Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1197: Real Baseball is Back

Episode Date: March 31, 2018

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about Jeff’s research into the performance of college teams vs. MLB teams in spring training, then reach into the grab bag for a selection of topics inspired by actual baseball, including Kyle Schwarber’s defense, the Astros’ four-man outfield (and whether Joey Gallo should bunt to beat it), Mike Trout’s […]

You'd think after all this time I wouldn't be surprised You'd think there'd be nothing new when I looked into your eyes You'd think there ain't nothing about you that I ain't realized But every time I see you But every time I see you, darling But every time I see you, but every time I see you, darling, but every time I see you, I fall in love all over again. Hello and welcome to episode 1197 of Effectively Wild, the Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters and this time by Opening Day, which happened. I'm Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs, joined as always by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, who has his other baseball podcast back and is going to be writing about baseball more often.

You've already teased it. You've written about baseball often lately. Baseball's back. It's a good feeling. You've already teased it. You've written about baseball offers lately. Baseball's back. It's a good feeling. Baseball's back, although I spent a lot of opening day writing about StarCraft. But I watched as much baseball as I could. Man, there was a lot of baseball. That was really opening day.

I'm used to being eased into the season by like a Sunday night game or something where I can kind of calibrate my, I don't know, excitement level. I felt I'm sort of overly amped up. I don't know if people can hear it in my voice, but as I was watching baseball yesterday and things were happening and actual news was coming out and interesting plays and stats, I just kept thinking, oh, got to banter about that one. Got to banter about that one. So I feel like I need to settle down and remember it's a long season marathon, not a sprint, et cetera. Yeah, we probably didn't need the whole Greg Holland thing. They could have just done that one like a day or two earlier that was kind of obnoxious but it is what it is and the cardinals are going to use them but

now we don't even really have time to talk about greg holland because there was just baseball there was some exciting baseball lots of walk-offs it was good uh already a managerial controversy regarding the newest most experimentalist to manager. I don't know. Maybe we can talk about that first or last or not at all. But Gabe Kapler is getting a lot of crap right now in his first game. Sure is. Yeah. Well, should we start before we go to actual baseball? We have one more spring training related thing to talk about, right? I want to ask you about your article, which was great. And I'm mad that I didn't do it, but I'm glad that someone did it. your article, which was great, and I'm mad that I didn't do it, but I'm glad that someone did it.

So you, in sort of an Effectively Wild email show type post for Fangraphs, you looked at the history of college players playing major leaguers in spring training, which I was extremely curious to see the results of. Yeah, I don't know how this didn't occur to any of us sooner, and honestly, I don't know if I would have written it if there wasn't a website any of us sooner and all that honestly i don't know if it would have been if i would have written it if there wasn't a website that i'd never heard of that for some reason collected a lot of these results already which made it quite easy because there's no database of when baseball teams have played college teams but i was inspired because the day before i wrote this article the marlins who are absolutely terrible beat the university of miami by 20 runs in six and a half innings, which is hysterical.

So I was curious, like, well, how often does this happen? Because I had kind of remembered the, there's a joke story about in 2015, not a joke story, real story. The University of Tampa beat the Phillies, which was also funny. They won six to two. Ruben Amaro's nephew was in that game playing for the college. So anyway, I pulled up about a decade of data i don't know if it's absolutely complete i think there might be a game or two i'm missing if there is i'm sure the major league baseball team won yeah good enough i think yeah i think there's a pretty clear trend here 67 games is what i came up with for between 2009 and 2018 and the major leagueball team has won 63 of them, lost four times, and in one of the four losses,

the Orioles, to Manatee Community College, which now goes by the State College of Florida, the Orioles supply the pitchers and the catchers. So not even really something that should count. So if you want to be critical or pedantic, you could say 63-3, maybe 63-3.5. In any case, absolutely lopsided. The college teams have been outscored an average of like 8.8 to 1.9 it's been laughable the median runs for the major

league team has been eight median runs for the college team has been one and of course if you look at any of these games the major league teams aren't major league teams they play some starters if they do play the good players they last like a few innings and then they come out. It's usually just like a split squad roster equivalent. The Major League teams don't care. They're just trying to get some work in if they're even trying at all. And the college teams are playing as if it's the most important day of their baseball playing lives because what better opportunity than to play against people who are far better than you. because what better opportunity than to play against people who are far better than you?

And they've gotten destroyed, absolutely destroyed, because college teams are terrible relative to like high A equivalent professional baseball teams. It was exactly what I would expect, but it's fulfilling to see it. So it sounds like you're saying Major League Baseball players are good at Major League Baseball. They are incredible. They're pretty good. Yeah, that made a good pre-opening day post, I thought. I mean, it was just kind of a fun idea, but then at the end, you tied it into a reminder of just how good the baseball is and how good the baseball players we

watch are, even if they're the Marlins. And they look bad compared to other major leaguers. Put them against any other competent baseball player in the world and it's a slaughter so now we have the numbers you know how sometimes when you're writing you have your article thought all the way through from intro to conclusion you're just like now i'm just following my own template yeah i didn't i didn't know where that was going to go it just wound up as like a season opening kind of article as opposed to just trivia but yeah when when i finished writing i thought oh yeah this took us into a good direction. And then I don't think anybody read it.

Well, I did. I was excited about it. You got the Sam Miller retweet. That's all that matters. And the Sam Miller G chat, which never happens. Wow. That's big. Yeah.

All right. Yeah. I don't even know where to go. There's maybe we'll just make this whole episode like an opening day grab bag of sorts. We could use some emails if we need to, but I don't know that we'll need to. There was just a lot that happened, and you never want to overreact to a single day. And, you know, if, like, Kyle Schwarber misses a fly ball in very ugly fashion on opening day, then it's kind of a confirmation bias situation where you see that.

