Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1619: Pink Hair Don’t Care

Episode Date: November 21, 2020

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the Effectively Wild community’s Secret Santa exchange beginning again, a new podcast featuring former EW guest (and oldest former living player) Eddie Robinson, and two more Scott Boras quotes, then reflect further on Kim Ng’s hiring and review listeners’ responses to a recent podcast discussion about picking a […]

Don't want to miss what I'm looking for, but it's behind your door. Show me all the rules, girl. I just want to get them wrong. Show me all the rules, girl. I just want to belong. Woo! Come on! Hello and welcome to episode 1619 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by...

Blah, blah, blah. That I haven't goofed on in a while. Yeah, it has been a long time. It's been a long time, but this is a podcast, despite my goofs, brought to you by our Patreon supporters. And I am Meg Rowley of Fangraphs, and this is probably obvious by now, but I am joined by you, Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? Doing pretty well. How are you?

Aside from making bleep-lerp noises, I'm doing great. Yeah. Yeah, me too. As soon as we finish this podcast, I will be off for a little while. I'm taking a few days off next week. You just took a few days off. Everyone's doing it. It's that holiday time of year, sort of, even if it doesn't really feel like it because

a lot of us are not going anywhere or doing anything for holidays that we would normally be doing. But at least I'll be working less. So that's something. Ben, I'm so happy that you're taking some vacation. You're really terrible at that. I know. I will not be taking a vacation from this podcast, of course, but my other work I will be taking a vacation from this podcast of course but uh my other work i will be taking a vacation from so that's something well i'm glad you're getting a couple of days off and it's you know it's perfect timing it's a short week anyhow my advice for vacation which you have followed without even hearing it is you should you know you should really set yourself up for short weeks on the front or back end of vacation yeah i was on vacation and my final day of vacation was this past Monday.

And on Sunday I was like, oh God, I have to go back to work tomorrow. And then I was like, no, I do not. So it was a lot better that way. I think everyone should do that. Set yourself up for a short week if you possibly can. Yeah, that extra day or that one less day that you don't have to work, that can be a big mental boost. So we have a guest whom we will be speaking to soon, and her name is Rain Padgham.

She is a 15-year-old pitcher in Abbotsford, British Columbia in Canada, and she is one of the hardest-throwing women in the world, not just for a 15-year-old, but period. not just for a 15-year-old, but period. She threw 83 miles per hour just a couple months ago, and that brought her to sort of international attention because it is one of the hardest pitches thrown that is on record, and to do it at that age is incredibly impressive. And she is—I don't want to put too much pressure on her, but I think it's probably safe to say she's a phenom. That seems fair.

So she has a bright future ahead of her in baseball, seemingly, and has been playing for almost her entire life. So we will talk to her about her history in baseball and how she got so good. 83 is just, I mean, that is fast for any 15-year-old. Yeah. That's fast for most humans of any age. I certainly have not ever and will not ever throw 83 miles per hour. So that is pretty impressive. So we will talk to Rain soon about her history.

She's played in many boys leagues at times. She has kind of broken into boys baseball, and she has some stories about that. Secret Santa has started. Registration is open now, and this seems like a year when people might enjoy doing that. If you're getting a little less holiday cheer than you typically do, this might be a fun thing for you to do. It's been happening for the past few years. It's operated by a listener named Zach Wenkos, who takes it upon himself every year to organize this, and it's great, and I've participated in it. Basically, you just sign up, you just give your name and email, I think it is, and I will link to the form where you can put that in, find the link on our show page. And if you register by December 1st, you will get randomly matched with another participant, another listener of

the show and get their info via email. And it's just like a recommended $20 or so, whatever you can spare. And people mail each other gifts and they're baseball themed and it's just very wholesome. And the people who participate who are in the Facebook group post pictures of the gifts they get. And it's just a nice virtuous cycle of people posting cool baseball things that other listeners gave them. So encourage everyone to check that out if it sounds interesting and you haven't tried it before. Or if you have, do it again. And all through the mail. Yes.

Don't have to get together. Don't have to be too close to anybody. Socially distanced. Yeah. You just get a lovely little bit of holiday cheer through the mail that's baseball themed. What could be better than that? Not much. Not much.

I've enjoyed it. I also wanted to alert people to the existence of a new podcast that is hosted by Eddie Robinson, who we had on Effectively Wild. You and I interviewed Eddie about a year ago. It was episode 1454. He was 98 years old at the time. He is about to turn 100. His 100th birthday will be December 15th. He is the oldest living player and seems to remember everything that has ever happened to him with pretty perfect clarity. And he has started a podcast. So that's now added to his list of accomplishments. He's hosting a podcast. It's called The Golden Age of Baseball with Eddie Robinson. And I've been listening. He's about five or so episodes in. They're pretty snappy episodes.

It's just kind of like oral history. He just recounts his life and his experiences in baseball, and it's a lot of fun. So maybe now that he's a podcaster and he's approaching his centennial, perhaps we will have him back. But you can find The Golden Age of Base with eddie robinson wherever you find podcasts as people say on the one hand i am remarkably impressed i mean as you said he was very sharp when we talked to him and you know it's always kind of a rude thing to remark on the sharpness of older people because it's like well screw you like there are plenty of people who are plenty

sharp as they age so i don't mean it in like mean it in the way that we as a culture treat elderly people as pets. That's gross. But he was very sharp and he had great stories and had just seen a lot in his life. And so on the one hand, I think that that's really cool and great. And also when I am approaching 100, Ben, no offense offense but i hope that i am not podcasting i hope that i am done i hope that i approach 100 period whether i'm podcasting or not yeah first things first let's let's live a long life and remain have all our faculties getting there is being in health good health or as good a health as you can be when you're 100, but I anticipate being tired if I was to be 100, and I don't know if I'm going to want to spend the energy I have on a podcast as much as I enjoy talking to you every week.

