Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1718: MLB in the Multiverse of Madness

Episode Date: July 9, 2021

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the 10th anniversary of Mike Trout’s promotion to the majors, Rey Ordóñez and other players with high highlights-to-value ratios, opting against an Albert Pujols pun, MLB wisely forgoing the humidor for the Home Run Derby, and a quibble with the Derby bracket, then follow up on a discussion […]

10 years of life The August sun still tries to burn our eyes The same old mountainside is where we're going These days young, we watch the grass keep growing Despite the sun, it's always snowing In our hearts Hello and welcome to episode 1718 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast for the Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Rowley of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg.

Hello. Happy 10th anniversary of Mike Trout making the major leagues. Wow. Yeah, nine days after I met the woman who would become my wife, I formed another lasting relationship when I met a major leaguer named Mike Trout. July 8th, 2011, he went 0 for 3 against the Mariners. It was an inauspicious start and sort of an inauspicious brief rookie campaign, but we know what happened next and it's been a hell of a ride since then. So I feel like we

should do just a general Mike Trout appreciation episode sometime soon, maybe for his 30th birthday which is coming up in less than a month now it feels a little yeah i don't really want to think about that either but it's coming whether we want it to or not and it feels a little strange to do a mike trout celebration right now when he is on the injured list and has been for a while but hopefully by then he will be back and at full strength again. And so, I don't know, maybe we can do like a Mike Trout fun facts episode or just a general appreciation, but he really has enriched our lives over this past decade and certainly enriched this podcast. I guess his arrival in the majors predates the beginning of this podcast, but

his ascension to best player in baseball kind of coincided with the start of this podcast, but his ascension to best player in baseball kind of coincided with the start of this podcast in 2012. So he has been sort of the patron saint of the podcast. I know others have come and gone and Otani is reigning supreme right now, but over the history of this podcast, Mike Trout is the patron saint of Effectively Wild. Will you allow me one fun fact that is relevant to his debut? So, you know, you mentioned his debut in Auspicious. Do you want to know what Mike Trout's career numbers against the Seattle Mariners are? I'm guessing they got a bit better after that initial 0 for 3. So he's played 167 games. So he's basically played an entire season more than an entire season against the seattle

mariners uh on a day when bauman released his what if lindor had been drafted by the mariners story this is just such a an unnecessary gut punch i'm about to deliver but i'm gonna do it anyway Anyway, he has batted 326, 430, 656 against the Mariners. He has hit 47 home runs against the Mariners. His TOPS+, so his split relative to his standard performance against Mariners, 115, which is not his highest TOPS+, against a particular opponent. Is it his highest against a division rival, at least, with the giant sample? I think that that might be true. Let me sort this. This is great radio.

Yes, it is. It is indeed his highest against a division rival. No, that's incorrect. I'm sorry. He has a similar TOPS plus against the Texas Rangers. Uh-huh. 115. I guess that makes sense. The Rangers have had some lousy pitching years in there too and a better ballpark for offense and all that. I forget.

TOPS plus doesn't adjust for ballpark. I don't think it does. Yeah, I don't think it does. We'll have to check on that. But that could be part of it. But yeah, at least you've had the privilege of seeing a lot of Mike Trout when watching the team that you have maybe watched the most in person over James Paxton issued him a golden sombrero. And that was nice. But the rest of the time, it has been less good for the Mariners when facing Mike Trout. But it is just really magical.

He's so good. We will do justice to his greatness. We would also be remiss, speaking of Mariners and 10-year anniversaries, there's also Kyle Seeger's 10-year anniversary from being called up. I believe it was yesterday or the day before.

That's gone better for Seattle than facing Mike Trout. There you go. There's a thing. Yeah, that's true. That had not crossed my radar to the same extent as the Mike Trout 10th anniversary, but that is special also. So that's nice.

Congrats to Kyle. But yeah, I once wrote an article, a little retrospective about Mike Trout's rookie season, because you look at the stats and you wonder, how did he go from not hitting well as a rookie to being the best player in baseball and one of the best players ever the very next season? And a lot of it, I mean, it was, you know, an abbreviated sample and 40 games and 135 plate appearances and all of that. But also he had a 247 Babbitt that year, which is just really weird because he is extremely fast and hits the ball hard and was super, super fast at that time. So I think he got a little unlucky and various other things went against him. Clearly, the talent was there, but it still took a lot of us, I think, by surprise just how much he dominated the very next year.

But that was wonderful. I think someone in the Facebook group had just gone back to the beginning of the podcast in 2012 and was listening from the start. And I think it was like one of the very early episodes we were debating, is Mike Trout the best player in baseball? And it was like July of 2012. So we were already on brand. And yeah, he probably already was the best player in baseball. So thanks for the memories, Mike. And here's hoping there are many more ahead.

Okay, can I just do a couple more of these? I'm just going to do a couple more. He has a 360 Babbitt against Seattle. He is only grounded into four double plays against the Mariners. That seems surprising just because of how often he's faced them. Although I guess given where he typically bats,

maybe that's not so surprising. Another thing that I would just say about Mike Trout versus the Mariners is that while Mariners fans are familiar with his greatness, if you look at his TOPS plus against other opponents, I think that you would maybe think, and granted, far fewer games and played appearances, unsurprisingly, because these are National League teams. games and played appearances unsurprisingly because these are national league teams but like if you're a fan of the pittsburgh pirates do you think that mike trout is just garbage based on what you've seen because mike trout has a negative five tops plus and i i keep throwing that term out here and in case folks are less familiar or not remembering every single one of jeff sullivan stat plus it's the a number greater than 100 indicates that this batter did better than usual in the split.

Well, one below 100 indicates that they have done worse. So just in case people needed that reminder. He has a negative five TOPS plus against the Pirates. He has just a seven TOPS plus against the Cubs. So I think there are a couple of fans who've maybe only seen Mike Trout in limited experience against their preferred National League team who are just like, I don't know why they talk about this guy so much. Yeah, could be. I mean, there are a lot of people who still wonder why we talk about Mike Trout so much.

And maybe the war non-believers are the people who think, well, if they don't make the playoffs, how good could he be? That old refrain. But yeah, there are definitely players, especially when I was a fan who was sort of seeing the game through the lens of one team and watching all of that one team's games. And you can form an impression of an opposing player who just happens to be bad when his team is playing your team. And scouts will talk about that too. You know, they saw a player on his good days or see a player on his bad days. And hopefully they have the scouting acumen to see beyond that and judge the skills in the process. But that's easier said than done. And if you're not a scout and you're just going based on what you've seen, like, they're definitely players who, like, when I was watching them, it was like, what's so special about this guy? But hopefully you take a little larger view and zoom out a bit and maybe look up his fan graphs page sometime because he's pretty good on the whole.

So with Mike Trout, who wins MVP awards a lot, hopefully people are a little less myopic when it comes to that. So our last episode has not been up for very long as we record this one on Thursday afternoon, but we have already received some responses to one of our banter topics, which was players with the highest ratios of highlights to value, however you want to measure value. And this was prompted by Billy Hamilton's incredible catch earlier this week. And I was wondering, is he the player who has the highest ratio of just highlights because he makes great catches and he steals bases and he scores improbably on balls that it doesn't look like he should score on.