It's one play, and you think, yeah, he's not an outfielder. He can't play defense. We just spent the whole offseason hearing about how he's slimmed down, which clearly he is, and he's working on his outfield defense. And then one play kind of unravels all of that. But if you watch the play, I don't know, it was close to the wall. He had to go back a long way. It went like in and out of the sun, sort of. I mean, it wasn't good. It didn't look elegant. He basically face-planted into the wall. But I don't know that we can conclude from that one play that, yeah, he's got to be a DH. He did hit a homer. So it was really an encapsulation of Kyle Schwarber, just ugly defense and a long home run. Yeah. And on the same day, there was an inside the park home run that got by Kevin

Kiermaier. Now, that was more complicated than Kyle Schwarber fighting against no one. Kiermaier got distracted by Denard Spann, who he has not played beside very often. But yeah, I think that there is something important to point out here, which is that a slimmer Kyle Schwarber does not make him an athletic or good defensive Kyle Schwarber. You can lose a lot of weight. It's not going to make you agile or really great at defense. It just makes you lighter on your feet a little bit. But Kyle Schwarber, still not going to be fast, still not likely to be a good defensive outfielder.

Will still have a good arm, but he's here for his hitting. So hopefully the lost weight will just help him stay in condition longer and not fatigue but yeah he's he's going to be bad as a defender that's we know that for a fact the one thing i don't like about this season so far is that mike trout is sub replacement level rough rough day for mike trout oh yeah no probably not oh for six the first game in his career that he has failed to reach base in a game with six or more plate appearances and he is now at negative 0.1 wins above replacement according to fangraphs so that was uh disconcerting just to see him have a bad day because he has never had a day that bad

obviously doesn't mean anything but weird we've talked in the past about how we can't trust baseball stats until mike trout is at the top of the war leaderboard so we definitely can't trust baseball stats when my crowd is at the bottom of the war leaderboard yeah no question there's nice to see shohei otani chime in with his first hit that didn't take very long took him one plate appearance and then he ripped a single to the right side that's all that's really nothing really nothing further. It's good for the A's to walk off, I guess. Of all the things to overreact to on opening day, I think the only

real overreactions are probably in Philadelphia. I don't think there's anything else to make a huge deal that people would be making a huge deal out of. But I don't know. Correct me if I'm wrong. You might have a better understanding of the entire landscape. I don't think the Angels or A's are particularly differently opinionated than they were yesterday morning. No, I would't know. Correct me if I'm wrong. You might have a better understanding of the entire landscape. I don't think the Angels or A's are particularly differently opinionated than they were yesterday morning.

No, I would hope not. I don't think anyone should be. I mean, let's see. Noah Syndergaard gave up some runs, but he was great. Orioles walked off. Nothing there. The Astros were really good. Nothing there. Yankees really good. Nothing there. Stanton hits balls hard. Nothing there. The Rays had a fun win. I guess the Rays' win over the Red Sox was electrifying and doubly satisfying because the crowd is probably three-quarters Red Sox fans. It was a good home opener for Tampa Bay. And just a fun call.

And the Brewers and the Padres played a game, the Fangraphs Invitational. It comes down to August Fagerstrom versus Dave Cameron. But, of course, the game wound up weirdly sort of decided by someone named Adam Simber facing G-Man Choi in the 12th inning because opening day is basically just an extension of spring training anyway. Side note, I give it a 40% chance that given a full season of opportunities, G-Man Choi would finish with a higher WRC plus than Eric Hosmer. But that's just me.

I don't think the Brewers are going to give him that opportunity. But otherwise, oh, right. Matt Davidson. Matt Davidson. Matt Davidson had a fun game. Three homers and hard hit ones. Yeah, not just three homers. Matt Davidson last year was powerful, but he also, I'm going to try to do this off the top of my head.

Correct me if I'm wrong. I think I've looked at this often enough. I believe last season, playing most of the season, Matt Davidson walked 4% of the time and struck out 37% of the time. Oh, that's not good. I think that is true. So what I'm going to do now is double check. And the answer is absolutely true.

I nailed it. I'm great. So yesterday, not only did Matt Davidson walk, he drew a walk, which he barely did last year, But last season, in his first real exposure, at least in the stat cast era, Matt Davidson never hit a ball harder than 112.6 miles per hour. This is going to get numbery and decimal-y, but whatever. Never topped out over 112.6. That's pretty good. Yesterday, not only did he get three home runs, he had three home runs at 114, 114, and 115 miles per hour. Matt Davidson already better than his 2017 self.

I don't care if he was facing the terrible Royals. Still, Danny Duffy's a good pitcher. Davidson. And the White Sox at DH were projected to be one of the very worst positions in Major League Baseball. And here's a helpful reminder. They're all great. Every single one of them is great. And any single one of them could surprise.

Yeah. all great. Every single one of them is great. And any single one of them could surprise. Yeah. Well, that's an example of maybe an opening day performance where you actually can draw some kind of conclusion, or at least it's pretty suggestive because there's like a threshold where most guys have kind of a max exit velocity, right? I mean, you might really get a hold of one every now and then, but in the same way that you're not going to see like a soft tossing pitcher suddenly throw 99 on one pitch, like it's not a small sample random fluctuation sort of situation. Like you need a certain level of talent in order to do that even once. And the same applies to some extent to batted ball speed too, right? Like someone who doesn't hit the ball hard usually is not going to hit the ball

you know one time as hard as john carlos stanton who set some new stat cast record yesterday with his first homer the hardest uh hardest hit opposite field homer in the stat cast era which is uh what is well we're three plus seasons now so it's starting to be an era almost, I guess. I guess. Anyway, yeah, so that means something is probably different about Matt Davidson, assuming there wasn't some sort of measurement error. Do we know, is he like a best shape of his life, swing change, new mechanics kind of guy, or do we not know the answer? I'm not going to lie to you. I did not do any real

spring research on matt davidson because i kept expecting them to replace him he's 27 years old so he's not but he was a first round pick sort of a supplemental pick in 2009 he was a real prospect with the demo backs unsurprisingly the problem is that he struck out too often he's done that in his most recent evidence but i guess in his more most recent evidence, he's been the best player in baseball. So I don't know, but he's never been lacking for power. But I do like to evaluate players by their demonstrated peak power, and 115 is no joke. There's not a lot of players you can get there. No. Well, I just Googled Matt Davidson swing change, and the first couple articles are matt davidson credit swing change for 2016 improvement

so i don't know he's he's changed his swing in the past but not his performance so i don't know if there's a new change anyway it's uh you gotta be somewhat skeptical about swing changes until we actually see it produce a difference in games yep okay so through one day of major league baseball 13 games we are at an all-time high for home runs per fly ball 14 and also there were 42.7 percent of balls in play were grounders which is down from last year's 44.2 which would be a meaningful shift will it hold up hell if i know only like 182 more days to go we'll find out yeah and usually the day when all the aces are pitching not really representative of the season as a whole but aces like james shields yes right yeah someone me. Obviously, the first pitch of the season was a home run. Ian Happ hit a home run on the first pitch of the season. And someone tweeted at me the sequence of like the first four batters of the season. It was like home run, walk, hit by pitch, strikeout or something. It was like all no contact as we've been talking about and writing about in spring training.

