Effectively Wild Episode 2462: Coolness Personified (and Quantified)

Summary

Effectively Wild Episode 2462: Coolness Personified (and Quantified)

Date: April 8, 2026
Hosts: Meg Rowley (FanGraphs), Ben Lindbergh (The Ringer)
Podcast Description: Daily baseball statistical analysis and commentary

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Overview

This episode centers on a delightfully broad and deep discussion of recent MLB happenings—with a special focus on the intersection of player “coolness,” record-setting defensive performances, rookie promotions, and the ways in which baseball quantifies, values, and remembers those moments. The hosts open with conversation about off-field routines, transition to on-field heroics (most notably Joe Adele’s three home run robbery game), and explore issues from baseball's challenge and replay systems to the tracking of broadcaster milestones. As always, it’s a mix of statistical rigor and affection for the quirks and narrative drama of baseball.

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Table of Contents

1. Carter Jensen Oversleeping Scandal
2. Moon Riffing & Space Inspiration
3. The Susak Brothers and Generational Catcher Whiplash
4. Connor Griffin’s Rapid Promotion
5. Joe Adele’s Defensive Heroics—Quantifying Coolness
6. Pitching Emergencies: Patrick Corbin and the Blue Jays
7. Replay Review’s Impact on Game Outcomes
8. Listener Responses: Focus, Eyewash, and Crick-o Comparisons
9. Statcast, DRS, and Defensive Metrics
10. Broadcasting Records and Stat Blasts

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Carter Jensen Oversleeping Scandal [00:03–15:20]

Story Overview

• Carter Jensen, Royals rookie catcher, missed the start due to oversleeping, sparking minor scandal in an otherwise successful start to his season.
• "As scandals go, pretty small beans... and yet it's kind of a big deal in baseball when this happens. It doesn't happen that often." – Ben (02:47)
• The incident highlighted baseball culture’s seriousness about punctuality, contrasted with more common lateness in standard jobs.

Teammate and Media Reaction

• Vinnie Pasquantino: “There are some things that cannot happen, and that’s one of them... He’s going to have to wear it on the chin.” (03:20)
• Teammates expressed concern but remained supportive.
• A viral TikTok video resurfaced—a spring training interview where Jensen announced "I need at least like six to eight alarms." (07:09)

Sleep Habits & Alarm Clock Talk

• Meg advocates for physical alarm clocks to reduce screen temptation.
• Ben discusses “one-and-done” alarm discipline versus being a “snoozer,” citing personal experience and relationship anecdotes. (08:41)
• Fun speculation about Jensen’s personal life: “Six to eight alarms is a high number... if that person isn’t a six- to eight-alarm person, that’s a recipe for not having a person at home for very long.” – Meg (08:00)

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Moon Riffing & Space Inspiration [15:20–19:23]

• Meg riffs on the profound experience of spaceflight and space images, referencing Artemis II and the “overview effect” (16:06), noting how viewing Earth as a single fragile sphere puts daily baseball concerns in perspective.
  • “It made me cry, Ben. It really did make me cry.”
• Ben: “The overview effect, where astronauts see the whole planet at once… can’t we all just get along?” (16:18)
• Meg draws parallels between human fallibility (tippy bar tables!) and the simultaneous achievement of space exploration—"humans are still humans, I guess, is the moral of the story." (19:11)

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The Susak Brothers and Generational Catcher Whiplash [19:23–24:50]

• Discussion around Giants’ rookie catcher Daniel Susak, younger brother of former Giants catcher Andrew Susak, with 11 years separating them, both playing the same position, same team, same handedness.
  • “It has thrown me for a loop a little… there are a lot of stats and comps out there.” – Ben (19:48)
• Family reaction at Daniel’s MLB debut—Andrew wildly celebrates while holding a toddler (potentially Daniel’s child, possibly his own).
  • “I don't know if it was Andrew's baby or Daniel's baby, but he is holding a, like a, like a toddler aged boy… and then I think Daniel's wife took the baby…” – Meg (23:20)
• The confusion of baseball genealogy: “Maybe the kid is confused. Father, uncle, they're both catchers for the Giants. Probably the kid understands the difference. But hard for me to keep that generation of Susak straight.” – Ben (23:31)

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Connor Griffin’s Rapid Promotion [24:50–35:34]

• 19-year-old Connor Griffin’s call-up by the Pirates after just five games in AAA. He debuted with a double, then went hitless in his next games.
  • “What was your reading on why they did decide to promote him when they did?” – Ben (25:58)
• Discussion around “prospect promotion incentive” eligibility (PPI) and the choreography between extensions and promotions, referencing previous cases (Jackson Chourio, Colt Keith).
• Meg is “flummoxed” by Griffin’s brief stay in AAA, questioning how much could have changed developmentally in 21 plate appearances: “I’m a bit flummoxed... it suggested, hey, get this kid a little more seasoning.” (27:42)
• Consensus: Promotion is both a competitiveness move (Triolo injured, Pirates need offense) and a nod to strategic gaming of draft pick incentives.
• Perspective: Even if Griffin struggles, like Bobby Witt Jr. or Mike Trout once did, being a teenage MLBer at all bodes extremely well.
  • “Even if he flounders a little bit… that’s okay.” – Meg (32:35)
  • “He might already be on a Hall of Fame trajectory just because he’s a major leaguer…” – Ben (35:34)

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Joe Adele’s Defensive Heroics—Quantifying Coolness [35:34–66:00]

The Performance

• Joe Adele, once a top prospect turned cautionary MLB tale, robs three home runs in a single game against the Mariners, each catch crucial in a tight 1-0 Angels win.
  • Quote: “He robbed Cal [Raleigh] in the first inning... Josh Naylor in the eighth... and J.P. Crawford in the ninth.” – Ben (36:26)
• An iconic photo by Kaylee Krause immortalizes Adele’s celebratory pose.
• Mike Trout tweets: “Front row seat to the Joe show . . .” (space and three exclamation points) – causing hosts to reflect on Trout’s signature punctuation. (39:14)

Significance & Emotional Resonance

• “There’s something just very satisfying about a guy whose career has been so up and down… being the guy who manages to do the thing.” – Meg (41:00)
• Adele’s enduring legacy, regardless of future achievements: “We will probably remember Joe Odell’s career much less than we thought we would… but we will remember this.” – Meg (45:58)
• “The prior moment that we would have remembered would have been the fart bat.” (44:17) – reference to a 2020 mishap where Adele batted a ball over the fence for a home run.

Defensive Metrics and How Much It Was “Worth” (48:59–1:00:00)

• Statcast catch probabilities for Adele’s three robberies: 95%, 95%, and 85%, but hosts and public intuition argue those numbers dramatically understate difficulty.
• Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) system gives 1.6 runs of credit per home run robbery (plus catch probability), coming to "five point something, maybe round up to six runs"—or more than half a win.
• Meg: “Sometimes I worry that we’ve trained people to think about this the wrong way because it’s just like… you watched it! Why?” (58:26)
• Ben: “It’s priceless. Because—look how cool that was.” (58:29)
• Final takeaway: Defensive stats should award extra credit for home run robberies; context neutral metrics versus the “coolness” factor is an ongoing debate.

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Pitching Emergencies: Patrick Corbin and the Blue Jays [66:00–73:30]

• Detailing Toronto’s rotation crisis with multiple starters injured (Barrios, Ponce, Bieber, Scherzer, etc.), which led to signing Patrick Corbin, the perennial innings-eater, even later into the season than Texas did last year.
  • Ben sets an over/under on Corbin's 2026 innings: “The Fangraphs depth charts give him 33 innings. I’m taking the over on that.” (69:16)
  • Meg suggests Corbin could even be Toronto’s #3 starter, which reflects the severity of their depth crisis.
• Ben and Meg debate how high Corbin will finish on the Blue Jay’s innings leaderboard: “He throws 30 innings before he gets out of bed after six to eight alarms if he’s Carter Jensen.” – Ben (70:08)
• Call for James Paxton as a potential solution—Meg’s “bold prediction” (71:57)

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Replay Review’s Impact on Game Outcomes [73:90–82:52]

• Discussion of a recent Braves–Diamondbacks blowout (Braves win 17-2), where two pivotal overturned calls (via ball–strike challenge and replay on a close play at first) led to a blowout inning that would have ended much sooner under pre-challenge system baseball.
  • “This was kind of a only in 2026 game... if this had been played pre challenge system, could have been a completely different outcome.” – Ben (75:43)
• Both hosts see this as a good evolution but a stark reminder that replay reviews can make a tangible difference in outcomes—sometimes rubberstamping routine correctness, sometimes rewriting history.

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Listener Responses: Focus, Eyewash, and Crick-o Comparisons [82:52–97:42]

• World Series ring ceremony “eyewash”—email chronicling how pitchers often ignore the crowd during ceremonies under the guise of “focus.” (83:40)
  • “Maybe the way to convince them... I think you're more talented if you can like break character for a second and then lock back in.” – Meg (89:37)
• GM trades—a listener reminds them that there is real precedent (Theo Epstein, Jed Hoyer deals) for sending player compensation for executives under contract. (89:51)
• Cricket’s challenge system (DRS) and MLB parallels—detailed email comparing cricket’s umpire’s call and review strategy, with the “Snicko” technology admired for its fun name and forensic accuracy.
  • “I'm a snicko sicko.” – Meg (97:40)

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Statcast, DRS, and Defensive Metrics

• Explores the philosophical and technical limitations of current defensive stats (Statcast vs. DRS), with an in-depth discussion around whether defensive systems are currently undervaluing rare and spectacular plays like Joe Adele’s triple robbery. (48:59–1:00:00)
• Discussion acknowledges the subjectivity in how observers, teammates, and official scorers “value” showstopper moments.

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Broadcasting Records and Stat Blasts [104:46–end]

• Ben presents an extended stat blast segment (After Ball) from another podcast, profiling Kenny Albert as he approaches the all-time record for national TV broadcasts in the big four sports, and Tony Miller of unnecessarysportsresearch.com, who quietly compiles those stats for posterity.
  • “Imagine keeping track of the totals for every national announcer… for decades.” – Ben (107:08)
• Miller’s unpaid, painstaking research as a niche but essential facet of sports history, and reflections on the nature of trivia and sports record-keeping.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I’m a snicko sicko.” – Meg (97:40) [On being won over by cricket’s DRS Snicko tech]
• “He throws 30 innings before he gets out of bed after six to eight alarms if he’s Carter Jensen.” – Ben (70:08)
• “Front row seat to the Joe show . . .” – Mike Trout, with signature spacing and exclamation points (39:14)
• "It’s priceless. Because—look how cool that was.” – Ben, on Adele’s defensive game (58:29)
• “Sometimes we train people to think about this the wrong way… Like, you watched it! Why?” – Meg, on over-quantifying coolness (58:26)
• “Maybe the way to convince them [starters at ceremonies]... I think you're more talented if you can like break character for a second and then lock back in.” – Meg (89:37)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment | Time | |----------------------------------------------------|-----------------| | Carter Jensen Alarm Clock Scandal | 00:03–15:20 | | Moon/Rocketry & Inspiration | 15:20–19:23 | | The Many Susaks | 19:23–24:50 | | Connor Griffin's Promotion | 24:50–35:34 | | Joe Adele's 3 HR Robberies: The Stat Blast | 35:34–66:00 | | Blue Jays Pitching Crisis & Corbin | 66:00–73:30 | | Impact of Replay Review | 73:90–82:52 | | Listener/Email Responses | 82:52–97:42 | | Defensive Metric Methods | 48:59–66:00 | | Stat Blasts: Broadcasting Records | 104:46–end |

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Tone & Language

The episode maintains Effectively Wild’s signature blend of analytical rigor, humor, improvisation, and affectionate nerdery. Both hosts riff on everyday human (and baseball) fallibility, find delight in absurdities, and move deftly between the granular details of advanced metrics and the emotional resonance of the game.

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FINAL WORD

The episode is, as promised, both coolness personified (in the story of Joe Adele et al) and coolness quantified—wrestling with how numbers, context, and story combine to document the true value (and meaning) of baseball’s most memorable moments. For longtime listeners or newcomers, it’s a quintessentially Effectively Wild exploration of what makes baseball—and baseball fandom—so endlessly engaging.

Transcript

[Meg Riley]

How can you not be pedantic? A stat blast will keep you distracted. It's a long slog to death, but they're sure to make you smile. This is effectively wild. This is effectively wild. This is effectively wild. Hello, and welcome to episode. Episode 2462 of Effectively Wild, a Fan Graphs baseball podcast, brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Riley of Fan Graphs, and I'm joined as often, not as always, but basically as always, by Ben Limburger, the ringer. Ben, how are you?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah. Barring a baby, pretty much always. Yeah.

