Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1586: Duke it Out

Episode Date: September 4, 2020

Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller banter about a Giants fun fact, two home run facts that may or may not be fun, the ways in which the circumstances of his era shaped the late Tom Seaver’s legacy, and the latest highlights of extra-innings baseball, then answer listener emails about another possible implementation of the automatic-runner […]

🎵 Hello and welcome to episode 1586 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Sam Miller of ESPN. Hello, Sam. Can I give you my favorite fun fact today? Sure. Sam Miller of ESPN. Hello, Sam. Can I give you my favorite fun fact today? Sure.

The Giants and the Brewers currently are tied in the standings. They have slightly different winning percentages because they play a different number of games, but they're tied in the standings. And I think they're maybe a half game out of the playoffs each. And if you were to take the Brewers team leader in OPS plus, he would rank ninth on the Giants. The Giants. We're talking about the Giants here. We're not talking about the Dodgers. We're not talking about the Yankees. We're talking about the Giants have eight hitters better than the Brewers best hitter this year. Wow. Yeah. We've been calling them the chaos

Giants on the Rer mlb show because it just it looked like they weren't going to be very entertaining or very good and then they just keep winning and they blow people out and they have people having all of these really surprising seasons especially offensively which is what you're talking about so i don't know what to make of them but it's a pretty wild season can you name two giants relievers i mean can you name one but can you name two giants relievers oh gosh um no yeah no i mean really i come from a i come from a giant's household i live in the west coast i i have a lot of acquaintances who talk about the giants if anybody should sort of like kind of know the Giants bullpen. You know, it should probably be me. And, you know, you got your Tony Watson and you got your Trevor Gott. And then it kind of gets a

little like Wandi Peralta is on this team and he's thrown 16 innings in relief. A person named Caleb Baragar, never heard of. Sam Selman, it's got my name, never heard of him. Connor Menez has pitched 11 innings for them Tyler Rogers who is the less famous Rogers twin he's on that team Harlan Garcia I saw yesterday for the first time on this team another Sam Sam Coonrod anyway yeah the bullpen is the reason that they're tied with the Brewers because the bullpen hasn't been very good but eight hitters better than Christian Yelic this year. Wow. Evidently, it's Caleb Berger, I believe. Hardly a household name. Anyway.

Yeah. So I've seen a couple of fun facts that sort of entertained me this week, too. They were both home run fun facts, which really have become a lot less entertaining in recent years because people have sort of abused them. There have been so many home runs hit that there are constantly records being set. And so it's not much fun anymore. We've talked about that before. And I saw a couple of home run fun facts that actually did make me say, wow. And both of them were courtesy of Jeremy Frank at MLB Random Stats on Twitter. And the first one was late August, August 30th. He tweeted that the Cubs were the first team since 1901 in likely MLB history to have all three starting outfielders hit multiple home runs in the same game, which surprised me. And I had to think about it a little bit. And when you think about it, I guess it's not that shocking because, you know, in order to have

all three starting outfielders hit multiple home runs in the same game, that's six homers by one team in the same game. That's fairly rare or had been until pretty recently. And then they have to be those three specific guys. And granted, the corner outfielders are among the likeliest guys on a typical team to hit multiple home runs but maybe not the center fielder so all those things have to line up but still there's so many seasons and so many games and so many teams that i really would have thought that that would have happened at some point okay so i just want to clarify here that your your the reason that you liked this fun fact was not because you think the cubs did something particularly special,

but rather that the thing that they did, which is what it is, it had never been done before. It was the fact that we had made it this far without that specific thing happening. Right, because it's not more impressive than three other position players hitting multiple homers in a game, but just you'd think with enough repetitions that just would have happened at some point some point yeah so let me ask you what if if the left fielder second baseman

and catcher had done it and that combination had never happened would would you have been interested probably not no it's what you're getting you're getting soft in your old age and you're getting duped this is you know that there is nothing particularly notable about the outfielders as a unit it's just a collection of three of the eight positions that have that happen to be sort of along the same line in the field but you know they often talk about them as a unit though you know best outfield fastest outfield whatever we do but but we i don't know why we do right there are so there are let's see there are 336 combinations of three positions if you exclude pitchers and exclude dhs which you you could include dhs but i'm not

so 336 possible iterations of this trifecta. And three players on a team have homered twice in a game only 60 times in Major League history. So what the Cubs did is kind of rare because that fact, three players in a lineup homering twice in a game, only happens every other year. Kind of rare. in a lineup homering twice in a game only happens every other year. Kind of rare. And the fact that it was left field, center field, right field, you've already granted me is not that interesting. Yeah. Well, as you say, all fun facts lie.

And this is sort of a lie. It's not really a lie, but it's maybe a little deceptive or it distorts things just because you're grouping together three positions that have some significance together. And yeah, when you think about it a little more you almost want to retract your wow but i already said wow so i can't take it back and this is the other one and this one lies i think a little more even than that one and this is something that mlb tweeted or shared that the braves made history because for the first time a team went with back-to-back three homer games by individual players so the Braves got back-to-back three

homer games by Adam Duvall and Marcel Azuna or the other way around and that was the first time that had ever happened the Yankees apparently had done it on back-to-back days in 1930 when Babe Ruth and Luke Eric didig did it, but there was a double header, so there was a game in between. And this one sort of made me say, wow, because again, you know, three homer games are pretty rare, but the fact that that has never happened in back-to-back games surprised me at first. Although, as I have seen some other people point out, there has been a team that had multiple players hit three homers in the same game, which is, in a sense, more impressive, right? But that happened in 2001.

Richie Sexton and Jeremy Burnett both hit three homers in the same game for the Brewers. And that fun fact is omitted from the other fun fact because it would sort of take away from the specialness. I mean, who cares about back-to-back days if people did it in the same game? In the same game, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I guess it's still sort of surprising that it hasn't happened in back-to-back days as well, but it's twice as likely to happen in back-to-back days. Yeah, that's true. So I guess it is even more surprising that that hasn't happened, Yeah, that's true. So I guess it is even more surprising that that hasn't happened and yet somehow less special because it happened in the same game. So who cares about fact back days? So they both either omit something or distort something in order to make it work. But both of them achieved their goal of making me say, huh, wouldn't have expected that. I truly believe that what you are really identifying is that you've reached a point in your career where you're more in need of content.

