Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1729: That’s Just Like, Your Opinion, Man

Episode Date: August 6, 2021

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about baseball (and steeplechase?) at the Olympics, then answer listener emails about teams intentionally drafting players they don’t intend to sign, Willy Adames as an NL MVP candidate, Dominic Smith and reverse platoon splits, secret ball-strike counts, and which is better (or worse), position-player pitchers or pitcher hitters, then […]

🎵 Now, who's the one that made the way with blood? Go say my name, it's Finkert Blood. Hello and welcome to episode 1729 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Rowley of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello. You a big Olympics person? I don't know how to answer that question.

I typically find myself watching the Olympics, and I have found myself not really watching at all this go, this games. These games? Yeah, these games. Let's go with that. These games. I have come to understand that Team USA Baseball is doing quite well. Yes. So that's cool.

Yeah. And Tess Teruskin, who does some prospect work for us at Fangraphs, has been paying close attention to the prospects who are playing in these games, both for Team USA and for the other teams. And so I have enjoyed her coverage of it, but I have watched very little. I saw those little wee skateboarders doing stuff they seem like great gals but otherwise no I have not been super engaged with with the games even though I just spent a minute talking about the ways in which I haven't so yeah no neither have

I and I'm not normally I could say it's because of COVID concerns or because of the time zone differences or because it's hard to find what channel anything is on. But realistically, I'm just never a big Olympics person. It's just not my thing. I totally understand why it is some people's thing. But with me, I guess it's just that I have a hard time convincing myself to care about events that I pay zero attention to between Olympics. And I get why it's fun to just say, hey, I'm going to pay attention to this for a couple of weeks. And you have your human interest stories and you can pretend to understand what's happening. And so I get it, but I just haven't made the effort to watch. I saw some small bit of Olympics the other night when I was watching The Bachelorette, my Olympics. But other than that,

nothing really. And what I saw actually after The Bachelorette was steeplechase, which I was under the impression that that was an equestrian event, that that was horses hopping over things. In fact, it is also apparently a people thing. Wait, what? People were hopping over, yeah. Jesse and I were watching, like, what is happening here? Are these people pretending to be horses? But no, the steeple chase is something that humans also do and apparently they're just puddles on the track

and also hurdles and they hop over the hurdles into the puddles and we were trying to puzzle what was happening here i read the entire wikipedia entry which normally makes me an expert but in this case was not enough to help me understand why there are puddles on the track. At first, I thought maybe it rained, but I think it's some sort of historical homage or something. Anyway, very strange, but there are people who train very hard for these things and are the best in the world at what they do. And you can kind of get caught up in people really, really trying hard to win something, even if you don't understand what is happening on the screen. It does kind of remind you that all sports are sort of arbitrary.

Yes. We totally make them up and we decide that they're important. And someone who's a big fan of steeplechase with humans could probably tune into baseball and say, why in the world are they trying to hit the ball and run around the bases? It makes no sense. It's just that someone decided that that would be fun. And then other people decided that it would be fun to watch those people do that. And so now we have a 150, 200 year tradition of watching baseball. But all of this is pretty arbitrary, really. So steeplechase, just as valid a pursuit as baseball. Wow. And I'm given to understand that they did not misplace their horses

and then just like had to run the steeplechase course. Not as far as I know. Wow. We're going to get emails probably from the steeplechase diehards out there and I welcome them. Or maybe I don't. I don't know if I want to know more.

It was sort of a special little glimpse that I got of this thing that I did not know existed. But I'm not normally an Olympics person. I haven't been watching a ton of Olympics, but I think I will watch an Olympic this week because, as you noted, the gold medal game between the USA and Japan in baseball is coming up on Saturday. I forget which country it will be Saturday, but I'll figure that out between now and then because they had a really good matchup earlier this week and Masahiro Tanaka pitched for Japan and they just eked out a win, but it was a nail biter and Tanaka will be back again to pitch this game. And Japan already won the gold in softball against the U.S. So the U.S. is looking for a little revenge here. And it should be fun because we've seen like long hair, late 30s Scott Casimir. So it's a nice mix of remember some guys and up and coming prospects, some of whom have been pretty impressive. So I am actually looking forward to this one event that I will actually understand and know who is participating

in. Yeah, it is exciting to get to see such an interesting blend near the Olympics because of the roster restrictions that Team USA faces. You do get this very weird snapshot of guys at the very beginnings of their careers and toward the end of their careers. And you, you know, you see guys in those phases playing on a, on a major league diamond all the time. It's not like this is the only time it happens, but it's rare to have, I think, such a spread between, you know, their proximity to the start of their professional careers and their proximity to the end of their professional careers. And so it is a cool mix of things and, you know, always good to see Tanaka again. So yeah, maybe I will, maybe I will catch the replay. There's no shame in replay. I'm,

I'm 35. I get to sleep. It's fine. Yeah, no, not at all. I was hoping and planning to watch the game earlier this week and then it was on, I think, maybe at 6 a.m. where I was. Oh, thank you. By the time I tend to go to bed, it's often almost 6 a.m. anyway. And then it's like, am I going to get up again to watch this thing? You know what? I'll catch the highlights. But it was a great game from what I could tell after the fact.

So looking forward to this. And yes, even though the USA team is a bit of a mix of ages and experience levels the japanese team there's a lot of star power there because npb pauses and players can go play in the olympics and so tanaka is not even the best player or pitcher on that roster so they were bringing in like aces in relief against the us and so that sort of thing is a lot of fun. So good luck to everyone, really. It should be fun to watch. And because the U.S. is guaranteed to win some sort of medal,

Eddie Alvarez, who is on the U.S. team, is also guaranteed to win a medal and become one of the very rare players to win medals in the Summer Olympics and also the Winter Olympics and different events. And that hasn't happened, at least for a male athlete, since the 1930s. So that's kind of a cool accomplishment to go from speed skating and medaling to baseball medaling after also making

the majors. So that's a nice little storyline too. Yeah. I don't have anything to add to that other than that's pretty cool. Yep. Well, check that out and check out Steeplechase, obviously. Make sure you don't miss that. It may be over for all I know. And we're really sure that they didn't just like, you know, they were like, oh, the horses, they got delayed. I'm pretty sure. How did they get?

They all happened to fall off their horses at once, but I don't think that's what happened. I have a really dumb question. Are you ready for it? How do they ship them to japan do they go on a boat or do they go on a plane can you put a horse on a plane well i mean the horses are the people i guess there were no horses but uh but in the horse version of steeplechase because there are equestrian events at the olympics even if we are stunned to discover that this is not one of them

i i imagine that there is nothing particular to the physiology of a horse that would prevent it from from riding in a plane like that it would make it unsafe for it to reach being large right so this is my question is are there are there cargo planes of sufficient size? Never mind. I think the answer is certainly like, that's so hard to hold them in our hands. But that just because we have hooves, not hands. But that just makes it satisfying when we get to drink them. We've been watching too much BoJack possibly. But you're asking the important questions. Yeah, here I am.

So thank you. All right. So that's my Olympics baseball and or steeplechase banter. So we have an email show for you today. We have a stat blast. We're going to meet some major leaguers. So this should be fun, but let us start with some emails. And we have some weird ones as usual and some hypotheticals for you all.

So a couple of follow-ups to recent conversations we had. This is a question from Daniel who says, I'm listening to your dialogue on the Mets and Kumar Rocker situation when you referenced the Astros Brady Aikens slash Alex Bregman shenanigans. This got me wondering, due to the structure of compensatory picks, could or do teams

use this to intentionally draft players that they never intend on signing for quote-unquote medical reasons? This could be used to better centralize their next wave of talent or even just to defer a pick to a class they like better. It seems like the kind of morally questionable behavior that the Bregman drafting era of Astro's decision makers might be up for.

And I answered this question via email and you can tell me if your answer is any different from my answer. via email and you can tell me if your answer is any different from my answer. But what I said to Daniel is that I would not put it past teams to do this if there were some strong incentive for them to do so. Shenanigans and draft shenanigans are a time-honored tradition in baseball and probably most sports. But I kind of doubt this would be worthwhile because the draft is so unpredictable to begin with that it would be pretty tough to tell a year in advance that there would definitely be a better player available to you in the next draft and there's some slight cost also in that you do drop down one pick so even if you had the number one pick one year for instance you couldn't keep the number

one pick for the next year knowing that some all-time talent is due to be eligible so you'd have the the number two pick the next year like the astros did when they took bregman and luckily for them he was available at number two plus in baseball it already takes so long for the typical prospect to develop after the draft that it's hard for me to imagine a situation where you would know that you wouldn't have a need on your major league roster by the time your latest draftee is ready and you're just orchestrating it so that oh this guy will be ready this year and that guy will be ready that year it's all so much of a crapshoot and the developmental timelines are so unpredictable that i kind of doubt it this seems like it would be a big

galaxy brain sort of situation to me, but you tell me if you think any different. No, I tend to agree like you, not because I think that there is some unassailable moral code that teams ascribe to, but just because I don't think that this necessarily benefits them in a way that makes it worth it, both in terms of the reputational hit that they would suffer and also the lost, the sort of wasted financial opportunity, right? Because they don't get to carry over any part of their previous year's pool into the next pool. So it's not like it gives them a boost in terms of their ability to sign one of those high profile guys, right? It's not like the Mets are going to be, as we talked about, the Mets aren't going to be able to carry

that million dollar plus bit of pool plus surplus that they would have had this year into their 2022 draft. So there's not really a strong financial incentive and you're already extracting so much surplus value from the picks themselves that I don't know that it really makes it worth it there either. So no, but only because like you said, the draft is sort of unpredictable year to year. Like what if you think the top guy in the next class, like what if he, you know, blows out, right? What if he decides to become a youth pastor? Like you just, you know, there's so much that you don't know about what's going to go on in the next year. So I do think that there are strategies that teams employ in years that are perceived to be sort of weak on a relative basis.

