Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1691: Adios, Albert

Episode Date: May 7, 2021

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Byron Buxton and the Twins, discuss the Angels designating Albert Pujols for assignment, and answer listener emails about whether to accept a scenario where one’s team always finishes .500 but one also gets to enjoy the career of a generational player, pitchers accepting automatic strikeouts, the best way […]

The emotion in a stomach acid Is equal to the depth of appetite And all of the equations that were mastered Belong to every drop in every line Hello and welcome to episode 1691 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of Fangraphs, and I am joined as always by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? Worried about Byron Buxton. Oh, no.

I know. I don't want to have this conversation. Don't want to worry about Byron Buxton. He's only day-to-day right now, so no cause for concern, right? Right. I mean, who among us is not day-to-day? Right. I mean, who among us is not day-to-day? Sure. Hip strain, day-to-day. He ran to first base and had an awkward stride, sort of like Luis Robert, but not devastating, at least up to this point. Just a hip strain, not a torn hip flexor. I'm sure he'll be fine and healthy and be back soon. So yeah, he's actually on the leaderboard now. You don't have to change the qualification setting. He is qualified for the batting title,

at least as of today. Although maybe he won't be if he misses a few games, but he trails only Mike Trout among position players. So please let us see a full, healthy Byron Buxton season. Health gods. Yeah, we talked about not fully knowing our powers. Please let us see a full, healthy Byron Buxton season. Health gods. Yeah. We talked about not fully knowing our powers. We need to get on it quick, Ben,

because if we can deploy them on anyone's behalf, I think that Buxton is a worthy recipient. Although, as long as he is on the field, he clearly does not need our help to be good. He is quite good all on his own. But yeah, I hope that he is on the mend and on the mend soon. I'm over these injuries. I think no more injuries. We should just have a rule. It should be in the next collective

bargaining agreement. There have been too many. We talked about that the other day. There was just a Ken Rosenthal piece that had more numbers on that. Injuries up again, but this is not one I wanted. And to add another loss to injury, the Twins lost that game in extra innings, which means that they're now 0-7 in extras and 0-11 in Manfred ball games

and 11-8 in regular nine inning games. So that's fun. Yeah, it is. If anyone is going to join our brigade, if anyone is going to fight the fight when the time comes, I think that various representatives of the Twins might be on board. What a strange, it remains a strange season. Some things are starting to make a bit more sense, right? Like, you know, the Yankees are only two and a half games out of the East and the Rays are two games out. And like the Padres are a half game out in the West

and the Dodgers are a bit behind them. And sure, like we might've anticipated that that might arise, but we probably didn't see the Giants in the number one spot. So some things are starting to work their way out. But right now Cleveland is atop the AL Central. And I didn't think that that would happen maybe at any

point over the course of the season so yeah it's a weird one I do like that there are some new strange and by strange I mostly mean we haven't seen them there in a minute folks in the fan graphs top 10 when it comes to position player war so Chris Bryant

resurgent Chris Bryant is 6th he and I guess technically he and JD Martinez are tied to position player war. So Chris Bryant, resurgent Chris Bryant is sixth. I guess technically he and J.D. Martinez are tied for 1.8 wins, which at this point in the season, these guys are all basically the same guy. But we have to rank things because we are a ranking type. We are ranking sorts. And Trey Turner and Cedric Mullins.

I think that we might have... I don't know if we gave Baltimore the credit that, well, that some members of their roster deserve. I think that I underestimated the degree to which they would have more than one fun guy. So here we are with Cedric Mullins. Cedric Mullins II, I apologize. Not Cedric Mullins I.

Who knows about him? Cedric Mullins II. There who knows about him cedric mullins the second there he is 1.5 wins so i suppose we should discuss the news of the day huh we're recording on thursday afternoon here after the surprising and yet also almost inevitable news i don't know we can talk about whether it's surprising or not, but the Angels have designated Albert Pujols for assignment, which amounts to releasing him likely. So this is the end of an era, the end of the Albert Pujols in Anaheim era. And one would think, although it's not official, probably the end of the Albert Pujols in the major leagues era. This is something that I think is simultaneously surprising and predictable. It's like I'm reading the MLB trade rumors post about this, and it describes it as a

shocking move and a stunning end to one of the largest contracts in major league history. And it was shocking and stunning for a second. And yet this is something I alluded to the other day when we talked about the Angels defensive issues and the fact that Pujols is probably contributing to that and not contributing a lot in a positive sense. And I sort of wondered what would happen there with Jared Walsh hitting as well as he is and Shohei Otani holding down the DH spot and Pujols just not producing on the field. This has seemed like something that we've talked about as a possibility for years and years. I mean, there was definitely

a point in this 10-year deal where I thought it was very likely that he would not last the whole time. And in fact, I probably would have been surprised that he had lasted this long. This was probably not the only time we talked about it on the show, but I know way back on episode 1140, which was November 2017, Jeff and I speculated about how long he would last, and I think we kind of came up with early 2019 for when the Angels might pull the plug on Pujols. And when they signed Shohei Otani the following month, I wrote a piece that was like, this is great news for every angel except Albert Pujols. And I wondered whether that would accelerate the end of his angel's career.

I guess it's like you could think either this could or should have happened years ago or it shouldn't have happened at all because he's almost at the finish line of this contract. line of this contract but you know he is in his i think fifth consecutive season of being a sub replacement level player according to war and really hasn't been an above average player since 2014 i guess so it's been a while like he has not had a good season but he hasn't really had a significantly worse season than he has had lately or that he had last season. So it's both predictable, but also, I guess, just the fact that he was so close to the end, you kind of figured, well, given who he is and maybe his standing in that clubhouse and in the game and all he's accomplished and his off-the-field charitable work and the fact that people seem to respect him and everything, maybe they'd just bury him on the bench or something for the rest of the season.

But maybe part of it is that he didn't want to be buried on the bench. So that could have been what precipitated this. Yeah, it seems that that played at least some role, at least based on the early reporting that's come out, that he was frustrated with how much playing time he was getting. I guess, and I can't really fault him for that. If I were a Hall of Famer, I think I'd have a hard time letting go of the idea

that I should be on the field every day and that a turnaround might be in the offing. And I don't know, Pujols doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who pulls up his baseball savant page every morning and is like, well, my X slugging is 551. And so a turnaround is surely in the offing. But I guess if you want to put some store in that,

there's peripheral suggestion that he should be producing better than he has so far. And I think that what struck me about it was the timing, if only because he clearly does not merit an everyday spot. He does not merit a starting spot anymore. And I don't say that to disrespect the playing career he put together in St. Louis, which remains like one of the best things that I ever got to watch even part of in my experience as a baseball fan. But it seems like the amount of playing time he was due was likely predictable this winter, right? Like the Angels should have had a sense that he was going to be relegated to bench duty at the very best. And so it kind of strikes me as odd that this was a move that wasn't made

much sooner, right? That there wasn't some, you know, press conference this winter, and they could have, they could have had him there with his family. And they could have talked, like you said, about his long and productive career and his sure Hall of Fame induction and his charitable work. And, you know, they could have, even if it wasn't really a mutual decision, they could have dressed it up that way. And they could have made it about spending more time with his family and being able to focus on his work, improving the community and any number of things. I think that it's just, you know, it's like May 6th and he's definitely a first ballot Hall of Famer. And it just seems like while he isn't someone who deserves a roster spot right now, I do think he is due some amount of like dignity in the way he goes and i think that this was a bit this was unceremonious like that's the most charitable way

that we can describe it is that this was like an unceremonious way to go out it seems it seems very strange that we will look back and see that like not getting a start against Ryan Yarbrough was what did it. That's weird. That shouldn't be part of Pujols' narrative. I know that it's really unusual that guys get to pick their exits. The more I think about it, the more rare and special the David Ortiz farewell is. When Ortiz went out, he was coming off a season where he had a 139 wrc plus and he had 37 home runs and it was clear that like his body was just

not in a place where he was going to be productive as a big leaguer for all that much longer and he got to do his farewell and he got to sort of make memories with fans in every ballpark and he got sombreros and cowboy boots and all kinds of crap that i don't know if he still has it but in the moment like it was nice that that whoever thought you know what we should give this guy is a sombra whatever i don't know what he got but i think he did get a sombro because i remember writing about his retirement tour and being like that seems weird weird. So anyway, you know, he got to decide. And then he had a year where he hit 315, 401, 620. He had a 163 WRC plus. He was worth four and a half wins.

