← Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
Effectively Wild Episode 2380: Clinching Chaos
01:50:10
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the Mariners clinching the AL West, the benefits and drawbacks of MVP debates, the power of great players to enhance a season for spectators, the Cardinals’ and Giants’ reciprocal eliminations,
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A
It's effectively wild.
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B
It's effectively wild.
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A
Wetland bike.
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B
In Bag rally.
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A
Hello and welcome to episode 2380 of Effectively Wild, a FanGraphs baseball podcast, brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Riley of fangraphs, and I'm joined by Ben Limurgo, the Ringer. We are up with energy today. Ben.
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B
Yeah. Congrats to you and Cal Rally and all the many Mariners fans who listen to Effectively Wild.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Who have clinched the AL West.
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A
Yeah, look, I didn't have anything to do with it. You know, I didn't really clinch anything. I've been clenching but not clinching. Didn't. That wasn't me. Although it was fun as I was watching the post game celebration. And they cut to everyone filing into the locker room slash murder room that they have prepared. It's just always what I think of when we get to postseason time.
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B
Dexter Esque.
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A
Yeah. I'm like, it's so nice that we're filling this space with positive energy because the decorations make you think that somebody's going to die. And I'm sitting there and I'm watching everybody file in and they're being handed their goggles, and I was like, hey, there's Dave Cameron. Oh, yeah, I know that guy. You know, you're safe.
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B
Oh, yeah.
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A
Way to go, Dave. So he had something to do with it. Not. Not me. But it was very exciting, you know, an emphatic. An emphatic victory. I have not been in a position in my fandom to very often opine, like, in an informed way about, like, the ideal way that one can clinch anything. You know, I just haven't had that. That hasn't been part of the emotional repertoire. Here's the thing I discovered last night. It feels legitimately very cool to have your favorite team do it themselves. You know, like the. Throughout that Mariners broadcast, they had the. The Astros A's score, like, up in the left hand corner. You know, they had the little score bug pretty consistently. And you get to a point, and it happened fairly early because, you know, Cal hits 59, Julio homers. Jorge Polanc right behind him. They're up early. Luis Castillo is cruising. Beautiful start, you know, so good. Was it against the Rockies? Sure. In a. In a ballpark that suppresses offense. Yeah, one could argue that. But a nice, like, reset after, you know, him having a rough stretch and I didn't have to worry about what was going on in the upper left hand corner. That didn't matter. You know, that was. That was Houston's Business. And I'm not going to use this as an opportunity to gloat about the, you know, the misfortunes of the Astros. It's not about them, you know, for. For once, it's about the Mariners. And that feels so nice. You know, they did it themselves. They wanted at home. People were losing their. Their whole gourds, you know, just, you know, their entire minds lost with delirium. Get to watch Cal hits 60. I will say this. I'm going to offer one note, okay. Because I want to make sure everyone's clear about where I stand on these things. I don't know who the AL MVP is. If I had a vote, and I don't, I do not have. I want to reassure everyone I don't have a vote in that race. I have an awards vote this year, but not that one. I suspect that if I sat down and I really put my arms around it and I tried to engage with it objectively, then I still might probably vote for Aaron Judge. You know, it's close. There's a lot that I think, or at least something that isn't captured in the. It's a catcher of it all doing what Cal's doing. But like, I want to make clear that I am in awe of Aaron Judge and the season he's having. And you know, he's not really getting a lot of hay in terms of like a historic effort. Although he hit his 50th and 51st home run last night. Very fun for the two of them to. To each hit two in the same night.
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B
Yeah, it was funny. It was. All of baseball's best sluggers had multi homer games other than Choi Ohtani. It was judged Cal. Kyle Schwaber hit two and of course Edmundo Sosa hit three.
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A
Amazing, amazing first multi hit first multi home run game of his career. And he had three very.
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B
All the biggest bats, Judge.
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A
All the biggest bats, right?
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B
The guys used to rally. Sosa. Not that Sosa, though. Edmund.
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A
Ed Mundo Sosa. So I, I think that it would be easy. And when he hit 50, then we started to kind of put his, his season in his own historic context, right. As a guy who has managed to do what Judge has done with the consistency that he has, right? Like all of these tremendous, at least 50 home run seasons, really spectacular. A two, a 202 WRC plus. I mean, just like, wow. I just hope that we spend collectively the next couple of days really luxuriating in what these two guys are doing. And the NL has its own fun to offer. I know that there's a segment of the Phillies fandom who are convinced that Kyle Schwaber is the mvp. I would respectfully disagree with that. But an amazing season. Terrific. Get out your. John Middleton. Get out your checkbook. You got to bring him back. Ohtani. What a year. We were sitting in a really special, cool time. And I have been. I have been known to be annoyance prone. You know, that might be an aspect of my personhood, along with anxiety. And I have seen some. Some. Some posts that I have found to be annoying. But I'm going to set an example and just, like, we should really soak it in because there's been a lot of midness this year, as we have discussed, but a lot of that midness is sitting at the team level, and, you know, fine.
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B
Yeah.
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A
But there have been some really spectacular seasons put up by individual guys, and I hope we enjoy it to the last drop, because it's really something I could not. I know I've seen it. I'm sure I've seen it a couple of times. I do want to impress upon people how rarely guys hit home runs. Where Cal hit that first home run, it. The ball doesn't go up there very often. Yeah, it. It was. It was. Sure. It was so emphatic, you know, and I just. It's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun that they did it themselves. It feels like an important step forward for the organization in terms of, like, how they now really have to regard themselves. You know, we have complained, and by we, I mostly mean me, but we'll sanitize it a little. We'll say we have mostly complained about the Mariners being in. I have often felt like they've been stalled over the last couple of seasons. Right. That the Astros have at times presented themselves as vulnerable and that for whatever reason, mostly ownership, the club has not adopted an attitude of, let's go, let's. Let's go. Let's make it our year. Let's go get. Go get it. And I felt like they were aggressive at the deadline. Their guys are playing great. The vibes are immaculate. I didn't even finish the thought I started with, which is that, hey, Mariners broadcast. Just like, I know he's your mvp, but this is an open question, so let's just allow for the beauty of our season. That's all. That's all I'm gonna say. That's all I'm gonna say, Everybody. Yeah, we don't have to. I'm just saying. But, yeah, like, they. They have been idling and it felt like the thing that they needed to do to not only be taken seriously, but I think to take themselves seriously as an organization was to win the West. Don't squeak in, don't go get it, go hang a non embarrassing banner. You know what I'm saying? Like, no more of this wild card bullshit. Let's. Let's be in a different era of Mariners baseball. And who knows if we are? You know, there's a lot of baseball yet to play this year. They will have some interesting decisions to make come the off season. But it just, it's pretty cool. It's a cool thing to watch. I'm trying to enjoy it. I'm trying to maintain some amount of critical distance. I don't know that I'm succeeding. Who could even say? But it just feels very cool. Like, you know, two nights in a row you get Cal Raleigh on TV saying, might as well go win the whole thing. And everyone is like, oh, that Cal. You swear away, my son. It's. Yeah, I'm enjoying myself. It's nice.
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B
I'm happy for you and your fellow fans. This is, I think, the fourth Mariners division title in your lifetime. I don't mean to dwell on that fact.
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A
Oh, no, dwell away.
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B
Just saying that you haven't had the opportunity to see an exciting clinch really in 30 years. And 30 years ago you were quite young, quite small, and I'm sure you remember it in some way, but probably weren't able to appreciate it the way that you're able to appreciate it now. Even if your fandom is different from the way that it was when you were a kid. And back then, that was a close one. In 97, they won. They had a lead of several games. And then in 2001, which was the last time this happened, they got a huge lead. It was just a formality. They won the west by 14 games. So there was no suspense whatsoever. So the fact that this was very much in doubt until recently, it was in doubt that they would make the playoffs at all, let alone that they would win the division, get a buy, et cetera. And it all just happened very quickly because they decided to stop losing baseball games almost entirely. And so that has paid off for them, especially because it has coincided with the Astros mostly stopping with the winning. So it is quite exciting. I have a few thoughts on Cal and the MVP conversation.
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A
Sure.
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B
One is just that, yes, we should absolutely just enjoy these guys. And I know that this will sway no one and this will not turn down the temperature on these debates. One Iota. But it is weird that we force ourselves into this binary mindset where it just becomes hyper competitive and people are partisan and we have to find the flaws in the other guy. Can we not just agree that they're both great? I mean, they're just both greats. Let's just appreciate how great they are. Why does it immediately have to pivot to but is this guy slightly greater than that other guy? And why does this have to be something that we get wrapped up in and our identities as fans are at stake and people are angry and people are trash talking. It's so silly. And I wrote about this in 2022 when it was Ohtani versus Judge. And at the time my position was basically the same. Just they're both great, just appreciate them both. You don't have to decide which one was better. It doesn't actually matter. There's nothing at stake for you personally. There are 30 people in the world who have to vote on this award, which is not even really representative of baseball writers as we talked about recently as a whole, which itself is not necessarily representative of some sort of inherent truth or the position of fans as a whole or people who work for baseball teams or whatever. It's just 30 people's opinions. 30 people who know more about baseball than the average person. But they're not so experts that they are necessarily right and you're wrong. If they say otherwise and you disagree. We don't have to put so much stock in this that it turns into a flame war about this guy's better than that guy. They're both great. They're both great in different ways that are fascinating to contemplate and appreciate and marvel at. And I don't, I don't know why we do this. Why are our brains broken in this way that it immediately has to become a head to head competition. It's not like they're competing against each other, decides which of these teams makes the playoffs or something like nothing, nothing will change. They're having these great seasons. They're very valuable. Whatever the pronouncement of 30 voters is will not change how valuable they are. So yeah, it can be kind of interesting to discuss and look at the various wrinkles of the season and different analytical approaches to this, different lenses. I'm all for having that conversation if it's just sort of coming from a mutual admiration for them both really. And often it is. But often it's not. Often it's about my guy is better than your guy and trying to tear the other guy down.
