Meg Rowley (6:58)

It'll be unsurprising to listeners, I think, to learn that my exposure to Sterling was actually fairly limited just given the, the team I root for and the, you know, the context in which I would watch Yankees games was often, you know, when they were playing the Mariners, although not exclusively. Obviously they are unavoidable as a baseball institution. And so it wasn't that I never listened to him, but I generally would listen to the TV broadcasts. And so even if I was listening to the Yankees sort of home booth, I was often listening to the TV booth, although more often listening to the radio booth in recent years, just because there was a sense that like, you know, there is a special sort of alchemy or there was between him and Susan and that, you know, as both of them are getting on in years, that that might not be around forever. Right. And so wanting to take a. Take some time to appreciate that. And I like their current radio booth. Like, I think that Susan and Dave are really good together and I miss Dave Sims on Mariners broadcast, but so I wouldn't dream of saying that I had the same sort of connection to him as Yankees fans. But I think that the Mariners equivalent to this was like getting to listen to and appreciate Dave Niehaus and the real loss that you felt. One Dave was gone. It was profound. You know, it's not like everyone in a broadcast booth is good. You know, there's a range, there's a variety of scale, skill. But I think that one of the things that baseball affords us, that is so special and is. Is really distinct from any other sport is just. There are just so many damn games, man. You know, you spend so much time with these people, and so you're right. When you. When you have a relationship to them, when you enjoy their work, it feels so personal. You know, I think that for a lot of people, like, there's all this modern discourse about, like, parasocial relationships. That's the original parasocial relationship for a lot of sports fans is like the relationship they have to their local broadcasters, particularly as it pertains to baseball, because of the amount of time you spend with them. And I'll say this. You know, Sterling wasn't necessarily for me, like, I could appreciate the appeal of John Sterling. He wasn't my guy. And so I think when it's not your guy, you, like, the places where the rough edges reveal themselves are maybe a little more apparent to you just because you're not. You don't have the same relationship to it. You're not smoothing the way in quite the same way. But I think one of the things I did really respect and appreciate about him was that, like, he was just himself. You know, he was just very singularly himself. He wasn't trying to smooth anything for anyone's benefit. I think he had a good understanding of. Of the. Obviously of the Yankees, but of their fans. And I think he. He kind of knew where the line terms of wanting to embrace the team and have a, you know, a pro Yankee stance, but also would get an. Would get annoyed with guys. You know, he would get frustrated with dudes, and he wouldn't hide that frustration when he felt that their play wasn't up to snuff. So I just, you know, I think that a lot of. There are a lot of ways to be a bad broadcaster, but I think one of the ways that is emerging for me as I watch particularly national broadcasters is like, they're just trying to like, appeal to everyone. There's no personality. And. And John Sterling was just John Sterling, you know, and I respect for that, even if it wasn't always. For me, it's like, well, this. This is a person who knows their voice and is going to. Just gonna broadcast the way they think they should broadcast. And you can be about it or not. And so I. I'm sorry for Yankees fans. Like, it. It is a. It is a real loss. And I think that hopefully, you know, we have this. We don't really quite have a changing of the guard, but we do Have a couple of broadcasters who are. You look up how old they are, and you're like, wow, okay, You're. You're kind of getting up there. And I think that people. His initial retirement was so sudden, and it was very, I think, quite surprising to people. And so I was glad that. That they. That Yankees fans got like, a funny little second act with him. Right. Another chance to appreciate him. Because I think that at least my sense was. And you would probably know this better than I would, but my sense was that people knew when he came back for that, because that late run and then their, you know, their. Their postseason run that, like, this was gonna be the end for him, that there wasn't gonna be another time after that.

Ben Lindbergh (11:59)

And unfortunately, his final game was that Yankees meltdown in game five of the World Series. But nonetheless, what are you gonna.

Meg Rowley (12:08)

What are you gonna do, Right? So it's a. It's a loss. You know, people. Still. People in Seattle who have never heard, like, live had never heard a Dave Niehaus call. They have, though, right, because he's. He's present in so many of the highlights that have sort of made their way into the lore. Right. And Sterling, I think, has a. Because of the, you know, how long he was in the booth and the team he was calling games for. Like, even though I wasn't a sterling head, like, I knew John Sterling calls. Right. Like, I knew them even though he wasn't my guy.

Ben Lindbergh (12:48)

So, yeah, he was, I think, one of the better known nationally radio voices, because radio, it tends to be more local and maybe also a bit more intimate. There is something about just the context in which you listen to radio broadcasts. And of course, now a lot of people are listening to radio broadcasts digitally, but still, you could be anywhere. You could be just going about your business in the same way that when people listen to podcasts, they could be anywhere. It's sort of similar. You kind of take it with you. It's maybe a bit more portable and personal. And also it's just the way that they describe the action, because they are conveying the game to you visually, essentially, right on tv, they're assuming that most people are viewing it along with them. And so they're not narrating the action the way that a radio broadcaster does. And so you're really relying on them to transmit more of the picture, the imagery to you. Which could be frustrating with Sterling at times, when that imagery was not always entirely accurate.

Meg Rowley (13:51)

It's like, John, tell us what's going on in the game, though.

Ben Lindbergh (13:53)

But right but nonetheless, yeah. And the Mariners, I guess, have that equivalent with Rick Riz, who's retiring after this season. And I heard that he did a sterling tribute after the Mariners won. He did the Mariners win. He didn't enunciate it the way that Sterling did. Maybe he didn't want to be too on the nose, I don't know. But, yeah, I wonder if there's even. Has there ever been someone who has been a local baseball broadcast institution like that for decades and generations and has not inspired this sort of attachment? Is there anyone who's just like, oh, yeah, he's been around forever, but I don't particularly care for him, or I just. I don't feel very strongly about him one way or the other. You know, he's just kind of part of the wallpaper. I don't know, because it just seems like. Because it's such. It's the fabric of your childhood and all of that and everything. And. Yeah, because the Yankees were so prominent during Sterling's tenure and, you know, every period, basically, but especially then, and because he had all the catchphrases and everything that did catapult him to a level of fame that most local broadcasters don't achieve. And of course, he had worked in Atlanta for most of the 80s and he'd been around in other things, too, even though he's so associated with the Yankees. But, yeah, I wonder if there's someone who somehow managed to last for a really long time, but without actually endear himself. Right. Yeah, I. I mean, feels mean, but maybe Michael K is kind of the equivalent to that. Yeah, I know. Like K's been the voice of the Yankees or a voice of the Yankees for about as long as Sterling was, because he came along just a few years after Sterling did and they were partners. When I was growing up, it was Sterling and K on the radio together. And now he's lasted a couple more years post Sterling, so he's had about the same run. And I don't know that I, you know, in. In my inner fan feel that same affection. I don't know that most Yankees fans do. And maybe it's because he's been on TV for much of that time and he has been kind of the constant. And, and that's. I think another thing that inspires some attachment is on Yankees radio, it was just John every day. I mean, it was John and Susan, it was John and Kay whoever, but it was always John. Whereas on tv, the Yankees, on yes. Network have had this vast assembly of just rotating, just, you know, it was David Cohn and it was, you know, John Flaherty and it's Paul o' Neill and it's just like on and on, just this litany of former players and they kind of rotate and they go on some road trips and not on others. But it is always kind of K. K is the constant. So, yeah, maybe it's the TV thing or maybe the fact that he was sort of in Sterling's shadow, like, I guess you, you kind of can't have too iconic or. I mean, you can, but maybe if they're speaking to different audiences like Vin Scully and Jaime Herin or something. But like, if Sterling kind of has the. The Crown is like the most distinctive Yankees broadcaster.

Meg Rowley (17:03)

Yeah.

Ben Lindbergh (17:04)

And K has his signature calls and he has Sia and everything. But I don't know, I think he's seen more as sort of just like talking about the team in a positive light on the broadcast. But then he also has his like sports radio Persona where he does ESPN radio for a long time and pretty successfully. But he can be more of a blowhard in that role, as you almost have to be in sports radio and you kind of courts controversy and he goes on rants and stuff. So. I don't know if there's the same affection for K as there was for Sterling. But yeah, I'd be interested to hear if anyone wants to write in about some real staple in the booth who just was around forever because you'd think if you're going to last for decades, probably you had something going for you and people liked you and you were actually good at it. So just, you know, there's sort of a survivor bias there. If you lasted that long, it was probably for a reason. But if there is anyone who comes to mind as just extremely long lasting without leaving much of an impression or inspiring these feelings of fan affection, I'd be interested to hear.

Meg Rowley (18:13)

You know, this is such a specific thing. You know, one of the things about radio that I think really makes it feel so personal. It's not that there aren't commercials for local things on the local broadcasts, but I feel like there's so much more local on radio than they are on the broadcast. Like, you know, you're getting, you're getting ads for like the, the car dealerships and the furniture liquidation stores and, you know, the pipe fitters union local chapter. It just feels so grounded in where you are. And I think there's something about being able to generate that feeling for the Yankees that is also special because. And I think they Cultivate this impression. But they want you to think of them as like, being. They're very much of New York, to be clear. But like, they're of baseball. Right. Like capital baseball.

Ben Lindbergh (19:15)

Yeah.

Meg Rowley (19:15)

And so I think bringing an intimacy to a team like that also just feels so special because it is surprising to be able to do that for a club that like, wants you to think of them as being so important and central to the sport writ large. I don't know. I think it's a special thing. Yeah.

Ben Lindbergh (19:35)

K just comes off as a little more corporate, maybe. I don't know. He was.

Meg Rowley (19:39)

Which, you know, like, no offense to the Yankees. Except offense to the Yankees, I guess, like, is fitting in a way.

Ben Lindbergh (19:44)

Yeah. The Yankees are US Steel, as the old saying went. Yeah. It's just right. And so. And they're both native New Yorkers, Kay and Sterling. But yeah, Sterling was just so sui. Generous. I don't know. There was something. He was one of one. He was extremely recognizable and yeah, very sorry to see him go, but he left quite a legacy. And people may not have realized just he was up there in years because he was so durable and because he just stayed in harness, as they say, up until almost the end of his life and barely missed a game for a long time that you might. And sort of sounded the same for almost the entire time. I mean, he didn't really sound older than I remember him sounding. Years and years ago he was in.

Meg Rowley (20:35)

He was the voice equivalent of. Have you ever known someone who looked 40 when they were like 25? And so they have a period of their life where they look old for their age, but then they have a long period of looking young for however old they are because they sort of stay in that right, right range where it's like, hey, you're 55, but you look the same as you did because you always have looked older. And I feel like he had sort of a. A gravity to his. His voice and his timbre that sort of lets it stay in the same register because he's not like a very young sounding man who then ages into an older version of his voice. So.

Ben Lindbergh (21:15)

Yeah, yeah, maybe I'll have that. I've gotten that. I always get that. People will see a headshot of me or something and they'll be surprised because evidently I. I sound like an older heavyset man, or so I've been told many times.

