Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1388: Rest Days

Episode Date: June 14, 2019

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Meg’s upcoming vacation and brief break from baseball, Chris Paddack’s demotion to High-A, the latest act of Clayton Kershaw’s career and the perils and possibilities of player aging, whether the home-run rate is too damn high, the state of the standings, what the trade market might look like […]

Hello and welcome to episode 1388 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast brought to you by Fangraphs and our Patreon supporters. I am Meg Rowley of Fangraphs and I am joined as always by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, who has hopefully sold many, many books. How are you, Ben? Doing well. I am trying to sell many books. I hope that's going well. Midweek Meg. This is a treat. Switching up the order here. Yeah, Midweek Meg. End of Week Meg is going to be on vacation. So I like you and our podcast very much. I like Fangraphs very much. And I hope to not think about any of you, even a little bit for like a week. Yeah. So you are on the verge of vacation and this podcast episode is pretty much the only thing

standing between you and freedom, it seems like. And you've also handed off transferred control of the hardball times to the very capable Rachel McDaniel. So things are looking up for you from a work-life balance standpoint. Yeah. We're going to pretend that that is true because it'll make my mom less nervous and probably my therapist also. But yes, I am very happy that Rachel is up and running and just doing a great job at THT. I have had to apologize because

I was meant to produce a here's how you edit stuff at Fangraphs in the Hardball Time document. And I said to Rachel, hey, I haven't done this yet because I got behind with the draft. And Rachel said, I'm very self-sufficient. And then I said, yeah. So perfect. Yeah, Rachel's doing great. So what are your vacation plans? Are you planning for this to be a vacation from baseball or just a vacation from baseball

work or? Yes. Yeah. all of the things uh i'm going to visit some buddies i'm going to be off the grid i'm going to try to be off the grid and not engage with baseball or the grid in any form and i'm gonna not look at twitter and i'm not gonna instagram and i'm gonna delete the Slack app from my phone. Oh, wow. Yeah. Drastic step.

Yeah. Well, I know myself and my proclivity to work when I'm not supposed to. So I'm taking steps to safeguard the sanity of future Meg. I'm taking those steps in the present. I've informed the Fangraph staff that they have to feed themselves and bother Dylan Higgins and he has gamely agreed to keep the site running while I'm gone so thank you Dylan and I have said in very nice

words that they shouldn't bother me and if they do I'm going to say it in that nice words even though I love them all very much so that's my plan it's going to be great yeah that sounds really nice good luck being off the grid unt plan. It's going to be great. Yeah, that sounds really nice. Good luck being off the grid, untethered. I'm going to try. Sounds wonderful.

Yeah, I made a comment about this on Twitter, and Jeff G-chatted me to say that it's really fine. Baseball just marches on while you're gone. And, you know, it's an okay time in the calendar to be taking an in-season vacation. I was supposed to have an off-season vacation, but then Carson turned into a Blue Jay, and it seemed like we couldn't really afford that. So I'm excited. It'll be nice. But I'm excited to learn about baseball when I get back because, I don't know, maybe I'll try to go the whole week. Could be true.

Maybe I'll just watch the College World Series. Maybe that'll be my equilibrium point. Yeah, Jeff and I have talked about that feeling of disconnection when you come back from some time off and you have to catch up with everything that happened in baseball and it feels like a daunting task because so much does happen in baseball. But it's also kind of nice to get away from it a little bit. I mean, we have the winter, we have the offseason, there's no baseball then and everyone is pining for baseball to come back. But it is maybe like a week-long midseason break. It's like your all-star break because you're going to Cleveland for the all-star game,

so that won't really be a break for you, but this will be. And then you'll come back, and your love of the game will be re-energized, and you'll discover everything that you missed, and it will be so much fun. So that sounds great. I hope it's fun. Yeah, thank you. I'm excited. It is time. And I imagine I will come back. And I'm excited to learn. We have talked about this a little bit, but I'm excited to learn who emerges as actually good or truly terrible in a way that we should worry about. And I will just miss it. I'll just miss it and probably not catch up. And then at the end of the season, I will look at the war leader boards and be like, wait, what?

When did that happen? So I'm excited to figure out who that guy is like, you know, a couple months from now. Yeah. Well, while you're gone, you will not miss any Chris Paddock starts or any major league Chris Paddock starts because Chris Paddock has been optioned all the way down to single A. And this is something we can talk about because it is, I guess it's a combination of a few factors. So ostensibly, it is a way to minimize his workload. And he was going to be a guy who would probably be on an innings limit. And of course, the Padres just promoted him at the start of the season, which was good. That's something they've done with their guys this year. And he's been A, so it's less pressure and stress.

I don't know exactly what they're thinking there. And hopefully, presumably, he will be back sometime soon. The question, of course, is how long he will be down there, both for the workload related reasons, but also for service time related reasons. Because if he is down there for what 20 days or something like that then they will gain an extra year of service time they'll have control of his 2025 season i suppose and that could be a very valuable season given how good he is already so we will see whether they wait that exact prescribed time whether they bring him back before then, because the Padres have kind of been the exception to teams treating players that way, at least on opening day.

And so it would be sort of a shame if they backslid and turned into every other team that way by just keeping him down now that he has shown that he deserves to be there. Agreed. I think that it's interesting to look at these conversations sort of within the context of the broader discourse around labor questions, because I think that people are, I don't think that it's unreasonable to, if we wanted to be charitable, to sort of keep a keen eye on these sorts of things, because I think there are some legitimate performance concerns that you highlighted. His last couple of starts have not been especially sharp.

