Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1919: The Dog Ate My Homer

Episode Date: October 22, 2022

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley follow up on their 2022 minor league free agent draft results, banter about ALDS Game 2, teams “not making excuses,” the Rangers hiring Bruce Bochy, and other news, and answer listener emails about a suggestion for changing the number of games per playoff round, how an average person would do […]

I don't mind if I do offend Cause I think it's understood The lights are on Must we all pretend That we need excuses to be good But some remain in the dark even now So someone tell me How a culture could allow

This to be and I Bow You don't need excuses now Hello and welcome to episode 1919 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of Fangraphs and I'm joined as always by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? Well, I have even worse news than I had last time about the minor league free agent draft results. Oh no, am I getting fired?

Started last episode. No, I mean, your numbers are the same as they were yesterday, which is not good news, but it's not any worse than it was. As I recapped, our clocks were cleaned by Ben Clemens, who thoroughly trounced us. But not only that, there was a control group. I don't know if you recall, there was a randomly selected group of minor league free agent draftees. This was the second time that we did this. A listener did it for us, just at random, selected some minor league free agents. I believe it was thomas burton a patreon supporter who did this and guess what that group did better too yeah we got beat by the random

number generator so if it's any consolation the random number generator only picked two players who ended up getting major league playing time but they still amassed more playing time than our three players a piece did. So Randy, the random number generator, picked Spencer Watkins, who got 468 combined plate appearances in batter's face, and then Narciso Crook, who got nine. And that was enough to edge out me, edge out both of us. So, boy, it doesn't reflect well on us if we can't beat the random number generator. We're like the, we're the in-venue odds of the minor league free agent draft.

Wow. No, see, it's different, Ben, because we weren't confident in our success. That's true. We never professed to be good at this. Yeah. Remember when we did the in-venue interview? That was wild. I do. confident in our success that's true we never professed to be good at this yeah remember when we did the in venue interview that was wild yeah it was i think about that every now and again i was like yeah that's one of the weirder couple hour stretches of my life possible that we're

not using enough variables in our model maybe we need hundreds more variables you know i think that much like our friends at in venue my issue might be an overly complex model maybe that explains it you're overfitting yeah i need to get i need to get back to basics so well that's humbling so we'll lick our wounds and come back strong next year. I mean, I'll say this. We'll come back next year. Yeah. You know? Whether it's strong or not.

Yeah. What state we're in, we're not going to make any promises again. We are aware of our limitations and the baseline difficulty of the exercise. So, you know, we'll come back and we'll just see. Maybe I will draft via random minor league generator and see how it goes. You know, maybe we'll do a little experiment. Yeah, I'm going to go with the Aaron Boone, Luis Severino defense here. I think the fact that the roof was open when we drafted, that's why we lost.

I think they just they got lucky. The random number generator and Ben Clemens. They both got lucky, and that's why we're down 0-2 in our series to Ben Clemens and the random number generator. Isn't it funny how when it's you complaining about something that happened in your life, you feel righteous, and when other people do it, you feel like they're being big babies? Isn't that funny how that works out? Yeah. Because, you know, I bet the roof and the wind and the this and the that did have an effect. Yeah, sure.

You know, the idea that the other team didn't have to deal with that same set of effects seems sort of silly. It is funny for a team that plays in Yankee Stadium to complain about how park factors might impact. Yes. Not that it is quite the little league park that former Rangers manager Chris Woodward called it, possibly tongue in cheek. I guess we've got a new Rangers manager to talk about today. Oh, yeah, I guess we do. But yes. And I'm pro excuses. I think we should normalize making excuses as long as they're valid excuses. Baseball people, they never want to make excuses or at least they do. But then they immediately just disclaim any claim to making excuses.

They're always like, I'm not here to make excuses. You know, it's like half our team was injured and, you know, all this other stuff happened. But I'm not here to make excuses. I'm just going to mention all the excuses. I'm not making them. I'm just going to throw them out there. But sometimes excuses are valid. Yeah.

It's just that, like, it doesn't sound gracious. It doesn't sound sports person-like, I guess. Yeah. it doesn't sound sports person like i guess yeah and and we just had a long conversation earlier this week about how random the playoffs are and like how much luck is involved in random variation like you can say in most postseason series they got lucky and it's usually true to some extent it's just that like when we say it about them right it's a little bit different than when they come out and say it about themselves yeah like i agree i think it's funny that they're like i don't want to make excuses but there was a ghost ah you know we were we were so afraid because there was a ghost it is a spooky season

ben i think we're officially at that point in october where my baseline level of fatigue becomes apparent to people who aren't me and i don don't offer that as an excuse, but I'm just here to tell you. Yeah, right. Just going to mention that. It's not an excuse. There's a ghost in here. Yeah. So the Yankees lost again.

The Astros are up 2-0. Yeah, they are. They can't be beaten or they haven't been beaten at least. They're just going to run the table all October it looks like. And this was another close game it was certainly a winnable game for the Yankees and and a frustrating loss to some extent and 3-2 obviously it could have gone the other way and Luis Severino was citing specifically so he gave up a three-run homer to Alex Bregman and Aaron Judge hit a ball that would have been gone in Yankee Stadium

and just was caught with a leaping catch at the warning track. And Severino said, Bregman hit it 91 miles per hour. That's the only thing I'm going to say. Then he continued and Judge hit it at 106 miles per hour and it didn't go out. I don't know. They got lucky. Which look, I mean, it's true, I suppose, that these things, like you hit a ball one way in one park, it goes out. And you hit it one way in another park, and it doesn't, you know, like you're playing in Houston.

And that wasn't like a total Crawford Boxes gift homer. Like sometimes there's some cheapies over there. homer like sometimes there's some cheapies over there but that one i think according to the wood at dong twitter account which is wonderful partly because it's named wood at dong but also for other reasons i mean let's be let's be real that's like 90 of what's wonderful and look that's a you're really putting big and dong in the same sentence ben you're you're comfortable with those choices you're like these are good. Friday podcast. So the Would It Dong Twitter account said that that would have been a home run in 25 out of 30 MLB parks. Would have donged.

Yes, without taking into account the roof being opened or the wind or whatever. Right. And it said that the judge, Homer, would have been a homer in two parks, I believe. I assume Yankee Stadium being one of them. Yeah, and I think the official StatCast determination was just one. Sometimes StatCast and Wooded Dong disagree. They have their dong beef. Yes.

Which is the paper of record when it comes to those things. Yeah, they do have a bunch of arrays and everything. So yeah, and you could play that game and you could say, well, if they'd been in a different park, then maybe they would have thrown a different pitch or they would have put a different swing on it or something. Maybe you tailor your swing to the park to some extent or maybe not. Maybe it was just the variability of the playoffs.

