Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1297: Cistulli and Desist

Episode Date: November 17, 2018

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about a big day for Willians Astudillo, the still-overlooked greatness of Anthony Rendon, the mystery of Jeff Mathis, John Middleton’s comments about the Phillies’ impending spending spree, and the Orioles hiring the Astros’ Mike Elias as their new GM. Then (26:50) they bring on outgoing FanGraphs managing editor Carson […]

And I'm moving on to my dreams of tomorrow Thrilled to be wherever my soul may be bound Who can tell where the journey may lead me? Where the journey may lead Who can say Where the rainbow may be found Hello and welcome to episode 1297 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs, presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Jeff Sullivan of FanGraphs. Hello.

I'd like to stop beginning these podcasts in the same way as always, but I will just point out when we podcasted on Thursday, what I had said was that William Zestadillo hit his first home run of Winter Ball on November 15th, which was Thursday.

And now when I go to his page, it shows two games for November 15th. I don't know if they played a doubleheader. I don't know if there are doubleheaders in the Venezuelan Winter League. It does look like he played twice on November 11th. So take these numbers maybe with a grain of salt, but I will point out that two games against Magallanes on November 15th. In one game, Estadillo went two for four with zero strikeouts and one home run.

And in the other game, he went two for two with zero strikeouts and two home runs. Looks like maybe Wayne's Estadillo hit three home runs on Thursdayursday huh i would be surprised and i don't have box scores here but would he he wouldn't have caught both games with a double header would he that would be well i don't know what they do yeah well i don't know but wow a three home run day possibly for williams estadio that's worth starting a podcast with williams estad, I think. So most of this podcast is going to be a conversation with Carson Sestouli, outgoing managing editor of Fangraphs and host of Fangraphs Audio. He has been hired by the Toronto Blue Jays in a pro scouting role, and we will miss him, but we will talk to him before he leaves.

And he is being replaced by Meg Raleigh in both capacities. So that is the good news. More Meg. Bad news is less Carson. He will be missed. Agreed. I know when somebody leaves an outlet or some company and then people who work for that company will say how much they'll miss that individual's presence that they felt in ways that the public isn't exposed to. And what I will – I've known Carson for a while, and you know, you don't really develop that

close of a working relationship with your colleagues when you work remotely, you're all over the country, where the country is, where Carson has worked from as far away as France sometimes. But the people who write on the internet are, they frequently find their level, if you will, they find out that they are people who are meant to be writers on the internet are they they frequently find their level if you will they find out that they are people who are meant to be writers on the internet and not interacted with in person necessarily many of us are introverts or people who just have a low tolerance for for interpersonal communication but carson carson would probably describe himself as an introvert too but for the few fan graphs get togethers that we would do a year maybe that's one or two or three carson was just always uh just kind of the the shining light the beacon sort of a

i wouldn't say social butterfly but i remember we were at a spring training get together in arizona a few years ago when david appleman would get basically like rent a restaurant for the night we would go to this pizza place and carson would get himself nice and nice and toasty and then he he just got up and gave a drowsing touching speech out of the blue. Nobody asked him to give a toast. I don't know if he was even requested that were appreciated that he, that he give a toast, but he effectively toasted fangraphs and it was all,

it was all very warm and pleasant. I don't miss the sound of his voice and his, his chuckle. And he was a, yes, one of a, one of a kind among baseball internet, unmistakably and undeni was one of a kind among baseball internet, unmistakably and undeniably one of a kind.

Yeah, I was sorry not to get him, not to nab him first, because I was at Baseball Prospectus when he kind of came to the public baseball world's attention, and I wanted to hire him at the time, and he ended up at Fangraphs, which was much to Fangraphs' benefit, but I met him early on at some gathering or another. And definitely a distinctive personality, and that comes through very much when you read him and listen to him. So you will listen to him very shortly. But before you do, a couple quick things we didn't talk about this yesterday when we talked about the mvp voting results but i figured we should just devote a minute maybe to i think the 11th place finisher

on the nl mvp ballot who i know i don't need to persuade you of his merits because you write about them regularly but evidently we need to persuade the public or the voters because Anthony Rendon, yet again, not a great showing in the MVP voting. And if you look at Fangraphs War, I believe he was the second most valuable position player this year in Fangraphs War. I mean, he is good every year. He's replaced probably whoever the previous most underrated secretly valuable player in baseball was i don't know who it was but it's probably not that person anymore it's anthony rendon so let's see we've got chris haft of mlb.com who was the lone voter to put rendon as high as sixth place he got an eighth place vote from Mark Zuckerman of Mass and Sports maybe not

a coincidence and then there were uh there were five ninth place votes three tenth place votes these things don't really matter but Rendon was down there around uh he was two points ahead of Ronald Acuna Jr. he was five points ahead of Aronola two points or 38 points I'm sorry behind Max Scherzer it's hard you you look up the list and every single player above Anthony Rendon is great. That is not a coincidence. These are all very great players. But yeah, I don't know. Usually when you have a player like Rendon, you say, well, here's the most underrated

player in baseball, then not too much more time passes and that player is properly rated. For some reason, I'm having trouble thinking of other guys who have fit that mold, but like Lorenzo Cain was pretty underrated for a while. I feel like Zobrist for a while. Was he? Zobrist definitely was sort of like the dawn of the war era. Ben Zobrist, people would look at that and think, there's no way, but he would do it over and over.

So Ben Zobrist is underrated. Then he got his big contract. Anthony Rendon will one day sign a large contract. There's no question. Isn't he represented by Scott Boris? But he continues to be the most underrated great player in baseball. He is a great player. He's just so good across the board.

He's bad at nothing. Even the durability questions are kind of behind him for the most part. So Rendon is great. One of the big reasons why the Nationals, even if they lose Bryce Harper, are going to be fine. one of the big reasons why the Nationals, even if they lose Bryce Harper, are going to be fine, because it turns out, it turns out Anthony Rendon is probably better than Bryce Harper is as a baseball player. Yeah, perhaps substantially. At least he has been recently. I don't know why he, I mean, I guess it's the usual reason why he doesn't get more publicity, right? He's just, as you said, he's good at everything, but not really the best at anything. So that's kind of the recipe for one of these underrated guys like he he walks. He does not strike out. He's a really, really good contact hitter and yet also has excellent power. And he just you know, he's like 40 percent or so better than the league average hitter both of the past two years.

or so better than the league average hitter both of the past two years defensively he didn't rate all that well at least according to drs this year i guess ucr did like him so there's some disagreement there but he has been generally a good defensive player and that's kind of it so he's just not particularly flashy like he's goodly, but not necessarily in the way that like Matt Chapman and Nolan Arenado have been good where they're routinely making these amazing plays that get shared everywhere. I don't know when the last time I saw an Anthony Rendon gif was like, ever? Has he ever? I don't know, but he just keeps racking up that value. And maybe if the Nationals had made the playoffs, maybe that would have helped. And he did miss 25 games or so this year and was still really valuable.

