Effectively Wild Episode 2430: New York, New York

Summary

Effectively Wild Episode 2430: New York, New York

Date: January 23, 2026
Hosts: Meg Rowley (FanGraphs), Ben Lindbergh (The Ringer), Andrew (Regular Contributor)

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the flurry of recent MLB trades, focusing on the bold moves by both New York teams—especially the Mets—and the implications for team-building and league economics. The hosts debate whether transaction talk or quirkier baseball topics should lead the show, reflect on the joys and headaches of a salary-cap-free MLB, and analyze the implications of the Mets’ blockbuster moves, the Brewers’ frugality, and the Yankees’ stable but unspectacular offseason. There’s also an in-depth musing on the Andrew Jones "never dives" legend, and a data-driven exploration of whether great outfielders actually dive less.

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Structure & Key Discussion Points

1. Opening Banter: The “Effectively Wild” Difference

• [00:32 – 04:39]
  • The hosts debate whether to start with transactions or more offbeat baseball musings.
  • “Are people interested in hearing more about Mets moves if they're not Mets fans? Have we not talked about the Mets plenty already this offseason? Maybe people have reached their Mets quota.” — Meg Rowley [03:12]
  • Highlight the podcast’s balance of hard baseball news and quirky, niche topics—“That’s the Effectively Wild difference.” [02:34]

2. Salary Caps and Baseball Culture

• [05:21 – 16:19]
  • Andrew reflects on how the absence of a salary cap makes baseball trades and speculation more fun and dynamic compared to other cap-heavy sports:
    • "MLB's lack of a salary cap makes it more fun to talk about in some respects...in the NBA...so much discussion of aprons and second aprons." — Andrew [07:27]
  • Cites conversation with Zach Cram (ESPN) comparing how cap mechanics dominate NBA and NFL rumors and how MLB's system allows for “off the cuff” speculation.
  • The group considers whether MLB should allow trading of draft picks, as in NBA/NFL.
    • “I would be in favor of trading draft picks. I think that would be great fun.” — Ben Lindbergh [15:30]

3. Media Critique: The Salary Cap Narrative

• [17:22 – 24:55]
  • Skeptical of media framing that single big signings (like Kyle Tucker to the Dodgers) “cause” owners to seek a salary cap.
  • Owners’ appetite for a cap is “a steady state, you know, like water is wet and owners want a salary cap.” — Ben Lindbergh [22:22]

4. Deep Dive: The Andrew Jones "Never Dives" Myth

• [25:08 – 44:23]
  • Both hosts and several writers reminisce about Jones’s “effortless" center field defense—did he really never dive?
    • “He didn't have to dive for balls because he was always where the ball was with plenty of time to spare.” — Craig Calcaterra (quoted by Meg) [26:44]
    • Joshehan: “I can't remember ever seeing Andrew Jones dive.” [27:30]
  • Meg investigates: Jones did dive at least occasionally (YouTube highlights!), but could great range result in fewer dives?
  • Ben: “If it’s a lot of dives, then you might think...I bet your routes are kind of weird.” [41:02]
  • Data from SIS: “Among [center fielders], the better they are defensively, the more often they dive.” — Meg (summarizing Alex Victorman’s SIS research) [39:23]
  • Conclusion: No strong correlation, and the ‘no diving means great range’ mantra is likely more myth than reality.

5. Main Event: New York Mets Trade Flurry

a. Mets Get Luis Robert Jr. and Freddie Peralta

• [44:28 – 64:42]
• Luis Robert Jr. Trade:
  • Addresses Mets’ glaring need in center.
  • “He might not be great, he might not be his old young self, but he will almost certainly be better than Tyrone Taylor.” — Meg [48:02]
  • Recognizes injury risk and that Robert’s trade value is far less than two years ago.
• Freddy Peralta Trade:
  • “If you end up slotting this guy in ninth, like, whatever...You have other boppers at the top.” — Ben [49:19]
  • Peralta described as a “sure thing” rotation upgrade and gives much-needed ‘breathing room’ for the Mets’ young arms.

b. Mets’ Philosophy and Roster Construction

• Stearns’s approach is vindicated by delivering big upgrades after a quiet start:
  • “Maybe he didn't do it in the most...elegant or efficient way, but he's now the Mets pobo...He doesn't have to win the dollars per war championship. He's trying to win the championship championship.” — Andrew [87:27]

6. Brewers’ Perspective & Small Market Woes

• [65:07 – 85:54]
• The Brewers’ return (Jett Williams & Brandon Sproat) discussed in classic "Brewers types" terms.
• Ben critiques: “I do wish that they had the latitude as an organization to not play on hard mode so much...You don’t get extra wins at the end of the year playing on hard mode.” [72:45, 85:54]
• Both hosts express frustration at the cycle of productive homegrown players being traded due to payroll constraints.

7. Yankees’ Offseason: Stability Over Splash

• [88:24 – 104:37]
• Cody Bellinger Resigned:
  • “His positional versatility is so useful to them. His bat plays so well there.” — Ben [91:51]
  • The move is necessary (“had to do it”), but the Yankees largely “run it back,” in stark contrast to the Mets’ churn.
  • “The Bellinger signing is...not super exciting either, but I think it was an important one for the Yankees certainly when it came to placating ...the fan base.” — Andrew [90:17]
• Jason Dominguez Conundrum:
  • “He seems so promising...but to go from being able to play center field somewhat competently to being a way below average left fielder...just really weird.” — Meg [101:00]

8. Closing Odds & Ends

• [106:00 – 112:24]
• The Mackenzie Gore trade will be covered next episode.
• Newly published research on MLB players' political leanings (Vote Hub, Peter Lutz): no surprises—MLB skews more Republican than other leagues.
• Listener email about coaches who return as players (Jimmy Wilson, 1940 Reds).
• Fun callback to Sam Miller recording early EW episodes in his car—the “original” car podcaster.
• Patreon shoutouts and reminders.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Our transaction talk will be entertaining and informative and fun. But it doesn’t distinguish us as much as some of our more off the beaten path topics.” — Andrew [02:23]
• “I kind of appreciate that we don’t need to constantly keep in mind several years of future draft pick considerations.” — Meg [12:06]
• “Putting it within the context of strategy, rather than some genuine and new emotional reaction...owners always want a salary cap.” — Ben [21:30]
• “Not diving is an indication of a good fielder? ...Wouldn’t there always be balls within the potential diving range of any fielder?” — Meg [29:06]
• “If part of how we end up grading this is their ability to retain Peralta beyond this year, you have to think that the existing relationship he has with Stearns might be useful in that project.” — Ben [60:02]
• “You don’t get extra wins at the end of the year playing on hard mode.” — Ben [85:45]
• “They're not in a teardown.” — Ben (on Mets) [88:41]
• “The Yankees boring offseason makes some sense because they had a higher baseline than the Mets.” — Meg [103:12]
• “It's just been so hard to pin down exactly what kind of player [Bellinger] would be in any given season.” — Meg [98:04]
• “We should get to these transactions...” — Ben, slightly tongue-in-cheek, acknowledging Effectively Wild’s penchant for deep tangents [43:57]

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Timestamps of Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment Description | |-----------|--------------------------------------------------| | 00:32 | Meta-discussion: Transactions vs. Banter | | 05:21 | Salary Caps in MLB vs. NBA/NFL | | 17:47 | Media packaging & salary cap 'outrage' critique | | 25:08 | Andrew Jones/Defensive Metrics/Mythbusting | | 44:28 | Mets trades: Robert Jr. and Peralta | | 65:07 | Brewers’ side and critique of organizational model| | 88:24 | Yankees offseason recap, Bellinger, Dominguez | | 106:00 | Mackenzie Gore, VoteHub data, closing notes |

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Tone and Style

• Conversational, slightly self-deprecating, always erudite and friendly.
• Incorporates playful asides, e.g., “What are you talking about? My hairline next?” — Ben [16:42]
• Welcomes mild tangents and listener engagement (“maybe if you're pot committed and you're going to listen to the whole episode regardless...”). [01:47]

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For Listeners Skipping Ads, Intros, and Outros

Jump to [44:28] for Mets trade talk, but you'll miss a characteristically “Effectively Wild” meditation on baseball’s quirks, labor, and stats.
Look forward to the next episode for the Mackenzie Gore trade breakdown.

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Summary

A must-listen for anyone seeking both a sharp, detailed breakdown of recent Mets (and Yankees) moves, as well as for those who delight in baseball’s amusing theories, myths, and meta-conversations. The episode strikes a balance between current events and the podcast’s trademark inventiveness, with data-driven detours and reflective critique of the game’s culture and financial structure.

Transcript

[Meg Rowley]

Number one fan Grass baseball Podcast. This stat cast is stat blast tops plus when the stats need contrast zips.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And steamer for the forecast. Hello and welcome to episode 2430 of Effectively Wild, the FanGraphs baseball podcast, brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of Fan Graphs and I am joined by Ben Lindbergh of the Ringer. Ben, how are you?

[Andrew]

Hey. Oh, I'm anticipating all the trade talk that we're about to have.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Trade, trade, trade, trade, trade.

[Andrew]

Not quite that many, but at least three.

[Meg Rowley]

Just a ton of trades to talk about.

[Andrew]

Trades are wild.

[Meg Rowley]

Effectively wild. Both New York teams have been busy.

[Andrew]

Since we last spoke and Texas too.

[Meg Rowley]

Not to be left out of the action. I'm not Forgetting about you, Mr. MacKenzie Gore neck and neck with Freddie Peralta and FanGraphs were over the past two seasons. So that is not a slight.

[Andrew]

But last time we had very few.

[Meg Rowley]

Transactions to talk about.

[Andrew]

The time before that we had too.

[Meg Rowley]

Many transactions to talk about. Today we might too. So the stove, it, it giveth, it taketh away. It really depends on the day.

[Andrew]

I always wonder, by the way, this is more of a meta musing here.

[Meg Rowley]

But when I have non transaction related, more general thoughts.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Sure.

[Meg Rowley]

And also have transactions to talk about.

[Andrew]

Which would be better to begin with, which would be the better lead? Are we burying the lead if we make the Mets Mackenzie and Cody Bellinger wait, or is it better to ease.

[Meg Rowley]

Into that with some more general interest.

[Andrew]

Talk before we get to the transactions? I don't know.

[Meg Rowley]

After all these years, I don't know what our audience would prefer. So I'd be happy to hear from.

[Andrew]

Our listeners if they have a preference. Maybe if you're pot committed and you're going to listen to the whole episode regardless, it doesn't matter to you which.

[Meg Rowley]

Order we do it in. But I, I wonder about that because.

[Andrew]

The big news is the transactions.

[Meg Rowley]

Right.

[Andrew]

Oh, Metz, Metz, McKenzie Bell.

[Meg Rowley]

And yet that kind of transaction talk, it's kind of a commodity.

[Andrew]

Good.

[Meg Rowley]

Right.

[Andrew]

It's, you know, you can get that on any baseball podcast or any baseball site anywhere you're consuming your content about baseball, people are going to be talking about those trades and we're going to.

[Meg Rowley]

Talk about them too. And hopefully our transaction talk will be.

[Andrew]

Entertaining and informative and fun. But it doesn't distinguish us, I think, as much as some of our more off the beaten path topics, perhaps.

[Meg Rowley]

So you know, that's the effectively wild difference. Yeah, you're going to get all the.

[Andrew]

Baseball news that's fit to podcast about.

[Meg Rowley]

But you're also going to get some.

[Andrew]

Stuff that is perhaps not fit to podcast about, but we will podcast about it anyway.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah. What do you, what do you have in mind?

[Andrew]

What do you, yeah, do you have an instinct about which way is, is preferable?

[Meg Rowley]

I just, I don't know because I, I always wonder, you know, because baseball.

[Andrew]

Lots of fans, they consume the game regionally and they followed their team.

[Meg Rowley]

Now if you're listening to this pod.

[Andrew]

You probably have at least some interest in the sport on a national level, or you'd probably be frustrated a lot of the time just because if you're.

[Meg Rowley]

Here for one team talk, then you're not going to get that much of the time. But also, are people interested in hearing more about Mets moves if they're not Mets fans? Have we not talked about the Mets plenty already this offseason? Maybe people have, have reached their Mets quota. Who knows? I don't know. And I always note that when we get much more reader response or listener response and engagement, seemingly when we do.

[Andrew]

The weird stuff, you know, and when people recount their favorite, effectively wild episodes, it's never, oh, that time they broke.

[Meg Rowley]

Down that signing, you know, it's never that like the, the Pantheon podcast that we've done. It's always something weird. It's, you know, emails, it's interviews. And I like to think that we do a little bit of everything.

[Andrew]

That's, that's what you get here at effect. It, it befits our name and, and we're going to give you the meat and potatoes.

[Meg Rowley]

You know, there are some podcasts that are ostensibly baseball podcasts, but barely talk about baseball. And then baseball's just kind of the, the premise, you know, it's the hook and then you get in there and there's not that much baseball talk. And maybe that's part of the appeal.

[Andrew]

And then there are baseball podcasts that are just all about baseball business, you know, and, and rarely range far afield from that.

[Meg Rowley]

And here I like to think that you get a little bit of everything.

[Andrew]

And that's the appeal of the podcast. But when I have a bit of both, I never know where to start. So I guess instead I started about not knowing where to start.

[Meg Rowley]

And that was probably the worst possible way to go.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Well, and particularly because my question was more about what, what non transaction related stuff do you want to talk about? And yeah, and, and then, and then we talked about the lack of talking about either. I would offer that I think it's fine to start with non transaction related news because with very rare exception our podcasts are coming hours and sometimes days after transactions have have taken place. And so the lead is already buried. Why not?

[Meg Rowley]

Yes.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Just buried a little further.

[Andrew]

Right? Yeah. We might not be your your first stop.

[Meg Rowley]

We want to be the one stop shop.

[Andrew]

But if you need the instant details and breakdown you can probably get there elsewhere.

[Meg Rowley]

So.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah.

