Meg Relly

Take me to the diamond, lead me through the turnstile, Shower me with data that I never thought to compile. Now I'm feeling out the scorecard with a crackage at the smile.

Ben Lindbergh

Hello and welcome to episode 2507 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs, presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindbergh of the Ringer, joined by Meg Relly of fangraphs. Hello, Meg.

Meg Relly

Hello.

Ben Lindbergh

This is a rare regular episode Sunday recording for us to avoid my ongoing jury duty because I have not yet fulfilled my obligation, as Carson Sistoli would say, to New York State. So we are recording while we can, and I can't say anything about my jury service as of yet. I am barred from doing so. But I'm sure I will have thoughts to share on the process on our Patreon pod at the end of the month. But we will see. I have not yet been empaneled, but I strongly suspect I am about to be. So we will record when we can.

Meg Relly

Can you tell them that I am about to be very busy with the trade value series and that reliability of schedule would nice.

Ben Lindbergh

Honestly, it would not be the worst excuse that I heard anyone try to use to get out of this. And my problem is that I have too much integrity, Meg, to self eliminate. Because when they tell you that it has to be a truly exceptional thing that you can't reschedule, that's impossible to reschedule. I really, I held myself to that standard and I can't say that my fellow jury candidates did, for the most part. So here I am, the SAP who is doing his duty for society and the people of my fine state. Or probably I will be. We will see.

Meg Relly

Yeah, I mean, look, I think the jury service is a vital part of democracy and certainly I'd rather someone with the kind of thoughtfulness and dedication to all things that you exhibit be one of those people.

Ben Lindbergh

Yeah. Don't you want me on your jury? Especially if you didn't do it. Don't you want me on that wall or in that bench? This is. This is maybe why I'm about to end up serving on a jury for the second time during the run of this podcast, which is maybe says something about how long this podcast has been going on, but maybe also says something about me. I don't know, maybe it also says that I just don't have any good excuses, I guess.

Meg Relly

Well, I have a good excuse, so like, get, get on it.

Ben Lindbergh

My. My podcast co host is really busy this week, therefore she can't reschedule the trade value series. That' possible. So she needs me. I have pods to do.

Meg Relly

Yeah, you have pods to do. And look, Ben, I always appreciate you and the work you do on the pod, your integrity as a person. I never appreciate it quite so much as when I am forced to confront trying to upload audio to the FTP server.

Ben Lindbergh

Yeah.

Meg Relly

Which I do very infrequently because you never take days off, despite me encouraging you to. And I might beat that drum a little less loudly going forward.

Ben Lindbergh

Yeah, there's some behind the scenes admin that goes into getting these pods posted, but you managed it well. I assisted slightly.

Meg Relly

You assisted?

Ben Lindbergh

Yeah.

Meg Relly

You were home by then and I was like, ben, will you do it? I'll get published though.

Ben Lindbergh

Yeah, but. But the episode itself went off well and aside from your cavalier use of second half. But I did acknowledge it.

Meg Relly

I did.

Ben Lindbergh

Yeah.

Meg Relly

Thank you.

Ben Lindbergh

I enjoyed your deadline discussion and your pillow talk with Craig. And boy, I share some of your pillow opinions about the firmness and the lack thereof at hotels and about Craig's preference for. For cold pillows, though, sure, the man has some pricey pillows. I mean, you were, you were reaching for a pillow contract joke. You had to sign a pillow contract, a literal one, to obtain the pillows that he uses. Maybe he's onto something because I spend a fortune on making my room cold with a normal pillow. Maybe I could economize by having a normal room with a cold pillow. I don't know. It's something to explore, a lot of that. But you two definitely. I felt personally attacked when you talked about the frequency of switching out your pillows, because I'm definitely not doing that as often as you two.

Meg Relly

And, and I, I want to say two things about that. The first is that we got a very well meaning email from one of our listeners that many pillows are washable. You can launder them so as to deal the sort of microbial elements. And, and that point is well taken. Also, I realized, I said I was swapping them out every six months and then you know how you have to like confront the chores not done when you get home from a trip? Well, I was just swapping out the sheets on our bed, having gotten home from Pennsylvania, and I looked at the pillows and I was like, I'm not switching these out every six months. What did I. Why did I say that? That's not true. Probably like a yearly exercise. Part of the problem is like, there's the cleanliness element and boy, what a thing to have to think about, you know, do you ever vacuum your mattress?

Ben Lindbergh

Vacuum the mattress? I don't think so, no.

Meg Relly

Okay, so here's the thing. You shouldn't. Now, I don't know how old your mattress is, but the fact that you've never done it means that the amount of detritus that you will be confronted with after doing it will make you feel forever unclean. And I don't mean to suggest that you guys are unclean. It's just that like, we're, we're on those beds all the time.

Ben Lindbergh

Inherently unclean. I mean, yes, that's why all the dust mites are, are going to town constantly there. So.

Meg Relly

But yeah, I was like, oh boy, these are grody. So there's the, there's the cleanliness and sort of microbial element, but also sometimes after a while, they resist fluffing. You know, they will no longer be fluffed. And so there's a life cycle to pillows in this household, which is you, you have your pillows. The, they're the sleeping pillows. And you're like, oh boy, these pillows. And then after a while, they end. Not every six months. And I would never change them out if they were as expensive as Craig's. Good golly. But then they, they get cycled back to the, like, the support pillows, you know, do you have like support pillows on your bed? It's like you have your, you have your pillows that your head is resting on while sleeping. And then there's like the, the secondary line of pillow to be confused with throw pillows, which are purely decorative. You know, they're, they're the, the pillows for like if you're sitting up in bed reading and you need a little practice.

Ben Lindbergh

We have a surplus of pillows.

Meg Relly

Yeah, right. So like the, the, the bed pillows that have outlived their usefulness as sleeping pillows will then transition into the support pillow realm. And you might say, well, it doesn't fluff. Why is it a support pillow? It's good enough. It's good enough for that purpose. You know, you can prop yourself up on it. You just don't want to sleep on it anymore. Yeah. And then, and then eventually you get to a point where you thank you for your service pillows to the bulk trash. You go, yeah, that's sort of the life cycle. And it is more than a six month process. These pillows I have not tried to wash, but maybe I will before I cycle them out. Anyway, that's pillows.

Ben Lindbergh

Your cycles are maybe more rapid than mine, but you may be doing it right. For all I know, we're washing to be Clear, but definitely. But not discarding quite as quickly. I think. I think what the hotel hotels are thinking maybe is that if you go with the not very supportive pillow because I suppose some people have a preference for less firm pillows. Don't understand it myself, but. But I guess maybe they think if they go too firm for the default, then the people who prefer non firm will have no recourse. It's kind of like if you make it super hot in a place, there's nothing you can do. If you make it cold, at least someone could layer. Maybe there is something you could do.

Meg Relly

Yeah, that's what men think.

Ben Lindbergh

Yeah, I know all the women are shivering, unable to work in the office, but theoretically, at least you can layer and so you can kind of layer pillows too. But I find that that's mostly theoretical too. That doesn't really work so well because I will be in a hotel and okay, I guess I'll try two or three pillows and maybe it'll replicate the firmness that I prefer. But it doesn't really. You can have any number, infinite number of pillows and it's never quite the same as having just one supportive one anyway. We sound like the princess and the pea and the pillow here. So I will move on to baseball matters. I do have a couple closing thoughts on All Star Week and the All Star Game specifically. You kind of touched on this with Craig and alluded to it. It's become a kind of unwatchable product for many reasons. One is that it's just inherently a little less intriguing these days because we are blessed. We are spoiled with access to stars at all times. And so the prospect of seeing all the stars playing against one another, with one another is not quite as compelling as it once was. And of course, it wasn't quite all the stars this year. As Joshean noted, of the 20 guys on the most recent list of bestselling player jerseys from mlb, only six of them were actually available to play in this year's All Star Game. So there were a lot of absences of actual stars, but of the stars who were there, we're just not quite as intrigued by that prospect. But I think a big part of it is that the game itself, it's not that the players aren't trying, because they are. If anything, they're trying maybe leads to a less entertaining game. And you're kind of damned if you do, damned if you don't. Because the NBA, as Craig alluded to, was having all sorts of issues with the All Star Game because guys weren't Playing that hard and they were load managing and pacing themselves and nobody was playing defense. And so the last regular All Star game that they tried in 2024, the score was 211 to 186. I mean, it was. It was ridiculous. It was a travesty. It looked nothing like real baseball.

Meg Relly

That's so funny. And you mean real basketball.

Ben Lindbergh

It probably didn't look like real basketball. Definitely didn't look like real baseball. Yeah, but. But they've rectified that to some extent in the past couple years. They've had different formats and they've tried USA versus World and they have a little mini round robin tournament and they have a young USA team and an old USA team and did restore some interests. You'd have a hard time staffing and rostering an old USA MLB team because the players just. They don't last as long as they did. The aging curve is kind of harsh these days, but I think if they brought age or nationality into it, that would make the players care more and make fans care more than just AL versus nl because that basically is conferences at this point. There's just very little loyalty to a league or differentiation. And so people aren't compelled by AL versus NL bragging rights. We have yearly interleague. It goes on all year. We don't. In addition to the World Series. So I do think maybe they will explore that and maybe it'll feel like we have the WBC at home. It'll feel like the pale imitation of that. But I still think probably more people would tune in to see that. But the game itself, if anything, resembles real baseball to its detriment maybe in that it's this parade of relievers. And it's kind of a caricature of itself because part of the problem is they want to get as many people into the game as possible. And of course every team has to have an all star representative. And I guess the idea there is fans will be more interested because they will want to tune in to see their guys.

Meg Relly

Yeah.

Ben Lindbergh

But then when you have to get every pitcher into that game, or just about there were 20 pitchers used and it's just constant new guy coming in and players who aren't all that famous or stars or memorable in many cases, just a whole lot of relievers. And even the starters, they don't last long. Right. So in the NBA you had not enough defense. And really in MLB you have too much defense because you just have max effort, one inning max, guys just coming in one after the other. And there is the saying in baseball, good pitching beats good hitting. And I don't really think that's particularly true. I think they kind of beat each other to some extent. When you have good pitchers facing good hitters, they'll both just be worse than their usual baseline. But in this case, I think good pitching does beat good hitting because no one ever gets to face the same pitcher twice because the batters are getting pulled, the pitchers are getting pulled even faster than that. So it's just an endless succession of relievers or starters in relief going max effort and no one having any kind of familiarity or fatigue coming into play. And so in that case, I think you do end up with low scoring games and you end up with what, 27 strikeouts in this game. We haven't had a high scoring all star game since 2018, I think 2018, which was 8 to 6. That was the last time really, that it wasn't, I think, lower scoring than the average game in that season. So I think that is working to its detriment. Not just because you can't get used to who's on the field and look forward to seeing them again and up. You're there and then you're gone. And some players are pulling out before it even starts. But I think it's because that reliever usage lends itself to not a whole lot of action. And then you just get a decisive swing or two and you get Miguel Vargas going deep or something. And then as it turns out, that's kind of all you need to win the game. And it takes longer and it's just not a great spectator experience. So that is, I guess, a manifestation of the game not meeting that much. Because part of why you have so many pitchers pitching is that no one pitcher wants to pitch that much, or at least their teams don't want them to pitch. So it is kind of a reflection of the apathy. But weirdly, in baseball, it then does lead to even tougher defense than you're accustomed to seeing in a typical game.

