Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1861: I’m Not Maddon, I’m Just Disappointed

Episode Date: June 11, 2022

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Joe Maddon’s firing, the impact and end of the Angels’ 14-game losing streak, and whether the Angels or Phillies are in a worse position for the future, Tony La Russa’s intentional walk on a 1-2 count, whether the weather and the humidor can explain MLB’s sudden upticks in […]

For the animals all in, too much damage has been done So I'm giving you my notice And it works this way In two weeks time, you will notice I've been gone for 14 days Hello and welcome to episode 1861 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined once again by Meg Rowley of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello. We are both home, both on the mic.

This is nice. Yeah, we are here. We have returned. I have seen some baseball in the last 24 hours. Good. Well, a lot of baseball has happened, and we have a lot of baseball news to discuss. Yeah. So I have a number of items on an itinerary here,

but I guess we should start with the Angels. Yeah. So slightly less depressing conversation than it would have been one day ago if we had had it then. So that's something. Yeah, they have won a baseball game. How about that? Yeah.

Shohei Otani single-handedly ended the losing streak. Well, he used both of his hands and arms. As a right-hander, he pitched seven innings and gave up one run. As a left-hander, he hit a two-run homer and also singled. I guess he had a little help. Andrew Velasquez hit a home run, too, so that helped. But it was an MVP caliber effort from Shohei to end the 14-game losing streak. Came too late to save Joe Maddon's job.

So after not having a midseason managerial change since 2018, we have had two managers named Joe dismissed. Bad time to be a Joe, I guess. Yeah, so that has worked out for the Phillies so far. They have not lost a game since they fired Joe Girardi. So that's something. Rob Thompson 7-0 in his early managerial career. Things didn't go quite as well at the start of Phil Nevin's managerial career for the Angels. They continued to lose.

However, they have snapped that streak. But boy, if you just rewound a few weeks and told anyone that, hey, Joe Maddon is going to be fired in early June and the Angels are going to be a losing team back down below 500 again, I don't know that we would have been totally shocked because it's the angels after all but it would have been surprising given how they started this season yeah they had a terrific start and i think at one point i told you you can just talk about watching the angels like that is a relevant yeah yeah it's like a relevant baseball act you know it's not like you're out here you know it's not like you're out here watching the mariners we have to laugh because otherwise it's sad so i told you that and then the angels were like meg shut up yeah it's really bad for a while i do i have a couple of thoughts about the changing fortunes of the phillies versus Angels. The first of which is that while they have gone 7-0 since a managerial change,

I am 0-7 in thinking that their current acting manager's name is not Rob Thomas. So that might be a Meg problem. Speaking of weird music, am I given to understand that the Angels used all Nickelback music for walk-ups for a hot second there? Yes, the time-honored tactic of trying to break a slump by having everyone use the same walk-up song, which they used with the 2015 Sonoma Stompers, didn't work for the Angels,

at least initially. They lost the Nickelback game. They lost their Nickelback game. I mean, look, I think that people should like the stuff they like and i'm not here to judge anyone's musical taste but i i might more confidently than normal assert that like if you play all nickelback music you might deserve to lose like that might be something that you uh you deserve what was joe gerardi doing to the phillies man was he being mean to them did he like uh did he is it like arsenic and old lace was he quietly poisoning people like that's a terrible thing to assert but um it's sure it you know i think that

it is not unusual for a team that moves on from a manager to like experience a little bit of dead count bounce but they don't normally bounce quite so high. I guess it helps that they got to play the Angels. That does help. Yeah. So some regression was in store. And as with any long losing streak or winning streak for that matter, luck plays a part in it. The Angels lost several one-run games during their 14-game losing streak, but they are a much diminished team. Now, I don't know how much of this is that they have lost some of the good players who contributed to their early success and how much of it was that they were playing over their heads because they have been without Taylor Ward.

Wait, did I get that right? I can't ever remember. I did get that right. Okay, forget that. I think you should leave it in. Okay. They have been without Taylor Ward. They have had Tyler Wade, which is not as advantageous. They've been without Taylor Ward, who has been hurt. They've been without Anthony Rendon, who has been hurt.

Of late, they have been without Mike Trout, who has a groin strain that seems not to be that serious, although any sort of muscle strain or strain of any kind with Mike Trout scares me these days after the calf experience last year. But right now they have a lineup that is so depleted that it looks a lot like their lineup late last year, where it was basically Otani, Walsh, and pray for rain. I mean, there just wasn't a lot left there. And it's kind of looked

like that lately. They also did have some players, some pitchers who were kind of out over their skis, I think, and they were doing a bit better than one would have expected in their early season success. But I think part of it is that they lost some key personnel temporarily. Part of it was that they had some lousy luck. And part of it was that they were never great. They were playing well to start the season, but they weren't projected to be an excellent team. They were projected to be like, well, they have a shot at making the playoffs,

which is kind of where they still are. They're down at 26.6% chance to make the playoffs, according to the FanCraft's playoff odds on Friday early afternoon, which is down from the start of the season, but only like 16 percentage points. It's not that they were ever a lock or that they were ever really projected to finish far above 500. So they're just kind of down in the range where the Angels are. It just it seemed like they had snapped that long string of unsuccessful seasons and that maybe at least with an assist from the 12 team playoffs, they could get back to October and perhaps they still will. But their chances took a huge, took a huge shot by losing 14 in a row. It's hard to come back from that. Various people have run the numbers and no team has lost 12 in a row and made the playoffs in the divisional era.

And I believe no team has lost 13 in a row in the divisional era and even finished 500 or over 500. And no team, I think ever, at least going back to 1901, has lost 14 in a row and has finished over 500. So just by doing that, they would have to do something unprecedented to be a winning team this season. I don't know how useful the, well, teams that have done this haven't made the playoffs sort of stats are because, well, we haven't had a 12-team playoff format before. So you could be worse than you used to be able to be and still be a playoff team. But you haven't even been a winning team if you lose that many games because you just do the math. You have to be a good deal over 500 in your other games if you went 0 and 14 over a certain stretch.

So it's a bad sign. It's like the Bill James term signature significance, which I think dates back to the 1985 abstract, where I think the way he used it initially was that maybe Roger Clemens had just had a 15 strikeout, no walk game. And he said, hey, if you ever have one of those, it means something special like you only have to do that thing once right and you can conclude something about that player it's like hitting a ball 118 miles per hour or something like that you know one batted ball it's like oh okay that's pretty special that guy has power that most players can never reach that so losing 14 games in a row for a team that seems to have some

signature significance, which is that if you do it, you're probably not a very good team. Yeah. It's like, you know, we think a lot about what is a sort of a meaningful predictor of future performance, right? What is indicative of a new baseline for an individual player? What is suggestive of sort of the trajectory of a team. And, you know, I don't know that there's anything, there's no special alchemy in like the sequencing of those losses necessarily. Like the fact that they were 14 of them in a row isn't really, I think what people are

keen on. It's like you said, it's the, you start doing the mental math of how much better you have to be over the remainder of your schedule, and you're like, oh, that's less than good if what you want is to see Trout and Otani playing in October. But yeah, once you've shown you can do something, sometimes what we are looking for is demonstrating the capacity when it previously hadn't existed. Although I guess for the Angels, losing a lot isn't a new skill one would demonstrate. Yep, they seem to have found their level again. So the question, as with the last managerial firing, as we said then, usually you don't fire a manager and everyone thinks, okay, our work here is done. Mission accomplished, problem solved.

There's always some underlying issue. And certainly that is the case for the Angels, much as with Joe Girardi. And I guess they were hired with their respective teams that just fired them in the same season, 2020. But the problems of those teams predated their arrivals and probably will continue on after they've left. So the question is, well, was Joe Madden responsible, wholly responsible, partly responsible, or just, well, was he helping the angels or was he making them worse? I think there are good arguments that Joe Madden has maybe been exposed as a subpar manager or a lot of the luster is off of Joe Maddon, who during his raise days was seen as a really progressive, forward-thinking manager who was at the vanguard of running a team in kind of an analytically oriented way, but also

paying attention to the clubhouse and being a good players manager and all that. And then won the World Series, of course, with the Cubs. And even then, there were starting to be a lot of critiques of his in-game managing. And the Cubs ultimately moved on from him. And now he's been with the Angels and he's had some moments. And if we wanted to talk about signature significance for a manager, we could maybe talk about a couple of incidents from just earlier this season. The first was in spring training, right, where he broached the idea of moving Mike Trout to an outfield corner to the media before mentioning it to Mike Trout, who was not thrilled about the idea. And that just seemed like managing 101, talk to your franchise superstar

about that sort of thing before airing it publicly. And then there was, of course, the bases loaded intentional walk. Yeah. Did you know that he walked? I did. He did an intentional walk. Yeah. We might talk about another odd intentional walk in this episode, but that one took the cake.

They ended up winning that game. But as we talked about at the time, that was crazy pants, I think is the technical term for that move. And he did it in order to shake things up or whatever. That was the managerial equivalent of everyone walking up to a Nickelback song, basically. And it quote unquote worked in that case. It didn't really work as we talked about at the time because they allowed more runs in that inning than you would have expected them to just going into that situation. But they did win the game. But that's the sort of thing where it's like, well, maybe one incident like that is enough to tell you this guy may be not a great in-game manager.

