Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1681: Ghost Runners in the Sky

Episode Date: April 15, 2021

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the unanticipated charms of podcast faves Willians Astudillo and Shohei Ohtani, Trevor Bauer’s (and the league’s) spin rates increasing despite MLB’s threatened foreign substance crackdown, the confounding behavior of the new, supposedly deadened baseball, and the news that the mound will be moved back and the “double hook” […]

One word can't follow the other Can't keep you from falling down There were some good things You could learn from your brother And some you only learn for yourself Like how falling Can make you grow stronger How loss can make you know what you really had

How nostalgia can make you grow stronger The things you never got to be had Hello and welcome to episode 1681 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Van Grasse presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Raleigh of Van Grasse. Hello, Meg. Hello. I was just reflecting on the fact that my two sons, Shohei Otani and William Testadio, are both so lovable and delightful, which is not something I knew when I first became infatuated with them. And I feel so blessed that they both turned out to be such enjoyable humans and really

watchable players as well. Not only are they good and talented in the ways that I was interested in them for, but also they are incredible spectator experiences, which is just like a bonus on top of everything else. Because when I first got interested in Williams, I didn't know that everything he did would be gif-able and meme-able. I didn't know that. I knew that he had weird slash stats and he never struck out. That's about all I knew. I guess I knew what his dimensions, his listed dimensions were, but I don't think I'd ever seen him. Both of these guys, I fell in love with sight unseen, really. Otani, because he was a two-way player and he was so good

at both of those things. And then it turns out that not only have they delivered as advertised in many ways, statistically speaking, but also you can't take your eyes off of either of them. And I was thinking of that this week because Williams had a game where he was memed multiple times, like once for sliding into first base in delightful fashion and once for chasing after a pop-up, which he did not catch, but just watching him try to catch it. For some reason, he pulled off his cap to go after it, which I don't know if that's just like his catching instincts and his impulse to take off his helmet, which he was not actually wearing his mask. And so he took off his cap and he was running and his man bun was waving in the wind and his face was so expressive. And then he did not reach it, but he got to the wall and he just sort of you know not incredibly athletically looking sprawled over the wall and then like a matter of minutes later i see another tweet and suddenly he has slid into first base and is safe and i don't know that i've

seen anyone do exactly what he did there like usually when players slide into first base, they're sliding head first to try to be safe. They think it will make them faster. And there's a whole cottage industry of people who are trying to figure out, is it actually faster? And some people say no. And some people say yes. It's a negligible difference. But he went in feet first because the first baseman was pulled off the bag to catch a high throw. And Williams went in under the first baseman was pulled up off the bag to catch a high throw. And Williams went in like under the first baseman's legs between them and he was safe and it was great. And it's just like whatever he does, even if he doesn't get a hit, which in that case he did, but even just routine plays are not routine when he is doing them. And it's the same with Shohei who had another

impressive game this week where he had an Acuna infield single, like the one that we talked about on our last episode, where he just beat out what looked like a routine grounder. And then he also hit a 430-foot something home run in the same game. But also, he got gift because he was cold and he was doing like a, it's cold and I'm chilly motion. And I don't know, maybe it's just like when I am so obsessed with their stats already, I am inclined to just like them as people and as spectator experiences. But I don't think it's just me.

These people are like beloved by the internet. Yeah, I think that we might say that Astadio's fame is not quite as high profile, that his star does not shine quite as bright. But yeah, you managed to pick, you know, you just did a lot better than I did, Ben. The players that people associate with me, it's not always... Like Estadio. Yeah, that doesn't always go so well. But yeah, I think that when one is endeavoring to hitch one's wagon to a particular player,

having a guy who is multifaceted, you're just more likely to see that player sort of come across the transom and have him endear himself to the baseball viewing public when he can do multiple things. And like Otani's the pinnacle of that because he hits and he pitches. But also he's, as we've talked about, probably an underratedly good base runner. And he is both an imposing physical presence, but also seems to delight in the game and kind of understand that he is on camera

and play up to that a little bit. And then Astadio is just he's just astadio so yeah you you manage to select um select very well and i hope that uh i i would imagine that over the course of 162 games the the gif ability of otani will will outpace that of astadio but you can't really go wrong with either right now. Right. Astadio gets gift more often for his expressions and his appearance and his hustle. And then Otani, who gets gift because he hits the ball 119 miles per hour and throws 102. But also gets gift because he hugs people and he looks happy and he smiles.

And so, yeah, I just feel lucky. I really lucked out with both of these guys who I developed an attachment to for reasons entirely unrelated to their appearance or what they would be like to watch or how they were as people. And then it turns out that at least as far as we can tell from afar, they both seem like very delightful people and teammates and people who just really draw your eye whenever they're on the screen for any number of reasons. So I feel quite lucky that it turned out that way.

Who can I pick? Who can I pick and switch my allegiance to? I mean, I can't do it now. See, the other strength of the pick is that it implies conviction because you did see them sort of sight unseen. And so you're, you know, no one's accusing you of jumping on a bandwagon or chasing the hot new thing. No one's accusing you of that. They're just like, you know who's synonymous with shouyou town? Ben Lindbergh.

Right. Yeah. It's like my attachment to them was pure it was not based on superficial things like appearance it was based on their stats and and how they played and then it turns out that i love them for who they are as people as well as who they are on a stat line it's like uh it's like that netflix reality show love is blind where uh you like someone based on who they are on a stat line. It's like that Netflix reality show, Love is Blind, where you like someone based on who they are without actually seeing them. And then it turns out, well, it's a reality show, so everyone's pretty good looking anyway. But in this case, it's just an added bonus that both of these guys are so much fun in addition to being statistical outliers. So that's my little outpouring of affection for Williams and Shohei for today.

And Shohei threw a bullpen session and it seemed to go well. So hopefully he will be back on the mound sometime soon. I will point out that when I have not watched Love is Blind because I'm not a huge reality TV person. I thought that they stayed blindfolded the whole time but i'm come to understand that they are only blindfolded for a very short portion of that show but then like you said they're all hot anyway so um the stakes are as low as they could possibly be but since they're hot the whole time they should just have them they should just have them blindfolded the whole time

so then at the end it's like you're really invested. And then if one of them proves to be shallow, it would be very devastating. But it would be better TV, I would think, than after I don't know how many dates. And then they go, oh, wow, you're only sort of super hot. So I guess this isn't going to work out. I don't know. The contestants, to be fair, did not know that everyone would be hot, I suppose, unless they were assured of that beforehand. But I guess they could have guessed not to digress too far into reality show discourse here, but they should have kept us all in the dark. It should have just been a black screen for the first

few episodes where even we could not see the people talking to each other. And then there would be the grand unveiling, but not sure how many people would have actually stuck with watching that show. So that's probably why we're not reality TV show producers. People like podcasts, Ben. That's true. They might have stuck with it. So anyway, reality TV with Ben and Meg. I often hear that I look different from how I sound from people. people so i never know what to make of that comment like i never i never know what my response should be like what is the socially accepted or even expected response to that when people are like you look different than you sound like thank you i don't know if that's good or bad

i know do i look better do i look worse is that good or bad like does that mean i i sound unattractive in some way i don't know i i I would like to point out that this is a mystery that both of us are content to not have an answer to. Just in case anyone listening is like, let me tell you exactly what the deal is, guys. We're good. Thank you. We're good. Thank you. You're so kind.

So we wanted to get to some emails today, and we will. Just a few newsy things on my mind here. a few newsy things on my mind here. I was kind of curious to see whether Trevor Bauer's spin rates would decline at all after he very publicly had some baseballs confiscated during his previous start. And it turns out that the answer is no, not at all. In fact, his spin rates, if anything, increased in his most recent starts against the Rockies. His fastball and slider spin rates were a little bit higher than they had been this season coming into that start. So if you were wondering whether it would be a deterrent for a pitcher to have baseballs confiscated during their start for suspicion of sticky substances, this is one data point to say,

no, apparently not. And really, league-wide, there has been an increase in spin rates again this year, which happens pretty much every season, whether it is because teams are doing a better job of targeting pitchers who have high spin rates or teaching them to improve their spin rates, or maybe pitchers are loading up on more foreign substances. Whatever the reason is. Spin rates seem to increase every season, and this season is no exception. So if you were curious about whether the announcement that MLB would really be monitoring and cracking down on spin rates this year, or at least monitoring spin rates to crack down on foreign substance use, whether that would give any pitchers second

thoughts about doing whatever it is that they are doing. The answer seemingly is no, not yet at least. Well, I mean, maybe they're wanting to establish a high spin baseline. Yeah. Well, if they're new, I just think that if there were any pitchers who were worried about, oh, they're going to suddenly start inspecting this or because it's not just that they're monitoring the spin rates, right? Supposedly they have like

inspectors on the premises who are, yeah, keeping an eye out for foreign substances. And at least so far that has not produced any apparent difference in league wide spin rates and strikeout rates are way up again, as we speak, 24.7% of plate appearances this season have ended in a strikeout. That is up from 23.4% last season. And some of that's expected because pitchers are hitting again in the NL. And some of it is expected because it's happened for the past 15 consecutive seasons. So no reason not to expect it to happen again. But yeah, if that was part of the motivation

for that announced crackdown, it has not produced any corresponding decrease in spin rates or strikeout rate, just in case anyone was wondering. Perhaps the league is trying to lull them into a false sense of security. Right, catch them sticky-handed and then suddenly there will be a sting and they'll get everyone at once, round them all up.

