Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1963: Was the Greink There?

Episode Date: February 2, 2023

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley issue a sexiness-comment correction and banter about Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s MLB: The Show cover-model credentials, the 2023 Opening Day schedule, more ways in which baseball is and isn’t different from other sports (14:35), Chad Green’s convoluted contract (31:35), and their appreciation of Zack Greinke. Then (43:49) Ben chats with former […]

I'm so sick of tests Go ahead and flood my ass Cause you don't own the situation, honey You don't own the stage We're here to join the conversation And we're here to raise the stakes Now do you hear that sound? Hello and welcome to episode 1963 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Airelia Fangraphs and I am as always by Ben Lemberg of The Ringer. Hey Ben, how are you? Well, I have a small correction

to issue. Yeah, nothing super significant, but we started last time talking about how there was a new way to say that players are in the best shape of their lives, which is that they look sexy, right? So Carlos Correa said this about Jose Miranda. He looks sexy. Have you seen that body? And then I noted that there was another report about Jazz Chisholm saying something similar or, in fact, identical about Abicel Garcia, which seemed curious with the timing. And indeed, it was curious. And it was so curious that it should have raised a red flag for me because that was a parody tweet. That was, I believe, not real. I was duped by a Twitter blue badge. Yeah, you got to be careful out there these days. Yeah, you sure do. So as far as I know, Jazz Chisholm did not say exactly the same thing about Abisail Garcia that Carlos Correa said about Jose Miranda. But Carlos Correa did say that about Jose Miranda.

So that part is still valid. And I hope that other players do echo Correa when people start reporting to spring training in their sexy bodies in a week or two. diverse differently but still sexy sexy bodies yeah you hope that they uh show up and and you know and feel sexy they report right around valentine's day so that's right you know if ever there were a time to feel at least a little sexy it's probably it's probably right then you know yeah and you know what else is sexy and also related to jazz chisholm he is the new cover model for mlb the show the new edition of the long-running game series. He's going to be on the cover. And that kind of made me, A, excited, but also raised my eyebrow because I thought, really, Jazz Chisholm is a cover model. Has he reached cover model status in his career? And I was thinking of potentially doing a stat blast

about comparing his accomplishments prior to becoming cover model to previous cover models. But I was beaten to the punch by someone on the MLB The Show Reddit, user Cletus, I think, who did this. He ran the numbers. Yeah, K-L-I-E-T-I-S. You know, we need more Cletuses. I feel like that's a, we need more of those, you know? I would agree. Let's get on it, expectant parents. the point that they were named cover model. And the title of this thread was jazz has the worst resume of any cover athlete, which is maybe a mean way to put it. And I think people thought he was dumping on jazz. And I don't know that that was the intent. I think he was just noting a statistical curiosity, as I was also. I don't think anyone is upset that jazz chism is the

cover model to the extent that anyone cares who the cover model is. People care. What are you talking about? People do, I guess. People care. I don't know if it has real world effects in terms of sales. Like I assume that they think it must have some effect or it just wouldn't matter. They wouldn't have a cover model at all.

But with a series like MLB The Show, where it's so long running and there's so little competition in the kind of baseball game that it is, that I don't really know whether it's swinging sales hugely one way or another. It's kind of like if you want the new baseball game with the good graphics and the MLB The Show brand, then you're probably just going to get it every year. Or if you don't get it, it probably won't be because of the cover athlete. But it is interesting that they are sort of betting on jazz, I guess, to at least retroactively look like a natural choice for cover athlete. And this could be the year that he ascends to that stratosphere if he wasn't there already. He's obviously extremely skilled and charismatic and fun. Cool. He's cool. He is cool. And so people who know baseball know Chaz Chisholm and probably enjoy Chaz Chisholm, I would hope.

But if you don't, maybe he's not moving the needle. I mean, he's a Marlin, right, for one thing. So he's not the biggest built-in fan base. And in terms of just the longevity and the tenure, there are certainly players who have been cover athletes in this series early in their career, but coming off of maybe fuller seasons at an elite level, right? Because he was headed that way potentially this past year, but then he got hurt and he missed most of the season. So he was playing at an elite level, but he played in 60 games. And prior to that, he was kind of a talented but hadn't really fully put it together type player. So he's entering his fourth season and really his third full season or what would have been his third full season.

So he's poised to take the leap. And I guess they are betting that he will take the leap and will become a household name more so than he is now. And it's probably not a bad time to get in the Jazz Chisholm business before the bigger breakout that could come. But it's an interesting year for him with this and also with the fact that he's moving to center field. So there's a lot going on there. But I guess this is kind of a prove it season for him or just a, hey, you already proved it, but now you get to show it off over a full schedule. Yeah, I suspect a couple of things here. His style of play is cool.

And sometimes Jazz will make mistakes in the field, but he is also known for some really terrific and slick and highlight-worthy plays at shortstop. We will see how he takes to center, as you noted. He's got style. He's got a style about him. He has defined personal style. He plays in a uniform that is bright and colorful and like when you look at the pictures they have both the cover photo and then like you know him and the alts like their city connects are so great i just think that like

the people who play mlb the show like know baseball well enough to be like hey you know this like very charismatic cool guy who plays the game well at least when he's on the field we know that guy and he looks great on the cover i is like oh yeah the cover is very aesthetically pleasing very colorful i will say i was a little surprised like you know like i was kind of surprised that it wasn't julio i was a little surprised it was not julio just because like you know reigning al rookie of the year he had that incredible national coming out during the um maybe we need a different language there but um he burst onto the national scene with his home run derby

performance right you know he was on he he led a team that finally made it back to the postseason. And he's cool. So I was a little surprised just because I thought maybe the hardware would sway them. But I like that they just picked a guy who is fun to watch and looks great on the cover. And they're like, if he's not a total name, I think they probably just know that like the number of total names like guys who everyone knows who aren't baseball fans is probably limited so put a guy on the cover who looks freaking cool yeah it's a baseball game so if you're not a baseball fan you're probably not interested in the game to begin with i mean unless you just happen to like the the video game version

of the sport and not the real thing and, if you're already someone who's going to be playing a baseball video game, then maybe the idea is that you know Jazz Chisholm already, or you're just a captured market and it doesn't really matter who's on the cover. So maybe they got a good deal on Jazz Chisholm, but I think maybe it'll look like an even better deal in retrospect if he does sort of ascend to an even higher tier of people know his name. Because it's not like any baseball player these days, perhaps sadly, is really breaking through sort of into the mainstream non-sports or non-baseball conversation where someone who doesn't know the sport at all would say, oh, wow, I know that guy who's on the cover. Maybe I'll get this game.

There just aren't a lot of baseball players in that kind of category these days. I guess Otani, who was last year's cover model, might be the closest. And maybe Judge. Yeah, maybe Judge, who's been on the cover as well. Before, right. Yeah, so I think you're right. I think that they are making a sort of directional judgment about the trajectory of Jazz's career and also acknowledging that like he looks really

cool and so does the uniform he plays in so let's let's go you know right and he's been a big fan of the game and a vocal fan of the game in the past too and uh he talked about what it meant to him to be on the cover and what it would mean to people in the bahamas etc so yeah it's nice and by the way it's jess shism's birthday today as we speak. Oh, happy birthday, Jess. Happy 25th, Jess. It's a nice present. God, he's only 25. Yeah, he's only 25. I feel as old as Medusa.

So that's one reason to be excited for the coming season. So is, I think, opening day. Now, opening day is obviously always a reason to be excited for the season. But they announced the schedule. Now, they had already announced who was playing whom and when, but they announced the actual times of the game this week and also made me aware of the fact that this opening day, every team is scheduled to play its first game of the season on the same day. And if that happens, if there are no postponements or anything, it would be the first season since 1968 with every team playing its first game on the same day of the season.

Yeah. It's a true opening day. And that's pretty exciting, I think, because there's always that kind of confusion about when is opening day because there's often some team that will play the night before most of the other teams play or sometimes there are teams that will play internationally a week or two weeks or whatever before every other team plays games that count and then it's like when did the season actually start well technically it started on this day but for most teams it started on that day now everyone's going to get their first look at the same time. And that should be a ton of fun. It's like the change to have every team start its last game of the season

at the same time, right? Which is potentially exciting when there are great races going on. So it's just going to be a full block of baseball. I think the first games are at 105 Eastern and the last games start at 1010 Eastern. So it's just going to be booked solid and every single fan base will get a taste at the same time. So it's kind of neat from a bookkeeping perspective and a pedant perspective. But it should also just be super exciting that everyone gets to bathe in the glory of the first game of the season simultaneously yeah i appreciate that they are they have managed to align something being fun and cool with something being editorially convenient that's so nice ben when that happens you know because it's like everything's so clean so clean clean. I get to, you know, I get to limp into opening day of a lot of work, me and the rest of the staff, and just be like, hey, we're all here together now. We get to have a baseball nap.

Do you have a baseball nap on opening day? Are you a baseball napper, Ben? I am a big baseball napper. Yeah, we both enjoy a baseball nap on opening day? Are you a baseball napper? I don't know. I am a big baseball napper. Yeah, we both enjoy the baseball nap. I don't know whether opening day I will nap just because, hey, it's opening day and we haven't had real baseball in a while. So I don't know if I'll be too wired to nap or it'll just be an assault on the senses. I mean, I enjoy a nap later in the season when it just becomes part of the cadence of day in and day out. There's baseball. It's not quite as adrenaline-inducing on a daily basis.

It's just, it bathes you. It washes over you, and perhaps you fall asleep. But if you have a baseball nap on opening day, I support that. That would be great. Yeah, normally this is how it progresses, right? So we get through that crazy month. We do all of this work to get ready for the season and do all of our preview content.

And then on opening day, we do the big mega chat that everybody likes. We do the opening day mega chat where we chat all day. And then when the second set of games start, right? So the chat is humming. Our predictions are up. The positional power rankings, they're wrapped, Ben. They're done.