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A
So I know that. I just implored everyone to, like, you know, soak it in and enjoy it. I do think that, like, sports debate, that's a fun, proud tradition. It doesn't have to be. And I, look, I'm going to say. I'm going to say something rude about Yankees fans, and then I'm going to. I'm going to cast a side eye at my own people. Okay? So it's going to be. It's going to be okay. Part of the general temperature of the conversation is that it involves a Yankees player and thus involves Yankees fans. And I think it is a group that tends to be, as we have discussed before, very certain of its own greatness. Right. Or the greatness of its players. And guess what? They're not wrong about Aaron Judge in that regard. He is certifiably, unquestionably great. Great, great, great, great. So. So there's that. I also think that part of what is giving this race in particular a flavor of annoyance is that Mariners fans are not often in a position where they get to say, our guy's the best guy in any kind of credible way. We've had more luck in that regard on the pitching side of things. But, like, you know, individual awards for Mariners players, not unprecedented, certainly, but. But often a product of a bygone era. Right. And so Mariners fans are annoying, too, because they are reacting to the insinuation that Cal shouldn't even be in the conversation or is a distant from a place of defensiveness. And we tend as human creatures to not cover ourselves in glory when that's the perspective we're coming from. So a good amount of annoyance to go around, and then you sprinkle that with the fact that part of what is fueling the debates is that you get to pick your particular flavor of advanced stat to advance your argument. So you and I want to be clear that I'm not, like, knocking our brethren at Baseball Reference or Baseball Prospectus. That's. That's not my goal here today. But, you know, if you are a Baseball Reference WAR person or even a warp person, well, this isn't really much of as much of a conversation. Right. We have tended to be of the mind, and I think this is still my position that, you know, when the WAR gaps are. Are fairly large, you can appreciate the other guy and you can acknowledge, wow, this is an incredible season, but there's only so much, well, he's doing all of this as a catcher that you can really pack in there to level Cal up. Right. So if you are a baseball reference WAR person. And so you're looking at a flavor of WAR that does not include catcher framing. Or you're a warp person. And so you're looking at a version of WAR that is derived from DRC and thus thinks that Cal is over his skis. From a hitting perspective, you're like, why is this a conversation if you're a fan of grafts, WAR person, you're like, oh, well, they're half a win apart, so it's fairly close. Let's dive in. And so I do think that all of that is sort of baked in there. And so then you have people who are sort of using the race as like a hobby horse for other WAR based conversations, which is a hilarious sentence out of context. So that's all in there. And look, sports talking is fun, man. It can be very fun. And it can be fun and not annoying. And some of this is just me being an irritable sort. You know, one has to acknowledge one's own vulnerabilities to bull. And that's me.
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B
To the extent that any of this is important, it's because we ascribe some importance to it. It doesn't actually matter in any cosmic sense who wins the World Series either, or who wins any particular baseball game. We've just decided that that's a thing that we care about. So that's not necessarily more valid than caring about who wins the AL mvp, I suppose. Right. But I guess it also comes down to if you are a fan of either one of these teams and you're watching one of these guys day in and day out, it is difficult to conceive of them not being the most valuable player in the league because they're both so good. And so you might know, in an intellectual sense, okay, you are aware perhaps of the stats that this other guy has. But if you're a Yankees fan and you're seeing Aaron Judge every day, and you're a Mariners fan and you're seeing Cal every day, even in the abstract, it's like, how could a catcher who has 60 home runs and plays every damn day, like how can not be the mvp? And if your Aaron Judge is the best hitter since Barry Bonds and just an unstoppable offensive force, well, how could he not the mvp? And they're both quite deserving in many years, most years, maybe 9 to 10 war guys just eye popping traditional stats and advanced stats. So if you are somewhat biased because you're watching one of them all the time and they have delivered many jolts of dopamine to you over the course of the season, then I can see why the mind might reel at the idea that they would not win that hardware, because how could they not? They've been so good. But yes, it's true that we like talking about these things. And without these things, if we all just had a very even keeled, oh well, this team might win and that team might win and this player might win and then either way we'll be fine and life will go on, you know. Yeah, we need some people to be a little too into this. We need. Oh yeah, we're all a little too into this. And that's why it works and that's why it's fun. So yes, some joshing, of course, is pleasant and some making an argument for your guy. And there are well constructed arguments that one could make for each player. And yeah, it's just when it goes beyond that, then having to hyper fixate on the MVP race almost to the exclusion of just appreciating the finer points of each player's season, like just, just appreciate how good they've both been. And you know, I made my position clear the other day that I think Cal has had the more noteworthy, memorable maybe season that he's kind of been the player of the year. He has sort of dominated the narrative of much of the season at least. And I also think that having individual seasons like this, it really enhances the experience, the spectator experience of a season almost immeasurably because baseball is, is known as a sport where one star doesn't do that much and one star can't convert a bad team into a good team. And that's all true. And there are a lot of players and even the top players, people historically have overrated how much they're actually worth, how much they can swing a team's fortunes. Of course, as the examples of Judge and Rally show, they can turn an okay team into a division winner. And both of these teams are where they are right now because they have Judge and Cal rally. But also in a larger sense, at least as a more impartial observer, it enhances the season so much for me to have even one guy who's having a season like this, right, that I can just check the stats every day, that I can just see, did Cal hit a homer? Did Judge do something? What are the stats now that really makes it so much more fun for me to follow. And as you noted, there has been a bunch of midness on the team level. But even having one guy who's having a season like this, let alone three, if you throw Ohtani in there, that really gives me something to cling to, where that becomes one of the main stories of the season, and it's a consistent story throughout the season. And that makes a big difference to how I would grade the experience of following Major League Baseball.
- [21:41]
A
Yeah, I think that having individual performances like this is so it's just like, profoundly enriching. And to be clear, I am, you know, like a fan of one of these teams. So it does hit different when it's like one of your guys. Right. But I think part of what it battles against for me, regardless of the player and the team he's on, is that, you know, I would say that, like, it's talking about discourse, one of the defining and I think still ongoing discourses. Discourse I. This course of this era of baseball has been, is the game in a healthy place? Right. And particularly in years like this where we see the team level competition and, you know, the division competitions largely marked by midness, I think that there's a lot of fretting on the part of fans of the game that, like, we're, you know, we're in a bad way here. Right. And the cultural prominence of baseball has slipped relative to other men's sports. And we are, you know, constantly litigating rules changes. And we have another, you know, surely another work stoppage looming. And there, you know, the owners are these craven, cheap goons that we don't care for. You know, there's. There's a lot about the game that feels sort of fretful and anxious. And I know I've remarked on this commercial before, and it's wild that this piece of, like, PR stuck with me so much, but I. I do very often think back to that commercial that they aired before opening day in 2014. 15 bucks. Showalter was still manager, Felix was still playing. So, you know, peg the year based on that. But, you know, Bucks driving a golf cart around a backfield, you know, as spring training is underway, and he's like, these are the good old days. These are the best guys.
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B
These are the best 750 players in the world.
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A
That the world has to offer.
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B
The game's being played better than it.
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A
Ever has in the history of it. Pretty good run the bases. These are the good old days.
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B
They are.
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A
I don't want to be so Pollyannaish about the state of the game and its many flaws that I ignore them because I think, you know, tending to those issues, trying to hold powerful people to account trying to think creatively about how we enhance the experience of watching baseball for fans. Those are all important endeavors, but I don't want to be so fixated on them that we lose sight of the fact that, like, these are the guys we get to watch right now. And that is so, to borrow a word from Cal, Raleigh. Cool, man. Like, it is good stuff we're seeing out there every night, and it's not perfect. And we have notes. But, like, what it. What a treat. What an absolute privilege that these are the guys that we get to watch, that these are the guys pitched in competition for an award, but also that they are the ones who are going to define the postseason. And it's not that all the best players in the game are making, you know, the playoffs this year, but a lot of them are, you know, and if the, if the Guardians hold on, we get Jose Ramirez, too.
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B
Yeah.
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A
You know, so it's, it's just a really. There are parts of it that are so special, and they are so, a lot of the times, unprecedented. And I do hope we get to hold on to that because, you know, especially this week, like you and I have both remarked to each other and on the pod, like, look at these games we get, like, what a good.
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B
Yeah, what a slate. You know, we talked about how great Tuesday was, and then Wednesday topped it. Probably it topped it with the baseball action, but also these individual performances. And as tiresome as I find some aspects of the MVP conversation, I love that these guys just keep raising the bar. And with anyone else, I mean, you would think, okay, Cal hits two more, he gets to 60, the Mariners clinch. That's it. That's the coronation. He sealed the deal. And then Judge is like, I also can hit two homers and get three hits as the Yankees pull into a. A tie, aside from the tiebreaker in the AL East. So, you know, just holding serve. It's great. And I also like the fact that the Mariners have clinched, which means I hope that we will get more Cal before the end of the regular season, because now that he's gotten to 60 with four games to go as we.
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A
Speak, they're going to. Oh, yeah, they're got to let him, right? No, they're going to. They're going to let him hunt 63. They're going to see if he can do it.
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B
You have to. You have to for sure. And. And it's not even irresponsible to now, like, if they had clinched this weekend sometime, you know, maybe you, like, give him Sunday off or Something so that he has a couple days before the wild card series starter. If they hadn't won the division, that is, if they had to play in the wild card series, then just how little rest he's had. And I know he doesn' want to rest, but still, at some point you figure that's gotta take a toll and maybe let's actually give him a couple consecutive days off here. Well, now he's gonna get him. So he can, he can rest for a few days, even if he plays all these remaining games and just gets the maximum number of cracks at it. So Cal can rest in November.
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A
They have a lot of incentive to keep. I mean, it would be kind of. Man, I even hesitate to say this. I was gonna say it would be challenging for them to not push through to having a buy. I suppose it's possible. They haven't clinched it yet, right? They haven't clinched a buy.
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B
Yeah.
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A
But to give everybody a chance to rest, Cal included, to give, you know, Brian wu's Peck more time. I will say there was a moment. Speaking of, like, let everybody get arrest, there was a moment while I was watching their, their post game celebration last night. I have to say, those, those dudes were so happy to just pour beer and champagne all over Angie Menzik. Angie, I weep for your hair. I hope, I hope it was okay. There was also a moment where Ryan Roland Smith is talking to John Stanton, who was bone dry, Bone dry. And then someone who I did not recognize came up. And you know, Ryan Roland Smith is like, given. Given John Stanton the playful business about how he doesn't. How he's like, come on, you gotta, gotta get doused a little bit here. And someone who I did not recognize came up and poured champagne on John Stanton. And then he went, okay, that's enough. And I was like, oh, God, I hope that person's job is secure. I hope that guy's okay, whoever you are. But, you know, they're. They're like doing their. Their. They're letting people enjoy watching this, right? Because again, it doesn't come around for Mariners fans very often. And Cal picked up a, A bottle of champagne and they looked like they were weird. They weren't cork pop ones that you had like a, you needed a bottle opener. And he is briefly trying to twist. And I was like, don't, Cal. You put. Don't. What the. You know, and he looked like he was going to do that thing that the bros do at barbecues where there's no bottle opener, where you, like, hold the bottle and you try to whack it off on the edge of a table. And also. Please don't. Don't. I'm sorry for all the swearing. Don't. And then so one of their, their longtime VP of PR came up and was like, I think you look around and he's like, I need a bottle opener. I need a bottle opener. I was like, those hands are precious, sir.
