Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1259: I Will Follow You into the Park

Episode Date: August 20, 2018

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about Clayton Kershaw’s resurgence and opt-out odds, the state of the playoff races, the Mariners’ balk-off weekend win, an unusual aspect of the 2008 CC Sabathia trade, the impending free agency of Nelson Cruz, and Ben’s article about the 1993 Athletics’ platoon-starter experiment, a precursor to the current Rays’ […]

I'm sifting through these wreckage piles Through the rubble of bricks and wire Looking for something I'll never find Looking for something I'll never find Digging for gold in my neighborhood Where all the old buildings stood And they keep digging it down and down So that their cars can live underground

It seems I never stopped losing you Cause every guy becomes something new And all our ghosts get swept away It didn't used to be this way Hello and welcome to episode 1259 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs and from our Patreon supporters. I'm Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Jeff Sullivan sullivan of fan graphs hello hi hi how are you doing okay thank you for attempting to ask we will be joined a little bit later in this episode by podcast listener

ben gibbard who is also the frontman of death Cab for Cutie. They have a new album out, thank you for today. So we will talk to him about that, but we will also talk to him about his baseball fandom. Before we get to Ben, I don't know whether you have noticed, but we haven't talked about Clayton Kershaw in quite a while, but maybe we should because Clayton Kershaw is good again, it turns out. Clayton Kershaw pitched on Sunday, had another good start, went seven, gave up one run, struck out seven. His ERA for the season now is down to 2.40, so there is a chance that he could continue his streak,

his incredible streak of lowering his career ERA after every season of his career. I think he entered this season at 2.37, so if he just has another couple good starts here, he'll be below that on the season. And the peripherals are really good. They're not quite peak Kershaw, but they are closer to peak Kershaw than maybe we thought we would see as recently as a few months ago when he was out with the back injury and he had lost some stuff. Maybe he still has lost some stuff and has just figured out a way to pitch around it, but he's been effective. And I guess that means we

have to have the Will Clayton Kershaw opt out conversation again. Yeah, I guess it's back. So it's been what he came back on June 23rd and he's been strong pretty much since then. I think it was a three inning start or something at first, but he just recently, he came back on June 23rd, and he's been strong pretty much since then. I think it was a three-inning start or something at first. But he just recently, he was very good against the Mariners in a game where he didn't have to be nearly so good. It's fun. If you look at Kershaw right now, so Kershaw the rookie. Kershaw the rookie, sophomore, and junior as a major league pitcher threw 72% fastballs almost exactly. And he has gone all the way from 72% to this year's 41% fastballs almost exactly and he has gone all the way from 72 to this year's 41 fastballs he is

for the first time in his career throwing a higher rate of sliders than fastballs so his slider has shot from not having one when he was a rookie all the way up to he's throwing it three times out of every seven pitches so he's still the same fastball slider curveball clean karshaw has been curveball velocity is the same slider velocity is the same fastball still a little bit down this has not gone anywhere as to answer your question but it's because i'm buying myself some time and i still think no right now i think i would say 60 40 no opt out he still has another month and a half and potential playoffs to go. But I think there are still enough concerns there.

You know, his strikeouts haven't come all the way back yet. He's been really good. I know he's been really good. I know he's Clayton Kershaw, but there's just a few little things in there that I don't like yet. But, you know, if he keeps this up another month and a half, I think that will probably push it to about 70-30 yes opt-out. So I'm getting there because a few weeks ago I thought there was absolutely no way. But I think this could be one of those things where he opts out and then resigns with the Dodgers for like a four or five-year contract instead of two. Well, it always seemed likely that he probably wouldn't end up testing the free agent market.

That if anything, he would just use the leverage of the opt-out to get some sort of new deal with the Dodgers, but didn't look like he would necessarily have that leverage a few months ago. And now, by the end of the season, maybe he will. So it's been nice to see him come back and be good. And, you know, maybe peak prime Kershaw isn't coming back but if he could pitch at this level for a while i mean that is most pitchers primes most pitchers peaks it's better than that so it's all relative and i am happy to see him still being good and still contributing so the

dodgers need that because as we speak i think the Dodgers are technically in third place. There are a lot of interesting things happening in the standings right now. The Diamondbacks are in first place. The Rockies are in second place. The Dodgers are two games out in the NL West. Then you have the Brewers-Cardinals wildcard race. The Brewers, I think, have now pulled, what, half a game ahead? We haven't talked about the Cardinals much, but I think they were a

popular preseason wildcard pick. I think they were mine, but it looked like they were really falling out of that race. And right now they are very much back in it. Then you have the Braves and the Phillies essentially neck and neck. You have the A.L. West race, which is wild and which we'll talk to Ben a bit about, but there's a lot of interesting stuff to watch over the final six weeks or so of the season. And coming into the year, that was quite a concern, whether there would actually be any interesting pennant races, what with all of the talk about the super teams and the big gap between the good teams and the bad teams. And to some extent, that has been there, but it hasn't really ruined the playoff race. it is either a testament to how managers can sometimes have their effects be strongly

underestimated by analytical circles and strongly correctly estimated by will leach and then you can see how that that made all the difference of the cardinals an alternate explanation that is always there under all circumstances for any team like this is that well the team is just finding its level and they're finally playing very well the card Cardinals, never as bad a team as they looked like sometimes. It is interesting. I mean, in any single year, you have 30 teams in baseball right now. No matter how uninteresting you think the season is going to be, the probability is that things are going to pop up.

And right now we have the Mariners officially at this recording 71-54, a game behind the Indians. They have, what is this, the seventh best record in baseball. They have a run differential now of negative 42. It's negative 42. They are four games better than the Los Angeles Dodgers, who just took a series from the Mariners. But the Dodgers have a run differential of plus 113. That is a run differential advantage for the Dodgers of 155 runs. They are still worse than the Mariners haha is what the Mariners might say of course they got clobbered on Sunday but on Saturday we should talk about

this briefly the Mariners did win on a walk-off buck it was committed by Dylan Floro a reliever I've nearly written about several times but still putting it off because the Dodgers bullpen has a stink to it and uh I was wondering I thought of course a walk-off Bach is interesting on its own, but did you see any of the conversation afterward of whether or not it was a Bach or should have been called the Bach based on the understanding of the Bach rule and the intention of the rule? Have you read this? I really haven't. I thought we had all just agreed that no one knows what a Bach is and it's not even a worthwhile conversation to have, but i have not because i've just accepted that a bach is in the eye of the beholder in many cases yeah so i don't have the rule and the

subsequent comment in front of me but the idea is that basically a bach is there so that the pitcher doesn't deceive the base runner and that it is really up to the umpire's judgment and that if the pitcher did not intend to deceive a base runnerunner, then no bach shall be called. So whenever you have a walk-off bach, by definition, the bases are loaded. And so there is an argument that I have seen put out there, I think most prominently by John Weissman, that you can't deceive a baserunner when the bases are loaded, because where is the baserunner going to go? Now, I don't agree with this for the very very reason that i believe cameron maybin i believe

he was the runner on third i think he bluffed home like there are still base running plays you can make even with the bases loaded it's not like the bach is only there to prevent well forget i don't know why the bach is there nobody knows what the bach is there but anyway it is there and you you think of it as uh something that happens when you have a run on first and he's trying to steal second base or something. Cameron Mabin, I believe, bluffed home. Justin Turner made a quick little move to try to cover third or something. And that's when Dylan Flora accidentally moved his hands before he stepped off. It's all very stupid. But anyway, it is what happened. So the point, I guess, is that I don't agree with that interpretation.

As long as we're going to call box, as long as they're going to do that for whatever vague reasons that they have to do it. It looked like there was a play that could have been happening with Cameron Maben. Therefore, Floro could have been trying to deceive the runner. Therefore, Bach appropriate because he moved his hands a split second too early. I guess that's how you win and lose baseball games so one follow-up to something we talked about on friday we answered a listener email about conditional trade packages like if a team is making a trade for a player at the deadline it could say well if we end up making the playoffs then we will give you this package in return.