You know, everybody knows who all the guys are and where they rank. Second set of games starts and I nap. It is a deep, deep sleep. And it feels so good. And then I wake up for the evening games. It's like, you know, it's rejuvenating. I have that baseball sound. I get to calibrate how loud the ad breaks on MLB TV are going to be.

You know, that's a useful calibration. I guess we get to find out if we have more baseballs then, eh? Oh, yeah. I hope so. So March 30th, set your calendars, get your excuses ready for school and work. Yeah, I think you're all feeling a little sick that day. Yes, exactly. Or the weather.

Yeah. I actually got called out on that once for skipping a college class so I could watch the first game of the season. I thought, it's college. Who cares? Who's going to keep track of my absences here? And the professor actually brought attention to the fact that I wasn't there. I forget whether I admitted that I was watching baseball or came up with some other excuse.

But yeah, I didn't quite as cleanly get away with it as I thought I would. So a couple little baseball exceptionalism things. I don't want to beat this segment into the ground. Some of you are probably already thinking too late. But we keep getting great submissions for this, and it seems like some people are enjoying it. And I think I've actually learned a couple things over the course of soliciting these suggestions for ways that baseball is either unique or unusual and distinct from other sports. And one is that I think you can make a pretty good case that baseball is unusually unusual. Now, I'm saying that from sort of a biased parochial perspective as someone who weird, and I think it's fun to celebrate those.

And secondarily, I think what I've learned is that it's getting a little less so, given some of the ways that the sport has changed and some of the sort of unintentional changes and some of the upcoming changes. I think baseball is slightly conforming, at least, and getting a little bit more homogenized. And again, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. I think in some cases it's a necessary evolution, but it's sort of bittersweet because I think a lot of people lament that just like the rough edges of baseball are perhaps getting sanded down, right? Like some of the weird, quaint, quirky stuff that we are attached to because it's been a fixture of the sport is maybe falling by the wayside. But I think part of that is maybe just necessary growth or having to adapt to a changing media

environment and increased competition and everything. So for instance, Aaron wrote in, and maybe we've touched on some of these, but the unwritten rules, for instance, it seems like maybe baseball has more of them and an emphasis on them to a greater extent than other sports, but that's becoming reduced, right? And I think on the whole, that's probably good. We're not people for the most part who really cherish most of the unwritten rules, I would say, or think that's a big part of our enjoyment of the sport. And then Aaron also pointed out that the differences between leagues and the fact that there used to be real differences and different

rules and different teams playing each other and different umpiring crews and all sorts of real steady differences that now have almost entirely evaporated. So the leagues are essentially the same except in name, and maybe we're heading for a rechristening or a realignment of some sort. And again, that doesn't bother me so much, but it's another example maybe of baseball becoming less of an outlier and more like some other sports, right? So I think Patrick wrote in also about the fraternization rule, the rule against fraternization, which he notes is technically being broken every time kids line up for autographs or a first baseman greets a runner at first or Prince Fielder steals some nachos from a fan or whatever. All of these things you could argue are technically illegal, but no one cares about that anymore. And we don't care that they don't

care. We wouldn't really want them to care. It's a good thing they don't care, but it's maybe odd that that's even still on the books. So those are my big picture takeaways from this series so far. Yeah, I agree with those. I agree with them. Yes. So the most recent ones we got, Sean says that our stat sparkler, remember it wasn't a stat blast, it was a stat sparkler about Jeff Kent, made me think of one of the baseball's unique things, double and triple plays. down, is baseball's analog to a clock in other sports? It's certainly different. In the time sports, you can't make the clock run at double or triple time while the other team is trying to score, but you can take away multiple chunks of opportunity in baseball. Does this count? So is that, it's again, kind of an addendum to the,'s no clock is that the outs are kind of the currency and you can eliminate multiple outs from the board in the same play, two or three. And so you can sort of it goes in fits and starts.

You can accelerate the countdown in a sense. Is that strange? Let me think about that. I mean, probably not is my answer. I'm trying to think. There are sports where, like in football. In football, Ben, you familiar with football? Vaguely. Like if you get an intentional grounding penalty in football, it results in a loss of down, right? So like in football, Ben, you have to keep converting downs to progress down the field and score. And if you don't,

at a certain point, you either have to go for it on fourth down and risk turning the ball over on downs or punt it away, right? But sometimes the quarterback will be guilty of what's called intentional grounding right where and there are vagaries to that rule that don't really need to interest you and in addition to it being a yardage penalty there's also a loss of down and so you get a down taken away from you uh that you previously had access to and now don't because of the intentional grounding so like that's the closest that I can think of where you're accelerating the pace through doing something bad as an offense. It might be called the grounding into a double play of football.

It's not really. Those aren't exactly the same, but it mimics a similar thing where your ability to stay on the field is being constrained at a more rapid pace than simply an out or a down at a time, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And then this is the last one. This is from Tom, who says, it seems to me that a big way in which baseball is different or unique is that the defense has a numerical advantage on the field at all times. In hockey,

there can be power plays in which one team is temporarily disadvantaged, and in soccer, a red card can diminish one side by a player. But baseball deliberately starts with a nine against one. If the team at bat has the bases loaded and you count the batter in the on-deck circle, you could say at best it is still nine against five. So technically, of course, it's nine against nine in the sense that you're facing the entire lineup, but because one batter is coming to the plate at a time and you have all of the fielders arrayed out there, then I guess you could say that it is numerically more lopsided, right, than most sports where you have an equal number of players facing each other at any given time on offense and defense, or if not equal, then close to equal.

Let me think about this for a second. You say words about that. I want to think about this for a second. You say words about that. I want to think about it for a second. Depends on how you classify who is currently competing. If you just sort of pretend that everyone on the bench who is in the batting order is not active for the purposes of this comparison at that time, which is, you know, for all intents and purposes true in that they cannot affect the game directly. They cannot come to the plate suddenly unscheduled. I guess it is the most pronounced example I can think of of a discrepancy on the field, right? Let's say you're having a very good day at the plate as a team and you load up the bases. You only have the most you can have on the field from the batting side of things is four.

And so even with you maxing that number out, you are still dramatically outnumbered. But not all of the defensive, not all the fielders are involved in the play in any given moment, right? So it's true that there is a numerical disadvantage, but within the action of the at-bat or plate appearance, it isn't as pronounced as that, you know? they're more involved than, say, I don't know, a third baseman is on a fly ball or right or something, right? I mean, depending on whether they're runners on base or whatever, the third baseman could still be covering and could still be a factor. But yeah, that is probably true because

a defender in other sports, even if they're not defending the person who has the ball, they could be cutting off options for the person who has the ball. And I guess you could sort of say that for baseball too, in that depending on where you're standing, you're taking the option to hit the ball there away from the batter. And maybe that would have been a bigger deal early in the game's history where you could and people did hit it where they weren't, right? And there was more of an emphasis on bat control and people didn't throw as hard and it was more advantageous to put the ball in play. And so you could more consciously and reliably slap the ball somewhere if someone wasn't standing there. Whereas now, for the most part, players are just sort of doing their thing

and it just happens to go to this fielder or that fielder based on their tendencies or what the pitcher does. Yeah, yeah. I think that that is also true. But it doesn't feel as imbalanced as the numbers would perhaps suggest, even if, you know, there are instances where sort of taking something away is a parallel to other sports. But that's going to change, right? Some of that will shift back again because of the shift restrictions. Yes. You cannot avoid saying shift every time we talk about the shift, even when you're not trying to. So we did get an email from a listener, Stephen, who sent in more of a pedantic point and one that I have long agreed with.

But it strikes me that it could be related to this exceptionalism conversation. Stephen makes the point, you know, there's this famous saying that goes something like in baseball, you can fail 70 percent of the time and you're a Hall of Famer. There are variations on that, but it's not accurate. You can't fail to reach base 70 percent of the time and be a Hall of Famer, and it's difficult in such a circumstance to even be good. The phrase obviously only takes batting average into account. If you bat 300 for your career, you're likely a Hall of Famer, but isn't adjusted for the Moneyball era. To be more accurate, you kind of need to fail only 60% or 65% of the time, though this doesn't hurt the baseball is a game about failure idea much. So two things. Yes,

I wrote about this a decade ago. It bothers me that people say that just because if you wanted to say you could fail most of the time and still be good, that applies. But if you want to apply a specific percentage, as people often do, then you got to get the percentage right or it's just false precision. So I'm sort of surprised that you still hear this saying in that way as often as you do, because we have so moved on from batting average as a baseball culture that I'm sort of surprised. People don't get paid based on batting average as much anymore and people don't follow the batting title race anymore. It almost seems like

a misnomer now that there's so much more that goes into offensive production than just your batting average. So I'm surprised that this saying, this particular formulation of this saying, has had the staying power that it has. Because every time I hear it, I think, well, no, not really. That's not quite true. You can't fail that often and still be valuable as a batter, at least. But the point that Stephen makes at the end there about how whether it's 60% or 70%, you could still say baseball is a game of failure, that is often something that people will trot out as an exceptionalism example, right? Like baseball is unique because it's a game of failure.

And I would actually take issue with that. I don't think that baseball is unusual in that respect. Like, first of all, this is an example of something else we talked about recently, which is our tendency to view baseball from the batter's perspective, right?

Because if we're saying it's a game of failure, that's inherently, you're looking at it from the batter's perspective. I mean, it's a game of success from the pitcher's perspective, right? Or the defense's perspective. So that's another example of that. But also, aren't most sports or many sports games of failure to the same degree? I mean, in hockey or soccer, I think like 10 to 15 percent of shots result in goals. Like most shots are failures and sometimes you fail to get a shot off. Like those are lower scoring sports even. Like you're failing to score even more routinely in those sports than in baseball.

Like to me, there's tons of failure in every sport, right? Or if everyone were succeeding at all times, it wouldn't really be interesting. There wouldn't be any tension or skill involved. So I don't think it's even unusual that in baseball, the best players of a certain sort do not succeed more often than they do succeed. Yeah. I don't know that it really is unique to baseball. I think you're right. Like particularly when you have sports like hockey and soccer that feel like they have – well, and I don't know if this is – my sense of this is accurate. I want to preface this by saying that.