Meg Rowley (21:29)

I think people. I won't speak to the kind of physique that they're envisioning, but people are always surprised to learn that You're a little bit jacked. You know, they're always surprised to learn. And I think it's. Ben, I think it's because you like so much. I'm gonna do it. Swear it's because you like so much. Nerd.

Ben Lindbergh (21:44)

Yeah.

Meg Rowley (21:44)

That they assume a scrawniness to you.

Ben Lindbergh (21:48)

Yes. Some stereotypes are coming into play and then.

Meg Rowley (21:52)

And then they see that you're a guy who clearly, like, works out and takes, you know, good care. Although once they see your calves, they're like, maybe we were right.

Ben Lindbergh (22:02)

Yeah, well, I keep those covered up. Yeah. You'll never know. Except that I talk about it so often. But yeah, I don't dress as well as John Sterling, though. That's another thing that it's interesting, the contrast, I think, because he sounded super dignified, but then had the hackneyed corny catchphrases. And I think that was the key to his charm because it was like, yeah, he might have sounded pompous, except that he undercut the pomposity by being kind of ridiculous on purpose. I mean, I think he was aware when he really reached for some of those catchphrases. And when we talked about him a couple years ago, I highlighted or lowlighted some of the more memorable ones. And so, yeah, he would always be in a suit and he'd have his pocket handkerchief and everything. And he'd. Sounds a pocket square maybe. I don't know. Whatever it is, Kay's wearing that too. If you look at K's Wikipedia page, which is. He's got a recent picture on there. It looks like he's morphing into Sterling. He just like, dresses the same way. He's kind of like got the same hairstyle.

Meg Rowley (23:05)

They have a similarity. They. They definitely have a bit of a similarity. I think it's just a pocket square maybe.

Ben Lindbergh (23:11)

So. Yeah, I wouldn't know because I don't wear one. And. And they. They have their quirks. Like, K famously has never eaten a vegetable and never had soup.

Meg Rowley (23:21)

And he just leave him when he says that. I mean, he's never eaten a vegetable. He's alive.

Ben Lindbergh (23:25)

So I something a lot those slice.

Meg Rowley (23:27)

I find it dubious. Yeah, he's never eaten a vegetable.

Ben Lindbergh (23:31)

His diet is the stuff of legend, evidently. Until he met his wife. Like, he would just have the same meal every day and no seafood. Hadn't eaten an egg until a few years ago. I guess he would have salad, but only undressed iceberg, which is my preferred salad base. But I also put other things in the salad. And Sterling also had interesting like, he would just go home and watch soaps. He was a big soap opera guy. And like, they. They both seemed very set in their ways, in their sort of interesting ways, so their characters, I guess, but especially

Meg Rowley (24:08)

Sterling, a reader of pulp fiction, right? Yeah, yeah, he was sort of famous for really enjoying, like, pulp detective novels and whatnot.

Ben Lindbergh (24:19)

Yeah, well, RIP John.

Meg Rowley (24:22)

Yeah, he's fans. It is a loss.

Ben Lindbergh (24:24)

At least they can console themselves with the knowledge that Anthony Volpe was optioned to the Miners after exhausting his rehab assignment eligibility.

Meg Rowley (24:33)

What else could they do? You know, like, I. The discourse around that has been so fascinating because, you know, Jose Caballero has played well. He's just been. He's been playing quite well for them, and I think with a steadiness that Yankees fans are really appreciating, given some of the foibles of. Of Volpe. But, you know, Cabbie's just been pretty solid there, and he's not like lighting the world on fire with his bat, but he's hitting respectively, you know.

Ben Lindbergh (25:03)

Yeah, probably a bit over his head. Not a. Not an Il tomorrow Vargas start. Exactly. But, you know, probably, yeah, somewhat unsustainable offensively at least. Sure. But the defense has been strong.

Meg Rowley (25:15)

The defense has been strong. And so I think that, you know, he certainly forced the issue. But I wonder how much worse Cabbie, and I call him Cabby because that's what the Mariners broadcast would call him. They would call Jose Caballero Cabbie, which is unfortunate because Jose Caballero has just a really nice musicality to it as a name. So I should stop. But I wonder how much worse he would have to have been playing for them to make a different decision with Volpius assignment.

Ben Lindbergh (25:49)

Maybe not that much because this is.

Meg Rowley (25:52)

I. This is what I think. I think that. I think the bare minimum threshold for him to clear. Well, it's probably 10 to 15 points worse. A WRC plus, I guess, is where I maybe peg it. So.

Ben Lindbergh (26:05)

Yeah, yeah. And. And Caviaro, he was also good after he came over from the Rays last year, so he started strong with the Yankees and built up some goodwill there. But I think that's why, I mean, anything concerning Anthony Volpe is going to be improbably big news, at least in New York. And anything that's big news in New York is inflicted on the nation. Much. Much like John Sterling from some people's perspective, probably. But I think there was some relief among Yankees fans that he was actually optioned instead of being promoted just because they figured, well, this front office this field staff, they're so unreasonably supportive of Anthony Volpe after his offensive struggles that they will promote him come what may. And because they did, I guess, give fans some reason to think that sticking with him all last year, where he was clearly compromised and playing hurt. Right. Maybe they didn't have a great alternative, but still they stood by him. So I, I think they kind of thought, until proven otherwise, I assume Anthony Volpe will be in the big league. So. Yeah, and he very may well be, because if Caballero slumps it all, he can still be quite useful to them in a sort of super utility type role. And if Volpe hits at aaa, I mean, you know, they still, I think maybe believe in Volpe long term or at least want to believe that he can be a contributor. And there's perhaps a service time component to this because if they keep him down for a certain amount of time, they then will retain control over him for an additional season. So I guess if you're a Yankees fan who has formed an antipathy toward Anthony Volpe, it's like mixed bag. We might be stuck with him even longer.

Meg Rowley (27:45)

Exactly.

Ben Lindbergh (27:46)

Hopefully, given that he's healthy now, he will actually play better and be a useful guy as he has been in the past. And I feel kind of bad for him just because like when he is even average ish, which he has been, I think he is sort of saddled with, I don't know, the specter of Jeter or expectations or prospect ratings or whatever it was, and, and he hit 21 homers as a rookie and, and maybe there were just higher hopes for the bat than reality has supported. But if he's healthy and if the glove is good, then he could still be fine. It's just being fine is, is often not enough for Yankees fans and when more is expected of you, then it's a weight that is placed on you. But hopefully he will be healthier and better and we will all stop having to hear quite as much about Anthony Volpe or at least as many complaints about Anthony Volpe. Maybe he'll just be good or he'll be gone.

Meg Rowley (28:47)

I feel for him because. Well, first I guess the thing I'd say is that I'm, I understand if you are franchise and you have confidence in your young guy to, to really be the dude, right, that when presented with alternatives in free agency that you might think to yourself, well, we don't need to explore those because we have, we have this guy at home and we can just, you know, cultivate him and he will be our young star and we won't have to worry about it. They opted to not participate in a very short stop rich free agent class that immediately preceded him.

Ben Lindbergh (29:28)

Yeah, that was a big part of it too. Yeah. And he was a top 10 overall prospect according to many sources. And a New York kid, so.

Meg Rowley (29:36)

A New York kid. And so, and, and you know, he has dealt with injury at various points in his big league career. Obviously last year, to your point, he was compromised for much of the season and they were cagey about it, right? Like, that wasn't communicated well. And so people were like, well, is he hurt? Is he not hurt? Like, what are we doing here? And then of course, after the fact it's like, well, he needs surgery. And it's like, well, okay, why was he playing for so much of the year if he was compromised so profoundly? Right? But the original sin of Anthony Volpe's career, quote unquote, doesn't have anything to do with Anthony Volpe's play on the field. It was their decision to sit out that free agent class. And having made that choice, I think that there was a concern among Yankees fans that, to your point, that they would just stick with him stubbornly and never taken off ramp from him being on the roster, which they have now done. So there is a part of that that's like, okay, quit, like throwing, you know, good playing time after bad, like the, the decision pre2023, that that's done now you can't go back in time and like sign Trey Turner or whatever. So. So having made that choice, when you have, you know, a really competitive team and an opportunity to continue to press an advantage and in a competitive division, you should do that with the guy who's performing right now and see if you can get this guy right. And obviously like they had good optionality with both of those guys because I think both Volpe and Caballero have three options remaining. So like there was a. That the option math wasn't forcing their hand. They had to just make a decision based on the guy in front of them. And I think that, you know, hopefully he'll go down and, and he'll get right and like come back and you're right, there's room on this roster for Caballero, even if he's not the everyday shortstop. But right now, when they're, you know, only a game and a half up on a surprisingly good raised team, but clearly one of the better teams in the A, the AL was really bad this year. But yeah, it's kind of gnarly. I was, as our listeners learned I was sick over the weekend and so I was like surely the Mariners will pick me up, do that. They made me very angry. In fact, now everyone's hurt. It doesn't matter. But yeah, you know, I was, I was having a little bit of a crash out and then I was like why does this matter? They're so hanging in with the rest of a mediocre league and a mediocre division. Like who cares.

Ben Lindbergh (32:06)

But which is maybe relevant to some of the bigger news over the past few days, a lot of which has been injury related, just wave of injuries. When are there not injuries but there were a bunch of injuries to higher profile players. Most notably of course Tarik Skubal who is having surgery. Not the worst kind of surgery, but the loose bodies, they've come for him. They came for Hunter Green, they came for Edwin Diaz.

Meg Rowley (32:33)

Now they've come loose bodies came for me yesterday.

Ben Lindbergh (32:36)

Well yeah, his are different but he has to have surgery to fix those loose bodies in his elbow which have been bothering him as he has continued to pitch at a very high level. You wouldn't know from his numbers because after winning back to back Cy Young awards he was off to pretty much the same start this season. So it's a big blow to the Tigers. It's a big blow to him personally with his free agency impending at the end of this year. So he's out for two to three months. That's the typical timeline at least. And I always exercise caution. I play it conservative when it comes to pitchers returning from surgeries. But also there will be some urgency for him to return both for competitive reasons for the Tigers and also to re establish himself as healthy and effective before he hits free agency. So I think this is weatherable by the Tigers because of the mediocrity of the league writ large and the AL Central. Yeah, that also does make it a significant loss because the Tigers are not so good that they will just be fine and sail along happily without Tarek Skubal. Man, good thing they signed from for Valdez because that rotation would be looking. It's not looking strong right now regardless. But without Framber with Jack Flaherty struggling as much as he has, that would be rough. But yeah, I mean whoever comes back and they have a bunch of guys who are on the comeback trail, whether it's Troy Melton or Justin Verlander. I mean they have some guys who are coming back but no one who can hold a candle to Tarek Smith So that's. That's got to be a loss of a few wins at least. Or at least that's what you would expect it to be. And they're just barely clinging to first place. Or. No, they're not even right there. I think as we record, they're tied. They have identical records with the Guardians.

Meg Rowley (34:38)

With the Guardians, that's right, yeah.

