Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1275: Collapses and Surges

Episode Date: September 27, 2018

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about Willians Astudillo, Chris Davis and Khris Davis, the end of a Clayton Kershaw streak, Jacob deGrom, the ever-changing NL playoff race, the rapid spread of the opener, Joe Maddon’s comments about Addison Russell, and the worst team collapses of 2018, then answer listener emails about the Cubs’ offense […]

All the hurt you thought was gone has now returned And everything she's laughing at is all you've learned And you let go, let go, let go Cause you know you're Getting tired And you'll feel it Getting down To the wild Hello and welcome

To episode 1275 Of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast From Fangraphs, presented by Our Patreon supporters I am Bellman Byrd of The Ringer, joined by Jeff Sullivan of FangGraphs. Hello. William Zastadio was photographed holding a...

How many episodes have started with those words? With that exact intonation. It's going to be a pattern. It's already a pattern. It's like Groundhog Day. You mentioned a couple weeks ago that there was a picture that was absent any sort of context of William Zastadio holding a bow and arrow in what seemed to be a bullpen. So I was made aware of this first by an article by Dan Hayes at The Athletic that just went into the Estadio story at some length. But there was a tweet, I guess I missed it, from September 13th by one at Ben underscore Martin 13.

Has a picture of Williams Estadio holding the bow being looked at by a man who looks i don't know impressed or threatened i'm not gonna convey his body language but the text of the tweet is for those just becoming aware of williams estadio's majesty after seeing him run the bases last night here he is shooting a bow and arrow in the bullpen a few hours before bp a few weeks ago it was his first time it was a bullseye it's's pretty impressive. He is good at everything. And I also read that Dan Hayes story at The Athletic, and it had some interesting tidbits in there. It had Paul Molitor not ruling out the idea, seemingly, of having Astadio play every position

in one game, which is something that a couple players have done in the past, but he seems particularly equipped to do that. Molitor said I'm surprised you guys haven't tried to start the playing all nine position thing for him maybe use him as the opener and then go from there that would be fun and the other interesting thing I thought in there was that Astadio evidently showed Molitor highlights of himself playing other positions in order to convince Molitor that he could play those positions. So the story says about Molitor, he has seen video evidence, which is one reason the legend has had room to be cultivated. Back in spring training, Molitor used Estadillo behind

the plate and at first base and third base, but the ever confident Estadillo also made Molitor aware he could play in the outfield if that was necessary. Quote from Molitor, he showed me video of him playing outfield, including robbing a homer. I love that. Just outstanding. And maybe there's enough coverage now. It's always hard to know these things because teams make decisions for their own objective reasons.

But it feels like this is no longer just Estadio was up for a few weeks and he made a little bit of noise and internet nerds freaked out. Like there's a lot of attention on Williams Estadio. He can't be ignored at this point anymore. If I don't know what it's going to take for him to not have a major league job next season, he is pretty clearly deserving. Just the fact that he struck out less than 3% of the time on its own is absurd. And confirmed within that article, the twins based on their own internal analysis have deduced that Williams Estadio is a quality pitch pitch framer which they have seen in the minors they've seen in the majors they've been using him as a catcher so also in there in the article based on the twins internal analysis they have

confirmed that they consider williams has to do to be a positive pitch framer as a catcher he's been good in the minors i think baseball prospect has already suggested this but twins have even better data and they think that he's been good in the majors as well in a small amount of time uh based on like look he is a at the same time a very good athlete and not close to a premier athlete among his major league peers but i mean just he's the fact that he can catch and hit alone is enough to make him a viable semi-regular player. And then I don't know what it is. Like, could you take any catcher? Could you take Yosemite Grandal and just put him in left field?

And would he be as good as William Zestadillo? Like, the fact that he's open to playing at the positions, I don't know if that means he's actually good at them. I genuinely don't know. But I guess just his willingness to do anything. It's more fun than even like Matt Davidson thinking about becoming a hitter and a pitcher. Yeah. And I will also note that Baseball Perspectives has Asadio as a slightly above average framer in his brief time behind the plate this season. He's been worth half a run from framing.

half a run from framing and that matches his totals from previous seasons in the minors which we had noted earlier this year when we were sort of frustrated that he wasn't getting to catch this does seem to be a skill that he possesses and according to that story is working on and if he can do that and play catcher regularly and also be a decent hitter that is a big leaguer and regardless of how many positions he can play so i'm glad that he is now a folk hero but i think even better than that he's just a genuinely serviceable player at the very least so that's nice how do you feel about some you you are you are very into music now i don't know if you're like hipster into music but obviously there's the sensation of knowing something when it's unknown and then knowing something after it gets big and we like you were among the earliest

adopters on the internet of williams estadio fanhood i came later to the game i think you and sam were among the very the very first and how does it feel now that everyone is enjoying the williams estadios like he's he's selling out arenas at this point. You're not just seeing him in somebody's basement. Yeah, I was talking to Michael Babin about this recently, and there were people who were into Estadio before I was, so I can't claim to be the discoverer of Estadio either. I just think that I'm happy that everyone has found out about him.

I mean, I got my article in about him early on, and I staked my claim, and we talked about him. I mean, I got my article in about him early on and I staked my claim and we talked about him on the podcast and now everyone gets to enjoy him. And that's great because it was one thing when he was a cult figure and he was only in the minors and we were all amazed by his strikeout and walk rates. And that was nice, but I wouldn't want to go back to that because that was before he made the big leagues and before we knew that he ever would make the big leagues. And even I didn't know just how lovable and watchable he would be, even aside from being a total outlier in so many ways. So he has surpassed my expectations, and I think he has brought joy to baseball fans collectively.

And I think that is more than worth giving up the the hipster cred of knowing about him before most people did one of the problems what are the critiques of being sort of a numbers first kind of writer or analyst is that you you might write about players before you actually know that much about who they are what where they've been what their experience is like how they are as as people and it can you know like if you go you go back 10, 15 years, I don't know, find people writing good things about Bobby Jenks or something. And then it's like, oh, he's actually kind of an asshole. But you get, it's just amazing that we've all gotten so lucky that Astadio, it's not

even that he's not like a bad dude. We would be happy if he was just like a regular blends into the background kind of rookie. That wouldn't matter as long as he's not, you know, committing felonies or something on the side or just like getting regular blends into the background kind of rookie, that wouldn't matter as long as he's not, you know, committing felonies or something on the side or just like getting into arguments. But the fact that he is just so lovable and has like developed this instant connection with all of his teammates.

