Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1683: The Unlikely Leadoff Man

Episode Date: April 21, 2021

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the brief lifespan of the soccer Super League, the gift of the Padres-Dodgers rivalry and Blake Snell vs. Joe Musgrove, position-player-pitching overload and the pitching performance of Willians Astudillo, whether the slow-starting Yankees are really doomed, the retirement of Jay Bruce, the end of Tim Locastro’s stolen-base success […]

Hello and Throw your clubs in the hallway and a tub is in the door Hello and welcome to episode 1683 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Raleigh of Fangraphs. Hello Meg. Hello. A lot has happened since we last spoke. The Super League seemingly came and went just in the span of a few days. Hadn't heard of the Super League last time we spoke. And now I guess I never needed to hear necessarily. I felt like I had just about figured out what it was. And now maybe that effort was wasted. So like for a person, you know, not me who doesn't understand what the Super League was

and maybe was, you know, sprawled out on her couch recovering from her second COVID dose. But again, not me, just a hypothetical person who meets that description. Is this a thing that we need to know about from a baseball perspective? No, although I was anticipating some emails and I think it came and went if it has in fact gone so quickly that there wasn't even time for people to send us hypotheticals about what would happen if the Yankees and the Red Sox and the Dodgers and the Cubs decided to split up and form their own super MLB league. But from what I can glean, MLB basically already is a super league, more or less. The structure is kind of what the super league was going for in a lot of ways. But

no, it does not seem like this is incredibly relevant to Effectively Wild right now. And I think there are probably better places and better podcasts for Super League coverage if you're interested in that. Can I note that the Ingenuity helicopter had its first successful powered controlled flight on another planet? Yeah, as long as we're talking about non-baseball news might as well talk about the helicopter on mars yeah i was excited about that too it got pushed back a couple times and then it happened it achieved liftoff in that thin atmosphere i'm

emotionally invested in the little helicopter i'm worried i'm worried about the little helicopter i just wanted to like you know do well and realize its goals and be able to look back on its time on Mars and say, I accomplished what I set out to do. And that's all any of us are really up to. But we're not all cute little helicopters, so I'm more invested in the helicopter than some other things. It is very cute. Yeah. And, of course, our baseball friend and former guest, Shannon Towie at NASA JPL. She is obviously invested in that too.

And so via her, I am even more invested in it. But yes, that lasted longer and succeeded more than the Super League seems to have done. But there is a lot of actual baseball news that we can get to today. I've just kind of got a grab bag of banter and news and email responses here. So we're recording on Tuesday afternoon. We weren't able to record until now, but probably not too late to spare a moment to talk about the Padres Dodgers series this weekend, because that was wild and wonderful. It totally lived up to the hype. At some point, there is going to be a boring Padres-Dodgers game. There's just going to be like a 9-0 blowout, or it's just going to be slow and bad and unexciting.

These two teams cannot play amazing games 19 times a year or more if they meet in the playoffs. But this weekend, this past weekend, totally lived up to the billing, they meet in the playoffs. But this weekend, this past weekend, totally lived up to the billing. And there's a four-game Padres-Dodgers series that is about to start in LA this week. So we don't have to wait long for the next act. It would be quite a thing if we came to realize that you really can sort of store up your best performances and your most compelling baseball performances and then deploy them as you need to, right? So you could, you know, it would be quite a skill if you could say,

well, I know in advance that I have X number of very good games. And I know that my teammates have Y number of very good games. And so we are going to look at the calendar and we are going to use our very best games for the division rivalries that mean the most. Because these games have very significant impact on both teams' layoff odds. It's kind of generally, but obviously with respect to the division in particular. And they could probably get by on like 75% against, I don't know, a less good team in the NL. The Rockies. The Rockies.

Well, you know, you picked them, not me. So it would be very cool if they could say, we can run at like 75% strength against Colorado, but we're going to be all systems go against LA or against San Diego. And it was just quite fun. It goes to show that baseball is better when teams are trying to win because you really have the potential for best against best. And there were plenty of moments in that series that were just really delightful and super strange, also super strange. Yeah.

Yeah, it really was intense. Everyone was saying this, but it felt like a playoff atmosphere. It's kind of a cliche, but it did, which is really unusual for a first half of April series. I mean, who really ever pays attention to matchups in baseball, especially in the first couple of weeks of the season? But this one, everyone had sort of circled on the calendar and you could tell that like players were getting into it and you know kind of chirping at each other and getting upset about calls that went against them more than you would probably in just your average everyday april game like they feel it too it's pretty clear and them feeling it makes it more fun for us to feel it. So this was just, it was like a great variety of games too.

There was just the Wild Friday game that was tied up until extras and not going to go on another zombie runner rule rant, but it lasted all the way up until then. And then it ended with like Jake Cronenworth is on the mound who is, you know, more of a two-way player than most players, but not actually a two-way player. And he's pitching in this game and Joe Musgrove is playing outfield, right? And just all sorts of weirdness that is happening in this game. I don't know if that speaks well of the Padres bullpen management that Jake Cronenworth was out there in the 12th or just in general. I think this series just exposed just how many pitchers are being used, how quickly teams are going through pitchers. And yeah, maybe that's partly because it's still April, but not entirely. And maybe teams are counting on not needing to save them for long extra inning games anymore. So they're just sort of burning them. And then we end up with position player pitchers in really meaningful games. And so I don't know that that is a great way for a baseball game to end, but it was certainly an exciting and entertaining and weird ways. So you had that, but then you also had the great pitcher's duel on Saturday between Kershaw and Darvish. And then you had another pretty decent pitcher's duel between

Bauer and Snell for a while. And then you got a comeback. The Padres came back to take the Sunday game. So it was a little bit of everything and the atmosphere was great. So yeah, just give me several more series like that, please. Yeah, I think that if we can dial those up for the rest of the year, it would be fine. I don't think that anyone would mind if we subbed in a couple more of those games in the place of either of these teams playing against, say, the Rockies. You know, candidly, I don't think the Rockies would mind either. It's not like they're, you know, hankering to play either of those teams.

So yeah, it was great fun. There was a moment. There was just, you know, I continue to have great sympathy for your displeasure with the ghost runner rule. And I continue to share everyone's sort of consternation about the way that we are burning through pitchers. And just the, you know, the kind of lackluster feeling you can have when you get a position player pitching in an important moment but it is delightful when you end up with a position player pitching to a pitcher with another pitcher in the outfields that is like that's that's good that's good stuff that's good stuff yeah i don't want to risk Musgrove because he is unbelievable these days.

And he had another 13 strikeout start. So, you know, don't want to jeopardize him by placing him in left field. But it's memorable for sure. And that game was like, that was almost a five-hour game. Of course, it was extra innings. But then even the pitcher's duel games were pretty long, more than three hours, I think, long for the amount of scoring that took place. But in a series like this, I don't really mind if the games are long. If it is a game against

the Rockies or something, sorry to keep picking on the Rockies, but hey, they've kind of earned it. But if it's a somewhat meaningless game or a lower stakes game, or just a game that doesn't feature so many stars, then it can drag a bit. But if it's Dodgers-Padres and it's the best of the sport on display, then I kind of want it to last as long as it will. The longer, the better to some degree. There is something very funny about the Padres of all teams where we joked throughout the offseason that they surely were being allowed extra roster spots for all of the guys who they had signed and brought back that they would run out of pitchers to throw out there

against literally David Price. But yeah, it was a good time. That's fun too. I love that David Price's career has come full circle and he's just a late-inning reliever, David Price, the way that he was as good time. That's fun too. I love that David Price's career has come full circle and he's just late inning reliever David Price the way that he was as a rookie. And I kind of said this almost jokingly when we talked about Musgrove's no hitter

and saying that maybe he would turn out to be one of the best one or two starters that they traded for over this off season instead of the third best. But I think in my mind, he has already leapfrogged Blake Snell. I don't know if I'm getting too over-exuberant about how good Musgrove has been, but anyone who is thinking that Blake Snell didn't last long in games because the Rays have a quick hook, I mean, yes, that is true.

