Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1899: The Crapper Flapper Wrapper Yapper

Episode Date: September 7, 2022

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about a baseball (and softball) toilet flapper, discuss (13:32) the continued excellence of Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani (and the benefits of celebrating both instead of elevating one over the other), follow up on the Angels’ shutouts, Mike Trout’s post-injury rebound, the MLBPA’s effort to unionize minor leaguers (38:09), […]

Romeo, Juliet, balcony's in the way, making oaks with a cigarette, it's Juliet. prohibition and curse air of gold and a name of curse is flat and green Hello and welcome to episode 1899 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Raleigh of Fangraphs and I'm joined as always by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, I feel like I said like four different words in that kind of weirdly, kind of strangely. Not on purpose. I'm just like thinking back.

I'm like, anyway, how are you? I'm doing well. How are you? Other than your weird pronunciations. I'm going to be in my head about it the whole episode now, but I'm otherwise fine. How was your long weekend, Ben? It was swell. I didn't notice that you said anything strange for what it was.

I should have. I should have kept it to myself and let people go, is she okay? Yeah. Well, I did do one thing on my long weekend. Actually, I did a number of things, but this is one of them. I know we have a lot to cover today, but let's start here. I installed a toilet flapper over the weekend. You know, those red rubbery things that you put in the toilet tank that control the water coming in and out. And sometimes if you have to jiggle the handle, it could be an issue with the toilet flapper. So one of those. And when I installed it, I discovered that it was a baseball toilet flapper by the effectively wild definition of what makes things baseball things because I

turned it over. This is a product manufactured by the company Corky, K-O-R-K-Y, Corky, just sort of a whimsical name for a toilet repair company. Sounds like a plucky child on a sitcom. Corky, get in here. Right. Yeah. Corky. Yeah. It's making me think of my wife made a montage of Hugh Laurie saying Corky in Jeeves and Worcester and the night manager, because there are characters named Corky in both of those. So he's constantly going Corky, Corky. Yeah. According to the packaging, it's the number one brand in toilet flappers. I cannot independently verify that, but that's the claim. Anyway, on the back, it has a flapper

size guide. And there are two flapper sizes. There's the standard and there's the large. And the way that they display the sizes here is by comparing them to a baseball and a softball. So the flapper I installed was a standard two-inch flapper. This is your most common 80% of toilets, according to this. I have your standard flapper. I assume this is two-inch diameter. And so it has a little handy sizing guide with a visual reference. And it has the flapper next to a baseball. And it says, size of baseball.

And then it has the large. And it has the larger flapper, three-inch diameter, next to a softball. And it says has the large and it has the larger flapper three inch diameter next to a softball. And it says size of softball. So that's how you're supposed to keep your standard flapper and your large flapper straight. One is the size of a baseball. One is the size of a softball. I was sort of surprised to see this. Now, naturally, I got a bit pedantic about the sizing here. I believe that the size of a baseball is really three inches. It's just a hair under three inches. And so if they're saying that the large flapper is the size of a baseball, but the standard flapper is a two-incher, I think really the large is closer to an actual baseball size, whereas a softball would be bigger than that. But putting that aside, close enough maybe, I wondered why they chose this unit of measure, baseball and softball, why this was the way that they would choose to display to someone who knows nothing about flappers like me. Here's your standard. Here's your large. This is the one you want. You know it's the one you want because it's a baseball size as opposed to a softball size. And you'd think that there could be other things that might be more universally recognized. Now,

from what I can tell, Corky is an American company. It proudly displays made in USA everywhere over the packaging. So maybe it's not selling internationally where people in some regions might be flummoxed by the baseball, softball, might not know how big those things are. But I wonder even in the domestic population, how many people, like what percentage of people do you think would know exactly what that means? Oh, baseball size, softball size. Do you have to have played to have a feel for that or do you just know it fits in your hands like we've all we've seen baseball probably if you are in the states even if you haven't played it yourself you would have a decent feel for the difference in size between a baseball

and softball or would a lot of americans still be kind of like i don't know what the difference is i think a lot of people would know i think that people would know and like you need something that is so it's not just how ubiquitous is this object which i think people know about the size relative size of baseballs and softballs but you need something that is a standard size that's the the thing. Yeah. Right. I was thinking like, well, you could go with fruits maybe. Right, but you got some variable fruit spend. Yeah, exactly. You got wildly divergent fruit. Right. That is the problem. I was thinking that you could go with like maybe an orange for the standard flapper or potentially an apple.

Although again, you got your different sizes of apple. You've got your standard and large apples as well. So, right, I was thinking like, oh, maybe an orange is your standard flapper, and then like maybe a pomegranate could be like your large flapper. I love that you're like, you know this thing that children play? That's not common enough. What we really need is the truly ubiquitous fruit that is the pomegranate. Yeah, maybe pomegranates. See, I was thinking like fruits, edibles, maybe even more familiar to people.

Like what about a grapefruit? Maybe a grapefruit is too big. But again, grapefruit's kind of softball sized. Yeah, right. So I was thinking like maybe an orange and a grapefruit and everyone would know. Although, honestly, when was the last time you held a grapefruit? I don't know when. Like grape juice?

Sure. Actual grapefruit in my hands? It's been a while. Hold on. We have to do something here. You realize that grape juice doesn't come from grapefruit, right? It comes from grapes. Famously different fruits.

Also wildly different sizes of fruits. Yes, but they make juices out of grapefruit as well. So that's probably what I should have said. Grapefruit juice is different. That's what you would call the juice of grapefruits as opposed to grapefruit juice. Excellent point. Yeah. Well, see how confusing this is?

This is why they go with grapefruit. No, no, no. Hold on. Again, that's not confusing. Those are just two different fruits. Okay. You got me there. Yeah.

I think that a baseball and a softball, I think those are sufficiently well known in the general population. I think that relying on a stand, I see the appeal of sporting equipment, right? Because there's regulation about size. And so it has to be, you know, basically the same size. You know, you got a baseball in Washington, you got a baseball in Florida. And even though they're in very different places are probably about the same size and the same. I am given to understand it's true softballs. And so sporting equipment, cool.

You can't have it be football size because that's too big. You know, you got a football, if you have a football size hole. Don't need a flapper that size. Yeah. In your toilet tank, you need a new toilet. You got a problem because that's too big. That's too big a hole for the toilet tank. Yep. So. I think there's a youth size softball because like softballs are pretty big, you know, if you have a kid size hand. I think they come in two sizes generally, right? Right. So maybe they could have gone with the youth softball and the adult size full size softball for the standard and large flat person. That is more confusing. That is less clear than a baseball and a softball, which again, standardized in size, obviously different from one another. obviously different from one another something that i would imagine most people have some exposure to like even if you aren't a baseball fan you know you probably played baseball or at

least had access to i guess like you know what you know what they might have gone with instead like they could have done like a tennis ball you know right a lot of people know what that is but yes i think it's i think it's fine is what I think. It's probably fine. Yeah. Also, like, I guess my mom bought the flapper because I was changing it on her toilet. And I guess she was not confused about this. But I like I don't know how many baseballs and softballs she has held in her life.

I don't know. I guess she has held baseball. She has probably played catch with me at some point. But softballs, I don't know. I guess she has held baseball. She has probably played catch with me at some point. But softballs, I don't know. That's why initially I was thinking, well, are there maybe some gender norms and assumptions and stereotypes creeping in here? Because, you know, a lot of women didn't grow up playing baseball, perhaps were prevented from playing baseball. Right. But if you played softball, you know how big a baseball is. I want to discount that women who did not play baseball personally do not understand how baseballs work. But I was just thinking, is Corky assuming, oh, you know, men know sports and baseball and they also do plumbing and repairs and stuff. So men will know. But maybe I'm reading into that. First of all, I'm not the handy one in my household. My wife is.

But I was wondering if Corky was maybe playing into some gender assumptions about who is doing toilet prepare. But then I also thought maybe it is that they are proud to be American, that they are made in America. They are just emblazoning their packaging with made in the USA. are just emblazoning their packaging with made in the USA. And so I wonder if this is like, you know, as American as apple pie and baseball and Corky. So they want us to associate Corky with something that is very American and made in America, although baseballs themselves are not really made in America. So there's that. Well, look, I never want to discount the possibility

that there's weird gender stuff going on because sometimes, you know, Ben, we're given to observing weird gender stuff. But I think it's fine. And like, you know, you're right that we have this association with Baseball is America's Pastime. This is a company that is seemingly proud of manufacturing in the U.S. But, you know, I think the other benefit of them doing this is that while they can kind of lay claim

to that if that is part of what they think is effective branding, they've also picked a sport that a lot of other regions of the world are familiar with because a lot of other countries play it. So it gives them that flexibility. Again, with an object that is plumbing size appropriate. So that's good now i'm just imagining quirky as like a person being like ah do you know how big this is ah um because again it's plucky child so it's a plumbing company wow include right below the standard versus large flapper guide it says need help and then it includes a website and a 800 number so if you're

confused well how big is a baseball how big is a softball you can call Corky and get your answer yeah yeah I think my main question Ben is does your mom know the difference between grapefruit juice and grape juice apparently she never passed that on to me. And similarly, grapefruits and grapes. Yeah, I don't really enjoy either. You're not a grapefruit guy? No, not so much. I do like regular

grapes, but not so much grape juice. Anyway, it is also possible that they did this in a bid to be mentioned on a baseball podcast. That seems unlikely to me. I think Ben. Are there orange and grapefruit podcasts? Probably.

There's a podcast about everything. But maybe they thought, hey, free publicity. We'll just put a baseball and a softball in here. And then effectively, Wilde will spend upwards of 10 minutes at the start of an episode bantering about our flappers. words of 10 minutes at the start of an episode bantering about our flappers i think that they would be safe to assume that we would do that not just because we have but because like hypothetical us that didn't decide to talk about that today would do it but i imagine and you know here i am about to tell you to not overthink it which is new territory for me yeah that's our brand yeah but i would say that what probably happened is they're like

you know what's the size that people will know that cool and then they moved on to like making flappers because they had they had uh they had business to do right you know because they're part of the very small portion of the economy that is not podcasting i think podcasting is most most of the economy at this point yeah every. Every other thing you could use. Like I was thinking, oh, just make a fist. It's a fist size. But how big is your hand? How big is your fist? Yeah.

Yeah. You need something that is a consistent size, which is, again, why I think that sporting equipment was probably appealing. All right. So that was how my weekend went. We have established that. Is your toilet working? Yeah.

Work is great. I think it's quirky. Yeah. Well done. When I want to come up I mean, like. It's quirky. Yeah. Well done. When I want to come up with podcast material and or a functional toilet, I call it quirky. Exactly. So other things I did this weekend included watching Aaron Judge and Shohei Otani. Yeah.

