Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1984: Perfect Pitch

Episode Date: March 23, 2023

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter euphorically about the unbelievable ending of the World Baseball Classic, from Japan’s semifinal game against Mexico, to the climactic showdown between Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout in the USA-Japan final, to what made the whole WBC such a success. Then (52:02) they close the book on meeting major leaguers […]

Sometimes I still feel like that little girl Hearing grandma's handheld piece Collecting baseball cards before I could read They say I waste my time Tracking all these stat lines But it's here I found my kind Of all Effectively Wild Hello and welcome to episode 1984 of Effectively Wild,

a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Raleigh of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello. I have not slept since Shohei Otani struck out Mike Trout. It's the mid-afternoon of the next day. It's not that I haven't slept because I couldn't sleep, because I was so wired from that moment, though that might have been the case if I had tried to sleep immediately after. It's just that I had a whole lot of work to do, and I suppose I'm

still doing it, if you can call what we're doing work. But if and when I do lay me down to sleep, I feel like I am going to see Shohei Otani pitching to Trout on the inside of my eyelids. The afterimage when you stare at the sun and it gets burned into your retina, I might just see that slider moving, which will be nice because I could watch it many more times. I said to you in the aftermath of that game, we're lucky to be alive, Ben. in the aftermath of that game, we're lucky to be alive, Ben, you know? And like, we didn't need this moment to remind us of that. You know, the last couple of years have been replete with reminders of our good fortune in that regard.

But what a, what a time to get to see baseball, you know, we just, we get to see some really, really good baseball. And even within the context of regularly seeing really good baseball, regularly seeing really good baseball from the two players involved in that interaction, if not always their team, it was a very special thing, I think. We got to see something really profoundly cool. And I'm glad that we all got to experience that together. If I were ever just going to pack it in and say, well, our work here is done. Like, this is what we wanted to happen in baseball. This is why we've been doing this for decades and centuries. This is what I was hoping to see.

I've now seen everything that I could possibly hope to see. And perhaps it's time to step away. It's just like the George Costanza in the Jerk Store episode where he's just like, that's it for me. You know, when he wants to leave on a high note, it's like, how could that

possibly be topped? I don't know. Will I just be chasing that high for the rest of my baseball following life? Is there any way that that could be matched or topped? I mean, forget about this season. Yeah's a strange sensation because MLB regular season has not begun.

And yet I feel like there's almost no chance that that will not be the most indelible baseball memory from this year. I mean, what could possibly be? I'm trying to imagine any sort of scenario. There's almost no scenario where Shohei Otani faces Mike Trout with two outs and a championship on the line and a one-run game. Can't imagine that happening. Hard to imagine anything else being better than that. So it's almost like, well, should we just stop the team preview series? Should we just all reconvene next year and we'll just start fresh and we'll just savor the memory of that pitch and that plate appearance for the rest of the year? Like that can't possibly be topped. I guess that one of the most incredible things about baseball,

as we were recently reminded by one Sam Miller, is that you always have the potential to see something you haven't seen before. True. And, you know, I don't imagine that we will get many moments that could top that. But, you know, the potential exists. The possibility is there. It is not without precedent for us to see really, really cool stuff. But I mean, there's no way it's not in the top 10, right?

And maybe we'll be wrong. And wouldn't that be delightful? Think about the season we would be having if we look back and we're like, we thought we had it figured in March. But actually, it turns out that there was great joy awaiting us. Could be true. Who knows? Yeah. I've talked kind of tongue-in-cheek, but not really, about just worrying that Shohei Otani has spoiled all future baseball players for me because he could be as exciting.

And so now I'm worried that this Shohei Otani moment has spoiled future Shohei Otani moments for me. I hope that there will be many more. I guess that we don't always have to aspire to top previous great moments. We could just have other great moments, whether or not they are as great or greater, they could still be great and they don't necessarily need to pale in comparison.

But that pitch was so perfect. The situation was so perfect. I was almost apprehensive about podcasting about it because our podcasting could not possibly be as perfect as the situation calls for. I can't believe this is happening. Yeah. Which is something that I've gotten texts and G chats from various other people while it was happening, just after it happened, even the day after, just reflecting like, I can't believe that happened. Did that actually happen? It's like having to check with other people to see if their recollections match yours. Did that game actually end that way? Yeah, it did. If any situation had called for an emergency podcast, it probably would have been that one. If I hadn't had a zillion things to do and if it hadn't been pretty late already, then that would have been the moment for us to swing into action.

But maybe it's for the best that I've settled down slightly because I just would have been probably giggling deliriously at the moment, which might have been good podcasting. I don't know. I love that you were the one who thought, I don't have time to do this because the mountain of positional power rankings that I have to edit would have surely gotten in our way, even if you had been gung-ho. But yeah, we so rarely get exactly what we want from a matchup perspective in baseball. And it aligned so perfectly. I didn't really have a vested interest in the outcome of that at bat, really. I wasn't sitting there like a rooting preference didn't emerge for me um which sometimes happens you know sometimes you think you're neutral and then you you feel feelings you're like oh no i guess i do have a

preference underneath what i thought was um just an excitement to be here but i did really just admire like you know my trout famously like hits fastballs really well like he is really good at that that's i mean it's clearly not the only thing he's really good at but like among the things that you and i would say about my child like that would be one of the things we'd say about him is that he's good at that and i know that otani knows that because like they hang out famously like they're you know they're kind of around each other a fair amount um and i there was something about him just being like excuse me i'm gonna do a swear fucking hit it man just try you know that was just like i don't know like here's what you could do you i'm gonna throw this

and if you can you can fucking. And, and he didn't. And then that slider was so beautiful, Ben. It was just so beautiful. It was, I just was like, you know, being so beautiful.

And there was something about, about that strikeout coming on the slider and not a splitter that was like delightfully surprising. And it was really, it was really something. It was really something. And I think, you know,

the, the something's about it. They kept, they kept going after the moment was done, right? Like you got to see the reaction of Otani's teammates. You got to see Otani, like peak celebration, excitement, Otani. And we've

seen him, you know, be excited about stuff before. It's not like he isn't expressive. He's not completely stoic or anything like that. But like, this is like the most amped that I have seen him be. And that was so nice. And I think it was stephanie apstein that pointed out that because it's the wbc and they're like isn't an owner like they just at the end of it when rob manfred's there to like present stuff he's just like giving it to the dudes who yeah like one you know yeah there's no like besuited billionaire weirdo like that's just like the there's just baseball you know so like that was great and like the reaction of the fans was so cool. And, you know, even in defeat, like the, the team USA guys were clearly so happy to have had this experience.

And like, it felt like it was really great. I don't remember who, who among them it was that said this, but like, they talked about being being disappointed but that it being a great night for baseball and you know both trout and otani talked about how they had like this was like the most fun ever donnie had like the best day of his life and yeah it was just it was a really it was really a cool thing you know um sometimes we look back on life and we're like wow that moment ended up being singular or important in a way that I, I'm only able to appreciate with the benefit of hindsight. And I don't want to make too much of like other people winning in terms of my own, like enjoyment of my job, but it's a really cool game. And I think that it is really nice to have reminders of its potential

and how special it can be because we do deal with a lot of like again i'm going to do a swear a lot of like sloggy bullshit with baseball either in terms of stuff that isn't good in the context of the game or the people who play it or the people who own the teams or what have you or just like you know it it being like one of the days that the pirates plays the reds you know like so like we have those days too. And I think that having big reminders of, of what it can be in sort of its ideal form is, is really nice.

Cause it, it like underscores why you want to deal with the sloggy parts, um, either to make them better or just to endure them. So I was, yeah. Oh, Ben, what a, what a time to be alive, man. Like, look at us.

This is such a buildup to it, too. I mean, people were, I was joking about it. I was referencing maybe this could happen on our previous podcast, right? And people were talking about that possibility, not seriously thinking that it would happen. And there was this great rising action of the last three games in the tournament, I guess, excluding the U.S.-Cuba blowout, but the U.S. quarterfinal victory, and then the Japan-Mexico semifinal, which was incredible.

And then the final final. The semifinal was a better game all told yes i think it's just that the final ended in such an unbelievably impossibly perfect way that it just overshadowed everything else i mean it was a good game too but yeah it was not quite as great as the semi-final like just going from the quarterfinal to the semifinal, those were already just a couple of classics. And then the final two, I mean, it's just a succession, a string of a few games almost back to back to back

that I don't know that I've ever been more entertained by. And you could just kind of track the potential for Chowdhury Tani as it got closer and closer, which was the best thing. I was just from the beginning of the game, it was like, OK, I just I want this situation to happen. That was all I was really rooting for. Just they have to keep it close or this number of batters have to come up in this inning to make it likely that Trout would be up in that inning. And just everything kept perfectly falling into place. Like there was a time there where it looked like Trout probably wouldn't get up.

