Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1744: The Pretty Good Players Draft

Episode Date: September 10, 2021

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Salvador Perez’s power output, durability, defense, and career, Shohei Ohtani’s offensive slump, the Rays calling up Josh Lowe to go with Brandon Lowe (but not Nathaniel Lowe), and the desirability of being teammates with one’s brother or father, then draft unsung players who are having good seasons that […]

Well the truth crept in and finally found me I never gave it much thought but now it's all around me And all your songs unsung Breathe in for now your time will come Hello and welcome to episode 1744 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Raleigh of Van Graffs. Hello, Meg.

Hello. You know, for this second consecutive regular length season, I'm afraid that a royal is going to come from behind and steal a home run title from one of my angels. Looks like it's going to happen again. Jorge Soler came from behind to take the title from Mike Trout in 2019, which prevented Trout from crossing off another column on the Black Ink bingo card. And now Sal Perez of the Royals is just one home run behind Shohei Otani for the Major League and American League lead. So don't want to root against Sal because who doesn't love Sal? But he has closed the gap, as have some other guys. Shohei has not been hitting like his old self lately. No, he has not.

And Salvi has found a new life, much of it at the expense of the Mariners. Seemingly was hitting a home run every at-bat he had against the Mariners in a series they had not too long ago. But yeah, like good. You know, it's just like good for Salve. It's always surprising to me when catchers can sustain that kind of power over the course of a season or come on late, you know, because it's so... I know we have talked about it before,

and I know that we do talk about it, and saying we don't talk about this enough is almost always like, I think people are are and you just haven't been paying attention but i still think we could spend more time collectively talking about the wear and tear that being a catcher puts on one's body and just like the beating that those guys take on a on a daily basis so i'm i'm always like pleasantly surprised and impressed when guys either have sustained power over the course of the season or come on late when presumably their knees just feel like they're full of lava. So it's exciting. Good for him. Like way to go. Way to go, Salvi. him both the enforced time off from Tommy John surgery and then the short 2020 season because he's just someone who never wants to be out of the lineup if he's healthy and if there is a game. And so I wonder whether that breather kind of helped him a little bit, give him sort of a

second wind in his career and also help him not break down over the course of the season or at least get tired because he did used to be a guy who really would hit better in the first half than the second half. And this year, at least it's been the opposite. He has totally turned it on as the season has gone on and he is up to 138 games played, 569 plate appearances. That's already the second most played appearances he's had in any single season. He hasn't had that many since 2014, his all-time high at 6.06. So barring some sort of injury, he will pass that this year. And he has blown by his previous single season high in home runs up to 42 now. He's never had

more than 27 in a single season. And this is his best real offensive season, not counting 2020 when he was even better. But this year, he has done it over a longer period. And he's still sort of the same hitter that he was in a way. I mean, he has not gotten a whole lot more selective. He is walking 4% of the time and striking out 25% of the time. But that will work when you have a 272 isolated power and 42 dingers, that's fine. So last year he didn't walk at all. He walked like 2% of the time, but he strangely had a 375 Babbitt. That part was not so sustainable for Salvador Perez, but he has made up for it this year with just this Titanic power and some of the home runs that he has hit like the one he hit the other day that was like on a 99 mile per hour fastball like off the outside corner and he's just like flicked it the other way over the fence it's like okay didn't know you could do that or that that

many players could do that but he is doing that and he is such a strange player sort of a polarizing player in a statistical sense just because he has a reputation as a really good defensive catcher. He's won gold gloves, and yet the advanced defensive stats would say that he is not a good defensive catcher, that he is maybe one of the worst. In fact, I think he has the worst defensive run save total among catchers this year. He has the worst framing runs total among catchers this year. He has the worst framing runs total among catchers this year. So he is a catcher who really benefits from the old school stats, throwing out runners and that sort of thing, blocking balls much more so than stealing strikes for his pitchers. So that really eats into his war values, at least if you look at fan crafts or baseball perspectives

compared to, say, baseball reference, which does not include framing, there's a pretty big gap there, both this season and career wise. But when you hit 42 home runs as a catcher, that makes up for a lot of lost strikes. like way forward in terms of uh managing catchers at the major league level which is a a position that is just largely bereft of talent there are like the guys who are really good and then there's just like a sea of suck you know a soupy sea of suck after that you know i wonder if given perez's great season and also buster posey's if this just means that we need to do like a one on one off kind of approach for them right we need to we need to do like a one-on-one-off kind of approach for them, right? We need to discern whatever the bare minimum is for you to stay fresh and engaged with the game. And then we should like stagger contracts to do one year of play where you're assuming a full load. And then, you know, a sabbatical year where you could get like really into wine or

cubism and yeah take a gap year yeah packing in europe or something yeah go have some experiences learn about other places and people and come back with fresh knees and a good bat and just like light the world on fire because yeah these two guys have both seemed to benefit quite a bit from having um sustained rest and it's like like i at the beginning, not surprising given just like how we talk so much about how dangerous it is to be a pitcher and how no one should do it because it's bad for you and just shreds your body. But we I'm going to say it again. We just don't spend enough time like really worrying about catchers and what it's like for them back there yeah he's chasing johnny bench's record for most home runs in a single season by a catcher 45 in 1970 only bench and i think javi lopez who had 43 in 2003 are ahead of him now so that's pretty impressive i mean easier to do that maybe in 2021 with the ball the way it's been, even if it's a little deader than the last few years, but still pretty impressive. And yeah, I mean, he's no Ted Simmons. I was just looking at

Ted Simmons's stats. He had incredible offensive stats and also durability just because he just got inducted into the Hall of Fame this weekend, along with Marvin Miller and Derek Jeter and Larry Walker. And Ted Simmons had eight seasons where he played 150 games or more, which is unbelievable for a catcher. And he was a really good hitter in all of those years too. So very much a deserving Hall of Famer who was underappreciated when he first appeared on the ballot. So not in that category, but he is kind of an Ironman. He's not quite Simmons. He's not quite Yachty Molina, but he's up there. And yeah, he has made it work. And also just such a strange offensive profile.

I was just running a stat head query for most career home runs by a player who has more homers than walks. And Salvi is like way up at the top of that list. He has 194 career homers, 157 than walks. And Salvi is like way up at the top of that list. He has 194 career homers, 157 career walks. And really there's only one guy close, also active, Jonathan Scope, who has 160 career homers. He has 157 walks. So that could go either way. If he walks a few times, he will cross over into the more walks than homers club. But really, after those two guys, it's a pretty steep decline to Todd Green, the former catcher who had 71 homers, and then Bill Schroeder, 61. And then there's no one else with more than 30. Williams Astadio, who has 15 homers and 10 walks.

He is seventh on the all-time list of career homers by someone who has more homers than walks. He is seventh on the all-time list of career homers by someone who has more homers than walks. So for Perez to do that, I mean, it's pretty impressive to have that kind of power with zero patience or willingness to take walks, really, because usually if you have good power, then pitchers are going to be hesitant to pitch you in the strike zone. And if you take some pitches, then you'll draw some walks and he just refuses to do it but it's working for him and it's been fun to watch it's because he's so eager to hit a home run he has no patience for walking he only wants to run around the bases or trundle might be a better way to describe it at this point but yeah he doesn't he's he's not here to walk he's here to

chew gum and hit home runs. He's a lot of gum. Yeah, there's a lot of gum and dugout. So that seems unlikely, but it hasn't stopped the home runs. He put on a show at the Home Run Derby, which we talked about at the time because it was whatever channel it was. ESPN was like interviewing Pete Alonzo the whole time that Paris was cranking homers. But that's OK. He has seized the spotlight for himself in the second half by just doing it in games seemingly day after day so i'm only sorry that it could come at the expense of

a home run crown for shohei otani of course but i think with otani it's hard for me to diagnose his ills lately and this is all in a relative sense of course he could probably like make it out every plate appearance for the rest of the season and it would still exceed a lot of people's expectations for him coming into this year. But I would prefer for him to finish strong. And he just hasn't. It's weird. It's like, I don't know whether to say it's fatigue. It would be understandable if it were fatigue. But he's been pitching so well that I don't know if that is the sole explanation. But he's been pitching so well that I don't know if that is the sole explanation. It seems like he's just been a bit screwed up mechanically, just watching him just about every day as I do. He has not seemed to be staying back. He's been kind of pulling off all of the cliches that you say about a hitter who is struggling. He's been pulling the ball a lot more often than he did earlier in the year. Like he has one of the biggest second half increases in pull percentage compared to first half.