[Meg Rowley]

Okay. Well now that the navel gazing is.

[Andrew]

Out of the way, I have one insight. Well I hope it's an insight about outfield defense as it pertains to Andrew.

[Meg Rowley]

Jones and some some data bring to bear. But I also now that I am.

[Andrew]

Of course an all purpose sports pundit, I had a musing about how baseball.

[Meg Rowley]

Is discussed and followed vis a vis.

[Andrew]

Other sports that have salary caps.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Oh sure.

[Andrew]

And kind of a be careful what you wish for.

[Meg Rowley]

I'm not suggesting that this should govern.

[Andrew]

Or will govern whether baseball will have a salary cap at some point that will not be determined by how much fun fans have talking about the sport. The will be something that is hashed out at the bargaining table obviously.

[Meg Rowley]

But since I follow other sports more.

[Andrew]

Closely now, the the tenor of the.

[Meg Rowley]

Conversation or the kind of conversations that.

[Andrew]

You have about MLB versus other sports, especially when it comes to trade speculation and signing speculation and everything.

[Meg Rowley]

Salary caps make that much more complicated. Yes.

[Andrew]

And, and arguably less fun. Oh I agree.

[Meg Rowley]

And so part of me, independent of of all the other virtues and vices.

[Andrew]

Of a salary cap and of course a salary for in mlb, I do dread having to become a capologist of.

[Meg Rowley]

Sorts if MLB ever does adopt a salary cap because it's just kind of a headache. You know, it's, it really is. And there are, you know, pluses and minuses to to talking about this stuff in the various sports. But I was chatting with my friend.

[Andrew]

Zach Cram, formerly of the ringer of espn and I thought he would be a good sounding board for this because he used to cover baseball primarily for the ringer and then shifted to doing baseball and basketball and now is basketball only at espn. So he has been on both sides.

[Meg Rowley]

Of that and he did agree to.

[Andrew]

An extent with me that MLB's lack of a salary cap makes it more.

[Meg Rowley]

Fun to talk about in some respects.

[Andrew]

Because in the NBA for instance, everything is is just the trade machine. You know, it's like is this even.

[Meg Rowley]

An allowable trades where does work under the cap? And it's so complex that you, you basically have to outsource that calculation to someone or something whether it's some kind.

[Andrew]

Of trade machine algorithm or you know, it's, it's Bobby Marx, right. It's some sort of subject matter expert capitalist type whom everyone takes their cue from. And it's so complex in terms of what's allowed and what's not. And so much discussion of aprons and.

[Meg Rowley]

Second aprons and in baseball we have.

[Andrew]

It relatively easy, I think. And you know, we talk about signing bonuses and deferrals and, and competitive balance.

[Meg Rowley]

Tax thresholds and taxes and, and that.

[Andrew]

Stuff can be kind of complicated. But we might not fully appreciate how easy we have it because if suddenly there's cap and a floor, then we're going to have to do a lot of learning and it's going to be a lot of math and it's just, it's going to be tough to kind of off the cuff weigh in on trades or just sort of do speculation about transactions because so much of it will be limited by this arcane knowledge that most people don't possess.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah. And I don't, I don't want to overstate the case. The financial component of it is obviously incredibly important in baseball. And we do talk about both. The numbers came quite a bit. And there are teams that while they are not technically restricted from signing someone do view the competitive balance tax thresholds as sort of hard caps on their spending. We end up having a little bit of both. But we're never, you know, you're never seeing a team really precluded from doing something. You might have an appreciation of their desire to sign a guy. When you have a situation like say the, the Dodgers with Kyle Tucker and you can appreciate how expensive he is going to be when you factor in the, the amount they will pay in, in luxury tax on his salary. But it isn't, you know, it isn't a matter of, well, they can or can't do it. And I've had the apron stuff explained to me a couple of times and I don't know how hard I've tried to understand it, but I need to try harder because I still find myself somewhat flummoxed by it. And you can tell that a lot of people do because if you watch the NBA draft, they spent like 15 minutes just reminding people here's, here's the deal with the apron.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah, it's, it's a full time job.

[Andrew]

To understand that and translate it to everyone.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah, so, so that's tough. And yeah, as Zach pointed out, so, so there are some similarities and it's kind of just a difference of degree.

[Andrew]

Not kind because for instance, in all the The Giannis trade talks and speculation in the NBA because I said to him, you know, it doesn't seem as if there's any great shortage of NBA trade speculation like that's out there.

[Meg Rowley]

Maybe more of it is misinformed because not everyone is clued into all this stuff. But a lot of the discussion, there is maybe as much discussion, but a.

[Andrew]

Lot of it centers on what is.

[Meg Rowley]

Allowed technically and what isn't.

[Andrew]

So basically these are the teams who could conceivably trade for Giannis, and if they did, these are the players they'd.

[Meg Rowley]

Need to include to make the cap.

[Andrew]

Method work or else it's just not even feasible.

[Meg Rowley]

But maybe the equivalent of that in mlb.

[Andrew]

It's not that a team legally couldn't acquire someone, it's that in practice they probably won't. Right. Because, yeah, teams do treat the CBT as, as a soft cap or they don't even get close to the CBT because they've, they're super cheap. Right. And so you don't get. I get the, the tiresome, you know, Dodgers are ruining the sport, Mets are ruining the sport. Maybe to a slightly lesser extent, Yankees.

[Meg Rowley]

Are ruining the sport, whoever it is.

[Andrew]

Right.

[Meg Rowley]

Because there isn't as much of an imbalance, financially speaking. And so we have our own tiresome.

[Andrew]

And tiring talking points. Perhaps they're just different ones.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah. But I do think that there's on average a greater ease if one is inclined to keep the focus on the player and what they contribute to a particular team or what a team might be losing by trading them away. And again, I don't want to say that the other stuff doesn't matter. Like, how much time do we spend talking about team control and what have you? These things are clearly part and parcel with the way that rosters are constructed. But I just appreciate the fact that it's less of a consideration, even as it is always a background concern.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Meg Rowley]

And I also, I kind of appreciate that we don't need to constantly keep.

[Andrew]

In mind several years of future draft pick considerations.

[Meg Rowley]

I know that there are people who.

[Andrew]

Think that, that draft picks should be more tradable than they are in mlp.

[Meg Rowley]

And that in fact, that might be fun.

[Andrew]

But also it's a lot to remember. It's like, oh, you know, they have their 2027 first rounder and their 2028 first rounder and all these just years that don't even really seem real, but they help facilitate these trades and everything. Now, as Cram pointed out, maybe trading draft picks and trading prospects amounts to.

[Meg Rowley]

Sort of the same thing in the.

[Andrew]

Sense that if you're not Eric Longenhagen, if you're not a super prospect knower, then those prospects aren't really any more real to you than. Than the draft picks are. And so you kind of have to read Eric or some other authoritative source to understand the value of those players or how they project. And so it is still for the vast majority of people, kind of beyond their grasp what the value of those players are and the particulars and everything.

[Meg Rowley]

So that's sort of similar, I guess, also. And, you know, also, it varies by.

[Andrew]

Sport because even though the other major sports tend to have salary caps, they differ in how stringent they are.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Sure.

[Andrew]

So there's some leeway in some of these leagues, you know, especially the NFL, right. You can do various things. You can manipulate salaries, you can get under the cap. In the NBA, there's a luxury tax. And so it's, you know, would this team be willing to.

[Meg Rowley]

To spend that much and go into the luxury tax?

[Andrew]

Whereas in the NHL, for instance, it's a pretty inflexible cap.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Right.

[Andrew]

And so, you know, maybe that makes the cap considerations all the more overriding.

[Meg Rowley]

And has historically led to a lot of cap shenanigans that have also manifested in baseball to a certain extent. And then you get things, you know, as Cram pointed out with the Trey Young trade.

[Andrew]

The trade trade recently in the NBA where the Wizards did it not really because of the cap, but because of the floor.

[Meg Rowley]

Right. Because the Wizards were going to be.

[Andrew]

Something like 75 million below the salary floor next season. And so even if Trey Young wasn't, quote, unquote, worth his salary, the Wizards just needed to add pricey players just to get to the floor.

[Meg Rowley]

And so in baseball, you don't see that so much. And maybe it would be better if you did, I don't know. But the only real equivalent to that.

[Andrew]

Is occasionally a team will spend some money so as to avoid a grievance. Yeah. So like, you know, the A's signing Luis Severino or something is, is kind of the closest equivalent to that, basically.

[Meg Rowley]

But, yeah, I, I just think it would be opening up a bit of a Pandora's box.

[Andrew]

And, you know, if.

[Meg Rowley]

If it happens at some point, then.

[Andrew]

We'Ll all adapt to it and it'll start to seem routine.

[Meg Rowley]

And again, not suggesting that anyone will or should take this into consideration when.

[Andrew]

Actually deciding on baseball's economic system.

[Meg Rowley]

I'm just saying that there are some.

[Andrew]

Merits, I think, to the way it's done just in terms of being able to kind of shoot from the hip in coming up with trade proposals which.

[Meg Rowley]

Are, you know, usually silly and unrealistic, but at least in baseball, feasible, you know, because they could be consummated if.

[Andrew]

The teams were willing.

[Ben Lindbergh]

As long as we don't use the word consummated. I'd be just from an entertainment perspective, I have not gamed out what I think about this from a labor implication perspective, but I would be in favor of trading draft picks. I think that would be great fun. I think it would be. And you, you remember, you remember fine, Ben. You really do. And then you have these moments where you're like, oh my God, like this team sucks and, and their first rounders going to a different club. And as a fan, yes, terrible. And we do have some, you know, it's not like there are no picks in baseball that can be traded, like compensation picks can move and what have you. But I think having, I think having a little bit of intrigue and on draft day, oh my God, can you imagine, can you imagine how much fun Eric would have wojing the draft if he could move? My goodness.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Meg Rowley]

And if you want to make fun of the Maverick and you can point out that they don't have their own first rounder until 2031 or whatever it is, then that gives you even more ammunition. Not that you need even more now.

[Ben Lindbergh]

That you need any more. It says, says Ben the Mavericks nowhere. How bad do you think Trey Young feels where it's like it doesn't matter if you're good or not.

[Meg Rowley]

We just catching strings that effectively wild.

[Ben Lindbergh]

What are you talking about? My hairline next?

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah, I guess we tend to outsource.

[Andrew]

These just little idiosyncrasies and things as.

[Meg Rowley]

It is, you know, just because, you know, if you, you, you have a Jason Martinez who just has John Becker.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Like let John cook.

[Meg Rowley]

Right. Have their, their finger on the pulse.

[Andrew]

Of all the transactions and all the depth charts and then that becomes a resource for everyone to rely on. And so that's the way that we make this work because nobody can know everything about everything and everyone. So yeah, we already have specialists, I suppose, but yeah, in a, in a cap world, things would get complex. So.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah.

[Meg Rowley]

And you know, speaking of that and.

[Andrew]

And the possibility of it actually coming to fruition, I just have one little media critique maybe about the, the way that the cap speculation is presented. So, you know, we've talked about this plenty of times and we will talk about it plenty more times. I'm sure the potential for a cap and a floor because of course you wouldn't get one without the other and everything. But.

[Meg Rowley]

But I do have a slight bone to pick with.

[Andrew]

I guess the way that it's been presented in recent days in the aftermath of the Tucker signing, where there's been a lot of reporting about just like how angry owners are about the Kyle Tucker signing and oh, this is going to guarantee a salary cap or something, because everyone is. Is upset about this now.

[Meg Rowley]

And I just think that tying that.

[Andrew]

Potential to a particular transaction is very unlikely, frankly, because.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Correct.

[Andrew]

You know, for instance, okay, at the.

[Meg Rowley]

Athletic, Ken Rosenthal, Evan Drelick, respect a lot of their work have them on the podcast.

[Andrew]

They broke the banging scheme, et cetera, et cetera. They've done a lot of great things. I'm sure Evan will be back on.

[Meg Rowley]

The podcast to talk about labor matters because he's probably the best at covering these things. But in recent days. So after the the Tucker move, Ken.

[Andrew]

Rosenthal wrote a column headline was Dodgers.

[Meg Rowley]

Splurge on Tucker Will Increase Calls for a Salary Cap. Well, you know, that, that happened.

[Andrew]

I guess it increased calls. Right. And then Ken also had one. He reported that in the wake of the Dodgers signing Kyle Tucker, MLB Owners Will Push for a Salary Cap no Matter what. Or I guess that was an Evan piece. That was the headline at least. MLB Owners Enraged By Kyle Tucker Dodgers Deal Will Push for Salary Cap no Matter What.

[Meg Rowley]

And.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Or what.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah. And you know, maybe this is partly.

[Andrew]

A packaging a headline issue. Obviously Evan knows and would acknowledge that, you know, cap isn't going to come about because of one particular piece, but.

[Meg Rowley]

Owners are going to push for a.

[Andrew]

Salary cap no matter what. No matter what.

[Meg Rowley]

You know, it does that. No matter what. I think that tells you that it's.

[Andrew]

Not really about any one move.

[Meg Rowley]

And you know, it's been previously reported ad nauseam, even in the last year.

[Andrew]

Or two, that owners are very much in favor of a sourcat.

[Meg Rowley]

Maybe not every single owner, but.

[Andrew]

But a lot of them.

[Meg Rowley]

And so it's not really that. Yeah, okay, some of them might be.

[Andrew]

Frustrated by the Kyle Tucker signing or something or a Mets move or whatever it is. We've certainly heard that refrain before about.

[Meg Rowley]

Steve Cohen spending, etc. But, but there's, there's no connection, I don't think, between owners pushing for a.

[Andrew]

Salary cap and the Dodgers or the Mets signing one particular player. It's not like, oh, this is, this is the straw that broke the camel's back when it came to salary cap resistance or Something. And now, now the floodgates are open. No, I think, like, they've been hoping.

