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Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
Effectively Wild Episode 2452: Season Preview Series: Braves and White Sox
02:23:52
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- [00:01]
A
If baseball were different, how different would it be? And if this thought haunts your dreams, well, stick around and see what Ben and Meg have to say. Philosophically and pedantically, it's effectively wild.
- [00:24]
B
Effectively wild. Hello and welcome to episode 2452 of Effectively Wild a Fan Grasp Baseball Podcast podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Riley of Fan Graphs and I'm joined by Ben Lindbergh of the Ringer. Ben, how are you doing?
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A
Great. We are almost at the end of this odyssey. It's our second to last preview pod.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Talking about the Atlanta braves with Grant McCauley and then we'll be talking about the White Sox with James Fegan of fangraphs and also socks Machine. So that'll be fun. But just a bit of banter before we get there. I'm quite enjoying this Braden Ward spring training story. This stolen base thief. Have you seen that? Braden Ward has set a record with. With an asterisk, with a caveat, which is that spring training records go back 20 years. Basically before that, no one knows what anyone accomplished in spring training. I guess the records haven't really been digitized reliably. So now it's just kind of, you know, MLB has spring training stats back to 2006 and minor league stats to the same time and that's very accessible. And so that just kind of gets treated as well. That's the limits of our knowledge. Beyond that there be dragons. But he has the most stolen bases in a single spring training on record. I suppose we can say he has set the record for spring training stolen bases and he celebrated in style because he was encouraged by his teammates. If he did this to. To pull a Rickey Henderson and grab the bag, rip the bag out of the earth and brandish it. Just like Ricky did when he stole his 939th base and. And claimed the bag as his own. Braden Ward of the Red Sox, at least for the moment, he did the same when he set this spring training stolen base record. So this is just a fun little story. Cuz often when we talk about sort of fluky spring training performances or remember when that guy did? And then this actual season started and he didn't do anything else. Usually it's about power. It's someone just goes off and hits a bunch of tanks in spring training. But I don't really remember the equivalent of that for stolen bases. So he has done it. He stole his 17th base. Wow. On Thursday. And that set that record. And that's kind of fun. I Like it?
- [02:55]
B
Yeah, it's fun. It's also, I understand they're probably still spring training aspects of this. It's not like it's nothing but, you know, when you, you can steal a base. You can steal a base, right? It's like hitting the ball hard. Like you, you've demonstrated a capacity for an important skill. Whether you're able to keep doing it, whether you get on base enough for it to matter. There are all kinds of things. It's not enough, we know it's not enough to just be able to do that, but also something to be able to do that. It's something pretty cool and potentially important, you know, profile defining for some.
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A
And he has demonstrated that skill in the minors and at AAA. And he has over the past five seasons, his five minor league seasons, he has swiped 211 bags and been caught only 30 times. And last year with the Rockies, he stole 57 bags in AAA and double A and was caught only seven times. So he, he's a speedster and he's got good efficiency, good success rate. And yeah, he's putting himself on the radar. It's not entirely clear that he will even make the opening day roster despite all these heroics. Which is why, hey, you know, celebrate while you can. Have your Ricky in spring training moment. That's, that's great. Cause this could possibly be the peak for you. He's, he's 27. Like, he still has some time, but you know, when your game is speed based, you want to make it sooner rather than later, so. But he has maybe put himself on the radar to be. I don't, I don't know if he could be kind of like a late season call up. Maybe you need just a designated runner type. You need a pinch runner for the playoffs or something. Maybe he has made himself a candidate for that potentially. And regardless, you know, he has starred in spring training because he had an opportunity, opportunity knocked because the whole Red Sox outfield was in the WBC basically this spring. And so he got to get some playing time. And yeah, he has made the most of it. And he, you know, he has, he's kind of been tearing it up, not just on the bases, but like at the plate too. Obviously to steal that many bases, as you noted, you have to actually get on base a bunch. And he, he has, he has almost a.500 OBP and it's 34 at bats. He, he's also walked four times. He has a weird line. It's 382, 488 412. So the 488 on base and the 412 slug. So he has 13 hits and all but one of them singles. He has one double. That's the lone extra base hit. So that's what you're getting with Braden Ward. But, you know, he's given himself some folk hero potential here. Even if he goes down to Worcester or something, maybe people enjoy him there. It's always nice to have a speed demon around. Yeah. And everyone encouraged him. Yeah.
- [05:57]
B
Yeah. It's a, it's a crowded situation in Boston, as you know, like not, not exactly an easy outfield to break into. Some talented big leaguers might get dealt out of that group at some point this year just because they don't have a way to get everybody in the lineup. But, you know, it could be worse.
- [06:17]
A
Yeah. And, and everyone put him up to this Ricky thing because I, I can imagine someone being like, wow, who is think. But. But no, they wanted him to do it. And he said, I wasn't going to do that in general, but they were all egging me on. Egging me on. Not in a Ryan Lambert way. How often do you get to do something like that? How many episodes can I mention? Ryan Lambert? I don't know.
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B
But I don't like it. Every single time you hear it.
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C
It makes me so mad.
- [06:41]
A
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. How often do you get to do something like that? It's for the boys. You know what I mean? It was something for us and for us to celebrate a little bit during spring training. Spring training. Supposed to be fun and laid back. That's nice. Yeah. And Alex Kora said it was okay. I guess they cleared it with him and then cleared it with like the veterans. Like Trevor Story was like, sure, go for it. And then everyone said, do it. And then Cora sounds somewhat impressed. He said, I mean, he's a good base runner. It's not like he's out there just running for the hell of it. He gets good jumps, but he's very picky when to go. And amusingly, he didn't know that this was something to aim for. He didn't know what the spring training record is like. The, the modern, you know, post tracking spring training stats record. But someone pointed it out on Twitter, I guess when he had 12. And then he was like, hey, I can do it, you know, so he's, he's trying to get to 20 or 25. He. He wants to keep pushing, but yeah, this is fun. I don't know that Braden Ward even came up on our Red Sox preview segment because he wasn't really expected to play a big part on the roster. Yeah. And. And Korra, like, his eyes have been opened a little. He said, I knew he was fast, but I didn't know the rest of the player, to be honest with you. The bunting thing is real. He's getting better in the outfield. The at bats are getting better, too. He's gaining a lot of confidence. So good for him. And maybe this leads to some sort of opportunity down the line. And he said, when I run, I want to be safe. Yeah, that's. That's a good philosophy, I think.
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C
Yeah.
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A
He said, I remember back in college, they used to tell us, if you're going to run, it's better to be picked off than it is to be thrown out. Interesting. If I get to second, I want to be safe because we have good hitters behind us that can put the ball in the gap. Yes. That all checks out. You do indeed want to be safe, not out. That is the goal when you are the base runner. But good for him. So I hope he keeps running up the score even more. And speaking of running up the score, so I wanted to ask you about this. Have you been following the Bam Adebayo story at all? It's. It's been everywhere, but I know you've been head down. Prospect list, positional power rankings coming up. Bolds, preseason presumably predictions pod next week. So a lot cooking.
- [08:56]
B
I've definitely thought a lot about that already and have them locked in already. I. So here's the thing. You're right to say this is bedtime for Mike. Your girl is struggling. She's very stressed. Feeling it in my body already. And the positional power rankings haven't even begun to roll out. Although everyone hitting their deadlines. Ben, just like I work with such good, good, thoughtful people. They're doing their. They're doing their stuff.
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D
And.
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B
But even in. In my gremlin state, in the, the deep hole I am in, this has permeated and I have thought to myself, well, this is pretty dumb though, right? You know, like as discourses is the expectation. I'm sorry, I understand. Well, you're the, you're the. The general sports knower. So let me, for the benefit of our listenership, make sure that my understanding is correct and then we can use that as an opportunity to lay out the controversy here. So Bam was playing. He. He plays for the Miami Heats.
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A
Yes, correct.
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B
He plays for the Miami Heat, who are playing the Washington Wizards. The Washington Wizards are very bad basketball team.
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A
Quite bad. Yes. Terrible. Tanking. Etc. Yeah.
- [10:23]
B
And have been for quite a while now. Has. Has been just a really long stretch of mediocrity. Bam perhaps taking advantage of how bad they are. Though my understanding is he also shot like a. Just a bonkers number of free throws in this game, right?
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A
Yes. Yes.
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B
He surpassed Kobe.
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A
He did.
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B
He had the temerity for the single game scoring record. So now he is in second place.
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A
Right behind Wilts 100, right?
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C
Yep.
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B
Behind Wilts who had. Who maybe had another record.
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A
Oh, yes.
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B
Knocked down this week.
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A
Was that Alexander? Yes. Yeah, it's been a tough time for Wilt. I mean, I guess Bam just reaffirmed how impressive Wilt's 100 was. But. But yes, there was a. An SGA breaking another Wilt record. A scoring streak.
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B
Okay. Streak.
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A
Yeah. 20 point streak. Yeah.
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B
When you go to Bam Autobio's Google page, there's like confetti. Like the Google does a little animation there. Okay. That seems unnecessary, but sure. So. So this happened and people got very. Well, some people got very upset. Here's the thing that I always struggle with when it comes to Internet controversy. And it's worth asking yourself this question as an observer of discourse, just to dial in how worked up you need to get. I couldn't tell if a lot of people were upset or if a couple of very loud people were upset about this. It struck me as pretty silly. Like is the expectation that we just. I understand that Kobe is dead, but that we just have a reverence for that not record in perpetuity.
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A
Because this is.
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B
Am I being a little unfair? I don't think I am. Also, it could be a shooter still. Like, that's surprising to me.
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A
Yeah. Many. Maybe more over time, but because just the legend being expressions have faded into
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B
the rear view for some.
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A
And that.
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B
Yeah, there are a couple of things about this that strike me as very silly. The. The first being it's not a record that he broke. He didn't break the record.
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C
He.
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B
He surpassed the. The previous second place record holder. Second place holder. Second.
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A
Yes.
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C
How do we.
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B
How do we say that, you know, he surpassed a guy, but he didn't break the record himself. So isn't this much ado about nothing? Second of all, I have seen much of the consternation be about the Kobe of it all. And then there's also been some consternation that it's like unseemly because the Wizards are bad. But it's like Bam doesn't get to decide who he plays like. Bam.
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A
There have already been so many cycles of discourse about this, and I bring it up to invoke the idea of what would a baseball comp to this be?
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D
Oh, gosh.
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A
Because this is, after all, baseball podcast. We will be discussing this on Hang up and Listen on Monday. And I'm looking forward to it because I'm kind of delighted by this story. But that's the question. Can there even be a baseball equivalent? But yes, there have been all sorts of. I mean, there's hand wringing that's happening here. There are people suggesting he should have taken himself out of the game. There's all sorts of unwritten rules stuff going on here. Because whenever there's a record set in almost any sport in any way, there's always some sort of extenuating circumstance or there's always some condition that contributed to that. And in order to do this in basketball, to score this many points, you, you have to have things work out in your favor. Yes. But you also have to push it. Right. And the heat work. You know, they were, I mean, there was all sorts of fouling happening here to keep sending him back to the line. And, and at a certain point when they realized that this was sort of within reach or it was really a thing, they were, they were trying to stretch it right and, and run the score up as high as they possibly could. And so is that unbecoming? And yes, the, the opponent quality. And was this unseemly for him to do this, for team to do this? Is this some poor reflection on the sport? I just thought it was silly and absurd and fun because it was so improbable and such an outlier. And it gave us so many chances to say bam Adebayo, which is wonderful because wonderful Bam at a bio. And he's, he's like the perfect person to do this, to just break everyone's brain, I think because he is a good player. He's a very good player, but he's not at all the type of player one would expect to have done this. His previous career high was 41 points in a game, so he more than doubled that. And that was five years ago or something like he's a good all around player, two way player, good defensive player. He's not an elite scorer. And so it was just so weird. He would not have been anywhere near the top of the list of candidates to surpass Kobe's 81 with 83. And so it's just the outlier of, of all outliers. And I just say appreciate it for the absurd spectacle it is.
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B
I guess the other part of this that I find so perplexing is that, like, you could. You could say a lot of things about Kobe. You could describe him a lot of different ways and be accurate, but, like, one of the things that guy's famous for was being, like, very hyper competitive, no?
- [15:52]
A
Oh, sure. Yeah. So in his games, I mean, of course, the. The famous, infamous last game of his career where he was just taking every shot, and it was just preposterous, really.
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D
But.
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A
But even in the one where he had 81, you know, that wasn't quite as lopsided like that. But. But a lot has to happen, and you do have to stretch things to.
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B
Yeah, I would imagine that, like, if. You know. And again, I didn't know the man, but if Kobe were alive today, I have to imagine that he would be, like, I don't know, shoot or shoot. Like, you know, I mean, like, it just seems.
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C
It.
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B
The part of it that maybe is the most bizarre to me is that the. The people who seem the most worked up about it are Kobe fans who seem to, like, fundamentally maybe misunderstand their dude. So I don't get that part. I. I know that this isn't really why you brought this up, but I have been turning it over in my head because it's such a strange.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Fascination and fixation. And, I don't know, like, any time a team is so bad that they get absolutely owned by an opponent, sure, maybe you say at a certain point, like, that's too much, but it. It almost always just reinforces the notion that, like, hey, you're a bad franchise. Get it together, man. Like, tighten up. Like, isn't that. You know what I mean? Like, think if anyone should be embarrassed in this situation, it doesn't seem like it should be bam. Out of Bayou.
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D
Yeah.
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B
It's a great name, man.
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A
It is. It is. But, yeah, there's obviously extreme stat padding happening here, but they're pretty much always is with anything in this kind of range, so I'm not getting too bent out of shape about it, so. And, like, when Wilt did it, the whole game broke down, and there were defenders who weren't playing, and then, you know, they were just kind of like, everyone was on him, and. And it just became fouling back and forth. It's nonsense, obviously. Like, it's. It's not great basketball, but just. Just appreciate the silliness of it and just the fever dream of what, who, how.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And Just like the inefficiency of it and the number of. Of free throws that were required. Anyway.
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B
So many free throws. Thank you. Fouling him, you know, like some of this. Hey, what do you, you know, you could keep valing him.
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A
It's very strange. So could there be a baseball equivalent to this? I was mulling this over and then I saw that Jonathan in our Facebook group had also posed this question. Has there been any baseball equivalent to this? Or what would the baseball equivalent to this be? Because your, your initial inclination is just to think of someone who had some improbable outlier game.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And there were people who suggested, oh, well, it's Don Larson throwing a perfect game, or it's Scooter Jeanette hitting four boomers in a game or something. But first of all, I think that's selling Bam short because he's actually a better player than those guys were. So it's not quite equivalent in that respect. But then also, I don't think it captures the magnitude of what he did. And, and I don't know that there is a perfect baseball equivalent because baseball cannot deform in this way.
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B
Yeah.