And yeah, if they're playing that game in Yankee Stadium, maybe Theron Judge's ball goes out and that's a go-ahead homer and maybe the Yankees win. Who knows? But, well, that's just how the playoffs work. And so I guess in principle, I'm OK with saying we got unlucky or they got lucky because like that typically is true. That is like how these things go. That is why you need so many games to actually reflect the team's true talent in baseball because weird stuff happens. Weird stuff. You know, the roof is open and the wind is doing something or you're in this park instead

of that park. And yeah, that can swing a postseason game and that can swing a postseason series. But what are you going to do? That's like, it's done. It's in the books and you lost. So I think probably it only inflames people's passions more. It makes you look like a sore loser or it makes you look weak in some way because you're offering excuses. Again, even if they are somewhat legitimate excuses, at least in some cases. I mean, Aaron Boone could go out there every day and say, we don't have this guy available and we don't have that guy available. But obviously, like everyone's just trying to piece it together the best they can in October and hope that they get favorable bounces and that their fly balls carry.

Yeah, it's funny. Seferino's comments after the game didn't strike me as particularly whiny. Like, I thought that was just an accurate description of what had happened. It is funny, though, for them to be talking about, like, the Astros' luck. And, you know, if Frambois Valdez doesn't fall down and have two errors in one play, basically, you know, who knows if the yankees score at all so you know luck can cut both ways and benefit both teams even if it doesn't end up benefiting them equally right like you can still be a beneficiary of luck so and there's also a difference like yeah you can hit a ball harder than another ball that doesn't necessarily mean it's more likely to be a home run

and it also depends on like the trajectory and trajectory and the angle and the spray angle and the vertical angle and all of that. So, you know, I think, again, like Bregman's ball would have been out of more parks. So even if it wasn't hit as hard, he pulled it and he pulled it in a direction where it's easier to hit a home run maybe. So that's just that's how home runs and batted balls work. So I guess you could say that in almost every game there's probably going to be some batted ball that was hit hard that didn't go out. So, yeah, it's like the Yankees, they're just kind of a patchwork quilt of a roster right now. They could certainly come back and win this thing. I mean, you know, they have Garrett Cole going.

They're going to play three in New York now. They got Nister Cortez lined up behind him. It's not like there's a weak spot in the Astros rotation, but I guess it's a relative weak spot coming up. And Cole has been really great lately and they could totally get back in this. Like, I guess the odds would put it, you know, 15%, 20% or so to come back from a 2-0 deficit to a really good team in a best of seven because as we have reminded people, you only have to win four. So the Astros are halfway there in the series. Yeah. We don't require that they win the next two in order. No, it doesn't have to. They can, yeah, any. I mean, they got five games to play with here, but they just have to win two of those. Just two. The Yankees are like starting a different shortstop in every game.

They're auditioning different relievers in every game. Like, you know, it's a good team, but they're not at their best here. And they're clearly kind of flailing a little. And like, let's see if Matt Carpenter will work. And, you know, like, let's just try to piece this together somehow. And meanwhile, the Astros, they're just a machine. They just seem like a juggernaut. And they're missing players too.

But the ones that they have are just so deep that it just seems like they're much more collected than the Yankees are right now. Well, and, you know, their biggest danger seems to be from champagne bottles. So as long as they steer clear of that, I think that they'll be in okay shape. For our listeners who don't know what I'm talking about, apparently Lance McCullers Jr. got whacked as too strong. But he got dinged up with a champagne bottle

after celebrating in Seattle. I think it thunked. He got hit in the shoulder. I'm trying to like, I don't want to ascribe more force or any intent to it, but he got hit in the shoulder, or the elbow rather, by a champagne bottle. And so now he's pitching game four instead of game three. Yeah. Well, he won't have to worry about champagne again

unless they win two more games, I guess. Two. But not enough that they don't have to be in a row. No. Just two. And you're going to get the prospect of a lot of games without off days potentially here, which is something. Yes, there are no off days.

Yeah, no. And Jay just wrote something for Fangraphs about how the starting pitcher is kind of back in the postseason. Starting pitchers have been more effective and are going deeper into games. And I think I welcome that. I think there's some signal there that that's real to some extent.

I also think that just, I don't know, I guess it's hard to untangle, like, is offense down because starting pitchers have been better or are starting pitchers staying in longer because offense is down? Like, it's just a offensive outage and so if no one's scoring then you maybe let your starter have a longer leash and and also it seems like teams have not really had to dip into the back of the rotations much to this point yeah and that that could change over the next week if we have a bunch of games in a row yeah right and so you're going to get your Clevenger starts and some other guys who are not the top of the rotation. Syndergaard is going to pitch again,

like your guys that you don't expect to go as deep into games. And they just haven't had to do that thus far because there's been a lot of sweeps or at least series not going the full length. And so you've been able to, in many cases, mostly rely on your good starting pitchers. So yeah, we'll see if that holds up. But I think I am fully on board with starting pitchers pitching more innings in the postseason. So happy to see it, however it comes

about. Yeah, I think that as Jay noted, and as we have talked about, it provides such a nice narrative anchor to every game and they're you know they're thrilling relievers it's not like we don't see relievers come in and we go wow like i can't believe he can throw that hard i can't believe that he can spin stuff like that i can't believe the break on that pitch right like we have that experience of it but i think that you feel like you're going to be able to settle in for something that is sort of coherent when you have a starter who's able to go six or seven. And then you really get to delight in those relievers because they present some kind of a contrast to the starter. So I just think it helps our squishy human brains latch on to something and then be able to sort of follow it through in a way that can be really

satisfying so that's good and then you know if we start to get back of the rotation guys for the astros we'll realize they're all really good also and then you know if people want to see someone other than them win the world series they might despair but you know one thing at a time yeah i wonder whether america is rooting more against the Astros or the Yankees. Like if somehow neither of them could advance and maybe just like the Padres and the Phillies could play another series or maybe they could just do a losers bracket instead. Just like bring back the Mariners, you know, bring back the Blue Jays. Like people might be happier with that. Someone has to win this series. But I don't know who is more hated. there and i think there are some fan bases where

the bad feeling will linger longer like it's gonna i don't know what you'd have to do to convince dodgers fans not to hate the astros right like that's just gonna be kind of a permanent grudge but it is interesting to think about it within the context of the actual roster because most of those guys are gone, but some of the biggest name guys remain. So it's not like, you know, the only guy left on the Astros roster from the sign stealing teams is like a reliever you see sometimes. It's literally Alex Bregman and Jose Otupe, right? So, and Gurriel for that matter. So I'm not surprised, but I am curious sort of what the half-life is going to be.

And, you know, nobody has to like them. You don't have to. There are far, people dislike sports teams and athletes for far sillier reasons than the sign-stealing scandal. So this isn't a finger wag on my part, but I am just kind of curious how long it will go. Yeah. And teams will be tested in ways that they're typically not in the regular season anymore with this lack of off days coming up because really, not only do starters pitch a lot fewer innings than they used to pitch, but relievers don't pitch really on back-to-back-to-back days anymore. It's another way that managers and teams have backed off of using pitchers. And Aaron Boone was kind of a trailblazer in that respect,

really just like going entire seasons without using someone three days in a row. I think he didn't this season until using Wandi Peralta in like every single game of the division series. So they just, I don't know if they'll run out of arms or players just aren't conditioned to do this at this point and they're going to be pushed to do it now and I guess that would be the one caveat maybe to what I was saying yesterday about Dan Simborski's study about how there doesn't seem to be any special secret sauce in the postseason is that we don't have that huge a

sample I suppose of times since really there was a clear disparity between the regular season and the postseason. Like, yeah, I think in the past. Yeah, obviously, like your your better starters would pitch more innings maybe proportionately than they do during the regular season. But I think it's more notable now. And part of that is because there are more off days typically in the postseason than there often used to be, at least before the World Series. And so you really can concentrate your innings in your best relievers' hands and your best starters' hands. over and above just the strength of your roster to having a top-heavy bullpen or a deep bullpen or a top-heavy starting rotation or whatever it is. And maybe that just would not be clear if you're looking at a larger sample of postseason play.