[Meg Rowley]

For a salary cap for decades. Like, I mean, you know, they would love to have a salary cap. They've been consistent on that point. They have pushed for it before. They will push for it again. I guess you could argue that maybe it will strengthen some of their resolve or something. But to me, it seems more like kind of capitalizing on the public sentiment, which is maybe smart for, for the owners. You know, if you have a bunch.

[Andrew]

Of fans who are up in arms about the Dodgers signing another superstar, then, sure, why not seed another story that says, oh, this is the last draw, you know, now we're, we're going to push for the salary cap because of this. And, and some f. See that and say, yeah, I'm on board.

[Meg Rowley]

I'm, I'm upset about the Dodgers signing another superstar, too. We're with you. So I get it. I get why the owners might kind.

[Andrew]

Of capitalize on that moment or try to pander to that fan sentiment. But I guess, you know, we don't have to be too credulous about that. Right? Or, you know, we can kind of provide the appropriate context that, sure, the owners might seize on that opportunity to further their desire, but. But their desire is long standing. Right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I think that putting it within the context of strategy, rather than some sort of genuine and new emotional reaction, some offense to their sense of fairness is important because if you position it as well, we have no choice but to be. But to call for a cap. Look at what they're doing, these Dodgers. They're undermining the cap. The competitive integrity of the sport. That suggests, to your point, entering a new condition. Whereas before the owners would have liked a salary cap when the Dodgers were bankrupt. They literally bankrupt. Right. They were. They would have liked a salary cap when the Wilpons still own the Mets.

[Andrew]

Yeah, they'd like to bring back the reserve class.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Right.

[Meg Rowley]

They'd like to do away with free agency entirely. Yeah, they'd like a lot of things.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I'm sure that if you were to ask a couple of them and like, feed them truth serum or whatever, they'd be like, well, I don't know how, like, how seriously do we think the current administration is going to take collusion? Could we just do a little collusion as, like, a treat? I agree with you that many of the people who have written about this, like they are expressing, they are accurately reporting what is being said to them. And I think that they are very often layering in the appropriate context. Right. But I do think that, you know, reminding your readers, like, this is a steady state, you know, like water is wet and owners want a salary cap. So, you know, here. Here we are again. They wanted one last time, too. They wanted one during the last CBA negotiations after, you know, arguably the union and the prior one had kind of gotten their clock clean. So management, given the opportunity to set a hard cap on labor salaries, will, Will always jump at that opportunity, and they're likely to do so again here. And I, I don't think that they are going to find a union that's any more receptive to the notion if for no other reason than, like, when sports leagues agree to caps, you know, the union tends to get broken not long after that. So I just don't think that we're, we're likely to see it get much traction or purchase. Now, does that mean that they will ultimately, you know, sort of persevere in their negotiations? I suspect, yes, because, you know, and perhaps I'm just feeling optimistic today, but I do think that the, the stakes are very, very high for the league and for ownership. They're high for the players as well. They're high for everybody. Everybody has plenty of incentive to get a deal done. And I think the, the question is just how much pain and consternation are we going to have to go through before everybody comes to their senses on that score.

[Andrew]

So, yeah, and I guess the other question is, sure, I'm sure most of the owners, the vast majority of the owners, would be in favor of a salary cap, but if that comes with a salary floor, which it would, then how many of them are still in favor of it?

[Meg Rowley]

You know, if that floor is. Is sufficiently high, then I assume they.

[Andrew]

Would balk at it.

[Meg Rowley]

But yeah, it doesn't make for a very H headline to say owners still pushing to make more of the revenue in the sport, owners still hoping to suppress player salaries odors, still in favor of a salary cap. I guess you could just republish that piece every day. You know, nothing has changed.

[Andrew]

You could just have one of those websites.

[Meg Rowley]

It's just like our MLB owners in favor of a salary Capcom.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yes.

[Andrew]

And it just says yes.

[Meg Rowley]

So, yeah, nothing new.

[Andrew]

Okay. But more fuel for the fire, I suppose.

[Meg Rowley]

The other observation, which is about Andrew Jones. So I don't really have anything else to say about hall of Fame results.

[Andrew]

Because the projections were dead on and there were no surprises really, when it came to the results being announced, which I did confirm in the outro to last Time.

[Meg Rowley]

But one observation about newly elected hall.

[Andrew]

Of Famer Andrew Jones. So, one thing, you hear about Jones all the time. I mean, obviously people praise his defense. He was a great center fielder. But.

[Meg Rowley]

But specifically, it seems that they praise how easy he made everything look. They don't really talk about how he.

[Andrew]

Was making these incredible plays. You can't believe what you're seeing.

[Meg Rowley]

It's more about how he made everything look routine.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah.

[Meg Rowley]

And.

[Andrew]

And specifically, one frequent refrain about Jones is that he didn't dive because he didn't have to dive, because he just. He got there.

[Meg Rowley]

And, you know, I can't say that.

[Andrew]

I. I watched baseball during the entirety.

[Meg Rowley]

Of Andrew Jones's career.

[Andrew]

I obviously was watching the 1996 World.

[Meg Rowley]

Series with great interest as a Yankees fan at the time, you know, I was nine.

[Andrew]

And so I remember his heroics there. I was not watching his team day in and day out. So I can't say that I have a firm memory of how often he.

[Meg Rowley]

Dove relative to other center fielders. But people seem to believe that he.

[Andrew]

Didn'T dive all that often.

[Meg Rowley]

For example, in the cup of Coffee.

[Andrew]

Newsletter this week, Craig Calcatera, who is.

[Meg Rowley]

An Atlanta fan and so saw a.

[Andrew]

Lot of Andrew Jones. He repeated that, too. He said, as someone who watched 120 plus Atlanta games a year during Jones's prime, he's the best I've ever seen.

[Meg Rowley]

He didn't have as many Web Gems on SportsCenter as some other guys, but.

[Andrew]

That'S because he made difficult plays look routine. He didn't have to dive for balls because he was always where the ball was with plenty of time to spare. Okay, so that was Craig's take as a informed party who watched a lot of Andrew Jones.

[Meg Rowley]

And then Joshehan said something very similar in his newsletter.

[Andrew]

So he said Jones had the whole package.

[Meg Rowley]

Instincts to get started in the right direction, a first step that got his.

[Andrew]

Body moving there, and foot speed to cover ground quickly. The combination meant he didn't fill highlight reels.

[Meg Rowley]

The standing image of an Andrew Jones.

[Andrew]

Catch is him under the ball, maybe slowing down as he gets to it and making a double into a boring F8.

[Meg Rowley]

I never saw Joe DiMaggio play, but that's the one guy in history who.

[Andrew]

Had a rep of never diving. I can't remember ever seeing Andrew Jones dive. And I know I never thought, oh, he should have had that. Okay, so this is. This is the legend, maybe the myth of Andrew Jones. I don't know which, but it has taken roots that he was just so good out There he got to everything. He made it all look routine.

[Meg Rowley]

Now I wish that, that I could fact check this in some sort of rigorous way, but I can't really. I reached out to Alex Victorman and.

[Andrew]

Mark Simon of Sports Inflow Solutions, effectively wild listeners and Patreon supporters, as it.

[Meg Rowley]

Happens, and they just, they don't have.

[Andrew]

Info on that going back that far. So the first year they have data on dives by fielders is 2013, which is the year after Andrew Jones retired. So that is no help to us.

[Meg Rowley]

However, it is not unheard of for.

[Andrew]

Him to dive or it was not.

[Meg Rowley]

I, I looked up, there's a video.

[Andrew]

A highlight reel online from the MLB.

[Meg Rowley]

Vault account on YouTube. It's entitled Andrew Jones's Best Defensive Plays. And it has, I think, nine catches that he made and on three of.

[Andrew]

Them he did dive.

[Meg Rowley]

So I can confirm that he did dive in his career a minimum of three times. So it did happen.

[Andrew]

It is quite possible that he didn't dive as often as other outfielders, however. But here's the thing.

[Meg Rowley]

Do you think that it makes sense.

[Andrew]

That a good center fielder, a guy with great range, would never have to dive in the aggregate?

[Meg Rowley]

Because the way that I was thinking.

[Andrew]

About this is okay, on any given play, right? Then this makes sense to me because we, we say that often we watch someone who had to go all out to make a catch and then we, we might say, oh, well, it's only because he took a bad route or he got a bad jump or whatever.

[Meg Rowley]

And someone else, a better outfielder might.

[Andrew]

Have made that look easy and wouldn't.

[Meg Rowley]

Have had to dive.

[Andrew]

And so that absolutely applies on a.

[Meg Rowley]

Per play basis, I think, when you're talking about individual batted balls. And in fact, that's part of the.

[Andrew]

Value, I think, of advanced defensive stats is that, you know, the eye tests can't always capture that aspect of things, especially if you're, you're watching on TV and you don't even see where someone started or you know, how good a jump they got. And so it might just look like, oh, that was an easy play and you wouldn't give them full credit. So it's good that we can actually track where they were when the play.

[Meg Rowley]

Started and where the ball was and.

[Andrew]

How hard it actually was to, to get there.

[Meg Rowley]

But I was thinking that wouldn't there always be balls within the potential diving.

[Andrew]

Range of any fielder?

[Meg Rowley]

Because, you know, if you're Andrew Jones and you can get to balls that.

[Andrew]

Would force other outfielders to dive to catch them, and you can get to them standing up. Okay, I'm sure that happened plenty of times. But wouldn't there still be balls that were at the edge of Andrew Jones's range where it would make sense for.

[Meg Rowley]

Him to have to dive to get them? Like, they would be balls that. That other outfielders wouldn't even get close enough to.

[Andrew]

To have any hope of catching it, and you wouldn't even think they had a play on it? Maybe, but he would still have some incentive to dive. I would think it would just be on balls that are farther afield from where he started. Does. Does that make sense to you?

[Meg Rowley]

Because, like, it doesn't necessarily logically track.

[Andrew]

In my mind that having great range results in fewer dives or that not diving is an indication of a good fielder.

[Ben Lindbergh]

What do I think of that? You're like, I didn't talk long enough for you to arrive at a conclusion while I was talking. Well, I'm thinking about it, Ben. I'm sorry. I'm thinking about it because I. I do often find that when my enjoyment of a guy, enjoyment is wrong, especially given the player I'm about to offer as evidence of this, when my assessment of a guy, when my degree of wow around a guy's defense differs, it's because I am noticing the misplay that necessitates the spectacular throw. And the spectacular throw is what makes SportsCenter. And I don't say that like I'm, you know, some special savant in terms of assessing defense, but, like, a lot was made over his career, over the spectacular throws of Uena Cesperus. And many of them were spectacular and some of them were necessary because you goofed the ball in the first place and misplayed it. Right. And that doesn't mean that he was a bad defender. It just means that, like, we have to put those spectacular throws within their context. I think that if I am trying to construct the. My mental image of like, a. The sort of platonic ideal of an outfield defender, the vast majority of the time, I would say that. That he is making it look easy, that you are not stressed, that even if there is effort involved, like, he has to run very fast, he has to scale the wall, what have you. There is an ease and a grace to that action that suggests he's got it right. And that's like 90%. But I do think that ultimately I agree with you. And the way I'd put it is like. And 10% needs to be you going, well, how the hell did he get to that? And that often involves A diving catch. Right. Him lunging for. It's funny that you say, like, I don't have any memory of Jones doing that because I think that literally one of the, the only photos I was able to find of him playing defense to use for his hall of Fame profiles. He is diving forward to get a ball.

[Meg Rowley]

He did dive. There is documentation.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And I was like, what do you mean he dives? Look, it's right there. It's right there in the photo of.

[Meg Rowley]

Him from Joe DiMaggio. Hard to say. I can't look up highlights quite as.

[Andrew]

Easily, but I don't know.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I see Andrew doing it right there.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah. I bet if we looked at the newspaper archives, maybe we could find some documentation of Joe D. Diving too. But, but Andrew Jones, not ancient history. We have video.

[Ben Lindbergh]

But I, but I do think that that 10% is important to at least our, our understanding of that player. Which isn't to say that if we had like perfect defensive metrics or even just like imperfect but more precise than they had ones, we, we wouldn't say that some of those dives weren't unnecessary. You can untangle that double negative. But the way I'd put it, maybe to use a cross sport comp, is that there was a player. This was before you were a football knower, so forgive me for explaining this to you because I know that now you wouldn't need this kind of explanation, but the Seahawks used to have a safety named Earl Thomas. Speaking of guys who end up playing for your team because your team has a draft pick from another team anyway. But Earl was a fabulous football player in his prime. Kind of fell off toward the end. And one of the things that I didn't fully understand about Earl Thomas until I had the chance to go to a Seahawks game in person and sit up so that I was essentially looking at the field from the all 22 angle was just the precision of his reads and routes and the speed he had in executing them. And the way that it would. What that it played while I was watching in person was just like this appreciation of the skill. It's so amazing the way it looks on TV is where did that guy come from? He wasn't even in frame. Like, how did, how is he there to make a pick? I didn't even know where he was on the field. Right. And I think that there's a sort of baseball equivalent to that for outfielders that is important to our sort of mental model of them as defenders. So I don't think you need no dives. I think you need. Ideally you get dives that are spectacular and not the result of, you know, initially misreading the ball and taking sort of a bad route or going back when you go forward, but like that, that are truly necessitated by conditions on the field and then you, you are able to sort of rise to that occasion. So.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah, so first I think there is.

[Andrew]

Something to be said for the spectacular recovery which, which we talked about.

[Meg Rowley]

You can, you can screw up and then you can do something spectacular after that.

[Andrew]

Sort of the Johannes Cespinus. Yeah, right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Because there are plenty of players who can't do that. They just get an error and no errors made. Right. And so the recovery is, is, is a good thing to be able to. And impressive in its own right.

[Andrew]

Sure yeah.

[Meg Rowley]

The, the ball bounces out of your.

[Andrew]

Glove and then you make an incredible bear hand catch or something and, and sure, someone else might have just caught it without bobbling it in the first.

[Meg Rowley]

Place, but also that was pretty impressive.