Ben Lindbergh (34:40)

And the White Sox lurking just half a game back. And the Royals, who have righted the ship somewhat after a rough start. They're a game and a half back. And the Twins, who got off to a fantastic start that everyone was surprised about and then went into a deep slump. They're two and a half games back. So the entire AL Central. We were talking to Benetti last week about the fact that there were no winning teams. It's just a weird. Like the AL Central as we speak. Not a single winning team. The NL Central. Until the NL Central as we speak. All winning teams. So in the past, people have sometimes lumped together the Centrals.

Meg Rowley (35:19)

I have lumped them together, yeah.

Ben Lindbergh (35:21)

Well, we have to differentiate now, I think. Yeah.

Meg Rowley (35:23)

At least so far.

Ben Lindbergh (35:24)

Just about the records this year. But it's partly about that. I think the NL Central has separated itself from the AL Central.

Meg Rowley (35:31)

I think that's right.

Ben Lindbergh (35:32)

Recently and maybe long term, but. Yeah. So given that the Tigers, even with Schuble, were just barely keeping their heads above water in this division now, it's hard to imagine that they're going to fall out of the race or anything without Scubal because look at the caliber of the rosters they're competing with. But then again, it's also going to be tough for the Tigers to separate themselves. Sens. Skubal. So I guess it will continue to be a race and just. Yeah, just a melange of mediocrity in

Meg Rowley (36:04)

the AL Central, I'm going to be so fascinated. This is getting way ahead of ourselves. But, you know, when you have a sort of thick middle of the standings, I'm always curious. Or a fat middle.

Ben Lindbergh (36:19)

Yes. As everyone calls it.

Meg Rowley (36:21)

As everyone calls it. It'll be very interesting to see what that does to the dynamic of the trade deadline, because you might have a number of teams that say, look, records wise, we're all sitting sort of in this clump. But when we look at the underlying metrics, there's greater delineation and sort of separation between the teams, which, you know, is. Is often the case. So there might be clubs that say, look, this isn't our year, even though we're sort of in it in a standing from a standings perspective as of July, and they end up being sellers. But sometimes the, the years with mushy fat middles lead to boring deadlines because it's like, wow, why would we sell? You know, we, we're only two games differentiated from the team with the best record in this league, let alone our own division. So what do we do here? So that'll be interesting to continue to monitor. Meanwhile, like the the NL has to be looking at the ale. Like, can't we just swap a couple of our teams out?

Ben Lindbergh (37:24)

Yeah. And I'm sure the Tigers aren't really ruing anything about how they handled the off season because they put a lot of their eggs in the Skubal basket. And of course we talked about the arbitration and how that went and the record award for Skubal. And there had been rumors about a Skubal trade which always seemed sort of misguided and unlikely to me. And they didn't do it. And even now that he's out for maybe half the season or something, they still need him as much as ever and he might still make the difference. The starts that he's made already and the starts that he still might make. So yeah, I guess a dollars per war investment, maybe it doesn't work out so well for you if you pay someone that much and then they miss half the season. You hope it's not more than that. But ultimately, if they can squeeze into the playoffs, it'll probably be in large part because they had Derek Skubal and if they have a healthy schuble in October.

Meg Rowley (38:20)

Right.

Ben Lindbergh (38:20)

Then that's all that matters. Probably. And so as for him now, if this recovery doesn't go as well and expeditiously as predicted and he doesn't come back, well, then that would obviously have some serious implications for his free agency. If he comes back when he's projected to and he's able to make say 10ish starts down the stretch if he's good and looks like teruble and there's the potential for extra starts in the postseason.

Meg Rowley (38:52)

Right.

Ben Lindbergh (38:53)

I don't know that there would be that much of a cost to him because you're already pricing in so much injury risk with a pitcher with him in particular.

Meg Rowley (39:06)

Right. Like, it's not like Scubal has a clean bill of health prior to now. Right. Yeah. So you're having to reconcile yourself to that in one way or another at the if you're the team that's signing him.

Ben Lindbergh (39:16)

Yeah. So given that it wasn't Tommy John, it wasn't a shoulder thing.

Meg Rowley (39:21)

Right.

Ben Lindbergh (39:21)

You could kind of euphemistically describe it as it's cleanup. It's just, you know, we tightened up some loose bodies.

Meg Rowley (39:28)

Got to get rid of those loose bodies.

Ben Lindbergh (39:31)

There was some stuff just floating around in there. It wasn't described as bone chips in his case. I think in Hunter Green's case it was described specifically as bone chips and bodies. Now if it's not bone chips, I don't know what the loose bodies are. I don't know what exactly is loose cartilage.

Meg Rowley (39:49)

Can you have.

Ben Lindbergh (39:50)

Maybe it's that cartilage. Yeah. And maybe cartilage or cartilage. I would say cartilage, but I tend to say sophomore and people make fun of sophomore.

Meg Rowley (39:59)

You say sophomore.

Ben Lindbergh (40:01)

Yeah. So I don't know if it's worse to have loose cartilage than loose bone, but whatever it is, there's just a sea of stuff in there and they're either extracting it, putting it back in its rightful place. It was causing him some discomfort. So if he returns.

Meg Rowley (40:17)

Put it back.

Ben Lindbergh (40:18)

No, I don't think they reattach it

Meg Rowley (40:20)

in this case, like you're reshelving books at the library.

Ben Lindbergh (40:23)

Suck it out.

Meg Rowley (40:23)

Oh, that piece of.

Ben Lindbergh (40:25)

They just kind of tape it down. They just glue it in there again. No. Yeah, just do some cleanup. Makes it sound so painless. And. And if he comes back, this is a common enough procedure and one without some stigma of lasting harm or this as a predecessor, a prelude to something else that probably he could still cash in and get about as big a deal as he was going to get anyway, assuming he comes back and has ample time to prove that he's still scruple.

Meg Rowley (40:58)

Especially if he comes back and looks like himself. I don't think that it will have much of an impact on his, on his ability to sign a big deal if. If only because, like the market's going to be so thin anyway. Yeah, whatever. Whatever money he would lose from having had a recent elbow issue. Although again, not the. The worst kind, might be offset by the scarcity of good pitching on the market. What is a, a three year deal with two opt outs look like for school? Like, what's the AV on that one?

Ben Lindbergh (41:35)

You know what I mean? Yeah.

Meg Rowley (41:37)

So I think that there are a number of options that will be available to him, most of which will be highly remunerative, provided he comes back and looks like himself. And I think that you're right to say that there's not. Maybe it's not as, as Cut and dry as Tommy John in terms of like all the guys who have done it and our immediate like, feeling of reassurance that they'll bounce back. But I think the track record of guys coming back from loose bodies is, is pretty strong. So, yeah, I imagine it will be fine. But it's a bummer because it's a lot of, you know, so many of the best guys are just down right now. It really sucks. And it's. I don't know that we can attribute it to anything other than like pitching is bad for you. Right. Like when we had the big year of injuries following think the lockout people I think rightly pointed to like the, the truncated ramp up as a possible explanation for all the guys who had gone down. Well, we didn't a normal year, you know, it's just like pitching's bad for you. It, it's bad for you.

Ben Lindbergh (42:46)

Yeah, we don't need any explanation beyond that, I think.

Meg Rowley (42:48)

Right.

Ben Lindbergh (42:49)

Passon tweeted a partial list of pitchers who've landed on the IL with arm injuries this year. Scubal, Garrett Crochet, Spencer Schwellenbach, Hunter Green, Hunter Brown, Brandon Woodruff, Joe Ryan. Another who was recently felled, Nick Pavetta, Josh Hader, Edwin Diaz. So yeah, it's nothing new. It's unfortunate. It's one of the worst things about baseball these days, but it is not a surprise. And Skubal, because of the injury issues earlier in his career, he was a little bit of a late bloomer. He pitched effectively in his mid-20s, but he didn't blossom into Cy Young school until his age 27 season and this is his age 29 season and he's going to turn 30 right before the lockout, probably around when he would be signing his deal. So it's not as if he's super young already. Now he's maybe young enough that if he wanted to maximize the length of the contract, this might be his best bet. But if he did, I mean, if it takes him a little longer to come back and, and he say settled for a one year deal or something. Oh my goodness, the money that he would make in that one year and come back. But that's probably unlikely and odds are it won't be too different from what we were all expecting, assuming he comes back. But the Tigers will have to cobble together a rotation out of all the loose bodies that they have floating around. Just maybe Jackson Jobe returns from TJ at some point. And I meant mention Melton and Verander and Reese Olson and Casey Mize it's just, it's a whole rotation's worth of pitchers on the IL for them. So. But I have confidence that they can just sort of stay in the race. Their offense is good enough like the rest of their roster measures up to the AL Central standard. So I think that they will hang around and they'll still be hanging around when he returns. Hopefully when okay, so the Mets have the same manager as the last time we talked and it sounds like they will have the same manager for a while, somewhat to the surprise of many observers, us included. But Carlos Mendoza receives the voted confidence from Pobo David Stearns. And sometimes that is described as the dreaded vote of confidence because sometimes the vote of confidence does precede a dismissal and it actually belies some lack of confidence. But this one was pretty explicit and I think it's, it's maybe backed up by the fact that if they wanted to let him go, they've had ample opportunity to. So the fact that he has survived this long sort of suggests that they want him to be the manager. I mean, they get off to a 1021 start despite all the spending and the turnover, the expectations and everything. And then they had a weak home stand. It was what, three and six? And they were losing to bad or not great teams. And as we speak, they've won three of their past four because that happened to come against the Angels or no, that's not right. They won one against the Rockies and then they took two out of three from the Angels. It's something. It's a start. But David Stearns said they don't intend to make a change. It wasn't even a like. Right now we're comfortable. We're not making a change. Like Stern said, we know our record is not what we want. We know we are capable of more. We don't view this as a manager problem and we don't intend to make a change. And he called Mendoza on Friday to deliver that news and Mendoza said he appreciated the support and he has always felt it from them. And you know, I actually think a little bit better of the Mets for staying the course here. Not because I think Mendoza is an amazing manager or that dismissing him or keeping him changes their outlook all that significantly, but precisely because I don't think it changes the outlook all that significantly. I actually sort of appreciate that they are just standing by their guy just because I think that speaks to maybe some decisiveness or perhaps some actual accountability. Because. Okay, two things. One, Danzaborski wrote a piece last week which I thought was good. It was kind of the definitive look, I think, at whether you should expect your team to play better after firing a manager mid season. And this was pretty comprehensive. And he went back more than 20 years and he looked at how the teams were playing before they fired their manager, how they played after, and crucially, how their performance after the firing compared to the in season projections from that day, which Dan has handy as the proprietor of Zips, and then also using the Fangrass depth charts for more recent years. So nothing too surprising, I suppose. The teams did better after they fired their managers. Prior to the firings, they had a collective.414 winning percentage. After the firings, they had a collective.467 winning percentage. Okay, well, that's a significant bump. And we've already sort of seen that small sample. But you look at the Red Sox post Cora and the Phillies post Thompson. The Red Sox were recording on Tuesday afternoon. They're four and four under Chad Tracy. The Phillies are six and one under Don Mattingly. And the thing is that you would expect them both to be pretty good because they were expected to be pretty good coming into the season. And the fact that they weren't is why Alex Cora and. And Rob Thompson are no longer their manager. But that's the thing. Dan took the extra step of comparing that improved performance post firing to what Zips projected on the day those managers were fired, knowing nothing about who the manager was, because that's not an input into Zips. And it, it worked out almost too well, almost suspiciously cleanly, because those teams were projected to have a.467 rest of season winning percentage. So Dan says across 3,061 games played or managed, the new managers won 1.5 fewer games than expected. I mean, it almost could not have been closer. And that's like 40 firings from 2004 to 2025. That's a pretty substantial sample. And those teams played exactly to the projection system's expectations, which, as Dan noted, it doesn't prove that managers mean nothing. There's. There's no way to prove that, he wrote. It's certainly quite possible that if these managers had been doing an especially poor job, their teams would have continued to fall short of expectations. Taking a team that's usually playing miserably and at least getting it back on track is a good thing. You never know. Maybe managers had something to do with those slow starts in some cases or the recoveries in some cases. I'm sure in some number of those cases the managers made a difference. But yeah, on the whole, you shouldn't expect to just flip that switch and pull that lever and suddenly be better than the projections are already expecting you to be. And so I sort of respect that. The Mets are just like, you know what, it's probably not a managerial issue. And there was a post last week by Andrew Ball. I've cited his newsletter a couple times. The front office executive. He. He was the AGM of the Astros. And he basically said he doesn't think that firing the manager in the absence of any other change or like a real smoking gun kind of malpractice is actually what accountability looks like. And we kind of talked about this with the Phillies firing of Rob Thompson, how we all just. We take this in stride. We take it for granted. We don't really bat an eye when a team that's off to a slow start just sort of sacrifices the manager because it's the way things are done. But it is kind of inconsistent to say, as the GM or the popo, I take full accountability. Right. I constructed this roster like the buck stops here. Ultimately, the responsibility lies with me. And then defy the manager, which is very often what they do. And we're not surprised when they say those things because they always say those things. But it doesn't actually fundamentally make much sense because, like, if. If you're the one who's accountable and you built the roster and you hired the manager like you, you had more to do with this team's fortunes probably than the manager did. But you're not firing yourself. You are firing the manager to the wolves to maybe get the heat off yourself. Ultimately, that's often what it is about, or it's just about doing something to avoid the accusation that you're too complacent or you're not doing enough. But I really think, you know, given these three situations, I think all these teams will be much better than they have been to this point. But I really do, I sort of respect the Mets for just saying, you know what, like, if there are issues, maybe they. They run deeper than this, or we have confidence or whatever it is. We just don't think this is actually going to make a difference. So we're not really going to go along with the pressure to do this just for the sake of doing something.