Yeah. Because, you know, they wouldn't want to give the appearance that their enforcement was targeted. So perhaps they're—I'm so snarky. Perhaps they're waiting to get, you know, to get a lot of balls. Well, if that is what's happening, it seems to be working because they have indeed lulled everyone into a sense of security because no one has stopped doing what they were doing, as far as we can tell, based on the data. And I should say that the ball itself may be playing a part here. Right. may be playing a part here. And I wanted to talk briefly about the baseball and how it is behaving. The new baseball, which is behaving in some different ways

and some not different ways, it seems like the ball itself may be enhancing spin rate a little bit, but also it's having all sorts of other strange effects. And I feel somewhat vindicated thus far because the results seem to align pretty well with what Rob Arthur and I found when we wrote about this at the end of spring training. And our conclusions then were semi-tenuous because in spring training, they use a mix of balls, some new baseballs, some old baseballs. And of course, it's different weather and different ballparks and different quality of competition. So you can't draw really firm conclusions. But spring training league-wide rates when it comes to hom balls or fly balls was the highest on record going back more than 15 years. And what we seem to detect based on StatCast data, which was available for some spring training parks this year for the first time, is that exit velocities were up and drag was up. And this was kind of confusing because MLP put out a memo, or at least leaked a memo, that they were trying to decrease the coefficient of restitution of the ball, that is the bounciness

of the ball. And that is what corresponds closely to exit velocity. So they said they were sort of loosening the winding on the outer layer of the ball and that based on their laboratory testing, this would decrease the core. And therefore, one would expect that there would be lower exit velocities. And in fact, the opposite has happened. Exit velocities are up across the league. And yet at the same time, the drag on the ball seems to be up as well. So basically, balls are being hit harder, but are not carrying as well as they would have given the same exit speed. And the net effect is a little tough to suss out because again,

it's still snowing in some places this week and the temperature affects how far the ball carries. But based on what we've seen so far, if you do direct comparisons to through this point in previous seasons, which you can't really do for 2020 because the season started in late July, but for previous seasons, it looks like the home run per fly ball rate or home run per batted ball rate this year is really not down at all. It's maybe slightly down compared to 2019, which is the record year, but it's higher compared to every previous season. So the ball still seems pretty darn juiced. But if anything, it seems like MLB has maybe been bailed out by the fact that the drag is higher on the ball because if not for that, we'd be seeing even more offense and even more home runs. And it's just another

example of when MLB does something to the ball or doesn't do something to the ball, but the ball changes anyway. It just does not seem like they really have a handle on how to change this thing or what the effects will be because they tried to deaden it and the opposite happened. It seems to be bouncier than usual and the drag is up, but that doesn't seem to have been intentional either. They didn't mean to tamper with the drag and it isn't even clear whether they really tested the drag, which is another thing that some team sources Rob and I talked to were sort of raising their eyebrows about. So basically, the ball still seems to be pretty juiced, maybe not quite at 2019 levels, but certainly comparable to last year or any of the other

seasons during this lively ball era. And this just seems to be more evidence that MLB, even though it controls Rawlings now, just doesn't really seem to be able to decide what it wants the ball to do or how it wants it to behave. They seem to be, in some respects, more transparent about what they're trying to do. We went in on the lookout. We went into spring training being like, we got to take a peek at this baseball because we knew that it was going to be different. And so in some respects, they seem to be taking a very different tact there, both in terms of what they're communicating directly to clubs and then what they're trying to do, which is to create seemingly a preferred offensive environment.

There seems to be something that they are managing toward, even if they're not really articulating it in exactly that way. So on that score, it is a pretty dramatic policy shift, for lack of a better term, because what we've complained about in the past and what I think has been frustrating for a lot of folks who have observed this is that it was clear that something was different and it was measurable that it was different and we could tell the league how different it was and what the effect was on league-wide offense and i think that you know there's so many smart researchers that do work in this space that we were able to go to them and say like here's what we've found and then they'd be like you know just to like very precisely quote

uh rob manfred there there we go and so that was very frustrating for a lot of different reasons not the least of which was that we felt like we were being kind of gaslit about the whole thing at a moment when we have a cultural appreciation for gaslighting that we find very distasteful so i think that in in some respects, this is certainly preferable, but it just it does remain somewhat confounding that that there is this much variation and that there seems to be such poor handle on how to anticipate what that variation might be and what they need to test for, because there are people working in the public space who seem to have a very good understanding of that and are saying in articles like this is what you should look for and this is how you should test it and this is what you should

do and you know they're like academic departments that have machines that shoot baseballs at stuff to try to figure out like what the you know what changes in the core are going to mean in terms of the flight of the ball so it's a very odd bit of business and i don't want to suggest that there has been so much consistency in the baseball over time that we've never seen it move around before because we know that we have. But the degree of change, the magnitude of the changes that we have seen over the last couple of years seems so bizarre when, as you said, they now have direct control over the company that manufactures the baseball. Yep.

So it's just very strange. I mean, when Justin Choi wrote about this for us at Fangraphs and Ben followed up on his research today. And when Ben filed the title of his pieces, the new ball is confusing. And it is. This is very strange. It is. Yeah. Yeah. There just hasn't been a lot of transparency.

And Rob Manford said, I think, back in 2019, like, if we do change the ball, if we do so intentionally, then you'll know about it. We will announce it. And that kind of is the case. But, like, even this year. It wasn't an announcement. No, it wasn't. It was a leaked memo. No, it wasn't. It was a leaked memo. And the memo itself seems to possibly have been prompted by the fact that Stephanie Epstein was writing an article for Sports Illustrated based on Meredith Wills' research, and their inquiry seemed to prompt that memo being sent. I don't know for sure that that was the link there, but the timing was suggestive. And then MLB never announced anything. They just had this memo sent to teams, which was then leaked. And I assume that they either intended for it to be leaked or they knew that it would be leaked. But it was still this strange situation where like there is an MLB.com article about this change to the ball that cited an AP report about the leaked memo. It wasn't just MLB putting out a press release saying, hey, we slightly dead the ball, or at least we intended to. And so it was this really roundabout thing where the league just will not just be up front and say, yeah, here's what we're that we have these really precise ways to measure the ball's behavior.

And so we're hyper aware of these things that in the past we wouldn't have been aware of. And I'm sure there was always substantial fluctuation from ball to ball and season to season. But there has never been a ball that has behaved the way that the ball has behaved for the last several seasons because the home run rate has never been nearly this high. And yeah, part of that is the velocities and the players being big and strong and launch angles and all of that, but only part of it. And the initial increase was entirely based on the drag of the ball, at least according to the conclusion of the MLB commissioned study about that. So it's a very strange situation. But in

addition to seeing higher exit veloes and more barrels and all of that this year, we're also seeing more pitch movement. And that's something that Rob and I also noticed in spring training, that it seems like perhaps whatever is producing this higher drag on the ball is also making it move more. And that could be related to the substantial increase in strikeout rates as well. So all of this is quite connected. And if the goal was to really significantly deaden the ball so that there would be fewer home runs, so that it would encourage hitters to take a more contact-oriented approach, then I think thus far that has mostly been a failure. I mean, they only ever said it would be a subtle effect, but

really we have hardly seen any effect there. And to the extent that the ball is moving more and is missing more bats, then that is going against what the goal was. So it's a tricky situation because if you do deaden the ball all of a sudden and don't do anything else, then you will get just a cratering of offense and no one really wants that either. But there's really just a whole industry that is revolving around studying the ball. And it seems like a lot of that work is being done publicly more so than internally before they actually start using the ball and change the ball. It's like talking to the people with front offices. They're just like, yeah, MLB is just going to do what it does. And we'll just have to figure out what the actual

effects of that will be. So it's a conundrum and I get why they're semi-sensitive about it because it is like the most fundamental piece of equipment in the sport and they don't want the reputation of not being able to control it but that really seems to be the reality it's just it is the most important piece of equipment though and so you have to be i just i think that people like being treated like grown-ups and so it would be nice for them to just say here's what we're trying to do here's what we tried to do to do it and kind of go from there rather than being so cagey about the whole thing i just don't really understand like what they expect this particular approach to ultimately do for them and so i'd rather they say like yeah i don't know at least if they said i don't know then like we would we would be able to go with that but they

don't want to do that because they don't want to be seen as being cavalier and they don't want to be seen as as not having tight control over such a fundamental part of the game but at least it would be honest. Yeah. Well, at least they're no longer pretending that it's about batting orders changing or global warming or whatever explanations they were throwing out in 2016, 2017. Once they commissioned a study with a bunch of statisticians and scientists, and then that panel said, no, it seems to be the ball. Then when that was released by MLB, they could no longer really pretend it was anything else and still sort of tried to sweep it under the rug a little bit, but at least weren't actively putting

out misinformation, which was an improvement. So I will link to some of the studies that have been done. Just wanted to give an update on that because it's tough. Sometimes you'll see people will compare home runs per game and that can skew things because A, games are shorter now because you've got some seven inning games. You've got games with fewer extra innings, so you can't really do a direct comparison there. And there are fewer balls being put in play because of all the strikeouts. If you don't make contact, you can't hit a home run. And also you have the weather, early April. Yeah. So if you do a comparison of the first couple of weeks of the season when it is snowing in some places to a full season metric, then you will see a false decrease there. But the trends just year over year, it seems like home runs are

still quite high. So that's the latest on that. And related to that, as I was just saying, if you change nothing but the ball, then you might get the bottom falling out of offense. And so I think it is imperative that you also change some other things. And at the top of my list is moving the mound back. And there was some news about that on Wednesday as well. So just to relay that report, MLB, in partnership with its partner league, the Atlantic League, will be testing moving the mound back this season in the second half of the Atlantic League season. So this is something that MLB tried to do a couple of years ago, and it fell apart at the last minute.

