Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1706: The Giants, (Sort of) Explained

Episode Date: June 11, 2021

Ben Lindbergh, Meg Rowley, and The Athletic’s Grant Brisbee discuss Grant’s experience co-hosting a podcast with Hunter Pence and Grant’s hatred of the zombie-runner rule, before attempting to explain how and why the San Francisco Giants have baseball’s best record and what they should do at the trade deadline. Audio intro: The Baseball Project, "The Giants […]

The Giants win the series. The Giants win the series. The Giants win the series. The Giants win the series. It's San Francisco's time to shine. This is for the fans who froze off their behinds In the winds of candlestick Oh, but it was always worth it

Hello and welcome to episode 1706 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from FanCrafts, presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Raleigh of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello. And we are happy to be joined today by the co-host of the Athletics Baseball Barista Podcast, Hunter Pence. Hi, Hunter.

Hey, how you guys doing? I am now taller. I have always wanted to be taller. We got Grant, huh? Yeah. Nuts. We'll make the best of it. That's Grit Brisby, folks.

He is also the co-host of the Baseball Barista Podcast and the Bags and Brisby Podcast. He is Brisby. And yeah, you guys do basically look the same, give or take, 8 to 10 inches, at least facially. There is a resemblance there. Yeah. We do have kind of a same vibe uh my my dad always thinks that i did a hunter pence impression once and like posted it on youtube and it's like no that's just sort of how my hair looked at the time that's sort of where

my beard was at the time it wasn't intentional just sort of happened like that your hair has been through a lot in the last year. So have your Twitter followers who have watched it grow. I guess it has maybe returned to its old length lately, or I saw a clip of you and I don't know if it was at its maximum length still, but you really, you took some liberties with it. Yeah, no, I went full. I was ponytail. I was a church camp counselor. It was a lot. Now it's gone and back to normal, except now it's like totally gray. It's amazing. I went like Roger Sterling on it and it wasn't like that a year ago or 15 months ago.

So, you know, thanks pandemic. Yeah, I guess it's been a stressful year. So not for Giants fans, which we will get to. But I did want to ask you about that podcast because you're doing these two podcasts. And in one, you're just John with another fellow media member. And in another, you're talking to a prominent ex-player, one you covered and watched his whole career. And it must be a different role for you, sort of. You're almost in the like play-by-play guy on the broadcast role where

you have the ex-player analyst and you're kind of teeing him up to be like, so what did you do in this situation? Or wanting him to share some anecdotes from his career, although I guess, you know, he's a conversational guy and an intellectual and all of that, but it must be a little bit different to go back and forth between those two. It's very different. And I mean, I don't know if you would know anything about this, but I'm getting a little sick of my own voice and talking on podcasts so much. I never get to hear your voice. Yeah, I know.

It's such an esoteric – I don't know. But it's very different. And I'm kind of like the Chris Rose in this relationship with Hunter Pence where I'm just – I'm not there to be talky, talky, jokey, jokey. I will come in with jokes if needed. It's rarely needed. It's more just I'm going to facilitate and I'm trying to draw out. I'm throwing out a fishing line and just going here, fishy, fishy, trying to get these cool

anecdotes and stuff like that. And that's totally fine. No one needs more jokes for me. Like if you want jokes, go to the Bags and Brisbane. We're both nerds that are trying to one up each other with Jokey Jokey. So I, you know, I'm enjoying it. It's definitely different and not in a bad pejorative way. It's like it's different in a way that I'm enjoying. And how has it changed your sort of relationship with Pence in that your relationship used to be, I guess, that he was a guy on TV. You would watch from afar and come up with ways to describe his weird batting stance

when you would recap Giants games. And now he's your co-host on the podcast. So is that kind of weird? Well, on the third or fourth episode, about, I'm going to say 10 minutes before we ended or five minutes, it was toward the end. And I kind of, I said, Hey, do you know who I am? You know, just, I just, just wanted to, and he goes, well, you know, I know that you, you came up as a fan and you're a fan blogger. And I'm like, do you have any idea like what I've written in relation to you? He goes, no, no, not at all. And go okay good so anyway and then I brought up the scouting report I brought up you know that I made the I invented the scouting

report that every time the Giants would play in Atlanta the Braves would mention the scouting report like I did get some play people do remember it and once I brought that up he goes oh yeah yeah yeah was that real and I said no no no no that's that was that was, he goes, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Was that real? And I said, no, no, no, no. That was me. He's like, you made that? It took me like all day on Photoshop. My second child was a week old. I had no idea I was off paternity leave.

But there it is. It exists. And I wrote it. And sorry. And moving on. And so that's a relationship now. Did he go back and look at any of your other work? God, I hope not.

You know what I mean? Like when I was writing it, I was just praying that he would not have any idea. Not because he would be offended. Not because I was being mean. Just because I didn't need him to be an audience. I didn't – like I wanted the audience to be anybody else but him and that's how it worked out and I'm totally fine with that. Yeah. elves but him and that's how it worked out and I'm totally fine with that yeah yeah I've always wondered what this podcast would be like if we had a regular player or ex-player co-host or guest I

mean we have had players on obviously but not in that kind of regular role and I don't know if you can find players who would indulge the weirdness and the odd hypotheticals and just the baseball nerd sort of stance on things that we tend to have. Like it's sort of a different mentality typically. I guess Pence has a different mentality typically than a lot of players too. But I wonder whether talking to an ex-player regularly has taught you anything about like player mindset or like the difference between players and the people who are on the other side of the ropes like us?

I wouldn't say it's taught me anything insofar as I just want to hear the stories. Like I want to pull those stories out of him. And he's very self-effacing and he's very, you know, look, I don't want to talk about myself. No one wants to hear about the glory days. And it's kind of my job to be like, oh, yes, we do. Like I want to know how you approach Adam Wainwright or what do you feel about sticky stuff on the baseballs and stuff like that? Like that, that's what I want to hear. And I'm not just doing that for the audience.

It's great that that happens to be what I think the audience wants, too. But I want to hear it. Like, I get to talk to Hunter Pence and say, hey, what's Brandon Belt really like? You know, and it kind of works out for everyone, I'd like to think. what's Brandon Belt really like? You know, and it kind of works out for everyone, I'd like to think. Yeah, Ben, I think that Grant has co-opted one of the few people in the ex-player pool who I would suggest would have a high tolerance for our, you know, if baseball were different, how different would it be?