Who are just amazing. Yeah. And the thing is, there is this race, right, for the MVP. And everyone is looking at the war leaderboards and wondering who's going to come out ahead and who's going to win that award. And I just want to encourage everyone to enjoy both of these seasons without necessarily setting them in opposition. Yes, it can be kind of fun to try to figure out who has been better or who has been more valuable or which is most impressive. But ultimately, only 30 people in the world actually need to choose one over the other, the 30 BBWAA members who vote on the AL MVP award. And the rest of us don't necessarily have to decide. And we don't even necessarily have to abide by that tiny subset of

the BBWA's judgment. We can just say they're both amazing. Maybe one way to appreciate how amazing they are is to compare and contrast them. But I've seen so many tweets or responses where someone will say something about how amazing Otani is and then everyone will be like, judge is better or, you know, vice versa. Right. Like how amazing judge is. Oh, Otani is better. How can one is more impressive than the other in certain ways, but they're both amazing. Like they would both be MVP seasons in almost any other year, right? Like the season that Judge is having now would be an MVP season most years.

And the season Otani is having would be an MVP season most years. And it just so happens that they're both having those seasons in the same year. So they cannot both be MVP. They're both in the same league, but they're both MVP caliber seasons and like all time incredible seasons that will be remembered and talked about for years to come. So again, it's what you often say when I force you to pick between people. Why do we have to choose? And unless you're say when I force you to pick between people.

Why do we have to choose? And unless you're an MVP voter, you don't actually have to choose. Like they're not even competing against each other. They're not even in the same division. They're not in the same playoff race or anything. They're just both amazing. And just by the day, seemingly, each of them is making a case for how impressive their respective season is. So just enjoy them both, I say. Yeah. I mean, like, I think that it's interesting you say, well, the non-voters don't have to accept the sort of wisdom of the BBWA.

I don't find that people tend to need that instruction. No. So that's just that's neither here nor there. I mean, I think that the part of it that I find to be really exciting, apart from just the obvious bit of these guys and their seasons and what that means is like that it has, it has like, it feels much closer to me than it has at any other point this year, even though they're still, depending on whose version of warrior you're using, sometimes as much as a wins difference between the two of them right now. It's one win at fan graphs. It's like three tenths of a win at baseball reference separating judge from Otani with a judge on top.

And so I think that what has been the most sort of exciting for me is like a couple of months ago, we talked about this and I was just like, well, Aaron Judge is the MVP. And that felt like an obvious conclusion to me. And I think that if I had an MVP vote and I was forced to vote today, that I would probably maybe lean that way. Can I? Yeah, maybe not. But I think I would. I think I would. I would look at the season that judge is having it and just say like i think he's just the mvp but that's a harder question today than it was i feel like otani has really gained ground on him in a way that i didn't i didn't know if he would be able to particularly you know on the along the nexus where we can best compare them head to head which is you know at the plate. Like, I feel like he,

you look up and you're like, oh, Hey, did you notice? Did you notice Ben? Like, you know, he's got like a 148 WRC plus all of a sudden.

Two points below where he was last year. So it's been almost as good a hitter. It's just, you have to compare for the offensive environment and offense being down a bit. So he's been basically the same as a hitter, just a different shape, a little bit of production. Yeah. And better as a pitcher.

Yes. And more innings as a pitcher. So he is on the verge of surpassing his full season fan graphs were from last year. Right. He is still a little bit behind where he was at baseball reference, which had him slightly higher last year. But yeah, he's about to surpass where he was last year, which I feel good about because I wrote a piece before the season started about how he could be better this year. And I included a caveat in that about how if you were to bet, you probably would not bet on him being better because historically there tends to be some regression among defending MVP winners.

And I had the numbers in there and whatever percentage they typically decline both in playing time and in performance. Because if you win an MVP, generally a lot of things went well and you stayed healthy and you probably played toward the top of the range of your abilities. So typically MVPs get a little bit worse the season after their MVP season. And so I sort of presented some reasons why Otani might defy that, why he might actually get better, even though he had this unprecedented season. It didn't seem that unrealistic to me that he could be better. And arguably, he has been better, I think. And there's still almost a month to go. So, again, like they're neck and neck war wise, at least some wars wise.

So what happens over the next few weeks could very well decide who wins that award. But they've just been both so amazing to this point, regardless of where they end up or what their wars say. What's going on with Otani's base running? Yeah. You know, he is not great at base stealing. He's just not. I don't know whether it's the base stealing instincts or it's not his speed, obviously. Right.

Or whether he's just got a lot on his mind or whatever. Just not a great base dealer. Like his success rate, not so good, especially this year. Yeah. He has attempted 20 steals and so good, especially this year. Yeah. He just attempted 20 steals and he's been caught nine times. Yeah. It's not good. Not good.

Sorry. I just got distracted. I was like, what are the things that we're going to be able to point to when people are making their choices? And it's like, what's going on with his base running? Although I doubt very much that someone will say, well, I was going to vote for Otani, but then I looked at his cot stealing and I was like, this bum, get him out of here. Well, I mean, you think of him as being the speedster of the two, perhaps, but Judge has more steals and a far better success rate.

I don't know. It's just very exciting. I think that the most important thing is for us to try to resist the temptation to do the thing that we i mean sometimes you and i specifically but i think just generally did with trout which was like well he's the mvp until he's not right like he's the he's the best guy and so he should he should win every year that he's doing this incredible thing and like the person who deserves the award should win it but i think having a close interrogation of the question is really useful because, you know, who knows if Aaron Judge is going to get another shot like this, right? Like we don't want to just say what Ohtani is doing is remarkable

and any year he does it well, like he's just de facto the MVP because it's incredible that he can do both things. That is true. It is incredible and it should definitely bolster his MVP case. We got to ask the question in a serious way. We owe it to them for that. And I can say that because I don't have a AL MVP vote this year. Oh boy, I feel very relieved about that.

I'm realizing I do have an awards vote this year, but I feel like people are going to get some letters. You know, they're going to get some emails. Probably. Yeah. It doesn't seem like if that vote were held today that it would be unanimous or heavily leaning one way or another. I guess it depends because with the Yankees, like, you could say that Aaron Judge is carrying

that team, right? I mean, can you say that someone is carrying a team if the team is still not doing well but would be doing way worse if not for that player it's like he's carrying them i guess that also means like he's dropping them from time to time or like putting them down also sometimes because like often they're not doing so great but without him they would be doing way worse like yeah the collapse would probably be complete if not for erin judge their lead which was six games last time we talked, it's now down to five after they lost two of three to Tampa Bay over the weekend, but then won a couple after that. Or they lost the first two and then have won their most recent two.

They salvaged the last game of that Rays series. But, yeah, I mean, it's getting kind of close. But yeah, I mean, it's getting kind of close. And if not for Judge, I mean, you might say that the fact that the Yankees have collapsed the way that they have might make you less inclined to vote for him because it's been such an unconvincing playoff performance. But it's not his fault. It's the entire team around him, which, of course, you can say for Otani as well, but the rest of the Yankees are good enough that Judge gets them there. And without Judge, with any mortal man as their center fielder, they would probably be out of first place right now or quite likely. Yeah. I've been thinking more and more about this, and you tell me if I am overreacting to the magnitude of the money involved whereas this like incentive always exists i think that if we're gonna have the awards incentive stuff like we have what we see in julio rodriguez's contract we need to like really do away with the notion that this award is at all about like that player within the context of a team that is or isn't good yeah right like it's not as if there

aren't already bonuses that are tied to award vote stuff like that already exists we don't love that either but like that already exists but the the amount of influence that the award vote stuff can have on individual contracts now if this is going to become more the norm i really think that we need to be like no no you can't care that he's on the yankees. You're not allowed to consider that. Maybe I'm just writing an email out loud to Larry Stone. But it seems like we want to stay away from that stuff because somebody's going to need to get some money. Right.

If you were to vote that way, then you would be giving a greater likelihood of getting that incentive exercised for players who are on good teams that are spending a more in general spend more on those players. But it's also just not really fair to the players that it would depend on whether ownership or their front office has put talent around them, whether they get to get that money or not. So I do think that people say a lot that war can't capture Otani's value. And I think there are a couple things you could mean by that. One is that you could literally mean that it could be calculated a little bit differently, that he should be getting a little more credit for this or that, that he could be getting more credit for his fielding as a pitcher or less of a DH penalty when he's pitching or whatever it is. That's small stuff, though. That's just moving at the margins,

which I guess could make a difference in this race since it's pretty close and MVP voters do pay attention to worth these days. But it's not going to make a major difference. And then something like, well, he's almost two players in a sense, but he's in one roster spot. And how do you quantify that?

I don't think that's a huge difference, especially if he's on a team like the Angels. Where they have a six-man rotation? OK, that's nice, but it just means that maybe they have one less replacement level player at the back end of that roster. I guess that's good. But I don't think that's a huge amount that would necessarily move the needle. But I think you could say that war does not capture the majesty of Otani or the difficulty of doing what he does just because there is only one person on the planet who can do what he's doing, right? Which technically, I guess you could also say about Aaron Judge, right? Because no one is hitting this many home runs and meanwhile playing center field and being a good base runner and all of the rest of the things that he does. But he's doing something that is just in a different category in that there are no other full-time two-way players, let alone ones who are among the best at both things that they do. So I think you could say, well, War, ultimately, it might sum up his value fairly well, but doesn't sum up just how impressive it is that he is able to deliver his value in the form that he does, which doesn't necessarily make his team or the Angels that much better. Like ultimately it just boils down to he has this many play appearances and

this many batters faced and here's how he performs in that playing time. So how he got to that point or the fact that he is sort of two different players in one might not actually make them better by the amount that it makes us awed by what he does, right? So there's like an aspect of the story of Otani and just like how impressive it is that he's able to do what he does that could not really be captured by any stat. And that's okay. I don't know that that needs to even be a part of MVP discussions, but it's a part of just like how memorable what he's doing is or how unprecedented or singular it is. So in a way, like whether he wins a piece

of hardware or not, I don't want to make this sound like Rob Manfred dismissing the World Series trophy as a piece of metal. I'm just saying whether he wins another MVP award or not, it's totally incredible that he's done this and everyone knows that no one else would be able to do what he's doing in the form that he does it. It's more conceivable, I guess, to imagine Shohei Otani playing center field and hitting 60 homers than it is to imagine Judge hitting 35 homers and also being one of the best pitchers in baseball, right? That doesn't mean that Judge shouldn't win the award. It just means, well, that's something that we can say about Shohei Otani. That's why he's so special, I guess, in a different way than Judge is special. They're both special in their own ways. That's sort of