And so if you're doing a lot of other things to make up for that and everyone loves you and you're a great leader and motivator, then maybe you can make up for the occasional basis-loaded intentional walk. But it would take a lot, and there's no indication that Madden really had that kind of ability anymore. So I can't say he was wronged here. I can't say that it's his fault that the Angels lost a bunch of games in a row or that they're below 500 again. But impactful, it's a lot of like, it's like people management that we don't see. You know, it happens in the clubhouse when reporters aren't around. And so we're sort of left with these very isolated and perhaps muddy in terms of how indicative they are of the general managerial approach of the manager incidents in public. And so, you know, I don't want to make too much of a spring training musing about usage, but when like the musing is about the best player in baseball who happens to play

for your team and, you know, who who you i would imagine want to maintain some kind of good relationship with like it isn't a great isolated indicator even if it's an isolated one so i i think it's probably fine like i think at points we have thought that joe madden has been a little too cute but that there have been upshots to that right where he seemed at times like he was the right guy to try to navigate otani's usage as he was doing two-way stuff at a time when he hadn't really demonstrated that he was going to be able to sustain that over the course of an entire season let alone to an mvp level so like there have been moments where it's like oh well, well, maybe, you know, this guy can be a little too clever by half, but maybe given that the way he's being too clever by half is seemingly maximizing the usage of one

of the most exciting players in baseball and one of the best players on this team, like maybe that's a trade-off that's worth it, but you have to keep making deposits in the account, right? You can't just keep drawing off of the same couple of good moments. So like you, I don't know that it necessarily needs to all be laid at his feet, but I don't know that moving on is going to be all that big of a problem either. And yeah, maybe we'll just see fewer pieces loaded in Tensional Walks. I can't, I still can't believe that that happened, Ben. Yeah, that happened.

That happened. And I remember Clemens was preparing to write about something else, and I was like, I think you should not, and you should instead write about this. It's so nice when we have baseball because it often gives you grist for the mill. Yeah, that was not a collective fever dream. No, it really happened.

Yeah, and there were like 2,000 words about it up on Fangraphs.com just in perpetuity. And Madden gave an interview with Ken Rosenthal seemingly about five minutes after he was fired. It seems like his first call was to Ken, but he had a Q&A here. And one of the quotes raised some eyebrows. So Madden said he was very surprised to be fired. He also said it was liberating. And Rosenthal said, why? Usually managers are crushed when this happens.

Madden said, it's been kind of difficult overall. I'm into analytics, but not to the point where everybody wants to shove it down your throat. Real baseball people have felt somewhat impacted by all of this. You're unable to just go to the ballpark and have some fun and play baseball. It's too much controlled by front offices these days. I actually talked to Perry, the Angels GM, about this. This isn't anything new. I told him that. I said, you just try to reduce the information you're giving. Try to be aware of who's giving the information and really be aware of when it's time to stay out of the way. In general, the industry has gone too far in that direction. That's part of the reason

people aren't into our game as much as they have been. So there are a lot of things going on in that quote. And maybe some aspects of what he's saying, we could find some common ground with if he is just saying that the use of sabermetrics and data and technology has come into the game more recently. I don't think that's a great distinction to draw between real baseball people and not real baseball people who like numbers or whatever. So that seems kind of reactionary and overly old school. It's odd. It's like, I guess, you know, you stick around long enough, you end up being the, like, back in my day guy, even if Joe Madden, you were like initially one of the faces of the sabermetric movement in the dugout, at least. And I don't know anything about how the angels have applied

or communicated sabermetric information. For all I know, they haven't done a great job at that. I don't know. Maybe he has some legitimate gripes about how that team specifically has applied those things. And sure, there are people who probably feel like, yeah, it's less fun to have to look at these numbers. I just want to see the ball hit the ball or whatever. And you do have to be conscious of certain players having that preference or even performing these numbers. I just want to see the ball hit the ball or whatever. And you do have to be conscious of certain players having that preference or even performing these days. And the idea that things are too much controlled by front offices these days, I guess that is not an uncommon or surprising

sentiment for a manager, at least a manager who's been around for a little while and granted came up with a pretty statistically oriented front office, but perhaps had a little more leeway back then than he has now. So I understand the sentiment. I guess the one thing I would most take objection with is just the real baseball people distinction. But it's interesting. Like it's 2022. I don't want to say that the game has passed him by exactly, but he maybe doesn't like where the game has gone during his tenure as a major league manager.

He says at the end he's still good at managing and still wants to continue to do it, but it doesn't sound like he loves the climate that he has been managing in. Maybe he didn't love the numbers, the win expectancies that were thrown at him in the wake of the bases loaded intentional walk. So this is our fault really so i think that madden had a lifetime 477 winning percentage as angels manager gerardi had a lifetime 484 with the phillies very comparable there. So we talked about the outlook for the Phillies after that firing. Which organization do you think is in a better spot right now? You have two teams that just fired managers named Joe that both have 28 wins as we speak that are both led by famous players who broke out in 2012 because a lot of commonalities here

harper trout gerardi madden so which one would you rather be both uh not as successful long post-season list streaks you know barren farm systems to varying degrees like yeah sort of similar in a lot of ways oh gosh oh gosh ben i don't know i think it's pretty maybe the phillies i mean i think that um it's so funny that madden made part of his departure be about analytics because when i think about the teams you know we spent time in the last couple of years talking about how like the sort of baseline literacy and analytics approach across baseball has really been elevated. Like there aren't that many teams that are actively sort of antagonistic toward analytics, but I don't think that the progress that has been made on that score and sort of the movement toward greater,

not only just literacy and sort of building the analytics infrastructure that you need to really act on that stuff, but implementation. It isn't as if every team has continued progressing, right? I think that there was a bringing up to speed where the playing field wasn't level. You still had teams that were meaningfully better at doing this stuff than others. But you had a sense across the industry that, well, we got to be able to work this stuff into the team somehow. But I think that when you think about the clubs that have really taken a step forward recently on stuff like, especially on the pitching side, like fastball shape and, you know, thinking about approach angle. And then you think about the teams that might be well positioned to take advantage of some of the biomechanical and biometric information that is coming out. And I don't say that as if

there isn't like a lot of like thorny ethical stuff that goes into that, but you know, it does kind of feel like we are at another juncture where there are going to be teams that we might view as having been left somewhat behind versus teams that are really trying to advance their understanding of what that stuff can do in terms of making their players better, informing team strategy, informing scouting and player development, that sort of stuff. So with all of that said, I don't look at the Angels as a club that is particularly forward thinking when it comes to that stuff. And I don't know that I necessarily think that about Philly either. I think they have shown certainly a willingness to engage with it. And I think that sometimes that has been

oddly to their detriment, right? Like they went through this run where it seemed like they were hiring like every internet baseball person and then none of that stuff worked because it was like two one size fits all and they weren't doing a very good job of being able to talk to their players about how to make it, how to like really actualize it and make it useful to them. And so I don't think it's gone especially well there, but there's been a willingness to engage with it. I don't know that it is necessarily shared by the Dombrowski era Phillies, but Sam Fold seems fine with that.

So anyway, this is sort of a rambling way of saying there does seem to be a little bit more potential to like advance the ball in Philly, which is weird because I don't think that they're like necessarily great at that stuff, but I think they might be in a better spot than the Angels are. I don't know, man.

It seems, it feels weird to say the team with Mike Trout is going to be worse, but I think it might be worse in the long run. I guess some of this is going to depend on how those two teams continue to understand and assess payroll and deploy payroll. It's not as if LA has been unwilling to spend, but they haven't always or even often spent particularly wisely. So they just seem like they are two franchises that are to a certain extent stuck. And we talked about this, as you said, with Philly, like, what do you do with it? Because you've committed capital to a team that is constructed really strangely you're going to have room to spend more next year when some of their existing deals come off the books but like

have you really demonstrated an acumen for roster construction that suggests you're going to do something really great with that i don't know it seems bad yeah Neither is an enviable situation. No. The case for the Angels is kind of the case that everyone has made for the Angels for years now. Right. Which is basically like they have Trout and also they have Otani. Sure. Sure seems like you should be able to build a contending team around them.

They have shown over and over again that they are seemingly incapable of doing that. shown over and over again that they are seemingly incapable of doing that. So if it hasn't worked before, I don't know that there's any proof that it will work. And they only have Otani under contract for one more year after this one. Yeah. How about that? That went fast. Yeah.

So that's no guarantee of anything. Right. And I guess one other argument would be maybe you'd rather have Philly's ownership than Angel's ownership. At this point, Artie Moreno, problematic in multiple ways. And the Phillies, if they haven't spent judiciously, they have spent more so than Moreno has in recent years, and maybe they've meddled less. So that would be an argument probably in favor of the Phillies. So I guess I might take the Phillies on that basis, but neither one of them really gives you a lot of confidence at this point. I guess their playoff

odds probably aren't so dissimilar at this moment. I think this season, while the Phillies are at 36.6%, the Angels are 26-something. So I guess the Phillies have a slight edge there. I don't know. I'd probably take the Phillies by a nose, but I wouldn't be happy to find myself in either boat. Well, and I think one component of this that might be sort of underrated in terms of its potential impact is, to your point about Moreno, there are always going to be people who want to work in baseball. And because there are a finite number of baseball jobs and more people that want them than can fill them, it's not as if they won't be able to hire, but like it did matter to the baseball people that Joe Maddon is referring to that like Moreno did not treat his people particularly well during

the pandemic. And I think that, you know, you saw voluntary departures from that organization in the wake of that. So to the extent that that continues to sort of dog them and impact their hiring, if one of the things that they need to do to really take a step forward as a franchise is overhaul some of the front office infrastructure and really think critically about how they're engaging with, you know, analytics, not just now, but going forward, there might be more of a lag there than you would expect if they aren't able to convince people like, yeah, come to LA and help us beat a team that wins. So that is something to consider, treating people well, the new inefficiency. Yeah. And I think we did a little snapshot of the change in playoff odds relative to the start of the season once we were one month into the regular season.

Now we're a little more than two months in and just looking at the change since May 8th, May 7th was the one month anniversary of opening day. So since May 8th, there are actually only a couple teams whose playoff odds fortunes have significantly changed since May 8th. May 7th was the one-month anniversary of opening day. So since May 8th, you have the Angels who are down 43.7 percentage points. Yikes. Yeah, that's a lot. Yikes.

