Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1568: What We’re Most Excited to See This Season

Episode Date: July 22, 2020

Ben Lindbergh, Meg Rowley, and Baseball Prospectus editor-in-chief Craig Goldstein banter about whether official scorers will be more or less accurate when they’re working from home. Then they conduct the second of two drafts that have been presented on back-to-back episodes, completing the set by selecting five things apiece that they’re excited to see (or […]

I've got good news all the way. I hope you don't hang along. Oh, this time you'll save you. At least until you're gone. Don't hang along. And leaves them to go The day long Hello and welcome to episode 1568 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of Fangraphs, and I am joined, as always, by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? Hello, okay. We're also joined in part two of a draft day by Craig Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus.

Craig, how are you today? I'm doing great. Thank you for having me. Oh, we're so happy to have you. So yeah, I've done the intro part of our intro, but Ben, do you want to lay out this draft sure so this is a double header draft we are recording these two episodes on the same day although you may not be listening to them that way but in part one with craig we drafted things that we will be sorry not to see this season because of the 60 game schedule because of the canceled minor league season, things that we miss, essentially, about baseball as usual that will not be in

place this season. Today, we're doing a more upbeat draft. This is going to be things that we're excited to see, things that we're looking forward to. And these could be things that we already were looking forward to before everything went sideways, or they could be things that we're looking forward to that wouldn't have happened otherwise so one or the other is fine and I guess I'll apply the same blanket disclaimer that I did to the last episode which is just that we know

there's a lot of other stuff going on and in fact Meg you drafted that as one of your things in our last episode, that it's hard to just fully enjoy baseball, let's say, and not consider all of the implications of everything and whether this is helping or hurting the world at large. And that is also true when we are looking forward to this season. But at least for this hour or so, I guess we will put that aside somewhat and focus on the things that we're actually happy about. Can I ask you a quick question before we begin the draft, which will be about five rounds, something like that? I just saw an article by the AP's Stephen Wine. It is entitled, Hit or Error? MLB Official Scorers Work Remotely Through Virus. And this was something I had not been thinking of. Apparently, the official scorers are not going to be at the ballpark this year. I sort of assumed that they would be in their usual spot in the press box, but MLB has decided, this is a quote

from Chris Maranac, when we looked at the job and the technology available to them, we felt like they can do the entire job they have to do from home. And then the rest of the article is just a point counterpoint about whether that's the case or not. So you have managers like Terry Francona and Dave Roberts saying that it's tough enough to be an official score when you're sitting up high, when you get down low and you actually see how fast the ball's moving or the hops it's taking or the topspin, you get a much better version of what's really happening. I know anytime you slow it down and watch it again, it always looks like an error, but you have to remember that player is not allowed to slow it down. And Robert said, the speed of the game, seeing it in real

time with your own eyes in front of you, I think really matters. But then it also quotes Marlon shortstop Miguel Rojas, who thinks that scores will be better and more accurate. And he says, they can take their time and watch the replay and see how hard the play was to make and how hard it was to hit. I feel like it's going to be a little bit more accurate. And just to clarify, the scores have access to, quote, an unprecedented number of video feeds accessing the same infrastructure used for replay reviews. When they want to replay a play, they can choose their camera angle

and zoom in and rewind so i guess my question for you is which side of the debate do you come down on or if you were official scoring and you wanted to get the calls right would you rather be in the ballpark or be at home but have all the camera angles i guess at home i'm a little confused by the idea that they benefit from proximity live because don't most scorers sit up in the press box? Yep. So are they really that close? They could see the play play out in real time from a bird's eye view. So it's a little different. I guess if you watch something

in slow-mo, maybe something that might look like a fieldable ball or catchable ball or throwable ball was actually harder in real time. But then again, I don't know, maybe you could pick up on the spin or a bad hop or something on the replay in a way that you couldn't from the press box. hop or something on the replay in a way that you couldn't from the press box yeah i think that i think that having the ability to look at stuff on replay provided that your initial view of anything is the the full speed is probably fine i guess it'll be interesting to see come the end of the year how many i don't even know if they track this how many scoring changes there are in the course of a game yeah i don't know if that's something that is tracked anywhere so i don't know that we have a baseline to compare it to but it would be interesting to see how frequently you know either more or less

frequently they end up switching stuff around than they do in a typical season i don't even really have a good sense myself how often scores really change things i mean most plays are not all that controversial so they don't there isn't really a lot of contestation around them anyway and i would think that for the universe of plays where you do want to consider things carefully that getting a better look at it is probably better than not yeah question mark i'll be interested to see if there are more or fewer errors at the end of the year i guess if frank cone is right that everything looks like it should have been fielded on replay then maybe we'll see fewer errors yeah maybe i guess if that's the outcome that's like doing a historical solid or something i don't know yeah will be interesting. The article also mentions no opportunity to go down to the clubhouse after the game to

talk to the player or a manager for further illumination, which to me, that sounds like it might actually be an improvement. I don't know. How often does that happen? Well, I know that players will object and they'll call up or they'll lodge a complaint, but further illumination, I'm trying to think of what exactly could be illuminated. Like just, no, it was hard. Yeah.

I think that's intimidation. Right, exactly. That's kind of what I'm thinking. Like if you have to see the person, then maybe you'll be influenced or biased because of that. So if anything. Or smooth talking. Yeah, right. I would also say, like you pointed out they're in

the press box so they do there are tvs in the yeah you do get to see replays obviously not to this degree i guess i i still would prefer the replay like the access to the cameras and the replays i am curious if they have access to like a an overhead kind of camera, something that shows the whole field at once, so you can get a sense of how far people actually have to move. Oh, yeah. But I do think, in general, so much is left to score discretion. There are a lot of rules, obviously, but a lot of them can be like, well, it's kind of up to the, what's extraordinary effort, right?