But then when you look at the overall line, he is not great. He has been pretty good at times, but he doesn't get on base, et cetera, et cetera. He has flaws as a player. And by the end of that episode, as I was putting it up, a few other names had occurred to me. And we mentioned Bo Jackson in that episode, but I was thinking Ray Ordonez because I remember watching Ray Ordonez growing up and he won a few gold gloves and he was in the rookie of the year voting his rookie season. And I remember all of the really flashy plays. And he used to dive and go to his knees and he looked great. It was like watching Ozzie Smith or something, probably not to So I mentioned Ray Ordonez at the end of that episode. And I also mentioned a couple other. William O'Pena came to mind as a guy who hit giant home runs, but wasn't actually that good. Chaz Rowe, who's like, he's been good at times, but fairly fungible and replaceable. But he has that sweepy slider that everyone loves to make highlights of and gifts of. So those guys came to mind, Terrence Gore maybe, but I'm glad I mentioned Ray Ordonez because we have received several emails already from people giving us

feedback to that prompt and every single one has said Ray Ordonez so far. We've gotten several Ray Ordonez suggestions. So I think he might be the best contender, at least in recent years, the greatest rival to Billy Hamilton when it comes to looked better than he actually was. Yeah, that's a really good one. I should have asked you this question before because then you could have looked it up. In terms of the number of Rookie of the Year votes he received relative to remaining career war, he has to be at the top of a mismatch leaderboard, right? He might be, yeah. I mean, there are some actual Rookie of the Year winners who didn't do much beyond the rest of their career. But yeah, he'd probably be somewhere on that list. And just

looking at the advanced stats that we have now, it doesn't seem like his defensive reputation was exaggerated because at least in some of those early seasons, he had some pretty eye-popping run save totals. It weirdly fluctuated. So 1996, his rookie year, he's 25. He saved 11 runs in the field. Then 1997, 20 runs in the field. This is according to total zone at baseball reference. Then weirdly 1998, negative four runs in the field. And then 1999, 33 runs in the field. He won the gold glove all three of those years, 97 to 99, whether his run saved was plus 33 or negative four. So I don't know if that's one of those don't look at single season defensive stats because they fluctuate a lot or whether he had something going on that season. He played 153 games, so I don't know if he had something hampering him there, but I guess the reputation was already established. So he won the gold glove anyway, even if the stats that we have now didn't suggest that it was justified. But for a few years there, he really was fielding as well as it looked like he was fielding, but he didn't really continue to field at that level. I know he fractured his arm in May 2000 trying to tag out FP Santangelo and he missed the rest of the season

and his defense or at least his defensive ratings never really recovered all the way. And also he just couldn't hit at all. I mean, he makes Billy Hamilton look like a good hitter. So that really saps your value. But when I think of like best defensive shortstops I've seen, I mean, I didn't see Ozzie in his prime, so I think of Andrelton Simmons, but I also think of young Ray Ordonez, who really was good, but just wasn't very valuable. Yeah. Because, boy, he couldn't hit it all. He hit.258,.319,.317, and that was 1999. That was PD era, so that's a 64 OPS plus, and that was his best offensive season to date. So, yeah, he made a lot of outs. Yeah, I like how reliable our listeners are.

They're just so reliable. My other suggestion, this is very niche. Do you want to hear my other niche suggestion? Do you remember Diego Vieira, the reliever? Yeah. You're projecting the right amount of remembrance enthusiasm

for him. Right. But he was not very good. And I think he's playing internationally now. And he was briefly, he came up with Seattle and then he was briefly on the White Sox. And again, not very good. And I think he's playing internationally now. And he was briefly, he came up with Seattle, and then he was briefly on the White Sox. And again, not very good. But in his debut, he had this habit of throwing like a max effort pitch all the way to the backstop as part of his warmups,

which sort of narrowly missed the home plate umpire in the course of his debut. And then he snared a very hard struck like comebacker in his debut. And again, not very good, but I remember those things. So maybe he is in the reliever camp. His track record even shorter in terms of both length and quality compared to Chaz Rowe,

but he was maybe the guy I was going to come up with. Yeah, that was a niche one. You're right. We have not received any suggestions for him thus far. I'm here to offer very specific Mariner's takes. That is what my role on today's podcast is, apparently. So here we are.

Well, by the time this podcast is posted, we will probably have received several more Ray Ordonez emails. But if you have any suggestions for anyone not named Ray Ordonez, please let us know. Yes. But if you have any suggestions for anyone not named Ray Ordonez, please let us know. And I am disappointed in us that when we were talking about the dead bat bounces of Albert Pujols and Miguel Cabrera in the last episode, we talked about Pujols making his first start as the number two batter. But we did not mention that Pujols was hitting in the two hole, which was something that Grant Brisby took great delight in when we did episode 1500. And I believe Sam brought up the saying in the two hole, which he could not believe that anyone says with a straight face.

And then, of course, Grant took it to Pujols hitting in the two hole, which he had a few times to that point, but he had never started in the two hole. So now we have Pujols hitting in the two hole. And I'm disappointed that we did not acknowledge the comedic potential of that. Well, I'd say the following then. And I'm going to say this and I'm going to feel bad because it's going to sound like I'm slighting our dear friend Grant. And I don't mean it as a slight against Grant because he is a dear friend.

But I think that sometimes the mark of a good punster, of a good, good punster are the ones that you leave on the ground. So I will tell you that this joke occurred to me and I thought, too easy. Too easy of a joke. I'm not going to make it. And no one can fact check that, but it's true. I promise it's true.

And so, you know, I understand Grant, you know, he has a reputation to uphold. And sometimes you, you, you know, if you don't make the pun that people expect you to make, they're like, why didn't you make this pun? Like, like you're asleep on the job or something like you're a security guard to who's dozing during the night watch or something like that. But, um, but sometimes it's okay to just not make the joke. So I did. Well, I applaud your restraint. I have to exhibit it every now and again just to demonstrate that it's possible. Otherwise, people don't believe me.

And the last bit of banter I have is that they are doing away with the humidor for the Home Run Derby. And I could not be more pleased. MLB announced on Wednesday night that there will be no humidor in effect for the Home Run Derby on Monday. So we are totally turning back the clock here to Coors Field Home Run Derby of 1998 when Ken Griffey Jr. won it. No humidor at all. And we are going to see some titanic taters potentially. taters potentially and I'm pretty excited for this because really if you're gonna hold the home run derby in Coors Field it entirely defeats the purpose to have the humidor in effect to suppress the batted ball distances you want the big beefy sluggers to hit the ball as far as they

possibly can at altitude and that is what we're gonna. So I believe they will be taking aim at the StatCast era home run derby record of 513 feet, which was a homer hit by Aaron Judge in 2017 at Marlins Park. And the longest homer StatCast has tracked in a real game was 505 feet by Nomar Mazzara, of all people, with the Rangers in 2019. So if we don't see some 500 footers here with Otani and Joey Gallo and the rest of that cast, I will be quite disappointed. I love that they're just giving us what we want, that they're like, the people want the big boppers. I have two tiny quibbles though, and I want you to tell me if you agree with them. First, I think that they should change the rule that the home run has to land before you can pitch again. I think just hit all of them.

Hit all of the dingers. I don't care about the competitive integrity of the sides. That is unimportant to me. Although I will say, and maybe this suggests that I do care about the competitive integrity. Have you seen the bracket for the derby? Yeah, and I'm sort of sad that Shohei's going up against Juan Soto in the first round because I don't want to root against Juan Soto, but I'm going to have to. I'm of the opinion that there are two tiers of boppers in this derby.

