Effectively Wild Episode 2456: The Hierarchy of Power in the MLB Universe is About to Change

Summary

Effectively Wild Episode 2456: The Hierarchy of Power in the MLB Universe is About to Change
Date: March 25, 2026
Hosted by: Meg Rowley & Ben Lindbergh (with Chris Mitchell)
Podcast: Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast

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Episode Overview

This episode, recorded just before MLB Opening Day, delivers a lively mix of statistical analysis, commentary, and insider baseball banter. Meg, Ben, and Chris dissect the reverberations of recent WBC (World Baseball Classic) drama, reflect on the transformative impact of MLB’s new ABS (automated ball-strike) challenge system, celebrate rising WBC popularity, and wade into the persistent push-pull of analytics in the modern game. Revisiting team news, player extensions, and the narrative power of the sport, the hosts present a nuanced portrait of a league and fan base on the edge of technological and cultural change.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Mariners Drama & Clubhouse Dynamics

Timestamps: 00:47–05:44

• The show kicks off by addressing fallout from WBC between players Cal Raleigh and Randy Arozarena. Drawing parallels to family conflicts, hosts emphasize grown-up professionalism.
• Meg Rowley: "You can be family and still come to—well, hopefully not blows, but be at odds, even if only temporarily… what makes you feel great is some baseball. Probably not even going to remember it." (04:39)

Memorable Moment:

• Joking speculation over what “apology” gestures might mean, from handshake lines to "little Italian kisses" learned during the WBC.

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2. WBC Memorabilia & Value

Timestamps: 05:44–09:19

• Discussion on the recent charity auction for the Italy team’s WBC espresso machine ($16,510), and the quirky economics of memorabilia, with the machine outselling even a prized jersey.
• Ben Lindbergh: "It just looks like a regular espresso machine with some stickers on it." (07:52)

Humorous aside:

• The oddity and ‘infinite ways’ to spend money in collectible baseball, poking fun at personal taste and “ugly hats.” (09:10)

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3. Podcast Changes & Community Feedback

Timestamps: 09:19–12:46

• Announcement: One episode per week going subscriber-only to support the show, with largely positive listener feedback.
• Praise for the respectful nature of community disagreement and reminder to participate in preseason predictions voting.
• Meg Rowley: “People have largely been lovely and supportive, and even folks who didn’t love the decision did so respectfully. It’s just another reminder of our great community.” (11:20)

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4. MLB’s ABS Challenge System Launch

Timestamps: 12:46–24:54

• Anticipation over the newly adopted ABS (robot ump) challenge system—landmark tech aimed at perfecting strike zone enforcement.
• Nostalgic musings on how, for younger players, the tech is ‘old hat’ due to minor league exposure.
• Debates on whether being "the first player to issue a challenge" will have Ron Blomberg/DH-level trivia legacy.
• Ben Lindbergh: "These are both cases of a long anticipated, long tested technological solution to a problem..." (17:46)

Notable Quote:

• Meg Rowley: "I think the most meaningful use case for the Challenge System is to prevent the game-ending bad call. That’s the highest-stakes potential moment..." (21:00)
• Parallels drawn between pitch clocks and ABS: both long envisioned and, after years of trial, finally realized to solve enforcement issues.
• Challenge system seen as a confidence-booster—giving fans relief, real-time justice, and (potentially) adding trust in an era of sports betting scandals.

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5. WBC Popularity Boom & Significance

Timestamps: 27:01–33:32

• Record-breaking TV ratings surpassing even the Trout-Ohtani 2023 final: “the title game was the most watched baseball telecast outside the World Series since 2015.” (33:47)
• Hosts stress why WBC’s success matters: it ensures institutional support for future editions, diversifies baseball culture, and can promote the sport globally.
• Lively talk about how "exuberant" WBC atmospheres influence both MLB and developing national programs: more fun, more noise, deeper cultural intersections.
• Meg Rowley: “I think it's good for the league…to see different versions of [baseball]. It opens up the field of vision for what baseball in the American context can look like.” (31:49)

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6. The Evolving Meaning of Baseball’s Hierarchies

Timestamps: 34:34–45:43

• Notable WBC player quotes (e.g., Acuña Jr., Aaron Judge) declaring the WBC has more personal significance than the World Series, sparking existential discussions about shifting competitive hierarchies—especially from an American perspective.
• Ben Lindbergh: "None of this is inherently significant… It has the meaning that we ascribe to it."
• Michael Kay’s radio segment becomes a touchstone for American baseball’s struggle to evolve: “He was just so flummoxed...I think he was sort of sincere in that…” (35:42)
• The episode explores how collective attention and consensus bestow meaning on events—from the World Series to newer arrivals like the WBC, which gain gravitas as more people care.

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7. WBC’s Transformative Cultural Power

Timestamps: 43:07–48:55

• Rowley relishes how the WBC’s generic vessel fills with “oddity and passion”—fans using stovetop espresso pots as noise-makers, cross-cultural celebrations, etc.
• Meg Rowley: "It stops being theirs at a certain point and starts to feel much more like the people who decide that it’s important. And that's a really cool kind of transition." (44:29)
• Listeners learn why Fox’s WBC broadcasts looked odd: the network worked off a “world feed,” limiting camera options and leading to jarring cuts.

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8. Reframing Team USA WBC Critiques

Timestamps: 49:09–54:57

• The hosts clarify debate about Team USA’s approach: the issue was not whether US players “cared,” but rather their attitude (“too serious, not enough fun”).
• Ben Lindbergh: “We all understood that they really wanted to win… If anything, too hard maybe, and could have stood to loosen up a little.” (51:05)
• Rowley distinguishes between advocating fun as one flavor among many, not a universal requirement.

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9. The Limits of “Calling the Shot” & Predictions

Timestamps: 55:12–60:38

• Amused exasperation over how often players are credited for predictions—Ben calls out a recent “called shot” claim that was merely “pretty good moment for a homer.”
• Discussion of the broader dynamic—being sparing and specific in predictions, not just naming every possibility.
• Ben Lindbergh: “You do not get to count that. We have to draw the line somewhere.” (60:17)

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10. Analytics, Aesthetics, and the Card Wars

Timestamps: 60:38–73:41

• Ben reflects on his recent “treatise” asking teams to “get the front offices off the field”—advocating for less real-time micromanagement and more player-driven action.
• The argument resonates widely, even among front office workers tasked with writing the very same cards—suggesting a broader shift (or at least fatigue) in the analytics community.
• Rowley: "What you're seeing is sort of, like, the maturation of a conversation that has been in progress for a really long time."
• Deep dives into baseball history show this is an age-old debate—should managers be in the dugout, how much direction is too much, etc.

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11. Projecting the Next WBC & Global Baseball Lessons

Timestamps: 73:41–83:18

• A listener asks how to project which national teams have a “championship window” for future WBCs based on young cores and recruiting. Hosts weigh in on potential, error bars, and the unique uncertainty of international baseball.
• Brief detour on NPB’s (Japan) “ghost win” playoff rules for higher seeds—a foreign concept for MLB, but illustrative of global diversity in baseball structure.
• Ben Lindbergh: "I like that people have different baseball traditions and that countries do baseball differently." (82:58)

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12. Opening Day Roster Moves & Prospect Debates

Timestamps: 83:18–95:17

• Roster news: John Brebia released (to Ben’s dismay), top prospects JJ Weatherholt (Cardinals) and Kevin McGonigle (Tigers) make clubs; #1 prospect Connor Griffin (Pirates) optioned to minors, sparking discussion on service time, development, and team incentives.
• Rowley cautions against rushing prospects: “If you rush it and he gets broken by that, it’s a disaster…People lose their jobs kind of stuff.” (90:50)

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13. Early Season Extensions: Evaluating the Market

Timestamps: 95:17–102:46

• New extensions: Christopher Sanchez (Phillies), Pete Crow-Armstrong (Cubs—terms initially undisclosed), and how these early deals reflect team priorities and player leverage.
• Rowley highlights why the "dollars" often seem low to fans—arbitration versus free agency, and the importance of context in interpretation.

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14. Mayoral Baseball Politics & Relatability

Timestamps: 103:15–112:22

• Fun aside on New York City mayors and sports fandom: new mayor Zoran Mamdani nails ‘relatable’ by jokingly acknowledging he must serve Yankees fans, too.
• Rowley and Lindbergh agree: authenticity (“I don’t like that team”) always wins over phoniness in public life.
• Ben Lindbergh: “If he were a Yankees fan, I would want him to say the same about the Mets. It just makes you appear so much more like a normal human being.” (105:05)

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Notable Quotes

• "You can be family and still come to—well, hopefully not blows, but be at odds, even if only temporarily… what makes you feel great is some baseball. Probably not even going to remember it."
  — Meg Rowley, (04:39)
• "None of this is inherently significant… It has the meaning that we ascribe to it." — Ben Lindbergh, (39:25)
• "It stops being theirs at a certain point and starts to feel much more like the people who decide that it’s important. And that's a really cool kind of transition." — Meg Rowley, (44:29)
• "You do not get to count that. We have to draw the line somewhere." — Ben Lindbergh, (60:17)
• “I like that people have different baseball traditions and that countries do baseball differently.” — Ben Lindbergh, (82:58)

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Episode Timestamps (at-a-glance)

• 00:47 — WBC fallout & Mariners banter
• 05:44 — Espresso machine auction & memorabilia chat
• 09:19 — Podcast changes & preseason predictions
• 12:46 — Robot-ump challenge system debut & significance
• 27:01 — WBC ratings, impact, and global baseball culture
• 34:34 — WBC meaning vs. traditional hierarchies
• 43:07 — WBC as a vessel for global fan culture
• 49:09 — Team USA, fun, and "caring" discourse
• 55:12 — Calling the shot: Baseball prediction fatigue
• 60:38 — The great card debate, analytics vs. aesthetics
• 73:41 — Projecting WBC futures, NPB ghost wins
• 83:18 — Opening Day roster moves, prospect logic
• 95:17 — Early extensions: PCA, Sanchez, and salary context
• 103:15 — Mayoral fandom & sports politics

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Episode Tone & Language

The tone is witty, nerdily affectionate, and often self-deprecating. Lively, rambling debates are leavened with humor and sharp observation, never straying far from statistical rigor or reverence for the game’s evolving (and amusing) meaning.

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For Listeners

This episode brilliantly captures a moment of major change in baseball’s hierarchy—on the field, in the rulebook, and in the cultural imagination of both fans and practitioners. Essential for anyone curious about where the game is headed, how meaning is made (and remade), and how baseball, in all its traditions and technological revolutions, unites and divides with characteristic flair.

Transcript

[Meg Rowley]

Effectively Wild.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Effective moral sauvage.

[Chris Mitchell]

Effective moral sauvage.

[Meg Rowley]

Hello, and welcome to episode 2456 of Effectively Wild, a FanGraphs baseball podcast, brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of fangraphs, and I am joined by Ben Limberg of the Ringer. Ben, how are you doing?

[Chris Mitchell]

Well, but just wanted to clear the air. You know, there's been a bunch of controversy lately and just wanted to put

[Ben Lindbergh]

out a statement because I. I understand that with opening day a few days away, I. I don't want it to be a distraction. And so you and I have talked and I apologize for what I said after the game. And nothing in the WBC takes away

[Chris Mitchell]

from the fact that we're siblings, we're teammates, we're co hosts, you're family, and we're both focused on helping the Mariners win the World Series.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Well, maybe not that last part. You are actually pretty focused on helping the Mariners win the World Series.

[Meg Rowley]

I mean, I have nothing to do with it. To be clear.

[Ben Lindbergh]

You're still focused on it, though. You can't actually do anything to make it happen.

[Meg Rowley]

But, yeah, to an unhealthy degree, one could argue. Am I to understand that this means that there will not be bad blood between Cal.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yes.

[Meg Rowley]

And Randy.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yes. They have figuratively shaken hands, maybe actually physically shaken hands. This was. Yes. This was the statement. I was paraphrasing, the statement that Randy Rosarena made about Cal rally after the fallout during the wbc.

[Chris Mitchell]

So how much of that statement do

[Ben Lindbergh]

you think Randy Rosarena wrote or. Or composed himself?

[Meg Rowley]

I don't know. You know, it does. I imagine that it is imparting, faithfully imparting his. The sentiment of what he thinks about the thing. It does. It does lack a certain am. Randiness. You know, not to be confused with randiness, a different feeling that I can't speak to on behalf of Randy or Rosarena. But, you know, I'm sure there was a little massaging. The fact that. That Cal's comments also invoked family, perhaps suggests a coordination. But I think. I think that that's probably fine. Here's. I think, where I've landed on. On this. And I'll allow for the possibility that I'm. I'm grasping, you know, to try to make it.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah.

[Meg Rowley]

Go away on behalf of my beloved Mariners. But I think on any given team at any given time, there are guys who don't really get along very well. And I don't know if that has historically been true for Cal rallying, Randy, Rosarina. I don't know if it's true right now. I think that it on some level doesn't matter. If what you're able to do as like grownups and professionals is be like, well, yeah, I don't want to. Like he doesn't need to be the guy I go get dinner with after a road game. But like we're good enough to not have. Have issues in the clubhouse. And that strikes me as. As what's going on here.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah.

[Chris Mitchell]

As long as we can shake each

[Ben Lindbergh]

other's hands, bump each other's fists, post game meeting on the field, then yeah, Cal will. Will deign to make physical contact of some kind at that point and they

[Chris Mitchell]

can just all write it off as a big WBC fever dream. I don't know. It was just tempers were running hot and things were heated and the stakes

[Ben Lindbergh]

were high and that was. That was it. It's all in the past.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

So who knows whether there were any large language models consult in any generation

[Chris Mitchell]

of apologies there or just some, some agents.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah. PR staff.

[Ben Lindbergh]

That's what they're there for, after all.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah, I think it's. I think it's fine. And you know, here's the thing. Families do fight.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It's true.

[Meg Rowley]

You can be family and still come to. To. Well, hopefully not blows, but be at odds, even if only temporarily. So, you know, hey, guys, you know what I think will make you feel just really great about the whole business is going some baseball. Probably not even going to remember it, you know? Yep.

[Chris Mitchell]

Just have a few handshake lines that

[Ben Lindbergh]

go without incident and we'll forget about it.

[Meg Rowley]

What if they make out?

[Chris Mitchell]

That would be.

