Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1110: Pitch-Tipping is Appreciated

Episode Date: September 14, 2017

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about the Indians (again), the AL Cy Young race, Jacoby Ellsbury’s new record, the 2018 MLB schedule (and the possibility of a pitch clock), and Shohei Otani��s impending availability. Then they answer listener emails about Mookie Betts, what constitutes the “heart of the order,” ERA hypotheticals, the hot corner, […]

If time would stand still while I'm thinking of you I'd think of all the things that I wanted of you To make me forget the pain that you cause Understanding is a great thing, yeah, yeah, yeah If it comes from the heart Hello and welcome to episode 1110 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs. Hello. Hi. One streak down, one to go.

Clayton Kershaw was just good enough. The Dodgers actually won a baseball game, so that streak, the stake has been driven into its heart finally, but the Indians won again because Corey Kluber's amazing and their pitching staff is

possibly the best ever, as we discussed yesterday and showed that again, so now it is up to Buck Farmer. Buck Farmer of the Detroit Tigers has been tasked with stopping the Indians at 20. Yeah. Once again, I guess there's really no purpose in discussing this much further. It doesn't mean anything to me or to you. I imagine that the Indians can beat the current version of the Detroit Tigers, just as it didn't really mean anything that they could beat the Chicago White Sox. But of course, you still expect teams to lose somewhere in there.

So kudos to the Indians. It is really cool. I feel like I'm sort of essentially a grump because I look at it and I see how excited curmudgeon curmudgeon was a word I was looking for. I look at how excited everybody is. Everybody's excited about this winning streak because it is I mean, how often are we looking at things that are historically unprecedented in baseball? And then here's one that's actively happening and I'm kind of over it, which I realize makes me the one who's missing out. So I am, I'm trying, I'm trying to be happy for the Indians in a way that is at least mostly genuine, but I don't know. It's bothering me. Maybe it's because it's too obvious, right? It's a little bit of that hipster baseball analysis where you want to be the one who finds the thing that's historically unprecedented,

whereas the Indians are just like, oh, we're just going to win every game. And we're just going to do that until no one else has ever done that so much. Yeah. I mean, I think it's exciting. I'm kind of excited about it, but not from a talking about it perspective. I don't really have anything to say or anything to add. It is extraordinary and remarkable and it's worth the hype and people should watch the game and see what happens and I'll be following along. But that is about it. I don't have anything to say or write about it beyond that really other than, yeah, this is cool and extremely improbable. So that's okay. Not everything has to have an additional angle, but it's just as we said yesterday it's gone on so long that you

keep having to find new ways to talk about it and there aren't that many ways my favorite thing switching gears over to the dodgers because they also had that that streak snapped my favorite thing about it that uh grant brisby tweeted after the game is that clayton kershaw started against the giants he went six innings he allowed one run one walk six strikeouts eight hits and by game score he's uh he started 39 i think the number was 39 times against the giants in his career so i'm going to repeat this kershaw against the giants 39 starts last night six innings one run third worst start against the giants in his career by game score unbelievable yeah. Yeah, that's pretty amazing. Speaking of great starters who started last night in those streaks, we talked about the Kluber-Sale-Saiyung race at some point.

And we were, I think, in the pro-Sale camp. Are you still? I mean, it's always pointless to talk about these things before the season is actually over because September stuff counts. I'm just wondering if Kluber has done enough to flip things for you because he's continued to be great and Sale has not been quite as great in the second half. He does still have an innings lead, but has not been quite as effective as he was early on. So has that flipped at all for you? And now I guess maybe before the better story was Sale kind of coming into the Red Sox and becoming the ace and being as good as they had hoped and expected him to be. And now, I don't know, maybe everything that is related to the Indians is automatically the better story because they have won 20 baseball games in a row.

Yeah, Kluber has certainly closed the gap. There was one thing I wanted to look up today that I have not actually done. So this is going to be live. This will be. I was curious because Kluber is in the terrible American League Central and Chris Sale is in the excellent American League East. I was curious about quality of competition. Baseball Prospectus has a stat that I think I can trust. Looking at average opponent.

I'm going to go by OPS. So average opponent OPS this season. Chris Sale. This is live. I don't know what this'm going to go by OPS. So average opponent OPS this season. Chris Sale, this is live. I don't know what this is going to say. Chris Sale's average opponent, 748 OPS. Okay, what does that mean? Corey Kluber, 742. Basically the same.

Okay, nothing there. Don't care. So I guess that means where we are. Chris Sale has thrown 195.2 innings. Kluber's at 184.2. Even though Kluber missed a month due to injury it doesn't matter because he's going 10 innings in every start these days because he never allows anything to happen so innings gap is no longer there by uh by the output strike it right basically the same

walk rate basically the same era kluber now has the advantage it's uh hey yeah this is incredibly close i don't know is there an unearned run difference no because sales allowed four unearned runs and kluber has allowed three so i think by the baseball reference version of war i think kluber's pulled slightly ahead uh whereas sale has uh is just just behind so yeah at this point i think if one were to try to predict how the voters would go then you have to figure there's going to be some element of recency bias and kluber has been a lot better lately so i think as of right now kluber would win but but that by no means rule will sail out because obviously if anyone can catch up not named clayton kershaw he's in the other league if anyone closed the gap it's going to be Chris Sale so right now I would say it's 60-40 Kluber and to be determined another two or three starts to go

yep extremely close yeah so some other things that we wanted to talk about a few things happened that we knew were going to happen but now they have happened or come closer to happening so we're going to talk about them again so first thing i wanted to mention is just that phillies game that happened on tuesday night the phillies were playing the marlins and i think this is a scenario i had maybe discussed with sam at some point that as far as i'm aware had not happened before this we had the walk-off win that was erased by replay so there was a walk-off win that was erased by replay. So there was a walk-off in the bottom of the ninth. The Phillies thought they had won and they were celebrating on the field and hopping around and tearing people's jerseys off. And they dumped a whole bucket of wrapped gum on the field and

they celebrated. They thought it was a game-winning pinch hit single and it was not the marlins challenged because john carlos stanton they thought had thrown out cesar hernandez at the plate and the original call was overturned and it was no longer a walk-off win so the grounds crew had to come up and sweep up the gum that was now on the field and the game went another i guess uh five more innings six more innings six more innings yeah right so it was the 15th the phillies still won but it took them a lot longer to win than they thought it had so i had been curious about this kind of thing happening when replay was instituted. Were we going to see a lot of either half-hearted celebrations or celebrations wiped away?