Meg Rowley (52:23)

I think that it stands in very sharp contrast to. To Breslow, right, Where ultimately some of this stuff is going to come down to a roster construction issue. Like it seems impossible that it wouldn't. And so there's that there's underperformance I think that it's, you know, if you can point to and identify specific things that are the manager's fault. Well, okay, that's one thing. One thing. But if it's just, ah, we're trying to look busy rather than panicked, I don't know if that's, if that's necessarily a defensible position or one that, you know, properly apportions blame for a roster underperforming. And that's not to say that there aren't going to be instances where like, a manager's bad at their job and, and should be like, oh, like sometimes, sometimes it's time for a guy to go. I follow a shocking number of Mets fans on social media and they often seem to frustrated with Mendoza. They think he's too slow to make bullpen decisions for, for instance. And as someone who watches a team where I might also tag the manager with that, I can, I can appreciate that. So I, I don't mean to say that he's like faultless or that there couldn't be improvement in the tactics, but when you have this degree of underperformance relative to expectation, it seems impossible that that would be solely attributable to the manager without it being like a bright red flag that is just. Or a very loud trumpet siren. Siren. Trumpets. Not a thing in the. In Queens anymore because Edwin Diaz doesn't.

Ben Lindbergh (53:57)

Yeah.

Meg Rowley (53:58)

Play there anymore.

Ben Lindbergh (53:59)

Neither does the trumpet.

Meg Rowley (54:00)

Do they still do the. Is it Timmy Trumpet? Timmy Trumpet?

Ben Lindbergh (54:04)

Yeah.

Meg Rowley (54:04)

Just. Has Timmy Trumpet been to Dodger Stadium? I mean, like, not right now because Edwin Diaz is on the il, but yes.

Ben Lindbergh (54:12)

Well, they did a similar entrance, but I believe it was Tatiana Trumpet. Oh, yeah. So it was still. It was the song. It was Narco. But I think there was a different trumpeter.

Meg Rowley (54:23)

Trumpeter Trump.

Ben Lindbergh (54:24)

Yeah, I think it's trumpeter. I wanted to say trumpeter.

Meg Rowley (54:29)

Oh, well, it should be trumpeter, even if it isn't trumpeter. Yeah, it should be.

Ben Lindbergh (54:34)

Yeah. Yeah. I almost thought that the Philly's firing of Rob Thompson was even more just sort of for show, just because no one was really suggesting that he was at fault in any way. Nothing was coming out about him. No players were speaking ill of him. There hadn't been any drama surrounding him. They had had such uniformly excellent results under him that. And I don't. It's not like I think Dave Dabrowski is a bad baseball executive or something. So I don't know that it speaks to some deep seated organizational problem, but that felt even more pro forma. Just, well, we gotta do something I guess we'll just let this guy go. And Thompson, he understood that that's the way that it works. But when there's an exception to it working that way, I think it's actually kind of admirable, maybe. And I think a lot of the interpersonal stuff. Was that Cora, was that Breslow? It seems like maybe it's Breslow as much as or more than Korra. Maybe it's some combination of both. But roster construction issues, okay. There are issues with the Red Sox. They've got too many players for certain positions and everything. There's an inelegance there. There may be some moves that could have been made that weren't made, but that's not why they got off to a lousy start, really. It's not because, oh, we don't really have any place to put Masataka Yoshida or something. I mean, there are bigger issues than that. And sometimes, just like things go wrong. They constructed the projected best starting rotation in baseball and whether it's been lousy and whether you thought it was genuinely the best, it was on paper. But whether you believe that or not, probably you didn't think it was the 23rd best rotation in baseball, which it's been by WAR. Probably you didn't think Garrett Crochet was going to stink and get hurt or that, well, Sonny Gray is hurt now and then Suarez just had an issue. And it's just, you know, so many things have gone wrong that it's pretty hard to pin the blame for all of that on any one person. If there's a pattern of, say, younger players not flourishing, then you could look at the instruction. Or maybe there's some more pervasive pattern there, or maybe not, but there's at least a hint of something. Whereas with the Phillies, it didn't really seem like there was any even suggestion that Thompson might be doing anything wrong. And I don't even think that Mendoza is a good manager, particularly. I. I don't have that strong an opinion because it's just so hard to know who is a good manager. So much of it, we kind of default to talking about the tactics because that's the part of the iceberg that's above the surface. Yeah. And maybe some of the comments to the media and everything. A lot of the stuff that is important is invisible to us and often even invisible to media members who are covering the team. And we maybe fixate on certain in game moves. I think enough of those moves by Mendoza or non moves have been brought to my Attention that I certainly understand that he's had some head scratchers and he's developed a reputation for not the greatest tactical acumen and maybe they would be better off with a different manager, who knows? But then maybe there's also some value to that continuity and to just sort of projecting confidence and saying, look, it's not his fault, so we're not going to fire him over that. So. And there are plenty of people who are eager to blame David Stearns too. Right. So maybe he knows that you keep Mendoza around to take some of the heat off him. I guess that could be one way to interpret it. I was just saying, you know, often the pobo dismisses the manager because it takes some temporary heat off of them. But then also it refocuses, retrains that ire on them because once they change the manager, well, you've done that and now the onus is on you to do something. So you could look at it as sort of keep that buffer there and it's sort of self preservational. But I don't even know. There are just so many issues with the Mets underperforming. I thought that they were pretty good. I did sort of sound the alarm about hey, high turnover team. Often they are a little more prone to disappointment, but that didn't stop me from thinking, but I like these players they put together. It's kind of a strangely constructed roster, but there's enough talent there that I think they should contend. So I'm not going to sit here and say, oh yeah, I saw this coming. I mean there are a lot of good players who haven't been good for them. So sometimes that just happens and sometimes that happens over a month of a season and acting like the manager is the issue or that you got to scrap everything and start over, maybe that's an overreaction. So it's an interesting disparity, at least in responses because I think the Mets, given their collapse last year is the thing, I think they would have been even more justified in the court of public opinion for doing that, for jettisoning Mendoza and maybe that's a stronger case for doing it. But given that there was already some heat on him coming into the year, they absolutely could have cut him loose. And the fact that they didn't, I don't know. I don't know if that'll be vindicated or not. But I think it's clearly a different approach and yeah, one that I kind of value, I guess, regardless of the specifics and the merits of the managers involved.

Meg Rowley (59:57)

Yeah, I, I think I, I agree. I think that's right.

Ben Lindbergh (60:01)

Okay. All right. A few other observations. I quite enjoyed that over the weekend the Reds were playing the Pirates, the Pirates swept. But I like when two teams play each other on back to back days and there's a huge disparity in scores. So on Saturday the Reds lost to the pirates 7 to 17. And then on Sunday the Reds lost to the Pirates. They were in Pittsburgh. That was a one to nothing game. So they went from 24 combined runs to one. Same teams, same rosters, different starting pitchers obviously. But if anything can, can tell you just how variable and random and unpredictable the results are in baseball from, from one day to the next 24. It's just like same condition, same teams, same setting, same ballpark, all the rest of it. And you go from just a high scoring. I guess you could call that a blowout. If one team wins by 10, even if the team that got blown out scored seven runs to a one nothing, that's a blowout. I'm pretty sure we've defined blowout before and I don't know what we said, but people can look up 7 to 10. No, 7 to 17.

Meg Rowley (61:14)

Oh yeah, okay. Yeah, that's fine. Sorry, I'm, I'm, I.

Ben Lindbergh (61:19)

It's tough to be blown out when you, you scored an above average number of runs. But.

Meg Rowley (61:23)

Yeah, but if the other team scores 17, I think that that's an exception to the.