You know, like he just got to be David Ortiz one more time. And I don't think that a season like that was ever gonna be in the offing for pool holes but yeah if you give anybody like a an opportunity to come out and tip his cap and give him a little something like it should be up or pool holes like he never got to be handed a big fish in Seattle or whatever they would have handed him because you know there's there's fish there so like he never got a big fish and he never I don't know like him not getting another opportunity to like and who knows he may yet get another opportunity but as it stands now it seems like you said probably pretty unlikely that he's gonna get a ton of playing time and now if a retirement

tour is done it's gonna be very strange and stilted. And so it's just, it's just a, it's unfortunate. It's an unfortunate way to go. And I don't think that he, I don't know, I don't think he deserved a roster spot, but I think he deserved better than this. So yeah, I think it's a little weird. I do see what you're saying. It is abrupt and unceremonious. I would also say, I mean, the, the dignified exit is sort of a twomonious. I would also say, I mean, the dignified exit is sort of a two-way street. I mean, you know, the player has to be willing to walk through that door, right? So I don't know how much to fault the Angels for this. Maybe there will be subsequent reporting where we'll hear exactly how this went down. But, you know, I think some of the examples

you're talking about, I mean, yes, I think it's great if you get a David Ortiz, Chipper Jones, Mariano Rivera type exit where those players are still at or near the top of their games and the game and they kind of go out on top and there's no question about whether they should be playing and starting and everyone gets to come see them. But that is the exception to the rule. I think, you know, generally players don't go out on top because they want to keep playing if they're playing well. And so you don't get that all that often. And what you do get is players just declining and, you know, deciding to call it quits or not really having that choice. And so I think it would have been nice for the fans, I guess, for the legacy of Albert Pujols if this had been more mutual,

if it had been the Angels saying, hey, we just can't give you a roster spot anymore and Pujols saying, yep, I understand. I see my stats too. I'll just retire, right? And there's some precedent for that. Mike Schmidt, for example, if that were it, if he were just willing and ready to hang him up and say, I've had enough, then you get that last game. And I'm sure the Angels would have been amenable to that. And you get the last curtain call and tip of the cap and maybe some special moment and everything. But that's predicated on Pujols saying, yeah, I'm ready to go. And it doesn't sound like he was. I mean, I would hope that they gave him the option of that at least.

And so if he didn't take that option, then I don't really know what the Angels could have done here. Because I think he has been not a very productive player for a very long time. he has been not a very productive player for a very long time. And I don't want to dwell on that aspect of Pujols' legacy and give short shrift to his greatness. But I think it's inevitable to talk about both because his career is basically bisected where he had, you know, one of the best decades ever and then not very good decade, frankly. And he is unique among great players, I think, in just how great he was and then how long he was not great. And so it's hard to avoid that part of the Pujols story because there have been lots of players who've been great and then, yeah, they decline toward the tail end of their career. But with Pujols, it's like basically half of his career almost. He was just kind of hanging on. I mean, certainly the last five years, but even more than that, really, he was not more than an average player or so. And so to have that long tail after such high heights, I think is pretty unprecedented. So it's hard to avoid that aspect

of his story too, because it's just been so long since he was good. Like by the time he is inducted into the Hall of Fame deservedly, it will have been more than 15 years really since he was playing at that level. And so there's a whole generation of fans who saw Albert Pujols. That's the thing. There's always a generation of fans who don't remember the player's greatness. But in this case, there's a generation of fans who remember watching Albert Pujols and not seeing the great Inner Circle Hall of Famer Albert Pujols. And it was just years and years and thousands and thousands of plate appearances. And I think that probably in most places, this would have happened even sooner. It seems like maybe it happened now just because the Angels finally have a replacement for him who's clearly

better in Jared Walsh, who's kind of playing out of position because Pujols has been holding down first base and Otani's been DHing. And that's partly a product of the Angels' outfield depth and lack thereof as well. It's not like they have some star outfielder ready to go. But given the sub-replacement level wars, in theory, it should not be hard to improve upon Pujols, frankly. And the defensive issues we mentioned, I have a hard time faulting the Angels for deciding that this had to be done because it's not the only problem on their roster. It's not the only thing that has kept them

out of the playoffs these last few years. Far from it. But there is a point where you want to field a competitive team. Maybe 40-something Albert Pujols just can't be part of that and you know especially if he is not thrilled with being benched you know it's that's a hard situation to navigate because do you want this all-time great who's like on the bench and not happy to

be there what does that do to your clubhouse dynamic what does it do to just release him that can't be good either. So, you know, it's like, I don't know that there's a graceful end unless the player is on the same page and says, yeah, it's time for me to walk away. Yeah, it is a tricky, I mean, it's an incredibly tricky thing to navigate. And you're right. I don't, you know, we don't know exactly how things progressed within the organization, why it wasn't tenable in December, but became either tenable now or imperative for them now, and kind of what the tipping point was for them. I don't know how the clubhouse will respond to

that. I imagine that we'll hear something of it. They are the only evening game today, so I imagine that a good deal of that broadcast will be about his release. But it's just, I imagine it's a really difficult thing because there's so much ego bound up in your ability to do that job well. I mean, we all have ego in our ability to do our jobs well. And so few of us do our jobs at a Hall of Fame level at any point in our careers. So I think it would take a very sort of deft bit of people management and a really trusting relationship between the player and the organization to get that right. And even then, it might not be a thing that you can do without ripping the band-aid so it is a tricky situation and i don't envy them having to find a way to have that conversation but it does seem like perhaps

better expectations could have been set going in because for him to be seemingly surprised or frustrated that he wasn't getting more playing time than he is suggests that sort of where he stood in the organization was not maybe as well communicated to him as it ought to have been so that's too bad and you know there's been all this joking about how he'll end up in Chicago with the White Sox because of La Russa or he'll end up back in St. Louis as a way to like say goodbye I wouldn't be surprised if he signed like a one-day contract with St. Louis so that he could retire a Cardinal. But I also, like you said, if he is this frustrated that he's not getting playing time,

it wouldn't surprise me if he tries to look around to latch on somewhere because it seems like he isn't done. But it is a shame. People were making a lot of his... I want to share two stats. People were making a lot of his i want to i want to share two stats so people were making a lot of the fact that albert pool hose is currently he is not only the active leader he is he is the leader maybe the all-time leader for ground into double plays oh yes 403 right yeah yeah 403 and that's not great to ground into that many but people were like making a big

thing out of this. And the number two guy behind him is Cal Ripken Jr., and then it was Yvonne Rodriguez, and then Henry Aaron, and then there's Miggy, which we're going to have to have this conversation again very soon and perhaps for a lot longer because good gravy are there a number of years left on that contract. And then Carl Ustremsky and Dave Winfield and Eddie Murray and Jim Rice. So like, yes, it is a measure, but everybody calm down. And then that inspired me because I live my life in reference to a very select number of deities, I suppose, inspired me to look up how many Mike Trout has and it's 58. It's all 58. He's not even on this page at baseball reference like you know there's a lot of guys and so it cuts off at 80 with Joel Youngblood and uh that's a great name but yeah can't find Mike Trout on here because he's amazing it is a measure of longevity

