← Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
Effectively Wild Episode 2444: To Challenge, or Not to Challenge?
01:44:24
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A
I want to know about baseball. I want to know about every single team.
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I want to know about stat class
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fan graph Santa Bout oh oh oh Toddy.
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I'm a very modern fan reading up
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on all the analytics. I want to know about baseball Presented by Patreon supporters.
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Hello and welcome to episode 24 for 44 of Effectively Wild, a Fan Graphs Baseball Podcast, brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of fangraphs and I'm joined by Ben Lindbergh of the Ringer. Ben, how are you? Are you a snowman?
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A
Not quite. The snow is starting to melt, starting to be cleared away, but it was likely storm. Quite a heavy snowfall and as I was just telling you off air, just excellent sledding snow snowman snow did all the wintertime activities. Felt weird to watch spring training and then see 2ft of snow outside where I am. Not an issue that you deal with where you are, but a good problem to have, at least for me as an apartment dweller who doesn't have a commute and thus does not have to worry about that or shoveling. Although as a parent, I do have to worry about snow days. And it is one of the saddest things about adulthood if you have a kid or kids, which is that snow days, which are just a source of joy and wonder when you are yourself a child, become something that you start to dread when you are an adult and a parent. Not that we're not happy to have our kids around, but you know, in moderation, we, we have to work. We don't. Podcasters don't get snow days is the problem. So it can become a bit of an issue. But Sloan's back in school and everything is functioning smoothly. So I have a bit of baseball banter. And then we will have a couple guests later on this episode. We will be joined by the proprietors of Oyster Analyt and two regular writers for the excellent substack down on the Farm who will be joining to school us about the challenge system. And we'll get into all of the analytical tactical considerations of when you should challenge and how you should decide if a challenge is worthwhile. So Max Field Lane and Owen Riley will be with us in a bit, but before that, I've been staring at this quote for a while here. Oh, I could use your assistance in interpreting it. There have been a lot of quotes, a lot of quotable players in spring training these days, a lot of PCA quotes, but this one stood out to me. This was from Brian Wu and he was talking about Mariners prospect Ryan Sloan. Speaking of Sloans. So this is a 20 year old high a righty. And I saw this@minorleaguebaseball.com and a story says meanwhile Sloan is built like a tight end, but teammates heckle him for a far younger facial expression. And then Brian Woo says, if you gave me his head shot, I'd think he's like 12, which is true. That checks out. But when you send me a picture of his body, I'd think he's like 25. A bodybuilder. And then here's the sentence that's giving me pause. He's got legs like a centaur. And that's the part that, that made me stop.
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Legs like a centaur.
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Legs like a centaur. Because does that connote to you big, burly, thick, muscular legs or little skinny horse legs? Because to me, if I heard someone had legs like a centaur, I would think that they had skinny little horse legs. The kind that they break when they step in a hole and you have to put them down. And it's very sad and tragic, but they're just evolutionarily buil not to have much meat on the bottom of the legs so that they. Bottom, yeah. Move so swiftly. So it, yeah, it depends heavily on, on I suppose, which part of the leg.
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C
Yeah, right.
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A
Yeah. So it, it could be true. And I, I was trying to ascertain the accuracy here and I, I couldn't quite tell whether this was deserved or not. It didn't seem like a big dumper situation. Exactly. I try not to spend too much time scrutinizing the anatomy of baseball prospects for non analytical reasons.
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C
Obviously we are in a less horny era for that, which is probably good on balance. Although sometimes I think we've lost something.
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We. Buck Showalter is still out there, very much paying close attention.
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C
He's not wrong about those butts, man. He's not wrong about those high butts.
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A
It's true. Baseball butts. Yeah. Here I am, I'm defending only to, to hockey butts, as anyone who has watched heated rivalry knows. But, but is this, is this good descriptor if you, if you read this in a scouting report, obviously in context, because he's saying he looks like a bodybuilder. His face doesn't match his body. Okay. I'm, I'm picking up the context clues here that he must have hefty legs. He doesn't look, he doesn't look like the second coming of Spencer Strider or anything, but I don't Know, maybe his pants just aren't as tight. But legs, legs, like I said to her, I tend to think of, of the most of the leg, which is small in circumference.
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I,
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I love fact checking. Brian Wu grabbing at a non. At a mythical creature as a guy for his teammate. And we're like, hey, is this even Brian? Have you even read anything, man? Do you even know what they look like? I guess it depends because I do think of like the, the hindquarters of a horse as being like quite musc. Muscular.
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Yes.
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In their disposition. But you do raise a good point that they are kind of little below the knee. It's not a knee though, right? Is it a knee? What's that joint called? Is there a joint now? I'm thinking about like the back leg. Where are the joints? What do horses look like? You know how there's that meme of like the front of the horse is rendered perfectly and then the back is like a mess. Or maybe it's the other way. The back is rendered perfectly and the front is a mess. I know about memes. I'm young.
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A
Yes. Yeah, I thought of that and of course I thought of a rod's probably, possibly apocryphal centaur portrait. Self portrait. Yeah, I think, I think it's called a carpus.
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C
I mean like a horse is a, is a powerful creature.
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Oh, certainly. Yes, yes, I'm sure. Yeah. They obviously when they push off, they get a lot of, a lot of oomph there. Like for a picture, if you're pushing off the rubber, obviously a horse, a racehorse at least is it's really applying a lot of force, which is, I guess part of the problem with those spindly little legs. They can, they break. It's not bird bones, it's horse bones. But it can be. Can be bad. But yeah, I think it's called a carpus, the quote unquote knee. The front leg bendable joint is a carpus. It's kind of like a wrist really. And then the hind leg knee equivalent is evidently called a stifle. Learning a lot about horse anatomy here.
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C
Doesn't like quite bend the same way. Like it doesn't articulate in the same way because it's in a different spot. You know, like they're. You're double. Anyway, I think I get what Brian Wu means. If I were. They are such powerful animals. They're really something horses. You know, they don't. They don't shoot horses anymore when they break their legs, do they?
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Yeah, I think so. I Mean, why it's tough to heal them. I always, every time I watch any show with a horse thing, you're stressed. My wife and I, yeah, we have a joke because anytime they. I mean, it's a joke because it's gallows humor. It's like anytime they stumble in the show, oh, there goes the horse up, and now they're bringing out the. Whatever the thing is where they drive the bolt into their brain or whatever, and it's always super sad and someone's crying, and it's just inevitable. I think horse therapies have improved somewhat, but there's just only so much they can do because of the way they stand and everything. And there's such a weight being on it and. Yeah. And horses maybe are maybe not the most cooperative creatures when it comes to rehabbing, so.
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Okay, well, we've really brought everybody low with this.
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Hopefully that won't be an issue for Ryan Sloan. I would be more worried about upper body arm issues for him long term.
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And it's perhaps instructive that. That Wu reached for, like, a mythical version of a horse, right. Where presumably when. When you are imbued with magic, maybe it stabilizes all your. Your little bones a little bit. He does have a wildly childlike face, like it is a youth.
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True.
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It is a youthful face that he is working with. And you do have this. You know, this is a funny phenomena across pro sports where you sometimes have this disconnect between just how and here I am trying to not make it sound horny, because I don't mean it in a horny way, but like, in command of and mature. The. The physicality can be. But then sometimes they're very young athletes, even in the pro ranks, like, they're just a. It's a. He's a young man. And so you have this strange disconnect where you're like, what's going on? And then you watch College Base and you're like, every other reliever looks like he's 35. And, like, on his last case, you know, he's gotta solve it before he can retire. So horses. I'm nervous around horses, and I think they know, you know, I'm not a confident rider. I've only ever done it a couple of times. I feel like it's the sort of thing you have to get better at practice. One of my cousins, I don't want to call her a horse girl because that comes with a certain set of expectations and sort of understandings. But, like, she has ridden for a long time and has A horse. And she doesn't seem nervous around them, but I am because they're so big, you know, and they are very powerful animals and they can kick you and then you can die. Which, you know, I have a feeling that each one of them is sort of. They have like a, like a, an understanding in their bones about what we do with some of their less fortunate brethren. And they're like, I'm looking for an opportunity to kick this out of these folks wherever I get.
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Yes. You know, well, hopefully the bones are not the ones that can break. But we have learned that Ryan Sloan is built like a tight end and evidently he has one. I did run this by one. He has one actual team employed baseball talent evaluator. Just to ask if this is something he would write in a scouting report or has seen or would say about a player. And. And this person said no and said bad comp because of the thinness of the centaur bottom legs. Which if I were doing a self scouting report, I might say that I have legs like a centaur because I've got some deficiencies in the calf department.
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C
You're self conscious.
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Man enough to admit it. I mean, you know, look, I'm putting it out there, not for the first time. Come by it honestly. Come from a long line of calf challenged men and they just don't grow. I'm not skipping leg day. Some of us are just calf challenged. You know, me and, me and Gabe Kapler built identically otherwise, but. And right down to the Cal calves, in fact. And, and years and years ago on his blog, he and I had a competition to see if we could increase the size of our calves and we could not. Yeah, this is only Lindbergh lore, which I probably should not have brought up
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C
again, I had forgotten about this. I'll say the following. I hope that you allow yourself to enjoy ice cream. I hope Gabriel's going over that. I wonder if centaur was in. I mean like mythical creatures. I guess maybe in some ways a little safer animal comps for players. You can get into sort of tricky territory pretty quickly. Now I'm thinking of like, did anyone ever look at Teddy Bridgewater and go a centaur because he has such. He had such spindly. Yes, spindly lower half. But like I wouldn't want to describe a person that way necessarily. But powerful on top of that part's right. I don't know. I don't know.
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Accentuate the positive I suppose. But anyway, you've reminded me of the movie. They shoot horses don't they. Because you asked. They don't shoot horses, do they? Yes, it's not really about horses, but it did get many Oscar nominations. Not for best Picture. I do have one other spring training related question to get to, but I
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have a butt related thing that I have to bring up.
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Well, all right.
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Sorry. Just to. Let's use it as the segue and then we'll segue right on out again. So, you know, Aaron Judge is on the COVID of mlb, the show, you know, and I've been reminded of this because now that I'm watching spring training baseball, which again, we will get to your thought momentarily. I'm seeing a lot of commercials for the show and the process of making the COVID and da, da, da. Do you think that they missed an opportunity? They should have had Judge on the front and Cal on the back. And just like the. Why didn't they, why didn't they put the dumper on the back of the. You know what I mean? Like, no offense to Aaron Judge's, but I'm sure it's fine. The least notable physical attribute he has, candidly, just because you're so distracted by how gigantic he is. But I feel like they should have put the dumper on the back of mlb, the show. That's maybe a little. You'd think of Cal.