Although I don't know. I mean, he strikes me as an affable guy, but he might be like, hey, you know, you could cool it with the mic drop talk. Like, you know, talk about a national league player why don't you yeah he was different himself so that was the hypothetical right there he's a walking hypothetical but it must also be odd because like he was on the giants last year right you know like he's not one of these players who's like far removed from that experience we were talking the other day about how players try to predict things and players on broadcast will try to predict what pitch is going to be thrown or where the next location will changed and they don't know the players. And someone emailed us about Tony Romo and how he had this great reputation for being able to anticipate play calls when he went right from being a quarterback to the booth.

And he was talking about players he had played against or played with. And so maybe that wears off over time. But Pence hasn't had any time for that to wear off. So if you talk about the 2021 Giants, Hunter Pence was very recently playing with all of them. So that must be, I don't know if that makes it difficult for him because he doesn't want to tell tales about players who were still there and about things that happened recently or what, but he is still, it must still be an adjustment for him even to get used to the idea that he is not out there on the field.

I don't think it's much of a stretch to say within the last five years, baseball has just grown exponentially. The changes, the data that we're all parsing and stuff like that, I feel lost. And if you had a player who was just five years removed, six years removed, I think that you would get a lot of talk that is outdated and with pence he's seen the data he's seen you know what what it's like with exit velocity and swing path and this and you know you're trying to and spin rate like he's well versed on it he's he's been talking he's been an eager consumer of uh different strategies both with the rangers and the giants and and he's he's seen a lot and he and he's willing to accept a lot of these changes.

I think when he went to the Rangers just a couple of years ago, he changed his swing, you know, because they said, dude, your swing path is here. We want it to be here. And he said, by golly, I think you might be right. And he had a great all-star season. So he's very open to change. He's very open to new ideas. And yeah, because he was there a few months ago trying to figure out these new ideas. consistent and vocal about trashing this rule on Twitter. And I love you for that. I love how you hate it. And I think a lot of people over time have resigned themselves to it. It's like, hey,

we're stuck with it. Some have even learned to like it. One Sam Miller was a proponent of the zombie runner rule. And yet you, yeah, staunch ally in our fight against this rule. And I thought it might be nice for someone other than us to come on and complain about it on this podcast. And I guess maybe you're motivated slightly by the fact that the Giants are two and five in extra inning games. And I think they have yet to have a walk-off win this year, but they have had seven walk-off losses. Then again, the Dodgers, I believe, are one in seven in extra inning games. So that has worked in your favor as well. But what are the origins of your hatred of this rule? I am not a purist. The seven-inning doubleheaders, it's fine. You know what I mean? Like last year, the 28-man roster, I wish they would keep it. The three-batter minimum, like I'm kind of into that like there's uh i i do enjoy a good funky loogie about the same time i i'm okay i'm even okay with the

universal designated hitter like i grew up a nationally guy i'm even okay with that the runner at second is just the worst it's just i i cannot wrap my head around it. And what bothers me so much is the idea that you can win a baseball game without doing anything well. And that's possible, you know, when, okay, so you're facing an opponent and they walk you on four pitches. Then they throw two wild pitches and then you hit a fly ball and you've won without doing anything well. The other team did something horribly. That's okay. With the runner on second, the other team can do just fine. And you could do horribly.

And you're still winning because you hit a weak ground ball to second base. You hit a weak fly ball to medium, deep center field. And all of a sudden, you've got to run. Maybe it's a walk-off. Maybe you've scored that go-ahead run. It is just not baseball. I mean, it's not – you should be able to do something well to win. It's a walk-off. Maybe you've scored that go-ahead run. It is just not baseball. I mean, it's not – you should be able to do something well to win.

It seems like – or the other team should be so horrible that they let you win. Either one of those is fine. Anything else is just a farce. It's that it occupies sort of the squishy, lukewarm middle that bothers you, right? Yeah, it's just – It's not a collapse where you could say, oh, this calamity, and you can really pin it on the guys on the field, or you can say, oh, that home run, it went so far. That's how you talk. And that's how you would say it. And you go, wow, amazing. This is like, I don't know, this is like half melted ice cream for you.

It is the squishy, squishy metal. That's a great way to put it because it's just, I don't know, how are you supposed to feel when you are watching a team uh trying to prevent a run they've got an automatic runner on second uh they get two weak ground balls and uh and a strikeout like that that's good in for 130 years that's been good in baseball to get two weak ground balls and a strikeout and now that could cost you the game and i hate it i just i hate it and it yeah just just either let the other team screw up so badly that they that they lose or i don't know i could go on i could go on folks feel free yeah i mean i wonder whether if we are stuck with it and i hope that we're not and i hope that we won't have to get used to it and it'll just be a weird fever dream that we all look back on and remember that, yeah, that happened for a couple seasons.

But if it does become a permanent fixture, can you ever envision yourself coming around, or will you be the guy who's 80 years old and ranting about the zombie runner the way that people are still ranting about the dh i will be wearing a sandwich board like on the corner and just you know 80 years old with my hair skew you know pandemic hair but without the pandemic and i will be ranting and raving i hate it so much when the giants the giants had a stretch and i think it was 2019 uh maybe 2008 no it's 2019 because i was writing for the athletic they had a stretch, and I think it was 2019, maybe 2008. No, it's 2019 because I was writing for The Athletic. They had a stretch where they just kept playing 18-inning, 17-inning, 16-inning games. And it was really hard to cover that team. At the same time, I really got into that.

I remember they had an 18-inning game against the Rockies where there were negative two hits on both sides. And it was boring, dull baseball. But at the same time, it was fun and beautiful. And it just kept going. And it was like the platonic ideal of a Rockies Giants game in San Francisco. And it was, I loved what I wrote about it. It was just, it was, it was a creative fodder for me. And I just, you'll never get, you will never get that again until they change the stupid rule. Yeah, I think we all like the weird extra inning games that last forever and it's an endurance feat to make it to the end. And then you can write funny things about it and get gifts and all of that. I understand why that might not be to the player's liking and why many fans are tuning out at a certain point.

I get all of that. I still prefer that. I don't think that was a big problem that needed to be solved. If there were to be a change, would you want the change just to be going back to that? Or do you have a preferred method of ending games quicker that is not the zombie runner rule? I mean, I would just go back, but I say this without hyperbole. I would rather have a home run derby and like a shootout basically.

