Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1697: Don’t Blame the Batters

Episode Date: May 21, 2021

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the Shohei Ohtani stalker cam on Japanese telecasts of Angels games, the Low-A Palm Beach Cardinals facing Jacob deGrom, why this season’s no-hitters have all been so dominant, and why it doesn’t make sense to hold hitters responsible for strikeouts and low batting averages. Then they do a […]

Hello and welcome to episode... Oh no! We should leave it in, it's been a while since I've goofed one. Hello and welcome to episode 1697 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of Fangraphs, and I'm joined as always by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? I'm resetting the sign next to my desk that says it has been X days since someone screwed up an Effectively Wild intro. I am doing a little tiny staycation because one needs to take days off occasionally in order to not be a monster to one's co-workers. And I think I didn't even look.

Didn't even look at the episode number. I was like, yeah, it's my turn. Let's go. It's going to be fun. Vacation brain. It takes like 24 hours. So here we are. All right.

So I made an important discovery this week. I was hipped to the existence of an Otani camera on broadcasts of Angels games in Japan. So it turns out I was notified about this Reddit post about this on an Angels subreddit. Apparently on Angels broadcasts that are broadcast in Japan, Otani is on the screen at all times. There is like a little picture-in-picture kind of thing that just has Otani, no matter what's happening in the game, what he's doing, he is on the screen just permanently. So it's just this Otani camera. And I messaged a friend of the show, Kazuto Yamazaki, about this to ask a little bit about it.

And I don't think he's actually seen it, he said this is on nhkbs broadcast which he thinks is the only way to watch angels games legally from japan aside from mlb tv and they carry pretty much every angels game and i don't know if this is an otani innovation but kazuto said that he used to watch nhK back in the Ichiro and Hideki Matsui days, and they didn't do the stalker cam thing for them. So it might just be an Otani-only innovation. So it's just this kind of like Truman Show thing where the game is sort of a sideshow to Otani, which is kind of how I think a lot of Angels games feel, unfortunately. Especially these days. Yeah, exactly. So I don't know.

I think this is accessible in some way from the States. I don't know if it's accessible legally, but I think maybe there are some YouTube links where one could watch this, or perhaps there are other places to access the stream. So I haven't actually seen it myself yet, but I am obviously intrigued. I'm also kind of unnerved. It's a little invasive. It's not even just when he's on the field. The screenshot here is of the game the other night when he was in right field. And so it's just, you see the pitcher batter set up as usual, but also in the top right corner of the screen,

see the pitcher batter set up as usual but also in the top right corner of the screen you see otani just standing in right field but it also continues like if he's just on the bench i think like if he's in the dugout he's just sitting there picking his nose or whatever he's gonna be on screen for all of japan to see so i kind of feel bad for the guy that he doesn't get a second's respite or privacy, really. And yet I'm part of the problem in that I am interested in seeing Shohei Otani at all times, too. So I'm intrigued. Also repelled. I'm going to have to check this out if I can. It is a very strange thing.

The ballpark is such a strange space, right? Because it is public. If you're in the ballpark as a fan or a player, there's nothing stopping a well-placed Angels fan from just watching Otani nonstop the entire time they're at an Angels game. And you get fleeting glances of fans on broadcasts, a thing that I have been known to enjoy in the course of my writing career. And of course, these guys know that they're the camera finds, you know, that night's starter in the dugout after he's been pulled or, you know, finds another guy on the field because there's some intriguing thing that he did in the prior half inning and now he's standing in right, you know, the narrative of the game and the action of the game kind of dictates when

the glance that isn't sustained sort of finds its way to someone else. And so you do have not an expectation of privacy, but an expectation of breaks and that you're going to have a moment where you can like scratch your butt or pick your nose or whatever. And so, yeah, what an interesting, weird, cool thing. And so, yeah, what an interesting, weird, cool thing. I guess we've talked about just wanting to stay no Donnie Gams, so here it is. But it does have a slightly different vibe when the guy is just literally on camera the whole time. And I'm sure he doesn't have an expectation that he's not going to be watched, but I don't know that he has one that he's going to be watched quite this intensely.

going to be watched, but I don't know that he has one that he's going to be watched quite this intensely. Although given, you know, given sort of how dynamic his season has been and how his profile has risen, not just within baseball, but outside of baseball in the last couple of weeks, maybe his expectations around that are shifting. I don't know. But yeah, it is kind of a strange quandary. It's like, are we doing something creepy? I don't know. We're doing a creepy thing. Yeah. I guess he's used to it and some level of scrutiny, but it is an added level of pressure in addition to all the other difficulties that come with the geographic and cultural and competitive transition from NPP to MLB to have this at home, you know, to know that you were on screen at all times.

Yeah. this at home you know to know that you were on screen at all times yeah and the op on this reddit post was also in the comments adding some level of detail and apparently it started as a more selective sort of thing so it was like if he was warming up for his next at bat or something like you know if he's on deck or whatever then they would have the otani cam but now it's just spiraled into permanent Otani cam. And it's just like he says, we find it very funny and a bit irritating now. So yeah, I don't know if everyone wants this,

but they're getting it anyway. And I'm sure there's some demand for this. And apparently a lot of Otani fan accounts on Instagram that are like posting clips from this. And he is a very watchable person. Like I enjoy watching his interactions with other angels players and he is very expressive and, you know,

has a funny gestures and everything. So, so I, I would be into this, but also like, yeah, leave the poor guy alone. But,

but I don't know, maybe he's okay with it. I don't know how he feels about it, but we should try to like interview the Otani stalker camera person. What is it like to have your job be just focusing on Otani for an is either allowed or required to sort of move away? Yeah. Are there any circumstances under which they'd be like, oh, the viewing public does not need to see that? No, you're fired if you miss one second of Otani.

So high stakes. What if you have to go to the bathroom? What if he has to go to the bathroom? That'd be great content, I think, for NH it. So high stakes. You're out. What if you have to go to the bathroom? What if he has to go to the bathroom? So that'd be great content, I think, for NHK. Oh, no. No, he probably closes the door. I assume they don't have the soccer cam inside the bathroom. That would be a major violation.

Almost certainly not. But they must have multiple people on this beat, right? Because they have to get him at every angle so if you have him because it's not like in lieu of the regular view it's just in addition to and so they must have people who are i don't know if they're uh getting the feed from other camera people or whether they have their own camera people for the standard center field view and then they must they have to have people who are able to capture him in the dugout but also in the field and not just on the mound also in the outfield so it's got to be a full setup so i i want

to talk to a producer or a camera person who can tell me all about the the stalker cam here yeah was there an entire new array of cameras installed at the what are the angels called their ballpark? The Big A, is that what they call it? Yeah, Angel Stadium. Angel Stadium, the Big A. Was there a whole new, and did they, if they did install a new array of cameras, did they do so on the understanding that Otani would be the Otani that we have seen prior to now, sort of the promising at times remarkable but um also at times injured and underperforming our expectations otani or did they say you know we've looked at the projections and we think that this otani this otani guy he's going to take a big leap forward and he's going to be

appointment viewing so we better get these cameras in here yeah it is an extra consideration when you sign a star from another country from yeah pp like you know that you are penetrating that market in a way that you wouldn't otherwise and you're gonna have people tuning in to watch all of your games and maybe buying some angel swag or whatever so like there's an extra kind of marquee value of economic value that probably comes to you from that and just brand awareness and all of that. But this is very Otani specific. So I don't know. No trout cam, I guess. And unfortunately, he wouldn't be on it much these days anyway. But just wanted to tell everyone that this exists. And if I get more details on how exactly one would access it from the states I will

