Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1349: Wonder Hamster

Episode Date: March 18, 2019

Ben Lindbergh, Sam Miller, and Effectively Wild listener and Mike Trout Tier Patreon supporter Anthony Scheff banter about the Blue Jays raising salaries for minor leaguers, the team’s motivations for doing so, and whether other teams will follow suit, then answer listener emails about A.J. Hinch getting ejected in a split-squad spring training game, MLB’s […]

Hello and welcome to episode 1349 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fadgraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Sam Miller of ESPN. Hello, Sam. Hey, Ben. How are you? I am doing well. And one of the Patreon supporters who presents us, as I always say, is joining us today. who presents us, as I always say, is joining us today. Anthony Sheff is one of the very few Patreon supporters in our Mike Trout tier of membership, the highest tier of Patreon support, which entitles people to join us on an email episode. And this is that email episode for Anthony. So Anthony, welcome. Thanks, Ben. Yeah, this is a real pleasure. Yeah, for us too. So tell us a little bit about yourself. You were just telling us before we started recording that you are a Cubs fan who is embedded in Boston and lives near Fenway Park, which is an interesting situation.

But anything else about what you do or who you are or how you found us? Let us know. Sure, yeah. So I am a Cubs fan. I actually grew up in Atlanta in the 90s, but I homeschooled, so I was home a lot. And we had WGN, so we were always watching Cubs day games. And they had some fun teams in the late 90s with Sammy Sosa and Kerry Wood and all those guys. Yeah, that's funny because sometimes you'll hear people say that they're fans of the Cubs because they're on national broadcasts.

But you also hear that about fans of the Braves, right? Because they're on TBS and the Superstation and anyone can watch them. And so you could have just become a Braves fan, right? Why didn't you? Yeah. So when I was a kid, I was sort of like a hipster sports fan. I always wanted to pick other teams. So everyone in my extended family, including my dad who listens to this podcast, I'm sure he'll notice. They all went to Georgia Tech. So I just decided I was going to be a

Clemson fan just to be a contrarian. So I just kind of picked non-hometown teams just for the sake of it. I almost made the hipster joke and then it turned out to actually be true. But you know, the other thing is that the Cubs games were not just on national TV, but they were in the day. Yeah, that was big. Yeah, they had their exclusive time slot

for all those years. We didn't have WGN, so I never got to see Cubs games, but we did have Braves games. And what do you do now, and how did you find this podcast? Yeah, so now I work in technology consulting. I do HR technology consulting. I actually found this podcast through you, Ben.

So I was a big Grantland fan back in the day. So I just was reading your writing on that website, really liked your writing and kind of found the podcast through you. Cool. Well, glad you did. So we have a bunch of emails to get to, but a little bit of banter. I just had one thing that I wanted to bring up, which is related to a topic that we've talked about on the show a few times, which is related to a topic that we've talked about on the show a few times, minor league pay. Our recent guest co-host, Emily Walden, she did a big piece about minor league pay for the athletic and talked to a lot of minor leaguers about their lives and lifestyles. And then she and Ken Rosenthal also just reported that the Blue Jays are increasing the pay of their minor leaguers by about 40 to 50 percent.

increasing the pay of their minor leaguers by about 40 to 50 percent and they're saying it'll be i guess anyone who's on an affiliated minor league club all the way from the dominican summer league to triple a and there are probably a few things that we could say about this and maybe we will but i think on the whole it's probably a positive step that some team is actually doing this because that's kind of what we've been saying all along is that it would just take one team to say, we'll pay our minor leaguers more. And granted, the Poochies could pay their minor leaguers even more than they will be paying them now. It's not a huge amount of money that they're raising their salaries by here, but it's obviously a significant raise. And I think Mark Shapiro in this article said that he realizes that it's just maybe the first step and that maybe other teams will do this.

That's kind of always been the question. Like if one team does it, then maybe everyone else will feel pressure to do it. And maybe that is how things change. And it seems like no team wanted to be the first one to do this because maybe there was kind of peer pressure like, hey, we're not paying these guys. No one has to pay these guys. So don't be the first to pay these guys. But now someone is.

I'm surprised that you think that one team would open the floodgates. Maybe it will. That would be great. But it seems to me that while it is great that the Blue Jays would decide to do this, and I think that the quote by Mike Murav, the Jays director of baseball operations, where he says it's a change that somebody has to just do, I think is very true. I sometimes get frustrated that people who have a literal billion dollars are not sort of able to just kind of take the initiative and do the thing. It seems like if I were to have

a billion dollars in my life somehow, one of the only, you know, like real great things about that besides having a billion dollars would be that I would have a lot of freedom to do things that I thought were right. Like maybe not be a billionaire anymore, perhaps, I don't know. But certainly you can do a lot of things and survive those decisions if you have a billion dollars. And so I think that the acknowledgement that this is just a thing you can make a choice and do with the power that you have is very good. But the problem with that thinking is that they're still not collectively bargaining with minor leaguers. And they still don't grant minor leaguers freedom of movement among employers. And as long as you have those two facts, you're not going to have minor leaguers that are

adequately paid or that have the sort of economic and professional freedom that most people are lucky to have in professional jobs. And it is better to pay them more than less. But I think that the Blue Jays are correct in noting that this is not going to solve the problem. I think that it will solve the problem even less than probably they're allowing. Maybe I'm wrong. You are more optimistic. Yeah, I think I am. And I don't know why the Blue Jays are doing this, whether they are doing it because they think it's the right thing to do, or they're doing it because they want to get positive publicity, or they're doing it because they think it will just be an advantage on the field. I think all of those are possible

reasons. And I don't even care that much about the reason and care more about the result, which is good, could be better, but better than it was. I think that, I mean, A, it is an advantage. That's kind of always what we've said all along is that not only does it just seem like the right thing to do, but it's probably something that will help you produce more major leaguers. So maybe that puts some pressure on other teams. Especially as MLB does whatever it can To restrict minor league players' earnings Then, you know, before You could just kind of say This is how it is And this is how it's always been And there wasn't one team

That anyone could point to And say, hey, the Blue Jays are doing this Why don't you do this? And now there is at least one team So I think that probably puts A little bit of pressure on other owners Because it makes them look worse By comparison,

right? So I don't think everyone's going to follow suit tomorrow, but I could see this accelerating the timeline. Yeah. I mean, I could see it accelerating the timeline. I don't know. I just don't know how much pressure owners are going to feel elsewhere unless this were to are going to feel elsewhere unless this were to become, I don't know, significant in legal cases or in labor law disputes. But I don't know. It just seems to me that Major League Baseball franchises are fairly resilient to bad press. They're the only team in town, literally the only team in town in a lot of cases. And I don't know.