as well as proclivity to double plays and that's why the top names are all hall of famers so it's actually a distinguished group to be a part of because you have to have played forever to Yes, exactly. I don't know why he declined as precipitously as he did and in the way that he did. And I know there's always been speculation and controversy about his age and all that. But it almost doesn't matter how old he is or was because like no matter how old he was at any point, you wouldn't expect him to decline that steeply. Like usually the decline is more gradual. that steeply. Usually the decline is more gradual. And so, yeah, if you're older, then maybe it happens sooner, but that doesn't mean it happens all at once the way that it did with him. And it happened in such an odd way where I remember Sam writing about this for Baseball Perspectives back in 2012. And the piece was just like, Albert Pujols never walks anymore. And that's the weird

thing that I think is sort of not mentioned as often as it could be. The reason for Pujols' decline, yeah, he's had lower body issues and injury issues and he's obviously slowed down and everything, but a lot of it was really just his plate discipline sort of fell apart. His last year in St. Louis and then after that, he was always a disciplined, selective hitter who walked a lot. And then you can just kind of draw a line like 2011 and after and 2010 and before. And his walk rate just like fell precipitously and his chase rate increased. And I don't know exactly what to attribute that to

because he remains a pretty good contact hitter by the standards of the league so it's not as if he I don't know suddenly lost his eyesight or something like he doesn't strike out all that much by 2021 standards even now he's pretty good contact hitter and he has retained some power that's kind of all he had going for him in the latter years here. So I don't know if it was a conscious thing, like it was a mystery to Sam when he wrote about it in 2012. And it's as much a mystery to me now, but I think that was a big part of why he declined the way he did. And so there's an interesting stat. I wouldn't call it a fun fact, but Bill James noted this back in March that it really is unique that Pujols got to the heights that he did and then fell as far from those heights as he did.

And the way that James put it was looking at batting average, which, you know, not the most telling stat, but I think in this case it is pretty illuminating. I think in this case, it is pretty illuminating. And Pujols, of course, was a very high average hitter in his prime. And he ended up, if this is the end, at 298 career. And so James tweeted, Pujols was actually 180 hits above 300. No other hitter was even half that far above 300 and finished under 300. So I think the high watermark was at the end of the 2010 season, Pujols was 180 hits over 300. So basically he had 180 more hits at that point than he needed to have a career 300 average. And he ended up all the way under 300. And that decline is, I mean, it dwarfs anyone else's, which is a testament to how long he played, like the longest. So that's 180 hits. And the second biggest decline for anyone who was over 300 at one point and then ended up under 300 is 77 for George Davis, who played from 1890 to 1901. And then Fred Tenney, who was in that same era. But Matt Holliday, 66, Wally Moses, 61, Mickey Mantle, 57, Dave Parker, 56. You could put together

the next couple guys and they wouldn't even combine to have that kind of decline, which in a way, it's a testament to how good Pujols was that he got as long a leash as he did during his decline phase. Like a lot of that was the contract and the Angels, I guess, just not being willing to say this is a sunk cost and cut ties, but also like at least for a while, some legitimate hope that maybe he would regain that greatness that he had. So you have to be a heck of a player to basically get a decade of not being very good and still have a roster spot. Because if Albert Pujols had a different name and resume and contract and the same stats, he would not have lasted nearly as long as he did. So that was, in a sense, a tribute to him, although it's sort of a shame that it ended that way. But I don't fault Pujols at all for wanting to play as long as possible

and still wanting to play. I think there's something to be said for having the humility to recognize that you're not the player that you were and that we're all mortal and we all age and decline in some ways. So I wouldn't say be in denial about it, but I'd also say he can play as long as he wants to play and as long as someone will let him play. But the contract entitles him to a salary. It does not entitle him to a roster spot. And at a certain point, you do have to justify it. So, you know, it is kind of odd that it might come down to Ryan Yarbrough and his whatever career six for nine versus Yarbrough. But it would have been easier to find spots for Pujols to play if he were like more of a career platoon split, which I guess he was good all been the player he's been over the last couple of years. And I imagine that that actually, in a weird way, makes it harder to let go. Because you want to go out on a different note. You want to have it be a different moment.

And you want to remind yourself of when you were a young, strong man who thought you were going to live forever. And I remember I looked up the piece I wrote when Ortiz was on his retirement tour. This is back when I was still with Baseball Prospect go out on a high note and be able to say that you sort of gave it your best and gave the fans something that they recognize. And that it's probably a lot harder to do that when you feel like you're still grasping for something that resembles what you once were and the player that you once were. And so i don't know i know that it's i don't want to be like overly sentimental about it i'm the one who keeps crowing and pleading with the angels to just put a 500 team around my crowd already so i don't think that you carry you carry these guys just to carry them but it's very human and it's very relatable to still be looking for that and clawing for it. And it's like, now you look back on his stolen base stuff

and if you want to put a sentimental narrative on anything, it's like, oh boy, Albert. You're literally running as fast as you could and you couldn't get there. And like that part of it's heartbreaking. So I don't know. I'm glad he got his milestone moments. We still had opportunity even in the twilight of his career to celebrate big accomplishments

that I think when it comes time for him to be inducted in the Hall of Fame and we're kind of looking back on his career in its totality, you know, we'll focus on his tenure with St. Louis and the kind of player he was then. And he produced 80 war in that time by Van Graaff's war. So we'll look at that and go, wow, it's amazing that he was able to do that. And then he'll have these special moments throughout his tenure in Anaheim

that we can kind of pick out. And I think that for a lot of people, the less good times in Los Angeles will fade and we'll remember those milestones. And I don't know if that'll be true for Angels fans, but I think it'll certainly be true for the rest of us. But in the meantime, it's really too bad. Ortiz did not get a sombrero.

I did reference a sombrero in my piece about him. ortiz did not get a sombrero i did reference a sombrero in my piece about him chipper jones maybe got a sombrero i wrote a piece about all the farewell gifts he got maybe yeah so maybe that's what i was thinking of he did get well i mean i was thinking of referencing it in the piece but i cannot for the life of me now remember why i chose it in the piece at all but maybe it was chipper jones he did, Ortiz did get a custom Stetson from the Astros and then a belt buckle and cowboy boots from the Rangers. And I wonder if those two franchises coordinated their gifts. I wonder if they were like,

we'll get him the boots and the buckle, you get him the Stetson, and then he can just walk around Texas and look like he fits right in. Because you wouldn't want him to have two Stetsons. then he can just walk around Texas and look like he fits right in because you wouldn't you wouldn't want him to have two Stetsons that's ridiculous spare Stetson no apparently the Padres got him a custom surfboard it has I remember that yeah it has his whole body on it the Angels got him a custom portrait of himself oddly the picture of him receiving the custom portrait prominently features albert

pujos and then uh the athletics got him a large bottle of cabernet and the article i'm reading about it does not specify the volume of that bottle but now i really want to know was it like a very large bottle was it like a you know one of those like novelty gift bottles of wine anyway well albert couldn't afford to buy himself some farewell gifts, I guess, if he wants to. But yeah, it was really a great career. We're speaking of it in the past tense here. It's not officially over. Although, you know, if he thinks that he's going to find a starting job elsewhere, I hate to break it to him, but I don't know that there will be any other rooms in the end. But yeah, if he signs one of those sentimental, you know, retire as a Cardinal kind of contracts, that would be nice. Or even if they let him play for a game and get some at-bats, that would be fun.

I just I can't really imagine that any contending team is going to put him in the lineup or give him more playing time than the Angels were willing to. going to put him in the lineup or give him more playing time than the Angels were willing to. And I don't know if he's even a draw that some team that's out of it would sign him just to sell some tickets or have him chase some milestones or something. I don't know what the odds of that are. So he may find that he can't do any better elsewhere. And I hope if that's the case that he's not bitter about it and that He's able to accept that he Had a heck of a run so yeah You know he's he's sixth all time In war through age

30 and he will Be passed by Mike Trout In short order there but Still be seventh all time and He's also 11th All time in war through age 32 age 30 was kind of time in war through age 32. Age 30 was kind of his last great year.

