There's something new and over me. I want to remember everything. I cannot figure out what I'm meant by living all those ways I did.

Hello and welcome to episode 1934 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Vangrass, presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindbergh of the Ringer.

Meg Rallyh is off today, which is a reasonable thing to be. This is a holiday week. But I'm still trucking here and I figured that while Meg was away, I would take on a simple task and figure out how to fix Cody Balanchor.

By figuring out how to fix Cody Balanchor, I mean talk to some other people who might be able to figure out how to fix Cody Balanchor because I certainly don't know.

I brought together three of the fine minds of hitting Twitter and of the baseball blogosphere in general. People whose work I have admired and whose hitting analysis I have admired.

I have invited them on to try to diagnose what ails Cody Balanchor and how it could possibly be corrected. So first, I have Rob Orr who covers not just hitting, also pitching, also other aspects of baseball for baseball perspectives. Hello Rob.

Ben, how you doing? Doing well. And we also have with us Esteban Rivera, a fairly recent addition to fan graphs whose work I have been enjoying. Fan graphs contributor. So hello Esteban.

Hey Ben.

And we are also joined by Ryan Parker, formerly of baseball perspectives and more recently of the Los Angeles Angels for whom he was the coordinator of hitting analysis from 2019 to 2021.

Mike Trout and Chauhey O'Tani, everything they know. I guess he came in a little after that. And also they weren't in the minor leagues, but other than that. So Ryan, welcome to the podcast as well.

Happy to be here. Thanks for having me on it. And I apologize in advance for the background noise of a two-year-old and dog upstairs.

Yeah, that's okay. I appreciate all of you being here shortly before Thanksgiving with travel and family and who knows what else.

So we will make the best of that situation. So Cody Boundcher is a riddle is a cipher is an enigma and everyone wants to crack this puzzle.

It seems so. He was recently non-tendered by the Los Angeles Dodgers, which is historic, unprecedented. I think I don't think there's ever been an MVP who has been non-tendered during his arbitration years.

And that's partly a testament to the fact that Cody Boundcher was so good. So early that he is still in his arbitration years. Right. He came up in 2017. He hit 39 homers right out of the gate.

He was something of a sensation. That was his age 21 season. And then of course his age 23 season. He was something like an eight-win player, according to Fangress, where he was the National League MVP.

He had a 161 WRC plus 47 homers. Sky was the limit. Incredible career ahead of him. And then there was a decline in 2020. And then there was a steeper decline in 2021.

And there was a slight bounce back in 2022 that still left him a significantly below average bat. So put it all together. And he has hit since his MVP year in the three seasons since this is more than 1100 played appearances.

203 272 376. That is a 78 WRC plus. And according to Dan Symborsky, that is just the biggest decline really of this kind for anyone who ever had such a great offensive season so young over their subsequent three seasons.

So everyone's kind of confused about Cody Belinger. And the Dodgers have decided that they didn't want to pay him what he was in line to make an arbitration for 2023, something like $18 million. So he is now a free agent.

And the offers have flown in unsurprisingly because he is still young because he was good not that long ago that teams are talking themselves into. Maybe we can make this guy the Belinger he used to be. He's only 27 years old.

And of course, he's still a good defender and a good base runner. So he brings some value, even if he doesn't hit. But of course everyone is hoping that he will hit. And I'm sure he's hoping he will hit.

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