Yeah, this is in so many ways, Williams' acidity was just like three standard deviations above the mean. Yeah, I talked to Michael on the Ring Room LB show this week about our favorite stories of the season or what we thought were the most notable stories of the season. And obviously I got my Asadio mention in there, even though that's not a universal sentiment probably, but it's getting there. And I'm sure that at the end of the playoffs, maybe we can talk about that too and talk about what stands out about 2018 for us. But there are other stories in baseball right now, some of them

pretty big and some of them pretty exciting. And it's tough to podcast about baseball right now because things are changing so dramatically every day that the last time we talked, it have tightened considerably to the point that people are talking about plausible four-way ties and five-way ties. And by the time people hear this episode, some of those scenarios will maybe be more plausible or others will be a lot less plausible. So things are changing very much by the day here. But we are really going down to the wire in the NL West and the NL Central. These are exciting races, and we are going to have meaningful baseball in the last weekend of the season. Look, you can talk about the pennant races and the playoffs all you want. The Baltimore Orioles' Chris Davis, over his last 10 games, has gone 1 for 37 with 20 strikeouts. Chris Davis, I thought there was a little point in the middle of the year where he was sort of coming out of it a little like he wasn't uh he wasn't good I think that's the word good he has his his his

highest WRC plus in a month this year is 88 which is bad but I thought at least in July and August he was he could be like the sort of the Pujols kind of player right where you know he's a problem but he's not just like so out and out dreadful that, like, you're the Orioles. You can just kind of look past it. In September, his WRC plus is negative 13. Chris Davis, as a seasoned WRC plus of 45, as a first baseman, he has a fangraphs war of negative 3.2,

which ties him for the fifth worst of all time, with 1985 George Wright, who had a WRC plus of 28 and as I believe we've discussed before at least according to fan graphs the worst single season war of all time for position players 1933 Jim Levy of the Browns at negative four Chris Davis probably can't get there in a week but given what he's done for the last 10 games maybe he actually could yeah there's so much at stake in this last week for stories that we have followed all season long. The other Chris Davis, right? His run at a

fourth consecutive season of batting exactly 247. That is also coming down to the wire. He is batting 249 as we speak, going into Wednesday's action. So that is still very much in play, that he could extend that already unprecedented streak. And of course, as we speak, Jacob deGrom is going on right now. He is pitching against the Braves, and this will decide whether he ends the season with a higher war or a higher old-school wins total. So we're about to get some resolution there, it seems like.

Is this it? Is this his last start? I think it probably will be, right? I guess he could get into another game, but I don't know if he'd have another regularly scheduled start after this. I think this might be it. And along those same lines, the Clayton Kershaw streak that we have discussed, that I've written about,

that one, unfortunately, it looks like has been snapped. Clayton Kershaw's streak of lowering his career ERA with each successive season in the majors. He has remarkably managed to do that year after year, every year in his career up to this point, even though in his rookie year, he had a 4.26 ERA, which was not bad to begin with. And then he was just amazing for year after year after year, but still managed to do it. This year he is not going to do it. He theoretically had a chance to do it even heading into his most recent start, but he entered this season with a 2.36 career ERA and right now has a 2.53 for the season, which has raised his career ERA to 2.38. Although I will

salute him for making it that close because I did not think it would end up that close given how he was pitching at the start of the season. Yeah. So I guess we need new streaks. Chris Davis' streak is interesting, but the likelihood is that that one's going to end. But just the fact that he's so close, I don't know. What a weird thing to become interested in i know it is very strange we talked about that a little before i guess some time ago just talking about how and why it's happened but i mean a 247 batting average and that's just that's interesting it yeah the we had that conversation a week or two ago about how like the new age numbers are just like ruining baseball fandom but there are so many more things you have the opportunity to care about that are stupid but it doesn't matter yeah well that's not a new age one but well no that is uh

but we still care about the old ones in some ways i mean we care about jacob de grom's wins total in relation to his war which is just a new way to look at it. I guess we would care about it anyway, just because he is such a strong Cy Young contender and might win that award with the fewest wins ever. But yeah, we care about these things, even though we no longer look at them as the best ways to evaluate players. They could still be fun trivia and curiosities, at least. Yep.

I have nothing further to add, although I think that today's stat blast, when we get to it, will also involve the happy Chris Davis. Okay, good. All right. So we're going to do emails, and I'll start with some pennant race-related emails as a way to continue talking about timely topics. So this is a question from David, Patreon supporter. He says, I found myself in an internet argument. I should always avoid them. And the person he was arguing

with claimed that the Cubs offensive woes this season and decline in home runs can be blamed on Chili Davis's philosophy of contact and opposite field hits. Chili Davis, of course, in his first year as the Cubs hitting coach, he pointed to Boston's offensive resurgence this season as them removing Chili from the equation. Davis used to be their hitting coach. He cited Wilson Contreras, Ian Happ, Albert Almora, and Addison Russell, all of whom increased their ground ball percentage and opposite field hits as evidence of their regression. On the other hand, I found that Kyle Schwarber, Chris Bryant, and Anthony Rizzo

didn't seem to change substantially. I also stated that a single-season sample is dubious at best, and especially since home runs as a whole are down significantly this season compared to last season. I guess my question is the following. Did the Cubs' offense change significantly from last season to this season? Could the offensive change be attributable to more contact, more ground balls, and more opposite-field hits as opposed to hitting dingers? And so I entered this earlier via email and I sent some stats over to David. My take on this, if you look at the overall offensive numbers of the Cubs non-pitchers this year compared to their non-pitchers last year, last year they had a 108 weighted runs created plus. This year, 107.

Their ground ball rate has gone from 44.7% to 45.3%. That's a change of point six percentage points their strikeout rate is down from 21.1 percent to 20.8 percent so that's a decline of 0.3 percentage points and their rate of opposite field hits is up less than two percentage points the homers are down somewhat dramatically it's true and maybe there are other small changes you could identify there, but it doesn't seem to me that there is that much difference in the team's offensive production here. Yeah, I don't really see much of anything. I went straight to the same thing that you did, which was non-pitcher WRC+. That is not a surprise because we share a brain in many respects. You can

identify, I think there are two players. Wilson Contreras' offense has dropped off for reasons I haven't examined. But for example, last year he slugged 499. This year he's slugging 389. That's not good. But he's been a ground ball hitter. He's actually very slightly less of a ground ball hitter this year than he was last year. His pull rate is the same. It's just that his power has evaporated, which is weird.