[Meg Rowley]

What if they're like, we. No, we really mean it and we'll.

[Chris Mitchell]

Yeah, that would be overcompensating probably.

[Ben Lindbergh]

As you say, only if they want to. But if they really wanted to in order to convince us that everything was fine and they get along great.

[Meg Rowley]

Not necessary.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, not necessary.

[Meg Rowley]

They could do little. They could do little. You know, Dom Canzone could teach them how to do little Italian kisses, you know, Little Italian kisses. Hardly the only culture, to be clear, that does little kisses, but like one of the cultures that does little kisses. So Don could be like, hey, I also learned something at the wbc. How to press the button on the espresso machine and also to do little kisses.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yes. And speaking of said machine, since we

[Chris Mitchell]

talked about it last time when the auction was still very much in progress, it has been completed.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Now. I assume you saw the final figure Whether or not you placed that winning

[Chris Mitchell]

bid or not, you know, it. It's a little suspicious, the timing. We just raised prices and suddenly there was a resolution and $16,510, the winning bids for the WBC espresso machine. You are denying all responsibility for that was not.

[Meg Rowley]

It was not me. As I said on our draft episode, I certainly support raising money for a good. But I, I don't have any desire to own that.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Right.

[Chris Mitchell]

Which is what you would have said

[Ben Lindbergh]

last time if you were trying to discourage people from placing other bids. Who would even want such.

[Meg Rowley]

Who would even want that? I do love that. I'm like, I don't want this thing in my home. It should go in a museum.

[Chris Mitchell]

Yeah, that's normal. Yeah. So the timing maybe looks a little suspicious, but a complete coincidence. Meg is not funding her Team Italy

[Ben Lindbergh]

WBC memorabilia habit, but it did Indeed go for $16,510. And congrats to the winner.

[Chris Mitchell]

And it went for considerably more than the Jack Caglion jersey, the Team Italy

[Ben Lindbergh]

game use jersey that we were also tracking on that episode, which was higher

[Chris Mitchell]

than the espresso machine at the time because it started sooner the auction, but it wound up at just 11,120. And you know, I think this espresso machine was a good deal, a bargain for someone.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah, it.

[Chris Mitchell]

Maybe we'll all forget about this. It'll be like handshake gate and.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Oh yeah, that was fun for a couple weeks, but now it's like I

[Chris Mitchell]

splurged on this espresso machine. Okay.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It was for a good cause, but who even remembers? And you're like going around every member.

[Chris Mitchell]

That espresso machine they had in the dugout and that was mud. Yeah, I have that. See, look. Cool. It's right. It just looks like a regular espresso

[Ben Lindbergh]

machine with some stickers on it.

[Chris Mitchell]

How much did you pay for that? No, it was this whole thing. Like people were really into it, you know, so maybe it'll turn out to be that in retrospect, but maybe it'll appreciate because it was sort of a

[Ben Lindbergh]

signature item of that wbc. And that WBC was a great success.

[Chris Mitchell]

So I would say it's sort of

[Ben Lindbergh]

a steal in the grand scheme of auctions for baseball related memorabilia.

[Meg Rowley]

I mean, I think that there are an infinite number of ways to spend your money kind of questionably, and this is sure one of them. But it did, it does go to a good cause. So it has that going for it. But again, like, you're just like, where do you put it? Where do you place it? It's not a beautiful object, you know, like. And I understand that that's not really the point. The point is that it is.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It's imbued with beauty by its experiences.

[Meg Rowley]

Right? It has, you know, like, the essence of little kisses. But it's not a beautiful object. And there are, Ben, as I noted on that same pod, some beautiful espresso machines out there that are quite expensive, but I gotta say, also less expensive than this one.

[Chris Mitchell]

Yeah, yeah, this is now among the

[Ben Lindbergh]

more expensive espresso machines.

[Meg Rowley]

But also, who am I to judge the aesthetic preferences of others? I famously love very ugly hats. So, you know.

[Chris Mitchell]

Well, we have some news to discuss. I have some other straggler WBC items that I want to bring up.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And then we've got some players making rosters, some players not making rosters, we've

[Chris Mitchell]

got some extensions, et cetera. And I will just say, when it

[Ben Lindbergh]

comes to spending money, we did important people to do that on a little

[Chris Mitchell]

PSA that we published not too long ago in the feed.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I won't rehash that whole appeal here,

[Chris Mitchell]

because that's what that little mini episode episode was for. But if you somehow missed that, we

[Ben Lindbergh]

are making a change to the podcast distribution.

[Chris Mitchell]

The podcast itself is not changing, but one of our three episodes a week

[Ben Lindbergh]

will be for subscribers only from now

[Chris Mitchell]

on, starting at the end of this week.

[Ben Lindbergh]

So if you have not yet seen

[Chris Mitchell]

that announcement, it should be in your feed.

[Ben Lindbergh]

There's also a written version of it. I will link to those on the

[Chris Mitchell]

show page in the episode description for this episode. But thanks to everyone who has given us good feedback. Thanks to everyone who's given us any

[Ben Lindbergh]

kind of feedback, frankly.

[Chris Mitchell]

And most of it has been good.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And I didn't expect people to be hailing us as heroes and throwing us a ticker tape parade or anything. Didn't expect great rejoicing. But I think people have, for the

[Chris Mitchell]

most part, at least understood why we

[Ben Lindbergh]

did what we did and in many cases have supported that, whether with words,

[Chris Mitchell]

with dots, dollars, with both.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And we are appreciative of that.

[Chris Mitchell]

And we hope that more of you will be able to join us. But please do keep your questions coming if you have them.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And we will continue to work out

[Chris Mitchell]

all the details and make sure that

[Ben Lindbergh]

people who sign up get all the episodes in one feed. And yeah, it will all go smoothly, hopefully sooner rather than later. But thank you all for bearing with us.

[Meg Rowley]

Yes. And you know, if you're an existing patreon supporter and you haven't listened to that episode. Make sure you look at your your email because you got information both from us and from Patreon on the changes so that you can understand sort of how this all works for you. And yes, if you have questions, please feel free to ask. And again, we appreciate everyone for their support and for bearing with us. And yeah, to your point, you know, people have left largely been lovely and supportive and even folks who didn't love the decision did so respectfully. And it's just another reminder of our great community here. So thanks to everyone for that.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yes, indeed. And I must also remind people, I would be remiss if I did not note that the actual episode that we did before that, where we did our preseason predictions, yes, Chris Hannell would take

[Chris Mitchell]

me to task if I did not

[Ben Lindbergh]

remind everyone that voting is still open

[Chris Mitchell]

and will remain open until the first pitch of Real Open on Thursday. So if you're hearing this before then, and you have not yet weighed in

[Ben Lindbergh]

on our preseason predictions, Chris, and we would love to have you do so, you can go to ewstats.com yes, and you can pass judgment on the likelihood of the predictions we made. The more the merrier.

[Meg Rowley]

And I would recommend listening to the episode in addition to just looking at them, because it was a banger.

[Chris Mitchell]

It was, it was fun.

[Meg Rowley]

He was a good one.

[Ben Lindbergh]

So, yeah.

[Chris Mitchell]

So speaking of first pitch on Thursday. Well, really first pitch on Wednesday.

[Ben Lindbergh]

This will be more relevant. The Netflix Giants Yankees game.

[Chris Mitchell]

If you were in that game, would you want the historical distinction of being

[Ben Lindbergh]

the first player to issue a challenge?

[Chris Mitchell]

Because I think I would be tempted

[Ben Lindbergh]

by the prospect of being the Ron Bloomberg of abs, essentially. You know, first dh, Right. And then you, you dine out on

[Chris Mitchell]

that the rest of your life. I don't know if this will be equivalent exactly, but you will be the

[Ben Lindbergh]

answer to a trivia question.

[Meg Rowley]

Sure.

[Chris Mitchell]

For time immemorial, as long as people

[Ben Lindbergh]

are remembering things about baseball, they may remember that you were the first to issue a challenge.

[Chris Mitchell]

I could see it going another way where if eventually we get full abs and it turns out that the challenge system was just a, a stop along

[Ben Lindbergh]

the way, then maybe the first player to have a, a strike assessed on them, a pitch call made solely by

[Chris Mitchell]

a computer on them, that would be sort of a historical distinction too. But I would be kind of tempted,

[Ben Lindbergh]

even though there would probably be blowback and I would probably suffer some, some

[Chris Mitchell]

mockery at best by my teammates and maybe some kangaroo court finds going on here if I Just leaped at anything close and just said, yeah, I'm going for it. First official challenge in a major league baseball game ever. But it would be kind of a cool thing to be the first to do because this is really is a

[Ben Lindbergh]

significant, momentous thing to go from trying our best to approximate the strike zone to actually having some recourse to cameras and computers. It's a long time coming. There have been people imagining sci fi

[Chris Mitchell]

scenarios with robot umpires and constructing machines

[Ben Lindbergh]

that could mimic umpires for more than a century. And now that seal will be broken.

[Meg Rowley]

On the one hand, yes. On the other hand, I think we are maybe underappreciating the degree to which this feels kind of like old hat to some percentage of guys on opening day because. Not just because they've had two spring trainings of it at the big league level now, and not just because, like every big leaguer who went, well, maybe not every big leaguer, but many big leaguers who went on rehab assignments probably had some interaction with it in the minors, but it's just been floating around the minors for a while. Like, if you're, you know, we're going to talk about some of the guys who didn't, did not make their opening day rosters, but like, if you're Kevin McGonagall, I'm sure you're like, well, yeah, challenge system. I'm familiar with that.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah. Your whole career, maybe. I mean, they started testing abs, I think, in 2021, I want to say,

[Chris Mitchell]

in the minors, and then the challenge system the year after that. So it's, it's several years.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, it's. It predates plenty of players arrivals in pro ball at this point.

[Meg Rowley]

Right, right. And you know, they got, maybe got a taste of it in the fall league. And so I, I don't know that it is going to hit with players quite the same way that it is for us. I also think that like, we, we're challenged system, like sickos, me in particular, like, famously kind of a sicko for challenges. So I'm very excited. But I, I don't know if it's gonna wash over them quite the same way. And I do think that even, even though it's a long season, it's opening day, like it is a, it is a precious resource. Now if you think you're right, if you, if you think yourself to be correct and likely to prevail in the challenge, well, then maybe you don't worry about it because. And you can sort of let the, the moment wash over you more and have that guide the way. Because if you are successful, well, then you cost your team anything, right? In fact, you. You gained them something. How nice. But I do wonder if the league has had any conversation with guys about the sort of the way they want this to go, because, you know, we've seen it in spring, and I think it's been generally well received. But I do wonder if in the back of Rob Manfred's mind, he's like. Like, it wouldn't be great if, like, we ended up adding like 20 minutes of game time to the first game of the season through challenges, successful challenges. Right. So I do wonder if. If there's been any. Maybe not directive, but just like, hey, you know, we want everybody to be having a good time with this thing. I don't know why they talk like they're a 70 swinger, but, yeah, I

[Chris Mitchell]

think that we probably will quickly not

[Ben Lindbergh]

notice it and it'll just become kind

[Chris Mitchell]

of hopefully part of the scenery, you know, aside from the occasional controversy. But it is a landmark moment, I think, and it's sort of similar to the introduction of the pitch clock in

[Ben Lindbergh]

that these are both cases of a

[Chris Mitchell]

long anticipated, long tested technological solution to a problem of being able to perfectly

[Ben Lindbergh]

enforce a certain rule.

[Meg Rowley]

Right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And people always said, oh, there's no such thing as clocks in baseball. But there had, of course, been rules on the books about how long it was supposed to take between pitches. It's just that no one was really

[Chris Mitchell]

policing them for the most part. And when they did, the enforcement was

[Ben Lindbergh]

pretty lax and there would be immediate backsliding. And as soon as you put that pitch clock in place, problem solved. Pretty much.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah.

[Chris Mitchell]

They've. They've tweaked it every now and then, but it was one and done. It was fully formed.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It arrived in the majors as a solution, essentially.

[Chris Mitchell]

And this is a little bit different, but also similar in the sense that it is really a solution to the

[Ben Lindbergh]

problem of, well, we've had a strike zone on the books forever, but it has been imperfectly enforced because it couldn't be perfectly enforced because of the limits of the human sensory system, essentially. So this is now a way to

[Chris Mitchell]

call those things that had already been

[Ben Lindbergh]

on the books basically, but just had not been perfectly reflected on the field, even though the umpires had certainly improved dramatically in that respect over the years. So I wonder whether we will look back and say this was the beginning of the ABS era.

[Chris Mitchell]

Is that improbable the way that I just mentioned ron Bloomberg in 1973 and we still say the DH era. Sometimes I don't know whether we'll say

[Ben Lindbergh]

the pitch clock era, but I suspect we will.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And I suspect we might also refer to the ABS era, which could be

[Chris Mitchell]

kind of complicated if this is not the end. And either this goes so well that

[Ben Lindbergh]

it essentially makes the case for more. Hey, if we're calling some pitches correctly, why don't we call them all correctly? This has gone so smoothly, or whatever happens if. If it backfires in some way and there are controversial moments where there are no challenges remaining and the system sort of fails, at least in the goal of getting all the calls right, which

[Chris Mitchell]

is not the only goal here.

[Ben Lindbergh]

But if that then highlights that, hey, actually it's better if we can get all the calls right. And thus, one way or another, abs,

[Chris Mitchell]

whether through its sheer popularity or through perceived failings of the system, leads to the next stage.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Maybe that complicates it because if you're saying ABS era and you get full abs, I don't know, five years down the road, then you always have to clarify. Well, we're talking about the.

[Chris Mitchell]

The Challenge System era or the full ABS era. There's already some confusion when it comes to that technology. But I think that these are really

[Ben Lindbergh]

meaningful moments that future generations will look back on and say, this was sort

[Chris Mitchell]

of a step change. This was. There's before and then there's after. And I don't think that the Challenge System will be as noticeable on a pitch by pitch basis, because the pitch clock, at least initially, was extremely notable because it affected every pitch or at

[Ben Lindbergh]

least the time between every pitch.

[Chris Mitchell]

It was very apparent that it was

[Ben Lindbergh]

really moving the pace along and it was shortening games and it was making the length much more predictable and it

[Chris Mitchell]

was just so tangible. Whereas the challenge system, about 1% of pitches get challenged.

[Meg Rowley]

Right.

[Chris Mitchell]

Something like 7% of borderline pitches.