And then Darvish ran into a little trouble and left some guys on. And then it was like, you're doing the math. You're counting the lineup spots. And you're like, oh my gosh, this is actually going to happen. This is really going to happen. Unless something spoils it right now, unless someone goes on some incredible streak and everyone bats around and suddenly it's a blowout or something, this is actually going to happen. And then just all the pieces perfectly aligned. If anything're going to make me believe in a higher power other than the higher power of Shohei Otani. It would be the moment that we witnessed there.

It was just unbelievable just watching it slowly lock into place because, yeah, the cliche about baseball and about how you don't get to decide who has the bat in their hands unless, of course, you're pinch hitting and maybe it's not the star anyway. And how in football, the quarterback always has the ball. And in basketball, you can pass to the scorer you want with the ball. And you can do that maybe on one side of the equation. In baseball, you can put Shohei Otani in, but you can't guarantee that Mike Trout will come up. And was that the perfect possible time for Trout to come up? Because, I mean, I guess you could say that he could have come up, say, with a runner in scoring position

or something like it could have been even more intense if there had been another runner on. I mean, I don't want to get greedy here. I think it was practically perfect. And it was nerve-wracking because Otani, sometimes he can be a little wild in his first inning of work, and who knew what he was going to be like in this situation? Not having come in to

close a game out like this since 2016, and it being March, and it being the WBC championship game, like, who knew? And, you know, he had to run to the bullpen and then back from the bullpen and then to the bullpen and then back from the bullpen. He went to and fro and to and fro. Comic relief, just like, I guess I'm going to bat into something.

I better come back. Yeah, that was just one of those sights that you would never see with anyone else at any other time. And I think that probably, like, bases empty, two outs, it's about as good as it gets. Like, I guess it could have been a situation where any old hit would have tied the game. Maybe that would have been even more suspenseful. But there was something about just no one else being involved in the picture. Just those two.

Just bases empty. Like even if it was obviously unlikely that Trout would take him deep and tie the game right there. It was just like no complications, no distractions, no base runners, nothing. Just these two guys that we all wanted to see. Yeah, I suppose that a runner on and him having the potential to walk it off. Yeah, OK, maybe, maybe that's better. But you're right. There's something about like that moment being almost intimate because it really was just the two of them was really, really special and really something.

Oh man. I, I, yeah, I don't know. I don't know what to, I don't know how I'm going to gauge other baseball. It was funny. Cause I, you know, I, we, I watched this and then, um, I put late spring training action on cause I was like, I got to come down. Yeah. That is quite a come down.

Yeah, it was Royals and Cubs and it was raining. And the Royals broadcast was talking to Vinny Pasquitino in the dugout. And, you know, once again, we'll just say, delight. What a treat. And they were having a little fun about the hype around Otani and Trout because obviously the game had ended and Japan had won. And Pasquitino was talking like, Oh,

did you know that they're teammates? Did you know, you know, he's talking to MJ Melendez, who was also in the WBC. And he's like, you know, like how you and I are teammates,

they're teammates too. And it was very funny. And I, I appreciated the ability to goof on it but i was like but they but it is amazing though vinnie like the thing is vinnie incredible like this you know a remarkable thing that we got to watch while you're playing in the rain in sloan park so yeah i could never get tired of talking about it or watching it or hearing about it i don't care if it's cliched or if everyone's saying the same things about that moment because it made us all feel the same sort of things. It was just worthy of all of the reactions.

And I was chatting with someone in the moment who was saying, I don't think I've ever rooted against a U.S. national team in an international competition, but this is going to be tough knowing that Otani was coming up. And I was examining my own rooting interest. I think it became clear to me pretty quickly that my loyalty was not to my nation, but to Shohei Otani. That was my citizenship is Shohei Otani, basically. So I think I had a pretty clear rooting interest there. I definitely didn't want to see him blow it. And then I immediately felt a little bit bad when he struck out Trout and I felt a little bit of elation. And then I felt a little bit of betrayal.

Not as a traitor to my country, exactly, but just as a traitor to Trout, because he has also brought me so much joy. These are the two players I've probably talked about most and thought about most and written about most in the time that I've been covering baseball. And I guess it is encouraging that I thought Mike Trout would be the most interesting player ever. And then another player comes along who's Mike Trout's teammate and somehow supersedes him in how fascinating he is and perhaps how talented he is, certainly in some ways.

So this was almost like a passing of the torch type moment from the player I thought of as maybe the greatest of all time to the player I now think of maybe the greatest of all time to the player I now think of as the greatest of all time, whether or not he equals Trout's career production just in terms of what he is capable of doing. So really it was kind of a baton passing moment. And I didn't want Mike Trout to feel bad in that moment, but one of them had to feel better than the other.

And they're pals, so I'm sure no hard feelings. But they're both competitors and they would have liked to win. But it was just perfect. Like Kyle Kishimoto tweeted the pitch bot grades for the slider, which was somehow the stuff grade for that slider was an 81 on the 20 to 80 scale. It just broke the scale. And it was just like perfect pinpoint location. Oh my gosh. And just also not even the fact that that plate appearance took place.

Like it could have ended on the first pitch. It could have ended in some weak way. He could have popped up. It could have ended on the first pitch. It could have ended in some weak way. He could have popped up. It could have been over quickly. Yes. And instead goes to full count. I mean, already an embarrassment of riches that this is occurring at all. And then the fact that it goes full and you have this back and forth and you have Otani just pumping 100 and then a wild one at 102.

And I think Smoltz was even saying in the moment, it looks like Trout can't hit this fastball. He should just throw another fastball. And I was thinking, I don't know, he's still Mike Trout. And if you throw him the same pitch over and over again, eventually he's going to time it. And I guess Otani was thinking the same thing. And really it just didn't matter because he uncorked just the perfect slider. So at that point, when you have perfect stuff, more perfect than perfect, apparently, it almost doesn't matter probably what pitch you throw, because no one was going to touch that. And if Trout hadn't swung, it probably would have been a strike anyway. It was just absolutely perfect. Yeah, it was. You want the conclusion of that to be dramatic and you want it to feel weighty and you want it

to feel like it was earned. You know, if he had like rolled over one and just like grounded out weakly, it would have been meh. If he had, you know, if he had even like looped a little single, I would have been like, you know, it needed to end with a home run or a strikeout. Basically like that was, those were, those were my preferred outcomes. I wanted one or the other. I mean, I don't want to move away too, too quickly from the best, uh, played appearance, uh, of our lifetime, but I do want to give Kyle Schwarber a little bit of credit because, um, of our lifetime. But I do want to give Kyle Schwarber a little bit of credit because that was a determination.

That was a determined at-bat. That was him being like, I'm going to hit a home run or it's going to kill me. And he did. And it went really far. How many feet of foul ball did Kyle Schwarber accrue in that at-bat, do you think? Was it a million? Who could count even? It was really a lot. It was really a lot.

Yeah, there were great moments elsewhere in that game. There was, of course, Trey Turner hitting yet another home run. There was Murakami hitting another home run. There were occasional moments where I would look up and I would think, oh my gosh, this is incredible. The stakes and the adrenaline. and Merrill Kelly's pitching. Kyle Freeland's pitching. Hmm.

All right. Forget about that, though, because that would sap some of the urgency when I was in the mindset of like, this is the must win game and we want our best out there. And then Kyle Freeland's out there. No offense to Kyle Freeland, former Effectively Wild guest. Jason Adam is just out there. And no one is warming. Ben. Yeah.

Ben. I'm glad that no one was warming. I'm glad that nothing happened other than what happened because there could have been a butterfly effect and it could have screwed things up and we could have gotten a different matchup and then it wouldn't have happened. So thank you, Mark DeRosa, for managing exactly as you did. Thank you to everyone for doing exactly as you did so that that moment could come to pass. Just the best. I mean, look, we don't have to believe her at this point. And I know that smart people who we know disagree with me

you disagree with me a little bit joshian really disagrees with me um not like directly but just based on the the tweets but i i think um i think that some of the managing it could you know i have notes you know this is not like the phillies who are perfect and don't have any problems. I have some notes for him, but, you know, it worked out. I mean, not for Team USA, but that wasn't entirely that moment's fault because, you know, he just didn't allow any runs. Right? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And it was almost effectively wild catnip that Otani, I feel like it was almost a special little shout out to us that he said, I'm probably the one who knows more than anyone how great he is, Trout, not only as a baseball player, but as a person. So I had to give him my best, my 120% to get him out, calling back to an old, effectively wild recurring bit about players going over 100%. But, I mean, if he could break the 20 to 80 scale, then why could he not break the 0 to 100 effort scale? So maybe if you actually go to 120%, that's how you throw an 81 on the 20 to 80 scale. Did you hear about his pre-game comments? Yes, I was just going to bring that up. Who knew he had that club in his bag? Yeah. Use a turn of phrase that you were going to use the other day. Yeah. Because clubs going.

