Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1849: When the Whiff Hits the Fan

Episode Date: May 14, 2022

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about a wave of baseball ads for cryptocurrencies and NFTs coinciding with crashes in the crypto and NFT markets, injuries to Bryce Harper and Clayton Kershaw, the dominance of the Dodgers, Yankees, and (especially of late) Astros, the early NL West race, Robinson Canó getting a job as Jarred […]

All the feeling, when you're feeling You step like a little king, you're number one Down to zero with a word, leaving For another one Now you walk with your feet back on the ground Down to the ground, down to the ground. Down to the ground, down to the ground. Hello and welcome to episode 1849 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 Fangraphs. How are you, Meg? I'm doing all right. Well, we're speaking on Friday, and I've got to say it's actually been a big week for me. Exciting stuff is happening. And, you know, I don't really have a head for business. I'm not an avid investor. I don't play the market much, but sometimes an opportunity just falls into your lap, and you'd have to be a fool to pass it up.

And because I'm not much of a mover and shaker, I get most of my info on finance from MLB team Twitter accounts. And earlier this week, I got a hot tip actually from the Washington Nationals account. I don't know if you saw this, but they tweeted about this exciting new currency called Luna. Well, wait, let me back up a bit. Have you heard of this thing called crypto? Like in passing, I don't know very much about it though, Ben. Is it an exciting opportunity for me and my family? Well, I was sort of in the same boat because I had heard of it,

but I didn't really understand it, you know. But on Tuesday, at Nationals, tweeted this video called Crypto 101, which was just what I needed, really. And I was watching highlights of Nelson Cruz and Juan Soto hitting homers and learning about crypto at the same time, which was perfect. So it was only a 45 second video, but by the end I was sold. So I was going to put all my savings into Terra Luna. But then the Marlins Twitter account started tweeting about this NFT art display that's coming to Lone Shark Park. And then a little later in the week, MLB and the MLBPA sent me a press release about this new NFT game they're watching. Both Rob Manfred and Tony Clark were

quoted in this press release talking about how exciting and innovative it was. And normally, you know, those guys don't agree on anything. So I figured, okay, this NFT stuff, this seems pretty hot right now too. So I decided to diversify my portfolio and I went half crypto, half NFTs. So at this point, I'm pretty heavily leveraged and I haven't checked my accounts in a couple of days, but I feel really good about this. And I wouldn't have known about it if I were not a baseball fan. Would you like to take a big sip of coffee before we continue our conversation? Am I doing investing right?

I have bad news for you, Ben, as a former finance type. I mean, look, we're going to say the following up top, which is that to all the normies that lost money on this, we're really sorry. I feel like you were had. So we don't want to make light of that. But also, it's tremendous content. What a week for Web 3.0. I just think that the danger of any sponsorship deal

is that you sign some paperwork, and it takes a little while for the art to come together there are videos to be produced and yeah displays to be made i guess i don't know i don't know how they're displaying the nfts this is just like a digital photo firm and so you do all of that and that takes some time you know and then um and then the market markets and um yep you end up explaining crypto out in a week where it doesn't seem like it was a good week for the crypto. No, it was not the best week. No, but we're just bombarded by this really from all quarters.

And baseball is no exception. So whether it's MLB or whether it's MLB teams. Or Matt Damon. Or Matt Damon. Sure. I don't know if we can even pick on baseball. This is a baseball podcast, so I'm picking on baseball. But I don't know that baseball has gotten any more into this or tried to make a quick buck on this stuff before it collapses and scam people out of some of their

money. I don't know that they have been a worse offender than other sports leagues or other businesses or other celebrities. I mean, it's really just pretty pervasive. But since baseball is our bailiwick, it kind of comes across our view. And it is not the greatest look when you have teams tweeting about this stuff right in the middle of a market crash or immediately before it. So that hopefully not too many people actually did fall for this the way that I was pretending that I had there at the top of this episode. I assume someone somewhere did. That is the point of all of this, really, right? To get people to buy into it while it's still kind of pumped up by other people who are speculating and getting rich off of it. And a lot of those people lost a lot of money this week. Maybe not the original people who've already made their money, but the other people who've gotten in later. So it's unfortunate. The whole thing is. And I think we're all just sort of sick of it and have been for a while, just the constant messaging. And so, yeah, I wish that baseball could be a little oasis from

crypto and NFTs and wagering and all of that. But of course, it turns out to be the opposite of an oasis. It's where I encounter that stuff the most because I am consuming so much of it. I guess the first thing I would say as someone who has been watching a fair amount of both the NBA and NHL playoffs, because I just don't get enough sports in my day job, I just don't get enough sports in my day job. It's everywhere. I don't think that MLB is sort of leading the charge here. They strike me as a league average league when it comes to their quick embrace of crypto.

But it is a thing that we have expressed skepticism about in the past in terms of its sort of viability long term and certainly some frustration in its primacy in the past in terms of its sort of viability long-term and certainly, uh, some frustration in its primacy, you know, in the, in the space. And I continue to feel that frustration. And I, I do find the timing of this to be just really profoundly silly. Like why, if you work for the nationals, like I know that you have contractual obligations obligations but this isn't a moment where you say hey maybe we we delay the twitter video for like a week at least to see if the i guess it might not catastrophic the company might not exist right it might not be here in a week but then currency it has cratered so at that point you're you're saying to yourself maybe we delay a week and then we just get out of this thing entirely you know it's not like their check is gonna clear so yeah at

least there's no crypto.com ballpark so that hasn't happened yet and maybe won't at this rate but it's been everywhere i guess if you were to fault mlb for any of this it's just for the fact that they're getting into it now i guess they've gotten into it before right the umpires have been wearing those ftx patches for quite a while now so they've gotten on it before, right? The umpires have been wearing those FTX patches for quite a while now. So they've gotten on board. They had their tops NFTs and all sorts of silly like Lou Gehrig NFTs and just quick cash-ins that they've been doing really since everyone else started doing it. So I don't know that we can even make fun of them fairly for just being so late to the game that the market completely crashed by the time they got around to it. But there were a few high profile prominent examples this week that coincided

with a notable collapse of crypto. So that was not the best timing by MLB or by its constituent teams. Yeah, it just, you know, it's like, yeah, I sleep in the bed you've made. What's the expression? I just would prefer that more of our experience on the field to be about on the field than not, you know, speculative, perhaps pump and dump schemes. You know, who could say? Who could say if that's what it is? I mean, probably a lot of the people who invested, I don't know. Yeah, they could probably say right now. They might be able to say. A lot of the people who invested, I don't know. Yeah, they could probably say right now.