It is harder for you to find fresh content, that you feel the burden of repetition in your life, and that you are sort of you're falling for the pundit's fallacy now where you are just in search of really anything that is novel to you. I don't think that 2016 Ben would have said wow to either of those things. Maybe not. Maybe I'm losing it. I think you might be. By the way, my query was complicated by a fact. I did it wrong. So, in fact, 20 times, three players in the same lineup have homered in a game.

20, not 60 okay all right well you know as long as we're gonna be talking about our own kind of uh personal weaknesses when it comes to new content creation you know i'm gonna give you my favorite extra innings game of the week okay sure this was two days ago the the Astros and the Rangers were playing. And so the Rangers start with a runner on second, Shinsu Chu grounds out to second base, and the runner goes to third. And everything I'm going to say today about this game and the next is, is all based on again, this expectation that I had coming into this, that we were going to see a lot of repetition, a lot of ground outs to second base, and a lot of sack flies,

and that the extra innings were going to seem formulaic and predictable. And so here we have ground out to second base, runner is at third. Now here's how the rest of the game goes. The runner on third is Scott Heinemann. He fakes a steal of home, causes the pitcher to balk. Then, so now the Rangers have the lead. Isaiah Kiner-Falefa grounds to short.

Carlos Correa kind of perhaps frustrated, doesn't field it with much urgency, throws in the dirt. The ball is not scooped by the first baseman. Runner on first now. And then a pop out. So now two outs, runner on first. Joey Gallo up with a one run lead. Joey Gallo bunts. Joey Gallo bunts with a runner on first and two outs.

And the bunt is not that good, but Martin Maldonado calls off the pitcher, runs out to field it, throws it down the line. Kinder Falefa scores from first on this wild throw, and the Rangers take a two-run lead. Next inning, I forget. Something happened. But anyway, so that's it.

Fake steal of home, Bach. And then Joey Gallo bunting with two outs and a runner on first, leading to, shockingly, a throw, a wild throw that allows the runner to score. Was it like a shift beating bunt? Because he's done that before. No, I mean, it's conceivable that he was thinking that. But even with two outs, you wouldn't expect it with Joey Gallo. He bunted it right back to the pitcher.

It wasn't a particularly good bunt. I mean, clearly it was a shift beating bunt. I mean, what else would he be bunting for? So in that sense, yes, it was probably an attempt at a shift beating bunt. So the lack of predictability. And so then a few minutes later, the Cubs and the Pirates were in extra innings. And Javi Baez was the runner on second. And there's a ground ball to second base.

And Baez goes to third. And then Jason Hayward flies to right field and scores him on a sack fly and so that's the sort of predictable thing that I was dreading but in between Wilson Contreras batted and Wilson Contreras grounded to first base the first baseman muffed it the ball went to the second baseman Javi Baez held it third until the ball got away. And then he started to go home. The second baseman picked the ball up, threw the ball home. Baez had gone halfway down the line, stops in a panic, sprints back to third.

Catcher Jacob Stallings gets the ball but can't get a good grip on it and doesn't throw. And so in between the predictable ground at the second and the predictable sack fly to right field, there was a 4-3 fielder's choice in which Contreras reached and Baez didn't score. And that just goes to the second thing that I've been saying, which I just want to reinforce, is that something about this situation causes teams to lose their minds. Everything is so sloppy. I'm probably imagining it, or I'm probably just noticing it more because the stakes are so high. But when you start watching these players play with the go-ahead run

on second base or third base, you just see how many mistakes they were. I mean, you know, a balk, a balk, and then a throw down the line on a bunt, and then this weird four three four fielder's choice where nobody is retired and it's all it's all wild so extra innings continues to work you truly are the best spokesman for the automatic runner rule if the extra runner had somehow hired someone to make the case for why this rule is great. They could not be doing a better or more enthusiastic job than you are with this rule. Everything happens. Everything happens now. It's fantastic. It's opening up. It is opening up sequences of baseball that

just don't otherwise exist. So there's an automatic runner rule email that we can segue into in just a second. I just wanted to say I've been reading all these remembrances of Tom Seaver, who died on Wednesday at 75. And of course, all of the remembrances have, you know, the incredible stats and how he was during his career and at the end of his career. Up to that point, he was probably the best pitcher of all time. And they all go through the three Cy Young Awards and the 311 wins and on and on and on. But all of the memorials include, they all touch on certain highlights. You know, most of them mention, obviously, the 1969 season and how important he was to the Miracle Mets.

And then the 1978 no-hitter with the Reds and then winning his 300th game with the White Sox. And every moment, every milestone in his career that happened, happened with that team and at that time, just almost as a result of complete chance. It was just like a fluke of timing that he went where he went when he went there because of when he arrived, which is true for any player at any time, went there because of when he arrived, which is true for any player at any time, I suppose, because you have free agency and you have the draft and everything, and players don't really control where they end up and where they build their legacies. But I don't know if for any inner circle great Hall of Famer, and of course Seaver is famous for having the highest percentage of support on a Hall of Fame ballot to that point. I don't know

if any player like that has had a clear illustration of the way in which players are just sort of at the mercy of whoever signs them, trades for them, whatever is happening at that point in their career. Because of course, he was drafted for the first time in 1965, which was the first year of the draft. So if he had come along a few years earlier, then who knows what would have happened. Someone would have signed him. He would have gone there. He might have been a bonus baby or something. He might not have been a Met. I mean, the Mets weren't around before 1962, but maybe he would have been nicknamed the franchise no matter what franchise he went to, but he's so closely associated with that one.

And he ended up with the Mets just really, I mean, totally as a result of chance. There was this whole controversy where he didn't sign when he was initially drafted, and then he did sign, but there was this big debacle. I'm just reading from Stephen Goldman's piece at BP here. After his sophomore year of college, the Dodgers selected him in the 10th round of the 1965 draft. That was when he declined. Seaver went back to school. After his junior year, the Braves selected him in the now defunct January phase of the amateur draft. The Braves took their time about sending a contract, but Seaver did sign.