And he's probably just been overshadowed somewhat by Harper and by Scherzer and by Strasburg. You know, it's kind of a star-laden roster there. So all these things conspiring against him. According to the Fangraphs player tags, there was not a single post written this season that focused on Anthony Rendon. Now, he was included in the honorable mentions for the 2018 trade value post by Kyle McDaniel. His contract situation is coming to a close. He'll be a free agent shortly. What is it?

One more? I think one more season. So he's coming up in his contract year. But Rendon, for his career, like to look at uh war per 600 plate appearances rendon for his career 4.7 war for 600 plate appearances bryce harper 4.7 war per 600 plate appearances and based on the steamer projections anthony rendon is projected for 5.3 war bryce harper is projected for 4.9 so even even though Anthony Rendon is indeed three years, three and a half years, almost older than Bryce Harper that I should say two and a half, actually two and a half years older

than Bryce Harper. Harper will get the big deal because teams love young players and Rendon has less of his peak ahead of him. But holy cow, what a peak it has been for Anthony Rendon. And you just wonder how maybe how much more highly he'd be regarded if not for his his down 2015 where he was hurt and he just wasn't himself he was kind of an average player he missed half the season but other than that his worst season other than that since 2014 was worth 4.3 wins he was just really really good so it looks like you have given me material for

next week to just write the annual anth Rendon is incredibly underrated post. And Anthony Rendon is represented by Scott Boris, and he will be a free agent next offseason. So we can look forward to what the analogies and the metaphors will be. I wonder what Scott Boris will come up with because, I mean, what would it be? You would think a submarine race would be Anthony Rendon because he's just so out of view. But he's already used that one. So he's going to have to come up with something new. Enough people have tipped us off to the idea that submarine race was some sort of euphemism for when high schoolers were making out and having sex up on the bluff. I don't know what the origin was of that.

Yeah, it doesn't seem to me like that's what Scott Boris was saying, though. That is apparently an idiom or was, but I don't know how it necessarily applies to this. I mean, maybe it does. I guess you could, like, the idea is that stuff is going on beneath the surface, I guess, that you can't see from afar. I don't know. It's kind of a strange expression. Well, Bryce Harper is out there and teams are engaged in some heavy petting. Yes, they are. One guy who is now off the market,

we should talk briefly about, Jeff Mathis, is now a Texas Ranger for two years, two-year contract for 35-year-old Jeff Mathis, who remains a singular player in baseball, and I hope he plays forever because, of course, he is challenging for the distinction of, well, he's not going to get to worst hitter of all time because I think Bill Bergen has that just sewn up forever, but he really is ascending or descending that leaderboard depending on how you sort it. So I just looked on the Fangrass leaderboard's minimum 2,500 career plate appearances, which, to be clear, you've got to be doing something right to get to that many plate appearances. But he is now the sixth worst hitter of all time with that many plate appearances. And one of the ones ahead of him is a pitcher, Cy Young. Cy Young had 3,100 plate appearances in his career, which I guess that's what happens when you have like 847 complete games or something like that. And when you pitch for 21 years and usually finish your starts, that'll do it.

But there are only now four hitters who are actual hitters who have been worse than Jeff Mathis over the course of their career. And he does have a chance to catch a couple of those guys. So he's at 50, WRC plus of 50 for his career. And he is now one point behind Tommy Thibodeau. I'm not sure if I'm saying that right, Thibodeau, Thibodeau. And Hal Lanier, we've talked about on the podcast before. They both have a 49 WRC plus so he's probably

Going to get there you would think I don't know He's not getting any better At hitting at this stage of his Career so but he's not Getting any worse it seems like Which is what's kind of interesting About a catcher who's 36 Years old his career WRC

Plus like I said is 50 i didn't mean to interrupt i'm sorry but it was just something i noticed yeah last season 47 the year before that 51 year before that 63 that was a one of his high years but he's just kind of been jeff mathis since from from the beginning he broke in at 22 yeah he just keeps going i don't know i guess if you're never good to begin with, maybe he just has a strange decline curve. By the way, it is 749 complete games that Cy Young had. I overestimated his workhorseness. Well, yeah, so the thing about Mathis is that he keeps getting jobs, and we know why he keeps getting jobs. It's because pitchers love working with him, and everyone thinks he's just the best defensive catcher out there.

And certain stats are not capturing that clearly. I would argue that no stats that we have currently are capturing that because according to Fangraphs, he is a career sub-replacement level player. prospectus which accounts for framing and you know maybe does a better job with blocking and things like that they have the most sophisticated catcher defense model out there on the internet and jeff mathis according to baseball prospectus is wins above replacement player 6.7 career which is not great i mean it you wouldn't look at that and think, yeah, he should continue to get lots and lots of jobs. So clearly teams are valuing him higher than this. And the current catcher defense metrics make no attempt to account for game calling, for sequencing, for just working with pitchers, that nebulous quality. And RJ Anderson wrote a feature about that and about Mathis' game calling and working with pitchers' ability for CBS Sports this year.

And Mathis really wouldn't disclose much because he said, you know, he needs that information and can't give it away. But I look forward to one day Jeff Mathis perhaps opening up post-retirement about what it was exactly that he does so spectacularly because many teams have come to the conclusion that Jeff Mathis is worth employing it's the Mathis is going to be one of those those test cases of also did you know Jeff Mathis played second base last year he played three yeah no I remember that last season yeah I don't remember that anyway this is an interesting test case because when we see something like this now by the way the the Jeff Mathis-Mike Napoli wars are over. Mike Napoli is out of baseball. He hasn't played in the majors since 2017.

Mathis still going, signing new multi-year contracts. It's the second consecutive multi-year contract anyway. You see a team like the Rangers in dire need of pitching help, and they decided, well, let's help our pitchers indirectly. Let's sign Jeff Mathis and this is a this is an era where it's increasingly difficult not to just defer to authority and baseball teams then and just assume that they're making the right decisions because we always say baseball teams are ahead of us and etc and when you see a situation like this now as opposed to if Jeff Mathis got a big contract 10 years ago 11 years ago now we say oh well Jeff Mathis has all these other skills maybe they're hard to measure but we just kind of assume that

they're true, even beyond what is being measured, which is the framing and the throwing, the blocking, all that stuff. You read features, you hear about how pitchers just love working with Jeff Mathis, and therefore you think, well, he's not being properly valued by the numbers and so be it. And this is an interesting test case because we'll defer to the authority and say, well, they're signing Jeff Mathis and we can't criticize the Rangers for signing Jeff Mathis. He's not that expensive. It's just a two-year deal.

