For Effectively Wild's 1000th episode, and sadly Sam Millers last, they brought back Kevin Goldstein on. Goldstein used to write on prospects for BP and then took a job with the Astros as the director of pro scouting.

 

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article....articleid=30901

 

I posted this because I have had a lot of curiosity about what the trading process actually looks and feels like. Are teams all on a call tossing different names out? Are they actually looking at a big board of their own prospects and the other teams?

 

At around the 10 minute mark, Miller starts asking KG questions about this process. It doesn't answer everything, but he does address some things, like a question on whether teams trying to acquire a player offer up players they are looking for or ask for what it would take (teams have their own style, my take is that sox tend to ask and tell people what they are looking for/willing to give up), some discussion on "fleecing" and how the industry feedback is never really same as media feedback, and other stuff.

 

Thought it was super interesting.

 

Also at the end, they talk about minor league free agents, and how even if a scout and analytics say this guy is a good pickup they won't ever make room for a minor league FA if they can't play, they always value their guys more (it's more interesting in podcast).

The way you wrote that, thought Sam Miller had died.

 

Ooops.

 

Where did he move on to? Another analytics writer recruited by an MLB team?

He moved to ESPN, and it has been heavily implied that the mothership would not allow him to do a podcast with a non-espn employee.

 

Jeff Sullivan is taking over, should still be great.