So that's the big change. percentage points. Yeah, that's a lot. So that's the big change. And then on the positive side, you have the Red Sox, who have increased their chances by 31.3 percentage points. They have turned their season around. And that's really it for any enormous leaps like that. You have a few teams that are in the plus or minus 10 percentage point range, the Brewers and the Giants have lost about that much. The Rays have gained about that much. And that's about it. So really, the Angels, the notable losers over the past month. Losers in more than one way and many times over.

And the Red Sox, the notable winners there. And it was the Red Sox who actually lost to the Angels on Thursday, snapping that streak. Nick Pavetta was pitching, who we talked about earlier this week. His mechanical change, he pitched well again, just not quite well enough. So in the realm of perplexing managerial moves, we have our pal Tony La Russa, who has authored more than one of them. And he was back at it on Thursday because he issued a curious intentional walk of his own. Now, it was not Madden level, but it did make some people think,

huh, that was interesting. And Ben Clemens has blogged about that as well. He swung into action and blogged about a weird intentional walk. I guess that's one of his beats. But La Russa, the weird thing here was that he walked Trey Turner on a one-two count to get to Max Muncy. And what had happened, there was a wild pitch, right? Yes. So Freddie Freeman got down to second. Yeah. And so first base was open. And if the play appearance had started that way, it wouldn't have been so weird if you had had first base open in that situation in a runner in scoring position. And they had a lefty pitching.

So he was trying to get the platoon advantage against the left-handed Muncy. So if there had not been two strikes, it wouldn't have been that weird. Although it's worth noting that Muncy has career reverse splits. And even if you regress that, he doesn't have much of a projected platoon split. But there were two strikes. There were two strikes. That's an important data point. Yeah.

You've done the hard part. It's an important data point. Yeah. You've done the hard part. See, the thing is, like, you've done the, you've, Ben, they had done the hard part, right? Yeah. Two outs.

So, you know, yeah, yeah. Play a little clip here because you can hear the consternation. Someone else should be saying words instead of me just continuing to be flabbergasted that this actually happened. Well, you can hear broadcasters being flabbergasted. This is Jason Benetti and Steve Stone and also some random heckler in the stands who was yelling out and reminding Tony Russo in vain that there were two strikes on the batter. Now, wait a second. They're going to intentionally walk him. On one and two? Yep. Can you explain that to me?

I would think you don't want Turner to do any more damage and you want to take advantage of the lefty lefty. Typically, at two strikes, the league batting average is quite low. Oh, yeah. It is that. When was the last time you saw somebody intentionally walked on one and two? Doesn't happen often. At two strikes, Tony! Two strikes, Tony!

So, yeah, this is odd because Larussa seemed flummoxed that people were flummoxed by this. Yeah, he sure did. Weirdly. Some people were thinking, like, did he forget what the count was or something? Like, that would have been a better explanation probably than the one he offered. So in the postgame presser, he said, is there some question as to whether that was a good move or not? Does anybody in this room really think that Turner should have, even with the count, we should have gone after Turner? There was a lot of silence after that. I think probably everybody in the room thought that. Yeah, they all did.

He said, because it was 1-2, Turner with a strike against left-handers is something you can avoid if you can. He said a strike. There were two strikes, but he also said one, two. So he does seem to know what the count was. And we had an open base and Muncy happened to be the guy behind him. And that's the better matchup. If somebody disagrees, that's the beauty of this game. You're welcome to it. But that wasn't a tough call.

It wasn't a tough call. And as everyone said, no, it wasn't in the other way. But he continued to say, do you know what Turner hits against left-handed pitching with 0-1 or two strikes? Do you know what he hits? Do you know what Muncy hits with two strikes against left-handed pitching? Which is weird because you don't get to carry over the count against Muncy. He would not start with two strikes. And then he said, I mean, is that really a question? Do you know what Muncy hits with two strikes against Ledipid? I mean, it's a weird one. I think even Max Muncy questioned it. Yeah, he was surprised. Yeah, I think everyone was surprised. I think Trey Turner was surprised too. Muncy said, I don't know if walking someone with two strikes

is ever the right move. Turner said, I was just confused. I didn't know if I should go to first or not, but I guess they liked the matchup. And you also saw Freddie Freeman on second seeming to mouth his consternation with two strikes. It was a lot like Mike Trout looking around as Joe Madden was intentionally walking someone with the bases load, then checking to make sure that in fact all of the bases were occupied as they were. So I't know what to make of this like yeah you'd rather have muncie against a lefty in a vacuum so to speak than turner but this was not just uh any old average situation this was two strikes and if you do the math as ben did there doesn't really seem to be any way to make it make sense for the White Sox here. And Ben concluded and he ran his win probability model

and plugged in all of the players involved and projections and platoon splits and so forth. And he found that it decreased the White Sox odds of winning the game by about one percentage point, which does not sound like a lot, but for a managerial move, it kind of is because most individual managerial moves do not make much of a difference. So I think Ben, maybe in the comments, responding to someone who said, oh, one percentage point, that isn't much. Ben said that's equivalent to like pinch hitting for a six war hitter with a replacement level hitter in any given plate appearance something like that so it is kind of a lot if you think of it in that case so i don't know how to explain this one it's just tony larusa doing tony larusa

things i guess well and i think that the point that that ben made and that we would make and that perhaps ties back to the idea of like if if you demonstrate a capacity to do this, like, what does it say about you as a player or a manager, right? It isn't that much when you think about it in terms of the change in win probability, although, as you just noted, it is a pretty significant alteration for a managerial move, which, you know, it's like, generally, you're just not able to put your thumb on the scale to that degree. But it seems to suggest a fundamental misunderstanding of the direction that those decisions should make. Yeah, he was looking at the in-venue Apple probabilities possibly. Yes. I messaged Ben at one point while he was drafting and i was like i wish this had been a friday game you could have had the numbers at the bottom there i mean it

just it suggests like a fundamental it's not even getting too cute right it's it's not that you are so obsessed with chasing a marginal edge where there might actually be one that you kind of outwit yourself and make a choice that in hindsight doesn't make a ton of sense. Like it just, it, it seems like it should be obvious that when you have two strikes on a guy, you should just see it through even with, even with a runner on second,

as a result of the wild pitch, like it's just almost always going to be smarter. You've done the hard part. Yeah. And maybe the concerning part is that he just seemed so confident in the decision that at least outwardly he could not conceive of anyone reaching another conclusion. If he was like, I realize this is unorthodox, but I was considering this factor and that factor. And I came down the other way and I see how you could disagree. OK. But the fact that and this is maybe just his personality, but or the way he communicates, but acting as if it was weird to question him.

I'm sure if you asked like people in the White Sox front office what they thought of that move. Or the way he communicates, but acting as if it was weird to question him. I'm sure if you asked people in the White Sox front office what they thought of that move, they probably wouldn't have approved of it either unless they know something about that particular matchup that we don't. Even if you take Max Muncy's actual stats this season, Ben ran the numbers that way too, and he has not hit well. Ben ran the numbers that way too, and he has not hit well. But even if you use his actual stats instead of his projected stats, it still doesn't make sense statistically speaking. So I feel like you have to justify it and say, oh, well, I was seeing something about Turner or Muncie or the pitcher or whatever it was. No, it wasn't that. It was like he acted like this was a no-brainer or something in the opposite direction. Maybe it was a no-brainer, but not in the game it was and what the score was and all of that.

In this case, there actually had been some recent examples of this sort of thing happening. I saw some people tweeting like, oh, this has never happened before. There's never been an intentional walk in a one-two count. And I think that is a product of the way that these things are listed at Baseball Reference. And otherwise, if you try to search for these examples, it's really tricky because it will always often at least be recorded as like, well, the intentional walk occurred with three balls. It's like you might have started issuing the intentional walk with fewer balls, but then technically, according to the way these things are often kept track of, like you get to three balls before the fourth ball, that kind of

thing. So it's hard to isolate these cases, but I was chatting with other Ben about this and he, and I think Mike Petriello also found two examples from last season when this happened that passed somewhat without notice. One of them was in a Rockies game. It was the Rockies. I don't know. Maybe fewer people pay attention to the Rockies. But Bud Black did something like this also.

And Petriello tweeted about this. But it was April 3rd. Gavin Lux stole second on a one-two count. And then the Rockies walked Corey Seager to face Chris Taylor. And then there was another case where this happened with Mike Trout, actually, in a game against the Angels last year, where Mike Trout was walked on one-two to face Justin Upton, not even getting the platoon advantage there, but Trout was, you know, best hitter in baseball. Upton below average hitter.

And Upton hit a grand slam. And Chris Taylor hit a double that drove in a run. And we didn't even mention, but in this case, Max Muncy hit a three-run homer after this intentional walk. I believe on the third anniversary of his go-get-it-out-of-the-ocean home run off of Madison Bob Carter, memorably. So yeah, that was April 16th, I think, was the Justin Upton Grand Slam. That was Rocco Baldelli. That was maybe a bit more defensible just because you're going from Trout to Upton. So this kind of thing has happened. And I don't know whether we've paid less attention to it in the past because it wasn't only a rA or because they were late games and fewer people were paying attention or what.

But this is maybe less like if you do that, you are disqualified as a major league manager because other major league managers have done somewhat similar things. But I just don't think it makes much sense at all. Yeah, it doesn't make a tremendous amount of sense i mean as as ben went through in his piece like you can can you can contrive scenarios where this might make more sense but you have to do a lot of work to to do that like you have to make max muncie much worse even than he's been this year you have to make susa have enormous platoon splits you have to make you know turner so much better than his projections and like even then it it only helps a a bit it just almost only ever helps just a little bit because fundamentally what you are talking about

is going from a two-strike count to a zero-strike count. That is the scenario that you are entertaining because as you rightly noted, Ben, you can't take them with you. You can't take those strikes with you. They don't transfer. It's not like he didn't switch the pitcher mid-played appearance and keep the count. transfer it's not like he you know he didn't he didn't switch the pitcher mid mid plate appearance

and keep the count no he just was like you go over there and then we bring up a whole new guy and we got to start over and then they did that it didn't it didn't work so that's it's on the one hand on the one hand it's delightful that baseball keeps keeps giving Fangrass writers stuff to write about that they so delight in writing. Ben was salivating at the opportunity to run the math on this because, as you noted, this has sort of become his beat. I should have made this my beat instead of pooping. Yeah, probably. That probably would have been a better choice.

