MLB's daily recap writer Tom Stone tells how he delivers 30 teams recaps every single day - Ep. 649

We're happy to have Tom Stone join us today on our podcast. Welcome Tom. Hey guys. Hi Mark. Hi Gordon. Good to be with you. Hey how you doing? Tom and I met at a Sabre convention in 2025, or 2024. And one of the things that came about out of it was something that he's been doing. He did all last season and you'll talk about as we did before. Besides writing a book, he writes this crazy

Now taking the field baseball buffet blog, blog post every day, not only of the regular baseball season, but he did it all the way through the World Series. So 300 times it seemed like I would get up in the morning. I know what time you get up and do this, Tom. ⁓ It's in my inbox in the morning. And if I don't, if I didn't catch the late games, I'm an East coast guy. I don't have to look anywhere. I can just look and find it in there. And I love it. I think it's cool. And maybe you can tell us about how that came about.

Yeah, thanks. Yeah, so the series that you're referring to, the daily series, is called the Baseball Buffet. The overall newsletter, which is what it primarily is, that's why it's in your email inbox, they do show up as web pages as well, each daily issue. The overall brand is now taking the field, which was also the name of my book that I published in 2019, so that's sort of my overall brand. But the Baseball Buffet, the idea with it is that newspapers today don't publish the box scores, they don't publish the game recaps, they don't...

really cover baseball like they once did. The Sporty News isn't around like it was either. And so I'm trying to provide something that is written in a very sort of pithy, short, easy to scan way that covers things, during the season, covers things like game recaps every game from the previous day, not just a handful. ⁓ Also things like transactions, league leaders, the standings. I don't actually give the box scores. You can look those up on mlb.com or ESPN.

But I cover all that. And then I also pivot and cover some history. So what players were born on this day, famous ⁓ events that occurred that day. Even in the off season, there's things like people Hall of Fame, announcements on various days, transactions, trades, and things like that. I give a daily trivia question, which for some people is their favorite feature. I do quotes of the day, sprinkle in a few video links.

and then wrap it up. It's a pretty lengthy piece, but it only takes about 15, 10, 15 minutes read word for word because I do it in the way that I do. I use a format called Smart Brevity. If you're familiar, anyone listening to the Axios family of newsletters, they came up with this where it's all bullet lists, headers, bolding, that sort of thing. So it's not a narrative written flow. I'm not a storyteller. There's plenty of people. Joe Poznanski is a favorite of mine. There's other people like him, baseball writers who are great storytellers.

That's not me. I'm more factual based with some analysis, a little bit of humor here and there, but written in a way that's easily readable. And for me, in a lot of ways, gives me what I remembered Sports Center was when I was a kid. In that, like, when it was actually Sports Center, that you would get a game recap of each game, they would show you the major plays from each game, and they would actually show you every game.

Nowadays, SportsCenter is about 95 % celebrity gossip and maybe the occasional highlight package from the major markets. So I really like this from the perspective of being able to follow. like, yeah, sometimes I don't necessarily know what went on in every game. And I don't necessarily want to go spend 15 minutes watching the dedicated highlight package from MLB on every single game.

So having one place I can go to and just scan, this is what happened yesterday. And then you throw in some of the fun things. Like I always remember growing up in the papers, you would have a this day in baseball little thing. And they would talk about all the famous stuff that would happen this day in baseball. And that went away. So having that kind of stuff back makes it kind of like crosses over like the old school baseball page with a box score and like sort of the old way of doing the highlights, which is what I really enjoyed.

Yeah, and that's the feedback I've gotten from a lot of people. I think I've hit the mark pretty well based on the feedback I've gotten. My readership definitely skews older. I'm 52. I'd say I'm probably average age, if not a little younger than the average reader. So I have a lot of folks that, you know, they miss the way the sports section used to be. They miss the way Sports Center on ESPN sort of used to be the sporting news and so on. So I've gotten a lot of testimonials and good feedback.

that I'm sort of hitting the mark for them in that way. And that's why it's called the baseball buffet also because it has all these different segments like that covering all these different components. You know, you also include, I don't know if you mentioned the birthday boys segment and I guess recently you've been taking the day of the month and then putting up the guys wearing that number, which I really enjoy the progression as you guy, I all the way down to number two today.

Yeah, yeah, what I'm doing is the countdown actually to the start of spring training. So we're only a couple days away. So today was guys wearing number two tomorrow will be number one guys like Ozzie Smith and others, a lot of infielders that were number one over the years. So yeah, I've been doing that countdown. That's been a fun thing. Obviously, that'll come to an end here shortly. ⁓ But yeah, it's something as you started off Mark to I've been doing it literally every single day. I've surprised even myself. I started with opening day last year.

I thought surely I will miss a few days here and there throughout the season. I mean, I've got a full-time job. This is something I'm doing as a side gig, you know, that I work on late at night and early in the morning. But so far I have not missed a day in over 320 days. So I don't know how I'm doing it, but so far so It's impressive. I got to tell you. And I was rooting for you to finish because you know, get to a point, I'm assuming last year, like, all right, I've done this every day for two, I can't fall down now.

Yes, well, it's a hot streak. Yeah, it's a hot streak. I thought, well, maybe I'll let up some during the postseason. No, I kept through the postseason. Well, the offseason, there's not a lot of news each day, but I'm finding things to talk about almost every single day. And I didn't really realize this in past seasons. There is a free agent signing or a trade pretty much every day. Now, they're not necessarily superstars. A lot of them are guys signing minor league deals deals with an invite to spring training, barely register for most people if you're not a fan of that team. But I'm reporting on all those things. So that's that's kept sort of the top part of the newsletter.