And that sounds ridiculous and I would dislike it. And at the same time, it would solve that problem of if your team does better than the other team, then you win the game. It's kind of funny baseball. It's not ideal, but at least you did something better than those guys. And just as long as you get it to where one team has to outplay the other team as opposed to get the right kind of bad contact. So I'll take whatever. Yeah, I would take whatever too. And I'd even take ties over this current system. Yeah.

Too much for me. Too strong. Too strong a change for me. I do not like ties. Yeah, I think I would go. Yeah, I think ties are I'm definitely lukewarm on ties. It's like that's a D minus minus minus to the rule on seconds F. Yes, exactly. Right. I would rather just have it end than to have it continue as a mockery of itself, which is what we have now. But I'd rather have it just continue to completion the same way that it is played up to and through the ninth inning. That works fine for me.

So, yeah, we'll see if this is something that is a be in our bonnets for the rest of our lives or whether somehow, some way, we can get rid of this thing. And I know there are people who like it, and those people are probably shaking their heads and sighing at us old timers and fuddy-duddies here who don't like this new brand of baseball. But what can I say? I'm just not a fan. Freaks. They're all freaks. You shouldn't even dignify them. That's what I say. If the Giants win one on a zombie runner rule, does your aversion subside

at least briefly or do you still feel like no you know what that cheapens the victory for me yeah i don't get into it as much like i don't know it doesn't cheapen the victory it's i'm not taking away anyone's victories it's just it's annoying to watch i will say that the giants are especially poorly set up for the the automatic runner and extra innings because they have a closer and tyler rogers who is contact dependent uh you know his his game is is limiting exit velocity and then the the second best reliever in the giants pen is jake mcgee and his whole shtick is you know what he's gonna throw and every so often he'll screw up and allow hard contact but you know what not

a problem if there's no one on base you know let him give up his one double an inning or you know let him give up the the occasional hard single. But with the runner on second, it poses even Jake McGee if he's not missing bats. So it just feels like the Giants are especially hosed, but I don't even care about that. If they're six and one, I would still grumble. I thought you were going to say they're especially poorly set up to score in that instance because everyone on their team is 97 years old and thus slow. They're napping. They've got a cup of Earl Grey.

They can't be bothered with that. Well, that hasn't seemed to hurt them so far this season. Old is the new young. Transitions! Market inefficiency. Yeah, so we're speaking here on Friday afternoon. The Giants have the best winning percentage in baseball, as everyone predicted. They are 38 and 23. They are a game and a half up on the Dodgers. And this is a team

that the Fangraphs projections had as a 76 win team coming into the season. I think you had as an 80 win team on the Effectively Wild preview. And we're now 38% of the way through the season, which is not nothing. And the Giants have had the best results in baseball. So what the heck is going on here? And, you know, I should say, like, it's not a fluke in the sense that they're a team that's, you know, 10 and one in one run games or something, and they're hitting 400 with runners in scoring position. Like they've basically earned this more or less like they're, I think a game ahead of their base runs record right now. I mean, it's a different question whether they can continue to play this well, but up to this point,

they have actually more or less played like a team that should be in first place even in a division with two really excellent teams that were expected to be the best teams in the league it yeah i was kind of hoping you would explain it to me uh now i'm scrambling because i yeah let me put this notebook away i guess i don't get to to crib off of you guys no i don't look throughout the whole season my job is to come in and go, well, you know, this is great, but here's why it won't last. You know, or, you know, to do those kind of articles and to be a wet blanket or to be a dry blanket. I don't know what the happy version of that is, but like, whatever. I'm just looking for these things and with the 2021 giants when you pop the hood it's they are allowing

softer contact than most teams and they're making harder contact than most teams and once you get that sort of basic thing they're just hitting the ball harder and they're preventing the hard contact it starts to make a little bit of sense and then you start look at the names and it's like okay it's stopped making as much sense again because Because like you said, Buster Posey's 34, Brandon Belt's 33, Brandon Crawford's 34. Like, I don't know. It feels unnatural and unnerving for all these guys to be at their best. Like Buster Posey is at his best right now. Brandon Crawford is having far and away his best season in the majors.

It's bizarre. At the same time, what can you ascribe it to? It's got to be good coaching, good planning, buy-in from the players. You know, they're being presented with data and here's how you can hit better. And they're saying, you know, by gum, you're right. And they're buying in. I will say that before the season started, I wrote an article about, look for the worst hitter on this team.

And when you find that hitter, he's kind of okay. You know, like the worst hitter on this team is going to be – even now where you've got just – they're ravaged by injuries. They have not had good tidings with injuries this year. And you still look at a guy like Lamont Wade Jr. or Mike Tauchman and you're like, okay, that guy, I could see how he could be good. Even if they aren't hitting well right now, that guy, yeah, he should probably be on a 26-man roster. And once you build the lack of automatic outs, the lack of useless players, you start to have a team that can reach a tipping point where you get a couple surprising seasons, and all of a sudden they're much better than expected. You mentioned Posey and good coaching. And I think that his usage this year has been really smart. They've deployed him in such a way that he seems like he might actually be able to sustain, maybe not this level of performance, but first of all, stay on the field from a health

perspective and sort of deal with some of the natural wear and tear of catcher. And I know that they're not letting him catch a third day in a row. They're not using him at first base on off days. Like they're actually building in real recovery time. And I'm curious what your sense of like how that conversation has gone between them and where it originated. Like, did they go to him at the beginning of the season and say, okay, Buster, like you, you had last year off, you were able to recover from this hip injury. Here's how we want to manage you this year. What has that process been like? Because it seems to have been very effective and externally pretty conflict-free, which

is not always what you get with veterans, even if they are aware of their own physical limitations because of past injury. Two things. First, are you familiar with the Gabe Kapler ice cream story or anecdote? I don't know if it's apocryphal or yes it's okay so just for the listeners story why but that's not bad it's not it's i it's i think it's mostly apocryphal like i think it's sort of tongue-in-cheek but the idea is that he is on a diet a very strict diet not like a diet diet to lose weight but a very nutrition and he didn't want to have ice cream, but he wanted the taste of ice cream.