[Meg Riley]

Pretty much always.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Well, I'm doing well.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It's nice to hear your voice again.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And because you were traveling a bit and we front loaded our recording schedule, I. I hesitate to. It's been a while since we've spoken because I know that that sometimes. Yeah. Causes you to break into song. But. But it has been some time by Effectively Wild standards. So we have much to discuss and catch up on. And I thought maybe next time we could do a check in on some teams that are tanking their playoff odds already because it will have been two weeks since opening day. Then we'll. We'll give them a couple days to get their acts together and for teams that are doing well to come back to earth a bit. But we still have big elements to discuss. We have to get into the promotion of Connor Griffin. Of course, we have to talk about the heroics of Joe Adele. But I wanted to lead with some big news out of Kansas City, which was Carter Jensen overslept. This was. This was a scandal. Carter Jensen, young Royals catcher, he overslept and he showed up late, and he was very apologetic. And he's off to a fantastic start offensively this season, you know, very promising prospect, et cetera. But he did oversleep. And I was wondering why this doesn't happen more often, because you don't see this story all that often about so and so overslept and had to be scratched. Salvi, I think, was supposed to dh and he was pressed into service. Had to strap on the old tools of ignorance, which at his age, you know, he was banking on a partial day off, perhaps, but he had to spring into action, creek into action, because Carter Jensen was not there on time. And look, as scandals go.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Pretty small beans. Right. And yet it's kind of a big deal in baseball when this happens. It doesn't happen that often.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And so he got lightly chastised, you know, a little. Little tough love from effectively wild favorite Vinnie Pasquantino. Who's, you know, treated him courteously, but just had his little veteran. You know, first and foremost, I'm glad Carter's okay. You know, I mean, that's how unusual it is to just show up late for work in mlb. It's like, oh, I'm glad he's okay.

[Meg Riley]

You know, I thought he'd suffered some. Some mishap.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yes. Right. He was worried about him. And then Pasco said, there are some things that cannot happen, and that's one of them. So he's going to have to wear it on the chin same way anybody would have to. It can't happen, and hopefully it doesn't happen again. But it's one of those things that you just can't afford Mist stakes like that in this game. Just got to move forward the best that he can. I know that he feels really bad, etc. So look, as you know, off field issues like sleeping a little late doesn't seem like that big an issue, but it's treated as one. And look, you know, players are paid a lot. There's a lot at stake. Obviously it's a big business, and so they do have to show up for work on time. But it sort of surprises me that this doesn't happen more often because you've got young men sort of unsupervised or on their own on the road. Who knows what shenanigans they're getting up to. Night. Yeah. And. And you'd think that this might happen more often, and yet it doesn't really. Which I suppose speaks well of baseball players and how seriously they take their profession and maybe also speaks to the fact that there are a lot of night games. And so maybe it's not easy to oversleep by that you show up late, but. But they always want you to show up hours and hours early because you got to go through your whole routine and there's batting practice and there's pre game meetings and pre series meetings and everything else. And so maybe there's even a little bit of eyewash there when it comes to how early you're expected to report. But nonetheless, does it surprise you that this was like, whoa, Carter Jensen overslept, that that can't happen. This is going to be a serious talking to because I just would instinctively think, yeah, that would be a se. Common occurrence. Not, not like all the time, but that, you know, every season or so, at least you'd. You'd hear about it happening to someone.

[Meg Riley]

Well, and I, I guess if you were going to rank the on field positions that are the. Perhaps the least prone to it being eye washy, you know, catcher and what. Whatever guy is starting that day. Yeah, those would be high on the list. Right. So if he's. So if he's meant to catch, then okay. But it is, it is a little surprising. Did he sleep through an alarm or did he.

[Ben Lindbergh]

That's what he said. Yeah, he said I didn't wake up to my alarm. Slept through it, through it. Don't really have an excuse, nor should I. It sucks. It happens, but it doesn't happen all that often, seemingly. I feel like I let teammates down, coaches down. Just learn from it and just know it won't happen again. It's like falling on your swords from oversleeping.

[Meg Riley]

Did he get into the game later? Did he, did he play later?

[Ben Lindbergh]

He was there eventually. He just. He was supposed to start and he wasn't there in time to start. It wasn't like he no showed entirely. But yeah. It's another example of how different this job is from every other job because it's like any of us, we oversleep one time we show up a little late for work. Not a big deal. Maybe if you have an office job and you're on a shift and it's pretty important, you might get a little bit of a rebuke or a talking to or something, but it's not going to be a. A public issue. Right. And so it's just, it's a very different profession. And Vinnie continued to say he'll learn from it, grow a little bit. We're here from him though. It's not like anybody's mad at him. Things happen. But you've got to learn from mistakes like that and maybe get another alarm clock or something. Which that's funny cuz I saw someone unearthed a TikTok video that the Royals published in spring training and they were actually asking all their players how many alarms it takes for them to wake up.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And the last guy in the video was Carter Jensen.

[Meg Riley]

Oh boy.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It's embarrassing.

[Guest or Caller 1]

I need at least like six to eight alarms.

[Meg Riley]

It's not good.

[Ben Lindbergh]

That was famous last words. I guess that was an indication that maybe he was cruising for a bruising wake up wise.

[Meg Riley]

I wonder if he uses his phone or if he has a physical alarm clock. I'm a big, I'm a big advocate of the physical alarm clock. But that's more for gotta trick my. My dumb brain not to be tempted to look at screen reasons than it is the phone being an insufficiently loud or annoying alarm.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah.

[Meg Riley]

Boy. Eight just. Does Carter Jensen have a person at home? Do we know? Does he have.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I don't know. Yeah.

[Meg Riley]

A person at home.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Right. He is, he's quite young, obviously. He's. He's 22. But Connor Griffin's married yet. I don't know.

[Meg Riley]

You got a grade on the baseball player curve. And you don't have to be married to have a person at home. You can just have a person at home. I, I asked because six to eight alarms is a. I think a high number. And I'm curious if, you know, assuming he does have someone at home, does. Is that person also a six state alarm person? Because if not, that's a recipe for not having a person at home for very long.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I know. I was gonna say I had an ex and this is not why she's an ex. But it didn't help, I guess, who was just an inveterate snoozer. And. Yeah, I am not a snoozer. I don't hit the snooze button.

[Meg Riley]

You're one and done.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I'm a one and done because what I do is I set it for the absolute last moment that I can. And so I've conditioned myself to know that there's no leeway that when the alarm goes off, I really do in fact have to get up. Which I feel like is logical just because I'm trying to maximize my sleep. I'm trying to just eke out every second that I can. So if I'm setting it earlier than I need to and then repeatedly snoozing. That's not quality sleep. Like you're losing a little sleep. I know some people might just need the snoozing process to get up.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And to rouse themselves. But it's not ideal if you do have someone else in the bed with you who does not have the same wake up time or snoozing habits.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah, my. The way that my alarm is, is designed is to have like a gradual wake up. But then once the like it, it, it does a thing initially and then it is designed to have a secondary alarm and they, they say it wakes you up better. I don't know about that. It wakes me up the way it needs to, which is really the point. I got a loud cat outside the office. You're fine. Cat is really the most reliable.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, I know. If he doesn't have a cat, he should just.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Get some sort of pet that will walk on your face when it's time for breakfast.

[Meg Riley]

Hey, I. It's time for me to eat. I don't care what you're doing. Yeah, you're sleeping. Why are you loafing? I'm ready to have some food, but. But they're gentle. And then I. And then I get up. Unless it's. I will tell you, Ben. The Friday of the week of opening day, it took me a while to get out of bed. I was like, why did I agree to work today? That was dumb. Why am I here? Why am I awake?

[Ben Lindbergh]

I should be sleeping still. Maybe I am a two alarm guy usually by which I mean that I have two separate alarm sorts sources, one of which is my phone because I sometimes will sleep through it too. So I have one alarm that's on my phone. And then because I take this precaution, if it's particularly important, I then put my phone across the room somewhere so that I actually have to get out of bed.

[Meg Riley]

Oh, I see.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And by the time I get out of bed, then I'm probably going to be awake. But it's dangerous. And obviously Carter Jensen knows that if he's set in six to eight alarms then he knows that this is a bit of an issue for him and he was at least taking some precautions. And I imagine that now he is taking more. And this was a day game, I believe, to be clear too. So that helps and explains part of it, I think.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

But I still am sort of surprised that this doesn't happen more often because sometimes guys are dragging, especially if you're a catcher, especially if you have a like a day game after a night game. Especially if maybe you went out on the town or something. And of course back in the day when reporters didn't always report the precise circumstances, maybe if someone had a little too much to drink, for example, you might have the old flu like symptoms or something like that. It might not be reported why you were scratched from a given game. And perhaps that still happens sometimes, or maybe people do actually show up late sometimes and it's just handled internally and it just doesn't become a public issue. And either that person just wasn't in the lineup or the lineup has changed and it's just not a big deal. It's just a behind closed doors thing. But still, given the demographics and all the demands and everything, you know, some of these guys are probably living on their own for the first time in their life. Right. And so not having roommates. And so it does sort of surprise me that this isn't really a rite of passage for players.

[Meg Riley]

I love the, the simultaneous like Seriousness, but also like they're, they're creating the. The way that his teammates are talking, to be clear. Like, you gotta go to work. You know, if you're like, you gotta go work. If you're especially. You're supposed to be the starting catcher that day. A thing you knew was true the day before, presumably. Like, I'm, hey, let the kids show up whenever they want. I'm not so loosey goosey, Ben, you

[Ben Lindbergh]

know, I do feel that way about actual kids where it's like, what, my daughter's supposed to go to kindergarten at like 8 in the morning or something.

[Meg Riley]

I thought it was better to go to school because they're up early. Aren't a lot of them up actually?

[Ben Lindbergh]

I guess. But I think, you know, your brain's developing. Even when you're Carter Jensen's age, your brain is still developing, your decision making. And so, yeah, when you're a kid, sometimes you need that extra sleep. I certainly did when I was a kid as a night owl.

[Meg Riley]

Were you a night owl as a small child, though?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, always.

[Meg Riley]

Oh, wow. Okay. So it really is just your rhythm, you know?

[Ben Lindbergh]

I think it is, yeah.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah, yeah. Sleep is such a tricky thing. We super don't understand it. We're like, you know, out in space and we're like, sleep, I don't know, toilets. Also challenging. But that makes sense because that's an inhospitable environment. We are going to briefly talk about space in a second, but not yet. I have a further thought on Carter Jensen and then we can move on. So I love the tone of his teammates statements about this because they are like creating their own need to defend him in the way that they're talking about it because obviously, again, like, go to. You gotta. You gotta go to work. And especially Salvi. What, are you gonna have him crouch all the time?

[Ben Lindbergh]

No, no.

[Meg Riley]

Now, is this an opportunity for the Royals to consider that, like, maybe you gotta have a, you know, a spry or backup. Maybe it's time to meet.

[Ben Lindbergh]

As long as he shows up for work on time.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah, it's like, Carter, come on, we're trying to get this guy out the door. Maybe you gotta show up on time. But so like, they, they want to impress upon everyone they know this is serious. Particularly because he's a rookie. You know, it's like, I don't know why I'm talking like from Staten island all of a sudden, but like, there's a seriousness to his transgression because he's a rookie still. But also they have his back and everyone else in the entire world is like, like, okay, sure. Yeah. Thank you. I'm glad. You're not gonna, what, like, shove him in his locker. You know, it's just like, they are. They're treating the thing with a reverence that then requires them to let you know. But don't worry, we're still good teammate. Don't stress about it. We're not gonna. We're not gonna, like, murder him. I don't know what. We're not gonna. We're not gonna, like.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yes. No. Ritual rookie sack. Yeah. We're not gonna take.

[Meg Riley]

Take a bat to his ribcage while he's got the chest protector on or something. It's like. It's okay. So anyway, Carter Jensen get a better alarm? Maybe he needs one of the light alarms. I've never found those to work.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Or one of the ones that scurries away from you so that you have to go catch it or something. Yeah, they're ones that don't think that that's a good technology.

[Meg Riley]

Is that. Is that. Is that moon technology? Is that technology we have? Because. Can I. Can I riff on the moon for a second?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Sure.

[Meg Riley]

Just very briefly. I know you are not opposed to moon riffing, but I am aware that we are doing a baseball podcast, even though, you know, we're recording this on Tuesday. Feels a little silly. I am on record as saying that we shouldn't be up there. You know, or rather, I'm on record as saying I have no desire to go up there. You know, I understand people have, like, a. You know, they have a profound experience when they see the Earth from space, and I feel like it's a profound experience just to see the photographs from space, you know, just to see the images that are coming out of Artemis, too, from space. You really. You know, the way that these folks are talking about humanity is. It's profoundly moving to me.

[Ben Lindbergh]

The overview effect, where astronauts see the whole planet at once and realize that we're all in this thing together on this marble, floating in nothingness, and can't we all just get along?

[Meg Riley]

And what a time to be reminded of that particular lesson, you know, just like. And you've got this incredible diverse crew and this beautiful, diverse ground control, and, you know, I don't want to overdo it with the, like, representation thing matters, of course, but, like, to hear. It's still. It's moving to hear female voices from up there and. And the. And they're naming craters after spouses who have passed and. It made me cry, Ben. It really did make me cry. And so I, I just want to make sure that everyone and I, we don't have to, like, spend too much time on the lore of the podcast. And I can'. Even remember if I said this on a main feed episode or if it was part of the Patreon, but I don't need to be up there. You know, we don't belong up there. That's not where we should be. But we send people up there and they have this experience, and then they come back and they're alive when they do, and it's really something, Ben, you know, and I, it's making me feel less sad about the Mariners, for one thing. I'm like, well, what does it matter? We're sending people to space. They're coming back, you know, and what did they talk about when there was, when there was radio silence? I wonder if they'll tell us. I hope they don't. That can be just for them, you know, that can be a special for them kind of a thing. And we're all stressed about the space toilets, you know,

[Ben Lindbergh]

and if you go back and read the transcripts from Apollo 11, for instance, they were constantly getting baseball score updates. They wanted to know what was happening back on Earth and what the baseball scores were. So, yeah, it's very inspiring. I'm a big space astronomy nerd, right? It's an inhospitable setting, but we shouldn't be up there.