They might be able to say. But I got to watch Juan Soto highlights while I was learning about how crypto is an internet native currency and so forth. So that made it so much more enjoyable. But really, it's not even just the leagues are not without sin. Sometimes the players, sometimes the athletes that we care very much about. Even Shohei Otani is not blameless here because he's been hawking crypto. He's kind of a crypto NFT guy. The one fault perhaps of Shohei. But it's tough. It's tough when people like Larry David and Shohei Otani, two of my favorite humans on earth,

are either. They do stand out as prime disappointments, don't they? They do stand out as prime disappointments, don't they? Yes. Yeah. Not that Larry David is like legitimately an NFT crypto guy probably, but he cashed the checks, I'm sure. So yeah, the spokespeople, sometimes I like the spokespeople very much. And so that pains me. Anyway, we will not be doing that on Effectively Wild.

I think we've given you some sound financial advice when it comes to this sector so far. Not that we are qualified financial advice givers. I mean, you might be. Certainly I'm not. Whatever licenses I once held have long lapsed, put it that way. I do like that our general distaste for a thing that seemed silly kept us from making bad financial decisions. We're like, I don't totally get this. I'm going to trust that instinct. Bye. Yeah. I'm sure I've missed out on many real exciting money-making opportunities because I didn't understand something. So I don't know that that's the best barometer, but in this case, I think it's served me well. Yeah, my instincts served me well. I guess maybe it served us poorly for a while when we could have really ridden the wave. But yes, I think initially we were just

repulsed because like it was confusing and weird. And then like the more we learned about it, the less we liked it because like the less there is there and the more harm you find out it does. Yeah. And then it comes to baseball so and it was everywhere everywhere i think that that's part of the that's a big part of it is that you know we accept and generally it is less damaging than like a dubious financial investment but you know we accept that there are lots of things related to the game that we don't we don't especially care for and that's fine like it doesn't have to all be for us you know we we appreciate that there's a diversity of perspectives on these things and a lot of different ways to engage with baseball and you know just because sports betting

isn't our ballywick for instance doesn't mean that like others can't necessarily enjoy it but i resent how much i was told that i should and so um it is hard to not feel a little tiny bit of schadenfreude like base satisfaction there but again let's very sorry to everyone who had a terrible yes unless you're awful in which case like i don't know maybe you should have listened to people who said this seems like a bad idea who could say that's sort of been our position on sports betting too it's just like leave us alone it's like you know if you do it i'm conflicted because in a sense the entire industry is set up to prey on people to some extent. The most vulnerable people who are susceptible to just being addicted to that stuff.

That's kind of where the profits come from. So that is distasteful. If you're someone who can enjoy it responsibly, the fact that I don't do that personally has no bearing on whether I think you should be able to. People have their hobbies and they get their jollies wherever they are. And if it doesn't hurt someone, then that's fine with me. If you want to waste some money in all likelihood, if that's something that you're deriving entertainment value from, fine. And if it does make baseball more popular, I guess there could possibly be some upsides to that. Perhaps it's just that we want to personally opt out or unsubscribe, and that is not an option. It is not. But pretty soon it might be, because who knows if there will be a market to have to

unsubscribe from. So let's talk about some actual baseball here. There was some injury news, a couple notable injuries here. We got news about Bryce Harper, who has a tear in his UCL, a slight tear, a wee tear. I don't know what degree of tear, but not so bad that he cannot continue to DH for now the way that Otani did when he had to get Tommy John and he couldn't pitch. that Otani did when he had to get Tommy John and he couldn't pitch. And Harper, right after this news came out, shades of Shohei, when he went on a tear at the plate after the news that he would have to have TJ came out, Harper hit a home run too on Thursday. But he is not going to be able to throw for some number of weeks, and he has been limited to DHing, and he will continue to be for the foreseeable future, and perhaps for the season.

So I don't know that this will endanger his season at any point. I assume that he could keep DHing and just have the surgery in the offseason, presumably. But on the one hand, I like Bryce Harper mostly for the hitting. Not that he's been a bad fielder, but I don't necessarily tune in to see Bryce Harper in the field. And he's been more or less Harper-esque at the plate this year. You would not look askance at his stats and say they do not look Harperian. So he's been producing. And if he continues to hit, that's giving you most of the entertainment value of Bryce Harper. Of course, I'm sorry that he is hurt and that he may have to have surgery at some point if this does not respond to the PRP treatment he is having. But again, tremendous content potentially for Phillies defense lovers, right? Because this means if your DH slot is occupied, then there is no place to put both Kyle Schwarber and Nick Castellanos on any given day except in the outfield corners. And I should say that thus far to this point in the season, the Phillies' defense has been bad, but not historic, not necessarily the worst, but it could get worse.

And maybe if those two guys are actually in the field full time, which was not the plan, but you had to know that there was some risk of them playing more innings than you would want them to. So potential for lots of flubs in the field. So when I said like no notes, it assumed that there would be like one quasi-functional member of that outfield defense. And so one could say that I now have some notes, right? And that maybe others have notes for me about a failure to anticipate a perfectly normal baseball thing, which is that baseball guys get hurt and then they can't play or they can't play in the field.

And then, you know, one cannot sustain on vibes alone perhaps. I don't think that the downgrade from a compromised Harper in the field is necessarily as big as one might think between him and, say, Castellanos, but the downgrade from a fully functional Bryce Harper in his arm and right is somewhat meaningful to the noodley armed guys they got out there, which is so funny because they hit the ball so far. Why can't they throw it so far? It seems like you should be able to do both things.

If I were the Phillies, I would simply be able to do both. That would be my approach to this. It doesn't seem great, but it certainly seems like it's the reality that they're going to have to live with for a little while. I wonder if this will just be an inevitable kicking of the can down the road. PRP stuff does work sometimes, but it doesn't always. Is Bryce Harbridge going to DH the entire season? That might be the best case scenario that he is able to remain productive at the plate and forestall some sort of surgery

until later into the year or into the offseason. But I don't know. It's not the best. No. And in other not totally unexpected but still dispiriting injury news, Clayton Kershaw has gone on the injured list as well. He has an inflamed sacroiliac joint, which I think kind

of connects your pelvis and your lower spine. And he has had all sorts of lower back issues over the past several years. So I don't know if this is a recurrence or a slightly different ailment, but they are saying that this might be a minimum stay. I hope that that's the case, but you never know. And it could be a chronic or recurring thing. So he has just been off to such a fantastic start. Yeah, it really sucks. I hate to see that halted because he has been pitching just incredibly well. I mean, Clayton Kershaw has a sub-2 ERA and a 2.26 FIP,

and he's not walking anyone, and he's still getting his strikeouts. So it has been a ton of fun to watch him still succeed not throwing as hard he has managed even the post peak decline phase Clayton Kershaw whenever he is healthy and pitching he is still really effective so that is sort of sad

I hope that this does not linger and I remember when we talked about him being pulled from the perfecto I predicted that this does not linger. And I remember when we talked about him being pulled from the perfecto, I predicted that at some point in the season, if he did have to go on the IL with some sort of injury, that someone would say, oh, they should have just left him out to try to finish off that perfecto because he got hurt anyway. And I have already seen that take expressed today in the wake of this injury news. Oh, boy. Of course. Look, this is a back injury. He did not hurt his elbow.