But also, he has not gone deeper than five innings in any of his four starts for the Padres yet. And yeah, I know it's April and teams are having short leashes and everything, but he just nibbles. I mean, he nibbles successfully, but he just does not throw a lot of pitches in the strike zone. He relies on chases and he gets a lot of chases but when he doesn't get quite enough chases the pitches really pile up and he doesn't throw a ton of them and doesn't do all that well third time through the order and beyond not that he ever gets beyond so again like he's certainly valuable for the five innings that he's out there but i just don't know if anyone drafted him for their fantasy teams thinking oh he's going to be innings eater blake snell now that he's free of tampa bay i don't know if anyone drafted him for their fantasy teams thinking, oh, he's going to be

innings eater Blake Snell now that he's free of Tampa Bay. I don't think that's going to happen. It is one of the perhaps unfortunate side effects of decisions like that getting framed so, so strongly within like a strict, a strict interpretation of analytic scripture, right? Because then when a guy doesn't go more than five you know i think there is an impulse to be like see the analytics were right all along and it's yeah you know i don't know how productive that is or like i'm sure blake's not wants to go deeper too and like you said it is april so we'll kind of see where he is come you know june or july and how long he's going but yes it it did not escape my notice either i was like but blake he still has

that weird accent that isn't the accent for where we're from yeah i don't know i'm not gonna give him a hard time he's he's lived a life he's he's been here and there he's known different people than i've known so who knows who knows what happened that you know inspired that that accent but i remain flummoxed by it that's not the point of this but i just i'm like i mean this more to laud musgrove than to denigrate now yes yes of course has been great and like great to the point that i now have a i have a newly formed understanding of him my my prior has been updated so good job uh good job joe yeah yeah man that mookie catch on the tommy fan minor to the walk-off catch on saturday was just that was incredible i think i may have yelped slightly like i had no rooting interest in this game or this series but that was just so exciting

and then he comes up with the chest pounding signature moment of the season so far. That was awesome. He's just like, he's the best at kind of taking over a game. It feels like, you know, he's not Trout, but it just feels like there are games where he is everywhere and he is contributing in every possible way. And it's just so much fun. walk-off catch that was incredible it was incredible and and sort of nicely vindicating because he made he made a rare error in the first game of that series and i i looked i looked around as if cats and dogs would be living together because he's usually not only spectacular but just so sure in the field um but yeah that catch was really i just want to watch them play forever yeah can we like super league padres dodgers only yeah but then i'm gonna have to learn what super league is yeah no that's not good i don't want to learn i don't want to learn more about super league i'd like to know less than i know about nfts yeah that's another thing that i'm hoping that we will

all be able to forget about fairly soon but we'll see see. Yeah, we'll find out, I guess. I don't know. Maybe the scarcity is good. Maybe it's good that they don't play each other every day so that we can appreciate it when they do and we can realize that it is different from regular baseball. But yeah, that play, that was one where the replay actually enhanced my appreciation of the play because it was great in real time but then when you saw it on the replay there was just like the slimmest sliver of leather that came between the ground and the ball and it was a great call like he didn't trap it and fake it or anything he legitimately caught it but it was so close to not being a catch that it made it even more special so you know for

a moment there i forgot that it wasn't like game seven of the world series it was just a game in mid-april but it had that feeling i thought i was like oh he he trapped it like he didn't catch that and then there was the oh my god you know like a slow motion sneeze yeah anyway so much talent on display in that series and it was nice to see fernando tatis jr make his return and immediately hit a home run in the Friday game. Still semi-concerned about his shoulder, but he helped assuage those concerns by homering right off the bat, so to speak. So as we were just saying, I think everyone has sort of turned on position players pitching. And Emma Batchelary just wrote about it, and I've seen other people tweeting about it. We're all

just sick of it because it's so common. And especially now when you've got these 13, 14 man bullpens, it's like there's really no excuse. Especially when we're playing seven inning double headers and we're ending extra inning games early. You should not run out of pitchers and have to use a position player. So we're all over it except for when the position player pitcher is williams estadio so that came before the wild ending to the friday padres dodgers game but i was just sort of sitting there i wasn't watching that game at the time and my alert system works it's like you know when you get like the test of the emergency alert system. Yes. It's like, okay, if there's a disaster, I'm prepared.

I will know. I'll be able to protect myself. That's what happened here because I got G chats from you. I got G chats from producer Dylan. I got DMs. The Facebook group had about 10 different threads about it. And William Testadio was pitching. And not only was he pitching, but Shohei Otani was due up fourth in that inning

because the twins were facing the Angels and I barely switched over in time to see because Williams was so efficient right he got a one two three seven pitch inning just mowed them down so barely got to appreciate it in the moment but of course, he showed off a Darvish-esque velocity differential. I mean, there was like a 30 mile per hour plus difference between his slow ball, which didn't even register on StatCast, I think, and his 73 mile per hour heat. So he threw a, what was it, a 46 mile per hour pitch in there for a called strike, I think. So he made quick work of the Angels and Otani was left on deck. So I did not get to see the confrontation of my two faves. And I don't know whether I'm disappointed or relieved.

I would have had a real existential crisis there trying to figure out who I was rooting for in that plate appearance. Well, I felt bad rooting against him. I mean, I wanted him to fail a little bit so that we could get the matchup between him and Otani. Although as I tweeted, I'm worried that that would have created a singularity that might have swallowed the podcast whole and then we just would have to stop doing it. But Ben, I'm optimistic on your behalf that you will get to see some version of this again, because as Astadio himself announced on his Instagram, I am officially announcing my candidacy for the 2021 American League Cy Young. You just picked the best guys to be enamored with. And I marveled.

You should join a scouting department, but you're just like the good vibe scout. You're there to find the good hangs. Right. Yeah, no, they've both been their best selves this season, both on the field in terms of talent, also on the field in terms of gif-ability and just being a whole lot of fun. So yeah, we're recording a few hours before Shohei returns to the mound. So that will dictate my mood for the next day or so, depending on how that goes.

But I think ultimately I'm, I'm semi relieved that they didn't face each other. I think the previous effectively wild singularity was when Rich Hill pitched to Astadio who was catching. So you had a Hill Astadio battery, which is about as effectively wild as it gets in this case i think if it had come down to it i probably would have been rooting for shohei just because i don't think williams failing as a pitcher actually reflects poorly on him in any way

no one's going to be like evaluating him based on his pitching stats, whereas people will evaluate Shohei Otani based on his hitting stats. So just in terms of like significance and career prospects and evaluating their season and all, I probably would have had more riding on Otani being the victor in that plate appearance, but I would have been conflicted about any outcome. I think, too, that, you know, Astadio has proven himself to be the sort of person who, you know, he doesn't seem to take himself overly seriously. And so I think that if he had like, you know, if he had left one middle middle to Otani and Otani had hit it five miles, that Astadio would have laughed and kind of looked sheepish and then, you know, gone about his day.