But if we don't, then you will get this instead. Like there would be some base package, but then there would maybe be tiers and a bonus depending on how the season played out. And we talked about it. We agreed it wasn't far-fetched that maybe it could happen. Since we posted that episode, several listeners have contacted us to point out that, in fact, this has happened. And it is with a very notable trade that recently celebrated its 10th anniversary, the Cici Sabathia trade in 2008 between the Brewers and the Indians. Of course, Sabathia ended up being unbelievable down the stretch with Milwaukee. And as I recall, he pitched every second day and pitched a complete

game shutout every time. I think that was what happened. So as a number of people pointed out, there was actually kind of a verbal or handshake agreement between Doug Melvin, the GM of the Brewers, and Mark Shapiro, the then GM of the Indians. And Anthony Kestervitz wrote about this for MLB.com recently and documented this. But basically, there was a three-player package for Sabathia that would be going from the Brewers to the Indians, but they were quibbling over the fourth piece. There was going to be a fourth kind of minor piece also in the deal. So they decided to create a two-player player to be named later option, and it would be either Michael Brantley or Taylor Greene with the identity of the player depending on whether the Brewers actually ended up making the playoffs, which

they did. So Melvin, and I'm quoting from Castor Vince's piece here, he says, I said, if we get to the playoffs, you get to pick. If we don't, I get to pick. Because if we got in, we'd be excited and happy, and it wouldn't matter who we gave up. Mark was agreeable to that. And Shapiro says, I don't know of another trade like that. So Milwaukee made the playoffs, and Cleveland took Michael Brantley. And I guess everyone ended up happy because the Indians got Brantley who turned out to be very good for them not so much Taylor Greene and the Brewers made the playoffs so they didn't mind giving up Michael Brantley as much because they were in the happy playoff race glow

so that is a precedent it has happened yeah so it's already there it's already happened in baseball all the more reasons why this is something that we could and should see more of, I guess. It's more difficult, I guess, with players to be named later because we don't really have privy to what those lists look like in the public. But we know that that does happen. You wonder, therefore, whether it's happened more often or not. And unrelated, but something I forgot to say after the previous bullet point talking about the walk-off Bok was that, according to Ryan Divish, Mariner's beat writer, quote, apparently on every pick-off move that looks a little awkward or anything, that pitcher

does on the mound, Nelson Cruz screams Bok at the top of his lungs. He finally got one right tonight. Nelson Cruz was standing on first base, and there's an angle, you can see it in a GIF or a video, you can see Nelson Cruz standing on first base, he sees the pitcher make a funny little little move and he turns his body completely instantly to look at the first base umpire screams bach umpire signals bach and nelson cruz loses his mind so that's

that's cute apparently he does it on the bases or when he's in the dugout or even if he's at the plate that's great yells bach because nobody knows nelson Cruz is amazing. We're going to get into with Ben a bit about aging curves and the aging trajectory. And speaking of people who just don't age like the typical player, Nelson Cruz, exhibit A. He is, I guess he's like very slightly worse than he has been in previous seasons with the Mariners, but very, very slightly worse. than he has been in previous seasons with the Mariners, but very, very slightly worse. He is now 38 years old, and he is an impending free agent, so it's kind of an interesting question. What do you do with Nelson Cruz?

Do you try to bring him back for one year? I'm sure the Mariners would like to. Of course, he may want a longer-term contract, and you have to worry about players at that age, but I'm sure there are people out there thinking, well, he was suspended in the past for PEDs, and who knows what he's doing now. I don't know. I just am marveling at the fact that he is as productive as he is because when he was signed and he was, what, 34 or something at the time and everyone questioned giving, what was it, a four-year deal, $58 million over four years to

Nelson Cruz, and that has worked out about as well as anyone possibly could have imagined yeah right and so he's going to be a free agent this year he's going to be going into his age 39 season i would think because he is a dh exclusive at this point he'll go into the market already we know the market seems kind of depressed not even just for dhs but also like the Red Sox will not be looking for a DH. The Yankees probably won't be looking for a DH. Unknown, but it seems like they have their own shuffle that's going on. The Indians have Edwin Encarnacion, who's locked up.

The Astros, I guess, could maybe get involved if they wanted to sign someone like Nelson Cruz. I don't really know, but the Mariners will not have a lot of competition if Cruz hits the market. So I'm sure that what the Mariners would prefer is to sign him to a one-year contract with some kind of vesting option, but it will probably take two and a vesting option, and then who knows.

But he certainly looks like he could just hit the ball to the moon forever. And there was one last thing. I think there's one last thing that we were going to banter about, and it is an article that you have written. It is i believe the title is the opener's opener yeah something like that the opener's opening act i think maybe i don't know it's not actually published as we speak but it will be by the time you're listening to this and yeah this is kind of in the category

of things that we thought were new but have actually happened before, like conditional trading. This is another one of those because we have talked and everyone has talked about what the Rays are doing this year. The opener, basically bullpen games all the time, starting a reliever and then bringing in someone who maybe traditionally would have been a starter. And what the Rays are doing is new in a sense in that they have taken it to an extreme that no one else has reached before. So I don't know whether anyone noticed, but the Rays did just set a major league record last week for the most consecutive games without a starter pitching more than five innings. And the previous record entering the season was 15. record entering this season was 15. That was the 2012 Rockies who had a strange scheme where they were going to try to defeat Coors Field by limiting their starters pitch counts. It didn't really work, but they were desperate. But the Rays on Wednesday, they made it 16 in a row, 16 games in a row

without a starter going more than five innings and that streak eventually ended up at 18 before tyler glass now went i think six and two-thirds on saturday so he snapped the streak by the way he's been good and the raise deadline trades i think look even better now a few weeks later than they did at the actual deadline and they look pretty good at the time anyway the rays have done this opener thing and it seems unprecedented but isn't completely because 25 years ago this summer, the 1993 Oakland Athletics actually tried essentially the same experiment. So there was one week in late July.

They were desperate. It was a bad team. They just hadn't been pitching well. It was the worst staff in the game. And they said, well, let's try something new. Our guys are not going deep into games anyway. So let's just try this platoon system. So what they did, Tony La Russa was the manager. Dave Duncan was the pitching coach, obviously legendary tandem there. They had worked together for a while and they came up with this idea to have sort of nine pitchers who would be in three groups of three and they would just pitch every three

days basically. So you'd have like three erstwhile starters in one group and then another three in the second group, another three in the third group, and they would just alternate and pitch every three days and then you'd have some guys in the bullpen too. They had Goose Gossage and Dennis Eckersley who would just always be in relief. But that was the plan. And in practice, it looked a lot like what the Rays are doing this year. And it's just kind of one of those stories that's like, oh, nothing is new in baseball, or at least the things that we think are new today have actually been tried before. This is a classic example of that. And I talked to La Russa and

Duncan and Ron Darling and a couple of the other guys who were members of that staff and just did a little retrospective that I will link to because I think it's really interesting that this happened 25 years ago, you know, 10 years before Moneyball came out, before people were actually looking at times through the order statistics and saying, here's how much worse starters get each time they face the same hitter in the same game. They just sort of intuited that because they had seen that this sort of system was, you know, in spring training. You know in spring training this is what Staffs would look like when guys are just Getting warmed up for the season or Sometimes you'd have tandem rotations in the minors And they thought well our guys are not going deep

Into games anyway we'll just take them out And it'll basically be a bullpen game And they did this for well six games So it didn't last very long But it happened So I mean the article should be out there Hopefully by the time this is published Or if not it will be soon but what was the reason that the experiment came to an end?

Well, there wasn't a single reason that anyone could tell me. It wasn't one thing that happened. It was just kind of like, this was so out there for 1993, especially because back then, pitchers were judged almost solely based on wins, the old school sort of wins. And so under this system, at least as it was originally devised, you just couldn't get a win, basically. So the pitchers didn't love it, and they were willing to go along with it because Duncan and La Russa were respected and revered and had won World Series and had been good for a long time. But they didn't really love the idea, and they didn't love the idea of messing with their routines and having to go from pitching every, you know, five games to pitching every three games. And so it just had a lot of inertia behind the standard

way that rotations worked. And I think they were hoping that, well, maybe this will just work out incredibly well. Like, it's one of the things that Sam and I wrote about in our book, that you might have a good idea that would benefit the team in the long run, but if it doesn't work like week one or day one, then you might just not really even get a chance to keep doing it. So the A's went one in five during the six-game stretch, and in a lot of cases it wasn't because the pitching had been bad or the starters had been bad, and obviously that's a minuscule sample anyway. It doesn't mean that much, but it just

didn't work out great from the get-go. And because there was a lot of skepticism about this coming in, they just figured, well, we tried it and it didn't immediately make us great. So we'll stop now. And La Russa said at the time, well, we might bring it back at some point or there is a time and place when this would make sense and now we're seeing it with the and with other teams using their starters less and less and going less and less deep into the typical start so i think that the game has gravitated toward this and uh you know not everyone should have an opener i, if you have great starters who can go deep into games and be effective, that's wonderful and you should do that. And in many cases, when teams experiment like this, it's because they're desperate. And with the A's,

it was because they just didn't have a lot of pitching. With the Rays this year, it's because everyone had Tommy John surgery in spring training. So often you need that sort of adversity to drive innovation, but it sort of makes sense. And there is a precedent for what we're seeing today. All right. Even the Rays have said, you know, some people are making a little too much of this. We would prefer to not be doing this either, but we don't have any starters. And so we're doing what we're doing. Of course, they did have Chris Archer and Blake Snell. Now they have Blake Snell. They're building up Tyler Glasnow, trying to make him a starter. And it seems like the Rays' goal is not to have to use the opener

and do this just all the time, but they would like to do it, I don't know, two, maybe three times through the rotation. It's going to be interesting to see what they do next year when they have more of a full pitching staff, when they're going to have Jalen Peeks, who's being stretched out. And we're seeing a lot of really long relief performances after the opener anyway we don't have to talk about this more because we have an entire offseason to fill so unless you have more to say about the opener then I guess we can move on yeah last thing I'll just say that uh it it didn't last long and

it didn't work out amazingly but I think it wasn't really regarded as a failure and La Russa regards it as something of a success because he says that it got guys in a mindset where they were going after hitters and being more aggressive and not wasting as many pitches because they knew that they had a pitch count. They were on basically 50 pitch limits, and so they knew, well, if we want to be around for a few innings, we better be efficient.

