Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1417: Defining Fun Facts

Episode Date: August 14, 2019

Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller banter about how Gleyber Torres’s ownership of the Orioles and Aristides Aquino’s home-run spree are emblematic of 2019, fun facts about players’ accomplishments in their first X games, home-run fun facts and the juiced ball, Juan Soto vs. Ronald Acuña, Jr., two recent Scott Boras quotes, the Dodgers’ near-record extra-base-hits […]

To the juice bill everybody want to bid, and then everybody want to dip. Told you I ain't worried, I ain't scared of the boo. All you can do is spread the verse of the truth, merge the mixture with the fear. It's the fruits and the thirst, it's the words, it's the curse, it's the juice. Juice, juice, juice, juice, juice. I got the juice, I got the juice. Juice, juice, juice, juice, juice. I got the juice, I got the juice.

Good morning and welcome to episode 1417 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs.com, brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Sam Miller of ESPN, along with Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Hey, hello. Is the Glaber-Torres home runs against the Orioles the defining fun fact of this era? It has certainly been cited a lot. I think my pal Zach Cram is writing a whole thing about it for the Ringer right now. I think I have reached saturation with the Glaber-Torres fun fact.

I mean, I guess it keeps getting better because he keeps playing the Orioles and he keeps homering against them. But I don't know what to make of it. You know, juiced ball year and the Orioles are the worst team and terrible pitching team. And it's just kind of a coincidence, I guess. So, well, I mean, or is it? Well, that he's been this great against them and compared to how he's been against other teams i don't think he's like particularly well suited to pick on bad pitching or something and that's why he's beating up on the orioles but i don't know it's kind of fun it's fun to extrapolate it and figure out like

what it would be over a full season or hypotheticals about what if someone just dominated one team all the time would he even be worth rostering So it's kind of entertaining in that way. See, I think I'm not saying that it's my favorite fun fact. I'm not saying that I get a charge every time I hear it or anything like that. Although I guess the answer to both of those is kind of yes. I just sort of mean defining in that it is completely outrageous. And it combines sort of three major themes of this year. One of the themes being that the ball is juiced and all home run records are sort of unsatisfying

because you know that the ball is juiced and you don't really know what to make of any of these things. Two is that the Orioles are historically bad at pitching and at not allowing home runs. And so you've put those two things together. And three is that it's Gleyber Torres, who is 22 years old. This is the era of young players who are really good right away. He's 22 years old. He's got, you know, six career war already. He's basically a, you know, 22 year old almost star. And it feels like hardly anybody even like he's lost behind 10 other

superstar young players. And so put those three things together. And to me, you have, if you could only save one fun fact from the year that captured as many sort of zeitgeisty things as possible, I think it would be Gleyber Torres hitting 13 home runs in one season against the Baltimore Orioles. Yeah, it's pretty good. I was actually going to bring up Aristides Aquino. Oh, I was too, in fact. As that same sort of thing, as like an embodiment of baseball in 2019, because he, of course, he went 0 for 4, I think, on Tuesday Tuesday so the fun facts slowed for the moment but he set a record by hitting eight home runs in his first 12 games and really it was 11 games that he did it all in because his first MLB game was last year and it was just I think one pitch hit at bat in

that game so he just went on an incredible run in his first 11 games of this season. He was called up to replace Yasiel Puig after the Puig trade and has basically been a better Puig in every way since that point. And Puig has been great since that trade too. But this is another one where I don't really know what to make of it because he kind of came out of nowhere and that's sort of a 2019 thing, I think, for guys to come out of nowhere. Not that that hasn't always happened in baseball, but as I wrote recently, there's more turnover among the top hitters. There are young guys coming up all the time, really talented young players, as you were just saying about Torres.

And Aquino is 25, and he's been in the red system for quite a while, and he's been up and down, and he was actually non-tendered after last season and then signed to a minor league deal by the Reds who he had been with before. So he's not really in the same class as Gleyber Torres, but in the sense that he's a swing change guy that they completely remade him he's got this open stance now he looks like Tony Bautista he hits a lot of fly balls he came up from AAA where he was hitting a ton of home runs because the ball is juiced there as well so he kind of fits into the guys coming up who weren't really top prospects but remade themselves in some way reshape their swing and are now just laying waste to the league. And also it fits into the there are so many home run fun facts that I don't even know that they mean anything anymore genre too. Yeah, I don't know if they mean anything anymore either.

I mean, to make it mean something, you almost have to hit 13 home runs against one team for you to really understand like what we're talking about here. There are so many home run fun facts this year it's it's wild yeah it's they're not fun i don't know if they're fun i mean i'm still i'm still making them but i mean i don't know to me it feels like i don't know like doing home run fun facts in 2019 feels like doing like borscht belt comedy in like 2011 where it's just like oh you're still telling jokes about like your wife or whatever like it just yeah okay yeah i mean that's your gig that's what you do but you're right i mean i don't know i i'll put it this way i make a lot

of fun facts about home runs right now i do not actively consume very many like when i see someone making a home run fun fact it's like cross to the other side of the street oh he's still doing the home run beat that said ben the orioles have allowed six or more home runs in a game seven times this year the rest of the american league had allowed six of those games the orioles are no they're not fun it's sorry they're not fun i tried it it's not fun i lost interest midway through yeah i wanted to ask you about specifically the the first player to hit x something in y games we've had a lot of those this year yes jordan alvarez has been like pretty much every day doing one of those with

boba shett has been doing one of those almost every day and then of course you've got your uh your spike owen comps that come up every once in a while i forget who it was that did that what do you what what's your feeling on that genre it's memorable i guess there are certain guys who maybe the most memorable thing about their whole career is what they did in their first 12 games or something. I mean, I think now that the Aquino thing is being brought up, people are talking about Trevor Story. Trevor Story, obviously a good player, but I think what he did in his first whatever number of games it was, maybe the most memorable thing about him to this point. number of games it was, maybe the most memorable thing about him to this point. So I kind of like it in that it does make someone a big story. I mean, I think Aquino would have been a big story if he had hit eight home runs in 11 games at any point during the season, but that had happened when he first came up and that he wasn't a top prospect and he kind of came out of nowhere. That really dominated the headlines in a way that it wouldn't have if

he hadn't compressed it all into that short span of time i don't know that it tells you much more about what the player's career is going to be like like right i don't know that akino is like a superstar in the making i mean i think he he is an interesting player because he's got this great arm i think he had the hardest outfield throw of the season in his brief time in the majors, too. And he hit one of the hardest hit balls in the majors this season. And so he's clearly got some tools and he's kind of fun. And he's also a high strikeout guy, which is another 2019 thing so I don't know what he's gonna be and it's very possible that this will be the high point of his career this will be the thing this will be the the time when we're all talking about Akino more than we ever will be again so I kind of like it in that sense but from an analytical perspective I don't know what it means if anything well I I think more from a fun fact perspective I'm not sure that I think that it is the best way to even convince me that something.

So like, for instance, he's hitting 429, 474, 1143. He's slugging 1143. And I feel like if you tell me he's played 11 games, he has eight homers, he's slugging 1143, I got it. I feel like at that point, I understand. I am overwhelmed. I feel a little bit frightened. He is a truck bearing down on me. If you tell me he's got the most X through Y games in his career, it's almost too many details and I feel like I'm being like misled like I feel like anytime a fun fact gets too wordy I know you're cheating somewhere on the edges now this is a pretty simple one it's the

most home runs through games played right home runs are pretty simple but all the same there's something about that construction of a fun fact that loses me part way through and I just feel like his slugging percentage is already a better fun fact. I feel like eight homers in 11 games is already a overwhelming juxtaposition of two numbers, two figures. And so I feel a little bit empty. Now, I felt this way. I think I remember sort of feeling this way about Cody Bellinger when he was doing like most home runs through 40 games or whatever too. It felt like there was a better way to communicate what he was doing. On the other hand, it is unprecedented and what better way to show that somebody is unique, somebody is an outlier, but to say that he has done something that nobody else has ever

done. So I get why these are in use i might be trying to to pick a problem pick a fight with this that doesn't need to be maybe everybody else likes them but i um i don't know i i'm not moved by them i'm more moved just by by hearing what what they're doing seeing their stats boba shett stats like okay so everybody has heard some fun fact about boba shett has more extra base hits through x games than anybody or has the longest extra base hit streak by a rookie than anybody. But does everybody know that Bo Bichette's slash line is 394-444-742? If everybody knows that and you're just painting a fuller picture by putting that line in perspective, then I think that's good. that line in perspective, then I think that's good. I feel like we're skipping the slash line, though. Like, we're just skipping over the headline.