Ben Lindbergh (61:27)

Yeah. From 17 to 7 to 1 to nothing in, in one day. And that 17 to 7 game, that was the day when the Reds tied a major league record by walking seven straight hitters. Seven consecutive Pirates walked. And the guy who broke that streak, I don't think I'm the only one to point this out, but it was Henry Davis Y. And he had a 20 count. You can't swing in that spot. Right. If you're, you're coming off seven consecutive walks, what four of which I think were with the bases loaded. So like, and you have, you're up to an O. And, and he, he grounded out and he could have gotten doubled up. He didn't, he beat out the throw. So it wasn't a double play and a run scored. I guess it goes down as a productive out. But that's gotta be, I don't know, kangaroo court violation or something. Cause like you gotta make, I mean it wasn't all consecutive balls I guess, but still you gotta make someone not walk you. I think at that point before you, you help them out of a jam, especially if you're Henry Davis, who is arguably the worst hitter in baseball. I mean, he has been over the past few years, I guess, with a sufficient sample at least. So I think you, you have to know yourself and know that often good things don't happen when you swing. And so maybe just take another pitch or two probably at that point.

Meg Rowley (62:58)

Yeah, I think it's more complicated than this, but it isn't like, make him show you that he can throw a strike.

Ben Lindbergh (63:06)

Yeah.

Meg Rowley (63:07)

And a couple of them, you know, not just one, but a couple, like make him work for it a little bit. What are we doing here? You know?

Ben Lindbergh (63:13)

Yeah, yeah. Henry Davis has a 51 WRC plus this year, and that is his best since his rookie season. So that gives you some indication of how things have gone. Minimum 700 plate appearances, 2023-2026. He has a 53 career WRC plus. The only ones worse are Nick Allen, who I believe is on the IL now, and Tim Anderson, who is out of mlb. So, yeah, maybe, maybe the worst hitter in baseball, I think. Take another pitch or two in that situation. Henry, I, I did mean to say with the managers and, and the dismissals or non dismissals, there is, you know, there's the, the cognitive bias. People talk about status quo bias.

Meg Rowley (63:57)

Yeah.

Ben Lindbergh (63:57)

Or default bias. It's like generally we prefer for things to stay the same. It's like why whenever a website gets redesigned, people get upset. Yeah. Because the UI is different. Oh, I don't know where that thing is that I wanted to click on. I used to know. Now I don't know. Ultimately I'll get used to it. And maybe this is even better. Probably the designers had some reason for making this change, but in the short term it introduces friction because now I don't know where that thing is and I have to go find.

Meg Rowley (64:26)

You learn something.

Ben Lindbergh (64:27)

Yeah, yeah. So that's status quo bias. But then in baseball, I guess there's also sort of the opposite, which is like, gotta do something bias. We can't just stay the course if the course stinks lately. And you kind of saw that across town with the Yankees where they did bring back the status quo. And there was all that conversation over the off season about whether they were running it back. And Brian Cashman denied that they were just running back the same roster, but basically they ran back the same roster and, and that seemed like it should be okay because the 2025 roster led the American League and run differential and won 94 games and went to the playoffs. And most fan bases would be pretty happy with That I understand. It's the Yankees. It's a little different. But still running back, that roster is a little different from running back a roster that's coming off a really lousy season. And now they ran it back and they are leading the American League and run differential again. Because it turns out that those players were pretty good and some of them have been even better and some of them will get back for injury and everything. So that was a case where it was defensible to stick with the status quo, I think, because the foundations of that team were pretty strong. But everyone was upset about that. They didn't want status quo. And maybe that's unique to the Yankees because it just wasn't good enough and

Meg Rowley (65:54)

they didn't want to vision. Well, they thought Anthony Volpe would be involved. That was part of the problem.

Ben Lindbergh (65:58)

Right. Maybe that's the thing. If you had told them it's the same roster minus Volpe, enough of a change for them. Yeah, but. But yeah, it's like. And I understand that it was kind of boring. Like we had the Yankees ranked low on our team fun draft this year and we acknowledge it's a good team. It's just. It's not that interesting because. Because nothing's new really. So you can tune in and you can say, oh, well, Max Freed, yeah, he's still good. Aaron Judge, he's still good. Now when you have the dynamic duo of, of Ben Rice and Aaron Judge, so that's fine. And you have Cam Schlitler, who's I believe, leading the American League in pitching war, if not the majors, then that's exciting too. So, you know, it wasn't. And I guess that was Cashman's argument partly was like, well, we have Schlitler for a full season now. We have Cabbie for a full season now. It was funny that after he said they weren't running it back, he then undercut his own contention by bringing back Paul Goldschmidt. Was like, not really necessary to bring him back. And it was a real commitment to the bit of bringing everyone back. But yeah, yeah, like change shaking things up. And I actually contrasted the Mets and Yankees in, in my article in Stat Blast about that because they were taking these diametrically different approaches where the Yankees were like, okay, we kind of like that team. Let's just keep it together. And the Mets basically just sort of tore it apart and reconstructed it. And ultimately they both projected to be good. The Yankees have been good. The Mets have not read into that what you will or nothing at all. Because it might not be significant, but yeah, I guess there are times when despite status quo bias, there's an opposite pressure, which is if the status quo is not good, then there is a pressure to do something, do anything, even if whatever you do doesn't actually help.

Meg Rowley (67:50)

I think part of the frustration with the Yankees and status quo too was this, the unique situation of the AL east, right, where they are not solely being judged within the context of the merits of their own roster, but like, hey, we played a really tough division. How does this group stack up against the other groups here? And you see like the Red Sox making all of these changes and the Orioles making some changes, even if some of us might have been unhappy with those changes and thought that they were misallocating money on their roster. But I do think that that is part of it, where there is a feeling that like maintaining the status quo is tipping into like complacency when you feel all of this upward pressure from the team's bully. Wow. P. Lonzo only has a 108 WRC plus. Wow. Hadn't grappled with that yet. So, you know, I think that, that some of the, like, hey, just do something is attributable to that where you feel like you have the, you know, the Blue Jays and the, the Red Sox sort of breathing down your neck and you got to do something more than just assume it can sustain. And I also think that some of it was like, hey, when you like, imagine for a moment that Aaron Judge were to get hurt, do you have the guys on in the lineup to sustain an offense without him? Because we've seen versions of this Yankees team where Judge is transcendent. And when you look at their top line offensive results, it's like, wow, this is a good offense. And then you pull Judge out of that and you're like, this is a much more mediocre offense. And I think that they've gotten some really not maybe surprising, but like, at least in terms of the magnitude of their performance relative to expectation, like they've gotten some. Did you think that Ben Rice was going to have a 224 WRC plus coming into the year? I sure did that good.

Ben Lindbergh (69:42)

No, I was a, I was a Bed Rice believer. But yeah, not to that extent.

Meg Rowley (69:46)

Not to, not to that extent. So I think that, you know, when you look at this lineup now, it feels much deeper than you necessarily thought that it would going into the year. And some of it, yeah, is like, hey, everybody else getting shiny bauble? I want a shiny bobble. Maybe that's rude to Cody Bellinger, who was, you know, a free agent who was resigned. But, like, you know, maybe you didn't think that that was a shiny enough bauble, but it turns out there were some. They also, I'm sorry, Yankees. The Yankees as an institution don't get to complain about being perceived as boring. They, I'm sorry, you can't cultivate the aura that you've cultivated them and, and then be like, no one thinks we're fun. And it's like you act not fun on purpose a lot of the time. Like getting rid of the facial hair policy doesn't undo this, like, entrenched perception we have of you as like an institution that takes itself entirely too seriously. And yes, I feel a little bad about talking about the Inky's vibe, like the day after John Sterling died, but he wore colorful suits.

Ben Lindbergh (70:49)

Yeah, he made it more fun.

Meg Rowley (70:51)

He made it more fun.

Ben Lindbergh (70:52)

Quite colorful, linguistically. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know if, if Yankees fans or, or Brian Cashman cares if they're perceived as not fun. I, I mean, I think as long as they're winning, if they're seen as somewhat robotic and just taking care of business and, and mowing everyone down, I think Yankees fans are fine with that. It's just that if they don't have the dominance.

Meg Rowley (71:16)

Right.

Ben Lindbergh (71:17)

And also the entertainment value isn't really there. But Cashman was protesting, and maybe protesting too much about the perception that he hadn't done enough. And in that he's been vindicated thus far. And, you know, I think that he, and probably Aaron Boone, they get an undue amount of criticism. I think if you want to direct some criticism, you should maybe direct it to Hal Steinbrenner. And there's a long standing frustration about the Yankees sitting out some markets that in the past they would have been bidding in. So that played into the perception that they hadn't done enough as well. But I hear a whole lot of calls for Aaron Boone and Brian Cashman to be fired and for heads to roll when the Yankees are not doing super well. Rarely do I hear the. Well, you know what, actually, maybe we were too hasty and, and these were the steady hands at the tiller that we needed. Then again, the Yankees, they've been quite Jekyll and Hyde and, and mercurial in recent seasons. So it is quite possible that that will happen again, that they'll have another summer swoon and they'll be depending on this hot start to bolster them through that. And also when you haven't won a World series since 2009.

Meg Rowley (72:30)

I was just about to say, I don't think that anything will cause the calls for Brian Cashman's job to cease.

Ben Lindbergh (72:40)

Yeah.

Meg Rowley (72:40)

Until they have won a World Series again or lost one in a less devastating way.

Ben Lindbergh (72:47)

Yeah. Yeah.

Meg Rowley (72:48)

I think that if they had played like, if the, if the Yankees had played the, the World Series that the Blue Jays had just played, I think the vibe is completely different because sure, there was like stuff in that final game that was rough, but it was like, it was such a dynamic style series and they really, you know, they really gave it to the Dodgers like that. It was, it was hardly a far gone conclusion that the Dodgers were going to win that series. They almost, they being the Blue Jays almost won it. Right. So I think that if, if they have a World Series win, a lot of this stuff gets tamped down.

Ben Lindbergh (73:27)

Yeah.

Meg Rowley (73:28)

The fact that this is in fact a very talented roster that is playing well and is one of the only teams in the American League that you can actually say is playing well, like pretty consistently, that's certainly something. But I don't think that, you know, this, the, the standards under which that organization operates are just, they're just different, you know, and in, sometimes in ways that we have bemoaned as like, hey, you guys are gripping it too tight. Like, yeah, your season is not a failure if you didn't win the World Series. Like they're, you know, that isn't, that just isn't the only metric by which we should judge these things. Judge these things. But, but also that is the metric by which they and their fan base judge these things. Yes, I, I agree with you that really what matters to them is the on field production. But I will say I think they are sensitive to the, the accusation that they are boring and that is why the music. Yankee Stadium is so freaking loud. Okay, that is a strong counterpoint to what you just said because if they weren't worried about people being jazzed up, they wouldn't be playing that music so stinking loud.

Ben Lindbergh (74:39)

And jazzed up was not meant to be a pun on any.

Meg Rowley (74:42)

It was not. Yeah, but it worked out that way, didn't it?