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B
Yes, yes.
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A
Please don't.
- [29:58]
B
Better safety break yourself. Yeah, no. You venture into that situation when there's a champagne celebration going on in a clubhouse. You must expect to get doused. You waive your right to remain dry in that situation. So you know what you're getting into and you've got to accept that risk. So that was fun to see. And the Guardians ongoing domination of the Tigers and lights out bullpen is fun to see. Not for Tigers fans, obviously. You did have on Wednesday. Yeah, the Tigers and Astros and Blue Jays and Mets just continuing to fumble things to varying degrees. You also had. So this was, I think, sort of interesting on back to back days, consecutive games, I believe the Giants were eliminated by the Cardinals and then the Cardinals eliminated by the Giants the next day. I think it's. I saw some conflicting reports about whether the Cardinals were actually technically eliminated. It's another annoying thing about just all this tiebreaker nonsense because, like, sometimes it's actually difficult to compute if you are technically eliminated. If there is some scenario where, you know, 16 things go right for you and there's a certain sequence of wins and losses that, okay, there is some small mathematical chance, but it was widely reported that they were eliminated. So they eliminated each other in back to back games. And granted, so far they were, they were long shots. I'm sure they weren't harboring a lot of hopes entering that series, but they played each other a couple times, a couple series in the stretch, down the stretch here, and they, they basically had sort of like a, a mutual elimination pact by more or less splitting their games. Like if, if one of them sounds.
- [31:45]
A
So dark as a way to describe it, jeez.
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B
But if, if one of them had just agreed to step aside for the other and just said, you may sweep me, they would have been actually positioned pretty well to make a playoff spot. So if either one of them had done well, they just won, you know, almost all, all but one of those games or swept them, then they might have been in the playoffs. But as it was, they more or less split them and so they took themselves both out of it. And I was trying to think like, is that like A revenge game at that point. Like, do you think the Giants on Wednesday are like, all right, boys, let's go out there and give them a taste of their own medicine. They got us. And I know it's not as simple as they were eliminated by the loss because, of course, there's a million scenarios and other teams had to lose and everything. But if we simplify it, we can just say that the Giants were eliminated on a day that the Cardinals beat them, and then the Cardinals were eliminated on the day that the Giants beat them. Does that count as playing spoiler? Like, are the Giants a day after being eliminated themselves? Are they playing spoiler when they eliminate the Cardinals? Or are they, like, let's get them back for what they did to us yesterday?
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A
They did technically do it. So I'm not saying they didn't play spoiler, but I think to start discussing spoilers, both clubs have to have a greater chance. Like, more recently, surely there is at every moment when a. Before a club is eliminated, a greater chance of them making it than not. Right? Like, did that make sense? Like, you. If you've had a precipitous fall, like, for instance, just let's pick it. Let's pick a team where I can't be accused of bias. Look, people want me to be honest about the team I prefer to win, and then sometimes I do that, and people rude on the Internet about it, and I'm like, what do you want from me? You've asked for something, I gave it to you, and now you're being rude. Why to me, Kitten, let's say that the Mets blow it and miss the postseason, right? Let's pretend that that happens. Or assume, for the purposes of this hypothetical, obviously, like, they will have a. Where they are formally eliminated, and they will have had days in the past where their odds were much better if a team within their own division is the one that finally eliminates them. I would designate that club as having played spoiler if their odds peaked recently at, like, 5%. I don't know that spoiler is the framework I would really put them in. Does that distinction make sense? Right? Like, I think you have to have been closer to being in it.
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B
The Giants, there were times where they were times closer.
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A
I know, but it's just not that.
- [34:31]
B
They had time to come to terms with the fact that, yeah, we're probably out of it. There's a slim chance remaining here. I just. I don't know how many times this has happened where two teams have eliminated each other in the same series in Consecutive games. This is the kind of question that people pose to us and we try to answer here, but I, I don't have an answer to that yet. If I obtain one, I will report it. But I can't imagine that that happens too often. So I wonder about the mentality there. But yes, perhaps it was too remote for them to have actually held onto enough hope to like, take this tit for tat personally and say, aha, you danced on my grave yesterday and today I shall dance on yours. But that did amuse me, that possibility. Anyway, just so much to contemplate during this exciting last week. This has been among the best ends to a season, somewhat unexpectedly, because.
- [35:27]
A
Unexpectedly.
- [35:28]
B
Yeah.
- [35:28]
A
And I think that's adding to the, that's really adding to the feeling where it's like, oh, we didn't expect. It's like, it's like if you, your neighbor brings you over a cake and you weren't expecting that cake, and you're like, oh, my whole day is redefined now. It's a day with a cake. That's how this feels to me. You know, that's a relatable. I like my neighbors. What can I say? They're nice people. They would do that. They would bring, they'd bring me random cake. They would be. They're random cake kind of people. They're nice folks. But it's like, you didn't expect that to happen. Or like, do you ever have the experience, Ben, of you get your winter coats out and you, you stick your hand in your pocket and there's like a 20 in there, and you're like, whoa, I have free. And it feels like free money, even though it was always your money. And arguably you've been irresponsible. You've been misplacing a $20 for months, maybe a whole year. But it feels like a little present from the universe to you. Like, ah, I'm rich now. I got, I got magic money. That's how it feels. I feel like we just pulled a 20 out of a winter coat. Not knowing it, remembering it was there. How nice.
- [36:35]
B
Yeah, it is.
- [36:36]
A
See, I turned my mood. I've turned my mood all the way around. I was really grouchy from posting embarrassing. Meg, get your mind right. What's wrong with you? And the Seahawks play tonight. That'll probably be ridiculous because it's this. For people who don't understand, when the Seahawks come to the desert and play the Arizona Cardinals, you are almost certainly guaranteed not, not only one of the, the weirdest games of the year. But invariably one of the dumbest games of the year. So that's like the mindset you have to come into the game with on for both teams. Right? This is, this is not me praising the Seahawks play a normal game in Arizona challenge. I can think of two times maybe in the last 10 years that that's happened. So anyway, it's like get. Let's all get our heads on straight, starting with me. I do want to reassure people again, I. I don't have an AL MVP vote. I don't. I don't.
- [37:30]
B
Okay.
- [37:31]
A
If you're sitting there being like, I don't. I don't believe your protestations. I think that you are in the, in the tank for Cal. Maybe just because of vibes. I don't know. I'm not. I don't know what my answer would be. But guess what? It doesn't matter. I don't have to. I don't have to take that question to my creator. I don't have to. I can just sit here and pop off on my own podcast. Great.
- [37:54]
B
Yes. The voter rolls will be revealed when the awards are announced. It's not. It's not. Secret ballot situation. So we will know. There will be proof of Meg's words.
- [38:07]
A
We should let the whole body vote. You know, I think we should let the whole body vote on. On everything. I've made this.
- [38:12]
B
Yeah.
- [38:13]
A
I've made this argument to. To the association before and people have not found it persuasive, apparently.
- [38:18]
B
I appreciate. Absolutely agree.
- [38:20]
A
I think it would be the surest way to. I mean, we adopted rules as an association around the gambling stuff. But I think it would be a good further safeguard from the influence of any of that because every vote gets diluted then. Although the New York chapter would be so powerful.
- [38:36]
B
Yes.
- [38:37]
A
That might be a problem. You'd have to like, wait it. I don't know how we do it.
- [38:40]
B
That is the rationale, I guess, to not have too much home cooking in certain markets. But then you end up with a small body of voters who might not really be representative of the larger body either.
- [38:52]
A
Right. Yeah, we need to. We need to hire a political scientist to consult with us. Maybe we just need ranked choice voting. You know, I don't know if that's the answer I've been out of. I've been out of that game for too long to be able to tell you if that's the right choice for this. I think it's probably not.
- [39:06]
B
Another observation about individual players this week. So on Wednesday we had our first pitcher of the season past 200 innings. Logan Webb became the first in his start.
- [39:19]
A
He would have been my first. Guess. He would have been my first guest.
- [39:22]
B
I should have quizzed you. But, but yes, he is, I guess the closest we have to a, a quote unquote workhorse these days. Logan Webb.
- [39:30]
A
So what's our new vernacular for that? Have we just, have we come to a consensus?
- [39:34]
B
We almost don't need a. I don't mind it. They don't exist anymore. It's all, it's all relative.
- [39:39]
A
I guess the workhorse has gone extinct and so we don't need a new.
- [39:42]
B
Term that's a pasture pretty much. But yeah, it's like he's now at 201 innings. 201⅔. So that's, that's your Mr. Durability. Logan Webb, he does potentially have one more start on Sunday so he can run that up a little bit. And then on Thursday, in another gem against the Blue Jays, Garrett Crochet became the second member of the 2025200 Inning Club. He's at 205 and a third. I believe the only other pitcher who can crack this club is Tarik Skubal. If he makes his start on Sunday, he's at 195 and a third. So if he goes five innings he'll be over 200 for the season. That's it though I don't think anyone else is still in the running close enough to make it with with one start left or however many they have left. So that's it. I, I think this was my, one of my preseason predictions. I believe last year in our bold preseason predictions game that we wouldn't have a 200 inning pitcher. And that wasn't the case last year and it's not quite the case this year, but it really came down to the wire and maybe we're one year away at this point. The, the number is dwindling. I mean the, the ceiling now like Garrett Crochet. I mean first of all, it's incredible that Garrett Crochet will lead the AL in innings pitched and may lead the majors in innings pitched. Garrett Crochet, of all people, who was not known for his heavy workloads. So that is a triumph for him and for the Red Sox. But also the fact that we're looking at a trio of 200 innings guys, I believe at most. And that's it. It's just the 200 inning guy is almost extinct. And when they are, that will be the end of an era that'll just be the latest sign of the picture workload apocalypse. I don't know. I. It does seem to me still like we've just gone a little too far. Like when you have someone who is as good as Google or Crochet or Skeens or any of these guys who are close to the top, that you would just want them working a little more because they are so good and you just want a disproportionate number of innings going to them. But yeah, I'm just tracking this and wondering which season will be the last. Like, I was open to the idea that maybe there would always be a handful, at least of them because even if the, the top end number kept coming down, you'd still really want your aces to be pitching as often as possible, within reason. But no, now we're close enough to having none of them that I think it is probably going to happen at some point in the next few years.
