Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1856: Slapped Silly

Episode Date: June 1, 2022

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Nick Castellanos’s uncanny tater timing, and then (4:43) Ben attempts to explain the Joc Pederson–Tommy Pham fantasy-football dispute (and resulting slap) to Meg. After that (44:42), they discuss the Reds’ resurgence, an umpire’s hot mic, updates on defensive-positioning restrictions and the forthcoming pitch clock, and whether the standings […]

Hey everyone, you're about to hear a discussion of the famous, infamous Jock Peterson-Tommy Pham fantasy football dispute that resulted in Pham slapping Peterson prior to last Friday's game and subsequently being suspended. We talked about all the details that had come to light as of Tuesday afternoon, but hours after we recorded, the plot improbably thickened as effectively wild favorite Mike Trout entered the picture. Per a report from friend of the show C. Trent Rosecrans of The Athletic, Pham offered additional detail on Tuesday. He said that Peterson had sent not just one

gif or insult or taunt of the Padres during last year's fantasy football season, but maybe as many as four or five. He also clarified that the initial buy-in for this league was $10,000 and that the last place finisher was forced to pay an additional $10,000. He also clarified that the initial buy-in for this league was $10,000 and that the last place finisher was forced to pay an additional $10,000. He said he was in second place when he dropped out of the league. And the bombshell, according to Pham, Trout was the commissioner of the league. As we know, Trout is great at everything on the baseball field, but Pham alleges that he did not show a similar proficiency for fantasy football commissioning. Trout did a terrible job, man, Pham said on Tuesday with a hint of a smile.

Trout's the worst commissioner in fantasy sports because he allowed a lot of shit to go on and he could have solved it all. But, he said, he didn't want to do it. We put it on him. It was kind of our fault, too, because we made him commissioner. Trout declined to comment on Tuesday. But one imagines there may be more to come before the next time we record. to comment on Tuesday, but one imagines there may be more to come before the next time we record. For now, please enjoy our initial discussion, which will get you caught up on all the ins and outs of this story prior to its connection to Mike Trout. Stay tuned to your Effectively Wild

feed for further updates on this you and to save me. Revenge is such a dirty word. But you're a dirty girl. Revenge is something more of you. So now I'll have revenge on you. I'll binge on you! Yeah, you know, they should all be three days is all I'm saying. Yeah, more and more companies seem to be agreeing that that's the case. That'd be nice. But we hope that everyone enjoyed their long weekend if they had one and that nobody had any solemn or meaningful moments interrupted

by Drives into Deep Left Field by Nick Castellanos. Look, I don't think that it actually is anything i guess i should say that up front but it's it's kind of spooky it is we're kind of in spooky territory at this point yeah it's probably like a bader meinhof phenomenon frequency bias kind thing, where we're always on the lookout now for Nick Castellanos interrupting things with home runs. And then he keeps obliging over and over. But even so, it's the meme that will never die. And I wrote a big feature about the origins of that meme and how it propagated. And I'm glad that it has not gone away. It's had incredible staying power by modern meme standards, let alone baseball meme standards,

like the crossover into mainstream memeing. I feel like this has kind of crossed that line where usually baseball memes are kind of niche restricted to baseball Twitter. Everyone knows the Nick Castellanos meme. And it's the gift that keeps giving. Here at Citizens bank park honoring uh those who paid the ultimate sacrifice castellanos rips one to deep left field it is gone solo home run for castellanos i mean it's a weird one to enjoy right because by definition the things that his home runs are coinciding with are like, like

you said, like they're like somber or tragic or uncomfortable. And so in that respect, it's a little bit weird, but it's just so persistent at this point that I, you know, like I know that you are more concerned with witchcraft as a potential criminal offense in modern America than I seem to be. And I think that for his sake, Nick Castellanos better hope that I'm right. Because otherwise, it might not go well for him. Yeah, it's just incredible timing that he has had. It's just incredible timing that he has had. Speaking of gifts that keep giving or gifts in this case, the only downside of having a long weekend is that it took us four days to discuss the slap.

So step aside, Will Smith, Chris Rock. There is a new inexplicable slap in town. It is Jock Peterson and Tommy Pham. And in most respects, this is almost objectively the funniest thing that has ever happened. And I've been just devouring every update in detail. There is one aspect of the story that interferes with my ability to enjoy it in the pure, uncomplicated way I want to.

Is it the actual slapping? Well, yeah, that's part of it, yes. Okay. Because that would be a gating factor for my enjoyment, I think. Yeah, right. The reaction, it's very similar, I think, to the Oscars slap where there was just sort of a stunned, what just happened here? Are you serious? Is this real?

Is this a work? Was this on the level? And then there are just multiple rounds of discourse and people debating who's at fault. And ultimately, I think that kind of comes down to the one who did the slapping tends to be at fault for the most part. And I think that that is the case here too. But there are so many wrinkles and layers to this story. But you told me before we started recording that you have remained somehow blissfully oblivious to at least the ins and outs of the slap somehow. I guess you really did have a nice,

restful, long weekend break from baseball if you somehow avoided slap news. Well, it's not that I didn't engage with baseball, Ben, but so first of all, allow me to briefly show for the three-day weekend and its delights, because every weekend should have the following structure. still it's because every weekend should have the following structure there should be a day for doing nothing and then there should be a day for doing something and then there should be a day for chores and running around because if you have one day for each thing you know when you're doing your nothing or your something you're not stressing about having not yet done your chores or you're running around and when you're doing your chores and running around you're not resentful of the time that you are not spending doing nothing or doing something. So that's my

idea here. I watched a lot of college baseball this weekend, both on TV and then in person at the Pac-12 tournament, which was in Arizona, the first ever Pac-12 tournament. There was some bad fan behavior at the championship game. One of the games, Ben, ended with a score of i think 22 to 25 that one i did not go to and i'm i'm not sad i i think that i ended up picking a good day for my do nothing day which ended up being that one but i saw it come across the transom and then i kind of like forgot that it had happened i was like that's weird i wonder what we'll learn about it and then when i saw it on twitter again it was clear that so much had transpired between my initial, huh, I wonder what else we're going to learn about that.

And the sheer tonnage of thoughts that the appearance of Jock Peterson in a hat looking like a cartoon come to life in front of his locker. Sometimes you just have these moments where you're like, I hope that I'm never asked about this thing that clearly mattered to a lot of people online because I don't know what happened. And I'm just going to have to pretend I know what happened for the rest of my life. I'm going to have to pretend that I know.

Like, you know, there are like some long form pieces that get circulated and everyone's like, oh my God, did you read this thing? And I'm like, yeah, I didn't read the thing. I didn't. And so I thought to myself, I'm going to be forced to pretend for the rest of my life that I know what has gone on here.

And then, Ben, it occurred to me that I host a podcast about baseball with another person who also pays attention to things. And I was like, I'll just ask Ben about it. So Ben, help me to understand yeah what happened here only one level of understanding is really possible here there is always going to be a level that defies understanding but i will help you to the extent that i can okay because i was following this quite closely and there were multiple news cycles that this kind of dominated. And it was a more whimsical and sillier story than many.

And so I enjoyed those aspects of it. Although, again, I think the limiting factor there is the slap itself. Is the literal slap. And the anchor underlying the slap, the seemingly very real anchor. Yes. The anchor underlying the slap, the seemingly very real anchor. Yes. So on the surface level, what happened here is that Jack Peterson, a member of the San Francisco Giants, before Friday's game, he was walking out in the outfield with, I think, the Giants mental health coach or mental skills coach. Oh, boy. skills coach and they were who was probably needed at that moment at least for someone

involved in this altercation but he was doing some pre-game grounding apparently this is something that peterson does or the giants do that idea of grounding yourself by walking barefoot and making some kind of physical contact with the earth yeah so at moment, Tommy Pham, who's in town because the Giants were playing the Reds, Tommy Pham is a member of the Reds. He comes up to Peterson and as Peterson later described it, here's how he said this was initiated. He kind of came up and said like, you remember from last year? And I was like, fantasy football? He was like, yeah. Then he slapped him. There is video that has surfaced of this incident, and it's a real slap, much like the Smith-Rock slap. I mean, he put some oomph behind it, and I would say that Peterson took it about as well as Rock did.