And so I compared the pitchers who were kind of the starters typically who were not starting or not starting in the way that they usually would during this opener experiment. And they threw 3.3 pitches per plate appearance during this experiment and 3.7 pitches per plate appearance over the full season. And it's possible that they actually just got better after that larusa thinks and duncan thinks that this experiment just made them more mindful of their approach and that they were better even once they went back to a standard rotation and the a's rotation that year had a 5.43 era coming into the experiment with a 1.11 strike-out-to-walk ratio.

After the experiment, they improved to 4.85 and 1.24 strike-out-to-walk ratio. Still bad, but not as bad. And maybe it was just regression and things evening out, but maybe it actually did make them better to be thinking this way. So there's something to that idea also. It is always important to remember, as you already pointed out a few minutes ago, that whenever teams are experimenting like this, it's almost universally because the team is bad, or at least the team is shorthanded, which means that even when you do see an experiment

in baseball circles at the major league level, it's usually with inferior talent, which makes the experiment interesting, but you never really get to see it to its full potential because you're just seeing worse players. Yeah. So anyway, I just, I love digging into baseball history and finding out that the things that we think are unprecedented actually have happened in some form at some point, just because there has been so much baseball. So I enjoyed working on that story and hope that you all enjoy reading it. So I'll link to it. Go check it out. And we will take a quick break now. And we'll be back in just a moment with Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie and of the Effectively Wild outro theme. on it to be faithful every day to the end i just need you to be always a friend

till the engine kicks and sputters Until we roll the rubber off the tiles Know I'll always need you by my side Alright, so we are joined now by a friend of the show And singer, songwriter, guitarist for Death Cab and Cutie And composer of the now Effectively Wild outro theme, Ben Gibbard Hey Ben, how are you? Good, how are you guys doing? We are doing well

You have a new album out. Death Cab just released an album last Friday. It is called Thank You for Today, and we will talk about that. But we should talk about baseball a bit first. And you were telling me that your publicist for the record label was asking you if there are any podcasts you listen to that you wanted to send a request to be on and talk about the album, and you said, I pretty much just listen to ultra- running podcasts and nerdy baseball podcasts,

which is probably not really the core market for talking about a new Death Cab album. But here we are. I'm glad you could be on at least one podcast you listen to. I am too. And I'm glad you guys invited me on. I didn't want the publicist from Atlantic Records to be bullying ultra runners and, you know, sabermetricians into, you'm asking you after probably a solid week of record promotion, which would tire anyone, I guess. But do you enjoy like the, you know, a song exploder type breakdown of here's how I made this song and here's what this track is, or here's the significance of this album or that album? Or is it just sort of a thing that is part of the process? You know, there are a few interviews I do or press things that happen that are related to

making music that are kind of addressing it from a different angle. The Song Exploder one is a perfect example that is dealing with the mechanisms of making music. And I did a podcast called And the Writer Is just a couple of days ago that they deal a lot with kind of more LA-based pop songwriters and stuff like that. So that was kind of an interesting conversation because I don't really do that stuff, but it was nice to not be asked the same questions that, you know,

are just, you know, kind of, do they don't involve me just reiterating the bio for this record over and over again, which is, you know, part of doing this.

I mean, I, I, you know, I don't mind it, but it's nice to kind of break it up from time to time so i don't know what it's like when when ben goes up and talks to a stranger and says what he does but i know that when when i meet someone and i say that i i write about baseball analyze baseball then there are always a lot of follow-up questions or frequently a lot of follow-up questions and people seem to get excited about it and then more often than not and this is going to sound a lot more judgmental than I mean it but you find out that there are a lot of different ways to be a follower of baseball and

mostly I recognize that I look at the game with a different sort of nuance and appreciation than the average person so the point of this is that when you have someone who likes baseball, and then you have someone who writes about baseball, the overlap, the conversational overlap is more limiting than you might otherwise assume. So when you're talking to someone, and you say who you are talking about your background, and maybe the other person's like, Oh, I really like music, then how often does that conversation turn into something that's interesting versus how often do you just find that? well, maybe the level on which I operate is just a different one than this individual seems to occupy? Yeah, you know, I imagine it's more difficult for you guys than talking about baseball with someone who's a casual baseball fan than it is me speaking to someone who's a casual music fan. I think the problem that I run into more times than not is our band has a very silly name

and it doesn't roll off the tongue very easily. So, you know, it's if I'm in like a like a cab or a car and somebody asks me like, oh, you know, you're going, you know, if I'm going to work, which is like me going to my studio downtown in Seattle. And sometimes I'll always kind of avoid the, uh, the urge to lie about what I do, because I often think that would be a regret opportunity to say like, oh, I'm a marine biologist and, uh, yes, I'm going to work. Uh, but, and, you know, kind of, but then you might end up kind of going down a whole nother rabbit hole of, you won't be able to kind of hold this lie up very long.

And if there's like another 15 minutes in the ride, you know, it's just, you're not going to be able to do it. So if I do say what I do and tell them what band I'm in, there's sometimes some recognition like, Oh, I think I've heard of you guys. Like, Oh yeah, I think I know one of your songs. Because at this point we've been around long enough that, you know, our songs just pop up on the radio from time to time people might have heard of them or heard them uh but a lot of times I ended up just explaining what the band name is and saying it multiple

times then explaining where it came from and you know all these years later now almost 21 years later you know not a day goes by that I wish I would have chosen just a more straightforward band name, something that just rolled off the tongue a little easier. But, you know, but when it comes to talking to people who are like casual music fans, you know, I think when it comes to music, I mean, music is such a personal thing and people, very few people kind of know the inner workings of like who played bass on what record. And, you know, people don't know those things a lot of time. They just like what they like.

And at the end of the day, as a musician, as a songwriter, you're not trying to make music that requires backstory and exposition. You just want to make things that people would hear on the radio and they would connect to. And I think certainly over the years, as we've kind of reached a much more mainstream audience, you know, we have more fans that listen to music casually, I think, than fans who are, you know, die in the wool indie rockers, like maybe the people that listen to us, you know, exclusively in like 2001.

Right. So baseball wise, I've talked to you about this not too long ago. So I have some sense how you're feeling. You are, of course, a Mariners fan, and that has been a very exciting thing to be at times this season, and not so much at other times. We now have a real AL West race as we are speaking to you on Sunday. Mariners are four and a half back. They're three and a half back of the A's and also in the wildcard. So do you just enjoy the ride? Do you just say, I'm thankful for getting this far and actually having a team that's kind of in contention and we're lucky even to be this close? Or, and I've asked other guests and Meg Raleigh about this,

is it more painful to actually have a shot or not even a shot, but look like the favorites at a point fairly deep into the season and now be on the outside looking in again? You know, I think I'm learning that this season, this season to me has been the most Mariners-y season that I can remember in recent years in the sense that, you know, it's June. Let's go back to June. You know, they're winning a lot of one-run games. The negative run differential are very close to that. And you're watching these games and you're going like, you know what, this isn't going to last. This is not going to last. However, I've always thought of this team as being, you know, like around a 500 team.

So if they can just play 500 baseball for the rest of the year we have a really good shot of making the playoffs and what has happened what has occurred since then has been kind of the most mariners thing that could happen from my perspective which is they've just completely cratered and and unfortunately as i look at the team now and like as we said they're three and a half games out of a wild card you know they're they just seem to be playing worse and worse. The wheels can be coming off and maybe it's just that I'm a fatalist fans by design. Maybe it's just being a Marist and my entire life, but I, I have a hard time seeing how they're going to,

a the Mariners are going to write this shit and, and two that the Astros and the A's are going to let up in any way that's going to allow the mariners to kind of creep back into this thing in any real way so it just feels like this is kind of a march towards the inevitable this seems like a march to like the 17th season of not making the playoffs and in some ways that's almost more painful at this point than if they had just you know kind of hovered around like 500 all season and you know and we knew they weren't going to do it from June on you know and I don't know that's that's kind of a depressing way to look at but unfortunately you know I just you know I didn't watch the game today

because by the time I woke up I woke I fell asleep on the couch after I dropped my wife off at the airport and I woke up and they were down five, and they hadn't even come to bat yet. And first I was pitching. So you're kind of like, all right, well, I'm going to do something else in my day because this is a fool's errand to spend three and a half hours watching this thing. Yeah, right. People talk about how, well, you know, it's baseball. Never turn it off. Anything could happen.

But in that circumstance, no, anything can't happen. That's a given loss. So this is going to sound weird. I'm coming at this from a Mariners fan background as well. I want to know what you think about the following outlook. Because I found myself, I know the Mariners fandom has waned a little bit as I've become the national writer. So I have to think about everyone. But I found myself surprisingly pulling a lot for the A's in this race.