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A
In quite the way that basketball can, where just the normal rules can break down and you can just decide, yeah, I'm for it, and everyone's in on this and we're just going to run up the score as high as possible. For one thing, in, in baseball, there's just so many guardrails with unwritten rules and everything. But I mean it more in terms of their guardrails, because it's not quite as malleable a sport because you can't just put the ball or the bat in anyone's hands at any time, which you can kind of do much more easily in basketball. So in, in baseball, you've got a batting order and, you know, you have pitchers who are taken out. They can't keep pitching and they can't pitch forever and you can't put them back in. And so you can't just kind of drop the play is to just have someone keep swinging or keep throwing indefinitely. So it's just structurally, I don't think it works quite as well. I think maybe some sort of analog would be. So there are, I guess, a lot of examples across sports of just trying to, you know, kind of give someone a record at a certain point or, or take it easy. It's like, you know, I guess the equivalent for this. Sometimes this happens with like, sacks. In football, someone set, set the sack record and then, well, did they just give it to him. In baseball I think that would be kind of just like, like the, the stray hand bringing. Breaking the single season sack records before Miles Garrett had it. And then there was like did Brett Favre just kind of give him a sack and then did Joe Burrow just give Miles at a sack and. And then there's been other stuff like this in, in basketball too. But in baseball I guess this would be just kind of giving someone a cookie just like, you know.
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C
Right.
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A
And every now and then you hear that like someone's setting a home run record or whatever or it's an all star game or something.
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C
Ah.
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A
Just put one over the middle, tell them what's coming and, and give them a good hack at it. But that doesn't happen enough times really. And maybe the equivalent would be position player pitchers. Like I guess, you know, if you had someone who was a good player but not a huge power source and somehow he had a four homer game and then he came up again and a position player pitcher were in which as we've talked about it seems like we're maybe it's getting likelier that we will get a five homer game because we're always in that situation. Now if there is a blowout, typically there is going to be a position player pitcher in right. Which, which would stain the accomplishment. I, I hope that if it happens, it doesn't happen that way. Yeah, but it's almost like if it's gonna happen it probably will happen that way. Unless someone respects the sanctity of going for, for five and actually like leaves a real picture in there to make it more real. But we have seen situations where this could have happened and I was glad it didn't because it just would have tarnished it. So, so maybe that or if you know, then it goes to extras or something and you. I don't know if you get six or who knows. But like there's only even like the Sean Green game is not a bad cop. I guess because Sean Green is kind of a Bam Adebayo type player. Like he was very good but not the greatest or anything or not someone you would think would have that incredible game that Sean Green had. So like maybe, maybe that. But it just, it doesn't feel like that stretched the bounds of what normally would happen the way that, that, that Bam's game did.
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B
Yeah, it's, it's hard when your sport already has a blowout off ramp. Like the position player pitching rule.
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C
Right.
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B
Like we've, we've already established circumstances under which we, we don't take any of it quite as seriously because the margin is so huge. I don't, I also think that we don't remember these things right there. There are plenty of home runs hit against, first of all, against like big league relievers. And like maybe that guy's bad and he gets optioned, never comes up again. Right. Or doesn't play a meaningful role for his team. And we don't remember that. You, you couldn't tell me everyone who threw a home run to Aaron Judge in the year he tied, he surpassed Maris. Right. Like you couldn't tell me every guy. And I bet some of those guys they might have been scripts, you know, they might have been scripts and we forget our memories, let us forget these things so that we can enjoy the accomplishment more generally. But I think it's hard to replicate it when you have already said we need a means by which to acknowledge the silliness of the moment. And by that we mean put a position player in.
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A
Yeah. Remember when this was 2019, remember Mike Miner was going for 200 strikeouts? Right. And then there was Chris Owings, the Red Sox shortstop. He, he let a catchable foul pop up, drop and. Or was it Chris Owings was hitting. Yeah. And then Ronald Guzman was, was playing first for the Rangers and let the ball drop to give Minor another chance at getting his 200th strikeout. And you know, who really cares about Mike Miners 200 strikeout in the 2019 season?
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C
Right.
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A
It's not quite as, quite as historic. Yeah, maybe he did, but, but, but if something like that happened in a higher stake situation, say someone was going for 20 strikeouts in a game, which is, that's a real, that's a historic thing like that would be a big deal or, or going for 21 or something, you know, trying to go to unprecedented heights of strikeout getting. And maybe it was a good pitcher, but not an elite strikeout pitcher. Not, not, not the guy you would expect to do that. And then let's say maybe. Well, I guess either it was, you know, a really weak lineup or they put in some scrub or like they had a pitcher bat or something so he could get it. I mean, that wouldn't happen probably, but like, or maybe more realistically, he's got 20 strikeouts and, and there are two outs in the ninth or something. And then there's a ground ball, let's say, and defender flubs it to give him another chance at getting the 21st or something. What with pitch count limits these days, who knows how realistic that even is? But right but something like that, just kind of not taking the out to give him another chance at making history and it being kind of an improbable pitcher to do that. I think maybe that. Maybe that would be sort of, you know, kind of. Yeah, that same shameless. Let's just get this accomplishment for him, even if it means that we kind of have to turn this into a travesty or something. So, yeah, that. That might work, I guess. But. But even that, it's not. I don't know, It's. It's not quite as far out of the realm of just 83. Bam. Adebayo. What?
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B
Yeah.
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A
Yeah. So if it were a guy who just like, had never gotten more than 10 strikeouts or something in a single game and suddenly he. He more than doubled it, as Adebayo did in this game, that might be a decent equivalent.
- [26:34]
B
Yeah. Again, it's not that it couldn't happen. It would just be rare. But then again, like, this was rare, right? Yeah, so there's that, I suppose. But yeah, people were. People were very worked up, you know?
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A
Yes.
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C
Yep.
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A
But we're. We're pretty upset about this, and I think plenty of people also just appreciated it in the spirit of. Yeah, well, that was weird that happened.
- [26:55]
B
Yeah. It's like, well, you know, what do you. You really need to defend the honor of the Washington Wizards. They're not interested in defending their own honor. Why are you. Why are you acting as a soldier in their war? They're not. They're not doing that.
- [27:11]
A
It's like we talked about Goodhart's Law not long ago. It just the idea that once something becomes a target, it's no longer a good measure because people will just do things differently in order to just juice their stats in that one measure. So that's. That's kind of the point here. Like, once you get up to 70 something points or whatever, it's like it almost ceases to be an athletic accomplishment and it just becomes kind of like, how much can we just sort of deform the regular rules in order to bring this about? But I don't mind. I think it's fun. So if you want to hear me talk more about Bam out of bio, tune in to hang up and listen on Monday. But if you have suggestions for other baseball equivalents that either have happened or could happen, then do. Let us do. Let us know. I just. I don't think there's a perfect equivalent just because of the structural differences.
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B
It wasn't. He didn't actually break the record, you know, that's the thing about it. It's like he, he moved into second place and everyone stands down.
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A
Yeah. I mean, it's the, it's the modern day record, I guess, perhaps depending on, you know, post merger or whatever. Yeah. Like, you know, it's, it's. Yeah. No one expected this to be a story this week.
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B
I don't, I don't want to be ins. Like Kobe had a family. I don't mean to be insensitive, but I also, I, I also suspect, and I say this with all the respect I can, that if Kobe were still alive, this wouldn't be a big story. Yeah.
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A
You'd like to think that he would just kind of tip his cap. I mean, right. Basketball players don't wear caps when they're
- [28:53]
B
playing, but don't wear caps.
- [28:54]
A
Figuratively speaking.
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B
But he was, you know, he wasn't playing anymore, so maybe. Yeah. I don't know if he was a cap guy.
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A
Yeah. Like he broke LeBron's single game heat record and LeBron thought that was cool, so.
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B
Yeah.
- [29:08]
A
Okay. And I just want to recommend to you a sci fi show, which.
- [29:14]
D
Me?
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A
Yes, or everyone who's listening.
- [29:16]
B
Yeah. But specifically to me.
- [29:17]
A
Yeah. It's, it's not an Apple TV show. For once though, there's no shortage of those.
- [29:23]
B
And for all man, including Monarch, Legacy of monsters.
- [29:26]
A
Yes. Which is back. And for all mankind coming back in a couple weeks, but bearing part of
- [29:30]
B
my psyche right now. I gotta tell you, it's like really important to, to me, you know, that and the looming theoretical criterion sale really holding up a lot.
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A
Paradise. Paradise, Season two.
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B
Okay. Yeah, okay.
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A
It's a baseball show. That's why I bring it up.
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B
So, okay, I, I started Paradise. I didn't get very far. I got to the point where the psychiatrist lady and Sterling K. Brown get in the shower and I was like, sterling, you're not skipping leg day. My God, look at that.
- [30:02]
A
He's not skipping any day. Yeah, no.
- [30:04]
B
Looking great, buddy. But. But it was to reveal a secret because they're being observed. But my sense was, and you don't have to tell me if I'm right, but my sense was that whatever happened to precipitate their move into this community, which I will not say more about for people who might want to watch and haven't seen any of it, involved like profound ecological disaster. And I was not into that vibe at the time because I think I started it in the midst of the summer here. And now we're staring down like a really bad El Nino year And so this might be a fall kind of endeavor for me because let me tell you what I'm not gonna do. When it's 120 degrees, I'll be like, let me contemplate the end of the world via like ecological catastrophe.
- [30:57]
A
Yeah, well, it is a post apocalyptic scenario, and I won't say much more than that. But. But yeah, it's. I find it to be compulsively watchable. It's. I wouldn't say it's prestige, exactly.
- [31:10]
B
It does. It is not prestige.
- [31:12]
A
No, it's. It's fun. It's very fun. It's pulpy, it's propulsive.
- [31:17]
B
It seems like something I will revisit at some point.
- [31:21]
A
Yeah, it, there's always, it's, it's, you know, going at breakneck speed. There's just tons of plot happening. Yes. They're not holding anything back. You know, this is not a slow burn. So yeah, you just kind of strap in and, and go where it takes you. And it's, it's eight episodes per season in the second season is midway through right now. It'll be over by the end of the month. But season two does, does broaden things in. In a compelling way, I would say. Anyway, point is it's a baseball show and I don't really remember that much baseball in season one, but it's been a while since I watched season one. I watched it while it was airing. This is on Hulu, by the way. And season two immediately kicks in with a baseball reference because they go around the table. It's one of those like, what do you miss about civilization, essentially? And one guy's like watching the Mets, or it's like they have to say one thing they miss and one thing they don't miss. And so the guy says, you know, the thing he misses is watching the Mets. And also the thing he doesn't miss is watching the Mets. So fair. And the baseball quotient really ramps up though, in episode five. And again, this is not a spoiler except for the baseball reference, but there's the Nick Castellanos meme is invoked in episode five of season two of Paradise. Yeah.
- [32:44]
C
No way.
- [32:46]
A
Yeah. Yeah. So it, it turns out they have Mike Greenberg from ESPN and there's this clip just before the disaster happens. And he just casually mentions, wait, that Nick Castellanos hit a walk off home
- [33:01]
C
run the night before the end of
- [33:04]
B
the Castellanos psychological disaster.
- [33:06]
A
In this scenario, Nick Castellanos ended the world. We've seen it. They've got elite pitching, their bats in the lineup. We just saw that clip of Castellanos hitting the walk off home run last night. And I'm sorry, we have a breaking news development. This is some serious ball knowing that's happening here. And wow, I have tired of the Castellanos meme.
- [33:28]
B
Yeah.
- [33:29]
A
In most contexts. And we may not have to consider it all that much because I don't know how many more home runs nicastiosis it's going to hit. But that in particular, just the stretching of it, because this is like actual Cassiano's meme. You know, it became like every. People were stretching. People were trying to find some sort of tragedy or disaster that had happened every single time Nick Castellano hit a home run. And it was like, come on. Like, this is. Yeah, this is. You've taken this too far. Yeah, you're beating a dead horse here. Like this is. It's over for me. But, but this in this context where I was not expecting it at all. I was quite impressed. And I think I would count it if Nick Cassiano's precipitated the apocalypse. I think that would be an okay use of the meme.
- [34:18]
B
Do you think he knows?
- [34:19]
A
I would guess so. I would guess someone let him know. He's obviously aware of the meme. But I got a message from. From Sam, Sam Miller, who wanted to know whether I was aware of this, whether I had been alerted and I had. I guess he's watching it too. But Sam said most shows don't know enough about baseball. This one arguably knows too much. So for him, it might be too much of a baseball show. Like this might be too much of a. A wink or a nod or something. And you know, there's lots of like Philly sports references going on in this because it turns out before the apocalypse, everything was coming up Philly and the Eagles were doing great and just, you know, the Sixers were. It was like the year of Philly. And then the apocalypse struck, which. That's funny. But this, this show was created by Dan Fogelman, who also created this is Us. And so some people say that this is like sci fi. This is Us. I didn't really watch this is Us, so I can't. Can't testify to that.
- [35:19]
B
Sterling K. Brown was also in this Is Us, right?
- [35:21]
A
Yeah, yeah. So.
- [35:22]
B
And. And Milo died from a pressure cooker. Is that right? There's a pressure cooker related explosion.
- [35:30]
A
Yeah. So. But. But Dan Fogelman is also the creator of much loved baseball drama Pitch.
- [35:38]
B
No way.
- [35:39]
A
Yes. So he has been a baseball knower For a decade, for years. For. For quite a while. So we loved Pitch Rip. Sad. Just a single season. But we. We talked a lot about it at the time and. And did interviews on this podcast and everything. And.
- [35:55]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [35:55]
A
And reminisced about it and. And wish that it had continued. But, yeah, Baseball Knower Baseball show, that was like, by any definition, a baseball show and explicitly baseball show. But paradise also is. Is clearing the bar here, I think, quite comfortably even, you know, at effectively wild. We'll take anything as evidence of being a baseball show. But.
- [36:17]
B
But paradise, oh, yeah, our bar is very low.
- [36:19]
A
Paradise is. Is clearing that bar quite easily. So I'd recommend the show. I enjoy it. But also I am excited to see what other baseball references are in store for us in the rest of the season.
- [36:31]
C
Wow.
- [36:32]
B
Oh, it feels like a lot to put on Nick Castellano's shoulders, you know, like, maybe too much. I mean, I know that he. He didn't exactly leave under great terms in Philly, but surely he isn't trying to bring about the end of the world or anything like that.
- [36:50]
A
I think so. Yeah. No, he wasn't thrilled with Rob Thompson, but I don't think that he. He wanted to end civilization as we know it, so. But it was inadvertent, I'm sure. Sure. Anyway, we talked about Castellanos on the Phillies preview this time and that you didn't expect Castellanos to come up in this context on this episode, but it's unpredictable. What I can predict is that we are about to preview the Atlanta braves with Grant McCauley and the White Sox with James Fegan. So let's take a quick break and we'll be back to do that.
- [37:30]
D
Sometimes I still feel like that little
- [37:32]
B
girl hearing grandma's handheld reading, collecting baseball cards before I could read. They say I waste my time tracking all these stat lines, but it's here I found my kind.
