Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1907: Where’s There a Wills?

Episode Date: September 24, 2022

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the man who tried to return Roger Maris’s 61st home run ball, two Mickey Mantle letters, the 2017 Zac Gallen/Sandy Alcantara trade, how Maury Wills changed (and dominated) basestealing, and Aaron Judge’s recent value even when he hasn’t hit homers, then answer listener emails (38:15) about hitters setting […]

🎵 Hello and welcome to episode 1907 of Effectively Wild, a Fanagraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of Fanagraphs and I'm joined as always by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? Healthier than you, is the sound of it. I feel better than I sound. I'm in that like phase of where I'm like expectorating. Just to pick the grossest word possible. I can sense some of that. It's funny after our last episode when we were talking for quite a while I caught myself thinking I hope I don't catch this cold Meg has. Just because we've been talking for so long.

And usually when you talk to someone and you're with them, you're like, uh-oh. Uh-oh, I'm going to get it. And they're sniffling and sneezing. And then I remembered, that's not how this works. I'm very far away from Meg, physically speaking. But I guess that's good because we want to have the illusion that we're just together, just chatting, just in the same room. And if I am falling for it, then hopefully the listeners are too. Yeah.

I hope that it feels like you have stumbled upon two friends in your favorite properly populated bar and are like, oh, they're talking about baseball. I wonder what's up with them today. Exactly. Well, I wish you better health or at least better sounding. I'm on the upswing. It's working its way through. By the end of yesterday, I felt quite crummy, but I feel better today and I imagine I'll feel better tomorrow. But I appreciate your concern, Ben. So last time we started by talking about the ethical dilemma of returning a historic home run ball if one were to catch Aaron Judges, let's say. Should one profit from that?

Should one try to maximize the profit of that? And we talked over the pluses and minuses. I should have mentioned, though, that there's very direct precedent of the man who caught Roger Marris' 61st homer in 1961, whose name was Sal Durante. He's still alive, although not in good health as I understand it. And he was with his girlfriend, Rosemary, who would become his wife and they were on a double date. And he was broke at the time. He was 19 years old. He was a truck driver. He didn't have much money. In fact, Rosemary loaned him 10 bucks so he could buy four tickets to the game, $2.50 each.

And she then teased him about loaning him the money for the game for the rest of her life. But he did not have a lot of scratch. So he could have used some from catching that ball. a lot of scratch. So he could have used some from catching that ball. And yet, once he caught it and he had to fight for it, he was happy to return the ball and get nothing but a thank you from Maris. So he went and offered it to Maris. And Maris told him, keep it, kid. Put it up for auction. Yeah, somebody will pay you a lot of money for the ball. He'll keep it for a couple days and then give it to me. And that's actually just what happened. A restaurant owner in California, Sam Gordon, paid $5,000, I believe, for the ball, which is about $50,000 in today's inflation-adjusted money, and then gave the ball to Maris. So Sal Durante got to get a nice chunk of coin, and Maris got to get the ball.

So it worked out for everyone. But I guess that's the ideal arrangement where you get the moral satisfaction of having just offered the ball back to the player and you can feel good about that. But then the player's like, no, keep it, get what you can for it. That's best of both worlds, I guess. Yeah. I feel like perhaps I have heard part of this tale on a recent broadcast of a Yankees game, and I'm happy to fill in the gaps from my previous knowledge. But gosh, what a guy Roger Maris was to say that. Now, if I am thinking of the correct story, Ben,

that might have been on last night's broadcast. I can't remember if it was on last night's, which was on Fox or on a Yes broadcast. But didn't he use the money to like put a down payment on a house? Is that right? I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised. Well, see, like that's such a nice, to your point, like that's the perfect world that I want to live in where the guy is like, it's going to be fine. I'm going to get this ball.

Don't worry about it. But you should be a beneficiary of this. That's very nice. It is nice. Yeah. And I guess it's a little bit different if the ball is worth $50,000 in today's dollars versus the Judge 62 ball, which I've seen estimates anywhere from a million to five to 10 million to someone actually already offered two million, the head of an auction house, who I think said he would loan it to the public to display. I guess it depends on how many he ends up hitting, because if he hits more than 62, then it devalues number 62. But clearly, this kind of collectible, much more valuable than it was back then. Still nice, though. And another option, we got an email from

listener Patreon supporter Rick, who was the same one who caught Joey Manessis' first walk-off ball and gave it back to him. He said, in regard to the question of how much a milestone baseball really means to a player, I can provide one extreme example. A friend of a friend caught Jay Buhner's first home run, but no security or team representative ever showed up to ask for the ball. But no security or team representative ever showed up to ask for the ball. So the next day during batting practice, he flagged down Jay and said he caught his first home run and asked if he wanted it back. Jay replied, no, I'll hit more. That's great. And he hit more than 300 more. So, yeah, just don't get too attached to material things. I guess that's the Jay Buter way. Well, and this, I think, was where we kind of landed yesterday, right?

Where people engage with this stuff in a lot of different ways. And, you know, I wouldn't say there's an infinite number of ways to do it, right? I think it won't be controversial for me to say that, like, we'd prefer people not hample it up, you know, that's not our preferred mode.

But, you know, outside of that, I think there are a lot of ways to do this stuff that sort of fall within the bounds of something, you know, nice and reasonable., but it's a letter from Mickey Mantle or quote unquote from Mickey Mantle. It's written on New York Yan it was sent to a kid who had written in to lament the fact that pitchers were not pitching to Maris and Mantle as they were chasing Ruth's record. So here's the record. It's addressed to one Matthew Katz in New Haven, Connecticut. And it says, Dear Matthew, I'm delighted to hear that you are one of my most avid rooters. Your mother informs me that you are very unhappy because the pitchers walk me and not Roger Maris. You shouldn't feel badly about it because I don't. You see, Matthew, our ultimate motive is to win the ballgame and eventually the pennant. Surely it would be grand if one of us compiles a record-breaking performance, but you must remember that I have received over 115 walks this season. That means most of the times I am in a good position to score with fellows like Yogi, Elston Howard, Johnny Blanchard, and Moose Gowran following me with base hits. So understanding of on-base percentage there. But then this takes a turn in the next paragraph. As you grow a bit older and participate in sports, you will learn through experience that a team that works together will always win from a team of individualists.

That applies not only in sports, but in every endeavor and particularly among nations. History will show that a democratic country united in its effort toward peace will win over a country ruled by a dictator. Your interest in myself and the New York Yankees is duly appreciated. Sincerely, yours, Mickey Mantle. I had a lot of questions about this. At first, I wondered about its authenticity. It seems like a strange thing. First of all, for Jon Bernthal to just be posting, I haven't seen any evidence of this anywhere else. And then also, why would Mickey Mantle send that letter? It's a bit of a non sequitur, I guess.

Just going from walks help you win ballgames. So don't worry about me being pitched around. And this is why democracy is better than dictatorship. I mean, I guess it's a good lesson to learn. Yeah. We don't disagree. We just are confused about where in the syllabus it's falling, right? Exactly.

I emailed a couple of people. I emailed Jane Levy, who's the biographer of Mantle. I haven't heard back yet. I thought she might know whether this was real. And then I emailed Marty Appel, who is a former Yankees PR director. He said that the W-A, there is a W-A on the letter, and he said that that would refer to William or I guess Bill Ackman, and he would have composed this. So I guess that would have been the PR person, the person who was answering fan letters like this at the time. And he said that

he would have composed this, maybe, but likely not, for Mickey's approval. So he said that he would have composed this maybe but likely not for Mickey's approval. So he thinks that it was just someone sort of freelancing here, just going rogue, the Yankees PR director. Probably this was not dictated by Mickey Mantle for his approval? Are you okay sending this political message to Matthew of New Haven, Connecticut? Or maybe he just sent it. I don't know. It's interesting because if you Google, you can find letters that look like this on Yankee stationery from the time, like form letters, like, thanks for contacting me, Mickey Mantle. Sorry, I don't have time to respond to every letter individually, but thanks for your interest. Yeah, and here's your baseball card. Yeah, this is clearly personalized, but I don't know whether the Mick was actually overseeing this personally. As far as I can tell, it seems to be real, although if anyone can discover that it is not, please let me know. It'd be an interesting thing to fake as well.

Yeah. I assume it's authentic in the sense that it was sent although maybe not in the sense that it was coming directly from mickey mantle i mean i guess we can take some comfort in you know whether it was dictated directly or simply the pr person being like i gotta respond to this that he's like you know like mickey mantle will be fine with me saying democracy good fascism bad you know it's good itle will be fine with me saying democracy, good, fascism, bad. You know, it's good. It's good that he assumed that to be part of his set of core values would be disturbing to discover the opposite.

We'd be like, oh, no, it's quite a thing to learn about Mickey Mantle letter or surprising Mickey Mantle correspondence that is public because there is another one that I know is real and was included in Jane's biography of Mickey. It's from 1973. And I think this was Appel who was sending this questionnaire. It was the 50th anniversary of the opening of Yankee Stadium. And so the PR people sent a questionnaire to former players just saying, like, what's your favorite memory of Yankee Stadium? You know, tell us about an outstanding experience you had at Yankee Stadium.

And Mickey Mantle wrote back and wrote, I got a blowjob under the right field bleachers by the Yankees bullpen. There's some additional detail. And then he signed it. Mickey Mantle, the all-American boy. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, kind of poking fun at his public golden boy image, which was never quite the reality. You know, if that letter had become public, maybe people would have been less perturbed

by Maris being the one to break the record yeah right I asked Marty about that and he said yes that one is real also the letter is real in the sense that Mick penned it but it's a gag he was playing on my boss Bob Fishel who was very conservative and Mick liked to have fun with him so he was sort of an uptight, straight-laced fellow. I find that to be very funny. I find that very funny indeed. Yes. Appel said he kept the letter for many years. Mantle knew he had it.

Eventually, he gave it to Barry Halper, the collector, and it slipped into public domain. That's great. To Appel's regret from there. But it was all intended to be a joke. Maybe to his regret, but I'm kind of glad that it came to light. That's funny. Who knew he'd work blue like that? Yeah.