Now, granted, if they overtake the Astros, that's a whole other situation, but it hasn't been as Mariners-focused as I expected now that they are relevant. So if you could take a step back, away from the day-to-day sort of Mariners volatility, what do you think about the idea of appreciating the Mariners' identity as it is, as the team that just is the team that never makes the playoffs and is kind of a loser, even when it has one of the best records in baseball like it has right now. You know, if they actually made the playoffs in a sense, in a weird way, something would be lost. So are you afraid of that at all? Or is that just way overthinking that fans just want teams to be good and win? Well, I'll say this, Jeff.

If we kind of rewind back to June and they're just kind of on this run and things seem to be – we're all making plans for October in the Northwest a little bit prematurely. I found myself literally having these conversations with my bandmates about like, okay, I mean, the wild card is either the third or fourth of October. Now we're in Kansas city that night. Now, I don't know if we can push the show later so that I can watch the whole game or, uh, you know, and if they get past that, I mean, I don't know what the next week and

a half is going to look like guys. I mean, obviously we can't cancel any shows, but this is going to be a really stressful time for me. I'm just warning you guys now that when the Mariners in the playoffs, things are going to get a little hairy, you know? And, and for me now, I'm kind of like, now that that's not a concern anymore, at least, you know, I mean, you never know, right. It's baseball things can happen, but let's just say for the sake of argument and, you know,

reality that they're not. And, and you just kind of look at it and you go, okay, well now my October is totally free. I can just enjoy playoff baseball without having any rooting interests. And that will, that will allow me to not be stressed out before I play a show, you know, and, you know, being a Mariners fan my whole life, you know, there are obviously some, you know, it's been a while since we've been in the playoffs. And so every year it's actually kind of enjoyable to just settle in and kind of, you know, bandwagon a team or two and just enjoy the playoffs for the sake of the playoffs and not having any rooting interest. Now, that's not to say if, you know, I don't want the Mariners to win the World Series. I absolutely do.

to say if you know i don't want the marines to win the world series i absolutely do but you know there is like a silver lining in all this which is like okay well i just get to kind of enjoy the playoffs as a fan and you know the a's are a team that like while they're not my favorite team right now given what's going on in the al west i've always really appreciated them and i've always kind of liked their fans the most out of other al west fans, you know, because, you know, they play in Oakland in a really, like a, like a really shitty arena, you know, and the fans that go to those games, not a lot of them go, but fans that go are really passionate, you know, and especially when you have a team across the bay, that's won three world series in the last 10 years and is very kind of like cosmopolitan and kind of trendy to be a fan of you know people that stick with the a's and have stuck with the

a's through all of kind of the lean years you know and they get rewarded by teams like this it's kind of exciting it's cool to see for them so you know i'm sure like when when things settle you know if the a's kind of get in and kind of go on a run, like I'll certainly root for the A's. And you are touring about a month from now. You're going on a tour. You're basically people ask what's the best way to spend an offseason? What do you do when there's no baseball? I guess go on an international tour would be one answer. That is what you're doing. So September 21st, you are playing in Las Vegas and then you're basically playing with a bit of a break in December and January until pitchers and catchers report. So not a short tour, but how will you consume playoff baseball? Because presumably most of those shows will be at night during the games, and you won't really be able to watch them live. So what will you do? How will you follow baseball during that period? Yeah, that will be, that will be frustrating because I, you know, we, we travel

by tour bus at this point and a lot of those buses have direct TV and with hard drives on them, you can probably, you can record things, but it always feels, it always, it just in today's day and age, it's very difficult to kind of, to time delay sports because if you open your phone, you might have a text from somebody that's like, oh my God, that was an amazing walk off. And you're like, God damn it. I was just going to sit down and watch this game. And then the question is like, well, do you fast forward through the commercials? Is that fair?

You know, it's like if there's kind of a lull in the game, do you use the fast forward? So I think I will most likely try to, we'll probably have the games on in the bus or backstage. And then when it's time to go to work, you know, walk away from it and then just kind of watch the highlights later. And, you know, we'll have enough days off, maybe two, two or three days off a week that I can just flop down in front of the TV and watch playoffs. And speaking of walk-offs, there was one on Saturday. The Mariners beat the Dodgers on a walk-off balk. I think that was the 22nd time that had happened in baseball history. And that was kind of the way the Mariners have won all season, not literally, but by one run and against a team that, you know, maybe you wouldn't think that given how things had gone up to that point, they would actually win the game. But then they do by one run or two runs. That's kind of why they are even in this hunt at all. So has this been a nerve wracking way to have a winning season or has it been an extra exciting one?

Because you're aware of kind of how fluky it seems to be and this can't possibly continue. But then it kind of does for longer than you expect it to. Is this a fun way to win? I think it is when things are going your way. You know, there was a period earlier in the season where it just seems like they were getting themselves into one-run situations often. They were just winning them all.

So you would tune in and you, I guess, I would imagine it must be like what it's like to be a fan of the Boston Red Sox this season. You tune in just assuming they're going to win. You know, so, and in those one-run games, you just tune in, you go like, oh, okay, they're going to win you know so and and in those one run games you're just tuning in you go like okay they're up by one run well you know they'll you know column a will kind of like make it interesting and then you know diaz will come in and shut the door and that'll be that but as you know obviously as things have kind of the team has regressed to

the mean and these things kind of catch up on you now it's like a one run lead is it's not really it's it's not enough to kind of make you feel you now it's like a one run lead is it's not really it's it's not enough to kind of make you feel comfortable anymore however i will say i i think my favorite part about that walk-off bach was guillermo heredia coming in to frame with the gatorade uh cooler and i can't remember who came into score but just dousing the winning run with the gatorade was kind of a really nice, a nice, kind of the best detail of the whole thing, I thought. So this is useful because I never meet people because of what I do and the people that I

do meet. I have a very selected group of people that I know and interact with. Ben, I believe, is pretty similar, whereas you, the other Ben on this podcast, Ben number two, I'm sorry for this one, you presumably meet an awful lot of people in your industry. You know, baseball and music, they're both shows, they're both forms of entertainment, but you work in an industry where, at least anecdotally, it feels like there's not a whole lot of overlap between music nerddom and baseball nerddom. So what

kind of average response do you get when people find out that you are such a big baseball fan? Obviously, your bandmates are well familiar with it by now. A lot of people are well familiar with it. But many people who meet you or are just getting to know you wouldn't know that. And, you know, you're talking to younger people. So what are the people saying about baseball out there these days? I mean, I'm sure you guys have the same experience when you talk to people at baseball, you know, maybe referring to people as common people. It's not the right way of saying it. It came to my mind. But people who are not in the industry, I should say.

And I think that one of the great things about being a baseball fan is that it is this connective tissue that kind of brings people from different walks of life together. And, you know, if I meet somebody, you know, if I meet somebody in some kind of like professional arranged kind of meet and greet situation, who's wearing, let's say they're wearing like a, you know, a twins cap or something like that. And then, you know, baseball comes up, I comment on the hat and we start talking about baseball. It's just really great for me as someone who, you know, you know, is, you know, has a small modicum of kind of celebrity, like celebrity with a very lowercase C. It's a really wonderful way to kind of connect with people about this thing, this common thing that we both love. And, and it's, and you can kind of shift

the conversation away from, it makes people more comfortable when we're talking about something we both love than when somebody is coming up to meet me because they're a fan of what I do. Does that make sense? It just becomes, this is the calm, this is the thing that we enjoy together. We can talk about this and we can kind of, you know, it makes me more comfortable in a situation because I can talk about something other than myself. And also, you know, I can get a chance to kind of, you know, talk about the baseball season. It's, you know, for me, I keep I joke with my wife that it's it's like my soap opera. You know, I mean, the baseball season starts pitchers and catchers.

And then over the course of the season, there's all these wonderful storylines that kind of evolve. And, you know, it's like it's like, it's, it's very much like, it's very much like a soap opera, you know, and then culminating with the world series and you kind of look back on the whole thing. And it's, even if your team didn't do well, which is, you know, or didn't win, which is, you know, 29 of the 30 teams, or if you happen to be a fan of a kind of, you know, a woefully kind of underachieving team like the Mariners, you know, you get to kind of just kind of enjoy the ride. And that's what I enjoy the most about it.

Are there any particular storylines that have really caught your attention this season, aside from the Mariners, particular players who were doing interesting things or teams that are surprising or fun for you to watch, anything like that? You know, I think I'm hoping that we, I know you guys spoke on this a couple of days ago, that I listen to the show often, as you know, I think I'm hoping that we I know you guys spoke on this a couple days ago that I listened to the show often, as you know, and I'm really hoping that Ronald Acuna a couple of days ago just just seemed just seemed so, so inappropriate and so ridiculous.