Right. Where they might try to cut underslot deals with some of their higher picks to then use that money on later picks in the draft. And so I do think that there is there. There are certainly strategies where teams try to maximize their value, even in years that they consider to be sort of down from a talent perspective but i don't know that this would necessarily be the approach they would take plus like you would have to now this part of it maybe i is actually fairly easy to sort of execute but you'd have to it'd have to be a guy who didn't submit pre-draft medicals right like there there are a lot of things that would have to line up for you to do this and have it make any kind of sense because if you take a guy who does submit pre-draft

medicals and then you don't sign him you don't get a compensatory pick the following year and so that would make it fall apart i just don't think that it lines up quite to do which is perhaps one of the few places where teams are not able to extract just a little bit of surplus value from tiny cracks in the institutional facade. But I think I agree with you. Yeah. Wouldn't shock me if someone in a draft room had discussed the idea at some point, but I think there's just too much going against it, which is probably for the best. All right. Juliet says, Willie Adamas. Do you think he'll receive any MVP recognition? I know he hasn't accumulated the war of some of the other candidates, but his impact on the Brewers has been transformational and vaulted

them into a firm spot atop the Central. When he was traded, they were 21-23. They've gone 44-21 since. In the far-fetched hypothetical that he does win MVP, how unprecedented would it be for a player traded between leagues to win the award? So we have talked about Adamas a couple times this season. We talked about him when he was traded. He was the subject of a stat blast because he had the most extreme home road splits ever and had been better on the road. And we speculated about whether that meant he would be better with the Brewers because he would be away from the trap where he said he didn't see the ball well. And thus far, that has turned out to completely be the case. And so we followed up on it and talked about how great he has been for the Brewers, and that has continued to be the case. But I think it's still an extreme long shot that he could

come from behind to take the support, even if Acuna's out, Tatis is out, et cetera, et cetera, and the field is opened up. It seems to me like there are a number of guys who probably have a better chance than Adamas, as great as he's been. I think that that's true. I think it's quite rare for major award winners to change leagues mid-season.

Yeah, I don't think anyone has been traded midseason and won an MVP award. I know Rick Sutcliffe was traded in 1984 and won the NL Cy Young Award for the Cubs. And he was great. He had like a 5-plus ERA when he was traded by Cleveland. And then he went 16-1 with a 2.69 ERA for the Cubs and got all 24 first place votes, which by war was probably not the right decision. But it happened. But I don't think it's happened with guys who got MVP. Although there have been guys who got traded and got MVP votes, even with the Brewers, CeCe Sabathia in 2008.

He came from Cleveland and finished fifth in Cy Young voting, sixth in MVP voting. Of course, he was the defending Cy Young award winner at the time. And Manny Ramirez in 2008 finished fourth in NL MVP voting after he was traded from Boston to LA. And Shannon Stewart did also in 2003 after he was traded from Toronto to the Twins, which is in the same league at least. So all of his stats counted. I guess it's sort of surprising that there hasn't been someone who was traded within the same league and managed to do this. But I guess it's not that common for someone who is having an MVP caliber season to get dealt. All those guys I just mentioned, other than Sutcliffe,

who was traded in June, were traded in July, though. And Adamas was traded in June were traded in July though and Adamas was traded in May so you'd think he'd have a head start which would make it more conceivable right so even setting that part aside like I do think that there seems to be there's a tendency that has persisted despite years of debate over what most valuable player actually means where there are voters who like to give votes to players who they perceive to be, you know, instrumental in a playoff run, right? Most valuable for them is sort of inextricably tied to the team's fortunes in a way that I think the Mike Trout enthusiasts among us find frustrating and really just continues to prove the point

that they should call it most outstanding player and we can stop having this stupid debate. But we still have it. And so I wouldn't be surprised if he receives like some maybe down ballot consideration if he goes on a real tear and and ends up within striking distance but it seems quite unlikely just given the gap that he would have to close and the already quite good candidates ahead of him some of whom have been traded, but as we mentioned with Turner, within their own league. So it seems unlikely to me, but who's to say? I mean, we're to say. We don't think it's going to happen, but it's not impossible. It's just extremely unlikely. Yeah. If he has the most amazing two months from here to the end of the season, sure.

Yeah. I mean, he is 16th in the National League in win probability added now, and he's well down the list in war too. It's been an incredible turnaround because he had a 74 WRC plus with Tampa Bay before he was traded. And he has a 146 WRC plus with Milwaukee since he was traded. And he's been worth 3.3 war this year and 3.1 of that is with the Brewers. So it's been a heck of a trade. And as we said when we talked about it last time, always nice when you strike first and you get someone who you really need well before the deadline so he can help you all that time. I could see him. Obviously, he's been a fan favorite. He could be like a team MVP or something, even though there are better players on the Brewers too.

But I could see him winning something like that. I could even see him appearing on someone's ballot. He could definitely get MVP votes if he finishes strong and the Brewers finish strong. Although it's worth noting that I think the Brewers were a good team anyway. I did pick them to win the division before the season and even pick them as my surprise team. Not that it would have been the biggest surprise if they'd won the division, but I thought they were going to be so good and win the division so easily that that would be a surprise central one but the brewers are good and i think they would have won this division eventually going away anyway so it could just be that adamus had good timing in addition to also playing really really well yeah with the brewers you know it's uh if one player could make that much difference then the angels would be making

the playoffs too right so clearly other things have gone right for the Brewers. So unless you want to give him extra credit for being a catalyst or inspiring the clubhouse or something, he's been a big contributor, but hasn't exactly turned around the season single-handedly. Right, yeah, I think that that's right. I mean, I think they probably all do. All the BBWA chapters vote for local awards.

So he'll probably probably like you said receive some sort of brewer's specific honor uh if he keeps playing the way that he has and especially if he you know has any key moments between now and the end of the season that they really lock in the division for them or whatever but no like we can his story is wonderful we can be excited for willie adamas and he doesn't have to be an MVP for that to be true. Yeah, there are a lot of deserving players ahead of him, probably. He's like 20th or so in the NL in war, and war isn't everything, I understand. But you've still got Tatis atop that list, and of course, everyone hopes that he will

actually continue to play and end up at the top there. But if not, you've got Trey Turner not you've got trey turner you've got max muncy you've got brian reynolds you've got chris taylor you've got bryce harper you've got buster posey you've got brandon crawford jake cronenworth manny machado mookie bets nick castellanos justin turner i could keep naming names juan soto there are a lot of really great players in the nl and so there's no clear candidate for sure. And the difference between like Trey Turner, who is the top non-Tatis Acuna name, and Adamas is like one win. It's like 1.1 war.

So I guess that's your best argument there is that even though there are quite a few players ahead of Adamas, they're not far ahead of Adamas. They're like basically all within the war margin of error, more or less. And so he'd have to outplay a lot of really good players over the next couple months to make up that ground, but he could end up close enough that you give him some narrative value and maybe he sneaks ahead of some other players who have higher war. So it's not completely ridiculous. I think it's just far-fetchfetched right i think that's a good way to put it all right here is a question from runrin dominic smith is hitting 326 384 61 against lefties this season in 89 at

bats and 223 298 366 against righties in 238 at-bats. These numbers were a few days ago, probably, as you're hearing this. Opposing managers continue to use lefty relievers against him, and the Mets occasionally sit him against a lefty starter. This backfired on Saturday, July 30th, when Reds manager David Bell brought in Sean Doolittle to replace Heath Hembree with two out in the bottom of the ninth, and the Reds up by one run. Smith hit a game-tying single up the middle,

and the Mets went on to win in extras. Dom was asked about his good numbers against left-handed pitching a while ago and said that he hadn't been aware. He seemed surprised as he felt like he didn't see the ball as well against lefties. My question is, how many at-bats are required to confirm that a reverse split is real and not just due to a small sample. When the teams start to make decisions based on these numbers rather than career numbers or league average numbers, why would the Mets sit Smith against a lefty rather than give him more of a chance to improve or continue his success? And I answered this one via email also just because I wanted to send a link to a study that addressed this.

