Effectively Wild Episode 2361: The Fleeting Tie

Summary

Effectively Wild Episode 2361: The Fleeting Tie

August 15, 2025
Hosts: Ben Lindbergh (The Ringer) and Meg Rowley (FanGraphs)

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Episode Overview

In this conversational and stats-driven episode, Ben and Meg dive into the nuanced, sometimes fleeting nature of great pitching stats, the challenges of maintaining elite performances, and the oddities of official baseball record-keeping and fandom psychology. The episode’s through-line is "fleeting ties," both in box scores and in the balance of franchise narratives, touching on player comebacks, organizational stewardship, and the ever-shifting metrics of greatness in modern baseball.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Fleeting ERA & Trevor Rogers' Resurgence (00:34–07:22)

• Ben opens by lamenting the jinx he and Meg apparently put on Nathan Eovaldi's low ERA, segueing to marveling at Trevor Rogers' similarly stingy numbers. Rogers’ steady excellence, marked by a minuscule ERA, is discussed in detail.
  • Ben (00:34): “When your ERA is that low at the beginning of the day, it is very difficult to make it go lower… but it's pretty easy to have it go higher, as Nathan Eovaldi found out.”
• Despite consistently strong starts, Rogers’ ERA barely budges due to how averages work when so low. Discussion covers how a great start barely impacts ERA at this point into the season.
• Meg celebrates Rogers as a reclamation story for the Orioles, defying expectations that he was finished after a bumpy stretch in Baltimore and Miami.
  • Meg (03:33): “The book on Rogers was sort of... that it was never going to get better again... For him to be in this position, albeit over like, you know, 69, nice, innings... we can look at his 2025 campaign and say, okay, like, keep going buddy and let's see how you trend.”

Notable Quote

• Meg (04:14): “…only 69. Right.”
• Ben (04:15): “And a third.”
• Meg (04:16): “And a third. Don't forget the third.”

2. The Prospect Trade Aftermath & Team-Building Philosophy (05:04–07:22)

• Discussion of the emotional baggage and prospect valuation in trades, referencing the Kyle Stowers for Rogers deal and how it looked like a loss before Rogers’ resurgence.
• Importance of a single starting pitching success story for the Orioles’ hopes and fan morale.
  • Meg (05:38): “It's a good story in a part of the roster where I think fans… are just, like, really desperate for one.”

3. Pitching WAR Race & The Cy Young Discourse (07:22–11:45)

• Ben notes that Rogers’ value on a rate basis is elite, despite fewer innings. Compares him to Matthew Boyd and others on the WAR leaderboard.
  • Ben (07:22): “He has pitched so well on a rate basis that even though he's made fewer starts… he is right up there because his starts have been so excellent.”
• Playful callback to an Orioles fan’s Trevor Rogers tattoo. Meg and Ben debate whether certain relievers or starters should ever be "butt cheek worthy.”
• Consideration of the Cy Young race, especially Christopher Sanchez, Paul Skenes, and veteran Zach Wheeler—whose legacy, late career, and Cy Young “snub” possibilities are discussed.
  • Ben (11:45): “It does seem like there should be some kind of career achievement award… Wheeler's been the best pitcher over a several season span at this point. That's in a way more impressive… than just having been the best in one season.”
  • Meg (13:02): “There's the Hall of Fame of it all and... what do you do with him given his late start?... their careers conclude and you go, they really never won a Cy Young?... And I don’t like that conversation…”

Notable Quote

• Meg (13:02): “But mostly it's just like there are guys where their careers conclude and you go, they really never won a Cy Young?”

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4. Career Achievement, Honorary Awards, & Cinema Parallels (15:11–17:48)

• The hosts riff about how sports should borrow from the Academy Awards and create “career achievement” designations for players who were generationally great but not always recognized in single seasons.
  • Ben (17:14): “It’s not just one outlier performance... a Career Achievement Award... can't be a fluke because that's just a bigger sample.”
• Discussion sidetracks to Samuel L. Jackson, Clint Eastwood, and the vagaries of what it means to be honored in your field.

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5. Ohtani’s Outing, Defensive Woes, and Splitter Nostalgia (18:50–25:21)

• Review of a recent Shohei Ohtani pitching and hitting performance, with particular focus on the Dodgers’ defensive issues (Téoscar Hernández’s lack of range is lampooned).
  • Ben (19:10): “It’s like he gets farther away… if there’s a ball that is hit out in his vicinity, and you’re thinking, will it fall? The answer is yes, if Teoscar Hernández is out there.”
  • Meg (20:19): “If Teoscar Hernández was the T. Rex in Jurassic Park, no one have to worry. They’d just be like, we’re just gonna outrun this T. Rex.”
• Nostalgia for Ohtani’s once-signature splitter, now rarely thrown.
  • Ben (20:58): “Every now and then he throws one of those, and I’m like, oh, right, he throws the splitter. He doesn’t even throw it that much anymore.”

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6. Annoyances: Ballpark Ads & Broadcast Tech (23:17–25:21)

• Ben rants about intrusive, glitchy digital advertising behind home plate, especially in October. Meg speculates on why “irritating your consumers” persists in the ad world.
  • Ben (23:17): “It is still just as distracting to me… at least make the advertising a little less intrusive.”
  • Meg (24:49): “We’ve done all these Marvel movies, and we can’t have better green screen on a baseball broadcast?”

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7. Team Ownership Drama: The Minnesota Twins' Non-Sale (28:32–42:10)

• The Twins’ front office reverses course on completing a team sale; instead they’ll bring in minority partners with no path to majority ownership. Meg and Ben dissect how this affects fans' optimism, the business of baseball, and broader trends in team ownership.
  • Ben (29:35): “The pollads have decided that actually, just kidding, faked you out, psych, we will be holding on to the Minnesota Twins, and Twins fans are beside themselves...”
  • Ben (32:35): “This is the third time... Nationals, Angels, and now the Twins do this fake out... is this a pattern?”
• Discussion about whether baseball “asset class” is still attractive, and how TV rights and debt interact with these decisions.
• Debate over the long-term viability and stewardship of small/mid-market teams, and why Manfred may or may not intervene.
  • Meg (39:07): “There’s a big difference between less money and no money. Right. And I think that there’s this sort of catastrophizing that goes on... it doesn’t mean it’ll be a bad business.”
  • Meg (41:41): “It is interesting where just some of the language that [Manfred] deploys publicly for some teams versus others at similar sort of checkpoints… it’s interesting. And I wonder if some of that rhetoric might change as it pertains to the Twins going forward…”

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8. Listener Mailbag: Quirks of Baseball Officiating and Fandom (42:10–101:45)

a. Check-Swing Appeal Gusto (43:22–49:43)

• Does the home plate ump's level of drama influence how the base ump rules on check swings? Discussion explores umpire manuals, performance, and projecting confidence.
  • Ben (47:06): “MLB umpires are expected to increase the assertiveness of their call…as the play becomes closer or more exciting.”
  • Meg (48:08): “You wanna match tone... we are ever increasingly... kind of vibes-based.”

b. Blackouts, Media Access, and Changing Fandom (52:04–59:16)

• What happens to regional baseball fandom if MLB.TV removes blackouts? Will people follow more teams, or is the pull of 162 games still too much?
  • Meg (52:53): “I think you would have more... folks who are interested in a broader swath of teams... But I still think there’s... really devoted fandom.”
  • Ben (56:18): “You just don’t really need to go outside of that to get your fix of baseball... that ship has sailed for baseball to be embraced the way that football is now on a national level...”

c. Streak Freezes – "Duolingo vs. DiMaggio" (59:33–66:13)

• Listener Dan asks if baseball streaks should have “mulligans” like Duolingo’s “streak freeze.” Both hosts respond with mock horror at the notion.
  • Ben (61:02): “The whole purpose of a streak is that you don’t get a day off. You don’t get to miss one. That’s what makes it so impressive.”
  • Meg (62:23): “Part of the instinct… is that there is a, I think, correct perception that like, sometimes the maintenance of a streak was… to the detriment of the player… but it’s not a streak if you take a day off.”

d. Red Sox vs. Yankees Fandom Pain (66:30–73:54)

• Listener Eli asks: Which is worse, suffering through Mookie Betts/Devers trades, or enduring Aaron Boone? Verdict: Trading Mookie is worse—by far. Ben and Meg reassure both sides they’ll ultimately be fine.
  • Meg (70:04): “It is very obvious that trading Mookie is the worst thing... managers come and go, franchise icons much harder to replace.”
  • Ben (72:42): “During Aaron Boone’s tenure, the Yankees have the third most wins in baseball... they won a pennant last year... Come on. Please come on.”

e. The Frame Rate of Tied Games (73:54–85:09)

• How “continuous” is the baseball score—when is a game technically tied during multi-run plays? Detailed, playful debate about pedantic possibilities.
  • Ben (80:56): “Technically... for a moment there, you’re in this liminal phase. It is a tie game.”
  • Meg (83:09): “That’s technically true, but technically correct... but meaningfully goofy.”

f. The Definition of "Scattered" Hits (85:27–87:55)

• What counts as a pitcher “scattering” hits? Ben and Meg agree: It usually refers to giving up many hits but few runs, not necessarily a shutout.

g. Walk-Offs vs. "Walk-Aways" (87:58–89:47)

• Listener suggests the term “walk-away win” for the visiting team scoring go-ahead runs in the last inning. Meg is skeptical of the term’s necessity or clarity.

h. The Effect of Blowout Games on Team Perceptions (90:14–94:28)

• Will one mega-run-differential series distort memory/perception of the Blue Jays’ season? Both agree that fans overemphasize or forget based on anxiety or stakes.

i. Kyle Schwarber vs. Adam Dunn (95:03–101:45)

• Schwarber compared to Dunn—are they perceived differently due to team context and baseball’s era? Yes: Dunn played in obscurity and pre-playoff, Schwaber is a postseason hero.
  • Ben (98:51): “I believe he [Dunn] never played a postseason game. So it’s very different from Schwarber. I think that’s a big part of it.”

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9. Gilded Age Sidebars & Podcast Hijinks

• Throughout, Meg struggles not to indulge in side-conversations about the TV show “Gilded Age”, including a running “Train Daddy” bit and whether “oaf” is a fair baseball archetype.
• Ben gamely plays along, gently nudging the conversation to stats and fan queries while letting digressions breathe.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On ERA:
  Ben (02:39): “When your ERA is that low at the beginning of the day, it is very difficult to make it go lower."
• On Rogers’ Comeback:
  Meg (04:16): “Don’t forget the third [of an inning].”
• On Cy Young Legacies:
  Meg (13:02): "I don’t like that conversation because then it ends up being about like slights and did the voters get it wrong... and they deserve it to be about their career."
• On Umpires, Vibes, and Check Swings:
  Meg (48:08): “We find tonal shift that is inexplicable based on circumstance to be discordant and uncomfortable... Their job as an umpire... is to instill confidence.”
• On Blackouts and Fandom:
  Ben (56:18): "That ship has sailed for baseball to be embraced the way that football is on a national level."
• On Streak Freezes:
  Ben (61:02): “The whole purpose of a streak is that you don’t get a day off. That’s what makes it so impressive.”
• On Red Sox/Yankees Marital Strife:
  Meg (70:04): “It is very obvious that trading Mookie is the worst thing.”
• On Pedantry & Tied Games:
  Ben (82:04): “If the question is... the refresh rate, like how quickly does the image update... I think it happens when that player crosses home plate.”
• On “Walk-Away” Wins:
  Meg (89:47): “You’re not really walking away just yet, are you? You know, you gotta go back out there to, like, try to hold your lead.”