And it wouldn't have, it wouldn't have altered his perception of himself. As you said, it wouldn't change our perception of him because that's not his job. He's just there. He's just trying to be a good helper. He's trying to spare other members of his team whose arms the Twins do need from having to throw unnecessary pitches. He's already

playing with house money. Then if he gives up a home run or a hit, you're like, it's just all oh astadio you're out there doing your best and we would have all laughed and and sounded like you know characters from a 30s movie oh what oh and so i think that it would have been a good outcome for otani to get a hit but maybe we're just it's nice to be left wanting more although ben i'm going to object to the idea that Astadio was the only good position player pitching that we saw this week because, well, there were some excesses in position player pitching.

To have your mean Mercedes pitch, also a good thing. Yeah, I can't dispute that. He has been one of the best stories of the season in more than one way as well. I'm almost surprised that he's not too good now to be a position player pitcher. Teams don't generally use star hitters anymore as pitchers. The days of Jose Canseco throwing his knuckleball out there and hurting himself are kind of over. I mean,

Cronenworth is a good hitter, of course, but he also has a pitching background. So maybe that sets him apart a little bit. But for the most part, you don't really get like great players and great hitters putting themselves at risk on the mound. And no one would have included Jermaine Mercedes in the ranks of star players or great hitters three weeks ago. But the man is batting 404 with a 684 slugging percentage as we speak. So he has suddenly become a pretty integral part of this White Sox offense, which is lacking Eloy Jimenez, but hasn't really missed a beat because Jermaine has more than stepped up to take his place. So yeah, almost surprised that they let him go out there in the middle of this hot streak, but that gave us another position player pitching highlight.

I love very much that he has a 432 BABIP right now. That's delightful. That is a fun stat fact in the early going here. Yeah. So while we were all marveling at Padres and Dodgers, there was also another great rivalry that was playing out in the Bronx, Yankees race. And man, that didn't go so well for the Yankees. And Yankees fans are revolting. And I'm not commenting on Yankees fans and their quality as people or fans. I just mean that they are in open revolt. And on Friday, they were throwing baseballs on the field and making their displeasure felt.

And that was before two more losses to the race. So the Yankees, as we speak, again, five and 10 worst record in the American League. And in New York, which is not known for patience with its sports teams or taking the long view, which I can say as a New Yorker and former Yankee fan, they are quite worried about their team and at least on Twitter are calling for various people's heads. So we talked last time I wrote last week about the incredible longevity of Brian Cashman, and I almost feel like I jinxed him because suddenly people are calling for Cashman to be fired not for the first time and not that that is about to happen but they are really up in

arms about this team and its slow start here are some teams that have a better offense than the New York Yankees the Seattle Mariners the Pittsburgh Pirates the Baltimore Orioles, the San Francisco Giants, the Texas Rangers, the only teams that have a worse offense by our version of war. And again, not the only way that we could slice this particular pie, but the way I'm doing it right now are the Colorado Rockies and the Detroit Tigers. We will not talk about how Akil Badu has kind of cooled off because that would be unbecoming and we're still rooting for him. But yes, they are 22nd by wrc plus they are 28th by offensive war and

you know i don't think that the pitching has gone especially better for them no yeah i mean the fact that the offense has not produced makes me more optimistic about the yankees. Not that like I'm in the camp of people who are going to write off a team that we all thought was great after 15 games in mid-April. This is really a blip in the long run, most likely. And we saw that with like, you know, the A's losing their first six games and then they just reel off a really long winning streak. And suddenly you forget that 0-6 start to the season. Or same thing with the Red Sox, which, you know, people follow the Red Sox much like they follow the Yankees. And one thing Cashman said to me, he repeated that saying about how in New York, it's, you know, not 162 game season, it's 162 one game seasons. Again, kind of a cliche, but also kind of true. 62 one-game seasons. Again, kind of a cliche, but also kind of true. And I think you can forget those things like the Red Sox. They dropped their first series to Baltimore and they looked bad and people were writing columns about the Red Sox disaster. And then suddenly they won a bunch of

games in a row. And so it would not surprise me at all if the Yankees reeled off a 10-game winning streak of their own or just won like everyone expected them to from here on out and everyone forgot about this start, which is not to say that there are not some causes for concern here. It depends how you look at it. If you look at it the way that the playoff odds look at it, then they have taken a hit, a measurable hit, but not a hit that is probably commensurate with the level of panic and outrage that is going on in Yankees nation now. But

according to the Fangraphs playoff odds, again, before Tuesday's game, they are down 11 percentage points in playoff odds. They are down 15 percentage points in division odds, and they are down 2.7 percentage points in World Series odds. And they are second to the Astros, who have also started semi-slow but have been behind teams that are playing better. The Astros have taken greater hits to their playoff odds in all three of those categories. But after them, it's the Yankees. So there's obviously a hit here. And it's a division where you have the Rays, who were expected to give them a run for their

money. And the Red Sox are no slouches. And Toronto, too. So yeah, you don't want to see this. But the fact that it's only been 15 games that we thought this was a good team, that these are the same players who were on the team three weeks ago when we thought it was a great team and the fact that they haven't hit, which like, I have no doubt that the Yankees are going to hit. Like you could have doubts about the pitching,

but the offense just is not really doubtable. I don't think, especially as long as guys aren't injured, which isn't really the case thus far. And I should say the issue has come in the rotation at the bullpen, which is taps in the American League by war and has a very respectable 2-7-6 fit. But the starters have struggled. They have struggled. But I agree. I think that this is the sort of thing that is going to sort itself out in fairly short order. They will get some offensive reinforcements.

Those guys come back from injuries, so they have that going for them. And also they're a good baseball team who's just had a lousy start. So I think it's going to be fine. But I never like to enjoy the consternation of others because it's unbecoming. And yeah, Yankees fans have had it good for a long time, but also they're human beings and our experience of our lives is just what we know. And so, you know, this amount of suffering relative to a fan base that has had a longer playoff drought or a longer World Series drought would seem a bit of an overreaction. But that's the reality that this fan base knows. And so we're not going to sit here and pass judgment on it.

But it is kind of funny. It is a little funny. I mean, like throwing baseballs on the field, that is a quick escalation, I think. I think that is perhaps too quick an escalation. You might look back, Yankees fans, and wish you'd saved that one because what if this gets worse?

It probably won't get worse. And we're here to say that it's probably going to be fine. Our understanding of this team, I don't think has fundamentally changed. I don't think when we look at them that we think that there was some great error in the way that we projected them. It's just that they haven't hit so far.

And yeah, we looked at their rotation in the early going coming into the season and thought, well, you know, it's probably not the best thing that their starting depth behind Cole is so shallow or at least so uncertain. But like, you know, I don't think that we had a bad understanding of how the Yankees were going to hit. They have a bunch of very good, competent hitters. But if it does get worse, you've already used the baseball bit. And that's a dramatic bit.

Like, that's a pretty – I don't think that they show replays of that because it's like streaking. They don't want to encourage you to do that. No. Mid-April is early to break out the throwing baseballs at the field tactic. Yeah. I mean, if they now improve, then Yankees fans could credit themselves with motivating the team or intimidating the team into winning. It won't be Aaron Boone's closed clubhouse doors meeting or just regression to the mean.