And he is a guy who's had Tommy John previously and had like, what, 90 minor league innings across levels last year. And so I think there is a reasonable case to be made that he could use a little rest and it could be that that is something that the organization believes quite sincerely and is going to help him manage his way through and you know they won't keep him down more than 20 days and all of this will be sort of a moot point but i think that we are right to not necessarily give teams even teams that as you've noted have been pretty aggressive compared to others with their promotions and the timing of those

promotions to just, you know, not give them the benefit of the doubt until they've proven that they are sort of approaching these things with a good intention. And, you know, like there are other, if he's really dinged up, there are other options available to them, right? Like if he needs an injured listant, players accrue service time while they're on the IL, right? So if it's a matter of them being concerned that there's fatigue or there's something actually physically wrong with him, they do have that option. So I hope that at the end of the year, we can look back and say like, oh, he just needed a little break and then they brought him back up and then he stayed up and it was fine. But I do think that we are right to kind of monitor it pretty closely because that extra

year of control is incredibly tempting, especially for a player as talented as Paddock. And like you said, it would be unfortunate if the goodwill of sort of putting your best guys on the field, regardless of what their service time incentives might try to induce you to do, it would be a shame if that kind of got squandered, especially for someone as exciting as Paddock. So hopefully we end the year looking back being like, oh, it was okay. It was okay this time, but I do think we should be keeping a close eye on that calendar. Yeah. It's got to be jarring if you're Chris Paddock to be in the big leagues dominating one day and then next thing you know, you're back in single A, advanced, high A. But that's,

I don't know why they chose high A, whether it's a geographical thing because that's Lake Elsinore or whether it's they really wanted to emphasize that they're giving him a break here and no pressure, or whether it's to get him away from the juiced ball that was in AAA. I don't know exactly what the maybe the training facility is. Not sure what the reasoning there was. I'm sure there's a good reason for that. But got to be kind of confusing to go backwards in your career in that way. Just, I mean, when was the last time he was

at that level? It's probably been a while and he's proved himself in the majors. And then suddenly you go from the bright lights in big city or at least San Diego to this, uh, like small town kind of sleepy baseball. That's, uh, that's weird. Yeah. I guess it's been, it's been a year, right? Since he was, he was last there and it wasn't even for too long of a stint. So his whole career is just so – has to have been vaguely disorienting the whole time. Right. So maybe he's used to that part. But it isn't unusual for a young pitcher to need sort of a reset once people have sort of adjusted to him. And I think that when you look at his last couple of starts, there was the dip in velocity in May, although it's ticked back up recently. And the command hasn't looked quite as sharp as it did in the early going. So there is a performance case here. It's like, yeah, give the guy a reset reset but it's just so hard to not read something

more nefarious into a young promising star getting demoted um so i don't yeah hopefully it's fine yeah well i just wrote about another nl west pitcher who is kind of on the other end of his career and that is clayton kershaw who we haven't talked a whole lot about this year except for i think one time when we talked about how he pitched against Jacob deGrom, and neither of them has been as good as they used to, and that matchup wasn't exciting as it used to be. But I have actually been heartened by Clayton Kershaw's performance this season, because, as I wrote in this article, he was kind of at a crossroads this April, where, I mean, we saw him last in the World Series where he was getting knocked around by Boston and had a seven-something ERA in that series.

And his velocity was way down. It was like almost career low peak fastball speeds in that series. And then he signed an extension with the Dodgers because he had that opt-out that he didn't exercise. extension with the Dodgers because he had that opt-out that he didn't exercise. But really, he got only one additional year at sort of a slight annual salary pay cut. And that was, I think, reflective of the fact that no one really knew what to expect out of Clayton Kershaw anymore because he's been on and off the injured list. He's had recurring back issues. He had a biceps issue last year. His velocity has declined just over a very long period at this point. And he was pretty effective last year, but not past my prime, that I can still be as good as I used to be. He's, of course, ultra competitive, and he will probably think that until the day he retires.

But that was kind of his goal for the season. And then he got hurt again in spring training. No sooner had Dave Roberts said, yeah, he's probably going to make his ninth, I think, consecutive opening day start. Then he had a bad bullpen session. He had shoulder soreness. He was shut down. And he didn't come back until mid-April. So at that point, there was just no telling what Clayton Kershaw would be. Would he be effective? Would he be able to stay on the field? And since then, he's made 10 starts, and he's been a really good pitcher. Not peak Clayton Kershaw. That guy is gone, I think.

But he has adjusted to his diminished stuff in a way that gives me hope that he can stay at this level for a while. And that's really encouraging because, you know, he said also when he signed that extension that he thought maybe his velocity could come back and he wasn't counting it out and he was going to try some things over the offseason. I don't know whether he did try some things or what those things were because he tends not to talk a whole lot about his preparation and his pitching process. But that velocity did not come back. And in fact, he has lost even more. sitting around 90 with his fastball and really has not gotten above 92.4, I think, has been his peak this year, which is sort of shocking because every year of his 20s, his average fastball was faster than his peak fastball is now. And yet he's been pretty good. He's been a good pitcher, and I am very encouraged. And I can tell you a little bit about the changes he's made and how he's done that, but it's good that he, he at least for now seems to be following more of like a maybe

Cece Sabathia-esque trajectory than a Felix-esque trajectory you never know which way it's going to go and I'm hoping it will be the former for him well and I think that the contrast of those two players and sort of the archetypes they represent in terms of the approach of aging pitchers, it is very strange to talk about Kershaw's aging because he is also one of the humans who's younger than I am who plays baseball. But I think that there are very few things that I enjoy more in a pitching career than a willingness, a sort of proven willingness to be adaptable. I think that watching how guys both execute that, but really think about it, says so much about how they understand themselves in their own game and what inputs are valuable to them

in their understanding of what their game plan should be on any given day and sort of what their broader approach to their repertoire should be. And so I think we learn so much about pitchers in this phase of their career because they have to properly identify what worked well for them. And then also, you know, say, here's the stuff that's no longer working and here's how I can, can change it. So I think that it is a, it is weirdly a time, even though it is often a time where guys are less and less effective than they used to be, where we learn more and more about how pitchers think about pitching and how these particular great pitchers think about pitching. So I really enjoy that aspect.

And I think there's a nice, you know, it's so unusual for someone to be so good at something and then be willing to critically examine the aspects of this thing they used to be really good at that aren't working anymore. I think that as human beings, that's something we're just not particularly well-equipped to do. We tend to let less information in as we age. That's why you stop listening to new music after you're like 35. Because all the music is bad now. All the music is bad now. You can't just take in any new music.

