Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1067: Preseason Picks Revisited

Episode Date: June 6, 2017

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about another brawl involving a baseball, the still-sky-high home-run rate, and Jon Lester’s successful pickoff, then revisit their preseason playoff-team picks to decide which ones they would change. Audio intro: Sloan, "If I Could Change Your Mind" Audio outro: Elf Power, "Halloween Out Walking" Link to paperback edition of The Only […]

I do what I do, can't undo what I did, I've never been refined. But ooh, maybe, if I could change your mind, it'd be a small step for mankind, if these planets aligned. If these planets are mine Hello and welcome to episode 1067 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I'm Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs from Seattle today. Hello. Hello. How was your weekend? It's okay. At some point, your body just tells you to stop having beer, and I appreciate that that control is within, and that it's very difficult for your body to allow you to go to excess.

It will just kind of chime in and say, maybe have a glass of water. Do you mean once you reach a certain age or once you reach a certain number of drinks? Yep. How was your weekend? Pretty good. Alcohol limits didn't really enter into it It was pretty restful So there were a lot of home runs hit this weekend

Really a lot of home runs It's a topic again Like again, it just won't end Yeah, even though we've adjusted our expectations every now and then There's just a barrage that recalls our attention to it So on Saturday there were seven Grand Slams hit, which was an all-time single-day record. And then on Sunday, there were five hitters who had multi-home run games, including Freddie Galvis, who homered from both sides of the plate.

So we're on pace now for 5,993 home runs, and the all-time record from the year 2000 was 5,693. So we're on pace to blow away the all-time record by 300 home runs. And that's before you factor in warmer weather and the fact that usually home run rate rises a little as the season goes on. So we could very well be on track for a 6,000 home run season, which is really crazy. And I guess we don't have to rediscuss all of the causes, but I am just marveling at how many home runs are being hit, whatever the cost. Right. I was present for Mike Zinino's one of seven grand slams on Saturday, and the thing nearly left the ballpark. It was like 10 vertical feet from just leaving Safeco Field and whatever. One home run as always is just an anecdote, but it's been what, roughly one third of the baseball season. I think that's fair to say. Yeah, actually,

that's going to be our topic today. But yes. And there have been half as many home runs as there were in 2014 already. So we're therefore on pace to exceed 2014 so it'll buy you could say about 50 percent which is insane it's insane that's going to be nearly 2 000 extra home runs hit four years later yeah oh also by the way the league's still just looking for 18 right yeah i mean the batting averages down strikeouts are up so runs per game are only very slightly up from last season. So yeah, the home runs are changing the way the game looks, but not so much the way the final scores look. But yeah, it's just crazy. When you say the magnitude like that, it just makes me question everything I know again, just because it just seems so impossible that a change in player approach could produce that remarkable a difference in two years.

It's just hard for me to believe anyway. We'll talk about it again, I'm sure, at some point in the future because people are going to keep hitting home runs for the foreseeable future. So one follow-up to our discussion of the Dayton Dragons brawl from Friday. We got a couple listener emails, including one from Andrew about an earlier Dayton Dragons brawl from Friday. We got a couple listener emails, including one from Andrew about an earlier Dayton Dragons fight. And this one was from 2008. It also involved baseball throwing. So we were talking about the recent brawl

in which a player threw a baseball in the middle of a brawl at another player and was suspended for 30 games in the 2008 brawl between Dayton and the Peoria Chiefs, the Chicago Cubs' A-ball affiliate. This also involved baseball throwing, but this one was a little bit different. This was a pitcher named Julio Castillo who threw a ball that seemed like it was intended to be thrown at the dragon's dugout, which also would have been a sprawl innovation, I think. But he was trying to throw it at the dugout, and instead it sailed, it went into the stands,

and it gave a 45-year-old fan a concussion. And so he was taken to court. He was sentenced to 30 days. He was convicted of felonious assault and causing serious physical injury. That charge could have led to an eight-year sentence. It actually led to a 30-day sentence with three years of probation and a letter of apology. And he didn't end up serving that time. He got a plea where he was allowed to go back to the Dominican and just leave the country right away and not have to serve the jail time. And I think his lawyer argued that he was trying

