Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1996: Sticky-Sniffing Dogs

Episode Date: April 21, 2023

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the continued Yandy Díaz breakout and listeners’ suggestions for his new beef-related nickname, the greatness of post-peak Clayton Kershaw and the end of Diamondbacks Madison Bumgarner, the Oakland A’s (almost) officially leaving for Las Vegas, a Scott Boras metaphor about Juan Soto, Max Scherzer’s sticky suspension, the return […]

Discussing baseball news pedantically And the colonies semi it erotically Stats was pass-blast and better for free Three new episodes for us each week Effectively wild. Effectively wild. Hello and welcome to episode 1996 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs, presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Rowley of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg.

Hello. So the suggestions for a new nickname for Yandy Diaz have been flying in, much as the balls have been flying off of Yandy Diaz's bat. He hit two more homers since we talked about it last time. He has continued to hit balls in the air, and some of them have gone over the fence. So he is now fourth in baseball among qualified hitters when it comes to expected weighted on base average. So it's pretty impressive. This could be the real breakout. I know he was pretty good last year, but he's up to six homers already after having nine in 137 games last year. It's 17 games right now. That's a much improved ratio. So now that he is no longer a ground ball hitter and thus can no longer be called ground beef, we put a call

out for suggestions. What can we call the beef boy who hits the balls in the air now? Here's what fly mignon that's that's not bad air beef airborne beef i think that's a twister homage to the cows yeah yeah space cowboy cow hyphen boy because uh he's hitting balls up into space. You get it. High stake. And then lastly, raising the stakes. But spelled E-A-K-S. Yeah. That's not a nickname. That's just sort of a way to describe what he is doing this season. It's all beef and cow themed. You get it.

So if ground beef didn't catch on, I don't have high hopes for any of these i do have high hopes for yandi diaz and his fly balls yeah i mean the high hopes high hopes yep we just gotta keep workshopping it you know it's not always uh it's not that these are bad they are just i think that we can we can do better you know i think that there is a a catchy like ah there it is that we can do better. I think that there is a catchy like, ah, there it is that we haven't stumbled upon yet. I hope so. Yeah. Someone wrote in to tell us that we were not necessarily the first with the ground something nickname because apparently Charlie Morton, when he was with the pirates, was sometimes referred to as Ground Chuck. Because of course he's Charlie and the pirates broadcasters used to call him Ground Chuck for his effective two-seamer and getting ground balls.

So, sort of the same genre as ground beef. Yeah, delightful. Anyway, we should probably talk about some big baseball news. So, I thought maybe we could start with a tale of two veteran lefties in the NL West. We could start with a tale of two veteran lefties in the NL West. It's not the best of times, but pretty good times for one and the worst of times for the other. Clayton Kershaw. Yeah.

You've heard of him, but we haven't talked about him a whole lot lately. And this week was a big week for talking about Clayton Kershaw. Just because he reached an old school milestone. He got his 200th win. And that was just treated as kind of an occasion to celebrate Clayton Kershaw in general. And it's never a bad time to do that. The thing that really surprises me about this latter stage of Clayton Kershaw's career is just how effective he continues to be. is just how effective he continues to be. It's not that he's just like on his last legs and he's just tacking on big numbers or round numbers here.

Like he is still so good, you know? He's still really, really good. Like if you look at when his peak ended, when we saw the last of Prime Kershaw, and I don't know exactly when you would put that, but I would put it probably 2018 was kind of the beginning of post-peak Kershaw because that was the first year that he did not get Cy Young votes after a run of many, many consecutive seasons having top five Cy Young finishes. And he wasn't bad that year, but he wasn't an all-star. He didn't get Cy Young votes. It just, it felt like that was the time. I went back and looked and Neil Payne actually wrote something for FiveThirtyEight in June of 2017 that was headlined, Clayton Kershaw might, parentheses, might not be the best pitcher in baseball anymore. That was like heresy at the time. He was suggesting that 538's Elo model had had someone go, I think, just a nose ahead of Kershaw. I think it was

Scherzer, maybe. And then in early 2018, in May, I wrote an article headlined, Is Pete Kershaw Gone for Good? And then later that year, August of 2018, Michael Bauman, with a typically Baumanic headline. By the way, I've been enjoying just what has happened. The effect that Michael Bauman has had on FanCraft's headline style is seismic. I mean, you can always pick. You can tell. Yeah. I mean, you can often tell a Meg headline, too. It's not that you are averse to puns or wordplay, but a Bauman headline, that's just, it's a whole different breed.

Yeah. And I want to make clear, like, I cannot claim any credit here. I have walked Bauman back from a couple that would have been, you know, potentially too much, right? But he is an artist. Yes. And I am glad to hear him being appreciated in his own time. Yeah. Look, you just got to let him cook. Got to let him work. And then every now and again, you're like, so, Michael.

And then he's like, all right. on again, you're like, so Michael. And then he's like, all right. And it's always a grudging acceptance of being reined in by me at Philistine. I would even submit that headlines are actually one of the weaker parts of my game as an editor. I don't find them inspired. I often struggle with them. And I feel even more insecure now that I am in the presence of a master. I'd love to know which ones you walked back, given some of the ones that you didn't. Like the recent one about the Trash Panda's hitless loss or loss without allowing any hits that was a reference to a Soviet propaganda poster that Batman has hanging in his dwelling. I had to Google that one. And then when I did, I was like, oh, yeah, that checks out.

I remember one Sam Miller passing on some advice to, I think maybe Craig, who then passed it on to me that, you know, like sometimes you write jokes for the people who get them. You know, it doesn't, everything doesn't always have to appeal to everybody. But the ones that it gets to, you're like, oh. Yeah, right. I don't mind doing a little work to figure out what the joke was. And also, if I'm in the small group that actually got the reference, then I'll forever be loyal to them. And anyway, he wrote a piece in August 2018, Repent, Repent, Clayton Kershaw is no one of the very best pitchers in baseball. So just like 2018 to 2023 to date, Clayton Kershaw is in Fangraph's War, tied with Kevin Gossman for 10th of all pitchers.

So he's basically still a top 10 pitcher over that span. basically still a top 10 pitcher over that span. He's fourth in ERA, 2.82, fifth in park-adjusted ERA, 69, obligatory, nice. And then if you look at, say, adjusted FIP, he's also tied for 10th with Max Fried. And we talk about how, well, he's still effective on an inning per inning basis, but he does miss time and he tends to have the bulky back creep up on him. And that's true. But he's also 26th in innings pitched since then. So that's not so bad. He's actually pitched more innings than Jacob de Krom has over that span. So if post-peak Kershaw, if decline phase Kershaw is like just toward the bottom of the top 10 of pitchers and starters in baseball, and that's not even like skewed toward the early part of that period. I mean, he had a 2.28 ERA last year.

He has a 2.52 ERA this year. He's a 2.28 ERA last year. He has a 2.52 ERA this year. He's still awesome. He's currently leading the National League in innings pitched, as we speak, on Thursday. I don't think that will persist. Probably not. He'll probably have his annual or biannual IL stint at some point. But, man, when he's healthy and available, he's still awesome. It's just a testament to how high his peak was that post-peak is still a top 10 pitcher.

Yeah. He has been surpassed in terms of best in the league. But I also think the stories of his demise have been greatly exaggerated, right? And so now it's just a matter of, is he in the midst of one of those IL stints? Because, you know, at least in my experience, backs don't get better as you age, right? That tends to only move in one direction. But when he is able to take them out, like, it's very good. You know, it's just very good. So it's exciting. It's nice. It's differently good because he's such a different pitcher now. I mean, he still has some of the same weapons he used to. But the fact that he's just like he gets it done throwing 91 or so these days in a league that throws a lot harder than that. I mean, if he had thrown 91 when he came up, that might have been

average or better, but now it's a few ticks below average and he is at the same time lost at least a few ticks and still super effective because he just pumps sliders in there, throws more sliders than almost anyone, still got the curve. Like it's just just he kind of pitches backwards and everyone knows that he's going to be throwing the slider constantly and he still has great command and it just it works so it's really fun and he's he's like the same age as de grom basically which always surprised he's like a couple months older a few months older than jacob de grom which is just weird because he's been doing it at this level for so long. And really, he would have been a Hall of Famer and an all-time great, at least in terms of peak, if he had just completely collapsed after his peak. And it looked for a while like maybe he wouldn't tack on that much and that would kind of be that. But no, he's had this whole second act where

he still remains productive and usually available. And he's just further burnishing his legacy and his image. So I hope that he continues to rack up round numbers just so that we can continue to have opportunities to appreciate him. And I also enjoyed Bailey at Foolish Baseball pointed out that he also, in that start when he won his 200th game, broke Nolan Ryan's all-time record for most consecutive games with at least one strikeout. That's 333 games with at least one strikeout, which is almost all of the games that he has pitched. So maybe a bit of an era effect there.