no contact as we've been talking about and writing about in spring training. There's a lot less contact. So that was kind of funny. Set the tone for the season. But yeah, we're going to see a lot more of that. The Astros used their form in outfield. Oh, that's right. They've been dabbling with all spring. So not a huge surprise, but they actually did take it into a real game.

And I wrote recently, talked recently. This isn't a new thing exactly. It keeps cropping up seemingly every decade or so. Some manager will try it and everyone will be like, oh, this is new and innovative and risky. And then it will go away for a while and then it'll come back again. And there just isn't really enough of a sample to say, yeah, it works or it doesn't work in practice because it usually is only used in isolated cases against really good hitters. Anyway, the Astros actually used it in a game. They moved Alex Bregman out to left field against Joey Gallo, and Joey Gallo popped

up to Alex Bregman in left field, and Bregman caught the ball. And I saw that Justin Verlander after the game was asked about this or commenting on this because Bregman evidently didn't practice this in spring training. This was not a drill. He had not drilled on this before. And Verlander said, quote, such as baseball, right? So he was halfway to the John Jaso. He's listening. Yeah. So when Bregman would have been counted still as a third baseman when he shifted into the outfield.

Why? Okay, so there's a conversation to be had here. This is going to be, what, baseball lexicography? Basically. But is Alex... Should he be considered an infielder? Because the answer is no, right? Because there's the whole conversation about Rizzo and Zobrist when they move around and who's playing what position with the cubs and if you're

going to be that pedantic about the infield positions you need to come up with something for the outfield but i don't know what you do since technically there's only three outfield positions but i don't know there's clearly something missing in the definitions in the classification because alex bregman was obviously one of four outfielders. You could argue one of five or six based on the depth of some other players, but Alex Bregman, not a third baseman when he caught that ball. Yeah, I remember I wrote about this a few years ago, and I found the article, 2014, Defining Positions in the Age of the Shift,

and I'm going to have to re-skim the article as we speak to remember anything that I said, but it was inspired by one of these cases. I think it was an infield case at the time, when a player does not exchange positions with another fielder but is merely placed in a different spot for a particular batter, for example, if a second baseman goes to the outfield to form a four-man outfield, or if a third baseman moves to a position between the shortstop and second baseman, the official score should not list this as a new position. So I asked John Thorne, the official baseball historian, about this, I believe, and he said that that dated to the 1940s when Lou Bedreau was using the Ted Williams shift and teams were playing like deep infields or four-man outfields against Ernie Lombardi, who was a slow guy. So I guess they put this in there then. So I asked someone who worked for MLB at the time about whether there was any confusion about this, whether official scorers had asked about this. And she said, it's something that I'm putting on the agenda for next year's official scorers meeting to see whether anybody wanted to

raise anything. But I talked to the Elias Sports Bureau about it and they haven't heard anything. And I talked to someone at Elias who said that they've had discussions about this, but haven't come to any concrete conclusions. So this was a few years ago. I don't know if there have been any developments since, but at the time there was not. So, yeah, I agree. I mean, in a way it doesn't matter because teams are looking at stat cast or whatever. Like we don't have to define someone as a set position necessarily.

We could just say he was standing here or standing there. But yeah, I mean, just from an accounting perspective, I suppose it would be more accurate to reflect reality. I am trying to pull up, I don't have an immediate video or anything, but Joey Gallo has bunted one time in the major leagues in history. I'll do a quick check of the minors. And Joey Gallo has, well, it's not listed. So I have no idea if Joey Gallo has ever bunted in the minors.

But I can assume Joey Gallo, not a whole lot of bunting experience. Yeah, we've got a question about that. I'll just read that. This can be technically an email show. This is from Joseph Cross, Patreon supporter. I assume you guys saw the Astros defense of Joey Gallo yesterday. Is there a situation that he should bunt against that type of defense? Being faster than your average power hitter would mean that his bunt wouldn't even have to be as good for him to get on base. Obviously, a walk is a 1,000 OBP, but if no one would complain if he walked every time

against the shift, why would people complain if he were able to bunt 50 of the time successfully well yeah there's lots of opportunities for him to bunt and his one bunt attempt was last august 13th against the astros and i'm trying to figure out and this is going to take me a minute so this is going to be some dead time in the podcast but this will go quick because i have that video player i can pull up yeah i mean this is a question we've been talking about for years. Obviously not with the four-man outfield so much as just the regular shift, and why don't guys do it more often? And there are many reasons that we've both chronicled, but this is semi-new.

So I pulled up the play, and last August 13th, Joey Gallo attempted to bunt against Dallas Keuchel. The Astros did not have a four-man outfield. They had their outfield playing deep but straight away, but they did have, of course, the extreme infield shift on. So Gallo tried to bunt, and Dallas Keuchel and his catcher were able to field it. Dallas Keuchel is probably the best defensive pitcher in baseball. Bad guy to bunt against, yeah.