He's got, he's got, he's hitting 394 with a ton of power, and he's got more doubles than, like, half the league. He's got more doubles. I had to come up with a list of people he had more doubles than. He has more doubles than Justin Smoak or either Chris Davis, and that was before he hit two doubles that night. So, I don't know. or either Chris Davis, and that was before he hit two doubles that night. So I don't know.

I feel like we're missing the thing that is easily accessible and also incredible. Yeah, it's implied, I suppose. If you hear that Aquino hit eight home runs in his 11 games this season, then you can probably figure that his slugging percentage is really high. So maybe we don't have to say it, but in a way, way yeah i am just more impressed by the slash line i think because when i hear you say first x in y i it i guess it makes me focus on the sample maybe i'm dwelling on the fact that oh it's 11 games so you know who cares about 11 games or right maybe that's part of it it just mean, if you told me a slash line, I guess I'd want to know the sample.

I'd want to know like how many games are we talking and how many, you know, what, what plate appearances could just be one good game for all I know. So maybe if you're going to be honest about it, you're reinforcing that anyway, but yeah, something, it just, it makes me think like, Oh, flash in the pan. Like, you know, he's, he's doing something in his first 12 games fine but what's gonna happen next i guess it makes me focus on that aspect of it more yeah i and i think somebody it might have been bellinger but the person that they passed was

i think kevin moss and when you you always got to be careful with your fun fact when there's one other name in it you want to make sure that the other name is ted williams which bo bichette's other name is ted williams and uh not spike owen uh or or whatever the case may be the other thing too is that most homers through 11 games he has so that means if you didn't hear this yesterday he didn't have the most through 10 games and if you don't hear it tomorrow he didn't have the most to 12 games and And if you don't hear it tomorrow, he didn't have the most through 12 games. And like a player is going to play like thousands of games. And you're just saying like one day of his career, he was historic. Like for one day he had done something.

It has the potential to diminish because you know that there are a lot of different numbers that you could pick for your, you know, games played. Right. Yeah. I don't know. It's still good though. He's still good. And's still good and honestly to be honest i'd probably got my attention with akino i i would not say that it always gets my attention but it got my attention with akino and i don't i don't know maybe i would have if you just read me the 1143 slaying percentage or whatever yeah i mean i

hadn't heard of him 10 days ago no so So this leads into something else I wanted to bring up in the Tuesday Reds Nationals game. Aquino did not homer. He didn't do much of anything, at least at the plate. But on the other side of things, the Nationals won 3-1 and part of the three was a home run by Juan Soto. And I wanted to talk about Juan Soto because I don't know that we have said the name Juan Soto on the podcast this season. I can't recall if we did. It must have just been a brief mention. And that's kind of a shame because he's doing really historic things and not over 12 games, but over 200 plus games. And Juan Soto now has a 142 WRC Plus this season,

and he is, of course, 20 years old. And I guess we're not making a big deal about this because he's doing exactly what he did last season. He had a 146 WRC Plus last season at 19, which is even more impressive than a 142 WRC plus at 20. So we're just like, ho-hum, yeah, we know that Juan Soto is this great and he was the rookie of the year runner-up and all that. But you just mentioned that you want to be in the same breath as Ted Williams.

Well, this home run that Juan Soto hit put Soto ahead of Ted Williams on the list of most batting runs through age 20. There's now only one hitter ahead of Ted Williams on the list of most batting runs through age 20. There's now only one hitter ahead of Soto on that list, Mel Ott, who is very tough to beat because he came up at 17 and he had almost 400 games through his age 20 season. So he just, he put up great rate stats, but also more playing time. But Soto is matching him on the rate stats, and now he has gone ahead of Ted Williams for just batting runs by a player this young. And I have kind of taken it for granted and haven't really talked about it, I guess because there was really no doubt in my mind watching Soto last year that he was this good. He wasn't a guy I was looking at like, oh, is there, will there be a sophomore slump? Is he actually going to be this great?

Because he just seems so polished and mature and he walked so much and he had such great plate discipline that it was just like he had sprung forth fully formed. And that has turned out to be the case. And his stats this year, almost perfect replicas of what they were last year and i just wanted to acknowledge that because he's doing something that really almost no one has ever done yeah he's incredible i wonder if he's an interesting case because i feel like he maybe 15 years ago or in a pre-war era he probably would get more attention than he does there's something about what part of the things that part part of what makes young players, you know,

phenoms and rookies and so on so exciting is because they're young, they're usually faster than they will be later. They're usually playing a better, a tougher position than they will be later. This is the time when you get to see, you know, them usually play their peak defense. And so like Bryce Harper came up, center fielder, Mike Trout came up, center fielder, Ronald Acuna, center fielder, you know, them usually play their, their peak defense. And so like Bryce Harper came up center fielder, Mike Trout came up center fielder, Ronald Acuna center fielder, you know,

Tati shortstop. And so a lot of these guys who I named and who I also didn't name are, they're either playing very difficult defensive positions, uh, or maybe they're putting up kind of like elite defensive, uh, metrics like, uh, for instance, like Manny Machado did when he came up and was playing third base and he was arguably the greatest third baseman in history for those couple of years. And Soto, because he came up and is just a left fielder and he's a fine one, he's average-ish, but he's not exceptional.

He's not a war monster in the way that the other ones are he's going to you figure that he's i mean look he's he's 19 years old he's 20 years old now he's already got you know 47 home runs and he's got wrc plus of you know 140 and uh he's got uh you know he's going to chase all-time leaderboards as a hitter and we will definitely appreciate that over the years by the time he's seven eight nine years i think uh he's uh we're gonna appreciate the offensive force that he is but at this point i wonder how much we just go well you know he's extraordinary we love him he's one of our favorite players he's great great. But he's like a five-win player while you look at Tatis and Acuna. And they're prorated over four years.

They're like seven, eight, nine-win players because of their defense and their position. Yeah. I was going to bring up Acuna. Acuna also homered on Tuesday, his 34th. He just needs two more steals to be a 30-30 guy. He has an outside shot at 40-40. He's been stealing a lot of bases lately, but it'll be tough. But I think that's a big part of it.

Obviously, Acuna overshadowed Soto somewhat last year. He was the rookie of the year. Soto was the runner-up, and they're in the same division, and they're approximately the same age. And Soto's a better hitter, I think, than Acuna, just slightly. Acuna's basically also replicating his rookie season over his sophomore season. But I think Soto may be a little bit better all-around hitter, but Acuna hits more dingers, so he gets more attention and he steals more bases, and he's a better defender and he does it all and

he's maybe just kind of more charismatic as a player more attention getting so i think that it could be like a career-long thing i you know maybe it'll be like a a reigns to ricky henderson sort of thing where you have like the the best leadoff hitter of all time overshadowing the second best leadoff hitter of all time who's playing at the same time i don't know that the the gap in value between acuna and soda will be as big as the gap between henderson and rains who are both hall of famers but henderson is you know two hall of famers as bill james said so i think that is probably part of it if If there were no Acuna, we might be paying more attention to Soto. Does it seem like we're talking really fast?