[Meg Riley]

The fact that we're up there and not immediately dead and, you know, we don't even have to go very high up there to be, like, in we should be instantly dead territory, and we're not.

[Ben Lindbergh]

We do take precautions, and I'm glad other people are up there.

[Meg Riley]

So I'm, I, I'm, I'm. We're recording today because, you know, at a certain point, you do have to get back to work, but I've been off, off visiting family and, and then I took Tuesday. We're recording on Tuesday as I'm reminding everyone. I took Tuesday off as a, like, hey, get the house back in order and do laundry, and I got a grocery shop. And, you know, like, we're, I'm not working, but I'm working. And I'm, I'm grateful for the, the not working, but tempted by the dastardly siren song of social media on a day where, like, world events are very scary. And so I just, you know, I don't know, I feel like I have to acknowledge both the people up in space and also profound strangeness of our Current moment as we contemplate devastating and a criminal war. And so, anyway, it's amazing. We go up there. It's amazing they come back. We. We managed to do that, but we still have tippy bar tables. You know, humans are still humans, I guess, is the. The moral of the story.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, it's quite inspiring. My daughter was riveted by the launch, as were the Yankees and the Marlins when they were watching it. So that was a fun little baseball and rocketry intersection.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Anyway, going back to rookie catchers who may or may not have trouble waking up, I don't know if you have had this experience, but I've really been thrown for a loop. I'm getting Susak deja vu because.

[Meg Riley]

Because there are many of them, the many catching Susaks.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Because there's. There's a new Susak. There's Daniel Susak. And the confusing thing is that he is also a Giant catcher.

[Meg Riley]

Yes.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And he is the brother of Andrew Susak, who was once a Giant catcher.

[Meg Riley]

Yes.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And that was a while ago. And the thing is that they are separated by about 11 years in age. And so there's a new Susec. So when I saw the new Susak, I was thinking, wait, Andrew Susak is still here. No, wait, Daniel Susak. There's another Susak, and he's still related to Andrew somehow, but he's also a rookie for the same team. And to make matters more confusing, Andrew Cusack was at Daniel's debut, too. So it was double Susak action.

[Meg Riley]

Whipping that baby around just like whipping that kid all around.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah. Anyway, I'm sure that he will not have any trouble setting alarms or anything, but it has thrown me for a loop a little. We're all quite familiar with the phenomenon of big league brothers, but usually there's not as much of a separation in age. Yeah. And then the combination of the age and the same team and the same position and the same handedness and everything Daniel is. Is bigger than Andrew.

[Meg Riley]

He is a literal giant. Giant is the thing. He's 65. He's. He's a big guy. I remember seeing Daniel Susak at Arizona. He went to college at the University of Arizona, and they hosted a regional a couple years ago, and probably in his draft year, because I was living down here, and I just remember seeing him behind home being like.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Like, whoa, that's a big.

[Meg Riley]

That's a. That's a big man. That's a big man. Catch him back there.

[Ben Lindbergh]

The sequel is always Supposed to be bigger, right. I don't know if he'll be better but. But bigger. At least he has nailed. So yeah, there's a new Suak, a. A new sack. I don't know.

[Meg Riley]

No, I don't care for that. And you know, and confusing. True. Because they, they are playing for the same team. I thought we would avoid this trouble because Daniel was originally drafted by the then Oakland Athletics and then he got traded and you know, then that's. I, I couldn't tell if that kid was. To our listeners who maybe have not seen Daniel Susak's family, including Andrew Susak, were reacting to Daniel Susak's debut, particularly his first hit. Right. That was the context of that video. You know, it's his family and, and Andrew is holding I think Daniel's child. Maybe I don't think that was Andrew's son, but who knows. That part wasn't clear to me. I don't know if it was Andrew's baby or Daniel's baby, but he is holding a, like a, like a toddler aged boy. I couldn't tell if the kid was losing his mind at what was happening on the field. Was overstimulated because it's loud and you know, everyone's like ah. Or if he was reacted to the fact that his uncle is just like losing his mind and thus whipping this baby around. And he's not a baby, he was a toddler so he could like support his own neck. Which is an important detail because I can imagine, you know, parents out there being like, oh my God, you gotta like the neck. They can't. My mom called, called me Tuna when I was little. I was a small kid so it's confusing in that way because you know, tuna is. Are big as fish go, but like they kind of flop around. And she's like, yeah, when you were a baby, you know, like because babies can't support the weight of their own heads. This kid could do that.

[Ben Lindbergh]

But was.

[Meg Riley]

Was vulnerable in the moment whipping him around. And then I think Daniel's wife took the baby and was like here, let me hold you in a way that is perhaps more advisable. It was cute.

[Ben Lindbergh]

That's how I feel looking at the sue sex. Just. I'm experiencing some sort of whiplash. Maybe. Maybe the kid is confused. Father, uncle, they're both catchers for the Giants. Probably the kid understands the difference. But hard for me to keep that generation of Suak straight, let alone the next generation. So I won't weigh in.

[Meg Riley]

Nephew, parentage, nephew so like that is your kid, Andrew. Why you whip? I was like, you know, the kids

[Ben Lindbergh]

probably knows the safety tolerances of his own toddler.

[Meg Riley]

The kid's name is Chuck. Why do I find that so charming?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Chuck? I look forward to seeing him catch for the Giants in 20 years or so.

[Guest or Caller 1]

Yeah, no kidding.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Anyway, so I guess we can talk about a rookie that made some more notable news. And that is of course Connor Griffin, who did somewhat, I was gonna say belatedly, but what a ridiculous word to use with a 19 year old. Belated only because he didn't start the season with the big club. But it took all of what, four games with AAA for him to get enough. Yeah, so we had our conversation about Griffin when he was sent down.

[Meg Riley]

Yes.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And now we can have our conversation about Griffin when he was promoted. So he was brought up for the home opener and this was after I guess five AAA games and he had hit.438.571.625 with three stolen bases and more walks than strikeouts and everything. And still prospect promotion incentive eligible. Yes, and there was some reporting initially that he had signed an extension and then Buster only declared backsies on that one, I guess. And so that has not officially happened as we record here. But something seems to be in the works at the very least. Anyway, Griffin came up. It was a huge moment for Pirates fans, of course, and he delivered in his first at BET and he doubled into the gap and that was very exciting. And he has not had a hit since. But that's, you know, there's gonna be some growing pains because if Carter Jensen is still growing his brain, then Connor Griffin is as well, even though he may be a married man already. So I think probably some of what we said about Griffin when he did not make his major league debut on opening day still applies because that was very recent. But what was your reading on why they did decide to promote him when they did?

[Meg Riley]

I am shocked that he has not signed an extension. I just assumed that we would learn of it like maybe as he was debuting.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, at first I thought it was just that there is an advantage to sequencing these things in a certain way because a player who signs an extension before making his major league debut is not eligible for the prospect promotion incentive. And so this came up with Jackson Churio and Colt Keith because they signed extensions prior to their debuts and thus they were not PPI eligible because I guess the point of the PPI is to encourage teams to have their top prospects on opening day rosters.

[Meg Riley]

Right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And if they've already signed them to an extension, then maybe they would be doing that. That anyway. And so it's like, don't give them double credit or something. But then it's sort of strange because then you have teams incentivized not to announce extensions that are basically done until after the player comes up. And so there can be some chicanery that goes on here. And so there was suspicion that, oh, maybe they're trying to hide something. I'm sure that either this will get done, or if it does get done and it turns out that there was a framework in place, then the Pirates won't be able to get credit for that. I'm sure we'll find out more and that unless that report is just memory holds forever. But he's up now and maybe there will be more news to come about a contract.

[Meg Riley]

Right. Because it, it feels like, you know, he got 21 plate appearances at AAA.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah.

[Meg Riley]

As we noted when he did not make the opening day roster, like he did not light the world on fire in spring. And so it suggested, hey, get, get this kid a little more seasoning in aaa. That's fine. And the way that the Pirates talked about it, I will. I just. I'm a little flummoxed, Ben. Candidly, I'm a bit flummoxed because it seemed as if the way that the Pirates talked about it, the way that Ben Charrington talked about Connor Griffin, was this kid needs more time, and this is an incredibly important player to like the trajectory of our franchise. And then he went to AAA and he played five games and he hit incredibly well. And I think that that's very encouraging. But I don't know that there's anything that those 21 plate appearances, even though they went very well, necessarily change about the, the need for additional marination. But also if you think he only needs like a little bit of marination and you want the. The ability to earn a prospect promotion incentive pick, well, maybe he just gets his little bit of marination in the majors and, and that has to be the thinking. One would. Would imagine. So it's like, hey, let's give ourselves the opportunity to accrue this draft pick in the event that, like, he, he does only need a little bit more time and he does all this stuff and he gets his feet under him and he wins Rookie of the Year. He places right and then we get a pick. And how exciting that we get a pick. A pick we didn't get with Skeens, where Skeens won Rookie of the Year. Thus Getting a full year of service regardless of the fact that we hadn't called him up in time, we didn't get a pick. Well, that's lousy. So maybe you, maybe that's the thinking and you know, I imagine that the, the overarching sentiment of this guy is very, very important to our team and its long term fortunes still holds. And so if he flounders for long enough, they'll send him back down and, and, and he'll get his seasoning in aaa which is kind of what we thought would happen. But it was a little surprising and it was surprising, you know, as noted recording this on Tuesday, that you know, that there is no deal.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It wouldn't shock me if there was a bit of theater just to make everyone think he's down. And then ah, the home opener, here comes Connor Griffin. But it was probably a bit more than that or just trying to sell out that game maybe. And I want to give the Pirates some credit, at least for sure recogniz where they are and the fact that they could be competitive and they're off to a decent start and they need runs and they need wins and maybe they just saw him tearing it up in AAA for five games and they contrasted that with Jared Triolo having a.461 OPS through his first five games and then also getting hurt after that and thought well we're costing ourselves here because yeah, even if he's not going to be Pete Conor right away, can he out hit Jared Triolo? That seems like a fairly safe bet. And so if you evaluate the makeup of Griffin, which they should be in a pretty good position to do and say, well if he's mature enough to handle some struggles and setbacks and in the worst case scenario where he really slumps to start off his career, is that going to shatter his confidence or is that just going to be something that he can transcend and that he takes as a challenge and it lights a fire under him and then maybe we send him back down for a reset or he fixes himself or whatever, but it won't cause any long term lasting damage to his development. If you come to that conclusion then well, might as well let him sink or swim because even if he sinks, he might still be better than Jared Triolo. Sorry, Jared Trio, but it is just kind of the case. So I mean he did project to be I think the second best position player on the Pirates after o' Neill Cruz, even though he's not projected to be amazing out of the gate. And so if you can Save yourself from possibly a replacement level player and have even an average player. Well, that could actually make the difference for you. So maybe it's worth the risk. Maybe it's worth a shot.

[Meg Riley]

Based on what we have seen of Connor Griffin so far in terms of his on field performance and also just like the way that he carries himself even as a very young person, he doesn't strike me as someone where it's necessarily going to be shattering to them if, like, the initial run doesn't go well and he has to go back down. But we don't know him, you know, even though I have been in the physical presence of his big neck.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yes.

[Meg Riley]

You know, I'm not familiar with the kid, so I don't know if, if it's gonna be this like, you know, trajectory altering thing. And I, I did invoke the specter of Mike Zanino when we talked about him getting sent down. Like, I do think that there is value to guys being developmentally ready, but I also think that there's value to guys being challenged. And like, you know, he's, he's probably gonna be fine in the long term. And even if he flounders a little bit in the initial run, like, that's okay. But you, like, we all remember Bobby Witt Junior's rookie year, jk. No, we don't. We don't remember that. I mean, we do, but like, we saw this guy who was so important to his own franchise. Like, in some ways the parallels are good. And Bauman talked about this during our bull prediction show. Like, you know, he had kind of a rough go of it in his first season and then he made the adjustment and now he's one of the best players in baseball. Although his, his early going has been less good. But that doesn't matter, does it?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, or Mike Trout's first 40 games as a real rookie in 2011, which I, I once wrote an article about that because it was like, how did he go from being a below average hitter, even if it was 135 plate appearances, to then the next year being the best player in baseball? Probably. And he probably, he got a little unlucky. He had a 247Babip that year. Probably the fastest player in baseball. But yeah, sometimes there's a little bit of a struggle there. Sorry I'm so mean to Jared Triolo. He's got a good glove. It's just that the bar for beating the bat is not particularly high. But it's exciting just to see him make the majors. I'M risking a second. It's been a while here, but it has been quite a while since we saw a player play that young in the majors, period. I think he was the youngest player in the majors since Juan Soto and first teenager to play in the major since Elvis Luciano in 2019, too. And that was a Rule 5 reliever, so sort of a special circumstance. And I think the youngest to appear in a game as early as this in a season since Andrew Jones, who went on it turns out to be a Hall of Famer. So there are a lot of stats and comps out there. Just saying to make it to the majors at all and to be a starting shortstop as a teenager, that alone bodes incredibly well. Not that it was a mystery that he might be a good player someday, but it's really just a question of will he be a good player now and will he be better than the Pirates alternatives? And yeah, I think there's a pretty decent chance that he will be. So it certainly makes the Pirates probably a better team and definitely a more entertaining team, especially if he stops scuffling, which I imagine he will. If they leave him out there, I don't know how long a leash he'll have before they decide, okay, maybe a bit more seasoning might help, but it's just been a handful of games as we were speaking here, so it's too soon to say much of anything except for the fact that he might already be on a Hall of Fame trajectory just because he's a major leaguer. But we're getting ahead of ourselves slightly

[Meg Riley]

there, maybe ever so slightly. But also, you know, he's not even 20 yet, so.