So I'm happy that Ben gets to write stuff that brings him joy because that's nice. But I imagine that if you're a White Sox fan, your preference would be that Ben be marginally less happy in his life and that your team make better choices. Yeah. The White Sox are in third place in the AL Central now, 26 and 29, which is a very Angels and Phillies-esque record. So if it were anyone else, given the higher expectations that they had coming into the season, like for the White Sox to be around that range is more disappointing relative to expectations than the Angels and the Phillies being where they are. You know, like the Angels, they won a bunch and then they lost a bunch. And so it seems worse for them to be where they are because they started so fast. But if you had told anyone that they would have this record on June 10th when the

season started, everyone would have shrugged and said, yeah, that seems like something that might happen to the Angels. But if you told them that the White Sox would be in third place in 26 and 29 and basically be a little better than a coin flip to make the playoffs, according to the fan graphs odds right now, well, that would be something that would make a manager's chair wobbly, you would think. However, this is the White Sox and Tony Russo and Jerry Reinstorf. So I don't think that the normal rules apply. Normally, you would be looking at this and saying, you know, whose head is going to roll next?

Oh, well, this seems like a likely candidate. But I just assume that Tony Russo's job security just does not follow the normal course of events. So while you were away, while we were both away, there was an increase in the conversation about the ball and home runs because the ball has had less ennui lately, right, to use your phrase from a recent episode. It's perking up. Yeah. And maybe suspiciously, suddenly, it perked by an account called BallparkPal, at BallparkPal.

And they did an analysis of just accounting for temperature, how high is the home run rate relative to expected home runs based on the batted ball characteristics and also the fly ball distance and everything. home runs based on the batted ball characteristics and also the fly ball distance and everything. And so they found that to start the season, actual home runs were something like 35% below their estimated expected home runs. And we understood that the ball was deadened somewhat and MLB acknowledged as much. And so that made sense. But then right around mid-May, everyone noticed, huh, seems like a bunch of homers are being hit all of a sudden. And according to their model, at least, there was seemingly like, I don't know, a 10 to 15 percent boost in or at least

percentage point boost in the home run rate versus the expected home run rate. And also the fly ball distance ticked up and they're accounting for temperature. But even if they looked at parks with more stable temperatures, that seemed to show a similar sudden spike right around mid-May. They said May 14th, but somewhere around that week. And Mike Axisa at CBS Sports, he followed up and did a piece himself where he identified that same week, that week of May 9th to 15th, the home run rate per nine innings ticked up, the home run rate per fly ball, everything just ticked up somewhat significantly,

where things had looked sort of the same for the first five weeks or so of the season. And then suddenly they changed and they've kind of looked different since then. And if you do use that date, like before and after May 14th, the home run rate on contact, so just home runs divided by at bats minus strikeouts, it was 3.8% of balls that were hit before May 14th and then 4.4% after, which is a fairly significant change. I mean, it's like a 15% uptick and it seems to have happened suddenly. And that's, I guess, the part that has made people take notice. Yeah. So people obviously have speculated, did MLB swap out the ball, start using a new ball, change something about the ball? I did email MLB just to get them on the 29th. Again, sent to the clubs and to the union, but not like just announced to fans or the public. Like it was reported like memos get leaked, but it's just it's odd.

Right. Like that's how MLB always does. It's like they they have memos that are sent to teams and to players and then those memos get leaked and then that gets reported and maybe they get leaked intentionally where they like want the news out there or are okay with the news being out there. But that led to this strange situation last year where I remember that there was like an MLB.com report about like someone leaking this confidential memo. It wasn't just like MLB sent out this memo. Here's a press release about it. It's just this weird indirect little dance that they do. Anyway, so that story, you know, acknowledged this March 29th memo and said, it said those production issues that led to the two ball situation last year, according to MLB, have now been resolved, and the 2022 season will be played with only balls manufactured after the 2021 production change.

No manufacturing changes have been made for the 2022 season, and the MLB spokesperson told me that nothing has changed since to the balls or connected to the storage of the balls or the handling conditions, so they're maintaining that they have changed nothing. And they also said, as they have been saying, I suppose, to anyone who asks, that the impact of the humidors, I'm quoting here, is not expected to be uniform across the entire season. So we have humidors in every park now instead of 10 like last year. Storage conditions are much more dry in April than they are in July and August. And it is possible that the humidors would serve to decrease offense league wide in April when storage conditions prior to the humidor had relatively low humidity, but increase it in the summer when storage conditions pre-humidor were well above the 57% set point.

conditions pre-humidor were well above the 57% set point. So any year over year decrease in the home run rate relative to last season today may lessen as the season progresses. All of that sounds reasonable to me. And I don't know that we could completely anticipate what the effect of having humidor in every park would be or what it would be as the season progressed and the environmental conditions changed. But it does still seem curious that it happened so suddenly, seemingly, because you would expect that to be a gradual change as the humidity or the weather changed over time, right? And so to have it seemingly be concentrated in a week or a day or whatever it was, it seemingly be concentrated in a week or a day or whatever it was. It's odd, I think. But I emailed Alan Nathan, the physics of baseball expert who has consulted for MLB in the past, or at least served on the panel, the committee that MLB put together about the behavior of the ball that

ultimately did conclude that the drag of the ball had changed and that that had been responsible for a large portion of the uptick in home runs in past seasons. And I don't think he is still serving in that capacity for them. And he responded to me not in that capacity as someone who is working with MLB to some extent. someone who is working with MLB to some extent. But he said that understanding about the humidor and its impact is correct, as I will explain. He said, with the humidor set at 57% and 70 degrees, the corresponding dew point, which is a better measure of the absolute humidity, is 54 degrees.

If the storage conditions in 2021 had a dew point greater or less than 54 degrees, then the humidor will result in less slash more water in the ball, which leads to a lighter or heavier ball or a higher or lower coefficient of restitution, leading to more or fewer home runs. The status of the science is that we know reasonably well how the weight and core of the ball change when the dew point changes. There was speculation that the humidor might affect the seam height of the ball, thereby affecting the drag coefficient. However, there is no scientific evidence that this happens. That's not to say that it isn't true, only that no one has yet done the careful laboratory study to prove it one way or another. In order to use the science to make a prediction of 2022 homers compared to 2021, one would need to know how the balls were stored in 2021.

We mere mortals do not know that. But each club has been required to continuously monitor the temperature and relative humidity of storage environment and report those results, perhaps daily, but I'm not sure, to MLB. So he says, I think the argument some have made for the recent uptick is as follows. They are suggesting that it is likely that in the early part of 2021, the balls were stored in a drier or lower dew point than the humidor averaged overall parks so that the result of the humidor in early 2022 is to decrease homers. However, as the 2021 storage dew point got higher as spring transitioned into summer, then the reduction in home runs in 2022 relative to the same period in 2021 was less. This is kind of complicated.

We're talking about humidity and dew points and humidors and physics. We're all like faking physics expertise except for Alan, who actually is a physics expert. But we're all like pretending to be so that we can understand the home run rate in baseball. So he says the argument is a sensible one and the conclusions follow from the initial assumption about storage in 2021, although we have no way to know about the validity of those assumptions. in the data. For example, we can compare the 10 humidor parks in 2021 to the same parks in 2022, which serve as a control group. That is, whatever effect of the humidor for those parks did not change in 2022. Then one can look at the 20 other parks comparing 2022 to 2021 to see what changed relative to the control group. Moreover, one can also look at the 20 non-humidor parks in 2021 to see if there's a seasonal change in home runs or exit velocity as the season progressed from dry to humid to dry, especially compared to the 10 humidor parks. So he says there's a lot

one can do. He's done some analysis, but he is not yet prepared to discuss it publicly. So it's complicated, basically. But there is an explanation that, no pun intended, kind of holds water, I guess. So there's something to that. Maybe that undercuts the conspiracy theories. And as always with the conspiracy theories about the ball, MLB has brought them on itself by just being so opaque about these things and often not acknowledging them until they are really called on it and maybe not even then. So I don't know. Like if you suspect that maybe there are new balls in play or something or old balls that were returned to play, well, MLB is denying that explicitly. So they are saying that on the record. If it later comes out that they were doing that, then we will know that they were lying about that. But it's hard to prove. And there are a lot of factors at play here because of other conditions that have changed that at least to Alan sound somewhat reasonable, though the part that still gives me pause is just the suddenness of the uptick.

Well, and it's like, to your point, I just don't understand why they have to be so obtuse about the communication around this stuff. And I guess that we should acknowledge that given the past seeming obfuscation of what is going on with the ball, I don't know that there is a communication strategy that would necessarily like instill confidence in people you know it might just be one of those things where the the conversation around this is sort of damaged beyond the point of repair at least when it comes to the league being able to assert like here's what's going on with the ball and everyone's saying okay i'm like believing them because there are this is a complicated question and you know it is very often asking the people writing about it to step beyond the scope of their expertise obviously like dr nathan is an exception to that but most of the people who are trying to do analysis and engage on this stuff are not they don't have a phd in physics so it would be really nice if we could simply say to the league what's going on with the ball and then they would tell us here's what's going on with the ball? And then they would tell us,

here's what's going on with the ball. And then we would go, cool, that's what's going on with the ball because it is complicated and there are confounding variables that have to be accounted for. It isn't just the ball, it's the humidors, it's the weather.