Yeah. So, I mean, you've been writing about bunting against the shift, or at least you used to have been writing. I don't know what tense that is. Bunting against the shift for a very long time. And there's a conversation about how often you can do it until the team adjusts or it loses its value. But I mean, if the team is going to go four man outfield against you, you should at least demonstrate your capability. our field against you should at least demonstrate your capability and the rangers are going to be playing the asters a lot and which means gallo is going to play a lot which means he's going to see this alignment a lot so if gallo can bunt i always wonder how much this really does because first of all the shift is only going to happen when the bases are empty but if gallo shows that he can bunt then the asters just maybe move one main fielder over to third because he's still likely to pull his grounders to the right side so you just have the second baseman or shortstop playing over there and and that's that so maybe it wouldn't be that hard to defend but yeah just i know that there's a lot of arguments for why batters shouldn't bunt as

often against the shift as it seems like they should but you still got to do it more than zero times i think so too yeah i mean it depends, it depends. Someone like Joey Gallo, again, has probably not done this, has probably not practiced this. It's not easy, really. I mean, it can be difficult. I guess it's easier than hitting a home run in theory, but he does that a lot. But if you haven't practiced for bunting, he has practiced for hitting home runs. So I don't know. I think if you don't have the confidence, then that's part of it. And, you know, there's the macho ego kind of thing or just the sort of inflexible thinking of Joey Gallo is a power hitter. He is the guy you have because he hits home runs.

And so if he does something other than try to hit home runs, it's a win for the other team. And you'll often hear that kind of thing. Not necessarily true, because if he does get on base at a 500 clip or whatever, that is a win for the Rangers. So yeah, I think it should happen more than it does. And I've been sort of surprised when I've looked. It just hasn't seemed to become more common, even as the shift has become more common. You just really haven't seen guys do

it more often. And even the guys who do it occasionally just never really buckle down and say, okay, that's it. I'm doing it every time now until you just stop defending me this way. It just never really happens. So it has always perplexed me to some extent. The total number of bunt hits in baseball has dropped every year from 2014 to 2015 to 2016 to 2017. Now there's a massive drop between 2017 and 2018, but I think we're still waiting on more data because right now there's only been three. Gerard Dyson, Freddie Galvis, and Ryan Flaherty, who's in the majors and starting. They all bunted for hits on opening day. But in any case, yeah, the total number of bunt hits has dropped and the rate of bunt hits

over all bunt attempts has not meaningfully grown which is interesting for the same reason that you brought up you'd think that this would skyrocket but yep nope players just either aren't bunting enough or they're just not good at it and i will buy that they're not good at it yeah so one other thing i think the rockies and the diamondbacks may have been listening to our final pre-opening day podcast where we kind of bashed the bullpen cart in arizona because the bullpen cart was bypassed by every reliever who had the opportunity to use it on opening day i think the diamondbacks used like five relievers and i think the rockies used some relievers too and they all just it's

almost sad like I'm watching the clip and there's a video someone put together of just every Diamond Bucks reliever entering the game and just walking right by the bullpen cart there's there's a guy who's waiting there I guess to drive just in case they want to get in and he's kind of looking expectantly and bullpen cards just sitting there hopeful just perched by the by the door and they just walk by and no one used it and i think someone asked archie bradley about it and he said basically that he gets a rush from leaving the bullpen the regular way just you know walking through the door the crowd crowd gets excited. He runs in. He said it's sort of a psychological booster, at least something he enjoys. And the bullpen cart entrance, at least as we broke it

down the other day, was definitely not that. So I can't blame any relievers here. They're going to have to find some way to make the bullpen cart more exciting. Yeah, this is one of those areas where I'm not convinced people thought beyond just nostalgic oh the bullpen card is back it's stupid it's a stupid idea it looks ridiculous nobody's going to enjoy it and i i feel bad for the driver because he's going to be out of a job super quick because people aren't going to want to use that it's just not even matt albers sorry for fat changing that albers but not even matt albers is going to want to use a bullpen cart. It's just absurd.

I was going to say, in the 70s, some of these guys would have been winded just running into the mountain. They were literally smoking. I know, right. I think today, guys are pretty into conditioning. They take care of themselves. I think they can handle the jogging. So I'll be curious to see if no relievers opt to use this thing, how long they'll leave this bullpen cart just sadly waiting out there like break glass in case of bullpen cart emergency.

So I don't know. But our condolences to the bullpen cart and the bullpen cart driver. For all we know, he's happy not to drive. I'm sure he has other jobs to do. Yeah, I mean, that's fair. He probably is also a groundskeeper or an usher security guard. I don't know. But then, you know, in 25 or 30 years, then people on whatever the next version of Twitter is,

the next, next, next version of Twitter is, can be really excited about the bullpen cart getting a third go. Separate from that, I can tell you this could be interesting. Arodlas Chapman pitched yesterday. That's not what's interesting. He pitches a lot. But not only did he not throw the hardest average fastball in uh in baseball of everyone who pitched but he is actually about two miles per hour behind the leader jordan hicks jordan hicks for the cardinals uh kid they called up

averaged 100.6 miles per hour on his fastball topped out at like 102 according to stat cast i haven't gone back to check if chapman has been the leader every year he's been in the majors. I think maybe he was bypassed once by like Bruce Rondon or Mauricio Cabrera or something. But Chapman has at least always been very, very close to the top, if not at the top. And do you think that this year, Aroldis Chapman finishes with the hardest average fastball? Huh. Well, was his velocity down last year on average? Like very slightly, but still really high, maybe? The answer is coming up.

As soon as this... Yep, nope, it was over 100. Yeah, right. But was it down? Because he's always over 100. Well, it was... It sounds ridiculous to split hairs over something over 100. Between 2014 and 2017, Chapman went 101.2, 100.4, 101.2 100.4 101.2 100.2 technically

down but not really down not really no he was not as effective in some ways but he was still throwing really hard so yeah jordan hicks what do we know anything else about jordan hicks is he reputed well obviously he does throw hard we don't have to question that really but you never know with one game maybe especially opening day maybe there's some kind of calibration issue going on that could be swaying that one way well no the Cardinals called him up from the minors because he throws you pride so he came up and he threw super hard yeah yeah so I don't know I mean obviously there will be a changing of the guard there somewhere. And it is, I mean, we get asked all the time, like, will someone ever throw 110? Or like, will we start to see 100 all the time or 105 or whatever?