And, you know, I think I think that if baseball is going to survive as America's pastime, so to speak, or just as, you know, in the in the public eye, I think we need to kind of embrace the fun of it we need to embrace players that kind of you know excite us and and do and kind of celebrate their you know their achievements and and you know i think that there's the kind of the neanderthal element of the game you know is something that i'm hoping we're starting to see the end of especially i think after you know what happened a couple days ago it seems like there might, we might be moving towards, I'd like to hope we're moving towards, you know, some kind of movement to kind of close, close those elements of the game. But I don't know. I just, but, but in the, you know,

I'm fascinated with the Washington nationals and why they're not better. You know, I, I don't understand this. And, you know, it seems as if all season long pundits that I listen to or pay attention to keep talking about, well, it's just a matter of time. They're going to get it going. It's like, no, they're a game under 500. It's not getting going. You know, this season's almost over. And it's been just a real shocker to me that that team has not performed better than I was expecting it to.

Yeah, because the team like that makes us look like stupid assholes. Right. So, because I didn't want to just let this drop, you know, Mariners did win on a walk-off balk on Saturday. It's not very often that you get to see a team win on a walk-off balk. How closely, you are

a Died in the Will Mariners fan, but how closely do you actually monitor them during the season? It's a very long season, but if you break it into 162 games, how many of those games do you think that you are paying attention to as they happen versus you're catching up on social media or friends texting you that that was a crazy way that the game ended or whatnot? How invested would you say they are and how difficult is it to stay so invested, I should say, during the year?

You know, I tend to watch a lot more games in the first half of the season, as I'm sure maybe a lot of people do. And, you know, when the season is kind of unfolding and certainly with this season in particular, you know, it's looking like this is going to, we're going to break the drought. You know, this is going to be the first year and, you know, exciting things are happening. The team chemistry seems really great. People are laughing, the dugout, funny things are happening. You tune in more, you know, and then over the course of the season,

this season in particular, I've gotten a lot busier in July and August and not been able to watch as many of the games and I ended up following via social media or just watching highlights at the end of the day but I think with every season there there comes a point where the Mariners become not fun to watch and and you're you're kind of you're kind of uh you know I'm sitting I'm at home at 7 p.m and you know you know watching baseball is not a negotiation by any sense of the imagination with my wife, but there is that little voice inside of me. It's like, how badly do I want to watch this game right now?

You know, do I want to have that conversation about like, hey, listen, I'm just going to go upstairs and, you know, dinner's over. I'm going to go watch the game. And I'm finding myself wanting to have that conversation less and less as the season's gone off the rails a bit. So I would say probably over the course of the season, I'm watching between a third and a half of the games at least until a definitive turning point in the game or something like that. definitive kind of turning point in the game or something like that, whether it's the Mariners are up by six and it's the fifth inning. You're like, okay, I think I can kind of turn this off. Or it's the seventh inning and then reliever gives up three runs and now they're losing. I'm like, okay, you know what?

I'm going to walk away now. Because it's just so difficult to stay really, really invested. As a fan, I think baseball is just, with 162 games, you can't live and die by every game. It just would make you insane. And I've seen people make people insane. It's made me insane. But I think at this point, you know, I'm kind of like checking in, seeing how the game's going. You know, if I've got a free afternoon or free evening, turn on the game, you know, go to a game with my dad or my friends. But I feel like I've emotionally, I think given how the season has gone, I've certainly detached emotionally from how invested I was earlier.

How did you become the kind of fan that you are? The kind of fan who reads a site like Fangraphs and listens to a podcast like this one? a site like Fangraphs and listens to a podcast like this one, because at some point you must have graduated to that level, or I guess some people would say devolved to that level. But however you got there, you must have started out like we all do as kind of more casual baseball watchers and then gotten fascinated by the sabermetric approach or that sort of unseen, deeper level of the sport? Yeah, I can't put like a moment on it, but I think like many people who are fans of baseball and grew up, you know, I grew up in the 80s, you know, in watching baseball and Mariners and This Week in Baseball and everything.

And the same stats were kind of hammered over and over again, you know, pitcher wins and saves and batting average and RBI. And over the course of time, you know, as people in your industry have kind of become more prevalent and more vocal, I, like many people, started realizing that most of the ways that we, you know, measured accomplishment in this game were wrong. And if they're wrong, well, what are the right ways? How do we measure how good a player is? And so I started to become more interested in that, as did I think a lot of people.

And, you know, and also I think, too, one thing, if I can give you guys a compliment, one thing I've really appreciated about your podcast and a number of others and how you guys write about baseball is that you know you're you guys write from a perspective that is is very appealing to people who don't who tend to shy away from traditional sports writing and kind of you know hyper masculine broey kind of sports sites and things like that and so for me as a baseball fan I really enjoy what you guys do because it's you know because not only you guys are on all year long.

So when I'm missing baseball in December and you guys have a show dedicated to basically like Mike Trout fan fiction, that's really enjoyable to me because I'm missing baseball too. And I want to listen to people talk baseball or talk about baseball myself. And also to talk about people.

It's also nice to hear people talking about baseball who maybe read a book every once in a while and buy a record and have interest outside of the sport itself. And that's always really nice to interface with. So thank you for doing that. When you hear us talk about baseball in December and January, know that you're hearing people desperate for baseball too. They just have to fill one hour three times a week. It gets dark. So I'll ask you a question that I always have difficulty answering when people ask me, and this came up pretty recently when Fernando Perez asked me this very question, but when you are reading or consuming, whether it's sabermetric baseball writing or just kind of non-traditional baseball writing, listening to podcasts, thinking about things more analytically, in all of that coverage, that media coverage

of the game, what, if anything, do you think is missing? What do you wish that you would see or hear more of? I'm not sure if there's something I feel is lacking. You know, I think it's been interesting to see and listen to the debates back and forth between kind of more old school people with more of an old school mentality about how to scout players and appraise value and, you know, people like yourselves who are, you know, much more analytic numbers based. And I think if there's, I think, you know, I think people are starting to realize for the most part on both sides of the, I wouldn't say argument, but both sides of the analytical sense that it's not one or the other, you know,

that this, that one is not correct and the other is incorrect. However, you know, I think that it's, I think that it would be interesting for me as a listener and as a fan of the game to hear more conversation between both sides of the fence on these things, because I think sometimes, you know, some of the old school people that you'll hear kind of bitching and moaning about stats, you know, they're, they're not, they're not, they're dug in and they, and they are, they have decided that, you know, the way they played the game or, you know, watch the game is the correct way are they have decided that you know the way they played the game or you know watch the game is the correct way and all these you know nerds with stats degrees are ruining the game but i think there's also people who who are much more open to it and i

think that and who have come from a more um old school background that are starting to integrate those you know newer metrics into how they analyze players and view the game. So I think that for me, I would love to see and listen to more of those types of conversations because I think they would be really interesting. So I want to ask you a few music questions and maybe I will try to make them double as baseball questions in a way so that they're not exactly the same as all the questions you've been answering for the past week.

But when I saw you perform in Montana from a much more privileged vantage point than I am used to seeing you or seeing concerts in general, it struck me just how active you are on stage. You're kind of bouncing all over the place. You have a sort of singing stance that is very kinetic, like you are kind of on the balls of your feet while you are singing and performing. Your heels never seem to touch the stage. And I wonder, in my mind, that is kind of a distinctive thing that singers have that's sort of like a batting stance, the singing stance. It's how are you going to stand up there?

Are you going to be like Roy Orbison and just sort of stand there and not really move and just kind of strum your guitar? Or are you going to be, you know, gyrating all over the place? Is this something that just came to you the way that, I don't know, when you first pick up a bat, you just hold a bat a certain way and that's your stance? Or did you model it on someone the way that a lot of people, the first time they pick up a bat, will say, this is my favorite player. I'm going to hold the bat like my favorite player holds the bat?

Or is it totally unconscious and you haven't even thought about this before I'm asking you this strange question? No, that's not a strange question at all, Ben. I often have thought that one's batting stance and how one performs on stage are somewhat related in the sense that some people, obviously batting stance is going to be very signature and how one performs on stage are somewhat related in the sense that, you know, some people, some obviously batting stances can be very signature and people's, how people perform can also be very signature. I mean, we used to have a roadie who could mimic all four of us, all of our moves on stage. And it was, I mean, he, I mean, I think that there might be a career for him kind of a la batting stance guy, if he you just go out and mimic people's performances. But but for me, I don't know. I just, you know, music makes me move a particular awkward way. And I've always kind of avoided watching myself perform.

I don't I mean, I obviously know for the most part how I'm moving on stage. I mean, I obviously know for the most part how I'm moving on stage. It's been referred to as the Frankenstein because it has kind of a Frankenstein-esque kind of like lumbering, like rhythmic kind of lumber. But that's just kind of how my body naturally moves. I find it just interesting watching performers and just how, and in most cases it seems like, you know, how they're moving is not calculated as much as this is how the music moves in. I'm like, I went and saw Pearl Jam played two shows, the Safeco Field a couple of weeks ago. And my wife and I went and I was commenting to her like, man, I've always loved how Stone Gossard moves on stage.