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Timestamps of Key Segments

• 00:34 – Low ERA, Trevor Rogers’ resurgence
• 05:04 – Prospect trades, Orioles’ roster stories
• 07:22 – WAR leaderboard, Cy Young, career achievement awards
• 18:50 – Ohtani’s outing, Dodgers’ defensive struggles
• 23:17 – Digital ballpark ads, green screens
• 28:32 – Minnesota Twins' non-sale, owner trends
• 42:10 – Listener mailbag: umpire appeals, fandom, media, streaks
• 66:30 – Yankees vs. Red Sox pain
• 73:54 – Scoring ties, score frame-rate pedantry
• 87:58 – Walk-off vs. "walk-away" win terminology
• 90:14 – One blowout series & team perception
• 95:03 – Schwarber vs. Dunn, context & legacy

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Episode Tone & Style

As ever, the episode is lighthearted, deeply knowledgeable, and self-effacingly nerdy. Ben and Meg marry earnest stat analysis with the kind of digressive, affectionate banter that Effectively Wild is known for. The episode is laced with moments of shared exasperation at baseball’s quirks and the foibles of fandom, as well as playful introspection about what it means to care, narrate, and remember in sports.

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Summary prepared for Effectively Wild fans and newcomers alike: if you missed the episode, you'll come away from this summary with a thorough understanding of the major themes, debates, and tangents that make this pod a perennial favorite for baseball aficionados and statheads.

Transcript

[Meg Riley]

Foreign.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Hello and welcome to episode 2361 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs, presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindbergh of the Ringer, joined by Meg Riley of fangraphs.

[Meg Riley]

A Low Mech hello.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Well, we kind of cursed Nathan Evaldi by marveling at how low his ERA was the other day. Not for the first time this season that we have complimented him, to be fair, but nonetheless, he did see his ERA jump up from 1.38 to an unsightly 1.71 after his most recent start against the Diamondbacks, in which he allowed five runs in five innings. That is a 9er on the day. So while we're celebrating low eras as long as they last, I figured that we could briefly talk about Trevor Rogers too. Yeah, because his ER is down in an Evaldi before we jinxed him range. He is. He's at 1.43. How about that?

[Meg Riley]

How about that?

[Ben Lindbergh]

He's had a bunch of good starts in a row. Obviously he's had almost nothing but good starts this season, but he has managed to have four excellent starts in a row, or I guess three at least, in which he is allowed one run in each. And yet his ERA has barely budged because that's just what his ERA is. It's like when you. You allow one earn run in eight innings and then one earn run in six innings and then one earn run in seven innings. Which was his most recent start against your Orioles, unfortunately for them. Cause they did.

[Meg Riley]

My Orioles. You mean my Mariners.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yes, your. Your Mariners. Their Orioles. Trevor Rogers. Orioles. Mariners who succumbed to Trevor Rogers 4 to 3. But his eras. So he had a. On July 26, he pitched seven shutout innings against the Rockies in an 18 to nothing blowout and that dropped his ERA to 1.49. So then he has an excellent start against the Cubs, which lowered it to 1.44, and then an excellent start against the Phillies, which did not move it at all, at least out to the first decimal place. It was still 1.44. And then he has an excellent start against Seattle and it dropped all the way to 1.43.

[Meg Riley]

My goodness.

[Ben Lindbergh]

So when your era is that low at the beginning of the day, it is very difficult to make it go lower.

[Meg Riley]

It's.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It's pretty easy to have it go higher, as Nathan of Aldi found out. But there's just. It's not much margin there to actually lower it. Because even if you. Even if you throw up some shutout innings, it's Just not going to go down that much at this point in the season.

[Meg Riley]

Isn't that just the cruelest thing? Isn't it just the worst business? Do you think that my sneezing and not being able to mute my mic in time is why you held me responsible for the Orioles? Although Mariners aren't playing especially great right now.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Maybe you know, Shane can mute your sneezes even if you don't.

[Meg Riley]

I know, but I normally try to because it's distracting. And when you don't, your co host forgets the team that there goes roots for. You know, it's just dastardly in that way.

[Ben Lindbergh]

So distracted by the sneeze.

[Meg Riley]

I am tickled on his behalf. And look, my Seattle Mariners didn't exactly enjoy their experience of Trevor Rogers, but I always like it when a guy. The book on Rogers was sort of. That it was never going to get better again. Right. That it wasn't going to. That his, his time sort of fulfilling the promise of that first full season in Miami was done. There's no, there was no going back to it. Right. We weren't going to see another four win season from him. And so for him to be in this position, albeit over like, you know, 69, nice innings.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Very nice.

[Meg Riley]

But only 69. Right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And a third.

[Meg Riley]

And a third.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Don't forget the third.

[Meg Riley]

Don't forget the third. But we can look at his 2025 campaign as it is currently constituted and say, okay, like keep, keep going buddy and let's see how you trend over the rest of this year. And then if you're able to build on the that momentum going into 2026. But he was just very much in the ain't no salvage in him kind of territory. And then like his first, you know, run with Baltimore last year was even worse than his init Miami. And then you know, people who were feeling ungenerous toward the Orioles would be like, well, they're really good at vision development. They'd be able to help Trevor Rogers get better. And so it felt like his, his season was like freighted with all of this stuff, you know, that wasn't really about him.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Especially because Kyle Stowers meanwhile was having a fantastic all star season for Miami. So it was, it was the one season. Yeah. That even I would say so. Yes.

[Meg Riley]

Even you would say so, yes.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And it was the one time that Michaelias actually surrendered some prospects and it looked like he had picked the worst possible time to do that or the worst prospects to give up on. Even now Star wars has had a more valuable season than Rogers. But. But it does help ease the sting of Stowers breakout that Rogers has returned to form or perhaps improved his form.

[Meg Riley]

Right. And so it's like it was. It had all of this baggage that came with it, and then he, you know, quietly has. Has sort of done better, and it's not gonna change the course of the Orioles season. Right. Like, in a sense, like, he is doing precisely what they needed, which was provide good starting pitching. But again, only 11 starts. See only 11, no third. And so not enough to fully bolster a rotation that we all knew was going to be vulnerable coming into the season and has proven to be quite vulnerable. But it's a good story, and it's a good story in a part of the roster where I think fans of the Orioles are just, like, really desperate for one. So it's exciting. It's exciting for him, and I'm excited to see how, again, how the rest of the season trends and then how he's able to hopefully sustain these gains going into 2026. Because it would be good, you know, it would be good. They have him for, what, one more year, I think. Yeah. He's a free agent entering the 2027 season. So, you know, as you're trying to squint and kind of find your way toward a more competitive Baltimore team next year, you know, this version of Rogers over a fuller compliment of innings. Well, that. That might be an important, you know, sort of cornerstone of that effort. Um, which isn't to say that they shouldn't, like, please, dear God, spend some money to do it and don't do these half measures. No. And you can't count on this. It could go badly. It's gone badly for him before. But an important potential cornerstone for them next year nonetheless.

[Ben Lindbergh]

So, yes, since he made his season debut For Baltimore on May 24, there are only five pitchers in baseball who have amassed more fan graphs WAR than Trevor Rogers. Christopher Sanchez, Terry Scubal, Garrett Crochet, Paul Skeens, and of course, Matthew Boyd with the Cubs, who's really propping up that rotation. And all of those guys have at least 10 more innings pitched over that span even than Trevor Rogers. In fact, Rogers is the only guy in the top 16 pitchers who has fewer than 70 innings pitched. So everyone else is. Is pretty much well above him. So he has pitched so well on a rate basis that even though he's made fewer starts over that span, like most of those guys have 13 or. Or 15 starts since late May, and Rogers has had 11. And yet he is right up there because his starts have been so excellent. So not about to get his name tattooed on my butt cheek or anything. That is a callback, of course, to the Orioles fan who did.

[Meg Riley]

I wish you hadn't said anything. I wish you had just, like, kind of left it there and then seen if we had gotten like, an email about it. Like, Ben, of all the things to do. That's a little extreme.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I know. Well, that guy, hey, he had the right idea. You know, I mean.

[Meg Riley]

I mean, you could say that.

[Ben Lindbergh]

That he picked the right guy.

[Meg Riley]

He had an idea.

[Ben Lindbergh]

He did. Yes. It didn't backfire immediately, or maybe it did because he now has Trevor Rogers tattooed on his butt cheek. But in terms of Trevor Rogers performance, sure. I'm not saying he's butt cheek worthy even now, but he has, I guess, justified that fan's faith.

[Meg Riley]

Sure. I mean, I'll say. I'll say now what I think I said then, which is, you know, it just is clearly not a canvas that that guy takes particularly seriously. You. You're not. You're not wagering your own. But if you take your butt seriously, you know, that's a. It's an unserious hinder that he's working with over there. So.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Can you imagine if Christopher Sanchez were to steal another Cy Young award away from Zach Wheeler? I mean, probably going to say.

[Meg Riley]

I thought you were going to say, can you imagine if Christopher Sanchez got Trevor Rogers his name tattooed on his butt? And I was going to say, no, I cannot imagine a scenario where that would happen. That would be perfect. Profoundly odd.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I can't. I can't concoct a scenario like that either. But I assume Paul Skin will win, and even though he ran into the brewers buzz saw the other day, but. But other than Skins, Sanchez is at the top of the NL pitching war leaderboard, just barely ahead of Zach Wheeler and Logan Webb and another Philly Jesus Lizardo. Those Phillies, pretty good pitchers on that team. But man, Wheeler, he's just perennially almost the best or even arguably the best. I know, and I. I want him to. To win Webb at this point. Not that I'm rooting against Skeens or Sanchez or Webb, but Skeens should have time. In theory, he should get his. He should get his awards. And Wheeler, who knows how many more opportunities he'll have. Yeah.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah, that's precisely my thinking. Like, he, you know, Wheeler has sort of bandied about potential retirement talk at the conclusion of this contract, and we'll see how serious he ends up being. About that. But Skeens is gonna get his. I feel confident in that. I don't know how many turns, more turns Wheeler is gonna have. So now he has to be healthy the rest of the year for it to even be a conversation worth having. And I guess we'll see. But. But yeah, I would, I would like it for him. I just, you know, it's a, it's going to be a weird conversation when his career ends as we talked about, like there's the hall of Fame of it all and like what do you do with him given his late start? But mostly it's just like there are guys where their, their careers conclude and you go, they really never want to say young, like they, they, they never managed that really. And I don't like that conversation because then it ends up being about like slights and did the voters get it wrong and you know, less about their career and they deserve it to be about their career. Like that's what Zach Wheeler deserves because he's, you know, had a good and an interesting one given its trajectory.

[Ben Lindbergh]

So, yeah, and the performance is what it was regardless of whether they win the award or not. But it does sway some people's thinking and it wouldn't necessarily keep you out of Cooper Town. Certainly there are Nolan Ryan and Mike Messina, etc. Like players who were in the. Oh, he never won one. Best pitcher, never to win one. And you can say the same about the MVP award, but it helps. It does seem like there should be some kind of career achievement award other than just getting into the hall of Fame, which obviously is one, but just some sort of, you know, lifetime achievement, like where an actor who's been nominated a bunch of times gets some kind of career achievement award. It's like, I don't know, something like a career mvp, a career Cy Young. It's like, like if you were the best pitcher over a several year span, right, but. But you were never the best or clearly the best or deemed to be the best in any single season because Wheeler's been the best pitcher over a several season span at this point. So that's in a way more impressive than just having been the best in one season. It's better to be the best over several seasons. I agree, but that is still sort of held against you by some.