- [42:34]
A
I guess the thing that helps potentially guard against that. But it's so, it's so tenuous. There might be circumstances. So, like, Skubal's a good example, right. You say if he makes his start on Sunday, if they haven't clinched, but they also haven't been eliminated, like, if it comes down to the final day, he'll.
- [42:51]
B
He will make that start.
- [42:52]
A
He'll make that start. Right. And so I can imagine, and, and I mentioned that because I can imagine there being circumstance that that pushes a guy who's kind of close over the line because that's what his team needs in a given season. Right? We need you to make one more start. It's. It's that or we miss the postseason. Right. But as an expectation going into any given year. I don't know. I mean, like, I wonder, I'm trying to think how many guys we had projected for 200 or more innings coming into the season. I don't think it was very many. Just off the dome, I doubt we had very many guys in that range at all. Probably more than. Probably still more than was actually realistic.
- [43:45]
B
Yeah. Let's see you. Well, no, was only. It was only two. According to the preseason depth charts projections, it was Logan Webb and Zach Wheeler who, if he had gotten hurt, probably would have ended up there. But that is one reason why more pitchers don't end up there is that they get hurt. So I mean, it makes sense not to project individual pitchers for that level. Maybe, but you still think that you're going to get some guys. It's like with the batting average projections, you don't Project that many guys to hit 300. But you expect that some guys are going to get Babbitt, Blucky or whatever and just there will be some number of 300 hitters, even if. No, very few guys are projected to be on an individual level. Not that there are many 300 hitters these days who are qualified either. That's also a number that's in the single digits. But there are a few more of them than there are 200 inning pitchers. But yeah, we almost just have to eliminate it from the vernacular. Just the shorthand of the 200 inning guy. Just with the exception of Logan Webb, you know, it's just not really a profile that reliably exists anymore. Sort of. Sadly, I think kind of counterproductively.
- [45:01]
A
I think that you, the Mets, dfa, Dicky Lovelady again. Yeah, yeah, you deserve to miss the postseason.
- [45:10]
B
The Pirates optioned Big Bank Dowry Mireta immediately after we highlighted his celebrations.
- [45:17]
A
Devastating. I think it is to the, to the game's detriment. I don't think that you necessarily lose the starting pitcher as like a center of the narrative if he's a guy who, you know, throws 180 innings or 170 innings versus 200. But it just, it does continue to chip away at that sort of protagonist in a way that I find diminishes my enjoyment of any given game. I think it's a bummer. I don't find myself bothered by Workhorse's terminology. I don't like stud because, you know, I get the argument, I'm not saying I'm right, that one doesn't rankle in the same way as some of the others, where I'm like, oh, let's excise this from copy if we can.
- [46:02]
B
Yeah, right. The idea is, you know, it's kind of dehumanizing on some level. You know, just comparing a player to an animal. I don't think that's actually really what's going through most people's minds when they use that term. Yeah, I get it, I get it.
- [46:17]
A
It doesn't feel as loaded with other stuff as some of the other ones that I think have been more consistently removed from our terminology. But I get, I get the argument. But to your point, like, we're putting them out to pasture. There are different kind of glue now.
- [46:36]
B
Oh, sad. Anyway, one other thing that I wanted to mention here. There was a hiring. This is in the realm of teams that are not in contention currently but hope to be at some point in the future. And thus they have hired a head of Baseball operations. I refer, of course, to the Nationals. So the Nationals have replaced Mike Rizzo on a more permanent basis by hiring Paul Taboni, who was.
- [47:02]
A
Do you think you have to be Italian to run the Nationals? This is what we're learning.
- [47:06]
B
Yeah, he's coming from the Red Sox organization, and people have been having fun with the name because he has not had a formal title revealed. And so he's kind of been announced as the head of baseball operations, the Hobo. And so he's Toobo the Hobo and Toobo the Hobo, the potential future Pobo. But we're having fun. He comes highly recommended. I. You don't know him or anything, so I can't say, you know, but he has the typical credentials, I guess, for someone who's, you know, your generic, young, accomplished, highly regarded baseball operations executive. But what's interesting is that one thing in his favor is that he has presided over a period for the Red Sox, and he's not a recent hire. I think he may have been a Cherrington, so he's been with Boston for a long time and has worked his way up. But he has presided over recent drafts, which have been quite productive for the Red Sox. And I think, as Passen put it, for a Nationals team in need of a serious infusion of talent, it's worth noting Paul DeBoni ran the draft for Boston when it chose Roman Anthony, Marcelo Meyer, Christian Campbell, Peyton Tully, Connolly early, and the prospects who went to Chicago in the Garrett Crochet deal. That's quite a strong record. And so I can see why that would be a point in his favor. And I have no reason to think that he does not have responsibility for how well they did in those drafts. But I do always think when this happens, because, you know, we'll see teams have a hot streak in the draft and then follow that with a cold streak. And maybe they had a change in personnel and maybe that's why, or maybe other teams caught up, or who knows? But there is so much randomness in the draft that you never know for sure whether someone is just a whiz. And, yeah, they nailed it. And even if they did nail it, it might not stay nailed because other teams might steal a march on you and your edge might not be maintained or whatever. But. But there is an element of randomness in the draft. And so I'm not saying this is the case for Paul Taboni specifically. I'm just saying that you're bound to have some.
- [49:17]
A
Have fun with it for so long.
- [49:19]
B
You're allowed. I Support that. But there are some teams that are just bound by chance to have a great run in the draft and just those coin flips are going to come up heads a bunch of times in a row and then those people will get poached with the expectation that they can keep that running and rolling for another team. Yeah, just sustain that incredible record.
- [49:40]
A
Right. Go find, go find Roman Anthony again. Sure to do.
- [49:46]
B
Even if you do have some skill and, and you should deserve and some credit for that record, that doesn't mean you can keep it up necessarily. So even if it were all completely random, you would have some executives who just looked like draft geniuses because they happened to have a bunch of picks go. Right. And then those executives will get promoted or hired to run other baseball operations groups. And then will that run of success continue? Who knows? I guess it's maybe still the best bet to find someone who hopefully has a good process but also has good results. But it's not necessarily something you can bank on. I'm not saying Nationals fans should not be happy with this hire or anything. I'm just saying, right. You can't count on draft success to be sustained necessarily, because it never is indefinitely.
- [50:37]
A
Yeah, I think that that's right. It's very difficult for not only your average fan, but even folks within the industry to necessarily assess, assess, assess these guys, you know, the, the local beats tend to have the best view of them and certainly the most informed perspective. But a lot of what they do, to your point, is dependent on circumstance. I won't call it luck, but circumstance. Right. Roman Anthony has to be there for you to draft him. Although you have to, you know, be like, oh, Roman Anthony. So I don't mean to say there's no skill, but it's a blend, right? You, you're bringing together a scouting staff's assessment of a player. He has to be there. He has to be signable. There's all this stuff that goes into that and then the day in day out of that, you might not have, you know, super keen insight to. You just have to kind of, kind of roll with it. So, you know, I don't mean to say, I don't mean to say that it is a bad hire. Seems like a well regarded guy, but our ability to sort of grade their success is a project that I say project so much, you know, that unfolds over a series of years rather than months or what have you. So there's that.
- [51:55]
B
Yes. Yeah, I guess Nationals fans know this well, probably because they had a run of draft Success aided, of course, by having high picks in years when it was beneficial to have high picks. But. But there are number one picks who don't turn into players as good as Steven Strasberg and Bryce Harper. And so they had that run of Strasberg, Drew Storen, Harper, Anthony Rendone, and then in recent years, it's been bupkis, with mostly the same people pulling the trigger on those picks throughout that time. So, yeah, you never know, really. And obviously, whoever's running it. I read a Washington Post deep dive the other day about who's running the Nationals, and this was before this hiring. So now we know, at least titularly, who will be running that department. But a lot of it was about how there are just too many cooks in the kitchen from an ownership perspective, and no one knows who to talk to or who has the final say. And it's all consensus and it's sort of mysterious and that it's been like this for years. And so will Taboni even have free reign to do what he has to do and get the institutional support and the infrastructure? There's a lot that that goes into it other than just hiring the right person, but it's a start to hire someone that people generally think well of.
- [53:12]
A
Yeah. Yeah, I agree.
- [53:14]
B
Okay. Maybe we can answer a few emails here to close us out. Okay, so here's one from Van in Sacramento, Patreon supporter who says, I'm not sure if this has been discussed before, but I've been thinking about a hypothetical that could become relevant with the announcement of the challenge system in 2026. Will we ever see a player challenge a ball strike call that was initially in their favor? For example, the batter challenges a pitch that was initially called a ball. The catcher or pitcher challenges a pitch that was called a strike. The only case I can think of is the catcher gets crossed up and drops a borderline pitch that is called strike three. No swing in a count with fewer than three balls. The ball gets away and the batter reaches first. The catcher challenges to get the pitch changed to a ball, and the batter has to continue the plate appearance. Does this scenario, challenge system aside, happen often? Or if ever? Are there any other hypothetical circumstances in which a player might challenge a call seemingly against their interest? Do we know if this is even possible under the new rules? I was trying to puzzle this out. I was chatting with Ben Clemens about it. This specific scenario, it wouldn't arise very often, but I think even if it did, you probably wouldn't be allowed to do this. Right, because you have to challenge immediately.
- [54:40]
A
Right.
- [54:41]
B
I don't know. I don't know how they define immediate. I don't. The press releases, I don't think included, say it has to be within X seconds. But, but they say immediately. You just, you can't consult with anyone. You can't wait, obviously, for someone to watch the replay and give you a verdict. You just have to tap your head, tap your helmet, whatever it is, right away. So you probably, you can't wait until like, you find out that, oh, the ball got away and he got to first base and then you challenge. You can't, you can't wait that long.
- [55:14]
A
Also, doesn't the, doesn't the question sort of imply that it is in fact a strike that was just dropped?
- [55:21]
B
Yeah. So if the catcher gets crossed up, it's called strike three. There's no swing. And then the ball gets away, the batter reaches, I guess it doesn't escape. Yeah. Yeah, not necessarily. So the catcher could challenge to say, no, it's a ball, actually, and you're not at first. So, yeah, that wouldn't happen that often. But I, I don't think you could. I think too long would have elapsed to do that. I don't think you could. Would be funny. But no, I don't think you could do that. Other scenarios where this could happen. So I guess one, well, one that other Ben brought up is like, what if you have one of these umps who takes their time making a call?