Didn't get knocked down or anything. Didn't retaliate. Just sort of stood there. He said later, I didn't get emotional, and I don't think violence is the answer, so I kind of left the situation. Of course, the benches cleared. This was pregame, but everyone streamed out to the outfield after seeing the slap. So that brought it to the public's attention and the media's attention,

and gradually we got explanations and updates. attention. And gradually, we got explanations and updates. Jack Peterson delivered multiple lengthy addresses from his locker in the clubhouse. Tommy Pham also held court and explained his reasoning, if you can call it that, behind this incident. Ultimately, Pham was suspended for three games for the slap and for the distraction it caused. We recently discussed with the Josh Donaldson incident just the length of suspensions and what that tells you about what MLB considers inappropriate or decides to punish. So three games for this one, and FAM did not contest that,

unlike Donaldson. There are some similarities between these incidents on some level, I think. But one of the funniest things, I think Peterson's description of how it happened was one of the funniest things. He came up and said, you remember from last year? And I was like, fantasy football? And he said, yeah, and then slap. I love that introduction, that preface to the slap. But also we got Peterson explaining at great length in sort of a very serious, sort of somber way at his locker. Like you would think that he was explaining something much worse, like something unforgivable, some kind of serious offense, or like maybe he was caught having done some bad tweets or something in the past. But it wasn't that. And one thing that really set this saga apart is that typically when there is some kind of blow up between players, they will downplay it to the media or they will obscure

the specifics and they'll just say, oh, it's between us and we handled it and we're putting the past behind us and we're not going to get into it anymore. Well, that is not what happened here. Jack Peterson offered an exhaustive accounting of what went down when he was asked about the slap. I believe he initially said, yeah, that happened. And he unburdened himself from there, mostly to kind of clear his name, I think, or maybe because he was as perplexed as everyone else was. It ultimately came out that this was all about a dispute centering on their fantasy football league last year. So last year, Pham and Peterson were in a league together, apparently with several other Padres or ex-Padres. Pham at the time was with the Padres. Peterson, I think by that time was with Atlanta, but Peterson had been friendly and former teammates with some of the other

Padre members of that league, but clearly not with Pham. They did not seem to have a pre-existing relationship here. And evidently, there was a good deal of money at stake. We don't know exactly how much, but enough for Pham to be aggrieved about what he saw as rule-breaking behavior by Peterson when it came to stashing players on the injured reserve in this league. And you might have to help me out here. I found a CBS Sports explainer. I am someone who has never played fantasy football in his life, unlike every other American. So I played some fantasy baseball years ago, but this is a little bit different here. So what happened as far as I understand it, so you have your IR spot, your injured reserve spot on your team, right? And if a player is on the injured reserve,

then you can put that player on the IR spot. It's like an IL spot for a fantasy baseball team. And then you can have another active player while that player is hurt. So evidently, Peterson put a player who was injured but not officially on the injured reserve into his team's IR spot. And Pham called him out on this. Peterson then pointed out that Pham had put the 49ers Jeff Wilson in his IR spot when Wilson was not officially on the IR. So it was kind of competing accusations here. However, Wilson, he was not on the IR, but as I understand it, he was on the physically unable to perform list. The pup list. Yeah, the pup list because he had a knee injury during the offseason. So he couldn't play until week 10 because he was on the pup list, but he

started a few games for them down the stretch. So he was worth stashing if you had that spot. Peterson apparently was using his IR spot to stash players who were dealing with week to week injuries. So they'd been ruled out for the upcoming week, but they were not officially on the IR list. Now, Peterson alleges that this was allowed by the league rules, that this was okay, according to the bylines. Obviously, I cannot verify that. But I guess maybe it goes against the spirit of the way that the IR reserve is typically used. Again,

like if it was okay by the letter of the law in this league and it was agreed upon beforehand, then that doesn't seem like anything unforgivable to me. You can set your IR policy depending on the league. And if this is the way that it was, then blame the commissioner, I guess. Peterson was just taking advantage of the rules. but maybe kind of in a gray area when it comes to ethical behavior in a fantasy football league. So then it escalates from there. It's not clear whether this was

in direct response to that back and forth about the IR or whether this came up separately, but Peterson sent a GIF to the group. And the GIF, and this was, again, like maybe September, late last year sometime, and the Padres were collapsing at that time, as you will recall. Yes. Peterson, who is a former Dodger, of course, and a current Giant, so he is well aware of NL West goings on,

he sent a gif that was of three weightlifters, and they were labeled Dodgers, Giants, and Padres. And the Padres weightlifter was buckling under the weight, right? Symbolic of the Padres late season collapse. And Tommy Pham did not take kindly to this gif and he objected to the gif he's like you don't know me like that you can't talk to me like that we don't have that kind of relationship so Peterson explained it later he said in the group chat there was more than one padre there were four or five that i'm kind of close with a couple of them it was supposed to be a friendly thing just making fun of they were playing bad and just talking back and forth and yeah fam did not like that and he responded jock i don't know you well enough to make any jokes like this peterson was reading from his cell phone

in front of reporters here it was meant to be all fun and games, no hard feelings. Sorry if you took it that way. And then a couple weeks later, evidently, Pham left the league, perhaps as a result of just continuing acrimony about this incident. And they had not communicated since, in the many months since this incident. And Peterson apologized. He said, like I said, it is true. I did send a GIF making fun of the Padres, which is one of the funniest sentences.

It's like, yep, you got me. I copped to this. I sent the GIF making fun of the Padres. And if I hurt anyone's feelings, I apologize for that because they were a really good team. So it was kind of making fun of how they were not playing well to make the playoffs with a very talented team. I mean, I was teammates with some of them and it was supposed to be lighthearted and I understand everyone takes jokes differently. So like I said, I apologize for that and looking to move past this and show up tomorrow with no distractions and try to help this team win a ball game.

So it's segued from this fantasy football gif dispute into standard baseball cliche language. Okay, so here's a question. First of all, is he a subscriber to gif or jif? That was reported, and he is a hard G gif guy, which I was happy to see as a fellow member of that tribe. Okay, so that clarifies my allegiances here. and he is a hard g gif guy which i was happy to see as a fellow member of that tribe okay okay so clarifies my allegiances here so um so did he apologize in the chat at the time of fam saying you don't know me well enough to be making these jokes is that clear i think he did okay well maybe it wasn't like a good apology.

He said, you know, I was joking around, no hard feelings. Sorry if you took it that way. So if it was like a sorry if you were offended kind of thing. Which, to be fair, like you sent a gif of the Padres. I'm not sure that. He's probably putting as much thought into the phrasing of that apology as like a fantasy football group chat maybe. Yeah. And that is probably as far as I would have gone with the apology in that situation. I'm not sure I would have fully prostrated myself and really just abased myself with apologies for

sending the gif taunting fellow members of a fantasy football league. Because I think a couple of things here. First of all, I think that and i imagine that i'm about to hear more about tommy fam in a second here so but based on what i know now let's let's react my my my primary reaction well i guess i have a couple so i i do think that it is useful for people just generally to remember you know that like you don't know people sometimes you don't know people well enough to joke with them you know even if it's something kind of seemingly trivial like a gif like i imagine that even if tommy fam knew jock peterson well and knew that he was like hey you're actually you guys are actually a super talented team but you're just playing badly it would be like that doesn't make me feel better man because like we were supposed to make

the postseason and now we're dealing with this nonsense so i think that like it's fine to say like hey you don't know me well enough to joke mostly this reveals to me that jock peterson does not understand the power of a truly well cultivated and curated group text because jock like made a rookie mistake here you have to have you know if you're a part of a group project which is essentially what a fantasy football league is a very antagonistic weird group project but if you're a part of a group project and you are friends with a subset of that group but not with everyone you need to have your own group chat with those people you have to have a separate you know i have several group chats

with different people and some of them have overlapping memberships but they are still distinct from one another because they represent different constituencies and they uh you know they are they serve different purposes i go to different ones with different complaints sometimes when i am trying to decide if a tweet is funny i will workshop the tweet with all of them and then if no one responds i just have to fly solo but um that's neither here nor there so you need to have a group chat group chats are magical group chats save us from other people knowing how annoying we are their purpose is for you to have a safe place to make bad jokes complain about people complain about the world and then uh present to twitter a more well-balanced and hinged person

than you might actually be right the funny thing was that peterson felt that he had to go into great detail to explain what offense he had given exactly. Because no one else cares about your fantasy football league. Right. His instincts are right there. This is the one time when I actually do want to hear people talk about the fantasy football league. This is the lone exception. But he felt he had to come out and provide the receipts essentially at great length because initially FAM didn't specify what had happened here so

dylan i'm gonna do some swears i am gonna be quoting some swears mostly here gotta leave them in yeah so it's about journalism fam initially he said i mean he came out and he said i slapped jock so he did own up to it didn't deny the video evidence he said he did own up to it, didn't deny the video evidence. He said he did some shit I don't condone. So I had to address it. We had too much money on the line. You could look at it like there is a code. You're fucking with my money and you're going to say some disrespectful shit. There is a code to this.

So he didn't specify what the disrespectful shit was. So that could have been anything i mean it could have been something that merited if not a slap at least some sort of stern response right we are assuming it is the gif but that is well no this was before peterson explained before the gif so as far as we know it was just the kid okay when fem brought it up, we didn't know what it was. So, you know, he did say like it wasn't racist, but he said it was some shit that you don't say. I told him in the text right when he texted it, I'm not cool enough with you to be talking like this. He should have known right then and there. And that's why Peterson then came back and he was waiting for reporters with his group text exchange and like showing them the gif on his phone, which in a way like the coverage of this is funnier than the incident itself.

It's like reporters zooming in on the gif playing on Jack Peterson's phone and minutes long explanation. And yes, also the stylistic choices that Jack Peterson apparently makes and his wardrobe decisions here you compared him to a cartoon character to me he looked uncannily like ness from earthbound the nintendo character he had like the sideways cap the little tuft of hair sticking out the backpack straps his like you know bleached blonde locks he looked like a little. Like I had to remind myself throughout this incident that both of these gentlemen are over 30 years old. Yeah. Sam is 34 at this point.