Ben Lindbergh (74:46)

Yeah. Yeah. And I guess it's not when people are calling for their jobs. It's, it's usually not so much. We don't think that Boone and Cashman can put forward a winning team or a team that can make the playoffs. It's just the belief that they can't then elevate to the next level. And they can't build a powerhouse, they can't build a super team. They are content with being good enough to get to the playoffs, but not good enough to win. And that I guess depends on whether you think there is such a thing, whether there is a higher gear that you have to have to win in October. And really, I guess it's the contrast with the Dodgers. I think if the Dodgers didn't exist and they hadn't won a few championships with an even higher payroll and a more star studded roster than the Yankees, then probably those calls wouldn't be as strong. It's just that Yankees conditioned their fans to think we're the biggest, we're the best, we're the biggest spending. And then when another team comes in and beats it on all of those measures as well as the winning World Series ones, that's tough to swallow, having to play second fiddle at best to the Dodgers. Also just wanted to shout out Riley o', Brien, Cardinals closer for now at least. Potential trade candidate I suppose, but he is second in National League reliever war. We've talked plenty about the guy who's number one, Mason Miller. But don't sleep on Riley o', Brien former effectively Wild guest and this is I have sort of a soft spot for him because he is the grandson of Johnny o', Brien, the effectively Wild legend who was on the podcast multiple times and Riley was on with his Grandpa on episode 1332. This was during the Jeff Sullivan era and Riley at the time was a Ray and Jeff was not yet a Ray, but Riley o' Brien was a Ray's minor leaguer at the time. And so we brought on Johnny and his grandson Riley and we talked about both of their careers and so I was pleased when Riley made his major league debut a couple years later for the Mariners or no, for the Reds and then he went to the Mariners and then he has been with the Cardinals for the past few years and hadn't distinguished himself so much until last year he started to be quite effective out of the bullpen and this year elevated to a back of the bullpen role. He's been excellent. So well done Riley and Johnny I'm sure would be proud. The late legend Johnny o'. Brien. So yeah, if anyone hasn't heard the Johnny o' Brien episodes, they're some of my favorites. So please do go back and listen to to those and the first conversation with Johnny was episode 1153 and then Johnny and Riley together was 1332. But yeah, nice to talk to a guy when he's still a bush leaguer and then makes good, becomes a big leaguer and becomes a closer and potentially a trade target.

Meg Rowley (77:52)

Yeah, Ben Clemens wrote about Riley o' Brien for us a couple weeks ago, so we'll link to that in the show notes if you want to get a sense of of what has changed and hasn't changed for him. But yeah, it's funny, though, because you ever have the experience of being like, oh, I haven't watched that guy, I'll make sure to tune in. And I had that experience after editing Ben's piece because I just hadn't had occasion to watch Riley o' Brien pitch.

Ben Lindbergh (78:18)

We had that experience about everyone on the Cardinals last year, I think, when we just kind of ignored.

Meg Rowley (78:24)

And then I was like, oh, I'll make sure to check him out. And what better time to do that than to watch him pitch against the Mariners where he faced nine batters and gave up four hits and two earned runs. And I was like, I don't know, this guy might not be very good after all. It was sort of an aberrant appearance for him. He has been very strong. In fact, it is one, I think, of only two games he has had this year where he has actually surrendered any earned rents. So, you know, sort of a bit of a deviation from the norm he is starting to establish here.

Ben Lindbergh (79:02)

Also, we talked a lot lately about the elevation of Mexico City and the impact that that has on baseball in Mexico City. I saw this headline on an AP piece just a few days ago. Mexico City is sinking so quickly it can be seen from space.

Meg Rowley (79:17)

What?

Ben Lindbergh (79:18)

So, yeah, so we were talking about how do you adjust how to. The Diablos Rojos, who've had such success in Mexico City, how do they handle the elevation? Well, wait a few millennia, maybe it won't be such an issue anymore. Yeah. According to the AP piece, which is based on satellite imagery released by NASA, Mexico City is sinking by nearly 10 inches a year. Making 10 inches. Yeah. That's substantial, making it one of the world's fastest subsiding metropolises.

Meg Rowley (79:49)

I am so confused. Is it. Is my understanding of Mexican geography wrong? Isn't Mexico City very much inland? Why is it sinking?

Ben Lindbergh (79:58)

Well, I will tell you. It is because it was built atop an ancient lake bed. Oh. Yeah. And.

Meg Rowley (80:05)

But it is inland, right?

Ben Lindbergh (80:07)

Yeah, but there was, I guess it was still sort of almost a Venice kind of canal situation. There were streets that were once canals and maybe still are in some cases. And extensive groundwater pumping and urban development have dramatically shrunk the aquifer Meaning that Mexico City has been sinking for more than a century, and some landmarks are visibly tilted to the side.

Meg Rowley (80:32)

Yeah.

Ben Lindbergh (80:32)

And this is bad because it has contributed to a water crisis. So, yeah, so that's serious. However, maybe the baseball won't carry as well, so there's that. So I guess if you're looking for bright sides, if you're looking for whether this is a viable place to expand for mlb, just. Yeah, you know, give it a few centuries or millennia, and it'll be down there. And who knows whether the rest of the earth will be a smoking ruin or not. But at least the elevation issue is slowly but surely subsiding.

Meg Rowley (81:10)

Yeah, I was going to say, I mean, like, it's not as if the league is opposed to having teams in places with impending water crises.

Ben Lindbergh (81:19)

Yeah, exactly. So now we know Mexico City is sinking. Also, I was following the Nick Kurtz walk streak. Nick Kurtz had a streak of games with a walk going, and it got up to 20, which was near record territory. And I was looking at some quotes about Nick Kurtz's streak, and, you know, he. He tied ted Williams at 19, and then he was trailing Barry Bonds at 20. And of course, number one all time with 22 consecutive games with a walk, Roy Cullenbine. So it goes. Roy Columbine, Barry Bonds. Now Nick Kurtz tied with Barry bonds with 20, and then Ted Williams. And Nick Kurtz's quote, when he was shown the names on that list, he said, it's crazy. I don't know if anyone should be compared to Barry Bonds, but to be in the same discussion, even if it is about walks, is pretty cool. And I was offended on behalf of Roy Cullenbine that he did not specifically single out Roy Cullenbine. I'm always amused because, like, you know, it's a reliable thing where reporters will go to players and be like, here are the guys you're chasing and whatever this is, often it's like a team record or something. And the player every single time just about says, like, oh, just to be mentioned in the same breath as this guy or that guy. And sometimes I've ranted about this before. Often they'll be like, it's humbling to see myself in that kind of company. And I always argue it's the opposite of humbling. It should. It should make you feel proud and better about yourself that you were that good. And, of course, it's like the opposite. They're trying to say, like, oh, you know, I'm not getting too big ahead here. I'm prostrating myself I'm, I'm saying I'm not worthy of being in that company. But they always say I'm humbled. It's like this should be a self aggrandizing moment. You should, you should really be feeling your oats now. But they will always say that because that's just, that's what you do, you know, you don't want to offend previous generations fans and be like, who? I've never heard of that guy. I guess, you know, that guy's era is over. I'm the new king or whatever it is. Like, screw that guy. You know, I'm taking over. I'm number one now. But when he tied Bonza's record and then he had his streak end at 20, which ended because he came up and he singled in his final plate appearance of that game rather than try to draw a walk for the 21st straight game, he, he cared more about getting that hit and getting that ribby and. And then Shay Langleers was asked about that and he said when you start talking the names like Barry Bonds and Ted Williams and stuff like that, you know you've got a really special player. Langlear said, stuff like that I think is Roy Columbine. It's like if you're singling out Ted Williams and Barry Bonds and stuff like that, Cullen Bind's at the top of that leaderboards. You know, he had a longer streak than Barry Bonds and Ted Williams. But Shay Langleers and Nick Kurtz, I'm going to guess, have not heard of Roy Cullenbine. And so they are not singling him out specifically because the whole idea is like, well, to be mentioned among luminaries like that, I guess it, it kind of falls down when you're like luminaries like Roy Colbein, whom most people have never heard of. So I get it. But also just I wanted to say the name since they were not acknowledging Roy Cullen Binds accomplishments. He was special too. And in this one specific respect, he was even better than Barry Bonds and Ted Williams and now Nick Kurtz and Roy Columbine had a great career. He may have come up on the podcast before, I don't know, but he had, I think he played at the wrong time because obviously he was a big walker and he played from 1938 to 1947. So he did span the World War II years. But I don't think he was purely a product of World War II because he continued to rake. Even post war, like 1946, just about everyone was back from the service and he put up a 179WRC plus a Nick Kurtz esque WRC plus that year. That was actually his career high. And he's maybe semi famous as a trivia answer because he had one of the best final seasons ever. He had a 4.4 war year swan song and he had a 130 WRC plus and it was his age 33 season. He wasn't ancient or anything but he just, he was not appreciated in his day because it was 1947 and he batted.224.224 batting average which was worse than, than it is now. And people put more weight on batting average but he had a.401 on base percentage. So he was very much a moneyball guy. He just kind of played in the wrong era and maybe he would have been appreciated more now. So his career rates were.276, 408, 432 career.135 WRC almost 34 war despite a not extremely long career. So underappreciated and he bounced around a bit and he just like wasn't wanted and wasn't a great defender or anything. But he was the subject of one of those quotes from the pre advanced player valuation days where people could just kind of throw out any number for what a player was worth or not worth. And so they would just have these wild ass guesses about what someone was costing a team or was worth to a team. I did a whole article where I collected those once. But he said Hugh Fullerton Jr. Was a well known writer and he was quoting Billy Evans then the tigers GM who said someone estimated we lost at least 15 games last season because of Cullen binds play around first.

Meg Rowley (87:15)

Wow.

Ben Lindbergh (87:16)

Which I mean, first of all, even if that were true, you wouldn't hear a baseball executive these days saying that generally.

Meg Rowley (87:21)

Definitely not.

Ben Lindbergh (87:22)

Yeah. You know, Dave Dombrowski just suggests that Bryce Harper might not be at his peak anymore. And the uproar, the outrage.

Meg Rowley (87:30)

Oh yeah.

Ben Lindbergh (87:30)

Can you imagine how bad you'd have to be at first base to cost your team 15 games?

Meg Rowley (87:34)

Oh God. Yeah.

Ben Lindbergh (87:35)

You'd have to be incapable of catching a force out pretty much. So that was preposterous. But yeah. And people called him lazy. He was like a proto Joey Vato maybe. Proto Vato because people would call him like lazy because he wouldn't swing unless it was a strike. Yeah. And I didn't know the man, but I, I doubt it was because he was too lazy to swing. He was just, he was selective. He wanted to make you throw him a strike, and when you didn't, then he would walk. So I've always been fascinated by those guys who were extreme walkers in an era where they got little credit for that. Yeah, you know, and it's, it's not as if no one knew walks were valuable and unbased percentage were. Were valuable. Maybe there's a perception that, like, Billy Bean discovered that or Bill James or whoever. I mean, you know, I think people had some sense, but it, it obviously was undervalued. And so those guys are kind of like, anachronistic. They're like out of time, you know, and they were just unappreciated in their day. And now he'd probably be some sort of sabermetric hero or something. But, yeah, I like the guys who, who had extreme walk rates even more if their whole game was walking or like, you know, because it's one thing if Nick Kurtz walks a lot. Obviously he's got a good eye and everything, but also he's got great power.