Sure, yeah. But still just a testament to the longevity and the effectiveness. So all hail Clayton Kershaw. Yeah. On the other end of the spectrum, there's Madison Bumgarner. Speaking of guys who haven't adjusted. No, not at all. So Madison Bumgarner now designated for assignment by the Diamondbacks. And I remember when we had Nick Pecoro on for the Diamondbacks preview pod, we talked about how long is the leash? How long are they going to go with Madison Bumgarner? And I think he said perhaps not that long if he keeps pitching poorly. And boy, he has. So it turns out that the leash was four starts long and he has an ERA over 10.

So I guess that'll do it in light of the past few years of ineffectiveness and injuries. So it really is just the other side of the coin. And I don't know, like if he'll enter his Dallas Keuchel phase now and he'll just kind of bum, no pun intended, around the league and teams will pick him up and give him a chance and see if they can find something in him or whether he will mount his horse probably literally and ride off into the sunset. Oh boy. Oh, boy. Anyway, I guess that's the end, at least, of Madison Bob Garner's Diamondbacks career. They're off to a fine start, other than Madison Bob Garner. But he still has, what, like $35 million, $37 million left on that five-year deal that he signed before 2020.

So that didn't work out so well for them. No, it didn't. I mean, it didn't really hold them back from anything either. Like, that's always the thing about deals like that on clubs that are sort of in the midst of either trading away or moving on from, you know, their other big pieces. But, yeah, like, he's owed $23 million this year, $14 next year. But, I don't know. Like like they're not in a particularly tight payroll position. Like it's not like eating that money is going to prevent them from doing anything because so much of their young core is still, you know, cheap and cost controlled. And even, you know, even the guys who aren't going to be for too terribly much longer, like Corbin Carroll,

like they're not into the expensive part of his extension yet and won't be for too terribly much longer like Corbin Carroll like they're not into the expensive part of his extension yet and won't be for a little while right so and you know they still have Gattel make like 13 and a half million dollars next year so they're not gonna be hamstrung in any particularly meaningful way unless they decide to be by eating that and I just like it's a tricky thing because you don't want to, you don't want to root for people to lose their jobs, right? That's like a crummy thing to root for. But one does, one does suspect based on the combination of performance and comportment

that this might be an instance of some amount of addition by subtraction, you know, at least based on his behavior in the Cardinals game yesterday. That was ridiculous. Yeah, just a real red ass to the end. Oh, geez. And it's just, you know, this is a fun, exciting young team. Like, they're still obviously putting it together and figuring out what exactly the next good, uh, Diamondbacks team is going to look like. But I feel like we're getting a lot of those pieces now. And while I don't necessarily expect them to like win the West or be even in second place when we reach, say the all-star break, um, you know, they're 11 and 8 and uh they have some exciting young guys and we're we're

getting we're getting good it's good you know there's like good vibes in the desert and then there was manson moon garner yeah i don't know what that was about if people didn't see i'll link to it but he told wilson contraris to shut the F up, right? Because Wilson Contreras, I don't even know what he did. He took a big swing at a ball. He fouled it off. It sounded like maybe he groaned or he was upset with himself that he missed that pitch. Maybe that's what set Madison Pop Carter off that Contreras thought he should have crushed that pitch, which it probably was a crushable pitch. And Madison Bumgarner has served up lots of crushed pitches. So it would stand to reason that Contreras could have crushed it.

And then Bumgarner starts jawing at him and cursing at him. And Contreras is like, what? Like, what did I do? And then he's upset and he jaws back. And then Bumgarner ended up walking him and Contreras bat flipped which was great I kind of enjoy the the bat flip on the walk but especially when it's like a pointed one yeah just because he knows that somewhere down over there yeah it's gonna get under his skin even more and things went south for Bumgarner from there in that game and

then also in his career so yeah I guess to be charitable, I suppose Bumgarner probably, you know, things not going great for him career-wise these days. And maybe he knew that he was kind of at the end of his rope and knows that he's diminished and everything. But still, that was kind of vintage Madison Bumgarner. The stuff might not be anymore, but the things that he says and tries to police and gets upset about, that's still the same old guy. Yeah. And to be clear, like that was sort of exhausting even when he was good. Yeah. I don't know that there's like a level of performance at which I go, well, yeah, but be a red ass though. Like that's fine. But it is a particularly like tired approach to the game

when you are, you know, not very good anymore. And it was so strange because like after the fact, after the game, you know, he was of course asked about it and he said something to the effect of like, you know, if you don't know, like, I don't know how to help you. But, and then he followed that to the effect of like you know if you don't know like i don't know how to help you but and then he followed that up by saying something like i can't say more because i didn't pitch well and it's like so there is like some amount maybe of like like introspection there or like reflection on oneself but like it's very limited and i don't you know, I don't understand. I don't understand. I understand feeling lousy if you were once as

good at your job as Bumgarner was and then aren't anymore. Like, I can imagine that feeling really bad and being quite disorienting in your life and your understanding of yourself, right? Like, I have some empathy for that piece of it, but you can't make that other people's problem because it's not, right? So I will always think fondly on his performance on those Giants teams, particularly in the post-season, which was just like legitimately so thrilling,

but it's fallen off since then. Both the skill and my enjoyment of it, you know? Yeah. So while we're in the West, I guess we should probably talk about the biggest news and a bigger bummer than Bumgarner getting DFA'd, which is that looks like the athletics will also be leaving and changing cities and locations. And this has been such a long time coming that there was part of me that wondered whether it would come, whether there would be some resolution, the team would end up staying in Oakland. But now it looks like the Dias cast are very close to cast because the A's have entered into a binding agreement

to purchase some land just west of the Las Vegas Strip, 49 acres with an option for additional eight. And they are hard at work at coming to an agreement to build a ballpark on that land as well. And they and Rob Manfred have signaled that they are basically turning their attention entirely to Las Vegas now. And Oakland politicians have acknowledged as much and basically said good riddance because they got the sense that they were being used as a pawn, as a negotiating patsy. So I feel terrible for A's fans. Like, I mean, I've felt bad for them for a while just with this hanging over their head and the way the team has been running to the ground. But it's still got to be a gut punch, I would imagine. I've never gone through something like this, losing a sports franchise that I rooted for

or grew up following. And that just really must be a body blow, like despite how that management group has done absolutely everything to turn their fans against them and to make them an unpalatable product to have them leave. And for no great reason other than the fact that a billionaire just wants to make more billions and millions. Like, it's just, it sucks. It's really, really bad. Yeah, it's just it sucks it's uh it's really really bad yeah it's we keep talking about this like there are only well as of this moment there are only 30 of these teams right and there might be differences in terms of like the the real spending power of some of them because they're in a smaller market or, you know, the media contract isn't as rich. We've seen time and again that like,

while those are realities that we have to acknowledge, a lot of that is just your mindset, right? Being a small market team is a mindset. You don't have to behave that way. Like the Padres have said, what's the problem here? Just spend some money and be awesome and get your entire city super excited about you. And I don't know, you'll really profit from that and it'll be cool. So there is an alternative that exists. And if there are owners who are unwilling

to swim in those waters, at least some of the time, then we need better owners. There's nothing about owning a major league franchise that is like a God-given right. Like if you're not willing to put a competitive product on the field, if you're not willing to invest in your franchise, if you're not willing to view at least part of your responsibility as being a steward of a civic institution should get into different business. Like there are just too many rich people for us to settle for this crap. And I don't say that like there aren't problems with, you know, we've talked a lot about how like people should be less impressed with Steve

Cohen, but like in this respect, i think it is a baseline you know it should be the minimum standard that you should be willing to invest in your club and view yourself as being in not just the money-making business but the baseball business and your fan base shouldn't be the ones to suffer when you fall short of that you know standard it should be you that suffers and it should be you that has to divest yourself of the team rather than the city divesting itself of the team so i you know i can't fault the the people of oakland both as fans and then as their elected representatives feeling used because they were i think it's good that they held the line on saying this is this is just never

a good economic proposition for municipalities there are other things that our community could use this money for that would serve the people here better like that that's the right stance to take and it's really disappointing that their reward for thinking about the well-being of their community and their constituents is that they don't have baseball there anymore. Like that sucks. So, and can I just say like, and I say this as somebody who like voluntarily moved to the middle of the desert, um, really weird that we keep committing like baseball resources to the American

Southwest, you know, like I get that we're, you know, the, uh, go Diamondbacks, right. They're here already. And we're clearly, you know, like I get that we're, you know, go Diamondbacks, right? They're here already. And we're clearly, you know, lousy with complexes in the Valley. So I'm not saying we should pick up and move. But like, there are very real, like ecological reasons to not just build another ballpark in Vegas as an aside. What's going to happen to the almost brand new ballpark that they already have there? Yeah, I know. I have a lot of questions. I have so many questions.