Well, publicly. Yeah. I guess this wasn't public, but it became public. But it became public. Wow. So I was reading the Baseball Prospectus Daily Boxscore Breakdown Box box score banter, which was written by Justin Clue on Friday. And it's always a rundown of the previous night's action and some highlights. I start my day by checking that out often.

And he mentioned something that was prompted by Zach Gallin having a great start against the Dodgers. Yeah. So not a scoreless start. His scoreless inning streak is over, but it was a 13 strikeout start against the Dodgers with two hits and one run allowed in eight innings. Pretty good. Pretty good. And Justin said, Gallin shut down the Dodgers and all it took was the best start of his career. Now all anyone can do is make the Marlins feel bad for not having a Sandy Alcantara-Zach Gallen pairing at the top of their rotation.

And when I read that, I thought, okay, yes, the Marlins could have had Alcantara and Gallen in theory and that they traded Gallen to the Diamondbacks, but they got Jess Chisholm back. Yeah, I don't think they're mad about that. No, that could work out for them in the long run. It's not too lopsided. He's probably the best player on the Marlins best position player yeah yeah even though he's been hurt much of the season i think he still has the most home runs of anyone who remains on the marlins that says more about the marlins offense probably than chisholm but chisholm is good too yeah and

the marlins tigers offense too yeah it's it's rough they have like the second lowest they have like two home runs ever it's it's bad it's bleak but anyway i brought this up not to ding the marlins for that trade but to ding the cardinals instead because as some may recall yes the cardinals traded alcantara and gallon yes they did in the same trade yes they did december 14th 2017 alcantara and gallon were traded with daniel castano who has been a you know decent enough reliever for the marlins over the past few years too and magnurie sierra who is no great shakes but has been a big leaguer, for Marcelo Zuna, a four for one, where you had four big leaguers and two of the, let's say, top 10 pitchers in baseball this year,

I think you could say, certainly by baseball reference were there, two of the top 10 by war. I think Gallin is just outside the top 10 by fan graphs were, but basically two of the top 10 pitchers in baseball this year were traded by the Cardinals almost five years ago now for Marcel Ozuna. Yeah. They probably want that one back. They probably want that one back. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm not saying they should have seen this coming. You wouldn't expect this to happen, obviously. But can you imagine the Cardinals with those two guys now? Because that's what the Cardinals have been lacking in a way, right? With Flaherty being injured as he has, and you have Wainwright, who's still great, but he's super old. And so they haven't had those young, really strong, homegrown top of the rotation starters lately. And that's why they've had to go get Jose Quintana or Jordan Montgomery. And that's worked out fine for them. They're doing just fine as it is.

But imagine if they had Gallin and Alcantara or even just one of those guys. Wow. What a trade in retrospect. Yeah. I think that we have seen them. We saw it, as you said. We saw this trade deadline right they're like you need more starters yeah jack flaherty pitched the other day i was like

oh yeah jack flaherty here you are you know so they've had they've had guys who have been injured they've had guys who haven't been as effective as they've wanted them to be and you know it's always who knows who knows if Galen and Alcantara become who they are now if they're still on that team. Like, I don't say that to knock the Cardinals dev, but it's just like they've been beneficiaries of other orgs. And so who knows? But also, yeah, I bet they want that one back. Yeah. They're looking at it like, oh our that wasn't our best day in hindsight

it's just so it seems very hard to do trades you know like you can have a you can have a good process you can feel confident in your evaluations of guys and you know it's just it's hard to know especially when they're as young as those guys were when they moved. Sometimes it just doesn't work out. I think you're probably hoping that when you balance the ledger at the end of a couple years, that you're probably aiming to be somewhat ahead, realistically. Maybe you look around and you're like, oh my gosh, I know that our perception of him is a little bit different now, but maybe you're hoping that every trade is going to be Fernando Tatis Jr.

for James Shield. But I think realistically, you know that's not going to be true. So you just want to be ahead. But I bet you have a couple. If you're a GM, I'm sure you have a couple where you're like, I really wish I had been sick that day, or the phones had gone down, or I'd seen a bear. I just couldn't do it. ever, you know, like this is going to come back to bite them. Like all of those prospects at the time were ranked, like according to MLB.com in this article, Alcantara was the ninth ranked prospect in the Cardinal system. Sierra was actually the high one at six. And then Gallon

was 13. So there you go. Magnuri Sierra was a higher rated prospect than Alcantara and Gallon. You know, and some of that might be the picturing of it all, but sure. Yeah, true. Right. So no one knew, you know, that these weren't looked on as the biggest blue chippers ever, as you might think, just based on how they worked out. I was looking back at just Jeff Sullivan's breakdown for fan graphs, and he didn't have the entire terms at the time that he was blogging he

just knew alcantara was the centerpiece coming back but still like the basic thrust of the piece was the cardinals just traded for their new best player because the cardinals didn't have a lot of star position players at the time and as jeff noted at the time of the trade the projection for ozuna was actually better than any other hitter who was on the Cardinals at the time. So he was like, yeah, I see why the Cardinals would want to do this. And you can see why the Cardinals would have wanted to do it at the time. As it turned out, they didn't get the best of Ozuna. And, you know, he had a really good offensive season for the Marlins in 2017.

And then he had a really good offensive season for Atlanta in 2020. And in between, he had a couple so-so seasons for them, right? He's basically an average player for them with maybe better exit speeds than results. Well, and then, you know, it's hard to resist as we think about these things with the benefit of hindsight, not sort of not only superimposing what we know about these prospects who end up doing super well, but also it's hard to resist superimposing what we know about someone like Ozuna, not only his performance on the field,

but the stuff that has happened off the field for him and his subsequent performance. So it's hard to... This is part of why being a GM is hard. And then if we're going several ranks down in terms of difficulty, why being an analyst, like a public facing analyst is hard. You're just doing the best you can with what you know about those guys in the moment and what you imagine them to be.

And then, you know, you kind of got to call it good. Yeah, I've got a few emails. I did want to mention before we get to those, Maury Wills died this year, the great dodger at age 89. And I was just thinking of his career in terms of a conversation that we were having recently about the lack of stolen bases and the lack of stolen base artists in baseball now. What we need is another Maury Wills really to come along and end an era of low stolen bases because that's kind of what he did. I mean, he gets a lot of credit for really reintroducing, repopularizing the stolen base after a long, low ebb. says that one person in history did something or invented something or popularized something. Generally, there are a lot of things going on and there are other people who are doing that and there are conditions that are conducive to those things happening at the time. But he was clearly the best and most notable base dealer of his era and especially early in his career because we were

talking about Bauman's post the other day about how John Birdie is trying to get to 40 steals and make this not the first season since 1958 that there has been no one who has stolen 40 bases. Well, Maury Wills came up in 1959. So immediately after that, it was not the absolute nadir of stolen bases, but it was quite close to it. Like earlier in the 50s was basically just low tide of stolen bases, but it was quite close to it. Like earlier in the 50s was basically just low tide for stolen bases. And really it had been a low tide for stolen bases for 20, 25 years at that point, because after the lively ball came in and people started hitting homers and then the rabbit ball and people were hitting for high averages too. Stolen bases really fell out of vogue and even managers and players who had played earlier in the dead ball era when

stolen bases were quite popular, they stopped doing it. So even influential managers like Hall of Famers Connie Mack and Bill McKechnie, they stopped stealing basically. Their team stopped stealing and then everyone followed their lead and some others and just no one really stole much. Like later in the 30s and the 40s and then early mid 50s, just it was a pretty static game. It was sort of station to station, not many players with high steal totals

and not a high steal rate league wide. And then Maury Wills came along and also Luis Aparicio. But it was really players in some cases coming from the Negro Leagues. It was like integration was big because in the Negro Leagues, in the Caribbean, et cetera, there were more base stealers and it was just a higher based stealing environment in some of those leagues. And so when those players were finally allowed into the AL and NL, they brought that style of play with them and helped popularize it. But Maury Wills came along, and he had not been a prospect at all. He was a total afterthought. He came up in his age 26 season, and he'd been bouncing around the minors forever.

And he basically picked up switch hitting late and that worked for him. And he ran a lot and he broke through and established himself. And really from the start, he was just leading the league in stolen bases constantly. Like his first full season, 1960 with the Dodgers, 50 stolen bases, led the National League. And he actually led the National League six straight seasons and led the majors some of those seasons. And I believe that is still tied for the most consecutive seasons, leading one's league in stolen bases. So it's pretty impressive that he was able to lap the league like that. I think Vince Coleman later tied him maybe with six consecutive stolen base titles in his league. But that's pretty much it.

And if you look at like 1960 to 65, when again, the league as a whole wasn't stealing that much, Maury Wills had 376 steals during those seasons. Aparicio was at 258 in second place, nowhere close. And then you had to go down to Lou Brock, 146, Willie Davis, 139. He was literally lapping the week. I mean, he was running circles around everyone at that time. So it's almost like we need someone like worry wills to come along and demonstrate that you can do this and it should be done and yeah maybe it will catch on again but you need someone to break the mold now like he did and end decades of not stealing so much how many seasons like let's assume that the new rules around pickoffs and the bases being bigger and all of that really

do lead to a dramatic uptick in stolen bases how many seasons do you think it will take for us to see even just one team that has altered in some way its understanding of a desirable prospect profile to take advantage of those right to really emphasize speed as a tool and to you know look at guys who maybe have demonstrated in college that they have really great base running acumen how long do you think it takes for us to see the sort of developmental tide turn there probably several seasons yeah i guess although if it's accompanied by a rule change like the one that we're getting next year, then maybe it wouldn't be so much,

oh, it's one guy, it's Maury Wills who's able to do something that no one else is able to do. It's, oh, suddenly conditions are ripe for this. Are favorable in a different way. Yeah. Yeah. In 62, by the way,

and I should say I mentioned that he was unsung and underrated and no one really saw him coming. I was reading in Craig Wright's great subscription newsletter, which I always recommend, Pages from Baseball's Past. He wrote about Wills this week and he noted that the Topps baseball card company, their practice was to sign anyone who they thought was remotely close to making the majors so that they would be able to get them on a card if they made it. And Wills was the first player they failed to sign before his major league debut. Just because he came out of, so far in stolen bases. He stole 104 stolen bases that year, which was unheard of. I mean, it was literally unheard of. He broke Ty Cobb's stolen base record, which was interesting because Cobb had played in a 154-game season, and the commissioner at the time actually came out and said that to break Cobb's record, Wills would have to do it in 154 games.