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A
Yeah. So maybe, maybe it would be, you know, exploitative or something. Or maybe. I don't know. Look, sex sells copies more than just. Yeah, right. Yeah. Don't want to objectify him and anymore. Yeah, that ship has sailed. I guess that that hors is out of the barn. But there are multiple versions of Judge, multiple depictions of Judge on this cover. He's on there multiple times. So they could have fit him and Cal. And this is not even the first time that Judge has been the COVID model for that franchise. So, yeah, give Cal a call. Maybe they did. For all we know. Maybe they couldn't afford him. Who knows? Maybe he was interested. The other quote I wanted to highlight. So there have been a lot of pitcher injuries and some serious ones during spring, as is always the case.
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But enough about the Braves.
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Yeah, we haven't gotten to our Atlanta preview yet, which I guess is fortuitous, although it will be depressing for fans who are listening. But an injury befell knuckleball legend Matt Waldron. No. Yes. But I guess the severity of it is, is not the worst, but maybe the embarrassment of it is up there. So I'm, I'm reading the tweet here. Matt Waldron has been shut down. Now when you hear that.
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Yeah.
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Your mind, it goes to the worst. Right. It' to be an elbow. It's ucl. It's Tommy John, here we come. Had a procedure for an infection in his rear end, according to Padre's manager, Craig Stammon. So really, we didn't actually segue to a different subject. We segue to a different player.
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I, I, I don't know whether it's
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a tight end and I don't know whether it's Centaur like, but setting that up. Had a procedure for an infection in his rear end. Waldron is week to week, which is worse than day to day. Going to be far more difficult for him to make starting rotation camp. And then there was a follow up. This is, this is from Padres beat writer Kevin A.C. of the San Diego Union Tribune, who had that initial tweet and then replied to his own tweet to say probably after they got some engagement on that first one. Feels like infection in his rear end needs some clarity. Yeah, Yeah, I would say that's a, that's a good note. It was hemorrhoid surgery.
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Oh, okay.
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Which, look, I guess it happens. This is one case where this feels like too much information.
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I agree. That's not a baseball injury.
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Yeah. Generally, I like that in baseball there's pretty good transparency when it comes to exactly what befalls players. And we're sort of spoiled in that
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respect because we are very spoiled.
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Yeah.
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It's good to satisfy our curiosity and also for analytical purposes. And I'm not saying that I want to switch to a hockey model where hemorrhoid surgery would probably be reported as lower body injury. And then we would all wonder what that could be, because that could be anything. But in this specific case, I think it might be kind of kinder. And for all I know, Matt Waldron may have said, yeah, go ahead, just show them. And plus, if they don't say what it is, then people are going to be coming up to him and saying, what's going on, Matt? Because, but if there were a tradition or I suppose because in baseball there is a lot of transparency. If suddenly you weren't saying what was happening to one guy, then you would know it was. Everyone would be extra curious. So maybe it's better to just get it all out there and then everyone can get whatever jokes they have out of their system. But I'm rooting for Matt Waldron. I'm always rooting for Matt Waldron. I want him to be a knuckleball success. But this, this adds insults to injury, really. He has the injury, but also just having everyone aware of the hemorrhoid surgery, it's. It's early enough in spring training, too, that it feels like. Well, would we need to pry about this? Okay, maybe it'll actually jeopardize his status for opening day, but.
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Sure.
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It's not even March yet. You know, do we need to know the intimate details of the infection in Matt Waldron's rear end? I guess I just. I guess I could have chosen not to air this any further on Effectively Wild, the prominent podcast platform that we share, but I did, and I suppose I'm part of the problem.
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C
Okay, but, like, is that an infection?
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I think it qualifies as an infection. Okay, so it's an irritation.
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I'm genuinely asking.
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Yeah. I honestly have not been plagued by this particular problem, so I'm not speaking from personal experience. Probably because I'm such a bidet convert.
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C
Right, right, right.
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Yeah. Okay. Trot out another of my hobby horses. But bidets can prevent or ease the symptoms of hemorrhoids. Saying, you know, we haven't heard about Munaka Murakami suffering from hemorrhoids.
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I'm just, you know, really like that.
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Washlet.
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Yeah, I don't need to know. I. It. Just get off your phone. Maybe,
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maybe.
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Maybe some of it's about that. Right?
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Yeah, it could be. I'm not saying it's user error.
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It's a straining issue.
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Yeah. Probably not going to pry. Additionally, if we ever get Matt Waldron on the podcast, I. I will vow right here and now, we are not asking him. No, we are not. You know, that. That I'm. I'm prone to asking the uncomfortable questions because sometimes they elicit entertaining answers. Pretty sure questioned Rich Hill about his urinating on his blisters. We'll go there on the podcast, but. But I'm not going to go here if Matt Waldron ever consents to come on.
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C
And part of it, too, is that again, like, I get guess. My guess is that where they landed was they had a similar kind of round, roundabout about it that we did, which is like, well, we have to tell them something because we don't want them to assume that it's an arm injury, which is what you assume with a pitcher generally. But then, like, if you're vague about it, it invites more questions. I don't know. We. It's not a baseball injury. I mean, I guess you could. Could you strain in such a way?
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I mean, it becomes a baseball injury when it hampers your Performance, which I suppose don't even use that term in this case. But no, presumably it was not suffered in the course of baseball activities. So. Yes, but the COVID up is worse than the crime. Honesty is the crime, you know.
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No, it's just health. Do you think that the. We're gonna move on. Do you think the rate of hemorrhoids is higher now with phones than it was pre phone? Because I think that sometimes people, sometimes people sit on there too long, you know, and then there's. Yeah, that's probably because of the phone.
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The bathroom book, of course, is a time honored tradition, so I never understood that.
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To be clear, is it sanitary?
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I don't know. But I understand the allure.
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Never been a fan of that anyway.
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I mean, look, if you've seen Breaking Bad, that that becomes a very important plot point. So just having that bathroom reading there. But be careful what the inscription says, okay? One more slightly, perhaps more newsworthy quote came from Angel's owner, Artie Moreno. Not related to centaurs or hemorrhoids, but he is in a sense sort of a hemorrhoid upon the game. When it comes to armies, that's maybe a little much. Yeah. Let me know whether that was too much Angels fans. But he's, he's in the conversation for worst MLB owners. I don't think he's. He's the worst, but, but bottom five for sure. And he doesn't talk to the media that often, but he does annually, at least in spring training and usually reminds you why he doesn't do it more often. And he had some mostly innocuous quotes. The one that really got some attention, this was after he talked about why the payroll is lower and he talked about the broad cast situation and the uncertainty there, which granted, probably does actually lead to less revenue. And the one way in which he's not the worst owner is that he has historically spent some money, yes, not, not always wisely, and has cheaped out in many other areas. But when we're putting him up against the worst of the worst, he has at least shown some willingness to splurge. Mostly in the past, though I guess I could see why he, he might be a bit hesitant to splurge given the returns on some of those investments. But he said this when he was asked about just his commitment to winning and everything. And he, I'm quoting here from the OC Register, reiterated that he's committed to the fan experience, specifically to making the games affordable for families. The number one thing fans want is affordability. Reno said they want affordability, they want safety and they want good experience when they come to the ballpark, which, well, all those things are also good. I, I agree those are good things to want, but the number one thing he said is affordability. And then he said, believe it or not, winning is not in their top five. So I said he was a bottom five owner. He's saying winning is not in the top five priorities for fans. He said that that information comes from surveys that the Angels have done. He said the moms want to be able to afford to bring the kids. Moms make about 80% of the decisions. They want to be able to bring their kids and be affordable and they want safety and they want to have a good experience. So they get all the entertainment stuff or whatever the purists, you know, it's just straight winning. Then he was asked what his top priority is and he said, for me, I've always wanted to win. It's just what the cost of winning right now. It's not the worst owner quote I've ever seen. It's not great. And Bruce Meyer of the MLBPA came out and said that this did not escape the union's notice, did not escape players notice. Certainly plays into union messaging about owners reluctance to spend and invest in player payroll, etc. However, and I'm loath to defend Artie Moreno, as my previous comments about him made clear, this might be more true for, for the Angels than it is for most teams because we've talked about before their kind of curious attendance patterns. Yeah. Which really are resistant or seemingly independent of their fortunes as a team. Which is something that's true to an extent about the Rockies as well. Just, hey, it's a great place to go to a game and there's at least the potential sometimes for cheap beer and there's a nice view and good vibes and all of that. And, and the Angels, we have noticed and remarked upon and puzzled over their attendance, just doesn't seem to be sensitive to what one might think would be a good draw because after Shohei Ohtani left, their attendance barely budged. Yeah, you'd think he'd be the biggest draw in the sport. And yet it didn't seem to hurt them when it came to their attendance. And as bad as they've been for as long as, as they have, their attendance is still middle of the pack, still maybe slightly above average on a per game basis. And when we talked about this before, there were some, some locals who wrote in and some fans who said, well, they do Just get a lot of tourists and they just get people visiting and people go to Disney and then they go to an Angels game. And so they are perhaps not even Angels fans. They're just looking for something to do. Obviously, there are actual Angels fans, and those actual Angels fans do care about whether the team wins. And Moreno allowed for that. He called them the purists. I don't know if you need to be a purist to care whether your team wins, but. But I could see where in this particular region, given the tourist attendance and the other draws in the area and just the attendance patterns that have flummoxed us before, that he might actually be onto something here when it comes to what dictates attendance at Angels games.
