Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1264: Schrödinger’s Bunt Attempt

Episode Date: September 1, 2018

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about Matt Chapman‘s misleading error total, Tyler White and “cheap” home runs, Danny Hultzen, Aaron Nola, and the concept of “safe” players, the latest on Shohei Ohtani and Willians Astudillo, Jacob deGrom and the NL MVP race, a conditional trade followup, Magneuris Sierra and the woeful Marlins, Mike Foltynewicz‘s […]

The way you narrow your eyes at me suggests that there's some tension. I don't regret my upper hand, it's stubborn ways. Hand me all of it and don't come down until your chemicals give you permission. That's how it works, that's how it works, but sometimes things don't work at all. Hello, and welcome to episode 1264 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our patrons and supporters. I am Jeff Sullivan, Fangraphs, joined as always by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Hello, Ben, how are you? Oh, I'm tired. It's been a long week.

There is nothing, when we're not recording but when we're about to record, there is nothing that seems to make you more distressed, like deeply distressed than when your dog barks in the background. Normally you are very calm and composed and on top of things, but you just have this, it's almost like a whimper that when the dog barks, you're just like, oh no, oh no, not this, not now. Yeah. It's a combination of feeling bad that I'm ignoring her to do a podcast. And also the knowledge that there will almost certainly be barks on the podcast that I won't be able to edit out, but we'll just have to live with those. And, you know, from her perspective, you were certainly ignoring her less often for podcasts this year relative to last year when I think all you did was podcast. Is that correct?

I guess that's true, though now I'm just ignoring her to work on a book instead. So I don't know from her perspective whether it matters very much. I guess this way you're, maybe for the dog it's worse because you're ignoring her, but also not communicating. You're just quiet in the other room. So yeah, she doesn't understand the difference between my sitting and doing nothing and my sitting and working on a book necessarily. So she probably thinks it's even more infuriating. So this is going to be, I don't know, what's the business word? A loose episode of a podcast. We have no guests lined up.

We have no specific topic. But we're definitely going to talk for about an hour. And the one thing I want to mention to you, I don't know what you might have prepared or ready to banter about. But I'm just going to read you the top of the current leaderboard or anti-leaderboard, I guess, for just errors committed. We don't talk about errors very often. Nope. or anti-leaderboard, I guess, for just errors committed. We don't talk about errors very often.

Nope. But the player and position with the most errors this season, Rafael Devers, I guess I've never really known, 21 errors as a third baseman, Marcus Semien with 19, Jose Peraza with 18, Johan Moncada with 18. Fifth place. Do you have any guesses who's in fifth place errors committed this year? I definitely do not.

Yeah. Matt Chapman. Matt Chapman has committed 16 errors seven fielding nine throwing he committed at least one error against the mariners on thursday met another misplay a few plays after that matt chapman of course being the kevin kiermeier of the infield or the andrelton simmons of a few feet to andrelton simmons's side matt chapman has been an elite defender at third baseman i don't think there's any reason to believe that he's not an elite defensive third baseman but this is one of those good useful indicators that errors fielding percentage not always a good measure of defensive ability because matt chapman is getting to balls and making some throws attempting some throws that many other third baseman wouldn't be

in position to attempt in the first place and chapman happens to have thrown some of those away which is bad but here we are matt chapman error prone extremely good right I'm sure if you looked at chances or opportunities or whatever it's called he would also be very high up there just because he creates his own opportunities to mess up by getting two balls that other guys just wouldn't even attempt to get to so yeah that is why errors can't be misleading yeah so as an example let's go with Devers I guess Devers fielding a percentage of 929 Matt Chapman 961 much better I guess twice is better something along those lines anyway that's what I have to say about Matt Chapman he's still very good and I guess for the sake of the the playoff probabilities Thursday was a pretty

interesting day because the Mariners played the A's. That's a series that could very easily push the Mariners out of the hunt entirely and essentially solidify the American League playoff picture. And the Mariners won by a bunch of runs. So the Mariners have closed the gap a little bit. So the American League playoff position is still a little bit up for grabs.

That's good for the sake of September. And in the National League, the Diamondbacks won a tight game over the Dodgers. So that pushed the Dodgers back to two out of first place. And the Rockies also lost. So the National League list at least continues to be an open question, which is fun. So nothing is ending yet. The pennant races are still very much alive. Obviously, the AL East has decided, AL Central has decided, but we will have a September at least unless the A's win the next three games against the Mariners. division but there is a reason to worry about them or to worry about the dodgers or to worry about any of these seemingly really good teams that are still battling for playoff spots and

that reason is that there's a month left in the season and anything can happen in a month and weird things can happen and subpar teams can beat better teams and when the races are as close as they currently are you don't really need that many weird things to happen for one of the quote-unquote worst teams to beat one of the better teams and there's a decent chance that that will happen somewhere to someone if not to all of these teams that are currently not leading by as much as we expected them to be leading by right yeah the uh the underappreciation of the influence of the randomness over a small amount of time continues to be i guess underappreciated overappreciated i don't

know i got myself turned around here but the fact that the a's are as close to the r the fact that the diamondbacks and rockies are literally right now they're ahead of the dodgers in the national league west i'm not that's not even like manipulating the numbers the dodgers are in third place that is meaningful and so if you are of course if you're the Astros you can comfort yourself by saying well we are the best team in this division you can also comfort yourself by saying we have millions of dollars and we just won the World Series I think that would be a great comfort but yep best team but tricky position it's fortunate for the Astros we might as well get into this now that's fortunate that they won a tight game

against the A's to close out that series push the division gap back to two and a half games and the walk-off winner the Astros hit I wanted to ask your opinion about this Tyler White has been very good when he's played for the Astros we've seen flashes of this before he had a really good major league debut back in 20 whatever year it was he had a bunch of home runs his first week or something and people were like oh it looks like Tyler White is real. And then he sucked and he disappeared and he lost playing time. Yuli Gurriel took over. AJ Reid was a factor in there.

JD Davis also showed up sometimes. But Tyler White now is red hot for the Astros. He's been taking playing time away from Evagadis and Gurriel. A very good player. Looks like he's made some improvements in AAA. But on Wednesday, in an important game between the Astros and the Athletics, it was a 4-4 game, bottom of the ninth, I think it was. Maybe the tenth, but I think it was the ninth.

And Tyler White hit a walk-off home run. Now, Tyler White hit a walk-off home run that was 96 miles per hour off the bat. He also hit it 44 degrees above the horizontal. That's the launch angle. The hit probability of Tyler White's walk-off home run, according to Stackast, was 0%. Or maybe it was 1%. No, it was 0%. I think it was less than 1%.

