Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1040: Opening Day and the Post-Trampoline Prospect

Episode Date: April 4, 2017

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about the difficulty of keeping perspective on Opening Day events, the lone disagreement between their preseason predictions, and a common reader misconception about prediction “groupthink.” Then they talk to Astros Double-A catching prospect and trampoline survivor Garrett Stubbs about his childhood trampoline injury and still-crooked finger, his dramatically different […]

And the tank is half full And I reach down and change the station I'm just the opening act Hello and welcome to episode 1040 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast presented by our Patreon supporters. My name is Ben Lindberg. I'm a writer for TheBringer.com, joined by Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs. Hello. Hello. Happy opening day Monday, sort of. Opening day? Opening day? Which one is opening day? Which one counts? I think it's this one. I think it's worth getting excited about the not real one also, because those are actual baseball games. But I think if we had to designate one as

opening day, it makes more sense to call it today. Yeah. If you had like, I don't know, the Braves and the Nationals, and that was, I think that happened years ago, like the first game of the season. And it was the only one. And I guess technically it's opening day, but nobody cares about the nationals and the braves i'm not even convinced that many people in dc care about the nationals and i guess opening day is really more something for you to celebrate for your own team so i guess you have to designate the day with the full slate right does everybody's playing today or is there somebody who's missing i don't care whatever everybody already everybody gets their game it's opening days yeah i think some

people who played already are off already to recover from that first game the rigors yeah just about everyone is playing so it's always kind of hard to know what to talk about at this point in the season because it's very tempting to overreact to everything just because it's the first baseball we've seen that counts in a really long time and it's fun and we're excited and so if the giants blow a save or something right after signing a expensive closer so they could stop blowing saves that seems interesting and significant and it's probably not in the long run really so always sort of hard to know what to dwell on and what to just say that was fun but it was one

game so i don't know we are going to get to an interview in just a second is there anything we should say about predictions since we were both forced to do them i don't know if you were forced i was forced i do predictions mostly unwillingly but we both had to contribute to staff prediction posts. I haven't checked to see where we differ. I'm going to guess that we don't differ in all that many places. Probably not. Because we tend to evaluate baseball in similar ways. But let's just see if I can spot any notable differences.

Jeff Sullivan. If I can spot any notable differences. Jeff Sullivan. We have Boston, Cleveland, Houston, Seattle, Texas for the AL playoff teams for you. I have almost the same. I have Boston, Cleveland, Houston. Then I think I went Toronto, Seattle. So I guess I took Blue Jays over Rangers.

That's the only difference in the AL. We both took Trout, Sale, and Benintendi for the major awards. And then in the NL, you took Nationals, Cubs, Dodgers, Mets, Giants. So did I. You also took Bryant, Kershaw, Swanson. So did I. Yeah, but this is a very uninteresting podcast segment. Blue Jays versus Rangers.

Our big debate of the 2016 prediction season. I'm mildly interested that you took Rangers just because you have been at the forefront of chronicling the ways in which the Rangers overachieved last year and yet you think that even after

probably regressing, they will be good enough. Explain your reasoning. Well, so I'm kind of, what's funny is if I did those predictions again, I'd actually probably boot the Mariners and replace them with the Blue Jays because since then Drew Smiley got hurt and their rotation depth sucks. So that's a problem. I did that before that injury also. Yeah. And there's this big group that I expect to be involved in the AL wildcard. I even think the A's are pretty good. Anyway, this is about the Rangers. And I think I am sort of a pitching optimist, maybe to my own detriment,

but I feel kind of good about them having Tyson Ross coming back, even though I know he's a big, giant question mark. And I know they've lost Andrew Kashner but I don't think Andrew Kashner is any good so I don't care I think they have a pretty deep bullpen especially when Kiela comes back assuming he's not a jerk anymore which I guess that's a dangerous assumption I think it's a pretty good lineup I know all about how the Rangers overachieved and I'm sure I'm sure to some subliminal I don, extent, I've been influenced by the Rangers prior overachieving. If there's one thing that I would love to make clear for you

and I guess myself and the entire audience, it's fun around this time of year and also after the year to look at the, quote, expert predictions and make fun of the people who got them wrong. But based on my own experience, and therefore I project this to be everyone's experience, none of the experts actually put that much thought into these predictions. I'm going to guess. I mean, there's all the thought that we do every day that sort of informs our gut feelings. But I mean, I did not agonize over anything. I agonized over the American League Rookie of the