Age 32 was kind of his last very good year. 11th all time there. And then the contrast is, you know, in war after age 30, he is 226th all time. And in war after age 32, he is 329th all time. And that is notable because he played for a really long time after age 30 and age 32 he is 329th all time and that is notable because he played for a really long time after age 30 and age 32 he's not one of these guys who like had their career cut off by an injury or something he is still going so he had a lot of time to accrue more war and didn't do it but you know he was really incredible when he was with the Cardinals and finishing top 10 in MVP voting every single season. And I think maybe what we overlook is that not only was he one of the best hitters of all time during that time, but he was a really good all-around player.

And just a great defensive first baseman and a good base runner and base stealer. And, you know, still sort of had those instincts at the end, just not the physical skills. But he could do it all. He really was just machine-like, which is how he got the nickname. I saw some speculation on Twitter from actual newsmen, actual news sorts, that perhaps Seattle would be interested in his services, and I don't think that will happen, but I initially was like, that's wild. Why would they do that?

And then i realized that evan white has a 22 wrc plus oh no 22 he ben he's our first baseman yeah that's good 141 202 205 hi hachi machi i don't know what i'm trying to say I'm making sounds I'm just going to start making sounds I don't think you can be a good enough defensive first baseman To make up for that I will submit that you cannot Anyway What you thought the angels were the only people

Who were going to be sad about stuff today Oh no we are Going to roll through the west Alright So I guess that's our little baseball eulogy for albert pools if we don't see him again but you know this was a long time coming and it finally came and i hope that the angels will be a better team at least if they're gonna make this move i hope they find an outfielder and whether it's Brandon Marsh or Joe Adele or someone from outside the organization. I would really like to see Mike Trapp make the

playoffs and Shohei Otani make the playoffs. And you do have to surround them with a competent supporting cast. And Albert Pujols, whatever his many merits and virtues and charitable activities was just not a great supporting cast on the field for the past few years. So I wonder, I've speculated before that maybe the fact that he had some years where he was like really clutch and even though he wasn't a very good player in a context neutral sense, he was kind of clutch and he drove in a lot of runs. And of course he's had Mike Trout hitting ahead of him and he had like good RBI totals, even when he wasn't really a very good player anymore. And I wonder whether that helped prolong this too.

But probably it's just, you know, lack of better options and just contract and salary and also just a recognition of what a giant he is in the game. So we can remember the better days. So we can remember the better days. Yeah. I am grateful that I am not like I'm so old or anything, but I am grateful that I have like memories of him as a Cardinal because we've talked about this before, but it's like I think a lot of youths, a lot of the much younger folks, they just don't.

They don't have them or at least they aren't clear in the way they are once baseball memories start accumulating after you're like 10. Yeah. And so I'm very thankful that I have memories of him as that guy because that guy was awesome. Yep. Mm-hmm. All right. Let's answer a few emails here, and I guess we can stay on the topic of the Angels for a moment.

Mike asks, baseball god comes to you with a proposition. He will allow you to draft the next generational talent, Trike Mout. In exchange, your team will have a 500 record for the next 20 years. While you will never win a World Series with Trike, you will always have someone to root for. You will always have a compelling reason to watch games, celebrate milestones, and he will be the subject of numerous stat blasts. If you don't take trike, there are no guarantees of your team's success. Do you take this deal if you're a GM? What about if you're a super fan? So let me make sure I heard this right again. So never better than 500? Yeah, you just have a 500 record every year for the next 20 years.

500's not so bad. It's not. It can be worse. I'm going to sound like such a Mariners fan when I answer this question. Well, I'm a risk-averse person. If you're a GM, I think you don't take this, right? I think that even the prospect of a generational talent, if you're never finishing better than 500,

if you're just a 500 club, you probably say no, because, you know, there are going to be a there might be a fluky year where that's enough to get into the wildcard. I guess there might even be a fluky year where like, that's enough for you to proceed in the playoffs and like do well, but you're probably not a GM for very long, even if you have a generational talent. So I think if you're a GM, the answer is an obvious no, because you can do a lot with good non-generational talents. So presumably you have more options and more pathways both to contention and to keeping your job if you do not take trike. I bet there are human people named trike. I bet there are young people named trike. Try not to sound judgmental about that, but you know that it's true. So that's one answer. I think

if you're a super fan, the calculus is a little bit different because your relationship with the team isn't bound by whether or not the team wins. You don't have an employment interest. You just want to root for a team that is exciting. And if you have a generational guy, it's probably going to be exciting a good amount of the time, maybe not more often than not, but a good amount of the time. And your odds of seeing a 500 club kind of get their way into the wild card and go from there are a lot higher because, again, you're not like gonna be out

the door in five or seven years if it doesn't if it doesn't come together and coalesce so i think that you would be probably like 60 40 yes to no to take that deal if you are a fan because i think it's pretty special to get to say that you're like a fan of the best player, a generational talent. Like that's really exciting. You're like, I know whose Jersey I'm going to wear for the rest of my life. And I get to cheer for that guy as one of my guys. And that's satisfying in a way that,

you know, even being like a broader fan of the game and thus a fan of hopefully it's best player. You're not, you know, the relationship isn't quite the same as it is when it's your favorite team and he's the best guy in the game so i i think yeah i think you'd say yes more often than not and you'd probably get a couple of postseason

appearances and you wouldn't get a world series in all likelihood or you wouldn't at all right is that one of the provisos of the question no world series well you wouldn't win we might get there that's exciting too and so yeah i think like 60 40 you'd say yeah sure yeah it's tough i think yes if you're the gm you definitely don't take this if you say no immediately having the generational players while being 500 gives you even less job security because it makes it more glaring that you have failed to field a winning team while you have the best player. So that's a definite no. I always wonder with these questions, like whether you retain your awareness that you have made this

bargain. Like, do you remember that you made this deal? Because that almost changes it for me. Like if I know that my team is not going to win a World Series for the next 20 years, I think that would really sap much of my interest. It's not the only reason. You'd be surprised. Yeah. But you didn't know the whole time. That's how it's turned out, but it could have turned out differently. So that's what I'm saying. If you remember that you made this deal and you can just write off the next 20 years, I think it would be hard actually to stay invested and really, even if you have this generational player, but if your memory is wiped after you make the deal, and as far as you know, you might have a better than 500 team. So you're blissfully ignorant of

the fact that you have no chance. That makes a big difference to me. And obviously many teams do not win a World Series within a 20-year span, and maybe they have a better than 500 team hopefully in that span, but they also don't have this generational player. I'm not a fan. I don't have a rooting interest, but I have enjoyed Angels games, as you know, more than I have enjoyed most teams' games, even over this period where they haven't been a great team, just because I've enjoyed watching the individual exploits.

So I think if you were to sum it up, like probably they would be in the top half of rooting experiences over that 20 year span. Like they would have, you know, as many wins as at least half of the teams over that span. And you'd have this great generational player and a lot of the other teams would have done worse and also would I think as many reasons as there are to watch baseball and as many different ways as there are to enjoy it like ultimately if you are a fan and you're someone who approaches the sport through that lens you really do want your team to win and it's hard to maintain interest if they don't and especially if you somehow know beforehand that they won't yeah i guess you would want to get like bopped on the head so you didn't know because the thing is if you got bopped on the head and you didn't know and you have a generational player and you're like a 500 team over the last couple seasons you're gonna go into the next couple seasons as long as that guy's like like the guy being like oh yeah we have a chance to win this thing and i think that that that counts for a lot like the feeling like you might be in it is pretty meaningful to the fan experience but i think yeah your yours is a good point that if you know for sure like this you're gonna get to watch this guy and you might get to

see post-season action but you're definitely not winning the World Series, your experience of it might be pretty different. Although getting to watch the generational guy and 500 baseball, depending on your pre-existing fan experience, might sound really great. Again, just to pick a team like the Mariners, you might be like, that's really good. Yeah, there is a point at which if you never win and you have this generational player then it does start to smart even more and it almost taints the player's career like not that