[Meg Riley]

Well, and I think, you know, I, I'm going to betray that. I don't have a great sense of this on a relative historical basis, so I am perhaps wrong in my, in my feeling about it, but I think particularly when you have eras. This is maybe more of an issue on the MVP side of things than it is on the Cy Young side, although it's an issue on the pitcher side because pitchers so rarely win MVP awards anymore. But, you know, particularly when you're in. In an era like this one where it feels like we've had these, like, long stretches of MVP sort of hoarding. Hoarding implies that the player gets to decide to keep the award, but it's like we are. We are doling out awards to a very small pool, and there are very good players who I imagine in a different era, without a Mike Trout, without an Ohtani, would maybe have, you know, popped a season where they have a. An MVP award, but we have such concentration in its distribution that it feels like, well, you can't hold. You can't hold it against someone that they're in the same eras. Ohtani. Like, that's not. It doesn't mean that they're not an exemplary baseball player. Right. So it does mean quite often they're not the most valuable one. But again, like, it's. It. I think it sort of skews our perception of the very, very good hall of Fame worthy guys a little bit because they're just not. Not only are they not winning, but, like, often the last couple of years, these races have just been done, you know, and they've been done early, and there's not a lot of. Yeah, like, this year, there's. There is some awards vote contestation, but it's in, like, you know, the Rookie of the Year Awards because the field's weak. You know, that's not. That's not the same sort of thing. So I like the idea of there being some kind of ending honor. I think that that would be satisfying. But then who decides? And then do we have to vote on another thing? Is that a BBWA responsibility Ward stuff is, like, so controversial.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, it is. Yeah. I'm just. I'm thinking, like, because Tom Cruise won an honorary Academy Award this year, I think he's been nominated for four Oscars but hasn't won one, and so they give him an honorary one. And Samuel L. Jackson won one of those a few years ago. It's that kind of.

[Meg Riley]

Samuel Jackson doesn't have a regular Academy Award win. That's shocking.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, he was nominated, I believe, for Pulp Fiction, but it's just like. And maybe because you just made the distinction between regular and honorary and honorary, there's a little less cachet to that, although there shouldn't be, really, because it's Like a Career Impact Award. Yeah, that's. That's big. That means you should. You're like an icon. You're synonymous with the cinema. Like, you can't tell the story of movies during your career without you. That kind of thing.

[Meg Riley]

I mean, I would argue that you can't tell the story of American cinema during Samuel L. Jackson's tenure without Samuel L. Jackson.

[Ben Lindbergh]

The most cinema, certainly, if not always the best, but also some.

[Meg Riley]

Look, that Deep Blue sea performance, I will ride for that. That is a. That's the best. I mean, it's not his best work, to be clear. That would be wildly insulting to Samuel Jackson, but it is important. Okay, I want us to agree on that because, boy, what a good chomp that ends up being.

[Ben Lindbergh]

You can get an honorary one as something, even though you've gotten an actual one as something else. I don't know if you're ineligible for an honorary one if you've never won one, maybe, but like, Clint Eastwood has won one for Best Director, for instance, and Best Picture, even, and has been nominated for Best Actor, but he got an Academy. An honorary for acting, I believe, or Mel Brooks, I think, has one, but not as an actor or something. So, yeah, it's kind of like that, but it's in a way more impressive because it considers the whole. Some of your contributions.

[Meg Riley]

Right. The body of work.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, it's not just one outlier performance because there are plenty of actors who won one, but just didn't have another great role or weren't all that great in other times, or maybe they were just in a weak class or something. So one could be kind of a fluke to some extent. But a Career Achievement Award. Yeah, that can't be a fluke because that's just a bigger sample. So, I mean, I guess that's what the hall of Fame is, essentially. But that doesn't feel honorary. I mean, it does. It confers an honor, but it's. It's maybe the greatest honor. It's not like a makeup exactly.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah, we need like an in between. Yeah, we need an intermediate level of honor that allows you to say, like, yeah, this. This player was really superlative in an important way. And to your point, maybe not in a way that guaranteed them a. An award victory, but in a way that needs, you know, that requires acknowledgment nonetheless, and then you don't have to. I think it would also take some of the sting out of some of the hall of Fame disappointment stuff. Maybe the error committees would have a more hinged approach to their decisions because it's like, well, we don't have to let. We need a different example than Harold Baines because I just feel so bad about it. But like, we don't have to let him in. He got the, this award. So it has been honored. You know, him holding his this Thing award. They should let the New York chapter of the BBWA vote on the Career Achievement Award. Not exclusively, but like everyone in it, since you guys never get awards.

[Ben Lindbergh]

True. Individually. Yeah, it's tough. All right, so. Well, speaking of one superlative player. So I was watching Ohtani pitch and hit, of course, on Wednesday, and it was not his greatest outing. It started well. He hit a leadoff triple and scored and he was pitching well and, and then he seemed to kind of run out of gas. They were trying to push him to five innings for the first time in a start this season and, and the wheels kind of came off. Although one reason the wheels came off in that final inning was that TE Oscar Hernandez has no wheels. That guy. Oh yeah, I like TE Oscar, but as an outfielder, he has negative range out there. I don't know how that's possible. It's like he gets farther away when he, it's like he, he cannot close the distance between himself and, and anything. Like just, just from watching Otani starts. It's like if, if there is a ball that is hit out in his vicinity and you're thinking, will it fall? The answer is yes, if Tesco Hernandez is out there because he is just not going to get there. And I guess since the start of last season, he trails only Nick Castellanos. It looks like in, in bad defense, stat cast based, negative defense among outfielders. So yeah, it's, it's rough. Not to say Ohtani didn't make mistakes himself, but sure, sure, when I saw that thing fall and, and realized who was out there, it was like, oh, well, I gave up on that one immediately.

[Meg Riley]

So they were like, if TE Oscar Hernandez was the T. Rex in Jurassic park, no one have to worry. They'd just be like, we're just gonna outrun this T. Rex. Like the rest of the body is a T. Rex. But then it's Teo's head on there and he's just like, ah, we can't get closer. My little arms aren't even the problem. T. Rexes would be terrible fielders, right? Like, especially in the outfield, especially. They'd never have the arm for it. You couldn't put them in a corner to save their lives. Might save yours though, depending on if you're running away. I don't know why I went with this bit, but I sure did lean into it, didn't I?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Ohtani did throw really one nasty splitter to strike out Luis Renjifo. And it was like, it was just wild movement, just darting way away. Every now and then he throws one of those. I'm like, oh, right, he throws the splitter. He doesn't even throw it that much anymore. It's weird to use another Dodger starter comp. It's like when Kershaw came up and Vin Scully dubbed his curveball public enemy number one. And so you sort of associated Clayton Kershaw with the curveball, but he hasn't been a curveball pitcher in a really long time. He's just slider, slider, slider. And Ohtani too is just, you know, it's. It's sweepers and, and sliders and stuff. It's. He doesn't throw the splitter. He hardly throws it at all. He's thrown it like 4% of the time this season. Yeah, in his rookie year, he threw it almost a quarter of the time. And it was, it was a big weapon for him. It was like, right, his. His number one go to out pitch to get whiffs the splitter. And yeah, it's just every now and then he throws it out, pulls it out of his pocket. It's like, oh, yeah, he had that pitch that was supposedly his out pitch and now he barely even throws it because he has all these other pitches. I brought this up mainly to mention that he faced Mike Trout for the first time since their WWC matchup. Yeah. And he struck him out a couple times. And the first time he struck him out, I think on a full count sweeper, just like in the wbc. Alth this time it was looking. Not swinging. And they had a little moment there. Trout. Trout kind of smiled or grimaced. I. I don't know if he was like reminiscing about the WBC like, you got me again, or if he was thinking, ah, you're going to throw me that on three, two, or. Or what, or just acknowledging how good a pitch it was. And then Shohei was smiling too, as he was coming off the ground. I like those little moments between teammates, especially a. A callback to a milestone moment like that. And my last observation from that game is that I'm still upset about the flickering that happens behind the batters and the pitcher. I haven't really ranted about this recently. We. We were complaining about it constantly during the postseason. Yes, because in October we're all watching the same games, if we're watching any games. And so everyone knew exactly what I was talking about. It's still a problem. They have not addressed this.

[Meg Riley]

They have not.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And it is still just as distracting to me that it was like a booking.com sign, digitally superimposed hose behind home plate. And all the batters were flickering and sh's hat was flickering and the handle of the bat that some of the batters was, it was green because the green screen. It's just. They got to figure this out because we're another October rolling around and presumably we're going to be subjected to this yet again in these big games on the national stage. And man, I mean, we, we accept and resign ourselves to a certain amount of advertising. That's just the way that capitalism works. But yeah, at least make the advertising a little less intrusive. I mean, I know the point is sort of to make it noticeable, but this is. This is not noticeable in a good way. Although it did just earn booking.com multiple mentions on this podcast because. Because of the flickering, which I would not have noted otherwise.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah, I'm sure there's a great deal of, like, research and theory on this from an advertising perspective, but it does seem like it constantly annoying the hell out of your potential consumers would have a negative impact on your ability to sell them a product. Although been seeing those stupid jingoistic truck commercials for the last six months and they don't seem like they're inclined to get rid of those. So what do I know about ads other than I find them irritating?

[Ben Lindbergh]

But.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah, it's like we, we've done all these Marvel movies and we can't have better green screen on a baseball broadcast. Like, what's the.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, well, what's the thing here? People complain about how the Marvel movies look too, but still.

[Meg Riley]

Yes, but this seems more straightforward. You know, you're not trying to.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yes.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah. You're not trying to unite multiple, you know, timelines to be snapped out of. I don't know what's happening in those movies anymore. And I don't care. I don't care.

[Ben Lindbergh]

That's a problem. But, but, yeah, but, but this, the green screen. We gotta. We gotta figure this out. We gotta figure it out sometime soon. I'm sure it doesn't bother other people as much as it bothers me, but people must be noticing that this.

[Meg Riley]

I bet it bothers people. We.

[Ben Lindbergh]

We've got plenty of emails about it from people, but it's a Self selecting group of people who listen to pedantic complaints about baseball.

[Meg Riley]

I think the thing about it is that people love to be bothered by stuff. And I don't mean to doubt the sincerity of your irritation here because, you know, I believe you. I, I imagine that on any given potential grievance, you've got some company, cuz. Boy, do we like to be annoyed by stuff. It's satisfying in a way.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Dodgers lost that game, by the way. Got swept by the Angels. The indignity and as we speak on a Thursday off day, heading into a showdown over the weekend with the Padres, they are in second place, looking up at San Diego for the first time this late in a season since 2010.

[Meg Riley]

I think I'm gonna try something and you can tell me that I can't get away with saying this. Okay? Not that I can't. Not like it's problematic, but like, I can't pull it off. There's a nude daddy in the. I didn't, I don't even have this, I don't have this conviction on that. It's hard because now I'm picturing the Padres mascot, which is like an intentionally goofy looking friar, you know, like they make. Because they don't want him to be scary. You know, they want him to be goofy. So because like people mascots that can get, that can get tricky, you know, you can go in a bad direction on that one. But now I'm just imagining China. It's like when they people were calling what's his name on Gilded Age? Train Daddy.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I prefer Railroad Daddy.

[Meg Riley]

Railroad Daddy. They don't just call him Train Daddy. Why don't they just call him Train Daddy?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Railroad Daddy is more satisfying to say Railroad Daddy.