Yeah, somewhere between those two, probably. We can call it 1% since his hit counts. But at least this year, all the other batted balls that were hit with the same speed and launch angle were fly outs. Tyler White hit his ball into the Crawford boxes. That's how this goes. We saw some of these in the World Series. You see these whenever you watch any Astros game, basically. Somebody will poke a ball.

Now, you and I have talked recently about the fact that mid-inmate park is not actually hitter-friendly. It just allows some hitter-friendly home runs. But I wanted to talk to you. I always, when I think of Ben Lindbergh, I think of New York. You're in New York. It doesn't mean that you care about the Yankees or pay extra attention to them, but you're there. You have proximity at least. How do you

feel about home runs like that? Do you look at it as a matter of luck or do you look at it as, well, that's a home run by the rules and home runs are good. So when somebody pokes a ball out to right field in New York, or you get a Crawford box home run in Houston, what is your instinctual response? And then what is your response? I don't know, an hour later? Well, it depends entirely on your rooting interest. I think if you're an Astros fan, you couldn't care less that all the other balls hit like that were fly outs because you're just happy that you won the game and it's a homer and it counts and they put the Crawford boxes there. And so they decided that that would be a home run and both teams get to play under

the same circumstances and if one team takes advantage then good for them so i think that's how fans feel about it i think there are times when it borders on feeling cheap or as if the outcome was not fully earned or deserved like wasn't, what was the one in the playoffs last year, maybe in the World Series that was just so not home run looking? Was it Correa? Or I forget who hit the one that I'm thinking of, but there was a home run that was just so far from appearing to be a home run off the bat. Maybe it was multiple because again, this was 2017, height of the home run era, height of people wondering about the ball being ungrippable. And there were times there when it felt like this is barely even the baseball I know. And that was not even a hard hit ball. And yet they still got as many runs from it as you get from a really hard hit ball.

So I think it can be cheap at times or it can feel that way. But I don't think it cheapens the victory at all for the people who are invested in the victory. I found an article written at the end of last October by one Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs titled, Which Home Run Was Worse? So we had a Carlos Correa terrible home run and we had a Yasiel Puig differently terrible home run in the same game. I can't load the videos because I think whatever video service was hosting these has failed but we had a carlos correa home run that was hit almost 50 degrees above the horizontal yeah yasiel yeah yasiel puig hit a home run that was like 96 miles per hour off the bat and he was lower something like that puig took an ugly swing it's a reminiscent a little of also that home run that todd frazier hit that looked really ugly last year in the playoffs but then most home runs that Todd Frazier

hits look really ugly he is just kind of has like an ugly looking swing but the way that it's easy to say okay you look at the hit probability the home run probability and you think well these are these are home runs only in these ballparks just like there are balls in in Fenway that are only hits in Fenway in the way because I always like things to make sense and I want things to be as more fair, I just have an inclination toward balance and fairness, I guess, even though it's definitely not true in the world, certainly in 2018, but- Fair and balanced. Effectively, wow.

Yeah. I think we didn't even need a marketing intern. So when I look at it, I think if you you are i forgot he was pitching for the a's against tyler white i think it was jurors familia so you've got familia pitching against tyler white and now in a vacuum familia induced a batted ball that should be a fly out white hit a batted ball that should be a fly out but if i want to help myself sleep at night i could say well familia was pitching knowing full well that the crawford boxes are there and tyler white was swinging knowing full well the crawford boxes were there now i don't know to what extent players

actually change their mindsets or their approaches based on the ballpark environment they're playing in i know sometimes it happens other times other guys say that they change nothing about their game ever regardless of the circumstances those people are stubborn and i think not telling us the truth but when that happened i've seen pitchers pitch differently in fenway they'll change which side of the plate they pitch to more often i'm certain in houston pitchers are trying not to let righties pull the ball that's not what because you know full well what what the danger is you want to keep righties up the middle it's a big part of the ballpark so when you consider that the pitch was thrown knowing that the crawford boxes are there and the swing was attempted

knowing the crawford boxes there then i can allow myself to think well yeah this was a batted ball that would be an out somewhere else but the game wasn't played somewhere else so under these conditions which both teams agreed to or at least didn't protest I guess then that's the batted ball that happened so in Yankee Stadium you know what the risk is and in Houston you know what the risk is as well so when I think about this walk off home run, I think of it less in terms of, I guess the A's were unlucky and the Astros were lucky and more in terms of, well, that's a very Houston way for the game to end. Yeah. And you could even go one level deeper and say that in some of these cases, maybe the hitter who hits one of those balls is only hitting because the team knows that he hits

that type of ball. And so he's a good fit for the park. I don't know whether that's the case for Tyler White specifically, but you hear that about certain hitters in certain parks and doubles guys in Fenway who might be more likely to spray the ball off the monster, that sort of thing. It's a factor at times for teams in developing or recruiting or promoting certain players. So if there is that element of intention to it where you know what a guy's spray chart looks like and you know that maybe the way that his swing is configured, he can take advantage of the layout of the park,

then maybe that makes it more satisfying too. Yeah, I would agree with that. So having now moved on from that until somebody hits one of these home runs in the playoffs and we talk about it again, I would like to read you a headline that I just saw took me by surprise the cubs have promoted danny hulton from their rookie arizona league affiliate the triple a iowa and as i scroll back on the rotoworld page here for danny hulton there is a from march 1st cubs signed danny

hulton to a minor league contract from november. Danny Hilton, shoulder, will sit out the 2017 season. From before that, Mariners re-assigned Danny Hilton and Brad Mills and Mike Baxter to minor league camp. From March 10th, 2016, Mariners manager Scott Service said Thursday that Danny Hilton, shoulder, is going to be down for a while and is currently exploring his options. So I realize whenever we talk about a play like this, not everyone knows who we're referring to. Danny Hultzen was the second overall pick in the 2011 amateur draft. He was taken by the Mariners in that draft. The first pick in that same draft was Garrett Cole.

The guy drafted after Danny Hultzen was Trevor Bauer. Danny Hultzen was the safe one. In fact, this is fun. We might as well read the top 10 picks of this draft. Garrett Cole, Danny Hultz, and Trevor Bauer, Dylan Bundy, Bubba Starling, Anthony Rendon, Archie Bradley, Francisco Lindor, Javier Baez, Corey Spangenberg, and then George Springer

was taken 11th. A lot of major league players in there, many of them good, some of them Corey Spangenberg. So the Mariners drafted Danny Hultz, and he was supposed to be the safe, strike-throwing, close-to-the-majors guy. He was a top-50 prospect a few years in a row. And here are the total innings thrown by Danny Helton in the year 2014.