I feel like both of us are just flying, like we're really going fast. I had not noticed. I'm going to now deliberately slow it down. You said that this is a total aside. This is completely irrelevant to anything i don't know why this is the time to bring it up but you just said that uh soto is probably a slightly better hitter than akunya and that makes sense soto is has slightly better numbers than akunya

i'm just curious akunya is right-handed soto is left-handed if you were to give them each identical platoon you know played appearances with and without the platoon split I imagine that Acuna would actually out hit Soto but because Soto is left-handed the game favors him in that way so do you think that we can say who is better it does it does the fact that you were born left-handed count as a skill i i don't think i mean it does yes it does help you it helps you but is it a skill is it does it fall under better i don't think so i don't make a mental adjustment there wait you don't make a mental adjustment so you're not i wouldn't i wouldn't ding soto for not having to face same-handed pitchers more.

If I'm saying who's better, I think he's still more productive, right? But you would, hypothetically, if one was in a tougher league than the other. If one was in the American and one was the national in one of the leagues that was tougher, then you would make that adjustment. That is true. But I can see why it's not comparable i can see why you would not consider those to be analogous yeah well should we do a platoon adjustment for war i i don't think we should i don't know i don't know well you don't you

shouldn't because you're not forced to play one or the other the team i mean we look at war from the perspective of how the team would benefit given all the options and the team does not there's not like a if there was a rule that said you could only have four lefties in your lineup at any given time and that you had to have five five righties in your lineup at any given time then we would start to treat the left-handed and right-handedness of a player as an asset or as a liability that needed to be adjusted for. But because we don't have that, because you could theoretically go out and get nine left-handed hitters, then it doesn't really affect your, it is no cost to the team that you are left-handed.

So you wouldn't adjust it down. Yeah. All right, Ben, I have recently completed two baseball books and both of them, both of them were interrupted toward the end by Scott Boris quotes. Scott Boris jumped into these books with his quotes. So I'm going to read each of these, and I know that Jeff is not here to make dolphin noises, but I just want to know, I don't know, maybe we'll have some sort of Boris rating for each of these. There is one in Homegrown, right?

So the first one is Homegrown. It's in Homegrown by Alex Spear. He's talking about Alex Cora, who was a Scott Boris client. I love it when Scott Boris clients are like Alex Cora. Was Alex Cora a big-time prospect? Not that I recall. I don't either. Scott Boris, I've been to Scott Boris's office

and looked at all the the pictures of all his clients on the wall and uh it's really delightful because you don't realize how many players he represents that you don't really ever hear yeah him you know boris's name necessarily associated with and in some cases their former first round pick who you know never really turned into a star. And now he's just a role player. And, uh, and you think, oh, that's nice. Boris, uh, is still representing him, you know, nine years later. He's a, you know, he's a platoon outfielder, but he's still a Boris guy. Uh, and then sometimes that you don't know, you just can't figure out,

you can't figure out how the player convinced Scott Boris to represent him as a 13th round pick coming out of a small college. Anyway, so, all right, Alex Cora talking about Cora's managers, about managerial gift for helping his players fulfill their potential. Boris dubbed it Cora-lytics. Okay, here's the quote. it cora lytics okay here's the quote cora lytics understands that you have to have the synergy of analytics plus the psychology of a player cora lytics is that's not synergy that's synthesis but anyway we're going to get yes cora lytics understands that you have to have the synergy of analytics plus the psychology of a player cora lytics is worth something far more than analytics. Let's put it that way.

We know where analytics come from. The thing is, someone can bring you all the ingredients for the cake, but if you don't know how to bake it. It just ends there. Yeah. Yeah, I'm regretting not naming my book Choralytics, or at least a chapter. That's kind of what we wrote about. But I think, yeah, well, the Coralytics is one thing, and then he brings in the baking analogy, which was pretty unnecessary. really need the analogy to clarify the situation. So it's not the classic Boris nautical analogy that Jeff and I always talked about, but I appreciate that he can bring in so many just

diverse fields. It's boat racing, it's submarines one day, and then it's baking a cake. I don't know that he has demonstrated his superior cake-baking knowledge here. Yeah, I guess that's true. I don't know that he's ever demonstrated nautical knowledge when he has made those analogies. I'm not sure they made sense. But I think in terms of being superfluous, this was up there with some of the best, just totally unnecessary and doesn't really clarify anything. Well, there's two things in here that he manages to, you're not even sure which one you're supposed to object to.

Are you supposed to object to the labeling of this thing, which is basically just like has been identified in many players, the ability to synthesize both stats and experience. He's labeling that choralytics, which is not, this is my dishwasher, which is not, is my dishwasher which is not i don't know not necessarily like you hear that and you're like i don't know if that's gonna catch on and then and then the sudden appearance of a baker and so uh so i would say that uh both of those are a little they're in they're in character they're in they're in the style of boris uh i

don't think either one though though, is terribly objectionable. I mean, you don't need to name this thing after Alex Cora, but he is describing something that I think is true about Alex Cora and that is valuable and that people have a great deal of, that the sport puts a great deal of value on in a manager right now. So that's good and then the the baker thing it is true sometimes someone can bring you all the ingredients for the cake but if you don't know how to bake it you know i don't need so i'm gonna say that

that's oh i don't know how are we rating this it's it's not his most egregious one for sure it's just the it's unnecessary which which gets to me like we didn't need the baking the cake to really explain illustrate anything but i don't know if we had a scale i don't remember what his his worst one ever is that would kind of calibrate this but yeah it's only like halfway like yeah like i would say like a three or four yeah assuming a scale of one to ten all right here's the other one uh this is from big fella by jane levy and he's uh this is uh coming from boris is talking about babe ruth and he's talking about how you uh the the conversation is about how much he was worth to a franchise maybe how much he would be paid uh if uh he was paid his his true value and boris is saying that it's not you know that

the value is so broad and that he brings in so much different revenue and that really even you have to think about his role in growing the sport i mean single-handedly you could maybe argue that babe ruth uh you, grew the income of the sport, grew the stature, the status of the sport in a major way that made money for everybody, including his team. So then it goes to this. The hardest negotiation is with his own client to get him to understand that the ultimate competition is between himself and the game. Quote, you can't let the influence of greatness erode greatness that is always the hardest dynamic for a great athlete it's not that the game will

not beat you in the end it's how long can you beat it your behavior is going to limit or sustain the number of years you can beat the game we are trying to keep the performance focus at a level where it's myopic. And that's the quote. So we don't have any. There's no metaphor. Yeah. There's also no new word introduced. I also just read it, and I cannot tell you what that quote was saying. I kind of like the idea of beating the game.

Like, you know, you're're gonna lose to the game eventually your skills are not gonna be up to the task but it's all about how long can you beat it i guess it's not an original idea but i don't know that i've heard it expressed in quite that way so it it sounds like he's saying that like the more you focus on your baseball playing the longer you can beat the game and you shouldn't get distracted by all the other stuff that comes with stardom is that what are you saying you can't let the influence of greatness erode greatness so i think that's saying that you can't get complacent you can't get uh you know you can't let your celebrity keep you from getting better so that that, assuming I'm

reading that, that's right. That is always the hardest dynamic for a great athlete. Okay, that's actually interesting. Maybe nobody in the world understands great athletes and the pitfalls around great athletes better than Boris. So that's good. All right. It's not that the game will not beat you in the end. It's how long can you beat it? And so that's saying, all right. So it's how long can you beat it and so that's saying all right uh so uh it's about similarly it's it's about recognizing that your goal is to extend your competitive window you can't necessarily beat the game but you can sort of you can beat it for years longer than you think you can you can keep on pushing that back further, even if ultimately you're going to lose. Your behavior is going to limit or sustain the

number of years you can beat the game. So that, I guess, is kind of a little bit of a mundane point, but that goes back to you're in control, that you have to be in control of your career. We're trying to keep the performance focus at a level where it's myopic i don't know exactly what the what he means by it's myopic there but i think that it basically means we're keeping distractions the key is to keep distractions okay all right so honestly i would say that that is a perfectly fine description of what sort of advice a superstar really needs in the peak of his career. So we're calling it a one. That is, there is no problem there.