And one tier of boppers involves Otani, Soto, Pete Alonso, and Joey Gallo, right? And then there's the second tier of boppers, otani soto pete alonso and joey gallo right and then there's the second tier of boppers which involves everyone else and i think that you have to separate there needs to be a representative from each tier of bopper in each part of the bracket so that you maximize the potential for big bopper versus big bopper that's hard to say in in the finals right and so i think that they should have swapped juan soto for one of either matt olsen or trey mancini and so you would have had each corner held down by a big bopper and granted all of these guys can hit big home runs and in cores with no humidor they can hit the biggest home runs they might hit the biggest home runs you've ever seen they might tear a hole through the rocky mountains but i don't think that this bracket is perfectly optimized for for bop i think that it could bop harder than it is currently set up to bop for

and so they should they should switch it and and let and let it be bopped to its maximum potential. Yeah, I'm with you on that second quibble. Not that I guess I think of Soto as the biggest bopper. He is a big bopper. Yes. But I don't think of him as hitting the longest and farthest home runs, although he is certainly capable of doing that. But I enjoy watching Juan Soto.

I guess the silver lining is that hopefully we will be watching Juan Soto for many, many, many years to come and hopefully many home run derbies. So there's that. And it's not as if I want to be rooting against Trey Mancini either. That's a great story that he is healthy and homering again. And all of these guys are likable. And I know that Trevor Story is the hometown hero and he won't be for much longer. So enjoy him while you can. So there are things to recommend each of these entrants. But yeah, I would not be sorry if, say, Matt Olson were going up against Shohei Otani. And, you know, no offense to Matt Olson, but he probably has the lowest Q rating of anyone in here, or at least in terms of, you know, people I'm excited to see. Like, he hits a lot of dingers and he hits some long ones. So he is very deserving of being here. But I agree. The bracket could be a little bit better.

As for the first quibble, there is also the spectator aspect of things. Sure. Don't you want to be able to admire the full home run trajectory without being distracted because you have to go look back at the swing because there might be another home run commencing? It might be fun and chaotic to have multiple home runs in the air at any one time. But also, sometimes it's nice to just take a second to admire the moonshot. I know, but I have a lot of anxiety about the person who throws batting practice during the home run derby. And so maybe my issue is just that I think that they should be pitching, they should

be hitting off a pitching machine perhaps. Like maybe that's my problem. they should be hitting off a pitching machine perhaps. Maybe that's my problem. I know that there are all these heartwarming stories about his dad threw him pitches during the home run derby, but I sit there and worry about familial strife when those happen because sometimes the dads are too slow. Yeah, the command isn't great.

Right, and so then there are fewer opportunities for a hittable pitch. And so you're right, The issue is not it landing. It's that having to wait for it to land introduces the potential for greater delay when I already have anxiety around delay. So maybe really what I'm advocating for is the replacement of humans by robots, which is a very strange stance for me. But I just sit there and I'm like, throw it better. I want a home run. And I can't yell at someone's dad. They picked him. There's something to be said for the recovery time for the hitter, too. I guess that's true. Taking that many hacks can be tiring. Not that I'm a subscriber to the home run derby curse hypothesis, but I think that within

a single round, if you are just taking hack after hack after hack with no break between hacks, then that might tie you out faster, which might mean fewer dingers or dingers that don't travel as far. And it's in everyone's interest to have as many giant dingers as possible. Right. Yeah. You want big. You want the biggest boppers. big you want the biggest boppers all right so let's do some emails old-fashioned email show here just emails and nothing but emails and a little bit of banter we've already done so this is an email response to something we discussed recently which was the idea of a hitter coaching visit so a coach paying a visit to a hitter like mid-inning, mid-plate appearance, the way that coaches will pay visits to pitchers. And Anthony writes in to say, not sure if anyone's already mentioned this, but the hitting coach visit scenario discussed on a recent episode happens frequently in college baseball. Teams get offensive conferences where the hitting team's coach can call timeout and visit with the batter for about a minute.

I think it's basically just a waste of time, mostly used when the opposing pitcher is on a roll as an attempt to get him out of his rhythm. The only time I ever saw it used in the middle of a plate appearance was a situation where a bunt was a possibility given the base out state. Can't remember who it was specifically that did this. The hitter swung at the first pitch and the coach immediately called time and ran to have a conversation with the hitter. The broadcasters and i assumed the hitter missed the bunt sign but on the next pitch the hitter swung away again the point i believe was to try to trick the defense into over committing to playing the bunt on the second pitch didn't matter the hitter struck out but it was at least kind of creative but can't you can't you establish the game plan for that kind of chicanery in advance

like it doesn't require a guy going out there yeah because you can just you can just signal like act like you're gonna bunt and then and then not i would think so yeah this does not make me more inclined to watch college baseball this email for me i don't know how often this happens but i've seen this very rarely i can't think of a single time i've actually seen it but i don't know how often this happens, but I've seen this very rarely. I can't think of a single time I've actually seen it. But I don't think you should let it put you off of college baseball, because at least for me, my tolerance for temps at strategic nonsense go up when the overall level of quality of play goes down, because you're understanding it within the realm of like, you're trying to eke out whatever advantage you can muster. And sometimes you're dealing with kids who, you know, like they struggle to like feel the ball cleanly sometimes and the quality of receiving is highly variable. And candidly, just the quality of play is highly variable. So you're like, ah, those kids, they're trying to figure it out. You know, you're much more patient with it. But at the big league level, you'd be like, this is

exhausting like consulting stuff. Stop it. It at the big league level, you'd be like, this is exhausting consulting stuff. Stop it. It just has a very different flavor in college ball. Yeah. All right. Here's a question from Ben, a Patreon supporter. I'm a Cardinals fan and find my broadcast team basically unlistenable. I would gladly part with something of value to get Jason Benetti and Steve Stone or Joe

Davis and Oral Hershiser when I'm flipping through non-cards game options on MLB TV. I first consider the quality of the booth. I look forward to the series against the Mets and Dodgers and Giants so that I can listen to the other broadcast. I could describe why I don't like our guys, but who cares? My real question, is it idiotic that I would trade on the field war for a better booth i think it isn't mostly because i doubt that white socks nation would accept my offer tommy edmund and his likely 1.5 f war season for their tv booth in perpetuity i vaguely recall a drafter ranking of the broadcast teams deep in the effectively wild archives but i think it's worth a revisit

perhaps with listener polling would you trade a, his production and contract for a broadcast team? And what would your price be for your own team? How does this change as you become more competitive than the Cardinals currently are? This is an exercise that Ben Clemens went through last year, right? And he was revisiting a Carson Sestouli joint. And he was revisiting a Carson Sestouli joint. Right. Yes. The radio and TV broadcast ratings.

So you can find those relatively recent at FanCrafts. I will link to those. But this is something that I mentioned in a recent episode and I've been thinking about just because I've been watching so much of one team, the Angels. And so the quality of the broadcast booth has stuck out to me in a way that it typically doesn't, because usually if I'm just flipping between games or flipping between teams, it doesn't make that much difference to me. I know the best booths, and I look forward to hearing them, but most of them are kind of interchangeable for me. I haven't formed a super strong impression of them, and if I'm just channel changing, I'm probably not paying that close attention to the broadcast or to the

commentary at least. And maybe it's even muted at times. Apologies to any broadcasters who are listening and would be offended by that. But it really matters the most, I think, when you're watching one team and one crew day after day after day. And when you're in that situation, as I assume most fans and baseball viewers are, it matters a lot, I think. So I don't think it's at all strange to say that you would sacrifice some on-field value for some off-the-field value when it comes to the broadcast. I don't think that that's silly at all. I think that the importance of the booth is sort of directly proportional to two things. First, as you mentioned, the frequency with which you're watching it. So if it is your hometown team,