So that's good news at least. And we would never know. That's what I said at the time. We would never know whether that spared him a potential future injury. And he might get injured again anyway. And it's not totally illegitimate to say, well, hey, he is fragile as it is. So why not go for it? One last hurrah there.

I understand that perspective, too. Anyway, that is floating out there as well. But hopefully this will not be a long stay on the shelf. Hopefully it will not be because he has just been so great. And because, you know, one of the things that we talked about with the Dodgers coming into the season was that they did not have, you was that they didn't have access to the same vaunted depth that they have had in years past, particularly in the rotation, and that remains a concern here. So I know that they're kind of scrambling to figure out what exactly they're going to do for the next little bit here.

They're moving Walker Bueller up a day, and they're going to have him start where Kershaw was supposed to. But that race is not going to get easier that powdery's team is good presumably the giants will get healthier at some point every team every team in the nls is still above 500 that's so exciting yeah what a nice little way above yeah i was gonna bring that up because the dodgers like yeah you're right about the depth concerns and yet their pitching has been otherworldly it's been so good they've allowed 2.7 runs per game so far this season that is incredible and they are leading the majors in run differential they're plus 76 as we record here on Friday they have the best Pythagin pat expected record in the league thus far they have the best base runs record and like by a wide margin too so not that that's a surprise to anyone that the dodgers would probably

still be the best team in baseball but boy the pitching has been incredible like we talked so much about the lineup the lineup's been good too don't get me wrong but the run prevention has been amazing i guess you could say the same about the yankees too where they've been raking but also yes they are kind of a great run prevention team and they are second behind the dodgers and all of those expected record and run differential metrics i mentioned yeah they have been spectacular jay jaffe sorry this is about the yankees small diversion. Jay wrote about their sort of home run experience, both in terms of producing it, but also suppressing them. And

they have since hit more home runs. So everyone should go read that piece if they want to check in on the Yankees. But yeah, it has been pretty remarkable to see the way that things have trended for the Dodgers. because look like it is not controversial to say dodgers thought to be a good baseball team entering the season like we both in terms of our staff predictions at fangraphs and all of our projection systems at fangraphs were incredibly optimistic about them i don't imagine that we were too far out of line with pakoda on that score like everybody agreed you know those dodgers this is a good team. And they have remained a very good baseball team. And it is remarkable to think about how good they have been

when you consider that not all of their guys are really as good as we might anticipate them being over the course of the season on the lineup side. Right now, Justin Turner is a 65 WRC plus right now, Ben. It's a 65 WRC plus. And Ben he's it's a 65 WRC plus and Max Muncy is barely above league average he's at a 101 Chris Taylor's at 104 Cody Bellinger at a 97 I'm scoring that a win considering what my expectations were for him coming into the year like Mookie Betts hasn't gotten going all the way yet and you know like Gavin lux has been all right but it's like a 105 so it's

like this team is doing this and like they don't feel like they are fully what they could be freddie freeman though you know freddie freeman's pretty good at baseball i didn't know that yeah he's he's hitting pretty all right right now so it is it is wild to think that this team could be better and they could be better just by like some of their guys starting to hit like they historically have so that's pretty exciting here's a thing small rabbit hole that i went down are you prepared for my tiny rabbit hole so one of the things that has been admirable about clayton kershaw this year is that in addition to like not walking anyone and striking guys out he's like really not giving up many home runs right like his his home

run suppression is is sort of back to what it looked like in 2015 and 16 and you might expect that that will revert a little bit and obviously we're in a different offensive environment than we were and so i was like you know what is what is home runs per nine kind of looking like right now because the the baseball you might have heard is um is dead it is a ghost it is a pile of dust and so i was like i'm gonna go i'm gonna go look at that and i'm gonna see i want to see like who's leading the league in home runs for nine because i'm not a nice person what's going on with nathanie avaldi ben oh boy yeah that's a lot of home runs especially this year like it seems like a lot it just seems

like a lot 2.3 per nine that's 2.03 per nine excuse me but like that's i mean it's still still a lot though you know like patrick corbin led the league in home runs per nine last year among qualified starters it was 194 so anyway that's a that's a tiny diversion on whatever the hell is going on with Nathan Evaldi right now. But Clayton Kershaw, pretty good. Hope he is back and healthy soon because what fun this has been. You know, we were like last year, look at Mike Trout. Amazing.

Better than ever. And then immediately hurt. Yes. Fortunately, he is back and better than ever again. But yes. Yeah. But, you know, it's like we want to be able to look at our guys who we who we love the best and say hey you're still so good at baseball yeah i try not

yet leading all of baseball in uh in war because manny machado remains really good but anyway soon soon he'll get there i want to say because sometimes i worry that people are like why don't you guys like other baseball players? Must one play for the Angels in order to be in their hearts? If Manny Machado ends up just leading baseball in war this year, that'd be fine. He's fun to watch play baseball. If Jose Ramirez overtakes Mike Trout, that'd be fine too.

Wouldn't be mad about it. I'm just saying that we count on some things every year, and when we don't have them, it makes us nervous. Yeah. Those constants, they comfort us. And I want that three-team race in the NOS to really deliver the way that it didn't quite last year. I mean, that was one of the highlights of the season that it ended up being a two-team race, as great as that race was even after the Padres fell out of it. But we are shaping up to get the three-team race that we really wanted because as great as the Dodgers' underlying numbers are, they're 20-10, the Padres are 20-12, the Giants are 19-12. So there's less than a two-game separation among those three teams. And they're all pretty close to the leaderboard of deserved

record. Like if you go by run differential, I think it goes Dodgers, Yankees, Angels, Giants. Giants ahead of Mets and Astros. And if you do Pythag and Pat record, same order. If you go by base runs, I believe the Astros are actually third ahead of the Angels and the Astros are on an incredible run of their own. They've allowed 11 runs over the last 10 games.

That doesn't seem like very many. It's not. It seems like a small number. I know we're in a deader ball era, and I want to be careful. It's not a dead ball. No. The rest of the offense is dead. The ball is deader.

It's a quieter ball. It's a quieter ball. It's a more muted ball. It's understated. It's modest. It's a modest ball. It's a more muted ball. It's understated. You know, it's modest. It's a modest ball. Yeah. And so I saw a stat by stats that said that this was the first team to allow a dozen or fewer runs over a span of 10 games since 1974.

Wow. Which I guess tells you where the run environment is right now. But it's not just that. I know no one's scoring these days. But like almost literally no one is scoring against the Astros these days. So there are some good teams out there is basically what we're saying. And there's a really great race shaping up in the NL West. So I want that to go pole to pole this year. I want it to last. So part of that would be getting Clayton Kershaw back at some point, hopefully, and of course, Fernando Tatis.