[Ben Lindbergh]

No, he's not. Well, let's talk about another former top prospect who came up not quite as young as Connor Griffin, but he was 21. That's Joe Adele, who may be himself the former best prospect in baseball according to some sources when he was called up or pretty darn close to it. And he's been a bit of a cautionary tale, a bit of a reminder that not every prospect launches as successfully as Artemis 2, and that even though he has now had a seven year big league career, it's been bumpy to say the least.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

However, he did have an indelible game, a trademark signature game that will be remembered for the rest of his career regardless of what he accomplishes from here on out. On Saturday, Joe Adele robbed three home runs and unfortunately for you, it came against the Mariners. And so he robbed what are you gonna do? Cal Rally, who had himself A long home run slump, which he has finally broken. But he. He robbed Cal in the first inning, and then he robbed Josh Naylor in the eighth inning, and then he robbed. Who was the. Oh, it was J.P. crawford.

[Meg Riley]

J.P. crawford.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, he was.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah, he was gonna slip one over that short wall out there. And. No, Joe Adele had other ideas.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yes. And this became the talk of baseball for a few reasons. And I think it's just. It's fascinating to discuss what this was worth.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah.

[Guest or Caller 1]

What.

[Ben Lindbergh]

What is a game like that worth? Because there's kind of a choose your own adventure approach to answering that question. And I don't know that there is a definitive or satisfying answer, but we can and walk through the various possibilities here, because different defensive systems and different sort of homebrew ways, we could cobble together and cludge a valuation of this game, produce dramatically different answers. But put aside the run value or the win value or whatever, it was just kind of awesome because it was a one nothing game. And Zach Netto hit a home run in the first inning, a solo shot, and that held up. Up for the rest of the game.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Because Joe Adele just kept taking away diggers from the Mariners. And so all of these home runs were absolutely crucial. Any of them would have tied the game at the very least.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And so he saved the game repeatedly. And it was just a baller performance. And then it was preserved for all time for posterity by that incredible fan photo, which was taken by an Angel's fan, a mother of five named Kaylee Krause, who just happened to be in the right place at the right time and was out there in right field and had an unobstructed view of Adele after the third robbery when he fell over the fence and was standing up and brandishing the ball for all to admire. And it was so dramatic, and it was perfectly framed. I mean, that might be the image of Major League Baseball in 2026 right there. We'll see. Which you would not expect to be in a April Angels game. But just the pose and how dramatic it was that really only burnished the image. And in fact, it conjured a tweet from Mike Trout, who actually replied, I think it was a tweet from the team account or something.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Who had shared that photo. And Mike Trout replied to that tweet for the first time. He hadn't replied to a tweet on Twitter since late January when he had tweeted to Brent Rooker about the weather. Yeah. And so. So Mike Trout tweeted front row seat to the Joe show. And then of course, there was a space. And then there were three exclamation points. Which really brought me back to old, effectively wild discussions about Mike Trout's Twitter punctuation and the mysterious spacing and why there's always a space. And is this an autocomplete thing or what's happening here? It's nice to know even though Mike Trout off to a strong start, perhaps not the player he was, but still the punctuator he was for one reason or another. And he's probably gone through several phones since then. Way this was just an awesome athletic clutch display.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah. And I'm sure that, that mom was like, you know, my, my main goal is the affordability. But Jo Adel did put on a good show for us. It. It does suggest that that's just how Mike Trout texts. I bet, I bet that like in the, in the group chat to the family, it's like space. Three exclamation points. Do you think his mom is like, I. That's not. There's not a space. The space comes after and only one only want. Probably not.

[Ben Lindbergh]

She's probably letting it go at this point.

[Meg Riley]

I would, I would. Yeah. I think that's probably the correct answer. It. You know, it would have been satisfying for any player to have done this. Like, it doesn't matter which guy is out there. You would have just been in awe of it, you know, and the Mariners were completely flummoxed. Like, the look on JP Crawford's face when he did it for. For a third time was just like, are we haunted?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah.

[Meg Riley]

You know, have we walked into a haunting here? But there is something, I think particularly satisfying about a guy whose career has been so up and down, who even, you know, when we were talking about the Angels in our preview episode, like, you know, you want to say, oh, Joe Adele. Like he, he broke through last year and, and he, he did at the plate, but he was, he was terrible on the field last year.

[Ben Lindbergh]

But that's the amusing thing is that frv, the statcast based stat, had him as the worst defensive outfielder in baseball last year. Or maybe tied with Mickey Mock for worst.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah. And so like for, for that guy. And he's still underwater by F R V standards now. Like, to say that you should take, you know, the directionality and conclusion of a defensive stat with a grain of salt after 11 games is you are underselling it to a profound extent. Right. Like, don't worry about it yet. And that's not to say he's he's suddenly an amazing fielder or anything, but, like, everyone relax. You know, it's like, it's, it's 11 games. Like, I wish we didn't have him on there. I wish, I wish there was nothing on the site for the entire first month of the season. But we've already talked about that. That's not a defensible business position. And so here we are, soldiering on, doing our best. He's just never graded out well as a defender. You know, the best, the best defensive season he's had was 17 games long in 2023. Right. Like this, this guy has struggled in the field and, and last year, struggled in the field, field profoundly. And so there's something just, like, really satisfying about it. There's something about being the guy who manages to do the thing. And, you know, that, that ballpark, as we have seen, it lends itself to, to robberies. But we tend, we tend to associate them with Trout in center field because Mike Trout has robbed a bunch of home runs in his time, you know, and so it's just, it's, it was very, very cool. You know, I, I, I wonder about an alternate reality where Joe Adell is not pressed into service in 2020 and has sort of a more typical maturation. What, what does that guy's career look like? And the answer might be it looks exactly the same. Some of the things that he struggles with, he has been able to adjust and tamp down, but, like, he's probably always going to strike out more than you want him to, and he's probably always going to walk less than you want him to. Like, some of this is just like Joe Odell's approach is what it is. And he can tinker with it and get it to a place of playability, but it's probably always going to be a little more voracious than you would like. But, like, you look at the guy and you're like, you're, you're clearly a talented athlete. You're put together good. Why are you so bad out there? Doesn't make sense. Like, he looks like a guy who should. Sure, maybe he struggles at the plate, but, like, he, he looks like he should be a good defender because he's, he's a good athlete, but he's just never been particularly adept out there. And, and my, my lasting memory of his rookie season was the time that he, like, helped a home run over the wall.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Exactly. Yeah. In 2020, he had a, what we labeled a fart bat, which is, yeah, a fielder accidentally rewards the batter, a tater. He had kind of. Canseco did it. It wasn't off his head. It was off his glove, but even so. Yeah, right.

[Meg Riley]

And so there's something just very satisfying about that guy getting another moment.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Right.

[Meg Riley]

Another couple of moments that you can put up there. And if you're, you know, if you're the. The broadcast director and you're choosing which Joe Adele fielding moment to. To feature, well, now you have a difficult choice to make. That's nice, you know, because, like, Joe Jodell, and I don't want to. I don't want to insult the young man. Like, Joe, it was only 26. Like, he might have a very long career ahead of him yet. But, like, in all likelihood, Joe Odell's career will not be remembered as specifically as we maybe would have thought when Joe Odell was a prospect, because he was a very highly regarded prospect. He was a top 100 guy. He was. You know, he graduated as a 60 for us. Like, he was like a top 10 overall prospect, a global prospect in 2020. And so, you know, when a guy is in that sort of stratosphere, you have a. You have a. Maybe not an expectation, but a reasonable hope that he will have a long big league career, that he will feature in all star games, that he's gonna have an impact on the franchise he plays for in a way that is lasting and that you remember. And we will probably remember Joe Odell's career much less than we thought we would when he debuted.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, but we will remember this. But we can't remember this.

[Meg Riley]

You know, and that's. And that's amazing because the. The prior moment that we would have remembered would have been the fart bat.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Right. And by the way, when people are hearing this, Joe Adele will probably be 27 because his birthday is Wednesday. Happy birthday, Joe Adele.

[Meg Riley]

Happy birthday, Joe Adele.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Give yourself a great present or three of them. Them. And yeah, even offensively, he's uneven. He's unpolished. He hit 37 diggers last year and yet was 12% better than the average batter because he had a sub.300 on base. He's a low BABIP guy, low batting average. Guy doesn't walk a ton. So even there, it's not like he's the complete package. And this year, he has homered once. So he has had more home run robberies than home runs on this young season. But there was such a satisfying progression to these three. I think the. The first one, if I had to rank the difficulty of these robberies, from most difficult to least difficult, it would be 3, 1, 2. I think that the easiest one was the second one that he had. And so it wasn't quite a linear progression from easiest to hardest, but the grand finale was clearly the coolest and he had to go far to get it. And it was over in the corner because the first two were more in the genre of he was kind of camped under it, particularly the second one. He got there and then it was just a timing play, which isn't to say that that's a cinch, but it's less impressive visually and actually than when you. You're just full tilt running and then your catch carries you over the fence entirely. That was the perfect finale. That was the culmination. It was just like, you know, you want the third act, like you want the climax to be the most exciting. And it was. And it was the ninth inning. And so it was just perfect, really. And so then the question is, well, what is that quote unquote worth? I think it's worth a lot in the sense that, that it just made memories for a lot of people. And maybe that's the most exciting occurrence in an Angels game this season. We will see. But that alone, it's worth a lot, but in terms of just raw runs and everything. So the defensive systems handle this very differently. And I, I corresponded with Mike Petriello at MLP.com and Mark Simon at SportsInfo Solutions, friends of the show, to make sure that I had this all straight. And they handle home run robberies very differently. And I don't know that either of them does it perfectly. It's hard to say for sure, and maybe there's even a happy medium, but there is a big disparity here. So, yeah, statcast currently doesn't really give any extra credit for a home run robbery. It just looks at, well, what was the catch probability?

[Meg Riley]

Right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And the catch Probability according to Statcast of these three balls was high. It was 95%, 95% and 85%. Now, when anyone watches those, I think they would instinctively reflexively say, no way was that a 95% catch or an 85% catch. And I do think we probably overrate the difficulty because it was a home run robbery and because he had three of them in a single game, which just makes it all seem cooler and more improbable. But still, there's a degree of difficulty there that I don't know is being fully accounted for. And the folks at statcast and mlp, they've acknowledged as much And Tom Tango has talked about maybe revamping the model there because they know when it's a wall ball, when the wall comes into play, but they haven't, I think, by their own admission, perfectly accounted for that. And it's difficult to account for that. That. Yeah, because when a ball is at the wall, inches and feet make a huge difference to the difficulty. And the tracking is not perfect. It's tracked a long distance. It's not every ball perfectly tracked for the full trajectory. Sometimes it's sort of extrapolated. And where it hits on the wall or above the wall makes all the difference. When it comes to the difficulty of a catch and a home run robbery, the system just hasn't currently accounted for that that well. And I think that they will probably change that in some way so that there will be extra credit. But basically now there isn't really. And so if you have a 95 catch, and a 95 catch and an 85% catch, then basically you're getting.05 runs, plus 0.05 runs, plus 0.15 runs for making those catches. Because the presumption is, well, most people would have made that catch most of the time. So he's getting like 0. 25 runs. He's getting like a quarter of a run defensively for making those catches, which just seems wild. That can't possibly be right because we're all watching this and we know more than the statcast system does. Yes, it's possible that we, with our primitive eye test, might outsmart the system in some particular cases. Yeah. So there is like a wall comparison. So they're compared to other plays that were also deemed wall balls, but there's no sort of blanket. Well, because this was a wall ball, we're adding in extra credit. Or because this was a home run robbery, we're adding in extra credit. Whereas defensive run saved from Sports Info Solutions does do that. It does give you bonus points because there's this added degree of difficulty for the wall ball. So first things first. This was the first time on record that anyone had had three home run robberies in a game.

[Meg Riley]

Doesn't it feel like you should get extra credit for that?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, I mean, I think you should get extra credit for each individual one. I think you should get extra cool this credit for doing it three times in one game. I don't know that I would factor that into defensive run saved, but this was a first. And SIS has been tracking this since 2004. And as you noted, Mike Trout has done this a lot. He Leads all players over that span with 14 of these things. And. And there's a park effect, obviously.