With Chris Bryant, at least, his power has also dropped off. His select percentage has lost something like 80 points, which is also not good. Last year, he hit 29 home runs. This year, he's hit 12. But to my knowledge, he's been battling a shoulder problem for what seems like quite some time. He didn't really look like himself early on, hasn't recovered completely. So Chris Bryant, I think you can blame some sort of shoulder problem. And Wilson Contreras, you can blame something else.

But outside of that, the team's offense has been fine and it seems like the real trouble here is that the Cubs pitching staff has underachieved and the Brewers have been better and so it just applies more pressure on the Cubs than they faced last season yeah although I will say in September the Cubs haven't hit at all I mean that's been a big part of their drop off very recently they've just been total kind of power outage I think they have something like a 75 WRC plus this month or something in that range. I mean, it's bleak, it's bad, and that's part of it. But I don't think you can blame that on a hitting coach

because then you'd be arguing that they showed no ill effects from the hitting coach for the first five months of the season and then suddenly abandoned everything and went astray in the last month of the season. I don't know that the timeline really makes sense there. And I think as they have cratered in this month, I think they've struck out more. So it's not as if they're just going all contact and that's hurting them. So it doesn't really fit the narrative to me, but it's true that the Cubs have not hit at all recently, which also means that up until this month, they were hitting

better than they had last year. So that was not their problem for most of the season. And the pitching staff has improved as the season has gone on, right? There was a Fangraphs post about that not long ago, I i believe so there's been some improvement there and some downturn in the offense and it's led to this point where the brewers and the cubs are almost neck and neck as we speak yeah i will say so last year the cubs ranked sixth in the majors in runs scored and this year they uh they rank 11th which is worse so you know there's been a little bit of worse uh worse timing run scoring overall is down a little bit just because the home runs haven't been flying quite

the same as they did last year and what is uh what's interesting is via fangraph's version of clutch that win expectancy metric that we like to play around with this year by offensive clutch the cubs are sixth worst in baseball which is not very good however last year the cubs are sixth worst in baseball, which is not very good. However, last year, the Cubs were sixth worst in baseball by the same metric. So nothing has changed there. You could say, if anything, why are the Cubs so unclutched at the plate? I wouldn't worry about that too much, but at least that is something that has not changed. They have remained just as not timely, in large part because of Kyle Schorber, who I wrote about today at Van Grus.

He has been very not good, as I've mentioned on this podcast before. Addison Russell and his ex-wife and the allegations. And he said essentially that he hadn't read them and he wasn't going to read them until MLB came to a conclusion. And more than that, he said, quote, anybody can write anything they want these days with social media, blogging, etc., which is technically true, of course, but it kind of goes out of its way to cast doubt on what Addison Russell's ex-wife wrote. And really, I mean, I don't expect Joe Madden, you know, he has an obligation to the team and what he thinks makes the team better. And I don't expect him to come out and condemn Addison Russell before this investigation reaches its conclusion, which it sounds like it is proceeding and that Addison Russell's ex-wife has been participating and that her claims have been substantiated to some degree. But to basically cast doubt on that without ever having read it, I mean, there's just no need to do that.

Just say, I'm waiting to see what the committee decides or, you know, something wishy-washy if you want. You don't have to come out and say suspend him and it's horrible, but just don't say something that really makes light of the allegations. I understand if you were someone like Matt and it was a history of coming to his players' defense, even when those players are very clearly in the wrong. I understand the inclination. I also understand that Joe Maddon knows Addison Russell better than he knows Addison Russell's ex-wife. I understand there's a protectiveness and there's a pre-existing bond, but the opposite of making a statement in favor, the opposite of siding with Addison Russell's ex-wife here is, I guess, what Madden did, but what he could have done very, very easily. It takes no effort at all to

issue a statement that's just like, I'll wait for the details to play out. Of course, you always have to be sensitive and listen to these accusations. This is a very serious matter, etc. Just, you know, like the blanket statement that you can just offer that everybody has offered since the dawn of time, for the most part, when these things come up and that way if you're joe madden and if you're like really uncomfortable taking a side in public you can just do that but he clearly wasn't uncomfortable in taking a side and what his statement reveals is that he was just coming at this only really considering addison russell's perspective on it there's very little consideration given to the alleged victim in these incidents.

So I can understand maybe how Joe Maddon feels in his brain in the parts that you don't normally verbalize. Because maybe he really does like Addison Russell. And maybe it's really difficult for him to imagine. I don't know. I don't know what's going on in Joe Maddon's brain. But there are things. When you are the manager of a team, you are essentially the team's spokesperson, and the Cubs might consider hiring a spokesperson because their current spokesperson is not doing a very effective job. Right. All right. And David also asked a second question, which would be

more surprising to the two of you, considering how we felt at the start of the season, the Dodgers possibly losing to the Rockies in the NL West or the Cubs possibly losing to the Brewers in the NL Central? Oh, Dodgers. Yeah, definitely the Dodgers. Yeah, by far the Dodgers. I mean, I don't know, in one sense, like the Rockies made the playoffs last year and the Brewers did not. So in that sense, it's not that surprising that they would be the one. But I think we just thought so highly of the Dodgers and thought lowly of the 2018 Rockies compared to the 2018 Brewers that that would definitely shock me much more. I will say, so looking at the fan graphs, preseason odds, the Cubs were given an 81% chance to win the division and the Brewers were at 2.5%. Whereas in the National League West, the Dodgers were at 85% and the Rockies were at 4%.

Now, based on that, you could say it's actually at least as surprising that the Brewers could overtake the Cubs. However, I would say that from the beginning, I had a pretty strong feeling. I think many of us had a pretty strong feeling that the projections were just down on the Brewers. I think maybe we weren't waiting the bullpen properly, but I don't know. These things are always easy to say in retrospect, but the fact that the Brewers acted so strongly to get, but at least there is a mathematical reason to say that both are equally surprising. I don't buy it, but I will accept it, I guess. Yeah. I mean, I am surprised that the Brewers didn't fade more than they did because it looked like they were there for a while after the deadline when they didn't get any pitching. And then suddenly their bullpen kind of tanked for a month and was bad, and then got really good again. Bullpen performance fluctuates pretty dramatically.