I don't know if my sense of this is accurate. But like I – my instinct is that the scoring environment, I really mean scoring. So that's why I said scoring environment was specific to scoring. In those sports is even lower than it is in baseball, at least at the professional level. I don't know if that's true, but that's my sense. If my sense is wrong, I might be more interested in watching, say, soccer. So someone

should tell me. I'm sure that you will. So I don't know that it is particularly special, although I will say, I will say that relative to sports like football and basketball and particularly football where it feels like the the rules shift which is being motivated at least in part rightly by a concern around safety is is really leading to an offensive explosion in football we get a lot of big scoring games because of some of the rules that have been adopted to try to minimize scoring in the nba these days too right and so i think when we translate the individual performance to the general sense that folks have of the scoring environment that's probably part of why this has persisted and i think it's useful for us to remember that while we have largely moved on from batting average and

while front offices have largely moved on from batting average. And while front offices have largely moved on from batting average, I don't know that that is representative of the general sense that fans at large have of the sport, right? Yes, good point. So there's that piece of it too. But I think you're right. I think professional sports, trying to gain a foothold and keep a foothold in professional sports

is largely defined by failure and your resilience to it because it's really, really hard to be that good at it. Yeah, right. So you're just going to fail and fail and fail and fail. And you have to do more than simply fail less than other athletes. I think that all professional sports require more of athletes than that. But I think that that is a big sort of base hurdle to clear, you know. So I get why people fixate on that part. And you have like the, it's a long season.

That's the other thing, you know. And you're singled out, right? The spotlight is on you. Yeah, you're singled out, right? The spotlight is on you. Because of the lopsided defense versus offense thing that we were just talking about, you're not one of a sea of players. It's you failing when you're in the batter's box. Yeah. So I get why it has persisted. It's emotionally consistent for me. I take great joy in the highs of baseball, but the lows have a lot of emotional resonance for me.

So maybe that's why it doesn't bother me. I'm like, yeah, these guys are failing a lot of the time. They get very frustrated. Yeah. So we've got to get to the guest portion of the podcast. I did want to mention, though, I think we have reached peak option with the Chad Green contract. Oh, my gosh. I think we can reached peak option with the Chad Green contract.

Oh my gosh. I think this is it. I think we can declare this peak option. We need new math to understand it. This is so complicated. And I know that Julio's extension was sort of similarly complicated. It was quite convoluted. But that was a huge dollar long-term deal for a superstar. Lots of years.

Lots of dollars, yeah. This is a reliever who is injured currently, and that's why the deal is so convoluted. But also it's like, wow, if we're investing this much complexity into Chad Green's contract, where will we go next? So I guess technically this is a two-year $8.5 million guarantee for Chad Green from the Blue Jays, but it is anything but that simple. I mean, there's like an order of operations here. You've got nested options. I saw sort of a flow chart on Reddit, basically.

So what it is, it's like a choose-your-own-ad own adventure kind of thing where after this coming season, the Blue Jays can pick up their team option, in which case he will continue to be a Blue Jay through 2026. one year for 2024. So he could either pick that up and then be a Blue Jay for 2024, or he can decline that option, in which case there is another contingent option. The Blue Jays would then get a two-year team option, which they could then accept or decline. And then he would be a Blue Jay through 2025, or he would become a free agent after next season. So I really I had to look at a diagram basically to understand how this worked. So this is unsurpassed as of yet, I think, in the number of options and the complexity of it that struck me as being particularly wild, it's all wild, but particularly wild, it isn't as if we lack precedent for the pitcher is hurt, sign a two-year deal where he gets to do his rehab with the team that wants to then benefit from the fruits of that work.

That happens. That happens increasingly. We see a lot of guys who like they need tommy john they sign a two-year deal the the team that believes in him is like we want to really be hands-on and help to shepherd this rehab and then you'll pitch for us the following season we see we've seen that we right yeah what about that was not enough toronto what about that was not enough, Toronto? What about that was like, no, no, we must instead engage in the most convoluted. And maybe some of this was Chad Green? Question mark?

Like maybe he and his reps were like, here's how we got to do it. But it was quite a, I was like, what is going on here? What is the business? And it's a complicated business as it turns out. Tommy John surgery, I think in June, and maybe that's why this is so complex. Like we've seen the deals where a team will sign a player who is rehabbing from a surgery to a multiple year contract. And the idea is that if they come back strong, then the team gets them at a reduced rate for the second year, even though they might not get anything out of them the first year. But because he had it in June, the timeline is such that there are a number of ways that it could go. He could not come back at all in 2023, or he could come back late in the season. And if

he comes back late in the season, he could look good or he could look not so good. And so all these things would affect his earning earning potential going into 2024 and so this uh array of options covers every potential outcome of of his season i suppose so i don't know if this will be precedent setting or whether people will pull back and be like we've gone too far when there are three layers of options in a Chad Green contract. I want to offer an explanation we have not yet considered, Ben. What if this is our fault? Oh, in what way? Follow me here.

We get a lot of emails. We've already talked about some of them on this episode about how different baseball would be if it were different. We talk about alternate timelines. I really resent the meta thing now because when I say metaverse, I'm not talking about Facebook, but like, you know,

a metaverse of potential timelines, lives lived. And maybe someone in the Blue Jays front office listens to this show and was like, I don't want to hear Ben and Meg talk about that. So we're going to account for every possibility and then we will receive no emails. Maybe it's our fault.

Maybe the fault is in our stars. Could be. Probably not. I apologize. That would be very surprising as an outcome, but it is one of the outcomes. Yeah. All right. Last time, I teased that we were going to talk about Zach Greke in an upcoming episode. And this is that episode. So there's about to be an interview about Zach Granke. We had some scheduling issues and last minute changes and you were not able to join me at the time that we had to do this interview, unfortunately. So I'll be flying solo on this one. I talked to Jason Jenks of The Athletic,

who has co-authored three Zach Granke oral histories to date and counting, and so he has collected a wealth of incredible Granke stories. And Granke, I'm so happy that he is back with the Royals for another year. I hope he sticks around forever. He clearly loves the game, and I hope he's involved in it in some capacity for the rest of his life and the rest of our lives, because it's just such a joy to have him be part of the tapestry of baseball. And I'm enjoying him in his late career, late 30s state too, as basically a soft tosser who's getting by on guile and craftiness and mixing pitches and pinpoint command because I didn't think he could do what he did last season because he started

2022 getting good results but not striking out anyone. And I kept thinking, oh, this is going to fall apart. It's going to calm down. Yeah. And it kind of did in the middle of the season. There was kind of a correction, but then he finished the season super strong in his last eight starts. He had a 1.81 ERA and the peripherals not quite as strong, but good enough to be a viable major league starter. And that's impressive as it is just as someone who is striking out 12.5% of the batters he faced,

or 4.8 batters per nine, if you prefer, that looks like it's out of another era. I mean, I looked at his K percentage plus on fan graphs. You can look at plus stats, which are just adjusted for the league average of that year. And he had a 56K percentage plus. So his strikeout rate was 56% of the leagues. And I looked for pitchers who threw 130 or more innings, had a K percentage plus that lower lower, and had a better than average park-adjusted ERA. And here's the list of such seasons since the strike. So coming on to 30 years here. Kirk Reeder in 2000 and 2002, Carlos Silva in 2004, Chin Ming Wong in 2006, Aaron Cook, 2007, John Lannan, 2009, Mark Burley, 2015, Brett Anderson, 2019, and Zach Greinke in 2022. Not a long list and not a lot of players who managed to sustain that success for an extremely long time. And I don't know whether Greinke will be able to, but he's got such good control and command and he mixed his cutter back in and it was just good enough. And I enjoy watching him in this phase of his career almost as much as I enjoyed when he could hit every stop along the way from 50 to 100 on the radar gun. Like his start in game seven of the 2019 World Series was one of my favorite pitching performances ever. And he struck out three in six and a third. But, you know, the guile, the veteran-ness was just off the charts. And I enjoy watching him succeed in this form, too. Yeah. Transformation is always fascinating. It is always interesting when guys are able to make something work that we didn't anticipate them being able to, particularly when that extends a career that we have all enjoyed. And we have this idea of athletes as big, burly, some of them are gregarious,

some of them are standoffish, but they tend to occupy a type. And it is refreshing to have guys who work against that type. And I know that for Grinke, like that has not always been comfortable, right? Being in the public eye to be himself is something that he is not always at ease with. But it is refreshing to have like a different archetype present itself. And, you know, we can call that any number of things, but I appreciate its existence, even as I wish it were, you know, more comfortable for him to be a guy who has oral histories done about him. Although I imagine that that probably comes up in your conversation with Jason. It does indeed. So going to talk to Jason about great cranky stories. And to segue into that interview, I have sort of a mini interview here. So from one Green to another, from Chad to Sean. So here's the thing. I did a

last time about the 2003 sci-fi film The Core and the brief baseball scene in The Core in which Sean Green is shown facing Mike Hampton. And I noted that Sean Green had incredible numbers head-to-head against Mike Hampton in 1850-something OPS, which it turns out is the 12th highest OPS any hitter has had against any pitcher in the history of baseball in 30-plus plate appearances. And he also had a string of successful plate appearances when baseball was not a game of failure for Sean Green against Mike Hampton. It was just a game of unalloyed success. And so I wanted to get some insight, if possible, into that scene. And I noted I had reached out to Sean Green and Mike Hampton and the writers of The Core and had not heard back yet. But guess what? The day after we did that episode, I got a call from Sean Green. Sean Green calls to talk about the core. And not only that, but in the course of talking to Sean Green, I noticed perfect dovetailing with our Granke segment here. Sean Green has the highest career OPS against Zach Granke of any hitter ever with no plate appearance minimum because he faced him one time, but he had a really great game against him

in that game. He faced him three times in that one game. So he is not only the holder of the highest OPS against Mike Hampton, but also technically the holder of the highest OPS against my Campton, but also technically the holder of the highest OPS against Zach Greinke. So I asked him about both of those things. This will just be a trimmed, edited version of our call. So a little less than 10 minutes. So here is first round pick, backyard baseball legend, former Blue Jay, Dodger, Diamondback, and Met, two-time All-Star, two-time MVP votegetter, one-time Gold Glover and Silver Slugger award

winner, and one-time person who made a cameo in The Core. And then coming off that big-screen star turn in 2003's The Core became the cover model for MLB The Show predecessor MLB 2004, bringing things back to our jazz chisholm banter, Sean Green, discussing the scene where the space shuttle has to fly over Los Angeles and Dodger Stadium and Mike Hampton and Sean Green playing themselves. I'm sure you don't get that many interview requests about a 20-second scene in a 20-year-old movie. So thanks for indulging me. First one.