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C
So here's the thing. I'm willing to allow that all of that is true. It doesn't matter. You gotta lie. You gotta lie. And I think part of the problem is that in the hands of someone who is a better communicator, who's better at sort of smoothing the way, you. You don't have to present these things as being at odds with one another. Right. Or as priorities that you're ranking. You know, just talk about your commitment to your fan base. My commitment to our fan base is that they will have, you know, as a family, that you can bring your whole family to the ballpark and enjoy the day with our team. And you can do that in a way that is affordable. As you watch us try to put winning baseball on the field, it's very easy. You know, it's just very easy. I think that, like talking about the affordability piece of it for fans and here I guess I'll give him a little bit of credit like that. That is, I think, an increasing pressure for people. I do get a little nervous whenever I hear owners talking about the affordability question because I worry they're trying to smuggle like salary suppression stuff in, you know, through the back door. Because I think that despite, you know, such vaunted platforms is effectively wild. Talking about it like a lot of people might still be under the misapprehension that, you know, ticket prices go up in response to player salaries going up, as opposed to them just being a result of what the market will bear. And so, you know, I think that talking about the affordability piece of it is good. It's good. And it's good for that to be a priority for teams because a lot of teams seem to be quite committed to chasing very high end experiences at the ballpark and they are putting baseball Sort of out of reach for a lot of American families and American singles. You know, for folks, you know, it can be a very expensive day out if you are, you know, if you're needing to bring multiple people with you. So, you know, I think talking about that stuff is good, but it's just like, hey, man, people don't think that this team is going in the right direction. And when you decide to focus on the affordability piece and put it forth is like, well, the thing that fans care about is that, you know, moms want their. Their kids to see winning baseball. Are you, like, you know, the moment? I'm not one, but I am a woman, so as a woman, I would offer that the ladies want winning baseball. Even in Anaheim, I do feel a strange sense of, like, ownership, because in the case of the Angels, because while I am not an Angels fan, famously, because of where their ballpark is located, I do support them as, like, a Tempe taxpayer. So. Hey, Erdie, put some winning baseball on the field, did you, Ben? Sorry. Speaking of this, this is not necessarily already Marino's fault, but talk about the, you know, the market dictating will it. What it will bear. The Dodgers came across the valley to play the Angels, and I would offer that the Angels facility is not the nicest one in the Cactus League. One could call it dumpy. And I don't think that you'd be totally out of line, although already you're welcome for the stadium improvements that we're paying for. But I was shocked to learn that, like, the cheapest ticket that. And granted I didn't look like immediately, was, like, 150 bucks because it was the Dodgers for a spring training game. What in the world, Ben? What in the world? Where's your affordability now, Ernie?
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Yeah, part of the problem. I think you're right. Even if there are elements of truth to what he was saying.
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C
Sure.
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It's also convenient cover for him.
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C
Right.
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A
And a convenient excuse and a convenient way to wrap, rationalize not spending and not winning. It's like, well, fans don't care that much about that. A lot of them do. Okay, I have just a couple bits of feedback to share. A lot of people wrote in to say, wish you would talk more about centaurs and hemorrhoids. So, okay, there we go. Checked off that box. We also talked two episodes ago, episode 2442, about a generous podcast listener, listener, barback, who handed out free beer, distributed free beer to an effectively wild listener. And this was seen on the baseball subreddit and the baseball subredditor said that effectively Wild while singing the other praises of the podcast Said also got me a free beer at a bar the other day. Bar backside was wearing a baseball shirt and somehow effectively Wild came up and he was like whoa, cool. And covered my date and my round good vibe. And we celebrated that listener and put a call out and said hey, if you are the beer distributing barback, please write in and let us know. And we received an email subject line. Pretty sure I'm that Barback from episode 2442. And having read the email, I agree. I'm pretty sure that this is that bar back too. And I'm not surprised that he heard our call because of course he's an avid, effectively wild listener. Right? So the bar back is McGarrity Stanley, and first of all, excellent name. Fantastic.
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C
Incredible.
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Yes. I've been singing to myself Macavity, the song from Cats ever since we got just like the McCavity.
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C
Oh no, McCarty.
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A
But no, that's a good thing. I like the cat soundtrack anyway.
- [32:24]
C
Wait, wait, wait. Sorry. You okay, no, continue. But then we are returning to this.
- [32:29]
A
Well, McGarrity, and if you had told me me if you gave me the names McGarrity and Stanley and asked me to guess which order they went in, I probably would have said Stanley McGarry. Yeah, but I. I like a name that sounds sort of backwards, sort of reversed. It's just a nice neat little surprise. It's. There's a novelty value to it. So it's just an excellent email and I will read it. Per the email title, I am 99% sure that I am the bar back in question from the episode intro. Unless there is another bar back out there handing out beverages to fellow effectively wild listeners, in which case, carry on, comrade. I flipped on the pod on my drive to work today, as I very frequently do, only to hear you describe what very much sounded like you were talking about me. I was working a brunch shift a couple weeks ago that was unseasonably busy for the time of year and weather, and in the course of running around the bar, I spotted the fellow listener slash Reddit poster in a cool tie, dyed Yomiuri Giant shirt jersey. I didn't know which NPB team it was at first. That's actually what sparked the conversation. I asked what team it was, she explained, and in the course of about 45 seconds we exchanged our favorite MLB teams. I said something along the lines of but I'm a big baseball nerd in general. And she said oh I listened to Effectively Wild. To which I said, oh hell yeah. First of all, I love that that the response to I'm a big baseball nerd is oh, I listen to Effectively Wild. As if how could you better demonstrate baseball nerd credentials than by saying you've listened to Effectively Wild detected? Yeah, fair. Then we confirmed that we had both been listening to the San Francisco Giants season preview pod earlier that morning. Anyhow, saw fellow listener come up to the bar later, so I asked the bartender to comp a round of drinks on my tab. The owners of the bar give us a couple per shift to hand out to nice people in nerd solidarity, and here we are. All that said said, I couldn't help but feel more than a small twinge of guilt as both of you were so kindly lauding my purported generosity because I have frequently meant to be but wasn't yet a Patreon supporter of your fine and famously ad free work. That has been amended and I will be a faithful Patreon supporter as long as Effectively Wild continues to exist. Well, thank you McErdy. You didn't need to. You've done enough. It's an unofficial Patreon perk that you are providing to people. As it is, I cannot guarantee the level of Patreon supporter perk that I can provide all Effectively Wild listeners with free beverages, but I will do my honest best to provide our fellow baseball nerds with complimentary drinks in the event we meet in meatspace. Sorry Meg, I can't unhear it either. Thank you for all the fantastic podcasts and baseball work you do. It has provided me with more enjoyment, entertainment and delightfully head scratching. What ifs then, you know, keep fighting the good fight. Write Sincerely, McGarrity and there were a few PSS. One was composing this email to the managing editor of Fangraphs has caused me more anxiety than I anticipated. Excuse my liberal splashing of commas and run on sentences. No, it was an entertaining, well written email, McGarrity. PPS. Actually one of the funniest things about this whole situation to me was the unprompted text I received from my brother immediately after I heard the intro banter that read said Mac, didn't you give someone free drinks for liking effectively? Wild. Guess he listened to it on the way to work too. And he knew. Haha. So it's a family affair. The brothers Stanley, both Effectively wild listeners and PPPs Pakistan is sleeping on the Astros fight me and we won't fight on behalf of Pakota.
- [36:05]
C
Although this not my circus, not my
- [36:08]
A
Monkeys, again, as a baseball perspective. But yeah, the. The. The catch is that Dakota is actually higher on the Astros than then fangrass is. So McGarrity, I promise, too.
- [36:19]
C
I'm not putting any thumb on that scale. I am. I am not involved in the particulars of the soup there. But yeah, we are lower on them than even. Than even BP is.
- [36:31]
A
But we will stay out of the fight. We will not throw hands with McGarryty because he is a listener legend and he doesn't want to specify the establishment he works in lest he be bombarded by people seeking free drinks, but did say that we could specify that it's a bar in South Austin. If they know, they'll know. So I don't know, but some people listening probably know, and maybe you can go meet McGarrity. So that was excellent. I'm glad he heard our call and responded to it. And this is very heartwarming. I think so. And you know, the. The Redditor commenter who received the drinks said that they were on a date state at the time. Yeah. And. And So I assume McGarry was aware of that. I'm not ascribing any ulterior motives to McGarrity furnishing this. This free drink. This could very well be a purely platonic podcast listener interaction. And in some respects, I think it's sweeter if it is.
- [37:29]
C
Yeah. And.
- [37:30]
A
And I know nothing about the sexes and preferences and statuses involved here of anyone involved.
- [37:35]
C
Yeah.
- [37:36]
A
But it would make quite a meet. Cute, Right? This, this scenario, these circumstances. Yeah. In meat space. I'm just saying, if McGarrity's unattached, if the Reddit commenter date didn't go well, if I'm just, you know, putting it out there that we do have McGarrity's contact info, if. If the Redditor would. Would care to make a connection. Oh, my God. Just putting the offer out there. But I'm not suggesting that that was what motivated any aspect of this. I think it was just a pure hearted baseball connection. Just nerds, baseball bonding, and it's beautiful.
- [38:14]
C
I think that you have taken our listeners on such a ride today, Ben. You know, we started with horses, we went to hemorrhoids, and now you're performing matchmaking services. Well, I don't know where we're going next. I mean, I do, because I've already helped you record the interview, but.
- [38:37]
A
Yeah, you have some sense. It's true.
- [38:38]
C
I have a little bit of an idea.
- [38:39]
A
I changed it earlier too. But look, if. If effectively Wild has led to a love connection for anyone out there, then we want to hear about it. If you care to share your story,
- [38:48]
C
it almost certainly has, right?
- [38:50]
A
It has to have. I mean, I know many, many friendships have happened because of the show, so one would think that something must have been sparked and kindled at the some point. So yeah, we've recorded messages for people's weddings, but it wasn't a wedding of effectively wild listeners. I mean, one of them wasn't effectively wild listeners. It would be weird if neither of them was, but they did not meet because of effectively wild. So if and when that happens, I'd love to hear about it. It would brighten my day to know that we brightened yours.
- [39:23]
C
It would be so, so funny if it was not effectively wild listeners. And then they were like, who? Who people?
- [39:31]
A
What did.
- [39:32]
C
Why do they care about my wedding? I mean, you know, that might be nice in a way, I suppose.
- [39:37]
A
I guess any well wishes are welcome perhaps. And one other follow up, we got to the question of whether it would be worse to have an inappropriate relationship with with one sister in law or the other prompted by Tony Clark's which the details still have not surfaced. Which is fine, you know, that's fine. We don't need to know about your inappropriate relationships or your hemorrhoid surgeries. But, but this question from Nirant who said Meg's take on the quote unquote better sister in law is off because to recap, I said eh, does it even matter really which which one? It would be worse to have had the inappropriate relationship with. And then you pointed out that one of them would be worse because you burn multiple bridges and you not only ruin your relationship, your romantic relationship, but also your sibling relationship and your whole family will spurn you. And I said well I hadn't really thought about that as an only child and, and I credited your explanation. But Nerant says meg, in episode 2442 you said the siblings went wife version of sister in law was way worse because if it's your sibling wife, you might not be able to show up to family functions. Etc.