Meg Relly

Yeah, I don't quite know the right solution to that because, you know, you, you in theory, like you don't want a bunch of soft tossing relievers out there just to try to juice the offensive production. But you also, I don't know, like what, what are you going to do? Like, the best relievers look this way and as we noted when I talked to Craig, like even greater incentive and sort of possibility of them maxing out because they know they're only. They're probably not even going to go a whole inning, unless you're Justin Robleski, where apparently you get to throw twice. Like I don't understand what that is about. And so it's just a. It's an odd. It's an odd problem to solve. Maybe the solution is make the All Star Game seven innings and the Futures Game nine innings.

Ben Lindbergh

Yeah. You would like that.

Meg Relly

I'm sure I would like that.

Ben Lindbergh

Yeah. Well, speaking of juicing offense, that's the other thing I wanted to talk to you about because there was a mini controversy about the ball in the Home Run Derby.

Meg Relly

Yeah.

Ben Lindbergh

And this is not new. I suppose people always suspect that the ball is juiced in the Home Run Derby.

Meg Relly

Yeah.

Ben Lindbergh

And John Heyman had an article for the New York Post where Bryce Harper is always just the man in the spotlight somehow. He said that the ball is juiced. He said everybody knows it. He declined to say how he knows it, but he said, I'm not going to answer that. But they're juiced. Everybody knows it. They do it every year. And an MLB spokesman denied that they're just said that the derby balls are no different from regular season balls. Quote, the same ball conditioned and stored like all the other balls. So I guess there are two questions here. Would anyone mind, right, if the baseball was juiced? Is that. Is that bad? Should it be juiced if it's not? And then what incentive does MLB have to deny that they are juiced if in fact Bryce Harper is right? And we know Bryce Harper, the man is right about everything and never believes in any sort of shoddy science or any kind of conspiracy theory. So gotta take his word as gospel here. And you'd think that the players might have some idea, I guess, of whether the ball is juice potentially. I was trying to look into this because Bryce Harper did hit a ball farther in the Derby. He hit one 482ft. And his record at least going back to the start of The Statcast era, 2015, is 473. So he did hit a ball harder or farther, at least not harder in the Derby than he has in the past decade, basically of actual games.

Meg Relly

Okay.

Ben Lindbergh

The high mark was a Junior Camino 491 in the Derby. And that's farther than he has ever hit one in the game, though, you know, he's still pretty early in his career. Wilson Contreras hit One that was 490ft in the Derby, though I think he has done that maybe in a game as well. So that's not unprecedented. But you definitely do see balls hit farther in the Derby. Than you do normally in the course of play. But. But is that conclusive? Does that prove anything? Because there are a lot of things that are unusual in the. In the home run derby that could potentially be causing one of the balls is pink. Yeah, right. Yeah, actually, I guess Wilson Contreras also has not hit one that far in a. In an actual game or. No, he has. He hit one in the playoffs. That's it. I didn't have the right box checked. In 2017, NLCS Game 4, he hit 1,491ft, one foot farther than his high in this derby. So it is doable in real games. But of course, 2017 was kind of juiced ball era, right? So maybe that doesn't prove anything either. So what do you think? Do you believe, Bryce Harper? That the ball is juiced? And if it is, do you care?

Meg Relly

I have no idea. If it's juice. I don't. I cannot care. I. Well, no, let me, let me add a wrinkle to that. I think it would be nice if we just had transparency around this stuff from the league as sort of the default posture, because there is so much suspicion and recrimination around the state of the ball. Why not? Even in low stakes moments where it presumably doesn't matter even one goddamn, why not be transparent? You know, why not? Why not do it? So there's that. But also, I don't think it matters. Very rarely do we have anyone in the field who doesn't have like, impressive raw power and impressive game power, for that matter. You have your, your odd, you know, Mookie Betses, right, Where you're doing it because your wife is like, this will be fun. And then you're like, is it though? You didn't have very many home runs. Yeah. But I think that as long as the ball is consistent player to player, the odds. And of course there's variation player to player, just whether the balls are juiced or not, because each one is hand stitched. But, you know, if they are aiming for the same sort of bounciness and liveliness and they are doing that for everyone, such that you can't say that it's unfair that, you know, one player got a very juicy ball and, and one player got a very dead ball, then I, I don't know that it's matters. Like there's, to your point, such an unreality to the whole exercise. And as I said, I don't think there are very many guys up there who you're like, wow, that guy's not really a Bopper, Why is he here? You know, even the guys who don't end up hitting very many home runs, more often than not, you know, the bets of the world excluded are like, guys who you think of as, as real power hitters. Like, you know, Ben Rice didn't have the best night, but that guy can sock a baseball. So I don't know that I care. I just, you know, Bryce, you could not be conspiratorial about something, buddy, and it would be okay. It would really just be fine to be like, I think it's probably pretty normal and exactly as advertised. I don't want to discourage people from having an inquisitive mind, but at a certain point, you get answers to the questions and then, you know, it's probably okay to stop asking them.

Ben Lindbergh

Yeah. Yeah. I think it's possible to explain why someone might hit a ball farther in the Home Run Derby without resorting to juice ball just because it's the Home Run Derby, they're trying to hit home runs and also they're hitting off of batting practice, basically, which in a sense maybe makes it harder because there is some truth to the idea that the harder it comes in, the harder it goes out. Like the, the pitch velocity does supply some of the exit speed for, for the ball. Not most of it, but. But a bit of it. So it is harder to hit a ball that is tossed to you softly a really long way. But they're trying to hit home runs and. And they're trying to hit the ball really far. And players were always say that they're not trying to hit home runs in regular games. And sometimes they are. I think there are definitely sometimes when guys are trying to win it with one swing for better or worse, but I think for the most part they're not, or they can't count on that because it's a fairly low probability event and they don't want to whiff and they want to get any kind of hit. And as we noted last week, like, you hit a ball, a screamer in the gap, that's just an out in the derby. In a regular game, that's a great outcome. So they're totally selling out for power here. And I think that could help explain why the ball goes a bit farther. Right. And they can anticipate basically just a straight ball down the middle. Right. I mean, there are a lot of reasons why you could hit a ball farther. Now, I wouldn't put it past MLB juicing the ball a bit to have a good show that is maybe giving MLB A little too much credit, assuming that they can do that or that Rawlings is able to calibrate that properly or. Or set aside, these are the juicier balls that we have tested or something.

Meg Relly

Right? And how would they know?

Ben Lindbergh

Are they even testing the seam height? Yeah, I mean, they can maybe test it, but, you know, unless they're manufacturing a special Home Run Derby batch with different parameters or something, I don't know that I buy that they could do that with great precision. And I could imagine why. If they did, they might not want to acknowledge it just because they don't want to entertain the idea that there is such a thing as a juiced ball that they have created. Because if they even acknowledge that that exists and that they intentionally juiced a ball for the Home Run Derby, they could say it's just an exhibition. It's a time when people just want to see the ball hit far, which is true.

Meg Relly

Right.

Ben Lindbergh

But I think that would only deepen the suspicion that, huh, well, they can make these balls if they want to. Maybe they made them for actual games, or maybe there was a mistake and they switched up some of the actual juice balls with regular balls. So they probably wouldn't even want to acknowledge that if they did it, though. I am all for transparency as you are, and think we would have a lot fewer suspicions about the ball if they had been fully open about this from the start and had tested everything from the start. I don't know that I would necessarily want the balls to be juiced or special for the Derby, because I do think part of the thrill is just that these are regular balls, but look how far these people can make them go. Because if you do start making it sort of funny money, silly Savannah banana style, like, we're gonna take this further away from typical baseball. I don't know. Maybe people would like that. There are people who sometimes suggest they should have metal bats. Like, it should just be about hitting the ball as far as you possibly can. But I do think that the thrill of that would wear off. As we said, like, three hours of guys swinging for the fences gets a bit tedious as it is. And then if we know that it's easier for them to do that, then I don't know, like, if someone hits the ball out of the ballpark, but we know that the ball made it easier for them to do that. Is it actually more impressive after the first majestic drive?

Meg Relly

I'm not really sure that's fair. I just can't get that exercised about the whole thing as part of the problem. But. But I think that, like I said, they should be transparent about it, and the answers they give publicly should comport with the reality of the ball on the ground. So. Not that the balls are on the ground very much.

Ben Lindbergh

Yeah.

Meg Relly

So I do think that their. Their default posture should be one of honesty. I appreciate the skepticism or the, you know, the sort of instincts toward it for a lot of people, given the lack of that transparency in the past. I'd be curious if other players have this sense that it's like, so juice. Like, he just. He says it so casually, like, well, everybody knows this is happening. It's like, do they. Does everybody know that it's happening? Is it actually happening? What. How much of your blood is inside your body, buddy? Where's your blood at?

Ben Lindbergh

You know, you always have to question that when it comes.

Meg Relly

You always have to wonder, Right.

Ben Lindbergh

Mind how. How oxidated or how oxidated Ozonized or whatever the heck was his blood at the time.

Meg Relly

Blood.

Ben Lindbergh

Yeah. What was happening exactly, physically with him at that moment. But, yeah. Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if it is a widespread suspicion. But, yeah, I don't know. I tend to think they're probably just the regular balls, and it's an unusual setting with weird conditions that maybe leads to some balls going far.

Meg Relly

Yeah. Strange incentives, big boppers. You know, it takes place in. In the height of. Of the summer. So it's hot, swampy. Oh, Ben. Some of those days, boy. And then the smoke, I tell you.

Ben Lindbergh

Oh, yeah, yeah, the smoke's been bad. It's affected actual baseball, obviously. But now you're back in the. The dry heat, so that's nice for you, I guess.

Meg Relly

Yeah. We never have bad air quality in the Valley. That's right.