They were trying to move the mound back two feet that time, and pitchers balked and the league balked, and they were worried about a revolt or being blamed for injuries and workers' comp and all of that. So that didn't end up happening. And then, of course, last year there was no Atlantic League season. But when I wrote about moving the mound back during spring training, I got the sense that this was likely to happen again this year in the Atlantic League for real this time. And on Wednesday, we got confirmation. So it's just moving back one foot from 60 feet, six inches to 61 feet, six inches. feet, six inches. And it's happening August 3rd, I think is the second half of the Atlantic League season, which starts on May 27th. So that gives you kind of a control. You can see what things are like in the first half and then what things are like in the second half from one foot farther back. And I am very eager to see what the results of that are. And I'll link to my long piece where I sort of exhaustively went over the merits of this idea and the possible drawbacks of this idea. But I think that as a means of increasing contact, there's a lot to recommend it. And at some point, you do just have to put it into effect and see

what happens. What are your thoughts on the Atlantic League as a testing ground for this stuff just sort of generally? Yeah. Because I saw a couple of folks on Twitter bringing this up as an issue, and I think it merits a little bit of discussion that these are, you know, they are a partner league, but I can't imagine that compensation in the Atlantic League is particularly incredible. And, you know, these are guys who are trying to kind of hang on to a baseball career. This is often like the last port of call for many guys. Or, you know, they're undrafted free agents who are trying to get on a scout's radar and get signed into affiliated ball.

And I think we talked about how odd it must be to be a minor leaguer this year and after a year away from organized baseball for a lot of them, not for everybody, obviously, but for a lot of these guys to come back. And then the base is literally a different size depending on where you're at. And you have all these new rules about pickoffs. And if you have a guy with a lot of helium who is a fast riser, he's going to have different rules potentially at each level that he goes to. We express some concerns around that, but all of those guys are theoretically in the pipeline. They won't all make it to the majors. They won't all have productive big league careers even if they do,

but they're at least in the system in a way that contains the possibility of making it in a way that I think guys in the Atlantic League are like several degrees removed from. And so it does feel a little yicky to have them be the guinea pigs for this stuff because, you know, they're trying so hard to latch on an affiliated ball and then they like, you know know the mounds moved back right yes yeah i do understand that concern like from mlb's perspective the atlantic league i think is the perfect testing ground because it's the highest level domestic league that is not in affiliated baseball and so you've got this league with you know close to major league level players or or at least AAA-ish level players, so that you get a real sense of what the effects might be if you were to do this in affiliated baseball or in MLB. So it's perfect from their perspective. From the player's perspective, there are misgivings about this. And I think there is a downside to having players be guinea pigs, basically. And they know it's happening. So if they have really serious misgivings, I guess they could opt out and just not play there. But it's tough to tell players not to play there because there aren't and face high-level competition, you only have so many options. So it's tough to say, well, just go somewhere else because there's a study that was commissioned by MLB a couple of years ago, but was performed

by the American Sports Medicine Institute. Dr. Glenn Fleissig did a couple summers ago, I think, that looked at what happened to pitchers mechanics when they threw from mounds that were a little bit farther back. And they found that the pitchers kinematics did not differ significantly at the longer distances. They concluded it is unlikely that moving the mound backwards would significantly affect pitching biomechanics and injury risk. And we're talking about one foot here. I just I don't think there's any reason to think there would be a significantly elevated risk of injury. Now, if a pitcher does get hurt in this situation,

then they might blame the distance and you couldn't conclusively disprove that. I just think that there's really no reason for you to throw any different from how you would be throwing anyway. And maybe mentally, you would be more likely to try to throw even harder to compensate for the greater distance or something. But as MLB has pointed out, there's already some variation just based on where catchers set up from pitch to pitch or from catcher to catcher, where really you're just trying to throw the ball in a certain way, and then it gets stopped at a certain point. And so if you look at it that way, this isn't actually that different. It shouldn't really change what the pitcher's doing. It's not like you need to release the ball at a dramatically different angle

to have it end up in the same place when you're talking about one foot. So I don't think that it is actually that dramatic a change or that noticeable a change or that there's good scientific reason to expect it to increase injury rates. And so in that sense, I think it's a little overblown. And yet I'm also sympathetic to the idea that you are sort of using this as a laboratory, and there are real people who are trying to make a living and climb the ladder and everything. So it's not ideal to subject people to that,

to make players into test subjects. And I guess I would say that, you know, you do need to test this eventually somewhere at some point if you are going to get it done and see whether it works. And I do think it's important to test it. I guess I would just say that maybe there is an alternative in that maybe you can craft a specific situation to test this without actually having it be in a league like this. And I don't

know. I think this is probably the best test of it to actually have it in a high-level league. But I think if you were to just have a scrimmage or something and say, hey, we're welcoming volunteers here, you know, high level amateur players or ex-pro players or whatever, just come in and, you know, in advance, this is what we're going to do. We're trying to figure out what the effects of moved the mound back multiple times, and each time it seemed to have the intended effect of increasing contact and offense. And in softball, at really every level, men's and women's, they have moved the mound back multiple times, and it has had those same effects. So I tend to think that it will have those effects here. And for that piece I was writing, I collaborated with Driveline Baseball. And by collaborated, I really mean I just asked them to do a study and then reported the results of that study.

But they just basically had some hitters who were training in their facility face pitching machines that were a little farther back than usual and just measured the effects. And again, it seemed like they were able to make more contact and it all makes sense. And that's a case where no one is being subjected to strange conditions. And so I think that you could probably just test this in a real laboratory setting or in a game that was set up specifically to test this and have everything measured and not necessarily need to do it in a league like this. That would maybe be the ideal alternative. We need a lab league. We need lab league. Right. We need a dedicated lab league. Lab league. I mean, you have a lab league.

Doesn't mean anything. It only took like five times me saying it for it didn't stop sounding like words. I am encouraged by that bit of of of information about the injury thing i think it's more i don't know that i was even especially concerned about injuries so much as you know you just have guys who are going to have some amount of murk around their their performance relative to what it might have been if they had pitched under more normal circumstances and these are the guys who are perhaps the most keen to have clarity for scouts who might be in attendance to say oh that guy might still have something in tank we should take another peek at that dude so i think that part of it is maybe slightly more concerning but

i'm i i i should say i'm not unsympathetic to the challenge of needing to test this stuff and doing it in a setting that is somewhat akin to what we would see in the majors so that you can have a good sense of what the effects would be. Because as we've talked about, a lot of these changes come undone by their unintended consequences. And you don't want to implement a rule and then end up with egg on your face because it looks very different in practice than you thought it would in theory. And so I know that there has to be, like someone has to test it

because otherwise it's going to, we're going to have all this stuff that we don't know what it does and we're going to put it in games with guys whose careers also matter and we're hard won and we don't want them to be like, well, what the fuck is that?

Sorry, did I swear? So I guess what I am proposing is lab league. Lab league. Think of the t-shirts, Ben. Think of the t-shirts we could do. Lab league. And then, you know, if you pay those guys well and they go in, as you said, knowing like this is what we're here to do. We're here to help shape the future of baseball.

Well, then, you know, it's all fair game because everybody knows what they're getting into when they're there. And they're not trying to hang on. They're trying to advance our understanding of science. Really, they're scientists who happen to have a ball in their hand. So I think I'm advocating for Lab League. Yeah. Mostly because I like saying it. I like saying Lab League, even though it doesn't sound like words anymore. Sounds very sci-fi futuristic. Lab league. We should get the Blazeball guys to help us design lab league. And then I might actually understand Blazeball.

I still don't think I understand it. I think I still don't understand it. That's part of the point. I think that's right. I like the idea anyway. Just if we could somehow separate it from those concerns, which I know we can't really in this case, but I think the idea itself is sound and I'm very curious about the results just because I think we are going to see more strikeouts just because as we've mentioned many times,

pitchers are bigger than ever. They are releasing the ball closer to home plate than ever, and they are throwing harder than ever. And velocity is up again this year. And that could be related to the fact that the ball is a tiny bit smaller as well. That is MLB's change. That was one of the intended things is that the ball would be a tiny bit smaller. So that might be part of that too, but you're just not going to get contact if you have pitchers in effect getting closer and closer and throwing the ball harder and harder. So I think this will work. I think it will have the intended effect, but you do have to test it because there are people who think that breaking ball movement being increased will actually offset that effect. I tend to think that the slower appearance of velocity and the longer time that hitters will have to track the ball will more than make up for that, but we will see, and we will get to see sometime soon. And some people prefer to lower the mound because that

has a more recent precedent in MLB. The mound was lowered after the 1968 season, but Fleissig and ASMI also studied that, and they found that lowering the mound didn't really affect pitch movement, and so Fleissig's conclusion is that moving the mound back seems to be more efficacious than lowering it, and it's possible that the perception that lowering the mound really made a difference in 1969 just came about because they also shrank the strike zone that year. Plus there was expansion, so those things may have had more of an impact than the mound being lowered. What do you think of the other change that MLB will be testing in the Atlantic League this year, the so-called double hook rule, as it was dubbed by Jason Stark,

the idea of tying the designated hitter to the starting pitcher so that when the starting pitcher gets pulled, you lose your DH as well. I have a couple of thoughts. The first of which is don't look to the fan graphs comments that come up with rule changes, or if you're going to do that. And I don't say that to knock our commenters, many of whom are thoughtful and funny. You can't see them, but you assume they have a good head of hair. They have good head of hair vibe in the comments, but really don't look to our comments to come up with your role changes i know that this is not an idea that was invented their double hook is is not a totally new concept but someone said they saw it there first right yeah they they sure did and i said and i went oh no are you reading all