So he put some in his mouth and spit it out like he was tasting wine. And that is not what I would do. That is not something I can comprehend. At the same time, it shows like a very specific kind of discipline. And so if you're thinking that Kapler is going to be tempted by this catcher hitting 336 and driving the offense a lot of the time and being like, well, maybe I could stretch it. No, he has this idea and he's going to spit the ice cream of Posey out. Wait, I didn't know where I was going with that.

But you know what I mean? Like he's very dismissed. Two days on, one day off, no matter what. Just going to stick with it. And I will say the second thing is that Posey early in the year, he was asked on a post-game broadcast uh he he was the the player after the game because he did something good and one of the hosts said you know this two day on one day off thing it's keeping you really

fresh and he kind of he chuckled a little bit goes well i wouldn't say it's keeping me really fresh and intimating that he's still dinged up. He's still, you know, feeling tired. He's still feeling like a 34-year-old catcher. So it really just showed to me like, yeah, he's on board with this. Like he's saying, you know, maybe it came from him or maybe it came from the front office. Either way, he is on board and kind of like, yeah, this works for me. I think this is what needs to happen.

And so I think it's just one of those things. It's just a happy, complimentary arrangement. Yeah. I mean, a 170 WRC plus. This is like, even when he was the best hitting catcher in baseball, he wasn't hitting quite this well, I guess, except for his MVP year, maybe. And this just makes me think like, maybe with old catchers, just give him a gap year. Maybe that's just a good thing to do.

Like just, hey, Russ, just opt out of this one and come back at least semi-refreshed. So I don't know how repeatable that is. It seems like Salvador Perez has kind of had the same thing happen with him, but it's really great. I mean, like obviously he's one of the links left to the World Series teams and he's face of the franchise and all of that. And it really looked like he was kind of done. I mean, you know, 2019, the power just evaporated and really 2018 too. And then the injury and it's like, is he going to be able to come back at all? And not only is he back, but he is all the way back, maybe better than that. And yeah, maybe using him a little more sparingly than in his prime.

But I just, I don't know how you could have expected anything remotely like this. And I think we, I don't even remember if we talked about him much on our season preview segment. It was like almost an afterthought, like, yeah, you hope that he can come back and kind of hold his own. But being a superstar again seemed like way too much to ask and that is exactly what has happened and the Giants offense as a whole like their non-pitchers have a 114 WRC plus that is third in all baseball behind the

Astros and the Dodgers and like even when I think of good Giants teams, I don't necessarily think of good hitting or great hitting Giants teams. So this is different. And, you know, it was kind of the case last year, too. So the Giants hit now, apparently. Yeah. And one of the things when Posey was after Posey had the big time leg injury, I was doing a lot of research just to kind of figure out, OK, what's a historical comparison? And so obviously you go Jason Kendall. And then you find all these catchers who get hurt in their early 20s.

And they flame out in their 30s. And there were a lot of unflattering comparisons. So it was almost like Jason Kendall was, listen, if he can just get that on-base percentage up a little bit, play solid defense, he can play into his 30s. But the one name that kept popping up like a devil on my shoulder shoulders like carlton fisk he's like what you know it's like you know that that no like carlton fisk that is one of the all-time historical baseball outliers and then like i'd you know go and well he's kind of like jason kendall and then he carlton fisk you know it's like it just kept like it was ringing in my head and like he he's kind of on – like he's not going to play until he's 45 most likely. But if you want a historical comp, maybe Carlton Fisk is it because Carlton Fisk in his 30s was all of a sudden like, yeah, you know, he'll give you some on-base percentage.

But the power is kind of gone. Like he's getting creaky. You know, don't worry about it. And then when he hit like 35, now he's hitting 30 home runs, 37 home runs a season. And it's like, oh, oh okay so i don't know maybe maybe that's the comp well i'm kind of amazing that they've done all of this like how many games have they even gotten out of tommy listella like he's been sidelined with a hamstring injury i kind of forgot for a second that tommy listella was even on this team right it's supposed to be a

big part of it right he was the big offseason addition, right? Like a multi-year deal. We are all in on Tommy LaStella. I think I made a lot of bad jokes the last time and he tweaked his hammy and it was, you know, put on the 60 day IL and, you know, so they're even going to get some reinforcements at some point I would imagine here. It's just amazing. Good hitting Giants team. What? Yeah, I know. And the weird thing is, is it's not like everything's going right. Good hitting Giants team. What? Yeah, I know. And the weird thing is, is it's not like everything's going right. You know, like sometimes you can point at a team and like, well, yeah, they've got like five or six hitters going bananas. You've got Donovan Solano, very ho-hum.

You've got Alex Dickerson. His on-base percentage is under 300, I think. You know, Mike Estremski's good, but he's not MVP vote getting great. Austin Slater's fine, but he's, you know, there's more in there. Wilmer Flores is struggling. Mauricio Dubon is struggling. Mike Tauchman is struggling. Like, you know, apart from the injuries, they have a lot of hitters who were just sort of kind of there. So it's even that part's surprising. They don't have the guys who are just absolute drags on the lineup, though, and I think that's the difference. to 2021 their ranks in the nl in these categories 2019 they were 13th in walks now they're second or they were when joe wrote this 2019 they were 12th in pull percentage now third they were 11th in fly ball percentage now fourth so they've sort of transformed into like this launch angle pull the ball take advantage of the high homer era type offense. And I guess maybe partly is that because of the changes in Oracle Park, making those changes more beneficial,

or is it a different group of hitters or is it a different group of coaches? Because you've got, you know, 18 coaches on this coaching staff now, and it's a different regime and maybe a more progressive one. And so I wonder how much of it is change in personnel, change in the conditions of the ballpark versus change in just instruction or the type of approaches that are emphasized by this regime. I would say that the Giants have a lot of players who are able to spit the ice cream out, so to speak. They have a lot of disciplines approaches where they're buying into the idea of we're going to get our pitch and crush it. We're not scared to get to two strikes. We're not scared of striking out. We just want to swing at the most hittable baseballs that we can. It's not like that's an old strategy. I mean, everyone knows it's Ted Williams and stuff like

that. It's not like they're trying to reinvent the wheel. It's just they have buy-in. They have players who are able to be disciplined in that way. But I will say that I have not heard a bad thing. I haven't heard anything off the record. I haven't heard anything where there's been a player that's gone like, gosh, there are just too many cooks in this kitchen with regards to all the coaches. For the most part, on the record and off the record, I've heard, yeah, it's great. Like they're able to really tailor a plan for you. You're able to get more attention. You're able to get like a deeper dive into the data that's specifically to you.