[Andrew]

Coordination to snag it at that point.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah. And, and those plays are.

[Andrew]

Are quite fun and entertaining and you know, almost every outfielder dives sometimes. I, I wrote a piece, the 2018-2019 off season. I wrote a piece about dives using some data from SIS or BIS as it was called back then. And they. In the day, yeah, they gave me data actually they were already SIS at that point. Anyway, I wrote about Bryce Harper because.

[Meg Rowley]

He had been a diver early in.

[Andrew]

His career and, and maybe dove too much, dove dangerously.

[Meg Rowley]

And then the year before his free.

[Andrew]

Agency he kind of conspicuously in my mind stopped diving. He almost never this.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah.

[Meg Rowley]

And I think if that was a calculated decision to keep himself healthy and cash in in free agency, it worked out quite well for him.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Sure.

[Meg Rowley]

But yeah, the data that I had at the time was that Most outfielders.

[Andrew]

Averaged one dive per 60 opportunities and Harper had had had one dive in all of 2018 or something. So he was sort of an outlier. Harper and Nick Castellanos. But it's, it's not uncommon for outfielders to dive anyway.

[Meg Rowley]

So I'm just thinking that the, the.

[Andrew]

Possibility space, to use a fancy term I guess of, of any outfielders catches.

[Meg Rowley]

Like the, the possibility space of potential catches for Andrew Jones was a lot.

[Andrew]

Larger than for a typical outfielder.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Sure.

[Meg Rowley]

But. But there would still be some balls at the edge of his range where it would behoove him to dive if.

[Andrew]

He wanted to make that catch. You know, assuming dives are. Are beneficial sometimes.

[Meg Rowley]

And so unless you think that his range was so great that he essentially covered every possible bit of ground that.

[Andrew]

Was not already covered by a corner outfielder, just like he had it so on lock that there was really never a ball that was out of his range that was not clearly someone else's ball.

[Meg Rowley]

Then there would definitely be times where.

[Andrew]

Even his range would be stretched.

[Meg Rowley]

It would just be farther from his.

[Andrew]

Starting point than it was for most fielders. So that's why I. I kind of doubted the idea that not diving equals great range or. Or that those things are even correlated. And I did get some data on this, and I am pleased to say that it confirms my suspicion. I think so. So I'm pleased. So this came from Alex Victorman at sis, and I asked whether there is any kind of correlation, an inverse correlation, specifically, between range and your. Your dive rate, how frequently you dive, you know, if your range is greater, do you dive less often? And Alex found that there's pretty much.

[Meg Rowley]

No correlation, although it's somewhat interesting that it is fairly consistently a slight positive correlation. So more range equals more diving.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Hmm.

[Meg Rowley]

And he says among players since 2013 with at least 600 innings at a position in a season, the correlations between defensive run save per inning and dive.

[Andrew]

Rate range from negative 0.14, that's at third base, to 0.19, that's at center field, which is the position Andrew Jones played with samples ranging from 240 to 370 player seasons. So those are very weak correlations. You know, sure, one is a perfect correlation. The two variables move in lock step, and zero is no correlation.

[Meg Rowley]

They're.

[Andrew]

They're completely unconnected. And this is like a 0.1 to 0.2 or negative 0.1 to 0.2 kind of correlation, which is very low. But it suggests, you know, the correlation is actually strongest for center fielders, that the better they are defensively, the more often they dive. And that is actually not the case for third baseman.

[Meg Rowley]

They're at the opposite end of the spectrum, which is kind of interesting because I could see how, you know, the quick reactions over there, like, maybe if you.

[Andrew]

If you get an extra step, like, there's just not a ton of time. And. And diving, I guess, slows your. Your momentum. And, you know, I could see a case for. For why that would make some sense. But Alex concluded the best I can.

[Meg Rowley]

Say in terms of the strength of the relationship is that outfielders have a stronger positive correlation between range and dive.

[Andrew]

Rate than infielders, where all outfield correlations are stronger positive than all infield correlations except shortstop.

[Meg Rowley]

So for Outfielders at least, and maybe center fielders, most. It does seem that the better you.

[Andrew]

Are defensively, the more often you dive. And you know, I don't know if.

[Meg Rowley]

That'S because of the diving, the diving makes you good, or it's just like.

[Andrew]

You have more balls that you could potentially dive to get because you could.

[Meg Rowley]

Reach so many in theory.

[Andrew]

I don't know.

[Meg Rowley]

But the point is, you know, it, it could still be true for, for Andrew Jones specifically.

[Andrew]

I, I don't know.

[Meg Rowley]

Maybe it is true that he didn't dive all that often and yeah, maybe, maybe that was a reflection of how.

[Andrew]

Good he was, at least sometimes. I'm sure on, on particular plays it was. But on the whole, I don't think that that's actually a great indication or.

[Meg Rowley]

It seems like the perfect way to.

[Andrew]

Illustrate how good he was. It's like he never had to dive.

[Meg Rowley]

But I, I don't think that that.

[Andrew]

Actually tracks that, that that specifically is, Is a good thing. Just like in the abstract, you know.

[Meg Rowley]

For him, maybe it was. I don't know.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I think that the more apt way to describe it would mean would maybe be had to dive. And I, I think it makes some amount of sense because center field selects for speed and if you're fast, if you're a fast guy and you maybe, for instance, have slow guys in the corners, maybe you dive because you feel the need or vulturing balls from the corners and you have the speed to get there, but you have to dive to be. To make the catch. Right. Like that strikes me as pretty consistent with the typical skill set of a center fielder. But yeah, some dives, yeah, a lot of dives. What are you doing out there? Like, if it's a lot of dives, then you might think to yourself, I bet your routes are kind of weird. I bet you're taking bad rep sometimes. Right. That would be my instinct. But I don't think that all dives are the result of bad routes. So.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah, and I wouldn't want someone to dive just purely for show.

[Andrew]

That would kind of be like the false hustle or eyewash or, you know, kind of like sprinting all out to try to beat a ground ball out when you have no chance to do it and you might increase your injury risk or something.

[Meg Rowley]

You know, it. Hannah Kaiser has, has written about, like.

[Andrew]

The toll it could take on you to dive and fall on the field constantly.

[Meg Rowley]

You know, you could get a bit.

[Andrew]

Banged up doing that. So if you don't have to dive, then don't. But sometimes I think it would benefit you and your team no matter how good you are at defense.

[Meg Rowley]

And in fact, the good defenders, they might dive even more often.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It's one of those things. Sorry, just very briefly, and then we should get to these transactions. But I find it to be an area where the gap between my understanding of my own body's limitations and a big leaguer's understanding of the limitations of his body is perhaps a chasm. Because these guys dive and they hit the ground hard and presumably sometimes get the wind knocked out of them and very often just get right back up again. And I would be like, I guess I live here now. How could I ever move again?

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

So in that respect, perhaps the most impressive part to me isn't the dive, but the getting back up, you know?

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah. Right.

[Andrew]

There's a Iraqi Balboa quote along those lines. You know, it's just, it's not how. How often you get knock. Knock down. It's. It's whether you get up again after. I didn't deliver that very well, but.

[Meg Rowley]

Then again, does Sylvester Stallone.

[Andrew]

So.

[Meg Rowley]

Okay, so welcome to those of you.

[Andrew]

Who skipped all of that banter and said, no, actually I'm only interested in transaction talk.

[Meg Rowley]

And you just hit the timestamp in your podcast player. That's an option too. But let's talk trades, including one for an NL east center fielder. I guess we should begin with the Mets, and then we can move to the team across town and then we.

[Andrew]

Can talk about Texas. So the Mets, now we, we. In a way, we anticipated this.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And Bellinger, it's, it's. We did it.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah. All of these transactions, not all of the specifics.

[Andrew]

Obviously, Bellinger, we had some sense that he might return, but the Mets needs.

[Meg Rowley]

You know, we, we foreshadowed the need.

[Andrew]

For these trades or the desire for these trades at least. So, you know, prescient as always. Effectively.

[Meg Rowley]

Well, yeah, but the Mets, they struck. They made two major trades. They acquired Luis Robert Jr. From the.

[Andrew]

White Sox, filling their hole in center field. And then they acquired Freddie Peralta.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah.

[Meg Rowley]

Top their rotation from Milwaukee.

[Andrew]

So these were two needs, especially the outfield need.

[Meg Rowley]

We talked about how poorly they projected in both left field and center last time. And that looks a little bit different.

[Andrew]

Now with Robert out there.

[Meg Rowley]

They were, they were one of the bottom teams. I cited the exact number last time. You know, they're 19th now, which is certainly better than they were in terms of projected center field production. It's interesting because Robert feels like a.

[Andrew]

Good get and a big get.

[Meg Rowley]

And I think he is.

[Andrew]

You know, it's a smart move and it's a good fit for this roster.

[Meg Rowley]

Robert is the 24th most valuable center fielder since the start of 2024 and.

[Andrew]

You know, doesn't project to be an elite center fielder this year either. And you know, that's because he's been sidelined a lot. He's had a bunch of injuries, so.

[Meg Rowley]

He'S lost playing time to those injuries. And also maybe those injuries have taken a toll on the performance. But, you know, this is a guy.

[Andrew]

Who, as was discussed on effectively Wild at the time, that anonymous scout quote about how he was maybe the best player in the world when he was still a prospect better than Mike Trout, we wondered.

[Meg Rowley]

And it turns out, no, not really. But when he came up for the.

[Andrew]

White Sox in 2021 and was in his age 23 season, he looked like a superstar. I mean, that year he had come up in 2020, of course, but in 2021, 68 games, 296 plate appearances, 150, 55 WRC plus, like he could do it all. He had speed, he had defense. He was a three plus win player in those 68 games.

[Meg Rowley]

And then 2022, 2023, continued to play at a high level when available. 2023, kind of the career year where.

[Andrew]

He put together the production and the availability. And then it's been downhill since then in terms of both availability and production.

[Meg Rowley]

And so this does sort of assume that he will return to his earlier.

[Andrew]

Form because, you know, if he plays the way he did for the White Sox the last couple seasons and as often as he did then it's not that big again.

[Meg Rowley]

It might still be better than what.

[Andrew]

They had, but it's. It's not a huge boost. But he's only 28 and he clearly has that kind of talent or did.

[Meg Rowley]

And it's not hard to envision some rebound or better health than him being.

[Andrew]

A productive player out there. And, and they just didn't have anything.

[Meg Rowley]

You know, it's like, okay, he might.

[Andrew]

Not be great, he might not be his old young self, but he will.

[Meg Rowley]

Almost certainly be better than Tyrone Taylor. You know, assuming he's healthy and playing, probably.

[Andrew]

And better than trusting Carson Benj to come up from AAA where he was.

[Meg Rowley]

Struggling and immediately hit the ground running. So I like the trade.

[Andrew]

It's a smart move for them.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I think it's a smart move. I think that ultimately they didn't give up very much. I mean, that isn't to say that there's nothing Here. But compared to what? I think if you had asked us two years ago what the return would be for Robert, we would have pegged it much higher than this. And so I think that it. It is a savvy kind of move, particularly given the sort of misshapen roster that they had that we noted last time. I do think it's reasonable to have some concerns about even what a fully healthy version of him looks like now after being dinged up for a while. But I also think that as long as the defense plays, I don't know that you really care how he hits. Right. Like, you. You have other boppers at the top. If you end up slotting this guy in ninth, like, whatever, you know, I just think that particularly with. With Soto there, you need. Hey, you need a guy who might be able to go dive for the ball. You know, maybe he's gonna have to go dive for the ball just to. And. And the folks who skip to the. This, they don't know what I'm talking about, but if they go back and listen to the first 20 minutes of the pod, I love how I say 20 minutes. Like, it wasn't like, 45, but.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah, given his injury history, I'd say stay on your feet.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah. But, yeah, try not to. But if one needed to. If one needed to, in theory, one could. So. And, you know, they also, his deal comes with a club option for 2027, so they can deal with as much of this as they want or sign up for another year. Right. Like, they have that, like, literal optionality in terms of what they do with him.

[Meg Rowley]

And in a year or two, maybe.

[Andrew]

Ben is ready or something else presents itself.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, they dealt from two positions where they arguably had real strength, and particularly given how far away Paulie was. And now they've backfilled the rotation like the big league rotation backfilled with Freddie Peralta. You know how you normally refer to.

[Meg Rowley]

Trading for front, I guess.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, back filling. But they had more infielders than they really knew what to do with. And Auna never really took the leap. Like, he had been sort of in and out of the top 100 at various points in his prospectum, but hadn't really established himself as, like, a dude at the big league level. Which isn't to say that he won't be one. And who knows, maybe with, you know, the kind of run he's likely to get in Chicago, he'll have an opportunity to prove. Prove he can, like, be a difference maker. But I'm. I'm skeptical that's true. I, I did see that Chicago says that they're going to try him in the outfield like that. That will be sort of the primary spot, so he'll get plenty of opportunity. But I think it's a meaningful upgrade for the Mets and it brings their roster into much better balance. So yeah, I like it.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Meg Rowley]

And it's, you know, 20 million is.

[Andrew]

Is what he's making. He had a team option for this season and next season, both 20 million with a 2 million doll. And these days, I mean, Hasan Kim got a $20 million deal coming off of injuries and, you know, inconsistent performance. That was before he hurt himself. But even then I was like, huh, 20 million for him.

[Meg Rowley]

That's what a player like that costs now. And so Luis Roberts seems like a.

[Andrew]

Perfectly fine deal at that rate and in this term. And you know, I guess for the White Sox, certainly you could look back and cry over spilt trade return and say, well, they could have sold higher on Robert and they could have really gotten a haul for him if they had dealt him a couple years instead of carrying him during a lot of losing over the past couple seasons. I, I don't know that you could.

[Meg Rowley]

Have anticipated the turn that his career has taken.

[Andrew]

Maybe you could have anticipated the turn the team took.

[Meg Rowley]

And there's something to be said for.