And I don't want to get into conspiracy theorizing about the home run derby screwing up his swing or something because who knows? His first round opponent in the derby, Juan Soto, if anything, the home run derby fixed his swing. He had been hitting too many grounders and he's been a monster in the second half. So I don't know whether that has anything to do with it, but it could be a case-by-case thing. He has not hit an opposite field home run since July 2nd. He has not even hit a straightaway home run since August 11th. So even when he has managed to hit one lately, it's just been pulling, pulling, pulling, pulling. And that can

work. I think Sal Perez has been pulling a lot too, and it's been fine for him. But it's not quite the Otani that we saw in the first half, where often his most impressive plate appearances or the most impressive results would be when he hit a ball the other way, a zillion miles. And he just hasn't done that a lot lately. And he's been often the only good hitter in that lineup at times because Trout has not been back. Even Walsh missed some time. Rendon has been out. And so maybe they've been pitching around him a bit and he's struggled with that. But I don't know. It does seem just maybe being a bit biased or anecdotal, but there have been a lot of calls that have gone against him too. I don't know. It does seem just maybe being a bit biased or anecdotal, but there have been a lot of calls that have gone against him, too.

I don't know whether it's disproportionate or not, but I'd like to see him finish strong. And if there is a fatigue effect there this week, the Angels have been in San Diego, so he has not been playing. He pinch hit the other day and then he actually got a game off for the first time in quite a while. And Friday, I believe he is scheduled to start as a pitcher against the Astros. So hopefully this will be a bit of a breather and he can finish on a tear. That would be nice. I was going to say that teams wouldn't need to advance Otani. They could just read you writing about him. But, you know, the Angels aren't going to the playoffs.

So the amount of time they need to do that advance work is short anyway. Oh, no. Plus, if I figured out how to get Otani out, I don't know that I would publicize that information. What an interesting conflict that would be for you, Ben. It's like you found a solution. Your job as a writer and an analyst is to find answers and then share them with people, but you're so invested. You're in too deep. The sunk cost is so high. I mean, the good news is that I think that it would take an act of God, really, at this point to get him off the pedestal for MVP. So you could share the secrets. It won't get in the way.

He'll probably be fine. I think it's going to be okay. Yeah, I've been thinking about should I write a What's Ailing Otani piece, but I figured maybe I'll just wait for the end of the season and do a full breakdown of the whole thing. And if he does finish slow, then I can talk about why that happened. But the nice thing is, if he's slumping offensively, he has still been a really good starting pitcher, which is not something that you can say about most hitters who are slumping. about most hitters who are slumping. That's the thing with Otani. It's like, he'll hurt himself as a pitcher and he can't pitch. Oh, that's okay. He can still be a really good hitter. Or if things aren't going so well in the batter's box, well, he's been the best pitcher on the team too. So he can contribute in many ways. And just watching him from afar, it doesn't seem like it's gotten him down. I'm sure it's been a bit frustrating, but

he's still smiling and laughing and joking around in the dugout all the time. So I hope he'll get things together. And it's not like he's been horrendous. He just hasn't been the otherworldly two-way superstar that we saw earlier in the season. Maybe it's that you're not loving him hard enough then. Oh, no. Is it my fault? Maybe it all comes down to you. Haven't brought him up on the podcast as much lately, which is because he hasn't been performing at the same level. But I don't know. Correlation, causation.

It's all so complicated. pretty good for the steals right now. He's got 23. He stole home the other day, although it was on a delayed double steal. But yeah, it's going to be a struggle to get those seven homers over the remaining games, but let's hope. Fingers crossed. Anyway, I also wanted to mention that the Rays have a new prospect who has been called up. We don't have to do a full meet a major leaguer right now, but Josh Lowe is the latest Ray to be summoned to the majors. And I said this to you on Gchat the other day, but I'm so relieved that the Rays only have two Lowe's or Lowe's instead of three because we came close to that, right? Because Josh Lowe is actually the younger brother of Nathaniel Lowe, former Ray and current Ranger. of Nathaniel Lowe, former Ray and current Ranger. And so we could have ended up in a situation where you had Josh Lowe and Nathaniel Lowe and Brandon Lau on the same team. And initially, the struggle was with trying to remember whether it was Brandon Lowe or Lowe or Nathaniel Lowe or

Lowe. And then eventually I got that straight. Three Lowe's slash Lau's on a single team. That would have been tough. At this point, now that I know it Lowe's slash Lowe's on a single team. That would have been tough. At this point, now that I know it's Brandon Lowe, it's actually a little easier that he has that unusual pronunciation because it helps me differentiate between them. But Josh Lowe is a very promising prospect, too. I think he was 40th on Eric's board on the list of top prospects in baseball before he was called up and second On the raise behind Vidal Pujan

And you know he does everything Well too I think he had 24 steals In 24 attempts before he was called up And he has hit well too And so he just made his major league Debut but he and his older brother They were both drafted by the Rays In 2016 in the same draft

And Josh Lowe Who was a high school player, he was taken in the first round with the 13th overall pick. And his older brother, Nathaniel, was a college player. So he was taken in the 13th round. So he was not as promising a prospect or player, but he got to the big leagues sooner. sooner. Anyway, there have been many cases where there have been three players with the same surname on the same team at the same time, but it can be confusing. As far as I know, there's only been one case of four, unless there was one in recent years that I'm overlooking. I believe the 1994 Orioles, who had four Smiths on their roster, I guess if you would have guessed what the surname would be, it would probably be Smith. But they had Dwight Smith, Lee Smith, Lonnie Smith, and Mark Smith all on the team in that same season. So that must have been a hassle. But a far more likely hassle, one would think. I mean, there's just so many Smiths out there.

There's a plethora, a bushel, a peck of Smiths. So one would be less surprised, though the concentration, I guess, is kind of remarkable given how it doesn't happen all the time. I do love that Baseball Reference has updated their pronunciation guide for Lau to be like, rhymes with now, just as a way of making it clear, but that Lau has no pronunciation guide so far. Now, that's probably because he was just called up, but B-Ref, you got to get on it because there are going to be people who are so confused. Yeah. Nathaniel Lowe does have just Lowe, L-O-W, which is, that's the standard.