[Ben Lindbergh]

So it's not quite as in your face. It won't be quite as much of a time suck or a time saver.

[Chris Mitchell]

So I think it is similarly significant,

[Ben Lindbergh]

but a little less impactful and a little less salient when it comes to the spectator experience.

[Meg Rowley]

I think that that's right. I do think that the sense of relief that you are likely to experience at some point, it might not come on opening day. Right. I think that we. Because the most meaningful use case for the Challenge System is to prevent the game ending. Bad call. Right. That's the highest stakes potential moment where we'll see the Challenge System, but that won't be most challenges. Right? I don't know that most Fans will not necessarily have this experience. But like, just imagine how differently the end of that Team USA team Dominican Republic game might have felt had they had access to the Challenge system in the wbc. Well then no one's mad. You know, Perdomo, to be clear, might have rolled over the next pitch and ended the game. Like, we don't know that it would have changed the outcome, but it would have changed the outcome of that particular pitch. Maybe Dr. Rallies to win. Maybe Presidente has no reason to do a whole ad campaign about. It was a really good campaign. I missed the Presidente Golden Light commercials on Lead on action. They were good. Bring those back. Give me the Dr. Commercials again. I missed those MLB. But you know, I think that some of the highest stakes implementations of this we won't necessarily experience on Game one. We might not experience them for a whole week, a month. You don't know how long it's going to. But I do think eventually there's going to be this sense of feeling relief that an injustice was like, averted. And I think that it will lend a confidence to the whole proceeding in a way that is kind of important. We've talked about this in other contexts, but we're in this era of I think, increasing lack of trust when it comes to the sport that we're seeing. There have just been too many gambling scandals that we know about and there's too seemingly too much vulnerability in the system, even if it's not playing out with a frequency that makes the whole thing come undone. And I think knowing that it, that problems can be fixed in real time and also getting a sense of just like how good the average home plate umpire is without the assistance of the Challenge system. I, I don't know. Like, I think you're right that we will move past it and we'll kind of get used to things. But I do wonder if there's like a, you know, like, settling into a warm bath kind of an aspect to this. Like, yeah, I get to sink into this and, and just feel a little less on edge about the entire thing because there's this objective intervention that can take place and you know, it doesn't address all of the issues with like sports betting. Right. Like this. The Challenge system doesn't cause us to catch Emmanuel Clase's alleged indiscretions any faster just by the nature of them. But I do think having like that sort of real time feedback is valuable to the whole thing. I think people are gonna like it.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Classes spiked, pitches in the dirt would not have been Challenged.

[Meg Rowley]

I don't think though, if they had been challenged, it could have uncovered other malfeasance. I suppose if you're really committed to those being called in a way, weird way.

[Chris Mitchell]

Well, I think it'll go down easy and I think much like the pitch

[Ben Lindbergh]

clock, it'll be a moment where we think, well, we can't go back really, and maybe even how did we live

[Chris Mitchell]

like that and what took so long in this case? Even though I think the philosophically and historically, I think it's sort of a similar introduction of a technology to address a long standing complaint, it's different in

[Ben Lindbergh]

the sense that the technology is actually much more demanding. The pitch clock was literally just a countdown clock, just a low tech countdown clock.

[Chris Mitchell]

They were testing these things in the 1960s. Like we had the technology for, I don't know, half a century or more. But this we could not have done

[Ben Lindbergh]

quite as effectively before recent times.

[Chris Mitchell]

And you have to hand it to,

[Ben Lindbergh]

I think MLB for the painstaking testing process that it went through with both of these technologies, which was similar in both cases. Just let's roll it out across several levels.

[Chris Mitchell]

Several years, we'll test all the possible permutations, we'll get buy in, we'll normalize

[Ben Lindbergh]

it, we'll make it seem like this

[Chris Mitchell]

is nothing special, nothing risky, this is just the way it works. And then when they are fully confident

[Ben Lindbergh]

that the thing will not just go haywire and ruin the perception of it forever, then we will be ready to, to introduce it. So I do think that they have

[Chris Mitchell]

done a decent job of that.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Better than decent. And we will see who makes history by calling for the first challenge. Yes. Another reason to tune in, it'll be Burt Kreischer, maybe.

[Meg Rowley]

Why are we being asked to hang out so much with Bert Kreischer in a baseball contest? I understand he's like a Netflix comedian, but yes, synergy. Bert Kreischer.

[Chris Mitchell]

The final ratings for the WBC were.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Were bonkers. Yeah, they were huge. Yeah, obviously we knew that it was quite popular. Yeah, we sensed that it was a sensation.

[Chris Mitchell]

But this blew away the numbers from 2023, which were themselves big.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And we thought, wow, Japan and the

[Chris Mitchell]

US and granted the global rankings there were pretty impressive.

[Ben Lindbergh]

So when you're comparing domestic to global, obviously many people were watching the final in 2023 in Japan, but in the U.S. and that part was constant, at least the U.S. participating in consecutive WBC finals, it was an average of 10.78 million viewers. That was on Fox and Fox Deportees, which is by far the most. The previous high was the previous Sunday's US Doctor semifinal on Fox Sports 1,

[Chris Mitchell]

which was 7.37 million. The Venezuela win in the final, the peak was 12.15 million viewers and that

[Ben Lindbergh]

more than doubled the previous WPC final. The indelible Trout Ohtani game.

[Chris Mitchell]

Right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

That was 4.97 million average across FS1 and Fox Deporte. So this was huge. It was, you know, six of the

[Chris Mitchell]

seven largest audiences in the history of the wbc. And I know Nielsen has changed the

[Ben Lindbergh]

way that it gathers data and that has in some cases boosted sports ratings.

[Chris Mitchell]

Not that the NFL needed a boost, but they're doing a better job maybe of accounting for group viewing and people who are watching the game together or they're at a sports bar or whatever it is. So that has sort of across the board bumped up the numbers a bit,

[Ben Lindbergh]

but not nearly to this degree. So this speaks to the continued growth of the event.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah.

[Chris Mitchell]

And I know that there are people who disregard ratings and just say, ah, well, we don't really need to care. Like that's a business thing. Why do we care if the ratings are high or the ratings are low? And I, I sometimes understand that, but other times I think, well, this is a pretty good objective bellwether of how

[Ben Lindbergh]

popular this thing is. And like it or not, we tend to care about things in part based on how many other people care about them.

[Chris Mitchell]

And so it's not irrelevant to know that this is gaining in popularity.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And if you enjoy something and you want more of it and you want it to succeed, then I think it can be heartening.

[Chris Mitchell]

You're rooting for rankings. You're not a network executive, you're not

[Ben Lindbergh]

directly benefiting from that, but you might indirectly benefit in the sense that this thing I like.

[Chris Mitchell]

It's clear that a lot of other

[Ben Lindbergh]

people like it and that means that

[Chris Mitchell]

they will make more of this thing, they will market it more prominently. And that I think can be something to celebrate anyway, the percentage increase here

[Ben Lindbergh]

and just the steady growth, it's pretty impressive.

[Chris Mitchell]

This is a major, major event.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah, I think just on the, like, the. How much do we have to care you. How much do you have to care about the. The ratings for the national broadcast for a major league game? Very little to your point. You want things to sort of clear and probably quite comfortably given the amount of money involved, the sort of threshold for viability. But I think that in the context of the wbc, it does behoove you to care a little bit more. Not Only because it's still a relatively young event and you want, you want every time there's a conversation in the league's offices in New York for them to be like, well, and it did so well and like, move on. Right. For its continuation to be sort of an. A given, an obvious thing for them. Because I think there is sort of a decision that's being made kind of every time to re up. And yeah, some of the, some of the champions of the event, I think, have been with the league a long time and will be with the league for a long time. But like, one of the primary champions of the WBC is Rob Manfred and we know his tenure is going to come to a close at some point. So I think you want there to be good institutional momentum around the continuation of the event. I also think, and this is a more sort of diffuse potential benefit, presenting a vision of baseball that is backed by Major League Baseball and is in the instances of many of the teams, although not all of them, exuberant and fun and loud and, you know, full of espresso machines and, and some of

[Chris Mitchell]

the just, yeah, loudest, most raucous, engaging

[Ben Lindbergh]

audiences you've ever seen at a baseball game. Yeah.

[Meg Rowley]

And, and I think that it's good for the league. It's good for people who play in the league and also people who watch baseball to see different versions of it. I think it sort of opens up the field of vision for what baseball in the American context can look like. And it's not like that's the only benefit or the primary benefit. I don't think that the reason the doctor should participate in the World Baseball Classic is to serve as an education for American audiences. Is. But I do think that that kind of education has some value and it's, it's a lot of fun to see different cultures interact with the, with the tournament and with the sport. And you know, when the tournament does well and you have surprise runs from teams like Italy, as we discussed with Kiri, like, I do think that it invites further investment from national programs that have a less well established baseball tradition. And that just seems like it could have a snowballing effect that would be positive for the tournament. Like, what if, you know, what if next time, I, I don't know, like, what if Italy wins it? What if one of these tiny European countries, Lily, doesn't do baseball most of the time, comes through and like, makes it to the semis? Like, that would be really cool and exciting. So I think that you don't need to worry about or maybe not worry about, but care about like the dollar and semi component of it. Because like that is business nonsense. That doesn't need to worry you as long as you're able to find the games on. Maybe the real benefit to having good ratings is we won't have to go to FS1.

[Chris Mitchell]

Yes. Less obscure channels.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, right. It'll be easier to find them not relegated to whatever secondary tertiary.

[Meg Rowley]

Give me a tubi. Why?

[Chris Mitchell]

Well, I don't want any to be.

[Meg Rowley]

Was.

[Chris Mitchell]

Was free if you signed up for a trial or whatever. So.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, but that can be kind of a hassle as discussed.

[Chris Mitchell]

But yes, it was just huge numbers. It was the title game.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Was. Was the most watched baseball telecast outside the World series since the 2015 All Star Game.

[Meg Rowley]

Wow.

[Chris Mitchell]

Yeah, it was. It was pretty big. And that just mirrored the enthusiasm that we had for it and that a lot of people had for it. And by the way, when Rob Manfred's

[Ben Lindbergh]

tenure will end, we do.

[Chris Mitchell]

We do know when he says it

[Ben Lindbergh]

will end at least, which is January 2029.

[Chris Mitchell]

That's when he's walking away. His work will be done. We. But I also think that this has some bearing on what we're talking about. The WBC versus the World Series and all those quotes and Aaron Judge and Julio and suggesting that this matters more. And Patreon supporter Ezra wrote in to point us to a Ronald Acuna Jr. Quote who said, personally, I think this championship is number one in my career.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And of course, he won one with the Braves.

[Chris Mitchell]

Now, he did then say when we won the World Series, I couldn't play

[Ben Lindbergh]

because of my injury.

[Chris Mitchell]

So a caveat.

[Ben Lindbergh]

But he said, today I finally made my people proud.

[Chris Mitchell]

So no shortage of quotes along those lines. And I was talking about how, gosh, I wonder if this will be a bit controversial when you have Julio saying

[Ben Lindbergh]

it on a team that famously has

[Chris Mitchell]

never won a World Series, or Aaron Judge saying it, the captain of a team that is always expected to win

[Ben Lindbergh]

the World Series, though it has fallen

[Chris Mitchell]

short of those expectations for quite some time now.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Now.

[Chris Mitchell]

And I did see my impulse was to mock this and maybe that's fair, but I actually thought there was almost a genuine intellectual effort to try to reckon with the significance of what Judge had said.

[Meg Rowley]

Sure.

[Ben Lindbergh]

On the part of Michael K. Who of course is a broadcaster for the Yankees and also hosts an ESPN radio show. And he responded to Aaron Judge's comments and he read out that quote about how it's bigger than the World Series, etc.

[Chris Mitchell]

And of course he's looking for grist, for the sports radio mill. But he said, I am somewhat taken

[Ben Lindbergh]

aback when they go that this is

[Chris Mitchell]

bigger than winning a World Series. And he said, I'm just saying that I'm not advanced enough or evolved enough to wrap my mind around it. Which is just a very funny reaction. I thought he was just so flummoxed. He was just, this does not compute. This was like Star Trek, the original series, when they talk a computer into having some contradictory inputs and the steam comes out of its computer ears or whatever. He just did not know how to process this. And I think he was sort of sincere in that because he did a whole segment and he was talking about. He wasn't, wasn't dumping on the wbc. He was talking about how much fun it was and it was a great, great tournament and everything. Now, he did say that it wasn't

[Ben Lindbergh]

literally better because Home Depot Park, Lone Depot Park, Loan Shark Park, Home Depot Park.

[Meg Rowley]

If it were Home Depot Park. I'm sorry, will you allow a quick, a quick digression?

[Ben Lindbergh]

That is what it actually says in the article I'm reading.

[Chris Mitchell]

So that was not my sip of the talk. It says Depot Parks. We're getting, getting. Yeah, we're getting corporate sponsorship without even having to pay for the naming rights there. Congrats, Home Depot.

[Meg Rowley]

Just so, just so, so quick. So it's. It's Lone Depot Park.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yes.

[Meg Rowley]

The P is stylized lowercase.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yes.

[Meg Rowley]

I hate it. Yeah, I'm like, you're not like ironically posting. Why is it a low? So what? And I know that it's loan lowercase L Depot. So did they just get to the P and they're like, we don't know what to do. Like, we couldn't possibly make it uppercase. Then people think that the Ellis Balls would be uppercase. And also, why isn't the L uppercase? Why is it loan. Loan Depot lower? You're. You're selling mortgages. Be it having capital letter. Be an adult. What are we doing anyway? I'm just like, this feels like a recession indicator to me and I don't know why, but I don't think I'm wrong.

[Chris Mitchell]

Why is it Earned themselves some publicity

[Ben Lindbergh]

for their typographical choices there.

[Chris Mitchell]

But Michael K. Was taking that very

[Ben Lindbergh]

literally, Judge's claim and saying, well, the capacity there is 36,000 and Yankee Stadium holds X and Dodger Stadium holds Y.

[Chris Mitchell]

So it's not actually bigger. I don't think he was belaboring that point. And I think it was clear to

[Ben Lindbergh]

him that it was not about the literal capacity or attendance.

[Chris Mitchell]

But he was really just sort of, I think, sincerely wrestling with all of this. Yeah. And just said he was born and raised to think that a World Series

[Ben Lindbergh]

ring, especially if you're a Yankee, that's the be all, end all.