Before that, though, USC played a couple of exhibition games. Seaver did not participate. sign. Before that, though, USC played a couple of exhibition games. Seaver did not participate. Nevertheless, a forever unnamed representative of a team called the commissioner's office and pointed out a rule that said no college player could sign once his school season had started. And his school season technically hadn't started. But nevertheless, Lee McPhail, propping up empty suit commissioner Spike Eckert, voided the contract. And so he could have gone back to school for his senior year, but thenert, voided the contract. And so he could have gone back to school for his senior year, but then he was ruled ineligible because- Wait, so, sorry, okay. I

don't know this story. So he was drafted in the secondary phase, which means basically the players who didn't sign in June were eligible for the secondary phase, which happened in January. And you're saying that because his team had played some exhibition games in the middle of the winter, it was deemed that their season had begun? Yes. And so the Braves signing him was ruled void. And this ruling that he was ineligible for the draft was not made before the draft. It's poor Braves, because when someone tells you Tom Seaver's eligible for the draft you you trust that they're telling you the the truth i mean nothing could be worse than drafting a player and then having someone go ha we didn't we didn't tell you but he's not even eligible well i i think they drafted him before those

exhibition games happened and then they took their time they didn't send him a contract immediately i didn't sign immediately and then there were these exhibition games oh that seems fair then because the exhibition games didn't happen in the middle of winter. They happened in spring, but the Braves— They happened after that draft. Well, if the point of the rule is partly to keep teams from waiting to see how you look in a game before they sign you maybe, then that seems reasonable to me. I actually kind of think that that that that's a good ruling well i i mean the exhibition games were exhibition games so i mean yeah but they were season hadn't really started and then he didn't play in them anyway

so it's a it's a it seems fine to rule either way all right i didn't mean sorry i know that i know the details so then he was ruled ineligible to go back to school for his senior year because he turned pro because he had signed that contract and even though that contract was now voided he was now locked out of the ncaa as well and so the the compromise that they came up with was just a lottery, a Seaver-only draft that any team other than the Braves and the Dodgers, I guess who had drafted him in that first draft, any team that was willing to match the Braves' negotiated bonus package of $51,000, Steve says it was, any team that matched that could be in this lottery and just be eligible to get Seaver by chance. And only Cleveland and the Phillies were interested initially.

And the Mets scouting director at the time thought that Seaver lacked stuff. So initially they weren't interested. But then the other members of the front office persuaded the GM to participate. So the Mets and these other participants were in this derby for Seaver. They literally put names in a hat and picked them out. And so that's why Tom Seaver was a Met. So the whole legacy of Tom Seaver being a Met and being the best player in that franchise's history came about because of a random drawing of his name from a hat. that franchise's history came about because of a random drawing of his name from a hat.

Yeah. And then after that, so the reason why he didn't spend his whole career with the Mets and transferred to Cincinnati in 1977, he was traded by the Mets to the Reds, which was a huge deal at the time that they had done that. And one of the reasons or the main reason was that he was kind of in a contract dispute with the team because he had signed this three-year contract with them. And then all of a sudden, free agency started. And even though he had been the best pitcher of his era, he was suddenly leapfrogged by a few other guys in salary. And he had argued that he deserved more than he got before he actually signed that contract, but the Mets wouldn't give him more. And then suddenly free agency happened and he sort of missed out on that initial boom. And so he wanted to renegotiate his contract because of that. The Mets said, nope, not interested. And so they traded him and so he went to the the reds in 1977 again sort of a fluke that uh free agency just happened to start at that particular time and that he was moved indirectly because of it and so if you go on youtube and watch his lone no hitter in 1978 with the reds which i was just watching

some of myself you know it comes not with the team he is most associated with. That game was like just a little over two hours long, by the way. I was just watching it and there are no graphics on the screen, which I find very distracting now. I'm so used to just seeing the count and the outs and the score and the base out situation and all of it on the screen. And there's just nothing, which I guess mirrors what you see when you actually go to a game. But now to me, it's distracting not to see all that stuff. But I will link to that.

Go check it out. And then one of his signature moments, his 300th win, comes with the White Sox. And he was chosen by the White Sox from the Mets. He had gone back to the Mets in 1982 in a trade. And then the White Sox selected him as a free agent compensation pick. So there was this free agent pool at the time, and he was left unprotected in that pool, which made sense because he was a 39-year-old pitcher, and the Mets didn't think that the White Sox would select a 39-year-old pitcher in this process.

And so they protected a bunch of young players in their pool. And instead, they took Tom Seaver, which seems like it should be a violation of some sort of unwritten rule of transactions. You shouldn't be able to take the guy named the franchise in a draft like this if he's 39 years old. Different. Named for a different franchise, though. Well, I mean, he was with the Mets at that time. He was back with the Mets. So yeah, I feel like, you know, you should kind of just leave him with that franchise.

So anyway, that pick was so embarrassing for baseball that they did away with that pool plan, I think, not long after that. So all these moments, like whether it's the 69 World Series or the no-hitter or the 300th win, they all came about because of these structures that existed in baseball at the time that hadn't existed for long before Seaver, in some cases didn't exist for long after Seaver, and he was just kind of buffeted by these rules and transactions that he really had no control over. And, you know, again, probably just would have been an inner circle great no matter where he was playing or when he was playing. But the way that we think of his career was so shaped by these circumstances that he really had nothing to do with, which is kind of the case for most players, I suppose.

But I don't know that anyone is sort of a better example of that than Tom Seaver. And he didn't pitch. You said he didn't pitch in the exhibition games. His team played, but he didn't play in this. Yes, right. Okay, I'm back to now thinking. Yeah. Yeah.

So again, what was he supposed to, like, he was on this team that scheduled some exhibition games. I guess he could have quit the team or something. I mean, what a team really, like, if you really had a sinister coach, what the coach would do is schedule an exhibition game the day after the draft. And then your players, if you don't want to lose your players to the majors, then you just have an exhibition game happen immediately. Yeah. No time for him to sign. Anyway, that's one of the things that struck me About Tom Seaver as I was reading these things And I will link to some of them

Because I am too young to have seen Tom Seaver pitch His last season was the season Just before I was born And he was really good even then In his 40s in fact he was so good then He was still like a league average pitcher At that point that he was traded

In that season at that deadline He was still good enough in his final at that point that he was traded in that season at that deadline he was still good enough in his final season for a team to want to acquire him and it was the white socks who had gotten him in that pool that we were just talking about they traded him june 29th 1986 to the red socks for steve lyons and something that I hadn't realized that Joe Sheehan mentioned in his piece is that you could have had a scenario where Seaver was facing the Mets in the 1986 playoffs, and that would have been amazing. And Joe writes, unfortunately, a knee injury prevented him from pitching in the playoffs, leaving us with the tantalizing what-if of Tom Seaver coming out of the visitor's bullpen

at Chase Stadium in Game 6 or Game 7 when just a couple of shutout innings could have also changed baseball history. So that would have been something. Yeah. Cool. By the way, so the Rangers were up two. Okay, so now we go to the bottom of the 10th. And now I remember what happened. So let's start with the runner on second.