to warn the Dragons dugout against rushing the field, which maybe could have been the case. I don't know. But that brawl lasted 10 minutes and 15 players and managers were ejected. And that was a weird case because it was the rare case where a brawl spills over into the field and the norms of real life kind of come into play as opposed to the norms of baseball fights. So every now and then we see this, like with the 2004 Frank Francisco throwing a chair at an A's fan and breaking her nose. And once in a while, something like that happens and it sort of pierces the weird baseball bubble that extends over the field and seems to condone behavior that would be assault in just about any other context. So the idea was that he was trying to warn the dugout not to come out. So he threw a baseball

toward the dugout and missed and hit a fan. Am I getting this? That's an order? That's right. Yeah. Okay. Well, I guess I'll note Julio Castillo had more career walks than strikeouts. So maybe his inaccuracy is less of a surprise than one should assume. But so they were already agitated. Like, had he just hit a batter and then he spun and threw a ball at the dugout?

Or why did he think they were going to come out? Yeah, Castillo was not actually the pitcher at the time. There is a grainy YouTube video you can try to see between the pixels, but I think there had been three hit batters in the inning, not by Castillo, was Dayton pitcher Kyle Lotzkar. Lots of people were getting hit. Zach Cozart was hit in the head with a pitch. was involved in this brawl And then there was an aggressive slide into second To break up a double play And then there was a high and tight pitch And Dayton manager Donnie Scott complained

And then the other manager came out And then there was an argument between the two managers And one of the managers pushed the other manager So that actually started the brawl I think that was the inciting incident And then all the managers pushed the other manager. So that actually started the brawl. I think that was the inciting incident. And then all the players rushed the field and Castillo threw his ball into the stands. So kind of included every possible incident that could lead to a brawl. Hit batters, aggressive slide, managers shoving each other.

So it was a wild one. My goodness. And Kyle Lotzar still playing baseball. Yeah, that's right. Where is he now? Winnipeg. Well, I should say he was with Winnipeg in 2016, dropped out of affiliated baseball, but he's still around and he's got 10 strikeouts per nine innings over his career. All right. Do you have any final words about Jon Lester and his pickoff issues now that he has finally successfully completed a pickoff.

Frequent topic of discussion on this show. Maybe this lays it to rest. Do you have any last words on the subject? I feel like it's over. So I heard about it. I didn't spend enough time this weekend just digesting the fact that it finally happened. I haven't paid super close attention. I know earlier this year he threw a ball to second, I believe it was.

I think he stepped off and kind of lobbed the ball to second base. Was this officially his first pickoff to first? Yes, in at least a few years. At least, well, didn't he throw one away or throw two away last year or something? Yeah, he's attempted it, but yeah, this is successful. Yeah, right. This works. Still not, it didn't look like it was the hardest velocity possible pick off but it seems like already there was clearly some sort of psychological

inhibition that prevented runners from just taking off even with the knowledge that he would never throw over well guess what it turns out that wasn't accurate knowledge or at least it is no longer yeah it may have been at the time he's he's clearly been working on this and good for him that he was able to conquer this mental block or whatever it is but it did seem like there was a time when there was just zero chance that he would throw over in fact we can identify that time that time was last season especially in the playoffs especially with everybody paying attention i know when i've made mention of this fact before, I've received a lot of tweets from Cubs people who are just referring to this false narrative or overblown

narrative. And I understand what they mean because it's overblown in terms of it being like a severe weakness because it just wasn't exploited. But what's not overblown is what in the hell was going on to prevent John Lesser from being able to throw the first base. That is not overblown. That is hands down one of the most interesting things about baseball or at least it has been and now it's ruined thanks John Lester but the fact of the matter is that his stolen bases did kind of spiral a little out of control but three years ago I think he allowed 42 or something like that and then last year 28 and I think there were 13 caught steals this year I'm pretty sure he's got more caught steals than successful steals and now he's got his kickoff when I was watching the clip I was struck by the

fact that Lester not only did he stare at the dugout which whatever he's competitive he didn't want to be embarrassed but then he got a standing ovation from the crowd and which is great I get I get that you want to be supportive I probably would have done the same thing but if you just take a step back and think about the fact that he got a standing ovation for throwing a ball at the first base not wildly and that that might I don't know the whole thing is kind of embarrassing right i'm sure he's prideful but he would have been embarrassed by not being able to throw the ball over there but then to get such broad vocal enthusiastic well i don't know it's over i'm gonna miss it i know that you and sam have talked about this a million times it is one of those traits