Year voting that I did last year. That was difficult. I had to pick between Sanchez and Fulmer. And that was tricky for me. This this was not tricky i thought about this for 30 seconds i also did some predictions for the seattle times just because ryan divish sends out an email asking for predictions from a bunch of seattle northwest area people i'm not even sure if my predictions that i sent to him match up with my predictions for fangrass there's no reason for them not to they're my predictions but you know i didn't yeah double check it's just how i feel at a given moment and i feel like the rangers are pretty good i mean they have flaws but i think blue jays have flaws the mariners now have a glaring flaw the yankees have flaws the tigers have no outfield the orioles have flaws the rays have flaws i can keep going down the list hell

even the red dogs have a flaw now that i'm not sure what to expect out of David Price. So I don't know how much thought, from start to finish, and you doing your predictions, how much time you lapsed. Well, we had to do blurbs and little write-ups, so that took a little time. But the actual picking of the teams and players, probably like 10 minutes maybe at most, just because I had to look and make sure that I wasn't missing some rookie eligible player who could win that award who I wasn't taking into account or something but I definitely didn't agonize over anything and maybe that's because my predictions are boring and predictable and safe and I'm sort of glad to see that yours are too, because I think that's the right way to do predictions. I feel like Ian Kinzler talking about bad flips or something,

but that's the right way to predict baseball is just to come up with the boring favorites, basically. Like if you think a team is significantly better than the projections, by all means, go with your gut on that or your analysis on that or whatever is taking you to that conclusion. But I generally find that my conclusion is not dramatically different from the consensus of smart baseball people and the projections, which are what the smart baseball people are looking at to begin with. which are what the smart baseball people are looking at to begin with. There aren't that many teams that I find nowadays, at least I look at the projection and I think that's insane, that's way off.

So it's kind of tough because I don't know if it's all that compelling a product. And then you get accusations of groupthink, or at least we used to at BP, because every single staffer would pick one team to win the division or something. And it seems crazy. It seems like you're all just part of this unthinking horde. But it's not really that. It's more that everyone is picking the most likely team, and often there is clearly one most likely team. And so the fact that everyone picks that team doesn't reflect their likelihood of winning. You know, they might have a 60% chance of winning the division or something, which means there's a good chance that they won't win the division. But if you think there's a 60% chance that they will, there's also no point in picking anyone else to.

And so it ends up looking unanimous in a way that people kind of instinctively question or mock but i don't think it always means what they think it means yeah if you have a if you have a weighted coin you know it's like 60 odds it's going to come up heads everyone if you ask a panel of 100 people to pick which side the coin is going to land everyone's going to say heads because of course it makes the most sense but then tails is going to come up doesn't mean the experts were wrong. That's there. There's the takeaway. Hey, guys, you can't ever prove that we're wrong. It's impossible. So checking in, I guess we'll going back to predictions real quick, like another way

to do it. You and I share the boring way of, well, this is what's most likely. So we're going to predict it. And last Friday, I think it was thursday i don't care dave cameron wrote an article for fangraphs titled presenting your 2017 american league cy young winner colon lance mccullers which hey yeah i get it it's a great it's a great excuse to write an article about how lance mccullers has been i don't know kind of underrated and and super good i don't know if dave actually predicted mccullers i assume he did predict mccullers to win the cy young but i think dave would i think he even said in the article like we're in full agreement there's no reason to pick mccullers over like for sale or cory

clinton there's not a single one except gut feeling based on nothing dave has no inside information on lance mccullers i assume i'm gonna guess he hasn't been shipping him undetectable steroids like it's just this is the other way to do predictions which i get it's kind of fun because then it gives you an excuse to write an article where you can defend your pick but it's still objectively the wrong pick yeah and and then you can make fun of it because you can say oh you're just doing this for attention for clickbait but. But I mean, I guess I don't know what's the right way. I obviously lean more toward your side. But maybe next year I'll be different.

