The Big Boring Off-Season, World Baseball Classic Rosters, HOF voting so far - Ep. 642 - 12.29.25

The hot stove has cooled off. The deals have stopped coming through as we approach the new year, but the world baseball classic is fast approaching as our new ballot of Hall of Famers are now being voted on. It might be a new year, but it's the same this week in baseball. I think we were all hoping for a more exciting sort of beginning to our off season. Then we've got it. I guess last year with Soto siding so early on into it that sort of set the tone, but

a lot of the biggest names are still out there for free agency or maybe that's just I'm saying that because Mets have the Mets haven't signed anyone. I think you're right on both counts actually and I and I think that you're what you're alluding to is kind of what I'm feeling is so Bellinger and Bregman and Tucker right? are the three big all the big hitters are still on the market. And I think it's clogging up the trade market if there were going to be trades because you don't know if you're going to sign a free agent. Do you make the trade? So I think everything is kind of stuck right now.

I think so, but at the same time I feel like the teams there can't be that many teams that are convinced they're going to be signing these guys No, but the teams with money if they make that move will they make a big trade and like well Let's say the Mets make one of the deals or a couple of deals for these guys ha ha And then so would they be interested in trading for a kettel Marte?

and taking on that salary in addition if they've already spent. I don't think they should be interested in trading for Ketelbeinteg regardless. don't think so either. It doesn't make any sense. OK, we're going to go trade Brendan Nimmo to go bring in Marcus Simeon and then we're going to go trade in other people to bring in Another second baseman? Why would you do that? That doesn't make any sense. You know, I went back in his record, by the way, looking at Marte going, well, maybe he played first base.

never played for space. So what are they thinking? That is right there, everyone. That is peak met fan delusion where we are willing to believe anybody can be a first baseman. Well, he can play third. No, he doesn't play third. No, he's a second baseman. Right. So, yeah, so I think it is clogging up the the arteries of the day, the trade deals. Obviously, that doesn't mean no deals were made. Murakami signed with the White Sox, kind of surprising everyone, but he took a short year deal when everybody else was trying to give him longer term deals. So.

Almost Cooperstown (02:07.947)
I give the White Sox. did some good for the White Sox. Good for him. He's got a chance to really prove himself over the next couple of years in the major leagues. He's playing for a team that has absolutely no reason to not play him for at least two of those years. He would have to be truly bad to not get the majority of the playing time on that contract. And you got the Red Sox made their move. They trade with the Cardinals again. Now, I think this is one of those situations where I'm bloom.

Nobody knows the Red Sox pharmacist are better than him. So, you know, if you're gonna have a trading partner as a GM, you're gonna want to be a bunch of guys you have intimate knowledge of. Well, here's my thought, you know, and we've looked at Tristan Casas of the Red Sox who was injured last year. And he's a first baseman and you're ostensibly bringing Contreras and I think to play for his base in D8.

So that tells me a little bit maybe about what the Red Sox are thinking about. I think that tells you why MET fans should not be talking about, maybe you should go trade for him. Right. Right. The Red Sox are looking to move on from improvement solutions. the guy do? He got injured. know, why is that? Well, it's something we will talk about later in this podcast that he does. Well, in this case, not do, which is play defense. Yeah. And that's a big part of what you're seeing with a lot of these off And Contreras is a pretty good defensive for his base, even though he's recent to the position having been a catcher before that.