So it's just like attaching the asterisk to it, which was very silly, especially because Cobb had actually played 156 games that year because there were a couple of ties. because there were a couple of ties. And ultimately, Wills, I think, did tie Cobb in 156 and then blew by him. But no one was anywhere close to him in that season stolen base-wise. He ended up with 104, and the second-place guy was Willie Davis, 32. Wow. His teammate, 32. It's just ridiculous. So I asked Ryan Nelson if that is the biggest gap between a number one and number two stolen base guy in a single season just by

raw number of stolen bases and then by ratio. And yeah, by far, it is both. Leads and bounds. Yeah. So he had a lead of 72 stolen bases that year. Second place, 1974, Lou Brock had a 118 to 59 difference over Davey Lopes. That's 59. And then 1982, Ricky Henderson over Tim Raines, 130 to 78. It's just a 52 steal difference, which is kind of ridiculous. Also, Tim Raines stole 78 bases, which now would totally blow our minds. And yet he was just like way, way, way behind. It's like, oh, ho-hum.

Yeah. And then by ratio, Wills was a 3.25 to 1 over the second place guy. Next highest is 1939 George Case over Mike Krivich, 2.21 to 1. And then 1959 Aparicio over Willie Mays, 2.07 to 1. So again, just nowhere close. But it totally beat up his body. He actually wrote a book that came out in 1963, Maury Wells did, and he said he can't believe the physical beating he took, and he had to, like, wrap his legs, and it took a serious toll, which is another reason maybe why we don't see players going for so many stolen bases now. Like, it beats up your body. Yeah, that is a good point. It isn't, you know, it isn't without potential physical consequence to be active on the base paths in that way.

They weren't even doing it with the little oven mitts. Right. Exactly. They were just like, our hands, who cares? I bet they cared a lot because sometimes they jam them and then you'd be like, torn ligament, eh? But yeah, it was even riskier in some ways back then than it is now. Yep.

The legendary LA Times columnist Jim Murray said his body is so bruised he constantly looks as if he had just crawled out of a plane wreck. Jeez. Yeah. That's quite a visual. Also, I don't want to like, does he know what someone looks like when they come out of a plane? Hopefully not. Hopefully not. Anyway, that's not the point. he know what it like what someone looks like when they come out of a plane hopefully not but he did win the mvp award that year although he probably would not win it today which again i guess goes to show like we just don't prioritize stolen bases so much now right other places yeah

exactly so he had six war that year according to baseball reference which put him behind bob perky at seven henry erin 8.5 frank robinson 8.7 willie mays 10.5 10.5 to maury wills's six and yet so now i'm sure mays would win that running away probably and that year he was a close second so back then it was like and it was probably also because uh wills was just breaking the mold by so much that it was just like whoa what is this who is this who is this person who is this yeah exactly right but he had like a 99 ops plus that year you know like he was not a great hitter, but he was just running wild. And everyone, you know, he led the league in triples and steals and also games and play appearances and at bats. And everyone was like, well, this is new and novel and unique. So MVP.

Yeah. I mean, I don't think that it is the most rigorous way of deciding these things. way of deciding these things but having an appreciation for like aesthetic difference is you know i think it can be a factor in in determining one's vote it shouldn't it shouldn't probably be the deciding factor but as you're trying to evaluate cases especially when they're quite close like thinking about that stuff seems that seems like it's fair game to me it's nice if they're otani and you can just do both because last year, best player and also- Yeah, why can't there just be more Otanis, Ben?

Yeah, exactly. I was going to say then we'd have an easy time, except have you been in these MVP debate trenches lately? Because things are getting testy in there. People have thoughts. Can I ask you an mvp player related question sure did you watch the yankees game last night to see if uh judge would would tie maris were you watching that i was not watching but i i was watching judge more so than the game

i have seen judges played appearances in that game how long were you faked out by Fox's broadcasting goal on that final fly ball? Because let me tell you, I thought he had it for a long time. Yep, I did off the bat, certainly. My goodness. Yeah, I can't give Fox all the blame because he crushed that ball. He crushed that ball. Oh, yeah. He hit that ball, what, 113?

Yeah, it would have been out of 13 of 30 parks i believe i saw wild times yeah yeah yeah it's funny because like before that the red sox were taking our advice i guess and not throwing him strikes and he walked three times and he was not getting pitches to hit and then he got that one to hit and he nearly hit it out and that's why you can't throw him strikes anymore i love how you say you know that they were taking our advice because we got to give our advice on the podcast and really suffer no consequence for it and poor craig is out here just saying like i don't know why anyone throws to him and then his twitter was a disaster for like four days so but yeah our advice but it's uh it is pretty incredible that like even when

he's not hitting homers like he hasn't hit a homer in a couple games what a bum right but yeah since what tuesday yeah but in those two games wednesday and thursday he has a 257 wrc plus because like in his 10 plate appearances he's walked i don I don't know, four times, I think, and hit two doubles. And that's not even counting the one he almost hit out yesterday. So like if he just did what he's done over the past couple of nights of non-Homers all year, he would be far and away the best player in baseball. So you're damned either way, I guess, if you're facing Aaron Judge these days. you're damned either way i guess if you're facing your own judge these days i really i just i just love with my my whole heart that you know he's like facing pittsburgh and pittsburgh walked him a couple of times right

three times they walked him maybe and on the third one you could hear i'm gonna do a swear but the yankee stadium crowd did it first so you could hear the crowd chanting asshole and i was like this poor guy right just trying to get through a weird day at work and then you know i don't think that they chanted that at the boston pitchers which is surprising because you think that they would jump at the opportunity to do that to say right you know yeah it was the boston pitchers, which is surprising because you'd think that they would jump at the opportunity to do that, to say, hey, get out of here. Yeah, it was the Boston pitchers who walked him three times. I thought that's what you meant. Yeah, the Pirates had also walked him in that series

a couple times too. Yeah, but just the once on Wednesday. And Alex Cora said that the Red Sox were going to pitch to him. Well, yeah. Maybe that is what qualifies as pitching to him at this point. I don't know. But as people pointed out, like in Craig's thread, which I linked to on the show page of pitchers throwing meatballs to judge and paying the price for it, some of those were clearly spots being missed and the target was elsewhere and the ball just strayed into the zone. So they may have been trying not to throw him quite so many strikes as they were throwing him. But either way, maybe they've gotten the memo now.

Yeah. I would imagine that it occurred to someone with Boston in particular, like just for a minute, you know, just for like one little, little minute, you know, like one of the minutes on the day where the earth spun a little bit faster. So like, you know, a quick minute, which you can't have. You can't have a quick minute. You can't do it, Ben. It's just a minute or it's not you know it's quicker than that not a minute i'm fun at parties so i would imagine it occurred to somebody for like a hot second like uh i don't think that we should let him match or break the record against us you know on the red socks his most hated rifles. Right.

And then after considering that for like just one little quick minute, they were like, no, you got to go right at the guy. Because if you're not doing that, then you got to go home. You know, he's just forfeit. You want to be able to say he didn't get it on our watch. And it's not because we were meek, but because we went right at him. And then they walked him a bunch anyway. Yeah, Red Sox fan Mike Schur said on Twitter, the only way to salvage anything from this season is for the Red Sox to walk Aaron Judge

18 consecutive times over four games in Yankee Stadium, which would be spiteful and petty and entertaining in one way, but they would just be run out of town. I'm very glad that that does not appear to have been the approach because, well, maybe they should do it because the heat of the takes would just melt Twitter into a ball and then we'd never have to be there ever again. There was a Defector article that argued that it should be illegal for bad teams to walk Aaron Judge.

I don't know how you would legislate that. But yes, it'd be one thing if there were playoff implications in the series, but not so much, at least not for them. He even had an outfield assist just like on a rope that he threw from the warning track, which is just like- That was great. Even when he's not hitting, he's pretty good at that outfielding thing too. Yeah.

Good baseball player. Yeah, he's a good... He's, you know, a weapon. I feel confident saying he's pretty good. I agree. So a couple emails here. Here's a question from Eric, Patreon supporter, who says,

I have an idea that I've been pondering for a while. Once robo zones are a reality, let's allow the batter to customize their own strike zone. We would set a minimum cross-sectional area and require that it be contiguous, though maybe not. That would be fun too.

I think this would have the benefit of increasing offense since the batter could customize their strike zone to their own hot zones and it would have other benefits as well. Zone construction theory would add some new dimension to the game to offset the loss of catcher framing, and it would also render the TV strike zone overlays suddenly more relevant and more tolerable to this viewer. For the fans in the ballpark, I doubt there would be much impact because very few, if

any, are in a position to tell whether a pitch is a strike or not currently anyway, though they may think they are. Implementation would be technically simple. As long as you have the batter correctly identified, it would all be computerized, sending the custom zone to the RoboUmps and the TV broadcast computers. Communication of the zone to the pitcher would be a more interesting technical challenge. But nothing insurmountable in my opinion.

That's in Eric's opinion. In my opinion, Ben's opinion, I think that probably would be pretty insurmountable in my opinion that's in eric's opinion in my opinion ben's opinion i think that probably would be oh yeah insurmountable i think that it would be so tricky that's a deal breaker for me it would be interesting yeah i wonder how many players chosen zones if this were like this is like strike zone gerrymandering basically it's like you can draw your own dimensions here, carve it up any which way to benefit yourself. And so if you're, say, a highball hitter, let's say, then you have a super high strike zone so that pitchers can't throw you low pitches and get strikes called on you. So they have to come into your wheelhouse. This would be great for hitters, sure.

tier wheelhouse. This would be great for hitters, sure. It would be great for hitters not only because they could just have pitchers cater to their needs here. This would almost be like going back to the beginning of baseball when you could request a high ball or a low ball, right? Going back to the roots. But it would benefit hitters, I think, also in the sense that hitters would have the same zone in every plate appearance. But pitchers would have a different one every time, which would be, that would be impossible. It would be impossible. I mean, that's why you can't do this. Like you can't ask pitchers and catchers to adjust to a different zone from batter to batter.