Maybe next year I'll be like, look, I think Cody Anderson is going to win the Cy Young. And here's why. I don't care if you don't know who Cody Anderson is. I don't care if he's out of baseball. He's going to come back and Brad Mills is going to hit 25 home runs. Yeah. I wish I believed that. I wish I could talk myself into

doing that, but I always feel like it's a stunt or I'm being disingenuous in some way. Not that anyone really cares what my predictions are or will even keep track of what my predictions are, including me, but somehow it just feels like more intellectually honest to go with the boring pick over the one that maybe you'll be remembered by if you happen to get it right. I don't know if that's even true, really. And if you are making kind of weird off-the-board picks so that you are doing something memorable, you're probably getting everything else wrong most of the time. So anyway, that's my projections rant for today. That's what qualifies as a rant for me.

That's as animated as Ben gets. So I guess just before we get to the interview, we'll just do a quick rundown, a look at. So here are Fangraphs, not counting, I guess, Sunday's action. Fangraphs's projected playoff teams in the American League. You've got the Red Sox, Indians and Astros winning their divisions all by what seemed to be considerable margins and the two wild card teams projected right now are the blue jays and the angels okay well it's the blue jays and the angels i guess which i don't know if anybody at fan graphs would actually agree with that but that is what's there the numbers speak for us group think and whatnot moving to the national league we have theals, Cubs and the Dodgers with the wildcard teams being, again, the very boring Mets and the Giants. That is not to say the Mets are boring, but it's the same playoff picture that we had last Astros. The Rays, well, this is Dakota, so of course.

The Rays and the Mariners, those are the American League playoff teams, according to Baseball Prospectus. And in the National League, we have the Mets, the Cubs, and the Dodgers, with the wildcard teams being the Nationals and the Giants. And the current update is the Dodgers are projected four games better than the Cubs. Four games down from eight games. So I don't know what switch, but at least that has been halved. And, you know, whatever.

I can understand it. Plus the Cubs already lost. Hey, look, Pocota's on to something. All right. Well, I felt like we had to do some sort of opening day related banter on opening day. So we have done that. And now we can move to something that is not opening day related, but I hope will be of interest to Effectively Wild listeners given some of our

recent topics of discussion. So what a week ago or so, maybe a little more, we got a listener email about a catcher with a crooked finger who had a traumatic trampoline injury injury in his past And we made some Overtures about possibly having him on the podcast Initially it sounded like maybe he Wouldn't be available to talk about it Turns out he is so we Didn't disclose who that catcher was Although a lot of listeners figured it out

But he is about To join us now and we're going to Talk about that injury but also Some interesting stuff about catcher defense and framing and the way that he has reinvented his swing and added power and size and weight at the catcher position so we will only spend i don't know a quarter of the interview on trampolines which is probably enough but we can get to that right now. So never lend a broken man a broken hand. Or talk the kind of lip nobody understands.