Zero. 2015. Eight. 2016. Two. 2017. Zero. This year, Danny Helton has made just eight appearances for the Cubs rookie affiliate.

He's thrown 6.2 innings over those innings.'s got 15 strikeouts for whatever that's worth and now he's been promoted to AAA of course the AAA season is just about over but when Danny Hilton signed his minor league contract with the Cubs there was a $600,000 salary in case he made the major league roster and now I wonder is Danny Hilton about to pitch in the major leagues? Because I didn't even have any consideration that he was still a professional baseball player. But for all the heartwarming stories that come out of September roster expansion, which is like the one upside of September roster expansion,

this is going to be an easy one to root for if you set aside the fact that Hultz received like a massive signing bonus as a draft pick. He's not broke, but he's been through an unbelievable amount of garbage as a pitcher as a player for the near decade he's been a professional and this would be a very good story albeit for the mariners maybe a little less of a feel-good story to see him arrive yeah yeah it's a good reminder of how unsafe the safe label is just you hear that about certain guys who get drafted. Oh, he's safe. He's the guy who's definitely going to get to the big leagues and maybe lower ceiling, but high floor. It's just like assume that he's going to be a third starter or something and you want an ace with that pick.

But often he's not a third starter. A third starter is pretty valuable. If you've got a guy who's a third starter for 10 years in the majors or something, that's probably better than the average outcome for a number two pick in the draft, I would think. But Holton hasn't turned out to be that guy. He hasn't been safe at all. And then there are other guys like Aaron Nola, I guess, is a good example of someone who was also labeled safe and kind of high floor, low ceiling. And now he is one of the best pitchers at baseball. So safe could turn out to be dangerous or it could turn out to be even better than safe. No one really knows what ceilings are.

Right. Safety is an illusion just as risk is an illusion. I mean, the fact that Trevor Bauer was taken right after Danny Helton, I don't remember what the conversation was like at the time, but Trevor Bauer, of course, had a really weird-ass warm-up technique at UCLA. He just had all these what were at least then controversial preparatory techniques. I would imagine, in retrospect, the narrative was that Danny Hultz was the safe one and Trevor Bauer was the unsafe pick. Is that true? Do you remember this any better than I do? I don't remember whether Bauer was specifically labeled dangerous or risky in any way, but I would think that in comparison to Hultz and probably, you know, especially because of the training methods that at the time were

unorthodox and disturbing to some teams, I'm sure. Yeah. So let's go with that. And so here we are to this point, Trevor Bauer, according to Baseball Reference, has been worth 14 war in the major leagues. Danny Hultz has been worth no war because he was thrown no pitches. Maybe he's on the verge of it. It would be great if he is on the verge of it there are going to be a lot of players who make appearances in september that they would not have gotten otherwise this this sort of dovetails a little bit with i guess we'll get go into the one of the things i wanted to talk about in this podcast with looming labor strife but you know that's kind of a chewier bigger topic so maybe we can hold that off if there's anything else.

Was there anything that you wanted to banter about? Well, we should just give the obligatory updates on our dearest ones. Shohei Otani is starting on Sunday. We talked about this at some length in our most recent episode, so we don't have to give it the same length now. But it's happening. He is actually starting. at the same length now, but it's happening. He is actually starting. So we're going to see over the next month of the season, I guess, something about whether we can count on him to be a two-way player at least heading into next season and whether he's at all diminished by the elbow problem and

the long layoff or whether he comes back and gives us the same glimpse of fully operational two-way Otani the same way that he did in April. Obviously, I'm hoping for the latter. Yeah. So we will, I don't know. I'm going to be away and off the grid on Sunday, so I'm not going to be able to watch Otani live, which might be for the best. Because this is going to be a very high leverage viewing experience, I think, for anyone who wants the best for Shoya Otani. It's a little uncomfortable to have it back on the mound. It easy to say well the angels are out of it so what are they

what are they really doing we talked about this the other day but he has to pitch sometime and if if he's not going to have surgery if he's going to try to put it off he has to test it sometime so it's always easy to say things in theory and say well we can't wait to see him on the mound but now that he's actually taking the mound again the one downside is he's going to bat less often, but the upside is hopefully he can pull it together, keep it together, allow his elbow to not snap. I don't know what to expect, but I guess we will be talking about this next week,

regardless of what happens. Yep, and then the other update is that Williams asked Dio to hit a home run, which if you were in the Facebook group, anyone who was in the Facebook group when that happened, it was just a solid wall of SDO dinger posts, like thread after thread after thread from people who just immediately went from their screen to the Facebook group to let everyone know at the same time that SDO had hit a home run. And he is also caught a couple times. So hopefully with rosters expanding, his place is safe and we will get to see him more

over the next month. I kind of hope that he crosses off more boxes on the bingo card of positions played this year because he has now played how many positions he has pitched he's played left field he's dh'd he's caught he's played center he's played second and he's played third so he just has to get what right field and and shortstop i think is first missing first base first base that's easy you could put him over there sergio sergio romo can play first base you could definitely put williams estadio over there for an out or two I kind of hope that uh as a semi stunt if nothing else they will have him cross off all those boxes because what else are the twins playing for right now they're probably not going to use him as a as a pinch runner Estadio at this point he's uh he's

got a wrc plus of 101 which is fine uh he has struck out only twice he has a 90 contact rate but the nerve of the damn twins they asked to do had his playing time opened up because bobby wilson was on the disabled list they didn't have another catcher they started with jason castro remember this year and then they had mitch garver behind them then there was bobby wilson and asked to do was in fourth place castro hurt for the year. And then Bobby Wilson got hurt. Opened up an opportunity for Estadio to catch. And what have the Twins done? They made a completely stupid,

pointless, damn trade with the Cubs that traded Bobby Wilson for God knows what reason that the Cubs wanted him, because he's hurt. I guess he's for framing maybe in the playoffs or something. And they got back Chris Jimenez. Chris Jimenez, former twin, healthy twin now likely to catch for no reason now I don't want to assume the worst of the twins but I'm going to

because they traded a hurt catcher for a healthy one who's a veteran he's been around and he knows the team and the coaching staff and the pitchers and whatnot so now Chris Jimenez is going to eat into the catching innings probably of Williams Astadio and it's not like there's a whole lot of opportunity for Astadio to play often at other positions. So I just don't know what the motivation was here. Let him catch. What is the actual harm? I know that he looks funny. I know that his physique is not one that you want to stare at in the mirror.