That's wild. It is wild. I would say, though, it would be fascinating to see. Oh, wait, hold on. I guess he's, ah, I'm bad.. Oh, wait, hold on. I guess he's- I'm bad. This is the worst. Excuse me, gross sound. Oh, so sorry, everyone.

This is like the time we were doing the playoff live stream and I thought I was muted and I wasn't and just ate a really crispy snack for like an entire inning. Like the rudest person alive. I thought I was muted. I'm so sorry. It would be fascinating to see like i agree with you that just on its face no matter the preparation like this is just impossible it would

just be you know when we have talked about rule changes one of the things that i think we have emphasized and certainly that i find important is like is this a, does this result in a, in a balanced offensive versus defensive environment? Right. Cause you, you don't want to get too out of whack part of what we're trying to do. I mean, not you and I, cause we aren't in charge, but part of what the league is trying to do in its recent rule changes is to restore some balance, right. Between pitchers and hitters.

And so you want there to be, you want there to be balance in the name of of good competition and i feel like this would fail on that criteria immediately because the burden it would place on pitchers you know gosh you would just be you would just be a wreck by the end of a start you know having to keep all of the guys straight now imagine like if you're a switch hitter, do you have two zones? Do you get a different zone if you can base it on hot spots? It would be tremendous, but we would get a really good sense very quickly of who actually engages the scouting reports.

Yes, right. We would learn. I don't know if we'd learn a lot because i think the error not like actual errors but like the error rate would be pretty high because you're trying to keep all these guys straight but we would learn a lot we'd have a whole we'd have a whole new thing to measure potentially when it comes to like catchers and game calling. We could try to map where. We would know what their zones would be.

I imagine we would know. It would be a lot of fun for writers because it would be like, here are the guys and their zones, and you're in a playoff series, and how does that match up against what the other team can offer from a pitching perspective? That would be fascinating, right? It's like what the Giants have been doing on steroids. Not that they are on steroids. No.

You know what I'm trying to say. Yes, yes. But also, who would set the zone? Who would determine analytically what the best zone is? Is it like your team's front office running the numbers and saying, here's what your hot zone is? Or is it the hitter saying, here's what I think my hot zone is, which may or may not be. I mean, they must have some inkling, but what if they're kit from a league of their own and it's lay off the high ones. I like the high ones, you know, but like you're not actually good at hitting the highwoods. So it's like, yeah, this is the kind of pitch I like to get and swing at, but I'm not actually as good at this type of pitch. So that would be interesting, too. Or how often does it change? Like if you're hitting well in a certain part of the zone now, like can you do you have to set this?

Maybe you'd have to set it like before the season starts or something. So it's not completely out of control. Right. And, you know, you know obviously yeah you would need robo zones because you can't ask a a human umpire to keep track of all of that so you need that piece of it so there's there's that to it but yeah like you could have you know here are our zones we know where they are and then we could do we could do analysis around around which catchers are setting up such that they're ideally positioned to take advantage of that zone. I mean, it would be, to be clear, it would be a complete disaster. But it would be a really fascinating one.

We should do it for like, you know how when, I don't know actually if this was a thing that you did in high school. But did you ever have like spirit week in high school but did you ever have like spirit week in high school did you ever have i think so you never had like a spirit week where you had like dress up days and like and then there was like homecoming or something at the end of the week i don't think so i went to uh all boys jesuit high school with a bunch of nerds so you know maybe not but like at my high school and i don't think that we were unique in laying claim to something. Like we would have spirit week around homecoming and like one day would be like you could wear, you know,

it was like back to the 80s day. And then the next day was like, and it would progress through the week. And then the Friday of spirit week, you would wear like, you know, we would wear like Roosevelt stuff to be like spirited. And then homecoming would happen, the football game. And then we'd have like a dance or something i don't remember if we had a dance might have just been around the football game but like why was i bringing up spirit week oh because mlb should do spirit week but instead of us dressing crazy

you know and people being like back to the 80s. We should have like a day, every day of the week, we do the wildest rule change just to see how they go. And then we should not do them ever again. Like, you know, the mound that moves up and down and the pit and this and allowing mole people to play baseball, you know, like normal stuff like that. And then at the end of the week, we can be like, whew, got that out of our system. It's time to prepare for midterms.

Yeah, love it. Sounds great. It sounds like your high school was more fun than mine, maybe. Yeah. All right. Here is a question from Sam who says, I wouldn't be at all surprised if this is something you guys have covered in the past, but I was perplexed after Atlanta's loss to the Nationals early this afternoon

when I found that despite their 93-56 record, the Braves are only 22-26 in day games. This feels like small enough of a sample to be at least partly just some randomness, and I haven't checked how many of those day games were in the first month of the season when the Braves were closer to a 500 team. But I'm curious how normal these kinds of day-night game splits are, and can you think of any reason why a team could be better at night than during the day? The only thing I can think of would be a West Coast team traveling east then having to play at what feels like 10 a.m., but that of course doesn't seem like it can be relevant here, although now I'm curious if anybody has done such an analysis to see if there's such a bias against West Coast teams in day-night splits. I believe that that sort of analysis has been done

on travel and jet lag. And yeah, I mean, you have West Coast teams just have to travel more miles, period. The Mariners, they always have to travel a lot just to get to places. But I think there's also been some research done on having to cross time zones and jet lag, although maybe Russell Carlton has examined that and perhaps found it lacking in some way, if I recall correctly. I'll put some links on the show page. But this split, this Braves day-night split, I was not aware of this, but look this up with StatHead, of course, as we always do,Head.com, go check it out. And this actually is one of the bigger day-night splits ever, or at least day split compared to overall performance. So the Braves right now, 22 and 26 in day games. That is a 458 winning percentage.

And their overall winning percentage is 620. So that is a difference of 162 points of winning percentage. And as of now, that would be the sixth biggest such split ever. Wow. Which is pretty significant. Yeah, it's meaningful-ish. There are actually three Braves teams in the top 10 for whatever reason. I don't know whether to make anything of that.

Probably not, but maybe. But the top one ever is the 1970 Atlanta team, and they had a split of 232. So they were 9-29 in day games and then 469 overall. There was actually last year's Yankees, they had the fifth biggest split, just slightly bigger than the Braves this year. So they went 23 and 34 in day games, and then they had a 568 winning percentage overall. So it was a difference of 164 just ahead of the Braves' current 162. So those two teams are the first and the top it looks like since the 70s if you throw out the 1981 strike shortened season. So I don't even recall noticing that the Yankees had a huge day-night split last year. I don't remember if we talked about it. I'm sure someone pointed it out somewhere, but I don't remember it being a big deal. And I was not aware of this big Braves split until now. But, I mean, it's notable in that you're talking about the sixth biggest split of this sort ever, or at least on record. That's a lot of years and a lot of teams.

So it's up there. So if the question is, is this noteworthy? Well, I guess that's in the eye of the beholder. But it is definitely unusual. So this sort of split is not normal. It still does not make me inclined to think that there's really anything to it. year when they weren't doing as well and didn't have all the players that they have now that is possible also but even if that weren't the case we're still just talking about 48 games and it's just it's not a ton so it's like it's weird it's strange it's not what you would expect but it's just not enough for me to make much of it probably to the point where like if the Braves like play a day game in the wildcard round or something like that where I'd be like uh-oh yeah I don't think so yeah I seem to recall studies being done around this in football where you know west coast teams that

have to travel east and and play on what their body clock knows to be 10 a.m. But I don't, again, I don't know how, I don't know if whoever the football version of Russell Carlton is has kind of put those under the microscope and found them to be sufficiently rigorous or kind of wanting that part, I don't know. But yeah, it is, like it makes sense to me that travel wears on you, you know, and that you might do a little less well because I think that bodies can be sort of fickle instruments.

But other than travel and its sort of general wear and tear, I don't know that I have a good explanation for exactly why you would see so dramatic a split. Like that part is genuinely surprising to me. Yep. Yeah. If anyone has any theories, feel free to write in. Yeah, let us know. Chris says, a possible upside of banning the shift. Could the banning of the shift lead to teams being called for violating the Stanky Rule? Teams would

have to have players in prescribed spots when the pitcher starts the windup, but then a team has its players try to move quickly to a new, more advantageous position as the pitcher goes through his delivery. An umpire could say that these sudden moves are distracting to the hitter and call a ball. Any hope that the stanky rule

could have a new generation of violators. So people have talked about this, like maybe players will try to get a running start so that they will be on the right side of the fields when the pitch is released or whatever. But then they would be moving in the right direction. And so I had thought of this just from a strategic tactical perspective. Would it even make sense to do that? But the question is, could you get called for distracting the batter essentially for this. And I'll read the text of the so-called