But there was another development in the NL West I guess we should address briefly because there were a couple timed transactions that they are kind of linked just because the history of these players. It appears that the Padres are signing Robinson Cano. So Robinson Cano got a job in the majors while Jared Kelnick lost his, at least temporarily. Those two players, of course, famously traded for each other. Kelnick has been optioned after further struggles for the Mariners in the majors this year. So sort of interesting to see them at least very briefly going in opposite directions. Cano, I don't know how long his lease on that roster spot will turn out to be. I enjoy watching Robinson Cano play baseball, so I hope he has a little more left,

even though he didn't show it in his brief time with the Mets this year. But Padres pick him up for the league minimum, and they'll see if he has something left. Meanwhile, the Mariners demote Kelnick after just even more extraordinary struggles, I guess you'd have to say. I know that he was kind of getting things together a bit toward the end of last season, and I kind of thought he would pick up where he left off there or maybe even vault above that. And instead, he just seems to have gone back to where he was when he was first promoted. It's been pretty ugly lately. Yeah, it's been pretty, pretty bad. pretty ugly lately yeah it's been pretty pretty bad before the demotion is hitting 140 219 291 he has a 57 wrc plus he has a 232 wobah 38 strikeout rate yeah it's pretty bad

you know he is right now being well right now he is headed to Tacoma but he was being bolstered ever so slightly by good outfield defense um so that part is uh is nice I guess not that we need to get overly fussed in one direction or the other um about defensive metrics uh in the early going here but like he looked good out there, so that stands out. But I imagine, Ben, that there will be some takes about this. I suspect there will be some takes because I don't know if you know this, but the Seattle Mariners are in New York to play a series against the Mets. What timing.

I imagine that there will be some conversation about who has won this trade, because it seems like we don't like anything quite so much as we like talking about who has won a trade. It's one of our collective pastimes as a nation. So I am here to ask you, who do you think? No, I don't care. It's not a, I don't know that that matters very much. So, yeah, I hope that Kelnick can go, like, get his head on straight, get some good momentum toward being a productive big leaguer because right now it doesn't look great. It doesn't look good. Which is really surprising. And I'm not a scout, but I trust the prospect people who are scouts or talk to scouts or have some scouting acumen.

Going toout school once does that make me one of them and so by just listening to what all the prospect people said about him and just looking at his performance he was kind of labeled a can't miss or as close to a can't miss as you can get and sometimes the can't misses do miss i'm not saying that he will miss. He has missed thus far, but he is not yet 23. And of course, he didn't have a 2020 season, and you never know whether that will disrupt someone. So I don't know. It's odd. It's not what I expected to see. I would not give up on his career, but I guess it's partly the Mariners' track record with player development is something that makes you lump him on the pile with others and think, oh, here we go again, which maybe isn't fair to him. At least Julio Rodriguez seems to have picked up a bit and maybe umpires are picking on him a little less lately.

But he has been hitting over the last couple of weeks. So that's something at least. And they called up George Kirby and he was great in his debut. So maybe that eases the wound a little bit, but yeah, he's supposed to be a big part of the foundation of hopefully a contending Mariners team and core for the next several seasons. So it would be a big blow if he somehow turned out not to be that. Yeah, it would be, he is viewed as sort of a foundational piece i think you were right that like it is it is quite nice that julio is hitting

better he was kind of struggling in the early going there since the start of may is you know has a 162 wrc plus and it'll be interesting to see how he continues to adjust to breaking stuff in particular because that seems to be a struggle for him, although one that's getting better. So, you know, I don't know that Kelnick is like unsalvageable. I do think that you have to start to adjust down your expectations for like what the part of his career that comes with team control will be, right? Which is how we think about future value of Van Graaff.

So there needs to be some adjustment there. It's interesting, the player development point, because, you know i i think over the last couple of years seattle has started to garner a well-deserved reputation for being a team that can really maximize pitching that it has done a good job of helping guys that they have drafted develop that it has done a good job helping to sort of adjust and tweak guys who they have traded for and maximize their production at the big league level. But we don't really have that kind of a victory on the position player side yet. And so it'll be interesting to see if they are able to help Kilnick to sort of salvage something that looks

more like what the expectations were. Because you're right, he was viewed as sort of salvage something that looks more like what the expectations were. Because you're right, he was viewed as sort of, this guy's just going to get called up and he's going to hit and it's going to work out great. And that has not seemed to actualize yet. So I don't know that it's necessarily fair to say that he goes on the pile because the Mariners were and remain sort of bad at player development. But I think that their victories of late have all been on the pitching side. So I think there is some

warranted skepticism there in terms of their ability to help him kind of figure out what ails him. So we'll just have to see. But it's too bad because I think a lot of people in Seattle were excited that this year was going to be the year and that they were going to really you know advance the plot and it is may 13th so like they could still very well do that it is not as if they are you know out of it by any means but i think that when we think about the the cano trade and who won and who lost one way to think about it is, is less about, you know, what the players involved have themselves done and what the Mariners as a franchise have managed to do with the salary relief that they got for moving Canoe, right?

Because one flaw that a lot of people saw with this Mariners team coming into the year was that while they did make some offseason additions, right, they signed Robbie Ray and they traded for Jesse Winker and Eugenio Suarez. And so they had those reinforcements. It was pretty heavily dependent on the prospects, not only coming up and producing at a big league level, but producing really well at a big league level. And I think that we talked on this podcast about how like, hey hey maybe it would have been nice if they had been more in it on some of the other uh free agent bats now a lot of those free agent bats haven't hit particularly well in the early going either so who knows maybe they would have been in the exact same spot but from

a process perspective i think that we were right to express some concern that like this is really dependent on like julio being incredible and kelnick figuring it out and the young pitching being good and so far the young pitching has been quite good and so that part is like getting score to win but you know you have a couple of good weeks of julio you have kelnick needing to get demoted jesse winker and suarez have been fine, but not that great lately. And Mitch Hanegar's hurt again. And Mr. Max Effort, Matt Brash, also demoted to Tacoma and moved to the bullpen, right? At least for now. At least for now. So I think that some amount of attrition, whether it is to the point of not being rosterable at the big league level or being

rosterable, but not being an all-star producer. It's just part and parcel with prospects. This is what happens even with very good ones, even with guys who you think are going to produce. But if what you're trying to do is make the postseason for the first time in 21 years, I don't know, maybe you want some other guys. You might want some other guys is all I'm saying.

Yeah, a lot of things had to go right for it to happen for them this year. So it's not that shocking to me that they aren't on track to break the streak this season. The question is just, is this a setback, a temporary setback, just a flesh wound? Or is this something that makes you concerned for the core? I don't think we're quite at that point yet but not an encouraging start so right and and you can look at seattle and if you're looking for reasons for optimism right you might look at it and say like well they can turn it around and if you want to see a guy who kind of was ended up being a slower burn than you were expected and managed to after sort of the prospect hype had worn off sort of turn things around and have a great career. Like they have that guy. That's JP Crawford, right? JP Crawford did not end up living up to his prospect hype in Philly. He came to Seattle.