And I guess we haven't seen this particular one, or at least I have forgotten it if we have. But it finally happened. The replay erased walk-off. It's good to have it happen so now baseball can perform some sort of investigative analysis of exactly what the benefits and consequences are of something like this because it could eventually happen in a game that somebody's watching and cares about uh this was marlins phillies nobody cares ever since the marlins caught fire they were at 1.66 and 63 in the wild card race since then they have gone oh god are you, are you serious? Two and 13.

Oh, dear. Well, yeah. So the Marlins don't matter anymore. A bold decision to challenge the play in the bottom of the ninth instead of just being like, well, we're the Marlins and we don't want to play anymore. I would be curious to know if that decision was if the decision to challenge that play was something where Don Mattingly felt obligated to challenge or if he felt like no you know what I want to win this game because of course players have a certain competitive spirit and they they do want to win but do they want to win that like if you could if you could go back and you're going to tell the Marlins forget about the fact that they lost of course if they knew they would lose then they wouldn't bother at all but right if you could go back and tell the Marlins look you can challenge this you're gonna play another two hours you're gonna play another six innings as a team you're gonna have

pitchers like edubre ramos and whoever this garcia is for the marlins and this is all gonna happen and then you're gonna have to play a lot more baseball and nobody cares about do you really do you how much do you really want to challenge this play so if you are coming at this from the angle where everyone is very sporting and players and and coaches care deeply about every single game then you think yeah look at that even in a game that doesn't matter at all the marlins still challenge the call because they just want to win the baseball game how pure or did they just challenge the baseball game and then they put in the request for the challenge and then they're like wait whoops we shouldn't have bothered i would i would be interested to know and that's one of those things where you couldn't

have a you couldn't have that conversation with don mattingly unless you got him really drunk and let some time pass yes yeah there was a a quote by him in the story I was reading It just said, that was a first for me Different, period, replay, period Such is life Yes, such is replay All right, and in the category of things that we expected to happen And then finally did happen We have Jacoby Ellsbury setting the all-time career mark

For reaching via catcher's interference, which I know is something that you have been tracking for quite some time. He broke Pete Rose's all-time record with his 30th lifetime career catcher interference. Pete Rose loses a record. To this point, I have seen no statement from Pete Rose being defensive about his record and how he earned it. But Jacoby Ellsbury did get there he is now at the 30 catches interferences pete rose was at 29 took ellsbury like a third of the plate appearance yes also that's crucial to understand here because jacoby ellsbury in his career has batted a total of 5,310 times pete rose in his career batted 15 890 times so yeah you were almost exactly correct

one third of the amount of playing time and what's also fun catcher's interference incredibly rare outside of jacoby ellsbury appearances where it happens twice a game and he is at 30 however when last season started and ellsbury was entering his age 32 season when last year started ellsbury was entering his age 32 season. When last year started, Ellsbury was sitting at 14 career catcher's interferences. 14, not even halfway to Pete Rose. Then it's like, I'm going to try something. I'm going to hit the catcher's hand with my swing a lot. And so he, of course, shattered the all-time record for single season catcher's interference calls drawn.

I wish there was a better way to say that. Yeah, the previous record had been eight in the year. Ellsbury got to 12, which is absurd. When do you ever see a record broken by 50%? Anyway, this year, Ellsbury has lost a little bit of playing time for a variety of reasons, but he's still drawn four catcher's interference calls. That is actually second in baseball because Josh Reddick has taken to being really annoying this year. He's up to seven catcher's interference calls, which I wonder if that has anything to do with Reddit getting better at making contact and staying back on two straight pitches, etc. But one thing I did learn over the course of the past few days is that catcher's interference counts as a plate appearance, but it has no effect on anything else.

Oh, I was just going to ask you if this is factored into War or WRC Plus or anything. Yep. Nope. It's just kind of missing. And of course, for the overwhelming majority of players, it makes almost exactly no difference. For Jacoby Ellsbury, catcher's interference means nothing for on-base percentage. It's factored into neither the numerator nor the denominator. But if you included the 30 extra times reaching base in Ellsbury's career, his OBP would move up by like four points.

So, you know, whatever. But still, it's four more times on base. And given that Ellsbury is only 33 years old, did he turn? Well, he just turned 34 on September 11th, which incidentally, was that not the date of his breaking the record? Ah, what a birthday present, Jacoby Ellsbury. I know that this is an obscure record in most circles, but this is like the only time I think about Jacoby Ellsbury. I know that this is an obscure record in most circles, but this is like the only time I think about Jacoby Ellsbury anymore. He's like become the most unremarkable player. He's not bad. He's been basically an average baseball player, like almost exactly, I guess, over at least the last season, almost two seasons at this point, maybe more. He has missed some time this season, as you mentioned, but he's been basically an average player when

he's been playing, which is, I don't know, he only had really one good year for the Yankees that was close to on par for what they were paying for. And now he's very quickly settled into the kind of bad part of the contract, I guess. But he's not like a total Pujols type drain. And he's still contributing, but just in this extremely uninteresting way. Like he still steals some bases, but not a lot of bases like he used to. And he still gets on base a decent amount, but not like he did in his best seasons. And he's just an extremely generic player now, which I guess is better than it could

be, but worse than certainly they hoped it would be. And there's something in here about how I guess we lose the story when we're so engrossed in the day-to-day, because here's the reality of Jacoby Ellsbury. He is 34 years old, and he's not going to get any better. But over the past decade, looking at every single individual position player season, here are the top players who appear in the top six in terms of single season wins above replacement. This is Fangraph's version. Top six, 2012 Mike Trout, 2013 Mike Trout, 2015 Mike Trout, 2016 Mike Trout, 2015 2015 Bryce Harper and 2011 Jacoby Ellsbury Ellsbury had a 9.4 win season in 2011 which is incredible like he had one of the best seasons in modern