Even the old music that was good is bad now. All the music is bad now. You can't just take in any new music. Even the old music that was good is bad now. I didn't like that new Decembrist album. I didn't like it. I wanted to, and I didn't. I liked the Death Cab, though. The Death Cab. Yes, me too. That was very good.

Stayed solid. So it is an understandable human failing. It's one that I don't mean to put judgment on per se. But you look at someone like Felix, who has seemed to struggle to adapt, right? He was just a guy who could show up and throw. And because of what because of the native talent he had, that was sufficient. And then it stopped being sufficient and being able to adjust seems to be something that he has sort of struggled with and and not grappled with as successfully as as other guys have whereas cc has been famously adaptable so i i just uh i'm excited that we are we are seeing signs that kershaw is in that mold rather than the other and i'm i'm really interested to hear him talk more about that process as it continues, because I'm sure this will, you know, you should talk about the changes he has made, which I definitely know because I have absolutely had time to read your article already, but you should tell our listeners who have not had time. But this will not be the

last adjustment he has to make, right? He will have to perpetually adjust as time goes on. So I'm excited to listen to him sort of talk about that and how he articulates that process to the extent that he does. Yeah, exactly. Because sometimes I think you have to really run into a wall and hitters have to tell you that what you're doing is not working anymore for you to change. Like CeCe had that period where it looked like he was maybe just done like 2013, 2014, period where it looked like he was maybe just done like 2013 2014 2015 he was a below average pitcher in all of those years and since then from age 35 to 38 he has been an above average pitcher well above average pitcher in terms of runs allowed because you know whatever he added a cutter and he did things differently and i think sometimes you need that adjustment period With Kershaw because he's so good

He hasn't really ever struggled I mean, you know, he's had bad starts here and there And he hasn't exactly been his old self But like, I mean, the last time he won a Cy Young Award That was, gosh, it's been five years Since the last time Clayton Kershaw won a Cy Young Award And yet he has a, let's's say 2.28 ERA since then so right and and even in like the last you know few years where he's kind of headed downhill in certain ways

he has a 2.59 ERA since 2017 right and even last year he had a sub three year so it's not like he's ever i mean you know he was a guy who was like literally like a below two era for a few years there so yeah him being bad is like a high two cra or something so it's not like he really ran into something where he just couldn't exactly be good but i think it is impressive that he has Adapted because he was so Good and when you're that good It must be hard to accept the Fact that what you're doing doesn't Work as well anymore especially if you're not

Getting really knocked around I mean He had I looked up By war by whichever war Baseball reference or fan graphs he Had the best 20s Of any pitcher Who has debuted since 1910, I think, except for Roger Clemens. So he's coming off like, you know, one of the best decades ever by a pitcher. And he's not old, like he just turned 31 this March. So that's not that

long ago. And you could totally tell yourself, like, I haven't lost a step. I can keep doing what I'm doing. I mean, the radar gun doesn't lie, I guess. But it must be so hard when you're at the pinnacle of your profession that way to understand that you're not anymore and that you might have to do something different. Because it's like, I'm Clayton Kershaw. Like, you could very easily take that stance. I'm just going to keep doing what I was doing because it was working so well and I'm still the same guy and we all kind of tend to see the best in ourselves or forgive our own flaws, but he has not done that. And so he has changed really dramatically. And, you know,

I looked at like the biggest differences in fastball usage between when any pitcher has entered the league and a subsequent season in his career. And basically, he's at the top of the list because he entered the season with he's like throwing 70% fastballs in his first few years in the league. And now he's throwing like 40% fastballs. And that's not an accident. It is because his fastball has lost a lot. It's about four miles per hour ish slower than It used to be and it has continued to Tail off so he lost like two

Ticks last year he's lost Another mile and a half per hour this Year so it is not coming back But he has Coped and compensated by Throwing many more sliders so Since the start of last season He and Masaru Tanaka are basically the only Guys the only starters at least Who have thrown more sliders. So since the start of last season, he and Masahiro Tanaka are basically

the only guys, the only starters at least, who have thrown more sliders than fastballs. So that's what he does at this point. He is a slider machine. And he kind of has this interesting approach where he can't really just pour it in there in the heart of the strike zone anymore. Sam actually wrote something for BP a few years ago about how Kershaw actually just threw like middle middle more than most pitchers, but he got away with it because he was so good. Like Sam started that article thinking, well, he must just avoid that region more and that's why he's good. But that was not the case. He just could do that and not get hit. And now he can't do that. So what he does, it's, I think, pretty interesting. It's

kind of like a more extreme version of what all pitchers do. I think some research has shown that as all pitchers age, they tend to throw fewer fastballs and they tend to throw fewer pitches in the zone. So that's what he's done. But he has a very above average rate of throwing pitches in the strike zone on the first pitch. So he throws like 60% of his pitches on the first pitch in the strike zone. But then after that, he has a below average rate of pitches in the strike zone. So he gets ahead. He's always been good or long been good at getting first pitch strikes. And that continues to be the case. He just, while hitters are not prepared, while they're not ready to swing, he just pours pitches into the strike

zone he gets ahead and then once he gets ahead he goes way out of the zone he used to throw his curves and sliders in the zone and now he throws them way below the zone and now he gets chases because he is ahead in the count more than most pitchers are so even though his stuff is diminished he's like going about it in a clever way. And he's clearly gradually come to the realization that I can't get away with what I used to get away with, but I can get away with something else. And it's working quite well for him. And, you know, he's like in this rotation that as of now would be like the best rotation of all time. The Tadris rotation this year in terms of like park adjusted ERA. the Dodgers rotation this year in terms of like park adjusted ERA right there has never been a better one except for this year's Rays who you know their rotation is like three guys and a