Ben Lindbergh

So we have a couple picture extensions to talk about. We have a schedule reveal. An aspirational schedule reveal, I suppose. We also. Speaking of strange incentives, we had a report from Enoch of the Athletic about a memo that was sent by MLB to teams cracking down on some behavior that teams have been up to with their dugout iPads. And this was obviously of interest to me. This memo was issued more than a month ago, according to the report, but it just took effect for the start of the. Well, the restart of the season after the All Star break. And basically what it comes down to is that teams had been pushing the boundaries when it comes to the allowable use of those iPad dugouts. So, yeah, these were first introduced a decade ago in 2016, and then their use was regulated somewhat in 2020 after the banging scheme and sign stealing scandals. But teams have been pushing the envelope a little lately because there is a custom tab or there, there was, there has been. There are three tabs that you're able to access on these iPads because they're supposed to be locked down because you're not supposed to be using real time electronic communication.

Meg Relly

Right.

Ben Lindbergh

And so it's supposed to be kind of a walled garden here you get these league issued iPads, but they strictly monitor what's on them. And so you have one tab which just gives you the statcast data and the video angles and that's what you see players watching after they get back to the bench or whatever. They want to see where pitch was, they want to see their swing. And then there's a second tab with ABS information, new for this year, I suppose. And then there's this third custom tab and as you know, wrote it housed each team's specialized data akin to information found in old school paper filled binders. Examples include matchup info, defensive positioning and player tendencies, which teams argued were necessities. So it used to be that teams would print out these big binders with, with all this data and matchup info and recommendations for the coaching staff. I used to help put those together when I was baseball ops intern back in the day and many times they would just be ignored and they would sit there in the corner of the day, at least at that time. But, but now teams consult these things and they're supposed to just be able to access static information, anything that you would have before first pitch. And if you're going beyond that, well then you're maybe playing with fire a little bit. And so what it sounds like teams were doing is that they were using things that you could update in real time. And Eno writes that it was AI, that it was even generative AI, that some teams were inputting information from the ongoing game so that you could say, have the model anticipate the next pitch that would be thrown or recommend the next pitch that would be thrown. And this goes hand in hand with the trend toward pitch calling from the dugout that we have discussed that I have bemoaned and that seems, seems to

Meg Relly

have been part of the motivation for this crackdown. Right. Is a discomfort with that practice.

Ben Lindbergh

Right. And it seems like maybe some teams, instead of just having coaches call pitches from the dugout based on whatever intel was available to them before the game and their own wiles and know how they were maybe plugging pitch data into these iPads in real time and having These models update to tell them what to throw. And I don't know exactly how widespread this was. It seems like several teams were maybe experimenting with something like that. Former Mets reliever Adam Otavino came out and said that the Mets were doing this, though he hasn't been with the Mets for a couple of years. I assume he's hearing about this second or third or fourth hand and seems like he has a bit of a bone to pick with that organization. But according to him, Steve Cohen was, was spending hundreds of thousands on whatever this model was. I assume it's not entirely clear from the story, and teams have obviously been cagey about the details of what they were doing. I assume this is not generative AI. This is not just like a chat bot. This is not, you know, hey, chatgpt or even Claude or whatever. What pitch should I throw? I assume it's, it's based on some sort of machine learning model that maybe there was an interface that was kind of like a chatbot kind of, you know, based on that data. So I, I doubt it's, you know, teams were doing what, what someone at home might do when they're consulting gen AI or something, a chatbot on this stuff. So I, I, it's probably a bit more sophisticated than that might make it sound. And frankly it, it's probably a decent use of that kind of data. Like, I could imagine that a model that's able to draw on all that information and tendencies and everything and crunch that stuff in real time would maybe provide some sort of edge here. So I don't know, you know, if it's pure generative AI, it could just give you garbage or it could hallucinate or something. But I'm guessing there was a more solid grounding than that. But, but who really knows? But one way or another, MLB stepped in to say, don't do that basically. And so they're supposed to have limited access to apps and to have the league monitor and review those apps. And this is probably crossing the line of, yeah, what the league rules suggest it should be allowable. And you could imagine it, it could get to the point of becoming a bigger scandal. And so, so the league is trying to step in and nip that in the bud.

Meg Relly

Yeah, I, and I don't mean to take issue with the way that it's characterized in the Pino's reporting. I, I do find myself sort of frustrated when we're having these conversations that there's like a little bit of like term imprecision sometimes. Yeah, with what, what do we mean when we're saying AI? Because teams have been using machine learning as a way to do analysis for years now. This is not like a new. It wasn't like they were like, oh, chat cool, right. Like the, the use of machine learning, particularly to do, like to feed a bunch of video and be able to discern things about mechanics and pitch shapes and what have you. Like, that's been, yeah, teams have been doing that. Yeah, right. For a long time. And, and one can imagine potentially nefarious applications of that technology if deployed in real time. Right. So I can appreciate why the league would have a, a vested interest in trying to keep all this stuff sort of buttoned up, but because we might mean different things when we're saying like AI or generative AI. Like it sometimes is, sometimes is a little difficult to parse, like what exactly these applications are doing. I guess people who have a better handle on this stuff from a technical perspective might be able to guess at it. And certainly, I don't know. Some of these models, I think, require a great deal of computing power. I don't know that they're necessarily going to lend themselves to an app on an iPad, but I don't know. This is where my lack of technical sophistication kind of reveals itself. But I think that there are parts of this that I find interesting. First, we don't like the pitch calling stuff for a couple of different reasons, most of which are concentrated around losing the art part of catcher defense and the, the, you know, sort of skill and value that that brings. I think that it's interesting that part of it seems like part of the concern on the league's part isn't just that there's like a potential for malfeasance or cheating here. Although I, I, you know, if I'm the league, I'm going to be hyper aware of that possibility, given the banging scheme. But also like, there does seem to be sort of a, A, an unstated philosophical preference for the human expertise of the manager and the coach in this situation. Right. And that that should have primacy in this environment. And some of that, you know, I don't know that they're sitting there going like, because human beings should have jobs and we value labor. Like, I don't know that, that, that we can take it so far as a value statement on the league's part, but there, there is seemingly a stated preference here that, that managers and coaches should be managing and coaching and, and that players should have to do some stuff on their own too. So I, I like moments like this because whether they mean to or not, we do kind of get a statement of the, the preferred philosophy and aesthetic of the game from the league. I, I always find it funny and I understand why they do it, but it's always funny when they're like, we're really worried about the potential for this stuff. But you get a month to update your processes and, and you know, that seems fair, right? If, if, if the determination, and it sounds like from the piece this was the league's determination that no one was like, you know, really crossing a line into something that required discipline and no discipline was issued here. Well, yeah, you want to give people a minute to sort of update their processes so that they're not caught flat footed. But it is always a funny artifact of this stuff stuff. I also am fascinated by your ability to like action this stuff in real time. It does feel like there is a sort of an upper bound to the usefulness of it. Right. Like you have to be able to, to keep pace in a game. And so being able to say, ah, well, you know, the, the machine learning is like assessing this guy's stance. And I don't know that this is exactly what's happening, but like let's, let's pick the thing that would potentially concern the league the most. The machine learning is analyzing video in real time. And so you should throw your splitter. Like how do you action that, you know, is how is that being communicated to say the catchers that he can call it over. Pitchcom, you have a clock. So I, I'm not saying it can't be done, but I, I am curious sort of how bad could it actually get given the limitation of like having to play baseball, you know, but also, as we know, sometimes he's just like bang on a trash can and he's like, say that's good enough.

Ben Lindbergh

So yeah, so I'm sort of heartened that MLB stepped in here. Even if it was to corral any potential for cheating or try to reduce a competitive advantage or something. It does align with my preferences, evidently. The memo said that teams were in many cases installing these custom apps that expanded the use of the iPads beyond their originally intended purpose to include recommendations regarding substitutions, pitch calling and other in game decisions traditionally made by players and coaches. So it is kind of the robo manager hypothetical that we have entertained on the podcast previously. I wonder whether this trend toward dugout pitch calling or pitch suggestion, which the article mentions, that as many as six teams maybe are now trying that out. I wonder how much of that was predicated on the this whether teams would be doing that anyway or whether part of their motivation for doing that was that they had these models that they thought they could exploit. So if they get slapped on the wrist and told that they can't do this anymore, will that take some of the wind out of the sails of that trend? I don't know. I could imagine pitch calling still benefiting from people who are not actually in the game and who can rely on data, even if it's static data that they were given before the game began and have been instructed in some things by front office analysts, let's say. I could imagine them maybe being better at that in some cases than people who are in the thick of things on the field, but maybe not so much if they're just relying on their own wits in the moment as opposed to some model telling them what to do. So, yeah, that would be good. It's kind of like MLB immediately stepped in to tell the brewers that they could not signal to their batters when they were allowed to challenge or their players in general. And, and that was good because the whole idea there was players have to make this decision themselves and it's sort of a snap judgment and they can be coached up beforehand and told, hey, here's the situation and maybe you should think about challenging or not challenge or here's how you should think of the probability there. But that's tough to do in the moment and you're not allowed to consult with anyone. And when the brewers tried to have a system where they would put up a card to say, hey, this is a green light, red light, MLB said, no, you can't do that. Players are on their own. So I'm kind of glad that the league stepped in here for whatever reason, and maybe it's multiple motivations, but just does anyone want that? I'm not questioning that it could be efficacious to have a model that is able to draw on this enormous database in real time that could just process that information and make a recommendation that would be better than the human brain could manage. But does anyone want that? It's not even now a coach who's one degree removed from the field, but is still maybe a baseball person and in uniform and a human flesh and blood person making a decision, if we're getting another degree removal from that, and it's getting even more abstracted from the players performing and now it's just this model that is fed info from the front office that is just telling you what to pitch and then you, to go back to that word, just execute the machine's recommendation. I just, it's not, not super visible to us, I guess from a, a spectator perspective, you wouldn't necessarily know when John Brebia was on. I asked him how pitches were being called when he made his debut for the Rockies and he wasn't even sure, you know, the signals were being passed to him through Pitchcom, and he wasn't even sure if his catcher was getting recommendations from the bench. So watching from afar as a fan, you might not know if the pitcher or catcher is calling those pitches or a coach or manager is, or a model on an iPad is. And so maybe it's cursed by knowing too much that it spoils things for me if I know that this is how it's happening. It's like, you know, pay no attention to the iPad behind the curtain or something. But, but I don't like that. I don't know that anyone would really like that. I understand that it could be a competitive advantage, but. But I just don't really want baseball to work that way where everything a player is doing on the field, aside from the actual physical act, all the planning, all the preparation, the whole mental, psychological side of things, or a lot of it at least, is being dictated by a bot, basically. That's. Even as a data driven guy who appreciates sabermetrics and the value and all of this stuff, I just find that quite off putting.