How do you define that? So I don't know. I fine if you get if you're not at the ballpark i think these things are also squishy anyway yeah it matters less than it used to in that we have all of these tracking stats and defense independent stats and all of that so players are mostly getting evaluated and paid based on stats that aren't really that affected by hit or error. There might be some cases where it matters more. But yeah, you're right. That's the big thing that you typically miss out on on TV that you might see in the ballpark is the starting positions of the fielders and how far they had to go and the routes that they took and all of that. But if they do have access to all of the camera feeds that they want, then in theory,

at least they could watch the whole play from any angle if they want to. Yeah. And I guess, I mean, this is just turning to me picking on official scoring and the rules, but like if someone takes a weird route to a ball and then it drops in front of them in the outfield, but they never touched it, like that ends up being a hit, whether you see the whole thing happen and you know it's a misplay or not. So I don't know. The whole thing seems so out of whack to me that it's kind of like well whatever yeah are we going to covet a just ordinary effort that's like that they're

there they're on the field yeah i think yeah it's remarkable effort yeah yeah it's extraordinary effort yeah um i wonder whether long term the future of this is just like automated hit or error based on hit probability or something or or maybe we just do away with the distinction entirely. I don't mind it continuing to be tracked just for historical consistency, but I do kind of wonder whether you could just automate it fairly well. Like if it's a X percent probability play, you know, it's 90 percent probability based on where the fielder started that play and he doesn't make it. Well, that might be a little different from how these things have typically been decided, where it's almost about like how you screw up then whether you should have screwed up or not. But I could see something like that just kind of replacing that job entirely, but we'll see. Probably just as arbitrary. And I would also say, I mean, my solution is perhaps counterintuitively is I'd like to see official scores like freelance a little more. Like again, in the scenario I describe, I'd like to see them just say, that's an error. Like that was a bad route. I'm going to call it like that shouldn't have landed.

I think that would be, I think we'd get, there would be obviously a lot of, you know, blurry areas and things where people would get mad about it, but I think it might be closer to reality. Yeah. All right. Well, that's a thing that we're looking forward to this season. That's the first pick in the draft. No, it's not actually, but it is time for the first pick in the draft. Should we reverse the draft order or does it matter? I don't care. All right. Well, I went last time, so I suppose I will go first this time and I will take Shohei Otani's two-way comeback, which I'm sure that either of you would have taken. But yeah, I mean, Otani has been a great source of joy for me and was a great source of

joy for me, particularly in 2018 during that marvelous stretch when he really was fulfilling the two-way potential. And there was that week where he was worth a win above replacement or more because he had a few good games on offense. I think he hit a couple homers and then he had a great start. And it was just really, really great, and we didn't get to enjoy it for very long, unfortunately, because then he got hurt and stopped pitching and didn't pitch at all last year. And it's been a while since we have seen him on the mound in games that count. And I know he's had some issues with wildness in summer camp, and hopefully that's nothing.

Hopefully it's just the rust and the long layoff and adrenaline or whatever, and I hope he will refine that. Obviously, we saw him struggle in spring training in 2018, and he immediately put that behind him once the season started. So this is, I think, a pretty important season for him. I mean, I know it's a small sample, and we'll learn less about most players than we typically would. But in Otani's case, I don't know if this will be decisive, but it could be. I mean, if he really struggles as a pitcher, potentially that could cement it. If he has trouble handling the workload, that's one of the reasons I'm sort of optimistic is that he's had all this time off and now it's just the 60 game season. So he's starting once a week and hopefully he won't wear down as much over two months as he would over six. So I'm hoping that this works really well and that we go into next season and he has no limits on anything and we can really see the fully operational Otani, but this will be at least a taste of that. So I'm

sort of nervous and excited about how it goes. Yeah. You know, because of some of the rules around how many batters pitchers have to face, like we looked like we were going to have this beautiful moment of like two-way players. And some of those guys are obviously not going to be doing it as frequently because the relievers are going to have to just really relieve or field and the defensive replacements won't make as much sense. And so I hope that he is able to sustain things because it is really this shining hope of weirdness. So much weirdness is about to get stripped out and then there's Otani. So that's pretty great. All right, Meg, I guess you're up.

Oh, I guess I get to go. I can't believe I get to pick this. I, guys, I'm really looking forward to knowing what day it is. That's a good point. I'm looking forward to knowing when in the day it is yeah i'm looking forward to knowing what month we're in i think i have shared this maybe with both of you that like i noticed as i was as i had intra squads on in the evening while i was editing positional power rankings

just this is not an original thought, but I was just reminded again how much of my circadian rhythm is dictated by this dumb sport. And I have been unmoored for months now. Just not known when it is or where I am. It's gotten worse since the draft was over, right? Like once you lose the big milestones, you really just don't know. But I'm looking forward to the periods of time during which I don't know when it is,

just getting small and then remembering because there's baseball on. getting small and then remembering because there's baseball on. And that sort of regular companionship that baseball gives each of us in our day is a thing I have missed greatly because both personally and professionally so much of my understanding of time is dictated by it. And I look forward to being moored again so yeah it's very dramatic but here we are yeah that's a really good one it does really provide a rhythm to the week and the day yeah yeah i did not have that but i should have i mean i i think it's just an extension of of what you're describing but i wrote last year as a best thing in baseball

about west coast baseball being on the east coast and like how you know i work late late hours when people turn articles in late which you know almost never happens for me i don't know about you meg um but it's nice to have some company and it's like it's just the best company that you could have it's a there's an ambiance to it and yeah i'm you you and i have i've i think several times over the last few days with the exhibitions happening in the intra squad games just been like this is this is nice it's nice yeah all right craig what else is nice so i i asked for this clarification before we did this version of the draft, but I wanted to know if I could take a thing that I look forward to not having, if that makes sense.

Yes. And so I'm going to go with fans just straight up biffing a generic fly ball and thinking it's a home run. That's great. We're not going to have that. And I know it's for a bad reason and all of that kind of stuff but like it it tricks me sometimes yeah and i usually am not that bad i granted it's it's much harder in uh you know on tv to tell than than in the stadium but i feel like

i'm pretty good at telling one way or the other and i even got better as the year went on to and got used to like what the ball looked like off the better as the year went on and got used to what the ball looked like off the bat with the rocket ball or whatever you want to call it. And now I won't be tricked by fans. And I feel better about that. I think I'm going to feel better about myself. I'm sometimes the wrong one. There are occasional times, especially in the juiced ball era, when I never know exactly what to believe from month to month about how the ball comes off the bat and what actually is a home run off the bat. There are times when I think the crowd has been right and I have been wrong, but true, it does happen often the other way.