baseball history and then that was it it was over his uh his power flash lasted about as long as Joe Mowers did I guess and in a sense I guess it's kind of a shame that Ellsbury isn't a little younger now that the ball is just flying everywhere and he can't hit a few more home runs like everybody else. Even Francisco freaking Lindor is up to 30 now and he's not a very strong. He's not a power hitter, but he's hitting for power. So Ellsbury, when it's all said and done, we're going to be able to reflect on Ellsbury and how polarizing he's been and his lows and his highs

and all the talk that he used to be really injury prone and he couldn't be trusted. And now for the past few years, he's been the exact same player every season. It's incredible how one of the most electrifying players in baseball, one of the most oft discussed players in baseball can become so boring within just like a couple of years because now it's like well he's David DeJesus with a different name on his jersey right exactly yeah and a higher salary and a lot more catchers interfered with so another thing that was announced MLB announced the beginning and end of the 2018 schedule and it was somewhat notable there is a cba mandated change to start the season a little bit earlier so that teams could have more off days built in which is a good thing for the

players obviously and so the season will be starting on march 29th next year which is the earliest opening day in baseball history and then the season will be ending on september 30th which is obviously also earlier than we've seen seasons end lately, which I guess is, you know, good for the players, good for all of us not to be watching baseball in November. So that's fine. I think the part of this that I am kind of excited about is that every team will start the season on the same day, which sounds really fun. This is apparently, I read the first time since 1968 that all teams will open on the same day. So we're going to go from zero baseball or spring training baseball, which is possibly

worse, to all 30 teams playing on the same day, which is really fun because in recent years, we've had this sort of staggered opening day where there will be like one ESPN game or, you know, barring international games, there will be one ESPN game and then like most teams will play and then a bunch of teams will be off. And it's like, which one is the real opening day? Whatever. Everyone's happy to have baseball back in any form. But this sounds really fun to go from zero to 30 in one day and just have a full day of baseball. Hopefully the start times of those games will also be staggered in some way. Now it's going to be overwhelming, but it is better. I don't remember. I might not remember all the details, but it was a few years ago. This is, I think it was before

the nationals were even particularly good. I think that the season started with a Sunday night baseball game between the nationals and the Braves or something, just some unremarkable, like, why is this happening kind of season opening game and it was like a soft open which I kind of can appreciate because it gives you that sort of adjustment because this way we're going to go into next year and we're going to be like all right spring training every it's so long why is spring training so oh god oh here's everything it's too much it's too much to consume and and I know i'm gonna hate twitter that day because it's just gonna like you know you lose your mind over the first game of the season because you're that's

the one that's supposed to set the tone so it's going to be a lot so the work part of my brain is dreading march 29th but it will also be nice because because the staggered opening was always a little bit ridiculous so it's uh it's one of those things that should be done away with and i am overall glad it will be done away with, even though this is worse for my mental health. Yeah. And on March 29th, there might be pitch clocks in Major League Baseball. Ken Rosenthal reported that the players seem to be on board with working on implementing the pitch clock. Again, not a shock, but just something that had to happen along the way for the pitch clock to become a reality. We've talked about the pitch clock, so we don't had to happen along the way for the pitch clock to become a reality.

We've talked about the pitch clock, so we don't need to do that right now. I think we're both pro and it's worked just fine in the minors. And my only concern is that I've read things about how maybe it's an injury risk when you have guys throwing as hard and exerting as much energy as they do now. And then not being able to take all the time they want to throw again. But maybe players will just adjust if that's the case and actually expend a little bit less effort instead of just expending max effort and hurting themselves. I don't know which is more likely, but if there is any change that makes players less likely to throw incredibly hard, that might also address some things about baseball that people consider

problems so happy that that is happening and we don't need to say a whole lot more about it now because we'll probably have to talk about it again when it actually does go into practice shout out to the return of doug fister because as of now he has the second fastest pace in all of baseball he is at 18.9 seconds between pitches the ransom second as mentioned first place brent suitor who is a pitcher on a team he's at 18.4 seconds the slowest pace is not pedro baez by one tenth of a second it is bud norris who's at 30.6 seconds however i'm pretty sure bud norris is injured and so therefore the slowest active pace is Pedro Ba him doing that. So this is not a shock.

There have been like half the teams in baseball at least have been sending scouts to see him now that he is back on the mound post injuryinjury and is still throwing triple digits with nasty breaking balls and doing Shohei Otani stuff. So obviously the fascinating wrinkle here, even on top of the fascinating question of will he be a two-way player and how good at that will he be, is now the financial part of the equation because he will have to have a very limited salary if he does this. Because of the rules in the new CPA that puts a cap on international spending, he will now not be making a ton of money. And in the past, he would have presumably been making hundreds of millions of dollars as a free agent. Now, the CPA limits teams to bonus pools between like four and three quarter million and five and

three quarter million. And then they can trade for more bonus pool value. So you could get up to, you know, eight million or 10 million. But then there are some teams that are restricted for signing any player over 300,000 because of penalties from past pools. And that includes some teams that might be leading candidates to sign Otani like the Dodgers the Cubs the Padres the Astros and just even aside from that hard limit it's just not a lot of money he'd have to sign a minor league contract and then have that contract purchased

to go up to the majors and basically he'd be in the same boat as any rookie in major league baseball which is that you know he has to have three pre-arbitration years and then three arbitration years, and then he's a free agent and the whole thing. So he's not making a ton of money as it is in Japan. I think his salary this year is about $2.5 million based on some quick Googling. Maybe it would be more if he stayed. So he's leaving some money on the table potentially in the short term, but obviously this is more about the difference between what he might have made under the old system and what he'll make now and what his free agency essentially will look like this winter. Because the usual thing that separates teams, which is that some teams can afford to pay a player a ton of money and others cannot, does not separate them anymore.

that some teams can afford to pay a player a ton of money and others cannot does not separate them anymore. They'll all have to pay some sort of flat fee to Otani's team that is being negotiated right now. It's been 20 million for a few years. It will presumably go up by a little bit, but it's probably still going to be a system where it'll be one number that teams can meet and then have to bid for Otani on top of that. But essentially, every team will be able to afford this. So it's going to be a very out of the ordinary negotiating process. So, okay, of two minds. On the one hand, I want Otani to be pitching in the major leagues tomorrow. I want to see him as soon as possible. I understand I can see him if I were to watch Japanese baseball. But of course, I would like to see him in the major leagues. That is where

the questions will be answered. On the other hand. Oh, it would be so delightful if Otani signed with the team. And then they held him down in the minors for service time reasons, just for like just two weeks next April. You know, they go through all the,