And of course, I will include a link to a study that addressed this. And of course, I will include a link to that on our show page. But basically, as I understand it, there's almost no number of plate appearances large enough to conclude that a reverse split is real. It's pretty much never real, or at least statistically speaking, it would be tough to conclude that it's real. There have been cases where reverse splits have persisted over quite a while. And so the study that I will link to here, which was done by the blog Roto Value in response to some tweets by Tom Tango about this a few years ago, basically he issued a challenge and he said, take all of these hitters who have a reverse split, so they hit pitchers of the same handedness better than they have hit

pitchers of opposite handedness over some large number of plate appearances, and then see what happens over the rest of their career. Do they continue to have a reverse split or does it regress to the mean or toward the mean, at least part of the way? And I think Time's prediction was that they would be basically neutral from that point on. And according to the study, in fact, they go back to having not a normal split exactly, but in the normal direction. So you have your typical platoon split where you hit opposite-handed pitchers better. And these are guys who had reverse splits over hundreds of plate appearances or, in fact, even thousands of plate appearances. And just about all of them reverted to having more normal-looking splits after that, except apparently Don Zimmer. Don Zimmer had like the same or even slightly larger reverse split over the rest

of his career. So perhaps Don Zimmer had a legitimate reverse split, but basically everyone else did not. So 89 at-bats or whatever it was of Dominic Smith, not nearly enough. In fact, Dominic Smith could play most of the rest of his career. And you would still probably say that he's going to hit opposite handed pitchers better from now on. Well, and it's one of those things where and I don't mean this as a specific commentary on Dom Smith. I think this is true of all ballplayers. Like, I think the natural instinct for a lot of them is given the opportunity to lay claim to a skill, they're going to do it, right? They're going to say, oh, yeah, I can, you know, I'm like Zimmer. I'm the exception, right, that proves the rule.

I'm like Zimmer. I'm the exception, right? That proves the rule. And that is clearly not Dom Smith's experience of his own plate appearances, regardless of what the results of those PAs have been. So I think that this is a case where we might listen to the batter and it's possible that in addition to their decisions being informed by analysis, they're also just listening to their player, right? And not putting him in a position where he feels like he is often sort of at a disadvantage at the plate. So yeah. Yeah. I mean, the factors that cause platoon splits, like all hitters are subject to them to some degree. So you can't fight city hall and you can't defy platoon splits forever, really. Right. Just you get a better look at the ball from the other side and there may be some hitters who have smaller platoon splits

naturally there are hitters who do and in fact lefties tend to have larger platoon splits and so it's even more unlikely that Dominic Smith has a reverse split I think but you know the there are certain hitters who do better against certain pitch types maybe and and those pitch types might be more prone to bigger or smaller platoon splits so there could be reasons or maybe just the way you set up the plate or your eye dominance or i don't know all of these all these things that affect it but it's just hard to beat the fact that you get a better look a et cetera, if you're facing an opposite-handed pitcher. And given enough time, that shows up in the numbers. So that's one of my pet peeves on broadcasts, at least. I doubt there are that many teams that are really buying into tiny sample single season

reverse splits anymore. But on broadcasts, you will often hear that. And I don't mind if you say that that's been the case as long as you don't insist that it means something or that it's predictive. You know, if you just say, well, it's kind of weird, but this has happened this year. But small sample, you know, don't buy too much into it. But sometimes you do hear commentators really saying like, no, this was the right move or the wrong move because so and so had reverse splits this season and it's just not telling at all based on on what we can see so yeah don't don't make that mistake yeah all right here's a question from michael i was musing on sam miller's old article about abolishing the strike zone one of sam's most controversial takes a listener email

regarding a pitcher complaining that it was unfair for the umpire to tell the batter whether or not a pitch they had just swung at would have been a strike had they not swung. And it got me to wondering, what if the count were a secret until the at-bat resolved? The umpire would still have to record balls and strikes via some mechanism so that his ball strike calling could still be assessed by the league and so he couldn't arbitrarily decide what the count was midway through but it would be secret to the participants to the players i think this would make for a more action-packed game as pitchers would be more incentivized to throw more pitches closer to

the strike zone to increase uncertainty about the count and batters would be incentivized to swing at more pitches for fear of striking out without having had the chance to take a cut. I'd also enjoy seeing something on the chyron displaying something to the effect of that there was a 30% chance the count was 1-2, a 50% chance the count was 2-1, and a 20% chance the count was 3-0 based on the locations and the empire's overall predilections so we just we'd all be in the dark we'd all be guessing this is chaos yes it is i don't chaos

can be fun chaos can be fun but i don't find this particular kind of chaos fun i i what first of all you're gonna start you're gonna renew a war between like old school baseball types and nerds if you put probabilistic pitch counts on scoreboards in big league parks the people will riot i don't think the people would be wrong i i'm trying to express what about this I find the most unpleasant because on the one hand, like, there's strategy that you develop that is count-specific, right? You're doing away with all the strategy. Yeah, although I guess there might also be some new strategies. I mean, there would be new strategy, but I think it would be dumb.

Yeah, I mean, I guess people might say, well, we're already into the strike zone being somewhat subjective because we like catcher framing and we're not necessarily the zone being amorphous and shifting from count to count and umpire to umpire and catcher to catcher, then why do we draw a line here and say that everyone involved has to actually understand what the strike zone is? Because if we wanted everyone to always know what a strike was, then we would say, yeah, we want RoboZone so it'll be consistent. And so you'll always know whether that was a ball or a strike. Whether or not you think the strike is literally a strike right whether you sit there and think ah yes you've gotten that call right you at least have information as the hitter about what and like what happens at the end of the plate appearance right you sit there and you're like are we am i out do i walk to first do i what do i like what what happens at the end? Let's say

you're a hitter and you don't know how many strikes you have against you. I mean, you'd have some idea, right? Because swinging strikes would still be strikes and you'd probably feel confident that like something that came right down the middle was a strike, but you'd have enough uncertainty that like, do you, do you know when you need to protect at the plate like what do you what are you doing no yeah you don't know which uh i guess it could be a feature not a bug at times like michael saying you know you might you'd have to protect the plate and if you're a pitcher you'd have to throw strikes right so it would keep the game moving right i guess it would i don't know it might it lead to more scoring probably i think it works keep the game moving, right? I guess it would, I don't know, it might lead to

more scoring probably. I think it works in the pitcher's advantage that you can expand the zone and everything. And so it would probably lead to more offense, more contact. Maybe that's not the worst thing. Maybe you'd have faster plate appearances, you know, fewer chases and fewer pitches per plate appearance. I don't know it's got some things to recommend it i'm willing to believe that it could it could be a boost to offense but i also think that hitting is like already so reactive to remove information from an already reactive pursuit feels unfair true so i don't like that part of it we'd have we'd have so much confusion when it was all done and and and here's here's the sneaky worst part of this right here's the reason that we really

shouldn't do it i think that fans generally and players don't really trust umpires i don't think that they actually have a ton of confidence in umpires to certainly to get balls and strikes right and i think that there are times when they think that they've forgotten the count and so i think that you would have a lot of incredulous and accusatory fans and ball players being like well that's why should i take your word for this yeah it does happen i've written articles about times when everyone has forgotten the count and there's been a three-ball walk or a five-ball walk or whatever. Well, and I think it would be confusing to fans. And we have talked a lot about how the barrier, like we don't need to add unnecessary confusion to baseball.

There's already enough natural confusion in baseball. We don't need to make it worse. So I don't care for this at all. to make it worse. So I don't care for this at all. How often do you think, what percentage of the time would all of the parties be on the same page about what the count is?

So the pitcher and the hitter are able to guess along with what the umpire secretly called. Well, wouldn't that be at least somewhat dependent on the pitcher and that pitcher's particular repertoire and mix yeah right like we'd never know what the count is in a you darvish start because he's throwing all kinds of stuff it goes all over the place you're sitting there not knowing yeah i want to say like i don't know at least like 80 of the time or something

you'd know a lot of the time I don't know if they'd all agree like I think the batter would agree with the umpire at least 80% of the time the pitcher would agree with the umpire at least 80% of the time you wouldn't get all three together you wouldn't get all three or four if you want to count the catcher too but I wonder whether hitters would you know because now I think hitters want to give themselves a break and want to give themselves maybe a little extra space on the corner or whatever. And so I wonder whether as they were mentally trying to do the count along with the umpire, whether they would be biased in favor of themselves or whether they would account for the fact

that they know the umpire is presumably not biased in favor of the hitter. And so would they count every borderline call in their favor or would they actually do the probabilistic thinking themselves and say, that was a 50-50, so I'm actually going to count it as a 50-50? Or would they say, that's a 50-50? So yeah, I don't think that a 50-50 or would they say that's a 50-50 so yeah I don't think that was a strike because I don't want it to be a strike so I wonder like if you tallied up all the counts at the end of the year that hitters thought they had and pitchers thought they had I bet on the whole they would definitely be more optimistic than was justified I think

that's probably right I would love to see joey vato like exist in this world yeah like that would be that would be fascinating i don't know how you like what is the purpose of doing this with a robo zone though once you have a robo zone you're like you don't you're not doing this because it's not uh no it's too much chaos. Yeah, I'm not in favor of this, but I enjoy the idea. And I think it might have some positive byproducts, but it would also definitely have some confounding ones. So on the whole, probably not something we should endorse. Chaos, cats and dogs living together. Chaos is a ladder.