It's just, it's hard if you're subdividing it even more and looking at just a few years of postseason, then it's even fewer games and you're just not going to have enough of a sample to be able to make any kind of pronouncement there. But if you wanted to say that maybe the larger results are not reflective of how things work now, I guess you could make that case. But we will see whether the Yankees, whether all of these teams can actually cope with this schedule and push some players beyond what they've been asked to do for much of the season. Well, in all likelihood, it will be sort of aberrant in its lack of off days, right? Because at least part of what is, I mean, there is the reality of having a three game wild card rather than the play in game, the single play in game. just be one scheduled off day on a weekend day. Someone will look around and be like, well, that's rude.

We shouldn't do that. That feels rude to people. We should get Halloween off. I think we should get Halloween off then. That'd be nice. Yeah. I've got a kid now. Yeah.

Yeah. Also, they didn't really build in a lot of leeway for rain or weather, which tends to be an issue in October and November. And weirdly enough was an issue this October and November. completely different set of rules or schedule. I like having to kind of dance with the players who brought you there, right? And actually have to like use your roster top to bottom to get past your opponents. So I'm in favor of that, but it is sort of different from how many players are asked to perform in this day and age. Maybe we're past, I don't know, it seems like we're maybe past peak pitcher usage shrinking and starters pitching even fewer innings per start, at least in the post innings or like all the starters are pitching three innings. I hope to avoid that future by putting in limits and roster restrictions on how many pitchers you can have. But in the postseason, you're going to get something closer to that because it just makes some sense. Yeah, it makes some sense. But I

think that there is a happier medium to be had. And in a year where we have an on time start and we aren't coming off of a truncated season and weird stop and start you know spring training stuff it seems I feel like we can get back there you know next year I say that and then next spring we'll be swallowed

by some horror the dinosaurs will be back the sharks me on land. We'll have an on-time opening day, though. Yep, that'd be nice. All right, well, that's the only baseball since we last spoke. We are recording on Friday afternoon, so game three of the NLCS has not yet been played.

Right. But you can hear our thoughts on that next week and even sooner if you'd like, if you want to sign up for our Patreon and join us for a live stream of Game 4 on Saturday, we will be doing that. Yeah. So I guess we've got a few emails we can answer.

Maybe we should mention that there's been some manager news. So Blue Jays officially anointed John Schneider as their permanent manager, not their interim manager, but that's not the bigger manager news of the day he's buying low on the Rangers, right? It's a good time to get in that dugout, like a team on the come up, at least theoretically. So he gets to look good if he can ride that ascendance. And I would assume there's some relationship there with Chris Young, right, who is running baseball operations in Texas now and was managed by Bochy previously with the Padres. It's got to be a little weird, right? Like, if you're a player who was managed by someone and now you're the GM or whatever his title is, and you're now that manager's boss, basically, you've like frogged that guy in the hierarchy,

and now you're hiring him. It seems like it would be kind of awkward, but I guess not. I guess they concluded that it would work quite well and maybe they had a good relationship. And how can you go wrong, I guess, with Bruce Bochy, right? So it's interesting because like he was about to be elected to the Hall of Fame. Yeah. Certainly. Right. Like I think first time eligible this December. Yes. I would imagine with his resume, he would have gotten in. Yeah. And he cannot as an active manager, you can get in and then return as Tony Russo did. But he is deferring his eligibility here, which is I guess that's kind of a flex. It's like, I'll just I'll get into the Hall of Fame later. And like, there's nothing I can do to spoil my Hall of Fame resume here, which is probably true.

Like, you know, even if this were a disaster somehow, like he's won the World Series that he won. He's had the track record he has. I don't think he could like un-Hall of Fame himself at this point. Yeah. I mean, gosh, what a spectacular crash and burn that would have to entail i don't even know absent like really abhorrent like criminal behavior i can't imagine kurt schilling pivot yeah which doesn't seem like we can but yeah i wonder how candidly they talked about the potential awkwardness of the sort of shifting dynamic. I mean, hopefully, like if you're, you know, if you're a head of baseball ops, you view

the field manager as like a partner in crime, right? Even if not literal crime, but like, you know, you're collaborating in helping the team to achieve its goals and you're hoping to have a productive relationship among peers who respect one another. And there might be technical differences in the hierarchy, but I would hope that that's the way that most folks in Chris Young and Bruce Bochy's roles consider their relationship and sort of the goal of it. But I do wonder how candid they were. Did they sit down and go, so should we just get this out of the way now? Should we talk about it? You know?

Right. I mean, there are dynamics change over time, right? We all grow up and then we have to have adult relationships with our parents. And those are obviously importantly different than they were when we were little and like couldn't. I was about to say couldn't drive and that was going to feel targeted. And I didn't mean it that way. You know, weren't yet able to vote, could not own property, you know, that sort of thing.

So there is precedent for human relationships adapting through those sort of hierarchy changes. But I wonder how it strikes them. And if it, I mean, clearly, if they thought it was going to be a problem, I would imagine that he wouldn't be managing. Yeah. But with someone who is his age and his experience level, like we saw, obviously, you know, Joe Madden was unable, unwilling to adjust to this new world where the manager is the middle manager. And again, perhaps he had some valid complaints with the Angels. We don't know. But it does seem like if you establish yourself in an earlier era where the manager did have more autonomy and now you're getting a new job in a new town, as David Bowie said, and everything

has changed. And he came in in the mid-90s. That was a far different era. And even when he was with the Giants, that was maybe like an older school organization. Right. At the time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And he had experience in he has like demands or conditions like, hey, if I do this, are you going to fill out my lineup card here? Like, you know, are you going to chastise me for pitching moves? Like, let's get all extent he was interviewing the Rangers. Just being like, what kind of dynamic are we talking about here? Right. Like, if you're going to hire me, are you going to hire me just to be the push button manager who's following orders? Or do you want me to be the more old school field general that I used to be, which worked out quite well for my teams at the time?

So we'll see. I guess we'll see. But they could have gone with one of the younger guns here. Like at the same time, there's been news about other managerial candidates who are interviewing with lots of teams. Right. So predictably, it's the bench coaches for the Rays and the Astros to be the most in demand rookie manager candidates. So Matt Quattraro of the Rays and Joe Espada of the Astros. And those guys have interviewed with a bunch of teams for years now.