That's the default. If you're Lowe, you have to explain yourself. If you're Lowe, yeah, we will assume you're Lowe unless told otherwise. Yeah, of course you're Lowe. It's 2021. It's a hard time. otherwise yeah of course you're low it's 2021 it's a hard time they could have fit them all on the team i guess at the same time because nathaniel low is a first baseman primarily and then brendan lau is a second baseman primarily and josh low is an outfielder right fielder i think

although nathaniel low plays some outfield too. So in theory, they could have squeezed them all into the same lineup in the same field at the same time. But fortunately, they don't. I mean, not fortunately for the Lowe's. I guess they probably would have enjoyed being brothers on the same team together, but for us, so that we can just say lower Lowe, and now you know which one we mean. I wonder, we've maybe talked about this before because obviously there are a number of baseball brothers who are up in the majors at the same time. But I really do wonder, would your preference be to be on the same team with your relative? I mean, it's going to depend a lot on the relationship. But even if you have a good relationship with

your sibling, they're still your sibling. I know that this is less familiar to you as an only child. But my sister and I are very dear friends but there were times when we were young people where we would just like beat the crap out of each other and we you know loved each other very much but we did the thing that siblings do and so i i wonder it's like if you've if you're having a really stressful day at work are you happy your brother is there because then you have someone to sit with you in the locker room who, you know, loves you unequivocally? Or are you just, you know, devastated that they're there because you know that in addition to thinking about like the runs you gave up as a pitcher that they're also thinking about the time they like beat you up as a little kid and they have that holstered? I don't know. It would be a tricky thing. Yeah. No, I've thought about that also in terms of like sons playing for fathers, which I'm sure is great and special in some ways. But also there must be times when like you wish that your dad weren't in the clubhouse, right? I mean, thinking about like Cal Ripken Jr. and Billy Ripken playing for Cal Ripken Sr. or Moises Alou playing for Felipe Alou. I believe he holds

the all-time record for longevity of playing for one's father because Moises played for Felipe in Montreal and also in San Francisco later. So he played for his dad a lot. And I'm sure that's great in a lot of ways. Just make those memories and can share things with your father that are in a professional context as well as a personal context. But also, if you're a professional ball player in your 20s and your 30s and maybe you're cutting loose a little and maybe you don't want to be on your best behavior at all times. And I don't know what their relationships with their fathers were like. And maybe if you grow up around clubhouses all the time and you're in a baseball family, things are a little looser than they would otherwise be. But still, I wouldn't want my dad to be my boss, probably. I mean, it's not uncommon, obviously. A lot of kids go into the family business and everything, and that can be nice in some ways and it can be awkward in some

ways, I'm sure. Well, and it's one of those things where you're not just worried about or sort of worried might be too strong, but sort of aware of the relationship that you have with the person you're related to. You're also aware of other people observing that relationship. Yeah. And wondering what the implications of that relationship are for their relationship with you and their relationship with your boss. And so it does seem like a thing to be navigated at the very least, which doesn't mean that it can't be navigated successfully, but it would require some doing. And maybe you just don't want to think about that at work. I don't know. It's nice to have a thing on.

It's also nice to have a thing on your own. You know, it's like your thing. Wow. It's nice to have a thing on. It's also nice to have a thing on your own. You know, it's like your thing so that when you come to Thanksgiving and you're being asked what your job is, it's your job and nobody else can can kind of talk about it but you. But also it's nice to share things with people you love and are close to. So I imagine it just depends. But it would it would be a thing to navigate. Yeah, because you must feel like people are looking at you like, oh, he's the teacher's pet, right? He's the manager's son. I mean, if you're Moises Alou, like, obviously you can back it up and he's a great player and no one's suggesting that he's just in the lineup because his dad is filling out the lineup card. But still, like, you must worry a little bit about favoritism and especially from the other side as the manager. And I know that Felipe Alou was asked about that and he had a good quote about that. He said, I remember that everyone here in the clubhouse is someone's son, which is a nice way to think about it. Easier said than done, I guess, but that's probably how you should approach

it if you were in that context. So yeah. Yeah. Agreed. All right. So we wanted to do a fun little exercise, sort of a draft today. And the way I described this idea to you- I'm really worried. I don't know if I've executed on your concept. I'm very concerned. have had some pretty good years. So just guys who are having pretty good years who we haven't talked about much, or maybe we haven't even realized that they were having pretty good years, not MVP type years, not like garnering lots of headlines type years, but just years where you sort of leaderboard and you see them where they are, you think, huh, he's having a pretty good year. And that's basically the concept. And it could be someone who doesn't usually a pretty good year. And that's basically the concept. And it could be someone who doesn't usually have a good year, who you're just surprised to see that high on a leaderboard.

Or it could be some post-hype sleeper who you didn't realize finally made good. I mean, there could be all kinds of reasons why you're sort of surprised. And this would obviously be subjective, because if you're a fan of the team that player plays for, then you are probably well aware that they are having a pretty good year. But we're trying to pay attention to everyone on every team all the time. And some guys sort of slip through the cracks. So this was kind of a way to recognize some of the players who have slipped through the cracks on the podcast, at least. tracks on the podcast at least i don't know like if we could somehow keep track of every player who gets mentioned on the podcast over the course of a season like what percentage of players would be

mentioned not necessarily like a segment or we lead off the episode by talking about how well they're playing or whether they are having regular battle movements or whatever but just like... Oh, you brought it up again for no reason. Is their name even mentioned on the podcast? And that's part of the reason why we do the Meet a Major Leaguer segment. I was just going to say. Yeah, there are a lot of guys who just don't get mentioned, but those are often not prominent players who maybe even aren't having a good year. They're just very obscure.

But I don't know, if you set a cutoff like three war or two war or something, it's just like an average year or maybe like four wars, maybe like a all-star type season. Like what percentage of players do we cover at some point? And in the past, at the end of the year, we've done an episode or two where we just kind of go team by team and talk about something that we missed with that season and readers will submit storylines or seasons or just weird wacky things that happened that we didn't touch on in the podcast and obviously a lot of our listeners don't listen to every single episode of effectively wild for shame but they may not know if we have mentioned a certain player at some point but that was the idea basically because you know just like as i'm looking at leaderboards occasionally i will see someone who i just did not know was having a good year or didn't know was having that good a year.

And I figured we could single some of those guys out. See, I felt confident that I understood the exercise. And then one of the guys I put on my list was literally Salvador Perez, who we just talked about for like 10 minutes. Yeah, well, see, We hadn't really before that. I gave away a pick. Well, I can still pick him, can't I? Can't I? Sure.

I don't know, man. That would be a good example. He's probably come up at some point this year. We talked about the Home Run Derby a little bit, but we hadn't dwelt on him at any length. No dwelling. He deserves to be dwelt on him at any length. No dwelling. He deserves to be dwelt on. Yeah.

Yeah. All right. I don't know. Do you want to go first? Should I just take Salvador Pérez's first pick? I don't know. You can take him. Yeah.

I mean, I guess we don't have much more to say about him. No. I don't want to. You go first. Okay. I want to calibrate because there are two things that are gonna happen here. We have one of two paths ahead of us

or at least ahead of me. So I did a little prep for this, obviously, because you can't just sit there on the leaderboard and be like, oh, that guy, although I mean, I might. So I did some prep, right? I was like, I have my list. I have a prep list here.

And so we're gonna do one of two things. You're gonna say your first pick and I'm gonna feel really I have my list. I have a prep list here. And so we're going to do one of two things. You're going to say your first pick and I'm going to feel really good about my list. Or you're going to say your first pick and I'm going to have to go off board. And we'll see which we get. Okay. You go first. I think probably the level of fame and name awareness of our players will vary from pick to pick. Sure.

Some of my picks, they're fairly prominent players, but just had sort of escaped my notice or we just haven't talked about them for whatever reason. So some people will be like, yeah, of course that guy's having a good day. And others will be like, I've never heard of that guy. Yeah. So hopefully we'll find the happy medium here. I don't think I picked any all-stars. I kind of forget who was an all-star and who wasn't already.