It'll be that the Yankees fans rose up and reminded the team who they were. It'll be that the Yankees fans rose up and reminded the team who they were. But no, I think there was already some acrimony because the kind of a continuation of people calling for upgrades at deadlines when Brian Cashman has stood pad and decided not to do that. So there's a sense that the old, if George were still alive, sort of segment of the fan base that forgets that George probably would have traded all of the good young players and there would be aging over-the-hill veterans and the team probably wouldn't be any better. But they like the aggressiveness of always wanting to have the biggest payroll and being the most aggressive. And when there is not double and triple redundancy at every position,

it is unacceptable for the Yankees. So I can see why people came into the season sort of upset about that. And look, it's been quite a while by Yankees standards since they won a World Series or even won a pennant. So people are impatient. And I know you sympathize as a Mariners fan. I mean, yeah, I think that there is a limit to my understanding of their situation, to be sure. And look, if my alternatives were being stuck rooting for the Jets, I might freak out too. I also think that there's something to be said for the fact that people are finding their way back to the ballpark for the first time in a long time. finding their way back to the ballpark for the first time in a long time. And, you know, we're all having like pent up feeling.

And I think we're all being caught kind of unawares by moments when we feel very emotional about reentering the world in something resembling the way that we used to. And so I can appreciate how perhaps, you know, you burn too hot too fast. Yeah. Because you're like like i am so excited but also i think that people should should remember that we're only going to talk about the ball bit the one time so now you have to come up with a different thing you have to come up with something else yeah i don't know if people need to recalibrate their feeling for the season and how long it is after the 60 game season because, because if you started 5-10 last year, that would

be a big deal. If you start 5-10 this year, it's not good, but it's hardly a killer. And I don't know that the Yankees will be fine. I would assume that the Yankees from this day forward will probably play more or less as they were expected to play. And will this hole that they have dug themselves impair them at the end of the season? I don't know. It's possible that it could, but they would't mean that they will continue to play that well. And perhaps when we look back, it will seem like they just got it out of the way early.

So I think that probably there would have been a reaction mostly like this in any season. So I don't know that it's coming after the 60-game season or it's just the Yankees and New York, and 5-10 is not good for a team with high expectations. But I expect that the Yankees will mostly be fine and they will be without Jay Bruce who retired and now will no longer be around to remind you that you are older than he is. I have won.

I am victorious. Yeah, and Len played a little bit. He retired and then he played a little bit. Yeah. He retired and then he like played a little bit. Yeah. I don't really have much more to say about Jay Bruce other than he had a nice little career and I hope that he enjoys his retirement and his time with his family and that I never have to think about how old I am or he is ever again.

Yeah. I do think that the psychological effect of sort of a bad stretch in the early going is so interesting because we don't have any other like good baseball to sort of fall back on and remind ourselves like, oh, yes, I have recently seen this team behave and perform the way I expected them to. then you can't really put it in its proper context. Whereas if you have a kind of crummy stretch in July, it doesn't bother you as much if the team's been good prior to that because you're like, yeah, they're getting tired going into the break and they'll be fine on the other side. And we do a bad job remembering how other things feel. Yeah.

And usually Effectively Wild is an oasis from these overreactions, I like to think, that we will not be declaring anyone done after a couple weeks and we will not be declaring anyone made after a couple weeks either, unless it's the Dodgers maybe, but we declared them made before the season started. So usually we don't do a lot of overreactions or even reactions to the overreactions because it's probably not all that much fun to just hear us say, small sample and it's April and nothing counts and don't even look at the standings. But there is some truth to that, especially when it's a team like the Yankees. So it's really just the vehemence of the reaction. And I'm of inside the new york bubble and have maybe been exposed to a little more of it because of that and it's so strong that i want to reassure people or diffuse the situation and i'm sure that this podcast will have accomplished that so there you go yankees fans don't worry yeah or at least if you worry just just uh don't throw don't throw

stuff on the field because other people have to go pick up least if you worry, just don't throw stuff on the field because other people have to go pick up that stuff, right? Like, don't do that. Don't call for Brian Cashman to lose his job after 15 games. That's silly. I think we can say that that's silly without discounting anyone's sort of experience of the last couple weeks and what it must feel like to watch your favorite team lose

more than you expect them to this is don't see think about how much more you'll appreciate it when they get really hot and are good again you'll be like ah right right remember this team that i was pretty confident would be good and it turns out is well yeah and if you had faith in them all along then you can fully enjoy that hot streak and you won't have to feel like a bandwagon fan who lost faith and then got back on board so speaking of fast starts there was one that was stopped right after we talked about it tim lacastro got caught stealing right after he broke the record broke tim raines's record had 29 steals without being caught to start his career, the streak was snapped at 29. And his attempt at a 30th was unsuccessful.

And to add injury to insult, he also jammed his finger on the attempt and went on the injured list. So not only did the streak get snapped, but he is now out of action for a little while. So we wondered how long it would last and would it make him any less likely to go? And I guess it didn't, but now it's over. And who knows, maybe it's a relief to Tim LeCastro that he is no longer flawless and there is no longer any expectation of perfection. Yeah, you're diminished like the rest of us. But you know who is perfect? Someone else who stole a bass on Sunday.

And I just wanted to salute it because we don't get a whole lot of opportunities to praise his latter-day performance. But you know who has a better stolen bass success rate than Tim LoCastro dating back to 2016? Albert Pujols does. Albert Pujols is a perfect base dealer since 2016. He has swiped 12 bags.

He has not been caught. I think he's perfect in his last 13 attempts dating back to 2015. He is one of four players, I believe, who have made at least 10 attempts and have not been caught over that span. Kevin Biggio, Albert Pujols, Lane Adams, and Leody Tavares saw that stat in the baseball reference stat head daily email. And Albert Pujols is not like those other players or really like any other player in the majors now because he is just the slowest that there is and i don't mean to insult him it's just the facts we all see the sprint speed leaderboard and he is perennially toward or at the bottom of it and not just at the bottom but at the bottom

by a lot he's on his own ultra slow island one full foot per second behind yadier melina who isn't exactly a speed demon himself. And yet when he goes, which is a rare occurrence, but not an unheard of occurrence, he makes it and he does it just with wiles, with his veteran smarts. So he did this in a game against the Rangers on Sunday. He stole third without even drawing a throw. I think he just stole it on the pitcher. He picks his spots. No one is paying very close attention to him or holding him close. And why would they?

Because he's Albert Pujols, slowest position player in baseball. And yet every now and then he still has those instincts, you know, doesn't really have the reaction time to the bat speed that he once did but he definitely has the veteran experience he has more of that than ever and every now and then he deploys it to steal a bag and i always get a kick out of it so he's actually the oldest player to steal a base since ichiro and even in ichiro's last gasp 2018 he still had a slightly above average sprint speed. I appreciate that he appreciates the value of being wily in this way. Because a pitcher isn't going to worry about Albert Pujols. Why would Albert Pujols run?

And he doesn't overuse his wiliness. He's selective in his wiles. And so I think that it's delightful because, you know, and there's always kind of a look. There's always kind of a look on the face of the pitcher. It's one of two things. They're either totally flabbergasted that it worked or they're kind of secretly delighted. They're like, yeah, don't do that again.

But also that was pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. If you're Pujols, you have to be perfect. Like you better make it because otherwise it's like, why are you running, dude? It's like you're the slowest player there is. So if you were getting caught, then that would be a situation where you might want to sit him down and say, Albert, you don't have the wheels that you used to. But because he makes it all the time, what can you say?

He finds the right times to do it. Yeah, it's pretty delightful. All right. So I've got a few emails here to read in response to things that we talked about recently so this is an email from adam spillane and he is responding to our multiple conversations recently about player switcheroos players uh masquerading as other players secretly perhaps better players substituting for less good players to get in a bat that they are not entitled to.