how I started this whole segment. you're trying to assess sort of who is the best, right? Who is superlative in a way that their peers aren't. But like that, that should never be the end of your consideration. Like that is a starting point and it can be a big piece of your ultimate vote. But to simply look at it in that way, I think you're right is to miss the other pieces of it that matter, even if they're hard to quantify. Like, like like you i tend to be i think that you can say like i think that the dh penalty is too punitive or i think that you know he should kind of get a bonus for being able to do both things at an extremely high level now he gets a bonus in a way right because he has a pitching war and he has a batting war and we're like hey

look there he is that's his value and like yeah you don't get to do that with Aaron Judge because he doesn't do the other thing right so so in that sense he's getting kind of a bonus it might just be an honest accounting of his skill but I think that there was this idea early with Otani that like he's saving he's saving a roster spot he's getting like this production out of one spot instead of having to spend two. I can conceive of a time when that is an easier thing to value, but I think you're right that I don't want to knock the 26th guy on the Angels roster, but he's not keeping Aaron Judge on a roster, right? The guy who is or isn't there is sort of marginal generally. And especially if you have to run a six-man rotation,

like you're not really saving that much. But he's amazing. And we can talk about that in all kinds of different ways, not just his war. And we should. And even if he doesn't win, like it's still amazing. I don't think that there's like an obviously bad answer here. I know that there will be people who are like,

there's obviously bad answer all stupid but i hope that the way that we use these debates is how you're suggesting which is to heighten our appreciation of what these guys are doing because it's incredible like it's incredible that otani is able to do what he is we are like officially watching aaron judge on pace he's now officially on pace to surpass maris like he's on 65 he's on pace. He's now officially on pace to surpass Maris. Like he's on pace for that. 65 he's on pace for as we speak here on Tuesday afternoon. In a non-expansion year, in a non-super juiced ball year, not in the PD era, whatever, whatever. It's amazing.

So it's amazing. And he's surpassing, as we noted last week, everyone else in the league or both leagues. Actually, isn't Otani second in the league in homers now? In the league by which I mean the American League? The American League? Because we were talking about Judge and his separation from Kyle Schwarber as the second most prolific home run hitter you know what ben you're right you've hit on you sure have hit on it he's right there at 32 and so this bolsters to my mind judge's case in the same way that him being ahead of schwarber and it bolsters his case where it's like you know he is as far ahead as he is of two guys who like famously hit big home runs, right? Yeah. Yeah. So what I'm saying is I don't care if you don't apply any of these narratives to your MVP voting if you're one of those 30 people in the world.

You don't have to give Shohei Otani extra credit because he is a two-way player, and you don't have to give Aaron Judge extra credit because he is propelling the Yankees to the playoffs. You can just evaluate their on-field value, and that's fine. And Judge X'd a credit because he is propelling the Yankees to the playoffs. You can just evaluate their on-field value. And that's fine. That's all you have to consider, I think, in an MVP conversation. And maybe even that's all you should consider.

I'm open to that argument too. I'm just saying we're not bound by that. None of us who are watching their seasons and are just admiring what they're doing every day, we don't have to just confine ourselves to what's their war or, you know, is this guy better than that guy? Like we can just marvel at the amazing things that they're doing without, I think, thinking in those narrow terms, because each of them is doing something that at this point is completely unparalleled and extremely impressive. So I'm just really enjoying watching it. And like on Monday, you know, Judge Homer hit his 54th the third straight day in a row. And then Otani in the night cap, he hits a couple homers and doubles.

And I was watching his last plate appearance of that game in which he faced position player pitcher Cody Clemens, son of Roger. Cody Clemens struck him out, which like as impressive as it was that he had hit two homers and doubled in that game to then strike out against a position player pitcher, that was not impressive. That was equally unimpressive in the opposite direction. So and Cody Clemens, I guess he's guess he's not a two-way player, but he's on the verge of entering sort of like half-assed two-way player territory in that this

was, I think, his sixth outing as a pitcher. And he's not throwing hard. He's not a good pitcher, but he has a decent arm, I guess. And he is the son of Roger Clemens. So presumably he has some idea what he is doing out there. He kind of looks like a pitcher a little bit, at least until he releases the ball, maybe more than some position player pitchers do. This was his first strikeout in his six innings, and he got Otani. And it was a fun moment because he was just like unable to repress and suppress his smile out there. Like, hey, I just struck out Shohei Otani. Like, here I am, the extremely cut rate bargain basement two-way player who is just pitching mop-up innings. And I just struck out Shohei Otani. And Otani, because he is a good-natured sort, he was smiling too. He even signed the baseball for Clemens who kept it and Otani inscribed it with what a nasty pitch. But I was getting all hyped up like, oh man, Otani against a position player pitcher. He's going to crank one out of here. He's going to hit another homer. And then, nope, he struck out looking and he fouled a pitch off. And in fact, he kind of got a gift on a called pitch that was in the strike zone seemingly, but was called a ball before the one that he struck out on so yeah kudos to Cody Clemens who has a career FIP now that is very similar to his famous father's that's hilarious baseball is hard and weird and also great the Angels also threw a shutout in that game so they are now tied with the Mets for the most shutouts in the majors this season. 17 just boggles my mind and belief and beggars belief and whatever the saying is. Can't believe that the Angels and the Mets are tied with the most shutouts above many other good teams that are about the Angels. Before Mike Trout went on the IL with his back injury or rib cage injury or both of the above, he had a 170 WRC+. Since he returned, I think 83 plate appearances, he has a 167 WRC+.

Nice. Yeah, I would say he's back. Rumors of his demise, et cetera, greatly exaggerated. I think he's back. Rumors of his demise, et cetera, greatly exaggerated. I think he's okay. It doesn't mean that this is not going to be a long-term issue, that it might not keep him off the field more going forward or that it might sap some power at some point. I don't know. But for now, at least, he appears to be more or less the same Mike Trout that he was before he sustained this injury. So that's good news. Yeah. I'm very, very happy to have a fully operational Mike Trout back.

Yeah. You're not going to believe this, or maybe you will, but I went to Corky's website while we were just talking because I was going to link on the show page to Corky's toilet flapper, just citing my sources. I was kind of curious whether the baseball softball comparison would be on the website as well. I had not looked. So I found a page on the Corky site says, what size flapper do I need? And it has all sorts of criteria here. What toilet do you have? Here's how you know which flapper to get. This is the amazing part. Okay. Step two, if your flapper is the size of a baseball or an orange, your toilet requires a two-inch flapper. Step three, if your flapper is the size of a softball or grapefruit, your toilet requires a three-inch flapper. I swear

I didn't see this. Yeah. Baseball or orange, softball or grapefruit. So the great minds at Corky thinking along the same lines here. So they chose to go with the baseball softball comparison on the packaging, but on the website, baseball or an orange, softball or a grapefruit. See, this is what I'm saying. Maybe they didn't have space on the packaging for both, but I think it adds clarity just to provide the fruit for comparison as well for the less athletically inclined, but the more fruit inclined among the toilet flapping purchasing public. Just don't put grapes down your toilet. No, not grapes. That would be too small for a flapper. It would just go right down.

Go right through. It would just go right down. Go right through. It would just go right through. Yep. Okay. So a couple other follow-ups here. We talked to Evan Drellick last week about the MLBPA's unionization effort for minor leaguers. And there has been further reporting by Evan on that subject. And it sounds like there has been a big milestone passed, which is that a, quote, significant majority, according to an MLBPA representative Evan spoke to, a significant majority of players have voted to authorize this union representation. Has returned the cards that the MLBPA distributed and said, yes, I would like the MLBPA to represent me. So this now moves on to a different stage, which is the league can voluntarily recognize the union. And the MLBPA sent a letter on Tuesday asking for that voluntary formal recognition. So the ball, the baseball, the orange-sized object is in MLB's court now.

They can decide whether they want to voluntarily recognize or if they decide not to, then the NLRB can hold an election. The MLBPA would file for an election if the voluntary recognition is not granted. And before an election can be held, more than 30% of employees have to show support. So they have already cleared that bar by a wide margin, it sounds like. So unless a bunch of minor leaguers were to change their minds, having voted yes to this, if they were to change to no votes by the time that election is held, if it is held, then this seems like it's probably going to be a done deal at some point. I don't

know how long they'll wait to see whether voluntary recognition will be granted or how long it would take for an election to be held if not. But if that support remains consistent and steady, But if that support remains consistent and steady, then it sounds like there's a pretty good chance that this is going to happen. So that's a major milestone that has seemingly been eclipsed here. What if like your mental image of an orange is like a satsuma? You know, that's not technically an orange, though, I don't think. That's not the point. They probably mean like a, what are they, navel oranges?

Is that what they're called? Yeah, I mean, you got your tangerines. You got all sorts of orange adjacent fruits. Yeah, then you got all the cross-pollinated fruits. You got all kinds of different hybrid fruits, you know? Yeah. Anyway, I think it's just pretty great. Maybe MLB will surprise us and voluntarily recognize the union. I don't think they'll do it.

But I mean, when we talked to Evan, his sense of it, and I think we agreed, was that they wouldn't have sent the cards and sort of done this and talked about it publicly if they weren't pretty confident that they were going to get to a point where they could say that the you know the bulk of these guys support the unionization effort i know that like francisco lindor has come out and he's really been vocal about supporting these guys so i think that we are we are on the on-ramp for the league to say no and then the nlr beats a facilitative vote and then and then we'll see where we are i suppose but i imagine and i know evan said this too like i would be surprised if we hear a lot from them outside of very carefully worded press releases because given the state of affairs between the major league portion of the mlbpa and the league and how contentious those negotiations have been the number of existing grievances like i imagine mlb is going to be like you can't accuse us of retaliation you know i think they're going

to be pretty quiet so that they can try to steer clear of any of that stuff whether they actually do steer clear of that stuff is a slightly separate question i suppose but i don't know it's very very exciting i like this thing where we have like impressive and important evolution on the labor front while having a fixed opening day right that's that's a selfish that's a selfish thing to like i'm acknowledging that but it is nice yeah me i guess you could say that if this is so likely to happen, if an election would be held and that the MLBPA would win the day, then what does MLB have to lose by voluntarily recognizing? Like if the ultimate outcome is not in doubt, then why not just get the PR boost,

whatever it would be, or not suffer any PR fallout from just being obstinate about it, right? They just haven't seemed to care about that historically. No. Which doesn't mean that they won't suddenly, that the particular calculus of this moment won't change the way they think about it. I could see them saying, this is very different than the way that we approach the the cba negotiation with existing players where we are trying to continue to claw back gains but

they just don't seem to often care i think that the the audience that that manfred is curious to and keen to satisfy is like you know 30 people not the rest of us. I mean, I know that there are technically more than 30 people, but like it's ownership and not us, but maybe, maybe they'll say, you know, particularly with sentiment around unionization, seemingly shifting in the population at large beyond baseball, you know, maybe things have moved for them in a way that they will, they will find meaningful and they'll say yeah we'll voluntarily recognize and then we can kind of go from there but they haven't even in moments when they should seemingly when they would seem to serve them well to care more

about how this stuff plays with the ultimate consumers of baseball they just haven't yeah especially when it comes to labor issues going going back to even the battles with Marvin Miller. I don't think MLB owners have a long track record of bowing to the inevitable and being gracious about conceding victories. It's always have to be dragged kicking and screaming, which maybe works for them at the bargaining table. Sometimes I don't know that it will make any difference in this case, but they might just not want to give them that win, right? Unless they're forced to. But