And Michael Brantley singles to a little flare to center field. And Jose Altuve has to wait to see if it's going to land. And so he gets a late break. And, you know, his run doesn't matter. They're down by two. And so normally he would play it safe and stay at third. But for some reason, he decides to go home, even though, again, his run doesn't matter. And the center fielder throws home, seems like

he's got a shot at Altuve. And again, normally, since Altuve's run doesn't matter, you wouldn't even pay attention to him because you'd want to keep the runner on first. But it seemed like he actually had a real shot at Altuve. And then the first baseman, Yadiel Rivera, who had just entered the game and is not a regular first baseman, he sort of like, in my recollection, he kind of like flies across the infield to cut the ball off. And it looked sort of awkward and wrong. And that maybe he cost the Rangers a chance of getting an out at home on Altuve in this weird scenario where there would never, normally you would never have a play there because

the run doesn't count. And there was this long discussion about whether he did the right thing, whether they had a chance to get Altuve. It looked like he did. But on the other hand, you keep Michael Brantley at first. And then on the next pitch, Yuli Goriel grounds into a double play. And so the decision to cut the ball off turned out to be the correct one, even if it was maybe done seemingly done incorrectly by an inexperienced first baseman perhaps all right well i'm glad you went back to that because now i can transition neatly to this email and this is from adam ott who sometimes helps us with stat blasts and he says i was

listening to ben and sam's recent discussion on starting a runner on second in every inning and thought of maybe the biggest reason it wouldn't work. So we listed like 17 reasons why it didn't seem like a good idea to have the extra innings rule in every inning. And we missed this one, which I think is a good one. Having a runner on second would dramatically increase the run scoring environment, leading to fewer close games. So the reason why we had this automatic runner rule to end games more quickly by having these imbalanced run totals. That would also have an effect in earlier innings too, and you'd just get fewer close games. So Adam says, I did some simulations using Greg Stahl's probabilities of scoring X runs

given the base state from historical data with the normal format and games with a runner on second to start every inning. In the normal game, 30% of games are within one run after nine innings. If you had the runner on second in every inning, that would be only 22%. If you had the normal rules, 47% are within two runs. With the extra runner rule, that would be 36%. Normal, 62% within three runs. Not normal, 49% within three runs, not normal 49% within three runs, normal 73% within four runs, not normal 60% within four runs. So you just get a lot less suspense and a lot fewer close games at the end. And Adam says, I do have a suggestion on one possible rule change that would add strategy without drastically altering the run scoring environment. on one possible rule change that would add strategy without drastically altering the run scoring environment.

What if each team could choose a single inning of the first nine where they could start with a runner on second? Teams would have to choose when to use the runner. If they used it in the first, they could engineer it so the best hitters were up with a good base runner and get out to an early lead, or they could save it for a high leverage inning late in the game. What do you think

of this rule and how would you use it all right so for let's put the rule aside for a second i i think that i don't think that i missed adam addressing this but yeah the games wouldn't be as close on the scoreboard but a three run lead would be a lot less if you start every inning with a runner on right like as a team that's trying to come back if you are down three in a much higher scoring environment then you're more likely to come back than if you're down three in a lower scoring environment and so i think that that he's correct that if you increase the amount of scoring then then you are naturally like for the same reason that a that the teams are less likely to be even after one extra inning, that same forces are more likely to cause a greater spread of runs over the course of nine innings. And so you're more likely to have less close games.

But also, part of that is real. Part of that is just an illusion. It looks like it's not as close because you're down by six, for instance, the juiced ball makes it less likely that you'll have a close game in the ninth inning. But it also makes it more likely that if you're down in the ninth inning that you'll be able to come back. And there's that balance. You want to find that balance because if you make it too hard to score, then you're definitely going to have a close game. because if you make it too hard to score, then you're definitely going to have a close game, well, usually, but you're also going to make games that are three to nothing in the fourth inning

seem out of reach. I think Adam is probably right, though. I think that there would be more games where it would feel like a comeback was less likely, but I don't think it's a huge thing. Now, as the rule where you get to pick one inning where you can do that, what do you think? Well, I do think it would add some strategy and that teams might deploy it in different ways, which is interesting.

More strategy is good. But again, I think I would be against it just because, I don't know, it would seem sort of arbitrary or just to have, you know, all of a sudden, here's the automatic runner rule. It's only one inning. I guess just my reservations about it in general would apply to it in this case too. And it would add sort of an element of randomness or something to the game that, again, might add some strategy and might make it more entertaining, which is what we've been talking about this whole time with this role. But to me, I think it sort of upsets competitive integrity in some way. Yeah, I don't necessarily see a solution that it is solving or a purpose for its being there.

If they played baseball this way for 100 years, then we would definitely have internalized it and be happy with it. And if you recommended taking it away, people would say, how can you take it away? It's a great part of the game. But as a change, it is not one that I see a great need for, and it feels a little weird. Okay.

This is a question from one Sam Miller Who submitted an email for the show And said the other day a team Was up 5 to 1 and the broadcaster Said they were looking for a big insurance Run and then in a different game A team was up 2 to 1 and the broadcaster Said they were looking for a big insurance

Run does any run by Any team with a lead count as An insurance run or does the lead have to be within a certain range what about to qualify as a big insurance run yeah good it's a good question yeah i think technically any run by any team with a lead counts as an insurance run. Okay, so I thought that we might say that. But really? Like the Giants the other day were up 20 to 2. Yeah.

And then they scored three more runs. You would consider those insurance runs? Because the point of insurance is that you are at risk. Well, okay, if something bad happens to you, you're not going to be able to handle the cost of that bad thing happening. So someone's going to take a little bit of your money to give you protection. Now, if at a certain point, the thing that they're insuring you against is so unlikely, so as to be unrealistic, then it's not really insurance anymore. It's a con.