Jeff McNeil, who provides defensive versatility by playing lots of positions. Note the lack of a descriptor on that. He just plays lots of them. He goes to the athletics and he will provide a veteran. I won't say leadership presence in the clubhouse. I can't. You he will physically be there. That is a veteran presence. You know, McNeil, he'll get great this year. He'll be fine there. And the Mets had to get rid of him enough that they ate six million dollars of his contract.

in order to do that. yeah, so there like we said all the there are a lot of met fans that love Jeff McNeil. I am I used to be one of them now. Now I wish him the best in Oakland. And I think he'll probably end up having a great offensive season since it's a great ballpark for hitters. No, we didn't talk about pitching and Rambo Valdez is still out there and floating around. And he is probably the best pitcher, especially because basically all the relievers are off the market now with Pete Fairbanks going to the Marlins. If you're looking for

Almost Cooperstown (04:22.157)
top end reliever help. It is an out there for now. You got to trade for it at this point now. I mean, that kind of makes you as a med fan. You're like, oh wow, we didn't get anybody. It's like you did get Devon Williams. You kind of forget that just because you signed up so big and all jokes aside, the guy does have elite stats. It's just people kind of I think met fans are as equally brain broken.

by the Pete Alonzo homerun on Devin Williams as Devin Williams might have been. That like we think of him as a worse pitcher than he actually is. But I also think, you know, you can look at Devin Williams on the Mets and say, OK, they did that. It still feels like that bullpen is a couple of pitchers short of being something you would need to worry about. That bullpen is a couple of pitchers short. But that's the same as you have Edwin Diaz at the back of that. Or if you have Devin Williams. That is true. So, yeah, the.

you know, the relievers and when Fairbanks went off the board, went, OK, well, that's all the relievers. We've gone through them all. You know, right now, now you're on, least in terms of people, you really know there's big name recognition. There might be some guys floating around out there that are like, well, if you talk about the advanced stats, he's amazing. We're still talking about the trade potentially of Tarek Scoobal that that will not die down from a baseball fan perspective, by the way.

I'd love to see the Tigers go one more year with Scoobal and try to, you know, try to win, you know, next year at the same time, him leaving and them getting nothing for it afterwards. Just like franchise suicide. Yeah, that's bad. So I would tend if I had to lean one way there, I'd say it's more likely that he gets traded than he does it now. That's kind of where I feel the nightmare status is that the nightmare situation for the Tigers is that they go they're approaching the trade deadline and they're just in the playoff picture.

where they're like, God, do we keep them and go for the playoff push and pray we make it? And then if we don't make it, God, he's definitely leaving and then we might've traded more reason. This is just an absolutely killer year if you're the Detroit Tigers and it is an unenviable position because of the financial situation you're in, which I'd imagine basically any team would feel. If the Mets had Tarex Gubel, if the Dodgers had Tarex Gubel, if you had this guy,

Almost Cooperstown (06:33.197)
on your team right now, yeah I would feel great, but you would be scared to death of losing him in the off season. Well what if it was even worse maybe I think would be, let's say the Tigers have a 10 game lead. It's the trading deadline. And they don't. And like okay we're gonna ride with Scoobble and all that. That's what I was gonna say, they're just in the playoff picture, they're the first wild They're by far the best team, because you know what, we have enough to make it without them.

OK, no. There is a line between pragmatic and delusion. And I think you've stepped firmly into the territory of delusion. by the way, you won't get as much for Scoobal if you trade him with a trading deadline, which is why they're talking about doing it now. Right. You know, so that's that's kind of a big part of it. And he's in full health. So I just for some reason think that that is not going to die down until he goes out there with a tiger uniform on opening day and pitches for the time. And then it'll shut up until we approach the trade.

trading deadline. Yes. The Nationals, you know, the big interesting thing about them is that like they've gone super millennial. They're hoping to change, you know, their whole front office is now under the age of like 36. For the most part, they're very young, which who knows how that will go. You know, they've got, you know, a team manager that's 33.

They've got Paul DeBonis, 35. You know, he's the boss. The new GM is 31. So you've got a really, really young team owner, you know, management group. And that was a team that had a very disappointing 20, 25, you know, from my perspective, I expected them to be a team that challenged for third place in the NL East. And they were definitely ran out of gas. They were the worst team in the NL East by a pretty big margin. And, you know, as much as CJ Abrams and

James would are nice players. James would strikes out just such an unbelievable amount. And you know, despite his good average and he hits, you know, it's just tough because neither one of those guys is like, well, they would have to make the leap into the stratosphere of player. You just can't predict a guy is taking the leap into you can't predict.