He like, he just kind of has this cool kind of kind of like shoulder shuffle kind of thing and it's clearly he's clearly not standing in front of a mirror you know practicing this because he's been doing this for 25 30 years you know but that's just how music move you know kind of moves through him and it's the same for me but yeah it is it's it is interesting how you know you know some of these performance styles can be mimicked in the same way that one would mimic Ken Griffey Jr. or something like that. Yeah. Well, so if you have a show that you consider somewhat disappointing, will you tinker with your stance? Will you adjust your guitar strap or something, lower your hands, just mess with the mechanics to try to get your singing back? Yeah, I'll probably have to go in and watch some films and just kind of see if my

heels were touching the ground for 30 minutes of the set. That's what it was. I need to make sure I get my heels off the ground. So when I saw you in Montana, you had just played a baseball stadium. You had played where the Boise Hawks normally play. And I don't know whether you've done the baseball concert often, but what do you think of the baseball stadium as a concert venue? Obviously, you can cram in a lot of people if it's a big league park, but acoustically or kind of crowd experience-wise, does it make a good venue for a concert? Well, I don't know if we're quite the band that can fill a baseball stadium, even a minor league stadium. When we booked this show, I was kind of concerned about the size of the venue,

but they actually did a really nice job of just kind of fencing off the infield, and we played in center field. So it was good. It may be a couple thousand people. It didn't seem too empty or too crowded. And I, it was enjoyable, but I will say this, we were, the stage was facing the sun and you know, the grass is, is hot, you know, like just the heat coming off of, I mean, I guess it's worse if it was pavement or something like that, but you know, the grass really does kind of absorb the heat. And so, you know, it kind of felt like, you know, grass really does kind of absorb the heat and so you know it kind of felt

like you know playing center field for two hours in the direct sunlight which you know doesn't happen that often of course but sometimes in like a blowout maybe something might end up standing out there for a while so uh i think it's i think i'm i'm pro baseball stadium as a music venue but uh yeah i think i think you know one should kind of maybe, maybe not facing direct sunlight would probably be the best. Yeah, preferable kind of way. As a concert goer, have you enjoyed it? Because Pearl Jam played a couple shows in Safeco, right? As you mentioned, you saw them. Yeah, that was great. You know, obviously, I don't know if it's obviously, but I should go without saying that Pearl Jam playing a baseball stadium is a much larger affair than Death Cab for 2D playing a baseball stadium. So, you know, the entire

field was cut with all seats except for the area center field that was the stage. And I would have to imagine they probably, there were probably 65,000 people there. And it was very strange to kind of have the dugouts were the beer concessions. So, you know, they, they were selling beer from the dugout which was kind of great and you know i was because i you know know some of those guys were able to kind of get some white glove treatments and uh you know kind of a backstage kind of access and you know it was interesting that the locker rooms you know the locker rooms were some of the backstage areas for the band and the VIP areas, which was kind of funny. So, uh, yeah, it was, you know, I don't think we'll ever get to Safeco level. Uh, but I

think, you know, as long as there are like single A and independent stadiums in need of, uh, concerts, we'll, we'll be there for sure. Well, you've done the national anthem, right? So that was something at a game. I did. Yeah. I did it at a Giants-Cardinals playoff game in 2009, I believe. 2010, I think. And that had to be timed with a flyover with some Jets. And there were these two guys who were producers for, I guess, the game, who were very kind of fratty, and they were trying to impress upon me how important it was that I'd be hitting the high note while the Jets were very kind of fratty and they were like trying to impress upon me how important

it was that I'd be hitting the high note while the jets were coming over and I I kind of looked at them very earnestly like yes of course absolutely I'll make sure I you know I'll make sure I time that up just perfectly knowing full well there's no way to do that really and I was just going to sing my version and if the jets happen to fly over the right time that would be great uh and it just so happened that they were timed well and these guys were high-fiving and very excited about it. So maybe I'll get invited back for a World Series game if the Mariners are ever in the World Series. But I fear that would be also

maybe kind of a blow to my ego to find out that I was farther down the call list for Seattle Luminaries to sing a national anthem than maybe I would like to be. So, uh, but I obviously that's, I don't think that's going to be an issue for me anytime soon. So I would imagine, let's say you're, I don't know, Cole Calhoun, and you know that you are sharing an outfield with, with Mike Trout and no matter what you do now, granted Cole Calhoun, bad example, he's been on a tear, so let's go with Justin Upton, whatever. You're anyone who's not Mike Trout, but you're playing the same game, same league.

I would imagine it can be difficult to evaluate your own performance and not think about Mike Trout. More relatably, I know whenever my fiance and I go out and do anything in the mountains, then we'll come back to civilization and we'll, we'll feel like we're pretty cool. And then she'll open up her Instagram and she'll see other people who have done like three summits in three days. And it's just, you're in a field with a lot of high achievers, whether that's in music or in trail running.

So how, if you are successful at this, how are you able to focus on your own performance, your own existence and satisfaction without just being overwhelmed by this context in which there are so many people who are doing so many amazing things that are basically inconceivable at this point? Well, I suppose, I mean, you know, as a musician, you know, how you are rewarded for, you know, your work is very different than being a baseball player, of course. I mean, I, there are times I wish that I just could play to stats, you know, that there could be, you know, it's like my on base is this and like, you know what I mean? Like, but, you know, you know, I think most of, most of the bands, musicians I know, it's very, I feel we all in some way want what we don't have. And if we are, if we are, if we have critical,

if we're being critically praised, we want the commercial success. And if we have commercial success, we want the critical praise. And there's always, there's always somebody who you're looking at who, I mean, maybe I'm exposing myself too much here, but it's always somebody I'm looking at who I look at, you know, that I admire their work and, you know, I listen to how they are perceived in the world. And I, I wish that I was all, I wish that people saw me the same way and maybe they do. I just don't go out and look for that stuff myself. Like I really don't spend my time reading reviews of

our albums or shows or think pieces. I usually just kind of don't avoid that stuff. So, I mean, I understand that people, there are enough people that like what I do that have, you know, gotten me where I am now. And I'm very happy about that. But I think that there's, I think as, as a, as a musician, it's can be, it can be, and as a songwriter, as a band, you know, sometimes you look around and go like, man, these guys seem to always get these guys are all every record. These guys made people say they love it, you know, sometimes you look around and go like, man, these guys seem to always get, these guys are all, every record these guys made, people say they love it, you know, like,

and I'm jealous, I'm angry, you know, and that doesn't last long, you know, it's like, it's not like, but, you know, unlike being an athlete where you can look at somebody's performance and go like, well, this is their slash line right now, clearly they're better than me, you know, because, because their numbers are better than my numbers, you know, it, being an artist is not the same way, it's like you're kind of left just with feelings and, and just, you know, perception. And sometimes that, you know, in moments of insecurity, you can kind of get the best of you. But I feel as I've gotten older, I've gotten much better at, you know, being grateful for everything that we have accomplished and what we have and, and focusing

less on, you know on certain things that I would want for our band that I don't perceive as having. And so I've gotten much better at that as the years go on. But I think certainly in my younger years when we were doing this now, it's much more insecure. Those things would kind of take over from time to time. Yeah. And I'm really fascinated by the trajectory of bands and musical artists.

And I know that you've thought about this too, and especially because you're now in a band that just made its ninth album and has been around for more than 20 years. I mean, the trajectories of bands, of course, vary dramatically. Some bands seem to just get better over time. Some bands just come out of the gate with their best record ever, and then it's never the same. Some bands just come out of the gate with their best record ever and then it's never the same or some bands just sort of seem to fizzle out or they just make music that sounds like the old music but isn't as good. And I'm always curious about whether there is a comparison to be made there to something like athletic performance where there really is just kind of an almost hard and fast rule about what the shape of careers look like. Of course, some guys manage to be productive longer than others, but ultimately you tend to be at your best at a certain age and then you tend to just age out of the game at a certain point. But there are ways that you can compensate as you get older with experience and knowledge and

learning that even if an athlete's physical skills start to suffer, then maybe their plate discipline improves and they've just seen so many pitches. So with a band, in what way is it similar? Is there a finite amount of inspiration that is just there early in your career and then it's harder to recapture later on or not really? Is that a totally renewable resource? And to what extent can you compensate by just saying, well, I've made many albums before and I've written many songs and this is what I have learned makes a successful record or song and I'm going to apply those lessons now? Well, I think, you know, as with a baseball player,

you know, there is this sweet spot of productivity in which they are the best at what they're doing. And I think while it's not exactly analogous to being a band, I do think that there is a period in every band's career, certainly that's been around even half as long as we have, that, you know, there's just this kind of like zeitgeist moment in which, you know, the band's, the, the, you know, the band's identity has, has formed and, you know, maybe they make a record or two that become these kind of zeitgeist moments for them. And they become kind of the career highlights, you know, in a, in almost like a similar kind of timeframe as maybe a baseball player is peaking, you know, in their like mid late twenties. And for us, you know, I'm very aware that, you know peaking, you know, in their like mid late 20s. And for us, you know,

I'm very aware that, you know, like, you know, our record Transatlanticism will be the record that will be on my tombstone, you know, and that record is now 15 years old. And I think, but where I think where the, you know, where the difference is, for me, at least, is that, you know, at this point in our band, we've been doing this for 20 years, I feel I've taken a fairly realistic position in that I don't expect us to make an album that is going to have the same cultural impact that transatlanticism or plans had because of you know where we were in our lives the time you know just when this record came out in the kind of in you know the uh kind of wave of indie rock that kind of crested and you know in crested in the mid-aughts.

