Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1462: Bring Back Little Blowhard

Episode Date: November 26, 2019

Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller banter about Charlie Finley’s dual “innovations,” Harvey and Little Blowhard, then answer listener emails about Chris Davis and why some veteran players may be unwilling to change, whether Gerrit Cole could regress away from Houston, the purpose of punishing the Astros for sign-stealing and how many years of draft picks […]

My boy's dead, uh-uh, uh-uh, uh-uh He's wrapped in hides and leather He breaks shot, ha-ha, ha-ha-ha He's lost and lost, he's way up and down There's no eyes on him, it's true I'll terrorize if he wants to Roll high, roll high, grow high, grow high Hello and welcome to episode 1462 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast of fan crafts

presented by our Patreon supporters, with Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Sam Miller of ESPN. Hello, Sam. Hey, Ben. We're recording right after we recorded the previous episode because we're kind of compressing our recording this week with the holiday coming up later in the week. So we're going to do emails, which we have been neglecting for the past few weeks. So we will kind of catch up today. One thing I wanted to say before we get to emails, this is actually an email we were sent that I wanted to read. This is from Connor, who has a great find here. He says, in episode 1454, Meg and Ben discussed the potential of a home plate Roomba. Well,

incredibly, there is a historical precedent. In a June 1961 Sports Illustrated profile of Charlie Finley, the Kansas City A's owner brags about his curious innovations and additions to Municipal Stadium. At one point, the author describes A's owner, brags about his curious innovations and additions to Municipal Stadium. At one point, the author describes two mechanical devices added to the home plate area, including what seemed to be a fan system used to blow dirt off home plate. Here is the paragraph where that device plus a quote unquote rabbit that delivers new balls to the umpire are described. So here's that excerpt. But Finley's two most interesting innovations are a device for supplying the home plate umpire with baseballs when he needs them. So here's that excerpt. Thank you. the organist plays here comes peter cottontail the other innovation is called little blowhard it is a compressed air device whose spout is in the center of the plate when needed air jets out

to blow dirt off a few enemy batters have been startled by little blowhard or harvey the first time they encountered them one of them leaping nearly a foot in the air and connor continues here the device itself is of course interesting and i'll leave it to you all to discuss its merits but the name little blowhard caught my attention i can't confirm the origin of the nickname but And Connor continues here. The device itself is, of course, interesting, and I'll leave it to you all to discuss its merits. But the name Little Blowhard caught my attention. I can't confirm the origin of the nickname, but Little Blowhard was also the name syndicated newspaper columnist Hal Boyle gave to his new air conditioning unit. Heels Boyle describing his mechanical pet in August 1955. My wife, Frances, bought him in the summer of 1949. For some time, Little blowhard, and I

couldn't get along at all. With the intuition of a cat or dog, he sensed at once my distrust and fear of new mechanical gadgets. When Frances turned his knobs, he would begin to purr and puff out cool breezes. But if I even put my hand to his grating, he would snarl and blow a gasket. As Connor said, Boyle was born and died in Kansas City. I have no evidence for this, but perhaps Finley knew him and borrowed the name for his plate cleaner. A little more on these two items from an April 23, 1961 St. Joseph, Missouri, News Press article. Little Harvey and Little Blowhard created equal interest. Harvey might be akin to an automatic pin setter.

He comes poking through a fake grass covered trap door Behind home plate whenever the umpire Runs short on baseballs Harvey is A rabbit cut out dressed in an ace uniform As he comes to the turf his eyes light Up begin flashing and serve as A signal to the umpire that he need worried No longer a wire basket

Well stocked with baseballs rests on Harvey shoulders and the ump may take his pick Once he does the rabbit descends into his hiding place. A further aid to plate umpires is Little Blowhard. This is a pipe-like affair that keeps the plate clean. It, too, comes from below. With one big blast of compressed air, it scours the plate. Little Blowhard probably is a more important item than Harvey.

Blowhard eliminates the need for bending over the plate with a whisk broom. Umpires don't like to bend Especially if they're plate umpire When he cleaned the plate in the old fashioned Manner he usually faced away from the Pitcher, this left an inviting Target exposed to the moundsman And put the umpire in a position of jeopardy

With little Blowhard around At least in the A's park, the danger is Eliminated, the gadgets are controlled By an attendant near a box Attached to the home dug park, the danger is eliminated. The gadgets are controlled by an attendant near a box attached to the home dugout. That last sentence is crucial. Sorry, go ahead. That earlier

article said that this all happened magically and did not explain how it actually happened. So there was just an attendant attached to the home dugout in a little box that I guess would just press a button to activate Harvey and Little Blue Heart. But the suggestion that this is good because umpires could what, get drilled by a pitcher while they're bending over to clean home plate? Why would

that happen? I don't know. And with throwing the ball? Yeah. The suggestion is that pitchers are throwing the ball at prone umpires? Yeah, it seems like umpires are vulnerable because they're turning their back to the pitcher when they have to bend over to clean the plate. And like what, the pitcher doesn't notice that that's happening and just delivers the pitch? I can't imagine this ever happening but i don't know if this was just like you know charlie finley just wanting to do something modern and attention getting and clearly it got attention but these sound like among the least necessary innovations that have ever been introduced to a baseball field yeah the sentence that stuck out to me was little harvey and little blowhard generated equal interest

because Little Blowhard is a good idea and Little Harvey is not a good idea. Like, Little Harvey, so Little Blowhard replaces a thing that, like, nobody, like, the umpire doesn't want to brush the plate. There's no reason that the umpire should brush the plate. The dirt is there. It's a flaw in, you know, the physics. Like, this is the problem with playing outside is the plate. The dirt is there. It's a flaw in the physics. This is the problem with playing outside is that dust gets places. And so, yeah, sure, you have some sort of automated thing that keeps it clean. Good, fine. It's not going to sell tickets, but it's

a fine hack. Little Harvey would replace children who are presumably really happy to have the job of running out and delivering baseballs to the umpires and so you actually are taking jobs away from workers it's it's the downside of automation and child laborers but yeah but you're you're like you're you're replacing something that's you know largely you know cute and and wholesome with something that's less cute and is mechanical and so that one is that's a bad idea. And it doesn't, it would not be interesting. Like, I don't think anybody wants to see a robot moving across the field,

where it's just a little puff of air seems like a good idea. So one was a good idea. The other was a bad idea. And they should not have generated equal interest in my opinion. Yeah. All right. Well, can I, can I tell you my, my favorite Charlie Finley thing that I learned of this year? I'm going to send you a picture of it.

Are you aware of the KC Pennant porch? I don't think so. All right. The picture is going to, I believe, elicit laughter from you. So this was in 1964. Finley wanted the same. I'm reading this from old time baseball photos, OT baseball photo Twitter account. Municipal Stadium in Kansas City in 1964.