bunch of openers so it's not quite the same but their rotation is great so like technically he's kind of like the third starter of the Dodgers right now because Hyunjin Ryu is just unhittable all of a sudden and Walker Bueller is great so Kershaw is like a mid rotation starter in one of the best rotations we've seen, probably the best rotation in baseball. And, you know, he's like the ace in name only at this point, I guess, but he's a really valuable starting pitcher. And i'm sure that there is a contemporary example that we will just think of together right on the spot that'll be a perfect answer to this but it it does seem to be a sort of ideal situation for what a a guy who has been so beloved and who has been so good might find himself in as his you know as his career starts to tail right because he doesn't have the pressure of being the number one you know because ryu has emerged and been so great and Bueller's been so wonderful. And so he is allowed to make this transition in a very graceful way and assuming that his health sort of is able to stay

relatively consistent, understanding that there might be some aisle stints along the way here, just because, you know, backs once they're a little bit wrong or often a little bit wrong forever. But, you know, he'll get that sort of smooth, slow walk into the end of his career. And we'll be able to look back and say, like, this is clearly the Hall of Fame standard for this generation of pitcher because we're going to have to adjust our understanding of what that means anyway. But he really looks like the guy who's going to be the obvious one of the obvious cases out of this sort of generation of pitchers and so I wonder and this is a very terrible question to ask because it puts way too much emphasis on the postseason but I do wonder do we feel that there is more pressure for the Dodgers to win a World Series with Kershaw, or does that just not matter?

We're just going to look at his individual performance as is and say, this is wonderful. He had that very nerve-wracking but awesome coming from the bullpen moment in the postseason a couple of years ago. We've erased all bad memories, or at least have decided they don't matter as much. Does it matter? I wonder about that. I wonder about that with him. I'm sure we'll be having this conversation again come October because it's an annual right.

But in terms of his career legacy, like unless he really has a great playoff record in the rest of his career, I think that's probably going to be something that people talk about with him. It's kind of inevitable. He does have a big gap between his playoff performance, at least in terms of ERA and his career regular season performance. You can't ignore it. I hate just kind of labeling him with this brush of someone who can't pitch in October because he has done that very well many times and every time he does I think okay he's finally set this to rest but then he doesn't because then he'll have another if he starred and the Dodgers keep making the playoffs and keep giving him chances and that will probably be the case again so I think it would be nice if

he I don't know that I root for any one team to win a World Series just for one player's legacy, but it'd be nice if people who hold that type of thing against the player didn't have that thing to hold against them. series this year and so he will get another crack at this and maybe will in future years too i think it's going to be something that people will bring up about him but he's just so good in other respects like obviously it's not going to like keep him out of any hall of fame conversations or like best peak conversations or anything it's for sure it's really just the kind of thing where if it comes down to like a greatest of all time debate then people will say yeah but he wasn't quite as great in the playoffs and and that will be something to to hold against him i suppose but he's amazing he's amazing we let's see since since 2000 just to make a nice round in this century kind of number. We have him as fourth in total war among pitchers. Verlander is in first place with 68.

Sabathia is just behind him at 66.4. And then we have Halliday, RIP Roy, at 64.6. And then Kershaw is there with a very nice round, 63, at 64.6, and then Kershaw is there with a very nice round 63, obviously not having pitched as many years as some of the guys ahead of him, and off by, man, CeCe has just thrown so many innings. I guess that's what happens when you've been pitching for as long as he has, but Kershaw's thrown 700-ish fewer innings than Verlander and is only off by five wins.

He's amazing. Yeah, he really is. Well, we got to watch Clayton Kershaw. That's pretty cool that we get to see that. That's the thing. I think when Brandon McCarthy was on the podcast last year, he was talking about how in this era of data and technology and everything, no pitcher, no player is going to go through his career

without reinventing himself a few times, which has always been the case. I think you've always had to compensate for declining skills, but maybe now you can do it in a more kind of concerted or planned way. But I think that's true. Like, maybe if you're Justin Verlander, you just can kind of keep doing what you were doing because he just still throws really hard and is still just dominant even he has made adjustments and you know he went to houston and he started incorporating more information into what he's doing so i think you know with him he just hasn't suffered the velocity loss that kershaw has that felix has so he's an outlier in that respect but i think i do really enjoy watching a pitcher who formerly succeeded on stuff just succeed on while and and also stuff like i don't want to make it sound as if clayton kershaw is just out there with nothing like right he's still really good he uh it's to some extent what he's doing is totally typical because because there have been studies that have shown that starters lose for every mile per hour they lose. They have a higher run average by a quarter of a run or something.

And so Clayton Kershaw has lost like four miles per hour and he has like a one run higher run average roughly. kind of the same relationship and the fact that he's still so good, still a very above average major league starting pitcher is because he was starting from this incredibly elite level where he could decline and still be better than most guys ever are. But he still has like a fastball that moves a lot and a slider that moves a lot and a curveball that drops more than almost anyone's curveball. And he has probably a deceptive delivery that maybe makes his slower fastballs play up a bit. And he has very good command. And so he's kind of still has all of these assets as a pitcher that most guys don't even in their prime. So it's not like he is just going out there and succeeding with just slop. So I don't want to give that impression.

But it is still, I think, heartening that he has found a way to make this work. And I enjoy watching this phase of players' careers where they don't quite have what they used to have, but they figure out how to make it work for a while. And everyone's kind of fighting. a while and everyone's kind of fighting you know i i called it like a rear guard action in the article because we're all retreating and we're all fighting a losing battle against aging athletes maybe more obviously than most of us but uh yeah it's the same fight that we're all fighting and you can only win it or or fight it to a standstill for so long so you know eventually he'll lose even more speed or he'll lose some command or hitters will realize what he's doing and not let him get away with this strategy where

he's racking up lots of first pitch strikes they'll just start swinging at those pitches and won't work quite so well anymore and he'll have to maybe find some secondary adjustment that may or may not be there there's uh some research from Mike Fast that I cited that pitchers in their 20s are better able to weather losing velocity than pitchers who are in their 30s or in their early 30s because he speculated when you're in your 20s, you have adjustments to make like the ones that Kershaw's made, whereas in your 30s, you've already made those adjustments. And so you just run out of rope at that point. So that will happen to him at some point. But I'm more hopeful than I was like a couple months ago