Oh, wow. Okay. I'm honored. So could you tell me what you remember about when this was filmed or how you ended up in it? Yeah, I don't exactly remember how I ended up in it other than, you know, I was playing, you know, for L.A. So obviously in Hollywood there and there was, you know, you get asked sometimes whether it's through my agent or the team, like, hey, would you want to take part in this show or this movie? And this was a pretty easy ask because it was before batting practice at the stadium. So yeah, I thought it sounded fun,

and so I did it. Okay. So I couldn't tell if some of it was real game footage. So it was done before BP, and did they have a fake crowd behind you or something? No, there was no crowd. There was just an umpire, myself, and I can't remember who it was, but it was someone else that was the catcher. And actually, there was a pitcher, I think, too. And that was it. So in the movie, it's Mike Hampton pitching, but I don't know whether he was pitching, too. That's a really good question.

No, there wasn't actually balls thrown. I mean, this was 20 years ago, so you know. I think, I don't know if it was, honestly, I don't remember. I wish I had a better handle on it, but my recollection is that he wasn't out there, but like I said, it was a while ago. Yeah. And you take one swing in the movie. I don't know whether you've seen the scene lately,

but you can't really see what happens because the space shuttle flies overhead. Did they give you an instruction, like there's going to be a big boom and you have to look over there or something? Yeah. So they had the full production crew and team and all that. So it took a couple hours, and we kept doing takes where the three of us at home play, had to simulate a pop-up or fly ball and then look up and kind of watch. They showed us where to look. I think they might have even had something like a starting focal point that they were holding up or something to look there and then follow. They kind of us the the pace that it would be going to to follow it so we're all in the same queue it was supposed to be a ball hit in the air like either a pop-up or fly ball uh-huh

yeah and then as we're looking up for the flight of the ball we see the space shuttle and then we track it got it okay but you weren't swinging at an actual live pitch. You were just doing a fake swing. That's how I remember it. Yeah. Got it. And did you see the movie when it came out? I did see the movie when it came out.

Yep. Did you have an opinion on the movie? Yeah. I mean, it was a good cast. Yes. Hilary Swank. It was a good cast, not even including Sean Green and Mike Hampton. The reason I wanted to ask you about it is that you had a lot of real history with Mike Hampton,

and you did extremely well against him. So I thought it was interesting that they had you facing him, whether he was actually physically present when you were shooting the scene or not. It's an interesting coincidence that you were facing Hampton in the movie because he was the pitcher you did best against in your career and you were the hitter who did best against him. So what were your memories of facing Mike Hampton for real? against him. So what were your memories of facing Mike Hampton for real? Yeah, it was just kind of a bizarre thing. I mean, he's a great pitcher and had a great career. And for whatever reason, he would probably tell you the same thing, I would imagine, where it's just

like, every time I faced him, I would get like a pitch, a really good pitch to hit or two, each at bat. It's like, I don't know. It's hard to say why, but it just sort of happened. And for whatever reason, you know, he liked to keep the ball down, and I liked the ball down. So, you know, for whatever reason, I didn't miss a lot of pitches when I faced him. And it was just one of those, you know, baseball's got a lot of kind of bizarre little history

repeating itself type scenarios. And that was just one of those, you know, baseball's got a lot of kind of bizarre little history repeating itself type scenarios. And that was just one of those where, you know, I got to the point where I didn't want to face him because I felt like this has got to run out at some point. But it just sort of happened. So you think you would want to face him more because you've done so well, but you felt like he was due or something at that point? It just couldn't continue? Yeah, I felt like, how long can this last? And almost sometimes towards the end with backpacks, there's no way I'm going to get another fastball down the middle here,

and then I would. And then you're almost like, you know, you kind of psych yourself out a little bit and aren't as ready to hit it as maybe you should be. Yeah, there was a time, I think from 2001 to 2002, over five different games that you faced him 11 straight times and did not make it out. You reached base every time. Right. Did you ever talk to him about the history that you guys had?

I didn't talk to him specifically about that or anything. Before, I ran into him at different events and stuff, but before this history was created. But I remember playing against the Braves when he was there, and on the Jumatron, he happened to be the person doing the Q&A that day, and they asked him whose toughest out was and he said me and we were playing him that day but I didn't I didn't actually talk to him about it well that checks out according to the numbers it's uh you against Hampton is one of the highest batter versus pitcher OPSs of any

batter versus any pitcher ever like it's it's close to the top of the list. Yeah, I do kind of wonder about the psychology of that, because, you know, you faced him 34 times. So after a while, after you have all that early success, then I assume it's in both of your heads when you're coming up to the plate. Yeah, sure. It was him, and the other one was John Smoltz. And it was just kind of, and he would make comments to me,

like, he was covering first base. You know, kind of, that's kind of funny. You know, it's like, I can't get you out. Like things like that, but never with Mike, but you know, then there's other guys, you know, like Scott air, the left-handed reliever Cubs and, you know, a bunch of teams. I couldn't get a hit off the guy. I don't know if I was over 17 or like one for 17 or something like that, but then you have

those. So it's just baseball is a strange game where some people, you just see the ball really well and maybe it kind of gets in the hitter and the pitcher's head to both their heads to where you can't explain it, but it just always falls in one guy's favor. And I guess with some guys, it might just be randomness, right? That you happen to hit well against certain guys and not against others. But when it gets to the point of you versus Hampton, you do feel like something about him just lent itself to you hitting him well? Yeah, I mean, you hear a lot of things.

And we saw, obviously, in football this year with the Cowboys kicker, where things get in your head. And in baseball, I call it the yips or whatever, whether it's throwing or whatever. failure against certain opponents where you just either feel right or things keep happening in your favor or against you, and you start to just expect that. And those expectations and the confidence or whatever it is, just create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Last thing, I'm about to also talk about Zach Granke re-signing with the Royals. And so I just on a whim looked up you against Zach Granke and you had some success against him too, although you only faced him one time, but it was the worst start of his career. And you were a big reason why, you know, now he's a guy who's probably going onto the hall of fame, but that was obviously early in his career. Do you remember that game?

I do remember that game. Yeah. I remember it well. I mean, he was kind of coming in as a really hyped young pitcher. And so, you know, as a player, especially someone from the other league, you're curious to see what he has. And, you know, he just had a bad outing and we were able to capitalize on it. But yeah, I mean, for me, guys that I was more, I had success and struggles. Again, basically it was more about the repertoire that the pitcher had. And at that time he threw more like ball running away from me

and that was, you know, kind of right in my sweet spot. Guys who had good cutters like Mariano Rivera, who had the best or, you know, other guys would give me trouble. So, you know, he, we happened to face him on a day where we were swinging out to well and in a good hitter-friendly ballpark. And it was just one of those days that we hit some home runs and scored a lot of runs. Yeah, you had a double and two homers off him that day,

which is similar to another game that you had against Mike Hampton where you hit a double and two homers in 2001. So two pretty good pitchers, but you were quite a good hitter too. So you handled them okay. All right. So that was Sean Green talking about the core and Mike Hampton and Zach Granke. And just for anyone who was wondering, he mentioned also having a lot of success against John Smoltz. who was wondering, he mentioned also having a lot of success against John Smoltz. He did. He faced Smoltz 36 times. Didn't hit him like he hit Hampton, but he did hit him well.

543, 556, 714. That's a 1270 OPS, 19 for 35 with only one homer. And he mentioned not hitting Scott Ayer, whom he faced 25 times, and he hit 087, 160, 130. That is a 290 OPS against Scott Ayer, 2 for 23 with 10 strikeouts. But that was great. I could have asked Sean Green about so many things, right? Hitting four homers in a game or 19 total bases in a game or being, at the time he played, maybe the best Jewish player since Sandy Koufax and his philanthropy and his entrepreneurship and his he wrote a book.

I could have talked to him about the book, but no, I talked to him about the core. You talked to him about the core. You asked him the questions that were on all of our minds. You know, you were a good stand in there, Ben. minds, you know. You were a good stand in there, Ben. Yeah. And if you want to know more about Sean Green, you can pick up The Way of Baseball, Finding Stillness at 95 miles per hour. That is his book. He did not ask me to plug his book, but I figured I would just do it since I made him talk about the core. All right. And that Granke game, when Granke got rocked and Sean Green took him deep twice and hit a double off him. The worst start of Greinke's career by game score, negative 11, I think. There is actually another story about that game in one

of the oral histories by the guests I'm about to bring on, Jason Jenks, because it turned out Zach Greinke, he allowed some dingers in that game. He also hit one. His first career home run in the majors was in that game. So here's from the first oral history from 2020. This is Allard Baird, the former Royals GM speaking. Buddy Bell was the manager. Buddy and I were in the office and he came in the office and said, you know, hitting's not that hard. This is Greinke who said that. Buddy and I looked at each other and said, Zach, elaborate. He started giving all these little reasons. And on the surface, they were all good reasons, but it takes more than that to be a good hitter. So he leaves the manager's office and I turned to Buddy and say, let's map it out. Is

there a chance he's going to hit in Arizona? So we went through the schedule and realized there was a chance he might get to hit. We go to Arizona and either the night before he started or the night he started, Buddy and I are in the office. He was going by and I said, come in here, Zach, you're going to get your chance to hit. You still feel it's pretty easy to hit? He goes, I still feel very confident. Buddy and I looked at each other and laughed. If you look at his start there, he got banged around pretty good, but his first at bat, he hits a home run. It was actually, I think, his second at bat. And I'll never forget it. Buddy stepped out of the dugout and looked at me behind home plate like, what? It was something. something and then mark tn says i wouldn't say he was happy with his day but that homer made

it a whole lot better many more zach granky stories where that comes from and we will get into some of them now with jason jenks from the athletic be right back I'm missing my usual friend You were all in the world that I had My sweet unusual friend My sweet unusual friend All right, I am joined now by Jason Jenks, who is a features writer at The Athletic, and I'm going to say unofficially oral historian for The Athletic as well. and I'm going to say unofficially oral historian for The Athletic as well. And that means that very often he has been the one or one of the ones who has collected great Grinke stories.