And I will say it is a moderately useful gauge. Like when things changed in the playoffs last year and i believe the league contention is that nothing did actually change but you know when when the dodgers nets series had a had a bunch on both sides it felt like that it felt like a definite home run based on how the entire year had gone and then it would just die four or five feet shy of the warning track and everyone was kind of like wait what happened yep and it was nice to know that you weren't necessarily alone in that so right i definitely there's some utility but in general i i it's one of those things that gets under my skin i guess yeah i remember one of our guests from earlier this year arnold hayno in his great book a day

in the bleachers wrote that giants fans in the polo grounds were really great at recognizing when to get excited about fly balls and when not to. Of course, he was a Giants fan and maybe sort of biased, but you still hear that about certain fan bases. They're just so knowledgeable about baseball that they don't get fooled by fly balls. I'm sort of skeptical of there actually being a big difference from fan base to fan base. I'd like to see some studies on that. Last time we didn't draft, but we mentioned at the end the fact that games matter more and that that could be a negative in the sense that sometimes it's nice to just have sleepy, meaningless baseball on in the background that you don't really have

to pay that close attention to. And it's just something that's murmuring along and there aren't really stakes or pressure. However, I think there's also a flip side to that. And I'm kind of excited about each game mattering more. And I'm also excited, this is sort of related, but I think kind of the same thing, about the potential for players to actually carry their teams this year. carry their teams this year. Like a player who has a really hot 60 games can actually propel their team to the playoffs in a way that typically they can't. And that's sort of exciting to me with the usual small sample caveats and all of that. I think it's still kind of fun that a player who just has a hot streak that lasts the whole season, which can happen pretty much with a two-month season,

could be worth five wins or something, let's say. And if that's the case, I mean, that's a huge percentage of the games that your team is playing that year, and every one matters. So I don't know how managing will be different and whether we will see teams really put the pedal to the metal or pull out of the stops to actually win games because of all the other things that are going on and just because of how weird this whole season is and the asterisks that may or may not be applied. But I think it will be nice to actually look at, say, a week of action and look at the movement in the playoff odds at your respective sites and say, hey, those things actually budged quite a bit just based on, say, you know, you had a six-game winning or losing streak that week. I mean, that could be decisive just about.

So I am kind of looking forward to that. I don't know that I would want it to be the case forever. I kind of like the fact that the regular season goes on forever and that it's just part of your day and you don't have to live and die with every pitch. But for one year, I think that's actually going to be a pretty refreshing and fun experience. I like everything about this pick except for one possibility, Ben. Okay. Which is this.

I fully expect Mike Trout to be an exceptional baseball player this year. And I don't know if the Angels will make the postseason. And if they don't, that MVP conversation in light of what you just mentioned is going to be horrible. That's true. Horrible. So I think the solution is just that the Angels should make the playoffs and then we don't have to do it.

We can just skip it. So one more reason, you guys, get on it. I always enjoy watching the Angels. Remember when we did our team fun draft or fun team draft? I took the Angels way prematurely according to you and Sam, but they're just always at the top of the list

because of Trout and Otani and now Rendon and Simmons. Joe Adele. Yeah. Joe Adele. Yeah, Joe Adele. Griffin Canning looked good the other night. Yeah, it's been a stars and scrubs roster. I would not recommend buying into their pitching staff. I know.

Oh, it's my turn again. Yes. Well, I will accept a judge's ruling if you think that this is too close to what you just drafted, Ben, but I'm looking forward to seeing if we actually get any of these like statistically aberrant seasons. Like I want to see if anyone actually hits 400 or, you know, breaks Gibson's ERA record. I, you know, we've done a number of pieces at both, well, at all three of our sites about the likelihood of any of those things happening. And while it is certainly more likely in a season like this, it is, I wouldn't say extremely likely, even given all of the, you know, volatility and vagaries that we might see in a 60 game season. But I hope we get at least one or at least one that looks plausible for a significant stretch of time. Because even with an asterisk and even with all the considerations this year,

I think that it would be fun and it would be nice to have at-bat notifications that aren't just about some random starter taking a no-hitter into the sixth and then an inning later being like, eh, never mind. So yeah, I hope we – I both want to see if we actually get one and i hope that we get to be invested in in a chase of some kind because i think that those would be uh those would be quite fun so agreed i would just off i agree with you by the way i just would offer that uh your comment in regards to the discourse aroundout and not making the playoffs is very much in play here as well. I know.

Because people are going to argue about the validity of a season in which this happens. But I would just – no, but I agree with you. I think it would be fun. I would be invested. I don't care about the – like it is what – this is the hand we're dealt. Yep. It's all we can do.

I would point out that I believe I believe the latest someone got was hitting above 400 last year was Cody Bellinger and it was 40, 49 games in. Yeah. So not even, I mean, close, but also not even really. And it would be quite the accomplishment to do it. But in, in 60 games by the 60th game, he was at 376. So yeah, a far shot. Of course you don't need to play 60 games to qualify for the batting title so there's that here we go already but i i also say and i i apologize and i'm gonna forget who brought this up but you know the idea that just because this season is shorter means that it should be invalid given all the many trials there will be to play it at all i i think

we should like allow ourselves to look at it a little differently than that that this season if we are able to play it through to completion and obviously by that i mean we are able to play it through to completion safely i think that that will be quite a a lot will have to have been overcome in order for that to be true and so i think we shouldn't discount it out of hand just because it's shorter you know we're we're packing a fair amount of pandemic punch that i don't know that that makes a lot of sense but you know what i'm trying to say so yeah yeah i enjoy how much we stat head types are talking about batting average and era these days it's like we've all just regressed 30 years or something.

And now we're just talking about these stats because, again, it's less about analysis than it is about just fun, weird stuff that we haven't seen. So I don't think someone will hit 400 this year, but it's not out of the realm of possibility. And I do think someone will come close and at least make it interesting. a possibility and I do think someone will come close and at least make it interesting so yeah and because there won't be that many at bats in this season there will be big fluctuations from day to day so even if you're a little bit below you could conceivably have just a few hot games and you'd be right back up there so I'm looking forward to following that it's gonna be I think totally a new experience. So yeah, it's going to be good.