that that point might not come for a little while. And then he'll have a career where we get to see like a productive 30s where, sure, he's just kind of like tacking on to a Hall of Fame resume that's mostly already written. But other people will get to enjoy him and appreciate him. And a new generation will see him. And maybe it won't be the same guy. It'll be like, you know, late Greg Maddox, where everyone now thinks Greg Maddox always threw like 88 because they're just familiar with Greg Maddox from his latter days where he was doing that. And he was still pretty decent, even though he had better stuff when he was younger but but I'm glad that Clayton Kershaw

will get to be a part of baseball for perhaps longer than it looked a few months ago as long as his health holds up yeah I think so I'm looking I'm being a bit more precise in our leaderboard since 2000 with a minimum of a thousand innings pitched because you know you get into some funkier small guys only just among starters and yeah he uh has the best cumulative fip that's very exciting best cumulative era the other thing that is striking to me about this leaderboard which is not meant i don't mean that what i'm about to say is a knock on any of the guys for whom this is not true because uh i think, you know, people got to move around and do what they got to do. But it is kind of striking to look at that first page of results for starters since 2000 with a minimum of a thousand innings pitched by war.

And it's Kershaw and Felix are the only guys until you get down to Adam Wainwright, who have a single team, right? We do the dash, dash, dash when guys have played for multiple organizations, which, you know, there's benefit to that too. I'm sure that it's really nice that Justin Verlander got to win a World Series and, you know, that a whole new fan base got to enjoy him, for instance, just as the guy at the top of this leaderboard, much like it's fun that CeCe has had various iterations of his career in front of different crowds.

But it is striking. Man, guys really just don't stay. They just don't stay put much. Yeah. They really don't. Yeah. And I wonder whether, I mean, when you are diminished like that, when you've kind of been in the same place for a while

and you were the best while you were there, I wonder if it then becomes even harder to stay put. If your team that you worked for when you were at your peak is suddenly like, well, we will keep you around, but we can't pay you what we used to pay you because you're just not worth as much anymore. Whether it's almost more galling to stay at that point and whether you might want to go somewhere else and start fresh. So I don't know. Felix, I think, was unusual in the fact that he chose to stay and wanted to stay and not choose free agency. And I know Kershaw wanted to stay this past offseason too. So that will probably continue to be the case. I assume he'll want to remain a Dodger. And so we'll see whether if his performance continues to decline, whether he's okay with it when the Dodgers, because it's like, it's almost like when Derek Jeter was getting old.

And there's been some reporting about how the last time he was a free agent, like the Yankees made him the biggest offer, but it was not big enough for his liking. And, you know, he tested free agency. I think Brian Cashman was like like go see if there's another bigger offer out there and there wasn't yeah but when you're a jeter or a kershaw it's almost like do you know what i mean to this organization this franchise like which there's real value to that too it's it's you know it's not just in your head like if you're one of those guys you're like an ambassador for that team until you go become the head of the marlins but for a while at least like you're a figurehead you're you're kind of the guy who's

on the cover of the media guide and all of that but at a certain point like well maybe walker bueller's on the cover of the media guide maybe cody belcher's on the cover of the media guide and maybe clayton kershaw's like the elder statesman who's been around for a while and makes everyone feel nostalgic. So when it gets to that point, it's like, is the marquee value worth as much to the team as the player thinks it should be worth? And are there hard feelings there when people you've worked with for a really long time are kind of telling you that you're not what you used to be? And maybe it's easier to hear that from people you didn't have that relationship with. So that's a tough thing to navigate. I think that a lot of it is likely his relationship with the organization, even with diminished stuff, seems to be a productive one. And I think he's a good example. Like you said, he chose to stay, it's a you know much shorter term decision than

um than the one that say felix made but you you have to imagine that he would not have that he would have opted out if there had been any sort of squirreliness there so i wouldn't be surprised if he just kind of soldiers on and you know the the dodgers seem to be an organization that appreciate the value of depth and uh they seem to both also appreciate that appreciate the value of depth and they seem to both also appreciate sort of the value that Kershaw has to the org. I'm going to stall the Felix conversation because it'll be relevant this off season. I've recently been accused of being a bummer and that is a bummer topic, but I will say this about Felix, which is just like a thing that you notice wins and losses are done.

We know this about wins and losses as a metric, but it is very striking to put Kershaw and Felix's loss totals up against one another because they're pretty close in the win column, which makes some sense. But then you're like, hey, those offenses really let Felix down because he pitched a whole bunch of innings and he was in there for a decision. Some of that is him not being good lately but some of that is those mariners teams being real bad whereas kershaw was just like i'm not in this decision that's fine yeah man we were just talking about the legacy conversation so you have kershaw who's had a million chances to forge his playoff legacy and then you have felix who has had zero chances to forge his playoff legacy and then you have Felix who has had zero chances to forge his so with neither of those guys is you know dominance in the postseason part of their

legacy but for very different reasons so I I will okay this is my bummer comment of this podcast so I have I have a bad habit of when I see role players who have overlapped on the Mariners roster with Felix, who are now playing in other organizations, I now have this habit that I cannot kick and I don't mean to. It's just a reflex where I will think, that guy's going to have a postseason appearance. Felix never has. I had this thought the last time I watched the Brewers and I was like, Ben Gamble's probably going to play in October this year. Ben Gamble. You know who has never played in October?

Felix Hernandez. So that's a thing that I'd like my brain to stop doing. But I don't think we're going to see it stop anytime soon. You're sitting there. You know, he probably won't be on the roster. For all I know, they've moved on from him already. But like, Kendris Morales is not going to be a Yankee for too much longer, probably. But if he is Kendris Morales, I guess he's had other opportunities before.

But Kendris, yeah, man, it's just going to bug me forever. Yeah, life isn't fair. No, it's not. All right. We can still appreciate Felix, though, even without an October. Yes, we can. There you go. So I talked a little bit to Michael Bauman about this earlier this week, but we wanted to have a little bit of a home run conversation. You and I talked about the home run rate early in the year, but it has just escalated since then.