A's owner, Charlie Finley, wanted the same distance from right field to home plate as Yankee Stadium had, which is 296 feet, very shallow. But a new rule in 1958, which Yankee Stadium was presumably grandfathered in, a new rule in 1958 required the span from home plate

to right field to be no less than 325 feet. And so he had to have an outfield wall in right field, in the right field corner, that was at least 325 feet from home plate. So he built the foul, I'm going to try to describe it. The foul line goes 325 feet to the corner and then jutting into the field of play almost, but not quite parallel to that line is a sliver of wall that is 29 feet, I guess, or 30 feet of wall. And so there's this little sliver that is at its maximum depth, like a foot from the foul line and then narrowing in. So this wall juts into the field of play, and then a regular outfield wall curves around from that point. So it almost looks like a little peninsula jutting out into the ocean, and then it curls around like a normal wall would

to meet where the regular wall would be. And then there's one bleacher filled with fans sitting in this thing. It's a very awkward photo for a number of reasons. The sliver is the clear like visual gag here, but also it's just weird to see this baseball stadium where there are no bleachers. They couldn't sell enough tickets, I guess in 1964 to have outfield seating.

And so there's, I guess there's a berm. Well, I don't know. Maybe people sat on the berm. There are maybe people out there. It looks like, yeah,

there are like six people on the outfield berm. And maybe all these people in the bleachers were there for a photo op. So maybe this is a staged photo. Anyway, one bleacher in the middle of what would be the outfield, but because there's like a... Anyway, it's a good photo. Yeah. I wonder if you'd get like peanuts and beer and Cracker Jacks out there. Do you think it would be even worth the trip for a vendor? For a vendor? Not enough people out there

to justify it. Yeah, maybe not. Maybe not. Well, Charlie Finley had a lot of ideas. You can see, nobody is sitting in any of the other seats down the right field line. And so this probably suggests that this was a photo op. So I guess maybe they did have people sitting on the

berm during games, I can't say. Finley wanted to go from four balls and three strikes to three balls and two strikes which i'm sure is an email question that we've answered at some point i don't think he ever got to test that out but of course he championed some things that did end up happening like bright colored uniforms and the designated hitter and playoff night games ball girls at ballparks in addition to ball boys, and he urged the owners to implement a plan where every player would be a free agent every year, which he thought would save them money in the long run because it would depress prices just by increasing demand so much, and Marvin Miller later said that he was relieved that the owners didn't push for that. They dismissed the idea because Finley had so many weird ideas that they didn't see the value

in that one. And famously, he tried the orange baseballs for a couple exhibition games in 1973, and I don't think that there was any dramatic difference in the game being played, but I'm reading a Chris Jaffe article at the Hardball Times about it now, and evidently pitchers complained about the balls being slippery, and hitters complained that they couldn't see the seams, which were still red against the orange ball. So no one was very happy with it. But yeah, I would probably slot the orange baseballs that might be even behind Harvey in the hierarchy of good to bad Charlie Finley ideas. Yeah. All right.

Emails. Let's start with One from Dan I hope you're all doing well as the offseason Has begun I am reading Justin Clue's piece on fan graphs about Chris Davis and his struggles since 2013 I found this quote Attached to this email via screenshot

By Davis extremely fascinating where He essentially says he won't be working On changing his swing despite his Well documented struggles and The quote is from a Baltimore Sun article where he essentially says he won't be working on changing his swing despite his well-documented struggles. And the quote is from a Baltimore Sun article, and it says, Davis doesn't plan to make dramatic mechanical changes in 2020. He said the Orioles asked whether he would be interested in attending a private hitting school this offseason, but he wonders how much he could change at his age.

And Dan continues, with the vast number of examples available of players who at various points in their careers have had success with adjusting their swings what factors do you think play into a player not changing his swing do you think previous success at the major league level makes guys like davis think that there's an outside factor not related to their swing that has led to their struggles despite someone like hunter Hunter Pence completely changing his swing and approach at the plate, heading into his age 36 season? Boy, already? You're already ready for me to answer this one. Yeah. I mean, I could start talking if you like. That's a deep question. I mean, I will be honest that there are times in my life, many times, maybe most times, where in the face of failure, I get a mental block that entirely stops me from processing the situation anyway.

Like, I'm not thinking of myself as a, you know, uninterested observer who is simply watching my life and deciding what would be best for me. I am like facing this wall of dissonance and I cannot break through it. And so any explanation, any explanation that you give me for why Chris Davis would not want to make changes, be it that he has carefully analyzed it and decided that it is not within him or that it could actually make things worse or simply that he just cannot, that his, you know, like his ability to think this through is too psychologically burdensome would be acceptable to me. But I mean, Chris, do you think that Chris Davis's problem is his swing? Well, at this point, I mean, his his swing is not working.

So I guess it's it's a problem. There could be other problems, like maybe he's just slowed down or maybe he doesn't see as well. I don't know. But there is maybe a more optimized version of his swing that would be a little better. I don't know. I don't know if he would be as good as he once was or good at all if he changed his swing. But you'd think if you struggled as much as he did that you might be open to change. But here's the thing that I'll say about Davis specifically before we get into what other players might think. Davis kind of took a different tone last offseason, which may be why he is taking this tone now. So I'm reading from a Joe Trezza MLB.com article in January of 2019, and it says

that whether Davis rebounds or not and to what degree remains to be seen, what's clear is that either way, 2019 will be different for a variety of reasons. Davis will be working with a new hitting coach in Don Long and said he's open to incorporating the data that will likely be available via the Orioles' new analytically inclined front office. And it continues, both changes figure to run parallel with the larger theme of Davis' offseason, which was defined by reevaluation and overhaul. Over the course of the past few months, Davis revamped his workout regimen, consulted old hitting coaches, and spoke to sports psychologists. His goals were twofold, relocate the swing that made him one of the game's premier power threats earlier this decade, and relieve the mental anguish that stemmed from last season, statistically one of the worst in baseball history.

It says he huddled with instructors from his prospect days, he tweaked his exercise regimen, et cetera, et cetera. So he was doing some different things or at least expressed some willingness to do different things. So I don't know how much of that was eyewash and just saying that he would do different things or whether he really did try

and still was really bad, if not quite as bad, which would account for maybe now at this point, he's just like, well, I give up. I tried and it didn't work. So that's that. Yeah. My, my recollection is that Joe was on this podcast and said that, uh, as I remember him describing it, it was kind of like the new, the new front office came in and said like, okay, you know, like you got a year, you got a year to, to fail on your own. Uh, you're not, you don't have a leash anymore. Like the leash is done.

