Meg Rowley (3:00)

head, right, which still has ambiguous hair in terms of whether it's hair or arm hair. This is the funniest I've ever seen in my entire life. And I. I think I encourage everyone to go see the. The footage of it because there are several icons present for this unveiling. Ichiro himself, obviously. Ken Griffey Jr. In the foreground. And Griffey is just dying laughing. And that's the right instinct. Honestly, this is one of the funnier things I've ever seen. We can only ever be ourselves, Ben, you know, and. And who we are ourselves. It changes over the course of our lives. It is an evolving entity, a bright spirit. Spirit that is buffeted through the world by circumstance and our own choices. Times where ourselves are dimmed, damaged, dinged, and then hopefully, you know, tended to, cared for, greeted with kindness, but fundamentally, ourselves. And I do apologize for having already sworn, but I'm gonna swear again. This is the most Mariner I've ever seen in my entire life. This is. Look, a thing happened earlier this. I don't remember if I've talked about it, so forgive me. The Seattle Seahawks won the Super Bowl. And on. On the high of that event, certain among us, in our hubris, you know, we said to ourselves, look, the Seahawks, they won the super bowl in their 50th season. It wasn't their first Super Bowl. We should remember that. They had one before that. But this was an important one, because, one, it was more recent, and two, it was against the New England Patriots, who had delivered to me a nightmarish sp sports situation that I periodically have to relive while watching football, even football unrelated to the Seahawks. I'll be done with this digression shortly. Don't worry, Ben. Don't worry. But, like, now Tom Brady's in the booth, and he is better, and that's its own disturbing cul de sac to go down. But, like, because Tom Brady is a commentator now at the same time that he's an NFL owner, we'll again leave some cul de sacs unexplored today. But, you know, they will relive parts of his glory days, and he was very proficient and quite talented. So there are many of them. One of them involved beating the Seahawks in a Super bowl where they made catastrophic choices and then lost. And then we, you know, again, we just have to re. Watch that Goal line pick over and over. And so then they beat the. They beat the Patriots and their. Their Boy King quarterback, who my mom. My mom refers to as the child quarterback, which just because Drake may' very young and he's talented, and I bet he has a long and fruitful career ahead of him, but he didn't experience that part of his career on that particular super bowl day. So. So anyway, it was their 50th season, and they won the Super Bowl. And then some of us in our hubris thought, well, you know, this is America's 50th season. What if they won the World Series in the year that is their 50th season as a lovely little bookend.

Ben Limburg (6:24)

How fitt. How symmetry.

Meg Rowley (6:27)

Yeah, right. And so we forgot ourselves briefly in that hubris. Right? We thought to ourselves, that's how this will work. You know, as Seattle sports fans. This will be our. Our destiny. And we've had other championships. Right. We have delighted in the storm, you know, and the Seahawks have been good, and they have. Anyway, the baseball gods were like, hey, you guys need to relax over there. And as if the. The early going of the season was not enough, they were like, we're going to bend the bat of one of your franchise icons. And look, they'll fix the statue. They're going to fix it. They're not going to.

Ben Limburg (7:05)

They already did, I think. I don't know if it's permanent, but they have straightened. Yes, it's a broken bat, and they straightened it somehow. And Ichiro, who, as we know is hilarious, made a good joke about how Mariano Rivera must have broken it. And then the Mariners did a little joke where they tweeted out a photo of the. Because they're giving out a Ichiro replica statue at the Friday game. And so they sent a doctored image of the replica statue now with a broken bat. And so everyone had a little fun with this, and everyone got to laugh. But it also did sort of summon some Seattle superstitions here. And I. I hope that the Mariner's actual bats are as easily fixed as Ichiro's statue. Bat here is actually like a reverse jinx situation. Yes, maybe so. And their current 81 WRC plus, which is 26th in the majors, perhaps this. Yeah, maybe, you know, regression alone would have helped, I think, but maybe a little push. Yeah. And maybe we will date their offensive resurgence to when Ichiro's broken bat was fixed. Because, you know, Ichiro was such a craftsman. He took such great care of his bats. Obviously, this is not his doing. Yes, right.