[Meg Riley]

Yes.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And Angel Stadium, the walls, the fences are what, 8ft high or something? And so there are some fences and some walls where you can't have a home run robbery. Like, good luck robbing a home run if you're playing left field at Fenway or something, you know, you'd have to be on some super tall stilts or something. So you have to have the means, you know, and the opportunity. And so certain parks definitely are more conducive to this. And, you know, Camden Yards has been one of those, depending on how Baltimore is currently configured and everything. And I think that's fine. I think that's good because I think that this is probably the most exciting play in baseball. I think it confounds expectations because you're thinking, oh, it's gone. That's the worst possible thing that can happen to the defense. And then the best possible thing happens, which is that you record an out and actually no run scored at all. And so it just subverts your expectations as a spectator. And even the most routine home run robbery, even when it's like Aaron Judge with his back against the wall and he just lifts his arm up and that's all he has to do, it's still. Still a pretty good play. And when it's a really good play, well, then there's nothing better than that, really. So I think it's good that the fence heights have kind of come down and that I even wrote about this back when everyone was wringing their hands about how there were too many home runs and the ball was too juiced. And I said, yeah, maybe, but the silver lining is more home run robberies, so that's nice at least. So, yeah, this was partly a product of the ballpark, but even so. So what SIS is. Is doing here? And again, this was the first three time they did have two games with two robberies on record. So Nook Logan did this in 2005, and then 20 years later, Jesus Sanchez did it. That was last year for the Astros.

[Meg Riley]

Okay.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And that's funny, because those are not the two names that would immediately come to mind. Probably. Like, if you had to guess it, it would be Trout, or it would be Kevin K. Or it would be Dalton Varshow, or, you know, it would be like.

[Meg Riley]

Like the good. The really good center fielders, the really

[Ben Lindbergh]

good outfielders, and the guys who played a lot, right? And. And Nick Logan was a good fielder, but he didn't Play all that much and Jesus Sanchez is fine, but you wouldn't think of him as a superlative glove guy. So again, there's an element of randomness to this because you just have to have the opportunity. The ball has to be perfectly positioned, the fence has to be a certain night. So it, it's not perfectly correlated with who are the best guys at doing this. But DRS does add a bonus value. So essentially they add 1.6 runs for a home run robbery, any home run robbery, plus the value of the catch itself.

[Meg Riley]

Okay.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And SIS has different out and catch probabilities. So theirs were a little lower than. MLB's Mark said that their out probabilities were 84% for the first, 54% for the second, and 64% for the third. And even those, maybe you think that doesn't sound low enough or why would the third one be higher than the second one? It's just, it's tough to, to really capture. Oh, he had to jump or he had to reach and everything.

[Meg Riley]

He had to hold on to the ball going into the stands.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, that too. So the combined value of the catches according to DRS in this game was 0.9 runs. So almost a run. But then they add 1.6 runs for each of the home run robberies, and so that's 4.8 plus the nine.

[Meg Riley]

So.

[Ben Lindbergh]

So you're getting five point something, maybe round up to six runs. So more than half a win in defensive value just for those three catches, which sounds certainly closer to. Right. Like, I mean, we know, of course, because it was a one nothing game and everything that he, he really did sort of single handedly, but three times saved the game.

[Meg Riley]

Right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

But that I think comports with one's gut sense better than the Statcast figures do. But then is that perfect? Maybe not, because that sort of one size fits all plus 1.6 runs. I'm sure there's an empirical basis for that number. But not all home run robberies are created equal, of course. And even Joe Adele's home run robberies in this game were not created equal. Right. So if one of Those was a 1.6 run saved, well, it doesn't seem like the others should be exactly, exactly the same. So it's a little bit of a fudge factor. But it's probably important that there be some sort of fudge factor rather than no fudge factor. So, yeah, maybe these are both imperfect attempts to answer a thorny question. But I think adding some extra credit does get at the extra credit that we all Award.

[Meg Riley]

When watching this, I do worry that we. And I say. When I say we, I mean the culture, collective, baseball writing, media, especially those of us who approach the game analytically. I do worry that we've, like, ruined the way that people watch baseball a little bit, because it's like that tweet that goes around where it's like, the kid and his dad are at a baseball game. He's like, shut up. I'm calculating.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Calculating one probability. Yeah.

[Meg Riley]

I understand the instinct to go to, oh, my God, what was that worth? Like, we. We published it. Okay. A good. I think a good piece at the site that Ryan Blake wrote.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yes.

[Meg Riley]

About this very question. So I'm not trying to, like, take a. A dig at Ryan, but sometimes I. I worry that we've. We've kind of trained people to think about this the wrong way because it's just like, what is it worth? What do you mean? What, like, you. You watched it? Why?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, it's. It's priceless. Because.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Look how cool that was. Yeah.

[Meg Riley]

And. And I do think that there's value in. In us trying to identify more perceived precisely, like, where that value comes from and. And what it means. And I think the differences in how the different systems account for that moment are really interesting, and I. I think, inspire a good conversation about, like, how we understand the game, but also, like, we didn't really, you know, look at any of that. Like, so freaking cool.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Like, look at that. As long as we lead with the coolness.

[Meg Riley]

Yes.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And then say, let's acknowledge that that was the important thing.

[Meg Riley]

Yes.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And now let's get nerdy and try to quantify what that was worth to team, because the entertainment value was off the charts.

[Meg Riley]

Right. And. And, you know, because we are able to imbue our understanding of that moment with all the context of the game and the score. Like, we don't. We know. We know. We know. But also, it's pretty cool.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah. And Tory Hunter, who, mind you, works for the Angels, but even so, he knows his way around an outfield fence in a home run robbery. He has 12 of them, according to SIS. And he said that it was probably the greatest defensive game I've ever seen, and it really was spectacular. Absolutely spectacular and sensational. And the funny thing is that even though SIS gives Adele 5 runs of credit for this, they still have him as 2 in right field on the season, which means that aside from. From these home run robberies, he's actually been negative 3 or 4 or something in all other plays and games. So yeah, even though they haven't had him as negative as statcast has, it's not like anyone thinks he's an amazing outfielder, which in a way just makes this all the more fun. And also I think that it has sort of swung back around when we talk about what it was worth because a game like this, this actually was worth a lot, however you slice it. And so we have calibrated our expectations to. You know, I've written and talked on the podcast in the past about how pre war and warp and vorp and all of these win value metrics, no one really knew what any player was worth. There was just no framework. And so you'd get all these just wild ass guesses where people would just kind of confidently say that someone was worth 20 wins or whatever. And so now that we know that's not really the case, we've reframed our expectations and we're all just very calm and measured and oh, even a MVP level season might only be seven or eight wins or something. And that probably wouldn't have seemed so impressive to people in a past era because they're 162 games. You're telling me the best player in a season might only help you win seven or eight games or something? It sounds like a drop in the bucket.

[Meg Riley]

It.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And because of that we're conditioned to think, well, one game doesn't really matter that much or it can't possibly, you can't accrue that much value in one game. Which is why I think we then freak out when you have some special game when you have like the two way Ohtani game, you know, I guess I should specify which two way Ohtani game, but one of the ones. Right. And other just really incredible offensive outbursts and then this a defensive outburst, which is right. Also that's kind of special because you don't get that many opportunities usually to make plays and catches in a game. And when you do, they're usually not this kind of opportunity. And so we talk about four homer games and incredible total base performances and everything. And you don't tend to talk about games where a defender, you might talk about one incredible player play, but it's usually not so cumulative. And so that sort of made this an outlier too where we're talking about three home run robberies in one game. Wow. But because of that, I think that makes us marvel all the more when we can actually quantify that someone made a meaningful addition to their totals, their season stats with one game. And so even if I could Say that this was worth more than half a win in one game. Well, we know now instinctively. Well, that's a lot because Joe Adele hit 37 homers last season and he was worth 1.2 WAR according to fan graphs. So it's like on defense, with these three plays, maybe he amassed half that much value. So that does kind of put it into perspective. And it swings all the way back around where we can then appreciate these single game performances even more because we're not accustomed to. To evaluating performance on that level, that more micro level.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah, I. That's right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I did want to shout out the Fangrass piece that you mentioned too, because that was yet another way or. Or multiple ways to evaluate this, which Ryan Blake wrote about. So he was looking at this through the lens of win probability added, which doesn't give Adele any credit for the home run robberies. Because wpa, one of the, the shortcomings, obvious shortcomings of that system is that defenders don't get credit. It's just the pitcher gets credit for all of the outs, which is, you know, not how you would want an advanced version of wpa, now that we have the data that we have to work. But it works fairly well historically speaking, and also to just sort of capture the excitement value of a game or a play. But defenders don't get any credit in that system.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And so Ryan was trying to figure out, well, what if you could kind of give him credit and just tinker with the system? And then what if you gave him credit for the out? That's one way to do it. But then what if you also gave him credit for the fact that by recording that out, he was also preventing a run from being scored? And then taking. Taking into account the score of the game. And then he really got into the weeds and was like, and what if he hadn't made the previous catch? Then what would that have been worth? So he ran the numbers every which way, and he found that if you give him credit only for the outs, then that performance or those three plays were worth 128 win probability added. So 12.8% of a win. And if you give him credit for the out and the run, taking into account that this was a one nothing game, then it was worth.0822, 82.2% of a win. And that, I think intuitively feels.

[Meg Riley]

Yes, feels right. That feels. Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Gotta give him like most of a win for that. Right. And I guess DRS is barely giving him most of a win, but then the home run robberies the defensive stats are not taking into account the score and everything. And so. So you know, do you want to take into account the context? Well, we have all these context neutral stats like WRC plus and WAR where you don't take that into account. But when the coolness factor is calculated, of course you take that into account here. So if you just come up with some medley of all these stats and different statistical approaches to answering this question, some melange of the various versions, then I think you could come up with a way where it was worth at least most of a win maybe. And that feels appropriate.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah, I think that that's right. It definitely felt closer to right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Anyway, one of the highlights of the season one way or another. Or really, I guess three of the highlights of the season. Switching gears slightly here, we can maybe talk a little bit about some slow starting, faltering, foundering AL east teams next time. I did want to note though, the Blue Jays have lit the Patrick Corbin signal and he has answered. They have signed Patrick Corbin. Really? The second consecutive season where we've had an emergency late Patrick Corbin signing because basically every Blue Jays starter is hurt. Well, not everyone. There are a couple important exceptions. Dylan Cease, Kevin Costman. Pretty important that those guys be healthy and they are. However, for Jose Barrios, elbow fracture, Treus Savage, shoulder inflammation, working his way back. Bowden Francis, of course had Tommy John surgery in the spring. Shane Bieber, he had elbow inflammation in the spring. He's not back yet. Cody Ponce hurt his knee, which was a big blow to him and the Blue Jays. And then Eric Lauer had the flu and Max Scherzer exited his start after a couple innings. He had forearm tendonitis. Sounds like he's hopefully okay, but he's old and Max shirt or so who knows. So this is a perfect storm. This is just a perfect confluence of circumstances for a team to say why not Patrick Corbin? And this is an even later signing than the previous Patrick Corbin signing. The Rangers signed him last year and that led to a bold prediction by Ben Clemens that he would throw a hundred innings for the Rangers. And I wanted to be even bolder than that and say he would lead the Ranger staff in innings, which he didn't quite do, but he was second and he threw 155 and a third innings for them and they kind of needed it. Not that he was fantastic or anything, but he provided the serviceable innings eating that he was signed to provide. And according to fangraphs, at least roughly a two win starter. So yeah, perfect little pickup nifty and that was on March 18th. So this time Toronto is upping the ante and signing him on April 3rd. And he has, I believe, reported to ABOL and so they have to stretch him out. I don't know how long it will take him to be big league ready and to provide reinforcements. The. The Corbin cavalry will arrive at some point. But here's the question. Where do we think Patrick Corbin will rank in innings pitched for the 2026 Blue Jays? Blue Jays fans right now are. Are groaning and moaning and saying, why are you playing this little game? This is not a game. This is our season. Our emotions are at stake. And if Patrick Corbin ranks high on that leaderboard, then it probably doesn't bode well for the Blue Jays. But what do. What do we think in terms of, you know, it's going to be tough for him to equal his Rangers innings count just because he's getting a later start. The season has. Has already begun, but the Fangraph's depth charts give him 33 innings. I'm taking the over on that. I understand why. Yeah, because he's like eighth on the death chart or something.

[Meg Riley]

But I mean, update alert though. Like, we have him as the number three starter. Yeah, well, I mean, Ponce. We found out today, just before we started recording actually that like Ponce needs knee surgery. His season's likely done. Like there's the recovery timeline for his particular injury is six months. So that basically takes him out for the whole thing. I mean. Ah, okay. Well, here's a. Is this an optimistic way to. To put this. Maybe his eventual innings total ends up being lower than whoever they trade for if they decide to trade for someone. But I might be pretty hot. I think it's. I mean, I'm taking the over on 30.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, me too. I think. Yeah. Not to question dramatically, Jason Martinez is fine work. But I just, I think Patrick Corbin, he just, he throws 30 evenings before he gets out of bed after six to eight alarms if he's Carter Jensen. So like I think and okay, Cease and Gosman, they're about as durable as pitchers get these days. So I see no reason to suggest that he will end up with more innings pitch than they get. And if he does, again, bad sign for the Poojays. But. But everyone else, it's not as if any of these other guys has a head start because it's the start of the season and they're all hurt. So you'd like to think that, yes, Savage will be good and will pitch more innings, but are you really counting on Obviously, you're not counting on Ponce. Can you really count on Burrios or Scherzer or Bieber, for that matter, to out throw? I was going to say out pitch, but just out inning. Patrick Corbin. I don't think you can, really. And maybe Lauer. But then maybe Lauer just ends up in the bullpen or. I guess it depends on how much they need him. So I'm. I'm kind of thinking it's like almost even odds that he throws as many innings as anyone other than cease or gossip. Not. Not on a pure performance basis. Because all those other guys on the depth charts should be better than he is in theory. But will they be as durable as he is? Is anyone as durable as Patrick Corbin? I kind of doubt it. So just by being present and a warm body, I think he has the inside track at being by bulk, the number three starter on this team. On the defending American League champions.