Like we do have to remember that many professional baseball players are young men and make the same sort of mistakes that many young men make. Young men can make, yeah. These are not the youngest of men at this point. John Peterson's a father. I mean, it seems like they should have grown out of this probably by now. But look, I have never

played fantasy football, but I have watched all seven seasons of The League, which I think needs to be rebooted to cover this incident probably. But it's my understanding that I wouldn't say anything goes in a fantasy football league, but a large portion of the fun in fantasy sports in general is the trash talk, right? Yes. Is taunting your league mates. Now, granted, it's a little different if you're in a league with a bunch of your friends, which Peterson was apparently, but-

But not exclusively. FAM wasn't one of them. Yeah. So, okay. If FAM took offense to this, well, maybe you stopped sending him GIFs about the Padres collapse. But I think just going in, there should be some expectation of, hey, you know, there's going to be a little bit of trolling that goes on here.

That is part of the fun. So you have to consider the context of fantasy sports and like a fantasy sports group text or message board or whatever it was. And maybe you have to have a higher bar for taking offense, perhaps, especially when it is this sort of a front. So that was really the saga, I guess, in a nutshell. Now, Pham's comments continued here, and he seems to be someone who is concerned about money, and that's fine, understandably so. But he is talking about being a high roller at casinos. He's like, I was in second place when I dropped out of that league. There was a lot of money on the line. I'm a big dog in Vegas. I'm a high roller at many casinos. You can look at my credit line.

We were playing big money. I don't have to get into the details of how much, but I look at it like if you lost, you had to pay double. If you came in last place, you had to pay double. So I looked at it like he was fucking with my money along with the disrespect peterson did confirm that it was a an appreciable amount of money a large sum at stake here these are mlb players yeah they make a good deal of money i don't know how much it was but okay enough to be upset about it fam he's watching his accounts closely he had made some comments, I think, during the pandemic about the stock market crashing and how he had lost $92,000 at that time.

So he was not happy that play had been suspended, that the season had been postponed, essentially. So there was a lot of money at stake. And you have men and their testosterone. And I guess this is an instance of like men will literally do X instead of going to therapy kind of situation. X being slap each other over gifts. Choosing on a lot of levels, I think, like just the fact that there had been no contact between the two for so long, for the better part of a year. Dylan, am I going to be in the same town as Jock? And then just, like, maybe looking out to see if Peterson was out in the outfield so that he could get him in a slappable situation. This, like, it reminds me of Hunter Strickland just retaliating against Bryce Harper, having hit home runs off of him in the 2014 playoffs in 2017, like three years later, he hit him with a pitch just as a reprisal for just Harper having homered off of him. That was an even longer gap.

That was like three years. Although that was maybe within baseball, like a more acceptable way to retaliate, not like in life at large or in the world in general, but in baseball, pitchers throw baseballs at hitters sometimes because they're mad that they hit homers off of them. They don't usually slap them. So this is a little bit different from that. And I did see also someone pointed out that there's precedent for this in the NBA, a similar incident about 20 years ago. This was 2001, Charles Oakley and Tyrone Hill

were feuding over a gambling debt or perceived gambling debt that was related to a dice game that they had played. So Hill went to the Raptors team hotel to meet Oakley after the Raptors had arrived in Philadelphia to play the 76ers. And there is a sizable debt, evidently. And Oakley was suspended for a game for hitting Hill in the head with a basketball after a morning shoot around. And then Oakley slapped Hill. So there was a slap in that incident, and apparently there was like fifty four thousand dollars of the debt was outstanding and oakley said everything in life is double if he didn't pay me a hundred eight thousand he didn't pay me and so there was this feud and i would not want to fight charles oakley so there's precedent to this like Athletes, they like gambling sometimes. They like playing fantasy sports.

They like throwing their money around, and yet they also care about not losing that money. So I guess I can see why Pham would not be a fan of Peterson, but the slap goes a bit beyond. And also, if he was worried about losing money, well, he got himself suspended for three games and ended up losing a good deal of money there, too. So that was not a productive response to the situation. Yeah. So I think we can hold two thoughts in our – we can hold three thoughts in our heads simultaneously. The first is this is funny with an asterisk, right? Terms and conditions may apply.

And so then we will talk about the terms and conditions, which is that like, I do think it is useful for all of us. You know, as we move through the world, like think about, do I know this person well enough to joke with them? And even if I do, is this like, you know, is this the moment for the joking to be done? You know, like you can just think about whether,

you know, you need to be the one that is making this point now like the Braves had their own resurgent story so at some points in the in in this depending when was it in September I think so yeah the exact timeline is so they had they had kind of recovered they had they were on their way right they? They had righted the ship. But they were not a truly dominant team at that moment. They had had to dig themselves out of quite a hole and go on a great run and have other teams in the NL suffer misfortune. So maybe it strikes you a little differently because you're no longer a Dodger, right? You're not on the Dodgers.

But you're still in a position of right you're not like a you're not on the dodgers but you're still like in a position of uh of not being on the padres mostly so i think that like you know part of being a an empathetic person is navigating those situations that said in this particular situation i think it's reasonable to expect that the consequence for getting that wrong in that moment isn't going to be getting slapped. So don't slap people. That's not a good way to resolve conflict, but also be conscientious of whether it's a joking time and with whom. And I will say again, take advantage of the group chat, a truly miraculous invention that will save you from heartache

and also maybe getting slapped. Mm-hmm. Yep. Yeah, that's the thing. This is so absurd and silly on its face. And there were so many funny moments in the coverage of this scandal that I want to wholeheartedly embrace it and not get into any factors that would lessen my enjoyment of it. But kind of worried about Tommy Pham is the thing that sticks out to me here. Tommy Pham, longtime Fangraphs reader, I believe, so that's a point in his favor,

but he's been involved in a number of incidents in the past few years, and he has taken offense to various things, and this is why I was kind of likening it to the Josh Donaldson case, because it's another player who has a history of a certain sort of incident, perhaps, and also had a difficult upbringing in a lot of respects, both with the people who raised him or did not, and with injury issues and health challenges and all sorts of things he went through to get to the majors and become an accomplished player. So I have some sympathy for him in that sense. And the incidents themselves are not similar. This case is more physically aggressive than the Donaldson-Anderson

dispute, but it's over something very silly. This is fighting over fantasy football and money, granted, but that's maybe more trivial than using Jackie Robinson's name to taunt a black player. So these are not the same sort of offenses. But there are a number of incidents here that are kind of concerning. I mean, it doesn't seem like a great thing if he's like a high roller at all of the casinos. I mean, they don't really extend like massive lines of credit and high roller perks to people that they think are going to be gambling well necessarily. So that makes me worried about like how concerned he was about the financial loss here. But then also, you know, look, he had that altercation outside the strip club in

2020 where he got stabbed. That was sort of a serious thing, and we don't know exactly how that happened. But subsequent to that, I think it was last year, there were fans who were heckling him, and he took offense to that, and he said, just some fans crossing the line, you know, I guess a little liquid courage. I had some fans yelling at me, FU fam, FU fam, that's my issue that I have. I don't believe that should be tolerated in a baseball stadium when we start cursing. I mean, that's different from fam sucks. That's perfectly acceptable.

But just, you know, the curse words, I have a problem with that because that's not something you would say to me face to face. OK, fine so far. But then he said, where I'm from in the state of Nevada, it's labeled as assault. When someone comes up to me cursing at me like that, I could defend myself. And you know, I'm a very good fighter. I don't do Muay Thai, Kung Fu, and box for no reason. I can't hear individual threats, but I can hear curse words. Now, pretty sure he's wrong about the Nevada rule. I think there is a Nevada misdemeanor for using profanity in public,

but it's not assault and you cannot attack someone who curses at you, I'm pretty sure. So I think he has the details wrong a little bit there. And then there was the incident earlier this year where he challenged Luke Voight to a fight, sort of similarly, after a hard slide. He said, if Luke wants to settle it, I get down really well. Anything, Muay Thai, whatever. I've got a gym owner here who will let me use his facility, so fuck him. So I know the Reds got off to a terrible start, and Pham hasn't been hitting that well, and he's spoken about that being frustrating.

So maybe everything just boiled over in that moment but it seems like he has maybe a lower threshold for fighting words or fighting incidents that that many people do so I guess that is the part that kind of covers this for me it's like I want this to be a silly, whimsical, lighthearted thing. But when Fam seems to have this recent track record of wanting to fight everyone and threatening to fight everyone and now actually slapping Peterson, that just makes me kind of concerned about like what is happening here. And I take a little less delight in it than I would want to. Well, yeah, because like also someone got slapped. Yeah, right. I would want to. Well, yeah, because like also someone got slapped. Yeah, right. I think it's, you know, it doesn't strike me as like the best way to engage in conflict resolution. And I don't know what it feels like to be a major league player and have fans heckling you all the

time and like how that might wear on a person and, you know, which I don't say to like excuse what what I think could could probably justifiably be categorized as an overreaction. I do think that it's probably useful for us to remember that this kind of stuff, for us, it feels like isolated incidents. And for him, I imagine it feels like an accumulation of things, right? Like where you have had, you know, you've heard something like some version of this, you know, probably some versions that are lighter and less obviously sort of confrontational and angry and some that are probably worse. And it might be, you know, that when you're reacting to it, you're reacting to the sum total of all of those things and that this precipitating incident is sort of dredging up all the other stuff. So that like I can I can

appreciate being kind of on edge about these sorts of things. But yeah, it doesn't seem like the best way to resolve conflicts. Because you don't want to, like, we don't think that fighting people and slapping folks is the best way to resolve these things. And, you know, just think don't slap people. Yeah. So that's the Fam Peterson slap saga that will go down in legend. Over fantasy football. Yes. Over fantasy football and a gif.

