agent classes and.

[Ben Ringer]

I seemed to find some indication that the upcoming class or classes were weaker than the past ones. And it's always a risk to just.

[Meg Rowley]

Extend that tread line forward indefinitely. But I thought of that, that old argument or thought experiment of mine because Jeff Passon just this past week at ESPN essentially made the same case. He was doing sort of a state.

[Ben Ringer]

Of the off season and who needs to do what and everything. And he wrote, quote, the reality, particularly.

[Meg Rowley]

For teams playing at the top of the market, is that this might be.

[Ben Ringer]

Their last opportunity to land a frontline bat in free agency for years. And this was giving me deja vu of what I wrote way back in 2014. But neither of the next two free agent classes features a hitter as attractive as Tucker Bichette or Bellinger.

[Meg Rowley]

And Remember, this is especially striking because we talked about how this winter's free agent class was kind of lackluster, but just looking forward says this is the best it's going to get because he writes the best of next winter.

[Ben Ringer]

Nico hoer, Jazz Chisholm Jr. Brandon Lau.

[Meg Rowley]

Dalton Varsho, Randy Arose, Arena, Saya Suzuki, Trent Grisham, Hassan Kim, J.P. crawford and Gleyber Torres. The top following the 2027 season, Jeremy Pena, William Contreras, Stephen Kwan, Adley Rutchman, Isak Paredes, Unitaka Murakami, Luis Robert Jr.

[Ben Ringer]

And Freddie Freeman, who'll be 38 at that point. And Jeff wrote, it is grim. And with the acquisition cost for trades enormous, it reinforces the leverage the remaining bats hold miss out on Tucker, Bichette or Bellinger, all of whom cost only cash in draft picks, I guess because it qualify. But you know, basically, yeah, if you're.

[Ben Lindbergh]

If you're the Dodgers, you're like, I haven't thought about my draft picks in years.

[Ben Ringer]

Yeah, you're not sweating.

[Ben Lindbergh]

They still do well in the draft.

[Ben Ringer]

But, you know, I know, but not that those guys ever play for them for the most part.

[Meg Rowley]

I know a few of them do, but not often. And the ability to recover could be.

[Ben Ringer]

Severely mitigated absent breakout seasons from any of the above.

[Meg Rowley]

So that's an important caveat, I think, because I think if you looked at.

[Ben Ringer]

Previous classes and how they were shaping up two years or even a year.

[Meg Rowley]

Prior to the actual free agency, I wonder how predictive it actually is, because.

[Ben Ringer]

We might be looking at the class of a couple years from now and saying, oh, there's not a lot of appealing players here, but maybe some of.

[Meg Rowley]

The guys that Jeff just listed will have big bounce backs or breakouts, I.

[Ben Ringer]

Hesitate to use the term.

[Meg Rowley]

Or someone who's not even on the radar, someone who Jeff doesn't even list.

[Ben Ringer]

There because they don't seem like a marquee free agent.

[Meg Rowley]

Maybe by then they will, you know.

[Ben Ringer]

So I don't know, maybe that's a mistake that I ran into in 2014.

[Meg Rowley]

When I'm looking ahead and thinking, oh.

[Ben Ringer]

This is a pretty slim pickings. But then by the time free agency.

[Meg Rowley]

Rolls around, baseball tough to predict.

[Ben Ringer]

Some guys get good, you never see it coming, and one way or another it seems to work out. So I don't know, either I was.

[Meg Rowley]

About 15 years early with that take and I was just super prescient, or maybe people have been saying this for.

[Ben Ringer]

A while and it will continue not to be true because another thing that I mentioned in that piece is that like, well, if everyone does sign extensions, then the few free agents who don't, they're going to make bank because they're going to be the only ones out there. I guess, granted, there might be fewer.

[Meg Rowley]

Opportunities and landing spots for them because teams will have signed their guys already. But in theory, teams, if there's scarcity.

[Ben Ringer]

On the free agent market, then they will be making more and then that will convince future players not to sign those extensions because they'll look at what players are making free agency and say, oh, why would I take this massive discount? Look how well these free agents are doing.

[Meg Rowley]

So it could be sort of a cyclical thing. But if that's in the back of these teams minds, a, yes, they might.

[Ben Ringer]

Crack down on us and, and impose even stiffer penalties, or B, we just don't really like a lot of what we're forecasting for future free agent classes, then maybe it makes sense to splurge now.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, I think that one thing we have seen smart teams or even I don't broaden this out to say that the, that there are dopes in the mix. But you know, teams that are really serious about contending soon, even if the season isn't this, this next, very next one, is to be opportunistic in free agency, even when they are maybe kind of punting a year of value from the free agent contract because the rest of the roster isn't ready yet. Right. If you think that Corey Seeger or Manny Machado, those are ones that come sort of immediately to mind for me, are going to be difference makers for you and you want them on your squad, well, guess what, you better sign them now because they're not going to be there a year from now. So even if you're not able to fully maximize the value, you're going to be really happy you have them when you do. And who knows, maybe a couple guys on your roster sort of take a step forward or outperform in other ways and you're ready sooner than you would expect. We saw this sort of at the beginning of the Astros window of contention, right, where they brought guys up and it was like, oh, well, this club's actually going to be a wild card team.

[Ben Ringer]

So.

[Ben Lindbergh]

So that dynamic is always at play. And then you look at a team like the Dodgers and I thought Fabian wrote about this. Well, where it's like what they're trying to stave off is not, you know, they're not saying like, oh gosh, our window of contention is finally open. They're they're saying to themselves, we're just going to be perpetual motion machine. We're never going to have a cliff. We're always going to be moving. Right. Like, and if Kyle Tucker opts out in, you know, a year, well, guess what? Then Zaire Hope's going to get a chance to prove whether or not he's actually a really good person prospect. So there are redundancies and contingencies, but also they just want to maximize the core they have. And on some level, even though it means spending a lot of money, I get the prevailing logic of it, because it's like, if you're already spending as much as they are on Otani and Bets and Freeman and Will Smith, and you have this rotation that's, you know, really coming together and stacked. And part of that is because you gave Yamo Moto a bunch of money and then you sign Snow there. There's an argument to be made that it's like, well, you should just keep spending because your odds of being able to not only win the west, but to dominate in October, if all those guys are healthy and productive at the same time, means that you're really maximizing the value from each individual contributor. It's a very expensive way to do it. But also think about how much money the Dodgers make. They just. They just make a stupid amount of money. They. They're printing money.

[Ben Ringer]

Right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

You know, I'm talking about Steve Cohen's potential financial shenanigans in the past. They're printing their own money. No kidding. But, you know, there. There's value in that. And I think that one of the. The things that we've seen with them this off season and now we can finally talk about Kyle Tucker's fit on the Dodgers is that they have, you know, what are. What have been their big signings this offseason? Edwin Diaz and Kyle Tucker. Remember when they gave Edwin Diaz a contract?

[Ben Ringer]

Yeah.

[Meg Rowley]

And everyone was like, contract? Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Right. And we were. And we were like, but as long as they don't do anything else, no one's gonna freak out about the Dodgers this offseason. What a fool I was. What a fool, Ben.

[Meg Rowley]

Right?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah. They're paying, and Edwin D. Is $21 million a year. But I think what they did was they're at a point in their roster construction where they're able to build. Like, I'm sure that they did not put it to themselves this way, but based on what annoyed them in the last World Series, like, that is the vibe of these two decisions, they're like, what did we want? We wanted a real shut the door, screw you guy at the back of the bullpen. We didn't have one. We had to. We had to throw Yamamot on zero days rests. And it worked out, but it was terrifying. So how do you address that problem? You go get Edwin Diaz, and then you look at their lineup, and you're like, this is so stacked. Where could they possibly need help? And then you realize that, like, their outfield wasn't super productive last. Last year. Right? They. They made a. A bad signing with Conforto or. Or a good signing, depending on how much you want Craig to be personally tortured by watching his favorite baseball team. So, like, your mileage might vary on that, but. But he was terrible and was just left off the postseason roster. I'm sure they were like, well, we can never watch Te Oscar play right field again, because that's an adventure we don't need to relive.

