Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1998: Congrats on the Paternity Leave

Episode Date: April 26, 2023

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about a good time to be a Pirates fan, whether the red-hot Rays or the ice-cold A’s will regress more toward the mean over the rest of the season, Rob Manfred’s comments about A’s fans, Logan O’Hoppe’s injury and Brandon Marsh’s hot streak, whether Bryce Harper has Wolverine’s healing […]

A baseball podcast, analytics and stats, with Ben and Meg, from Fangraphs. Effective in the high end. Effective in the high end. Effective in the high end. Hello and welcome to episode 1998 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. I haven't said this that often lately, but today is probably a pretty good day

to be a Pirates fan. They have the second most wins in the majors as we speak here on Tuesday afternoon, trailing only the Rays. They have Henry Davis, perhaps catcher of the future, off to a hot start in AA. Andrew McCutcheon, as we covered last week, is off to an almost McCutcheon-esque vintage start to the season.

Derek Shelton, their manager, just signed an extension. That's how good the vibes are. And probably best of all, at least today, Brian Reynolds signed to that extension that has been long in the works. So he is going to be a pirate for a while. Eight years, $106.75 million contract extension, which is in raw dollars, the biggest contract in Pittsburgh Pirates history, I believe.

And no opt-outs. He did not get his opt-out that he was angling for. So I guess Jim Bowden will be pleased. Wow, crisis averted. Yeah, some no trade protection, at least. So you got to be feeling pretty good. Again, I don't know how long the good vibes will last. I don't know if this is going to be a good baseball team. I wouldn't have said so a few weeks ago. Yeah. But you now have Reynolds in place. O'Neal Cruz is hurt, of course, but he's

in place for quite a while and seemed to be making some strides before he got hurt. You have Cabrian Hayes signed to an extension. There's a core developing here, right? So the fact that they're off to a hot start, I don't know if that's sustainable. But it's nice that Pirates fans at least have had a few weeks in the sun. Plus, Rich Hill is around. That always makes things better, even if he's not pitching particularly well i wonder if if people were like well i don't know how i feel about this but we got rich hill so you know like uh yeah yeah it's um it's exciting plus

like if you're pirates ownership the a's are screwing things up so badly that you're kind of off the you're off the hot seat as the worst one. I mean, I don't know that that's... They're not moving out of the city. They're not going to Las Vegas. Yeah, no one's picking on them lately. Yeah, so, yeah, it's nice. I think that, you know, do I, as you might imagine, think that, like, they're likely to stay in first place in their division to have the best record

in the National League as we record this on Tuesday? I mean, like, no, I don't. I don't think that. That seems like an absurd thing to think. Do I think that they are even necessarily a playoff team? Probably not. I probably still don't think that they're a playoff team.

But, you know, they're playing some good baseball right now. As you noted, they have some fun young guys. They have resurgent old guys, old by baseball standards. Although, Rich Hill, like, how many years away from being just, like, actually an old guy, Rich Hill? Just old, period. Like, for reals, an old guy, you know? Like, for realsies. Yeah.

It's fun right now. I think that we can take a moment to appreciate that fun because I don't imagine it will last quite this way, but that doesn't mean that they can't play good ball in the meantime. And, you know, the thing that stingy ownership gets to benefit from even in the CBA is a salary structure that's still very friendly to them being stingy. So if they can hit on young guys for a while here, you know, we might have some good competitive ball in Pittsburgh for a little bit. So yeah, their playoff odds have roughly tripled since the season started. They're still just under 20%. This is where you have to be like, they were basically zero when the season started.

So nowhere to go but up. But again, it's not a time for looking at playoff odds, even though we just did it, even though we just cited them. Well, I didn't. Well, yeah, I did. I'll use I didn't. You did. Well, yeah, I did. You did. I didn't do that. I'll use I statements here. But the point is you don't have to debone the potential playoff odds right now because great vibes, just good feelings and a core that's at least shaping up.

So good for the Pirates. Happy for Pirates fans that they can be happy at least for a few weeks here. Yes. And there's another potential feel-good story surrounding the Pirates right now, which is the call-up of Drew Maggi. Now, Drew Maggi is an almost 34-year-old minor league journeyman. He's been with, I think, six different organizations. He's played for, I don't know, 13 seasons, I think, in the minors now. And he just got called up and there was a video tweeted by the AA Altoona Curve, his team, about him hearing about the news and the rest of his team congratulating him,

asking him to make a speech. And he cried and he swore exultantly, which was great. It was among the more heartwarming of that genre of video. Brian Reynolds actually is on the bereavement list, unfortunately. So I guess strange timing for him to sign this extension amid whatever he is mourning right now. But because he's on the bereavement list, Drew Maggi was called up. And look, Drew Maggi would be like a perfect meet a major leaguer candidate for us. We have actually talked about him before. I don't know if you remember this, but back on episode 1750, which was quite a while ago, that was

September 2021, we talked about Maggi being called up by the Twins and then sent down again without ever getting into a game. We kind of took the Twins to task because we thought, look, it's September. If you're going to call this guy up who's been waiting forever to make the majors, I mean, nice that he finally gets there. But it's almost it's incumbent on you to get him into a game at that point, right? You know, especially if you're like the 2021 Twins and you're finishing 73 and 89, it's not like they were right up until the wire trying to win every single game.

So the fact that they called him up and he got so close to the dream and then didn't actually get into a game, we were like, come on, Twins. Who knows if this guy's going to get another shot? Now, hopefully now he's getting another shot. Again, he has not, as we speak, gotten into a game yet. I sure hope that he does. I hope that by the time people are hearing this, he has. But it's not kind of fait accompli. It's

not a guarantee that you get called up, you get into a game, especially if you're replacing someone who's on the bereavement list and probably won't be gone that long. So I'm just saying, please, please, Pirates, while the vibes are good, I know you're a winning contending team these days, but you've got to get Drew Maggi into a game. Please, please do not deny him again. He's about to turn 34. So again, I don't know if he's going get another shot please get him into a game how many gift of the magic uh yeah so many yeah in fact uh that was the title of of episode 1750 i probably chose that and now i feel very unoriginal that's great i didn't i didn't look i didn't even look that's fantastic yeah but but I didn't look. I didn't even look. That's fantastic. who got called up. They were on a major league roster, but they're not in a game. And if you

go to their baseball reference page, you wouldn't know, right? And we got kind of an interesting test case here because as you'd imagine, there have been a bunch of stories written about Drew Maggi. It's a feel good story that this veteran gets called up. And some of them mentioned that the twins called him up and never got him into a game in 2021. Many of them, I'd say most of the ones. Yeah, most of the ones I saw did not even mention it, you know, which it's very relevant, right? You're writing about this guy finally getting called up. Well, he got called up before. And yet, despite that, it just it gets forgotten. I mean, not by him, but by the world at large.

It's like you got to get into a game. I'm willing to accept the argument that you were a big leaguer if you were on a big league roster. But most people just forget, don't recognize that unless you actually get into the game. So I really hope he does. Yeah, I hope so, too. And then if somebody does a gift of the, like, you know what he needs to do, Ben? You know what he needs to do, Ben? You know what he needs to do? I think that he needs to give a ball to a little kid, and then there can be a picture of him with a little kid and the ball, and then it can be the gift of the... Perfect.

Perfect. So let's talk about the A's for a second, just the other opposite end of the vibe spectrum here. Because, look, I don't want to pick on the A's because... Why? Well, mostly, I guess. I mean, I'm fine with picking on the A's. I just, I don't want to poke at A's fans. Sure, totally.

Who are suffering as it is. Yeah, they've already suffered. Yeah, so I don't want to belabor the fact that they are a truly terrible baseball team. But then again, maybe it's cathartic. I don't want to belabor the fact. But have you seen what just like a terrible team this is? Have you just seen how like truly abysmal this team is? You know, have you ever like really looked at it?

Yeah. This is not news to A's fans. And if anything, I'd imagine A's fans are probably pretty bitter about the team and would not mind the failings of the team and ownership being pointed out these days. So the A's did manage to win a game on Monday because the Angels did up and the A's beat them in extra innings. I think the score was 11 to 10. So I guess even when the A's actually win a game, their sky high ERA only increases or certainly doesn't go down. That's wild. Yeah.

So we talked about just the historically terrible start to the season when it comes to the pitching staff. Yeah. And that's a big part of the reason why the A's are off to such an overall awful start. But really, I mean, even with that win, even just barely outscoring the Angels on Monday, they still do have the worst run differential ever to start a season in a team's first 23 games.

They're now 102 runs in the red. And the 1936 St. Louis Browns are second on that list at negative 91. And then it's the 1951 Browns in third place, negative 82. The Browns were often not so great. And really, like, that's a big gap. So more than 10 runs below the second worst ever to start a season. And because to start a season is always kind of a cheat,

it makes it more noticeable to us. But there's not necessarily anything more noteworthy about a terrible start to the season than any terrible other span. So if we do any single season span of 23 games, the A's still very bad, tied for the sixth worst span ever. The worst ever was the 1912 Yankees at negative 109. The Yankees pre-Baybrook, not a very good baseball team. But actually, the Braves in 2015, they are third with negative 103 or tied for third.

But really, A's one of the worst spans of all time. negative 103 or tied for third. But really, A is one of the worst spans of all time. And they're tied for sixth worst actually with the 2021 Orioles, who are also known to be quite terrible. That's a negative 102 run. So I am kind of wondering, like, will this be one of the very worst teams ever? Or will this just be a run ofof-the-mill terrible team? Because we are getting to the point now where you can start to question, like, are we seeing history here? The wrong kind of history. But, like, is there, 4-19. So it's not like they've had hard luck here. I mean, they have just been terrible and they've just been beaten all around the ballpark. So the question is, is there any reason to think that they will get better other than just any time you have an extreme performance? It's almost certain to regress in the other direction. Can I lay out a scenario that might

be even more of a bummer if you must yes i think that there is a possibility that they get better likely just due to regression right so they get a little they get a little bump and that bump will likely involve the guys on their roster who are, you know, who are the guys who would be more likely to be rostered on other, on other big league rosters, right? Like maybe, gosh, Tony Kemp's sitting like garbage right now. Holy crap. I was going to say like maybe Tony Kemp, but like, wow,

that's looking really bad. And like, Aled Maciasiah is also not looking the best wow wow you're trying to come up with reasons why things might get better and in fact it's just reinforcing the perception that things couldn't be worse let's pretend uh that like the um oh wow i gotta set hold on i gotta lower my my plate appearance minimum here hold on hold on for anyone who has been bad it's not been terrible okay so like okay okay so okay so here so like maybe like jesus aguilar right maybe like he he has had um he's been okay in in limited use i bet they're like probably platooning him, right?