There's all of this stuff that contributes to the relative enthusiasm and buoyancy for travel that the ball exhibits, right? Or the state of ennui that it retreats into. And so, you know, we have to, it's a complicated little creature, that ball. So we have to be able to, you know, it would be nice to be able to appeal

to the authority that produces it and have confidence in the answers. And I just think that we're in a place where we can't do that. It's so bizarre when the memo leaked. I was like, this is your news outlet having to say a leaked memo. I'm like, you can't just call those people. Aren't they just on a different floor of the same building? What are we doing here? So it seems like it should be much more straightforward, at least when it comes to here is what we are endeavoring to do with the ball and the offensive environment that we are trying to generate. And it's weird that they're so sort of dodgy about it because there are plenty of recent examples and a ton of recent precedent for the league being able to say, here's the offensive environment we want baseball to have, right? Like they do that all the time. That's the entire purpose of the rule change conversation and discourse. We think that the offensive

environment looks like this. We think that if it looks like this, people will enjoy the game more. We are trying to bridge the gap between that reality, the reality that we exist in now and the one that we would like to see. And that is a very straightforward and transparent conversation. Now we can have a debate about whether the mechanisms and levers they're trying to pull in order to achieve what they say they want will actually work. And if they're the right levers and if they might sort of get in each other's way and gum up the gears behind the scenes.

But it is at least a straightforward conversation in terms of the goals that they have. And then there's all this nonsense with like the most important piece of equipment on the field. So it's just a very weird situation. Cause I think that it might be past the point where we can just take it on its face, but perhaps the comms approach should just be, here's what we're trying to do. And here's the steps we took to do it. And then we should just see, if only to try something new.

I will say that if we use that somewhat arbitrary starting point of May 14th, the offensive environment has been pretty decent since then. OPS is up almost 40 points league-wide. The league has hit 248, 315, 406. The strikeout rate is 21.7%, which is down a bit. It hasn't been that bad lately after the doom and gloom to start the season. So I don't know how much of that is the ball, the weather warming, and just maybe the end of a hangover coming from compressed spring training. Like that's another factor that complicates all of this.

So I'm glad that we have this very granular public oversight and we have so many watchdogs and we've been watchdogs of a sort, but there are people like Rob Arthur and Meredith Wills and many others who have really tracked this stuff closely. And I think it's almost like we're in too deep. Like I almost want to like pump the brakes a bit just because we have these tools available to us that we never used to have. We have this great precision where we can assess the drag of the ball with stat cast data and we can look at exit velocities and trajectories and fly ball rate and batted ball data and all sorts of information that we didn't used to have. And so we can't really compare to past eras and say, well, this is how it worked then and here's how it worked now because we just don't have that level of information for earlier eras. So we're paying such close attention to this and looking at it on such an almost microscopic level that maybe we can just almost be like buffeted one way or another where we draw conclusions based on a fairly small sample. I don't know. It's tough because there have been cases where it seems like things really did change mid-season or from regular season to post-season.

And so I'm glad that people are keeping an eye on this, but I haven't written about it this year almost because I feel like it's a Groundhog Day sort of situation where it's just like, oh, the ball's dead. Oh, the ball's lively again, you know, sometimes within the same season. So I guess I would just sound some note of caution just because there are so many factors at play here.

And as we've learned over the last several seasons, you know, sticky stuff being taken away. I mean, there are just so many things that are happening at the same time that it's hard to have a real, like, controlled experiment, which I guess is why we need Lab League. I was thinking of that this week because Evan Drellick just wrote for The Athletic about how MLB has been testing sticky stuff in AA and seemingly it has not gone well, or at least pitchers are not happy about it. They've been developing multiple substances. Two companies have provided chemical mixtures that are intended to provide some tackiness, some grip without spin enhancing effects. And thus far, it seems like the returns are not great, at least according to the players

that Evan talked to in quotes in this piece. People did not like how it worked and how it felt. And it seemed like it wore off quickly. And now, at least for a while, they're back to just rubbing the balls with mud the old way. And pitchers seem pretty happy about that. So they were planning to test a different type of substance, and they might still later this season. But it seems like they have a high bar for actually implementing this in the majors, which is good. in the majors, which is good. But again, AA, pretty high level of baseball. And it seems to have screwed some pitchers up because the walk rate climbed pretty significantly in the leagues

where they've been testing these new sticky substances and did not rise in other leagues where they weren't. And the walk rates in those leagues were like the highest they had been in at least 16 years, like going back to when the records were easily accessible, I guess. So it seems like there were some unanticipated and undesirable effects there, which again, we need Lap League and you need to populate it with players who are good enough and have pitched at a high enough level that it might tell you something about what real professional and major league pitchers would say, but to not mess with prospects careers would be nice too. Yeah, I think that you want it to be, and I think it is an achievable

thing to strike that balance between having players who are sort of a sufficiently close proxy to what we would need in order to say with some amount of confidence, like, here's what doing this would do to the upper minors and to the majors while still, you know, having those guys sign on to say like, this is, this is the trajectory that my professional career is taking, right? Like, I'm not going to be able to really stick in the majors. I don't want to play internationally. So I have lab league, like some guys go to the kbo and i went to lab league like that was the course of my professional career so that no one is having a career that might take place fully in the majors sort of negatively impacted by being the the subject of these rules experiments because you know that's not what we want either also i want to like say this is

probably obvious to people but in case it wants it wasn't like you know, there are a lot of physics folks who are working on this question. I didn't mean to suggest that Dr. Nathan is the only one. Meredith's doing great work. Astrophysics folks. Yeah. She's doing great folks. There's a lot of folks who are doing good work who know physics better than I do. So I don't want to give those folks short shrift.

Yeah. Right. And I think that they have to get the sticky stuff right if they're going to use it, because I don't know that we need it that urgently. I know that pitchers are unhappy with how the ball feels, but I don't know how much of that is just relative to the sticky stuff environment where maybe, well, they just have to get used to a worse grip. Like maybe there is some middle ground, hopefully, but like offense has reached a level. I don't know if I would call it an equilibrium, but it's bounced back a bit to the point now where I'm not so worried about like an epidemic of walks and hit by pitches. Like those things are at high levels historically, but they were even before the sticky stuff ban. So when I look at baseball on a day-to-day basis, I'm not

thinking this is out of control. Pitchers can't pitch. It seems kind of okay from my perspective. So I want pitchers to be comfortable, I guess, and to feel like the equipment that they are using is safe and that they can trust it and they can depend on it from pitch to pitch. But looking at it from kind of a fan view or a league-wide level, you know, it doesn't seem like things are so horrendous without the sticky stuff that we need to get any sort of sticky stuff in their stats. So hopefully they can come up with something that pleases everyone without significantly enhancing performance. But it doesn't seem like they have quite cracked that case yet. Yeah, not quite yet. So just a few other things that I have noted while we were away.

We had a one hour, 54 minute game played between the Rays and the Cardinals. This is pretty wild. 154. This was on Thursday. I think it's the shortest nine inning game since 2015. So even in this era, we can have a sub two hour game. It was a 2-1 Rays victory over the Cardinals. And I guess it was so fast for a few reasons. One, the Rays who won were the home team. They didn't have to play the bottom of the ninth. So you save a little time there. Sure.

You had Shane McClanahan going against Miles Michaelis. McClanahan has been amazing this season, by the way. He's like a top five Fangraphs War pitcher now, I think. Yeah. But also pace-wise, both he and Michaelis are pretty speedy. If you limit it to 50 innings pitch, there have been 87 pitchers who have reached that threshold this year. Shane McClanahan has the seventh fastest pace of that bunch, 20.4 seconds between pitches. And Michaelis is 21st at 21.4. So they're both pretty speedy.

And they were both great in this game. They both went eight innings. There were a total of five hits, three runs, and two walks. And there was only one pitching change. And it was not during an inning. So you had zero mid-inning pitching changes. So you need two speedy pitchers on the top of their game going eight innings apiece with no mid-inning pitching changes and very little offense. That is how you can have a sub two-hour game in 2022. That's remarkable.

Do we know how much commentary there was on the pace of the game while the game was going on? I don't know. I wasn't watching. Were the broadcasters like, this is sure a zippy day at the bar. Probably. Michaelis, he threw only 85 pitches in his eight innings of work. McClanahan threw 94,

so raised pitchers combined for 111 pitches in their nine innings. Again, the batters were not making them work, and they were pitchers who worked quickly. So if we could bottle those qualities, I guess we could have fast games. We would also have extremely low scoring games. Yeah.