⁓ with some interesting bits and then every single day obviously there's the birthday boys people born on that day the on this day in history the quotes the trivia things like that can you know are evergreen every single day so

And you know, especially now, you know, unlike some years where we would just be ramping into spring training here, we have the WBC coming up. And so that adds a level of there's a level of excitement about baseball that's kind of earlier this year. Like, think, unfortunately, as a way of devaluing spring training in that, you know, even I as a baseball fan who normally looks forward to spring training is an excited board. I'm like, I don't even care about spring training. Let me get to the world baseball classic. That's when the season started. Yeah. ⁓

Yeah, and I'll definitely cover that. I mean, there's there's some folks that, you know, aren't into that, and so I won't overdo it in my coverage, but I'll cover that. I'll cover spring training. Obviously, the games don't matter in spring training the results, but I will cover things that I think are important. Obviously, injuries are probably the most important thing to keep track of. But also, if someone's really tearing it up and in a way that maybe would translate to the regular season, we've all seen guys hit seven, eight, ten home runs during spring training and then just bombed during the regular season. I think

Kyle Higashiyoka, the catcher for the Yankees, a few years ago, just tore up spring training and then didn't hit any homers at all hardly during the regular season. So there's things like that. You don't want to overdo the number analysis, but I'll call out things that I think are pertinent. And I think they've even talked about that with guys. Like I remember, I think it was one of the Met broadcasters when you were talking about like with the spring training guys, like, sometimes you almost don't want to look for the guys that are putting up really good numbers.

because a lot of spring training is about working on process. And so you might be taking it bats in spring training in a way you would never approach it in an actual game because you're trying to work on something in that and bat. So if you've got a guy that's putting up crazy numbers, he might be up there trying to get hits every time and trying to really take them like a game, you know, regular season, you know, at bat when nobody else in the park is doing that but him maybe. Yeah. And on the pitching side too.

you've got guys that are working on new pitches and that can lead to letting up homers and being having awful numbers during spring training. But if they, if at the end of spring training, they've perfected a perfected a fifth pitch, well that's gold. Cause now they've got that for the whole season. So it's worth the bad numbers. Right. These pitchers are probably, and they're probably throwing these off speed. If they're working on a new off speed pitch, you're probably going to be way more willing to leave it around the strike zone.

to try and throw a strike, then you would ever throw that pitch that way in the regular season, because it's spring training. Who cares if I give up a home run? I want to see if I can throw this pitches and pitch, which means sometimes you're going to just lay one in there. And that always strikes me why. And I think I had a back and forth with Anthony Tacoma a couple of years ago, or one of the writers in the New York area about why there are betting lines on spring training games and what kind of people would bet a spring training game.

Well, I guess we're kind of people. Yeah, Yeah, I definitely wouldn't. In fact, I wouldn't want to because it would mess up my system for the regular year. I mean, I've done some betting over the years. I've played daily fantasy off and on. I've played regular fantasy and Roto going back to the 80s, often just free leagues and stuff. But I wouldn't want to do any of that with spring training because it would mess up my thinking and my strategy going into week one. They're not trying to win.

Why would you get ready to win? guys are trying to win. all in spring training. So it'll be a different spring training this year because of the WBC and some of the players are going to be leaving, right? And so guys that don't normally get to play are going to get to play. That's kind of interesting. And if you're a major league team, you know, maybe it's better to have some guys that wouldn't get to see major league talent as much.

play some games so you can evaluate them better. the other hand, you're worried about all your guys at the WBC and hopefully- injured. Yeah, which has been the issue with insurance for some of the guys on some of the teams. That's, I know, been a headline grabbing thing. And yeah, there'll be probably a few additional players per team on average that are minor leaguers, prospects that will see some additional at bats in spring training. That's only a good thing, I think. And maybe a few veterans too that are on minor league deals with invites to spring training.

You know, maybe they've added a tacked on a couple of extra guys. I've been tracking a lot of those that readers of the baseball buffet have have gotten the details for me on, you know, each day. And and there's a lot of them. There's a lot of people like that that are getting these invites that maybe it's a little bit more this year because of the WBC. You're going to have time to take an extended look at some people, so that's certainly going to have an impact on who you're going to bring in. You're like, well, we can and you're also just going to need extra bodies there because you're missing guys that would be playing a normal bit of the games.

Before we get to some news items, you today on your ⁓ newsletter put out the free agents that are still available. And I think as we record here on Wednesday, this will drop on on Monday. ⁓

None of those guys have been signed yet. So there's like you put in your, in your note, there's a lot of free agents that are still out there. I didn't realize, you who was still now, some of them you might not really think as a serious free agent. Um, but there's some, there's some talent out there and it's kind of interesting that it's taken that long to sign these kinds of guys. Yeah. I covered the position players today. I'll cover the pitchers, uh, with, the addition tomorrow, the ones that jumped out to me the most, um, know, Reese Hoskins, first baseman, um,

Starling Marte, I mean, someone's going to sign him. I have to imagine him. He's getting up there in years, but that was probably the biggest name for me. Max Kepler, another outfielder and Wilmer Flores, as I drew attention, had 16 home runs and 71 RBIs. After a couple months last year, he was leading the league in RBIs. Now that obviously didn't result in him leading it by the end of the season. But he had a great first, first couple months of the season. He's mostly a DH now, but he's still got a lot of position flexibility. So some of these guys will certainly get signed somewhere.