It just feels to me like there's not a lot that can put pressure on them. And to the degree that there are things that can put pressure on them, it would not be probably the pay of players that most of the major league fans don't know the names of playing in cities thousands of miles away. I just don't know that I'm optimistic that there would be a real sort of economic pressure on teams to do this. Yeah. One of the things about being a billionaire is that you don't have to feel much pressure about anything, really. But Anthony, are you on one side of this? I guess Sam is the pessimist here and I'm the optimist. Where do you come down? I'm probably closer to you, Ben, sort of in between. The only thing I would add, though,

something that I think has changed a lot in the past few years is the amount of pressure that the players can exert themselves directly on social media. I think a lot of times in the past, even if players were kind of united behind something like making more money early in their careers, they didn't necessarily have that direct voice where they could communicate directly to fans. They were just kind of the whatever name was on the back of their shirt, like the platform came directly from their team. But now you can see these guys like Sean Doolittle, Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, people can just speak out directly on social media to millions of followers. So I think they can provide some public pressure through the new avenue that didn't necessarily exist before. I don't know how effective that

will be. I mean, Sam has a good point that billionaires can kind of just ignore it, but it'll be interesting to see how teams try to react in the next few years, because obviously teams will want to build their own positive PR to respond to some of the negative PR. Yeah, I've been curious to see how much major leaguers would get involved with this issue. I talked when Emily and I did our interview about that, we asked about that. That hasn't been such a prominent topic for most major leaguers, because I mean, they have been, you're right, coordinated when it comes to talking about their own economic issues and major league players' earnings and things that affect the union. But because the minor leaguers

are not part of that union, they have not as often been the beneficiaries of that message. And the minor leaguers themselves for the most part are pretty anonymous except for a few of the the top prospects so they don't really have that platform so much and not many of them are willing to speak out about this because they just want to get to the majors and hope that it won't be a problem for them long term i guess if you wanted to be cynical about it you could say that the blue jays are doing this because they're the team that is kind of being blasted for their handling of vladimir guerrero jr not so much actively right now because he got that injury that is uh pushing back his his timeline a little but i guess that could be

one thing that it might diffuse a little bit of the criticism for the service time manipulation if they can then point to paying minor leaguers more. Except that they know that Vladimir Guerrero is going to be named in every article about this news. And it's just going to bring more attention to Vladimir Guerrero. The more optimistic view that you guys both have that this will add to the public pressure, I think that the evidence for that might be that this is happening

and that, in fact, it's an indication. We don't know why the Blue Jays did this. It could very easily be that the Blue Jays are just like a lot of us and think that they should pay more to minor leaguers. this pay means for young players who are embarking on their career. So it could be totally on their own initiative, but it is sort of undeniable that in the last few years, there's been a fairly verbal, fairly, I should say, vocal argument going on about this issue. And I would certainly, I'm more sensitive than most billionaires, but I would certainly feel pressure at this point if I were them. And so this might be that it's working, that this is evidence that the public pressure actually has caused some change. And it might mean that there's 29 other teams about to tip. Yeah, because I don't know, two years ago, three years ago, if a team had announced that it was increasing its minor leaguers pay, I don't know that anyone would have really taken note or known what minor leaguers were paid at all or celebrated that decision, really.

So I think things have evolved to the point where you can be praised for this, which means that also you can be criticized for not doing it. I still don't think, though, that even if, like, let's say that you have a number in mind of what minor leaguers should be paid and owners decide on their own to pay them that. That would be great. That would be obviously like pretty good, but I still sort of feel like not satisfied because they don't have the economic rights. The players themselves neither get to negotiate over this nor change employers over this. And it feels, I mean, it just makes it much less likely that they would ever get that number or that they would ever be secure on that number if they don't have one of those two things. And so I just don't think that this is a problem best solved by one owner after the other doing something out of the goodness of their own heart, or even under sort of threat of public pressure.

Yeah, I think it'll be interesting also to see how the new roster rules are going to impact this, because obviously you're going to have a lot fewer September call-ups without the extended roster. So I think that might draw some attention to AAA salaries, because now even fewer guys are going to get that lifetime health insurance and the pay boost that comes from just appearing in a few major league games in September. That's true. Yeah. I mean, once you get to AAA, you're generally in a little bit better shape than some of the guys in the lower minors where you're rooming with five different people. The

AAA average salary, I don't know what it is offhand, but it's probably boosted by the fact that you get minor league free agents who make more money because they have a choice of where to play. And a lot of them end up in AAA. So that helps. Maybe it's a little different for organizational lifers who've been with one team their whole career. So, all right, we are going to start with a question from Barrett in Oklahoma. And this is a question that I know the answer to and the listeners may know the answer to. And Anthony, you may know the answer to. Sam has avoided learning the answer to this question. So that's right. This one. Yeah. So Sam's going to try to answer this question and then we'll tell him how accurate his answer was. So Barrett wants to know. This was sent before everyone found out what happened exactly.

He says, A.J. Hinch was ejected after one pitch on Friday. It was actually after one pitch in the bottom of the inning. This was in a split squad spring training game. And Barrett asks, can we hear some ideas or narratives about how this could possibly happen? So I would just first, not knowing anything about what happened, I can speak from total ignorance about a tangential thing, which is, do you guys know, are you all aware, is everybody out there aware that there are intentional walks in spring training? Yeah, this is something that Jeff used to write about, right? Jeff did write about it a

few years ago. So I've been, I wanted to see if there were going to be any this year. They've been going down. When Jeff wrote about it, there were, I think, I want to say like 15 or so a year. And before that, there had been like 20 or 25 or so, I think, a year. And last year, there were only four, which was a low for the period where we have stats. And this year, there are only two. And so that's two, which is a lot less than 20, but still two. And Jeff made a, when Jeff wrote about this, he brought up the, what's really weird about

this is not that there are intentional walks. It's that there would be like 10, or in this case, two. If you're going to say, well, it's spring training, but we're trying to play it like it's real baseball. We're trying to be natural out there. We're trying to treat it like real games so that it has some, you know, practice how you're going to play, right? That makes sense to some degree.

Not really. You shouldn't intentionally want people in spring training, but it makes sense. That's an argument that you couldn't really, if that's how they want want to run it that's how they want to run it but but why only two then why not as many intentional walks as there should be over the course of that many games which is like 200 or something and so it is it is actually the the scarcity of this that is even weirder than the existence of it or maybe it is not maybe it is weirder that the existence of it. Or maybe it is not. Maybe it is weirder that they exist, but it is nearly as weird that they are scarce. And so I would say, first of all, that given that there are two intentional walks

in spring training, one manager ejection seems about right to me. And one manager who's so mad at an umpire that he can't hold his tongue. Well, it being Angel Hernandez also seems about right to me so you do know that that piece of information that's i do know that it's angel hernandez yeah and so i don't i don't have like a very creative narrative here it seems like for one thing how many games would you guess angel hern Hernandez and AJ Hinch have existed together over their different careers? I mean, 200-ish?