Yeah, yeah, I can understand that. I mean, if we're still podcasting, we will have been doing it for 70 years or so by that point. He's new to it. He's fresh. It's fresh for him, yeah. Yeah, so he's got fresh vocal cords, and he's new to it. He's fresh. It's fresh for him, yeah. Yeah, so he's got fresh vocal cords and he's coming to this. He's a rookie.

You know, we've been podcasting for a lot longer than Eddie Robinson has. That's probably the only thing we can say we've been doing longer than Eddie Robinson has. But he's good at it and it's fun. And he'll just, like, toss off things, you know, just like the name of the backup catcher on the team he was on in like 1939 or something. He's like talking about how he went to see Gone with the Wind in theaters. And then he'll just, you know, remember like the, you know, some marginal guy on the pitching staff of that minor league team he was on who never made the majors. But he remembers him and remembers things about him it's kind of incredible because i feel like i forget a lot more than he has so go check it out

it's a it's a cool historical record and i've also got two quick boris quotes for you he just keeps pumping them out every time we podcast there's a new boris quote so he did an interview with 590 the fan the toronto radio station so the first one was quote i always view baseball as an ocean and i always tell people don't get caught up in the waves we've got a big beautiful ocean so what this is uh it's just the nautical analogy he he really does like just the the nautical thing he's uh he's admitting it here he likes to view baseball as an ocean and i guess he's saying like uh it's it's something that happens every year don't get caught up in a particular player's free agency or a particular free agent market. The waves are just constantly breaking over you year after year.

So I don't know. It's not particularly helpful for me, but he really loves the nautical analogy whenever he can use one. Does Scott Bores have a boat? Do we know? He must have a boat. He's got to have a boat, right? He's got to have a boat, right? The number of nautical analogies he uses, and he lives on the coast, and he has the money to afford a boat. I would be disappointed if he doesn't have one. What if he's enamored with the sea but also afraid of it?

Does Scott Boris know how to swim? I don't know. These are questions that I would like answered. This could be how he deals with his fear. I'm not sure. The other one was Blue Jays specific. He said, the Jays are what I always hoped

that the Blue Jays should and could be. And that is that they're going to be one of the organizations that sits atop the aggressive market in baseball. They're in a definite phase where I think they have the lamp and now they're looking for the light bulb. What?

I'm pretty sure at this point that when he's doing these interviews he just looks around the room and his his gaze falls on like the first household object he sees and he turns that into an analogy because we talked about the flowers and the vase analogy that he used. The flowers are just going to fall on the ground if you don't have the vase to put them in. That's what free agency is. It's the vase of championships. Like he must have just been looking around the room and he happened to see a vase with some flowers or not with some flowers. And he turned that into this comparison and maybe when he was doing this radio interview he just looked around and he happened to see a

lamp like i i can't imagine that you would think of that any other way it just it doesn't sound like workshopped enough it it doesn't really illuminate i guess in this case it really should be illuminating because he's talking about actual light, but that has to be how he comes up with these. I get what he's saying about, you know, like they went out and they signed Ryu last offseason and they have their exciting core. And it was like, OK, who can they fill in amongst that core to really take them forward? But the thing about it is the light bulb is like the, you know, it like illuminates. I'm not going to be able to make it about baseball players, Ben, because it doesn't make any sense. But to my mind, their trio of young position players and Nate Pearson, that's the light bulb.

And then you want to put it in a structure that lets it glow, shed its light. So I think he has it backwards. They should be like, they have the light bulb and now they have to buy the lamp right it's just making me think of the edgar martinez eagle hardware and garden commercial where he talked about the light bat which is not at all related to scott porras or the blue jays for that matter but uh is at least a closer baseball lamp analogy because the bat is the lamp so it's i think he had the flowers in the vase one backwards too it made more sense to me the other way around this one like i don't know

if he elaborated if he's saying that like they they had the base like they have the the core of talent usually he's talking about like free agents because he represents players. He wants people to bid on his clients. And so usually he's constructing these things so that he's saying, well, they have this, and the free agent will put them over the top. And he does it in the weirdest way possible. So maybe he's saying they have the means to light up. They have this homegrown core. They've, you know, signed some players like they're almost there. Now they just need the light bulb.

Now they just, you know, it's like the easy part. It's the finishing touch. They just have to flip the switch and then it'll light up the room, light up the league. I don't really know what he was thinking. Again, I think he was thinking, I see a lamp right now and i'm gonna use this somehow but ben do you think that scott boris would come on the podcast just to talk about these i doubt it i doubt it too but i think he probably would be like you're often making fun of me why would i talk to you people yeah i doubt he's aware that we talk about this so often but if we uh invited him on in the guise of talking about something else then i think

it would be fair for us to ask him some questions about his language so maybe someday that could happen i don't know if i could do it without sounding mean. Yeah, that might be tough. I wanted to mention also Rachel McDaniel wrote a good piece for Fangraphs. Rachel writes a lot of good pieces for Fangraphs. They're all pretty good while we're talking about British Columbia residents. So check that out. It's about Kim Ang. And I guess it's, I don't know, would you care to sort of summarize the thesis of her post? I think that Rachel was keen to both acknowledge the part of this moment that was really exciting for people, which was that, you know, we're able to imagine a new thing for ourselves and for other people we know and

care about but also that there was a lot of sort of celebration from the very gatekeepers who could have opened the door for him a lot earlier and so i think rachel is trying to strike a balance between kind of honoring the moment for what it is and what it means to women and to Asian women and to women of all stripes, but also to, as we talked about, sort of look critically at the reaction of the league that seems really keen to co-opt a moment that they could have had and celebrated a lot earlier if they had just put their minds to it. Right. And in a moment when we're able to imagine a great many things when it comes to baseball, for some reason, it took a really long time to be able to do this one. So I think that it is, as is often the case with Rachel's writing, just a really sharp

and incisive look at an issue that we were trying to figure out exactly how to feel about it when it happened because we were we were trying to figure out exactly how to feel about it when it happened because we were aware of this tension too so yeah i think it's a an excellent piece as you said rachel's pieces very often are and it's definitely worth giving a read too so yeah yeah it's like on the one hand the hiring of kaming has been like the best news about baseball lately and so i almost want to like bring it up on every episode somehow because it's like the bright spot of this offseason that is dark and full of terrors. And so on the one hand, like, you know, you go from like Tony La Russa gets hired and just all the things that we talked about with that hiring, which has seemingly gotten worse since we spoke about it and harder to understand. And Kim Ang's hiring was kind of a breath of fresh air and a nice contrast to that.