Jason, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. That's probably a pretty accurate description. I feel like I'm the Grinke chronicler. Yeah. Well, when you heard that Grinke would be back for a 20th Major League season, did you feel like, all right, that means I got to saddle up again because more Grinke means more Grinke stories and someone's got to collect them? Actually, funny enough, I got a text from a coworker who likes to give me a hard time for how many Grinke things I've done. And he texted and said, time for your fifth Grinke oral history. And he was joking. And I said, it might be though. Yeah. Well, in your defense, you've only done three, I think.

Yes. Yes, that's true. Zach Buchanan started it in 2019. And then you have co-authored one in each of the past three years. So The Athletic does one every year. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And you'd be amazed at how well-read they get every single time. Well, I wouldn't be that amazed because I assumed that they must be well-read, and that's why you keep doing them. Very true. And also, there's just seemingly an endless amount of material. So you have done two with Alec Lewis and another one with Rustin Dodd. Is there anything that you have to leave on the cutting room floor for these things? I mean, they're not short pieces, but it seems like there's an inexhaustible well of these stories. Oh, yeah. I think if you probably go back, I mean, at this point, if we probably went

back and looked at the three that we've done, there's probably enough stories that made the cutting room floor that you could just put those together and do a whole nother one. Um, cause you know, they, they are, they are 3000 words or whatever they end up running. But, uh, we, we do end up leaving a lot of stories that we actually like that we thought were pretty funny. Uh, we ended up cutting those. So yeah, there's, it's, it's, it's almost, uh, it's one of those things where with Grinky, anytime you go up to someone and say, hey, I want to hear your best Zach stories, almost every time their face lights up in a smile, or you can hear them laugh on the phone, and you really don't have to work very hard to interview

them. It's kind of one of the joys of doing these things. You end up just kind of talking and joking with people, and they just have such a good time doing it. It's actually part of the reason I like keep doing them is not only is it good business, I guess, but they're just really fun to do because everyone just loves telling Zach stories. Yeah. So what's your method for doing these? I mean, you've done them on his early years and also just 2022 specifically. And then you did one where you talked to all of his catchers. So if you're doing one for 2022, I'd say, are you just going into the Royals clubhouse and making the rounds? These other ones, obviously you're calling up sources and you're identifying people that you have to talk to. So how long did these things take? And is a lot of it in person,

a lot of it remote? I guess some of it was during the pandemic, so it must've been remote. How do you do it? Yeah. So the first one was all over the phone and that was the one that we did that was just kind of on his first go around with the Royals. And then the second one was just all catchers. And also that one was completely on the phone. And then this one, I actually, this last one, I was in Kansas. I happen to be in Kansas City. That's where I'm from, actually. And so that one, Alec was covering the Royals for a little bit before he switched to go cover the Vikings.

So he did some of the interviews in the clubhouse. And then I actually was able to go in for two days and went in the clubhouse and did a bunch of interviews in there. days and went in the clubhouse and did a bunch of interviews in there. But yeah, the other funny thing with doing these stories is when we did the catcher one, it was during spring training. And so a lot of the guys were in spring training or trying to make teams or whatever. And we would text them and they'd be like, oh yeah, I'm happy to talk. I'll call you when I'm coming back from the field, which in baseball world maybe isn't that unusual. But in the I can just tell you in covering the other sports in the NFL and stuff that would never, ever happen.

So I think not only does that show that baseball is just more accessible, but also people really love telling cranky stories because they were like, yeah, I'll call you back when I'm leaving the ballpark after a long day there and I'll I'll shoot the breeze with you for 15 or 20 minutes. Have you ever approached someone who didn't want to talk about Grinky or, or didn't like Grinky? I've never heard anyone who didn't like Grinky. The only one that I,

the only person that didn't want to say any stories actually. And it was the biggest surprise because he seems like a great personality was Vinnie Pascantino. Huh? And he said, he said that he just wanted to respect his relationship with Zach and didn't want to share his story. So he maybe was just being a little overprotective of him, but he was the one person that did not have a Grinky story. Some people's Grinky stories

are, they don't have a ton of them, but you'd be amazed. I mean, almost every person, I mean, a couple of the Royals pitchers had Grinky stories and they'd been around him for like a few weeks. Yeah, right. And do you have a favorite genre of Grinky story? Because they typically fit into a few predetermined categories, I would say. There's kind of a few classic kinds of Grinky story. So what's your favorite? Okay, let me think about that. But give me yours as just a grinky historian, or a grinky reader yourself. I like the ones that just highlight how just unbound by convention he is. I mean, I guess all of them do that to some degree, but particularly when it comes to dress, I would say some of those are my favorite. As someone who is sort of similarly laid back and

not particularly fashion conscious. And if I've got to go to the store or whatever, I'll just wear pajamas and sandals. I don't care. Who am I trying to look good for? And Zach Greinke, there are a whole lot with him where he's golfing barefoot or walking through the lobby of a hotel barefoot, or he's wearing a suit, but then under the suit, has like a royals uh leisure suit that he just whips off the suit and then he's like instantly comfortable on the plane and can take a nap so a lot of those i think where he's just you know he's he's not uh stressed about trying to look a certain way or fit into a certain kind of fashion sense the guys on the in the royals club

house like the thing they love talking about was his big gray t-shirt it's this humongous oversized t-shirt and he they were like have you seen it have you seen it yet and i was like no i haven't seen zach yet and uh they're like oh you got to this thing. He wears it every day all over the place. It's this humongously oversized t-shirt, just plain gray and he loves it. I think my favorite genre though is actually because a lot of the Gringy stories are just pure funny, but my favorite genre is the one where it intersects

with like his baseball genius. And he's like, I've never thrown like a knuckle curve ball. It's a game. I'm going to try to throw one right here. Or I'm going to try to throw a pitch exactly 64 miles an hour, a curveball exactly 64 miles an hour. There's several of that where he's just like, I'm going to just try to do this because I think I can. And to me, that's both the ability to do that just in terms of sheer talent is genius, but it also, to your point, reflects a mind that's like, I don't really care. I know conventional wisdom says I shouldn't be trying to do this, but I'm going to try it anyway. And to me, that's the absolute beauty of Zach Greinke. Yeah. My favorite part of the big gray shirt story was his explanation for why he wears it or why it's so big was that it didn't used to be that big which is like what does that mean because you know

usually you think of articles of clothing they might shrink if anything right like do they get bigger like it it just it's coming apart at the seams or something or did he get smaller i don't know it's just that is such a quintessentially cranky explanation like it's not even i just it's comfortable i like having a big loose billowy shirt no it didn't used to be that big whatever that means it's amazing brady singer was one of the guys who really loved the shirt and when i said to him you know i i like to point this out because there are, there are just, when I was talking to guys ago, you, you in the Royals clubhouse, there's a young team. I said, man, you guys will be,

this will be one of the highlights of your career is being able to say you played with Zach Greinke, you know, 30 years from now and kind of people ask you about your career or whatever. You'll be telling Zach Greinke stories still. Cause I think he is one of the true, true great characters in the history of baseball. And Brady Singer was like, I know, man, I know.

He's like, you know, I read the oral history of the athletic did on him. And that was one of the fun moments of my little fun moments of my career is having a guy be like, I read that like six times because I just loved it. Right. Yeah. Do you know what, if anything, Grinke thinks about the cottage industry of Grinke stories? Because I would guess like either he doesn't care at all and just isn't interested and thinks it's weird that people are interested in him or maybe would be mildly annoyed by it, perhaps. Do you have any idea what his reaction is? I actually have no clue.

And if I had to guess, I would guess he probably doesn't care whatsoever. Right. Because he, you know, I just, I'm sure you saw this one. It wasn't that long ago, I guess. What was it? It was about the guacamole. Oh, yes. Right.

Yeah. They raised the price. They? Oh, yes. Right. Yeah. They raised the price. They raised the price by 20 cents. 150 to 180 or whatever. And he doesn't want to order because he doesn't want to give them the satisfaction. Exactly. So I feel like the Grinke story, like in that sense, he must know that these things, that people love them and he just doesn't care. I also think the way that people tell these stories sort of hints at the fact that he must not have a problem with it.