That's what he only has. Is he hurt? Is his angular hurt? Am I going to go to his player page and find out that he's like now missing an arm? I don't think so because I think he just had a big game. Oh, yeah. Two solo home runs last night. I didn't watch.

Ben, I didn't watch that game. You know what I didn't do? That. I didn't watch that game. Let's imagine, Ben. Imagine. Come with me. That, like, Jesus Aguilar continues to hit well, right?

He is hurt. He has a little groin issue. But, like, Ramon Laureano comes back healthy and, like, wow, he goes on a little here. So then they, like, have this little this little like tiny uptick, right? Or even if they're losing, like the losses feel more respectable, perhaps. Like they're like, oh, the A's, they're starting to level. And then as soon as that happens,

those guys will get traded and then they will be even worse, right? So it's like, what is the goal? What is the project of the Oakland A's in this season? What do they understand their purpose to be? To leave town. Right, because they might have little blips here and there of respectability, but I think because their biggest project is to spend as little as possible and to erect a wall of indifference toward the performance on the field such that, you know, the people within the org who are being tasked with this horrible, horrible goal of like just losing and spending as little money as possible and have to look directly at it.

They might just get a little better and then get a little worse again you know that's seems like a a plausible scenario them suddenly being good i do not view as plausible like even in a remote way because you know it's not like they have all of these young guys down on the farm where it's like well if they would only call up you know then everything would change like no they they do have some dudes they have a couple of guys they have some guys but some of their best rated prospects are already on the big league roster and uh and then you know there's not a lot of depth in the system so you know i'm i feel badly i feel badly for ace fans once again i just keep returning to feeling like they deserved

so much more there are a few guys who were hurt or who have been hurt for much of the season who if they came back like paul blackburn hasn't pitched yet, one of their best pitchers, and Seth Brown's been hurt, and Ramon Laureano is hurt now. A lot of these guys, though, if they were to come back and play well, they would probably become trade candidates, right? So there's just not a lot of upside here other than the dead cat bounce, basically. If you look at the playoff odds and their rest of season projected winnings percentage, it hasn't actually gone down based on their bad start. Yeah, I mean, they were projected to be quite terrible when the season started, obviously. And if anything, it looks like I guess their remaining strength of schedule is a little easier than it was when the season started.

So their actual true talent estimate, again, it's only 23 games and they were assumed presupposed to be terrible. So it's not like we've learned a whole lot about them necessarily, even though they've had this historically awful stretch. It's just it's bad. And if there is any sort of soft factor, just the vibes, it couldn't be worse, right? With the team leaving and fans understandably not showing up to games, like that's got to take a toll on the players probably. Right. To know that the whole franchise is trying to engineer its way out of there and people aren't coming to see you play and everyone's upset. If there's any sort of off-the-field, just have vibes-based boost or deficit,

it's got to be the latter, right? So just in terms of motivation and everything, I always think if you're in the big leagues, you're probably pretty motivated most of the time just because it's still a pretty cool job and a high profile job and you stand to gain a lot by performing well, even if your team is not performing well,

but it's still got to take its toll. Oh, sorry to interrupt, but yeah, in Oakland, I'm gonna hazard this guess. I'm gonna make an assertion that I feel moderately confident in. I would say that those guys are probably among the most motivated big leaguers because if they play well, they can get the hell out of there. Yeah.

Right? Like, if they demonstrate that they are useful not just in the context of an exercise in nihilism, like masquerading as a baseball team, they'll get dealt. And it's hard for it to be worse. It's not impossible, but it is hard for it to be worse. So I think that they're probably raring to go in the hopes that they might go play for a club that actually wants to play competitive baseball. Yeah. When the season started, they were projected by the FanCraft Stepcharts to win 69 games, which is not so nice, but is a lot more nice, nicer than what they're on track to do. Right now, they're still projected to win 65 but i'm gonna take the under and i think i'm gonna

take a significant under on that one i just i think probably the playoff odds are maybe not equipped to just calculate at the very bottom of the scale there we need new math for that and and also the fact that they're likely to subtract, not add as the season goes on. So, yeah, I'm going to take well under that. I think I'll take the under on 60 at this point, which, you know, doesn't sound like going out on a limb based on how bad they've been thus far. But look, there are some really terrible starts where teams kind of right the ship and we forget about. Like the Reds last year, right? And their historically terrible start, at least when it came to wins and losses, if not quite to the extremes of run differential. And then they turned out to be kind of a decent-ish team the rest of the way. And we

just went back to not talking about the Reds for the most part, which they were probably happy about because when we were talking about them, it was because they were off to one of the worst starts ever. But sometimes that happens. Because the owner's son was saying something goofy. Well, yeah, that too. So it's very visible that they're having this awful start at the start of the season. Yeah.

But it could get, not good, but a little bit better at least. And they will not remain on this pace. And probably the other end, the Rays, won't remain on this pace either. They're 20-3. Yeah, they sure are. They've won all 14 of their home games. It's a modern record to start the season. And they have the highest run differential ever in a team's first 23 games.

They're 93. They're in the black, which is over the 1902 Pirates, and they're plus 88. It's not quite as extreme if you look at any 23 game span. They're actually all the way down at 88th over any 23 game span. But obviously, they've been great. And again, I don't know that they're going to be one of the all-time great teams either, but they've looked really incredible so far. So it's just a best of times, worst of times. And it's more interesting, I think, just because these are

two teams that are often lumped together for having low payrolls, although there's a big differential between their current payrolls, but they're historically low. That gap is meaningful at this point, yeah. Yes, and unsettled ballpark situations and city situations. But all of that looking a whole lot better for the race than the ace these days. Yeah, it's – wow. So here's a question. Can I ask an unfair question of you, Ben?

Here's a question. Can I ask an unfair question of you, Ben? So for the Rays to continue on their current heater, highly unlikely. For the A's to continue on their current, what's our zippy term for the opposite of heater? Yeah, slump doesn't quite cover it. Slump doesn't quite cover it, but whatever it is they're doing over there, also very unlikely. If you had to pick one, like, which is the more likely outcome in your mind that the Oakland A's are truly, will end up being historically bad, right? That we are about to witness a season that like becomes an answer to a trivia question or that the Rays are transcendently good. And at the end of the year, we will get just a barrage of think pieces about how they, how they did it. How did they do it?

Which do you find more likely? I think the A's continuing to be terrible. I think, look, the A's are going to be bad and the A's are going to be good. But when it comes to which will stay closer to the extremes, like right now. So the A's have a 217 winning percentage. So they're on pace for 35 wins. Okay. Ben, you never, it's never good.

You never, two? That's a number that shouldn't be in the prime position in a winning percentage. That's a number you should only see in the second and third spot of that decimal. Yeah. So the A's on track for 35 wins. The Rays have an 870 winning percentage, which puts them on pace for 141 wins. So basically what we're asking is... It's definitely the A's.

It is, right? Right, yeah. Which is going to be bigger, the difference between the Rays' end-of-season win total and their current on pace, so 141 versus whatever they end up with, or the difference between however many wins the A's end up with and their current 35 pace, so their actual end-of-season wins minus 35. pace, so their actual end of season wins minus 35. And the first number's got to be bigger. I mean, the Rays will end up further away from 141 than the A's will end up from 35, right? Because I just said that I think the A's are a sub-65 win team and probably a sub-60 win team. So that's, we're talking 20 to 25 wins away from their current pace. Whereas the Rays, look, the Rays are really good. The Rays are really good.

They're probably not going to win 140 games. Yeah, and I don't think they're even going to win 111 like the Dodgers did last year. So the Rays will end up further away from their current pace than the A's. I think you can take that to the bank and if not then it will be a really extraordinary season in one or both of those places yeah really really quite something rob manfred made some comments about the ace this is why i told everyone to chill out yeah yeah you did yeah Yeah. Rob Manfred. Sorry for yelling.

No, it's okay. He often makes people want to yell and A's fans, I'm sure, want to yell or cry or both. But Rob Manfred, he said, I feel sorry for the fans in Oakland. I really do. And I'm sure the emotion was just coming through there. I don't know whether a single tear rolled down his cheek or not. coming through there. I don't know whether a single tear rolled down his cheek or not, but he said, for the city of Oakland to point fingers at John Fisher, it's not fair.

We have shown an unbelievable commitment to the fans in Oakland by exhausting every possible opportunity to try to get something done in Oakland. Unfortunately, the government doesn't seem to have the will to get it done. Again, they could have built the ballpark there where they had a ballpark already. The stumbling block, the sticking point was that they want to make and make money from. But Rodman and Friend continues, their attendance has never been outstanding. Let's put it that way. To me, it ought to be all positive on the competitive front. You got really smart baseball operations people. You got owners that want to win.