But it looked like they had made a mistake by getting Moustakis and Scope and not going for a starter, because their rotation is really not a strength. And you look at the guys that they have pieced together this staff with and it's almost like oakland where you look and you think what trevor cahill and brett anderson and all these guys who you know edwin jackson these are the guys that they're getting to the playoffs with and it's largely on the back of a really effective bullpen and that is true in the brewers case too i mean they are getting great innings out of Jaleesh Chassin and, you know, like Wade Miley has been great. And I don't know, they're kind of the same sort of model of like that guy. And yet here they are and they seem to be getting stronger with time. Yeah, I was curious. Before the trade deadlines are looking up through the end of July, the Brewers ranked fifth in baseball and ERA, which they would presumably use to say, look, we don't actually

need that much pitching. But since the deadline, they ranked 16th in ERA, which is considerably worse. But, you know, there's the concern that having that weird infield alignment would just kind of mess with them. And actually, their infield defense against Grant Balls has been okay, even after adding Moustakis and Scope and moving Travis Shaw around. So the Brewers have been interesting, and they also go into the— if they make the playoffs, I should say.

It's not a lock yet, but if they do make it to the playoffs, they're going to have the advantage of having like the only i think good reliable bullpen in the national league certainly they'll have the best bullpen of a playoff team in the national league and their shortcoming is not hard to find they have to get the ball to the bullpen but outside of that i know like braves fans have voiced discomfort with the bullpen that they have cubs fans have voiced discomfort with the bullpen they have certainly now that they're down pedro stroop and bernardorrow. And Cardinals fans can't say anything good about their bullpen, et cetera. It goes on and on and on. And I think that the fans

of those teams who are concerned about the bullpen might not really realize that most of the National League has an unreliable bullpen, and only the Brewers have a really good one. And even that one was bad in August, so who even knows? John Hader gave up two home runs the other day. What are we doing here? Yeah, I know. And it bears mentioning again, I think, even though we have talked about it in the past and I wrote about it last year, but the Brewers are really just the model franchise in terms of going from bad to good again because they never got truly terrible in between. And it's really impressive how they've done that. They've just picked up a lot of great depth pieces and players who were not expected to be as good as they have.

And they've pieced together this team that never got into the abyss the way that the Astros and the Cubs did. And granted, they're not a super team. They haven't come out the other side quite as well equipped as those two teams did, at least not yet. But they've managed to be very much in contention and among the best teams in baseball without ever bottoming out. And they went and got Kane and they went and got Jelic. And those guys have been great and they spent and, you know, they could have chosen the route that other teams have chosen, and they didn't. And it's worked out really well. So what did you think? So one thing the Brewers did recently that was interesting, and it happened, I think it was, what, Monday night when the Brewers used a one-out opener? And that happened after we recorded, so we didn't get a chance to talk about it much. But it's not that different in that it was just an opener, which we've already seen.

But the Brewers used lefty Dan Jennings to only face Matt Carpenter. Matt Carpenter was at the top of the Cardinals lineup, and then they handed the ball to Freddy Peralta, who took it for a while from there. So what did you think? If you had any thoughts? I don't know if you had any thoughts. I didn't. I know that Craig Edwards wrote about this for FedGraphs, and I assume gave it a lot of thought, which I have not, this for fad graphs and i assume gave it a lot of thought which i have not uh but i i don't know i mean is this exactly the same sort of thing that we've been seeing all year with other teams or is it different i mean it's different to use a situational guy there's been a match-up element to other uses of the opener and even the first use of the opener when sergio Romo was lined up with the Angels and their very right-handed lineup, that was partly because of situational considerations. But this is, I guess,

the first time that we've seen it used in exactly this way. Yeah. I mean, there's nothing, I guess, groundbreaking about it once you accept that the opener is already here. But I guess to me it was more about well they brought in their their bulk guy so to speak but not to start a a clean fresh inning like freddie pralta didn't come in to just start the second he came in to take over in the bottom of the first when there was already one out now it would have been different i guess had matt carpenter reached base against dad jennings which he did not carpenter being a lefty and jennings being a lefty but anyway it was uh it was fun it's, I guess, to see teams exploring and experimenting with this at this point of the season, especially teams in the hunt,

like Oakland has been starting Liam Hendricks for an inning, and the Brewers now have opened with Dan Jennings. And you wonder, you wonder, the playoffs start next week. Are we going to see the opener in the playoffs, or are we going to see it in the wildcard game? And that I don't know, but we clearly can't rule it out now and i don't even know i i get i'm conflicted over how interesting the opener is you know because realistically it doesn't change that much about how the game is played except it changes the entire concept of a starting pitcher, which is complicated. Also, it screws up our splits.

Like it's really disappointing and frustrating to try to deal with in the leaderboards. Yeah. I mean, if the Brewers could face the Cardinals in the wildcard game, that's possible. Then maybe they could do that again or against the Rockies with Charlie Blackman or, you know, if there are other guys you could do exactly that with. Or I wonder how much of this is, I mean, in the past we've talked about, well, why do teams even announce their starters? Why don't you do the maneuver where you announce one starter and you bring them out there for an inning or a batter, and then you have a starter of a different handedness come in and suddenly the lineup is constructed to take advantage of the first starter, and now it's another guy, and you have the platoon advantage with more of the lineup,

which is something that we don't talk about that much with the opener because no one really thinks of the opener that way. Like you set your lineup to face the bulk guy or the guy who comes in after the opener. So you get that situational advantage, but you don't get like forcing the other manager to turn around his lineup to face someone else. And then you bring out this surprise guy. But that's something that we could see also. Yeah, I agree. And I guess moving on from there, I would just point out that while we record in this live, Jacob deGrom has so far thrown three scoreless innings. The game is also scoreless.

team a collapse this season and I don't know that we haven't seen like a really historic terrible collapse unless we see one in the next few days which is still possible but I guess if you consider say the Mariners a collapse and that they looked like a likely playoff team at one point and are not going to be you could consider the Phillies a collapse I suppose in that they were extremely competitive all season long and now you look at the standings and it looks like they weren't I think they have a losing record now and then you get the Diamondbacks I guess would be the other team that fits into that category because I saw a stat somewhere and I forget I think it was maybe John Wiseman who tweeted this that the Diamondbacks were in first place in the NL West on April 1st May 1st June, June 1st, July 1st, August 1st, and September 1st, I think.