[Meg Riley]

It has been. It is dramatic. Like, it is a dramatic turn of events. For the first couple days, I was like, oh, my God, I'm seeing Louis Varland a lot. And now it's not funny anymore.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I guess it. It could be worse. It could be the Red Sox again. This will be our topic for next time, probably, but both those teams are up to lazy starts. Yeah, that's the thing. Red Sox might have a worse record, but Blue Jays just a more threadbare staff. And so that's going to affect the playoff odds, too. But we'll. We'll take the temperature of those teams and see if we can find a pulse on our next episodes. But, yeah, when you call in Corbin. Right. That's usually a sign at this stage that things are dire. And yet it also suggests that Patrick Corbin, once he's there, you know, it's. It's tough to get rid of him because he will. Will take the ball. He will always show up. And that turns out to be pretty important when you just do not have a starting staff.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah, I mean, I think that what it really suggests is that the Blue Jays need to help bring my bold prediction to fruition and bring in the big maple.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Who better, oh, yes.

[Meg Riley]

To save the fate of this Canadian team than a Canadian.

[Ben Lindbergh]

You know, when you think durability, dependability, you think.

[Meg Riley]

You think of James Jackson, you think of James Paxton. You think about James Paxton looking great in the WBC and how hard his fastball was, and you don't think about anything else.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yep.

[Meg Riley]

Yep.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Okay. I'm gonna say I think. I think he will end up with the fourth most Innings on the Blue Jays this year, I'm gonna say cease Gossman, have him beat and then. And at least one of the other starters is healthy enough and good enough to throw more innings than Patrick Corbin. But if he was more or less ready, I don't know what his level of readiness is. Is this like, you know, was he throwing, was he training, was he waiting by the phone for the call? And thus he might just need a tune up start or two and then he'll be as good as Patrick Corbin can be at this point or is this more starting from a standstill? Will he need several starts sometimes? So I would guess that a guy like that, he could get ready pretty quickly. And yeah, I think one of the other injury question marks will pitch warnings than he is or I just, I don't. It's hard to foresee him getting forced off of this staff which to be clear, he has not actually been added to. He is in the minors. So you know, he has to actually make the big league club before he can accrue innings.

[Meg Riley]

He gotta make a big club club though.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah. I'm not betting against Patrick Corbin when it comes to compiling innings pitched. So I think he will end up improbably high on the leaderboards and that's probably not good. It wasn't great for the Rangers last year, although the Rangers, you know, the record didn't reflect the run differential. Yeah, he, he did what he was asked to do. And right now you would settle for what Patrick Corbin did for Texas last year if you're Toronto. But it's not, it's not what you want, as Joe Gerardi used to say. So it's not what you want. I will also note that there was Maybe the most 2026 game that transpired because replay review and all the forms of replay review and challenge system just seemingly swung this game and swung an inning and helped the team break a game wide open. This was last week and it was a Diamondbacks Braves game. I don't know if you were watching this one because you were traveling, but this ended up being brave 17, Diamondbacks 2.

[Meg Riley]

Oh boy.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, but it was a lot closer than that when the fifth inning started and when the Braves came to bat in the top of the fifth, this was in Arizona, I believe it was a 21 Braves game and then all hell broke loose because of the recourse that players have now. So Ozzy Albies was leading off for Atlanta and there was a full count pitch three and two and he got rung up and he thought it was a ball and he challenged and he strutted down to first confidently. Didn't even wait for the review and the review who bore out his challenge. And so a strikeout was converted into a walk. And so that sort of set Atlanta up in a way that they wouldn't have been in any previous season. And then Michael Harris the second lined out, but then Dominic Smith walked. So Albies was in scoring position. And then Mauricio De Bon bounced a ball to third base. I'm following along with an Andrew Mearns recap at Baseball Prospectus here, but this was a chopper, a bouncer to Nolan Arenado and 2026. Arenado is not what he once was. So he bobbled it. And instead of being an inning ending double play or at least a fielder's choice, if there had been no ABs and Alfies had been retired then the Braves were alive, the inning continued. So that was a product of this being the late model Arnado instead of peak Arnado. But then after that error, bases were loaded and Acuna walked. So they were kind of being careful, perhaps too careful with him. Then Drake Baldwin hit another possible double play ball to Arado. He handled this one. He threw it to Catal Marte at second for one out. And then Marte through to Carlos Santana who is playing first base for what would have been the third out. But Baldwin beat it out and the first base umpire said that he didn't said that the throw beat him. And so this was challenge too. We had a now old fashioned replay review and so the inning did not end on this call either. And then it was off to the races and there were three doubles and a walk and a single. That was Albies batting around, coming up for the second time. And so siggling. And so it was an eight running inning and it ended up being 17 2. And it was the first time in a quarter century that every Atlanta starter drove in at least one run and it turned out to be a blowout. But this was kind of a only in 2026 game because if this had been played pre challenge system, if it had been played pre replay review could have been at least a close game and maybe a completely different outcome. And obviously I'm not suggesting that the inning would have played out exactly the same way had there been no challenge system and no replay. You can't just assume that everything else would have happened the way that it happened, but probably it would not have been an eight run inning. And I think this is a good thing to Be clear, it wasn't good thing for the Diamondbacks, but I think it's a good thing that these kind of clear mistakes can be corrected. Yeah, but it did really hit home just how much of a difference this might make in any given game. Cuz it's, it's kind of like we were talking about with Adele. Any individual play, any individual game you could look at a, a replay review that led to an overturn or a challenge that led to an overturn and say well, that was worth o whatever or 0.1 whatever in run value. And, and yeah, that's probably true on the whole. And usually when a play gets overturned it doesn't enable an eight run inning, but sometimes it does. And this was just a run of the mill or I guess it ended up not being run of the mill, but it was just a April regular season game. And yet this kind of thing could very easily happen in a higher stakes game. And you know, these are two potential playoff contenders and who knows if the game swinging that way will have some impact on the playoff race. But it just, it reminds me really, because I kind of take it for granted now that these things can be changed. And yet you play out the alternative history where there was no challenge and no review and maybe that game ends completely differently and maybe some other more important game ends completely differently. And there's a baseball butterfly effect and everything, it alters the entire course of baseball history. So maybe this isn't news to anyone, but this was just, I think, a really stark illustration of the fact that even if one particular review or challenge, you wouldn't expect it to be decisive. Sometimes it really can be. And, and I guess that's good. I think that's good. And we'll just never fully appreciate this because we'll never be able to see what would have happened. What happened in the alternate universe where everything in this game happened the same way except that Albies couldn't challenge and there couldn't be a replay review on that alcohol at first base. But everything could be different.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah, it is stark, you know, and we used to just live with it.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, that's the thing. Wasn't as if we lived with it without complaining.

[Meg Riley]

Oh no, we definitely complained about it. We complained about it constantly. Yes, as well we should. Should because it was just annoying.

[Ben Lindbergh]

But it was ultimately impotent complaining because we couldn't do anything about it. And you did at some point just accept it. Maybe you didn't accept it if it was in a World Series game. And there's Famous, infamous examples of that. But then it might haunt you forever and haunt the people involved in it forever. But usually you just would kind of let it go and hope and suspect that it all would even out and that a call would go your way and. And probably it would. And it did. And with a big enough sample and large numbers. Yeah, you'd get credit and things would go your way once and they'd go against you once and you know, ultimately it would kind of come out in the wash, but not in any individual game. So I think this is good, is what I'm saying. But it's. It's also meaningful. It can actually demonstrably change the outcome of baseball games, which is why we do it this way, obviously. I mean, if it never affected the outcome of a game, then no one would have bothered to put these things in place and no one would have cared about their absence to begin with. But yeah, it's just don't forget that these things do actually seriously affect the outcome of games. And that inning alone was just. If you showed that inning to someone even 15 years ago. Right. It would have been not inconceivable. Maybe. But certainly from a. A different far future alternate version of baseball that we are now living in and will probably quickly come to take for granted, even as it pertains to the challenge system.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I have a few email responses that I will share with you about a couple of topics that we have discussed recently. So we answered an email last week about Emmett Sheehan and his alleged eyewash because he was sort of of no. Selling the ring ceremony because he was warming up for a start. And evidently he didn't really react to being put on the big board. And so there was a question of is this eyewash that he is trying not to show that he's affected by this moment. So a listener named Willie did a little research here and wrote in episode 2460, you mentioned how strange it was that Emmett Sheehan did not acknowledge the crowd during the World Series ring ceremony ceremony. He was too busy long tossing, which is a weird look. I think he's just aping the behavior of many a starting pitcher before him.

[Meg Riley]

Oh, sure.

[Ben Lindbergh]

If memory serves, starters rarely if ever acknowledge the crowd when lineups are introduced during the playoffs. That makes sense. They have good reason to be focused. Yeah, but even during previous ring ceremonies, the behavior sometimes persists. I watched a sampling of other ring ceremonies to confirm. So I appreciate this little legwork that Willie did here in 2016. Chris Young skipped the ceremony because he, quote, didn't want any distractions and wanted to focus on winning. Well, that's. I mean, that's the ultimate eyewash. That's some Pedro Griffol saying he didn't have time to watch the solar eclipse because he lives baseball level. Eyewash. You're skipping because you want to focus on winning. Focus on the fact that you. You did win. I mean, I understand, sure. Keep your eyes on the future and what have you done for me lately? And don't live in the past and everything. Keep your eyes on the prize, the next prize, but also sometimes keep your eyes on the previous prize that you already won. I think you're. You're allowed to wallow in that victory one time at least.

[Meg Riley]

Would you describe it as wallowing?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Wallowing has a. Yeah, wallowing sounds bad, I guess. Yeah.

[Meg Riley]

Negative connotation.

[Ben Lindbergh]

But revel. Yeah, revel.

[Meg Riley]

Revel.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I was thinking, you know, wallowing like. Like a pig in mud. You know, they like doing that. But.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah, I don't know if I'd use. I mean, I think they would revel in mud too. They'd be revelers. You can have little piggy revelers. I bet they'd be so cute. But they'd be so cute in their little mud. I. I think our point was more like, hey, buddy, unclench a little. Like, you can. You can let yourself enjoy this. Not. Not that there was no pressure precedent for it, but I think you're right that, like, sometimes these guys, you can. And you can just crack it. You can just crack a smile, wave your little hat, you know?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah.

[Meg Riley]

What do you have that little hat for if not to wave it? I mean, to keep this on out of your eyes. It's mostly what it's there for.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah.

[Meg Riley]

Do you think it's weird that pitchers never wear sunglasses? Well, I'm gonna. I'm gonna confess something to you, Ben. My background anxiety over the course of our recording has ratcheted it up. And so I'm trying so hard to stay in the moment.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah. I would think, you know, it's hard to have stability when you're on the mound and your head's jerking around. That's one reason why you probably shouldn't challenge if you're a pitcher and.

[Meg Riley]

Right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And the. The pitcher challenges have all but dried up. Not that there were that many, but they've basically.

[Meg Riley]

Right. There only been a couple.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah. But I don't know that it would be. Be seen as distracting or something, but I think probably. I mean, pitchers, they don't even wear protective Headwear, mostly. Even though it could save their life. Yeah, well, you do have to, I guess, see where you're throwing ideally and in the past, see signals and everything.

[Meg Riley]

Right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

But. Although I guess it added some intimidation value with some pitchers who had the real Coke bottle glasses, and it was like, well, can they even see me?

[Guest or Caller 1]

I don't know.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Know. But fear factor sometimes, maybe that can help the intimidation, but yeah. Chris Young. This is the pitcher, Chris Young, the current pobo, Chris Young. He won one World Series in his career. Well, now he's won one as a pobo, but he won one as a player.

[Meg Riley]

He was with Kansas City.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Right, with Kansas City. And so they won in 2015. This was 2016. And. And yeah, if he. I mean, look, I guess if it was Iwash, I've met him. He seems like a nice fellow and obviously. Obviously quite respected in the game and. And made his way to the upper echelons of a baseball operations department quite quickly. So maybe if it was Iwash, it. It served him well, I guess. But. But that's. Yeah, you can focus on having won. I think when you have won the World Series, you can take a little victory lap. It's okay. Anyway, so that's, I think, more egregious than Emmett Sheehan. In 2017, Willie reports John Lackey eagerly came out of the dugout and explained accepted his ring. Good for him. In 2018, Justin Verlander failed to recognize the crowd while tossing in the outfield. Okay, so he did a sheen. I can't access footage for 2019, but I found a report that Chris Sale was busy getting ready for his start on Tuesday. So he didn't participate in the ring ceremony. In 2020, the ceremony seems to have been done in the locker room. Well, that makes sense. No fans, right? In 2021, Walker Bueller didn't appear on the broadcast at all. And they played footage of him as he was playing preparing for his start. In 2022, Kyle Wright barely looked up while doing some arm circles. In 2023, the broadcast didn't cut to Christian Javier. So inconclusive. In 2024, Cody Bradford received his ring on the field. All right, good for him. And in 2025, Yoshinobu Yamamoto did not acknowledge the crowd while getting ready in the bullpen. So Willie concludes, it's weird, but it doesn't lack precedent. And in fact, maybe Emmett Sheehan, even though I guess he had not literally been there before because he wasn't in the World Series in 2024, but. But maybe he saw that Yamamoto didn't acknowledge the crowd and so he thought, veteran move. That's what we do here. That's how we handle it. That's the Dodgers way. And so I'll, I'll follow his lead or something. But I don't know. I, I say enjoy the moment. That's.