The actual moving, right? Because, I mean, gosh, yesterday must have been just such a high and low swing of emotions because Mason Miller came up and was really good and was, you know, throwing triple digits. And there were 12,000 fans there to see him, which is a big Wednesday crowd for the A's these days. And through no fault of the fan base, they have

not given them any reason to go, but they gave them a reason in Mason Miller and he delivered and the game was close for most of it or half of it. And then, of course, the A's bullpen tanked and they ended up losing 12-2. And then on the heels of that, there's this news about going to Vegas. But, yeah, I do have a lot of questions.

I mean, of course, it was reported as, like, the A's are going to foot the bill for the ballpark that they're going to build. But then it was also reported that there are all sorts of subsidies or sweetheart tax arrangements and everything. And so, in effect, they are not really going to be footing the bill, which is not surprising. That's just how these things tend to work. That's why you leverage your city to get a good deal out of the other city, which is what they've been doing. That's a standard operating procedure for sports franchises.

As a Seattleite, my heart goes out. It sucks. And so they're talking about a 30,000 to 35,000 seat place, which is quite small. I mean, that would be down there with Cleveland and I guess the TROP as well with the tarps and everything. So that's not a big attendance place. Obviously, retractable roof, it would have to be there.

And I think it would be close. It would be like a mile away or so from where Allegiant Stadium is, where the Raiders play, and then like a mile west of T-Mobile Arena, where the Golden Knights play. play and then like a mile west of the T-Mobile Arena where the Golden Knights play. And there's just been such an exodus of sports franchises from Oakland, from the Bay Area, and then such an influx into Las Vegas. And I know those sports franchises in Las Vegas have been fairly successful thus far, but also the teams. I mean, the Golden Knights were good right away.

And also, there just are not nearly as many games in those sports. I mean, it's one thing to have football. It's another thing to have 81 home games a year. So I just don't know. Those franchises have gotten some support. And sure, I mean, there's a lot of tourist trade there. Would you be like, I'm going to go to Vegas to see the A's? While I'm in Vegas,

I'm going to go see the A's? Just, it seems like, you know, it's not a big media market. It's not a huge population market. And it seems like it could be one sports franchise too many for that city to support well. You know, I know there have been challenges

with having two teams in the Bay Area too, but a lot of that is just the ballpark and the ownership and everything. It's not, you know, the fan base. The fans are very into the A's. So, yeah, there are some issues here. You know, it was like, it's ironic because Mason Miller gets summoned from AAA. I mean, that's where the A's from Las Vegas, that's where their AAA team is. And they've drawn fairly well, I think, by PCL standards. They're close to the top of the league in attendance. So I guess that's a positive sign. But like, could you keep playing there? Could you have your AAA affiliate and your big league team there? big league team there? And also the thing I really wonder about is like, they're talking about the ballpark not being ready until 2027. Right. What do you do until then? What do you do until then? You can't stay. I mean, I don't think there's ever been a case of a baseball team like announcing that it was leaving and then staying that long after everyone knew that it was just like, I mean, that seems not viable. That seems untenable. Yeah. I mean, you look at the atmosphere now where they've driven everyone away, like, what will it be like over the next few years knowing that you're just counting down

the days? I mean, that's like continuing to cohabitate with an ex or so. It's like you break up and you have to keep living together for a while because someone has to move out and find somewhere else to live. And I'm sure that has been done painlessly and successfully at times, but it sure seems fraught because how do you move on when the person that you're breaking up with is right there under the same roof and you're probably still fighting and emotions are raw and everything. I mean, that's what it would be like, or it would just be a total ghost town because what reason would you have to support them at all?

Well, and you still have the problem of the fact that that ballpark is rapidly becoming a place that just is not a major league facility. It's a possum habitat. place that just is not a major league facility like it's a possum habitat it's a possum habitat when when the visiting broadcast booth like literally can't do its job where it's supposed to because of like vermin sorry possums this is not an anti-possum podcast no this is a you're a useful prop in this moment podcast like what what is the interim four years gonna gonna look like and also don't they have a lease renewal somewhere in there if i'm the city of oakland i would just say sorry we're tearing this sucker down go play in your your triple a park for a couple of years if you want to i could do that i mean the capacity there is like 10,000 or something. I mean, that's not very big

league. But then again, the A's are not very big league these days. And they probably do just fine right now with a 10,000 person capacity because they're not exceeding that all that often anymore. So unless they're suddenly going to start investing in the team again, like on the one hand, it's, stop drawing this out, stop doing the, you know, stop drawing this out. Stop doing the major league situation. Stop having this lame duck franchise. Like, let's not make this any more protracted

than it already is. Like, at least, you know, it's like losing a loved one to a long illness or something. It's like you hate when it happens, but it's almost like a relief when they're not suffering anymore and you can start to mourn in a different way. I mean but it's almost like a relief when they're not suffering anymore and you

can start to mourn in a different way. I mean, it's not exactly the same with a fan base and a franchise, but it's not entirely dissimilar. So at least like now, if you're an A's fan, I mean, probably a lot of A's fans just feel like everything is so cynical and we were used and how can I even follow this sport anymore? I mean, I would hope that not all A's fans will lose their love of baseball, that they'll be able to transfer their loyalty to another team that wants them or just become fans of baseball at large, which is a position that we've advocated or adopted. So it can be done, but also it probably can't be done immediately because there's going to be some period of time where you're still smarting from this. It all feels so, for a situation that seems like it was designed to leverage Oakland against itself in service of a future city city it also feels so unplanned and sort of hackneyed like again what is the plan for the next couple of years it's so hot ben it's so hot

in the middle of the day there also they're going to be playing on the moon like this is another ballpark that's going to have i mean like you've seen what the numbers are like coming out of that place for AAA. Like it's not a typical. Crank up the humidor. Yeah, it's not a normal offensive environment. So you have the elements of playing there. You have the fact that it is, you know, in a place that might not have water in 15 years. It is, I just, I, what is the plan?

How is this really the thing that Major League Baseball wants? And like part of this is, of course, being facilitated by the fact that like Major League Baseball is now just like a pro gambling outfit, right? Like I can't imagine we end up with a franchise in Vegas if the, you know, wins hadn't shifted on the question of gambling. I mean, that's probably true of any of these sports. Again, other sports playing there, winter sports, Ben, winter sports.

And sometimes it's very hot in September and October in Vegas. I don't mean to say that that can't happen, but winter sports, they are winter sports. Baseball, famously not really a winter sports, although if they ever play postseason ball there, I'm sure it'll be lovely. Just like, what is the plan? This sucks. This really sucks. It does. Yeah. Also, like, what happens to all the people who work for the A's? Congratulations, you have to move to Vegas now? Yeah, probably. Or you're out of a job. Yeah. It's rough.

It's rough all around. Yeah. And the contrast is striking. The two teams whose ballpark situations have been unresolved for some time, the Rays and the A's, where every time Manfred is asked about expansion, he's like, we got to figure out the Rays and the A's first. Which makes sense because, of course, the way that they work these deals out is the leverage, right? And so if they were to add teams, then they would take away potential markets that those teams could threaten to move to. So, of course, they want to sort those situations out before they expand. So if you are someone who wants to see expansion happen, I guess this is a hurdle that had to be cleared or knocked over one way or the other. But

you have the Rays and their unending ballpark uncertainty, and they've outscored their opponents by 83 runs. Right. They at least win. They're winning. And then the A's have been outscored by 86 runs. I mean, they're at opposite ends of the spectrum here with these near-historic run differentials. And yeah, if you're going to be in limbo a little bit and keep your fans kind of guessing about whether you'll be around for the long haul, at least you could keep winning while you're doing it. That would be nice.

You could be an entertaining team and the A's just went full major league instead. So I don't know. The only thing I can think is that like just the depths that they've sunk to and how unwatchable they are. And just the message that they've sent, the signal that they've sent that we don't even want you to watch this team or come to this ballpark. Maybe that makes it easier to turn the page in a way just to be spiteful. I mean, they've been spiteful. So just to say, well, fine, like you've driven us away.