Yeah, I don't. That's not, I'm not a reliable memory bank for that. Sorry. Okay. Well, my first pick is kind of a cheat actually, because it's more of a position than a single player. It's like a group of guys who have collectively played a position on a team and have done pretty well.

Okay. collectively played a position on a team and have done pretty well. And most of my picks here will probably be on not as great teams just because we tend to talk about the good teams more. So it's more likely to have overlooked players on not so good teams, but this actually is a very good team. Astros center fielders. Astros center fielders have been very productive this year. And that came as a surprise to me because coming into this year, I think that was seen as sort of their weak spot, maybe even their Achilles heel because George Springer left and they didn't really replace him with anyone prominent. They just kind of kept Myles Straw around and there was a lot of doubt about whether Myles Straw could hit in the major leagues.

And then they traded Myles Straw could hit in the major leagues. And then they traded Myles Straw at mid-season, but both Straw and the players who have replaced him or split time with him, they've all been good. And Astros centerfielders as a unit have produced 3.9 war this year, which actually ranks fourth among all center field units in MLB this year. And, you know, you could look at the top of that list and Cedric Mullins is at the top. The Orioles have had the most productive center fielders this year. Didn't see that coming, but we have talked about Cedric Mullins. Maybe not enough this year, but he has come up.

But the Astros center fielders, Myles Straw, Chaz McCormick, Jake Myers, they are the three guys who have produced almost all of that playing time and they've all been good. And that surprises me. Miles Straw was expected to be good at defense and he was very good at defense and he's been like a three-win player this year and he has hit even better since they traded him to Cleveland at the deadline. And I was sort of surprised that they traded him to Cleveland because it's like, who's going to replace him? Well, apparently Chaz McCormick and Jake Myers, and they have both been really good this year.

Chaz McCormick has a, well, only a 107 OPS plus, but, you know, with the decent defense and base running and all of that. And so he has like, you know, more than a win's worth of value in 255 plate appearances. And then Jake Myers, he has been good too. He has a 120 OPS plus in about 100 plate appearances. And those guys combined have, I mean, they've outperformed George Springer, I guess, who has not been- Just been hurt.

Yeah, right. So it's weird how that works out. They've outperformed George Springer, I guess, who has not been hurt. Yeah, right. So it's weird how that works out. And they've also gotten four games from Kyle Tucker in center field. And I don't want to steal one of your picks if Kyle Tucker was going to be one of your picks. But I thought about making Kyle Tucker a pick of mine before I came up with this unit of center fielders because Kyle Tucker's been great. And he has actually been the Astros' best hitter this year. It has not been Bregman or Altuve or even Correa or Jordan Alvarez or anyone. It's been Kyle Tucker.

And he has mostly played right field, but he has been great. And I didn't really recognize how great he has been with like a 149 WRC+. And that lineup is not a young lineup, but he's 24. Alvarez is 24. Like there are two of the younger members there and he has totally blossomed. And he was obviously a top prospect, but there was some doubt about him because his initial call up did not go well at all. And then it seemed like maybe they weren't fully trusting him with the starting job a few years ago, but he has turned it around and turned into the type of player that they hoped he would be. Okay. I think that's a good pick on its own. And it also makes me feel better about the list that I compiled. So it's a really excellent pick. I'm going to take with my first pick, Omar Narvaez. Oh yeah. It's a good one. Yeah. Cause you know what, Ben? Omar Narvaez is having a good little year. So he doesn't show up.

If you're looking at the Fangraphs leaderboards by catcher, he's not going to show up on the qualified list because he only has 391 plate appearances. So he's below the qualified threshold. But he has almost a three and a half win season going for him. He has a 113 WRC plus. almost a three and a half one season going for him he has a 113 wrc plus but i think the most i continue to be fascinated by guys like omar nervias who and granted like i'm sure there's a little bit of noise in the data but who have like really wild swings between times in their careers where they have been just atrociously bad pitch framers and then times that in their careers where

they've been good pitch framers right so when So when Narvaez was with the White Sox in 2018, and then again with the Mariners in 2019, by our metrics, like he was 10 to negative 10 framing runs. Like it was quite bad. And he has been a good framer. He was okay with Milwaukee last year and has been has been good with milwaukee this year and so you look at the catcher leaderboards and it's like you know we have will smith who no one is surprised is good because he is good and then we have buster posey who we are surprised is this good but who we have talked about a lot over the course of the season so he does not qualify as far as i'm concerned and then you have someone like real muto And then I might skip four because I'm deciding if I'm going to take him later. And then you have Omar Nervais. So I'm taking Omar Nervais, who has just been having a good season on what will be a playoff team that is potentially

situated for a really deep run given a newly potent offense and a really good pitching staff. So Omar Nervais, you're having a good year, Omar. Well done. Yeah, that's a really good one. And obviously that's a great pitching staff, but he deserves at least a little credit for that. So yeah. Can I tell you about a new Twitter account that I just discovered?

It's new this month. My latest follow, at MLB Frame Jobs. This was brought to my attention by RJ Anderson earlier today. It's just an account that it's basically like the scorecards account that we talked about earlier this year, except it's for catchers. And it's basically like who had the best day as a framer that day and who had the most lost or gained strikes. And then there's a website, like an app that goes along with it where there's more data.

So you can sort of see like on any given day, you know, who got the most extra strikes that day and where and break it down by location and all of that. It doesn't have video integration yet, which I think would be nice because you can't always tell like, was this a good frame job or was it just a bad call? Because sometimes it's a combination of both or sometimes it's one or the other, but this is pretty useful. I think you can look like over a date range or a specific date or a specific game or specific catcher and it shows you where they got the called strikes or where there were balls, and did they get them inside or outside, or did they lose calls in the zone and gain calls outside the zone?

So little plug. It seems like a Twitter account that is very much up our alley. I am happy to see that they follow me on Twitter. Now I have to follow them back. I feel like my framing reputation precedes me, but I do have to say it's a little embarrassing that we didn't do this. Yeah. Well, I don't know if we have the technical know-how to be able to do this, but we can certainly appreciate it. Yeah, that's true. And we sure do. Followed you back, MLB Framejobs. Look forward to seeing more. Yes, it is operated by Alex DaSilva, who has his own Twitter account as

well. So recommend this at MLB Frame Jobs. So yeah, that's a good one. And all right, while we're on the subject of the brewers, I had brewers on my list too. And this was also a little bit of a cheat, but not as big a cheat as my Astros pick. So I want to take the back of the Brewers rotation because everyone talks about the top of the Brewers rotation and with good reason. Corbin Burns, Freddie Peralta, Brandon Woodruff, those guys have been incredible. That's as good a top three as you'll find.

But they are not the only reasons why the Brewers are leading the major leagues in starting pitching war this year. The back of the rotation, pretty darn good too. Eric Lauer has been really good. Adrian Hauser has been really good. Those two guys, like Lauer in the second half of the season, if you look at Brewers starters by war, it goes Corbin Burns and then Eric Lauer, who has had a better second half by war than Freddie Peralta or Brandon Woodruff. And then Adrian Hauser is not far behind. And Brett Anderson is not far behind either.

I mean, basically top to bottom, everyone in that rotation has been good. So obviously the top three get the headlines as well they should. lines as well they should but the Brewers have kind of like taken it easy with those guys in the second half again understandably because they're all like at or past their single season highs for innings and the Brewers hope to make a deep run into October so of course they're going easy on those guys and giving them rest but they have a big lead in that division they can afford to do that but they can also afford to do it because pretty much anyone they are giving the ball on any given day is going to be good so eric lauer and adrian hauser check out what those guys are doing too they're overshadowed for a good reason but on any other team or most other teams they would be getting more attention, I think, for what they've done

in that rotation. See, the fact that you're taking whole units is making me- It's probably the last time I will do that, but yeah. A little nervous though, and it's going to affect my strategy here in a way that I don't think that I am misremembering how often we have talked about this. I know we talked about it around the deadline. So it has not been completely unremarked upon. And we have certainly been curious about sort of the clutchness of this team as a whole. But I'm going to follow your lead, Ben. And I'm going to take the Mariners bullpen.