perhaps relay those although I'm wary of feeding into the Otani stocking complex and so I don't know if this is a bad thing to be bringing awareness to or not but obviously in line with our interests here which prime among them is Shohei Otani. Yeah. Wow. I mean, celebrity, as we've said, as I have said, very confusing dynamic, a very strange thing to navigate. So, yeah. So I also wanted to mention the poor Palm Beach Cardinals. And I don't know whether you were following this on Thursday because you were having your

staycation, but Jacob deGrom pitched a rehab start against the Palm Beach Cardinals, the A-ball affiliate of the Cardinals. And he blew them away, as one would expect. But a lot of people were kind of following along with this because the Palm Beach Cardinals Twitter account, whoever is whatever intern or social media person is running at GoPB Cardinals, kudos to them because they were making it very entertaining to follow along with this. So the poor Palm Beach Cardinals, they had to face Noah Sindergaard and Jacob deGrom in back-to-back games because Sindergaard was throwing his first rehab start against them on Wednesday. against them on Wednesday. And with Syndergaard, at least, you know, he's really rusty and this is his first start off of Tommy John surgery. And he was still dominant and he pitched four scoreless innings. And I think he struck out five and, you know, he was really good. He was what you would expect Noah Syndergaard facing an A-ball team to be. I guess he allowed one hit and struck out six actually over four shutout

innings, but he was only throwing like 93 to 95 instead of his typical high 90s, which is not at all concerning given that this was an A-ball start, you know, and coming off of Tommy John's surgery, but still pretty good velocity at that level probably, but maybe more hittable than jacob de grom who apparently was actually throwing like 102 in this game just imagine if you're facing a ball pitchers and then suddenly jacob de grom parachutes in just like this this alien from another sphere of existence and you are expected to hit against him and i looked at the lineup and I don't know if there are any big prospects in this lineup I'm not enough of a prospect person to know necessarily but you know there were some 22 and 23 year olds in the lineup but there were also like the first two hitters were 19 year olds I think and they've never seen anything like this and it doesn't seem like he was taking it easy on them at all and I think they found out like less than a day before the start that he was going to be pitching against them. And so the Palm Beach Cardinals Twitter account was all just like self-deprecating. It was like Jacob deGrom is throwing 102 miles per hour. Please send help. 5,000 retweets and then it was like tweets about the the box score in progress as he pitched perfect innings and you know it was like update he struck out all three of our batters in the third inning and then it was like videos of him blowing people away and it's like come on mets

what do you expect us to do with this oh thank god they took him out and sarah steve cohen will not be receiving a christmas gift from us this year. And then someone tweeted at them, here's an idea. Learn to hit the fastball. Learn to hit the fastball. Yeah, that's easy against Jacob deGrom. And they quote tweeted that and said, we have eight hitters who were born after the year 2000, Kevin. So back to back nights.

That's rough. And it's probably fun for them on some level. The pitcher, the opposing pitcher in that game, John Beller, tweeted, Update, DeGrom was 102 all night, one of the most fun outings of my life. And he had tweeted earlier that he gets to start against DeGrom, a pitcher he's looked up to for years. What an opportunity. So it's kind of cool, but it also must just be totally just intimidating and overpowering, like low A Southeast division. And he pitched three innings and he struck out eight and one guy grounded out.

So congrats to him. And I think another guy got on a throwing error and that was it. And he was as untouchable as you would expect. So sometimes we get questions about like what would so-and-so do if he were playing against this low-level competition all year and we got a little glimpse of that not that it looked that different from like jacob de grom against major league hitting it's like he's pretty good against those guys too but you just have to imagine like what would the slash line against j deGrom in low A or A ball be

against him if this were happening regularly? I really like how baseball players, I'm sure it wasn't fun in the moment. Like if you're one of those hitters and you're in the box, you're like, oh no, it's going to go badly for me. But it isn't like completely uninstructive from a developmental perspective. And i think if we we know anything about baseball players it's that they really do admire one another and enjoy like each other's skill like i think that they are delighted by the game in ways that fans often are but with an appreciation of knowing in a much more real way just how hard it is and so you you kind of like it when they're like this is a bummer but

it's it's clearly in good fun and when the opposing starter is like this is really cool it's like you just get to i don't know i like it when people have appreciation for one another's talent even if it's at their expense because at the end of the day like this these rehab starts don't matter for these guys like these the the hitters they not going to all of a sudden be viewed differently by their organizations because they couldn't square up like 100 miles an hour from Jacob to Grom. They know what their age-appropriate level is, and it is not yet facing to Grom. That is not what their assignment is at this point in their trajectory to hopefully reach the big leagues. So I'm sure unpleasant in the moment, but also it's just like, wow, yeah, this is what you're working to face. What a fun realization. If everything goes exactly the way you want it to, if you work very, very hard and you stay healthy and you sort of take steps forward developmentally

and you're able to reach the big leagues, this is what awaits you. Yeah, right. Is that discouraging or encouraging? I don't know. I hope they don't all think like, oh, that's what major league pitchers look like. Well, no, that's what one major league pitcher looks like.

I mean, yeah, a lot of them look more like that than they used to, but also he's sort of in a class of his own. So I hope they don't get discouraged like, oh, man, I'm never going to be able to hit mid-league pitching because no one can hit Jacob deGrom. Well, but I would imagine, I don't know. I think that athletes have confidence. Sometimes it's irrational confidence. Sometimes it's necessary confidence. It's necessary confidence.

But I would think if you're prone to philosophizing and you're going to sit there and sort of contemplate where this sits on your trajectory, you'd probably also say as a guy in that lineup, well, a couple of years ago, I couldn't have hit low A pitching either, right? Like I wasn't there necessarily. And so it's just another step on the road. And yeah, it's really hard to square up Jacob deGrom. There's a reason that he's like, you know, came into the season as a Cy Young favorite. And not every guy is like that. But you won't be the same guy when you have to face him the next time, hopefully, you know, we all grow and change. So we can choose to be optimistic about that, even if we are humbled

by the reminder of sort of the deficit in the moment, you know? Yeah. Maybe by the time these 19-year-olds get to the big leagues, Jacob deGrom will be old and over the hill, and the balance of power will have shifted, and they'll get revenge for that time that he pitched against the Palm Beach Cardinals. Or he'll be throwing 120 miles an hour. Yeah, that's right. If we extrapolate, that's probably true. The St. Lucie Mets scored seven runs in this game for Jacob deGrom. So that must have been a nice change. Yeah. Maybe they should just

promote the St. Lucie Mets when he pitches, get some run support. Well, you know, if the injury luck of the big league club continues, who knows what they might be, you know, running out there on any given night. Yeah. I feel like I did this at one point or someone did this. I always think that I should or someone should do this. But I wonder if you compiled all the stats of like major league pitchers on low level minor league rehab assignments, what they would be a good idea. And I don't know whether they would be quite as dominant and overpowering as you would think, because a lot of those guys are in those games because they're injured or they're coming back from injuries or they've had some long layoff like Sindergaard. But in these cases, when you have a mismatch between a major leaguer and an A-ball team, I'd imagine that even if you're a little rusty or not at 100%, you're still going to be blowing those guys away. So I'd be curious, that would be one way to suss out the difference in quality of competition between those levels. What actually happens when major league pitchers go down there for a day or a week or whatever and get to test themselves against that competition? Because

you don't get the opposite all that often. I guess every now and then you get the rule five guy from A-ball who just shows up in the majors all year. But usually people aren't climbing a few steps in a single pound. So it works the other way, though, occasionally, where you do get to see the best go against not the best, or at least not the best yet. So I wonder what the cumulative performance of that would be. So if someone wants to run the numbers, please let me know.