Hinch probably caught in front of Angel Hernandez a few dozen times. There's probably a lot of backstory there. And you probably could get Angel Hernandez to run you simply by saying, Oh, that Angel Hernandez. And just like that, you know, like it's on. And I don't know if he's ever tossed Hinch before. I don't know what Hinch has ever said, but here's my narrative. My narrative is that the last time they had a game together,

AJ Hinch went out after the last pitch and told Hernandez that's the worst game he's ever seen managed and Hernandez said something like you're lucky that this game is over because I would run you and A.J. Hinch said well you're gonna get another shot buddy and then and then they went out this game and when they exchanged the lineup cards A.J. Hinch looked at him and said oh this guy again I don't you know let's uh you don't you don't have the guts and angel hernandez said you just keep talking buddy and maybe somebody called somebody a piece of cheese and then the first pitch of the bottom of the first inning was a

questionable call and a.j hinch referred again to their simmering resentment and Angel Hernandez said I'm never going to get a better chance than right now and ran him well there's some some elements of that that mirror reality I would say so there was a previous conversation that came into play here from the previous week and I don't know whether this was an acrimonious conversation or not, but evidently in this conversation, Hernandez had told Hinch that he gets about four calls wrong a game for ball strike calls, which I assume he's referring to MLB's zone grading system. Oh, and so Hinch said, there's one. One down, three to go. He said one down, three to go. Well, he actually said you just used up all of them.

That's even better. Yeah. That's very good. So at the top of the first, Hinch was unhappy with Farris Whitley was pitching for the Astros, and Hinch was unhappy with those calls. And so between innings, evidently, Hinch talked to him. He called Angel Hernandez over, and he said he had a calm conversation with him, according to Hinch, and said, we have technology to help you get better that these

pitches are strikes. He had a kind of arrogant attitude about it and didn't want to hear it. So Hinch was kind of criticizing him between innings. And then the first call of the inning evidently was on George Springer. And Hinch felt like it was maybe a punishment call because of what he had said between innings. And so, yeah, he said he'd used up all his bad calls for the game, and that was that. Yeah, so I'm always fascinated by the degree to which all of the managerial ejections are pure theater. They're just trying to inspire their team. with it they're just trying to inspire their team so i would not be surprised if aj hench even told angel hernandez like like toss me out i don't i don't know maybe he was trying to um build some kind of manufactured controversy fire up his team in spring training but i i've always

been fascinated by the managerial objections i I love reading the articles where lip readers try to translate exactly what was said in all of the ejections. Yeah, I don't know if split squad spring training game seems like a weird time to want to fire up your team. Houston's also got the second best record and run differential in spring training this year. So they're kind of on a roll. undifferential in spring training this year so so they're kind of on a roll maybe it was uh maybe it was a clubhouse dare or it's like a challenge to see who could get ejected first right all the managers dared each other to try to get ejected in spring training yeah i'm gonna guess that it's just the the normal bad blood between angel hernandez and a manager i mean the interesting thing is i've never really seen evidence that Angel Hernandez

is a bad umpire when it comes to the accuracy of his calls. I know that he gets a lot of flack for this kind of episode, and maybe he should. And of course, there was the instance last year in the playoffs where he had a bunch of overturned calls in one game. But as far as I've seen, when I've seen some analyses of umpire accuracy on balls and strikes, he is fine. Like it doesn't seem like he's a notably bad umpire when it comes to that. And maybe that's what he was telling Hinch when he said he only gets four calls wrong a game. So I think maybe he gets a bad rap in that sense. Like I'm not sure he is actually bad at umpiring, but part of umpiring is your temper and your interpersonal relations and whether you escalate situations or try to diffuse them.

And it seems like he is closer to the escalation than the diffusing. And maybe this is another example of that. I know that we don't like umpires to throw out the superstars who people have paid to see. But I'm okay with throwing out A.J. Hinch in a split squad spring training game. I think that to the degree that anybody out there paid to see A.J. Hinch, they got their money's worth. They got a lot more A.J. Hinch probably than they would have otherwise. By the way, last year in games umpired by Angel Hernandez, the Astros went 3-0 with 34 strikeouts and four walks. Pretty sharp, pretty sharp stuff.

Yeah. So Hinch called Hernandez unprofessional and arrogant after the game, but he has subsequently apologized for his own behavior and said he was overly emotional or maybe said some things he shouldn't have said he was suspended for one game so yes you can get suspended for a spring training game as well as ejected from them so yeah we're uh we're learning a lot about spring training here and what can happen in no stakes games the year before that one and one 2 ERA, 32 strikeouts in 19 innings, which is 15 Ks per nine. Again, I don't think the pitchers, although I guess the key thing here is that, well, it's not necessarily the key thing, but the Astros were batting. So maybe it's the hitters who've got beef. I think we exhausted this story.

I think so, too. So we'll take a question from Eric Hartman. And he says, this offseason has been negative and generally quite bad. I think we all know that baseball is not dying per se, but are you worried about the game? And if so, how do you think MLB will pull itself out of its rut? Anthony? It's a big question. Yeah.

I mean, I'm not worried about baseball. I mean, I don't think baseball will ever get back to the cultural dominance that it once had. But, I mean, I don't think it's in any kind of imminent danger of fading away entirely. Yeah, I generally agree. I mean, it's hard to predict what will or won't be popular in any amount of time in the future. But baseball has a pretty good track record of remaining popular for as long as just about anything in American culture. So I think it has shown a lot of resilience. And there was a lot of negativity about it this winter and for some actual worrisome reasons, I think, but not existential reasons, at least as I see them in the short term.