Like if I give you, for instance, dragon insurance, and I say if a dragon burns down your house tonight, then I will rebuild your house. And all you have to do is make monthly payments of $8 to me. You wouldn't consider that dragon insurance. You'd consider it my dragon scam yeah so i think that in a case i think at a certain point you're insuring what are you insuring against you're insuring against an 18 run comeback in the ninth and also if you give up 18 runs in the ninth you're probably giving up 19 like whereas like if you just map out the scenarios of what could happen in the bottom of the ninth, you're probably giving up 19. Like, whereas like if you just map out the scenarios of what could happen in the bottom of the ninth inning, there's a lot of scenarios where you give up one run, but not two. And there's a lot of scenarios maybe where you give up two runs,

but not three. And then fewer, the more, the higher up you go, the less likely it is that you're going to give up, you know, three on the dot, four on the dot, five on the dot, six on the dot. It's extremely unlikely that you're going to give up 18 on the dot. You might like there's a battle one in a 10 billion chance that you give up 18 on the dot, but very, very, very slim. Like the odds are, if you've given up 18, then, you know, well, you're probably not giving up 18. And if you do, there's a pretty good chance you're giving up 19 anyway, because you are in free fall. Whereas I don't think that's quite the case with a one run lead where well the margin is quite slim i don't think anyone's gonna say it in a 20 to 2 game unless they're joking so that's kind of a an academic discussion which i guess is the kind of discussion

we often have here but i think it's not technically incorrect. Like if someone said that's an insurance run, I wouldn't say, no, it's not. It does. I mean, you know, maybe to an infinitesimal degree, it does make you more likely to win or less likely to give up a lead that you have. So, okay. But obviously there's a threshold where the benefit is so low because you're so close to being assured of winning already that you just wouldn't say insurance run unless it was ironically. And so I guess the, I guess, is that you are still a grand slam away from a tie game, right? So I guess in that sense that you could conceivably lose the lead with one swing. Maybe you could still make the case that it's still within the realm of reasonable to say insurance run at that point, but that's probably even a bigger margin than I would say it. I think I would be most comfortable saying it within, gosh, I don't know if I would say it with more than a two run lead. Like after that, it's just,

I don't know. It's just tacking on. It's just, it's a lead. It's just a bigger lead. I don't know that I would use the term insurance run unless it was close. Yeah. It almost has to be big for me to use it at all. So you're saying that not only would you not use big insurance run for 5.1, but you probably wouldn't say insurance run. You would say just adding on. Yeah. I think so. Unless it was big, I'd just just used some other words so i think it would have to be like uh you know a one or two run margin for me to say it and i might not even say big because for me it's almost implied that when you're saying it it's big i would say that a big insurance run has to be one or two probably but i would feel better if it were one because one you really you guarantee that the

tying run is up the entire next inning two you you don't guarantee that so you can make a mistake and it doesn't matter how big a mistake it is you may make a mistake next inning and still have the lead if you're up by two that's not true if you're up by one to me that's a significant difference insurance in a lot of cases in real life is for one mistake. Like you don't, your house doesn't burn down twice. It burns down once. You know, you get in a car crash like once. That's what the insurance is for.

You're thinking, I'm not going to get in a ton of car crashes, but I might have one bad day and make one bad car crash. So the insurance run protects you against the one mistake. And so I think I would try to hold it to just that one, for big insurance, I would try to hold it to just that one run lead. But if you have, say, the top of the order coming up the next inning, maybe I would stretch to two run lead if you're really nervous, or if you're in Colorado, that sort of thing. Now, that's for big insurance. I think that insurance run can go if it takes it out of a safe situation. If you don't have to use your closer or if your closer is going to come in with a non-safe situation. To me, it is kind of an arbitrary and misleading line.

And yet, it's one that we all recognize where the difference between a four- lead and a three run lead is enough that we have different statistical language for it. So I would say that if you have a three run lead and you make it a four run lead, that would qualify as an insurance run, but not a big insurance run. You can now put your reliever, your best reliever back on his bottom and bring in a different reliever. Yeah. Okay. Do you have a stat blast? It's dumb. Yes. Okay. Well, here's the stat blast song cover of the week by Michael Temple. It's an instrumental version, which has been one of your favorites so far. අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි just curious ben tom seaver retired with 106 war uh with 311 wins if you knew someone was going back in a time machine to change the usc exhibition schedule to make sure that he would be a brave and so he's going to be a brave now he's not going to be a man everything else in the world up to that point is the same what would you

say is his median war expectation and you know it's tom seaver you still know that it's like you know that it's all the same ligaments and brain cells yeah but he's now playing in a different universe a different scenario different team different player development but also just different roles of the dice yeah gosh i i guess i would say that when you have a career that great you have probably ended up with a an upper percentile outcome for what your career could have been you know maybe he would have been even better somewhere else but odds are that if you changed anything he probably would have been worse if anything so i i guess i would say that maybe it would be like 80 or something. Like I'd still think he'd be great, obviously.

But yeah, who knows? You know, he's pitching in a different game. He's hit by a comebacker or, you know, he gets overworked and he hurts his arm or who knows? Or, you know, he's in a different place at a different time. He suffers some off the field-field accidents or something. These are all involving injuries, but it doesn't have to be an injury. It could just be a developmental thing.

Yeah, I would go as low as maybe 35. Wow. Huh. Wow. Yeah, I don't think I'd go that low because it's not like he was a project. He was pretty great from the get-go. He was a college pitcher. Then he had one quite good season in

AAA in 1966, and then he was Rookie of the Year with the Mets in 1967. So I sort of suspect that if he were that great right away, he probably would have been great right away wherever he went. But I don't know if this is the case, but I think the fact that he ended up with the Mets maybe made him more special in the sense that he transcended his stats in a way because he was so significant to an expansion franchise that had been pretty bad up until that point. He made them respectable. He was the face of that franchise. He won that 1969 World Series. He meant so much to many Mets fans and New Yorkers at the time. So if you transplant him to another team or teams, and he's just as good as he was with the Mets,

probably things don't shake out in quite that way. And maybe you'd remember him as an all-time great, but without some of the emotional resonance that he has for fans of the Mets. All right. So here's my bad stat blast. It has nothing to do with Tom Seaver I heard a baseball anecdote the other day about Abe Manley who was one of the co-owners along with his wife Effa of the Newark Eagles in the Negro National Leagues and the story goes that