We talked about whether this has ever happened, whether it would be feasible. And Adam writes in to say, I spent 10 seasons, 2009 to 2018, as a broadcaster in the Rockies organization in the Pioneer League. And I can tell you, we pulled off the player switcheroo multiple times, though never with malicious intent to cheat the game. in the Pioneer League, and I can tell you, we pulled off the player switcheroo multiple times, though never with malicious intent to cheat the game. It was always done because a pitcher who was supposed to pitch was left off the lineup card. I don't remember all of them, but here are the two most memorable. In 2009, Clint Tilford was supposed to be the second pitcher of a piggyback, but he was left off the lineup card, so he was given Billy Voponek's number 12 jersey, and he starts warming up.

I look down to the bullpen and see number 12 warming up, but it was obviously Tilford because the pitcher's socks were pulled up, a Tilford staple. I text down to the dugout, and they tell me to make sure Voponek is announced. So our PA announcer announced Voponek into the game, and that's what was put into the box score until I had it changed a few days later. So secret Clint Tilford appearance. seventh and eighth innings on our way to a two nothing win. The best parts of this were that Schlecht was a six, two lefty while Bryant was a six, seven righty. And our number two hitter was Michael Kadiar who drove in both runs that night.

The pioneer league was really something. So the switcheroo has happened in the low minors, at least, although not really for the reasons that we were talking about. No, not exactly. When you're, I do wonder why they had so many procedural errors.

I should really look at that. Yeah, it's the minor leagues for the lineup card makers too, I guess. Yeah, it's a development league for everybody. That's delightful, although it is quite different, I think, both in its intent and its cause than what we were talking about. But I kept thinking about this. I mean, it would be such a rare combination of traits because you'd have to have two guys who are basically the same in every discernible way, except that one is a materially better hitter to the point of it being worth it.

Because as we discussed, like if you get jammed up in a defensive swap, that could, you know, you could end up giving back the runs that you theoretically just scored and you'd need them to look the same enough that it wouldn't draw attention and again i think that the consequences would be pretty severe so i think there's a reason we haven't seen it because the number of times that we even have it as a potentiality are so limited but um i don't think that minor league pitching stuff quite qualifies but i'm glad that you were able to get your guys in to get the work they needed. Because really, that's what they're there for. They're there to grow. Less umpire oversight at that level.

Fewer recognizable faces that go with names. Just less oversight in general. Less fewer people actually caring about which players are actually in the game at any given time. So definitely easier to pull off there. We also got an email from a Patreon supporter named Sivan. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly, who says, just to add to the video replay conversation, whenever I've watched a cricket game on TV, the replay umpire's decision is live streamed. The audience sees the video that the umpire sees. Here's the umpire asking the video technician to go back or forth, explains his rationale for a decision, and then at the end tells the umpire on the field to keep or reverse his call. This adds both transparency to the process and keeps the audience engaged with the process instead of bored waiting for the call. Do you think this is feasible in baseball? And do you think it would be an improvement on the current system? I think that having some kind of explanation for the folks in the ballpark especially would be

useful because I do think that there is often confusion about why a particular call is either upheld or overturned. And I think that sometimes the rules, like when it's a guy coming off the bag for a hot second and he gets tagged out, that's, I think, pretty comprehensible to your typical fan. But there are some more sort of obscure rules and corner cases that are in the rulebook.

And I think that when it comes to those, rather than having fans in the stands not know what's going on at all to those rather than having fans in the stands not know what's going on at all and rather than leaving the broadcast booth to kind of fumble their way through an explanation which sometimes goes better than at other times it would be nice to have someone there to say like here's what i saw or didn't see and why you know that informed this particular decision that i've made because i do think that the whole idea of being able to see stuff in super slow mo, super high res is transparency, right? You can see pixel by pixel where the ball is and

the guy's foot. And, and so I think that to embrace that spirit a little more fully, it would be useful to get an explanation because sometimes, you know, sometimes what will happen is a weird rule will get invoked and a result in the field is confusing to people and then you watch the broadcast and you can see you can see like the folks behind home plate leaning in and talking to one another and you're like they don't know what's going on right now they they have been lost for a moment and the action on the field will sort of snap them back in and they're going to appreciate it but we talked about this before like this is all made up all of our rules around this stuff are made up.

It's not gravity, although gravity is often involved. And so we have to have some amount of faith that the made-up rules that we have and that we put so much stock in are sensical and fairly enforced. And I think that you really do risk turning people off, even if only temporarily temporarily when you don't have a good understanding of why like you your favorite team suddenly doesn't have a runner on

second where they did before so yeah i think it would be really useful you know they make uh they make nfl refs explain their decision making so and that doesn't always go great it does give you another opportunity to boo so so that's exciting potentially. So yeah, I don't really see a downside. ballparks and then there was no one to announce anything too but hopefully and probably i would think that would come back at some point but this idea from cricket of actually even on the broadcast showing what the replay technician and the umpires the officials are seeing in real time that would be great i think i i don't expect that to, but there's probably no reason why it couldn't happen. And it would certainly enhance the entertainment value for me. Like there's some interminable replay reviews where you're just sitting there and you see every angle that's available to the broadcast. And you're just sitting there and sitting there and wondering what could they possibly be looking at. And sometimes it even seems pretty conclusive. And you're wondering, well, why did they not just make the ruling?

But you don't know what they're looking at. They may be looking at different angles than are available to the broadcast. And so you're just sort of sitting there in the dark. And ultimately, you don't really ever get clued in until someone relays the explanation to the booth at some point. But even in addition to the umpire being transparent when they make the call, yeah, why not show it on the broadcast? I mean, I could see why MLB would not want that broadcast, I guess, but there is precedence in other sports and for entertainment value and for transparency. I would want to see that and i think that it would be good to have the person who's making the decision be the one to like

you know like a voice on the sky they come on the jumbotron and they say hello i'm and i'm here to tell you about and they explain what's going on because they're the ones making the call i don't want to put the umpire on the field in the position. Like imagine you're at a, you're at a game and you're, you root for the home team. And the umpire says that guy was safe on your home team. And you're like, yeah, we're going to score. And then the other team is like, no, he was not safe. I shall challenge. And, uh, and then the call is overturned and the umpire made a call that it comports with what the home crowd wants. But the umpire if he has to say upon further review is gonna get yelled at and it feels that feels unfair to the umpire because you know he might have been wrong but he at least was doing something

that the majority of the people in the ballpark liked and now he's gonna get booed so you should have like a you know you make the guy come on he can be in a little MLB polo and he can. I'm really looking forward to having 100% mental clarity after the second shot. I think it's been OK. You can leave all of this in. It was like, again, you know, not me, but like if one were a person who like took edibles, it would be like being on the back half of an edible. It wasn't unpleasant.

It was just like very foggy. And I was like, I don't know about words words so it was really good that i wasn't editing we should we should thank dylan and john for making sure that there were good words on fancrafts yesterday because i think they would have been more typo prone had they been edited by me yeah when you told me that earlier i thought that might have made for interesting podcasting if we had talked while you were on the back half of edible type mental space. I mean, not you, but someone. Someone. But perhaps not. Perhaps it was better to wait a day. I think that there would have been a lot of, wait, what? That's not good radio. Also got an email from Robert who wrote in about something that I was going to

bring up for banter. And Robert had a subject line here, celebrating our personal victories. And he writes, on Monday night in the bottom of the fourth inning of a game between the Phillies and Giants, Gene Segura stepped to the plate, looped a ball into left field and stretched a would-be single into a hustle double,

narrowly avoiding the tag at second. While the Giants were calling for a replay on the close play, Segura immediately turned toward his own dugout, frantically motioning for the ball to be saved. As he pleaded for someone, anyone to save the baseball, the Philly broadcast alerted viewers that Segura had just notched his 200th career double. The broadcast cut to the Phillies dugout where Andrew McCutcheon, another member of the esteemed 200 career doubles fraternity, and others clapped

before standing to applaud this milestone. A 200 career doubles graphic was shown on the scoreboard and a decent number of fans were shown giving a standing ovation. Segura then tipped his helmet to the crowd multiple times before the broadcast showed the sweeping crowd shot that has become a staple of the milestone celebration moment. This all felt like an undue amount of commotion for a 200th career double, so I checked to see where this ranked on the all-time leaderboard. As of this writing, Segura is tied for 1,080th on the all-time doubles leaderboard, 62nd all-time among active players, and 7th among active players in this game.

