Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1862: Forbidden Ball Trick

Episode Date: June 14, 2022

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Joe Maddon’s mohawk, the latest details about Mike Trout’s (and Tommy Pham’s and Joc Pederson’s) legendary fantasy football league, a rash of hidden-ball-trick attempts, the “old guy’s still got it” resurgences of Nelson Cruz and Joey Votto, how big a deal Aaron Judge’s potentially historic home-run pace should […]

Just give up now Cause I've been calling on you all night But I know that you're true Just give it the right I'm a clown in the sun's light Whatever I do, let it go I'm safe And I'm the best

Hey Hey Another happy day Well, I didn't shave my head into a mohawk and then get fired, so I'm doing better than some. Yeah, specifically Joe Madden, maybe. Man, poor Joe Madden. That is both a hilarious story and also sort of a sad one. I know that the ESPN Sunday Night Baseball broadcasts are not everyone's cup of tea, I am aware, but we got a couple of interesting tidbits from that broadcast on Sunday. That was one of them because Tim Kirkjian reported that, yes, Joe Madden had gotten a Mohawk to try to inspire the Angels, snap them out of their losing streak, and the players never even

got to see it because he got fired before he could show it off in the clubhouse. I wonder who did get to see it. Yeah. Did Perry Manassian and did Artie Moreno see it? Did they like, sorry, Joe, you got a mohawk? Well, we got to let you go anyway. I hope you like having a mohawk for non-motivational reasons. I wonder, though, there's another potential interpretation here, which is that they wanted they wanted to get rid of him right they had made this decision for any number of reasons that this was gonna snap them out of it and help them move on and then they and they weren't sure like do we do it now do we wait

till the all-star break when do we when do we fire joe and then they saw the mohawk and they were like we gotta do it now because it's so cool that if we don't, the players, they'll riot. They'll riot if we let go of Mohawk Joe. Oh no, I don't want to do a rhyming nickname with Joe. No, I take that back really fast. But I guess here's a question I have for you as a human man, Ben.

Do you reach an age as a dude where you start to have anxiety that if you trim up the hair, it won't ever grow back? Because I know that men have a lot of, there's a lot of feeling tied up in the potential and then reality of balding. And I'm not here to dismiss that. I can understand how it would be a thing that would inspire big feelings. Although I'm here to tell bald men, like, you often look very distinguished. So, you know, don't be so stressed about it. I mean, I don't want to tell you how to feel,

but I just let you know that some of you look real distinguished with no hair. So it's fine. Anyway, I often wonder when, like, you know, older men engage in hair-based motivational humor. Is some percentage of Joe Madden worried that, like, he will not be able to grow back what he shaved off here? I guess you're worried about that? Is that a thing that- I remember reading that George Clooney at some point and maybe still has refused to shave his hair for a role just because he's worried that it might not come back.

Yeah. Now, he's George Clooney. He is famous for his looks and his hair and all of that. Great head of hair on that guy. Right. An actor might be more conscientious about that than a manager, especially a manager who can wear a ball cap. Although, if you get fired, I guess you can't or you don't have the professional reason to. So that is more costly for Madden now that he can't hide the mohawk. But yeah, I mean, I wouldn't think that there's much scientific basis to that, that if you cut your

hair, it won't come back. Like either those follicles are active or they're not, I'm pretty sure. But yes, I could see that becoming a concern for someone Joe Madden's age, but apparently it didn't hold him back. And this was not his first Mohawk because as I was reminded, he did the Mohawk move in 2008 with the Rays in the playoffs because they'd lost some games and they were down in the series. And he did the Mohawk and inspired the team to shave their head and rally around their hairstyle. So this is a classic baseball thing. Like you have your playoff beards or you have your rally haircuts or whatever it is. And it becomes a team bonding exercise of sorts.

It's almost it's like sort of sad that he's used the Mohawk move before. It's like there are only so many tools in the managerial motivational tool bag, I guess. So he's reaching back in for the Mohawk move. It's been almost 15 years. So I guess he can be excused for going back to that. But in 2008, he had a good team. And in 2022, maybe he did that, or at least not a good enough team for the Mohawk to work on its own. Yeah, he had pieces of a good team, much like when one has a Mohawk, one has pieces of hair but maybe not the full head of hair so in some respects i wonder if this was sort of a lateral move because uh

the incomplete nature of the roster much like the incomplete nature of his now head of hair is part of the problem yeah i would think he could weather this better than most managers i don't know whether he can pull it off better than most managers, but I think he would be less self-conscious about it. I've seen him sometimes and his dress and his hair and all the rest. It's like, is this a bit? Is he doing a motivational thing or is this just how Joe Maddon looks? So you would be less surprised to see Joe Maddon with a mohawk just by choice, without any ulterior motives probably, than you would be for most managers and most men his age. Yeah, yeah. I think that that's right. Plus, he's got assertive glasses. And so,

unlike someone without such a strong frame of glasses, he has other things that are going on on his head, other than his hair, that people will be like, I can't decide what to focus on, the mohawk or the glasses. Yeah. Your eyes are drawn elsewhere. Yeah. I wonder, though, whether if they saw the mohawk before they actually brought down the hammer, whether there was any part of Moreno or Manassian or whoever was delivering the news that was like, oh, man. Oh, no. We have to wait now.

But yeah, should we wait till the hair grows back in? I mean, maybe it was a case where they were ready to move on anyway. And so they thought, hey, we've lost 12 games in a row at this point. Let's seize this opportunity to dismiss the manager. And so then you wouldn't say, let's hold on and wait for him to have a full head of hair again, and then we'll let him go. We'll send him off into the job market with a more presentable hairstyle. But it did remind me, there have been some other kind of cruel managerial firings, or at least the circumstances of the dismissal or how the manager found out maybe weren't ideal. I think Freddy Gonzalez in 2016, when Atlanta let him go,

he found out because he got an email that was like a flight notification because they had booked him a flight back to Atlanta when the team was on the road. Oh, I forgot about that. He got like a Delta notification. It's like, well, I guess I'm flying back to Atlanta. I know what that means. Or like Willie Randolph when the Mets fired him on the road and it was like almost midnight on the West Coast. They were in L.A. and they had

won three out of four. I think they had just won a game. And then they let him go then when he thought he was safe for the moment, at least. And so they're kind of cruel timing, some instances of, you know, not being sentimental. So we can add the mohawk to the long list. Yeah. Well, it can't be. It's an unsentimental haircut, really. So I think that works. The other tidbit we got from that broadcast, Mike Trout was miked up and they did a live in-game interview with him.

Fortunately, he was on the bench when they were interviewing him. live in-game interview with him. Fortunately, he was on the bench when they were interviewing him, so it was not a case of a player who was actually in the game and in the field being interviewed, which, as we've discussed, makes me uncomfortable. He was DHing, so he was on the bench. It was fine. And of course, they brought up the Fantasy League. So that story got a little more life here, and we found out a couple things. It was revealed that Alex Bregman won the league. So that's new news. We talked last time about how Bregman not as great on the field over the last couple of years as he had been before. He's lost some power seemingly, not his old self, but still very talented at fantasy football. Evidently, he did win the league. And Trout also suggested,

at fantasy football. Evidently, he did win the league. And Trout also suggested, sounds like he may be stepping back as commissioner moving forward. And also, I don't know whether they're planning to expand the ranks or not, but it sounds like all the publicity for that league, he called it a legendary league, that it has actually drummed up interest to the point where he's getting texts from a lot of players now who are like, hey, what's up with this league? Like, can I get in on this? This was year one. All of this Jack Peterson, Tommy Pham slap nonsense went down in year one of this league, and it's generated so much publicity that suddenly everyone wants in on it. I guess now that Pham is no longer a member of it, it's considered more safe to belong.

And yeah, maybe they have to replace Pham. So I don't know whether they're planning to expand the league it was a 12 team league he also divulged so bit by bit we're getting more and more detail i don't know that there's that much more that i need to know about this league but i'm glad to know as much as i do i wonder so a couple of things like i wonder if given the apparent enthusiasm for it if they will allow co-managers as a way to expand the potential pool of players. I mean, I guess that if I'm Mike Trout, right, and I am interested in no longer being the commissioner because it has proven to be far more trouble than it is worth,

I wonder if he gets to sort of put his thumb on the scale in terms of who the incoming new members are and if one of his selection criteria can be a willingness to assume the commissionership because if I'm Mike Trout, my hierarchy of needs is you want someone who actually will play well in the league and takes it seriously

and hopefully does not, um, engage in slapping, but also is, uh, sort of sensitive to the dynamics of the text thread and has good feel. Right. So it's like,

that stuff is important. And you want someone who's like going to set their lineups and have a very clear understanding of what your injury rules are. But also if I'm trout, I would want someone who's willing to say, I take i'll do it i've i've got it because um i want to get the heck out of there yeah and i wonder whether the league bylaws next season will be like you know might specify no slapping oh and no delayed revenge and and clarify the injury spots spots to probably an excruciating degree. Right.