Summer camp for all of us, Ben. No homework, no rules. There are a lot of rules to be clear there. More rules than usual. Many, many rules. All right, Craig, you're up. So a thing I'm looking forward to is the clang of home runs in the seats. The clang of home runs in the seats yeah the clanging clatter i have i i don't know if

either of you bothered to watch the dodgers diamondbacks exhibition yesterday but chris taylor hit a three-run homer against the diamondbacks and it caught the like the railing behind the first row of seats that they they have there And it made just an excellent, it just made an excellent noise. Crushed a left center field. Chris Taylor driving this ball. Gone. Rattles around out there in the new home run seats. Some of the cardboard cutouts fighting after a souvenir. And it's one of the things I've always liked about being able to be at a ballpark early during batting practice, things like that. You get, you know, you get the same effect and I think it'll honestly be a nice little treat to, to have throughout the year. So I, that's one that I,

I don't know, maybe I'm alone in that, but no, I don't think so. I personally will enjoy it. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that'll be good. Plus also, you know, we won't have to worry about him hitting anybody. Yeah, and some of the home run highlights I've seen, it's odd. The ball just sits there or it just rolls around for a while and no crowd of fans stampede to pick it up or anything. And there's been some talk about what will happen with those balls. And maybe they can be auctioned off for charity or maybe they can be sent to people who purchase cardboard cutouts or whatever. But the visual is novel of just seeing those balls just kind of roll around like it was some other abandoned ballpark and not a big league game. All right. Well, I think for my third pick, I'm going to take the potential to solve or pull back the curtain a little bit on the mystery of home field advantage.

I am very intrigued about this because home field advantage in baseball has been pretty consistent over the decades, even as many other things have changed, the home team tends to win about 54% of the time, and no one has ever quite been able to agree on exactly why that is. And that still eludes us after all these years, and that's in part because there's no real just sort of scientific experiment that gets run. gets run. I mean, every now and then you get an occasional weird game that's played in a neutral site or in an empty park or something, but too few to ever get a sample that would tell you anything. But this year we are, and different theories abound. There's the theory that it is related to travel or fatigue or getting to sleep in your own bed at night. And there's the theory that it's something psychological about just being on your home turf. And there's the theory that it has something to do with just your knowledge of the layout of the park. You know how to play the caroms off the fence or maybe a team acquires players who are particularly well suited to a certain park.

And then maybe most compelling there's the theory that it is because the fans affect the umpire's pitch calls which is kind of fascinating and there is pretty decent evidence for that and i wrote about that recently i talked to jonathan judge of baseball prospectus and in his very complex ball strike model, that is a variable home field advantage. And he said that it's like, I forget, 1.6%, 1.7% more likely to have a strike called if you have a home field advantage or, you know, the umpire can, it seems maybe, get a little bit intimidated by the fans. Either it's that or maybe just influenced by the fans,

like a wisdom of crowds thing. If the whole crowd acts as if it's a ball or a strike, then maybe you can't help be influenced by that. Whatever it is, there is a pretty clear statistical indication that home field advantage really matters and gets the home team more strikes or fewer strikes if they're at the plate and we'll see this year we'll see if that continues to be the case and we only get 900 games at most and so with that sample it might be a little difficult to tell

conclusively about some things but we get a lot of pitch calls. So it should be possible to see if that changes or not. And if that's true, that home field makes a strike 1.7% more likely, all else being equal, and that's accounting for the count and the location and the pitch type and the umpire zone and the catcher framing and the weather and everything else that's in that mixed model. If that's true, then it would account for about a third of home field advantage. And there have been different studies that have made different estimates, but it seems like it could be a significant factor and maybe finally we will find out. Cool. Yeah. That was very high on my list as well. Oh, sorry. No, it's okay. I'm glad it was, you know, someone selected it.

Yeah. And then you'll have to decide what to do about that. Like, I think the Fangraphs playoff odds, and I know the Baseball Perspectives playoff odds, bake in home field advantage when they're forecasting postseason series and World Series odds and all that. So then do you manually intervene? Like, if we get through two months of the season and there hasn't been a home field advantage

or it's been smaller than usual, then do you tweak that? And we've actually seen 538 adjusted its soccer projections, I think, by 60% because in some of the early soccer results that we've seen that were played not in front of fans, there was less of a home field advantage or no home field advantage. And so they went ahead and did that. And so we'll see whether we need to do that for baseball. Oh, man. More work for you two or at least other people.

Yeah, I had not thought about that. So thank you for putting that into my mind. It's my turn again? Yep. I don't know. Some of these I'm less enthused about now. I guess, well, this is a good, this is one. This is sort of cheating.

You can tell me if it's too cheating. It does not involve the Astros, but you can tell me if it's too much like cheating. So I'm going to group three teams together, one of which is very different from the other two in a lot of respects, but is similar in their proclivity to spend of late. I am excited to watch the Yankees, Reds, and White Sox

because they are three teams that have tried to get better. I'm excited to see, and they're obviously at very different points in their sort of expected win curves, but have invested in their roster and increased payroll nonetheless. And so I'm quite excited to watch the Reds and the White Sox and the Yankees play because in a season that is short and where a lot can shift around, these are teams that are actively trying to win. And so I'd like to see if they do.

And mostly because there will come a point upon watching the Reds long enough that I will remember that Mike Moustakis plays second base for them. That'll stick at some point. Play second base at all for anyone. Yeah, yeah, probably somewhere in there is going to stick. So that'll be fun. So yeah, that's my pick. Yeah, that's a good one i'm excited for the reds the white socks the padres those teams that have been trying that are kind of on the cusp and i probably wouldn't have picked

them to be favorites i think i might actually pick the reds to win a wild card at least but i think there is a chance that they get there a year early or i don't know if this is actually a year early for all of them for some of them maybe this is the time when they expect or want to start winning but it's more likely that we will see that happen this season and I mean that's just a perk I suppose of the season as a whole is that you get more potential for underdogs and upsets and I guess that might bother you if you're a fan of the super teams or orability or projections. But I think that element of variation should be entertaining, again, for one year. Wouldn't want it every year, but just for a little change and something to differ in our palates. yeah i like that and and those teams you named i don't know the yankees kind of always win so i'm not not like super excited about the yankees but i i know what you mean it's kind of interesting

to see gary cole in pinstripes i suppose yeah i think so i like that i think the reds are especially interesting i not just because they're trying but also they're trying in a way that my brain doesn't fully comprehend um mostly in that they just keep adding outfielders yeah and i know that they returned one they they're rule five pick uh mark payton i think they returned to the athletics in between the episodes that we've recorded today but that leaves them with about 15 outfielders yeah and you know i don't know i think the padres kind of fit in that too although they have i think completely traded their whole outfield over the last year um if you go back to the friend mil reyes trade so i don't

know these teams i don't know what they're doing with the outfield but i'm interested to find out yeah uh and if it works i'll be really interested yeah well and like the you know the that reds pitching staff is so fun and uh oh the team is good i just i really they have so many outfielders i don't they do but they their pitching was also recently very bad and now it's like very fun and lorenzen's great fun and um i'm your carrot yeah i think each of lorenzen's arms weighs as much as i do um and so they're they're just good fun to watch and i'm excited to see like i'm i'm excited to watch yasmani grandal framed alice keitel like i feel like that could be fun for the people on this podcast i'm excited to see what you know a pitcher who kind of lives on the edges and relies on charity