And I think Las Vegas will present a real revenue enhancing opportunity. So I think you're going to have a good product. What evidence is there that the owners want to win? I mean, this is the most obvious evidence to the contrary that we have seen this side of the major league movie, right? Yes. And also to cast dispersions at the fans that you feel sorry for about their attendance never being outstanding. I mean, first of all, lately and now, there's no reason why it should be outstanding, except outstanding in a negative direction, because they are just actively repelling people from that ballpark, not just by putting an uncompelling product on the field, but also raising prices and not maintaining the ballpark and everything you could do to drive people away they're doing. But also the A's have had some good attendance seasons in the past. When the team has been good, people have gone to see that team. When the team has been good and also when the team has spent. And it's been a while since the team has spent. I realize that. But when they were owned by Walter Haase, there was a period where obviously

the A's were winning and were winning World Series and pennants, but they were also spending on their baseball team. So like 88 to 90, they won three state pennants. They won the 89 World Series. They were in the ALCS in 1992. Like they were a high spending team for some of those years. Like 1992, they had the fifth highest payroll in baseball. 1991, they had the highest payroll in baseball. The Oakland A's, the Moneyball A's. They spent more on their player payroll than any other team in 1991. And that was coming off three straight years of winning pennants. But having success, they spent on the team and people supported it. So 89 and 90, the A's were second in AL attendance. So people came out, they were second in 89, second in 1990, the A's were second in AL attendance. So people came out, they were second in 89, second in 1990, third in 1991, fourth in 1992. So back then when the A's were spending and winning, people came out to the park. I mean, it's not really that complicated. That was a while ago, but hey, it's been a while since they've invested

in the team like that. So there seems to be a pretty clear correlation there. Of all of the issues that present themselves when the commissioner talks about issues like this, like the one that I tend to find the most galling is just how stupid he assumes we are. how stupid he assumes we are. Right? Where it's like, Rob. Robert. Robbie. There's a possum in the visiting team's broadcast booth.

What are you talking about, man? Like, there's a vermin infestation in the broadcast booth. There have been times when there has been doo-doo in the dugout. Doo-doo has backed up into the dugout, right? Like, what are you talking about? This is not

an ownership group that has demonstrated that they are willing to satisfy the basics, right? The basics of running a big league team. And you're absolutely right, Ben. If all that were at play was, hey, we need a new ballpark, no one disputes that, right? And there is some willingness on their part to put some money toward that effort. But it is not the city of Oakland's job to subsidize the real estate ambitions of that ownership group. It's just not their job. Their job is to serve the people of Oakland. And I think that by saying, hey, we have other stuff here that we would rather spend this money on that will do good in our community, they are actually fulfilling that obligation, whereas subsidizing Howard

Terminal would not be fulfilling that obligation. And it's like, we have all this precedent for what these projects end up recouping to communities, and you're not reinventing the wheel. It's not like there's anything about this that is particularly like revelatory they just want money and the city was like no we're not going to do the money we're not doing the money and so they're going to vegas where people are used to wasting money on stupid i don't know maybe it's like the vibe there is different there's a different philosophy to be found but it's like what are you talking about we're not stupid we can look at the facts of this situation, assess them dispassionately and say, you're full of crap, dude. I'm sorry. Like, what are we? So once again, do not have to hand it to

him. You just don't. And just a reminder that Rob Manfred's mentor, protege, predecessor, Bud Selig, he gave that team to the Lou Wolfe and John Fisher ownership group. And it just so happened that Wolfe and Selig were frat brothers in college at the University of Wisconsin. How about that? Nice personal connection. Lacob was interested in buying the team and had a strong offer and has gone on to buy the Warriors, who I understand have had some success in the years since. And I don't know whether Lacob might have moved them, too. Obviously, the Warriors moved to San Francisco. Lacob has talked about keeping the A's in San Francisco, but the organization almost certainly would have been in better shape one way or another if Bud Selig had not hinted that team to his old college buddy. But that's what happens.

Anyway, in that game that the A's managed to beat the Angels, Angels catchers Chad Wallach had a couple hits. But Logan Alhopi is out most likely for the season, four to six months. He tore his labrum. It really does suck, especially as someone who watches a lot of Angels baseball for Otani and Trout. And now the Angels catching situation. I bring this up, A, because, look, it is kind of depressing because Ohapi was off to a really strong start and he was hitting. And the pitchers were saying that they liked throwing to him. And even though he was a rookie, like he looked like he belonged there. And they are just really thin at that position. And I almost enjoyed reading the quotes in Sam Blum's story about Ohapi's labrum injury because the assurances that everyone involved likes where they stand with their catchers right now, like you very rarely when someone gets hurt, you very rarely hear team

executives or the manager say, well, we're screwed now. We got nothing. We're in trouble. But you have to express some kind of confidence, if only because I guess you don't want to dump on the guys who are playing that position, right? Even if they're not your preferred options, you want to pump them up or at least not denigrate them. But Phil Nevin, manager, says, I like where we're at behind the plate. I'm confident in those guys. These pitchers have all thrown to them. We're in a good place there. Come on, man. We're not going to drink this Kool-Aid. Wait, no, I'm sorry. Sorry. They've thrown to them. They have hands. Like, what?

The pitchers have all thrown to them. And presumably they caught the balls. So, catcher. I mean, that's all you have to do, really. So, it's like when people sometimes kind of the backhanded compliment, like, he's a ball player, you know? I mean, that can be a real compliment about like being a gamer or something, but also it's just like, I can't really think of anything particularly nice to say about this guy, except that he's a ball player. And Perry Munezi and Angels GM said, I feel good about, obviously, what we currently have. Matt's developing, that's Matt Theis. He's getting better every day. So Matt's developing. That's Matt Thijs. He's getting better every day. Chad's been there and done that. That's Chad Wallach. So you have Matt Thijs. He's developing. He's getting better every day. And then Chad Wallach, who has been there and done deconverted and then reconverted catcher. He hasn't even played that much catcher lately.

And Chad Wallach isn't good, obviously. I guess it's not obvious because Perry Menezes said, obviously, they like what they have. And Phil Nevin said he feels good about it. But their 27th in projected rest of season catcher war, according to the fan craft step charts. And that seems, gosh, optimistic, if anything, only the Giants, the Astros and the Rockies are below them. Joey Bart just got hurt a little bit, which may have pumped the Giants down at least into a tie for 27th or whatever, 28th.

But Max Stassi will be back at some point he's been heard and out but he was not good last season either so it really is like the angels they went to great lengths to try to avoid handing plate appearances and games played to sub replacement level players and they seem to have gone a long way toward doing that this offseason and the previous season getting Ohapi. But now they're right back to just kind of replacement level killers at catcher with no end in sight. So that's not great. It's like you've seen the Taylor Tomlinson bit where she's like, you are a father.

This is a day. Here is a card. That is the vibe of those comments. Yeah, it seems not good. I'm just engaging with Joey Bart's line, which is, it's weird, Ben, you know? It's a strange little line, not the purpose of this segment,

but 303, 378, 364. Oh, yeah. The old OBP higher than slug. Love those. 114 WRC+, which for Joey Bart, it's like, does it feel good? Probably. I mean, like you're on base

and you're you know you're you're not uh rocking a 90 or an 83 or even a 68 wrc plus all wrc pluses that joey bart has posted in different uh stretches of time in the majors but yeah it really sucks because like logan oh happy was really fun to watch like he's Like, he's a good catcher to watch. And we keep getting fooled, Ben. We keep being fooled. We're like, well, they'll stay healthy, you know, somewhere on this roster at some point. It'll be fine. And then, you know, sometimes that doesn't happen with the Angels.

And we have yet another year of them not being in the postseason. Yeah. By the way, the guy who was traded for Logan Ohapi last year, straight up one for one, Brandon Marsh. The wettest boy. The wettest boy, but also 218 WRC plus.

Yeah, dude. 77 play per season. He's like 364, 455, 758. Yeah. I mean,

500. But still, but still, you know, it's, it's something right now. It's really quite something. Cause, um, I remember not too long ago when the Phillies acquired or, or picked up a Christian Pache and we were like, so they've traded in like one, no hit center fielder for another, not traded in, but will complement with.

And then Brandon Marsh was like, how dare you? Absolutely, how dare you? I am going to hit everything and post a 500-pam. 758 slug, what a treat. Gosh. Wow. Also, Bryce Harper might be Wolverine in terms of like

his healing factor. Like he, we talked about how he might not need a rehab assignment partly because of the fancy advanced pitching machines,

but they're looking like if he gets clearance, he could be back the first weekend in May, which is pretty unbelievable. Like it's the

fastest Tommy John return ever, I think. Position players, they can come's the fastest Tommy John return ever. I think a position players, they can come back faster from Johnny John than pitchers, but it's still remarkably rapid if he actually does come back. And he had surgery on November 23rd. Yeah. I mean,

that's like, I remember at the time thinking like, obviously like he delayed the surgery for a good reason. The Phillies had a deep playoff run and were in the World Series. And then he didn't have it. And he was a big part of that, as you may recall. Obviously, he was hitting just fine with the torn UCL. And then he didn't have the surgery immediately, like, the day after the World Series. And I was thinking like, well, obviously they were happy to have him

propelling them to the pennant win, but also sucks that he'll be missing a lot of the 2023 season. And it turns out maybe not actually, because he's just a super fast healer, which I guess he has a pattern of being fairly healthy or at least coming back quickly from injuries.

But this is pretty ridiculous that he might be back this fast. I'm surprised that they are willing to risk shifting the supernatural forces around here. Because on the one hand, yes, it seems like he is Wolverine-esque, which isn't supernatural, Ben. It's about science and genetic luck, okay? That wasn't supernatural. But he, you know, is exhibiting, because he had to heal fast for them to do the stuff on him, right? Yeah, well, the adamantium, I mean, it's, you know, he's a mutant, so.

But the super fast healing was a prereq to the adamantium working. Right, yes. Because otherwise it would kill them, Ben. Yeah, it would be quite painful. Quite painful, right. So, like, really incredible in terms of his healing powers. And then they are contemplating playing him at first base, which is clearly deeply cursed for the fillies. So how do those forces interact with one another, like on a cosmic level, is one of the questions that I have.

Right. Yes. You would think that he would improve the situation at first base where they're down to what their third string option, at least unless it's cursed and he gets hurt again. But if he does, then he'll heal very rapidly and he'll be back from that injury too. I guess so. Also, I wanted to mention another person who is healthy and who has stayed healthy, and that's Byron Buxton. But the news, I would say, is kind of mixed because on the one hand, Byron Buxton has been healthy and he is a qualified batter, I believe, at this point, just in terms of plate appearances.