He has been much better there. He has this extension. He's producing really well. He's hitting well. And so like there is a path for that. And that could all happen this year. Like maybe Kellnick goes down to AAA and he figures some stuff out and he comes back and it's like,

okay, here's a productive Jared Kelnick and then Mitch Hanegar comes back healthy and then Matt Brash is like an incredible bullpen weapon because he walks a million guys, but the stuff is crazy. It's not as if it has to be next year. It could end up being later this summer. That could happen,

but it's just you want there to be less resistance in the path i guess is what i would say you know they should have built the whole team out of thai france anyway cross promotion eric long and higgins top 31 seattle mariners prospects list is up at fan crafts right now it is indeed you can indulge your dreams of future mariners success even if not all of them are delivering at the big league level right now. One other bit of news. I wanted to ask you a question prompted by the Guardians COVID outbreak. So the Guardians, they've got some COVID problems, mostly limited to the coaching staff thus far. So they have seven coaches out of commission now with COVID from Terry Francona,

the manager on down, bench coach DeMarlo Hale, hitting coach Chris Valaika, assistant pitching coach Joe Torres, first base coach Sandy Alomar, third base coach Mike Sarbaugh, hitting analyst Justin Toole, all out for now. Somehow pitching coach Carl Willis has not contracted COVID, so I don't know if he's just like not hanging out with the coaches, not attending the same meetings or something, but thus far, at least he is COVID free. And so he is the acting manager of this team for now. And they said that other individuals throughout the organization might help him out. Like they might call up coaches from the minors to fill those slots seemingly. And I'm just wondering, we've talked about player managers, right, and how we don't think that we will ever see one again, that it doesn't really make sense for teams to use them.

But how far down the line of succession for a manager, just on a temporary basis, and we hope that all the Cleveland coaches are okay. hope that all the Cleveland coaches are okay. But how far down the line of succession is a player on the roster and just saying, hey, we're not going to call up our AAA bench coach to be the manager here. Let's just designate a player, not the full Lou Boudreau or anything, but just like we got to get through a few games here. And why don't we just make a player manager our solution here? Is that something that could conceivably happen? Not that I want there to be widespread COVID outbreaks that would make this more likely, but I wonder if that's the one way that we could potentially get a player manager at this stage.

I don't think you would get a player manager even then. I don't want to be a buzzkill. I don't want to be a bad time. But I don't think even then that you get a player manager. They'd absolutely call someone up from AAA. Or they'd call someone up from AA. Or they'd have the, I don't know, they'd have someone in the front office do it. I don't think that you would have a player do it.

I think that you'd have to, in order for things to be bad enough for a player to be designated as the manager, I think they'd be bad enough that you just wouldn't play baseball yeah you know probably yeah i wish that i had a sense of whimsy about it i mean i guess it's appropriate that i don't because it's literally people sick with a disease that is very scary so maybe it's fine that i am whimsy-less on this score but i i think that if you're getting to the point where you really can't field a coaching staff even down to the like minor league level that you're like shut down while they figure out what's going on you know yeah i'm just thinking like i mean if you're replacing your

third base coach or something then you could call someone up from triple a you just need someone to tell you whether to tag up or not or you need someone to stand at first and shout back or not, fine. But also maybe those coaches at that level are playing some developmental role for minor leaguers. So maybe there's some costs there. And then you figure that maybe major leaguers, they could get by on their own for a few games, potentially. I'm just wondering, I think this Guardians roster is not well positioned to be the team that would press the player manager into service because this is a really young team. Actually, I believe the youngest team in baseball.

They have the youngest average. That's Stephen Kwan, manage. Yeah, yeah. They have the youngest average batting age and the youngest average pitching age of any team this year, both sub 27. I think Brian Shaw is their oldest player. He's 34 and he's their oldest by like three years. So this is probably not the team that would do it if a team were to do it.

But what if this were Cleveland in 2013 or 2014 when they had end of career Jason Giambi on the roster, for example, like 42, 43 year old Giambi who was there mostly as a clubhouse presence and like occasionally pinch hit or something like it seemed like he was maybe getting groomed for a coaching role or at least that they were just employing him to just kind of be a person that people liked and veteran mentorship and all of that. So I wonder if it were a team that had someone like that, who was maybe a manager in waiting or a coach in waiting, or just had a part-time role on the roster already, then maybe that would be a natural candidate to say, hey, why not start your coaching career a

little early here? And technically you'll still be an an active player but you have time to be a coach too yeah i could see that as a thing or like maybe like you know the cleveland era that had like andrew miller don't you think andrew miller would have been a great manager and got that spindly way about him and goes out there and makes pitching changes you know yeah you might think with a guy like that where you have you as an organization have already made the identification that this person when their playing career is done is going to be part of your org and help to to bring up your guys and and be sort of a homegrown coach then yeah like maybe in that case you you'd do it but like wouldn't you you'd bring in like your head of player development probably to to manage in the in the dugout before you'd probably yeah you know

before you'd have a player do it but maybe not you know now i'm i'm just looking at the mariners coaching staff and like they have yokuma is back as a special assignment coach they should let him manage and for cleveland and for cleveland too that'd be fine you know like he doesn't work for them but he could just like moonlight because i love you okuman that would be fun so i feel like that's a less fun answer but it's probably the right one that it would be unlikely to happen but but maybe maybe we can come up with a a reason for it to to happen that doesn't involve covid and then my sense of whimsy will return like they all went to a concert and the bus broke down and they can't get back.

And so what are you going to do? Like it's, they're all at a concert and it was a, it was a coaching development exercise. And so all of the coaches from all of their teams were there and the bus broke down. What are you going to do? You can't go get them.

So you got to play a game that night. And so you say, Jose Ramirez, congratulations. You are now the manager of the Cleveland guardians. See now I've, I've created a sense of whimsy. No one's health or well-being is at stake,

and we get to watch Jose Ramirez manage the Guardians. That sounds like a good time. Works for me, although I don't want him to play any worse, which is a risk if someone is managing and playing simultaneously. Yeah, you really... Yeah, I'm not pro-player manager. I don't actually think we should have player managers. No, it tends to not work very well that it would be weird to have one.

For one game. Yeah, like for the first time since the 80s for that to come back. I know there have been ceremonial honorary managers sometimes, like the last game of the regular season. A veteran player will get to fill out the lineup card. But to have an actual designated player manager for one game, that would be a weird anachronism that I would kind of enjoy. Although, yes, I agree that other circumstances would enable me to enjoy it more. I don't want anyone to catch COVID.

See, I think this just proves that it should be Andrew Miller, like a reliever. You know, I mean, he was very good for them in 2016. So you don't want him to play worse and you want him to be available. But like like you know what if it is andrew miller and then andrew miller has to think about how andrew miller in 2016 is going to be deployed eh yeah right we want to see that and again not for an entire season because you want the team to play well and you don't want guys to have to be distracted and we support people only having to do one job at a time.