You know, maybe we don't feel as much for this franchise as we used to because they have just sort of, it's scorched earth, you know? So it sucks. You know, it's not the first time that they've relocated and it's not the second time that they've relocated. So the athletics will go on. They're just an itinerant team. They're a traveling team. Maybe they should be like one of those indie ball teams that just like has no home and just travels around everywhere. It's just a traveling team permanently. It's almost what they've been like. But they were in Oakland longer than they were anywhere else. And they were there for a really long time. And it's been quite a long time since Eddie Fridge has relocated, almost 20 years. So it's as inevitable as it seemed or as long in the making as it seems. It still just sort of sent shockwaves, I think, when that news broke.

Yeah, but if they were a traveling team, they wouldn't go play in the middle of the desert. Probably not, no. Condolences to A's fans. If you want to write in and vent, please do and share your thoughts and we will listen. Yeah, crummy day for everyone involved. I'm very sorry. I'm just very sorry. Yeah, me too.

Well, maybe this will cheer you up. I've got a Boris metaphor for you. It's something. So Stephanie Epstein wrote a piece for Sports Illustrated talking to Soto and Boris. And it's about basically how Soto says they cut off negotiations with the Nationals when he says the Nationals leaked the terms of the discussion or what was going on there. And he took that as a betrayal and said no more. And there's a Boris quote in here. So Soto's agent, Scott Boris, says San Diego has not made an offer as to an extension. He adds that he does not take its lack of overture to mean Soto is not a priority,

quote, just because you have all the ingredients, when you have the oven sitting there for two years, it doesn't mean you have to bake the cake today. What? That's always the reaction, isn't it? Once on first read, on first hear. So what he's saying is, I think basically that they don't have to do it immediately. So the fact that they have not made an extension offer and the way he is playing to date this season, they might not feel a great urgency until he inevitably heats up. But he's

saying you have the ingredients, you got the Padres there, you got Soto there, you got Peter Seidler's money there. So you have the ingredients, but the oven will be sitting there for a while because he's not at free agency yet. So you don't have to bake the cake today. You can wait because the oven's there and you got the ingredients and you can take your time baking the cake. Well, that is subjectively true. You know, you don't get rid of your oven on non-cake days. You're not like, get out of here. Right. It depends on whether the ingredients are perishable, I guess. You still don't get rid of the oven even if the ingredients are perishable.

That is true. But the ingredients, you might not want to wait two years. Sometimes they spoil. Sure. Well, yes, to be clear, particularly since some or many cakes call for dairy, definitely not a two-year kind of experience there, you know, got to replenish. But see, here's the nice thing, you know, if we want to extend the metaphor, they will keep playing baseball and good baseball in the meantime, and then you will replenish those supplies because you can buy new eggs, right. Or different milk or fresh butter or, you know, or you know, I, even for two years, like a lot of the,

the substitutes you might use if you were say trying to, to bake without any animal byproducts, you might still need to replace them, but it still holds right. That those pieces could still go into the, you could get new ones, put them into the oven oven stays, you know, like the oven is, I guess, Petco in this case, because unlike other small market teams that we might describe as chumps.

We would not use that word to describe the Padres because they're like, we like this oven. It works very well. It is picturesque even. Maybe the highlight, you know, the coming together place, because you know how when you entertain in the living room comes to the kitchen, even when you put snacks in the living room. You're like, I've put the crudite over there in the hopes of establishing better flow. And everyone's like, no, I just want to hang out in the kitchen because that's where the cook is.

Right. And you want to hang out with the cook. I guess, is the cook AJ Preller or is the cook Seidler? Like, I can't. Anyway, they're the hosts, right? They're hosting together. Anyway. I think probably Seidler's the cook and Preller's the sous chef or something. Oh, yeah. Okay. Good, good. Yes. Very good. Or like, you know, in some households,

you have a person who's like, my job is the cooking piece. And then the other person's job is like, I'm going to make cocktails, and then the other person's job is like, I'm going to make cocktails. You know, I make cocktails. So maybe you're a cocktail maker. You know, you got to do it. Yes, chef. Anyway, here's something else Scott Boras said.

This was in relation to one of his other high-profile clients, Max Scherzer, and the recent sticky stuff situation surrounding Scherzer. I can't believe it took us this long to get to that, really. Well, here's what Boris said trying to defend Scherzer. MLB standards and rules enforcement should mandate and require an objective, verifiable standard. If you want to attack the integrity of the competition, you need clear, precise standards

or else you damage the game and its players. The Cuzzy on-field spectrometer is not the answer that's one of my favorite lines it's it's it if it isn't a band by the end of the week we don't have a civilization ben you know this isn't a society anymore so good phil kazi the umpire who was inspecting him, the Cussey on-field spectrometer. I love it. On-field spectrometer. The Cussey quotes were great too, because I guess it was Dan Bellino, the home plate umpire. Can I? Yeah, please. This brought me, as far as level of stickiness, this is the stickiest it's been since I've been inspecting hands, which now go back three seasons. It was far more than we've ever seen before on a picture in live action. Yeah. It was so sticky that when we touched his hand, our fingers were sticking to

his hand. I love, I mean, it gets very silly sometimes and sometimes things are inconsistently applied, but I don't care. It's all worth it just for umpires talking about stickiness. I love that. It's rosin, just rosin, like yelling. You know, the things you have to yell in a work context are just, you know, it's like, it's a level of ridiculous that is so apparent. that is so apparent. Like, on the one hand,

I'm sympathetic to the notion that we are leveling a meaningful suspension. And granted, like, he's a starter. So, like, this is, what, 10 games is like two starts, probably. You know, we're leveling, like, a meaningful automatic suspension based on the perceptions of umpires who are not scientists, right? They are not actually spectrometers. They're guys. So, I can appreciate why one

would feel nervous about automatic punishment in the face of an unscientific process, right? And it is interesting that I think a number of people have noted that of the three instances, I think that we're aware of, of a guy getting ejected for having sticky stuff, because he's been at the center of all of those, right? Yes. Yeah, he's taken those guidelines seriously. He's taking them seriously. And so, we are presented with, I think, well, three options, right? And we will use them, we will label them as we would, you know, porridge presented to different bears, right? person doing this well is phil cussie right that he is the only one applying the appropriate level of sticky vigor to this situation right and that you know his comrades in arms are are falling down on the job right and that we should in theory have if we are taking enforcement seriously, more ejections rather than no

ejections. Like, the relative dearth of ejections could be read as this is not an appropriately robust enforcement environment, right? That's one interpretation. The other, another interpretation is that, like, actually, this is just right. Like, he is, when faced with particularly sticky stuff, the stickiest stuff, stuff that stayed on his hands, Ben. It stayed on his hands for innings, you know, so sticky. That, like, he is detecting the worst offenders and that he is ejecting them appropriately. And then we have the possibility that he is a petty despot and needs to be disciplined himself. Right. And I feel like those are the that's the range of potential interpretations of this situation. And like, it's going to be emotional. And you have a guy who's very intense when he's on the mound. And so the it's a rosin. It's rosin! Sweat and rosin, sweat and rosin.

Sweat and rosin! I don't want to over or underreact to this situation, because I know that a lot of people, in a way that they don't find pleasing, read umpires as cops, right? And they're like, this is, you know, the exercising of a power that they are delighting in in a way that is troubling and potentially problematic although i would say um the fact that there have been so few of these ejections suggests that maybe that's not true in this instance right that there is not an overabundance of enforcement but maybe there is with el kazi but maybe max jersey just had some really sticky stuff on his hands like you know like he had the stickiest stuff. The stickiest, because he said, far stickier than anything that we felt certainly today and anything this year. Anything this year. TMI, Phil. I don't need to know how many sticky things you felt, but this was the stickiest. I enjoyed the post-game

protest by Scherzer where he's going, I'd have to be an idiot to just come back out there, which, you know, there's something to that because he was warned, obviously. And given the opportunity to take it off, right? And so, like, you know, Max, Max, but also Phil. Yeah. I mean, it takes some courage if you're Phil Cousy to go after. I mean, that's like, that's a Toreador getting in the ring with the bull. I mean, goodness. Max Scherzer in the middle of a game mode on the mound. I would not want to cross him and go back multiple times to feel his hands.