- [40:57]
C
That's what I said on yeah, yeah, I said it both times.
- [41:01]
A
Yes, but Narant is taking issue with that says while true, this is clearly and distinctly from the male Tony Clark's perspective. However, the exact same family destruction would happen to the wife and wife's sister's family if it was the other version of sister in law. I would suggest that we shouldn't care as much about what's best for Tony and instead have More sympathy for the wife, the clearest victim in this whole quote unquote affair, and understand that it would likely be less painful for her and her family for it to be the sibling's wife's version of sister in law. Clearly, this is very important. Important.
- [41:41]
C
Well, sure, I, I. Yes, there is a perspectival element to it, but I think the question assumed Tony's perspective, which is.
- [41:53]
A
I think so too, yeah.
- [41:54]
C
Why? It's defensible. But I suppose the point is well taken, I think, from your. From. Well, but from. But I'm so confused. Okay, so the, the original question was, is it better for. To. I feel so strange like talking about him specifically. So let's abstract it to hypothetical people. Is it better to have had an affair with your siblings, your spouse's sister,
- [42:26]
A
or your sibling's wife?
- [42:28]
C
Yeah, wife. Right, right. Yeah. I mean, definitely from the wife's perspective. I mean, like, like. But, but also, maybe your wife's sister sucks, you know, and she doesn't mind.
- [42:41]
A
The specifics are pretty important here, but it's.
- [42:43]
C
I think that's true across the board.
- [42:45]
A
But, you know, to extend my streak of quoting Star wars, many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view. So if you're taking Tony Clark's point of view, then I think there's a clear answer. But maybe we were both right in a sense, because maybe I was approaching it from more of a neutral perspective in terms of utilitarian. Just the harm to all involved as opposed to the perpetrator or one of the perpetrators. But yeah, we're on the same page here.
- [43:15]
C
We're on the same page. And again, this is fundamentally just none of my business. Him having an inappropriate relationship. Piece of. It is fundamentally not my business. And relationships are complicated and mystery to everyone who's not inside them. So, like, it's not who. Who are we to say? But really, I think the thing we can all agree on is you can't. You can't put her on the payroll, you know, regardless of who she's related to, you know, or. Or the nature of your relationship to her. Yeah. Anyway, don't. Tony, what are you doing, Dude?
- [43:56]
A
Yeah, not inside them. Also a regrettable phrasing in this case. Okay, let's take a quick break.
- [44:02]
C
You are. You are the. They are gonna be so annoyed that this was the intro to their interview, because it was like a good. I mean, it. It had its silly moments too, but they. We didn't work blue nearly so much. No.
- [44:15]
A
Though we Will work our way up to or down to mascots by the end, so stay tuned for that. But after a quick break, we will be back back with the Oyster analytics boys to talk about the strategic tactical considerations at play in the challenge system. Yankees catcher Austin Wells got some grief online when he incorrectly challenged twice on not the closest calls in the Yankees first game of spring training, and the team ran out of challenges by the fifth inning. In Wells's defense, he had gotten one right earlier in the game. But when is it appropriate to pile on a player for erroneous challenges? We're about to find out.
- [44:56]
B
The Yankees challenged again, by the way.
- [44:58]
A
And that's two. So the Yankees, by, oh, by 2.1 inches, have lost their second challenge. Wow.
- [45:10]
B
We got a measurement on the ABS challenge. That's very exciting. So the Yankees are out of challenges.
- [45:17]
A
All right, we are joined now by the founders and proprietors of Oyster analytics and the main contributors to the down on the Farm substack. Their names are Owen Riley. Hello, Owen. Hello. And Maxfield Lane. Hello, Maxfield.
- [45:33]
D
Hey, there.
- [45:34]
A
So, the Oyster Analytics Blue sky account. The bio says two former college ball players modeling the next generation of MLB talent. So tell us your. Your origin story. I don't know if you have this down to a science where the two of you finish each other's sentences. I don't know if this is like a Jake and Jordan from sesti's family barbecue situation, whether you have a mind meld or not, but whichever one of you typically takes the lead on answering questions posed to both of you. How did you guys get to know each other and get into what you do?
- [46:06]
B
Yeah, I mean, we. We alternate, but I started talking first, so I'll go for it.
- [46:10]
A
That was very assertive.
- [46:11]
B
Yeah.
- [46:12]
A
Yeah.
- [46:12]
B
Well, it's better than having us both kind of. Of awkwardly wait around. Yeah. So we played Division 3 baseball together. I was a pitcher, Max was a pitcher and a catcher. And we didn't start this until a few years after we had left college, but we're really always passionate about baseball, obviously on the playing side, but also on the analytics side. Ben, your book was a big inspiration on that front as well. And I think got Max and I really interested in a lot of that stuff. And. Yeah, so then we're looking for a way to connect after we had left college and to do something we loved. And we started Oyster analytics, where our goal was to do prospect projections in a way that was both analytically rigorous but also really accessible and could tell people meaningful things about prospects in ways that's pretty easy to digest for a lot of people.
- [47:01]
A
Maxfield, anything to add?
- [47:03]
D
No, that's exactly it. And it's been a really fun journey getting out there in the analytics community and the people that we've been able to meet and interact with and over time, how our craft has evolved and our relationship with down on the Farm. They were looking for people to add content and they saw the consistency and the quality that we were putting out there on Twitter and invited us on. And since then it's helped us a lot expand into areas of challenges or game strategy or when to send runners home from second on a single and projects like that. So it's just been a joy exploring all the possibilities of baseball analytics and sharing that with our audience.
- [47:45]
A
When Sam and I were working with the Sonoma Stompers in preparation for the Only Rules It Has To Work, we did sign some D3 guys, including the legendary Sean Conroy. Would either of you have shown up on our Sonoma Stoppers spreadsheet as someone who might have succeeded in the Pacific Association?
- [48:02]
D
Maybe Owen?
- [48:03]
B
I don't think so. I don't think so. That would have been a dream of mine though, to play for a team like that, even for just the summer. But I don't think my, I don't think my strikeout numbers were where you would have wanted them.
- [48:13]
A
So is this haunted by our own shortcomings as a player and so driven to project other players and figure out what makes players good sort of thing? Or are you just generally baseball nerds for the reason that anyone yeah, yeah.
- [48:29]
B
And very nerdy.
- [48:30]
A
Well, you do a lot of prospect centric coverage and you write about that for down on the Farm. I am most interested in the league level, high level research that you do. Not that the prospect stuff isn't cool, especially when you do wider studies on what's predictive for prospects and get into the nitty gritty of how your model works. But since I'm not as much of a prospect person as some people are, I just wait till I need to know those guys, kind of. So I am riveted by your research into some of the analytical and strategic and tactical considerations that you just mentioned. And so you are doing some work now on the challenge system. And obviously Meg and I are interested in the challenge system and who isn't interested in the challenge system, which is about to make its regular season MLB debut. And so we figured we would talk to you to get sort of a synopsis of your research and some insight into what you have Found here about the tactics of the challenge system, which I know that for some people can be sort of a tiresome subject because it doesn't tickle them in the way that it tickles some people because they just want the calls to be correct or they don't want people to have to consider the leverage. Or here's when you challenge or here's when you don't challenge. And they don't want the challenges to be limited, they just want the calls to be correct, which. Which is understandable. I think I get that perspective. But I assume that this appeals to the analytical sides of your brain because the challenges are constrained. You have to figure out when it makes sense to use them.
- [50:13]
B
Yeah, definitely. And I mean, I won't speak for Max, but I think for me it's kind of like a perfect problem to consider because you have a controlled environment, you have clear rules, and it's kind of like, okay, we can and dig in there and get to work and try to figure some cool stuff out.
- [50:29]
D
I think it has a lot of cool implications as well. From a philosophy perspective and a ego perspective. There's so many things with selfishness and who gets to challenge and who doesn't and do people get frustrated and make bad, reactive decisions. So that psychological component is also a really big aspect of this. So it's a cool marriage of both of those concepts.
- [50:49]
A
Meg, you've been a long time challenge system advocate. You're a real trailblazer. You sort of set the tone and everyone followed your lead.
- [50:57]
C
That's right.
- [50:58]
A
But is it because of this or is it even partly because of this that you find the prospect so appealing? Just these kind of tactical considerations?
- [51:08]
C
It's a big part of it.
- [51:09]
D
Yeah.
- [51:09]
C
I think that often when we see technology sort of intervene in sports, it removes tactical considerations. Right. And it seemed like it had that potential here if we had gone to the full abs. Right. You don't have to challenge full abs. And so the system does what it does and then we lose something. You and I are fans of pitch framing. There's skill involved with that. It's sort of pulling some enjoyable human element out of the game. Whereas the challenge system injects all of this strategic thinking into it. And you're right to say there is an emotional and sort of philosophical component. It didn't take very long with this system and the minors for teams to realize, yeah, we really can't let Pitchfork challenge their own ball and strike calls. They're gonna, they're going to do so emotionally in key moments. And we're going to lose a challenge that we need in the seventh and the first because this guy can't accept that he didn't throw a strike. So I think in a. In a moment where it is important for us to be getting the most important calls, right, to have a means of intervening on, you know, a playoff game ending on a blown call, to allow that system to still have sort of not only a strategic component, but like a human component that has to be managed, I think is pretty exciting.
- [52:33]
A
So how did you guys set out to study this? Is this a theoretical framework? Are you using years of minor league data? We have MLB spring training data from last year. We're getting more data by the day in spring training. So how did you bring your analytical rigor to basically here?