Meg Rowley (8:22)

And you know, Rick Riz, consummate professional. And they got a one World Series for Rick Riz, who's longtime radio voice of the Mariners and is retiring at the end of this year. He, he said something to the effect of like, looks like a fastball up and in, but he still beat it out. You know, like, yeah, Riz forgive again a third swear to go with my third arm sticking out of my head. Rick Riz has seen some shit, right? Like, Riz knows how to, how to do it. Rick is, is again a consummate professional. But it was just I was alerted to this by Ryan Blake in our Slack who's like, you see the broken bat? And I was like, what are you talking about? And then I was like, oh no. But maybe it is sort of a reverse jinx situation. Maybe Ichiro's broken bat statue will be to the 2026 Mariners what Humpy's salmon run victory was to the 2025 postseason Mariners. Which is to say a coincidental good omen that we rallied around until we felt the need to light it on fire to do some magic or something. You know, you just don't know how magic works because it's not real. But is it, you know, like again, a rational Meg who runs fan graphs and is like, you know, telling people she works with, like, hey, make sure to caveat this in your piece that it might not matter yet because it's so early. She knows no magic unexplained phenomenon, but like explainable eventually phenomena.

Ben Limburg (9:49)

Yes, yes.

Meg Rowley (9:50)

But third, third arm Meg, third eye

Ben Limburg (9:53)

Meg, maybe she's like laughing and second

Meg Rowley (9:55)

arm Meg is deeply alarmed. So there's a lot of ways to

Ben Limburg (10:01)

be in the mildly disturbing but also delightful.

Meg Rowley (10:04)

So funny. Just so funny. It's so funny.

Ben Limburg (10:07)

Another delight that is not even slightly disturbing is an interview that I have in store for our Patreon supporters on this episode. It's been too long. It has also been a while. But I phrased it differently since I have had an octogenarian or non generian

Meg Rowley (10:25)

call, harassed a senior citizen.

Ben Limburg (10:27)

Yes, I had had a hankering and this will not be a cold call. It was a very warm call. It was scheduled in advance, but an absolute delight because I got to talk to Dolly Lippy Vanderlip. Lippy Dolly Lippy Vanderlip, who is a veteran of the All American Girls Profess Baseball League. And I have been feeling for some time that this has been a hole in the podcast back catalog. We've talked to so many former players, but not Any former players who played in the AAG ppl. And I thought, well, this is the year there's a big anniversary coming up in Rockford and the Women's Professional Baseball League is launching. And so I really wanted to talk to a veteran of this league. Unfortunately, there aren't that many of them around. And so I wanted to talk to Dolly and I was delighted by Dolly. And unfortunately I had to handle this solo for technical reasons because we did this the old fashioned way on the phone and for recording purposes. It was difficult to make it a conference call. But when you listen to this, you will love Lippy, as will everyone else. And so excited. Yes, she lives up to the nickname, as I will tell her myself. And she was a pitcher, an accomplished pitcher for the final three years of the All American Girls Professional Baseball League. So we will talk about that. We will talk about how she got into playing baseball because she was very young. She was a teenager, made Connor Griffin look old when she was pitching in this league. And then she, yeah, went on to play a little bit after the league's demise and then went on to a. A long and eventful life and then played a part in consulting for the film A League of Their Own and has been honored at the hall of Fame and has been active in all the alumni events and everything. So incredible repository of history and great stories and just charming and open minded and lively and Lippy and you would not know that she's turning 89 in June and she's the best. So please do tune in and listen to Lippy if you can. And just a bit of banter before we get to that. From, from one accomplished pitcher to another. Do you think that Mason Miller is the best pitcher ever?

Meg Rowley (12:53)

Ever.

Ben Limburg (12:54)

Right. Right now, just on a per inning basis, obviously. Not bulk, but just in terms of if you had to get one batter out.

Meg Rowley (13:04)

Right.

Ben Limburg (13:04)

The fade of the only one batter. Yeah. Faye, the world, the aliens, etc. We have to send our champion. Yeah. Are you picking anyone ahead of Mason Miller right now? Because he is just absolutely unhittable and barely contactable. I mean you can barely make contact with Mason Miller like his, his numbers since he was traded to the Padres at the trade deadline last year. Just under 30 innings, 29⅔. He has a 0.61 ERA. He has a.0.58 FIP. It's rare that you see the 0.61 ERA. It's even rarer that you see the like microscopic ERA and then the FIP is even lower.

Meg Rowley (13:47)

He has a negative fit on the year, you know, it's six and a third innings, but that's.

Ben Limburg (13:54)

Yeah, he has a zero ERA on this season, and it seems like somehow it should be lower than that. Like he's, he's underperformed somehow because all the ERA estimators are basically broken and they're all in negative territory now. Yep. So, like the, the strikeout rate is ridiculous. Obviously. The stuff is ridiculous. I mean, he has faced 21 batters and he has struck out 16 of them.

Meg Rowley (14:20)

Ben, he has a 76.2% strikeout rate. Yeah, he's issued one walk. It's bananas.