Meg Rowley (88:57)

Right.

Ben Lindbergh (88:58)

And so he commands respect. And pitchers are afraid of him, and so they have to pitch to him carefully. And Cullen Biden had pretty decent pop, too. He had, yeah, he had a career.155 isolated power, just, you know, not bad.432 slugs despite his.276 average. So, you know, he could, he could hit some dingers. He got into double digits a few times. But there are some guys who didn't even have the pop, really, but still had those extreme walk rates. And that's even more impressive in my mind, because you didn't have guys who were, like, afraid to throw in, in the zone. And I was trying to come up with some homebrew metric to identify those guys. Like, I was looking at the plus stats on fan graphs, you know, that adjust for the league context. Love, love looking at those. Sure. So Roy Cullen bind, for instance, his walk rate plus was 185, where 100 is average. So he's, you know, 85% higher walk rate than the league average during his day. And so his OBP plus was 120, even though his average plus was only 104. And his slugging plus was 114. His ISO plus, his isolated power slugging minus average was 142 plus. So again, he had pretty good pop. But I was, I was trying to craft a metric to identify the guys who had that kind of walk rate but didn't really have the power. And so however you slice it, I was, you know, slicing and Dyson every which way. And looking at like isolated patients, you know, you're on base percentage minus your average, subtracting isolated power from isolated patients or looking at like, you know, your OBP plus divided by your slug plus or your OBP plus minus your slug plus or you know, stuff with like your walk rate plus over your ISO plus or your walk rate plus over your WRC plus plus plus whatever plus all the other versions of that. And there are just a few names who consistently came up who were pretty good hitters. I wasn't so interested if you were like a bad hitter, but you were just able to draw some walks. But if you were a good productive hitter or, you know, productive at the plate, but largely because you were walking. Some of my favorite guys on that list, you had Camera Eye, Max Bishop,

Meg Rowley (91:25)

which is Camera Eye.

Ben Lindbergh (91:26)

Yeah, one of the best baseball nicknames. Amazing Camera Eye for obvious reasons. I mean, you know, he just, he had such a precise sense of the zone and everything. So Max Bishop, he had the fifth highest walk rate plus of all time. 2. 22. And he did that despite having below average batting averages.93 average plus and a 76 ISO plus. So he did not have very good power and didn't hit for a particularly high average, but had such an extreme off the charts walk rate. He had the same walk rate plus as Babe Ruth without really any of the power. And yet he managed to have a 113 WRC plus career. Like just because he was such a prolific drawer of walks and was like almost a 40 war guy. I mean that's, that's amazing. So Camera IMAX Bishop. Eddie Yost is another one nicknamed the Walking man for obvious reasons. You know, another excellent nickname, not to be confused with Eddie Yust who played at the same time as Eddie Yost. But yst was spelled with a J surprisingly. But yeah, you had Yoost and Yost who were playing at roughly the same time, but Eddie Yost was the Walking man and he had sort of similar stats where he had a 114 OBP plus despite a below average batting average plus and a 173 walk rate plus and a below average power and everything. And effectively Wild legend Eddie Stanky. He must be mentioned in this conversation too. He had a almost 200 walk rate plus and a well above average OBP plus despite a below average average plus and a 64 ISO plus. So he had no power at all, but was drawing tons of walks. And also Roy Thomas, who was. He played around 1900 and a little after, and he Was notorious for fouling off pitches until he walked, basically. And he's one of the reasons why we have the foul strike rule that sort of ushered in modern baseball because it used to be that you could just keep fouling off pitches forever until you got one you liked and then they said, no, actually now it's a strike if you foul off a pitch before you're at two strikes. Which is good because reputedly he fouled off 27 pitches one time and just kept going and going and going. And back then, you know, guys weren't throwing as hard and it was all about contact hitting. So you could just keep fouling off pitches forever until they changed that rule. But Roy Thomas was. Was notorious for that. He was like Takuya Nakashima, who was famous for doing that in NPB and came up on many episodes of Effectively Wild during the Jeff years. So yeah, you could do that back then. So I like those guys. And there were some other more famous names like Miller Huggins, who obviously went on to be a well known manager, and John McGraw, who was a good player and hall of Fame manager and everything. But yeah, I have a soft spot for Roy Columbine, Eddie Yost, the walking man, Camera eye, Max Bishop, Eddie Stankey, because that's something to really have that extreme specialty at a time when it was undervalued. One thing if camera eye came along now, but back then in those eras, I guess it was possible to be more of an outlier walk rate wise when it wasn't as emphasized at times. And you know that always when players say, sometimes, well, I didn't know you were supposed to walk. Or we get questions about that. It's a reasonable thing. Like, okay, what if that guy who didn't walk that much, what if he had played in a different era? Maybe if he had been encouraged to walk, he would have. And then people will use that as a slight against war. Sometimes it's like, well, but players did the thing that they were told to do or what was valued at the time. And yeah, there's probably some validity to that, but there were always guys like that who just had that skill and just kind of did it instinctively.

Meg Rowley (95:34)

Yeah. And it's funny because sometimes, I mean like less back in that era, but you know, sometimes you'll even see that argument around guys who played in recent memory.

Ben Lindbergh (95:45)

Yeah.

Meg Rowley (95:46)

And then you look and you're like, a lot of these guys still walked a lot. Like you look at their own base percentages and it's not. And their walk rates and it's not like they never walked. They. They did. They ended up walking a good bit. So it's a funny. It's a funny thing. I think we misremember it too far in the other direction sometimes too.

Ben Lindbergh (96:02)

Yeah. And the last thing I want to get your thoughts on, we got a question about this and it was well timed because I planned to answer it anyway. This was from Eli Patreon supporter who said. Apologies if you've dug into this already, but curious your thoughts on how framing skills may affect ABS skills as a catcher. Thinking of Austin Wells in particular, who's a good framer but seems fairly bad at ABS at challenging. May still be some small sample size noise, but his baseball savant number seems to match the eye test. He makes some egregiously bad ABS calls. I would have assumed there would be a strong correlation between framing and ABS given knowledge of the zone, but perhaps they are very discreet skills. And I looked this up and, and I ran a correlation between on the team level between framing according to baseball savant and challenging by that team's catchers.

Meg Rowley (96:56)

And is this all of their challenges or specifically their challenges when they are catching or their challenges when they're catching?

Ben Lindbergh (97:04)

Yes, only when they're catching. Yeah, Good question. But yeah. So I just looked at this on the team level and there is in fact a reverse correlation between team framing success and catcher challenging success. So when one is better, the other tends to be worse. And look, we're not that deep into the season. This could change. It's not that strong in effect, but basically the correlation between framing just framing runs above or below average and challenge runs above or below average by a team's catchers is negative 0.17. And then the correlation between framing and just challenge success rate. So just what percentage of challenges you got right? That's actually an even stronger reverse correlation, negative 0.29. So on the whole, it has been true that the better a team has been at framing, the worse Ed has been at challenging. It's still a fairly weak correlation, but nonetheless, that is the direction that we have seen. Yeah, and I saw an article about this at the Athletic that was just published last week that maybe explains this or. Or helps explain it a little bit. So this piece was published on April 27th by Zach Meisel at the Athletic. He quotes K Ber Ruiz, the Nationals catcher who has, I think, been better at framing this year because he had good. Yeah, he had been bad. I think we talked about on the preview. So when this was published, Zach writes The Nationals sit on the other end of the spectrum, producing an overturned call on A league low 39% of their challenges. And, you know, catchers on the whole have been better than coin flip at this. Their catcher, caber Ruiz, is 6 for 12, but he admitted he has tricked himself this season because he has improved his framing.

Meg Rowley (99:09)

Huh.

Ben Lindbergh (99:10)

If I catch it good, he said, I think it's a strike sometimes. It also says that might be the case for Giants catcher Patrick Bailey, who annually rates as the best framer in the business. Expert framing can convince a hitter not to challenge, or it can fool a catcher into underestimating their own ability to make a borderline pitch resemble a strike. I think that makes sense, said Bailey, who's 10 for 22 on challenges. I definitely haven't been as good as I wanted to be with the abs. Meanwhile, Salvador Perez and I think Ben Clemens mentioned this last week that he's actually been really good on his challenges, and he historically has not been a good framer.

Meg Rowley (99:49)

A good framer. Yeah.

Ben Lindbergh (99:51)

Yeah. So this is interesting because we talked a lot about wood. Good framers deke their own pitchers into challenging by mistake, and that hasn't happened that much just because pitchers don't challenge that much. And then we talked about, well, could catchers fool hitters into challenging by receiving a pitch in a certain way? It's possible that maybe good framers are fooling themselves.

Meg Rowley (100:16)

Yeah.

Ben Lindbergh (100:17)

Do you buy that? Does that sound sensible to you?

Meg Rowley (100:20)

It seems possible. Now, I'm a little surprised that it would be so notable just because, like, I think of framing as sort of an. An active move. Right. That, you know, you're. But, yeah, maybe. Maybe not, you know.

Ben Lindbergh (100:39)

Yeah. And I also ran a quick correlation between the framing runs and just number of challenges, and it turned out that that is a reverse correlation, too. Negative 0.28. So the more successful a team has been at framing, the less often it has challenged.

Meg Rowley (100:58)

Yeah.

Ben Lindbergh (100:59)

So I wonder if that's part of it. Like, maybe if you're a good framer, you're so focused on framing that you're thinking about that more than you're thinking about whether to challenge. Maybe it's. It's taking up more of your mental energy. I was thinking that maybe good framers would challenge more.

Meg Rowley (101:20)

Yeah.

Ben Lindbergh (101:20)

Because, like, they'd have a skewed sense of the strike zone. And so. Yeah. Because they're used to getting calls on pitches that are outside of the zone, and so they might be overconfident when it came to challenging, but I guess that's not it. Because it. It looks like the better the framing team, the less often it challenges and the less successful it's been. So that might have been one explanation, and I don't know if that exactly comports with the facts here, but. Yeah, and I guess the better you are at framing, the fewer pitches you have to challenge because you're getting the calls to begin with. But that is interesting that. Because I. I guess I sort of assumed, or at least saw it widely suggested, that maybe good framers would be good challengers. And people said this about Bailey, and people also said this about Juan Soto. Yeah, like, I. I saw a tweet from last September where Tango, Tom Tango of mlb, who works on the savant stuff, was previewing the fact that they would have some sort of challenging above average metric. And he said, we'll see if Juan Soto and Patrick Bailey will lead in this. Well, they're certainly not now. In fact, they've. They've both been well below average in this. Of the 75 qualifying catchers on the ABS leaderboard for catchers, Bailey ranks 62nd in run value, basically, versus expected from challenging. And Juan Soto, of the 320 batters, he ranks 288th. He's been a bit below average, too. I know he was on the il for a while, but he's 0 for 3 in challenges. So I think it was suggested, like, if you have a great eye or you're great at sort of manipulating other people's perceptions of the strike zone, maybe you would be great at this, too. And I. I think maybe Petriello might have cast some doubt on that based on minor league results. Like, guys who have good walk rates or whatever don't necessarily. Doesn't correlate to challenging. So, I don't know, maybe it wasn't predictable who would be the best at that? But, yeah, I. I understood the logic. Like, yeah, Juan Soto, he knows what's a ball and what's a strike, so he'll be great at this. But maybe, maybe not. Maybe not Patrick Bailey either.