I thought of making that a prediction in our preseason predictions game that Byron Buxton would actually qualify for the batting title. I mean, he's played 21 games. He's got 87 plate appearances. So it's working. They're planning to keep him healthy. However, he has not been particularly productive. He has a 98 WRC plus, so he's basically been a league average-ish hitter, and he's been a DH. So a league average-ish hitter as a DH is not very valuable.

So it's almost, I guess, a monkey's paw sort of situation. It's like, what if we could keep Ironbuckson healthy? But if we keep him healthy, he won't actually be all that productive because a big part of his value, obviously, is defense. And also, there's a DH penalty, historically speaking. Guys who DH, they tend not to hit as well.

Now, Russell Carlton has shown that that may not apply to full-time DHs, eventually. Part of that, the question has always been, is there a DH penalty because it's hard to DH? Or is it because when guys do DH, they're often nursing some nagging injury? Right, they're coming back from injury.

They're tired. It's like a partial day off. It does seem to be that it is actually hard to hit when you're a DH, because that makes sense if you're not doing it all the time, like you're used to being warmed up and in the field and active.

And DHs, sometimes they get used to that routine and they figure out, okay, here's how I sort of stay in the game, even though I'm a DH. And maybe I go down to the cage and I take some swings between play appearances, like you figure that out over time. And so there seems to maybe not be as big a DH penalty

when you're a regular DH. And so there seems to maybe not be as big a DH penalty when you're a regular DH. And so maybe Byron Buxton will get the hang of full-time DHing and he will start to hit better. But it is kind of like, I mean, it's nice for him that he is not physically hurt, obviously. Like, I'm glad he is not in pain and, you know, because he does not have Wolverine or Bryce Harper's healing factor. No, clearly not. Or there's injury prevention factor. So it's good that he is healthy and relatively pain-free. Yeah.

But as a baseball player, a big part of the fun and the joy of Byron Buxton is that he could do so many things, right? And he was fast and he was probably the best defender, best outfielder. And you take those things away from him, it's almost like you're hobbling or hamstringing him, not with an injury, but just by placing limitations on him so that he will not get hurt. So again, I'm not saying that the only options are that he plays without any restrictions and inevitably gets hurt or he plays with a bunch of restrictions and is not that great. Like maybe there's a middle ground where he plays without restrictions and actually does stay healthy or he plays with restrictions and manages to be better than he has thus far. But it's kind of tough because, like, I want the full Byron Buxton experience. I also want him to be healthy and available.

So he hasn't stolen a base, right? I don't think he's attempted to steal a base. So they have really just kind of put the brakes on him there too. And he's not playing the outfield. Now, the Twins went and got Michael A. Taylor, which as we talked about when they made that move, that's the next best thing to having Byron Buxton basically in center field. So they sort of like, we thought at the time Buxton injury

proofed themselves a little bit by ensuring that they would still have an elite glove out there, even if Buxton was hurt. As it turns out, he's not hurt, but they've just decided this is a way that we can kind of keep him healthy. So, you know, I know he was coming back from some stuff and will they eventually move him back to the outfield and let him run? Maybe. Or will he just figure out how to DH and be better at DHing? I don't know. But this middle ground, you know, if you had told me like, Buxton will stay healthy, this would not be as graded outcome of that as I would have thought it would be. Yeah. Well, I'm curious. So I feel like I saw on Twitter, Twins fans feeling very nervous about him. Didn't he have some like collision running the bases? And people were nervous about

it in part because of his prior injury history. Yeah. He had a collision with Lenny and Sosa, the White Sox infielder. Yeah. And so I don't want to say, I guess one thing I would, I would wonder a little bit is like, what does healthy mean? Right. Like he's clearly healthy enough to play. And I guess I would expect that if he were really dinged up that they would give him time off at least because they want to keep him healthy. But, you know, it's like he got a little dinged. I don't know. It's just a tricky thing.

I imagine that when you not only are used to playing the field, but are used to playing the field at an elite level, it would be very disorienting to go to full-time dh like it would make you lose your car keys or something you know like seriously i think it would be very disorienting to be so superlative at something so superlative can one be so superlative or is one just superlative? Anyway, I imagine that it would make you... It would take a while to adjust to and to develop sort of a rhythm and routine around the game.

And, you know, Byron Buxton's an elite player, so I don't want to overemphasize the importance of that. He could just be in a weird rut and he'll course correct and then it'll be fine. But it does... I think you're right to wonder what role that is playing in the background of all of this and whether it might not be as meaningful as, you know, his mechanics

being out of whack or him needing to make some other adjustment to his approach that we would tend to ascribe this kind of a, you know, down period to relative to other stuff. So. Baldelli was asked recently if Buxton would play center. He said, I don't think anyone truly knows the answer to that question. I'm enjoying the fact that I get to write his name in the lineup virtually every day right now. And at this point, I'm not going to do anything to jeopardize that because I think that's the most important thing. Buxton asked how he felt as a DH said, I wouldn't say comfortable. It's still a job that's not normal for me. It's still something I'm figuring out and hopefully he will, but it would be bad if the only way that we could get healthy Buxton

is by basically like taking away a lot of the things that does well. So, yeah, the Twits as a whole have stolen two bases this year. Yeah, they are like we are slow men. Yeah. Molasses guys. The thing is, like, they're not that slow. Like, in theory, they shouldn't be that. I know it's kind of an organizational thing. They haven't run often. Like, the last time they were in a bottom five team in stolen bases was 2017.

They were last in stolen bases last year in 2020 and 2019. So that's just kind of the way that they're built and the way that they play their game. But also, like, things have changed, you know, conditions have changed. So even if you weren't running a lot in prior years, it makes more sense to run this year. Aaron Gleeman just wrote about this. Rocco Baldelli said, stealing bases only works if you're safe. Well, that is quite true. Yeah.

Self-evident, I suppose. Thanks, Rocco. Yeah. I mean, only the Rockies have stolen as few bases as the Twins. The Rockies have also stolen two. And I think maybe they have attempted one more than the Twins. But the Rockies, they're kind of old and slow. Sorry, Rockies. But the Twins have attempted five and successfully stolen two. The Rockies have attempted four and successfully stolen two. The Rockies, though, I don't think they have the personnel to be burners, whereas the Twins, they have some fast guys, including Bayard Buxton, who doesn't run for understandable reasons, but they're not that old and that slow. And it seems like they could be a little less extreme in the no running in this current stolen base positive environment. It's just so funny because like organizationally, if you look at their minor leagues, like those guys run all the time.

Like they are zip zooming around. And, you know, I think that there, there does appear to be sort of a, an organizational preference for try it. You know, we want you to make a bunch of attempts, um, understanding even with the rule changes, I would expect that the likelihood that they will continue to be as successful as they move up the minor league ladder and then theoretically make the big leagues or it's going changes, I would expect that the likelihood that they will continue to be as successful as they move up the minor league ladder and then theoretically make the big leagues or it's going to, you know, their success rate will go down. But it does make for a very jarring thing because you're like, you know, you look at any Rockies position player, minor leaguer, and they've

stolen a million bases. And then you look at the big league squad, and I'm like, do you wear ankle weights? Is this like a fitness thing? What are we doing here? Zach Vien will be up eventually, so they'll steal some bases when he arrives. But, yeah. Also, we talked last week about pre-tacked balls and rosin and whether pre-tacked balls could possibly be a solution. We noted that there's a pre-tacked ball being testedin and whether pre-tacked balls could possibly be a solution. We noted that

there's a pre-tacked ball being tested in the Southern League this year, AA. And it sounds like that's not going so great. It also it hasn't gone so great some previous times that they've tried to test that. But there's an Angels minor leaguer named Kyron Paris who tweeted pitchers are having a hard time controlling the new Southern League experimental baseballs. Hit batters are at an all-time high. David Lerola quote tweeted that and said, a player I spoke to recently said that pitches in the Southern League were moving four to five more inches than ones thrown with a normal ball. So I don't know if that's not great, I guess. I guess that experiment's not going so great. I'd like to see a bigger sample and more data and everything. But I do just kind of wonder, because I was reading

in Craig Wright's excellent newsletter that I've plugged many times, Pages from Baseball's Past, which is at baseballspast.com, and he just wrote about thein War of the 1920s, which I may have mentioned on the podcast before. But there was a period where the AL and the dictating that there should be a rosin bag. And Ben Johnson was like, no, we don't want a rosin bag and sort of strong armed the AL into not using one. And they kind of had to have one available, but like umpires would carry it on their person instead of it being behind the mound. So like for the World Series in those years, they would have to mandate you. You've got to have the rosin bag behind the mound. So like for the World Series in those years, they would have to mandate, you gotta have the rosin bag behind the mound. You can't, no funny business here.

So it was basically like offense went up because of the spitball ban and the lively ball and all of that. And so people wanted to maybe stem the tide of run scoring and thought that pitchers being allowed to use rosin might help. And so they did that, but only the NL really embraced it. And so there was a period of several years where the NL was using rosin bags and the AL was not. And it seems like it didn't make a difference, which is kind of interesting. Like you'd think that you would notice this was like a nice little natural experiment.

And Craig wrote, it would be hard to argue that there is a meaningful safety factor because of the two leagues differing in when they adopted the use of the rosin bag. We have strong comparative samples with which to study the general effect of allowing the pitcher's use of the rosin bag. After careful examination, I found to my surprise that there was no impact of statistical significance in any of the control categories, walks, hit batters, and wild pitches. That doesn't deny that there could be some safety advantage to having a good dry grip on the ball, but it does suggest the edge in accomplishing that by ready access to a rosin bag is negligible. So it just

didn't seem to make that much difference either like safety wise or offense wise or anything, which always makes me wonder, like, do we need the sticky stuff or is it just that people are used to the sticky stuff and thus they don't want to do away with it? Like if they couldn't have it, would everything be fine? Like if no one had ever had it? I mean, I guess it arose for a reason, but it does maybe think that the effect, because we were hearing this even when the foreign substance ban went into effect.

Everyone was like, oh, you know, we're going to be drilling guys and it's unsafe and people are going to get hurt constantly. And I don't know, certainly like hit by pitches and everything, there didn't seem to be any dramatic effect.