Stanky Rule named after Eddie Stanky, who was the inspiration for our Stanky Draft episode. No fielder shall take a position in the batter's line of vision and with deliberate unsportsmanlike intent act in a manner to distract the batter. And as people recall, this is because Stanky would just try like jumping up and down, doing jumping jacks basically just in the batter's line of view to distract him as the pitch was coming in. The thing that makes me think probably not is the deliberate unsportsmanlike intent part of this, right? Because if you're doing it just to get in a better position, then you're doing it with sportsmanlike intent part of this, right? Because if you're doing it just to get in a better

position, then you're doing it with sportsmanlike intent, right? So as long as you're not trying to distract the hitter, then I think it could be kosher. Although if it turned out that a lot of hitters were getting distracted by a lot of fielders doing this- There might be some refinement to the rule. Right. Yeah. That could still still be a problem you wouldn't want hitters to be distracted because well if they could get hit or right could lose whatever offensive benefits you're gaining in theory right yeah limiting the shift anyway so i don't know that this will be a big problem but i think even if it happened i think at least as written you could get away with this yeah I'm sure that anytime you're introducing judgment and discretion into the rule, I guess you have the potential for an increase in calls depending on,

you know, what the rest of the rulebook dictates. But like right now, it's not unusual for bench coach to call from the dugout to the fielders to be like, you got to move around and then they reposition and like that isn't really viewed to be a problem right they're not you know run so maybe maybe that will sort of change how that is viewed and and the intent behind it but i would imagine that this will probably have a pretty minimal effect when it comes to that i will be excited to see how many guys like accidentally because i think we will see this where they like getting a you know they get going and then maybe they accidentally end up on the wrong side of the line they're like yeah i went too fast you know i gotta yeah i'm sure i i

imagine that'll happen at least at least one time right and then we'll be like yeah yeah yeah andrew patreon supporter says i have enjoyed the discussions on rule changes and somewhat selfishly as a fan view them through the lens of what players does this help or hurt. Sure. I have seen a fair bit of discussion on the shift ban and how Joey Gallo and Corey Seager might benefit. I've also seen discussion of fast guys who can get more stolen bases with the bigger bases and pick off limit benefiting a lot. One I haven't seen discussed that I'm puzzling over, which pitchers will be helped or hurt most by the pickoff limit? Would a person who is great at pickoffs be robbed of a key tool to get outs or at least prevent stolen bases and running starts? Or will pitchers who are terrible at holding runners be more hurt because runners

can run rampant without the mitigating effect of frequent pickoffs? Or is this all a negligible effect for pitchers? I don't think it's a negligible effect for pitchers, although I guess I don't know how much it will affect one class of pitchers over another. But I guess the question is basically, if you're good at limiting the running game now, does this hurt you more than someone who is not good at limiting the running game as it is? So if being a pickoff artist is something you excel at, then I guess in my mind, that would hurt that pitcher more than someone who's already bad at throwing over. It's interesting because it makes me think of the John Lester precedent of not being able to throw over at all and everyone knowing it and yet still not going, which I think

is instructive for the situation that we'll be in next year because it was just like whether it was that runners had pity on Lester or they just could not get it in their heads that this lefty whom they have just been trained, it's just been ingrained in them that they have to stay close to the bag because this guy could throw over. And then suddenly you have someone who literally just cannot make that throw because of pickoff attempt yips. And they just could not adjust to that appropriately. So I wonder whether it'll take any time for runners to acclimate to this next year, where it's like after the first couple of pickoff attempts, they have to get it in their heads that, okay, they can't stop me now. I can just keep taking a larger and larger lead. And unless they actually pick me off, I'm golden here. I'm free and clear. So I wonder if it'll take a while for

runners to take advantage or full advantage of what they can do. And then also whether this nerfs or nullifies the strength of a pitcher who has a great move more so than one who doesn't, just because like, I guess, well, you could talk yourself into either perspective, which is what Andrew's dilemma is here. But I'm inclined to think that if you're good at using the tools that are available to you now, and then you are stripped of those tools, then that would hurt you more than someone who is already not taking advantage of the tools at their disposal. Yeah. But I would imagine the magnitude of that disadvantage to be pretty small just because like how many pickups are there? Yeah. You know what

I mean? Like I think that you're right that guys who have that in their arsenal will suddenly have, well, at the very least they'll have to adapt, right? They'll have to be like more successful more quickly because you can still pick guys off. You just can't throw over there over and over and over again. So if you are really, really good at it and maybe importantly, really efficient at it, then maybe it's fine, you know? But if you're sort of good, but it takes you a couple of tries, then yeah, you're going to have to at the very least make an adjustment but i think in toto the the magnitude of the effect will be pretty small because i don't think we're getting a ton of outs via pickoff no we're getting a lot of yeah there is a suppressive effect though of

of the threat of the pickoff and and russell's written about that too just the fact that like when you do throw over there, it does produce an effect. You have fewer stolen base attempts and then a lower success rate when they do go following a pickoff attempt. And then if you take away the threat that they might throw over, I wonder whether we'll get runners trying to deke pitchers into using up their pickoff attempts. I mean, we better. Yeah, we definitely will. Yeah, if we don't, then someone's not doing their job. Right. That'll be interesting. up their pickoff attempts you know just like i mean we better well yeah we definitely will i just yeah if we don't it would then someone's not doing their job right that'll be interesting because like

you'll have to wonder as the pitcher are they deking are they trying to get me to give away my pickoff attempt so that they can then take an extra long lead or are they actually going in which case i'd better throw over there so you might see a lot of like leaning and false starting and dancing back and forth, which could be fun, I guess, a little cat and mouse game, especially because it can't slow things down with the pitch clock. So that's nice. So I think that'll be a fun thing to watch. And I do still think that like if currently you're just like, yeah, whatever, go if you want.

You know, I'm focusing on the hitter. you're just like yeah whatever go if you want you know i'm focusing on the hitter then i think it would affect you a little less than if you're someone who's regularly throwing over and yeah and that's a big part of your just like working against the running game is availing yourself of the ability to throw over more than twice or the threat that you might so i would i would think it would affect that type of pitcher more but yeah i I think that that's fair. But again, I would not be surprised if setting aside the actual outs that are accrued, I bet guys can, do I believe this? Well, let me ask it as a question, then you have to answer. Do you think that pitchers have the right number of, I mean, forget the efficiency piece of it,

just in terms of actually suppressing running. Do you think that they have the right number of pickoff attempts dialed in, or do you think they're thrown over there more than they need to to hold the runner on? I would say, if anything, they should throw over more often. Oh, man. It's a good thing that we aren't making the rules. All of our games will last seven hours. Right. Well, exactly, because there's a strong social pressure not to because, A, people are wanting you to move the game along. And especially if you're a visiting pitcher, you're going to get booed if you throw over. But there the booze, then probably it might be worth it to throw over more often than you do. Like it would distract you. There's probably a downside to just focusing so much on throwing over there that you're not worrying about the hitter.

But I would think that, yeah, if anything, probably people are pressured or shamed into not throwing over as much as maybe they should in theory. Yeah, I'm sympathetic to that idea, but I guess we'll have to figure it out now. All right. Last question. I think this will segue into a little stat blast. This is from Tyler, Patreon supporter. With the addition of the pitch clock in 2023, I feel like Effectively Wild should get out in front of a potential scenario and clarify it before it potentially occurs.

An immaculate inning is a nine pitch, nine strike, three out inning. However, if next year a batter gets an automatic strike penalty from the pitch clock, he could in theory strike out on two pitches, meaning a pitcher could throw eight pitches and still get nine strikes and three outs. Is this more impressive, even though the pitcher threw fewer strikes? Is this less impressive through no fault of the pitcher? Should this inning be called immaculate or should it have some other name? What else could we call it? This is so established, the idea of the immaculate inning, I think I might just call it like a pitch clock assisted immaculate inning or something. I don't know. It doesn't really roll off the tongue. Yeah, we need something pithier than that.

I think I, yeah, I guess it can't be immaculate if it's imperfect in some way, but it's not really imperfect. You didn't not throw a strike. You didn't throw something other than a strike. You just had to throw fewer strikes to get the number of strikes you needed. So I think it's still an immaculate inning, but I would just classify it as like a subcategory where it's pitch timer. Are we calling it pitch timer? MLB really seems to be pushing pitch timer. Are they? Yeah.

Why? I'm not going to be pushing pitch timer. Are they? Yeah. Why? I'm not going to stick with pitch clock. Is this going to be another stupid thing that we have to push back on in terms of the verbiage? Everyone has forever called it a pitch clock, haven't they? Yeah. Let's keep calling it a pitch clock. I mean, it is a timer too, I guess, but pitch clock's working for me. It's not actually a pitch.

Well, oh boy. We're going to get into trouble here. No, we should do it. Let's do it. It's Friday. Let's not actually a pitch. Well, oh boy, we're going to get into trouble here. No, we should do it. Let's do it. It's Friday. Let's have a little fun. What are you timing?

Are you timing? I guess it's sort of like a timer, like a kitchen timer, right? Where it's counting down. So I get why. But when I think of a kitchen timer, I think of the little rooster I have to turn exactly one direction, and then it never stops ticking. And so I just have to use my cell phone, which has a clock. So we should call it a pitch clock because that's what everyone's always called it. Yeah, it's like a pitch countdown, really, because pitch clock or pitch timer, you're not timing or clocking the pitch itself. clock or pitch timer you're not timing or clocking the pitch itself you're you're clocking the time it takes to to begin the pitch between pitches is really what you're clocking and not even that

quite it's like from a certain point to when the pitch is delivered it's like the clock of how long it takes to throw the pitch this is a very scientific way of determining it so on my phone i have an alarm that's to wake you up ben and then i have a stopwatch which just runs and runs and runs like a stopwatch does and then i do have a timer and it counts down like a kitchen timer would yeah i'm not mad if people call it a pitch timer i'm just saying but they shouldn't though that's what you're saying yeah we have a term that functions fine for this i think anyway i think I would still call this immaculate, but I would just specify that it was eight pitches. I don't think it's more impressive because they got out of the inning throwing fewer strikes. They just didn't have one. They were just gifted one by the batter not being ready in time. in time so i think it is less impressive through no fault of the pitcher as tyler said it's less impressive you just you had an easier job basically but i think it it is still immaculate

really you you didn't throw any balls there's no ball put in play like it was just still all strikes and you threw the minimum number of of pitches that you had to throw basically to get three strikeouts, right? So I think it's still immaculate. It's just it's clock-assisted immaculate. Yeah, but I think it's a niche enough version of the thing that we probably don't need to call it anyway. It's probably not going to happen. At least not often enough for us to be like, it's a banana.

Right, exactly. Yeah, immaculate innings, be like, it's a banana. Right, exactly. Immaculate endings, fairly rare as it is. Okay, that brings me to a stat blast here, which is related to the pitch clock. as your OBS Plus. And then they'll tease out some interesting tidbit, discuss it at length, and analyze it for us in amazing ways. Here's to Daystablast. As always, StatBlast brought to you by the aforementioned StatHead, powered by Baseball Reference, great, powerful statistical tool. We always recommend it and endorse it and use it organically, not just because it's a sponsor of the pod, but because we need it to answer questions like, is this Braves day-night split unusual or not?