[Meg Rowley]

I have bad news for you about Te Oscar.

[Ben Ringer]

The left fielder also not much better.

[Meg Rowley]

I know, but he is essentially stationary. I know that Tucker did not have.

[Ben Ringer]

Great range last year either, but Te Oscar is just glued to the ground.

[Ben Lindbergh]

So people are gonna be like, wow, he moves so well out there. Look at. Look at Tucker go.

[Ben Ringer]

Graceful like a gazelle.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah. Gallivanting around out there like Ichabod Crane on his horse. I'm gonna make this visual comp stick. I'm gonna do it. You're all. Now that he's a Dodger, I'm gonna be more annoying about it. He looks like Ichabod Crane from the animated Legends of Sleepy Hollow, which, as an aside, is a delay, and you should watch it in October as you're watching Kyle Tucker play postseason baseball for the Dodgers. But, you know, they looked at it, and they were like, we want to minimize the bad parts of our outfield production. Well, what do we do? We. We go get Kyle Tucker because we think that Andy Pies is productive enough as a center fielder and a good enough center fielder. What if they go sign Harrison Baker? I think they're done. I think they're done. I think they're done. I think they're done.

[Meg Rowley]

You said that many times. Times.

[Ben Lindbergh]

But I actually.

[Meg Rowley]

But.

[Ben Lindbergh]

But actually, surely, surely, now they're done. Surely, now they're done. But. But again, this is a team that is so stacked and so good. It's like, well, what do you do? Well, you try to deal with your last little annoyance. Honestly, it's not a bad way to conduct oneself at work. What if you could just eliminate all the little annoyances. I don't have any because I work with perfect people who are the best. But every other job, you know at Lindberg, your website famously called Lindbergh.

[Meg Rowley]

Yes. So this one, first of all I called it.

[Ben Ringer]

I don't feel particularly proud of it because I didn't call anything else. But when we did our free agent fits last week I said he's going to the Dodgers.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Also you should love this deal because Kyle Tucker won you the the free agent over underdraft.

[Meg Rowley]

This is not the number one implication.

[Ben Ringer]

Of this signing, but I think think it's, it's a done deal. I think it's game over right now.

[Meg Rowley]

And I thought it was, thought it was for you. I know, but I've staged a comeback here because yeah, it's quite a, quite a margin now because we haven't actually.

[Ben Ringer]

Mentioned the terms which we probably should do here. But this is A, a $240 million.

[Meg Rowley]

Deal over four years with opt outs after the second and third seasons.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Right.

[Meg Rowley]

Plus or including a 64 million dollar signing bonus. And it's the Dodgers. So there are deferrals, but not big deferrals.

[Ben Ringer]

In this case only 30 million is deferred. So yeah, that takes the average annual.

[Meg Rowley]

Value down from 60 per to net.

[Ben Ringer]

Present value of 57.1 which is still a record by 6 million or so over Juan Soto who got a 15 million dollar deal. So. Right. That accounts for that kind of.

[Meg Rowley]

But yes, for free agent contracts over.

[Ben Ringer]

Underdraft purposes, this is a big blow to your hopes because he was at 400 million for MLB trade rumors.

[Meg Rowley]

And it'll be interesting if we continue.

[Ben Ringer]

To do the over underdraft whether MLB Trade rumors and other prognosticators will adjust their predictions to account for what we were just talking about.

[Meg Rowley]

I mean not even just the deferrals.

[Ben Ringer]

But just if everyone's predicting suddenly short term high AAV deals, we'll see. But yeah, I took the under on 400 and that's, that's a lot of money my way.

[Meg Rowley]

So I am now 238 million to the good and you are at 139 million which is a respectable showing.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Oh sure.

[Ben Ringer]

But it would be tough for you to catch up at this point.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I am happy and I'm going to be so magnanimous in defeat as magnanimous. Right. As an invitation to some people to be gracious in victory.

[Ben Ringer]

I won't gloat about this one.

[Meg Rowley]

This, this is just a regular run.

[Ben Ringer]

Of the mill routine type of victory. Not a one in a million miracle. But. But yeah, you still have unders on Zach Gowen and Suarez and I have an under on Justin Verlander. But it's, it's pretty tough to concoct a scenario where I blow this lead. But yeah, we'll see.

[Meg Rowley]

So.

[Ben Lindbergh]

But anyway, but I was going to. No, but I was going to say I'm happy for you and I'm. I, I like that for the second year in a row a victory is being assured to someone because of an, of an over bet. As opposed. Right. Did I take the over. I took the over on Snell. Right?

[Ben Ringer]

You.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah, but I, Well, I took the.

[Ben Ringer]

Under on Tucker, but it's, you know, he did quite well for himself. He just had a different. Yes, because it was 400.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Oh, 400. Well then never mind. I'm not happy for you at all. Well, disgusting. Yeah, I guess have solidarity. Where, where is your spirit of brotherhood? Yeah, you know, eight for what you.

[Meg Rowley]

Will siding with management here. Yeah. Just crowing about poor Kyle Tucker and his measly 240 million.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Disgusting.

[Ben Ringer]

Yeah.

[Meg Rowley]

So I'm not surprised.

[Ben Ringer]

And it's not like I was, you know, the lone voice in the wilderness saying Tucker will go to the Dodgers. And everyone else said, sure, how could you be so, so bold and a visionary? No, plenty of people were saying that. And Kylie, at the beginning of the off season when he did his free.

[Meg Rowley]

Agent preview and talked to various sources, he said the Dodgers were the most often named. And Jeff Passon in his preview said it was a longer shot, but said it was a longer shot because the Dodgers would love a short term high AAV deal, which is exactly what they got. So. So I mean, it just made all the sense in the world because insofar as the Dodgers need anything, right. They did need Kyle Tucker. They really had a desire and a need for him.

[Ben Ringer]

And you know, it's all relative, obviously. Like there are teams out there that would be happy to upgrade to the Dodgers pre Tucker outfield situation, but it wasn't good.

[Meg Rowley]

They were 18th in outfield war last.

[Ben Ringer]

Year and projected to be about out the same this year.

[Meg Rowley]

And so now they add Kyle Tucker to the mix and that's going to.

[Ben Ringer]

Be a pretty big upgrade for you.

[Meg Rowley]

So they obviously show a willingness whenever they have a hole like that and.

[Ben Ringer]

There'S an elite talent. That's why I just would never bet against the Dodgers getting a guy who makes that much sense for them. And you know, Tucker needed to, I guess accept this Structure of deal. And.

[Meg Rowley]

And as of now, we. We don't know the full array of options that were available to him. I guess, like, we know that the Mets offered a similar deal, which was.

[Ben Ringer]

When you add it all up, I.

[Meg Rowley]

Guess maybe slightly below the Dodgers offer.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, like 20 million, it sounds like.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah.

[Ben Ringer]

And we know that the Blue Jays were in on Tucker hot and heavy, too, but I haven't at least seen their max bid, but it seemed like.

[Meg Rowley]

They were maybe willing to go longer.

[Ben Ringer]

But, you know, I'm sure that if he had wanted to maximize the years, then he. He could have gotten many more years and more total dollars. But this is what he chose and we haven't heard his rationale yet as we are recording. So I don't know how much of it is the Dodgers are wanting to play with the Dodger stars or winning World Series or whatever it is, or whether he just liked the terms of the offer. But. But yeah, it made a ton of sense for them. Unfortunately for everyone else, and you know, the Dodgers, they will not be complacent.

[Meg Rowley]

There are a lot of World Series winners who just content themselves with, we're going to keep the gang together. How can we improve upon a World Series winner? That's the best you can be. So we'll just keep everyone here and we'll just run it back.

[Ben Ringer]

But the Dodgers don't do that, and everyone's sick of it.