Ben Limburg (14:31)

And he's allowed one hit. And that you can barely put the ball in play against the guy. It's nuts. And okay, it is reminiscent of some of the absolutely preposterous reliever stats that we've seen in the past. Like, there have been reliever seasons where people struck out more than half of the batters they face. I mean, Craig Kimbrell, 2012 might be the standard for just absolute dominant unhittability in a small sample. And then Eric G, when he won the cy young in 2003, that was nuts. And then like early career roles, Chapman, you know, you could. Edwin Diaz some seasons, like there have been dominant relievers, but man. Because the difference I think is Craig Kimbrough, of course, was a hard thrower by the standard of the long ago time of 2012. And Eric Gagne was a hard thrower certainly by the standards of 2003. But if we're not ERA adjusting because we. We just have to send someone out to defend humanity, then I think you want Miller because Miller is sitting 101 point something and topping out at 104 point something. It's like you watch it and it's just. Yeah. How could anyone ever make contact? So, yeah, I'm not sure if I had to get one out, I don't know that I would choose anyone else from all baseball history. You know, you have face multiple batters and multiple innings and a full game. Of course, then you're going to go with any number of starters and maybe you're going to talk about Jacob deGrom and, you know, Peak Pedro and just all those guys.

Meg Rowley (16:06)

Right.

Ben Limburg (16:06)

But one pitch, one out. Boy, I don't know that you could go wrong with Mason Miller right now.

Meg Rowley (16:13)

It's really something. It's sure amazing. How long can it go though now? Right now, Ben, if I were feeling obnoxious, I might point out that like two of the teams he's faced, the Pirates and the Rockies. But also those are respectable teams right now. Up is down. We don't know what's going on. That game, that, that Padres Rockies game last night was crazy.

Ben Limburg (16:42)

Yes, it was. Yeah.

Meg Rowley (16:43)

Frustrating.

Ben Limburg (16:44)

Yeah.

Meg Rowley (16:44)

Can't believe it.

Ben Limburg (16:46)

So I don't know even the dominant guys, like, it's hard to have multiple seasons that are this nasty. Even Craig Kimbrell had a sustained period of nastiness, but he had one year of sub one FIP. It's really hard to do that. Even multiple 60 or so inning years, it's sort of still a specialty we saw in the playoffs last year. Well, if you can't get ahead and you can't get a lead, you can't even really deploy this game ending weapon in Mason Miller. If you're Team USA and the wbc, you don't have a safe situation, you can't even, you can't use them at all. So it doesn't help you as much obviously, as having an elite talent at some other position. And Joe Sheehan was writing about this in his newsletter the other day that the Padres started one run record. Their record in one run games hasn't really been better since they traded for Mason Miller. They've basically been kind of a coin flip in those games. So even though having a good bullpen and a dominant reliever can help a little bit, it's still sort of limited in its utility. Which is why maybe the A's decided, yeah, we could trade this guy and we could get Leo Bree and he'll be good for us for years, hopefully. And this is a luxury item right now. Mason Miller, who isn't going to help us all that much, competitively speaking. And the Padres have just gone all in on, yeah, let's have the shutdown bullpen here. And it's just a wonder to watch. It's appointment viewing, even if it is one inning at a time. So you can talk all you want about how contact is exciting and we want base runners and obviously we don't want every pitcher to be as good as Mason Miller because then the league would be batting zero and that would be boring. But there is a level of flame throwing where one guy is so much better than all the other otherworldly guys that you kind of can't take your eyes off. It's. And I hope that the Mason Miller show can continue. Obviously, at previous points in his career, he's had injury issues and there have been major concerns there. And you know me, I'm always just watching through my fingers, covering my eyes. As I'm watching anyone who's throwing 104.

Meg Rowley (18:54)

Right.

Ben Limburg (18:54)

But yeah, it's, it's kind of a, like, can a human being be this good and not just anger the baseball gods in some way or just it turns into some Icarus situation, but for as long as it lasts, boy, he is just dominant.

Meg Rowley (19:10)

And you don't want to be a bummer, but you know, you, you have to acknowledge the risk there. Obviously the utility of a closer is, you know, it's sometimes profound and at other times highly variable. Leo De Vries is really good, man. Yeah. So the sort of assessment that we have of that trade, I imagine might change a couple of times. But for a closer to, to make you think, like, I don't know, right now they're winning, obviously Devries isn't in the major, so that helps. But like, that's a, that's a testament to the skill of, of Mason Miller because that was. They gave up a lot to get him. They gave up a lot to get him and he's on hit practically unhittable right now. It's really something.