it makes him any worse a player but I think it is part of the legacy right it's like the you know the Ernie Banks uh sort of career where it's like, oh, that's one of the more notable things about you is that, well, you never won a World Series and there are many players in that boat, many great players in that boat. But I think that kind of becomes part of your story. It doesn't diminish what you did or your talent or anything, but it becomes frustrating at a certain point. If Mike Trout never wins one and never gets an opportunity to win one for the rest of his career, it won't affect my perception of how great Mike Trout was at baseball, but it does sort of sap from the overall experience and makes it more frustrating,

frankly, that you had Mike Trout or Trike Mout all that time and never kind of cashed in. strike them out all that time and never kind of cashed in. So yeah, I think if you're going to be a mediocre team, it's a lot more fun to have the generational player who can become even more special to you maybe because there's not much else to be excited about. But there is a point where I think you almost feel like you're squandering that player. You've been entrusted with this talent and you're not making the most of it so that's a really compelling counter argument to my idea that it feels appreciably better to have the best guy be one of your guys because we just get to appreciate mike trout and like we don't have to stress about it so what the really the ideal fan construction like fan experience when

it comes to appreciating the best player in the game, not to being a fan generally, but I might submit that the best way is to be neither a fan of that specific team nor a fan of a rival team because I see Mariners fans

struggle with Mike Trout. They want to love him. Some of them, some of them are very content to dislike him tremendously, but like some of them are like, I want to like this guy, but then he wallops us. And I get that. I don't think that that's a failure of character to not be enthusiastic about Mike Trout because he comes in and he's like, I really am just going to wallop all your guys.

So that doesn't make you a bad person. It just makes you a fan of the Mariners or the Astros or the Rangers. person it just makes you a fan of the mariners so or the astros or the or the rangers or um you know it's just like you're sitting there going oh this guy you got to see him 19 times a season the a's that's the other team in the al west it's been a long week man i'm kind of tired i could have i could have been smooth and and not brought it up and some people would have wondered did she forget the the last team in the AL West? But they wouldn't have had proof that I did. And I just admitted to it.

I am the ump saying that I guessed. Yeah. Well, I applaud you for your honesty. All right. Question from David, Patreon supporter. He says, I'm listening to episode 1688 and the discussion of a pitcher throwing slower.

My son and I recently went to a ball game and had great seats by the dugout. We watched the pitcher warm up and marveled at how fast the ball went from the least to catcher's glove. Then we looked at the radar gun, 89 miles per hour. What? Many times we, I sometimes join in on your conversations when no one else is listening, have talked about standing in the box. It most likely ends up with us running away or vomiting.

This made me think, what if we had an automatic strikeout rule? Granted, this might only be relevant for another five months, but if a pitcher steps into the box and forfeits his at-bat, is that okay? Assuming he's been told not to swing, the greatest fear is a hit by pitch that causes injury, but some might not even want the pitcher running the bases if they happen to draw a walk. Is there merit to the I don't wanna at bat? Can a player just refuse to step into the box and take their out?

Social shame is reason number one, I suppose, but that in itself is a poor reason to act in any particular fashion if the alternative is possibly being hit with a five-ounce rock propelled at 95 miles per hour, even if it is by accident. I think you would get benched for a while. Yeah. I think that if you just truly refuse to stand in and take your at-bat, even if you're a pitcher, I think that you would ride the bench for a minute. I think they would have a conversation about want.

I think that the word want would come up a fair amount. And no team would want to just automatically give away now because like maybe the guy does put it in play or maybe he lays down a sacrifice but like there's absolutely no way to never become a thing but i kind of want to i kind of want to watch baseball people react to the idea of it because i think few things would inspire more like the idea of a guy just truly refusing to stand in because you got to try a little bit. How many pitchers, I would imagine, oh, this is an interesting question. Now I'm forgetting if there was any kind of positional breakdown in Rob's research into hit by pitch. But I would speculate that pitchers are among the least hit by pitch.

I would think so, yeah. As a demographic. I mean, I know that like, you know, because you can just throw fastballs and they're not going to hit it, right? You could just be like, it's fine. So there's no real need to, not that no one ever throws inside to them, but it happens very rarely. And I think there's sort of an understanding that you're not gonna try to like intentionally plunk if you're

gonna intentionally plunk anyone you're not gonna hit the day's starter because like that's very bad form you might also get benched for that but you would just i mean like presumably this reticence would present itself so early in your baseball career that you would just never advance. You might get benched in Little League. They might be like, well. Yeah, except there are a lot of pitchers, as we've said, who get to the majors not having hit in a game for a while because they'd never have

to do it in the minors or even in college. It could happen, but yeah, I would think pitchers already don't get hit much. I haven't seen the breakdown in the data, but I think very rarely. Yeah. A because maybe some pitcher solidarity. Yeah. Not wanting to hit your counterpart or or put yourself at risk of getting hit the next time you're up. Guys don't throw quite as hard when they're facing pitchers. They take a little off. They feel like they can just throw strikes and get away with it. So they don't necessarily have to make them chase and throw way off the zone. So I would think that that is the case, not to say that the risk is zero. But there are definitely times where pitchers do this in effect by going up to the plate and not swinging.

And they're instructed not to swing in some cases, whether because of an injury or just not wanting to endanger them or whatever. And so the effect there is essentially the same. I guess you might every now and then draw a walk by accident or something. But I guess you could say, why even make the attempt?

Why pantomime hitting if I'm not even going to swing? But I don't think you need a rule for this, first of all, because you can already do this. If you want to do this, you could just not step into the batter's box and you would have strikes assessed against you as you refuse to enter the batter's box. That is already a rule. So you don't need a separate rule. And also, I think, yes, you would get shamed for this, for being unwilling to step in there

as relatable as that might be to those of us on the outside. Oh, you would get shamed forever. I mean, yes, you're right to say that this does happen for injury reasons or for strategic reasons. Like, you're just like, hey, just stand in there and take them. But you would never volunteer it yeah and you at least you know why not run up the guy's pitch count right like even if he's not throwing at max effort against the opposing pitcher it's taking a little more out of his arm

than just saying i accept a strikeout and i will now not even emerge from the dugout or i will wheel around and return to the dugout i don't know how you would go about this but you know at least uh make the guy throw three pitches oh yeah for sure this all reminds me in a very tangential way of a lovely tiny anecdote that i was made aware of in the process of editing the nationals list this year and i believe our contributor test tereskin is who found this little anecdote so there's a pitcher in the national system not a good system that's not the point of the story named todd peterson who went viral apparently for he pitched five good relief innings and then hit a double big double in the sec tournament a couple of years ago before admitting in his post-game

interview that he lied to his coach about hitting in high school so that his coach would let him back it is spectacular and he hit a big double and he admits it and and his coach paul manarini says i'm glad you lied to me yeah it's great so anyway i'll try to find the interview it's on. So anyway, I'll try to find the interview. It's on YouTube somewhere, but you know, see, this is what happens when you maybe sometimes have to let them hit and they lie to you about stuff, but then they do hit doubles. So now the incentives are all wonky. Yeah.

All right. Mike in Trumbull, Connecticut says, I was watching the Orioles recently and noticed how enthusiastically Pedro Severino requested a review of a Czech swing. And it got me thinking, obviously, there's a lot of work done around catchers stealing strikes via framing. What kind of skills do you think a catcher needs to display in order to steal borderline swinging strikes from a corner umpire on a Czech swing? Is it better to stand up and ask, or is that a

little too overeager? Do you stay in the squat and undersell it to give the impression that the call is obvious paint a picture of the perfect catcher reaction to capture a borderline swinging strike oh man this makes me want to watch like 200 swings and write a long thing about sounds like a great use of your time yeah and i have so much wow what a i remember when we got this email thinking what a terrific question it was and i didn't arrive at an answer because i am torn on the one hand i think there's a lot to be said for the idea of like gesturing but like in a hey so you're gonna you're gonna say he went right because you know like in a in a sort of modest way that seems to suggest I'm asking as a matter of form, but you, an intelligent person who can see what just happened, are going to arrive at the obvious conclusion because, you know, that's your job and you're good at it.