And maybe just the degree of smack talk that is allowed or even encouraged, the tenor of that talk. Ben, Ben, smack talk. What gifts are acceptable? Yes, smack talk. Smack talk. How did we not make that connection before? Yes. Like you need some, you know, we're all trying to live in a civilization and sometimes it helps to have clearly codified rules so that nobody gets out of sorts or is confused about sort of what is appropriate and inappropriate behavior, both in text and in person later on. So, yeah. So while we're talking about broadcasts, I want to play a clip from one.

You have heard this, but now the listeners will be treated to this too. This is from one of Friday night's Apple TV Plus broadcasts. This was the Rays game that was going on. And the voices you will hear here. First, you will hear Melanie Newman. Then you will hear Chris Young. And finally, giving a nice little shout out to Effectively Wild, you will hear Hannah Kaiser. And while they're checking on walls at first, he's got five stolen bases on the season.

They give the young shortstop another look. Arias trying the old hidden ball trick right there there i don't know if y'all saw that the fake throwback that ever work against you see why never would you tell us if it did of course i own up to my mistakes you know recently on excellent baseball podcast effectively wild they talked about how there hadn't been a hidden I'm not blowing up to my mistakes. You know, recently on Excellent Baseball Podcast Effectively Wild, they talked about how there hadn't been a hidden ball trick in a really long time. I don't remember exactly how long.

A successful hidden ball trick. And I've seen it at least twice since then attempted. I wonder if all of these baseball players are like, you know what? That's a great point. Balls flirts. Phillips flips this one out. Foul to Oratory and left And here he is

He's fake throwing the ball back I don't even think Taylor Walls was watching But the problem is When you do it unsuccessfully Then you've got to wait a really long time Before you can try it again So, how about that? Another instance of us discussing something on Effectively Wild and then it immediately

seeming to happen in Major League Games. This is a phenomenon that goes back, I don't know, almost to the beginning of the podcast to the point where it's been eerie at times. I mean, we talk about the Kevin Kiermaier outfield deke play. A couple days later, it happens at a major league game. It's almost like, as Hannah was suggesting there, players were listening and were like, hey, that's a good idea.

Let's bring back the hidden ball trick. I don't think that's actually what's happening here. It is probably just a Bader-Meinhof phenomenon. And we talk about it. And then suddenly we're paying attention to it. And people are writing in to notify us of instances of it happening. But it's kind of flattering to think that, hey, and people are writing in to notify us of instances of it happening. But it's kind of flattering to think that, hey, maybe people are actually listening,

getting some ideas from Effectively Wild. Don't take all our ideas, but we do have okay ideas every now and then. Yeah. Like we wouldn't recommend pooping yourself. We would say, don't do that. Like don't poop your drawers. So that would be one thing we'd say. I don't think you ever recommended that anyone do that no i noticed when people have yeah i have noticed that

um you know so like don't do that and uh you know don't we don't become an actual mole person and then try to burrow under the base pads i think that you would be stymied so you know like use your use your judgment and your discretion if you're listening to us. Avoid any, like, bodily stuff. Yeah. So Taylor Walls didn't get caught napping here. And it looked like, so this was Louisa Rise, who was trying to get him on the hidden ball trick at first base for the Twins. And it looked to me, and you heard Hannah say this too, that it seemed like Walls didn't even see the attempt. He was looking in a different direction when a rise faked the throw back to the pitcher after the pickoff attempt. It looked to me on the slow motion like Tampa Bay Rays first base coach Chris Prieto had maybe tipped off Walls. He was looking and you could see his mouth moving and then Walls glanced over. So if anyone spotted this, I think it was probably Prieto.

So kudos to him. But it's funny because also Arise has like an open webbed glove. So you could see the ball through the glove if you happen to be looking. Again, I don't think Walls was. And you heard Hannah say that she thought she had seen this happen another time since we discussed it on the podcast. I messaged her and she says she thought that she saw Matt Duffy do it when the Angels were notified by listener Dave and another listener who wanted to remain anonymous, each of whom alerted us to a separate example in that game. I don't think either of them noticed both of them, but I went and watched. And indeed, it did seem to happen in the Guardians A's game. In the fifth inning, Ahmed Rosario was on first, and he kept getting checked

over. And then Christian Bethencourt, who was playing first base, he tried the hidden ball trick kind of, but Frankie Montas, who was pitching for Oakland, didn't really commit to it, didn't really play along. And eventually Bethencourt just threw it back. So that didn't work. And then in the seventh inning, there was another attempt. This time it was Andres Jimenez who held on to the ball at second base after a pickoff attempt. And Davidson was there and it seemed like he noticed and just no one was fooled. Again, he tried the fake throw as well. So that was two times in that one game. So either we are extremely influential and every player in front office is just tuned into Effectively Wild to get their recommendations for tactics, or this has been happening constantly and just never working because as we discussed, it has not actually happened in a regular season major league game, a game that counts that's not a spring training game, since 2017. And really, if this is happening often enough that it could happen twice in one game, the day after it happened in a game when Hannah noticed it, this is a pretty common occurrence. So either everyone's just calling time immediately,

and so the ball's dead and you can't pull it off. Or players are just very attentive or base coaches are very attentive. I mean, one of those attempts in the Cleveland-Oakland game was at second. So there was no base coach right there. So credit to the player. So I'm going to say that this is actually happening fairly frequently that we just hadn't really picked up on it because no one really notices or remembers if it doesn't work. And whether because of the time being called or because players or base coaches are aware of it, I think it just has not had a high success rate, but I still appreciate the effort. Yeah. I think it is more likely that it is happening often and we are not noticing that everyone in baseball is listening to our podcast.

I think that that is the more likely option. I mean, the other one is very flattering, although it might make me so nervous to do the podcast that then I just wouldn't want to do it anymore. So both for the more probable explanation and also for the future of the podcast, we're going to opt for the first rather than the second. Yeah. Well, a couple other things that we've talked about that require follow-ups now.

There are a couple players who looked like they were off to concerning starts and have since turned it back on. turned it back on. So if you recall, on May 20th, we did an episode. This was after Trevor Story had had his big breakout game with the Red Sox. And we bantered a bit about, well, who else needs a Trevor Story game? Who else is off to a really slow start and could pick up their offensive stats with one big game? Well, one player we mentioned on that day, I believe, was Nelson Cruz. Yes. Because Nelson Cruz, ice cold, had been signed as a free agent to be the Nationals DH and just was not doing much hitting at all. Well, since then, he has done nothing but hitting. Yeah.

In fact, he has been fantastic. So May 20th, using that as the starting date, if we set a minimum of 80 plate appearances, we have 123 hitters on the list. Number one is Jordan Alvarez, who we talked about recently when he signed his extension. Number two is Jose Ramirez, who I want to talk about more in a minute. Number three is Nelson Cruz. Nelson Cruz has hit 419, 488, 635, since we noted that he was off to an extremely slow start, 214 WRC+. Now, I will say that he has a 500 BABIP over that period. Probably not super sustainable. Perhaps not 41-year-old Nelson Cruz's true talent, but nonetheless, he has raked and he is back well above league

average offensively for the year. He's up to 113 despite the very slow start. So Nelson Cruz's demise greatly exaggerated and he's about to turn 42 on July 1st and looks like there's still some life left in that bat and maybe in Nelson Cruz's trade candidacy over the next couple months. But that is heartening to see because I think we all want Nelson Cruz to go on forever and somehow keep hitting. And it looks like he can, at least for a little while longer. something very comforting about his presence and i think you know some of it too is that we we know from a lot of reporting over the years he's like seems like he's one of those guys who has a very meaningfully good clubhouse presence particularly for younger players right he seems to take that mentorship role and also kind of standing up for those guys like very seriously and does good work there. And so, you know, you're like, this is one of the people we'd like to stay in the orbit of the game.

And, you know, you said that he's done nothing but hit since then. See, the problem has been that that's all he ever does because he only ever DHs. I'm full of jokes today. I got a bit. So, yeah, it is heartening to see i do wonder how it'll be interesting to see sort of what his market looks like and what other front offices sort of look at us his value it's like he's hit for so long and then he didn't and now he's hitting

again and which slice of that performance is going to be determinative of his ultimate value in the trade market. But it's nice to see. It's good to see. You know, Nationals fans deserve to have some fun stuff. So I'm glad they have some. Also nice to see. So that same day, May 20th, Joey Votto was activated from the IL, right? He had been on the COVID IL.