They need the help anyway. But we still don't actually know if it's true. He might not be that helpful of a catcher. It might all be in pitchers' heads. Maybe they like throwing to him because he does frame well, and he's a good defender. Maybe he's just, like, fun to talk to, and he's kind of on the same page. But maybe Jeff Mathis doesn't actually make pitchers extra better beyond what's being measured but we

just don't know and so i think a while ago more closer to the dawn of the sabermetric era we would have been inclined to say jeff mathis isn't worth it and now we're inclined to say jeff mathis is worth it but the actual evidence that we have is very limited. Yeah. Well, we know about his framing now and his framing is good, but not the best. It's curious. He's actually gotten better at that as time has gone on. I think his most recent few seasons are his best framing seasons, and that is a quality that tends to decline too, but he has warded off any decline there too. So we can capture that, whereas we couldn't in, say, 2006 when he made the majors, or 2005, I guess he made the majors, but back then we could just see the bat and we could see Mike Napoli's bat and say, well,

this is better than that, and we can't quantify the other stuff. Now we can quantify the other stuff, and yet Mathis still looks sort of underwhelming relative to his reputation. So I wonder 10 years from now, will we have a war that takes something away from Mathis and says, no, you were right in the first place. He's actually not that great, or maybe he will turn out to be really great. Someone like Brad Ausmus, for instance, is someone who looks a lot better with the benefit of BP's new metrics. Like Brad Ausmus was sort of like Mathis during his career in that he couldn't hit and was just sort of seen as, oh, it's just reputation. And they're carrying this automatic out on the roster because pitchers like working with them or whatever. this automatic out on the roster because pitchers like working with him or whatever. And now, according to Baseball Perspectives' framing stats, he was really exceptional.

And he was something like a 35-war player or warp player, which is really valuable, even though he was a lousy hitter for most of that time. So we'll see. The next iteration of war will probably change our perception of Mathis in some way. Look, there's something at Fangraphs. I don't know what this is, but it's R, lowercase r, capital C-E-R-A, which I have to assume is some sort of catcher E-R-A measure. So I will not swear by this. I don't know if it's worthwhile or not. It is a number that is present on the website where I work and where this podcast is posted so there's a there's how much it's worth and going back to however long we have this they have this this is baseball info solutions this is not a fangrass metric the top catcher in this statistic is yadier molina at plus 28 runs i guess that makes some sense

second place is caleb joseph which is interesting plus 19 runs and a fifth of Molina's playing time Jeff Mathis is fourth uh in the recent era one behind a Paula Duca whatever so Jeff Mathis at plus 17 runs and then I don't know do you have any guesses for who would be at the bottom of this hmm well I don't know exactly what the stat does but but... Great, yes. I'm guessing it's just like, you know, overall your ERA working with this catcher as opposed to with other catchers for each pitcher, possibly like a more sophisticated kind of matched innings catcher ERA. I don't know. That's my guess.

But is it, well, this goes back a bit. Is it Ryan Domet? It's not. And now thinking about this i don't know how you get catcher era run credit and you separate that from defense and framing i don't know how that works i i have asked nobody about this metric i just today during this segment learned that it exists on our website but it's victor martinez he's in negative 32 runs uh and interestingly jonathan lucroy at negative 28.

Now I say interestingly, is it interesting? I don't know because I know nothing about the statistic. I don't know if it's worth anything at all, but it's out there. It's in the public sphere and Jeff Mathis is good at it and catchers with worse reputations are not. All right. Anything else? I guess there's a comment that stands out in this landscape by Philly's owner, John Middleton. He said in an interview with Bob Nightingale, we're going into this expecting to spend money and maybe even be a little bit stupid about it. He then added, we just prefer not to be completely stupid. So I guess you could say that this is how ownership always approached free agency until very recently. They often handed out contracts that in retrospect seem sort of stupid, and now they don't do that anymore.

just gonna spend and be profligate and maybe give players more than they deserve based on war or whatever which i don't know whether they actually will but it's kind of a change of pace to hear that we're gonna spend money and we're not trying to be the most efficient possible but i don't know if he actually means it or whether in a way like this is good pr. It's a strange thing in this environment where no one is spending and everyone's talking about luxury tax thresholds and dollars per war and all that for someone to just come out and that really says is we're going to spend and we're not going to like freak out about every single last dollar which i think we sort of already knew was truly look at they signed some members of their bullpen they signed color santana they signed jake arieta last year already they were not concerned about being maximally efficient and trying to get everything down to the last dollar but But you wonder why big-time agents like to go to the owners instead of the front offices. And it's interesting.

You get a statement from someone that isn't just kind of beating around the bush and saying, oh, yeah, we listen on everyone and we're going to try to do anything that makes the team better. You know, those empty quotes that don't mean anything. It's interesting to get a quote that isn't one of those. But I also do wonder what it means because, again, the message of the quote is the same as you would expect from everybody. Yeah. All right. So anything else that we should talk about? Should we talk about Orioles' hirings? I mean, we don't have much new to say about this every time someone gets hired. So the Orioles hired Mike Elias, the Astros assistant GM, as their GM. And pretty much what we would say about this is the same as we would say about the Giants hiring Farhan Saidi, right? It's a smart person from a smart team goes to a team that has not operated in that way. And now there's a bit more homogeneity in major league front offices.

Just every move just kind of levels the playing field in a way. Yep, that's pretty much exactly what I expect. And the big question will then be the buy-in from ownership and how much power someone like Elias has or someone like Zaidi has. I would assume at least with Zaidi, he's going to have a great deal of autonomy to build out the department and the front office that he wants in in san francisco you never really know what's going to happen in in baltimore but it does seem inevitable that before too long all of the teams will have executives that we would recognize as being your standard progressive general manager standard analytical general manager whatever that looks like everyone's going to have one and then once

we get there there's always going to be some standout, maybe some overly meddlesome owner, someone who doesn't have the autonomy that they thought, because ultimately the team's direction will be driven by ownership and owners will determine how much leeway the front office has. But I don't know, I guess where I'm getting is Mets. The Mets are going to be the last one standing. Well, it will take a while for Elias to rebuild the Orioles. He's obviously going to hire people, some Astros people, but it's going to take some time because as we talked about on the most recent episode, they do not have much of a farm system, clearly do not have much of a major league roster right now. So it's going to be the long haul, but at least that process has begun.

I had wondered when the Giants had an opening, an opening i thought well is this a good opportunity or not for for an executive who wants to be in charge to take over a team that is clearly uh just careening toward a cliff if it hasn't gone over it already the giants have a pretty bad major league roster bad farm system and uh and there's a lot of money tied up in the future but the giants compared to the orioles the orioles are similar they have a bad major league roster and a bad farm system and uh and they have a little too much money i guess tied up long term most of that being labeled with chris davis's face but if you compare the giants to the orioles the giants have the better major league roster maybe the better farm

certainly they have more financial flexibility and a greater number of resources they have even though camden camden yards is good I think AT&T is considered the better, certainly newer stadium. You have a better, more supportive ownership group. You have a more supportive fan base for a variety of reasons. You have what I think for most people would be considered, as long as you make enough money,

a better living situation in San Francisco than you have in Baltimore. So really, it turns out San Francisco is still a pretty good spot, regardless of the team's circumstances in the present moment. But Baltimore, Mike Elias, a lot of work cut out for him in a lot of different ways. So I hope, I always hope for quick turnarounds, miracle turnarounds. I love that the Brewers never bottomed out for the reasons that you've explored before but i do not envy the workload that mike goliath has in front of him yeah and not only that but he has to contend with carson sistoli

in the same division which is uh it's a tall order to have to take on carson so we will take on carson too in just a moment we will will be back with Carson Sestouli. other and how we knew When I came to you I was all black and blue You just smiled and said love was true We had a great time, didn't we? Never knew this was how it would be Have you had a dream where you were the focal point of a press conference? Has that happened to you?