[Meg Riley]

No, that takes too much. That's too much. That's too many syllables. You should just say Train Daddy.

[Ben Lindbergh]

This is the character played by Morgan Spector, to be clear. George Russell, the robber baron. George Russell, but the one of the better robber barons.

[Meg Riley]

Right? Yeah. He didn't shoot the protesters that were upset about that mind. So, like, it's fine. I, I am uncomfortable with how attractive I find that character because he is in fact a robber baron. How far away from the finale of this season do we have to be before I can talk about it without being rude about spoilers? Are we there yet?

[Ben Lindbergh]

No, but maybe we can get to it on a Patreon bonus podcast.

[Meg Riley]

Okay. Because I thought one thing was gonna happen and then it didn't. And because I was so stressed about it happening, I was totally blindsided by the Thing that did happen and so is the Gilded Age good. Remains to be seen. Totally unclear. Do I love it? Tremendously. Oh, boy, I do. In fact, I was like, I have to watch it on Sunday night. Normally I'm like, can I? Nothing that happens in this show matters remotely. I mean, that's not totally true, but it's close. So normally I'm like, if I end up watching it on Wednesday, it doesn't matter. But I had to know the fate of I'm not calling him Railroad Dad. They don't just call him Train Daddy. They should call him Train Daddy. I have notes for Reddit.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, Stay tuned for additional Gilded Age takes. You can.

[Meg Riley]

Oh yeah, I got.

[Ben Lindbergh]

So pay for that privilege of hearing those if you're.

[Meg Riley]

That's right. That's how good they are.

[Ben Lindbergh]

We can't give those away for free, so we'll save further Gilded Age takes for now. But we do have to talk about the Twins at least briefly. Apologies to Twins fans, but boy, just when it seemed like the franchise might be on the verge of deliverance, that a sale could be completed soon, in fact, they have pulled back from that brink and will not be selling. So Rob Manfred, you were in the room at the All Star Game. He was talking to the BBWAA and he said, I know some things that you don't know. I can tell you with a lot of confidence that there will be a transaction there. This is in reference to the twin sale, and it will be consistent with the kind of pricing that has taken place. There will be a transaction. We just need to be patient while they rework. Technically, not wrong. I suppose there will be a transaction, but not the transaction that he was clearly suggesting would happen and not consistent.

[Meg Riley]

With prior market values for teams.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, so the poll ads have decided that actually. Just kidding. Faked you out. Psych. We will be holding on to the Minnesota Twins, and Twins fans are beside themselves because the one silver lining of what just happened to them at the deadline, other than, as we said, okay, they traded like a lot of relievers, but they were mostly relievers and they got some stars back and they've got some other guys and they've got a great farm system and. And maybe things can come together more quickly than you'd assume. But a big reason for optimism seemed to be that they were going to sell the franchise and that someone would buy it who would actually spend on this team or at least spend more than the poll ads. So more than nothing, essentially. That didn't seem like too high a bar to Clear. But no. The poll ads have concluded. Joe said. We feel we're the right people to lead this organization, to own this franchise. I don't know that any Twins fans feel that way. So instead of selling the franchise, they are selling minority shares. There are a couple as yet undisclosed minority owners who are coming in here, one local and one east coast, and there is no path to a controlling stake, which is unusual. Often in these cases when an owner brings in someone to take a sizable share, which it sounds like something in the vicinity of 20% of the franchise will be sold. Usually when you get a minority investor like that, there's some pathway to eventually taking over the team, as there is with Justin Ishbia and the White Sox after he pulled out of pursuing the Twins and then pivoted to the White Sox. And eventually there's a path for him to take over that franchise from Jerry Reinsdorf. But in this case, no, there's no deliverance on the horizon from the poll ads. This seems to be just about getting them out from under the debt that they are laboring under. Supposedly, they're hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, and I don't know if that is what scotched a potential sale here or what happened exactly, or whether the offers that they were seeking weren't actually out there. But this is the third time that this has happened in recent years, which rule of three, it seems like. Is this a pattern? Is this a trend? Does this mean something? We saw the Orioles sale go through and not at a disappointing price, particularly. It was the third highest sale price for an MLB team after the Mets and the Dodgers, who were two, you know, big city, big value franchises. But we've seen the Nationals, the Angels, and now the Twins do this. Fake out, exploring a sale for a year or more maybe, and then the end result being that the current ownership remains.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah, I it's a weird thing because it. You don't want to overreact to what it means for sort of the desirability of teams as a, like an asset class. Like, if you'll just allow me to express this in the grossest like beep boop boop kind of terminology I can.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Sure.

[Meg Riley]

Because there do seem to be factors specific to the Twins that have stalled their ability to like, move the team, which is the. The debt that the team itself seems to have been encumbered with. But like, if I'm Rob Manfred, I feel not awesome about this development. So there's that piece of it. But then, yeah, for Twins fans, it's like, you can bear a lot. If you think that there is really a new dawn that might. A new dawn, a new day that might. Dawn days. Dawn. Dawns are just, that's like what they are. They're dawns. But it's, it's a lot harder when you're, you know, you're seemingly trying to reinforce the viability of the business, but not like you're kind of half assing it. Right. And if you're taking on new minority partners and they're, they're looking at the kinds of percentages that we think they are, well, that's not nothing. But I don't know that that that's altering from a payroll perspective, at least not fundamentally. So it does put them in a very strange position. And, and I do wonder like, if you're the league, it's like, well, are you really, are you really in a place of viability with this club? If, if this is where things stand. I don't know the, I don't know the answer to that. You got to be able to maintain some kind of reasonable payroll and I'm, I'm skeptical of their ability to do that based on what we've seen here. So it doesn't seem great. It really doesn't.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah. And MLB seemingly reportedly pressured the Rays into selling.

[Meg Riley]

Right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

So they could in theory do something similar here, though they certainly didn't with John Fisher and the A's. It is just striking how many sell the team chance you hear how many teams now that's invoked. I think there's an article about that recently where it starts sort of as a A's fan rallying cry. Perhaps now you hear sell the team all over the place. You hear Twins fans, Pirates fans, sell the team. And yeah, they all have a point. So.

[Meg Riley]

Right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I guess you, you hope as a Twins fan that this injection of cash from the minority owners and investors is enough to get this team spending again. But there's a 40 year track record of poll ads being pretty cheap. So hard to imagine that they're going to really change their stripes now. I mean, maybe if the worst of this debt load, if this was actually the most pressing impediment that was preventing the Twins from doing something recently, then you get out from under that maybe there's a little more wiggle room, breathing room, one would hope. But it, it paints the deadline in a new light because what a lot of people assumed was okay, they're just kind of clearing the decks here to smooth out this sale and you don't want a bunch of Payroll and contracts on the books. And so, okay, we'll just do a mini mid season fire sale here and then the new owner can construct the roster as they see fit. But if that was not actually the impetus for that, then what was it? I mean, you know, they, they talked a big game about it being good for the team long term, and maybe it will be. And I think the poll ads even say they didn't mandate that. But, you know, I, I don't really buy that there wasn't some ownership involvement in a dramatic remodeling of the roster.

[Meg Riley]

Of that nature, particularly within the context of what we at the time understood to be a team that was looking to sell itself. Right. And so if you are trying to execute that transaction, the notion that you're going to just say to your front office, yeah, whatever you think is best, doesn't ring true. Now they, I imagine at the deadline had, this is me speculating, to be clear, had some understanding that like a buyer was not going to materialize. But you still want to have some sort of management over that process as you're, as you're trying to get something done. So I don't find that particularly persuasive as a statement from them.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, yeah. So maybe each of these cases is an individual situation that doesn't tell us anything about the others. And Artie Moreno is just very unpredictable and maybe he just did decide that he did not want to divest himself. And then the learners at the time had the Massen dispute and maybe that was an issue. And Moreno had like various legal disputes with the city and everything. And, and he's kind of mercurial as it is. And so, you know, there are only so many teams and it does bring some cachet to you, even if you just inherited this team from previous poll ads. But it's probably tough to actually pull the trigger and part with something that's been a part of your family and is kind of like your day to day and what makes anyone care about you, basically. But, but you don't embark lightly on that process of selling either. So people could conclude like this, is this bad for baseball as a business? Does this say something about what people think about broadcast rights and the broadcast bubble bursting? And I'm sure that owners would be quick to say, oh, it's because we don't have the cost certainty of the salary cap and that makes it less attractive as an investment vehicle. But then you look at the whole history of franchise ownership and how stable and remunerative it has been for Decades. And it's hard to believe that that's really going to burst. You know, like, maybe. Will the returns be slightly less than they have been? Perhaps. But I think it's. There are just so few franchises at that level that there are always people who want to buy in. But.

[Meg Riley]

Right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

You know, and if you, if you thought that this was a depreciating asset and, and let's get out while the getting was good, then you'd probably be more motivated to sell. Even if you couldn't get top dollar. It might still be more dollars than you'd get in the future if you thought that this wasn't going to continue to appreciate.

[Meg Riley]

I think that we would be naive not to entertain the possibility that in the future, absent some of the stability and frankly, subsidy that was carriage fees over cable, that there won't be less money coming into the sport. That seems possible, but there's a big difference between less money and no money. Right. And I think that there's this sort of catastrophizing that goes on where we say, well, it's not going to be as good a business, but that doesn't mean it'll be a bad business. Right. And we don't know, you know, we don't know what it'll look like from a rights perspective. You know, you see some of the rights deals that are going on in other sports, even with uncertainty around some part of the broadcast stuff for them. Although, obviously, like a sport, like the NFL is different because it's all national anyway, but it's not like other sports teams aren't selling and selling well. And I think that, you know, what we have, what we have heard is that even though there is uncertainty around exactly what broadcast will look like, like the inventory of games that you have available to you and the viewership that those games garner suggests that it is worthwhile product from an advertising perspective. So I think that the sport will be fine and better than fine. It'll be doing well and the franchise values will continue to appreciate. There might be some slowing of that appreciation. There might be some dip in profit relative to what we've seen in the past, but that doesn't mean that it's suddenly going to be an unprofitable sport. And my, like, I don't know if it's terribly convincing argument because he also is just like, you know, hat and quarter zip guy now. So maybe he just doesn't give a shit and he has so much money it doesn't matter to. So, like, I will acknowledge the potential limitations of this argument. But I will just continue to refer to Steve Cohen being like, I want to buy the Mets, you know, and like, are the Mets a more attractive value proposition than the Minnesota Twins? Sure. They. They absolutely are. It's a bigger media market. It's a franchise that people are more excited about. Fine. But like, baseball is attracting people who are famously ruthless in their financial acumen to the point of alleged criminality. And so I just don't find it persuasive that it's not a good business to be in. I do think it's really interesting, like, where the commissioner feels comfortable applying pressure and not and I don't even know that I, with the exception of Fisherman, necessarily disagree with him, but it is interesting where just some of the language that he deploys publicly for some teams versus others at. @ similar sort of checkpoints in a potential sale process. It. It's interesting. And I wonder if some of that rhetoric might change as it pertains to the Twins going forward, because if I were him, I'd be big annoyed with them.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, and maybe we'll see a few years from now. I mean, these next few years could be pretty pivotal in terms of work stoppage, which you could imagine could maybe give some aspiring owners cold feet. And then is Manfred able to bundle together broadcast rights and sell new national rights? And what does that look like? So the next few years could be determinative in one way or another. But yes, we will see. Let's answer some emails. Email including this one from Matt. Subject line checked. Swing appeal gusto. So I've always wondered to what extent does the gusto with which the home plate umpire signals the first or third base umpire on a check swing impact. The bass umpire's ruling. When the home plate umpire does it casually, it always seems as if the base umpire responds with a nonchalant he didn't swing, of course, safe signal. But when the home plate umpire jumps out from behind the plate and sweeps his arm toward the base umpire, as if this is the single most important thing in universe at the moment, I can't help but expect the call to be a firm punch. He definitely swung and he deserves the wrath of my fist for his lack of control. What are your thoughts on this?