[Andrew]

Keeping some recognizable name brand player even when your team is terrible. Even though he turned out not to really be the highlight of those down years. But yeah, I'm sure that if they could do it over again, then you.

[Meg Rowley]

Know, they would have preferred to move him when they could have gotten much more in return. But it makes sense to move on.

[Andrew]

From him now probably and open up space for other players.

[Meg Rowley]

And I, I did say one of.

[Andrew]

Our, our last pods of last year when I was talking about stories we missed and I was talking about how Lenning Sosa had himself a solid season for the White Sox last year I mentioned that he was the longest tenured member of the White Sox and people pointed out that no, actually Luis Robert Jr. Predates him on the big league roster. Now it was true from a certain.

[Meg Rowley]

Point of view in that Lenny and Sosa was signed by the White Sox before Luis Robert was signed by the White Sox.

[Ben Lindbergh]

So he'd been in the org.

[Meg Rowley]

Yes, yes, exactly. But now I guess we can also say that he is the longest tenured member of the big league roster too, in case I'm. Unless I'm forgetting someone else, in which case I'm sorry for consistently over crediting Lenny and Sosa and slighting other players. But, you know, it was, it was just pre true. You know, it was not quite true when I said it exactly by the strict definition, but I sensed that it.

[Andrew]

Was about to be true and I was just getting ahead of things, I guess. So.

[Meg Rowley]

And, you know, I guess Acuna will.

[Andrew]

Have a, a better path to playing time than he would have had with the Mets.

[Meg Rowley]

Although not at shortstop, I suppose. You know, I have to update my.

[Andrew]

Mental model of Colson Montgomery because for.

[Meg Rowley]

Whatever reason, I just, I don't conceive of him as a shortstop, which he very much is. He is a shortstop, but I don't, I think of him as, as corner Colson. He just, he doesn't scan as a shortstop to me. I don't know if it's just like.

[Andrew]

He'S large, you know, he's a big fellow, but that doesn't, you know, shortstops are, are often large these days. I think it's more about the offensive.

[Meg Rowley]

Profile, maybe that he just like doesn't have the offensive profile of a shortstop, which is probably also a meaningless thing to say, but like, I don't know, the power and the all or nothing and the swing and miss in his game and everything. It just doesn't really read as a shortstop to me. But he very much is a shortstop and, and apparently a pretty good one. He grades out well there.

[Andrew]

The metrics like him, so he will continue to be that. But Acuna can slot in elsewhere in that middle infield, specifically second base. I suppose that would be the other.

[Meg Rowley]

Middle infield position, as people know.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, although they, they've said they want to want him in the outfield, at least to try. So.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah, and, and Robert, he hasn't actually lost a step, at least in terms of pure sprint speed.

[Andrew]

I don't know if, you know, he's lost anything when it comes to applied speed in the outfield, but his, his.

[Meg Rowley]

Sprint speed last season was essentially identical.

[Andrew]

To what it was in 2020. He's still like a 90th percentile sprint speed guy even with all the, the leg woes. So that hasn't actually slowed him down. So that, that bodes pretty well.

[Meg Rowley]

But, you know, I could see him being good again or at least good.

[Andrew]

Enough to be better than what the Mets had. And they then made an even higher profile move a little later this week by acquiring Freddy Peralta from the Brewers. And this was for prospects Jet Williams and Brandon Sproat.

[Meg Rowley]

So another infield and pitcher combination here, though Sproat has has been a big.

[Andrew]

Leaguer and, and arrived last year.

[Meg Rowley]

So I guess we can talk about.

[Andrew]

The Peralta side of things first and, and what this means for the Mets and everything. And namely, it means that they now.

[Meg Rowley]

Employ Freddie Peralta, who is a very good pitcher and improves their rotation.

[Andrew]

I know that's just a amazing, you know, groundbreaking take by me, but this does strengthen that group considerably.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah.

[Meg Rowley]

Because, yeah, you know, like, they had, they had some solid options there, but they were lacking a clear top of the rotation type. Unless, you know, you, you really think.

[Andrew]

That Nolan McLean could, could be that immediately, or you, you think maybe Senga.

[Meg Rowley]

Could have a big bounce back or something. But, but Freddie Peralta is about as.

[Andrew]

Close to a consistent sure thing as you can come by among pitchers these days.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, man, it's really good. I like it a lot. I like it, I like it for what it does for them right now, which is they get to have a Freddie Peralta in their rotation. And that sure seems good because, you know, he's, he's quite excellent. Even in years where he's been a little less effective than, than last year, he has been quite, quite good. And you know, you saw his 20, 24 sort of down for him, right? Like his year he was in like his 3, 6, 8, and he had a fip in the fours and then there was a real course correction. I will be interested to see sort of what they do with him from a repertoire perspective because he has made changes throughout the years, you know, sort of varying levels of dependence on his slider. And so I'm just, I'm curious what they're gonna do because we've seen him make pretty dramatic changes, right. Like he threw his slider like 21% in 2024 and only 9% last year. So clearly a guy who's, who in the face of struggle, wanted to. And struggle being a relative term here, obviously was like, well, I'll just, I'm just gonna throw that slider a lot less and prosper. So I'll be curious to see where they land on him from a, with him from a repertoire perspective. But I think that it, it gives them a guy who has been quite durable, who has been very good and is able to front that rotation, which has its obvious benefits in terms of what he brings. I also really like the, the sort of breathing room that this gives to some of their younger guys. I think that Nolan McLean is going to be a superlative big leaguer and is incredibly impressive. And also he has made eight big league starts and thrown 48 regular season innings and was going to be like their front of the rotation guy. And so having him be able to take on the number two spot instead, it gives them flexibility of some of their injured guys. Like, who knows what they're going to get out of Kodai Senga this year, but now they can kind of get whatever they get and it's, they don't have to, you know, push some of their other impressive prospects who have been good at the minor league level, but maybe need a little more seasoning. Like, maybe Jonah Tong just gets to cook a little more. That might not be a bad thing. Right. So I really like what it does for them. It's particularly good if they are able to work out some kind of an extension with him. The, the one knock you could have here is that they did just trade two top 100 guys and we'll talk about Sproton Williams in a second. They're not like, you know, they're not going to be at the very top of our top 100, put it that way, but they're two top 100 prospects. To your point, Sprout with big league experience, trading those two guys for one year of Peralta might seem a little heavy. But also, I think Freddie Peralta is about to see contract numbers he could have only dreamed of in Milwaukee for Minnesota extension perspective. So if they're able to get that done with him, then it's like, it's, it's surely a no brainer. I love, I love when GMs are like, I'm gonna go get my guys. You know, I just, I want my guys back. I'm gonna go get them. And that's what's David Stearns.

[Meg Rowley]

I missed you. Yeah, Freddie.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I missed you. Freddie, come on. Come on down. Right. And I bring that up not just to, to have a funny about David Stearns, who reportedly traded for Freddie Peralta literally on his wedding anniversary. So think about who you love more, I guess, but also to say that if part of how we end up grading this when it's all said and done, is their ability to retain Peralta beyond this year, you have to think that the existing relationship he has with Stearns might be useful in that project. So I like it a lot.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

If Jonah Tang keeps cooking, do you think it will be with his Canadian maple syrup that he applies to his.

[Meg Rowley]

Grilled cheese, which is another like, I.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Think that creative chefs deploy ingredients in places you wouldn't expect them. And if we can make all of our jokes about him be about maple syrup instead of tongs, which is so easy.

[Andrew]

Yes.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Then I'll be thrilled.

[Andrew]

I could have gone for the.

[Meg Rowley]

Do you think you'll keep cooking with tongs? But I didn't. No.

[Andrew]

I went for the callback to another story we missed. That we ultimately did not miss because.

[Meg Rowley]

We talked about it at the end of last year. Yeah, I think Peralta has maybe been, at least until this last season, a little underrated just because he kind of came up as the, the third wheel of that rotation.

[Andrew]

I mean, not third wheel, like he was still contributing, but he was the.

[Meg Rowley]

Third guy, the number three starter, and he was sort of overshadowed by Corbin.

[Andrew]

Burns and Brandon Woodruff. And then Woodruff got hurt and Burns got traded, and suddenly Peralta was the stalwarts, the lifetime Brewer, the guy who was fronting that rotation.

[Meg Rowley]

And then he had himself a fantastic season.

[Andrew]

Now, you know, it wasn't markedly different.

[Meg Rowley]

From past Peralta seasons. If you kind of look under the hood at the peripherals and everything, you know, it was a, it was a low BABIP year. It was one of those that'll happen sometimes. But, but he's really solid. And, you know, there are knocks on him. I mean, he gets a lot of strikeouts. He is not super efficient.

[Andrew]

You know, people have comped him to like, cease and, and, and Snell. He's not exactly that, but he does.

[Meg Rowley]

Throw a lot of pitches to get through the innings that he gets through. But really, like, what are we even.

[Andrew]

Comparing him to at this stage? Because if you think he's not super heavy workload guy, okay, but who is in this era? He is.

[Meg Rowley]

Over the past three seasons, he's 15th.

[Andrew]

In the majors in innings pitched. So there aren't that many guys who.

[Meg Rowley]

Have thrown more than he does or, you know, have combined going deeper into.

[Andrew]

Games with his availability. So he's gonna give you that and he's gonna give you good efficiency on a perning basis.

[Meg Rowley]

And yeah, like, I, I have no.

[Andrew]

No knocks on him, really.

[Meg Rowley]

He's exactly the type of guy you.

[Andrew]

Would want at the top of a rotation, and he makes that group look.

[Meg Rowley]

Mighty fine because then you don't have.

[Andrew]

To count on McLean just sustaining his late season performance.

[Meg Rowley]

You don't have to count on Sean Mania bouncing back from injury and being really good and Senga coming back and being what he was when he first.

[Andrew]

Came over and, And Tong being good and Clay Holmes holding up and David Peterson having a better season than he did last season.

[Meg Rowley]

Any or all of those things could happen.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Right.

[Meg Rowley]

But. But now they don't all need to.

[Andrew]

Happen for this to be a strong rotation.

[Meg Rowley]

And it still projects as sort of a middle of the pack rotation, but that, I think, has upside that other middle of the pack rotations don't.

[Andrew]

So I like what I'm seeing here. And, yeah, by the way, we didn't. I don't know if we buried the lead, but we buried Tobias Myers because the Mets also acquired him in this trade, which is.

[Meg Rowley]

Which is not nothing. You know, like, it's nothing. Yeah, that's. That's a solid addition, too. Like, just a good back of the rotation depth, slash, swing man who.

[Andrew]

Yeah, has been pretty darn good for the brewers over the past couple years. Like, you know, maybe the eras overstates how good he is, and maybe that's why the brewers were willing to. To get rid of him.

[Meg Rowley]

But really, like, I mean, he.

[Andrew]

He was sort of a godsend for them in 2024. He. He bailed them out big time and then had a reduced role last year. But still, definitely the type of guy that you want to have around to lengthen a staff. So.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah.

[Meg Rowley]

And he's only a couple seasons into his big league career, so a lot.

[Andrew]

Of control left for him at 27.

[Meg Rowley]

So.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah. You know, I don't think it was too high a price to pay. It's. It's one of those things where it's.

[Andrew]

Like, well, when they get Peralta, they don't really need Sproat, and when they get Biched and they do everything else that they did in the infield and Semian and everything else, then they kind of don't need Jet Williams, so they.

[Meg Rowley]

Kind of cut off the paths to playing time for those players.

[Andrew]

And so, in a sense, they're not.

[Meg Rowley]

Really missing much by giving them up now. Yeah.

[Andrew]

You know, will those two combine to produce more WAR for Milwaukee than Freddie.

[Meg Rowley]

Peralta does in this last season of team control for the Mets? Yeah, maybe. Probably.

[Andrew]

But that's not exactly the way that one has to grade these things.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Right. And I think the fact that that isn't how one has to grade these things is maybe a nice segue into talking about the Milwaukee side of this, because. Okay, let's talk about the guys first.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Jet Williams is like. I feel like I made this exact joke when we talked about Caleb Durbin, but I'm gonna make it again. Remember that part in the Shining where he's like, you've always been the caretaker. That's Sort of how I feel about Jett Williams. Like, I hope to one day love anything as much as the brewers love this kind of guy.

[Andrew]

Yeah, they. If they do not have a quota for diminutive middle infielders, they'll. They'll take them all.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Now, as Brendan noted when he wrote up the prospect side of this for us today, a little more pop in the bat than some of those guys who are up and down the brewers lineup already.

[Andrew]

Yes.

[Meg Rowley]

Although also, you know, sort of small and. And doesn't, like, hit the ball that hard.

[Andrew]

More of a. Just like, maximizing his power because he, you know, hits it out front and pulls it. That kind of guy. But. But yeah, not a ton of pop. But also, like.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah, I guess. Does pop apply to people who don't actually hit the ball that hard but do hit a fair amount of home runs?

[Ben Lindbergh]

It's a form of pop.

[Andrew]

It's applied pop.

[Meg Rowley]

It's not raw pop.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Applied pop. I like that. I like applied pop. And fitting for a guy whose first name is Jet. He has some speed to him, which is nice. An unsettled sort of defensive future. I encourage people to check out Brendan's post, but a guy who has done work sort of on the middle infield in center field is developing at both of those spots. Is that where he'll. He'll stick at the big league level? I don't know. Gives him some redundancy or back up with Joey Ortiz if the bat doesn't rebound there. But, you know, Jett Williams, he's a very brewers kind of guy, and he joins a lineup full. Other brewers kinds of guys. Not all of them, but a lot of them. Well, I guess they're all the brewers kind of guys, since they're on the brewers, but you know what I mean.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah, I am.

[Andrew]

I'm relieved that Jet is, in fact, speedy, because there have been some.

[Meg Rowley]

Some blazes who aren't actually blazing, and.