Yeah, geez. I would be interested in the balance. Now I'm going to have to Google around and see if someone did write that piece or if you wrote that piece. Tell me if it was me. Speaking of no hits, that's not just an A-ball phenomenon. We talked about no hitters last time, and there was another no-hitter before I could get the episode up. So that's how fast and furious they're coming now. And that might be

a little deceptive. Sometimes these things cluster, and then they go away for a while. There's some flukiness and randomness that comes with it, although it's obviously related to the offensive environment. But yeah, right after we wrapped up that conversation, Corey Kluber threw another no-hitter. And I did write an article about the rash of no-hitters and adopted my stance of, yes, give us more no-hitters, all the no-hitters, because I wanted to force some sort of change and make everyone notice that there's an imbalance now that just isn't going to fix itself. So this would be one manifestation of that but it is striking it was almost odd on thursday that we didn't have a no

hitter it's like no one no one threw no hitter today right okay we're so used to it now but all of these no hitters are like great games too like there aren't any of the weird wild ones where someone's like walking a ton of guys and getting to the no hitter like yeah a jay burnett game 20 years ago or edwin jackson or or whatever like all of these no hitters are i think no more than two walks and they're all like you know eight strikeouts or more and we've had a couple instances where it's either you know you're one drop third strike away from a perfect game, or you're a hit by pitch away from a perfect game as Carlos Rodon and Joe Musgrove were, or you're a walk or two away. So these are not just no hitters, but dominant looking no hitters

where the hitters just didn't even seem to have a chance. And I guess that's partly related to the general dominance of pitching. But I think it's also sort of a selective sample effect where you can't get a no-hitter anymore unless you are so dominant that you're pitch efficient. Because otherwise, they're going to pull you. going to get the 130 140 pitch no no anymore both because pitch counts are so much lower now and because i i think you know there's a little less of a deference to the no-hitter attempt these days like we've seen enough guys pulled after a certain number of no-hit innings where it's like okay the priority is the team and and protecting your health more so than just going after the no-hitter at all costs especially if there's going to be another one every week.

So I think that's the thing. You're not going to get to the no-hitter unless you are pitching so well that you end up with a pitch count that's pretty close to 100 because even with Spencer Turnbull, he got up to 117, and it was like, oh, I don't know. Is he going to get a chance to finish this thing out? It was kind of touch and go there at the end. So we've only seen 13 complete games this year that went nine innings.

So 13 outings of nine innings or more by a pitcher. And six of those are no hitters. So it's like you can't pitch a complete game anymore unless it's a no hitter. And you can't pitch a no hitter unless you're pitching so well that you keep your pitch count down. Right. And so you think to yourself, oh, here's a new thing for us to appreciate this. We're sort of in the market for a new way to appreciate the no-hitter because we have this sense that their frequency is too great and that the novelty of it has sort of worn off and that makes us suspicious that it is as special

as we have previously thought it to be, even though we know that they're still exceedingly rare. They're just less rare than they have been in prior years. And so you're like, oh, is marveling at the efficiency of it going to allow us to appreciate this in a new way? And I submit that it will not because I think part of what we worry about is the ultra-efficient outing that sort of mows these guys down so quickly and then baseball is done and we're in Manfred Ball and there is no offense and there are dominant pitchers and we will move on. But it is sort of interesting. I do submit, though, that if Wade Miley had needed 160 pitches to throw that no-hitter, they would have let him do it. I

think they would have just let him do it. They would have been like, yeah, go ahead. You're Wade Miley. Maybe with Wade Miley, you make an exception. Yeah. Right. But otherwise, yeah, I feel like I've used all my good no-hitter frequency material the last time we talked about this. I don't think that it is less special for the guys, as I said last time. I do think that these performances are amazing in themselves, even if we separate them from the no-hitter of it all. As you noted, there's a dearth of complete games otherwise, and these were not weird, fluky no-hitters where a bunch of guys got walked

and it was otherwise unimpressive and you just sit there and are like, what defensive marvels allowed them to luck into a no-hitter? No, these are really good outings and we should appreciate them. But I do think that the frequency at least needs to be sporadic enough

that I can come up with new material on the podcast. I mean, the Mariners had their graphic of no hitters, and then they didn't even have time to Photoshop Corey Kluber into this one. They just added a note at the bottom and showed it again on the next night's broadcast because it's like, what, we're going to keep, you know, at some point, how are you, you're going to have to, it's going to look like a Zoom call, right? You're going to have all the names and faces are going to get smaller and smaller. You're going to be like, who is that?

What? So, yeah, I don't know. I also think that we should spend a moment noting that while there have been a bunch of no-hitters and while it does make you nervous about sort of the state of overall offense, we also, if we wanted to sort of maintain our excitement could just be worried about cleveland and the mariners and the rangers yeah i know right yeah part of it is the league offensive environment and part of it is yeah hasn't seemed to make much of an effort to assemble an offense lately and i guess you could sort of say the same for Seattle. So yeah, yeah. So multiple, multiple factors here. But that is kind of what I wanted to talk about is that I wrote this article. And so in my mentions, I was seeing now with MLB batters and the idea that they could be better.

They're just choosing the wrong approach, and there's no two-strike approach, and no one knows how to hit anymore. these games, watch these same games that we're watching and reach that conclusion that, oh, it's just as simple as, you know, have a different two strike approach, just choke up a little bit, or just hit the ball the other way if there's a shift. Like, it's so simple. Just do these things that these greatest hitters in the world are not doing. And someone passed along a Twitter video that Seth McClung made this week, and Seth McClung, the former major league pitcher. And, you know, he is kind of the crotchety back in my day, which wasn't that long ago in Seth McClung's case, but, you know, kind of pitchers are dominating dominating pitchers are legendary all because the current analytics model of hitting is broken and is destroying the game honestly the game is so bad right now no one knows how to hit or how to act when they do hit so he kind of threw a you know excessive celebration bat flip angle in there too and And someone tweeted, get rid of the shift. And then he tweeted,

or, and this may be controversial, maybe go the other way. So I'm against both sides of that exchange. They're both wrong as far as I'm concerned. But he was going on about that sort of thing. And someone said, how do you fix it? And he says, put baseball people back in leadership positions and marginalize the analytics departments. You have guys running teams and running development of the minor leagues who have never played. Get them out. Sure, some guys can be good, but every team shouldn't be that way. So you've heard that sort of thing before. You have to play the game. And if you haven't played the game, then you're not entitled to weigh in on the game. And he made a video where he went into this at greater length. And I'll link to that for anyone

who wants to check it out. And look, there are ways in which Seth MacLung or any major leaguer knows more about baseball than I do or you do or has certainly had a different experience of it and is qualified to speak about it in ways that we aren't. But there are also things that, whether because we're familiar with the numbers or we spend a lot of time paying attention to this too, we have thoughts that can be valuable here. And so some of what he was saying is, it was kind of, I found it confusing to distill what his message was exactly because he said some things about pitchers being good and also some things about batters being bad. And he said, the pitchers aren't necessarily good right now. Hitters are swinging at absolutely

everything. And that was kind of the theme of this video is that hitters are swinging at everything. And that's the kind of thing that i think you can just kind of by looking at the numbers like yeah we yeah we have numbers like you can quibble with advanced defensive stats or whatever if you want but like you know swing rate is not really up for debate it's just did the guy swing or not or right even you know are they swinging at pitches inside the strike zone or outside the strike zone like these things are not that debatable really and just looking at the numbers from pitch info and friend graphs like swing rate is you know barely any different from when seth mcclung was in the majors like maybe there's uh one extra swing per hundred pitches or so relative to like 2008 2009 and

it's swings at pitches inside the strike zone too. It's not chases. The chase rate is no higher than it was 15 years ago or whatever. It's the same. It's just there are a few more swings at pitches that would be strikes, which is probably a good thing. So that's not the case. It's not like hitters have entirely lost their plate discipline or something.