No, but actually on the topic of dreams and my new position, Meg Rowley relayed to me, the Meg Rowley, she and the Ohio State University, they both received the definite article. She relayed to me that she had an anxiety dream in which I transmogrified, is that what I mean? Uh-huh. Into a blue jay and flew away. But I, like, I had not, I had not fully, like, you know, we had not done all of the, what we needed to do to work on like the exchange. Yeah.

And so she was like, well, wait, wait, Bert. Too late. So I'm like, really? I gotta get at the website. So you've met the other employees of the, are we recording? Have we started? We are recording. Oh, this is, I know this is party roles. Oh, we we recording? Have we started? We are recording. Oh, this is...

I know this is party rolls. Oh, we're recording? Oh, we're just cool guys chatting. That's totally... That's part of the aesthetic. I understand. We were cool guys, but then we invited a guest. So you've met the other Blue Jays employees.

Are they also birds? Yeah. It's like a werewolf type thing. Yeah. So I guess... They turn back into humans when they go into. Yeah. So I guess, well... They turn back into humans when they go into the States. Oh, that's how it was.

Visa. So I guess we might as well introduce this segment that's already two minutes underway. This is Carson Sestouli. As we are recording, still an employee of Fangraphs Incorporated. But by the time this is published, perhaps no longer an employee of Fangraphs. I don't know if the employment lasts until like midnight of the day of, but Carson is joining the Toronto Blue Jays in a role, which he will explain right now. Can I derail this momentarily? I would like to discuss pod mechanics. You, Jeff, appeared to take the introduction to this segment,

but I believe that, Ben, you are frequently responsible for a lot of the introductory matter otherwise. That's true. Is that right? Yeah, it has been a while since Jeff started off a segment. It's in your honor, I guess, since you two are officially colleagues and I'm just kind of an interloper at Fangraphs. That's right, yeah. Yeah, that's, well, I know it was hard to get all of that title onto your business card,

but we managed. Yeah. You're only planning to derail this podcast momentarily? You don't want to keep going? Yeah, the role is basically one intended, I think, to—let's see. Okay, as I said in the posts that I published for saying goodbye, teary farewell to all my colleagues, et cetera, the idea is that there's a lot of information.

And I will probably, in this case, be using some of the same skills that I employed while writing a weekly post at the site called French Drive. Yeah. Where the idea was to, you know, gather as much information as one can on the public side of things. was to gather as much information as one can on the public side of things and then to say this player might have a better chance of succeeding than one might otherwise expect. And I guess that's the idea,

is to be able to weigh, to be able to sort of hold in one's mind how much weight a particular data point or report or projection or whatever, like how much weight it ought to exert over the overall evaluation of a player. So I think it's like, I think it requires some comfort, some ease with feeling uncomfortable. And that is my bailiwick, gents. That's what I walked right into that front office. Yeah. I said, let me tell you my bailiwick. Well, it sounds like this happened fairly suddenly judging by your post that the Blue Jays just said,

hey, you want to be a Blue Jay? And you said, yeah, I could do that. And here you are. Well, yeah, it was a little bit more discussion than that. First of all, I demanded to meet Justin Trudeau. That's part of it. I said, if that doesn't happen. No, it was, you know, it started off as a conversation and one about which I was excited. But, you know, it was like at the same time, I already possessed a job that was very gratifying and allowed me to work with excellent people like Ben Lindbergh and, uh, Ben Lindbergh occasionally, Jeff Sullivan more often. And, uh, so, you know,

I, there was no, there was no sense of urgency, but you know, it's, uh, it, uh, in the end, it seemed like, um, something that, um, would be an interesting challenge and, you know, I'm gonna die someday. And that, that day is getting closer all the time. So I think, like, if an interesting challenge is, you know, looking you in the face, it probably makes sense to accept it. To my knowledge, you had been approached by a team in the past. That team was Team Israel, if I am not mistaken. Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, for naming names, sure. For the World Baseball Classic.

I don't know if I was supposed to say that, and I don't recall if anything there materialized. But what amount of time, I guess, elapsed between when the Blue Jays reached out to you and maybe when you began to consider this as a realistic change to make? Because as you've said earlier, you were quite happy at Fangraphs.

There was no real reason, no compelling reason to leave Fangraphs, and then something sort of defectively fell into your lap yeah well i can't i can't obviously speak to to their side of things i thought it was a prank for a long time i was gonna ask you how you established that it was not a prank it took it took a lot of verification i I had to collect some personal data. Because I actually did have a friend in grad school who would pull elaborate pranks. Can I tell you? I'll say his name because he deserves to be honored for this. His name is Brad Fliss, and he went to the UMass Grave Ride program.

And he would, there was another guy, he was taking a class, and one of his friends was in the class named Aaron. And he made sure, so every, every day when the class met, the teacher would just hand around like a sheet. It was, you know, to, to take roll. I mean, this is like a graduate level class. So it, you know, if you weren't there or whatever, but just to have some sort of record. But he ensured that he only ever got the roll sheet after Aaron had written it, after Aaron

had written down his name. And so he would, every time he would modify Aaron's name to say something, it was something absurd. It was like Big Daddy or the Big Cheese. And so on the last day of class, the teacher was like, hey, it's the Big Cheese. And he had no idea what the teacher was talking about because Brad had modified his name every time. And it was like he would do these long cons like this is a slightly more, this is slightly more, well, this is sensitive use of information, but this is in the earliest days of Facebook.

And he came up to a public terminal at UMass and a young student at UMass, she had left her Facebook account open. And he determined that this young woman did not have a sufficiently diverse array of friends on Facebook. So he reached out to just like hundreds of people of color to be friends with her on her Facebook. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know. That might be illegal.

But I'm sure the statute of limitations is long gone. Wait, what were we talking about? In conclusion, I will be joining. So you've friended people for Ross Atkins is what you're saying? No, no. No, no. Shh. Shut up.

Shut up. I'm excised from this conversation. No. No. No. So I live in mortal fear of pranks is my point i see um and that was because i have uh because i have no self-esteem as well that's the other part of it which i think is like mostly a like a decent quality yeah has this

raised your self-esteem have you considered that you might be of some worth to an organization? No, I think, again, like, I really feel like, so, like, maybe objectively, I feel that way. But like, like, if I were to sit back, but no, I don't think there's, I don't think there's any value to feeling like you have worth. I just don't, I don't see it. I don't see it. It's like, you just constantly do, do good work, like do good work, constantly, you know, do as much good work as you can. Now, I'm not saying that my, you know, do as much good work as you can. Now, I'm not saying that my oomph that I've left behind in fan graphs isn't necessarily a testament to doing good work, but, you know, I was operating with what I had,

with the resources that I possessed inside of me. I wanted to ask, okay, this is sort of a two-part question, but you've been with fan graphs for this is sort of a two-part question but you've you've been with fangriffs for the better part of a decade if not almost exactly a decade since uh yeah yeah it's close it's i think it's nine plus years yeah right so over that span of time did you ever feel capable did you ever personally internally feel capable of of what your responsibilities were? I've probably felt more... I've only sort of learned this in the last couple of years, but there is a kind of utility that one cultivates