That was the stat, and they are not going to be in the playoffs. So of those, and if there are any others I forgot, which do you think is the, I don't know, most notable surprise absence from the playoffs, or the one that makes you the most concerned about the future? Well, if we're going to talk about that, was like the mariners chance right this was the year to make the playoffs because it's not getting better it's not getting i know you're out there people who work for the mariners jump ship you have no choice anyway so if you it depends i guess on how you want to look at if you look at the just like the raw probabilities the mariners had the highest chance of making the playoffs between them the diamondbacks and the phillies i don't think there were any other real collapses there were teams that didn't match up to our expectations at all

like the nationals i guess they have had a bit of a collapse and you know the dodgers could still miss the playoffs that would be dreadful yeah but yeah anyway just between the mariners phillies and diamondbacks mariners had the highest odds, but on the other hand, they reached their peak in like June or early July and their collapse is in part their fault, but also Oakland just kind of stopped losing ever. So that's something that kind of got in the way. So while the Mariners look bad on a graph, I don't choose to, I don't think that they've had the worst collapse if we're going to use that word so then it's it's between the phillies and the diamondbacks whose collapses were were more or less simultaneous they both just fell apart around like the the middle of

of august and i guess between them gosh how am i supposed to pick like yeah phillies have been really bad but the diamondbacks have been really bad. They have. They've also had a bunch of one-run games go against them. But, you know, they're eight games back now as we speak. So it's been a pretty swift descent. I think that with the Mariners, we all have the sense that things are getting worse after this.

With the Phillies, we all have the sense that things are getting better after this. With the Diamondbacks, I don't know. Neither is all that clear. It doesn't seem like, oh, this is definitely the end, but it also seems like maybe it's getting toward the end with this group of players. So they're kind of in the middle there. I don't know. Do you think the Diamondbacks go into next season? I mean, who knows what happens between now and then.

next season i mean who knows what happens between now and then but based on what we know now are they uh playoff favorite next spring or are they just kind of in the conversation so to speak no i think they're going to lose a fair amount of talent aj pollock for example patrick corbin is a free agent i don't know what they're going to keep but i think that the diamondbacks are in i don't even know if they're in a necessarily better situation than the Mariners because the Mariners might have a worse team, but they have more cost control of it, more club control of it. So I think the Diamondbacks go into next year. They still have Paul Goldschmidt another year. They still have Zach Greinke under contract and et cetera.

They're not devoid of talent, but I think they're going to go in and realistically have to look at it like we're going to hopefully be a wildcard team because they're not going to compete with the big boys in free agency, I can't imagine. And so it's going to be rough. And now while I've been talking, I've been trying to figure out which collapses has been worse. The Phillies has been going on longer, I guess. So here are some numbers. Since August 8th, I guess, since August 8th the phillies have gone 14 and 30 which

is bad they've had a winning percentage of 318 and a pythagorean winning percentage of 344 so they have they were in first place when this all began very barely the braves have gone 28 and 19 cents and so the phillies have been left in the dust now switching to the diamondbacks since august 22nd they have gone 9 and 22 that is a 290 winner percentage that's the worst in the national league that's also tied for the worst in baseball hey tied with the orioles so the diamondbacks have dropped out not in 22 they have been outscored by 41 runs and over that stretch the dodgers have gone 21 and 9 best in the national league and the iraqis have gone 18 and 13 so we have on the one hand the diamondbacks have been the worst team in the nl for 31 games but the phillies have been the worst

in the nl for 44 games so i guess the philly or the diamondbacks happened faster then? Yeah, that's true. Does that make it worse? Right. And I think also they had the higher expectations coming into the year, which I know that Phillies fans got invested in the Phillies winning this year once it looked like they might. But still, I think you have to have some perspective about where they are

in their competitive cycle and where we thought they would be. And so in that sense, yeah, I'm going to go with Diamondbacks. Yeah, great. All right. StatBlast? StatBlast. They'll take a data set sorted by something like ERA- or OBS+. And then they'll tease out some interesting tidbit, discuss it at length,

and analyze it for us in amazing ways. Here's to daystep last. So, as I have mentioned on this podcast briefly before, and as I put up less briefly on fan graphs on Wednesday, Kyle Schwarber has been awful, awful, awful in high leverage situations. He has batted 56 times. These are his most important plate appearances. 56 times, seven times he's been intentionally walked, which they basically get thrown out. Intentional walks are base runners.

That's good. But opponents only issue intentional walks when there's not too much of a cost. You know how these things work. Six of those seven intentional walks have been with a runner on second and no one on first base so anyway 49 more plate appearances non-intentional walks for kyle schwarber in high leverage situations three walks two hits both singles that's it wrc plus of negative 62 that is the not only easily the worst this season it is the the worst since 2002, which is as far back as the Fangraph splits go. That's bad enough.

And in low and medium leverage situations, Kyle Schorber's had a WRC plus of 137, which is quite good. That's 37% better than average by definition. It's 199 points, which is the biggest on record, the record being 16 years, the biggest difference by 59 points over Jim Tomei in 2008. So that's already fun, but this isn't just about Kyle Schwarber. I didn't want to repurpose an article I wrote just for the stat blast. There is also, with any leaderboard, there is the other side of it, is there not? So this season, while Kyle Schwarber has had a wrc plus of negative 62 in high leverage situations negative 62 the next worst negative three and by the way chris davis the orioles

chris davis is at nine third worst but the other other chris davis the a's version leads baseball in high leverage situations he's got a WRC plus of 227. And in second place, his teammate, Jed Lowry, 212. That's good for the A's. Chris Davis of the A's has a difference of plus 103 points of WRC plus between high leverage situations and all other situations. Jed Lowry has a difference of 99 points. That puts Lowry in second, tied with Robinson Chirinos. Now, as long as we're going to do this, going all the way back to 2002,

the best high leverage season on record for a hitter belongs to 2009 Ryan Howard, whose high leverage WRC Plus was 303. whose high leverage WRC Plus was 303. And the biggest difference on record between high leverage and all other situations also belongs to 2009 Ryan Howard with a difference of 180 points. Kind of sadly, but as long as we're remembering things, 2014 Orioles Chris Davis is in second place. He had a very incredibly good high leverage season in 2014. So Chris Davis can always reflect back on his positive memories. They are mostly distant at this point,

but I guess he does have at least one hit in his last 10 games. Anyway, Oakland's Chris Davis, very good. And 2009, Ryan Howard, exceptionally good. Was that the Ryan Howard MVP season? It was not. No, that was his third place MVP finish season, Ryan Howard in 2009. However, if I can just read a few numbers from fan graphs, because that's what the stat blast is. So I mentioned a WRS plus of 303 in high leverage situations. So just so you know what that means, Ryan Howard in 2009 in high leverage situations. So just so you know what that means,

Ryan Howard in 2009 in high leverage situations batted 66 times. He had 12 home runs. He batted 404. He had an on-base percentage of 470, and he slugged 1.140. So Ryan Howard, unbelievably good in 2009. Pretty clutch player back then in retrospect.