Is this Braves day-night split unusual or not? So go to snedhead.com and you can use those same tools and you can use our coupon code WILD20 to get the discounted price. You get a discount of $20 on the $80 subscription. That's for one sport, be it baseball or some other sport. You can also get a multi-sport subscription, but they're constantly updating it and it works great as it is. Okay. So I was curious about two things about the pitch clock. But they're constantly updating it and it works great as it is. pace at fan graphs, or even if you look at what they call tempo at baseball savant, then the numbers are higher because those things are measuring the entire time between the pitch. So it's like the time between releases. You start the clock as soon as the pitcher releases the

previous pitch, and then you end it when the pitcher releases the next pitch. That's not how the pitch clock is going to work. This baseball savant page I'm looking at says pitch timer everywhere. I'm not going to let this infect me. I'm going to continue to say clock, I believe. Yeah, we're going to have to send Petriello a note. But it says in a big red box at the top of this page, before you compare this metric to the newly approved 2023 pitch timer please note that this is not measuring the same timing as the mlb pitch timer so it notes that the pitch tempo is what i just said it was whereas the pitch timer as they call it starts when the pitcher receives the return

throw from the catcher and ends once the pitcher starts his delivery and so it says about six seconds elapses from start of delivery to receiving return throw, one and a half seconds to release the pitch, half a second for the pitcher to catcher, and four seconds for the catcher back to the pitcher. So if you look at just the raw numbers here for the time between pitches, you would conclude that many, many pitchers are going over what the limit will be next season, 15 seconds with bases empty, 20 seconds with runners on base. However, that is somewhat deceptive.

And to its credit, baseball savant has actually adjusted for this. So not only do they have the tempo column, they also have the timer equivalent column where they just subtract six seconds, basically. And that tells you whether those pitchers with their current pace would be under the limit or not. And this is just based on the median time. And if you look at that, the timer equivalent, then there actually aren't very many pitchers who are over the line here. So I just set the minimum at 500 pitches thrown this season. So that gives us a group of 188 pitchers. And if we look at bases empty, there are only 10 pitchers who are at or over 15 seconds.

And actually, the fourth slowest of them is one Shohei Otani. Shohei, pick up the pace, buddy, or don't. You're great. Keep doing what you're doing. I guess that's why he can't be the MVP. Yeah. Look, I want his starts and his time on the mound to last as long as possible. So take your time, Shohei. Sentence are not aligned. Yeah. If anyone is worried that Shohei Otani will not be an effective pitcher next year with the pitch clock, I doubt that that's a big concern,

but he has been one of the slowest this year. So yeah, it's from Jake Diekman at 17.6 to Hugh Darvish, who's at exactly 15, as are Adam Adovino and Corbin Byrne. So just 10 guys of the 188 are over that median time with the bases empty. And then with runners on base, it is a few more, but not many more. It's only 16 of the 188 are at 20 seconds or more. So it's a very small fraction, just a minority of pitchers. Now, that is the median time. So, of course, there will be a lot of individual pitches that are over that, even for pitchers who have a lower median time. But it's not that many guys who have to look at what they're doing right now

and say, oh boy, I better pick up the pace next season or else I'm going to be just handing out free balls left and right. So that's something to keep in mind. But my main question was whether this will affect defense because you hear often and from time immemorial, you hear the idea that when pitchers work quickly, the defense fields better behind them, right? How many times have we heard a broadcaster, a former player say this, that just when a pitcher's in a rhythm, working fast, the fielders are on their toes and they're ready for the pitch. Whereas if they're dilly-dallying dobbling and lollygagging, a lot of weird words for like taking a long time to do things. We have to have our fun, Ben. That many weird words to say that, I guess.

But if you're taking your time out there, then maybe the fielders are walking around, kicking rocks, thinking about their dinner reservations or their last at bat or whatever, and they lose focus and they're not ready when the ball is put in play. So there's this idea that we've all heard forever ad nauseum. And I tried to look into this once. I wrote about this back for The Ringer in March of 2017, and I was following up on some very early research by Mike Fast, who looked at this just like in the first couple months that we had PitchFX data in 2008. And I did a bigger study and both Mike and I concluded that we just

couldn't really seem to find any evidence of this being true. But we were working with somewhat blunter tools than perhaps we have now from StatCast because we were using pitcher BABIP basically as a proxy for whether the defense was playing well behind them. And that's good, I guess, but it's perhaps not perfect. And now StatCast has the ability to show you how the defense performed behind each individual pitcher by outs above average or outs above average converted into runs prevented. So you can look at that on the individual pitcher level and see this is how the defense played behind me.

And in theory, at least, it is adjusting for where the ball was and where the positioning was and everything. So you wouldn't just get lucky here. This is saying that the defense actually played well behind you, hopefully. And so using this, I wanted to take another crack at this. And I looked at it every which way back in 2017, and I just couldn't find any real smoking gun there. But this way, I looked at it with that data.

But this way, I looked at it with that data. So the pitch tempo data that I was just citing from Baseball Savant, and I limited it to with the bases empty. And then I also pulled in this individual pitcher data with how the defense performed behind them. But then I had to adjust it further, I thought, because, of course, you could be a pitcher on a good defensive team or not on a good defensive team. So I figured that I had to do a team-adjusted version of this. Probably put more time into this stat class than any previous stat class. This took forever.

I don't know if it was worth the effort, but it was a whole lot of effort. It was kind of nice. I just spent a few hours going to see Pavement soon. So I was just listening to some Pavement albums and doing lots of spreadsheeting and exporting and all kinds of manual massaging because things would export weird and I'd have to trim it. And I did a zillion index match formulas in Excel and ultimately came up with this giant whopping spreadsheet that has all of these things. So I have basically an expected runs prevented behind the pitcher, and then the actual runs prevented behind the pitcher. And so I was able to get the expected by basically looking at the proportion of that team's balls in play that the pitcher allowed. portion of that team's balls in play that the pitcher allowed. So if a pitcher was on the mound for this many balls in play, then they had that percentage of the team's total balls in play. And then I adjusted the team runs prevented by that basically to assume that if there were, you know, X number of runs that the team prevented in the field all season long, and then that pitcher had

X percent of the total playing time or balls in play allowed by that team, then I just adjusted accordingly for that and came up with an expected fielding runs prevented behind that pitcher, kind of a prorated number. So I'll give you a few examples that might help illustrate this. Take poor Patrick Corbin of the Washington Nationals. The Nationals have a team fielding runs total this season of negative 38 runs. Patrick Corbin has allowed a little less than 13 percent of all of the batted balls that Washington Nationals pitchers have allowed, not including homers. I stripped those out. And so you take that roughly 13% of that negative 38 runs, and you would expect that the Nationals fielders would have been a little less than five runs below average behind Patrick Corbin. Instead, they've been 14 runs

below average behind him. So that's a difference of nine runs or so. On the other end of the spectrum, take Zach Gallen, that guy again for for the Diamondbacks so the Diamondbacks have had a good defense 35 runs prevented Zach Gallen has allowed about 11 percent of the Diamondbacks batted balls and so doing the math you would expect that the Diamondbacks fielders would have been oh about four runs a little less than four runs above average behind him instead they've saved 11 runs behind him so he he's plus seven and change. And then you have a bunch of players in the middle. For example, Zach Wheeler of the Phillies. The Phillies are negative 28 on the season. He's allowed a little more than 10% of their batted balls as a staff. So you'd expect the Phillies defense to be about negative three when he's on the mound. And sure

enough, negative three. So I just calculated that figure for every guy. And then I basically looked to see if there was any correlation between the pace of the pitcher with the bases empty, so just the time between pitches, and whether the defense behind them was better or worse than expected. So the idea was that if a pitcher is working quickly and there's something to this theory that the defense actually performs better when the pitcher is working quickly, then on the whole, the pitchers who worked quickly should have their defenses behind them performing better than expected by my estimate and metrics here. So I looked for a correlation. I just ran a simple correlation between the median time between pitches with the bases empty and then the difference from the expected fielding performance of the team behind the pitcher.

And I did that for all seasons since 2016, excluding 2020. That's as far back as this individual pitcher defense data goes at Baseball Savant. And then I limited it to pitchers who threw at least 800 pitches in each season. And I also threw out pitchers who changed teams within a single season because then there'd be all kinds of issues with different defenses involved anyway ended up with an enormous sample 692 substantial pitcher seasons here and the correlation between the median time between pitches and the difference from the expected defensive performance behind the pitcher is 0.03. You did all that and that's the difference? There's no correlation. Wow. Well, you know what? Now we know.

Yeah, exactly. No, it's good. This is the null hypothesis. You got to publish results. Sometimes we don't want a publishing bias here. We want to publish our results when we confirm that there's nothing here. And as far as I can tell, there is still nothing here. So Mike Fast didn't see anything when he looked at it in a very small sample and in a and bigger sample way in 2017. And now, with the best data available here that I could think to use and construct a little study here, I still cannot find any indication that working quickly leads a defense to play better behind a pitcher. And I tried even looking at it a slightly different way.

Instead of getting the correlation for all the pitchers, I split up the sample into the fastest half in each season and the slowest half in each season. And then I just looked to see what the cumulative difference for those samples was between the expected and actual fielding runs prevented behind those pitchers. And it was basically the same for both groups. Again, no indication that the faster working pitchers were And it was basically the same for both groups. Again, no indication that the faster working pitchers were getting better defense behind them. Sometimes you'll hear people suggest that maybe pitchers will get better calls too, that umpires will maybe look more favorably

or just give better calls to pitchers who are working at a steadier rhythm. I looked for that back in 2017, didn't really see any evidence of that show up either. So just drawing blanks over and over again here, which is interesting because, well, for one thing, people have been telling us that this is the case forever, but also because with the pitch clock coming in next year, you might think if there had been or were something to this, then you would think, well, pitchers who work quickly, they're not going to have that advantage anymore because everyone's going to work more or less quickly now. And so you would lose that relative defensive advantage. Or you might think, well, every pitcher is going to work more quickly. So defense will just be better on the whole, right? Like maybe it will offset the effect of limiting positioning,

right? Because you're telling defenses, well, you have to stand here, you can't stand there, so that defenses will be worse. But pitchers will be working so much more quickly that defenses will be better because of that, as everyone has been telling us. And so it will backfire. But as far as I can tell, there just does not seem to be any kind of connection that I can divine here in the data that is available to me. Yeah. I think that sometimes people will pitch ideas and then they go do the research and they were like, I looked and there was nothing to it.