- [38:00]
A
Okay, it is time to talk about the Atlanta Braves. And once again, we are joined by Grant McCauley, a man of many jobs and speaking gigs. He is a Braves reporter for 92.9 the Game. He also does from the diamond. He does some writing for Cobb County's Marietta Daily Journal. He has another new show called Wax Packing Nostalgic. He opens baseball cards, which is all the rage these days. Grant, welcome back.
- [38:31]
C
Thank you guys for having me. And yeah, I've managed to pick up yet another show. Just kind of taking my hobby and turning it into just something else to do, I guess.
- [38:39]
A
Yeah, well, I guess that's kind of what we do too. But you can find all of Grant's stuff at fromthediamonds.com, which I will link to, of course. But before I do the final plugs, we have to talk a little bit about the Braves. And if we had talked to you first at the very beginning of this series, I think probably the tone might have been a bit different than it is now toward the end because it has not been the best spring training for the Braves from afar, at least in terms of wins and losses, I guess it's been great. But who pays attention to the standings in the Grapefruit and Captious league? I didn't know until I checked that the braves are actually 12 and 5. They have the second best winning percentage in all of baseball in the spring, and number one is the Washington Nationals, which tells you a little bit about how predictive that is. Not especially, but when it comes to who's actually available and who will be playing for the Braves once the games quote unquote count, well, it's fewer guys than it looked like it would be at the start of spring. And there has been seemingly sort of a Groundhog Day. Here we go again. This can't all be happening the way that it happened last year when there were so many injuries and suspensions and everything got derailed and it was one of the most disappointing seasons and Hasan Kim hurt, Joey Wentz, Hurston Waldrop, Spencer Schwellenbach, Drexen Profar out again, this time for the entire season. So am I reading the vibes right, that perhaps Braves fans not thrilled with the way things are going?
- [40:13]
C
Yeah, I mean, there's really no sugarcoating that when you look at the, I guess, the events, if you will, of spring training that it doesn't have you feeling all warm and fuzzy about starting a new baseball season. Because it does feel like a continuation of 2025 when, when you know you had pitching injuries galore, your entire opening day rotation ended up on the 60 day IL. At some point some of those guys are going to find themselves right back on the 60 day IL. In the case of Spencer Schwellenbach, Hurston Waldrop, meanwhile, will find himself on the 60 day IL for the first time, which is not really a box he wanted to check this year and not really one that the Braves could afford. If we're talking about quality pitching depth, you throw in Joey Wentz, who may not have been like a heralded member of the pitching plans, but he was at the very least, quality depth. The Braves were Hoping he blows his ACL in a collision covering first base. I mean, the Braves in a lot of ways as far as injuries are concerned, would have no luck except for bad luck because we can look at Spencer Strider, we can look at Ronald Acuna Jr. Austin Riley two years in a row. Ozzy Albeez has had several broken bones the past few years. It's just the list goes on and on. Hassan Kim, you know, gets hurt away from the field in the off season of all things, right after signing a deal to come back.
- [41:20]
A
So slipped on some ice, right?
- [41:23]
C
I mean, just you can't make this stuff up, I guess is how the phrase goes. But unfortunately for the Braves, the cherry on top of all that bad news was jerks and Profar once again the consequences of his own actions. And I think it's just so many things and none of them are good when it comes to the jerks and Profar situation. We can pick it apart if you guys want to. I've got the time for it certainly, but it's inexcusable, I'll put it that way. That's the one word that I would put on his portion of what has transpired for the Braves this spring. Things that, you know, you couldn't afford. Things that when you come in with such a tenuous grasp on hoping for the best as far as health is concerned, but knowing to prepare for the worst the last few years and oh, by the way, new manager, new coaching staff. A lot of other things have changed here, but the expectation for the Braves remains the same. Play a good season of baseball and get into October and try to win in the playoffs. And they missed that last year for the first time since 2017. So I think they're hungry to get back. They're going to have to overcome some obstacles and I think they've got a group that's capable of doing it and the talent is still on paper where the game is certainly not played is there. But goodness gracious, could you at least get the opening day without having to mark guys off of your what you would hope would be your opening day roster?
- [42:32]
B
Yeah, I, I don't want to linger over long on the Profar stuff because we have other guys to talk about who will be playing for the Braves. But I'm curious, you know, if there was any, if you've noted any conversation going on within the front office from a process perspective. Not that it is their responsibility solely. Obviously he made a bad choice twice here, but they did sign him to a three year deal on the strength of one very good but somewhat unusual season. Has this caused any sort of reflection on their part in terms of how they're vetting potential free agents or how they're assessing makeup?
- [43:09]
C
I guess I would answer that question with a question which is, you know, how could it not? You know, I mean, you don't want to assume the worst because somebody has a good year and let's kind of look at jerks and profile for what it was. It was a good season, it was an all star season for him, but it didn't make him one of the best players in baseball. He was still a late winter sign, but it looked like based on the underlying metrics and what you felt like was repeatable, that it was a risk worth taking in terms of the three year contract and the money, $42 million. Ultimately he's at best going to make half of that. So if there's a tiny silver lining, maybe that's it. But the headaches, the stress, the things that it's cost the team in both manpower on the field and the front office, as you mentioned, having to look into this and maybe do some introspection on, wow, well, how exactly did this happen? I mean, I will put the blame squarely on the shoulders of the one person that caused it and that's Jerks and Profar. It was the HCG in 2025 and then this year it was a basically testosterone replacement therapy. And these are things that are not on Major League Baseball's permissible list of things. These guys know this. Everybody I think is aware the athlete saying, I would never knowingly that whole conversation, I mean there may be a guy out there that that pertains to, but by and large everyone's tired of hearing that. There's just no excuse for it. And when it happens twice in basically 11 months, I don't know how you can point to anybody other than Jerks and Profar. And I don't really know that anybody's making the case. But the frustration, yeah, you can point at the front office a little bit and say, come on guys, like, did you not see maybe some red flags here? I mean now you start to hear the rumblings or the whispers and maybe they're not whispers anymore, but the, yeah, the Padres were buyer beware. So they let Profar go and they were happy with their decision to do so and now they're vindicated and not bringing him back. But I don't know, it's all the hindsight's 2020 kind of thing. But ultimately and Walt Weiss said this. I mean, we got to go onward. We can't dwell on it. His teammates didn't, you know, belabor the point. They basically said, you know, they're disappointed, but we have to focus on what we've got inside this clubhouse and a job that we still have to do. And I don't know that you could expect anything different from this Braves team. I feel like they are truly a team of pros and they are a team that does care a lot about each other one to another, just from what I've been able to note over the years. So certainly there's some disappointment there. That may not have all been publicly aired out there with the appeal still pending, but Jerks and Profar has created an incredibly, incredibly difficult situation for the Braves and a headache that they could have done without at the very least.
- [45:47]
A
And I guess they'll have to figure out what to do going into 2027. You know, do you, do you count on him? Third time's the charm this time. Surely he won't get suspended again. And then how will he even play at that point after that long a layoff? And, and he played okay for the Braves last year, not quite at the prior Padres level, but. But then I guess you're questioning whether that was real or mirage too. But you know, that's, you can cross that bridge when you get there.
- [46:15]
C
And I'd honestly say this, I, I think he's played his last game in a Braves uniform because I don't know how you walk that guy back into the clubhouse with any ounce or shred of credibility.
- [46:23]
A
Yeah, well, in the short term, how do they fill in for him right now? Roster resource at fan graphs has Dominic Smith listed at dh. So what does this do to the depth? Are they going to be in the market for a profile replacement stuff?
- [46:39]
C
It certainly hurts the depth. I mean, you were counting on this guy as a switch hitter and he was going to be a featured bat in the lineup. And I don't want to pull a Dennis Miller and get off on a rant here, but I didn't really understand giving Profar lead off at bats and at bats in the second spot of the order regardless of him being a switch hitter with decent on base skills. Decent, not great. Certainly good in his best year, which was on the wrong side of 30. But without relitigating all of that, I looked at Ronald Acuna Jr. Is the guy who should be getting the most played appearances on the team. And I don't think I'm crazy for saying that and I think Walt Weiss agrees with that. It was kind of the necessity that the Braves shuffled their lineup around last year and moved Acuna down to try to get more run production going because it's a guy that can affect the game and you'd love for him to do it with a bunch of guys on base. So I understand exploring that. But the Braves ideal lineup to me never included Jurks and Profar in really the top four hitters, possibly the top five hitters. Because I think Acuna, Drake Baldwin, Matt Olson and Austin Riley are the hitters that I would feature the most to get the most played appearances in whatever order makes the most sense there with Acuna leading the way and figure out the other eight spots in the lineup. But a profile replacement I think is not. I mean, there's nobody out there that's of any real interest from the free agent standpoint. That moves the needle. I mean, you brought in Dominic Smith who had a decent little run with the Giants last year, and maybe he could be a useful player, but you're not going to count on him to play in the outfield. He to wants wasn't particularly great at that. And the guy that plays first base never takes a day off for the Braves and Matt Olsen. So maybe a little bit of DH there. But one thing that Walt Weiss is going to do, I think differently than Brian Snitker is you utilize this DH spot to move some guys into it to get them off their feet from the field. Guys like Ronald Acuna Jr. Austin Riley, Ozzy Albee's, I mean, whoever it may be. I mean Mike Yastremsky is I think, going to be an important signing now for the Braves. Not that he wasn't already, because they had terrible outfield production last year with only half a year of Acuna, a bad season from Michael Harris and Profar suspension really hurting their outfield production as well. So I think that you might see the catchers, Sean Murphy, once he's healthy and Drake Baldwin trade some at bats at DH as well. But ultimately the Braves believed with Profar in place and the ability to mix and match and move some guys through the DH spot that they didn't really need to pursue Marcelo Zuna, for example, and have him back in the DH spot. But Profar not being part of the deal changes some things. I don't know if it's really going to change everything altogether that much. If you have healthy and productive hitters named Ronald Acuna Jr. Austin Riley, Ozzy Albee's, Michael Harris, those are the guys you look at last year, you didn't either have a full year from them or they did not have the year that they're accustomed to having and that the Braves need them to have this year. And I think the Braves could make up for their Dharma spot in the aggregate once they have Murphy back in place, especially well of that group.
- [49:26]
B
Maybe we can start with Harris because his season was really a tale of two halves. He was terrible at the plate in the first half of 47 WRC plus, which is barely playable even for a guy at a premium position, and then a 130 in the second half. So what adjustments did you see him make? And sort of where are you expecting his 2026 production to land between those two extremes?
- [49:50]
C
Yeah, and it's been kind of this roller coaster ride with Harris, but never more so than last year because we didn't point out and say, well, he was battling an injury because in 2024 he was battling an injury in 2023. He dealt with a back injury early in the season as well. But last year it was. He was healthy and just struggling and struggling and struggling to figure it out. And what he ended up doing was something that was. He worked a lot with Tim Hiers. I talked to Harris about this at length, and they had some ideas of things they wanted to change, but Michael was kind of hesitant to pull the trigger on it because he just believed that he was going to be able to work through it. But this dry spell, this slump, if you will, the struggles just kept going and going and going. And finally, I think Chipper Jones ran into Michael Harris's father in the premium seating level behind home plate and said, hey, you can have Michael call me. And Chipper, I think, reiterated and communicated some of the same things that Michael had been thinking about and that they had been kind of working through behind the scenes. And the timing was just, hey, I've got to do something different, you know, I've got to change something. So the big thing that he did was move his hands from down kind of in front of his body or parallel to his body, much like Ronald Acuna jr's hands are, which was an adjustment he made about two to three weeks into the big leagues, and he brought them back up. And if you look at film from his minor league days and even his first, like two to three weeks as an Atlanta Brave, his hands were up behind his head, so he moved that. And he just seemed to be able to strike through the ball and really, I think, affect the kind of contact that he wanted to make at a much higher level. So we saw and just ridiculous hot streak that started to turn his season around, but the walks are still not there. I think that's the big thing for him. He doesn't draw really any walks to speak of. And even if it's just a 7, 8, 9% walk rate, that would be an improvement over what we were seeing last year. And I think that it would start to allow pitchers to realize that he is maybe a little bit more selective and that he's not just going to make contact at his own expense and rolling it over. And he doesn't strike out a ton, but he's just making contact that doesn't serve him or the team. And I think I've seen some in spring training adjustments to that, a little bit more patience. As Ben, you pointed out, it's spring training. What can we really take from these numbers and these records? I don't know. It's all anecdotal. But if he is walking a little bit more and working it back, I think we can start to see the kind of Michael Harris that was the rookie of the year and had at least good seasons in 2023 and 2024.
- [52:16]
A
Well, shortstop's been an issue for a while, and only the Rockies got less production out of their shortstops last season by fangraph's WAR than Atlanta did. So they thought they had addressed that with Kim. Not so fast, or at least not yet. The nice thing about signing Mauricio De Bon is that he can be your backup at a bunch of positions and now he'll be pressed into service as the starter. So. So what's roughly the timeline for Kim and the outlook for him when he does return? And then would you be able to shift Dubon back to some sort of super utility role at that point?
- [52:50]
C
Yeah, I think you could, certainly, because Dubon, I mean, he's won Gold Gloves as a utility player, so that's something the Braves like is having that good defensive component. And maybe there's a little upside in the bat, but he's not a guy that's going to be really a game changer. But if he could just make some. Some regular contributions at the plate, wherever he's playing, that would be useful. And I think Dubon can be a useful player in that regard. But for Hassan Kim, it looks like he's going to miss the month of April, but a return in early to mid May I think is possible. But nothing's really been set in stone here, and the Braves have kind of been over the past few years, especially with injuries. Kind of hesitant to put a timetable out there because they don't want to have to explain if the player needs an extra day or an extra week or an extra whatever. Hey, this is not a huge setback. He's just not there yet. So I think that it's realistic to look at the middle of May for Hassan Kim to be back in there as we sit here right now. And that would be, I think, probably the best case scenario. And he is a guy that defensively brings a lot. Offensively brings more than they were getting from Nick Allen last year, who was a great defender, but little else. And I think you just, you have to get more out of that position. And they've really struggled to, by and large, since Dansby Swanson left.
- [53:59]
B
I feel like we should emphasize a positive note. We've been very dour so far. It's been a rough time. So let's talk about Drake Baldwin.
- [54:07]
C
Yeah.
- [54:07]
B
Because it's impressive enough for a catcher to have a 125 WRC Plus. It's. It's especially impressive when that catcher is a rookie and when he is competent behind the plate. So talk to us about what you saw from Drake Baldwin. I know what I saw from Drake Baldwin because he got my rookie of the year vote. But how. How did he sort of work through the adjustment to the majors and what do you see as his developmental goals for 2026?