And a gif. Yeah. I don't know whether that lived up to your expectations or not. Like if you had been fully off the grid and I had been explaining this to you, would you have thought I was pranking you possibly that this was not a real thing that happened because I thought Craig Calcaterra in his newsletter pointed out that like if you were to compare this to that incident when Jeff McNeil and Francisco Lindor scrapped a little bit last year and then they made up a fake story about how they were arguing about whether they had seen a rat or raccoon in the tunnel like yeah this is like that this sounds like a cover story that you would make up to explain why you were actually fighting. Yeah. But in this case, Peterson provided the evidence and everyone seems to have agreed on the sequence of events here.

So maybe some intrepid reporter will do the full oral history deep dive and talk to other players who were in that league and get their perspective on how all of this went down but just wanted to bring you up to speed here and i guess this is a truth is stranger than fiction sort of situation i don't think that i wouldn't believe you because for better or worse it doesn't take a lot for me to believe that men might behave in a fundamentally silly and sort of reactionary way to fantasy sports yeah that's not without precedent no either among professional athletes or just you know your average civilian and i think maybe the takeaways here is that like know who you're joking with and whether the bounds of your relationship allow for joking,

but also hopefully operate in a world in which you can have the reasonable expectation that minor transgressions of those boundaries will not result in you getting slapped. Don't slap people. Yes, that's the other one. Refrain from slapping. You should reserve slapping for instances of actual physical peril, I think,

is when the slapping should occur. When Tommy Pham was stabbed, if he had slapped that person, I would have been like, yeah. Sure. That's a very reasonable response to being stabbed. And we're very glad that that didn't end up being a worse situation. But yeah, weird. What a weird weekend you know it's a weird weekend of stuff and yeah it's like did he sit there and

say oh i'm gonna see jock on this day right yeah well and here's the other part of that that i find when did when did fam end up signing his deal with cinc Yeah, it was late. It was late. You think he checked this after the schedule was announced? Like, am I going to cross paths with Peterson at some point? What I'm wondering is, you know, it's like. It was March 26th. Okay, so I guess that like he didn't necessarily have an opportunity in spring training. True, yeah. Because, you know, if you're going gonna engage in a planned reactionary slap which what a funny sentence that is yeah you should do it strategically is that it just should happen during spring when like right yeah it's just it's the sustained anger about this

like you know how much how much money could it have been it feels like it has to be it must have been a lot but it has to have been a lot of money. It seems like it must have been an awful lot of money. Right. Do we know who won the league? I do not know. I have not heard that. No.

But Will Smith's response, as inexcusable as that was in some ways. And here we are talking about the actor Will Smith and not the Dodgers catcher. Yeah. Or the pitcher. We actually have to clarify in this situation. That response, that was maybe over the top and out of proportion too, but it was, I guess, more understandable in that it had transpired seconds earlier, the offense. Sure. And also maybe the offense was more understandable for having prompted that reaction.

Yeah. This was something where he just had to be simmering about this for several months. That's the thing. I get that reaction maybe in the moment, but how do you just sit on that for that long and still maintain that level of anger? Yeah. I saw an item from a March post at Gaslamp Ball, the Padres blog, that said, Pham said during last season he was open to a one-year reunion with the Padres and knew he hasn't played as well as he should have played with the Friars. But then, according to Dennis Lin, he was asking for the Padres to give him more than what Jock Peterson got

from the San Francisco Giants post-lockout, which was $6 million. I did not see the original report from Dennis if there was one. It doesn't link to the sourcing there. But if that is true, if I love the idea, I'm just going to pretend that was true, that Pham held out for so long because he wanted to make more than Jock Peterson's making because of this grudge that he bore for peterson but i don't know if that's actually true but i was amused to read it so i guess the lesson the moral of the story is to watch your words around tommy fam be careful what you say he did end up getting more he got

his six million which is i guess the same as what Peterson was paid last year, but more than he's being paid this year. So that's some solace for Pham, I guess. But yeah, just be careful because I don't think he even apologized post-slap. Peterson sort of apologized or at least read his text where he had apologized. But Pham did not really he accepted the suspension but he looked like he was still pretty heated about it when he was explaining what had happened so the anger does not seem to have faded yeah interesting what complicated uh creatures we humans are you know i i've carried silly grudges about stuff you know i've carried intense grudges

about very silly stuff i haven't slapped anyone but right there you know there are parts of this on all sides that are extremely relatable and then there are parts of it that are not like having enough money to have it be worth it to be this heated about fantasy football for one thing or you know actually smacking someone but i've had you know i've had i'll admit to the the weakness of having wanted to i just haven't done it yeah so you know again like there are parts of this where you're like yeah tommy i get it or yeah jock i get it but uh you know then there are other parts where you're like that's weird it's a weird thing to do so well in better news for the red, they took two out of three from the Giants this

weekend. I even saw some quote about how maybe the Giants were distracted just from the aftermath of the slap. So in that sense, I hope no one takes the lesson that there is a competitive advantage to slapping someone before the first game of a series so that the team will be so discombobulated that they will not play well. They were going for the sweep and then the Reds bullpen blew it and they lost the Sunday game. But since starting 3-22, a historically terrible tied for the worst ever start to a season, we have not updated how the Reds have done since then. And in fairness to them, we should. The Reds, since starting 3 and 22 are 13 and 9 oh which is tied for the sixth best winning percentage in mlb since then they have outscored

their opponents by 32 runs that is the third best run differential over that span after the dodgers and the red socks who have kind of turned things around too. So how about that? We talked about the Reds when they were at their nadir and mentioned the fact that they had not been projected to be a historically terrible team, that they had projected merely to be a mediocre team. And since then, they've actually played well. And I guess the answer, as it so often is, is are they the first kind of team or are they the second kind of team?

Probably somewhere in the middle. Yeah. So at one time they're terrible and at another time they're pretty good and they will probably end up being bad, but not notably bad, except for the fact that they had that historic start. So they dug themselves a deep hole there. Yeah. they had that historic start so they dug themselves a deep hole there yeah so they're not going to end up being a winning team or anything but they might end up who knows if they keep playing at this pace for a while they might at least get to the point where they end up being around the range of their projections which was like sub 500 but not notably so so good for them i guess they've gotten a

little healthier and maybe had a bit of better luck. And when they have not been slapping people, they have been beating up on opposing pitching. Oh, Ben. They have hit pretty well. And they've been kind of clicking. So good for them. Because I would think that even if you are not inherently a historically terrible team, if you start out that way and you know you're done, you're out of it, basically, which at that point they were. Yeah.

And it's that early in the season. I would think that that could be demoralizing. Oh, yeah. That that could get to you, that that could hopefully not inflame your passions to the point that you are slapping your opponents, but just maybe making you a bit down in the dumps in a way that might actually make you play a little worse down the stretch than you would have otherwise. And they seemed to have pulled themselves out of that slump and salvaged their season to some extent. So wanted to give some

kudos to Cincinnati because we, along with everyone else, dumped on them or at least recognized how horribly they were playing early on. Yeah, they were playing quite badly and now they are playing better. And so that is good. But yeah, man, I saw a photo of ownership addressing season ticket holders and there were not a lot of people there. Yeah, they found somewhere else to go despite ownership saying, where else are you going to go? I guess they could still decide not to go to Reds games.

It's also just such a rude way to talk about the city of Cincinnati. I would imagine that you are full of, that it is a place full of things to do, only some of which involve chili. Give your city some kudos that there are at least a couple of things better to do than watch a terrible to mediocre Red Steam. There was also an umpire hot mic incident over the weekend. I don't know whether you saw this. It was unfortunately, sadly more banal than it could have been, I think. But I believe you brought up this possibility when we talked about the fact that umpires were going to be making live in-stadium announcements over the PA this year. And so therefore, they would all be mic'd up. I think you may have mentioned that this could lead to another ass in the jackpot, hot mic sort of situation.

And apparently it did. So crew chief Ted Barrett, who was umpiring the Cardinals game at Bush Stadium, he accidentally turned his microphone on between innings. And he was heard discussing with the second base umpire the limited number of box that are called in MLB today. And apparently he also observed that it was hot out and that some pitchers move too slowly. So it was just very idle conversation, unfortunately for us and fortunately for Barrett. We didn't get any hot goss here. Nothing juicy was said. I wonder how long this went on because wouldn't you have heard yourself speaking over the PA? I mean, maybe the crowd noise interferes, but you wouldn't think that that could continue for very long.

But apparently it did happen, so the potential is there for it to happen in a more entertaining way in the future. I am shocked that, like, and here I am going to betray my ignorance of how, like, you know, audiovisual things work, right things work right but like i am pretty shocked to learn that there is a direct line to the stadium pa that there is not an intermediate step that must take place like up in a booth somewhere to be like and now we will link you

into the right to the to the whole thing I'm kind of surprised by that. Like, did he swear? Did he do any? I love how you're like, I would like to court controversy. Why will you not give us more? Yeah, the fam Peterson slap was not enough for me. You must feed my appetite for drama here.