Oh, yeah. Ben, have you ever paid attention to the Mariners bullpen? I had at least one member of the Mariners bullpen on my list,ul seawald yes so paul seawald was the individual member and then i was like i should put drew streckenreiter on here too and then i thought i'll just take the whole unit and some of you out there are going to say well meg isn't some significant part of where they rank on the fan graft war leader board as a unit kend Kendall Graveman, who was famously traded away at the deadline, and I'd say to you, like, you're not wrong, but also, on

the season, Seattle's bullpen ranks second in the bullpen war at FanGraphs. That seems really surprising. That's not what anyone expected, and of course, bullpens are finicky, but like, if you had told me that Seattleattle would end

up with a better bullpen on the season than say the yankees i would have said you're a liar and and so then you're like well but meg our question was isn't a big part of that kendall graveman and i'm here to tell you the following which is that if you look at the second half split for relievers uh seattle's bullpen is is fifth they're they fifth. They're still quite good and still improbably ahead of the Yankees and the Dodgers, which is just delightful. Tampa is just going to destroy everyone with that bullpen. But as Kevin Goldstein wrote for us earlier today, they are going to need to, but they seem well positioned.

Anyway, I just love bullpens and I love relievers because I think that we know so much. You know, we know so much about baseball. We know so much more than we did 10 years ago. We know so much more than we did like two years ago. And it can feel predictable and at times stayed. But this whole exercise, I think, is proof that we are often surprised by things and where, where better to be surprised than, than in a bullpen because relievers are such volatile and finicky creatures on average.

But this, this Mariners team is getting good contributions from like Casey Sadler, new dad, Casey Sadler. Congratulations, Casey Sadler and Paul Seawald. And I've never been able to say Anthony Mishumish's last name correctly. And so Anthony,

you have my apologies. It's Masevich, I think, right? Okay, cool. That's more of a name than what I just did. And again, like Drew Streckenreiter. So I'm taking Seattle's bullpen. I'm feeling so much better about this draft now. I was really nervous coming in because drafts are so fun.

But as we have seen, sometimes you scoop a pick from me, and then the whole exercise falls apart really rapidly so i think you're adding an r to to steckenreiter right steckenreiter oh you're right oh gosh but that's the thing like we're drafting players here whose names people don't know or don't know how to pronounce like i really thought it was streckenreiter you would think writer i think those those both sound like names those both sound like human names yeah seawald is like that's incredible to me he's been getting some saves in greifman's absence but he came into this year having thrown 147 and a third career innings all out of the

bullpen so he's not like some failed starter who just moved to the pen and now he's throwing harder or something. He's been a reliever all along. Yep. He had a 5.5 ERA entering the season. Yep. With the Mets. Sure. Now he did have better peripherals and like a 4.04 FIP in that span. So maybe he was a good buy low candidate, but this is ridiculous.

So he's made some changes. is ridiculous so he's made some changes i know there was a fan graphs post about him a couple weeks ago like about the the angle of approach of his fastball apparently it reaches the plate at a very steep angle that makes it hard to hit almost like a sinker sort of and so he's made some tweaks there and his control has been pretty good and yeah he's just he's good yeah he's throwing his slider a bunch more. He's basically eliminated his changeup. So there's been some repertoire changes. I know that the folks that look at landing have been on the seawall to beat from very early on.

So go make sure to check out their stuff, too, because it's been quite good. But yeah, he's just been this very pleasant revelation. And you hate to get attached to those in the bullpen because again famously fickle but um it has been quite necessary for seattle and um he has really risen to the occasion so yeah the mariners bullpen yep that's a good pick just like we all expected going into the year seabolt's 31 too and yeah this has happened unexpectedly. The Mariners' pen could go worst to first war-wise, or I guess they were basically tied with the Marlins' pen last year for worst. They were the worst in the American League. Yes. running, which is, I mean, that's a good way to exceed expectations the way the Mariners have. Be very clutch and win a lot of one-run games and have your bullpen just be completely remade

on the fly. That can happen sometimes. All right. Well, you talked about the raise pen there briefly. I will take a raise reliever. And this is probably the last time that we would have an opportunity to talk about him because I believe he is out for the year unfortunately now Jeffrey Springs is a raise reliever this year and I would imagine a lot of our listeners are saying who and there's always someone in the raise pen who makes you say who and yet is really good and if you sort by strikeout minus walk rate this year among relievers with a minimum of 40 innings pitched. Jeffrey Springs is number nine. Matt Whistler of the Rays is 10th. So there are other good Rays in that bullpen. Of course, Paul Seewald is fifth. It's like Hendricks, okay. Kimbrell, okay. Rysell Iglesias, sure. Josh Hader, sure. Then you get to Paul Seawald.

And a few spots down that list, you get to Jeffrey Springs, who has an ACL injury. And so I think he is now done for the year. So you will not be seeing him as part of that playoff mix. But it's incredible because great as Jeffrey Springs has been, he was not even a high leverage part of that pen. If you sort raised relievers this year, minimum 30 innings pitched, he was sixth out of seven in average leverage index. So Jeffrey Springs, he's like the mop-up man

almost in the raised pen. And he is a top 10 strikeout minus walk rate among all relievers this year. And he is just like the quintessential came out of nowhere, got some scrub from some other team, and then he goes to the Rays and he is an incredible reliever.

And maybe it's only for a single season. Maybe it doesn't last, but they just find these guys year after year. And I don't know how they do it exactly. He is someone who was on the Red Sox last year and he had a seven ERA in just 20 games. And, you know, he struck out a lot of guys, his peripherals were a lot better, but he came into this year again, you know, with 84 and two thirds career innings pitched 5.42 ERA. I mean, basically a Seawald.

And he had a 3.43 ERA this year before he got hurt. He struck out 63 batters in his 44 and two thirds innings pitch. Only walked 14. I mean, he was just having an incredible season. And he was just another guy in that pen. They traded for him in February from the Red Sox they traded catching prospect Ronaldo Hernandez to the Red Sox with Nick Sogard for Springs and another reliever Chris Mazza who has not been great but Springs I mean

getting him from a division rival and then he becomes part of baseball's Best bullpen and part of the reason Why the Rays are leading all teams In bullpen war is just that they Have more innings from relievers Because they basically don't have a rotation Anymore yeah just really don't have a rotation Outside of maybe Shane McClanahan it's like who's their

Starter I don't know you know they're all just Kind of pitchers at this point it's tough To put labels on them but Jeffrey Jeffrey Springs and, you know, as you said, why did the Rays get this guy? Although it's a little different to write that post after the fact, like after the Rays get the guy, because once the Rays get the guy, then you figured, oh, OK, he's going to be good. Now we have to look for reasons why, like what did they see in him? You know, it's a little tougher to do that when you're just looking at someone who had a 70 ra in 20 innings and is not on the raise yet but there were reasons to think he could be good and indeed he was good so that's the raise for you and you know often they pick up these guys they're they're not making much money paul seawald i believe is making the major league minimum or

right around there yeah i think that's right it's you know when you can get like a great late inning guy part-time closer for the league minimum that's uh obviously something the rays want to do and any team would be happy to do so yeah i figured we would have a couple you know 40 50 inning perhaps flashes in the pen or perhaps not, but they've been great this year. Where do I want to go next, Ben? Where do I want to go? What direction should I take? I'm going to say that mine. You know what I'm going to do? You know what I'm going to say? You know who's having a pretty okay little year adam wainwright oh yeah adam wainwright is 39 did you know that adam wainwright is 39 he is 40 actually oh yeah he had his birthday that's right he's an end of august guy yeah adam wainwright yeah he's been really good yeah i don't

know if i have a ton more to say about that that folks can't check out in the piece that Ben Clemens wrote about Wainwright at the end of August. Maybe right around when his birthday was, but his sinker's effective, striking out some more guys. I don't know. He's Adam Wainwright and he's old. He's Adam Wainwright and he's old. Yeah. He and Molina just had their 300th start together as a battery. And he said he wants to be back in 2022.