and you're going to spend just, you know, potentially three hours most days with these folks for an entire season, like that's a lot of your life to be sitting there saying, wow, this guy reminds me of an annoying patron at a bar. So I think it's very important there. Although I will say on average, I think that most booths are serviceable. I do think that there are booths where the low of the lows is really low, right? Where they have moments where you're just like, come on, this is ridiculous. I can't believe you're saying that either because sometimes because you're

saying something legitimately problematic in like a social way, but also sometimes if, especially if you're an analytically inclined fan, sometimes the drum beat of I wish baseball were different and like it used to be can, can get pretty tiresome. So I think there's, there's the, the frequency with which you're tuning into the tiresome. So I think there's the frequency with which you're tuning into the broadcast. And then I think there's the importance of the booth relative to team quality. And I actually think that good booths are more important

for bad teams than they are for good teams. Because if you are watching a good baseball team, it almost doesn't matter what they're saying in the booth because everything's going well right you're you're on top of the world like the thing you're worried about are our injuries but your your team is winning they're in the lead in your division they're playoff bound your problems come in october you're not worried about what's happening right now you're you're riding high right because you're you're a fan of a good baseball team congratulations if you're a fan

of a bad baseball team you just have so much suck you have to fill, right? There's just so much bad play that you have to manage to contextualize in some way that makes you want to come back and watch the team again. And I think the ability to make a broadcast impressive and really sing when the product on the field is only so-so is the mark of a really talented broadcaster. I think Panetti is a really great example of this. There have been times where he has been in the booth and the White Sox have not been especially good. I've still wanted to watch White Sox games because I just listen to that guy talk about baseball. I think that as the team improves your appetite to trade away players to get a better booth diminishes and not just because you're like hey

i i want you know my team is is a contender it's in the race i can't be you know giving away wins but you're also just like not really that bothered about it so yeah right and i think if your team is bad it can also be kind of cathartic to have a crew that will call out the team now and then, not in a mean way, but just pointing out the flaws, pointing out the weaknesses, maybe criticizing the way that the team is constructed at times. The Mets crew is the go-to example of just best you know, best in class and in all ways really. But even when the Mets are not having a great game, they're fun because those guys will criticize Mets players or Mets management at times. And they will be, I don't want to say unbiased, but you know,

it's not like they're complete homers. Certainly they're far from it and also they're just fun to hang out with. So if you're getting blown out or if it's just a meaningless game, you still tune in just to hear the banter and listen to these friends who have good chemistry and have been together for a long time. So I think that is completely correct. And I would also say, as you seem to say, that I think most broadcasts don't materially detract from or enhance my enjoyment of the game all that much. You know, there's kind of like a vast middle where it's fine. It's competent.

It sounds like a baseball broadcast. It doesn't make me perk up and say, what did he just say? That didn't make any sense. That was bad. So it just kind of sails by and it's professional sounding and it's fine. So it's just a minority of boosts that really just level up everything or drag it down. And I'm sure people can come up with examples of both of those. But even when it comes to stat stuff, I don't need that much stat stuff from my broadcast i've always said like

i just don't want misinformation or misleading information like you know don't feed me small samples as if they mean something or just give me just things that give you the wrong impression of something in a very statistically unrigorous way so So I don't need you to be quoting WRC Plus or WOBA or whatever if you do and you can work it in. Well, that's fine. But if you're familiar with those principles and that kind of guides the way you talk, I don't need you to throw those specific acronyms out there. I can always look them up if I want to. So yeah, I think that is right. And I think that Ben is also right to want the best broadcast booth that he can. It really can make a difference. You know what I really miss as a feature on MLB TV?

What? I miss the park audio feature. Why is there park audio back? We got people in the park. I understood not having park audio last year because, well, one, there weren't fans there. So it was sort of eerie and quiet. And then when it wasn't eerie and quiet, you could hear players swearing, which I would have signed up for. But I think the decision was probably rightly made that we were going to hear too much of them on a normal TV broadcast anyway. And so they did away with park audio, but they should bring it back because now the park is back and it feels so nice when you're sitting there and it sounds the way that it's supposed to.

And for folks who are still at home, you know, they shouldn't be denied that same experience just because they're not at the park. So bring back park audio, I say. I miss park audio. Yeah, me too. It's just nice to have it on as background noise without the distraction of the commentary at times. Take a little nap on a Saturday to park audio.

That's a good day. Yeah. All right. John, Patreon supporter, says, if the All-Star game was designed as an entry point for casual fans, All-Stars should get a star on their uniform or cap, like how Gold Glove winners get a special patch. Maybe it's a special patch each year or guys get a star with a number on it for the number of appearances. Either way would make it easier to tune in casually and say, ah, he must be our

big guy. And he means not in the all-star game where everyone is an all-star, but in regular season games where you would have some marker, some indication on the uniform that this guy is or was an all-star. I that very much like i i think that that is a very that's a very good idea for a couple of reasons one i do think that as we've talked about before highlighting who is good to fans who are newer is i think a good thing to do because you should just make a lot of different entry points to the game for folks who are newer to it and i also think it's nice for the guys on the field like we've talked about this before i don't get i don't get all that worked up about all-star voting anymore like i like i generally think it's fine i thought that this year's stuff

was fine like i think that it was silly that mike trout was a starter because he's been injured for a long time but like the backups were good so it didn't end up mattering like i think that in general we don't tend to have like totally outrageous snubs anymore but i do think that it really matters to the players like they take a lot of pride in having been an all-star and being able to say that that is a thing they have accomplished and so i think having a little indicator on their uniform i like the idea of a a star and then the number ticks up each year as they potentially accumulate more appearances. Because I don't know that we need to have the Ohio State sticker football helmet phenomena. That seems silly to me. That always looks funny. They also look like they have marijuana leafs on the back of their helmets, which is not an original

observation on my part, but it's a thing that I just find funny every single time I end up watching them. So I think that that gets crowded. And as we noted on our caps episode, I don't think we need more cluttered caps. It's fine to have fewer patches. But I think a patch on the side of the cap that has a star and the number in it, it's just a nice thing because then you're like, look at Mike Trout with a special star on his hat. I think it's nice. Yeah, I like it too. We've talked about whether they should actually award stars of the game the way that they do in hockey, and I'm in favor of that.

And I'm also in favor of this because when I was a casual hockey fan as a kid and getting into the NHL, I found it helpful that a lot of the good players had C's and A's on their jerseys for captain and alternate captain. And I thought that was kind of cool. I would try to memorize, okay, who's the captain of this team and the alternate captain of this team, and it would rotate around a bit. And in hockey, there are actual roles for captains or alternate captains. You know, they do certain things. They are the people appointed to talk to referees about rulings and that sort of thing. And I don't think you need that in baseball. It's always sort of silly when you have captains. I mean, some teams occasionally have captains, but I don't think we need every baseball team to have a captain necessarily. But I think it would be nice, especially because in baseball, you have players at certain positions who may or may not have the ball hit at them. And you have players who are batting in certain positions in the order, and they may or may not come up at the important times.

And so you can't tell who the good players are based on how they're used necessarily the way that you can in, say, the NBA, where you give the best player the ball when you want to score. So it doesn't work that way in baseball. And so it might be helpful to have this visual indicator of, oh, this guy's good. And I also remember when I was getting into baseball as a fan, too, and into baseball card collecting, I was sort of obsessed with all-stars, right? Because you'd have often special designations on baseball cards for all-stars, or I would sort them and do the research and figure out, is this guy an all-star? Was this guy ever an all-star? And so I would have special binders just for all-stars or special pages where the all-stars would be clustered. And I thought it was a really special thing.