But, you know, all things pass and then reputations go awry. All right. Continuing with emails, Joe says, Rice Harper has hovered between negative 0.9 and plus 1.5 defensive war. As defined by Baseball Reference throughout his career, this year he is at negative 3.2 defensive war, as defined by baseball reference throughout his career. This year, he is at negative 3.2 defensive war. He's also at a negative 26 runs of fielding, that is, defensive runs saved. This seems very low, like really low, to look at some other outfielders' historically

poor seasons. And then he has a list here. We've got 1993 Kirby Puckett at negative 3.1 defensive war. We've got 2010 Matt Kemp at negative 3.5 defensive war. We've got 99 Dante Bichette at negative 3.9 defensive war. And then the champion 2009 Adam Dunn at negative 5.2 defensive war. negative 5.2 defensive war and joe says is this a historically poor season that we are seeing on defense for mr soon to be super rich guy probably bryce harper yes i i guessed by virtue of the fact that he is that high or that low on the leaderboard it is and you know i've looked at mlb's stat cast metric which i trust a little more for range, at least in small samples. And Bryce Harper right now ranks 80th of 84 outfielders according to MLB's stat cast metric.

And he is at negative 12 on that leaderboard. That is out above average. So whatever metric you look at, he has been a bad outfielder this year. And that certainly seems like something that could have an impact on his free agency. Yeah, what's weird, also, if you look at StatCast, Harper hasn't really slowed down. He's still been an above-average runner. But according to StatCast now, this is just outs above average. This ignores arm, and this also accepts all the flaws that outs above average might have in 2016 harper was four outs below average in 2017 he was five outs below average and this year he is 12 outs below average that's a pretty significant drop off and

and as well if you look at the arm numbers based on not just defensive run save but also uzr his arm for some reason and i haven't investigated this and i don't know if you have has really dropped off his historically according to defensive run saved prior to this season his arm was plus 17 runs this season he's at negative six and according to ultimate zone rating over his career prior to this season his arm was plus 17 runs and this year he is at negative five so i don't know what has actually happened with bryce harper's arm but that is a another contributor here because it's not just a matter of his range it's that his his arm has just not been as much of a as much of a weapon and it's

yeah i can tell you he only has one assist for whatever that's worth last year he had eight he stopped out at 13 and in 2013 so i don't know know if maybe there's something wrong with Bryce Harper's arm. Could be noise, I guess. But it's definitely a concern as evaluators consider whether they would rather have Manny Machado. Yeah. Unfortunately, we can't look up arm strength, right, without DMing Mike Petriello and asking him to send it to us. But I would guess that that probably says the same sort of thing. So that's a concern.

Obviously, his bat is the big draw, and that is what teams will be bidding on. But we know that they consider the player holistically. And so if Bryce Harper is a bad outfielder now, that is something that teams will take into account. Still going to get a lot of money. We can try to—so at at baseball reference they have some additional numbers here so let's just see if these pass muster so okay we know that bryce harper's assists are down now there are direct assists and then there are secondary assists secondary assists are

those are the less delightful assists nobody cares about a secondary assist that's like you throw the ball to a cutoff guy and then he throws somebody out. Nobody cares. So in 2016, when Bryce Harper had the opportunity to hold a base runner based on a batted ball, he held the base runner 58% of the time. The league average is, I don't know, lower than that. Last year, he held the base runner 51% of the time and this year, 44% of the time. So there's some evidence that runners are also taking more chances against Bryce Harper. So yeah, there's something here to investigate. And some number of front office, I don't know if they're going to be interns or just analyst people, but as teams go into free agency, every team who's interested in the Bryce Harper market is probably going to have at least one person whose project is to investigate Bryce

Harper's arm. And then at the end of the day, the owner is just going to give him $400 million regardless, and it's not going to matter. So have fun with your winter research projects, analyst people. It's not going to matter, but at least we're curious right now as we talk about this on the air. Yeah. All right. Cody sends a linked video, and this is a video from a Brewers game where as he says mike mustakis gets in the way of a pickoff throw and the resulting carom allows eric thames to score from home and cody says my hypothetical is this what if a player intentionally dove at pickoff throws with the intention of headbutting the ball out of play. Would this be the same as the pitcher throwing the ball directly out of play and allowing all runners to advance?

How many times could a player do this before pitchers stop trying to pick him off? Do you think anyone could successfully headbutt the ball out of play without taking one to the face? I can link to this video for anyone who wants to see it. It's just Moustakas diving back into first and the throw is wide. So it hits him instead of getting to the glove. It's certainly not intentional, but it does make you think, what if you tried to get in front of pickoff throws

instead of just trying to get back to the bag? I don't have... So having put my head in the way of at least one fast-moving baseball before in my life, I'm not enthralled by the prospect of doing it more. However, I am enthralled by the prospect of finding tiny little advantages that you can do during the middle of a game. And, I mean, they make helmets pretty good these days. So I wonder if you could see what could really make a difference. I don't know if it's a matter of deflecting the ball in play, but if you could just dive. And if you could, like, what are the rules on the exterior of helmets and i'll tell you where

i'm going with this because right now helmets are smooth and they're round so the ball already would bounce somewhat unpredictably but what if you could add like texture you know like little like nooks and crannies and grooves and yeah not necessarily spikes but yeah just like a like a like a beaded pattern maybe just like little granulations yeah yeah exactly so then then it's like the ball is basically bouncing like it would be a football and no one has any idea where it's it's going to go now maybe that actually wouldn't do much of anything because if the ball hits the player's helmet they already don't know where the ball is going to go so this could all be much ado about nothing but i am coming i hmm which player in baseball do you think would be most likely to actually do this on purpose williams