[Meg Rowley]

And understandably, because, you know, it was like two winters ago was Ohtani and Yamamoto and Glasnow and Te Oscar. And that worked out. They won a World Series then rather than rest on their laurels last off season, they signed Snell and Sasaki and Tanner Scott and Kirby Yates, et cetera.

[Ben Ringer]

And now Edwin Diaz and Kyle Tucker. And it's not like they've lost anyone, really. They're bringing back everyone except Clayton Kershaw.

[Meg Rowley]

Who was not an insubstantial contributor to them last year.

[Ben Ringer]

He actually threw the second most innings on the Dodger staff in the regular season. But by the time October rolled around, their actual top starters were healthy and he was way down the depth chart.

[Ben Lindbergh]

So very rude to Enrique Hernandez. But yes, that's true.

[Ben Ringer]

Yeah.

[Meg Rowley]

And of course, Clayton Kershaw not actually retired because he is going to be in the wbc, which is very funny. I mean, I think it's. It's kind of nice, I guess, because I remember that he wanted to play in the WBC last time, and then there was like an insurance issue and he couldn't. And so I guess it's A nice.

[Ben Ringer]

Way to ride off into the sunset after a long accomplished career. Just like get to play in the WBC and you know, maybe do well there. But it does set up some like, like sort of hilarious, tragic comic scenarios.

[Meg Rowley]

Where like, you know, we've talked, we've talked about how great the pitching staff of the WBC team for the US Is this year, and yet they're also carrying Clayton Kershaw, which, you know, has to be mostly kind of a career achievement award recognition.

[Ben Lindbergh]

You say that, but think about who manages that team. Ben, you think that?

[Meg Rowley]

Well, yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

He's not going to end up playing.

[Meg Rowley]

No, I do not, not think that. I do think he will. Even though Dave Roberts is not at the helm here. I think that Mark DeRosa is fully capable of, of putting Clayton Kershaw into some high leverage situation. Having him just blow it.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Maybe we'll get different management of that team then. Maybe it'll, maybe it's, it'll serve a purpose. Maybe it's, it's service blow up actually.

[Ben Ringer]

Yeah, maybe, but, but yeah, you know, they're not really losing anything except Kershaw from that roster. And meanwhile they're getting Diaz, they're getting Tucker and there are other ways in which they should be better. In theory because he signed Andy Banas.

[Ben Lindbergh]

How dare you.

[Ben Ringer]

Of course.

[Meg Rowley]

Yes, but, but also they had so.

[Ben Ringer]

Many pitching injuries last year.

[Meg Rowley]

Now they very well may have a.

[Ben Ringer]

Lot of pitching injuries this year too because they're the Dodgers. And look at the pitchers on that stat.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Right? Pitchers are pitchers.

[Ben Ringer]

Yeah, yeah. They're not going to have a 2025St. Luke Lewis Cardinals, like one pitcher on the IL sort of season. But it would be hard to rack.

[Meg Rowley]

Up more IL days by pitchers than the Dodgers did last year. I believe in them. I think they could do it. But I mean, yeah, the odds are probably against them. And even if they do, they do have now sort of a backstop because they have a trio of returning starters.

[Ben Ringer]

Who missed basically all of last season. That's the nice thing. They just have, have. It's like, goes in waves sort of. It's like here are pitchers who are out for this season.

[Meg Rowley]

They'll be back next season when other guys are out for the season. So, so now they can pencil in.

[Ben Ringer]

At least River Ryan and Gavin Stone and the very on the nosedly named Kyle Herz. Yeah.

[Meg Rowley]

And so, you know, that helps.

[Ben Ringer]

And of course Otani, who transitioned back into two way play last season, maybe people are right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Maybe this team is too much.

[Meg Rowley]

Maybe, maybe it's Overkill. But you know, they have fully operational, presumably, hopefully healthy, stretched out Ohtani from the start of the season instead of basically at the very end when they.

[Ben Ringer]

Finally got him up to speed.

[Meg Rowley]

And then presumably Mookie Betts will not.

[Ben Ringer]

Be a shadow of his former self because he has all of his strength sapped by a virulent bug of some sort on the eve of the season.

[Meg Rowley]

So that's probably not going to happen. And you know, maybe some of what went wrong last year with the bullpen and Scott and everything else and trying.

[Ben Ringer]

To know, my goodness and you know, Kopec and just whatever else, like maybe some of that actually goes right or goes better this time for them and.

[Meg Rowley]

You know, other things could go wrong.

[Ben Ringer]

Too, of course, but it just like.

[Meg Rowley]

Last year was probably a sub 50.

[Ben Ringer]

Percentile outcome for them in the regular.

[Meg Rowley]

Season, all worked out just fine in.

[Ben Ringer]

The end for them, but you know, the path to get there, they were not nearly as dominant as everyone expected them to be and it was pretty shaky. They had what, like the fifth best record in the regular season. They edged out the Padres by three games or something.

[Meg Rowley]

I'm guessing that's not going to happen again. So, you know, I think that because.

[Ben Ringer]

They are so good and so deep.

[Meg Rowley]

And so talented and have so many resources and so, and don't hesitate to use them, it. It has seemed like the only thing.

[Ben Ringer]

That could stop them is age, that maybe trying to build this perpetual playoff machine by just importing players constantly, maybe.

[Meg Rowley]

That gets harder and harder to do.

[Ben Ringer]

And guys get older and they get less effective and maybe they get more.

[Meg Rowley]

Injury prone and it gets more and more expensive to build a team that way. And so they did have the, the.

[Ben Ringer]

Oldest average hitter age of any team last year.

[Meg Rowley]

And you start looking at the ages of some of these guys, you know.

[Ben Ringer]

Freeman and Muncie and Betts and Hernandez.

[Meg Rowley]

They'Re all well into their 30s, if not their mid-30s. And so you could have forecasted maybe.

[Ben Ringer]

Just a collective collapse or decline at least, you know, maybe they all start to feel the effects of aging and it happens all at once and it.

[Meg Rowley]

Hits them hard or something. But I don't know. As long as they're willing to just keep spending more and more, which it.

[Ben Ringer]

Seems like they're willing and able to.

[Meg Rowley]

Do, they might just be able to.

[Ben Ringer]

Spend their way past that problem because.

[Meg Rowley]

They can keep patching. And you know, Tucker is about to be 29. As, as we said, he's not going.

[Ben Ringer]

To make the Dodgers young. He and, and Pajes who's 25, are the only projected regulars under 30.

[Meg Rowley]

But it does help hedge. And if you can keep filling in.

[Ben Ringer]

With basically prime age free agents, if you can just keep adding Tucker, Ohtani, Yamamoto, Sasaki, year after year after year, I guess you can keep this going.

[Meg Rowley]

As long as you're willing to just pay through the nose, which clearly they are.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I do find it encouraging that, and maybe the degree to which this is encouraging on sort of a macro level is diminished by the fact that the team doing it is literally the Mets. But it's nice that, like, okay, so Tucker signs the Mets are despondent and Steve is like, oh, my God, it was the tweet. It was the tweet. Someone take my phone away. Like when I tried to make you guys excited about my modern art. Embarrassing. But then they immediately pivot, right? And I feel like a lot of the response to the Dodgers and their approach in the last couple of years has been a fair amount of like, well, we're going to take our ball and go home now from other teams. And so seeing, you know, the runner up sort of immediately pivot. It is good seeing the Phillies then pivot to a third year of real muto in that deal is. I'm saying pivot. Like, I know for sure that it was two and then he called. It just feels that way to me. Right. Like, that's the.

[Ben Ringer]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Version of it that I'm imagining in my mind. But, you know, it's. It's good to see there try to. There be some sort of push and pull in general. I find this market kind of inscrutable and I think it doesn't really sell to, like, offer us very many, like, broader themes to draw from it. But, man, so many of our top guys are signed now. That's so nice.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I'm pretty tired, Ben, I gotta tell you. I'm pretty tired. You know, busy. And won't any. Won't anyone think of the editors, you know, when they're doing this? Don't they want to. I do appreciate them being like, hey, it's a long weekend. Let's get some of our business concluded before.