It is interesting looking at the list of guys because when you look through the names that are on there, it's weird because you're like, wow, I recognize a lot of these names. But you're also like, I'm not surprised by basically any of these names being on this list. really, like you said, Reese Hoskins is probably the guy that is the biggest name. then like Justin Turner was once the best player that's on this list. It's just that he's a lot older now. So I think it's just hard for him to find a team that wants to give him a spot.

And that's what a lot of these guys are. They're older players that are like, hey, I'm still good enough to warrant a major league roster spot, but what teams are going to want? Teams might be waiting to see, who's going to come up injured in spring training? And we need to bring in a guy we can trust to play that position for two months at the beginning of the year. Yeah, I'm sure the general managers and their analyst teams, they've got those lists ready to go. Then in case of injury, these are the ones we would want to target and quickly.

So we get them before someone else does. Yeah, I think that'll be the biggest trigger is injuries here over the next few weeks. There are a few vibe guys in the free agent list that kind of pop out to me going, you need a bad, you mentioned Starling Marte, known as a very good clubhouse guy, even when he was on the Mets and you know him from his time with the Pirates, we know you're big Pirate fan.

And so is Andrew McCutcheon, by the way, on the list and looking to extend his career, I guess. And he was talking about possibly going to the Mets. I don't know if he wants to get a lot of at bats, but those kinds of guys, along with even Jose Iglesias, who did it for the Mets, you know, they add to the clubhouse in a way that might make them a different kind of selection than some of the other guys on the list. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, some of them, I think, you know, bring that veteran presence and they've got, you know, a good attitude.

⁓ So, but I think the biggest factor is what Gordon said, which was the injury replacement, ⁓ having these guys at the ready. And the same will be true for some of the pitchers, which I'll cover tomorrow. There's some good starting pitchers, Lucas G. Alito is still out there, I believe, and a few other good starters. A lot of the relievers have been signed. At the very beginning of free agency this year, I counted it up. There were over 100 free agent relievers on the market, and the vast majority of them have been signed by now. I mean, it's really quite something.

We've all witnessed the specialization of relief pitching over the past several decades, but there's just so many relievers out there. And I think there's probably something very interesting to do when you look at a lot of these guys, when you look, talk about a hundred of these relievers that signed the office, a lot of these guys probably got signed a very short term deals. And it would be interesting to see how many of these guys even finished the season with the team that they signed with this off season. Cause I bet a lot of these guys are going to pitch a few innings, get DFA.

and then just get picked up by another team. And some of these guys might end up pitching for three or four teams across the whole season this year. That's such a, mean, you're having guys pitch for multiple teams within the same season, back when guys used to pitch for the same team their entire career. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Definitely a trend that we've seen more and more of. And I've seen that a lot with guys recently. ⁓ It's a commoditization and we can get off on a tangent here, which we won't, but, I wonder if it's not just the way the MLB owners and what really want it to be.

that aside from the very top guys, everybody else is interchangeable and we don't, and that way we don't have to pay them long-term contracts. And if we don't like them, we can just cut them. And it's, it's an evolution that I would think the MLB Players Association isn't terribly fond of, but they got their own issues now, right? Because Tony Clark is out and they're going to go into a negotiation December 1st and we're not even sure who's going to lead the players union. Yeah. I saw a quote from Chris Bassett ⁓ who was saying, we don't want to rush the decision.

But nonetheless, he was suggesting them they might have a choice made by sometime next week. So I think the idea was let's not just pick someone in the next couple of days. But the thinking was they would get someone in that position to replace Tony Clark here pretty soon, at least from what Bassett said. And he must be the player rep from his club. Yeah, he is. is a matter of fact. And yeah, there was a guy named Bruce Meyer came up a couple of years ago and

He's negotiates on behalf of the players. He could be the head of the guy. Also former Minnesota twin Kevin slowie is the players union managing director of player services, longest title ever. ⁓ and certainly from the players perspective, they might want to have another player like Tony Clark was, lead the union. Yeah. Clark was the first player. Was he not? ⁓ I believe so. Yeah. Yeah. think so. Yeah. Yeah. So that was a change and, he's been in the position a long time. And, and I guess there's some recent controversies that are

come up around him. But ⁓ besides that, I think people respected his work up until maybe very recently. so yeah, I haven't heard anyone say pro or con having a former player ⁓ come in. We'll have to wait and see. Yeah, yeah. Another twin pitcher, ⁓ Pablo Lopez. First it was an elbow strain, and then the next day it was a UCL tear.

And I don't know about the two of you, but I seem to remember his name being bandied about in trade rumors, not all that long, along with Joe Ryan. And boy, whoever didn't pull the switch on that, Lopez. Yes, very happy. Yeah, they're very happy right now because he looks like out for the season and who knows how long in reality.

And that hurts the twins. Yeah, you're right. They had talked about trading him, Joe Ryan, even Buxton was rumored. I mean, they were going to do a complete rebuild. They chose not to do that. Now they still have Buxton and Ryan as the two mainstays. They've got a lot of players that were injured last year coming back. They hope to get more out of them. Royce Lewis and ⁓ some of the pitchers as well. Some of the pitchers just had off seasons like Bailey Ober and so on. yeah, they're...