I guess it's not surprising that most minor leaguers would want to do this just given like the long, long history of the way that minor leaguers have been treated and not made enough money and not had enough food and not have good places to live. You do that for decades and decades, the whole history of the miners and basically all of the active minor leaguers' careers, then I guess you shouldn't be shocked when someone comes along and says, hey, do you want better conditions? And they say, yes, I would like that. That sounds nice, actually. So, I mean, maybe if all along the owners had been more generous, then perhaps players would not be as sympathetic to this appeal. But I guess this is a reap what

you sowed sort of situation. Yeah. We can imagine, given some of the other political leanings that we know baseball players to be sympathetic to that there might be an alternate timeline where they feel sufficiently taken care of that this isn't the avenue that they choose to pursue, which like there are plenty of really compelling and good reasons for people in good workplaces to unionize. So it's not as if you have to be, you to be in the dire streets that minor leaguers are to look around and have that make a lot of sense and be a good thing to do for yourself and your coworkers. But I think you're right that especially given some of the other maybe ideological preferences

of at least a meaningful portion of the player pool that with living wages and something approaching a more dignified existence that maybe they they look around and on balance don't feel like it's worth it but i think you'd be you'd have to be a pretty high bonus baby and have pretty meaningful disregard for the the players who aren't to look around and be like oh this is fine it's like no it's really it's really not fine like we we know it to not be fine and i'm glad that that's how it's being recognized. Another follow up slash correction on a recent episode. I did a stat blast about the seasons where home run totals matched uniform numbers and the highest that anyone has ever had a home run total that matched their uniform number. a home run total that matched their uniform number. And we said that the record was 44 and noted that that had been accomplished by Willie McCovey in 1963. That is true. Both of

those things are true, but it was also accomplished by another number 44 and even more famous number 44, Hank Aaron, who did it in that same season, 1963, he hit 44 while wearing 44. And he also did it before McCovey, 1957, and he did it in 1966 and 1969. So four times he hit 44 while wearing 44. So I think there was some sort of sorting issue that went on there so that he didn't show up in the results. But thanks to those of you who pointed that out. And I probably would have realized that in the moment if I were more aware of uniform numbers. But as we have both noted, that is just a weakness for both of us. Yeah, definitely not my strength.

Another follow-up in a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened. year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened. Cesar Hernandez hit a home run, his first of the season. So he was the subject of an earlier stat blast, just all about Cesar Hernandez and the fact that he hit 21 homers last year and had not hit one this year. He took 546 plate appearances to hit his first home run of this season. Now, as covered before, he has already had an unprecedented homer outage given his home run total last year. Unless he has a flurry of home runs over the rest of the season, I think he would need at least four more to tie, I think, the biggest drop off from a 21 or more homer season to the next season. And he still just has one. I think he would need five to be in a tie for the biggest previous drop-off. And also, he has already far surpassed the number of plate appearances to hit a first one after a preceding season like that. So it's historic one way or another, but he didn't get skunked.

He is on the board. And when he finally hit it, it was a no doubter. He didn't get cheated. You might think the guy can't hit a home run all season. It would be a wall scraper, a fence scraper. But no, it was an upper tank shot, 398 feet out in 30 of 30 parks, according to the Wooditdong Twitter account. So glad to see him. I mean, part of me was rooting for him not to hit the homer, to be honest, just because it was so improbable. to get the first one out of the way. Kind of confident, presumptuous of him to assume there will be a second one

after that long an outage, but happy to get the first one out of the way. I know last year I hit 21. Hopefully I find some more consistency the rest of the season and hit a few more. He said that hitting leadoff led to a different approach at the plate, but then being back in the bottom part of the order,

lower in the order, allows him to be freer. part of the order, lower in the order, allows him to be freer. Now that I'm hitting sixth in the lineup, I think I just have a different mentality at the plate, trying to be more aggressive on certain pitches, going up to bat, which, boy, if that was all about batting leadoff, I don't know that that was the right mentality to have, like I get. As a leadoff hitter, maybe you want to see more pitches or be more patient or set the table. You're not the person who's cleaning up. You are setting the table. But also like it doesn't hurt to hit a homer every now and then. But he did. So good for him. And he is leading the Nationals in hits by a lot. Just, you know, not that kind of hit. But now he has gotten that kind of hit.

So he has won. Congratulations to Cesar Hernandez. I noted also that he didn't hit a home run last year after August 26th. Even though he hit 21 last year, he hit zero after the 26th. So that was more than 100 homer list plate appearances at the end of last season, too, that you can tack on to the 545 homer lists of pa to start this season so it was a long while but when he hit one it looked like he had done it before it looked like a legitimate home run i'm just happy i think you have to have the confidence

that you'll hit a second one i'm sure he has the confidence that he'll hit 15 or 20 like it's just hard to be a big leaguer if you're not confident that it's going to go okay. Right? You're just sitting there going, why am I getting out of bed if I'm not confident? Yeah. Good point. Also, Dallas Keuchel update, not as happy an update. He had a second start for the Rangers and it did not go any better than the first one.

He gave up seven runs in four and two thirds, I think. That's so many runs! It is, but not an unexpected number of runs given his previous start. So he was released by the Rangers now. He has a 9.2 ERA on the season. I noted last time that no one has ever had such a high ERA for so many different teams in the same season. He also now has just the highest ERA period in a season, minimum 60 innings pitched over Willis Hudlin, who's at 9.0. I mentioned him last time too, but Keichel now at 9.2. So do you think he gets a fourth chance or do you think that's it for Dallas Keichel this year? Some team going to talk themselves into

former Cy Young Award winner Dallas Keuchel? I mean, I think it would be one thing. I'm going to say something that's very obvious. Are you ready for my very obvious statement, Ben? Yes. It would be, you know, if he gave up a few fewer runs or went a few more innings per game. So if he was better yeah you know even if

he like gave up a lot of runs but did it in a way that was efficient on average and allowed him to like throw a bunch of innings right yeah like there's gonna be some bad team that's like look we still have to play all these games they don't't let us be done. You know, we just got to keep playing games. But I don't even know that the balance is quite right between him being an innings eater for you. I don't think, you know, he's not that. So now he's just bad and does it like in short outings. So I think you're kind of done after that.

I mean, he would eat innings probably if you just left him out there to keep allowing runs. He would probably keep pitching. But you don't want him to be out there. And he gives up enough runs that you would be appropriately and deservedly pilloried for that. Yes, and it took him 103 pitches to give up those seven runs in four and two-thirds. That's so many pitches in four and two-thirds. That's a lot.

Because, like I said, you got it. Like I said, you got to throw these innings, man. You got to play these games. Even if you're really bad, even if you're like, I don't know, like even the Rockies just have to keep playing. You know, the Pirates just have to keep playing. Really, most of the Central just has to keep playing. Man, there are some bad baseball teams this year, Ben.

There are some really bad baseball teams. There are, yeah. Wow. Dallas Keuchel has pitched for at least one of them. Yeah. But so, like, you know, they have to keep playing. But you get to a point where you're, you know, you're the Nationals. You're the Reds. You're the Pirates. You're the Cubs. You where you're you know you're the nationals you're the

reds you're the pirates you're the cubs you're the rockies you're the a's you're well you know kind of you're the rangers or the tigers or the royals where surely there is someone surely there is someone in your in like the high minors of your system where you're like let's see what that guy can do you know like these these innings don't mean anything and we're into september let's see let's see what that guy has and learn something that might help this team be better next year you know keitel's not helping anyone be better no he's not helping anyone be better yeah even if you assume that he's not a bad one. He's better this year. Even if you assume that he's not a nine ERA true talent pitcher, he is a 5.52 FIP. And his rest of season Zips projection is right in line with that 5.62 ERA. But even if that's how good or bad he is at this point, let alone the fact that, yeah, maybe you want to just see something of someone who might have more of a future with your organization. that, yeah, maybe you want to just see something of someone who might have more of a future with your organization. Also, you are bound to have someone in AAA who can give you a 5.6 ERA. So

there's no real reason to sign Dallas Keuchel unless it's like you think he's still former Cy Young Award winner Dallas Keuchel and that he could actually be good again or somewhat good or better than a replacement player, which he has shown no signs of being so far this season. So part of me wants him to be redeemed. This is not a great way to go out. Obviously, he's had a nice career and it would be sort of sad if he were just trounced like this. And sometimes that's what it takes to end a career. You get the signal from the league that you cannot be in it anymore. But he's a former Cy Young winner, but he was doing it in a way that you'd think historically, there have been studies about the longevity of ground ballers and sinker type guys,

like all else being equal, you want the person who misses bats, not that bat missers don't get bad and get hurt and everything else also. But it's not necessarily that you thought Dallas Keuchel was going to be incredible forever just because he had a Cy Young season and a few other solid seasons. But it'd be nice if he went out in a less ignominious way. On the other hand, I am kind of enjoying the history of what he is doing and the unprecedented nature of the unfun facts for Dallas Keuchel. So if someone else talks themselves into giving him another look, I will be looking as well. I can't encourage it, but it wouldn't shock me.

See, I was just about to say, like like he's getting to the point of badness where like it feels it's hard to watch yeah feels mean to to bring it up i mean like maybe there is a front office out there that looks at his sort of underlying metrics and is like we could do something with this guy but if that's the case you know i wouldn't be surprised if it required a more sustained and meaningful intervention than you're going to be able to do in four weeks. You know, I'm skeptical that that intervention necessarily exists for him just given where he is in his career. And, you know, it's not like you're, you're looking at his underlying stuff and you're like, oh, no,

he's really, really good, actually, secretly. And it's like, no, he just seems like he's pretty close to cooked but if one is to help keitel salvage his career that sounds like a you know let's spend the off season in a pitching lab trying to do a thing you know and i don't think you're doing that in the remainder of this season so right one other update on a lack of success so to follow up on episode 1871, where I talked to a couple of the owners of the Empire State Grays of the Frontier League about their team, which at the time had a historically terrible record. They had started the season 0-35. When we talked, they were 2-42. Well, the Frontier League season is over.

