Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1960: Seventy-Six Percent Led the Big Parade

Episode Date: January 26, 2023

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Scott Rolen’s election to the Hall of Fame, Billy Wagner, Andy Pettitte, and relievers vs. starters as Cooperstown candidates, the Adalberto Mondesi trade (and a wager about Mondesi and Shohei Ohtani), and (32:40) more ways in which baseball stands out from other sports. Then (45:00) they talk to […]

And we're rolling on, rolling on Feeling better than we did last night Rolling on, rolling on It's hard sometimes, pretty much it's alright Hello and welcome to episode 1960 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangrafts presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Raleigh of Fangrafts. Hello, Meg. Hello. We have a Hall of Famer, a brand new one, or at least a Hall of Famer elect, because the induction ceremony is not until next summer or this following summer if we want to be pedantic and when don't we? But congratulations to Scott Rowland. All caveats aside, he has been elected. He just he squeaked over the line.

Seventy six point three percent support. So he had a five vote margin over the 75% election threshold. He was the narrowest to get in since Ivan Rodriguez in 2017. And there were only a handful of guys going back to the beginning of annual voting in 1966 who squeaked over the line by less. But once you get in, it really doesn't matter by how much you get in, except maybe to your ego. So happy day for Scott Rowland and for fans of Scott Rowland. Yeah, the Hall of Fame.

It's just like the Series 7. You pass and no one remembers what you got. You think the Hall of Famers taunt each other about their percentages when they meet in Cooperstown every summer? Hall of Famers taunt each other about their percentages when they meet in Cooperstown every summer. Just like pick on the guy who got 76 and the other guys who get high 90s or something. There's a tier, right? People talk about inner circle Hall of Famers, whatever that means.

So probably Hall of Famers themselves think of things that way to some extent too. Some of them fool themselves into thinking they're inner circle guys and really they're mid or outer circle, but they're all in, so that's the important thing. Yeah, I mean, once you're there, you get the plaque, you get to walk out on the stage, and I think that unless you're a unanimous selection,

people don't really remember what your percentage was. know they just don't yep no probably jay jaffe remembers and we will be talking to jay a little later in this episode about all things hall of fame i mean only mario and rivera is unanimous so no one else can even claim that distinction but yeah scott roland will go in with Fred McGriff, a couple players who wore number 27, although they each wore other numbers as well. Third baseman relative to other positions still underrepresented in the hall, but a little more represented now. This is only the second player who's gotten in via the BBWA ballot in the past three years, which is tied for the fewest over any three year span in modern voting. But big difference between

one and none. And, you know, Rowland was clearly going to get in one of these years, like after last year's result, I think, but there was still a lot of suspense about whether he would get in this year. And because he was only in his sixth year of eligibility and only 47 years old, there wasn't as much time pressure as there is with some guys who were on their last chance or, you know, they've reached an age where it's like, well, we want them to be able to enjoy this, right? So we shouldn't dally here. But one factor I really hadn't considered is that, yeah, even though Scott Rowland,

you know, unless some tragedy fell him, was going to be around for the next voting cycle, his parents weren't necessarily. I mean, you never know. And there's a heartwarming video. There are always heartwarming videos of the players finding out. But there's a really nice video of Scott Rowland's elderly parents being told by their son that he is a Hall of Famer. And that's just great.

They're both clearly proud and overjoyed and weeping. And I'm really glad that they all got to share that moment together. So there's not a dry eye in that house or the house of anyone who was watching that clip, which, of course, I will link to. Yeah, I think that it serves as a good reminder because, you know, the discourse around this stuff can get so, well, let's call it fraught, right? Let's not assign more judgmental words to it, though we could if we wanted to. But the discourse around the Hall of Fame can be so

fraught. And I know a lot of people don't care anymore. And I know that even for those who are invested in sort of preserving baseball history, some of the complications around it are such that they elect not to vote like you. And I like these wholesome moments because I feel like it really brings to the fore, like what is the most meaningful here? And this stuff matters so much to these guys and their families. It just really matters. And I'm not saying that you are indifferent to that in your decision to abstain. That's not what I mean at all, Ben. But, you know, I hope that when my time comes, if I'm lucky enough to persist in the BBWA without annoying people too much and getting kicked out,

that I will remember that. Because you should treat the exercise with reference because it is very meaningful to these players and to the people who care about them. So I like that we get an opportunity every year when we don't pitch a shutout to reconnect with that reality, because I think it's an important one to keep at the center of this process. Yep. Well, Scott Rowland, heck of a player, not always recognized as the player he was during his time. But I think it's a feature, not a bug,

that sometimes perceptions change and minds can be changed. And we have the time to do that. The Baseball Reference newsletter had a little leaderboard of all players with 175-plus batting runs and 175-plus fielding runs. So these are the hitting and fielding components of war. And I know those are not magic numbers the way that 3,000 hits or 500 homers at least used to be, you know, the 175R bat, 175R field club. But it's quite a club.

And Adrian Beltre is one of the other members, and he should be elected next year. But only seven players have cracked that club. Scott Rowland, Barry Bonds, Beltre, Cal Ripken Jr., Calrius Ramski, Roberto Clemente, Willie Mays. No one has doubts about any of the other six. I mean, other than, you know, Barry Bonds and his whole baggage. But in terms of playing career and performance on the field. And so Scott Rowland, you know, look, did he just make it with exactly 175 fielding runs? Yes, but he belongs in that kind of company. Obviously, we could draw inner circle, outer circle distinctions between the

likes of Willie Mays and Scott Rowland. But nonetheless, great player, whether or not he was always recognized as such during his career or subsequently. There was a lot of suspense up until the last moment, as we will talk about with Jay. Although there was also, if you were on the baseball subreddit, there was a spoiler,

which someone pointed out. It's pretty amusing because this is not the first time that this has happened. So this was posted on the Baseball subreddit on Tuesday before the election results were announced. And essentially, the Hall of Fame spoiled things because their format for players' Hall of Fame pages is baseballhall.org slash halloffamers slash last name, first name. And someone on Reddit noticed that if you typed in Roland hyphen Scott at the end, you got a message that said you are not authorized to access this page. Whereas if you typed in other candidates who, as we know now, did not get in, you got a page not found error, which was certainly suggestive that that page existed and was built and was just not publicly accessible yet. So that was kind of a tip off. And there was a similar incident, I think it was seven years ago with Ken Griffey Jr. and Mike Piazza. I think that was seven years ago with Ken Griffey Jr. and Mike Piazza. Not that there was-

I think that that is correct. Yeah. There was not a lot of suspense about Ken Griffey Jr. getting in, but nonetheless, there was a similar sort of spoiler posted then because if you typed in their URL, it went from the page could not be found to you can't access this page you know which is it's sort of a tell so that's amusing i mean they should probably figure this out right because if they want to keep the suspense and i know not most people who are like watching the ballot reveal on mlb network and following these things are on the baseball subreddit but still there's probably a way you could camouflage that i would imagine yeah one would think now one would also maybe think that you could you know cast a ballot

electronically and as a bbwa member i shouldn't be casting stones at the the hall of fame's glass house because like you know i still have to write a paper check for my dues don't know about you yes yeah me too yep yeah those checks are like three addresses ago, by the way. They still us struggling to catch up in our own ways. But yeah, I would hope that someone has pointed out to the hall that this remains an issue. Because like yesterday, they probably didn't know about it until afterward because they were busy, you know, getting ready to like name a hall of favor. So, yeah, I actually I wondered because, as you said, I didn't vote. I've discussed my reservations with the process before at some length, so I won't rehash that here. But I just did not submit a ballot, did not submit a blank ballot, just making sure that my ballot hadn't been lost or that I hadn't tried to submit one, which I don't recall happening last year. And so I was thinking,

huh, I wonder whether they realized that no one got in, they got skunked again, and now they're calling around to make sure they didn't lose a ballot somewhere that would get someone in. Maybe it would just be a, I was worried. It's like, uh-oh, is this going to come down to one vote? Are my mentions going to be bad? Are people going to be mad at me? Because I was the one who didn't give Scott Rowland the one vote he needed. As it turns out, as Jay will mention, one voter's ballot apparently was lost in the mail. So maybe they were calling around because once that happened, they wanted to make sure that it didn't happen to anyone else. But yeah, that was making me curious before the results were announced. Anyway, congrats to Scott Rowland. And we'll talk about everyone else who came close and put themselves in position to get in in one of these years. I saw an argument. I wonder whether you find this persuasive, because

we'll talk a little bit about this with Jay, but not in depth. Billy Wagner was one of the players who took a significant leap and now looks like he is poised to get in in one of the next few years. And Mark Armour of Sabre, who's been on the show, he tweeted, there was never a moment during Billy Wagner's career when I wouldn't have happily traded him for Andy Pettit, right? And Andy Pettit did not get nearly the same level of support and has not seen the same sort of growth. And Jonathan Bernstein pointed out on Twitter also their salary histories would seem to support that. Baseball people at the time were willing to pay more for the services of Andy Pettit than Billy Wagner.

And same for Cy Young voters, for instance. So in that sense, Hall of Fame voters are sort of out of step with how those players were perceived at the time. Now, we were just talking about the fact that perceptions can evolve and that can be a good thing. And I know Pettit has the HGH thing on his record. HGH thing on his record. So, you know, substitute Mark Burley or Tim Hudson or some other comparable starter who has recently been eligible for that. And Wagner has way outstripped them. And I guess this comes down to the fact that people now are looking at starter and reliever at just separate positions. And Wagner was incredibly dominant as a reliever, more so than Pettit was as a starter, even, although Pettit certainly has a Cooperstown case in his own right. And so people are just

saying, well, there are relievers in. And so if we're putting relievers in, then Wagner compares favorably to some of the guys who are already in. And he was just so good at his job, despite the job being more limited, that he should be in. But what do you make of that argument? So I tend to take the following approach to the hall, and I reserve the right to change this approach as my own ballot approaches. But I tend to take what I might call a Noah's Ark approach to the Hall of Fame. I think that there should be, well, it doesn't necessarily have to be two. You can have more or less.