It's a golf thing, right? It's golf. I guess we're a golf analogy podcast now. Yeah. I mean, gosh, no. But yeah. Let's stop admiring them. Yeah.

If you admire them, you can't surpass them. Yeah. You came here to surpass them, to reach the top for one day. Let's throw away our admiration for them and just think about winning. I started our previous episode chanting USA, and now I'm chanting the opposite of that after hearing that pep talk. Beat USA. Stop admiring USA. I'm inspired just by that. So yeah, I mean,

I didn't know that he had that aspect of things. I'm never surprised by anything he does or says, but he often seems like such a laid back, happy-go-lucky kind of prankster person who's obviously super committed and hardworking and incredible, but less of the outward kind of intensity. And not that that was intense or rah-rah necessarily. It was just, I think, probably the perfect message for that team. So he's almost inheriting the Ichiro role of legendary pregame pep talks. So that's a special surprise.

I didn't know he had that in him. And so like poetic, you know? Yeah. Again, I don't want to sound overly surprised, but seems like a very knowing thing. You talk about a lot of these guys who I imagine do have aspirations to play in major league baseball at some point, but being able to just focus on the skill you have. I think we're, you know, Ben, we've talked about this maybe, but I don't know that we quite have it gauged right in terms of how good MPB is. I think that we think it's, I mean, not you and me. We know stuff.

You know, we're in the know. But I think popularly people don't appreciate the quality of that league. Yeah, I agree. I hope that this sort of dispelled some of that. Like it's not big league quality all the time, but I think it's better than people give it credit for. And like, boy, the best over there. Sure. I mean, it's, it's, um, yeah. So let's put some, you know, let's have the appropriate level of respect in my opinion. I agree. Yeah. I mean, not every aspect of performance always translates perfectly well, but when I see a top performer in that league, my default thought is not, I wonder if he could do it here. It's assuming that he could do it here. Like that's

sort of my assumption. If someone performs at that level in that league, then until proven otherwise, I assumed that they could be some sort of star over here. Obviously that hasn't always been the case, but it has been often the case. And yeah, seeing that team perform as well as it did. And that's one of the things that I really appreciated about the WBC in general is just the diversity of, gosh, everything in that tournament. The diversity of skill level. So we get to see some of the very best players in the world. We also get to see some players who would not normally be playing those players. who would not normally be playing those players.

And that led to some really fun moments and great human interest stories and also moments when you can appreciate how incredible the best players are because there is that kind of contrast in the same range of body types, right? Like some bodies that you probably wouldn't see in the big leagues every now and then. I mean, there are all sorts of outliers

physically in the big leagues, but there were some guys who were thinner or thicker, perhaps, than I'm accustomed to seeing big leaguers be. And they were all out there on the same field. And also, just the diversity of batting stances and styles and repertoires, just because there is a little more variation. If you're looking at Samurai Japan and you're looking at Team USA, I mean, there are obviously different mechanical traits that you see on the whole among those two teams and across different countries. And that's fun. It's great to see different ways that people can play baseball at a really high level. And we have sometimes lamented a perceived lack of biodiversity

in Major League Baseball these days, right? And the fact that people are getting great coaching, but maybe it's the same kind of coaching. And so you sort of sand down the differences among players. And then you watch the WBC, people from all over the world, all different kinds of coaching, and they have totally different approaches to the game. So just visually, it's stimulating because it's like, oh, I don't usually see someone who throws like that, who swings like that. And even just the stylistic approach to the game. Like, yeah, we can criticize sacrifice bunting and whether it makes sense analytically, but you watch the Japanese team play and you see the craft that they bring to getting a bunt down in a high pressure moment with two strikes. And whether or not it's always

analytically the correct move or not, you can still sort of appreciate the skill and craft that goes into it. And also the difference between that and the dominant MLB style of play. So really just you're having all kinds of diversity. It's people from all over the globe playing baseball. Obviously they're going to look different when they do it and they're going to play differently. And that's a huge selling point in my book. Yeah. I think that it's a really, it's just a really terrific reminder of the different sort of manifestations that quality baseball can take. And, you know, just because it is a different thing. And just because, like you said, it might not always be perfectly optimized. Doesn't mean that there isn't real

skill on display. Sometimes the way for the game to really take on the sort of meaning that it needs to, we need to make the thing we think is the very best in the whole world, meaning major league baseball, a little bit smaller and acknowledge that there's like room for a lot of other folks. And I think we got a great opportunity to do that. Like it wouldn't have been bad for the WBC if Team USA had won. But I think in some ways it's better for like baseball as a concept, not like one baseball as a strategy, but like baseball as a concept in a game that they didn't win because like there are a lot of really amazing baseball players

all over the world. And I think that putting us into a broader global context just allows an opening up that is really exciting. And I think I've been especially pleased disappointed that they lost. Like all you had to do was look at, you know, Merrill Kelly's face when he left the mound or Trey Turner in the dugout after the game was done to see like this really meant something. As an aside, like I felt bad for all the Phillies on that team. couple of months for those guys um but it clearly meant something pretty profound and meaningful to them it was an important moment but like even in their disappointment they were able to see like what it what it could mean and the potential it carried and that was i thought that was really cool too yeah and players matching the emotions and the intensity of their opponents even if they're not normally people who play loud, so to speak, just being like, well, we got to match this

because especially if the home crowd is not rooting for us, if it's not really our home crowd, even if we're on US soil here, then we need to show that kind of demonstrativeness and emotion. And that was great. And trash talk even. I mean, we can talk for a while about Randy Rosarena,

but when he was asked, what do you expect from Roki Sasaki today? And he said, what do I expect for him to lose today? I mean, my goodness. And even Otani got in on that because before the game against Mexico, he was taking BP and he was hitting a bunch of bombs, which I guess he always does, but even more so than usual. And he said, I knew Team Mexico was bombs, which I guess he always does, but even more so than usual. And he said, I knew Team Mexico was watching, so I wanted to send a little message. If you leave a ball out there, that's what's going to happen.

So even Otani with a little trash talk edge to him. It brought out this intense competitor. And yet everyone was having fun. It was heated, but it was also like collegial. Yeah. Like Roki Sasaki sending candy to someone he hit with a pitch or a Rosarena signing baseballs over the fence during the game while the game was going on. Like it was this great mix of everyone really, truly caring deeply, but then also having fun and just reveling in that moment.

It can be done. It can be done. Yeah, at least for a couple of weeks. And something I hadn't really realized, maybe it's obvious, but until I was writing my little ode to the WBC and advocating for it coming back soon at the ringer, I hadn't really realized that it kind of combines the best of the wildcard rounds, like the intensity of a short series and single elimination and everything. But without the downside, all the understandable hand-wringing that we do when a team gets knocked out in a game or best out of three after having a

great six-month, 162-game season, and we suddenly feel deflated because even if the game itself was exciting, it's like, well, wait, what were we watching all those other 162 games for? What did that prove? Why did we do that? Should there be some sort of advantage there? And so at that point in the year, in the playoffs, it can be fun, but you also have a sense of, oh, this isn't the way we've been playing baseball all year. And they put all this effort into getting there and it's just wiped away by this other team that's probably not as good because it didn't play nearly as well for the course of a full season. Like in the WBC, we don't really know which the best team was based on the results. Like we could certainly make an educated guess.

And it's a format that lends itself to upsets. But that said, the five WBCs thus far have all been won by baseball powerhouses, Japan and the U.S. and the Dominican Republic. So it's not like some Cinderella extraordinary upset team has won this thing. It's still pretty tough to do. But it just doesn't matter that much if one team beats another. Like, we don't know which team was better. It's not like they were playing qualifiers for months and months to get to that point or that we have a whole season's record and run differential to gauge whether this was a fair result or not. It's like we don't know enough to be upset about the results going against true

talent or anything. And it wouldn't matter because we hadn't invested months and months into determining which was the best team to get in in the first place. So it just doesn't matter. Like someone's going to get bounced and it's fine, but you don't have to be upset about it or question what it means or whether it makes sense to play baseball this way. So it's almost just the ideal format for me. It just it takes the absolute best of October without the downside of October baseball that makes me resent the ways in which it's different from the regular season. Yeah, I only wish that it were longer. I think it could be longer and still preserve what you're talking about. But you're right. I think that's a really good insight that we don't have, you know, it doesn't come freighted with as many expectations. We have a

sense of these things, right? Once you have electricians on the team, you're like kind of able to ballpark it a little bit because we know what those comps entail. But you have the opportunity for discovery, I think, in a way that by the time we get to the postseason in the MLB season, like we don't we're not really discovering anything new. Sometimes we see teams deployed differently than we do in the regular season. You know, sometimes you get like an incredible starter pitching and relief or, you know, you get you get I mean, just to like have a through line, you get Randy Rosarino being like the most incredible baseball player on the planet. How could they lie to him? This is this all the time. Not like he's a bad baseball player in the regular season, but he, he clearly has, um, a gear that is a little different or maybe, or maybe the gear is the same and everyone else's gears are different. And that's why it, who knows?