If you are a Major League Baseball player or someone who remembers what Major League Baseball players look like, maybe you're Paul Molitor and you remember being fit. You still are fit. If you looked in the mirror and you saw Williams-Estadio's body staring back at you, you'd be like,

I probably shouldn't have this as a career. But if you look past that, well, I guess we don't need to explain the whole background. He's worth it. Play him. Play him at least every other day. Let him catch.

Don't let Chris Jimenez catch because who cares what's the point sorry chris jimenez yeah williams estudio is a pretty good receiver too from all indications multiple minor league levels major league level in his tiny tiny sample so far he is fine at catching i don't know if he's great at everything else it seems like he's been fine with blocking and throwing. Like, he doesn't look like a catcher or a player, period. I mean, he might look workload as a catcher starting in the majors. I don't know. That would be the concern, but he could certainly catch sporadically, be a backup. I don't see what the problem with that is. Anyway, I confused my Rays relievers who have played corner infield positions. It was Sergio Romo played third base. Jose Alvarado played first base. My apologies to Kevin Cash. I will mention

one last thing about Asadio. When he was called up and I wrote an article about him, I noted that Steamer, the projection system, projected him for the lowest three true outcomes percentage of any major leaguer. And the projection was that he would strike out, walk, or hit a home run in 12.5% of his plate appearances. Thus far, only 27 plate appearances, but he is at 11.1% three true outcomes. That is two strikeouts, one homer, and zero walks. So he is basically doing exactly what the stats said he would do. Out of everyone who's batted 20 times, a very small amount, Astadio has baseball's 10th best contact rate. Although if you think that that's meaningful, I will point out that for some reason, the highest contact rate in baseball belongs to Tyler Chatwood. So not a good stat, but that's a stat anyway. I just told you what it is, so therefore

it's done. We can also move on. There's one more thing, a favorite of ours, at least a statistical favorite of ours that we were recently reminded of on Twitter. Jacob deGrom watch. Jacob deGrom, for the baseball reference, 8.2 war, 8 wins. His pitching war is 7.9, but his total war, I think, because he's hit a little bit for a pitcher,

his total war is 8.2, and he has eight wins. If you go to fan graphs, he is at, I believe, 7.4 wins above replacement, and he still is sitting on that record of eight and eight. So not only is that a fun thing for us to watch, see if Jacob deGrom does finish with more actual war than wins, just for anyone who uh who hasn't kept up the most recent example of Jacob deGrom getting royally screwed is that in a game against the Cubs on August 28th deGrom won eight innings allowed one run 10 strikeouts and the Mets

lost in two to one start before that he won six innings allowed one earned run 10 strikeouts Mets lost three to one so deGrom kind of ruined things there. He won three games in a row, which is annoying for this perspective. But the Mets are 11-16 in Jacob DeGrom's start. So I wanted to ask you now, I don't know what I expected because I haven't paid that much attention. It's kind of silly to talk about awards races now anyway because there's still more baseball to play, so who cares?

But in the American League, you know, there's going to be some kind of like Betts-Ramirez-Trout argument, and I don't know who's going to win that one. That's for other people to decide. Not me. I'm not a voter there. But in the National League, if you go by Fangraphs War, the top four Fangraphs War players in the National League are pitchers. It's Jacob deGrom, then Max Scherzer, then Patrick Corbin, then Aaron Nola. And then they are followed by Matt Carpenter,

Lorenzo Cain, Paul Goldschmidt, Freddie Freeman, Nolan Arenado, Javi Baez, and Christian Jelic. All very good players. But Jacob deGrom has a very large lead. He has a lead of almost a full win, according to Fangraphs. I think it's similar on Baseball Reference. I haven't checked.

But ordinarily, we would use this as some sort of like pro de graham mvp argument in the national league but given not only that the mets are bad but that they haven't even won his starts is de graham going to get any support all for the mvp because almost every single thing is working against him yeah mean, there is some bias against pitchers for the MVP award anyway, and I don't necessarily disagree with that. I know that they're eligible for the award, and so technically they should be just as capable of winning it as anyone else. But it just feels like they have their own award that hitters can't win that basically goes to the most

valuable pitcher. And so why give them both? That's kind of how it feels to a lot of voters. And I understand that. In fact, I might just make it two separate things, a position player award and a pitcher award if I were the sports czar, as my boss Bill Simmons says at times. But I think that probably he won't win both because of the pitcher thing and because he plays for the Mets and there's the bias against non-playoff team players. And then there's also the win-loss record. I don't know if that actually matters anymore. winning awards are better paradoxically as his record gets worse like if his record if he ends up with a 500 record or even a sub 500 record does that just highlight the absurdity of win-loss record just because we all know how good he's been and so it just becomes a talking point and also it draws attention to the fact that it's not his fault because obviously he's been good and the Mets just haven't given him any run support. And the more unimpressive his win-loss record is, the more obvious that is to everyone, I think. Whereas if he were like, you know, 12-8 or something, maybe you would have people out there saying, well, he didn't pitch to the score or he didn't hold the lead or whatever it is. As it is, it's like he never has a lead to hold. So I think that might benefit him, if anything, but I'm sure that the

combination of the other factors will probably keep him from winning. Yeah, I haven't bothered to look up the precedent, but I was curious, just looking at all-time qualified pitchers, if you search for, I don't know't know this year if you look for an era that's under two and a half under less than or equal to two and a half now jacob de grom has an era of 1.68 that's extremely good it's league leading yeah he has a 500 record the next worst winning percentage for anyone with an era under two and a half is 6676-7. That's Trevor Bauer, who is 12-6. Of course, look, ERA, win-loss records, we're better than this. But how far back do you want to go?

1950? That feels like it's a good time to round off. So let's just look for the worst ever winning percentages by qualified pitchers with an ERA less than or equal to two and a half. Now, I don't know what I was expecting here. Sammy Stewart? Have you ever heard the name Sammy Stewart before? I don't think so. Well, I'll tell you what he did for the 1981 Baltimore Orioles.

He was a qualified pitcher. He had an ERA of 2.32, and he had a win-loss record of 4-8. He was apparently a reliever, but he was qualified, so that's a winning percentage of 333. Joe McGrain in 1988 had a league-leading ERA of 2.18 he went five and nine the st louis cardinals stew miller in 1958 league leading era of 2.47 win loss record of six and nine so this has happened ish before but i don't know whenever you have an era that starts with one that's jacob degrom that really stands out yeah it's a it's a very appealing year right just looks so much better than the area

that starts with a two and uh yeah he's uh he's getting in the shorts yeah one other very quick follow-up that a couple listeners have notified us about including kazuto yamazaki we talked about the concept of contingent trades a trade at the deadline that where the return would be contingent on what happens to the team that trades for the player. Like if they make the playoffs, then the team that traded the player would get an extra player back. And as we subsequently discussed, the 2008 CeCe Sabathia trade fit this description. And the player to be named later, the Indians got to choose which player it would be because the Brewers made the playoffs. And there was another trade just like this.