The twins at this point, just saw MLB had an article sort of putting the different teams into tiers and the twins have now dropped into the bottom tier alongside the Rockies, White Sox, Angels, et cetera. I don't know about you guys, that's where I'd have them right now. Right, the only thing that probably if you're a twin fan that gives you so hope is that they've managed to come back from this and put together quality teams post that. that like you're looking at your Rocky fan right now where you're like, we're in the basement and I don't know when we're leaving.

Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah, certain teams always seem to, you know, somehow and being in either of the central division certainly helps. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, you know, certainly the the twins are they have a new manager and former pirate manager, right? Derek Shelton is there and I really like Derek Shelton in general and listen like listening to him. like I just feel like man go someplace where you have a chance. Hold on just a sec. I lost audio.

You there?

So yeah, anyway, I don't think, you know, Derek Shelton is going to be able to fix the twins. Not in one year, certainly. Let's also I wanted to mention and I just saw this today and you might write about it tomorrow, Tom. ⁓ Shrellenbach and Waldron ⁓ both go on the 60 day IELTS for the Braves.

⁓ and and i want to ask you know because i i i heard a couple of people picking the national league east today and we'll talk a little bit about you know about the divisions and they had the braves number was the films of the braves number one the phillies to in the next three ⁓ and i thought well you look at the braves you really think this is going to be a good turn it back around and be the juggernaut that they were a couple years ago

I mean, I think most people are saying they're going to be better than they were last year because they had so much bad luck last year. How could they not be not be better? I think a lot will ride on Spencer Strider. Are we going to get the Spencer Strider from his dominant years or the Spencer Strider we saw last year where you just see him and he just he doesn't seem like his old self at all. Right. He's good, but he's not Cy Young good anymore. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's the way it's feeling. So for me, a lot rides on that. ⁓ Yes.

Two people going on the 60 day. I Schwellenbach was going to be in the rotation. Waldron was going to be fighting for for time. So that's that's less of a loss. But yeah, I think the Braves will be up there fighting with with both the Mets and the Phillies. But I wouldn't have I wouldn't right now have put them even even without those losses of the pitchers. I wouldn't have put them number one necessarily. Yeah, yeah, that's kind of I felt when I heard that ⁓ I wanted to also mention that I saw that Mike Trout.

is going to move, I think you might have read this today, he's going to move back to center field for the angels. And it's been a long time since he played center field for the angels, I think since 2019. And as I recall, he was not very good in center field that year. He was below average. Yeah, he was below average that year. That's right. So putting him back out there, let's see, seven years later, you know, boy, I never know what the angels are thinking. It seems like an injury waiting to happen. You know, he seems to be somewhat bad luck, somewhat

I don't know what it is, but he's one of these guys like Buxton over the years or Stanton where it's just like around the corner is going to be an injury. ⁓ So yeah, Joe Posnanski wrote about that today. That was his sort of, he did a piece on one takeaway, one sort of line for each of the American league teams. And that's what he focused on for the angels today was trout in center field. Really? That's what they're doing. Okay. There's our solution. This is going to make the difference. ⁓ And the last news item before we talk, do a tour of the divisions.

And I thought this was really interesting. the MLB announced that broadcast won't know they won't have the box anymore on broadcast given the new ABS system. I don't think fans realize like how significant that's going to be because you've gotten so used to this thing and use it sort of as a crush. So because they're going to ABS and they're designing it to standardize the strike zone, they don't have the on speed.

Tritbis tracker and so you're going to have to go old fashioned and watch the pitches and try to determine what do you think it is and then see if the player challenges it or not. Yeah, I think we're all going to miss that. It'd be nice if there would be a way to have the new box if you will that would be used for the ABS. You know when they do have a. What's it going to be called? I guess a a challenge challenge. Yeah, the challenge system. ⁓

If they could display that instead, that'd be nice for everyone at home. We would know ahead of time more or less what the results are. But yeah, I think people are really gonna miss that. ⁓ I grew up without it, obviously. I think everyone on this call did. But ⁓ yeah, I think we're gonna miss that. I think the interesting thing to think about with AVS and the challenges is like the batters can challenge with just, know, touching their helmet. So who are these teams? You have to think about your team.

Who on your team is actually, who do you want to have the green light to challenge stuff? And who is going to be the player that as soon as you see them reaching for their helmet, you're going be like, no, he's going to blow the challenge. Cause I know there are some guys that like, if Jeff McNeil was still on the Mets, he would a hundred percent challenge bitches that were out of the strike zone. Cause he just wouldn't believe it was a strike. Yeah. And it's also, there's also the value of certain hitters and do they know their value? Do they know their place?

Is it important for you to challenge versus one of the stars in a tough situation later in the game to challenge? some egos are going to come into play here. Some people have really good eyes. Andrew McCutchen, we mentioned earlier, not yet signed with anyone. Super good plate discipline, super good eye. Carlos Santana was recently picked up and signed. Really good veteran eye. So I would trust them to do it. But they're late in their careers. Are they really the ones you want sort of wasting a challenge on in that bat?

from them that maybe isn't gonna be as consequential as one for your superstar. Right, like Juan Soto, when he comes up, if he wants to challenge a pitch, I'm gonna trust Juan Soto can challenge that. Mendoza gave him the green light yesterday. He can challenge any time he wants. Yeah, yeah, because he's got... Looking at Max Muncie, Max Muncie has a green light to challenge any pitch he wants because they're like, yeah, of course your catcher is gonna know what's a strike and what's not a strike and he's got one the best ties in baseball. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Juan Soto is the best of both worlds. High OBP, walks a lot.

great command of the strike zone and he's the best hitter superstar on the team. So you would want, you know, consequential at bats to be overturned for him. So, so let's, let's talk about that. We were talking about the Braves. We talked about the Mets, the national league East. I think everybody feels the same as one of those three teams will probably win the division injuries will play in. But what do you think the surprise that might come out of the national league East this year that we're not expecting?