And this past week, we had the Phillies Diamondbacks game with 13 combined home runs, which was, I believe, a record. And it seemed to me that I was starting to see something about home run records being set virtually every day. There was actually a AAA game in April where 15 combined home runs were hit, although that was in 10 innings. But still, it's really striking. It's really striking I think in 2017 The previous year when the Home run record was set I think 3.4% of plate appearances

Ended in homers and This April it was 3.5% And then it's been like 3.6 3.7% since then As the weather has warmed up which Is still happening so we're On pace now for about 450 More home runs

than were hit in 2017, that record season. And that pace is incorporating April when the weather was colder. So if the ball doesn't change again and the weather warms up, then that pace may even be exceeded. So we're looking at like more than 6,500 homers probably being hit in the big leagues these days.

And that's a lot. And it's gotten to the point where even I, who typically takes these things as they come, and I just think, well, this is the run environment this year and that's the run environment that year. And I'm kind of glad it's different from year to year so that we all have a little variety in our lives and we get to see what baseball looks like under different conditions.

I don't think it's automatically bad when things change, but boy, there have been a lot of home runs. And when I see these headlines, that's the thing. It's not like I mind the homers so much as I'm watching the game, but then I'll see the headlines about so-and-so hit, you know, the Nationals went back to back to back to back, and then there were 13 homers hitting this game, and this guy is on pace for franchise record and blah, blah, blah. And it's like,

every time I see that, I just think, well, yeah, but it's the ball. Like, yeah, it's the team and it's that guy.

And you know, the twins are on pace to break the record for homers said, and the Orioles are on pace to break the record for homers allowed. And these things are just all over the place. And it's being reported as if it's like a team and player accomplishment and to some extent it is but it's also just the conditions which like it's always the conditions governing things that happen in baseball but when you're at these extremes i can't see a really long homer hit like ian desmond's 486 foot homer or like

i think francisco mejia hit one in triple AAA that was supposedly like 507 feet or something. It's like, I don't know. To me, it just seems artificial these days in a way that it didn't at first. Because you can't not make the connection that all of this is connected to the ball. Yeah, I think that that Monday game between the Diamondbacks and the Phillies where there were all of the home runs, the first one of those home runs was hit by Gerard Dyson,

not famously a power hitter. This is his fourth home run of the year, which seems like a lot for Gerard Dyson in June, right, to have already had four. And I was sitting on my couch watching that and I thought, well, that's pretty weird four. And I was sitting on my couch watching that. And I thought, well, that's pretty weird. And then the rest of that game happened. And I was like, this is out of hand, right? Because, you know, Dyson, you can have one of Gerard Dyson or Quetel Marte hitting

a home run on the same night, but you probably shouldn't have both. That seems like too many. All Jay Bruce does is a home run. So that's fine. But it does make you think, it shatters the illusion that it is a feat of strength or an accomplishment when they get sort of backed up back to back to back like this. And then it makes it harder to enjoy like Dan Volga back home runs. And we should all get to enjoy those because they really should go that far. So I agree. I think that it has gotten out of hand, but I would be nervous to have the ball suddenly change the way that it just can randomly change, you know, that no one says anything about. Because if it does, we're going to see kind of a collapse of offense.

It might get very boring very quickly if we stop having this home run surge so i think that it's something that however we want to formulate the responsibility that the league might have for this particular moment that that they should think very carefully about this offseason because on the one hand we don't want things to return to 2014 no but this does seem to be uh miscalibrated in terms of how much they need to put less juice in the ball. Dial it down. Yeah, maybe just slowly wean us off the system because it becomes a dependent relationship where, yeah, if you change this overnight the way it changed before, then that's really going to upset things because players have now tailored their approaches to this ball and all the stuff about launch angle. I mean, that may have had some merit to it regardless, but I think

it has even more merit to it in this era where the ball's carrying so well when it's in the air that of course you want to get it in the air. So if that changes, then you're just going to have a bunch of fly balls that die at the warning track. And meanwhile, everyone will be striking out constantly and not doing a lot of damage when they do make contact, which is the thing that's propping up scoring these days. So, yeah, I mean, I think the fact that there's not that much like outrage or I don't know that traditional fans are that upset about it, it's maybe partly that that scoring isn't wildly out of line.

If we were in an era where teams were scoring more than they had ever scored before, then that might annoy people. But because everyone hits 240 nowadays, it kind of balances out so that scoring is more or less normal right now. So that's probably part of it. And as Bauman was saying, it may also be the fact that no one is really challenging individual records the way that they were being challenged and broken 20 years ago. So no one cares that much about like the team records for home runs or home runs allowed. Bauman even forgot that the Yankees set that record for home runs last year it was just last year yeah so those aren't really like sacred records that when someone breaks them it's like what how dare you tamper with uh what roger mares did or before him what babe bruce did or whatever so i don't think people get upset about team level or league level records in the same way that they do individual records i don't either although we're gonna have to start paying i guess paying attention well i don't know yelich

is what leading with 25 yeah yeah yeah they could get to 60 ish so but maybe maybe it's gotten so extreme like the past few years continues to be that it's not so much that like anyone's hitting 70 or 80 it's that like everyone's hitting 20 and right maybe that's good i don't know but i think yeah if the fact that now that the home run rate is just so high that if the rising tide lifts all boats then even if it is kind of distributed more democratically you still might get some guys getting to 60 instead of 50 just because so many homers. So we'll see. And you don't mind. I like there being variation in what the guys who hit a bunch of home runs look like. That's true too, yeah.

Right, like it is, I goofed and I shouldn't have because he's having a heck of a good season. In fact, I think it's probably time for us to write about Quetel Marte. But like, I like that Quetel Marte has 17 home runs. That's goofy. Quetel Marte and Joey Gallo have the same number of home runs. And that goofy. Quetel Marte and Joey Gallo have the same number

of home runs. And that's goofy in a way that's enjoyable, right? You don't want every guy who hits a bunch of home runs to look like Daniel Vogelbeck, although that is also great fun. Put Daniel Vogelbeck in the home run derby, make Daniel Vogelbeck an all-star. Why not do it? All the Mariners are bad and some of them are hurt in ways that are super gross. So just make Daniel Vogel back an All-Star. Just do it. Just do it. So I like that there's some variation there, you know, that you have guys who are obviously, like, big and strong, like Fran Milrez and Josh Bell. And you have guys who are, like, sort of more lithe power hitters but look like they are dudes who could hit a bunch of home runs, like Cody Bellinger.