- [52:49]
B
Yeah, so, you know, I'll max in a minute, can talk a bit about some of the stuff we've done with the AAA data. But, you know, going into the first season of it really happening in Major League Baseball, we kind of set out to, you know, understand two things that we think are key when it comes to challenging. So the first is to be able to create a strategic guide for how you should be approaching it. And the second is to be able to effectively evaluate your performance. So basically to figure out, you know, how well are we doing and executing on that strategy. So that's kind of what we set out to do. It's a bit tougher than it sounds at first. So with the strategic guide, you're looking at things not just based on count and outs and runners on which are obviously important for run leverage, but you also have to consider how much of the game is left, how many challenges you have left, and even the score, because the score, not because a run is always a run, the score doesn't change that, but the score will determine the likelihood of the game going into the bottom of the ninth and having more pitches thrown then and more potential challenges, opportunities there and then. On the evaluation side, it can also be tricky because you can't just evaluate players on a like, accuracy percent basis because, you know, you could end up having a player who maybe their accuracy percentage is not great, but they challenge in a really savvy way that gets them a lot more, you know, expected value added than a guy who maybe is getting it right 90% of the time, but doing so in mostly useless situations. So we kind of set out to make tools that can help people understand that. So we've put together breakeven points for each potential challenge situation, which is basically A cost benefit analysis, understanding how high leverage this challenge situation is. And then we've also made an evaluation tool where you can look at any pitch in every situation and get an understanding of whether it's a pretty wise decision to challenge that pitch or whether it's maybe not such a good idea. And we can talk about all of that in a lot more detail, but that's kind of the overall approach we've taken.
- [54:41]
C
I'm curious what kind of gap, if any, there is between the minor league data that you've seen and the spring training data, which I realize is a much smaller sample because this funny thing is happening where the population of players who have had exposure to the challenge situation in game situations I think is a lot higher than people realize, even absent last year's spring training look. Right. Because you have guys going down for rehab assignments, but you also just have more and more minor leaguers coming up and making their debuts who have gone through their minor league careers with this system in place. So. So is there any benefit that you've seen and maybe we just don't have enough data yet to a guy having had prior minor league exposure versus the guys who have been seeing it for the first time as big league camp is getting underway last year and then again this year?
- [55:33]
D
Yeah. So we haven't looked specifically at the spring training data to see. That's something that early on in the season, though, we are absolutely going to focus on whether those challenged veterans. Right, right. Those Quad A type players who have a lot of experience or guys that just grew up through that system spent maybe a full season in aaa. How they compare to the Aaron Judges of the world, guys that are great players with good eyes and whatnot. One thing that I did see recently in relation to this data from this spring training especially, is that teams are being very aggressive with their challenges. I've seen multiple games where they've blown through them in the third inning. The Pirates went through both of their in the second inning of yesterday's game. And the Yankees, I know that's a big aspect of their philosophy. On John Boy, he said that Aaron Boone's big thing in the spring training was making sure that teams use all their challenges. And that's something that we found in our AAA data for the International League in 2024, which was the two challenge league of that year, only about 26% of games resulted in a team completely using up their two challenges. So, you know, it's interesting to see on that level, that big level, that teams are going to Say, okay, this is something that we need to do better. But it seems like even, you know, from what I'm hearing, what they, they said the Pirates are doing, they're just encouraging their players to challenge the pitches they think are, you know, balls or strikes or are called incorrectly. And there's not a lot of mention of that situational strategy aspect, and I think that's what Owen and I are trying to push forward here, is that the strategy aspect of it is make or break to the value of a challenge and it's so incredibly important.
- [57:20]
A
Yeah, that's interesting, specifically concerning the Yankees, because I remember 10 years ago there was an article in the Times about the Yankees replay review approach and it was about how they had the highest, highest accuracy rate, the highest success rate on challenges, and it was lauding them for that. But I remember talking about how, well, that's not necessarily good. Right? You don't, you don't necessarily want to have the highest success rate because that might mean that you're not challenging enough and you're leaving some potential overturns on the table. This was a big thing when the challenge system came out. People don't talk about it that much anymore. The replay challenges. That is, I have to specify now that that teams would be too risk averse that they would hoard their challenges, that they would pass up opportunities because they'd be so scared of running out and not having one in a high leverage moment. So there is certainly something to the value of an ABS challenge being way higher in certain situations, but how do you balance that with the desire not to just waste them, as you were just saying?
- [58:24]
B
Yeah, I mean, it's a tricky, it's a tricky thing to get right. But I think, you know, we, we've looked at some examples of this with the stuff we've put together that kind of illustrates how important that situation can be. And I mean, it can change things to the extent that in the first inning you might have a situation where there's nobody on base and if it's O count, no outs in the first inning and there's nobody on base, that could be the same sort of leverage or, sorry, let's say it's base is loaded in the first inning, that could be the same leverage as having nobody on, on base in the eighth inning. Right. Because when you're the first inning you might, you have so many more opportunities to get potentially higher leverage challenge situations, whereas by the time you get to the eighth inning, okay, maybe that's not your best situation to be challenging in, but the chances of you getting a better one are so much lower that, you know, it can completely change the equations on these things in ways that can affect the outcomes of games.
- [59:16]
A
So if you had to distill your findings down into some rules of thumb, let's say, you know, this can get as complicated as as you want it to, and we're effectively wild, so obviously we want to get complicated. But if you're boiling it down for hitters like a scouting report, and you just want to sum up some big takeaways so that their heads aren't full of 10 different things that it's hard to keep in mind when you have to make a split second decision and you're trying to hit major league pitching, et cetera, what would you say are the most important takeaways?
- [59:48]
D
I think the first really key takeaway is that, and this has been pretty, pretty well established elsewhere, is that count matters a massive, massive amount. The average break even rate for a full count situation, so the percent you need to break even to have it be worth it is 14.4% in an OO count. That's 74% on average. So again, you know, that's, you could have a guy who's getting, you know, between one and two out of 10 challenges correct, and somebody who's getting three quarters of their challenges correct, you know, seven or eight out of 10 and they are ultimately affecting the game in the same amount if that person with the lower success rate is exclusively challenging those three two counts. So count situation matters a lot, especially those full counts and those decisive counts, the ones where strike three or a ball four is on the line. In the AAA data, we saw players, they were challenging those pitches a little bit more than the lower early count pitch pitches. But it still was not enough to justify the difference in cost. And I know Tango Tiger just put out a tweet a little while ago that was saying the same thing. So far in the major leagues in spring training, they're on those full count pitches and they know that they need to challenge those. But the 02s, the three ones, players right now in spring training are treating those pretty similarly to the 00s and the 1os, when it's kind of the what. So what, what I would communicate to a player is that there's really three tiers, right? There's the low counts, there's those ones where you can strike out or walk, and then there's the full counts. And as the count gets later, you should be more willing to take more risks with your challenges.
- [61:32]
B
As the game progresses, the cost of a challenge decreases and it decreases really meaningfully. So you have to not just consider that count like Max is talking about, but you have to consider the inning and how many challenges you have remaining and, and those two things combined have really big impacts on challenges. So basically, you know, when you're in the first inning, be a lot more cautious. By the time you get to the 8th or 9th, you can be really aggressive out there.
- [61:55]
D
One other point that is incredibly important are the baserunners.
- [61:59]
A
Right?
- [61:59]
D
We talked about that with the bases loaded situations being the most important ones, bases empty being the least important. The average break even rate for a bases loaded situation is 26.8%. The average break even rate for a basis empty situation is 65.6%. So again, right, having those runners on is a massive large impact on one's ability to produce runs. I think the best way to distill it to a player instead of trying to wait all these base running possibilities are if you think you're in a situation where you're close to scoring a run, where it's right around the corner, take more risks. If you're in a situation where it might take a little while to score a run, you got nobody on, you got a couple outs and you know, you got to get the guy all the way around to be able to have them score, then you act with
- [62:50]
C
more hesitancy and you know, granted the, the data is still limited at the big league level, but are you seeing any teams in particular emerge as sort of being particularly good or bad at at extracting or giving away value from a challenge perspective?
- [63:07]
B
I think it's been interesting to see less so because we don't have so much data left. So it's kind of tough to say with the major league teams so far, but in terms of what they're saying about how they're approaching strategy, you've had some pretty different philosophies talked about. And I think the one thing that worries us is when we have some teams say for instance, like Max was talking about the Pirates, saying we're not going to worry about situation right now because by the time the season comes around, you want people to kind of be in the habit of being able to. We can put all these numbers out there, but it's another thing to be able to take in those numbers, understand them in a simple way that you can execute in a one second moment. And I think it's important to get in those habits. And the other thing that we See is there's a lot of talk about who's going to be allowed to challenge and pitch, whether it's pitchers or giving it more to veterans or different players. And I think that the idea that certain players should be really disincentivized from challenging is a bit concerning because you want to have players go up there and be able to feel like when one of these high leverage situation comes up, which is equally likely essentially for just about every player in the lineup, you want whoever's up there to feel like they have the ability to make that decision and to not feel like they've really let the team down if they get it wrong. Because part of an effective challenge strategy is getting some of these decisions wrong. And so I think we want to see if we're looking for evaluating strategy. We want to see teams that are not shying away from a bit of failure here and are pushing reasonable aggressiveness in their challenge strategy.
- [64:41]
A
Yeah, I was going to ask about that. I don't know whether your model is incorporating or will incorporate the quality of the hitter at some point, but, but that is a factor because if you're saying that if you're on the verge of scoring runs, press the advantage then, well, being on the verge of scoring runs, that, that has something to do with who's hitting. And so you could say that the better the guy at the plate is, maybe the more valuable it is to extend the plate appearance. I guess you could say that someone who's a worse hitter needs the help more or something. But. But I assume just extending the plate appearance, avoiding an out, giving a guy another shot at it, that's going to be more beneficial for a good hitter than a bad hitter who's more likely to be a lost cause anyway. So that would change the break even point, right? I don't know whether you're calculating that, but one could.
- [65:36]
D
Yeah. And it's tricky. I think you, you talked about the dilemma in the exact right way. Is Aaron Jones judge flipping a 10 pitch from 11 to now, 2 0, is that going to help him more? Because you could say, yes, he's a great hitter and that'll give him more good pitches to smash for home runs. But then if you have your 11th guy on the bench come up, maybe you say, well, he needs all the help he can get. And that's the difference between him walking, which would be a great outcome for him because he doesn't have power versus making out. So it's, it is hard. I think it's something that you you could implement for sure. And it also reminds me of just what we saw in AAA with, you know, you challenge success based on different player profiles. You know, I think one of the assumptions and something that I've seen just by, you know, casual fans on Twitter are looking at guys like Juan Soto or even Aaron Judge and being like, oh, you know, they, they have such a good idea of the strike zone. They don't swing. They don't swing a lot, they don't chase. And so therefore, you know, they're going to be really good challengers. I'm not quite as convinced about that. One of the best challengers in our AAA data was Spencer Torkelson, who's, you know, big swing and miss guy. The way that I was thinking about it, it seems to make sense, right? If you ask Hobby Bias, if the slider that he just swung at that was a foot and a half off the plate was a strike or not, he would obviously tell you no. But did Javi Baez think the pitch was going to be a strike?