And they're interviewing with other teams now. And I would guess that one or both of them will get one of the remaining vacancies. It just seems like they would be the obvious picks for if you're a team that maybe can't laura uh bruce bocce although i don't know maybe he wouldn't have thought that the rangers would would be that team yeah i just think that like the rangers we've talked about this they had a 15 and 35 record in one run games this year and they were not a great team regardless but if that's even just an even record that's a whole different complexion to that season. Maybe they're not even hiring a new manager.

Maybe Chris Woodward's still employed. Maybe John Daniels is. But really, I think I could manage the Rangers and they would probably have a better record in one-run games next season. They might really be a disaster in other ways, but I'm pretty sure they would win more one-run games. So in that sense, they're primed for the good kind of regression here, just on top of whatever other abilities Bruce Bochy gives you.

I think they will just have better luck. Again, they're not necessarily coming out and making excuses. They're not saying, we had a terrible one-run record and that's largely dependent on luck and that's why we were so bad, but I'm making that excuse for them. So maybe that was partly due to personnel, but I think probably a lot of it was just really lousy luck and that is

unlikely to happen again. I love how the results of the minor league free agent draft were what they were. And you're like, I could definitely manage this big league. I could sign good players. You just know what to do with them once they were on the field. That's fair. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Okay, fine. But, you know, a friendly amendment to my prior statement.

I get it now. I understand. Anyway, nice to have Bruce Bochy back. I'm sure for Giants fans, it's a little bit like, you know, Dad, like you have a new family now. Like what is happening here? Like I thought you were going to-

Dad met a nice lady and got a new home. Can I tell you about the most embarrassing moment I've had as an Italian-American because it involves Bruce Bochy. So Bruce Bochy, and I wonder now if he will do this, but before he was hired by the Rangers, he had been announced as the manager of Team France in the World Baseball Classic. Yeah, he was born there. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you knew that. I thought Bruce Bochy was Italian, and I realized, I was like, why did I think that?

Like, did I hear him tell a story? No, Ben, it was because Bochy and Bocce sound sort of similar. And I was like, oh, man, I'm so glad my great-grandma's not around to hear that story because she would be so embarrassed for me. She'd say, I can't make pizzales. Christmas. Anyway, story about me being

a dummy. That is funny. Alright, well, I guess that's most of the baseball news that has happened since we last spoke. So I've got a few emails here. Maybe one or two playoff related, some not. So Chris

wrote in to say, long time listener, second time writer, I've been thankful for your detailed explanations of how many games a team needs to win in this new format with Best of Three Series. Encouraging us is such an interesting choice. It really helped me through some difficult, confusing moments. So glad to help, Chris. Someone wrote in to say that they'd actually legitimately been confused or their partner had while watching a game about how many games had to be won. And I apologize for not covering that topic more thoroughly. We should have explained in even greater depth.

Anyway, Chris says, in light of the Dodgers quick exit in a short series after a historically strong regular season, I'm sympathetic to the idea that we got robbed of seeing the best teams for longer in the playoffs. I'm a Cubs fan, by the way. My thought, which I could see Manfred getting on board with, is that the length of the playoff series is backward. Make the wildcard round a nine-game series, then a seven-game series for the division round, then five for the championship series, and three or even one for the World Series. Some advantages. Number one, more fan bases would be invested in the playoffs.

Good for the game. Good for TV revenue, I assume. Two, more likely that the best teams can win a longer series and the gatekeeping effect is earlier in the playoffs. Three, the best teams that can wrap up an early round in five or six games in a nine game series would get some off time, which effectively can work as a buy, allowing the best teams to reset their pitchers for the next round. Four, by the time we get to the World Series, the gatekeeping would be perhaps high enough that it would really be the best team surviving that far. That's sort of the same as number two. Number five, the World Series could

be a massive cultural must-see event like the Super Bowl if it was a single game. I imagine MLB would love this sort of attention. So I see a couple of issues. Well, I think the first is that, and I applaud all of the very clever and creative attempts that our listeners have made at making the postseason sort of more representative of the regular season. But I just, unless we're playing much, much longer, like much, much longer, many, many more games, we're still not going to get there, you know?

Yeah. So there's always going to be this sort of insurmountable gap unless we want the MLB postseason to mirror the NBA or NHL in terms of its duration, which I don't think we have a tremendous amount of appetite for. And I would imagine that the sports appetite for it is probably limited too, because I'm sure they're aware of how long they can ask even committed baseball fans to pay attention when, you know, you have the NFL going and the NBA starting back up and all this stuff. So there's that piece of it. And I also think that, you know, one of our concerns for the playoffs

and how they interact with the regular season was wanting teams to be sort of heavily incentivized to win as many games as they possibly can so that they have advantageous seating so that they get time off and whatnot. And while I appreciate that nine games potentially for a wildcard round is like a lot of time for the Dodgers or the Astros or whomever to get to hang out and kind of get their guys healthy and rested and whatnot. I think that if you are asking the higher seeded teams to play fewer games, where presumably the variance in any given series is getting, it might even get higher than it is. And certainly if the World Series is determined by one games i wonder if we're flipping the incentives sort of on their head in a way that we wouldn't like because now you're saying to a division winner well you have to play even fewer games and you could still

be a world champion and that strikes me as being maybe not the ideal set of incentives to put before teams so yeah i think that think that that's the problem. And then if we go even deeper into November, like, you know, you think people are complaining about win now. People just complain about win for weeks and weeks potentially. So, yeah, I think a winner take all single game for the World Series, it would be a huge event. Like, would it rival the Super Bowl? I guess probably nothing would at this point. But I think that really, you're probably getting more in terms of revenue and eyeballs in a longer World Series because even if it's artificially drummed up that

the World Series matters more than the previous rounds, that is how everyone understands it to be. That's the ultimate goal. And so you're not going to get as many people tuning in to watch a best of nine wildcard round as you are to get a best of seven World Series. So I think the later it gets, the more just built in tension and the higher the stakes are. And so I think probably the networks would say this is the opposite of what we want. Yes. I think people would probably tune out a best of nine wildcard round, even if it did ensure that you might have better teams playing later in the postseason. But that is not necessarily something that makes people more interested in the postseason, as we've discussed. Whether it should be or not, it just doesn't seem to be.

Like, yeah, if the Dodgers were in it just because the Dodgers have a big fan base, maybe more people would be watching than are watching the Padres, let's say. No offense to the Padres. I'm happy to see the Padres get to be in the series. But I do think that, yeah, people would not be so into the earlier rounds when people care less. However artificial a construct all of this is, you're really concentrating more games in lower stakes series probably. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's right. Okay. Question from Myth, Patreon supporter. This is not playoff related.

Let's say a warlock curses you, an average human being with average human athleticism, to play shortstop for a full season in the majors, just fielding, no hitting or base running. The warlock does feel a little bad for you though, so they do grant you the preternatural ability to know exactly when a ball is going to be hit in play and the exact location you need to stand to field it perfectly. Assuming you know exactly where the ball is going to land, but are otherwise just an ordinary person, what kind of defensive stats could you put up?