Anyway, you know, you have this opportunity for discovery because you're seeing players from leagues that we don't get to watch regularly and you are getting cool stories. And even when the electricians don't win, they get to like sometimes strike out Otani and like, that's amazing. And you get guys who are being signed to not big league deals, but deals with big league organizations to see what they can do on the back of their performance in the WBC. And it has this like potential, um, and, and spirit of, of learning something new and seeing something entirely new that is really

refreshing. And I don't know if my experience of that would be the same, even for the WBC, if it were later in the year, whether, you know, we took an extended all-star break or we had this as sort of a post-World Series tournament or, or what have you,

maybe having had the layoff from the winter adds to that experience of it being fresh and, and, and laden with possibility that you you're not quite familiar with you don't know the contours of but it is a pretty cool thing that you get to be so surprised by baseball um and still have it meet this this energy and and seem to carry this level of importance to the guys playing. I think it's a pretty special thing. Yeah.

I'm just reading in our Discord group, someone is listening to our last episode and reported that I said, I don't know how the final is going to top that. That actually encourages me because we started this episode by talking about how we don't know how anything is going to top what happened in the final. So if a couple of days ago I was saying, well, there's no way the final could top that, then who knows? Everything can potentially be topped. So it's an encouraging way to think about it, I suppose. But really, like Mookie said, I would do that every year and I would watch it every year, certainly every two years. So whether it's bringing it back more frequently or making it longer or whatever it is, just give me more WBC. And obviously,

there's some recency bias here. I don't know if there even is recency bias. I can't imagine that down the road I'm going to be thinking, you know what, actually, that Otani Trap thing, with the cold light of day now that i've actually slept since that happened not that exciting no i don't think so i think that's gonna hold up yeah i think you're gonna i think you're gonna feel good about that take a couple of weeks from now yeah but that's like look you wind it up you you lay the groundwork you put all the best players out there in my ringer piece i made a comp that i don't know if that uh will be all that illuminating to you specifically but it's kind of like the the secret wars comics of marvel comics where it's just like all the

superheroes and supervillains and everyone are just like plucked out of their normal existence and placed into battle world. And they just you get to see these team ups and these matchups that you would never get to see otherwise. And that's what we got to see. So obviously, it's not always or usually or ever going to end exactly the way that that did. You just you create the conditions for baseball greatness to happen and then you give it enough trials that eventually maybe the divine clockmaker or randomness or whatever conspires to create the ideal outcome and ending there. Sure. Right. Like I wasn't as hyped coming into this WBC as I am now thinking about it in retrospect and thinking about future WBCs. But last WBC was fun, too. It beats the Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues. So that's kind of the opportunity cost. That's really all it has to be better than. It doesn't have to match or top this particular tournament.

But really, it can't help but be better than what we would be watching and thinking about baseball-wise in mid-March. So all the players who played seemed to be pretty united in thinking that they want to do it again, that it was among the best baseball experiences or life experiences that they've ever had. And certainly for the past few days, it was one of the best baseball spectator experiences that I've ever had. And certainly for the past few days, it was one of the best baseball spectator experiences that I've ever had. We really didn't even give much attention to the semifinal because we spent so much time talking about Trout and because it was a little longer ago. But I don't

want to give total short shrift to that. We talked about Randy and the home run robbery, which I think was a legitimate home run robbery. We've talked about how sometimes you can call something a robbery and maybe it wasn't actually going to get out. That looked like it was going to get out. And also the reaction when he came down with it. And I wonder whether he had that holstered. Like, did he have that preplanned? Like, hey, if I rob a homer tonight, I'm just going to come down and fold my arms. I know the arm folding is kind of like his trademark move here, but just the blank expression, just the like no selling it and just holding that expression for a while was iconic instantly. And I wonder whether he was just inspired in the moment to do that or whether he choreographs any of this in advance but that was great that wasn't even the only great catch that he made in that game there were other great catches in that game too and the ending was incredible too obviously with the walk-off and Murakami kind of redeeming himself from having been cold in the tournament. And

gosh, there were just so many moments in that game alone that has since been surpassed in my mind. But that was the peak. That was the highlight and the pinnacle at that point when that game was played. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Gosh, what a cool. I'm sorry. I don't have anything to add. I don't know that I have a thing to add. It was just like such a cool. And then there was the walk-off, you know, so then it was cool in a different way. Which, speaking of being impressed by players in NPP, I was impressed by his stats. And I am now impressed more by him as a player, having watched him throughout this tournament. I'm pretty excited to see what he gets to do in a full MLB season because he was really great, too. And gosh, I mean, Otani had his signature moment in that game, too, before it was also superseded by his subsequent signature moment. But the leadoff double on the first pitch with about the most emphatic, joyous celebration that I've seen him do.

And I've watched a lot of Otani and Otani celebrations. Toss of the batting helmet. Yeah, he was so pumped up. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. So many moments. He was so pumped up. Oh, my gosh.

Yeah. So many moments. Like, it's one of those things where, on the one hand, I feel fully sated. It's like, I don't know that I need more baseball right now. Like, that's it. I'm good. I'm filled up. Like, my appetite, it's all quenched and quashed. It will come back, of course.

Quenched and quashed. I mean, it better. We have to do three shows a week, Ben. Yeah, I know. Right. But there's also just sort of a deep, satisfying, fulfilled feeling when I just run back the events in my mind and I just sort of, you know, running my tongue over this hit or that catch and just exploring the flavors of that particular highlight. What a way to describe that. Of course, I would bring running my tongue over it into it without even.

It was so much more than I was expecting. You know, I wasn't ready for it, Ben. Yeah. I was like, you're running your tongue over what? For what reason? You know? So I don't want people to think Ben. Yeah. I was like, you're running your tongue over what? For what reason? You know? So I don't want people to think we're trying too hard to make this show horny. Like, I don't want people to think it's artifice.

I guess this is the most genuine your horniness would be. But Ben, my goodness. You know, I gave people a heads up before the swears. You're doing not safe for work content over here. I meant to mention also that that game started with roki sasaki just like firing oh my gosh like the easiest 102 holy like i know otani touched 102 at times in the story like when sasaki throws 102 yeah it really does look easy it looks like he could throw harder if he wanted to. He has like a fairly large frame, but not a bulky frame. And so you don't see him and immediately think, oh, he's going to be just a monster power pitcher. And then 102 comes out and his motion is very balletic and graceful and sort of synchronized and metronomic. And then all of a sudden, 102 comes at you. And Luis Urias got him, tagged him for the three-run dinger, but he was still extremely

impressive. And then you get to see Yamamoto in that game, too. You get to see the two best pitchers in that league, two of the best young pitchers in the world, back-to to back, mostly dealing. And meanwhile, quietly on the other side, Patrick Sandoval is out pitching, Sasaki out pitching both of them. Yeah, he looked great. He looked really good.

Really good too. So gosh, just so many layers, just so much richness to discuss in every one of those games. To run your tongue over? Exactly. My goodness, Ben. Lordy, lordy, lordy. Yeah, it was incredible.

I thought that, again, it's just such a treat to get a glimpse of these guys. And, you know, Saki's like a ways away of potentially playing here. But, you know, this is more reason for us to have WBC more regularly because I want to see more of that guy. Yeah. Well, sports peaked was something that I tweeted when someone tweeted at me to ask if I was OK. And I felt like I needed to send a proof of life just to assure everyone that I hadn't

just collapsed instantly, just overcome by the moment. But I really did kind of feel that way. And so I hope that this somehow sets the tone for this season and this year in baseball, that we look back at this just the beginning to the greatest baseball season ever, as opposed to, well, that was the peak and nothing else could come close. But, wow. I mean, Otani's tournament MVP stats, I don't even have them in front of me. But it's just totally ridiculous.

He's amazing. Even in that game, before he came in to close it out, he walked and he hit a ball like 114 miles per hour. And he beat out an infield hit shortly before he went back out to the bullpen. It's just, it's a completely different game. I've listened to so many broadcasters talk about Otani at great, great length that I'm almost self-conscious about raving about him because everything that could possibly be said has been said. And I joke about how every announcer will talk about one aspect of his performance and then they will always say, oh, and by the way, and then they will mention that he's also pitching that day or he's also batting third that day or whatever aspect of his performance

they were not already talking about. So I try to avoid the cliches about him, but how can you really? Yeah, I mean, like, yeah. Like, yeah. I'm just filled with baseball joy. So I hope that that is being communicated to everyone. I think they can sense your joy by licking stuff. Licking. It's like, wow. Wow.