That came when he got it. This research had me feeling somewhat vindicated in my incredulity, but my wife put this whole situation into a new perspective for me. As I bemoaned the celebration over such a non-event, she said, No, I like it. He should be celebrating. We should all celebrate our wins. Look how much fun everyone is having. So in that spirit, what other seemingly mundane career milestone should we be celebrating as robustly as Segura and the Philly faithful celebrated his move into a 10-way tie for 1,080th place in all-time career doubles? to the video, it's sort of a surreal sight. It almost seems like satire or something. And Robert's right. McCutcheon and others, they were clapping on the bench and then they stood up,

but it looked like one of those reluctant standing ovations when it's like you intend to clap, but then other people stand up and you're like, oh, okay, I're we're standing i guess i'll go along with it but this was uh i can't really recall a less consequential milestone that was celebrated in this fashion and i don't know i don't begrudge him having a good time and and delighting in his accomplishments but uh this probably would not clear the bar the bar for me if I were in that spot. I mean, I don't know. If I found myself in that spot, maybe I'd be celebrating every double that way, but this was not the norm. The first thing that comes to mind for me is what if you're a hitter and you are approaching a hit milestone, but then your hit comes against a position player pitching?

Do you sit there and commemorate it? I guess if it's a big enough number, if it's a milestone that we all look around and are like, wow, you have 3,000 hits, then you don't care because it's 3,000. You're like, look, some of those were probably BS hits in the past. It's fine. I'm at 3,000. There are going to be some that are better struck than others, and we're excited because this is a big, round, important number. And so here we are, 3,000.

Yeah. And you wouldn't care that it came against Jake Grunenworth or whatever. Just to pick a recent example. Or Danny Mendick. As an aside, and here I'm going to go on a tangent that does have a bit of entendre. So if you are listening with children around just be aware of that because i don't want to bother anybody but what would your family have had to accomplish

to not change your name if last name if it was mendic i think my family would have had to like cure cancer anyway that doesn't that's neither here nor there but i do take some comfort in knowing that like i bet danny mendic's middle school experience was a little rough at times because of his last name in a way that probably makes him more relatable than your typical baseball player. He was a position player who also pitched in that same game with your men, Mercedes, just in case people were not watching baseball at like nine in the morning whenever that Red Sox, White Sox game happened. Anyway, to return to the point at hand, I think that you would feel a little bit sheepish because you're like, this isn't a real pitcher. This is a position player. But you would still note the moment. But 200 doubles is like, I mean, that's 200 more than I have.

And I wonder if there hadn't been a replay review, do you think that they do anything around this? If play just continues and there wasn't a pause do you think that they say anything or were the phillies like oh we gotta put something up because maybe they have the replay feed but it does suggest that they like had that ready like they knew that that's what i was wondering yeah like clearly segura knew about this he asked for the ball and fine like be aware of your own milestones and accomplishments but yeah was the phillies like graphic design scoreboard department were they ready with the 200 career doubles graphic like

did they have that in the holster and they were like all right it's time or did they realize as this was happening like oh this must be meaningful in some way i guess we better throw something up there so that it's not embarrassing for Gene Segura that no one is cheering him for the 200th career double. That's what I want to know. Yeah, I want to know what the level of preparation here was. I'm trying to think of, I have a lot of sympathy for the people who clapped because I don't know that casual fans, you know, 200 sounds kind of like a lot, maybe it's a it's certainly a round number and it's more than like 100 so i'm sure that there were a couple of fans there who

looked around and they were like oh is that a really big number we should right i would assume it was if we stopped the game to celebrate it yeah i gotta do something about this i i didn't come prepared i don't have a sign so the least i can do is clap i don't know like we got really excited about tim lacastroro's stolen base streak, but there was a streak component, and it had been undisturbed for so long. It was unprecedented. It was unprecedented, so that's a different thing. Clearly, a lot of guys have had 200 doubles.

There were more than 1,000 above him on the leaderboard. I don't know. I don't know. I think that your first like hit milestone that you of any kind that you probably want to do is like like your 100th home run i think that's a perfectly reasonable thing to be like and he now has 100 home runs i don't know that seems like sort of a lot or maybe it's two seasons worth if you're like drunk or a little stand and you're healthy yeah Yeah. Jay Bruce has more than 300 home runs, so 100 isn't that much anymore.

Well, he's very young, Ben, so that's why. He's just a young spry. He's in the prime of his life. He's got nothing but time at home ahead of him, and I'm sure he's going to do projects, probably build some stuff because he's so young and strong in life like young people yeah i think carl santana saved first base i think he took the first base bag the other day when he had his 1000th career walk which uh i don't know you don't tend to think of celebrating walks really but but i like that yeah i mean he's it's it's the thing that makes him as good as he is and makes him undervalued. And I think he's the fourth active player to have a thousand walks. So it's a lot rarer than 200 doubles. So it's not as active. You don't get to slide into second and celebrate the way that Segura did on his double. But sure, like I'm all for players keeping some memento. I have no problem with that. Like balls are not literally a dime a dozen,

but more or less, you know, there's no shortage of baseball. So by all means, put that in your trophy case and, you know, show your grandchildren your 200th double ball someday. But it just seems like, you know, I don't know that it necessarily merits stopping the game. And I think, you know, in Segura's case, like not to bring down the mood here, but he is someone who has suffered some hardship and tragedy. I think back in 2014, he lost a child and lost some of

his will to play the game at that point, as one would imagine that you would. And he has continued to play and has found some measure of joy, it seems, in baseball. And that's great. And if this is part of that healing coping process that he celebrates every little happiness that comes his way, then by all means, do what you have to do. Gene Segura, I don't begrudge him that. I guess it's just if we get to a point where every player is celebrating a 200th career double or equivalent milestones, then in an era when we are trying to improve the pace of the game and cut down the game length a little bit, stopping for a minute or two to take the bow and have the standing ovation and show the scoreboard graphic

for an accomplishment that is not all that rare is maybe not something I would want to encourage. I enjoyed it in this case just because it was so weird that it was happening. But if it became the standard that we celebrated everything that way, then it would perhaps not be quite as quirky and endearing. Yeah, and it's just a double is, you know, doubles are valuable. Like a double is a useful kind of hit. It's better than a single. Yep.

But it doesn't have sort of the gravitas of a home run, and it doesn't have even the rarity of a triple in today's game. Certainly, far more common to hit a double than to hit a triple. If you had 200 triples, maybe I would be like, oh, that's nice for you. Not a lot of guys with 200

triples. Not really any active guys with that many. You'd go, oh, wow, that's so cool. But for a double, it does seem to be a bit much. Like, you know, I don't know. It's just not that spectacular. I mean, like, on the one hand, it's not that spectacular.