I guess March too, but they go through all the discussions like, yeah, we really want you Otani, blah, blah, blah. We have to make all these promises to get you to sign with us instead of

the other 29 teams. But then if they sent him down like Chris Bryant, just for like a few days, just to squeeze out that last year just to be complete dicks about it oh that would be i mean it would be terrible it would be absolutely terrible but like you couldn't do anything because they're like what you want us to treat him like all the other players right you don't want anything to be unprecedented and why wouldn't like why wouldn't a team have a vested interest and just being like no we're gonna keep him down you know we want we want to get him accustomed to

north american baseball so we want to have him get a couple reps and in triple a etc you could totally rationalize it as an organization because you know otani is a prospect in a sense so you could you could absolutely get away with it and people would lose their minds it would be terrible he would never resign with that team but who cares that team would get seven years of shohei otani if they wanted it so no one i don't think anyone would ever suggest that's going to happen but you can actually kind of see it happen if a team wanted to be a real ass about it yeah that's the question will some team find some way around it? Not in that way, but to pay him more, whether through some kind of under the table deal with him or his team or potentially like giving him a massive extension after the first year. And it sounds like MLB is

going to be very vigilant about trying to prevent that stuff. And there would be very strict penalties if a team were caught. And it sounds like they'll be looking at precedents for early career extensions. So if he's getting just the most massive extension ever for a player at that point in his career, that deal might be essentially vetoed by the commissioner. And I don't, like, is there a limit? I mean, does a team have to pay a player

the league minimum in those first, at least, I mean, in the ARB years, you can pay a player like whatever you want, right? Like it's always the question about, well, do you pay a player the league minimum or do you give him more than the league minimum? Will he be indebted to you? Will he be more likely to stay when he is a free agent if you give him more than you have to? And usually that's the difference between like $500,000 and $550,000 or something very significant in baseball terms. But could they just give him more after the first? Like, I don't know where the limits are exactly.

This is a singular case. So teams are going to be trying to massage this in some way or find some way to sweeten the offer. So it's going to be fascinating to see how that plays out. Yeah, I think it could end up being sort of a Potter Stewart kind of situation where I think a major league baseball wants to see Otani treated as if he has precedent because at the end of the day, he is just a really good young baseball player. And we've had a lot of those, even if we haven't had this exact brand of young baseball player as dave cameron wrote wednesday morning at fangraphs uh francisco lindor was reportedly offered a nine figure contract by the indians when he was after one year of service time so you could see

otani signs some kind of big extension in theory after his first season in the uh in the major leagues i think baseball just wants to see him treated somewhat like normal so if the team was like we want to give him 15 million dollars in his second year of service that would probably be discouraged because uh no one ever gets that but what mike trout got up to 1 million maybe a little more than 1 million and i think year three or something like that pre-arb years where everyone is paid basically six figures but every so often you have a player who's treated a little differently, gets a little more money.

Usually it's the best ones. So it makes sense. Nobody ever really bats an eye. I think there's, again, of two minds here, because within me there is that interest in having all questions answered as much as possible. And so, of course, I want to see shohei otani in the major leagues but i'm so concerned that he's just not gonna be like if he is not a superhero if he's not a two-way superstar then he's going to come off like some kind of disappointment and that sucks i don't want to

look ahead to a future where shohei otani lets people down because he's not slugging 550 with an ERA that starts with a one. And so even if, you know, if he turns out to be like Yu Darvish, how many people really love watching Yu Darvish anymore? And it's not because he's not good. He's great. Yu Darvish is a very good starting pitcher. But ever since he came over, when Darvish came over and when I remember watching Tanaka's first start with the Yankees and I was just wrapped with attention, in attention. I don't know what the words are. I'm not a writer. I was very interested in seeing what Tanaka did.

I think he was facing the Blue Jays. And then after a game or two or three, the mystery just starts to fade away and you start to look at a player in the same profile as some other recent baseball players. And I'm going to kind of miss that magic. One of my favorite things about the Eric Bedard era with the Mariners was that he spent most of the time like hurt, but on the verge of coming back. So I could always have in my head like, you know, if Eric Bedard's ever healthy, he could be an A starting pitcher. And, you know, it never really worked out that way. But it was fun because you never actually got the answer. And I'm I'm a little afraid that after Otani comes over that I don't know what the next thing is going to be to dream on, because it's not going to be very long until Otani bores some people, because I will repeat

once again, somebody sent in an email not too long ago to this podcast that asserted that mike trout is overrated right yeah i mean i'm kind of a believer at this point i mean he's only pitched twice this year and has been rusty although the stuff has looked fine but on offense he has also missed some time but in 185 plate appearances he has essentially replicated his performance from last year on a rate basis. He's hit 346, 416, 574. And the power may take a bigger hit making that transition from NPB to MLB than some other offensive skills do. But, I mean, he's just been like the best hitter in the league for a couple of years now. And I'm fairly optimistic about him being at least a passable major league hitter if he gets the chance to do that. And maybe we will be spoiled because there's no way he can replicate these just eye-popping numbers that we've been staring at on his

baseball reference page for a year now. He can't do that. So if he's only like a really good starter and say an average major league hitter, like that would be amazing, but it would look less amazing because we've now seen him have Babe Ruth stats on both sides of the ball now for a while. So yeah, I think we have to keep expectations realistic, but I'm hopeful that because of this economic situation, it makes it more likely that he will at least get the chance to see if he can do the genuine two-way thing in the majors. Because what's going to be the differentiating factor between teams if it's not money? Well, maybe it's geography. Maybe it's how competitive the team is.