- [54:35]
C
Yeah, I think with Drake Baldwin, it's. There's a work ethic there that put him in position to take on an incredible responsibility that he did not expect when he showed up for spring training last year. I remember talking to Drake Baldwin that first week and he was excited to be in big league camp. He'd learned a lot over the past couple of years from. From Sean Murphy, from Travis Darno. He gave a lot of credit to Sandy Leone in his time in AAA and some of the other veteran players that the Braves had around there for getting him ready for what the major league responsibilities are. And he's a guy that, he makes great contact, he hits to all fields. He obviously has power. He can be a run producer. All of that, plus the ability to put in the time, the effort and the energy to handle a major league pitching staff. I felt like he handled himself as well or better than anybody could have realistically imagined last year. And a great vote for the rookie of the year, by the way, because I think he was the guy and
- [55:27]
B
it wasn't a hard one.
- [55:28]
C
Yeah, no, not at All. And there's just. There's another level, I think, for him. Is it fair to ask for it to just, you know, explode into superstardom the very next year? I don't know. But if he's able to just do many of the things that he did last year, from a preparation and execution standpoint point, as a signal caller behind the plate and as a very high aptitude hitter, I think that he's going to be just fine. And I don't think sophomore slumps are really as pronounced as they were, you know, years back. I think we've got so much information on both sides now that the game is just constantly in flow of that info and making those adjustments quicker and quicker. And I think Drake's a guy that is very much aware of all the information and very much, much hungry to learn as much as he possibly can. And I think that's one of the things that puts him in a great position behind the plate, which the Braves are very high on. And of course, at the plate where I think, and looking at this, and not to belabor the point, but you can bat jerks in profar second if you want to. I've never managed a major league game, but when I look at the upside and the ability of Drake Baldwin, I'm not worried about what his foot speed is or, you know, him clogging the bases. Get on base all you want, knock some guys in, do some big things, change the game with your bat because you're capable of doing it. Let's get that guy as many plate appearances as possible because I think he can be an impact bat.
- [56:44]
A
Apologies to any Giants fans who've been hollering for the last 15 minutes that I slighted their spring training record because The Giants are 15 and 3 this spring. So I was looking at the Grapefruit League standings, the Giants in the Cactus League, they actually have the best record in all of baseball in sprint training. Again, maybe that says something about the predictiveness of these records. But while we're talking about catchers, maybe we can talk briefly about Sean Murphy, who was just one of the more perplexed players in baseball over the past few years. And then I guess we kind of got an answer to the riddle, which was that he was hurt the entire time he was hiding an injury he hadn't told anyone, including the team, which was frustrating, I think, just to read about, because he could have gotten this issue taken care of. You know, I. I get kind of gutting through a physical issue for a little while. If you don't think the team has a better option or something, but especially if you've. You've made your money already, you know, like, get some help.
- [57:43]
D
Right.
- [57:43]
A
So he seemed to perhaps sabotage himself and maybe the team. I guess the upside would be that if the hip surgery for the torn labrum has taken care of the issue that was plaguing him that entire time, well, maybe he'll be back to the kind of bat he was before. And maybe as long as Baldwin is sort of entrenched at catcher, then that helps you with the DH issue that we were talking about before. So take us through that whole saga and what the team thought about that revelation and how he handled that and what you think the realistic outlook is for him post surgery.
- [58:20]
C
So something I've learned just from being around athletes or really baseball players. And I guess for John Kruch, maybe that's not the same thing, but for the purposes of what we're talking about, athletes have this way of. I think the guys that are really committed to their craft, I mean, and there's obviously Anthony Rendone's and other cases here, but of gutting through stuff, even when it's probably discretion, would be the better part of valor. But they're going to go out there and be the walking wounded. And I think for Sean Murphy, he may not have been able to, you know, be the hitter that he wanted to be. I don't think that's in dispute. There was some power, a little bit of rum production, but incredibly, incredibly low batting averages and not even coming close to being a really productive hit, getting on base and being consistent whatsoever. However, when he was working with the staff, the staff benefited greatly from having Sean Murphy behind the plate. So I think he felt a responsibility there. I think to your point and to play devil's advocate, he looked at that contract as, yes, I've got my money, but I got to go out there and earn it. I don't think he was worried at all about, like, oh, I'm going to lose my spot. I'm going to get Wally pipped by Drake Baldwin. I think that Sean Murphy countered a. That is actually one of those people, especially from working with Travis Darno for a number of years, that believes that we succeed more so together than by my individual success. Outshining your individual success. I know that there's a lot of different ways to look at it, and I'm not going to tell anybody that, hey, he was right to do what he did. I think in hindsight, maybe take a different route. Knowing what we know now, especially when things are already not going particularly well for the team. But then I kind of swing back and well, maybe he saw everything else falling apart and thought I can't tap out now I got to go out there and do more. That's kind of my read on it and I know it's disappointing. Clearly I've had so many people in my mentions in social media say Alex Anthopoulos blew it with this trade, giving away William Contreras and getting Sean Murphy and extending Sean Murphy. Look, Murphy has brought some value, but there have been peaks and there have been valleys to his time. I will say I don't think that the Brave thought that there was any development left for William Contreras, the catcher, and the brewers said we'll take that bet and they were able to get more out of him and obviously he's become a really good player and that's great for him. But Sean Murphy getting this surgery to get more to the point here is something that I think should benefit him. It sounds like he's making all the progress that he needs to and the Braves are hoping to have him back perhaps sometime maybe mid to late. May could be in play for him as well around the same time that Hassan Kim is coming back back, but they're not going to rush him. They do have Drake Baldwin. They signed Jonah Heim, who's a pretty quality catcher. Sandy Leone is back in a minor league level if you need a veteran backup catcher for any length of time. Chadwick Tromp re signed with the Braves. So there's some, I'd say good depth, adequate depth behind Drake Baldwin. But Sean Murphy does have a lot of power and if you're able to get that 20 homer bat back in there, all of a sudden you're not really worried about the fact that Marcelo Ozuna is a Pittsburgh pipe. And more to the point, the jerks in Profar is going to be sitting on his couch for the next 162 games.
- [61:23]
B
I tend to think of Matt Olson and Austin Riley as sort of a pair the the once and future or at least once and hopefully present ironman of this team. I'm heartened to hear that some of these guys might get some time off their feet through the course of a season. Seems like a prudent course correction for a team that's underperformed of late but but these seasons diverged right? Matt Olson might not have achieved the high highs he has in the past, but sort of a return to Form 136 WRC plus, he played all 162. Austin Riley's season didn't really take the same shape and obviously he missed a bunch of time. So how are you thinking about these guys this year? How much do you think they will each play and how much do you think sort of load management might end up being a part of the narrative for each play of them this season?
- [62:11]
C
Yeah, that's the operative word. When I talked to Walt Weiss in the winter meetings, he basically said, you know, we do want to kind of do the load management and I think it could be beneficial. And it's not. We're trying to give guys 10 games off. It's not, you know, the, I think the NBA paradigm where, you know, your star players are probably already missing eight to ten games a year. And, you know, these guys, they benefit, I think, from playing every day. It's a rhythm kind of sport. And Matt Olson, I don't think you're going to see him end his consecutive game streak on his own accord anytime soon. I don't think you're going to see Walt Weiss do that either. But will it make sense to maybe have a Matt Olson day at dh? Absolutely. I think that could make sense. Once every couple of three, four weeks, whatever the case is. I mean, he is a good glove too, so they like having him out there for that. But with Austin Riley, I feel like he's just been snake bit by injuries. It was the broken hand. He got hit by the pitch in 2024. Last year he had a double sports hernia surgery. I talked to him after that. He had tried to gut through the first one that he knew about. He went out to play in that NASCAR themed game that the Major League Baseball had the Braves and Reds playing and the Speedway Classic, I think it was called, and it rained cats and dogs and they were playing on this makeshift field and he slipped, diving for a ball. And then the next day he tried to win a foot race with Ellie De La Cruz in a rundown. And that was probably a tactical error and he said as much, but you're the competitor, you're out there trying to make the play. But he felt his body just telling him, look, it's done. And he'd already missed time with it. He got the sports hernia surgery on the. I believe that was the left side. And they looked and they said, hey, we're going to correct the right side while we're at it, because it's going to go soon too. And his doctor said, you can get back to playing baseball in six to eight weeks. Unfortunately, that was the end of the baseball season for the Atlanta Braves, but he came into spring training fully healthy. I think Austin had really been in the lab working very hard with Tim Hiers and company figuring out how to get his swing back in line with where he wanted it to be. He said he was getting too steep to the ball. He was driving it, but it wasn't getting, I think, the distance that he needed it to get. Strikeouts are always going to be a part of his game, but when he gets locked in, he's a guy that I think can carry a team from a run production standpoint. He was a five plus war third baseman, I think from 21 to 23. You got to look at that as something that's still in the tank when he's on the right side of 30 and I think that's there. Matt Olson to me is a 30 and 100 guy who's capable of pushing a.900 OPS and doing a lot of big things. He hasn't done that in a couple of years, but I think that's still in there. And if those guys are clicking and they have the power and the run production numbers and they are healthy and they're getting their bats, this Braves team, to go back to that phrase I used earlier, can make up for some of their losses, personnel losses, losses in the aggregate by having some guys they expected more out of actually return to form. And Austin Riley may be the top guy on that list for me.
- [64:59]
A
And that takes us to the last two guys in the lineup. Albies and Acuna and Acuna really raked last year on the whole. I wonder what you think the shape of his production will be this year. Have we seen the last of him as super speedster? Would you expect the offensive level he spent last season at to be the baseline for him basically. And then as for Albies, you mentioned all the broken bones. He almost made it through last season without another one and then didn't quite get there. Little left hamate fracture just at the end of the season, missed a week or so. So that was the good news, that he played 157 games, which was his most since 2019. The bad news was that it was his career worst WRC plus. And also the defense has graded out below average according to Statcast for a few years now. So. So the overall production really three of the past four years has not been what you want from him. So take us through those two guys and then we can talk some pitching.
- [66:02]
C
All right, well, let's talk about Ozzy Albee's first, because I think he's the guy that is looking to prove a little bit more from the production standpoint. And he was kind of. It was Michael Harris and Ozzie Albee's in the lineup last year over the first three months that it was just neither one of them were doing the things you needed them to do. And when you were looking at injury to Austin Riley in the absence of Ron Lacuna Jr. For the better part of, you know, about half the season as well, all told, it was kind of difficult to watch those guys struggle. And for Ozzie, it's been a broken wrist, he's had a broken foot, he's broken the hammock bone. I mean, he's been through it. But I did feel like that last 50 or so games of the season, he was starting to really find it again. The power was there. He was just a more productive version of himself. And then he fractures the Hammett bone. So no luck, but bad luck maybe in some cases. But I think that he is over that and ready to go out and prove that he can build on what they discovered in the final couple of months of last year. And when healthy, I mean, there are not a ton of second basemen that can put up the kind of numbers that he has in the past. And I'll point at him, too, and say, hey, he's on the right side of 30. So you would think that that's still in the tank there, even if the defense. Defense hasn't necessarily been something that has made up for some of the trouble at the plate the way that, say, Michael Harris did last year. But with Ron Lacuna Jr. I think that what you saw last year, if you look at IT on a per 162 basis, was pushing some of the same norms of his 2023 MVP season, with the exception of stolen bases. He played in the winter league again this year. He was running amok there. He came to spring training and pronounced himself 200% ready to play physically. I think we're going to see more stolen bases from Ronald. I think we're going to see more stolen bases from the Braves in general because Antoine Richardson, who came over from the New York Mets, is kind of there, I think, to help the Braves take advantage of some of the things that maybe they had not in the past, because some of the guys would have a reputation as being slow and plotting and not really stolen base threats. But look what he did with the Mets last year. When you look at the sprint speed of that team, it wasn't a bunch of speed merchants, but all of a sudden these guys were stealing bases and they were doing so with a high success rate. So I think that's something the Braves are trying to build in. So if you want to see Austin Riley maybe push himself to double digit steals, this could be your year. I don't know about that for Matt Olson or Drake Baldwin or some of these other guys, But Ronald Acuna Jr. Ozzy Albies, Michael Harris, those are guys that I would expect to see doing some running, maybe some others here and there. Situationally, we'll see an uptick there and that could help. But look, Ronald, to me it's the Reggie Jackson quote. He's a straw that stirs the drink as he goes. Offensively, I think the Braves have a chance to, you know, kind of follow suit. So if he's back and at his full MVP luster and playing at 200% this year, maybe Shohei Ohtani will have some actual real competition for that National League MVP award.
- [68:53]
B
Okay, we fibbed a little bit. We are going to get to the pitching. But before we do, I have to add ask sort of a broader depth question on the position player side because we ran our Braves top prospect list recently and we were struck by how pitcher heavy this system is. You know, there's a lack of depth in the major leagues behind the rotation, but there's, there's a little bit to work with in the minors that's not as true on the position player side. So if any of these guys go down with injury, who are some of the guys sort of floating around double or triple A who you might expect to get some big league run.
- [69:30]
C
So I don't expect a lot of prospects to necessarily fill those voids. I think it's going to be some of the minor league deals that they've signed and guys that don't make the club in spring training that you don't have to cut them loose, they don't have an out or they just agree to play and you can make the 40 man move when you need to. The Braves don't want to talk about that or think about that, but clearly they've planned by bringing in some veteran guys. But you're right, it's a very pitcher dominated top prospect list. The Braves have gotten back to what I think a lot of clubs would do, but certainly Atlanta, when its minor league system was arguably at its best, would get its arms through the draft and would get all the position players and the real talented toolsy, you know, Position guys, I guess in general from the international side, but many of those have not panned out. They did go out and draft a bunch of shortstops at the top of the list. I think Alex Lodi is probably the one that could push his way maybe into the picture if he needed to, but it's going to mean something went really wrong on the infield if he's up getting regular bats. So I don't know if that'll be the case. But yeah, I wish I could tell you that there are three or four guys that are knocking on the door and I'm sure the Braves wish I could tell you that too, but I think it's just one of those. We're going to have to figure it out when we get there. But we're hoping to have the Plan A actually, actually get to play out in a more favorable fashion than it has the past couple years.
- [70:52]
A
So there is most of a starting rotation on the IL and on the IL for some time in Schwellenbach and Waldrip and Wentz and A.J. smith. Shover, who's working his way back from June, Tommy John surgery. So you're really counting on the guys who are still standing here to keep standing. And Chris Sales, but just so fantastic since the Braves acquired him, they extended him, of course, and you know, you look historically at Chris Sale and you can't exactly count on him to be an innings eater. But of late he has been by brave standards. But it really would help if you could get Spencer Strider back to the guy he was before the surgery. And the stats look fine, decent this spring. I know early on he was trying not to pay attention to the Velo and probably people who had him on their fantasy team were also trying not to pay attention to the Villa. But how has that evolved over the course of the spring? How is he looking and is there a hope for the Ace, one of the best pitchers in baseball type guys that he was before the surgery, to return?