does with someone who who is so generous yes give me madrigal that's what I want my puns are going to be really bad there and I uh I'm not sorry but I will warn people in advance okay yeah all right, you're up. Brent Strong. I'm assuming he's back in camp for the Astros at this point talking to a pitcher with a mask on, but he kept his hand in front of his face. And I guess I'm just excited to see what things fail to leave, even though they're vestigial at this point. It was just a perfect image and look that he's talking, you know, he's got the full mask on, you obviously can't read his words, and he's holding his hand in front of his mouth. I mean, I'm all for safety, both in terms of lip reading and also just keeping stuff in

front of your mouth at this point. But I really enjoyed that. And I'm sure there's going to be some other kind of things that are introduced now that no longer you know that obviate other things but they're both just going to coexist for a while yeah like what is is tito going to stop spitting i don't want to talk about whatever that or is there going to be a vat oh gross so you're gonna have like one of the the bubble yum double yum like bubble gum things and it's just like here's you can write on the side tito's gross stuff yeah and keep it in a container so no one has to interact with it and potentially like i don't think that i'm not saying that terry francona has covid please don't take it that way but like his potential covid juice is just like in

a thing of or will he just keep spitting at work which is such a weird thing that baseball players do yeah i mean that's a lifelong deeply ingrained habit that whenever you're in a dugout or in uniform you're chewing on something and spitting something right so something's got to replace that oral fixation right so i don't know whether everyone just goes with the Dusty Baker and just puts a toothpick in there, whether that would satisfy them or whether there is something that they could chew and remove from their own mouths in a more sanitary way.

I don't know, but it's not like they're just going to have empty mouths all season. There's going to be some sort of replacement. It's double bubble bubble double bubble gum yeah double bubble gum did either of you think you were gonna spend so much time thinking about baseball players mouths no but i've written two things about them farting and pooping themselves so i didn't see those coming either man less of a departure for you i suppose oh god all right my fourth pick i think is, is seeing whether the streak continues, whether the MLB strikeout rate increases for what would be a 15th consecutive season. So it has now been 14 straight seasons that the strikeout rate has increased. That is the most of any point in Major League history. So we are in uncharted territory here, and I wonder whether this will be the year to stop the streak.

And I wrote a whole article about this, and it's really complicated to figure out because there are a whole bunch of factors that point in one direction and a whole bunch that point in the other direction. So obviously you have the NLDH, which would be the big mover here and might actually stop the increase, but it's very close. Like if you look at the historical increases we've seen on average over the past several years, and then you forecast how many strikeouts is the DH actually going to save us, given that, yes, pitchers strike out a ton these these days but they also don't have many plate appearances so it doesn't make that much of an impact so that seems like kind of a wash like if you were going to project a similar increase this year then that just basically takes you down to flat more or less

but then there are all these other factors like pitcher usage and the weather so you'll have harder pitches probably because fastball speed increases with the temperature. And this year we will just have warmer temperatures all season. And then there's also the question of who's ahead of whom, the hitters or the pitchers. And there's been good research into that. And then there's the fact that there will be probably fewer extra innings this year.

And there are different strikeout rates historically in extra innings than in regular innings this year and there are different strikeout rates historically in extra innings than in regular innings the the strikeouts tend to be a little less common in extra innings or maybe if mlb actually makes good on its threats to really monitor and police the foreign substance use maybe spin rates go down and whiff rates go down and there's the three batter minimum rule which might trim a few strikeouts here and there and there's maybe less fatigue and reduced travel and so there are all these things that could go one way or another and i really don't know which way they will go and i think it'll be close i think it'll maybe come down to the wire so it's a nerdy thing to be excited about obviously but i

am kind of excited and if the strikeout rate does stop or is halted or even declines a little bit this year, that won't mean that, okay, the problem is solved. That'll just mean that it took a pandemic to stop that streak. And I don't think anything else will stop it except for further rule changes. Yeah. I don't really have anything to add, but yeah, that is interesting. I look forward to seeing that too. We care about such specific stuff, you guys. Yeah. Should we have just drafted watching baseball?

Should that have been number one? Did we bury the lead here? When I was preparing for this, I was initially struggling, not because I'm not looking forward to the season, but because it just seemed like such a tricky needle to thread. And it was suggested to me by a friend that I should just draft watching baseball. And then whenever either of you drafted another thing that I would like,

I could say that, no, you're not allowed. I've already drafted that by virtue of drafting watching baseball yeah but i thought that would be the defensive version of playing scrabble like it's yeah much worse but it works yeah yeah exactly all right well what do you have instead oh right it's my turn goodness goodness playing baseball um i am looking forward to Goodness, playing baseball. I am looking forward to home runs, but of a particular variety. I am looking forward to home runs that break broadcasters' brains. There are very few things I enjoy more than a home run call where it is clear that the broadcaster is so in awe of the majesty of it

that they get lost in their own sentence doing the call and say something completely absurd and ridiculous and i don't know how likely those are this year because i suspect that they at least in part feed on the crowd feeling to give the broadcaster the oomph to get to the point where they have lost control of their mouths like their brains get ahead of their mouths and so then they say a lot of nonsense but i like those so much because you know uh baseball broadcasters have seen so much baseball yeah they've seen so much of it over the course you just go into your home run call usually yeah exactly and they've seen they've've seen so many things. And there's that adage that you can see something that you've never seen before anytime you go to the ballpark. And that's technically true, but practically not. much baseball and they have consumed so much and so it is just delightful when it it causes them to short circuit in some kind of appreciable way and so i i hope we get a couple of those even if

they don't have the reaction of an enthralled crowd in the park to kind of help them along with it so yeah that's that's on my list is either of you drafting anything related to the ball or offense because if not maybe this is a good time to quickly banter about it yeah because um no i had not planned on it but i remain transfixed and delighted that uh like we don't know what baseball we're getting yeah yeah what a weird yeah at this point i don't know how to feel about it i think i have a little bit of fatigue about the baseball at this point just because we're going on i mean what it's been like five years since this whole saga started and at the beginning it was really intriguing