Not a lot less, but less. I understand that it is a kind of pitcher, but I think that the argument for including relievers is more persuasive for past generations of relievers maybe than current ones where the line continues to blur between starter and reliever but like i think that it is a it is a position and so the best of the guys at that position should be in the hall just like i think that like you know the best dh should be in the hall. Just like I think that the best DH should be in the hall. And he is. His name's Edgar Martinez. That's a little knock to you Boston fans out there. Sound off in the comments.

Don't do that. Ortiz is great. It's fine. They're both Hall of Famers. It doesn't matter anymore. Here's the thing. It doesn't matter. It's fine. Everybody's happy. Everyone got what they wanted, including me. So I appreciate the argument that is being made that if you were good enough to be a starter, you just would probably be a starter in most cases. And that relievers are failed starters in some respect. I think that that tends to smooth over and not do justice to like how player dev actually works particularly now but

i appreciate the argument right that like if you could go a few more innings and reliably get through an order more times you'd just be a starter yep i get it but i also think that like we have relievers and so the best of them should be in there. And they do generate value for their teams. They can create sort of a sense of psychological security on the part of their fans. And I think that it's interesting, at least in terms of how they are operating now, if you look at the way that relievers are valued in the free agent market in the last couple years. Clearly, teams value good relief pitching because it isn't quite in step with the rest of the free agent market. They tend to make more than you'd expect them to, at least in the last, I don't know,

five to seven years. I think that the use of relievers and how many innings they're pitching and how interchangeable they are, you know, how front offices value them in the free agent market, like that stuff's going to change and shift around over time. And so pegging the argument, should they be in the hall or not, to that seems in some ways like a fool's errand. But I think that we can refer to something more biblical and simply say that like they exist and we want them in the

arc yeah i don't know what flood we're saving ourselves from but um right you know here we are yeah i get that argument it's the whole like is dh is that a separate position or is it just a less valuable way to be a hitter basically or is reliever, is that a distinct position from starter? Or is it just a less valuable, generally way to be a starter? I think, I mean, Wagner started out his pro career as a starter. He was, I think, exclusively a starter until he made his major league debut. He was just a starter in the minors, and then he started pitching in relief in the big leagues. And I don't know whether you can even say he was a failed starter necessarily. I think he was just so successful as a reliever that they were like, let's not mess with this maybe.

And I think you could make the case that while Wagner probably wouldn't have been as successful as a starter as Pettit was, you could also say that Pettit might not have been as successful as a reliever as Wagner was because there are different skill sets and different mentalities and different repertoires. And there's a certain skill set that enables you to be durable and go deep into games, but maybe not be quite as dominant on an inning per inning basis. tough to be more dominant than Billy Wagner was on an inning per inning basis where he had strikeout rates early in his career that would not look out of place today. And that was 25 years ago. He was a bit ahead of his time in that respect. So if I were voting, it would be a little tough for me that he basically pitched 900 innings in his career in the regular season. It's not a lot of innings. And I want to be clear. I'm not saying I would necessarily vote for Billy Wagner. I don't know how I would engage with that. But I'm saying that there are relievers for whom I could envision

voting. Right. Yeah. It's an interesting argument. I mean, you have Rivera and you have some of the early multi-inning type guys and then everyone else, basically. And as you said, the distinctions between roles are blurring to the point that this might not continue to be as big a deal. And we're going to talk about this with Jay a little later, but I mind the absolutist, reductionist arguments where people try to oversimplify things and only sith deal in absolutes, not Hall of Fame voters. And so if people say, well, it's a reliever, it's a position on the team, and therefore if you're great at that, then you should be in, I don't know. I mean, it's all pitchers. It's all getting outs. It's all run prevention. And if you

do that in a way that is less valuable than a starter, I don't know that it makes sense to draw that distinction, even though teams obviously do and they define people by those roles. But it's just, it's always complex. So people look for ways to find shortcuts and sort of simplify the thought process for themselves. If you can reduce it to a few hard and fast rules, or at least rules of thumb, it's easier to rule people out or rule people in. And sometimes it's sort of squishy. Well, and I guess like part of it for me is that I don't know that I really understand like how much consternation there is around the reliever question in particular,

because it isn't like we are overrun with relievers in the Hall of Fame, right? Even from earlier eras when, you know, the standards were a little shakier at times, right? Like, they're what, eight? Isn't it like eight? Yeah, it's not a lot. Hall of Fame relievers, right? And when you think about the guys who have pitched in the modern era, like,

it's Moe, right? So, are we worried that they are over-represented at this moment in time? I tend to think that these things sort of sort themselves out. And if anything, given how, so like the number of innings covered by relievers keeps growing. And it is clear that front offices view most relievers as pretty fungible, right? There's a lot of up-down guys, maybe a little fewer up-down guys now that they can't be optioned as many times in a year. But the number of mainstay, always on the roster, guaranteed to see big high leverage innings guys,

that isn't a huge population. And it's certainly not a population that tends to really persist. Like you have to be an elite guy for a long time to be a dude where, you know, five years after your career is over, we're going to even talk about you as a possibility. So I understand that we have to get squirrely about something come Hall of Fame season. And I'd much rather get squirrely about this than like, know ped stuff or you know how we interpret the character clause in a consistent usable workable way but it seems to me like this is a a solution in want of a problem because i i think we're doing fine when it comes to relievers you know right yeah we're we're okay you know there we got we got some uh guys to go the arc. I don't even like, I'm not even religious. It's just like a useful categorization tool.

I don't know if it even works, Ben. Yeah. I mean, Trevor Hoffman is in too, right? But yes, there are a lot. It's right. And, you know, Francisco Rodriguez got enough support to stay on the ballot this time. And you'll have conversations, I'm sure, kenley jansen and craig kimbrell and and others but no probably yeah it's not like we've been overrun you know and and even like uh

someone like joe nathan he fell off the ballot his first chance right even though he had a decent case compared to some other guys so so yeah i'm not saying it's an acute issue. It's an interesting intellectual exercise, I think. I know you're not saying it, but people, people are saying it. There seems to be a lot of stress. Yes, yes, yes. So just a couple of quick things here before we bring on Jay. First, there was one semi-interesting transaction, which I bring up for one specific reason, There was one semi-interesting transaction, which I bring up for one specific reason, and that's Alberto Mondesi was traded to the Red Sox from the Royals for left-handed pitcher Josh Taylor. And I don't know exactly where he'll slot in. Rasta Resource right now has him at second base.

I don't know if he'll end up playing some short. I don't know whether this will endanger the Adam Duvall full-season center fielder experiment if Kike Hernandez gets to play more outfield now. But Alberto Mondesi, he's a tantalizing talent, right? And the Red Sox needed a real infielder and he is that or he would be if he's healthy. And that's always the question with Mondesi. He's fast. He has shown a really entertaining and intriguing suite of skills, but he has very rarely stayed on the field. And also he's had plate discipline issues, etc. So it'd be great if he had a healthy full season and put it all together. But I bring this up and I just want to put this out there just in case I get hit by a bus or something.

Like I need someone out there in the world to be aware of this. And I'm going to pick on Bill James for a second. And look, all of us in this line of work, we owe Bill James something, some debt. If not for Bill James, would we be here doing an analytically oriented podcast at an analytically oriented website in 2023? Who knows? It would be a very different history for baseball analysis, I think. But every now and then, Bill James will uncork a tweet. And some of these tweets are kind of concerning for non-baseball related reasons. But this is one that I've had my eye on for some time here. Bill James loved Alberto Mondesi when he came up. He thought he was the bee's knees and that he was going to be an incredible player.

And not an unreasonable thing to think back in 2018 when in 75 games he was an above average hitter and he stole 32 bases and great base running and great defense and was, you know, quite valuable in fractions of a season. And we didn't know that he would basically only have fractions of the season for the next several seasons. But Bill James was anointing Alberto Mondesi as like the best of that crop of players. of players. In 2019, he said Alberto Mondesi is a future MVP, just for those of you not watching. I guess we can't disprove that yet. But the one that I remember is September 19th, 2018, Alberto Mondesi not eligible for the Rookie of the Year award, but seems like obviously the best new player of the year. Now, there were a lot of great players that year. So the first reply was, are we ignoring Acuna and Soto or just talking AL? And Bill James clarified, I just meant the AL. However, he continued, Soto and Acuna are on the same level. So he's saying they're at Alberto Mondesi's level. But beyond that, 2018 was also the first year in MLB for one Shohei Otani. And I remember thinking at the time, even though by that point, I guess Otani had already had injury issues as a pitcher,

the idea that one would value Adelberto Mondesi higher than Otani or project Mondesi's career to be better, that seemed unreasonable to me. Now, look, we've all been very wrong about things and players, and I'm not accepting myself from that. But Mondesi over Otani, that seems strange to me, and I was not the only one. So someone tweeted back at Bill James, at JMC underscore PGH, I would bet a significant amount of money that Otani greater than Mondesi in career war. OK. And Bill James's reply, Commissioner doesn't allow me to bet. This was when he was still working for the Red Sox, I guess, in some capacity. And I don't have a significant amount of money, but I'll graciously accept your apology in five years. And then the original tweeter responded, fair enough.