The truth is true and tried, but so are all your lies. But so are all your lies A lie can be the truth The truth just can't disguise Alright, so we are joined now by Astor's catching prospect, Garrett Stubbs, who is a few days away from starting his second season in AA. He just got out of IHOP and he is ready to talk. Hi, Garrett. How are you doing all right so we are going to ask you baseball questions in just a moment i promise but one of the reasons

why you came to our attention is we have this running joke on our podcast about trampolines and jeff has a traumatic trampoline injury in his past, and he has convinced that they're dangerous and they're the devil's recreational activity. And it came to our attention that you yourself have suffered a trampoline injury, and we were hoping you could tell us about it. Yeah. So it's funny because my buddy, Danny Palasek, actually texted me, and he listens in on your guys' show. Johnny Palasek actually texted me and he listens in on your guys' show and was telling me you guys were talking about trampolines and he had reached out to you guys about my incident and whatnot. So it was pretty funny when he texted me about it. But it happened when I was in eighth grade. We were just, you know, doing our normal fun stuff on a trampoline. We were actually launching

ourselves off of a beanbag from the trampoline. And I went up a little too high. And when I came down, I landed on my hand, my right hand, and my ring finger on my right hand turned completely sideways. I, you know, I came up with my hand, showing my friends and my finger was, it was perpendicular to the rest of my finger. I'm showing my friends and my finger was it was perpendicular to the rest of my finger and uh all of a sudden my finger snapped back into place without me doing anything and never went to the doctor or anything um I now just have a very large knuckle on my right hand I'd like to think it maybe helps me throw the ball now but I really doubt it but yeah if that was my trampoline story when i was

about 13 years old i couldn't play for like two weeks because my finger was hurting so bad so do you blame the trampoline or do you blame your use of the trampoline with the the beanbag aspect i blame my use of the trampoline but uh i definitely agree that trampolines are a dangerous thing to be doing when you're playing sports, seriously. Have you been back onto a trampoline since then? Honestly, I don't know if I have. I maybe have like a couple times, but I'm definitely more careful since that incident. Well, I guess as a natural segue, this is about eighth grade, so you would have already have been playing baseball by that point. Obviously not at your more recent level, but just to sort of transition over, did you notice anything? I mean, this is your bottom

hand. This is an important part of your swing mechanism. You've got sort of a messed up right ring finger. Have you noticed any sort of impact? How has that changed your swing if at all it hasn't changed my swing at all but when I first had it happen I threw the baseball with three fingers for months because I couldn't throw with two fingers because my right knuckle was too big and you know I was 13 years old I hadn't grown yet not that I've grown very much since then but I had to throw the ball with three fingers because my second i couldn't get two on there because my third one was so big that i wouldn't reach around the baseball so for months i was thrown with three fingers which might have been a good thing because now

when i throw down a second base there are times when i don't get a good grip on the ball and i just decide to throw it with three fingers instead of two. So maybe I learned a little something from when I was younger on how to throw the ball with three fingers. So I don't know. I try to look at the positives and the negative things that have happened. So is it actually perceptibly crooked or is it just sort of a bump at this point? I'm looking at it right now. It's pretty crooked. It's got a bump. It's not exactly the prettiest finger in the world. I'm lucky that it's on my right hand because my future wife wouldn't be very happy if my left hand didn't fit a ring on it. All right. Well, I guess we've exhausted our trampoline questions. Do you have any more trampoline questions, Jeff? No, no. I guess, I mean, it sounds like there's a silver lining to this particular trampoline incident, which I guess sort of works against our cause, but still, this is, Garrett Subbs can raise awareness for trampoline-related athletic injuries. Yeah, I would recommend not going on a trampoline if you're serious about playing whatever sport you're in.

Or just maintaining a high quality of life, no matter what field you're in, really. Yeah, yeah. So baseball questions. You are, I think, interesting to people like me and Jeff because we tend to look at the game from a more statistically oriented perspective. And you really stand out in that respect. So Fangraphs, the website that we do this podcast for, has two different varieties of prospect lists. So it has your standard sort of, you know, talk to scouts and see where organizations have guys ranked and go to games and file reports, that kind of