And Molina is already signed to be back next year. So they will hopefully extend that total. And yeah, while you were away, Ben Clemens was on and we did talk a bit about Wainwright. Yeah, that's right. But prior to that, we really had not talked about him. Does that count? I can make a different pick if you feel like that counts. No, I have not talked about himainwright. Yeah, that's right. But prior to that, we really had not talked about him much this year. I can make a different pick if you feel like that counts. No, I have not talked about him

with you on the podcast this year as far as I recall, really. So yeah, that counts. And he deserves to be talked about. He's been great. Yeah, Adam Wainwright. All right. I will take Austin Riley.

Oh, fair. He has been the best player on the Braves this year, I think. I mean, going by war and obviously Acuna has been out and Soroka has been out and Ian Anderson has missed time and other guys have missed time and Ozuna has not played for them much and on and on, like they have lost a lot of guys they were counting on, but that just makes it even more important that Austin Riley has stepped up and he was not an all-star or anything, but he has totally turned it on. He's hitting 301, 373, 531 with 29 homers in 565 plate appearances. He has been a mainstay in that lineup and in the field at third base. And he is someone who, when he came up in 2019, he sort of, you know, he was a prospect and he caused a little bit of a stir initially.

Like he came out of the gate quickly and he was raking for a while and then the league seemed to adjust perhaps. And he did not adjust back right away and he was sort of struggling. And last year, he did not hit particularly well in the small sample season he was a below average hitter but this year he's come back and he's played like a an

absolute star at a time when they really really needed someone to do that so he's kind of i guess he could put him in the the post hype sleeper category because you know former first round pick and and prominent, but didn't pan out immediately, but it has really panned out all of a sudden this season and they've needed it. Yeah. It's really amazing how they have managed to just remake their offense in light of their injuries. You know, we've talked about that some, but it's really incredible. We could, we could probably have Adam Duvall on this list. He certainly fits the bill. So yeah, I think that's a really good pick.

Maybe we'll stay in the Braves area, but not go with Adam Duvall. And I'm going to take Dansby Swanson. He's sort of in that similar mold. We were always going to view Swanson in the context of the blockbuster trade that brought him to Atlanta. And, you know, he was like, fine. And then he was at times kind of underwhelming.

But he's been worth like over three wins and he's hit 26 home runs. And he's been defensively valuable for them. He's like walking a little less, but also striking out a little bit less and definitely hitting for a bit more thumps. So, yeah, Dance Beast Swanson. I don't know. How many of these are we doing? Should I say more about Dance Beast Swanson

or should we take the short ones where we can get them? Yeah, we're doing all right. Yeah. Our plan was like eight rounds. We'll see where we end up. And I think I said Wowsers. We're like halfway through, so yeah. I think I said Wowsers when you told me that many because wowsers so yeah well we'll see what we get to but

yeah i will take ty france of the mariners no sorry just do one for me but but yeah ty france now he is someone who was good last year too but there was some question about whether that would continue, right? And I remember, I think when we did our Mariner season preview segment, that was a question like, Tyrant, is he actually good? Could he keep doing that? And he has kept doing that and he has done it in a way that maybe gives you even more confidence that he can keep doing it because he had a 390 BABIP last year when he had a 132 WRC+. This year, he has basically the same WRC+, 128, but with a 330 BABIP. So he's lost 60 points of batting average on balls in play,

and yet he has been really good regardless. And he's hit 291, 362, 447. He has hit 16 homers in 555 plate appearances. He is also leading the major leagues in times hit by pitch. He has been hit by a lot of pitches this year. He's been hit by 22, I believe.

22 times. And that's also interesting because we talked recently about Austin Adams, the Padres reliever, who is on a historic hit by pitch pace. And these two guys were traded for each other. Among others, it was a bigger trade, but Ty France and Austin Adams were part of that Padres Mariners exchange last year. And now Austin Adams leading the major leagues in hitting batters and Ty France leading the majors in being hit by pitches. So that will give you a nice OBP boost.

So I don't know if that is a skill or not. It doesn't seem like he was getting plunked at nearly the same rate in past seasons. So maybe that is not quite so sustainable and maybe he hopes it's not so sustainable because it probably hurts sometimes, but he has been good. He's just been a good, solid contributor to that offense.

And, you know, he is a 34th round pick from 2015 with the Padres. So to make the majors at all as a 34th round pick is pretty impressive. And to be as good as he's been is even more impressive. He's been like a 3-4 four win player depending on your win metric yeah that's a good pick he was on my list he's exciting because you know there was there was like a chance that whoever sort of filled in for evan white was going to make mariners fans feel like he was a good first baseman because evan white has just had such an injured and bad year but like ty france is legitimately quite fun.

And so that's, that's pretty cool. Even, even absent the, the contrast. So that's a good pick. Okay. I'm going to take Jorge Polanco.

Oh, that's a good one. Yeah. You know what, Ben? Jorge Polanco, having a good year worth, worth 4.1 wins per fan graphs war,

129 WRC plus. He's got a 129 WRC plus. He, you might remember, was injured. He had an ankle injury and he was pretty compromised by it. His ISO last year was 0.096. That's not very good. He hit four home runs. Granted, it was the short season, but he was just clearly quite compromised. He seems to be back to full health. He has hit 27 home runs. And the contrast between last year and this year is particularly stark when you look at his lefty split. He's a switch hitter, but things have improved for him pretty dramatically compared to last year. His barrel rate went from 4% to 9.1%, and his hard hit rate went up. He went from 32 to 37. His exit velo's are up. This is true across the board,

but it's particularly stark when you look at him hitting from the left side. He gave Twins fans some fun and excitement by just doing a bunch of of walk-offs he did he did three he did three walk-offs in a row and so among the wpa win probability added leaders if not the wpa leader yeah and he was the first player with a walk-off rbi in three straight team wins since david ortiz in the 2004 playoffs and the first in the regular season since Tony Pena in June of 1982. So in a year that has been a disappointment and pretty underwhelming for the twins and their fans, I think they have to be pretty excited that he looks like he is back on track

because he'd had that really great 2019 and everyone was so excited. And then with the injury and stuff he was he was quite poor last year so yeah jorge palanco yeah that's a good one man i'm just still looking at the the rays bullpen because they have like they have basically a whole bullpen on the injured list yeah and jeffrey springs is 11 guys yeah something like that. And yet they also like just it's unbelievable. Like Andrew Kittredge has a 1.07 ERA in 58 and two thirds innings pitch. Hunter Strickland has a 1.69 ERA. JT, how do you say?

I forget. Chagua, I believe. Yes. 1.69 ERA. Colin McHugh, 1.74 ERA74 era adam conley 2.03 era whistler has a 2.3 era jp fire eisen is that how you say it i don't even know because they got from the brewers he has a fire eisen it's like unbelievable it's just like so many guys. Lewis Head, 2.36. Ryan Thompson, 2.38.