- [72:02]
C
I think there is. And Spencer's a guy that, I mean, the Braves have a lot of these type of players that, you know, they are hopelessly, you know, committed to trying to get the most out of themselves and have very high expectations of their production. So when Spencer Strider struggled to be Spencer Strider last year, I don't think anybody was more troubled by it than he was because he couldn't heat up, you know, the top of the strike zone at 99 and 100 miles an hour. Now, could he touch 96, 97 at times? Yeah, Was his average fastball velocity still very good? Yes, but it wasn't elite anymore. And more so. I think what and some people have kind of pointed to this is his arm slot changed and the, the vertical movement of his fastball was not where it needed to be, I think, to have the same result, even if it's not, you know, coming out of his hand with quite as much velocity. But he has been able to. And I think that this is probably prudent for him because you look at having the surgery, doing the rehab, then pitching a full season of baseball, including the rehab start and all his major league time, he basically didn't put down the baseball for 13 months until this winter. So having a normal winner for him, I think was a big part of just recharging his body, recalibrating. He's been in the lab trying to figure all of those things out. He looks for all the data points that he can possibly get from the physical standpoint of tracking everything. I mean, this is a guy that's, that's just. If there's information to be had about how he's performing and what it is that is going into his performance that he can adjust, Spencer Strider is the guy that's going to find that info and look to do something with it. So I think seeing him at 95, 96 in his last start is obviously more of what you expect to see from him. But fastball was elite. His slider was elite. That third pitch coming along, is it the curveball? I think that's probably the best third pitch offering for him, but he's also dabbled with that change up. So maybe we start to see a little bit of a different version of Spencer Strider who's able to kind of rely on being more of the pitcher than the thrower. I talked to John Smoltz in 2023 when Strider broke his single season strikeout record for the club. And Smoltz said, I just, I feel like there's something there for him to take another step and to learn a little bit more about the pitching side of things as he gets more experience in the league. And I'm excited to see that. Nobody wanted to see another arm injury, no doubt about that. But I think coming out of this and through this, there's no better candidate to take what he's supposed to from it and find success in different ways than Spencer Strider. And that obviously, you know, it would be huge for the Braves. Chris Sale, though, to your point, I don't think I can add Much to that has been everything the Braves could have asked for. The only real hiccup for him was back spasms in the, in in the fall of 2024. He wasn't available for that wild card series and then obviously diving to, you know, preserve a perfect game bid a shutout bid in the middle of the summer and cracking a rib. I mean, again, no luck, but bad luck for the Braves in 2025. They're just going to hope that changes and that Chris Sale just keeps doing the thing that he's done the last two years because he has been strengthening what I think is now in my mind, a Hall of Fame career.
- [75:04]
B
Well, another guy who's hoping for some better luck is probably Ronaldo Lopez, who In 2024 it went great. The conversion to the rotation, fantastic. Maybe not as many innings as you would want, but that's what happens when you have a shoulder injury and your season. And then last year, one game, five innings. So what have you seen from Lopez so far this spring and how much length do you think that they're actually going to be able to get out of him?
- [75:28]
C
A pain free Ronaldo Lopez, according to him, for the first time in four years, his shoulder is no longer bothering him. I think it was probably different managing it as a reliever. It was probably exacerbated by becoming a starting pitcher again, which by the way, the Braves, I think he said were the only team that really gave any credence to his desire to be a starter again. He had other big contract offers or multi year contract offers to be a reliever, but the Braves, you know, were open to him being a starter and he said that his wife had really pushed him to, hey, if you think you can do this, you should really go all out and give it another shot. And he did. And he was an all star and he did have a good year. But the shoulder ultimately was problematic and cost him most of last year. So a pain free Ronaldo Lopez, who I think is, he's kind of ramping his fastball velocity up from the low to the maybe mid-90s by the time he gets all of his innings and all of his work done. And then as the season goes along, maybe we start to see that guy that can, you know, push 97, 98 when he needs to, but more so can kind of live and get his work done with good movement and with good change of speeds and using the rest of his arsenal. Because I was really impressed with that aspect of his game, especially from seeing him be kind of a failed starter with the White Sox who just had to become a relief and to find his way back to being not just a decent starting pitcher but a very good one in 2024. I think that's still in there and maybe I'm just kind of being, you know, blindly optimistic because goodness knows we've seen everything go wrong the last couple of years. Why can't something go right? But I do think that this shoulder being pain free is going to be a huge difference maker for Ronaldo Lopez. And to, you know, say it again, broken record. Braves are certainly hoping so.
- [77:07]
A
So you've got Grant Holmes, you've got Bryce Elder and Atlanta fans don't need to be told that they're probably not going to the season just using the five guys who are on the rotation depth chart right now. So what happens when someone else goes down? I'll say if someone else goes down. But as Meg mentioned, there's a little more depth on the prospect side pitching wise, perhaps. So who would be next up if necessary?
- [77:33]
C
Yeah, I think that there's a couple of guys. We saw Didier Fuentes briefly last year at 20 years old and I will say this, and I don't think think it's really that shocking of a revelation that he was in the majors well ahead of when he was expected to be and he learned some major league lessons from big league hitters about, you know, how hard it is at this level. But I think that he's a guy with some swing and miss ability that could benefit from a little bit more development but could also, you know, come up and perhaps now that he's had some experience work his way into the Braves pitching plans. He's one guy I'd look JR Richie is the guy that got a lot of conversation this spring though, as he kind of blitzed through the minors last year and looked like he is a rotation candidate. If they have to go that route and promote from within to fill a void in the rotation, which is something they know all about. The Hurston Waldrop injury was just really, I mean it wasn't just injury, it was insult to injury for the rotation because he was kind of the saving grace in the second half last year year thrown into things like asked to come up because that Speedway Classic game got pushed into a second day because of a rain delay and he pitched like he belonged. And I hate that he's having to go through an elbow surgery, but it's not a major one. But he's out of the plan. So that took a big bite out of The Braves depth, the Joey Wentz injury, clearly that was not part of the Braves plan either. But I think Grant Holmes is in a good spot. He chose to rehab his torn UCL and strengthen it. I think he talked to Aaron Nola who went the same route with his and believed that. I've kind of been pitching through this thing for a while and rather than shut myself down for 18 months, I'm going to try the rest in rehab route and thus far it looks like that could be the right decision. But we'll find out over the course of 162 games. So your depth isn't what you want it to be. Bryce Elder led your team and starts and in innings pitched, I believe last year. And he's a bit of a roller coaster at times, but there was some things I saw in the last six, seven weeks that gave me hope that, you know, maybe this is a guy that if he's your fifth starter and he's posting a, you know, 4ish ERA and at least keeping you in the game, you could do a lot worse. But if Bryce Elder is all of a sudden the last man standing, the Braves are in a pretty bad place and they were there for quite a while in 2025.
- [79:47]
B
Let's talk about the bullpen here. Iglesias back again. The big off season addition here though is Robert Suarez. So talk to us about what they liked in Suarez and then how they're thinking about piecing this group together.
- [79:59]
C
Yeah, and Suarez obviously, I mean, you look at those numbers, you look at his arsenal, that's what they look like, as the old baseball saying goes. I know Brian Snicker used to say that all the time. If you're looking at a late inning reliever, Robert Suarez is pretty much cut from that cloth and being able to team him with Rycel Iglesias. I know Iglesias has been been one of the better closers, saved the first two to three months of last year and the Braves believe that he figured his things out and it looked like he did over the final three months of last year. He was immaculate down the stretch in the second half. And you know, that's a job where I'm not as worried about the final three outs though. They are important, but what are you doing to get there? And they needed another impact arm and Robert Suarez checks all the boxes there. And if you have a day where Ricel Iglesias is dead down, you've got a perfectly good alternative, an all star type alternative to be able to come in and close games for you. So that's a great one, two punch. And then you just look at the way that the bullpen is built around them. I think that they've got some guys that they obviously believe are able to cover the innings that they need them to. Could Joey Wentz or Bryce Elder have been maybe a potential long guy for you? Possibly, but I don't think that they're necessarily looking at that. If you went out and got another start harder, is Ronaldo Lopez or Grant Holmes a bullpen option for you? Potentially. But with Tyler Kinley coming back on a one year deal with Dylan Lee being in place and with some of the other pieces that they have, overall, I think this is a solid bullpen and it's a strength and they wanted to build that out to be able to support this rotation. But as we saw last year, even if your bullpen has a bunch of good arms, if you got to overuse them, it's going to get overexposed and there's going to be problems. And the Braves unfortunately found out all about that in 2025 as well.
- [81:42]
A
Well, the guy who's going to be making the calls to the bullpen, as you mentioned, is Walt Weiss. So take us through this hiring and, well, promotion and reconstituted coaching staff. There were a lot of adventurous, somewhat surprising managerial hires this past offseason. Walt Weiss wasn't really one of them. You know, it's just kind of a traditional promote the longtime bench coach retread guy who's had that gig before for it's been a decade since his term as the Colorado Rockies manager ended. It was a fairly forgettable four year stint. I guess when you're talking about the Rockies, forgettable is not the worst case scenario. So there's that. But what did they see in Weiss? Did they think that he's set up to have a better second turn at the helm?
- [82:28]
C
Yeah, and there's a continuity thing that obviously was part of the hire. But I do believe that they went out and looked and canvassed and ultimately they just, they came back to Walt. And when I looked at him coming in as Brian Snicker's bench coach, you know, eight years ago, I kind of felt like, all right, well, that kind of makes sense because how long will Brian Snicker be the manager? It didn't seem like that was going to be as long a term as it was. I think that obviously that played out in a favorable fashion. By and large, you got a World Series title and a whole bunch of playoff appearances. And you know, why not keep running that back for a while. But Walt Weiss is walking into a very different situation with the Atlanta Braves than he was with the Colorado Race Rockies. I mean, he told the story that he didn't even know that he wanted the Rockies job. He just took the interview because he thought it'd be good for him and he got the job. But the Rockies are not the Atlanta Braves. They don't have this roster. They don't have the expectations that the Braves have, obviously, and they don't have the infrastructure. And I feel like they built just a really good and a kind of young coaching staff around Walt, who is a guy that I think understands the importance of bringing in all the info, but also believes it's equally important how we communicate that information to our players. Because, yeah, you got to go out on the field and get it done. And what advantages can we find inside all of the work that we do to get ourselves ready for the game? So he embraces that side of it, but he's a guy who was a grinder. He played for some winning teams in his career, including the braves in the 90s, the Oakland Athletics, and he's a guy that played for some great managers. So I feel like the Braves found themselves what I'll call, you know, know, dotingly a baseball guy to lead them, but somebody who's respected in that clubhouse, who understands the day to day, who doesn't have to go introduce himself to everybody because he already know him. And somebody who I think has been able to learn a ton through the experience that he's gotten in the last eight years with this club to get him ready for his second managerial stint. And a fun, fun guy to talk to about the game of baseball and the life that he's lived in and around it. I'm excited to see what he is able to do, what the Braves are able to do. It's never all on the manager. You know, he doesn't usually get the credit when they win. He always gets the blame when they lose, depending on pitching changes or a variety of other things. But he's a guy that's up to it. He can handle the criticism and, you know, I think brings the things that the Braves wanted to have in that job to lead this club.
- [84:47]
A
All right, well, what would constitute a successful season season for the Braves in 2026? Obviously gotta be a rebound to bounce back, but to what level?
- [84:57]
C
Playoff appearance I think has always been the bar for the Atlanta Braves. It's not where they want to stay. They don't want to get just stuck at the bar. They want to get themselves to the actual party and that means getting a deep run into October. They've dealt with all kinds of setbacks last year. 2024 was also a challenging year, but they at least were able to sign the guest book in October. They want way more than that. They expect way more than that. And quite frankly, Braves fit fans expect way more than that as well. So what will Alex Antopoulos do to try to maybe add to this club when the time is right? Will it happen in the spring? I don't really know. There's an excess of money if you look at it with the profar suspension once it's official. But is that dry powder for later in the season? Can you afford to wait for later in the season given what you saw last year? It's going to be an interesting line for the Braves to walk. But they have to have health number one, first and foremost to do the things that they want to do this year. That's true of all 30 teams, but for the Braves, I think more so they have just learned, you know, how difficult it can be to have that component going for you if they have it. This is a talented club that I still think can win the National League east and a club that expects to go on a run in October and have guys like Sale and Strider and hopefully Schwellenbach and others helping to lead them to a deep run. And, you know, who knows what can happen from there. You just got to get in. And for the break, Braves, they're looking to get back there. And I think that is the only thing that constitutes a successful season for them is a trip back to the playoffs.
- [86:19]
A
And one more thing, if people want to watch the Braves, how and where can they do that? Because it's going to be a little bit different. No more FanDuel Sports Network South. They have launched a new regional sports network, Braves vision. And this made some sense to me just because the remnants of the TBS SuperStation imprint and the Braves kind of being a regional force because of all those years when they were so accessible. So was that the thinking here, why they wanted to go this way?
- [86:48]
C
Yeah, I mean, ultimately it's just kind of the collapse of the RSN model for a number of big league clubs that ultimately it's like Thanos. It was just inevitable that we were going to have to change this thing and or it was going to change for them. And that's kind of what forced him there.
- [87:04]
D
But I think.
- [87:04]
C
I think they are comfortable with the idea of doing this. I kind of feel like that was something that everybody was just waiting for the other shoe to drop because I think that the Braves were looked upon as the most profitable of the group of teams that were under the fanduel umbrella. And you know, maybe they didn't want the other ones, but they still wanted the Braves. But does that make any sense for the Braves? And the bankruptcies and everything else were obviously something we don't have to get into and relitigate right now. But yeah, I think that Braves TV is where you can go find all the info. I cannot tell you that I I am read up and a scholar on all of this yet I think we're still waiting to see how they will interface with the television cable providers and carriers. But that component should be in place and you should be able to in network sign up for the Braves Vision package and have no blackouts and stream the 140 local broadcasts that will be available this year. So that part I do know. As far as when they'll announce all the details, I'm going to let the Braves do that on their own time and hopefully at some point within the next couple of weeks because we got
- [88:00]
A
a season coming up and if you want to know where you can find Grant McCauley, I'm sure Grant can answer that question at least. But from the diamond.com is a good place to find a bunch of his work, podcasts and articles writing all collected together. You can also Hear him on 92.9 the game, whether you're local or you want to stream it. And he does other writing, as I mentioned for the Marietta Daily Journal. He he has a new show just launched in January called Wax Packing Nostalgic where he opens baseball cards and you can watch and you can remember some guys. Anything else you care to plug?
- [88:35]
C
No, that pretty much covers all the bases for me. I'll have my show, my two hour baseball show from the diamond is local on 92.9 the game and wherever you get your podcast that'll start on the 29th of March. So only what, a couple of weeks away as well when baseball gets back. And I am going to start opening not just packs but boxes of vintage baseball cards as well. I've got quite the cachet I'm sitting on here and I'm excited to get
- [88:57]
A
into those going to be breaking. All right. Exciting. Okay.
- [89:00]
C
The big hits.