he was watching one of his hitters foul off a bunch of pitches fighting to stay alive and then it bat and you know he sees every one of these foul balls go off a bunch of pitches, fighting to stay alive and then it bat. And, you know, he sees every one of these foul balls go into the stands and he knows that like he's paying for those foul balls. And so he sends a message down to the manager that that batter needs to either strike out or put the ball in play. He's got to quit fouling the ball off or he's going to start getting fined for every foul ball. the ball off or he's going to start getting fined for uh for every foul ball i don't know if that

story happened but i would say that other than the modern american and national leagues of like the last 25 years every other baseball team and league throughout history has had some concern about the expense of baseballs the expense that you know frequent use of baseballs adds up to. And so like our friend Theo at the Stompers, he was obsessed with how many baseballs they were using. And so there was a thing where if a foul ball went out of play, a fan could bring it back and exchange it for like a box of Milk Duds or something. Because a box of Milk Duds cost Theo like two bucks, but the baseball cost him 450. So he was always trying to get those balls back in play. And various, I think a lot of, actually a lot of minor leagues, actually minor league teams do that today as well. Our pal Dan Evans one time told me that I should, the article he wanted me to write

was figuring out when first baseman started tossing the ball into the stands on their way back from the last out of the inning, because he remembered earlier in his career that you never did that. You would, a first baseman would never be giving away a baseball like that. The team needed those baseballs. They didn't want to go to that expense. And the other day, I think it was Tony Gwynn I saw in an old article was saying that coming out of the strike, that had changed.

I think that that's what you can trace that back to. So I think post-strike, when teams really saw getting a lot of baseballs into the stands as being a way of doing fan outreach. I think before that, even the major leagues was a little bit protective of their baseball supply. And so anyway, that is just all to say that whenever a batter fouls a ball off, it costs his team a little money and a batter that fouls a lot of balls off costs his team more money. So I wanted to see how big the range is, how much an expensive player costs his team in foul balls, and who is the most expensive hitter in baseball on foul balls alone. So I took last year's hitters,

I took their number of foul balls hit and their number of home runs hit to see who put the most balls out of play, and then also to see who had the highest rate of balls put out of play. And so the answer is, first of all, that Freddie Freeman cost his team the most money in baseballs. Freddie Freeman put at least 651 balls out of play between his foul balls and his home runs. I am not counting various other balls put out of play that a batter might be responsible for. So a batter that has long at bats, for instance, is probably more likely to, just by making the pitcher throw more pitches, there are also going to maybe be more pitches in the dirt. A pitch in

the dirt has to go out of play. A batter who hits more ground balls is more likely, I think, to put balls out of play because if a ball hits the infield, then it also goes out of play. I think a batter who, if I'm not mistaken, a batter who makes more third outs as a proportion of his outs would put more balls out of play, because usually the ball disappears after the end of an inning. So those are all things that a hitter might also be responsible for. But I don't think that the team executives would blame the hitters for those

quite so much as they would for the balls that are directly hit out of play. So Freddie Freeman, 650 balls put out of play last year. That's 613 fouls, 38 homers, sorry, 651 total. So he is the foul balling-est, home running runningest hitter in baseball. And by my math, or I should say by Theo's math, that would cost the team $2,930. I should probably just release him at that point. It's an expense, okay? It's a real expense. If you were to look at rate, because not everybody had as many at-bats as Freddie Freeman, then the highest ball out of play hitter in baseball was Jeff McNeil. 28% of the pitches that Jeff McNeil saw ended up being replaced because they were either fouled off or hit for home runs, which is a lot. I almost feel like I should redo that math. That seems like a ton. 28%.

How much did I say? I said 28%, right? Yeah. 28%. So average Jeff McNeil at bat produces a souvenir, which is considerable. Compare that to the low end of the list. The bottom of the list is Derek Fisher,

who only put 11% of balls out of play 11 compared to 28 well first of all that's a lot right like over the course of a game jeff mcneil puts three more balls out of play than derrick fisher over the course of four plate appearances that's three more balls that jeff fisher or that jeff what oh no i've gotten my name's can you jeff mcneil jeff mcneil costs three more baseballs than derrick fisher costs there's nothing else in baseball i don't think where the spread from the top of a leaderboard to the bottom of a leaderboard is that extreme that's three baseballs that he uses yeah four times the baseballs almost it can't be my math has to be wrong there how can it be four times the baseballs it's not four times the rate is it it's only three times the rate oh it's not four times the baseballs it's it's three times the baseballs but four and a half baseballs compared to one and a half baseballs that jeff mcneil uses so over the course of the season that means that jeff mcneil

costs his team two thousand four hundred and thirty dollars more than derrick fisher would cost if they both played every day two thousand four hundred and thirty dollars it doesn't seem like that much but to theo it would be a lot. Like that's a lot for Theo. Yeah. I mean, it's probably a lot for the Wilpons too. Yeah. They're in debt, right? So anyway, so I guess to answer that question, there's a pretty big difference between the the worst offenders and the rest, but the cost actually is not that much unless you're working on a fairly small profit margin, which most baseball teams throughout history have been, but most current American and National League teams are not.

All right. Well, if Jeff McNeil gets traded now, you'll know it's because the Wilcons were listening to this and they realized how much he was costing them in foul balls. All right. This is a quick one. This is from DJ, sort of a statplasty question. Cameron Mabin was traded by the Tigers to the Cubs this week for Zach Short. This would be a trade that wouldn't normally receive much notice from me. In this case, I was alerted to the fact that this is the third time that Mabin has been traded away from the Tigers.

Previously, he had been reacquired by the Tigers in November 2015 and traded away to the Angels a year later. Most notably, as a prospect, he was a major piece of the 2007 trade that brought Miguel Cabrera to Detroit. I know that many players get traded numerous times over the course of their career, especially someone with Maben's profile, a guy with the talent to be helpful, but never quite good enough to become a piece for a team to build around. Still, having one team acquire a player three different times, draft, trade, free agency, and trade them away each time seems quite unusual. Is this the case?

Has there been a player traded away by the same team more often than Mabin? If not, are there other notable examples of a player being traded multiple times by one club? Does this happen more often than I expect? And it does not happen often. I got a list here from Dan Hirsch of Baseball Reference. So there have been a handful of other players who have been traded three times. So it is Maben, Pinky Hargrave, Buck Herzog, Rich Hinton, Ed Levy, Dick Schofield, and Duke Carmel. However, there have been four players.