[Chris Mitchell]

That's the summit, that's the apex. And so he's trying to rewire his brain here the way that Judge's brain got rewired. Judge didn't even play in previous WBCs. And all it took was one experience playing for that team in that tournament to say, wait, this is bigger. This is more momentous. So once you're in it, I think maybe that becomes clear to you and maybe it's a little harder to understand from afar. And so my impulse was sort of to mock and say, you know, does

[Ben Lindbergh]

not compute WBC importance.

[Chris Mitchell]

But if this was actually a sincere attempt to understand a changing baseball competitive landscape, I think it is sort of relatable because none of this is inherently significant. None of this actually matters.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Who wins a baseball game.

[Chris Mitchell]

Right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Does not have some sort of ground truth meaning.

[Chris Mitchell]

It has the meaning that we ascribe to it. We decide that it's important who wins

[Ben Lindbergh]

and that it represents something and it says something about the human condition in society, and we get invested in it.

[Chris Mitchell]

And that lends importance to it that it does not just.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Just inherently deserve. It's.

[Chris Mitchell]

It's imbued with that. I already used that word imbued today, but I'm going back to the well for one more imbued. Because we do that. And that's why I think it is

[Ben Lindbergh]

somewhat meaningful that 12 million people or

[Chris Mitchell]

whatever were watching that game because there's kind of a consensus that gets built about this is important. And even if you don't personally care about the super bowl, you feel like you have to watch the super bowl

[Ben Lindbergh]

because it's the super bowl.

[Chris Mitchell]

It's an event and zillions of other people are watching, watching it. And it's built up into this massive thing. And if you have a water cooler to converse around, then it's going to be the topic of water cooler conversation. And so it becomes important because of

[Ben Lindbergh]

its importance at a certain point.

[Chris Mitchell]

And the WBC at the very beginning, it was sort of an industry plant. You can't just conjure an event out of thin air and say, this is suddenly important. Right. It takes some time and the participants have to treat it as something important and the fans have to buy into

[Ben Lindbergh]

it as something important.

[Chris Mitchell]

And the more players participate and treat this as something important, the easier it

[Ben Lindbergh]

is for everyone else.

[Chris Mitchell]

And it gives Michael K. Permission to reevaluate his understanding of the baseball hierarchy. But this is a process and maybe K is a little bit behind everyone else who just understands, oh, yeah, this is, I mean, national identity and culture and all of this is wrapped up and it's at stake. And obviously this is super important to the players. And this is probably a distinctly American perspective, just because there's not as much of a legacy of international baseball competition

[Ben Lindbergh]

for a Team usa, whereas this is something that is well established and well understood in the Caribbean, in Asia, etc. So maybe that you could just kind of, hey, here's this new international competition. You're already bought in on the concept of international baseball competitions and how they can be an embodiment of national pride.

[Chris Mitchell]

But this is, this is sort of a. Okay, let's take Michael K. By the hand and we'll explain that, yes, baseball, yes, Virginia baseball can be real and

[Ben Lindbergh]

important in other contexts than the one that historically by a certain segment of fans has treated as the utmost.

[Chris Mitchell]

And so maybe the next wbc, Michael K. Will be fully on board and won't even have to just. Just be taken aback and try to process this. So I thought that maybe he was giving voice to it in a specific

[Ben Lindbergh]

way that made me laugh and made you laugh.

[Chris Mitchell]

But also I think there's something authentic about that that I think each of us has come to it. I don't think I was a huge

[Ben Lindbergh]

WBC enthusiast the first time it was played. I don't think I was a hater or anything, but I just, I wasn't nearly as invested in it at the start.

[Chris Mitchell]

And so, yeah, I've undergone this epiphany too.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I think a lot of people, when you go from many fewer millions to

[Chris Mitchell]

that many millions, obviously at some point along the way, people had this road to Damascus moment and the scales fell from their eyes or whatever and they're like, oh, yes, this is actually super exciting and wonderful. So, yeah, good for you, Michael K. Maybe to try to reckon with that at least one.

[Meg Rowley]

And I think part of why stuff like this, you're right that within the American context, it's not that there isn't international competition, and particularly at the amateur level, guys play for Team USA and against international opponents a good amount, but it doesn't occupy the same level for, I think most American baseball fans that Olympic sports do when they're in an Olympic year. When you introduce a new tournament like this, it can feel kind of corporate and cash Grabby. And like you, I wasn't, like, opposed to the wbc, but my appreciation for the event has really grown over time. And I think part of that is, like, it. It ends up being this relatively generic vessel that all these people then, like, pour their oddity into and their passion and their understanding of the game. And it looks a lot of different ways and. And it comes in a lot of different forms. Like, we didn't even talk about that guy who had the stovetop espresso pot and was using that as a noisemaker.

[Ben Lindbergh]

That's.

[Meg Rowley]

Ben, that's genius. Yeah, brilliant. I mean, like some MacGyver.

[Chris Mitchell]

That's.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah, that's.

[Chris Mitchell]

Use whatever tools you have on hand.

[Meg Rowley]

That's terrific. And so this thing can happen when you get a critical mass where whatever version of the event, whatever form its organizers thought or hoped it was going to take, sure, that's still in there because, boy, we're still thinking about how Lone Depot park stylized its name, but it stops being theirs at a certain point and starts to feel much more like the people who decide that it's important. And that's a really cool kind of transition. And I think that. I do think I feel like I'm handing it to the league so much today. And I don't care for that, Ben, But I will say that, like, I think that the. The league has been pretty responsive to, like, how fans want to come to the event and how they want to show up for it and care about it. And I think that, you know, whatever stodgy affect Team USA might have had this year, like, there wasn't any diminishment of other traditions, however raucous or silly they might have been, being put front and center in the tournament. I also think that for folks who care a lot about Major League Baseball, and we've talked about this, this time of year starts out so fun and people get excited. And I keep trying to make a case for people caring about spring training is like a lower stakes on ramp, but you get to a point where it's March 15th and you're like, oh, my God, really? I'm seeing. And these guys again, you know, I. How many days in a row am I going to be asked to care about who's the fifth starter? And so to have this, like, interjection of World Series, like, energy in March is, like, so incredible.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah.

[Chris Mitchell]

Yeah. And just putting a bow on the WBC in a couple other ways. We had talked about the broadcast quality, the Fox broadcast, and how it was sometimes sort of shoddy Seemingly, well, we

[Ben Lindbergh]

have a listener in every industry with every expertise.

[Chris Mitchell]

Just wanted to explain why that was because we got a listener email.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Patreon supporter Sean who said in response

[Chris Mitchell]

to the question on the WBC pod

[Ben Lindbergh]

about the Fox broadcast, bad cuts, etc.

[Chris Mitchell]

Fox wasn't the actual provider of the game broadcast. They were working off of what's considered in the TV world, a world feed. The feed is as basic as you can get in order to provide a main source of the game to be distributed to the world's broadcasting partners. When networks have world feed broadcasts, they aren't in control of the cameras or

[Ben Lindbergh]

replays and often have very scaled down camera compliments.

[Chris Mitchell]

They'll often send out only two to

[Ben Lindbergh]

three cameras that they can control in order to be able to get isolated shots of individuals their talent wants to talk about.

[Chris Mitchell]

As far as the bad cuts, the Fox broadcast probably had a listen line into the world feed directly and jump off of the world feed to their camera to storytell whatever they were trying to do at the time. This often leads to random jump cuts that look like mistakes you normally wouldn't see during a traditional broadcast.

[Ben Lindbergh]

So if you go back and watch

[Chris Mitchell]

the WBC broadcast after perceived mistakes or cuts, the same two or three camera angles followed.

[Ben Lindbergh]

These are the Fox controlled cameras. So that's when there was sort of a handoff from this world feed, this generic feed to the Fox control old cameras.

[Chris Mitchell]

And Sean says it's sadly a cheaper

[Ben Lindbergh]

way to do certain broadcasts and other networks do it. ESPN does it. It saves you from having to send

[Chris Mitchell]

your own cameras at times. Maybe in this case you need a

[Ben Lindbergh]

world feed because the world was watching.

[Chris Mitchell]

Right, Right. So maybe that was part of it

[Ben Lindbergh]

and it wasn't purely a cost saving measure.

[Chris Mitchell]

But that explains it.

[Ben Lindbergh]

That is why that happened.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah, I'm. I don't love the answer but I do appreciate knowing what it was because cuz I was just like what is happening? Why am I seeing warmup pitches again? That's hasn't been relevant for two batters. And then, and then you're, you know, you're trained as a viewer to expect the images you see to like to have meaning, to get back to the meaning voice. You're like what am I looking for? And I felt like I was like watching like when trying to make a, you know those, what are they called? The, the, the, the books and you cross your eyes and then all of a sudden like oh, it's a flower in there. The like magic eye book.

[Chris Mitchell]

Magic. Yes.

[Meg Rowley]

I was like what am I What am I supposed to be looking for? Did he get hurt? Is there. Is there? What's going on? What's going on?

[Ben Lindbergh]

You couldn't.

[Meg Rowley]

I couldn't tell.

[Chris Mitchell]

Yep.

[Ben Lindbergh]

So that's the explanation.

[Meg Rowley]

Explanation.

[Chris Mitchell]

Also, just want to clarify. I don't know that anyone needs this clarification from us, but because there was

[Ben Lindbergh]

so much about Team USA and the way it played.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah.

[Chris Mitchell]

After the tournament, when everyone was rehashing that, there seemed to be a secondary side sort of strawman conversation where I guess it was Ken Rosenthal and maybe A.J. pruszynski were talking about this, and they were sort of like, let's set the record straight here. Team USA did care, and people were saying that they didn't care. And it. It felt like this weird kind of disconnected conversation from. Yeah.

[Meg Rowley]

People are kind of talking past each other a bit.

[Chris Mitchell]

Yeah, I thought so.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And. And maybe there were people in Ken Rosenthal's mentions. The horrors that must exist in there. I. I hope he doesn't even stare at them directly.

[Meg Rowley]

I think he does, and that's sometimes a problem.

[Chris Mitchell]

Maybe so. But it would be Indiana Jones, just like arc of the Covenant scene. Just like, avert your eyes, guys from the Menchis.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Probably.

[Chris Mitchell]

But he did say something about the.

[Ben Lindbergh]

What Ridiculous narrative that Team USA didn't

[Chris Mitchell]

care to say that the US Players didn't care is one of the bigger

[Ben Lindbergh]

fallacies that I've ever heard. It's absurd.

[Chris Mitchell]

It's so absurd that I didn't even

[Ben Lindbergh]

hear anyone say it.

[Chris Mitchell]

So I'm sure someone said it somewhere

[Ben Lindbergh]

that he was responding to here.

[Chris Mitchell]

But to be clear, this was not

[Ben Lindbergh]

the complaint that anyone was levying against Team USA here, as in here.

[Meg Rowley]

Uneffectively wild. Anyway.

[Chris Mitchell]

Here or there or anywhere, as far as as I'm concerned. So I think that what people were

[Ben Lindbergh]

saying were that Team USA didn't look

[Chris Mitchell]

like it was having any fun.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

That it was super martial and sort of jingoistic and all this stuff. We started the episode talking about Cal not shaking hands because he had to be so serious and businesslike.

[Chris Mitchell]

That's what anyone was saying. If anything, they were taking it too seriously.

[Meg Rowley]

Yes.

[Chris Mitchell]

So I don't think anyone questioned their

[Ben Lindbergh]

will to win, their want. I think we all understood that they really wanted to win and they played hard and if anything, too hard maybe,

[Chris Mitchell]

and could have stood to loosen up a little. But, yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I wouldn't conflate that with saying that they weren't trying. No, they were. They wanted to win. Absolutely.

[Meg Rowley]

Right.

[Chris Mitchell]

Mark deroza. I mean, he wanted to win. I, I don't know that he went about it in the best way. So you could say that maybe Team usa, they should have been more serious, had a more serious manager or something.

[Meg Rowley]

This is what I, and that this, I did say like, I thought that they needed to lighten up and some of them needed to tighten up, but that was mostly a DeRosa complaint and I guess like I, I should, you know, it's okay if some people's relationship to baseball is like serious. I don't have an issue with that being like a part of a rich tapestry. I just thought that the particular version of it we got here was like pretty one note. And I think that one of the things that international competition should accomplish and it, it certainly isn't the only thing, but like one of the things is it should feel like kind of representative of a broad swath of the country that you're representing because you're representing them like you're team, Team USA and they seem like a bunch of funny duddies and it, it in a way that felt purposeful and I don't know if top down is quite the right way to describe it, but certainly like part of a culture that DeRosa was trying to cultivate because we all have seen individual members of that team be funny or self effacing or silly or, or like happy to shake hands, you know. So I, I just, I just don't want it to be the only way, particularly given some of the like, geopolitical implications of the way that that oneness was manifesting in this time. But if people want to be serious, you can be serious. If you want to be dower, there are plenty of very useful grumpy Gusses out there. Right. And they can be very good at being baseball, but when it's like the whole crew, it's kind of a drag.

[Chris Mitchell]

It's just. Yeah, that's a different argument that as

[Ben Lindbergh]

far as I'm aware, not many people were making.

[Chris Mitchell]

So it is a ridiculous narrative and

[Ben Lindbergh]

possibly a non existent one. That is not the way in which we were questioning Team USA to be clear. I think it probably was clear, but

[Meg Rowley]

just in case, and you know, it's, it's shocking because I have never made the mistake of mistaking a volume of discourse for it being a representative discourse. I've never done that. Not even one time.

[Ben Lindbergh]

No. Yeah.

[Chris Mitchell]

And, and then Logan Webb came out and I don't know if he was responding to Rosenthal and Przynski's discussion or whether he had heard this, but it's just One person says this is a ridiculous narrative and then everyone's like, who was having that narrative? And then someone else picks up on. So Logan Webb said, I feel like there's a narrative that we didn't care. That's complete bs.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I think we probably cared the most out of every team, to be honest with you. Which, yeah, Logan, this you're playing right into what we're talking about here.

[Chris Mitchell]

Which clearly all the other teams cared very, very much. So that is not really a competition. The games were a competition, but the caring was just a 20 way tie. Like you all cared very much and

[Ben Lindbergh]

wanted to win the baseball tournament. Yeah. So I don't know why he had to make that itself competition.