[Andrew]

It'S just kind of confusing. So, yeah, the nominative determinism works here.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Right. Especially since, you know, MLB refuses to lean into the obvious marijuana jokes with those blazes and then sprout like, you know, it's gonna. On the one hand, you know, I think we know some of the limitations here. Like, the four seamer's shape isn't great. He has so many pitches. I will be very curious to see what Milwaukee does with him. I think that the Mets have emerged as, like, a pretty good pitching dev organization over the last little bit here, but I think the brewers are better at it and certainly have A longer track record. Do they pare down the repertoire to try to get him to focus? Is he able to make gains with his command? Will people remember to say sproat instead of trying to say like sprout or something? Don't know. Will he regrow the mustache? I think the mustache was better. But like, you know, he's a, like a. Seems like a number two or three starting pitcher who. I have confidence that if anyone can maximize its Milwaukee. And I've said a bunch of nice things and now I'm going to let you say whatever you want to say and then I'm going to say some less nice things. But why don't you offer what. Whatever your thoughts are on these individual guys?

[Meg Rowley]

Well, one observation is that Jet Williams's given name is in fact Jet. That's not a nickname or something that's.

[Ben Lindbergh]

On his birth certificate. Is Jet as his first. Is it his first name or is it a middle name?

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Wow.

[Meg Rowley]

Jett Michael Williams. Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And now Jet Michael Williams Wings is.

[Andrew]

Playing in my head, which is always a pleasure.

[Meg Rowley]

But yeah, it's. You know, it's funny that you mentioned.

[Andrew]

Like the brewers being a good pitching.

[Meg Rowley]

Development team because the Mets, like, if.

[Andrew]

You go back a decade or so when they had DeGrom and Cindergard and Mats and Wheeler and all those guys coming up, that was the strength of theirs seemingly.

[Meg Rowley]

But that kind of reputation turns over.

[Andrew]

Quickly, I guess, because players leave or they get hurt or the personnel changes.

[Meg Rowley]

You know, it's a whole different regime, administration.

[Andrew]

So like, is there any continuity there?

[Meg Rowley]

Who knows?

[Andrew]

So those, you have to constantly update those reputations and I never know really how merited they are because it's like.

[Meg Rowley]

It could just be dependent on, well, this guy happened to work out and is that because of the team's development or would he have worked out anyway? And then it's sort of a small sample of players who have to pan out to lead to that team getting that reputation as good.

[Andrew]

And then by the time they get.

[Meg Rowley]

That reputation, often like people have been poached from their development staff or their front office.

[Andrew]

And so like, is it the process or is it the people? And the people aren't even there anymore anyway. It's hard to tell who's good at what on a team level. But yeah, I agree with what you said there. One other point about Peralta is that, so if you, if you look at him just like war wise over the past few years, he is, it depends, I guess, whether you give him credit for soft contact, how much credit you you give whether he's like elite or just merely very good because by Fangraph's WAR, he is the 23rd most valuable pitcher from 2023 through 2025, which is also quite good. But if you go by ra9 war just runs allowed based also available at fan graphs, then he is the 8th best and most valuable pitcher over that span. And, and that's quite different. And you know, he has a 265Babip over that span.

[Meg Rowley]

And he does induce softer contact.

[Andrew]

He tends to have 80th percentile or so exit speeds elicited from better. So he does get softer contact.

[Meg Rowley]

But also over that same span of.

[Andrew]

23 to 25, the brewers are tied with the Blue Jays for the best fielding run value in baseball. So that's a big part of it too. And in fact on on baseball savant, you can isolate that not just at the team level, but on the pitcher level and look at the defensive performance behind a particular pitcher. And only three pitchers over that span have a higher fielding run value behind them than Freddy Peralta has over that span. So his fielders collectively have been 22 runs above average. While he has been on the mound over the past few seasons, only Kevin Gosman, Merrill Kelly and Logan Webb have exceeded him. And you know that's going to be partly based on just workload too. But point is he's had good brewers defenders behind him and maybe the Mets defenders won't be quite as adept at and, and maybe the numbers will will take a little bit of a hit superficially because of that, even in in Citi Field, but but he's very good. So yes, that's that. Okay, you have critiques of the brewers and, and I might share them, but go ahead.

[Ben Lindbergh]

So I don't dislike these two players and we've already talked about how they are very Brewers, Jett Williams in particular, but spro sort of fitting a type of starter who Milwaukee tends to do a good job of like helping to optimize and maybe exceed expectations. And so I don't dislike it in a vacuum of those two guys, but I do wish that they had the latitude as an organization to not play on hard mode so much. You know, like. And it might feel a little uncharitable to sort of nitpick the organizational approach of the team that ended up having the best record in baseball last year.

[Andrew]

Yeah, seems to be working out for.

[Meg Rowley]

Them on that level.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah. And they were the number one seed in the nl, unsurprisingly, based on what I just Said.

[Andrew]

Yep.

[Ben Lindbergh]

But who played in the World Series, Ben. Right.

[Meg Rowley]

Like it was not the Brewers.

[Ben Lindbergh]

No, it was not the Brewers. And, and they have a lot of players who are very talented. I think the people who work for the club are super smart. I think that they help their guys really improve and play well. I also think that the fact that they go into every off season seemingly with the mandate that they offload almost anyone who has any sort of trade value and less than two years of team control just put. Puts them on their back foot constantly. You know, I understand that they are in a different sort of category of budget than the Dodgers. I'm not one of those people, pro labor though. I am. Who says that like every team can afford to spend the way the Dodgers do. That's not true. I think every team in baseball can probably afford to spend more than they do, but not every team can afford to spend the way the Dodgers do for a number of reasons that we've talked about, about before and we don't have to go into again. And so my expectation of Milwaukee is not, oh, well, you're going to sign Kyle Tucker, you're going to be in for Amber Valdez's market. It would be so funny if they signed for Amber after I said that. You know, you're going to, you're going to go get Cody Bellinger. Like, I understand they're not playing in that end of the free agent pool, but to be this penny pinching with their own dudes, particularly when you know Peralta has already signed an extension with them.

[Andrew]

Yep.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Like, forget about being able to afford the $8 million that he's due this year. And you know, my, my colleague Michael Bauman, I say that like our listeners have never heard of Bauman before. Was making this point on Blue sky. Like they can, they can afford that. And you know, they could probably afford another extension with him too. Now it takes two to tango on that. And maybe Pearls said, I'm, I'm ready to be done. I'm ready to test the waters and, and get more money. And maybe he'll maintain that tune. If that's his tune, maybe it's one he'll maintain in, in Queens. Who knows?

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah. And, and the first extension they signed.

[Andrew]

Him to that was early 2020 and it was five years, 15 and a half million.

[Meg Rowley]

You know, obviously he's, he's come up in the world since then and he's.

[Andrew]

Not sure he signing that sort of extension early in his career now.

[Meg Rowley]

So it would be a much bigger number.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It would be a much bigger number. But there's, you know, there. There have been productive contract conversations between these two sides before, is the point that I'm making.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And so, you know, I want more for the organization from a budgetary perspective than what they have, and I find it very frustrating. And I don't think that. That it's necessarily the thing that is specifically going to hold them back this year come playoff time. But you've conquered the early part of October. You've checked that box. And I wish that they had sort of permission from ownership to have greater ambition when it comes to how they put the roster together. And that isn't to say that they don't have good guys on their team. Right. And watch, this will be, you know, this will be the year that they go and, you know, make the World Series or win the World Series, and then what a fool I'll look like. You know, they'll. They'll. They'll put this up and they'll be like, this is our. Our bulletin board material. But they. They have signed one player to a major league contract this off season, and it's literally Akilah Badu, who is not guaranteed to make the roster, because I'm sure. I think that's a split contract right now. You know, they traded for Angel Zerpa, and they've made this trade, and they, you know, they have guys on the farm and, you know, you could say, well, hey, you know, they also brought back Brandon Woodruff. Okay, they did do that.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

But in terms of additions from outside the organization, it's literally a Cuba, too.

[Andrew]

Yes.

[Meg Rowley]

I was also sort of frustrated by.

[Andrew]

This trade conceptually, and I guess it's.

[Meg Rowley]

Kind of like what I was talking.

[Andrew]

About with the salary cap conversations before. In baseball, you don't have teams that are prohibited from acquiring someone or signing someone to a certain contract, but you do have teams that just are largely unwilling to. And maybe that amounts to the same thing, because in practice, they're just not going to do it.

[Meg Rowley]

And it is frustrating when it's a.

[Andrew]

Team like this now, It's.

[Meg Rowley]

It's frustrating. I've expressed some frustration with the Marlins this off season, trading Edward Cabrera and.

[Andrew]

Ryan Weathers and just continuing the treadmill of players like. Like getting good or starting to get into arbitration, and then the Marlins trade.

[Meg Rowley]

Them, and then it just.

[Andrew]

The churn never stops.

[Meg Rowley]

Now, it's one thing with the Marlins.

[Andrew]

Who are usually bad, and it's another thing with the brewers, who are usually good.

[Meg Rowley]

There is some commonality in that they're both run by ex raise executives. And this is the way that the Rays have historically operated. And for the most part, they've been pretty good, too, and they've punched above.

[Andrew]

Their weight, payroll wise.

[Meg Rowley]

But you do wish that they could.

[Andrew]

Just be weightier when it comes to the payroll.

[Meg Rowley]

And when the brewers have had this track record of success and making the playoffs and getting extra revenue from that and they're taking themselves out of the market, it's not that I expect them.

[Andrew]

To be signing Christian Yellich, size extensions.

[Meg Rowley]

Willy nilly and left and right, but.

[Andrew]

They didn't have to make this move. You know, this was not urgent. Right. It's like, I mean, 8 million, that's all he's making for, for this season. And anyone could afford that. There's tons of surplus value there. So I would like teams not to.

[Meg Rowley]

Want to make moves like this. I guess I would like this, the system in MLB to work such that.

[Andrew]

Teams would not feel incentivized or would not feel pressure or ownership would not.

[Meg Rowley]

Want to make moves like this because, yeah, you can make the case that.

[Andrew]

It will benefit the brewers long term, but it's hard to make the case that it benefits them them now or gives them a better chance to win the World Series in 2026. And right.

[Meg Rowley]

And this is the way they operate. And it's mostly served them well. And you could say they haven't been that active this off season because they had so much depth and so much development done already.

[Andrew]

And, you know, they had a whole wealth of talent. They basically rebuilt and retooled on the.

[Meg Rowley]

Fly without ever bottoming out. And it was really impressive. So, you know, they know what they're doing. And like there was a time in the middle of last summer where everyone was singing their praises and they're a model organization and. And yeah, there's a lot of merit to that. But this particular, they could still do all that stuff that they do and.

[Andrew]

Not make a trade like this. I think now, you know, like, they.

[Meg Rowley]

Did this with Corbin Burns, they did this with Devin Williams. Hard to say that they shouldn't have.

[Andrew]

In retrospect or that they would have been better just seeing how they've performed since then, how those players have performed since then.

[Meg Rowley]

And it is the old branch Ricky Maxim about trading someone a year too soon instead of a year too late. You don't hang on to someone like the White Sox did with Robert. And sure. And maybe they just develop someone else who takes their place.

[Andrew]

And it's like next man up.

[Meg Rowley]

And maybe you don't even notice the difference ultimately. So that moderates my position and how hard I'm coming down on them just.

[Andrew]

Because, you know, if you have the best record in baseball, then how much.

[Meg Rowley]

Can I fault you? But. But yeah, it is also just.

[Andrew]

Yeah, from a, like a fan spectator standpoint, you have someone who's been with your organization the whole career and has improved and taken on this prominent position in your rotation, and then, you know, it's just like kind of nickel and diming or you're constantly looking over the horizon at what comes next and your payroll picture for years down the road and having to sort of rob Peter to pay Paul like that.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah, it's.

[Andrew]

I don't love it.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I want to be careful to distinguish, you know, the brewers from the Pirates, right? Where, yeah, I believe that everyone in that organization, including the owner, wants the brewers to win and that they do have real strengths. Right. They have built the infrastructure and they have the personnel to punch above their payroll weight, and they are committed to doing that, you know, and there's a lot to be said for a lot of winning baseball and delivering a lot of winning baseball to your fans. Right. So I want to be measured in my criticism, and I think you're right that, like, they have a lot of guys on their roster who are really good big leaguers, but, like, they're also set to start Jake Bowers, right, Like, there are places on this team where you can upgrade and you can upgrade meaningfully, and they just don't have the. The permission to do that. And I find that frustrating in. In the same way that I, you know, when. When the Rays have been at their best, I have found it frustrating on the raise behalf, right, because it's like, what could you do? How far could you go if you are able to leverage all. All of this infrastructure and institutional knowledge and expertise with a middle of the road payroll? Right? Like, that's the thing. This isn't like a matter of. This isn't like when I get frustrated with Seattle for not spending more. And then you look and you're like, well, they have like a bang on Major league average payroll. This is. This is, you know, dipping below that. Now. Their payroll is the highest it's been in a little while, and they are ranking 19th, which I am surprised by, you know, so they're different from the Pirates in that regard, too. But I just think that at some point you need buy in from the very top level for that extra bit of ambition to manifest itself, because Everyone in the organization is, Is doing their part. Right. And this approach, I, I do think hamstrings you. Right. Because. And God, I'm sorry to bring everything back to the Dodgers, but just one more time. Right. You look at the way when we talked about the Diaz signing and we talked about the Tucker signing, they are at a point where they are like, what are the things that annoyed us in October? Let's sign guys so that that particular thing doesn't bug us anymore in theory. Right. If everything goes the way that we want it to, if everybody stays healthy, if everyone kind of plays the way expect them to, what were our October annoyances? And how do we throw money at them? And the brewers cannot say that they have done that. So that sucks. Right. And that doesn't mean that they can't draft and develop like homegrown hitters. And we've seen that they are, you know, they're making strides on the hitter dev side that I think kind of go un unnoticed based on how good their pitching dev is. But it's just you're, you're, you're attaching what it. What is that thing called with the ball and chain on it. But what's the actual thing? A manacle. Is that the word?