[Ben Ringer]

That was nice. That's all the makings of, like, right after we finish a Friday recording, all hell breaks loose.

[Meg Rowley]

And no, it was actually before we recorded for once. So that was very considerate. Yes. No, no questions about what will we talk about today?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, I was like, great. This is great.

[Meg Rowley]

This had been, by Dodger standards, a somewhat quiet off season. And of course, the dastardly Dodgers were.

[Ben Ringer]

Just lying in wait. And ultimately the, the sequence of signings doesn't really matter. They still got their guys.

[Meg Rowley]

But there have been a bunch of.

[Ben Ringer]

Teams that have been busy and active in free agency.

[Meg Rowley]

And yes, they are mostly bigger market teams and historical high spenders. But you know, I'm just looking at, I'm scanning the list of teams that.

[Ben Ringer]

Have spent at least 100 million in free agency this off season or, you know, committed 100 million and it's, it.

[Meg Rowley]

Looks like at least nine teams. So you have the Dodgers, the Jays.

[Ben Ringer]

The Mets, the Phillies, the Cubs, the Orioles. Nice to see them get in on the action. The Red Sox, the Braves, the Mariners.

[Meg Rowley]

Are right on the cusp.

[Ben Ringer]

The Padres made some moves when people feared they might not.

[Meg Rowley]

So you know, there have been other.

[Ben Ringer]

Teams that have been in on things and that's nice.

[Meg Rowley]

It's not solely the Dodgers show. They let some other teams sign some NPB posted players for once. That was very, very kind of them. But you know, ultimately, I don't know.

[Ben Ringer]

That that makes anyone less upset about the Dodgers doubling down or trying to.

[Meg Rowley]

Triple down on World Series is here. But what will make you, I think, even more mad if you're not already about the Dodgers is that they have.

[Ben Ringer]

Their cake and eat it too, which is that they win all the time. They're going for a 14th consecutive playoff appearance and it would take an improbable series of events for them not to extend that streak. And because of that, they haven't drafted high in who knows how long.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Right.

[Ben Ringer]

And they forfeit draft picks to sign all these top free agents and sometimes they trade prospects to get established major league guys.

[Meg Rowley]

And yet somehow they have arguably the best farm system in baseball, certainly on.

[Ben Lindbergh]

The short list up there. Yeah, I mean, it is a, a stacked group.

[Meg Rowley]

It really is.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Stacked group.

[Ben Ringer]

And, and that goes along with the. Well, they don't just spend money, they do everything well.

[Meg Rowley]

Which is true.

[Ben Ringer]

It doesn't make it any less frustrating for anyone.

[Meg Rowley]

It maybe makes it more frustrating for some, but. But somehow they have managed to keep.

[Ben Ringer]

Things moving along parallel tracks so that they never get bad at the big league level.

[Meg Rowley]

But also they are perennially the strongest or among the strongest in the minor leagues as well.

[Ben Ringer]

And mlb.com or MLB Pipeline Jonathan Mayo did a survey of front offices about various team tendencies and how they handle.

[Meg Rowley]

Prospects and who has the best farm system and all of that stuff and who hoards their prospects the most.

[Ben Ringer]

It's the guardians. Evidently every front office person agrees.

[Meg Rowley]

But the most common response to who.

[Ben Ringer]

Has the best farm system was the Dodgers. Now, several of The Dodgers top 10.

[Meg Rowley]

Prospects, including I guess their consensus top three.

[Ben Ringer]

The consensus top three according to fan graphs and pipeline. Jose De Paula is maybe number one. And then hope you mentioned already and Eduardo Quintero, these are all outfielders. They've got other outfielders.

[Meg Rowley]

And so if they have to replace Tay Oscar, whose contract runs through 2027.

[Ben Ringer]

Or Tucker, who could opt out, then.

[Meg Rowley]

In theory they should have someone ready to take their spot.

[Ben Ringer]

Maybe, who knows?

[Meg Rowley]

Because by then they may well have.

[Ben Ringer]

Traded those guys for something else. Like it's, it's pretty tough to crack that roster.

[Meg Rowley]

As you know, PA has found out. He finally did it. Dalton rushing, struggling, fighting for playing time. And often, you know, they end up trading some pretty decent players because they.

[Ben Ringer]

Just don't have room for them. It's like right.

[Meg Rowley]

Actually hope they acquired in the trade when they sent Michael Bush to the Cubs because he had no path to.

[Ben Ringer]

Playing time in LA after they signed Freeman.

[Meg Rowley]

And so I guess that's one way.

[Ben Ringer]

In which the Dodgers just was far.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Enough away that it didn't, you know, wasn't going to like be a problem.

[Ben Ringer]

Yeah. So some Dodgers, you know, both the.

[Meg Rowley]

The penalties that they pay, part of.

[Ben Ringer]

That gets distributed to everyone else and revenue shared, but also the talent sometimes.

[Meg Rowley]

Because they have such a surplus. It's like, you can take Michael Bush because we have Freddie Freeman. What are we going to do with Michael Bush? And then he becomes a pretty core.

[Ben Ringer]

Contributor for the Cubs. So that happens sometimes too.

[Meg Rowley]

So it's kind of like, you know, will they actually need to promote these prospects at some point or will they.

[Ben Ringer]

Just continually fill holes with established superstars and never actually need those guys? I, I don't really know. But they have of optionality, as they say in front office circles. They can do either. I guess so.

[Meg Rowley]

Now one thing that's interesting to me.

[Ben Ringer]

About Tucker and you know, why would he want to opt out ever? Right. If you're getting 60 million a year or even 57.1, it is.

[Meg Rowley]

It's possible, I think, that as good as he has been, that he has.

[Ben Ringer]

Not peaked, that his career year is.

[Meg Rowley]

Still to come because he's been war wise just as consistent as they come.

[Ben Ringer]

The past five seasons he's been between 4.2 and 4.9 Fangraphs war. And over that span he has amassed the 10th most Fangraphs war of any position player.

[Meg Rowley]

And so it seems like it would be hard to improve upon that. And he's got so much going for him, you know, he's. He. If you look at discrete seasons, which.

[Ben Ringer]

Is not the way this works, then he's been a 30, 30 guy in that he has hit 30 homers and stolen 30 bases in different seasons. He's been a.400 on base guy.

[Meg Rowley]

Like he can do it all.

[Ben Ringer]

And he's not maybe the most sensational or scintillating or glamorous. And maybe that's partly because of his generic name and public Persona and because when he came up with Houston, he was sharing a lineup with a lot of. Of infamous former teammates. Right. So who knows? You know, I don't know whether his national profile will.

[Meg Rowley]

Will be more prominent now that he is with the Dodgers because the Dodgers.

[Ben Ringer]

Just get a ton of attention and because his salary, I think will earn some headlines and has or less because.

[Meg Rowley]

He'Ll just blend in because they got so many superstars there. Who even has time to talk about Justin?

[Ben Ringer]

Or not Justin Tucker? Wrong Tucker. Wrong sports. That's a terrible Tucker. This is a better Tucker. As far as we know.

[Meg Rowley]

Wires crossed. See, this is the hazard of now knowing about other sports and other athletes.

[Ben Ringer]

Sports I can now misspeak and cite.

[Meg Rowley]

Some other player who I'd rather not think about anyway. Anyway, so as good as he's been, I think he could be better because of the lack of durability that I noted the last couple seasons. And if you do kind of play.

[Ben Ringer]

Not arbitrary endpoints exactly, but selective endpoints.

[Meg Rowley]

Then you can come up with a.

[Ben Ringer]

Scenario where he is better than he has been because. Okay, so June 3, 2024 was when he fouled that ball off his shin.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah.

[Ben Ringer]

Through that day, he was fifth in hitter war and on pace for a career year. And then, you know, didn't play for three months, basically, then.

[Meg Rowley]

Then last year through the end of.