You can either play ball with us, play ball metaphorically. You can either, you don't have a leash anymore. The leash is done. You can either play ball with us, play ball metaphorically. You can either work with us or you're probably out of chances, as I recall. Yeah. So maybe he tried and failed and thus has given up on trying. Or maybe he just said he was doing things differently, but wasn't really dramatically doing things differently. I don't know. Maybe part of it is that he succeeded. Obviously, like if you succeed to the degree that Davis did at his peak, then I think that makes you more reluctant to change things because you think, well, this worked for me. My swing was my swing a few years ago, unless you think that it was your swing and now you've lost your swing and you have to get back to your old swing as opposed to finding a new, entirely different swing. But if you're Chris Davis and you're thinking, well, I'm just a few years removed from being pretty good. I hit 47 dingers in 2015 and maybe there's a little bit of denial that comes in and you think well i'm still that guy

more or less so all i have to do is stick with what i was doing and eventually it will work so there's some of that where if you've never succeeded if you never did what chris davis did then you're going to be more willing to change probably than if you led the major leagues in home runs twice then you start thinking, I'm pretty good at this. So I think that's part of it. No, maybe part of it could be the contract. Obviously, like no matter how much money you're making, you're pretty miserable when you're struggling this much.

And in fact, when you're making as much money as he's making, you're probably more miserable in some ways when you're struggling because then everyone is expecting you to be good and yelling at you all the time for not being good. So not saying that he doesn't feel pressure or urgency to be better. any case, probably he might just think, well, do I really want to relearn everything that I learned? Or do I want to just, you know, play out this contract and take my money and move on to the next phase of my life? I don't know. Yeah. I, you have to wonder how close he feels. Like if, if you feel that when you're going out there, you're not anywhere close to getting it, then one way you could

respond to that is just say, all right, well, that's it. I mean, I had my years and they're probably not coming back. And another way is that you could think, well, this is not turning around unless I do something dramatic. And so you could use that as the impetus to do something dramatic. So it could work either way. And if you feel like you are kind of close, that what you're doing, like the, I remember Theo describing the Pacific Association players when we were talking about doing the book and I was trying to figure out how good they were. He said, you know, it's not like they're bagging groceries

and they can't put the groceries in the bag. Like they're good athletes, they're coordinated. They, you know, they know what they're doing. And so if he feels like he is still basically coordinated, if he's still a good athlete, then that could also work either way. You could think, oh wow, there's still something in here and I don't want to waste it.

And so I'm going to use that as the impetus to make changes. Or you could say, it's so close, all I need to find is that mindset. It just needs to click and once it clicks could say it's so close. All I need to find is that that mindset. I just needs to click. And once it clicks, then it'll be there. And maybe that's delusional. So I don't know how close Chris Davis feels. I'm just looking at Chris Davis as a major league hitter. And obviously the results are absolutely dreadful. But so like his chase rate last year was a career best. His contact rate last year was not good, but it wasn't dramatically. I mean, he always struck out a lot. So his contact rate last year was 62% from 2014 to 2016, which those are basically his

last three years as an Oriole. I guess he was bad in 2014. Let's say 2015, 2016, his last two good years. His contact rate was only like 63%, 63.5%. So dropped from 63.5, 64 to 62, which is not like that's pretty close. You're pretty close there. His launch angle those years was like 17% and it's dropped to 14%. But that's not that big a drop either. I mean, both of those

are above average and neither one is anywhere near the top of the league. And so it's not like he has dramatically changed where he would be on the launch angle leaderboard. His exit velocity has gone from 91.3 in those years to 89.1, which is a significant, and that will cost you a lot of value, a lot of offensive production. But it probably doesn't feel that different when you're doing it. His hard hit percentage has gone from 45% to 40%, which again, it's a big difference. It explains a lot of his loss production, but it probably doesn't feel like he's incapable

of hitting the ball hard. And his ex-WOBA on contact is 433 this year. In 2016, it was only 479. And so again, not that different. And so while cumulatively it makes him the worst hitter in baseball, the process of playing baseball, of standing in the batter's box, probably feels about the same. Like the feeling of walking back to the dugout a lot more often having failed to get a hit has probably a cumulative burden on him and he feels different when he goes home and it all feels quite sad. But when he's actually in the batter's box looking at a pitch, he can still identify it. He still sees it coming in.

He still knows how to put the bat on the ball and sometimes it goes a long way. So it probably still feels to him like he's not that far. Yeah, and in fact, in this Baltimore Sun piece from earlier this month, Davis says, It's really early to tell, but I feel like it's different already, just the way the season ended, really the way the season went. Obviously, it wasn't a great year for me, but last year and two years ago felt completely different. It was, I'm not going to say easier to go through this season, but I enjoyed being around the guys. I enjoyed coming to the ballpark. I have hope now to where I had so many questions two years ago when the season ended. So it sounds like he's feeling pretty positive, which maybe it's just because his last year was better than just the terrible depths of the previous year but

again like in this article from last January he was talking about his willingness to change he said to come down this path the last couple years and make no adjustments make no strides in a different direction I don't want to do it anymore I had a lot of work to do so there wasn't a whole lot of time for me to sit back and feel sorry for myself. I wanted to explore a lot of options as far as my offense was concerned, my nutrition and training. I felt like the clock was ticking. So I don't know. He's tried.

I mean, I think that it varies from person to person, obviously, how set in their ways they are, and that's something that a lot of employers are looking for. If you look at, like, Orioles' job listings right now in the baseball operations department, they all say that they want to have people with growth mindset, which, you know, just basically means that you think you can learn things and get better at things and that talent doesn't dictate your performance completely and that you're not necessarily just who you are right now forever, but you can actually improve and learn new skills. So I think there always, there's a spectrum with players or people in any walk of life when it comes to that stuff, and particularly players who are in their 30s and veterans,

and all this data wasn't around when they came up, and this whole launch angle thing was not really in vogue when they broke into the big leagues, and they figure, well, I didn't need it to get here. So now I don't need it to stay here, which maybe they're wrong about, but you can understand how they think that. And some players just aren't really wired for it. It seems like, for example, Chris Davis's teammate, Mark Trumbo, who led the major leagues with 47 homers the year after Chris Davis led the major league with 47 homers

Mark Trumbo had a down year In 2017 and he Sort of attributed it to Paying too much attention to Stats or numbers or Mechanics and he came Into this spring sort Of saying that he had gone back to basics

And now he wasn't Actually going to look at those things and they had just kind of been in his head a little bit. He said his key to an improved season was to cure a mind that was a little cluttered with a lot of numbers flying around and angles and things of that nature that really detract from the goal of squaring up the ball. So with certain hitters who didn't come up in a game that cared about those things, maybe they really did just learn to hit by, you know, see the ball hit the ball. And when you introduce this other stuff, then maybe it's too late for them or it's actually counterproductive.