And he had not played since, I think, the first day of May. And we talked about him on May 2nd, I believe, or shortly thereafter, because Dan Cymborski had posted a story about Votto at Fangraphs that day, which was headlined, Is This the End for Joey Votto? Right. And he had tweeted out that article. Yes. And he said on May 2nd, five months to go. Enjoy the show. We discussed that and we hoped that he was right. No one was rooting against Joey Votto, including Dan Siborski. We all want him to do well.

And I think at the time we didn't completely write off the chance of a resurgence because he has resurged before. He has surged. quite recently, in fact. Yeah, as recently as last season when he started slow and then ended up hitting 37 homers and changing who he was as a hitter. And he is just obviously someone who thinks so much about hitting and is so smart about hitting and has proven that he can make adjustments constantly. And so never wise to write him off, but he had started extremely slowly. I think he had a 31 WRC plus when he went on the IL and he wasn't hitting fastballs

and he was hitting balls on the ground and he just was not hitting anything hard. And so it was worrisome because he's 38 years old and you never know. Well, if I do my same little leaderboard here of performance since May 20th, minimum 80 plate appearances. So I said Jordan Alvarez first, Jose Ramirez second, Nelson Cruz third, Aaron Judge. I will also be talking about him in a minute. Oh, my stars. Yeah. Goldschmidt, Rafael Devers, Jose Abreu, Nathaniel Lowe, Randy Rosarena, and then Joey Votto.

So Joey Votto has been the 10th best hitter since May 20th, despite coming right off the COVID IL. He has hit 293, 411, 640 since then with a 184 WRC plus, and in his case, a very reasonable and sustainable 315 BABIP. He has walked almost as often as he has struck out. He's hit five homers. He's hitting the ball harder. He's hitting the ball in the air more often. He's hitting fastballs again. It is very encouraging. And it could be because he has gone back to his old bat. So one possible factor behind the slumping to start the season is that he had changed up his bat. He was using a bat with a hockey puck style knob, and he thought that was going to enhance his performance. And whether it was a coincidence or not, he did not perform well with that model. And so he went back to his old bat and also seemingly straightened out

some other mechanical issues. And he is back to looking like his old self since he went back to his old bat and also seemingly straightened out some other mechanical issues. And he is back to looking like his old self since he got back from the IL. So I'm happy about both of these players still having a lot of life left in their bats because I very much enjoy them. And everyone likes to see older players continue to do well. So Joey Votto, also still a pretty good hitter, it seems like. It's just such a... It's an interesting and weird job that we have been. Because, I mean, there are...

Look, I'm human. There are players who, for whatever reason, I don't particularly care for them. And when they don't do well, I'm like, oh, isn't that tragic? But that's a very small list. I am most often just indifferent to performance, candidly. And like, I'd like people to do well, I guess. But like, I don't feel strongly one way or the other.

And then there are players like Vado, who not only because of the particular profile that they exhibit on the field, but the way that they talk about the game and the way that they think about the game and sort of the relationship they have to analytics, like, you really want to do well. And so we find ourselves wanting to be wrong.

And I don't know, I guess that's probably not the worst thing to have moments where you being wrong ends up making you happy because so often the opposite is true. But it's a weird little job we have sometimes. Yeah, right. It's the classic regression to the mean, I guess. Like the SI cover jinx in reverse. I mean, we talk about and write about notable performances, surprising performances. And often those are the ones that are differing most from expectations. And therefore, you would expect things to come back to earth in one direction or another. So you talk about someone who is hitting incredibly well, well, it would not be shocking if relative to that performance, they slump a bit

and they go back to what they were projected to do or closer to that. The more fun version of that is when you talk about someone who's not hitting at all and then they start hitting again. And if it's someone like Cruz Hervado

who we're easy to root for, then that's even more delightful. So I wanted to just provide an update for everyone. There's still a big pulse and heartbeat left in both of those guys seemingly. Yeah. And you know who else probably has a big pulse and heartbeat is a very tall person named Aaron Judge. Oh, how's that for a transition? Pretty good. Yeah. So Aaron Judge. Oh my God. I mean, I look, let's say a couple of things. The first of which is like, you know, at the beginning of the year, we, we force people, including me to like make predictions about what's going to happen in the year.

I collate all of our staff predictions of fan graphs. And then I take a peek and I'm like, is there anyone who we're saying, Oh, you know, we should have one, at least one person on staff saying that X player could be an MVP or a rookie of the year. Like,

do, is there anyone where we're going to feel silly come October and say, ah, no one on staff picked that guy. And so I did that. And I, I don't think I was quite the only one, but I was like,

you know what? You know, who's really good at baseball? Jose Ramirez. Jose Ramirez could be an MVP. He should have been at some point. Maybe. I don't know.

That's not really true. But like he's an MVP type guy, right? He puts up MVP type season. I'm going to make sure that we have Jose Ramirez on here. And I think that they're famously underrated, right? So the change you want to see, rate him highly. Exactly. And I don't have our predictions in front of me,

but I don't think I was quite the only one, but I was one of the few. And I have been feeling really good about that. Except, did you know how much... You know, in a normal year, I would say that like Jose Ramirez is tracking like an MVP. But now you got Aaron Judge, who's by our metrics ever so slightly better from a word perspective. And also is Aaron Judge and plays in both a bigger market and is a literal bigger person.

So now, despite feeling really good that I was like, yeah, I got to make sure that we got Jose in there. No. Yeah. 199 WRC plus, Ben. 24 dingers. 24. 24 dingers. That's so many.

I don't. It's just so. It's the next highest number is 18 from Pete Alonso. The next highest number in the American League is 17 by Jordan Alvarez, which, like, if you're like, oh, wow, Jordan Alvarez is leading baseball with 17 home runs on June 13th in this offensive environment. I'd be like, yeah, that makes sense. But then if you told me the only guy ahead of him is Aaron Judge, I'd say, yeah, that tracks also. Yeah.

I wanted to talk about Ramirez and we will. But Judge, he is on pace now. So we know the dangers of citing on pace stats. Everyone understands that coming in. But they're fun. They are fun. He's on pace for 65 dingers. Yeah, that's a lot.

No one else is on pace for more than 47. This is using the version of on pace, according to the Fangraphs on pace leaderboards, where you are using the percentage of playing time that they have gotten thus far and then extrapolating that over the rest of the season. Now, that would be ridiculous if you led the majors by 18 home runs. That is not going to happen. But that is the pace. And that would be ridiculously impressive because I'm looking back at an old article I wrote where I look this up.

But really, in the, I guess, modern era, or at least in the integration era, the biggest lead between the number one home run person and the number two home run person in the same season was Willie Mays and his teammate Willie McCovey in 1965, which was 52 versus 39. So that's a 13 homer gap. And then I think the most recent gap that was bigger than that, you have to go all the way back to 1933 when Jimmy Fox led Babe Ruth by 14 homers. So very rare, obviously, to hit 65, but it would be just as rare, more rare to lead the majors by that much. He's not going to do that. But the 65, like, rare, more rare to lead the majors by that much. He is not going to do that.

But the 65, like, look, it's probably not going to happen. But it's not completely unrealistic to speculate about it because he is Aaron Judge. He has a track record of hitting lots of dingers, not that many dingers. But if he were able to stay healthy, yeah, he would be probably your leading candidate to do it if anyone was going to do it. And the fact that he has 24 now. Yes. And this is after the period where the ball had the most ennui, right? And then also you have the coldest temperatures and the least home run conducive conditions. So it's one thing to do it later in the year when the ball is jumping and flying. But he has banked that performance in the cold weather months and maybe the deader ball because of the humidor or whatever months.

So that's pretty impressive. Like you think back to really the only player in recent years who's made a serious run at 60, which was his now teammate, John Carl Stanton, when he was with the Marlins in 2017. He ended up with 59. He only had 16 at the same point of the season through the Marlins' first 60 team games, which is where Judge and the Yankees are right now. And then he totally turned it on and had just an unbelievable torrid stretch in August or whenever it was and kind of carried that team for a while. But that's a little easier to do to pile up those homers in the warm months, whereas Judge has already done it. And, you know, you might be inclined to say, oh, Yankee Stadium and do the like it's a band box and, you know, you can have your cheapies and everything.

Aaron Judge is not getting cheapies. No. These are tanks. Yeah. Looking at the StatCast home run leaderboard, he actually has 27 expected home runs. So he has not hit as many as you would expect. They have the readout of how many parks would each homer had been out of all of his homers thus far according to stack cast would have been out of the majority of parks and actually most of his homers thus far more than half of them would have been out of all 30 yeah according to stack cast calculations so he is not really getting cheated and just parking one in the front row, the first row of the stands in the short porch in right field. Like mostly he is crushing these balls.