because there was a lot of debate about what was happening and is it the ball or is it all of these other explanations. And I think at that time I was really fascinated by it because there was still kind of an other side to it. Now I think everyone's pretty much on board that it is the ball or largely the ball. And so there's not that element of mystery to it, but there is still the element of, well, we don't exactly know why this is happening. And we also don't know if it will keep happening or if it will suddenly stop happening. And I don't really like that as a spectator, but I am intrigued by it as an analyst of the sport, I suppose. And so I'm kind of intrigued because if the ball is still juiced, if you couple that with the warm weather, then we're going to

get even higher home run and scoring rates. I mean, it'll be even higher than it was last year, presumably. If the ball hasn't changed, the home run rates for the full season will be even higher, which I don't know if that's a good thing or not, but maybe if it's even higher, that will actually force MLB to do something and get a handle on how the ball is behaving I think Meg and I we talked about this a while back on Fangraphs audio on just like how exhausting it is to qualify everything like you can't on some level our job is to not if not be experts to be informed on this stuff but you can't it, it's, it's, it's not hard to sound informed, but it's hard to sound confident when you're talking about this because you want to put

the right qualifiers around it. Right. So if you say like, oh, this season was aberrant for this pitcher because he gave up a ton of home runs, but the ball is the reason for that. And the ball stays the same, then it's no longer aberrant. It's just a different environment. And you would change your analysis based on that. But you can't be sure one year to the next. And it's just like, it's exhausting to go through as a person either writing or explaining it. And I would imagine it is exhausting more so to listen to it and try and glean something meaningful from it. Because it kind of just comes back to like a big shruggy emoji well and i just i think that like the the ball itself is one thing it's hard for me to separate my experience of watching a particular version of the baseball from the way that the league

talks about that version of the baseball or uh refuses to talk about that version of the baseball and so much of the the official response to the fluctuation in the home run rate and the variation in the actual physical construction of the ball has at times felt anti-science. Yeah. And I don't want the league to have an anti-science posture in this season in particular. And a reminder of their capacity and i'm not saying

that they are actually anti-science but i think some of the rhetoric around it feels it doesn't feel that great we we i feel like we are being gaslit to a certain extent and i would prefer that we have just like a clear-ed and reaction to an acceptance of evidence when it is rigorously analyzed and put to us because it seems like in this moment in our lives that might be important for any number of reasons. And so I don't think I'm wanting another reminder that the league is sort of sometimes a little fuzzy and fluffy on science stuff because it's like kind of important they stick the landing on other science stuff this year. Yeah.

All right. Craig is up. I'm going to take a lack of attendance chain. So this is, again, a thing I'm looking forward to not having, but I hate it. I absolutely hate it. I don't know if it bothers anyone else, but it's always, it always happens on Twitter. It happens in various articles about, you know, fans aren't here. They're not supporting the team, this and that. And sometimes like if it's, you know, there are situations, I think Pittsburgh had one where fans, you know, in a concerted effort did

not show up. And that was a message to ownership to some degree. In other situations, it's kind of, I just, I absolutely hate it. It's like, oh, it's the, you know, it's an important game, but only so many people are here at opening at that first pitch. And it's never, it's never constructive or helpful. It's just a way to make people feel better about themselves. And I hate it and it won't be possible now. That's a better pick, honestly. Well, they're just always, it's like whatever you think is wrong about baseball or worse about baseball, you connect that to the decreasing attendance, which, A, the attendance is not dire necessarily. I mean, it's better than it was throughout much of baseball history, even though it's down recently. But the thing that bothers me is that person A will claim, oh, there are too many strikeouts and the game's boring now, therefore attendance is down. Or person B will say, oh, the games start too late and therefore attendance is down.

Or person C will say, oh, it's too expensive to buy tickets or go to the park and therefore attendance is down. And some of these reasons are persuasive and legitimate and others seemingly less so. And it's kind of hard to get to the root cause of it, but I just kind of get tired of everyone sort of spinning those stats in their preferred direction. Like I always assume that it probably has more to do with just like things that are almost outside of baseball's control, either like the competing entertainment options or just how much more convenient and entertaining it is to watch a game on TV at home than it used to be if you're able to do that. On the other hand, I think it also often very much has to do with prices and how much it costs to buy tickets and how much it costs to spend on concessions. And so I think often you hear it's because of the strikeouts or the homers or

whatever it is. And I don't know how to prove that that's not a factor. It could very well be a factor. I'm sure it's a factor for some people, but I suspect it's the other stuff more than that. And yet you kind of hear that just sort of used by anyone who wants to make a case about something in baseball being worse than usual or that baseball is dying or whatever. Well, and we also won't get the panning to a crowd, find the one youngish looking person who's looking at their phone, spend five minutes shaming that person for looking at their phone, spend an hour on Twitter talking about the young person on their phone eating our own hair in

response to that out of stress and frustration. So we'll be spared that too. Yeah, that too. All right. So we're saying it's better that there are no fans. No, we're not saying that, but we're just, we're looking for the silver linings here. All right. So this is my last pick. I think I have a few here that are sort of interchangeable. So I guess I'll just pick one and we can maybe mention the others at the end. But this is very specific. But there are two players, two pitchers in baseball history who have ever had BABIPs above 410 in a season of 45 or more innings pitched. And those only two seasons like that both happened last year.

It was Mitch Keller and Corbin Burns. And I've been sort of fascinated by both of these guys and the experience of going through a hard luck season like that. And I talked to Keller and played some of that on the podcast this spring and wrote about him.

And Burns is another one whose BABIP wasn't quite as high, but he also had the highest home run per fly ball rate on record. They really had very similar seasons, very similar peripherals, similar repertoires in some ways. And I just felt bad for them and also felt kind of flummoxed by the whole thing because I've talked to people who work for those teams or people who've covered them and it's and even them or Keller himself and it's like what is going on here what am I doing something wrong

should we change something or is this just bad luck and it certainly seems like in large part it's bad luck but you never know for sure and if you're the pitcher who's going out there and getting a seven or eight era hung on you know, many outings, that's pretty depressing, even if you can point to things you're doing well. And I felt bad for those guys because, you know, they're early in their careers. And Keller was a rookie in his debut season. And Burns was in his sophomore season and his first time in the rotation. And just seemingly everything went wrong that possibly could go wrong. Home runs per fly ball, BABIP, whatever it was.