- [67:12]
A
Probably. Right?
- [67:13]
D
So I think that that's the, that's the element here that I'm very curious about.
- [67:17]
A
The.
- [67:18]
D
Making a decision of where the pitch is in the strike zone after you've already seen it go by is not really something that's ever mattered to a baseball player until now. Right. It's making that decision to swing as the pitch is leaving the pitcher's hand. And so I am really curious to see, do those skills translate? Our AAA data has shown that the answer is probably not. But the volume overall with challenges was pretty low. So I'm curious to see, are the guys that have good opportunities, guys who are discipline hitters, will they make better challengers? I'm a little more skeptical, I think, than the general public there.
- [67:58]
C
And of course, the guys doing the challenging aren't the only people we're going to learn something about. We're going to learn something about umpires here. So I'm curious if there have been any trends to emerge from your analysis about the umpire population, the kinds of folks who are better at it than others has maybe past failure with challenges proved to be a useful teaching tool for umpire, because I could imagine that if you have calls overturned, it might inform your perception of the zone going forward in a way that could be useful. So what has this showed us about umpire so far?
- [68:34]
D
Yeah, I think from an umpire standpoint, we haven't looked specifically at how those challenge overturns are affecting the umpire's decision making. But what we have seen Is as the technology has evolved, as we've gone further and further into the station podcast era, umpires have just gotten better and better. You know, they've improved. When they're able to hold themselves accountable, they just get better. And I think the. The interesting aspect that you see with the challenge system is, you know, it gives you that in the moment, instant feedback on a call. And it also affiliates it with, you know, a pretty public instance of shame, right? If. If you're a hitter or you're an umpire and you get it wrong, there's a big board, it comes up. Everybody in the stadium knows that you made a mistake, and it's you. You made the mistake and it's your fault. And I think that that will honestly have a big effect on both players. And with umpires, you know, very rarely is. Is. Is something that isolated and that public in a mistake that you make during a game. That's. That's something that's not physical.
- [69:38]
B
We haven't had a situation yet where team results have really mattered in challenge situations, right? We've had AAA and we've had spring training situations. Players are obviously incentivized to do well for themselves, but it's not like there's a playoff spot on the line or even a major league win on the line. And I think that as that starts to happen, the fear of failure could be a lot larger because the failure is not just going to be personal, but you're going to get blame for the result of the team and potentially really meaningful games. And I think what you don't want to happen with the. That with your players is to, like, kind of instill a sense of fear. You want people to. To be able to handle that failure, but obviously that's a lot easier said than done. So it'll be interesting to see what effect that has.
- [70:23]
A
You're making it sound like a much more humane version of a shock collar for umpires. It's like they. They screw up and zip. Don't do that. Bad blue. Bad blue. I mean, effectively.
- [70:34]
D
Yeah, yeah.
- [70:35]
A
Don't. Don't actually shock umpires, though. That's. They. They have it hard enough. But you mentioned that maybe we'll be able to determine whether certain traits correlate with being an effective or ineffective challenger. And then maybe we'll be able to project whether someone will be a good challenger, and then that could play into whether they get the green light to challenge. But how long do you think it will take for us to be able to determine, based on results, whether someone is good. I mean, I'm sure there's a ton of noise here along with the signal because it's kind of like to beat the house, basically. It's like to be a successful sports gambler to the extent that there is such a thing, you have to have a margin of victory of whatever, like 55% or something, right? And that's kind of what it is league wide for challengers, at least for batters and especially catchers. Pitchers are just bad at it. But how long would it take, like how many trials would, how many times would someone need to challenge for you to be able to determine this guy has an actual challenging skill?
- [71:43]
B
It's a tricky one because when you throw the leverage in there, right, you can't just evaluate challenging skill based on like how far in or out of the zone were these pitches that this hitter got right or wrong. Because maybe you're in a situation in the bottom of the ninth, it's a three, two count, base is loaded, it's the biggest situation you can. And the pitch is basically right down middle. But you know, if, if it's. And it, it gets called a strike, but it ends the game. So you might as well throw away a challenge, right? And you'll have some, you'll have less extreme versions of that as well where guys will, like, if they're being, if they're being efficient about it, will, will challenge pitches even though they think probably it was actually a strike. But the situation is so meaningful and I'm so unlikely to get a better shot later that I might as well. So that, like you're saying, adds a lot of noise in this data. I think, you know, it's going to, it's going to take a while to understand individual hitter challenging behavior and talent. If you think about only having two wrong challenges per game and you know you've got nine players to distribute those between. You're not looking at like a week or a month here before you can really get down to that. I don't think we're going to have an idea of that by like May or June. I think it's going to be a bit of a long haul project to be able to reliably evaluate individual players.
- [72:57]
C
I was going to ask about that because it seems like a particular strategic problem that lends itself very well to the sort of analysis that front offices are already doing. But of course an analyst can't be the one that calls down the challenge. So I was curious what you thought the potential gap might be there between teams knowing what the optimal strategy is and actually being able to implement the optimal strategy in games.
- [73:21]
D
And it is a challenge. Right. I think that the way that Owen and I have looked at it, a challenge, of course fits into really three categories. You know, there's the ones where it's like, I definitely think the umpire messed this up. You know, this is for sure the wrong call. Then there's the ones where it's like, I don't know, you know, I think that that was probably the wrong call. And then there's the ones where they're like, yeah, I think this is probably the right call, but I don't know, you know, maybe, maybe right. Hoping almost. And I think even breaking it up and into those three types of categories can help hitters, you know, can help that transfer of information where you can say, you know, if you're oo first pitch of the game, you better be sure, you know, you better be sure where if you're at a full count with the bases loaded in the fifth inning, sure, you know, go for it. We're willing to accept that. And I think one thing that I am really interested in seeing is I think teams can, can do a great job of creating a culture within themselves to be able to encourage the right behavior. But will that bleed over to the fans and you know, shock jock style pundits? Right. You know, we see every time somebody makes a decision to send someone from third to home, as Owen wrote about in his piece, and they get thrown out at the plate. That base coach is a bozo. Right. He's terrible. He shouldn't have sent him off. But I've never, almost never seen an opportunity where someone's like, you know what? That was a great send. You know, that was so risky, but it paid off. And great job by that third base coach. Right. You almost never see that. So I think we could be in danger of seeing something like that happen here. Right. Where guys, you know, if that guy who gets wins 35% of his challenges is challenging those high leverage pitches all the time time, he could be adding more value than someone who's winning 60 or even 70% of their challenges.
- [75:16]
A
Yes. I think that's going to be very frustrating for me personally because I have written and talked about that. Just the idea that risk averse behavior is getting less common in sports because often there's an edge there if you do the thing that might reflect poorly on you if it doesn't work out well, but you know that there's some margin in doing it and we're seeing, seeing that more and more across sports. Just the riskier strategy that has some big payoff, whether it's just, you know, whatever, just going for it on fourth down or shooting threes or pulling the goalie early in hockey, etc. But, but that one, the sending guys more often, that just doesn't happen. We haven't seen as much movement as I would have expected in baseball. And it is going to be frustrating when I see all the reflexive responses from fans when someone burns a chest challenge. I mean, even, even that phrasing burns a challenge makes it sound like you just frittered it away. And I probably shouldn't even say burning a challenge. I should say using a challenge or something just because, yeah, that sounds judgmental, like you just threw it away. But it, it sometimes makes sense. And, and the problem is that it's a process versus results thing. And what's the comeback when you're sitting in the stands and someone says, you bum. How could you challenge that? It was inches outside. You blew it. Now we're out of challenges or whatever. What, am I going to just pull up the Oyster analytics app on my phone and be like, no, look, the brief. Exactly that, yes, but it might not be convincing to others. It's just like, you know, and obviously we don't know also what their level of confidence was because we're not in the heads of the hitter or catcher or whoever who's challenging. And so we don't know. And they're not thinking about it in terms of. I am precisely 73% confident that I'm going to get this right. It's just, it's a gut feeling. It's an informed gut feeling, but it's less precise than that, I guess. And so, yeah, what are you going to say to the person who's yelling at the player who just used that challenge? Just. No, it made sense. It just didn't happen to work out that time. It's the eternal struggle.
- [77:27]
D
And it's a new gut feeling. You know, that's hard, right? It's not something that they've ever really had to care about until this point right now. And even in the minors, as Owen said earlier, there's not a lot of stakes, right? Nobody's going to ride you if you make decisions that don't win minor league games. I mean, the roster decisions that people make in AAA are development based. In most instances, they're not victory based. And so, you know, this is the first time time where everybody cares and that's hard.
- [77:55]
B
And I, I think the worrying thing about it is that you have a system where, you know, if this fan backlash goes how we expect it to like, the incentives for players are not going to align with the incentives for the team overall, in a sense where players are going to be afraid of taking, taking risks, where failure is a big option, even though, because for them that looks bad bad, but for the team it's a productive move. And so the tricky thing for teams is going to be to try to override that and get individual incentives aligned with the team incentives. And I don't know how you do that, because getting yelled at by fans is not fun for anybody.
- [78:36]
A
Yeah, yeah, you're right. It needs to be a clubhouse culture thing so that you know that your teammates have your back and they're not going to be sitting over there stewing that you used up a challenge that they could have used. Everyone has to be on sort of the same page. And I do wonder about the clubhouse dynamics. Maybe it won't prove to be a big deal. And as Meg said, most of these players have been exposed to the challenge system. But as you said, it didn't matter as much if you're just in the minors. And so you got to think that at some point there is going to be bad blood and bitterness about this. Whether it will become public or not, I don't know. But probably just because I could imagine, imagine if you don't sort of instill that sense in everyone that you might get some guys. Also, if there is kind of a top down dictate that certain players are supposed to challenge and certain players are not allowed to, that could rub some people the wrong way. That seems sort of unfair if that tool is taken out of your hands. I guess life is unfair and sports are unfair, Baseball is unfair. But that is a very obvious manifestation of unfairness where it's just like, no, you don't get to challenge because you're not good enough at baseball or you're not good enough at challenging. And so you just have to stand there and take it when a call goes against you, or at least when you think it does, though, maybe you're wrong and that's why you're not allowed to challenge. So if it's, if it's kind of a blanket ironclad law like pitchers can't challenge with maybe rare exceptions, and how much of it will be seniority, you know, are you going to, to order Max Scherzer not to challenge? Are you going to brave that? I don't know. Are you Going to just lay down the law. There are plenty of pitchers who I think know their own shortcomings and, and they have done the self evaluation and they've seen the data and they know pitchers are farther away and they're moving and they're biased more than anyone else, probably. And so, okay, maybe they can abide by that. But, you know, in some big moment, they're just gonna go for it because they're absolutely sure and they're just gonna be wrong. And then. Yes. Will that be a kangaroo court or will there be more serious consequences? And then if it's a seniority thing, it's like, you gotta earn it, rook. You can't challenge. I've been in the game, you know, I'm this many years of service time. Like, if it's that, then you could imagine it leading to divisions potentially.