We can verify that. And he's talking about how you have to eliminate pitches and look for certain pitches and certain counts and no one's doing that. And it's just harder to do that than it used to be because A, pitchers are tunneling pitches. They're camouflaging the differences between them so you can't necessarily tell what's coming. And B, they're throwing more breaking balls. They're throwing them on all counts.

You can't predict what's coming on a hitter's count or a pitcher's count the way you once could. So it's harder to have a plan even, let alone to execute the plan. He was saying there's no skill involved in the game. The game is bad because there's a lack of skill. And to be fair, he's not saying that players aren't talented. He said these guys are very talented. They're just not skilled. And that's why former Major League Baseball players think this game sucks. So he's trying to draw a distinction there and saying the raw physical tools are there, but knowing how to apply them, the fundamentals or whatever are not there. And like, this is a refrain that every single generation of players has repeated. I mean, you could go back to the 19th century and find people saying, oh, young players these days. I mean, it's the prior generation said that about his generation. Of course. Yeah. This is not new. This generation will probably say it about the next generation. It's not just a baseball

phenomenon. Of course, it happens in all industries and walks of life, but it is really notable when you study baseball history and you come across this over and over and over again. It's like, if you're aware that every previous generation of players has said that, unless you think players are just progressively getting worse and worse, which clearly is not the case, then you can't all be right about this so i've been just like i'm trying to see his side of it and and the side of it in general and i know that like the game is changing pretty rapidly yeah even though mcclung has not been out of baseball for that long like it has changed a lot even since he was pitching in the major so I can see how you might kind of think it's the same and then, you know, not realize that these things that are happening are products of like trends that maybe

have intensified recently, but you know, it's, it's not necessarily someone's fault is, is my take on this. Like the fact that hitters are striking out a lot, it doesn't mean that hitters are at fault for this or that they're doing something wrong necessarily. Like it's not necessarily that someone has fallen down on the job here unless it's, you know, maybe MLB for not intervening and changing the conditions. But like the conditions are what they are and players are responding to them and teams are responding to them in ways that I think are rational. And so I don't know that we need to blame anyone in particular or say that it's one side's fault as much as we just need to point out that there are reasons why all of this is happening and there are reasons why we're seeing so many strikeouts. And it's not that you are bad and you have no skill and no fundamentals.

It's just really hard to hit baseballs now. And I think that we've talked about this before. We have our own aesthetic concerns with the way that the game is sort of trending. And I think that Seth is right to point out that there are issues here in terms of the level of offense and also the level of action, right, which are not necessarily – they're related but not necessarily the exact same thing. And I think that we do have concerns about sort of how that balance is going to sort itself out over the next little bit.

And we tend to think that some intervention is likely necessary at some point, even if we want to be very sort of deliberate and thoughtful about what those interventions are to, you know, balance the scales a bit more so that while we still get these wonderful pitching performances that we tend to really like and think are dynamic and compelling, that we aren't reducing the level of offense to the point that the game feels sort of stagnant and boring. And I think that because that issue is so important, it's part of why I find this perspective frustrating is too strong, but wanting, I think it's really important that we do delve into the information we have to try to more accurately diagnose what is driving those trends so that we might arrest them and sort of counterbalance them in a way that's going to be effective. And I'm skeptical that we might arrest them and sort of counterbalance them in a way that's going to be effective. And I'm skeptical that we'll be able to do that.

I mean, I might be skeptical that we'll be able to do that at all. But I'm certainly skeptical that we'll be able to do it if we aren't sort of taking a clear-eyed look at it and really understanding what is driving the imbalance that we see right now. And I think that some of it is, you know, there are incentives in the game around pitchers not going as deep and relievers can all throw really hard because they're, you know, only going out there for an inning at a time and they all have these crazy sliders.

And I think that there's a lot to the way that the game has sort of trended in its modern construction that results in some of these problems. But you're right to say like some of this is just that pitchers are freaking good right now. And I don't know that we need to, when we're stating that fact, make it about hitters also being bad. Like some of this is just that they get got by really talented arms.

So, you know, and I know that it is a little bit, I'm about to do a slightly cheap thing. So I'm going to acknowledge upfront that it's slightly cheap, but when you're watching Mike Trout, you know, when you're watching the best player, who's so typical in everything that he does, and we can definitely extrapolate from his approach at the plate to say that hitters are great. Cause guy's like him right every single guy this is why it's a little bit cheap but you know you watch a guy like trout or or here let me pick a guy who's also very talented but not as good as trout like watch the way that justin turner adjusts mid at bat to you know off-seat speed and breaking stuff versus fastballs and to to say that there isn't skill, that these guys

don't have a finely honed craft that they aren't taking information in and trying to make adjustments. I mean, we know that the underlying skills behind pitch recognition and plate discipline can be hard to adjust, but guys do adjust their approach and some of them do make breakthroughs. And so I just think that we should confront this issue because it is so important, but in a way that's kind of clear-eyed and isn't rejecting the data we have on hand, because I think that data is the way to help us properly diagnose what's going on and then maybe design our way out of it. So that's what I have to say about that. I agree with you. I don't want to discount the

experience of someone like Seth MacLung because you're right. He knows more about baseball in a lot of ways than I ever will. And he certainly has a lived experience of the game that I think is data in itself, right? I don't want to discount that because that is information and data that is really valuable. And I think that we can also acknowledge that analytics are good. They are useful. And we might at times quibble with their application and think that they also lead to some unsavory aspects of the game. But I think we're all glad that people don't sacrifice bunt as much as they used to, right. So I think it's finding a balance between the different inputs that we have in the game right now. And Seth provides one and I think analytics provides another and I think we can kind of use both to better understand both where the game is now and then hopefully better understand our way to to it looking a little more balanced like we'd like it to in the future. So that's what I'd say about that.

Yeah. How you diagnose these issues is pretty important because it affects your solutions or your potential solutions. So if you just say, yeah, hitters are bad now, you know, hitters don't know what they're doing, then your solution might be, I don't know, better coaching, hire Seth McClung to tell them not to swing hard or whatever. So, you know, that's very different from, oh, hitters are performing this way because they're just getting overpowered or they're trying to compensate somehow for not being able to make contact with these pitches. And it's odd because like he acknowledges some of that in his video and he says, you know, guys are throwing harder than ever and they're using foreign substances and there's all this spin and everything. And yet seems to still kind of put the blame on hitters for not finding a way to adjust to that. And like, it's true that I guess some of this is

a change in approach. Like it is true that there's less of a, you know, two strike contact oriented approach, choke up, just try to put the ball in play. So that is to some degree a conscious choice. A lot of it is just like you can't make contact because the pitches are 102 and moving all over the place. So some of it is just, you know, incapable of contact. Some of it is choosing to prioritize power and

that is something that i guess you could say hitters could do something different and maybe you could pin the blame on analytics for sort of reinforcing the idea that well actually hitting home runs is good and just putting the ball in play is sometimes good but not always good if you're gonna ground into a double play or something or if you're going to hit a bunch of weak grounders instead of hitting a homer every now and then that's worth a lot so that is true that like there's an analytics component of it but again it's sort of like a rational response to the incentives i think and i don't know that there's a way to counteract that without changing the conditions. I think hitters on the whole are doing what produces the most runs, and they've done a pretty good job of that with the help of the juiced ball.