And we've seen him, I mean, two years ago when the enforcement stuff started where he had one of the more viral demonstrative reactions, just like, you know, taking his belt off, just like drop the trowel, basically, like, inspect me wherever you want. But yeah, he was running out of patience here. I'm all for strict enforcement of this because I do think that sticky stuff keeps coming back and the spin rates keep rising when left alone. And I do think there are effects of that and you want more balls in play. And really, like, that's one way to try to restrain the strikeouts is to keep the sticky stuff down. But it does have to be consistent standards and standards that you can sort of stay within in the course of normal events. So it's hard. I mean, this was always said to be one hurdle here was that like, well, how are you going

to stay within these boundaries if you're allowed to have rosin and you can sweat, but you're not allowed to have it on certain parts? You know, it can't be on your glove or whatever. It's like, how are you going to keep it off of there? So it's because it's going to go everywhere. It's sticky and sweaty and clumpy was one word that Scherzer used. Clumpy. I used to see a doctor about that. Yeah. Anyway, I mean, look, if it happens every now and then, and it's as entertaining as it was in this case, if you had to pick someone to pick on, again, you have to be brave to do it

with Scherzer, but it does lead to a very theatrical reaction, which was entertaining, at least. So, it's not the worst thing from an entertainment value standpoint, but I wouldn't want anyone to be doing things legally and trying to stay within the rules and still running afoul of them. Right. And that's the piece of this that is still potentially kind of concerning, right? And so, I don't know what the right answer is because you got to keep it moving, you know? We don't, how long does chemistry take, Ben? You know, like, what is the average length of a of a chemistry yeah well as you have said of a chemistry you know somewhere out there we have a listener who's like the chemistry's really fallen off on this pod you know they went from jeff to megan then it

just really fell off like the chemistry not not the not the harder to quantify vibe chemistry that remains very strong but the science the literal chemistry it it has fallen off can i confess something kind of embarrassing ben sure i've never taken chemistry really yeah i it look i'll tell you why okay it's not because i'm opposed to science because that would be absurd but but it just, it just so happened. It just so happened, Ben,

that when I was a junior in high school, I had a scheduling conflict with the time that I could have taken chemistry. That was very complicated because I was a nerd loser and I was doing theater and also this other stuff and had an AP course. So anyway, and I was in pre-calc. So, I was at a sufficient math level that I could just take physics. And so, then I just ended up taking two years of physics.

I just took physics for two years instead of taking chemistry. And so, there's this big hole in my knowledge. I don't know that it's that different than the people who've actually taken chemistry. Yeah, I don't know how much I retained. Gone on to become chemist. I don't know how much's that different than the people who've actually taken chemistry and then not gone on to become chemists. I don't know how much of the physics I retained, and I took two years of that. So, anyway. But as you've said, can't we just do the TSA swab test? Does that only work for explosives?

Could it not work for spider attack or something? Or, or, Ben, Ben, Ben. I have it. I have, oh my God, I have the perfect Ben. The Rowley on-field spectrometer. No, no, no. We need to train adorable dogs to smell the sticky stuff. Yeah, sticky sniffing dogs. Snicky sniffing dogs. Cannot say the words. Sticky stuff sniffing dogs. Now, I am generally opposed to further deputizing dogs into the police, but in this case, I think it solves a lot

of problems. One, is it more scientific? I actually don't know. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the like dog sniffing stuff is kind of junk science. Like, I don't know for sure, but it feels like it could be, right? Doesn't it feel like it could? I mean, they have really good noses, but like- Yeah, they have amazing nos Like, I don't know for sure, but it feels like it could be, right? Doesn't it feel like it could, I mean, they have really good noses, but like- Yeah, they have amazing noses. They do. But doesn't it sometimes suggest like a precision that you are a little skeptical of?

Not to, I don't want to doubt dogs, okay? This is not a doubt, dog doubting podcast. Although I do sometimes doubt the dogs. So, but you train an adorable dog to smell the sticky stuff. And first of all, here's what it cuts out of. Cuts out. Confrontation. Because Max Scherzer, look, he's very intense.

He's not going to yell at a dog. He's not a monster, right? He's an intense competitor. He's not a sociopath. So, he's not going to yell at a dog also the dog has dogs or has had dogs yeah yeah right i think that i think in fact i think in fact if i were dogs as of yeah a couple years ago i think he and his wife like part of their charitable work is some yeah is some animal wellness stuff yes well first yeah they cover

adoption fees yeah for dogs yeah so he's not gonna yell at a dog because he we already know he loves dogs right we have this on record so he loves dogs not gonna yell at the dog also it it would be i mean it's probably more scientific than phil cuzzy touching your hands and like think of the think of how cute it would be because you present your hands and they smell them and then you give you'd give them like a little good boy and and that would be great and there would be times i'm sure where the dogs would get really excited and they'd like jump up on on the pictures and be like hey i'm such a good boy and they go oh you're such a good boy and then like the the bat dogs when the bat dogs get distracted sometimes that's a

heartwarming moment everyone loves everyone loves that yeah yeah and like in some places maybe the dogs could have multiple jobs like maybe you say hey we have an off day today oakland is sticky stuffed dog why don't you go see about that possum you know and i'm not saying you should eat the possum because this isn't an animal cruelty podcast either i'm saying he should chase the possum because this isn't an animal cruelty podcast either. I'm saying he should chase the possum away. Just chase it. He doesn't have to hurt it. He just has to chase it. This is a great idea.

You've cracked the case. I think I've cracked it. I think, you know, I solved this. I was an early adopter of the, you know, the challenge system. They should just hire me for a day. Like, it doesn't have to be a whole week even. I just, I'll give them some ideas, you know? Yeah. No, this is great. Next time someone says you're commissioner for a day, what do you do?

Sticky stuffed dogs. Sticky sniffing dogs. First order of business is that. Okay. Yeah, this is great. It's not awkward at all. I mean, everyone's used to being sniffed and felt by dogs, right? So, there will be none of this like, oh, I don't know about holding this other man's hand in public. Yeah, no, I think that people should not be silly about that. Now, there might be some people who are afraid of dogs. And so, in that instance, they should be able to have the umpire do the check because I don't want to make anybody nervous. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Like, you know, who is it who's afraid of cats? Somebody's afraid of cats. I don't know. I'm mildly allergic to them. Someone, some baseball player is afraid of cats and like his teammates kept like surprising him with a cat not a real cat like a stuff Eduardo Escobar Eduardo Escobar yeah there's so many specific personal things about him I know about what he likes yeah what he likes to eat and the the cat thing I know that about him that's weird because we've never met you know Eduardo how are you I mean it's not great no

wonder you can't have him over because you got cats so you don't want to be there anyway well and he doesn't live here anymore so you know there's that too there's that yeah there is a FOGO nearby I think so he'd be okay on that score yeah so I was gonna transition from I don't have a Boris quote to go with this but from Soto to his teammate Fernando Tatis Jr. is back. As of today, Thursday. As of today. We've not yet seen him play, but he's back. One of the main characters of baseball, sort of a disgraced character of late.

But Fernando Tatis will be back and playing in right field, presumably. Weird that Fernando Tatis will be in right field. And meanwhile, it sounds like Mookie Betts might play shortstop one of these days. So that would be fun. Didn't see that coming. The future where Mookie's playing shortstop and Tatis is not in the NL West. Anyway, Fernando Tatis coming back.

The Padres need him. They have barely scored of late. Their last four games they have scored a combined two runs. So that lineup has not been as vaunted as it was supposed to be. They're 24th in runs scored and 21st in WRC+, which is weird when you just look at the names. And the names are going to be even more impressive when Fernando Tatis is in that lineup. So I am really excited to see what he'll do.

Like he's been tearing it up in AAA, right? He, I think he hit five homers in the space of one game, basically like from one game to the next, he, he hit five combined across them, but like in basically one game's worth of,

of playing time. So he's been hitting down there. I think he's ready. I think he is ready for a promotion. So we'll see, you know, this highly touted prospect for Nertatis Jr. coming up from AAA. And I'm very curious to see how quickly, if at all, he can put the events of the last couple of years behind him. You know, will he go back to being as great as he was last time we saw him on a big league field? Will people hold the PD suspension against him? You know, what does he have to do to reduce that stigma the way that his now teammate Nelson Cruz has? Where, you know, it's not the first thing that comes to mind anymore when you think about him. Be delightful and take care of younger players for a decade well yeah play until you're should play for the next 20 years be a veteran mentor yeah but i think also playing at an mvp

level again would go a long way so yeah will he be the same player post-suspension, post-long layoff, post-wrist issues, post-shoulder issues? I mean, there's a lot of baggage there, but it would not be at all surprising to me if he just went right back to playing at a high level and you know you're right that i did not expect the padres to be 21st i really didn't expect the cubs to have the fourth highest wrc plus that's very surprising pittsburgh being at nine they have the same wrc plus as the phillies and rangers now granted you know they will continue to just not have O'Neal Cruz for a while, so that you might expect to shift around. Yeah, wow. Like, the Red Sox? The Boston Red Sox?