Maybe it's the opportunity to play with Hugh Darvish, who will also be a free agent. So that will be interesting to see if Otani cares enough about playing with Darvish, who's kind be a free agent. So that will be interesting to see if, you know, Otani cares enough about playing with Darvish, who's kind of a hero of his and a mentor of his, to wait for Darvish to sign somewhere to see if that impacts Otani's decision at all. But we know that it's important to Otani to be a hitter and a pitcher. And so I would think that he's not going to sign

with a team that is not willing to make some commitment to him to do that. So I think that that's the positive here. He is not going to sign with a team that is not willing to make some commitment to him to do that. So I think that that's the positive here. He is not going to be making as much money as he deserves to be making, but at least I think there's a better chance that we will get to see the full Otani experiment because of this strange posting situation. So over the past four years, Madison Bumgarner has a.297 ERA, and as a batter, he's slugged 442. He's been about an average batter and he has an ERA plus of 129. Madison Bumgarner, extremely good best player, best player, second best player, I don't know, one of the best players on the Giants up there with Buster Posey, I guess, but he is, I guess, currently the only sort of he's the only good hitting pitcher where by good we don't mean relative to other pitchers we mean like he's at an actual like league average hitter because he's very strong and he hits a lot of home runs i think people have pointed out he has like the same home run rate as bryce harper

or something ridiculous so bum garner ace pitcher good hitter if shohei otani is madison bum garner how exciting is that if that's if this is where he settles? Because Bumgarner is extremely good and very much one of a kind in his skill set. That was a question. Well, I think if he's Bumgarner, but he's like a full time. I mean, well, if he's Bumgarner, but he does what Bumgarner doesn't do, which is like legitimately hit when he's Bumgarner, but he does what Bumgarner doesn't do, which is like legitimately hit when he's not pitching.

I know Bumgarner pinch hits from time to time, but he doesn't make starts elsewhere in the field or at DH or something. So, or did he, I guess he DH'd interleague play at some point, I think. But if Otani is doing that regularly or, you know, starting at an actual non-pitcher position and hitting like Bumgarner, I think that would satisfy me. If he's a league average hitter and he is genuinely a hitter as opposed to a pitcher who kind of moonlights as a position player, that would satisfy me, I think. I'm hoping for more, but if he could do that, that would be pretty fun and something we haven't seen since the early early days of baseball maybe it's going

to be up to us at least in some small part maybe we have to make sure that we we write about otani as often as we continue to write about mike trout or something like that maybe if we just if we refuse to to give it up and if we keep trying to find ways to make them interesting then maybe people won't get bored because the the human brain has the tendency to get bored fast it will find its new level and it will get there and it will settle because the brain does not actually want to be stimulated that often for some weird reason or at least it wants to be stimulated by what's new so if we can find just new ways like the challenge now is trying to write about otani in a different way even though we have like no further information. So like you could write the same article about Otani now as you would a year ago. But the challenge later is going to be,

okay, Otani has been here for two months. Everyone has already written five articles about him. Let's find a new one. And to try to thread that needle will be a challenge and it's going to remain a challenge. And I just really hope that he's not total flop, should hope that he's at least an above average baseball player based on the quality of his stuff it would be a shock if he's not a good pitcher maybe not a great pitcher admittedly i get a little annoyed when people will post images of of his pitches on twitter and say oh balls aren't supposed to do that or something like well come on he's throwing he's throwing regular pitches he's just throwing them well he he has a really strong arm but he's not like inventing pitches.

His slider looks the same as a Darvish slider or a Kluber slider or once every three times a Julius Chassin slider. Like he's throwing regular pitches and you don't over exaggerate. But also, yeah, he is the most interesting high level baseball player in the the world today i think yeah and i hope that i hope he's able to maintain that yeah kluber slider by the way potentially the best pitch ever yep something that uh you wrote about recently maybe maybe not the best pitch ever but the best pitch around now yeah by certain numbers i don't need to get into details cory kluber slide i guess he doesn't refer to it as a slider cory Kluber breaking ball, arguably the best pitch in baseball today,

arguably the best pitch in baseball over the past decade or so. If you have a counter argument, well, that's too bad because I'm the one on the podcast and you are not. Yeah. Yeah. And if you want to read more about the Otani situation, Dave has a post up at Fangrass where he proposes some creative ways to sign Otani. I because the banter was so long, we're just going to take a few emails. It'll be an abbreviated email portion of the show. So Daniel says, the heart of the order in baseball history has meant 3-4-5, but this led to a discussion with my friends about what the true heart of the order is in 2017. Coming into play on September 7th, 2017. Coming into play on September 7th, number two hitters had a higher OPS than fifth place hitters by 67 points. And his question is, should the heart of the order be 2-3-4, 2-3-4-5? Does it vary based on lineup construction of the team? Does it need to be three hitters in a row? And

I do think it needs to be three hitters in a row just because if you're talking about four that's that's almost half the lineup that's not a heart anymore it needs to be somewhat exclusive i think to be labeled a heart so if you're gonna do three do you just bump it up one yeah so first of all i think that there's something was wrong with math because the second place batter does not have a higher ops than the fifth place batter by 67 points he has a higher ops the second place batter does not have a higher OPS than the fifth place batter by 67 points. He has a higher OPS than the fifth place batter by four points. It's 784 versus 780. So in order, this year, the highest OPS marks by lineup slot are third place, fourth place, second place, fifth place. And then it's sixth place and first place.

So based on the numbers as of right now, the proper heart of the order would be two, three, four. It is probably one of those things where you should just base it on the lineup because if you have just some back control guy batting second and then an actual good hitter batting fifth, I think that it would be fine to shift the heart of the order down one. Now, one complicating factor here, the dictionary definition of heart, the second definition is definition number two, the central or innermost part of something, which would therefore suggest, based on the strictest of definitions, that the heart of the order is 456. Nobody's ever used it like that, but I don't know, maybe that's the baseball term originator's fault. So if you wanted to be a by-the-book baseball person, then you would say the heart of the order is four, five, six. Nobody would ever agree with you, but you would know that you have right on your side.

