But whoever it is, they'll still be just a couple of baseball names.

They'll still be speaking statistically, rambling, romantically, pont pontificating pedantically banter and bodily

drafting discerningly giggling idly equaling

italy equally effectively while hello and Italy equaling effectively wild.

Hello and welcome to episode 2, 2011 of Effectively Wild,

a baseball podcast from fan graphs presented

by our Patreon supporters. I am Van Lienberg of the

ringer joined by Meg Rally of Vangrafts. Hello.

Hello. So Jeff Passen published a free agency preview at ESPN Plus.

Seems early for free agency previewing.

It's still August, but I guess that's when you do these things

and here I am talking about it.

So it worked.

And a big part of the Free Agency preview was a Juan Soto's Free Agency preview because that is the most exciting thing other than, I guess, the intrigue surrounding the cipher Roqui Sasaki and his posting status but this was discussed in our

Patreon discord group in the wake of Passin publishing this piece do you think that the dynamics of Aaron Judge's salary might affect the

negotiations with Wandsodo and what the Yankees are willing to pay. This is not something that Passen mentioned in his piece, but he basically handicapped the Soto sweepstakes as Yankees versus Mets, or at least those are the contenders.

You might have sort of a subway series for Soto.

A Soto Subway Series, Subway Soto Series.

I think I would opt for a Soto subway series.

Either way, they seem like they are likely to both be in the bidding and in the running.

And as pass a note, there's basically no knock on Soto.

What can you really fault him on at this point?

...