What are you screwing up on? What are the strikes that you want to avoid? Like, you know, that's something that a lot of the players have said. It's they don't want to swing at their bad strikes, the ones that get called strikes, and they're okay with that because they can't do much with it. So just knowing that is out there and having a tailored plan, I think has made a big difference. I think we've also seen the tailored plan approach, you know, manifesting itself on the pitching side, which is my way of giving you an open platform to talk about Kevin Gausman's splitter for a little while, if you would like to. I mean, it's been interesting, right? Dan Zimborski wrote about this for us recently. The underlying characteristics of that pitch, you know, when you look at its spin or its

velocity are not that different, but how he's deploying it and sort of where he's throwing it in the zone has changed meaningfully and he's getting really good results and i'm curious kind of what his process was working with the front office on that because you know he's one of those guys we've kind of expected to break out for a long time just because of his prospect pedigree and then it didn't happen and now here we are with him like leading the first place giants in pitching war grant this seems really confusing to me i feel like we're missing something. I don't like the ice cream thing. If I were Gabe Kepler, I wouldn't want people to tell that story.

I don't think he does, but I will say I don't quite believe in it. I just think it's a funny way to describe discipline on the team. It's like relevant and jokey aside. But at the same time, I guess I'll go back into Gaussman. It's not like there were dumb teams that were fiddling with them before. I mean, you can always say like, oh, the Orioles didn't know what they're doing. And maybe that's right. But it seemed like the Braves had figured them out a little bit once he went over to the Braves. And then when the Braves were like, well, we can't, I guess we didn't figure them out. And they put them on waivers. The Reds picked them up. And at one point, it looked like his future was in the bullpen and it looked like they had figured a little bit out. So, you know, those are smart teams trying to play around with what they're doing and what they can do with his repertoire. I think the Giants just got a little bit lucky. You know, obviously no one knew he was going to be that good, but at the same time, everyone just sort of knew like, yeah, if you play around enough, it's going to like the cosmic tumblers are going to fall into place. And

last year, he was better than the ERA. And I think this year, he maybe is not as good as the 1.27 ERA. But at the same time, he's clearly a top, top level pitcher, and everything just fell into place. Yeah, Tim Kuhn of ESPN has a big feature about the Giants up on Friday, and he kind of leads with some anecdotes about Gossman and about Anthony DiScafani and how the Giants have tailored their pitch mix and their approaches and gotten them to adjust various things. And it's not like mind-blowing stuff in 2021, but it's the sort of stuff that you usually hear or you're used to hearing about the Dodgers and the Rays and teams that are known for Astros. You acquire so-and-so and then you tell them to junk this pitch or throw that pitch more or throw higher or whatever it is.

And then suddenly they're better than they've been before. And that's not a narrative that I recall hearing about the Giants all that often before the last couple of years. And you're more cognizant of that stuff than I am. But it seems like they are fully on board with sort of that modern viewpoint of like figuring out what players do well and then getting them to do those things more basically or do them even better. And I guess the pipeline from the front office to the field there seems to be about as strong as it's ever been. And, you know, they have guys like Brian Bannister now and the coaches, the many coaches that we mentioned already. So it seems like they are now doing, I don't know if it's a better job than most teams, but at least as good a job at figuring out how to maximize players' performance. So that's something that I don't know if the Giants were like early adopters of those sorts of tweaks, but they appear to have fully gotten on board now.

There are a couple of different eras in Giants history where they have been just completely caught off guard and lost for a few seasons while they tried to figure it out. The first one was the Brian Sabian era where it was, well, we're going to sign all these old players, you know, 35, 36, 37, because for whatever reason, they just don't seem to decline these days. You know, they're just strong, strong like bull and they don't get hurt. And what's that? And then the Mitchell report comes out and all of a sudden all these old players start getting hurt and it's not quite as easy. OK, so they you know, they that those are the picks that got them lincecum and bum garter they they lucked into some maybe not luck but they they had some good draft fortune

now they're the that era giants and they're posy they're they're belt they're crawford they're doing great things and then stat cast comes out and they've built they've tailored their approach to gap to gap they've they've got this this really solid good contact offensive team that works well at oracle park but then when the positioning starts getting messed around and then when the data starts getting funneled in you know joe panic well he's not good anymore and this player's not hitting well anymore and and all these players are unable to adjust and so they got caught flat-footed there and it cost bobby evans's job so this is just another like coming in and having a fresh set of eyes and really trying to figure out what didn't work on those old teams because it's just

like a real shock. Just all of a sudden, it's like, poof, we're not good anymore. What? And this new front office came in and said, well, maybe we should get better players. And so I think that's helped a lot. Yeah. And when we had you on last time to do the preview, we talked about how the last few years hadn't really played out the way anyone expected them to when Farhan Zahi was hired. And everyone thought, OK, there's going to be a teardown and there will be a full Zaydi rebuild and they'll trade all these old guys and get a bunch of young guys in. And that really didn't happen very much. And yet they are winning and leading their division so it almost seems as if well maybe they didn't actually have to rebuild or tear down and i'm sure that we will ask before this conversation is over about what you think they should do

for the rest of the season and the deadline but is this is this like a model for a rebuild which is don't rebuild and just get good again? Anyway, I don't know whether they'll take a step back again before they take another step forward and you have another young generation of giants coming along. But if this is like we've already seen them bottom out, then this would be a pretty successful rebuild because it didn't get that bad, really. I would say that you can't draw too many takeaways from this that you can apply to different teams going forward. The Giants were in such a unique position with their veterans and the contracts that

they were on. So Zaddy comes in and so, for example, take Evan Longoria, making a lot of money way into the future. They come in. He's coming off a 91 adjusted OPS, 281 on base percentage. But, you know, we sit in 16 home runs. The defense was still top notch. So a useful player, if you use him correctly in all things being equal, if he's making the major league minimum, you would want that player on your team. So he's not going to pay another team to take him. no other teams wanted to buy down evan longoria's contracts okay what are we gonna do we're gonna keep him and try and make him better same thing with crawford same

thing with belt same thing with posy there's a lot of note no trade clauses mixed in there they just didn't have like if if another team said well we will take brandon crawford's salary they might have said yeah you will you know and you go, but they are not going to pay another team to take a very strong defensive shortstop who can maybe hit a little bit if you work with them. And so it was just a combination of things like no teams wanted them. The Giants weren't just going to punt them to the side for optics. And I, here we are. I don't want to get ahead of our conversation, but Ben sort of anticipated my next question, and maybe we can frame it a little differently. What are the different

sort of tracks that you see the team potentially on in the next couple of weeks? Because if they continue on as they are now, I find it very difficult to believe that they won't be buyers of some sort. We can talk about how significantly at the trade deadline and like really view this as a team that is potentially October bound, even if not as a division winner. But you know, things can always go wrong in baseball. And guys who are having Renaissance seasons can suddenly swoon. So what do you see like the couple of different, what are the earth twos for the Giants over the next couple of weeks? And then maybe we can talk about sort of how you expect them to perform after this season because we like to look ahead. Yeah.