Yeah, I think it would be fair in this environment maybe to say two, three, four. That does seem like, I mean, because if we don't say heart of the order, we say middle of the order, and they're sort of synonyms at times, or they have been through much of history, but we're talking now about kind of divorcing heart from middle a little bit if heart of the order starts with the second batter in the lineup. So it feels more heart if it is actually centered a little bit in the lineup. So that is changing, but yeah, if you want it to reflect the way that teams are actually constructing their lineups these days, I guess the heart has to start a little bit earlier yeah it feels too exposed being at number two like that's too close to the surface you need to protect the heart you need your heart and your brain so if we're going

to use the word heart you need some protection need some ribs and i guess maybe the second place batter is part of the rib cage or something of the order so just in terms of from an evolutionary perspective then three four five makes a lot more sense than two three in terms of from an evolutionary perspective, then 3-4-5 makes a lot more sense than 2-3-4. But also from an evolutionary perspective, it's 4-5-6, maximum protection on either side. Think about it. You need the heart. Yeah. All right. So Steve asks a question about Mookie Betts that appropriately, I think, immediately preceded Mookie Betts being on a hot streak and having some great games. But he says, so why is Mookie Betts being on a hot streak and having some great games. But he says, so why is Mookie Betts failing to live up to last year's MVP caliber season? His OPS plus

is down around 100 and his power is considerably down in a baseball environment where that isn't the norm. He's also walking considerably more. So is this just a matter of pitchers throwing more conservatively to a known threat? He hasn't been bad by any means, still in the four to five war range. But what happened? And what is he up to now after his most recent hot streak? Yeah, he's still he's still down there. So by by WRC plus bets right now is at 105. Last year, he was at 137. The year before that 120 the year before that 129. So he was at 100. I think when this email was sent something like that but then he had the crazy game what i'm interested in here and i have this

i have the thought of maybe having a post about this or at least inspired by this today so mookie bets's numbers have bounced around he's by no means the most extreme movement player he hasn't had the biggest drop off in hitting this season out of everyone you've got like miguel cabrera would be one example but what i find really interesting about Mookie Betts is his numbers have bounced around the last few years but on baseball savant they have a stat called expected Woba so that's Woba's weighted on base average I don't know if I need to explain that it's just it's a hitting stat just okay accept it so there is a an expected W stat inspired by StatCast and how the batted balls have actually been hit. And here's what's really interesting about Mookie Betts the last three seasons.

We have only three seasons of data. Mookie Betts, 2015, expected WOBA of 334. Last year, 336. This year, 337. He's been the exact same hitter by this measure three years running. And even though his overall results have bounced around this would suggest he's really not doing anything differently and so if uh if i do get around to writing a post about this which would be published previous to this podcast being published so this is some kind of weird time warp stargate situation but

yeah i think that there is the possibility here, the advantage here, when you have these expected WOBA numbers that reflect, I think they can be trusted enough to reflect how a player does deserve to have done with a few variables here and there. But you could, in this situation, talk to Mookie Betts, and if he sees his numbers and if he's discouraged at all, you could go up to him and be like, look, you're doing everything the exact same way as you did when you were an MVP caliber player. I know your numbers are down, but maybe last year you got a few good bounces. And maybe this year you've gotten too few good bounces, but nothing has changed at all.

So you don't need to change anything at all. And it would help grant some peace of mind. You could look at this when a player is in a slump, depending on the nature of the slump. There are, of course, bad slumps where players look lost, like whatever has happened to Alex Gordon all season long. But if you have just a slump based on a certain amount of bad luck, or maybe a player just barely mishit a ball, you can go to the player and say, look, don't be too discouraged. You're doing everything fine. And your numbers are going to pick up.

Nothing has changed. So you don't need to change. And I think that there's the possibility there that you could help get a player sort of out of his own head. points so most of the fall off here is not really coming in power it's coming in lots of singles and i would venture to guess that his speed has not gotten worse i guess we could check it has not yeah so just checking the sprint speed leaderboards he was at 28.0 feet per second in sprint speed last year he is at 28.1 this year, so not at all slower. He's still stealing bases just as often. So this seems to be a luck-based thing based on all the information

we have, which is pretty solid information at this point. So I would not be surprised to see him have a strong finish to the season and bring these numbers closer to what they were last year, even in the time he has left. But even if there is a difference at the end of the year, probably pretty illusory. All right. You have a couple stat segment answers here that are responses to email questions themselves. Yeah. So this makes things pretty convenient.

So this is going to be a double parter. So there is let's see, let's begin with an email from Robin. And in this email, Robin asks about a hypothetical you have this is a reflective pretty common email, I think that we get we have pitcher a who every time he pitches, he goes six innings, and he allows two runs. So pitcher a era of three, every single game, six innings, two runs, and then you have Pitcher B, and this is the counter hypothetical, which you might expect. Pitcher B, half the time, goes six innings, no runs.

And the other half the time, he goes six innings and four runs. So still an ERA of three. But the question is basically, which pitcher would you take? Pitcher A, who always allows two runs and six innings, or Pitcher B, who is 50-50. And of course course why would you allow pitcher b to be pitcher b well this is the hypothetical so whatever this is what we're

dealing with so i was curious i had a gut feeling but i wanted to check it against the numbers so i went to the play index to see how teams have actually done when they have had starting pitchers who have performed like this so i examined the past decade and the past decade gives a whole bunch of information because you wouldn't believe how many starts have been out there where pitchers have gone exactly six innings. It's a very common number of innings for a pitcher to go. So over the past decade of Major League Baseball, when a starter has allowed exactly two runs in exactly six innings, his team has won 59.2% of the time. 59.2% of the time. Okay, so that's pitcher A. Pitcher B, over the past decade, when a starter has allowed zero runs in six innings, his team has won 84.4%

of the time. But when a starter is allowed four runs in six innings, his team has won 34.7% of the time. So because this is pitcher B, and he's exactly 50-50, you want the midpoint. The midpoint there is 59.5 percent in other words both pitchers end up with a winning percentage or the team ends up with a winning percentage of basically 59 exactly the same as one another so at least based on that analysis which as far as i'm concerned checks out just fine enough the difference is nothing they're exactly the same you uh you would not prefer picture a or picture b so you would want one depending on i guess his personality and if he's not a dick and if he can get along with

everybody else so that kind of surprised me i was expecting to see some sort of difference i don't know in which direction but i didn't think it would be exactly the same but it was unless you want to quibble about a difference of three tenths of one percentage point, which I certainly don't know. And the other kind of similar related email comes from Curtis. Curtis was curious about the diminishing returns in ERA. I will just read the entirety of his email here. It's only one paragraph. Suppose a pitcher has an ERA of 4.50 and another pitcher has an ERA of 3.50. The difference in ERA is significant, and you would much rather have the pitcher with the 3.50 ERA. Now consider a pitcher has an ERA of 1.50 and another pitcher has an ERA of 0.50. You would rather have the pitcher with a 0.50 ERA, but would you value the one run difference between the

lower number and the higher number the same? To the other extreme, you would not consider the difference between a 28 ERA and a 27 ERA the same as the difference between 4.5 and 3.5. My question is, is the value added from a one run difference in ERA diminished in the lower numbers? Where are the greatest returns from a change in ERA? So I went at this in a similar way as I did with Robin's email, I decided just to look up again over the past decade, I looked at starting pitchers who went exactly six innings. And then I figured out their team winning percentages based on their runs allowed moving by one. So I looked at starters who went six innings with zero runs, six innings with one run, et cetera, all the way up to six runs.