And of course, at that time, I didn't realize that not all all-stars are actually great or even having great seasons. And sometimes the voting is sort of strange and players end up there without being elite. But I think that it's still kind of cool. And as you said, players care about it. And they'd probably care about it even more if They got to wear a star around all The time and if you could collect

Stars and you know you'd have Albert Pujols whose chest or Back would just be littered with stars At this point in his career that'd be kind of cool I think so I like That and I don't know maybe In these days where The all-star game is just an exhibition and there's

not as much cachet to it and there are so many all-stars because players opt not to play and they're injured and then other guys get to be all-stars I don't know if there should be special designations for like all-star starters maybe you would get a special logo or a different colored star like right you get a gold star if you're a starter and yeah a silver star if you're a reserve or an injury replacement we don't need to distinguish between the reserves and the injury replacement they're all good yeah yeah so something like that i think that would that'd be kind of nice a little hierarchy there where you could have some representation of that and then players would take it seriously and maybe fans would take the voting seriously. Obviously, it's not unbiased voting and you have fan bases that stuff the ballot boxes, the virtual digital ballot boxes, and they're encouraged to do that.

And maybe that's even part of the fun of it in some ways so you know you would have to take it with a grain of salt of course but i still think it would be sort of fun and nice yeah i was gonna say i don't think that a lack of fan enthusiasm is the problem with the all-star process yeah everyone's been snubbed all of. I think that's not true. All right. This one is a little weird and a little deep and philosophical, so pretty on brand for us. Dan says, I've been thinking lately about a Ted Chang story. Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom and the implications its ideas would have regarding baseball and fandom in real life. The spoiler-free premise of the story is this. When a choice is made, it creates a new universe, branching off of one's own, so that there is one universe where the

alternate choice was made. The story invents a device called a prism, in which people can temporarily glimpse into other branches. Eventually, each prism runs out of storage and can no longer be used. Over time, even small divergences like weather can create tremendous differences. The story contains a sports-specific passage I want to call attention to. In the private sector, entrepreneurs realized that while the information obtained from prisms had limited instrumental value, it was something that could be sold as content to consumers. A new kind of data broker emerged. A company would exchange news about current events with its parallel versions and sell the information to subscribers.

Sports news and celebrity gossip were the easiest to sell. People were often just as interested in what their favorite stars did in other branches as in what they did in their own. Hardcore sports fans collected information from multiple branches and argued about which team had the best overall performance and whether that was more important than their performance in any individual branch. Maybe I just want an excuse to talk about this story more, but I do have some specific questions I'd love to hear your thoughts on. Do you think fans would actually care about their team's performance in other timelines? Would a heartbreaking World Series loss feel better or worse if it went differently in another one? Would we use the aggregate results of all known timelines to assess team or player value instead of just our own? Might a player's performance in another timeline impact their free agent value or treatment in this one, such as through significantly better

or worse performance or injury history? Would we have cared about things like the World Series droughts of the Red Sox or Cubs if there were timelines where they weren't so significant? Would players use their results in other timelines to influence their training and approach in this one? Are there other interesting implications I'm not thinking of? My instinct is that players and executives would not take much interest. Useful information such as player development would take a long time to see, at which point too many other changes might be able to explain the difference in outcome. Maybe a slumping player would see an idea for a swing adjustment or something, but players' resistance to things like analytics has me questioning how common that would be.

So this is kind of your classic multiverse alternate timeline scenario. Every decision, every event causes a branching off universe where something different happens. So in this scenario, would we care about what was happening to players and teams in all of those other multiverses? I think we would be too overwhelmed by how many alternate universes there are to really fixate on any one result necessarily yield different results, right? Like you would, you know, it's not as if, you know, if you're a pitcher and you decide to throw a breaking ball instead of a fastball in a particular at-bat that, you know, the automatic alternate universe result is a home run instead of an out, right? Like that's not the way that this would necessarily work. But I think that even though some number of those alternate universes would end up looking relatively similar to what we have just by virtue of the fact that not every different decision is going to yield a tremendously different result, that we would just get overwhelmed by it. And

can we see it? Do we have a means to see it in this story? Yeah. Well, there's the prismism this device where you can get a glimpse into these other universes although i guess you can't see into all of them at all times presumably yeah so and see for how long right like are you able to watch a different game seven in its entirety or do you just see the moment where your team emerges victorious rather than getting beat? And also, are they even playing the same other team? Do you have the same emotional experience of pain or joy in the alternate universe? Because our experience of things tends to be built over time. And so if other points along the chain end up being different, I don't know that our experience of it is quite the same as it would be otherwise.

Yeah. No, I was thinking along the same lines. If you had two universes, like if it was a scenario like the Amazon Prime Show counterpart, which I really like and recommend, where there are just two identical worlds that splinter off from each other and things diverge from there. And so if you had the Earth MLB and then you had the Bizarro Earth MLB or Earth 2 MLB or whatever, and you just had two, then I would be interested in, hey, what's going on in the other league? It would basically be like having four leagues instead of two, I guess, almost. And I would want to know, did this guy's career work out better in that timeline? Or did this team do better in that timeline? But this scenario just sounds overwhelming. As you said, it just sounds like there are so many that I'm not sure I could care about sports or anything. It seems like it would make everything meaningless to me because

when we watch MLB now, when we watch baseball, we're aware that we're only seeing one simulation essentially. And when we run the projection systems and the playoff odds and all of that, you're doing thousands of simulations. And we know that in this simulation things work out this way and in that simulation things work out that way and we only get the one and that's the one that we care about and that counts and we treat it almost as if you know that's the the only thing that could have happened because what's the point of even speculating but if you have this scenario where you just have like infinite universes where is happening, how could you even care about your own, really? It would seem so insignificant. It would seem so arbitrary. Why do I care about the results in this one universe only get to run these things one time. And so that counts, but we know how much randomness factors into all of this and all the little decisions that are made

that could change everything in sliding doors ways. So I think I would totally lose my curiosity because not only would I not be able to keep up with every other universe, but it would sort of make my own universe seem insignificant. I don't know if I would go that far, if only because my experience of baseball is that it is the cumulative effect of very small changes and choices. And so it being radically different in other places feels instinctively correct to me, right? That those small choices going differently can sometimes have a very meaningful impact. But generally, I think we're best served when we're spending our time sort of grappling with the choices that are in front of us. choices that are in front of us. And so I don't think that it would change. I just don't think that it would change much in terms of your emotional experience. It would sort of be a fun exercise in like potentially seeing every, you know, 10 percent percentile bucket on a projection though. So like that might be a little bit fun, right? Where you're like in the multiverse

where, you know, a bad player is suddenly playing up to his 90th percentile projection and you're like, wow, that's what that would look like. That's pretty cool. I don't know that it would have any real benefit to you though, because even if you're the player or the team that he plays for, because presumably a lot of other things have happened in that multiverse that might be very, very different and you might be too far along in your own decision tree to sort of go back and affect change that would result in you being that 90th percentile projection. So maybe it would just be torturous, really, not even just depriving the existing world you have of meaning, but also just kind of mocking you for, you know, the 10 small decisions or twists of fate that didn't happen the way they needed to for you to suddenly be like an all-star instead of a scrub. Maybe it's just really a mean thing. I mean, I guess it's reassuring to know that things can be different than they are in one way or the other. But if you're looking at the life that you want but can't have because you're not in that multiverse, it sounds kind of miserable.

because you're not in that multiverse sounds kind of miserable. Yeah, I was thinking initially that Dan Szymborski would love this, right? Because you can plug all of these universes into Zips, but then maybe we wouldn't even need Zips. We wouldn't need projection systems because we would essentially have infinite seasons for everyone. So you would know everyone's true talent really beyond the shadow of a doubt. And so there just wouldn't be much uncertainty left. And I don't know, I think about this sometimes even with our actual fictional properties that

involve multiverses and those can be kind of cool sometimes, but also sometimes it's hard to maintain the stakes if there's always just another universe and a character dies and you can just bring them back because they're still alive in another universe. It's like you have to have some kind of consequences at some point. And so I think that would bother me in this scenario, at least when it comes to baseball, because I don't know, would a championship drought mean as much? Maybe it would still be as significant if you knew that it wasn't happening in most other universes. And in yours yours it was it would make you feel even more cursed and unlucky so there are ways in which i suppose it could

enhance your enjoyment but i think it would mostly detract from mine it is true that like this would be a huge benefit in terms of like player evaluation and if you are in one universe where a player is underperforming and you know that in all these other universes that player had way better seasons then you could snap up that player and wait for the bounce back although i guess all the other gms also know that too unless they don't get to look through the prism also so there would be huge competitive advantages there if you could just data mine all of the other universes and collect this information. I guess this would be great for the sports betting industry.