Once you start asking people to do more than one job, it can be kind of burdensome. But if you ask Andrew Miller to manage on a day where he would have been unavailable anyway, then you got no problems. You just have spindly Andrew Miller managing the Guardians from 2016. We got time travel. We have people stuck at a concert. We have a really tall guy going out there to make pitching changes. I think this is a good plan. Yep. Or you could hire the current edition of Andrew Miller who just retired as a player. And

so therefore he would only have to have one job. Right. Again, he might be looking for one for all I know. Yeah. Now I'm envisioning, you of the Guardian's front office staff rolling up a gravel driveway. I don't know where Andrew Miller lives, which is fine. We're not friends. And saying, we need you to come back for one game. And then he's like, I can't throw the ball. And it's like, we're not asking you to, Andrew. We're not asking you to.

And that would be great. And then they could make a movie out of it. Who would play Andrew Miller in a movie? It's the Friday show. We get would be great. And then they could make a movie out of it. Who would play Andrew Miller in a movie? It's the Friday show. We get to be a little loose. I meant to mention that Kelnick has 473 Major League played appearances,

which is not an insubstantial number. No. Also, I don't know if that means you're doomed if you don't produce in your first 473 played appearances.

Sometimes you'll hear like rule of thumbs kind of arbitrary. Rules of thumb hear rule of thumbs kind of arbitrary. Rules of thumb? Rule of thumbs? Probably rules of thumb. Rule of thumbs? So sometimes player development people will say, oh, once you have X

number of PA in the majors, that's who you're going to be. That kind of thinking is probably outdated in this era of player development anyway when we do see players reinvent themselves fairly late in their careers. But that number's not a small number but it's not such a big number that it also makes me think this is who he is and always will be so wanted to mention that it is kind of funny not in a haha kind of way but in a you know sometimes the matrix comes together to facilitate takes i was reminded that this is courtesy of cory brock who covers the mariners for the athletic that it was one year

ago today that kelnick logan gilbert and paul seawald were promoted from triple a to the big leagues exactly one year wow and also because you mentioned the Yankees hitting homers, it feels like a vindication of Cashman to some extent, or at least maybe it explains the Yankees in a way that I was mystified by them last year because it was largely the same players. A lot of the same players who are producing now and hitting those homers were around last year and they either just were not producing or maybe they were not fully healthy. last year and they either just were not producing or maybe they were not fully healthy. Your Glaber Torreses and DJ LeMay Hughes. So it's kind of the same roster construction. I guess they've gone a little defense heavier because they have catchers who don't hit but can actually catch now and they have Isaiah Kiner-Falefa. But largely it is a lot of the same personnel in place and they're just doing better.

And it turns out that having Anthony Rizzo instead of Freeman or getting Josh Donaldson instead of Carlos Correa or whatever moves they made or didn't make. So far, at least, that's worked out pretty well. Yes. And I don't know that I actually have an argument around this. You know, I don't have a skin in the game. this you know i don't have a i don't have skin in the game but if you want to praise that you could also say boy it sure sucks that they couldn't get a deal done with aaron judge because boy is he hitting well so you know we want to we want to offer a fair and balanced take here judge has a 193 wrc plus bun not bad yeah so far his bet on himself has paid off at least for the the first

five or so weeks of the season. I'm given to understand that he leads baseball on home runs. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I am given to understand. So I got one email here that I wanted to answer from Peter, who says, Small sample, etc., but Milwaukee's Devin Williams currently has a 20.4% walk rate and a 35.2% strikeout rate. 20.4% walk rate and a 35.2% strikeout rate. Although his ERA is dinged by a bad outing, his FIP minus is comfortably at 78.

100 is average, lower is better. My question is, how high do you think a pitcher's walk percentage can go and still be effective? I.e., is there an upper limit to being effectively wild? It sure feels like 20% is a soft limit, but could a pitcher reasonably push that limit if they have more stuff to induce whiffs? So how wild can you be and still be successful? I guess we know the answer for Matt Brash was not quite that wild, but there have been some examples.

And it's funny that Peter says that 20% is sort of a soft limit. That has basically been a hard limit. I did some exporting from the FanCrafts leaderboard, just looked for players since integration with at least 60 innings in a season. And there's been only one player who ran a 20% walk rate and had a better than average FIP or average or better. And that was appropriately wild thing, Mitch Williams in 1987, who had a 20.1% walk rate and struck out 27.6%. So not the greatest ratio there, but he managed to have a 96 fit minus and a 71 era minus because he had a very low babbip and he didn't allow a lot of homers either but that is the

upper limit he's the only one wild thing is the only one who has ever been effective with that level of wildness in that number of innings and then then you have to go to 2009, Carlos Marmel was at 19.4, 1948, Ted Gray, 2000, Scott Sauerbeck, 1962, Ryan Duren. That would be a good one with the Yankees with the Coke bottle glasses and everything. Brandon Morrow with the Mariners in 2007 and Randy Johnson with the Mariners in 1991, they're all on the list too. And the ERA minus list is basically the same for the most part as the FIT minus list, except that you get another Mariner on there, 2001 Jeff Nelson and Nolan Ryan shows up and Bob Turley. So it's really hard to do with that level of lack of control. So you could have just an off-the-scale ERA minus.

So it can be done, but you have to miss a ton of bats or get really lucky well and i think that for you know especially when you're contemplating a reliever the place where you probably see the effect of this first it's not as if the binary is rosterable or not rosterable but like you're gonna i would imagine very quickly get to a point where you're starting to think really carefully about like under what circumstances that pitcher is being deployed and sort of what leverage state you're you're willing to use them in right and i think that's where you probably start to see the shift first is like it's not like devin williams is gonna not play but if he continues to be like super wild and the strikeout stuff starts to slip like you might see him

deployed pretty differently than he has been or than they necessarily wanted or counted on him being deployed right yeah he has not allowed a home run this season which is kind of the key if you're gonna give a lot of walks then yeah you can't yeah you sure can't you sure can't yeah wow he has not been effective he has been wild he does have a high era as mentioned he's been effective in the sense that he has a sub-3 FIP. And even if you adjust for his home run per fly ball rate, which is 0.0% so far, even his XFIP is 3.4. So he's actually been unlucky in the sense that he has a 435 BABIP. It's just a weird line all around. Yeah, it's a super weird line. Yeah. So you basically have to have Devin Williams' strikeout stuff and then also have a deader ball or get lucky with your fly balls not going over the fence to make this work. Right.

I mean, like, I think that it is perhaps instructive for us to think about, you know, like, so Williams leads qualified relievers in his walk rate with 20.4, as we said. Hunter Strickland is right behind that at 20.3, but he is only striking out 15.9% of hitters as opposed to Devin Williams, who has a 35.2 strikeout rate. And he is also allowing some home runs. Hunter Strickland is just maybe not very good. So anyway, you don't want to be Hunter Strickland, right? Because if you're Hunter Strickland, then you have a FIP that's almost twice as much as Devin Williams. But just don't flirt with it, I think is what you

really want to look at there. No flirting. Don't flirt with Hunter Strickland. Wait, that's different than what I mean. It might also be true. Who knows? All all right let's end with a little pedantic corner here how can you not be pedantic about baseball i just feel so vindicated look i know that not everyone who listens to this podcast is as pedantic as we are because that's a hard level of i can't say this word right, I've struggled with that too. Pendantry. Anyway, not everyone's like us. And I don't mean that in a braggadocious way. I mean that in a like, I'm happy for you. I bet your therapy sessions are less complicated than mine. So there's that. But like the number of emails that we have gotten about this makes me think that a lot of you are pretty pedantic and maybe enjoying the podcast. So that's nice to know.