[Meg Riley]

I agree.

[Ben Lindbergh]

That's the pinnacle. That's what you've been working towards. So. So take a bow.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah. I also just maybe the way to do it, maybe the way to convince them of it. Because I do think that this is a lot of, you know, there's, there is real focus going on. I don't mean to impugn the focus entirely, but it does feel as if some of it is. Certainly I must project the image of a focused starter. A locked in guy.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah.

[Meg Riley]

And I would just offer, I think you're, you're more talented if you can like break character for a second and then lock back in, you know.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah.

[Meg Riley]

Everything about that, Everything about the added challenge of the re. Engagement to the locking in. Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah.

[Meg Riley]

I hope players don't listen to our podcast.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Here's another response we got from Patreon. Patreon supporter Billy, who notes that we talked about AJ Preller trading himself and wondered what the value of a front office executive would be. And this is a important precedent that maybe we could have mentioned. He notes there was actually precedent of this or for this. When the Cubs signed Theo Epstein from the Red Sox in 2011, he was still under contract with Boston. The Cubs ended up having to send compensation to the Red Sox in the form of pitcher Chris Carpenter. Not that Chris Carpenter. Later, Theo hired Jed hoyer and Jason McLeod from the Padres even though they were both under contract, as well as general manager and director of scouting and player development, respectively. The Cubs also had to send compensation to the Padres Giovanni Soto, not that Giovanni Soto for this quote, unquote trade as well. So there is precedent for A.J. preller's team already doing this before he came on board. So. So, yeah, not exactly the same, I guess. Not technically a trade, but sort of, kind of comparable situation. And I don't know that this exactly exposes the value of a front office executive in mlb. I think probably there was, you know, there's kind of a courtesy here and someone wants to leave and the way that Epstein's tenure in Boston ended and everything. So I don't know the. That we can necessarily say, aha. This is the perfect example to show how teams value front office executives, especially one like Theo. But yeah, there has at least been player compensation exchanged for MLP executives and even Padres executives, in fact. So that seems relevant. Thank you for pointing that out, Billy. And lastly, I have an email here from Theo in the uk who weighs in with a cricket comp. Can I hit you with a cricket comp?

[Meg Riley]

You can. I don't know that I'll understand it, but you can sure try.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Me neither, but I know I'll enjoy it. It's been a while since we've had one of these, but I think this is. Oh, man. Third one. This is like three. Joe Adele home run. I didn't even really in a single game.

[Meg Riley]

First two, like Joe Adele's third home run robbery. I think that that was the.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yes, this was the last and the best because the. The other two were conscious. I was aware it was premeditated, or at least I was aware of what I was doing, whereas this time. Yeah, I didn't see it coming. Yeah.

[Guest or Caller 2]

Right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Okay. Well, we like to. To bring up comps from our. Our sister sports, a progenitor of baseball, cricket, which is this weird kind of bizarro baseball, where it's very recognizable in some respects and completely alien to our American sensibilities in other respects.

[Meg Riley]

But.

[Ben Lindbergh]

But I think. Think this is enlightening. So Theo in the UK says in episode 2459, there was a detailed discussion of possible alterations to be made to the Challenge system following complaints that some people had about its initial implementation. And much as there are not as many similarities between the sports as thought by people who don't follow one or follow neither of them, it made me think of cricket. Ben spoke about tennis Hawkeye technology in an earlier episode. But cricket, too, used Hawkeye for a sport spell before moving fully over to its own DRS Decision Review System, which allows players from either team to challenge an umpire's decision, most commonly on calls related to whether a batter has hit a ball before a fielder catches it, using a recently embattled system called Snicko, which I love, by the way. Snicko.

[Meg Riley]

It's like Sno.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Snicko. It's the.

[Meg Riley]

It's called Snicko.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, it's. It's the one where it's like. It's based on sound and they have a snickometer and it's like, you know, they have like the. The friction one, which has been used in baseball indication that uses like the heat, you know, just like looks at the infrared or whatever and can tell whether there was contact or something. But then there's. There's Snicko, which has, like the waveform and the oscilloscope and there's a microphone and so it can kind of tell whether something made contact with something else.

[Meg Riley]

And no offense, but I feel like you explaining what Snicker can do is a lot like putting like a run value on Jodo's. You didn't have to tell me any more than Snicko. I'm sold. Best system ever.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah.

[Meg Riley]

Nikko. Snicko.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Snicko. Yes. So with that using a recently embattled system called Snicko. Sorry to hear that Snicko is embattled. Or whether a batter's leg leg is judged to be in front of the stumps when the ball strikes the batter's leg before they have hit it, which is of course a leg before wicket or LBW in one method of dismissal in the sport. In the case of leg before wicket, when using ball tracking technology, the umpire is given the benefit of the doubt if less than 50% of the ball in its calculated flight is seen to be going on to hit the stumps. For example, if Alice Capsi is facing the bowling of Amelia Kirk, the ball hits Capsi's leg and Kura peels and the umpire gives Capsy out. Capsy can choose to use one of the team's reviews, which has been three per team per innings since COVID The review can confirm that she is out, overturn the umpire's decision, or return the result of umpire's call in which Capsy would still be judged to be out but her team would not lose the review. The introduction of umpire's call has definitely led to fewer instances of frustration with a team like losing reviews on marginal calls, though it has also led to more speculative reviews from batters and fielding captains alike. Considering that baseball contains a far greater number of instances in which a review could be used, the implementation of an umpire's call system would lead to a great many more reviews as players are going to be less fearful of losing reviews for their teammate down the line. Though the ABS system is very fast to confirm or deny calls, I could see these extra ump checks adding up and ultimately becoming a slightly more boring experience for teams and spectators alike. I instead like to think of review strategy as being something that teams will have to improve upon. I'm certain the teams have review strategies in cricket, but the coaches can do nothing if batters such as Steve Smith or Shane Watson get given out leg before wicket just to review it and see that 100% of the ball was going to hit the very middle of the stumps. As so often happened, I can understand with the optimized mindset of baseball fans, that anyone mistake that leads to an incorrect decision being made could be seen as anathema to the spirit of sport. But I would also argue that it is entirely your fault for wasting reviews earlier in the game. And lastly, in one of the more notable cricket matches in recent years at Headingley in 2019, Australian spin bowler Nathan Lyon bowled a ball to England batter Ben Stokes. Having been down and out for much of the game, Stokes had dragged England back into it with a remarkable innovation, such that they only needed two to win. this point, Stokes missed his shot, it hit him in the leg in front of the stumps, and umpire Joel Wilson did not give it as out. Australia were unable to review and Stokes would go on to win the game for England. In the next over, Australia had wasted their final review on a speculative pointless appeal just six balls before Lyons not out decision. Had they used their reviews better, they would have had the chance to review the one that was a clear error, rather than fishing wishing for something that wasn't there. So Theo concludes that it's comparing apples to oranges, to be sure, or baseball to cricket. But I think that the umpire's call margin in baseball would have to be very small indeed for it not to completely change the passage of time in the game. I also think the teams are still very much to blame if they find themselves out of reviews. Cricket fans will still lament particularly poor umpiring decisions. But Drs, the cricket version has actually meant that bad calls don't become as much an individual talking point, just part of the fabric and narrative of the game. Yeah, so Theo thinks ABS will make umps better and teams will get more strategic and better with their review calls, but I suppose only time will tell. And yeah, I think that will happen, or is already happening.

[Meg Riley]

I'm a snicko sicko.

[Ben Lindbergh]

We understood every word of that email. Thank you very much, Theo.

[Meg Riley]

I was listening to everything that you said, but I will admit to only listening to it with like 85% attention because I was waiting for the opportunity to say snicko sicko and you nailed it.

[Ben Lindbergh]

You did not miss your opportunity.

[Meg Riley]

Thank you.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I do find though, that when people say that replay review should be real time and that if you need to slow it down, then it shouldn't count and that's not the intended purpose of replay and everything, I quite strongly disagree with that position. I understand. And we've complained about the, the. The sort of, you know, the, the persnickety. The. Not snicko, but, you know, the. The ones where really, like, it's frame by frame and, oh, that guy lost contact by a millimeter with the base. And maybe there's a better way to handle this. But I do think that if we constrained it such that you couldn't even slow down the replay and it had to be just watching it in real time, I think that kind of defeats the purpose or a lot of the purpose of replay, because, okay, if you were fully focused on the repl, you'd still have a better look at it than when it's actually happening in the moment. But I think sometimes it's okay to slow it down and get a better look than we actually can because we want to improve upon human eye accuracy. Right. And so in order to improve upon human eye accuracy, we have to improve upon the human eye also, to some extent, I think. And maybe you can take it too far, and maybe some sports have, if not baseball, But I think that's too limiting to say that you either have to challenge it in a split second or you have to watch it in real time. Because, no, to me, it's. It's not sort of getting away from the intended purpose of the thing because I think you would still have a lot of pretty serious missed calls. And I think people would be upset by that, maybe more so than they are by calls sometimes taken a little too much. 1.

[Meg Riley]

I feel like there's a midway point where I don't need it to. I don't need replay reviews to unfold in real time. I think slowing it down in some instances is fine. I do support like a, you know, kind of a zone of safety over the bag, because coming off just ever so slightly seems like it isn't what we were trying to solve for. But I am sympathetic to the idea of, like, hey, this has been taking a really long time.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Sure.

[Meg Riley]

And maybe it's taken too long. And if it's taken this long, you don't know well enough to overturn what you saw on the field. Even though I do want the standard to be like, the call being correct rather than having a. A deference in every circumstance to the call on the field. I think when you truly can't tell. But the clear and convincing is just like a. I don't love that standard. But I think we agree mostly.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, I like that better. Yeah. If you say you can look at any angle and any footage and slow it down as much as you want, but you have only X minutes to make that call, yeah, yeah. I'd be more on board with that.

[Meg Riley]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Okay. Here's something fun for you. I read in Craig Calcatera's cup of Coffee newsletter this little blurb which Craig wrote about a Tigers broadcast and I quote, I'm glad I tuned in because I got to hear Tigers analyst Andy Dirk Dirks refer to a pulled home run by Luke Kishel as a nice piece of hitting. Which is technically true because you cannot do anything nicer than hit a home run. But usually that phrase is reserved for slapping the ball the other way. While in a pitcher's count an inning earlier, Dirks referred to a cleanly pulled first pitch single as a nice piece of hitting as well. So I can only assume the Analysts Guild is going to have a word with him soon for breaking long standing industry conventions. It's true. A nice piece of hitting hitting I'm sure we've talked about this tends to be reserved for going the other way, taking what you're given, going with the pitch, not trying to do too much, etc. So this is very modern terminology for Andy Dirks to refer to a pulled home run as a nice piece of hitting, which of course it is. So I asked Dirk's broadcast partner in the Tigers booth, Jason Benetti, whether Dirks is intentionally trying to reclaim the phrase nice piece of hitting for pull hitters. And Benetti said, so that's why I haven't seen him today. The Guild kidnapped him. The Analysts Guild, that is. But I said, well, if you do find, rescue him from the Guild, I am actually curious, is Andy Dierks just partial to pole hitting or is he trying to subvert the broadcasting cliche? As I noted to Jason, Dirks was not himself particularly a pole hitter. I said maybe he wishes he had been. He would have been a better hitter if he had hit more pulled home runs. And Jason said, I think his homers were pull side. So maybe it's power aspirational. And that's true. 23 of his 24 career major league home runs were pulled. One was hit dead center center. So Benetti got back to me later and said that Dirks response with a smile was no, never. As far as whether he ever intentionally repurposed this phrase to refer to pull hitting. So no, he's not trying to defy convention. But as I said to Jason, maybe defying convention intuitively instead of intentionally makes it even more mold breaking. He's a true original. I'll return to Benetti in a bit, but while we're on the subject I thought I would play you an excerpt from the most recent episode of Hang up and Listen, the sports podcast I've been co hosting at Slate for a while and Hang up is actually coming to an end at Slate soon. The door isn't completely closed on it continuing elsewhere, but either way it's the end of an era, an almost 17 year run at Slate, even more of a podcast institution than Effectively Wild. And I have been honored to be the podcast steward since the original host departed, which has lasted a lot longer than I had any reason to expect and as I've noted has really broadened my sports horizons. So I would be sorry to see it go. And I guess we'll find out whether I would then lose all of the sports knowledge that I have gained. Would it be kind of a Flowers for Algernon situation where I would go from knowing only about baseball to becoming an all purpose sports pundit and then back to being oblivious to anything but baseball again? We'll see. I hope not. I think knowing about other sports just makes me a better baseball writer and talker too. Anyway, my favorite thing about doing Hang up and Listen has been contributing occasional After Balls, which is the closing segment where one of the hosts just monologues about something that is of interest to them, can be kind of quirky, can be a personal soapbox. There can be a bit of reporting involved. I played a previous Hang Up After Ball on Effectively Wild Episode 2243 about baseball clues in crossword puzzles. Anyway, this might be the final afterball, so I tried to do the segment justice. And this one is very effectively wild coded, I guess because it's Ben Lindbergh coded and it's also related to baseball and it's very stat blasty in nature. It's about a fellow traveler in the world of sports, stat blasting and also broadcasting in, including baseball broadcasting. So sit back, listen and enjoy. Well, if this is the final afterball of the Hang up and Listen era at Slate, I want my favorite segment to go out in style. So for this edition I made a couple of calls, but not nearly as many calls as the inspiration for this after ball. On Sunday afternoon in Philadelphia, Kenny Albert was on the mic for a Flyers Bruins national broadcast on tnt. Here's his call of the overtime five on three game winner for Philly, which was top prospect Porter Martone's first NHL goal. Two man advantage.