[Ben Ringer]

June, he ranked sixth in hitter war and was once again on pace for a career year. And that's when it seemed that he started to feel the effects of playing with the hairline fracture.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, because it doesn't line up perfectly.

[Ben Ringer]

No. Yeah, because the fracture came on June 1st. He slid and that happened. But he played through it and hit well for a while, but then that seems to have taken a toll and.

[Meg Rowley]

Maybe there were mechanical issues.

[Ben Ringer]

And then that led to his brief.

[Meg Rowley]

Benching in mid August. And then after that he came back.

[Ben Ringer]

And he raked for 12 games and then he had the calf strain and he was out for most of September.

[Meg Rowley]

So if you kind of add it up, it's like a tale of two seasons in back to back seasons basically because through June, if you just add up his wars through June in each.

[Ben Ringer]

Of the past two years, seven war. And so after June, those two seasons combined 1.7 war.

[Meg Rowley]

So I know we could play this game with anyone. Well if they've just you know, erased their worst period of the season and we're just amazing. Yeah, just extend their hot streak to the whole year. But in his case I feel like it's a little more valid because it was clearly pretty injury related and no.

[Ben Ringer]

One really doubts his his skills. So I feel like it's possible like.

[Meg Rowley]

He has that in him where he.

[Ben Ringer]

Just has has that great June but he doesn't get hurt. You know, not that health typically improves.

[Meg Rowley]

With age, but if he gets a little bit better luck then maybe he could be that kind of guy.

[Ben Ringer]

His healthy stretches that he had over the past two seasons but combine that with playing 150 plus games which he has done, he did that in 2022 and 2023.

[Meg Rowley]

So if he could combine that past playing time with his performance in his healthy stretches of the past couple years.

[Ben Ringer]

Easy MVP candidate or at least he would be if he were not now teammates with Shohei Otani.

[Meg Rowley]

But, but you know, it would be otherwise. And in fact if you look at his performance just on a rate basis.

[Ben Ringer]

It'S pretty comparable to Soto. Like per 600 plate appearances over the past five years, Soto is at 5.3 fan graphs were and Tucker's at 5. So you know they've kind of been like roughly as productive. But Soto has played 122 more games than Tucker over that span and you know, 668 plate appearances.

[Meg Rowley]

So just saying like there's maybe more.

[Ben Ringer]

In there if you believe that the true talent Tucker is the guy he was when he wasn't hurt the last couple years and he manages to be that guy for a full season then yeah, maybe it might make sense for him to opt out because he'll only be you know, 30, 31 or whatever and he'll be coming off an even stronger year.

[Meg Rowley]

And I thought it was interesting. I noticed that at Baseball Reference the most similar batter to tucker through age.

[Ben Ringer]

28 is Larry Walker. And I thought that was a really interesting comp because you know, another oft injured all around talent who was fairly.

[Meg Rowley]

Low profile early in his career, at least for a future hall of Famer.

[Ben Ringer]

You know he was in Montreal and.

[Meg Rowley]

Everything thing and then he went to the Rockies and he had that year.

[Ben Ringer]

Where at age 30 in 1997 he played 150 something games for the first and only time in his career and.

[Meg Rowley]

He led the National League in all the wars and he won a well.

[Ben Ringer]

Deserved MVP award and that probably ultimately is what gets him into to Cooperstown. So you know, Tucker's not going to have the surface stats that Walker did playing on the moon in pre humidor course. But yeah, he has the capability to have that kind of just, you know, I'll say it, breakout season and be even better than he's been.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I think he'll break out from a national attention perspective. Although I do wonder if part of the appeal, and I say this, not knowing him, is that he doesn't have to be the star. Right. If that is part. Right. Because he's. I think that. That folks who covered him in Houston would disagree with this as like his true personality because I think it did start to emerge over time but like seemingly purposefully blank in terms of how much we know about him or how much he cares to engage on this stuff. I wonder. I'm thinking more about the opt out stuff and what it means for the possibility of a lockout because like with Tucker, for the guys who have an opt out after one year, which is not Tucker because his comes after two, you're in an awkward spot. Right. Because you have to make a decision about that before we'll know if what the results. I mean, I guess we're counting on there not being a resolution in time for them to just have a new basic agreement by December 1st or whatever it is. But you have to make that choice early or.

[Ben Ringer]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And then hope, I guess, that you've concluded your business before the lockout starts. Which. God, we're gonna be spending so much time reading tea leaves going into that day and like, oh my God, there weren't enough deals done. And so that means they think they're gonna lose the whole season.

[Ben Ringer]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Or there were so many deals done so surely they think they're gonna play. It's gonna be such an anxious winter, Ben. Yeah, it's gonna be anxious time.

[Meg Rowley]

Let's pretend that that's not Luke for the moments. We'll have plenty of time to fret.

[Ben Ringer]

About it for sure. I can't wait for the lockout photography of people walking in various directions across parking lots. Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I do love it when they do that. And I'm like, oh, that's Craig.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah. The. The one way or one way in.

[Ben Ringer]

Which Walker and Tucker's trajectories are different is that Walker had not appeared in.

[Meg Rowley]

The playoffs or he didn't make the.

[Ben Ringer]

Playoffs for the first time until his age 28 season. Whereas Tucker has never played for a non playoff team.

[Ben Lindbergh]

That's true.

[Meg Rowley]

And maybe he wants to keep that streak going.

[Ben Lindbergh]

That's true.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah. But the interesting thing is that he.

[Ben Ringer]

Has not distinguished himself in postseason play.

[Ben Lindbergh]

No, he hasn't played particularly well in October.

[Ben Ringer]

And maybe that's another part of the low profile and the being overshadowed because, you know, he's teammates with like George Springer and Jordan Alvarez, like a couple of the best postseason hitters of all time. And meanwhile he has hit 233.

[Meg Rowley]

317. 376.

[Ben Ringer]

That's a 95 WRC plus in almost 300 career plate appearances, which is a.

[Meg Rowley]

Negative 33.1% championship win probability added so.

[Ben Ringer]

Well.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And talk about like the power of first impressions. Like my cause. Remember he came up in 18, right. And then played that post season and then didn't come up again until September of the following year. Am I getting that sequence right?

[Meg Rowley]

Think he came up in 18? I think he didn't play in the postseason.

[Ben Lindbergh]

In that postseason. It was the next postseason. Okay, sorry, I, you know, I do have a whole website just at my immediate disposal to answer these questions. Okay, you're right. So it was the 19 postseason.

[Ben Ringer]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I have a, I have a. Such a strong memory in 2019 of him swinging through a high fastball and Ben. And it was, it was three feet above the strike zone, I swear. You know, and that's my goofy. It's, you know, this man is, is a great player. And even though to your point, he hasn't produced particularly well in October. Like the idea of me having doubts about him is so silly. But also, I'll just never forget. I'll never forget it. I'll never forget it because he, he swings through this high fastball and then they cut to the crowd and there is a guy in the crowd gesturing with a smirk on his face, being like, look how high above the strike zone that ball he just swung through was. And it made such a profound strong impression on me. So anyway, that's a story about me, me having a very specific memory.

[Ben Ringer]

Yeah.

[Meg Rowley]

I'll never forget when rookie Yordon in the 2019 ALCS struck out 12 times in 24 play appearances.

[Ben Ringer]

So.

[Meg Rowley]

Happens to the best of them.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Oh, sure, sure.

[Meg Rowley]

He transcended that.

[Ben Ringer]

Anyway, if.

[Meg Rowley]

If Tucker wanted to go somewhere where he could continue to get playoff reps.

[Ben Ringer]

And eventually burnish those numbers, he chose the right place, I think. So it's just A ridiculous preposterous lineup. Like the first seven hitters in whatever order. Otani, Bets, Freeman, Lehman, Tucker, Smith, Muncie, Hernandez. Like it's nuts. Craig messaged me after the signing, the aforementioned Craig Goldstein, a baseball prospectus. And, and he was like, distinguish the.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Craigs because there are so many.