And then I think that there is also something to the idea of like forcefully being like, did he go? Did he go? I think he did go, right? I don't know. I think they're both excellent. Yeah. Yeah. I think just showing the confidence, I think like acting as if, of course, you're going to get the call. Right. Just like no delay. You don't think about it, right? It's like instant reaction that you're, I guess, standing up or just making it very clear that you think that this was a strike and that you're expecting the umpire to go along with you. And maybe just the power of your personality will compel the umpire to go along. And I don't know if that's actually the case or not. I could even see it backfire in some cases. Maybe it's like

presumptuous, you know, acting as if you are going to get a certain call and umpires might say, no, I'm not going to just give you that call because you gestured over here so expressively. So I could see it depending on the personality of the umpire. But in general, I think we're sort of wired to listen to people who sound like they know what they're talking about, which is kind of an unfortunate aspect of human psychology because often the people who sound like they know what they're talking about, which is kind of an unfortunate aspect of human psychology because often the people who sound like they know what they're talking about, in fact, do not. And in fact, sometimes there's like an inverse correlation there, but you can kind of fake it till you make it in effect. So I think that's the way I would go if I were a catcher, just seem certain that it was definitely a swing and he went around

and maybe the umpire would just feel peer pressured into going along with it and plus like if you have a really demonstrative gesture then like the spotlight is on you as the ump like everyone in the ballpark has seen that the catcher has pointed to you and you're expected to make the call now so now there's pressure on you there so i think that would be better on the whole i think that as the catcher you have a much broader you have a lot more margin for error when it comes to this i think that the place where it matters a lot more sort of what your body language message is about your own confidence is when you are a hitter who asks for a ruling on a check swing

call which we don't see a ton we do see hitters who do it and i always wonder like how that's received and so i think there the body language might have the ability to sway the decision one way or the other much more significantly than it would if you're the catcher because it is sort of understood that like yeah you're gonna ask for help and and what have you but i don't know it's probably i would imagine that for a lot of umps there's more of a bright line between guys who are bothered that catchers ask at all and those who don't mind them asking kind of whatever that gesture ends up looking like. I bet it breaks down more along those lines because I bet there are guys who are like,

well, were you to ask this question? You should leave that to the home plate umpire. But they don't always ask. Yeah. No, they don't. So, you know, they don't always ask. Sometimes we have to be like, eh. Yeah.

I don't know that you would actually find a meaningful effect here. Maybe. Maybe you would find check swing framing, but it wouldn't be nearly as meaningful as actual framing and receiving. rates and I got some data on that, which was not publicly available at the time. And I don't even remember what I found. I don't think I found anything all that useful about like, I was thinking like maybe some umpires, you know, they always ring them up when they're appealed to and others never do. And is there a big difference there? And I don't remember finding anything that was like that significant or interesting, but I'll link to the piece for anyone who wants to check that out that I just did a terrible terrible job of advertising so anyway i doubt you would find like this would be worth you know several runs a season or something but you know over the course

of a career maybe if you could actually quantify it there might be something there well and and having said that what is more likely to matter for a catcher getting a receptive call one way or the other is is sort of the willingness of the umpire to hear the appeal from them at all or not i would imagine that the thing that would really move the needle is the umpire's propensity and sort of instinct to defer to their colleague at home versus not that That's probably the thing that moves it the most. Yeah. Maybe. That might not be generous of me to assume.

I mean, the thing that you really want to move it is whether or not the guy checked his swing. But I think that we can admit that other stuff might operate in the background. So of all the background things, I think deference to one's colleagues probably plays a really big role. And then how cheeky you think the catcher is for asking is like, eh, smaller.

of a way of looking at something R.J. McDaniel mentioned at the end of episode 1659. I am paraphrasing here, but I think R.J. noted how our fandom of baseball, or any sports really, often undergoes so much change from childhood to teenhood to adulthood. Whether it's league-altering trades aimed at big air quotes financial flexibility, or horrific actions and words coming from front office personnel or ongoing minor league contraction or MLB's inability to recognize the marketability and truly likability of the game's young stars, I have often found myself increasingly more drawn to the community of baseball and less so to the actual capital G game itself. As folks more deeply rooted in the industry of baseball, do you find that this feeling is shared or common among people in the game, writers, prospect evaluators, even scouts or lower ranking team personnel, or who work directly with it? If I were brave enough to venture a guess based on my own bubble

in baseball Twitter, I would think the answer must be yes. But I'm curious about your perspective, particularly when you have the opportunity to converse with people in the industry, as opposed to just those at the margins. i don't think that the community is unimportant i think that baseball people like hanging out with other baseball people if only because other baseball people are the only people who have the built-in tolerance to put up with as much baseball talk as baseball people want to engage in. So I think that for a lot of them, they really care about the game. They care about the game a lot.

They care about the game in a way that actually would probably make a lot of fans feel really good about baseball as an industry because we spend so much time rightly talking about the ways in which teams are not necessarily trying to win. And the way that ownership is prioritizing profit and all of the sort of nasty stuff in the center of the game and at its edges. And I think that a lot of fans would be really heartened to discover just how much baseball people really love and care about baseball like just really wake up wanting to engage with the game every day and it's a job and it has aspects and you know these depend on kind of what you do within the industry

that are really hard and that require a lot of time and often a lot of time away from your family a lot of time at work and so i think that it can ebb and flow for people but i think that a lot of time and often a lot of time away from your family, a lot of time at work. And so I think that it can ebb and flow for people. But I think that a lot of baseball people, and this perhaps, at least in my experience, becomes more true, the more junior you get, just really love the game. And that's what they want to think about and talk about and engage with every day in a way that's like really pure and lovely and i think if it if that sentiment were at the center of kind of how the industry operates we'd probably see a really different version of the game than we do now because i think that their investment is really profound so again like they care about the community in which they operate and they make lifelong friends and they also have people they don't like because it is a workplace.

So that happens for folks, but it's really great. And I think over the last year, as we've seen different organizations weather the pandemic in different ways, we saw orgs that really took care of those baseball people and orgs that did a less good job of that and a lot of those folks still stuck around in part because like this is what they do and how they make a living but also because they really care about it as an endeavor and even though they maybe did not experience good treatment at the hands of higher ups, they, you know, they're kind of lifers. So I think it has, I've said this before, like it has been very clarifying to me about needing to differentiate really clearly between where mandates to sort of step back from competition or whatever we're calling it or coming from and where budgetary mandates come from. Because to say that it's like a front office thing is insufficiently precise. So yeah,

that's a kind of long-winded answer to that question. But- Yeah. Some of the things that Garrett mentions here, some of the negative aspects of baseball that we sometimes talk about and critique on the podcast. They don't actually make me like baseball less. I think at least they don't make me like the sport less. I guess they might make me like MLB as a business, as a company a little less. But even there, I'm sort of aware that a lot of these are longstanding problems that maybe are coming to greater attention now, but are not new problems. And in many cases were even worse before. So some of this is new-ish or at least there's a new wrinkle to it, like some of this anti-competitive behavior. But again, like look

back at baseball history and owners have always operated in a lot of those ways. And there have always been teams that weren't trying and maybe it's more glaring now that baseball is a big business and brings in some number of billions of dollars per year. But just saying like, pick your golden age of baseball, quote unquote, and go back and look at what was actually happening there. And I don't think it would actually be better. And a lot of the things we talk about with player behavior or front office behavior, not to excuse those things in any way, but again, I think they were probably always part of baseball and were just sort of swept under the rug or no one was really calling attention to them. And so in a way, and this is

something that I think we deal with in a lot of aspects of life with social media and everything kind of bringing these things to our attention constantly, we're more aware of the ills of society or tragedies than we once would have been. Doesn't mean that they didn't exist before. And in many cases were more common and more deeply ingrained. And so I try to look at the fact that we focus on these things more now as a sign of progress and hopefully change. And so I guess it doesn't turn me off of baseball so much because I just feel like, well, it's not as if it's necessarily getting worse in these respects. Hopefully it's getting better. And also baseball is not unique in a lot of these things. A lot of these behaviors that we talk about, you know, look at any industry, look at any area of life. These are-eyed about those flaws without blowing them up into a