Scoring has not been wildly low or anything. Strikeouts keep going up, but scoring is at a fairly high level until this year was at even sort of elevated level. So like, even though a lot of pitchers are untouchable when they do get touched every now and then, if you hit a home run, then it all works out. So like, I think offenses are kind of doing what they should be doing if they want to score runs and win games. And so it's hard to tell them, hey, don't swing hard here because you might make a little more contact and you'll hit into double plays and you'll have a bunch of weak grounders. But at least there won't be as many strikeouts, but you won't be as productive and you won't get paid as much.

So, you know, I guess you could blame analytics for like figuring out how runs score or whatever. But again, I don't think you can, you know, put that back in the bottle and just undo it. I think you have to make it more advantageous to try to put the ball in play or more feasible to do it. And we've talked ad nauseum about the potential ways you could do it, but I don't think one of them is just saying, hey, hitters, stop screwing up, get better, be better. So yeah, I just, you know, screw it up get better right better so yeah i i just you know watching the game and again like it is really hard like there was a tim kirchhen piece this week at espn about how strikeouts became perceived as a problem in baseball and there was a lot in there about just how hard it is to make contact how hard it is to place the ball wherever you want and hit the ball the other way like

not just because it's advantageous to pull the ball or because you train to make the majors doing a certain thing and then you're expected to change suddenly, but also it's just hard to make contact at all, let alone control where the ball goes. So again, I think we need to probably do less blaming of the players or suggesting that they aren't skilled and more figuring out what MLB can

do and the players in tandem, the union, to figure out how to change the circumstances such that we get baseball that's a little closer to where we want it to be. But I think it's just, I'm always skeptical of any argument that is based on the premise that players are worse at something than they used to be because why would they be worse? What's the mechanism that players are worse at something than they used to be. Because why would they be worse? What's the mechanism that is making them worse? It's more competitive than ever. There's a bigger pool of potential players. The economic incentives are there.

They're bigger and stronger and faster than they ever were. And I guess that doesn't necessarily correlate perfectly with technique. But still, I just tend to think players are getting better all the time and blaming the players is not the way to go with this. Yeah, I don't think it's the way to go if what you're aiming for is to actually try to solve it. Yeah, and there was another article on that topic just Friday.

Ken Rosenthal and Brittany Jeroly wrote about the foreign substance concern that keeps coming up and how players are all wondering what's happening here because there's more and more of this apparently, even people in the game. And this is a longstanding thing, obviously, but it seems to have raised an even greater height. And it starts with this paragraph, riding the bus back to the team hotel after a recent game, members of a National League club passed around the ball from a rookie's first hit. The players were stunned by how sticky the ball was, how hours after the ball was taken out of play,

they were still picking glue strands off the rawhide. What are we even doing here? A pitcher on that team said. And it's all about people asking that question and not really having an answer because even though MLB is supposedly monitoring all of this, we really haven't seen any action. No one has been suspended for this. No one has been at least publicly warned. And it sounds like MLB is just saying that they're kind of like fact-finding for now. So it says the league, before it acts on any violations, first wants to understand the depth of the problem.

In his March 23rd memo, MLB Senior Vice President of On-Field Operations Michael Hill informed clubs that the league would inspect and document balls taken out of play this season and conduct spin rate analysis on pitchers who were suspected of using foreign substances. And an MLB official says the central office data collection is ongoing so it sounds as if they're trying to figure out how pervasive or problematic this is before they step in but it's clearly pretty pervasive and probably pretty problematic so you have players who are either not using this stuff or not using the same stuff or who are facing this stuff who are like, well, it's nice that they're gathering this data, but meanwhile, nothing is actually changing. And it's not just your old pine tar or rosin or sunscreen or whatever. It's like this synthetic lab built substance that increases spin rates

even more than the old school stuff. So, you know, that's just another thing that hitters are facing these days. And so again, there's more going on here than just guys deciding to swing for the fences because they like to flip their bats or whatever. Right. And you know, when you, when you say this is once again, I think maybe an example of the league needing to do a better job about the messaging behind a thing, because if what you want is we're going to do a year of fact finding so that we can understand foreign substances and the role that they play and, you know, sort of how pervasive they are and which ones are being used and which ones have the,

you know, most pronounced effect on spin or what have you, you should frame it that way. Because when you frame it initially in terms of suspension and enforcement, then you set the expectation that there's going to be suspensions and enforcement. And so I don't know, I think that perhaps some of the messaging around that should have been better. But yeah, you're right to raise that. There's so many different competing offensive suppressive forces that are in play at any given moment. And so when you take all of them in combination, it's not that surprising that the league is hitting as, well, maybe not as poorly as it is. That is still pretty surprising that it is as pronounced a problem as it is, but that there would be sort of a depressed, offensive environment

is pretty unsurprising. And so, you know, we can lay the blame at the feet. Many sets of feet is the expression I want, but you know what I'm trying to say. All right. Well, now that we've covered how hard it is to be a major leaguer these days, shall we meet a major leaguer? Meet major leaguers. Shall we meet a major leaguer? Meet major leaguers. Meet a major leaguer.

I am very eager to meet this nascent major leaguer. It's the thrilling debut of somebody new. Let's meet this mysterious major leaguer. You should go first. Ah, okay. So my major leaguer to meet today is Tommy Nance. Tommy Nance, who just debuted for the Cubs. He is a pitcher. He is one of the pitchers who is making things hard for hitters these days.

And Tommy Nance debuted on May 17th, and he has pitched a couple times, a couple games, two and a third innings, four strikeouts already. No hits, no walks. He's been perfect thus far, and he's been pretty impressive, which is maybe sort of surprising given his background, which is atypical. And we always like to talk about the atypical backgrounds on the Media Major Leaguer segment. So Tommy Nance is 6'6", 235, went to Santa Clara University, and he is originally from Long Beach, California, and he did not follow the usual path. He was undrafted out of college, and he is an indie ball guy. And I always have a soft spot for indie ball guys. He was pitching in the Frontier League in 2015.

That was the summer when Sam and I were running the Stompers. We would have been thrilled to have Tommy Nance on the Stompers, but no major league teams were thrilled to have him at that point. However, he was soon signed by the Cubs from the Windy City Thunderbolts, and he's been in the Cubs system ever since. And he is now 30 years old. So he is old to debut, but he is pretty impressive, actually. And he had just participated in a combined no-hitter for the Iowa Cubs in a game that was started by Shelby Miller. And his numbers in AAA were pretty impressive. And so the Cubs figured, okay, let's call him up. And he has an extensive injury history. So in high school, he had a stress fracture in his lower back.

He had Tommy John surgery after his senior year of college, which I guess was why he went undrafted. John surgery after his senior year of college, which I guess was why he went undrafted. And he has had other injuries since. He had a nerve injury in his shoulder in 2017. And so he hasn't pitched much. He pitched like 100 innings or maybe fewer with the Cubs professionally. But it seems like he has suddenly leveled up and he's got pretty dominant stuff now. And so Eric Langenhagen wrote about him at Fangraphs this week in the Daily Prospect Notes. And I'll read what some of Eric said here. Nance is another indie ball signee who had a velo spike during the off year. And he's referring to Max Bain, another low level Cubs pitcher who is sort of in the same boat, but he's referring to Max Bain, another low-level Cubs pitcher who is sort of in the same boat, but he's been very data-centric and kind of a Rapsodo guy and driveline-style training. And he's been documenting all of that as he's gained velocity. Nance has had a longer runway And he signed out of the Independent Frontier League

Early in 2016 pitched in the middle levels Of the Cubs system for nearly half a decade Before showing way bigger velocity This year and who hasn't Everyone's showing bigger velocity These days he was 91-94 In 2019 but got up to 97-98 during his

Single inning big league debut With the Iowa Cubs he was more 94-96 topping out at 97, really only throwing his mid-80s power slurve apart from the fastball. His heater has big tailing action and is capable of running off the hips of lefty batters and back over the plate. As I wrote, Eric writes, regarding Julian Merriweather on the Blue Jays list, just because this guy is 30 doesn't mean he's not a prospect.