Like those are all pretty high in this era anyway, but it didn't seem to be exacerbated that much. So I don't know. I think it might be overblown potentially, but then again, I don't know if like almost a century ago tells us exactly what would happen now. It's just, you know,

pitchers throw a lot harder these days, right? And they throw more breaking balls and maybe like there's more danger and also more advantage to be gained. So I guess things are in some ways a little different than they were in the 1920s. Yeah, I think that that's right. But I do wonder, like, is it like replay where once we realized there was an out hiding in there, you know, between a guy's foot in the bag, we can't go back. I mean, we can. We could just make a rule.

But, you know, teams aren't going to be like, well, we're going to wipe this from our memories because you're not going to do that. There might be an out hiding in there. Right. They're going to go find it. And it might be the same sort of thing where we, you know, you can't unlearn it. And once you do. Yeah. There have been a lot of injuries, though, this year.

That's for sure. Jeff Passan just wrote about this at ESPN. He said, between the start of spring training and the 20th day of the season, 236 players hit the IL, the highest number ever in that period and by a wide margin. We've talked a couple times on the podcast, like, stop getting hurt, like turn off the injuries, like turn, move the injury slider a little bit down. And Jeff said last year over the same period, 189 players hit the aisle last year in a lockout short in spring training. It was 192 in 2021 COVID affected season and 151, 181, 173, 149, and 169 in the previous five standard years. So he went on to say it doesn't seem like it's the pitch clock or a lot of people don't think it's the pitch clock, that it might just be unlucky, that it's just anomalous. Just anomalous or some people said a number of athletic trainers and orthopedists are convinced that the widespread adoption of technology is offering misguided incentives that put players in harm's way.

Players using high speed cameras and radar devices to create perfect spin are actually manipulating their arms in ways that make them more likely to hurt themselves. He says that's next to impossible to prove. And then it could just be that going on the injured list doesn't carry the stigma it once did. Doesn't seem like it's WBC related. I don't think that there's any particular correlation there this year or any year. So it's just always a mystery. There was a BP article about this recently

that showed that the big rise seemed to be in spring training and that since the season actually started, it hasn't been that extreme. So I guess that's maybe good. I don't know. It was the first long, normal spring training in a while. So there was just more time in which to get injured in spring training. But also, I guess it's more injuries than even years that predated the pandemic and the lockout and everything. So just an ongoing story that we just can't seem to figure out preventing injuries. So until everyone is Bryce Harper and can heal instantly, or until we make everyone into Byron Buxton and put them in bubble wrap and try to protect them constantly, then I don't know what to do. put them in bubble wrap and try to protect them constantly, then I don't know what to do.

I love that the Phillies inadvertently tried to do that by just having a team full of DHS and then be like, oh no, we can't play them all there. What did we do? I am not a doctor, but have we thought that maybe the cumulative effect of weirdness is having something to do with the injury stuff? You're right that this year was relatively normal. And I agree with you that I don't think that the WBC thing really contributes to injuries in any meaningful way because you're still doing baseball stuff. But I don't know. Like, we've had a couple of weird years in a row.

So maybe there are some guys who are experiencing like the sedimentary buildup of bizarre, you know, could be true. Could be. I meant to mention when we were talking about twins outfielders, Joey Gallo, 201 WRC plus. The man is slugging 757, six homers in 44 plate appearances. Love to see it. Love to see it. Love to see it. Byron Buxton has struck out more frequently than Joey Gallo, which is never a positive sign. That's a weird world we live in, Ben. Yep. All right.

Let's do some stat blasting. They'll take a dataset sorted by something like ERA- or OBS+. And then they'll tease out some interesting tidbit, discuss it at length, and analyze it for us in amazing ways. Here's to Dstablast. All right. So yet again, the StatBlast is sponsored by Tops Now. Tops Now's tagline, your hero, your team, your moment. It's like something happens on the baseball field. They make a baseball card of it that's available the next day, but it's only available for a day. So you got to go get it before it's no longer available.

And they will commemorate all kinds of single game milestones or occurrences and turn them around incredibly quickly. And I kind of got curious because it says your hero, your team, your moment. I wondered just how often certain teams have been featured by Tops Now. This is not the stat blast, but it is something I was kind of curious about. Because, you know, the Oakland A's, as bad as they've been, they have not had the fewest Tops Now cards this year. That's something they've had four, I believe, Tops Now cards already. So how about that? How about that?

Go A's. Yeah. Whereas the Rockies, for instance, have had only one Tops Now card. Poor, poor Rockies. I got to steal more bases, Ben. Yeah. Their Tops Now card was CJ Krohn hits two homers and ties team opening day RBI mark. So it was an opening day Rockies Tops Now card.

And since then, no Tops Now cards. So that's sort of sad. The Royals have also had one and the Reds have had two, which is reassuring because it probably wouldn't be appropriate for Effectively Wild to be sponsored by a company that was featuring the Reds regularly. But, you know, the most Tops Now cards so far, the Yankees with 12, the Cardinals with 11. You can do some interesting data analysis. I'm going to have to ask Tops Now to send me some data.

Like you could do some analysis on like what's the average win probability added in a game when you get a Tops Now card. Or one thing I did just look is what's the correlation between team winning percentage and how many tops now cards you have had. And it turns out that this year so far, the correlation is 0.49, which is, you know, a moderate correlation. So there's a tendency if you have more tops now cards, then you have a better winning percentage and vice versa, which makes sense, right? I mean, you know, you do things that are noteworthy enough to have a baseball card made about them, then typically that will lead to winning. So you do more of those things, then you'll get more wins. Not always. Like the Tigers have had five tops now cards this year. Three of them are Miguel Cabrera cards, and they're just kind of like he was there.

It's like one of them was Miguel Cabrera, retiring legend, still swinging in final home opener. So it's like he played in a game, basically. He swung. He did get a hit in that game, which is fine. Like, hey, nothing wrong with having a baseball card of Miguel Cabrera's final home opener. He's had an incredible career. But not every Tops Now card correlates to winning a game necessarily. But there is some signal there. And in fact, when I looked all of last season and I excluded like postseason and award ones because you might get a Tops Now card for, you know, being a Cy Young Award winner or finalist or something.

Or I excluded postseason ones or preseason ones when it's just like team signed whatever. So I tossed out some of those, although there's still some that are like midseason trades or someone's number was retired. I didn't exclude all of those. But just during the regular season, the correlation over the full 2022 season was actually 0.67, which is pretty strong. So, again, you know, you get a lot of tops now cards. That probably means you're doing something right in your winning ballgames. Unless, of course, you're the Angels, who had the fourth most tops now cards of any team last year of the top 12 teams by number of tops now cards.

The Angels were the only one that didn't make the playoffs. Lots of tungsten arm O'Doyle games in there featuring Otani and Trout. If you're curious, the A's did have the fewest Tops Now cards last year. They had a mere 12. So we'll see. They're on pace to beat their 12 from last year. So that's something. The Yankees led the league with 84. But, you know, how many of those were Aaron Judge? Probably a lot. Yeah, I would imagine so.

Not 62 of them, but probably a lot. And look, I mean, Topps is not a charity. They're a business. They're trying to sell some cards. There are a lot of Yankees fans out there who are probably in the market for Topps Now cards. But if you go to the Topps Now website, you can go to Topps.com and see

what the new cards available are or click on the link on our show page. But they also have the full archives there going back to the beginning of Tops Now in 2016. So you can see the players who've had the most or the teams that have had the most, or you can look at the print runs, how many of each was printed. So that's kind of cool fodder for further analysis. But here's some further analysis for you. So one follow-up from last time when we talked about the longest streaks that teams shared of wins and losses, like identical sequences,

either to start the season or at any point in the season, but the same game numbers. So like, you know, your second game through your 34th game or whatever, but the same for both teams. Right. So the record there was 25 was the longest season opening identical string of wins and losses. And then the longest match at corresponding points in the season was 29 games. And I mentioned there that there were like 33 billion different permutations that you have to look at to find the longest matching streaks at any point in the season.

So not corresponding points or not to start the season, but just, you know, it could be starting with one team's 34th game and another team's 110th game or whatever. Right. It's just a lot of different sequences. And at the time, frequent StatBlast consultant Ryan Nelson had not yet figured out how to run that in like fewer than four months or something. And there was a whole discussion prompted by this in the StatBlast channel of our Discord group for patreon supporters about how one could query this quickly and some people were saying you could use hash maps and some people were saying you could use prefix trees and this was all way over my head if you weren't interested in signing up for our patreon before now i don't know how you could resist this hot stat blast programming discussion but r Ryan eventually figured out a more efficient brute force method that ran overnight. And then two Patreon supporters, Isaac and Gus, they independently

used the HashMap and PrefixTrees methods, which ran in 10 to 20 seconds. And they put their code on GitHub, which I will link to for any aspiring StatBlast consultants out there. But all three of them came up with the same answer in varying amounts of time and processing power expended. The answer is 36 games. That's the longest string that was identical for wins and losses for any two teams at any point of the season. That was the 1890 Pittsburgh Alleghenies and the 1875 Brooklyn Atlantics, if you count them. Now, 1875, I guess that was National Association. That was the year before the National League. I will spare you the saying, all the wins and losses, although that was fun last time.

But it was mostly losses. The Atlantic streak started on game one of their season. The Alleghenies streak started on game 78 of their season. Both of them won only two games during those 36 game stretches. So if you want a more modern era streak, though, it's 35. the 2011 Florida Marlins, starting with game 49, each had a 35-game streak where they won the same eight games. So that's about as long as two teams can go with the same win-loss sequence. So I'll put those down in print if you're interested in the losses and the wins, but it would take a while to say them all. So that is closing the book on that one.