And it seems like it's even harder to then have to wait during the longest offseason ever to actually get back there on the field and start proving that that was a fluke and that, no, you're actually good. And if you keep getting strikeouts, eventually you will not have a seven or eight era so i felt for those guys and i've also felt confused by those guys and it seems like maybe there are more seasons like that lately i don't know if that's the case but maybe related to the ball i mean you get like the edwin diaz season from last year where it's like how is he missing so many bats and yet when they do make contact he gives us a home run every time how does this make sense so we're only gonna get 60 games and i just hope that in those 60 games their stats return to normality and we see them have promising seasons and seasons that statistically make more sense. Stop breaking my brain. Yeah, I like it. I'm looking forward to hearing players swear. We're going to get, you know, here's the thing. We're just going to get

some real whoppers. And I imagine they will diminish over time as players are more mindful of how the piped in ballpark sound does not overcome the ballpark mics and how we can really hear them swearing and how they will be big whoppers, but we're going to get some swears, you guys. I think that some of them are going to change the trajectories of children's lives. They certainly will change the trajectories

of some people we know's parenting styles and uh i think it's gonna it's gonna teach some youngsters some stuff and that's gonna be great i guess the the more family-friendly version of this is that you know we're gonna be able to hear players on the field say non-swearing things. And I'm very curious to see how, if at all, the amount of crowd sound, or lack thereof rather, changes the volume at which they talk to one another, how frequent or infrequently they call each other off. Because some of that is, you know, you need to communicate anyway, but some of it is like you need to boost your volume to overcome crowd sound that will now be non-existent and so i am curious to see how they you know like how do outfielders talk to each other how often do

pitchers feel the need to to sky point but more but more importantly i just hope we get some real some some you know i'm rooting for like not problematic stuff to be clear because that would be a very strange thing root for it would be terrible but i hope we get some really nasty stuff on the field because it would just delight me and then and then it'll never happen again because there will be there will be words spoken and fines and the commissioner will be outraged and offended and there will be letter writing campaigns but before that happens somebody's gonna drop something real nasty and it's gonna be great yeah i think we've gotten like some so i also think this extremely applies

to managers getting mad at umpires oh yeah because they really they often have some great things and and we've seen the rise of like some people who are very good at reading lips and then you know making videos like john boy and and other people to get some sense like we got savages in the box from aaron boone last year but also i was thinking back to when that video was unearthed and uh it was the mets manager i'm blanking on who it was but he said to the umpire that his ass was in the jackpot like that was a great phrase even if it's not i think it's a little bit of a swear yeah terry collins thank you and and like i'm just wondering if we're gonna we're

gonna get some more phrases that become i don't know if it's ubiquitous but everyone knows it now right and it's like a it's a great phrase it's a fun one to work into your personal lexicon, even if you're not talking about baseball. And so I think I'm very excited to see what we can do on that frontier. All right. Yeah, me too. Okay, so my last pick, it's not extremely different from what Meg said, but a little bit. I'm excited to get more clean audio of uh just extremely well-hit baseballs yeah i don't know how much you guys have been indulging in this but like they're i know like even the giants posted something right when summer camp was restarting like marco luciano had a video that like it's just like an incredible sound off his bat. And I just really like getting that, the clean audio of that.

And I've, I've asked Rob Arthur who a while back, I don't know if it was when you were there, Ben or not, but he did some audio analysis of how much you could tell. Yeah. We had him on the show to talk about that. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And, and so I've asked him to see, I know there's going to be crowd noise filtered in, which we didn't know at the time, but I still think you're going to get a better chance at distilling the audio and see if there's like a, if we can get, I don't know,

additional research out of that and see if we can, we can tell something with a little more signal based on, on the sound of the bat now so i'm excited about the idea for for research in that so you're searching for signal in the noise is what you're saying yes yes i am you're drafting the crack of the bat one of us should have drafted the green of the grass or something yeah it's uh but you did it for analytical reasons so that's uh that's all right it's not a cliche like it was in the spirit of podcast yeah we'll allow it for analytical reasons, so that's all right. It's not a cliche. Yeah, I felt like it was in the spirit of podcasting. We'll allow it, for sure. Yeah, I think so.

All right. Well, I've got just a few leftovers I guess I'll briefly mention. One, I didn't draft because it's kind of already happened, but I think it's a positive byproduct of the season, which is just the greater appreciation of non-MLB baseball that a lot of us have developed and the familiarity with the KBO or the CPBL or, you know, NPB, any other league that was actually playing while we didn't have MLB. I think that's nice that people have been exposed to that.

And I'm sure that some of them will keep watching and keep monitoring those leagues. We've learned a lot about them this year. So I think that's been a nice little perk. And I also had just like the potential for weird playoff tiebreaker scenarios that Jay Jaffe will probably be very pleased about in a couple months just because they're not going to be big separations between teams in the standings. And so it's more likely that we get some weird team entropy thing where we get multiple ties, and we have to invent some weird tiebreaker scenario to actually sort all of that out.

So I think there's a decent chance that we will get a really exciting photo finish to the season. Because again, like you're just not going to see big numbers in that games back column this year. So I think that's good just generally for pennant races. And I guess we're sort of deprived of the typically exciting trade deadline and everything. But I think we will be compensated with exciting playoff races if you're able to get invested compensated with exciting playoff races if you're able to get invested in these small sample playoff races and what else did i have uh i'm looking forward

to a couple extreme strikeout guys in one direction or another mentioned nick matricles i've rarely been so excited for a player wrote a whole big thing about him this spring don't know how much playing time the white socks will actually give him. I hope it's plenty, but he could go the whole season without striking out conceivably. So I'm excited to see that. The jury is still out on his long-term potential,

which is another reason why I'm excited to see him. But I know he's struck out a few times in intra-squad games and everyone was just aghast to see that happen. But looking forward to him having what is projected to be the lowest strikeout rate in baseball. So we'll see if he's able to deliver on that. And on the other end of the spectrum, James Karinczak. I'm really interested in seeing him.

We just got a glimpse of him late last year with Cleveland, the reliever who just had the unbelievable strikeout rate. What was it, like 55% or upwards of that, 60%, something like that, in the minors last year. And then he showed up in the majors and was still missing bats. And he's just like a two-pitch pitcher, but the two pitches work really well together and are kind of incredible. And I think only Josh Hader has a higher strikeout rate projection so these are two guys who are just kind of bursting onto the scene on opposite ends of the strikeout spectrum and I am very curious to see how high and low they can go what else I'm interested in any weird tactics we see of course we've talked about the five-man infield but anything specific to this

shortened season not so much bullpenning that's not really new or all that fun at this point, but anything else weird that teams try. And then last thing on my list was Hawkeye, which I say with some reservations because it sounds like there may be more data issues than usual. MLB is transferring StatCast basically over from TrackMan to Hawkeye, this new technology that's been used in other sports. And so there may be issues with the consistency and are these things measuring with the same baseline and are you getting more missed pitches or missed batted balls, etc. But in the long run, it is supposed to be more accurate. is supposed to be more accurate and even in the short term it's capturing pretty cool data that we haven't had before on like player positions and postures and it can as opposed to the old

stat cast that could only capture like center of mass it can actually track like hands and legs and feet and mechanics and there's potential to like track bats and you know do all sorts of stuff that granted we won't have access to a lot of that so we'll probably just get these tantalizing glimpses and then we'll wish we had more of it but it will exist and even the snippets that we see will be kind of cool assuming the system works more or less as designed. Or we'll all become fans of tennis. That too. Yeah. Oh, I mean, that works really well.