simply by having been around. There's nothing at Fangraphs that objectively I ought to be better at than anyone, but simply because I's like I just like know where all like I know where all the you know I know where all the light plugs are you know like over the electric plugs and like I know where I just know where things are because I've been around so I think that has made me useful I recognize that it has made me useful and also like I feel pretty comfortable uh I feel pretty comfortable editing english i think okay so are you you are you are transitioning into a job that has stakes fangraphs is a business but you know

the the stakes are quite a bit lower yeah hashtag six org if you will but you are going into what is clearly more of a a cutthroat business now you're not going to be the general manager or a vice president of baseball operations or anything like that. To whatever extent your department fails, you can at least spread the failure around and no one can know who was most culpable for said failure. But how do you expect your own psychology to adapt to a job where the environment is presumably going to be quite a bit more stressed or strained than what you were leaving behind. I mean, I see your point. I think that it's, I have to imagine it's a case by case basis. My experience thus far has been like that the Blue Jays in particular are really

trying to cultivate a spirit of collaboration with the idea that that's probably likely to produce the best results. And I think that they've probably, you know, identified people who feel comfortable in that sort of environment and also have, you know, maybe stressed that as a sort of focus of the organization. But yeah, I think that that collaborative spirit, like, I mean, that's how I feel because I know that I'm, you know, that I'm not,

I could not like single-handedly, I could not be responsible in any sort of overarching way for the sort of decisions that have been made. And then when, you know, weaknesses emerge as they, as for me, as afflicted by them to turn to people who are, you know, more well equipped, I guess, to deal with those things. So, like, in terms of the stakes, like, you know, I don't know if there's like a realistic situation where, you know, if the club is a losing season and everyone is dismissed, you know, from the top to the bottom. Like, I don't know. You know, that's fine. You know, there, I mean, for me, I mean, I'm sure other people would not be unhappy. the top to the bottom like i don't know you know that's fine you know they're uh that's i mean for me i mean i'm sure other people would not be unhappy but like and i certainly wouldn't be like uh pleased in the moment but um i'm also not you know i get i'll find something else to do yeah

um but i mean i prefer that didn't happen because the work you know to the extent that i've begun it um which is not a huge extent but to the extent that i'm sort of familiar with what will be happening is like very um very appealing to me. So I think it's kind of being engaged with the work itself, I think is probably a good way to handle that. Would it be accurate to say that your life has taken unanticipated turns? Because it seems that way. A lot of people get into this industry specifically at a site like Fangrass because they are hoping

to get that email one day from someone who says, come work for my baseball team. But was that something that was ever an aspiration or did this come completely out of left field or did you start to think at some point I could do this or would want to do this? I think that, I mean, I think it's like, you know, if you've grown up and you've liked the game quite a bit, there is something that's kind of irretrievably romantic about it, right? Like that you would be able to play some kind of role. But at the same time, I never anticipated – and I think like Dave Cameron, when he was leaving the site, he said something to the effect of like, this was not my dream job because when I was younger, this job didn't exist. Yeah. And that's precisely how I felt as well.

I mean, even when I first started reading fan graphs, I was like, I would have no business writing for this website until I made it my business, I guess. Yeah. And if the readers agreed initially. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, right.

Yeah, so, right, I guess just it's like asking questions of people and attempting to learn more and stay like the most intelligent version of yourself. And I don't know, be patient and kind. And I don't know what, I think these are like largely the vows for most American weddings. But I think that they're, you know, they're like important qualities. And I certainly do not film a picture of all of them at this, you know, simultaneously at any point. But I think that, yeah, certainly the idea possessed some romance, but I would never say that I had it as, I regarded it as the only outcome that would make me happy, if that makes sense.

Because I think, you know, at least the way I navigate the world, like that would not only be like a cocktail for disappointment, you know, if you just have one goal and then, you know, there are a lot of influences that could contribute to you not reaching it. But at the same time, it would maybe force you not to notice other opportunities that would emerge that might be very compelling, but which you didn't know exists. There's so many jobs. If you just walk through your life, there are so many jobs where you don't imagine how

that job ever existed, and yet there's someone doing it right there in front of you. So I think one generally needs to work. I would love to be fabulously wealthy or better yet to have married rich. That would have been much better. So unforced error on my part. But in lieu of that, I think there's probably also like advantages to working. And so having some, you know, having a profession, a vocation that brings some satisfaction and allows you to ask questions is pretty, that's the best case scenario, I think. Again, except for the marrying rich part. With what urgency would you say that you were hired?

This is your last day at Fangraphs. I don't know when your first official day is with the Blue Jays, but of course you've got, I guess they wouldn't celebrate American Thanksgiving, but you've got a Thanksgiving break coming up for some of their American employees. And shortly after that, you have the winter meetings beginning. So I don't know how many details you're allowed to say, but will you be in place in time for the offseason to be heating up and be a part of the organization? You mean the metaphorical hot stove, Jeff Sullivan? It's heating up right now. The embers are sparking.

Yeah, I think I'll be able to participate a little bit. I mean, you know, there's going to be a learning curve in terms of, it's a new position. And I don't know if I'm at liberty to say, but a couple of other people have a similar role in this kind of role of sort of acting. It's not necessarily a liaison between the scouts and the front office or whatever it's more of like um essentially it's just attempting to make the best evaluation to evaluations possible for for players and using all the information available uh yeah there's gonna be some learning curve and then um but i think like you know i could

participate in ways like i might uh like whatever i'm, I don't know if I would be invited to, but something like the rule five draft is very appealing to me because, you know, you're given just like, here's a list of names and, you know, history dictates that almost none of them will be average players ever, but some of, you know, a couple of them might be. And so try and find the one who will be. And that's, that's to me is very exciting. Now, Jeff, a post that you wrote that I have cited frequently and about which I think was some frequency, it was maybe you were writing about the Dodgers originally, but it was avoiding the awful. Do you remember that? Mm-hmm. Yeah.

And that's something to which I turn a lot. That's something to which I churn a lot. And I think that you basically documented that while obviously having high-end talent is important, that there's also a lot to be said for ensuring that you don't have black holes at certain positions. And finding ways to avoid the awful is good. And something like the Rule 5 draft can allow you to do that. The great coincidence of that is that I was writing about the Baltimore Orioles, who in 2018 assembled only the awful. Yeah, they had, well, it didn't go well.

I mean, they obviously have some, I mean, they do have some interesting players. I think I wrote about Cedric Mullins a couple of times this year. But yeah, I mean, well, I mean, spectacularly awful, right? Like Chris Davis, of course. Yeah. Whom I don't think that even if you expected that there was going to be some decay in the skills, I don't think you would have thought that would happen, right?

This is the last day you could probably publicly editorialize about how bad the Orioles were. Well, I guess there's like how bad... I'm not making any claims to necessarily the true talent of the roster, but I think that it's an objective fact that the record wasn't great. I don't think that's editorializing.