Yarbrough, 2.52. I'm going 12 names deep here with sub-three ERAs. And not all of these guys have been full-time members of the bullpen, but still unbelievable. Jeffrey Springs, who I mentioned, 3.43 ERA. He is like 13th on the list of raised relievers with at least 10 innings pitched in ERA. It's just unbelievable. So much depth. Okay. So I will take, I don't know if this guy is a bit too prominent, maybe. I'm sure we've mentioned him at some point, but Sandy Alcantara is just awesome. Alcantara is just awesome. I want to mention him just because he can't be mentioned enough, probably. And he's leading the major leagues in games started this year, and he is coming off a really excellent one. He just pitched a complete game against the Mets or nine innings and gave up one run and walked one and 14 strikeouts. And there are a lot of guys

that you could single out in this Marlins rotation. And Trevor Rogers has been good, and Pablo Lopez has been good, and lots of promising young players. We've talked about that. But Sandy Alcantara, if he is not getting his due, I don't know whether he is or not, but it would be because he's on the Marlins, a team that's out of contention. I don't know whether he is or not but it would be because he's on the Marlins a team that's out of contention and I know that we don't pay much attention to win loss record anymore but he's 8 and 13 this year despite having I think like one of the top 20 starting pitcher wars I believe he has 3.5 fan graphs were this year and that is a direct reflection of the fact that he has the lowest run support of any pitcher who has made at least 20 starts this year. And that is a direct reflection of the fact that he has the lowest run support of any pitcher who has made at least 20 starts this year, 3.1 runs of support. So the Marlins hitters are not helping him out. I guess they're not really helping anyone out all that much, but especially Sandy Alcantara. And so he has been in a lot of games like that where he will keep the Marlins in the game and he'll pitch a gem and then he will not be the pitcher of record or he'll not be the winning pitcher.

So I just wanted to salute Sandy Alcantara because he's not getting the Ws. And as a member of the Marlins rotation, he's probably not getting the headlines either, but he is 26 26 he just turned 26 this week tuesday i believe so happy birthday sandy alcantara i hope it was a happy one and that you were celebrating your recent brilliant start and your brilliant season as a whole okay i have one and you have to tell me off the bat if it's cheating and also i'm realizing this is an exercise in me remembering our own podcast. Yeah. Because I don't remember if we've talked about this. Okay.

And he definitely was an all-star, I think, although he was not there. Like the rest of his teammates, he was not present in Denver. Is Jose Altuve a cheat? I mean, wow. Isn't that a question? Leave it in. Great. Oh, no. Oh, there are a lot of ways that could answer that question it's not one of the big bangers on that team but oh my he's a famous player that's quite a freudian slip yeah i don't think we've talked about him this year i

don't think we really talked about him no i'm sure that he has been talked about and remarked upon more generally. I can't believe I did that. That was delightful. But he was sort of famously not very good last year. And I think that there were some very obvious narratives one could point to, to suggest why that might have been the case. But his numbers have rebounded in 2021 and he's hitting really well in the heart of the zone and just being sort of more selective, but not passive. So while he's not quite getting at everything in crazy parts of the strike zone or outside it like he used to, it's just he has been quite good this year, an all-star and a deserving one.

And at a time when the Astros really needed that, right? They've had other members of their offense sort of either underperform or be injured for long stretches this season. And then there's Altuve. And I know Dan wrote about Altuve for us a little while ago, and he pointed out a thing that had been one of the reasons that I really enjoyed watching Altuve over the years. And then it just completely disappeared for him in 2020, which is that he had sort of long been one of the best bad ball hitters in the majors, right? It seemed like there wasn't a safe pitch to throw to him in terms of where he could do damage. And that just like completely evaporated for him in 2020, right? He was bad in the middle of the zone, but then he was also bad in all the other places. And that has rebounded pretty dramatically for him in 2021. And so I know that there are jokes to be had and Freudian slips to

be made, but the rebound that he has enjoyed this season is pretty phenomenal. He went, you know, in the year, in 2019, he was a 139 WRC plus hitter he he dipped all the way to 77 in last year's campaign he's back up to 129 this year he's you know his babbitt has rebounded he is uh walking more and striking out less he's hitting for more power he's back up to 27 home runs after only hitting five long balls during the regular season last year. And so I... That was great. I love drafts. Drafts are some of our best episodes. We couldn't do it every time because it would get boring and it would wear.

But boy, they're fun to prep for. They're fun to do. I hope that people enjoy listening to them. If people don't think that it is going against the spirit of the exercise, I'm going to pick Altuve. Yep. That's fine for me. Yeah. And he even took his shirt off this year and we saw his tattoo and everything and it wasn't a great tattoo, but it wasn't so unsightly either. Anyway, it's been a big year for Jose Altuve. Been a year. That's a good one. All right. I will take a tiger and maybe I'll take two tigers if I can get away with it. Oh boy. One tiger is Jamer Candelario. I always have to make sure that I'm pronouncing that correctly because I always worry that I'm like one of

those old announcers who would call like all the Jorge's Georgie or whatever. And I always think, is it Heimer? Is it Jamer? No, it is Jamer. And I will know that now because he is having quite a good season and he had a good season last year too. And so, you know, we talked about Akil Badu and we've talked about some of the young Tiger starters who have come together to make that team more fun to watch. But Candelario, who has been their regular third baseman this year, he has hit pretty well. He's got a 122 OPS plus, and he is leading the major leagues in doubles. Who knew? Candelario is leading the major leagues with 39 doubles. And he hit even better last year, actually,

in the small sample season, 206 plate appearances. He had an 872 OPS. That was a 137 OPS plus. So he's turned into quite a good player after breaking in with the Cubs back in 2016 and not setting the world on fire with them or with the Tigers, really. But he has turned into, you know, not setting the world on fire with them or with the Tigers really, but he has turned into, you know, I don't know if you'd call him a building block or not. He was

part of that deadline trade in 2017 with the Cubs, Isaac Paredes for Alex Avila and Justin Wilson. And also he was traded from the Cubs to the Tigers with Paredes and he has kind of blossomed for the Tigers and you know the question has been like where are their hitters going to come from they've got all these good pitching prospects and I know they've made more of an effort to equalize things in the farm but Candelario is helping you know between him and Badu and another player I kind of was considering taking Robbie Robbie Grossman, like they've been a bit more competent and a bit more fun to watch on offense in addition to the occasional historic highlight from Miguel Cabrera. years old, but has kind of become a cornerstone of this Tigers team. And seems like he'll be around when the Tigers get good again, which could be like next year. I mean, they're already pretty good and he seems like someone they can count on. And, you know, Grossman, I won't spend as much

time on a former Astros outfielder. And he was someone who never really hit for much power, sort of like Miles Straw. But last year he suddenly hit for a lot of power. He had a 241 ISO. And I remember when we did our Tiger season preview segment, I asked, like, are they expecting Robbie Grossman to continue to hit for power? And I think the answer was like, not really. I mean, maybe a little bit. But he has continued to hit for power. He has 22 home runs this year.

Robbie Grossman. Robbie Grossman. Robbie Grossman. Did not see that coming at all. So, I mean, that was just not really in his skill set. And he's long been a patient player. He takes tons of walks. And when I was doing my article earlier this week on Juan Soto and his shuffle after taking pitches and just how incredibly selective he's been, Robbie Grossman was coming up on a lot of the same leaderboards as Juan Soto in terms of like chase rate and value coming from taking pitches in the chase region

and waste region and all of that. Like he's solid, you know, 358 on base percentage despite not having a very high average and hitting for power and everything. So yeah, Robbie Grossman, Jamer Candelario. So those are your final two? I guess. I guess.