proportion that would make me not want to watch the sport or pay attention to the sport anymore. But that said, I think there are a lot of really good ways to consume baseball without it just being about MLB as a business or even the standings and who wins and loses every game. And I don't know whether being on this side of things has changed that for me. I think I've kind of always appreciated that about baseball, just like the cultural aspects of it and the way it brings people together and not just necessarily at the major league level, but all the way down to little league and internationally. And, you know, it's a way that people relate to each other and talk to each other and sort of experience the fabric of human existence just sort of through baseball and the history of it and the stories and the personalities. All of that is as compelling

to me as like the results on the field, I think. So I don't know whether being on this side of things has changed that for me or whether that was kind of always the way I look at it. But I do think that, you know, if you cover baseball, then you're hyper aware of these issues that, you know, if you're following it in a casual way or you're only paying attention to one team, maybe you're just not even aware of this stuff. You know, you're just watching the game and that's kind of how you interact with baseball and there's nothing wrong with that. But I do think that, you know, if your job is to cover these things, then in a way it's like you're exposed to all the bad stuff and maybe that might make you, you know, sort of cynical about it more so, you know, maybe you appreciate the good parts of it too. But I think just being bombarded with the bad news,

you know, more than someone who is not quite as plugged in would be might make you more likely to sour on it, I guess, which I hope to avoid kind of losing my love for it, even if it's not necessarily Rob Manfred. It's just baseball itself. It's the sport and the way people interact with it. And I think that it's not, like I said, it ebbs and flows, right? You're sort of enthusiasm for it, maybe less so because you're going to engage with it every day because that's your job. But your sort of instincts to watch it when you don't have to for work might ebb and flow a little bit depending on the relationship you're keeping

with the sport and the way that you know the those sort of social issues within it are sort of hitting you on any given day like i wasn't you know like the day the day that the jared porter news broke i wasn't like a super big fan of baseball but i think that you're right that there's there's a distinction that needs to be made between baseball as a game, like small B baseball, and then MLB. And despite MLB's best efforts, those are not completely synonymous with one another yet. to get to make a job out of a favorite hobby it changes your relationship with it and you do lose some of the the kind of appreciation you have for the game that you have when you're a fan at least it starts to morph a little bit into something else because suddenly you're like layering your own professional ambitions into it and professional frustrations and you're you're dealing with like industry politics and all of that stuff and i think that it's really different when you're in baseball media versus

someone who works for a team so like that's a distinction that needs to get made but yeah like i don't know i was thinking the other day i was like i think we're probably i don't know what they're gonna look like because i think there are plenty of teams that are pretty happy with the zoom life that beat reporters are living. But I imagine we'll have winter meetings this year, like in person. I think we're supposed to be in Nashville. I think they're in Nashville this year. And I can't wait. I cannot wait. I think the people are going to behave very badly. And I hope that everyone remembers that like, it's okay to just not be hung over. We can just decide we're not going to do that. Don't do it. You're going to feel like garbage. You know it, make different choices, but it's just going to be really nice to like see a bunch

of people who I haven't been able to see for by that point you know two years almost yeah um because of the pandemic and so it does afford you community and relationships that can be you know life-altering potentially so yeah i don't know baseball is pretty cool sometimes it bugs us but i think we're both pretty big fans like i uh i'm very glad to get to do it for my job because it's my favorite thing so it's pretty neat that it gets to occupy working time and help me hear it. Yeah, I'm sure you get jaded if you're a beat writer and you're on the road constantly. And, you know, like you probably want the games to get over with sooner. Like I think anyone would, even if it's hard to understand that as a fan.

Like if it's your job and you're on deadline and it affects how much sleep you have and what else you get to do, like it's just hard not to think of it that way, I think. But maybe in exchange for that, you also get the relationships with other writers and people in the game and, you know, they become friends and your social network. So I think there are pluses and minuses. Yeah, for sure. All right. Last question. This is a stat blast. They'll take a data set sorted by something like ERA minus or OBS plus. And then they'll tease out some interesting tidbit, discuss it at length, and analyze it for us in amazing ways here's to day step last

this question comes from evan who says i was looking through baseball references trade partner history today and came across a deal that caught my eye. A 1991 trade between the Orioles and Astros that was extremely one-sided. The Astros traded away an aging Glenn Davis in exchange for three prospects. Kurt Schilling, Steve Finley, and

Pete Harnish. The trade breaks down as follows. Kurt Schilling 79.8 career fan graphs wore. 79.-trade. Steve Finley, 40.4 career fan graphs were 40.2 post-trade. Pete Harnish, 20.6 career were 17.3 post-trade. And Glenn Davis, 18.3 career fan graphs were only 0.4 post-trade, which brings a total of 136.6 fangraphs were gained by Houston. When looking at various articles posted by ESPN, Bleacher Report, and even the Houston Chronicle about the most lopsided trades, none of them mention this deal.

I reckon it's mostly because the Astros did not get as much out of these players as they could have. Steve Finley played only four of his remaining 17 seasons in Houston, and Schilling only had 56 average relief appearances in an Astros uniform before he was traded to the Phillies for Jason Grimsley. If you only look at games played in an Astros uniform, Houston only gained about 25 war, which is still a good trade, but Baltimore lost nearly 140 war. Obviously, this isn't a perfect way to evaluate trade lopsidedness since it fails to account for service time, contract, etc. So I was wondering how you would evaluate it. What do you think is the most lopsided trade

of all time? Where do you think the Tatis Shields trade will end up on this list? And perhaps most importantly, if it's possible for me to make a complete list with queries, or would it be easier to continue my strategy of scrolling through baseball reference? Because Evan was looking for other trades that might stack up to this trade.

So I went straight to the source, to Dan Hirsch, friend of the show, Patreon supporter who works for baseball reference, and he was able to send me a list and write a query on the baseball reference database to send me the examples of the most lopsided trades just in terms of war produced by the players on either end of the trade post-trade. So, yeah, as Evan's saying, like, yeah, you would want to take into account salary and service time and all of that. But that gets complicated looking back at the entirety of baseball history. And I think this is an interesting way to look at it, too, just who got the most war after the deal. So technically, and Dan mentioned that this includes trades only, not purchases. There's a transaction type called purchase, which is just basically spending money to get a player. And the Babe Ruth trade, for instance, was a purchase. So that doesn't show up here. But technically, the most lopsided trade is an 1899 deal between the pirates and the Louisville colonels. Now, this one, this is kind of an exception because what actually happened here is that there was contraction happening in the National League at

that time. It was going down from 12 teams to eight teams. And Barney Dreyfus was like the president of the Colonels and he also owned the Pirates or half owned the Pirates. And so the Colonels were one of the teams getting eliminated. So basically he also owned the Pirates or half owned the Pirates. And so the Colonels were one of the teams getting eliminated. So basically, he just took the good players from the Colonels and transferred them to his other team, the Pirates. So speaking of, you know, anti-competitive behavior in past eras of baseball, you're not allowed to own multiple teams anymore, which is probably an improvement. But anyway, this is technically a trade where Hannes Wagner and Rubo Adele and Fred Clark and Tommy Leach and Deacon Philip and Claude Ritchie and other players went to the Pirates in exchange for Jack Chesbrough and a bunch of not as good players. But that's a net gain of 291.9 war, but that doesn't really count. If you want a trade that was really legitimately a trade, Evan is right. It is this 1991 trade between the Astros and the Orioles.