[Meg Riley]

What a great question. I have not made a study of this, and so I have no idea if what I'm about to say is accurate or not. But I agree with the general perception put forth in the email that when it's a like, hey, what'd you see? Kind of appeal the, the umpire is almost always no swing. And when it's a, did you see that? The umpire's like. And my theory is that it's because whether or not they're actually checking out mentally, that base umpires are worried. They're checking out mentally and they are taking the signal of the, the force of the signal from the home plate umpire as an indication that clearly it had to be swinging. Had to be swinging. And I didn't see it. I didn't see it. I thought I was paying attention, but I wasn't paying attention. And swing. Yeah, I think that that's at play for like 10 to 15% of them. And it only applies to the home plate umpire when the catcher makes an appeal. I think that the default position of the base umpire is to be like, hey, slow down, buster. We'll ask ourselves if we need help. So it's really only a home plate umpire thing, but yeah, it does seem like there's a, an emphatic. This is an area where it's just like, like, we, I am fine. We have to refine the tech and we need to clearly define what a swing is because some of the ways we want to do it are wonky. But, like, this is an area where I'm fine with the robots having their say. Like, come on, come on, come on.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah. And I think, I think the KBO is about to implement a check swing challenge system.

[Meg Riley]

Wonderful.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Actually, this month, I think in a matter of days, I believe I read. So we'll see how that goes.

[Meg Riley]

How timely. Any more?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yes. Yeah, this does ring true to me. It feels like cooking the books a little, putting your thumb on the scale, trying to tell your crewmates what you think almost in a way where you think, why don't they just make the call themselves if they're so certain about that? But I guess if they're asked to appeal, then I guess they're supposed to appeal, but they're editorializing a little on the request to appeal. The thing about this is, though, I, I, I think maybe they are supposed to do it this way because I, I remembered something Sam wrote in his pebble hunting substack last year where he did a close reading of the umpire manual, the MLP umpire manual, and he went through and picked out various interesting items in there, and one of them was about how you gesticulate. So I'll read his quote from the umpire manual. MLP umpires are expected to increase the assertiveness of their call signal and voice as the play becomes closer or more Exciting. A casual laid back mechanic is not appropriate in a crucial close play. Nor are over elaborate excessive signals an acceptable technique. Which I think Sam was surprised by and I was as well because we're all familiar with oh, it's a close play and you make the just like oh, vehement safe sign. Right. You know, and so it would be weird if you saw that in a extremely not close play, you know, like someone's relaxing by half the base path distance and it's like ah, safe. That would be a weird overreaction. Yeah. But also if it were completely casual and laconic. When it's a super close play, it's like the empires are supposed to be entertainers out there in a way. They're supposed to signal that this is exciting or close or something. So, so I guess maybe the ump is abiding by the rules. In this case by gesticulating appealing more forcefully. Probably that's maybe how it's actually supposed to work.

[Meg Riley]

I think that there's some wisdom here because you, you wanna, you do wanna match tone. You know, it's like if you go to dinner and one person at the table is yelling, you know, why are you. And they're not yelling but like their volumes way up. And you're like, okay, well what are we doing here? This is like.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, yeah.

[Meg Riley]

And so I think that you want to kind of match the moment. It's like you're. Yes. Anding the moment almost Right. You want to do that because we find tonal shift that is inexplicable based on circumstance to be discordant and uncomfortable. And an umpire has a lot of facets to their job. They have all these little tasks that they have to do. But their overarching project is to instill confidence. Right. Your job as an umpire, when you really boil it down, is to make the both the teams on the field and the folks in the stands feel like there is a steady hand at work.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yes, exactly.

[Meg Riley]

And, and I think that when you, if you're like way up or way down relative to the register of the moment, people are like, wait a minute, what's going on? Are you pay? Because it suggests you're not paying attention, right. You're not, you're not present to the, the vibe, you know, and we are, we are ever increasingly like kind of vibes based. And we're like, what, why aren't you, you're not picking up when I put them down. So I, I, I think that it's not so much that you know, the umpires are meant to be Shakespearean or anything like that. It's that they are meant to blend into the emotional register of the moment to suggest, like, I gotcha. Don't worry, you know.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yes, I think that's true. Yeah. And Sam noted in that piece. Yeah. Not only does it suggest that on some level the umpires are performers, that, okay, they're signaling not just safer out, but also signaling excitement, but also projecting confidence, as you just said, because the umpire's manual also includes a few just exhortations to be confident and decisive. You're supposed to just always appear confident and decisive. And so on these close plays, when they should actually be less confident.

[Meg Riley]

Right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Then they have to project confidence even more because otherwise it would undercut your faith in the proceedings because they would. Would seem like, you know, if they're just holding up their hand, they're like, yeah, you know, shrug, flip a coin, you know, I don't know. Right. So.

[Meg Riley]

So they have to like, you know, to you. Did.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Did you have to seem even bolder and. And this gets us into trouble because, you know.

[Meg Riley]

Yes, it does.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Leaders of. Of human beings often project confidence and. And often they don't know what they're talking about, but people find confidence and bluster to be reassuring in many cases. And so umpires sort of have to do the same thing to maintain the partial fiction that they are just completely correct arbiters. So that is why they're so emphatic in that situation. Which I guess would suggest, though, that when an umpire, if this applies to the appeal signal, then that would suggest that. That if they're emphatically appealing, then. Then they think it's closer and they're less confident.

[Meg Riley]

You kind of like horseshoe theory your way all the way around to, like, my insistence that you tell me what you saw suggests. I have no idea.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Right. But. But I. I do feel like it's the opposite, though. I think when it's. When it's. Check swings, I do get the sense that they really believe it as opposed to. Yeah, I'm. I'm so unconfident that I'm actually going to pretend that I'm. But I don't know. Maybe it could go either way.

[Meg Riley]

Maybe it could go either way. It's a. It's sort of a real conundrum when you. When you think about it, you know, I think that the. The nice thing about both asking for help and for replay is that you. You do give yourself enough room to correct the mistake now, not so much with check swings. Right. Like you do insofar as you're assuming that the base umpire is paying attention. And I want to be clear. I'm, I'm, I'm goo. That they're not paying attention. I think they're generally paying. Paying very close attention. But we've all had a panicked moment, you know, But I think that like, you can ask for help, but you don't have the same mechanisms of replay, at least right now for a check swing that you would for, you know, for an actual replay review. Is he on the bag or not? Did he. Oversight, et cetera. So I think it's good that they ask for help, but you are still relying on having a good sense of things yourself because otherwise you could end up in a real fix.

[Ben Lindbergh]

All right, Jay Patreon supporter says. I was listening to your discussion on your respective experiences of fandom and how that affects the way you enjoy the sport. That got me thinking about the changing media landscape in baseball with Cable and RSNs in their death rows and the end of regional blackouts probably on the horizon. Do you anticipate any changes in how people think about baseball and fandom? If MLB TV eventually offers no blackouts or say $20 a month for just your team and another $10 for every team, do you think that will impact the regional nature of the sport? If the barriers to entry are removed, Are fans more likely to just watch their home team or to become more team agnostic?

[Meg Riley]

Okay, so I think that my primary way of answering this is maybe to reference the NFL.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah.

[Meg Riley]

And say that. But I think there will be more. Well, but you don't. You do have to pay extra to really see everything for the NFL. Like, you have to get Sunday ticket. You can, you can take in a good bit of it on Red Zone. But you know, it's not like you're unblacked out, but you do have more exposure beyond your home market on any given Sunday than you do on any given day of the week. Trying to watch the, the MLB slate. Yeah. And so it's an imperfect comp, but I, I'll stick with it, I think. And, and just say that I think you would have, you would definitely have more. Not agnostic, but you know, folks who are interested in a broader swath of teams than they necessarily have access to right this minute. It. But I still think there's a lot of really devoted fandom. Maybe the, the number of games dilutes that slightly. So, like part of it, you're. You're watching a bunch of. I mean, not everyone does this, of course, but like a lot of NFL fans, like, they sit down and they watch. They watch Sunday football, you know, they're watching their team, hopefully, but they're watching a full suite of games or watching the Sunday night game. They're watching the Monday night game. Despite every, you know, rational part of their bodies telling them that there is so little satisfaction to be found on Thursdays. They're watching the Thursday night game, Ben. They're watching. And I can't distance myself from these jabronis. I'm one of these jabronis, right? I'm watching those Thursday games. I watch preseason football. Okay. Like, wow. It's not totally hinged over here, so. But you have. You do have fewer games, and it's over a compressed time period. So maybe there would be a little more. I was about to say seepage, which is just the grossest possible way to describe that, isn't it? Maybe there would be more broadening of your perspective on the game. But I think that the. The primary. The primary benefit that people would see from a. From lack of blackouts is being able to access their. Their favorite team with much greater consistency. I think that because baseball so regional for so long, and that is so entrenched in our understanding of fandom, it would. It might be a little while before the. The model, quote unquote of fandom shifts for most people. And it's so many games that it's hard. You know, I have to. And it's the same for you. Like, we have to have our arms around the whole league for work. And I often feel like I'm falling down on that job, but sometimes I have to watch Gilded Age, you know, Like, I can't only watch baseball because then I could watch. It should be train Daddy. Railroad Daddy is too long. Unless you're trying to make a railroad.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Joke, which, like, respect, but does railroad people pretty often.

[Meg Riley]

But it's not in the way that people mean it when they use the term daddy. At least kind of daddy.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Spoilers. Yeah. Well, his daughter did get railroaded in a certain way, though. He was not the instigator. Not. Not that.

[Meg Riley]

Wow.

[Ben Lindbergh]

There was a baseball scene on the Gilded Age, as we discussed. So you can combine both of those interests? Ideally, but I was going to say the same thing. There's just so much inventory in baseball, which is a good thing, I guess, if you're trying to sell that inventory to a broadcaster, but, boy, there's just too much to take in. I could see people dabbling more. Yes, but how can you Keep up with everything that's going on. Because in the NFL, even though the NFL has gone to 17 games and will go to 18 inevitably at some point, and is attempting to colonize every day of the week and has established a foothold on most days of the week, at least it's still more contained and there are so many fewer games. And Sunday historically has been just an event that you could devote to football and it was the only day when you had much football action on. And baseball is just not like that. You can get your fill just watching your team. Most people, you know, you've got 162 games even if you're not watching other teams, except when they play yours and they're playing almost every day for several months. And so you just don't really need to go outside of that to get your fix of baseball, which is a good thing for the most part. I mean, in a lot of ways at least it's a good thing. It definitely does decrease interest in any individual game and in other teams games and even the NBA. I think there's more of a national perspective certainly than in baseball among fans. But again, there are half as many games there even and the NBA regular season is just over determined and it could be even shorter because there's just so much less randomness in basketball than in baseball and so many possessions and, and talent shows out more quickly. But there's also just so much like league wide drama going on and there aren't as many players to keep track of because each roster doesn't have as many. And you know, I just think that it would help a little bit. But probably that ship has sailed for baseball to be embraced the way that football is now on a national level where you're kind of aware of the entire league a lot of the time. But you know, it could help. Every little bit helps.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah. And again, like, it helps. You know, what are we, what are we aiming for? Like, helps to do what? Like what level of interest do we, and this is a big question, so I don't mean to say that we have to answer it today, but I do think it's like, helps to do what? To ensure its longevity, to ensure some sort of cultural footprint, to guarantee like, like sports supremacy.