But I don't know. Yeah, you would think that there would be some safeguard so that you could not accidentally flip a switch and suddenly be talking to tens of thousands of people. Yes. So maybe this is the incident that exposed that vulnerability. Sure. And that maybe they will put such a safeguard in place and deprive us of the potential for future entertaining hot mic moments. So it happened, though. Just wanted to make sure everyone knew that it did actually happen, that eventuality that

you had proposed could occur. Yeah. I mean, I thought that it would be harder won than this. When I was envisioning this potentially happening, I think that the scenario I had in mind would be that they would be, you you know they'd be live on mic for like in the course of of announcing the results of a replay review right that the the mic would already be on and sort of linked up to stadium audio and then they would you know uh goof from there i didn't think that you could just like accidentally push a button and then have your own ass in the jackpot as it were you know

that would make me incredibly nervous it doesn't seem like it would be hard to accidentally bump one of those buttons and then be in a really tricky scenario i'm you know i know that you live for controversy and our ability to discuss it but i'm i I'm glad that he didn't say anything totally sort of out of line. That would have been so stressful. specifying or restricting outfield positioning? Because that's one thing we've been wondering if they were to legislate where infielders can and can't stand. Well, would they do anything, any kind of corresponding measure put in place to limit outfield shifting? Because there's been a lot of research by Rob Arthur and Russell Carlton and others that has seemed to indicate that changes in outfield positioning have actually impacted offense more than the infield shift and that generally outfielders are playing deeper these days than they used to and cutting off extra base hits and so especially with the ball being a bit deadened although seemingly flying a

lot better of late offense has ticked up as the weather has warmed and perhaps as other things have happened with humidors and atmospheric effects and who knows what else, or maybe a post-lockout funk for hitters abating. But as some balls have gotten a bit deader and those balls that would have been homers are now settling into outfielders' gloves in front of the warning track or on the warning track, it seems like outfielders are being stationed deeper and that that seems to be a stat cast driven insight that maybe historically outfielders were just playing too shallow, which is really interesting that maybe for decades or centuries outfielders were playing shallower than they should have been just because they didn't

want balls to drop in front of them. And they, I guess, weren't quite as concerned about balls going over their heads because maybe that's less embarrassing. I don't know. But between that and maybe between more shifting, directional shifting and leaning one way or another, shading one way or another, although teams have always done that to some extent, it seems like the BABIP or the slugging percentage on balls in play in the outfield has actually gone down quite dramatically.

So Stark wrote, We've seen it just in the last few weeks in extended spring training with an informal experiment in requiring outfielders to position themselves from 10 to 25 feet more shallow than in the big leagues. What? By all accounts, it produced enough doubles and triples that you shouldn't be surprised if you see this idea tested more extensively in the near future. In general, one exec said, I'm for allowing teams to do whatever they want to do, but I also know that front offices across the game know they're

just going to lose that argument that it is a commissioner's office slash ownership level decision, and if they feel strongly about limiting shifting both in the infield and the outfield, just tell us what the rules are and we'll adapt. We're not going to try and fight a fight that we can't really win. I guess that means that we shouldn't fight that fight either, but I just don't like it. When has that ever stopped us? That will not stop us. We will tilt at this windmill along with the zombie runner and others. So don't care for this. And that means, I suppose, that at some point you're going to have to have lines in the outfield or patterns cut in the grass or who knows what to say you can't stand this deep. You must stand this many feet from the warding track or whatever. Can I take exception to the terminology that we're using here?

When you think about how deep into the outfield an outfielder is playing, do you think about that in terms of the shift? Like, is your understanding that an outfielder positioned deep into the outfield more proximate to the warning track is necessarily shifted? No.

You have your four-man outfield and that sort of thing, but I would not call it a shift. No. I mean, you can. Sometimes there will be a dramatic, I guess you could call it a shift, where a bunch of outfielders are just moved over a lot or one field is almost absent. And maybe you have an outfielder playing infield or maybe just everyone is really significantly shifted over. But just playing deep, no, I would not call that a shift but just outfield positioning i guess it's all advanced defensive positioning we could lump it together under that umbrella no but i think it is important that we not lump it all together under that umbrella this is the point that i want to make

because i think that it is it is definitionally different to have a guy say, you know, to have your either an extra player in the outfields or to have them moved meaningfully corner to corner versus, you know, toward the infield versus toward the wall. I think that those are fundamentally different things. And so I don't think that we should let them lump this all in as one thing, because I think it's fundamentally different to say, and I don't want there to be rules banning the shift. Like, I don't think that's the right way to necessarily deal with this stuff, but I think it is fundamentally different to say you shortstop usually play here in a traditional

alignment, but instead are all the way over there versus you, a right fielder, are in right field and are simply playing closer to the wall or closer to the infield. I think that those are very different. And we have never done, I'm going to say we've never done it, and then we're going to get emails about how we have. But I think it's a really different understanding of like how players are able to position themselves to say you are operating within the you know the territory that we understand to be the right fielders and even within that territory we are going to require you to be in this place that's very different to me than, you know, you are, you know, you're a third

baseman. Normally you're over there and today you're all the way over there, you know, like you're Manny Machado and all of a sudden you're deep into the, into right field. Where did they, where, how did it happen? Right? Like that is fundamentally different to me. And so I think that we need to have, if only for the sake of, of understanding on the lay person's part, we should not call that shifting because I don't think that that is right. Yeah, I agree with you there. It's funny when they announced that they might be banning the shift and we're testing rules to prevent that.

I think a lot of us said, well, that won't really get at the root of the problem. That shift actually isn't even all that advantageous really if you take into account shifting on righties, which doesn't seem to work all that well, and the walk penalty where sometimes pitchers will walk betters more frequently in front of the shift. And so it seems like MLB said, oh, okay, well, we read your study on how just banning the infield shift won't work. So we're going to restrict or impose outfield shifting, or we won't call it that, outfield positioning to some degree, too. So I guess they took the point, but I'm not happy that they're doing that either because I don't want any of this to happen.

Because I just feel like the root of the problem is the pitcher-batter battle and the lack of contact and strikeouts. strikeouts. So I think that if you maybe make more balls in play be hits, well, that does give you more base runners and more scoring and I guess more action of a sort. And so it helps in that respect, but it doesn't really do anything to address that root problem of the lack of contact and the fact that the pitchers are just seemingly too good. And that is what I wish they would really focus their efforts on, as opposed to things that may not as directly address the problem and also just bother me on a fundamental or philosophical level that you could say, no, you can't stand there. You have to stand there. I'm sure we will have many more opportunities to talk about this as the imposition of that rule or those rules come closer, But it just, it bugs me. So

the fact that it's getting even more sweeping, that bugs me more. Because, and you correct me if I'm wrong here, I am given to understand from my own having read this, like the only defensive position where location prior to pitch is dictated in the rule book is catcher, right? location prior to pitch is dictated in the rule book is catcher right yeah so so picture i guess yeah right but the only non-pitcher defensive position that is dictated pre-pitches is catcher and so that's sort of the baseline of defensive positioning and then on top of that you aren't even you're not if you were in jurassic park you'd be in the same paddock you'd not be moving to a different paddock you would be facing the same paddock you'd not be moving to a different paddock you would be facing the same dinosaurs well i guess they were moving between

paddocks but you would be potentially facing the same guys and so that like you know fight your t-rex and then and then i don't know where i'm trying to go with that particular analogy i i am given to understand from the trailer for the new Jurassic Park that they are all over the world now, which, you know, that seems like how did they get across the water? Like, did they boat? Did they hide on an airplane? Are the velociraptors that smart? These are questions that I don't know the answer to, although I hope probably see that dumb movie because it looks to see the movie to answer it. It looks great.

Yeah. But anyway, what I was going to say was I don't care for this. But anyway, what I was going to say was I don't care for this. And maybe, maybe this would inspire a move on the part of teams to prioritize speed in the outfield even more than they currently do. But I just don't think that it's a particularly good corrective, especially since some of its efficacy does seem to be determined by the kind of ball that we have. If you can just hit home runs, then who cares? I guess that's true of shifting stuff generally, but particularly in this case, part of our consternation might just be that scoring is down generally because the ball is less juicy.

Not dead, we're trying to be specific. It's just less juicy. It is an underripe pear. Yes. And you could say that if you take away the pronounced infield overshift, then the lefty sluggers whom that tactic targets primarily will just take that as license to really double down on pulling and just going for that more power-centric, pull-centric approach that often coincides with strikeouts. So that could make the problem worse. You could also say that if fielders are limited to certain prescribed places all over the field, then balls in play would be more rewarding for batters. And so they would be incentivized to make more contact,

especially if paired with a less lively ball. So you could say that indirectly this will help address the contact problem. But again, I just think it's really tough to make contact now, even if you are explicitly trying to, especially trying to make contact. It's just hard to hit these pitches. They're moving so fast and so much that it's tough. And that is the root of the problem, as I see it, that I would like people to target. I guess we should acknowledge that there is one restriction on where fielders other than the pitcher and catcher can stand, which is that they have to be in fair territory when the pitch is thrown, when the play begins. So that's something. Fair enough. Yeah. But I think that,

you know, as we are contemplating all of these rule changes, it is useful for us to ask, are we changing the ability to make contact or the incentives for making contact? Because we want to potentially do both things. And you can incentivize contact all you want. But if, as we, I think, tend to think a lot of the degradation of balls in play that we have seen and sort of quality contact that we have seen is not really the result of positioning or exclusively the results of positioning but simply a natural byproduct of pitching being as good as it is