I have never changed. I have often thought I need to make some changes and I have committed to those changes for hours at a time, but I have never actually successfully changed. And I wonder about people who do, who we read about having made great swing changes. I wonder if they have actually made a change or if they are simply changers and for them changing is the thing that is the constant for them. And so for them, they did not say, okay, well, what I've been doing for 32 years of my life is not working. I need to really do something different and commit to it. For them, they just went, oh, it's another, it's a new month. Got to do a new change. And then for everybody else, I wonder if it's just like, just too defeating and too heavy to

think about like actually like abruptly changing the trajectory of everything you've been doing for 30 years and then sticking to it sticking to it through all the difficult difficult parts and not getting lazy and backsliding I don't know I I wonder if like just 90% of people can't do it and then 10% of people just can't stop doing it and that's just their temperament yeah and tom tango has shown that players who do change their launch angle dramatically like the ones who have success right away doing that are much more likely to keep doing that as opposed to just going back to what they were doing before

which maybe just makes sense like if it's working for them then you know maybe it's what they should be doing but it could also just be that it's hard when you're struggling and slumping, and it takes a lot of mental fortitude to stick with something through a slump. And so even if it is the best thing for you in the long run, it might take some growing pains to get there, and not everyone is going to be willing or able to go through those things. So yeah, it's very much a case-by-case basis. I think there are far fewer players in today's game who are unwilling to at least consider changes or take into account this new information and wonder if it could work for them or ask questions about it, at least as opposed to just dismissing it out of hand.

But still, it's, you know, when you're Chris Davis and you've had some success and you're wealthy and comfortable, at least financially, and it's, well, do I want to completely relearn everything this offseason or do I just kind of want to take it easy and give it my best shot and do what I've been doing? And again, maybe he has tried. It sounds like he has tried some things differently. But at a certain point, you can see why maybe he'd be a little less likely to keep pushing than someone who's entering his seventh season in AAA or something, and it's clear that he has to do something different or else.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, the most likely thing that's going to happen for Chris Davis is at some point the Orioles will release him, and then he'll sign sign with a new team and a lot of the pressure will be off him. And he'll work with new coaches naturally as it is. And maybe that'll be freeing for him. Question from Kevin, Patreon supporter A big part of Garrett Cole's Story is that the Astros unlocked His full potential due to their cutting edge Player development techniques. I'm wondering If this affects his free agency Are there teams that lack confidence In their player development and coaching and might

Think the massive investment in Cole won't be Worth it for them or can they bank On the fact that Cole learned so much from the Astros that he won't regress and his Experience will only help their organization Yeah, I do not believe that any team sees themselves this way. So the premise of the email is that the other teams are stupid and they aren't going to be able to keep Garrett Cole good. And it might be true that they are not able to keep Garrett Cole good. It might be true that the Astros are the only team that is smart enough or has the insight into Garrett Cole enough to

keep him going. But I don't think any of the other 29 teams or really anybody in the front offices of those 29 teams sees themselves that way. I think in order to put yourself out there as one of the 30 best teams in the world at baseball you really do have to believe that you are one of the 30 best teams in baseball and that you are capable of of competing at that level so i that might be a blind spot it might cause if this dynamic were true that garrett cole is just like going to be just shedding talent with every mile he travels away from Houston, then it might be a blind spot that teams will suffer from. But I don't think that any team is thinking we can't sign him because we're not smart enough to keep him good. Now, to the question of whether we think that, I mean, this is the old Dave Duncan

question. We used to talk about this with Dave Duncan and he would teach the two seamers to the old veterans and they would suddenly be good. And then they would be free agents and you'd be like, well, is he going to be good when he goes somewhere else? And I think there was research at the time. And I think that with Garrett Cole, I wouldn't really worry about that. with Garrett Cole, I wouldn't really worry about that. I mean, it's, it seems like unless, I mean, you know, unless there's some sort of like trash can banging going on on the pitching side, uh, Garrett Cole's stuff is extremely obvious and it seems like all you, he now knows how to pitch in this way that is very successful. It doesn't seem like he's dependent on the Astros. Like it's just, it's the best slider fastball combo in the game. That travels. All you have

to do is not tell him only throw two seamers in like the Pirates did, and you've pretty much done what the Astros did. Yeah, I agree. I don't think any team would be worried about this. I mean, the changes that Cole made, I don't see why they would be dependent on continued Astros work. Like he made those changes. He bought into them. They clearly worked for him. I would think he could keep doing what he's doing and keep having success. And even if a lot of teams weren't prepared to tell him or convince him to make the changes that the Astros convinced him to make a couple of years ago, I think now, a couple of years later, plenty of teams understand those changes and realize what he did and why he's

good and won't tell him to go back to some counterproductive way of pitching. So I would not be worried about it in his case. I mean, there could be certain cases I could see. If you take a marginal player and you make him productive because you're constantly tuning him up before every game, you're getting him on the high-speed cameras and the RepSoto and everything, and you're just making sure maybe he has a tendency for his grip to drift on his pitches or something, and he loses his feel for certain pitches. And maybe an organization or some organizations are adept at continually monitoring him and saying, hey, you're getting a little bit away from what you are good at. So I could see that kind of thing. But Garrett Cole is, I mean, he's blowing people away. I can't imagine that he's going to do much worse anywhere else. And I do think that teams recognize that there are imbalances between player development approaches

just because things have changed so rapidly in the past few years and because the markers of that are so obvious. Like if you invested very heavily in a certain type of technology and your team has none of it. Like I was talking to some people who were with the Orioles before and after

the change in regime. And they were saying that like, they knew that they were falling behind that, like the Astros and the Yankees and the Dodgers and the Rays were doing things that they just weren't doing at all. Like they weren't buying the cameras. They didn't have the technology and they tried to tell themselves like we'll just work really hard and and it'll be okay and we'll catch up we'll keep up somehow but like they knew

that they weren't doing those things or at least the people i talked to did now you know the people who were making the decisions to not do those things maybe they felt like whatever we're doing is fine and and they probably did have an inflated sense of their own approach. So I'm sure that's part of it. Like every team is going to probably rate itself more highly than it should. So I think that's true. But again, with Cole, wouldn't worry about it. Yeah.

With Cole, that's the key. I mean, there are lots of pitchers that you, you, um, that I, I could be worried about in certain circumstances. There's a, uh, there's a line in your book that I think about all the um, that I, I could be worried about in certain circumstances. There's a, uh, there's a line in your book that I think about all the time, which is, um, a quote from Brian Bannister, maintaining breaking balls is a full-time job. Now a breaking ball will waver between a 60 and a 70 pitch just based on 15 degrees of spin axis. And I just think about that constantly. And if you think about the job of a coaching staff as being maintaining that spin axis on a pitcher's breaking ball and like it being the difference between a

number four and a number two starter in some cases, then, then yeah, I think that there might be some real, some kind of touchy, touchy things that require certain combinations of coaching or player development staff or analytics and a specific player. It's just that, I mean, maybe I'm not giving Cole enough credit, but Garrett Cole is just so obvious. Right, yeah. It wasn't just the Astros. It was like when they made that trade, everyone pointed out what they were going to do with him. Like there were blog posts written before it happened. So it was maybe you give them credit, obviously,

for seeing that opportunity and taking advantage of it and convincing Cole, which was maybe the hard part, not just like looking at the stats and saying he should throw this more or that more or this in that location or that not in that location, but actually conveying that message to him in a way that he bought into it. That was maybe the impressive part of it. We watched El Camino last night.