[Chris Mitchell]

But look, maybe this is something these players were actually hearing.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Maybe this is a game of telephone and they're sort of misinterpreting what the criticism actually was. So to be clear, that's not what it was on this podcast at least. Also another important thing to clarify here.

[Chris Mitchell]

So, you know, I've been pretty good

[Ben Lindbergh]

this spring, I think with not going back to the breakout candidate. Well, and I'm not going to now. I have done a good job.

[Chris Mitchell]

People have tried to bait me.

[Meg Rowley]

They have with breakout picks, emails.

[Chris Mitchell]

Yes, they've sent me and, and it's always like, don't let Ben see this. Like you just tweeted it at me. If I hadn't seen it, I've seen it now. But people are trying to get a

[Meg Rowley]

rise out of me, trying to do it. Ben, don't.

[Chris Mitchell]

And I've refused. I've refused to be baited and I will continue to. I'm just, it's, it's not good for me or anyone.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I'm just not dignifying these breakout articles with my clicks.

[Chris Mitchell]

However, another thing that we have. But yes, this is unrelated. It's, it's linked only because it's kind

[Ben Lindbergh]

of been a hobby horse for me or we have talked about this many times and so at a certain point I just kind of had to close the discussion because there wasn't that much new to say about it. But the habit of baseball players predicting

[Chris Mitchell]

everything and then getting credit for said predictions, even though it seems that they are just firing off predictions willy nilly left and right. And yet whenever they happen to hit

[Ben Lindbergh]

the target, then they get hailed as

[Chris Mitchell]

some sort of soothsayer, when really it's

[Ben Lindbergh]

just that they predicted every possible outcome at every single time and it just happened to work out this time.

[Chris Mitchell]

But this one, this is I think

[Ben Lindbergh]

stretching even the definition of what a prediction is. And this was WBC related.

[Chris Mitchell]

So I read this in the Daily

[Ben Lindbergh]

News and the New York Daily News.

[Chris Mitchell]

Here it is.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I'm just going to quote this. This was about the final when Noah McLean exits the game and the US is trailing two to nothing before Bryce

[Chris Mitchell]

Harper hits his homer. So, okay, us down to nothing before Harper even the score with a two run homer in the bottom of the second second. A shot that right hander Clay Holmes called just moments before the ball left

[Ben Lindbergh]

the park in Miami.

[Chris Mitchell]

Quote from McLean. Me and Clay were standing next to each other. Clay said, pretty good moment for a homer right here.

[Ben Lindbergh]

McClain said, Next pitch he gets into it, I'm standing on top of the rail and I just kind of blacked out from there. Honestly, I don't know what happened, but I was definitely on the field at some point. So what I object to here is the idea, idea that suggesting pretty good moment for a homer here qualifies as calling the shot.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah.

[Chris Mitchell]

Which to be clear is the language that the author use that is not part of the quote. We don't have McClain on record here saying, sure, yes, Holmes called it, but that's the implication.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I think that, oh, he actually, he suggested that this was going to happen and maybe the author who's writing this up is taking their cue from McLean,

[Chris Mitchell]

saying that Holmes had called this. Just remarking that a home run would

[Ben Lindbergh]

be beneficial right around now. Yeah, that's not a prediction. That's not calling it.

[Chris Mitchell]

No, no, absolutely not. And look, probably six different people on the bench called that homer because that's just what baseball players do, as we have established. Yeah, but you get even less credit if you're not even going to say

[Ben Lindbergh]

he's going to hit a homer here. You're just going to make the, the incredibly banal and obvious observation that this would in fact be a pretty good moment for a homer.

[Chris Mitchell]

That's sort of an understatement. And maybe it was said sort of facetiously, but you don't get credit after

[Ben Lindbergh]

the fact for remarking that this would be a pretty good moment for a homer. That is self evident.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah, it's, it seems like it does stretch it ever so slightly, you know,

[Chris Mitchell]

and maybe there's a slight implication. There's a suggestion. Yeah, I don't want to jinx anything, but I'm just saying this might be the moment. This might be the guy. Okay, maybe that's kind of what he was getting at. But yeah, if you want to predict something, just predict it.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And Also, be somewhat sparing in your predictions so that you are not the person who predicted every outcome, in which case you were bound to be right at times. I'm just saying the bar is low enough as it is.

[Chris Mitchell]

We. We don't need to reduce remarking that this would be a pretty good moment

[Ben Lindbergh]

for a home to some sort of Nostradamus event here. I'm sorry, Clay and Nolan.

[Meg Rowley]

Sometimes I hear the way that we are persnickety and I'm like, you know, if a normal person, an average person who isn't familiar with the pod, were given the choice, would they rather hear from us about baseball or Bryce Harper about raw milk? Like, which would it be? You know, you're at a dinner party, you walk in, you are presented with two doors, and over here, pedantic losers. And over there is raw milk. Bryce, which door are you choosing? I don't know the answer to that.

[Chris Mitchell]

Yeah, I know. I was saying. Oh, Michael K. His. His sports talk banter, you know. Yeah, it's.

[Ben Lindbergh]

You kind of have to project a certain Persona or something.

[Chris Mitchell]

Not that this is anything less than sincere, but it's.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It does bring something out of me when the microphone is on and I get a bit more heated than I do just sort of sitting around reading this quote. But even so, it made me sit up and say, no, you do not get to count that. We have to draw the line somewhere.

[Meg Rowley]

Have to draw the line.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah.

[Chris Mitchell]

And speaking of being persnickety, I won't belabor this either because I have previously belabored it, but. But I wrote up my treatise.

[Meg Rowley]

You did? It was very well done.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Thank you.

[Chris Mitchell]

Well, I. I thought this was just

[Ben Lindbergh]

going to be a blog, just sort of a silly.

[Chris Mitchell]

And then it ended up being 5,000 words because I had so much to say. Yeah, I mean, I know, really, who could have seen that coming? But I went on a real journey

[Ben Lindbergh]

as I was writing this piece of

[Chris Mitchell]

self discovery and changing my mind about things.

[Ben Lindbergh]

This was my point about how we need to get the front offices off the field. We need to let the players play. Obviously not anti information and analytics and

[Chris Mitchell]

preparation, but you got to be off

[Ben Lindbergh]

book when you're in the game. I don't want to see you with your scouting card. I don't want to see you pulling out a piece of paper to tell

[Chris Mitchell]

you where to go between batters.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And I don't want to see coaches via front offices calling pitches. Every individual pitch from the dugout.

[Chris Mitchell]

So I put this into words and I tried to make it to the extent that I could. Kind of logically consistent and not just a reflexive reaction.

[Meg Rowley]

Sure.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And I tried to provide some historical perspective about how all of this has evolved.

[Chris Mitchell]

I gotta say something about that piece really resonated with people. I thought this was gonna be a. I am not a crackpot. People are going to be wondering what has happened to me. Am I okay? But I have to say, this almost became a kind of rallying cry. There were a lot of people saying. It was as if by being bold enough to go out there and, you know, provide the permission structure to criticize our own, essentially, you know, the stat heads to say we've taken things too far. Not literally us, but. But our ilk inside front offices. And there is something of a revolt happening here. And it's the most progressive baseball thinkers you could come up with who were

[Ben Lindbergh]

quotes posting and reposting and replying to this thing.

[Chris Mitchell]

It really seems like this has kind of touched a nerve and there's a silence. I don't know if it's a majority or minority out there, but there are people. I have a constituency for this take. I thought I was all alone on this island and it turns out that no, plenty of people are on this island with me.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I don't know that it's going to lead to any kind of change. I don't know that there's going to be a groundswell of support for say, banning the cards.

[Chris Mitchell]

But I am heartened to know that I am not alone here. And I almost had to question like, gosh, maybe, maybe should I pivot to being a full on anti analytics guy? Like, is there a lane for me here? You know, just like carve out my corner as the ex saber metrics true believer who recants his stat head status, embraces the old school. This could be a profitable, at the

[Ben Lindbergh]

very least, grift for me.

[Meg Rowley]

I was gonna say we have seen proof of concept in other walks of life.

[Chris Mitchell]

Exactly.

[Meg Rowley]

This is like version of this.

[Chris Mitchell]

Yeah. Someone gets quote unquote canceled perhaps on purpose for the, for the purpose of pulling off such a pivot and then they pivot to grievance grifting.

[Meg Rowley]

Right now they're running cbs. Yeah.

[Chris Mitchell]

Or, you know, maybe it's just you, you leave a cult or something and then you, you come out and denounce it. And then.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And that can maybe be a little less sort of cynical.

[Chris Mitchell]

But you know, know then you kind of become the party that is best

[Ben Lindbergh]

positioned really to open people's eyes. Because you are the best messenger. Because you used to be in that camp. And then you realized that your ways were wrong and now you have some real credibility.

[Meg Rowley]

Right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And so I'm wondering, I don't know

[Chris Mitchell]

that we have seen anyone pull off

[Ben Lindbergh]

that pivot from stat head to old school school and just decry all of the analytics things that they used to. You know, we have our critiques, of

[Chris Mitchell]

course, but to become the classic. And maybe there's not as much of a market out there for that sort of old school sports talker, period, regardless of your background. I'm just saying the way that this

[Ben Lindbergh]

was embraced made me think, you know, if, if we did not have our Patreon supporters who really were stepping up to the plate for us, and I just had to put on an act of some sort, this could be perhaps profitable for me, something to consider.

[Meg Rowley]

I think the part of it that actually resonated with people was, I mean, like, I think the substance of the argument and we, we disagree on some of it. I'm less offended by like the outfield positioning cards than you are, but I, and I, like, sometimes I worry that you just want every coach fired.

[Chris Mitchell]

Not fired, just confined to the coaching area. Yes.

[Meg Rowley]

But I, I think the, the piece of it that really resonated with people is I think earlier versions of saber metrics were perceived, and sometimes I think this was a fair criticism, and sometimes I think it was a bit of an overreaction, but were perceived as like fairly dogmatic. Right. I think that as we have continued to learn more about baseball, all, especially as we've been able to measure more things, we have realized that some of the received analytics wisdom was mostly right, but maybe limited in its applicability, or maybe we were too dogmatic about some things. And maybe there is a time every now and again where it does make sense to bunt, actually, and not in a sacrificed way, but there's a little bit of baby out with the bathwater. I think in the early days, hit.

[Chris Mitchell]

That's fun, that's exciting. That can sometimes be smart. Yeah.

[Meg Rowley]

But it, it became sort of a casualty of the like, never bun hit dingers. And it's like, well, never bun in these circumstances. And so I think when folks who are under. Not that you were necessarily so dogmatic, but what are understood to have sort of been around for a while are able to say in a way that isn't like defensive, hey, here, you know, know, I, I was maybe wrong about this part of it, or I didn't, you know, I didn't anticipate like how far it would Go. And this version of it is bad. And it's bad not because it's like, not analytically sound, but because like it's interfering with the aesthetics of the game. So I think rather than reading it as an opportunity grift, what you're really seeing is sort of like the, the maturation of a conversation that has been in progress for a really long time. And I also think there's just an appetite culturally for people to be like, I was wrong about that. Here's what I think now. And not go and ruin CBS News.

[Chris Mitchell]

And I tried to tie it into just larger trends. And we're all feeling just constantly bombarded by the algorithm or the AI or whatever it is. And so, so maybe this is sort of a manifestation of that trend.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It's at least adjacent to it.

[Chris Mitchell]

And my argument was not purely aesthetic.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It was also based on, well, what effects do you think this has on the game if you're arming the defense that already has a leg up with all this extra information?

[Chris Mitchell]

So it was a multi pronged approach. But I think that my background, it made me an effective messenger for this

[Ben Lindbergh]

position because I had the credibility coming from a former true believer, the guy who co wrote a book about stat nerds being in the dugout and running a baseball team and is now maybe

[Chris Mitchell]

saying, perhaps we've taken things too far. So, you know, maybe this was, this was simmering, this was percolating.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It just needed a standard bearer. You know, I hesitate to say hero,

[Chris Mitchell]

but someone I think had to step up and sort of knit these threads together.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And it was incumbent upon me.

[Chris Mitchell]

So now, you know, I will let

[Ben Lindbergh]

other people pick up the mantle perhaps and carry this forward.

[Chris Mitchell]

But I actually, I heard from the purveyors of this information. I heard from people who work for front offices. I heard from someone whose job it is to prepare the cards or work with the cards in some capacity.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah.

[Chris Mitchell]

And was very conflicted and was trying to reconcile the fact that their job, job actually pertains to the preparation of these cards.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah.

[Chris Mitchell]

And yet they also sort of agreed with me. And so I said, well, your, your only option, ethically speaking, is just to

[Ben Lindbergh]

symbolically burn all the cards and quit and just walk off the job. And they said, pass. And I said there.

[Chris Mitchell]

But you know, I think the fact that even people who are sort of

[Ben Lindbergh]

on the inside, that some of them,

[Chris Mitchell]

I was hearing via back channels from

[Ben Lindbergh]

people say, you know, I can't come

[Chris Mitchell]

right out and say this.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It's just too sensitive for a person in my position. But here, here, that you spoke up.

[Chris Mitchell]

And when I do these deep dives, I like tying it back to the

[Ben Lindbergh]

history because there is always precedent for everything. Yeah, the world, and certainly in baseball.

[Chris Mitchell]

And this strain of thinking, it's not new.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Either the strain of thinking that I am rebelling against or the strain of thinking that I am expressing.

[Chris Mitchell]

And I feel like there are kindred spirits throughout history. One of the reasons why I like

[Ben Lindbergh]

doing these newspaper deep dives and archives,

[Chris Mitchell]

it's like these people who are long gone who had the same thoughts that I did. And maybe that makes me feel less special or original, but it's also kind of reassuring to know that these are common to the human, human condition. It's like when I wrote a few years ago about how maybe MLP should

[Ben Lindbergh]

widen the foul lines because outfield defense has gotten too good, maybe partly because

[Chris Mitchell]

of those positioning cards.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And so to bring BABIP up, you just make more fair territory.

[Chris Mitchell]

And then through my research, I discovered that I was the latest in a long lineage of visionaries who had dared to dream big about bigger fields with wider angles. Now it made me realize that I'm fighting a losing battle here, here, because this. This war has been lost on all

[Ben Lindbergh]

fronts for more than a century, and specialization is essentially undefeated. And whenever you're going to get an edge, then you will.