Gentlemen's wager then, it's rare that I find myself disagreeing with you. And Bill James replied, we'll try to remember it. And then the original tweeter replied, sounds good, Bill. Thanks for the response. So, okay. Nice, wholesome, civil Twitter back and forth. Well, I've had a Google reminder to revisit this five years down the road, just in case Bill and this original tweeter did not remember it. I set a Google alert so that I would be reminded five years when the term that Bill set here, this gentleman's wager, when he said he would accept this other tweeter's apology. And we're coming up on it now.

So this September will be the five-year anniversary of that wager. And my Google alert will go off on that day. But just in case something happens to me or I'm indisposed or something and no one else remembers this, I had to put Bill on blast here just to ensure that someone would follow up on this wager. And I think it's probably safe to say that this has been decided in favor of Otani. I mean, is there anything that Alberto Mondesi could do between now and the end of their respective careers to make him obviously the best new player of 2018? If Otani never played another game and Alberto Mondesi did get his MVP award that Bill James forecasted.

I think even then, I think that ship has sailed. I mean, he could have. Like, Otani could. We need, like, a default. He decides he wants to be a baker is the thing that happens, right? Because I hate it when we're like, he can't play. Yeah, I don't want him to have to get hurt.

Yeah, he's moved to do something else with his life. He's decided to commit himself to souffles. Yeah, or he plays some other sport and excels at that instead. Right. Although if he did that, he would still be remembered as the best player from 2018. If he then went on to be pro-worthy in another sport, that would not alter his baseball legacy. I think it would only enhance it actually but like let's say that he decides he wants to you know um pursue a different line

of work uh and then modesty went on to win multiple mvps and maybe have like memorable postseason moments then perhaps then maybe ben we would sort of reorient our understanding of that. But I do find it unlikely because... Yes, I imagine Bill would too at this stage. And the two-way player thing, it's just going to be the thing that everyone points to. It's the ultimate scoreboard move. Yep. Yeah. This is part and parcel, I guess, with Otani being a bit underrated at the time. And I understand just why it was hard to imagine that anyone could consistently do what he was attempting to do.

But he had a track record at that point is the thing. Why I had faith in him is that he had done it in MPB, even younger. Ben, who are you trying to persuade? I know, I know. It can't possibly be me. I was devastated when I found out that he wasn't going to be a Seattle Mariner, and particularly when he was going to go to the Angels. In fact, Ben, am I correct to recall,

am I right to remember that we were maybe podcasting when the decision happened? Were we at the moment? I forget. Because I remember that, well, what day was it, hmm, I. What day, what day was it, Ben, that he ended up signing? You know? What was the day when he made the decision? You know, we should leave all of this in.

It was in December. Okay, so I think we were podcasting because I think that I was being introduced as the editor of the Hardball Times. Oh, really? I think maybe. I think. This is a very specific memory. Well, it was a big time. It was meaningful to me.

Or maybe I was on the phone with the Appleman. Yeah, maybe that was it. Maybe I had just gotten the see the problem is you were talking to somewhere someone somewhere when you learned that it was related to fan graphs and i feel like we were maybe podcasting were we podcasting perhaps perhaps with Bill Barnwell? Oh, well, we definitely did do a pod with Bill at one time. I wanna... I'm gonna... Yes!

Ben! Ben! I think I'm right. No. I'm wrong. But he was around then. That was early January 2018 when we did the pod with Bill. Yeah, okay. Because we were talking to Daniel Adler. Yes, Adler as well with the twins.

Now with Minnesota. I'm sure you were talking to someone at the time. I think I was talking to Appleman maybe. I think maybe I was talking to... Anyway, this has been me not being able to navigate the wiki quickly enough to just say like, and definitively it was this. Man, you know, Ben, the wiki is a really good resource. Oh, it's the best.

I'm so grateful to everyone who has populated that with information. Because then we don't have to rely on my apparently quite faulty memory. This is what happens. Apparently quite faulty memory. This is what happens. It's like this is why when you read Glory of Their Times and, you know, other oral histories and players reminiscing about their careers, it's like, remember, I had this incredible game and I faced this guy and I did that in that game. And then you look it up and you realize, oh, that can't be the case because you never played that person that season or that can't have happened in the same game. And you kind of conflate these things. Same thing happened in here. We're're all mortal we're all fallible none of us has a perfect memory and that's why i set a google alert when i want to dunk on bill james five years

later there you go see now now it makes good sense well there's a lot of like jeremy runner ads on the wiki right now uh well we can't control the ads on there unfortunately that's a lot of like Jeremy Renner ads on the wiki right now. Well, we can't control the ads on there, unfortunately. That's a fandom platform problem. By the way, I'm not really going to dunk on Bill James. I'm not going to do an old takes exposed style retweet. Just going to politely remind the man who won the wager that he won the wager, just in case he forgot. All right.

So last thing I want to say, just a quick follow up on our ongoing baseball exceptionalism discussion about ways that baseball stands out from other sports. So we had a couple of responses. We talked about the scoreboard last time as something that sets baseball apart just in its granularity in showing not just the current score, but how we arrived at that score half inning by half inning. A couple of responses, one from B.R. Krebs, who writes the inning by inning scoreboard isn't just unique to baseball. Curling keeps track of every end as well, telling the full story of the game as it goes. Not sure if that counts since that's a sport that seemingly only exists every four years to a vast majority of the general public. Well, people in Canada and Norway and all kinds of places pay attention to curling all the time.

Very much so. And we got another listener email from a Canadian, Ruhi, our Patreon supporter, and a friend of mine who says, in episode 1959, you discussed the uniqueness of baseball's box score, recreating the events of the game. And I think there is a comparable scoreboard in, sorry to be that Canadian, curling. There are a couple of ways curling scoreboards can be laid out, and one of them is almost exactly like a box score. Both teams' ends, which is kind of an innings equivalent, and the number of points scored in each end. The other way is a little more complicated. She writes, I am not as familiar with curling as I am with baseball, but I think it's quite similar in a lot of ways, especially in the team sport with a lot of individual playing time aspect. The skip in

curling is like the catcher to me, where they call the game and direct other players' shots, but everyone has to play their own rock. And also got a response from Raymond Chen, effectively Wild Wiki Keeper, who noted that bowling scoreboards record the results of every single ball even more thorough than baseball. Along the same lines, listener PJ writes in to say, in golf, the physical scoreboards at tournaments will display the score relative to par for each hole for each golfer. So at the start of a tournament, a player will begin at E for even par

and then may progress above, green number, or below, red number, and you can see how a round is going for each golfer. This is also at least partially a function of the structure of the sport, but if baseball is detailed with nine frames for nine innings, golf may be even more detailed. Fair enough. Okay. And we also got a response from Scott who said, in the course of Monday's newly official segment, The Uniqueness of Baseball, you discussed the scoreboard and particularly the score being broken up inning by inning and whether that was different from period by period, quarter by quarter, et cetera. However, I have two additions that I want to make to this that I'm surprised did not

come up in the course of your discussion, the inclusion of hits and errors and the out-of-town scoreboard. Among the big five U.S. sports, baseball's scoreboard is certainly unique in not just showing the score, but some small portion of how that score was gotten to in hits and errors. Sometimes hockey scoreboards will show shots on goal, though I don't think that's standardized. But other than that, I can't think of a parallel among sports scoreboards. where you can follow all other games in progress to a degree of precision depending on the scoreboard via lit up bases or number of outs or pitchers, number, score, game start time, etc. I also think that's unique, though it's the case that baseball does have many more simultaneous games than football and more than hockey and basketball. So that's kind of a corollary maybe to there just being more games in the baseball season, which we've talked about. But also, I guess more going on at the same time. I don't really know what the state of out-of-town scoreboards in every other sport is. I assume you can see the scores when you're at a game for most other sports, but maybe there's not quite as much real estate taken up by that or there just aren't as many games going on so yeah there's something to that i suppose yeah i will say so again my my primary reference point for

this is going to be what they do in the nfl because those are the the games that i have gone to in person the most apart from baseball at least. And I think what they will often do is they'll show what the score is and then at various points throughout the game, they might pause like if there's a break, there's a quarter break or timeout or whatever, and they might even show like a highlight or two from the out-of-town games. The games they select tend to be the ones that either are the most interesting or have the most direct impact on the division position of the team,

the home team you're seeing. But here's the thing I like about it. I have one small beef with the out-of-town scoreboard for baseball. Do you know pitcher numbers? No, not at all. I know some of them, right? I know some some and and by that i mean they're uniform numbers yes i get why they are there they indicate who the starter is going to be in that um particular for each team in that particular matchup but i think that most people don't know all of them and so we could maybe do something else with that real estate you know maybe there's something else we could include on the out-of-town scoreboard that would tell us a little bit more you know so that's that's

my one beef whereas you know uh like at lumen field um you can see like whole place you know because they will just show them up there which they don't tend to do in baseball as much you don't see like real highlights from other in progress games as often which maybe is a broadcast rights thing i don't know but like you're more likely to see i i have seen at various points both once watching the diamondbacks at home and also the mariners at home if there is a team relevant to that city that is in some sort of playoff situation you will see updates from it right which is kind of cool like they'll show a highlight and i'm like well show me the other mlb teams yeah you're right brethren right yeah well we got an email from a patreon supporter now i only want to triumph who pointed out that

in baseball i think there's an unusual shortage of plays from from that game as it happens relative to other sports right i think both because of the layout of a ballpark and you don't want distracting moving images in the batter's eye, right? And then also, I think it comes down to maybe not wanting to show up the umpires just with the legacy of fans being upset at umpires. And so they tend not to show close plays, at least on the main video board. Now they show it all around the ballpark at various screens and you can hear the audible like cheer or groan when people see the replay especially you might have some ballparks that show the replay like if there's a replay review

yes right but but historically speaking you wouldn't usually just see like as the game was going on like a disputed call that just happened up on the big board and center or left or wherever it is. So. So, yeah, that's a little unusual, I suppose. And Tyler, Patreon supporter, said, I can't think of another sport that has the live audience sing a tune about the sport itself partway through every match. I imagine it would be quite odd and would even receive pushback from some if hockey, for example, implemented a song about hockey to be sung during the third period. However, it would be stranger, in my opinion, if baseball were to banish this tradition. Obviously, you have a lot of singing and chanting that goes on, fight songs and so forth, right?