And so I got another couple hours of, this time it was the opposite. I was watching Badger, but thinking of him as Garrett Cole the whole time. Yeah. All right. Step West? Sure. Amazing ways. Here's to day step last.

So referring back to episode 1299, at the time Jeff did a stat blast about Derek Dietrich, who I think he had the high, I don't know, one of the highest hit by pitch rates ever or something, and then that became a stat blast about having one of the smallest differences between hit-by-pitch rate and walk rate. And at the time, there was only one player in the plate appearance threshold that Jeff set that had had more hit-by-pitches in his career than walks.

Do you remember who that was? Nope. Well, you guys laughed and laughed. You tried to predict when he died. I think you had a little thing where you predicted when he died. Jeff predicted he died before World War II, and then you guys were really excited because he died in 1942, and you celebrated that death.

It was odd. His name was Whitey Alperman okay so whitey alperman uh batted 1758 times he was hit 39 and he walked only 30 he played from 1906 to 1909 very different game uh if you lower the threshold and also go back further in time, Jeff could have also mentioned J Fats. J Fats. J Fats. That is an MTV VJ name if I ever heard one. J Fats. How do you think he spells fats? F-A-T-Z. F-A-A-T-Z. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. He's got it like, he sort of fattens up the middle of the name, like double A, sort of like spaces it out and gives a little oomph. Shea Fats, 43 by pitches, 39 walks. The funny thing is he played 1884 to 1890, so I'm going to click this and he's going to be 5'5", 105 pounds.

Let's see, 6'4", 6'4", 196. Okay. You come up these days, that'd get you the nickname Slim. Yeah. So those two, both, if you lower the threshold, I don't count J-Fats because 1800s baseball is like truly, truly not baseball. If you keep lowering it, then you get to the pitchers. Don Wilson, 600 plate appearances, 13 hit-by pitches and nine walks. And then you got Tim Belcher, 4 600 plate appearances 13 hit by pitches and nine walks and then you got Tim Belcher 436 plate appearances four and two and then Bartolo Colon famously only one walk but he

was hit twice 300 career plate appearances so we've now named five players who have done this if you keep lowering the threshold and there is now a sixth we mentioned him just a couple days ago you remember who that is tim lacastro oh okay yeah tim lacastro so we talked about tim lacastro having an outrageous hit by pitch rate last year he was hit 22 times in 250 plate appearances by the way i'm sorry i screamed i forgot that because i don't have my microphone that might have been very shrill tim lacastro 22 hititches last year and 250 plate appearances. We commented on that, and then like hours later, I listened to Jeff do a stat blast, and I thought, oh, I bet Tim Lacastro had.

So Tim Lacastro in his career now has 23 hit-by-pitches and 16 walks. He's obviously far below the 1,500 plate appearance threshold that Jeff set, but I think he's got a really good chance. And so here's a few things about Tim LaCastro. In his minor league career, he had more hit by pitches than he had walks across his whole minor league career, including one season in short season ball where he had 32 hit by pitches and 12 walks. 32 hit by pitches and 12 walks. That's a big ratio. He led all NCAA Division III players in hit by pitches his senior year and set a school record. He was hit 29 times and walked only 22. You'll note that 29 is a bigger number than 22. So he's kind of got this trend. He did it in college.

He did it in the minors. And now he has done it in the majors. He might just keep doing it. He might set some sort of stat blast record. And he also one time this year got hit three times in a game, which ties a record. John Kruk got hit twice in his career. All right. That's interesting. I thought that I thought the reason that I think the reason that it's interesting to say John Kruk there, besides the fact that he played a lot, is because John Kruk is most famous. Probably the most famous moment of his career was being terrified of getting hit by a pitch.

Yeah. Exactly. And so I think that that's important context for that moment that I wasn't aware of before Tim Lacastro came. Tim Lacastro, 28th batter ever to get hit three times in a game. 20 of those 28 have come this century and seven of those 28 have come in the past five years. So bulk hit by pitch guys are a trend. The time that Tim Lacastro did it this year, it was an 18 to two game. He got hit when his team was up 11 to two and he got hit when his team was up 14-2. So he is not a strategic hit-by-pitcher. He will take all of them. He wants to get hit all the time. This made me wonder, unrelatedly,

totally unrelatedly, whether hit-by-pitches have platoon splits, whether righties get hit more often by righties, and whether lefties get hit more often by lefties. And one reason they might is because, of course, they're on the pitcher's arm side. So it seems like it would make it be easier for them to have a pitch get away. Another is that they're on the pitcher's arm side. So breaking pitches that don't break, which are the easy ones to get hit by, would be starting at their body. And sure enough, batters get hit about 50% more often when they have the platoon advantage than when they don't have the platoon advantage. So now you know that.

Sorry, the other way around. Batters get hit 50% more when they're facing the same handed pitcher. And then even more unrelatedly, I don't know why I looked this up, has nothing to do with Tim LeCastro, you're 3.6 times more likely to get hit by a pitch before there are three balls in the count than when there are three balls in the count than when there are three balls in the count. And I think that that proves that a larger percentage of hit by pitches than we are aware of are strategic by the batter. It doesn't prove it, but to me, it's suggestive. That's a very big difference. Once you get three balls, batters are suddenly very good at avoiding

pitches. Weird, right? So I think that there's a lot more shenanigans going on. So that's the stat blast. On three balls, you get more pitches thrown in the strike zone. You do. It is true. It is true. And if my theory were correct, all the way correct, then you would also see more hit by pitches in two strike counts

because batters would be trying to salvage the plate appearance. And in fact, there are fewer in two strike counts than there are in non-two strike counts. So that is suggestive of me clinging to a theory that doesn't have much statistical weight behind it. So that's the stat blast about Tim LeCastro and hit by pitches. I have a very quick, another one, if I may. The Mariners this year set an all-time record by only drawing seven intentional walks. Of course, we know that intentional walks are down. And so in the same way that home runs were up and everybody hit record team home run totals, intentional walks have been going down.