Because like Jonathan Lucroy, for instance, is his wife and I believe Grinky's wife, he told me, were really close. And I think he and Grinky grew up not too far from each other in Florida as well. And I know, like, for instance, last year, he and Grinky went out and got dinner together during the season. So he's still like close with Zach and he loves telling Grinky stories. So I would figure that if someone close like him loves telling these stories, then it must not bother Zach in the least bit. Right. Yeah, it's interesting the genre you mentioned of him just being some sort of savant on the mound

and having incredible command and ability to vary his pitch beats. I've heard that kind of story too from his old teammate and friend Brian Bannister, especially when I was talking to him a lot for the MVP machine. And he would tell me about his conversations with Zach back when they were playing together and how Greggie would try to hit every tick on the radar gun between 50 and 100 in a start. And he could actually do right? But then it's almost kind of a contradiction because he's incredibly competitive on the mound. So there are stories about that too, right? He really doesn't want to get beaten, especially by certain players. And yet there's

another genre of stories where he will just do things on the mound that make you think that he's not even thinking about the game, right? I mean, if it's a few minutes before first pitch and he's talking about fantasy football trades or whatever, which is maybe just an indication of how competitive he is in fantasy football, but he'll have mound visits and he'll just be talking about something from hours earlier that someone asked him. So I was kind of intrigued by that, right? Like everyone talks about him like he's the most intense elite competitor when he's out there. And yet sometimes he will just be almost disconnected from what's going on in the game, it seems't know if it's fair to say he gets bored, but I think he needs new challenges. I actually feel this way sometimes watching Patrick Mahomes play quarterback during like a long season is you almost feel like at times the simplicity, like doing the simple thing becomes almost like too basic and too easy. And so you have to kind of find and you can it just looks as you're watching if as if he's kind of bored a little bit. And I just feel that way about Grinky, that he sort of needs to introduce new challenges to himself. And especially earlier

in his career, a lot of those stories, I think, are from earlier in his career, because he also famously, like really wanted to be a position player and to be a hitter and stuff like that and that's also one of my favorite little genres is uh right i think i think he had a double in one game and had that had a 107 exit velocity and he texted jonathan lucroy a screen grab of the exit velocity and said 107 baby and that was the only thing the text said um so i and i think again with zach he's one of the rare people that probably like two things can be true at the same time he can flip the switch and talk fantasy football on the mound and he can also uh then flip right back and lock in but he's also the other thing with zach though is he's he's just

very realistic and pragmatic and so you know when he i don't even think this was made the story um but when he when he was talking with the royals last year about signing with them jay chipicolo told me that he was very very upfront and honest with them about hey if i pitch if i throw between 88 and 92 pitches in the game, I can come back and pitch like a fifth, the next start on a regular rotation. But if you have me go longer than that, I'm probably going to need, I might need an extra day. I might not be able to rebound. And he was very, very honest with them about like evaluating himself and where he stood at in his career and what he could do and what he couldn't do. And, you know, that's, as you know, that's a

very unusual thing for athletes to do. It's a very hard thing to not think of yourself as you did in your prime, even as you get older. And Zach just has an, like almost a really unique ability to look at himself from kind of 30,000 feet. And so I think all those things tie together. Yeah. The challenges that he sets for himself, there are a lot of great stories about that. Sometimes in spring training games, sometimes in games that actually counted about, you know, he's only going to throw a certain type of pitch or he won't throw above a certain speed or sometimes even pre-pitch comm, he called his own pitches, you know, even though the batter could just see what pitches he was calling out seemingly. So he will do that all the time. And I almost wonder whether in a way some part of him enjoys pitching more now that he is more physically limited than he was when he was young and he could do anything and he had all the stuff in the world. I guess he would challenge himself by trying to throw a 50 mile per hour curveball or something, even though he could throw high 90s or hit triple digits at times. And now he's entered this phase where he's almost doing what Brian Bannister used

to do. Like in 2022, you know, he introduced or reintroduced his cutter and used that to make himself more effective. And he's just kind of getting through it with great command and mixing his pitches. And so the limitations that he might have imposed upon himself at an earlier stage of his career are now imposed upon him. So I wonder whether he misses that sort of virtuosic, I can throw anything, any speed, any time, or whether there's a part of him that actually kind of enjoys just getting by with his somewhat diminished stuff. I would guess that actually both those things are accurate. I think he would absolutely probably love to be able to touch 100 again, as we know,

just because. But I also think that there is a part of him that probably does enjoy this and likes the challenge of it and trying to figure it out. He's not only competitive on the mound, but he's a guy that really is into trying to figure out, to look at the numbers of his pitching and all the stuff that I don't understand about pitching and how you use spin rates and how you do all this stuff. Zach's really into that stuff, the Royals guys told me, and was really big in trying to solve that kind of puzzle. And so I actually think as much as his early career, he was just awesome. I actually think the last couple of years are a real reflection of his pitching genius, because the fact is, for most of last year, he couldn't strike out anyone. He just doesn't have that ability in the stuff anymore. And yet he was still able to be a like pretty productive

pitcher that could have been kind of a back-end rotation guy on almost any team that's to me remarkable that he's able to do those two things i you know how many guys do we see you know i was in seattle when felix hernandez started decline and once he lost his velocity and his natural stuff, he just really wasn't able to reinvent himself. Zach's been able to reinvent himself, it seems like, a couple times now, and that's remarkable. Right. Yeah. And, you know, he talked about the hitting stories, which are always great. And he is brutally honest with his teammates who are not great hitters about their own flaws as hitters. And, you know, he can back it up. I mean, a 60 career OPS plus for a pitcher in his era, especially someone who really didn't get to hit much early in his career and so wasn't practiced.

And also a lot of his plate appearances, his 600 career plate appearances came 30 or after. his 600 career plate appearances came 30 or after. That makes him an outlier. He is an extremely good hitter for a latter-day pitcher-hitter. So what do you think? He has said many times he doesn't think hitting is that hard. There's the story about how when he first got called up as a pitcher, he was like, maybe I should just go back down to eight ball and start over as a shortstop. And the idea is that he was just so good at pitching that they made him a pitcher, but his heart has always been with hitting with position playing. Do you think there's any possibility that he could have been a big leaguer as a position player and would have been any good at it? I think there's absolutely a possibility. The guy is just a total natural athlete. I mean, from everything

everyone said, he's an amazing golfer, a really good golfer. And all those guys say he's just so naturally athletic. So I think there's an absolutely a world. Now, do I think he would have been a good hitter? Probably not. But I think he could have, I think he probably could have been a major league hitter or, you know, a guy who it's hard to think of him now as I was seeing him in his oversized gray shirt and he's whatever, 39 now or whatever. It's hard to think of him back as a, you know, 23 year old, really good athlete. But I mean, he's always been a great fielding pitcher. I think there's definitely a world where he could have been, you know, possibly like a utility infield guy who could come and play every a couple of times a week or

whatever. I just think he's that good of an athlete. And you've done oral histories on young Granke and old Granke, old by baseball standards, that is. And obviously a lot has changed. I mean, his fortunes on the mound and of course, earlier in his career, struggling with depression and social anxiety and then getting on medication for that. And just, you know, he's changed cities, he's changed teams, and his stuff has changed, and he started a family and all the rest. But do you see great differences between stories about young Granky and stories about old Granky? Because it does seem that a lot of his personality was sort of set when he showed up on the scene, right?

And so part of it was just, hey, this is a rookie. And, you know, he has this incredible confidence even then. So it's not like that's something that developed or that he let out over time. I would never pretend like I know him. But all I can say is that from doing these oral histories, it doesn't seem like he's changed one bit. And I think that's why people love him. I mean, if you took Grinky's stories out of context, you could easily be like, wow, what a jerk.

How does anyone like him? But there's something about Zach and his personality and his genuineness and his authenticity that people just really like him and they're amused and they find it fascinating. And so I think the stories that I was getting from, I mean, we talked to both in his early Royals days, but also we talked to guys who were his minor league teammates before he'd ever even made the big leagues when he was like 19 years old or whatever. And the stories are the exact same. I mean, one my favorite ones was uh he was in a hot tub with a guy who was his minor league teammate

after a game and zach had plunked the guy during a spring training i believe and the guy was like the guy was like zach has impeccable control and so he's like i just like i was like there's no way he just like lost control. So he asked him, he's like, Zach, did you like hit me on purpose? And they're sitting there in the hot tub and Zach looks at him and goes, yeah, yeah, I did. You kept fouling off my pitches and I was getting near my pitch count and I didn't want to waste my time or my pitches on you anymore. So I just hit you. my pitches on you anymore. So I just hit you. Like that's, that was, he was 19 or whatever he was at that time. I wouldn't be shocked to hear an exact same story like that, you know, 20 years later when he's 39. So I think, I think the consistency of Grinke and the fact that you know what you're going to get every single day and it's him and he's authentic and he's himself. And that's, I think that's why people, people love him. Yeah. If I were intentionally plunked by grinky i would be flattered by that because you know he will say if he doesn't think you're

a good hitter he'll just say if i were facing you i'd just throw the ball right down the middle you know like what's the worst that could happen so it's one of those with nick punto where he's uh right he was riding riding back with like nick punto i believe on the plane and uh and they're talking about facing each other when Grinkey's with the Royals and Punto's with the Twins. And Grinkey's like, yeah, you weren't a big enough threat to me. So I just threw it right down the middle and let you get yourself out. Right, exactly. So if he thinks I got to hit this guy so I don't run up my pitch count, that's actually a compliment, right? Because otherwise he would think I could just strike

you out right now. So many of these stories are laugh it loud funny, I think, to readers and also probably to the people telling them. How often do you think Grinke is funny on purpose? I mean, is he trying to be funny ever or is he just inherently amusing to many people because of the differences between him and the typical person or player. I think he's probably unintentionally funny a lot just because of his personality and he just doesn't care. And that's kind of an amazing rare quality. I do think he knows when he's being funny and I do think there's one story and I think it's in there in one of the oral histories where he was giving a player a hard time and a player gave him a hard time back. And Grinky just got this kind of like classic Grinky smirk that you've probably seen at different times during games or

whatever. And Grinky just loved it that the guy was like giving him this back. So I think he definitely kind of knows when he's being funny or whatever. But I think what makes Zach great and why again, why people kind of love this is it's not a forced whatever. But I think what makes Zach great and why, again, why people kind of love this is it's not a forced thing. It's not, you know, he's not trying to play a character. He's not trying to live up to anything. He's just being exactly who he is. And that just happens to be one of the most unique people we've probably seen in baseball in, I don't know, 30 or 40 years. Right. Yeah. I was trying to think about how to ask you this, and I noticed there was a lengthy discussion of it in the comment section of your most recent oral history on the 2022 team.