Surprise, I mean the Marlins will continue to have good pitching even though they dealt away some. So I think there's some, know, they will have maybe even league average if not above average pitching a lot rides on Sandy Alcantara, but ⁓ who's been, you know, up and down lately. Yeah, I mean, I think I will be surprised if the order isn't those three at the top in some order or other. I don't think that any of them are going to.

surprised too much the upside, but I put them all around like 90 win teams, 88 to 90 wins, and it's going to be close. And maybe one of them won't make the playoffs. mean, with the wild card system the way it is, it could be a challenge because there's enough good teams in the other two divisions that ⁓ one of them might be sort of the odd man out. Yeah. And we didn't mention the Nationals, but by not mentioning, I think we all feel kind of the same way going. It seemed like they were making some progress last year, and then it didn't.

That's kind of right and at this point they've traded Mackenzie Gore away right now. They've got some good young players James Wood and CJ Abrams and so on. yeah, I think I don't don't see them in the right direction. Like they have some players they have some but what is that team's identity? Where are they going? And when you trade away guys like Mackenzie Gore, it sort of feels like you're going kind of back into a mini reset, which is weird for a team that was already young and trying to find its identity.

Yeah, for sure. The one thing I'll say about the Mets is early during the offseason here, I think they were getting a lot of criticism for not making enough moves or making a move, but one that didn't make sense. A lot of the fans were upset with Brandon Nimmo being traded for Semian, Marcus Semian. But then since then, they've come on really strong. They've added a huge number of players. They're right up there with the Orioles and a few other clubs would like making the most offseason moves total. ⁓ And so they've got a totally reformed bullpen.

Beau Bichette, Freddie Peralta, Luis Robert Jr., Semyon, ⁓ Polanco. One thing that'll be interesting is their infield's gonna be pretty shaky defensively, I think, because Bichette hasn't played third and Polanco hasn't played first. So that's gonna be interesting.

I think the Mets are right there, kind of like you were saying, they're in that group that's like right that 88 to 90 win, like low 90s win group. Like, I mean, if you're looking at who you think your elite teams in baseball this year are, you're probably saying it's the Dodgers, the Blue Jays, maybe depending on how bullish you are on the Mariters, you can put them up there in that category. And those are the teams I'm looking at that I could say like, yeah, they'll probably, they might get 95.

plus wins. I don't think there's a lot of other teams I would put up there at level of like a 95 plus win team. Yeah. And the interesting thing is last year, everyone was saying the Dodgers are for sure going to be a 100 win team. No one won 100 wins last year. The Brewers actually had the most wins of all the teams, more than the Dodgers. This year, everyone's saying, again, the Dodgers are unstoppable. They've added so much. I think the Betty line out of Vegas is over 100 wins at this point. I think it was like 102 or 103.

But it didn't happen last year and we were saying the same thing. So it can be a tough thing to predict. And I think certainly the Dodgers at this point, they're probably looking at the regular season. We want to make sure we get to September with our guys healthy and ready for the postseason. As long as we get into the postseason, we're happy. We'll take an extra round off. But I think they're less concerned with regular season record than a lot of other teams.

Yeah, yeah. And they're even making moves right now. I know we were talking about the NL East, but they're making moves to bring in people that aren't even going to be ready for the start of the year. think Kike Fernandez is one. There's Evan Phillips is another. They're already thinking reload in July and August to get ready for the postseason because they know they'll have some injuries. I mean, they've had a history of injuries to their pitching, but every team has some injuries. so certain guys that are already signing now to be ready for that reload period.

I think that was something you were interesting pointing out with all of these how there's daily free agent signings every day in a lot of these free agents that are you're going to have guys that come on to your team and play meaningful baseball that will not be on the roster at the end of the season. There's big moves that are important that are made right now for a guy to come in and play maybe two important weeks in the middle of May and then he's gone and you're not going to remember him as a big part of the season at the end of the year. But that move was potentially integral to teams making the postseason and going on a run.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know what general managers get paid or people with the equivalent title, but that's why they get paid whatever they do get paid is because they have the foresight to think ahead for things like that. Who so in the NLS that we talked about the Dodgers, so I don't even know how you feel about this going. So who's second in that division? Because we all going to pick the Dodgers for first. That's that's pretty easy.

But you know, it's, it's, I've been thinking about it and it's not as obvious as it always is to me as to like, well, yeah, I think I know who it is. I'm not sure.

Yeah, Gordon, do you have a thought? personally feel like it is kind of obvious, like, that is still the pod. Like the Padres, at least to me on paper, have the most concrete claim. And the Giants are a team that I felt like they were a team when they were going well last year. I was looking at them being like, I don't understand how this is happening. Like it didn't make sense to me. And then they came back to reality and they didn't do the things this off season that would convince me that they're going to be wildly different this year. And Arizona.

I feel like they're team I want them to be good to more than they actually are good. I like all of the pieces. I like their players. I want them to be better than they actually are. when bringing back, because they brought back Zach Galen this off season, that's one of your bigger pitching moves on a rotation that was already kind of spotty. like, I don't understand how you're going to compete in again, another really high powered offensive division, because even if the Giants aren't great, the lineup should be better this year.