- [56:08]
A
Right.
- [56:09]
B
And so if you have to challenge immediately, then I think it's immediately after.
- [56:13]
A
The, the, the call though, like if, if the guy takes a while and then you still get to. Yeah, because. Yeah, because their understanding of it isn't so dissimilar from yours. Right. Where like the, the call isn't the call. You know, the ball's not a striker, the pitch isn't a ball or a strike until it has been ruled such by the umpire. And then you would make your. But if the guy just takes a while because he's dramatic.
- [56:44]
B
Yeah.
- [56:45]
A
So you don't lose your ability to challenge. That would be. That would be crazy.
- [56:49]
B
Yeah, there. Well, there are cases where someone's confused about what the count is and sometimes you, you have a plate appearance that goes on too long because people forget and, and they're four strikes or something or whatever, that, that happens occasionally. So I guess if you had someone who was confused about what the call was, like maybe you misheard or something, that could happen.
- [57:14]
A
Conceivably, I guess that could happen.
- [57:16]
B
Yeah. So it's not so much that you're taking forever to make the call and you like, challenge preemptively because you think you know which way it's going to go or something. But. But also, yeah, you lose track of the count or.
- [57:28]
A
Right.
- [57:29]
B
You think that the ruling was the opposite of what it was. I guess that could happen somehow. The other possibility is that what if it's low leverage situation, It's a blowout maybe, and you walk and you don't want to walk. You want to swing. You have a guy up there who just really wants to swing and there's a 30 pitch and it's borderline and it's ruled a ball and you don't want to go to first base. You want to get another crack at it. You want that 31 count so you can sit fastball and try to put a charge into one. Then maybe do you challenge against your interests so that you could possibly stay in the box and get another pitch to swing at? That was something Ben suggested, but I think that that probably wouldn't fly because it would be against the unwritten rules. I don't know if they're really are even unwritten rules that govern this situation, but maybe there quickly will be some because that would be like a kangaroo court situation or, or. Or the other team would be mad at you because you're trying to run up the score because it's already a blowout. Assuming that you're up by a lot.
- [58:43]
A
Right.
- [58:44]
B
And you. You want to keep. I guess it could be that you're down by a lot and you, like, you want to get a bunch of runs or. But if you're down by a lot, then you want more runners on base anyway. But I don't know, just like, no, I don't want to walk. I'd rather swing. I feel like either your opponent or your own teammates, or maybe both would be mad at you.
- [59:04]
A
I think that in a, in a tight, tense game, you maybe want the ability to, like, swing. But I think part, Part of the problem is that in, in situations like that, like it's in the postseason, you got runners on, you got a base open, you got Aaron Judge up there. If you're the opposing team, like, maybe you don't want to. Maybe you said you don't want to intentionally walk in, but you don't mind him walking. Right. You'd prefer he walked and then really.
- [59:34]
B
Hit maybe that intentional walk.
- [59:36]
A
Right. And in those circumstances, the pitches you throw are not likely to be ones that would be like, overturned via the Challenge system. Right. That's, I think, where this sort of approach breaks down is that a lot of the circumstances and situations we can conceive of are ones where it's not like you have a borderline pitch, you know? You know what I mean? Like, if you're in judge, you're frustrated, you're like, coward, pitch me. But like, if you try to employ this as a strategy and you're in the scenario I described, which granted, I have constructed in part so that he can't do the successful fight me bro thing, the ball, the pitch isn't close to the zone. Cause you're like. I mean, it's close. Ish. Because you don't want to, like, have wild pitch, but you know what I mean? Is what I'm saying making any kind of sense?
- [60:30]
B
Yeah, I guess. Right. If.
- [60:32]
A
If you're hesitant, I don't know, Mag.
- [60:35]
B
The better batters up and you don't want the bat taken out of that batter's hands and they're kind of pitching around him, then yes, maybe it would be in your best interest to say, I don't want to take my base here because we want this guy up to get the hit. And even if they continue to kind of pitch around him, maybe they'll make a mistake and they'll leave one over the plate and he can punish it. Of course, the other team could just put him on automatically at that point. Why mess around? So maybe not even really. I. I guess the upshot is I doubt that this will happen.
- [61:09]
A
Yeah.
- [61:09]
B
Now I kind of hope it does.
- [61:11]
A
Now I kind of hope it does at least one time. And. And as often happens with, like, the implementation of new rules, they, you know, they can be adaptable. You know, they get presented with edge cases they maybe didn't consider, and then they can make a determination. Is this an edge case we want to allow for or is it not? You know, and then they'll kind of go from there.
- [61:34]
B
Yeah. Okay. Question from Paul in Boston. How much of the creation, slash, existence of so many mid teams this year is attributable to the increased frequency of pitcher injuries? Considered this. So we were talking about mid teams. We were talking about pitcher injuries. Is there a causal connection there?
- [61:56]
A
I mean, I definitely don't think it helps when you have guys get hurt. But I also, this year didn't strike me as like a particularly terrible year for pitcher injuries. Like 2021. 2021. Am I right to remember that? It was devastating. There were a bunch. Or maybe it was 22.
- [62:20]
B
Yeah. This has not been the worst of the few recent years, I guess, but it's. I guess I think this is probably unlikely just because it's only in the last. Well, this season and last season, I guess that we've been talking about there being no great teams before that we were talking about how many super teams there were, and it wasn't like the pitcher injury situation was meaningfully different a couple years ago than it is now. I don't think so. We've kind of had both extremes of midness just within this high pitcher injury era. So I don't know that that is sufficient to explain it. I guess it would increase the volatility and unpredictability of the season, one would think, because if you have certainly the best teams have the best pitchers concentrated on their rosters and those pitchers are more liable to get injured, then it does tend to even the playing field. Of course, the. The bad teams can have their best pitchers get hurt too. No one's immune, but that will hurt them less. So I. I guess that's the way in which it makes sense. Like if the best teams have the best pitchers and they're more at risk of losing those pitchers, that's going to hurt them more than it will hurt the bad teams who might also lose pitchers to injuries. But those pitchers won't be as good to begin with.
- [63:46]
A
So as devastating as it would be, I'm not even going to say his actual name. Imagine you had a man named Saul Pekins his entire life. He's like, my last name is impossible to pronounce. You're not wrong about that. If Saul gets hurt, it's bad for the Pirates, but they weren't making the postseason anyway. Right? It doesn't change the. It doesn't really change the course of their season necessarily, because they're so bad in other ways. This theoretical Saul Keynes. Maybe you wouldn't pronounce one of the first two consonants in Pekines. Maybe he'd be maybe a silent P. You know how peas are always silent in language? That's a real thing. Maybe he's Eastern European.
- [64:33]
B
You could go with that stripe.
- [64:35]
A
I just didn't want to name an actual person. Paul Skeens Kiss.
- [64:41]
B
Yes, we all feel the same. But I think if you looked at certain teams and you said, well, what if the Dodgers had had their current rotation?
- [64:51]
A
Don't you mean certain pet teams?
- [64:55]
B
I did not mean that. No. But if you gave the Dodgers their current rotation for the full season.
- [65:02]
A
Yes.
- [65:03]
B
Then they probably would not have been nearly as mid as they actually were. So for sure. Yeah, I guess there's something to this, I think. I mean, you know, we talked about the projected midness heading into these seasons. So it's not as if it's completely taken us by surprise that there haven't been better teams. Maybe it's taken us by surprise that the Dodgers haven't been better, the Braves weren't better or the Orioles weren't better or whatever. But people were talking about it. We were talking about it coming into the year that yeah, it seems like the extremes less extreme than they used to be. But part of that, I suppose is injuries that predated opening day, just guys who got hurt in previous seasons or just building in our knowledge of the increased injury risk. So yeah, I don't know if it's the biggest factor. I think it's probably just cyclical and it's probably also it has to do with the incentives, with the expanded playoff format and the number of wild cards available and all those things that we've talked about. I'd probably put more weight on that than on the pitcher injuries. But yeah, it might be a factor. It's in the mix. It's in the soup.
- [66:11]
A
Okay, it's in the soup.
- [66:13]
B
Relatedly, Tyler B. Patreon supporter says, how do you feel about the continued cutaways after half innings of umpires checking pitchers gloves, slash hands, slash belts for sticky stuff the league wants to show? Hey, remember this was a thing four to five years ago. However, pitchers have adjusted that is percentage wise, stopped doing the thing. So now it just feels like a pat on the back opportunity for the league rather than an actual problem or a meaningful viewing experience for the average baseball watcher? Or do we as a collective audience just acknowledge the extra 10 to 15 seconds of a baseball broadcast and say the fewer commercials the better, even though we get the same number, if not more. I haven't even thought about this, really. I guess it's just, it's so part of the scenery that I've become accustomed to it. And yeah, we don't really talk about spin rates and sticky stuff so much anymore. And we don't even delight in the sensual, tender scenes of umpires and pitchers caressing each other's hands. That was briefly a thing that we delighted in, but now it's just pretty routine. But I don't know that I would say that we're it's not extra time. Is it really like, are we lingering on that on purpose to show it or is it just in the course of when you're heading into an inning break and you don't want it to be too abrupt and you show the guys walking off the field for a few seconds. And so that will catch some of that inspection sometimes, but I guess I haven't felt like it was still purposeful. Like they're lingering to show that.
- [67:49]
A
I wonder, like, you know, like, is it our emotional support pitcher check or something? I think that mostly what is happening is that the pitcher exiting the field between half innings is almost always a staple of broadcasts. And it just so happens that right now that involves often, though not always. Right. Like here's how maybe an argument for it just being as routine and sort of run of the mill. They still show the pitcher when exiting very often when he doesn't undergo a check. And so I think they're mostly showing the pitcher exiting and sometimes he is engaged in a little check and sometimes he's not.
- [68:36]
B
But.
- [68:37]
A
But I wonder in the early going of it if they wanted to provide some context for what that looked like. I will also say that whatever elevated temperature there seemed to be around the Czechs, which there were guys who were grumpy about it for a while now every time I see an umpire and a pitcher engaged in a check, it seems very cordial. Everybody seems friendly. Part of that is that they're used to it. Part of that is that they've gotten smarter about where they're hiding goop. Perhaps they're still using goop. You, I mean, individual guys, maybe not. But nobody needs to tuck their jersey in as much as some of these boys are checking, tucking in their jerseys. They're not tucking it in. They're reaching into their belts. They're reaching into their belt.