Yeah. Good quote. It's about how you bake the cake. You call, you call, some days you call Scott Boris because you want to get Coralytics and some days you call hoping for genuine insight and just praying that he isn't going to give you corelytics. So it depends on the day. It depends on your needs as a reporter.

So he can go either way. All right, got anything else? Yeah, something quick. So I just had one of the most fulfilling MLB at bat experiences of the season. Not the best way to follow baseball, but sometimes you have to. So I was at the gym earlier and I was alerted by the Facebook group that the Dodgers were pursuing what would have been a record. They were trouncing the Marlins 11 to 1 and they were on their way to having the most hits in a game in which all of the hits were extra base hits so they had 11 hits at that point and they were all i think doubles and homers i don't remember if

there was a triple in there but no singles and so they entered the ninth essentially needing not to single to get this record and i think russ martin struck out and then i think maybe bellinger struck out and so they were one out away and then christopher negron was up and he got down to his last strike and it was kind of a longish at bat and i was watching each pitch and i was strangely invested in this i was really rooting for this accomplishment. I couldn't have told you what the record for most hits in a game with all extra base hits was five minutes earlier, but I got really invested in this. It's kind of a 2019 type accomplishment because singles are so rare these days and you've got so many dingers that you have the potential to get a lot of non-single hits. And so I was really rooting for this to happen.

And then Christopher Negron, two strikes, he poked a single and he ended it all. And it was very deflating. I was quite upset with Christopher Negron for having to spoil this, although I understand why he was putting his own performance before this very strange record that I was not aware of. That he was not aware of. There's something, there's something very, sometimes unsatisfying, but I would say usually more satisfying when you're watching, rooting for a record or whatever you want to call it, that the player is totally unaware of, and that also

he has no incentive to chase. Yeah, that's right. And by the way, after Negron singled, the inning continued. There was actually a double after that, and then a triple after the double, so there were two more extra base hits. But then Kyle Garlick singled again before the end of the inning, and I think the Dodgers ended up batting around because Russell Martin came up again. You know, the record for this, this is interesting, the record for this is actually nine, and it's the Braves in 1998. And they had nine doubles.

Huh. Interesting. So not only is it the record for most extra base hits without a single, it's the most, I mean, there's like five or ten records in there. Like fewest triples in a game with only doubles, fewest homers in a game. It's the only game with no homers and all doubles. So that would have been a weird game.

Probably got written up in the next day's paper. I don't know, Ben. I wasn't going to bring this up. I was just going to let it go. But how can you call it an umpire's perfect game when he only gets one team's calls right? That is the least perfect game. If I could see perfectly balanced

where he missed one on each side, 50 on each side, that's perfect. The umpire's job above all is impartiality, isn't it? You have described a game where he only messed up for one team. That's what we conspiratorially think he is trying to do. It's the worst representation, the worst caricature of our enemy the umpire who only takes it out on our team and you called it perfect well i guess i could say that a pitcher when he pitches a perfect game only has to get one team's hitters out that's his job yeah that's not a very

good comeback but that's that's one thing. I would have preferred if there were some completely perfect games that I could have called Empire Perfect Games. I'd also say that I guess we probably pay more attention to what umpires are doing to one side, like to our hitters. You know, you're paying attention to the Empire all the time, but you're probably getting more upset about mistakes that he makes when

your own hitters are up, and maybe that bothers you more. I think so. And you're identifying with your hitters who are looking upset when a call goes against them. So, to a certain extent, I think that because we're maybe monitoring what an Empire does more closely half the time, it kind of counts.

But also there's just never been a real umpire perfect game that we've tracked. So this is the best I could do. Yeah. Okay. To me, some combination of overall accuracy with balance would be the most perfect game. But of course, like you say, there is not a perfect game. There wouldn't be a perfect game in that situation. And the deadline speaks, doesn't it? Last thing that I wanted to mention, Jeff Mathis went one for three on Tuesday, which

by Jeff Mathis standards is a very good game. That is a 71 WRC plus, and that raised his seasonal WRC plus from eight to nine. So Jeff Mathis is now batting 165, 220, 232 on the season. And I've been watching this because he's having one of the worst offensive seasons of all time and going from eight to nine that does bump him into a tie for 10th place all time minimum 200 plate appearances as opposed to a tie for seventh place which is where he had been but still one of the worst offensive seasons for someone who has gotten this many plate appearances he's right up there with like Brandon Wood recently, Tony Pena. They are the guys who've had really terrible seasons recently. And he has also lowered his career WRC plus at least entering Tuesday to 47. And that is pretty special because minimum 2,500

career plate appearances, only the immortal Bill Bergen and also Raphael Belliard have been worse than Jeff Mathis on a career basis, and no one but Bergen has been worse than Mathis in as many plate appearances as Mathis has gotten. And we've talked about Bergen before. Bergen's, I mean, he's in a class of his own. He's a 22 career WRC plus in more than 3,000 career plate appearances. And that's just, I mean, I've read about Bergen and he played during an era where stolen bases were very frequent and he was a catcher who had a great arm and was seen to be great at restricting the running game. And that skill was probably more valuable at the time that he played, like the first decade of the 20th century, than it has been ever since. But even so,

he was such a terrible offensive player that there's no way that the arm could have possibly made up for that. But no one's going to catch Bill Bergen. But Jeff Mathis is going for Raphael Belliard here, and he's had more playing time than Belliard so he's got a solid case as you know maybe the second worst hitter of of all time given this much playing time and and that's impressive especially that he's doing it at this era because you would think there was maybe more tolerance for terrible players or terrible hitters in earlier eras where you just didn't have the numbers. And you might have said, you know, sure, Bill Bergen is saving so many runs with his arm that it makes up for it. And that probably wasn't true, but you couldn't really do the math at the time the way that you can now. maybe at Raphael Belliard's career, maybe, you know, the value of on base percentage, maybe it wasn't recognized as much as it is now.

But now you've got Jeff Massis. I just wouldn't expect such an outlier performance from someone in this era. Of course, there's also more appreciation maybe for what he does do defensively and the value there. So of the worst eight hitters of all time on this list, minimum 2,500 plate appearances, he's the only one who is not a sub-replacement level player because of his defense and his framing. But even so, at this point, despite the framing, he is, or at least according to what we can measure right now so i'm kind of curious because he got a two-year deal right and so he is signed for next season i believe and i don't know that he'll actually make it if he keeps hitting like this but if he does he'll have an opportunity to keep dragging those career stats down yeah well i mean it's easy to say oh you know it's it's only 200 and 209 appearances, but he has played more at catcher than anybody else on the team. He leads the team's catchers in playing time by a fair amount.