Yeah, they basically they basically have gotten the band back together on the rotation with both gallon and Meryl Kelly coming back as well. Right. So I mean, you know, they've until Corbin Burns comes back, I think it would be a different story if Burns was ready to go opening day. Then we'd be talking about maybe they're the their team. But that just speaks to how close it is between the Diamondbacks, the Giants and the Padres. I am with you, Gordon. I do think that the Padres and I wouldn't have said this two weeks ago, actually. But they have made so many moves recently.

They signed up Nick Castellanos, who even with whatever issues he had in Philadelphia, I think, you know, that he's a bat and he can play first base D.H. He can be a subpar defensive outfielder perhaps, but relieve people as needed. They brought in Miguel Andahar, who has had some great seasons in the past and had a really good statistical half season last year. ⁓ And then they brought in just a flurry of veteran pitchers. They've signed Griffin Canning, Hermann Marquez, Walker Bueller, Tristan McKenzie.

I mean, all these guys, and they only need two of them to fill the number four and number five spots, because they've got their front of their rotation is set. Michael King, Nick Pavetta, and Joe Musgrove. I mean, they've got, you know, I think if two of those other guys can come through as pitchers, and they already had JP Sears and Vasquez and some others that would compete for it, you know, they could have a pretty solid rotation with some depth. ⁓ And then with Castellanos being added to the lineup,

Tatis and Machado and Merrill. mean, I think they're a definite number two right now. They signed Ty France, I thought, you laugh, but Defense. Somehow he won a gold glove last year, by the way. That's right. Spread between two teams. So in New York, you know, we've got first base issues for we-met fans. And I thought for what the Padres did to get Ty France, I really don't understand why neither the Mets nor the Yankees, for that matter, said, let's just be sure we got insurance here.

Yeah, they tied tie France who if he's if he makes the team will be, you know, the defensive replacement at first base at the very least. ⁓ And Castellanos, I mean, talk about getting a deal. The Phillies are going to be paying almost all of his 20 million dollar salary from what I understand. The Padres just have to pick up the league minimum, which is good money for people like the three of us. But it's it's only eight hundred thousand dollars, which I mean, if Castellanos can hit 20 homers and have 70 RBI or something, that's a great deal. That's a bargain.

How about and we'll say the central for last ⁓ and in the American League East, Baltimore did a lot of things, but did anybody do enough to supplant Toronto? Yeah, I mean, I think Toronto has got to be considered the front runners there. The Yankees basically brought back other than the two relievers they lost. They sort of mostly focused on bringing back the guys they had last year, so they'll still be there too. Could be a wild card, could win the division if the Blue Jays have some issues, but.

I do think the Blue Jays have to be considered the front runners. The Dylan C signing came early during the postseason. Cody, what's the last name? Is it Ponce? Coming back from Japan, they're hoping that he can be a number five. They still have Jose Berrios too. So they basically have six starting pitchers ⁓ and they signed Okamoto who was like the number one Japanese slugger coming over, I think to play third base. so, yeah, yes, they lost Bo Bichette and they lost some other, you

pieces like Chris Bassett, who was great in the postseason. But ⁓ yeah, I think they're the number one. Yankees will be right there. The Red Sox though, let's not sleep on them because they a lot of A lot of pitching. I counted nine or 10 legitimate major league arms. If you include the two young guys, Peyton ⁓ and Connolly Early, if you count them as legit because of what they did last year in like limited time, I counted at least nine starting pitchers. So they've got a lot of depth and they've got a solid front three.

You just have to hope they're going to have enough hitting because they're the only starting lineup project in baseball right now to be projected without a 20 home run hitter. So they're going to be a team that doesn't have a lot of power. So if their pitching is not as good as it needs to be, they could really struggle if they're not able to score it. Again, right now going into spring training, I agree with what you just said. They've got a lot of bodies, though. So if they can figure out which ones are going to stick, they've got more than enough infielders. They've got a glut of outfielders.

So if they can figure out who the the ones that deserve to start at each position are gonna be and if those guys can come through then they'll be in good shape if everyone is just kind of mediocre and so so and then having a lot of depth doesn't really help you so They could be playing mix-and-match lineups for a long time trying to figure out who are the guys we actually want to put out there The biggest problem could be that division just you know, mean, the temp is gonna be okay

You know, they may not be the division winner, but they're going to be pesky and troublesome and bothersome. So you've got the Orioles will be better, which I guess that's only because they couldn't be much worse. Yeah. Orioles are like the Braves. They can't be worse than they were last year. And if any, know, they're going to have to be better. So, so it's just the beating up on each other when you have four teams that are capable makes it more difficult to get that.

extra wild card for instance and things that as opposed to when you have two stiffs in the division you know that that makes it little bit easier and that would be like the AL Central because you've got the White Sox and the Twins now and so the other three teams and they're there now that's the the AL Century is sort of the AL least in a lot of way when you think about those teams ⁓ but but what do you what do you guys think about that?

Yeah, I mean, the Guardians came on strong, just an amazing end of their season to catch up. But then in the offseason, they haven't done much. They brilliantly have signed Jose Ramirez to a long-term deal to lock him up, make him a Guardian forever. So that's great. ⁓ But in terms of bringing on talent around Jose Ramirez, they didn't do too much. ⁓ I think that the Tigers, on the other hand, are the team that I think has the best shot to win the division, because they've signed Framber Valdez, adding him to Scubal.