You know, I think when you go back to the 2019 deadline, it was kind of instructive on what might happen here because that was the year the Giants had Baumgartner. His contract was expiring. You had Will Smith. You knew he was going to be a free agent. And everyone expected, okay, the Giants are going Will Smith. You knew he was going to be a free agent. And everyone expected, okay, the Giants are going to sell. The Giants are going to sell. And then they had a really hot July.

And it wasn't like the kind of hot July where all of a sudden they're the best team in baseball. But it just made you think. And it made Zidey go, okay, you know what? We're not going to sell these players. We're going to get the draft picks back if that's the worst that happens. That's fine by us because we're interested in playing meaningful September baseball. We're interested in having the fans walk away at the end of the season going, you know what? I enjoyed a lot of that season. And it was very pragmatic. It was very just, you know, it wasn't cold. It wasn't, you know, we need to hoard these prospects and sort through them and see who can

be a part of the next good team. It was like, no, there's value in winning when you're doing it. And that's why this year I've been asked by a couple of people, like, do you think they'll still sell? Do you think they'll still trade Galsman? It's like, no. Like, at the very least, they might make some creative trades because in that 2019 season, they still traded Sam Dyson away. They got a package that they're still very happy about for a reliever that season. So they might be creative like that. I don't think they'll be buying rentals. I don't think they'll be giving away prospect depth for anyone who isn't around in 2022. But I do think

that they're going to be really carefully scrutinizing which relievers might be available who are around for next year, maybe two years, get some team control on relievers they really believe in. And I think that's going to be their tag. So we talked a lot about the offense and I wanted to just talk a little bit about the run prevention because that's been really good too. And the Giants have been good defensively. I know that they've been close to or at the top of the defensive efficiency leaderboard

for most of the season. They're a point behind the Dodgers and two points behind the Astros right now. And I don't know how much of that is allowing weak contact, which is another thing that they've done. So maybe they're giving their defenders easier opportunities, but is this just also a good defensive team? Because that's an area where I think it's easy for us to overlook good fielding or easier than it is to overlook a monster lineup or pitching staff. So if you're looking for reasons why a team is overperforming or exceeding expectations, often defense can be one reason. So is that the case with the Giants? And if so, how? Because they're ancient and you wouldn't think that would correlate with good defense.

Like their average position player age or batter age this year is 30.8, which is like by far the oldest in baseball. The average pitcher age is 29.6, which is also on the old side. So I don't know why defense would be their strong suit, but, you know, it has been. That's been probably the biggest surprise. I mean, the offense, it was clicking last year. And so for them to have a good offensive season this year, not so surprising. They've shown an ability to find these guys, whether it's Drew Pomerantz or Drew Smiley or Alex Wood, Disclifani. They're good at finding these guys and saying, now we can get a year out of this pitcher. The defense is the biggest surprise. And before the season, it was just, you knew it was going to be bad. You saw

like Solano's not a great defensive infielder. You had Mauricio Dubon in center field. He's a converted infielder. They were saying, well, we're going to try Austin Slater in center. And he's never been like a true burner. There are just a lot of players where you could point to and go, yeah, it's going to be rough. Tommy LaStella, for all his good parts, he's not a superb fielder, but they've made it work. And I think the anchor of Longoria and Crawford does a lot. And Belt, I know he's having a rough season by the metrics this year, but he's a strong defensive first baseman. Getting Steven Duggar out there a little bit more helps out a lot. Jastrzemski has been like gold glove caliber in right. That's helped out a lot. And I don't know, it is the biggest surprise of the season. And I have no idea quite how they're doing it, but it just keeps humming along. And they catch the ball too. They don't make a ton of errors. And so it's been a really fun defense to watch

in terms of potential upgrades where do you expect that they might try to improve come the end of july because i know that when you know we look at their rankings relative to other teams and we're like they're really superlative everywhere and that's true maybe everywhere except for the bullpen but um so maybe talk about that a little bit. Because I was a bit surprised by their war ranking there, which is 27th by our accounting anyway. Yeah, really, really, really rough bullpen. Where you have Tyler Rogers, and Tyler Rogers is having a tremendous season.

Which I think is part of why I was surprised by that sort of collective grade there. Because I was like, he's really good, but oh gosh some of these other guys yes yeah it was he was on pace to throw like 110 games at one point early in the season because they just had to keep using him he was the one trustworthy uh reliever and you have someone like Jake McGee who does a lot of things well he misses bats he doesn't walk batters but you don't want to ride him you can't really pitch him back-to-back days that often.

You want to keep him fresh. And so you have Rodgers. You can use whenever. McGee, you don't want to use too much. And then after that, I don't know. They're still really figuring things out. You know, Conor Menez has had a fast start now that he's been recalled. Sammy Long was a revelation in his spot.

I guess a long relief outing in his debut. So they're trying to figure things out with what they have. Dominic Leon, Zach Patel, like they're still mixing and matching. I do think that they have another month of mixing and matching and then they'll say, okay, we need at least one bullpen arm, maybe two, maybe three. You know, this is the obvious place to fix whatever's wrong with the Giants because the rotation, once they get Aaron Sanchez back, and I don't know how much you can expect from him as far as health, but they have five, six starting pitchers that they feel comfortable with.

They have a lineup they feel comfortable with when everyone's healthy. They have depth when even everyone's not healthy. They kind of feel comfortable with a lot of the players who are throwing out there right now. But the bullpen is just such an obvious glaring need. I do think they'll address it. I wonder what this season has been like to experience. I know you're not a fan in the way that you once were, but is this season like, wow, this is gravy.