Hawkeye tennis replay is like the ideal replay system in sports, I think. Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah. It seems like this will be better as long as we can all agree that, you know, there's going to be some configuration and calibration stuff that needs to get sorted out. And that's okay. Can I do a couple yeah i was just gonna say that uh karen check had a 67 strikeout rate in double a

and uh it was 10 innings but still 67 and then in 17 innings uh 54 strikeout rate in triple a yeah not bad well the first of mine is sort of sentimental and has already happened technically, but we'll be excited about it. You know, it's pretty cool to see Alyssa Nacken coaching in uniform for a major league team. I kind of like lost track of this as a thing that was going to happen amidst everything, but seeing her out there, you you know it meant a lot to me so it was not a thing i expected to never see in my lifetime because i think i have a bit more faith than that but it meant quite a bit to see her out there and i am excited for her opportunities for the opportunities that other women who are coaching with teams

are getting this year. It just means a lot. It's a cool thing. So I'm amped for that. In far sillier applications of potential draft picks, I expect to at some point be thoroughly delighted by player nonsense in the supplemental dugouts that have popped up. That's just some prime Meg shit right there. I'm pretty amped for that.

I saw Sarah Langs tweeted earlier today a photo from the Orioles Nationals exhibition game that Max Scherzer was sitting within Stuart, the Orioles pitcher's eyeline. He's like sitting behind home. I'm going to send this tweet to our little group. And I have to say, I can think of, if I were a pitcher, I can think of nothing I would find more intimidating than Max Scherzer in my eyeline. It wouldn't matter who was in the batter's box. Him being visible, knowing that he is watching my performance, especially as an Orioles pitcher, I think I would immediately turn into dust

and reassemble myself in a new life somewhere else. That was my immediate reaction to this, and I can imagine that there will be others that will be equally overwrought as the season unfolds. So I'm looking forward to that quite a bit. And speaking of nationals, we just get to watch like so much Juan Soto. Yeah. I mean, not as much as usual, but we just get to watch Juan Soto again and see what his next year is like and that's going to be great

even if it means Craig continuing to crow about coining a nickname. I'm willing to make that trade. Are you saying my crowing about coining a nickname is bad? No, I'm just saying that we remember, Craig. We know. People do forget, Meg and I must be there to remind them. Oh there oh yeah do you get like a is it like

beetlejuice like someone says it and doesn't someone says a different nickname three times and then i'm there yeah you're like say it now craig tell our listeners what you invented a childish bambino yeah it's really wonderful he put it on his shoe yeah it's it's fantastic it is a very good nickname i like that he has embraced it it shows good taste on his shoe. Yeah, it's fantastic. It is a very good nickname. I like that he has embraced it. It shows good taste on his part. And also an understanding that you can't give yourself a nickname. A nickname has to be bestowed upon you.

And he's just fortunate that you picked such a good one. And here we are. I do need him to wear it for Players Weekend. Once, just for my life to be truly complete i will spend any amount of money to buy that jersey if he does he's gone with a different completely acceptable nickname in in prior years but it's just it's a life goal how dare he i would like to point out that you literally witnessed the birth of your child like recently yeah sure but you know short memory that's a different-sized baby.

Normal-sized baby. Yeah. And speaking of Soto, I'm excited to see Luis Robert. I'm sure we're all excited to see Luis Robert. Luis Robert is like a year and a half older than Juan Soto, or like more than a year. No, that's not right. It is.

And Soto is two great seasons already into a major league career. It's just we don't appreciate him enough, probably. I think we appreciate him more than we did initially, but we still haven't completely corrected that record. My one thing that I have left over that you guys haven't addressed is extremely specific to me as where I think a lot of my picks, honestly, this was a very selfish thing that I, this selfish draft that I've had, but you know how

sometimes there's a fan who is next to the crowd mic who's just really loud? Yeah, sure do. Boy. That won't happen this year. You hate fans. No, be fair, Ben. I think really it's that Craig hates people.

Yeah, just an equal opportunity misanthrope. But yeah, you're happy that fans won't be misjudging fly balls. You're happy that fans won't be interfering with the sound of batted balls. You're happy that fans won't be making noises in the crowd, Mike. Did I miss another reason you're happy that fans won't be making noises in the crowd? No, I think that covers it. I mean, I'm sure I could come up with others, but those are all the ones I've said thus far. Being opposed to attendance shaming is a pro-fan stance.

Oh, that's true. That's true. You know, I contain multitudes. Yeah, we seek balance. Yeah. All right. Is that all we got? I think so.

Okay. Well, most of all, I think we just want the season to be played and completed safely. And for everyone to stay healthy as they do that, that would be the best thing. But there are also a lot of other really exciting reasons that we're happy to have baseball back. So now we will just watch it next time we talk to you all. I think the season will have started and we can talk about that. Thank you for joining us for both of these drafts, Craig. Thank you for having me. Your service is appreciated.

Double episodes, my goodness. Okay, that will do it for our drafts. Thanks again to Craig for joining us. You can hear him and Bradford William Davis and Emma Batchelori on the Five and Dive podcast at Baseball Perspectives. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively

wild. The following five listeners have already done so. They have signed up and pledged some small monthly amount to help keep the podcast going and get themselves access to some perks. Matt, riley jeremy stole smith and thomas thanks to all of you you can join our facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild you can rate view and subscribe to effectively wild on itunes and spotify and other podcast platforms keep your questions and comments for me and meg and sam coming via email at podcastfangraphs.com

or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance. If you don't hear us again before opening day, please savor the sight of regular season Major League Baseball, and we will be back to talk to you again a little later this week. Clock face ticking on an empty dime My only want of what I know is mine talk to you again a little later this week.