If you include purchases, which is basically just a trade but for money instead of another player, then there are two players who have been traded or sent away for cash by one team four times. One of them is Bobo Newsome, who played for decades and decades, like from the 20s to the 50s. So he had a lot of time for this to happen. And the St. Louis Browns kept reacquiring him and getting rid of him again and again. But Duke Carmel, who I mentioned, he was traded three times by the Cardinals, but he was dealt four times because he was also sent away via purchase one time. dealt four times because he was also sent away via purchase one time. And I think he takes the cake here because Duke Carmel only played four years in the major leagues. He only got 81 plate

appearances in the majors for the Cardinals, who kept reacquiring him and trading him away. And I think that's because he had the misfortune of being a left-handed outfielder first baseman at the same time as Stan Musial, as Dan Hirsch pointed out. So, you know, as we were talking about, circumstances of a team and a time can really dictate a player's career. And that was probably the case for Duke Carmel. So Duke Carmel's transactions log on Baseball Reference goes, Before the 1955 season, he was signed by the Cardinals as an amateur free agent. 1960, he was traded by the Cardinals to the Dodgers. A couple months later, September 1960, purchased by the Cardinals from the Dodgers.

Then May of the next year, 1961, traded by the Cardinals to the Dodgers again. He was like the Oliver Drake of his day. Dodgers, again, he was like the Oliver Drake of his day. Before the 1962 season, the Dodgers sent him back to the Cardinals in an unknown transaction. And then in March of that year, 1962, he was purchased by Cleveland from the Cardinals. Before the 63 season, he was sent by Cleveland to the Cardinals in, again, an unknown transaction. And then July of 1963, the Cardinals, having gotten him back after all of that, traded him to the Mets for Jackie Davis and cash. And then finally, in 1964, he was drafted by the Yankees from the Mets in the Rule 5 draft. And that was the end of his career. He played briefly for the Yankees in 1965, and he was never in the big leagues again.

So Cardinals really had a thing for Duke Carmel, but not enough to keep him very long at all. What do you think is going through their heads when they're making, when he's making his decision to join the Cardinals for the fourth time, and when they're making the decision to acquire him for the fourth time? Because you're right that it doesn't make much sense for him to be on the cardinals and so they keep trading him but it takes more effort to reacquire him than it does to trade him and you would think that you would be doing some of that calculus when you're doing it and then you would think by the fourth time he'd be like fool me four times shame on me as well so i wonder if it like he just lived there

in st louis and and it was this was his home base and when he needed to kind of reset he would just want to go back to st louis i don't know because he he's a new yorker and after his career he went back to new york according to the baseball reference bullpen, became a salesman for a liquor distributor and is still with us and still a New Yorker, I believe. So I don't know. Maybe we should talk to Duke Carmel. Quite a career. I think the Cardinals were interested in him, though, because he was sort of a minor league slugger. 1957, he led the Pioneer League with 29 homers and a thousand plus OPS. 1959 in the minors for the Cardinals, he hit 23 homers with a thousand plus OPS. 1959 in the minors for the Cardinals, he hit 23 homers with a 900 plus OPS. 1964, AAA with the Mets, 35 homers with a 977 OPS. So he was kind of a

quadruple A guy or maybe just sort of blocked, didn't really get enough playing time to show whether he could translate it to the majors or not. Huh? Yeah, I guess. So he did. I mean, I feel like it's sort of silly because of course course, he wasn't making a decision to go back. This was 1965. It's not like he was signing as a free agent. He was being traded back there. So it doesn't matter whether he had been fooled four times. He did not have the rights, employer rights,

that players would come to have later. So forget that I said that, but still interesting that the Cardinals would keep going back to that particular Carmel well. Maybe were they getting it every time they traded him? Maybe they were just... I've told this story before, but one of my friends... I might have told this story. I don't remember if I told this story totally honestly the first time, but one of my friends had a John Ulrich 1990 leaf that had a crease right down the

middle of it. And he would trade his whole thing as a kid, like basically his job, his income as a child was to trade that John Ulrich for something good. And then like a great trade. Oh, by the way, you know, I'm glad that you didn't mind the crease. And then the person would see the crease because you couldn't see the crease it was really hard to see the crease unless it was at the perfect angle and so then the person would get all mad and he'd go well i mean i'll trade you back something else for it so then he would trade less so he just kept on basically trading the john all rude leaf for value and then trading for it for the discount and doing that over and over and over and over again. So I wonder if something like that was, let's see. So Joe Copp, John Glenn.

Well, he got John Glenn. That's pretty good. And Jack, Jack with an E, Davis. None of these are particularly extraordinary baseball players that I know of. Let's see, John Glenn played 32 games for the cardinals after they acquired him joe cop k-o-p-p-e he played no games for the cardinals after they acquired him jack davis played no games for the cardinals after they acquired him so they were trading him for they traded him they traded him three times,

well, I guess four if you count the unknown transaction or whichever it was. They traded him three times for a grand total of 31 plate appearances from the other players that they acquired. Yeah, and he barely got more than that himself for them. So yeah, that is a singular career, I think. I found a blog post about him

here that mentions that when he briefly played with the Mets in 1963, Duke Snyder was on that team. So it was a double Duke lineup. And also he's mentioned in Ball Four. So quoting here, he went to spring training with the Bombers in 1965 amid much fanfare. In Ball Four, Jim Boughton sardonically notes that he was supposed to be the next Joe Damascio. According to Boughton, he struggled in camp and Whitey Ford consoled him by suggesting that he just couldn't hit in South Florida. When he continued to play poorly in Tampa, Whitey amended his remarks, you're just not a Florida hitter. Of course, Duke then faltered in a few more games further north, prompting the great Yankees pitcher to say, it looks like you just can't hit south of the Mason-Dixon line. But he didn't end up hitting in New York either. All right. Can I

give you a quiz to end on here? I've prepared a little quiz for you. Okay. If you'll play along. So this is prompted by a question from Nathaniel, and he says, so Phillips Valdez just threw 12 change-ups in a row. Dennis Eckersley acted like it was completely unheard of and even said he'd never thrown any one pitch 12 times in a row. Is this a record? If not, what is the record for most of the same pitch in a row? And is it smart? Valdez got the batter on a high fastball, but was he lucky? So I have here, courtesy of Lucas Apostolaris of Baseball Prospectus, the most times consecutively that every pitch type has been thrown in the pitch tracking era since 2008.