It just ended, or at least the regular season did. And spoiler, the Empire State Grays did not make the playoffs. What? They did improve after that episode. So they were 2-42 at the time. They went 4-48 the rest of the way. So, yeah, they ended up 6-90, which is not nice, not nice at all. They ended up 56 games out of first place in the Eastern Division of the Frontier League,

6-90, and pretty easily sealed the worst professional record of all time, at least according to the criteria that I used when I looked that up for that previous podcast. So then I was wondering, hey, what happened to those Empire State Grays? Did they manage to turn their season around? Not exactly. Just for anyone who wasn't there, they were a traveling team. They were called up to replace a team that dropped out of the league, and they were composed of players who primarily had not played at that level before. So they were completely out of their depth and I was sympathetic to their plight, but they played like they were out of their depth. So hopefully it was in some ways a nice experience for those players at least to play in front of

bigger crowds and against better players and everything. And hopefully it wasn't too demoralizing to be beaten down by loss after loss after loss. But they made some history. So at the very least, they have that going for them. It's kind of a Keichel-esque thing where it's like, well, do you want to be the owner of a record? Do you want to make history if it's that kind of history? Or would you rather not stand out in that way? Like there's part of me that thinks, you know what, if I were one of the players on the Empire State Grace, maybe it would be like a little badge of honor.

You know, if I'm not someone who's going to go on to be in the big leagues and like that'll be my professional playing career. At least I have the distinction of having been on arguably the least successful team ever. That's something. That's a story to tell your grandkids, maybe when the sting of the losses eases a tad. I don't think you tell your grandchildren about that. I think you lied to them. It's like, what did you do during those years?

They're like, I sold medical supplies. I sold toilet flappers. Yeah. They're the size of a baseball. You wouldn't believe it. Yeah. They're the size of a baseball. You wouldn't believe it. Yeah. Another follow-up, we talked recently about the variability in the strike call rates on check swings by umpires at first base or third base. So our pal Mark Simon of Sports Info Solutions, he sent me a message because they do track that. They have that data.

And there is quite a bit of variation. So he just looked for regular umpires, more or less full-time umpires since 2020. And if you look at first base umpires, at the high end, you have Edwin Moscoso, who has called a strike on 47% of appeals when he has been at first. On the low end, you have Bruce Dreckman at 8%. Eight strikes on 101 appeals. And Dreckman is also a non-strike caller at third base. He's a 15% strike caller on appeals at third base, too. It'd be interesting if he were super likely to call a strike on appeals on one side, but not the other. But no, 8% to 47%. That is the kind of thing where I would think teams might be aware of that, whether it would affect what pitches they throw, you know, like, are you going to throw this slider in the dirt because you think someone might wave at it? And if you have Moscoso over there, you're more likely to get the call than if you have Dreckman over there. I don't know. I don't know if it would rise to the level of like dictating pitch selection or whether you would just throw that because it's the pitch you want to throw regardless. But that is a pretty big range. And at third base, again, since 2020, at the high end, you have Todd Titchener at 47%, just like Moscoso. And then on the low end, a bunch of guys were at about 14%, including Marty Foster. So again, it is like seemingly, you know, you might have to regress these rates a little bit. Like, I don't know how many appeals you need to get the true talent on the umpire's proclivity for calling the strikes or not. But we have a range here of like some umps being, you know, five times more likely to call strikes than other umps.

So that's notable. Yeah. I'm very surprised that there's that much variation in the population for that. Like I'm trying to come up with like a grand unified theory of check swings now. Yeah. I mean, some guys, again, because the rulebook doesn't specify exactly what is and isn't, umpires might just have their own rubrics. You know, one guy says, oh, he broke the wrist. And the other guy says, oh, he broke the plane of this or that or whatever.

Or some guys just go by gut or feel. This does kind of reinforce my belief that this could or should be automated. Because if there's that wide a range. Yeah, then there's not enough agreement around what the standard should be for it to be useful in its current iteration. Exactly. Yeah. It's like the strike zone prior to PitchFX and QuestTech and StackCast and everything

where there was a really wide range and variability and maybe that was just too much. Whereas now it's much more uniform, much more standardized. There's still variation, but everyone is working around roughly the same understanding and definition of the strike zone. It seems like there is just a huge divergence among umpires when it comes to what is a called strike or not. So, again, let's get the robo umps out there for the called strikes. Let's track the degree of bat movement. Yes, just for that. Just for that track the the degree of bat movement yes just for that just for that slippery slope but just for that oh it's not a slippery slope you can nail

them into the ground they're robots ben there's no slipping and sliding at all another follow-up craig finn of the hold steady he tweeted the other day i've spent decades okay i'm with you i was just making sure that i wasn't getting it wrong you know that yep i wasn't thinking of a grapefruit I've spent decades in rock and roll, and I've rarely encountered volume as oppressive as the everyday PA level at a Yankees game. Oh, seconding or thirding or 515th in my Yankee Stadium take, specifically about it being too loud, which is maybe not just a Yankee Stadium phenomenon. I don't know how the decibel level there compares to other ballparks. I know it's loud elsewhere as well. Yeah, I only notice it when I'm supposed to talk to Scott Boris and then don't end up having the average. Yeah, exactly. Scott Boris and then don't end up having the abrogation.

Yeah, exactly. So, you know, rock bands, they wear earplugs and they have monitors and everything so that they don't damage their hearing. Or if they don't, then they end up being deaf by the time that they are dinosaurs on the classics circuit. But you can't do that at Yankee Stadium, or you can. I guess most people probably don't, but it is really loud. It is quite impressively loud. And I know that makes me sound old, but I don't think it's only old people who think that. And I think it is probably louder than it used to be. Not that it was quiet when I was a kid and going to old or medium, intermediate Yankee Stadium, but there's a difference between the loudness of the crowd and the loudness of the pumped in crowd noise or just the PA blather, right? Like if the stadium is loud because it's an exciting moment and the fans are into it,

that's great. That's part of the appeal. But if it's an artificial loudness, if they're just trying to make it as loud as possible by just assaulting your ears then that's not as good no no i i like ben that you shared this yankee stadium take the response to your take has given me new faith in yankees fans let me say what i mean yeah yeah i think that yankees fans maybe even to a greater degree than just your average fan of a fan base chosen at random, are thought to be kind of defensive, like sometimes in

a reactionary way. I have maybe speculated about the instances where that is true of them on this very podcast, in fact. But the reaction that you have gotten to this take that yankee stadium is in fact bad and the affirmation that you have gotten to that end from from yankees fans makes me think that we have maybe misjudged them as a group that they are in fact capable of criticism and discernment and reacting to other people's criticism and discernment by going yeah that's a good point rather, ah, which I think is the reputation they have. So I'd like to say, hey, sorry, Yankees fans. Some of you are, in fact, fine.

their criticism. Oh, yeah. I guess it's kind of like, you know, at the end of the second episode of House of the Dragon, as you may recall or may not. I do not know, Ben. And you know what? I'm fine with it. I am content with my choices, just as I imagine you are with yours. We are all making good choices for ourselves. Maybe you'll get on board eventually. Maybe. But either way, I support you. But at the end of that episode, a character named Corlys Valerian is criticizing the king, Viserys Targaryen, and he is doing so to the king's brother, Daemon Targaryen. And Daemon doesn't like his brother, the king, either, but he's not on board with Corlys dissing him. So he's like, I will speak of my brother as I wish. You will not. Right. So like you can criticize your own, but others can't. And so Yankees fans and maybe fans of any team, they're very vocal in their criticism of their own. At least Yankees fans are like, you know, Yankees fans, at least some subset of them, the things that they will say about Aaron Boone or Brian Cashman.

We can't repeat on this podcast. Candidly, some of them were like,, oh no, you might be going to prison. Or Hal Steinbrenner or Joey Gallo for that matter. Yeah, you're on the list now. Yeah. And they're maybe at a level where like, if it were some other player, it's like, okay, we can criticize that player. He's one of ours, but you can't come in here.

He's wearing our uniform. It's our tribe, right? Yeah, like it's how, like like my i was allowed to make fun of my sister i mean i wasn't my parents were like that's mean don't do that you're a little jerk they didn't say that part last part but that was sort of the tone of what they said but i've got in a fight with someone on the playground because they were being mean to lauren i was like no no i get to do that you do not exactly yeah yeah you were were the Damon Targaryen of that interaction. Equally blonde. No.

Yeah. I'm just saying they don't all look credibly blonde. No. You know, that's not the biggest problem. And that's not why I'm not watching. But sometimes I see these promos and I'm like, you're not a blonde. Yeah. Between that and the fact that they all have the same name, I know there's a bit of a barrier for entry there. What?

What's up with that? But I think maybe some people have risen to the level where it's okay if anyone criticizes them because Yankees fans will be like, yeah, see, like we've been complaining about Cashman or Boone or whomever all this time. And so anyone now has carte blanche to say it and it will just be reinforcing what they are already saying. Or maybe it's the fact that I grew up as a Yankees fan and worked for the Yankees for a while. And so I know of what I speak when I criticize Yankee Stadium 3. I don't know. Yeah, you have credibility. Right. You're in a position and you have an informed perspective. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe that made it go down easier. Like if I were a Red Sox fan who was coming in and being like Fenway rules,

Yankee Stadium sucks, like maybe then get your back up a bit. They wouldn't go for a rhyme? Well, yes, I guess you probably would. But maybe then there'd be up a bit they wouldn't go for a rhyme well yes i guess you probably would but maybe then there'd be a bit of okay we got to circle the wagons here yes we got to stand up for our own but yeah also maybe aq stadium is just so bad that even aq's fans are like okay it's bad like we've been saying this all along thank you for recognizing this you know like the team as you mentioned earlier has not been performing as well in the second half as it was in the first see the nice neutral way that i used to describe that yeah and so maybe it feels nice to complain about something else right like to to focus on a thing

that well is going to hopefully be far less changing than the quality of the team both in terms of the longevity of the ballpark and and the team getting better but that you know is is like a lower stakes thing to be worked up about in a in a season than the other stuff might feel like yeah yeah yeah makes sense to me actually i guess the the other new york team is the one that is most likely to lose its division lead at this point because the the mets lead over atlanta is down to one game. One game. Yeah. So the Mets division odds, according to Fangraph, still at 70%. Yeah. Not sure how many Mets fans are feeling that confident.

Very. But the Yankees' odds to win the division, about 85%. So I guess that's not quite commensurate. Their lead is five times as large as the Mets' lead, and the Mets' odds of holding on to that lead are not that much lower, which perhaps speaks to the fact that the Mets have played better, have been a better team, maybe are a better team, arguably. It's not so much that the Mets have blown this thing as it is that the Braves have just been good. They're the defending champions. They're the Braves. They're playing like the Braves, whereas the Yankees have just sort of spit the bit, but they still do have a bigger buffer and cushion there. You know, I know that what you want to talk about is that,

but I've been distracted by something on the Fangrass playoff odds page. Do you know what it is? Do you know these Seattle Mariners have have a 99.2 chance of making the playoffs bud wow how does that make you feel very nervous it does it doesn't make you feel secure and confident and victorious like no i was i was texting with a friend of mine this weekend about this who is also a mariners fan and we were just remarking on the fact that like this is just like a I'm just remarking on the fact that this is just a good baseball team. Yes, it seems to be. Ben, what a weird thing.