It can work in your favor sometimes. So here's a question from Tomo. And I've been sitting on this one for a while because I wanted to write about it. And now I have written about it. And the article should be up on Friday when this podcast is up, but it is not published yet. So you have not read it and I have not 100% finished it, but I think I have reached a conclusion. So Tomo says, I wonder which is better, pitchers batting or position players pitching? I guess there have not been many cases where position players pitch when pitchers are at bat, but it could be interesting to study. So I've been thinking about this one for a while because it is a deceptively simple question.

It sounds like it's easy. You could just look this up in a second. But really, it's not all that easy to decide exactly how you would figure out which is better and which is worse and which stats you would actually look at. So I don't know that I have the answer. There's no objective truth here necessarily, but I have an answer. I have an opinion. Would you care to express one without having done extensive research, presumably? Do you have an inkling for which is worse, which is more incompetent, I guess, relative to the average hitter or pitcher? I guess, relative to the average hitter or pitcher. Well, see, this is what I was going to ask you. I was like, what does better mean?

Like better aesthetically, better in terms of the rate of success in the activity? Yeah. The way I defined it is just which is less effective relative to the average hitter or pitcher, basically. So, you know, which is worse compared to a legitimate hitter or pitcher. My suspicion is that position players pitching are better relative to that baseline than pitchers hitting are relative to theirs. Why is that your suspicion? My suspicion is based on, well, part of it is just having watched him try.

But to give an actual answer, I think that you have more guys who have more recent and more competitive pitching experience who end up being position players only than you have the reverse. And so I think that's why. And I don't know if that's true either, but that's my sense. That's my sense of it. Yeah. So I dug into the numbers here and I'd encourage everyone to read the article and make me feel better about the time I spent on it. And there will be more numbers and details in that than I can get to on the podcast, but I'll just kind of lay out how I went about this because I really am fascinated by the fact that both of these things exist in baseball in 2021. And we've talked about it recently. Is there any comp to other sports where you have pitchers and hitters? They're so bad at doing the thing that they are not actually selected to do.

And so there just are not a lot of analogs in high level sports to this. And I tried to come up with some comps. We tried to come up with some on the podcast and there just really are not a lot out there. So as I put it in the article, no other sport so routinely puts players in starring roles for which they are completely unqualified and untrained. And obviously there are emergency situations sometimes that call for athletes to play out of position or out of their depth. There are many examples of that. And there are cases like kickers or punters returning kicks in football or, you know, trying to tackle people who are returning those kicks. But really, when they're trying to tackle, like if they actually get to that point, it's a sign that something has already gone wrong. And also it's rare, whereas, you know, hitters, it's an inevitability in a National League game.

It's baked into the rules that hitters are going to pitch. And even position player pitching is more common than most of the comps I could come up with. And position player pitchers pitch on purpose. They decide that this is who we want on the mound right now. Granted, typically in blowouts, so something has gone wrong but still you make an affirmative decision that this is who i want and that just doesn't happen very often obviously the closest comp i think is cricket which is a close cousin of baseball and there you do have bowlers who bat and batters who sometimes bowl so that's i think very similar situation but even there based on what i could tell it it's not quite as extreme the contrast like bowlers as batters are not quite as terrible as pitchers as hitters and batters as bowlers can get by you know doing sort of a spin style instead of a speed based style and you have a lot more two-way players in cricket you have a lot more all-rounders as opposed to MLB where you basically have one. And I think that's a sign that it's not quite as specialized. So having gone through all of that and figured out that I couldn't come up with a perfect comp, I think it's a good time to

consider this question because both of these things are endangered to varying degrees. This is probably the last year of pitcher hitting. We don't know for sure. It got a reprieve in 2021, but it's probably gone next year. And even position player pitchers, I think there is some momentum toward a mercy rule potentially, which would probably do away with them. And there's that rule that was going to be on the books last year, but was canceled because of the pandemic, but probably will be brought back, I would assume, where you have to have a margin of, what, six runs or more at least in order to bring in a position player pitcher. It has to be extra innings or something. So that would cut down on them to some degree. And I think people are over it because it happens so often that a lot of the

charm has worn off. So I think that we could be in a situation where a few years down the road, these things either don't happen or they're a lot less common than they are right now. So this is the heyday or the last gasp possibly. So what I did is I looked at just the basic stats, which are totally terrible for both. So entering Thursday, I looked at 2018 to 2021 just because pitchers have gotten worse as hitters over time. So you have to look at recent years and also because this is like peak position player pitching and we've seen so many more of them in the past few years.

And because we've seen so many more of them, they don't throw as hard as they used to. So you kind of have to look at the present state to assess things. So over that time period, pitcher-hitters have produced a slash line of 118, 150, 150. That's a 300 OPS with a 43.4% strikeout rate, a 3.2% walk rate, and 58 homers in 13,500-something plate appearances. Terrible. But over the same span, position player pitchers, and I should note I excluded Otani from both of these samples. Position player pitchers allowed a slash line of 340, 410, 674. That's a 1,084 OPS with a 6% strikeout rate, a 9.3% walk rate, and 90 homers allowed in just over 1200 plate appearances that's a 9.21 era so both totally terrible but which is worse a 300 ops as a hitter or a 9.21 era as a pitcher it's

kind of hard to figure that out so normally you might say well you could use one of the index stats you know ops plus or ERA plus or something. And if you do that, then hitters have had a negative 19 OPS plus and position player pitchers have had a 60 ERA plus. So that looks like a landslide victory for position player pitchers. But I was talking to Tom Tango about this, and he said that under the hood, ERA Plus and OPS Plus are both abominations of math and that at the extremes, they break down. And pitcher hitting and position player pitching are nothing if not extreme. So you just can't really use them for this purpose. However, we don't need them. We have an alternative.

We don't need them. We have an alternative. At Baseball Savant, you can search for and sort by their respective total plate appearances, then you can compare them on the same footing and on a rate basis. So here's what we get. Now, over that time, pitcher hitters have produced negative 0.146 runs below average per plate appearance. And negative numbers are bad for hitters because they are trying to produce runs. They're trying to score runs. Position player pitchers have yielded 0.123 runs above average per plate appearance. And these are both worse than average because positive numbers are bad for pitchers because they're trying to prevent runs. But you have 0.146 for pitcher hitters, 0.123 for position player pitchers because they're trying to prevent runs. But you have 0.146 for pitcher-hitters,

0.123 for position player-pitchers. So while both have been horrendous, pitcher-hitters have been more horrendous. And to put those numbers into perspective, because we're not really used to thinking in terms of run values, the worst total run value hitter real hitter this season which has been the pirates kevin newman he's at uh negative 0.072 runs below average and then the pitcher with the worst total run value mike voltanevich star of my minor league draft free agent team and he's still getting innings yeah he works for me can be as bad as he wants as long as he gets me the playing time he's been 0.055 runs below average per pa so these are the absolute dregs of the real hitters and pitchers no offense to newman and

faulty and they are still more than twice as good as the average pitcher-hitter and position player-pitcher. So they're both very terrible, as we know. But judging by that sample, pitcher-hitters have been worse. I looked back further. I looked at the StatCast era, 2015 to 2021. Still, pitcher-hitters worse. Looked at the entire pitch-tracking era, 2008 to 2021. Still, pitcher-hitters worse. Both of them

are better relative to the last few years, just because they keep getting worse and worse and worse relative to the actual legitimate league average hitters. But the relationship between them is the same, pitcher-hitters consistently less productive. So that seems like it's the answer. And just to put this a little less confusingly maybe than run values, since 2018, pitcher-hitters have allowed a.447 WOBA that is 130 points worse than the.317 league average. So they're 130 points worse. Pitcher hitters have produced a 137 WOBA. That's 180 points worse than league average. So again, pitcher hitters, just worse. And if you do look at the head-to-head confrontations, and there are not many of them. There've been only 36 occasions on which a position player pitcher has pitched to a pitcher hitter since 2015.

But if they were even, if they were evenly matched, then you would expect them to produce roughly a league average weighted on base, which again is 317 over that time. Instead, the pitcher hitters have produced a 241 Woba or 245 if you go back to 2015 so they've been worse than average position player pitchers have had the upper hand and the last caveat that I should probably mention is that position player pitchers do have it easy to some extent because typically they pitch in blowouts so they're often facing below average batters and also maybe those batters are not trying quite as hard as usual, you know, whether because of unwritten rules aside from your mean Mercedes, or maybe they just have trouble psyching themselves up in these situations because they're winning or losing by so much.