And what's Chapman's max or at least supposedly? Is it 103 or 105 or something he hit once supposedly? 105. Yeah, right. So, and I don't know if that was totally solid i think it's fairly accurate right because he's gotten close to that before so i mean he just is an outlier like even in this era of generally increasing fastball speeds and fastball speed i think was up some very small amount league-wide last year, as it has tended to be every year lately.

So you would think that new people would be coming into the league and overtaking him because everyone is throwing max effort all the time and guys are throwing an inning at a time. And so you would think that someone else would have come along to rival him by now, but it hasn't really happened. But obviously it will. All pitchers lose speed eventually so one of these years maybe this is the year i'll i'll put the odds at i don't know

50 50 speaking of pitchers losing speed i don't want to over react to this too much but i will just read you two numbers regarding cardinals reliever bre Cecil. You want to know why the Cardinals signed Greg Holland? Here's one clue. Brett Cecil averaged fastball 2017, 91.5 miles per hour. Brett Cecil from his debut in 2018, 87.5 miles per hour. That's a big drop. That's a drop of four miles per hour. According to StatCast, it was more like five miles per hour.

I wouldn't make too much of it yet, but make something of it. You don't ignore a blip like that. No, yeah. I mean, velocities tend to go up a bit as the season progresses, but not that much. So that's concerning. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

Should we talk about Kepler, man of the hour? All right. Should we talk about Kapler, man of the hour? All right. So Gabe Kapler made it one day into his official Major League managerial career before Phillies fans are mad at him, or at least some. So there are a couple things he did here that happened here where he's kind of running the risk of being labeled the unfeeling stats guy who's just going with the numbers and not paying attention to what's on the field or whatever. So there was some very slight controversy, I suppose, before the game, right? Because Kapler decided not to start Oduble Herrera in center field, and he's obviously been the regular center fielder, so Herrera wasn't happy. He said, I don't like the decision, but if they think there are better options, I have to respect that. And Kepler explained they have a lot of outfielders who are pretty viable, and they're trying to mix and match

them and give guys the chance to succeed. And so, I don't know, there was a ground ball starter on the mound. Aaron Nola was pitching for the Phillies. And so maybe you didn't need Herrera in the outfield quite as much. And the other Phillies starters are more fly ball pitchers. And I don't know, maybe it was something about the matchup whom Herrera would be facing too. So whatever, it was basically some sort of data-driven decision where Kapler decided to sit the incumbent essentially because of what the numbers said. So there was that, and Herrera wasn't happy about it. And then, of course, in the game, Aaron Nola was great, and he got pulled after 68 pitches and, what, 16 outs with a 5-0 lead, and the Phillies ended up squandering that lead and losing

on a Nick Markakis walk-off. So naturally, lots of second guessing, and I'm sure there was some first guessing going on too. Yeah, so I was looking at some sort of win expectancy. Look, I think we talked about this in the playoffs. I think our shared perspective, we share most perspectives, is that managers get far too much crap for the decisions they make, and the decisions that managers make are not really that important in terms of win expectancy and shifting the odds now for the symbolism i understand there's a purpose if you want to

start a double herrera i mean he's he's earned it and i can sort of get behind that even though i'm also not going to impugn a guy for just trying to maximize the odds and and making uh sending the message that there is no excuse for not trying to maximize everything i kind of get it yeah and i know that from a sort of a sabermetric perspective he was weird that arinola was allowed to bat in the top of the sixth and he came up with uh yeah men on base including a runner on third and then he only threw three pitches before he was removed in the bottom of the six that looks weird didn't really maximize anything on the other hand when Aaron Nola came up to bat in the top of the sixth, the Phillies had rallied. They had scored four runs in the inning.

I don't think anyone quite expected that to happen. The Phillies are not that great. And when Nola came up, the Phillies' odds of winning were 95%. The leverage was super low. You figure, well, we can probably leave Nola out there a little bit longer. Maybe we just need to get someone warming up, I don't know, by some time. So Nola comes out and he allows a double. Then Ozzy Albies flies out.

So three pitches in, there's a runner on second, but nothing has really changed. The Phillies' odds of winning are still 94%. The leverage when Freddie Freeman came up was 0.65, which is low. Remember, the average is one. So Hobie, which I love that his name is Hobie. Who goes by Hobie? But anyway, Hobie Milner comes in.

Out of the bullpen, Nola is relieved to 68 pitches. Milner allows a home run. And the way the narrative goes, I guess, is that that just opened the floodgates. And as soon as Nola came out, everything collapsed. Well, here's the thing. The Braves didn't score again. And then in the seventh inning, the Braves didn't score.

And so it went to the eighth inning, and it was still 5-2 Phillies. And their odds of winning were in the 90s. And Gabe Kapler was able to hand the ball in sequence to Adam Morgan, Eduber Ramos, and Hector Neris, all of whom are good relievers. They didn't have Pat Neshek or Tommy Hunter available for various reasons. There are two free agent signings. But three good relievers came in and allowed six runs in two innings. And that's not Gabe Kapler's fault.

So even if you figure that he pulled Nola early, and I do think that there's an argument to be made that he pulled Nola a little too early, could have just let him go through Freeman. I don't know. Give him a chance to get in some more trouble before you take him out. Because 68 pitches is not very many. Now, Nola did not throw that much in the spring. His longest outing was five innings.

I don't have pitches because spring training numbers are terrible. Anyway, 5-2. Eighth inning. Regular bullpen. Pulling Nola. You can't say it gave the Braves momentum because as soon as they scored, they stopped scoring for like a while. Penn, Ozzie Albee's homered. And there was what just looking through this Adam Morgan and Ndubre

Ramos there's a walk then a walk then a pass ball then an error then a single and then you never expect Nick Marquez to hit a home run and under any circumstances so it's just it got out of control but it's too easy to blame Kapler for good relievers being bad. So bad narrative. Yeah, I think so. I mean, you know, I think the important thing is that he have his players on board with this more so than the media, although both would be nice. And after the game, at least in Matt Gelb's story at the Athletic, Nola said, I had a good bit left. Of course, pitchers will usually say that. And I know he's had some issues with the third time through the order. I don't know whether that means he's actually worse in those situations than anyone is. But it's tough because if this

were a playoff game, for instance, well, I'm sure people would still be criticizing it in the same way. We've seen that happen. But you would manage that a little differently than you would an opening day game where a guy is maybe not fully built up and you have to worry about the long season and workloads and distributing the innings and all of that. So I get it. And I think it probably is important to set the precedent. I don't know. I'm going back to my Stompers experience, which probably doesn't really transfer all that well over to Major League Baseball. But it was a debate that Sam and I had, like, do we interfere? Do we step in and dictate the opening day lineup, which who cares?