that i can't imagine baseball will have again in a player at least not with this blend of like experience and talent and exposure and it happening in the playoffs so it's just it's gone i think i don't know what this is going to mean for the future of stealing against john lester because he's so good at mixing up his timing and being deceptive and the catchers know how to work with him because the Cubs have figured out every single possible way to stop the running game without pickoff throws from John Lester. So now I don't know what it's going to look like. I want to see. I don't know the next time he faces Billy Hamilton, but that's going to be fun because it's still going to be possible to steal against him. But

this is the closing of a chapter and maybe the closing of a book. On the other hand, if his next pickoff throw sails 10 rows into the stands, it could be game on all over again. Yeah, I talked about this briefly with Michael Bauman on today's Ringer podcast, and he pointed out that success rate against Lester, as far as attempted base stealers this year, was already better than any season of Andy Pettit's career, the pickoff master and the guy who couldn't make a pickoff. So obviously he was coping just fine, but I always felt and still feel that in part he was coping just fine because runners were too tentative. They just didn't take full advantage of the situation. And I know that he was quick to the plate. I know Cubs catchers had good pop times and strong and accurate arms. And I know it must be difficult

to overcome that ingrained instinct to go back to first base and to stay close to first base when you have a lefty on the mound. But I always thought that players just didn't push it far enough, whether it was out of that or out of respect for Lester and not wanting to show him up or something like that. But you would see guys take long leads, but you would not see them just walk to second base, which at least in theory, they could have done and never did. And now I guess the era of saying that they could or should do that is over because Lester just had to do it once to get us all to stop saying that and he did I'm in complete agreement especially last year

when you would see the footage of those Dodgers players just taking like running leads or like yeah the track set lead you know where they're like bending down and just aiming for second base when you get into that position and then there's no pickoff throw and then you don't go to second base then that's on you that is not anything that john lester is doing that is just your own cowardice but i completely understand i wrote about this last october in an article that i don't need to read an excerpt on the podcast but it was just the most psychologically i guess it wasn't even baffling because you could understand why they felt that way but it's just the power i guess of fear over rational thought because every runner would tell you he will not throw over he cannot throw over he seriously cannot he can't do it he can't throw the ball

over here they would tell you that they would know that every single person knew that but you just can't actually get your brain to believe it because it doesn't make any sense it is too wild too crazy to think about and now i it would have been the funniest thing if as soon as he successfully picked a runner off first base, all of a sudden he got the yips and couldn't throw the ball home. But unfortunately that is not what happened. Yeah. So do you have anything else before we get to the topic? No. Okay. So as you mentioned, we have reached the one third point of the season over the weekend. Most teams went past that point. A couple are still exactly at it. But this seems like a good time to check in on our preseason predictions, which largely I forget as soon as I make them and don't really revisit unless I'm

forced to. But conveniently, we had almost exactly the same playoff picks. I think the only difference between our picks was that you had the Rangers instead of the Blue Jays. Our second wildcard slot in the American League, I had the Blue Jays instead of the Rangers. That was the only difference between us. And obviously a lot of things have changed since then as far as results, but I'm curious to see how much our projections or our predictions today would differ from the preseason ones, because although there has been a lot of baseball since those picks, we are generally pretty conservative about changing our minds on things like how good teams are. And we've talked about that and written about that and how the preseason

projections, even at this point in the season, are better guides to how a team will do than how it's done thus far. Of course, if a team has gotten off to a really great or really terrible start, that might outweigh the fact that the team's talent is still close to what we thought it was. They might make the playoffs or miss the playoffs anyway, just because of what they've done to this point. But I am curious to see which teams you have switched on, if any, or I'm guessing it might be fewer than people might expect because there have been some surprises, but maybe we don't think that they will be lasting surprises. Anyway, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but our predictions, we had the Red Sox Indians and Astros winning the divisions in the American League. We had the Mariners winning a wildcard slot, and I had the Blue Jays, you had the Rangers as the second slot. And then we had the Nationals, Cubs, and Dodgers winning the NL division. And then we had the Mets and the Giants as our wildcard picks.