[Ben Ringer]

Yeah. And he said, remember a couple years.

[Meg Rowley]

Ago or whenever it was when you had me on the podcast to ask.

[Ben Ringer]

What it was like to be the Villains? It's like, yeah, that was a long time ago. And they've gotten only more villainous, I suppose, for many people. People's perspective since then.

[Meg Rowley]

I didn't even know like where to go in my piece because I wrote.

[Ben Ringer]

A piece a year ago after various other Dodgers signings about how they had gone from villains to super villains in.

[Meg Rowley]

The eyes of, of the sport.

[Ben Ringer]

And so where do you go from super villains? I don't know. But that lineup, even just those seven guys, I said to Craig, it's, it's like a 10 team fantasy league lineup. Although he then said maybe, maybe it's more like an 8 team.

[Meg Rowley]

It's like least it's even a 10 team.

[Ben Ringer]

It might be a little too good.

[Meg Rowley]

So yeah, I understand why people aren't.

[Ben Ringer]

Thrilled with all of that talent being.

[Meg Rowley]

Consolidated in one place in a 30.

[Ben Ringer]

Team league where you would want things to be spread around because look, they do have, they're projected to have the.

[Meg Rowley]

Best position players, the best bullpen, the.

[Ben Ringer]

Second best rotation after the aggressively revamped Red Sox. They have the, the highest projected WAR total of any team. There's an eight WAR projected gap between them and the second best team, the Blue Jays, which is as wide a.

[Meg Rowley]

Gap as the gap between the Blue.

[Ben Ringer]

Jays and the rangers, who rank 15th.

[Meg Rowley]

So you know, it's all projections and.

[Ben Ringer]

Projections aren't sure, destiny, but they are getting close to lapping the league at least when it comes to forward looking prognostications.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Do you think, do you think, do you think that Kyle Tucker has a spongebob shirt like Larry Walker?

[Ben Ringer]

I think probably not.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It would be the, it would be the most personality forward.

[Ben Ringer]

I know, that's why I don't think so. Yeah, it's.

[Ben Lindbergh]

We'd be like, Is he a SpongeBob guy?

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah, I know something about Kyle Tucker and his personal interests.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Something I love.

[Meg Rowley]

Guess he likes spongebob.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Love that. Do I know something? What kind of something? I don't know. Something. Something.

[Meg Rowley]

Well, look, I'm, I'm tired of writing reactions to Dodgers signing and winning things, so I get it like I'm, I've, you know, I am well aware of the fact, as a former fan of.

[Ben Ringer]

A particular team, that I am no longer a fan of a particular team.

[Meg Rowley]

And I view the sport through a.

[Ben Ringer]

Different lens than most people who follow baseball. And so it's not as personally dispiriting to me when the Dodgers are great because it doesn't mean that my team is not going to win. Right. And I do understand, though, having been in that position, how people feel. And, you know, you pile on one signing after another and one title after another, and it gets more and more tiresome and intolerable and predictable, basically.

[Meg Rowley]

And, you know, it's just like once more unto the breach. It's, you know, put on your hard hats. We're, we're venturing into the content minds. It's, it's time to talk about another Dodger signing and a record contract to boot. And really, what is there that's new that you could possibly say? You know, so we've probably said it.

[Ben Ringer]

All in previous Dodgers discussions, but it all gets re. Aired and rehashed every time one of these things happens.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, maybe it is just a. It's funny too, because we have all this. There's all this gnashing of teeth. Right. And consideration. And I, I understand why, particularly given the, the labor stuff we're about to go through. I just don't know that ultimately the perception. I think it matters how ownership feels about this stuff and the Dodgers of it all, but I don't know that it really matters that much, much how the, the fans feel about the whole thing. I really, I just really am. I'm not sure that it matters. You know, I've.

[Ben Ringer]

I've heard that it doesn't from people involved in these things that it's just like if you don't have a seat at the table and you're not directly involved in bargaining. It's noise, really, the public perception. You know, maybe does it move the needle a tiny bit? Does it weaken someone's resolve or strengthen someone else's resolve or, or undercut messaging.

[Meg Rowley]

From your leadership or make it harder.

[Ben Ringer]

To band together and present the united front? Maybe, but I, I don't think it really has a huge impact.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It was Kyle Tucker against Emilio Pagan in the alds. That's what it was Ben. It was Kyle Tucker against Emilio Pagan when Emilio Pagan was still.

[Ben Ringer]

I'm sure he's still haunted by that. He has nightmares.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I mean, it was Ben, to be clear, an ugly swing. I'm gonna, I Mean, this, this gif has degraded to the point of, of looking like an impressionist painting. But you're gonna, I want you to, I want you to scroll down and I want you to look at the swing I just sent you because I want to tell you it's bad swing. It's a, it is a. It's like, where is that swing? Oh, it's way up there. It's. And then there's the guy. I love the guy. High. How high is this high up?

[Meg Rowley]

Oh, yeah, he's. He's a tall man and his neck.

[Ben Ringer]

High at the very least.

[Ben Lindbergh]

That is a, that is neck high.

[Ben Ringer]

I guess is a fairly wide range.

[Meg Rowley]

When you're talking about Kyle Tucker, but it's up there.

[Ben Ringer]

So. Yeah, I'll link to that if anyone wants to watch that and console yourself with the thought that that's the guy the Dodgers are getting, but not exactly.

[Meg Rowley]

So, yeah, anyway, I, I get it. I understand the frustrations. I sympathize, I guess. My, my one little silver lining. Not that this will make anyone feel.

[Ben Ringer]

Better, but it's been worse. There's been an even bigger imbalance in.

[Meg Rowley]

The past because I'm not going to.

[Ben Ringer]

Suggest that there's no imbalance here. When you have the Dodgers, you know.

[Meg Rowley]

And spending is, is different from what teams could afford to spend and everything.

[Ben Ringer]

But we know that no other team is quite in the same situation as the Dodgers.

[Meg Rowley]

And so when you have the Dodgers at the top end of the payroll.

[Ben Ringer]

Scale without even accounting for the penalties and everything, which they paid something like $169 million last year just in the.

[Meg Rowley]

CBT taxes, the overages, and it'll probably.

[Ben Ringer]

Be more than that this year.

[Meg Rowley]

But when you have the dodgers at.

[Ben Ringer]

What, 429 or whatever their projected payroll is right now, and the Morrowinds at 69 million, which is not nice, and.

[Meg Rowley]

That'S barely enough to cover the cost of one Kyle Tucker. Right. And.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Right.

[Meg Rowley]

You know, when you have one team spending six times more than another team.

[Ben Ringer]

It'S probably not ideal. It's certainly not ideal for the perception at least of whether this is, you know, a fair, balanced playing field. Not that it ever has been.

[Meg Rowley]

Of course, even if you concede that.

[Ben Ringer]

That'S a problem, there's the question of is the top end the problem or.

[Meg Rowley]

Is the bottom end the problem? And I would suggest that the several.

[Ben Ringer]

Low payroll clubs, even some of the.

[Meg Rowley]

Successful ones, that are just stubbornly spending below their means and cashing checks from.

[Ben Ringer]

Teams like the Dodgers and not putting them toward their Payroll that bothers me.

[Meg Rowley]

More than one well run team with.

[Ben Ringer]

Institutional advantages flexing its financial muscle.

[Meg Rowley]

But both extremes could be problems to differing degrees. Now it has been even more lopsided than that in the past. And 20 years ago, the Yankees were outspending the Marlins, who then as now were the skin flintiest team in baseball. The Yankees then in 2006 were outspending the Marlins by a factor of 12. So yeah, they were, you know, more than doubling, I guess, the, the difference.

[Ben Ringer]

The ratio that the Dodgers and the Marlins have right now.

[Meg Rowley]

So you know, baseball survived and thrived.

[Ben Ringer]

And those mid 2000 Yankees were outspending even the Red Sox, their closest payroll rivals, by like 70%. And the Dodgers are a mere 28% over the Mets or 52% over the the Jays. Right.