of our comments some of them have gotten very testy that seems like like a bad idea. So that's the first thing that I would say. I'm glad that this is being tested because my first reaction to it is if you look at the way that American League teams, like let's set aside the NL teams that had to sort of staff DH on the fly last year because that's not really a great point of comparison, although the lack of difference might actually be instructive so what do i know but i think that

the like dedicated dh is very rare these days um you know you can count on one hand the number of of al teams that really look at the designated hitter as you know a guy's position and they are staffing it sort of with his bat in mind i think that more often than not what we see is that the dh becomes a a place of kind of regular churn where you're cycling guys through who you know they need a day off from the field but you want to keep the bat in the lineup and so you stick him at dh for a little while or maybe you have a guy coming back from injury and you're trying to ease him into regular work after he's been on the injured list. And so you stick him at DH for a couple of days to kind of test him out and see how he's doing. And you know, that doesn't, that's not

necessarily a bad way to do it. I think that I like the Nelson Cruises of the world, right? Who are true boppers and they hit really well and they are dedicated designated hitters. But more often than not, we see that as like, you know, a backup catcher or a first baseman or, you know, the outfielder who needs a day off. So I think that if we have this rule, that's just going to continue. I would imagine it would accelerate that trend even further because if you have starters who continue to come out earlier and earlier, and I don't think this provides enough of a disincentive to keep your starter in the game longer,

which I imagine is what the rule is meant to do, right? Yeah, that's the purpose, I think. Right, you're supposed to be penalized for pulling your starter because you're going to take a good bat out of the lineup. And you are potentially taking a good bat out of the lineup just because the guys who staff DH are not dedicated DHs doesn't necessarily mean that all of them are bad although i think that if you look at the w the sort of league y wrc plus it or al y wrc plus over time at dh it has trended downward but you know i don't think that because it is fairly rare to have a guy there

to have a nelson cruz or j Jordan Alvarez or what have you, that you're not going to actually disincentivize teams from yanking their starter all that much earlier than they do because they probably are going to think about the relative diminishment of the lineup with a bench bat that they have to sub in when they start to do their swaps with pitchers versus the benefit that they get of having a guy not have to, say, face the top of the lineup a third time or what have you. And probably on balance, say, it's worth giving up the DH for us to do that. So I don't know that it's going to do all that much to change things.

And it does seem odd to be testing this at the same time that we all agree that at some point we're just going to have a universal DH. And part of the incentive there is that we're tired of watching pitchers hit. So it surprised me a little bit just because it seems like a solution in search of a problem. And if what you really want to do is incentivize teams to keep their starters in longer, well then just deal with that directly with how many pitchers you can have on the roster and what have you. It seems like a more effective and direct way of addressing this problem, especially given how teams treat the DH now.

So those are my thoughts. And once again, would just like to say that very bright people with good heads of hair, but maybe not where you want to find your rule changes. Although, Ben, a lot of them really hate the runner on second and to some of our commenters, we do have suggestions. But, you know, let us know that that's where you're looking and we'll organize them a little bit better is what I'm saying. So you don't have to go through some of the other bits of ephemera that find their way into our comment section. mentioned, I am sympathetic to the purpose, which is to keep starters in the game longer. I want to do that too. I'm just not sure that this will achieve that for the reasons you mentioned. And right, I'm also someone who's pretty anti-pitcher hitting. And so if this actually does lead to pitchers hitting more often, then I wouldn't really want that. And also, if you are making your lineup worse, once your starter gets pulled from the game, that might mean that you're at a disadvantage. Like if you lose your starter sooner, if you have to yank your starter sooner because he's not pitching well, then you may be

losing, you may be behind in that game. And so if then you're weakening your lineup relative to your opponent as well, then maybe you're making it a little less likely that you come back and make that game interesting in the late innings. So that could be another possible drawback there. And I could see it being good if, yeah, as you said, if it goes along with limits on how many pitchers you can have on your roster so that you could maybe have dedicated pinch hitters, which is almost an extinct breed at this point, but I would like to see the Matt Stairs type make a return. So if that happened, I would see that as a positive, and maybe there is a little bit more strategy that's injected into the game. So I like some aspects of it and dislike other aspects of it, and I guess that is an argument for testing it to see how it goes. But

like you, I tend to think that the actual effects probably will be pretty negligible and that it won't actually have a dramatic impact on starters staying in games longer. So I'm just not sure that it's worth it. But again, I'm not totally against it and am interested to see how it goes in practice. I think we're overly reliant on incentive-based regulation in baseball. It's like we keep coming in the back door on stuff. And it's like just if the problem is starters aren't in long enough for your liking, and as you said, there might just be, you know,

there are going to be games where through no fault of the teams, right, it's not that they're trying to yank their guy earlier that they hate starters or they're you know horny for relievers or whatever but like sometimes the guy just gets shelled and you have to pull him right and so it seems strange as you said to to penalize a team for that like not rare occurrence and put them in an even further at an either even further disadvantage in their attempt to come back but mostly it just seems like it's like are all the people who write mlb rules from the pacific northwest are like passive aggressive and afraid to to have a confrontation with the issue head-on i'm allowed to say that because i'm from seattle and sometimes we just

need to say what we mean just like use your words and write a rule about the thing rather than relying on incentives. Because every time we do that, it seems like the incentive gets warped. And then people are like, oh, incentives. I'm going to read that as a loophole. And I'll find a little bit of wiggle that I can use to implement a thing that makes everybody crazy later. So I just think, you know, use your words and say what you mean. Yeah. And I guess I'm kind of conservative when it comes to regulation in baseball.

Like I would prefer for these things to just work themselves out. Like, you know, one team comes up with some strategy that works really well and the other team's counter or pitchers get ahead, batters figure out a counter strategy, but it just doesn't work in effect. Like it doesn't even out. There isn't always a really effective counter strategy. So sometimes you actually do just have to change the rules. And lots of other sports do that all the time.

And MLB probably does that less than any others. And it probably needs to do that more. So let's get to a few emails here. We might just have to devote our next episode to emails too, because it always seems to happen. Then we set out to do emails and then we banter for most of the episode anyway. But a couple bits of feedback that we got from listeners to things that we discussed. So on our last episode, we talked about the idea of slide framing, right? That Joshian sort of gently mocked

the catcher framing adherence like us by saying, well, what if you add slide framing so that if Alec Bohm slides and doesn't actually touch the plate but is ruled safe, then you credit Bohm with some good slide framing.

And we sort of dismantled that idea a little bit. It's not really analogous for multiple reasons, but Andy writes in to point out that since the strike zone is invisible, framing takes advantage of the probabilistic, in a wave function or Schrodinger's cat way, edges of the strike zone. Home plate is perfectly visible on a slide play, and therefore much closer to a binary ones and zeros type of call. I suspect if a broad study were done, we could find a narrow probabilistic edge to a visible base or plate, but not enough to practically defend this slide framing idea.

To recap, the strike zone is invisible. Home plate is visible. Probabilistic edges are accepted for balls and strikes, but should not be considered for safe out calls, especially with replay available. And I think that is a good point, too. Of course, the strike zone is sort of visible if you're watching on TV and there's a box on the screen. But A, the umpire doesn't see that box, at least currently, although you could give the umpire some sort of VR, AR overlay if you wanted to. or some sort of VR, AR overlay if you wanted to.

But also the box rulebook strike zone does not actually reflect how the strike zone traditionally has been called. So I think that Andy makes a good point there. If someone touches the plate or doesn't touch the plate, you can in theory see that. Whereas with the strike zone, you are sort of superimposing an amorphous idea of a strike zone on what is in effect space in the moment yeah i think that um it's a terrific point and i think if you go back and listen to our prior answer this is actually exactly what we said yeah sort of

yeah i think for me it's uh like the difference in skill and repeatability is the big thing. Yes, I think that far more articulate than my repeated pleas that Joe just shut up. Which was tongue in cheek, at least partly. Oh, yeah. Oh, yes. To be clear. Quite. Yes. Yeah.

Tongue firmly in cheek. And then we got an email from Jeff, who is a Patreon supporter. And this is about the extra innings ghost runner rule, and I really do not want to harp on this on every episode, but I will just note that there was a scoreless pitcher's duel between Cleveland and Chicago on Tuesday. Shane

Bieber, Lucas Giolito, just matching zeros the whole game. Giolito lasted seven, and then the White Sox relievers threw up another couple goose eggs, and Bieber went nine scoreless through nine innings. And then, of course, the extra innings roll around, and you get the ghost runner on second. And before you know it, Cleveland takes the lead on a Roberto Perez single, and then there was a double, and then Perez scored, I think, and that was that.

And it was a 2-0 win. And that just felt wrong to me because it's like nine innings, pitcher's duel, no one can push a run across the plate. And all of a sudden we've changed the rules and now suddenly people can score. And to me, at least, it just sort of cheapens the whole nine inning pitcher's duel thing. But Jeff writes in to point out, and I think this is an interesting distinction, regarding the extra inning rule, I'll tell you the theory I've developed based on my personal experience. I think the rule an interesting distinction. Regarding the extra inning rule, I'll tell you the theory I've developed based on my personal experience. I think the rule is kind of fun when it's a game when I don't care who wins.

If I'm flipping through the MLB TV stuff, I'm more likely to switch to a game that's tied in the ninth in anticipation of the extra inning rule being implemented. But when I'm watching a Dodgers game, Jeff is a Dodgers fan, I hate the extra inning rule because like you've said, it is a fundamentally different game when you start with a runner on second. So my theory is that people who mostly watch games in which they care about the outcome are more likely to hate the rule. And people who watch games just because they like watching baseball are more likely to like it, or at least not hate it. And I think there's a fundamental disconnect between the league, which by definition isn't allowed to care who wins any individual game, and baseball fans, who I think for the most part are fans of a particular team and watch that team more often than anyone else.