- [69:26]
B
Yeah, they're rubbing their hands so routine that it's just lax now because you're going through the motions and it's not a rigorous inspection and, and no one's really paying that close attention to it. It's just, it's not nearly as visible and salient an issue anymore. And so, yeah, I don't know if it's still serving a purpose. I. I guess I'd rather keep it as opposed to going back to where we were, where it was technically against the rules, but there was no enforcement whatsoever. And I do think things got a little out of hand, so to speak. And so even making it a formality, even if it's just sort of for show, it keeps it in the back of pitchers and teams minds not to do that or not to do it in the most egregious way at Least so I'm in favor of keeping it and I don't mind seeing it and I barely even notice it. And there is just a prescribed time. What is it? 2 minutes Break between innings in local broadcast, I think, and then maybe 255 or something in nationally televised games. And then it's longer or 2:55, I guess it's for post season games. It's, you know, we're going to have longer breaks. Right. And it's not that they couldn't cut away slightly earlier, I suppose. I mean, they try to cram in ads wherever they can. Obviously they're doing little cutaway ads between pitches sometimes. But I'm all for giving us a little taste of the ballpark environment because it is weird when you're watching at home. It's like the, the ballpark's still there, you know, and, and we don't see it except when the game is going on. Technically, the game is going on even between innings. It's during the game, but that is just obscured from our view. So I, I like getting a little glimpse of those moments, the changeovers. So I'd much rather have that than to cut to ads a little early. But yeah, I don't know if it's purposeful to say, hey, look at us. We're still vigilant.
- [71:27]
A
Yeah, I'm a little skeptical of that. I mean, I'm sure they don't mind reminding people and offering some assurance on that score, but I don't think that that's the intent of showing it. I do really love it when they just linger on the ballpark. It doesn't happen very often.
- [71:45]
B
Yeah.
- [71:45]
A
But it is a nice thing when you're spared. When you're spared a break. Again, it doesn't happen very often, but it's like, you know, the Phillies do it sometimes now when the round's coming in because they want to show the entrance, which is so cool.
- [71:59]
B
Yeah. Dodgers do it sometimes when they want to show Ohtani coming off the mound and immediately getting ready to hit, so.
- [72:05]
A
Right, right. Yeah. Feels like bragging, but why not do it? You got this cool guy on your team. I'd brag, if I had a unicorn on my team, too, I'd be, look at this un. Unicorn.
- [72:15]
B
Okay. Matt Patreon supporter says, today I saw a quote from Carlos Rodan claiming he knew Garrett Crochet was special after seeing him throw three pitches. Forgive me for not remembering the episode number. I forgive you. But Rodan's quote sparked a memory of an old conversation where Ben and Sam discussed how many Jose Fernandez pitches rip you would need to see before concluding that he was a top three or whatever pitcher in baseball. I believe you both settled on three or four pitches.
- [72:43]
A
Yeah.
- [72:44]
B
I forgive you for not remembering that because I don't either. And I was a participant in that conversation. That alleged conversation. I guess my question is, in an age where the last man in a bad bullpen has stuff that would be considered witchcraft, even a couple decades ago, has this number increased? How many pitches would it take to know that a skein's scubal or crochet is special? I guess Carlos Rodan would say three, but I'm allowing for the possibility that he is either lying or as a professional pitcher, has some level of insight that a fan doesn't. Well, you couldn't do it based on pure speed anymore. There might have been a time where just being able to hit a certain number on the gun would be enough. Yeah. And now it's not. That is perhaps necessary, but not sufficient. So you'd need more now. Yeah, I guess Radon is probably talking about just a visual inspection here.
- [73:42]
A
Yeah. I was gonna say, like, what information do you have at your disposal? Because that might reduce your. Your number considerably. Like if you have sophisticated specs on the pitch, if you know, you know, it's break, it's like, you know, you might be able to be like, holy. Like, yeah, do that.
- [74:04]
B
Yeah.
- [74:05]
A
So it's probably. And even without that, it's probably fewer than you would think, but maybe. Yeah. More than you guys answered a couple years ago.
- [74:17]
B
Yeah, I could. I could buy it being higher. Well, I think if you had all the data at your disposal, maybe it would be lower because we just know more about pitches than we used to. I mean, sure, I think we can quantify those things better.
- [74:31]
A
Here's the part of it that you would need just a larger sample for. I think regardless of the information you have at your disposal, I think that you could grade the quality of the pitch in front of you. And maybe those pitches are super nasty and maybe they're even well located, but maybe the guy just had like, you know, I've seen. I've seen relievers have like their best command outing and then their dog later because they can't locate successfully. So the. The command and control piece of it. I feel like you would need a little more to feel confident.
- [75:15]
B
Yes.
- [75:16]
A
But also to determine if a guy's effectively wild. Do you like my little. You know what? I want to rewatch that. I'm not going to have Time to look at for another month. Fantastic Mr. Fox. Sorry, I just thought of that with the fun. I love fantastic Mr. Fox. Anyway, I, I do think it kind of depends what you want to grade them on, but in terms of like the pure quality of one pitch, it might be fewer than you'd expect. And there is something about like the baseball equivalent of like the thinkability of a thought. It's like, oh, he can do that. That's good to know. He can do. Can he replicate that? Maybe not always, but he is capable of it at least the one time. This is sort of like how you can have your opinion of a hitter fundamentally altered when you see him hit the ball really freaking hard.
- [76:04]
B
Yeah.
- [76:04]
A
Because you're like, wow, he can do that. You know, I didn't know he could before and now I know he can. Whether he can do it consistently, that's a different, slightly different question. But like, some guys can't even clear that bar even one time.
- [76:15]
B
Yep. So, yeah, the Bill James signature significance concepts. Yes. So you can see one pitch from some pitchers and it will be a better pitch.
- [76:25]
A
Put it in terms of grad school, you know, we come to our, our knowledge different ways.
- [76:30]
B
Yeah. You see one pitch from one of the nastiest pitchers and you know that he has at least the potential to be that good a potential that most pitchers don't have because you could give them an infinite number of pitches and they'll never throw one that hard or with that, that angle or, you know, whatever with that movement, that sort of spin, et cetera. So it's really just a process of each pitch gives you more information and you're gradually refining your projection. I don't know how quickly some stuff based metric like stuff plus stabilizes how many pitches you need. I'm sure that after one or after three, you could at least rule out more or less certain tiers of performance. Probably. Or at least say, this guy has the potential to be among the best. This guy has special stuff. But yeah, you're right. There's a distinction between just having great stuff and having great results. And I don't know that you could tell that much reliably about your ability to locate in three pitches. So. But still being able to tell that you have the stuff. I don't think it's unreasonable to say that you could tell that someone is special in three pitches. You need to know more. You need to see more to see if they're actually reliable and consistent and dependable. But to say, oh yeah, this guy has the potential to be special. He has a special arm. At least I think you could maybe do that in one pitch sometimes, you know, the error bars are going to be pretty big if that's all you're seeing. Okay. And yeah, I do think probably the number has gone up if you have no data at your disposal. But if you have all the data that we have now that Sam and I didn't whenever we had that initial exchange, then I think that might actually help you in some respects. Maybe that would actually lower the number because you'd just be able to quantify things that before you would have had to try to suss out with the eye test and that would be tough. Okay.
- [78:30]
A
Yeah, I think that's right.
- [78:31]
B
Question from Sebastian in France, who says your recent podcast about Bets and Boone, as well as my own frustration about the latter, had me thinking about an extra entry into the how much is baseball different from other sports canon? Do you think baseball fans put too much responsibility on managers? It seems almost every fan base, even the winning ones, are always questioning every move, especially with the bullpen every time a reliever blows a save. Managers seem to be the main target for angry fans. While when a kicker misses his field goal or a hockey or soccer player screws up his penalty shot, no one or few people at least calls for the manager or coach to be sacked at once. Why is this so? I've been thinking about a few reasons. Even good MLB teams lose so many games, so inside those 60 or 70 defeats are a few can't happen that are driving fans angry. While coaches of teams who play once a week may be less of a target, with people cooling off in between. Sports fans famously cool off quickly.
- [79:38]
A
I was going to say, I don't know. I know that the NFL is trying to expand into Europe. Cool heads prevailing. Not my experience of football fandom, but perhaps along with more interesting kinds of cheese, things are a little different in France. I'm not making fun of you. I'm jealous of that cheese. Also, the butter. What's up with that?
- [80:01]
B
And we know that actual MLB managers are more willing than the diehards to lose a game if it doesn't wreck the bullpen for a week. Cut to all those closers never entering the games. No one but the most delusional fan thinks that they can be a football or basketball coach calling plays and stuff. But baseball. Baseball seems much easier to most, right? I bet some of us think we might actually manage to win an MLB game if the starter is good for five or six innings. I only have to play a few matchups here and there, lefty on lefty or not, and then it's a cinch. Or is it because between the strongest union in sports and guaranteed contracts, no trade clauses, etc. It's hard to cut or bench disappointing or unproductive players. And managers have to be more diplomatic. Heating up all the fans out there yelling DFA that bum after every strikeout with men on. Finally, MLB managers get ejected so often relative to other sports that it may lead to people thinking less of their actual abilities. Even the umps can no longer deal with this. Or I guess that teams can just go on and win without them. So I guess first, do we concede this premise? Do we agree that, that it's even true that fans are quicker to blame managers than they are coaches in other sports?
- [81:18]
A
I don't know that I grant that premise. Well, I can't speak to every sport but the example of kickers was brought up, right? So I think that when, when a kicker misses a kick and it's like a normal ass kick, people aren't like I can't believe that the coach put him in that position.
- [81:38]
B
Right?