Baseball America style prospect list. And then there's a separate prospect list just based on stats and your age and your ballpark and basically just how you've performed. And on that list, you show up as the 10th best prospect in baseball, whereas on the scouting-based list, you don't show up. So I'm curious what you think of that because I'm sure this is not a new thing for you. You, I think, were one of the best college hitters in the country in your senior year, and you were drafted in the eighth round. So I'm sure you are used to this. Where does this differential between your performance and your prospect rankings come from? Well, you know, I don't ever play play the game be on some sort of prospect list

or anything like that so when i hear stuff like that you know it's really awesome you know that the numbers that i'm putting up put me on um you know higher than than others as far as my performance and then you know from the difference between my stats that i put up and then the perception that people have of me you you know, of scouts and their personal opinions, you know, my guess would be that I'm a 5'10", 180-pound catcher that, you know, they've never seen before. So when they look at me, they don't think, you know, this guy's a big leaguer. But, you know, you guys will go back and look at the numbers and see that, you know, my performance that I put out there on the field

exceeds the size that I have when you look at me, you know, firsthand. So, you know, I've always tried to play a little bigger than the size that you see out there on the field. And I think if you went and talked to scouts that have watched me play, they would agree, you know, I may be a little undersized, but I play up to the level that I'm at or exceed the level that I'm currently at. So I've always just tried to play a little bigger than what you see out there on the field. When you were in college, you hit one home run as a freshman.

If these records are correct, you hit another one as a senior. Two home runs in your collegiate career. And when you debuted professionally last year, you didn't hit any. And then all of a sudden, this last year year against the most advanced competition you've ever faced you hit six homers in the Cal League and four more in the Texas League is there something is this a matter of getting refined in a swing or have you done something where you've just discovered power that was sort of untapped when even just a couple years ago I think it's just the kind of the expectation that you have as a college player versus a professional player.

As a college player, you're told to hit the ball low and hard, towards the middle of the field, on the ground, let them make a mistake, try to get on base. But when you get to higher levels, guys don't make mistakes anymore. You hit a ground ball on the infield and you're going to be out 99% of the time. So I really just changed my hitting approach. I had my one home run as a freshman at UC Irvine, and then I didn't even come close to hitting another one until my senior year. And it's funny because my senior year, the event that I did hit my one home run,

I told my buddy on deck that I was going to try to hit a home run. It was, we were up by, I think, you know, it was like 10 to one ball game. And I had already had two hits that day. And I said, hey, I'm going to try to hit a home run. And it was against the closer for Washington State. And I ended up doing it. And this last year, kind of my hitting approach changed from, you know, making contact and just trying to put the ball in play, which statistically I've already been very good at making contact, to actually trying to hit a home run every time.

My hitting approach right now is that I try to hit a home run to center field every single time that I'm up to the plate. I've never done it before. All my home runs were hit to right field. But I think that's just my thought and my approach to hitting the ball as a home run to center field gets me in the right swing path to the baseball and, you know, allows me to hit fastballs and off speed and kind of stay on all pitches in the zone. So that's kind of been the big difference from college to my first year of pro ball to last year. Yeah, it's funny how you talk about that, where you were in college as recently as 2015, and you have this swing approach where you're trying to hit the ball sort of low and back up

the middle. And you talk about how, okay, you just shifted your approach to trying to hit the ball hard in the air, back up the middle, hit a homerun to center field every time. And you talk about it as if it's no big deal, but for a lot of players, that sort of change in approach and swing takes a lot of time, if it even sticks at all. So I guess how easy was it for you to make that adjustment at the play? Because your swing is sort of what you are as a hitter. Yeah, I mean, for me, it wasn't difficult at all. This game is made of adjustments you know if you don't understand that you're going to have to make adjustments

all the time I mean during the season before the season in the offseason you're going to have to make adjustments all the time and I say you know my approach is hit the ball out center field every time but you know throughout the season all last year you know your body gets tired some days you feel stronger than others so every day you're making tiny little adjustments. And for me going into last year, I understood that I was never going to be able to make it to the big leagues if I didn't hit any home runs. You know, this new era of baseball is home runs are a huge value to teams. And so I realized that and I knew that I had to make some sort of adjustment. And so I committed to the guy that I hit with in the off season, Matt Chess. I said, Hey, I need to hit the ball in the air more.