asked the deal i think i i mean i kind of like this i i don't know if there's a rule against this i mean there's a rule against the fielder obstructing the base runner getting back to the base, but is there a rule against the runner obstructing the ball getting to the fielder? Not that I know of offhand. I mean, it seems plausible. It doesn't seem that dangerous because the angle of the throw, I mean, first of all, most pickoff throws are not going as fast as an actual pitch, and then usually you're not presenting your face to the pickoff throw. If it's going to hit you in the head, it's probably going to hit you in the back or the side of the helmet. And you wouldn't necessarily need to hit it with your head because it's going hard

enough and your body is shaped in such a way that there would be unpredictable caroms and bounces off a player. So you could just kind of dive in front of it like you were taking a bullet for the president or something, and it could just bounce off you. And a lot of the time, probably, it's going to go into foul territory, right? And if you're planning on it, then you can get up. And I mean, how often do you think you could do that? Because if that was your sole goal, you'd have to be somewhat careful because you don't want to get picked off. So you don't want to dive for the ball and then end up getting tagged out because you missed. But, I mean, if that was your whole goal to go for the ball instead of diving away from the ball, it seems like it would be pretty achievable most of the time.

Yeah, I think you are right now you don't maybe the pitcher would be able to tell that like you dove back in like a funny way and maybe people would would catch on because we right now we don't have like a rash of runners getting drilled by pickoff throws it just doesn't happen that often so something would look different but i mean realistically the you're diving back to approximately the same place where the throw is supposed to go because the whole idea is to throw the ball such that you don't even have to really apply a tag the ball just takes you there so yeah i am i am coming around on on this is this is okay you know you know what it would be

it's javier bias uh-huh yeah it probably is't know. I like it. I think there's an opportunity here. So I don't know if we're overlooking something. I'm sure people will write in and tell us why this can't work, but I'm willing to go along with it for now. we're talking whoever jace fry is on the white socks is starting for the white socks right now or today and he is listed as the white socks opener to my knowledge unless i haven't been paying attention the white socks had not used an opener before so they have a terrible pitching staff so again not a huge surprise but this would be just another team that has now taken to it so it is spreading like wildfire. It really is. I mean, we're up to like almost half the teams at this point, it seems like. I haven't done an updated count. And I said this to Michael earlier in the week,

but I think that's the most fascinating aspect of the whole opener story to me is not the strategy itself, which isn't really that interesting. And, you know, it seems like a marginal advantage. And, but the fact that everyone has glommed onto this so quickly, that is the part that fascinates me because again, like, it's not like, you know, you're saving a run a game or something. It's not like this massive advantage that, you know, the second someone tries it, everyone else says, oh, well, we have to do this or we can't keep up. It's not really that. And yet it's like the first time someone did it and weathered

whatever criticism there was, which I don't really remember all that much, but showed that you could do it, showed that you could persuade pitchers to do it, that it would go pretty smoothly. Now suddenly everyone is getting in on the act even though it's a marginal advantage and i guess that shows you just how cutthroat and competitive the game is right now that teams aren't willing to leave even a sliver of an advantage really behind and you know i i guess it's like part and parcel with the larger bullpen revolution and changes in pitcher usage. And maybe teams look at it as a way to break down resistance to, you know, non-set roles. And that if you do this, then you can get pitchers to go along with other things that you want to do.

But it is somewhat shocking to me that we've seen everyone embrace this in just the span of a few months. And as soon as everyone is using the opener, then suddenly the opener doesn't really mean anything anymore as an advantage. It just doesn't really exist anymore, just like with pitch framing. But I'll tell you one guy who didn't need an opener on September 24th, which was a couple days ago, and that's Brian Mitchell. New Brian Mitchell update. I guess the Giants, 8.2 innings zero runs three walks seven strikeouts brian mitchell i saw a headline i don't remember exactly what it was but it was

paraphrased like brian mitchell makes strong bid for rotation spot in 2019 it's like yeah but the rest of his season made an even stronger bid against employment in 2019 yeah and uh side note before i guess the next email we are through four innings in New York. Jacob deGrom has allowed no runs, and Jacob deGrom has received no runs of support. Yeah, well, good for Brian Mitchell that he's ending the season on a high note. The interesting thing about deGrom's start is that I think he came into this start with 9.6 war at baseball reference so it's conceivable that if he pitches a gem here he could surpass 10 wins and end up making the fun facts true even if he does get the win it's possible that he could do both of these things so that's still in play too but we are uh through

four and a third now we're watching closely so where where are you on the fun fact here? So we know DeGrom has nine wins. We know on baseball references that you said 9.6 war. And so at Fangraphs, his regular war is 8.3, and his runs against per nine version of war is at 8.7. How much do you care about this fun fact, and how much do you care that some of the wars are different? To say nothing of the warp value of a baseball prospectus. Right.

Well, I've only looked up the fun fact using the baseball reference version of war. So and Eddie Smith in 1937 is the only pitcher, as we've mentioned, who has managed to have a higher war than his win total. I don't know if you looked at the Fangrass version of war. Maybe there would be other pitchers who have qualified, but I haven't looked. So because I'm invested in Eddie Smith and the formulation of the fun fact that I've looked up, I've only looked at that one version of war. But yeah, it is, you know, I guess that's a problem with war-based fun facts is that they depend on which version of war you're talking about and when you're talking about it. Right. And it's important when talking about Jacob deGrom,

when you have the Fangraphs version of war or the Fangraphs runs allowed version of war, it's important to understand that according to defensive run saved and UZR, the Mets have had just an absolutely dreadful team defense. So I don't necessarily agree with the way that baseball reference applies team defense to pitcher war because it seems a little too simplistic. But yeah, you've got to give DeGrom some benefit of the doubt because he's been playing in front of a whole bunch of clowns. Yeah, not Phillies level, but pretty bad.