And yet I think we felt that it was important not to be too celebratory or at least to celebrate her accomplishment, of course, but not celebrate the fact that baseball finally, finally got its act together and made her a GM. It just, it seems like, you know, you can, if you want to, you can perpetuate this under representation of certain groups just year after year by saying, well, there are fewer qualified candidates. Like, you know, you could say, well, there are fewer, you know, women assistant GMs than men assistant GMs or whatever equivalent position. And so if you're looking for

a reason not to deviate from the traditional hiring practices or, you know, you want to justify it or something, people will sometimes cite that. They'll say like, oh, well, there weren't as many applicants or something or there weren't as many qualified candidates or whatever. And often that reflects a lack of creativity and sometimes it just reflects a problem with the pipeline. And yeah, you might have a harder time hiring someone for the most senior job because there are fewer people getting hired for the next most senior job and it sort of goes on and on and down and down. And you could do that in baseball too,

and I hope that won't be the case. But if there is a break between Kim getting hired and the next woman getting that job, then, you know, maybe people will say, oh, well, she was just far and away the most qualified candidate or something. And I hope that doesn't happen. But the fact is that for like 20 years, she was completely qualified. And so to even suggest something like that, you know, it didn't ring true for all of that time because like, well, if you're not going to hire Kim Ang, then it's almost irrelevant that there might be fewer other candidates with the same credentials because this person has all the credentials and you're still not hiring her. So like at some point, you know, you have to hire the first or the whole thing is just hollow. So it's like an important milestone and the first move that hopefully snowballs. But like as long as she was still on the market and had some interest in the job and was interviewing for the job and was still not getting hired. interest in the job and was interviewing for the job and was still not getting hired. There was no possible justification or defense for that at all, really. This is an industry where someone can go watch a 17-year-old play baseball and be able to successfully imagine what that 17-year-old could do in five years with, you know, professional development,

right? Like, this is an imagination industry. We're able to look at stuff and extrapolate from there. You don't have to do that in her case, right? Like, her resume was totally sterling and worthy of hiring. But I think that you're right that, like, it is often true. I don't want to downplay some of the issues that exist with developing the pipeline because i do think we can put all kinds of people in a better position to succeed when it comes to trying to apply for more senior roles within baseball but it just betrays a shocking lack of imagination that you know we have a ton of a ton is probably too many but we have i have guys every year who get hired for the first time to be a general manager and their resumes aren't nearly as thick as Kim's was. So I think that we get to be excited and then we get to be critical and skeptical of the system that made us wait this long.

that made us wait this long. And I think both those things are really important so that she isn't the last one, so that there isn't a really long gap in between because she should have been hired a long, long time ago. But I think you're right to say that the next woman who comes along might not have her same resume. She shouldn't have to wait so long to accumulate a resume that's so august.

And I think that it just goes to show that we need to be more in a position of looking for reasons to say it more normal and you elevate people to assistant GM roles that become GM roles and you look around and you're like, wow, we intentionally tried to have better hiring practices and it turns out that that resulted in a more diverse employee pool. It's funny how that works. You have to try. We've been doing it wrong for a really long time.

You can't just look around and be like, maybe we'll get it right on accident. It's like, no, we probably won't because there's a lot of systemic pressure to keep doing it a particular way. So, yeah. Right. So the last thing I wanted to bring up, Sam and I talked recently about the difference between leagues and the fact that as long as the DH existed in one league and not the other, there was at least some distinction between them. And we answered a listener email about, well, if you wanted to preserve some difference between the leagues, what's a rule that you could come up with that would do that but would not skew the competition terribly or just make it totally mismatched in a really disruptive way.

And I wanted to know whether you think it's a good thing or not because Sam and I sort of weighed in on this, but I am curious about your thoughts, whether it's good to have some distinction between the leagues and, you know, stipulate that it's not totally disruptive, that it's something like the DH where there's a difference, but it's not such a huge meaningful difference that it makes those leagues unable to coexist or compete. Is that something that you would miss or do you not care at all and you think it's time to move beyond the idea of the leagues having to be different in any way? Because in many sports, they're not. They're just different conferences and the rules are all the same. It's hard for me to answer this question without being aware of how much the presence of the designated hitter colors my understanding of how normal it is for one entire half of your league to be different than the other.

When I talk to friends who, I have a friend from grad school who really loves football and is just okay on baseball, and he couldn't even get his mind around the fact that the dimensions of all the ballparks could be different. Yeah. He was like, what the hell is that business? Which I love. That I love. That's one of my favorite things about baseball. Right.

And I think that kind of variation team to team is really charming and interesting and introduces fun strategic elements. So I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with there being a bit of variety as long as the bit of variety we have is not pitchers hitting so i am not um like philosophically opposed to there being peculiarities to the national league or the american league that uh the other league decides that's not for us like that's not our brand of baseball and i think that there are versions of that that could be incredibly disruptive to the competitive balance of the American League and the National League that we probably wouldn't be super keen on.