But they'd be fast. All right. So it is possible. And then we'd have more opportunities for me to imitate broadcasters and try to make them sound like, I don't know, carnival barkers or something. Yeah. There was also a great Hunter Green outing the other day, Hunter Green, the pitcher for the Reds. And I note this only because he was on track to have what Sam Miller termed, I think, like a hard stat cast no hitter, the hard version of a stat cast no hitter. Sam

wrote an article back in 2019 about a stat cast no hitter, which is basically like a game where a pitcher doesn't allow a batted ball that was likely to be a hit, right? Or even the hard version of that would be cumulatively does not allow batted balls that have a combined hit probability of one or above or even like 0.5 or above if you were going to round up. And Hunter Green in this game, he gave up one hit in his seven innings of work. The game was range shortened, unfortunately. I would have liked to see him continue it and make a run at this because he pitched seven innings, gave up one hit on a bunt by Dalton Varshow in the first inning. That was it. But he did not allow a batted ball with a hit probability or expected batting average higher than 250. 50. And if you combine all of the expected batting averages of the batted balls he allowed, it only adds up to 480. So he was like sub 500, all his batted balls combined through seven innings. So he had a real chance, I think, of being the first, or at least no one had done this when Sam was writing that article of having a legitimate stat cast no-hitter there,

which would have been a lot harder to do than an actual no-hitter. So that would have been pretty cool. I'm sorry that the rains came and spoiled that attempt. So can I be like a bummer? Yeah. So we need a way to adjust the expected batting average stuff, for direction right because this is always this is always the failure of individual batted ball event x batting average what a mouthful that was no wonder no one wants to talk about stats on broadcast you sure have to say a lot of words because the x batting average doesn't account for directionality and so right horizontal spray

direction yeah it takes into account the the lift. Yes. The launch angle. Yes. In the vertical direction, but not in the horizontal direction. So but now I want someone to find the closest with that sort of taken into account because you can look at stuff and be like, oh, my God, it's so low. And it's like a number. It's not that it's meaningless. It's just that if you want to confer special status you gotta do a little legwork i would imagine yeah right so he had thrown 87 pitches he could have kept going would have been fun but just generally like putting that aside the resurgence of hunter green it is uh yeah interesting it is counterintuitive perhaps that seemingly the way to unlock hunter green's abilities was to have him throw fewer fastballs. The Hunter Green who is famous for just throwing 104 or whatever, like his fastball has been pretty hittable, not a lot of deception seemingly. And so he has dialed back the fastball, not necessarily in terms of speed, but in terms of usage and has been thrown secondary stuff more. So even for Hunter Green, who has maybe the fastest fastball, certainly one of the fastest, even he can benefit from throwing more breaking balls, which is something you've seen league-wide. It's like he's a microcosm of the majors,

basically, because the average fastball velocity keeps going up and up, but the fastball usage rate keeps going down and down because breaking balls are really effective. So even Hunter Green had to mix things up a bit. And particularly, you know, he is, I think, a great reminder that in addition to there being breaking balls, which are just effective on their own, like it is useful to have a complicated understanding of fastball utility right the the it's easy to see velo like we see out of hunter green and be like oh my god it has to be amazing like maybe it's about shape or approach angle or you know there's all kinds of other you know like three years ago we were like there's nothing new to say analytically we were such dummies there's always something new There's always something new under the sun. Isn't that nice?

Yeah. And maybe you're looking for smaller and smaller edges. I don't know. Sure. But there is always some new frontier. And also, Joey Bart, the Giants' top prospect at one time and replacement for the retired Buster Posey, he was demoted. He has not filled Buster Posey's shoes, although those would be difficult shoes to fill. But that just made me think a little bit about

just the range of rookie performance, because a lot of highly touted rookies who have made the majors this season have struggled, notably, right? And in varying amounts of playing time. So Adley Rutschman, for instance. And to varying degrees of sort of severity, right? Adley Rutschman's hitting 143, 226, 196, 62 plate appearances. I don't think anyone's worried about Adley Rutschman. But it is interesting how some players, no matter how talented and polished, they undergo an adjustment period and others do not. So Retchman is struggling. We've talked about Jared Kelnick and all the issues that he went through. And there are other guys, you know, C.J. Abrams is another one who has not hit in his major league playing time this year. I guess Spencer Torkelson has been somewhat disappointing. You know, a lot of those like, oh, wow, this guy's arrived. And then it's like, wah, wah.

And other guys. It's like, what's that? Wah, wah. That wasn't my greatest sound effect. But other guys, maybe there's an adjustment period where they start out slumping, but then they get it together. Like Julio Rodriguez, right? Yeah. start out slumping but then they get it together like julio rodriguez right yeah maybe had umpire calls going against him but he has turned things around and now he's uh maybe the scariest hitter

in that mariners lineup which no offense to thai france but yeah which like you know when you say that that doesn't sound like much yeah no but he has been legitimately he's been legitimately very very good of late and i think when i left to go deal with some family stuff i think he was leading the majors in stolen bases is he still oh wow i didn't even look but he has 17 of them yeah he sure is wow yeah among qualified i can't imagine that there's a an we need a different word than qualified because it makes it sound like I'm saying something mean about those guys, and I sure am not. Yeah. He just sure leads the majors in

slump bases. Look at that, Julio. So he slumped initially, but then got it together, and maybe you could lump Bobby Witt into that group where he started really slow and has picked things up somewhat. Then there are other guys like Nolan Gorman. Yeah.

Who was raking in AAA and then got up to the majors and continued to rake. Yeah. Or like Jeremy Pena, who has been one of the best players in baseball this season. Yeah. Not just one of the best rookies, but one of the most valuable players, period. Yeah. Out playing Carlos Correa pretty handily. So it is odd like i've seen people suggest that oh the the gap between triple a and the majors is bigger than

ever and i'm skeptical i'd like to see some analysis of that or do some maybe because i remember doing an article like that at grantland back in the day and it didn't really hold water people were saying it then too it could be true now that, you know, you do have just a level of scouting and information at the majors that's not necessarily applied at the AAA level even or lower in the minors. But I don't know. It's like there have been some players who have struggled, some really highly touted promising prospects who have just not clicked or not clicked initially.

And then there are other guys who it's like, yeah, no big deal. The big leaks. This is easy. It's just you never know. And I don't know if it's random or if it's something psychological or if it's that some players do have some sort of hole that can be exploited initially. That some players do have some sort of hole that can be exploited initially and probably because they're so talented, they can then make an adjustment pretty quickly. But there was some hole that was not exposed at AAA but then was exposed at the big league level or what it is. Like I'd love to know what accounts for the difference, the range when it comes to just like how quickly a top prospect actually performs at the major league level because you just – you never know.

And we get excited about, oh, this guy's called up or that guy's called up. And sometimes they set the world on fire from day one. And other times it's like, huh, this is not what I was expecting to see. Yeah. It's just, you know, they're like highly variable just like players. Yeah. And Steven Strasburg returned, which was notable, but the performance was not notable. He was not great.

But he's coming back from thoracic outlet syndrome on Thursday. And the less said about his line score, probably the better. He did have five strikeouts, but good to see him back. A lot of pitchers have had trouble coming back at all from that ailment or getting back to their old level. And he is a long way from getting back to his old level. But at least he pitched, which he's barely done since winning the World Series, signing that extension. So there was a Steven Strasburg sighting in a Nationals uniform. So that's something.

Yeah, it is true that he did pitch you know that is that's a true fact about him so that's something but it wasn't great and even just beyond the line score like are you paying attention to those fastball velocities because they were you know one thing that i would say about them is that they were notably below what he has been able to muster historically which you know i didn't edit this piece so i i had the the joy of just reading it but i know that eric did a piece on sort of prospects and then also some prominent players who were rehabbing and he had noted that Strasburg's average fastball was down.

It was down in his rehab start and it didn't tick up magically here. So I hope that we see a upward trajectory in terms of performance there, but I am concerned that that will not be true because he was sitting like 91. Yeah. And it looked pretty hittable at 91 and it proved to be pretty hittable at 91 so

that's a problem it's not the best yeah it is 91.9 on the four steamer 91.7 on the sinker goodness not the best even no somewhat discouraging. I was just a couple other player performances I noted. Our belly-yelly check-in.

So Christian Jelic, 95 WRC+. Cody Bellinger, 97 WRC+. So they are mirroring each other once again, as they did when they were among the best players in baseball so for bellinger 97 that's like double where he was last year wrc plus wise so that's a bounce back for yelich 95 is a continued decline i guess so i don't have much to say about the specifics of their production but the fact that they have both been just slightly below average hitters, it's sort of sad. I want to see them be great again. And that does not seem to be happening.

It's not a freaky Friday because they didn't switch. It's like an E.T. situation where they linked in E.T. They were like mirroring each other's decline. Right. It's the same body, basically. Yeah. Yeah. A bunch of ETs out there.

Yeah. Yeah. So that's been bad. I did notice, however, that David Robertson, who is still around, is like back to being an elite pitcher again, seemingly. He's with the Cubs. He is relieving. He has pitched 21 and two-thirds innings. He has a 1.66 ERA with a 2.22 FIP.

He has struck out like 12.5 per nine. Granted, low BABIP and low home run per fly ball rate and all of that, but he has like a 2.6 XFIP. So just wanted to note because he's always been a favorite of mine and he had been injured and out a lot and didn't pitch in 2020 and barely pitched in 2019 and didn't pitch that much last year either. So he hasn't been around regularly since 2018 and elite since 2017. But thus far, at least, he is back to that point. So happy to see David Robertson, 37 years old, but performing like his old self again, or like his young self. Like his old young self. Yeah, exactly.

And David Lorella did an interview with Alex Bregman about hitting, which just made me notice that like Alex Bregman, he's hitting, but it's kind of like maybe by bringing him up in this way, it will be like when we talked about Bryce Harper and it's like, huh, is Bryce Harper still a superstar? No one talks about him anymore. And then he he won an MVP and then like we got that email about Mookie Betts and wondering if he's still one of the main characters and then he proved that yes he is well Alex Bregman like it's been a while you know for him like he's been good

he's been fine yeah he's been above average but looking back at like 2018, 2019, when he was an eight-win player in both of those seasons with a 160-ish WRC+. And since then, it's 121, 115, 115 again this year. He was like, you know, he missed some time in the previous seasons, but he has not been a star. He's been like, you know, good. He's been decent. He's been all right. So I don't know what happened to him, whether it was the injuries that he has sustained or he talked with David about some mechanical issues that he was trying to straighten out

with his wrist and other issues that are going on with his swing. So I don't know what it was, but just interesting, right? It's almost like it reminded me of when Evan Longoria, I remember writing something about him once, how he just sort of like was a superstar and then suddenly he wasn't anymore. And it wasn't like he was super old or was terrible or anything. He just kind of like went down a gear or two. And that's kind of happened seemingly with Bregman too. So maybe some people would attribute that to sign stealing.