He's about twice as high as Isaiah Kiner-Falefa, and then the two behind them are quite a bit behind. And so he has been the primary catcher. He has started about two-thirds of the games this month, so the playing time's not going away. He's their starting catcher he um he has started about two-thirds of the games this month so the playing time's not not going away yeah um this is he's their starting catcher he is their regular he's the guy if they made the playoffs he would start the wild card game yeah which i guess goes to show that they're not gonna make them for for well no that too yeah that's probably part of the reason, but I guess his defense is as valued as it's ever

been. And maybe if you've got Lance Lynn and Mike Miner having the seasons they're having, I don't know that he's worked with them particularly or not. I haven't looked, but maybe they're raving about, oh, I want to work with Jeff Mathis. You can't possibly bench Jeff Mathis because I'm Lance Lynn and I'm having maybe a Cy Young season here. So he's really plumbing the depths of offensive ineptitude and whether your other skills can keep you in the lineup. And people will tell you with Jeff Mathis, of course, that we still can't measure what Jeff Mathis can do

and that he's this incredible game caller. And R.J. Anderson wrote about that. And we still haven't really cracked that nut. But who knows? It's kind of it's like circled back to the beginning of his career now where you used to write about Napoli versus Mathis and Mike Socia. And how could Socia possibly choose Mathis over Napoli? And then we realized, well, the framing was actually worth so much that maybe Socia was onto something. And now, even with the framing, his value just seems to be so low, but it's possible that he's still doing something that we can't measure. And who knows, maybe in 10 years, we'll look back and, oh, Jeff Mathis actually was worth something even when he

was batting 162. Yeah, I wrote, I mean, a lot of people probably don't know this about me if they started listening to the podcast sometime after 2014 or so, but I used to write about Jeff Mathis a lot, probably more than I wrote about any major league baseball player. And it drove me absolutely crazy when I was covering the Angels. I just could not possibly imagine that what Mike Socha was seeing in him and what was largely evading me or which seemed like sort of fallacious myth-making was really there and then a year after year passed and he would go to new teams and he would get new pitchers and you would read all these quotes about how great he is to work with and you would think no come on now they're all falling for the same

old Jeff Mathis and then you'd look inust and sure enough all of their numbers all of their numbers every time every pitcher were better when jeff mathis was catching and i don't know around 2013 or 2014 i just gave in and let myself sink down into that pool of jeffis savvy. And I'm looking right now, and sure enough, Rangers staff ERA with Mathis is about four. Without Mathis, it's about six. That's a big difference. OPS allowed with Mathis is about 727. Without Mathis, it's about 900.

A little bit better than 900 big difference now I have not broken down the pictures to see if uh if he's only catching the good ones but you know I mean he never is you always look the deeper you go the more you find everybody is better when Mathis is behind the plate it's very frustrating but I'm you know I'm I'm happy with it I'm happy to to acknowledge that it, that it's something that has kept this really singular career going. And, uh, I mean, look, if there's, it is a very valuable and satisfying and in a lot of ways, freeing thing to realize a few years into your writing career, that you were, that something that you believed very strongly

that you were just wrong about and that you can admit it uh and from that point on i think that i think a lot of my writing changed after that so uh i'm i'm grateful to jeff mathis for doing this every year but yeah i mean they he's still he's still presumably the starting catcher going into next year unless they sign somebody else i don't know if the rangers Rangers are looking for catchers this offseason or not. Would you be? If I had Jeff Mathis? Yeah. How could you do better? No, I guess not.

All right. All right. Well, Ben, this week was the 25th anniversary of the day that the 1994 season was canceled. And Tim Kirchen wrote a great sort of oral history or not exactly an oral history, but many recollections of people who were there at the time and what they remember from the strike. And I don't know if you read this article. I did. There are many, as there often are when somebody deeply reports a baseball event, there are many great quotes in

here. Many, many things that I found very interesting. I thought maybe we'd just go over maybe just a few of them. Or maybe we won't, but I've introduced it. I want to know though, before I go on with any of the quotes, what was the strike to you? At the time? Yeah. Nothing. Nothing at all. Were you a baseball fan? Yeah. Nothing. Nothing at all. Were you a baseball fan? I was not. I was seven years old at the time. And I do remember seeing a snippet of the 1993 World Series. So I had been exposed to baseball a little bit, but I did not inherit baseball fandom from my immediate family. So it was not passed down to me. I kind of came to it myself. And post-strike, I gravitated toward it, partly, I think, because the Yankees got so good, and I was close to them, and it was

hard to avoid it. But at the time, in 94, I was young, and I was not following baseball closely, and I really can't recall thinking anything of it at the time. can't recall thinking anything of it at the time. You know, I, it's hard for me to remember exactly. I was, um, I, I was 14 at the time. I was a huge, huge baseball fan. I was tracking Matt Williams every day. I, he, he was on pace to, at the time, I think he was on pace to hit 60.5 homers and he'd been just really keeping that pace for a couple of months. Uh, and I, I thought at the time, I mean, you know, imagine pre McGuire, pre Sosa, think about how big it would have seemed for a player to, to really challenge 61 home runs. And I was in a Bay area and Matt Williams was probably at the time, maybe my favorite player, except that my favorite player was always

actually somebody who was a terrible young and terrible. So my favorite player at the time might have actually been, I think it was William Van Landingham that year. The next year it was J.R. Phillips. But of the good giants, Matt Williams was my favorite good giant. And so for me, it was really interesting because the day that really, I think a lot of people remember as like the real tragic day was the day in mid-september when they canceled the world series when they said we're ending the season there's not going to be a world

series there's going to be a break in the continuity of the sport in a way that a few weeks of missed games wouldn't have necessarily represented there had always been work stoppages here and there we made it through but to end a World Series seemed like something really serious. But for me, it was really the first game that the Giants had canceled where I thought, well, there goes 61. And so that really broke my heart. I don't otherwise really remember how I felt. It might have been devastating to me. It might not have been. I remember some things that summer that were pretty good. I remember I had the Lion King soundtrack

and I listened to it a lot more than I can really understand why as a teenager I did. I was listening to that and Rage Against the Machine a lot and I don't really know how to put those things together. Exactly, right?

So what I'm saying is there's a lot from that summer that's kind of confusing the giants had almost moved the year before and that was uh a very traumatic thing that they had actually announced they were going to florida and i think i've mentioned this there was a big debate among you know family and and friends about whether we would still root for them if they moved to florida and what we would do if we were a's fans now. And that felt like really that the potential, like an existential threat to my baseball fandom. And I don't remember feeling the same kind of sadness. I definitely do not remember appreciate that agreeing with people who were like, well, now I'm not a baseball fan. All I wanted was for the next season to start. I mean, I really wanted baseball to come back. It was unthinkable to me that I would like in

any way protest this by like withholding my baseball fandom. I only just wanted it more and more after that. So that's kind of what it meant to me. So I don't know. We'll just go just a few of these, a couple of few of these. F.P. Santangelo talks about, he was a minor leaguer at the time, and he talks about the challenge of whether to play as a replacement player or not. He describes a scene where there's 200 minor leaguers, and the GM at the time says, well, if anybody doesn't want to play, you're welcome to leave. Otherwise, we're going to have you play games.

And F.P.'s, in his telling of the story. He was the only one who walked out. And he also describes some veterans, quote, screaming at the minor leaguers telling us we shouldn't play. A bunch of minor leaguers told them, if I don't play, you're going to release me. And they screamed back at us. If you have confidence in your ability that you're good enough to play, then you'll play. A bunch of millionaire players were telling poor kids from A-B ball not to cross the line and give up their dream of playing

in the big leagues it was so messed up and i really hard it's hard for me to remember appreciate except that really the owner's plan was that they were going to play a whole season with fake players yeah how did they think that was going gonna work that couldn't work right like there's no way that that would work is there well it had worked in football right for for most of the season at least the nfl did that and it kind of broke the nfl players union what would happen if they what do you think imagine that this happened right now and when we're tasked with writing it and we under this understand the sport to some degree and we talk about it all the time. Like what what would happen? Would we? Well, I mean, I don't know.