He's rookie eligible, has roster flexibility, and is under team control, the same as any young player. He's also a pitcher who clearly has immediate big league bullpen utility. The likelihood of age-related decline during his years of team control does complicate where he falls on the future value scale, since I care about all six or seven of those years, but teams need to decide how they value a guy like this versus a more traditional prospect, so I will too. Would you rather have Nance or Anderson Espinoza right now

or Jay Groom? If either of those younger arms were to end up sitting 97 plus with an upper 80s hammer breaking ball out of the bullpen, we'd think it was a great outcome given what they have dealt with on the way there. Well, Nance is that right now. So, you know, even though he's 30 and undrafted and injury history and all the rest, like he looks like

all of the other bullpen monsters who are coming up these days. So, you know, good for him for making it. He said, I don't have kids right now, but when I do have kids one day, they ask me, why did you stop playing? I didn't want to not have an answer or not have a good answer. So for me, that always pushed me forward. It was everything I imagined and more. It was always my dream to suit up and step on a major league diamond. So congrats to Tommy Nance for fulfilling his dream and looking like he belonged there. And he went to a Cubs game, I think in 2015 and sat behind home plate just as a fan and had it on his Instagram. And he said, from that day, I was like, this is the coolest stadium I've ever been to. And the Thunderbolts in the Frontier League were like a 30 mile drive away. And so Chicago was not that far geographically but seemed pretty far in terms of

competition but he made it so good for him yeah geez well i i'm going to stick with the cubs and i'm going to stick with older debuts because we uh we like to have a theme and i'm going to have us meet PJ Higgins, whose story is I think less, a little less dynamic than, um, than, than Nance's, but isn't terrible. So Higgins was called up,

uh, on the 19th, uh, the Cubs DFA, Tony Walters to make room for him. Tony Walters was hitting one 25, two 76, one 25 with a 32 WRC plus.

So the Cubs have been sort of in search of a reliable backup behind wilson contreras and higgins has been in their system since uh since 2015 he was a 12th rounder he was taken 353rd overall out of old dominion and he was called up to sort of see if he could be the solution at backup catcher for Chicago. And he ended up playing in that game when Jason Hayward left with left hamstring tightness. So he came in, he ended up playing first base. He did not register a hit that night, but he has been pretty scintillating in the minors so far this year. But he has been pretty scintillating in the minors so far this year. So mind you, this is 48 plate appearances across 11 games at AAA, but he was hitting 333, 458, 513 with a 165 WRC+.

And, you know, he's a guy who has sort of fallen off of lists. The last prospect list for Chicago that he made was in 2017 when he was an honorable mention. This is at Fangrass, I should say, where at the time Eric noted a viable but unspectacular defensive catcher with a solid hit tool and exceptional approach. Higgins had nearly as many walks as strikeouts in the Midwest league last year, but was 23 and his complete lack of power has many skeptical about his ability to sustain his walk rate at upper levels. lack of power has many skeptical about his ability to sustain his walk rate at upper levels so you know things have changed since then i've liked that he he's like uh he's from wallingford connecticut and you know when when smaller towns have guys make the majors it like makes the paper

yeah and so uh he made the he made the paper in wallingford uh wallingford's pj higgins a lyman hall graduate made his major league debut on wednesday. Higgins, a Lyman Hall graduate, made his major league debut on Wednesday night. Higgins, a catcher, was called up by the Chicago Cubs on Wednesday and entered the game against the Washington Nationals when Jason Hayward left with hamstring tightness. Higgins played first base and went 0-3. Higgins, 28, was selected by the Cubs in the 12th round of the 2015 MLB draft out of Old Dominion University. In his three-year career at Old Dominion, Higgins hit.324 with four home runs, 82 RBI, and 102 runs scored in 158 games played. He also had a slugging percentage of.412 and an on-base percentage of.381. Higgins, who played in Wallingford Little League, was batting.333 with one home run and six RBI in 11 games at AAA Iowa this season.

He played in the Little League there. They want you to know he's a hometown boy. Rename the field, P.J. Higgins field. Yeah, there you go. So that's P.J. Higgins. All right. Happy to meet him. And Tommy Nance is happy for him too.

I'm sure he's been retweeting videos about the call-up of Higgins or Higgins' debut. So those guys go back a bit, I'm sure, and have been a battery in the Cubs minor league system. So all right, nice for them that they can make their debuts close together. And nice that the Cubs have found some homegrown pitching, I guess, even if it's 30 years old. But I was looking at the Cubs as I was reading about Nance, and they have not had the best pitching this year, certainly. I was curious about the Cubs rotation coming into this year because we talked about it. It was like out of step with the times. Seth McClung would love the Cubs rotation because it's all,

you know, or at least largely guys who were throwing like in the 80s or 90s or whatever. And it was like, can they make this work? And it looks like no, probably not. I remember our friend Sahad of Sharma writing an article about seam shifted wake and the Cubs rotation and how some people on that staff take advantage of that and that maybe that would be the secret competitive advantage that would compensate for the lack of speed. And that's certainly real and it has meaningful effects, but it seems like that's not enough. Right now, they have the worst war of any starting rotation. In fact, they have a sub-replacement rotation by Fangraphs War.

They're the only team with that unwanted distinction, a five plus ERA and a fit that's even higher. So it hasn't been great. And even the stalwarts, even the guys that they were counting on in that rotation, like Kyle Hendricks, hasn't been his usual self even, and Zach Davies and all of those guys. So yeah, the better members of the rotation, I guess, have been the harder throwing ones and maybe also the surprising ones so far, but it's not been a great group. And maybe that's not shocking, but I don't know, maybe Tommy Nance will help somehow. Yeah, maybe. I mean, if nothing else, it's a great story. And I never really get tired of just reading major leaguers talking about their big league debuts, even though a lot of them are pretty similar and they just say how special and how wonderful it was. And maybe when you've heard one, you've heard a lot of them, but still, it's like the culmination

of many years of effort and desire. And so when Nance said, when I came up the tunnel and up the stairs and stepped onto the field, it was a whole different atmosphere. I think even more so than when I got the call to go into the game and stepped out of the bullpen going through those doors. It's just lights, like lights on me. I can hear the fans behind me calling my name and I'm jogging out to the mound. It's just an unbelievable experience and atmosphere.

And yeah, it's got to be nice. A lot of major leaguers say that they don't really remember their debuts because it's all just a blur and they're so nervous and so excited and everything that I hope that they can remember at least parts of it because it's got to be a cool memory to come back to, especially if you were 30 years old and undrafted and have gone through as many things as he's gone through so that's one reason why i like this segment is that i get to read major leaguer after major leaguer talking about like maybe the best day of their lives we need a debut cam oh yeah yeah that'd be

good yeah well i guess you kind of get it when they're warming up to come into the game maybe that's close enough well plus it's like i don know. It's really hard to predict how we're going to feel in big moments. And so maybe you don't want to debut cam more than we already have. Because if it hits you in a way you're not predicting, you maybe want some privacy around that, I suppose. But then it would solve this issue because it's like, I know you don't remember, but there you are. That's what your face did. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. You might be surprised to see what you looked like in that moment. I wonder if PJ Higgins and Tommy Nance will help or hurt the Cubs attempt to surpass the 85% COVID vaccination threshold, which they have failed to do this far. I don't think they've had any outbreaks or cases lately, so they're taking care and that's the good news. But Jed Hoyer was speaking about it this week. Cubs president, he said, it's disappointing to not be at 85% as a team. We've worked hard to try and convince or educate the people that have been reluctant. We're at a place right now.