Jeff and I had a conversation where we talked about when baseball would end, which is a conversation that you and I always put off, Sam, because I think you wanted to write a book about it or something or you know give it the attention it deserved yeah and jeff kind of just shot from the hip and said 75 years is when baseball will end so if that's the case then there's probably nothing going on right now that promises an imminent demise i don't know i think there are things to worry about when it comes to like baseball being such a local and regional game and maybe it is kind of a problem that it's not so well known on a national scale and certain players are not particularly famous on a national scale. And that seems to be working just fine revenue wise and local ratings wise, but maybe it takes a toll long-term if the country as a whole is not kind of

coming together around any one particular game or sport. So that is something that worries me a little bit. And, you know, you could worry about a work stoppage, which would be damaging, of course, if that happened. And it has looked more likely that that might happen this winter than it had for some time before that. So somewhat worrisome. I think in 2020, when Shohei Otani wins the Cy Young with an ERA of two and

hits 60 home runs, and the entire country kind of unites behind our new Japanese athletic superstar, I think baseball will be fine. Sounds good to me. Yeah. I sort of feel like it's doing fine right now. And if it stays like this, it can stay like this just fine. What I worry about is whether this is a league that is capable of making big changes when the time calls for it. And I just don't know if it's ever been that league. It has never had to be that league. It is currently not that league. I mean, it is tinkering with things that are not very important. And a big part of the allure of these tinkers is that they are not very important, that they won't change things. That's like sort of the promise is like, oh, don't worry, you'll not even notice.

if you think the league has got 75 or more years of mega profitability, which it very well might. I think that there are a lot of things that could come along, a lot of ways that the culture could shift a little bit. I've thought about some of those ways that the culture could shift, but I think that most of them are things that we wouldn't even be anticipating. And I just don't know that it is a nimble league. I don't know that the structure of ownership has kind of got those muscles built up. So I would worry know that the structure of ownership is kind of like has kind of got those muscles built up. So I would worry in that sense. So yeah, I don't know. I still don't really want to answer this question specifically, because I do want to think longer before I say anything. And I have some thoughts that would sound stupid right here.

But I am both like neither spending much of my time worrying about it, nor am I like that optimistic that it's got like some new golden age ahead. So I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I think I would be more worried about it if there were some other sport kind of having this meteoric rise. I mean, I know I am a soccer fan. Also, not to the degree I'm a baseball fan.

But people have been writing that same article about how soccer is America's next big sport for probably 20 years. But, I mean, you look at the NFL. They have the concussion scandal. I mean, you look at the NFL, they have the concussion scandal. I mean, I just don't see any other sport kind of taking baseball's section of the culture. So that's why I'm not super worried about it. Yeah. I mean, it seems like there are things that are detracting from the attention to all sports. There's just so many entertainment options and ways to waste time and this money that is Propping baseball up all the big broadcast deals Maybe that goes away at some point

Maybe it doesn't get replaced by something I don't know there's all sorts of stuff That's incredibly popular right now that None of us had ever heard of two three years Ago so it's really hard to forecast But but baseball Has proven to be pretty Resistant to changes I mean yes it's it doesn't

occupy the exalted cultural place that it once did but it's also not where like boxing or horse racing is for example to name a couple other sports that once were mega popular and now are not so much so if there's a reason to be worried, I would think it's that right now the game itself, the product itself, the sport itself is unbelievably good to watch. Like the broadcasts are incredible compared to what we grew up watching. The access to statistics is incredible. There's a ton of great writing about it there are you know obviously the players are out of this world good and i just love them i love it it's great and yet we are even in this even in this it's not it's not as though the rise in quality of the product has quieted these concerns if

anything it feels like there's more and more of a feeling that the sport is old, that it is losing cultural currency among key demographics. And that while, again, that's not a crisis right now by any means, it's very profitable. It could be like there is a route where it starts to feel like a, you know, like a kind of sport in decline a few years down the road. So, and if the quality of the product itself is not a defense against that, then you have to figure out what the other defenses are. And I actually have a couple of ideas for like sort of moonshot ideas

that Major League Baseball could, should, might consider. But, you know, like again, at this point, the game is very good. I think that it's easier to both agree with Jeff. I was going to say 80 years. So it's easier to both agree with Jeff. I was going to say 80 years. So it's easy to just agree with Jeff that, yes, 75 or 80 years without really feeling like a lot of urgency to dwell on it right now. Because if it's 80 years away, these are the good years. Yeah. And Jeff was building in some projection of like all of civilization collapsing as well, which is another thing

that could happen. So if baseball goes down because everything goes down, then that's not something baseball specifically needs to worry about. It's just something we all need to worry about the environment being in a place where baseball can't be played, but that will affect a lot of other things. Yeah. I think that it is you who've said, right, that you think it's important for there to be a feeling that baseball is something people care about. That's exactly right. I think that is its number one,

what do you call a thing that you own? Possession? It doesn't feel like the right word. I think that that more than anything else, though, is what gives baseball and also football and also basketball sort of ballast and a reason that people check it out. If you know that other people are watching it, then you want to watch it. And if you know that nobody else is watching it, then unless you're one of those people who is like Anthony maybe, who is a hipster sports fan,

you're less likely to watch it. And I think these, they don't have to sell that fact too much because we all know what people are watching, but they have to continually be convincing people that like, this is what's on, this is what's on right now. So yeah, there's a quote, there's a quote that I used in an article that I use in a totally different way. So you might read this quote in an article that I use in a totally different way. So you might read this quote in an article in a week and think, oh, that's interesting. He used it to demonstrate something else. The quote's been on my mind, which is that failure is a feeling before it's an actuality.

And like, this is going to be frustrating to people who like baseball a lot because they're like, shut up, quit having this conversation then. ball a lot because they're like shut up quit having this conversation then uh but the fact is that like there's a a lot of this conversation going on and i don't think it's just because we're all sad and can't be happy i think there's a feeling that like i don't know it doesn't feel quite as healthy as i'd like it to which again isn't a problem right now. But if this stuff runs on a momentum and be the power of of crowds, then it becomes a little bit of a challenge and a threat down the road. which is a very old idea, but its most recent incarnation. I'm not that worried about the 2018 attendance numbers particularly. I think part of that was weather, part of it was accounting and how a couple teams changed their attendance figures, and maybe also partly was some teams just not giving fans a reason to come to the park. But ratings are pretty strong, local ratings in local markets. Baseball

is always one of the top draws and revenues are obviously healthy. I think maybe there can be a disconnect between revenues and the health of the sport where it seems like, oh, record revenues, everything is great. But maybe there are some worrisome signs underneath that that endanger interest in the sport in the long term. But I guess I tend to worry less about things like this. Maybe it's just baseball's been around a long time. People have been forecasting its demise for a really long time. And to some extent, that has come true. It's no longer the number one thing that people care about in the country. So there was some truth to that, but also it's still really popular.

So I don't know. We'll see. One other thing I think baseball has going for it, and it really hurts my soul to say this, but the Yankees being good, I feel like it's good for baseball. Obviously, I was growing up in the 90s. There was that time in the late 90s where it kind of felt like it was the world against the New York Yankees. And they had that very recognizable kind of dynastic core, which I think gave a anyone will ever dislike the Houston Astros enough. Like if the Astros are good for the next five years, no one's ever going to think it's like the rest of baseball against the Astros.