So it's not even really a product of Yankee Stadium so much. So how big a story is this or should this be, right? Like the old debate about like the clean home run king versus Barry Bonds, right? Which I think maybe people are sort of sick of that. I mean, we're not saying that Barry Bonds would not have the home run record. We're not saying there should be a literal asterisk or anything, but there is a figurative asterisk in everyone's mind when they think of that home run record, obviously, or any of the other Maguire Sosa's 60-something seasons. So given that we have not seen anyone hit 60 since Bonds hit 73, and given all of the

tainted nature maybe of those late 90s, early 2000s home run seasons. Like, how big a deal do you think it would be or should be if Aaron Judge is still making a real run at 60 or 61 or 62 or whatever later in the season? I think it should be a very big deal, Ben. I kind of think so, too. I think it should be a very big deal. I mean, like, I think there's a tendency to sort of, and this goes in both directions. Sometimes people are exacerbated by it.

Sometimes people are enthusiastic about it, depending on their fandom. Like, I think there's a tendency to sort of Yankees adjust the magnitude of a story because they're, you know, one of the most decorated franchisester hitting on an impressive but less sort of impressive pace than Judge. And it would probably still be a big story by virtue of the fact that that player plays for the Yankees. But I think that the magnitude of this is significant. It's as big as Judge himself, right? It's as big as judge himself, right? And I think that it is just an objectively good thing for the sport to have a relatively young, although not like precociously young, but like a young, big strapping Yankee doing big stuff.

That's good for the sport because we spent all this time worrying about the place of baseball in the discourse. And I don't know that you and I spend all that this time worrying about the place of baseball in the discourse. And I don't know that you and I spend all that much time worrying about it. Because I think our general conclusion is that baseball is pretty okay. Baseball is doing fine. But if you have someone like Judge on pace to potentially set home run records, that's going to lead SportsCenter every night as he approaches a potential record, as he prepares a potential record as he

prepares to best something like that that's gonna be big sports news and and for something positive right for something exciting especially in an offensive environment where i think the the sort of average sport fan who knows kind of what's going on in baseball but isn't into the day-to-day is probably aware that like offense is generally down and scoring is down and we're not hitting as many home runs and you know they they might have a sense that that is starting to turn around a little bit but that also might be the kind of thing where they hear it in the first couple weeks of the season and that just persists as their understanding of what the offensive environment is over the course of the entire campaign because again they're like a sport fan but they're not really tuned into what's going

on in baseball so for there to be a story about a player that is just unambiguously positive right this isn't about a cheating scandal this isn't about sexual harassment this is just like a good baseball time that's great i think it should be we won't even have to hype it is the thing. Like we're not going to have to sit here and be like, please like our sport. It's going to be like this demigod is hitting the ball very, very far. And he wears pinstripes.

Like, please clap. Yeah. Right. Everyone will want to get vaccinated because, hey, this is what happens, right?

He should do a PSA. And like, that's not why, be clear we are not alleging that that is why he is performance enhancing no no no we're not alleging that that is why he is hitting tanks but uh you know i'm sure that there is some quippy copy that could be written that would encourage people to make choices that uh you know, protect their communities. That would be so great. Yes, a more wholesome kind of injection and jab than perhaps the 60 and 70 something Homer guys were getting 20, 25 years ago. So I do think, though, I mean, the thing is that like, A, he's in a contract year. So yes, it's a Yankees story, but it's also

one where everyone can dream about having Aaron Judge in their uniform next year, right? So that's something. And you also have the element of like, yeah, he bet on himself and he didn't accept that sizable extension offer. So he really, no, he had to have a big year to do better than that. And he is having the kind of year that he would have to have. And I think like almost every big record was set during some time that conditions were conducive to that record being set. But this year is not an extreme in that way that would cheapen it for me. If he were to do it, like historically speaking, the ball is lively-ish, but it's not an extreme anymore. Like when Aaron Judge hit 52 homers in 2017 and set the rookie

home run record, well, that was the highest home run rate year ever to that point since surpassed by 2019. And it's almost always like that. It's like, yeah, he hit 52 that year and the ball was flying. Well, he beat Mark McGuire, who hit 49 in 1987, a year when the ball was famously flying and you had a rabbit ball year. So again, often those things go hand in hand. But if he were to challenge it or do it this year, I don't think you could say it would really be cheapened because it's not the 2017 ball. It's not the 2019 ball. It's not a dead ball, but it's not so extreme that you would say, oh, well, yeah, you can just kind of toss that out. And you can apply that mental, not real asterisk to almost every season like that.

I mean, Babe Ruth, he hit 60. I mean, it's pre-integration, right? Or Roger Maris, when he hit 61, well, it was a longer season, which was something that people held against him at the time, 162-game season versus Ruth's 154. It was an expansion year, so maybe the quality of the pitching was narrowed down. There's always some kind of caveat you can apply there. But pending whatever happens over the rest of the season, I don't know that you could apply that to Aaron Judge. And again, I don't know if you can even use the, well, it's Yankee Stadium excuse for him specifically just because he crushes everything and he has not had a lot of cheapies that just cleared the fence there. I think in a sense, like, again, I'm not saying like tear up the record books or literally rewrite them, but there is something to be said for the quote unquote clean record. And like, I don't want to just discount Banz's performance because I think he was one of the very best baseball players ever, regardless of whatever he was doing. But at the time that he set that record, you know, I think we are all pretty confident that he was not completely clean at that point and that that was not completely natural. It was still awe-inspiring and incredibly impressive. And you could have injected every other player with whatever, the entire pharmaceutical aisle, and they would not have hit 73 home runs. But still, still, and you could say the same about Sosa or McGuire. I mean, if someone like Judge, and look, we never know whether someone is clean even now, but at least there's no buzz about any cheating with him and he's being tested regularly as

everyone else is. So in the testing era, I think it would be worthwhile to say, you know, yeah, if he actually did it under those conditions, I think that is a worthwhile distinction to draw. You know, you list the leaders, the all-time leaders, the single season leaders on whatever website, like you still have Barry Bonds at the top and you should. But we all know that there's more to it and there's more context that we bring to stats and so if he were to make a real run at it I think it would be special and worth paying attention to even though technically it would not be a record yeah I think that it would be I think that it would be a very special very cool thing and I

think that it would give people a lot of reason to be enthusiastic about about him as a player about the sport in general i think you're right i hadn't thought about the the sort of special uh kind of wish casting that fans who are not yankees fans are would be able to do this year because he is a pending free agent and like he might end up wearing your uniform yeah if your team is one of the teams that will spend 300 million sure i mean like yeah i guess we always have to put that caveat on it that not every fan base is unfortunately not every fan base is able to sort of participate in that wishful thinking to the same degree but like a lot of

them are and you know we didn't like we didn't think the Padres were a team that got to do that and then they were so sometimes stuff can change but I think that there is something really special about a player on a team that is very popular but is quite divisive like people who hate the Yankees really hate the Yankees they like really they like you know they're committed to that as part of their lifestyle so you, you know, having the mental out that like, yeah, he's in pinstripes this year, but next year he might be a, I don't know, insert whatever your favorite team is here. So I think that that adds a wrinkle to it that really opens up the excitement potential for people who might otherwise have reservations about cheering on a Yankees hitter.

So I think it could be very cool. So I hope he keeps hitting those dingers. It is very funny to me. We have talked about this particular conspiracy theory before that the top two hitters are Aaron Judge doing this and then Pete Alonso. Yeah, those New York teams are really good in various respects this season. And I also think just like it's I know it's been talked about a lot, but it really is preposterous that the entire top of the StatCast exit velocity leaderboard is just Yankees. The top 24 hardest hit balls of the StatCast era, all by Yankees. Mostly Stanton, some Judge, one Gary Sanchez batted ball in there. You have to go down to number 25 to find a Manny Machado home run from last season at 119.6.

And we've been talking about Judge and just the Herculean homers that he hits. And he's not even the hardest hitter on the team. So everyone was reminded of that this weekend when Jarcol Stanton just – I think the technical term is piss missile for what he hit this weekend. But he hit 120-mile-per-hour home run, so not to be forgotten. Like on any individual batted ball, you're going to bet on Jarcos Stanton to hit that harder than anyone. So it's just, I mean, I know that it's mostly that there are two guys who hit the ball harder than anyone else on a regular basis, and they have happened to be Yankees for most of the StatCast era, at least, but it still is just unbelievable.