Hypothetically, would we do podcasts about what was happening on the field? Would we treat those games as discussion topics? I don't know. I guess maybe it it almost depends on the circumstances that led to the strike like if we if we felt that uh the owners were so in the wrong or something that they were clearly like you know manipulating the sport to their own ends and and we just like on principle didn't think it was appropriate to cover it or something the way that Santangelo felt it was inappropriate for him to play maybe that would give us pause but just in general like in the newsworthiness of the sport and and how relevant and entertaining it is I think to replace the players we know even if

there are more anonymous faceless players in the majors these days than there used to be because of player usage, I think it would still be just so jarring. I don't think I could get into it. I mean, you know, maybe after 10 years or something, I'd be in withdrawal. I would just want baseball back and I'd figure, well, you know, most of those guys would have been out of the league anyway. So what difference does it make but in the short term I just like and what if it were would they just pick up the standings where they left off like if this was not a new season I think if it were fresh from the start like maybe but if it were the kind of thing where like I think in the NFL in that season I think they they started with the replacement players, right? And then they just kept the standings, the records the way they were, I think, when the real players come back and they have to just inherit what the replacement players did.

So I can't imagine really having interest in it. Just maybe, you know, we cover the sport, so maybe we'd be obligated to like, you know, explain what's happening here. But just not knowing anyone, it would be really difficult to care. Yeah, I agree. I don't think that it has anything to do with whose side we would even be on. I mean, the idea that we would watch these games where you're basically putting children in their dad's suits and pretending that they're businessmen doesn't really seem like we could even keep a straight face through that. I don't know how we would take it at all. Seriously.

I don't know how we would act like the stakes meant anything. I mean, would the guy who won the batting title that year really get a plaque that says Rod Carew, American league batting title or whatever they named the batting title? Like, would anybody believe it? Would anybody treat that as in LA?

Do you think that 100 years from now? Now, see, okay, so I'm going to say this sentence and you're already going to have raised a thing in your head. And so I'm going to acknowledge that I'm also going to raise that thing. But in 100 years from now, do we really think that anybody would look at these stats and be like, ah, yes, you know, this 28-year-old who was playing in place of major leaguers had one of the great baseball seasons of all time just because he hit like 340 against

whoever would cross the picket line. Now, so then the question, though, is like, is this different than what happened in World War II where there were... That's, yeah, that's what I was just going to bring up. And so I technically, I mean, it depends how closely i'm looking i probably do sometimes just wrap 1944 stats in as though they're they're normal and i don't make a by hand distinction for those years if i'm looking closely then i i often do and i will and i'll go oh yeah that was fake here but sometimes i don't and so maybe maybe i don't know maybe we would

maybe it really would enter the history of the game and the records of the game and we wouldn't make a distinction of it after a few decades but it just seems to me that there is it would not it would not i i could not possibly i don't think convince myself within the span of a single year that the cardinals being up four games in the nl central was like a real sentence describing real life and not like a sim that someone was running on their their like a video game yeah right well obviously world war ii they were extenuating there were right and there was no there was obviously there was no villainy there right there was no there

was no like side to take i mean there was a villain is hitler right yes right and and also there was more continuity it wasn't like every player left like you know i i mean when you look at like 1944 marty marion won the mvp award and we don't think of that really as a real mvp season i don't think but but. But Marty Marion was there before the war, and he didn't deserve that MVP award, I don't think. If you look at the war leaders, people who did not get as many votes as he did, like Stan Musial had like a nine-win season that year, and Marty Marion had like a five-win season. But that's the point.

Like Stan Musial was there, and Mel Ott was there, and Joe Medwick was there, you know, guys who were exempt from service for whatever reason. And there were stars. So it wasn't like complete turnover. Everyone disappears at the same time. And some of the departures were staggered, too. So some guys would leave at one time and then other guys would leave at other times. And so it was different, I think.

other guys would leave at other times. And so it was different, I think. And obviously, at that time, like you needed baseball to kind of get you through the war years, or at least that was the idea behind continuing to play baseball, whereas you would not have that with the strike. So I don't think I could really maintain attention. Now, there might be, you know, at a certain point, do you come back? Like maybe there's lingering bitterness, but do you just decide, you know what? I like baseball and this is the best baseball that's being played. It's the best baseball I'm going to get. At a certain point you figure, well, these actually are the best baseball players who would be in the league anyway, because, you know, age, they would have come up and other guys would have aged out and so

you know that was an unfortunate episode but uh time has has healed the wound and righted the wrong and now we're watching big league baseball again the way it would have been boy if i say yes uh i'm trying to figure out if that uh if that makes me a scab. Right. Like how many years? How many years? How many years? Ben, how many years?

What if it's not even the same owners and it's not the same commissioner and it's like the people around? So what are they paying these replacement players at this point? How many years are we talking and what are they paying them? Like do they have a CBA? Are they being paid like stars? This is hard to envision. You'd have to like start a new league maybe from scratch. I don't know.

Just to get rid of the stain of the old one. Oh, wow. Yeah. I mean, I don't. It's hard. I would say that basically anything realistic, if you're talking about anything within five years or so, if you're telling me that hundreds of the world's best players are not playing. Yeah. Then, you know, Ben. And maybe those players would start their own league.

Maybe they would. They probably would. And you'd be more inclined to watch that than the replacement players. Honestly, I'm going to need to see it. I'm going to need to see it before I can tell you how it would feel. I can't do this. It's too hypothetical. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I'm glad this didn't happen 25 years ago. So one of the things that came up when the NBA had their work stoppage a few years ago, I would always hear, it felt like this was the theme of all the coverage of it was like, well, who's got the public on their side? Who's winning the PR campaign? And I am trying to figure out if that actually matters. If, if that, if the reason that that gets written about a lot is because, you know, we're sports writers and we like to, we have to keep score somehow uh that's what we that's what the sort of default is in really in any coverage to be honest of any topic there's a tendency to keep score but does it matter like do you think that in this day and age uh maybe it

did in 94 i don't know but do you think if there was a strike now it would matter whether the public blamed the players or the owners does it is there any distinction coming back i mean if they blame the players let's say that doesn't do anything for the owners it's not like then everybody's going to want to run back and cheer for the players if they blame them and if they blame the owners like i don't really see how that hurts or helps either. It feels like everybody ultimately, when coming back and deciding whether to spend their money on the sport, they see the owners and the players as part of the same sport when they're rejoined, right?

And if they think that the players are to blame or they think the owners are to blame in the period of the strike or of the lockout itself, well, when there's no money to be spent anyway, it doesn't really matter who they're blaming because they're not spending their money anyway. And, you know, to repeat myself, when they come back, I just don't think that they're going to distinguish. They're going to look at the sport and say, well, is this sport a sport I want to feel emotions about or is it not? And I just don't really see why the PR battle is such a big deal. So can you convince me that the PR battle is a big deal? Does it matter? Well, I think it puts pressure.

Obviously, pressure is going to be on both sides because people who like baseball just want there to be baseball, and they probably care about that even more than they care about whose fault it is or who deserves more of the blame for there not being baseball. Obviously, that's the case for kids, right? Like Stephen Vogt is quoted in this oral history, and he's like, you know, I didn't know whether it was the owners or the players. I didn't make any distinction. I was just like, where's baseball? And I think that's probably the case for a pretty large percentage of fans, like casual fans who aren't really going to get into the issues that much or they just think, you know, whatever. It's millionaires versus billionaires and the players have too much money and the owners have too much money and I don't sympathize with either and they're both greedy and we should just have baseball.