But the Yankees can do it just because of the brand and who they are. So there are three or four teams, maybe five teams, actually. I think you could, depending on what happens over the next five years, you could see any of the Dodgers, Astros, Red Sox, Yankees, and Cubs going down as like the dominant team of this era. Like you could imagine any of those five teams winning three of the next five World Series, or I mean, theoretically five of the next five World Series. Like they all have been good and could be really good and so on. Do you think it's better if each of them wins one or if one of them wins four?

Better for the business of staying alive for more than 75 years. I think each of them winning one. I mean, all four or four or five, it's just so many. I feel like if there were four straight Red Sox winners or something, people would get tired of it. Yeah, I think people are already tired of Red Sox winning. But yeah, I agree. I think spread the wealth around a little bit.

But there is something to be said for unifying everyone with the one team that everyone hates. One thing that snuck up on me is how big a star Aaron Judge is. He is apparently I am to understand. I have been told by people who study this stuff that Aaron Judge is like like easily the most famous, most recognized baseball player right now. He is very good and he is very interesting to watch play baseball and all that. He just hasn't been around that long. And of course, he's in New York, and he won the home run derby. But it's not like he's been around for 12 years. So it snuck up on me. Apparently, he is like the face of baseball in the world. Yeah. Did you know that?

No, I've seen various things about jersey sales and judge that makes I mean, I think in his rookie year or the the year where he was a sensation a couple years ago won the home run derby etc i got the sense that he was really big but i wouldn't have been able to to rank him relative to some other top stars so so like just at it like we did a thing at espn eight people picked their own their their favorite home run derby contestant, right? And then there was a vote who would win. And like Mike Trout, 16%, Giancarlo, 14%, Bryce Harper, 8%.

And I mean, you have to assume that most of these people, like these are all fine candidates. I don't think anybody's like really studying like their swings and how much effort it takes and how well they do in the third round. So you have to assume that this is like just who do I know and who's famous, right? Yeah, probably. Although Judge, of course, has had a notable home run derby performance and he's known for hitting really long homers. And so Trout 16% was in second place. Harper 8% was in fifth place.

J.D. Martinez in 9%. Giancarlo in 14%. And then Aaron Judge had 41%. Basically half of the people voted for Aaron Judge, which is more than... All right, stat blast. Stat blast. 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. So we've got two step-less.

I believe you have multiple step-less lined up. The first is inspired by an email. So I will just read that one. And this email is from a family. It's a family of Ben, Kristen, and Hannah. And here's how it goes. Since spring training started, it's become our weekend ritual to watch baseball with our 2-year-old daughter after her nap.

I believe that's Hannah. We watch about a full inning on MLB TV before putting her shoes on and going to a nearby playground to play on the swings and slides. We are teaching her about strikes by counting each one, about foul balls by shouting out loud, oh no, he hit it the wrong way, and about scoring runs by running in place and shouting, he's going home. She loves it when batters reach base safely, mostly because she likes to clap and cheer along with the crowd, and she really loves it when a run scores because the cheering is especially loud. However, I noticed that her interest wanes a little when an at-bat drags on, although she doesn't mind it when there are a lot of foul balls. We think she likes

encouraging the hitter that he can try again. Sometimes we re-watch an exciting play over and over again, like a run-scoring double. All of this made us wonder, is there a way on Baseball Reference's Play Index to find the most two-year-old friendly inning that's still accessible on MLB TV? The inning would need to include the fewest pitches, but the most runs scored. It would need to be within the last few years so we can re-watch it, and we wouldn't mind if the game included the Dodgers, because that's who we follow, although we wouldn't be averse to watching non-Dodgers teams. Lastly, we don't mind watching this inning over and over and over again. We can recite the entire Muppets Christmas Carol movie because of repeated viewings.

All right. So as you know, Ben, searching for innings is a challenge on Play Index and impossibility. However, so I instead did took a little bit of a different approach. And I didn't expect to actually have an answer for this because of the the challenge of searching by innings but i ended up with something that was so satisfying that i did not even need to go any further so uh i started just i looked at games and like what would you what do you feel like is a good clip for pitches per base runner like what would you consider a a lively game like not a dull sort of sluggish joey gallo game like uh give me an average pitches per base runner what's what's fine

three no like all the pitches so all the pitches for so like a pitcher throws 120 pitches or 100 pitches and then his bullpen throws like 60 more so there's like 300 pitches in the game and then you have like x number of batters and so 300 divided by x you know what i mean so a whole game well yeah so so not i'm not saying how many pitches for that one base runner but like all the outs around him as well anthony it's weird i was gonna say three two i mean i i feel like the average number of pitches per plate appearance is not super high it's weird i was gonna say three two i mean i i feel like the average number of pitches per plate appearance is not super high it's something in the mid fours but there's outs there's outs you got all the outs around it too they're watching the outs too they've got to watch the

outs that's true so imagine an inning imagine an inning how many there's x number of pitches thrown in the whole inning and then there's x number of pitches thrown in the whole inning and then there's x number of base runners in an inning just say 10 okay all right how about 10 all right so 10 is like an average game 150 pitches 15 base runners get on that's 10 10 pitches per base runner okay okay so i searched that and there were 1,000 of those last year. This is just, I didn't even need to put you through this. This is totally irrelevant. So there were 1,000 of those last year out of about 4,860 games,

24, 30 times two. So almost a quarter game. So that's our 75th percentile pace game, right? Pitches per action as they want to see it right okay so then i i pulled back to nine pitches per base runner a base runner a guy gets on base for every nine pitches that are thrown oh you guys the hamster just woke up hang on a second i'm gonna turn on a light so it'll go back to bed because it's a nocturnal animal hang on it's uh it's very excited about pitches per plate appearance facts this hamster is so loud when it gets on its wheel which it just figured

out how to do that you can hear it thundering all the way across the house through three closed doors it's wild this hamster is probably the size of one of those cans of tomato paste that you get, like two quarter rolls, basically. And yet it can make a noise that is like thunder on thunder. Is this a full-time hamster? Does your daughter have a temporary custody? It's hers. It was her Christmas present, her first pet. I bet you're regretting that.

No, we just, we put, you know what what this is this is gonna so we actually wedge at night when we don't want her to run on the wheel we actually wedge a can of tomato paste under the wheel no it sounds like something peter's gonna be upset about two two tomato paste references what what is a good all right so 10 per base runner is about a quarter of the game, 75th percentile. Pulled back to nine per base runner. There were 515 games. So about one in nine or so. We got our 91st percentile there.