At what point would analytics people start to notice, could you win a gold glove this way from voters who only look at fielding percentage? So whether it's a warlock or you have just the most accurate positioning charts imaginable, you always know that the ball is going to be put in play and you know exactly where it's going to be put in play. So you can stand right there, take your sweet time. The question is, can that foreknowledge compensate for your just being an average person and having an average person's ability to actually glove a ball and complete a play even knowing exactly what you have to do in advance? Well, it would definitely help. It certainly would help, yeah. help it certainly would help yeah because i have maintained that one of the there there's like a just a bushel of ways that i could embarrass myself if i were put on a big league field but

i worry that one of the ways that would get like web gemmed the most would be me looking around for the ball and looking in the wrong place this is one of the most impressive things about catchers. They know when to throw their mask off, Ben. Yeah, that's true. They know. They're like, I got to throw it and get it out of the way so that I can go. And I would get that wrong. Now on your Twitter profile pic, you always have the mask on.

You never take it off. Well, that's for privacy. Yes. So it would help a lot to feel confident that i knew where the ball was going i don't know that it would change my instinct to duck out of the way of the ball yeah right i think that i think that i could work on that though i think i could get to a point where i would feel more sure that i would not end my work day with a broken nose i think I could get to a point where I would feel more sure that I would not end my work day with a broken nose.

I think I could work on that. I think I could probably work on my arm strength some, but I'm not going to end up looking like Popeye. There's some natural limitations to my average lady physique. I think it would help some, but I would still probably be a below average fielder. I think that the arm strength would be, I mean, I guess it sort of depends

where you're going to be, right? Oh, shortstop. We know that. That's part of the question. Yeah, I think I would, I think the arm strength component of it would do me in. I think that would be a real problem. Right, Yeah.

As someone who has had their nose broken by a bad hop that bounced off a tree root, I feel like I could speak to this from some experience. But yeah, it would be pretty terrifying to face major league exit speeds. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Whether you know where it's going or not. In a way, it'd be even scarier if you know where it's going because you'd be like, I guess you could prepare, you could back up a little bit. But if you back up, then it's an even bigger problem arm strength wise.

Yeah. So, yeah, like the question was not necessarily how would we do, but how would an average person do? And the questioner did not do us the discourtesy of presuming whether we would be above or below average. So we're just talking about an average person. I do think that the throw would be an issue for the average person. Are we talking about like the average person who has had some baseball experience? Like it's an average person with average human athleticism. I don't know that that person can make the throw from shortstop,

like period. I don't think, especially like with a big league runner going down the line with an average transfer speed, like, you know, you can practice, you can take a zillion ground balls and that would help. And you wouldn't have to worry about your range so much and your first reaction and all of that. So it would just be how reliably can you not have this ball clang off your body or go through your legs or whatever, like how many bruises would you sustain during the season? I think that this person cursed or blessed or whatever we're saying by the Warlock, I think they would still be quite bad at defense at a major league level yeah like

they'd be better they could complete some plays perhaps as opposed to like very few yeah but yeah like it really would help because like let's say you know it's going to be a slow roller like you can play in if you you know it's going to be a pop-up into no man's land like you can play back so really it it does help a whole lot not to have to run anywhere, not have to gauge where the ball is going to go. That strips a lot of the skill required out of playing defense. And yet, even so, to be able to glove it cleanly, make the transfer cleanly, and the throw. The throw is because arm strength, like you can improve arm strength to an extent. Yeah, but.

But yeah, not to as great an extent, perhaps as some other skills. Well, and it's like, maybe you get it to the point you can hurl it over there, but to do that with accuracy and timing, like, oh gosh, it would be. Are you like,

is the warlock gonna check if you're, is the warlock watching every game to check that you're out there? Because like you could be a really good bench coach. You would be like a really rocking bench coach. Yeah. I think if you gave like any major league fielder this ability. Oh, my gosh. Even if you gave like, you know, Kyle Schwarber this ability.

Yeah. Pick your not so great defender here. And even if you stuck them at shortstop, like someone who doesn't typically play shortstop, I think they could do it because they could throw and most of them, they could field a ball that is hit right at them fairly reliably. Oh, yeah. So it'd be interesting, would this person get the gold glove or like would you just assume that they were cursed or blessed by a warlock? And like would all the credit go to the team for its positioning this player so accurately? Or when the team said, no, we didn't tell him to stand there. He stood there. Then I guess you'd give all the credit to the player. And like does this player know about other batted balls and where they're

going to go and position the rest of the team right do that yeah yeah i don't know maybe it just applies to to balls that are hit directly at you and and then like if if you know where it's going to be hit anywhere on the field at least before shift restrictions then do you just run over there and just like just stand in front of of someone else or do you tell them where it's going to go? I don't know. I think for any big league player, even like a DH, I don't know, like, could you put Nelson Cruz out at shortstop with this fore, it's going to be an impediment because like not only do you have to get it over there, you can't just lob it, right? Because like players run pretty fast. So by the time you lob it over there and just like throw a pop-up over to first base, they're just going to beat that out anyway, even if you didn't have to run to the ball. So I just, I still think you would probably not be playable, the average person. Yeah, I think it would be probably be a little disastrous.

All right, let's go with a more realistic scenario here. This is Jason, Patreon supporter. Would it be viable for a team to sign a hypothetical 75 foot tall batter who could run from base to base in a single step? who could run from base to base in a single step. It would not be viable in that no such giant exists, to my knowledge. But if one did, would that be viable? I mean, this reminds me, in episode 1847, I cited an old article from 1951 where Bill Veck, after signing Eddie Goodell, his next move, he wanted to sign an eight-footer. He wanted to sign a giant because he thought that an eight-footer would be as much of a problem for opposing pitchers as a three-foot, seven-inch player was. Sure, yeah.

And if there were a 75-foot batter runner, it is true. I guess they could just sort of, well, they'd have to stand at the plate. I mean, they wouldn't be able to be contained by the batter's box, might be one issue. So they might just be an automatic out. But if we give them special dispensation for that, it's hard for me to imagine a 75 foot tall person making contact and not just having it be hit yeah like an infinite distance well and imagine the size of your strike zone it would be a nightmare to call the thing that's the thing right and also like how long would it take this person to swing right the other issue right like now their strike zone would be so huge and it would be so high because if they're 75 feet tall.

You need like a. How high is their knee? Right. You need a giant umpire. Yeah. You'd almost need a giant umpire. Like nothing could be caught with this giant because in order to throw the ball in the giant strike zone, you'd probably have to throw the ball into the stands every time. zone, you'd probably have to throw the ball into the stands every time, right? It would just like go over the backstop because you'd have to basically throw like the ultimate Ephus, like throw a pop-up essentially just to get it in the strike zone. But if you could do that, I just, I wonder how long it would take a 75 foot tall person. Like what's the wingspan on this person?

Like how long does it take for them to swing and does it take so long that they could not possibly make contact if you were able to throw the ball with any pace well i don't think they'd be able to make contact because relative to their studies the ball is tiny right yeah the ball is just tiny it would be hard to to see you'd need a giant pitcher and a very big ball yeah if all of those conditions were satisfied, it would be an advantage that you could just make it to first base in a single bound or a single stride. I guess that would be good.