What a weird thing to be able to say. I was like, yes, they're just a good baseball team. They're playing a little bit better than their base runs record. They're pretty spot on for their Pythagorean record at Fangrass. They're just a good baseball team so yeah that's weird i'm like waiting for the other shoe to drop i know well happy for you happy for them happy for mariners fans everywhere we will have more mariners content coming this yeah i mean i'm clearly gonna force it into at least one segment of podcast yeah i did want to mention along those lines that the seeding issue that we discussed, not a grapefruit or orange seeding issue, but seeding as it pertains to playoff system, there are times where paradoxically, because it seems like it's even more likely to be an issue this season now after there's a bit more separation between the Blue Jays and the Orioles

now for that last AL wildcard spot. Yeah, that's four and a half back now, huh? Yeah, that's pretty substantial. You would not have thought that four and a half games of difference between the Blue Jays and the Orioles would seem substantial in September when the season started, but it sort of does. That's what happens when you have played each other very recently, too. looks like it might be better now to be the number six seed than the number five seed. And in many seasons, that would have been the case and maybe also to be the number two seed instead of the number one seed. So as Joe notes here, the Astros are very likely almost certain to be the number one seed in the AL.

They're six and a half games up on the Yankees or effectively with the tiebreaker, they're six games up technically. And so the Yankees, if they get the second buy, if they hang on here, they're 11 games up on the current AL Central leaders. So if we just sort of assume that things hold the way they are today, which is not a certainty, but just for the purposes of this, you could say that it would be better. Joe writes, Rob Maines proposed that the number six seed might be a better landing place than the number five seed. I'm here to tell you that as it stands today in the American League, not only is it better, it's better by so much as to be worth acting upon. The number five seed in the AL will play a best of three on the road against a comparable team and then advance to play the Astros, the best team in the AL.

The number six seed will play a best of three on the road at the AL Central champ, at most the sixth best team in the league. Then, because MLB isn't receding, that team will play the Yankees. And Joe says, those two paths aren't comparable and they're not really all that close. So that's sort of a sticky situation. Yeah, but like don't act on it though, Mariners. You just keep winning. That's the thing, right?

Don't you mess with that nonsense. Don't do it. Yeah, that's what I was going to ask. Like, is this actionable in any way? Like, is this what are you going to do? Lose? Yeah. I mean, that's the like, is there any tanking potential here? Like you wouldn't want there to be, but probably not. Right. Like Joe says, like, there's no way around the conclusion. Probably not. Right. Like Joe says, like, there's no way around the conclusion that championship maximizing play in the 2022 American League is to be the number six seed rather than the number five seed.

No. And look, it's the playoffs and it's two short rounds and anything can happen. But if you are playing the odds here, you would prefer the path of the number six seed there. But is there anything that you realistically could actually do here? Like this is sort of a design flaw in that it is more desirable to be number six than number five. And it's not just this season. It would be many seasons. Right. But also.

The answer is they should reseed. Right. Yes. Yeah. But. That's the answer. Yes. So Joe says that the AL Central winner could play well enough to seem as much a threat as the top wildcard team.

There could be enough separation between the number five and number six teams to make this a moot point. The Orioles could rebound and create a fight for that last playoff spot. Maybe MLB dodges a bullet this time. But the problem isn't going away. As Mains wrote, in many seasons, playing the third division title list is going to be a better draw than playing the top wildcard. And so the incentive to be the last wildcard rather than the second one is often going to be in play, bracketing the playoffs so that the 6-3 winner plays the number two seed just doubles down on that incentive. But what would you do about this? Because like, is there enough room between you and the team that is currently out of playoff position

that you could actually risk doing whatever it is, you know, like you wouldn't shut someone down because you have to play them in the playoffs, but like giving players

a rest, I guess, would be the way that you would tank and wouldn't be completely tanking because also you're resting guys and maybe they'll be

better rested come October. But like, that's how you would do it, right? Just like play your September call-ups more, give more rest to the top guys. Like you could do that in a way and even kind of camouflage it so that you would have plausible deniability. It's not that we're tanking. It's that, hey, we've had a long season and it's been a hard-fought battle. And now we're just giving guys a breather before we go into the playoffs. But do you have enough real estate to play with

that you would take the chance, especially if you're the Mariners? Oh yeah. So like, and I want to be clear, my answer isn't different for teams that aren't the Mariners. It is maybe especially true for Seattle because it's like, listen,

you just got to play past the final day of the regular season. That is your mission. You worry about what happens once you get there, once you get there. Yeah. Okay? Don't, don't. Because look, if one believes in sort of the magic of it all, Baltimore is also a very compelling story here. So you don't want to mess, you don't want to invite that monkey pot to

girl you stay away from that stay away because you have one job and it is to play post-season baseball because i can't keep freaking talking about it so go do your job but also like look i know you could probably camouflage it somewhat but baseball players aren't dumb i don't want to be the person who proposes it i want to be in the clubhouse when some front office nerd comes down and it's like hey we're gonna lose a little bit to end the year how's that sound yeah yeah i wouldn't be in the room when that idea gets pitched right because i don't think it'll go very well then i think it would be bad i'm just trying to imagine oh my god oh oh i'm like sweating tried to play themselves into better playoff position and ultimately played themselves out

of playoff position i just think that you never you never want to employ a strategy where someone can look back in hindsight and be like they were too cute do you don't try Don't try to be cute because you might be too cute. And then. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Having a fit. Yeah. I think that also like baseball is less susceptible to tanking at least the type that NBA is susceptible to.

Yeah. For a few reasons. Like one, it's just not as advantageous to get a high draft pick in MLB as it is in other leagues. But also I think it's just it's like harder to lose. On purpose. Yeah. Like once you've assembled your team, right? Like you can assemble a non-competitive team. But it's harder to say, OK, given the players we have on hand, we're going to reduce our odds of winning today because you have a bigger team and there are more players.

And what are you going to do, like sit your entire lineup? Like, you know, in NBA, you can sit like one star and significantly impair your odds. But in baseball, as we know, like having one or two superstars doesn't make you a great team. And being down a star or two doesn't make you a terrible team. being down a star or two doesn't make you a terrible team. So there's only so much you can do realistically without making it incredibly glaring that you're doing this. So between that and the fact that there's probably not going to be so huge a difference in the standings between the teams that are in the wildcard position and the teams that are just out of it, maybe there's not that huge.

Maybe it's like more of a this doesn't look good because it's not great to have a team that is not as good be rewarded for not being as good. So that's not good just from a optics perspective. But maybe it's not as dangerous from a competitive integrity standpoint. No, you still shouldn't do it. It's just bad. It's just a bad thing to don't mess with it just do your job put your head down go win some baseball games play in october and let me like have a happy family text thread that's all i want yeah and also just wanted to briefly salute what zach gallen is doing for the Diamondbacks.

I almost caught myself when we were talking about Keichel and saying that he had played for a couple of bad teams. Well, arguably he's only played for one. Yeah. Because Diamondbacks, not so bad. Now, in fact, they're half a game behind the Giants in the West. How about that? How about that? I guess says as much about the Giants as it does about the Diamondbacks.

But they're only three games under 500 or four games at this point. And a lot of that is because Zach Allen has a 41 and a third inning scoreless streak going. Yeah, he's been spectacular. Yeah. So he's close to entering the top 10 scoreless streak wise. And he has already tied the record for most scoreless starts in a row. He's tied the record for most scoreless starts in a row. So he has tied Don Drysdale in 68, Oral Hershiser 88, Zach Greinke 2015 with six scoreless starts.

Of course, he has pitched fewer innings than all of those guys over those starts and significantly fewer than Hershiser or Drysdale. Hershiser's streak, of course, is the record of 59. And this will be fun to watch Gallin chase this. Dan Szymborski gives him about a 2% chance, according to his new Fangraphs post on the subject. But everyone's talking about Gallin. There's a Fangraphs post about Gallin and a Baseball Perspectives post about Gallin. And people have been expecting big things out of Gallin for a while. He was good.

And then he got hurt. He had a stress fracture in his arm, right? And so he was not so effective last year, but now he's healthy. He is making some changes. He's maybe throwing some higher fastballs and working more secondary stuff in, basically like every other pitcher, I guess. But he's been better, and he's been just really great lately and has propelled the Diamondbacks to respectability. So Craig Calcaterra raised a question in his newsletter. He said, if Gallin does keep going and challenges Hershiser's scoreless innings record, there's an argument to be made that it's more impressive for it being over more starts.

I mean, the more starts you make, the greater the odds you show up one day and simply don't have it or that you'll face a team with their hitting shoes on, right? I guess I understand that perspective. I still think that probably going deeper into games is harder just because it requires greater durability. It requires you to face the same hitters multiple times in the same game. So yeah, like you're rolling the dice, I guess, a little bit that you won't have it one day maybe but also you're having an easier assignment in each given outing so i think if anything i would go with gallons being a tad easier but it's a impressive accomplishment nonetheless and yeah it's happening when offense is down a little bit but so did it when drysdale did this or when

hersheiser did this. As we talked about recently, often record or near record setting performances require the conditions to be right for that, which is what makes Judge and what he's doing so impressive because the conditions aren't really right for it. But good job, Zach Gallen. And the Diamondbacks have been a lot more watchable lately in part because of him. i mean i have been too so i i was present for his start against nola when the phillies came through and then i was just at the ballpark to watch burns versus bone garner which went the brewer's way does not involve zach allen importantly but not because bone garner was particularly bad which is its own interesting

bit of business but um there's just like there are a lot of people at d-backs games and they are excited about the d-backs and uh it's pretty cool you know like uh there have been stretches where that is not true i remember i remember in early 2021 i went to a diamondbacks game and i think i had had i think i had had one of my vaccine shots but not both and so like i went and i was like oh is this is this a bad idea and then i was like oh no i'm very socially distanced yeah this is in fact fine because you know it was it was a warm enough day that they had the the roof closed because they wanted the air on and i was like it's still a big space but i don't know is this the right. And I was like, it's still a big space, but I don't know. Is this the right thing?

And I was like, no, it's fine. And that hasn't been the experience lately. People are there and they're excited. And you got Gallen doing what he's doing. And you have some of the young guys coming up. And it's cool. It's nice to be there and see them starting to turn the corner. It's the difference between groaning and respectable baseball.