But that's mostly team-oriented. It's not just like, here we are at a football game, like go football, you know? Like in the way that like, you know, take me out to the ball game and then root for the home team and all that and the Cracker Jacks and so forth. Like it's more just like, we like baseball, you know, having sort of a designated song that is just generally about the sport and also affords us a chance to stretch i suppose is is somewhat unusual too yeah yeah

it suggests a more sedentary viewing experience right because you get the opportunity yeah or a longer one yeah right i think i think both uh yes i think they work together to to necessitate the seventh inning stretch and then you're right the other songs i can think of you know you know eagles fans aren't aren't singing about other people they're singing about the eagles you know like they're pretty particular on that score just to think of a team that has a compelling fight song and has been playing lately and you're right that some sports or teams will have songs they sing that don't specifically reference the the team necessarily but are traditions of the team right like i have a controversial take about sweet caroline but like sweet caroline you know which could you know we

could do other stuff if we wanted to i I'm just offering that as an alternative to people. It's a weird song, Ben. The lyrics to that song are weird. It's weird that we sing that song, you know, and that we have such a Pavlovian response to it. It's just like, kind of embarrassing. But anyway, you know, we all have our little traditions, but you're right that most of them are specific to the team or not generalizable to the whole sport. So that's that's weird. Yep. And the last one I will share here. This is from Brian, who noted not only do different parks have different dimensions, but different ground rules. So what happens if a ball hits the catwalk in Tropicana or gets stuck

in the ivy at Wrigley? Also, the umpire can rule on what would have happened, a hypothetical. Would a runner have scored without fan interference, that sort of thing? Not sure if that's unique. It is odd. And lastly, he notes, as Paul O'Neill taught us, you can throw the ball or impact the ball, I suppose, with any part of your body or even toss your glove, although there are some penalties associated with glove tossing. In basketball, you can't kick the ball. In football, you can, but kicking or throwing cannot be interchanged. You can't throw a pass with your foot. You can't kick a pass, I guess. You can't throw a field goal with your hands through the uprights. In soccer, you can't use your hands,

et cetera, right? But in baseball, you can get the ball to the base with any part of your body if you can pull it off, right? You can kick it as Paul O'Neill did or whatever, and it doesn't matter. There aren't certain parts of your body that you can't use to touch a ball and there aren't like certain maneuvers. Like I guess if a pitcher tried to kick a ball, you couldn't do that, right? A pitcher's got to throw the ball with a hand, I would think. I think that that's in the rules. Yes. So it's not anything goes. It's not totally open season on balls and body parts here. There are some limits. But at least when you're in the field, anything goes to a greater extent maybe than some other sports.

That's anything goes, Ben. Yeah. Of course, in hockey, I mean, there are certain permissible deflections off parts of your body. You can't maybe direct it. You can't throw the puck into the goal. But if it hits you, it bounces off of you, then that's kosher. So I don't know. I don't know if this rises to the level of uniqueness, but certain aspects of it are odd.

Yeah. It's a particular strange little pursuit. And its traditions and rules have unfurled over time in a way that does not suggest a master plan. And so it is it does resulted in a little bit of weirdness. And, you know, I think we like it like that. Yes, we do. All right. So let's take a quick break and we'll be back with Jay Jaffe to talk about the Hall of Fame voting. And then we will finish with an in-person past last. All right, well, the dust has settled on the Hall of Fame results.

The ballots have been tallied and released, and so who better to dissect what went down than Fangraph's senior writer, Cooperstown correspondent, and Cooperstown casebook author, Jay Jaffe, who is always much in demand around this time of year. Jay, thanks for coming on. Hey, Ben, good to be here. So we thought that we might be talking about a shutout today. It looked like that right up until the final few moments, really. But we do have a new Hall of Famer to discuss, Scott Rowland.

And I think maybe people who don't pay that close attention to the process and maybe still tend to look at things in terms of old school stats were sort of taken by surprise when they realized, oh, Scott Rowland is a Hall of Famer all of a sudden. Okay. have taken by surprise when they realized, oh, Scott Rowland is a Hall of Famer all of a sudden. Okay. I don't think it would be a surprise to anyone who listens to this show or that we need to really make the case for Rowland at this point. Although, of course, you can go through his bona fides again for anyone who's not fully convinced. But what strikes me is just the trajectory here that he took. Because I subscribed to the Baseball Reference newsletter, and they had a little breakdown of Rowan's qualifications. So by war, better than 65.6% of Hall of Famers. By Jaws, better than 47.1% of Hall of Famers at third base.

But then by black ink, better than 0.0% of Hall of Famers. He has zero black ink, never really led the league in anything. Gray ink, better than 1.2 percent of Hall of Famers. The Bill James Hall of Fame monitor, better than 26.8 percent 10.2% support. So he's the lowest starting support of anyone who's gotten in under the modern voting system. And it only took him six years. So coming into this cycle, it seemed clear that he would get in if not this year, then next year, or sometime soon. But it was far from assured as of fairly recently. Yeah. Yes. My answer to that question is yes. No.

Look, I – in spending most of yesterday preparing for the announcement, I pre-wrote several paragraphs about the shutout. And recompiled a table that I built two years ago without remembering on the past shutouts and who got in and how many guys got 50% or more. I was laboring towards that. And then it was around maybe like four o'clock where the votes kept trickling in for him in the tracker and the suspense was building and it started to be like, oh, hey, maybe there's a chance here. So there was legitimate suspense. And I mean, for anybody who

thinks that the tracker, the publication of ballots prior to the announcement has decreased the suspense going into the election announcement, I will offer this as a fine counter example, as well as the recent 10-year elections, year 10 elections of Larry Walker, Edgar Martinez, and Tim Raines. But you're right. This did seem a surprise given that Rowland debuted with 10.2%, which again, as you said, set a record. But it's worth remembering that that 10.2% was a suppressed share because of just how crowded the ballot was. When Rowland debuted, there were 10 candidates who met or exceeded the JAWS standards at their position. This year, that number was four, including Rowland himself. When he debuted, there were 13, I believe, that had a JAWS of 50 or

higher or 40 or higher for catchers. Now that number, this year, that number was seven. It was not unreasonable to see him as possibly not one of the 10 best candidates in 2018 when he first came on the ballot, and certainly not one who had the most urgent claim on a spot. When you think about Martinez building towards his election, he would be elected the next year. Walker, two years later, those guys at the end of their candidacy. All that really mattered at that point was that he survived and advanced. And the reality with these crowd policies, voters had to perform

some kind of triage, and he just ended up on the outside for some, but he got enough to stick around. So I don't think we necessarily should point to that 10% as just a face value judgment that everybody felt he was not a Hall of Famer. It was that 90% felt that he did not have the best case for the Hall of Fame on that year's ballot. And there are other guys who started with lower totals who didn't make it in on this year's ballot, but are inching toward election. Can you talk about a few of the guys who started with lower totals who didn't make it in on this year's ballot but are inching toward election? Can you talk about a few of the guys who we might expect to see taking the stage next summer? Sure. Well, Todd Helton got 16.5% on his first ballot in 2019, and he's now in better shape going into his sixth year on the ballot with 72-point-something percent,

you know, about 10 points ahead of where Rowland was coming into this year. Andrew Jones only had 7.3 percent in his debut. He's at 58 percent this year, his sixth year on the ballot. He debuted the same year as Rowland. He's got a legitimate shot at being elected by the writers, given that he's got four more years of eligibility. You know, both of those guys stand out. given that he's got four more years of eligibility. You know, both of those guys stand out.

And it's just a reminder that because of these advanced stats, you know, these fates that we once thought were cast in stone in terms of where a guy debuts and how he projects thereafter are much more malleable. And to me, it at least somewhat mirrors what we're seeing on the playing field. And that, you know, guys who come up and they're not great hitters don't have a lot of power can rework their swings. And so, you know, the Justin Turner path to success or Chris Taylor path to success or whatever

JD Martinez path to success, or, you know, learn a new pitch or adjust their spin. And suddenly these guys are, you know, star caliber. It's we're, we live in star caliber. We live in a wonderful age where the fates of players are just much more malleable, both on the field and in our post-career evaluations of them, I guess. One thing that I found interesting, we've talked about how we had this big bulk of guys who were going to get in. You know, it clearly impacted Roland's trajectory because there was all of this ballot crowding. This year, the ballot thinned out, right?