And also they're facing someone who's so bad that it's almost embarrassing to beat him. So, you know, sometimes you you'll see the plate appearance earlier this year where Freddie Freeman struck out against Anthony Rizzo and he walks away laughing. It's like, this is silly. Or Javier Baez, when he faces position player pitchers, he bats lefty. So they're not taking this totally seriously. He's done that three times and he doubled and flied out twice. So that might make you think that, okay, the numbers are worse for pitcher-hitters, but maybe it's skewed because position player pitchers are benefiting from the situations in which they pitch.

However, pitcher-hitters have it easy too because pitchers tend to phone it in a little when facing other pitchers. They throw more fastballs, they take a little off. Generally, they're just trying to catch their breath before they run the gauntlet of the top of the order. So neither the position player pitchers nor the pitcher hitters, really, their numbers don't reflect how horrible they would be if they face the same circumstances as normal pitchers and hitters all the time. So just as one last check here, I took one more run at this and I tried to limit the

sample to higher leverage situations. So Baseball Savant lets you select scenarios where the go-ahead run is at the plate or on base or the tying run is at the plate or on base or on deck. So these samples are smaller, obviously, because managers are probably more inclined to pinch hit for pitchers if the situation actually matters. And position players rarely pitch in moments that matter. So it's going to be a lot of extra inning games where just all your other options are exhausted. However, when these situations arose, we can probably safely assume that their opponents were actually trying. So in these higher leverage

circumstances, I went back to 2008 here just to get a larger sample. And in these cases, I won't bore you with the numbers. They're in the article. But basically, both of the groups way, way worse than they normally are, which supports the idea that they're in the article but basically both of the groups way way worse than they normally are which supports the idea that they're getting off a little easy typically but pitcher hitters get even worse by comparison so no matter how you slice it pitcher hitters are the worst it's just it's the battle between the movable object and the stoppable force. I guess they're both totally incompetent. But if you have to decide which one is more incompetent, it is pitcher-hitters as far as I can tell.

So your intuition there matches what I concluded after many more hours of work. Well, I just think it goes to show that we have to keep having pitchers hit because you know if they have enough time they might turn this thing around you never know ben any year now they're just they're going to figure it out i know they can do it no i the the one perk of pitcher hitting from an analytical standpoint is that it's just, it's the control group. It's the sample that lets us say, okay, here's how much better all of the other players are getting because pitcher hitters are not really trying to get better. Maybe they're getting more athletic over time, but they're really not trying to hit or they're not selected for their offensive skill.

And so that's just sort of the baseline. And the fact that they keep getting worse and worse and worse tells you that everyone else is getting better and better and better at that. And so it's kind of handy to have that gauge just to point to and say, no, the golden age of baseball are the best players ever. We're not playing in whatever year of your youth you think was the peak of baseball. No, it's now. Players are better than ever. So that's the one thing that I will miss. And I guess I'll just sort of miss the spectacle of players who are completely unqualified to do these things, doing these things at the pinnacle of their profession. And if these things were a little less common, I would appreciate them more and I wouldn't want to lose them.

Like the Waxahachie swap, where you had pitchers in the field sometimes, which still happens rarely in emergencies. But I like that because it was very rare. And so it was special when it happened and it didn't happen so often that it became a bother. Whereas with pitcher hitting, yeah, I understand once in a blue moon, someone does something cool, but most of the time it's an out and it's an out much more often than the typical plate appearance. And, you know, same for position player pitchers where every now and then you get an entertaining one, but often it's just a sheer incompetence on display. And it's like, what are we doing here? So I'll miss aspects of it, but on the whole, probably not the worst thing if

these went away or at least became curtailed no but then what will we test my intuition against yeah no you were right on the money there as far as i can tell and i think another reason is that you do semi often get pitchers who literally are not trying like they do not swing. They are ordered not to swing. They don't want to hurt themselves. They're recuperating from some injury, so they don't swing. Whereas a position player pitcher always has to pitch. They might not throw as hard as they can, but they do have to do something as opposed to just stand there until they strike out or walk. But I think that's it. And also along the lines of what you were saying, I think also, even though position players obviously are not selected for their pitching skill, I think the traits that they

are selected for correlate more closely with pitching than hitting does for pitchers, right? Because part of the thing that a position player, or at least most of them, is valued on, yeah, they have to have arm strength, they have to have arm accuracy. And that is part of pitching, right? Whereas hitting is just not really part of pitching. Like, you know, yeah, some level of athleticism is helpful for both, but they are just two completely separate skills, really. And there's just not a whole lot of correlation there. So that's my position player role because that might be further evidence for us like do they when you're down 11 runs and you gotta you gotta keep playing because that's what we do you're like you're probably not sending your dh out there you're like i'm gonna send the guy who has to throw the ball across the diamond like a couple times a game like i i'm sure that it isn't actually thought of to that degree because who cares right and because you know

you don't want to like you don't want to give up your dh but I do wonder like what is the what's the breakdown there yeah I did not look into that but you're probably right especially because dhs tend to be older recovering from some sort of injury or getting a day off or whatever you don't want to put them in the field because once you do that you got to do all kinds of other shenanigans and you're already as we've established down 11. So you're just kind of eyeball it. So it was sort of satisfying to arrive at what I considered to be a conclusive answer, although perhaps people can quibble with that. And if they read the article and have some objections, I hope that they will let me know about it. And there's much more information in there that I did

not share in this segment, even though I shared a lot in this segment. So that was sort of statplasty, but that was not my actual statplast. I guess I can end with the statplast, but maybe before we do that, we can do our meet a major leaguers for today. Yeah. Meet a major leaguer. I am very eager to meet this nascent major leaguer. It's the thrilling debut of somebody new. Let's meet this mysterious major leaguer. I took a little look just to see the pace of Major League debuts this year, and we're right on target for 2019, actually. I thought it might be more just because of post-2020 and COVID and all of that, but it seems like we're at 190 debuts through this August 4th, and we were at 191 debuts in 2019 through the same date. So it's a lot. That is why we do this segment. It's way too many players to keep track of, but it doesn't look like it's accelerating the season at least.

So that's something. So we have each met a major leaguer, and now we will share what we learned. Would you care to lead off? Sure. I will go first. we will share what we learned. Would you care to lead off? Sure. I will go first. We've met a couple of major leaguers, Ben, and I think we've enjoyed each time,

but I have the best name we're going to have the whole year. I feel confident, even though it is only August 5th, and I imagine we will do this segment at least a couple of more times before the season concludes. We are going to meet Shea Spitzbarth. Excuse you. Shea Spitzbarth. Excuse you. Shay Spitzbarth. I will say once again, human names, robust. It sounds like a combination of like multiple fluids that could come out of your face.

Spitzbarth. Yeah. There have been some really good names added to the roles this year. I did Tukapita Marccano last time it's it's tough to beat that there have been many good ones like packy notten recently arrived just so many good ones but yeah she spit sparth that's tough to top so tell us about mr spit sparth so he he went on drafted out of maloy college i hope i'm saying that correctly. And after his junior season in 2015, he played on the Cape with the Wareham Gateman, and he caught the eye of a Dodger scout

there. He signed with Los Angeles and made his way to the Fall League, and perhaps knowing his odds as an undrafted guy out of a smaller school, he made sure to have backup. So here I'm going to quote from Mike Persak-Peth piece in the pittsburgh post gazette that's a lot of peas in quick succession both spitzbarth's father and uncle are firemen and in 2017 spitzbarth intended to take the fireman's exam to become one himself but he was still in arizona at the time with about two days left in the season he said i don't know why i didn't leave the fall league to go take it, Spitzbarth said. It's hard to say like a lot of times in a row.

She sells Spitzbarth by the seashore. Exactly. And I just didn't leave. My uncle and my dad called their chiefs and said, hey, can you take it at a courthouse in Arizona somewhere? They said, no, it won't work out. So I missed it unfortunately by 2019 he had reached double a or triple a excuse me with the dodgers but he was also 24 years old and had an 818 era and a 621 fip he wasn't invited to la's alternate site last year again now i'm going to quote from persak instead he's he was staying

ready by pitching in the mid-island men's League in Staten Island, New York for a team called Butchie's Heat. So many great names in this one. His teammates and opponents were plumbers, firemen, policemen, garbage men, and local college players, he says. He tried to stay fresh, but he also recognized how ridiculous the setting was. So he told himself that if he didn't make it to the majors in 2021 or 2022 at the latest, that would be the end of his baseball career. And then we can flash forward to the end of last year when he was selected in the minor league phase of the Rule 5 draft by the Pittsburgh Pirates. Upon his selection, he made the minor league phase, guys, I care or know about off the

top of my head section of Eric Longenhagen's piece on the Rule 5. And here I'm quoting from Eric. The Pirates took Shea Spitzbarth with the first pick of the AAA phase he doesn't throw all that hard 91 to 93 for me but his heater has nearly perfect backspin and he has a plus change up and then Spitzbarth would go on to be an honorable mention on this year's Pirates list with Eric noting minor league rule five pick Shea Spitzbarth has a plus changeup that was the the full extent of his mention spitzbarth had a 141 era and a 443 fip in 32

triple a innings for pittsburgh this season striking out 19.7 percent of hitters and walking 10.2 percent he also applied to join the port authority police department just in case but he was not accepted so that's interesting for him i guess yeah he was called up on august 2nd when the pirates placed chad cool on the covet il and he made his debut that same day against the brewers he allowed a single to the first batter he faced then walked the next one before inducing a fly out to get out of it he came back out for the eighth and pitched a one two three frame in his next outing on August 4th, it went Eduardo Escobar single, Avisel Garcia flyout,

Tyrone Taylor flyout, Lorenzo Cain single, Luis Urias flyout. He has a 0.00 ERA and a 4.45 FIP. He has a 50% fly ball rate and hasn't struck anyone out yet. He was optioned back to AAA after his game on the 4th

and he is the first Molloy alumnus to make it to the major leagues. And after his debut, he said, I shouldn't be here. This is impossible. It's just a lot of hard work and dedication, and it's not just me. It's family. It's friends. It's coaches.