So we worked on it and, you know, I started off the season last year, kind of struggling a little bit. I was hitting the ball in the air, getting a lot of fly ball outs. And it was a little tough, but I knew that that was the right approach and the thing that I needed to do to get better. And so I just stayed committed to it and, you know, it eventually ended up working out. So not to dwell on the height stuff, but your listed height and dimensions are basically the same as mine. So I'm kind of taking it personally, I think, on your behalf. Of course, you are a professional athlete.

It matters how big you are. For me, it doesn't really matter so much. But what exactly is the concern? Like, is it just the power in the offense? Is it that you'll wear down? Because, you know, you look at catchers than it might have been in the past. So what is it exactly? How does the scout go from, OK, he's not as big as the typical catcher to, OK, that's a bad thing? Because it seems like there's only a narrow range where it's OK to be a catcher, right? Because if you're any taller than, you know, 6'3 or something, then people start saying he's too tall for the position. It's going to hurt his knees. It's going to be wear and tear. So it seems like such a narrow range. And I am not entirely clear

on why that is. Yeah. I mean, look, I'm not in the front office of any team, so I couldn't speak on their behalf. But, you know, from what I see, I think a lot of people are just scared of what's unknown. You know, they've never seen a 5'10", 180-pound catcher, so they think, all right, well, we haven't seen it before, so I don't know if it'll work out. Whereas if you see a ton of 6'1", 200-pound catchers, they're like, okay, that's what a catcher looks like. You know, you look at a guy like Jose Altuve,

who's a little shorter in size, but he hit over 20 home runs last year. So until you've seen it done before, you know, you look at a guy like Jose Altuve, who's a little shorter in size, but he hit over 20 home runs last year. So until you've seen it done before, you know, I think guys kind of shy away something that doesn't look the norm. And I think that's, you know, somewhat of what they see in me is, OK, that doesn't happen all the time. So, you know, who knows if that's going to work out? who knows if that's going to work out. But, you know, from my own personal perspective on playing baseball, I just go out there and try to put up the numbers and play the way I know how. And then, you know, hopefully they see that and keep me moving on.

So last Thursday, you made a play. I'm sure you've seen the video. You've also lived the play. You know, you did it. Kyle Schor was at the play at the spring training game. And I believe it was the last out of of the game where uh it was brought to our attention because you know stat cast tracks everything now and stat cast tracked you running 85 feet from behind the plate and essentially catching a pop-up at third base for the final out of the game it was the uh the longest

stat cast has ever tracked a catcher running to make an out and the longest by a considerable distance. So as much as it's anecdotal, and I know it was spring training, but what was your thought process going into and I guess during that play? Because clearly it's a very unusual play for a catcher to make. Yeah, you know, we have the shift. The Astros are kind of the ones who started the whole shift in Major League Baseball that you see now. And it's funny because Josh Bonifay, who is my manager in Quad Cities my first year, we actually kind of worked on that foul ball in foul territory, not fair territory where I caught it, but in foul territory because when we're in

the shift, that third baseman's all the way by second base so when the ball was hit up in the air I knew we were in the shift and if you look on the video I look up at the ball and then I hesitate and I look out at JD our third baseman who's by second base and I realize okay I don't think JD is going to get there and then I booked it and I waited as long as I possibly could not to call it and at the last second I I realized, okay, somebody's got to make a call here or this ball is going to drop or we're going to collide. You know, I was pretty sure that I could catch it. So I called it and ended up making that last out. And do you expect a certain amount of playing time this year? Have you been told that you're going to play on a certain schedule? Because you played only part of the time last year,