Meg Relly

I agree. I think that it also just feels, I don't want to say that there's no sort of insight that can be gleaned from these things. And I think that having big sophisticated models that help to inform your strategy and can answer questions with more data at their disposal than the individual experience of a, of a given coach or manager, I'm not opposed to that. And that's the reality on the ground for teams now, right? That they are using big data sets and big models to help inform sort of their approach to strategy. But I don't want to discount the value of all the information that's jammed in a lifelong baseball person's brain either. Right. And that I know that, that there have been times in the game's history that we look back on and say, oh, the lack of sophistication here is kind of shocking given what we know now and how our ability to sort of put numbers to things has altered our understanding of value and optimal strategy and what have you. But I think you can one go too far in sort of overstating the necessary sophistication or difficulty of some of these. These things. Like, at the end of the day, it is just baseball. And you can discount the ability of human beings to be sort of intellectually nimble in those moments and bring a lot of experience and knowledge to bear in a way that allows them to have a positive impact on the outcome on the field. So I'm mindful of the fact too, that in situations like this where we are confronting either new technology or in the case of some of this stuff, maybe just like a new application of technology that has been in use for a long time, we get to decide sort of what the boundaries of that use can be. And sometimes the reason we're making those decisions isn't because they are perfectly optimal, Right. Sometimes it's because we have a preference that people should have to figure this out in the moment without the aid of a hyper sophisticated model, right? That you can do all of this work in advance and figure out what you think the right approach is, and then you have to go do. And that means adapting in real time to new information. And I think it's okay for us to say the ability of individual people to do that in the moment, to react to. Okay, we thought that the right way to attack this lineup for our starter tonight was this mix of pitches. But oh, no, like, he doesn't have feel for that secondary. So we have to adapt, we have to figure it out in the moment. And I think saying, hey, bring all that information to bear, but you got to sort it yourself, like, that's okay for us to decide if is of a higher priority in terms of our understanding of how the game should unfolds than it being a perfectly optimized set of decisions. And sometimes when we talk about the application of new technology, everybody just acts like it's gravity, right? Like, oh, of course you have to do it this way. No, we made that stuff.

Ben Lindbergh

That's what all the generative AI boosters, they act to like. It's a fait accompli. This is an inevitable, so you better get on board.

Meg Relly

Yeah, right. And I think that, like, if at the end of the day we decide, well, that's the best way to do it, you know, that might be something that we have to live with even though we don't like it, but we're making decisions, we're all making decisions together and we can decide we don't like that, and that's fine. It doesn't have to be perfectly optimal. So.

Ben Lindbergh

And one of the holes in the idea that it would be better to have the pitches called from the dugout is that you don't know how the pitches are behaving that day, or at least you don't know the pitcher's feel for them. And maybe you can't plug the pitcher's feel for them into the iPad model even. And these are often phrased as suggestions as opposed to mandates that there is still some autonomy for the players involved. And I think that's true to an extent. Though I question if you're a young player, let's say, how much freedom you actually feel to make your own decision decisions, if this is kind of the team policy. But they frame it that way, both because it's easier to sell and because you do want to allow some leeway for. Well, yeah, usually this is a good pitch, but today I just don't have my feel for it. And I think if they are doing this, if they have been updating in real time, that does remove one of the objections to this. Not that you can necessarily quantify the feel, but you could quantify the pitch. Pitch performance at least. And you could tell, okay, his command is off today, or his movement is off, or he's not getting as many RPM or whatever on this pitch this day, or the speed is down. If you could plug that into the model, then in theory at least it could account for that. So I'm glad that MLB said, hey, not so fast with this stuff.

Meg Relly

Yeah, okay.

Ben Lindbergh

So another thing MLB said is that that opening day next year, or opening night at least on Netflix, is even earlier than it was this year, which was already a record, putting aside series that started internationally even earlier. But putting aside those showcase series, this is going to be the earliest opening day opening night ever. A day earlier than it was this year, which was already the earliest. Earliest. And I know that people are already saying we don't know that there will be a season at all. And if there is a season, what are the odds that it will start perfectly on time? I understand all of that. I've even seen some people suggesting that they're pushing this earlier to increase leverage or something. I kind of doubt that because I don't know, like, this is the trend. It's getting earlier every year, really. It was super early this year too. And I don't know know that that's a big part of the motivation here, but it does make me wonder just how early can we go here. Like, it's just, it's weird to think of regular season baseball, domestic on March 24th. I mean, this is, this is spring training time. This is when we're supposed to still be wrapping up our season preview pods. So won't anyone think of the exhaustive season preview series podcasters out there? I don't know what we're gonna do about that next year with this early start and all the uncertainty about whether the season will start. I guess. Well, we did figure out a way sort of to, to do it last time there was a lockout.

Meg Relly

As an aside, do you feel like you have. This is like unrelated mostly, but do you feel like you have a clear memory of your approach to that year? Because I, I know we did stuff. We did, did a season preview series. We wrote positional power rankings. Yeah, I don't know if I just like blacked out for a month and a half. I have no.

Ben Lindbergh

I. Dan Zimborski was a tumultuous time.

Meg Relly

Yeah, Dan Zimborski was asking me the other day, perfectly reasonable question. To be clear. This is not a criticism of Dan, but he asked me whether we were going to book winter meetings, hoping for like the most optimistic, you know, resolution which would allow us to have winter meetings. And I, I have no memory of what we did last time. I don't remember if we booked hotels or not. I mean, I don't know. I, I was like, Dan couldn't rightly tell you what we did.

Ben Lindbergh

Yeah.

Meg Relly

And it's funny because they always release information around like the media hotel during the World Series and I don't remember what they did that year either. Like, did they tell. Did they even have us book? Don't know.

Ben Lindbergh

Yeah, I think in 2020 when Covet arrived, we had started knew there would be winter meetings. Yeah, well, we had. Oh well, I'm thinking of the season preview series we had. We had started it and with the regular format and then I think we just paused it and interrupted it and then resumed it when we learned when the abbreviated season was going to start in.

Meg Relly

We were in multi co host mode at that time too. So my, my recollection is muddled further by the fact that I don't think I was doing all of those. Some of them samples, 2022.

Ben Lindbergh

I believe what we did was an abbreviated version where we just did division based previews. It was just because there was such a short time between the lockout being lifted and the start of the season that we just couldn't plan for it. So maybe we'll have to do something like that again, which would be a shame. Or we could just be optimists. And assume that there will be a full or foolish season, and then won't we look silly if there's not? Or there, that will forever be a monument to the season that we lost or that was curtailed. I guess, anyway, we have time to figure that out. But the season as announced, it's so early. And we've. We've talked about this before and documented how it keeps shifting earlier and earlier and earlier. And it's weird because I remember baseball being an April thing and opening day being in April, and sometimes it used to be even like mid to late April in earlier eras and there were fewer teams and fewer games in some of those eras and everything. But, boy, it almost feels unnatural to have the season start that early in March. And then I think, what the final day of the regular season would be September 26th, I believe. So it's just time shifting the whole season.

Meg Relly

Yeah.

Ben Lindbergh

And I guess there are some benefits. I mean, what with the climate warming and just days getting hotter. I guess it's not the worst thing in the world for the season to start sooner because it'll probably be just as warm as it used to be in mid April, in late March. Right. So maybe that makes some sort of sense. And maybe they're just laying the groundwork for further playoff expansion because the earlier start the season. Yeah, that's. I guess that's probably a big part of the. I mean, that's a big reason why it has already shifted this far, is that more playoff rounds, more playoff teams, and probably they have designs on even more playoff expansion at some point. And then how, how early could it go? It's just.

Meg Relly

How early can it go?

Ben Lindbergh

It's weird. I'm all for shorter off seasons, to be clear. I mean, that's the, the benefit, I guess, is, hey, the regular season starts one day earlier. That's one less day without real baseball, or at least real major league baseball. So that's, that's good, I guess. But it does feel odd. Maybe it won't feel odd to people who become fans in this era, and that's just the norm. So maybe this is just us dating from thinking that this is odd.

Meg Relly

It's just so early. Here's my concern. First of all, I take your point about the effect of climate change on the game. Although what we have seen so far at least, is that you just end up with a lot of really cold and really rainy opening series, particularly for teams in the upper Midwest. It feels too early. It feels. I understand shifting it a little bit earlier out of necessity. Due to playoff expansion, and I suspect that the potential for further expansion is one of the main motivators here. I do want to take seriously the idea that this is a negotiating tactic on the part of the league and I suppose there's some marginal benefit to that, but I am skeptical that it is the main tactic here just because of how much earlier into the year we are shifting at this point. I'm doubtful that one, you know, one week is is really going to be the make or break between getting a deal done versus not given how last time kind of unfolded. But I'm sure that there's some marginal amount of pressure that can be applied that might be pushing them to, to go earlier. I, I take this very personally.

Ben Lindbergh

Yeah, you have a lot of prep to do for, for the season.

Meg Relly

It's so much work. And what do you, what do my, I mean here's, here's the the upshot for our listeners. My bold predictions are about to get so dumb. You know, they're just about to get even dumber than they were. I feel like I tipped too far into boldness this time around. It was a worthwhile effort, but ultimately isn't going to serve me well. They're just going to be completely exhaustion brain by the time we roll around to him this, this go if we get what we wanted. I joked about this on Blue sky, but I was like, oh, I hope we don't lose games. And then the monkey's paw curled and it was like, how about a May, March 24 opening day lady? What are you talking about? What is happening? What do you, what do you mean? What do you mean that's too early? People would barely be home from spring training. Will the truck have had time to go home for some of these teams? Will, will the trucks have reached their various destinations?

Ben Lindbergh

Yeah, I know. And, and there's a lot of other sports that goes on in March. You're overlapping with a lot of March Madness, obviously at this point. And, and some years you have the wbc which also interferes with people's preparation for the season. And so there's a lot going on there, doing creeping earlier and earlier and earlier.

Meg Relly

I know I don't care for it, so I think that they should push it back. It's been fine. It's been fine. No one's complaining. People are still complaining about the weather being cold when they do it, you know, a week later.

Ben Lindbergh

Sure you're always going to have some snow games and, and then MLB is not alone in its expansion and playoff expansion. Obviously there's always talk of that with March Madness. There's talk of that with the World Cup. There's talk of that, that everywhere. So those things are going to go on even longer and overlap with MLB more. But yeah, this is a long term trend, but it's. It's getting extreme. But again, it's extreme. It's perhaps aspirational to think that there will actually be regular season baseball played on March 24th.