But what if he stepped on the first baseman? Oh, yeah. Well, is there a rule against that? I mean, you might murder a lot of people. They can't help it. It's manslaughter at worst. They're just, I mean, they own the baseline, right? It's defensive interference.

You're under the giant's clomping foot. The first baseman's existence is not interference, Ben. Once you establish the baseline. They don't fit in the baseline. Anyway. They wouldn't fit anywhere. No. How would they get into the ballpark?

Yeah. They'd have to step and like... Over the... Yeah. You'd have to airlift them in. Yeah. How would it work in the trop? How do you get them into the trop?

What happens when they scrape their head on the walkways? Yeah. Right. Yeah. The catwalks. Yeah, they'd need special ground rules just for them. I think that, you know, look, we could figure it out with the mole men, but I don't know about the 75-foot tall. No, you can go underground, but this high above the ground,

this might be a problem. Yeah. I don't think it's viable for any number of reasons. Yeah. And look, I don't want to exclude people, but I think that there's a genuine safety issue there. Like what if they step on somebody? Right. Yeah.

Think how traumatic that would be if you're, I mean, you think the guy temporarily looking like he might drop his baby is bad. Like watch out. Ben, can I share something about my neighborhood for halloween there is a house down the road that has the 12 foot tall home depot skeleton they also have a 12 foot tall like pumpkin horror man and i've never been more jealous of anything in my entire life yeah it's not overkill to have both of those things it's 100 overkill it is the definition of overkill but i am still very jealous yeah i guess if the the 75 foot tall person were a pitcher their release point would be quite advantageous because the ball would be on top of you as they

say but literally so but but couldn't that also hurt you if it were dropped from 75 feet up and then it bonked you on the head? Probably. I don't think it would kill you, but I think it would hurt. I think we would need to build new ballparks for the Giants to play in. Yeah, you'd have to have the roof open in Minute Maid for sure, and Aaron Boone would not be happy about this. Yeah, and what does he have to say?

He basically has two giants playing for him right now. They're not 75 feet tall, but they look like they come from a baseball planet. Mitch, Patreon supporter, says, If you were an MLB hitter, which do you think you'd be more embarrassed by, swinging at a pitch that went extremely wild or swinging at a pitch that then hit you?

Oh, that's a good question. Yeah. It's a strike either way, but I think I would be more embarrassed by, I guess, the extremely wild, I think, maybe. Oh, really? Because sometimes it does add injury to insult if you you swing a pitch and then it hits you. But also I think it could hit you without being as wild as what I'm imagining. I guess it depends on how wild it is. So if we're talking about a pitch that's so far outside that it is farther from the strike zone than the pitch that hits you,

that's I guess like the swing decision, the plate discipline here is maybe more embarrassing to me. Like, what was that? Was it Profar who swung at that pitch in the postseason? I'm thinking of a pitch that was like incredibly distant. It was like it bounced. And now I'm forgetting who swung at it. I will look it up. I'm sure many millions of listeners are shouting out the name wherever they are listening to this. But in my mind, that might be more embarrassing than if it's like a pitch that just had nasty movement and it was like started inside, but not way inside. But then it just like was in on your hands and moved more. Like sometimes there could be a pitch that hits you that like actually started out in a reasonable location where you might want to swing in it so i think if it were like way outside or way short and i swung wildly i might be even more embarrassed by that than i would be by getting hit and i guess if you

get hit yes you're embarrassed but our natural instinct as as folks watching is to feel sympathy for you because you've been hit even though you maybe looked a little silly because you swung at a thing that hit you so maybe that tips the scales because the embarrassment sort of dissipates more quickly but i guess it sort of depends where it hits you because maybe i mean maybe the embarrassment dissipates immediately because you're just feeling terrible because you've been hit by a pitch and it hurts yeah it was pro far by the way so that's good i didn't slander someone it was it was pro far against the the dodgers and he swung in a pitch that was like gosh i don't know 45 feet

yeah it was uh even javi bias might have held up on that one. So I think that is my answer. But both are bad and both are embarrassing. And I guess at least only one leaves you with an ouchie. So that is a point in favor. Yeah, but, you know, some bruises, Ben, you don't see them. But that doesn't mean they're not there. Yep.

Leave a bruise on your psyche. All right. Question from Chris. I attended the Padres at Mets game on Friday, July 22nd. Before the game started, there were four separate first pitches. Whoa. This wasn't a group of four people doing a first pitch. It was four separate people, each with their own separate PA announcement that they were doing a first pitch.

It does not seem possible to be the first pitch when other people have thrown out the first pitch already. I would also feel like my first pitch was devalued if I was not actually the first of the four. Am I being unreasonable? No, I don't think so at all. That seems like a lot. Like, I don't think it's unusual to have like two ceremonial first pitches. And one of them maybe involves like they seem to fall into two ceremonial first pitches. And one of them maybe involves like, they seem to fall into two categories.

Like either it's a corporate partner of some kind or it's someone who has been afflicted with a terrible disease. Like those seem to be the sort of groups. And then there'll be, and sometimes school children. And sometimes those school children are also athletes. Sometimes they are school children who are associated with either a corporate partner or someone who's had a terrible disease yes hopefully not but yes sometimes sometimes so there's like that group and then there tends to be the like sport figure first

pitch sometimes it's a person who used to play for that team sometimes it's like you know a sports figure from that city who plays a different sport and And like, that seems fine to me. You know, you can have two. But four seems like a lot. Like, what are the circumstances under which there need to be four? Yeah, I don't know who the four were. That's like 20 minutes. Right. Sometimes they'll do it simultaneously.

So they'll have a few people like set up like a first pitch firing squad almost. And they'll just like all and you'll have a few people like set up like a first pitch firing squad almost. It's just like all of them. You'll have multiple catchers. And if it's that, if it's simultaneous and so you're one of the first pitches, but all the pitches are happening concurrently, I think I would not feel slighted and cheated by that. I guess the spotlight is not solely on you, but still at least it's at the same time. But if it's sequential then yeah diminishing returns though i will say you know if your first pitch goes badly and you're sandwiched in between other first pitches your odds of that of being embarrassed for a long time kind of go down

yeah you're right like sometimes they'll be like here are the four best teachers from the state of new jersey and they throw a pitch and then you're like i hope everybody's doing okay and not like hitting catchers and right or a few veterans from some team that's being celebrated will be there throwing out pitches together the state champion pole vaulters from every division sure i bet they're accurate i bet pole vaulters would make for good pitchers. I bet their accuracy is high. I'm terrified of being asked to throw a first pitch.

I don't think it'll ever happen because who cares about me doing that. But I'm very afraid. Like when Mina Kimes threw out a first pitch at the Mariners game, she did great. But I was like, absolutely not. I waited to tell her that. But I was like, you're brave. I would not do that. Yeah.