And so that would probably be a big portion of the fan base. But I think if there is strong public sentiment one way or the other, that could sway the negotiations, I think. But how? Where is the pressure point? How would the public be able to put pressure on either side in any tangible way? Well, it's true, I guess, that they can't really vote with their wallets in this situation because no baseball is being played. So it's not like they can withhold. But I think owners, they buy baseball teams partly because they want to be like celebrities or you know local icons and so if everyone hates them and is you know everywhere they go people are yelling at them to bring baseball back i think that might weaken their resolve and you know same thing with players potentially just the whole thing

with a strike is like you have to keep everyone together and you can't have cracks in the foundation. And I think, you know, when you do have people in the newspapers and media and social media and everything just piling on one side and people having in-person interactions where they're facing a lot of rage because of their actions or perceived actions. I think that could make one side or the other more likely to lose its resolve and cave at some point. All right. I'm glad I asked because I think that's a good answer. I think that even if there's no actual tangible way that the public can put pressure on the sort of institutions that are negotiating, if you're a ballplayer, of institutions that are negotiating if you're a ball player i mean there's a great quote in here where gene orza is talking about how there there wasn't a peep from the players on the 12th which is the day that um that the day that it they went on strike there wasn't a peep from the players on the 12th not a peep in the weeks after that there was an occasional moment where joe bag of donuts

said something which is quite the own of some 1994 ball player who gave gene orza grief where joe bag of donuts said something and someone had to get on the horn but there was very little of that the focus was simply on getting a deal then he goes on to say that it's incredible that he did not have any he basically went you know seven months eight months whatever it was without a single major high profile public defection from any of the players from any of the the main veterans uh he lists off the stars of the day and said every one of them was was there with us till the end and yes you can imagine that if you're you know oral hershizer or whatever star of the day and you

just every night every night you just want to watch leno and leno is just ripping on you that you'd start to doubt yourself maybe or these days the public has a more direct conduit to many players because they're all on twitter or instagram or whatever and of course they could choose not to look but but it's always tempting to look. And so if you see that your mentions are overwhelmingly people mad at you instead of people supporting you, then that could influence you. Yeah, although I bet their mentions are overwhelmingly people mad at you. That's probably true. No matter what.

But yes, the individuals themselves might be vulnerable to pressure. Buck Showalter has a quote in here, which was the passion our players took for that strike, what they were fighting for. I'm not sure that exists today. I'm not sure the game could withstand another strike the next spring. Well, and then he goes off. So there's a lot of talk about how the players held together during the strike. And Showalter seems to be saying that maybe that was particular to that era, but that maybe if there was a similar threat of a stoppage today,

that it wouldn't happen. And I guess neither one of us really has any insight into that. But I guess on the one hand, you could say that the players, they get paid a lot more now they have more to lose um they have more to lose and they might because of how much they are paid they might feel that they have less to gain um they probably i don't know maybe they don't have less to gain but they might feel that they have less to gain uh by by striking or not, not playing on the other hand. Um, it does feel like there's a lot more camaraderie among players these days that there's not as much animosity between players,

between teams, that it's a much more, that there is a much more of a sense, not just in baseball, but I would say in sports generally of the athletes as a block, as a block against management, against ownership, against the commissioner. And I feel like in a lot of ways, athletes in general are much more unified today than they were 20 years ago. And you saw that, I think you saw that a lot last off season where there was a, I think a real consistency in the messaging coming out of players on social media and elsewhere, where it really felt like they understood their shared interests, they understood the power of their collective action. And they understood in a more sophisticated way throughout the league,

not just the players reps, but throughout the league, what's at stake for some of these decisions. And so I sort of feel like I could imagine for various reasons, including simply the experience of having seen both baseball go through this in their lifetime and also other sports go through this more recently. I could imagine that affecting things in one direction or the other. But I think if Buck Showalter is saying that the players don't have the grit or the players don't have the whatever it is that held them together, I don't know that I don't think I see that. Well, I think they're definitely more aware of the issues than they were five years ago

because the issues weren't issues five years ago in some cases. I mean, free agency was working fine as far as we knew until, you know, the past few years. So things have changed and I think that has energized the players and i think there is more collective awareness of those issues and collective action i don't know if that's true compared to say 30 years ago though i mean when the players were going through this strife regularly when they were on lockouts and strikes and when they were in these bitter battles with the owners and Marvin Miller was there and they were winning these concessions and times were a lot harder for them. I think at that point, there was a lot of awareness and there was

a lot of animosity. And I think maybe players weren like fraternizing on the field or off the field as much as they do now but I think in terms of the the labor situation they were probably more determined just because you know they they had to be to fight those battles and now it's been 25 years since the strike and there's been labor peace for quite some time now. And none of the players today remembers those times and those fights that I think were still sort of uniting players even when the strike came around because the collusion had just been several years before that. And that was fresh in all the players' minds and they didn't trust the owners and everything. So I think probably some of that. I talked to Gene Orza briefly when I was writing about Lords of the Realm not long ago. All of this is sort of fresh in my mind because I did recently reread Lords of the Realm and then read Bud Selig's book, and of course you get very different perspectives on

the same issues from those two books. But I talked to Orza and he was talking about that and about the collective institutional memory of the Players Association and there isn't that continuity in the leadership and all of that. So I think there would be some obstacles and the money. I guess on the one hand, players now, if there was a strike, they wouldn't have to worry about getting a second job for the most part. So in that sense, there'd be less pressure to come back because for the most part, major leaguers are not going to be going hungry if they don't play for half a season. But on the other hand, they might think that they're doing so well already that it's just too drastic an action to take. It really is a miracle that the players union exists and is as strong as it is. I mean, it really is an incredible achievement of organizing that you got these players, many of whom, You got these players, many of whom, I mean, time is their enemy and their careers are so short.

And there are players who, because of this, I mean, technically these players that I'm about to say did not, I don't think, have a vote. But there are players who, because of this strike, never appeared in the majors and otherwise would have. You know, a small, a very small number of September call-ups that year who that would have been their whole career. They didn't make the majors and, uh, presumably those players, although I don't know, it was 40 man, it's 40 man, uh, union. Yeah. 40 men's a union member, right? Yeah. So they would have voted. And so these would have been players who presumably voted to go on strike and, uh, lost their, their, you know, their one week in the majors because of it. But on a different scale, every player is just giving up such a disproportionate amount of their ability to play the game, to leave their mark, to put up the numbers that are going to define their career.

And the fact that they all do this for the next generation, in a lot of ways, largely to benefit the next generation, is really an incredible thing. It's, we should probably read books about this union all the time. Yeah. One other thing I saw that Joe Sheehan tweeted the other day, reading these even-handed retrospectives of the 1994 strike is funny because in the moment, the coverage, as it had been in 1990 and 1985 and 1981, and was laughably ill-informed and unquestionably pro-management, we'll see what happens in 2021. And I do think that's an interesting factor. Obviously, I wasn't reading the coverage at the time, but my impression from the reading I have done is that that was the case that you had, I think, lots of people in the media who were kind of, you know, the line was players are greedy and they're making all this money and sort of siding with management more so. And we'll see the specifics this time around and how the negotiation goes. But I think with the liberalization of sports writing in general that Brian Curtis wrote about for The Ringer a year or two ago, you'd probably get fewer just like, you know, the players are greedy takes and it's all their fault.

like, you know, the players are greedy takes and it's all their fault. And I don't know whether that would affect things or not, but I do think the tenor of the coverage would be a little bit different if this happens again. Yeah. There's a great book on that, on the coverage. It's a book called Baseball's Power Shift. It's by Krister Swanson. I've mentioned it on this podcast before. I love this book. And it is largely about the coverage of labor relations through the years. And yeah, I mean, it feels, reading it, it feels fairly foreign to what I would expect to happen. But I don't really know. You never know. So if, let's just say, Ben, hypothetically, season ended today, there was a strike, they canceled the season. What would you be most disappointed in the 2019 baseball season to not get to see the conclusion of? It's a good question because there aren't really any record chases

that I'm very invested in this year. We've talked about that in the past. And I guess, you know, there are some good Pennant races I mean there's the AL Central race Which I'm pretty into right now And I guess I'd Really just probably be most Sorry about the playoffs

Like missing the playoffs Missing the chance to see the Astros And the Yankees and the Dodgers And these really great teams go head to head again. But I don't know if there's a specific team, like people lament the 1994 Expos, for instance, or, you know, Tony Gwynn going after 400, or as you mentioned, Matt Williams chasing Roger Maris. Like there isn't really that this year, I don't think for me. Yeah, I think that so the Astros and the Dodgers currently have the, they both have the highest

third order winning percentage in history. They're also both, you know, extremely good by just normal wins, but the chance to potentially see those two teams again in the postseason, I know some people will be bored by the repetition. I'm not bored. I'm not bored of either one of those again in the postseason. I know some people will be bored by the repetition. I'm not bored. I'm not bored of either one of those teams in the postseason right now, particularly because there are new teams playing alongside them every year. So it's not like we only get two teams. So I'm interested in seeing them in the postseason. And these in some ways feel like these are two teams that have been defining teams of

the era in different ways. And I think we might look back and say that these were each of their best teams. And so to see those seasons cut short, particularly with the Dodgers, like really trying to do something like this is a this has been a many year project to to turn around something that has been a many decade issue in L.A. To see them lose that chance would be a bummer. But if I had to pick, I would say it's Hunjin Ryu's ERA. He's got a 1.45 ERA, man. That's the second best in history after the dead ball era. And I don't want it to, I mean, I wouldn't want it to end after 142 innings. I mean, technically it would still be a qualifying ERA. It would show up in all your queries, but it would be diminished as only 142 innings.