That's pretty fun. Yeah. The Diamondbacks headlines are looking up lately. And last thing is that Joe Maddon, former Angels manager, was on Jason Stark's podcast Starkville with Doug Glanville. And he had some things to say about analytics and managers, perhaps not surprising things. He has maybe said some somewhat similar things since his dismissal from the Angels, but he is really harping on this. He basically thinks that analytics have been taken too far and Teams implementation of them have gone too far.

And it's somewhat notable, I think, when he says it just because he was such a standard bearer for more progressive managers who were incorporating front office input when he was with the Rays or even earlier in his time with the Cubs. And things have changed and he has not changed along with them, and he thinks that they've changed for the worst. And maybe he makes some valid points here. I think there are also some points he makes that sort of show that maybe he's not keeping up with the times, which, I mean, I guess he would not dispute that. Like, he doesn't want to keep up with the times. He doesn't like where the times are going.

He is not a fan of the times. And, you know, there are aspects of that that I agree with. Yeah, sure. Yeah. So part of what he's criticizing here is maybe specific to the Angels to some extent. So I can't really comment on how the Angels implement data and how they pass it along to coaches and players. It's quite possible that they're not doing that so well. But some of the points he makes here I think sort of kind of mark the difference between the moneyball era and maybe like the player development era, like the data-driven player development era. Just because like he seems to think that the data, the stats should just sort of stay upstairs.

And to the extent that they make it down to the field, the coaches should be the only conduits for that, basically. And so he makes a good point here where he says, I want all the information. I do. He keeps emphasizing he wants information. I just don't like the way it's implemented. It gets to the point where the pregame is a meeting every day and it's an elongated meeting and players don't need all this information. Quite frankly, they need nuggets. They don't need dissertations. And, you know, that's true, I think. Like, again, this comes down to maybe the Angels aren't doing this as well as other organizations are.

I don't know. But it's true that you don't want to overload players with information. You want to boil it down to digestible pieces and actionable pieces of information. So if there was information overload there, then that could be bad. He says, you just need a nugget. You don't need all this. People want to tell you how to build a watch. I just need to know what time it is. And true, again, the purpose, I guess, of having other conduits of having people who are passing that information and translating that information is that Joe Madden doesn't necessarily need to dive into the database himself and neither do the players. It's being digested and distilled and presented to the players, ideally, in an easily consumable way where they can just say, OK, what are the takeaways here?

That's all I need to know. So maybe his specific experience, perhaps he has a gripe here. But he also says he resents the imposition of the information. He says it's to the point now where actually our general manager had an analytical guy dressing in the coach's room. I mean, that shouldn't occur. That's an imposition. And that's where he starts to sound sort of overly old school in my mind here, where he says, I want analytical

people on my staff, but I don't want them in the dugout. I don't want them in the clubhouse. I want them to do their job, give the work to the coaches, let the coaches then teach the players. I don't need presenters in the dugout. I don't need presenters in the clubhouse. It's getting to the point where their impact or authority is exceeding that of a coach, and that's what I think is wrong. And he talks about how this wouldn't have flown in Gene Mock's day or Billy Martin's day or Earl Weaver's day. And yeah, that is true. But again, that's not necessarily an argument against it. A lot of teams, it seems like, from afar at least, have had success with having traveling analytics people.

Maybe they're in the clubhouse. Maybe they're in the dugout in uniform on some teams. They're around and the thinking there is, well, if they're with the team and they're talking to the coaches all the time and they're talking to the players, they'll be more effective conduits for this. They'll be on the ground. They'll be able to see both sides and be the best intermediaries that they can be. And that seems like a model that is working and has been embraced by a lot of teams. And it seems like it should make some sense. So again, just being like, this is my territory. I'm the manager and you cannot interfere. This is my fiefdom. That seems overly regressive or possessive to me.

What do you think? Yeah, I think that there can be particular aspects of the modern game that aren't in accordance with your aesthetic and that maybe aren't as exciting as you would like them to be, or they're emphasizing a skill set that you think is the wrong one. And the ability to assemble a coaching staff and a front office and a player dev organization and a scouting apparatus that all work together and in concert is predicated on the idea that those people are going to find ways to effectively communicate with one another. And so I don't doubt that there are probably teams where

that communication system works better than in others where there is more or less dysfunction depending on the team. But the idea that you are the only person who can communicate potentially very complicated analytical concepts to players and that the people on the other end of that aren't also interested in finding ways to have those conversations with players so that they are understandable and resonate and useful and can be implemented to make a team better strikes me as just wrong like i don't like you said i don't know how much of this is a sort of veil complaint about some angel specific dysfunction versus his understanding of this kind of across the game but i think that being a manager comes with a lot of responsibilities the idea that you as a manager comes with a lot of responsibilities. The idea that you as a manager will be able to

better serve your team and your players by taking on additional subject matters to become an expert in and to be able to translate strikes me as doomed to failure. Yeah. There's so much more information now. Right. And so many teams are greatly expanding their coaching staffs to deploy that information and disseminate that information more effectively, which is one way you can do it. But again, like the lines have blurred between what's a coach and what's a front office person. It's sort of, hopefully you're all on the same page and pulling in the same direction more or less, but you need more people to spread that greater quantity of information, I think. And teams have realized that it can be a competitive advantage to have more coaches working with more players. And so

I think pushing back against that and drawing a distinction between this is a coach and this is a non-coach, you know, like, do you have to have played the game to be a coach? Like what? Right. And like, this was one of the things I was going to say, you know, he has this bit in here about how, you know, he doesn't want analytics folks in uniform on the field. And it's certainly not the only avenue that, say, women have to being uniformed personnel, but it's a big one. And I don't know if he's really thinking about who he is potentially excluding beyond their subject matter expertise by drawing the lines that he is. I mean, I think that the teams that are using information in a way that helps their players be the best version of themselves are open to the idea that there are going to be a lot of different communication styles that you have to employ.

the idea that there are going to be a lot of different communication styles that you have to employ, that there are going to be players who want to get really into the nitty gritty of advanced stats. And there are guys who just aren't going to care about that. And you have to be able to communicate with the, you know, both ends of that spectrum and everything in between in order to successfully assemble a club. The idea that you would bring fewer voices and fewer perspectives to bear on that seems to be moving in the wrong direction. And I think that like, you know, sometimes when you read interviews like this, and it is kind of surprising to hear it from Madden, but it's like they use the word analytics. And I'm like, what does that even mean to you? Like, if you had to define what

is analytics, it's just information, right? He keeps saying, I want to get the information, but I don't like this other stuff. And it's like, it's the same stuff, man. Like, you know, there's this quote later where he's like, when it comes to all this information, the players, when you're throwing your bullpen, it's not about throwing the pitch or how did it feel to execute that pitch? It's about running right to the machine.

What was the spin rate? So it's the actual execution of the game that is being diminished. And I read that and I'm like, spin is just one measure of execution, right? Like the reason you care about that is because we know that sometimes you know that that feels good, but sometimes this stuff is hard to suss out, right? Or maybe you don't have the vocabulary you need to do it. Or maybe, you know, it's useful for you to have an objective measure that says,

this is how it felt, but this says it's not working. And we're coupling that with what the coach saw in the moment. And we're going to use all of that to triangulate an adjustment so that I can execute this pitch better, right? It's just information. And I don't want to be insensitive to the idea that there are times when, and i don't want to historicize these times i'm sure that they still that this still happens but that there haven't been times when you know people in baseball ops haven't come in and been like i know what's right you're gonna do it this way and if you don't like you're dumb and i'm right and you're wrong right like that they haven't pulled the like danny devito and matilda like i'm right, you're wrong. And then you want to like

use your magic powers to throw a book at them. And so like, I know that that still happens, right? That there can be an arrogance to the certainty that you feel like that information is bringing to you. But that can go both ways, right? Because the expertise and experience you're bringing to bear as say a former player and a coach, that's just another form of information. And if you are certain in that information, even in the face of either your communication of it not working or it not manifesting into results on the field, you're just as guilty, right? And so I think that the conversation, there are just as guilty, right? And so I think that the conversation, there are two conversations that need to happen and they need to happen in parallel.

There's the conversation that teams and the league and everyone who has a stake in baseball, even the people who aren't playing it, need to have about like, what do we want this game to look like, right? And look like means a lot of different things, right? It means how do we ensure people have access to play? What kind of rules can we put in place to incentivize scoring or make people run more or whatever, right? There's like that aesthetic conversation. Right. And then there's like the people conversation that teams need to have internally about like,

how do we make this information, whatever it is, whether it is a qualitative scouting report or the results of a deep statistical analysis or, hi, I'm X coach. I had this experience when I was a player. Here's what I'm seeing when you're throwing this pitch and how the pronation of your wrist is affecting the way that it's delivered. How do you knit all of that information together in a way that is going to be digestible to your coaches and your players? And it isn't the information's fault when that doesn't work, right? That is a people problem, not an information or analytics problem. And so

that's what needs to be solved is how do we get these pieces to talk to each other and sort of like recognize the value that they each bring, but also recognize their limitations in particular situations. And oh, it's fine that there's limitations there because if we're looking at this entire swath of data, we probably have the information we need to solve this problem. We just have to have like humility collectively to pick and choose and like talk to each other about it anyway. And if someone's focusing on spin single-mindedly to the exclusion of all else then that might be a problem but that's a problem with how you're communicating that information to them you know if they're just like conceptualizing its importance

right like that's yeah but it's not the spins fault yes like the spin didn't do it it's just spin we can just quantify it now so the one thing he says that I think is the most telling is when he says the baseball ops group, to me, their primary objective should be acquisition of players. It's getting good players in your room. When you get good players in your room, any kind of analytics looks good. That's not true. That's not true. No, that sounds to me like he's stuck in this earlier era of baseball where it's all about like, oh, let's go get the guy with the high on base percentage because no one else knows he's good. Right. That doesn't fly anymore. So, yeah, you can go get good players.