And I'm like, but is there nothing to it in an interesting way? Right, exactly. Because nothing to it sometimes tells you stuff. You should not be afraid to publish the null result. If for no other reason than now, you've done all of this work, Ben, and now someone else will not. They'll be spared that work. They'll go look at some other question, and you get to look at another question next. So that's good.

Maybe I'll write about it at some point too. But it is fascinating. a possibility that this effect does somehow exist and I'm just failing to detect it. And the tools are just not up to the task of being able to pull out the signal from the noise here, but it's a pretty giant sample and pretty sensitive tool. So I just don't know. And so if there is nothing to it and, you know, sabermetricians have pronounced with confidence before that there's nothing to something that pitchers and hitters and catchers and managers have been saying forever. And then they had to eat their words eventually when we discovered, oh, no, there actually was something to that. We just couldn't

see it at first. So maybe that will happen here, but I just still can't see it. And, you know, I mentioned at the end of my article from 2017 that there is a correlation between pace and fastball speed. The harder a pitcher throws, the slower he tends to work, possibly because harder throwers need more time to recover after those high-effort pitches, or, I wrote, it could be because the flamethrowers know they can get away without working as fast. If you have Price's stuff, you can make up for taking your time between pitches,

but if you throw as softly as Mark Burley, you have to hurry, pressing the attack whenever the ball isn't in relatively slow motion. Perhaps pace is an equalizer, a slight edge that the soft tossers are already exploiting even though it's disguised in league-wide stats. In that case, Burley's quick work may have helped him last as long as he did. I was using Burley there because I had mentioned, well, everyone cites him as the quick working pitcher, so you'd expect him to have had extra good defense behind him if this were true. But actually his BABIP allowed over the course of his career was exactly what you would expect

it to be based on the innings he pitched and the teams that he pitched for. So I'm just coming up empty here, which raises the question of, well, why does everyone think it's true? If it is not, why does everyone so believe that it is that people have been saying this forever and repeating it as if it is fact like i guess it's interesting to me that players think that even if it is not actually true and i guess we could come up with a reason why they would think that maybe it's just like it feels better to play behind a pitcher who's working quickly right like you're not just standing out there.

Yeah, you're not lollygagging. I mean, and to be clear, they weren't lollygagging. The pitcher was lollygagging, but they might be accused of lollygagging. I've said lollygagging enough times that the word doesn't have any meaning anymore. If the pitcher lollygags, then everyone has to really. They sort of set the tone and the pace. So maybe it is just unpleasant to be behind a pitcher who is taking his sweet time

and it feels better to have someone who's working crisply. And so maybe you just extrapolate from that to say, well, I enjoy being out in the field better when this is happening. Or like maybe if you make a bad defensive play behind a pitcher who is taking forever you're like oh well that's why because i was not ready right and you can kind of blame it on the pitcher in your head at least and and so maybe everyone just ascribes like some greater

significance to just the feeling of preferring to be behind a pitcher who is working more quickly well and i wonder if what fielders are perceiving is in addition to the the actual time between pitches is like maybe they view quickness or are experiencing sort of quick delivery as consistency of pace also yeah like maybe it's like when you i'm gonna use a comparison that involves driving, so I apologize. But like, do you ever have the experience, you listeners, people who drive, not Ben, of like, you know, you're there, you're at a stop sign and you see, and you're trying to turn right and you see cars coming and you hesitate for a second and you're like, ah, and I could have gone, but then you waited too long.

And then it's like, ah, and so I wonder if it's the same for fielders where it's like you know i'm not only experiencing how long this is taking but i don't know like do i have time to put new sunflower seeds in my mouth or am i going to be doing that in the midst of him delivering the pitch and then needing to get ready like i wonder if what they are responding to is really being comforted by what they perceive to be consistent pacing in addition to good pacing. Does that make sense? Yeah. I've had that experience, not with cars, I guess, but crossing the bike path near my house. Sure, yeah, yeah. There you go. That's a more universal one potentially. Ironically, my first word ever as a kid was car. potentially ironically my first word ever as a kid was car well you're not like i don't believe in cars you just don't drive them yes i'm not i don't think you're like a car pruther you're just

like i just live in manhattan and have my whole life i want to believe i didn't do that yeah i have an i want to believe cross stitch on my wall above my desk right now. It does not surprise me. But I was just thinking of that because Sloan, my daughter, is saying dog, sort of. She's not pronouncing it quite right. It's just more like. That makes it better, though. Yeah. I think it counts, though, because clearly she is intending to say dog.

Dog, yeah. It doesn't sound exactly like dog. It's more like dot or something. But she's looking at a dog. She's recognizing that it's a dog and she's attempting to communicate that it's a dog. But I just hope that given the precedent that that does not mean that she will grow up to not be interested in dogs or not have dogs because that's what happened to me with cars. But hopefully she's saying dog because we have a dog and she seems to really like the dog. So I think that's a good sign. good sign hey man if i had my druthers and could like live my life here with not driving at all i would prefer to do that it's just that you know it's often 115

degrees and we're like transit i don't know i'm kind of squishy about it but yeah i should be more decisive at stop signs, I think is one of our takeaways here. Err on the side of caution, I guess. Yeah, saying dog wrong. My cousin who's now in college, and I'm sure would super appreciate me telling this story, used to say ladybug instead of ladybug.

And then she started saying it right, and we all cried because we were so sad because it was so precious. And I was like, time, it only moves in one direction. So that's adorable. Well, I know you have a car-related appointment. I do. Do I have time to squeeze in a pass blast?

Yeah, go ahead. Okay. I've got a good one here that I have supplied, but I have a quick one from Jacob Hamranki, executive content director of Sabre. I feel like I'm saying his title slightly differently every time. Sorry, Jacob, but you get the point. He's in control of the editorial content of Sabre and also is an expert on the Black Sox and this period of history. And so he brings us a pass blast from 1907 headline, Cubs fight fire with baseball. In 1907, the era of the wooden ballpark was quickly coming to a close, soon to be replaced by new concrete and steel palaces like Forbes

Field in Pittsburgh, Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, and Fenway Park in Boston. Wooden ballparks were a serious fire hazard, as you would think. In the late 19th century and early 20th century, many of them burned down. In 1907, the Chicago Cubs traveled to Bridgeport, Connecticut on August 18th for an exhibition against a minor league team when a massive fire broke out before the game. According to the Chicago Tribune, quote, Chicago's Cubs hung up another world's record today, breaking one which has remained unchallenged close to 2000 years. Nero gets his name in the papers once in a while because he nonchalantly fiddled while Rome was burning. Those Cubs went that Nero many times better today by playing a game of baseball within 30 yards of a burning grandstand, from which they had helped 1,000 rooters, many of them women, only a short time before. And just as nonchalantly as old Nero

fiddled by the light of the flames, the Cubs beat Bridgeport's Connecticut League team 3-1 in five innings, which were all that could be played after the fire and before its dying embers failed to give enough light to continue. Jacob continues, the cause of the fire was later determined to be a fan who had dropped a match in the dry grass after presumably lighting a cigarette. grass after presumably lighting a cigarette. Apparently, this scene was so normal to the Cubs that they just went about their business saving people's lives, playing an exhibition game next to all the smoke and ashes, and then taking the train back to New York to finish their series against the Giants. While the Bridgeport Ballpark and a nearby amusement park at Pleasure Beach were quickly rebuilt, the fire did cause $60,000 in damage, close to $2 million in today's dollars. The amusement park eventually closed down in the 1950s

and is now part of a protected wildlife refuge for endangered birds and plants. Wow. So the story had a happy ending. How about that? That's wild. What a weird day at work that would be. Yeah.

Saved some people from burning up in our ballpark. Also, we won the game. Yeah, played an exhibition game, you know, like you do. Yep. All right. And if I can quickly give you, I've been saving this past blast for a while. This is a good one, I think, relevant to the rules changes coming next year. So I became aware of this a while ago because there's a site called Saber's Baseball Cards Research Committee, Saber Baseball Cards blog. And they had a post a few years ago by Tim Jenkins that covered this set of 1974 Fleer Baseball's Wildest Days and Plays

set, which was a set in which this artist Robert Laughlin used cartoons to illustrate some aspect of baseball history. And one of the things that i had never heard of otherwise is called the unglob arc unglob arc this is u-n-g-l-a-u-b wait see that sounds like something from final fantasy too it sounds like something that might have happened when you were sneezing today. Yeah, sorry. That's okay. Sorry. But yes, I was wondering what this was, the Unglub Arc. And it notes that in 1907, Red Sox first baseman Bob Unglub proposed a rule designed to increase scoring where he advocated for an arc to be painted in the outfield 240 feet from home plate.

The outfielders had to stay to the infield side of the arc before the ball was hit, and thus the sluggers of the day would have a better chance of reaching base. So I was trying to research this, and it's hard to find any information about this suggestion by Bob Unglub. And even if you go to Bob Unglub's Sabre bio, you will not find any reference to this supposed Unglub arc. And he was not really a notable baseball player in most respects. In fact, his Sabre bio is very open about that fact. It begins, this is the first paragraph written by Marty Payne. Robert Alexander Bob Unglub was at best an average ballplayer.