It is funny that Mike Trout only has 264. Can we take a brief pause to appreciate mike trot's deadline for a moment i don't recall whether he paused the game and whether there was a scoreboard almost certainly not his 200th double but no i doubt it can we can we talk about mike trot's deadline for a second sure yeah by the way there are only eight players who have uh 200 career triples see that then it's like a long long time ago yeah yeah i mean like it's so... A long, long time ago. Yeah, I mean, like, it's... So I just think a bit more discernment, though I would like to know

if there had not been a pause for it to get looked at if they would have done anything or if play would have just continued. But Mike Trout is currently hitting 354, 492, 688. He's a 225 WRC+. he has a 520 babbit he is walking 21.3 percent of the time he is striking out at a good clip for him like a the highest of his career so far i mean we

will not really say that any of these numbers are likely to sit quite where they are come the end of the year but you know it turns out that mike trout is still really good yep he's still good yeah we're gonna have to do a big mike trout blowout episode for the big 3-0 in august it's coming up we will have to appreciate him not that we haven't spent you know the last uh eight years or so appreciating him already nine years i'm very comfortable with mike trout being younger than i am because that just means that we will get to enjoy him for more years. Right. The active career leader in triples was actually one of the players applauding Gene Segura, Andrew McCutcheon, as 49 career triples. That's cool. Yeah. So there were just two more quick accomplishments I wanted to shout out.

accomplishments I wanted to shout out. First, Sean Casmar Jr. made it back to the big leagues after a very long hiatus, made his major league debut in 2008, played 19 games for the Padres, and was in the minor leagues ever since, mostly at AAA, and then just made it all the way back to the big leagues with Atlanta, his first MLB appearance since 2008, grounded into a double play in a pinch hit appearance, maybe not the way that he wanted to come back, but still pretty incredible that he stuck it out for so long and made it back. And it's not unprecedented that long a layoff, but it's very rare. I saw Elias said that the last player with a longer gap between MLB games was Ralph Weingarner, who went 13 years and 14 days between pitching appearances for the 1936 Cleveland team and the 1949 St. Louis Browns. So it's been a really long time since anyone else has done this. And

there are others, but they usually had some sort of long gaps like Manny Mignoso or Satchel Paige or Paul Schreiber, who did it for Brooklyn and the Yankees. He came back during World War II when he was coaching for the Yankees and the roster was shorthanded. And so he made some appearances in Migniosos or pages cases like there was you know a promotional element to those appearances so this is like a legitimate one you know no no funny business going on and he made it back after a really long layoff and i was just thinking like how much the game has changed since 2008 like not that sean casmar has been like Rip Van Winkle and he just woke up suddenly, but if he had, MLB in 2021 is a lot different from MLB in 2008 when it comes to

so many things, really. Just the league stats, the way the ball behaves, pitcher usage, shifting. He's been in AAA. like he knows about shifting he knows about the ball it's not news to john casmar but if he had just suddenly reappeared after this long absence he would be like where am i yeah and what happened to the mlb i remember yeah he was not actually asleep like rip van winkle though so he's like baseball i, I know that. Yeah. Here to baseball. But yeah, that is very cool. And Carter Stewart made his NPB debut. Remember Carter Stewart? Yes, I do. He was a subject of some discussion on the podcast.

This was the eighth overall pick in the 2018 draft, Carter Stewart, right-handed pitcher. And he was drafted by Atlanta. handed pitcher and he was drafted by Atlanta. And it was one of those situations where I guess the physical turned up a wrist injury. And so Atlanta lowered its offer to Stewart. And instead of accepting that lower offer, he said, nope, no thanks. And he did not sign with Atlanta. Instead, he went to Japan. And we talked at the time about whether this might set a precedent, whether other players could follow in Stewart's footsteps. And not everyone will want to do it, but he is proceeding down that path. He plays for Fukuoka and he made his debut. He throws 95, throws a curveball, throws a change. throws a curveball, throws a change. And NPB salaries are not public in the way that MLB salaries are, but they do often get reported. And his deal reportedly was worth around $7 million, which was certainly more than the Braves offered him. And probably, I think it was definitely more than some players who were drafted ahead of him even. And so he went over there and,

you know, made that money quickly instead of riding the buses and, you know, gets called up to Japan's major leagues in fairly short order. And he will be eligible to sign with an MLB team as a free agent after the 2025 season if he wants to. So if he does want to come to MLB at that point, he'll still be pretty young and could get another big deal. So it's an interesting route. Not everyone will want to uproot themselves and some guys will just get big deals and they'll be happy to sign them and they'll follow the traditional path. But you do kind of wonder, especially when there are fewer draft rounds and the minor leagues getting shrunk and teams getting contracted, whether we will see more players go this route of establishing themselves in a foreign league first and then potentially working their way back here. I think that, you know, it's not like everyone is going to be kind of game for this, right?

This is a significant like life move to go live in another country in a place where I am perhaps making a faulty assumption here. But my understanding is that Carter Stewart does not speak Japanese fluently. And so, you know, on the one hand, you're like a young person and more adaptable. And that might not appeal to everyone, but it's also like potentially very appealing to someone who wants to go see the world and live in another place for a while and experience adaptable and that might not appeal to everyone but is also like potentially very appealing to someone who wants to go see the world and live in another place for a while and experience another culture and another baseball culture so i could see it being you know something that was either intimidating or enticing in turn depending on the individual player and you know there is obviously

some risk involved in this like he could he could be bad he could get hurt he could do any number of things that would prevent him from kind of cashing in on a bigger deal once he turns 25 and is eligible to sign with whomever he wants but it does suggest that you know even though the the sort of range of potential options outside of the draft are somewhat limited that they do exist and if it ends up being a lucrative one for him, I think you're right that there are going to be guys who look around and maybe think that they could do better if they are going to go play overseas for a little while

and then come back when they're able to pick their employer. So it's an interesting bit of business here. Yep. All right. The last thing I have is a quick stat blast that was prompted by a game this weekend. I will play the song. interest in it, but discuss it at length and analyze it for us in amazing ways. Here's to day still past. This is a question from Matt O'Gorman, Patreon supporter, and he says, watching the twins, or really the Otani Trout Angels, and noticed Mitch Garver batting leadoff.

It's got to be pretty rare to have a catcher batting leadoff, no? Similar to the Otani batting second conversation from last week, have you guys looked at the rarest spot at each position in the lineup before? My gut is catcher at leadoff is the rarest position lineup order combo, excluding pitcher. Maybe first baseman ninth spot is pretty rare as well. And no, I don't think that we had looked into this or talked about this before. So I sent this question to frequent StatPlast consultant Adam Ott and his handy RetroSheet database. And he got back to me very quickly with not only a list of the lineup position and field position combos sorted by how common they are, but also a handy dandy chart with red

and blue color coding that shows how common everything is. So I'm just going to, if you don't mind, I'll give you a little quiz here. Sam sometimes put me on the spot with these quizzes and I always got flustered, but I think listeners enjoyed me being flustered. I don't know if they'll enjoy you being flustered, but this one is probably less prone to causing flustering than some. I think this will be more or less in your wheelhouse here. And that increases the pressure even more. Yeah, what am I doing really badly now? No, it won't be too bad.

So I just want to ask you what you would guess the most common lineup spot is for each position, for each position in the field so okay you know basically where you think they tend to hit in the order and adam gave me the data from 1900 to 2020 he also gave me the data just for 2015 to 2020 because i was curious whether it would be significantly different and it wasn't really but but I will link to both. He even made a GIF of season by season, so you can see how it changes, and it doesn't actually change that much. I'm so afraid now! Let's start with catcher.