- [89:01]
A
Yeah. Okay. Well hopefully the Braves won't take too many more hits before the season starts at least, but it was a pleasure as always to talk to you. Thank you very much, Grant.
- [89:11]
C
Yeah, thank you all for having me.
- [89:12]
A
And now we'll take one more quick break and we'll be back with James Fegan to talk about the White Sox.
- [89:18]
D
If baseball were different, how different would it be? Players growing 3rd arm send infield of a tree. Anything is fair game, even Key K's dirty pants. And maybe if you're lucky, you will cold call by the chance. You never know precisely where it's gonna go. By definition, effectively wild.
- [89:45]
A
All right, let's talk about the Chicago White Sox. As always, we have brought aboard James Fegan, who covers the White Sox for Sox Machine, also covers prospects for fan graphs. How about that? Fan graphs contributor James Fegan and is also contributing to this podcast. Welcome, James.
- [90:03]
D
Thank you for having me. I feel uniquely prepared as there are gusts of 55 miles an hour in our my fair city today. As a child, it was my parents explained to me that it's not called the Windy City for the wind, but I always found that baffling because it's windy here all the time. It should definitely just be about both windy politicians and conditions.
- [90:30]
A
Yeah, it can be both. Why not? It seems to apply either way. And the White Sox, they've been buffeted by the trials and travails of the big leagues over the past couple seasons. But, you know, I gotta say, I'm kind of looking forward to this preview segment. Not that I don't always look forward to having you on the show, but, you know, sometimes it's kind of like sensing your mental health and how you're doing and, like, are you questioning career choices and can you actually make it through another season? And we'll assess how you sound as we proceed here, but I personally am. I'm kind of looking forward to watching some White Sox baseball this season. And maybe this is just a little irrational exuberance coming off of a meeting near 102 last season instead of 121 last season. But, you know, they made some moves. They've got some young talent. They're. They're looking feisty. Am I. Am I overselling the feistiness of this squad?
- [91:31]
D
Time will tell. I would say that in terms of you mostly got me thinking about my mental health, which I think is still in question, but it's more like it's not. Let's less like, why are you doing to your. This to yourself? And more like, are you gonna let these people, like, get you worked up again? Like, it was not that long ago that everything they said fell apart in front of you, are you. Why are you like getting excited about like a humble but I guess meaningly productive off season where you like measurably did things, even if, like we got the significance of them, like, if we were like scrutinizing them to a real degree, you know, they'd have some holes. But we were just excited that you saw every, every weak spot in your roster and said we'd add a player here. That, that seems like the thing to do, right? And we're like, yes, yes.
- [92:17]
A
Yeah, I don't want to oversell it too much here because this is the penultimate preview pod and they do have the second worst win total projection according to the fan graph step charts next to the Rockies. So I'm not saying that they are quite ready to turn the proverbial corner or be good again. I'm just saying they might be interesting, at least more interesting than they've been in in some time. So that's something. And maybe the most interesting player coming off of this winter is Munetaka Murakami. And I was a believer, I think relative to the consensus. But I do understand the obvious dings and holes. And clearly a lot of teams were not big believers that his early production in NPB would translate at this stage. So. So how did he end up with the White Sox on the contract? He did. And are they big believers or did they just think, well, if he's going to fall to us with this sort of term, then we'd be silly not to give him a shot. And what have they seen, obviously, in the brief time that he was actually in camp with them?
- [93:24]
D
I think you saw both like especially like early live at bats, you know, given that he's like more keyed up and ramped up because the, you know, the, the probably the biggest games of the season are happening about to happen this week. Compared to some other guys on the team, he looked great. And like his mishits go very far. And you're like, this is, this is amazing. This is like the level of like physical talent they haven't had in house, certainly in terms of power production for a while, certainly left handed power production. And then you see him like get beat by like some AAA guys like fastball upstairs. Like, huh, that has been happening a lot. We were told about that. But you know, that's definitely there. I mean the way that he fell to them was basically like him not having the market that was anticipated. Like when Eric and I were doing previews about guys from MPB and kbo coming over we kind of thought like yeah, it would be the risk I would take, but someone's going to see this, you know, 70 or maybe you'd arguably 80 grade power and be like we're going to take a chance on this. And we thought he'd be upper eight figures and possibly like $100 million guarantee. So for him to fall to 234 reflects just how many teams just thought this wouldn't work at all, let alone were willing to kind of go beyond above and beyond for it. Where it's almost like a little bit of a pillow contract for him, where if it really works the way that he thinks it's going to work, he has a chance to test his market again While he's still 28 years old as opposed to like he found his forever home home in the majors and like this is a franchise that's going to be built around him or anything. Like really your expected trajectory of like when the White Sox get good or get better or compete for divisions and all that. He's not really on track right now to be around for much of any of it. So it's, it's definitely a marriage of convenience. And I definitely like the, in talking to the White Sox like around when the signing was happening, it was more of like well what else are we doing with that position with that money? Like are we going to fill like the seats for Ryan o'? Hearn? Even though if that's a more prudent addition, probably not. And you know, if it totally fails, it really doesn't like affect our trajectory in some big way, which is like a more a healthy mental approach than this than to be like, oh yeah, I don't know what everyone's talking about. This is the greatest guy ever. But also, you know, definitely for the biggest signing of the off season and maybe the last three off seasons for the general attitude to be like, why not, let's see is a little bit like underwhelming as well from some standpoints.
- [95:48]
B
Well, they do have some guys who they expect to be around when they are theoretically good again. And maybe now we can talk about Colson Montgomery, who if you're a White Sox fan, you have to be very heartened by his debut. 129 WRC plus in 71 games, you know.
- [96:05]
A
Yeah, talking about James, they haven't had left handed power like Murakami and forever
- [96:11]
B
sleeping on Colson Montgomery here, 21 homers, played competent defense. So what did you see from Montgomery last year and what are you hoping to see in year two, this may
- [96:23]
D
just be a roundabout way of getting to the point, but like the defense might be the most surprising part. Like, he was through so much of his like prospect trajectory. It was the bat driving the the bus obviously, but also just like anywhere from like, we'll see if he's a shortstop or he might be a below average shortstop given how big and he doesn't have the foot speed of your typical shortstop to, you know, some scouts being like, I don't know what they're doing this left fielder, but they're wasting my time to him to come up and be like well above average across multiple defensive metrics was very surprising and obviously makes it a lot easier to grapple with. Like, all right, well he's now this like kind of extreme three true outcomes guy maybe needs to walk more to really fit that. But someone who's like very. Is he going to hit enough? Like, is he going to be a 30, 40 home run guy in a way that like makes this 30% strikeout rate survival? That's a lot easier question to ask. If he's not only sticking at shortstop for providing surplus value there, so that makes it better. But as bad as gone through extreme highs and lows, he's striking out north of almost 50% of the time in the first couple weeks. Repeating AAA at the start of last year. They pull him out, they send him to complex. He works with their director hitting one on one and plays in some complex leagues games gets back to AAA is obviously better, definitely hits for more power, but. But it's a little uneven. It's not like, oh, this guy is awesome and fixed now. It seemed a little early even, or even not even like you had answered every question by the time he got called up in July and he was kind of holding his own. He didn't hit any home runs until after the All Star break. And they put a torpedo bat in his hand, which has since become a modified torpedo and is now just like Colson Montgomery has a specifically a bat that's weighted specifically to his specification. What he needs contact wise, which I think the public might think in terms of like regular bat or torpedo bat, but it's just a level of bat fitting that seems to have addressed some measures of, you know, kind of swing length, so to speak. There's a. The way Ryan Fuller is termed in terms of like changing his center of balance or center of mass in a way that allows him to kind of like get the barrel around sooner and cover the inner half better than he was before. There's a lot of gobbledygook, but essentially you have him making a level of content attack certainly in zone that's all of a sudden acceptable and getting to power. He's been flashing for a while where he hits 21 home runs after the All Star break. And it's, you know, you, it's obviously a reasonable sample, a couple months of him hitting for a ton of power in the majors. And that, that's great and that's very exciting. But you also don't know like, does this mean he's like a 40 home run guy going forward or is he going to strike out all even more than we saw a little bit? So there's some unanswered questions there. Offensively, it's obviously very exciting. Exciting, a little boom or bust, but it's a lot easier to kind of ride the wave. It's like, well, he's our good defensive shortstop throughout that.
- [99:12]
B
Yeah.
- [99:13]
D
Like, well, what position does he go to and what other person we have to move out of his way and stuff like that. He. Given what they've acquired in the draft and are likely to acquire in the draft, Colson Montgomery at shortstop is definitely not a finished conversation in any way. But it's, it's in a, it's in a more advantageous place than it was when you just didn't think anyone could play there.
- [99:31]
A
Yeah, I've mentioned this before. I just need to update my mental model because he just, he has so many qualities that seem not like a shortstop to me. I don't know if it's just the fact that he wasn't expected to stick there or be so good there or just he's a big guy or just like the offensive line. Just that kind of three true outcomes, all or nothing like batting.239, slugging.529. It's just, it's not shortstoppy but, but it works and very valuable if you can stick there and continue to play well. Another guy who had his rookie season and, and there was some, some encouraging aspects to it and also some things to work on and especially defensively, perhaps Edgar Caro, who the framing was, was ugly at least if you look at the fan graph stats fewer than 600 innings behind the plate and negative 10 runs back there, that's not so great. But held his own offensively and he's even younger than Colson. So tell us what they took away positive and negative from his rookie season.
- [100:36]
D
The framing's certainly an issue. I don't know if that's any big reveal given these like bottom of stat gas rankings at it. I like they think you can be better at it. I think you could take any generic like worst framer in the league and be like, well there's some areas we can improve. I don't think that they feel his ceiling framing and thus kind of defensively as a whole is quite on the level of Kyle Thiel. They always think like as being a shorter levered guy, it's just going to be a little bit harder for him and he's going to have to be very, very precise with his pre pitch positioning to really try to combat some of his, you know, frame limitations. But he clearly can make contact. He has, you know, a good batting eye. They think that there's a little bit more power in there. He never had big time exit vos in the minors, but he still was generally a 15 home run a year guy from a very early age. He was the subject of a very in depth ESPN article about how he went to driveline over the winter which was unsurprisingly very focused on bat speed and loft which was kind of already what the White Sox said he needed to improve a little bit. So it's not the ceiling that I think think it's easy for him or the more likely scenario where he becomes the true one a over Kyle Thiel in this organization. But with Thiel now pulling his hamstring in wbc, he's certainly going to get this more extended window of basically being the number one catcher on the team to start the year and kind of hawk his wear, so to speak. But it's kind of like a soft skill type of dude to the toolsier Teal. He really has like feel the hit. He really has good judgment in the zone. He really works well with pitchers. He has good pitch calling reputation around the organization. But as far as like is he going to hit for a ton of power? Is he going to ever become like a great framer? Is he going to have like a big arm and control the running game? Probably not more than like approaching average to a little below at any point, but he's got enough kind of baseball skill that you know, I think eventually there are going to be other teams to be like this guy could start for us and we'd be fine and we'd like it and know the White Sox are at least considering cashing in at some point. Probably not right now though.
- [102:39]
B
We can continue with with the young guys and talk about chase my droth and I guess the, the big Question with him. You know he graded out very well defensively, underwhelming at the plate. Is there any more power here and is there any potential for him to elevate the ball a little bit more than he did because boy did he hit it on the ground a bunch last season.
- [103:03]
D
So yeah, I don't think they think there's a lot power in terms of like he's going to get bigger. I think the we can stop, you know, putting notches in the door frame for him going forward but he is like changing his operation to try to elevate the ball a bit more. He thought his leg kick was like too big and it was like having him on his back leg for too long and he was late on everything. He was also certainly like it's weird to because there is no baseline for his major league production before last year. But he was like banged up just like all season like every like post game clubhouse with Chase. My draft has seen him like untape his shoulder or wrap his angle or deal with like other maladies that he had. Now is that something that a smaller player with kind of a helter skelter style play is just going to run into maybe fairly regularly? Sure that that might be a knock on him long term but they definitely felt like the general like all right, he's finally healthy this spring after playing through a lot last season season is the general optimism around him on top of like doing some things to the swing and just thinking like a year in the league that you know, this is someone who because of his both the nature and the shape of his AAA production, all the models love kind of him and Santa Antonacci in a similar way to the point where the fans have kind of pitted these two undersized red ass players against each other in a way that I think is unnecessary but also dangerous. I can't imagine them fighting it out. It be would be a horrifying level of intensity. But I, I think they both have a place in their, their long term mix as useful guys at different parts of diamond. But I, I don't think he like either one. Certainly not my draws. Certainly not Antonacci because he's not played above Double A yet. I don't think either one has a like this firm hold on like this is our second baseman going forward. But they all, they both have like a level of like multi position functionality and general approach to the game in terms of like they don't seem to value their own survival very much where they're useful for a team to have. They're winning players, so to speak, even if they're not core. This is our second basement the future type, guys.
- [105:08]
B
Maedroth does kind of have the look of like an 80s high school villain. He's got that face and hair, so seems like he'd go down swinging, that's all.
- [105:18]
D
That made it more surprising for, like, Murakami to, like, in the first week, like, my draw's my best friend always. I teach him, where's the Japanese? All the time. We're like, really? That guy?
- [105:27]
A
So tell us what the White Sox have or think they have in Miguel Vargas. He kind of became a meme the previous year because there was that picture of him looking super sad in the dugout, and everyone was thinking, oh, you get traded to the White Sox. How depressing. I was thinking, hey, buck up. Clear path to playing time here. And that is the way it worked out in 2025. And he held his own league average hitter. Defense did not grade out so well at either infield position that he played regularly. So how are they thinking that the infield's going to shake out? Is he just going to be entrenched at third with Madra at second? And then where does Luis Angel Acuna fit in? And is Lenin Sosa the DH for this team? Like, how does the rest of the infield alignment work?