you can incentivize things all you want but you need to think about whether you know players are actually in position to actualize those incentives, even if they want to. And I don't know that this necessarily does that. I mean, I think that it would be very interesting to see what is the rate of doubles and triples pre and post a positioning restriction in an environment where you're having a higher caliber or more experienced field of pitchers and hitters than you are in extended and in one where the environment is not understood to at least in part be a developmental environment right so like sure i bet there were more doubles and triples because it was an extended right yes i'm sure there were more doubles and triples but you

know some of that is probably the the rule and some of it might be the quality of play and some of it might be what the guys there understand their sort of objectives for the day being and you know it's going to be a mix of all that stuff so i i i just think we should think about the difference between like incentives and ability to actualize because those aren't going to always line up. And I don't know that they do neatly here, but yeah. And there's often a trade-off when it comes to a contact-oriented approach as opposed to a power-oriented approach. And so if it is more rewarding for you to put the ball in play, well, yes, you can prioritize making contact and maybe take a little less of a power swing and have more control over the bat or be

able to start your bat later and have your odds of contact increase. But there is a limit, I think, to how much you can kind of power down your swing and still hit the ball with enough authority to get a hit when you put the ball in play. Like, yeah, you might be more likely to put in play, but are you just hitting a weak ground ball to the second baseman or are you actually hitting it hard enough that it will be a line drive that it can go through the infield so i think you can ratchet down the power oriented the pure power approach and try to increase contact but only so much before you end up like with a bunch of swinging bunts basically yeah it will be easy outs as well so yeah i uh hate it and i i think as i sit here and think about how much i dislike

it that i'm then i might be ready to be kind of exercised about it in the coming weeks and months if i need to be so if you were looking at this and you're like but i'm still fighting the zombie runner it won't die that's why it's a zombie this is part of why i think that it should increasingly just be called the zombie runner and not the manfred man because it won't go away and so we should just so you're like i'm fighting that fight and i am tired well friend you lay down your mantle and i will lift you up because i really don't like this and I'm ready to be sassy about it. I will join you on the ramparts for that one. I guess Manfred won't go away either.

So it's fitting in that sense. But Stark also in that article, he reported that there's some conversation about where they will set the pitch clock next season if as expected it does come to MLB. And he noted it's hard to envision big league players signing off on a 14-second pitch clock. So what is the right number at that level? The early consensus is 20 seconds with nobody on, 25 to 30 with runners on base. But one exec balked at the idea that a big league clock needs to be increased by that much. Honestly, he said we need to get as close to that minor league clock as possible because everything we're trying to do with pace of game, this clock is achieving that.

If we can get as close as possible to 14 seconds, it'll just be like every other change. Everybody complains, then they get used to it. And that was my concern as I related on that deep dive about the history of pitch clocks going back to the 60s. It didn't really seem to have much effect there because it was set at 20 seconds and that's just not enough really to speed things up. And so I think if that's as low as they will go at the major league level, people may be a bit disappointed with what kind of time savings we actually can affect there. So I think the fact

that they went down so aggressively to 14 and 18 in the minors this year, like they had the 22nd pitch clock in the minors and time of game was still ramping right back up to record highs again. So it's just not enough. And if anything, that long, spotty, ineffectual enforcement of previous attempts to put pitch clocks in place, that just reinforced in my mind. Yeah, it actually needs to be. We need to lower that limbo bar farther than players would potentially be comfortable with. But I've sort of been swayed to that idea that, yeah, I guess you need to get players on board and hopefully not have it be too disruptive for them. But I don't know, if you start off with 20 seconds, then can you gradually lower it? Or will everyone say, no, this is fine. We can stay here and you might not actually get the effect that you're going for here.

So that's the lesson for me, I think, is that you actually have to set it pretty low to get significant time savings. So that's my two cents on that issue. I understand the instinct to say that you can make changes and then people will get over them. But to that I say the following. One, clearly has not listened to us continue to be mad about the zombie runner and perhaps has not understood how long one can carry a fantasy football related grudge. playoff races and the perhaps lack of competitive teams that are in the running right now. Because I saw Joe Sheehan make a point of this. I saw Joe Posnanski make a point of this. We're just on the eve of June here as we were recording. We're 30% of the way through the regular season. And we know we have a 12-team playoff format now, which we lamented when it was implemented.

But we do have to resign ourselves to that. There are currently, going into Tuesday's games, 12 teams that are over 500. So that's your field right now of actual winning teams. The White Sox, as we speak, are at 500. Anything beyond that, you're looking at potentially sub-500 teams getting into the playoffs, which is a real risk and will certainly happen at some point under this system or under even greatly more expanded playoffs. But just looking at the Fangraph's playoff odds, so the poor Reds, despite their regression, the good regression, the dead cat bounce that they have enjoyed over the past couple of weeks. They're at 0.3 percent chance to make the playoffs, 16 and 31. That's not going to do it.

But even if you look at teams that have a realistic shot, so you've got the Dodgers, the Astros, the Yankees, the Brewers, the Mets, the Blue Jays and the Padres are all over 90 percent to make the playoffs. So that is seven teams. That's kind of one tier. Then in the second tier, you have the Giants, the Rays, the Braves, the White Sox, and the Twins and the Angels, actually. So that is six more teams, all over 60 60 but lower than 70 so that is a total of 13 teams that have a 60% chance or more to make the playoffs that you have the Cardinals who are basically a coin flip and then there is a big drop off so the Red Sox are next at a one in three chance, essentially. Then you have the Phillies who can't get out of their own way these days, but they're still at like 22% chance. You have the Guardians at 11% and then no one else in double digits. So there are only a couple of teams that are really on the bubble now. I guess that's the concern, that most of the field is locked in already here.

And then you have a bunch of teams that are very likely bets. And then there aren't a ton of teams in that kind of could-go-either-way coin flip range, you know? You just have, like, the Twins and the Angels at 60-61, the Cardinals at 53. And then it goes all the way down to a 1-3 shot for the Red Sox. So it's almost like you can sort of see what the playoff field is already. And I don't know how that compares to the typical season or whether the hope and faith is dramatically reduced here, whether there are more teams that are just out of it than usual. Probably not, because the whole point of expanding the playoffs is that there will be more teams in the running.

There are a bunch of teams, Diamondbacks, Cubs, Tigers, Royals, Rockies, Reds, Pirates, Orioles, Nationals, Athletics, all 1% or lower chance to make the playoffs. But just not a lot of teams in that range of like, we have a real shot here, but it's kind of touch and go. We're on the bubble, basically. So do you think there are enough exciting races to sustain your interests and fans' interests for the rest of this very long season? Because as you will note, they did not reduce the length of the regular season while they were expanding the playoffs. So we still have the very long six-month marathon with 162 regular season games to get to that long playoff tournament that 12 teams make now. I love the idea of us sitting here in February and being like, we just want to play 162. Please let us play 162. And the monkey's paw is like, we just want to play 162. Please let us play 162.

And the monkey's paw is like, fine. I mean, I don't think it's great. I don't know how actively worked up about it I am. I think that one way to, so there are like two ways to think about this. I think that are we satisfied with, even within the confines of an expanded playoff field, like what we might get there

and looking at like who would be in right now i don't know that i look at this and i'm like i can't believe that person gets to that team gets to play in the postseason i don't think that's my reaction mostly so that's good but also i'd like there to be more competition. I think that we will be buoyed somewhat by like the AL East being a really good division race. Yeah. And the NL West, maybe. Right. And so some of this, I think, is like a concentration issue where it isn't that there aren't competitive teams and there aren't competitive divisions. There are, but a lot of those good teams do seem to be clustered.

So I think part of our problem here is maybe that we don't have teams getting pushed quite as hard in all divisions as we would necessarily want. Like I will be very excited to see how the ALE shakes out. And I think that, you know, I know that they've, they've fallen off some, but like, I don't think that that AL West race is done. I know that we at Fanagraphs have the Astros projected to win the division pretty handedly, but the Angels have done this so far,

so maybe they'll do it again in a minute when Rendon is healthy and everything. It's not the best. Those centrals, man. Those centrals are kind of brutal. Yeah, you can always kind of count on that, it seems like these days. But yeah, I guess, look, I still sort of am in that grace period, just happy to have baseball at all kind of mindset. And also, I guess just because I'm not following the sport through as much of a team-centric fandom lens.

I am still endlessly interested in how individual players do, regardless of how the pennant races are shaping up. It's just that, yeah, you have these pennant races, but if you know that a bunch of teams involved in the race are going to make the playoffs, and granted like there are some real penalties to winning a wild card instead of winning a division. But it's not like it once was where either you win the division or you're out or you have the best record or you don't and you're done. So the stakes are not quite as high. And so if we get down to the wire and we basically know what the playoff field looks like and we're just sort of playing out the string or maybe jockeying for playoff seating, which is not meaningless, but just a little lower stakes than it once would have been.