Yeah. All right. So we do have a guest today we do we will not be licking this is uh something we had been planning before we knew that sports nirvana would have been achieved so there is a book that is called major league debuts 2023, and it is a book of all of the Major League debuts in 2023. And it's by James Bailey. And we have a segment on this podcast called Meet a Major Leaguer where we play a little ditty and then we meet a major leaguer because there have just been so many major leaguers every year. There are hundreds of new ones and we can't possibly keep up. So every now and then we want to shout out and salute a new one, an unsung one who otherwise wouldn't be on our radar.

And it turns out there's an entire book of the 2023 debuts, every one of them by James Bailey. It came out in late January. Bailey. It came out in late January. And just to kind of close the book, literally turn the page, literally, on 2022 before we move on to 2023 and the new debuts. So this is Major League Debuts 2023 edition is the 2022 debuts, just to avoid confusion. Yeah, this is not a book of predictions of who will make their major league debuts in 2023. This is a retrospective book that has stats and information and capsule summaries and backstories

of every big leaguer who made their major league debut in 2023, most of whom we have not met. So we figured we'd have James on since he is clearly engaged in the same sort of struggle that we are to keep up with the deluge of big leaguers. And he could walk us through a few that we missed before they start minting new major leaguers. So let's talk to former Baseball America editor and novelist James Bailey.

And first, let's cue up a little jingle that we haven't heard in a while. up a little jingle that we haven't heard in a while. Meet a major leaguer. I am very eager to meet this nascent major leaguer. It's the thrilling debut of somebody new. Let's meet this mysterious major leaguer. This mysterious Major League Earth. And we are joined now by James Bailey, who is the author of Major League Debuts, the 2023 edition, which is out now. It is the first edition, ideally in a series, at least theoretically.

James, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Yeah, that's the plan. Let's see how the 2024 edition comes along, but work is underway. Well, as long as they keep making major leaguers, you never run out of material. So this seems like it could be a perpetual idea. What gave you or your publisher or some combination of both the idea to make this a book? Because we have been tracking the new major leaguers.

We do a little segment about it. I always have my eye on the Baseball Reference new debuts page to see the new players pop up. But a book about all of them, that is a laborious undertaking. Yeah, it was a lot of work. Yeah, I had that. I think I know what the page that you're talking about on baseball reference, I had that bookmarked. And I kind of use that as a launching point for keeping track of who needed to be written up yet. It was a lot of work. I didn't start last year until towards the end of the season, which made it a lot of work in a fairly short period of time. But there's a lot of interesting stories there. And as to what

made it seem like a good idea, maybe it was before I realized how much work it was going to be. But there were a lot of good stories, and I just kind of thought about the kind of book I would enjoy reading. And, you know, I love the Baseball America Prospect Handbooks and I love the stuff you guys do on Fangraphs with all the prospects, but there are a lot of interesting guys that come up that either aren't prospects or haven't been prospects in a while. You know, maybe they were a hot prospect seven years ago and, you know, things didn't go according to plan and finally they made it. So I just thought, you know, there's some interesting stories and I started playing around with it and kept on going. So, yeah, that's sort of what we wanted to do with our series is just highlight the lesser

known names because of course the Uber prospects are very exciting, but everyone knows them and you don't necessarily need to call anyone's attention to them because they're splashed on the cover of books and magazines. But often it's the obscure guys and sometimes the guys who don't last very long. Right. But they made it, which is worth celebrating whether or not they ever make it back. And, yeah, we kind of tend to aim for the guys who are older and maybe they've been bouncing around for a while. And sometimes there's a little less information to go on, which is a challenge probably when you're writing a book about those guys, because obviously they don't get the coverage that the top prospects do, but often they are the most interesting story. So what was your process for researching and writing?

The process got a lot more involved as I kept going. When I started, the write-ups were probably 300 or 400 words a player. And by the time I finished, they were getting more than 800 to 1,000. So I had to go back to the beginning and, and, uh, beef some guys up a bit, you know, it wasn't fair, uh, to the guys in the start of the alphabet, but, um, it was basically just finding better sources of information and subscribing to tons and tons of online newspapers, um, which, you know, most papers have kind of an introductory offer. And, you know, it's good to find the ones with a major league beat writer. But for a lot of these stories,

you're trying to find, you know, what do they do in high school and college. And so that's what takes a lot of the deep diving. For some of the guys who have sort of wandered off the prospect path, or maybe never were on it, you're looking for things about, you know, where they play independent league ball and, you know, which foreign leagues they play in. But not that I have a lot of great Mexican newspapers sources, but not that I could read them very well if I did. not that I could read them very well if I did, but, um, but yeah, you know, like you say, it's, it is, uh, it was almost harder writing some of the ones of the big star players because it's kind of an exercise in making sure you don't leave something out. That's a part of the obvious story that everyone else has. And knowing that you're probably not going to be breaking any new ground, they're telling people stuff they don't already know. But when you get to some of the other guys, there's a lot of information out

there if you dig for it. And that's where you come up with the interesting ones. Yeah, we're going to talk about a couple of the guys who you wanted to highlight, but I'm curious if there were any who stood out as particularly challenging to track down in terms of the story that led them to their debut. I will say generally, and this kind of goes back to my not having any good foreign language sources, but I think the hardest ones were some of the Dominican and Venezuelan guys who, you know, it's like the first you really hear about them is, okay, he signed when he turned 16 or roughly about that. Some of them

didn't sign until they were significantly older than that, which is kind of unusual for prospects coming out of those countries because, you know, the hot prospects, you know, there's a big deal, the international signing day and the signing period opens and teams are using their budgets to try and snatch up as many of these guys as they can as soon as they're available. But there were a few guys who signed, you know, when they were 19 or even older than that. But it's really, I found that those were the most challenging guys to come up with much background on because until they started playing and you could, you know, find stuff from, you know, either baseball reference

and, you know, if they were prospecting, you could find things in Baseball America or other places. But a lot of those guys, those are probably some of the leaner write-ups I had. So we asked you to just pick a few guys who tickled your fancy for one reason or another, players we had not covered in our Meet a Major Leaguer segment who you thought were worthy of knowing. So who have you brought us today? Where would you like to begin? I came up with a few names and it was, you know, it's challenging to narrow it down when you have so many players. I was listening to some of your earlier podcasts, and as you guys hit on, it was 303 guys, and that was a record. The guys I picked out to focus on today, Jason DeLay on the Pirates,

Ben Deluzio, who came up with the Cardinals but is now with the Cubs, and Donnie Sands, who broke in last year with the Phillies and has since been traded to the Tigers. Okay. Which would you care to begin with? Let's go with Jason DeLay. We can take him in alphabetical order.

Okay. Keep things from getting chaotic here. So he's an interesting guy because he was one of these people, a lot of the stories are based on these guys just wouldn't quit, wouldn't give up. And he came really, really close to giving up last year. He was essentially told after a couple of months into the season that he wasn't in the team's plans. And at AAA, he was demoted to bullpen catcher. He didn't get into a game for a couple of weeks, and this was in June. And he was giving a lot of thought to just packing up and heading home.

And then the Pirates bullpen catcher at the major league level got COVID. catcher at the major league level got COVID. And so they called Jason DeLay up to serve on the taxi squad in Pittsburgh, which is kind of funny for a guy who wasn't featuring at all in AAA. And then Dwayne Underwood Jr., a relief pitcher on the Pirates, tested positive positive and so they had an opening on the active roster and and they uh gave delay that spot and he started one game in a doubleheader on june 14th against the cardinals he went over two but he got sent back down after that game but that kind of gave him enough to keep him going um and so he wasn't unpacked his suitcase and stuck around. And then a short time later, Tyler Heineman, who was on the Pirates roster, went on paternity leave and they called Jason DeLay back up. And so he got to play somewhat regularly. He impressed them so much with his

pitch handling and his work with the young pitching staff that they kept him around. And he ended up playing in 57 games for them. He played more for the Pirates in the second half of last season than he had played for any team since 2019 in the minors. So he's like, he's not good enough for double A or triple A, but you bring him up to the big leagues and he finally found his level. But he's a guy who, he never really was much of an offensive player, even in college, most of the way. He hit okay in high school, I guess. He came up, he grew up in the Atlanta area. He played on one of the more famous, I guess you could say, travel teams, the East Cobb Yankees.

He was a teammate with Nathaniel Lowe, who's now on the Rangers. And they won the Connie Mack World Series. And then Jason went to Vanderbilt, where he got to play in an even bigger World Series, the College World Series, as a freshman. Although he didn't feature much because, again, he was kind of a backup catcher type. But for a guy who didn't really hit much, he got invited to play in the Cape Cod League three straight summers. And that was just because he was so well-respected for the way he handled the pitching staff. He got drafted as a junior by the Giants in 2016 as an 11th round pick and

chose to go back to school. And then he actually kind of hit a little bit his senior year and the Pirates drafted him in the fourth round. And he's one of those guys where I think his draft status is a little bit of they have their bonus pool limitations. And I think a lot of teams will strategically take a college senior in the 10th round because after that, I think the bonus pool doesn't factor in. So they'll take these guys so they can sign him a little bit on the cheap below slot. Take these guys so they can sign him a little bit on the cheap below slot. And so they signed Jason DeLay for $100,000, which for a fourth round pick was well under slot. And then they can use that money to apply to some of their other picks. So he signed and he worked his way up, but he always worked his way up as kind of a role player, backup, sharing, a catching job.