We lost some of the guys who had been the most controversial. I know that you were so sad to not have to write a BBWA profile of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, although the committees didn't let you get away from it entirely. But I found it interesting that, you know, with this new room to be had, we still saw, you know, the average number of votes on ballots contract still a bit. What do you make of this sort of state of the electorate right now? It's a shrinking electorate. There's no doubt about that. You know, the long term effects of the contraction in sports media, the, you know, so-called pivot to video, the decline of several outlets that, you know, maybe a few years ago we would have viewed, you know, from Fangraph's vantage, we would have viewed as competitors, you know, or, you know, or fellow travelers. fellow travelers, those places are drying up. There's not that many places where it's easy to sustain the 10-year career necessary to get the ballot. I mean, you know, I joined the BBWA in 2011, you know, and stuck around for 10 years. There were people who joined it a year or two after whom I certainly thought would have the vote by now. And, you know, for whatever reasons, there was a lot of attrition

within that group. And that is surprising. And, you know, along with just the ways that media has developed, it's just, it's a smaller electorate. Part of it was also the sunsetting of long retired voters, which the hall decided to do in 2015, which lopped something like 120 voters off within two years and has continued to whittle the electorate. But I think the other side of this is that we did see four candidates post double-digit gains led by Todd Helton with about 20 points up. points up. And the real driver of the small number of names per ballot below six was the relatively meek crop of first year candidates. 12 of the 14 did not get 5%. And I believe seven of them didn't get a single vote, you know, and only five of them even got token votes,

single token vote. So, you know, they were not serious candidates and it was a small ballot to begin with. So, you know, in some ways that's maybe just a bit of a fluke. Next year, we've got three very strong first year candidates coming on, including an obvious first year honoree in Adrian Beltre plus Joe Maurer plus Chase Utley. So I think we're going to see a return to what we saw a few years ago in terms of ballot space being at a premium, but it is still going to be in the hands of a smaller electorate. Yeah. So you mentioned the four guys who increased, Helton, Wagner, Jones, and Sheffield all went up by more than 15 percentage points, which, as Jason Stark noted in his column, never in any previous election had more than two players

each jumped by at least 15 percentage points after entering that election with a floor as high as this group. So that was unprecedented. And you might have thought that Rowland would climb even more with the backlog of Bonds and Clemens and Schilling, et cetera, being stripped from the ballot. But he had already kind of maxed out his support, it seems like. So he only had so much further to go. There was some analysis in Stark's column by Jason Sardell, who's one of the best projectors of the election results that showed that basically the people who were voting for those guys

who were no longer eligible were already voting for Roland for the most part, whereas these new spots that opened up went to these players who previously had not gotten that support. if they didn't get in within the next year or two, right? Although, as you said, there are better candidates coming along next year who could conceivably make things a bit more crowded, Adrian Beltre and Joe Maurer and Chase Utley, et cetera. Yeah, we've got a bit of a logjam on our hands here because we have the time pressure of Wagner, who will be going into his ninth year, Sheffield at 55% going into his 10th year. He needs about the equivalent of what Larry Walker got in his 10th year. Walker was at 54.6%. So there's some urgency there. There's obviously the first year guys, you know, coming on.

It's going to be a complicated election. And it's tough to figure out exactly which way this is going to go. But yes, you'd figure Todd Helton is pretty much a gimme putt away from election. Bill Wagner does have a pretty good shot. But, you know, there may be an upper bound to the relievers support that doesn't exist for a more well-rounded candidate. You know, one thing about Rowland that strikes me, and maybe this was why Jason Sardell's model, which had been the best for three years running and may still prove to be the most accurate for this year as well, missed on Rowland is because it was such

a comparatively simple candidacy. There was no PED smoke. I mean, it was just about baseball. There was no baggage. You know, the worst thing you could say about him is, oh, he got hurt a lot and finished his career at age 37. And, oh, yeah, Phillies fans have the red ass about him because he didn't sign a $110 million extension. And Dallas Green and Larry Boa both put him on blast, which kind of poisoned the well. The city of brotherly hate. You know, Dan Zaborski made a funny joke about the possibility that if Rowland had a Phillies cap, that Phillies fans would be calling the hall to have it evicted. So, you know, there were like in my feed, there was a there were there was at least one Phillies fan who was irate. So, you know, it's just pretty interesting the way the way this all unfolded. And I was I thought there was going to be a shutout, though. And I was so relieved and elated that Roland got in because he's somebody I've championed. And I think I might have killed the houseplant I yelled so loud when it came in.

I guess we should talk a little bit more about one guy on the ballot who does have some baggage now and late baggage in his career. You know, it's hard to tell after just one election cycle what we might expect. But if you were trying to cast about in the tea leaves, what do you think Carlos Beltran's long-term odds are of getting into the hall? That's funny. You should mention that. I'm writing up my candidate by candidate breakdown. And what I came up with here is it is tough to tell because we are in uncharted territory. But two things stand out. One, everybody who's debuted with 41.7% or more in their first year has been elected eventually. And the 41.7% guy is Jeff Bagwell. And he did it within a 10-year eligibility window. He needed seven years in part because he had publicly admitted to using Androstenedione, the steroid precursor, back before it was banned. You know, there were voters who creatively tried to say there are rumors about him when, you know, the answer was hiding in plain sight. Same with Piazza, you know, and science stealing controversy is probably surmountable as well. You know, there are reasons to be upset that he was the only player identified, for example,

and that while the two guys who the two managers were actually suspended got jobs within a year immediately after being reinstated. Beltran has not. But, you know, he's already, you know, paid his dues, done his time. When I game this out, I think year six or year seven is the most likely point for him because there are some crowded ballots coming up here. It will take a little while to untangle this jam that we've got here. I don't necessarily see, as much as Joe Maurer to me strikes me as a guy who should go in on the first ballot. If you've got Todd Helton and Adrian Beltran going in, there's not always room at the top

for a third guy, especially if there's other guys pulling in that direction, including Wagner, Sheffield, including Jones. So I think Beltran's going to have to wait for the traffic to clear. And last year, when I did my five-year outlook, I had Beltran going in in his sixth year, but that was based on him getting, my guess was, 57% in his first year. And he undershot that by about 10 points. So it's going to take a little bit longer. Yeah.

Although I think we can infer something from him getting 46.5% support in his first year. I mean, that's already higher than the likes of A-Rod and Manny Ramirez are getting, and those guys are not gaining at all. They're just basically frozen in the mid-30s. So that seems to send a signal that voters are distinguishing between types of cheating and that it's a harder hit against your legacy, apparently, if you are a steroid guy, if you got suspended, especially for taking PEDs, than if you were a sign stealer, even a reported architect of the sign stealing scheme. It seems like, I don't know whether this will be a one year kind of like, let's punish him and then we'll give him next time we'll give him a vote or whether this will linger. But either way, it seems like people are drawing a distinction between types of cheating here, which is

interesting. Yeah, I think that's good. I mean, I've said this throughout my time doing the virtual and actual ballots is even when you're just looking at the PED guys, there are nuances there that deserve to be explored. Some guys tested positive and were suspended. Others had infractions that dated to the Wild West era before testing and penalties were in place. And you've got, say, a Jeff Bagwell using something that was actually legal at the time, or Andy Pettit using HGH, which has obvious medical uses. It's not often you get two guys whose PED-related cases are exactly alike. And so it shouldn't be surprising that when we get other infractions and violations that we have to weigh them against each other, compare them, and try to figure out how the

right way to handle it is. out how the right way to handle it is. One thing I thought about when I was going into this, both with regards to the general electorate's strategy and to my own, was the example of Roberto Alomar. Now, leaving aside all the stuff we've learned about Roberto Alomar in the last few years that has resulted in him basically being declared persona non grata within the game, last few years that has resulted in him basically being declared persona non grata within the game. Alomar had the highest second year percentage of any candidate to come along until Vlad Guerrero. And that was because a lot of voters penalized him in his first year of eligibility for the incident where he spat on umpire John Hirschbeck, but that was a one-year penalty that they deprived him of first ballot entry in case that meant something extra to him. But his plaque is on the wall there. I suspect that some number of voters viewed what Beltran

did in a similar light. I know I thought of going that route, but I'm somebody who's never really, you know, who's always thought that the first ballot distinction is kind of a red herring and you don't get a gold star on your plaque for first ballot entry. You're still a Hall of Famer, whether it's year one or year 10. I felt like doing that, withholding that first year vote was a bit performative for my tastes. And so I opted to include him, even though what he did doesn't entirely sit well with me either. Among the guys who went one and done on this ballot, I know that you included some, but were there any who you were particularly disappointed to see fade after just one year? Not really.

I mean, look, I have in having the runway to do these expanded profiles at Fangraphs now. I mean, I used to lump three or four of these guys together at SI in my first few years at Fangraphs. And now I'm going 2,000, 3,000 words on guys who have literally no chance of even getting a vote. I've developed great affection for the careers of Bronson Arroyo, Matt Cain, R.A. Dickey in this process. I would love to talk about Matt Cain and R.A. Dickey for another year just to cite two of them. Cain has a special spot in our developing understanding of pitcher statistics and particularly the way that we calculate pitcher war at fan graphs. Yeah. So, you know, that's kind of neat. R.A. Dickey is the only award winner among the 12 first one-and-done guys who fell off the ballot. He won the Cy Young, of course.