[Ben Lindbergh]

You know, higher franchise values. That's what it's all about. We want prices to skyrocket.

[Meg Riley]

Look, I mean I, it's not like the, it's not like, it's not important. You know, you, you do want there to be, you want the, you want the folks who Aren't serious about it to have incentive to leave. Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Okay. Question from Dan, who says, As I finished my streak extension on Duolingo today, I thought about how irrationally impressed some folks might be at my 1600 day streak of completing language exercises. After all, the app permits you a certain number of streak freezes that allow you to miss a day once in a while without losing your active streak. I'd guess I probably miss about one day a month on average, and that my true active streak is only about six weeks or so. This led me to ponder, what if we allowed streak freezes in baseball? If any kind of streak were allowed to be extended by one iteration without the action being completed, how might that alter the leaderboards? Would Anyone challenge Joe DiMaggio's hit streak? Cal Ripken's consecutive games played streak? Usemero Petit's consecutive batters retired? Or are some records out of reach even given multiple attempts? So that could probably be stat blasted. I guess we could figure out if we were to allow one mulligan, just how much would that actually matter? I mean, when DiMaggio's streak was broken, he then immediately embarked on another streak. As I recall, that was somewhat lengthy. So I don't, I don't know if you were allowed to string together streaks separated by a day, how much that would change the leaderboard. But, but I, I think I reject the concept of a streak freeze. This just. This defeats the purpose of a streak.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Does it not? The whole purpose of a streak is that you don't get a day off. You don't get to miss one. That's what makes it so impressive. And if it's just a language app, I guess the stakes are pretty low. So. Fine. But I don't know that I'd recognize this 1600 day streak if Dan is missing a day, a month. That's just. I mean, I know people get very worked up about their wordle streaks or crossword streaks or whatever, and probably we should care about those things less than people do because it becomes like work, it becomes an obligation, becomes an imposition. Like, oh, I just feel so much pressure to do this thing that once was fun for me to do.

[Meg Riley]

Right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

So I don't know that we should give it that kind of gravity. But, but I, I think if you're gonna define a streak like it, it has to actually be continuous.

[Meg Riley]

I agree. And I think that part of, Part of the instinct. Let's set aside the like, you know, duolingo of it all for a second. Or is it dulid lingo as a learned league joke. I can't believe that. Still, I can. You know who, you know who would say learned league? Bertha. Bertha Russell. Just want to talk about Gilded age.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I can sense that.

[Meg Riley]

I just really love gilded age. So anyway, I, I think that part of the instinct to like, give people an out on streaks in sports is that there is a, I think, correct perception that like, sometimes the, the maintenance of a streak was. Was done to the detriment of the player. Right. Where it's like, it would have been good for you to take a day off, though you might have been better at baseball for part of this if you had been willing to take a day off. And I think that there's still a lot of pride. Like, players still have a lot of pride in playing often and depending on, you know, the way that their contract is structured, they might have intense financial incentive to play as much as they possibly can. Can. But I also think that we are, and certainly the industry is smarter, more aware. I'm not quite sure, like, how I want to season that sentence from a value judgment perspective, but is certainly more aware of the benefit of planned rest. And that isn't to say that like, if you had a guy in the middle of a really intense streak that you might not have sentimentality override your, your better judgment to say, like, hey, don't you want to take a day off, though? But in general, I think we, we really prioritize or increasingly prioritize sort of the, the health and maintenance of the player over streakiness. And having said that, I think that like, it's not a streak if you take a day off, right?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Like, if you want to de. Emphasize streaks, that's one thing, but you can't then redefine is streak to say that it's still a streak. Come on.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah. And I also would say now circling back to duolingo and other like, kind of things like that. I understand the instinct on some level, but I, I think that like, it's putting the emphasis on the wrong syllable, as it were, because what, what you want to incentivize is consistency. And consistency doesn't necessitate consecutive days. Right. You can be consistent and take a day off. It's fine. So go free yourself from your burdens, you know, And I think, and here I might be overstepping slightly, but like, the purpose of something like a duolingo or a learned league or any of these things is like the pursuit of knowledge in the. The thing, right. It's not about the shiny badge now dual lingo gets you because that little. Do they still have a little owl? Is the owl. Dual lingo people get. Like, my understanding is that that owl's a little asshole. Like, that owl's not chill. And it. You know, they want you on the app as much as they can. So this is the other thing. It's like your incentive is. Is to learn. Your incentive is to gain fluency in a foreign language or to, you know, exercise your mind or whatever. Their incentive is to keep you on the app as much as they can. Right? Like, that's their incentive. So just. Just. I just invite people to. To remember what their real incentive is and then what the evil app owl's incentive is. And like, pick the one that makes better sense, which is you and yours rather than that little owl. It like, like Hector's people, right?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yes. I'm learning from the NPR website. This owl evidently died earlier this year, but then was resurrected. And it. It turned out that the owl mascot got faked his own death. So they. They.

[Meg Riley]

Wait a minute. I'm gonna do. Sorry, I'm gonna do a big swear. What the. The Duolingo owl, which, to be clear, is not real. It's not a real owl.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yes.

[Meg Riley]

It exists in the app, faked its own death.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Why that was the in universe story.

[Meg Riley]

Shouldn't have lore like this. Like, what are we doing? Get out of here.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Here we discuss mascot lore at length. And this is now app mascot, corporate mascot lore. But I guess this was playing on the idea that people are fed up with the owl because the owl does Hector them.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Evidently the. The owl appeared to have been fatally run over by a. A cyber truck. And.

[Meg Riley]

Man, this sure is a Friday episode on. On a Thursday, isn't it?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Duolingo canon was so complex. But.

[Meg Riley]

Was it sweet? It was like identifiably a cybertruck.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It seems like it, but I don't know if that was itself sponsored or. I don't know that I want to know more about this.

[Meg Riley]

But on the one hand, it would be so weird for Tesla to be like, look, what we would like to do is sponsor the murder of your fake owl. But also, wouldn't that be very on brand for them too?

[Ben Lindbergh]

You know, wouldn't that fit right in the mascot's okay. If anyone was worried.

[Meg Riley]

Thank God. Or wow, again, I. I feel comfortable saying your app shouldn't have lore. Like, it's a. It's an app. It's there to. To teach people to speak Spanish so they're less annoying on vacation. Like what are we doing?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Question from Eli Patreon supporter. Regarding your recent discussion of Yankees and Red Sox fandom discontent, could you weigh in on a dispute my spouse and I have? We are a mixed marriage, Yankees, me and Red Sox her. And we've been arguing which is worse, the Red Sox trades of Mookie and Rafi or the Yankees continuing with the infuriating Aaron Boone era? Ilana's argument is that trading generational stars that you love, even though in pure surplus value terms may be worthwhile, is the biggest betrayal of fans. Fans. I've argued that what the Sox did was at least part of a plan and certainly less infuriating to watch than the Boone Yankees being mediocre to awful while hearing it's just right in front of us for the umpteenth time. Thoughts? Is it worse to die a death of a thousand errors and base running gaffes and baffling lineup and pitching decisions, or the cuts from losing a generational superstar like Mookie?

[Meg Riley]

Okay, so I feel like when we get questions like this, it's a test. Like, I'm not someone who believes particularly in the existence of an afterlife, but if there is one, I feel like my decision to be generous and take this question kindly is going to be like up on a Jumbotron, and the decision to tell people to please calm the hell down will not be taken kindly. And so, and so, and so I am going to answer this question with the dual goals of not only answering it, but also preserving my immortal soul and say, I don't know if I can do it. Well, first, I want to reassure both sides of this couple that you're gonna be fine. It's gonna be okay. You're gonna be okay.

[Ben Lindbergh]

You're gonna be thrust into the role of relationship counselor here.

[Meg Riley]

I don't even mean, like, within the confines of your relationship, although I have no reason to believe that you. That that won't be okay. I'm sure that that will be fine. You. You sound like nice married people. No, what I mean is that, like, in the. The context of your fandom, you'll be okay. I. If I had to pick a thing. If I had to pick a thing, I would probably pick trading Mookie as a worst.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Absolutely. Trading, definitely. There's no competition. Sorry, Eli.

[Meg Riley]

Sorry, Eli. That seems kind of obvious. I feel like if. If I do have any doubts about how well you two are getting along, I do feel like you were set up a little bit to, like, submit this question to us with your wife understanding that Actually, they're going to tell you that it is very obvious that trading Mookie is the worst thing. And that's should have registered, you know, just like it sounds like you should listen to her, because she's right. It's definitely trading Mookie. Trading Mookie is the worst thing. Trading Mookie is the worst thing. Because, look, managers come and go, franchise icons.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Much fans wish that this one would go. He has not gone, but still, managers.

[Meg Riley]

Come and go, but franchise icons much harder to replace place. And the decision to trade him, I think, spoke to a deeper sickness, a rot, as it were, at the center of the model of the team. And I'm not even trying to.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And that wasn't part of a plan, really. I mean, maybe Dever's deal was part of a plan, perhaps, but trading Mookie. The plan was, let's save money, basically. I mean, there wasn't really a subsequent. Well, I guess there was the investment endeavors subsequently, but firmly. Yeah, yeah. That wasn't like, we will move Mookie and therefore our team will profit. Perhaps the. The Fenway Sports Group will profit. But great things did not come of that deal.

[Meg Riley]

No, no, they didn't. And so I think trading Mookie is worse. I would also just like. Again, I know that things are not going well for the Yankees right now, and I don't want to discount anyone's feelings is a bummer. You know, it does suck when your favorite team is losing. I will remind Yankee soon that you were in the World Series literally last year. Like, really just right last year. And I know that going and not winning is like staying on the franchise when you're the Yankees, but we all.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Remember how that series ended. But nonetheless.

[Meg Riley]

But nonetheless, you were there. You were. You were there. And I do think that that having, you know, an appreciation for where you've been very recently is useful. I don't know if I've succeeded in being particularly kind, and so I will apologize for that. But also, the answer to this question is obvious, and the broader point of this question is obvious, which is that you are both gonna be fine, though.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yes. During Aaron Boone's tenure, the Yankees have the third most wins in baseball. They won a pennant last year. They missed the playoffs once. I believe they missed the playoffs in 20, 23. Right. And they have made the playoffs in every other year with Aaron Boone at the helm. Granted, they have not gone all the way, but come. Come on. Come on. Please come on.

[Meg Riley]

I feel. I feel heartened that your response is also, come on because I don't want to sound better about my less successful franchise, which now I have to count the Orioles. So that's that's really something.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Settled you with the Orioles in this season of all seasons.