I can tell you where I've changed my mind. Yeah. So just eyeballing this, I think I'm sticking with all of my division picks, right? Because let's see. So, I mean, the Astros are off to a huge lead. The Nationals have a huge lead. The Dodgers have now moved into first place, although not with a huge lead. The Cubs and the Indians and the Red Sox were projected to be possibly the three best teams in baseball or certainly close to the top three. And they have all scuffled and disappointed to various degrees, but they are all also still winning teams at this point in the season. The Cubs are only one game back of the Brewers. The Indians are one game back of the

Twins and the Red Sox are two games back of the Yankees. And so given what I thought of those teams coming in, I am probably going to just stick with those picks. I don't even really have to think about sticking with Cleveland or sticking with Chicago. Those seem like locks to me still, as non-impressive as those teams have been thus far. The only one I guess I have to think about is the AL East just because division's so good. Yankees seem so much better or have played so much better than projected. Red Sox have not been so great, although they have been winning a lot lately,

and they've got David Price back, and they're probably about to have Carson Smith back. And so that team seems to be rounding into form, but the Yankees are much better than I thought they were. Yeah, so if you think about things that have changed since the start of the season in the National League, it's pretty obvious. You've got Madison Bumgarner, who changed since the start of the season in the National League, it's pretty obvious. You've got Madison Bumgarner, who's gone. You've got Noah Sindergaard, who's gone. Jairus Familia is gone.

You look at teams in the American League, and like Cole Hamels has been gone from the Rangers, the Blue Jays were devastated because their entire team was hurt. The Red Sox, David Price has been gone, and I'm still not entirely certain how much they're going to get out of him since he's trying to. Well, we don't need to talk about what he's trying to do the history is not very optimistic about David Press's situation but whatever he's back now but on the other the flip side of that a little bit is well why are the Yankees so good it's not all Aaron Judge but Aaron Judge sure is a lot better than I think we all thought he was going to be and as far as I could tell there was pretty much zero May adjustment to Aaron Judge. I looked for anything. I think I even was nearly going to write about it,

and then I realized I couldn't find anything because nothing had changed. He was just super good again. Now that Mike Trout is injured, there's talk that Aaron Judge, very legitimate talk, in fact, that Aaron Judge could conceivably be the rookie of the year and the most valuable player at the same time. So that's one good way to change a team's outlook yeah he dropped all the way from a 202 wrc plus in april to 190 in may just precipitous decline all the way to 190 and uh he is still hitting in june so yeah no no sign of any

fall off there yeah wow so okay that rate in in September is going to be around like 140. That's just going to be devastating. So I would still pick the Red Sox in the East just like you. I would still pick the Indians. Hot take. Not going to take the Astros in the West. They should just get like a buy half. Just like give them the second half off. They don't need it.

Do what they want. If a team did get a buy half, what do you think it would do? How many games would a team did get a bye half, what do you think it would do? How many games would a team choose to play? If the Astros just got a pass and you said, here, you win the AL West, you can do whatever you want to set yourself up for the division series. You choose your own schedule. I don't know how that would work because other teams need to play games too, but let's say that they somehow could decide what they want to do. How many games do you think they would play? That's a good question because you want your pitchers to be ready to go.

You don't want your pitchers to not pitch, but you definitely don't want to play a lot of baseball. So I don't know. Every game you play, you run the risk of someone getting hurt. There's fatigue effects. So yeah. How much can you wind down and then ramp back up that's the question i mean we talk about this all the time whenever teams like coast into the playoffs right and they kind of sit their players and then we say well is it better to coast in the playoffs or to fight scratch and claw and i don't think there's been any real conclusive answer aside from it doesn't matter which is usually the answer to these questions. Thanks, Russell Carlton. I would think that, oh, God, maybe they'd take like a two-week break around the All-Star break, maybe a little more than that, and then gradually start picking it up. Maybe they have like a few

two-game weeks, then maybe some three-game weeks. You get into September, and maybe they're up to playing about five games a week by the end, just so every starting pitcher is getting a turn uh-huh yeah i was thinking something like that too so yeah that would screw up the rest of baseball but uh well whatever they deserve it yeah i will say real quick that while the dodgers had slid back into first place they were actually half game back at the rockies again now okay so the rockies are in first place and that is that the real change. So in the American League, even though expected potential playoff teams like the Rangers, Mariners, and Blue Jays have slumped, there's not actually, there's not two teams running away with the wildcard. You got the Red Sox in one wildcard position. They're six games over. But then the Orioles and Indians are both tied for the second wildcard at 29 and 26, which is fine,

but it's nothing remarkable. but if you look at the national league then the mets have been bad and the giants have been bad and to make matters worse for them the diamondbacks have been really good and the rockies have been really good the mets are eight games behind the diamondbacks right now the diamondbacks are the second wildcard that's a huge difference the mariners are only two and a half back the blue jays are only two back of a wildcard slot there is plenty of time for those teams to recover but yeah if you go by the fangrass playoff odds the blue jays would still be the wild card pick in the al because the top wild card odds you've got the yankees and the red socks one of those teams is going to win the division presumably and then you have the blue

jays at a 29.5 percent chance of winning the wild card. Plus some division odds. So they still have like a 40% chance of making the playoffs. Which is pretty impressive given how abysmally they started the season. And how I think we talked about at the time. The poor record of teams that started seasons like that. And how deep a hole the Blue Jays had dug themselves. And they have obviously come back very close to 500 now. And right, there doesn't seem to be a powerhouse team that they are competing with, really.