You look at the top of that leaderboard and you're just scanning down and down and down. Is there any non-Yankee here? No, there is not. And the Yankees as a whole, largely because of those guys, but it's really a team effort, they have hit 98 home runs this year. Atlanta is second at 84. So that's a pretty giant gap on the team level too. And now they've been joined by Carpenter, Matt Carpenter, who, look, it's not a total shock because we talked about Matt Carpenter when the Yankees signed him. And we noted that he had rebuilt his swing over the

offseason and he was really raking at AAA, especially lately. And even his season stats there were pretty impressive. But the fact that the Rangers seemingly concluded that they did not have a job for him at the major league level. And then I don't know what the bidding was like for his services and how many suitors he had. But he ended up on the Yankees. for his services and how many suitors he had. But he ended up on the Yankees. And I saw some people joking about like, oh, this is going to be one of those cases where the Yankees signed some veteran and then he goes off.

But like, it was not entirely unrealistic to think that Carpenter could do that because of the story, because of his rebuilt mechanics and because of how he had been hitting at AAA. Well, he has nearly hit six home runs in his first 10 games as a Yankee, which is a franchise record. He's hitting 333, 467, 1125. That's a 325 WRC plus. So he has, I think, eight hits. Yes. And six of them are homers. Yes. He's sporting the mustache. He looks like a Yankee. The mustache is good, Ben. Yeah, it is pretty good.

It's a good look for him. He's doing all right. So not that we expected him to hit six home runs in his first 10 games, but there's reason to think that he still had some power and that he was going to be better than he had been for the Cardinals over the past few years. And again, like, I don't know how much interest there was when he and the Rangers parted ways because he had an opt out. And I guess he did not think he was going to get a shot with the Rangers at the major league level. And, you know,

Well, Berman Field is kind of crowded. It is. Yeah. And, you know, he hadn't signed with the Rangers, though, until March 20th. Now, granted, like before he was actually doing this in games, I'm sure there was skepticism about the whole rebuilt swing story. We've heard that before and it hasn't always panned out and he hasn't looked like he could still hit for power at the big league level over the past few years so i understand why people would not necessarily have been lining up for his services at that point but once he started pounding the ball at triple a you'd think there would have been more interest you know we we talked recently about how dh offense league wide has not really been strong this season so you'd think that there would be teams that might want to give him a chance. But whatever, the Yankees ended up being the beneficiaries, and I don't know whether this will just be a last hurrah and a short burst or whether he will continue to contribute down the stretch. But man, I mean, I think he's been more than worth the investment so far just based on those 10 games alone. been more than worth the investment so far just based on those 10 games alone.

Yeah, for sure. Like, I don't really have much to add there. If this is all, even if he goes on a cold streak and like all he ever did was what he's done, like that's fine. Yep. Yep. And the Yankees now are leading the majors in OPS and also leading the majors in OPS allowed, which is not easy to do. You don't even have to like park adjust their stats.

I mean, yes, they are leading the majors in WRC plus, but you don't have to do that. They're leading the majors in slogging percentage. They're leading the majors in OPS. And it's hard sometimes if you are playing in a good enough offensive park to lead the majors in unadjusted offensive stats, then it's not easy to also lead the majors in unadjusted offensive stats, then it's not easy to also lead the majors in unadjusted pitching stats. Like you might have to throw in a ERA minus or a FIP minus or something in there, get some park adjustments to show that your pitching is actually up to par two.

But no, they are just leading the majors in OPS allowed. They're leading the majors in ERA. They're leading the majors in FIP allowed. They're leading the majors in ERA. They're leading the majors in FIP. No park adjustments required. So they have been just dominant on both sides of the ball. I didn't quite see this coming. I think a lot of people who were mad at Brian Cashman over the offseason did not see this coming. And I don't know if Brian Cashman saw this coming, but they have been an absolute juggernaut and dynamo and powerhouse and whatever other word we could use to express that idea they are dominant they are dominant they're just like a very very good baseball team can I say something that I am shocked by tell me if you find this shocking this isn't about the Yankees but I have

discovered it upon perusing some team leaderboard stuff at Fangraphs. So you said the Yankees, number one for home runs, Atlanta, number two. Are you surprised to see the Brewers at number three? I am surprised by the Brewers being third in home runs as a team. That is, I'm a little bit shocked by that, candidly. So yeah, good on them Brewers. That's not really here or there but like wow it's weird i was looking at that leaderboard a minute ago and i'm still surprised somehow i didn't even notice that yeah it's like a surprising thing so anyway those yankees they're yeah you

know they're really quite good ben you know yeah we talked about the the dodgers run differential the other day they got swept over the weekend by the Giants. The Yankees are now leading the majors in run differential with a positive 127 through 60 games to the Dodgers 106. Yeah. Have we contemplated as a society what it will be like for both of the New York teams to potentially be the best teams in baseball? Yeah, I have contemplated that as a New York resident. There's definitely some Subway Series excitement building in the neighborhood. Yeah, you're gonna have to go to some playoff games, Ben. The Tigers have only hit 30 home runs. That doesn't seem like enough, Ben. That seems like too few. Definitely too few. That's definitely too few. 71 Team WRC Plus. Oh

boy. Hey, Spencer, you should start hitting that ball there. Oh boy. Yeah. We might just have to break up the AL East because I don't know if you've looked at the standings lately, but I will do the proverbial if the season ended today. If the season ended today, four

playoff teams would be AL East teams. Yeah. All of the American League wildcards would go to AL East teams. All of the American League wildcards would go to AL East teams right now, which that doesn't seem fair. That doesn't seem like an equal distribution of playoff berths. No.

Right now you have the Blue Jays who are, what, four games back of the Yankees, I want to say, or is it more than that? No, yeah, eight and a half. I'm looking at the wrong leaderboard. It's eight and a half. Yeah, quite a few. And then the Rays are a half game back of the Jays, and then the Red Sox are three and a half back of the Rays.

So the Red Sox, as we record here on Monday afternoon, they have a slim lead over the Guardians for that final American League wildcard spot. lead over the guardians for that final american league wild card spot so you might get an unprecedented four teams making the playoffs from a single division that is wild that is wild i mean it is you know in some ways if we load up the field on those teams we might end up inadvertently salvaging a playoff format that you and i are are not super enthused about because those teams are are all quite good and and very worthy of being there and so if we end up with this like field of you know just like a all these powerhouses beating up on on each other and then inferior competition like we might end up with a field that looks like what we want it to um which does not mean that we like the format

but could mean that they just like save us from well not ourselves but rob manfred from his self which is generous of them i suppose yeah so i promised that we would mention jose ramirez a little more and since i just said that the guardians are very much in the playoff running and you have to keep a whole lot of the credit for that on Jose Ruiz. Oh, you sure do. Who has been really incredible in just an eye-popping kind of way, because it's not just that he has a 186 WRC plus or three and a half four, it's also the way he's doing it. So he has 16 home runs. He also has walked in 13.5% of his played appearances and struck out in 7% of his played appearances. In this era, in this economy, who would ever think that you could do that?

So he is walking almost twice as often as he has struck out. He has as many home runs as strikeouts i think he yes he does i think or at least he recently did the last player to walk twice as often as he struck out in at least 400 plate appearances was barry bonds in 2007 so for anyone to even come close to doing that now would be wildly impressive. He also has the same number of walks as he has home runs and strikeouts combined. So he has 33 walks. He has 16 homers and he has 17 strikeouts now. And that, I mean, I guess that wouldn't be as impressive if he were not hitting a lot of home runs, but he is hitting a lot of home runs. Jose Ramirez is on pace for, which is 46, and managed to pull off that stat of having as many

walks as homers and strikeouts combined. Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Barry Bonds, Ralph Kiner, and Albert Pujols was the last to do it in 2009. So that is five of the best hitters ever, Hall of Famers all. And Jose Ramirez, well, except for Barry Bonds, and we know why, but Jose Ramirez is having that kind of season. I mean, he is hitting for as much power as ever, or more, really, than he has ever hit for before. And suddenly, he is not only doing that, but also striking out like half as often as he has and in recent seasons it's unbelievable that he is doing those things yeah it's just a remarkable performance and i don't want to i don't want aaron judge to start doing less well we just talked about why but i do worry that like

here's the this is this could be the year right the year this is, this could be the year, right? The year where it's, it could be his year to win an MVP and then it'll probably go to Aaron judge. So it's just, it's just like a remarkable effort, but yeah, it's a pretty spectacular thing. And I don't think that the guardians are as good a team as even the like

somewhat up and down twins. They might be a better team than the White Sox, which is a problem for the White Sox. But I think that Central is still pretty winnable. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but they're only three games back, Ben. It's only three, and it's quite up-and-down with those twins. They've been better of late.