And these are the things that I cannot control as a creative person, that we cannot control as a band. But what I do see, I do see us and other bands that have been around as long as we have. Not every record is going to be the best record, probably. Well, it's not. Not every record is going to be the best record probably. Well, it's not, not every record is going to be the best record. Um, and the longer you, the longer you play, the longer you make records, the more records you make, you know, there, you know, there are going to be people who are going to keep asking you to make the record over again. That was that record for you, you know, that, that also course not only corresponds to, that, that also course, not only corresponds

to a certain time in your career, but corresponds to a certain place in the listener's life. And, you know, unfortunately, that's just not something that can be recreated. You know, the perfect storm of when, you know, you know, a record like Transatlanticism came out for us is not recreatable, we just could not, you know, even if we made a record that was, if you could measure both a record as being as good as that one by some kind of, you know, qualitative methodology, it would still not have the same impact. It would not be the same culturally as what that record meant for us back then. So, I mean, one can either see that as a very, like, you know, throw your hands up in the air, why even try kind of thing.

Or you can take it as I've taken it as a fairly liberating position. And, you know, with this new record we've made, you know, I mean, it seems at least, you know, we're a couple of days into having been released. And as I, it seems that people who've been fans of the band for some time, you know, thankfully it seems like the majority of them are really enjoying it and saying things like, this is why I love your band. And this is, this reminds me of these things that you do that are, they love.

And you know, that's awesome. And I, and that's as a fan of music myself, I mean, my favorite band is teenage fan club. I know your favorite band is Sloan. Yeah.

You know, teenage fan comes up there though. Yeah. They've both been around roughly about the same amount of time. And as a fan of Teenage Fan Club, I look forward to a new album because it's another chapter in the story of something that I love. And I don't expect it to have the same impact on me as like Fanwagon-esque or Grand Prix did, but I still find something to love about everything they do, even if I don't love the album as much as my favorite albums by them. And it reminds me why I love the band.

And that's at this point in our band now, 21 years in, that's kind of what I, that's, that's really the, you know, the goal. That's what I'm hoping can occur with every record we make from this point out, this point out is like to remind people to add, you know, a couple of songs to the greatest hits playlist in your mind but while also kind of reminding people why they like the band in the first place and i think that's a much more realistic expectation than to think that um every record we're going to make 21 years in is going to be revered in the same way that transatlanticism

or plans or something like that you, was for in our little world, you know. So you, you already answered my forthcoming question in detail without me even having to ask it. So I'll just move on to a different one. Good perception. Sticking, I guess, briefly with when Ben was talking about music and baseball and trajectories, you recently, just, just over a week ago, celebrated another birthday. Happy birthday. I will not date you, but you have been around for 20 years of music. So keeping with the baseball possible parallels, I don't know if you can speak to this yet. In a sense, I hope not, but in a sense, I hope so, so that there is an answer. But as baseball players age,

they will find techniques to compensate for what they might have lost or might be losing. So have you experienced, what does age-related decline look like for a musician, at least the early parts of it? I will say that I'm 42 years old. I'm not ashamed of that. And as far as musical decline goes, I think that's one of the things I would hate to open up to Reddit, you know, to the Death Cab Reddit account. But I do think that there, you know, I think that when you're, when I was 20, 21 and writing songs for the first record, you know, there were so many like songwriting techniques or lyrical kind of things that I had never done before. So everything that I wrote was brand new to me. And it seemed like every song I wrote for a period of time was, you know, a personal revelation of what was

possible for me. And, you know, now, 21 years later in the bands, you know, I write two or three times as much as I did when I was 20, but I get, I get less usable stuff back. So I have to work a lot harder to get less. And, uh, you know, that's, that's fine because I, I, you know, I, I just accepted that that's just kind of how it goes and that, you know, I'm not just going to sit in my studio and every day and, and write a brilliant song, you know, and, you know, my, the, the, the fail, you know, my, you know, rate of failure is much higher now, you know, and, you know, my, the, the, the fail, you know, my, you know,

rate of failure is much higher now, you know, in, in the writing process, because I'm just kind of, you know, I, I'm writing from like, I, I believe like a slightly diminished kind of creative place because I've already written so many songs in my life and, and music, you know, there's only so many notes, you know, there's only so many notes, you know, there's only so many words, but that, but that becomes a fun challenge for me. I kind of, I, you know, I, you know, the moments that I do kind of something cracks open creatively and I feel like I'm saying something in, in a new way, or I framed something musically and in a, in a, in a way that I haven't yet. That's, that's a really rewarding day. And I will say this about, analogous to

aging and baseball, I have to say that the person, when Willie Bloomquist retired, that was really difficult for me because I actually played in the same little league in Bremerton as Willie Bloomquist. We didn't know each other or anything, but we were the same age, basically. And Willie Bloomquist to me was kind of a canary in a coal mine for the alternate path in my life in which I was a professional baseball player. And so when he retired, I knew at that moment that there was I had no future as a major league baseball player. You know, that that window had actually closed. Not, you know, not also to, you know, I mean, I don't think anybody wants to, you know, wanted like a 38 or 39 year old pitcher that like can maybe throw 70. That's probably not something

that anybody needed, but, you know, still in this, I was always living in this, this, this alternate life of like, well, you know, I'm 34. I could be playing baseball right now. I'm in, I'm of an age, like it could be happening. And now I'm, I'm really at that age where like I must, you know, age, like it could be happening. And now I'm, I'm really at that age where like, I must, you know, like maybe it's like Bartolo Cologne is like, I'm holding onto that guy. That guy needs to play forever because that is, that's my last, that's my last fantasy hope of, of, of being a major league pitcher in my forties. So I feel like if thank you for today, we're a new baseball season and you were a baseball player, there's a positivity to the record, I think, that is reflected in its title. And if you were an athlete, people would be saying, oh, Ben Gibbard is in the best shape of his life because you, I guess, physically kind of are with all the running.

the running. And just, you know, personally and in terms of the band, I mean, as there are in anyone's life, there have been periods of personal turmoil and professional turmoil. It's just that when you're in a band, everyone knows about it. And so it seems like now things have settled down in a lot of ways, like, you know, personally and professionally. It seems like this is kind of a happy and productive period for you. And I'm wondering whether there is something to the idea that just getting your life in order in various ways helps you as an artist, because obviously as a baseball player, I think it is understood to be no one says, oh, he's going through this off the field issue, so that's going to make him a better baseball player. But people will say that about musicians, you know, the concept of the breakup album. And there are many great breakup albums, but I'm sure there are also many terrible albums that were ruined by breakups that no one ever talks about.

to what extent has just sort of the way that your life has gone over the past few years and the way that the band has settled into its new lineup and new identity, has that been a benefit given that, you know, you are someone who is seen as a confessional and personal songwriter who writes about emotions and heartbreak. And if there is less heartbreak in your life currently, which would be a good thing, is that a good thing or a bad thing or a neutral thing creatively? You know, I think it's probably a good thing creatively if only because, you know, like when I got divorced, I guess it's now seven years ago, you know, every, it was, you know, it was almost, in a way it was almost beneficial to me because everybody knew so that you didn't, I didn't run in the nice thing about a very public divorce, if there is anything nice about it is that everybody

knows you're divorced. So there's not that conversation. Like you see somebody you haven't seen in a year and like, Hey, how are you? And so-and-so and like, Oh, we got divorced a year ago. And then they feel bad. That's that that's taken out of the equation completely. They're like, hey, how are you and so and so? And like, oh, we got divorced a year ago and then they feel bad. That's taken out of the equation completely. But I think, you know, I think whether when people knew what was going on in my personal life, they kind of had certain expectations for what,

you know, the records were going to be like or what the songs were going to be like. And I wouldn't say that I, you know, I think because I tend to write so much about my immediate surroundings, those things naturally kind of found their way into the records. But I think where I feel I feel now, as far as from a creative perspective, just much less cluttered. And and I think I think, you know, I've always I feel like I've always done my best work when I'm kind of a relatively happy and content person. It allows me to kind of allows my it allows my imagination to kind of wander and and, you know,

write from perspective that maybe I'm not experiencing in the moment, but that have tracers of within my life or the lives of people around me. And it allows me to be more of a fiction writer than an overtly confessional songwriter which is I wouldn't say something that I I you know I would like to think that I've been given that moniker because I'm you know decent fiction writer uh you know not everything I'm writing is I'm not telling you everything about my life all the time but I think that if I think from I think songwriting is one of those very unique mediums and that when people speak in first person and they're singing to you and they're telling you a story that seems very personal, you know, the you know,

as a listener, you would almost feel betrayed if you found out it wasn't true. And that's not really something that happens in any other kind of medium as far as I as far as I know. So, you know, as long as I write in first person, as long as I write about how people relate to each other, how people miss each other, how people kind of, you know, miss each other, they, you know, can't communicate to each other. You know, I mean, these are subjects

I've always been really fascinated with creatively. It's just how people can be physically very close to each other, yet be, you know, kind of living on different planets in their minds or their hearts or whatever. That stuff's always really fascinating to me. So I mean, it's, you know, always been a well of inspiration. And, you know, I don't plan on writing exclusively about that, but that's something that I've

always really enjoyed. So obviously you have, it's a typical job, but it is a job. Music is a job. It's how you pay all the bills that you have. I don't know how many bills you have, but it is a job. Music is a job. It's how you pay all the bills that you have. I don't know how many bills you have, but this is how you pay them. So it is the result of a creative process. I don't know how you structure your weeks or your months when you're not on tour. Maybe when you're coming up with an album.