And this year, a bunch of teams had their all-time low intentional walks drawn. And in fact, the three lowest intentional walk seasons in history for a team offense all came this year. The Mariners, the Orioles, and the Blue Jays. The Mariners were hit seven times and I just won. I think that one of the great joys in baseball is when you draw an intentional walk and then you make the other team pay. I think that's an underrated, awesome part of a game. It can really make an inning. It's joy, right? And so I wondered, well, the Mariners hardly ever do any walks. Did they get any experience this year of making the other team pay? So here are their seven. First one was to Mitch Hanager. He was intentionally walked and then he was thrown out trying to go from first to

third on a single. They did not make them pay. In fact, he just gave him an out. The second one was to Dan Vogelbach. He was stranded when the next batter struck out in the inning. Domingo Santana, he was stranded when the next batter flied out in the inning. Omar Narvaez, he was stranded, kind of. So he was intentionally walked in a situation where the walk-off run was ahead of him on the bases. And that walk-off run scored when the next batter doubled or something.

So Narvaez ended up being inconsequential. The next hitter made them pay, and they wouldn't have faced that hitter if they had faced Narvaez. So maybe that made them pay. I don't know if it's quite as satisfying, but in the delirium of the walk-off, there was probably part of the satisfaction. But they didn't directly make them pay because of the intentional walk. I don't know if I'm counting that.

Aaron Nola, he was stranded on a ground out by the next batter to end the inning. Dan Vogelbach, he was... Austin Nola. Austin Nola, sorry. Dan Vogelbach, he was stranded. By the way, thank you for that. I have noticed how rarely we correct each other when we make mistakes.

We just don't hear them. And all my life, I've been annoyed when broadcasters don't correct each other's mistakes. And I think, why don't they tell them they're making a mistake? Why don't they tell them that's the different guy on the thing? And I just thought they were too shy too polite too man but now i hear that it just goes past you you're trying to you're trying to follow along and think of what you're going to say you're trying to think of what you're going to say next yeah there's so much mental energy going to your next sentence you people do not understand

how much like i lose four pounds every time you record a podcast. I'm like that thing where like LeBron James goes through like eight pounds of liquid a game. That's me, but like blood juice in my brain. All right. Dan Vogelbach stranded on a ground out the next batter to end the inning. And then the seventh and final intentional walk of the year. The Chicago White Sox in September, two totally out of it teams. The White Sox intentionally walked to Dee Gordon. And that set up a bases loaded situation in the 10th inning to face Tom Murphy. Now, Dee Gordon is not a great hitter. And Tom Murphy had a great

season, which seemed like a very odd choice to make. And Tom Murphy walked for shrimp. He ended the game, made him pay. That one directly made him pay. And I was going to completely mock this. And I looked and Tom Murphy's got a huge platoon split in his career and both this season and also in his entire career. His on-base percentage against righties is actually quite a bit lower than Dee Gordon's batting average against righties. So I think it might have been the right move. Tom Gordon's career on-base percentage against righties is only 250. And this year, when he had a great year, it was only 270. So there may be a case.

Okay. All right. All right. Sticking with the Astros theme, this is from Andrew. He says, in thinking about possible punishments for the Astros if they're found to be guilty of what it seems they're guilty of, a common theme seems to be that they'll lose draft picks.

But if you told them in 2017 that they could trade right then, whatever draft pick punishment will be coming their way in exchange for the World Series, wouldn't they take that in a heartbeat? Which leads to the question, how many draft picks or drafts would you willingly give up to guarantee yourself the 2020 World Series championship? If you could make a secret deal with the Deverell or Rob Manfred.

What about a baseball genie? Yeah, or baseball genie and give up your entire 2020 draft, no picks at all, but lock in the championship, wouldn't you do it? Would you give up 2020 and 2021 to guarantee the 2020 World Series? How many entire drafts would you give up to guarantee one championship? There has to be a line somewhere. I think it's more than two, but less than six. Well, the key thing here is that the Astros

did not know they were guaranteeing themselves a World Series. They just thought they were getting a little bit of an edge. They thought they might have won it anyway, and then they thought they might get a little edge. And so it's not guaranteed. Which could be the case. It could be what happened. We don't know. But Ben, yeah, exactly. But Ben, what if, to preempt this question with another preliminary question, what if there was something that a team could do that would guarantee the World Series? Guaranteed. Like they can somehow guarantee the World Series. What would be the

appropriate penalty for that? Not what would the team trade off, but from a league perspective, some super weapon that is so powerful that it completely invalidates the competition because it makes it automatic. What would be the penalty for that? Well, it still kind of depends on whether it breaks the rules, i mean i assume it would break the rules if you're somehow guaranteeing a world series but if you just found some legal advantage that well let's say it at all right let's say it is let's say it's clearly against the rules is it as bad to guarantee the outcome of a world Series in victory as it would be to guarantee the outcome in a loss by throwing it. Is it Black Sox bad?

Because you're basically stripping the competition from the game. Yeah, I think so. Okay. All right. So what would the Astros – Then again, is it even – if you're guaranteeing yourself a World Series in an illegal way, then are you even – I mean you're profiting. Presumably no one else knows that you did this. Right, because once everyone knows that you cheated to do that, then it takes a lot of fun away.

Yeah, to make it clear and accessible and understandable, let's say that the thing that you've done to cheat is you have bribed the other team to throw the World Series. Uh-huh. Okay. Are both of those teams then and it's not for gambling it's not for gambling it doesn't make any difference but it's not for gambling do both teams suffer the same penalty in that situation does it matter that's one time that one is trying to win which is the point and one is trying to lose which is not the point yeah i think they should be punished equally all right yeah okay then the question is like is it even do you even enjoy that victory if you're those players and you know that you're winning just because the other team is lying down i mean i guess you still make money and and if no one else knows that you did it then your organization profits and your reputation is burnished by that win. But can you even actually enjoy it if you know that that's the case?

Anyway, that's a different question. So this question, the draft picks question, one of the problems with this Astro's signed stealing scandal is that you can't really punish them in any way that would make them wish they hadn't done this as an organization. And now, granted, again, they may have won the World Series if they hadn't done this, but let's just say, for argument's sake, that cheating was what won them the World Series. There's nothing you can realistically do to them that does more damage than that did good for them I guess except for the fact that obviously their reputation is tainted and that title is tainted and whenever

it's mentioned in the future it will be the sign stealing team's World Series win so maybe that takes away a lot of the joy and pleasure from it but you know you still had that joy in the moment and you still sold a lot of tickets and a lot of merchandise

and you got general acclaim as the best team in baseball and you get to ride in the parade and all that stuff. You can't take it away. And if you do dock the team draft picks or something, as the question seems to say, like, I don't know that you can, even if you take away their ability to be competitive or seriously hamstring their ability to be competitive in the future, is there a point? Unless you're saying you're doing something so draconian that they just can't compete for the next 20 years or something and even then it's a lot of the players or people who will suffer because of