So it's still the Blue Jays and the Mariners with the third and fourth best wildcard odds right now. So I guess there's not enough reason for me to switch from my Blue Jays preseason pick. And is there a team with a better chance than the Mariners for the second? I mean, I guess it would be the Yankees, right? Yeah. So it's all right. So switching my Mariners pick to AL East team and I guess the Yankees since I'm sticking with my Red Sox division pick. So in AL, I am only changing one of my picks. I guess I'm changing from the Mariners to the Yankees. And I don't feel too bad about that pick in retrospect because the Mariners have a ton of injury issues and things going wrong and that will happen. So I don't know that anyone could have predicted the Yankees to be this good. So, all right, I'm switching one of my AL picks.

And probably unsurprisingly, I am in alignment with your picks. I am also picking the Red Sox over the Yankees in the East. And so now our AL playoff picture completely matches up. Surprise, surprise. And we can look at the National League. It's probably the same. The fun one here, and I can tell you looking at the playoff odds, also the Astros are now all the way up to 99.9%.

They are up from a preseason 77.9%, so they were already good, but now they are basically a complete and utter lock. The Cubs are fun, and we'll talk about the Cubs here starting right now, I guess, because my personal favorite fun fact about these Cubs, I will not be surprised if you are the same, looking at their BABIP aloud, right? Yes, right. I don't know if you've looked at this. We've all looked at this probably last year of course for anyone who doesn't remember the cubs last season

had i believe it was the best ever even adjusted batting average on balls in play allowed in baseball history because their pitchers worked so well with their defense everything was amazing it was the most extraordinary statistic probably of the season that's a big claim but i think it's backed up by the reality and this year everyone was wondering not everyone all the nerds were wondering what the cubs defense was going to do this season because something so extreme seems like it should keep up and they are currently in 17th place yeah between the rockies and the nationals they have been exactly league average like well i guess more or less exactly league average in terms of batting average on balls and play not that much has changed but there's's been more Kyle Schwarber. There's been differences in center field. And of course, the pitching staff has been worse kind of across the board. So that's how sustainable the Cubs were. Not at all sustainable.

I think this is surprising to me. We both did posts and we tried to look at historical precedents and what happened to teams with crazy BABIPs the following year. And I forget exactly what number I projected based on that, but I think it was like something in the 270s or 280s. Can I say what it was? Because we arrived at basically the same number. It was like 274. That's what we both figured out. Yeah, we thought that they would regress about halfway back toward the league average. And instead, they've gone all the way back toward the league average. And maybe that will improve as time goes on. But yeah, different personnel, outfield issues, and pitchers different. And so yeah, maybe if you brought back exactly the

same defensive lineup that they had last year, maybe that would be the case, but it's not the same defensive lineup. They've changed in certain ways. So yeah, I'm surprised that they have fallen all the way back to average. You know, what's interesting is that there is one Chicago team who's leading the league in BAPIP allowed. It's just not the Cubs anymore. The White Sox have the lowest BAPIP in baseball, which I don't know why that is. It's weird. The Reds are in second place. I know why that is. They're really good. And the Twins are there in third place. They've had a good team defense. It's one of the reasons they're around, even though their pitching staff is absolutely dreadful. I did not expect the Marlins and the Braves to be near

the top of this list, but it's probably because their pitching staffs get the face teams like the Marlins and the Braves. So that makes them look better. The Mets, I will say, bringing up the rear. Using the fangraphs, it's calculated a little differently from baseball reference. I don't know why, but it doesn't really make a difference. I'm just going to read some numbers as usual. I'll read the bottom five. Brewers, 305. Tigers, 306. Giants, 306. Red Sox, 310. Ballpark has something to do with that. M24 324 there's a 14 point separation between the mets and the red socks the fun fact we always like to bring up well the difference between last place and second to last place is the same as the difference between 29th place and 18th place