That's the follow-up. So here are a few things I was wondering about. First, pitch clocks on everyone's mind, of course. I was wondering if any pitchers are not working faster with the pitch clock than they did prior to the pitch clock. Oh, interesting. Yeah. So I looked at Baseball Savant's pitch tempo page where they show the time between pitches on average for each pitcher with the bases empty and with runners on. And I just looked to see if anyone has had a slower tempo in this, the year of the pitch clock, than they did in 2022. So just looked at all the pitchers who qualified to appear on this leader board for both years. And I'm here to tell you a pretty interesting answer. There is one,

one pitcher. Really? One pitcher who has said, I care nothing for your pitch clock. I will pitch slower than I did last year. And that is Nick Pavetta of the Boston Red Sox. So Nick Pavetta is the only guy. So there are 265 pitchers who appear on the leaderboard for 2023 and 2022. And Nick Pavetta thus far through four starts for the Red Sox is the sole pitcher to have a slower average time between pitches with the bases empty than he did last season. So last year, Nick Pavetta's median time between pitches with the bases empty was 17.008 seconds. And this year with the pitch clock, 17.288 seconds. And this year, with the pitch clock, 17.285 seconds. So he is 0.277 seconds slower. So it's not like he's lollygagging, dilly-dallying.

Dilly-dallying. Dilly-dallying. Why do we use such weird words to talk about being slow i don't know man like uh doddle and dilly dally and lollygag what is lollygag dilly dally don't dilly dally yeah well it sounds like you're saying someone's name almost like dally like there's a person named dally and she's always dillying. I will look up the etymology for these weird words that we use to talk about going slower. But Nick Pavetta, just entirely unaffected, just doesn't care about your pitch clock. He is just going to play his game.

It's not like he's a lot slower. Right. He's like a quarter of a second slower. Right. But he's slower and he's the only guy. And it's interesting because there were plenty of pitchers who did not have to go faster. They were not in violation. They could have kept pitching at the same pace as last year, like Nick Pavetta, and it would have been OK.

But because there is a clock, it seems it's making everyone go faster, except for Nick Pavetta. He's the only one who is immune. And so because the league as a whole has sped up around Nick Pavetta. Right. And he is slightly slower. He's now like, again, like almost the same time, but a different point in the leaderboard. So like last year, he was not one of the fastest. So again, it's not like he was super, super fast and everyone else has just caught up to him. He was,

I guess, faster than average, but not extreme or anything. He was 129th in pace out of 391 guys on the leaderboard from last year. So, you know, like not extreme. But this year, again, like just very, very infinitesimally slower, he's now 357th out of 384. So he's gone from, you know, like a third of the way down the leaderboard to being very close to the bottom of the leaderboard, even though he is doing exactly the same thing. Yeah. It's really interesting. It's like the creepy Dazed and Confused quote about high school girls.

I get older, they stay the same, right? It's kind of like Nick Pavetta is like, he stays the same. Everyone else gets faster, basically. That's how it's working. So I'd be interested in talking to Nick Pavetta, who's just like entirely unfazed by the pitch clock. He's just like, yeah, everyone else hurrying and hustling and bustling. And I'm just going to keep doing what I was doing because I wasn't going too slow. And he's not going too slow now.

It's okay. He can do this. We should write a baseball movie called Fast Times at Pitchcom High, and we can make it about pitchers. Yeah. I'm giving that one away for free. Pretty good. But not faster times for Nick Pavetta. Well, no, but he could be the antagonist.

Yes, yes, he could. You can't have a story without conflict, Ben. Has Nick Pavetta had any violations? We should look this up on the handy dandy. On the violations leaderboard, do you mean to say? Yeah. While we're talking about this, because if he's had violations, then we could say that maybe he should not dilly dally. According to our violations leaderboard, it does not appear that

Nick Pavetta has had a violation. All right. So good for him. Good for him. Unhurried and it's fine. He's not going too slow. He's just, he's found his own pace and he's going to stay at it. He's not a follower. He's not feeling peer pressure or umpire or pitch clock pressure. No. He just, he's found his rhythm and he will stay at that rhythm regardless of the rest of the league. I admire that. And in fact, he doesn't like the pitch clock, or at least he didn't, because after his second start where he threw five shutout innings against the Rays, he said, I think the pitch

clock has been too fast. I think with how the game is going, the game is going quick. But I think there's times where pitchers need to be able to slow down. So I'd like to think that this is him just thumbing his nose at the pitch clock, just telling it, you can't rush me. And I'm pro pitch clock, but I respect his stance. Ryan Brazier, Chris Sale, Chris Martin, Caleb Ort, and Brian Baio have had violations for the Red Sox, but not Nick Cabrera. Okay. So that was one thing I was curious about.

Here's another thing I was curious about. We talked about Mookie Betts and his debut at shortstop. He actually started at shortstop after we talked about that. So he started at shortstop on Sunday, had himself a nice game, hit a homer, had a double. And he's talked about how it was a dream for him to play short. And Dave Roberts has said the same, like that was Mookie's number one goal, like he was pushing to play short. As we mentioned, he was drafted as a shortstop, but hadn't played shortstop since the minors, since the Arizona Fall League, since A-ball in like a decade ago.

But now he has started at short. And so I got curious because he's been around for a while in the big leagues. And this was his first start at short. And I wondered whether anyone had played more games in the majors prior to their first major league start at shortstop than Mookie Betts. So I asked Kenny Jacklin of Baseball Reference about this one, and it turned out that Mookie Betts ranks 12th in major league games played before first major league start at shortstop. And he ranks 12th. Actually, we ran it two ways.

One was just games played, period. Another, we looked at games played in the field only before first start at shortstop. So excluding DH and pinch hit and pinch run only games. And either way, he's at 12th. So 12th is the answer, regardless of how we run this. So Mookie Betts had played 1133 games before his first start at shortstop, and that was surpassed by the following players, Doug Rader, Ben Chapman, Kelly Johnson, Camera Eye, Max Bishop, Ron Hunt, Sherry McGee, Jeff Cirillo, Russell Martin, Eric Young Sr., Manny Trillo, and at the very top of the list, regardless of how we run it, is Daryl Evans. So Daryl Evans played 1,653 games before his first start at shortstop. And 1,588 non-pinch hit, pinch run DH games, which is also the record. So some of these guys, it was a one-off like Russell Martin, right? I think he played maybe three games at short,

but he only ever started there once. It was just, you know, he wanted to, it was just for fun. It was on a lark and he had some positional flexibility. He wasn't just a catcher, but some of these guys just did it once. It was like a stunt or it was an emergency one time. And other guys did it not the first time in 1982. And at that point, that was his age 35 season, I believe. So more advanced into his career than Mookie was because Evans came up in 1969. So he had been around for even longer and it worked out okay, despite his advanced age. I found an article in the San Francisco Examiner, August 15th, 1982, and it says, the first play ever to giant shortstop Daryl Evans was a Shirley Temple bouncer from Dickie Thon of the Houston Astros on July 31st at the Astrodome. Nothing to it. A simple toss to first baseman Reggie Smith,

31st at the Astrodome. Nothing to it. A simple toss to first baseman Reggie Smith. One out. Johnny LeMaster, who? And then it goes on to say how he continued to do well. The 12-year veteran in his sixth season with the Giants. He started both games of that doubleheader against the Astros, and his only boo-boo was a hurried throw to second baseman Joe Morgan on an easy force out. And in subsequent starts, while filling in for the injured LeMaster, who has a slightly pulled leg muscle. Evans would flash concern on soft grounders and he wouldn't quite match twinkle toes, not tinkle toes, on making the pivot at second base. But he'd look nothing like a 35-year-old reserve player who'd never started a major league game at shortstop and played there just a couple of times earlier in his career as a fill-in during extra inning games. I don't think

he even appeared at short, at least in the regular season prior to that in the big leagues. He said, the thing you don't want to do in this type of situation is embarrass yourself out there. I think the job I've done so far has surprised everybody. I've been looking for a way to fight my way back into the lineup. So I was willing to try anything. This wasn't anything. This was something. And yeah, he was actually benched early in that year and he just he wasn't playing. And then the Giants had issues like he was a trade candidate. And then LeMaster pulled his thigh muscle. And also their reserve infielder was sent back to AAA so that they could call up a pitcher and they didn't really have anyone to play short.

And so then next thing you know, Daryl Evans, the 35-year-old, was starting at shortstop for the first time and it went kind of okay. So old guys can occasionally learn new tricks, including playing shortstop. So that's great. Mookie, not nearly as old or experienced and veteran as Daryl Evans was. Have you done a stat blast on concurrent paternity leave stints on a team? Funny that you should ask. Did you really?

Ben, I am delighted. Oh boy, what a treat for me, Meg. Did you really? Ben, I am delighted. Oh boy, what a treat for me, Meg. Did you really? Yeah, I kind of did because as I was getting curious about Mookie, I got curious about Fraternity Leaf too. I mean, all I can say to the Dodgers is congrats on the sex. Yeah, exactly. Right. So the Dodgers have had a whole lot of new fathers. You were about to say something very different. Oh, well, that too. So Mookie Betts, he was returning from paternity leave.

Had to race back, in fact. Yeah, before his first appearance at shortstop. Oh, I'm so delighted. Oh, boy. So that was his second time being a father uh that was the second time having sex probably not probably not but don't want to speculate as far as we know he has had sex at least two times and he has two children. So congrats to him. And yeah, he is not the only Dodger to have gone on paternity leave at roughly the same time. Almost overlapping here.

So Evan Phillips was placed on the paternity leave list. Brewstar Gratterall and Mookie. And who am I missing? Max Muncy. Max Muncy, of course. Right. Who is hitting homers himself and no other extra base hits really kind of. And as I recall, had just like a delightful response when he went on paternity leave the last time, which I believe was in 2021. And I think that when he and his wife announced either that they the baby had been born

or that they were expecting, he said something to the effect of like, what else were you going to do in the bubble? Right. Yeah. Yeah. So the Dodgers, four guys going on the paternity leave at almost the same time. I mean, it actually could have been five already because Cody Bellinger just went on the paternity list for the Cubs. And obviously he was with the Dodgers last summer when they were exposed to whatever pheromones or mating call or primal love potion was circulating in the clubhouse at that time. I got curious about just like what's the most paternity leave placements in a season by any team, What's the most paternity leave placements in a season by any team, let alone simultaneous? Because the Dodgers definitely, I think, have the record for most paternity leave placements within a very compressed period.