Meg Relly

Yeah, I think that if we want to engage with reality rather than, you know, what the league, the league has to put out a schedule that this is the time of year that they do it like. But in all likelihood, I think we'll end up with. The best case scenario is we end up with a pretty normally scheduled opening day and we only lose a week and are able to kind of get back on track such that we open when we typically do.

Ben Lindbergh

Yeah, maybe they're, they're just building in an earlier start time, anticipating that it will actually start later and then it will look more normal when it starts kind of in a regular, regular time. Historically. Traditionally, maybe. Yeah. Okay. By the way, some. Some sort of downer news about Shohei Otani that just broke while we were recording this, which is that he is not going to be pitching for the foreseeable future that he was scheduled to start this coming Wednesday. Of course, he had his knee, not drained, I guess, but lubricated in the Sunday before the All Star break. And so, so he has had his pitching pushed back, but now it's been pushed back further. And it's not a day to day thing, according to Dave Roberts. Like he's gonna pitch at some point, presumably, but they are giving him more of a break, which is a bummer for me because as I mentioned, Jesse and I are taking Sloan to her first baseball game of any kind, really, other than watching me play softball or something next weekend when the Dodgers are in town to play the Mets. And I thought I had been clever and that we were going to see a sh. Otani pitching appearance, but that will now not be the case. He'll still play. Yeah, that's the thing. Whenever there's some dire prognosis for Sh. Otani as a pitcher, it's like, but don't worry, he's in the lineup. He's leading off and dhing, and he's

Meg Relly

going to hit a home run.

Ben Lindbergh

It's a home run immediately after whatever that negative news comes out. So, yeah, it's. It's not good. Especially because I feel like we're kind of on a knife's edge with the two way play where maybe one more serious injury. I'm. I'm thinking specifically of an arm injury. So I don't know if a knee, a nagging knee injury and I don't know if this is something where he might have to have another knee surgery after the season or something. Part of this is just the Dodgers pacing their players because they want them to be ready for October. They have a 12 game lead in the division and I'm sure Ohtani's disappointed because obviously he wants to win a Cy Young, but given Misarowski and Sanchez etc, that would be tough to do anyway. I guess it also makes it more feasible for Pete Crow Armstrong to make a real bid for NL MVP if he is able to keep up his offensive pace. And they have to prioritize the health of their rotation and they want it to round into form in the playoffs and I'm sure they want him to be pitching in the playoffs. So these games just don't matter as much to the Dodgers though I'm sure it matters to Ohtani and to the people who paid exorbitant prices to take their daughter to their first big league game that might coincide with a Shohei Ohtani pitching appearance.

Meg Relly

Sorry, bud.

Ben Lindbergh

Anyway, hopefully he will be back on the mound at some point this season because he's been pretty impressive there. But it is always funny. It's like when any other pitcher is sidelined, that's that with Ohtani. Don't worry, he'll still be playing, he'll still be slugging, but he just won't be doing his two way thing.

Meg Relly

I find it funny that this procedure is apparently like referred to as lubricating the knee. Yeah, I did. I mean normally you're trying to pull. Normally with injuries there's stuff in the joint that shouldn't be there. Sometimes it's the shape of lima beans, or at least the size of them. Sometimes it's, you know, it's other fluid. You know, like you, you can get fluid in your joints in a way that is detrimental. Right. But his is like, does that mean that like, like bone is rubbing on bone or something? Like lubric.

Ben Lindbergh

What does that be? Something like that.

Meg Relly

What does it mean? Ben?

Ben Lindbergh

Yeah.

Meg Relly

Also lubricating the knee. What is he, the Tin Man? You know, like I'm just, I'm just

Ben Lindbergh

one of those oil, the cylindrical oil cans.

Meg Relly

And it's like. And then he's like, oh, I'm, I'm good to go again.

Ben Lindbergh

Yeah. Anyway, I hope his joints are adequately lubricated, but not over lubricated.

Meg Relly

I'd like. I would like to be able to lubricate the joints in my hands. I'm worried. I'm. I'm worried I'm developing some arthritis in my hands a little bit. It's the sort of thing. I'm going to be old for a minute here. Do you have ever have the experience where you realize, speaking of pillows, that you, like, slept on a hand funny and then it's like, busted for a day? Do you ever have that experience? I feel like I have. I have to be, like, purposeful with the placement of my hands before I go to sleep, because if I. If I sleep with them, like, balled up at all, or, like, if I sleep on them and I wake up the next day and I'm like, oh, I got. I got creaky bones. Yeah, I need.

Ben Lindbergh

Had that recently just because of. Yeah. Her sleeping posture and. And working posture, and that can be tough. It's not necessarily a carpal tunnel, but you could get like a cubital tunnel or something. I had something like this, too, where you can get it. You know, it's a occupational hazard of writing and editing and maybe even podcasting, but there are certain poses, and if you have your elbow resting on something, it can compress a nerve. And then. Yeah, I was having kind of. I think I spoke about this on the podcast or the bonus pods. At some point. I had, like, a ulnar nerve entrapment or something going on where it was kind of like a tingling feeling in my fingers that has subsided fortunately, after some time. But, yeah, you have to be careful about those. Yeah.

Meg Relly

And then I feel like. And then I'm like, I. I'll, like, sit there and like, like, rub, rub, like lotion, ocean and. Oh, man, I don't know about this getting old thing, Ben. You know, like the, The. The. The work trips have, like, a more obvious deleterious effect on my body than they.

Ben Lindbergh

Yeah. Especially because of those hazardous pillows and. And shower heads.

Meg Relly

But I'm just saying, like, you know,

Ben Lindbergh

another thing I resent is that I was reading this story, this mlb.com story about Ohtani, and MLB is doing this thing now where when I click on an MLB.com story on my phone, it launches in the MLB app.

Meg Relly

Yes.

Ben Lindbergh

Which I resent. I don't.

Meg Relly

I do, too.

Ben Lindbergh

Yeah.

Meg Relly

I don't want it in the app. I want it.

Ben Lindbergh

Right. I just want to read the story. I've talked about this on bonus pods where I'm someone who resents apps being foisted on me. I'll use apps if I need them, but in general, if, if I can just go to a site in a browser or something, that's perfectly fine. I don't need a dedicated app cluttering up my phone or launching something or taking up resources. And obviously I have the MLB app and, and it's, it's a good app in a lot of ways and I use it regularly for things that I want to use it for. But I don't need to launch an app. You don't need it to see a story. It's. It's there if you want it. It's like there's a fan graphs app. If you want to use the fangrafts app to read stories, you can, but you don't have it.

Meg Relly

Better and better every day as an inside the app.

Ben Lindbergh

Just a lot of work.

Meg Relly

Every single day I go in there and I'm like, boy, Sean really knows what he's doing.

Ben Lindbergh

Yeah. But I would be miffed if I tried to click on a FanGraphs post and was taken to the app against my will. So.

Meg Relly

Right.

Ben Lindbergh

And that doesn't happen. So I, I don't care for this. I'm sure MLP is just. I don't know if, if you, if you don't have the app installed, does it prompt you to download the app? I don't know. Maybe they're just trying to juice their. Their counts of users or something. But if you do have the app, then it's definitely imposed upon you.

Meg Relly

You.

Ben Lindbergh

I don't know if there's a setting that you can use to disable this. Hopefully. Maybe I don't resent this quite as much as the fact that the MLB app is now also displaying betting odds. That at least is optional. You can turn it off, but. Yeah, for now. Right. But that's a new innovation that I don't care for. I know this has already been a thing in the NHL app, I think, and maybe online, but now, now we're being asked whether we want that displaying. I do not. Thank you for asking. Yeah. Anyway. Okay. Anyway, so Sh. Otani signed long term. A couple other pitchers who are now newly signed long term. Chase Burns of the Cincinnati Reds and Kyle Bradish of the Baltimore Orioles. So Burns signed last week a seven year extension. It's $105 million total, which I think it's the. The fourth biggest contract in Red's franchise history. The three above it all also extensions. And this was the biggest for a pitcher with his service time. Right. With fewer than four years of major league service. And he has a lot fewer than four years of major league service. And according to our pal Trent Rosecrans, the contract signing was slightly delayed because Reds GM Pop quiz. Who's the Reds gm? I bet if you're listening and you're not a Reds fan, you may have a hard time calling his name to mind. It's Brad Metter. He spilled coffee on the contract and they had to print a new one, which seems like a metaphor for something, but crisis averted. And then Kyle Bradish, who is more veteran, more established, he signed a five year extension for $90 million. Yeah, so that'll keep him under contract with the Orioles or whoever has possession of that contract through 2031. And Burns is maybe the more interesting one here because it's kind of in line with the trend towards young players signing long term extensions that we talked about last week with JJ Weatherholt and all the others. So as usual, we haven't had a ton of great opportunities to talk about the Reds this year, but Chase Burns has provided many of them because he's great. Yep, Patrick Dubuque, in his write up of this deal at Baseball Prospectus wrote, even beyond the results, the Reds have never really evoked a compelling reason for caring about the Reds beyond we're here and so are you. Which is, I mean frankly it's, it's no lies detected there. This is where the meme of effectively wild not talking about the Reds came from. But Chase Burns's words worth talking about at least. And I do feel bad for him being overshadowed a bit by the Miz and Sanchez and even some of the excellent AL guys, Cam Schlitler, Dylan Cease, etc Skeens, whoever else. Like you know, he's a mere 13th in pitching war MLB wide this year, but boy he has been fantastic. Which has not been a a big surprise if you looked at his stuff and his his peripherals prior to this year. Because like last year he had a 4.57 erra but a 2.65 F. If anything his peripherals were superior last year.

Meg Relly

Yes, they were better last year than they were this year and he was

Ben Lindbergh

throwing even harder last year. He's sitting 98 now. To be clear, he's pretty impressive and he is just 23. So to the extent that any pitcher is someone to build around, I guess it would be Burns or someone like him because a lot of these early career extensions that that we've been talking about have been for position players, which is not A surprise. They are a little less breakable and more dependable.