Ben Limburg (19:55)

Yeah. And yeah, there are three reliever seasons at least if we set some reasonable minimum. If we say 50 innings pitch where a reliever has struck out more the batters he's faced, It's Earldus Chapman 2014, Craig Kimbrell 2012, Edwin Diaz 2022. Hard for me to imagine that if Mason Miller gets to 50 innings this year that he doesn't join that group. But yeah, we'll see. I'm just. Everyone's kind of marveling at it right now. I've seen lots of just, hey, get a load of that Mason Miller guy. Check out that Mason Miller. Have you seen that Mason Miller? It really is. It's pretty breathtaking. So, yeah, enjoy it while it lasts. Hopefully it'll last a long time. Not saying it won't, but I mean,

Meg Rowley (20:36)

you do sound very nervous. I will just point out that you do sound very concerned.

Ben Limburg (20:42)

I'm kind of concerned about bullpens in general. Are relievers okay? Through Thursday's games, Starting pitchers had a 380 ERA with a 368 FIP. Relievers had a 403 ERA with a 419 FIP. You never see starters pitching better than relievers. On the whole half the teams, 15 teams have replacement or worse bullpens. Only 8 non Padres teams have better bullpen wars than Mason Miller alone. So it's been an ugly start to the season for relievers, which only makes Miller's performance stand out all the more where do you stand, by the way? I'm sure we've discussed this in the past, but where do you stand on labeling pitch types based on the behavior of the pitch versus how the pitcher labels it or how it's gripped, how it's delivered versus how it behaves after it's released?

Meg Rowley (21:35)

I go back and forth on it because part of it is, it depends like whose perspective we're prioritizing. Like who, who, who needs to understand what the pitch is doing, right? Because if it's, you know, if it's someone in like a front office, well, they're just gonna look at pitch information, right? They're just gonna look at the pitch and be like, that's a, this thing. I do think that sometimes we can obscure what the pitch is in a way that makes it difficult for like your average fan to understand what they're looking for. And I, I have complained about sweeper creep. That's one, you know, example of this, I suppose. But some of these are just sliders. But there's some normal ass sliders. But I think that when a pitcher is telling you what he understands the pitch to be, well, that's a useful piece of information because part of what's informing his diagnosis or assessment is going to be, you know, the way it moves. But he's going to be able to tell you something about how he's gripping the ball based on what he's calling it in a way that I think is illuminating. Right, because you can think about the grip, but you can also think about how it moves. And you know, we got all these backwards sliders now, what's that about? We got all these pitches, we don't know what they are.

Ben Limburg (22:50)

Yeah, well, that's what prompted this. And Zach Kreiser wrote about this for the Bandwagon, but Tatsuya Imai has, I would probably call it a shuto because that's what it would be called in Japan, but it's called a slider. But it's basically a backward slider, it's a reverse slider, it's a mirror slider. It moves in the opposite direction that you would expect. And so that kind of complicates things because you see it and you think, well, that's not moving in there. How could that possibly be that? And yet you have to call it something. And so I would probably call it something else because the slider usually breaks toward the pitcher's glove hand. So a right handed pitcher, the slider would be going away, diving away from the right Handed hitter. And so this is backward. This is a wrong way slider.

Meg Rowley (23:42)

I like wrong way slider. There's something about that label that I find very charming.

Ben Limburg (23:46)

I don't know why the wrong way guy as we. Handedness. Yeah. Batting, handed throwing, etc. Yeah. So. So you could go with that. But it's tough because if a pitcher calls it something, well, you don't want to invalidate what they call it. They're entitled to call it whatever. It's just what are we going to label it on fan graphs, on baseball savant everywhere else. And so it looks like a screwball, it moves like a screwball, but it's not exactly a screwball, even if it kind of moves like one because it's not gripped and released like one. He throws it like a slider, he supinates. So that's like a throwing a football spiral motion. So you release it off your index finger, your hand is moving under the ball. Pronation is, is the opposite, is like a change up kind of thing. The ball like rolls off the pinky finger side and your hand moves over the ball. And so a slider is thrown with supination and a screwball with pronation. So a supinated screwball kind of doesn't compute, but that's essentially what it is. So. So maybe we just borrow the terminology from npb and sometimes pitchers come over from Japan and there is the whole uproar about the gyro ball that Daisuke Matsuzaka threw. And what is this? And is it entirely new pitch? And maybe it's more like a bullet slider. And so you get these sort of subtypes and the shuto is kind of like a hard pitch that, that bends backwards more or less. And so I might just go with that, though maybe the definition is a bit broad. And Zach suggested a goofy slider from the snowboarding term. So if you're riding in an unexpected orientation, you're riding goofy. So maybe riding goofy. Yes. Group all could be like a goofy curveball and you're riding. Yeah, goofy. And our pal Craig Goldstein suggested a slicer because it sort of slices like a golf shot that slices. I kind of like shuto just because it's an existing term and it is,

Meg Rowley (25:50)

but it's not one that people know.