And I'm not a psychologist and obviously don't want to try to diagnose someone I don't know, but so many sources in your story will say something like he's one of a kind, or he's just different, or he's wired in a unique way or he marches to the beat of his own drum, et cetera. And so, you know, you could conclude that some of these stories and the blunt honesty and the non sequiturs, et cetera, could be consistent with someone who was neurodivergent, right? And I know that there are people who are neurodivergent who even look at Granke as their favorite player, you know, and someone who in some sense represents them or is like them in a certain way. And so there could be a concern that, hey, you're sort of highlighting the difference here or you're picking on someone. And I don't think there's any picking on him going on here. He's just, he's universally loved and celebrated, right? So these stories are not punching down in any way, but I wonder whether that is something that came up at all during this process. No, it never did because I never have ever felt like

anyone is making fun of Zach. And even in the slightest, I mean the every single like for instance every single guy in the royals clubhouse said some version of like i absolutely love the guy i feel so honored to be able to play with him and to kind of like get to spend this time with him or whatever and so there's there's a you know like you said i i would never pretend to be a doctor or have any clue about that stuff. But I would never and we would never do anything that felt like someone was making fun of someone or laughing at their expense or anything like that. But it's all the stories are told with such kind of like love and genuine endearment with them that to me, I always see them as kind of a celebration of difference and why someone's different or how they're different or whatever. I just think it's great in anything when we can celebrate someone for being who they are and being different. And so that's at least how I look at it.

Yeah. And that's why I've seen some people who are neurodivergent have very much embraced him, whether he is or isn't, just certain traits that they might have that they see reflected in him to some extent. And not only is he one of the best players of his era at a future Hall of Famer, but he's just widely beloved and his difference is celebrated. And if anything, it's probably a factor in his success at this point for most of his career. So he's just, you know, he's kind of an icon, right? And everyone loves him. And these stories, I think, are intended to celebrate him and kind of convey that love and appreciation, right? And one of the things that's kind of come up and it just really reminds me of Zach, too, because it comes up it comes up with Zach when you when you talk to people is one of Mike Leach's former players said he was always who he was. And he taught me to be who you are and to be to be comfortable with being who you are. And I think, you know, beyond the funny stories and the kind of amusing stuff, there's a real kind of sincere element of be who you are.

And I think that's, to me, you know, obviously I love any of those kinds of stories just because they're entertaining and, you know, you get to spend some time with a unique individual and a real character or whatever. But beyond all that, the thing that people admire is that someone is who they are and they're genuine and they're authentic. And, you know, that's really rare. That's a really rare gift. So that's sort of how I look at it. Yeah. Do you think baseball is more or less hostile or hospitable for that matter to someone like Grandke than other industries or society at large even? Because on the one hand, there's a

rich tradition of quote unquote characters in baseball, right? And maybe some of those characters are kind of affected and not as natural as Greinke is. And sometimes character can a lot of pressure to conform, right? And you're on a team and you're in a uniform and you're around certain people day in and day out. And there's kind of a hierarchy of veterans and rookies and there are certain things that you do or don't do or say or don't say. So do you think that it is more extraordinary that he has made it to the extent that he has and is as widely beloved as he is in baseball? Or is baseball actually the perfect place for him? they see so much inauthenticity that anyone who is being genuine, they can sense it and they respect it and they appreciate it. I covered Marshawn Lynch in Seattle for a number of years, and he's to me one of the great kind of characters of the NFL the last decade or so.

And he was beloved by teammates for many reasons, But a big one is similar to Grinke. He just was who he was and he was very true to it. And he was very authentic. He didn't try to be any different than just who he was. And, you know, I've heard I always had athletes on the Seahawks tell me that over and over again. They just appreciate someone who's themselves and authentic because so many of the people around them and and you know the stuff they deal with is is artificial or inauthentic that it's just really refreshing and they can they can you know their bs detector can just tell it and i think so i guess

it's a long-winded answer of saying i think that no matter where zach was whether it's baseball if he played football or if he was in the NBA, people would just respect him and like him for who he is because he's so true to himself. Right. And probably there's a lot of latitude given to him just because he's so good. That's true. The other thing that people respect in professional sports is talent. So there's that. Right. It's easier to be quirky or, you know, a lefty or whatever it is if you can actually pitch really well. Otherwise, it's like, who are you? You're not good enough to, you know, not conform. I'm not suggesting that you could or should do an oral history on this, but I would love to know what he's like as a son and a brother and a husband and a father. Right. You know, like the the Granke family's stories about Zach Granke must be great. The people who know him best and love him most. I mean, reading all

of these stories about what he's like at a clubhouse or on the field, I wonder what he's like at home and, you know, probably exactly the same, right? Cause that's just who he is, but, but I'd love to know. I would imagine I there was the funny one from the Mariners game this year. Was it in the postseason or maybe towards the end of the season? I think it was the postseason where his wife, I believe, posted an Instagram photo of him being in the stands and no one recognizing him, if I'm remembering that right, which I thought was pretty funny. Yeah. Yeah. And I wonder whether you think he will have a future post-playing career in the game, because there's another genre of Granke stories, which is just about how plugged in he is to the team building process and to the draft. And he likes to go scouting and he likes to construct

his fantasy teams. He kind of likes to think like a GM. And obviously he's made so much money, he certainly doesn't have to keep working in baseball or keep working at all if he doesn't want to. But do you think that we will see Greggie just hitting the road as a scout or becoming a scouting executive or a special assistant to the GM or some sort of baseball advisor after he's done pitching? So that's a great question. advisor after he's done pitching? So that's a great question. I guess the question would be whether like the family life and the lifestyle fit together. Cause I do believe, I think a couple of different people told me that that was one of the reasons he kind of wanted to be in Kansas city and like kind of be, you know, have some roots a little, a little bit when he was at the Royals and all that kind of stuff. But I think to answer your question, could he?

Oh, absolutely. I mean, before he passed away, the late great Art Stewart said that like Grinke was an awesome scout and that Art would sit with him and they would talk about guys and stuff like at spring training and they would go to the backfields, you know, where like the lower prospects are. And Grinke loved it.

JJ Piccolo said it like, this is a guy who loves baseball and is super smart and i don't think there's anyone who's interacted with him in that part of it who doesn't think that he could be a great scout or work in a front office or do anything like that so i i think he absolutely could talent wise andwise, I think that's absolutely on the table. Yeah, I hope it is. I hope that he stays around the game because that would be great for successive generations of players who would get to meet him. And also you could do an oral history on Zach Greinke, the front office executive, which would probably be wonderful too. Is he your favorite subject? Because you've done a lot of features and oral histories and not just in baseball, but in other sports. And, you know, you did one on Dusty Baker recently and you've done Ichiro and you've done Max Scherzer and again, lots of football players, basketball players returning to Granke time after time. Is that a special treat?

time after time is that a special treat yeah it is and and part of it is i'm biased uh you know we're we're not supposed to be fans but i grew up in kansas city uh a diehard royals fan basically i mean really like kind of coming into my own so to speak as a sports fan when grinky was with the royals and so i have a very kind of like fond place in my heart for for Zach Grinke for that reason. I mean, there was a I still my friends still have the shirt and I unfortunately lost mine. But there's a shirt where from his I believe it's a Cy Young year where it's like a has like a 10, a jack, a queen, a king. And then the ace is a picture of Grinke. It was like a famous giveaway shirt in Kansas City. ace is a picture of grinky uh it was like a famous giveaway shirt in kansas city so he's one he's probably my favorite just because i have kind of emotional attachment

to him that you know goes back probably almost 20 years now and i just again i i find him so interesting and uh and so endearing and it's such a joy to talk to people about him. That's that's the thing I know I mentioned earlier, but people you talk to just love talking about him. And again, like you can you can hear it in their voice and you can see it when their face kind of lights up when you say, hey, I'm writing this thing on Zach that it's just fun to do. Because, you know, a lot of times you talk to people and you're trying to pull stuff out of them and they're maybe not that interested, but this isn't that. It's a real joy to do. So I'd say that he's probably my favorite guy to write about. Yeah, he's your muse. Well, he has just such an incredible baseball mind, which is great because often, I mean, someone with his talent doesn't even need to necessarily. He could have just gotten by on pure stuff for much of his career, but he paired it with this amazing mentality and observational skill. And I think that's part of why people don't get upset if he says, hey, you suck today or whatever, or I would trade you or, you know, that sort of story.

Because he's generally right about those things. He's generally right. Right. He's generally right. And he's also, i said he's he's also that same way with himself you know he would have no problem if you know he pitched you know two innings and gave up a bazillion hits and some guy was like wow you really sucked it up tonight zach he would be like he would probably be like yeah i did uh you know he he, he, so I, I think it, uh, yeah, he, guys, guys literally have no problem with those stories. I think my favorite one is, uh, Jonathan Lucroy. Uh, Zach told him once that, uh, you know, if I wanted to, I could probably have been a better catcher than you.

And Jonathan Lucroy just laughed and was like, yeah, you probably could have been. Yep. Yeah. No. Cause it seems like anything he does try to do, he excels at. And it seems like so often those stories end with him just walking away after he delivers this killer line, right? He'll just stroll away. It's no big deal that he just dropped this on someone. But I think that speaks to how he could have a future in the game if he wanted one, in that he just does really seem to be a skilled evaluator. And so that's maybe a tough pill to swallow if he's telling you that you're not good or you weren't good, because you know he's probably right about that. On the other hand, he just does it in such a disarming and frank way with no rancor or anything. He's just

telling it how he sees it, you know, and he would do the same to himself, as you said. So finally here, are there any other stories that we haven't touched on that you'd like to leave us with one or two grinky tales for the road or any deleted scenes from any of the stories that you weren't able to include and you're keeping in a file somewhere in case you eventually do the compilation of stuff that didn't make the stories? You know, that's a great question. Not that I can think of off the top of my head. I'd love to find a way to do another one just because I doubt I'll be able to because I can't for the life of me think of how and maybe it's best that last year was kind of the last year.