⁓ you know, they've lost Reese Olson, but I think they've got enough pitching. They've got a solid five going into spring training. ⁓ they've got Kenley Jansen. I think they have three potential closers now, if I remember correctly. So, yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, they've got strong eighth and ninth inning wrapped up strong starting pitching. ⁓ they still got some young guys that you don't know what you're going to get out of them on the hitting side. ⁓ Torkelson year to year, you don't know what you're going to see. ⁓ I think Riley Green is legit now.

But yeah, we'll see. I think given the division that it is, I think the Tigers are definitely the front runners. Right. And I think they're the front runner and it's not close. Maybe the Royals can come in and put up a plucky challenge for second against the Guardians. But I think they're both going to be chasing the Tigers for the majority of the year. I've got a lot of friends in Minnesota. My mom comes from the Twin Cities. I've got a lot of family there, but I'm going to

put out a prediction that I think there's a legit chance that the twins come in last below the White Sox. Because the White Sox are, you know, they're bouncing off their horrific season from what was it, two years ago. And you know, they're gonna inch up. The White Sox aren't gonna make the playoffs this year, let's not go crazy. But you know, they're probably gonna come in fourth. But I could see them beating out the twins. And the Royals did bring in the fences 10 feet.

Right? So the problem for the Royals might be that their pitchers might not like that so much. Well, yeah, it's like the situation for the Rockies all those years back when it was home run heaven, right? The hitters loved it, but the pitchers not so much. was a death knell for your career to be a Rocky starter back then. Still kind of is. And then out in the West, you know, you...

You have Seattle and you might look at Seattle in the same way you do the Tigers and maybe the Blue Jays. Like it's their division to lose because when you try to pick out, okay, well, who's going to give them a run for the money? I guess you might have a conclusion, but I'm not as sure as I usually am that the Astros are the second place team necessarily in that division. If you're to go with the Mariners first.

So I do like the Mariners first. I do still like the Astros second just because they've got the leadership from guys like Altube and Correa, leave aside the controversies from years ago with them, you know, in terms of their veteran ⁓ presence on the team now. I like the bringing back of Joey Lopofito from the Blue Jays. I think that was a good move back to have him back with the Astros. But the main thing for me with the Astros is they're pitching again. I love teams that go into spring training with like the Red Sox have.

like eight, nine, 10 arms. Now some of the Asgros ones are coming off of injuries and they're coming off big question marks. Arigati, ⁓ Lance McCullers is one of these people that seems to be always injured like Trill and Stanton and stuff. But they're talented ⁓ and they traded to my Pirates and got Mike Burroughs. I'm a big Burroughs fan. They signed, I don't know how you pronounce the last name, Tatsuya Imai from Japan, right? Yeah, Imai.

So I mean, they've got, know, they're going to have five good starters and probably a sixth and a seventh for depth coming out of spring training. ⁓ so that's why I like them for second, ⁓ over the A's, the athletics. I don't think the pitching is nearly strong enough. Like people are counting on Jeffrey Springs and Luis Severino to have that be your one, two punch. And then who knows after that, I, I'm not a big fan. The offense is great.

In terms of lopsidedness hitting versus pitching, the athletics might win that this year. Yeah, I think we agree, too. They've got a team. look up and down the A's lineup and you're like, wow, you know, there's a lot of guys I'd like to have. are good. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So let's let's finish up with the National League Central and we'll talk about the Pirates in the context of the changes they made this year and where you see them from the

Where they were and sort of you know how the fans feel about the team today? Yeah, so the fans are very excited. I've been I'm personally I'm a Pirates fan so a little bit of backstory I became a Pirates fan in 1979 when they won the World Series with the we are family Willie star Joe led Pirates with the hats with the stars and everything I've been a fan ever since that was a fateful decision for me as a six year old To pick the Pirates as my team because of course it's been pretty problematic ever since I live in Rochester, New York

So I'm about four hours away from Toronto to a whole nother country, five hours away from Cleveland, from Pittsburgh, six hours away from the Yankees and Mets. So while we have a lot of Yankees and Mets fans in my area, just cause I'm in New York state, there's a lot of people that are fans of all these other teams. So I've been a Pirates fan a long time and I definitely pay more attention to them than any other club. Like you said, they've made a lot of changes this year. They were last, last year in runs per game.

lower than even the Rockies. I mean, people need to really grasp that they scored less runs in the Rockies and they had by far the fewest home runs of any team. We've talked about that. I mean, it's just pathetic that what their offense was. Obviously everyone's excited about the pitching Paul skeens at the top, but also other young pitchers that they have. Mitch Keller is a solid three, four or five guy. Probably start the year as their number two, but I think very quickly, Bubba Chandler will become the number two.

I think when Jared Jones comes back, assuming he can be what he was during his rookie season, he's a legit number three. They've got Braxton Ashcraft. They've got a young guy, Hunter Barco, who doesn't have much major league experience yet, but a lot of the fans of the team are excited to see him make the rotation, not out of ⁓ spring training necessarily, but maybe by the end of the year, he'll be in there. They signed Jose Rukiti from the Astros. He's going to be sort of the stopgap number five starter, I think, until

until Jared Jones comes back. ⁓ They've got a fairly good bullpen with Santana and they signed Gregory Soto. I think they've got enough there. And then on the offense side, which is where I was starting, they really needed to make changes. And I was disappointed until just recently when they signed Marcel Ozuna. I wanted them to get one more bad in there. I think Ozuna is going to have a good bounce back season. He wasn't horrible last year, actually. He walked at a high rate. His OBP was solid.