And baseball writers have an outsized voice but have the same impartiality as the league. So you end up with fans of particular teams, 90% plus of baseball fans probably not getting what they want. And I think that's interesting. Like for me, I am kind of in the impartial don't care who wins camp. So you would think that I would like this rule and that kind of goes against this hypothesis. But there is something to that where I could see like if you didn't care about the outcome and you just wanted action, then maybe you'd be on board. Whereas if you're invested in the whole game and

who wins, then you might want it settled on the same terms. And since baseball is a very local, regional fan base sport, then I would think if there is anything to this theory, then that would explain why, at least in my anecdotal or occasional survey-based impression, most people don't care for this. I wonder if there's a way that we could introduce like you can't clearly leverage is not the way to think about this because it's by definition a tide game in extras, right? And so everything is super high stakes. But I wonder if there is a like a total run scored criteria that we could introduce to whether or not there is a ghost runner.

And I know that that doesn't comport with what baseball is trying to do here, which is make the games end sooner. And so they would never go for this because they don't care if the prior nine innings saw 20 runs scored or zero runs or 25 runs runs they don't they don't care they or i need an even number you know what i'm trying to say like they don't care they don't care about how many runs have scored prior to the 10th inning they only care that the innings that come after nine not take very long and that there not be too many of them and so they would never go for this but i i did find myself moved by your argument more yesterday watching this game than i had found myself moved prior because i it just

felt like you know one way or another somebody was getting a raw deal and maybe they're always getting a raw deal when there is a a ghost runner second. But it felt like even more of a raw deal because we had seen such superlative pitching prior to that. And, you know, it wasn't the result of, you know, we weren't in extras because a bullpen had coughed it up late. Right. We were in extras because both staffs had been so good and so nails. And so I wonder if maybe the way to approach this to make some segment of people happier than they are now is to say you get a ghost runner if more than, I don't know, 14 runs have been scored

or 10 runs have been scored or whatever number. We can pick a number and say when when both teams have clearly just had it's been an offensive day right we think of that game as defined by the hitters more than the pitchers then you know we've seen enough baseball yeah we gotta get out of here but in recognition of the the you know very good work that has led up to this point if it's four runs well then you gotta grind it out because we wanna we wanna recognize that the good pitchers have done good work and they shouldn't see that good work marred by um a ghost runner on second and the league will never go for this yeah because they just want

it over with and so it doesn't like i said it doesn't matter to them but it matters to us and uh and i think that we we would maybe be well served to care about the like the character of those nine innings before we determine how we're going to proceed in the 10th and on and or or maybe maybe it's not that there's no ghost runner it's that there's not a ghost runner until the 13th inning or something i don't know again they're never gonna go for this because they just want you to go home yeah i like that i like you said it probably won't happen and and i guess the more scarce you make games with this rule, then the more it's just like, well, why are we ever doing this? Because if we're not doing it a lot of the time, then we might as well just not ever do it. But yeah, I like that at least better than the current system, either pushing it back to truly long games instead of the 10th inning or what you said about having some sort of runs requirement, because it does bother me more when it seems like runs have really been scarce that day and they're really at a premium. And then suddenly you're cheapening that run prevention by making runs easier to score.

And that really galls me more than it would if you did have a slugfest where it's just like, well, we've already seen 20 runs, what's another few so yeah maybe you're onto something there but i think that you're right that increasing scarcity of it is why they also will never do it but maybe that's like we we should tell them not to listen to this episode and then we should convince them to do it and then you have like a you have like a stealth argument a couple months from now when you're like well you only have had x number of girls so does it really make sense of a different set of rules why don't we just go back to the way it was and and they'll say no um but we'll have tried and then and then you'll have some satisfaction

and we'll have watched more normal baseball um especially for games where we feel that it is it is particularly important for it to be a real battle between pitchers and hitters in recognition of the battle we've already witnessed, and then we can move on. Yeah. Yeah. I like it.

Yeah, I like where your head's at there. Cunning. All right. Sneaky, sis. Matthew, Patreon supporter, says, I am currently watching the Angels play the Royals, and when talking about Albert Pujols, Matthew, Patreon supporter, says, I am currently watching the Angels play the Royals, and when talking about Albert Pujols,

the announcers used a common trope when referring to his charity work. All-time great baseball player, even better person. I appreciate the sentiment. Albert deserves it. But also, in reality, it's probably nearly impossible for Albert. Albert is one of the best baseball players of the last few decades, and he would have to be one of the best people in the world the last couple decades to meet that standard. A high mark indeed. So I guess I'm emailing one to ruin the trope for you. And to ask if you think there has ever been a professional baseball player who was a better person than they were a baseball player, because we all like talking about baseball players who are good people. And it's true, you really do hear this a lot.

Great baseball player, even better person. And granted, Albert is not a great baseball player currently. I mean, not a great major league baseball player. He is obviously a great baseball player compared to all baseball players and all people, but not so great compared to the ultra elite standard of MLB players. But even so, yeah, a team has decided that he is one of the best 750 players, or I guess it's not 750 anymore because we've got 30-man rosters. It's 780, one of the best 780 players in the world right now. And yeah, maybe in his case, that's because he, one of the best 780 players in the world right now.

And yeah, maybe in his case, that's because he has one of the largest contracts as well. But still, like anyone who is on a big league roster, really ultra elite player, like one of the best in the world at their profession. And so it really would be hard to be a better person in a relative sense. If you're talking about like, you know, percentage wise, it would be hard to be a better person than a relative sense if you're talking about like you know percentage wise it would be hard to be a better person than you are a player i mean yeah but no like there have been i mean look i guess like you're you're drawing this distinction in the way that you're sort of framing the question but like compared to whom so there have been you know players who are sub replacement level and i hope that they're better people than they are baseball players because relative to their peer group, they were very bad baseball players. They're better than I am.

of potential baseball players in the world. So if you're saying like, are they, they're one of the best seven, 800 baseball players, they're probably not also one of the best seven, 800 people out of 8 billion people in the world. But maybe that's not the way people are really looking at this when they say that. I think that that is the way they're looking at it. But what I'm inviting us to consider is that the way that they're looking at it is kind of silly and that you know like i bet that ryan domit is a better person than he is a baseball player he has negative career war yeah i bet i mean i don't know him he might be a stinker for all i know don't know him at all but like i would hope that he's a better person than he was a baseball player because he was pretty lousy as a baseball player or like, I don't know. I'm just picking people. I'm just I'm not going to pick other individual people because I don't know them.

And my luck would have me pick like a real son of a bitch. So I'm not going to do that. But I will say that, like, I think that there are definitely people who, within the realm of Major League Baseball, better people than they are baseball players. And I would submit the fact that they stayed on Major League rosters for the time that they did to accumulate negative war is probably indicative of the fact that they're better people than baseball players, because that's probably what helped them stick around. Yeah, no, that's true, too. There should be an inverse correlation there, probably.

But yeah, this is an expression that I hear a lot that I would not really be comfortable using because A, I don't really know how good people are. We don't know that. Yeah, whereas I am not so good at quantifying how good people are. And yeah, you can quantify charitable contributions or something, you know, if it's public, which in many cases it isn't. But just saying like, you know, I'm sure there are many people who have had this said about them who it turned out or maybe it was never even revealed that they were not actually that great as people. So, you know, maybe pump the brakes a little bit on that. Not that we should never say that like anyone is good because we can't know for sure. I guess we can say that our experience of them is good or based on what we can tell, they seem good. But yeah, I guess, you know, probably partly it's supposed to be relative. So it's like, I mean, we say players are good and bad all the time, and we're talking about relative to their peers, their ultra elite peers. And I think that's just maybe they're above average humans. And so you could say that they're better people than they are baseball players. Or maybe it's just a way of expressing that they're really good guys or whatever. Or maybe you're saying ultimately who they are as people is more important than how good they are at baseball in how it helps the world. So I understand the sentiment, but yeah, it would be pretty tough for Albert Pujols, as good as he has been at baseball over the course of his career, to be a better person than a baseball player, it's a good point. If you're one of the very best baseball players ever, then if you're looking at it in this way where to be a better person than player, you would have to be one of the very best people of all time. And Albert Pujols probably falls short of that standard. Again, don't know the guy, but probably not a saint. So I understand what Matthew is saying here. Right.

And, you know, I think there's an argument to be made. And I want to be clear that I'm like not knocking any individual baseball player up to and including our pools in terms of what they how they have decided to like allocate the energy in their lives. Because, you know, God knows that I stay home a lot. So I'm not one to criticize. But yeah, you would think that like a person who is truly committed to improving their community like every day probably isn't a baseball player. They probably have a different occupation entirely

and they're doing other stuff to sort of further that mission every day, which again, isn't to say that players, especially those who are very involved, uh, with their communities and, and try to use their platform as well and give money away and all that good stuff. Like there are, you know, definitely good, good eggs out there. Um, but yes, I think you're right that it is hard, but I do think, you know, Ryan Domet, we're going to give him some credit. We're going to say he must be some guy if he's stuck around because otherwise I don't know how to account for his career at all.