so yeah 12 team difference and then one team difference the mets not a good defensive team i don't know if you've heard this before. But despite that Cubs regression, the NL West is pretty lackluster this year. The Brewers and the Cubs are the only winning teams right now, and they're combined four games over 500. So not a lot of competition here. The Cubs' slow start has been interesting, and lots of people have talked about it, but it hasn't really cost them all that much playoff odds-wise just because no other team is really pushing them except the Brewers. And I think we all think that the Brewers are probably not quite

as good as they've been, although what they're doing is impressive. But they are down to a 76.4% chance of winning the division right now and an 88.4% chance of making the playoffs. And if anything, I'd probably take the over on those numbers. So I am not very worried about the Cubs, at least in terms of winning the division. Worried about them maybe in the sense that they're not the best team in baseball anymore they're not a team that we all marvel at anymore but i think they're still the best team in the nl central so i know this is probably comes off as some sort of outside or hot take or something but i'm genuinely curious when you have a team like the cubs what the sort of carryover effect is from

just having a perfect magical season where the chicagoubs won the World Series. How do you actually get up the same after that? I've never been in this situation. I have not a former Major League Baseball player and World Series champion, so I don't have that experience to fall back on. But in the most, I guess, it's a very simplistic thing to suggest, but what if they just aren't as motivated i mean could you be you couldn't possibly be as motivated as last year and of course the cubs were really good the season before that but they didn't win the world series they accomplished everything they needed to accomplish last year it's over you know as much as people wanted to talk about a dynasty and they have the makings there of being some sort of dynasty if you want to talk about it like that

there's winning a second title is never quite like winning the first now the counter example would be that the Red Sox had one hell of a decade after they won their first one they kind of didn't stop but they didn't have some down years mixed in I don't know it's probably safest to just analyze the team based on the individual players like we would with anybody else but it's one of the things that I always think about with the Cubs is what if they just have lost a little bit of that edge because who could possibly blame them? Yeah, I mean, I tend to think that players are just so motivated by their own personal performance, and they should be,

that I have a hard time buying that even players on bad teams are really dogging it all that often just because they have so much at stake. And it's not like a lot of the Cubs are signed to long-term deals. A lot of these guys are, you know, every hit counts for arbitration raises, for eventual free agent deals or extensions. And so they have a lot financially at stake. And I'm sure they all want to win a second World Series too so I don't know I mean maybe it would be hard to have the same urgency that you had with the Cubs winning a World Series after that drought so maybe it's not quite as heightened but I did see one suggestion

somewhere I forget where that maybe it was the absence of David Ross and David Ross's leadership the loss has been felt more strongly than you might imagine, which, you know, again, I'm sure that's a thing that matters a little bit, as you're saying, with the motivation and having won last year, that might matter a little bit. David Ross or, you know, equivalent team leader being gone might matter a little bit. But, you know, if you actually had to put a number on it what would you say that is would you say it that's why they are only one game over 500 instead of 20 games over 500 i don't think anyone would say it's that so when we're talking about it being a real

thing maybe we're talking about it being a real one game or two games or something like that it's not yeah something that would explain the whole under performance thus far yeah right and it's not like kyle schwarber is sucking now because he feels like he's already achieved everything he needed to he wants to get his career underway and instead he's been worse than a replacement level player jk arietta who has some good numbers but overall mediocre numbers he's probably he's trying to play for a big contract so if i were trying to pick between one and ten to put stock in my own theory that i just suggested that would be a one i do not believe it at all but i've still put it out there a real skip bayless of the podcast i guess yeah so and also we're sticking with cubs right we're sticking with the cubs definitely not

i like i like the brewers i like what they're doing i'm gonna write about jimmy nelson this week i like what they have going on, but not a good baseball team. And then we are, I presume our Mets pick at this point. They still have a chance, but it's not the most likely chance. And I assume we are switching our Giants pick because they almost don't have a chance. So we are probably going to be talking about the NL West teams here other than the Dodgers. So are we replacing our wildcard picks with both of the NL West teams that are doing well, the Rockies and the Diamondbacks? Is there any other team in the