When the 2020 season came along, he wasn't invited to the alternate site. He ended up spending a good part of his summer working in a supplement packing plant to make some extra money. He didn't play much in 2021 because I think for a while he literally wasn't assigned to a roster and then he got hurt. He only played 30 games in 2021. So then you set the stage for 2022 when he doesn't play much at the beginning of the year and then is basically told, we don't need you. And then all of a sudden he's in the big leagues. I think he's going to be in a tough spot this year because they've got Austin Hedges in there. And it's kind of hard to have two catchers who are both a defense-first, pitcher-handling kind of guys. Usually, you like to balance those guys out with someone who can hit a bit. And I think Hedges is going to take the job, and it's going to make it difficult for him to fit in. Well, and two of their better prospects are catchers, right? They

have Andy Rodriguez and Henry Davis kind of getting ready to knock on the door. So he might find himself pinched from below too. Yeah. They definitely profile as much higher ceiling players than he is. Maggie, you were giving me grief for talking about tongues earlier, and now you're talking about people being pinched from below. You know, no one would have noticed if you hadn't said anything, Ben. I noticed. Someone else must have noticed out there. Sorry you had to walk into that, James. Anyway, but yeah, there are some good hallmarks of the great obscure Major League

debut player in there, right? The almost quitting is a standard one and a great one, although it does make me think, well, how many players were there who actually did quit, right? And we talk about this player who was so close to quitting and then miraculously made it. Well, there were probably a bunch of players like him who did quit. Perhaps they quit just before their break came. Maybe not. Maybe they quit and saved themselves some heartache and went on to something else. But there certainly are some players who must have made a different decision and had a different outcome.

So that's one thing I think about. have made a different decision and had a different outcome. So that's one thing I think about. And then also, I think we definitely valorize or at least sort of sentimentalize, is that a word? I don't know. But the practice of sort of having non-baseball jobs, which can be a good one. We definitely did some guys like that, you know, guys who were bankers or, you know, Uber drivers or whatever, just doing something right. And sometimes that can be kind of like the, you know, like a lesser version of the heartwarming stories you hear about so-and-so needed medical treatment. And then their teacher did a GoFundMe or something.

And it's like, well, that's good. But also it'd be nice if there were some other recourse, right? And it's sort of similar with baseball, where it's like, if teams had paid minor leaguers better, then perhaps they wouldn't have needed to get that job. Obviously, things were more complicated during the pandemic. But it does make the story more extraordinary. And yet, there are times when I read that and I think, well, maybe if that person had been better supported in some way, then they wouldn't have been in that position that they then

had to make the improbable pivot from. Yeah, it seems to me, I can't remember who exactly was involved, but there was maybe a Twitter exchange over the winter or something where that was pointed out by a minor leaguer. You know, hey, these Uber driving stories are great and all, but why are we in a position where we think that's something to be celebrated? Why are we paid so little in the first place? So, hence the minor league union. So, who's next? Let's go with Ben Deluzio next. So who's next?

Let's go with Ben Deluzio next. Here's a guy who was a highly regarded football and baseball player growing up in Orlando. He decided to focus on baseball. I want to say he was a wide receiver in high school. He was very fast, still is very fast. But he was a third-round pick by the Marlins in 2013 coming out of high school. And he was actually offered $700,000 to sign and turned it down to go to Florida State. So he went to Florida State is they do this base running drill, which they've been doing for quite a number of years, where they time the players running from first to home.

And he made it from first to home in 9.84 seconds. And that broke the program record of 9.9 seconds set by Deion Sanders. record of 9.9 seconds set by Deion Sanders. Now, DeLuzio was kind of modest enough to say that he thought if Sanders had been trying his hardest, he probably would have been faster. So, you know, apparently Deion knew he had it He hit pretty well as a freshman and got a gig in the Cape after his freshman year, which is a pretty good job. But then he didn't hit there, and he really struggled as a sophomore when he was back at FSU and struggled again as a junior. when he was back at FSU and struggled again as a junior. So he kind of peaked his freshman season, and he went undrafted in 2016 as a junior. He was playing that summer up in the Northwoods League, which nothing against Northwoods League, but you see a guy who goes from the Cape to the Northwoods League, usually it's the other way around.

But he was playing for St. Cloud in the Northwoods League, and he was spotted by a Diamondbacks scout who had followed him in high school. So he had some familiarity with him, and he talked to Deluzio, and they wound up signing him with the Diamondbacks. And the Diamondbacks just worked with him to put the ball in play and trust his speed. And so he kind of got pretty decent at that. He worked his way up and he had made it as far as AAA in 2021. And then, you know, the Diamondbacks have quite a few promising outfielders in the system and they needed some place to play those guys. And he got actually sent down to AA, I believe to clear space for somebody with a higher pedigree than him. And then they left him unprotected after the season, and the Cardinals picked him in the

minor league rule five draft in December 2021. So he came up to AAA Memphis, and He hit pretty well his first year in the system. He stole, at one point, he stole 22 bases in a row without being caught. And he got his chance in the beginning of September with the Cardinals. His first at-bat, he was a pinch hitter, drew a walk, and he scored on a home run, which you don't have to be too fast for that, but he definitely was fast enough. He could have done it on something else, maybe a sacrifice squeeze or something, but he took his time and scored on a home run. But he basically spent a lot of time

over the last month there as a bench guy, defensive specialist. He's a good outfielder, is a bench guy, defensive specialist. He's a good outfielder, very fast. He hit better against lefties in AAA, and maybe that's kind of the role. But over the winter, he signed with the Cubs. So he's going to be one of those guys that's fighting for that 26th roster spot. And he also spent some time this spring, he was on the roster for Italy in the World Baseball Classic. He went two for 16 and five games for them. So now he's back in camp and has to make his case for a job. I could see him being kind of a up and down guy maybe this year. guy maybe this year. Yeah, it sounds like, at least at the beginning of the month, it sounded like things were kind of optimistic for him that he might get a bench spot with them as sort of a backup and a right-handed alternative to Bellinger. We'll see what his time away has yielded, but that would be promising. Yeah, I think it's interesting to see what kind of a break it takes for some guys to get that chance to stick a little bit longer. But, you know, being able to play all three outfield spots really well,

being able to pinch run, you know, it gives you a chance. But a lot of guys, you know, I mean, these teams often are only caring about four bench players. And it's hard to, it's almost a luxury to have a guy who only pinch runs and plays defense. I guess that takes us to our third major leaguer to meet. Okay. Third guy is Donnie Sands, who he's got one of the most interesting, I think, as far as his high school time. And his story has got, you know, it's not all happy. I believe he was first in Tucson, and then this family moved, and he was in New Mexico. He was a bat boy at the University of New Mexico, hanging out with the baseball program there. He was still fairly young when his father

died of a heart attack. His dad was a military guy. He was in special ops. And so then they don't have him anymore. They wound up moving back to Tucson. And his mom couldn't find a job. And they wound up losing their home. His mom moved back to Mexico, which is where she was from originally, and she left Donnie in Arizona with her car. And so he was on his own essentially for seven months while she was away, and he often would sleep in the car because he didn't have a home. He would sleep at uh friends houses sometimes but there were quite a few times i mean he was he slept wherever the car was parked but he kept playing ball and there was a really good feature i didn't see this before i wrote the book because it just came out uh i want to say last week or a couple weeks ago i was in the

detroit free press, because he's with the tigers now they were doing a background story on him, but he, he was basically saying, you know, both his mom and his dad always instilled in him that, you know, you can't make excuses. And here was a guy who had plenty of reason to make excuses because that's quite a tough hand to be dealt as a kid, as a high school kid. But he said he just had to keep on going through it and keep on trying and not give up on his dream. So he was a shortstop and a pitcher in high school and he was pretty successful. And the Yankees took him in 2015 in the eighth round of the draft. And they signed him for $100,000. And Donnie took the $100,000 and used it to buy his mom a house.

So she finally had a permanent place to stay again. Uh-huh. Yeah. So this is like the heartwarming, you know, if you have to check the box with the heartwarming story. I mean, he's got it all right here. Yeah. I mean, he's got tragedy, and, you know, what a nice kid. And he was really close with his mom.