Yeah. Well, maybe partly the fact that framing stats were not available when his career started. It certainly helps the effort, yes. It's probably part of it. All right. Max in San Francisco says, inspired by the Cody Bellinger and Justin Turner incident

on the base pass on opening day, what if MLB made running the bases on a home run optional? What percentage of hitters would stop taking their victory lap around the bases? Oh, gosh. I hate this idea because the discourse around it would be unbearable. Yeah. Would just like rounding the bases be the new bat flip? It's just like-

Or would it go the other way? And it's like, oh, you don't even have the respect for your opponent to run around. You have to. You're just going back to the dugout. Right. Yeah. Would the league put pressure on you? We got to speed up the games.

No one gets to do your tater tot anymore. Oh, yeah. I just think that we'd find a way to have the dumbest possible conversation about this. I have faith in us that it would just be, not you and I specifically, but just collectively, we'd just find a way to have a really dumb conversation about this. I think that in the beginning, 99% of players would still do it.

And I think that not running the bases would be reserved for veterans. I think that despite not running the bases would be reserved for like veterans. I think that like despite the fact that he hits just a bushel of home runs, like people will be like, Nellie, you don't have to do it. Like Albert Pujols, you're a better person than a baseball player. And you're a heck of a baseball player. Definitely a better person than he is a runner at this stage of his career. There we go.

We have found we have found our happy medium on this question you don't have to do it right it would be like a there would be like a veteran deference thing like all the rookies would have to run but then it would be like august and it would be sticky and they'd all be hot and they'd be tired because it's the dog days and they've been they've been legging it out all season and they just you know they're back in 162 games and after a shortened year and so i bet by august they'd be we'd be hearing a lot about like load management yeah and hydration and everybody like taking it easy because you you know down the stretch you got to conserve your energy because it's a long year. And for the playoff teams especially,

I bet that it would very rapidly shrink. And then for the non-playoff teams, they'd be like, well, why are we doing this anyway? We're the Orioles. The Orioles' playoff odds are back down to zero. There might be a data presentation issue that we need to sort out because i think that this is going to just be wildly confusing a lot of flack for that the number of people who have held on to this really shocking really very shocking anyway um

that's not the point of this question so i think that we would see an ebb and a flow and i think in the beginning people would want to show that like you know they care about it and i think that for some guys there is just like a real jubilation to hitting a home run and they're stoked and they want to celebrate and i think that like we we get a lot of really cool and iconic moments when they do that and so i think that in the beginning people would still be committed to that and i think that likeplayers take a lot of pride and effort. And so when you take when you voluntarily don't exude effort, even if like it's effort to no end, right effort without a purpose, I think that they are nervous about that, in part because they take pride in their effort, and in part because we tend to get on their cases

when they don't exert effort. And so I think in the beginning, it would look very much the same. And then over time, I think it would rapidly decline. But I do think that the exception to that would be like the young, the really young guys. Like imagine it's September and you get called up and you hit your first big league home run.

You're taking, you're doing a trap for sure. But I think that it would ebb and flow, and I bet that we would find it to be extremely temperature dependent and pegged to the humidity index too, where they'd be like, I'm not doing that today. It's 100% humidity and 95 degrees. I am in soup. Yeah, I think the norms are so deeply ingrained

that you wouldn't really see much erosion in this at first. But I could imagine you have some player come along and just as eyewash, and usually eyewash is extra effort and false hustle, but maybe there could be almost a reverse example of that where a player is just so humble and self-effacing that he's just going to go right back to the dugout. And maybe he along. Then do you feel self-conscious about rounding the bases? Because now suddenly you look like a showboat or something just for doing the thing that players have always done. Is there then peer pressure on you to fall in line and not do the trot? So I could see it breaking down at some point if there were some influential person,

like some David Eckstein sprinting to first after a walk, the opposite of that. So someone who just does not do the tater trots, I could see maybe that kind of catching on. On the other hand, not every home run is a no-doubter. So you do often have to start running, right? I mean, you're just not sure if it'll go out or not. So at that point, if you're at first base or something, by the time the ball actually goes over the wall, you might as well just finish the trot, right? Like, are you just going to stop at that point and turn and go back to the dugout? That's the thing. Like players are wired to move on contact and yeah, sometimes they catch it on

the sweet spot and they know it's gone instantly, but not always. So your first impulse is to start the trot. And once you start, object in motion remains in motion, right? So I think that that might kind of keep it going. And I don't know, I feel like you're entitled to it. It's like, imagine the Joe Carter walk off, touch them all, Joe. Don't touch them all joe maybe so like don't touch them all joe just uh turn around and go back to the dugout like you have to celebrate and rounding the bases is a form of celebration as you said yeah and and for walk-offs especially it's like you don't want to just go back to the dugout like no if nothing else you know that what your teammates are going to try to do is get you as naked as possible yes they're all going to meet you at home plate and teammates are going to try to do is get you as naked as possible yes they're all going to meet you at home plate and give them time to get out there yeah and they're

going to take your clothes off in a way that we should talk more about and you maybe you are feeling modest and want to delay that for a little while you just got a bad tattoo for instance some of the stories we've had over the years you know there are days where because our jobs are jobs and so there are days where i feel tired or stressed or i'm like i would rather just um read a book and eat a salad today and hang out um but our jobs are really the very best they're they're the best anyway yeah i think that you're right that there would be risk in the turnaround to the dugout because, and we have talked about this, that part of why I appreciate Robinson Cano's bat drop as a home run celebration, and this is not an anti-bat flip take.

This is a I am anxious take. I am a person who is anxious about stuff a lot that if I ever hit a home run, and there's a lot that would have to be different about me before that would be true. And maybe the anxiety would go with it, who's to say. But if I hit a home run, I would be terrified of bat flipping because I would be convinced that it would not go out. And then you bat flipped, and you got to go back and be sheepish and so the bat drop has always been appealing to me because it's just a lot easier to course correct on that and and kind of play it off as you knowing that it was a fly ball and so there's very little margin for error if you turn around and head head to the dugout and and it's like whoa plus they'd have to change the rules because if you voluntarily abandon the base paths like you're out so you'd have to really be sure or they'd have to give you some they'd have to change the rules because if you voluntarily abandon the base paths like you're out so you'd have to really be sure or they'd have to give you some they'd have to give you a fudge factor in there so uh we would just never forget the guy who got it wrong we'd never ever forget it we'd give him grief for the rest of his career so maybe i want to take most of my answer back because

i think that people fear embarrassment pretty profoundly. Although baseball players in general have more confidence in themselves than I have in myself. And that's part of why they're baseball players. So maybe I was right in the first place. Who's to say? All right. I've got one last one here and then a simple stat blast to close on. Dave says, I'm watching a very cold baseball game right now.

Some players have full long sleeves and balaclavas. All you can see are their eyes. And when the sun peeks out and they put their sunglasses on, sometimes not even their eyes. This got me thinking, could a pair of teammates swap places mid-game to bring up a better batter in a key situation? Let me elaborate with a fictionalized tale about a player I am calling Chalix McBregmick. It's the ninth inning and the Astros are down by one run. I picked the Astros randomly. There is no reason behind their selection.

Alex Bregman ended the last inning and backup outfielder Chaz McCormick will be the fourth batter due up. Both players are six feet tall and roughly 200 pounds. They duck into the tunnel past the trash cans. I'm not mentioning trash cans for any particular reason. They're just usually found in baseball tunnels. And they swap jerseys. Both players have full long sleeves and balaclavas the same colors. Both have sunglasses. They swap those too. So tricky. Then a runner reaches base, two outs are made, and Chalix McBreg make homers in the go-ahead run that will go on to become the game winner do you think this sort of thing is possible would john boy break down slow-mo video of batting stances and crack the

case wide open if twitter sleuths did figure it out what sort of penalty would the astros have for cheating again i randomly picked the astros as the example of a cheating team i swear please stop asking why i picked them i can't believe i get the bit and i want to acknowledge the bit i don't want you to think that i'm not acknowledging the bit but i can't believe he didn't pick dan b swanson and charlie culber who i swear are the same goddamn person no disguise is needed in there no they can just go up there and be like prove it prove that i am not who i say i am i look like this other boy um well i so yeah i mean like there would be a couple of things that would have to be true in order for it to work and be worth it right so like

you know you'd need a same-handed hitter because if you're i mean like even if you're a switch hitter you probably hit better from one side versus the other so you'd need to you know it would need to line up in a way where you could both get away with it and then also be like, oh, this is worth us doing. I mean, I think they'd be discovered almost instantly. I think they'd be discovered almost instantly because at some point you would have your stuff on longer than was necessary. And someone would be like, hey, take your sunglasses stuff on longer than was necessary and someone would be like hey take your sunglasses off and what are you gonna say no like but for what at bat though that's just you know just for one plate appearance yeah but like here here's the other thing like what's what are the circumstances under which the other person is not in the dugout and like what happens if the other person comes up in the like what if

you have a really big inning and then i mean i guess you're both wearing each other's clothes you're indistinguishable yeah i think that we would find them out i think we'd find them out right away and then how much trouble would you get into will depend on how long you could perpetuate the con because if it was one game i think you would not get in a lot of trouble but you would get in some because it's a violation of the rules you're explicitly cheating you're batting out of order batting out of order yeah it'd be very funny i mean i think we have talked about this like i think that dan spiess wantswanson and Charlie Culberson are the same person. I think that, and now they're on different teams, thank God.