Yeah, 138.6 war lopsidedness. And again, it's Curt Schilling, Steve Finley, and Pete Harnish for Glenn Davis. lopsidedness. And again, it's Curt Schilling, Steve Finley, and Pete Harnish for Glenn Davis. And Glenn Davis was actually a good player up to that point in his career, but not really for long thereafter. And those other players really panned out and turned into near Hall of Fame caliber players or Hall of Fame caliber, but not yet Hall of Fame players or very good players in Harnish's case. So that is the most lopsided. And I think my favorite aspect of that deal, and I guess we just passed the 30th anniversary of that trade on January 10th, but I think the interesting thing is you might think, wow, the Astros really cleaned the Orioles' clocks there. They really

knew something that the Orioles didn't. And yet, the Astros didn't get much from those guys, and they traded all three of those players away in deals that did not work out well for the Astros. So it's like no one knows anything. The Astros, they got Steve Finley, but then in 1994, they traded Finley with a player to be named later and Ken Caminiti and Andahar Cedeno and Roberto Pettigini and Brian Williams to the Padres for Derek Bell, Doug Brokale, Ricky Gutierrez, Pedro Martinez, not that Pedro Martinez, Phil Plantier, Craig Shipley, et cetera. So that was a very lopsided trade where Finley was sort of a late bloomer and Caminiti, of course. So that was a bad trade for the Astros. And then they traded

Harnish to the Mets for players to be named later. And it was just like two guys, Andy Beckerman and Juan Castillo, who never pitched for the Astros in the majors. And then the Astros traded, as Evan mentioned, Schilling to the Phillies for Jason Grimsley in 1992. So they made this incredible trade, but they didn't even really know what they had. And they traded those players themselves in similarly lopsided deals. And the interesting thing is that the Phillies Astros trade for shilling, that's actually 16th on the list of most lopsided trades. 74.5 were just shilling for Grimsley. So yeah, the Astros made one of the best trades of all time. And then they made a series of very bad trades, including another of the worst trades of all time so i kind of like

that just for the complete incompetence on display in all sides you know yeah to predict baseball player paths i wonder where ted tiswell rank it's i mean it already doesn't look very good no i mean it's very early to call the ball on that but it already does not look very good I think maybe I've said this before it's just such an intimate thing to know about someone you think about these GMs and what they must think about if they can't sleep and it's 3am

I relive stuff from middle school I thought Rick relives this. Yeah. It's like, oh, what if AJ hadn't been on those backfields? Yeah. Then what? We'll see. If Tatis turns out to be a Hall of Fame player, then this will climb the list.

But I will read you some of the other top lopsided trades here, and I'll put the full list online because this is a really fun spreadsheet to peruse. But the next most lopsided, we've got December 5th, 1988, the Rafael Palmeiro trade between the Cubs and the Rangers. So this was a 108.9 war differential. It was Rafael Palmeiro and Jamie Moyer and Drew Hall for Mitch Williams and Steve Wilson and Paul Kilgus and Kurt Wilkerson. So that was not such a good one. Not so good. Next on the list, this is kind of an all-timer. The Giants and the Reds traded Christy Mathewson and Emmis Rusi.

So all-time great in Christy Mathewson and Emmis Rusussi so all-time great in christian matthewson and emis russi i think pitched like three more games or three more days or something before it was the end of his career so that's a 107.2 war that's uh december 15th 1900 next one july 29th 1988 baltimore and boston oh boy this is another kurt schilling trade. Actually, Curt Schilling is in three of the most lopsided trades of all time. So this one actually predated the Astros Orioles one. This was the Orioles getting Curt Schilling and Brady Anderson for Mike Boddicker. And that's a difference of 100.3 war. So that just adds to my appreciation of this sequence. So, man, Curt Schilling, notable for many reasons, you know, some of them not so great.

But this is a fun fact, I think. So he's a centerpiece of three of the top 16 most lopsided trades of all time. So I don't know whether that is a reflection Of his personality in any way Or whether it was just people not Recognizing how good Curt Schilling Was going to be but the Orioles Got a potential steal and then They gave away a potential steal

And then the Astros also did So people were just playing hot potato With Curt Schilling and no one knew How good he was going to be Next one is April 21st, 1966. Fergie Jenkins and Adolfo Phillips and John Hernstein for Larry Jackson and Bob Buell. That's a trade between the Cubs and the Phillies. Cubs get Fergie Jenkins.

Pretty good deal there. 1982, December 9th, trade between the Blue Jays and the Yankees. The Fred McGriff trade. The Yankees traded Fred McGriff, Mike Morgan, and Dave Collins to the Blue Jays for Tom Dodd and Dale Murray. Your classic George

Steinbrenner pulling the plug too early on a young promising player trade. Then you've got the notorious Nolan Ryan trade. Yeah. Angels and the Mets, December 10th, 1971. Nolan Ryan, Leroy Stanton, Frank Estrada, and Don Rose for Jim Fregosi. Of course, that's a difference of 82.6 war.

That was 85 in that McGriff trade, if I didn't mention that. That was 85 in that McGriff trade, if I didn't mention that. And then you also have 1971 November trade between the Reds and the Astros. The Reds picked up Joe Morgan. That worked out pretty well for them. Joe Morgan had already been a very good player for the Astros, but became an even better player for the Reds. So it was Joe Morgan, Cesar Geronimo, Dennis Menke, Jack Bellingham, Ed Armbrister for Lee May, Tommy Helms, and Jimmy Stewart. That is the top 10. Then you've also got the Johnny Damon trade for Ben Grieve and Angel Baroa. Mark Ellis in that deal too.

The A's got Johnny Damon and Mark Ellis and Corey Lytle. That worked out well. The Sammy Sosa trade between the White Sox and the Rangers in 1989. Sammy Sosa, Wilson Alvarez, Scott Fletcher for Harold Baines, Fred Manrique. And another notorious one, Jeff Bagwell. Yeah. From the Red Sox to the Astros in 1990. So, again, there you have the Astros.

You know, they were making some great trades and some terrible trades at that time. But Jeff Bagwell for Larry Anderson, that is a notorious one. So I will put the full list online. And if you're thinking of a famous lopsided trade, it is probably on here somewhere close to the top of the list. The Pedro Martinez deal, Ryan Sandberg, Willie Randolph, Pee Wee Reese, George Davis, Gaylord Perry, David Cohn, Early Wynn, Wally Shang, John Smoltz, Norm Cash, et cetera, et cetera. Another Sammy Sosa trade. So fun list. Thank you to Evan for the question and to Dan Hirsch for the data. Just hug your prospects. Never let them go.

Yeah. Never change. Got the Derek Lowe and Jason Veritech for Heathcliff's locum up here in 1997. Not one that Mariners fans are fond of. No, not especially. Alright, that will do it. Well, after we

recorded this episode, a couple of pieces came out by Fabian Ardaia and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic that shed a little light on Albert Pujols' exit from the Angels. And based on those reports, which cited and quoted Angel sources, but not Pujols, it sounds as if some of the suppositions in our discussion were correct. The Angels talked to Pujols about playing less, being benched, winding down his career in some mutual way. Pujols wasn't having it, wanted to continue to play, didn't really want a bench role of any kind, at least according to the Angels, and so that sort of necessitated the awkward breakup. So based on those portrayals,

at least, I can't really fault the Angels for how they handled this, and Pujols is within his rights to decide not to go gently into retirement, though I wonder what this will mean for the 10-year personal services contract with the Angels that was supposed to kick in after the 10-year playing contract. I don't know if this not entirely amicable ending to his career as an Angels player will make it more likely for him to continue to serve some role with the team, or whether they can get together again if Pujols finds that the Angels weren't alone and he wasn't wanted elsewhere. I will link to both of those pieces on the show page if you're interested in checking them out. And in the actual game on Thursday, Shohei Otani DH'd and hit a home run,

Jared Walsh started at first and started a nice 3-6 double play, and the Angels lost anyway. What else is new? Okay, as always, thanks for listening today and this week. 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. Dylan Buell, Stephen, Justin Coates, Ivan Rachmanin, and Nick E.D. 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, Spotify, and other podcast platforms. Keep your questions and comments for me and Meg coming. Please replenish our mailbag at podcast at vangraphs.com or by messaging us through the Patreon site if you are a supporter. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance. We hope you have a wonderful weekend, and we will be back to talk to you early next week. Never release the one you love