So then eight per base runner, eight pitches per base runner, 174 games, seven pitches per base runner, only 36 games. Do you think I can keep going? Yeah. I think there's a six yeah i think i feel like there has to be one winner there is so it goes from 36 that are under seven to one that is under six all right okay but that's not the payoff here you guys because that one game is under five oh wow right outlier there's only one under six and it's under five so here's the real payoff though that

game just happened this year it happened in 2018 history you guys that was last year so then i looked since 1988 when we have pitch talent accounts for for everything and it is it turns out in fact it is the only game under five since 1988 so last year crazy outlier within the year and also an outlier for history it was an all-timer we have an all-time thing record and that game was the new york mets against the philadelphia phillies on august 16th 2018 when the phillies threw a total of 177 pitches and allowed 36 base runners wow was this the the very high score game well it was it was a 24 they they allowed 24 runs right they allowed 25 hits seven walks and i believe uh four four errors no one hit by pitch and four errors so that's a

game though that doesn't tell us the innings. So I'm just going to go inning by inning, though. First inning, 11 pitches, two base runners, one run, which is lively. I think that the two-year-old would like that inning. Second inning, eight pitches, very quick, but three up, three down. Not a good inning for a two-year-old. Third inning, 24 pitches, five base runners, and two runs. That's a good inning third inning 24 pitches five base runners and two runs that's a good inning 24 pitches and five base runners that's that's three three pitches per batter and and

and uh on base percentage of like 625 you gotta like that all right three pitches that's where that's where anthony and i started so perfect all right fourth inning 17 pitches three base runners two runs also a good fifth inning here we go this is with real pitchers by the way roman quinn through the final three innings of this game actually roman quinn through one and two thirds and scott kingrey through one and a third this is mark leiter's inning though and i mean they really let him have this inning. Fifth inning, 45 pitches, 12 base runners, 10 runs. So 10 runs in 45 pitches. Pretty good.

Yeah. You're just not going to top that, I don't think. So then the rest were all, there was a three up, three down in the sixth, and then seventh, eighth, and ninth were all interesting enough. So I think you could watch this whole game. If your two-year-old becomes like a four-year-old and wants to see feature films, I think the whole game will work. But the inning in particular i think is the masterpiece 45 pitches 12 base runners 10 runs scored it was a 800 on base percentage and one run every four pitches

basically which is uh good baseball yeah but sam I think you've forgotten one thing about that game, though, and I haven't seen this box score, but if Adubel Herrera was playing for the Phillies, you have to add at least 10 minutes to every single plate appearance for all the times that Adubel Herrera steps out of the box and changes his gloves. So maybe you could only watch when the Mets are hitting. Well, all of my math, yeah, you're right.

All of my math is only for one side. And so the Mets on the other side, there was nothing special about the other side. So they threw 146 pitches and allowed like 11 base runners, which is bad. That's slow. But you're only going to want to see the Phillies half of this for sure. And the Oduble factor is 30 plate appearances in this game by the Mets alone. us know how it goes. And it's lucky and convenient that it's last year because baseball's video history is extremely short, which I always find disturbing. We have all this data that goes back a long ways. But if you actually want to watch a game, we're talking like a couple of years, right?

Well, I think it's down to one, isn't it? On MLB TV? I think it is, right? Because obviously, MLB TV has been around for what, 15 years more than that at this point. But you can only watch like the last year or so and years just disappear for I don't know why, why they can't all continue to be accessible to us. But yeah, it's it's almost disturbing how quickly baseball's video history gets erased i know that there are full games on youtube you kind of have to like you have to use a trick to find them they're they're not easy to find but they are on there but it's sort of disturbing just like it's almost ancient history if you're talking about a few years ago and you want to go back and watch a game you often just can't do it yeah all right so you have a second stat blast i do and this one this one i think i think it i think we're going to change the meaning of the the phrase stat blast a little because this one is really a stat blast it is a blast you're gonna have a blast with this one you guys it's not just a blast of stats it's a blast from stats okay still getting used to the stat blast. Yeah, you're really embracing it today. I appreciate that.

All right. This is a second. This one is specific to the news of the past week where September rosters are going to be, it appears, capped at 28. the biggest downside of all the rules changes that were announced last week is that for one great thing about September call-ups is that they create more happiness in the world for those people who make the major leagues. I think if you were to name the things that baseball does to bring happiness into the world, you would say that one is simply the feeling of catch. All the physical acts are very pleasing physically. It feels good to catch a baseball.

It feels good to throw it and then see it on that good arc to where you were aiming at. It feels great to connect with a stick. It feels good to run around bases. Those are all good things to feel. So that's one thing. A second thing is that it feels good when the team you want to win wins. That's a good feeling, especially if the team you want to win is something that you share with other people in your life.

The third thing is that it gives you something to do during monotonous traffic jams and weeding sessions. And so that's the third. But the fourth thing I think is that it gives some people a chance to make the major leagues. And I don't think that you can overstate what a joy it must be to make the major leagues. And I don't think that you can overstate what a joy it must be to make the major leagues. And a lot of people get to do it. Relatively speaking, it is one of the great status things that you can do in your life. And it's rare and it takes a lot of work, but like a lot of, like, you know, relatively speaking, a lot of people get to do

it, right? So it's kind of sad that fewer people will get to do that just because of a roster crunch. Anyway, hundreds of people have had careers that have only existed in September. And so I went looking for the longest career, the most career that existed only in September. I think I found this. I think I found it right. I think I got this one right, but it would not totally shock me if somebody has done this query a little differently. Said, oh, Sam, you missed it entirely. It's totally different. You did it all wrong. But I think I'm pretty sure I did it right. I did it twice and so on. All right. So the number one, the longest career that took place only in September actually took place over two Septembers, 2008, 2009,

both Septembers, both with a team that in fact went to the world series in one of those years which is extra good and uh this player played 41 games batted 107 times it wasn't one of the best career but it was a career and it's it's your old pal ben it's fernando perez oh wow yeah fernando is, I believe, what, a two or three time guest on this show? Two, yeah. Two, yeah. And a guest at Saber Seminar, speaker at Saber Seminar, if I'm not mistaken. And a poet, a published poet, a poet by trade, went to Columbia and is an extremely talented writer, as well as an extremely talented baseball player. And one of the reasons that we know about that is because the New Yorker wrote about his poetry and his writing, which I assume happened because he had made the major leagues. And my guess is that if he had never made the

major leagues, probably wouldn't have been in the New Yorker. And there's a pretty good chance would never have been on this podcast two or three times and so on. It was good for us. It was good for Fernando Perez. So then I wanted to see the second one. And so I believe that I found that the second longest career, which took place only in September, and this one was only 31 games. And those 31 games were in 1979 and 1980. And they were by a player named John Poff. Do either of you guys know John Poff? I do not. Yeah, I don't. I do not either. Good. There are a couple of people out there who probably do know, and they're going to be really excited that they heard his name, but I'm just going to tell you about John Poff. So John Poff, if you wanted to find out about the

second longest career that took place only in September, you first would go to his baseball reference page. You wouldn't learn that much about him because his career was very short. You would learn that he went to Duke, that he was a outfielder and first baseman, that he had a career OPS of 58 plus in 31 games all in September, split between actually two franchises, the Phillies in 1979 and the Brewers in 1980. So then if you wanted to learn about John Poff further, you might go to his Wikipedia page where his Wikipedia page is extremely short. First sentence, John William Poff is a former major league outfielder. He played parts of two seasons in the majors, 1979 for the Phillies and 1980 for the Milwaukee Brewers.