It's teammates who have helped me along the way, trainers along the way. It's unbelievable. Hard work. That's all I can say about it. And all I can say one more time is Spitzberth. Once more with gusto. Yeah, that's a good one. So my player debuted a day after Shea Spitzbarth, and he is another native New Yorker, although

he is from Huntington, New York, not Staten Island, but Long Island. And he is Steven Ridings, new Yankees sensation, Steven Ridings. He is 25 to Shea Spitzbarth's 26, but he too is a right-handed pitcher, although he is a giant, as you would expect, because he's a Yankee. So of course he is. And I was suggested this name by Patreon supporter Andrew Perlman, and I will read his message. He says, do you take nominations for meet a major leaguer subjects? In this case, we do. Because please, please, please, you have to talk about Steven Ridings, who debuted tonight with the Yankees, three strikeouts and a double allowed in one inning against the Orioles. Here's why he is

the first major league baseball player to come from D3 Haverford College since 1911. Yes, Meg, you read that right. He is from the BICO. Yeah. He's also 6'8 and throws 101 miles per hour, which raises all kinds of questions about what a guy who throws 101 is doing in D3 in the first place. Was he all gas and no other skills? Did he develop velo in college? What did he do his senior thesis on? My fellow Haverford alums are bursting with pride and excitement tonight. Our grads have an unusual penchant for getting jobs in front offices, including Thad Levine of the Twins and former D-backs GM Josh Burns. But getting onto the field has been elusive.

In fact, there has been only one major leaker from Haverford in all of the history. And it is Bill Lindsey, who got 68 plate appearances in 1911 for the Cleveland Naps, when they were still called the Naps. And he had a 49 OPS plus, and that was it. That was the distinguished history of Haverford College in the majors up until just a few days ago. And Andrew continues, lastly, one more fun fact, Stephen Ridings, that's S-T-E-P-H-E-N, was picked out of a D3 college in Pennsylvania in the 2016 draft. And another pitcher named Stephen Ridings with a V was also picked out of a D3 college in Pennsylvania, Messiah University in the same draft.

Stephen Ridings with a V made it as high as AAA in Seattle's system. This is irresistible, isn't it? According to the Effectively Wild Wiki, Haverford has never been mentioned on the podcast. Now's the moment. If we wait 110 years until the next Haverford major leaguer emerges, I'm not sure if I will still be listening. That is a good point. Can't even guarantee that I will still be hosting at that point.

If I will still be listening, that is a good point. Can't even guarantee that I will still be hosting at that point. So we had better give the glad tidings or writings while we can. So Steven writings, it's an excellent question. Where did he come from and how is he throwing one-on-one? So he entered in the top of the seventh and he struck out DJ Stewart. He struck out Pedro Severino. He gave up a double to Michael Franco, And then he struck out Pat Valaika. And this was kind of a cool game where, for unfortunate reasons, the Yankees had a bunch

of COVID cases. They had a game where everyone who pitched was making his major league debut. So Luis Gil, who is a known prospect, he had a very impressive outing as the starter. He went six innings and then Ridings came in in relief and the first time since September 26, 1950, when Lou Burdette, Dave Madison, and Ernie Neville debuted against the Senators. Stephen Writings and his Writings fastball, as one would expect. And I asked Eric Langenhagen, again, I will quote him too. I said, where did Stephen Writings come from? And he said, no effing clue, which is essentially my sentiment about Stephen Writings. So he was drafted by the Cubs in the eighth round of the 2016 draft. And then he kind of bounced around a bit, didn't seem to do anything very impressive in the minors. He was in short season with the Cubs and then the Royals picked him up and he was with them in 2019. He had a 5-9 ERA in the Pioneer League.

And then I think they released him and the Yankees signed him after the pandemic season, just this past January. And he had not pitched like in full season ball, even in the minors to that point, but they started him in AAA. He put up a 0.47 ERA with 14 strikeouts per nine in 19 innings. then they promoted him to triple a and he continued to pitch well and get punch outs there and then next thing you know a few guys were on the covet il and here was stephen riding striking out a bunch of orioles so i tried to figure out exactly how this happened like he got seven whiffs in the 16 pitches he threw i understand it's the Orioles, but still. And yeah, I read a little bit about his backstory. So in little league, he moved back and forth between the A and B travel teams. He was

cut from his eighth grade team. So it's one of those, you know, no one believed in me and that kind of thing that he was not like a top prospect despite his size. And as a junior in college, he put on 30 pounds. He worked on his mechanics. He went from throwing 84 to 90, which is a nice jump, but still a far cry from the 101 he was touching just this week. And Eric said he saw him while he was with the Cubs. And at that point he was 91 to 95. Like he has data from an Idaho Falls outing in 2019 in the Royal system where he was 92 to 95. He topped out at 96. So he must have used his pandemic more productively than most people did because somehow he has

gained like five miles per hour in the last couple of years. And I don't know exactly how that happened, but while sitting out the pandemic and no minor league season, he was selling sports equipment in Florida. I think he was working for Rawlings selling gloves. And he also worked as a substitute chemistry teacher because he has a chemistry degree. And then he was working out with Eric Cressy, the Yankees director of player health and performance in Florida. And then he was working out with Eric Cressy, the Yankees director of player health and performance in Florida. And then that led to the Yankees signing him. And obviously that has paid off for both parties. So it is pretty impressive. And just in case that long shot

story paying off was not enough for you, you also have the waterworks here because the day before he made his debut and like the day he got the call his grandmother died unfortunately and so he was mourning her and he'd lost his grandfather a couple years before that and so while they're making funeral arrangements and such and trying to come to terms with that loss, he gets the call that he is making the major league. So it's hard to imagine more of a roller coaster of emotions than that. So there's a video of him talking about that, which I will link to, and it is as touching as one would expect. So it's a nice feel-good story. and unless that was some sort of adrenaline-induced fluke like this seems to be another bullpen weapon that the yankees have somehow picked up out of nowhere

and it does seem like getting guys to throw hard and you know stuffing the minors with the prospects maybe who were seen as sort of low ceiling but end up being useful bullpen contributors that seems like it is a strength of that organization and so here's writings being another case study there so coming all the way from d3 and making good so he is uh is he now i guess he's the largest yankee now, right? Which is saying something. Saying something, yeah, geez. But he's also looming large in the bullpen picture, especially now while the staff is shorthanded. So congrats to Stephen Ridings.

It's a nice, surprising story. Just what the Yankees needed, another guy who throws hard. Exactly, yeah. All right, so we have met Stephen Ridings and Shea Spitzbarth. Spitzbarth. Well met, major leaguers. So now we will play one more song because it is time to finish with the stat blast. Okay. Okay, so this stat blast is prompted by another listener email that I have also been sitting on for a few months because it required some research, but I wanted to do it at some point. comes from Ben from New Jersey, who says, I'm in law school and was reading a case for legislation slash regulation, Flood versus Kuhn, if you are curious. And it starts with what is

essentially an ode to baseball by Justice Blackmun. In his opinion, there is a list of many baseball players seemingly randomly listed. The list has a bunch of Hall of Famers, but I'll admit there are many names I don't recognize. I'm curious about your thoughts about the list. And he sent us a screenshot of the page. But there are places you can find this online because this is a famous opinion and a famous case. So Flood v. Kuhn, for those who don't know, this was a Supreme Court case in 1972 that upheld MLB's antitrust exemption. It arose because Kurt Flood challenged the antitrust exemption because he refused to be traded to the Phillies from the Cardinals after the 1969 season. And he was trying to combat the reserve clause. And ultimately, that effort was

successful via other methods. But Flood versus Kuhn upheld MLB's case here. And I'll read from the Wikipedia entry. Although the court ruled in baseball's favor 5-3, it admitted the original grounds for the antitrust exemption were tenuous at best, that baseball was indeed interstate commerce for purposes of the act, and the exemption was an anomaly. and the exemption was an anomaly. It had explicitly refused to extend to other professional sports or entertainment. That admission set in motion events which ultimately led to an arbitrator's ruling, nullifying the reserve clause and opening the door for free agency in baseball and other sports. So this was almost 50 years ago, but it's quite famous. The legal eagles in our audience will know about this opinion. And here also continuing from Wikipedia, the opinion has been criticized in several ways. It is seen by some as an overly strict and reflexive reliance on the legal doctrine of

stare decisis that made an earlier mistake uncorrectable. Even the text of the decision itself, and here's where we're getting to the question, mainly a four-page introductory encomium to the game and its history by Justice Harry Blackmun that included a lengthy listing of baseball greats came in for criticism. Some of the other justices and court observers felt it was inappropriate for a judicial opinion. At the time of his later retirement and death, Blackmun would be remembered for it as much as Roe v. Wade. So the two legacies of Justice Blackmun, Roe v. Wade, and naming a bunch of baseball players in this opinion.