[Chris Mitchell]

But it was sort of heartening to know that there have been people resisting from the start. And in fact, at the very beginning, I won't go through all the history

[Ben Lindbergh]

because it's very involved, but it was

[Chris Mitchell]

quite controversial when coaches and managers would give signs. At the start, there was absolutely a position, a belief system that said only the players, only the people directly involved

[Ben Lindbergh]

should have this sort of input, this

[Chris Mitchell]

sort of influence on the game. And that's partly because the role of the manager has evolved.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And often they were sort of business people at the beginning or logistical people. And one way this evolved, one reason why we still have managers wearing uniforms, is because player managers were so pervasive,

[Chris Mitchell]

so, right, you had this nebulous distinction

[Ben Lindbergh]

between players and managers at the start. They were often one in the same.

[Chris Mitchell]

And there was a moment, though, in late 1878, just early in National League history, when hall of Famer Harry Wright,

[Ben Lindbergh]

who had been a great player manager

[Chris Mitchell]

but was now retired as a player

[Ben Lindbergh]

and was still coaching or was managing the Boston National League team team, was

[Chris Mitchell]

banned from the bench.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And all managers were because of.

[Chris Mitchell]

Right, because his opponents were saying, well, this is like we're facing 10 men now. He's not even in the game. And he's over there helping them out and he's coaching their base runners and everything. This isn't fair. We're, we're outmanned here. And so they actually did take steps to say, no, you can't be on

[Ben Lindbergh]

the bench if you're a manager.

[Chris Mitchell]

And that didn't last very long.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And by the early 20th century, it was sort of cemented as, yeah, managers are going to do this, and in one way or another.

[Chris Mitchell]

And there have been many experiments throughout

[Ben Lindbergh]

history with coaches or managers calling pitches from the dugout.

[Chris Mitchell]

This Marlins initiative that has now been adopted by a bunch of teams. This seems to be more sweeping than in the past and certainly more data

[Ben Lindbergh]

driven, but there have absolutely been teams that have dabbled in this forever.

[Chris Mitchell]

But just saying, you pick up on

[Ben Lindbergh]

these echoes when you study any sort of history, but certainly a sport. Yes. With the, the deep history of baseball

[Chris Mitchell]

because people are always up in arms about the same things over and over and over again.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah.

[Chris Mitchell]

And, and now that I have studied history, I am, I am doomed to repeat it nonetheless, even though I am

[Ben Lindbergh]

aware that I am repeating it. But, you know, I just got to fight the good fight about this one, I think, even though it's probably a losing battle.

[Chris Mitchell]

Also, one last WBC thing here. We got this question. This sounds like something that could probably

[Ben Lindbergh]

be answered with some sort of rigor and perhaps this could be a Dan Simborski style question.

[Chris Mitchell]

But we got a question about projecting

[Ben Lindbergh]

WBC performance for future WBCs.

[Chris Mitchell]

Presumably, hopefully in 2029 we will have another WBC. And we got a question from Chris who said, I was hoping you'd make the jump after your team preview series from thinking about the window to compete with such and such player core from the big leagues to these World Baseball Classic teams. Yeah, obviously Acuna Jr. Being healthy and in his prime meant

[Ben Lindbergh]

this was a window for Venezuela and they had talent around him to compete on the field, at the bat, in

[Chris Mitchell]

the bullpen, et cetera. I have a feeling this will be a model for other baseball nations, Puerto

[Ben Lindbergh]

Rico and Korea in particular, but also countries that can rely on Caribbean associations

[Chris Mitchell]

like the Netherlands and England that look to get a piece of this championship

[Ben Lindbergh]

down the line line.

[Chris Mitchell]

Who can we get together for this

[Ben Lindbergh]

run type of thinking. Italy obviously did their research in this regard this go round, as did Canada. So yeah, recruiting obviously matters a lot. And that's why Italy and Canada did better. They just had stronger rosters, they had more major leaguers. They were projected to do better before the tournament began and so maybe there

[Chris Mitchell]

really is an edge toward identifying candidates.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Players who might want to play in the WBC might not even immediately think

[Chris Mitchell]

of your squad as the one, but

[Ben Lindbergh]

hey, if they don't make this other

[Chris Mitchell]

one, we'll be ready to swoop in potentially. But also this idea of just who had a championship caliber core that could compete in future WBCs and I haven't

[Ben Lindbergh]

really broken that down. Presumably one could look at the average age and project what will these guys be like in 2029? You know, that's why I was saying this is Taylor made for Dan potentially.

[Chris Mitchell]

But that's interesting to consider now that this is such a meaningful event for everyone. You could kind of forecast there's so much uncertainty about who be available and

[Ben Lindbergh]

who be willing at least.

[Chris Mitchell]

But now that there's a little less uncertainty about will players want to participate,

[Ben Lindbergh]

it'll be about, well, are they healthy, are they free?

[Chris Mitchell]

But also are they still good, are

[Ben Lindbergh]

they still in their prime? Who will still be viable candidates for that team?

[Chris Mitchell]

It's like people were saying about Salvador Perez, well, this is probably his last wbc.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I, I don't want to doubt Salvi, the ageless Salvi, but yeah, there are certain teams that are younger and probably built for the future.

[Chris Mitchell]

But then again, when you're projecting anything three years out, the error bars are

[Ben Lindbergh]

so big that who's even to say who the best candidates will be at that point? So I think this would be a

[Chris Mitchell]

pretty error prone exercise.

[Ben Lindbergh]

But it would be interesting to evaluate

[Chris Mitchell]

who might actually stack up better and it might just turn out to be,

[Ben Lindbergh]

well, the perennial powerhouses probably because, you

[Chris Mitchell]

know, like, well, they're going to have Leo de Vries or whoever coming along.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Right. It's just there's going to be a

[Chris Mitchell]

next generation for the Dominican team or the Venezuelan team or whatever it is.

[Ben Lindbergh]

So probably it'll just amount to, yeah, it's the typical powerhouses, just power housing.

[Chris Mitchell]

But if there's anything to the chemistry, the having been there before, which I kind of doubt that there is, but you know, maybe you could say that

[Ben Lindbergh]

a team would have an advantage from having bonded around the old espresso machine once before and going back into the

[Meg Rowley]

breach, I think it would be an incredibly difficult exercise prior to having confirmed rosters. Then of course, like you have guys who maybe you can count on playing for sort of less well established international programs, but you don't have like a base of stats to project from. Like, yeah, for guys who are primarily professional at other things and happen to come together for the wbc, you wouldn't really be able to say much. Now. You might be able to say a lot by virtue of that fact. You don't need a projection system to be like the team that has an electrician on the mound. They're less good than Japan. It's like, well, yeah, I mean, tell me something else. I don't know, but it would be, I think it would be a fun exercise. I know that the Dan is keen to do some amount of projecting for it and at least as it pertains to teams whose membership is primarily constituted by, by folks who like, have pro experience in other leagues, even if it's not Major League Baseball. The only instance where referring to mlb, it doesn't matter. I was going to do a pedantic thing and then I was like, that's annoying. Don't do it. I think that you could say a lot and it might be kind of illuminating. But I also, I think part of what makes the WBC fun is that it does have pretty big error bars. That even though you have, have a good sense of who the good teams are going in and like, you do end up having a lot of, you know, sort of consistency once you get out of pool play, that there is potential for, you know, Italy to pop off and do little kisses and opera and yeah, I like that there's uncertainty. I think it sort of heightens the atmosphere in a way. That's pretty fun.

[Chris Mitchell]

So, yeah, and one other thought I had last, last thought for the nonce about international baseball, but this reminded me

[Ben Lindbergh]

because you were talking about the Japanese

[Chris Mitchell]

team and there's a slight tweak to the playoff format in NPB where, you know, they have this tradition of the the Ghost win so that the higher seeded team in the NPB playoffs starts with a one nothing advantage. So the higher seed has to win

[Ben Lindbergh]

only three games, whereas the lower seed

[Chris Mitchell]

has to win four games.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And then if there's a tie, the

[Chris Mitchell]

higher seed has to win only two games after that. So they have adjusted that where if the one seed wins the pennant by 10 or more games, they will receive

[Ben Lindbergh]

two ghost wins instead of one in the climax series final stage, which is not actually the climax, but if a

[Chris Mitchell]

sub 500 team qualifies, the pennant winner also gets two ghost wins. So if there's a huge misplaced match, then the favorite gets an edge. And this is something that I know has come up on the podcast before

[Ben Lindbergh]

when there's been playoff randomness and when there's been conversation about is there Too much randomness. And are we rewarding teams for being

[Chris Mitchell]

good in the regular season enough?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Because sometimes you'll have a team that was better than some other team in the division or whatever, or a team that it beat out in the wild card race. And then suddenly it finds itself playing that team in a short series and losing to that team. And you think, well, what was that

[Chris Mitchell]

prior six months for? People sometimes suggest, well, what NPB does is it gives the better team a leg up and an extra phantom win. And I think that the American mind cannot comprehend this.

[Ben Lindbergh]

This is. It turns an entire country into Michael

[Meg Rowley]

K. Our brains don't work so good.

[Chris Mitchell]

Yeah, I don't know if it's just like the wanting to have some sort of fiction of a level playing field or what. Because yeah, in NPB they have ties too. Which I'm fine with ties if the alternative is Zombie Runner. But again, the American mind Rebels don't like always got to have a winner.

[Meg Rowley]

Don't they have ties in hockey? Can you have a tie? Hockey, right.

[Chris Mitchell]

In some sports.

[Meg Rowley]

In regular season hockey, there.

[Chris Mitchell]

Yeah. I mean there have been all sorts

[Meg Rowley]

of race in football.

[Chris Mitchell]

Yeah. The format has varied over the years

[Ben Lindbergh]

and, and you know, they have like a point system, of course, in hockey.

[Meg Rowley]

So now this is why I can never understand hockey rankings. I'm like, I have no idea who's good in this.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Sorry, they don't have ties anymore. They, they used to have ties in the shootout, then there was shootout and then there's overtime and there's three on three.

[Chris Mitchell]

And you know they have their own version of the Zombie Runner.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Right? That's right.

[Meg Rowley]

Okay.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And then yes, there are the points, so cracking.

[Chris Mitchell]

But, but. And there's some wrinkles to this new playoff format. I saw someone else mention that the series gets extended along with that to win advantage. So the advancing team needs five wins in this scenario.

[Ben Lindbergh]

So the pennant winners don't start halfway to advancing. They still need to win three.

[Chris Mitchell]

Yeah, so it's, it's clever. I guess it does the trick. But I think that it would just never be accepted here if you were just like, well, you win a certain number of games and you're facing some

[Ben Lindbergh]

500 club that just squeaked into winning a wild card.

[Chris Mitchell]

So therefore you will start with a win. I think people would hate that and

[Ben Lindbergh]

would object and would say, well, this defeats the purpose of having a whole random tournament.

[Chris Mitchell]

Which arguably is true. I suppose you could also say, well, doesn't it defeat the purpose of playing the whole regular season not to have some sort of advantage other than maybe home field advantage. So I just, look, I like that people have different baseball traditions and that

[Ben Lindbergh]

countries do baseball differently.

[Chris Mitchell]

And sometimes we can learn from each other and sometimes the cultural barriers are

[Ben Lindbergh]

just too high for them to be transcendent.

[Chris Mitchell]

But it is an interesting idea to

[Ben Lindbergh]

keep in mind next time we're doing playoff randomness conversation. This is one potential solution.

[Chris Mitchell]

Okay, so we mentioned that we would tease the roster cuts and who made

[Ben Lindbergh]

the opening day roster and who didn't.

[Chris Mitchell]

Obviously some notable decisions here, some controversial decisions led by the fact that the

[Ben Lindbergh]

Colorado Rockies have released John Brebia. He did not make the opening day roster.

[Meg Rowley]

Do you need a minute?

[Ben Lindbergh]

I've had many minutes since I saw this news.

[Meg Rowley]

I love how we're making this about you and not John Bre not having a job.

[Chris Mitchell]

I know. I hope he's doing okay if he's listening, which he probably isn't. But it's not inconceivable that he might

[Ben Lindbergh]

be listening to his number one fan podcast.

[Chris Mitchell]

But this was another case where 20

[Ben Lindbergh]

people sent this to me and said,

[Chris Mitchell]

I hope Ben doesn't see this. What you not that this was going

[Ben Lindbergh]

to evade my notice. There's no way you did bring it to my attention.

[Chris Mitchell]

But yes, he has been released from his minor league deal. I don't know.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It hadn't been reported whether he opted out, but it became clear, I guess, that he was not going to make the opening day roster, which that's a

[Chris Mitchell]

tough pill to swallow probably if you can't crack the Rockies roster. And you know, we talked about this on our Rockies preview and he had

[Ben Lindbergh]

been pitching pretty well.

[Chris Mitchell]

So maybe it's not the best sign

[Ben Lindbergh]

for your career prospects.

[Chris Mitchell]

Maybe he'll be more available for podcast appearances potentially. I guess that could be a silver lining. But yeah, condolences to John. Hope he catches on somewhere if he still cares to. But slightly bigger headlines elsewhere. Major prospects either making or not making

[Ben Lindbergh]

the opening day roster. So JJ Weather Holt made it for

[Chris Mitchell]

the Cardinals, not a surprise, but was expected and did indeed happen. Kevin McGonagall made it to the Tigers. So that's your maybe number three and number two prospects. Perhaps they're starting to the season on their team's opening day rosters. And then the number one, he is

[Ben Lindbergh]

not jeopardizing your prediction about him, perhaps surpassing Mike Trout's rookie season WAR total,

[Chris Mitchell]

which was in some jeopardy because it

[Ben Lindbergh]

was quite bold, which was in keeping with the exercise.

[Meg Rowley]

But that's the point.

[Ben Lindbergh]

He will not be making the Pirates. He has been moved to minor league camp.

[Meg Rowley]

Yes.

[Chris Mitchell]

Doesn't mean that he couldn't make it soon. He could be up soon. It, it really depends.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Obviously, if he were to sign an extension, I imagine magically some of the Pirates reservations could be overcome.

[Chris Mitchell]

But also there's the prospect promotion incentive. This is not necessarily a.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Have to wait months until like Super

[Chris Mitchell]

2 deadlines or whatever. Like you know, we have the prospect promotion incentives now know. And, and the Pirates did not immediately promote Paul Skans either. And then because of those incentives or,

[Ben Lindbergh]

you know, he got an extra year of service time because he was so good and so decorated.