that will be different people i guess the astros fan base would suffer quite a lot if that were the case but that's that's not who we want yeah that's no the goal is not what is the goal of the punishment here because it seems like you can make the case that one it's to to even things up the one team got a bunch of advantage it's not fair to the other 29 teams. And so by docking them equal or greater value going forward, you disperse the future benefits to other teams that the ledger ends up square. One is simply to give teams

that might be thinking of this a disincentive because they know that if they get caught, the punishment will be disproportionately higher and or maybe just proportionately higher and so it is not in their long-term rational interests if they're thinking of this purely from a you know what is it worth for us to do this sort of perspective it's not worth it for you okay The third is simply retribution that this team cheated you. It cheated the league. It cheated the other 29 teams who, you know, make up the league

and they're all mad. They've been, they've been injured by these, by these actions. They've been ripped off and they want vengeance. They want retribution. They want to punish the Astros in a way that is emotionally satisfying for them. and that will make the Astros very unhappy. And if it's the last one, which I think is, I think a lot of it is when, I mean, that's what, that's part of why we're here bemoaning the fact that you can't really punish them because they're too happy. They're already so happy that nothing you do is going to make them regret doing this. And if the point is regret, if the point is to cause them regret, then do you have to figure out first how much it worked so that you can get an appropriately sized retribution? And then is it

actually more important not to figure out whether it worked but to somehow figure out how much the astros think it worked how much they think it worked because if they think that this was 10 of a world series then you need to give them a punishment that they will feel hurts them by that much that that they will regret doing it is the goal to make the astros regret this i think a lot of people would like them to suffer for what they did. So yes, I guess so. And I don't know that you can accomplish that unless you identify the individuals responsible. And again, it sure seems like the trash can banging was going on when just about every hitter on that team was hitting at some point. And so I guess you can't prove that they were using that information or that they asked for the trash can stuff while they were at the plate.

But this was going on. Everyone had to be aware of it, if not directly using it or benefiting from it. suspend AJ Hinch or you could I don't know suspend Lunau or even banish someone in the front office if you can prove that they ordered it or knew about it but can you suspend the whole team would that unless it like is unless you

think it is a black socks level problem in which case it's banish everyone who did this and I think that would be extreme so i don't know what you can do other than just saying well they got an edge so we're gonna take away their edge in the future and that's how you get draft picks and fines and reducing international spending and that's kind of all you can do would you punish them more because they won the world series and you're trying to chase that ability to make it hurt or do you just admit you you just you

you take the loss on this one they won they did it they got away with it you didn't stop them and now you're gonna like you have a level of punishment that you think is appropriate to all teams in all circumstances who engage in this and you're not ever going to make the Astros regret it but life's that way I don't think you should punish them more because they won the World Series I think that there are people who have certainly suggested that you should take their title away and that's one way I mean if you if all you want to do is like remove the the joy that they derive from having won that world series then yes you could take the title away and say well you didn't win that world series retroactively doesn't count so you don't get to brag about that anymore and i

think that would be without precedent i i think it would be sort of a dangerous thing to do to retroactively determine who wins or to take away a title entirely you could do that you know you don't have to say well the dodgers win that world series now you could just say no one won but that would be so strange and and so unique i mean granted we had 94 when there was no World Series. But just to say that this didn't happen, just strike it from the record. I just I don't know that you can do that because there are so many examples in baseball of sign stealing and cheating and it's just never happened and do you want to introduce that possibility that the baseball we're watching right now might one day not count because we find out something that was happening that we didn't know at the time i definitely do not think that i mean i i want to just say like with no ambiguity i do not think that would be a good thing to do this is hypothetically but would they care if you did it i mean they, they got it all.

They got everything. They know what happened. You're not going to trick them. They got the parade. They got to celebrate. They sold all the tickets. They know. They know what happened.

They already knew that they had cheated, and they also now know that they won. Would they care? I think they would care. I think so. If you took away their World Series rings and said you are not a World Series winner. Well, they paid for their own rings. Well, the organization did. Well, the organization did.

So what are you taking from them? You're taking the achievement, the honor, the flag that's supposed to fly forever. You get to call yourself a World Series winner. No, you're just taking the league stamp off the honor, the flag that's supposed to fly forever. You get to call yourself a World Series winner. No, you're just taking the league stamp off the honor. The honor still exists. You won the games. Yeah, you did, but the league kind of

makes it official, right? So if the league says it didn't count, then it didn't count. It'll be in the record books as no World Series winner, and the Astros never won a World Series. And this player and that player never won a World Series. That matters? I genuinely don't think it does.

I think the Astros would just suddenly realize how little they care about the league. They would just say, well, I hate those people anyway. Again, they had all the fun. Like this is well in the past. If this happened two days after, then I think maybe you're right, right? Then maybe there's not even a parade. Maybe there's no fun to it. They don't get to have like, you know, the commissioner come hand them the trophy.

And I don't even know. I guess that happens right after. But all that's in the past already. They got all the adrenaline, all the celebration. The clothes have been laundered. It's all now past. I just don't think that you're going to be able to take away any of the significance of it. But let's say that you're right.

Then isn't the solution pretty obvious? If you want to punish the Astros, but you don't want to do something really stupid like monkey with the official records, you just say that you're going to. You say you're invalidating the World Series. The Astros are no longer the World Series. And you make them live with that for three weeks. And then you go, psych.

And then you give them the World Series back. And you just say at the end of it that we just wanted to make them suffer for a few weeks yes yeah i mean you say psych uh and then you get doubly good because you got the you got the good psych at the end too uh yeah i don't think so but uh i i get it i don't know i don't know what you do i i think you have to punish any people you can personally find responsible so that other players will be worried about that in the future and and i don't know either you make it more difficult to do things like this or you just say you're allowed to do this and everyone can do it and go ahead and do it and how come you keep going to that every

every time we record you talk about how there shouldn't be any rules anymore when did you become this i'm not sure i just i mean it depends if a lot of teams are doing it already and have been doing it in history then maybe it's impossible or very difficult to police completely, especially in a world that's just covered with cameras and screens. But if you're all allowed to do it, then I don't know that it's necessarily worse. I'm not sure that baseball is any worse if that's the case. I think it's bad if a team is getting an advantage by doing that. But if every team is allowed to do it i don't know i'm not saying it's better baseball but is it that much worse i don't know i mean i

don't want to take away from the player's performance i don't think the game is more entertaining if it's being decided by people who aren't even on the team stealing signs from beyond the field but if there's just total awareness that that can go on, then maybe you do have the players guard the signs more carefully, protect against it, and then you get back to a situation where you have complete parity again, and the game is just being dictated by player performance as opposed to some teams knowing the signs and others not knowing the signs.

I know there's potentially a pace of play concern there, but I feel like the unfair advantage, the unequal part of it is the worst part of sign stealing more so than the thing itself. Yeah. I think that you're underestimating the extent to which it would make the game visually intolerable. Just the amount of effort and energy that would go into thwarting other teams, I don't think would be aesthetically pleasing. Well, my preferred solution is that we just have a technological way to pass science without it being detectable, which I think is achievable. And then we won't have to even worry about this anymore because you won't be able to pick up the science with a camera. I think we can do that and should do that and hopefully will sometime soon.