What? It's still early. It's still early. But anyway, it's really sad. You click into the Boston Red Sox and it's like, Adam um anyway oh it's really sad you click into the boston red socks and it's like adam dupont oh yeah bummer man anyway yeah i wouldn't be surprised if he makes a splash i don't know if he'll still be rusty or whether the rehab assignment has been long enough to knock the rest off anyway but curious to see how he'll be in the outfield. Curious to see if he'll still have the bat, if he'll just still play with the same Joie de vivre.

I mean, you know, will he go back to being everyone's favorite young player for Nuno Tatis Jr.? Here's what I think would be good. Are you ready? I think that what might help is if he has some mistakes in the outfield and then is really good because i think that you know people interact with the ped stuff in a in a a delicate way you know and on the one hand i think you're right that coming back and being like really really good will certainly um endear him to padres fans but it might have the reverse, the opposite, um, effect for,

for fans of other teams, right? Because they might read that as him just continuing to be cheating. Um, which I don't say like, I think he's going to do that. I just, you know,

know how people react to the cheating stuff. And so it's, it's tricky. Cause like one of the things that made him so dynamic and fun was that like Joie de vivre that he played with. And that can, I think, read differently to people who are sort of looking for a reason to read him as being like unrepentant or cocky. And so it's a tricky thing to have to balance. Now, what he could just say is I'm just going to play as good as I can and people will say whatever they say because I don't actually have a ton

of control over them. And I would say that is a very evolved way of thinking about it. But I wonder, maybe he makes a mistake and then he looks bashful about it and then he's really good after that. And then people will be like, oh, Fernando. Speaking of the Padres, we were talking about based Rob Manfred the other day, and you were saying, no, he's not. We should not be so quick to compliment him. And he did come out and talk about limiting contract lengths. He said, a reform that has been of interest to ownership for a number of years is a limitation of contract length. Obviously, players love it.

It gives them financial security for a very long period of time. The difficulty, and I think players will come to appreciate this as time goes by, those contracts result in a transfer from the current stars to yesterday's stars. At some point, that has to be true. And I think it is an issue that is important for us to stay focused on because it creates inflexibility that affects the quality of the teams that you put on the field. But Robert, Rob. Yeah. Okay. So then pay the other guys sooner.

What are you talking about, man? Sure. Yeah. No, I mean, that sounds very much like some sort of argument to try to make this more palatable to players, which I'm sure will not work. Tony Clark came out with a strongly worded rebuke of this, but it's funny because it's like. Also, the teams want to be doing that. Well, yeah, it is very much like we're all looking for the guy

who did this sort of situation. Wow, I really entered a register I was not prepared for. It crapped out like real fast. But it is, I guess it's that the teams that are handing out those long-term deals are being willing to, you know, this seems like an anti-Padres, anti-Mets sort of, those aren't the only teams that were handed out 10-plus year contracts this past offseason. And it's obviously, I'm not surprised that Manfred would be against that also because, as we've discussed, it is sort of a way of skirting the CBA when it comes to the competitive balance tax and spreading it out over more years. Whether you look at it as trying to do an end around that or not, there have been at least talks about teams that considered doing it in a way that it would be kind of obvious that they were trying to lower the average annual value.

So, you know, to the extent that he is still very married to the payroll suppression tax, which is basically what it is, then, of course, he would be against teams trying to get around it by just tacking years on. And because it's only certain teams and certain owners that were doing that, then I guess it's probably the mass of other owners. All the rumbles and rumors we heard about owners being miffed about the Padres and the Mets, those are probably the owners that this reform is of interest to them, not necessarily to every team, but also, yeah, it's some owners who are handing out those deals. Yeah. And they're not just doing it because they're kind. No. So, a couple last things. I noticed the other day, I was watching some baseball on the Yes Network. Brag. Could it be because the Angels were playing the Yankees? Possibly. But I was watching an Amazon game. One of the games was on Amazon.

The one thing that I do like about the games being on streaming services, the video quality is really good. Not that it's bad on MLB TV, but you watch a game on Apple TV Plus and it's like 4K and you've got all these cool cameras and everything. It's kind of nice. Get rid of the weird odds and we're in business. Right. So yes, basically. And this is not new. I went back to confirm that they were doing this

last year too. And while I confirmed that, I saw the FTX patches on the umpire outfits, which was very funny in retrospect. It's like much in the same way that when we watch 2020 highlights and see cardboard cutouts in the stands it brings you back to a certain time and place those ftx patches really did the same not not happy memories in either case anyway what yes does and maybe it's not the only broadcast that does this but it on the k zone will put the pitch velocity. So, you know, like the little dot goes up to mark the pitch location and then right under that is the pitch speed. In addition to having the pitch speed on the chyron, like on the top or bottom. So it's kind of weird that it's in two places. And it was confusing to

me at first because I saw a batted ball. I was watching a highlight and I just happened to see a batted ball. And then the speed flashed right under the location of the ball that was hit. And I thought, oh, that's the exit speed. They're telling me how hard the ball was hit. And no, it wasn't that. It was the pitch speed. And that was kind of confusing because the pitch speed was different from the batted ball speed. And I expected to see one and it was the other. And you're displaying it in multiple places. But that made me realize I don't know of any broadcast. And I asked Chris Hannell, who's our Chiron expert listener, and he wasn't aware of any broadcasts that just show live exit speeds of batted balls just routinely. You know, like you hear them cited, obviously, often, and you might see a replay and they'll tell you how fast it was or there might be a graphic or something. But you don't see it flashed just as a matter of course be with MLB working on Baseball Savant and StatCast. He's with the Rangers front office now. And in 2016, he tweeted, mark my words, exit velocity will be just like pitch velocity in five to ten years. It'll be on every broadcast for every at bat. So that was, what, seven years ago. So we're still in the five to 10 year range there. It hasn't happened, doesn't seem even close to happening. Tom Tango, who's still at MLB working

on StackCast, he responded to that tweet. This is, again, March of 2016. He said, I think in two to three years on every broadcast and one to two years on half of them. So this is the heady days of StatCast and exit velocity. And there were estimates of five to 10 years or two to three years or one to two years, we'd be seeing it to be pervasive. And it's still not, right? As far as I know, there's no broadcast that shows it just routinely like every batted ball. And I'm sure a lot of people are fine with that and say, we don't need that. And I don't want another number cluttering up my screen and my experience. And that's fine. But I think I would welcome it.

Like if you're going to be showing me the pitch speed on every pitch and possibly even in two places, then I would like to see the batted ball speed because it does actually tell you something sometimes, you know, sometimes the ball coming off the bat, it looks one way to you. And then you realize after a few seconds and you see the trajectory and the camera angle changes and you realize, oh, that was not hit as hard as I thought it was, right? So if in that initial angle, before it switches to the field view and you can see how the ball is traveling, if it said like, oh, this is 105 or this is 85 or something, you know, broadly you can tell just from looking, but you can't always tell perfectly. And that would actually, I feel like, make me smarter when it comes to anticipating the result of that batted ball,

of that contact. Because if I saw 105 or 110 or whatever, I'd be like, oh, okay, this is exciting. I mean, you can kind of tell it's hard contact, but it can be deceptive sometimes. So I'm sort of surprised that that hasn't happened there don't seem to be any inroads when it comes to displaying that that regularly maybe other people appreciate mystery more than you do ben could be yeah i think of that maintain the suspense for another second or two yeah i think that broadcasts kind of i'm fine with broadcasts sort of picking their spots um when it comes to well i'm kind of fine with them picking their spots when it comes to a lot of stuff but

with like sometimes um i don't know i'm of two minds about home runs because on the one hand sometimes they'll like you know they put up the exit velocity on like an aaron judge home run and they're like it was so hard and i was like. Yeah. You know, put up the ones where he hits it like only a little bit where he's like, like half swing. I think you're right that it can be deceptive. And sometimes you think like, wow, that was so well struck. And then you're like, it was just sort of okay. Okayly struck. It was well, it was whelmed, you know, it's a whelming kind of batted ball.