Because I looked this up with the help of Lucas Apostolaris at Baseball Prospectus. The record for paternity leave placements for a team in a season, a whole season, is five. So the Yankees last year and the Braves in 2021 had five paternity leave placements apiece. So the Dodgers have had four almost at the same time. They're on pace for the entire team being on the paternity leave. It's on the paternity list at some point this season, which probably won't happen. This is probably one of those on pace stats

that will not sustain the pace. But still, I don't know whether any other Dodgers or partners of Dodgers are expecting currently, but they have a lot of time here to break the record. But I mean, it's too late if you try to break the record. You can't start now because, you know, it does take nine months at least. And the baseball season is not that long. You can go on next season's record, like, if you want to, obviously. Let me tell you about the birds and the bees of this baseball podcast.

It's too late. Look, if you have not already done the work, then you will not be on the paternity list this season. Right. However, there may very well be buns in the oven. I don't know. So if there are, then the Dodgers just need one more to tie the record and two to break it.

So we'll see if they do. But I got kind of curious about the fact that, okay, you have the Dodgers with four already this year. And then I mentioned the record holders, the Yankees last year, the Braves the year before. Is there anything to the fact that these are recent teams that are having highs? I wondered whether paternity leaves have gotten more common over time. What I had forgotten is that there was no official paternity leave in MLB in the CBA prior to 2011. Yeah. Which, you know, shockingly recent. It is, although I believe MLB is still the only one of the four major North American. Is that true? I think so.

I don't think, at least as of recently, unless there was a very recent addition, I don't think the NFL or NBA or NHL has an official paternity leave policy. Which is not to say that guys don't, you know, go home for the birth of their children and miss some time. They absolutely do. And baseball players did on occasion, too, before there was an official paternity leave. Yeah, and they got a bunch of guff for it. They did, yeah. In fact, remember 2014, this was a few years after they instituted the MLB paternity leave policy. You had that whole dumb controversy on WFAN where Boomer Esiason, the host and former NFL quarterback, was talking about how it was, you know, like to take paternity leave during a season was like somehow bad.

Right. And that it showed like mismatched priorities. It was like, who was he talking about? It was April of 2014. And he apologized for this later because, you know, he got sort of skewered. It was actually – it was Daniel Murphy and Boomer Esiason joked. I guess you could call it a joke and said, quite frankly, I would have said C-section before the season starts. I need to be at opening day. I'm sorry. This is what makes our money.

This is how we're going to live our life. This is going to give my child every opportunity to be a success in life. I'll be able to afford any college I want to send my kid to because I'm a baseball player. So very, you know, kind of retrograde attitude towards just fatherhood and parenting and work life balance and everything. Father of two children! Yeah, he did apologize for it later, but that was kind of the attitude. I mean, you know, I don't want to say that was the prevailing attitude, but he was not the only person to have that kind of attitude. And that was a few years after the policy was put in place. The first guy to avail himself of the policy in April 2011 was Colby Lewis of the Rangers

and a Dallas Observer columnist named Richie Witt wrote, In game two, Colby Lewis is scheduled to start after missing his last regular turn in the rotation because, I'm not making this up, his wife Jenny was giving birth in California to the couple's second child. Don't have kids of my own, but I raised a stepson for eight years. I know all about sacrifice and love and how great children are, but a pitcher missing one of maybe 30 starts and it's all kosher because of Major League Baseball's new paternity leave rule. Baseball players are paid millions to play baseball. If that means scheduling bursts so they occur in the offseason, then so be it. Of the 365 days in a year starting pitchers work, maybe 40 of them counting spring training and playoffs. So players had to push to get this

right. And again, you know, I imagine it's largely like a MLB union strength. You know, I imagine it's largely like a MLB union strength. You know, the MLBPA is a stronger union than the other leagues have. Maybe that's why or maybe it just hasn't been a priority in negotiating. I don't know. Or maybe it's just, you know, it's lenient enough that guys feel like they can leave. There are fewer games in other sports seasons, more days off. But when you left, like prior to this policy, like your team was just shorthanded. I mean, you know, you couldn't call someone up because you couldn't just place someone on the paternity list. There wasn't one.

So I wondered then, given that there was initially some stigma surrounding this and perhaps in some quarters still is, I wondered whether MLB players have gotten more likely to avail themselves of this option as time has gone on. And it does appear that they have. There appears to be quite a strong trend toward the number of paternity list placements increasing by the season. I assume that's not because baseball players have become more fertile and fecund in the past decade. You know, if anything, the birth rate is probably down. I don't know whether the MLB birth rate is up or down.

But, you know, I don't know that it's suddenly that baseball players are breeding like rabbits and are just pumping out babies. I think it's probably that they have become more likely to take advantage of the option to go away for a few days. And it is only a few days. Right. It's like three days. Yeah. It's really not a lot of time at all in the grand scheme of things, but it's something.

So, I mean, you know, having been through that myself a year and a half ago, like three days, I mean, you could be awake that entire time. Right. It's, you know, there's so much happening and so much to do. And granted, you know, you would hope that with a big league salary in the picture, you know, you could afford to have help and child care and all that. And hopefully the mother taking some time off. There are certain advantages that one would hope that a partner of a big leaguer would have that the average person doesn't have. It's only so much you can do, though, right?

Yeah. You can only outsource so much. Right. It's helpful to have another partner there. Yes. And it's also nice for the father to be there at that time, right? Yeah. It's a big milestone.

So the first season that this was an option, 2011, there were only 19 placements. There were only 19 placements. And to put that in perspective, by the time 2020 rolled around, where you have a very shortened season, there were 19 that season. Even with a 60-game season, there were as many as there were in the 2011 full-length season. So that kind of puts into perspective how much it's increased. So 2011, there were 19. 2012, there were 22.

2013, there were 25. 2014, there were 19. 2012, there were 22. 2013, there were 25. 2014, there were 28. 2015, for the first time, it did not rise. It went down one from 28 to 27. But then 2016, 34. 2017, 38. 2018, 43. 2019, for whatever reason, it went down again a bit to 35. Then there was the shortened COVID season. But then 2021, 49, a new high. 2022, 55, a new high. And with the Dodgers' help, maybe we're on pace for another new high this year. So I graphed it, and it looks like, you know, with the exception of 2020 and a couple other little blips, like it's a pretty steady, slow and steady increase by the season, which I guess is what you would want to see that people, you know, granted, I guess rosters have gone from 25 to 26 in that

time. Like I was just trying to think, like, could it be explained by maybe just like more players as opposed to players becoming more willing to take the leave? So, you know, there are more players used in a season now than there were a decade or more ago. But there are the same number on a roster at any given time or at least, you know, one more than there used to be. So I think it's probably mostly that teams have just, I mean, players have gotten more willing and eager to do this and any kind of, you know, fear of recrimination or fear that people would give you side eye or that Boomer Esiason would talk about you on sports talk radio.

Hopefully that has dissipated and people have accepted that it's a pretty important life milestone, you know? And sure, like if you could plan everything perfectly and you're a baseball player who knows you have a good chunk of the year off, would you ideally want to schedule it so that you could have your baby in the offseason? Yeah, I guess. But you can't always schedule these things. They're not always planned. And even if you're trying to plan it, you can't always succeed in planning it perfectly.

So inevitably, you're going to have people become fathers during the season. And when they do, they should not miss that moment. I don't know Boomer Esiason and I don't know his wife. I do think it's funny that when you Google him, like the little Google result thing to situate him says American actors. If that's the most famous thing about boomers, I said, I don't know how his wife reacted to this, but can you imagine being him coming home at the end of that day? And you're like,

I had a good successful day at work. And then the look on is like, I'm sorry, you want me to have major surgery electively for your convenience? Yeah, sir. It is. It is funny how willing people are to just show their entire behinds when it comes to these takes.

Because it's like, I don't know, man. It's just a couple of days. It's only a couple of days, really. Yep. Yeah. And if you look at it by time of year, because everyone's been wondering, what were the Dodgers up to nine months ago? What was going on in Dodger land at that time? I mean, if you do the backdating.

Is it the all-star break? My first guess would be the all-star break. Well, yeah. So that's right. That could be right. Someone on Reddit, there was a thread about that, and listener Michael pinged me to point out that people were trying to figure out who could have been an all-star break baby Biggio, was an all-star because he was born on April 11th, 1995, and his dad was an all-star in 1994. And I actually looked up in that game, Craig Biggio, he only got one plate appearance and he reached on a fielder's choice, but he did score.

And he may also have scored shortly before or after that game because Kevin Piccio came along almost exactly nine months later, like nine months and a day or something. So yeah, maybe he was an all-star break baby. Maybe the Dodgers were getting down during the all-star break last year. And look, I mean, Mookie was an all-star last year, right? So if you weren't an all-star, then you had even more time off. So, yeah, I was curious whether we would see kind of clusters in the timing. So, of the 394 paternity leave placements that we have through 2022, and, you know, tossing out March and October and November, because those are just very fractional months. But if we look at the full months, April through September,

the highest is August. So August is the most fertile month or at least the most newborns in baseball are happening in August and then July shortly after that. So again, I guess if you count back, you're talking about like early off season, right? It's like, all right, playoffs over, you know, like we got the whole off season ahead of us now. We're reunited after a long season when we were apart, perhaps for long periods of time. So, yeah, July and August seem to be the big ones. And then April and June are roughly equivalent.