⁓ He had less home runs than usual, but I think he'll be a good clean-up guy in the DH slot. They signed Ryan O'Hearn, Brandon Lau, to play second base. ⁓ And you just have to hope for comebacks from O'Neil Cruz, who was atrocious offensively last year, Brian Reynolds, who I think had a subpar year as well. Spencer Horowitz only played part of the season. I think if those guys get into a lot of ifs, I'll grant that, I'm a fan.

But if those guys can bounce back, if the pitching can be what I know it's capable of being, I think you could see them coming in second and fighting for a wild card. Some people are saying they have a chance to win the division. A lot of that would depend on how the Reds do, how the Brewers do, how these other clubs pan on There's that Cubs team too. They're okay. Yeah, the Cubs have made some major changes bringing in Bregman, but they lost Tucker. mean, there's some...

trade-offs there from what the Cubs have done. Most people would probably pick the Cubs to be the front runner in the NL Central at this point with the pesky Brewers maybe coming second. And then maybe some would say, yeah, the Pirates might be third. know, it's- or Reds, think. Pirates or Reds. Yeah. The Cardinals are clearly rebuilding. So. I think both the Pirates and the Reds look at themselves and saying, Hey, there's no reason we can't be, you know, we can't finish second in the division this year and maybe challenge for first place if everything breaks our way. Like, I think that's kind of how they're like, I think it's hard.

Because especially given that the Brewers won, I believe, 98 games last year and had the best record in baseball, it's hard to jump yourself to being like, oh yeah, obviously we're going to jump to that level. But I think it's totally reasonable for the Pirates to be thinking of themselves with that rotation and the improved lineup as, we're a team that should be challenging for a wild card spot this year. Yeah, could we win 85 to 88 games and sneak in with the last wild card spot? I think that's a totally legitimate goal.

That should be their expectations for themselves and not a best case scenario. I think otherwise in terms of what's up with that, in terms of the pitching, they have one of the better staffs in the National League. So as long as they're hitting improves. And we were talking about this in our last podcast that PNC Park was like the hardest home park to hit home runs in by stat cast last year. It was like by far the hardest park.

But in part of that, that was a combination of the Pirates pitchers are really good, so it's hard to home runs there. And the Pirates light up was not particularly good. We got half a lot of power. So they didn't hit a lot of home runs there. So was like a combo effect. Yeah, that's a big asterisk there. I will predict one thing. The Pirates will not be last in runs per game this year. They will not be last in home runs this year. They might only be middle of the pack in both those categories, if that.

The pitching will be above average as it was last year for sure. And they will lead all of baseball in one thing. And that will be the most players names misspelled. And that's because they already had Carmen Majinsky that spelled ⁓ L O D something, something, something. And then they've signed the password. ⁓ you know, Joe's Tinson Garcia, and which is an impossible spelling first name. So they will have the most spelled names for the season for sure. That's great.

I love that. ⁓ So Tom, tell us what else beyond doing the daily thing, what are you working on? What else can we look for from you? Yeah, so I mean my number one thing is continuing to write every single day. I want to see how long I can keep the streak going. I'm sure it'll get busted at some point and then I'll rebound and start a new streak. But yeah, the baseball buffet every single day you sign up. It's a free newsletter. ⁓

⁓ I'm going to start making aspects of it be a paid tier this season. I'm looking to get some sponsors and advertisers for it as well as a secondary way to get some revenue from this. My long-term goals are to focus more and more on my baseball writing and not have it be a side gig. ⁓ I will be doing an update. People always ask me this, the book that you see over that shoulder. Now taking the field, that was my book that...

published in 2019, All Time Dream Teams for all 30 franchises. You can see by the spine that it's a pretty beefy book, 600 plus pages. I will be doing a second edition of that at some point. That will not happen this year. But what I anticipate doing is putting out eBooks, one for each team, chapter by chapter as updates. Because things have changed since the 2018 season, which was the final one that went into the first edition.

So going to put them out as eBooks over time and then bring them all together in a second edition. So I'll be working on that. I might start doing some of those eBooks this year, team by team. So. Well, we can help it all, particularly when it comes to the Mets, because, you know, we're kind of like fans ⁓ to a crazy degree of that team and no, you've been following that team since they were just after they were born. Well, you your, your daily. ⁓

baseball buffet is fantastic. I highly recommend everybody and take a look at it before it goes behind a paywall because then you'll be hooked and when he does, you know, start charging for it, you'll have to do it because it's just, it's worth it. You want to start your baseball day reading this thing because that's all you need to know. Yeah, that's, that's been what I did. I was going to start charging for it during the season last year, but I, didn't want to focus on the rigmarole of setting all that up. I wanted to focus on getting the content out each day. And so I've continued to do that through the off season, but it,

You know, the full edition is going to go behind a paywall. But at this point, I have 10,000 free subscribers and a good percentage of those are going to want to keep up their baseball buffet habit and become paid subscribers. So that's fantastic time. Well, it's been great talking with you. We're fans, as you know, and hopefully have a chance to talk to you again about another project or some of the stuff going on, because I think you got a lot to offer. Well, thanks so much, guys. This has been a lot of fun and baseball games start in two days. Spring training. So.