But I'm not saying it doesn't tell you anything i'm just saying i don't feel compelled to see it because i think that like it's really nice to have pitch velocity for a lot of reasons like not the least of which is that if you're sitting at home like when you know the the velo of a pitcher can like be a data point when you're like what was that you know you're sitting at home and you're like i don't know what that was and like one of the things that can help you figure that out is like how how hard it is and so i think that it's and you know like it's later in the in the game and all of a sudden well it's not throwing so as hard and you're like oh

it's pretty warm like i think that it is it tells you it can tell you multiple things at once in a way that makes it useful to have on the screen um and on the exit velo stuff i'm like you know sometimes take it or leave it you know so yeah that's that's yeah and i'd be fine with a more minimal broadcast if you want a more clean looking just not everything cluttered up with numbers, that's okay. But if you are going to clutter it up with numbers, if you're going to show me pitch speed in multiple places on every pitch

and you're going to put it in the K zone where the contact was, then I'd rather just see how hard it was hit than how hard it was thrown in multiple places. I'm just, you know, like, just like flash it. You can do a little swappity-do. I'd be fine with a swappity-do. Yeah. I don't know if there's a technical issue here, like whether maybe the exit speed is not transmitted as instantaneously as the pitch speed is, and that that's why it hasn't been adopted

as quickly, but it seems to be pretty speedy. So I don't know if that is getting in the way of this happening, but I just, I'd like to see it a little more often now that we know what a good exit speed is. Cause in 2016, I mean, we've had years of explaining like what is a hard hit ball and it's, it's kind of intuitive because it's not that different from the pitch speed scale, but just knowing how important hitting the ball hard is and the years of education that's gone on with that. And I know a lot of people are fed up and are like, I don't want to hear about exit speed. I know hitting the ball hard is good. You'd think that would be obvious, but then you have a lot of people questioning whether hitting the ball hard is good or why

we would ever need to know that. So I'd like to see it just kind of flashed after the contact, maybe somewhere, at least if we're going to have as many numbers as we do currently. I think that might add something to my spectator experience. Also, we should have mentioned, I think, Hobie Milner last time. A couple people pointed out this was Hobie Milner erasure because we did a Meet a Major Leaguer about Hobie Harris and Hogan Harris. And I was talking about how Hobie Harris is the first Hobie since the late, the recently departed Hobie Landreth. But, of course, there's Hobie Milner. It's just spelled differently. It's not a H-O-B-I-E.

It's an H-O-B-Y. Yeah. I bet he gets called hobby too. Hobie Harris was with the Brewers and the Miners last year. So we could have had a scenario where we had multiple Hobies on the same pitching staff if he had stayed with the Brewers and made the majors there. Could have had double Hobie action. Yeah. And then I would have Hobie, double Hobie, like double. I don't know. I got to keep working on it.

I'm going to keep working on it. I'm happy to have both Hobies even in separate places and with separate spellings. The more Hobies, the better, frankly. Underutilized name. Yeah. I meant to mention last week when this was first announced, but did you see the news about the Marlins having a Bartman promotion? So the Marlins, they announced that they were going to have a Steve Bartman appreciation weekend when the Cubs visit Miami later this month. And yeah, terrible idea.

Like, stop picking on Steve Bartman. Yeah, leave the guy alone. Yeah, the idea, I guess, is that, you know, 20th anniversary and the Cubs are coming to town and we're the Marlins. So we're desperate to get people to come to the park. So Steve Bartman appreciation. And Bartman is like, he's been picked on for so long. It's like changed the course of his life. Yeah. And he's talked about like, he just kind of wants to be left alone and like, he doesn't

want people to, you know, do things like this without consulting him and everything. So there was a round of backlash, as there should have been, I think, to this idea. And the Marlins fortunately have walked it back, but have walked it back in an amusing way, at least to me, which is that, so basically they sent out this marketing email and a bunch of media members got it. And it said Bartman Appreciation Weekend, April 28th to 30th, and it showed Jazz Chisholm on the top left and Juan Pierre on the top right. And some people had blogs and tweets about this and everything. And then it came out. This came from the Marlins ticket office, and everyone was like, well, this sucks. And then there was a subsequent report,

I think, uh, like a day or days later where it was reported by, uh, Andy Slater, I think was the one who, who got this scoop, if you can call it that he's, you know, like a Miami talk show person on air person and he said slater scoop i love having branded scoops the mass the marlins tell me there were never plans for a bartman promotion and this graphic was sent in error what a new email will be sent out with the correct graphic i am told so so they're trying to say oh we never meant to do this it has nothing to do with the fact that so many people condemned it immediately. No, this was a mistake. Just an honest mistake here. Never meant to do Abartment Appreciation Weekend. Never actually planned it. Didn't mean to send out this graphic. How plausible is that like it's not they're lying i'm sorry not at all i mean could that happen like could you either have had like some rogue employee who did that just like as a troll job or someone made the graphic internally just as a joke and i don't know like how does that how does it go from that to sending out a mass email though is the thing it doesn't accidentally that no yeah i don't think so

no i think they're lying i'm sorry like i don't want to accuse anyone of anything but i'm accusing them of lying i think that they're that's you you gotta like they got graphics involved you know somebody like spent part of their day doing that and then like had to open up mail chimp or whatever the hell and like send it to a bunch of people. Like I just say, you know, we thought better of this. We got some feedback and you're right. Yeah. It doesn't sound plausible, but I'm glad it's not happening either way. And lastly, my attention was directed to an article in the sporting news that said Jared Kelnick is finally producing like the Mets wanted,

parentheses, sorry, New York. And this was kind of funny because this is kind of a transparent traffic ploy, I guess. Jared Kelnick, he's doing well. He's seventh in Expo, but just a few spots behind Yanti Diaz. But we've talked about his hot streak too. But this made me wonder how many times since that trade was made, has the perception swung about who won the deal, right? Like how many discrete changes in perceived leadership or victory of that trade? Because that was December 3rd, 2018. So, so you know four and a half years ago that trade was made where kelnick went with gerson brattista jay bruce justin dunn anthony swarczak swarczak to the mariners for robinson cano edwin diaz and cash yeah so like i the initial perception i'm sure it varied sure but you know like people were kind of like, oh, they gave up a lot with Kelnick, right? I mean, obviously excited to get Edwin Diaz and Robinson Cano was, even though he was old at that point, he was still productive. But Kelnick was a really highly touted prospect and a lot of people thought, oh, the Mets will rue this day down the road. Yeah. But then Edwin Diaz went from being like lights out incredible closer

to like five plus ERA guy. Right. And then we know what happened with Cano, right? With the PD suspensions and not playing well anymore. But then Edwin Diaz went back to being an incredible closer in 2020. But then 2021, he wasn't quite as great. And then 2022, he was unbelievably great. And then this year, of course, he's out for the year because of his injury. And meanwhile, Jared Kelnick and his prospect rankings, his fortunes were only improving. But then when he got to the big leagues,

it looked like he might be a bust. Yeah. So like how many times, I wonder if you were to take the temperature on this trade at various discrete points over the past four and a half years, like how much, what percentage of the time would, would the Mets have been perceived as the winners?

And what percentage of the time would the Mariners have been perceived as the winners? Cause like, obviously if Kelnick has a great season this year, well, Diaz is out for the year. Then it's like, oh,

the Mets, okay, close the book. The Mets won the trade, you know? So it's just gone back and forth so many times. It just goes to show that you need to wait a while to actually pronounce a victor.

At least, you know, when it comes to the results, you should probably pronounce the victor based on day one, what you knew at the time but also when you're looking retroactively that can also swing several times right and like you know i remember at the time mariners fans were excited because the perception was well they've they've moved this money right they've gotten out from under the cano contract how incredible and then that

money didn't really get like reinvested in an obvious way right it wasn't like they went out i mean obviously they have signed castillo to a big extension they signed julio to a big extension but in terms of their free agent spending other than robbie ray it's been pretty modest and so like the perception of the money piece of it has changed a couple of times. And you're right. Like this year with Diaz out and Kelnick on this heater, like if he continues to have a great year, will we look and say, well, it's swung back in the Mariners favor. It's a very complicated, it's a complicated thing. I just want everyone to have a good time.

You know, it's really, I don't dislike any of the players that were involved in that in that move um and it is you know i i feel for these guys when they become these like totems of the the success of a front office and it's like they have don't they have enough pressure to do well without us being like freaking weird about it. So we'll see if this is the last time that perception changes or if this isn't actually the Kellnick breakout and then Edwin Diaz comes back. How dare you?

Yeah, I mean, I guess Edwin Diaz is on a new deal now. So even if he continues to do well. Right, he signed his own big contract, right? Can you count that toward the trade or not? If you might not still have him. You might not assign that extension if you hadn't traded for him. But at some point, it doesn't really count toward the trade. It's like a new separate kind of arrangement.