An infinite number of events to bet on. Wouldn't that be wonderful? But yeah, I don't know. It would be pretty fascinating, I guess, to see that in some of these universes, like the all-time greats would not have been great. these universes, like the all-time greats would not have been great. And in other universes, you would probably get scrubs who turned into all-time greats. And so some of those like what if scenarios, if you could actually look up the alternate outcomes, that would be kind of cool initially. Like how good would Brian Taylor have been if he didn't get into that bar fight? But again, it's infinite. I think the novelty would wear off.

Yeah, I think you'd be overwhelmed. Hey, Ben, before we go on to our next email, it's not breaking news, but can I cut in with a live bit of feedback from the Fangraph Slack? Oh, sure. And you can tell me, I will admit something

that I think will probably not surprise our listeners. I don't listen back to our podcast every single time. And so I don't know all the players you named as potential highlight value, low war value guys. So maybe you've already mentioned this, but John Becker suggests Brendan Ryan. Oh, yeah. No, I haven't mentioned him.

I think is a supremely good suggestion and fits very nicely in like the, you know, one particular part of your skill set is so outsized good compared to the rest, right? So like he was just a terrible hitter, really quite bad. Had years where he was close to a full-time guy and was dramatically under league average from a WRC plus perspective. One of the best shortstop defenders that I have ever watched. And so i think that

brendan ryan i'd like to sub him in i'd like to sub john's very good suggestion and for my small niche suggestion which really came down to like two plays um this is a much better one in the spirit of the exercise and so i think that we should put brendan ryan to the committee as a as a possibility here yeah that's a good one. We've gotten a couple emails from listeners while we've been recording this about other suggestions that were not Ray Ordonez. Juan Ligaris is another kind of- Oh yeah, that's good. Yeah, he saved a homer for Shohei, the pitcher, this week.

Feeling good about him. But that's in the same category of great glove guy at least at times makes spectacular plays and just hasn't hit all that much and got another email from a listener named michael who tried to use some stat cast data and look up stat cast five and four star catches and actually create a ratio of those catches to fangraphs war and he suggested maybe also using the number of highlights videos on YouTube, though I guess there would be an era effect there. But he came up with others like that, Adam Engel, Guillermo Heredia, Victor Robles, Keon Broxton, et cetera, et cetera. So yeah,

I guess that's one category of this kind of guy, just the great glove, no hit type guy who might rob some homers and make some great leaps and has great range, but just can't get on base. Yeah. All right. Question from Matt. Your discussion of the banging scheme longevity popped a couple of questions into my head. Over the last couple of decades, there have been a few cheating scandals with varying degrees of public outrage, sticky stuff, banging scheme, other sign stealing stuff, steroids and HEH and amphetamines. Thank you. than they would have been otherwise. The general public outrage seems to be that steroids was worse than banging, sticky stuff, other sign stealing, and then amphetamines.

Why do you think the different forms of cheating resulted in such varied levels of outrage? That's a really excellent question. I think that part of why... Steroids and the banging scheme stand out to me as the ones that have seemed to generate the most public outcry and sort of disgust. And I think that when it comes to the banging scheme, the proximity of that in relation to to offensive performance in that year might have been more limited than we might have assumed, given the extreme risk and the consequences that they were potentially incurring by doing so, and which they ended up incurring, right? whether or not that team would have won a World Series without the benefit of the banging scheme. But I think because it came so close to a championship, it really rankled people. And I think that you also have to take into account sort of the general feeling around the industry toward the Astros for any number of reasons that didn't have anything to do with the banging scheme. So I think that like a lot in public life, our reaction to moments like that is at least in some part dictated by the sort of existing level of either affection or animus we

feel for the parties involved. So there's that part of it. And then I think for steroids, I think part of why it, you know, it was just, it felt like so much of the sport was tainted. I also think that part of our reaction to that has something to do with sort of how much we all felt we should have known earlier that it was going on. Because it's like you looked at those guys and you're like, oh, well, he's maybe juicing because he was slight and now he's like a demigod. That seems weird that a guy could do that so late in his life, right? Without the assistance of steroids. And so part of, I think, the feeling there is not just the betrayal of so many guys who

were so beloved being participants in something that felt so unsavory and felt so widespread, but also that we should have known. And so part of our reaction is also embarrassment, I think. Yeah. There's a little bit of we were bamboozled or we were naive. Yeah. We were had. Yeah. Yeah. I don't feel this outrage on a very visceral level personally. I know that these things are ethically wrong and you shouldn't do them, but I'm also just, maybe I'm jaded, maybe I'm cynical. I don't know. I just assume that when there's a lot at stake and a lot of incentive to do this sort of stuff, that it's going to

happen and that it basically has always happened in one way or another, and it's kind of always been part of baseball. And so I just, I tend not to let it ruin the sport for me that much, which isn't to say that I think anything goes and it should all be legalized. And also like, I think back to the PD era and well, I liked watching peak bonds and I liked the 1998 home run race. I have really fond memories of those times. And it's partly just because I was in that age sweet spot that we talked about last week during that era. And those were my formative years as a fan. And I grew to love baseball then.

And so I love it in its entirety with the flaws that it had. love it in its entirety with the flaws that it had. I guess I'm most offended by anything that could come with some health risk, the way that steroids, HGH, a lot of that stuff maybe has some risks that if used the wrong way or were abused, that there could be real costs to that and maybe have been real costs to that. And the fact that a lot of players may have felt pressured to do those things just to keep up with other players who were doing them, I think that is bad. That bothers me even more, I think, than the way that it may have distorted the game on the field. I think one reason why the outrage is so great over PDs is because stats are so sacred in baseball and people feel like it ruined the record books and it tainted everything. And now we can't have fun with home run chases and the all-time home run leader, it's tainted.

And the single season home run leader, it's tainted. And that whole era is tainted. And as I've said i think that's sort of exaggerated i don't think it was all peds but certainly in the case of some outliers who come to mind immediately it certainly seems to have had a significant effect there and that absolutely has changed the record books and skewed things subsequently so maybe I just kind of take things as they come, at least when it pertains to like on the field stuff and stats and, you know, ultimately it is just a game, although it matters because we all care about it and ascribe importance to it. So I think probably

that is at the top for me more so probably because because of the health risks and the peer pressure than even what it did to stats. And then the other stuff, I guess I'd put banging scheme above your basic standard sign stealing that's gone on since time immemorial, but sign stealing has been such a staple since the 19th century. And that was just kind of a particularly brazen example of it that I'm not convinced actually was all that advantageous. So I would have said the sticky stuff was a bigger deal, but I'm not sure if that's the case based on what we've seen over the past few weeks. It's still inconclusive, but not sure how much that changed the game. And I think also the level of outrage is in some proportion to how many people are perceived to be doing it or like how many people become the focal point of the cheating.