[Meg Rowley]

Right.

[Chris Mitchell]

So in a sense, I guess it, you could say that it backfired that the Pirates were not aggressive in promoting him sooner. But then again, who's to say maybe he benefited from that time. It, it has worked out quite well, at least in terms of his development. So I don't think this is a

[Ben Lindbergh]

case of clear service time manipulation or the Pirates cheaping out necessarily.

[Chris Mitchell]

It's disappointing because of course everyone wants

[Ben Lindbergh]

to see Connor Griffin showing off and hit big neck and his huge neck. But I think it's understandable and defensible

[Chris Mitchell]

because he is so young, he is so inexperienced at the higher levels and also he didn't have a very good spring training.

[Ben Lindbergh]

He didn't.

[Chris Mitchell]

Which means only so much. But it means something if you want

[Ben Lindbergh]

to crack an opening day big league roster despite barely having any upper level experience and still being a teenager.

[Meg Rowley]

I think this is fine. I, I do think, you know, the prospect promotion incentive and the way it interacts with Super 2 is a little interesting because the Pirates from an incentives perspective, I think, you know, they basically have like, like two weeks to get him up and still put him in position to accrue enough time and for them to get a pick if he ends up being rookie of the year. And then there's an argument to be made that like, if you don't bring up then like maybe leave him down until he's for Super 2 so that you don't risk him getting. Risk. I'm doing your quotes. Him getting a full year of service and you not getting a draft pick. How they sort that out I think will be determined by a number of factors, not the least of which is how he responds to, you know, the high minors. But I don't, I don't think that this is like a, is really evidence of service time manipulation. And we all know, I'm very happy to call that out when I think I see it. But like he is not yet 20. He turns 20 at the end of next month. A month from today, in fact. Fact, happy early birthday, Connor and your big neck. And has played, you know, 21 games at double A and he hit a buck 71 in spring. So I think that if, if Connor Griffin had come to spring and lit the world on fire, that he would have been their opening day shortstop. And I imagine that they have, or at least I would hope that they have sort of learned from their experience with skins where it's like, hey, hey, you, you might end up like just with this guy getting a year of service anyway and you getting nothing for it but really impressive play. And so I imagine that that will inform something of their strategy going forward. But I don't, I don't think that Conor Griffin forced the issue.

[Chris Mitchell]

He hit some bumps, obviously.

[Meg Rowley]

He hit some.

[Chris Mitchell]

The tools were pretty apparent, right?

[Meg Rowley]

You could, you can see why this guy is going to be a good big leaguer. Like that was apparent in camp. You also could see that he was like, overmatched. I don't think that that will be true for very long. It wouldn't surprise me if he doesn't take all that long to adjust to the high miners and is good and ready soon. But I also think, you know, we are, we've gotten used to, like, guys coming up and lighting the world on fire right away. And sometimes they do that and it's awesome and sometimes they take long longer to adjust. And we, we tend to kind of overreact in both directions, candidly. But I think because there have been so many recent examples of players being really good from day one that we, we tend to forget that the, you know, baseball is littered with examples of guys who were rushed and it goofed up their development and then they weren't right again after that, you know, and so, so I think that when you're looking at someone who you rightly know is going to be like one of the faces of your franchise that you can't screw around, like, you need to take his development seriously. And sometimes teams don't take a guy's development seriously in the other direction where it's like he doesn't have anything left to prove at Triple A and he needs to be tested by the majors, get him up there so that he can, can make the adjustment and then be a good big leaguer. But I don't think that that's what's at play in this particular circumstance. And I promise I would say I would be like those dirty pirates and their dirty service time Tricks. But I, you know, When a guy hits 171 in spring, you know, and

[Chris Mitchell]

he sort of slumped at the end and lots of whiffs and, yeah, give

[Meg Rowley]

him time to marinate. He struck out almost 30% of the time. He barely walked. Walked, you know, like, let him. He hit for big power. Like, boy, we weren't kidding. Like, that's in there. And we saw that even with a 28 strikeout rate. But, you know, I think making sure that you are guarding his development and guarding his future in the franchise is. That's, like, an appropriate stance to take. You can be irresponsible in the other direction. The. The part of this that you is, I imagine, frustrating to Pirates fans is that, like, their sense that there is urgency here for the big league team to be good. That's not a false sense. Right. Time. The clock's a ticking on skins. And so I get you wanting to have, like, a really good, you know, five tool guy to pair with him and hopefully push and be good enough on his own to, like, elevate the guys around him, especially the guys they brought in, many of whom are more, like, good but more complimentary than, like, you know, standout. But if you rush it and he gets broken by that, it's a disaster. You know, that's like, people lose their jobs kind of stuff. And, you know, this is like a. A flawed comp in, like, 90 different directions, and I will totally own that. But, like, Mariners fans will tell you, you know, who wasn't ready for the major Rangers? Mike Zanino. You know, whoever could figure it out after that for very long. Mike Zanino. There was Trish's when he was good, as the Barbara boys will tell you.

[Chris Mitchell]

But, yeah, the Mariners are. They're doing the. The full court press PR campaign with

[Ben Lindbergh]

the ads, which is obviously a trademark of the organization. I love funny promos.

[Meg Rowley]

I love the new dad one.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I thought the new dad was delightful.

[Meg Rowley]

Like, kind of subversive in a way.

[Chris Mitchell]

In the clubhouse having tummy time.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah, kiddos. Like, what a positive.

[Chris Mitchell]

So they need to.

[Ben Lindbergh]

They need to get Cal and Randy in one of these promos and make light of.

[Meg Rowley]

Yes. And they are. They are doing. Guys, just don't force it. Okay? Like Cal. They had a. They had a. A video with Cal Raleigh and Bryce Miller about Cal's bobblehead. And it's delightful. And like, the. I just. You know, there's bias here, to be clear, but I don't think he's. I think it's okay. I think you can like Cal Raleigh. I don't think it's like, it's not a, it's not a Brian McCann thing. It's okay. No, but yeah, but yeah, he can.

[Chris Mitchell]

Don't have to cancel Cal. Let's. You know, this was a blow. This was a setback. Oh yeah, public image. But let's give him a chance to.

[Meg Rowley]

Let's all get back to talking about that ass and see how it goes.

[Chris Mitchell]

Yes. So McGonagall and Weatherholt had better springs.

[Ben Lindbergh]

They weren't setting the world on fire

[Chris Mitchell]

exactly, but they were. They were okay. And, and they're just more advanced. They're a lot older, years older, more polished, more experience under their belts. And so even if they are not

[Ben Lindbergh]

quite as highly rated prospects as Griffin is, they're closer. They're ready, presumably.

[Chris Mitchell]

So that's the only thing.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It's hard. You have the anticipation. You want to see Griffin right now. And yes, when there is actually some competitive pressure on the Pirates because they

[Chris Mitchell]

could be a fringy playoff contender and their number one weakness is offense and Connor Griffin could theoretically supply that. And he has the, I think second best fan graphs, WAR depth charts, projection on the team after o' Neill Cruz. But you don't want to jeopardize anything long term.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And this is someone who is going to be very important to your franchise and him coming up and, and maybe being the difference between a two war guy or a one war guy or something. I don't know, maybe that ends up making the difference for the Pirates, but probably not.

[Chris Mitchell]

So you want to just prioritize his development. Yeah, he just has not had a

[Ben Lindbergh]

ton of time and a year ago

[Chris Mitchell]

he wasn't nearly as prominent on the prospect radar as he is now.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And there were all kinds of concerns about his game with which he just resoundingly answered ever since.

[Chris Mitchell]

But even so, yeah, not quite a finished product. I think we will see him soon, most likely.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And Pirates fans, understandably impatient, but also I think many of them had the perspective to see that yes, it's a little disappointing. We want him now, but also we want the best for him. And maybe this wouldn't have been the best for him.

[Chris Mitchell]

It's also extension. Season, season. And we'll, we'll see whether the Pirates can get in on that. But we have seen Christopher Sanchez sign an extension with the Phillies and who

[Meg Rowley]

knew he could get any longer?

[Chris Mitchell]

Reportedly Pete Crow Armstrong has agreed to an extension.

[Meg Rowley]

Hey, Cubs and PCA, you get it. You get to interrupt PPRs with extension talk and then you're not going to give us terms? What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? That's rude. That's.

[Chris Mitchell]

This has been reported to be close

[Ben Lindbergh]

and it seems like it is, but we don't know the terms. But how interesting are extension terms anyway? Really? Like, we look up the comps and,

[Chris Mitchell]

oh, the service time and.

[Meg Rowley]

But for someone like pca, I think it has the potential to be interesting. Early career extensions are always more interesting to me than later ones because of what they say about the market and the perception of the players at that same. The Sanchez one is interesting because, like, they didn't have to do anything. He was under contract with options and stuff for another couple of years. But they were like, hey, you know who's really good? You.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, you. You should make more.

[Chris Mitchell]

Yeah, that was almost a salvi, sort of, let's tear this thing up. Or if not tear it up, at

[Ben Lindbergh]

least tack on to the end. Make you feel a little bit better about this.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah. And I, you know, that's nice when that happens.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It's interesting, right, because it's like teams, they're all about surplus value.

[Chris Mitchell]

Right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

If you sign someone to a below market deal, well, you should celebrate. Right?

[Chris Mitchell]

That's the goal. And yet when that player is good and prominent and important to your franchise, you also want to keep them happy and sometimes keep them happy and, and sending a signal to other players to, hey, we're going to take care of you. Sometimes the maximizing the surplus value is

[Ben Lindbergh]

not seen as the most beneficial move.

[Meg Rowley]

I would also argue that there's likely still surplus value to be had in that deal. You know what I mean? Yeah, I think everybody's gonna be happy to have Christian Sanchez around for a while. I don't think they're gonna be like, oh, no.

[Chris Mitchell]

Yes, it will be interesting to see

[Ben Lindbergh]

how much surplus value there is in PCA's extension just because that came up earlier this spring when he's a very quotable, engaging guy and there was a feature in Chicago magazine about him and he was asked about the extension and I would have to have Shane bleep every other word if I read this

[Chris Mitchell]

quote, but he said, I'm cool with being under team control. He also said, you know, this might be worth just bleeping. League minimum ain't too bad. But. But then he sort of salvaged it because. Okay, that's relatable. Sure. League minimum. Minimum. That is actually pretty darn good, especially

[Ben Lindbergh]

at that age or any age, frankly.

[Chris Mitchell]

But he is also aware of the

[Ben Lindbergh]

fact that he's in a union and

[Chris Mitchell]

he has certain responsibilities.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And so sure, he said, like I play the game because I like beating

[Chris Mitchell]

other people in a fun way. Yeah, I know the money will be life changing regardless again. So he's sort of, you can hear his agent saying, Pete, stop your leverage. It's ebbing away. But then he said, I would like to get a fair deal. So I don't the market up. I want to look out for the other center fielders who have to go through the same process.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Which is why I'm glad Cubs management and my agents are figuring out how to do this.

[Chris Mitchell]

So I like that because it was like, yeah, my impulse is this is great money regardless what of what the terms are. And I like playing baseball. So sure, sign me up. I want to stay here. But he does have the perspective and

[Ben Lindbergh]

you know, has been given the guidance

[Chris Mitchell]

to say, yeah, but you should also look out for yourself here and also

[Ben Lindbergh]

also look out for comparable players and everything. So I wonder how he will end up balancing those competing concerns.

[Chris Mitchell]

But, but basically what is exciting about an extension announcement is that the player

[Ben Lindbergh]

signed an extension and then yes, we look at the numbers and everything, but the numbers are always low relative to free agent dollars.

[Meg Rowley]

Right.

[Chris Mitchell]

I always find that sort of funny. More funny than frustrating.

[Ben Lindbergh]

When terms of an extension will be

[Chris Mitchell]

announced on Twitter, for instance, like passing or whoever.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And then all the replies are like,

[Chris Mitchell]

why did he sign for that? Because they don't understand the economic structure

[Ben Lindbergh]

of baseball and how you don't get

[Chris Mitchell]

paid until you are in your arb

[Ben Lindbergh]

years and then free agency years. And so if you're signing an early career extension, you're not getting free agent money. And that doesn't mean that you signed some massively below market deal.

[Chris Mitchell]

So there's always.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And like Brent Rooker, when he signed

[Chris Mitchell]

one, he had to sort of explain to Twitter that this is how baseball economics work. I'm. Yeah, I'm. I'm not just an incredibly terrible negotiator.

[Meg Rowley]

Right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Actually, this is not equivalent to when someone signs a free agent contract.

[Meg Rowley]

I wish that the conversation around the extension thing, particularly when it's an early career player, focused more on how their money in that extension relates to what they might expect to make an arbitration rather than on the free agent market. You need to consider how much of your actual free agency you are giving away. Giving away has a value judgment associated with it. You are. How many of those years are being occupied by the, by the extension. Because even if it is a healthy extension, one where we're not like, oh my God, this is malpractice on the part of your agent. You're still probably getting, getting the team's getting those years at a discount in all likelihood. So I think that you want to consider that piece of it. But the most like, meaningful salary comparison is being. Is like triangulating between, you know, your years at the league minimum versus what you might reasonably expect to be able to make an arbitration. Because I think that, that people, and by that I mean like fans more than players or their agents, because their agents are keenly aware of this stuff. But you can make really good money in arp, you know, even if you're not setting records, right? Even if you're not Skubal or Juan Soto. Like, players can make really good money in arbitration. And there is sort of like labor pro social aspects to that. Right? Because then you're setting good precedents in the arbitration system for the guys who come after you. So like, you have to consider that piece of it too. But the, the choice choice, again, depending on the terms, which we still don't have. You know, I say that like I'm the one who edited Michael's copy on this when it was Matt. Thank you, Matt. Thank you, Bauman. Thank you to the rest of the Fan Graph staff for being such good, good folks at your jobs while I am a PPR gremlin. But the choice that someone like PCA is making is not between the league minimum and the free agent market. And oh no, on your way to the free agent market, you fell down a pit and now you're stuck in an extension. It's between sticking at the league minimum and then finding your way through arbitration and not having to do the arbitration piece, presumably with some free agent years bought out. So it is a little more complicated than that. I agree.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yes.

[Meg Rowley]

Kirsten. Ben Benj also made the opening day roster.