He also stands as the last great knuckleballer and the last knuckleballer to have more than a cameo appearance in the major leagues right now. We've only had, I think, two actual pitchers totaling three outings, Ryan Fireband and Mickey Janis, to even pitch in the majors since Dickey went away. And I think there's, you know, there's the part of me that grew up marveling at Phil Necro and reading about reading Jim Bouton in Ball Four and, you know, seeing Tom Candiotti and Tim Wakefield and Joe Necro and some other guys enjoy long careers. It really bums me out, the idea that the knuckleball may be extinct at the major league level. So the more we talk about R.A. Dickey and how great R.A. Dickey's career turnaround was,

I think the better. So I'm kind of sad to see those two go in particular. Yeah. One nice thing about the fact that the electorate has kind of come to value players more the way that our modern metrics would suggest is that we don't really see very deserving guys go one and done, you know, like Bobby Gritch or Lou Whitaker or Kenny Lofton, those types, you know. Right, yeah, where, you know, if they had stuck around or if they were to be on the ballot now, it would be a very different story. So you see the Rowlands and the Wagners and the Joneses and the Heltons, et cetera, you know, start at a low level and then they have the ability to keep climbing. deprived of the chance to keep climbing. And maybe in their era, they wouldn't have had the chance to keep climbing anyway. But now when a guy gets knocked off the ballot in the first year, it's generally like, well, you had a nice career, but you weren't going to get it. So that's okay. One guy who is no longer on the ballot now is Jeff Kent. And he also made a little late ballot run here on his last year of eligibility, and he made a nice climb, but didn't end up anywhere close to where he would have had to be to get in. He was at 46.5,

which actually tied Carlos Beltran in his first year, right? So I think a lot of people are kind of fitting Kent for the era committee plaque in the Baines and McGriff tradition. So are you expecting that? And how do you feel about this idea that players will get knocked off the BBWA ballot, have their 10 years and not get close, and then just be shoe-ins to this very small group backdoor into the hall? Yeah. Look, we've seen it before. We saw it with Alan Trammell. We saw it with Fred McGriff. I don't think Jeff Kent is the worst candidate to go that route. If you gave me a choice between Jeff Kent and Fred McGriff, I would choose Jeff Kent in terms of hall fitness. The defensive metrics do not smile upon him. And I said this 10 times going back to his first

appearance on the ballot in 2014. My own system has surprised me here because Jeff Kent ranks so low. You peel back the layers of the onion. It's not only the defensive metrics, but because his offense really wasn't that special. It was special for a middle infielder, but it's still, you know, some people would have you believe that it was just, you know, he was one of the league's best hitters. He was not, you know, 356 career on base percentage, the 500 slugging percentage. I mean, those like in the height of, you know, a very offense heavy era that he did that and that he just did not have very many big seasons in terms of his overall value. very many big seasons in terms of his overall value. But yeah, I mean, the 100 RBI stuff, the most home runs is his second baseman. Those are credentials that are going to pop in front of the Hall of Famers on the era committee, I think.

And, you know, I don't think it also, you know, it doesn't hurt that he's going to be judged by a panel of 50% players and 25% media, if that, compared to one that's 100% media. Now, I think it's worth saying that I don't think a lot of media actually penalized him for his personality. You did not hear writers complaining about Jeff Kent avoiding accountability. And that's what writers want, is a guy who will stand in his locker through thick and thin and answer their questions. You don't have to exchange Christmas cards with him or whatever. It's just, is this guy there to help me do my job?

And that's all they're asking. And I think Jeff can't fit that description. So I don't think that his gruff nature, if you will, cost him significant support. I just think he hit the ballot at the wrong time. The 2014 ballot was the most stacked one in modern history with I think it's 17 guys with a 50 jaws or higher or 40 if you're a catcher and 14 who met or exceeded their position standards. That's just mind-boggling. We've come through a period where we had a lot of acrimony around the candidates on the ballot, on transparency. I'm curious, what are some things

that you would like to see either the BBWA do or the Hall of Fame do to improve this process and make it clearer to the fans who are engaging with it and perhaps smoother for the writers who are being asked to cast ballots? Well, we had a report yesterday from Ryan Thibodeau that one writer's ballot got lost in the mail. I don't think I've ever seen that before, but man, that does not give you great confidence in what has already been viewed as an antiquated system, particularly by those outside it who are like, wait, you're still

doing this on paper. I do think this is a discussion worth having within the BBWA about going to a secure electronic voting system. I think it can be done. And I don't think there's a reason not to do it. It shouldn't be glaringly expensive when you're talking about the cost of postage for all that goes on as well. But how are you going to get the solemn Tom Verducci video of checking off the boxes and putting it in the envelope and weightily mailing it? it i i couldn't i didn't turn on i didn't turn on mlb network yesterday until 5 5 45 because i just knew that i was going to be subjected to way too much i didn't turn the sound off until until i saw uh josh rawich on screen it was just i i have my appetite for those kinds of uh uh featurettes if you will right is at an all-time low. You know, I think that's, to me, that's

electronic voting is something I think should be considered. I know you have talked about this, Ben, about, you know, wanting the Hall to clarify its character clause stance and whatever and how it pertains to PEDs. I don't see that happening. I think the Hall loves to have its cake and eat it too, is content with the fact that this ambiguity has broken in their favor by keeping Bonds and Clemens and A-Rod and Manny on the PEDs, but also to the unfortunately growing number of players who have been accused of domestic violence. But as the great Ray Ratto often says, this ain't a church.

You know, judging ballplayers, we've got countless examples of bad behavior already in the hall. And that doesn't mean we have to endorse every example that comes along, but I don't see, just from a pragmatic standpoint, I don't see there being like a stronger purity test being put into place or the hall staking out a position that hems it in rather than hides behind ambiguity. I mean, the hall is already content to maintain anonymous voting, you know, which is to say voting that, you know, where a voter's ballot is not eventually published. The BBWA asked for the second time in the last decade to make publishing ballot mandatory overwhelmingly, something like, you know, 88% of the BBWA at the winter meetings approved that. I don't see that changing, though, because I think as long as the current leadership is in place, which means Jane Forbes Clark as the chairwoman and CEO, I think we're going to see the Hall of Fame maintain these positions.

And as a private institution, that's their right. And we can either play ball or ignore it. Or not vote, I guess, which is what I've chosen to do. But yes, I would not mind if they just removed the character clause. Although on the character clause beat, it does sort of surprise me that you have, at the same time, Vizcal Omar Vizcal is plummeting and Andrew Jones is rocketing up, even though there are domestic violence allegations. Okay. I would point to two things. One, Vizquel was hit with these allegations. Yeah, the timing.

Mid-candidacy, whereas Jones, this happened at the end of his career. We've never seen it happen mid-candidacy. And two, the sexual harassment of the bat boy is without precedent. I mean, that's a double whammy. And it does have a baseball connection, and it probably, especially given that we know that there was an out-of-court settlement regarding this,

which is confidential in nature, but it seems entirely likely, if not probable, that Vizquel would be subject to Major League Baseball's discipline process before he can ever take another job within organized baseball. So you're again talking about a guy who's going to have the black mark of a suspension against him. And that's, I think, going to be a tough thing to overcome if that does come, you know, if that does play out. So that's different. And, you know, Vizquel's candidacy, I think, to some extent, did depend on some soft factors in terms of, you know, especially this reputation is such a good

guy, which, as we know, is often a facade. Right. Yeah. I mean, that's one of the things, you know, if those allegations had come out a few years later, he might have been in by that point, which is, I mean, that's that kind of thing has happened, which is an argument for maybe not making that a factor because we just never know. And sometimes we think things about people and then we learn other things. player. I never saw Fiscal as a Hall of Famer even before that stuff surfaced, but a lot of people did and it seemed like he was well on his way. So last thing, because I know you got to go, you've got other demands on your time today, but are there any lingering arguments or rationales that you see that still kind of grind your gears, even though I think on the whole voting is more logical maybe than it used to be? There are a couple that I saw that are not new, but that kind of stood out to me. Rob Parker, to pick on one person, he had a Sheffield-only ballot. And look, there were a lot of one-player-only ballots and some stranger than Sheffield-only.

But his rationale was, if there's a debate about your career, you aren't a Hall of Famer. Rationale was if there's a debate about your career, you aren't a Hall of Famer. Hashtag pretty simple, which seems strange to me because there's debate about almost every career. I mean, no one is unanimous, but also what sort of standard is that? I mean, debate is a fun part of the process. That's OK. But another one, Ron Cook, who submitted a blank ballot for, I think, the third year in the row. His rationale was a player is either a Hall of Famer from the start or he isn't, right? And he's basically saying we should be locked on to whatever their starting percentage was, which is very silly because A, we can change our minds for one thing.

That's okay. That's encouraged, I would say. Even though a player may not improve his candidacy after he retires, we might learn things or realize things. We get educated about those players. Why should we be locked into what we first thought? Plus, as you said, sometimes you vote strategically. So those are a couple of the ones that stood out to me. And sometimes another one that bugs me is he was never the best player during his era or even

the best player at his position. You could say, oh, Scott Rowland, Chipper Jones was the better player at his position in his league his whole career, so why would you put Scott Rowland in? But I always hate that argument because sometimes there are just multiple Hall of Fame players at a certain position at the same time, so why penalize someone who meets the standard?

Yeah, I mean, there's a lot there. We could probably do another half hour on this. I do think that the blank ballots will always annoy me. There were eight this year. There were there's a lot there we could probably do another half hour on this um i i do think that you know the the blank ballots will always annoy me um there were eight this year there were 14 last year which was the record yeah you know i i i do get that there are that voters do view this as a protest and i suppose that uh you know that's their right i do think that uh it still looks fairly ridiculous when you're standing there

and saying there's no one worthy of the Hall of Fame by my high standards. It just means you're too lazy to do the homework, frankly, and you just look like an old man firing blanks. Second, I think if you're submitting a one-man ballot, I don't care who that one is. If you're citing a process, your process that leads you to only one candidate is almost certainly an extremely flawed one, laughably so. I don't know. Look, I voted for Gary Sheffield for each of the last three years. I probably have a lot more emotion towards Gary Sheffield in terms of my personal pantheon as as a fan even given his various controversies there is not a once that i've looked at that ballot and would say that gary sheffield is the

most deserving player of a hall of fame on here um no i i don't see i i don't see how you i don't see what path you take to that conclusion. It just, it is beyond me. You know, I just, I think of some of the ridiculous ballots we've, you know, we've seen over the years. And that one strikes me. But especially just the condescending nature of the hashtag and the no debate. Well, you know. Yeah. I'm sure even Rob Parker has debated the credentials of these guys at some point.