It's batting order. It's probably not going to affect anything. But just to send the message that we're reserving the right to do this, that this is how we're going to play, that kind of thing. And so if that was part of Kepler, just setting the tone like, hey, this is our best pitcher, well, at least our best pitcher who was on the team in the past, and we're going to treat him this way because we're treating everyone this way, and it's about the team's wins and not the pitcher's stats or whatever, then I get that. But I think it's just important that you explain it because at least a couple hours after the game or whenever Gelb was interviewing Nola here,

he hadn't heard an explanation or, you know, I guess it was a while after he had been pulled. So don't leave him wondering why it happened. If you can justify it and back it up with numbers and explain it to him, then do that and get the guy on board. Yep. Yeah. All right. I can, uh, by the way,

I was just curious. So I confirmed Phillies. Not only do the Phillies have the only Oduble in major league history, but Hobie Milner is of course the only Hobie ever in major league baseball. Hobie Trey Milner. I had been expecting Hobie to be short for something. It's not just Hobie. Fun namener. I had been expecting Hobie to be short for something. It's not. Just Hobie.

Fun name. So Felix outdueled Corey Kluber, technically. Not really. He didn't pitch as well as Corey Kluber. But his team won. How did Felix look? Did you see him? You think I'm done with this?

Because I believe the Phillies also have major leagues only ever. E. Dubre. So this is just something to check later on. Idubre Ramos. Yeah, part of the reason they lost the game. So yeah, Felix. Felix's velocity was not up. It wasn't going to be up.

But he was only supposed to throw about 80 pitches. I think he got up to 81 or 83 or something like that. And he ended with a walk, which was never great. But even though his, I wouldn't say that he had pinpoint command. The whole idea, I think that my favorite anecdote here is that you're familiar with the Kings Court, right? I assume everyone's familiar with the Kings Court. And the fans of the Kings Court for the years that it is operated have held up K cards, K for strikeout. And then when Felix has two strikes, you raise up the K card and everyone chants K, K, and then a third K, which is inappropriate.

And then a fourth, which makes it okay. The K is gone. They have removed the K and replaced it, I think, with like Let's Go Felix or something like that. The crowd still chants K because it's tradition, but the Mariners have instructed Felix to try to pitch to more contact and mix up his speeds and all that stuff instead of trying to pitch max effort, try to strike everybody out. And they've gone so far that they don't want the king's court to encourage him to pitch for the strikeout which

is funny uh i don't know i guess they think that felix was getting a little too charged up from the fans chant now look the fans are still gonna chant k because that's how it's always operated but i don't know maybe it'll go away slowly but in any case felix came out got a few strikeouts if you look at the overall rate stats well why would you do that it's one game against the cleveland indians who are great uh he went five and third innings didn't allow a run that's a good look forward for felix but he came out and in terms of his pitch mix nothing was too different he threw a lot of curveballs so he was kind of mostly fastball curveball change up and he's been trying to get a bigger separation between his fastball and his change up which is funny

because for a while in his career he was the guy who had the least separation between his fastball and his change up and it worked but now they're trying to do something different i think that the thing that aside from approach aside from trying to get bad contact, which whatever, I don't even know what that, I don't know what pitching to contact means, aside from don't waste pitches. So I don't think, I think it's kind of a bullshit phrase, but the Mariners have worked with Felix on quick pitches and varying his timing. So not going the full Johnny Cueto quite yet, but just trying to mess with hitters and not to let them get too comfortable. And on Felix's fourth strikeout, I think it was, he quick pitched a changeup and got a strikeout. And it looked great and everyone was very happy.

Felix has bought into the changes, it seems like. So, you know, it's opening day, or it was opening day, and Felix is beloved in this household. He is similarly beloved i want all the best for him i want to see a second act or third act whatever you want to call it so i'm not optimistic that he's going to look like an ace this season but i at least like to see that he's trying to change some things because the old model just wasn't gonna work anymore yeah kind of fun they should replace the k signs with like a weak contact sign or something.

Infield dribbler, hold up the sign. One relevant question that we got because we're talking about Felix and opening day, Patreon supporter Mark Arduini said, I've got a question that's probably only relevant this week. So let's get to it this week. On the Mariners preview, if I remember right, Jeff said something like, I'm not sure if Felix deserves to be the opening day starter. And in a Mariners group on Facebook, there was a fairly silly debate about whether Felix or Paxton should start on opening day. But I'm not sure, does it even matter? Is there any evidence

that starting your pitchers one through five from best to worst is the best order? Could there be an advantage to starting your best pitcher against the other guys, number three or four? I'm certain the order doesn't matter in the least after the first couple weeks, once every team starts getting hurt, days off, etc. But for the first week, is there really an optimal order to the rotation? And through some impressive googling on my part, I was able to obtain an answer to this from Heartballball times which had an article about this very topic opening day and rotation order by dan leppendorf from april 2013 on rotation order and win probabilities he ran the numbers a few different ways and he concluded that it doesn't matter and we shouldn't worry about it so yep there you go yeah full stop it turns out that when you are starting your first guy against someone else's fourth,

at some point, someone else's first is going to be starting against your fourth, and it just kind of washes out. We see this in the playoffs from time to time where someone's like, oh, well, if they're starting Kershaw or a better example, if you think Kershaw's bad in the playoffs, then we should just give up the game and start whoever our worst playoff starter is, etc. No, it doesn't work like that. All right.

I'm just going to keep going through this. Phillies have baseball's first ever Yaxel, first ever Yesmuel, and first ever Reese. Reese spelled how Reese Hoskins is spelled. So Phillies, lots of first timers. Okay. So we have 10, 15 minutes before you have to go do a chat. I thought we could quickly run through the Krasniks. Jerry Krasnik wrote a version of his off-season article in season.