Actually, the very next year, it turns out, 2009, the Rangers reacquired Ivan Rodriguez from the Astros. And that worked that way too. So the Astros will receive, it was reported at the time, a third player in the deal if the Rangers make the playoffs. And that's kind of the same sort of structure. I guess it was whether or not they would get the player, not picking the player they wanted, but same idea. And I guess this was just the heyday of the contingent trade, 2008 to 2009. I don't know if it's happened since but i haven't heard of any other examples anyway did the 2009 rangers make the playoffs no they did not so the astros did not get that third player thank you chrisito that's very helpful yeah it's uh i wish that there was some way to look up

contingent trades conditional trades but i guess there have not been nearly enough of them to require having a database so just something to keep an eye on so hopefully maybe hopefully we'll see more of them also a quick point to throw one i had pointed out on so john gant he's a pitcher for the cardinals he hit uh his second home run of the season on thursday miles michaels also hit two home runs some other cardinals pitcher has also hit a home the cardinals pitchers have five home runs marlin's third baseman combined have three i pointed that out because that's i think that's kind of funny. But another thing I'll also point out,

I would imagine that most of you have not paid attention to the Marlins, but I was looking at the fan graphs leaderboard of combined war, pitchers and position players, like combined war. You usually look at the top. It's also fun to flip it to the bottom. And the worst player in baseball, unsurprisingly, has been Chris Davis. He has a war of negative 2.4. A lot things going on for chris davis and that's interesting it's also interesting that the second worst player has been victor martinez the third worst player has

been trace thompson which is weird because he hasn't played very much but then i noticed magnera sierra have you thought at all about magnera sierra this season no not really since pre-season when we were trying to figure out if the Marlins had any outfielders left and who would be their outfielders, but since then, not really. Oh yeah, did one of us take Rafael Ortega in that minor league free agent draft? I think somebody did, right? Sam did. Yeah, Sam did, I think. Sam took him? Well, good for Sam because Ortega's batted 80 a few times's yeah 280 anyway Magni or Sierra was one of the prospects the Marlins got from from the Cardinals in the Marcello Zunit trade I believe and Sierra

did not have super promising statistics even before he's an athlete throws hard he's fast whatever Magni or Sierra I'm gonna so Chris Davis has a war of negative 2.4 that's bad and he's batted 462 times magnera sierra has a war of negative 1.3 and he's batted 91 times that's like a fifth of the plate appearances and more than half the negative war magnera sierra he's been playing because lewis brinson has been hurt and also because as discussed the marlins have no outfielders. Magny or Sierra is batted 91 times. He's batting 170. He has an on-base percentage of 170. He's slugging 193.

He has a WRC plus of negative 7, and he has yet to draw a walk. He has no walks. He's got 26 strikeouts, no home runs, no triples. He's been caught sealing as often as he's stolen. Again, negative 7 W wrc plus and even in triple a it was only 62 magner sierra is terrible he's a terrible young baseball player and like if you're the marlins or a marlins fan you think well lewis brinson has not worked out so we he's heard well he's in the minors let's at least let lewis brinson get some time to i don't know regain some confidence or whatnot he's maybe the center fielder of the future but while he's gone. Well, he's in the minors. Let's at least let Louis Brinson get some time to, I don't know, regain some confidence or whatnot.

He's maybe the center fielder of the future. But while he's gone, let's get a glimpse of some other outfielder of the future. Negative seven, WRC+. This is worse than early Cole Calhoun, and it doesn't have a post-early Cole Calhoun resurgence. So if you were the Marlins, what, I guess this is a whole other podcast, but it's hard to tell what you're celebrating this year. Brian Anderson has been good. That's great. But the outfielders have been bad. JT Real Muto has been really good, but they're just going to trade him probably when he doesn't agree to get a contract

extension. The best pitcher on the team arguably also threw at Ronald Acuna for no reason. And Caleb Smith, who looked like the most interesting pitcher on the team, is injured now for the season. So even though the Marlins don't have the worst record in baseball, it really feels like this season has been a disaster for them. Yeah, I don't really know what's going on in the Marlins minor league system. I don't know if there's much better news down there on the lower levels or something, but at the major league level, yeah, there's not really a whole lot to be heartened about. So, I mean, not that we expected any better, really, but at least they're not the Royals or the Orioles, I guess. We kind of thought they would be the Royals or the Orioles of the season, and it turned out that they've been better than that.

So, small victories. Yeah, and very small victories. And so I only, on my list, there are only three things left to talk about. Do you have anything else? On my list, there are only three things left to talk about. Do you have anything else? Well, maybe some of these are on your list, but there have been two somewhat silly and or controversial calls in the past couple days. One of them we don't need to talk about at length, but I'll just mention that in the continued annals of what in the world is a balk and why are balks called and why can't we all just agree on what a balk is? Mike Foltenevich of the Braves was called for a balk for spitting. He just spit.

He said, I just basically hocked a loogie. That was it. I think that's basically all he did. And he got called for a balk for spitting. He was not pleased about this. And balks are silly. And and some of them there's a reason for some box to be there and some box i think are clearly identifiable and then others just really bear no relation to other activities that are also classified as box and they are not attempts to deceive anyone whether intentional or unintentional. There's no deception going on

here. And it's just one of the 13 types of box in the rulebook that you have to call if you see one, except that they're called inconsistently. I don't even necessarily know where hawking a loogie fits into the classifications of box, but that happened. I don't know that there's uh any controversy about that because it's just dumb and i think everyone agrees that it's dumb but there is some disagreement about what happened to michael lorenzen which you wrote a post about so i will let you summarize it so michael lorenzen on i forgot what day it was i guess it would have been Wednesday. I should, yeah, look up my post. So Michael Lorenzen came up in a game, an incredible game between the Brewers and the Reds.

A sentence not often said, but the Brewers wound up winning this game in extra innings, so it all works out. So the conversation here is academic. But Michael Lorenzen came up when the Reds were ahead 7-6, and when Michael Lorenzen was no longer at the plate, the Reds were ahead 10-6, because Michael Lorenzen has as many at the plate the Reds were ahead 10-6 because Michael

Lorenzen has as many home runs this year as Jay Bruce he has four he has hit three again of them against the Brewers but Lorenzen went up to the plate with two on trying to bunt his first bunt went foul he failed his second bunt went foul it failed he also had some pitches in there he had a pitch where he showed bunt and then turned away, got out of the way of an inside pitch, and he was balled. But in a one-and-two count, Michael Lorenzen showed bunt, and then a pitch ran up and in on him. It seemed like he tried to turn away, and the ball hit his bat and went foul, and the announcers said, well, Michael Lorenzen has struck out.