you had fairly regular off days it seemed like yeah i'm supposed to be playing a lot more this year just to uh get used to you know trying to catch 100 games in the big league so um i expect to be catching more games this year than i did last year and we're always interested in the defensive aspects of the position particularly for a team like the astros that's placed a lot of emphasis on receiving skills and framing. And I'm wondering how that manifests itself at the levels of the organization that you've been at so far. How have you been working on that? Yeah, we work on that kind of stuff every day. After each game, we actually, the next day,

up every day after each game we actually um the next day we go into the video room and we watch the balls that we either were strikes or get called strikes you know a certain percentage of the time and the umpire called it a ball and then as well as the ones that were called strikes that a certain percentage of time are called balls so we look at our successes and the ones that we were successful on turning balls into strikes and then the ones that we were unsuccessful on that you know should be called a strike and you know we didn't catch it well enough or maybe the pitcher missed his spot but we work on it every single day and it's you know it's really good the actions are really great about being able to show us video and uh where the ball was on the k zone and what we could have done better to turn that ball into a strike. And how do you go from watching it on the video to implementing that in a game? Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, sometimes we'll go into the cage and start working on it. If we

start to get cold zones on the heat map, you know, maybe the right side of the plate, we're worse on than the left side. You know, we'll go into the cage and start working off the machine to get, you know, either our left side or right side, the ball down or the ball up and start working on being able to make that pitch into a better looking pitch for the umpire. We're talking about framing here. And last year, you worked on your pitch framing, of course, and you, there were only 10 passed balls when you were a catcher. You actually threw out more would-be stolen base runners than were successful. And of course, there's a lot more that goes into catcher defense,

including managing the pitching staff and whatnot. So from your perspective, if you had to sort of highlight one category, what is the most important angle of catcher defense to you as a professional catcher trying to rise up the ladder? You know, I think understanding your pitching staff is by far the most important thing as a catcher. You know, knowing what pitches they want to throw in certain counts, certain situations, and also being able to understand how they're feeling out on the mound emotionally. Sometimes they get too emotional. Sometimes they're not emotional enough.

You know, you need to know when to go out there and talk to them on the mound, when they should be left alone. I think that's a very big, important part of being a catcher. And, you know, there's not some sort of sabermetric to be able to measure that. But, you know there's not some sort of saber metric to be able to measure that but you know I think you just talk to pitchers and see you know what they like and don't like and also you can get a feel for a pitcher and and know you know when they need to be calmed down or riled up and whatnot from there you know I'd say the pitch framing and just simply

catching the ball is most important then blocking and throwing out come right after that. So catching is a very multifaceted position. Yeah, and Jeff has done some research that seems to show that there's just less variation among teams in framing than there was even a handful of years ago, which makes sense because all the teams are paying attention to it now. And it seems like the teams that had very poor pitch framers either taught their catcher to be better or they got a new catcher and obviously you've only been in this one organization but do you think it's even possible to get to the big leagues these days without possessing that skill or you know like will we ever see a very bad pitch framer get to the big leagues because he can do other things well or is it kind

of a prerequisite now if you're going to catch in the big leagues you know this game if you can hit you can you'll find the way into the lineup so i think you know you will find guys who maybe aren't the best at pinch framing and you know they'll just try to teach them how to become better pitch framers as it goes on but you see guys all, you know, not all the time, but you'll see guys, you know, if they can hit 300 with 20 home runs, I mean, that's very valuable up at the big league level. And so, you know, you'll see guys who maybe either stop catching and become an outfielder, or they'll stay behind the play and just learn how to become better pitch framers as they progress in their own play. Obviously, we've come at this armed with a lot of your statistics. And one of the most interesting ones is that own way. Obviously, we've come at this armed with a lot of your

statistics. And one of the most interesting ones is that development of your power that we've talked about. But something that's a lot more subtle that I kind of need to hear about. When you were in college, your first three years, you stole 10 bases, you were caught 10 times. Your last year, you stole 20 bases. And then last year, between two levels in the minors, you stole 15 bases, you were only caught three times. So what has it been like as a catcher to sort of learn? Clearly, you are above average in your stolen base situational awareness. So how have you even fit in time, I guess, to learn the art of stealing a base given all of the other responsibilities that you have to endure? Just like any other person who's trying to get to the next level

is just working hard. There's always enough time in the day to get something like that in. And just watching baseball. Whenever you're watching a baseball game, there's different things that you can pick up during a game. So base running is one of those things. I actually have a guy, his name's Chris Duffy. He played in the big leagues for the Pirates for a few years.