I want to say I read that there was times when she would pitch him bottle caps and he would practice hitting, you know, a bottle cap. And they would do things together, you know, when she was there with him. They were very close. So he signs with the Yankees and he plays, he came as a third baseman in rookie ball. And after his first season, the Yankees approached him about learning how to catch. And so he's like, yeah, sure. I'll give it a try. And he converted to catching and he found it really difficult because, you know, know i mean that's got to be the most difficult position to play and he'd never played it before and so you know he was struggling

uh defensively he i think he led the league in pass balls um and there was a point in time where he called his mom and he was you know basically really down on himself and down on everything. And she told him, essentially more tough love. She told him, you know, well, then come on home. And you come on home, I never want to hear you talk about baseball again. And, you know, she was telling him, you know, if you're going to give up, give up. But, you know, that's the end of it. And so he got the message and he stuck it out. And he kept on getting better.

And so he got the message and he stuck it out and he kept on getting better. His defense came around. He used the time off in 2020 when he was on his own, not invited to the alternate site. He worked on his defense. He worked on his hitting. And then in 2021, between AA and AAA, he hit 18 home runs and showed power that I think the Yankees always thought was there, but he hadn't really produced in game situations before. So he raised his OPS 200 points over what he had shown in 2019. in 2019. And so, you know, you have a guy who has the basic fundamentals to be a catcher, and now he's looking like he can be a run producer. And the Phillies were intrigued enough that they made a deal with the Yankees in November 2021. They acquired Donnie Sands

and Nick Nelson in a deal for TJ Rumfield and Joel Valdez. And so the same day they made that deal, they also made a deal with the Astros, and they picked up Garrett Stubbs, another catcher. And so in spring training last year, it was kind of a head-to-head battle between Stubbs and Sands for the backup catcher job behind JT Realmuto. And Stubbs won out in the end, and he had more experience. And so he got to be the backup. Sands didn't come up until September,

and he spent most of the month of September with the Phillies, but he only got three at-bats. So he was kind of like a third-string emergency catcher. But he hit, he had over a 400 on base at AAA Lehigh Valley. He hit, you know, really pretty well. So even though he didn't get much of a chance to show it in Philadelphia, he did get to spend a month with the big league team. And then over the winter, he was part of the deal with the Tigers that the Phillies picked up Gregory Soto for the bullpen. Mm-hmm. of the deal with the Tigers that the Phillies picked up Gregory Soto for the bullpen.

So do you think that there are not enough new major leaguers, too many new major leaguers, or just the right number of new major leaguers? And I guess your answer is probably a little bit different from the average person's in that it's now your job to write about every major leaguer. So you want there to be enough that you can keep doing a book on it, but I guess not so much that it's hard to keep up. But I guess just because the whole reason we started keeping track of sort of obscure new major leaguers is because there were just so many more than they used to be. So many more.

Yeah, with the way pitching staffs are structured these days and players being optioned and shuffled in the backs of bullpens. And I know they've tried to cut down on some of that. But as you said, new record number of debuts in 2023. So there are just a lot more players that at any given time, no one knows. Even people like us who are fairly plugged in and in theory should know. Right. So is it too many or are you just happy anytime a new major leaguer gets his wings? It's like, all right. Yeah. The bell rings. Yeah, exactly. So how do you

think about that? Well, I mean, obviously you want to see these, you know, if you're a ball player, you want to make it, you can check that box. Even if you don't get a stamp very long, you can always say you were there. You know, when I was, when I was writing these last fall and I was thinking, oh, it's the numbers going up, it's going up. Oh, it's going to come close to 300. And then it got to 300. And then on the final day of the season, three more guys made their debut. And I was like, well, I'm happy for you, but that's all. That's three more guys have to write up. So, you know, like you touched on the bullpen, it's the triple A team is an extension of the big league bullpen now. And so they'll bring these guys up and they just started looking

for fresh arms. And so you could come up and do really, really well. And it doesn't matter if you, you know, struck out the side, you're going back down to AAA the next day, just because they're just trying to rotate somebody in there who they can always have a fresh arm out in the pen. And, you know, when you've got starting pitchers that are only going four or five innings, I guess that's what you get. You also had the COVID situation last year, and the lockout. I think the lockout was a huge factor because in the beginning of the season, you didn't have anybody's pitching staff ramped up. You had two extra spots on the roster. So for the first month of the season, it was 28 players. So you saw a lot of guys that probably wouldn't have broken camp with the team that did.

And then with the whole COVID situation, anytime somebody tested positive, they were allowed to bring a new guy in. And then the whole Toronto thing. So you have the Royals bringing up 10 guys for a trip to Toronto because they had 10 players that weren't vaccinated. a trip to Toronto because they had 10 players that weren't vaccinated. So knowing that you might hopefully do this project again after this season, are there going to be any changes in your approach as guys make their debuts this year? I think the biggest change is that I've already started on it. So I've been doing backgrounds on some of the guys who seem the most obvious. The background obviously is the part that takes the most research and work. So the more of those I can get out of the way early, in theory, the more sleep I'll get later.

But I think I'm already writing even longer than I was towards the end last time. You know, more time is just more opportunity to research and dig things up. Well, you still have another week or so until you fall behind for now. You're still current. Until March 30, I'm on top of it. And then your labor begins again, your Sisyphean task, and you start rolling the boulder up the hill again. But hopefully it's fun at least to meet these guys.

It's been fun for us. We didn't have to do all of them though, which maybe changes the fun quotient slightly. But I think it's a cool idea for a book and a handy reference source. And I hope this is the first of many. And I have my shelf for the Baseball America Prospect Handbooks. And I have my shelf or more than one shelf. It's kind of annexed another shelf now for the Baseball Prospectus annuals. And maybe someday I will have a whole shelf full of Major League debuts, starting with the Major League debuts 2023 edition. So everyone can find James on Twitter at James underscore L underscore Bailey. You can find the book and information about the book at MajorLeagueDebuts.com.

And of course, we will link to where you can buy it. So good luck with the task ahead of you. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. All right. So we will wrap up with our pass blast. But since we're displaying all our segments here, can I give you a quick pass blast as a prelude?

A pass blast to a pass blast? Did I say pass blast twice? Boy, I really haven't slept in a long time. Stat blast as a prelude to the pass blast. Blast away, Ben. Blast away. It will definitely be some sort of blast. So I'll play our stat blast song, except we received a cover from listener Corey Brent. We have not requested more StatBlast song covers, but he felt moved to send us one anyway. And it's a banger of a StatBlast song cover.

So here he is. Take a data set sorted by something like ERA- or OPS- And they tease out an interesting tidbit, discuss it at length, analyze it for us in amazing ways. Here's today's stat blaster. Okay. So this will be a quick one. I just happened to see on the baseball subreddit earlier this month, there was a post that was popular, just said, Today, an amazing baseball player's names meet 18-year-old Mexican infielder Ichiro Cano. Now, I had come across the name Ichiro Cano before. It's not really a name that you tend to forget. And Ichiro Cano is an 18-year-old listed on Baseball

Reference as a pinch hitter, shortstop, and third baseman from San Jose del Cabo, Mexico. And the only lines on here in his age 17 season 2022, he played in the Mexican league for five games and five more games in the Mexican Pacific Winter League. But what you need to know is that his name is Ichiro Kano and he has a baseball reference page. And by coincidence, he is actually listed at 5'11", 175, which is also Ichiro's listed height and weight at baseball reference. Yeah, he's a switch hitter though, and a righty thrower. So not a lefty hitter like Ichiro. Anyway, perhaps that's where the similarity ends. I have not discovered the origins of his name. I assume it is not a coincidence that he is Ichiro Kano. I assume that he is named after at least Ichiro. I don't know if he is named after Robinson Kano or whether Kano was change your last name to name him after Robinson Cano, although Robinson Cano did come up to the majors in 2005 when Ichiro Cano was born. So there's that.

Anyway, I got curious about whether you could make a more valuable baseball name out of two other names. name out of two other names. So Ichiro and Kano, each of those names is basically a Hall of Fame caliber baseball name, right? So Ichiro, Ichiro Suzuki's name, Kano, Robinson Kano's name. I'm not telling you anything you don't know, but if you were to add those two players' career wars together, it would be a lot of war because Robinson Cano, 68.1 baseball reference war. Ichiro, he's at 60 baseball reference war. And if you put them together, that's a big number. But I wondered how much bigger a number could you get? So if you take the first name of a player and then you look up the highest career war player with that first name, and then you also look up the highest career war player with that last name, then how high a total war combo can you create? And it has to be a player other than the player's name. So like Barry Bonds can't use Barry for his first name.