Almost Cooperstown (08:40.443)
yeah. Well, if when James would just becomes Aaron judge this season, I was like, OK, no, that just doesn't happen. You can't predict that. You're hoping Dylan Cruz becomes the guy they drafted number two. Right. Right. They need jeans and that he's that way. Not only do they have a lineup that didn't score a ton of runs last year, they did. Their pitching was just dreadful. Except for Mackenzie Gore for a half a season. Right. Right. Jake Irvin, who, you know, didn't have a good year last year. Right. Right. I like that. Right. Right. But, know, he's one of those guys that I think a couple of good starts against the Mets have tricked you into thinking.

That happens to me all the time, by the way. A guy comes out and kicks your bike like, bring me that guy. Right. You're like, that guy's looks amazing. And then you only realize, wait a second. oh, he just had to really easy with pitchers for that to happen because you don't see you might see only two starts from him. And it's like, well, I this guy pitch twice and he looked amazing. How do I not think he looks good? But I think that that's an interesting thing for that team going into a twenty twenty six where, you know, you don't have expectations, but you have expectations you need like bleep utera.

can't have no progress. think that if you're a complete bottom of the barrel, dead last in the analyst again. I mean, it's unreasonable to expect that, but you also kind of have to expect more than that. Well, and the analyst, if the Marlins don't trade the pitchers, Alcantara, Alcantara and Edward Cabrera and

We have no reason, especially with the signing of Fairbanks, to think they're going to do right. So they're going to be competitive. And that'll make it just that much harder for the for the Nationals because the Braves are better. The Phillies are still the Phillies. But if we go off of the Marlins sort of, you know, cycle right here, they had the surprising season last year like they did a couple of years ago. Everybody was like, the Marlins, they made the playoffs when they had that. They were unbelievable in one run games. And then they stunk the next. Well, we'll see what Clayton McCullough can do is in there. He'll be their second year manager and.

He did some strange things this year, but he some learning pains. But but that team playing well, so I got to give him there was learning. Yeah. Yeah. Over there. I noticed a data point from the 25 season that struck me this week, and that was that the 2025 season had the lowest amount of errors per game in the history of Major League Baseball. Well, that should be like a bigger deal, right? Like, you know, but except that we already kind of know that fielding is.

Almost Cooperstown (10:54.913)
better and if not the best it's ever been just innately wouldn't wouldn't also the three true outcomes have a huge impact on that as well. Just because I think like so many to make as many plays as so many more of the guys are striking out. Right. So many more of the guys are flying out and popping up. But there's just less plays in the field of play over the course of a game. And there's balls that, you know, balls that were hits.

that would maybe get judged errors, guys aren't trying to get those, they're trying to just hit the ball over the fence. Well, I'll do you maybe one more than that and say, okay, I'm gonna go out on a limb without checking the data on this, that exit velocities are higher than they were 50 years ago on average. I would take that guess, and that's something that we know that we don't have the data for. We don't have the data on that kind of stuff. So if the ball is hitting harder when it gets past somebody, it's not an error because it was hit so hard, you're gonna give the guy a hit. The benefit of the doubt. It's not an

error per se whereas before if it wasn't hit as hard and the guy kind of made a play on it and booted it you might have given it an error. No this is also guys are getting better on defense every year prior to 2001 the error rate per game was at 0.7 so 20 % you know it was a total of 20 % higher before 1987 was 0.8 so you had a lot more errors that were taking place back in the day but

I don't think it's entirely just like the the fielders are that much better than they used to be. But I also think the advanced analytics and you see every single player now has a little card in the back pocket. And for every day that comes right where I'm supposed to stand for this guy in this situation. Right. How does he hit it? And darn if the ball doesn't go right where the guy is standing like they have an idea of where the ball's going based on the historical analysis on the situation on the pitcher, everything. So chances are that they're

better positioned on average than they used to be as well. And that scouting is going to be huge. And I think it's going to be really interesting because that's actually a disadvantage. I think that the American team has in the world baseball classic coming up is that you've got a lot more publicly available footage for all your hitters than you do for all these guys on the other teams. That's true. Although I guess most of the guys that play in the WBC, some of them are maybe not MLB stars when they're playing for other countries necessarily to fill out a roster. Right.