So I don't know. I guess for me, I'm not lamenting it at this stage and I don't know exactly how it will shape up. how it will shape up. And I feel like people maybe don't have the best historical sense of like, how good were pennant races generally, like you remember the best ones of all time, but there were a lot of clunkers in there. And there was also a lot of disparity between contending and non contending teams in earlier eras as well. So I don't know that I see it as the most pressing problem. I definitely am not a fan of the 12 team playoff format, but it has not interfered with my enjoyment thus far. And whether it makes baseball a little less must-see and must-watch down the stretch, yeah, maybe it will for people other than us who are going to be watching and paying attention regardless of what happens. So maybe your neutral, your casual fan is not going to be quite as pulled in by these races because they won't be real races. Do you think that your perception of it would be, like, maybe another way for us to ask this question is, imagine that we had the field that we used to have, right? We had the same size. Would you think that with a tighter field and this number of teams jockeying for position,

would that feel uncompetitive and uninteresting, do you think? Do you know what I mean? So you mean we have the exact same distribution of records and everything that we have now, but just fewer playoff spots after the taking? thing that we have now but just fewer playoff spots right the taking well i guess you would have more teams that were further out of the race just even if they had the same records that they do today yeah i guess that's true more games back in some wild card races not every team is playing in that al east race that's right yeah remember if you had the same sort of separation among the teams and fewer spots up for grabs then I think that would probably be more entertaining it's not like I want

any fan bases to be sad at the end of the season necessarily like and yeah you will almost inevitably have more fan bases that are kind of engaged because they do have a shot late in the season. So it's just a general watering down of how good you have to be to be a playoff caliber club, which does bother me a bit because it just feels like a little less of an achievement now. And it also feels like we are settling less during this long regular season. And I value the length of the regular season. It's just that are we reducing the championship probability swinging one way or another in a given game, just because there's a little less at stake and you're going to have more games between teams that are pretty likely to be in the playoffs when it's all said and done. So I'm not checking out of

the season based on that, but I have seen some people suggest that, hey, there are only enough good teams to fill the playoff spots that we know that there are currently. So like any teams that are not currently in playoff position, they have not played well, like they are not winning teams. And so maybe that does sort of subtract from the intrigue for some people it just it depends what you want to get out of baseball and what really sparks your interest in the sport do you think that we can say with greater confidence now that the mariners are like well and truly cursed because even in this situation they are still out of it looking great for them i don't know that we'd call it

fun right? I don't think we'd look at what's going on and be like we're all having fun I don't think we'd say that. Alright well I want to leave you with a couple of like one minute segments or at least I hope they will be although often I underestimate but we had

a suggestion from a couple of listeners that now that we are up at these lofty episode numbers, these episode counts, that we are now in the territory where our episode numbers correspond to years in which baseball existed and baseball was being played. And so maybe there was some opportunity for a tie in there. So Trey wrote in to say this was a while ago as we are approaching episode 1876, that being the first year of the National League. I thought it might be cool if you did a brief this year in Major League History segment where you share some small fact or interesting happening in whatever year corresponds to the number of the episode. Maybe it would be too tedious to do that for every episode, but just wanted to put the idea out there. Matt, Patreon supporter, also wrote in to say we are at episode numbers that coincide with the start of MLB or approaching that point. Maybe it would be cool to use that episode number to talk about

cool things that happened in that year in baseball. So I don't know if I'll have one of these for every episode, but how many podcasts get up to almost 2,000 episodes? So I guess we should take advantage of having done so many. which came out a couple of years ago, Strike Forward, The Evolution of Baseball. And I follow him on Facebook and he is constantly just promulgating information about 19th century baseball and lots of little fun facts that I would not have known about. So he is going to send some of these when he comes across them for each episode. And we'll see how many we get done and how people enjoy these. But they'll just be little brief items, not necessarily like summing up the state of the game in that year or anything, but just something interesting happening that year. So starting with episode 1856, this was before the National League, well before, but there was baseball going on here. So 1856 was the year of the first recorded attempted steal.

So 1856 was the year of the first recorded attempted steal. So Hirschberger says July 31st, 1856, the Union Club of Mauritania, then a suburban village, now a neighborhood of the Bronx not far from Yankee Stadium, played the Baltic Club of New York at the Red House grounds between 2nd and 3rd Avenues and about where 105th Street is today. This otherwise unremarkable game holds a place in baseball history for the first recorded attempted stolen base. This is not at all the same as it being the first stolen base or attempted stolen base. It is just the first time it got recorded. 1856 was a breakthrough year in baseball reporting. The first year with this level of detail, stealing was nothing new.

Writing about it was. This doesn't mean they had quite worked out when it was and was not a good idea. Oh, boy. Yep. And the reporter complained that it was a blown call and he was safe. Baseball is a timeless game. This was according to the New York Clipper on August 9th, 1856, and I will link to his source for that. But very amusing, I think, that the very first recorded attempted steal was someone making the third out of the inning at third, which is violating that kind of baseball maxim, that cardinal rule, can't make the first or the third out there, right? And the very first time that we know that it happened via a attempted steal, that was what happened. And this was like early archaic proto baseball, like box scores weren't even fully developed at that point. They were playing to

21 runs, just like first to 21. And it took six innings in this case. And like each club appointed an umpire and they had a referee for when those umpires couldn't agree. And then after a couple of years, they dropped the club appointee part, and they were like, well, let's just have the referee there who is not biased or appointed by either team. That referee became the umpire, and they didn't have multiple umpires until decades later. So the game was very much in flux, which is what interests me about this period. You could see them sort of working out the rules as they went. But 1856, first recorded attempted steal. So that's today's fun fact, history corner, whatever we end up calling this. Perfect. Lastly, a brief stat blast. They'll take a data set sorted by sunset Like ERA- or OBS-

And then they'll tease out some interesting tidbit Discuss it at length and analyze it for us In amazing ways Here's to Dstablast. code WILD20 to get a discount of $20 on a year subscription, not just for MLB. You can also sign up for other sports versions of StatHead if you want. And the great thing that is happening now is that we have listeners who have availed themselves of this opportunity and are now StatHead subscribers. And so they are often writing in with their own StatBlast or like answering their own StatBlast questions. So Darren wrote in on Monday to note that the Brewers Ethan Small and the Cubs Matt Swarmer faced off as the starting pitcher in that contest and they were each making their major league debut. So we were meeting multiple major leaguers in that game and they were both starting. And so he wanted to know it seems rare that two starting pitchers would be making

their major league debut in the same game. Well, that is stat-headable. And he posted about that in the StatBlast channel in the Discord group. And he is a stat-head subscriber too. And people walked him through how you find that. And so I will link to those results. But that was the 29th time, at least since 1901, that two starting pitchers in the same game were making their major league debut in that same game. And there are some notable starters who have made debuts in games like that. Jacob deGrom against Chase Whitley, J.R. Richard against Jim Willoughby, Denny McClain against Fritz Ackley, Bob Forsh against Tom Carroll. It seems like the matchup that yielded the most cumulative career war between the two pitchers was Gaylord Perry against Sammy Ellis in 1962. They combined for about 100 war, mostly from Mr. Perry. Yeah.

We also got a submission along those lines. Someone just basically did a full stat blast for us. They should start their own podcast. But listener Jonathan, a recent subscriber and Patreon supporter and stat head subscriber, said that he was watching Sunday's Reds-Giants game. And he noticed that at the start of the eighth inning, Darren Ruff entered as a pinch hitter for the Giants and struck out. The Giants batted around, scored six runs, and Ruff got a second chance in that inning, but struck out again to end the inning. And then he was replaced by Kurt Casali, so he never took the field. And so Jonathan wondered, how many times has that

happened before a player participating in a game solely as a pinch hitter and striking out twice? It seems like it would be hard to do because it requires your team to bat around. And since you're accounting for two of the three outs on your own, that requires at least seven of the other eight players in the lineup to reach base safely in that inning. So he got himself a stat head subscription. Instead of asking us to answer this, he did it himself, self-sufficient. Appreciated this, and I hope he used the coupon code WILD20. Turns out that this was only the third time, at least since 1901 in MLB history, that this happened. First accomplished by John Cangellosi, May 20th, 1990 for Pittsburgh against Atlanta, and then Jeff Manto for Cleveland, September 14th, 1997 against the White Sox. Cangellosi was the only other player to ever lead off and end the inning with strikeouts. Mento's first strikeout followed a leadoff single by Omar Vizcal. So if we're willing to add on one more qualification, we can state that Darren Ruff is the first player in MLB history to appear solely as a pinch hitter and strikeout to lead off and end an inning in a team victory. So that's a lot of qualifiers,

but Cangellosi's Pirates lost that 1990 game. So that was fun. And then he went further down the rabbit hole with John Cangellosi, who is someone who had a lot of pinch hit appearances and multiple plate appearances in those games. I'll throw that in a Google Doc and link to it just so you can see the full stat blast that Jonathan did. But again, stathead.com. Anyway, the actual stat blast is from Carson, who says, this will probably be the

most useless question I've ever asked. But that doesn't stop me from wanting to know the answer. What is the most consecutive innings by a single pitcher in which he threw the same number of pitches in each inning? I have no issue with this, including relief pitchers spanning multiple games, if that makes the answer more interesting. but my question was initially thought up with starters in single games in mind i sent this question to lucas apostolaris listener and baseball prospectus writer and researcher and he did a little deep dive with his retro sheet database so he went back to 1988 which is the beginning of reliable pitch by pitch data he did not count intentional balls as pitches to keep things consistent with the way it works now, but that doesn't change anything in terms of the leader.

And he found, the answer is Melito Perez. Melito Perez in June of 1991. So in one single game, he entered as a reliever. He was sort of a swingman that season. He was in the bullpen mostly, but he made some starts. So on June 15th, 1991, Ramon Garcia of the White Sox had a disaster start. He gave up five runs, an inning, and a third. So Melito Perez came in, and he threw seven and two-thirds, shut out innings to finish that game for the White Sox.