I don't think he usually does this, but he usually does this at the beginning of the off-season. He'll survey baseball people about the burning questions of the winter, essentially. And now he has done it for the season. So he surveys all these people. This time he did 43 general managers, assistant GMs, personnel directors, and scouts in an attempt to gauge the industry pulse on eight topics that will drive the season narratives. So the way we usually do this, we read the questions, we speculate about what the respondents said. I have not read the questions or the responses yet, so this will be a surprise to both of us. So number one, six teams, the Yankees, Indians,

Astros, Nationals, Cubs, and Dodgers are prohibitive favorites in their divisions. I don't know if I would say the Yankees are prohibitive, but we could quibble. Which one is most likely to be upset and not finish first? So based on my answer, I think it's the Yankees. And I don't know how many, I guess we're 43 respondents here. How many are we guessing the number one team said, and are we saying it's the Yankees? I mean, I would think it has to be the Yankees. Yeah.

And I would think that 30 people said so. Yeah. No, 35 people. Hmm. I'll take the under on 35. But it is hard to, I mean, what other team really has a case even? You can come up with scenarios, but I just don't know why would you. All right.

So scrolling down. I'll say it. I'm going to change it. 43 say Yankees. You just went the wrong direction. So response is Yankees 17 and a half. 17 and a half? Come on.

What? There's always a half. Cowards. Yeah. There's always someone who takes a pass or I mean it's anonymous survey just to answer the thing. 17 and a half Yankees. Cubs nine and a half. Dodgers eight.

Nationals three and a half. Indians three and a half. Astros, Cubs nine and a half, Dodgers eight, Nationals three and a half, Indians three and a half, Astros one. Who picked the Astros? That's even worse. That's a good question too. How do you, I don't know. This is weird. I don't know how you could arrive at any.

I mean, I guess I can see the Cubs. There are at least two other good teams in that division, so sure. And the Dodgers are in a division where there were two playoff teams last year, and the Giants should be better than they were. So I guess I sort of—Indians, three and a half? I don't know. Anyway, should be more Yankees. All right. Two, which star free agent infielder will be traded before the deadline in July?

Manny Machado, Josh Donaldson, neither or both? So wait, remind me. Are we trying to pick what we would pick or what we think people picked? We're picking what we would pick and also what we think people picked. So if it's different. I'll say, man, I'm leaning either Machado or neither. I just, I don't know if the Blue Jays are there yet. Maybe they should be, but I don't know if they are.

So I guess I'll go Manny, but only like 10 responses or something. I don't think either one of them is going to be traded, but I think people will have picked Manny Machado as well, and I'll say 15. Okay. Answers. Machado, 13. Donaldson, also 13. Both, 8.

Neither, 5. Four respondents had no opinion. Cowards! Come on! Why do you participate in this exercise? I don't get it. All right. Number three. Which team do you think

Bryce Harper will be playing for in 2019? Will he become baseball's first $400 million player? So that's two questions. Yes, it is. So I'll say for myself, I'll say Nationals. I'll just go with the team he's been with over the field or, you know, over any other one team. I'd go with the field over the Nationals, I guess. So I'll say Nationals and 400. And I'll say that they say Nationals too. But 400 million. How close have we gotten to 400 million?

Who's that? Yeah, Stanton. And that's the weird one. It's so hard to predict free agency right now, but I'll say that yes, he will, and yes, most of them will say he will. I don't know. What do you think? Okay, so I'll take Dodgers. I'll take yes, 400 million, and I'll take 41 people surveyed had no opinion.

All right. Answer. Nationals, 15.5. Phillies, 10.5. Cubs, 3.5. Dodgers, 3. Yankees, 2.5. I guess getting John Carlos Stanton affects that answer.

Angels, 2. Padres, 1. Five participants had no response. And then as for the 400 million, six respondents predicted that he will surpass 400 million. And multiple insiders think he will at the very least surpass John Carlos Stanton's record 325. So that's so only six of, well, who knows how many actually wanted to answer this one. But six, only six thought, I wonder if they're overreacting to the recent free agent market or whether we're wrong i guess actually thinking about how many premium free

agents there are i don't know how many it'll turn out are actually in the market because players get worse but maybe 400 will be more difficult because this isn't going to be harper in isolation this is going to be harper against guys like machado and donaldson and kershaw and all that so a lot of the big spenders orers could be otherwise occupied. So even though I think Harper should end up with like a game-changing contract, I do understand that there are only so many teams that could spend that kind of money. All right, number four. I don't know if this really qualifies as an issue that's going to define the season, but here we go.

Of these upcoming free agent outfielders, who is most likely to sign an extension with his current team charlie blackman adam jones or andrew mccutcheon i guess i'll say well with blackman you have the history of the rockies signing some of their stars to long-term extensions with jones you have his history in baltimore and what he's meant to the city and the team, I'll say McCutcheon is least likely. And I'll say Jones is most likely. Yeah. I will say I don't care about this question at all.

And I will also say that too. Yeah. All right. Response is Charlie Blackman, 25. And Adam Jones, 9. McCutcheon, 3. Nun, 3. No opinion, 2. Huh. and Adam Jones 9 McCutcheon 3 Nun 3 No Opinion 2

I think all three I think all three probably say where they are Is that an option? A scout said That's not an option Most likely Not the format of the question Pick different people Krasnick Alright well that sort of

surprises me, but I wouldn't be surprised if Blackman signs an extension, but I'm sort of surprised that people think that he's that much more likely than Jones. All right. Five, will Clayton Kershaw stay with the Dodgers on his current deal or opt out of his contract after the season? If he opts out, what is his most likely destination? I will say that most say that he will opt out. I don't know, 30 say he'll opt out. Well, yeah, all right. And then if he opts out, I'll say, you know, like all of them say Dodgers almost. The only wrinkle here is, I guess, technically he might not opt out, but he'll get some kind of extension or something like the Justin Upton sort of

situation, which is, I suppose, fairly likely. So if you're factoring that in, maybe, I don't know, maybe 20 say he'll opt out. Okay. So I think that Kershaw will opt out and stay with the Dodgers. And I think that 43 respondents had no opinion. Okay. Answer 13 said Kershaw will stay with the Dodgers on his current contract. So no opt out. 22 said he will opt out, restructure hisaw will stay with the Dodgers on his current contract, so no opt-out. 22 said he will opt-out, restructure his deal, and remain with the Dodgers. Of the six respondents who said Kershaw will leave L.A., four picked the Rangers, one the Astros, and one the Yankees. Two respondents had no opinion. Lots of people had opinions on this one. Wait, but hold on.