I don't know i guess we should probably talk about byron buxton too while we're talking about amazing al central performers because boy does he keep hitting home runs but it would be quite funny if cleveland ends up making making the push here and getting in because i don't know so there's some stuff to like there i mean i don't know that shane bieber sustain his current trajectory, so that could be a thing that you decide to worry about if you're inclined to worry about the Guardians, but I don't think Jose Ramirez needs to be on that list. Yeah, Bieber has

been worrisome in various ways this year. He seems to have lost some velocity and some stuff, but he is maybe kind of compensated. But yes, I was going to mention Jose Ramirez's BABIP, which is 254. Now, he's not a high BABIP guy historically, but still, you look at what he's doing, it's not just like he's gotten really lucky and everything's fallen in. No.

It's just like control of the strike zone and contact that has really done it for him. Speaking of low BABIPs, Byron Buxton, 216. 216 BABIP for Byron Buxton. Oh, boy. in Buxton. 216? 216 Babbitt for Byron Buxton. Either he hits a home run or he strikes out, I guess, but he has hit lots of home runs. So things are working out pretty well for him. So yeah, it's weird, weird slash lines, weird Babbitts for those guys. And in the department of players who are having maybe an out-of out of character surprising performance where you think that maybe us bringing it up will be like the the death knell or like a sign of of less exciting times to come you know who's leading the major leagues in baseball reference war and is not far

behind in fangraphs war i think seventh overall in fangraphs war it is not the usual suspects it's tommy edmund tommy edmund tommy edmund little tommy edmund he's not so little but you know he's he's a little relative to aaron judge yeah definitely yeah he he is uh obviously he's been a superlative defender for some time now and continues to be and so that's driving a lot of the war here but not entirely because Yes. But still valuable with the glove. But now he is still very valuable with the glove and also hitting really well and suddenly leading the majors in baseball reference war. So yeah, not sure that will continue. But that's been nice. Tommy Edmund and you know we remarked at one point on this podcast and it remains true that Julio Rodriguez leads the majors in stolen bases because I don't know he takes old scouting grades

personally I guess but coming up right behind him on those leaderboards Tommy Edmund Tommy Edmund real complete player Tommy Edmund St. Louis keep doing it I wanted to say one other thing about home runs which is that I realized this weekend a peeve.

I discovered a new peeve, which is that I don't like when home runs can be hit without going over a fence. And I don't mean inside the park home runs. I just mean like clearing a yellow line and then rebounding off the wall. Yeah. And it's a home run, but it still bounces back into the field of play. Don't care for that. I noticed because Shohei Otani hit one of those in Anaheim. And there are certain parks where this can happen just based on the configuration of

the walls. And maybe there's like some signage out there, some ads that are not in play but prevent a ball from going over the fence. So I don't mind like the Green Monster. I love the Green Monster because it's so iconic and singular. But again, with the Green Monster, like you have to hit the thing over the wall. Yes. And it's hard to do that. And so you end up with a ton of doubles in Fenway for that reason.

But I don't mind that because if you hit a home run over the monster it has to literally be over the monster there isn't like some line at some point in the monster where it's like oh okay did it go over the line I don't like that I it reminds me of like when I used to play wiffle ball with some friends in like the the basement gym in my high school. And, you know, you have like ground rules, right? Or maybe if you played in a backyard or something where it's like, if you don't have a field size playing space, then you have to arbitrarily decide,

okay, well, it's a double if you hit it below that part of the wall and it's a home run if you hit it above that part of the wall. Like it makes it feel like that. It makes it feel like Bush League to me. And it's like, this is the majors, like it should go over. And then there's always that moment of uncertainty because you see the ball bounce back. And so you don't get like that pure enjoyment of,

oh, there it goes. It's gone. It's like, wait, it's still, is that in play? And sometimes the outfielders will be confused and sometimes the runners will be confused and the fans too. And so just like as a spectator experience, like I want it to be more clearly telegraphed to me and I just enjoy seeing the ball sail over the wall and see the fans get to catch it or drop it or throw it back or whatever. So I don't like it. I don't like that configuration where you have home runs that bounce back, but they're still home runs because they were over some line. Well, and I think that there are like the things that are particularly confusing when you are in the ballpark versus at home. And I think that this is a kind of ball and play that is particularly confusing to in ballpark fans because they show they always show the replay but you don't have confidence and then you're kind of if there's nagging doubt in the back of your mind for the rest of the game

that like they got it wrong a little bit because you can't tell and so i think i'm with you that i appreciate that there have to be specific ground rules and it would be even more confusing if this stuff didn't exist and we probably like they they put thought into why they do what they do and why they pick the ground rules they do. But yeah, I agree with you that it does risen to the point of peeve for me, but getting there with the position player pitchers, we've talked about how many there are and the new wrinkle, the new-ish wrinkle, which I think Jason Stark pointed out in a recent column, when he wrote that the new trend was for teams that are winning to finish games with position player pitchers on the mound. So he noted that I think there had been five of those instances thus far this season, and there had only been five in Major League history prior to this season. So that seems to

be the new trend where I guess there's no fear of showing up your opponent or something, rubbing it in by putting a position player pitcher on the mound when you're already winning. Now, I don't mind if it's Albert Pujols or Yadier Molina. Like if it's some legend, then I think the novelty value of it works for me where it's like, yeah, I want to see that guy. Now, I was somewhat surprised to see like Molina, I think, topped out at 82 maybe. I'm always curious about how hard they can throw. They're going to end up throwing. Yeah. Molina, famous for his arm behind the plate, right?

So I'm going to guess that he could throw harder than that. Now, maybe he just didn't want to. He didn't want to jeopardize his arm or risk an injury in that situation. Right. But you have players who are not even like trying to keep up appearances at this point. Like speaking of Yankees home runs, Kyle Higashioka hit a home run off of Frank Schwindel and it was like 35 miles per hour, 35.1 was the pitch. It was like the slowest pitch recorded by StatCast.

Impressive that StatCast even picked up that pitch. It was beer league softball, basically. That's what it was. Now, on one level, I kind of got a kick out of that because it's like the opportunity costs, like the alternative, it's an 18 to 4 game. So that inning is not going to be interesting, really. Like if there's a real pitcher on the mound, am I going to be tuning in to watch that? No, probably not. So what we got out of that was, hey, the slowest pitch on record and we got this beer league softball swing. It's like kind of amusing. So on the one hand, there is like some reactionary part of me that's just like, this is making a mockery of the game.

It's so common that just the run-of-the-mill position player pitching appearance novelty has worn off for me. And there is a part of me that's just like, I don't know, forfeit at this point or just like don't let them keep doing this because it's just silly and it does not look like Major League Baseball. But then I do also remind myself like, well, what was the entertainment ceiling for this happening to begin with? Right. Does it actually make any difference? So I don't know. I'm trying to decide whether I'm annoyed

about this or not. I'm definitely less charmed by it than I used to be. I don't know whether I've completely flipped over into like, we need to do away with this. I'm glad that the umpires called Dave Roberts on this when he tried to do it in a game that the Dodgers were losing by five runs, right? And you have like a great offense in the Dodgers that is capable of coming back from that deficit. It's like, let's, you know, let's try to at least maintain the illusion that we're attempting to win this game. I do understand like the competitive advantage that can be gained by not using a real arm here. And so I get why teams do it and it is smart on some level to do it. So I find myself wishing for, I guess, even stricter regulations and restrictions on it

potentially. I mean, I think it's okay for us to look at something and be like, I am selectively charmed by this. And you can have an opinion of it that is sort of circumstance specific or is at least sensitive to the circumstance, I think it is probably the best of bad options because you're never going to get teams to willingly forfeit even in blowouts. I just really don't think that we're ever going to see that. What are the circumstances under which a team, a major league team would actually forfeit? Yeah. We've talked before about like having some sort of mercy rule or some like explicit forfeit scenario where you would like take the weight off of the team to do it.

And there could be reasons to do it. But then again, like are you cheating the fans who paid for a full game? And if they're still sticking it out to watch this blowout, do you want to just send them home and say you don't get to watch any more baseball anymore? If you could remove the stigma from still entertainment where you are promising, I guess, some number of innings unless there's rain or something else intervenes. So I do think you would need some sort of specific rule that was like, hey, it's okay to do this, that would kind of give teams more explicit permission to do it because they could do it currently, but there would be a big backlash and you would be afraid of looking like quitters. Yeah, you'd be afraid of looking like quitters.

It would be, I mean, talk about stuff that would headline SportsCenter. It would just, for days and weeks, and then fans would make signs about it, like opposing fans, probably your own fans. There'd be a run on poster board. There's something about it that really offends our sensibilities, if it is a like there's definitely a distinction but it's not as much of a difference as we might want it to be when you think about that versus you know putting a guy out there who's gonna throw 35 like i can't i'm impressed i'm impressed that it got to the plate yeah yeah it was more of an Ephus than you typically see.