Almost Cooperstown (13:05.453)
Right, but there's got to be guys on the Japanese or elsewhere, unless you're going through and you're trawling MVP footage, you're not going to be able to get. Somebody's going to get on that. Mark DeRosa. Right. Go, to the Korean baseball, the KBL and start having to pull, you know, footage on all the Korean guys in their lineup, because there's going be people you don't know. And, and, but, but the world baseball classic is coming up. think everybody, given how much fun it was last time.

it's clearly become something that not only we as fans look forward to, but the players look forward to. And representing their country in this competition has become a thing because the US roster, which was announced over the week, is loaded. Right, right. The picture, the dearth of pictures we had last year is not an issue this year when we've got skeins and scoob hole.

starting at the top of that. That's that's a one to punch that you could only dream of. It's interesting to say that because the first pictures that I saw that went out there were from the Mets and that's Clay Holmes and Nolan McLean. And we had this conversation. All fair. We'll have it again. And for the standpoint of I was like, two of my pitchers are going to pitch the WVC. Does that make my likelihood of one of them getting injured that much greater than if they just were at spring training? Because they're going to be out there trying really hard to get guys out in more situations. Totally worth.

I mean, I'm sorry. Like, I would much rather watch my good pitchers competing in the world baseball classic, making it an exciting like competition than having them sit on the sideline because they might get hurt. Because let's look at it this way. The only way Edwin Diaz got hurt was on a freak injury that could have happened. to do with his pitching. We've not seen any guys somehow come out of this worse for wear and struggle more because of the WBC. Nobody said that. Not that I think anybody would ever say that. But I think that also

I'm not too worried about either one of those guys pitching the majority of innings, because Nolan McClane's like gonna be like the fifth starter on this And so when they brought in, that's the point, they brought in Scubal and Skeens, I thought, okay, so although anybody who pitches that thing, they don't pitch a lot of innings in general in that And you know what, it'll be really fun as a Met fan to watch Nolan McClane go out there and pitch against the rest of the world. I am-

Almost Cooperstown (15:08.493)
I am 100 % more excited to watch it for that reason and that reason alone. I don't think anybody like David Stearns or in the Met organization, for instance, would have a problem with their young rising picture star watching skeins and scuba work in these situations to try to learn from, like, oh, these guys are already doing it. Get these guys' experience in high leverage, you know, intense situations. It's completely worth it. And any risk of injury is 100 % worth the risk.

because I want to have this competition because baseball is better for having it. Look at the interest in the worldwide attention that it gathered last time. And for us to pass up on that because, like, well, my players might get hurt is just. So here are the players. then this isn't an all star team. Basically, Corbin Carroll, Pete Crow Armstrong, Gunnar Henderson, Clay Holmes, Aaron Judge, Nolan McClain, Mason Miller, Cal Raleigh, Joe Ryan, Kyle Schwab or Paul schemes, Tarik Scuba, Will Smith of the Dodgers.

Bryce Terang, Logan Webb, and Bobby Witt Jr. That is a loaded roster. Every roster coming in this year is loaded. think a lot of teams were annoyed. Marth Yantos is going to play for Nicaragua. Nicaragua is not one of the two. The Dominican team is stacked. The Puerto Rican team is stacked. always are. Venezuela is tough team. And I think those teams are annoyed that Japan won a couple of years ago because everybody thinks of themselves as the best. And so for Japan to come in and win, now all the other teams want to come back this year.

and show no, no, no, we're really the best. I expect an even more intense. I think what's going to be great is the competition's only going to get more and more intense because the players are taking it seriously because one of the things that especially we as fans of Major League Baseball don't consider is the players might care about what team wins the MLB.