I threw out a first pitch at a Sonoma Stompers game, which is a little bit different in terms of the pressure and the fans in attendance. I still like, I basically blacked out. I don't remember anything. It went fine. It went well. I think I threw a reasonably accurate pitch, but I don't really recall much about it. I know that it happens happened but i just like basically

didn't form a memory of it because it was like oh boy this is happening this could go badly if it had gone badly it probably would not have gone viral because i don't think anyone was actually recording it which was definitely a load off my mind and and like i you know i know we just spent several minutes detailing the many kinds of folks who throw first pitches who are not in fact baseball players but like why would anyone want me to it just doesn't feel like a thing i should do you know i like write about other people doing that like it doesn't need to be a thing i do but no one has asked me so why do i why am i worried about this ben do you remember when they had us sign baseballs when we did the staten island yankees event like 20 million years ago

and i think at the time I looked at the PR guy and I was like, why? You want me to sign a baseball? I don't throw this thing around. I don't catch it. Like I would be terrible at that. And you know, it was a nice thing. But I was like, this is awkward.

It gave me a lot of sympathy for ballplayers actually having to like sign balls for kids and you know, the autograph hawks who like haunt the Fall League, I'm just like, this is an awkward surface to write on. Yeah, it is. Got to have the right type of pen. All right. Michael, Patreon supporter, says, I was listening to the Tigers-Mariners game on October 5th, and after the Tigers tied the game in the top of the fourth inning, as the broadcasters were talking at the start of the bottom of the fourth inning they described it as quote a whole new ball game while i agree that if the home team ties a game going into the next inning it is as if the game is zero zero i think it is not a whole new

ball game when it is tied going into the bottom half of an inning because the home team has one extra chance at bat than the visitors do a whole new ball game implies equal odds but the extra half inning must tilt the odds in favor of the home team so it cannot be a whole new ball game at that point well i guess that's technically true yep the best kind of true. Yes. But I get the spirit of the sentiment, right? I get the sentiment that they're trying to express, which is like- Sure. They were ahead before, and now they are no longer ahead, which doesn't mean they can't

push ahead, but they are no longer ahead. They now have to score runs in order to win. Whereas before, if they just managed to prevent runs, they didn't have to score any more runs. So I get it. I get the objection, but I think this one is okay because your mandate has shifted to include a whole other activity that you maybe thought you were done having to do. Yes, I do agree with Michael. It's not a, I wouldn't say this is a huge broadcaster error. I wouldn't bat an eye at it probably. And I'm sure I haven't until now that Michael has brought it to my attention.

But I think he has a point here. He's correct. It's not really a new ballgame. It's not pure as the driven snow it's not a new virgin ball game where someone's throwing out a first pitch their win expectancy wise it is tilted one way

and Michael makes a fine point here I don't know if it was a necessary point but it is a fine point I agree with it in principle everyone should let us know if they feel like this segment is getting too antagonistic. Just let us know. I think that people understand we might say, no, I don't agree.

People don't want us to be too easy on the pedantic questions either because if we agree with everything, then we'll sound too pedantic. Yeah, then what kind of pedants are we? It's still a hard word to say. Last question. Cameron says, given all the discussion of stadium names on the show, I wonder if you've ever considered what it would take for Effectively Wild to get naming rights somewhere. My thought is the low minors or indie ball might have some affordable options, or as a journalistic enterprise, would this create untenable conflicts of interest? Interesting.

Effectively wild park. Yeah. See I would feel pressure if we did that for the park to be weird and wacky in some way. And we'd have to throw out a first pitch. Yeah probably have to throw out a first pitch too. Oh no go for me then. Nope.

But we couldn't just take some standard park and call it effectively Wild Park. It would have to be a weird park in some way. So maybe one of the weird parks we've talked about it at times, like there was a time where like weirdly configured parks was a running bit on the show. And we talked about weird like amateur parks

that just had all kinds of obstacles and odd dimensions so if we were to approach like a high school team or something that had just a really weird park and we said could we call this effectively wild parks they'd probably say no it's named after like our longtime coach and pillar of the community or something but but if we could for some reason persuade people to do that then i'd be okay with that or if we could, for some reason, persuade people to do that, then I'd be okay with that. Or if we found some very low minors or indie ball team that was willing to go along with this for whatever reason, I guess that would be kind of fun. If it were a team that we had no conflict of interest, we could root for a team at that level, but it would have to be weird. It would

have to be effectively wild in some way. I wouldn't just want to slap the name on it. I would want to have it be indicative of the qualities of the park in some way. Yeah, I think it would require a degree of sort of organizational control that seems beyond our means. Yeah. I'd really, I'd want to build the park from scratch to my odd, strange specifications, preferably. And I don't know that we're going to have anyone who will come along and invite us to do that. But who knows? That's how the only rule is it has to work happens. Someone reached out and was like, hey, you can use our team to run your strange baseball science experiments. So maybe someone will reach out and say our naming rights are available and we would like to give it to you, the podcast, so that you can

promote our team on your podcast. Yeah. And see, that part would be tricky for this. Yeah. Right. Because we don't do much in the way of sponsorships and such other than our stat head sponsorship. So I don't know. I'm open to it. It'd be a cool little honor if someone wanted to do it. Some coach out there is playing on an unnamed little league field and wants to rechristen it effectively Wild Park and put up a little plaque. Please let us know. We will mention that on the show. Maybe we'll even come out and throw a first pitch if you want us to, except Meg. Meg will not. No, I will not.

All right. By the way, there was also a report from John Heyman, I believe, that Dusty Baker will be invited back to manage the Astros in 2023, which again, doesn't seem like it should have been in question, but was for a while. Weirdly, there were reports circulating about how he might not be invited back. Maybe making it to a sixth consecutive ALCS and not having lost a playoff game thus far has solidified his standing there. But one way or another, it seems like Bruce Bochy will not be

the oldest kid on the block. Hopefully Dusty will be back if he wants to be. He will at least have the option to be. Well, that's something. All right. So we can end with the past blast. And this is episode 1919. And so our past blast comes from Jacob Pomeranke and also from 1919.

Jacob is Saber's director of editorial content and chair of the Black Sox Scandal Research Committee. And we're up to the big year that people do Black Sox research about, 1919. And so the heading for this one is Suspicious Minds. So Jacob writes, As the 1919 World Series got underway, the fact that eight Chicago White Sox players were conspiring to fix their games against the Cincinnati Reds was a poorly kept secret among baseball insiders, but very few people had the courage to speak about their suspicions publicly at the time. One who did was Cleveland manager Tris Speaker, who had an up-close view

of the White Sox all season long as the two rivals battled for first place until late September. The future Hall of Famer was hired to write a guest column for the Cleveland Plain Dealer after each game. When the White Sox were blown out 9-1 in Game 1, Speaker immediately called attention to all the mental lapses he saw the White Sox make on the field, writing, Well, the Cincinnati Reds today beat the Chicago White Sox about as badly as we generally beat a Republican candidate for office down in Texas.