I think it is and it isn't, right? Because on the one hand, sure. But also, clearly it went well or they wouldn't have wanted to assign him to that extension. So that's a that's a consideration i mean i think that for me the ideal scenario is kelnick is incredible this year awesome and then diaz comes back and he's his old self and then like then then ben we could have like you know them being really good and because we have you know a balanced schedule now we could have really good Kellnick facing

really good Edwin Diaz and then we can keep litigating this forever, but at the end of it it'll be like, oh, they're so great. They're both of them. I want everyone to have a good time. Yeah, we can just decide who won the trade based on their head-to-head record. Right, right.

That's the fairest way to settle this. That is the fairest way. Single combat between That is the fairest way. Single combat between Edwin Diaz and Jared Kelnick on a baseball field. On a baseball field. Not on, not,

because, you know, Kelnick is very muscular and Edwin is still just a little skinny thing. And so I would worry about like direct combat that might be damaging to Edwin

in a way that I would not support. They have not faced each other in the majors as of yet. I guess it all comes down to whether we end up calling it the Kalnick trade or the Diaz trade. History will be written by the victor. All right. So we will end with the past blast. This comes from 1996 and from David Lewis, an architectural historian and baseball researcher based in Boston.

Here's what he has for us. Ump's lowball players in strike zone experiment. In 1996, MLB sought to change up the strike zone a bit. As another chapter in the long story of the league trying to shorten games, an idea came forth to expand the strike zone. Umpires were instructed to begin calling strikes on pitches that came in at the bottom of a batter's knee. Previously, the zone ended at the top of the knee. Presumably, it was thought that more strikes would lead to quicker at-bats and shorter games.

The only problem, at least according to a May 7, 1996 Associated Press article, was that the idea was never fully put into practice. Hitters, pitchers, catchers, managers, coaches, and even some umpiresers, managers, coaches, and even some umpires agree, the article said, the effort to drop the strike zone below the knee has disappeared. Myth is not even a close interpretation. It never happened. It never was going to happen, quipped Royals pitcher Tim Belcher. It was just a waste of paper and memos.

Umpires seem split on whether they're colleagues and they themselves were changing how they called the zone. One AL ump said he did not notice any effect on the game, while an NL ump said, from what I've seen, everyone is trying to make an honest effort to do that. Statistics seem to back up assumptions that no change had truly been made. According to the article, games in the 1996 season, at the the time of writing were an average of 2 hours 52 minutes in 1995. The average time of game was 2 hours 54 minutes. I saw an article about this in the New York Times just from February of 1996 that talked about this too. The rules committee making this announcement that the lower limit of the strike zone dropped from the top of the batter's knee to the hollow beneath the kneecap.

And this, yeah, I love the hollow beneath the kneecap. The Bill Murray, the committee chairman, not that Bill Murray, but said this rule. I got really excited for a second there. This rule clarification is designed to return the strike zone to the previous definition. The upper limit of the zone remained a horizontal line midway between the top of the shoulders and the top of the belt line. And it does say that the change grew out of a series of recommendations by a committee last year that sought to reduce the time it takes to play a nine inning game with an expanded strike zone. The reasoning goes,

there will be fewer walks and batters might be induced to swing more frequently, resulting in shorter times at bat. No one expects a reduction in the amount of grumbling over balls and strike calls by umpires. But the other stuff didn't seem to happen either. And it didn't really change offense perceptibly. I mean, the strikeout rate, the walk rate was almost identical in 95 and 96 and 97 for that matter. So just didn't really seem to have much of an effect. And this is kind of what I was getting at when I was talking about how refreshing it is for MLB's new rules changes just to work, like to have a demonstrative, like to have an effect, to have a clear effect, to have the intended effect, to actually be enforced

and have everyone kind of on the same page. Again, not necessarily when it comes to Phil Cousy and the sticky stuff, that's been troublesome. But at least when it comes to the pitch clock, it's like, that's worked. Everyone knows what's happening. It's applied consistently. It's having the intended effect, as opposed to this sort of thing, where it's just very piecemeal and it's like each umpire kind of deciding on their own whether they – and, you know, you're going from the top of the knee to the hollow of the knee. Like, how do you even – and this is pre-pitch FX and everything. I mean, how are you even going to know whether that's happening? Can you even tell the difference with your eyes between top of the kneecap and hollow of the knee.

It seems sort of set up to fail or at least not to have any particular effect. And that seems like more what I associate like baseball rules changes where they're all kind of problems and no one agrees on how to do it. And it's just ultimately impotent. And that's not what we're getting this year. So that's nice. We've gotten the reduction in game times. It's actually gone swimmingly and no one's writing articles like, doesn't seem any different.

Doesn't seem like anyone's actually applying this. That was the case in the proto history of the pitch clock, but not now. So that at least is different when it comes to now versus 1996. That at least is different when it comes to now versus 1996. And game times that year, nine inning games went one minute longer that year, as did all games combined one minute longer than the previous year. And then they got a minute longer the year after that. So no effect whatsoever. And then it kept going on and on. Yeah.

Yeah. And you got to be careful messing with the strike zone. People still talk about maybe the strike zone as a potential tool to try to curb strikeouts. And it could be. You know, it's one of the arrows in your quiver. But I would be hesitant. I don't know if it would be a last resort, but I'd slow rule that just because, as Bill James has often said, like, changing something in the strike zone, it's like an inch there is, I forget how he put it, but, you know, like a mile in the outfield or something. There's not actually a mile in the outfield.

But, you know what I mean? Like, one little bit of real estate there has an outsize effect relative to anywhere else in the field, the base pass, the outfield, wherever it is. So you've got to be careful because there have been unintended consequences. In the 60s, you change the strike zone and then you get another dead ball error and you get the year of the pitcher. So there are things you can do without messing with the strike zone that are maybe a little less dangerous, a little less risk of unintended consequences. that are maybe a little less dangerous, a little less risk of unintended consequences. Yeah, I think that it's, you're right that it's an arrow, but it's one whose path we have a hard time predicting sometimes, right? It doesn't always fly true. Would you like me to do a past blast and I'll do it, the entire thing in my Alia voice?

Yeah, sure. I have a message from the past from the wide deep. Please. I know that other people probably don't appreciate it or enjoy it as much as I enjoy doing it. But it's, you know, it's at least half my podcast. So sometimes I'm going to bust it out. Yeah. I guess the strike zone did eventually get lower because of, well, because it came to match the rules book strike zone.

Once we got pitch effects and everything. And then also we got framing and the low strike. And so the bottom of the zone did keep expanding and strikeouts went up, but game times did not go down. So best laid plans. Yep. All right. Well, while we wait to see whether Madison Bumgarner becomes an Oakland A, that would be a match made in, well, not heaven, that's for sure. Want to recant or retract my tepid qualified support for the double hook DH rule on the last

episode? I think I said something to the effect of, I don't dislike it, but it wouldn't work. This is one of the experimental rules that will be tried again in the Atlantic League this year. You can use a DH for the whole game, provided that your starting pitcher completes at least five innings. If not, then you lose the DH for the remainder of the game. I approve of the goal, which is to get starting pitchers to go deeper into games. Got a good email from listener Lori, which was lengthy, so I won't read it here, but taking me to task for not condemning the double-hook DH rule outright, specifically because it would limit Shohei Otani's plate appearances, which is an important consideration. I think what happened was I initially formed my impression of the double-hook DH rule in a pre-universal DH world. And in that

context, it was maybe more acceptable, but to implement it now in a universal DH world, well, that would be weird because we wouldn't want pitchers to go back to hitting. I guess you could stock your bench with pinch hitters, which would be good. And if you did that, you'd have fewer relievers available. And so starters would have to go deeper into games. But I would like to incentivize starters to go deeper into games by limiting the number of pitchers on the active roster, as I have argued on podcast and in print. And yeah, I don't think we want worse hitters hitting, depending on how starting pitchers do, especially because so many of them do fail to go five these days. Definitely don't want to bring back pitcher hitters. So not only do I think that this would not work that well, I also don't think it makes much sense

anymore. But it seems unlikely to be implemented at the major league level, which is probably something I would have said about the zombie runner once upon a time. So we must maintain our vigilance when it comes to rules we don't want adopted. Today's Effectively Wild intro theme is courtesy of listener Nate Emerson. Enjoyed this one as I've enjoyed most of them, all of them for that matter. It's been really fun to see these show up in our inbox and you can keep sending them if you're so inclined to podcast at fangraphs.com. You can also support the podcast 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

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