So I generated seven readouts of information. So just as in the previous email, when starters went six innings and allowed zero runs their team won 84 of the time six innings one run the team won 72 of the time two runs 59 of the time three runs 47 of the time four runs 35 of the time five runs 26 of the time and six runs 19 of the time that's where i stopped so what i gleanedleaned from this, what's interesting is as you go from zero to four runs allowed, the winning percentage difference between every start is basically the same. It's between 12 and 13 percentage points of winning percentage. So for every one run extra allowed, the team wins about 12 to 13% less often. But then the difference

between four and five runs allowed the winning percentage change is nine percent and then from five to six runs allowed the winning percentage difference is seven percent seven percentage points i should say so what seems to be the case is that there's no real diminishing returns with excellence but as a pitcher gets worse then the damage starts to be less and less significant with each additional run i don't know at least at first thought it makes sense because it doesn't really matter if you lose by one or a hundred you're still going to lose there's no maximum amount by which you can lose you just kind of lose the baseball game you can even lose by 27 if you're

the baltimore orioles so it seems like based on this cursory analysis i did not run any sort of baseball simulators that would be a very mitch very Mitchell Lichtman kind of thing to do. I don't have any, but it seems like the difference between good pitchers, there's no diminishing returns. But when you have bad pitchers, then the worse a pitcher is, the less significant that extra amount of negative value. I'm expressing this horribly, but you get the point. Yeah. Well, those are both somewhat surprising results, I guess, but thanks for running the numbers. All right. Well, let's wrap up with, I guess, a couple of quick follow-ups to things that we talked about last week, maybe.

So one was about the hot corner. The stat segment in last week's podcast was about whether the hot corner is actually hot in terms of the number and speed of the batted balls that are hit there. And so what did we conclude? That it's roughly the same in terms of the hardness of the balls that are hit there, but that the rates are slightly different? Yeah, I believe we found that lefties pulled a few more batted balls to first base than righties pulled to third base. However, the exit velocities looked about the same. Yeah. And of course,

there are many more righties than there are lefties. So we also had a follow up on Twitter from Andrew Perpetua, who heard that segment, and he runs the XStats site where you can find lots of StatCast information. He ran exit velocity to first and third on his database and found that third base is 96.1 miles per hour exit velocity and first base is 95.2. So pretty close, but almost a mile per hour advantage in terms of hotness to third base when you look at it that way. Anyway, a follow-up from listener Jeff, he says, my understanding was always that the term hot corner had something to do with how close the third baseman plays to the plate. The first baseman has the luxury of playing deeper because he doesn't have to make a throw across the diamond after fielding the ball.

The fact that the sample only included fielded balls might support that. Both samples average 83 miles per hour off the bat. That's a little outdated now, but third basemen generally probably have a bit more range than first basemen, so they'd be able to catch those balls from 90 feet away, while the first baseman would be able to catch balls hit the same speed from 95 feet away, or whatever the actual numbers are. If all the theories I've typed so far are correct, then either A, there are about the same number of balls hit to first base by lefties as balls hit to third by righties, but more of them are fielded because the first baseman plays deeper, or there actually are more balls hit to first than third, but their average velocity is actually lower because the

decreased range makes the average velocity of fielded balls the same. So basically, first baseman might just be able to stand farther back than third baseman because of the distance of the throw or how far they need to range. I don't know if that's something we can check. Do we have distance from the plate for infielders somewhere or not yet? I don't, but I'm sure that the BAM does. Yeah, it could be calculated. Yes, right. So we can't actually check that right now, but that is conceivably the case, I guess. And third basemen, I don't know if they play in more often. I would guess they play in more often, right? Yeah, sure.

I mean, sometimes both corner people are pulled in equally, but there are times when third basemen are in and first basemen are not because they have to be there to field the ball unless there's some kind of rotation. Anyway, I would guess that on the whole, that's probably true, right? Anyway, I would guess that on the whole, that's probably true, right? Whether it's because of bunt prevention or because of just having to make that throw, maybe third basemen are on the whole closer to the plate, which would mean that the average speed would appear to be higher in a relative effective sense yeah i can see the third baseman i play a little shallow i just sent you a link to a tweet from darren willman of uh stack cast and mlb advanced media he had a tweet this isn't perfectly reflective but he had a tweet the other day that breaks down every team's positioning defensive positioning versus left-handed batters this year to at least give us some sort of sense of how things look i don't know who's a pretty ordinary infield but i'm just going to choose

the reds because they seem kind of boring and so looking at the there's this color diagram of where their defenders have been positioned for all left-handed batters and so you can see where the left field there's center field the right field etc and you can also see the infield positions and the third basement of course has moved around a lot because with lefties in particular at the plate you have a season full of shifts but just kind of trying to eyeball the average position it doesn't look like the third baseman has played that much more shallow than the first baseman maybe a little more by a few feet and of course this is with lefties and so you wouldn't expect lefties to hit balls very hard the other way so actually maybe that would pull in

the third baseman a little more shallow with the righty at the plate you figure the ball is going to be coming off the bat a little harder to the pull side so therefore maybe the third baseman a little more shallow with the righty at the plate you figure the ball is going to be coming off the bat a little harder to the pull side so therefore maybe the third baseman would be on average playing deeper because the ball will get to him quicker so he can afford to not play so shallow so i think it wouldn't surprise me to learn that third baseman might play a little more shallow on average than first baseman but i think that with a righty at the plate that wouldn't be the case unless it's some kind of like really really good bunt threat which is uncommon so i can see it if i squint it's it's almost like a pitcher extension and effective velocity where you have

batted balls coming off the bat the same but they seem faster but i think the difference would be pretty small okay and then the second follow-up is from Brian It's about sign stealing versus pitch tipping We talked about the Red Sox-Yankees sign stealing story Brian says our discussion got him thinking It appears possible that there is little, if any, benefit to the hitter From being able to steal the other team's signs However, there is seemingly significant evidence