I don't know that it would be good for a baseball to have a ball of a particular amount of juiciness, which is how I've decided I want to refer to this going forward. It is like the core stuff, no, no, let's just call it jesus so i think that the variations in that could be a problem other than you say well one side had the dh and the other side had pitchers hit so isn't that as big an offensive swing sure but shut up so i think that there are some things where we could say that puts things too out of sync but i think having a little variety is nice and we have precedent for it and we'll maintain some variety even if we have a universal dh because of the ballpark dimension thing but

i really don't want to see pitchers hitting again yes so yes and is my answer to your question yeah i'm with you on being over pitchers hitting and frankly, I think I'm kind of over league differences. I think I'm okay with it. As I said to Sam, if we didn't have league differences, if we weren't used to it, I don't know that it's something that I would spontaneously say, yes, I want this or baseball would be better with that. So we might just have to wean ourselves off it. But we did get a lot of responses to that topic. A lot of people wrote in. I've collected some of the responses here. Could we do like a lightning round? You want to do just like a yes, no, you could justify your answer, or you could just go with your gut or whatever, if any of these appeal to you, these suggestions for how we could differentiate the leagues in a non-terribly obtrusive way. So Charles says one obvious answer would be to have one league keep the runner on second in extra innings rule

and the other go back to the original way. No, thank you. No? Yeah. I mean, I feel with a lot of these, just decide which one you like better and play all the games that way. Like, this one, I kind of get it because, like, I like having some extra long, extra inning games. I don't want those to go away entirely. And this might be a way for it to be rarer, but not non-existent, which would be would be i guess easier on everyone or easier on half the team so i sort of see it but like just in general you know most people i think prefer one way or the other so is there really a point to making this distinction i don't know unless you could somehow

like sort all the baseball fans so that the ones who like it get to root for the teams in the league that have it and vice versa. That'd be nice. But otherwise, I don't know. Yeah. I think that that's going to be a common problem that we run into. Again, it's like if you were to start baseball from scratch today, you'd never design it to be different. You would never do that. We probably would have all the ballparks have the same dimensions too now that i cannot get on board with i love love the ballpark we probably would right like the idea that they're different is a is a funny artifact of evolution right it is yeah you had to fit the ballparks into the cities and have all sorts of odd dimensions. So yeah, you're right. We probably would not think of that now.

So, all right. Brandon says, and this is just kind of an expanded version of that. What if one league keeps the suite of pandemic season rules over a full 162 game season? So runner on second and extras, three batter minimum, permanent DH, et cetera, while the other league goes back to pre-2020 rules with a full DH and regular extra inning rules. So no three batter minimum, et cetera, while the other league goes back to pre-2020 rules with a full DH and regular extra inning rules. So no three batter minimum, et cetera. So, you know, one league keeps what we had this year and the others just go back to what

we had before. No, I don't care for that either. Yeah, I don't think so either. And Justin said the same thing sort of, but with, you know, one league has replay review and the other does not. That's a terrible idea. I think that would result in civil war. Yeah, there might be riots.

Yeah. I like replay review, not in every instance, but on the whole. And if you're going to decide, yeah, we want to get the calls right, let's do replay. And you only do that in half the games i don't know how you could justify that that seems like a disaster so and he mentions like you know no mound visit limit in one league and not the other like that i don't even notice you know it's so insignificant really and it doesn't make it more fun in any way like you don't get to see a different type of play,

at least with pitcher hitting. I don't know. You get to see really bad hitters, which is different at least, and it gives you a sense of how good all the other hitters are that these terrible unqualified hitters are hitting, and there's some strategy and bunting and pitching around and all of that, but with a lot of these, there's not even that.

All right. Ranger and David and Brian and Michelle all said, how about shifting is allowed in only one league? I would be open to that. That feels the most like a DH in only one place of any of the ones that we've listened to so far. Yeah, I suppose so. I think Sam answered one of those emails and said he just hates the idea of banning the shift and just doesn't see any advantage to it, and so he wouldn't want it in either league. I guess I wouldn't hate seeing it on a trial basis, like an Atlantic League type thing, but I still think it's just not really a good

thing to do. I'm philosophically opposed to telling defenders where they can and can't stand, I think. And if it were a bigger deal, like if I thought that was really at the root of troublesome trends in baseball, then I might say, okay, well, I don't like this, but we have to do something like kind of like I feel about, you know, maybe limiting the number of pitchers you can use in a game or other changes that I'm getting more and more in favor of. In this case, like, I don't think it would even make that big a difference because it doesn't affect the balls in play as much as you would think and the success rate. And we've talked about how shifts on righties seem to be counterproductive.

And I'm still holding out a little hope that maybe players will adjust, but not a lot of hope because I realize that it's just really, really difficult to hit the ball where you want to hit it. It's just hard to hit the ball at all, period. ball where you want to hit it it's just hard to hit the ball at all period yeah so i don't really see that happening and bunting for hits is probably not going to become widespread but i just don't see it as making enough of a difference to overcome my aversion to it in theory yeah i mean my preference would be that we not ban the shift at all but i think that of all the ones we've heard so far it would be a place where i was like i could see an argument being made that we would all try a thing in a place and yeah all right philip you don't need different in-game rules to differentiate the two leagues all you

need are different playoff rules one league could split into five divisions instead of three and go from there or go back to the pre-1994 East-West divisions. You could have a shorter regular season, 154 games work for a long time, and more teams in the playoffs, or last year's pennant winner automatically gets a spot in the playoffs, maybe bring back a 1981-style split season. So just like a different format period

is what Philip is suggesting. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Yeah. Sorry,ip i i don't think so no i don't know how that would just work mechanically with interleague and the world series and everything that just seems difficult to straighten out but like what if you end up with like an extra round on one side and then you're going to have a completely exhausted Dodgers squad up against a more rested American League team and then cats and dogs living together? Yeah, I don't think so. Sorry, Philip. All right.