Meg Rowley (103:38)

Yeah, that's so interesting.

Ben Lindbergh (103:39)

Anyway, hopefully that answers your question, Eli, and we'll keep tabs on this, and I'll check as we get more data, and we can kind of rerun this and see if the finding holds up. But I like that idea that it's just like, I'm so good at framing, I fooled myself, and this has somehow become counterproductive. So you gotta take the good with the bad. I guess you could celebrate that the Nationals aren't doing a terrible job of framing this year, but maybe it comes with a cost. Yeah, ruiz was negative 8.4 framing runs last year and that was pretty consistent for him. And this year he's been plus 1.5, 1.5 above average. So that's good, I guess, but maybe it comes with not so great framing. And the other Nationals catcher, Drew Millis, he said he sort of seconded that quote and said we're catching the ball better than almost anybody in baseball. So it's like everything feels great and everything feels like a strike. I 100% agree with K Bear. The one thing that we do a good job of when we're at home is the traject that helps us with that zone. He goes on to talk about how they prepare that. But yeah, they're just like, they're feeling their framing and so they're maybe making mistakes with challenging.

Meg Rowley (104:54)

Interesting.

Ben Lindbergh (104:55)

All right, and thanks to everyone who responded to our Dalton Rushing conversation. We did hear many Dodgers fans wrote in. And at least among the skewed sample of effectively wild listening Dodgers fans who chose to respond to that discussion, I would say that they mostly weren't thrilled with Dalton Rushing's shenanigans. Yeah, you know, wanted him to tone it down a bit, so. And perhaps he will. I did have to correct one thing I said during that discussion when we were talking about the insult, the invective he hurled at Miguel Amaya. I think I said that he said that after he had thrown out Amaya, that was not the case. There was a wild pitch and Amaya advanced on it and he was not thrown out. And Rushing called him what he called him, which I repeat yet again, I won't make Shane bleep it. Which is maybe a bit more understandable because it was a, a fit of pique, perhaps that he was mad that Amaya advanced on him because we were, you know, he said the first thing, dropped the first F bomb after Jung Huli was thrown out. And it was weird that he was like, you know, saying that.

Meg Rowley (106:03)

Yeah.

Ben Lindbergh (106:04)

After that. And so it seemed like there was a pattern of wait, does he like curse out other players after he throws them out or tags them out or something? No. So maybe he was just upset that the pitch got away and that Amaya advanced, but still a weird thing to say and still off putting. And I don't think it's any less red ass, really. But yeah, there were people who were saying in our discord group, you know, it's maybe more than redassery. Maybe he's like entered the Tommy Pham Zone, where it's like, this guy's taking it too far. But then other people were saying, you know, it's nice to have like low stakes villains also, because, yes, if this is it, I mean, it's still a little much to be just.

Meg Rowley (106:48)

Yeah.

Ben Lindbergh (106:49)

And you know, he subsequently said that he didn't realize Jung Huli was hurt. He also denied that he said that, but not very credibly, in my opinion. And again, Dave Roberts kind of said he said it. So it's hard to take it so seriously when he's denying that he said it. But he also did say he didn't realize he was hurt. And he said he subsequently, he reached out through Hae Sang Kim to make sure he was okay and that he was planning at least to. To like check in with Jung Hooli himself. And I don't know that there's really any existing beef there, so maybe that's fine. But. But people were saying if this is it and there's no like off the field stuff or like serious transgressions. It's kind of what I said about like, you know, maybe you love this guy if he's your red ass and then you kind of hate him if you're another teams fan. But. But maybe you love to hate him. You know, it's like a heel you were. You were saying. Right. So, you know, maybe he can kind of be a heel.

Meg Rowley (107:45)

I think that it sounds as if Dalton Rushing is getting feedback on this behavior from literally his manager.

Ben Lindbergh (107:54)

Yes, yes.

Meg Rowley (107:55)

And so if he takes that feedback in, okay, great. I'm not going to say that it's solely the province of young men, but it is a demographic known for peak and if they adjust their peak, then I applaud that and want to leave room for that. So I hope no one took from our conversation that we view Dalton Rushing to be like some irredeemable nonsense.

Ben Lindbergh (108:23)

Right.

Meg Rowley (108:23)

Our. Our feedback, which I think was appropriate was, hey, buddy, chill out a little bit. You know, and then. And then we got to introduce people to the concept of ass colored glasses. And so really wasn't it a win all around?

Ben Lindbergh (108:36)

Yeah. And you have to be careful because that reputation can compound quickly because I.

Meg Rowley (108:41)

Yes, it can.

Ben Lindbergh (108:42)

I saw like Dalton Rushing was trending a couple times since then for not really doing anything so bad. But he just, he's kind of become the main character in a weird way for a guy who's like not even a starter or always. But you know, he like I mentioned how he had been upset that an umpire didn't grant him a timeout when he did clearly seem to have requested one.

Meg Rowley (109:05)

Right.

Ben Lindbergh (109:05)

And then the next time he tried to signal for a timeout, he did it like almost obnoxiously. Like, this umpire might be a bit slow. You know, I might have to like signal super clearly that I'm really calling for a time out here. And I don't know that that was really like a dick move or anything. It was just that he had had that previous miscommunication, so he was making ultra sure. And. But if you know Dalton rushing and this reputation that he has already cultivated, then you might see that and think like, oh, get a load of this guy. Like he's trying to show up this umpire or something. Or he had another case. Remember when he and Nico Horner both challenged the same pitch, like he was preemptively challenging. He had another one of those where he challenged a call that went the Dodgers way, but it was like a game ending call and it was a delayed call by the umpire. And so I guess he was just. It was preemptive. It was. It might be borderline and I might as well. And also someone suggested maybe this was smart. Maybe he was trying to like deke the batter into not challenging because if the batter saw him challenge, then maybe the batter would be slower to challenge and then the time would pass or something. I don't know if it was that or if he was just not taking any chances. But then I saw some other people being like, get a load of Dalton rushing. He's at it again. You know, he has to be the center of attention or something. But I don't know that he really did anything wrong in those cases. It was just that people were already conditioned to think, oh, it's that guy again. What did he do now? So, you know, sometimes that reputation can cement itself quickly and then maybe you feel like everyone already sees me this way. I'll just embrace the villain mentality. So hopefully he will pull back before that point.

Meg Rowley (110:45)

Yeah.

Ben Lindbergh (110:45)

Okay. Shohei Ohtani not hitting again in another start. He's. He's doing one way during his start on Tuesday.

Meg Rowley (110:53)

I don't think you need to worry about it yet, but I know you will.

Ben Lindbergh (110:56)

So, yeah, he is like over his last 17 or something. I mean, he has not been hitting even when he has been hitting. But I don't know if that's because he has been pitching too. I'm inclined to think no. But yeah, they're giving him a rest.

Meg Rowley (111:07)

Controversy.

Ben Lindbergh (111:08)

Yep. And check out everyone, by the way, savantal.com. this was a new site created by an effectively wild listener and Patreon supporter Andrew Kicklater, who heard my recent rant about how everyone was vague posting savant percentiles and just showing a screenshot of the percentiles without identifying the player. And he created a website where you can just do a baseball savant guessing game and it just shows the percentiles and it doesn't say who it is. But that's the point. Which, as we were saying, if you're trying to make people guess. Okay, fine. If you're not trying to confuse anyone. Okay, so savantal.com, so it's like Wordle but for Savant and baseball. Savant has some, like, guessing games on its site, but not for the percentiles, strangely. So Andrew stepped in and he built his own. And it. It gives you, like, five guesses, and then after each guess, it will give you some hints or if you, you know, nail, like the player's position or league or division or something, it'll tell you that. And so it's a tough game. I. I tried to play it. It's just one a day, like wordle, and you can share your results if you care to. I don't particularly care to see them, but. But yeah, it's. It's tough. I mean, we know a lot about baseball, but it's tough to identify just based on savant percentiles, which is why you have to identify who those percentiles correspond to. Unless you are trying to make me guess. But savantal.com just savant with an LE at the end. And you too can play along with this game created by an effectively wild listener.

Meg Rowley (112:42)

Full name required, accents optional. Who is this?

Ben Lindbergh (112:47)

Well, you've got five guesses to figure it out. God, I know. Yeah. I mean, the first time I tried to play Savantal, it. It turned out to be Tyler Freeman. And, you know, that was a tough first one, I think, but nonetheless. Yeah. Test. Test your mettle. I. I feel somewhat proud because my rant inspired the creation of this site, but maybe it'll catch on. I will link to it on the show page.

Meg Rowley (113:13)

Oh, this is tricky. This is tricky, tricky.

Ben Lindbergh (113:19)

It is, but she's.

Meg Rowley (113:21)

Oh, who could it be? Oh, I'm gonna make myself crazy with this.

Ben Lindbergh (113:25)

I know it's only one a day. Fortunately, I'm. I'm not a player of this type of game in general, but generally not. Yeah, it frustrates me. But, Samantha, it'll test your mettle.

Meg Rowley (113:36)

I guess I'll see now I'm, I'm, I'm guessing live on air. Yeah, I got it too.

Ben Lindbergh (113:46)

Okay, well, I think it will have expired by the time people hear this and there will be a fresh Nolan Arenado. There you go Nolan Arenado.

Meg Rowley (113:53)

Samantha samantle.com all right, you can support

Ben Lindbergh (113:57)

Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com effectivelywild and signing up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going. Help us stay ad free and get yourself access to some perks as have the following five listeners, Ben Black, Kale, Harry Gonzalez, Tom Schwerman, and Louis Adamian. Thanks to all of you, Patreon. Perks include access to our full unrestricted weekly episode, the aforementioned monthly bonus episode. We just put one up early this week the 54th. You can access all 54 right now if you sign up. Plus exclusive live streams membership in our Discord group for patrons only, personalized messages, prioritized email answers, Fangrass memberships, shout out to the end of episodes, potential podcast appearances, and more. Check out all the offerings@patreon.com effectivelywild if you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. If not, you can contact us via email. Send your questions, comments, intro and outro themes to podcastfangraphts.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 group@facebook.com group effectivelywild. You can find the Effectively Effectively Wild subreddit @r effectivelywild and you can check the show notes in the podcast, posted fan graphs in 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. If baseball were different, how different would it be? Players growing, third arm, sending field penetree anything. It's fair game even key case dirty pants. Maybe if you're lucky, we'll cold call. By the chance, you never know precisely where it's gonna go. By definition, Effectively Wild.