I like that there's, you know, like you got bean poles like Christian Yelich so there being some variety and what that looks like is really fun and I think not necessarily a bad thing but then when you put it when you set it against the backdrop of the league as it stands in the general offensive environment it does seem to you start to you know, kind of askance at some of those dudes and be like, oh, what's, what's, what's this about though? You know, it's like, it's like looking at Domingo Santana. He's going to continue to be my example because I think that he's a good one of like a guy who, you know, you're like, oh, you have 13 home runs now and the ball is different. And the last time we had a bunch of home runs, the ball was closer to this than it was in 2018.

So sorry, Domingo. Right. Yeah, although I think there's also less variation in just player type than there used to be, maybe partly because almost everyone can hit a home run now. There used to be guys who couldn't even fool themselves into thinking that they could hit a home run. But with this ball, any big league batter can hit a home run now Like there used to be guys who couldn't even Fool themselves into thinking that they could Hit a home run but with this ball Any big league batter can hit a home run And maybe it's also partly

Just that teams have gotten better At figuring out what good players do So that you don't really Get the guy who just like never walks And never does anything and it's just Kind of there because maybe teams Think he's good at defense but he's not even that good at defense like i think there used to be more variation

in the type of player and the type of hitter you would see whereas now i think everyone knows what good hitters look like and what good hitters do and people can actually do that to varying extents of course but you know you're not going to have like the 280 obp guy who like slaps the ball around anymore because of that guy's not good and and maybe it's i don't know if that's even like something to to mourn like maybe that's like mourning the sacrifice bunt or something which aside from its lack of strategic value just like isn't very exciting it's just not like bunting for a hit is fun but sacrifice bunting i don't miss that i wouldn't care if i never saw that again but so maybe i

don't care if like alvaro espinoza or whatever is not in big league lineups now because he wasn't really that entertaining anyway so right but there's something to be said for just having different types of player even if they're not all good types. Yeah. And I, I do wonder what the next, like, uh,

you know, we have often looked like Bauman wrote about this for, for you guys fairly recently, like the Joey Gallo, and we've talked about this on the pod. Joey Gallo was this sort of man ahead of his time in some ways who, who predicted and sort of, uh,

showed what baseball would sort of gravitate toward and the kind of guy who had a place on a major league roster in a way that he may not have decades ago because of his approach. He was such an extreme three-two outcomes hitter. David Lorella has a really nice interview with Gallo that's on Fangraphs today that I would encourage people to read where he reveals himself to be quite the little hitting nerd. So everyone get amped for Joey Gallo. But, you know, we kind of looked at Gallo and we're like, well, this is extreme and different and weird.

And he came along at the right time in baseball history to really have a place and a place so that he could make impact for that Rangers team. And I do wonder, like, what is the next archetype like that that will emerge? And I worry that because of how this offensive environment is presenting itself, that the different ways that that guy could look the next thing is sort of winnowing to a point where it might not end up being all that different from what we already have. And that would be a bummer. We need like the good version of Gene Segura. That's really fun, right?

Like the like slap hitting, there's very little daylight between a guy's batting average and his on base, but there is value there and a certain amount of speed on the pace pass. So you get like a base running. Like maybe that'll be, maybe the next thing is just a throwback. Who's to say? But I do worry. I worry you're right that there's just kind of a hemming in of what we might see on the field. And that's a bummer because part of the, here I am being a bummer again.

But like one of the great things about baseball that's so fun and exciting is that there is, you know, that a guy like Daniel Vogelbeck and a guy like Javier Baez play the same game and are able to play it at the same time, albeit in different positions, although I would pay money to watch Daniel Vogelbeck play shortstop. I'll make it happen, Mariners. You have nothing to lose. You're a very bad baseball team. Do it.

Do it for me. But it's really cool that those guys can exist on the same playing field and play the game at the same time. And it would be a real shame if the, you know, the biodiversity that we have sort of crunches over time because we were leaning so heavily into this extreme version. So, yeah. Well, one more thing I wanted to bring up, I think by the time you come back from your vacation, it'll be just about time to talk about trades and the trade deadline.

Because, yeah, that will be about a month away. And I'm curious to see what this year's trade deadline looks like. Because this is the first year where there's no August trade deadline. There's just one trade deadline to rule them all. And we will see whether that leads to a more active deadline. It should, in theory. When you come back, there could be division leaders who are leading their divisions that are not right now because the Braves just went ahead of the Phillies by a game. So they're in first place now.

The Brewers are ahead of the Cubs by half a game, zero in the last column. So there are a bunch of teams jockeying for position here. The Yankees are now only half a game up on the last column so there are a bunch of teams jockeying for position here the yankees are now only half a game up on the raise in the east so there are a few divisions where teams are running away with things but then there are also divisions where there's just no daylight at all there's actually like there's no middle ground there's no division right now where a team's winning by like four games or five games it's either like a game or half a game or like 10 games. So we've got like half of one and half of the other. And that means that there's no telling what those races will look like come July 31st.

And in theory, that means that there should be a bunch of teams that are interested in bidding. teams that are interested in bidding and i guess a couple of teams have kind of gotten their mid-season shopping out of the way with players who should have been signed over the winter with kimbrough and keitel but the teams that those teams are fighting will now be motivated to trade and i'll be curious to see if the phillies are involved to try to counter the keitel signing so there are some interesting races that coupled with the unified trade deadline may lead to a pretty interesting July. I haven't really shaped up like the market or who's on the market or like who the most interesting trade chips are. But in theory, it could be pretty active. I'm curious to see.