So I don't have to pretend I know which is which anymore. Like, I recognize baseball players in, like, quarter profile. And if my mother's life depended on me telling Dan Spieswanson and Charlie Culberson apart, I'd be like, I don't know, Mom, good luck. So there's that part of it. But I think that, like, at a certain point one at bat you can probably get away with like if it's one plate appearance you could probably get away with it provided that you did not have so dramatically different a batting stance that it was like

immediately apparent right so there are guys where it is you know their batting stance is somewhat distinctive like you know if you have cody Bellinger up there and then you have another guy who's supposed to be Cody Bellinger, but his, he doesn't have the high, then you're going to be like, Cody, what's up? You look, you look really different, but you're still really good. That's surprising. Tell us about your new stance. And then what is he going to say? He's going to, he can get very nervous. I bet he'd get very nervous. I was just tinkering. I was just trying something out. There are some players, like he's kind of a tinkerer. There are Cal Ripken Jr. types who change their stance from a bat to a bat. So if you had that track record, then maybe you could convincingly get away with it.

But if you did have to do an impression of another player's stance or something, then I would think it wouldn't be worth it. Because probably that would impair your performance in some way if you were not employing your natural mechanics. Right. And so you'd have to have a similar enough stance. You'd have to be a same-handed hitter. You'd have to be similar enough from a body composition perspective that it doesn't immediately give the game away. position perspective that it doesn't immediately give the game away and so i think that the number of players who would be able to pull this off successfully on a roster very limited again it might just be dance b swanson and carly culberson and they are no longer on a roster i mean there

are guys who are similar enough in the face like we've talked about how hunter renfro and mike trout just look like the same person or at least like people who are cousins yeah although the beards are different Mike Trout has a kind of blotchy beard have you noticed that yeah no his uh his facial hair coverage is not as good as his plate coverage yeah it's like I'm like do you have alopecia or what's going on here so um so anyway I think that there are guys where it would make sense but they have have to, the degree of overlap in their body and their batting style. And then, you know, you'd have to, you know, you'd have to have one guy be significantly better than the other, because if you're going to engage in any kind of tomfoolery like this, it's like, it really has to be worth it so i think that the number of of sort of factors that

have to line up for it to be remotely worth it are such that it would probably not ever happen but i think that for one plate appearance in those circumstances you could probably get away with it but i think that a more sustained bit of silliness would kind of give the game away and then it's like you know like then you think about okay so let's say you get up there and you're who is like what is the the name the combo name the chalix mcbreg mc it doesn't matter you're a dance piece watson right you're a dance piece watson and you are hitting for Charlie Culberson and you have not told anyone. And you guys are doing a switcheroo, right? You're doing your switcheroo.

Okay, so then here's a problem. Let's say that you're doing this in like the seventh inning because it's a really high leverage spot. You're like, this is our chance to win the game. And it doesn't work. And you strike out to end the inning. And then the guys are going to come back on the field and you're going to have to take your spot on the field but oh no yeah you're charlie colberson now so how do you switch how do you do the switch where do you go because you're on the field and people are going to be like you don't really have to go back to the dugout

someone's going to bring you your glove and so then are you also assuming that person's place in the field so then does this have to so there's a lot that would have to go into the con. And I think that people are even professional athletes would probably get far enough along in that to say this is not worth it. if it happened. I always enjoyed the fake Melania Trump conspiracy theory, the idea that there were multiple Melanias, which has never been proven, and yet you see certain angles, certain footage. It's pretty persuasive. I don't know if I buy it, but I always enjoyed the rumor mongering about it. Much more so than buzzers or whatever in Altuve's jersey. Like this would be a lot of fun, I think. If there were a plausible case, I would really enjoy deconstructing the footage to see whether I believed it. What was the purpose of multiple Melania supposed to be, though?

Like why would there be multiple? Well, I guess it was that there was a fake Melania because maybe the real one wouldn't actually want to appear at certain events and so you would have a fake melania maybe i mean i would love this as a i would really love it as a controversy because it would be the sort of thing that i think we would eventually discover but i think there would be a ton of skepticism in the beginning that this would actually be attempted like people would do breakdowns and be like i noticed something really weird and we'd be like you I noticed something really weird. And we'd be like, you're crazy. And then it would be revealed to be true and we would have to say sorry.

Yeah, right. Yeah, but what happens in the third act, the prestige, as you were saying, when they actually have to swap places, you don't want to reveal anything. So yeah, that is a hiccup there. Yeah, that is a hiccup. I mean, I think that there are circumstances.

Like, if it is, you know, you're the home team and it's the bottom of the ninth and you're like, we really want to win this one and we're more likely to do that with Dansby Swanson's bat than with Charlie Culberson's, then, you know, then the switcheroo makes a certain amount of sense because the odds that you're going to, you know, really need to go to the 10th are probably low. And so you're like, we're going to do it and we're going to go down in a blaze of glory. But if you do it in like the seventh or the eighth inning, then it's like, oh, where do I go? And do I have to feel the position? I don't naturally play. And what does Charlie do? Does he play shortstop? What does Charlie do?

Does he play shortstop? And so it seems like there are a lot of places along the way where somebody would be like, why are they acting weird? They're acting weird. But I think the benefit of doing it with Swanson and Culberson is that you wouldn't have to wear a mask or sunglasses. You just go out there and, again, dare them to be like, tell me I am not who I say I am. We are the same. It might just be one guy moving really fast back and forth. you just go out there and again, dare them to be like, tell me I am not who I say I am. We are the same. Right.

It might just be one guy moving really fast back and forth. I'll read you a related anecdote that I just happened to come across. It's about a former major leaguer named Danny Litweiler, and he played in the 40s and 50s. I just read this recently in Craig Wright's great newsletter, Pages from Baseball's Past, in Craig Wright's great newsletter, Pages from Baseball's Past, baseballspast.com. And Litweiler is best known for having a perfect errorless season in 1942 and into 1943. He did not make an error. And part of that was that his throwing shoulder was messed up. And so he did not actually attempt to make throws.

He would just sort of relay it to an infielder. And so he didn't have as many opportunities to make throws. He would just sort of relay it to an infielder. And so he didn't have as many opportunities to make throwing errors. And part of it was official scoring decisions. And part of it also was that Littweiler is the guy credited with the modification of the fielding glove to have the webbing. Prior to that, the only attachment between the fingers of the glove was the web between the thumb and the forefinger. And he is believed to have been the first to join together the other fingers of the glove with laces to help him hang on to more balls. And that may have been part of that, too, his innovation.

But he was not actually a great fielder. He had a reputation for being a great fielder because he had this errorless season. a reputation for being a great fielder because he had this errorless season. But between his bum knee and his weak shoulder and all of that, he was not actually a great fielder, according to defensive win shares, at least as Craig cited. He was like a sub-replacement level fielder who was known as being a really good one because he had no errors that year, which just goes to show you, errors, not always the best measure of defensive skill.

Anyway, this is an unrelated story about Littweiler. I'm reading here from Craig's piece. After his strong season in 1938, Littweiler was slated for promotion from Class D all the way up to AA with the Toledo Mudheads. Littweiler wasn't there when the season assignments were

handed out. He was delayed by the need to finish some tasks in his off-season job as a high school teacher. When he showed up in Toledo and introduced himself as Dan Litwiler, manager Miles Thomas said, then who the hell is that out there in right field? It was Milt Lenhart, who had played in the outfield with Litwiler the previous summer in the Class D league and was now pretending to be Dan Litwiler so he could play on the higher level team. Milt said he hadn't intended to do it, but when he was mistakenly taken to be Litwiler in spring training, he decided to go along with it. Milt explained to Dan, hell, you had a great year last year.

I had a lousy one. When the assignments were handed out, Thomas called me Litwiler and I said, okay. Lenhart was not doing well in the much tougher league and was expected to soon be farmed out to a lower league. But shortly after reporting, Littweiler suffered his season-ending knee injury. So Toledo decided to hang on to Lenhart until they could get another outfielder. And he stayed with Toledo through the end of June before being sent back down to the lower league where his pro career ended. And his scheme to have a marginally talented ballplayer at a higher level at Toledo.

He rubbed elbows with a few former major leaguers and a lot of future big leaguers. 20 of the 1939 Mudhens had major league experience in their past or future. Lenhart got to play in games that included two future Hall of Famers on the opposing team, Phil Rizzuto and Pee Wee Reese. So he faked it till he made it, at least briefly. That was probably easier to do in 1938 than it would be in 2021. I would imagine so, but I do love the, you know, I think that a lot of people end up leading very interesting lives

when they're like, I'm going to let this happen to me. Yeah, right. I'm going to roll with this. Just go with it. Yeah. Okay. I meant going to roll with this. Just go with it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I meant to mention, by the way, as we speak,

the Dodgers have not yet played their Wednesday game against the Rockies, but the Dodgers are 9-2. Just going to throw that out there. In the 117 win watch, Dodgers are more than on pace, and they've done that without Mookie and Bellinger for most of the season. They just plug in Zach McKinstry, and he hits a couple homers, and he hits as well as Bellinger, basically.

So that's what the Dodgers do. Just normally, I wouldn't read too much into a couple weeks of results. But when it's the Dodgers, and I'm closely watching their record to see if they make a run, well, they're very much on pace to do it. I do this thing at this point in the year where I don't really look at the standings and records until next week because it doesn't matter right now. I mean, you have a good reason to be looking out.

So I'm just looking at some of those. Wow, the Braves have really only won four games, huh? The Braves have really only won four, and the Red Sox are on top of the AL East. What? Yeah, they've won eight games in a row. Who knew? That I actually knew, but I do love that everyone below them,

you know, some of these games have gone final, but tied at five and six. What a time. What a time. Yankees got to figure their stuff out. Yeah, records don't matter that much right now. But if you're the Dodgers and you want to make a run at the all-time single season's win record. Then it doesn't matter very much.