That tipping pitches is extremely detrimental to a pitcher Admittedly, this evidence is mostly anecdotal, from pitchers who explain away a string of bad starts or teams explaining the reason for a young pitcher's quick turnaround. However, it seems relatively accepted within the game. Presumably, sign-stealing and pitch-tipping provide the batter with the same information, what pitch is coming. Therefore, why would sign-stealing not help a batter and pitch-tipping be devastating to a pitcher? Of course, it could be that the effects of pitch tipping are practically impossible to measure, so the effect is more similar to sign stealing than anecdotal evidence indicates. It could be simply a measure of degree.

Even the most effective sign stealing could predict only one out of three signs, where pitch tipping could tell the hitter what's coming on every pitch. I have no idea whether this is the case. It could simply be that hearing a pitch called out or signaled to the batter is more distracting than helpful. There may be other explanations that I'm missing. I know that answering this question would probably require talking to a lot of current or former players about the difference, but I'd be interested to hear your thoughts nonetheless. So what we have to say at the start is we don't actually know anything. We don't know what the effects of sign stealing are. We don't know what the effects of

tipping are. We can't ever really prove when someone is tipping his pitches certainly not in the process but we know that it must go on but it is frequently invoked as an excuse for bad performance we saw that with you darvish in his terrible start against the marlins a couple months ago so let's just start from the very arguable position that pitch tipping is worse than sign stealing. Again, we don't know that to be true. But I think that could be explained for a few reasons. One, most sign stealing is done when there is a runner on second base, which is of course, just a minority of the time, whereas a pitcher in theory will be tipping his pitches all the time. So that would make one immediate and instant difference. And then I think that another key part of it as well is that when

you have sign stealing going on, the batter is not involved. The batter is told what is going on and he is trusting the interpretation of teammates and coaches. And there's a player on second, but the sign stealing is an imperfect science. And so he is putting his trust in other people's imperfect interpretations of what the pitch is going to be. And he's also trying to pick up some sort of signal from somebody somewhere else on the field that is not exactly where the pitcher is. And he's trying to interpret that signal as he's also trying to prepare for the pitch. With pitch tipping, that is going to be based on something that the pitcher himself is doing. He's going to be doing it as part of his own motion, his own delivery,

and the batter will be interpreting that sign himself so he will not be trying to place trust in other people he will see something and he will trust himself or he will not trust himself but he will he will see something and if he spots it then he's going to know the difference between say a fastball and a non-fastball and he's going to keep his own vision on the pitcher in the act of his delivery and so that that's not going to distract him. That's going to keep his vision in the same place because as a hitter, you want to try to pick up the baseball as early as possible. You want to have your timing right. So I can see how sign sealing could also just be distracting, whereas trying to read the pitcher who's on the mound could be kind of more

part of the normal process. And also, it's probably just easier to trust yourself than it is to trust in other people who might have read a incorrectly, because you certainly don't want to be a hitter in the box. And then the guy on second base tells you a fastball is coming, and then you get something that's off speed, low and away, because you just don't have a prayer. Right. Yeah. And I wanted to say one last thing about Otani. When I talked about him earlier, I was saying that he has lost a lot of money because of this new system. If he had come over, say, a couple of years earlier, he would have made a lot more than he will be making if he comes over this winter. But it is also true that he is costing

himself money by coming this winter as opposed to later, because an international player is subject to this rule if they are under 25, and he is 23. So if he were to just wait until he was 25, then he would stand to make a lot more money, assuming that he is still as attractive a player. What I'm just spitballing here, he'd have to wait two more seasons, right? He's 23, turned 23 on July 5th. So he will not turn 25 until July 5th of 2019, right? So he would have to sit out or, you know, stay in Japan for the 2018 and 2019 seasons in order to not be subject to this rule, to be a completely unrestricted free agent, right? I believe that to be true. Okay. Yeah. So I'm just wondering, you know,

obviously he is costing himself money. It's sort of, I think Jeff's column, Jeff Passon's column about it sort of made the case that, hey, here's a player who really is not putting the money first. He's putting the competition first because he could wait and make more money later. And that is, I guess, very likely to be true. Of course, he is a pitcher and he could get hurt again and not be appealing at all. Or, you know, there's just so many pieces and parts to his game that something could go wrong in the next couple of years and he might not make a ton anyway, whereas now his value is extremely high, even if he can't fully be paid for it. So probably true that by wanting to come to MLB at 23 instead of 25, he is costing himself

lots and lots of money. Although, of course, there's always risk in waiting two years when you're someone who's, you know, a large part of your value comes from your ability to pitch. So that is something I also wanted to mention because it's worthy of saluting, I suppose, or at least acknowledging. So we can end there. Okay, for the second consecutive episode, the Indians won a game between recording and posting. 21 consecutive wins. I also want to read one last up versus down submission from listener Charles, who says he was not impressed by yesterday's submissions.

He says, neither of those made mention of a player running up the line or a ball being hit up the line. Both of these cases, especially the latter, defy both readers' explanations. A ball hit up the line can't be considered unintended. Therefore, I must share my thoughts. Firstly, anything heading toward home plate is down. Then, anything headed away from home, if you're referring to a specific path, it's down. If you just want to convey its general you're referring to a specific path, it's down. If you just want to convey its general direction, it's up. Think of it like this. Up can only be a direction. Down can be either a direction or a term that means following the path of. All right, maybe that will lay this to rest. You can support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. Five listeners who have already pledged their support include

Michael Fago, Paul Ferraro, Nicholas Perry, Patrick morris and russell baxley thanks to all of you you can join our facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild and you can rate and review and subscribe to effectively wild on itunes thanks to dylan higgins for editing assistance please keep your questions and comments for me and jeff coming via email at podcastfangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system. We will talk to you soon. 21