Good base dealer. He was our volunteer coach my senior year, and he taught me everything I know about stealing bases and base running in general. So I have him to thank for those 20 bags my senior year and the 15 that I got last year. But this year, I'm actually trying to get thrown out a little bit more. Stealing 15 bags with only three caught stealing is obviously very good. But to have a positive impact on the team, it actually would be better for me to steal more and be thrown out more. So I'm going to work on that a little bit more this year and see how it goes. And I know that you have bulked up a bit this year. Is that something that the team has helped with? Have they given you guidance on nutrition and that sort of thing?

Or is that something you kind of took the initiative on your own? Yeah, you know, they certainly helped me understand the kind of nutritional regimen that I should be on as well as a workout plan. But I really have my agency and my workout trainers that I had in the offseason from the agency to help me with that. So I worked out with them all off season and they had me on a nutritional plan as well as a workout plan. And, you know, I have them to thank for the extra pounds that I got coming into this spring training. And have you been using any sort of wearable technology? I know that even now in the major leagues this year, those whoop bands have been approved for use in games and i imagine teams are trying

to get minor leaguers used to the idea of that sort of thing so have you incorporated any of that into your routine yeah i use blast motion um it helps with your swing plane shows you your swing plane your exit velocities and and things like that um i've used that but as far as the other rebel technology um i've kind of stayed away from it a little bit. And if I feel like it'll help my game, I certainly am open to trying anything new. So blast motion has been one of those things that I've used on my bat to help me understand the kinds of swings I'm taking. All right. Well, this was really great.

Thanks, Garrett. I'm glad we could have you on not only to warn people about the dangers of trampolines but also to talk about baseball and we wish you well this season yeah I appreciate you guys thanks for having me on thank you very much all right by the way everyone Garrett is on Twitter and Instagram at his name Garrett Stubbs and he has also provided an exclusive image for Effectively Wild listeners of his hand with his crooked finger. So if you want to see what we're talking about here, I will link to it in the Facebook group and also at the podcast blog post at Fangraphs.

I think it's worth a look just as a companion to this podcast. So check it out. You can support this podcast by going to Patreon at patreon.com slash effectively wild. Five listeners who have done so already include James Edmiston, Kevin Wickman, Mark Kramer, Rob David, and Greg Dowd. Thanks to all of you. A bunch of people have signed up for Patreon after a recent thread in the Facebook group. I appreciate it.

Every pledge helps. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild and you can rate and review and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. Keep your questions coming via email to podcast at fangraphs.com or through the Patreon messaging system. Michael Bauman and I have a new episode of the Ringer MLB show up. We talked to the actor Hank Azaria about his new baseball comedy on IFC, Brockmire, and we also talked to Chipper Jones about his new book, Ballplayer. Based on

our recent banter on this show, Ian Desmond will be mad that that title is taken. I mentioned this in the Facebook group already, but for the month of April, The Ringer MLB show is on TuneIn exclusively. You can find it at tunein.com slash The Ringer or by downloading the TuneIn app, both free. I know that that is an extra hurdle for some of you and might mean that you're less likely to listen this month. If that's the case, I understand, but I certainly hope you'll find time for it. This wasn't a me and Michael decision, but we're hoping that it's good for the company that we work for and that it will help attract some new listeners. So we hope you'll make the best of it for the limited

time, if that's the case. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for Effectively Wild editing assistance. Enjoy the real baseball games and we will talk to you later this week. 25,000 reasons And you only needed one Oh, open season has begun, begun you