Devon, what if the quote unquote modern league was able to use their batters in any order as long as they don't repeat until all nine have been used. As an example, the first time through could go one to nine as normal. If the ninth batter hits a triple, they may choose to skip their normally due-up leadoff hitter to bring in the number three who could have a higher chance of putting the ball in play or driving them home. I think that if you're going to do this this which sounds bonkers yeah just do it in both why would you limit this kind of see this is the thing it's like why for some of them what you want is zany ball which i think is the goal for a lot of these which look we're not going to be mad at you effectively wild listeners for being like let's make the game zany because we've like

our brand yeah we spent 1618 episodes being like this is the way to make us listen to your emails so we get that but then then dream big right don't limit it to one league say that you can do a lineup nonsense after that for both sides everyone all together yeah he continues another example could be if the manager leaves the best hitter for the ninth spot this could create a situation where the batter could have back-to-back at bats. This could be very advantageous if they feel they are starting to figure out a hot pitcher. Umpires would have to watch the lineup very closely to ensure the same batter hasn't been up to bat before the entire order has been completed. But I think it could be very entertaining and could definitely highlight the creativity of some managers.

Sounds like chaos. It sounds like Meg content, so in that respect, I am all for it because you know that someone's messing that up. What are we going to say, Ben? They mess up now sometimes. Right. The last time that that happened, well, not the actual last time, but one of the last times that that happened, it involved the Mets.

Ben, what are we going to gonna do when the mets are like a confident baseball i know it seems like it's happened already are they gonna make fun of the mariners it's a brave new world maybe so yeah oh mariners you really mariners did i think that they're aided both by being ridiculous a lot of the time but also by being like a a short name like you really met that it's just a lot easier to say than like you lol mets yeah you you rockies did that's often true but not as fun to say anton says currently for a ball to be fair it has to stay within the third base and first baselines if it rolls or bounces into foul, it is fair as long as it has gone

past the respective base. How about modifying the rule for infield balls so that if it touches the ground twice within fair territory, it is considered fair. The second bounce ensures that bunts that hit directly in front of home plate and bounce into the stands wouldn't count, but pretty much every other bunt would still count. This would discourage extreme shifting while not outlawing it, as your third baseman needs to stay closer to the line. It would reward players with good back control, smart base running, and slick fielding. It would also prevent the humorous but ultimately dull occasions of the third baseman and pitcher watching while the ball decides whether to roll out of bounds or stay fair, which I enjoy. I like those situations. I think this may be a good rule

for all baseball, but it could be something that would differentiate the leagues as it may encourage certain types of players. Sure. Yeah, it's not a bad one. I don't feel strongly either way, which means, sure, try it for a season and then we can go, this is terrible. Right. Yeah, there used to be, in the early days of baseball, weird rules by our modern standards about what was fair or foul. Right. But, yeah, I like that it encourages contact at least. But, eh, all right.

Almost at the end of these submissions here, Benjamin says, I have another possibility for a rule proposal, which I originally conceived as a way to incentivize balls in play over home runs, but I think it also works. In fact, probably even better if only one league adopts it. The rule says that if a batter hits a home run that clears the fences, the batter runner comes around to score on the play, but any runners that were on base at the time of the pitch do not advance. All home runs would be solo home runs. So it's still good to hit home runs, but especially with multiple runners on, the value of a base hit that stays in the yard is magnified.

The other fun wrinkle here is that conceivably, with enough home runs in the same inning, a player could still be out on the bases when his or her turn to bat comes up. There would have to be a provision of the rule that specifies how this is handled. The easiest would probably be the most recent hitter who isn't currently on base but there's also an opening there for the rule writers to put the current pitcher in as a pinch runner or something of a nod to pitchers having to hit or you could even just skip that spot in the order entirely so all solo homers sure yeah i don't know that I fully understand this rule. Yeah, some of these, they're thinkers. You kind of have to puzzle out the full implications.

They're thinkers. Yeah. Wait, so, sorry, run me through this again? So you hit a home run and you score, but no one else does. So every home run is a solo shot. So if I'm Meg, I'm a batter, I'm up, I hit a dinger, and there are runners on first and second, I just pass them by as I circle the bases, and they just have to stay there

until they're driven in by a base hit. Yes, right. I think that that probably would end up having some really weird offensive environment implications, so I think it would be fun to try for a year and see what it does. Because on the one hand, a run is still a good thing, right? A solo home run is still good because you're still getting a run.

So it's not like you're completely disincentivizing hitting for power, but you are potentially adding new incentives to put the ball in play so i think it would be cool to see like how that actually plays out strategically because i we you know this is true in the shift example as it is here i think that we overrate underrate how hard it is to change aspects of your play as a player and so this could result in a lot of really boring baseball but it also could result in newly incentivized contact i'd like to see it in action ben and i would like you know make the major leaguers do it we experiment on these poor atlantic league folks we really should feel worse about that than we do. Yeah, I guess, well, this was the year to tinker with the majors too, just by necessity or just to sneak some things in.

Where were all these thinkers in July? Right, exactly. That's when we should have implemented all of this. All right. Last submissions come from Hiroshi. This is an interesting one. The Day Game League and the Night Game League. I can't imagine this would actually matter that much.

No, I guess not. I mean... Would it? Because it's not like you play in the dark. There are lights. No, it's not. I guess it's good if you want there to be more day games, which is kind of nice for some people, but not nice for others because they're at work or they're in school and they can't see them. Right.

So I'm kind of agnostic or even anti-day game, if anything, when it comes to that question. And yeah, it's not like a lot of players have huge persistent day-night splits. Yeah. So. I think that that tends to be mostly noise. Yeah. I guess that if you're consistently playing at night so you never have a day game,

do backup catchers get used less often? Yeah. Maybe ever so slightly, but we still need to give guys' knees a break because they fill with molten lead and then it has to get drained out. It's very time consuming. So I don't know that this would really change anything about baseball at all. As a person who both works in baseball and works from home, having more day games seems fine. But I also think that if we're still in some version of lockdown next year when baseball rolls around, they should just have more day games anyway.