[Andrew]

A flail.

[Ben Lindbergh]

A flail. Is that a flail? Oh, boy. Delightful. Is that what that's called? It's not a manacle because a monocle is what you wear.

[Meg Rowley]

A manacle is like if it's. Yeah. If like a prisoner has the, the ball on the leg. Yeah, yeah. Flail is like a weapon that has.

[Andrew]

The ball on the chin.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Oh, yeah. No, I meant it as like a hindrance, not something you yield against. Right. Because they are hindering themselves from having something to wield.

[Andrew]

Right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

If they could.

[Andrew]

Yes.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Break the man they should.

[Andrew]

And then turn the manacle into a flail.

[Meg Rowley]

Yes, Right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Exactly. Right. So this is, this is. I'm so glad that we made this clarification. Not just because it's going to head off image those, although also for that reason. But I just think you don't get extra wins at the end of the year playing on hard mode. And it sure makes it more difficult to win a World Series or even go there, you know, And I, I do think that when you've had a World Series Alludia the whole time, you need to have a different sense of urgency as an organization, at least again at the, at the ownership level. And I do think there's an important distinction to draw there because like a lot of whip smart Folks over there doing their darndest. But it would be nice if they had an, it's like an extra 8 million and then what's it gonna cost? 6. And Peralta, you know, or even if he can't guess what you get Peralta.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah. Or if you can't, you get a draft pick. Yeah, you know it's, I agree with everything you said except for your denigration.

[Andrew]

Of Jake Bowers, my two time minor league drafty he can do.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I'm not saying he's bad, I'm just saying that, you know, you want.

[Andrew]

He is a two time minor league free agent draftee so that does speak to the caliber of the player. But yeah, he served me well last year. I was happy to see him get as much playing time as he did.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Sure. Yeah.

[Meg Rowley]

And yes. And you know this is, I think this was kind of a criticism of David Stearns for a while there that maybe he was still operating with this.

[Andrew]

Milwaukee mindset that he, he, he did not adapt or adjust the way that Andrew Friedman did after leaving Tampa Bay, the Rays and then goes to the Dodgers and figures out hey, look at this, I can do all these other things but also I can splurge and outspend everyone.

[Meg Rowley]

And Stearns, there were some criticisms despite the fact that he just signed Juan.

[Andrew]

Soto to a record contract a year ago, but that was fun.

[Meg Rowley]

But early this off season, as we noted, there were a lot of people.

[Andrew]

Who were upset and impatient with Sterns because the Mets spent much of the first part of the off season divesting and, and parting with players and then it wasn't clear what they would do to make up for that.

[Meg Rowley]

Well, ultimately he delivered. So I think this past week is.

[Andrew]

Kind of a vindication of Stearns playing the long game in this off season.

[Meg Rowley]

And it is a long off season and you know, like the books aren't closed until the season starts and yeah, a lot of Mets left or were shipped out or departed for various reasons.

[Andrew]

But he managed to fill those holes.

[Meg Rowley]

And probably improve the roster on the whole.

[Andrew]

And maybe he didn't do it in the most, I don't know, elegant or efficient way, but he doesn't have to care about that that much anymore because.

[Meg Rowley]

He'S, he's now the Mets pobo. You know, he's not running the brewers. He doesn't have to win the dollars per war championship.

[Andrew]

He's trying to win the championship championship. Not that the brewers aren't too, but Stearns can afford to pay a premium and you know, import A bunch of players and not have to think about the long term as much.

[Meg Rowley]

And the players he signed, a lot.

[Andrew]

Of them have like opt outs or their contracts are expiring soon. So it's not as if he's really locked the Mets into a, a long.

[Meg Rowley]

Term anything with some of these big ticket items that he has delivered.

[Andrew]

But this speaks to the difference in the way the teams operate and he has I think adapted his, his, his tactics accordingly, which makes some sense.

[Meg Rowley]

And I do think that the Mets.

[Andrew]

Are better than they were last year. There's been a whole lot of going and coming and now I think they stack up better than they did entering last year. At the end of last year, even though some of the individual moves or the sequencing of them was kind of confusing at times.

[Meg Rowley]

I would think I'd like to stat.

[Andrew]

Blast this at some point, but I would think that this is an unusual.

[Meg Rowley]

Amount of turnover for a team year.

[Andrew]

Over year that was already decent. You know, they had a winning record.

[Meg Rowley]

Last year and is still good and probably better going into this year I think.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Right. They're not in a tear down.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah.

[Andrew]

Like there's precedent if you know teams in fire sales situations like the 1914-15 A's or the 97-98 Marlins or something. But for a team that was already decent and now is probably better to undergo this kind of remodel, this makeover in a single off season I think is probably unusual, anomalous. So I hope to have some stats on that at some point. That takes us to the team on the other side of town that I think we will have a lot less to say about because the Yankees are.

[Meg Rowley]

The polar opposite approach. They, they make for really a study in contrast this off season because the Mets have turned over much of their.

[Andrew]

Roster and the Yankees are just running it back.

[Meg Rowley]

You know, they've, they've barely made any additions at all but, but they did.

[Andrew]

Pretty crucially end up resigning Cody Bellinger. It's a five year 162 and a half million dollar deal. They're opt outs after the second and.

[Meg Rowley]

Third seasons of the deal.

[Andrew]

There's a $20 million signing bonus, there's.

[Meg Rowley]

A full no trade clause.

[Andrew]

But Belly is back and so is.

[Meg Rowley]

Just about everyone else on this team. So that makes for kind of a boring off season because it feels sort of like table stakes. And you know, free agent is a free agent.

[Andrew]

Whether you're signing or resigning.

[Meg Rowley]

You still have to convince that that.

[Andrew]

Guy to come back and pay the player and everything. But it, it sort of feels like you do a bunch of stuff and then you end up where you were.

[Meg Rowley]

The previous season and when the off season started.

[Andrew]

And so it's a little less exciting, I guess.

[Meg Rowley]

And the Bellinger signing is, you know, not super exciting either.

[Andrew]

But I think it was an important one for the Yankees certainly when it came to placating appeasing the fan base, having seen the Yankees sit on their hands for much of the off season. But yeah, you look at almost all the moves they made with the exception of trading for Weathers, and it's, it's basically just bringing guys back.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, yeah, but, but as I said on our very, on our last episode, had to do it, you know, the, it would have been a disaster of an off season. I don't know why I suddenly started to sound like Jimmy Stewart then. Excuse me? I don't know. Like it's so funny. We know exactly how it'll play. Right. Like, we've seen Bellinger hitting Yankee Stadium. Goes pretty well.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I think that he was sort of uniquely well suited to come back. I, I agree with, with Ben Clemens analysis that I think that they, as, as a team, they being Bellinger and Boris did, did better here than you might have expected. Like, there's clearly a premium being paid over a purely dollars per hour calculation because I think they were like, hey, we got to get this done. And by we, I mean you got to get this done, buddy. You got to do it, Brian. Because if you don't.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah. Although by the time he actually signed.

[Andrew]

I guess a lot of the, the.

[Meg Rowley]

Likely landing spots for Bellinger had been filled in.

[Ben Lindbergh]

He would have ended up a Dodger again somehow.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah. Including, including, including the Mets who we identified last time would have been a.

[Andrew]

Logical spot for Bellinger. But then they traded for Robert. Not that they couldn't have also signed.

[Meg Rowley]

Bellinger to play left, I guess, but.

[Andrew]

That probably wasn't going to happen.

[Ben Lindbergh]

That's probably wasn't going to happen. But it was such a clean fit. His positional versatility is so useful to them. His bat plays so well there. You know, they, they need to bolster the group around Judge. Right. You can't, you can't waste even a single year of Aaron Judge. Right. Because at a certain point you're going to be like, oh my God, he's, he's 37. Right. He's. He's almost 34. So you know, you need to have a really good group there. I think that defense has been something that has plagued this team at Points. So having Bellinger around is like a solid defense under. Although the position he's the very best at, he would be wasted on and Ben Rice plays there anyway. But yeah, I think it made a tremendous amount of sense. I also think that I agree with Ben's assessment. Other Ben's assessment that for, for all the purported flexibility that the opt outs offer and they do have value, it's probably more useful to think of this as a true sort of five year deal with like a couple of little escape hatches. If he goes like super, super nova. But by the time he is into the first year, he can opt out. He will be going into his age 32 season. Right. So it's just, you know, he's going to start to age into a point where it's like, like opting out is a dicier proposition for him. That assumes that he has played a relatively full season in 2027 to bolster an opt out decision. Right. Which, who knows. So there's that. But yeah, it just, it just makes, it just makes too much sense. You know, it just make too much sense not to, to do.

[Meg Rowley]

It is very different from the first time they acquired Bellinger, which was more.

[Andrew]

Of a, a salary dump and a short term arrangement. And so this time obviously they're, they're not kind of getting him on the cheap like that.

[Meg Rowley]

But then again, last year he was coming off a pretty meh season for.

[Andrew]

The Cubs in 2024. Yeah. And in light of all the ups.

[Meg Rowley]

And downs, there was still some question.

[Andrew]

About how good he would be.

[Meg Rowley]

And, and now you've seen it in practice and he actually had his best.

[Andrew]

Season by WAR since his MVP year. So you feel a little bit more confident about the production that you're getting here.

[Meg Rowley]

You could also say that, you know, they did have a player at least nominally at every position that Bellinger plays.

[Andrew]

Like if they hadn't signed Bellinger for whatever reason, then they would have gone into the season with Ben Rice at first and Trent Grisham at center and.

[Meg Rowley]

Judge in right and Stanton dhing and Dominguez out there and left, I guess, you know, so like there would have been someone who, who could have slotted in without Bellinger.

[Andrew]

And so you could even say, well, this creates kind of a roster logjam. And I guess in theory it does. But his versatility, his flexibility, like he.

[Meg Rowley]

Can not only play all the outfield spots in first base, but he can play them pretty well.

[Andrew]

And you know he's gonna get time.

[Meg Rowley]

Whether it's because Stanton gets Hurt, inevitably. And that frees up the DH spot.

[Andrew]

Or maybe, you know, Ben Rice continues.

[Meg Rowley]

To do some catching from time to.

[Andrew]

Time and you give other guys a.

[Meg Rowley]

Day now and then and other people get hurt. Like you'll, you'll have room for Cody.

[Andrew]

Bellinger one way or another and that.

[Meg Rowley]

Creates some, some depth and some roster.

[Andrew]

Redundancy and some safety nets and that's good.

[Meg Rowley]

It does make their lineup or, or.

[Andrew]

Continue to make their lineup extremely left handed. You know, it, it leans all the.

[Meg Rowley]

Way to the left with the exception, a couple big exceptions, you know, physically.

[Andrew]

Large exceptions in Aaron Jud and Stanton and I guess Jose Caballero as well.

[Ben Lindbergh]

But although Bellinger's been pretty platoon neutral.

[Andrew]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

In his career.

[Meg Rowley]

And if you want to, if you're.

[Andrew]

Leaning one way or the other in, in Yankee Stadium, it probably makes sense to, to have a bunch of Port Siders.

[Meg Rowley]

And there was even criticism of the Yankees in prior seasons that like they.

[Andrew]

Had abandoned their identity for some reason as a team that had a lot of lefty sluggers in Yankee Stadium and they had forgotten gotten that. Well, they have compensated for that now, I suppose. And I guess my main takeaway is just like what a long, strange trip it's been for Bellinger, a career man.

[Ben Lindbergh]

What a weird little career he's had.

[Meg Rowley]

He's so 30 and he's had, I know, so many highs and so many lows.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It's like so many highs.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah, well, I refer not to his appearance, which may or may not that correlates to.

[Ben Lindbergh]

We have no idea.

[Meg Rowley]

But no, but yeah, he has, he has high face, resting high face, but resting high but, but like if you could look at I don't know him.

[Andrew]

In 2018 or something and then freeze frame that and then show someone his 2025 season, they might say, yeah, okay.

[Meg Rowley]

That, that is more or less consistent with what early career Cody Bounder has.

[Andrew]

Led us to believe. You know, good to see that he.

[Meg Rowley]

Has kept it up all this time and has not deviated from the pattern of the first couple seasons. But he had the expectation raising season.

[Andrew]

Of 2019 when he was the MVP and he had 47 dingers and all the rest of it. And then that looks like an outlier in retrospect.

[Meg Rowley]

But then of course after that he never has come close to that high.

[Andrew]

Again and he had the extremely low, just the bottoming out the nadir of 2021 and 2022.

[Meg Rowley]

And now in retrospect that looks like an exception to that period because he had all sorts of injuries during those years and then maybe the injuries led to mechanical difficulties and everything. So. Right. I don't like, I guess who he is is more like 2018 or 2025 Bellinger than 2019 Bellinger or 2021 Bellinger. But he, he's been all of those Bellingers in like a fairly short span of time and it's just been so hard to, to pin down exactly what.

[Andrew]

Kind of player he would be in any given season or long term.

[Meg Rowley]

So good for him, I guess that he, you know, after having been non tendered by the Dodgers, you can envision a scenario where, where he stays with the Dodgers and he, he writes himself and he has been good for them. They would never have had to sign Kyle Tucker because they just signed Cody Bellinger long term and they've had him this entire time.

[Andrew]

But yeah, to go from getting non tendered by the team that you had won an MVP award with just a few years earlier to now getting $162 million deal, that's, it's quite a rebound.

[Meg Rowley]

Quite a salvaging of the career trajectory.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It's so amazing because I remember before he got non tendered, we were talking about it and I was like, I think Cody Bellinger might be a non tender candidate. And we were like, no. And then we were like, I think he is. And then he was. And we were like, wow, it's just a profoundly strange career trajectory. And you do have to wonder like if his home run celebration is different, is he making $300 million on a contract? You know what I mean? Like so much of his situation seemed to have been derailed by that one dumb leap in 2020 where they, and guys still do that. That shocks me. People should look at Cody Bellinger's career and be like, I, you know, I know it worked out for him, but this was, this was dicey, remember, because he jumped up and like whacked his and then it was all downhill from there for a while and then it was uphill and then down again and then uphill again, you know?