Huh. That is a pass blast. All right. You bet it was a surprise to me, for I was betting that the Sox would grab the first game. And when a man bets that way, he generally thinks it. That's true. You know, when you have money riding on something or even just your reputation at stake, like you do kind of convince yourself that you're right, or at least you root for it to be true. The Sox that Cincinnati walloped today did not seem like the same Sox who beat Cleveland out of the pennant. The Chicago team that led us to the wire had Eddie Seacott working like one of the greatest pitchers I have ever seen in action. The Sox who showed us the way played smart ball. If the Seacott who pitched against Cincinnati today looked like the Seacott who beat us so often during the American League campaign,

then I better quit center fielding and go to pitching myself. Speaker spent the rest of the week criticizing the White Sox in specific ways for playing out of position, missing cutoff men, and getting thrown out on the bases. He expressed his astonishment and disgust at their miserable display of strength. In private, Speaker was even more pointed, warning his friends not to bet on the series and even telling one reporter, did you ever see these White Sox pitchers groove the ball for us the way they have in this series? There's something phony about it all, but I don't know what it is. It took another year after the fall of 1919 for the full truth to come out,

but Speaker and others could see what was happening from the very first game. I wonder what it would take nowadays for people to come out and say that a team was throwing a game or accuse a team of throwing a game. That's a serious charge to level. I feel like you'd have to feel very sure. Yeah, right. And teams just have bad games all the time. So I feel like my inclination probably would be to downplay that possibility and be like, hey, everyone has a bad game. And how could you even, could you prove it? I guess if all the pitchers were throwing below their usual velocity or something or if they were grooving every pitch, I guess in a, you know, root efficiencies and play probabilities that we could marshal to support the idea that they were playing so far dramatically below their usual level that something fishy must be going on. But I don't know. You'd have to really have a garbage few games probably.

Yeah. I mean, people on Twitter or wherever, I'm sure, would be just spouting off these accusations. They probably already are when teams have a bad game. You know, it's not always the same evidentiary standard we would see in a courtroom, put it that way. Yeah, right. But for responsible members of the media, such as Meg Rowley and Ben Lindbergh on a podcast like this, we'd have to have a more measured tone unless we really had our ducks in order and our facts straight. So I guess we could point out how anomalous it was that this happened or that happened, right?

And at the very least, if someone were throwing much softer than they typically throw, like you'd either say, well, they're either not trying or they're hurt or something, right? Like when we see pitchers sometimes who come out not throwing as hard, that becomes a thing on baseball Twitter and everyone shares the baseball savant velocity graphs and is like uh-oh and what's wrong with this person and players get asked about that after the game and you could probably detect that much more easily i guess in a way it'd probably be harder to pull this off than it was back then yeah for for various reasons i i guess like i mean for one you'd have to offer the players

a lot more money than you did back then to convince them to do it. But also, now you have just like 4K cameras everywhere and you have players who get caught using sticky substances or at least strongly suspected of doing so. I guess cameras wouldn't necessarily be helpful if you're just trying to prove

whether someone flubbed a play on purpose or not. But just because we can quantify everything about your effort or at least like how much energy you're expending here, if you're not running hard or you're not throwing as hard or you're not swinging as hard, we would know that. We would know what your baseline is and we would know that it's like completely out of your normal range. Right. And in the past, you might have said, well, it doesn't look like he's putting his full effort into it, but you couldn't necessarily have proved it in the same way. So I think it probably would be harder to get away with now if you were like completely out of the normal range for these various stats. Yeah. Although, you know, it took us a while to find out about Houston. So. Sure did.

Yeah. You know, it doesn't mean that there aren't other means of, and granted, like they were trying to throw games, they were trying to win games. Yes. But it doesn't mean that there isn't subterfuge that can take a while to be detected. But I think you're right that like, especially for actual media members, they're going to want to really know what they're talking about before they level accusations like that. I mean, we might speculate about on this show about like somebody pooping themselves, but we wouldn't speculate about them throwing a game unless we really knew that they were doing that. Because that's serious business. And to be fair, Archie Bradley admitted that he pooped himself, right? Yeah, he did. That's why you did your investigation.

You would not have suggested that he pooped himself necessarily. Yeah, I didn't watch Archie Bradley. Right. Yeah, I didn't watch him and go, he looks like he has a tiny amount of poop in his pants. Right. That wasn't my instinct, watching Archie Bradley. Which makes him sharing it all the more amazing,

because it's like you could have sat on that figuratively, hopefully not literally, for the rest of your life. No one would have known. Yeah. But it would be a lot easier statistically speaking, stat cast wise, to detect a lack of effort than trying to win in some nefarious way. Like having heard the bangs now with the banging scheme,

we might think, why didn't we hear those bangs at the time? But you couldn't actually detect it in the data, really. And often many studies have concluded that they didn't even derive an advantage necessarily from it, and you can't even really tell from looking at the stats that they were doing this necessarily. And even if you could, you'd think that they were just better than usual. So if it were an effort issue, then I think it would raise red flags much more quickly. So don't try it, evildoers. Don't try to throw any games. We'll be on the case. Twitter, we'll be looking at baseball savant. We'll be on to you in no time. Maybe the way you throw the game is to eat something that you know disagrees with you,

and then you poop yourself. And you're like, I can't play. I have pooped myself. Possible deniability. Yeah. What can I do? Who hasn't? I mean, not me, but like not since being a child, but who hasn't eaten food and been

like, well, I've got a little crummy tummy. Sure. We haven't had to play nine innings. You don't know. Yep. Yep. All right. Well, I guess on that note, it's as appropriate a note as any to end this podcast on a Friday.

Friday show. It's nice when it, oh, It's nice when it's loose. That's a terrible follow-up. Oh, boy. Anyway. Okay. That will do it for today and for this week. Thanks, as always, for listening.

Of course, you can listen to us a little bit more this weekend if you'd like. You just have to be a Patreon supporter at the $10 a month level or higher. We will be chatting with Patreon supporters in the Effectively Wild Discord group. All of our Patreon supporters are eligible to join the Discord group. Some of them will also be able to listen to the live stream during NLCS Game 4 on Saturday evening. Hope you can join us, and grateful for those of you who have supported the podcast and continue to.

You help us stay ad-free, help us keep doing the show the way we want to do it, and the way you want us to do it, hopefully. And you also get yourself access to some perks. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going. Scott Kramer, William123, Brian Hamilton, Jason Bersani, and Joe Rospars. Thanks to all of you. Again, perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group, which is a wonderful place, particularly during the postseason. You also get monthly bonus episodes and these couple of playoff live streams,

one of them during this round, one during the World Series, plus discounts on merch, ad-free Fangrafts memberships, and more. You can also join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild. You can contact me and Meg via email at podcastwithpantagraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. You can follow Effectively Wild on Twitter at EWPod

and you can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash effectivelywild. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. Thank you as always to Dylan Higgins for his editing and production assistance. We hope you have a wonderful weekend. We will be back to talk to you,

if not during the live stream, then early next week. On the south side They wait for Shoeless Joe To come outside and say hello to them On the north side, they wait for Mordecai to come outside and sign off the ground.

Somebody listen, cause nobody cares that the Black So socks are playing today. Somebody listen. Somebody cares that the coggies are playing their house out.