It had an Ephus-esque trajectory. Right. I would think that it would have to have like a big, it would be like a big parabola, right? Like a, am I, right? Yeah. Looping. I'm doing a gesture with my hand, which is really effective in an audio medium. But you know what I mean.

Looping and I'm doing it again. Yeah. But you know what I mean. I'm looping and I'm doing it again. Yeah. I think the slowest someone figured out that like the slowest possible pitch you could make was like 27 miles per hour-ish. Yeah. And it would like actually make it to the plate. So Mike Fast has calculated that in the past.

I will do some linking there. But you could go slower than Frank Schoendel did. But that was pretty impressive. So, yeah, I'd like to think that a forfeit would lead SportsCenter for days or weeks, but at this point, I don't know that baseball ever would. It might take Aaron Judge making a run at a home run record to do that. But if he's doing it, Ben, I think we're going to talk about it a lot. I think so, yeah. I think we're going to talk about it a lot. I think so, yeah.

I think we're going to talk about it a lot and not like in a cynical, forced kind of way and just a holy crap kind of way. Yeah. Yeah. I saw some people who were mad that they were having Mike Trout talk about fantasy football during a baseball broadcast. It's like even when we're watching a baseball game and we're talking to the best player in baseball, we're still talking about football or not even football but fantasy football. baseball game and we're talking to the best player in baseball we're still talking about football or not even football but fantasy football and what are you gonna are you gonna talk about what are you gonna talk about his his manager just got canned yeah after cutting his hair you know that happened and they already asked him about weather so you're kind of out of material you know he's a

man of simple pleasures and that's fine but it does make conversation if you don't know him i imagine you know it's like it can be kind of halting so of course you're gonna ask him about the you know it's fine i think it's fine love mike trout but but not the most riveting public conversationalist and that's okay we don't need that for mike trout yeah we get we get other stuff from him yeah so i guess we should acknowledge that Walker Bueller is hurt. So we talked about the Dodgers having a rough weekend because they got swept by the Giants, but also because they lost Walker Bueller. Yeah.

For six to eight weeks, he will not be throwing. And you got to think that with the timeline of ramping up and building up arm strength. Mid-September, probably. Yeah. Best case, probably assuming no setbacks or anything. So I guess it's better than it could be in that there's no reported UCL damage. It's what, a flexor strain, right? So it is an elbow ligament issue, but not that one.

So there have been times in the past where someone has started out with this diagnosis and then it has led to TJ. And so people, I think, are understandably concerned about that. Buehler has had Tommy John before. Yes. He was not pitching well, especially in the few outings leading up to this. And people had noted, I think Michael Ahito wrote about this at Baseball Perspectives. Yeah, really good piece. Yeah, his fastball was getting creamed, which Buehler said that his recent struggles were not connected to this injury,

that he felt a twinge or something grab as he was throwing a breaking ball in this most recent outing, and that he didn't think it was responsible for his struggles leading up to that. I don't know. Who knows whether he was sort of subconsciously protecting something. It's hard because pitchers are always feeling something in their elbow, like the natural state is unnaturally worn. Because as we established, it's terrible for you. No one should do it, but thank you to those who do.

Yeah, and he lost a lot of spin last year, perhaps somewhat suspiciously. The Dodgers as a team lost a lot of spin, and Buehler lost a bunch of RPM himself. And so his fastball was getting knocked around and he had been a great fastball pitcher. So that was concerning and this is more concerning. So fortunately for the Dodgers, they do have pitchers who have stepped up and they have Tyler Anderson who has been very good. They have Tony Gonsolin who has been very good. They have Tony Gonsolin, who's been very good. Kershaw has returned. And Andrew Heaney is about to be back, too.

But it is a bit concerning from a depth perspective with Buehler out. And, of course, Urias has a good ERA, but subpar peripherals. Yeah, has been quite homer prone. He had that great season last year but he has not sort of matched that so far. I mean like his most recent outing this weekend I guess he threw on Sunday, right? Today is

Monday. And he gave up like he only gave up two runs. He had two solo shots then he struck out 10. So it was like, it felt like a very 2022 Julio Arias performance where it's like this isn't bad but it's not what you maybe need if the other guys behind you are either injured or presumably going to run up against innings limits at some point because I imagine that the Dodgers would prefer

to have Tony Gonsolin in October and he will be pitching well past what he has thrown from an innings perspective given the last couple of years. So it feels somewhat precarious. Yeah. I did see some people suggesting that maybe the playoffs strained from last year when the Dodgers were using guys in relief starters, and that was kind of criticized at the time. And now Arias is less effective, and Buehler is hurt, and Max Scherzer is hurt, though he is no longer a Dodger, and it's not an arm injury. But still, I don't know how much to make of that.

There is extra mileage that gets put on pitchers' arms when they're on a team like the Dodgers that makes the playoffs and makes a lot of deep playoff runs every year. So that's something. I don't know whether we can point to those questionable or eyebrow-raising instances of bringing guys out of the pen, which is, I guess, somewhat suspect just because of the results that we've seen. Like in theory, in principle, I think it seems like it would be a good idea, but it doesn't always seem to work out.

I don't think it's as much of a disaster as some people make it out to be either but i've seen people drawing that connection don't know whether there's any real link there or not i don't know i guess i get it a little bit i would be more inclined to think that it is just a general continued use thing rather than a particular usage thing because like especially with arias like he he had prior experience sort of bopping back and forth between roles so it's not like especially with arias like he he had prior experience sort of bopping back and forth between roles so it's not like that was a new true thing for him i know the results weren't particularly sterling but like i don't know i would imagine additional mileage on the arm sure that i can see being something where you'd have knock-on effects over time but I don't know that I buy the using them

sometimes out of the bullpen specifically I mean I guess they may be through more innings but they also weren't very good so sometimes they got pulled yeah right and we talked a little bit about Atlanta they are still on a winning streak as we speak they've won 11 in a row and I wanted to just mention we got this email from conan who wrote that i as a beleaguered phillies fan couldn't help but become fascinated by their current run since gerardi got the boot their winning streak was snapped finally but and boy did it get snapped yeah they lost big to a d-backs team that was like doing a bullpen baseball it's hard to predict yeah so conan when he was team that was like doing a bullpen day. Baseball, it's hard to predict.

Yeah. So Conan, when he was writing, that was still active, and he wrote after tonight's win, I went to the standings as I wasn't sure how many wins they had rattled off. I come to find they are at nine in a row. To my surprise, that's not even the best streak. As the Braves hit 10, they're up to 11 now. I then see the Marlins won their fifth straight,

the Nats are at two in a row, and the Mets yet to play at the time of this email email won last night to rebound from a loss the previous night. Added up, this is 27 straight wins for the entire NL East. Wow. Now, I'm not one who goes to the standings more than once a week, so I'm not sure how common this is. But it struck me as quite good. At first, I thought this is good but not great. But even since we've gone to six divisions, there probably aren't that many days that go by where at least two teams in the division don't play.

So the fact that all teams have won their last game probably doesn't happen all that often, maybe a few times a year. And then to have three teams at five or more seemed a little special. So in the current division construct, what is the most consecutive games won where all teams had won their last game? And I think we mentioned late last week that the NL Central had lost a bunch of games in a row. So frequent stat blast consultant Ryan Nelson, I won't make this into a full stat blast because it's kind of a quick answer, but Ryan researched this, looked into the numbers, and he found that at least at the end of a day, at the end of play on any given day,

the record, it's actually a tie for 23 wins in a row for a division. So this is going back to 1969, the start of the divisional era. And it was entering this year, I think, a three-way tie. So it happened May 5th, 1970 in the NL West, July 17th, 1982 in the AL East, and June 27th, 2008 in the AL Central. All of those cases, there had been 23 consecutive wins. Now for losses, the record is 25 in the AL West on July 17th, 1982, which weirdly is the same date as the corresponding AL East win streak that I just mentioned. Actually, I guess it wouldn't be that weird maybe because one division was winning constantly and one division was losing constantly. So that was the record for losses within a division, 25 in a row. So as for this year, our listener Conan was correct.