Ben Limburg (25:51)

No, it's not. But. But maybe we need something new and maybe they'll learn. Yeah, and I mean, you know, we, we sign a pitcher from Japan and a pitch from Japan and maybe we need the terminology from Japan too. So it's appropriate but yeah, I don't know. Just going with what the pitcher calls it. I, I think it's confusing to some if you just use the same label for a pitch that behaves in a completely different way. So at some point maybe you do have to just say, yeah, you can call it whatever you want, but for purposes of describing it to someone else. And you'd still have to note, well, it moves like this, but it isn't thrown like that. So I guess whatever happens. And I'm glad to have this complication because I think unique pitches or uncommon pitches are fun. I'm glad when someone comes along and does something different that's, that's entertaining and interesting analytically.

Meg Rowley (26:46)

What, what are they calling it in savant? Because normally the savant, I, I believe, and Mike will, I'm sure correct us if I'm wrong here, but my understanding is that savant sort of defers to what the pitcher calls it. Right?

Ben Limburg (27:00)

I think so. I think that's right. And I think that they're calling it a slider. Yeah, they're calling it a slider. So I don't know.

Meg Rowley (27:09)

Quite right though, you know, because you do have. And like, you know there's variation within each subtype, even if you don't have to like distinctly name the subtype. Right. Like, yeah, guys are throwing it a little different. It's coming in at different speeds. Like, you know, some guys who throw really hard throw like a 90 mile an hour slider. Like it happens. So there you're never going to be able to really know until you engage with it more precisely. But I feel like calling it just a slider is, is missing critical information because you're going to have a mental picture of the direction it's moving. That's just wrong most of the time.

Ben Limburg (27:50)

Yeah. Well, whatever it is, people are having a hard time hitting it. And that, I guess is the main thing going viral because everyone watches it in their eyes, pop out of their head because it defies their expectations.

Meg Rowley (28:03)

Then you have to get in with. You want to call it a shootout, right? Yeah. You want to call it. You need to get going on that then because it is having a moment. And then the moment will pass and people will just call it a wrong way slider and you'll have missed your opportunity to introduce new stuff to the American pitching lexicon.

Ben Limburg (28:23)

Yeah.

Meg Rowley (28:23)

And I want you to name it because some of the names that they come up with for these are just doofy. Right. Like, remember our whole conversation about the death ball? I'm like, that doesn't tell you anything about the pitch. Like, you don't have any idea what that means. If you're just like a random person and you hear someone say, oh, he throws a death ball, what does that mean? You would just assume. I think your instinct would be that it's a very hard fastball. Right. That it's like a suit. Like, you know, like a Mason Miller.

Ben Limburg (28:50)

Whatever. Mason Miller.

Meg Rowley (28:51)

You would be like, oh, Mason Miller. He must throw a death ball because he averages like 101 on his heater. Oh, yeah. Death ball doesn't tell you anything.

Ben Limburg (28:58)

Yeah.

Meg Rowley (28:59)

About the direction it moves, how fast it's moving, how it's being gripped, how it's being released. Tells you nothing. Useless.

Ben Limburg (29:06)

Well, I don't mind. Wrong way slider, whatever it is.

Meg Rowley (29:09)

Sorry, Tread. Yeah, it's not an anti tread take,

Ben Limburg (29:12)

but as long as it's something that indicates that it's different from a standard slider, then yes, I'm okay with it. We need yes to agree on some type of terminology.

Meg Rowley (29:20)

It's an education. All right.

Ben Limburg (29:22)

Yeah. Okay, so I'm gonna segue to lippy here with a little stat blast follow up. That'll do it for the free preview of today's Effectively Wild. Thank you for listening. If you'd like to listen on and hear whatever wisdom and wit await, we would love to have you. You can visit patreon.com effectivelywild to access the rest of this episode and plenty of other exclusive content. Weekly subscriber only episodes, monthly bonus shows, our discord group, our live streams. Either way, we will be back with another episode of soon, which will appear in full on this feed. Until then, we wish you well and thank you for your support of Effectively Wild, whatever form it takes.