Yeah. And we were serious about the t-shirts. We're working on it. We're working on it. More to come, but we are working on it. So here's a question from Peter. How come when an MLB player is making their debut from the minors, they are recalled to the majors? It's one thing if you've sent a prospect who isn't performing his best to go back

to AAA and then recall them. But what are we recalling these new prospects from? They've never been in the majors yet. Again, total pedantry, but it feels somewhat incorrect. Do you have a position on recalled? I think that this is a good point. I also like that you just like you committed to saying pedantry and then it sounded fine. You just like went ahead. You were confident. You maybe didn't think about it just the courage of your convictions just project confidence i think that this is a this is a good point i mean i think technically the the transaction does not really differentiate between prior presence on the active roster versus a new presence on the active roster and so it is

maybe technically correct in that respect but i think that it would be better to say it would communicate more to say promoted because then you're not implying a prior presence on the 26th man that doesn't exist right i think the issue here, as I understand it, it is recalled. Recalled signals that you were already on the 40-player roster, right? So that is why you are being recalled technically, in that if you were selected in the offseason, if your contract was selected to protect that player from the Rule 5 draft, you're on the 40-player, but you don't make the team out of spring training and you get optioned to the minors before the season started so then when you come back a recall yeah technically you've been recalled because you were optioned in the first place like it's like your default state is i'm a major leaguer now i'm on the 40 40 man. But then you get optioned. And then when you get called back up, you're recalled. But I do think it is kind of a confusing term because it does suggest that you've been a big leaguer before, which in many cases is not true. or selected or something, that might mean they're being added to the 40 for the first time, or they're just getting called up and being added to the 40 when they get promoted to the majors. So it is useful to have that distinction, I suppose, so that you know who was and wasn't

on that expanded roster already. But I think we could still probably come up with something that is less misleading. Plus, the issue that recalled brings up for me isn't even this one. It always reads funny to me because it makes it sound like, oh, yeah, that guy. They just remembered that he existed down there. Like you are remembering the existence of that guy. And oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Like in a couple of weeks when hopefully, you know, Jared Kelnick has righted the ship and is ready to be recalled to the majors.

It'll be like the Mariners recall Jared Kelnick. And it's like, oh, yeah, we had that former top prospect that was down there. We should see what that guy's up to. Check in with him. Like, find out how the family's doing. Yeah, right. We haven't talked in a while. Yeah.

Not let's remember some guys, but let's recall some guys. But it's like, so this might be just sticking on Mariners guys. Why not? So when this year, Julio Rodriguez made the big league roster out of camp, right? He was on the opening day roster for Seattle. But like last year, his MLB.com transaction log reads thusly. Seattle Mariners invited non-roster right fielder Julio Y. Rodriguez. This is before he had just done Julio with the accent anyway, to spring training. And then on that same day, outfielder Julio Rodriguez is assigned to Seattle Mariners, and then he is later assigned to Everett Aquasucks. And so had he been called up in 2021, he would have been recalled just to give people a sense of what you were talking about there.

Yeah. I would never say that if I was talking about someone who was promoted. I would say promoted. Promoted. Or called up. Called up. Yeah. So it's kind of a technical term that I agree is somewhat misleading potentially.

Yes. Yes. All right. Question from Brett. I was watching the A's Tigers game on Thursday, May 12th, in which the A's scored three runs in the top of the first. The play-by-play announcer in the A's broadcast said the A's scored three times in the top of the first, but really, there were only two scoring plays. A Jed Lowry RBI single and a Christian Bethencourt two-run single.

This isn't a perfect parallel, but it made me think of football, where if a team has ten points, we wouldn't say it has scored 10 times. It scored twice, once in the touchdown and once in the field goal. At least in that context, we're referencing scoring plays, not individual instances of a point or run being added to the board. So in the inning in question, did the A's score three times or did they score twice, bringing in three runs? Did the A's score three times or did they score twice, bringing in three runs? I have to, this is a bridge too far into being pedantic for me. So I think that a useful way of differentiating it from football is that you score individual runs and you have one run per player who crosses the plate.

Whereas in football, your scoring play includes multiple points right and so i think that it is correct to say that the a's scored three times they scored three runs because you have three guys crossing home plate and those three guys scored three runs and so you can differentiate the method of scoring right and the the way in which they did that both at an individual player level right he has x number of rbi to his name and then in terms of your description of how the scoring took place but i i think that i think this one is fine yep completely with you on this one you could say that it was a run scoring event or a run scoring play, something like that if you wanted to. But the run doesn't actually score until that runner crosses home plate. So that is when the run scored. So I think you had three runs scored, even if it was only on two distinct plays.

And when we talk about a particular run scoring event, we are careful to indicate how many runs scored on that run scoring event, right? You would say that a player hit a three run homer, you would say that a player had an RBI ground out, right? We we indicate the number of runs that score as a result of that particular event. But you know, until someone crosses home, and that guy does it doesn't count like if he you know and the way to think about this is that like let's say someone hit a three run shot right you still got to do all the stuff on the bases for it to count gotta run them in order and everything right and if you don't like there are consequences for that so All right. And the last one, this is another Ben who is describing his pet peeves. A big one for me is using fanned and punched out interchangeably.

According to my understanding, to fan the batter specifically refers to a swinging strikeout, so named because the bat waves at the ball but does not touch it like a fan. the ball but does not touch it like a fan, while to punch the batter out specifically refers to a looking strikeout, referring to the punching motion that the umpire makes in calling strike three. I'm happy to give some leeway outside of the context of the specific play. If announcers want to say that the pitcher has fanned nine tonight or has only pitched two innings but already has five punch outs, that's fine with me. Saying the starter has fanned four and punched out three is both a mouthful and is likely to confuse some listeners. But when we've just watched the batter whiff on a two-strike pitch, announcers will still frequently say that the pitcher gets the punch-out, despite the fact that everyone can plainly see that there was conspicuously no punching of any kind.

That one really rankles me for whatever reason. I wonder if you guys or other listeners have the same thoughts on this one or if I'm on my own here. consistent with my understanding of like fanning versus punching out right yes yeah like because you know you got the little gesture i'm doing a little gesture which no one can see so you know but i'm doing it it's like active cat's looking at me like what are you doing and fanning yeah is like a is to my knowledge a a swinging strike yeah yeah it doesn't bother me though but i get how it could bother you this is one where i'm know, I am not active in my annoyance, but I support your annoyance and think that it is reasonable. How about that? Yeah, and he's proposing a middle ground here.