He is currently employed at Luzerne Express convenience store gas station in luzerne michigan and that is the end of that wikipedia page you would be interested you probably would go get his phone number but it wouldn't matter because you'd be recording this podcast at night but you would be very interested because that is an interesting detail to have unsighted in a wikipedia page and so then you would look him up a little bit more. And first you would find an interview he did on local TV when a bar in Luzerne, Michigan burned down and then they rebuilt it. And he was there talking about how he was happy they were rebuilding it. And he had this very eloquent sentence quote where he said, I don't know if it's this way everywhere, but in the country, when a place burns down, it doesn't go back up very often. And you would be a little bit touched by that quote.

And then you'd keep looking around and you'd find that, in fact, he is a cook at Luzerne convenience store, which appears to be a cook, interestingly enough, which appears to be some sort of convenience, some sort of like maybe a market at a camp campsite or something like that. But then you would find John Poff's Saber bio, which is the exact opposite of his Wikipedia page, because it is for a guy who played two seasons only in September. It is the longest Saber bio in the system. I mean, this thing, it's got to be 5,000 words. It might be 10,000 words, it's got to be 5,000 words. It might be 10,000 words, actually, because John Poff is, like Fernando Perez, an incredibly talented writer who, after his career ended, was a regular contributor to Elysian Fields Quarterly, the literary journal. And I'm going to just read a little bit from his

Saber bio. Poff went on, however, to leave a mark as a writer, something he always wanted to be. A friend named Tom Drake said, during John's extended minor league career, I often pictured him on those long bus rides writing poetry or reading Chaucer while everybody else was playing cards or reading comic books or Playboy. Poff offered numerous insights on the game and American society as a contributor to the literary journal Allegiantiant Fields quarterly, his most eloquent piece, Donnie Moore, a racial memoir was the cover story of the spring 1995 issue. Looking back at the editors called it quote, arguably the best writing we ever published his fuller bio beyond cook in a

convenience store is that he is a farmer. He is an acupuncturist. He is a schoolteacher living in the upper Midwest, which appears to be Luzerne, Michigan. And I am now going to read a poem that he wrote called Baseball Enlightenment. All right. When you are 26 years old and have zero hits in your five pinch hit appearances in the major leagues, old and have zero hits in your five pinch hit appearances in the major leagues. And you are playing for the Phillies in 79 when they drew over 30,000 for every home game, despite finishing fourth in the division. And Dickie Knowles has just pitched nine beautiful shutout innings,

and you are sent up to pinch hit for him with two outs in the bottom of the ninth and the score tied zero, zero, and the bases are empty, and Bruce Suter is pitching for the Cubs, and this was one of those years he was virtually unhittable. And you think there may be something funny about this business of playing in the big leagues, but you can't quite put your finger on it. Maybe it's the AstroTurf. Maybe it's the ghost of Josh Gibson. Maybe it's just you, or maybe it's something else altogether. And presumably the one thing you can do now that will make everything clear is hit a home run. But what really are the odds? And as your name is announced over the loudspeakers amidst these

30,000 people, the only sound you hear is the beer vendors hawking their wares. that old shuffle and cry, that is the sound of one hand clapping. So that is a poem that wouldn't exist about a plate appearance that wouldn't exist quite possibly under the proposed rules. And maybe that is fine. I'm not saying that it is not worth the trade-off. I understand how weird September baseball looks. But I just want to note that two of our, the sports, great writers and great, you know, great players, two of the greatest players of all time. When you, you know,

when you pull back two of the 10,000, maybe greatest human beings that ever played this game would never have existed as major leaguers, but for this quirk of rules and if nothing else, if nothing else, I will miss it. Yeah. Very nice. Good find. Nice job, If nothing else, I will miss it. Yeah, very nice. Good find. Nice job, John Poff. That reminds me of Adrian Cardenas we had on the show actually way back in episode 323 because he had decided to walk away from baseball to go write, essentially.

He wrote a couple articles for The New Yorker and he went back to school to study creative writing, I think. He just decided to write and play baseball. And that was after his rookie year. He was not solely a September call-up though. He did play a bunch in September, but he was up that year before that. But I like this little niche of baseball players who had short major league careers and then went to become writers. No wonder we like that because uh flatters our ego to think that someone might want to do what we do instead of what they do all right good one yeah it's uh it's funny when you mention people who only played in september uh my first thought was uh former

effectively wild guest uh terence core but i pulled up his fancraft page he had he appeared in six games that were not in September. They're March through August. Yeah. At one point, I was building a list of players who were a little lower. And I did pass Terrence Gore's name, who shows up in the query that I had to do, but not, as you note. He did not qualify. Lars Anderson did?

Another writer. Is that right? Yeah. He writes is that right yeah he's writes for fan graphs he's written for a bunch of i think he writes for the athletic now so yeah no kidding yeah i didn't know that uh is there anyone who doesn't write for the athletic though that's about 50 of the baseball fan community uh yeah lars anderson by the way, is not. He is one of my, the first time I did this query, I got a bunch of false hits, and he was one of the false hits. So never mind. Okay. All right. So let's wrap up with another question from a listener named Sam in Ireland. He says, does a pitcher's stuff equal his spin rate? So I guess generally speaking, what do you guys think of

as qualifying as a pitcher's stuff? Oh, man. Yeah. So Anthony, when we say stuff, what do you hear? Yeah. I mean, I don't think it correlates directly to spin rate. I tend to think of spin rate as one of the possible avenues to getting good stuff. I mean, I know people, there are people who throw incredibly fast fastballs that are pretty straight and get hit hard in the minor leagues. But I don't think that having a high spin rate is like a necessity to having good stuff. But it's certainly a way if your ball moves differently than anyone else's ball, obviously it's going to be, it's going to be harder to hit, but I wouldn't say there's a direct correlation. Yeah. I think it's, it's one of the ingredients in stuff. And I think