This is a very underdeveloped thought. So if people are listening, I'm like, that's pretty, pretty goofy. You can just attribute it to vacation brain. But I'm really curious to see what the Rangers do. Because that Rangers team is like surprisingly good. And, you know, or at least winning a surprising amount. An important distinction probably to make. And, you know, we can look at that Rangers team, which as I speak and click over is i mean they're kind of funny right they're

like a game under what their pythag would be but several games up of what we would expect them to be by base runs and they have a bunch of veteran players we will not call them old veteran players who have played kind of surprisingly well i imagine that they will try to sell off some pieces but i'm just curious to see what they do because they've been, I mean, they're still nine games back of the Astros who are actually good, but I don't think that anyone's, are they still in a wild card spot?

Yes, they are. Yeah, so the Rangers are still in a wild. The Rangers are two games up on Cleveland, two games up on Boston, two games up on the A's. All three of those teams are two games back of the Rangers. Who knew? Who knew?

And so I can't imagine that the Rangers are going to, even if they were to add some pieces at the deadline, would continue to occupy that spot because I would imagine that other teams in the AL will catch them. But I'm just curious to see what it is that, what they're up to, what they get up to. Yeah, that's probably a team that you wait until like July 31st to do something just so you get a clearer picture of where they are.

Because by that point, they may very well have fallen out of this thing or they'll just know themselves better than they do right now. Whereas like all these other teams that are in the wildcard race, like it doesn't look like they're teams that would fall out of it. So they could all talk themselves into being buyers. that would fall out of it so they could all talk themselves into being buyers right yeah no i i think that there are more obvious buyers and i imagine the rangers are pretty well aware of uh what their true talent level is but i'm just curious to see what they end up doing and then i really want to know what the what the nl picture is going to be what an exciting what an exciting time to be alive man potters are really falling off be good again soon chris it's not the only reason but you've got the nl east and the nl central which have basically shaped up to be as

well you know kind of as exciting yeah at the top at the top yeah yeah so you've got the brewers cubs race you've got the cardinals and uh they're five games back and then in the East I thought it would be a four-team race it's not exactly right now but Mets are five and a half out and they're a decent team and the Nationals are seven and a half out but they've been winning a whole lot lately so maybe they're kind of pulling themselves back into it and Braves Phillies that seems like it will just be down to the wire yeah like it was last year except except more so. And that will be fun. And then in the wildcard race, you've got the Diamondbacks and the Rockies, who I didn't think about a whole lot this year, maybe just because it seems so clear that the Dodgers would win that division, which they will. But both of those teams have been contenders in recent times, They still are it looks like even though

The Diamondbacks it seemed like had taken A step back this past winter when they traded Goldschmidt who by the way has Not been all that great for St. Louis This year So they've kind of hung In there and the Rockies who I'm probably guilty of overlooking

At times more so than I should They're another wildcard threat again. So yeah, a lot of teams there that could be in the market. And I don't know what that means for who's available in this market because a lot of teams had either already written off contention and so had traded their valuable players in the past or they're in it, at least in theory. So I don't know who's like who's

a seller right now who has players to give up who would be of a lot of value and who are not currently contending there aren't that many teams in that bucket like everyone's talking about cleveland as a potential seller and they very well could be but they're also only two games back in the wild card race so it's not like they're out of this. So you look at it and I don't really know who's like the Mariners, but they've already traded everyone. And the Tigers, but they've like, you know, I guess if they wanted to trade like Castellanos or Boyd. Yeah, Boyd would be the big chip, I suppose.

But, you know, like the Orioles and the Royals, they've already done their tearing down pretty much. So there aren't like a lot of bottom dwellers out there who have really interesting players left that other teams would want. I guess you've got the Giants with like Baumgartner, but it's not a rich trade market probably, but it could be active nonetheless.

Yeah, I imagine that we'll see. Well, I don't know. I would expect that we will just see a bunch of, man, it's going to be busy. That's going to be a busy little run. I expect that it'll be pretty active. I think it'll be active. The Tigers should trade Matt Boyd. Yeah.

He's pretty good. Yes, he is. So I think it would be nice not to also get to the end of July and have to explain waivers. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. And to convince ourselves that we understand waivers and why everyone's on waivers and why it doesn't mean anything if you're on waivers. And that will be a great conversation not to have this year for the first time. So happy about that.

And it'll be kind of nice to know that like when July is over, that's the team you're rolling with pretty much. You can't bring in late reinforcements because like, you know, when you trade for a guy on August 31st and he's only with your team for like a month before you get to the playoffs, it's like this guy just got here. He's like total mercenary, which is fine. But if that guy is like taking the ball for you in a big October moment, it's like he wasn't around for most of the season.

But now at least you get the second half or most of the second half, which is kind of nice. And if it concentrates the action and leads to an exciting trade deadline, even better because that's always a fun storyline. And by the time that rolls around, you'll have been on your break and you'll come back refreshed and you'll be ready for those rumors. Yeah. I'll be ready to go. Very excited. Probably ready to go right now.

So close. Yeah. So I will not keep you. I will let you embark on your vacation and I hope it's a great one. Thank you very much. I appreciate you and Sam holding down the fort and I will catch you on the flip side. Yeah. Talk to you week after next. Sounds good. All right. If you are in the market for a Father's Day gift, consider giving my book, The MVP Machine, how baseball's new nonconformists are using data to build better players. You can go get it wherever books are

sold. You don't have to get it for a father. You can get it for yourself, even if you aren't a father. I haven't heard from anyone who has regretted their purchase of the book, although I suppose if they did, they wouldn't necessarily tell me. Or maybe they'd be more likely to tell me. Who knows? So I hope you all read it and let me know what you think. You can also support this podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectivelywild. The following five listeners have already pledged their support to help keep the podcast going. Alex Legg, Chris Amundsen, Jeanette Schultz, Jason Allen, and Ryan Corcoran. 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 and other podcast platforms. Please keep your questions and comments for me and Sam and Meg coming via email at podcastfangraphs.com or via the patreon messaging system if you're a supporter thanks to dylan higgins for his editing assistance and for holding down the fort at fangraphs while meg is gone i will be back very soon with another episode and sam so we'll talk to you then i've been walking the road i've been living on the edge I've just got to go Before I get to the ledge So I'm going

I'm just going Gone