The Rear's announcers said he struck out. The Red's announcers assumed he struck out. The umpires assumed it's a foul ball. Michael Lorenzen had his hands on the bat as if he was bunting. He had the posture as if he was bunting, but the pitch came up and in. The ball hit his bat, and the umpires decided that he had fouled the ball off because it turns out the definition of a bunt is that the bunt is attempted intentionally. That's not the exact definition. The definition in the rulebook is a bunt is a batt bunt is attempted intentionally. That's not the exact definition. The definition in

the rule book is a bunt is a batted ball not swung at, but intentionally met with a bat and tapped slowly within the infield. It was determined by the umpires and the crew chief that there was no intent on Lorenzen's part to actually bunt. Therefore, it was treated the same as one of those pitches that comes way up and in and accidentally clips the bat, and that's called a foul ball. This was some controversy. Craig Council came out to protest. The Brewers, I think, still believe that it was a foul bunt, not a foul accidental contact swing or whatever you want to call it. I passed this along.

I checked in with Dale Scott, as I will do with all forthcoming umpire controversies because I have no alternative to it and Dale Scott agreed with the way that the the crew chief ruled in this case but he also said it is a matter of interpretation and had they seen it the other way this is this is a judgment call and it could have gone the other way but he agreed with their opinion that Lorenzen was not intending to bunt and therefore he shouldn't be penalized with a strikeout now what i found is a about two months ago brewers pitcher chase anderson in a two strike count was also trying to bunt and there was a pitch that came up and in he fouled it off he had he was in bunt formation i guess you could say but it looked like he was pulled back a little bit but the ball

hit his bat bounced foul and chase anderson struck out he walked back to the dugout there was no protest so maybe that was fresh in craig cancel in the brewer's mind i don't know the first comment on this fangraphs post however this is what i think sam said convinced him i think it is a convincing argument first comment this is convenient from a dirtbag love reading usernames on the podcast quote i don't see what's so complicated here he was obviously pulling his bat back not trying to bunt at it if the ball had missed his bat would anyone suggest that it should be called a strike because he was quote trying to bunt and i think that's pretty convincing if the ball hadn't hit lorenzen's bat then the pitch

presumably would have been called a ball and l Lorenzen would not have strike out trying to swing. But based on the results of the poll, I polled everyone. What do you see? Foul ball or foul bunt? Foul ball is winning, but it's only winning 60% to 40%. There is a large bunt community here, including, but not limited to, the TV broadcasters who watch this happen live. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Some of the commenters on that post have such certainty about this play,

like more certainty about this controversial play than I have about anything in life. I think they're more certain that this is an easy decision. And I don't think it's an easy decision. I have kind of gone back and forth on it. I don't know whether Dirtbag's comment convinces me. It's probably true that whether the ball hit the bat would determine the call, but it's not clear that it should determine the call, right? Because you can attempt a bunt intentionally and miss it. And watching this play, to me, I mean, obviously he has intent to bunt intentionally and miss it. And watching this play, to me, I mean, obviously he has intent to bunt when the pitch comes in, and he looks like he has an intent to bunt when the pitch is halfway to the plate or farther. And so at some point, I guess he switches from intent to bunt

to self-defense and, oh my gosh, I got to get out of the way because this ball is going to hit me in the face. And that was probably the overriding intent at the time that the ball made contact with the bat. But like, I don't know that there was even time for there to be a conscious decision. It didn't look to me like he pulled the bat back so much as he was just trying to get out of the way.

And I guess if he's trying to get out of the way and i guess if he's trying to get out of the way that means he's not intending to bunt but it's not like you can really see the moment when he pulls the bunt back the way that you often can when there's no self-defense involved right so now there's there's an interesting thing that's specific to bunts as opposed to swings when when you have like a check swing the rule even though there's there is no check swing rule because the baseball rule book is broken the way that it's usually interpreted is like breaking the wrists or what a lot of people will look at is whether the bat crosses the plane the front plane of of the plate and then if that happens then the umpires will usually

determine it was a swing when you look at screenshots of lorenzen as the ball is about to hit his bat the bat is clearly not parallel with the front plane of the plate, but a bunt doesn't have to be because you can try to bunt up the first baseline if you wanted to. And Lorenzen's bat is oriented at that moment such that he could have bunted the ball fair toward first base. Now, regardless of whether that's what he was trying to do, it's probably not what he was trying to do. That's not how most sacrifice bunts go.

But in any case, Lorenzen could have bunted conceivably he could have bunted the ball fair from about that orientation so i can i look at this with probably a little more certainty than well it sounds like i look at this with more certainty than you do i think that the right call was made i think this is a foul ball i think that lorenzen did not intend to bunt and i think that the right call was made. I think this is a foul ball. I think that Lorenzen did not intend to bunt. And I think that he moved late because when you're bunting, you can't give up on it early, especially with two strikes. You have to stay in there and the pitch gets on you pretty quick. So I do not think that the intent was there. So I agree with the interpretation of the rule, but I am interested that you go back and forth. What is it that makes you believe most strongly that this could have been a foul bunt? Well, I mean, if all that matters is what was foremost in his mind at the moment

when the bat made contact with the ball, then I guess it becomes clear because at that very moment, I think he was more worried about getting out of the way than he was getting the bunt down. So I think he had probably abandoned the attempt to bunt. Now, he didn't decide that he didn't want to bunt. He just decided, I might die if I try to bunt, so I'm going to stop trying to bunt. And I suppose that is enough for there not to be any attempt there. So maybe I have convinced myself i mean what confuses me is just that this is a split second and there isn't even really time for a conscious thought process and so he was fully intending to bunt he was squared around he was committed to bunting and then he

just kind of tried to get out of the way while still kind of being in a position to bunt, even inadvertently. So the whole thing is, I think there's a little bit of gray area there. But if all that matters is what his intent was at the last instant, then I think it was, oh, God, oh, God, get out of here. More so than I'll just lay down this pretty sacrifice bunt. So maybe that's all that I have to think about. I think if I were going to change my mind and say that this should have been a foul bunt, I would look in particular at the second pitch of the at-bat. And this is undercovered as this controversy goes because Lorenzen showed bunt and twisted

away from a very similar inside pitch thrown by, what is it, Taylor Williams? It's Taylor Williams, I believe. So in that case, if you look at the screenshot, when the ball is almost at the play, then the bat is still kind of out there. But Lorenzen twists away completely. Like he does a whole 180 away from the pitch. And then here it's just a half turn. Yeah, right. It's a half turn. And he basically falls down more than he spins out of the way. So the fact that Lorenzen already showed us what it looks like when he gives up on the bunt makes it a little more ambiguous what he was doing with two strikes. Maybe that's because it was a two-strike situation.