That's great. But a big part of getting good players now is helping them get good and making them better. And using them in a way that emphasizes their skill. Yeah. And so why would you want to leave that solely to the coaches? Like I know that's how it worked historically, but I don't know that it ever made sense. And it definitely doesn't make sense now that the people who have access to all this information and just this bigger brain trust upstairs, they're putting the team together. They're crafting the way that they want it to work. bigger brain trust upstairs. They're putting the team together. They're crafting the way that they want it to work. And then they're just handing over the reins completely to someone else and

just saying, well, do what you want. Hopefully you'll treat these players responsibly that we just got for you. But it's not like players are finished products now and you can just go collect them based on what they've done and just leave them alone to perform. The the best teams are the best now because they're getting more out of those players and they're communicating with them in a way that helps them unlock latent abilities. So you can't just say, set it and forget it. Like you have to make sure that you either have coaches who are very adept at making players better, like not necessarily young guns either. Like maybe it's Brent Strom making Zach Gallen better with

the Diamondbacks. But it has to be someone who has that mindset and that familiarity with the information and that ability to communicate it. And when he's talking about, you know, every day we get ready for the game and the GM and the assistant GM would come in and they would start talking about how I should use the bullpen that night. Like I haven't done that for the last 40 years. When you do that, when these people do that, the game becomes cloudy. You're in the dugout, you know what you'd like to do, but these people have come downstairs prior to the game

and they load you with stuff that's not necessarily helpful. Now, a lot of this has taken me back to the 2015 Sonoma Stompers and me and Sam Miller talking to Phelan Lentini or Yoshi, our second manager, and a lot of that was about navigating, okay, when do we offer this input and how do we offer it? And at first we were offering too much information. And so we had to boil it down to the essential pieces and we had to maybe talk before

the game or after the game instead of during the game, because like you do want the manager and the coaches to have some sort of authority, I guess. That's the tricky part of this is like, well, why would the players follow their lead or listen to them if they're just puppets and they're just figureheads and mouthpieces, right? And if they know that all of the power and all of the decisions are coming from upstairs, then why do you even need a manager? You need to imbue that person with some sort of power or authority in order to get players to listen to them potentially. So a lot of this is just like navigating managers losing some of their traditional power and still having to maintain some. So, you know, if you're just coming down and saying, do this, do that, put this guy in, then put that guy in, then then the manager might feel like, well, why do you need me to be this push button manager? I guess, you know, like you need someone to actually make the move. But if you're just yanking my chain and I'm just doing what you tell me to do, then what's the purpose of my being here? And so I guess you wouldn't want it to be so overruled to the point

where it's like, well, the manager wants to do this and we want to do something different. And what we say goes, ultimately, I guess you'd rather be on the same page or at least like when there is some disagreement, maybe you're the ones to bend at times and let the manager have his way. And maybe the manager knows something you don't. So it has to be a bit of a give and take, I guess, if you take too heavy a hand and it's just like, do what I say, because this is what the numbers say, then the manager is probably not going to be happy and feel fulfilled in that position. And maybe the players will sense that and you might lose the clubhouse a bit. Right. You have to have, it needs to be a relationship, right? And it needs to be one with two-way communication. But I think the idea that there isn't useful feedback to be had from the front

office is and that and that the front office can't receive useful feedback from the manager like it just needs to be something that's collaborative you know if for no other reason then otherwise you end up walking a guy with the bases loaded i was just gonna say he doesn't say that here but running between the lines like was that just an? Like, hey, you want to dictate my moves? Watch this. I'm going to walk a to distill something useful in the face of all the information and all the expertise that is on the front office side would be just as silly as them saying we have nothing to learn from the you know 40 years of experience that this guy is bringing to bear in the dugout you know that doesn't seem great either i mean mostly i read this and feel like it reads like someone who had a bad parting with an org where there weren't clear expectations set in advance of how much sort of authority and leeway he was going to have and i don't know

if that was consistent over his tenure like how much of this is was something that was newer as the team kind of got more and more desperate to be good and then ended up you know continuing to be bad i i don't know the answer to that but it doesn't read it doesn't read great like i think that you know he talks about how theo epstein has also been critical the energy behind that feels really different now i haven't listened to the podcast yet. And I know that these are excerpts from a conversation he had with Jason Stark. So I might be attributing sort of a tone to it that isn't present when you actually listen to it. But yeah, I don't know. Like, there are a lot of ways to like, imagine, here's a an example, Ben, that came to mind while I was reading this, like you're, you're saying the front office should acquire good players,

and then the coaches should coach them, and that should be that. You're the Pittsburgh Pirates. Sorry. You're like a couple years ago Pittsburgh Pirates, right? And your front office is like, I have identified a great pitcher. He pitches fastballs at the top of the strike zone. And you're like, we're ground ball people. How does that get your team better, right? You have a good player. You're not optimized to use him, right? You're not setting him up for success. You're not setting yourselves up for success.

It has to be a collaborative relationship. Yeah, I think Theo's critiques are more about, well, these things work and they make sense from a team perspective. But they maybe don't produce the best brand of baseball. Right. And that's a different kind of criticism. Right. But he's not saying that teams are doing something counterproductive. If anything, he's saying, no, teams are doing what they should be doing. And that's why they must be stopped. We must change the rules so that these things don't work so well anymore. All right. Let's end with the past blast. This is from Richard Hirschberger, historian, saber researcher, author of Strike 4, The Evolution of Baseball. This is a pass blast from 1899, of course. And Richard writes, 1899 saw a race between

the yachts Columbia and Shamrock. Four British journalists came to America to cover it. On September 16th, they were guests of the Brooklyn Club and witnessed a baseball game, Brooklyn beating Chicago 9-7. Here's the impression by John M. Fearon of the Glasgow News, published in The Sporting Life of September 23rd. Quote, I have now sampled baseball. Baseball is great. And the greatest thing about it is the spectators. The great American language, elastic as it is on the tongue of an expert, is a medium all too mild to render the feelings of a baseball enthusiast. There are sports at which the spectators play a passive part, but baseball is not one of these.

Every man who joins a baseball crowd feels that it lies upon him to contribute his share of the entertainment. Every motion on the part of the players brings a response from the crowd, and the response is couched in language such as Professor Gardner never met in his exploration of Monkeyland. More on that in a moment. Wait, Monkeyland? Monkeyland, yeah. Yeah, okay.

The crowd is going, yeah, yeah, yeah, wow, wow, whoo, are words of cheer and encouragement. But no stenographer has ever yet been trained to wrestle with the sounds of adverse criticism, and the only attempt to record it by phonograph ended in disaster to the cylinder. The superlative degrees of this adverse criticism, I guess he's talking about booing and jeering and taunting, are reserved for the umpire, who seems to be used principally as a dumping ground for abuse. The treatment of the umpire by a baseball crowd is a palpitating proof of the evidence of free speech in America. Therefore, long live baseball and

more power to the lungs of the baseball crowd. Richard writes, baseball people ate this stuff up. This was the period of jingoism and rising anti-British sentiment. At the same time, they craved good words for baseball from Britain. We might wonder how much Fearon was being polite to his hosts and what he said about this when back home. And he also said, I had to track down the reference to Professor Gardner and Monkey Land, as this had limitless potential to be deeply regrettable. Good news, Richard Lynch Gardner was an early researcher in Simeon language and a prominent figure at this time. So that explains that. That's so much better than most of the options I thought it might entail.

Yes, right. So I guess this is kind of like the Jacques Barzun quote, whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball, the rules and reality of the game. He's sort of saying, hey, free speech. It's emblematic. Baseball crowds just venting their ire at the umpire is how America works. So good for them. Cheer away and jeer away. All right. So that will do it. I learned in the course of recording this podcast that the clementine is the smallest of the mandarin oranges, but there is also an intermediate stage called the tangelo, which is a cross between a tangerine and a grapefruit. See, they're always like hybrid fruits. Yeah. Right. So tangelo like hybrid fruits. Yeah, right. So tangelo, I guess.

Not tangelo, tangelo. But maybe that's the ideal toilet flapper size. Just split the difference. It's tangelo size. I really think it's fine to just say like, hey, it's the size of a baseball. I think most people have a general sense of that, Ben. Gave us good material.

I mean, yeah, because now we have to worry about what kind of juice you're drinking. Alright, that will do it for today. Thanks for indulging our lip-flapping about toilet flappers. Didn't mean to cause a big flap. I wonder what John M. Fearon of the Glasgow News would have made of the PA system at

Yankee Stadium. You can hardly hear the yeah, yeah, yeah, wow, wow, who's, over the sound of the piped-in audio at a big league ballpark today. How are you supposed to hear people verbally abusing the umpires when the stadium itself is verbally abusing our ears? One more follow-up. We got a message from listener Josh in response to our discussion on episode 1898

about the pedantic question of whether it is appropriate for announcers to say that the postgame is coming up after the final out, given that if there's a walk-off, the postgame does not come directly after an out. One alternative I suggested was after the final play. So Josh says, is a strikeout a play? It isn't in the sense of batting average on balls in play. And if the ball doesn't get hit into the field of play, can someone make a play on it? And if a strikeout isn't a play, then isn't saying that the postgame show will come up after the final play its own risk, I think? Well, my response to that is that I am comfortable calling a strikeout a play.

It's a play. If you look in a play log after the game, you will see the strikeout. It's an action and out is made. And even though the ball is not put into play, it isn't in a play log after the game, you will see the strikeout. It's an action. An out is made. And even though the ball is not put into play, it isn't hit, someone still has to make a play on it. The catcher has to catch it or tag or force the runner out. And that's why the catcher is credited with a put out on a strikeout. You got to catch that third strike. That's a play. So I'm nipping this one in the bud.

A strikeout is definitely a play in my mind. One last note about Zach Gallin. We got a message from Patreon supporter Sam, who noted, just wanted to call out Dalton Varshow of the Diamondbacks is ranked seventh overall in outs above average and is the number one overall outfielder. I found this to be one of the most shocking stats I've seen so far this year. That is surprising. Maybe not quite as much as his teammate Christian Walker completely lapping the first base field in outs above average, but pretty impressive that someone who still splits time between catcher and center field and also right field would be one of those things. Not much of a framer, really, but a good outfielder. That makes him quite a valuable player overall. Plus, he's got 20 homers and he's an above-average hitter, more than a three-win player. Good job, Dalton Varshow.

Just wanted to mention that because Zach Gallin, according to Outs Above Average, has had the second-best defensive support behind him of any pitcher in the majors. It's Cal Quantrill, whose defenses have prevented 12 runs above average behind him. And then it's Gallin at 10 runs. And that will help you have a scoreless inning streak if the fielders behind you are preventing your opponents from scoring. I wonder what the runs prevented total behind him during the streak has been. Pitchers have to have a lot of help from their defense to prevent runs. So the Diamondbacks defense coming up big behind Gallin during this streak, and maybe all season long. In fact, the Diamondbacks as a team lead the majors in

outs above average and runs prevented according to StatCast. So just a good defensive team. That's maybe why they're a bit better than you think. I don't know what you think. I shouldn't cast aspersions on your thinking about the Diamondbacks. So they deserve a hat tip for the streak as well. If you want to tip your hat to Effectively Wild, you can do so by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. 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. Peter Shoemaker, Tex Paisley, NPC, Scott Kramer, and

William123. Thanks to all of you. Our patrons get access to the Effectively Wild Discord group, which is just a great place, closing in on 800 members and participants. You also get access to monthly bonus episodes hosted by yours truly and Meg. We've got 10 of them in

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back with another episode soon. Talk to you then. Just take out the world, some of the gods, the gods are fast And it's obvious that you're a man that's out there on hold But you know where I am and you know what I want I'm not ever hiding, completely alone So I'm trying to grow up, a contingency plan And it's obvious that you're a man that's out there on hold But you know where I am and you know that you could have both You could have both

You could have both