No one expected this. This was supposed to be the Dodgers Pad show and the giants have crashed the party here and we're almost 40 of the way through the season and they have a better record than the two super teams in this division so whatever we get from now on oh it's just great this has been fun this is better than we could have hoped for but there must be some anxiety because it's gone on this long and now you start to believe in it and hope that it can be real and it can continue and you know that there's like no margin for error there's no breathing room here you have the Padres and the Dodgers nipping at your heels the whole season I think the Dodgers biggest lead has been two and a half games the Dodgers even with all the injuries they've had they have the

best run differential in the majors now you know that they're constantly a threat to just reel off 12 wins in a row or something. So do you feel like this has just been better than anyone could have hoped? And hey, no stakes, we're playing with house money here. Or is it like, no, I kind of want this to happen now. And you've got these two great teams that are right behind us. So the pressure is always on. House money is a good way to put it. At the same time, I'm not a fan the way I used to be, but it really, really does make my job easier when they win. It makes it easier. It makes the readers are happier. The readers are more engaged with whatever you're writing. So there is a benefit to the Giants winning for me. And I would sure like it to continue i mean it just it would be really

really neat you know to use some jargon um i don't know if it's going to continue but house money is kind of like yeah there is a sense of luck you know if they if they somehow blow it and finish in third place if they go on a losing jag that sends them out of the wild card even, like, yeah, that would stink. At the same time, you would still look back on the season fondly. And nobody cares about the 1978 Giants except for like five people. But some of them might be listening. And the 1978 Giants had a very similar vibe where the 70s, I'm always fascinated with the 70s and the Giants because they had AstroTurf. Like, Maze is gone,

McCovey's on the Padres, and you've got Johnny LeMaster coming up and wearing Boo on the back of his jersey. It's just a miserable experience. But 1978, they won a ton, and they won it early. It was kind of like this team. They just bolted out of the gates, and you had McCovey's back, and he's 40.

You have Bill Madlock, and you have Vida Blue, and you have a really blue and you have like a really like interesting compelling team and they still you know fudged it away at the end and they they lost and they didn't win the division but people of a certain vintage still remember like oh the 1978 giants yeah that was fun that was fun as all heck and i think this this might have a similar vibe i'm struck by by the fact that regardless of what ends up happening for them this season, I think we see them as certainly emerging from a down period or rebuild or step back or whatever. The rebuild without a rebuild contentious CBA negotiation looming. I'm just curious what your sense is of how the organization sort of views itself within both its own competitive window, but also within the landscape of that very competitive division, because they will still have to deal with the Dodgers and the Padres next year, regardless of whatever they accomplish this year.

So how do you get a sense that this has sort of shifted their own internal timeline or trajectory at all? I think that next year was always going to be that eye of we're going to really try whether it's spend a little money. They have a ton of money coming off the books. The problem with that is that, you know, it's Posey and it's Crawford, two of the players who are responsible for what they're doing right now. So you might have to spend money to get them back. At the same time, they will have money to spend. Even if they lock Osmond up, even if they re-sign Posey and Crawford, they will have money to spend. And I think that was always the plan. And it was always the plan to have a prospect cavalry come up at some point. Might not be next year with Elliot Ramos, Mark Luciano, and Hunter Bishop.

But if they find, if they target a player and say, we expect this guy to be good in 2022 and 2023 and 2024, they might take the plunge. Whether that's Corey Seager, Carlos Correa, maybe they'll be big-time bidders on

Max Scherzer. I don't know, but I do think that next year was going to be, yeah, we're going to kind of go all in. It's not the right word arm, Scott Kazmir. Let's see what he's got left. So there's no one like, you know, hanging around AAA who's like on the verge right now from that next generation of giants. Like we're still a ways away from that. So it's not really a short-term 2021 solution. Kind of sort of where you don't have,

it's the position players that, I'm not going to say they're behind, but they were always a younger bunch with Luis Matosos and marco luciano like there's always going to be a little bit of a wait and see period but they they weren't supposed to have the starting pitching that they've had in the the upper minor leagues and they have it now they've got sean jelly and matt frisbee and uh sammy long is you know a minor league free agent, but he's still 25, and he looks – he's like a freak. He throws 95 with command and a curveball that just drops out of the sky, and they have good upper-level pitching all of a sudden. That is not something they've been able to say for a while.

So even with this batch of pitchers where it's very – Alex Wood, Aaron Sanchez, Disclifani. It's not the sturdiest bunch. This is not a 200-inning type of workhorse rotation, but they're prepared behind that. So you might see a little bit of a cavalry come up if they need starting pitchers. You know, if Logan Webb's shoulder doesn't get where it needs to be, you might start seeing some names and go, Matt Frisbee. What in the heck is a Matt Frisbee? You know, and then all of a sudden he's in there and he's doing really good things. So that's a possibility. I just looked up Matt Frisbee and apparently he has a plus slider, so we can call it the Frisbee slider. That's wonderful.

Yes, absolutely. The names in this system when I edited that list are just, they're so good. One prospect you didn't mention in that list is Joey Bart, which I think is one of the underrated benefits of Posey's season, right, is that Bart is getting time to marinate in the minors that he clearly needed after his approach disintegrated last year. And his his line at AAA right now has been it has been quite good, obviously, in a limited run here because it's still early going of the minor league season. But I'm curious, what is the organizational view of Bart at this point? I think they're still very high on him. I think they're very happy to have him in the system. Of course, he was drafted by the previous regime and they immediately drafted Patrick Bailey in the first round right after. So there was kind of that, huh, are they enam joey bart as as maybe they could be but i think that they really like him i also think that last year more so than you know striking out 41 times and walking like three like he had a horrible ratio i don't remember exactly what it

was but more than that was he was a little rough around the edges defensively and i think that was supposed to be a given but uh you know john Johnny Cueto really struggled getting on the same page with him. There were a lot of kind of weirdo mistakes that you weren't expecting from a field general. So just letting him get back there and doing his thing and getting a full AAA season, I think, has always been the goal. To the point where when Kirk Casale goes down to an injury, well, first of all,irk casale's hitting 100 and he's not doing anything but he's a solid defender they weren't going to move off of that they're like okay just keep doing your thing but now that he's hurt they went with chadwick trump and they they're bypassing bart not because they don't like him but just i think the plan is do your thing kid right right i also love that we will all of us write the rest of our careers and

never come up with a two-word sequence more satisfying than Chadwick Trump. Just never. It's like his parents, the best writers on the planet. Really. I mean, it's a very Thomas Pinchot name. It is just absolutely straight out of Gravity's Rainbow. The first time I saw it, I was like, oh, that's Gravity's Rainbow. So, yes, Chadwick Trump.