Maybe it's because the pitch was a little higher. But that is an interesting counterargument. Yeah, it's like his will was to bunt, and he was forced to retreat against his will more so than he made an active decision not to bunt so i don't know we're we're trying to parse what was going on in michael renson's mind in a few milliseconds here and uh no one can know the nature of michael renson's thought process at that moment so it's an umpire's judgment call which is always kind of unsatisfying when it happens but it has to happen at times. And I don't think it's egregious. And obviously no one would care at all if Mike Lorenzen hadn't

hit a home run on the next pitch. That was a very meaningful home run. So that's why we're talking about this. Yeah. And I am actually quite glad that the Brewers still won that game. Not because I care about the Brewers that much more than the Reds but just because if I mean the Brewers are right there in the race they're trying to win the wild card maybe even the division and had the Brewers lost in large part because of that home run then I think that that's something that we wouldn't have heard the end of for for quite a while from the massive Brewers audience that we have so we've got 10 minutes before your chat starts should we just quickly reaction to the Andrew McCutcheon trade? Maybe that's a famous player on a famous team.

Seems like something we should talk about for two minutes. So most of the reaction to this trade, I think, has been about Aaron Judge more so than Andrew McCutcheon. It's, oh, the Yankees trade for Andrew McCutcheon. I guess that means Aaron Judge isn't doing so well. I think the most recent thing Judge said was that his wrist pain was like a four compared to a five the previous week, which is not very encouraging. about his condition and so the Yankees go out and get Andrew McCutcheon which just a few years ago you would not have just gone out and gotten Andrew McCutcheon as a last minute waiver deadline fill-in for an injured player but that's where we are with Andrew McCutcheon who is still a pretty good hitter if you park adjust for AT&T he's's been an above average bat, but doesn't really bring the value in other areas that he did as a younger player. He's still a wonderful person and a great guy to have around seemingly and a very marketable and fan friendly player.

And I wish him nothing but success, but just purely on the field. He is not the impact player he once was. And what this makes me think is like how quickly your perception of a player can change i mean there was a point what just two years ago or something where we all kind of wrote him off completely and thought maybe he was just totally done and i guess he bounced back subsequently to some extent just not to where he was at his peak but mccutchen's one of those players who you kind of thought, well, he's always been a Pirate.

He signed an extension with the Pirates. He might just be one of those guys who is with the same team his whole career. I know that's always a little less likely when it's the Pirates you're talking about, but he's just so beloved and he meant so much to that fan base and he seemed to like it there. And you just kind of think of him as a pirate. He's the face of the franchise. And then after a decade or so of that,

he then goes to two teams in the span of one year, less than one year. And it's like, yeah, Andrew McCutcheon, he's just a journeyman now. He just moves around. It's like the first trade breaks the seal. And then after that, he's just like any other player. Yeah, and now he's going to be a player yeah and now he's going to be a free agent but he's going to be a 32 year old free agent coming off a league average season and i have no idea what the andrew mccushion market is going to look like there is it regarding the change of

perception it's funny if you go to mlb.com the leading headline is quote yanks add another mvp in kutch now that's true andrew McCutcheon has won the MVP. He won the MVP in 2013. So I don't know how much we're supposed to care about that. The MVP in the American League that year famously was Miguel Cabrera over Mike Trout. Now, granted, as far as 2013 awards voting was concerned, Max Scherzer and Clayton Kershaw were the Cy Youngs. So that still looks pretty good. Jose Fernandez, Will Myers are the rookies of the year,

but nevertheless, I was thinking the same thing as you, that to have McCutcheon now play for two teams in one season, already having gone to a new one after the Pirates, it just feels like it just, I don't know, this month has the great potential

to be a forgotten month of Andrew McCutcheon's career, depending on how things go. A little bit like Ken Griffey Jr. in the White Sox, just no one ever thinks of that chapter of his career now. Given that it's New York, that could be a little different. It also depends what McCutcheon does and what the Yankees do from this point forward. But it does feel like we have this bias in favor of players who play for as few teams as possible. None of us want to restrict player rights, but we also like to see players stick around and just have some sort of mutual relationship between teams.

So it looks worse to have a player play for more teams, you know, in the way that I guess we all hate Octavio Dottel or something. I don't know, Edwin Jackson. Well, I think once it gets to that point, then everyone likes it and we root for them to add to their total because they were never associated with one team in that way right it's just it makes it feel so much more distant even though time-wise andrew mccutchen the pirate is still only last season he's now played for two teams shortly going to be a third team that he's played for since the pirates and

it just makes the pirates chapter feel so much further away which is not actually true but in terms of i guess the displacement of his career is true but as as much as most people looked at this from the yankees perspective and uh i i can't help but look at this from the giants perspective there's nothing surprising i guess about where the giants are this was sort of a last gasp kind of season maybe next year was going to be included as well but giants of course got mccutcheon they got evan longoria over the offseason they are are 67-68. They are now without Buster Posey for the rest of the season. They are without Johnny Cueto, Tommy John surgery.

I don't even know what's going on with Jeff Samarza. He's out. Andrew McCutcheon now, of course, has been traded. Even Mack Williamson, who looked so enticing for the first month, he seems to be out because of a recurrence of concussion symptoms. And you look at this Giants team, we knew I think we all knew they were approaching some kind of horrible cliff and uh it just looks like now they are even closer than we thought it's unclear Buster Poser he's having major surgery on his hip so I don't know what is left for for his career moving

forward he only hit five home runs this season, I believe. Brandon Belt is perfectly fine. He's never really broken out, but he's a first baseman, but maybe Buster Posey is going to have to be the first baseman too. Johnny Cueto is out for all of next season. The Giants' farm system is not that good. I mean, they've given, I don't know, 25 starts or something this season to Derek freaking Holland.