All right. I have one from Daniel in Arlington, Virginia. On Tuesday night, September 11th, the Indians started a lineup consisting entirely of players who have been named to at least one all-star team apparently for the first time in at least 20 years despite this they were held to two runs by the Rays pitching staff and in general are probably not

in the top five playoff favorites my question is what would be the worst possible lineup you could make consisting entirely of all-stars so I did a little research don Don't worry. So this Indians lineup was not bad. This was Lindor, Brantley, Ramirez, Encarnacion, Donaldson, Alonso,

Melky Cabrera, who is still a player on a good team, and Jason Kipnis. Yeah, Melky Cabrera. That's a name that I haven't heard in a long, long time, and yet here he is in baseball still. So I think that I have done a play index here and I just looked up players who've been on an all-star team at some point who have had at least 100 played appearances this year. ordered them by lowest war to highest war and i put them in the positions and you could quibble with which positions i tried to maximize the terribleness of this lineup but here's what i've got at catcher i think jonathan lucroy is the best one which is sad to say but uh he is still not good and he is not quite as terrible a framer as he was recently, but still not good and still doesn't hit.

So catcher Jonathan LeCroy, first base, I don't think you need me to tell you, Chris Davis. And DH, Victor Martinez, who is retiring and is no longer much of a hitter. Shortstop, Alcides Escobar, of course, deserves that spot. I am putting Eduardo Nunez at second base and then Jose Reyes at third base. I guess you could flip those two if you want. Then I've got Ian Desmond in left field, Dexter Fowler in center, and Hunter Pence in right.

Dexter Fowler is having a terrible year. He was good as recently as last year. So, you know, maybe there's still hope for Dexter Fowler, but that is a pretty atrocious lineup. I don't know what that team would do if you ran it out there 162 times, but guessing worse than the Orioles, because most of those guys are sub replacement level I think at this point so yeah that's uh life comes at you fast well if you did something like that for 162

games at least you know the team would by designation get one more all-star bid so someone would have to make it I don't know who that would be by the way Jacob deGrom has now completed a fifth scoreless inning of the game all right well I guess we can't just keep talking until Jacob deGrom is out of the game, but I'll provide an update in the outro. And I don't know, I had one more question here. Justin says, I'm wondering which reliever has the most wins after blowing a save in a single season all time. And I got Dan Hirsch of Baseball Reference now to look that up. It's Raleigh Fingers, 1976. Raleigh Fingers won six games after blowing saves in those same games. And as far as the all-time leaders, Raleigh Fingers is second with 26 wins after blowing saves.

Goose Gossage is first with 27. And you've got John Franco at 23 Roberto Hernandez at 23 Sparky Lyle at 22 Kent DeColvi at 21 And tied with 20, Rick Aguilera, Lee Smith And former podcast guest John Hiller Clearly a high concentration here

Of firemen Of guys from the 70s and 80s Who actually pitched multiple innings Which you kind of need Because obviously you have a better chance of winning after you pull the save if you're staying in for a while. But that's the answer. So now you know.

How do you look that up? You can't with the play index, unfortunately. But you conceivably could. But right now it only lets you search for one form of decision. So you can search for blown saves. You can search for wins, but you can't search for blown saves and wins in the same game. I asked Dan to maybe make that a feature of the Playindex, but in the meantime, he looked it up.

All right. Do we have anything else? DeGrom's at 64 pitches, so he's got a while to go. All right. So we will wrap it up there. All right. I've got some updates for you. As I mentioned, it is hard to stay current when every day really matters. So Jacob deGrom, he went eight

innings. He gave up two hits and no runs and no walks and struck out 10 and he won the game. His 10th win of the season. He is now 10 and 9, but all hope for the fun fact is not lost. I don't know what his baseball reference war will be in the morning, but I know that his start, according to Fangraphs, just on Wednesday was worth 0.5 wins above replacement, according to the FIP-based war, and 0.7 wins above replacement, according to the Runs Aloud-based war. So I'm hoping that he will still have more war than wins when baseball reference updates. He should have more than 10 war to go along with his 10 wins, but we will see. DeGrom, of course, finishes with a 1.7 ERA and also a sub-2 FIP. That is extraordinary. But I saw this extremely fun fact from Tim Britton of The Athletic, which he tweeted

after Sean Newcomb, who was opposing DeGrom in that game, was done. Tim wrote, The 32 opposing starters against Jacob deGrom this year combined for a 2.45 ERA in 173 innings. The only National League pitcher with a better ERA than that is Jacob deGrom. So that's the kind of competition that deGrom went up against. Combine all the starters who started against him, and they were better at preventing runs than anyone but him. Very fun fact. Okay, what else? Williams Estadio went three for five. No strikeouts, no walks.

And you know, I don't know if his contact rate is higher than Breivik Valera's, but I do know that Williams Estadio now has more than 80 plate appearances and Breivik Valera does not. So if we set a minimum of 80 plate appearances, Williams Estadio now has the highest contact rate in baseball this year.

And it's as if Breivik Valera never existed. Estadio was playing third, by the way, and he made a nice snag on a liner. He's now batting.350. He's the best. As for the playoff races, the Brewers beat the Cardinals 2-1, so both they and the Cubs have clinched playoff spots now.

The Cubs nearly lost, but ended up walking off in the 10th, so they and the Brewers kept pace with each other, but the Brewers have three against the Tigers to close out the season, which works in their favor. In the West, those quasi-collapsing Diamondbacks beat the Dodgers. While the Rockies blew out the quasi-collapsing Phillies, Herman Marquez was great again. Set the Rockies' single-season strikeout record. So Rockies are now up half a game and one in the last column on the Dodgers. Very exciting stuff. The A's Chris Davis went one for five with a homer.

He is still batting 249. Also Shohei Otani hit his 22nd homer. And the last thing I wanted to mention, cool thing from listener and Facebook group member Jamie Gray. He created an Effectively Wild themed crossword puzzle, which I had a lot of fun with. I will link to it on the show page at Fangraphs and in the Facebook group.

Go check it out. I had some trouble completing it. It's not easy. A lot of deep cuts there, but thanks to Jamie for making that available. All right. You can support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following five listeners have already done so. Sean P. Montana, Kyle Crow, Alex Conway, Mark Eshen, and Thomas Clulow. Thanks to all of you. You can also rate and review and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and other podcast platforms and join the aforementioned Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash Effectively Wild.

Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance. Please keep your questions and comments for me and Jeff coming via email at podcastfangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. We will be back with one more episode this week, so stay tuned and we will talk to you soon. Lost in the fire So close to the wire Can't just survive

So close to the wire