It's arguable, yeah. Yeah, and that's a fact. And I'm not sure, I mean, from having observed the Orioles over the year, it didn't necessarily seem as though they entered the season under the impression that that was going to be the case, oh correct no yeah yeah yeah so what do you attribute your success to given that you have you have had some success we can't deny it i know it may not feel that way that's less objective than the Orioles' record. been your top fringe five picks each year and they've been the equivalent of a 20th ranked prospect which is pretty impressive given that you are combing the non-prospect ranks for these

fringe five guys so you have essentially just started with a pool of players who were deemed not to be top prospects and you have consistently found top prospects. So how'd you do that? Well, how did I do it? That's a good question. There is some method. I think it's finding value that might not... I think of a player like Brett Gardner, for example. Brett Gardner, I think, should have been a center fielder for his whole career, right? If in a different world, right? If you saw that talent, you'd say that's a center fielder, but he plays corner outfield. And that's a weird thing.

And he's obviously produced a lot of value defensively. Sorry, guys. That's just that it just exists. But so those sort of moments where a player is maybe not necessarily a great fit. And I think that those heuristics that evaluators employ are useful, especially when you're tasked with making assessments of thousands of players, for example. But then as players creep up the minor league ladder, like you have, you know, you, you have more of a track record, et cetera. So yeah, I think finding players who were kind of like awkward fits, like players who weren't necessarily shortstops, but who would still provide defensive value other places or players who on the offensive side,

like didn't possess a lot in the way of tools, but made a lot of contact. I was just thinking today about like, I mean, like, even if now, like if you went to see Matt Carpenter, like you didn't know anything about him, right? You know, what he'd done in terms of numbers. Like, would you be like, oh, Matt Carpenter's definitely like a perennial all-star? Would that have been, would that be your assessment of him? Probably not. Probably, yeah. I mean, he just, he doesn't really have a position, right? I mean, has he played like the same position for two or three years consecutively? You know, he's like a veteran who moves around. And I don't think it's necessarily obvious that, I don't think he's got like big raw power or has ever had raw power, but he's really good. So, you know, I mean, like using

those players who've come through, again, to cite some work that Jeff has done, Jeff did a really cool look at the percentage of prospects and non-prospects who, you know, or essentially what it was the good player, right? You looked at who, like, who are the good players, Jeff? And I think what, I think maybe like two-thirds of them had been on a prospect list at some point and maybe one-third hadn't. Yeah. Yeah. It kind of depends whether you're looking at the top 100 list or top 10 for each team, but yeah, you, you were correct. Yeah. And then Craig Edwards actually just did a cool piece on positional bias, like in rankings,

you know, and like, if you look at, you know, maybe there's a position that's not as highly represented in the rankings, but then like, if you look at the actual major league game and you say, well, no, they're a little bit, there's a little bit more representation here. So I think that, you know, there's, you know, I think that there's some, there are some constraints that people who are composing those lists are forced to contend with. And I think that if you want to talk about interlopers, you know, I have sort of served, not a parasite necessarily, but not, not a parasite. Because it's like, you know, I mean, the people who put these lists together, and certainly Kyle Medeo and Eric Longening do a great job.

Like, they are, like, that's a lot of work. You know, they're synthesizing so much information. And I come through and I'm like, here's my favorite. You know what I mean? Like, this guy's my favorite, and you didn't even include him. So, I mean, that's probably the dimmest possible view of what I've done, but that doesn't mean it's inaccurate. We spend so much time on the outside talking about how far ahead teams must be and just how smart many of them must be. Even like the Giants now are going to

move forward under far anxiety and the Orioles have hired Mike hired mike elias so you know the progressivism spreads around baseball and we always talk about that gap and information between the industry and and the public and so were you i mean you want me to send you a spreadsheet a spreadsheet of all the minor league trackman data is that what you're asking for jeff yes please yeah i uh i think that's yeah i'm touching my. I don't know if you can tell. You sent me a message here in this app location. I demand a spin rate for these players. Can you clean it up?

Can you throw out the bugs? I know that there's bugs. Are you... I mean this in the least demeaning way possible, but when you were contacted and when you were brought in for an interview, were you surprised that I would say, and I think you would agree that people such as yourself, myself, we're not coders. We're not rigorous analytical types in the mold that you might think of. Even someone like, I don't know, Russell Carlton or Jonathan Judge, like people who are doing things that are so far beyond our own capability. So when you were approached and brought in for an interview, were you surprised that a major league team felt like it had a necessity for what you do?

I appreciate what you're saying right now. It's actually been a trend toward teams hiring people like us, if I can group us all together, by which I mean people with no discernible skills. For the first, I don't know, decade or so of the sabermetric internet, no one was getting hired. And then for maybe the next decade, just the elite people with actual technical training and advanced degrees would get hired. So it would be the Dan Foxes and the Keith Wulners and the Max Markeys and Mike Fasts and those sorts of people. And now suddenly it is people like us. It's like you and it's August Fagerstrom and it's Ben Harris from The Athletic or Corinne Landry, also from Fangraphs.

And I'll say it, I'll say it. Dave doesn't know how to write. Yeah, Dave Cameron. Dave is not a researcher. Yeah, so what do they want with us? Yeah, that's an interesting point. I mean, I think like there's probably some value, right? And being able to, yeah, like again,

like being able to see a bunch of information and make some sense of it and maybe to just process it it digest it in a way that you know because you you're not just communicating with analysts at that point right like you have to like there are a lot of different types of people with different strengths who are part of i mean any any organization and you know beyond baseball but certainly you know we've been baseball organizations too so So like having, having an ability to, I think to, you know, to make those ideas accessible and to feel like they're not, like they're not threatening for some people,

you know, which I think can, can happen easily. I mean, like I know, I mean, this is not even apart from baseball, but like I taught college writing for some time and I would have people in my class who were like 50, 60 years old. And they would be like, they would be like, not trembling. Right. But they would be like, Oh, like, you know, don't be too harsh on this paper that I've given you or, you know, and I'd be like, you have so you have, you are better than me. That's what I, you know what I mean? Like, it's very possible. like, you know, because I was like 28 or whatever. And like, I had some, you know, I had done a lot of work thinking about English usage, right? But like, it was such a narrow slice. And I mean, like, in terms of value to society, I ranked beneath these people, you know? But my point was with them was like, yeah, like, maybe like like this is not your strength, but at the same time, like you have like, you know, like you offer considerable value.

And so if you, you know, if you can get together complimentary pieces, then I think it makes sense to do that. And like, I think it, if you have people who are, who's sort of main, I don't know, one of their main skills, I guess, is asking questions and that's good, right? Yeah. I don't know, one of their main skills, I guess, is asking questions, then that's good, right? Yeah, I don't, you know, maybe it won't work out, guys. It may not be a great idea, but I, I don't know. I mean, I've had some, you know, I've been able to meet with the folks there, and like, it's been, it's been really nice, to be honest. So, I'm, I guess I'm, yeah, I'm not, I'm not too concerned about, you're right, I was suspicious about, again, I mean, it's, you know, seeming like a prank, but there seems to be a role, I guess is my point. a stat line. That's something that people will say and often in a demeaning tone in the past that you're just looking at the stats. So therefore you're missing some important information that you would get just via expertise, via being there in the ballpark. And now you are doing a job and

many other people, more and more people around baseball are doing a job that essentially is scouting the stat line, but the stat line is much more informative than it used to be because the stat line is now almost indistinguishable from the scouting information because we have all this tracking information. There's wearable technology, there's video, you know, high speed, slow motion. You kind of have everything without leaving your house without having to make that trek which is not the greatest news for traditional scouts who in some cases are losing their jobs but you're about to have a wealth of information that you have not had you're about

to have track man and you're about to have probably video on demand from every angle whenever you want it. So are you looking forward to that? And do you anticipate that improving your process or in some way disrupting its purity of not being able to see things and just having to go based on the results, which has worked pretty well for you? Yeah, well, it's certainly exciting, I mean, to have, you know, access, I mean, both to like some of the numbers that you're suggesting, and then also to be perfectly frank, like the reports that people have submitted, you know, obviously submitted for the Toronto Blue Jays, their scouts, to have access to that, and then also, you know, be able to reach out to those same scouts and have them take my call, which is, I mean, I can't usually do that for most of my family members.