That would be cheating. Sure, yeah. He'd have to be like Barry Larkin and Bobby Bonds or something. So I put this question to frequent StatBlast consultant Ryan Nelson, whom you can find on Twitter at rsnelson23. I assume this is probably Fangraph's war, but shouldn't make a big difference either way. And I guess I'll just give you the answer. The most valuable combined career war baseball name is Alex Cobb, which doesn't have

quite the same ring as Ichiro Kano, but he has the same first name as Alex Rodriguez that's a lot of war he has the same last name as Ty Cobb that's a lot of war also a lot of war so that is much more war than Ichiro Kano that adds up to 263.2 total war 114 or so from A-Rod, 150 or so from Ty Cobb.

And Alex Cobb only has about 17 war to his own name. Yeah. But by our weird definition here, that is the all-time most valuable combined baseball name. If you go down the list, you will probably see some first names that you would expect. So second is Hank Johnson. So if we're counting Hank Aaron as Hank, I believe he's listed at Fangraphs as Hank. Some sources will list him as Henry. He used both. Some say he preferred Henry, but he sometimes signed as Hank. Anyway, if you treat Hank Aaron, Henry Aaron as Hank, then Hank Johnson gets credit for Hank Aaron and also for Walter Johnson, which puts him just 0.3

war behind Alex Cobb. So he's a 262.9 career war. Hank Johnson, who had only 3.8 career war to his name. Third, Babe Young. So a lot of babes. Yeah. I guess you could say that maybe you should use your actual official name on your birth certificate for this exercise, but I think it's kind of more fun this way. So Babe Young gets credit for Babe Ruth and Cy Young. So that's a pretty good combo. Babe Young, only 9.9 war himself, but that's a total of 259 war for Babe Ruth and Cy Young. And then fourth, Stan Williams. Good old Stan the Splinter, as they probably didn't call him.

Stan, I don't know. But Stan Williams gets credit for Stan Musial. Sure. And also Ted Williams. Yeah, that'll do it. So that takes him up to 257.6. And he had only 19 war to his name. And then we end up with some combos of names we've already said.

Because, you know, there are pretty common names there. And those are high war players. Sure. After Stan Williams is Stan Johnson, who is Stan Musial and Walter Johnson. And then you get Eddie Williams, who is Eddie Collins and Ted Williams. Then you get Barry Jones. Barry Jones, he's seventh all-time here. He has a negative.1 career wins above replacement, and he gets credit for Barry Bonds and Chipper Jones.

So that's pretty good. Yeah. Then you get Joe Mays, Joe Morgan and Willie Mays, followed by Joe Cobb, Joe Morgan and Ty Cobb, Carl Mays, Carl Yastrzemski and Willie Mays, and then Lou Johnson, Lou Gehrig and Walter Johnson. And then we get Hank Robinson and Alex Johnson and Randy Williams and Al Mays, who's Al K-Line and Willie Mays and Mike Williams, who is Mike Schmidt and Ted Williams and Babe Martin, who's Babe Ruth and Russell Martin. So you know that it's Fangraphs War because Russell Martin, much higher Fangraphs War with the framing included. And, you know, I guess there are some names that are a little more colorful or uncommon here as we scroll down.

I mean, again, it's like Willie Jones, Bobby Bonds, Hank Perry, Mike Johnson. Walter Schmidt gets Walter Johnson and Mike Schmidt. Willie Martinez gets Willie Mays and Pedro Martinez. I guess nothing can really compare to Ichiro Kano. I mean, Eddie Robinson, the late Eddie Robinson, two-time, multi-time podcast guest, he's up there because he gets Eddie Collins and Frank Robinson. But yeah, just for sheer jumping off the page at you, I mean, you can easily top Ichiro Kano in Combined War, but I don't know that you can top it in terms of just name recognition. Yeah, I think that the gap in war is being made up for by a difficult to measure, but obviously valuable coolness factor that we're just not capturing.

It's a flaw in our war, you know, or maybe not a flaw, but certainly a blind spot. Yeah. All right. Well, I will link to the full spreadsheet from Ryan if you would care to peruse it. And now we will wrap up with the past blast. So this is a past blast from 1984 and from David Lewis, an architectural historian and baseball researcher based in Boston. 1984, baseball history based in Boston. 1984, baseball history belongs in schools. This reminds me of a recent banter topic of ours. In a 1984 column, Newsday

writer Steve Jacobson marveled at Jackie Robinson's place in American history, choosing the trailblazing ballplayer as the one person in history he would have dinner with if given the opportunity. In doing so, however, Jacobson went further, stressing the importance of Robinson's story and suggesting that it become part of the history curriculum in American schools. The column, which serves in part as a review for Jules Teigel's book, Baseball's Great Experiment, argues every high school history text should acknowledge it, Robinson's history, but the academic community is not quick to acknowledge the role of sports in shaping society. Continuing on, Jacobson quoted Teigel as saying, baseball is not the stuff upon which successful careers in history are normally made. After recounting the stories of Bud Fowler, Larry Doby, and the Red Sox' reluctance to integrate, Jacobson wrote, these stories could be recounted to ballplayers in each generation as if it were happening to them. He concluded the Jacobson wrote, So this is not the book banning kind of concerns that we were talking about with a Jackie Robinson related book. This was apparently just maybe looking down on sports figures as valued historic figures. 1984 predates our births. I can't recall whether my high school history textbook, to be specific,

covered Jackie Robinson. I would think so, but I couldn't really tell you when and where and how I learned about Jackie Robinson first and whether that was something I learned in history class or by that point I would have been a big baseball fan anyway and would have been aware of him so I wouldn't really remember learning it in school probably but I would guess that most likely by the time we were in high school it was much more common for that kind of thing to be covered in a textbook yeah I I would think so I don't remember either i'm trying to think i mean i definitely knew of jackie and like his place in baseball history by the time i was in high school i took a class in college like a sociology of sport class and obviously he yeah um occupied a good amount of time in that class.

But yeah, I feel like by the time we had reached high school, well, it should have been obvious in 84 also, but like the, the tradition of athletes using their platforms to, to sort of protest and, and muster support for civil rights causes was like very well established both, you know, before and after Jackie. So what a dismissive view to think that not worthy of inclusion in history. It's a big part of not just sports history, but history, you know, like in general. So glad we, you know, are past that. No one ever says that stuff should stick to sports anymore. We've evolved. Should definitely be in the book. I'm glad we are past that. No one ever says that stuff should stick to sports anymore. We've evolved. Should definitely be in the book.

Jackie Robinson ranks 1,041st on the Max War namesakes list because he gets credit for Jackie Jensen and Frank Robinson, which takes him up to about 137 more than each Rokino. Yeah, how about that? They probably didn't mention that in the history books. You had bigger accomplishments. Yeah, I would imagine so. All right, that will do it for today. Thanks, as always, for listening. And thanks to Liz Piniella for today's Effectively Wild theme song. Liz is a longtime listener and Patreon supporter,

member of the great bands Earth Girls and Rotten Mind. And again, thanks to Corey for today's Stat Blast song cover, which reminded me of Pretty Odd Era Panic at the Disco, a sound I enjoy. You can keep your Effectively Wild intro theme songs coming for now to podcast at fangraphs.com. And again, we're looking for roughly a minute in length, maybe half of that consisting of lyrics. One brief follow-up to something we talked about on episode 1982. We got into the coming RSN shakeup and the broadcast upheaval that's happening. I don't know whether we specified this, but MLB is affected by that perhaps more than other sports leagues.

In fact, there was a recent piece in Sportico headlined, Why MLB Feels RSN Pinch More Than Other Leagues. Why MLB feels RSN pinch more than other leagues. Because, of course, the Diamond Sports, Bally Sports branded networks carry 16 NBA teams, 14 MLB teams, 12 NHL teams and others. But the impactL and NBA wrap up their seasons over the next four weeks, and those teams have already received the lion's share of their rights fees. Baseball's opening day is until March 30th, which means clubs are just getting their first checks, or not. The bigger factor is how teams in each of the leagues generate revenue. MLB's 30 teams generated a record $10.9 billion in revenue last season from tickets, sponsorships, TV, concessions, and other sources, including an estimated $2.25 billion from their local TV deals. The TV tally is nearly double

what NBA teams earn in more than three times those of the NHL's 32 teams. So local media revenue as a percentage of total league revenue. For the NFL, it's only 2%. The NHL, 12%. The NBA, 13%. And sinking MLB, 13%. And sinking. MLB, 23%. And that's one of the reasons why this is a big deal for baseball. You can help increase our local and national revenue. How's that for a segue? 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. Carl Rohrbach, Michael Foley, Quinn Sanchez, Justin Becknell, and Jacob Longo. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group solely for Patreon supporters. It is a thriving, bustling, welcoming, inclusive group. All of our Patreon supporters are entitled to access it. Some of our Patreon supporters are also entitled to access our monthly bonus episodes, plus Thank you. Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash Effectively Wild. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We will be back with the Padres and Reds previews next time.

Talk to you soon. I believed it when he said it You'll believe it when you're dead Cause we're all just marching In perfect time We're all just marching In perfect time We're all just marching

In perfect time