[Meg Riley]

Now I'm mad at myself for my own playoff odds. Like this is such a conflict that has taken root. But oh, it's fine. I think you're going to be fine. And isn't that great news? Isn't that great news that you're going to be fine? That's really a kind thing actually, to remind you that you're going to be fine. Because it's good. It's so good to to actually be fine, you know, and you're going to be fine. That's great news.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Glad tidings. Okay, tidings Patreon Supporter says I was listening to episode 2358 while driving to work and all the stat blasts about scoring in Thai games made me ask myself a How can you not be pedantic about baseball? Question. How often do we check if a game is tied? Or rather, what's the frame rate on score checking in a baseball game? Let's imagine a game where the fielding team is winning three to two and the batting team has the bases loaded. From here, there are several ways the scores can change. The batting team can get a sac fly and score a single run. For instance, now that the score is 3 to 3, probably most people agree the game is tied. Yes, I would say so. But let's say there's a basis clearing double. The score is now 3 to 5. The game isn't tied after the play is over, surely. But was there a period between the first and second runners crossing the plate where the game was considered tied? If the batting team hits a grand slam, was the game also tied for a few seconds? Or does the dead ball nature of the home run mean the score jumps discontinuously from three to two to three to six, or even worse, the sacrifice fly situation. But after the play is over and time has been called, it's determined that some interference like infraction occurred during the play and the runner who started the play on second is awarded home plate. Would the game have been tied in the moments between the end of the actual play and the assessment of the infraction? Is scoring in baseball a continuous or discrete event, or sometimes one and sometimes the other, depending on context? So is there an intermediate score essentially, or is the score only officially updated when a play is complete?

[Meg Riley]

I would say that the score is updated when the play is Complete. So you would not.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Oh, disagreement, maybe.

[Meg Riley]

Maybe, I think. Okay, so let's, let's start with the ones where we, we will I'm sure not disagree. Grand slam. Is the score at any point tied in the midst of the, the runs scoring then?

[Ben Lindbergh]

I mean, what if the runners missed the base or something? It's not, it's not automatic. Right. Like, what if the runners run in front of each other? It's not like.

[Meg Riley]

Right, but it. But, but that would, but that having happened, would. Wait, no, you're definitely wrong. So. No, now I am not saying that there couldn't be circumstances that emerge during replay, for instance, that would alter the score and thus put you back to a. Put you to a tied state. Right, but that would be the result of review after the fact that then changes the score. Again, not.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yes. And you could, you could call that a separate play, I suppose. Maybe the review itself is a discrete action.

[Meg Riley]

It's a discrete event within the flow of the game. Now, I think that if you say, have runners on first and second and you hit a single and there's ambiguity about how many runs are gonna score. Okay. Okay. Maybe you can make an argument. I would still say that, like, the conclusion of the play is when you take stock of the score and determine you've gone ahead. You're. You're, you're tied. Now, announcers wild out on this all the time and they say they're calling it as they see it and the guys into it. And now the team is really bad. But in terms of like the actual mechanics of the thing, like, for instance, I think there's probably variation here. This isn't. This is a weak argument. I'm about to. Okay, but like, okay, you have a ballpark that has a mechanical scoreboard. Right? Right. Imagine, pick a ballpark that has a mechanical scoreboard.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Fenway.

[Meg Riley]

Fenway. Okay.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah.

[Meg Riley]

When do they change the score on the mechanical scoreboard?

[Ben Lindbergh]

I was just thinking that myself. They, they don't do every intermediate.

[Meg Riley]

They don't. They go from what it was to what it becomes.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And same on the broadcast. Right. They won't tick up by one. They'll. They'll do it all in one sum, I think.

[Meg Riley]

Right? Right. Yeah, right. Now, this doesn't matter. So if you, if you are delighted by the notion that that is. It is temporarily for. For an instant died.

[Ben Lindbergh]

That's just for convenience's sake. Cuz why would you go to the trouble of, let's replace this number and then this other number and then that other number when you Know in the vast majority of cases what you're going to end up with.

[Meg Riley]

When are you taking stock of the score? You're taking stock of the score when the play has concluded and the runners have all either crossed home and if they are, have occasion to do so, if the batter runner has reached his base or is retreating to the dugout. In this, in the case of a sacrifice in some way that scores a run. Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Well, so there's the provision in the rules where if you want to challenge or appeal certain type of plays, you have to ask to do that before there's another play. Because once another play starts, then you can't appeal that anymore, which would suggest that until you actually appeal, it's all part of the same play. And so I think it's when you challenge, when you appeal, that's a separate play. Okay. And so that if, if you reverse a score, you can do that. But that doesn't change what I think the core question is here, which in my mind, and you score when you touch home plate, I think that is when your score technically increases. Sure.

[Meg Riley]

But you. We're talking about how you talk about that in that.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, sure. Okay. So. Well, I don't. I think, given that this is a pedantic question that is explicitly asking about, like, technically, when is it tied? I think it's tied when that person, when the runner crosses home plate, if you do have a bases loaded possible bases clearing situation and runners are coming around and you're trailing by one run, when the lead runner scores, the game is tied in the middle of that play. Right. And you don't know which way it's going to go. You could end up being ahead at the end of that play if, if the next guy scores.

[Meg Riley]

Right. It could be up by two, potentially. I'm allowing for. Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

But at that moment, it's a tie game. And if that guy is thrown out, it will remain a tie game. And if he's not thrown out, then it won't be a tie game. But for a moment there, you're in this liminal phase. It is a tie game.

[Meg Riley]

Zoomer over here.

[Ben Lindbergh]

So I think that, that if the question is like the refresh rate, like how quickly does the image update, essentially the frame rate that I think, I think it happens when that player crosses home plate. Now, typically that's either happening quickly enough that you don't really have time to talk about it as being a tie game because it's about to be untied, or if it's a home run, sort of situation, then you don't even really consider the possibility that it won't be tied because something really wacky would have to happen for it not to be tied. It's almost automatic that if a certain number of runners are on base and the ball goes over the wall, then all of those guys and the guy who hit it are going to score. And so you can project what the score will be at the conclusion of the play with certainty. And so you wouldn't bother to say, oh, it's tied. Oh, we're up by one, oh, we're up by two. But I think technically that is true. Unless there's a rule that governs this that I'm not aware of, which is possible. I, I think it would be defensible to say that the game was briefly tied for a second there.

[Meg Riley]

I think it's defensible. It's just doofy.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Because yes, I would agree that it's doofy.

[Meg Riley]

It's written. Think about how it would be written in like if you're just looking at that, the box score and how it is written in the play by play on MLB.com right. You would say, like, I'm thinking about this because he just got dvd. Nathaniel Lowe hit a grand slam. He had his first grand slam as a national and now his last grand slam is a national. He hits his grand Islam. In the MLB.com accounting of that game, it says, Nathaniel Low hits a grand slam to write future field. James Wood scores. Luis Garcia Jr. Scores, Josh Bell scores. It is like a clump of score and then they have the updated score at the end of it. Because.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yes. And for the purposes of certain splits, like if you were to look up performance in Thai games, let's say then, right. That would be concluded plays, it wouldn't be like part of the performance in a tie game was that split second where it was tied before another runner.

[Meg Riley]

Across the plate is a moral failing. I just don't think that it's like consistent with how we tend to think about how games proceed in sequence, which is that you, you do, you do your accounting when the play has concluded and then if it turns out the accounting was wrong because actually the guy was interfered with or he didn't touch the bag and so the run doesn't, then you adjust your accounting and you adjust the score, but you're doing those as discrete events in sequence. Sequence. So that's the way I think about it. If you want to think about it differently, I don't think there's any harm in that. I just think that people are going to be like, well, sure, but what's the score right now? Because that's generally what they care about.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, no, I think it's like when you're sent to jail in Monopoly and you don't pass go and you don't collect 200. I think in baseball when you're, when you're sent home, you have to pass the intermediate bases and someone to get to a certain score.

[Meg Riley]

Right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

You do have to actually have the intermediate scores for a second. I think that's how. That's my belief system about baseball. At least I think for all intents and purposes, practically speaking, we don't disagree. And I also don't disagree that this is doofy. But, but I do think. I don't think you can get to five runs without having scored four runs or three runs. I, I think you do have to have each incremental score at some point to get to your ultimate score. It's just that it happens so quickly that we don't bother making a distinction there. We. We make more convenient just intervals, which I think is smart and as it should be. But since the question was really asking about the, the nature of scoring on this pedantic level, I, I think I'm with this question. The scenario that, yeah, there are. There are brief, fleeting transitory ties that we just do not acknowledge.

[Meg Riley]

I think that that's technically true, but technically correct.

[Ben Lindbergh]

The best kind. But that's what we're going for here.

[Meg Riley]

But, but meaningfully goofy. Meaningfully. Do you think that the Monopoly man was driving the cyber truck that killed the dueling Go Owl?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Maybe it just more brand activation, just more synergy. Sounds great. Mary Patreon supporter says. Not sure if this has been covered on the podcast already. Neither am I though. It doesn't ring a bell. Do we have a baseball definition for scattered? I was looking at a box score and noticed that the starting pitcher gave up only two earn runs despite allowing 10 hits. And I initially said to myself that he had scattered those hits. But upon reflection, I wonder if we can say the hits have been scattered only if they don't result in any runs. I don't think so.

[Meg Riley]

I don't think so.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, you can scatter and still have allowed some runs. Just fewer runs than you would expect based on the hit total, right?

[Meg Riley]

Yes, I think that that's right. I think that I would, I would let the hit total be my like North Star on. On that.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah. There's probably some sort of equation that we could have here. For what qualifies as scattered. You know, the, the, the mental arithmetic people do when they're deciding how egregious an age gap in a romantic relationship is. Like, maybe there's something like that for, for scattered where it's like, you know, hits divided by runs or so like, I don't know what the typical correlation is. Like how many runs are there per. Per hit in a game? So if you were to do some sort of regression analysis and say, okay, if you have, have 10 hits, then the most likely run total for you is, is X. Without knowing anything else, what those hits were, were they home runs, whatever. Right? Now if, if you have 10 hits and they're all singles or something, then it's, it's obviously easier to scatter them than it is if they're even solo home runs. But I think you could do some sort of division there where you just find out like your, your run allowed total is a lot lower than one would expect given the hit total. And sometimes that's because we're singles, but usually I think the platonic ideal of scattered is that you're just getting into and out of jams. And so there's like a lot of traffic on the bases in, in every inning even. But you keep just getting out of it somehow. Right? Like you put someone on a couple guys, get hits, but then you strand those runners and you just, you don't cluster that. It's like scattering is the opposite of clustering. Clustering, essentially.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah. Yeah, I think that that's right. I think that that's right. The opposite of clustering.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Okay. But it doesn't have to be a shutout.

[Meg Riley]

I don't think so.

[Ben Lindbergh]

No.

[Meg Riley]

You can scatter a couple runs over a few innings and, and I wouldn't raise my eyebrows at that to do.

[Ben Lindbergh]

The math and come up with a scattered equation. Please let us know. We'll report back. Michael Patreon supporter had a term to suggest lifelong Orioles fan. Just like you. Mechanic, right?

[Meg Riley]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah. Today's Sunday, August 10th loss to the Athletics was disappointing, but it did give me a new word to share. It was a walk away win for the visiting Athletics. They scored the go ahead and winning run in the top of the ninth. Following a recent podcast where y' all had mentioned that the O's were the only team in 2025 to not record a walk off win. Or I guess that it would have been very unusual for a team to go a whole season without a walk off win. And actually the Orioles just had one update to that. Stat blast. They had their first walk off of the season on Wednesday, I believe. Was that also against your Mariners? Was that the same game that we were talking about before Trevor Rogers?

[Meg Riley]

Yeah, they, they rallied to tie it in the, the bottom of the ninth and then they, the Orioles walked it off.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah.

[Meg Riley]

In the top of the night. Did I say the bottom of the ninth?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yes.