sometimes you can have a high spin rate and not even have good stuff. Probably if, if you don't have good spin efficiency, like if you're not harnessing that spin if some of that spin is wasted because of how you're gripping or releasing the ball then you can have a high spin rate and your movement won't even look that phenomenal so wait wait say that again so you can have a you can have a high spin rate but not like notable movement on your pitches really because it's not the right type of spin or you're not harnessing that spin as efficiently as you could. So I think it's part of it, certainly, if you hear someone say he's got good stuff, like his fastball seems to rise or whatever, that can correlate with spin rate. But I think it's just it's one component of it otani has low spin rate and otani seems like a pretty yeah great stuff guy yeah yeah

he throws 100 which is also part of stuff yeah what would you what like if you had to break stuff down into a pie chart like what percentage percentage would be velocity? What percentage would be raw movement? What percentage would be like specific type of movement? And what else would have shading in that pie chart? Yeah. I mean, I think velocity would be the biggest thing in the pie and maybe even most of the pie. Like 80? Could you see velocity being 80%? least point or maybe some deception because of your motion like some people might say that doesn't qualify as stuff like if you're one of those guys who has a sneaky fast fastball or because it doesn't seem like you have good stuff but then you get swings and misses maybe that shouldn't count as stuff but i probably would count that as stuff yeah i would also include a sort of a subjective

thing but your other pitches in your arsenal, kind of pitch tunneling. So I know last year I was continually amazed watching Jordan Hicks, the reliever for the Cardinals, who throws like 103 miles an hour. And he just, people hit the ball. Like it's crazy. He just doesn't get the kind of swing and miss you would expect from someone who throws same velocity. And there's a lot of movement. But I really do think being able to mask your pitches because of other pitches that you throw is a big deal. You'll see a guy like Jordan Hicks, who can't get swings and misses at 103. And then Kyle Hendricks throws his 75 mile an hour change

up and people just look dumb. Yeah. It's because it looks so similar to other pitches. Yeah, that is a big part of effectiveness, but I would guess that maybe most people wouldn't count that as stuff, right? Because you would say like, well, I don't know, you would say so-and-so doesn't have good stuff and yet he gets swings and misses, right? But maybe it should be part of the definition of stuff, but like the stereotypical definition of stuff probably is just like speed and movement and i don't know maybe like a funky angle that makes it look harder to hit than it

actually is but i would guess that there's some stuff well not to use that word again but there are probably some things that uh should be part of the definition of stuff that historically haven't been. I, if you were to try to define it in words, my, my definition off the top of my head for how you would define it in words might be something like the difficulty of hitting the pitches, regardless of location, or maybe a better way of saying it would be the ability for the pitcher to get away with mistakes. So he can throw it right down the middle and get away with it because it's hard to hit. It's hard to hit. And so that clashes, though, because I was going to say funky motion.

No way. That's not stuff. As you were sort of getting to Ben with deception. And I was going to say tunneling. No way. That's not that's not stuff. Or like the way that you mix that's not that's not stuff or like the way that you mix your pitches that's not stuff and yet those things go into how hard it is to hit the

pitch regardless of location so i don't know that i can square that to me it is a word used because you in a lot of cases it's it's a kind of a you just want to praise the pitches look good you know like they look good. That's what it is more than anything. It's just like, oh, that's a good looking pitch. Right. It doesn't even necessarily correlate to effectiveness or it correlates, but it's not a one-to-one relationship because often it's, oh, he's got good stuff. Yeah.

So oftentimes it's almost an insult. It's a way of saying that he lacks something because yeah he's not there yet which i guess usually probably just comes down to command right when you say that someone has good stuff but he's not good for whatever reason it's because he just can't control it doesn't have the ability to put it where he wants to yeah i think it's probably a basic sort of just speed and movement for the most part. That is how it has typically been applied. Yeah, I would say 75% speed, 15% direction of movement, 10% totality of movement. Yeah, I think the definition of stuff is, to paraphrase a quote from the Supreme Court obscenity trial, Jacob Ellis v. Ohio.

I think the definition is, I'll know it when I see it. That was their definition of pornography, and I think it also applies to stuff. Yeah. And even more so in this case, because it is a scout term to describe what they've seen and what they know. I mean, that is the whole point of it. It's like, you sent me out here to put eyes on this pitch and my eyes are telling you he's got good stuff.

All right. So you've got to go tend to your hamster and we've got to let Anthony go to bed. So thank you very much for joining Anthony. And I hope getting a peek behind the curtain and hearing us screw up is not to make you think less of us. And you're about to cancel your Patreon support. We should give him the unedited file right yeah as a as a memento of your appearance well thank you for coming on it was a pleasure yeah no thank you guys and uh if anything uh seeing this has made me appreciate

the hard work that you guys do even more so thank you anything you want to plug or tell people to find you or look up? You can find me in the Effectively Wild Facebook group, commenting occasionally, usually about Cub stuff. I was going to say I definitely recommend subscribing to Patreon. It helps these guys present this podcast ad-free. You're plugging our stuff. No, I am.

You want to read five names? And one of the Patreon donor tiers gives you a signed copy of the book. The only rule is it has to work. And so I already had a copy of the book. So I was trying to decide what I would do with my old copy if you guys sent me a signed copy. So I emailed the BBWAA to ask them if they would like an unsigned copy of the book to go with Eduardo Nunez's bat on the display case. They have not gone back to me yet, but hopefully they do. All right. Well, you're continuing to support us in every way possible.

Even when I tried to get you to promote yourself, you're still promoting us in the podcast. I appreciate it. So thank you very much, Anthony. Thanks. Yeah, I'll also promote Ben Lindbergh's other writing about video games. I recommend that too, because I'm also a huge video game fan. Thank you. You can be like Anthony Sheff and support this podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectivelywild. Five other listeners who have already pledged their support include Stephen King, Paul Moorhead, Ryan McGibbety, Gavin Rodkey, and Chad Goldberg.

Thanks to all of you. You can also join our Facebook group, as Anthony already has, at facebook.com slash groups slash Effectively Wild. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and other podcast platforms. We didn't get to all the questions that we would have liked to today,

so we'll save some for next time. But please do keep your questions and comments coming for me and Sam and Meg at podcast at fangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you're a supporter. Thanks to Dylan Higgins

for his editing assistance. You can pre-order my book, The MVP Machine, which comes out in two and a half months or so. Some reviewers have just gotten the galley copies, which is exciting and scary. And we'll be back next time with another team preview podcast. We have three more to go, so we will talk to you then. It could be worse, Lord Antony But hey, it kind of suits you anyway

You'll soon be old enough to leave them Without a notion of a care You'll need to think as you leave To linger there