[Chris Mitchell]

Ben. Yes.

[Meg Rowley]

I've never said it wrong.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Of Mike Tachman, I suppose.

[Chris Mitchell]

Yeah, guys, don't get hurt. You're almost at opening day. See if Atlanta can can salvage some of its pitching staff.

[Meg Rowley]

So many.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Spencer Strider down now.

[Chris Mitchell]

Just see if you can keep your arms healthy for a couple more days. That's all it takes.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And then they can still get hurt,

[Chris Mitchell]

but at least it will be more meaningful games. My last stray observation here, my moment of Zen.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I wanted to relay a quote that I saw from the mayor of my city, Zorat Mamdani. So this was about bus service to

[Meg Rowley]

get used to not reflexively reacting negatively to the mayor of my city when you're talking. Sorry stunt. Well, it isn't trained just yet.

[Chris Mitchell]

This is relevant because the transition from His Honor Eric Adams twos are up

[Meg Rowley]

guy doing right now, I'm sure.

[Chris Mitchell]

Fascinating.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah.

[Meg Rowley]

Something vaguely criminal, in all likelihood. Allegedly.

[Chris Mitchell]

Maybe so, but he can get away with that now.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I mean, he could get away with it then too, but fewer people are paying attention.

[Chris Mitchell]

Anyway, anyway, put the politics aside here and just evaluate the quality of the quote. So Zoran was talking about bus service

[Ben Lindbergh]

and about this particular Bronx bus service, Chris.

[Chris Mitchell]

And he said, unfortunately, as the mayor of New York City, I must deliver fast and reliable buses for Yankees fans as well.

[Meg Rowley]

I love it.

[Chris Mitchell]

I can think of no better way

[Ben Lindbergh]

to welcome the start of baseball season than by breaking ground on a project that will make commutes faster, streets safer, etc. Etc. Regardless of what you think of Zoran Mandani's political positions, this is how you have to handle this.

[Meg Rowley]

Yes.

[Ben Lindbergh]

If you are a town politician.

[Meg Rowley]

Yes. You have to embrace your teams, man.

[Chris Mitchell]

Yes. Because this is how humans relate to their sports teams for the most part. And if you want to appear relatable and authentic and sincere, you have to embrace that. And guess what? People will accept that and people will, will even welcome that. Because even if you're a Yankees fan, you're saying, you know, like, game recognized game, like, this is okay, okay. This is how we feel about each other.

[Meg Rowley]

Two are haters. Yes.

[Chris Mitchell]

Yes, we hate you, you hate us.

[Meg Rowley]

Yes.

[Chris Mitchell]

It's a sports thing. And if, if he were a Yankees fan, I would want him to say the same about the Mets. Like, this is what I would say in my own life. It just makes you appear so much more like a normal human being. And many politicians are not normal human beings and maybe that is why they become politicians. And one way that that gets expressed. And Eric Adams was among the best, slash worst at this with of course, his abomination of a Yankees slash Mets hat. Just the embodiment, the epitome of fence sitting, of refusing to take sides. And he, he had his, his sentiments and he had his loyalties, but so many times the impulse is to not take a position. Yeah. And I did a hang up in Life.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Listen segment about this some months ago where Jason Concepcion came on and we talked about how Zoran Magdani had used his Knicks fandom during his campaign and can.

[Chris Mitchell]

Had kind of embraced this. And meanwhile, Andrew Cuomo just refused to ever say anything that might be considered as denigrating another sports team. And when he was put on the spot. Hey, whose game would you rather go to? Or it's the finals or it's the World Series, like which game you go into? Whatever.

[Ben Lindbergh]

He would always just do some mealy mouthed.

[Chris Mitchell]

Well, you know, it's like, Republicans buy sneakers, too. Democrats buy sneakers too. I, I'm not going to offend anyone.

[Meg Rowley]

Right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

By suggesting that I have a favorite team.

[Chris Mitchell]

And then, of course, you offend everyone because you seem like some sort of person in a skin suit who is trying to appeal to everyone and is not exhibiting anything remotely like human behavior. And sorry, we've seen this over and over, over, and you had to hand it to. And few people did, but Eric Adams's predecessor, Bill de Blasio.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah.

[Chris Mitchell]

Red Sox fan.

[Meg Rowley]

He was Red Sox fan.

[Chris Mitchell]

You know what? He owned that. And that's, that's a tough spot to be in as a Red Sox fan who's the mayor of New York. There was one notable time when he donned a Yankees cap, but it was

[Ben Lindbergh]

like during the pandemic, as a show of solidarity, and there was like, like, you know, it was a vaccine site, maybe in Yankee Stadium or something along that line. It was, you know, lots of strange things happened during the pandemic that we would all rather forget.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah.

[Chris Mitchell]

If it's a message of, okay, I'm crossing the aisle.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I'm trying to bring everyone together because

[Chris Mitchell]

I will wear this hat as long as you make it clear that this is not actually your loyalty and you're

[Ben Lindbergh]

not kind of cosplaying as a fan of that team.

[Chris Mitchell]

You're not trying to pander to a fan of that team. And this just happens over and over again. And this was a whole controversy with Hillary Clinton and is she a Yankees fan and is she a Cubs fan and whose hat is she wearing? And there's probably some sexist stuff mixed

[Ben Lindbergh]

up in there with like, is she an authentic fan? And prove you love baseball because you're

[Chris Mitchell]

a woman or whatever. But I'm just saying this is a master class. This is how Zoran got elected.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah.

[Chris Mitchell]

Despite having positions that many voters would have considered extreme. The guy's really relatable. The guy's charming. The guy has inspired Donald Trump, of all people to seemingly have a huge crush on him.

[Meg Rowley]

He doesn't really love.

[Chris Mitchell]

So around it, this is, this is political acumen at work.

[Meg Rowley]

Yes.

[Chris Mitchell]

Just.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It's a good line, you know?

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah.

[Chris Mitchell]

Even if you don't like the guy, you have to hand it to him for this line.

[Meg Rowley]

Yes. I think that we have an allergy, maybe one that's waning in ways that are kind of concerning. But I think in general, people just have an allergy. Allergy to phoniness. And it's really hard for the. The fence sitting to read any other way. Now, in the case of Eric Adams, it felt like the latest loop in a rich tapestry of strangeness.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yes.

[Meg Rowley]

Batman was. I. I.

[Ben Lindbergh]

You know, that did redeem it a bit because it was.

[Meg Rowley]

Because he was just such a weird.

[Chris Mitchell]

Yes. Guy was just one more manifestation of his strangeness.

[Meg Rowley]

He did real damage to your city. I know he was a bad mayor. I know that. You know, it appears, based on the publicly available evidence, that he did some crimes. But I do miss him. You know, I. I am on record as just, like, generally really wishing I knew a lot less about New York City mayoral politics because it's. Don't get me wrong, beautiful city, amazing place. Loved living there. You're right. No one else has ever done a corner store. But, like, I don't live there. And I would just constantly be hearing about the vagaries of Bill de Blasio and. And I was like, I don't know. It's like, what?

[Ben Lindbergh]

You don't need to.

[Meg Rowley]

You guys go and elect someone normal so I can stop hearing about this. And then you will also took that as a challenge to elect the weirdest man alive. And.

[Chris Mitchell]

Yeah, I want. I want our weird politicians to be out of power so that we can appreciate their quirks without them doing damage.

[Meg Rowley]

Crypto. And that part's less good. But. And look, don't do federal election crimes. Okay? Don't do any electioneering nonsense. No political corruption.

[Chris Mitchell]

You want an executive example of political

[Ben Lindbergh]

instincts, this is it. Just the latest.

[Meg Rowley]

Latest entry in that particular ledger. But, yes, be. Just be authentic. People have more respect for you if you just say, I don't like that team, you know, or, like, that's not my thing, you know? And I think especially New Yorkers are bred to believe that a little bit of rudeness is actually a way of saying that you love them. It's the New Yorker equivalent of a little kiss. I think I live there long enough that I can. I can make a little bit of fun. A little bit of fun. Again, one of the best cities in the world.

[Chris Mitchell]

Okay. You don't have to massage my fragile New Yorker ego.

[Meg Rowley]

It's okay to, like, chill out about some stuff, though, because, boy, the most special boys there have ever been. But good, good. And isn't basketball his main sport? Well, soccer. He's a big soccer guy, right?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah. I Wouldn't say baseball is his. Is his number.

[Meg Rowley]

He's not like a huge. Yeah, yeah. But you know. Yeah, like lived in Queens. Queens team. Yeah. The underdog. It's like there's a. There's a consistency to this that is good.

[Ben Lindbergh]

All right. Yeah.

[Chris Mitchell]

Other politicians, like, they're trying to take

[Ben Lindbergh]

their cue from Zoran in any number of ways. Why did his message resonate?

[Meg Rowley]

Revolution. I will just. The. The one that really rolls around in my head is from the like, public safety videos he did when I think he was still with the nypd and he's like something as simple as a crackpipe. The. The.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Meg Rowley]

Eric Adams, man.

[Chris Mitchell]

Wow.

[Meg Rowley]

Just like really so many memories to our trash revolution.

[Chris Mitchell]

You want to understand the Riz.

[Ben Lindbergh]

The personal appeal, look no further.

[Meg Rowley]

I don't know what RIZ means still.

[Ben Lindbergh]

But yeah, I think I got it.

[Meg Rowley]

Context clues.

[Chris Mitchell]

Well, we did get those terms on

[Ben Lindbergh]

the Pete Crow Armstrong extension shortly after

[Chris Mitchell]

we finished recording six years, 115mil. This starts in 2027. No team option, so he can become

[Ben Lindbergh]

a free agent before his age 31 season. As Jeff Passon said, the lack of

[Chris Mitchell]

a club option in PCAs deal with the Cubs is ripped rare. This is by far the biggest guarantee for a player with five years of club control that doesn't include an option. So they get four arbitration years, two free agent years.

[Ben Lindbergh]

We will find out what kind of player he can become. And yes, cue the chorus of replies to Passen pointing out that he'll be making less per year than Chris Bryant.

[Chris Mitchell]

John Carlos Stanton calling it a steal. Why do I feel like that's cheap? One person said, well, because you don't understand service time.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Sick. Burned by me. I know.

[Chris Mitchell]

I will remind everyone one more time. Vote in our preseason predictions. Game, game. Go to ewstats.com Chris Hannell has gone all out. He has designed statuettes for the Listener Victors, which will be 3D printed later this year.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Maybe you can get one if you participate. You know, speaking of one of our other competitions, if I were not John Brebia's biggest fan, which I am, I might have mentioned that his release by the Rockies has some serious minor league free agent draft implications because he was Ben Clemens's fourth round pick. But because I am John Brebia's biggest fan, I would have happily accepted a boost to other Ben's team if it meant that Brebia could be back in the bigs.

[Chris Mitchell]

I will say eight of my 10 draftees are currently projected for major league playing time. On the Fangraph step charts. Could I go 10 for 10 again? Can lightning strike twice?

[Ben Lindbergh]

I dare not dream.

[Chris Mitchell]

Quick correction. I mentioned in my preseason predictions that if the AL east produced four playoff

[Ben Lindbergh]

teams, that was one of my bold predictions that it would be the first time a division had ever done that.

[Chris Mitchell]

That not so. In 2020, the NL Central produced four playoff teams. 60 game season, 16 team playoffs, Cubs,

[Ben Lindbergh]

Cardinals, Brewers, Reds all bounced in the first round. Barely counts. But yes, technically that did happen. In my defense, I was cribbing from

[Chris Mitchell]

an athletic article that also seemed to have forgotten that bit of lore. But hey, didn't we all voluntarily or involuntarily forget plenty of things that happened in 2020? Oh, and other Ben's theme in the

[Ben Lindbergh]

preseason predictions game, there was something that was uniting his predictions. He kept it a mystery, but the

[Chris Mitchell]

mystery has been solved and he announced it. It was players from ACC schools.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Obviously that was lost on me.

[Chris Mitchell]

Seen a disconcerting amount of speculation about Bauman's prediction about the erotic fiction featuring Tony Vitello.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Very worried that the observer effect will come into play here and someone will tamper with the sanctity of the predictions by producing that fic themselves. I hope that doesn't happen though.

[Chris Mitchell]

Let's just let the experiment play out. Finally, if you want more of me and Meg, she joined me on this week's episode of Hang up and Listen.

[Ben Lindbergh]

We did a fun little baseball season preview segment which didn't duplicate our 15 episode long season preview series on Effectively Wild. So go check it out. I will link to it. And if you want more Me and

[Chris Mitchell]

Meg on Effectively Wild, well, you're gonna

[Ben Lindbergh]

get some for free in the middle

[Chris Mitchell]

of this week, but the third episode of this week will be for Patreon supporters. There is still time to sign up [e-mail] effectively wild. Speaking of which, it's the traditional time to plug that. You can go to patreon.com/ effectively wild and sign up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going. Help us stay ad free and get yourself access to some perks. A pretty big perk, as have the following five listeners. And we've had an influx of new names since our announcement, so it'll take

[Ben Lindbergh]

me a while to work through these.

[Chris Mitchell]

But let's start with the very idea. Benedict Brothers Chad Jobin, Matty B and Norbert Hartz. Thanks to all of you, Patreon perks now include access to a full regular episode of Effectively Wild every week, monthly bonus episodes, playoff live streams, and a new in season livestream, access to our

[Ben Lindbergh]

Discord group, shout outs at the end

[Chris Mitchell]

of episodes, potential podcast appearances, personalized messages, ad free fangraphs memberships, and so much more.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Check out all the offerings@p patreon.com effectivelywild

[Chris Mitchell]

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

[Ben Lindbergh]

If not, you can contact us via email. Send your questions, comments, intro and outro themes to podcastangraphts.com youm can rate, review

[Chris Mitchell]

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

[Ben Lindbergh]

You can join our facebook [e-mail] group effectively wild.

[Chris Mitchell]

You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at R Effectively Wild and you can check the show notes in the podcast

[Ben Lindbergh]

post at Fan Graphs or Patreon or

[Chris Mitchell]

the episode description in your podcast app

[Ben Lindbergh]

for links to the stories and stats we cited today.

[Chris Mitchell]

Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. Happy Quasi opening Day. We will be back with another episode soon. Talk to you then.

[Meg Rowley]

Can you effectively sort through

[Chris Mitchell]

all of

[Meg Rowley]

these stats and players in your head?