So I've got eight pitch types here. Oh, my goodness. Change-up, splitter, curveball, slider, sinker, cutter, four-seamer, knuckler. cutter four seamer knuckler if you're if you're willing i'd i'd be interested in you uh taking a stab at putting them in order that would be fun the numbers so i'm just guessing the numbers i'm not guessing who did it no yeah i don't expect you to guess that but uh yeah so we got four seam two seam split change curve slider knuckleball and what's the cutter did you get those cutter okay all right yeah okay so i'm putting them in order the longest of longest streak okay let me okay so we're gonna do a little we're gonna do a little production here we're gonna do some editing

i'm gonna i'm gonna disappear for a minute okay okay? Okay. Okay, I'm ready. Okay. And a few details here because they affected my guesses here. These are limited to single appearances. So I think that I would have had Cutter higher if I could have gone multiple appearances in a row because I would have guessed that I could have gotten a run of multiple Kenley Jansen or Mariano Rivera appearances than if it's one outing. And then also this is since 2008. I think if it were, I think if we could go back to say the eighties, I would have put

splitter higher than I do. But just because it's only in the past 13 years, I don't think that there are enough split finger pitchers that I am that confident that there would be a ton. So I'm kind of on the fence about, uh, anyway. All right. So here I go. Lucas could have looked up across multiple outings, but I think it's more interesting this way, right? Because I think part of the intrigue is that you're throwing the same pitch over and over again to the same batters on the same day, which, you know, that's daring to do that. Whereas if you're coming back on a different day, maybe it's a different team entirely and they haven't seen

those previous pitches anyway. Okay. All right. So how am I doing? How are we doing this? Just, I guess, guess the first longest streak that you think and how long you would guess it is. All right. My first longest streak, I have knuckleball at 89 pitches. All right, my first longest streak, I have knuckleball at 89 pitches. Okay, you are correct. It is indeed knuckleball, but it is 104 pitches. I mean, come on. That's pretty good.

Yeah, no, it's very good. Yeah, R.A. Dickey was the record holder on April 18, 2015. He threw 104 knuckleballs, and I'm just trying to see. And he threw 104 pitches that day, so he he threw 104 knuckleballs. And I'm just trying to see. And he threw 104 pitches that day. So he threw nothing but knuckleballs. Okay. All right. I get points.

Okay. Now it gets harder. Next, I'm going to say two seamer at 44. All right. I don't know how to give away. Just tell me what number. Tell me what number two seamer is. Tell me what rank two seamer is. Okay. And then how many? All right. Two seamer sinker is actually the fourth most common only, and it's 39. Okay. And that was Derek Lowe in 2010.

Okay. So I was pretty close on the number, but not on the rank. Okay. Well, all right. My number three was four seamer, which I had 41 of. Okay. Four seamer is next after knuckleball. It's actually 56. Daniel Cabrera in 2008. Daniel Cabrera just threw a lot of fastballs. It didn't really work out that well for him. I don't know if he didn't have a good breaking ball or they just didn't tell him he should throw more breaking balls, but he had a lot of outings like that where he just threw very, very heavily fastballs. Okay. Next I have cutter, but my number is going to be low. I know that because I know it's ahead of two seamers. I have cutters at 29. Yeah. Okay. It is cutter. It is 46 by Lenny DiNardo in 2009. Wow.

Really? Yeah. Have you noticed that a lot of these are in 2008, 2009? Do you think that it could be that it's early PitchFX and the pitch classifications aren't as... Could be. These are, I should have said, these are based on the pitch info classifications done by Harry Pavlidis.

So they should be better than just the standard automatic MLB ones. But it is possible, of course, that a pitch could have been misclassified at some point. And I guess maybe it would just have been more common at that time, maybe, just when there was less of an emphasis on mixing up pitches and throwing certain pitch types more often than they used to be thrown all right now we get to the uh the moving stuff uh number five curveball 24 you nailed the number uh which i don't know if you knew that it was okay yeah it's the the lance mccullers october 2017 but that is not the next pitch not quite yeah oh my goodness okay so i had number six i had slider but i had i had it down to 15 slider is 29 oh brad lidge is it

brad lidge it is pat neshek pat neshek in 2012 he uh he really threw a lot of 29 in a row i would like to watch that out i know me too and then here, this is where I am going to go. I'm going to go seven splitter with 13. It is splitter with 17. Edward Mujica, 2013. And then I'm going to go change up at 12. Change up 13, Houston Street in 2015. So Eckersley was right to be taken aback by this,

and he saw 12 change-ups in a row. That is one short of the highest number that we have on record here. And Lucas and I guessed before he ran the numbers, and obviously you guessed too, that change-up would be the shortest long streak, which makes sense, right? Because a change-up, like you think you could get away with it for a while with a really fast hard pitch because you've got good control of it and it's

just hard to catch up to or the knuckleball obviously because it's random and unpredictable but with the others like you know sliders and curves they're hard to hit they bend a lot so you could in theory get away with throwing more of them in a row whereas with change-ups and splitters which are sort of similar like change-ups on their own are not great like change-ups the whole point of the change-up is that you're changing speeds from the fastball that it looks like something else and then it's not and it's not as unhittable on its own merits as a breaking ball would be so you would figure that yeah it'd be pretty hard to throw change-ups 13 times in a row because at that point it's not even a change-up really i mean that's

that's just the the baseline and everything else is a change-up from that so to do that many times in a row that's uh that's risky. But Houston Street had a good one. All right. Now I have a quick quiz for you. In 2011, maybe the second or third article I ever wrote for you was about how Bartolo Colon was doing these long stretches of nothing but fastballs. Yeah. And he has the record for most strikes. He does. Yeah. But also he was throwing long stretches of just fastballs. And then I wrote about how I was really looking forward to seeing an all-fastball game. And then that day, that very day it ran,

Justin Masterson actually had a day that he only threw one non-fastball in an entire start. And it just crushed all the other games that fastball heavy games that we looked at anyway do you remember the headline that you gave that article no you don't no i'm surprised i do okay what was it footloose and fastball free oh that's pretty good i guess all right okay So we will end there. Okay. That will do it for today. Thanks as always for listening.

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We landscaped our legacies And fought about wars I don't know how we have come to function so far away Drafting a dark glass with the compass we've made You know it's our best work I see you here