- [81:39]
A
But I do think that the decision to kick or not kick very much scrutinized. Right? And so we go bonkers. And, and this has been. This as a place to react has only been heightened as analytics have taken a greater hold in the NFL. Because there are a lot of people who make a lot of hay around fourth down decision making. Should you be kicking here or not? And being very angry with coaches who are too quick to kick, whether it's punting or you know, kicking a field goal. When you should go for it, you should go for it on fourth down. Sometimes we're a little over our skis on that, in my opinion. But also a lot of coaches are cowards and should go for it more often. You hear the language I'm using, see how we get mad at them. So I think that that's an area where a lot of respons responsibility still redounds to the the coach. I also think that like the NFL and football generally gives opportunities to fans to get frustrated and yell at them because you can get mad at the play calling, right. And that that's a more direct sort of impact that coaches can have in that game. Like it it we will get frustrated. Like I can't believe you called for a jet sweep in that moment. Why are you running again? Sometimes, you know, just to pick a thing, right? So I think that the fact that you have and that's not always the head coach's fault. Right. Who's, who's responsible for play calling is going to depend on the team and you know, the background of the, the coach, etc. But, but I think the fact that you have like play calling from the sidelines in football gives you, and you know, you, you're going to call plays to a certain extent basketball too, right? You architect that in advance. Even if there's, you know, improvisation in both games that the player is ultimately responsible for and obviously they still have to execute. But I, I think that fans just like to get big mad at their team when it's not going well. And sometimes I think that it's because, you know, we as fans view not that people don't get mad at individual players certainly, but like, I do think that you're more likely to feel affection for a player than you're necessarily likely to have affection for a coach. And so sometimes the coach is like a useful scapegoat so that you can be mad at someone because, boy, you want to be mad and you're not going to let that go. That's part of being a fan. But if you are mad at the coach, then you don't have to be mad at your favorite running back or, you know, you don't have to be mad at the, the quarterback on your favorite team or what have you, you know, So I think, I think there's some of that, but I do think that the ejection thing sort of adds a seasoning to it. In the baseball case, that is, that is a little different than other sports because I, I don't have data in front of me to back this up. But just my sense from watching a lot of sports is that like MLB managers get kicked out way more often than anyone, anyone, regardless of whether they're a player or a coach. Like I, I do feel like our incidence of ejection is higher in Major League Baseball than in any of the other.
- [85:13]
B
Managers are in uniform and they do go onto the field and that makes them seem like more direct participants perhaps than someone who's in a suit on the sidelines. I do think there's something to what this is saying in terms of baseball just seeming easier just because the decisions are kind of clearer in some ways because the game moves at a statelier pace.
- [85:41]
A
Right.
- [85:42]
B
Do, at least in theory have time to consider these decisions and to plan ahead and to say, okay, this guy's coming up like the, the, the batting order is set and we know when this Guy is going to bat again and here's the scenario and, and people get upset about batting order decisions where you have all the time in the world to set your lineup. It's not even a, a forced error, it's an unforced error. If you think it is an error, the game wasn't even going on. So maybe there's something to that. I, you know, in other sports you have timeouts, but the action is more continuous, it's more complex, chaotic. There's so many people on the field running all over the place. It's harder to drill down to just here's the one decision that I have to make now. In certain respects there are more options available to you. Like with the kicker example, you're. It's not like you have eight guys who could potentially kick the field goal. Now, maybe your team doesn't have a good kicker and would be upset about that, but you're probably going to hold the GM or the front office responsible for that in most cases.
- [86:48]
A
Yeah.
- [86:48]
B
So you're not going to get mad about why did he use this kicker instead of that kicker the way that you're going to get mad about why did he use this reliever instead of that reliever. Because in theory you have eight of them or whatever at your disposal in that moment. I definitely would, would quibble with the observation that when a closer blows a save, managers are the main target. I think there's no, there's.
- [87:10]
A
It's the closer.
- [87:11]
B
Yeah. There's plenty of anger to go around to be clear.
- [87:13]
A
Oh yeah.
- [87:14]
B
And so if, if it's the closer's fault, if the closer is bad, then he's gonna get plenty of that ire and wear that too. If that is a repeated pattern with him and if the fans think that he shouldn't have been put in that spot, then they'll also be mad at the manager. So it's not mutually exclusive. You can be bad at both. It's a. The well of mad is. Is bottomless, but.
- [87:40]
A
Right.
- [87:40]
B
I, yeah, I guess I'm, I'm not sure that I totally buy this because people get pissed at all kinds of coaches. Really. It's.
- [87:49]
A
Oh yeah.
- [87:50]
B
It's a equal opportunity practice to get upset at coaches slash managers. But yeah, maybe certain decisions, it's, you know, if it comes down to planning versus execution, if it's a planning moment where you, you had time to consider your tactics and your strategy and you still seemingly make the wrong call or you're caught flat footed or something, then yes, absolutely. The manager will be blamed for that. There are some cases, of course, where a manager will make such a strange decision that he will be blamed more than the player who actually gives up the hit or whatever it is. But that's not the most common, I guess. And that happens in other sports too. So yeah, I'm not sure I Not sure I buy it.
- [88:39]
A
Yeah, I I don't think I buy it either, but not because I don't like French cheese.
- [88:45]
B
Yeah.
- [88:47]
A
My French is gone. It wasn't great to begin with, but it was real bad. Now that's a Meg problem, not a French problem. To be clear, I'm not making it about French, of course.
- [88:59]
B
A couple Quick Staty ones Jonathan says I was watching the Red Sox on the Nessen alternate broadcast on September 24th when Isaiah Kerfleffa beat out a throw to turn what would have been a double play into a fielder's choice. After this occurred, Jonathan Pappelbon commented that he didn't think teams were turning as many double plays now as when he was playing because the shift, both pre and post new rules, pulled middle infielders away from ideal double play depth. Personally, I'm skeptical that this is true, especially because Pap has a reputation for making some wild claims that said, might be worth a stat blast to check. Ironically, the next hitter grounded into a double play to end the inning, so ball don't lie. Well, I think he might actually be right here, though I'm not sure if he's right for the reasons that he's citing there. It is true that there are fewer double plays now than there were when Papelbahn played, both in total and on a percentage basis. So he pitched in the majors from 2005 to 2016. In 2005 there were 3908 instances of player grounding into a double play. Last year there were 3,227. So about 700 fewer GIDPs with the same number of teams and games, more or less. And if you look at it on a percentage basis. So Baseball Reference has this as a stat where they have a certain definition of a ground into double play opportunity. It's a runner on first with no outs or one out and they look at that opportunities and they look at how many double plays there were in that situations. I guess two or more outs via force out on a ground ball as they define it and then they just give you the percentage. And so in Papel Bond's rookie year, that percentage was 11.1. In his last year it was 11.0. It ranged between 10.7% and 11.3% during his years in the big league. So pretty narrow range. This year it's 9.4%. So on a percentage basis, and as a accounting stat, in sum, there are fewer double plays than there were then. Whether that's because of infielder positioning or primarily because of that, I'm not sure, because there are a bunch of reasons why that could be true. Because a lower on base percentage for one, so you just, you have fewer guys on base, that's not going to matter so much for the percentage. But for the total number, if you have more guys on base, then you have more potential opportunities to ground into a double play. So if that's happening, less than, maybe fewer outcomes like that are happening, and then you have more strikeouts than most, if not all of those years when Papelbahn was in the big leagues. And if you don't put the ball in play, then you're not going to be able to turn a double play. And even when you do put the ball in play, more balls are in the air now than they used to be. So you're either not making contact or you're lifting it and you're not going to get a ground ball double play in either instance. So I would guess that those factors have more to do with it with the infield positioning because. Well, for one thing, so in 2005 that was pre common infield overshift, and then by 2016 it was quite common. Right. And the rate barely budged between those two years. So I'm not sure that that was as big a factor as some of these other things that I'm pointing to here.
- [92:49]
A
I think you're right.
- [92:49]
B
Okay. Well, he's not wrong.
- [92:52]
A
I don't have anything more to add. You've made the point so well.
- [92:55]
B
Yeah, he's not wrong if, if his main argument was that teams aren't turning as many double plays now, he's right about that. But you know, whether it's primarily due to the positioning, I don't know. I guess you'd want to. If you got even more granular and you looked at these situations and you said when you had a ground ball in a ground ball double play opportunity or you know, a ground ball with a certain trajectory or something, how often did they turn it? If you were able to isolate those instances, then you might be able to kind of compare like to like and, and see whether the infielders have actually gotten better or worse at turning them, presented with not just the opportunity, but ample opportunity. Because they also got the batted ball that was required. But I have not done that work so we will reserve that for some other time. Lastly, we got a question from David who has the subject line Trey Savage's teammates. So this is Blue Jays rookie pitcher Trevage and he sent us a screenshot of a tweet that was a quote tweet of a Blue Jays tweet and it was a picture of Treus Savage's minor league teammates. A few of them showed up to his MLB debut to be supportive and the Blue Jays account said, how awesome is this? And there was a quote tweet from one Rob Wong who said, considering he's pitched in five levels of baseball this year, does Trey Savage hold the record for most teammates in a single season?
- [94:32]
A
Oh, what a fun question.
- [94:33]
B
And so what David's. Yeah, David said, I feel like Trey Savage at least knows more people in the organization than anyone. He might be more familiar with the roster, the farm system, the org's strengths and weaknesses than any coach, GM president.
- [94:48]
A
Huh?
- [94:48]
B
I don't. Well, maybe on a personal level probably like I would hope that the GM and like player development director probably has a more encyclopedic knowledge of their personnel than Treyus Savage and those players strengths and weaknesses and everything. But in terms of like he, how many is he? Well, even if it came to like being on a first name basis with or something, you know, if you were like the scouting director and you drafted them or you signed them or you're the farm director or something, you're probably gonna, and you've been around for a while, you're probably gonna, you know, they're gonna recognize you, you're gonna recognize them. But yeah, in terms of like actually having a close relationship, I guess someone who has had the progression that that Trey Savage has had this year, he has been teammates with a whole lot of players, many more so than some executive has.
- [95:44]
A
Yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah.
- [95:47]
B
For people who are not familiar with his trajectory this year he started in a ball because he was, he was a first round draftee last year, 20th overall pick. And he did not make his professional debut until this season. Right. And he climbed all the way. So he started in Dunedin in a ball in the Florida State League and then he was promoted to Vancouver. That's high A the Northwest League. And then he went to New Hampshire in the Eastern League Double A and then Buffalo in the International League aaa. And then now he's in the major. So five levels in one season. That is quite a meteoric rise so yeah, he probably does have a pretty decent holistic sense of how the Blue Jays operate top to bottom because he's gone bottom to top in one season.
- [96:41]
A
Yeah, it's pretty amazing.
- [96:43]
B
Yeah. I did ask Kenny Jacklin of Baseball Reference, a semi frequent Stat Blast consultant, whether it was possible to look up the players who played for the most teams or with the most teammates within one organization in a single season according to Baseball References data. And he sent me some. He said, given that we can't easily account for which players were on the team at the same time. Yeah, that's tough because you know, you might be on the same minor league team in the same season, but you might have been ships players passing in the night.