I don't know what the Giants are going to do. And I know that Derek Rodriguez, for example, has been kind of an interesting find out of the farm system. But this feels like a team whose collapse is just on the verge of happening. And it feels like it's going to be a long time before they reemerge. Yeah. Derek Holland has been good, by the way, which is kind of in that Edwin Jackson, Clay Buchholz class of what the heck. But yeah, you started one of your sentences there with, you look at the Giants, and I find that in my case, that is not often true. I just don't. So yeah, there's not a whole lot of reason to look at the Giants these days, and

it's probably going to get worse before it gets better. So even just looking, I haven't taken an earnest look at Madison Bumgarner in a while, but even he is on what is basically a career low for strikeout rate and a career high for walk rate. So this year, for the first time, Madison Bumgarner looks like he's arguably been a below average pitcher. Now I know he has a really low ERA, but even madison bumgarner doesn't look right so there's just so i don't want to talk about the giants anymore you said we have three minutes left now it's more like two minutes left but what do we got yeah i don't know do we have something else did you have a labor strife issue that you want to yeah well one minute i guess we're not going to do that. So we both,

let's close quickly here. We talked to Kyle Freeland earlier this week and we have both now written about Kyle Freeland. Relatedly, it's not a coincidence that that happened.

We've had our articles published on the same day about Kyle Freeland. He is an interesting pitcher in that his peripherals do not match up to his ERA, but he seems to have really interesting

repertoire and command and explanations for how he's a soft contact pitcher. In conclusion, now that you have investigated Kyle Freeland, you've written about him, you've looked at him on the back end, done all the analysis, to what extent do you believe in Kyle Freeland as a quality starting pitcher? I believe in him pretty strongly as a quality starting pitcher. I don't know if I believe in him as what he's been this season

exactly, but I think it's always dangerous because you can convince yourself we have so much data at our disposal now and we have the soft contact and we have all of his pitch locations. And as you highlighted, he just hasn't thrown pitches in the middle of the plate and he seems to be intelligent about the way he's going about things and doing things that would induce soft contact in theory. So it all seems to make sense. But I wonder, because if we didn't have any of that data, if we didn't have the exit velocities, if we didn't have the pitch locations,

we would probably just kind of be looking at his FIP and saying, well, he has a much higher FIP than he has an ERA, or pick your favorite advanced stat. And we would say, well, in most cases, guys with a higher X than ERA, they tend to have a higher ERA after that. And that is usually the case. So we're kind of convincing ourselves that he is the exception. And I am somewhat convinced that he is sort of the exception,

but maybe just digging into what he's doing as deeply as we have, we have convinced ourselves too much that he is actually this good. Right. I strongly agree with that in that when you have so much data points that confirm or help support why a guy is an exception, even though in almost every case guys aren't the exception because exceptions by definition are exceptional it's easy if you sort if you sort pitchers this year by era kyle freeland looks like one of the best pitchers baseball but so does mike fires and i don't think anyone believes mike fires is amazing he has gotten some soft contact but

that doesn't mean he's a soft contact pitcher now for kyle freeland what i what i do believe i i think if i remember the numbers off the top of my head, I think he has an ERA minus of 62 and an XFIT minus of like 103 or something. And I think he has a FIT minus of like 87. I believe more in the FIT minus. I believe Kyle Freeland, as he's pitching, does get weaker contact than average. I believe that he can avoid for example home run trouble a little better than the average pitcher i do not believe that he's like a sub three era pitcher in

colorado long term that's just asking too much as long as the strikeouts aren't there but i know when we were d chatting earlier this week i mentioned we were going over a freeland articles and i mentioned i was going to compare him to tom glavin and tom glavin is in the hall of fame one of the best pitches of all time it's kind of reach, but I am struck by the way that they distribute their pitches and the fact that Tom Glavin never really had great peripherals himself, but he was always a good pitcher. And I don't think Kyle Freeland is Tom Glavin yet. He's not a Hall of Fame pitcher, but the way he's been successful is reminiscent of Tom Glavin. And so if you can do it for two years, it will be interesting to see if you can do it for a third and a 15th and a 20th.

Yeah. By the way, for anyone wondering, we don't normally coordinate our writing topics and schedules in that way. Usually no collusion in our writing schedules. This week there was collusion because we both talked to Kyle Freeland at the same time and then also figured we should write about Kyle Freeland and didn't want to upstage each other with our own Kyle Freeland posts that probably no one is reading, even if you combine the traffic figures for both of them. So we colluded, but that's okay. We don't even know whether that kind of collusion is a crime. Well, collusion is never a crime. I think it is funny because it's easy to say, okay, the national media underrates Kyle Freeland. But you know what? We tried. We put it out there. I can tell you after I

At least I don't have access to your traffic But at least after the Fangraphs Freeland article was out Nobody cares it's your fault It's not ours Yeah come on Rockies fans local market Complain about the national writers and then you don't support The national writers when they come to your aid Let's go get some clicks on these things

Please thank you Alright you have a chat to get to Let's do right. So we will table the labor strife topic until after Labor Day. I wanted to mention our guest on the previous episode, Michael Mountain. We talked to him about his 30 ballpark road trip. He tweeted some stats after that interview, some things that I was interested in that some of you may have been wondering during that interview. So I will fill you in. Home teams during his trip went 17 and 13, so that's a pretty normal home field advantage. The stat I was most interested in asking was how many players he actually saw in games, and he figured that out.

He saw 574 different players during his trip around the majors, which is just over 75% of the total Major League roster size of 750. So he saw something like three quarters of the players in about a month. That's pretty cool. He saw four different starters make two starts each. He saw one position player pitch. Two teams used an opener. He saw four MLB debuts, one first Major League hit, three first Major League homers.

And since his trip spanned the trade deadline he saw seven players play for multiple teams during that trip so thanks for doing all that tabulation michael and thanks also to effectively wild listener and podcast impresario jesse thorn who drew my attention to a quote on friday on our last episode jeff and i were trying to forecast which major leaguer would be the last player to be older than we are. And we both settled on Yuzmero Petit. We were kind of kidding. Not entirely.

But as Jesse points out in an article at The Athletic on Friday by Shana Rubin, Petit has this quote, Time passes, but my time doesn't pass. Which is a fantastic line and makes me feel like Jeff and I definitely picked the right player. The Yuzmero abides. You can support Effectively Wild. Make sure the podcast's time doesn't pass by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild, signing up, and

pledging some small monthly amount. You have lots of time to do that over a leisurely Labor Day weekend, and the following five listeners have already done it. Zachary Gima, Mark Haber, Sean Hooper, Shane Allen, and Casey Shankland. Thanks to all of you. You can also join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash Effectively Wild. And you can rate

and review and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes or your podcast platform of choice. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance. And please keep your questions and comments coming for me and Jeff via email at podcast at fangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. Our schedule will probably be a bit irregular next week because of the long weekend and because Jeff is traveling, but we will get our episodes in one way or another, so you'll hear us when you hear us. Until then, enjoy the long weekend, and we'll talk to you next week. We looked like giants In the back of my grey subcompact Fumbling to make contact

As the others slept inside And together there In a shroud of frost The mountain air began to pass From every pane of weather glass And I held you closer Bye.