[Guest or Caller 1]

Here is Forster across to Z. Forster once again. Here's Secrets down low in front all stock to score.

[Ben Lindbergh]

That game marked Albert's 1538th national television broadcast of an NHL, NFL or MLB game, which left him six behind the all time record for national broadcasts of the big four North American men's sports leagues, the legendary Dick Stockton's 1544. Albert closed the gap to five on Monday night in Toronto when he did a Dodgers Blue Jays game for Fox Sports 1 and got to call a Shohei Otani home run.

[Guest or Caller 1]

21 from Man Supply and Otani sends this one to deep center field.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It is out of here. Albert is on track to surpass Stockton during the NHL playoffs later this month, as he confirmed when I called him on Monday morning before that World Series.

[Guest or Caller 2]

Yeah, that sounds about right because I have a baseball game tonight. Two more hockey regular season games, so I guess first round sounds like it's on target.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Albert's near record total is pretty impressive, not only because of how prolific he's been and how much hectic travel he's done, but because he's such a sports polymath. He's not just the national voice of one sport, he's one of the most prominent national voices of three. In addition to thousands of local TV and radio broadcasts, he's done 563 national NHL broadcasts. 530 for the NFL and 446 for MLB, which makes him 9th, 10th and 14th all time in those respective sports. Put those totals together and he's almost unequaled. Albert will get his well deserved plaudits when he becomes the national number one. But what won't be as well known is how we're even aware of the broadcast counts I'm citing. After all, Albert himself has no precise record of how many games he's done.

[Guest or Caller 2]

I've never actually kept a list myself. I think I started, you know, way back 36 years ago ago when I, when I started broadcasting minor league hockey. Those first couple of years, I think I kept a list of the games and you know, then it just kind of got too hard. I never really continued with an actual list.

[Ben Lindbergh]

If it was too hard for Albert to keep track of his own tally, imagine keeping track of the totals for every national announcer. Imagine keeping track of the totals for every national announcer, not just in the present, but for decades of past broadcast too. That's the Sisyphean task undertaken by Tony Miller, who's kept tabs on sports broadcasts at the website unnecessary sportsresearch.com since 2016 and his labors began before that.

[Guest or Caller 1]

I mean, the actual announcer tabulating would go back to probably 2013 or 2014, but it would have been about Christmas 2015, when I felt like I had all four of those sports under some level of control. And then it was like, well, I have this information, what can I do with it? And one of the first things was feeling like there should be a central place where, where that information lives or people look for it.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It wasn't long before Miller's work started to get attention worldwide, both from appreciative people and from some who were quizzical.

[Guest or Caller 1]

One of the first ones I did was Al Michaels called a Super bowl for his, I think, milestone game where he passed somebody on an NFL list 10 or 12 years ago. And I, I tweeted about that from my personal account because there's, there wasn't an unnecessary sports research account at the time. And somebody responded to it in Italian after it had gotten retweeted and passed around the web a few times. And I wasn't sure what I, what it said, so I ran it through Google Translate or whatever and it comes back. I don't want to say that Americans are infatuated with statistics, but they even have statistics about their announcers, which, yep, that's what we do here.

[Ben Lindbergh]

That's what Miller does at least. And he has a fan in Albert who started seeing Miller's stats on social media around the same time and even mentioned Miller's site in his memoir, A Mic for All Seasons.

[Guest or Caller 2]

The first time I saw it, you know, I could tell the numbers were really close, if not exact. You know, before I started to see Tony's work, whenever I was asked about approximate number of games in each sport or total, I was able to get pretty close, I think with an approximate number. But I don't know how there are enough hours in the day for him to keep up with all this stuff with so many different networks and people, you know, the various sports. So it's, the work that he's done is incredible and certainly trustworthy. So it's amazing. I have a huge appreciation for what he does and it's crazy how, you know, his databases and the research is just incredible. I don't know how, you know, going back to the 1950s and 60s, I don't even know where this information was that he found. I've checked out the, checked out the website and some of the charts and the amount of hours that he's put in.

[Ben Lindbergh]

How many hours might that be? Miller, who lives in Indiana, has a full time job at a healthcare facility and a part time gig as the statistician for the athletic department at Goshen College, an NAIA School. So unnecessary sports research is an unpaid project for his spare time. How much time does he devote to it?

[Guest or Caller 1]

Probably more than I should. But oddly, how much time I spend on this for as much time as I spend adding things up, that's one thing I've never tried to add up. There's part of me that doesn't really pay attention to that because I don't want to know. You know, then I, if I had the data, I'd have to start justifying it, right? But there's only so much time in the day and so much energy to devote to this in and around the other parts of trying to be a functioning human being.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Miller's self appointed task requires him to monitor several sources to keep his stats up to date.

[Guest or Caller 1]

So much of that is stuff that you track down. I mean network press releases, social media posts, tuning in and watching the games themselves, obviously. Although that is of limited use when you're talking about what's coming up in the next couple years of, of days or weeks because you limit yourself to what got mentioned on the air. And then yes, there's several very large spreadsheets that have, you know, months and weeks out into the future and what games are on and who do we know to be doing them. And this never stops. That's the part that I probably wasn't prepared for the most.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And the same fracturing of the broadcast landscape that fans lament because it makes accessing games more complicated and pricey also adds to Miller's troubles.

[Guest or Caller 1]

Yes, it makes it harder. You know, I think about now when you're putting games on Apple TV and Prime Video and whatever other site that we may or may not have heard of yet there are different places to keep track of and what really qualifies as national television.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yet that, Miller says, is the straightforward part. Fleshing out the historical record was the thornier challenge. Miller has done his own delving into video and newspaper archives, but he also built on the existing research of like minded hobbyists who documented announcer assignments using satellites, libraries and media guides, and then shared that info on forums and message boards.

[Guest or Caller 1]

The part that really turned me onto wait, this could, could work in a historical sense came from realizing that there were other people out there that wondered about and thought about, you know, who was doing the game of the week in 1960 or 1970. People like that did a lot of legwork. And I came through and said, what happens if we put all of these things, things in spreadsheets and put numbers on them?

[Ben Lindbergh]

What happened was people paid attention, perhaps A surprising number of people.

[Guest or Caller 1]

Before social media, this, this was a couple of people's niche hobby that never really would have gone beyond them. And now I shudder to think at how many followers are out there paying attention to sports announcer counting. Certainly this is a case of, if I go back to when I started putting these spreadsheets together, 10, 11, 12 years ago ago, there's no way I would have figured that I'd be doing a podcast interview like this someday.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Despite Miller's best efforts, national announcer stats will probably never be verifiably comprehensive. And although he'd like to expand his purview to other kinds of competition, mls, women's leagues, the Olympics, the data gets even tougher to wrangle beyond the big four.

[Guest or Caller 1]

It reminds me of a disclaimer that I've seen at the top of some lists on Wikipedia, which is a site I've probably spent a little too much time on, and the never ending quest for information you didn't know you needed. There are some lists that are like, this list will probably never be able to satisfy certain standards for completeness. Like regardless of what we put on here, somebody is going to have some level of doubt about what's on it. Should this be on it? Should this really be here? This work, I think is very much in that category.

[Ben Lindbergh]

But unnecessary sports research has become the de facto official record of the industry. Miller has seen his stats cited in network press release releases, and thanks to his painstaking tracking, Albert has been hailed by his employers and co workers when he called his 500th national NFL and NHL games, when he passed his father Marv on the all time national broadcast list, and when he took over the top spot on Miller's play by play leaderboard. And so when someone celebrates a milestone, bakes you a cake, or says something on air, that's been going based on this site's research, yes, pretty much.

[Guest or Caller 2]

It really is. You know, it's neat that those of us in the, in the industry on this side of it can kind of check out the numbers and look at some of the other names and it's, you know, somewhat surreal to see a lot of the other names that are on the list. You know, when you start looking at the numbers and where, where everybody ranks

[Ben Lindbergh]

at this point, in a sense, Miller says announcer stats are a strange thing for non announcers to care about.

[Guest or Caller 1]

It's not even the people playing the sports, it's the people broadcasting the sports, which is an important part of how we consume the sports. You know, so many of us grew up listening to Joe Buck and Bob Costas do baseball, Marv Albert do basketball, that sort of thing. They become the conduit that connects us to the actual sports. But it's still like a degree removed from the people who actually put the ball in the basket. I'm sure I would talk to some people that I would say that, oh, Kenny Albert's about to have done more of these games than any other sportscaster in American history. And they'd be like, who's Kenny Albert? And I. And I'm like, oh, yeah, there are 300 million people in this country and a large percentage of those don't even watch the Super Bowl.

[Ben Lindbergh]

342 million people actually, but who's counting? Well, the US Census Bureau is. We don't need Tony Miller for that. But if Tony weren't tracking announcer assignments, it's likely that no one would be and we wouldn't know about Albert's impending milestone, which would be a loss on some level.

[Guest or Caller 1]

Calling it trivia is probably, you know, not wrong. There's a George Will quote about how nothing about baseball was really true. Trivial because, you know, everything can become a useful piece of information later. It feels like it's trivial until it isn't.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It's not trivial to Albert. It's his life's work quantified. And he's honored to be passing Stockton, a former Fox Sports colleague whom he's known and admired since the 90s. Miller, meanwhile, accepted that his own childhood dreams of athletic or broadcasting stardom wouldn't come true. But he has put his stamp on the sports world. And in typical self effacing fashion, the Cubs, Bears and Pacers fan prefers not to share his personal rankings of broadcasters, Albert included.

[Guest or Caller 1]

Albert obviously has, I think you could make up a sport and within a couple of weeks Kenny Albert would be sounding like he had done it for years. Certainly in this capacity, though, I prefer to stay impartial and not take sides about, okay, this guy's good, this guy's not so great. I don't think that me adding my, my voice to that equation helps a lot. Who I like or don't like doesn't really make a difference. It's what's on that counts. At some level, the numbers speak for themselves. Kenny Albert's gotten himself on national TV 1500 times and I've gotten myself on national TV a whopping zero.

[Ben Lindbergh]

He will be watching a lot of national TV in the coming weeks. Neither Albert nor Miller plans to slow down anytime soon. In fact, they're both about to enter their busiest time of the year with the possible exception of October. October.

[Guest or Caller 1]

Baseball is getting going and we're, you know, we're going to turn the corner next week into the playoffs and we're going to have nights. We've got, you know, three basketball games and four or five hockey games on the same night. And several of those Hockey games have two different national broadcasts, one in the U.S. one in Canada. A little bit like drinking from a fire hose, maybe a fire Zamboni.

[Ben Lindbergh]

That fire hose or Zamboni has helped Albert climb the leaderboard. There are more teams, more games and more networks than there used to be, which means more national broadcast assignments. And if those trends continue, Alberta Albert himself could be displaced someday.

[Guest or Caller 2]

You know, as far as those numbers. Oh, of course, I'm sure somebody will surpass all of us someday. You know, it's kind of unique when I look at, you know, what I've been able to do working in so many different sports and for so many different networks. So that that's probably a bit unusual. But you know, they always say records are made to be broken. So I'm sure these will be someday as well.

[Ben Lindbergh]

If so, we'll probably have Miller and his necessary sports research to thank for filling up us in.

[Guest or Caller 1]

I mean, I'm certainly still on the the younger side of the spectrum, so I'd like to think I've got a few more years or decades of paying attention to this stuff in front of me. But yes, we'll be watching, but not everything at once because we only have two eyes and two ears.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And as long as Miller is watching the broadcast counts, many other eyes will be trained on them too. As I noted on that after ball, Kenny Albert ranks a mere 14th on the MLB national broadcast leader. The top spots are occupied by Joe Morgan, Tim McCarver and Tony Kubeck. So yeah, this database goes back a bit, but as Kenny told me, he too might someday be surpassed. And maybe Jason Benetti, the new national voice of baseball on NBC will be the one to do it. He is a multi sport broadcasting star and he trails Kenny Albert by only 1441 national broadcasts. But hey, Benetti's the best. I like his chances. I also like it when our listeners decide to support the podcast. Morally, yes, but also financially by going to patreon.com effectivelywild and sign some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad free and get themselves access to some perks. As have the following five listeners. Frederick Heitjohn, Paul Hush, Lee Goldsmith, Mike Archibald and Lgk thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to an unabridged weekly subscriber only episode, a monthly bonus pod, our Discord group for patrons only, exclusive live streams, personalized messages prioritized each email answers, shout outs at the end of episodes, potential podcast appearances, and much more. Check out all the [e-mail] 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 podcastangraphs.com youm can rate, review and subscribe to Effectively Wild on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Music and other podcast platforms. You can join our Facebook [e-mail] group effectivelywild. You can find the Effectively Effectively Wild subreddit at R Effectively Wild and you can check the show notes in the podcast post at Fan Graphs or Patreon or the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we cited today. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We'll be back with another episode soon. Talk to you then.

[Meg Riley]

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