- [97:17]
A
Right. You have to account for the promotions and demotions around that guy too.
- [97:21]
B
Yeah, yeah. So. So we don't have that. But just defining teammates as any two players who both appeared for the team in the season. He gives me a leaderboard of the players who had the most teammates within an organization in a season. So to put Yasavage into context, as of the time Kenny sent me this, which was eight days ago, perhaps Yasavic has picked up additional Blue Jays teammates since then, but at the time he had played for those five teams and had 210 teammates by this method. And Kenny notes that a lot of this is dependent on the particular organization. For instance, the players with the most teammates this year are all in the Orioles system and have only played for four teams. So there's been a lot of turnover there. So the three leaders, Chadwick Tromp, one of my favorite names in baseball, Hudson Haskin and Zach Eflin, all Orioles, all played for four levels this year. Trump led with 225 teammates, Haskin with 223, Eflin with 221, Tuya savages 210 even with more teams played for. But the leaders, according to the records we have here, 253 is the record and it appears to be a three way tie. And it's a three way tie between Janeshwi Fargus, who Amazing great names, even more great names. But with The Mets in 2021, five levels, 253 teammates. JoJo Romero with the Phillies in 2022, five levels, 253 teammates. And then lastly Simone Muziati, also for the Phillies, also in 2022, five teams, 253 teammates. And then I'll link to a screenshot of the others. But it does seem to be dependent on the year and the organization. But all of the leaders. Almost all of the leaders are clustered in recent seasons, mostly post pandemic. In fact, there was 2019 Johnny Cuaito, San Francisco five teams, 243 teammates. I was semi surprised that these were all from recent seasons because there used to be back in the day there used to be more affiliates per organization like before there was a limit on that. You used to have so many. But maybe guys get promoted more aggressively these days if they are someone who has helium like that and and is a highly rated prospect. Or there are just more players per team than there used to be. What with all the changes in pitcher usage. That's that probably has a lot to do with it, right? Maybe you're just going through even though you have fewer affiliates now going through more guys. Yeah, there's just more turnover. I don't know if any of this has to do with like a post pandemic backlog or traffic jam pile up with a bunch of players who didn't get a 2020 season or something. Maybe that had something to do with this also. But yeah, it does seem to be more recent, which sort of surprised me. But you Savage is is not a record holder, not even an outlier in this season. But yeah, if you had to go to someone to sum up the state of the Blue Jays organization or just tell you who's a good guy in various clubhouses, then you could probably do a lot worse than Treasavic.
- [100:46]
A
Yeah, I think that's right.
- [100:47]
B
All right, well, today's episode ending dispatch from the pennant race. You'll never believe this, but the benighted Blue Jays, Tigers, Mets and Astros all won on Thursday. Bodes well for avoiding various collapses. The Reds also won to keep pace with the Mets, but the Diamondbacks dropped a game to the Dodgers, which clinches the NL west for LA and puts Arizona in a pretty tough position. The Tigers winning one against the Guardians no less, leaves them both in solid shape entering the weekend according to the FanGraphs playoff odds. As I record this Guardians 89% probability to make the playoffs, Tigers 85% met 78% Astros 28% and Reds 20%. But you know, never tell me the odds. We tell you the odds all the time. Plenty to play for this weekend though, and plenty to watch. I don't really need to give you a Mariners update now that they've clinched, but I'll give you a Mariners related update. I was informed of the existence of Rocky starter Bradley Blaylock by Alexandra Whitley, writing at Baseball Prospectus on Thursday morning Previewing Thursday night's Mariners Rockies game, Alexandra wrote, it's the final career start for Bradley Blaylock. He hasn't announced his retirement or anything like that, but he's made 11 starts plus two relief innings for the Rockies with a 9.16 ERA, striking out 4.3 batters per nine innings. That includes more runs than innings in each of his last five starts with an equal number of homers and strikeouts, 10 and a FIP of 10.05. I'll leave room for the idea that another team could find something interesting about Blaylock and relief, but this is a pretty hard closing of the door on him starting. And for those of you who may be asking how even the Rockies could give so many starts to a pitcher with such awful results, it's worth keeping his AAA results in mind. In 15 Pacific Coast League starts, he has an ERA of 8.6. You might not be impressed by that either, but it does indicate that he's successfully made the transition to MLB without too much of a dentist in his performance. Oof. Harsh, but unfortunately fair. So naturally I wondered how Bradley Blaylock would do in this game going up against the Mariners in Cal Rally. And could he at least lower that ERA a little? And the answer is no. No, he could not. But he did extend his streak of more runs allowed than innings pitched. He went three and two thirds and he gave up five runs, all learned on six hits, two walks and one strikeout, one homer. But not to Cal. It was Eugenio Suarez who hit it. So that raised his ERA in the majors this year to 9.36. Now the good news for him is that that's not unprecedented. In fact, the highest ERA ever in a single season, minimum 55 innings pitched in the majors belongs to Roy Halliday, who had a 10.64 ERA and nearly 70 innings pitched for the 2000 Blue Jays. And hey, he made the hall of fame. Halliday was 23 that year. Blaylock is 24. Perhaps there's still hope for him, but as Alexandra mentioned, he got roughed up in AAA too. So over 119 and a third innings pitched combined across AAA and the majors this year. Blaylock had an 8.98 ERA. I asked Baseball Reference's Kenny Jacklin where that ranked among all pitchers in the Baseball Reference database across any and all levels of affiliated ball minimum 100 innings pitched and the answer is it's not the worst. In fact, it's only 17th worst. It's barely worse than the Rockies. Karl Kaufman who had an 8.95 ERA just last year in almost 130 innings for AAA Albuquerque. And it's slightly better than Parker Dunshees 9.22 ERA in 111 in a third innings pitched for the AAA affiliate of the braves back in 2022. However, most of the other pitchers ahead of Blaylock or behind depending on your perspective, pitched a long time ago. And also none of the pitchers who had a higher ERA than his pitched in the majors in that season. They were all exclusively at some level of the minors. Now, I guess that makes things better for Blaylock, not just because he made major league money for a while, but because it's harder to pitch in the majors than the minors. So his ERA is slightly more excusable. But still, he does stand alone on that list. In case you're wondering, no one has ever had an ERA this high in 100 plus innings pitched in the majors. Only typically you pitch like that, you don't get to stay up there. And hey, he has an excuse. They're mitigating factors here. He pitches for the Rockies course field. He's pitched in the Pacific Coast League in Albuquerque. High altitude, high offense environments, but you know, not good. Feel a little bit bad about stat blasting Blaylock because so many hitters have blasted hits off of him this year. Still 8.98. It's an extraordinary number. I'll link to the spreadsheet from Kenny on the show page. Couple other follow ups. Dustin Patreon supporter says in episode 2378 Ben mentioned that he is for getting rid of base coaches. I have started to take this position too this season after I was on a date with someone who didn't know much about baseball and she couldn't understand why the base coaches were there because it should be up to the players to know when to go and steal and take the extra base. And I couldn't really come up with a good reason other than it's always been that way. I'm telling you, out of the mouths of babes. Not calling Dustin's data babe to be clear, it's an expression. Sometimes it takes a neophyte to realize how silly something is. Also, listener Kevin argues that we were way too pessimistic about the value of the hitter or pinch hitter who is guaranteed a single on episode 2379 even on a pure war basis, assuming he gets 120 plate appearances per season, allowing for injuries or some games where there's never a high enough leverage situation to bother pinch hitting an.883 woba is worth 55 batting runs. That's a six win player if you give him no positional value, or more like 4 if you treat him as a DH, which is probably more appropriate here. That's already one of the game's most valuable players and a reasonable hall of Fame candidate if he plays 15 seasons. But on top of that you actually should credit him for clutch performance because you can deploy him in high leverage moments. Maybe I'll have time to properly research this later, but from intuition and scanning a bunch of game logs I think the median team game has a peak leverage of about 2.5 or 3 and singles in that leverage are worth about got 0.1 to 0.15 win probability added. If he averages 0.10 WPA over 120 games, he should really be paid and treated like a 12 win player, arguably the best of all time over a full career. Admittedly you can't always predict the highest leverage moment to use him ahead of time, but remember, I've also taken away 40 low leverage games per year. Even at.06 WPA times 120 games, he's a 7 win player talked a while back about Jonathan Judge of Baseball Prospectus's research about adversarial pitch location, trying to quantify which pitchers are good at not only leveraging their strengths but exploiting their opponents weaknesses. And I asked Jonathan to check on whether the league as a whole has gotten better at adversarial pitch locations over time. He has data going back to 2017 I believe, because I was thinking, well, on the one hand scouting reports have probably improved. On the other hand, the philosophy of just aim for the middle and let your stuff and natural movement do the work has taken hold over that spin. So are pitchers tailoring their locations to opposing hitters traits? More or less? I could have believed either answer and Jonathan has just gotten back to me and informed me that the answer is neither. Evidently at the end of the day he says not convinced we are seeing much variation across the years. All right, null result. Now we know. And finally on episode 2375 we talked to Adam Durowski about his research into players with 4000 professional hit hits on the occasion of Robinson Cano joining that group. Cano was the 22nd confirmed member, but Adam mentioned that he thought he had identified a potential 23rd but hadn't been able to confirm it quite yet. Well, now he has. He reported on Blue Sky Vinicio Garcia played his last game 55 years ago and died in 2007, but we finally found hit number 4000 for the 1954 Oriole. He wrote a saber piece about it which I will also link to that will do it for today and for this week. Thanks as always for listening. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com effectivelywild and signing up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going. Help us stay ad free and get yourself access to some perks as have the following five listeners Dangerbird 653, Misha Berkowitz, Tritus, Charlie Grueler and Callie Moogle. Thanks to all of you Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, monthly bonus episodes, the next of which we will be be recording and releasing quite soon, Playoff live streams which commence next month, personalized messages, prioritized email answers and so much more. Check out all the offerings@patreon.com effectively wild if you are a 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 podcast fangraphs.com if you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. If not, you can contact us via email. Email Send your questions, comments, intro and outro themes to podcastangraphts.com youm can rate, review and subscribe to Effectively Wild on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Music and other podcast platforms. You can join the Effectively Wild Facebook group@facebook.com group effectivelywild. You can find the effectively wild subreddit at r effectivelywild and you can check the show notes and fan graphs of the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we cited today. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We hope you have a wonderful weekend and we will be back. To sum up the end of the regular season and set up the postseason early next week, Effectively Wild, effectively styled, distilled over chill beats, Effectively mild.