And he was a big baseball fan. He was horny for baseball. And he was super excited to get to write this opinion. And in his Wikipedia page, it notes, Blackmun and Justice Potter Stewart of you know it when you see it fame both followed baseball obsessively in one oral argument on October 10th 1973 Stewart passed Blackman a note that read VP Agnew just resigned Mets 2 Red 0 the game in question was the fifth and deciding game of the 1973 National League Championship Series and the Mets won it 7-2, sending them to the 1973 World Series. So this was Blackman's moment.

He had the spotlight. It was a baseball-related case. And how was he going to begin his opinion? Basically explaining what baseball was. This is basically the baseball Wikipedia page. That is how he started here. I'll just give you a taste. It begins, it is a century and a quarter since the New York Nine defeated the Knickerbockers

23 to 1 on Hoboken's Elysian Fields, June 19th, 1846, with Alexander J. Cartwright as the instigator and the umpire. The teams were amateur, but the contest marked a significant date in baseball's beginnings. That early game led ultimately to the development of professional baseball and its tightly organized structure. He goes on from there to the Cincinnati Red Stockings. The ensuing colorful days are well known. The ardent follower and the student of baseball know of General Abner Doubleday, the formation

of the National League in 1876, Chicago's supremacy in the first year's competition under the leadership of et cetera, et cetera. It goes on and on. It's like, sir, this is an RB. Sir, this is the Supreme Court. We know what baseball is, but thank you. Anyway, it goes on in that vein for a few paragraphs. And here we get to the gold. All right. So this paragraph starts, then there are the many names celebrated for one reason or another that have sparked the diamond and its environs and that have provided tinder for recaptured thrills for reminiscence and comparisons and for conversation and anticipation in season and off season colon followed by 88 names yep tycov babe ruth tr Babe Ruth, Trish Beaker, Walter Johnson. I'm not going to name all of the names. I will spare you. But he just listed 88 names. This is the original. Remember some guys just in the middle of this important Supreme Court decision. He thought, you know what? I am just going to name 88 people associated with baseball right now. And the best part of it is that after he finishes

the 88 names, he says, the list seems endless. It sure does. It continues from there. But the question is, how did he pick these particular 88 names of all the possible names and what sort of analyses can we do about these 88 names. And so that's what I wanted to dig into a little here. And I'm glad that listener Ben gave me the opportunity to do this very meaningful research. So I'll read you a little bit from a Sabre story from 2009 by Ross E. Davies, who writes a little bit about the way that this list was created. And apparently in the book, The Brethren Inside the Supreme Court by Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong, there is a story that apparently in the first draft of this long list of names, there were no black players. It was all white players,

probably from before the color barrier was broken. And so the story goes that then there was a revision and they said, oh, we should probably have some black players on there. Now, this Saber Journal story disputes that and says there's no actual evidence to support that idea. There were multiple drafts, but the Black players who appear on the list were on the earlier draft that we have a record of. So it's hard to disprove, but it's also hard to substantiate. But I'll just read you a little bit, an excerpt from the book, The Brethren, which explains how this list came to be. Blackman was delighted. Apart from an earlier assignment in an abortion case, he felt he had suffered under the chief justice, receiving poor opinions to write, including more than his share of tax and Native American cases.

He thought that if the antitrust laws were applied to baseball, its unique position as the national pastime would be undermined. A devoted fan first of the Chicago Cubs and later the Minnesota Twins. And I think he and Chief Justice Warren Burger were referred to as the Minnesota Twins, he picked out representative stars from each of the team's positions and decades of organized baseball, then closeted away in the Justice's library. Blackman wrote an opening section that was an ode to baseball. In three extended paragraphs, he traced the history of professional baseball. He continued with a list of the many names, I read that already. The list seems endless, Blackman wrote. He paid homage to the verse Casey at the Bat and other baseball literature. When he had finished, Blackman circulated his draft. Justice Brennan was surprised. He thought Blackman had been in the library researching the abortion cases, not playing

with baseball cards. So Blackman is basically doing a stat blast here when he was supposed to be doing legal research. One of Justice Rehnquist's clerks called Blackmun's chambers and joked that Camille Pasquale, a former Washington senator's pitcher, should have been included in the list of greats. Blackmun's clerk phoned back the next day. The justice recalls seeing Pasquale pitch and remembers his fantastic curveball, but he pulled out his encyclopedia and looked up his record. He decided Pasquale's 174 wins were not enough. It is difficult to make these judgments of whom to include, but Justin Blackman felt that Pasquale

is just not in the same category with Christy Matheson's 373 wins. I hope you will understand. Calling Blackman's chambers to request that some favorite player be included became a new game for the clerks. Stewart was embarrassed that he had assigned the opinion to Blackman. He tried to nudge him into recognizing the inappropriateness of the opening section,

jokingly telling him that he would go along with the opinion if Blackman would add a member of Stewart's hometown team, the Cincinnati Reds. So Blackman added a Red. Marshall registered his protest. The list included no black baseball players. Now, this is the part that is somewhat disputed. Blackman explained that most of the players on the list, as well as former Red, Eppa Rixey, who evidently was added to placate Justice Stewart. So I did some numerical analysis here, and I will put my spreadsheet online for anyone who wants to look at the data pertaining to Justice Blackmun's long list of names here. But here are the stats. Justice Blackman's long list of names here, but here are the stats. So we've got 88 names, right? And 79 of them are players. You've got some pioneers in there. You've got some executives in there. Henry Chadwick is included, Bill Clem, Branch Rickey, Connie Mack is in there. You got some managers, some people who played, but were mostly known for contributions off the field and notable names.

But 79 players, 66 Hall of Famers. So not a bad ratio, I suppose, of the 88 names. He's got 66 Hall of Famers. OK. The average career war of the players on the list is 61.8 solid, and the median war is 55.5. So, you know, given that Justice Blackmun did not have war available to him in 1972 in the Baseball Encyclopedia, he's doing all right here with the basic stats that he had. also curious about just when these names hailed from because I spared you the entire reading of the list but you'll note if you look at them that they hail from an early era of baseball like there's you know again this is 1972 but there's no Mickey Mantle on here there's no Willie Mays

on here there's no Roberto Clemente on here there's no Aaron there's no Joe DiMaggio even on here you think that these are some of the many names that have sparked the diamond and its environs, but hey, it's his opinion, pun intended. So like anyone recent really was missing from this list. So the median debut year for a player included on the list was 1909. And the median ending year or last year in the majors was 1927. And I don't think that is a coincidence because if you look it up, Justice Blackman was born in 1908. So this lines up very closely with when Justice Blackman, by complete coincidence, was a young'un and was perhaps in his formative

years as a fan, as we discussed, that sort of magic, you know, 8 to 12 range or whatever it is that you kind of imprint on baseball often. Many of these players were in their heyday during that time. And so not a total surprise here that he would choose them. The earliest debut of a player on the list, Cap Anson is on there, who debuted in 1871, if you count the National Association or King Kelly, 1878. And the latest year that anyone was active on this list was Satchel Paige, who of course pitched forever. And his last year was 1965 in the majors. Other than that, it's Campanella and Robinson in 57 to 56. So really, we are pulling from a certain era here. And what I wanted to do was see who are the strangest inclusions. this list with Babe Ruth and Walter Johnson and Cy Young and Ty Cobb, and then also maybe identify

some of the snubs, some of the players who should have been on the list and were not even sticking with the time period that he was pulling from here. So of those 79 players, there are 12 of them who had a career war below 25, where you might kind of raise an eyebrow and say, this guy, why that guy exactly? And some of them are there for reasons not having to do with the quality of their play, at least directly. They're famous for something else.

So you've got poor Fred Merkle on the list, he of Merkle's Boner. And you've got Al Bridwell, who was sort of the fluffer for Merkle's Boner. Oh my God, Ben. He was the one who was at the plate and initiated that play. And then you've got Fred Snodgrass of Snodgrass's Muff while we're doing double entendres.