I probably would not just because I don't think it made that much of a difference. And also because he was still awesome in 2019 when, as far as we know, they were not doing the things that they had been doing. But for whatever reason, he's gone from MVP type player to, you know, pretty good, I guess. And he's only 28 still, and this has been over a few years. So it seemed notable to me. So what you're saying is that what needs to happen is he has to be traded to the Giants, and then— Then he will have a resurgence, but he's probably too young.

Maybe when he's like 33, 34. Right. That would be the time. When he's his new old self. Yes, exactly. Right. However, Sandy Alcantara has caught my eye many times. Oh, man.

He's unbelievable. He's so good. He is now third in FantGraph's war among pitchers, first among National League pitchers. fan graphs were among pitchers, first among National League pitchers. And it's like every other day I see like Sandy Alcantara had an amazing outing, Pablo Lopez had an amazing outing. And then I think like, huh, those Marlins, they must be good by now, right? No, not really. They're 25 and 30 and in fourth place where it seems like they kind of always are. So it's not enough. The young pitching has not been as great across the board as it seemed like it might be. And Trevor Rogers, who seemed like he might be among the best of those

pitchers, he has struggled significantly. But Alcantara is, whew, he is unbelievable. Yeah, he is spectacular. And he's just so good. And I want there to be, we need recourse for really good players on teams that are sort of underperforming. We need recourse, Ben. Yeah, right. Is that just the all-star game? That's bad. Also, yeah, Tony Gonsolin has been amazing too.

Yeah. I just like looking at leaderboards and being like, huh, look at that. Yeah, look at that. That's pretty impressive. Look at that guy. Look at that guy who didn't used to pitch very much and now is pitching more and has been really good. Also, this should probably be our moment to just acknowledge that, like, man, those Dodgers, a lot of their pitching not working still doesn't matter.

No. Spectacular. What an amazing thing. On historic run differential paces. I don't know if they still are, but they were up until recently. Yeah. They're great. Yeah.

And I just saw a tweet that the NL Central collectively has lost 17 straight games. Yikes. Like all of the NL Central teams combined. Yeah, that does seem like stat-less material potentially. It sure does. Yeah. I know that you mentioned that like the Brewers have had a big dip in their playoff odds. And gosh, like those Cardinals, only a half game back of them in the Central.

God, the Dodgers have a plus 114 run differential. What the hell? Two months into the season. Unbelievable. Yeah, it's amazing. Yankees at 104, just so that people don't think that we're... I know there was some conversation earlier in the discourse that maybe the Yankees are not that good. I think those Yankees are pretty good.

Yeah, pretty good. I only saw it fleetingly. This is one of the things about traveling. You get to fleetingly engage with discourse and then be like, I'm done now. Yeah. Seems like the Braves are back too. They've won a bunch of games in a row. Yeah.

See, this is what happens when I am gone. Teams change, Ben, and the fortunes, they change. Still six and a half back in the Mets, but they're on a little tear there, those Braves, aren't they? Yes, they are. And our pal Williams Astadio, we acknowledged his return to the majors, but it didn't take him long to have one of those signature SDO moments, which we noted that he had the low light in Winter League where he punched someone from behind, basically. And we were happy that he was going to come back to the majors and replace that in our memories with some actual exciting, fun highlights. So he has done that. He has gone viral again. He had a game where he drove in a crucial run and then he also scored a winning run and you had your kind of classic

William Sestadillo running around the bases and hats falling off and hair flying and all the rest of it. So that was nice to see as well. So I will point everyone to a couple of things. One is the A League of Their Own trailer or teaser, really. There's only 30 seconds of footage and no dialogue or anything. So it's hard to conclude much about it, but it's coming August 12th to Amazon Prime Video and I'm looking forward to it. It'll be nice to have a baseball show on again, and hopefully this will do better than the first very short-lived League of Their Own TV adaptation. But this one, it's from one of the creators and stars of Broad City and the showrunner of Mozart in the Jungle, and Darcy Carden is in it, and Nick Offerman is in it as the manager and the characters from

the movie will not be in it or at least will not be the lead characters here so it's kind of new characters new cast but same time period same league and hopefully similar vibes so I don't know as much as you can tell from a 30 second teaser teaser, looks good, I guess. I'm excited to see it. Yeah, I think that I just would really like it to be good. I'd like it to be satisfying. Not just because that is a story that might have particular resonance for me, but just because we want good baseball shows. We want some good baseball shows, so give us a good baseball show.

I think that's that's my conclusion here hope it's good because i would like a good baseball show because we still miss pitch yes we do and stove league but we have uh you know a field of dreams adaptation is is coming along and i'm more excited for a league of their own at least based on the source material now i have higher hopes for Field of Dreams just because it's a Michael Schur show, and he has a pretty great track record, and obviously he knows baseball very well. So that makes me more optimistic than I would have been otherwise, but I wasn't really clamoring for more Field of Dreams, whereas more A League of Their

Own on the 30th anniversary, that's something I could sign up for more readily. So bring it on. Hopefully it'll be good. And if so, we will discuss it. Maybe we'll discuss it either way. We also had a New York Times crossword that many people emailed to us or tweeted at us about. The clue was plate appearances, right?

And the answer was at bats. So this was related to our recent pedantic discussion about baseball. And people thought that we would be upset about this. And I'm somewhat more willing to forgive it just because I guess – and I'm not a crossword puzzle person really. I'm not either. Yeah. We've not either. Yeah. We've talked about that before. You would think we would be like word game people.

But we're not so much. It's because I'm a terrible speller. Well, I like it. Yeah. I mean, Emma, our friend Emma Batchelori tweeted about this and said, thank you to the New York Times crossword for making all my pedantic baseball fan brain cells just start flipping the lights on and off in my head and screaming, welcome to hell. And I think it's more excusable.

So the clue was plate appearance and the answer was at bat. And look, these are not necessarily synonyms. As we have discussed, we are a pro plate appearance podcast and we find that people talk about at bats when really they mean plate appearances or they should. In this case, I guess it's acceptable because like it's not explicitly a synonym. It's a clue, right? So like if your clue is plate appearance, that might make you think of it bat. So it's acceptable as a clue for a crossword.

I guess they are not saying that they are necessarily synonymous. They are just saying that one might make you think of another or that, you know, all at bats are plate appearances, even though all plate appearances are not at bats. So I guess we can let it slide on those grounds, but still a slippery slope there. Dangerous territory. Yeah. We have to draw a line somewhere, Ben. And mostly if this inspires people to tell me to do crosswords less often, then perhaps it's actually a surface. I just can't spell very well.

I'm a bad speller to a shocking degree for someone who's both a professional editor and reads as much as i do but yeah you've got a lot of practice spelling things yeah not a good not a good speller bad at it yeah and angel hernandez is uh he lost his lawsuit right about mlb being discriminatory although kind of on the grounds, like it was dismissed, but on the grounds basically that like it didn't make MLB look great either. He was basically initially claiming that there had been discrimination when it came to MLB promoting umpires of color. And basically like the grounds for dismissing it, I guess, was that like during that time, MLB didn't have enough umpires of color to make the lack of promotions notable.

It's like, oh, well, OK. That's not a good argument. No, that was like they kind of got off on that. Like you can, you know, you can sort of prove, I guess, according to Craig Calcaterra, there is a legal term for this, There is a legal term for this, which is inexorable zero is the legal doctrine in these cases where like if you have not promoted anyone from a certain group, let's say like that can be sort of the smoking gun. Sure. However, like the judge's opinion was as MLB recognized internally during the period at issue in this case, it employed an unfortunately low proportion of minority umpires. During the period at issue, in this case, it employed an unfortunately low proportion of minority umpires. Ironically, the case for the inexorable zero in this non-promotion case might be stronger if MLB employed a greater number of minority umpires or if the promotion pool were large enough rendering Hernandez's inexorable zero argument inert. So that's one way to win.

It doesn't mean any – we weren't discriminating by not promoting any umpires because we had never hired them in the first place or we had never promoted them to the majors anyway. So now he's appealing and he is appealing on the grounds that MLB had somehow gamed the umpire evaluation system with respect to minority umpires. So he's saying that like his year end evaluations were skewed because of this. And again, like as we've talked about in the past, like he's perhaps not the best spokesperson for this effort because like based on the information that, it doesn't really seem to be the best umpire, but it could also be true that there's discrimination or some kind or multiple kinds of discrimination going on. So the fact that you do have the independent umpire evaluation metrics, the various ways of determining umpire accuracy on balls and strikes. They seem to place him among the laggards. So it's not just MLB's stats that are saying that. So, you know, I guess he's entitled to appeal and maybe his appeals will bring some things

to light that should be brought to light. Although I don't know that they will actually make him individually look better as an umpire because at least based on like the third party information that's out there he doesn't seem to rate well according to those stats either yeah i mean like i don't i don't know i haven't read like the pleading documents or anything like that so i can't say you know how much merit the the discrimination claim has based on that evidence but i just think in a sort of broader hypothetical sense, like these two things can be true simultaneously, right?

He can be a not particularly good umpire and there can be discriminatory practice in the way that umpires are evaluated and promoted. Like those two things can sit next to one another and not be mutually exclusive from each other. And unfortunately, the fact of the matter is you end up with the folks bringing lawsuits that you do. They're not always going to be ideal litigants, but that doesn't mean that there can't be

discrimination in the practice. So I don't know. These ones are always kind of weird because it's like, I don't think that he is the best that the league could do in terms of umpiring expertise. But I think that if you're a league that's in a position to say, well, no, there can't be discrimination in our promotion practices because we don't have enough employees of color to begin with to promote, like that indicates that there is a broader problem that needs to be addressed here, even if, you know, the particulars of his circumstance, you know, point more toward issues with his job performance than particular discrimination, which again, I don't, you know, I don't know. I imagineives about the Rays Pride Night event and basically came out and outed themselves basically as pretty homophobic, I would say, although their statement said

otherwise, you know. Who was their spokesman? Was it Jason Adam? Yeah. Was the one who kind of spoke for the group and was basically like, hey, this goes against our religion. And, you know, he's like, we're super tolerant and we want to be super inclusive. We just don't believe that gay people should be able to like live as gay people, basically.