And I do think that, you know, one of the good things about all of this process, and it's certainly one I've been drawn into more as I've, you know, been within the BBWA. And this really was underscored when I went back to the winter meetings for the first time this year after, you know, two missed years due to the pandemic, is that voters actually do talk to each other about these guys. We learn things from each other. You know, you might get a tip that, hey, this guy is not the upstanding character we thought he was. You might also, on the other hand, convince somebody that, you know, you really ought to take a look at those defensive metrics because they do, you know, I've talked to a few voters. I changed a few minds this winter. I had my mind changed a bit too. I went into the winter meetings very malleable about how I felt about Carlos Beltran and asked at least half a dozen voters what their thoughts

were and kind of hashed out a revised position for myself that factored into what I ended up writing. So I think it's a good thing that we're open to more discussion and more evidence. I'm writing this in my candidate by candidate profile right now. I review my process for these guys every year. I'm going to take another look at Mark Burley and Andy Pettit, whom I've not voted for

any time yet, even after making a significant change to starting pitcher Jaws. But I'll look again and I will listen to the arguments of the people that I respect that are making them on those two pitchers, perhaps, because we do have a draft of starting pitchers. And so if I'm open, if I'm pounding the table saying, please let me, please listen to me so I can change your mind, I'm willing to have my mind changed, too. So I think that's the responsibility we have as voters.

my mind changed too. So I think that's the responsibility we have as voters. Yeah. And I think some of the upcoming arguments will be fun, more fun than some of the arguments that we've been having over the past several years. Because if Adrian Beltre, there shouldn't really be an argument, everyone will be happy to see him on the ballot and be able to vote for him. But some of the holdovers and then guys like Maurer and Utley, I think certainly Maurer should be in. And I wrote about that when he retired, just how important it is to look at the different standards for catchers. But really, those are the kinds of guys where it's fun to have Hall of Fame debates. Sure. Scott Rowland, too, where there's no obvious known baggage and it's about what they did on the field and what they accomplished in their career.

And people can reasonably disagree. And then there can be kind of a back and forth and education that goes on of people who learn to look at the game in different ways. So I think that is a perk of the process. So I'm looking forward to hopefully more of that in the future. Agreed. So we've got to release Jay so that he can go on to his next interview about the Hall of Fame, but you can read all his write-ups at Fangraphs. We will link to them on the show page. You can find him on Twitter at J underscore Jaffe. And of course, in the Cooperstown casebook. Thank you as always, Jay. All right. Sure thing, guys and gals. Thank you for having me on. All right. It is time for the Pass Blast. And I do have a little

follow-up before we get to the new Pass Blast. Meg, we have talked a couple of times recently about a hypothetical where kids face big leaguers on the field and how that would go and how many fielders of various ages you would have to have in order to keep the competition close. And we discussed how you would position them and how many you would need and whether there is any number that would be sufficient given the fear element and other considerations. Well, I got an email from original past blaster Richard Hershberger, subject line where to put extra fielders. So this discussion sparked something in him. He said your recent conversations about big leaguers versus countless youth and the danger of the kids just getting in each other's way was not always entirely hypothetical. In the early days of baseball, informal games might include extra players,

either for competitive balance or simply because they showed up and wanted to play. In 1872, the Knickerbockers' first nine defeated a field of 15 players because the 15 fielders interfered with each other. Henry Chadwick gave some advice on where to place various numbers of fielders. So here's the quote from Chadwick. When a field party exceeds the regular number of nine, the following rules should be observed in placing the field. When 10 men play, of course, the 10th man goes to right short. When 11 play, then the extra man is placed between second base and center field,

the latter player being sent out further for long balls. When 12 men take the field, then the two extra men take positions in the outfield so as to capture short high balls beyond the reach of the infield and not far enough out for the outfielders. In such a case, two of the three outfielders are sent out further to catch long high fly balls. When the field exceeds 12, then the extra men are placed on foul ball ground, back of first and third base. Unless an arrangement like this is made, the players are only in each other's way. So that's from the New York Sunday Mercury, May 19th, 1872. So this was contemplated. So there are some free tips from Henry Chadwick to any teams of

15 year olds that happen to be playing big leaguers anytime soon I don't think actual big leaguers can avail themselves of these instructions though because we do have some limits on how many fielders you can have and also more and more strictly where they can stand so that kind of limits you a little bit

but good to know that people were thinking of this 150 plus years ago. We live in a society, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. We also we got an email from Joseph, a Patreon supporter, who pointed out, what if you covered the entire field of play with thousands of prone five year olds? If you make the ground completely inaccessible to the ball, it would eventually come to rest on top of a kid's body, which would presumably be an out, right? I mean, I guess everything would be a catch at that point because you would just have a sea of five-year-olds and the ball would come to rest on one of them and then another one could pick the ball up and it would be an out. So problem solved okay but okay but ben here's the thing if the entire field is literally covered with five-year-olds how does that interact with potential interference of the runner to first base right because if yeah you gotta leave the baselines clear i guess oh sure now we're we're keeping it like normal baseball. Okay. Okay.

Yeah. There are limits, I'm saying. If you end up spiking a kid, it would be terrible. I know. Well, hopefully they would have some sort of protective equipment or something because otherwise the ones right in front of the plate would just get drilled. Right. Yeah. Be reasonable.

That's the position in cricket that we have discussed in the past. So, yeah. Don't want anyone to get hurt, but that is the big problem about having big leaguers face five-year-olds or 15-year-olds for that matter. Okay, so that was a follow-up, and I wanted to get Richard involved here because we're having another changing of the guard in the Pass Blast segment today.

So Richard Hershberger originated this segment. He took us from its introduction in 1856 to 1901 through 1901. So he took us up to a new era, the American League coming in. And then Jacob Pomeranke, of course, picked up the mantle from Richard. And he has now taken us to the verge of a new era, the expansion era. And so he is here, as Richard was, for his final Pass Blast to deliver it in person. Jacob is here to do the same. And I've said this so many times, but the Pass Blast today comes to you from 1960.

And this is episode 1960. And it also comes to you from Jacob Pomeranke, Sabre's Director of Editorial Content and Chair of the Black Sox Candle Research Committee. And I guess you could have let you say that for yourself because you are here. Hello, Jacob. Well, thanks for the introduction, Ben. Yeah. Well, we thank you for taking us this far.

And we have one more pass blast to go. So lay it on us. The pass blast for 1960. Okay. So 1960, the title is Expansion Plans. Bill Mazeroski's home run to win the 1960 World Series was not even the biggest baseball story of the week that October. Five days after Maz's historic home run in Pittsburgh, the National League announced its long-awaited expansion plans. They approved the addition of two brand new teams in New York

and Houston for the 1962 season. Meanwhile, American League owners were busy making their own plans for expansion in 1962, but they were outraged that the NL had moved ahead without telling them first. So one week after the NL owners meeting, AL owners voted to move everything up to opening day in 1961 instead. The Washington Senators would move to Minnesota to become the Twins, and then expansion teams would begin play in Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles. The lack of trust between the two leagues hovered over everything, as Shirley Povich of the Washington Post wrote on November 2, 1960. The AL club owners made no secret they were plenty sore at the National League

for what they considered a double cross. The National and American Leagues were supposed to act in concert on expansion, said Yankees co-owner Del Webb, and they didn't. Webb said, They pulled a fast one on us before the World Series and held a hurry-up meeting to add New York and Houston. I understand they got together and decided on this fast one on us before the World Series and held a hurry-up meeting to add New York and Houston. I understand they got together and decided on this while riding on a plane to Pittsburgh for the World Series. Webb's special pleasure is that the American League is invading Los Angeles to

make a two-team city out of what had been the private preserve of the Dodgers' Walter O'Malley. The AL had been moaning low at the growing prospect that it was becoming the Bush League. Its own failure to go to California when the Dodgers and Giants moved three years ago was recognized as ghastly negligence. With the NL taking up in New York, it was threatening to be the only coast-to-coast league, so the AL made up a lot of ground. For once, Povich wrote, the American League was being the boldest, and now the National League would have to catch up.

William Shea, who led the charge to bring the expansion Mets to New York in 1962, called the AL's quick expansion, quote, one of the lowest blows below the belt in the history of the sport. The two leagues did get together at the winter meetings in December to hash out all the details, but by then the damage was done. The American League was committed to fielding two new teams in 1961, despite having, in the words of author Andy McHugh, no general managers, no managers, no players, and no ticket sales departments for either team yet. Opening day was less than six months away. Good luck.