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah, yeah. When it's all said and done, I, I wonder how his career will shake out and how we were evaluated in.

[Andrew]

Retrospect, just with perfect hindsight about the player he turned out to be. But yeah, it's just like his, his.

[Meg Rowley]

Floor and his ceiling, they've just constantly been rising and sinking.

[Ben Lindbergh]

For real.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Meg Rowley]

But you know, he didn't get the seven year deal I suppose he was seeking, but did quite well for himself.

[Andrew]

And has opportunity to, to reenter the market if he continues to play well and wants to. And, and, you know, I think I.

[Meg Rowley]

Am left wondering what will befall Jason Dominguez and how the Yankees envision his role.

[Andrew]

And, and they should probably just trade.

[Meg Rowley]

Him at this point.

[Andrew]

I mean, maybe they want him as a. A fallback option in case of injuries, but it would probably be best for.

[Meg Rowley]

Him to go somewhere, you know, change.

[Ben Lindbergh]

The scenery for him.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Get locked into a particular position. I'm just, I'm confused by his whole.

[Meg Rowley]

I mean, he seems so promising, both as a prospect and when he came up, and then like, he was a center fielder throughout his, his time as a prospect, and now he's been a.

[Andrew]

Negative 10 defender in left field in about 900 career innings. That flummoxes me. I get that. Like, it was a new position. And okay, there might be a bit.

[Meg Rowley]

Of an adjustment period, but if you could play center before. And I know he had surgery and.

[Andrew]

Everything, but to go from being able.

[Meg Rowley]

To play center field somewhat competently to.

[Andrew]

Being like a way below average left fielder, just really weird. I wonder if there are other cases of someone who, like, really could play.

[Meg Rowley]

Center field but couldn't play left for whatever reason, like, just incapacitated by that angle. I don't know if he needs more reps or whether he's just slipped out there. You know, not, not physically, like, actually slipped, though that has happened sometimes, too, but in terms of his potential and talent. So, yeah, I, I hope that he.

[Andrew]

Gets to show what he can do somewhere at some point because he's. He's pretty blocked now. Yeah, I do, actually.

[Meg Rowley]

I wonder whether the Yankees are happy that they extended the qualifying offer to. To Trent Grisham because that did kind of lock them into a particular path this off season.

[Andrew]

And, And I, I guess they kind of had to. It's this weird thing where, like, by extending the qualifying offer to him, they.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Like, if they had almost assured he'd take it.

[Andrew]

Yeah. But if they hadn't extended the qualifying offer to him, then he probably would.

[Meg Rowley]

Have gotten a good deal because he wouldn't have had the draft pick compensation attached. It was like he's in.

[Andrew]

In that sort of bubble where probably the qualifying offer would have hampered his market and he probably concluded as much. But if they hadn't extended it and.

[Meg Rowley]

He had left, then maybe someone would.

[Andrew]

Assign him to a deal that might have made it seem like they should.

[Meg Rowley]

Have offered him a qualifying offer. But, yeah, that kind of, you know.

[Andrew]

Him coming off a big year and perhaps a career year, maybe. I don't know whether they expect him to repeat that or whether they're happy that he, that he stayed or what. But anyway, it's, it's a little bit.

[Meg Rowley]

Of a log jam, but it will.

[Andrew]

Work out one way or another.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, I, I think that they kind of needed to do it and I know that his, you know, his defensive metrics and center aren't what they used to be, but I think that he's a more reliable, everyday option at the position than Bellinger is. Although Bellinger can, can definitely spot and center. And that's part of the appeal for them is they have this redundancy and can kind of mix and match their lineup and not have to worry about a defensive downgrade depending on where they want to slot Bellinger in. But I think they kind of had to do it. I think you want him there, him being Grisham every day more than you want Belly there. Does he go by Belly? Do you think he likes Belly as a nickname? Belly?

[Meg Rowley]

He's, he's okay with it as far as I know. But yeah. And I think that the Yankees boring off season makes some sense. You know, it's a little deflating because.

[Andrew]

You want to see new guys coming in, but.

[Meg Rowley]

But it makes some sense because they had a higher baseline than the Mets.

[Andrew]

Did certainly after their, you know, collapse last season.

[Meg Rowley]

The Yankees had the second best run differential in the game last year and.

[Andrew]

The best base runs record wild. And they, you know, by record ended up tied atop the AL east and then. And lost the division title on the tiebreaker.

[Meg Rowley]

And, you know, all the other teams are good and maybe got better aside from the race, I suppose. So it's going to be a tough competition.

[Andrew]

But I get why they saw what they had and thought, well, given what we had and given what was out.

[Meg Rowley]

There in this somewhat weak free agent.

[Andrew]

Market, what was it that we could have done? And you know, they could have gotten Peralta or something. They certainly talked about getting Peralta too. They ended up getting Ryan Weather, but not that many free agent fits for their roster that would have made them that much better.

[Meg Rowley]

And you look at the projected team WAR according to fangraphs, and this doesn't.

[Andrew]

Take into account schedule, but they are.

[Meg Rowley]

Second only to the Dodgers, a somewhat.

[Andrew]

Distant second to the Dodgers and projected team war, but a hair ahead of.

[Meg Rowley]

The Mets, who have done all of.

[Andrew]

This stuff and have brought in new players and have ended up being basically equivalent in terms of projected talent on the roster.

[Ben Lindbergh]

So, yeah, they're, they're definitely not there. And I, I just got done saying you can't waste a single season a judge. And I think that's right. I do think that when the time comes for the Yankees to retool, quote, unquote, it's going to be pretty painful. You know, I think they could be. Yeah, I think they're going to be. And, and they should not entertain that now. Right. This is a good, this is a good ball club. You know, they have good players.

[Andrew]

You're getting Garrett Cole back.

[Ben Lindbergh]

In theory, they should have championship ambitions befitting the roster that they have. So I don't think that they should start shipping guys out or anything, but when the time comes for them to do that, and it's gonna take a while for them to, to rebuild, absent like pretty serious spending on the part of ownership because it is an old group and the guys who are near big league ready in the mangers are like, like volatile. Say. I don't mean like it personally, I have no idea on that score. But like you, you know, you find someone who knows exactly what like Spencer Jones is going to do and then you found someone who's lying. But you know, he could go supernova, he could bust just as profoundly. So I think it's going to be a bit. But hopefully it'll be a bit before they have to entertain that, you know.

[Meg Rowley]

Okay. Well, it turns out the, the opportunity cost.

[Andrew]

The downside of backloading our banter about.

[Meg Rowley]

Transactions is that we can't actually talk about the MacKenzie Gore this being a two hour plus episode. So. So we will save that for next time, which is fine because it's a long off season and we will get to it. Just like David Stearns got to the transactions that he made. We will get to the transaction that.

[Andrew]

The Texas Rangers and Washington Nationals made and give that its due and do justice to that significant trade rather than squeezing it in at the end here.

[Meg Rowley]

And you know, with, with that move, it's, it's really just. Frer is the last top 10 free agent Domino to fall. All the obvious big pitcher trade candidates.

[Andrew]

Have now been dealt.

[Meg Rowley]

So it's just, you know, framber pick a team and, and we'll, we'll call.

[Andrew]

It an off season for the most.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Part and there are a couple more guys who need to sign, but yeah.

[Andrew]

There'S a set there.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah, Orioles just, you know, your former Astros folks running that to just go get Fromer.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Just go do it.

[Andrew]

We'll just go call it a winter.

[Meg Rowley]

All right. Well, that was more than a New York minute on the New York teams.

[Andrew]

We will have some McKenzie minutes next time.

[Meg Rowley]

Couple quick follow ups we have on occasion touched on MLB players political leanings in the aggregate.

[Andrew]

We have certainly received many email questions about that topic, but there hasn't been.

[Meg Rowley]

Much good data on that and some was supplied just this past week in.

[Andrew]

A piece published by Vote Hub and authored by Peter Lutz, who is a political science student at GWU and who.

[Meg Rowley]

Has scoured public public voter registration information for players in five leagues mlb, the.

[Andrew]

NHL, the NFL, the NBA, and the wnba. And it's not comprehensive. The methodology section says that they were.

[Meg Rowley]

Able to use publicly accessible voter file data from 24 states and the District of Columbia, so this covered only about.

[Andrew]

40% of eligible players.

[Meg Rowley]

Because some big states like California and Texas don't make this information publicly accessible.

[Andrew]

This was for athletes who were active in 2024. There's not that much to say about.

[Meg Rowley]

It because the findings weren't especially surprising.

[Andrew]

If you have followed these sports, you'll.

[Meg Rowley]

Be shocked to learn that the WNBA player pool is skewed much more toward Democratic voters, whereas Major League Baseball is.

[Andrew]

Skewed much more toward Republican voters.

[Meg Rowley]

Of these five leagues, MLB had the highest percentage of Republican registered voters and the second lowest percentage of Democratic registered.

[Andrew]

Voters after the NHL.

[Meg Rowley]

Again, nothing shocking given the demographic makeup.

[Andrew]

Of these leagues where these players tend to come from. And they estimate that only about 75% of the league is eligible to vote. Lots of international players, non US Citizens.

[Meg Rowley]

Of course, so it's not perfect, but.

[Andrew]

It'S probably directionally right. I don't know why it would be especially skewed by the composition of states.

[Meg Rowley]

Here, but in terms of the right.

[Andrew]

Left lean of these various leagues from more left to more right, it goes wnba, NBA, NFL, NHL, mlb. They don't have the data for the.

[Meg Rowley]

PGA Tour, but that might beat even.

[Andrew]

Baseball when it comes to the right leaning composition of the player population.

[Meg Rowley]

Anyway, I'll link to it, but I always appreciate when someone takes a data.

[Andrew]

Based approach to a tricky problem, even if the methods are imperfect and even if the results largely confirm our pre existing understanding.

[Meg Rowley]

Also, one more email about coaches who unretired to become active players.

[Andrew]

Again, this is from listener Eric Enders.

[Meg Rowley]

Who says I'm a little late on the coaches unretiring topic, but I have one more example for you that I believe believe is a very notable one. In August 1940, the Reds, who were coasting to the pennant, lost both of their catchers. Hall of Famer Ernie Lombardi sprained his ankle while backup catcher Willard Hirshberger sadly died by suicide in his hotel room.

[Andrew]

During a road trip in Boston. One of the team's coaches, Jimmy Wilson.

[Meg Rowley]

Had spent 17 seasons as a big league catcher before retiring a couple years earlier. The 40 year old Wilson was activated on August 16th and became Cincinnati's regular catcher. During the World Series against against Detroit, Wilson batted.353 and was widely hailed in.

[Andrew]

The press as the MVP of the.

[Meg Rowley]

Series long before such an award actually existed. He never played in the major leagues again. Shortly after the Reds defeated the Tigers four games to three, Wilson accepted an offer to become manager of the Cubs.

[Andrew]

The last few games of his career were by far the most notable ones.

[Meg Rowley]

And much of that info came, Eric noted, from a book he wrote a.

[Andrew]

Few years ago called the Fall Classic.

[Meg Rowley]

Finally, email from listener Taylor in Meg's rant on episode 2429 regarding guys sitting in cars talking. This was was specifically on the show Foul Territory. She failed to mention the originator of this May I point you to the first episode of a podcast called Effectively Wild. In this episode, Sam Miller sits in his Honda Fit and doesn't ever say why. He offers no explanation of why he wants to or has to sit in a car to talk ball.

[Andrew]

I have no idea when all this.

[Meg Rowley]

Other car sitting content started, but in.

[Andrew]

My mind Sam Miller is patient zero.

[Meg Rowley]

It's true, Sam did often record in his car in the early days of a film. Effectively Wild 4 improves sound quality. It's a comfy, private, semi soundproof space and if that's why other players are going on shows from their cars, that's understandable.

[Andrew]

Maybe like Sam at the time, they have a kid, the house could be.

[Meg Rowley]

Noisy so you sit in your car. The difference is of course that Sam.

[Andrew]

Was not on video in those appearances, so you couldn't see him sitting in his car.

[Meg Rowley]

An important distinction. You could sometimes hear crickets chirping in.

[Andrew]

The background, though that was pleasant.

[Meg Rowley]

And when someone made a bad joke or we had an awkward pause, we already had an authentic cricket sound effect.

[Andrew]

Playing at all times.

[Meg Rowley]

You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com effectively wild and signing up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going.

[Andrew]

Help us stay ad free and get.

[Meg Rowley]

Yourself access to some perks, as have the following five listeners, Sean Techer, Danny, Francisco Dominguez, Janet Gardner and Allison.

[Andrew]

Thanks to all of you, Patreon perks.

[Meg Rowley]

Include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, monthly bonus episodes, playoff live streams prioritized email answers, personalized.

[Andrew]

Messages, shout outs at the end of.

[Meg Rowley]

Episodes, potential podcast appearances, discounts on merch and ad, free fangraphs memberships, and so much more.

[Andrew]

Check out all the [e-mail] effectivelywild if.

[Meg Rowley]

You are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. If not, you can contact us via email. Send your questions, comments, intro and outro themes to podcastangraphts.com you can rate, review and subscribe to Effectively Wild on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music and other podcast platforms. You can join our facebook [e-mail] group effectively wild. You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit @r effectivelywild and you can check the show notes in the podcast, posted fan graphs or the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories.

[Andrew]

And stats we cited today.

[Meg Rowley]

Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We'll be back with one more episode before the end of the week with Mackenzie Gore, Trade Talk and I hope, a couple of cool guests.

[Andrew]

Which means we will talk to you soon.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It's Effectively wild and it's wildly effective.

[Meg Rowley]

At putting baseball in perfect perspective. Impressively smart and impeccably styled, it's the wildly effective Effectively Wild spin right along Shango. You might hear something before.