discussion? Would you put the Cardinals in that race or are we just saying Rockies and Diamondbacks? Cardinals are in there, but I think they're going to end up a few games short because when I look at the Rockies and the Diamondbacks, I see two pretty good baseball teams there's not a whole lot that they're missing the rockies have been doing this with a lot of pitchers hurt somehow like they don't even have their best starting pitcher he's been hurt since what mid-april or something he's throwing as hard as noah syndegard and so john gray will be back before too long david got hoffman now who looks good yeah as a matter of throwing I was looking at starting pitchers right now I said a minimum innings total here of 10 so very small but starting pitchers

this season how many of the top five starting pitchers in strikeout right do you think you could name you know all the names I should say that Chris sale yep he's number three let's see you just said the name of one I did was it Hoffman Jeff Hoffman is fifth Yep, he's number three. Let's see. You just said the name of one. I did? Was it Hoffman? Jeff Hoffman is fifth. Okay. Now he's faced the Padres and the Phillies the last two times, so it doesn't really count. Uh-huh.

Is Scherzer up there? Scherzer's number four. All right. So you've got three, four, five. Huh. Oh, well, I think I saw a stat about Robbie Ray. Is Robbie Ray up there? He is number 10.

Ah, okay. All right. Then I don't know who's the other two well number two is Denelson Lamette sure why wouldn't it be he just hits the inning minimum he has thrown 10 innings he's struck out 16 batters all without being able to face the Padres so that's a big achievement for whoever he is. And number one, apparently, Brad Peacock. Who knows? Brad Peacock, 15 innings as a starter, 25 strikeouts. Yeah, he came up on last week's episode of the Ringer pod

when we were talking about the Astros and just how good they are. And the fact that Brad Peacock had been that great was something we all chuckled about just because who would have expected Brad Peacock to have been that great was something we all chuckled about just because who would have expected Brad Peacock to have looked I've looked very closely at Brad Peacock's his fan graphs page baseball reference Brooks baseball every single thing I've looked at I can't figure out anything he's doing different and yet he's gone from 22% strikeouts to 38% strikeout he He's become like an ace, I don't know, kind of swingman situation, just like another Davinsky

kind of deal, where before he was absolutely not the least bit interesting. Yeah. Alright, so we are then switching our Giants and Mets wildcard picks to Rockies and Diamondbacks. They both currently have a greater than 50% chance

of winning a wildcard, according to Fangraph's projections. So we are sticking with all of our division picks. We're switching one of our AL wildcard picks and both of our NL wildcard picks. So we are sticking with seven of our ten projections from a few months ago. So one thing that came up in your chat last week was Rockies versus Diamondbacks as to who has the better chance, although they both have good chances. And you said it was clear to you that the Diamondbacks are the better team or are better positioned, even though they are currently two games behind the Rockies. You want to make the case for the Diamondbacks as the second best

NL West team? I have to get back in my frame of mind from Friday to see what I was talking about, but I'm pretty sure that I was kind of doing a quick once over and thinking about like base runs performance and things have changed a little bit since then. But base runs, I don't know, do I need to go into detail about what base runs is? It's like, it's math. I just, math reasons. Expected record. It's what a team should have done based on its underlying stats. detail about what base runs is it's like it's math i just yeah math reasons expected record it's what a team should have done based on its underlying stats so right now the rockies are 36 and 23 diamondbacks are 34 25 that second set of numbers is worse than the first rockies have a better record than the diamondbacks however the diamondbacks have a better run differential and

if you look at their expected record then the diamondbacks are 35 and 24 and the rockies are 32 and 27 now again as i've already mentioned the rockies have not had john gray and so they have been a little bit depleted and i think both the teams are pretty good but i know adam on a vino has been hurt he hasn't been pitching all that well as era be damned and so much of the rocky success is driven by the back end of the bullpen i still don't really know how much to trust Greg Holland's health. The offense has not actually been good. It's one of those ballpark effects that people just completely miss,

even though everybody knows it. But the Rockies, they just still pretend like the lineup is really good. It's weird. People evaluate individual players in the right way, but not the team. It's still such an extreme effect that it's hard to factor it in because if you look at like park adjusted metrics and assuming that the park adjustment for cores is fair and accurate,

I forget, I don't know exactly where they are right now, but they are pretty low on that list based on what I've looked at. I can check just in a second here. The Rockies are 27th on the list by WRC+, which is park adjusted. If we just look at non-pitchers and compare, they are 26th, so that doesn't really do much for them. So even despite that, though, they are number four in run score, just one run behind the Yankees at number three. So the difference that that park adjustment makes is so extreme

that I think even if you know that it's the case, it's hard to get your head around it. One other fun fact about the Rockies, if I can get this pulled up correctly, the Rockies, you always think of them as having that huge, weird home field advantage and then a road field disadvantage because I think our best guess is that the hitters just see pitches move differently than they do at home. I think that holds up pretty well. So this year, the Rockies are 15 and 13 at home and 21 and 10 on the road, which is highly, highly unusual. If you give me one second, I can pull up sort of their history of not doing that for a very long time. Yeah.