Of the six respondents, okay, so this isn't two people who said he would opt out and then had no opinion. This is just two people who generally had no opinion. I guess so. So everyone had an opinion on the first question and then that's when some people stopped. Yeah.

Maybe they just got tired of this exercise. I don't know. We should. Okay. We need to pull up as many Krasnicks as possible and figure out how the rate of no responses changed over time. If it has. Good.

Yeah. And as we go through the questions within each one, are there more no responses as you get to the end? All right. Number six. Next year at this time, will Shohei Otani still be a two-way player or exclusively a pitcher? It's a good question. I'll say for myself, I'll say he'll still be a two-way player. I'm not going to predict the breakdown of playing time, but I'll say that he will still say DH occasionally at least. And I'll say that,

I'm going to say this is fairly even, probably, split roughly down the middle. Okay. I think he will be a two-way player still, and I'm going to guess that 22 people think he'll just be a pitcher. Okay. Yeah, we're roughly agreed here. All right. Answer 23 said Otani will be strictly a pitcher. 20 think he'll remain a two-way player.

Everyone responded. Wow. All right. That remain a two-way player. Everyone responded. Wow. All right. That's 43. Everyone has opinions. What happened in the middle? I don't know. Maybe the other questions just weren't interesting enough.

They just weren't all that excited about Andrew McCutcheon's extension or whatever. All right. Number seven, Eric Hosmer and JD Martinez were the two position players to sign $100 million-plus deals this winter. Martinez were the two position players to sign $100 million-plus deals this winter. Which hitter will turn out to be the better investment over the life of his contract? Well, that's an unclear question. Yeah, he always has ones like these.

I don't know. I guess we'll just say surplus value or something. I don't know how most of these respondents will interpret the question. Respondents will interpret the question. But I will say over the life of the contract, I guess I'll say Hosmer is a better value. I don't know if I believe that. I don't know that either of them will be that great of value. And I'll say that most of the respondents will say that too. So I'll say, I don't know, 30 say Hosmer. Okay.

So I'm going to say my answer is Hosmer. I think one person would have said Hosmer, and I think 42 people sent cease and desist letters to Jerry Krasnick because they don't want to get questions anymore. Yeah, they thought this was only going to be six questions. All right, responses. Hosmer, 24. Martinez, 15.

One respondent said both. What? While another replied neither. Come on. Two participants had no opinion. This is an either or. You can't say both. You can't say neither.

This is a test. These are all team employees. And I think Krasnick sends the answers to the boss and he's just like, cut bait. These people don't understand critical thinking. How can I trust these people's evaluations of baseball when their reading comprehension is clearly so poor? All right. Last question. It is the Minnesota Twins made the playoffs last year and the Milwaukee Brewers fell one game short of the wild card.

Which team with relatively modest expectations is most likely to have an impact this season? So I guess this is just asking for surprise team, basically. But do the Angels count? And you can have negative impacts? This is extremely subjective. It's just asking everyone to evaluate expectations as well as performance. So, you know, very nebulous. I'll say Phillies, I guess, will be the most common response.

And I didn't pick the Phillies as my surprise team when the Ringer did their staff picks because I feel like it's not surprising enough they've lost surprise status just because everyone picked them as a surprise team. So I guess I would say I think we're both kind of aligned on the A's potentially being better than the consensus at least. Like the expectations certainly are modest for the A's. So I could see them exceeding those even post puck injury. But I'll say most people here said Phillies and I'll say 15 Phillies. I'll say 17 Phillies.

All right. Answer, Angels 7. Angels? What? Angels do not have modest expectations. Everyone is excited about the Angels. They won the offseason. All right.

Angels 7, Mets 7, Phillies 4, Giants 3, Athletics 3, Rockies 3, Cardinals 2, White Sox 2, Braves two, Blue Jays two, Padres two, Mariners one, Twins one, Orioles one, Reds one, Rays one, no response one. Two playoff teams from last year in there among teams with modest expectations. Yeah. This is the question's fault, not the answer's fault. Yeah. I'm always upset about surprise teams picks that aren't actually surprising and

breakout player picks that wouldn't actually be breakouts because they broke out previously but that's just that's always the way it works all right so uh this was fun i you know we don't usually do kind of around the league here's what happened in baseball today it's not really the format of effectively wild in general but i think post-opening day that makes sense we're both excited that actual games are back, and we talked about them, so this was fun. Coming for you, Olney. You can support the

podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. Thanks to everyone who signed up this off-season. Hope some of you will sign up this season too. Pledge a small monthly amount. Five listeners who have recently done so include Jack Coletto, Joao Madaleno Pereira, Dalston Ward, Ben Oler,

and Duff McWallin, who I believe is a Mega Man character, but also a Patreon supporter. You can join our Facebook group, which is extremely active. Again, very exuberant Facebook group on opening day. You can find it at facebook.com slash groups slash Effectively Wild. Just about any game going on at any time,

there's someone in there talking about it, so it's a fun way to follow the action. You can rate and review and subscribe to Effectively Wild. Just about any game going on at any time, there's someone in there talking about it. So it's a fun way to follow all the action. You can rate and review and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance. Please keep your questions and comments coming for me and Jeff. We'll do more of a full-fledged email show

next week, most likely. So you can reach us via email at podcast at fangraphs.com or of course via the Patreon messaging system. So we hope have a wonderful weekend watch lots and lots of baseball and we'll be back to talk to you about at least some of that baseball early next week talk to you then No, we fly, we fly, we fly, we fly, we fly Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no No, we fly, we fly, we fly, we fly, we fly