Meg Relly

Yeah, that part of it makes this interesting to me less because I think Chase Burns is like not worthy of a deal like this. I think, you know, if anything, as, as Bauman argued when he wrote it up for us, like he seems like he's leaving money on the table here. But I find it interesting given the size of the this deal in not just in absolute terms but certainly in Red's adjusted terms that they would choose to have that kind of a commitment to a pitcher. You, you might think that they would try to, to work this game with one of their core position players. But I also think that when you have a guy of Burns's talent locked down for seven years, there's something to that for pitchers that I think actually gives you comfort because it's like, well, sure, sure, maybe. And I hope that this does not come to pass for, for Chase Burns, but like, hey, maybe, maybe he blows out and you lose a year. Well, okay, you still get, you have six more, right? Being able to keep him sort of in the fold for that amount of time gives you some amount of comfort that you are going to get good years out of him even if you lose them to injury. But yeah, Chase Burns is, is great. He was an exhilarating prospect. I think he's been an exhilarating big leaguer. It's been really exciting to watch him take a step forward from a certainly an earned runs perspective. You're right to say that his peripherals were actually a bit better last year, but I think that he's a pretty interesting guy and has. We probably haven't seen like the best version of Chase Burns yet even. I think it's just always exciting when a franchise that doesn't have a history of spending big A and to Patrick's point is often present more than it is competitive is committing to a guy long term who they think is going to be an important part of their fortunes. Even in a year where they are, I think disappointing, right? Like they have not been able to build so far on their playoff appearance from last year and they've, you know, they've obviously dealt with some injury and so there's, you know, there's stuff that helps to explain it.

Ben Lindbergh

But yeah, they got off to a good start. They had an excellent April, but there was some smoke and mirrors going on there year and I think they have the worst record in baseball after April.

Meg Relly

So yeah, so for them to. In a year where things are kind of falling apart for them Say yeah, but we think we're going to contend and do it soon and we want this guy to be a big part of that. I think is exciting. So good for. Good for Chase Burns, good for the Reds. I continue to have sort of background anxiety about what the effect of all of these young guys getting pulled out of ARB is going to be for what those salaries look like. So I do think that there is like a longer term sort of labor question to be monitoring here because obviously Chase Burns won't be available as a comp for, for other pitchers who come up behind him. But I'm never going to begrudge a guy being a $100 million heir. You know, like that's. I think that you're well past the point of being too, too concerned about, about leaving money on the table. He. I think he, I think we can argue that he definitely did leave money on the table, but. But also he could blow out tomorrow or stink or whatever. So. Yeah, you know.

Ben Lindbergh

Yeah, and he was under team control for quite some time anyway because he's young and, and yeah, it would have been his ARB years would have taken him through 2031, which is. Bradish is now under team control through 2031 after the extension. I think he, he had two years of team control remaining prior to his deal. Burns had many. And so now this deal, which starts next season, runs through 2033 for him and then neither of these deals has anything complicated, I guess. No. No deferrals, no options.

Meg Relly

Yeah, they're delightfully straightforward.

Ben Lindbergh

Yeah. So that's, that's nice for people who have to talk and write about them. But yeah, I think. So what you were alluding to there about. Maybe we haven't seen the best of Burns. He is a two pitch pitcher at this point.

Meg Relly

He's.

Ben Lindbergh

He's basically four seamer, slider and clearly that's been enough for him. He'll throw in an occasional change up or you know, I guess he technically has thrown something classified as a curveball on rare occasions. But it's not like the hitters are exactly forcing him to expand his repertoire. Exactly. But that has been in vogue to throw more and more pitches if you are a starting pitcher these days. So maybe at some point he will refine one of those secondary offerings and, and that may make him even better. I don't know. With pitchers the aging curve, speed wise is, is often just sort of a, a linear line down, you hope gradually. But maybe if he is able to perfect some of those other offerings and show hitters that then that would be good because his strikeout rate is still healthy, but is down a bit. And he's benefited some from a low BABIP this year and had a high BABIP last year. So it wouldn't hurt it. It would behoove him probably to have a third pitch at least that he could count on.

Meg Relly

I can imagine Chase Burns and his representatives looking around at say the trajectory of Spencer Strider's career for exactly the reasons you talking about and being like, let's lock in this money, why don't we? Yeah, you know, like there does seem to be. He's protecting downside risk for himself here even maybe more than you typically see with these early extensions where when it goes sideways on you and the repertoire is that limited, at least as it's currently constituted, you can be exposed very, very quickly.

Ben Lindbergh

It is funny that there has been that trend towards wider arsenals and more expansive pitch pallets at a time when you're not expected to go deep into games. And so you don't actually have to hold something in reserve to show hitters the third or fourth time you face them in the game because you're probably not going to.

Meg Relly

Right. It.

Ben Lindbergh

It helps you go deeper in games if you can give guys different looks, but if you're not even expected to. Chase Burns has averaged 5.7 innings pitch per start as a very effective starter this year. So it's not like he's to going. Going super deep anyway. And would he go any deeper if he did have a great third offering? I mean, probably not very much. Right. So maybe it's less essential than it used to be, even as it's easier to cultivate and pitch design those additional offerings. So that's, that's why everyone's doing it. But maybe there's even less need to do it in, in some cases until

Meg Relly

you, until you really need it though.

Ben Lindbergh

Right.

Meg Relly

I mean this is, this is the thing about it. Because if, you know, if the fastball velo declines further, if you lose good movement on the secondary like it can. I want Spencer sh to be good at baseball rather than feeling like a cautionary tale. Cuz increasingly that's what it feels like.

Ben Lindbergh

Yeah, I hope that's not the case. But yeah. So I guess the question is what do the Reds really have though right now? Because so their previous, their three bigger extensions and contracts in the past, Joey Votto, Ken Griffey Jr. 26 years ago and Homer Bailey. Right, right. So you look at them now, they have Burns, they have Ellie.

Meg Relly

Right.

Ben Lindbergh

But they also have one of the worst offenses in baseball, if not the worst. It's basically it's Ellie, Sal Stewart, Stewart who has been good since his hot start, but not as hot as he was during his hot start. And then you have sort of the what JJ Bidet is doing what kind of out of nowhere season. But the, the core there, they've had a, a devil of a time developing hitters. So maybe Stewart is something. Ellie is obviously something.

Meg Relly

Right.

Ben Lindbergh

They have Hunter Green y. They have the main makings of a really strong rotation, but a lot of those guys at any given time are injured or unavailable.

Meg Relly

So.

Ben Lindbergh

And they don't have a ton of money coming off the books after this year and they don't spend a ton of money to begin with and they're already sort of spending a lot for them. And then they're locked into say Brian Hayes for the next four years or at least he's under contract.

Meg Relly

Right.

Ben Lindbergh

And then they have this whole group of guys, this sort of lost generation of hitters who looked really promising and then failed to launch for whatever reason. I know Reds fans have thought that the Reds have been too old school in their hitting approach and then also they have jerked some guys around, positionally speaking at times too. So I don't know, like they're coming off that last second buzzer beat playoff appearance that didn't last very long last year and they sort of snuck in as the Mets collapsed. And are they really close to the next one? It's tough to tell. I've felt pretty bullish about the Reds at times in recent years, but then there has been this stagnation or just injuries on the part of a lot of their starters and now I don't really know what's there. I don't know are they going to be good to during the term that Chase Burns just signed for? I have no idea.

Meg Relly

Yeah, it's a, it's an odd spot. They do have some prospect talent, but it is a pretty light farm system and it'll get lighter when you account for graduations because Sal Stewart has graduated from prospect eligibility. They have Alfredo Duno down in the in on the farm who we're quite high on. But also, yeah, it's not like they have, you know, a super deep group of young big league ready guys who you know are going to be game changing for them. If I had to guess, what they hoped was going to happen here was that some of the injured dudes would sort of sort themselves out and present themselves to be Healthy and good again. Right. And that hasn't really come to pass in quite the way you would have maybe hoped for. I don't know that it was reasonable to expect that. But it does seem like that was part of the approach here. Right. That they were like, well, you know, surely Spencer Steer and Friedel and you know, Aohenio Suarez has been kind of a dud and Cabrian Hayes, you know, we can just like that guy can't hit. He just. Everybody. We always want him. We want him to. Yeah, we want him to hit. And then the thing is he doesn't. Ben.

Ben Lindbergh

No, you know, he doesn't.

Meg Relly

They have some money coming off like at least a honey. It was like a one year deal, so that didn't work. But it made sense to try and you know, you're not going to be saddled with an 82 WRC plus forever. So I don't know. It's. It's an odd. You're right though, it's an odd group. There's a lot of need. There aren't necessarily obvious internal candidates to reinforce the, the weak spots. And you do have to think that they're going to come up against the upper bound of their payroll at some point here. So I don't know. You know, and it's funny because it's like, it's not like their payroll isn't crazy in league adjusted terms and they're, you know, almost $100 million away from the first luxury tax threshold. But also it's the Reds. So.

Ben Lindbergh

Yeah.

Meg Relly

What are our expectations of what they're going to commit from a payroll perspective?

Ben Lindbergh

Yeah. By the way, I was thinking of your deadline talk with Craig and who's available and who's not and which teams are going to be sellers and all that. That I am pretty fascinated to see where Luis Ar goes because he seems like a, a pretty clear candidate to be traded.

Meg Relly

You would think that. Yeah.

Ben Lindbergh

And the Giants clearly in the. We will be trading guys away more so than trading for them. And he's, he's a prize, you know, like Luis Ar has already surpassed his previous single season high in fangraphs war. He is. And we've talked about the reasons for that. That he's bounced back offensively but also is now good at defense after putting in a lot of work with Ron Washington and, and he's a guy who's moved around a lot and has been traded a bunch and there's probably going to be another trade untap for him. So I just, I find him very fun. As a spectator. And it seems like people like him in the clubhouse and everything, but he's a real, you know, when he's been dealt before, it's always been sort of his, his fame outstripped his value. But now, no, now he's actually going to be one of the most valuable players available, assuming that he can continue to play good defense away from Ron Washington and that that tutelage, just whatever wisdom he has gleaned does not depart when he departs.

Meg Relly

Right.

Ben Lindbergh

Someone's going to want Luis arise. I think he's, he's going to be a resource, real deadline prize. So I will be watching the Luisa Rice sweepstakes with great interest as well. So the other. I think we can legitimately almost call him a sweepstakes now. Not even ironically, he's, he's a very desirable player.

Meg Relly

Do you think that that reference has the cachet that it once did? Sweepstakes.

Ben Lindbergh

Sweepstakes. Yeah, maybe not.

Meg Relly

If you were to ask a young person what, what they think of a sweepstakes, would they. They have a cultural touchstone for that?

Ben Lindbergh

Maybe, maybe not. Yeah, I guess we don't do sweepstakes so much. We don't do sweeps week so much. Yeah, we have lost that.

Meg Relly

Well, Ed McMahon's dead now, so that might be part of it.