You know, they want their team to win it, but they care about who wins the World Baseball. They might care about that more the same way a lot of a lot of soccer players or is the rest of football. Right. They might love their club team, but winning the World Cup is what matters. Well, and now as we as we dropped us on Monday, the 29th opening day opening day, the World Baseball Classic is a little over two months away.

Almost Cooperstown (17:14.889)
and pitchers and catchers are gonna report in about 45 days. So we're really getting close to the fact that we're actually gonna have We've actually got a nice little lineup because leading into that we're going to get the announcement of the Hall of Fame class coming up here like a little bit before the start of spring training and in the World Baseball Classic. And as you were saying before the podcast, if you go and you read Ryan Thibodeau's, you know.

Baseball stuff in terms of the Hall of Fame voting you can start to see the different people the votes coming in and seeing people's actual ballots They take a picture they put the ballot up, and I've complimented a couple of ballots There are some very strange ballots so far what I'm seeing is this trending you know obviously you got a lot of guys on the ballot this year There's there's nobody that's really a slam dunk first year Hall of Fame ballot guy It's a pretty weak incoming class. I'd so cold cold. Hamill's is probably

the guy with the best shot and in terms of staying on the ballot. Right. I'll do you one better. He's really the only guy that has a shot, I'd say, in general, like Ryan Braun. If none of the other steroid guys have gotten in, he's got zero percent chance. agree with you. And none of the other players that are on this list. If I started reading out these names, you'd be like, wow, I didn't know he was Hall of Fame eligible. Well, that's only because they've waited the five years after and they played 10 years and they still have to be.

voted to be put on there i would not like the but you know that mark a kiss i mean come on and matt kemp daniel murphy hunter pence and i'm sorry budget rector pence got a

Rick Purcell, somebody voted for Hunter Pence for the Hall of Fame. Rick Purcell got a Gio Gonzalez. Yeah, I'm sorry. No, not a lot. So in Karnes, might be the better, better of the players that leaves us a lot of guys from what we've seen so far. None of the steroid guys that are still kind of lingering around on the ballot are getting really any any love. A Rod still isn't doing it. So it looks like that's holding Carlos Beltran was the guy that was closest last year. Will this be the year he kind of gets over? He only needed five percent.

Almost Cooperstown (19:10.413)
When you're that kind of margins, it's really tough to tell this early on. The guy that's got the biggest increase so far is Felix Hernandez. He's the guy that's seen the biggest jump in return in terms of early voting. So maybe he'd be a guy that suddenly creeps up out of nowhere and manages to get in. But I think if you're not named Carlos Beltran or maybe Andrew Jones, I don't think you're getting in this year. I think you've got the two guys that I would I would say are most likely to, you know, if they're going to get in, it's going to be those guys.

Chase Utley is kind of a polarizing choice, right? The best thing for Utley that's going to happen is that this is Andrew Jones last year on the ballot. And if Beltran gets in, I don't know who's coming in in next year's class. But there's not a lot of guys that are going to be on the ballot then next year. So it might be the kind of situation where the Hall of Fame committee not wanting to have an empty year.

Utley is the kind of guy that gets a bump in a year like that. We're going to have Daniel Brown, who is both an editor and a writer at The Athletic join us again after the Hall of Fame votes are announced on January 20th. So it'll drop a few days after that. And we have to ask him about next year's ballot and how much.

the that a guy is going to be on the ballot next year. Does that influence your vote? you thinking? you voting? I better vote for him now because I'm not going to get it. I think we've asked him about how strategic they are with what he is with their votes. And I think he said, you know, as much as that, you know, it kind of depends on the guy. do think about it, but it depends on the voter as much as well. Yeah, I think Bobby Abreu is getting a little support here, but he has to go so far. And it's tough when you're a guy that's not loved by your own fan base.