When you wake up and you're going about your day-to-day, how do you know or how do you determine when you've done enough work and then you can just kind of shut it down and move on with dinner or the rest of your evening? I found that I'm the most productive in the late morning after I've gone for a run and I'm very caffeinated. And I've never been one of those people who burns midnight oil or who, you know,

I'm not, you know, popping out of bed at, you know, 11 p.m. right as I'm going to sleep. Like, oh, I have a song in my head. I have to go record it. I take a fairly workman like kind of approach to where I go to my studio in downtown Seattle and small space. And I go and I just kind of try to get ideas. It starts with a drum loop or a guitar part or something, just kind of try to get something off the ground. And, uh, you know, normally I don't like to work longer than I find it after maybe four, four to five hours, five hours max, you're just hitting a point. I just am hitting a point of diminishing returns and I'm just kind of spinning my wheel. So very rarely will I start something on a Monday and then finish it Monday evening. Usually it's like I start something on a Monday and over the next couple of days, I'm recording it and, you know, I'm trying to finish the lyrics or whatever it might be. So I, I try to just kind of chip away at songwriting and I don't feel it's something that requires

like monastic, you know, focus. Yeah. And my last question maybe is about lineup changes and shifting configurations of bands, because, of course, Death Cab started as a solo project initially, was just you, and throughout the years has undergone various changes. And, of course, your bassist from basically the beginning is still around. Your drummer has been there for 15 years, but you did have a longtime collaborator, Chris Walla, leave the band after the last record and a couple of new members who joined on tour after that and are on this record. So to make a labored baseball comparison again, we always say that baseball is kind of a team sport that's masquerading as an individual sport. a team sport that's masquerading as an individual sport. And, you know, in many cases, you can just kind of transplant someone

from one team to the next, and they'll basically do the same thing they were doing before. And, you know, we talk a lot about the value of chemistry and interpersonal relationships. And with music, with auditioning a new band member or admitting a new band member, I'd have to imagine that that is an enormous part of it,

that some of it might just be, well, we really like his guitar sound. He's just a good guitarist, and if we plug him into our band, he'll be a good guitarist for us, and that's that. But there is kind of a level of interplay and just, I'm going to be spending so much time with these people on tour and in the studio. I have to like being around them preferably. So to what extent do you consider that? How do you kind of project that in some way, you send them to a different team, a different city, and suddenly something clicks with new surroundings or new coaching. Does it work the same way in bands? I think they are not entirely dissimilar in the sense that, you know, I think where we had gotten to when Chris was in the band for all those years is, you know, we had moments of really kind of fluid creative work that sometimes devolved into not so fluid creative work. And we had moments of kind of personal turmoil that didn't, you know, really benefit the records we were making at the time due to just being in a band and being around people for too long. just being in a band and being around people for too long, you know,

it's just kind of, you know, it's just, it can be sometimes those relationships, you know, those relationships were strained and, and, and sometimes it was just, sometimes it was a lot of fun, but sometimes it just wasn't fun at all. And it was very labored. And I think one of the things that we benefited from having Dave and Zach joined the band, you know, they initially joined just to be in a touring band, and over time we realized, I think we should try to make a record with these guys.

We get along so well personally. They're both really creative guys, really brilliant players. We know other things they've worked on. We've heard where they've contributed to other projects they've done. I'll admit I was still a little bit kind of concerned about how it was going to go down until we started working. Because you really never know someone until you're in a studio trying to create something with them. And that's kind of when people's idiosyncrasies, musicians especially, really start to come out. But I think the one thing that we benefited from, one of the many things benefited from having dave and zach in the studio and now in the band is that they were fans of this band before they were in the band but they were certain they've never been sycophantic

you know members of the band they're not like oh we just whatever you're doing ben is amazing and we'll just kind of sit back and do it because oh we just love this band so much it was more you know i don't know i think i think we should choose this song over that song, because as a fan of the band, I would want this song on the record. And this song represents what you get, what I've always liked about what you do. And I think also other people might connect to that as well. And, you know, that was just quite simply a perspective that we just hadn't had for so many years. I think we all realized that was a really unique perspective that we could really harness for the greater good of the album rather than if we had just... I highly doubt,

and this is yet again, one of those, like, if you love, if you like or love the record, great. If you hate the record, sorry. But, you know, one of the things that I think we wouldn't have been able to make this record with our previous configuration, it wouldn't, it wouldn't have sounded the way that it does. The song selection would have been probably very different. Probably the production arrangements would have been very different. And in that sense, I'm just really overjoyed that we were able to kind of have, you know, two people join the band and kind of create a change of scenery for the three of us who've been in the band now for 16 years to kind of see what we're doing through new eyes and hear with new ears and kind of focus in

on what it is about this band that not only we like, but I think a lot of the people who've been fans for a while also connected. Yeah, well, I am one of them. I really like the record. I've been playing a few clips throughout this episode to hopefully entice people to want to hear the whole thing. But I think Summer Years is great. I think When We Drive is great.

I really like Autumn Love, the second single. I think 60 and Punk might be my favorite song on the album the last one and uh gold rush the first single is very very memorable and catchy dangerously so i keep finding it stuck in my head do you know like when you have the first single do you know that you have the first single is it just like oh here's this riff or this chorus this is it i have the the first single now this is the earworm i i think i only really i i think it's been a really long time since i i brought a song to everybody in the band and said like i've got the single guys and that was when i wrote so

me body and i brought this song which is on our album plans that came out in 2005 i i brought it to the band i was like i got I got it, guys. This is it. And I've never been able to be that cocky since. But I think when we started working on Gold Rush specifically, I mean, that song had different lyrics. It was a totally different kind of thing musically. It wasn't that different musically, but it just had different lyrics. And it really had bad lyrics. And it was kind of political in a kind of cheesy way and it was immediately off the off the it was immediately off the block from the minute i finished it but then when rich costy our producer heard the demo he's like what's up with that song because that's the whatever musically is going on in that is really awesome and you

should do something with that so it's really to his credit that we ended up kind of i ended up repurposing some lyrics from a couple other songs and making it into what it became. All right. Well, wherever you are when you are listening to this, there's a pretty good chance that Ben and Death Cab are coming to your city sometime soon. So we will link to their tour schedule. You can go get the album now. And Ben, thank you for today. Thanks for having us. I would like to add that if people are fans of the band and they don't see their city on the list of cities that we have currently announced, we will most likely be coming to your town later. We just don't announce them all at the same time. And yeah, thank you very much for having me.

I really appreciate it. Yeah. And whenever the tour is over many months from now, you can get back to covering the rest of Teenage Fan Club's entire output. I hope that that's your next project. Exactly. Yeah, it might be. Who knows? All right. Thanks, Ben. Good talking to you. All right. That will do it for today. You are still listening to music written by Ben Gibbard. But again, I'd encourage you to go get his new album. Thank you for today, both because it's a good album and because we need Ben to keep supporting us on Patreon. So we want his album to sell well for multiple reasons.

Speaking of which, you can support the podcast on Patreon as well by going to patreon.com slash effectivelywild. The following five listeners have already done so. Joe Steele, Andrew Thurmond, Matt O'Donnell, Evan Haldane, and Mark Rohan. Thanks to all of you. You can also 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. You know, in our last episode, Jeff and I answered a listener email about whether you should use strategy in Little League,

whether you should use sabermetrics and shifting, or whether the kids are too young and are really just there to have fun. Well, there's a post in our Facebook group today by Henry Valls. He says, With regard to the discussion of Little League strategy in episode 1258, I've been coaching and helping out with Little League for ages 6 to 8. Here are some general strategy techniques that we use with our players. Try to face forward.

Generally do not fill your mitt with several pounds of dirt. Plan to go to the bathroom before the game starts. Be aware of your team's allergies. Adequate use of sunscreen. Seriously, please face forward. Show up for your plate appearances with a bat. I can endorse those tactics. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance. Please keep your questions and

comments for me and Jeff coming via email at podcastoffangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. Thanks for listening, and we will be back next time, probably, to take your emails, but you never know. We have to be a bit wild to live up to our name. One way or another, we will talk plays you off. It's a superhero growing bored with no one to save anymore. The curtain falls to applause and the band plays you off, the band plays you off He's a superhero growing bored

With no one to save him from you