Ben Lindbergh

Yeah, it's part of our cultural memory. Along with mid April starts to the season, the other extension for Kyle Bradish, who is 29, even though he has not been established for, for that long, he got a little bit of a late start and like Burns has had some injury issues. I mean he's, he's had injury issues like Shane Baz who was the other Orioles righty extended earlier this year. Burns just had a flexor strain last year. I don't want to make too much of that. So it's interesting. Everyone wanted the Orioles to spend last off season and then they did. But then a lot of people, including us were like, well, not quite like that though. And everyone has been urging the Orioles to extend players too. And now they are. But it's still kind of like, oh, we didn't mean that exactly. Not that there's anything wrong with extending your oft injured starting pitchers too.

Meg Relly

Sure.

Ben Lindbergh

But it's not exactly Adley, right. Or Gunner or the guys that were seen as the cornerstones or potential cornerstones of the franchise. So Kyle Bradish has been nails lately. He's been fantastic and they were counting on him to be a top of the line, top of the rotation starter, which he was after he returned last year and it seemed like, well, maybe that's a lot to expect him to replicate that. And he got off to a bit of a rough start, but he has really been on a roll. So, you know, good pitcher, but again, 29 in extensive injury history. So is that really a guy that you can build around? But I guess the Orioles have had all sorts of trouble filling out a rotation and so they figure, well, let's, let's lock down this guy, though, you know, he did have a couple years of team control remaining. So you are accepting considerable risk and uncertainty here about the state of his health and arm two years from now. So in theory they're getting. Getting some sort of discount from that, I suppose. So. I don't know. You know, we talked about the Orioles very recently and about how they, even though they've played a bit better since that conversation, I think do kind of seem to be caught in between a little bit both in the playoff picture this year. Long term, what do they actually have with this core? I guess there are some similarities, some commonalities between the Reds and the Orioles, like this promising generation of. Of position player prospects who graduated and then maybe took some steps back or failed to flourish. So I don't know exactly what the Orioles have, but they do have Kyle Bradish through 2031.

Meg Relly

I don't dislike this on its own. I just continue to find their broader approach to roster building to be kind of confounding because you're not. This doesn't. I mean, I guess it changes things sort of long term for them insofar as like, hey, you can count on having a Kyle Bradish now, but it doesn't change the long term sort of trajectory of the franchise in any appreciable way, I don't think. Right. Like he was sort of table stakes. Who. What, what else, what else, what else do you have for me? What, who, who else do you have for us? You know, who else do you have for yourselves? I do think we're starting to learn something about the approach that these guys have to thinking about the pitching question, which is like they'd rather trade for than pay necessarily. Right. I think we can look to the way that they've chosen to reinforce their roster over time. No, they might trade for and then pay, but you know, they're not really dipping into the high end of free agency. They'll add the Chris Basset of the world. Right. But generally like they'd rather trade for guys and then if they are excited about them, extend them and that's fine if you're pitching development apparatus is churning out guys, but that we haven't quite gotten there, you know, and some of that hasn't been their fault. Like, some of the guys that they were the most excited about and for good reason got hurt, but also they always seem surprised by injury. Maybe you should, should be faulted a little because your planning seems to be predicated on perfection, which you've never experienced. Right. So I, I don't dislike it. I like, I like Kyle Bradish. I think he's a good pitcher. I think wanting him around makes a ton of sense. I don't think that it's such an exorbitant amount of money that you're like, really hamstringing yourself. But also, again, what, what else do you got? What else do you have for me? And, and what?

Ben Lindbergh

Yeah, yeah.

Meg Relly

The end of that deal is pretty rich. Like, that part of it. I'm like, wow, 28 million in 2031. But who knows if my clients will even be their GM by then? So what does he care?

Ben Lindbergh

It's probably true. Yeah. Yeah. And I guess maybe the time to take a team to task for not signing more extensions is not. When they sign someone to an extension, it's okay. It's a step, it's a move in the right direction. But yeah, they are almost taking kind of like Epstein era Cubs, where it's like, we'll develop all the position players and the hitters in house, and then in theory, we will acquire pitchers one way or another. And the Orioles have certainly attempted to develop pitchers internally, and the Astros, under some of the same executives, had some success doing that. That, of course, in an earlier era. It's more competitive now because the Astros were, well, putting aside anything nefarious they were doing. They were first movers, early adopters of a lot of that. But I think that makes sense in theory because you do want to build around hitters. I think all else being equal, I would, I would rather have the foundation of my farm system be hitters. So that's good. But then you do have to. To go get pitchers and good pitchers and, and the Orioles, look, they, they did get Burns and they've made some other moves, but maybe not enough. And the Cubs had all sorts of issues because they just. The cupboard was bare. They were unable to develop anyone really internally. And so, yeah, you can go sign John Lester, but they just never did enough and they just didn't develop any pitching. And that played some part in that potential dynasty not becoming one. Not that Winning one World Series for the Cubs was, was small beans or something that mission accomplished largely. But still. So if the Orioles are building around hitters, well, first of all, you need to find pitching somewhere. But also you need those hitters to continue to be good. And I guess the Cubs ran into that issue with some of their hitters too. And the Orioles certainly are too. So ultimately, if they don't, you don't get enough of those homegrown hitters straightened out and, and really being the bedrock of a productive offense, then it's going to be tough for them to contend and fulfill their promise one way or another. And also there aren't going to be as many guys whom you would want to have under contract long term. So.

Meg Relly

Right.

Ben Lindbergh

Yeah, they're, they're sort of stuck. You know, they're two games out of a playoff spot as we speak, but who isn't in the American like.

Meg Relly

Yeah, I guess that's true.

Ben Lindbergh

Okay. And the last thing I was thinking about funny names for tech companies, you know, because I was reading about how the Rangers just are switching streamers to a company called Buzzer. It is how you pronounce it, but of course with any kind of tech adjacent company, they're all allergic to vowels for some reason. So you just have to remove all the vowels. It's bzzr. Poob has it for you. Buzzer has it for you. If you're the Rangers. And at least some of their games now are streaming on this new platform called Buzzer. And so you know, some people are upset about that. They have multiple ways to watch games because that's the case with everyone these days. You have to to watch seven different networks and streaming services if you want to watch all your team's games. And the Rangers are, are swapping Victory plus for Buzzer.

Meg Relly

Right.

Ben Lindbergh

With no notice here, just sort of mid season. So some fans are, are upset about that and oh, I paid for this and now I have to do that and where do I even find this thing? And also, at least temporarily, Buzzer was presenting games with a, a twitch style real time chat on the screen. So like as you're watching Rangers games, you're seeing other viewers and Rangers fans like posting messages on the side of the screen which people were not sure whether you could disable that or opt out of that. And so this is, this is hell. Why would I want to be subjected? I guess the idea is it'll be like a hangout, it'll be like a sports bar. But no, I mean, first of all, while hopefully they're moderating that thing or it's going to be the, the worst stuff you've ever seen. Oh no, that would not enhance my experience, my viewing experience personally. So it's been a bit of a bumpy changeover to Buzzer and I hope that the at least mandatory real time twitch chat while you're watching a game. I mean, this is stuff that, like, if people have looked up illicit streams at any point, which, you know, not that I'm saying that I have or would ever endorse such a thing. I am an MLB TV subscriber, sir, but often those sort of shady sites will have something like that, some kind of interface where people are saying stuff or at least like bots are or who knows. So hope that doesn't catch on. But I was thinking about names like Buzzer because I was reading about the Dodgers tech incubator, tech accelerator, Dodgers associated VC investing arm at a newsletter called FOIA Ball. That's F O I A as in Freedom of Information act. And FOIA Ball, which is written by David Cavucci. It typically concerns college sports. And the whole idea is like, let's look at these public documents which you can offer get for. For college programs and find out how much they're paying for things and, or people and, and expose some of this stuff that's usually behind the scenes. But there was a baseball post earlier this month, or at least loosely baseball adjacent, because it was talking about how much college sports programs spend on laundry detergent because they spend a fortune on this stuff, which you can understand because, you know, players get dirty, uniforms get dirty. They have to have all that stuff looking crisp and clean. And so, you know, it's industrial strength and industrial quality and quantity. And they're using this stuff, at least some of them using this stuff called Renegade Sweat X Max Odor Defense with nanovasive technology. It's high tech launch laundry detergent. And you know, they're getting like giant drums of this stuff and spending tens of thousands of dollars on it over the course of a season. And this related to the Dodgers because Renegade is something that the Dodgers invested in because it was a startup. And this is like more than 10 years ago. This is like 2014. Ish. The Dodgers partnered with this advertising agency called called RGA to launch an incubator for startups which were sort of sports adjacent, you know, operating at the intersection of technology and sports. And then it expanded from there and they launched this thing called Global Sports Venture Studios, which is partly rga. This advertising agency and the Dodgers and so the connection was that, hey, the Dodgers are doing this thing that maybe most other teams aren't doing. Not saying that, that most teams could not afford to do something like this. But Mark Walter Dodgers owner, you know, they're, they're VC people. Right. And if anything, like the Dodgers, they have more money, they have more resources and institutional advantages, but they're also quite good at maximizing those advantages, I think, and using their money to make each other even more money.

Meg Relly

Yeah.

Ben Lindbergh

And so I don't know that the other 29 teams don't have some sort of investment arm or that they couldn't. You know, these are all billionaires, Right. And so.

Meg Relly

Right.

Ben Lindbergh

They probably could do this, but maybe they don't come from that world or they're not as, as in bed with those kinds of companies. Right. So venture capital and everything. And so they have applied that and, and use some of the Dodgers financial metal and might and Walters as well to seed all of these tech sports startups. And they've been doing this for a while and who knows how much money they've made from this. So I was corresponding with, with David, the author of FOIA Ball, because I was trying to see like the complete list of companies that, yeah, the Dodgers have invested in because this global sports venture thingy majig that the Dodgers and RGA have been investing in and there's a full list, a portfolio of companies. It's like almost 200 of them on that website and some of them a lot of like pet companies and things that sound like jokes, they sound like fake 30 Rock kind of tech companies and like dystopian stuff and the weirdest names you could ever imagine. And I was thinking, man, there's so many of these. Like maybe we do a full episode draft of like weird companies that the Dodgers have invested in in. But before I proposed that, I did check with the Dodgers to say like, have the Dodgers invested in all of these companies that are listed on this website? Would that be accurate? And no. In fact, it appears that the Dodgers have not invested in all of the like, you know, disrupting dog food or whatever companies. But they did point me to this other website, this other investing arm which grew out of, of this initiative and also goes back years called Elysian Park.

Meg Relly

Okay.