[Meg Rowley]

So kind of has always been thus to some degree. That's not that much of a consolation because the Yankees made everyone mad back in those days too. And the Onion would have headlines about how they sign every single player.

[Ben Ringer]

And of course the Yankees did not.

[Meg Rowley]

Win a World Series in their, you.

[Ben Ringer]

Know, peak, sort of drunken sailor spending period. The like Twilight of the Boss Bombers years like between 2001 and, and 2009 when they won again. So you know, you can spend and not win. And, and that's again where you kind of depend on playoff randomness to, to.

[Meg Rowley]

Bail you out basically and stop the juggernaut.

[Ben Ringer]

But, but it has been like that for a long time.

[Meg Rowley]

Which it doesn't mean that things couldn't be maybe better.

[Ben Ringer]

You know, it's like payroll is not perfectly correlated with regular season success, certainly not with playoff success.

[Meg Rowley]

But. And you know, even in salary cap leagues, there are dynasties in salary cap leagues. I mean the Patriots, the Chiefs, whoever else. Right. You know, and I think I've drawn my exotic knife knowledge of other sports.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I could name a third football team.

[Meg Rowley]

But I don't want to.

[Ben Ringer]

Yeah.

[Meg Rowley]

And you know, some leagues caps are harder, softer than others. But, but the point is you can.

[Ben Ringer]

Absolutely have dynastic teams in salary cap leagues and they don't make anyone less mad, I don't think. You know, it's not like anyone hated the Patriots less because they were doing it in a salary cap system. Now maybe the, the Patriots were bending the rules in other ways, but still.

[Meg Rowley]

Like it's gonna piss you off regardless.

[Ben Ringer]

And you could argue that that's good.

[Meg Rowley]

For a sport to have a heel and a villain.

[Ben Ringer]

You know, most fans who are, are upset probably would not argue that people are sort of saying you hate them, but you don't realize you actually love to hate them. It's almost kind of condescending, but.

[Meg Rowley]

But maybe it's true sometimes. But you know, I think that it, it does at least create the perception that when you do have a dynastic team in a league where the, the band of spending is not as wide.

[Ben Ringer]

Then it maybe makes it a little less likely to people that that team just bought titles that they kind of.

[Meg Rowley]

Like earned it through smarts or acumen.

[Ben Ringer]

Maybe, which the Dodgers have done clearly also.

[Meg Rowley]

But they've also outspent everyone by a lot. So. And to be clear, I'm not advocating for a summary cap here, just in case anyone's confused, but I have come.

[Ben Ringer]

Around to the idea that like with the appropriate floor, I personally as a fan would accept it. I'm not saying that it would behoove the players necessarily, but you know, even Dave Roberts endorsed the idea of a cap with a floor. Right.

[Meg Rowley]

And, and it's almost sort of a non starter because it's like, would the.

[Ben Ringer]

Floor be placed at the level where it would be at all equitable?

[Meg Rowley]

Probably not.

[Ben Ringer]

Right.

[Meg Rowley]

But like you could, if you were just a neutral arbiter and you came in and said I will do the thing that is most just for everyone and best for the sport and everything. In theory, you could design a system.

[Ben Ringer]

With a cap and a floor that was sufficiently high that you're not overly.

[Meg Rowley]

Punishing the competitive teams for trying to win.

[Ben Ringer]

So there's still some leeway to invest in your roster. And you're also not just giving the cheapo teams free reign to just prioritize profit over talent. And you're holding them to account too.

[Meg Rowley]

And you're also not drastically shifting the.

[Ben Ringer]

League'S revenue in the owner's favor.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Right.

[Ben Ringer]

Like I thing.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah. Could you thread that needle if, if you were not one of the stakeholders?

[Ben Ringer]

Probably. I think you could design a system like that. I can't really envision that scenario actually being enshrined in the next CBA with or without an extended work stoppage because the players understandably reluctant to restrict their ceiling on earnings. The owners obviously have historically been been reluctant to make it worth their while to consider a cap because of course the owners half heartedly floated a floor in the previous round of bargaining, but it was like laughably low and the players were just like get out of here with that nonsense. And that was that. Right. So you know, it odds are that will probably be what happens again and you know, they'll just all kind of Kick the salary cap can down the road again because hopefully they all have so much at stake that they don't want to lose a season. But, but you know, I'm not ruling out the idea that a cap could be good for the sport with the appropriate settings and conditions, which are very unlikely to be implemented anytime soon.

[Meg Rowley]

Right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It's like if, if you were willing to relinquish your authority to an outside neutral party and then you were able to precisely define all of your terms. Right. Because part of the problem is like, what is baseball revenue? You know, we don't have to, we're going to have so much time to talk about this stuff. But yeah, my, my point is like, I don't imagine ever like presenting my wallet to the wallet inspector. And it feels like that's what you would be doing if you were the union agreeing to a cap because the precedent for ownership having a couple little rules and then figuring out a way to conceal revenue or whatever to, you know, try to obfuscate those rules fast. So, yes, I would be fine with, you know, it's like you come in and you're trying to like, I don't know, veil of ignorance it in. In baseball and design a system where you, you know, everybody's happy. You know, you design a system where you wouldn't be disadvantaged because you don't know what your position in the society is going to be. I understand the problems with veil of ignorance from a theory perspective. We don't need emails on this. Like, I don't need to be raws explained. I don't, I don't need a theory of justice lesson. That's not what we're doing here. But I'm just, I'm grasping, I don't know the metaphor for this.

[Meg Rowley]

Right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

So you might be able to conjure a world where it's fair, but that's not the, that's not the reality of the negotiating table. That's in front of either the union or, or ownership. Right. Like there it is an adversarial system and they're going to try to get theirs. And so until that changes. Yeah, I don't know, man.

[Ben Ringer]

Yeah, I have seen the take out there that a salary cap wouldn't hamstring the Dodgers at all, that it might.

[Meg Rowley]

Actually benefit the Dodgers.

[Ben Ringer]

I think this is kind of galaxy brain, I don't think.

[Meg Rowley]

Because the idea is that players are.

[Ben Ringer]

Not solely choosing to play for the Dodgers because the Dodgers have the most money or have offered the most money money.

[Meg Rowley]

True. Yes, absolutely. There are other reasons that players have.

[Ben Ringer]

Gone there because of their success as a team, because they're perceived to be.

[Meg Rowley]

A good player development organization, you know, classy organization, whatever it is, like, for.

[Ben Ringer]

How players are treated and the conditions and all that stuff. Sure.

[Meg Rowley]

But there comes a point where it's still going to restrict them because players.

[Ben Ringer]

Are not going to, like, play for league minimum just to have the privilege of playing. Playing for the Dodgers. I mean, sure, maybe. Will they do a deferral here or there or something?

[Meg Rowley]

Okay, yeah.

[Ben Ringer]

But, like, you know, if the Dodgers were at the cap, it's not like Kyle Tucker's gonna say, I'll play for you for free because all I care about is winning a World Series or something. You know, where they are now. They would absolutely be hamstrung when it comes to making moves. And other teams would be able to.

[Meg Rowley]

Sign players because the Dodgers would just be maxed out.

[Ben Ringer]

So, yeah, like all else being equal, they might still have some advantage in.

[Meg Rowley]

Recruiting, but all else would be equal.

[Ben Ringer]

From a payroll perspective, too. And that would hurt them more than.

[Meg Rowley]

The other thing would help them, I think.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And, you know, at a moment when there is, like, a real effort being made on the part of other owners or the league to sort of rein in some of the other places that they would spend where they could press a different advantage. Right. Like all of the. The, you know, it's not like we're going to suddenly see a more expansive data policy than the one that's being proposed and that the league has sent teams memos on. So there's, you know, there are other places where they are doing more or at least spending more. Right. And I'm sure that there's a conversation to be had about, like, the, you know, marginal utility of some of the stuff that they do, but certainly spending more in those areas away from the field to try to press an advantage on it. And the league is saying, well, not so he. Don't be so hasty. You know, we want to make this equally accessible as if other teams can't, like, I don't know, sign a Kinitrax contract. Like, what are we doing? Yeah.