Excellent. I couldn't have read it better myself. Maybe we should have had you read these things all along. You've got, you've got like a little, a touch little touch of Nick Offerman vocal quality, I would say. I don't know whether anyone has ever made that comp before. I will accept that as the start of the expansion era, and it was, but there's this one awkward season where it's the only year, right? I think since the AL came in, where you had the two leagues having a different number of games, which I always think of like, okay, they started playing 162, not 154, but there was sort of a staggered, right? 162, not 154, but there was sort of a staggered rate. I mean, I guess subsequently there have been some differences in number of teams, but not number of games. So it's a little unclean. They didn't do it in a synchronized way, but I guess they were upset about that at the

time too, or at least the NL was. Yeah, no, it's fascinating to watch the owners feuding. That's something that obviously goes back in baseball history all the time. But, you know, they were supposed to do this together in 1962. It was supposed to be the big year of expansion. And the AL decided, you know, right after the World Series, let's go ahead and do it right now. So, yeah, it's, you know, it wasn't a good move for anybody. And, you know, it probably hampered the angels and the expansion senators for a while, but they had to start play very, very quickly. Yeah, they jumped the gun. Well, thank you very much for taking us up to the eve of modernity here and your contributions have been much appreciated. We've learned a lot from your past blast. Have you learned anything in the course of

researching for this segment, or was most of what you sent us known to you? No, a lot of this was pretty new to me. And, you know, you and I had discussed early on with Richard about, you know, kind of going up through the years. And certainly my, you know, personal research interests are kind of in the early 20th century. So building up, you know, into 1960 kind of got out of my wheelhouse a little bit. But it was a lot of fun to read, you know, some of the newspapers in the 40s and 50s. Because, you know, we think of if you pay attention to, you know, TV and movies, you know, that's supposedly the golden age of baseball, at least, you know, for certain generations. But the reality was there was a ton of change and, you know, a ton

of just very radical changes in baseball. Not only who was playing, you know, Jackie Robinson and all the former Negro League stars, but, you know, where they were playing with the relocations and, you know, just the ballparks they were playing in. I mean, all of it was changing. It was just a lot going on in those years. And so it was really interesting to kind of dig in and see what people were saying at the time. I mean, that's really what I've always loved as a listener about these past blasts, is finding out what people were saying at the time. And it's always interesting because it's not always what you think. Yeah. What was your process? Because Richard, of course, had written extensively about early baseball and the origins of the

sport. And so he had just a library of old clips that he could pull from. But what was your typical process for generating Pass Blast? Well, my first process was if I could find something that would make either of the two of you laugh or possibly groan, depending on the year. But, you know, I was just trying to find something that was interesting. I figured if it was, you know, interesting to any of us, it would also be interesting to listeners. And, you know, the big thing that I was always looking for was, you know, trying to find commentary, trying to find editorials, which isn't always easy because they're not well marked in the newspapers back then. And so,

you know, a lot of sports writers did not actually express a lot of strong opinions. So, trying to find some editorials or some, you know, original commentary to figure out, you know, what people really thought other than just, you know, wire stories, AP stories, uh, about these events, you know, those are pretty easy to find, but, you know, figuring out what the actual people thought or what they said, uh, in those years when, you know, not a lot of players or executives were being directly quoted in the newspapers. Um, so that was, uh, that was always a little bit of a challenge, uh, to find those, but, you know, when you come up with some good ones, some people are very, very honest and not very media savvy, even, you know, the owners and the executives. So that was always a lot of fun.

I wanted to ask, since this is largely a Hall of Fame episode and you were following Jay here, and we were talking a bit about Carlos Beltran and his level of support in his first year of the ballot. What were the ramifications for some of the Black Sox players or the clean Sox who were on the Black Sox squad? Obviously, everyone knows about Joe Jackson, but beyond him, you had guys like Ray Shock who got in, which might be surprising to people if they just look at his war these days, I suppose. Or you had someone like Eddie Seacott, right, who maybe has the stats more so than Shock did, although different standards at different positions. I mean, did it dog guys when the Hall of Fame became a thing some years after the Black Sox scandal came to light and there were players who were eligible

who could have been considered? Have you researched that at all? Yes. And, you know, it's interesting to note that in the very first election by the baseball writers in 1936, Shoeless Joe did receive two votes because nobody quite knew whether he was eligible or not for the Hall of Fame. And so he did receive two votes. And, you know, it was always a question and it remained a question for decades afterwards until 1991 when Pete Rose was becoming eligible and they decided that anyone on the band list should not be eligible for the Hall of Fame. But, you know, it remained an open question. And so there was always this, you know, kind of lingering thought in the background. Should we be allowed to vote for these guys or should we not? And, you know,

Eddie Seacott, the pitcher, is the only one who, by his stats, should be, you know, considered for the Hall of Fame. None of the others either played long enough or did well enough, at least among the banned Black Sox, to get elected. But Seacott, you know, has case, and he probably would have gotten in, you know, in the 1950s, just like a whole lot of other pitchers that, you know, nobody thinks too much about 100 years later. But, you know, as far as the clean Sox, it's interesting because they actually probably benefited from the scandal. You know, Ray Schoch probably is in the Hall of Fame

because he was an honest player in 1919. I think that helped, you know, spur his reputation and made him seem, you know, more heroic than he actually was on the field, you know, just by his catching. So I think he's in and, you know, possibly Red Faber is also in for that reason as well. I mean, a great pitcher, but if he wasn't in the Hall of Fame, I'm not sure, you know, too many people would be upset about it. Yeah, right. And Shock got in in the mid-50s, Favor got in in the mid-60s, so that was after the character clause came in in the mid-40s, although I know not everyone paid attention

to that clause initially, but they did get in during the time where conceivably you could have used that to help get them in as opposed to keeping players out, which is often how it's leveraged. So just as Richard passed the baton to you, you are passing the Pass Blast baton to someone else. And it's actually a protege of yours that you connected us with to take us the rest of the way up to the present. His name is David Lewis, and he has already submitted his first Pass Blast, which everyone will hear next time. But since you made the introduction here, you want to tell us a little bit about David just to set the scene for upcoming Pass Blast? Yeah, no, David's a great student, or not student, he's a graduate now, but he's one of our former

interns at Sabre, one of my favorite interns that we've had working with us over the last couple years. And he actually came down to the Sabre Convention in Baltimore last summer and delivered his first research presentation, a history of Braves Field and focusing on the architecture of it. That's kind of his background in historic preservation studies. So he's really a sharp kid. He's got a lot of good baseball knowledge up in there. And so it'll be great to pass the baton and see where he takes it. This was something that Richard and I had talked about, Richard Hershberger and I had talked about a couple of months ago and passing the baton on. And so I'm happy to pass it on to David.

And David also spent some time working at the Hall of Fame, too, just to bring everything into a nice little tied-together bow here. Full circle. Yeah. All right. Well, we've been linking to these things all along, but if you haven't availed yourself of the option yet, you can follow Jacob on Twitter, at Buck Weaver. You can find his website at jacobpomren Buck Weaver. You can find his website at

jacobhamerinky.com. You can find his extensive writing about the Black Sox and other subjects, and of course, appreciate his work for Sabre. So Jacob, thanks so much for coming on to deliver the final Pass Plus and also for taking us through the last several decades. It was a pleasure. Thanks to you both. All right. That will just about do it for today. If you want more Jay Jaffe in your life, and who wouldn't, you can catch him on Fangraphs Audio this week as well. He will be talking to Hall of Fame ballot tracker mastermind Ryan Thibodeau on there. We will also have more Hall of Fame adjacent content on our next episode,

probably some Royals related content coming up soon soon also. We're just waiting for Zach Greinke to resign. That's going to happen, right? Get that done, Royals. And one note, we talked about the new dimensions at Rogers Center, the Blue Jays' home park, last time. They're moving the fences in and up, and we talked about that in terms of the impact on offense. According to some comments by Mark Shapiro of the Blue Jays last month, they have run the numbers and determined that these changes supposedly will not affect the pitcher-batter balance in the park. We'll see how that plays out in practice because the fences will be shallower. Then again, there will be less foul territory and the fences will be higher. So they seem to think that those things will

compensate for making the fences a little less deep. And the rationale wasn't so much juicing offense or changing offense. According to Shapiro, quote, when we're done next year, the seats will actually, this will be a novel idea, the seats will actually look at the batter pitcher instead of looking into the outfield. Again, because it was a multi-purpose stadium, a lot of our seats are angled toward the outfield. You have to turn your head to watch the action. So we'll have more baseball-specific seats that are more focused on the action on the infield, mostly on the pitcher-catcher.

They'll be closer to the field. They won't be as far because the circle creates the distance. If you create more of a V-shape or a diamond shape, you'll move the seats closer to the field, less foul territory. He also said, I think a cool thing will be there's also going to be a couple angles in the fence. So you'll see a ball hit the fence

and kind of carry them in a unique way. I like that. It strikes me that every old ballpark since the inception of the game had its unique outfield that created some character. When it's complete circle, as Roger Center was, there's not a lot of character. So we're going to create some unique angles and aspects that don't exist now, but we were careful to not have it with defined ballpark attributes, meaning not make it a right-handed hitter's park or a left-handed hitter's park or a pitcher's park. We were careful to try to keep it neutral. So supposedly that was the thinking.

You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going. Help us stay ad-free and get themselves access to some perks. Holger True, Mac Mashburn, Caleb Cabo, Michael Hathaway, and Mark Olinger. Thanks to all of you.

Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group coming up on 1,000 members. You can help us reach that milestone. You can also get access to monthly bonus episodes on your own personal private feed, plus playoff live streams, discounts on merch and ad-free Fangraphs memberships and many other goodies. If you're a Patreon supporter, you can contact us via the Patreon site.

If not, you can email us the old-fashioned way via podcast at Fangraphs.com. Send us your questions, comments, suggestions. 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. We will be back with one more episode before the end of the week.

Talk to you then. Rolling, rolling, rolling Yeah, it's time to get me going The yellow lines are glowing Oh, how we're only home Blacktop Highway Oh, how we're only home