But as for the astros uh the draft pick question is there does it even matter is there a number of years of draft picks that you can take away to make this right the question said something about if they could guarantee the 2021 but so i guess if the question is what trade- would a team make? And let's not say a guaranteed World Series, but let's say increase their chances from what 3% would be if all the leagues were equally likely, if all the teams were equally likely to win it, 3%. So let's say what would you give up to trade from,

to increase your World Series odds from 3% to 50%? I would say, without having done the math here, like, I would guess that you would give up maybe 12 years of drafts. Wow. Gosh, that's a lot. That would really hurt your ability to win in those years. Like, if you have no draft picks, it's not even like you're losing your top pick or your top picks moving down 10 spots or something you're just giving up every draft pick you're just saying it was a bit high that's a lot you're just you're not gonna i mean that will sink your organization for decades to not have a draft pick so uh all right how about this I will say This no top 10 picks

No top 10 round picks So you can only draft 11th round down For four years yeah That doesn't sound like too much for me for What you're getting okay yeah All right So okay I've got one more Here I think this will be quick this

Is from Max in San Francisco Ben's vacation got me thinking, what if players and coaches were allowed to take vacations during the season, the way people in other jobs can take PTO? Granted, the season is only seven to eight months, counting spring training in the playoffs, but let's say a team thought that a player would benefit from a week away from the team, snorkeling with family and lounging by the beach would be healthier, happier, more productive in the long run and wanted to offer this benefit to players and coaches.

Would they take them up on their offer or would the fear of bad optics or the fear of losing their spot or the fear of falling out of sync or shaming from teammates prevent this from happening? And would it be something that only veteran or established players would accept and would free agents negotiate it. I think I remember Mike Kruko one time talking sort of off the cuff about how it can really benefit a player if some non-lingering thing knocks you out for 15 days in the middle of the season, that ultimately the time you get off you know grouped together instead of a day here a day there is it can be really helpful i think actually i think what he was saying is that he this is all like 12 to 25 years ago so and i wasn't intending to repeat it but i think he was

saying that he was spitballing that instead of giving players off every three or four weeks, they should give every player a week and then rotate throughout the year. And he thought that having a week at some point in the year would be more valuable than having seven days scattered. Uh-huh. Okay. And so that's this. Yep. And yeah, I think it depends how this came up. I mean, if teams came up with this idea and said, hey, just want to let you know everybody's taking a week off this year.

It's mandatory. It's good for you. Then I don't think they would feel any hesitancy about doing it. If they fought for it in a collective bargaining agreement, I think we'd have to put up with a lot of a lot of dumb discourse about it yes well i mean nowadays you get people being mad at players for taking a day off when their baby is born unbelievable so to take a week off to go snorkeling or something even if you tried to pitch it as this will be better for him in the long run and he'll come back feeling refreshed, fans never stand for it. So, yes, it would have to be like a league-wide policy or something

where it's just like, hey, we're mandating a mental health week for players. It's a high-stress job, and they're playing almost every day for many months. And so even though they're off for several months in the off season like that doesn't help you that much like in august or something i mean the fact that you were off from november through february or part of february or whatever like that's nice but by mid-august or something like you're still dead tired at that point so you probably could benefit from that time off but yeah if it were just like one team trying to institute this there'd be so much criticism of it and and players themselves probably wouldn't want to do it because they

might think they would cost themselves I mean they wouldn't be putting up numbers during that week away. You'd have to somehow convince them that they'd actually be better. They'd play so much better because they're refreshed when they come back that in the long run, it would all equal out. And I don't know that you could actually make that case convincingly. saying like you'd probably you know you might get chris davis taken a week off but would you get the young player who's not making that much money and is trying to solidify his status would he feel like he could do this even if his team did it it would be like that thing at companies that say you can just take as much vacation time as you want and then it ends up that no one ends up taking any vacation time so i just i don't know that i can see this working and i don't know that it needs to happen but i could see an argument for it you could make a case maybe the very first sentence of jay fat's saber bio is said by the sporting news to be quote as slender as a knitting needle oh yeah okay you called that. Yeah.

All right. I like it, though. I think they should get vacation. I think that they need to. You know me. I don't like 162-game schedule. I like it as a consumer. As a greedy person who likes baseball, it's good for me.

But I think the sport would be a lot better with like 108 games. Yeah. me. But I think the sport would be a lot better with like 108 games. Yeah, my main reservation about that is that in baseball, you need so many games to reveal a team's true talent or a player's true talent that it seems like, gosh, too many games, but there's a lot of randomness in it as it is. And you need like 67 games Neil Payne has found before a team's record is half skill and half luck so at a certain point if you did cut it back then your results would not be as reflective of of team talent and i like that baseball is then again the playoffs are the opposite of that so if we've already decided that we're going to award the title based on small sample things that aren't reflective of true talent, then I guess maybe we might as well just do the regular season that way too, a little bit more than we currently do. Yeah, I wonder if you cut, say, 50% of the games but increased the innings in a game to 10. So you're still shaving.

I wonder if how much Neil's findings would be affected if you change the innings in a game? Like how many games would it take if games were only seven innings? How many games would it take if games were 11 innings? And I wonder if I'm not suggesting that you do this. I'm suggesting that it's time to end this podcast. Maybe the all-star break should just be like an actual week instead of three days, really. Maybe that's the vacation. I don't know. Because that'd be, that'd help

too, just in the sense that all the players would be a little bit rusty or they'd have that time off, so you wouldn't have to worry about like, well, this guy is taking vacation now and this other guy is taking vacation then, and you wouldn't have the worry about like, well, this guy's taking vacation now and this other guy's taking vacation then. And you wouldn't have the hassle of trying to organize it to make sure that everyone got their vacation time and scheduling would be a big issue. So if you just did have a longer break midseason, it would be tough for fans who feel like they're in withdrawal even with the current all-star break.

But if it were just a few days longer than it is, that might not be so bad not be so bad yeah yeah i mean you're cutting games from the schedule if you do that though yeah probably all right that will do it thanks for listening you can support the podcast on patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild the following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some small monthly amount to help keep the podcast going and get themselves access to some perks. Spencer Von Hirschman, Marvin Cortez, Jeff Gilbert, Harold Walker, and Tom Evans. Thanks to all of you. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and other podcast platforms. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash Effectively Wild.

Replenish our mailbag. Send us questions and comments via email at podcastoffangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance. We hope you have a great Thanksgiving and we will be back with another episode a little later this week. Talk to you then. The sacrifice, there's hard feelings, there's pointless waste.