One newspaper referred to Unglub's career as a meteoric rise, but in reality, it was anything but. In fact, little in his professional or personal life was outside of the ordinary, and his career was typical of the players of the deadball era. With one exception, Unglobe was continuously at odds with organized baseball over his salary. So he was somewhat ahead of his time in advocating for himself and holding out and wanting to be paid what he was worth. But he was not worth, I guess, all that much because he was not really a remarkable baseball player. However, he was kind of a character. And I did find this article from April 1907 in the Star Press, Muncie, Indiana, that just says, this is the headline, Bob Unglub is eccentric. And the subhead is one of the most peculiar characters in baseball today. And it tells a story that is actually mentioned in his

Sabre bio. His Sabre bio says, a story is told of Unglub during his stay in Milwaukee. His manager, Joe Cantillon, and several players were walking the streets of Indianapolis. They stopped on a corner to take in the spectacle of a Salvation Army gathering complete with brass band. Much to their amazement, out of the crowd stepped Bob Unglub to repent his evil ways. I'm sorry to admit it, he said, but I am a baseball player. I don't know how I ever got into such a degrading, sinful business. It is an awful game, and the men who play it are sinners, not fit for God-fearing people to associate with. Then it says Cantillon had to restrain his companions from going after their teammate as Unglub finished his testimony. And then they went on their way.

When telling the story a few years later, Cantillon was asked if Unglub had quit baseball after his epiphany. Hell no, snapped the manager. He was the first man in line at the pay window on the first and 15th of every month. I don't know if that story is entirely true or not. It comes from a book that contained the story of the supposedly dead base runner who scored, who I told in a recent past blast, but it was reported in 1907. So something along those lines seems to have happened. So he was eccentric. He was peculiar in certain ways, and he was not that great a baseball player. Just one more brief thing about Unglub. He later became the manager,

actually, of the Boston team briefly. And here's what he said about his brief stint as manager. This was later in 1907. The 1907 Boston Americans had four managers, starting with Cy Young for a few games. Bunted the happy ones all the way home. It was a great system, all right. And the newspaper spent columns talking about our tapping. I was naturally puffed up like a toy balloon and dreamed of teasing our way to a pennant. Then just to show what fans are made of when they get thinking too much, I began to get letters asking me why if I had taught the team to bunt, I could not teach the men to drive the ball smartly on a straight line over the heads of the infielders when said infielders were playing in. What do you think of that? They were handing me a roast because I did not make the players turn off straight singles in these days when 300 hitters are so scarce you can count them on one hand. I have some of these letters yet. And the Sabre bio says the fans may have been justified

in handing him the roast because the bunting tactics didn't work for very long. And after his team went 9-20, he was replaced as the manager of the Boston team in 1907. So that's a little bit of background on Bob Unglub. So here is the story that was the source for that Sabre card about the Unglub arc, which is maybe what we should call whatever they implement next year with the shift ban. If at some point, I know we were talking about pie slices, if they have lines on the field, I think we should call it the Unglub arc after Bob Unglub, who was ahead of his time.

This comes from the Brooklyn Citizen, January 21st, 1907, headline, Chance for Long Hitters. Subhead, Unglub has an idea to produce some swatting. Williamsport, Pennsylvania, January 21st, Robert A. Unglub, the crack first sacker of the Williamsport Tri-State Club,

I think he was in the minors briefly with a non-NL or AL team at that time, who was recently awarded to the Boston Americans, that's the AL team by the National Commission, has devised a rule which he says would produce more long hitting in ball games. In order to give the heavy hitter his due advantage over the light hitter, Unglub says the outfielder should be limited to a certain

territory. He suggests drawing an arc from one field line to the other at a distance of 80 yards from the home plate, it's about 240 feet, using the plate as a center. This will give a quarter circle, every point of which is 80 yards from the home plate. Outfielders are to play on the inside of this circle until after the ball has been hit by a batter. The batter who can drive the ball 100 yards or more will have an opportunity to get a long hit instead of having the fielders judge his hit and pull it down at a point more than 100 yards from the plate by a phenomenal catch. Unglub says that the fault of the present rules is that the long hitter has only a slight advantage over the light hitters because nine times out of 10, the fielders will judge the batter's manner of hitting and arrange themselves in the field to suit the occasion. This arc will give the heavy hitter an opportunity to drive the ball far into the deep field and get a clear hit for several bases.

That's the only reference I can find to the Unglub arc at the time. But that's the idea. He's like, hey, they're robbing us. They're catching the ball. Have you seen this? Yeah. Like they know that the hitters who hit the ball deep will hit the ball deep and therefore they're playing deep and we can't drive the ball over their heads. This is unsporting.

Therefore, we should have the unglub arc and they will not be able to play so deep and therefore long hitters can hit the ball long over their heads. But like this could happen. We could get something like this because fielders have been playing deeper and Rob Arthur and others have written about this. It seems to be a big part of why defense has improved and BABIP has dropped is that fielders are playing deeper and they're getting to balls and they're preventing balls from going over their heads. are playing deeper and they're getting to balls and they're preventing balls from going over their heads. And now we have this shift ban, which is sort of banning the four player outfield, right? So at some point we might actually get some kind of Unglub arc out there that's like, hey, you can't play this deep because it's suppressing offense. And if so, we got to name it after Bob Unglub, who was like, you know, 120 or so years ahead of his time. It's just, you know, there's nothing new under the sun.

Yeah, there really isn't. So Bob Unglub deserves to be remembered. Career 99 OPS plus in his six major league seasons. 7.1 war. Not a remarkable player, although he knew his worth or thought he did. Thought it was more than teams were generally willing to give him. And he said in 1907 when he was holding out at one point, he said, I do not have to play ball. I can find something else to do.

I found that in another paper. And so he was a thinking man and had maybe some eccentric thoughts. But one of them was the Unglobe arc. And maybe he was onto something a century or so early. Maybe. Maybe. man and had maybe some eccentric thoughts, but one of them was the unglobe arc, and maybe he was onto something a century or so early. Maybe. Maybe. It's an idea to produce some swatting.

That's all I'm saying. Oh, boy. Pay attention, Rob Manfred. Oh, no. Interesting, because he's the guy who's all about bunting and tapping when he was a manager, just wanted to do nothing but bunting, but as a hitter, he wanted to preserve his long hits with the Unglub arc. He knows what's what. That will do it.

All right, that will do it. By the way, Bob Unglub in 1907 had 17 sacrifice hits, but only one home run. So again, you'd think he wouldn't be the one complaining about long hitters, quote unquote, being robbed. Or maybe he was constantly being robbed. Maybe they were making incredible catches on him that year. Although his idea for the line was proposed before that season started. In fact, in 1906, when he was with Williamsport of the Tri-State League, he hit 14 homers in 128 games.

So he probably fancied himself a long hitter. That was Indie Ball Bob. He was on the Williamsport Millionaires. As you might imagine, we recorded this episode prior to Albert Pujols hitting back-to-back dingers to get to 700 for his career. He made it. Aaron Judge homerless on Friday, but Albert Pujols made up for it. Just such an awesome story.

Such an awesome season. I love the way that it happened. He homered off a lefty, Andrew Heaney, and then they brought in a righty, Phil Bickford, to face him to get Pujols out, and he took Bickford deep. Just can't contain Pujols. He's now up to a 144 WRC plus as I record this. Just unbelievable. Really, literally very difficult to believe. This is just a storybook season. So cool that he could have it for the Cardinals and that he could do it in LA where people were rooting for him because they watched Albert Pujols last year. What a way to go out. Just perfect, really. I guess perfect for Cardinals fans would be Pujols and Wainwright and Molina winning another World Series. Not sure everyone

else would go along with that. Every other fan base fine with Pujols hitting 700. Maybe not as fine with the Cardinals winning another ring, but that's a question for next month. As I mentioned recently, I'm just so happy that everyone who had only heard the stories of Albert Pujols and how good he was and was not following baseball when he was at his peak or was not alive yet in some cases when he debuted and started hitting these homers, they perhaps heard tell of his peak, I mean prior to his current peak, and they thought, this guy, this to his current peak, and they thought, this guy, this guy in the Angels, he was that great. Well, now those people are getting just

a little taste of what that was like. It's like the Han Solo from The Force Awakens quote, crazy thing is, it's true, all of it. It's all true. And since we talked about rules changes so much in this episode, just one more thing. As Clumbo says, we've gotten a couple emails from people who have directed our attention to this DraftKings ad, which has been playing in pretty heavy rotation. I believe it came out in late June. I'll just play a little snippet of it here. Baseball is dead? Nah. We've got pitchers hitting grand slams, a team playing a four-man outfield, and the best crop of Major League talent maybe ever.

Baseball is alive and well, and it's about to get even better. I agree with the sentiment that baseball is not dying, but two of the three reasons mentioned there are either gone or going away. So I don't know why they chose to highlight pitchers hitting grand slams in 2022, unless they're talking about Otani. I mean, it was fun when Daniel Camarena hit one, but that was last year. Did they not know about the universal DH? And then as for four player outfields, they're going away too. Fortunately, we do still have the most talented players ever, so that will still apply. Might have to update that ad copy though.

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You also get yourself access to some perks, so you don't have to do it just out of the good of your heart. You get some stuff, too. Today's thank yous go to L. LS, Marcus, Dylan DeThomas, Andrew Lindsay, and Terry Spencer. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Patreon Discord group, which is wonderful, as well as access to monthly bonus episodes and playoff live streams, plus discounts on merch and more. You can contact me and Meg via email at podcastfangraphs.com

or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectivelywild. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. You can follow Effectively Wild on Twitter at EWpod. And you can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash effectivelywild. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing and production assistance today and this week. at EWpod, and you can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash Effectively Wild. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing and production assistance today and this week.

Happy hunting to those of you paying exorbitant prices for Yankees bleacher seats so that you can try to catch a home run ball that will pay for many more seats. We hope you have a wonderful weekend, and we will be back to talk to you early next week. Cause you can Oh I'm gonna cough hold on Oh I I'm going to cough. Hold on. Oh, I don't want to cough at you. It's a... Oh. Well, that sounded like I have like a space disease that is going to, you know, expel

an alien in its larval stages. So I'm glad you didn't have to hear... Thanks for sparing all of us that. Yeah. I thought I'd spare that one for you i really do feel a lot better i sound like garbage sorry really great for this podcast which is an auditory medium