Did not allow a run, one walk, three hits, eight strikeouts. So excellent inning by Melito. But he threw 12 pitches in each inning of that game. So one of the innings, I guess, was partial because he came in with one out already. But if we count that, actually, we don't have to count that because the record is seven. Seven innings, he threw 12 pitches apiece. So each of his full innings that day, he took 12 pitches. And then in his next outing, June 19th, he came in in the ninth as a reliever to finish the game. And he threw one inning, and he threw 12 pitches in that inning as well.

So the record within a single game is seven consecutive innings with the same pitch count by Melito Perez, and the record across multiple games, any span, actually is also Melito Perez. No one has done it even seven times over multiple spans, but eight consecutive innings with the same pitch count is the record by Molino Perez in 1991. It makes sense that it would be about 12 probably because if you had a very high pitch count, then you would run out of pitches probably, and it would also mean that you were getting in trouble and getting hit around a bit, so you wouldn't be left in long enough to rack up a long streak.

The average going back to 88 has been about 16 pitches per inning. So 12 is probably sort of the sweet spot. The second place finisher is Real Cormier in 2000. Across multiple games, he threw six consecutive innings with 13 pitches apiece. So that's the closest anyone has gotten. And in the same game, it's a tie for five consecutive innings. And this season, the most's a tie for five consecutive innings. And this season, the most anyone has done is four consecutive innings. So this is actually kind of tough to do and kind of tough to sustain for any extended stretch of innings. Melito Perez is your all-time leader, at least your on-record leader. Interesting. All right. That will do it for today.

All right. A few follow-ups from last week. We got a lot of responses to our hypothetical email about a player suffering from glass-ass syndrome, specifically Ricky Henderson. If Henderson had a glass-ass, could he still have been a successful base dealer? Well, it's not quite in keeping with the lighthearted spirit of our answer to that question. spirit of our answer to that question, but as a number of people pointed out, one of Henderson's contemporaries and a great base dealer in his own right, perhaps the best ever percentage base dealer, Tim Raines, did supposedly have a glass ass of sorts for a little while. Raines acknowledged using cocaine during the 1980s, specifically 1982, and he is reputed to have sometimes kept the vial in his back pocket, which would prevent him from sliding foot first.

In a 1985 article written around when Raines and other players were testifying before a grand jury about the cocaine use in baseball during the 80s, Raines said, I had it in little gram bottles that I kept in my pocket. Actually, a lot of times I would put it in my batting glove and then in my pocket. I was trying to find ways of not getting caught. When he slid into a base,, Rock Solid, he wrote, cocaine on my person during games, specifically snug against my butt in the back pocket of my uniform. It's undisputed truth that I would sneak a snort in the clubhouse bathroom between innings, but the part about making sure I slid headfirst into bases so as not to break the vial of coke

is somewhat exaggerated. Anybody who remembers my style of play knows that I went into bases headfirst long after I stopped carrying coke around with me. And as noted last time, Henderson tended to slide headfirst too. For what it's worth, 1982, the year when he was heavily using cocaine, was a down year for Reigns. And even on the bases, he stole a mere 78 bases and was caught 16 times. That was actually a bit of a slump for him, given that the prior year, in the strike season, he had stolen 71 bases in 88 games. And then the following full season he stole 90 and was caught only 14 times. Of course, he was not getting on base as often in 82. So whether that was related to the cocaine use

or the fact that he had the vial in his back pocket sometimes, I don't know. But that question did summon that anecdote to some people's minds. And listener Eric wrote in with another mental connection that he made. I wanted to inform you of a potential wrinkle that could be added to the glass-ass Ricky scenario. In early modern Europe, there were a number of people who believed they were made partially or wholly of glass. It's called the glass delusion, a psychiatric disorder recorded in Europe, mainly in the late Middle Ages and early modern period. People feared that they were made of glass and therefore likely to shatter into pieces.

One person afflicted, supposedly, was King Charles VI of France, who refused to allow people to touch him and wore reinforced clothing to protect himself from accidental shattering, according to Wikipedia. So, Eric says, if Ricky suffered from the glass delusion, then he would only be struggling

with his own fear of being broken, and his team could in good conscience play him without risking his life. In addition, if he had developed this condition in his own fear of being broken, and his team could in good conscience play him without risking his life. In addition, if he had developed this condition in the majors or upper minors, it might explain how he had made it that far. Yes, hopefully he would receive some psychiatric counseling for the glass ass delusion, but perhaps that would be a less serious problem, as was Tim Raines' problem. If he slid the wrong way, he would not die, as our glass ass player would.

Another follow-up to our question in Pedantic Corner last week about on the corner versus on the edge, what constitutes being on the corner of the strike zone or at the corner. Cameron wrote in to say, I take a pitch as being on the corner to mean that it passed over the corner of home plate, meaning that a pitch anywhere along the horizontal edges of the strike zone is on the corner. I feel like I often hear this or that pitch caught the corner when it's an outside pitch running away from the batter. Thus, the pitch only passes over the front corner and no other part of the plate.

I suppose you could say that a pitch down the middle passes over the back corner of the plate, but this doesn't seem to be in the spirit of the phrase, and it counteracts my point, so I'm choosing to ignore it. Listener and Patreon supporter Dan also wrote in with the historical perspective, Home plate used to be a square. Before it got its funny hexagonal shape, it had the same shape as the other bases and was aligned like second base to match the shape of the diamond. So the corners of the square plate delineated the entire left-right boundaries of the zone. These days, on the edge is a more accurate descriptor, but on the corner is just an outmoded synonym.

Per MLB, in 1899 and 1900, the rule regarding home plate shape changed, requiring the base to be square in shape as opposed to circular, so it matched the rest of the bases. The 12x12 square, later to become a 16x16 square, was positioned so one corner pointed toward the pitcher and the opposite corner pointed toward the catcher. As a result, the inner and outer edges of the strike zone were determined by the other two corners of the base.

Thanks, Dan! Patreon supporter Steve wrote in in response to the Roger Angel-related stat blast. Angel wrote in his 1975 essay, Adjunct Court and After, that most of the time it would be a winning bet to say that the winning team will score more runs in their biggest inning than a losing team will score in all of their innings. This is technically untrue, but it could still be a good bet because it is right more often than it is wrong if you don't include a push. Games when the winning team scores the same number of runs in their biggest inning than the losing team scores in all of their innings as a loss. Anyway,

Steve wrote in to say that he understood this concept to be the Big Bang Theory of baseball, a 1980s idea advanced by Tom Boswell, the former Washington Post columnist. And this does seem to be the case. Boswell wrote about it in the early 80s, and he asserted that it was true based on a study of previous World Series games. And in the 1981 Baseball Abstract, Bill James took him to task and showed that using World Series games as his database led to a flawed conclusion because World Series games rely more on big innings than regular season games do. And there are more shutouts in the World Series too. So by definition, those are games where the winner's biggest inning produces more runs than the loser's entire total. So James debunked the idea, that strict construction of the idea, according to

Boswell. And seemingly Boswell was influenced by Earl Weaver as well, he of the three-run Homer and the beginning. But Angel was writing about that in 1975. So maybe Boswell got the idea from him. Maybe it was floating out there in the ether. Maybe Angel heard it from Weaver. I don't know who originated it, but it did have a name, the Big Bang Theory, and it was associated with Boswell and then debunked by Bill James. And lastly, we talked last week about hidden ball tricks, the fact that we don't see them much anymore at the major league level, not since 2017, perhaps because time is called so often these days, at least in part. And I think Meg may have mentioned on that episode, I wonder if Sports Info Solutions has numbers on this. Well, we have a listener and Patreon supporter, Alex Victorman, who is an analyst for SIS, and he wrote in to say, SIS tracks all kinds of specific good fielding plays, and we do have a

category for deceiving base runners. That category has only existed since 2017 and includes some other kinds of plays. The overwhelmingly most common 24 times in 5 plus years is intentionally dropping a ball in the air, which doesn't fall in the same conceptual bucket as a true hidden ball trick. They have 13 instances of pretending to make a play at second base when a runner is going, forcing him to slide and causing him to either not advance when he could have or get doubled up at first on a fly out. They have 11 recorded incidents of on a fly ball pretending the play is easier or harder than it is to get the base runners to make a mistake. Think lining up for

a fly ball to stall the runners only to then play the ball off the wall. And 10 times they have recorded a fielder pretending to have the ball on an errant throw to second base to keep the runner on second. However, they do not have a more recent example of the hidden ball trick than the one we mentioned on that episode, 2017, Ryan Goins caught Todd Frazier. And Frazier wasn't even facing Goins when he faked the throw, so it was maybe more luck than skill. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. five listeners have already signed up and pledged some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, get themselves access to some perks, and help us stay ad-free aside from our stat head sponsorship, Chris Snee, Kent Uehara, Scott Kogan, David Altman, and Prussia. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for Patreon supporters, monthly bonus episodes, one of which Meg and I published and recorded over

this past weekend, and a pair of playoff live streams later in the year, as well as other extras. You can all 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. You can follow Effectively Wild on Twitter at EWPod. You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash Effectively Wild. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing and production assistance. We will be back with another episode a little later this week. Talk to you then. Bye.