- [106:15]
D
In some, it's a pickle. I. I don't think they're necessarily wed to any of them at one position. Like, certainly like Lenine to start at the most idiosyncratic player. They don't know where to put him, like, positionally, anywhere it's possible. He's. He's demonstrated the fact that, like, there's a lot of, like, specifics to first base beyond. Just, like, it requires the least range that you can't assume someone has because Lenny got caught. Like, having the ball thrown on to him where his foot was on the bag. Multiple iterations to the point where, like, oh, maybe he's actually better at second base because at least he's played there. His hands are pretty good. His range, his quick decision making, more lags. So he's supposed to bounce between first, second, and third this year because he clearly hits. He hits in this very weird style. Top of the scale, Chase rates, but real power line. Had, like, a perfect Lenine, a bat, like, at the start of spring, where he, like, swung through two heaters and looked awful and then got, like, a perfect splitter, like, below the knees and, like, roped it for a double. Like, that's the Lenine like Sosa experience, like nothing makes sense. Anything could happen. Look alive. It's nice to have somebody who can just hit to pull off the bench and put any spot. But he doesn't really have a set position or like even like a great inkling at this point, like where the most of his plate appearances come from. Whereas Miguel Vargas is more geared towards let's give this chance, this guy a chance to be our third baseman every day, at least for now. You know, as we mentioned with you know, the shortstops they have in the system, or Caleb Bonimer who's not really shortstop but probably third baseman. It's really like a kind of a prove it year for Miguel. It's not necessarily a ton is guaranteed to him past this year he becomes ARB eligible as well. So that throws another wrench to the cactus. But he's clearly a big leaguer. But like of what stripe? Because as you said league average, that's kind of okay at third, but his defense wasn't really good enough for third. He's better defensively at first, but it's not really nearly enough enough offense yet and probably not enough power potential long term for him to profile there in any long term way. So his spring emphasis has been a lot on like on top of like the little mechanical tweak they did with him last year which took him from being, you know, unrosterable to that league average player who covered upper fastballs better. He's all about like, you got to add range, you got to be better on your pre pitch movements. You have to see strides defensively to hold down this everyday third base spot. And he's kind of your best candidate to really get an opportunity here. Like Curtis Mead still bouncing around, you know, he, he's out of options so we'll see what happens at the end of spring. But there's not necessarily like another person who's threatening for that everyday third base time at this juncture. Ironically because he was traded for Luis Robert Luis Angelicunha is probably going to get the most playing time at center field just because there's not really options there and he can do it. He played there in the Venezuelan Winter League league they have a similar thing tweaked to his operation. It's not that dissimilar from Chase My Droff where they're hoping he gets the ball in the air a bit more, which they point to him hitting four home runs in a game the Venezuelan Winter League as you know, evidence that he's showing some progress from that. He's had a pretty good spring, but it is Venezuelan Winter League. I don't know how much you can read from it. Lenny Sosa is a God when he goes down there. It's something to behold. Hold it definitely could evolve. It could be a way different picture for the distribution of this playing time of this group by June, let alone by the end of the year. But that's generally where it shakes out, at least to open, where the opportunities seem to lie for them.
- [109:39]
B
I wanted to ask about the Robert trade and see are they, I mean, of course they're going to say this publicly, especially once they figure out what side Louis on. Hello, Cuna bats from. I had to bring it up at least once. I had to bring it up at least one time. The dumbest thing you've ever had to report on. That's one of the dumbest things you've ever had to report on. But I'm, I'm curious sort of how they are assessing how they did in the return here because you know this, this front office group has had a couple of bites at the apple, moving big veteran pieces and I think that the industry consensus is that as time has gone on, they have gotten better with each successive trade. Right. That the returns have been more impressive and that the players that they're getting back are guys who could have a real impact on the organization. Where are they sort of grading the Luis Robert Jr. Return on sort of a continuum of, I don't know, Dylan Cease to Garrett Crochet.
- [110:43]
D
Obviously there have been salary dump trades since time immemorial. I don't know if I've personally covered a salary dump trade where the front office so overtly and gleefully like celebrated dumping the salary and all that they would do with a dump salary as this one. I think it kind of plays into the acuna thing of forgetting which way he bats because it's like, oh yeah, that guy we got back, right? Super versal. And then, you know, the mental shortcut of just running off like every quality of versatility all at once and then finding yourself calling switch hitting before you've realized it or any of your media members who have started sleepwalking through this portion of your availabilities have noticed it either. But they like when they traded the salary, the other salary jump that they were able to be a part of where the Red Sox gave them Jordan Hicks and David Sandler being the prospectors buying by absorbing that salary. I was talking to a person about it and they described it was like, so we're using the rest of the Robert money, which feels very much like they got this $20 million to play with after getting rid of it and they were able to spend it. It was very exciting. So they signed Austin Hayes and they feel like their outfield's a little bit more well rounded with that. And the Hicks is going to get a chance to kind of reestablish himself out of the bullpen, which is at least something he's done successfully before. And he's throwing hard again. Not 105, but 98, 99. Tends to play in this league at least a little still. And they bought Sandlin this prospect who they think has a chance to start but hasn't got off to a good start. He's been banged up most of camp, had back and elbow issues. So we'll see how that plays out going forward. But it seems like it will unlock basically the second half of their offseason where they're able to fill out all these spots on the roster. And now it looks like, like kind of a more complete picture that even if it's doesn't look like a team that's actually trying to win a division, it definitely feels like a team that's trying to put a functional roster for which their prospects can grow up in be like, all right, we don't have to like, pretend that the outfield doesn't matter or the fact that we're like, we're punting three spots in the lineup. You can go out there and compete every night because we built a real team around you. And so I think it's been part of the positive feelings as much as, like, you know, it was fun to watch Luis Robert every day. Even when you're struggling. Can they do credible physical things? It does feel like this kind of took the Shackles off some of their activities of the last couple of years of team building in terms of just kind of a one off in terms of all of a sudden having $20 million added to the budget room.
- [113:16]
A
Yeah, I was going to ask you about that because there was that flurry of signings and I was trying to figure out what does this mean? Did the White Sox think they're even friskier than I think they are? Like, they're, they're trying to polish off the.
- [113:29]
D
The pieces here to like millions flurrying up.
- [113:33]
A
Yeah, it was.
- [113:34]
D
Right.
- [113:34]
A
And. And then I'm think, you know, and they pick up Sean Newcomb and. And S. Anthony Dominguez and they're getting like late Inning relievers. It's like, why? Exactly. But then I'm thinking, well, are these just candidates to be flipped at the deadline? So is that part of the calculus that they're just thinking, thinking, we'll stockpile these guys and other teams will need them when, when the trade deadline rolls around? Is that. Or was it really just like, woo, we got all this money windfall bonanza. Let's side some relievers.
- [114:03]
D
I want to look it up. I want to say they had the lowest blown, say, or the highest blown save rate in the league last year. Like Pythagorean, like win, loss. They should have been a 71 team win team last season instead of like their third straight 100 loss year. But their 11 record, 15 and 36, unfathomably bad at like locking down games to the point where they felt it was like kind of hampering the way their roster functioned and the way that like the most clear example being they call up Grant Taylor, this exciting, you know, top hundred prospect pitcher, you know, has been hurt a lot. So he hasn't built up very many innings and they're kind of giving him maybe two, three in any outings as a starter at beginning of the year in Double A. And I just call him up and he kind of almost by default just becomes like their closer, like right off upon arrival, which even though like his advanced stuff like looked great, he kind of compiled his ugly ERA and like they were throwing him in like very difficult moments. They tried to get like a four or five out save from him in Dodger Stadium and like his first, first month to six weeks in the majors, like it was especially given that now this season they want him to be a guy, one of those relievers who kind of maybe has a season like Mike Basil had last year where he gets up to 90 or 100 innings, they wanted to take it out of like, all right, you're so obviously the best option for any leverage situation. You're almost automatically going in. If we have a lead to like, all right, there's going to be a real bullpen built out. Sir Anthony Dominguez is going to close. You know, we have Jordan Hicks back out there who's done that. Like, Sean Newcomb was a good leverage arm for the A's down the stretch last season. He's still kind of competing for a rotation bid, which is out of the stage, but we'll see how that shakes out. Having like they felt a real functional bullpen and not having kind of one area of the team that just like everything sinks into the mud and resulting chaos in terms of covering innings results from it. They wanted to shore that up a little bit or at least just like not drive their managers I think very highly of insane unnecessarily if it's, it's reasonably affordable. And you know Sir Anthony's at a figure where it's not like you would see, see the salary of him as being like immovable. Maybe trading him at this deadline might be a little gauche after, after all him in but the next one you, you, you could see it as something they eventually get some value value back from even if they don't like compete in any of the years he's actually here as well.
- [116:29]
A
It is one of the most frustrating ways to be bad. Just to feel like no lead is safe. You have few enough leads as it is to begin with and then you can't protect any of them. They did have the worst win probability added in baseball. The most meltdowns in baseball. So yeah just make the team a little more watchable while you're tuning in to see some of the sexier players.
- [116:51]
D
Yeah. And they kind of still think, think to some degree Sir Anthony is an upside play because they felt he was like they could choose between if, if the choice in the off season was like between Pete Fairbanks who's you know throwing strikes but you know you're seeing a little bit of the client of the bat missing versus a guy with like missing as much bats as ever. You know just to introduce this splitter that they're excited about. But this has this control numbers that they need to reign in. They feel like there's a bit more room to like hey maybe he performs a little bit better than last year under our, our, under our tutelage and his val there's at least a path to his value increasing more than it is right now as opposed to just like paying for like please stay like within 90% of your previous self type of acquisition. That's at least how they describe Sir Anthony to me.
- [117:33]
B
I guess we should talk about some of these rotation guys and probably start with Shane Smith who I mean, you know, he's not the most successful Rule 5 pick in history, but they have to be feeling pretty good about how this has turned out for a Rule 5 picks guy. So what did you see from Smith last year? What do you think, what adjustments do you think he'll need to make in his second year to sort of sustain this? And yeah, how'd they, how did they go about the process of identifying this guy as their guy.
- [118:01]
D
Shane is like their pride and joy on many levels. Like one like simple and crude one is like, ha, we got something out of a guy the brewers couldn't. Or like, yeah, we look smarter in this one specific thing than this obviously very smart organization. Clearly this is like a show, the sign that we have something good going on. Maybe more broadly in like pitch nerdery, he fits this role like this archetype of players of basically like super right handed, supernatur guys who can spin the ball a lot who have never had a change up that's been viable and teaching them kind of either with Davis Martin being one example of a kick change or, you know, seam effects or one seam change up to what Shane Smith has or kind of other varieties amongst these guys, Samlin is learning a kick change as well. Like Tanner McDougal when they're super spin heavy. Prospect righty is like learning like some sort of scene effects thing that was described to me in confusing fashion. So he fits like this archetype of picture. They've been chasing a little bit of like we're able to give change ups the guy guys who haven't had them. So for Shane to hit on that, at least out of the gate last year, it's never piled up quite as many whiffs relative to how cool it looks because it's like 92 miles an hour sometimes and it dives like super hard and to armside like, you know, maybe a less firm change up. But he like. I would think the bigger thing that maybe made Shane pitch a bit better than he had in Milwaukee is that he like started throwing a lot harder. I want to say he gained, gained two ticks overall, but you saw a lot of like 99 and 98 from last spring and you know, he was pretty strong down the stretch in the second half. I think his second half was probably better than his first half where you saw him start to use a sinker and really, you know, just pound the zone to fastballs two different shapes and have a lot of success with it down the stretch. He's maybe like the best chance because of the velo, because of the fastball play to transcend it. But it's a lot of guys where they certainly seem like they have a good chance of becoming a reliable number four starter or they feel like somebody you can give starts to and feel like this is a worthwhile project. But maybe like Shane Smith being the open day starter kind of reflects the lack of front end potential that they have at this juncture and maybe like the weak point of the team in some degree at least in terms of like who actually becomes like an above average contributor. Like they have no shortage of guys to kind of give starts to like someone like Jonathan Cannon, who had a pretty decent rookie year in 2024, could easily find his way on the odd man out. Or Sean Newcomb could, you know, is likely to like be pushed to the bullpen, but they don't really the Noah Schultz is the Hagen Smiths or depending on your level of optimism about like Tanner McDougal, those guys are probably a bit farther away from, hey, could this guy start a playoff game for us or you know, start a playoff series for us? More like those guys kind of aren't ready yet. You have a lot of back of the rotation guys milling around and fighting for pecking order and Shane's currently at the top of it. But a lot of it's, it's not like you could see him. It wouldn't be crazy to see like if you told me Sean Burke had a better 2026 than Shane Smith, I wouldn't be like, how could that have happened? There are a lot of guys who are kind of in a similar bucket, it seems.
- [121:13]
A
So they did pluck one of the pitchers who's returning stateside after a stint in Asia, Anthony K. He has a 5.59 career ERA in MLB and he had a 1.74 ERA last year for Yokohama in NPB. So are you gonna go closer to the 5.59 or the 1.74 in 2026? And and just to head off any great excitement, remember that the league average ERA in the Central League was under three. So the under two is a little less impressive that it sounds perhaps to MLB fan ears. But nonetheless it was a strong season and obviously he improved his stock. So what did he do differently over there and will he actually be a different guy than he was before he went there?
- [122:04]
D
It sounds like very crafty lefty sort of stuff. Like he threw a sinker more over there in a place where, you know, it's a lot more contact oriented and being a ground ball guy is, is a lot a more common environment viable project. But it's kind of none of his fast fall shapes like dominate on their own. So he'll show you four seamer, he'll show you a cutter, he'll throw you a sinker. He was like a big change up guy coming out of college, out of UConn. What, God, like a decade ago and hasn't been quite the same type of change of performance since tj. So now he's like a very big kitchen sink sort of operator, which is kind of like everybody. It's certainly very in line with, you know, and bringing Zach Bove, their pitching coach over from the Royals. Like you had a lot of guys who, you know, had super wide arsenals there. Not just, you know, seth Lugo throwing 15 pitches but like Noah cameras rookie season was very much in like throwing multiple password shapes. So it's, it's not something that gets talked about as like this huge upside. Like, oh, he's going to lead the league in ERA here too. But it's like this guy throws tons of strikes, throws a bunch of shapes. He's going to be able to mix it up. You know, he was like a 7k per 9 guy in Japan. And I don't think they're expecting something world's different here year. The only weirdness is it's almost just a reminder that it's 2026 now is that K has like been throwing 95 in spring and like touched 99 this year. But I think that's more just a common. Like even the crafty lefties throw 95 now. More than that's really like he's going to blow people away with velocity. They still kind of perform like middle of the road heaters based on shape even though like the velocity is not really bad at all or even a tick above average for a left hander. But he's definitely kind of, he provides diversity in being a left hander of this group. But he's kind of very similar in terms of like, yeah, I can see that guy being a solid big league starter and getting you 150innings that are quality or decent or league average or a little better. Sure, why not? But not like, oh, we think we actually signed the real ace of the Yokohama Bay Stars and it's over for, for everybody.
- [124:01]
A
So it's not quite like when Eric Fetty came back from the KBO and was a better pitcher for the White Sox. The new fetty and the old Fetty.
- [124:13]
B
Yeah, I'm sure they're hoping the old Fetty will be like the old fetty.
- [124:17]
A
Right?
- [124:18]
B
The first.
- [124:19]
A
I know what you mean.