And that shouldn't be about making the leagues different. It should just be about, hey, you're all trapped in your dumb houses still. Yeah. Yeah. Hiroshi also suggested like a zigzag batting order, like a snake draft sort of thing where it goes like up and then down and people bat back to back, which we sort of already talked about. offensive minded up the middle players to build deep lineups i think my head would explode when a number nine hitter executes a perfect bunt to set up the situation for the next batter who is himself which would certainly be strange he also said reversed innings so the the home team hits at the top of the inning the away team can walk off which that's i mean i guess it might have interesting like home field advantage implications or something, but I just, it's so confusing. It would be so confusing. Like that happened sometimes this year we talked about when it was like, oh, wait, this is a seven inning and who's the away team? And am I watching an NL game or an AL game? And everything would be backwards. A lot of these is just like, I don't want to be confused that much.

The nice thing about pitcher hitting was that for most of the time, it just looked like regular baseball. And then there was a really incompetent hitter up there every now and then. And it was really easy to tell the difference between the leagues it wasn't really disorienting so that's a drawback of this also yeah poor dan just figured out how to do home field with no fans and then we're gonna switch it up on him and he's gonna have to rework zips again and i i think i'm gonna pass on this one if only because i care about the sleep and mental health of the people i work with yeah right all right well i think that was all of them sorry if

i left anyone out and someone is listening to this and and it's sparking something in them and they're thinking i will write in with my suggestion now and don't feel the need to do that. We got a lot. And if you do have a brilliant idea for how baseball could be different, feel free to send that in. But it does not have to be in the context of how we could differentiate the leagues, which is probably on the whole a less interesting question. That is such a polite way of saying like enough with

emails we love your emails yes we rely on the emails in the off season but uh i think maybe we've exhausted this particular topic and unless you've got a really great one we look forward to the the next thinker that you send our way on a new subject so that we can expand our minds in a way that we haven't been able to yet. All right. Let's take a quick break and we will be back with Rain Pacham to talk about how she throws so hard. And you will hear the rain Come back to me once more And throw away the pain

My world will still be far around you Listen to the rain Take time To listen to the rain Listen to the rain To listen to the rain Take the time, baby To listen to the rain All right, so as promised, we are joined now by Rain Patcham.

Hey, Rain, how's it going? It's going pretty good. So I want to start with the pitch, the pitch that brought you to our attention and brought you to a lot of people's attention. And for all I know, you're sick of talking with the pitch, the pitch that brought you to our attention and brought you to a lot of people's attention. And for all I know, you're sick of talking about this pitch, or maybe you've surpassed this pitch since. But since it got you a lot of attention, I wanted to ask about the circumstances. So you threw 83 miles per hour. Where was it? How did it happen? And what were the effects of that pitch?

Yeah, so this happened at a Baseball BC camp back in September. It was in the Wally area, which is in Surrey, BC. And I was throwing a bullpen with my coach and a couple other people that were there. And Anthony, the coach there, he told me just to throw as hard as I could. And well, I threw the ball and it just came out as 83. And I was like pretty surprised about it. And everyone was like, wow, that's pretty cool. And yeah.

Did you know how hard you threw it? Or did you think you threw a certain speed and you surprised yourself? Well, I have actually never, to my knowledge, passed 80 before. So the last time I checked, I threw mid to high 70s. So I was pretty surprised at myself when I hit 83. And had there been any changes in how you were practicing or conditioning that you think contributed to the jump and velocity? Or were you just keeping on doing what you had been doing for years?

Yeah. So especially with COVID, I guess, happening, me and my brother went out and did a lot more conditioning and working in gym, lifting weights and everything. I'm pretty sure that contributed a lot to how I did that. And so that news got around, did that put pressure on you? Did it open up any new opportunities for you? I mean, have there been ramifications for your career in any way? I mean, yeah, I'm pretty sure I guess there is because, you know, it's always good for athletes to get their name out there so that they can, you know, succeed, have more opportunities for their like future and everything. It definitely did for me. And I'm just looking to improve from where I am right now, even with being at this level right now. being at this level right now.

And let's backtrack a little bit for the folks who aren't familiar with your story. How did you get to this level? How long have you been playing baseball and how did you get into the sport? I've been playing baseball for maybe a little over 12 years now. And I got into playing baseball when I was, I think, three years old. And it was my dad who mainly got me into the sport. But he used to play. My mom played when she was younger as well. And me and my brother played together. When did you start pitching? And do you pitch exclusively? Or do you also play a position in the field and take at-b so I started pitching I think you know around four or five like year after I started playing because you know you're starting you're just

starting to learn you know about the game and everything like that and I definitely do more than pitching I play a little bit of the infield outfieldfield, I hit as well. And did you take to it immediately? I mean, was it a passion from the get-go or did you? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was. Yeah, I always enjoyed going out and throwing the ball out with my dad and my mom. There's like that. I'm curious sort of what the composition of the teams

that you've played on over the years has been and how is it how it has changed do you play on a co-ed team now are you playing with other girls how how does that work because i imagine the system in canada is probably not all that different from the u.s but i'm curious who who it is that you're playing with now yeah so right now i play on an all boys team as the only girl. And through the winter and spring and most of summer, that's the only thing that's running is the boys' teams. Sure.

And Canada does have a girls' program, but it only runs late summer to early fall, and that's only for going to like participating in nationals and Westerns and things like that. And so have you had to be the first many times? I mean, have you broken into various leagues or competitions where you were the first girl or the only girl or one of the few? I guess, what are some of the times that you've had to do that? girl or one of the few, I guess, what are some of the times that you've had to do that? Yeah, so that's happened a couple times. I believe the first was when I was 12. I was the first girl to play on both the boys' BC team and the girls' BC team at a Western Championship. And then a year later, I was one of the first girls to play at the 13 UAAA National Championship.