So the Astros were the banging scheme team. PDs, maybe the use was widespread, but certain individual players became the faces of that and the targets of all of the vitriol. Whereas with sticky stuff, yeah, there have been a few pitchers who have been more closely associated with it than others, but its use, at least if you're going by the letter of the law, seems to have been so rampant that it's hard to single out any particular person. And as for amphetamines, obviously there can be some health risks associated with that too, I guess. People are generally less offended by that, I think, because they think of PDs or HGH as enhancing your natural baseline, whereas amphetamines is just restoring you to your natural baseline sort of when you're

below that, which is kind of arbitrary. And we've talked before about how blurry the line can be between legal enhancement and illegal enhancement. And what's the difference between LASIK and taking this legal supplement and then taking this illegal supplement? It's all making you better but we draw a line somewhere and i guess the thought is that greenies maybe helps you a little less than pds although we don't definitely know that that's the case for all players right and i think part of it is that we you know like we learn not just as fans but like as as media members we learn from how we talk about this stuff i think part of part of why the response to sticky stuff was more muted than steroids was because you know there were a couple there are a couple of players who i think are more

like strongly associated with the use of sticky stuff than others but i think we also learned from the way that we talked about the steroid era. And I think we're better as a group at identifying sort of how the enforcement environment that you're living in impacts usage and trying to navigate how those things interact with one another in a way that's more responsible and kind of holds all parties accountable to the extent that they should be. And so some of it is that and I think that tends to temper our understanding of the severity of those things. And that in turn, tempers the way that fans interact with them, right, which isn't to say that they can't come to their own conclusions. But I do think the general tone that the baseball media takes to this stuff does impact the way that it gets talked about among, you know, more casual observers who aren't, you know, baseball people in a professional sense. So that stuff matters too. And I also think that, you know, because we just talk about the social context that the game exists in, in a more, I hope, thoughtful and sort of inclusive way than

we used to, I think it also puts some of these on-field scandals into some amount of perspective relative to other issues that the game still has to address, right? Whether it's minor league pay or abuses in the international market or the way that the league deals with harassment. So I think some of it too is just that we have a different perspective on the relative severity of these things, which again, I, like like you don't say to suggest that people who were really exercised about them were wrong to feel that way. Right. But just that they exist in a more sort of textured landscape, I think, than they used to. And that informs how we react to them, too. All right. Maybe we can do one or two more here.

All right, maybe we can do one or two more here. Jeff in San Francisco says, in episode 1714, Ben shared his experience of watching Shohei Otani face the Yankees in person for his and his wife's 10th anniversary. The image I have in my mind is Ben wearing an Otani t-shirt while watching him face the team he rooted for as a child. That is, in fact, what happened. As baseball writers, both of you have had to abandon fandom for specific teams. However, you have numerous adopted sons that you root for as individual players. This can range from stars like Mike Trout to personal favorites like William Sostadio. My question is, how many of your adopted sons would have to be on the same team before you'd admit to rooting for that team? Having all your adopted sons on the same team would probably mean you'd be watching that team more than all others on a regular basis. Genuine fandom of that team should theoretically spawn from sheer exposure. The rationale is simply that the team's success would be the result of the cumulative success of your adopted son's individual success.

The answer is obviously not two, because both Trout and Otani play for the Angels. Alternatively, how many Otani-like players would have to be on the same team before you'd admit to being a fan of that team? Will your answer be affected if your adopted son played for the teams you rooted for growing up? Oh, man. I'm trying to imagine what the multiverse where Otani is a mariner looks like and how that what kind of weird fan monster that turns me into. Like, does that sustain? Because I don't think that I'm speaking out of turn when I say that, like, we're not we aren't looking at fandom like, oh, we we have a professional obligation to eschew fandom. I don't think we're coming at it from quite that place. I think that there's been a more natural sort of fading away of that kind of emotional investment in a particular team

because you're covering the whole league and you do want to critically engage with the entirety of the league, not just 29 teams. And once it's a job, you're, you're just, once it's a job, your relationship to the whole enterprise changes, not just the team that you grew up rooting for. And so I don't think that we're the, the people who are like, ah, there's like a, an insurmountable bias that comes from being a fan that we could never do our jobs well or objectively. It's just like the mere fact of doing our jobs does create some some distance

so i think like that's an important thing to say and that's probably why my answer to this question is like it would take maybe exactly three right one more than trout and otani and maybe the number is like five if it's a trout and an otani and then three like folk hero type players that are who are objectively much less good but still dear to us as as adopted sons for some you know weird funny reason that that we would get obsessed with so i i think that the exact makeup of it would matter a lot and i also do think think that some of it is dictated by exactly where they are in their competitive window. This might be a counterintuitive thing, but I actually think that three Otani-like players on a losing team, I'd have a much easier time saying, like, I am a fan of that team, both because it would be emotionally familiar to me and because the risk of me being,

again, like a crazy fan monster in October when a lot more people are paying attention, much lower, right? I'm very safe in September. I just get to sit there and be proud of my sons and say, go Mariners Otani. Oh, now I'm sad. Now I'm sad. I mean, I'm happy for him that he got to be where he wanted to be. Like, that's the way that it should be for all of these guys. I wish that every player in baseball had the ability to determine his own path the way that Otani had. But I'm sad now. He'd look so good in that Mariners Navy. He'd for good stories. And sometimes one team winning is a better story, at least in sort of a neutral, objective way. And so it's not as if we have to just maintain our rigid journalistic objectivity at all times, which is really just kind of a myth and a construct to begin with, the idea that any of us can be completely objective about anything or that the media should just be both sides in everything and never taking a stand or expressing an opinion or holding an opinion. That's kind of a distortion of, I think, the journalistic ethos. But it's something that has occurred to me because I clearly like Shohei

Otani a lot. I'm rooting for Shohei Otani. I'm a fan of Shohei Otani. I guess it's fair to say. I'm also covering Shohei Otani. I talk about him on this podcast. I write about him from time to time. I'm not covering him as a beat writer and talking to him regularly or anything like that. and talking to him regularly or anything like that. But I'm kind of at a remove in a way. And there are a lot of great writers who still are fans of teams to some extent or cover the team that they grew up rooting for. And I think it's possible to be pretty objective,

at least in the ways that matter, in terms of player and team evaluation. I think you can juggle both of those things. It is possible. I would be wary of seeming like so in the tank for a team or a player that my readers or listeners questioned like the accuracy of my information. I were just so biased that I weren't giving them a fair or accurate reading of the situation, then that would be bad. That would set off alarm bells in my mind. So I don't want to come off that way about Otani. It's just like, if you can't appreciate what Otani's doing and enjoy what he's doing and want him to keep doing it, then what are you even doing here? I mean, what's the point of covering baseball or paying attention to baseball if you can't celebrate someone who's doing something like this? And

if anything, I think taking a semi-objective look at what he's accomplishing just makes me appreciate what he's accomplishing even more. Because it's not like you have to be a biased fan to be impressed by what he's doing. Yeah, no. So I think about that with the Angels because I already do watch more Angels baseball than I watch any other team because of Otani and Trout is on that team. And by the way, if we're making it the rule of three, that's dangerous because Jose Molina is the catching coach for the Angels. And so sometimes I'll see Otani and Trout because Jose Molina is the catching coach for the Angels. And so sometimes I'll see Otani and Trout and Jose Molina next to each other in the dugout. And those are probably like my three favorite players of the past decade.