[Meg Riley]

I don't remember what I said, but. Yeah, but they, they scored in the part of the inning that they're allowed to score in. But then the Oros were like, we're not done.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Right. So, Michael, suggesting that what happened with the A's 3 to 2 victory was a walk away win. Right. They were the away team and won in their last at bat or the last at bat. What do you think? I love when you cogitate on making new terms in baseball for various specific situations. So the walkway win where they, they scored the go ahead and winning run in the top of the ninth. You can't have a walk off in this situation if you're not the home team. So this is like the equivalent for the visiting team, I guess. A walk away win.

[Meg Riley]

I'm open to that. I don't know that I needed a term for this, and I do worry that it would engender some confusion because it is close enough to walk off that people might be like, wait, what kind of one are we talking about? So that, that's my hesitation. And you're not really walking away just yet, are you? You know, you got to go back out there to, like, try to, to hold your lead. So maybe that's the larger issue, actually.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Okay. Dave in Hamilton, Ontario, appropriately enough, has a question about an Ontario team. After hearing your discussion on the Blue Jays demolishing the Rockies, I wondered how much that one series might change the perception of the Blue Jays season. They've had a great record for a few weeks now, but their run differential has not aligned with that record. After a plus 41 run differential series, the differential is still only plus 55, good for the 9th best in the majors. And they're plus 4 on their Pythagorean record and base runs record. If my math is right, they had a plus 14 differential entering that series, which would be 16th in the league right now. We recognize how much that one series positively affected their run differential, but will we remember that in a few weeks? I would love your thoughts on just how much that will change the narrative about how they've overperformed. So yeah, that, that is a good question because we did make a Big deal of that then. But then it all blends together. And so will you remember that at the end of the season they're at plus 45 now. So there has been some effort, as I recall, to sort of strip out blowouts from run differential calculations. And I don't really recall how much that helps, if at all, whether that makes things more predictive.

[Meg Riley]

Because how do you feel about that? Like philosophically though?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, I'm conflicted about that because sometimes, sometimes a blowout is a reflection of being a good team and the other team being bad. Right now, as we've discussed, I guess maybe there is more of a tendency to pour fuel on the fire now. Gasoline on the fire. Because you might put in Austin Nola to pitch right. And he is not as good a pitcher as his brother. And I believe he's no longer in the majors even after he fell on his sword in that game. So maybe there's an argument for it in the, the position player pitching era where it could get kind of skewed and distorted. But, but on the whole, I, I don't, I wouldn't want to just wipe away anytime you blew out another team, cuz that could, that could be skill.

[Meg Riley]

Could say something. Yeah, yeah. Could say something meaningful about you as a team.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, yeah, I, it's true. I think. I mean, seeing that run differential just does make me feel better about the Blue Jays than I, I did before that series. Even though I know that a lot of that run differential came from that series and I know how bad the Rockies are and everything. But then, and yeah, everyone gets to play the Rockies though, you know, and other teams haven't beaten up on the Rockies quite as much as the Blue Jays did in that series. So you gotta give, give it up for that a little bit.

[Meg Riley]

But I don't know, here's my sort of broader theory about how we metabolize these things. I think that fans of other teams forget this stuff if they ever knew it at all, right. They, they're not tracking the ins and outs of the run differential. They, they will notice extremes. You know, when you have like a very, when you have clearly outscored your opponents by a lot, fans will notice. If you have like a wildly negative run differential, opposing fans will notice. But generally I don't think opposing fans are really paying much attention to that. And I don't think that if a blowout or two in either direction is really skewing the, the number that, that they're much aware of that. I do think that fans of that team have a sense of it. And the degree to which that sense is front and center in their minds is directly correlated to how anxious they are about the quality of their club.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah.

[Meg Riley]

Because if you have a team, if your favorite team has won a couple of blowouts and that is skewing your numbers, you're thinking about it a lot sitting right there. You're like, we're not very good. Actually. We're not. This is that one game. It's that one couple of games. Games. It's really. But actually this is a paper tiger, you know. Yeah, but I think that, that, I think that's true. I think that that is true. Yeah, I mean, I don't know that they're a paper tiger. I think the Blue Jays are a good club.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I don't think they're good. Yeah, we underrate them maybe because they have a little bit of the brewers thing going on where they have a lot of depth in their favor and, and less extreme star power and then also good gloves, great defensive team. And that's another thing that can cause a team to be be underrated, you know. Plus some of their off season additions haven't really been all that responsible for their success. But yeah, no, it's not a, a mirage that they've done well lately.

[Meg Riley]

Anthony Santander nowhere to be found. Hoffman Santand where really. That's not fair. He's hurt.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah. Sam Patreon supporter says I think about Adam Dunn all the time. Who doesn't? I'm Sam and I think about Adam Dunn all the time. It probably has to do with the flurry of if Stanton or Schwerber hit 500 home runs, book them to the hall of Fame discussions I've seen this season. Stanton is in a different class. So I really want to get into Dunn vs. Schwarber. I don't really recall there ever being that type of dialogue used at any point in Dunn's career though. Just because I don't remember it doesn't mean it didn't happen. He was pretty close to.500. Yeah, he got up to what, 462 career home runs. Pretty close. That's one good Adam Dunn season away. Way I took a look and their rate stats are extremely similar. If anything, you'd expect Schwarbers to start taking a dip in the coming years once he gets into his mid-30s. As far as Fangraph Sward, Dunn has a slight lead, but I think the argument could be made his fangraph sward takes a hit by playing so much time in the field pre universal dh. I mean, you could also say that about Schwaber too, even though it's not pre universal DH anymore. Here are my questions. Do the numbers support the statement Kyle Schwaber is the modern day Adam Dunn? And second, if so, why are or were they perceived so differently? Is it due to Dunn existing in a pre sabermetric era? Did Dunn's overall reputation take a hit because of how terrible his defense was? Are fans just burnt out on seeing so many hall of Fame ballots where the home run guys have PD implications and they just want to see a masher get in? I'm assuming it's a combination of things. Curious to get your two cents. So, yeah, I mean, I think if anything, well, well, Dunn was one of those guys who early in the sabermetric appreciation era, I think was sort of embraced because he was a slow, hulking, patient slugger, high strikeout, slugger, low average. And he was a guy who, I think his reputation was burnished in sabermetric circles, which were not as mainstream as they are today. But he was kind of embraced for, hey, this guy's actually pretty valuable. Even though, though he's striking out almost 30% of the time and adding 240 or whatever, which was lower then relative to the league than it is now. And there was a lot of attention paid to how many home runs he hit. I mean, I remember that streak of 40 home run seasons when he hit 40 exactly on the dot, four consecutive seasons. That was a pretty big deal. And then he bookended that with a 46 and two 38s. I mean, that guy, guy could hit home runs. And I, I think, yeah, I would quibble with the election a little because I, I think that Dunn was one of those guys who got mentioned as like, oh, what if he gets to 500? That'll really be a dilemma. And then, you know, there were enough guys who got to 500 and didn't get in because of P stuff that maybe that became a little less of an issue. Although there's still really no one who's, you know, seen as clean and 500 plus who's, who's not in. So.

[Meg Riley]

Right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I think he was on that list absolutely. Of people. And I wrote something when he retired for Grantland about war being so useful because it could help us compare, say, Adam Dunn and Juan Pierre, who were like diametrically opposite players, but at least at the time had identical wars. And okay, this is why it's useful to have a stat like this that can put these players on the same Scale, even though their contributions came in vastly different, different ways. So is it just that like, Schwarber's been on better and more notable teams and has had bigger moments because of that and you know, 2016 cub, and now he's on these Phillies teams and Dunn was on some stinkers and maybe, maybe that has to do with it. Or maybe he just came. Came along too soon. I don't know.

[Meg Riley]

Too soon, too soon. And. And Stinky T teams, you know, yeah, Stinky is too strong Stinker. But yeah, I think that has a lot to do with it. The combination of those things kind of clouded his legacy in our collective imagination, I believe.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, I believe he never played a postseason game. So it's very different from Schwarber. I think that's a big part of it. He was also. He was big. I mean, Big Dunkey was the nickname. Right. So he was. He was six' six, almost 300. On the podcast, Mike Scher and Joe Posnanski did this classification thing recently where they like sorted players based on sluggers, especially based on their size. And so like baseball monsters were huge. And then they had an intermediate category, which was the Oaf. The baseball Oath, which was said. Said fondly. Right.

[Meg Riley]

But it also suggests a lack of coordination that I don't know is fair.

[Ben Lindbergh]

But it was like, you know, Jim Tome was the baseball kind of like a friendly Giant, but like, okay, not a baseball monster, which would be like, you know, Ellie De La Cruz or Shohei Ohtani or someone that should be known as the.

[Meg Riley]

The Andre for Andre the Giant because he seemed like a sweetheart. Sure. Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Could work.

[Meg Riley]

Not an oomph.

[Ben Lindbergh]

They had a separate category for like schwarbs, which were like just mini mini oafs basically because like schwarber is. Is 511 listed. And yet you'd think that he'd be bigger. He's like in that. Matt Stairs. He's bigger than Matt Stairs, but he's in that kind of like slugger shaped, barrel chested home run hitter, but smaller of stature than one might expect. Whereas Adam Dunn just dwarfed everyone and looked the part more than Schwarber, I guess. But no, I think they're fairly comparable. And I think it has a lot to do with the stage on which Schwaber has had his heroics, which is partly in his control and partly not.

[Meg Riley]

Oaf is gonna bother me though.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah.

[Meg Riley]

I wonder. There's not a way to do this, and that's a bummer. But in addition to the like an end of career, you were awesome. Award, like a career Cy Young or whatever. We should take all the guys who didn't get to play in the postseason and like give them a, a, a playoff. But then they won't be themselves. You know, they'll be diminished. They'll be, yeah, you can't do it after they've ended their career because then it's like, do you really want to see, like, that team? No, you don't. You want to see them when they're young, bright guys. You know, when they're oaf isn't quite right. I do have a note on that. You know, I get what they're going for, but I, I don't. I think that that is. There's a tweak that needs a little tweak. He's a tweak.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Well, I'm sure they're open to tweaking it and may potentially tweak it themselves, but. Okay, we can do a few more next time. Perhaps. I have a few leftovers.

[Meg Riley]

All right, that sounds good.

[Ben Lindbergh]

You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com effectively wild as have the following five listeners who have already signed up and pledged some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad free and get themselves access to some perks. As have the following five David Gublar, King Shackles, Tom Kleeman, Mike Everode, and Kyle Graber. Thanks to all of you, Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, monthly bonus episodes, playoff live streams, prioritized email answers, personalized messages, discounts on merch and ad free Fangrafts memberships, and so much more. Check out all the [e-mail] effectivelywild if you are Patreon Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. If not, you can contact us via email. Send your questions, comments, intro and outro themes to podcastangraphts.com you can rate, review and subscribe to Effectively Wild on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Music and other services. You can join our Facebook [e-mail] group effectivelywild. You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at R Effectivelywild and you can check the show notes at fangraphs or the episode description and your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we cited today. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We'll be back with one more episode before the end of the week, which means we will talk to you soon. When I'm riding the bus or going for a walk One strap on my head, then listen People talk. I want to hear about baseball with new ones and play puppy and stats. Yeah, yeah. Don't want to hear about picture wins or about gambling eyes all they want to hear about my child athleticles and the texture of the hair on the arm growing out of one's head. Gross. Gross. Gimme, gimme, gimme Effectively wild. Gimme, gimme, gimme affected the wild. Gimme, gimme gimmick Give me effectively wild. This is effectively wild.