Ben Lindbergh

Presumably named after Elysian park, the actual park in LA and neighborhood where Dodger Stadium is located. Though as a non LA native, when I first saw that, I thought of Elysian Fields in Hoboken, the famous grounds where many teams played in the 19th century, including a Lot of teams from Brooklyn, former home of the Dodgers. Except that almost all the games that were played at Elysian Fields were amateur baseball games. As I talked to Thomas Gilbert about recently when I had him on to discuss his book about James Creighton. This is the furthest thing from amateur baseball. This is the antithesis of amateur. This is a professional money making venture through and through. But there is a list, Elysian park and this is the sort of Guggenheim Walter, Dodgers adjacent, mostly sports related tech startup companies. And if you go to ElysianPark Ventures and I will link to this, there is a list of companies that they have invested in, some of which have been spun off or acquired or whatever, more than 70 of them. And I, I sent you this list and, and I asked you to just skim through it to look for any funny names, your favorite funny, stereotypical tech company kind of names. And I'd say that full list that the Dodgers didn't invest in, all of them, even funnier, even weirder. And I will link to, to that too for people to peruse at their leisure. But, but these, these 72, I think companies that are currently listed on this page, all that have accepted some money from the Dodgers, maybe returned some money to the Dodgers, like Renegade and the high tech laundry disruptor or whatever has, has paid dividends for the Dodgers as well. So anything stand out to you? And there are some companies here that everyone would know and some that no one ever would have heard of and some that are pretty surprising to be here. But there's definitely a handful that feel like some sort of, you know, Silicon Valley, the sitcom. If you were coming up with a joke name, name for some kind of tech sports company that this is what you would choose.

Meg Relly

Yep. Okay, so I have a couple here.

Ben Lindbergh

Yeah.

Meg Relly

The first is Fitter, just spelled F I, T, T, R. Yep. Fitter is a leading tech enabled community first health and fitness platform that connects millions of users with hundreds of certified coaches and nutritionists in India to help them lead a healthy and fit life.

Ben Lindbergh

Yeah. Interesting in India is that.

Meg Relly

Yeah.

Ben Lindbergh

Because they work cheaper there.

Meg Relly

Well, and it's like, is the target audience for fitter folks in India because. And you know, huge population.

Ben Lindbergh

Sure. Yeah.

Meg Relly

Presumably interested in community based solutions to health and whatever.

Ben Lindbergh

And of course Fitter, they didn't drop the I to their credit. So they're, they're not that allergic to all vowels. They just, they did drop the E though.

Meg Relly

E. Yeah.

Ben Lindbergh

They'll make you fitter, but no. E. Yeah.

Meg Relly

Then we have, I think it's supposed to read as gamers, but it is spelled G A M U R us.

Ben Lindbergh

Yes, the.

Meg Relly

And it's all caps. The gamers group is the leading esports media network and a growing contender in the entertainment space.

Ben Lindbergh

Is it?

Meg Relly

I've never heard of you before now, so I'm skeptical.

Ben Lindbergh

As a gamer with an E, I have heard of gamers with a U and yet it is very esports related, but also kind of like acquiring websites and kind of turning them into content mills kind of sort of stuff. Lots of layoffs and quotas and gotcha. Bad working conditions and you know. Yeah. So there's. Yeah, it's funny, like there's some companies that seem worthy and. And good here and then there's some that are quite dystopian in bed.

Meg Relly

But yeah, then we have. And this is not too few vowels, but arguably too many we. We have Jupiter, which is J, O, O, P, I, T, E, R. Jupiter is a digital first auction house and content platform founded by Pharrell Williams. Building a space for today's collectors, curators and creators.

Ben Lindbergh

Yep.

Meg Relly

Everybody doesn't need to be a creator. Okay. Like it. I don't understand. It's a consumer based economy and you want everyone to be creating things. What's up with that? You know, like let people just.

Ben Lindbergh

Some people can just be consumers. It's okay.

Meg Relly

Yeah. I mean, surely you want everyone to fall into at least that category, but you want them to be creators too. Sometimes people just are tired at the end of the day. Then there's this one. I'm confused by Love B.

Ben Lindbergh

Yes. I was wondering about this one too.

Meg Relly

Yeah, it's one volleyball league for youth. For pro what? For life?

Ben Lindbergh

Yeah, for pro. Yeah. I don't know how it's for youth and for pro, but.

Meg Relly

Yeah. Are they pro youth volleyball players also? Wouldn't it be for pros?

Ben Lindbergh

I guess there's a youth component but also a professional component. But also.

Meg Relly

Is it supposed to be love, pronounced love B. I don't know.

Ben Lindbergh

The logo, I think it stands for League 1 volleyball, but I don't know if like

Meg Relly

unintelligible.

Ben Lindbergh

And also the. The logo, the B is melting weirdly.

Meg Relly

It's the part of it that's so confusing.

Ben Lindbergh

Yeah. The lov look like regular font or just capital letters. And then the begin half of the B looks like it's in the same typescript. But then the other part of the B is like ascending from the bee somehow so that you can't. Actually I wasn't sure whether it was a B at first.

Meg Relly

I'M not sure.

Ben Lindbergh

Is it supposed to look like an E? Because they want you to think it's love, but then it's love. Love.

Meg Relly

Right. It's confusing because for a lot of these, where the font of the logo might be introducing confusion about what it's supposed to say. The company name is then restated in the little description of what it is, but not in the case of this. Oh, I missed two that were funny to me earlier. One is Factory Lab. Fct R Y Lab. LA is capitalized because it is an LA based footwear prototyping lab and Venture Studio. What?

Ben Lindbergh

Yes, we fcty. Why is it like, is the idea that we're so efficient that we don't need the A and the O? Because you can just say it and it's. I mean really, it would be like factory if you didn't say. But it's like, you know, we're disrupting whatever LA based footwear and so we're disrupting spelling as well. Vowels optional. Yeah.

Meg Relly

And then the other one I wanted to know is right before that one in this list and it's Fanta plea, I guess.

Ben Lindbergh

Yeah.

Meg Relly

NFT N, A, P, L, Y. NFTs. Remember NFTs? That was hilarious. People were like, well, these are going to be the best. And I was like, I think this is pretend. And then, then it seems like it's mostly been pretend, you know?

Ben Lindbergh

Yep, yep. Yeah. And there are a lot on here, some that you would know, like sports tech stuff like Diamond Kinetics or, you know, other things that provide data that probably has been cited on the podcast at some point.

Meg Relly

Synergies on here, which.

Ben Lindbergh

Synergy Sports. Yeah. Pitch Vision, which is a cricket company. Yeah. But there's. I like Drive Box, which is. Yeah, it's. It's a mobile golf simulator that offers lessons, practice sessions, virtual golf and private events. But. But it's a yv. It's D, R, Y, V, E, B, O, X. So it can't just be drive, like a golf drive. It has to be drive Dr. Yve, for whatever reason. But there is stuff on here like DraftKings. The, the Dodgers or this arm of the Dodgers invested many millions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars into DraftKings, which, you know. No, no conflict of interest there, I guess. But it's just. Anyway, this is one of the things when people complain about the Dodgers and their resources and everything. They do have this whole investment arm, which again, it's, it's not as if only, only the Dodgers could do this. And there may very well be Other teams and franchises that are doing this, but they are beyond baseball, just a big business in a lot of ways. And so people don't even realize the money that they are spending and the rewards they are reaping from this sort of stuff. This kind of baseball adjacent side business that they're. There's another one. Steezy.

Meg Relly

Steezy.

Ben Lindbergh

I could give people a million guesses and they'd probably never guess that Steezy creates online dance classes with the world's best instructors.

Meg Relly

Steezy.

Ben Lindbergh

Steezy. Yeah, which sounds sleazy or I don't know if it's supposed to be a play on like, like Steez, like, like style or, or I don't, I don't know what that has to do with dancing, but it makes my skin crawl a little. There's Also one called Tap with 3P's Tapp, which helps media, consumer products and sports wagering clients drive customer acquisitions, transactions, engagement and retention, whatever that means. That's.

Meg Relly

What does that mean?

Ben Lindbergh

I don't know and I don't want to know. There's a lot of word salad happening here. A lot of business speak. And also, yes, some surprising one, you messaged me when you noticed that UCB operates Citizens Brigades. The comedy company is on here. I don't know what that has to do with sports or all this other tech adjacent stuff, but yeah, some surprises

Meg Relly

anyway, maybe, maybe they're there to teach the baseball players how to be genuinely funny.

Ben Lindbergh

Yeah, did we think about that?

Meg Relly

Did we consider that they have some work to do?

Ben Lindbergh

If so, I don't know that they have done so, but I, I ranted on a recent bonus pod about how all the logos are blue, all the apps are blue. Everything on all of these, on this website for Elian park, everything is blue. Every single. I guess maybe if you go to the actual companies, all their actual logos aren't blue. I don't know, I didn't check. But, but on this website, every single thing is. Is blue. So yeah, there's a ton of blue when it comes to tech, but maybe that's Dodgers, though. It doesn't look like Dodger blue to me, so if that's what they were going for.

Meg Relly

Yeah, it's a different blue. It's a different blue.

Ben Lindbergh

Okay, well, okay, before we feel blue about all of this, we can stop yapping. That will do it for today. Thanks as always for listening. And special thanks to those of you who support the podcast. Financially, that is, which you can do by going to patreon.com effectively wild and signing up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going. Help us stay ad free and get yourself access to some perks as have the following five listeners, John Stickle, Adam Shea, John Marin, KW Dixon and Steve Kaplan. Thanks to all of you, Patreon perks include access to a third unrestricted episode every week, another full bonus episode every month, exclusive live streams, membership in our Discord group for patrons only, personalized messages, prioritized email answers, shout outs at the end of episodes, potential podcast appearances, Fangraphs memberships and more. Check out all the offerings@patreon.com effectivelywild if you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. If not, you can contact us via email. Send your questions, comments, intro and outro themes to podcastangraphs.com youm can rate, review and subscribe to Effectively Wild on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music and other podcast platforms. You can join our facebook group@facebook.com group effectively wild. You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at R Effectively Wild and you can check the show notes in the podcast, posted fan graphs or Patreon or the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we've cited today. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We will be back with an episode soonish. I can't record from the courthouse, but we will do our best to bring you another episode soon. Strap on my head then listen people

Meg Relly

talk I want to hear about baseball

Ben Lindbergh

with nuance and puffy and stats yeah yeah don't want to hear about picture wins or about gambling odds all they want to hear about my childhood and the texture of the hair on the arm growing out of one's head grow Give me, give me, give me effectively wild Give me, give me give me effectively wild Give me, give me, give

Meg Relly

me effectively wild this is effectively wild.