And continuing through that, I am also the first girl to play at my boys league, which is for the Fraser Valley Cardinals or the Abbotsford Cardinals now. And I know that you had the opportunity to compete in the Trailblazers program, the program that MLB does. What was that experience like? Oh, that experience was absolutely amazing. You know, I, like, California is a pretty long trip, especially because I drove down there all the way from BC. Yeah. And it was amazing to see so many other girls out there

playing the same sport that I love. And I just got to, you know, interact with them and play against them, which was amazing. And we got, you know, some coaches out there, which was really cool. We got to stay and like play over near like Compton College, which was really cool. And yeah, everything about that was just amazing. So I guess you're used to it now and you've handled it so well that there's almost no need to worry about it, I suppose, at this point. But was this ever a difficulty for you? I mean, did you have to overcome any sort of psychological hurdles or any other hardships in order to sort of break into

these leagues and either convince people that you belonged as much as anyone else or, you know, any sort of hurdles that someone else might not have had to go through? Well, for me, it hasn't been so much like that. I mean, there's always the thing with, you know, been so much like that. I mean, there's always the thing with, you know, playing on all boys teams with just being like the only girl, they might not want to talk to you at first because, you know, you're a girl, I don't want to talk to you or whatever. And it takes a bit for them to get used to it because, you know, being the only girl and everything. And after like maybe a few games or practices, they see that I can actually compete. And then they start warming up to it and just thinking of me as just another player.

And on some occasions, there's been a coach or two that may like see me as like not really as a lower kind of player. But they don't know what I'm capable of until I show them kind of thing. I would imagine that having the support of your parents has been instrumental in kind of navigating those moments, right? It sounds like the family's really invested in you being able to play the way you want to. Yeah, it has been. We talked about the fastball. What else do you throw? Yeah, you want to. Yeah, it has been.

We talked about the fastball. What else do you throw? I throw a couple off speeds. My pitching, like the certain pitches I throw have changed over the years. I used to throw a knuckleball, but I haven't been focusing on that. I've been focusing on a curveball changeup, some of the more basic ones, and then starting to adjust them to see what I can do with them. Do you anticipate sticking with pitching or do you like being able to to do both? I really like pitching but I would love to stick with playing other positions as long as like as

long as I can because obviously when you get into like university, if I ever do, they sort of like, you know, narrow it down to one position or maybe just two positions so that, you know, other people have other positions and everything that they're like really good at. So if I have an opportunity to play, you know, pitcher and say second base or pitcher in center field or something, I would definitely take that. And have you picked up your pitches primarily from your parents or have you had any private coaching or is it coaches on your team who've helped you out? Yeah, it's kind of been all around the place with different pitches because all different coaches, you know, have different ways of teaching and not every single grip or the way you throw the ball

will work for everyone. So, you know, everyone gives little suggestions, little tips here and there. And I just try to like change everything up, see what works best for me and just work with that. And then if when I find like what works best, they help me, you know, enhance that so I can get like the best result from it. It sounds like you're playing baseball almost year round, but do you play any other sports besides baseball? Are there any that you've done that you found have been useful to sort of cross train when you're not playing with one of

your teams? Yeah. So I play at school, I play volleyball, rugby, and football. Wow. Yeah. I know that the conditioning and agility things that come with rugby and football wow yeah um i know that the conditioning and agility things that come with rugby and football have really helped with you know speed being fast you know changing directions and everything like that sure yeah volleyball it's really fun to play too and you know with spiking and everything your arm speed gets up there and, you know, all sports are beneficial, I think. Yeah. I was going to ask it when it comes to building velocity.

I'm sure if you've just got a great arm, maybe, but also you practice a ton and you play a ton and you work out a ton. So are there any specific throwing regimens or exercises that you feel have been especially helpful for you? Yeah, there's a few. I know a lot of people know about plyo and using medicine balls and everything like that. That's typically for after you throw or before, and that's a good way to get yourself warmed up to it. It definitely helps a lot with, you know, different mechanics and things to do with throwing. And with practicing, I know that just getting reps in has really helped me get there because my brother's a catcher and we just go out and throw the ball like as much as we can. And that that just really helps too. You mentioned that COVID has sort of disrupted or changed your training regimen. What does the next couple of months look like for you in terms of how much you're going to be able to play in games? Do you have a sense of that yet?

We're not really sure because the baseball associations and everything are just still trying to decide within the next couple of weeks where we can sit at. But we are trying to, you know, since winter gets pretty cold, I'm sure it gets colder over there too. But yeah, we're just trying to train inside as much as possible just so we can keep moving while everything goes over and slows down and everything. Sure. Having a catcher brother has to be helpful with that. Yeah, definitely. It definitely is. And are there any guidelines that you stick to when it comes to trying to take care of your arm and your health? I know that there are certain recommendations maybe for people in various age groups about, you know, you should throw this type of pitch or you shouldn't throw that type of pitch or sticking to strict pitch

counts and that sort of thing. Do you just kind of air it out or are there certain, I guess, practices that you stick to to try to make sure that you're keeping your arm healthy for the long haul? Yeah. So when it gets cold like this this we typically just throw less pitches you know stay under 30 for right now just you know keeping the arm moving as through winter and then as it gets like colder starts to snow we stop throwing and we just work on strengthening our arms you know a lot of stretching things like that just so we can like get, you know, moving still and getting ourselves ready for when we get back into throwing for the spring. This might betray my ignorance of the way that the system works in Canada, but I'm curious,

it sounds like you've had a lot of opportunities to play baseball and to be able to continue to do that even if you end up playing on boys teams. Has there been any pressure to switch to softball as an alternative or have you been able to just stay the course and stick with baseball? I remember like a couple years ago I actually started to play softball and baseball at the same time and I was looking because at the time there wasn't like much out there for opportunities for like women in baseball. So I was looking for that as a way to, you know, get into university if it comes down to that. But I was never really pressured by anyone or like any coach or anything like that to make a switch over. anything like that to make a switch over. I was very lucky to be able to, you know, train and everything like that to maintain my abilities and keep competing with everyone that's around me so

I was able to stay in baseball. I know that some people aren't, they have to switch over because they don't necessarily, like, they can't really keep up with anything else but they love the game so much but they just can't anymore and when you are playing against boys are there certain reactions that you tend to get from opposing players you know maybe when you shut them down and is that something that motivates you in any way? Yeah. So, yeah, that happens a lot of the time when I was younger. When I'm older now, it doesn't happen so much because, you know, they're better at controlling themselves. But, yeah, seeing them get angry after me striking them out or me hitting off them or something like that, It definitely gives you a lot of confidence afterwards. But yeah, it's not so much anymore though.