And let me just say, I think technically speaking, let's see, let me just plug in some numbers here. If he can go 43 scoreless innings, I think, then he would actually beat bob gibson's record and he would he will make if the i mean since there is no strike since there is the season will go on he should make probably like eight more starts so uh you know he's got it he's got us he's got a slim shot at it although if the season did end now then you'd always remember the 1.45 era whereas odds are with the season continuing it'll end up being like a 2.1 or

something which is you know great but it probably won't be the second best and so maybe it will just not all be all that memorable in the end. You're asking me which I would prefer. Would I prefer to see Ryu? You'd rather have the second best, but it's tarnished somewhat because it's only 142 and two-thirds. And you missed the long shot chance that he manages to stay at that level or even improve it over the rest of the season. Or would you just cash in and take this because it's been so cool? And you know that odds are that it will probably be less cool by the end of the season. Well, if it were a counting stat, like I do not remember Matt Williams' season

as being like on a per game basis, you know, the best of all time uh so in that case you definitely wanted it to keep going but on a rate stat that brings up tony gwynn and how uh tony gwynn's 394 is extremely memorable it's the highest batting average i think since ted williams hit 400 and despite some of these quotes in the article probably most likely probably would have gone down if uh if he kept playing there is this quote that like i i read some version of this quote every couple years including i believe from tony gwynn i believe tony gwynn said something similar to this when when he was living but this is from tim hires i had no doubt that he would have hit 400 that season and hires i i think goes on to explain that he was living but this is from tim hires i had no doubt that he would have hit 400 that season

and hires i i think goes on to explain that he was hitting everything hard everything perfect you couldn't believe it you'd never seen anybody hit better but the i mean he was hitting 394 though like if i could see if he'd been at like 414 and you were like he definitely would have held on i mean you should have seen him he He was like truly a foreigner, but he only was hitting 394. It wasn't whatever you saw at the time was not good enough. In fact, he needed to do better than that. And you did not see him do better than that. So there's also a quote from Brad Ausmus, who was his teammate at the time, who says,

I don't know if Tony would have hit four. And this is kind of an interesting quote because it's like a false article idea. It's a full article idea, but it's kind of off topic for this article, which is, I don't know if Tony would have hit 400 in 1994, but I do remember thinking

if Tony had played for Colorado, he would have hit 420. And so that, now I'm going to Tony Gwynn, neutralize batting stats to 1994 Colorado. And so let's see what Tony Nguyen actually would have hit that year. I think it's going to be way over 420. Like I think it's going to be 445.

Yeah, maybe. He would have hit, oh, proud. Man, 426. Oh, pretty good. Brad Ausmus. You think he checked? Great mental park adjustments. He knew.

Incredible. Another thing I'd be mad about, by the way, is Trout. I think we'd both be mad about Trout being cost a chance at what might be his best season and just generally taking away a few war from whatever his ultimate total turns out to be. And an MVP award. Right, yes. Because one of the worst things about 94 is that Jeff Backwell season when he was at eight war through 110 games, which, I mean, that could have been an all-time season too.

I had forgotten this, but they actually did do mvp voting so yeah he won trout would get his mvp oh that's true yes right yeah so just uh one or two quick things that the the wackiest quote in this yeah i know i'm i already know you're gonna this is harold reynolds oh well no actually that that's probably the second wackiest. But the one that made me do a double take was the Buck Showalter quote about, I'll just read it. We were back. He was, of course, the Yankees manager at that time. We were back. We were taking off for the first time in forever. We had moments that we had not had in forever.

How we had pieced that team together, how the people fit. Don Mattingly would have been a shoe-in Hall of Famer if that season had been played. What? Why? Because he would have had a playoff appearance? I don't know. Maybe.

I don't understand. It wasn't like he was having a good season. He had the back thing by then and was pretty much... I don't understand it wasn't like he was having a good season he was you know he had the back thing by then and was pretty much I mean not washed up he had six homers yeah and so I

and he did make the playoffs in 95 so it wasn't like he never made the playoffs not that that was the one thing keeping him out so yeah that didn't make any sense to me at all. The Harold Reynolds quote didn't either, but, you know, that was Harold Reynolds. So I wasn't so surprised to hear him say that. He said that was when baseball became a business, which, of course, it had always been a business.

And then he said that sabermetrics began with the strike, which I don't know if there was any connection there. What happened with that strike is that baseball became a business. Bud Selig never knew it was going to come to that. But with that strike, players became numbers with sabermetrics today. That's all they are today. Sabermetrics began with the strike. And I would say that that is a theory that needs more space than one paragraph to flesh out. I mean, I will assume that Harold Reynolds has thought this out and probably has a couple thousand words on it and

not just one paragraph. But in a paragraph, it definitely comes out a little like a very hot take. Yeah. It's funny. There's a competing oral history of this very same thing that I have not read but Evan Drellick did another very long one an oral history of the 1994 MLB strike from both sides of the bargaining table I'll link to that too and maybe I'll also read it it'd be kind of interesting to compare and contrast the the tones of these articles because the sources are mostly different not entirely but like Drellick has Rob Manfred and Kirkjian has Selig and then Drellick has Don Feer and Kirkjian has Orza actually they both have Orza and they both have Clavin so I wonder if some guys were like oh sorry already doing this other oral history and other guys are like oh I'll do both oral histories i don't have to choose sides here but yeah this is uh tony clark's in both of

them but there are some unique ones so i'm sure they're both worth your time yeah i'm sure they are all right uh okay all right i mentioned briefly how fun a storyline the al central race is it got a little more intriguing on Tuesday because after Cleveland had taken the lead in the division on Monday, they lost on Tuesday while the Twins won. So the Twins retook that lead atop the AL Central. This is, I think, the best race in baseball. Would have liked to talk about it today, but I did talk about it at some length on the Ringer MLB show. So you can go check out that segment if you're interested, and maybe Sam and I will talk about it next time.

This storyline is not going away. I did not think we would have such a riveting AL Central race at the start of the season. And I did not think we would have such a riveting AL Central race when the Twins were up by 11 and a half games. So this has worked out well from an entertainment standpoint. You can support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectivelywild. The following five listeners have already

signed up to pledge some small monthly amount to help keep the podcast going and get themselves access to some perks. Russell Schreiber, Ryan Tietman, Keith, Jonathan Baker, and Lane Maddox. Thanks to all of you. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectivelywild and you can rate facebook.com slash group slash Effectively Wild.

And you can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and other podcast platforms. Keep your questions and comments for me and Sam and Meg coming via email at podcast at fangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance. You can buy my book, The MVP Machine, How Baseball's New Nonconformists Are Using Data to Build Better Players. If you like it, leave a review on Amazon and Goodreads. It helps us out. We will be back a little later this week with one more episode, so we will talk to you then.

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With your swords of gold