- [124:20]
D
Well, when he was bouncing around last year when he was, you know, obviously performing really poorly, I like was joking. Socks. People like, why don't you just bring them back? It wouldn't cost anything. And you could frankly, you got them right one time, you could do it again. And they were like, yeah, we, we talked to him and we think there's interest. And then like later this spring, like, sure enough, they signed them. So I don't know if I get credit for putting like something in the suggestion box, but, like, it's kind of like, sure, why not? It was like, bargain. I want to say you signed for like 1.5 million. Yeah, it's a little bit like, let's at least sign someone who's been in rotation before. Before, you know, handing a spot to either. Whether it's either Canon or Mike Vassall stretching out as a starter or. You know, what should be a pretty strong AAA rotation was the Schultz, McDougal and Hagen Smith down there. Why not see if he's got some of the old magic and you have some prospects that would probably take his spot if it doesn't work out and you can get out of it pretty quickly in that case as well, you
- [125:20]
B
brought up aaa and so I guess we should ask. You mentioned some of the pitchers here, but who are some of the other guys who are sort of floating around the high miners here? You think they might bring up if somebody gets hurt or underperforms or they're just like, hey, bring another young guy and let's see how he does up here.
- [125:35]
D
I think Schultz and Smith are kind of too big of a deal to be brought up, like, just purely on injury basis necessarily. But obviously Sandlin was in camp and he'd be probably on that line if he was, you know, a bit healthier in spring. He's still throwing, but it's not quite ramped up. But you know, Kai Bush is coming back from tj. There's a bunch of guys who basically blew out last spring camp who would all be in that. Like true Thorpe. True Thorpe, the most prominent example, though, he's had a setback. So like, I think all star break now would be, you know, good for him to. But Mason Adams was another person in that bucket who's, you know, probably a June possibility. Shane Murphy was like this kind of random, like, org guy who pitched really well and just threw strikes. 88, 91. I don't know if he'd get a start. He was a major league invite to camp. They almost like have so many, like Duncan Davit from the Rays trade last year. Yes, that was the Curtis Mead deal where they gave up Adrian Hauser for a bunch of guys who were kind of like roster crunch in the race system. And Davit was someone that needed to add this 40 man. So he got added. So he's probably a good Depth starter. You could see at some point Tyler Schweitzer has, you know, bounced around, been a decent swing man for them and he's great in Double A but gets hammered in aaa which is and they don't know how much of that is like the, the White Sox Triple A team plays in like basically course for AAA parks. It's not actually in course, it's just a really small ballpark but it's kind of hell for any like contact oriented back end starter. So everyone who seems like oh this guy gets get started up like gets bald down there and to a degree where like you kind of see them hesitate to promote guys they really care about about from Double A for a while. Coincidentally, the Birmingham Barons have won back to back Southern League titles. Riley Gowans from that five person Aaron Bummer trade at the start of Getz's tenure. He's had good numbers of aa. Maybe he's another guy who pop up. There's no shortage of like six starters in the high minors for them to kind of pick through at their choosing when things inevitably hiccup at the major league level.
- [127:43]
A
We mentioned Teal earlier, obviously got hurt in the wbc. What's the timeline for him and and how and where will they work him in when he's ready?
- [127:52]
D
I mean he's basically the guy they feel is their true like number one, like a catcher of the group. He was going to probably get most of the starts against right handed pitching. Had a pretty significant platoon split in the year. And then Caro is kind of finishing out, figuring out how his playing time is more like all right, when can he dh? When is he backing up Teal, when are we starting against left handing? So I think Teal is supposed to be out four to six weeks. He just like spoke to media today on Friday. So as with any athlete doing an interview about an injury, he's already given the possibility of an earlier recovery time, but probably going to miss the first two, three, maybe four weeks of the season depending on how rehab goes. But with having Caro having Corey Lee out of options, it, it almost answers a roster question for them more than than it makes a question for them. I think he jumps back into being a big part of the lineup once he arrives, but they don't necessarily have to rush him because if anything they have to figure out what they're going to do with two kind of major league quality catchers when Teal returns.
- [128:53]
A
I just remembered that Andrew Ben Intendi exists so I will just quickly. He has had three years with the White Sox, and all three of them have rounded to zero either war wise, that is either rounded up to zero or rounded down to zero. Do you think it's more likely that if he does not round to zero for a fourth season in a row that he will round to positive war or negative war? Will it be plus one or negative one? Which is more likely?
- [129:27]
D
Okay. Because it was kind of feeling like an SAT word problem for a bit there. I like Andrew. He's been a joy to cover. I did find it funny. He was doing a podcast interview the other day and like, the interview is like, so why aren't you on Team Italy right now? And it's like, oh, it wasn't asked.
- [129:44]
A
Yeah. I mean, they're a powerhouse. So juggernaut.
- [129:47]
D
It's like, oh, looking. Saying your name aloud makes you feel like, why aren't you in Team Italy at this moment?
- [129:54]
B
Sure sound Italian.
- [129:56]
D
He said like, last, basically. I mean, there's multiple reasons. Like, he was. Had the. He was kind of still coming off or still dealing with wrist pain after the hammer issue, like the year they signed him. In the last few years, he's had Achilles troubles, which has corresponded with like a sharp downgrade and his defensive metrics, but also just like, playing availability. Like, he's just clearly been in too much pain to kind of keep playing outfield regularly down the stretch the last two years. Not that he ever profiled as someone that you would think this, but he did lose a bunch of weight in the next 8 or 12 pounds or so, which, you know, significant percentage of Andrew Pen attending in the idea of putting less stress on it and said, like, he felt great and was ready to play a lot of left field in spring training. When I asked about in the off season, I was talking to Chris Getz, like, surely you're not putting this guy down to play like 140 out there and left next year. And he's like, no, I don't think Andrew wants to do that, let alone like, we think it's a good idea. So it's someone that almost kind of clogs up their DH mix a little bit with the two catchers and that that's kind of where they think they'll put him a fair amount depending on, like, how many of their other outfielders actually, beyond Austin Hayes, like, look worthy of playing on a regular basis. But he's hit like, okay for stretches. They're certainly even been good. You know, only had one 20 home run year in his career before arriving Chicago. Now he has three Three. He oddly said, like, maybe I need to hit for less power this year now that like Montgomery and Murakami are like power threats behind him. But, you know, power has kind of been like the, maybe the best or most encouraging development of his offensive profile the last couple years. Like it's a quietly good power park for lefty hitters and he's able to pull the ball effectively. It's kind of like the coolest thing he's doing right now because, you know, I, I, one of the reasons, like covering them because how regularly he talks about like man, guys, when I was coming up, no one like threw this hard all the time. I'm seeing like 92 mile hours of sliders. This is stupid. What happened to the game I love type of situation where it's like, oh yeah, this is a guy who's going to go more power over hit in the back quarter of his career because he can't like being the sort of contact hitter he was earlier in his careers. Doesn't seem as tenable now to either me nor talking to him, but by the sound of it. So I, I think it's still like a quality of bat. But with his whether his defensive decline is temporary due to injury permanent, it becomes like one not really a player they can move because it's, you can't really peg him as like, hey, here's your new everyday left fielder or here's your new everyday DH because he's kind of tweenier in terms of like the, like the offense fitting in either spot. But their offense has just hasn't been built up enough where you really like, he's been clearly one of probably the best five hitters in their lineup for like the past two years in a way where you want to keep running him out there because you feel like you have a real lineup when he's in there, even if he's as you put it, not actually producing any actual surplus value of any kind. So I, I would love to see Andrew have like a productive season. And he's, he's kind of like obviously the butt of a lot of jokes around here because he came on, he's got, you know, the biggest contract ever in franchise history. And even he thinks that was a kind of a surprising revelation to him when we told him that at the press conference. And his tenure is lined up with like the base of the team going into a tank. Even though I don't think like he, you know, bears responsibility for that, so to speak. So it'd be nice to see him Have a one warrior because I think Andrew Beneteni is quietly still a pretty decent player. But given the injury history, given that, you know, they're not really banking on him having a full left field workload even, it's probably more likely to be negative one. He's, he's older than he's ever been and there's, there's probably more options to push him out if like Everson Pereira plays like a top hundred prospect again or Brooks Baldwin kind of builds on the second half, though he's a little banged up right now or Brady Montgomery debuts and you know, we forget like Ben attendees name entirely. They're, they're more set up than ever to kind of move on from relying on him the way that I have the last two years. So it's, it's probably more likely negative than positive, but I, I hope it goes well.
- [134:06]
A
And one thing that probably was a, a positive off the field for White Sox fans last year was that there was a path to succession. Some post Reinsdorf future, some way to escape the Jerry era aside from mortality. And we had sort of a mini controversy because there was a, a bold preseason prediction last. It was one Meg rallies about how there would be what, multiple teams changing hands or having a new controlling ownership. And so Chris Hannell, our, our scorekeeper was agonizing over whether this counted or not because it was kind of contingent and well, it could happen here or it could happen there. So tell us exactly how you think this will play out with Justin Ispia theoretically eventually taking control of this team and in the short term with Reinsdorf. He's 90 now. He just turned 90. Happy birthday, Jerry. Is he going to want to win one more while he still can before he hands over the reigns here? Like, should White Sox fans be worried about some sort of. Is he going to be too hasty with trading prospects or something because he wants the White Sox sucks to get good again too soon or something?
- [135:24]
D
Maybe because like, if he wants to win one more, I don't see it becoming like, actually money has no intrinsic value. Here's the $300 million payroll.
- [135:34]
A
Can't take it with you.
- [135:35]
D
Yeah, it's rarely been win one more like outside of like the normal structure operating the team. I don't see like all caution being thrown to the wind. And if you talk to like White Sox front office people, well, it's a lot of like we're trying to take lessons from the Rays and take lessons from the brewers because that's how we're going to have success now. And these people work for Dre Reinsorck, so I generally trust them to have an idea of what sort of constraints they're operating under. This if anything, is the most the Weinstocks have sounded like realistic about their situation and winning as kind of a smaller market team even though we're in the third largest city in media market market in the country. And from while they have this weird agreement where like Jerry can sell to Ishpia as soon as like after the 2029 season, but it could also extend out to like 2034. It's kind of morbidly like seemingly this ballpark estimate of like how much longer he has to live. The inclination or the indication I've got is that he wants to basically continue running the team as long as he feels he can can. But this is kind of setting up so that there is a transition plan in place for roughly when you'd expect it to be necessary too kind of a decent a nice little buffer range as far as when it would be. So I don't see them certainly not in the within Miguel Vargas arbitration years timeline all of a sudden like adjusting their tax in some big way. It seems like they're more hunkering down and looking to operate and with the constraints that they've been made to live within for the time being. But it's obviously across the fan base and maybe their larger optimism or some degrees of fans who are I'm not really going to give this too much of the time of day until ISHPI is in charge type of outlook of, you know, in five years and 10 years things are going to be different. They're going to have a new owner and it's going to be towards getting a new stadium in a way that's not entirely reliant on just like hoping the public pays for one entirely or that they're going to spend in some drastically different way. That's still kind of maybe the larger fan base optimism for the team more than the specific core of players, if for no other reason than this fan base was sold not too long ago and maybe even a more promising core of players than what they currently have and have learned to kind of gird their expectations or gird their loins for having their expectations shattered in front of them by a young team that looks scrappy and promising now but maybe can't close the deal as much as was anticipated.
- [138:11]
A
Okay, so what constitutes success for the White Sox in 2026?
- [138:16]
D
Well, the great thing about losing 100 games three straight years is it comes Notable if you don't do it in the fourth year.
- [138:23]
A
Yeah, it's all success. It's all nothing but up from that
- [138:26]
D
there because, like, they're in some, like, reverse psychology to use their good p. AG Last year or better one against them. I think I want to say like, 75 wins would be like a reasonable jump up from like the, the talent level or level of play they had. They've very much romanticized the fact that they were 28 and 37 after the, the second, after the all Star break last year. Part of that is because they were legitimately 500. Then like went on, like, I want to say eight or nine or ten game losing streaks late in September. And it really threw off the numbers that they were pinning their optimism to. But I, I think saying like winning, playing actual.500 ball based on the way they closed out last season would probably be a little rich. But that middle tier of like, not 80 wins, but, you know, healthily in the 70s and the closer they get to 80s, the more good feelings there are. I think that should register a success. At the same time, like, and it was kind of like this darkly sad or not amusingly sad or a darkly optimistic moment at Sox Fest where they were asking like, Chris Katz is being interviewed in the segment in front of the fans. It's like, not really a hard interview. So it's like, Chris, how much can we, like, how much improvement could they have? Last year they improved my 19 wins and Chris was like, how about 19 more? And it was supposed to be like him being a little bit like, overly optimistic to rev up the crowd, but that in itself was promising, like a 79 win season. So that's like the reasonable, like, best it could go type improvement. And theoretically, if you faulted 38 wins in two years, like, little Venables should probably get some energy of the year votes. Right? But I would like to say 75 or just even more than like 72 is probably like, ha. Yeah, they clearly got better by a significant amount. Any kind of like over 10 win improvement is hard to really scoff at.
- [140:18]
A
Well, I think you have definitely been more upbeat on this segment than in some recent past.
- [140:24]
D
There's no crap.
- [140:26]
A
Yeah, yeah. There's no sort of staring off into the middle distance. Just existential, struggling with what you're doing with your life. So I think this is definitely an improvement. And you can read James's coverage of the socks at Socks Machine. You can hear him on the Socks Machine podcast. You can read him writing about White Sox prospects specifically sometimes at Baseball America and you can read him at fan graphs writing about other people's prospects too, so he's all over the place. Always happy to have you on Effectively Wild too. Thank you James.
- [141:01]
D
Thanks for having me.
- [141:02]
A
All right, two more team previews to go. One more preview pod. Do I even have to tell you which two teams think you can figure it out by process of elimination nation or just knowing ball? We will wrap up the preview series next time, but before we do, we will enjoy a Sunday night matchup between Paul Skeens and Team USA and those Dominican Republic bats which cannot be quelled or at least have not been quelled. The unstoppable force, the immovable object. Exciting stuff. Team USA advanced over Canada 5 to 3 and the Dr. Run ruled Korea 10 to nothing. Good thing we had that discussion about whether it's a walk off off if you hit a home run to mercy rule another team because that's what happened with Austin Wells. Also, Josh Naylor for Team Canada, victorious even in defeat because he goaded his teammate Cal Rally into not shaking his hand or bumping his fist either. I'm gonna guess Naylor was just having some fun with Cal, but I had some fun with his having some fun and now Julio has to do the same in the Sunday game. See if cal will go 3 for 3 in leaving his teammates in hanging. I know you won't leave us hanging when we say that you can support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com effectivelywild and signing up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going. Help us stay ad free and get yourself access to some perks as have the following five listeners Mark Van Dusen, Zach Breeding, Ben Bloom, Amy Ackerman and Gwendolyn Fish. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons. Also, only monthly bonus episodes, playoff live streams, prioritized email answers, personalized messages, shoutouts at the end of episodes, potential podcast appearances, discounts on merch and ad free fan grafts, memberships and so much more. Check out all the offerings@patreon.com effectivelywild if you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. If not, you can contact us via email, send your questions, comments, intro and outro themes to podcastfangraphs.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 group@facebook.com group effectivelywild. You can find the effectively wild subreddit at 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 and stats we cited today. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We hope you have a wonderful weekend and we will be back to talk to you you next week.
- [143:40]
D
Effectively wild effectively wild effectively wild baseball podcast.