Philly fans don't really love Bobby Abreu because they weren't great while he was there and he's not a fiery personality guy. So just don't think he fit the film. His stats when you look at him, you're man, they're really good. Right. Right. I was a really great ballplayer. And why do we not think of him that way? Because he wasn't a guy that seemed from whatever it seen from Philly fans. was a guy that didn't seem that bother that they were a crappy team and that drove them nuts. Like.

Almost Cooperstown (21:09.963)
Like he didn't have the you know how Harper is such a fiery, intense guy. Bobby Abreu was Carlos Beltran. Yeah. Come to work. Do my job. Yes, I want to win. Do my job. Right. And that drove Philly fans nuts. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't don't like I said, I don't think anybody else is really, you know, going to kind of come out of the woodwork to to to challenge these guys. I saw David Wright is getting a little support, which is nice to see. But every time I think about how far guys like that have to come. OK, you get a few more votes. You get.

three extra ballots or four extra ballots, that takes you to 11 % or 15%. I'm very curious to see what happens with Hernandez this year, because he's had such a crazy early jump in voting that even if he doesn't get there, seeing a guy go from like 11-ish percent to 60 % is like, OK, what suddenly changed with a bunch of people's opinions? And I did review of Seattle Mariners starting pitching recently, all time. And I ranked Felix Hernandez above Randy Johnson on the Mariners.

right, because you're not because so much of the Randy was great with the Mariners and he was pitched a long time. But then he went into Arizona and he was otherworldly. Right. But when you look at his stats in Arizona, so much of the picture, you remember him as being this otherworldly dominant pitcher was from his time in Arizona.

He had the talent while he was in Seattle, but there were periods of time where it was inconsistent. And I just gave it to Hernandez as far as Seattle's concerned, just in case I need to explain myself. He pitched 15 years. He was Mr. Mariner. Yeah. So I kind of it was it was not easy. It was it was pretty close. that Randy Johnson could probably be the top pitcher for three teams. And, know, kind of looking at a guy that maybe a team wants to make a Mr. Pirate with.

But then Paul skeins, you the pirates, are they actually trying to do something this off season? You know, they go out and they trade for Brandon Lowe. That was the other big move. They now got Ryan O'Hern with a free agent deal. They've made some moves. I feel like if you really wanted to convince me, tell Tucker, right? Do one more thing. The problem I have is I think they signed Cabrera and Hayes to do they deal him, though? He's the reds. Right. What if they signed Bregman? Yeah, I like that, actually.

Almost Cooperstown (23:16.215)
They won't do it. They won't do it. But but that's that's the kind of thing where if you're that you're like, OK, well, we you know, if you're the pirates, you're like, God, we don't want to give Kyle Tucker this crazy deal. OK, well, you could give Alec Bregman. He's probably only looking for a four year deal. Yeah, well, that's would be the reason to consider it is if you could keep it short like that, because.

that would signal to the Pirates organization that, we're trying to win some games right now. And maybe that's not the final piece, obviously, of the puzzle. Right. He might not even be hey, we're serious. He might not even be part of the championship solution, but it's a signal to your team and your franchise that, hey, we're taking this seriously. And what you could argue is a weak. I don't know how to classify the NL Central. The Cubs, I think, are going to take a step back this year.

just because some of the guys are losing in free. I'm not going to say that about the Brewers because I said it every year. I'm wrong every year. And the Reds, I can't say that about them without sounding like a salty Met fan. But the red, you know, nobody expects anything from the Cardinals. So that would be the one team that I think we'd agree on. could dunk on. Right. And we want to expect things of the pirates. We just can't. No, no. And they're not going to sign Kyle Tucker. It's just not going to happen. It'd be fun if they did.