Really terrific stuff. Chadwick Trump. Skybolt. Yeah. It yes, Chadwick Trump. Really terrific stuff. Chadwick Trump. Skybolt. Yeah. It's really something. Yeah. I hope that they get the injured guys back. Like everyone's had injuries this year, so you can't really say the Giants have been

harder hit than most, as I know you wrote recently. And I hope that the hurt guys get less hurt and come back and that Evan Longoria can resume his somehow peak Evan Longoria season at age 35, which, oh man, if I had to rank the probability of these seasons, I don't know whether it would be Posey or Crawford having a career year or Longoria bouncing all the way back or what, but they'd all be roughly in the same region, I guess. But you know, Joshian in his newsletter earlier this week put it, the Giants will end up better than

expected and they may even work their way into the 2020 postseason, but we've seen the best they have to offer. Now it's about holding on, which is kind of grim, I guess, but I understand why he would look at it that way. And, you know, they just don't have much of a buffer to hold on with, at least if you're talking about a division title and the fan graphs, playoff odds have respected them more than they did before the season started when they had a 0.2 chance to win the division and a 5.7 chance to make the playoffs at all. division and a 5.7 chance to make the playoffs at all. Now they're up to a 4.9% chance to win the division and a 54.8% chance to make the playoffs. So the fan grabs playoff, I'd still

see them as basically a coin toss to make the playoffs at all. And still an extreme long shot to finish ahead of the Dodgers and Padres, even though they have managed to do that for almost 40% of the season. So it is a strange situation and I hope it continues because it's been a lot of fun to watch. But yeah, I guess these next six weeks or so will be very interesting to see if they get Longoria back and some of the other guys who are hurt to figure out where they need to shore up positions and then what is out there on the market and where they can upgrade because as you mentioned i guess like it's not like there are a lot of terrible players where sometimes it's easier to upgrade if they're like obvious glaring positions where you've been so bad that getting almost anyone would be an upgrade and with the giants like you know top to down in the lineup if everyone's healthy like they've been pretty productive so there are other places they could upgrade but

it's not i guess the most obvious team to point out positions where yeah you could go get this guy and that would be a big help right yeah i just don't think there's going to be like oh well now they've got trevor story and now that he's the piece that they're missing i i just don't think that that's going to they're really going to hope like marissa duvall figures out what he figured out halfway through last season and if he doesn't maybe they can get you know his equivalent on the trade market but i think that's going to be the plan offensively hope that alex dickerson gets better and healthier and uh hope that austin slater can you know stop taking so many pitches down the middle of the plate and, you know, stuff like that is what they're going to be looking for

more than Trevor Story. And I think it's just going to be bullpen, bullpen, bullpen. I do want to hear you impersonate 100 Pence more though. Do your impression, please. I don't think I have, you know, when my dad said that, I was just looking. I was just looking at a YouTube camera. This is when I offered to shave my playoff beard in 2014. I said, Royals fans, listen, give me $5,000 and I will shave my beard. I will jinx the Giants. I will ruin their season for $5,000. thousand dollars you can just like how many nickels is that get it together come on kickstarter people and no one did it and the giants won the world series because of their stinginess uh but apparently in that video my dad's like oh that's a good hunter pence impersonation it's like no i was just i this is how we look when the giants get into the postseason it's not great it's gonna be weird to go to winter meetings this year and see everyone and be like, huh, so this is what the year has done to us.

Okay. Granted's gone gray. Yeah. Emma, Lindsay, and I still don't look exactly alike, but enough that it might be a problem for you. I just want to let you know. Who don't look alike? I thought you...

Oh, Meg! Meg, what's up? I thought it was Emma the whole time. Oh, Meg! Meg, what's up? I thought it was Emma the whole time. Oh, Lordy. I guess it's just been about as weird to be a follower and cover of the Giants over the past 10 to 15 years as any team. Because even when they were extremely successful, they weren't necessarily the best team in baseball. And ultimately, what matters is you win a bunch of World Series and anyone would take that. But even as they were doing it, it was like the devil magic and even your magic and all

of that. And so- You can do a swear. You just have to warn people, Ben. Yeah, I'll get the hang of that. But even when they were winning the World Series, it was like, are the Giants really that good? I don't know.

They win anyway. And now they're winning anyway. And there's still questions about how good they are. So I guess this is pretty much par for the course for you. There hasn't been a dominant, unquestionably great Giants team, even when they were winning World Series. So in that sense, if the Giants eventually morph into a Dodgers-style juggernaut where they enter the season, like when was the last time the Giants entered a season as like the preseason favorite or best team in baseball? Has that happened?

I would say like 2012 ish. Yeah. It's pretty close to like, OK, you know, they had rough luck with the Posey injury, but this is probably the best team on paper. But yeah, you're right. It hasn't certainly hasn't been a lot. Well, I'm enjoying that this is bolstering Buster's Hall of Fame case anyway. Like he was kind of on the borderline probably, or at least for a lot of voters. So this renaissance, maybe that pushes him over the edge, but maybe that also pushes

his eligibility far into the future because he's a superstar again. So we'll see. So you can read Grant at The Athletic. You can hear him on multiple podcasts there, Bags and Brisbane, and The Baseball Barista with Hunter Pence, who actually is a former Effectively Wild guest himself. I forgot about that, but Hunter Pence was on the show too back in 2019 when he was promoting a documentary and talking about his swing reinvention and all of that. So we've had both of the baseball barista boys on the show. You can find Grant on Twitter, of course, at Grant Brisby. And we are always happy to have him on, even if we thought that we were getting his co-host instead.

Well, thank you so much. It was a pleasure to be on. All all right that will do it for today and for this week thanks as always for listening 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 give themselves access to some perks daniel gold ryan nelson andrew mcdonald gabe shapiro and burn samco thanks to all of you podcast going and get themselves access to some perks. Daniel Gold, Ryan Nelson, Andrew McDonald, Gabe Shapiro, and Bern Samko. 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 podcastfancrafts.com or via the Patreon messaging system 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. Bye.