But I just, if anyone has any ideas, let me know because I think, like I said, I think he's one ofinky's one of those guys that someone like Joe will do something like that 50 years from now, a hundred years from now, and there'll be writing about Zach and people will be like, wow, like that's just what an amazing, what an amazing pitcher, what an amazing personality, what a, he'll be a fabric of the game. And I think that's so, so special that I think any chance that we can take to kind of celebrate that and maybe, you know, mark down some of the history of that, I think is actually that maybe that sounds self-serving, but I do think that's actually

kind of a cool, cool thing to be a part of. Right. Yeah. He could be one of these figures, you know, like Satchel Paige or Rubo Adel or someone, right, who people are still exchanging stories about decades after their deaths in some cases. He could be that kind of legendary figure. But you did an oral history on the 2022 Royals and Zach, so nothing's stopping you from doing something on the 2023 Royals and Zach. I guess, you know what? They've actually had a decent amount of turnover, so maybe you're right. Maybe. And I'll be in Kansas City, so I'll be out at the ballpark some. So who knows? Maybe I'll dig back in. Right. Yeah. I mean, Buchanan did the Diamondbacks, cranky story. No one's done the Dodgers, cranky oral history, or the Brewers, or the Angels, or the Astros. There's a lot of fertile territory left for you here, I think.

All right. All right. You're talking me into it, maybe. We'll see. Yeah. Maybe it can culminate with Zach on Zach with you talking to the man himself. It'd be great. I'd love to. I'd love to. Yeah.

All right. Well, you can find Jason's writing at The Athletic, not just about Zach Granke, about many other people and topics too. And he is also on Twitter at his name, Jason Jenks. That's Jason with a Y. Thank you very much, Jason. This was fun. Appreciate it, Ben. Thank you. Okay. So we are both back here and we are ready to do the Pass Blast. This is from 1963 and from Pass Blast consultant, David Lewis, who is an architectural historian and baseball researcher based in Boston. David writes, 1963 Major League Baseball goes to

summer school. In 1963, as an answer to a dwindling number of minor leagues, Major League Baseball embarked on what UPI sports writer Ed Sainsbury dubbed its noble experiment, which was also a phrase applied to Jackie Robinson integrating the game. Beginning with a $50,000 investment in the Central Illinois Collegiate Baseball League, MLB began subsidizing amateur baseball leagues. The Central Illinois League included six teams and 120 players, all of whom were not paid by the league but held part-time jobs off the field. Sainsbury elaborated on the job system in his August 1st, 1963 article in the Chicago Daily Herald explaining the jobs are not sinecures. Two players working in construction found the labor

too tough for ballplayers. They quit and got other jobs. David continues, these days when Major League Baseball sponsors a dozen summer collegiate baseball leagues, we have become used to number one draft picks coming off an excellent summer in the Cape Cod League. The success of collegiate leagues and the prospects of its players were not guaranteed from the start, however. According to Sainsbury, quote, there isn't any standout talent in the league at this time. No great dividends are in sight for the majors right now. David concludes 60 years later, however, MLB's gamble on summer collegiate baseball seems to have paid off well. And if you look at the article, which I will link to as always, there are some quotes in there from scouts who say there may be 10 players in the league who have major league potential. I wonder whether any of them panned out.

I don't know who was in the league exactly, but that would be interesting to know. And it talks about how they were paid and the jobs and the league wouldn't put up with questionable activities off the field. And two players were dismissed because of unspecified antics, et cetera. But this sort of set the template for what we're seeing now, I suppose. And it ends this way. And David mentioned this first line, no great dividends are in sight for the majors right now. But less than 15 years ago, there were 40 minor leagues to stock the name teams. Now there are 18. Maybe such circuits as the Central Illinois Collegiate Baseball League are the answer. The majors are spending $ the minor leagues have been downsized again. And some of the opportunities and the player development have been outsourced to these amateur leagues and collegiate leagues that in some cases are operated or sponsored by MLB. So for better or worse,

I guess this did sort of create a precedent for something we're still seeing today. Yeah, it is funny to be like the diminished minor leagues. Right. We miss them. We missed those. But yeah, it's, you know, again, we've asked this question before, do we feel comforted by having to revisit the same issues over and over again? Or do we feel stymied, you know? Yeah, it could be either depressing or in a way it could give you perspective and make you think, oh, well, maybe the problems of today are also the problems of

yesterday and either they were solved or they still aren't solved, but at least they aren't worse than they were then. So there's a positive spin you could put on it. But yeah, I guess speaking of baseball exceptionalism, I don't know whether we've mentioned this, but the minor league system is a big way in which baseball is unusual, right? And just how long it takes to get from the amateur ranks to the pro ranks, right? And the draft is so different because you can't just walk on from the draft to being a big part of a big league team the next year. There's like a long apprenticeship basically that comes from that and a whole infrastructure that has developed to give people the reps that they need to become big leaguers. But again, another example of something that is maybe being a bit diminished in that there

are fewer minor league teams than there were at previous times, but still more than other sports. Yeah. All right. Let me leave you with a few quick follow-ups. Last time we discussed a hypothetical where Shohei Otani would insist on playing every position in every game and we broke down how that could be handled and how it would be tough for him to catch. Well, listener Raymond pointed out, I think you finessed the catcher problem

by having him start at catcher and intentionally walk the first batter and then sub in your regular catcher. Yes, that's true. You could do that. It obviously puts you in a small hole to start the game, but it doesn't endanger Otani. You could also wait and try to do the same in an even lower leverage situation. Raymond and others also wrote in, in response to my saying in passing during an answer to an email about playing baseball on

multiple surfaces that it would be cool if there were a tennis match played on multiple surfaces, one side grass, one side clay. I had actually seen something about that, I think, which is what prompted that musing, but I couldn't summon the specific details. That was done in 2007. There was an exhibition where Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer played on a half-grass, half-clay court. Nadal, the clay specialist, beat Federer in straight sets. And a few people pointed out that while we said it was weird that baseball has so many timeouts and that it keeps track of things that could or should have happened, errors and unearned runs and so forth, tennis also has timeouts that are not strictly timed and it tracks unforced errors. And there hasn't been a countdown clock

except for a recently instituted serve clock. So given all that and the fairly high turnover of tennis balls per match, which I've mentioned before, I think tennis is emerging as a sneaky close comp to baseball. Interesting. In the genre of players describing other players or themselves as sexy, listener Hana writes in to inform us that on the most recent episode of Ian Happ's podcast, The Compound. Happ said he had spoken to Josh Donaldson and that he knows that, quote, Josh is feeling good, he's feeling sexy. And one more follow-up from last time, we answered a hypothetical about whether a team with a boundless supply of one-war players, but no better players, could trade its way into being a competitive team or a super team. One factor we didn't mention, which listener Hayden pointed out, is that there are a lot of one-war relievers who are pretty good. War tends not to value relievers as highly as the market sometimes does, especially when teams are looking ahead to the playoffs. There were only 45 pitchers who were worth more than one war in relief last season, according to Fangraphs. So you could use some of those guys to extract some prospects who could potentially be better than one war player someday.

Listener Matt pointed out that if you flooded the market, you might just raise the replacement level league-wide. But if you did this sparingly and not everyone knew that you had an inexhaustible array of one war guys, I think in the short term you could make yourself better. Also, RIP to John Adams, the legendary Cleveland baseball fan known for banging his drum in the outfield for almost 50 years at Guardians games. Adams is in the Guardians Distinguished Hall of Fame for non-uniform personnel, but he is also recognized by the baseball reliquary, which we discussed at length in episode 1961. One thing we didn't bring up in that interview is that the reliquary has a special award for fans called the Hilda Award, which is named

in honor of famous Dodgers fan Hilda Chester. And the Hilda Award is awarded every year on the Shrine of the Eternals Induction Day. So John Adams was given the Hilda Award in 2008. Just another thing that makes the baseball Reliquary great. And lastly, I will read this email from a kindred spirit listener, Dave, who writes, The question from episode 1962 about baseball playing surfaces and your use of the word turf is finally motivating me to write to you about a pedantic issue I've had for years. I'm extra sensitive about this because my partner is a horticulturist and I used to teach at a university that had a big golf management program, but I don't think it's unreasonable. My objection is to the use of the word turf to mean artificial surface. reasonable. My objection is to the use of the word turf to mean artificial surface. Turf, also known as sod, is living grass harvested into rolls along with the top layer of soil. Somehow, I suspect due to the brand AstroTurf and its connection to baseball, the word turf has also come to mean

the artificial version of that. If you thought the original dictionary.com entry for Ghostrunner was bad, get a load of this abomination from Merriam-Webster. Definition one is the upper stratum of soil bound by grass and plant roots into a thick mat. Definition two is an artificial substitute for this. So David writes, the top two definitions are a thing and an artificial substitute for said thing. I mean, come on. Fair enough, David. At least unlike the original Ghostrunner definition, it does acknowledge that TERF can mean different things and that the artificial TERF meaning of it is the secondary definition. Whereas the old dictionary.com definition would have led one to believe that the term Ghostrunner did not exist prior to the zombie runner. But I empathize with your pain and apologize for contributing to it. David also informed us that TERVs is an an acceptable plural form of turf, which is wonderful.

So we could refer, for instance, to ballparks with artificial TURVs. And I will make it a point to do so. You can make it a point to 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. Jonathan, Jim Zhao, Charles Miller, Alex Vigderman, and Toby Ma. Thanks to all of you.

Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group exclusively for all of our Patreon supporters. You can also get access to monthly bonus podcasts, playoff live streams, discounts on merch and ad-free Fangraphs memberships, and much, much more. Check out patreon.com slash effectivelyw if you are a patreon supporter you can also message us through the patreon site if not you can still email us send your questions and comments to podcast at fangraphs.com you can also join our facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash

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We will be back with one more episode before the end of the week. Talk to you soon. Keep that options open Cause you wanna be free to you soon.