[Meg Rowley]

Okay. Well, we have gotten real about real muto. We've talked Tucker.

[Ben Ringer]

We've put a bow on bow.

[Meg Rowley]

We've.

[Ben Ringer]

We've done it all here. And I'll leave you with one little.

[Meg Rowley]

Moment of Zen, which I was reading right before we started recording. Did you see the latest in the defense of the betters who were embroiled in the Emmanuel Classe Luis Ortiz scandal? Because this amused Me. So, so this detail came out.

[Ben Ringer]

There was an update, I guess, to the, the filing and there are some text messages and there's a defense. And the defense is that they weren't actually texting Classe and the Betters about rigging pitches. They were texting about Classe's cockfighting operation that he was running in the Dominican Republic.

[Meg Rowley]

Oh. Which you know, apparently is a real thing. And morally speaking, I guess for a US Audience, it probably doesn't play well. Oh, I wasn't pitch fixing.

[Ben Ringer]

I was merely operating my, my rooster fighting combat ring. But, you know, I understand that's a popular thing in the Dominican Republic. But in this affidavit, the Better, who's not identified, said that, you know, he became friends with Classe and that they.

[Meg Rowley]

Were just talking about the cockfights and all of these messages that the prosecutors.

[Ben Ringer]

That the government interpreted as back and forth forth about fixing pitches, actually about the cockfights and only the cockfights. And they are innocent. Everyone is, is innocent here. And so this, this document says, while.

[Meg Rowley]

I never discussed baseball gambling with Emmanuel.

[Ben Ringer]

In any way, I did discuss betting on rooster fighting with him. In the Dominican Republic, gambling on roosters.

[Meg Rowley]

Is completely legal and Emmanuel has a rooster fighting operation. At times I won't watched these legal rooster fights on Facebook and placed bets on which rooster would win. At times I paid money to people associated with Emmanuel in the Dominican Republic who run his rooster operation either to cover bets or expenses related to the roosters. This money was only related to rooster.

[Ben Ringer]

Fighting and had nothing to do with gambling on baseball. This was said back in August and the, the government, the prosecutors have said that this was before the criminal filing and that at least one of the.

[Meg Rowley]

Betters involved has recanted the statement since. So if you believe that, then perhaps.

[Ben Ringer]

They were spooked by the filing and.

[Meg Rowley]

Didn'T think that the rooster fighting defense would fly. But this is what they're going with. You know, I, I can't disprove it. Maybe it was all just one big misunderstanding, one big rooster related cock up.

[Ben Ringer]

But I would never have guessed that this would possibly be the justification because evidently the Better was dating someone who.

[Meg Rowley]

Lived in Cleveland and saw Class A because they had met in Boston in 2023 through a mutual acquaintance and they bonded over baseball and being from the doctor.

[Ben Ringer]

And so when he was dating someone in Cleveland, he'd stay at Classe's home.

[Meg Rowley]

Sometimes and run errands for Classe's family.

[Ben Ringer]

And had Dominican food shipped to Class.

[Meg Rowley]

A from New York because You can't.

[Ben Ringer]

Get good Dominican food in Ohio. The affidavit's words, not mine.

[Meg Rowley]

And so Class A would pay him for this. And some of those payments were that. And the man placed legal bets, entirely.

[Ben Ringer]

Legal bets on Class A because this better used to be a pitcher and he knew Class A and knew that.

[Meg Rowley]

Class A threw only two pitches and believes that he just just had enough of an inkling about Class A's tendencies.

[Ben Ringer]

That he knew when he would throw certain pitches.

[Meg Rowley]

But Class A never tipped him off to anything. The coup de grace is that he used ChatGPT in an attempt to analyze Class A's and others pitches.

[Ben Ringer]

And here's a cautionary tale about trusting in LLMs.

[Meg Rowley]

He said he lost thousands of dollars betting on Paul Skin because he couldn't.

[Ben Ringer]

Predict which pitches Skins would throw. But Classe innocent All roosters. All about roosters, boy.

[Meg Rowley]

And right after we stopped talking, Victor.

[Ben Ringer]

Caratini signed with the Twins. Not today, Victor. This is not the right time for podcast coverage. Meant to mention, by the way, in retrospect, how weird was that 2024 Boba Shet season? I know he was banged up, but.

[Meg Rowley]

70 WRC plus plus and then bounced right back to the kind of hitter he'd been before, if not better. Career low strikeout rate in 2025 and.

[Ben Ringer]

Just about as good in every other respect. It's such a outlier, it's such an exception, such an eyesore on the player page.

[Meg Rowley]

All those 120s and 130s and 140s in the WRC plus column and then that's 70.

[Ben Ringer]

Probably stat blastable if we haven't already blasted it. Fleeting mid career slump seasons, not at.

[Meg Rowley]

The beginning or the end a career, but mid peak prime period. Just total off year and it turns out just a blip. That reminds me, I got a message.

[Ben Ringer]

Earlier from a Mets fan friend of mine who was a little slow on the uptake.

[Meg Rowley]

Baseball fan, but not quite as plugged in as your average effectively wild listener. And so he heard about the Bechette.

[Ben Ringer]

News almost immediately and messaged me, Bo Bichette. Damn lfg.

[Meg Rowley]

And then five minutes later, if we.

[Ben Ringer]

Get Tucker, we are going to used.

[Meg Rowley]

A somewhat crude expression, I'll leave it.

[Ben Ringer]

Up to your imagination. But the upshot was if we get Bichette and Tucker, we'll be unstoppable. Unstoppable.

[Meg Rowley]

Anyway, this was 13:14 hours after Tucker signed, but that news had not reached him.

[Ben Ringer]

And then seconds later, another message. Ah, it seems Kyle Tucker has left the building. Yeah, sorry buddy, you get Bo but not both. And you'll be happy to have Beau. He is such a good hitter.

[Meg Rowley]

And yeah, there might be a defensive.

[Ben Ringer]

Adjustment period in that Mets infield, but Lindor and Semyon should be solid up the middle.

[Meg Rowley]

You could do us a solid and support us on Patreon.

[Ben Ringer]

That would be swell.

[Meg Rowley]

You can go to patreon.com effectivelywild and sign up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad free and get yourself access to some perks. We'll settle for a lot less than 60 million, but if you're feeling generous, toss a few bucks our way as have the following five listeners. Owen Truesdell, Ryan Cutchen, Mark Simon, John.

[Ben Ringer]

McGinley not the Scrubs one, though I.

[Meg Rowley]

Am cautiously excited about the reboot and Eddie Campbell.

[Ben Ringer]

Thanks to all of you.

[Meg Rowley]

Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, monthly.

[Ben Ringer]

Bonus episodes, playoff live streams, prioritized email.

[Meg Rowley]

Answers, potential podcast appearances, shoutouts at the end of episodes, personalized messages, discounts on.

[Ben Ringer]

Merch and ad free fangraphs memberships, and so much more. Check out all the [e-mail] effectivelywild if.

[Meg Rowley]

You are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site.

[Ben Ringer]

If not, you can contact us via email.

[Meg Rowley]

Send your questions, your comments, comments, your intro and outro themes to podcastofangraphs.com you.

[Ben Ringer]

Can rate, review and subscribe to Effectively Wild on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music and other podcast platforms.

[Meg Rowley]

You can join our facebook [e-mail] group effectively wild. You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at R Effectively Wild and you can check the show notes in the podcast, posted fan graphs or the episode description in your podcast app for links to.

[Ben Ringer]

The stories and stats we cited today.

[Meg Rowley]

Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistant that will do it for today and for this week. Thanks as always for listening.

[Ben Ringer]

We hope you have a wonderful weekend.

[Meg Rowley]

And we will be back to talk.

[Ben Ringer]

To you next week.

[Ben Lindbergh]

For free. Three new episodes for us each week.