So, hmm, I have to do two more. I've got others I can chip in as honorable mentions, but we can do a little lightning round if you have anyone left on your board. Well, I have a couple. Again, I worry that these are too prominent, but we'll see. How much have we talked about Wade Miley?

Apart from saying, what's going on with Wade Miley? Yeah, he's another guy who came up when Ben was on to talk about Wainwright, but prior to that. I didn't listen to that one. I'm sorry. I know that I'm supposed to listen to them even when I'm on vacation, but I didn't, Ben. I didn't do it. I was on vacation. It's okay.

Oh, no. How have I do it. I was on vacation. It's okay. Oh, no. How have I run out? I had more guys. I'm taking Salvador Perez. Okay, you can take it. I'm cheating. It's a little bit of a cheat, but it's not a terrible one. So we have Salvi.

That seems good. And then Wade Miley there. Yeah, yeah. Wade Miley definitely deserves to be discussed. It's still so perplexing to me. It's really, I mean, like some of this is that he participates and engages in a volume business. You know, he throws innings and that's useful for the Reds.

But Wade Miley, you know? Do you know? Yeah. He just throws a lot of know? Do you know? Yeah. He throws a lot of pitches outside the strike zone, and he's thrown his cutter a lot more. He's thrown that cutter. It's working. Yeah.

I did not see this coming, but it's working for him. So let's see. Some other guys I had on my board I can just list off here. Dylan Cease I wanted to mention because the White Sox are leading the American League in starting pitcher war and a lot of that is guys who've gotten plenty of attention whether it's Giolito or Rodan or Lance Lynn but Dylan Cease has been really excellent too and I will just give Dan Cymborski some recognition because Cease was on his List of breakout pitchers this Year and he was someone who

Like I think Dan and Zips Said should have had more strikeouts Last year than he did but He has like totally turned his peripherals Around and he was someone who was not Striking out many more guys than he walked And now he is definitely doing That so that's kind of like

You know I wanted to shout out the back of the brewers rotation back of the white socks rotation to dylan sees who was a prospect in his own right but has been kind of overshadowed and he's been excellent as well yeah and who else you know like uh like sean mania yeah i kind of thought that Sean, he was on my list because it didn't seem great last year. And it's been better this year. So that's good. I mean, part of it is that he's, I don't know, like it's weird because he is walking more guys. So you'd expect that this would be going worse for him than it is.

But Sean Mania is on my list. He's also striking more guys out. So that always seems to help. It's like strikeouts. They're useful. They are. Who else was on my list. He's also striking more guys out, so that always seems to help. It's like strikeouts. They're useful. They are. Who else was on my list who I considered? I mean, there are some surprise rookies like Adoles Garcia.

That remains cool and weird. And Chris Flexon. Hey, let's shout out Chris Flexon. Because we've already talked about some improbable Mariners pitching, but we should probably talk about Chris Flexen too because I think when he was coming over, we were like, how's that going to work? Yeah.

But it turns out that the changeup is quite good and his cutter has been good also, and it has allowed him to be like a guy, not a great guy. I mean, I don't know what he's like as a person. He might be a really great guy as a person, but he's not lighting the world on fire, but he has a 3.56 ERA and a fifth that's not much higher than that, and does not strike really anyone out,

but he doesn't really give up home runs either. He's eating innings for the Mariners, which was kind of the idea, but I don't know that they necessarily expected them to go as these ones have so chris flexin should be on our list it's a good one yeah i got the idea to do this draft because i was listening to the podcast yesterday with joe posnanski and mike sure and they were talking about the white socks and they were listing off white socks who've had great seasons and like the fourth name that they listed was Adam Engel. And I was like, wait, Adam Engel? Really? You're listing him that early? But no, Adam Engel has

been really good. I mean, only 33 games and 121 pretty princes, but he's hit really well after hitting quite well last year in a small sample too. But that's a good example of like, oh, Adam Engel. Yeah. Kind of overshadowed. I had not even realized that Luis Robert has been as good as he has since he came back. I mean, he has been unbelievable. He is hitting 333, 370, 528. So clearly that injury did not take any kind of toll. And he's still like swinging at everything, but weirdly also making contact more regardless. He's just been unbelievable. Who else did I have on my list? Yuli Gurriel, I wanted to mention because I thought he might be done. He's getting up there in years. He's 37 years old, and he did not hit at all last year. hit at all last year and he resigned with the astros really early like just didn't even test the market and can't imagine that the market would have been all that strong but he's having like a

career year offensively he's hitting 312 and on basing 383 with some pop like he has been phenomenal and he is uh walking almost as much as he strikes out So he's been a great Component of that excellent Astros offense As well who else Mitch Garver on the twins having a good year Oh sure Franmil Reyes on the Guardians He's been very good Jonathan India With the Reds excellent season

As well Teoscar Hernandez on the Blue Jays Tony Kemp With the A's Yeah Tony Kemp really good one. Tony Kemp with the A's. Yeah, Tony Kemp, really good here. Yeah, Tony Kemp. Jordan Montgomery with the Yankees. It's hard for a Yankee to be underrated, but I feel like Jordan Montgomery kind of is. And Kyle Quantrill, again I had was Eduardo Rodriguez with the Red Sox, who has like a 5-plus ERA, so would not be an obvious choice. But his peripherals are really good, like his FIP and everything is old Eduardo Rodriguez. So I did want to acknowledge that he is still doing some things. It's just having a low BABIP is not one of them.

Did you know that Cody Bellinger's WRC Plus is down to 47? Oh, boy. boy yeah he would be on if we did the the reverse of this episode yeah but that's not fun we don't want to do that i was just looking at our you know um at the player search to see oh is there anyone who's like really popping who people are searching for who we've forgotten and then i was like cody bellinger i was like that seems like it's not going great and i knew it wasn't but i didn't know it was going this badly 47 that's i i i i not reach base in september i think or at least he's over september so it's not good like is cody bellinger gonna make the dodgers postseason roster good question yeah i mean, probably, but you're thinking about it.

And didn't that seem unlikely coming into the season? Yeah, it seemed unlikely to me. Patton and the eight. Wow. Yeah. So there are some guys having good years. And we haven't talked about all of them. But here we are having talked about some. So good job, us.

We're the best. We've remembered some guys who are we have we've remembered some guys we've remembered some guys but yeah because you know jose altuve who who'd even heard of him before today right little known player yes so uh he is a little known player got good jokes on the altuve beat today so yeah feel free free to nominate some guys of your own. If you think we've continued to overlook anyone, email us, podcast at fangraphs.com. You can check their Fangraphs page to see if there have been any recent blogs about them or if they've been tagged in any effectively wild show pages. We don't tag every player we mention, only the ones we talk about at length. But if you haven't caught every single episode we've done, you could do a little search just to see if they've come up but if not feel

free to let us know if we've overlooked anyone don't want to snub any players who've been productive so this was a fun exercise glad we did it yeah me too all right pretty good episode about guys who've been pretty good hat tip to john voice 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, keep the podcast ad free,

and get themselves access to some perks. Luke, Amelia Newberg, Matthew Foley, Joe Morelli, and Michael Hank. 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 podcast.fangraphs.com

or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance. We will be back with one more episode before the end of this week. Talk to you then. Pretty good, not bad, I can't complain Cause actually, all them gods are just about the same Pretty good, not bad, I can't complain Cause actually everything is just about the same