Yeah. You can't afford to lose many games at any point. And thus far, they have not. All right. I promised that I would end with a stat blast here. And here it is. They'll take a data set sorted by something like ERA minus or OBS plus. All right. Here's to day still lost. All right, this is prompted by a listener question from Mona, and she says, I'm watching the White Sox-Angels game right now, listening to the excellent Chicago TV booth, and in discussing Mike Trout's on-base prowess, Steve Stone quips something along the lines of, Anthony Rendon drives in lots of runs, and most of them are going to be trout.

I think you can see where this is going, but it did make me curious to know what combination of players were driven in and drove in a run together the most in baseball history. I suspect it might involve a prolific leadoff hitter and a middle-of-the-order bat, but probably not two players who often hit consecutively. I figured this would be a different kind of duo that people don't typically think of as a duo. So I referred this question to our frequent StatBlast consultant, Adam Ott, and Adam has results for me. They do come with a couple of caveats, so I will just read what Adam said here. He says, I've tried to mimic RBI when considering whether a run will count toward

a batter-runner combination. So if a runner scores on a play that was classified as an error or as a double play, that run doesn't count toward this total. However, if a runner scores on a play where there was first a hit and then an error was added on, such as scoring from first on a single and an error, although this wouldn't be an RBI, my query would still count this toward the total runs I left these plays in because I couldn't figure out a way to exclude them easily, and they don't add too many runs that would change the results too much. Players that played in the first half of the 1900s will be undercounted because there isn't a full play-by-play record of their careers. To give an idea of how many extra RBI my quasi-RBI method adds and the number of RBI that I'm missing

for earlier players. Here are some players' quasi-RBI in the database versus their actual RBI. For instance, Henry Aaron, 2276 versus 2297. Albert Pujols, 2107 versus 2104. Alex Rodriguez, 2100 versus 2086. These are very small differences on a percentage basis, but thank you to Adam for noting that. So in the spreadsheet, combinations that played recently, maybe a couple of runs too high, while combinations that played around the time of Babe Ruth, maybe 10 to 15% too low. So I'll put this spreadsheet online as usual linked on the show page if you're interested. But the answer is actually similar to I think a stat blast we did about, what was it? It was Brandon Belt and Brandon Crawford and like the number of put outs with one combination of players, like the

most put outs that a duo had had. And I think the answer to that is also the answer to this. Jeff Bagwell and Craig Bichio are, yeah, they're on top with 377, according to Adam's record here. And I'll just read off the rest of the top 10. So the batter comes first and the runner who is scoring comes second. So after Bagwell and Bichio, it's George Brett and Willie Wilson, Paul Wainer and Lloyd Wainer, Babe Ruth and Earl Coombs, Robin Yount and Paul Molitor, Jimmy Fox and Doc Kramer, Lou Gehrig and Earl Coombs. So Coombs hitting in front of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. He got to score a lot of runs as it turns out. Ron Santo and Billy Williams, Joe DiMaggio and Red Rolfe, at 377 and Brett and Wilson are at 320. So that gap is significant enough that I think even if you had the official RBI and runs

records here, that would probably hold up. So I'm comfortable saying that it is Bagwell and Bichio, perhaps not surprisingly. And if anyone's wondering about active duos, this is through the end of last season. I think the highest active duo is actually Pujols and Trout at 200 coming into this year. And that is 33rd all time. So Albert has not been the best hitter over the last few years, but he has driven in a fair number of runs and Mike Trout has a lot to do with that. That makes a good amount of sense. All right. Well, thanks to Mona for the question and to Adam for the research as always. And I guess that will do it for today. All right. Well, you can make that nine in a row for the Red Sox and you can make that 10 and two for the Dodgers. They've now outscored their opponents by two and two thirds runs per game. I think they might be good. By the way, we recorded this episode before the Carlos Rodon no-hitter. So another week, another near-perfect game. Like Joe Musgrove, he came one hit-by-pitch

away. No hits, no walks, seven strikeouts. The Padres now have one no-hitter. The White Sox now have 20, more than any other American League team or any other team other than the Dodgers, who have 23. An impressive performance and pretty cool for Carlos Rodon, who missed most of the past two seasons after Tommy John surgery. He is the first pitcher to throw a no-hitter within two years after having Tommy John surgery. Did it against Cleveland. That said, I will note, because it's related to what we were talking about earlier, that the league-wide batting average through Wednesday's games is.234. For reference, 1968, year of the pitcher batting average,.237. BABIP is sitting at.288 right now, so this is partly related to strikeouts, but even balls in play are not falling for hits as often as we are accustomed to seeing.

Could be related to the new ball, could just be a blip at the start of the season. Something similar happened at the start of last season too, where BABIP was low and then came up again. This is the earliest date by which we have had two no-hitters in any MLB season. I would expect that batting average will come up a bit as the weather warms up, but it was 245 last season and the strikeout rate is higher now, so it's going to be low and perhaps we have not seen the last no-hitter of the 2021 season. Wanted to mention one more thing. There's a new book out called Our Team, the epic story of four men in the World Series that changed baseball by Luke Eplin. It's about the 1948 Cleveland World Series team, and it focuses on Bill Veck and Satchel Paige and

Bob Feller and Larry Doby. Jackie Robinson Day is coming up. The anniversary of Larry Doby debuting won't be far behind. And Luke was on some podcasts recently talking about his book. I heard him on Hang Up and Listen and The Infinite Inning. And there was a thread in our Facebook group from some people reacting to one of his appearances when he mentioned that Eddie Robinson, two-time Effectively Wild guest, oldest living major leaguer, last living member of that 1948 Robinson, two-time Effectively Wild guest, oldest living major leaguer, last living member of that 1948 team, had obstructed Dobie in some way when Dobie came up with Cleveland.

And that perplexed our listeners because when Eddie was on the show, he spoke highly of Larry Dobie. Well, it's not entirely untrue that Eddie was an obstacle to Dobie breaking in, but he did have a reason unrelated to Larry Dobie's race. Just want to read an excerpt here from Eddie's autobiography, Lucky Me, My 65 Years in Baseball. I don't know if it excuses Eddie exactly, but it does provide some context. I think makes it clear that this wasn't a Ben Chapman, Jackie Robinson situation. During my rookie year in 1947, I always hustled and never lost my desire or determination. I had confidence that eventually it would work out for me. Around mid-season, Bill McKechnie, our veteran coach, came to me and said, I know you're struggling. Why don't you go talk to Lou, that's Lou Bidreau, the manager, and tell him that you know you're struggling, but you want to stay in the lineup because you believe you're going to start hitting better.

I took McKechnie's advice and went in and talked to Lou. He said, don't worry about it. You're my first baseman and you're going to be our first baseman for the future. That was encouraging. The next day, I hit a home run and got three hits and a doubleheader against the Detroit Tigers. We traveled to Chicago for our next series and word was that Larry Doby was coming in. Larry would be the first black player in the American League. I heard nothing more until the second day we were in Chicago when Doby joined the team.

We played the first game of a doubleheader and Lou came into the dressing room between games and said, Robbie, I want to borrow your glove. I want Dobie to play first base. I told him he could borrow my glove all right, but I was quitting. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Two days before, the manager had told me, don't worry about it, you're my first baseman, and I'd gone out and performed well.

Dobie had never even played first. He was a second baseman, and Joe Gordon, who was a seasoned veteran, wouldn't have minded at all if Dobie played some second base. I was so mad I told Les Fleming, our other first baseman, if Bedreau puts Dobie at first, let's quit. I didn't want to be kicked around like that. Fleming said, you can quit, but I ain't. But when the second game began, I stayed in the clubhouse. Fortunately, Bill McKechnie came into the clubhouse during the game and talked me straight. I understand why you quit and your teammates understand as well, but the public isn't going to understand it that way. They're going to say you didn't want Dobie to play because he's black. I think you're making a big mistake and I don't want to see you play the rest of your

career with that stigma on you. I then got it. I put my uniform back on and went back on the bench in the sixth inning. On my return to the dugout, no one made any comment, but I got a couple of pats on the back. Larry and I became friends, and I believe he understood that I threatened to quit because of my anger at Bedreau, not because he was a black guy coming in. He was a quiet, no-nonsense guy with loads of talent. He could have been an excellent first baseman. I'm happy it didn't turn out that way.

But with his speed, arm strength, and ability, he was an ideal center fielder. Larry was a good teammate and contributed greatly to the Indians' success. I don't think Larry has ever gotten the recognition he deserves for being the first black ball player in the American League. He came into the major leagues the same year Jackie Robinson did, only a couple of months later, took the same abuse, and was under the same pressure. Jackie deserves all the credit in the world for what he did, but I don't understand why everyone overlooks Larry. So that's what Eddie said about that situation, and it's regrettable it probably made it harder for Doby to establish himself. He didn't start a single game for the rest of that season, and playing sporadically, he didn't hit

until the following year when he was a star. So to the extent that that made it harder for him and made him feel even more isolated than he was, it is unfortunate and regrettable. But you can see what Eddie was thinking at the time trying to establish himself. That was his rookie year, and he had returned from the service, and he was trying to lay claim to that job as well. So probably a lot of ballplayers would have reacted that way for career-related reasons. Anyway, I can't know what Eddie was thinking, and I don't have the book by Eplin, so I don't know exactly what it says about that incident, but that's how it happened in Eddie's words.

You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some small monthly amount to help keep the podcast going and get themselves access to some perks. Mike Snyder, Josh, Burke Wasson, Amber Brown, and Dane Runestad. Thanks to all of you. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash Effectively Wild. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. Keep your questions and comments for me and Meg coming via email at podcastatfangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance.

We will be back with one more episode before the end of this week. Talk to you soon. I'll find somebody to take your place. I'll find somebody to take your place. Oh, when we were young, I could see that you and I could never be.