Like, you know, just with that one exception. It's kind of an impassable argument to make that we are inclusive, but we don't think these people should be able to live like who they are. So I don't think those statements are consistent. You can't hold both of those opinions and have them both be true. Right. Those are two statements that are mutually exclusive of one another and can't sit next to one another in equal truth. Yeah. I think that there are a great number of people in that organization for whom inclusivity and support of the LGBTQ plus community is like a genuine and earnest value. But I think the decision to let players opt out of the pride patches was a big mistake because he can't. a big mistake because he can't it's not good to let people opt out of an expression of recognizing the human dignity of other people right we don't we wouldn't allow that in other contexts within

the league and to view this as something that is negotiable in that way seems to undermine the broader message that i think they were trying to espouse which is that you know that community is welcome in the ballpark and is an important part of the fan base and one that they recognize as having value both as fans of the Rays and as people. And I think that particularly in Florida for a team to be making that stance is important. And so it is unfortunate that the execution was such that the story that got centered was the homophobic views of these players rather than, you know, guys like Kevin Kiermaier, who I think had a good statement or the broader efforts of that team to be a place where their fans, regardless of orientation or gender identity,

can feel safe and welcome. So it was an unnecessary loss for them to take. And I would just say to those players, like, you know, you can't tell my mom that you love her, but then say that the most important interpersonal relationship in her life is sinful. Those things don't coexist. So be nice to my mom, why don't you? Yeah. That does not qualify as tolerance. No. We will not.

I don't know. Do they think they're good people because they will not refuse to be in the ballpark with them? Right. They don't think they should be like banned from society or something. You know, is that where the bar for inclusiveness is? Like, I think it has to be a good deal higher than that. And yeah, I mean, we don't have to get into the whole religious aspect of it. There are many people who are religious without holding that view,

obviously. So the fact that they were willing to go out there and say that and felt comfortable doing that and then had the manager, Kevin Cash, basically be like, well, you know, both sides, essentially, or like, you know, our players can believe what they want to believe or whatever. I mean, they can believe what they want to believe, but they probably still should have had to wear that uniform. It's a uniform, right? The whole team has to wear it. And if you don't, you can be benched or you can be demoted or whatever it is, I guess. But that didn't seem like a strong response. And I mentioned Ginny's piece because we had Ginny on the podcast to talk about these issues after the Tom Brenneman incident.

And then this kind of thing happens. And so when this keeps recurring, maybe it's not such a mystery why we haven't had a publicly out active player in Major League Baseball yet, because clearly there's a lot of sentiment within the game, within clubhouses that would give people pause about being the first. So that's unfortunate. So I will just end with the history segment of the day. I think I'm leaning toward calling it the past blast. Just, you know. Because we like rhymes.

Yeah. We have a stat blast. We'll stay on brand. It'll be the past blast. There are a lot of great suggestions we've gotten, but. Yeah, we have gotten a lot of really good ones. That'll just keep things consistent. So this one is about home runs, and we actually got some pedantic questions about that this week. Like Mitch, our Patreon supporter, wrote in to say, here's the thing I noticed while playing MLB The Show. My team hit a home run and followed it up with a double. And the commentator said I'd hit two consecutive base hits. The game is way off, right?

In my head, a base hit is a hit that, well, for lack of a better way to put it, ends up with a runner standing on a base. Homers don't do that. We also got a very similar question. Jeff tweeted at us, a batter who hit a home run is technically never on a base. So on-base percentage is actually a not-out percentage. I have tried to shake this thought for a week, fearing it is too pedantic. I have been unsuccessful.

Do you have a thought on home run hitters not being on a base technically? Do you think they are on a base? Like is a home run a base hit or is it not because you do not stand on a base and are you not on base? That's the thing to me. You reach base. Now you don't stay there on on a base. But you got to touch it. That's the thing to me. You reach base. Now you don't stay there on any given base. You circle all the bases. But I would not call it a base hit.

No. In my mind, a base hit is a one base hit because we have a term, an extra base hit. So to me, a base hit is a single. Yes. Not everyone uses it that way, maybe. But that's the way I tend to think of it too. It's like you have a base hit is a single. Yes. Not everyone uses it that way, maybe. But that's the way I tend to think of it too. It's like you have a base hit and so you've hit a single and then you have an extra base hit or a double or a triple, right? We have like progressively more specific terms to denote these things.

Yeah. And technically, I guess you could say any hit advances you some number of bases. So it could be a base hit. But I would say that it is most useful to use that term for a single. So if a person hits a home run, obviously it counts toward their on-base percentage. But have they been on base? Yeah. I think so, too.

I think so, too, because it just becomes too chaotic if the answer is no. Yeah, you've been on base. You've been on all the bases. You've been on all the bases. You've been on all the bases. And if the answer to that is no, then like, I think that the guiding principle for all of these is if we start to be more specific, are we gaining or losing explanatory power, right? Are we gaining or losing clarity?

And I think that we would lose clarity here if we were to argue the pedantic point. here if we were to argue the pedantic point. So I think that the differentiation is in describing the nature of the hit as in a base hit or a double or a home run and then leave the rest be. Right. So I brought that up because today's past blast is about the definition of a home run. So this is from 1861. This is, as always, submitted by Richard Hirshberger, historian, saber researcher, author of Strike Four, The Evolution of Baseball. So he writes in to say, what is the definition of a home run? This is not as straightforward as it might seem. The modern rules devote several pages to the topic of determining the value of base hits. Sure. He says base hits. It was even harder in 1861 as the concept of the error only barely existed. Here is one attempt from Porter's Spirit of the Times of June 11, 1861, quoting the

Brooklyn City News. What is a home run? The term home run has several definitions, and with a view of enlightening the uninitiated on the subject, we will briefly endeavor to define the term correctly. So this is someone who wanted to be pedantic about baseball. People had multiple definitions of home run, and they're like, no, this is what a home run is. It's not a ghost runner. It's a zombie runner. So this is my 1861 spiritual predecessor here.

In the first place, a home run, strictly speaking, is a run made as follows. The striker, after hitting the ball fairly, runs to the first base. And if he can make the second, third, and home bases successively and without once stopping on the way, before he is touched by the ball in the hands of a fielder, he makes a home run. That is one definition. Another is this. fielder, he makes a home run. That is one definition. Another is this. Suppose the striker hits a ball to the first baseman and the ball glances from his hand into the field. And when it is fielded, it is thrown wildly to the second or third bases, the striker in the meantime running without having stopped on the way from base to base until he reaches home before being touched

by the ball. He, under the circumstances, makes a home run in the strict sense of the term, right? He runs home, I guess. But it is not what is known by a clean home run, the latter being the result of a striker's hitting the ball so far into the field that the ball cannot possibly be fielded home before the striker reaches the home base. This latter is the only fair definition of the term home run, all others being the illegitimate offsprings of bad fielding and not the result of good batting. One of the best samples of a clean home run we ever saw was that made by Campbell in the fourth inning of the match on Wednesday last, on which occasion he reached the home base just as the ball was picked up at right field. No home run of any kind can be made if the striker once stops on a base. So that is kind of fascinating to me because people were arguing, well, he's running home, right?

He rounded the bases. It's a home run. And this author is saying, no, it's not a home run if you screwed up, if it's what we would now term an error. Right. Yeah. It has to be continuous running all the way and and not a mistake you just have to have hit the ball far enough that it eluded fielders i wonder how he would feel about inside the park home runs yeah well right i think probably at that point i mean i don't think

they had fences right at that point right it was just a field so probably all the home runs were well there wasn't even like a distinction between over the fence and not because there wasn't a fence. But I think they'd be okay with it as long as it wasn't the result of an error, as long as you're running all the way around the bases. So we had to figure out what all of these things mean. So now, you know, 160 plus years later, we're still negotiating the meaning of various terms. We've agreed on home run. I think we're all on the same page there.

But we are still figuring out base it, I guess, apparently. There's a lot left to negotiate. Oh, yeah. I mean, again, a couple years ago, we said we had it all figured out. We were dummies. Yep. Okay, that's it for this week. Credit, by the way, to listener Garrett, who wrote in to remind us that there was a Major League hidden ball trick pulled more recently than 2017.

It was just in spring training. In March 2019, Miguel Cabrera got Ede Adrianza mapping at first base, faked the throw back to the pitcher after a pickoff attempt, didn't actually throw back, and then applied the tag. Well done, but it's spring training, and one would think that it's probably easier to pull it off when your opponent is not expecting it, because the game doesn't really count. Still, it happened. Thanks to Garrett for reminding us. And thanks to everyone who supports Effectively Wild on Patreon, which you can do by going to patreon.com slash effectivelywild. The following 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. Becca Vidum, Quinn Sanchez, Just Asking27, Nathan Wamser, and Brandon Lee. Thanks to all of you, our Patreon supporters get access to the patrons-only Discord group. They get access to monthly bonus pods that Meg and I host. They get discounts on t-shirts. They get access to a couple of playoff live streams later in the year.

It's a whole cornucopia of perks. Check it out. And you can also check out our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash Effectively Wild. You can contact me and Meg via email at podcast at fangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. You can follow Effectively Wild on Twitter at EWPod. And you can find an Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash Effectively Wild. Thanks to Dylan Higgins

for his editing and production assistance. We hope you have a wonderful weekend, and we will be back with another episode early next week. Talk to you then. If I do it one, two Gotta have it one, two Like I have it one, two Ha, ha Gotta do it one, two Ha, ha

If I do it one, two Ha, ha Gotta do it one, two Ha, ha If I do it