It was straight to voicemail. So this is, yeah, it's a unique opportunity to be able to just to have access, yeah, to like a bunch of different types of information. And I suppose like the concern always is, right, like is, you waiting it correctly right and so i think that's one of the challenges when especially when you're introduced to a lot of new streams of data you know of information to be able to it's good you know i think there's probably a period of adjustment where you begin to understand like precisely how much weight a particular number or a particular report ought to carry. So I think that'll probably be one of the challenges with which I'm contending as I become more acquainted with my job. Are you going to miss podcasting?

I know Ben and I do this several times a week. It feels like about 12 times a week we do a podcast. And I still don't really think of the podcast as part of the job, even though it is. It is work. This is work. I don't know how much preparation you put into your podcast. I don't know how much editing required. I understand that when he would try to get Dane Perry, sometimes it would take weeks or months in advance to get him locked down for whatever it is that the two of you would do.

But how, you know, the giving up the editorial side is one thing, but you've written less and less lately because of your editorial work. But the podcast, of course, is always front and center. So if anything, that will be your most glaring absence on the public side. Yeah. You've been doing your podcast for more years than we've been doing this podcast, although you have produced fewer episodes due to indolence, most likely. But it has been a constant for quite some time.

Podcasts come and go, and FanCrafts Audio has not and will not, we should mention, because the estimable Meg Rally is taking over, and let's face it, will probably do a superior job, but it will be different than it was. Yeah. You know, you're saying it with so much enthusiasm, Ben, it hurts a little bit. But in fact, just literally one minute ago, Meg Raleigh has informed me that her first volley as a host of FanGraphs Audio is ready in the queue. And I should mention that it's been more work than just that for Meg because she has not really previously had any cause to be involved in the editing of the podcast,

and that's something that she's had to figure out in somewhat short order. So a credit to her on that account as well. Yeah, will I miss it? Eh. I miss talking to my colleagues. i miss that yeah i think that's you're probably going to have a number of staff meetings in uh in your new organization yeah i mean i miss talking to the specific people um they're not they're not just all interchangeable in my head even dane perry hmm you're him uh yeah dane perry is uh very interesting i i don't

necessarily enjoy dane perry is kind of interesting i i don't necessarily enjoy dane perry is kind of like like i feel like talking with him is a little bit like community service you know what i mean so that i can um you know he can abuse me but um it amuses dozens so um yeah i you know i will miss that and i think people have i i do honestly think that the thing episodes are funny because he is a truly strange person and uh i think that that needs to be we need to be constantly reminded of that yeah yeah well well you miss the writing outlet because you are someone who has always been a writer and clearly likes language. Yeah, language is okay.

Many of your posts would be of no analytical value to the Toronto Blue Jays or any other team, such as your recent dispatches about managers who could probably still play baseball or who would win a literal heart hustle award. You could probably just keep producing that type of post without getting any competitive advantage taken away from your employer. But presumably, you will miss that. I mean, you can continue to write for yourself, but not for this audience. Yeah. I mean, I'm not going to continue to write for the audience. And yeah, I suppose, let's see, how do I feel about it? I'm not really a good person to ask i mean i understand i am the person to ask um because the question applies to my life yeah i don't know how i feel about it yet i'm not really good at projecting

my emotions into the future he said adjusting his his gears and pulleys and levers hey uh are we would you would you say that we're close i'm not i'm not trying to cut this short at all, but there is a small child in the room. Yeah. Oh, that's another human? Yeah. Well, I wanted to ask about how this affects that human and other humans in your life. Is this going to be a difference in your routine? I mean, you're not relocating, right?

No, yeah. That was something that made the entire thing more appealing and easier. There would be a little bit of travel, but I think that I'll be able to conduct a number of my affairs. You've got a whole

menagerie here. It's a thousand square feet, this house. And winter has started, so the upstairs is too cold for humans to inhabit. So there's a lot of congregating in this room. It's really like, do you ever read Little Women? Yeah. Well, it's basically like that.

Yeah. I mean, there's some different, the characters are different. Yeah, they're not all women. But we're all darning we're all knitting by the fire pay a little visit

to the Stooley household but it won't be a big disruption to your regular routine you'll still be staring at a computer for hours a day and roughly the same hours yeah that'll be that'll be part of it i think that um i think i will be allowed into the open air at certain points if i acquire the appropriate documentation but yeah you know i mean yeah it'll it'll um it'll

it'll be in some ways it will resemble i think the job i've had till now, except instead of inserting hyphens into everyone's posts predominantly, I will, you know, it'll be more a question of, you know, a variety of tasks, really. I mean, I think that maybe sometimes, it's my impression, and it's not, we thought this before, this position, but like everyone has a title, you know, everyone has their own title. But I think that there's probably more fluidity in terms of, especially when you get to kind of crunch times, like, you know, like you'd imagine like trade deadline or winter meetings

or whatever. It's kind of all hands on deck. So I will look to be a productive team member in whatever capacity. Yeah. Well, you've mastered that part. I don't know how many people who are listening to this podcast have that desire in their heart to eventually work for a team. And I also, of course, understand you can't reveal that much information about the process that you went through but i was curious as one of the last things if not the last thing i i wanted to ask you was if you could maybe at least speak generally about what the process was like to go not just being reached out to but to actually go in and interview for a baseball

team i don't know the last time you did a job interview i didn't do one for fangraphs i met david appleman drunk in a bar but and for you you you were recommended by by jonah carey but did it feel like just a regular job interview? Yeah, well, I have not had many real jobs either, previous, or including this one. I do know that, I think basically, like, the idea is to meet as many people as you can when you're visiting, you know, so that you can just get a sense for how everyone gets along. I mean, at a certain point, I think, like, that's a big part of, right? I mean, don't you want that to be part of a job? how everyone gets along. I mean, at a certain point, I think like, that's a big part of right.

I mean, don't you want that to be part of a job is like, it's going to work in terms of the personalities or whatever. So I think, you know, I think that's probably part of it. Yeah. And like, you know, I've like, I had gone through job interviews to be a teacher before. And it's kind of the same thing, you know, you meet with the people in your department for an hour, and then you teach a class for an hour, and then you meet with head of school for an hour, and then you teach a class for an hour, and then you meet with the head of school for an hour, and then you have lunch for an hour, and then you just meet as many people as you can. Yeah, so it's mostly just talking to people. You just talk to people about the thing that you like.