- [81:01]
D
Yeah. The only band I've heard so far is Chris Sale talking about his self imposed.
- [81:06]
A
He self bans. Yes.
- [81:07]
D
He said, I'm not doing this. He's like, I think every pitch is a strike and so I will be terrible. So I will not do it.
- [81:14]
A
Chris Sale knows himself. He knows which alternate jerseys he doesn't want to wear and he's going to cut up with scissors. He knows that he is not interested in calling pitches ever. And he's just going to defer to his catchers and he knows that he's not going to challenge. It must be freeing.
- [81:30]
B
He might be the most self. Actual actualized pitcher.
- [81:33]
A
It's true. Yeah. It's like usually you hear see the ball, hit the ball, but I guess it's like a see the ball, pitch the ball kind of thing. With Chris Sale, just, you know, thinking can only hurt the ball club.
- [81:44]
C
I suppose the good news is that they're, you know, granted it hasn't been in the big leagues, but they have had time to get guys used to this notion. It's not like they showed up to camp last week and they were like a challenge system. What in the world is that about? Plus, we might get to see fans cheer, umpires. It's a really weird upside down kind of experience, but it is gratifying when it happens. Saw it one time in the Fall league.
- [82:08]
D
Yeah, I've been to. I have. I have season tickets to the ACEs AAA team here in Reno. So I've had basically two full seasons of. I probably went to like, I don't know, 20 plus games each season. And yeah, the environment around the challenges is very interesting. Interesting. I know one thing that happens a lot that's that's quite funny and fun at the ballpark are when opposing players make bad challenges and they get dunked on by the crowd. Yeah, they love to, love to cheer them. I know when the A's came into town, there were a couple of those guys who were not the most efficient with their challenges. One guy challenged and lost twice in one plate appearance. Like, you know, and people just, people just dunked on them. People also dunk on the umpires when they're bad. But I have seen, you know, as we've seen with the, the calls that these umpires are making, you know, they're pretty darn good and, and fans, I think, are able to appreciate it in a way that, you know, I, I think when you see players, coaches get mad at calls, you kind of assume that the umpire messed up. I, I, I, I don't necessarily know why that is, but I feel like that's, that's the general vibe. Vibe. And it almost gives umpires a self defense tool right now. They can be like, you know, hit him with that uno reverse card and say, hey, right, you know, you're, you're, you're, you're giving me guff. You know, challenge it, then do it, do it right. And we'll see, we'll see who's right, we'll see who's wrong. Because I'm, I'm right most of the time.
- [83:36]
A
Yeah. One aspect of this that I like, consistent with my recent rant about the creep of code coaching, the encroaching of coaching, ooh, I gotta remember that one. Onto the field and the way that player actions are increasingly being dictated by front office calculations, et cetera. Whether it's with the cheat sheets for positioning or catchers for that matter, though I'm somewhat more sympathetic about that. Or the pitch calling from the bench, which really is getting my goat, that doesn't really apply to challenges because of course there will be lots of analysis done and there will probably be front office folks presenting this information the way that you are to us and coaches conveying that. And I'm sure that there will be cheat sheets in the dugout and players can consult those things, but in the heat of the moment, there is no time to pull out a card from your pocket and say, okay, here's the base out situation and here's the score and here's the leverage. And thus, you know, like, shut up. I'm calculating wind probability kind of thing happening at the plate. There's no time for that. So, yes, you have to internalize those concepts, but it will come down to the players ultimately to plan for those things and keep them in mind in some way. And so it will continue to be obviously a front office informed subject, but still a player driven one. And that I appreciate. Appreciate.
- [85:03]
B
Yeah. And I think, I mean, this, this may sound silly from somebody who's come here to talk to you about challenges, but, like, at the end of the day, you also don't want your players going up to the plate, like, obsessing over challenges, right? Like, it's much better for them to focus on, like, hitting the ball and, and doing good things at the plate. And the total value of challenges that we're going to see over the course of the season is, is something that you should plan for and try to maximize, but it doesn't compare to being a better hitter, basically. And so I think that teams, as much as we're talking about internalizing it and we have our dashboard that we think is great and want people to memorize and whatever, but at the end of the day, you want to go up there and still have your approach be about hitting the baseball and not about obsessing over the situation and the strike zone in the way that you would if maybe you were just going up there to stand there and then challenge a pitch afterwards.
- [85:53]
D
The really good effect too of this is it helps get rid of those really big misses. Right. In an ideal state. When we looked at this, Owen and I were figuring out how to address challenges. The obvious first pitch that came to mind was the Kyle Schwaber one where Angel Hernandez made the bad call. He spikes the bad. He says, you missed up, you missed down, you missed in, you missed out. You're terrible. That was the first one that we looked at, and that pitch was certainly a ball. And our challenge system says that it was a 100% smoking gun challenge pitch, right? Full count, late game, the whole. The whole thing, the whole nine yards. And I think that's kind of what we want the essence of that challenge system to be, right? We want it to be a deterrent from those things that really kind of make baseball a little crummy, right? Where an umpire makes a mistake and now the game is hurt. Right? That's what we don't want. And that's why I think the challenge system does a really good job of that. I think you could. I don't think, in my opinion, this is controversial, obviously. I don't necessarily think that getting every call right by a computer matters as much as giving some players, the agency to be able to overturn those ones that are really bad.
- [87:13]
A
And since there is value here to be captured, there's also value to be quantified, presumably. And I'm sure that there be, will, will be lots of leaderboards where we can look up the challenge rates and the success rates. But how, if at all, would you want that to be folded into holistic value stats for players? Do you think it will be significant enough to move the needle such that this is something we should quantify and isolate? And it's, it's different from say a pitch clock violation, I suppose, because that you don't necessarily, necessarily need to quantify just because it's, it would kind of be double counting, I guess, maybe because it's just, well, it's a ball or something. And that's going to be reflected in the counts that you face and your output. But for this, I mean, I guess that might apply to this too. Like, is there kind of a double counting possibility here? Or should the player who made the correct challenge get credit for that? And then how complex do you want to go? Like should you debit value for not challenging? I mean it gets, you know, and yeah, because if there's value, then someone has to be accruing that value. And so if you're adding, you know, to the ledger and debiting from the ledger, then presumably that should go to someone. But how would you handle that?
- [88:34]
B
Yeah, so we've got our dashboard that gives these scores based on the confidence of a pitch being called a strike or a ball, and then the break even point for the challenges and comparing those two and that can give you a measure. And of course, this is a bit rough around the edges because you're using the umpire's confidence as a proxy for player confidence essentially, but that's the best you can do. And like I said, they do tend to be pretty similar in terms of getting stuff right. And so you can compare that to the break even point and then you can assign surplus and deficit value essentially from each decision. And I think that that's valuable less in terms of rolling it up into a war calculation, for instance, and more in terms of as a team internally holding yourselves accountable to the general game plan that you're trying to go with when it comes to challenging. Right. And so looking at, okay, here's how we're accumulating our challenge value, here's where we're losing our challenge value, here's how we're doing overall, what is that? Tell us about the kinds of mistakes and the kinds of Good things that we've been doing. And I think you can do that on a player by player level and you can do it on a team level. And I don't think those numbers are going to be large enough. And like you say, Ben, I do think you also, I haven't thought about it that much, but I think you do have a bit of a double counting issue there as well. But I don't think they're going to be large enough anyway to like take somebody from being a three WAR player to even like a three and a half WAR player or anything like that. But it's something that internally I think is important. And also when you're able to quantify what you're trying to do like that, I think it can encourage buy in to this kind of stuff because it's not some nebulous thing where people, I have a vibe that this person's doing well and this person isn't. Like we can look at it and see what people are good at, what they're struggling with and how we can improve as a team.
- [90:21]
A
Though it would be fun if there turns out to be a challenging savant, there's some sort of Jose Molina of challenging and then that probably would need to be weighed reference point forever.
- [90:32]
D
And I think for catchers it could be a big deal. I mean, you look at like the relative, the relative negative impact, like, you know, how much framing actually helps you in a game is probably pretty small. But if you look at it over the scale of a season, I mean, Patrick Bailey's an elite catcher and a very poor hitter and it's basically because he's such a good framer. And I wonder if, you know, it's complicated because it's not just catchers challenging pitches and overturn learning them, it's how they do relative to other catchers. And then if catchers are challenging pitches, they could be stealing opportunities away from hitters. So right then you have that relationship of who is in a pitch framing instance. Every catcher wants every close pitch to look like a strike. And maybe some will get a few more close pitches than others. But with this, those ratios are a little, little different, a little weird. So, but I, I, I think that it could have an effect that wouldn't shock me with hitters. No, but I'm, I think the volume is way too low there. But for catchers, I think there's an actual chance that, you know, if you're good at it, you could add a little bit of value, maybe like a, you know, a fraction of that framing value. But I think something that could matter.
- [91:49]
A
Yeah. Yeah. I think I've seen Tango tackle that. And he reached a similar conclusion that that if there is an effect on framing value, it might be muted if not nullified by the potential additions that you might make via challenging. And so it won't. Actually, I don't know that it would help Patrick Bailey. I guess if I had to guess whether he's more or less valuable because of framing due to the challenge system, I suppose I would guess less. But it's not going to just destroy his value the way way that full Abs would.
- [92:24]
D
Yeah.
- [92:25]
A
Which is good news for him because he can't hit. I guess I'd like him to hit. It'd be fun if he hit. But he didn't hit last year.
- [92:32]
C
I bet he'd like to hit too. You know, like, if you ask, you'd probably be like, yeah, my preference would be that I hit. It's too bad I can't.