You mentioned the possibility of playing baseball at the university level. And we promise we won't hold you to this because young people change their minds all the time. But is that the direction you'd like to go to play at the collegiate level and then perhaps professionally? Yeah, definitely. And what would be the next step? I read elsewhere that maybe you would have a chance to play on the senior national team. Is that right? Would that be kind of the next step? Or I guess what would be your long-term aspirations? Yeah, so right now I'm too young to play there. But as of next July, I will definitely be looking to make the senior

women's national team and hopefully play there, go to a World Cup and possibly maybe even take home gold is definitely a goal for me and a lot of my teammates there. And are there more opportunities internationally, overseas? I know that Japan, for instance, has a professional women's baseball league and has had for some time. And there are some NPB teams that are sponsoring women's teams there now. So would that be a goal to play there potentially? Or are you hoping that you can stay on this side of the Pacific and find plenty of places to play and potentially down the road get drafted or signed by a big league team or in a D league?

Yeah. So I'm just looking to be able to, you know, continue playing baseball as possibly like a profession or something like that. Obviously, the big hope is for, you know, the MLB or professionally somewhere in the United States. But if I am given the chance to overseas, like in Japan, I would definitely take that. And can you give us a sense of, I guess, you know, because people might not know the sort of scale or the average range in their heads. But when you threw 83, I guess you probably have learned after that, you know, well, what's the fastest that has ever been recorded and how do I measure up? So what's your understanding, I guess, of how close to the top of the scale you are? So my understanding is that like the fastest female pitch was around like 82 to 85, as far as I know. And that's from a, you know, adult woman and me being only 15. only 15, I like, it's really surprising and everything to be able to throw so close to,

you know, a really, you know, developed and skilled person like that. And yeah. Yeah. And do you have a goal or a number that you think you can get to or want to get to? Or is it better not to think that way? I know that, you know, sometimes maybe if it gets in your head that you're just thinking about what the radar gun says, maybe that can adversely affect your performance in some way. Yeah, it can affect performance sometimes. But there's always people that tend to say, you know, stick to small numbers, small goals. And there's others that say, you know, go big or go home. And I'm me personally, I keep it, you know, small in a range where it's like, other like five to like six or eight miles per hour faster than I am right now. So my next goal would be to reach over 85 and then possibly 88 and then keep going from there. MLB who maybe know you from, from the pipeline series to, you know, offer further coaching

opportunities? Has anyone tried to reach out to help you try to get to 85 and then 88? Um, there has been some where I I haven't really gotten that much, I wouldn't say. And are you usually or often recording how fast you're throwing? I mean, if you're just throwing with your brother or something, will you get a radar gun out? Or is that kind of not that frequent an occurrence for you to have one of your pitches tracked? Well, I don't really track my pitches that often. When I got gunned at 83, that had been the first time I was gunned in a really long time. And are there any particular players you've modeled yourself after or look up to or particularly enjoy watching?

In the MLB, definitely there's been players in the past that I definitely look up to, like, you know, Ichiro, Jeter, and all that. I definitely looked up to Claire Eccles in the past few years as she was, like, the first female to play for, like, Harbour Cats and everything, which was really cool. And yeah, every single like I know another girl from Canada has played universally in the States, which I also look up to. There's like that. We would be remiss if we let you go without asking about your wonderful pink hair. if we let you go without asking about your wonderful pink hair, anyone who Googles you after listening to this is going to no doubt see a picture of you with just this flowing mane of pink.

So tell us the story behind the pink hair because it seems to be a very intentional choice. Yeah. Yeah, I first started dyeing my hair when I was around six years old. So that's quite a lot of hair dye but yeah so growing up I had like pretty short brown hair and you know playing baseball not a lot of women play baseball so everyone thought I was just another little boy playing and then they might strike someone out like who's that boy pitching everything and then I just dyed my hair pink so everyone would know I'm a girl.

And I guess are you used to being an object of such attention now, you know, to have people, media people like us just reaching out out of the blue to talk to you? Did you start doing that at such an early age that it's just totally natural now? Oh, I wouldn't say it's a natural. It's definitely a lot to get used to still. Yeah. I'm not one for cameras and all, but I have to kind of deal with it somehow. Yep. I guess if you're going to keep playing this well and throwing this hard, the cameras will find you. Well, thank you very much for your time and joining us and fitting us in between school and practice and everything else that you're doing. And we will link to articles about you and videos of your pitches, and we will look forward to your progress. So great talking to you, Rainn. Thank you. Yeah, no, thank you for having us.

It was really cool. All right, that will do it for today and for this week. Thanks as always for listening. And thanks to Rainn for coming on. Always happy to have Canadians on the podcast as a dual citizen myself. I forgot to ask Rainn if she's a fan of the show Pitch, as Meg and I are.

But maybe she can do for baseball players what Kim Ang did for baseball executives. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectivelywild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some small monthly amount to help keep the podcast going and get themselves access to

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and we will be back to talk to you early next week. The other half of you The other half of you The other half of you The other half of you The other half of you The other half The other half The other half