So if you think about baseball with some frequency, and then you're talking to people, then you just, it's easier. I mean, the biggest problem was when I was in grad school, writing poetry, and I tried to talk about baseball to everyone. And they were like, no. Yeah. They reacted much like your son is right now.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, maybe my last question. Then you alluded to this in your farewell post. But when you first started writing for Fangraphs, you were not warmly received by all parties and all readers of the site. But you some of I've gone back and some of the IP addresses match yours, Ben. And the things you said. Yeah. About my aunt. No, I regret that comment specifically. Yeah.

Well, but now as you showed up. This might be an example of the Overton window at work. Yes, right. Yeah, you have shifted the perception of what's acceptable for a FedGraphs writer. Or is it just a testament to, well, you can get used to anything if it's around long enough. Yeah, I think that's it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's right. And, you know, like, yeah, any injury, you know.

I mean, people get through a lot. People are resilient. And it wasn't like I was saying, it was like casting aspersions, you know I mean people people get through people get through a lot people are resilient and it wasn't like I was saying was that casting aspersions you know I was just attending of a good time and I think that you know I mean I don't think this is any great mystery is that a lot of sometimes people in the internet they're a little bit like children who touch a hot stove and then they're they complain about it being hot without removing their hand. I think that there were people who eventually realized they should just take their hand off the stove and just not read the posts. And the page views support the fact that that's the strategy they embraced.

So, yeah, I think that you can get used to anything. Yeah, you know, I think that I think, yeah, you can get used to anything And there was probably A demographic of people Who were like, this is weird I don't know if it's good, but it's strange It's very classy of you to step aside Just as you were poised

To pass Dave Cameron on the all-time List of Fangraphs posts I think you were something like 77 away And yet you didn't insist That you hang on long enough To take the top spot grass posts. I think you were something like 77 away, and you didn't insist that you hang on long enough to take the top spot. Well, yeah, I thought about getting a pillow contract with

the Kansas City Royals, but that did not materialize. No, it was not really something I thought about. Plus, to be fair, a lot of those posts accredited to me are just chats I set up for Dan Zaborski that are under my name.

Yeah, certainly the utility of those posts, perhaps. Right, yeah, they would be measured. I think like probably like Jeff has surpassed me in terms of posts that people care about like a long time ago probably. The last thing, the actual last thing i wanted to ask you because you're well i mean that's the answer so i'm uh you basically got it so what's the question what's the question what is a what does a human fart sound like so i this isn't just like like

leaving one one job for another people float around all the time and you know if uh if you ever were to say leave the blue jays and join another baseball team then that would be different from from this and one of the things that's that's been clearly true is that for all the people who have left fangraphs and in the past calendar year or so it's for the most part they've all agonized over the decision because it is such a such a unicorn place to work and this this isn't just a question to talk about how great fangraphs is but how much did it weigh on you or maybe does it continue to weigh on you to leave a site that is running the way that it's running sort of a little boutique website and you know for for each impactful absence and and your absence is impactful

it it makes the site a little bit worse a little bit less successful. So how much does that weigh on you in making this decision to advance your career? A bunch. Yeah, sure. A bunch. I think that's, you know, yeah, I mean, that's definitely part of the, certainly part of the allure of the site

is that you have a lot of sort of, a lot of the people who write for it or wherever, they probably have a greater, this sounds like a business term, they have greater buy-in, right? Because it's, you feel like you're actually, like there is a collaborative sort of spirit. And also, I mean, David Appelman is kind of a unique boss man in the sense that, you know, if you have like real concerns. I'm in the sense that, you know, if you have like real concerns, I mean, I remember like when my son was being born, you know, before that, like I've been like, you know, what should we do for paternity leave? And he was like, take as much time as you need, you know, which is not like that's not like something you find in a lot of HR documentation. So, you know, it's it's certainly been a pleasure to, you know, to have to, you know pleasure to benefit from that.

Yeah, but it's, you know, I was talking with Haviman today, though, and somehow we happened upon a college basketball metaphor about like, yeah, some people have gone on from fan graphs, and I guess some of them are one and done, you know, and some of them are four-year college players. Like was it denzel valentine from michigan state who finally finally was deemed worthy of the nba draft after a senior year and like i feel like i'm a four-year player do you know what i mean so you know it's uh at a certain point you like you have you do go on to something else because then maybe that makes sense for all parties involved too you know like

that worked out well and let's see what you can do and you know to some degree you become an alumnus of a place and then you go represent it well hopefully alright well I guess we'd better let you get on to something else then so thank you for coming on thanks to the rest of your household

for also appearing on this podcast and you will be missed. And I think your distinctive prose will not be replicated and your capacity to quote philosophers probably will not be replicated anytime soon. But you have fulfilled your obligation to fan graphs. Hey, guys, thanks so much. Well, I just went back and read Carson's first post for fan graphs, which I will link to. And the very first line is, warning, what follows is very merely about baseball, which I think is a pretty appropriate first line for Carson's fan graphs career. I imagine that his Blue Jays career will be more about baseball.

Okay, that will do it for today and for this week. Last word, most likely on the for today and for this week. 100%. So you can see via Google results, whether it is more common to have 101% or 110%. There are bubbles that show the different sizes, there are counts for each one. Whenever we talk about something like this, some listener goes above and beyond and create some sort of visualization for it. So I will link to that if you are interested. And as mentioned on the previous episode, listener Zach Wenkos is organizing a Secret Santa activity for this holiday season. I will link to that as well in the show page and in the Facebook group. He's just taking everyone's names. He will match everyone up and then the idea is that everyone will give each other inexpensive baseball-themed gifts. Should be

a nice way of promoting fellowship in the Effectively Wild community. Speaking of which, you can support this podcast and its community by pledging on Patreon at patreon.com slash effectively wild. Following five listeners have already done so. Emma Eshenfeldt, Andrew Daniels, Jacob Nathan, Jeanette Schultz, and Jacob. Thanks to all of you. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild. And you can rate and review and subscribe to effectively wild on iTunes. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance. And please keep your questions and comments for me and Jeff coming via email at podcast at fangrass.com or via the Patreon

messaging system if you are a supporter. So have a wonderful weekend, and we will be back to talk to you early next week. So this is your number, well I just called to say hello I was blurting, you were blurting, we were talking in Marshall Code We just got cut off or disconnected, I don't know But it's Christmas time, Christmas time in Toronto We've got this power to generalize When everything explodes The certainty of our unknown

Your children's unknown You're gonna let us in Though you're technically closed Must be Christmas time Christmas time in Toronto These kids are little miracles. Not always in the good way, but I think that that's one of the big misconceptions about miracles,

is that they're good. Like, that just means they're rare, right? I mean, yeah. Oh, my God, it's a miracle. Yeah, right. Like Chris Davis' 2018, sort of a miracle. Like the bad one, not the one who hit.247 again, which is also a miracle. But that's neither good nor bad. That's just kind of a thing.

That's a thing, yeah. I mean, he would probably prefer to hit better than.247, but he's like a fine player while hitting.247. Is that the sort of expert insight you're bringing to the Blue Jays? Yeah.