He's not saying that we have to adhere to this to the degree that we have to differentiate between fans and punch outs when we're talking about someone's line from that start. fans and punch outs when we're talking about someone's line from that start. So that is generous of him, I think, to allow for that imprecision just for convenience's sake. I've struggled with this as a writer at times because I wish that there were more terms for strikeouts because I have to write about strikeouts a lot because there are a lot of them these days. And quickly you run out of terminology for those things, or at least you run out of universal strikeout terminology. Because I've struggled with this too. Can I say that he fanned however many if those weren't all swinging strikeouts? Can I just say that he punched out this many batters that season or fanned that many batters that season,

even though I'm conflating types of strikeouts? I'm kind of uncomfortable with that. I don't mind it so much in a single start, but I end up just saying strikeouts or Ks over and over again, which is pretty boring. So I do kind of appreciate the distinction and even applaud the distinction and yet resent the distinction because I want more synonyms for strikeout and it would be handy if i could use these interchangeably yeah i agree like whiff is a is a useful but even that right whiff implies swinging too right yeah it sure does or smelling that's the other thing sometimes it'll be like he whipped 12 and i was like why do they all smell really good yeah so there aren't enough neutral strikeout terms inclusive strikeout terms right can just encompass any kind of k we need we need more rectangles basically right let's include all the squares but also all the other rectangles all All right. Well, that will do it for Pedantic Corner this week and also for the podcast.

All right. It didn't occur to me until now, but how appropriate that we decried crypto in episode 1849, a number that makes me think of a year when many people lost lots of money in a mining-related get-rich-quick scheme with disastrous environmental consequences. As George Lucas said, it's like poetry. They rhyme. I'll leave you now with a few follow-ups that our listeners have sent in about topics that we've discussed recently. So on our most recent episode, we talked about the history of pitch clocks and how they were often

undependable when they were pioneered, seemingly in the 60s. We talked a lot about why the parts were so hard to get and defective and unreliable. Well, listener Patreon supporter Jihan writes in to say, Regarding the expense of the 22nd clocks in the late 60s, quartz movements were invented sometime in the early 80s and drove down the complexity and raised the reliability of clocks considerably. That likely at least partially explains why a complex custom 22nd timer was finicky and expensive. It was mechanical.

Thanks for the info. Hopefully with a modern pitch clock, you wouldn't have to change the frequency so that it would not be disturbed by a passing plane or police car radio. So salute to quartz clocks and solid state digital electronics. On the other hand, listener Austin wrote in to say, I regret to inform you that clocks at the highest level in sports still malfunction even in 2022. I'm watching game six of the Eastern Conference finals between Milwaukee and Boston in the NBA. If you're not familiar, there is a game clock and shot clock placed above each basket where the players can easily see them in their line of

sight during the game. Apparently this clock on one end of the court was malfunctioning, and so by rule they turned off both to keep things fair. Obviously these aren't the only clocks in the stadium and it doesn't appear to be affecting the players much, but there you go. So possibly still some clock kinks to work out. In that same episode, Bobby Shantz told the story of how in 1947 he had a sore wrist and his manager slammed a book on it and he felt fine and was able to pitch after that. Maybe some of you were playing armchair doctor at home, listener and Patreon supporter Davin was, and his tentative diagnosis was that this might have been a ganglion cyst, which actually is sometimes treated effectively by slamming a book on it.

Sometimes it's called a Bible bump because you could just slap it with a Bible. However, I told him that according to a 2011 interview with Bobby at that time, he said that he had injured his wrist playing touch football the day before and that it was swollen because of that, and Davin said that does deflate his theory, but he chooses to believe, And who knows, maybe Bobby misremembered it. That was a long time after 1947. It's one theory. And in a recent episode, we read an email from a listener who suggested an example of a baseball skeuomorph, which was turf plates on turf fields. The listener suggested that there were still plate-shaped pieces of turf on turf baseball fields, which I found very disturbing and completely unnatural, much like Olaf from Frozen.

Well, much to my relief, listener Aaron says, I have an answer as to why umpires brush off the plate on turf fields. I have played on and coached at many turf field complexes, large and small alike. In my experience, most turf fields do have real home plates embedded in the ground, as well as real pitching rubbers, neither of which is painted on. That's what I was wondering. Why can't you just have a plate in the turf field? Apparently, they usually do. When the umpire is brushing off home plate, they are actually brushing off a product called infill,

which is a substance composed of granules of soft plastic pellets, sand, silica sand, crumb rubber, or a combination of those materials. The crumb rubber is usually composed of recycled tires, which makes up the black material in some artificial turf. It is used to give the turf more bounce, absorb impact, slow down balls in play, and reduce injury from impacts and abrasion. When hitters swing or pitchers tow the rubber, the force that they put into the ground during their respective motions will kick up a ton of this stuff, and home plate will occasionally need to be brushed off so it isn't covered, especially because the plate sometimes isn't level with the turf. It's slightly below, which allows the infill to collect. Glad to know there is a real plate even on a turf field.

And our recent discussion of Josh Van Meter, the emergency catcher for the Pirates, reminded me that way back on episode 1202 in 2018, Jeff and I talked about the example of an emergency goalie in the NHL, an accountant, Scott Foster, who ended up playing goalie in a game for the Blackhawks. The NHL had emergency backup goaltenders who were kind of just on hand in the unlikely event that both of the regular goalies on the roster are hurt. This was a little like that, but some have suggested in the past that there should be some sort of re-entry exception for emergency catcher situations, or maybe that you should be allowed to put your bullpen catcher in as a catcher instead of an emergency catcher for safety-related reasons.

I see the argument, but I also did enjoy an inning of Josh Van Meter just to be able to compare an emergency catcher to a real catcher. It happens so rarely that it's not the most pressing problem, but I'll link to some arguments to that effect on the show page. And lastly, I will leave you with a reading recommendation for the weekend. Stephanie Apstein of Sports Illustrated wrote a great article about Shohei Otani and his prowess as a prankster and just a general goofball, which only reinforced my affection for Otani. Crypto promotion aside, he seems like an absolute delight,

and it continues to amaze me that he can be so driven and so talented, and yet seemingly also so easygoing and amiable and funny and relaxed a lot of the time. It's a really rare combo, so check out that link on the show page as well. And please do consider supporting Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectivelywild, as have the following five listeners, Kyle Wilner, Michael Santana, Olive, Michael Mendoza, and Nate Georgie. Thanks to all of you, they all went to patreon.com slash effectivelywild and signed up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad-free, and

get themselves access to some perks, including monthly bonus episodes, access to the Discord group solely for Patreon supporters, and a couple of playoff live streams later in the year, as well as other extras. You can also all join the 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. Please 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. You can follow Effectively Wild on Twitter at EWPod, and you can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash Effectively Wild.

Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing and production assistance. We hope you have a wonderful weekend, and we will be back to talk to you early next week. Take a whiff, take a whiff, take a whiff on me Oh, birdie, take a whiff on me Hey, hey, baby, take a whiff on me Take a whiff, take a whiff, take a whiff on me Oh, birdie, take a whiff on me Hey, hey, baby, take a whiff on me