If we're talking about players whose highlights to value ratio is high, for me, Jose Molina is up there because I've probably watched more gifs of jose valina framing pitches than i have watched just about any other player doing anything and uh jose molina's value is a little higher if you do take framing into account but still not quite as high as you would think given by how much attention i paid to him but he was like a significant player for me because he really opened my eyes to a certain skill first behind the scenes when I was an intern and then as a writer covering it and trying to explain the skill to everyone. So that was kind of a landmark moment in my career. And so I appreciate him and I enjoy watching David

Fletcher a lot. He is one of my favorite players, at least when it comes to the skill set. And they've had other fun players over the years. Angleton Simmons, for instance, who has been a lot of fun to watch. So I watch a lot of the Angels, and yet I don't feel that emotional attachment to the team that I felt for the team that I grew up rooting for. And maybe part of that is that it's just hard to replicate that just from birth kind of attachment that you almost inherit and develop sort of subconsciously. So it's hard to do it at this age, I think, to just adopt a team and feel the same sort of bond that you felt to your childhood team. So that's part part of it and part of it is that yeah i'm rooting for individuals and i suppose at some point it would have to swing over inevitably from

rooting from individuals to rooting for a collection of those individuals but it's not quite there for me yet although like if they were closer to the playoffs then i would be rooting for them to make the playoffs so that i could watch those players in the playoffs. And at that point, I guess what I'm doing is almost indistinguishable from fandom, right? Even if I'm doing it, not because I grew up rooting for that team, but just because I think watching that team is fun and fun to cover. And so I want to be able to keep doing it and for those players to be in the spotlight at that time of year so it's kind of a complicated thing but maybe I'm overthinking it I don't think you're overthinking it I think all of that is right and like you know at some point the Mariners will make the postseason and then I'll be in a real pickle because who knows what I'll feel right like I I uh I think that the important thing for folks who are trying to communicate something about baseball is just to be mindful of the blind

spots and biases they might have and ask for help to make sure that they don't, as you said, sort of make the reader nervous that they're being had, right? That they're being given information that isn't complete or isn't being construed accurately. I think that we do this job because we find the game interesting and exciting. Like part of why we participate in the jobs that we do is because we're fans of baseball in sort of a broad sense. And I think that that perspective is a useful one. And I think that it tends to lead to really good work when you're enthusiastic about what you're doing, regardless of what it is. Like, I don't know, you're probably a better accountant if

you're like really excited about accounting, which I struggle to imagine, but I know that there are people who are, and I'm glad because, you know, the world needs good accountants. So I think just being mindful of that and taking the feedback when it comes that like, oh, this is bordering on something that doesn't feel like it's accurately capturing baseball as it's being played. I think that's the standard, right? You want to be conveying the game as it is. If you're able to do that and you're also excited about a particular outcome, I don't think that there's anything wrong with that. As you said, this idea that a lot of people have of the purely objective journalist is, well, I think there's just been a lot of good conversation about how that's sort of a silly concept to begin with and doesn't acknowledge the realities of people. And you can be ethical and rigorous and diligent without assuming that there are two sort of equally weighted sides at play at any given moment.

So, yeah. And I hope that conveying our excitement about certain things makes it more exciting to our audience. You know, if I were just totally dispassionately saying, this Shohei Otani gentleman, statistically speaking, what he is accomplishing here is almost unprecedented. This hasn't happened in quite a while. So yeah, congratulations to Shohei Ohtani for distinguishing himself statistically. That wouldn't be very exciting, I think. But if I can convey that it's making me excited to watch him and that I feel a sense of awe and giddiness while I'm watching him, hopefully that will be infectious

and people will not be mad at me for talking about Shohei Otani as much as I do because I am experiencing that not just on an intellectual level, but also to some extent on an emotional level. And if you can't get excited about Shohei Otani, then I just, I don't know what can excite you. I guess, you know, unless you are just so beholden to rooting for only one team and that team's players that you can't get excited for an opposing player. But if it's someone like him, then I think that's kind of a shame. Frankly, I don't, I don't usually like tell people how they should root or not root for baseball. Everyone comes to these things in different ways. But if you can only root for the laundry and not have some appreciation for a player who is not on your team but is accomplishing things in such an amazing and wholesome way, then I feel like you'd be missing out on something. So the fact that we have the scope that we're paying attention to every team and player,

you know, on some level in theory, that makes, I think, our amazement to what he's accomplishing specifically almost more earned because it's like, hey, we're taking the bird's eye view here and yet we are still riveted

by this particular player. And, you know, I guess you could develop aversions to or affinities for certain teams or organizations just based on ownership or management or policies. Or even like with Otani, you could have an affinity for the Angels because they are letting him do this, whereas probably a lot of other teams might not let him do this. And so you might say, oh, good on you, Angels, for giving him the chance to do this. But it can be kind of a fool's errand to swear off certain teams or pledge your allegiance to certain teams based on whatever political stances or which players a certain team employs at a particular time, because ultimately,

most or all teams are probably going to disappoint you in similar ways and make you happy in similar ways. So I don't know that there are bad teams and good teams necessarily, although I guess there are gradations. So is this where I read Mike Trout's TOPS plus number against the Mariners again? Sure. Might as well bring this full circle. 115! 15! Pretty good. All as well bring this full circle. 115! Pretty good.

All right. We can end there. All right. That will do it for today and for this week. Thanks, as always, for listening. I'll leave you with one more submission for a player with the highest highlight-to-value ratio. This one comes from listener Joe, and it's a different spin on the idea. He writes that that conversation

took him back to 1986 to 1989 when he lived in Dallas. He says, I'm a Brewers fan, but baseball is baseball, so I saw a lot of Bobby Valentine's Rangers in the charmingly wretched Arlington Stadium. Regarding players with the highest highlight-to-value ratio I submit, Pete Incavelia. Wait, hear me out. Incavelia played left field for the Rangers and was a slightly above average player for his career, the best years of which were in Texas. I also saw him play for Oklahoma State in the College World Series. You are not old enough to remember, but Inky was a highlight machine back in the day. Sure, his most famous highlight was of a fly ball bouncing off his head, but he frequently made the ESPN highlight reel in the late 80s for

spectacular catches in left field. This was not because he was a good left fielder. It was because he was a poor left fielder. He frequently got a bad jump on even routine fly balls, leading to lots of highlight catches that for most left fielders would be entirely mundane. You premised your discussion on average to below average players who tended to do one thing really well, leading to a lot of highlights. Inky should be high on the list for being average and doing one thing poorly enough to lead to a lot of highlights.

I like it. I guess you could debate whether a diving catch on a ball that you shouldn't have had to dive for is actually a legitimate highlight, but it's often treated as one, and it can look cool in the moment. So thanks to Joe for an unorthodox and non-Ray Ordonez nomination. Meg will be in Denver for All-Star Week, so we will record when and where we can. There will certainly be plenty to talk about between the Futures game and the draft and the Home Run Derby and the All-Star game. So we will discuss it all at some point next week. In the meantime, you can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. Thank you. 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 podcastwithfangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter.

Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance. We will be back at some point early-ish next week, so have a wonderful weekend, and we will talk to you then. Hey, honey! Yeah, you know who I'm talking to. Want a smile on your face? You fall in here because the Big Bob is here, and I know this is the place. Now, this is the place where all the cats are going in, man. Blow your horn, man. Blow your horn. Everybody jumps up and down.

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