Where would you guess the most common spot for a catcher to hit is? Seventh. Eighth. Okay, so I was close. Yeah yeah seventh is uh second most common though yes okay okay okay you're in the ballpark i'm gonna be in the ballpark here you understand the positional spectrum so we're gonna find out first base third fourth okay yeah cleanup spot is the most common fifth is second most common and then third is third most common okay i feel so mean i've been on the opposite end of this treatment and now the tormented has become the most common spot is second, actually.

Oh, okay. Yeah. This one probably is one of the more confusing ones because you do get a lot of second basemen hitting at the top of the order. You also get some second basemen hitting toward the bottom of the order. It can go either way. And, yeah, it's actually second spot in the order is where it's been the most common. And that, you know, I think probably dates back a little bit to old ways of constructing lineups where you want the bat control, the hit and run guy, the person who puts it in play. You know, that could be a second baseman.

So I think these days it is most common for the second baseman to actually be the leadoff hitter lately. Lately, that is true. Yeah. But, okay. Third base. This one is kind of a mess. Fifth. It's sixth.

Sixth. Yeah, but fifth is right there. There's not really a clear trend with this one. Some of them, you see a, bimodal distribution. Sure. Or it's like, you know, yeah, first baseman tend to hit cleanup. Third baseman, they're kind of all over the place. But sixth is most common.

Okay, shortstop. First. Shortstop. First is fairly common, but it's actually eighth. Really? Yeah. Wait, I thought catch's actually eighth. Really? Yeah. Wait, I thought catcher was eighth. Catcher is eighth also.

They are both eighth. Oh, well, Ben, you scamp. Eighth is the most common spot for both of those positions. That's very funny. Yeah. For catchers, the eighth spot is like 41% of games the catcher is hitting 8th for shortstops it's only like 24% so it's more

evenly distributed but you don't tend to get shortstops hitting 3rd or 5th that's like 4% right that makes sense yeah although you know lately that also may be slightly different because you've got shortstops hitting better than ever I think this one probably has shifted pretty dramatically at least in the last

10 years five years left field fifth fourth i'm like you're right on it yeah i hate this exercise yeah it's uh it me feel like a dummy. It goes fourth, third, fifth, but you're in the right region here. Okay. Center field. Ninth. Well, how do we deal with pitchers in this? Pitchers, I guess this is pitchers count toward this.

They definitely go ninth, Ben. They go first. The pitchers? No, center field. Oh, okay. I was like, hold on on i think that i have misunderstood baseball for my i mean like often adam didn't even look up they're batting because uh i think now but yeah okay center field at first makes sense despite tony larusso's best efforts to bat pitchers because they're fast but yes center field yeah it's actually 28 percent of games it's uh the lead off hitter all right right

field fifth third but very close like three percent I think you're giving me more credit than I am do I feel really like a dummy now last is DH third clean up

but so close yeah yeah right right you're just like one spot off on most of these you've got the right pattern here so it fits what you would think so so the least common combos here uh adam gave me a long list i will put this online for anyone who wants to peruse it. But the questioner, Matt, his instincts were right on point, actually. Catcher batting leadoff is the rarest combination, not counting pitchers. Pitchers batting leadoff would be rare. But catchers batting leadoff is the rarest of all. Catchers have led off in 0.27% of catcher games. They've batted eighth in 41.4%, which is on the other end of the scale, the most common lineup position, field position combo. And Matt's instincts were also correct in that first baseman batting ninth is second least

frequent. And after that, it is DH's batting ninth very rare also right fielders batting ninth left fielders batting ninth catchers batting second sure third baseman batting ninth catchers batting third so i don't need to keep going probably it's uh pretty predictable that the positions with the lowest defensive bars tend to hit in the middle of the order, so it's rare for them to hit ninth or something. And for catchers, it's rare for them to hit right in the heart of the order as well. So not confusing, but interesting. So I will put Adam's various graphics and spreadsheets online for anyone who wants to check this out. Thank you to Adam for the research.

online for anyone who wants to check this out. Thank you to Adam for the research. Thanks to Matt for the question and apologies to you for subjecting you to a pop quiz. On a day when I'm still vulnerable. Yeah, you can chalk it up to second dose. Yeah, but I did spell Cincinnati right on the first try today. So I don't know if I can use that as an excuse. I might've gotten crazy superpowers from the vaccine. Do you have any most common misspellings? Is that what it is for you? Cincinnati. I'm pretty good at Cincinnati, actually, but I have my bugaboos.

I get Cincinnati wrong very often. I don't know why. Everyone struggles with lieutenant, so that seems trivial to mention. You know the word that I have noticed gets misspelled the most often in copy? What? It's minuscule. Oh, yeah yeah people spell minuscule incorrectly a lot yeah because it sounds like an i there it doesn't sound like minus it sounds like minus right yeah so people get it people get it wrong a lot that one is a thing that people are often jammed up by but yeah cincinnati i i'm

not a very good speller, actually. I'm a bad speller in a way that was always surprising to my mother, considering how much I read. She just assumed, because it's like you pick up all kinds of stuff. You learn all sorts of stuff from reading. But when you read a lot, you're seeing words more often. This makes sense, what I'm saying it does yeah i think i'm a decent speller i'm not a good at some like long ones especially like baseball names are pretty good at ones that are supposed to be hard

like a dugman kavich or something i always had that one down I think soldier gets typoed all the time. I see solider constantly. I guess it's just the way you type. But I think a tough one for me, weirdly, is anomaly. Oh, interesting. I have a tough time with pronouncing it, apparently. That's kind of my Achilles heel spelling-wise. You know what word I often misspell in a way that is um pretty embarrassing

for someone who runs an analytics website experiment oh yeah i put a i put an i where the e is well there are several e's in experiment pronounced it that way sort of experiment yeah yeah yeah i think this might be a seattle thing but anyway i spell that incorrectly i do like it when our wordpress uh will say that a word has been incorrectly spelled, but then it doesn't have a guess. But it's like a very easy word. Like someone has, you know, fat fingered like there and added an extra E on the end. And WordPress spellcheck is like, I have no idea what this is. And it's like, you need to try harder.

We're all doing our best. And I don't think you are. So anyway. You always remember to capitalize the g and fan graphs that's right camel case very important all right well we will end there and i will go hopefully enjoy shohei otani pitching and if it is not enjoyable and you know that as you are listening to that please do not not rub it in. All right, that will do it for today. Thanks as always for listening. After we recorded the Yankees beat the Braves, so they're

6-10. The comeback begins. Mike Trout hit his hardest tracked home run of the StatCast era. His slash line is now up to 385-508-769. Not too shabby. And Shohei Otani did in fact make his return. Angels beat writer Rhett Bollinger wrote, It was a successful, albeit wild, return to the mound for two-way star Shohei Otani. One could call it effectively wild. He threw four scoreless innings, struck out seven, so far so good. Also walked six and hit a batter. Not so good.

The control clearly wasn't there. He himself gave his control a 0 out of 100, but this was his first outing back from the blister issues. He backed off his fastball because that was the pitch that was exacerbating the blister, and he took a little off it. So you could focus on the control and command not being there, or you could focus on the fact that he missed a bunch of bats and held a team scoreless, granted the Rangers, without using his best stuff. Anyway, nice to see him back out there, and nice to hear that the blister didn't bother him.

Let's hope his command improves as he gets more work. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectivelywild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some small monthly amount to help keep the podcast going and get themselves access to some perks. Sean Hurley, Steve Gouten, Robert Rymanis, Tosca Salts, and Jacob Kramer Duffield. 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 podcast.fangrafts.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance, and we will be back with another episode soon. Talk to you then. Outro Music