- [92:38]
A
All right, any last words of wisdom here? Any last findings, Any last reminders that you care to share before they do this thing for re.
- [92:48]
B
Yeah, I think we've handed over our key points. I think if you look at our dashboard, like you've referred to Ben, we have percentages on there. And I think that as a fan, that's really great. And if I were using this with a player, I'd say, look, forget the numbers. Let's break this down into a few buckets of situations that we can understand and be able to kind of react to in real time. And so what that means is that I think, think by being an informed player, you're not going to go exactly with the numbers all of the time, but you can push yourself in that direction and I think get meaningful value from that. And that's kind of what we're trying to achieve here with our stuff.
- [93:26]
C
Yeah.
- [93:26]
A
Okay, well, remind everyone where they can find your stuff and specifically your stuff pertaining to the challenge system.
- [93:34]
D
Yeah. So you can catch us. Our main platform for our substack is the down on the Farm substack stack. That's where we post our articles. And we're about to, probably around the same time this comes out, probably a little before, post an article about the challenge system and our philosophy on it. You can find the challenge app@oysteranalytics.com which is a website that we are going to pivot most of our Oyster analytics content over to runs quicker than what we've ever had before, which is great. Makes everything so much more useful. Useful and It's. It's color coded, which is fun. We're also on Twitter at Oyster analytics and also down on the Farms Twitter at down on the farm 12, as well as Blue Sky.
- [94:16]
A
Now that you've issued that challenge that you're going to publish before this podcast does, we're just gonna gonna tell Shane edit even faster than usual. We gotta beat them. Actually, it would be bad if we beat you to publication because we want your stuff to be available so that
- [94:29]
D
people can check it out when they simultaneous simultaneously.
- [94:33]
A
We'll synchronize.
- [94:34]
D
The innings goes. The innings go by, the cost goes down.
- [94:39]
A
I should have led with this, but why Oyster Analytics? Why that title?
- [94:43]
B
I got that nickname in college because during a game of Settlers of Catan, I called myself the Oster. And then I got started to be called the Oyster. And so Max came up with the name. I didn't name something after my own nickname. Max came up, put that name, and we've gone with it because then you get the pearl metaphors that you can use a lot, which is nice.
- [95:00]
A
Yes.
- [95:01]
C
That is so much nerdier than I would have anticipated.
- [95:04]
A
Tip. Leave. I was like, so were you guys jocks or nerds?
- [95:08]
C
Criticism to be cleared with the.
- [95:10]
A
Our nickname came from Catan. Then that probably would have straightened things out.
- [95:14]
C
I actually have one more very important question, which is, are children in the greater Reno area terrified of the Aces mascot? The way that I am, I don't understand what that's about. And look, I. I appreciate I might be setting off a regional war here between Arizona and Nevada. What is up with that thing? I don't care for that at all.
- [95:33]
D
I know, I know. I know that you are. You are particularly concerned about. About the scariness of mascots out there. So, okay, so there's two of them. There's one. I can't actually remember his name. There's the big red one who is modeled after.
- [95:48]
C
That's the bad.
- [95:48]
A
Yes, Archie.
- [95:49]
C
Archie.
- [95:49]
A
Archie.
- [95:49]
D
Archie.
- [95:50]
A
Yes.
- [95:50]
D
Archie is named after the Reno Arch. So there's a big arch in Reno's downtown area that says it's really big. It's really gaudy. It's very Reno. And so he is supposed to be the furry embodiment of the arch. And he is absolutely scary.
- [96:07]
C
He's terrifying. What's with the mouth? Why is the mouth like that?
- [96:11]
A
Yes.
- [96:11]
C
I don't like it.
- [96:11]
D
He's, like, scary or gritty. And then there's Truckee, who is a little. Little less scary. He's. He's supposed to embody The Truckee River. He has locks that are okay, like dripping water. He kind of looks like a. A frog, and he's a little less scary.
- [96:25]
C
Truckee is cute. I hadn't seen Truckee. Truckee like, Truckee looks like a normal. I just, you know, the. The red one showed up at the. At the Falsars or at the Home Run Derby, and I. I almost had to leave. I was like, look, I need to see Tony Blanco Jr hit home runs, but I don't know if I need to see this. Like, this is problem.
- [96:46]
A
But.
- [96:47]
D
But wait. The last thing I will say is, you. You. But do you know about the hidden mascot?
- [96:51]
C
The hidden mascot?
- [96:52]
A
So there's a.
- [96:53]
D
There is a hidden mascot. So the seventh inning stretch, right? Comes out and in center field, above the batter's eye, this gotta be 15, 16 foot tall. 1516 foot wide, big baseball man pops up over the batter's eye. He's. He's, you know, huge. It's like a baseball with eyes and a mouth, and it moves and it sings Take me out to the ball game. And I. As a kid, I guarantee you my parents would have had to usher me to the concourse, have me look away for a little bit. That thing is also very large, very scary. Although I hear the rumor is this season that he's getting a big makeover. So we'll see what happens there.
- [97:38]
C
Okay. All right, well, wait a report, because I. I have concerns, you know, about the whole endeavor.
- [97:46]
D
Yes.
- [97:47]
A
Yeah, it sounds like Meg would prefer that all of the mascots were hidden and they never came out. No, some of them are.
- [97:52]
C
Some of them are fine. I'm just saying that this one in particular. Yeah, the. The Truckee one is fine. The Truckee one, I. I have no issues with having just learned about it, you know? Yeah, that one seems fine, but the. The Archie. No.
- [98:07]
A
Well, the phrase the furry embodiment of an Archie will be bouncing around my head for all eternity.
- [98:13]
C
I'm living up there rent free for the rest of my life.
- [98:15]
A
Thanks for that. And I also have one very important question. So the Oyster analytics logo is a baseball on a half shell. It looks very appetizing. I love oysters. But I have to ask whether your logo came out before the Chesapeake.
- [98:34]
C
Oh, my God.
- [98:35]
A
Basically sucks. It was before. Okay.
- [98:39]
D
Yeah, we. We in. Originally design in the logo.
- [98:42]
A
Our.
- [98:43]
D
One of Owen and I's goals was to not have it look like. Like that.
- [98:48]
A
Yes.
- [98:49]
D
And then Owen. Owen's. Owen's. Owen's partner designed the logo. And it's. It's gorgeous.
- [98:55]
A
Yeah, I would say you successfully avoided any confusion there. It looks like a baseball on a half shell. Oysters, one of my favorite foods. Don't think this could be confused with anything else. And that whole saga, I still do not quite understand whether that was on purpose. And the whole thing was a work for virality. And the Chesapeake Bay Oxen debuting their alternate, their alter ego of. Of the oyster catchers. And they had the birds. That's an oyster catcher. But then they had the oyster that did not really look like a baseball in an oyster in the webbing of a gold love. And then quickly they were like, oh, we didn't mean to. And Also, we're donating 10% of the proceeds from our merch to charity, which is nice, but. Yeah, yeah, okay. I guess do a little good. But then was it because of that? Were they making the best of. Of an unintended situation or. I mean, I guess either way, everyone benefited because a little bit of money to charity and everyone else got some yucks out of it. So.
- [99:55]
B
Yeah. And we're still talking about.
- [99:57]
A
We are still. It's true. Yeah. Okay. And we are about to stop talking about Oyster Analytics. We're done with you two for today at least. But thank you very much. I enjoy reading you and your research is always high quality. And I think people will get a kick out of this dashboard and hopefully have learned a few things and can refrain from yelling at players when they have unsuccessful challenges. If all of the criteria area for challenging according to the Oyster analytics dashboard, we're satisfied.
- [100:28]
B
Yes.
- [100:29]
D
Thank you.
- [100:29]
B
Thanks so much for having us.
- [100:31]
A
All right, still soliciting suggestions, by the way, for candidates for a who you got comparison. We talked about this last time. I congratulated myself for having selected such evenly matched who you got candidates for old articles I wrote for Grantland in the ringer years ago when I matched up Manny Machado and Nolan Arenado and then Carlos Correa and Corey Siegel, and each of those player pairs has essentially played to a draw since then. And I made fun of my buddy Michael Bamman, which is okay because our relationship is predicated partly on mutual mockery because he had done a who you got on Michael Conforto and Aaron Judge. And I presented that as an example of the possible pitfalls of the exercise. However, a contrasting perspective from Avery Patreon supporter who says, I think that these types of failed player comparisons like, like Michael Conforto versus Aaron Judge are more interesting than ones that continue to look normal. In retrospect, I like to look back and see the state of the discourse on some guys with massively divergent careers before those careers diverged. Meanwhile, for Correa versus Seeger or whatever, there's not really anything to be gained from looking back on those. Fair enough, it is maybe more entertaining to look at the ones that seem lopsided in retrospect. That can be enlightening, illuminating, because we can forget that those players were ever considered comfortable comparable. So I suppose what I'm really doing is celebrating myself for presciently projecting that those players would all continue to be good and quite comparable. I have, however, often been wrong, as anyone who's been listening to this podcast for a long time, or maybe even a short time can testify. Nonetheless, I hope to continue making more episodes, so it sure would be nice if you could support the podcast on Patreon, which you can do by going to patreon.com effectivelywild and sign 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. First and foremost, the aforementioned McGarrity, Stanley and Kevin Neuzel, Thomas Chapman, KC and Matthew Elardo. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, monthly bonus episodes, playoff live streams, prioritized emailing answers, personalized messages, shout outs at the end of episodes, potential podcast appearances, discounts on merch and ad free fangraphs memberships, and so much more. Check out all the offerings@patreon.com effectivelywild 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 podcastangraphts.com you can rate, review and subscribe to Effectively Wild on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music and other podcast platforms. You can join our facebook group@facebook.com group effectively wild. You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at R Effectively Wild and you can check the show notes in the podcast posted fan graphs or the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we cited today. Thanks to Shane McKean for his editing and production assistance. We'll be back next time to banter and preview the Red Sox and Reds. Talk to you a little later this week. Number one Fangrass Baseball Podcast the stat cast is stat blast tops plus when the stats need contrast, zips and steamer for the forecast coming in high Big boss on a hovercraft no notes minor league free agent draft burn the ships flames jumping for bananas count FEMA boning on the bat shaft makers on the butt beat Never say your hot seat games are always better with the pivot table spreadsheet. No ads subscribers will support us. Vroom, vroom. Fast on your slog the rig of mortise. Rest in peace, Sam Rest in peace. Jeff.