I think that it was 27 in a row for the NL East. Now Ryan couldn't crunch the numbers looking like within one day's games like to see if a team had lost that day before another team won within the same division like looking at start time or end time or something He couldn't quite do that. But just looking at the end of the day, it does appear that this year's NL East has tied that again. So at the end of the day on June 10th, the NL East collectively had won 23 in a row. So they tied the record, but then the Mets lost, and that ended the NL East streak. But still pretty impressive that this tied. So everyone in the NL East was winning. And it's not that the Mets have been bad. It's not like the Mets have had a classic Mets collapse or anything like that. But the Braves just have not been beaten. And they've been playing weak teams during that stretch. So there's something to be said for that. They played like the Rockies and the Pirates and the A's, I think, and maybe one game against the Diamondbacks. So not your strongest opponents, but they have, I don't know, cut the Mets lead like in half or so. It's a race again, I think. So the Braves are five and a half back as we speak of the Mets, and they're making things interesting. And I guess it's been a bit of a team effort. It's been players they've promoted from within. It's been some rookies. It's been pitchers who've done well, like Spencer Strider moved into the rotation and Kyle Wright has been very good this year and they've kind of picked up the slack for Charlie Morton and Ian Anderson and then a lot of the bullpen has been very effective not always the same guys who were great in last year's playoffs but other guys they've been very good and then of course you

have rookies like I guess in center field Michael Harris has come up and has been great defensively and has also hit and William Contreras has been good. But also Ronald Acuna has been back and he has really been back. Like he has not missed a beat. He has a 160 WRC plus this year, which is right where he was the last couple of seasons. He was like 158, 157. the last couple of seasons. He was like 158, 157. So he is right where he was and he has seemingly lost some sprint speed. I don't know if he's lost it or if he has just taken it a little bit easy as he comes back, but he's lost a foot plus per second and he's gone down from the 97th percentile to the 73rd percentile in sprint speed, but he's still stealing a lot of bases he's stolen 11 in 14

attempts so he is hitting like his old self and he is running like his old self and overall he has been the Braves best hitter during this streak so having him which they did not for April like that's a big boon too so we thought the Braves were good and they've looked pretty good lately it's one of those things where you're like team adds back exceptionally good player like suddenly is playing better news right yeah maybe not that shocking but no but you know when you have a guy coming back from an injury like that you don't totally know what you're gonna get so a reassuring bit of expectation coming true to be sure yeah and you know the Mets still have a 61% chance to win the division, according to the playoff odds, but it's slower than it was.

So suddenly you're looking at your injured aces and thinking, yeah, we might actually need those guys. We might need them to come back. And in the NL West, because of the Dodgers sweep and the loss of Buehler, they're down to 52.4% chance to win the division. So Padres and Giants still in the running. That grapple with the reality of what happens when you do but you're down guys like that and you know hopefully his injury recovery progresses the way that they hope it will and he is able to come back and you know have a couple of starts in september and then go on an october run but it it makes you feel less certain than you were before and this is a a team that, you know, despite all of its strength, we were a little bit nervous about what the rotation depth would mean.

And, you know, we're having to test that much earlier into the year than I think a lot of people were hoping. It would help if they could like hit though, you know. That's the other thing is that they just, the last little bit, not for a long time, they just haven't been scoring that many runs, which is wild given, you know, the run differential we talked about like last week. Mm-hmm. All right. Well, let's end with the past blast.

Past blast. This is episode 1862, and we will be talking about 1862. There was a civil war on. It was not a great time, but let's talk about baseball because baseball was still happening during that time too. So first I will just follow up. We talked about base hits last time, the definition of a base hit, like what qualifies as a base hit. Is a home run a base hit just because does it have to be a single base? Like you and I, i think we agreed that generally the way we would use this is to talk about a single right yes but technically any kind of hit is a base hit yeah rule 9.05 of the mlb rulebook says a base hit is a statistic credited to a batter when such batter reaches base safely

as set forth in this rule 9.05 the official score shall credit a batter with a base hit when the batter reaches first base or any succeeding base safely on a fair ball that settles on the ground, that touches a fence before being touched by a fielder, or that clears a fence. So technically, a home run is a base hit according to the rulebook. Now, Richard Hershberger, who has been supplying our past blasts here, historian, saber researcher, and author of the book Strike Four, The Evolution of Baseball, he provided some historical perspective on the term base hit. So he says the historical pedantic explanation of the term base hits is that it is a shortening of first base hits. So this term arose in the late 1860s with a column in box scores labeled 1B. This did not mean singles, but rather hits in which the batter reached at least first base without the benefit of an error.

This awkward construction was necessary because the word hit was used in its ordinary sense of any time the batter hit the ball, whether fair or foul, and whether or not it was caught. So the 1B column appeared in box scores into the 1890s but was gradually displaced by the shorter B as the long form first base hits dropped out of common usage in favor of the shorter base hits. This in turn was gradually but not completely displaced by the yet shorter form hits as reflected by the H in modern box course. In the meantime, the official definition in the rules has remained substantially unchanged. The technical terms hit, base hit, and first base hit are synonymous. The difference is merely one of how many syllables you want to use. So that's why we say base hit. That is actually shortened

first base hit. And we could shorten it further just to say hit but we haven't completely lost the base hit construction and i think it's still useful for a single just to specify that it is a one base hit yeah and listener joe wrote in to say he had a thought about this i tend to think of a base hit as a hit that isn't yet defined so it mostly gets used this way a ball drops in for a hit to think of a base hit as a hit that isn't yet defined. So it mostly gets used this way. A ball drops in for a hit. The announcer says a base hit for so and so, but we won't know if it's a single or a double or whatever until the play is over a few seconds later. But we know they've gotten a hit of some kind. The reason I think this doesn't really apply to homers is that it's very rare to know someone got a hit before you know they hit

a home run. Almost all potential home runs that don't go are outs. So as soon as it becomes clear they've gotten a hit, it's also clear they've gotten a homer. So we use the more specific term. So I guess that's true. When you're watching a game, a broadcaster might say like, oh, base hit, you know, before like they actually know what base they're going to end up on. So maybe that is a useful usage of it. Yeah, although it doesn't address your earlier complaint about home runs that are not clearly leaving the park, but end up tapping the wall. Exactly.

All right. So here's the pass blast from 1862. Richard writes, here's a most excellent trick play that sadly no longer works. The rule in question is when does a dead ball become live? By far the most common way the ball became dead was an uncaught foul ball. Nowadays, in practice, a new ball will be put in play, but even before that was ubiquitous, the ball became live when the umpire said so. Not so in the early game, which most ran itself without the intervention of the umpire. A foul ball was live when settled in the hands of the pitcher. Various interesting plays

could result, such as if a runner at first took off running on what turned out to be a foul ball while the pitcher covered first to receive the ball, simultaneously reviving it and putting out the straying runner. Today's play is something different, designed to catch the runner not paying close attention to whether the ball was dead or alive. A picked nine of players from several Philadelphia clubs have made the trip to New York with a stop off in Newark. The modern New York version of baseball was still new to the Philadelphians, and they're making the trip to pick up some points of the game.

The Newark players are only too happy to oblige, as described in the New York Sunday Mercury This is quoting now. Johnson was on the third base and Lowry was the striker, Lowry struck a foul tip which went out of the reach of the catcher. In returning the ball to the pitcher, Osborne thought it rolled to shortstop, who threw it to the third baseman, but in such a way as to miss him, whereupon someone called to Johnson to run home, and forgetting that the ball had not been in the hands of the pitcher, he did so, the consequence being that the ball was promptly forwarded to the pitcher and by him to the third baseman again, thereby putting Johnson hors de combat, which is a French term, I guess, for out of action, out of the combat, and giving the

Philadelphians a capital illustration of a fine point in the game. So Richard translates the 1862 language for us here. In modern language, the batter hit a foul tip past the catcher. The catcher retrieved it and then intentionally threw it wide of the pitcher. The shortstop took the ball, then threw it in an apparent pickoff move to third base, again intentionally throwing it wide. Johnson, the Philadelphia runner at third, lost track of the balls being dead with a bit of outside encouragement and took off for home. The ball was once again retrieved and thrown to the pitcher accurately this time. This revived the ball, which the pitcher then threw

again accurately to third base to put Johnson out. The game is reduced, Richard says, by this trick no longer being available. As a side note, there are modern vintage baseball clubs who play by obsolete rules. The trick is occasionally used to good effect, though the victims tend not to be amused. So the ball was not live again until it was back in the pitcher's hand whenever that was. So you could just throw it around wildly, not have it touch the pitcher's hands, deke the runner into going, then throw it back to the pitcher. Now the ball is live again.

And then you could just get him out that way. So it's kind of a hidden ball trick. It's like a dead ball trick or a live ball trick or something. So can't do that anymore, but that's amusing. Yeah, I can't believe that that wasn't popular with people. That's wild. It would be so easy to game plan against. You wouldn't feel like you'd been had at all. Yeah. All right. Well, that's what we're missing out on these days. That's what they had back in the grand old days of 1862. All right, that will do it for today.

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the pain just tumbles out and we don't always say the things we should. But I know you to be good I know you to be fair And I hope you'll be a good judge of me Now that I'm no longer there.