What are we doing on our podcast? And then you've got Germany Schaefer, who is famous for quote unquote stealing first base and running backward. And then the worst player on the list by far in terms of career war is Mo Berg, who had a negative 4.6 career war. Very bad at baseball, unless our defensive stats for catchers are way off on him. But he is obviously a well-known player for many other reasons. So you've got a bunch of guys like that whose name recognition outstrips their actual production. But then you have some guys who don't necessarily fall into

that category. So I think the strangest inclusion, because he has the lowest career war other than Moberg is Bill Wamsgams. So Bill Wamsgams, no relation to Tom Wamsgams from Succession. It is spelled slightly differently, but he played in the majors from 1914 to 1926, and he amassed four war in his career. And you wonder, why is Bill Wamsgams on this list? So I was looking at his baseball reference bullpen page, and it says Bill Wamsgames was known as Wambi because his name was too long to fit into box scores. Okay, sure. He did not like the abbreviated form of his name. It's too bad, Bill. He is known primarily for turning an unassisted triple play in the fifth inning of Game 5 of the 1920 World Series.

All right. I guess that's some claim to fame. Maybe that was better known in 1972 than it is now. Bill played 13 years in the majors and eight years in the minors. He also managed a couple of years in the minors. He twice led the American League in sacrifice hits. And once in games played, Wambi, as of 2006, is the only player in Major League history with a last name that starts with Wom.

So there's a reason. Just anticipating the fame in his decision is all. Yeah. So anyway, nothing there gives you a clear idea for why you would pick Bill Womsgans necessarily over many of the other players that you might have picked. And here's what I suspect. other players that you might have picked. And here's what I suspect. He was featured in The Glory of Their Times. Oh, sure. Yeah. The classic oral history by Lawrence Ritter, who traveled all over the country and got some of these dead ball figures to commit their memories to tape and transcribe them. And it's a great book, wonderful book, one of the best books. But that book came out in 1966. i'm gonna guess that justice blackman devoured glory of their times that is right up his alley and i think that

explains some of the other common names that uh are on this list that you might wonder why they are on this list so rube bressler oh he's in Glory of Their Times. What do you know? Hans Loebert, Glory of Their Times. Davey Jones of the Tigers, not of the Locker or of the Monkees. He is in Glory of Their Times. Bob O'Farrell, Glory of Their Times. Al Bridwell also is Glory of Their Times. Jimmy Austin, Glory of Their Times. So we could go on. I'm pretty sure that he was flipping through that book and remembering some guys. And that is a big part of why he included those names on this list. that we can. I looked for the biggest snubs by war through 1945, because that's kind of the ending date from when he was pulling most of these names. So on the pitching side, the top 10 who should be on but are not on, Kid Nichols, Tim Keefe, Eddie Plank, John Clarkson, Pud Galvin, Jim McCormick, Carl Hubble, Red Faber, Vic Willis. And on the hitter side, Mel Ott.

I don't know how Mel Ott didn't make this list. George Davis, Roger Connor, Archie Vaughn, perpetually underrated, Bill Dolan, Frankie Frisch, Bobby Wallace, Al Simmons, Joe Cronin, the original Billy Hamilton, Sliden, Billy Hamilton, home run bakers not on this list.

So there's some pretty obvious glaring omissions there. And I guess they made the mistake of not talking to Lawrence Ritter and being featured in Glory of Their Times. So my complete statistical analysis of Justin Blackman's opinion and the original Remember Some Guys will be linked from the show page. But there is my way too deep dive into not a random collection of names, but certainly a strange one. Strange that it existed at all, and also sort of strange that it took the form that it did. studying political theory. And I thought about sports as a way to like understand representation and political engagement. And that was that was interesting to me. And I wrote a number of papers to that effect, thinking that that would sort of be my area of academic focus. And I remember

getting a paper back from a professor who I liked quite a bit who read it and had good notes, but also made note to me that perhaps what was more interesting to me was the sports rather than the political theory. And I didn't think that I would have a lot in common with a Supreme Court justice, but perhaps I've underestimated the similarities that we share. Did you do a long list of mariners for no reason in the middle? similarities that we share. Did you do a long list of Mariners for no reason in the middle? No, but I think that in a paper on like the, you know, importance of the Northwestern football players attempt to unionize and what that shows us about our understanding of representation that I

had like a half page long footnote on QBR as a dubious metric. So I was perhaps well on my way, even if I didn't realize it, you know? Yeah. Well, I guess I don't know what that means. I guess you pivoted to the job that was right for you. Justice Blackmun, he just stuck it out on the Supreme Court there, just muddling away. Who knows what he might have done if he had leaned into his passions. I know. He could have amounted to something.

He could have been the greatest lister of names of baseball players ever, and he just had this one shot. He could have been the greatest lister of names of baseball players ever. And he just had this one shot. He could have been the original David Roth. And instead, David coined that term first. All right. Well, thanks to Ben for prompting that question. And thanks to the late Justice Blackmun for giving me a reason to do even more useless research on this episode. And for other things, too. You know, you did some other stuff that we appreciate, but, you know, this is the one that's relevant to our podcast where we, you know, talk about water. Yes. Well, having told you about the debut of the newest 6'8 Major Leaguer, Stephen Ridings, I would be remiss in not noting the passing of the best 6'8 Major League Baseball player of all time, J.R. Richard,

the Astros legend who died on Wednesday. Like Ridings, he was a right-handed pitcher who touched triple digits and got great extension and released the ball close to the plate. Dusty Baker on Wednesday said, The thing about his size was the plate is 60 feet 6 inches from the mound, but J.R. is throwing from 50 feet. He was all legs. You didn't have much time to make up your mind, plus he was a little bit wild. He was the toughest guy I ever faced, and we faced him all the time. And Richard was really great at his peak, and unfortunately his career was cut off at its peak. He debuted in 1971. His last major league season was 1980, and he didn't

really break out until 1976 or so when he was 26 years old. But from 1977, his age 27 season, through the first half of 1980, he was the most valuable pitcher in Major League Baseball, according to Fangraph's War. He started the All-Star game in 1980, and at the break, he was leading the majors in strikeout rate, in ERA, in FIP, but shortly after the All-Star game, he had a stroke that almost killed him, and he had been complaining of symptoms for some time, pain and numbness, dead arm, and a lot of people dismissed those symptoms and thought that he was making them up, or he was lazy, or he was jealous of Nolan Ryan. People in the media, people with the team, just didn't really believe him, said nasty stuff

about him, and obviously there was something seriously wrong with him. It seems like he had thoracic outlet syndrome. Fortunately, he survived, but he never made it back to the majors. And he went through some tough times, but he managed to turn his life around, eventually became a minister, got involved in community work, but he was one of the most fearsome, intimidating pitchers of his era, or really of all time. Another thing Baker said, he was recounting one day when both of the catchers on his Dodgers came into the clubhouse on the day that the Dodgers were scheduled to face the Astros, and one had his arm in a sling and the other was in crutches. There was such a thing as JR-itis, an incurable disease when you're afraid of JR, Baker said. We had a team meeting and said, And he's really one of the few guys from that era who, if you look at his stats page, it looks like he could be a contemporary pitcher. Looks like he could be pitching today just because he did miss so many bats by the standards of his day.

And he was so big and he threw so hard and I thought it was sort of appropriate when he threw out the first pitch to Garrett Cole before game one of the 2019 ALCS because he was kind of Garrett Cole before Garrett Cole except even bigger threw hard had a nasty slider struck out a ton of guys and it was also appropriate because Garrett Cole broke his record in 2019 of the most strikeouts in a single season for an Astros pitcher, 313 in 1979. Cole ended up with 326. And you can see the difference in eras there because Richard threw about 80 more innings in 1979 than Cole did 40 years later. But even though Richard was a great strikeout pitcher for his day, led the league in strikeout rate, his day had a lot lower league average strikeout rate than Cole's day did. A lot of people think that he would have gone on to make the Hall of Fame if he had stayed healthy. So farewell to a legend, J.R. Richard. Sadly, he died of complications from COVID. And on Wednesday, his friend and former teammate Enos Cabell was talking on the broadcast

about how he tried to convince him to get the shot. Didn't understand why he wouldn't. There's some sad irony in getting through everything he got through. Surviving that near-death experience with the stroke and all of the troubles that came later. And then losing your life to this illness that perhaps could have been prevented. Don't want to turn a J.R. Richard remembrance into a vaccination sermon, but get your shots, people. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectivelywild.

The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some small monthly amount to help keep the podcast going and get themselves access to some perks. R.O. Shapiro, Ryan Good, John A., Ben Trombley, and Dan Laidman. 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 podcastatfangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing editing assistance we will be back with another episode a matter of hours after this one is posted so stay tuned to your feed and we will talk to you soon the last time i saw richard was detroit in 68 and he told me our romantics meet the same fate someday

cynical and drunk and boring someone in some dark cafe you laugh he said you think you're immune go look at your eyes they're full of moon you like roses and kisses and pretty men to tell you all those pretty lies, pretty lies. When you're gonna realize they're only pretty lies.