I'm not going to give up hope we're going to get there. My level of optimism is waning. It is disappointing. There are conveniences that come with getting to 85% as a group, mask wearing, dining, and things like that that we would all like to have. And we talked about that dynamic when the 85% threshold was announced coming into the season and just kind of wondering, what's the peer pressure going to be like if you're one of the holdouts here and you're preventing everyone else from relaxed restrictions? That's one consideration. There

are the health considerations. There's also the consideration Hoyer mentioned, there's a competitive advantage we're going to miss, which it's strange to talk about it in those terms. But he said, being transparent about it, we're not a player away from being at 85%. So apparently they're not that close. It's a disappointing thing that we'll have anxieties and restrictions that others don't. And I think we're at about half of teams now, I think 12 officially, and then a few more that are kind of in the two week period after the second dose before they get fully qualified. So we're heading for a majority of teams, but it seems like maybe they're not all going to get there. And that's unfortunate, if only for the players on those teams who don't get to enjoy those relaxed restrictions. Because we got relaxed restrictions this week in New York, and I'm more than two weeks past my second dose now.

And so, you know, the mask mandates outdoors and also indoors in a lot of places were lifted this past week here where I am. And, you know, I know there are a lot of people who are still more comfortable wearing masks, and that's perfectly fine. And I've kind of, you know, considered the context when deciding what I'm going to do. I've kind of considered the context when deciding what I'm going to do. And if I'm in some business where it looks like everyone is wearing them, then I'll just do it. I don't mind it that much, first of all, and don't want to make anyone uncomfortable or anything. But while I've been outside and sometimes while I've been indoors, I've not been masked

and it's been nice. Not that I ever considered it that huge an imposition, but also it's nice not to wear one if you don't have to. And I've gotten used to seeing my face and other people's faces in contexts where I have not seen faces for quite a while. And it's been nice to walk out the door without necessarily needing my mask. Like, you know, this week our building relaxed that restriction too. So we can go downstairs without wearing one if we wanted to. And again, kind of taking it on a case by case basis, but it's pretty nice. And I would be pretty annoyed, I think, if I were in a situation where I couldn't do those things because of my co-workers.

I mean, I might be annoyed for other reasons if you're choosing not to get the vaccine, but also if it's affecting me and I can't do things that I would want to do, and maybe it's also affecting the team in some way. That's something that I don't know if it'll cause clubhouse discord. We've seen some players be outspoken about this in one way or another, and some players have kind of been like, you should get it. I don't know why you wouldn't get it. We haven't seen anyone, I don't think, calling out specific players or anything and saying, I don't know why this guy won whole like it's a personal choice kind of, you know, non-comment thing that people who are sort of on both sides of it will say. But, you know, not shocking, just like given the vaccination rates in the country as a whole, given the political leadings of a lot of major league baseball players, like, you know, not surprising. But again, I just kind of wondered because of that peer pressure interpersonal dynamic of spending so much time with the same people throughout the season. Right. And, you know, you end up in this situation where you have a real disconnect between the

public messaging. And I say this in a praising way that a lot of clubs are trying to do within their communities versus, you know, the vaccine rate that you're seeing in that team's clubhouse. So, you know, I know that the Mariners are, you can get your first dose of the vaccine at that you're seeing in that team's clubhouse. So I know that the Mariners are, you can get your first dose of the vaccine at T-Mobile and they have fully vaccinated sections and they have giveaways and prizes that you can enter to win if you demonstrate that you're fully vaxxed. And so they're really trying to use the ballpark as a place for people to get vaccinated. And they're trying to have a public stance of vaccination being important and a thing that we do to take care of one another, especially those members of our community who can't get

vaccinated for medical reasons. And then the clubhouse isn't at the threshold. And the Mariners aren't alone either in being a club that isn't fully vaxxed as we as we've just been discussing or in using their ballpark and sort of public messaging to try to encourage the community to get vaccinated. But it does present this very strange disconnect where it's like, I think that your messaging is really good. And it's it's a bummer that it's not working better internally. Yeah. So yeah, I and I know that simply saying go get vaccinated is a simplistic way to phrase it because people have, you know, different access to the vaccine and ability to go do that. And, you know, so I don't want to make it sound easier than it is for some folks. But,

you know, if you have the opportunity, you should get vaccinated, I think so. Yeah, I was trying to think of if there's anything teams could do to incentivize players to do this even more. Because we have seen, like, you know, the COVID vaccine lotteries that some states are doing. Where it's like, hey, if you get this, you're entered in the sweepstakes to maybe win some money. Like, it's weird that we need to give additional incentive to people to get the free life-saving injection. Maybe you shouldn't necessarily need extra incentive, but it does seem like that persuades people who are kind of like, eh, it's not worth it or it's not worth the hassle. I don't know if you're going to reach anyone who's in the, I don't want Bill Gates to microchip me camp with the vaccine lottery. But if you're just kind of

like, oh, I'll probably be fine. Or, you know, it's just, it's not easily accessible or whatever, then these extra perks seem to be swaying some people. And I don't know what you could do with baseball players because if they're in the major leagues, they're making pretty decent money. So I don't know that that would help or like giving them free tickets to the game or a beer or whatever various outlets have done. I don't know what you could do. It seems like getting rid of these restrictions would be a pretty good incentive. And that's apparently not sufficient for some teams and getting the the gratitude of of your teammates for going along with this even if you're personally posed or on the fence for

whatever reason so i don't know what else you could you could do really and and max scherzer raised an interesting point just on friday i think jesseherty wrote about this for the Washington Post that he thinks the protocol should be updated now that, you know, if you're vaccinated and you're asymptomatic, then maybe you shouldn't have to miss time, which is something that we've seen with some teams that have had people test positive even after being vaccinated. And they don't have symptoms, but they're still kept out of play. and they don't have symptoms, but they're still kept out of play. And Scherzer said, we've got to update the rules here. We've got to start following the science, listening to what the CDC says, whether this is union or MLB, the people above us, we've got to update the protocols here.

Vaccinated players are testing positive. They are asymptomatic and should be allowed to play plain and simple. Other guys in our clubhouse are thinking the same way. So that's probably the way we're thinking across the league. Probably a good amount of players want to have that be the case. There's a benefit to taking the vaccine. We've got to believe in the science in that if you're asymptomatic and you're vaccinated, then you can play baseball.

The vaccinated players should reap the benefits for doing this. This is what we want. We want our players to be vaccinated. And Scherzer is one of the decision makers among the players in the players' union. So it's notable that he's saying yes he's the the nationals union rep and he's on the executive board so maybe we'll see something like that happening like all of the the science as he said you know sometimes it's hard to follow the science because the science is always developing as science does and so it's like well if you're asymptomatic does that mean you can't spread it and on and on?

And, you know, as we learn more and more about that and as more and more players are vaccinated, maybe something like what he's suggesting would make sense at some point. So maybe we'll start to hear more about that, too. Yeah, I wonder if we will see the push and pull around that issue, because on the one hand, you're right. When you think about the Yankees' breakthrough cases, because of how few of the coaches were symptomatic, thankfully, they probably wouldn't have known that they had COVID were they not in MLB's testing protocol at all. They just weren't symptomatic. So it does seem like the kind of thing that might be due for a mid-season adjustment, depending on how far along the overall vaccination rate is, which does seem to be quite high among tier one personnel, which we should remind our listeners is more than just the players, right?