So last year, for example, the Rockies, they won 42 times at home, 33 times on the road. Rockies had four more wins at home than on the road in 2015. They had 24 more wins at home, 24 more wins at home than on the road in 2014, 16 more in 2013, six more in 2012. I don't know where this is going. My words are just one word ahead of my... Three more wins at home than on the road in 2011. 21 more in 2010. 10 more in 2009. 12 more in 2008.

12 more in 2007. How many years have the Rockies played? 12 more in 2006. 13 more in 2005. 8 more in 2004. 24 more in 2003. I'm just going to keep going, I guess. Is this the first time?

Could it be the first time that they have won more at home than on the road? Not only would it be the first time, I mean, they're not even close when you... Oh, got one. 1994. 1994, the Rockies were 25. Strike short in season, of course. Strike short in season, of course. 25 and 32 at home, 28 and 32 on the road that is the only time the Rockies have had a better record on the road

than at home and it hasn't even been close their home field advantage road field disadvantage gap has been enormous and this year this is in a dibs I will take this from you and I will run it into the ground the Rockies this year for the first time in 23 years, I guess, have been playing better away from home than at home. That is really interesting. I don't know what that's about, but it's going on. Maybe they've figured something out and there's been another sudden shift. Yeah, that's the question. Could just be third of a season randomness, but could mean that they have figured out Coors Field at long last. Something about pitch selection or the fact that they're getting ground balls and fielding those ground balls.

Well, maybe, I don't know. Could be by design. Could not be, but it is interesting. Look forward to your post. They've played a bunch of road games in San Diego and Philadelphia. That could have something to do with it too. So that's probably what it is. Yeah.

So we were talking about Rockies versus Diamondbacks. So it's mostly underlying stats, base runs sort of argument. I guess you could argue that if the Rockies' success is bullpen-based, maybe they would be a team that exceeds their base runs and beats their base runs more than the Diamondbacks would, or you could argue that as we have, they haven't had their best team on the field yet. So maybe it's pretty close. The playoff odds would have it pretty close. Anyway, we're picking both of them at this point, so we don't necessarily have to pick one.

Do you know when you're like trying to make a plan with one friend And then your friend is in a relationship and he's just like Oh yeah we'll let you know or I'll see what we're doing And you're just like oh well I didn't invite Both of you but I guess You just do everything as a pair I think that's our playoff picks Yeah alright So we will leave it there

You know as I prepare to post this Matt Albers was just removed With two outs in the bottom of the ninth in a game against the Dodgers in search of his third career save so that Oliver Perez could come in and turn Yasmany Grandal around. Can you imagine how much agony that would have cost us before

that first save? Now it's just another Matt Albers appearance. You can support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. Five listeners who have supported us recently include Zach Wendkos, Nick Sandilands, We'll see you next time. You know, I say that every day. We haven't had a review in more than a month, and the last one was one star. I know we have a lot of new listeners out there. Get out there and rate and review. We appreciate it. It helps us out.

Thanks to Dylan Higgins for editing assistance. If you're looking for something else to listen to, Michael Bauman and I had Cardinals executive John Vooch on to reminisce about the origin story of Albert Pujols. You can find that in the Ringer MLB Show feed. By the way, a few of you have inquired about what to do if you have realized that you can't attend our August Eclipse Fest event. If that applies to you, go to the Facebook group today. Dave Cameron is going to post some instructions

for getting refunds, and then we'll be able to offer those tickets to people who still want to go who weren't able to get tickets originally. And another event reminder, there's still tickets on sale for our Monday, August 7th event at the Bell House in Brooklyn.

Jeff and I will be doing a live podcast there. You can find those by going to Ticketfly.com and searching Pitch Talks. It should show up at the top. Keep your questions and comments for me and Jeff coming via email at podcastatfangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system. We will talk You're out there standing like the pitcher on the mound. Try not to look at all the faces in the crowd. Watching the batter as he steps up to the plate. He steps up to the plate The ball moves from your hand And finishes the game