Tier one includes the players and then anyone who's having like close, necessary close contact with them. So, you know, coaches and trainers and what have you. So, you know, I wonder as that overall rate creeps up, especially among clubs where they have hit the threshold, if we'll see some shifting around of that and if, you know, having to be tested less frequently or not having to worry about missing time if you test positive, but are asymptomatic and have been vaccinated is an additional incentive. But yeah, it is a, it is a tricky thing to sort of thread the needle on what are the actual persuasive incentives beyond, you know, not getting COVID that will send you to the

hospital and taking care of your teammates and being able to like have dinner together. You know, what are persuasive incentives to athletes? Because I think they are different than they are for the general population, just given what their financial circumstances are. So that is a tricky bit of design. And of course you want to balance incentivizing people to get vaccinated with needing to maintain, you know, the appropriate amount of rigor in your health and safety protocols in the meantime. And so it is a tricky thing to get right. But that Scherzer is talking about it, I agree, is significant given the sort of place that he occupies within the union. And I wonder what we will see and if they

will shift around. A lot of stuff might change in the second half. Maybe there'll be new protocols and a new ball. Who knows? I say that without knowing anything. It's pure speculation on my part. Please don't quote me on it. I'm just wondering if after the All-Star break, they'll be like, I don't know, all the balls went to Colorado and they came back changed. Yeah. Maybe we should use some of those old 2019 balls we got flying around in 2020. We ran out of the new ones. They ran out, but we found this box of old ones. And so those are going into circulation

this is part of my theory about why all of the throwback uniforms look the same it's like did were there just bolts of that baby blue uh fabric laying around in the 70s was that just the color that we produced and we're like i guess we're making baseball uniforms out of this because we have so much of it yeah everything was kind of brown and orange in those days as far as I can tell. But all right. I just wanted to mention, by the way, I just looked up Tommy Nance's spin rates and I don't know if baseball savant

is classifying his breaking balls perfectly because as Eric said, he has sort of a slur. But if they are, then his slider ranks 13th among all major leaguers in average spin rate thus far, and his curveball ranks 7th. And both extremely high spin rates and up there with some real brand names. So tiny sample, obviously, and don't know if the classifications are correct. But yeah, he can spin it, even though he's a 30-year-old rookie.

So I guess we can end there and let you get on with your staycation. And a lot of good baseball to watch this weekend. A lot of rivalry series. A lot of good intra-division matchups. Dodgers versus Giants. The two matchups of the teams with the best rotations according to Fangrafts War. I predicted one of those things and not the other so much, but the Giants, the Padres, and the Dodgers have the three best records in the

National League. So what we thought was going to be a great two-team race is in fact a great three-team race, at least thus far. So that's a lot of fun. Yeah. And if you are a fan of college bat to ball sports, we have the last little bit of the regular season for college baseball and the softball tournament I think is underway. So there's also some good amateur ball to be watching if you're into that sort of thing. I'm going to make you talk about it at some point, Ben. I'm sorry, but it's just tournament time is soon. So tournaments, we're going to have to talk about it. I promise we i'm sorry but it's just tournament time is soon so uh tournaments we're gonna have to talk about it i promise we'll only do it in one episode all right i look forward

to that and there's always the otani stalker cam if you're looking for something else to watch so all right well just after we finished recording i got a press release with some updated covid numbers from mlb in the MLBPA who announced that 14 clubs have now reached the threshold of 85% or more of their tier one individuals being considered fully vaccinated. An additional two clubs have reached the threshold of 85% or more getting their final dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. So it's about to be a majority.

And the press release also says, as of today, 84.4% of all tier one individuals are considered partially or fully vaccinated. That is, they've received at least one dose and 78.8% of all tier one individuals are considered fully vaccinated. Another report that surfaced soon after we spoke is that the Mariners have at least one COVID positive. And Jeff Passan said, there is concern within the organization that the relatively low level of vaccination within the clubhouse could be problematic. The Mariners, a source said, are among the least vaccinated teams in MLB. So that's the potential competitive disadvantage Jed Hoyer was talking about. Looks like four members of the bullpen have headed to the IL, so maybe a positive test and a few close contacts. Out of an abundance of caution,

of course. I look forward to hearing that phrase, out of an abundance of caution, a lot less than we have over the past year. Another thing to know is that the Tampa Bay Rays traded Willie Adamas to the Brewers, along with ready Trevor Richards for a couple of relievers. We did not know that when we were speaking. That's an interesting trade for multiple reasons. Shores up the Brewers' shortstop defense. But also, theoretically, clears room for shortstop defense, but also theoretically clears room for Wander Franco, though he will not be the first man up, the Razor calling up shortstop prospect Taylor Walls, but Wander vision, Wander watch certainly intensifies after this trade,

and perhaps we will talk more about that next time. Also, just a periodic reminder that we do have a database of the thousands of listener emails that we have answered on our email episodes. I will link to that on the show page for this episode, but you can always access it through the files section of the Facebook group. So if you want to look for interesting questions to hear the answers to, or if you want to check to see if something has been asked before, you can do that there. I thought about this because we tend to get certain questions over and over. I don't blame anyone for not having heard every single episode of Effectively Wild. It's understandable. There are a lot of them, But a couple of questions we've gotten a lot lately that we have talked about in the past. One is about stationing the catcher somewhere in the

field. So put the catcher out in the infield somewhere in certain situations. Would that be advantageous? And yeah, maybe it might. The problem is that it's against the rules. You can't do it. Seems like not many people know about rule 5.02, which says the catcher shall station himself directly back of the plate. He must stand with both feet within the lines of the catcher's box until the ball leaves the pitcher's hand. So unless he can sprint onto the infield in front of the batter between the time that the pitcher lets go of the ball and it reaches home plate, which seems both impossible and

ill-advised, it can't be done legally. The penalty is a balk. So he has to stay in the catcher's box, which not everyone knows is a thing. Any other fielder besides the catcher and the pitcher can stand anywhere in fair territory, at least until Rob Manfred bans the shift. The other question that we're getting a lot these days, maybe because we keep talking about no-hitters and the zombie runner rule, is about whether you can lose a perfect game.

And yes, you can. We talked about this last season when the zombie runner rule, is about whether you can lose a perfect game. And yes, you can. We talked about this last season when the zombie runner rule was instituted. Zombie runners don't count against perfect games. So in theory, someone could take a perfect game into the 10th and allow a zombie runner to score without allowing a new base runner. And that pitcher could lose the game and still get a perfect game, according to Elias and MLB sources. And some other people have asked about whether it would count if you had a seven-inning game,

and it went to extras, and you pitched nine innings, and you didn't allow any other base runners beside the zombie runner. And yes, I suppose that would count too. So these are both pretty unlikely scenarios. But if you were wondering, and so many people have asked us about this, that I'd imagine more people have wondered, the answer is yes, you can be perfect and still lose. It's a hard world. You can make the world a little less hard for us by supporting the podcast on Patreon and 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. Tiffany, JT Lindsay, Mdub, Keith Friedman, and Noah Rothman. 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 podcastfangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance. Thank you for listening today

and this week. That will do it for us. We hope you have a wonderful weekend and we will be back to talk to you early next week. Don't blame them They're just an illusion Why chase the ghosts outside? Turn, see between your eyes

There stands the one you hide So wait You hide, so wait Understand the one you hate