And May is the lowest. So perhaps there is an all-star break pump that coincides with the April bursts. And then May is lower. And then June, you're getting up again. And then June, July, August. Yeah, July and August are the big ones. The biggest days, July 5th and August 31st, each have seven paternity leave placements. So make of that what you will. But there are six days in the sample with at least six paternity leave placements apiece, and they are all in July and August. So it would appear that like, you know, that November kind of period, you know, just a long, long season behind us. That seems to be the prime time for baby making in NLP. Congrats to everyone. Hope everybody's happy and healthy. That's what you hope for. Indeed. All right. So we will wrap up with the Pass Blast, which will come from 1998. Although

I have one very interesting bit of Pass Blastie research that I did in response to a Patreon message that we got from listener John, and he was responding to something I said in episode 1996. He said, I could no longer hold back, and I must write in to ask probably the worst question of all time. And no, I am not on pot right now. I cannot find for the life of me why the term velo or velocity is used these days for pitches. I want to believe that when I was a kid, we said pitch speed. So episode 1996 made him become a Patreon supporter to ask this question. Because in that episode, you were talking about how you never took chemistry, but did take two

years of physics. Yes. And from the physics definition of velocity, that means the speed of something in a given direction. Yes. But when people discuss baseball velo, there's never really a direction given, just a speed. And so that sort of sticks in his mind or sticks in his craw. But he said Ben was discussing exit velo. And for the first time that I can remember, Ben said exit speed and not just exit velo, which implies no direction. So he just wanted to know why do baseball people use the term velo instead of just speed? And I don't know if I said speed that time for a particular reason, but in the

vein of how can you not be pedantic about baseball, like this is something I think about. And I do sometimes say exit speed just because it's more technically correct. Correct, yeah. Like, you know, when you talk about pitch speed, I don't think it matters because there's a direction implied. Right, exactly, yes. We know which direction you're throwing the pitch in. Precisely. Roughly, you know, you're throwing it toward home plate.

So you don't have to say he threw a 95-mile, you know, he threw that curveball 77 miles per hour toward home plate or, you know, like we know, right? I mean, you know, occasionally there's a very wayward pitch, but think, credence to the idea that we should say speed because, you know, velocity like batted balls could go in all sorts of different directions, right? Sure. More material to get stuck in that craw. Yes. And we have launch angles. We have vertical and horizontal launch angles that we sometimes cite that do give us the velocity. we sometimes cite that do give us the velocity. So if we say that that was a 95 mile per hour batted ball, you know, at X launch angle or X spray angle or whatever, that is giving a velocity. But if you just say it's a 100 mile per hour exit velocity batted ball, technically, you know, that's kind of correct. It should probably be exit speed. But I did get kind of curious just about why we say velocity instead of speed or when people started saying that, whether John's memory of people used to say speed and now they say velocity, whether there was any credence to that. So I did do a little newspapers.com deep diving here,

and I think I have come up with an answer, and I think it's actually kind of an interesting answer. So if you look at the Dixon's Baseball Dictionary and you look up velocity there, it's a short entry, and it doesn't really say much about the etymology. All it says there is the speed of a pitch, that which determines a good fastball. It is a quality of a pitcher who can throw hard.

And then it cites Roger Clemens saying velocity in 1989. Usage note, the term velocity has become a modern term for what used to be called speed. Okay, so that backs up John's belief here. But it doesn't say when it became a common or dominant term. So I found this article from 1975 about Nolan Ryan that says, the vocabulary of pitchers has improved once they simply would rear back and throw hard. But now the big word is velocity, as if they were scientists testing rockets. So that's 1975, where it was new enough that people were noting, oh, okay, they used to just say throw hard or speed.

Now they suddenly say velocity. But it was, you know, caught on enough that it was common at that point. So I found an article from 1973 that mentions Astor's catcher Johnny Edwards saying velocity. And then I found a 1970 article where Denny McLean says velocity. So I'm pushing it back bit by bit, but it was definitely becoming a lot less common as I went back. So it appears to really have caught on in the 70s. But the first newspaper reference I could find dates from a 1966 excerpt from Branch Rickey's book, The American Diamond, a documentary history of the game of baseball, which came out just before he died in December 1965. So I found the Philadelphia Inquirer was running an excerpt from that book

and he was talking about, you know, what makes a good pitcher and how you pitch. And he was using Velocity over and over and over again. And then I Googled Branch Rickey and Velocity and found some old scouting reports from 1964 that were filed by Branch Rickey. So 1964, there was a Steve Carl old scouting reports from 1964 that were filed by Branch Rickey. So 1964, there was a Steve Carlton scouting report where he used Velocity. And also 1964, there was a Dave DeBuscher scouting report where he used Velocity.

So as best as I can tell, Branch Rickey started this or at least popularized it in the mid-60s. So I think this was one of his last innovations. So, you know, we think about Bridge Ricky for the farm system and integration and various kinds of equipment and other innovations and everything. I think maybe one of the last stamps he put on the game was popularizing or actually inventing using velocity to refer to pitch speeds. And I wonder, given the timing, whether this was a space age innovation, you know, whether this was influenced by the Apollo program and the space race and that kind of just being in the air back then and people talking about actual rockets and their velocity and whether he then appropriated that. So it's interesting, you know, like all the references I could find before then were like to bullets or rockets or maybe an isolated case like golf balls. But, you know, maybe talking about actual vectors and real velocities and not just speeds. So Branch Rickey, I think, may be why we say velocity now as often as speed, if not more so.

Huh. Interesting. It is interesting. I did not expect to find that. Yeah. Yeah. He was just kind of a visionary. He really changed the game in a lot of ways. And this was one minor way that I didn't even realize. All right. So add it to his Hall of Fame plaque and his legacy.

I don't think his Lee Lowenfish biography mentions velocity anywhere in the book. So we need a new addition to note that he has contributed to the baseball lexicon in this way, too. So the actual pass blast comes from 1998 and from David Lewis, an architectural historian and baseball researcher based in Boston, who notes, 1998, do the youth of America still love baseball? The age-old eternal question. In May 1998, the St. Cloud Times polled their readers under the age of 13, asking kids why baseball should still be considered the national pastime, asking kids why baseball should still be considered the national pastime. Refuting the notion that baseball lacks a younger fan base, local children

poured in responses, the best of which were printed in the June 17th, 1998 issue. Clara Richter, an 11-year-old who was voted grand champion for the best answer, wrote, I'll tell you why baseball is America's favorite pastime. It's because you pick up the smoothest and heaviest bat, then you step up on the plate and watch the pitcher throw. It comes nearer and nearer, and then bang, the ball is out of there. Home run, the umpire calls, the crowd goes wild. Also, it's fun to watch on TV or listen to on the radio.

No matter how you watch it or hear it, you still know what is going on. No matter if you win or lose, you still had fun playing it. I like it especially when you get to play with your family and friends or at school. That's what baseball is all about. For her winning answer, Clara was selected to throw out the first pitch at a Northwoods League St. Cloud Riverbats game. She also received 10 tickets to the game and a ride in the team's bullpen cart, the Batmobile. Yes. Clara, if you're out there, if you're a listener, if you're still a baseball fan, if anyone knows Clara Richter, please get in touch. Let us know if you still enjoy baseball and think that it's America's favorite national pastime.

Other featured answers include a kid named Joshua, age eight. When you are in the stands, it's a fun play to have a hot dog and pop with your dad. I like baseball because you can slide into bases without getting into trouble by mom. And then Cabell and Eli, ages seven and eight. A baseball game is the best place to take my papa. I like the butterflies in my belly when the bases are loaded. It's when papa gets us lots of food. When Mom says just one, I can sit way high up on top and be out in the dark. I have to hurry to the bathroom if the line is too long, and then I can't wait.

Uncle Kurt always buys us a baseball, the good kind that's not all chewed up from my dog. It's a happy time in my whole life. A good place for boys and papas. Sounds like it's from 1898. Yeah, what the heck? Boys and Papas. Sounds like it's from 1898. Yeah, what the heck? Boys and Papas. And then Andrea, age nine, said, I like baseball because the action is fun and you get to have chips and cheese. Everyone in the family likes to eat them.

My dad could have caught a ball once, but he was carrying food at the time. I would have dropped the food and caught the ball. And then Tyler, age 11, baseball is still America's favorite pastime because baseball is baseball. Baseball can't be beat. It's a tautology, Tyler. It seems even the youngest among us, David concludes, can't help but be romantic about baseball. So yeah, I guess if you're polling your readers under the age of 13 with the prompt that, you know, why should baseball still be considered the national pastime, then I guess you're not going to get a lot of responses that say it shouldn't.

They're all just, we love baseball and our papas do too. Anyway, there were a lot of youngins who still liked baseball in 1998. Hopefully they still do today. Hopefully. All right. A few follow-ups for you here. The Pirates lost to the Dodgers. Mookie Betts started it short again. Shohei Otani stole two bases in an inning. The Rays finally

lost at home. The A's lost, but the Twins won to beat the Yankees in their season series for the first time since 2001. Byron Buxton, DH-ing, doubled and hit a go-ahead homer. We've received many more submissions for potential new nicknames for the flyball power-oriented Yandy Diaz that we've seen this season. People were not satisfied with Fly Mignon or Launch Meat or Meat Loft. And so they have submitted Launch Angus. We got that one from a few people. Airs the Beef. Beef, it's what's for dinger.

Beef Balgogi, pretty good. A vegetarian option, Beyond beef instead of beyond beef. Beef stroking up, which I like, but sounds like it might have more to do with our paternity leave conversation than Yandy Diaz. Beef 5'11 and 101 pounds of fun. Well, some people in the Discord group pointed out that that's a lyric from the song from South Pacific, Honey Bun. 101 pounds of fun, that's my little honey bun. But A, the song is pretty darn sexist. The line before 101 pounds of fun is, and she's broad where a broad should be broad. Okay. Also, the song specifies that Honey Bun is only 60 inches high. She's five feet tall,

which makes more sense with the 101 pounds. So in a way, if it is a South Pacific reference, it's even more curious that they used it and that they changed the height the way that they did. So this does not make me look askance at Rosie's listed dimensions any less than we were last time. In response to our swingman stat blast from last time, where we tried to find the ultimate platonic ideal of a swingman, well, Patreon supporter James wrote in with a great suggestion, although not necessarily a platonic one. The swingiest swingman ever could be Mike Kekich, who played most of his career with the Yankees. He pitched in 235 games and started 112 for a ratio of 1.1 to 1.

He did pitch in nine seasons and in eight of them had at least one start and one relief appearance. But the clincher is that he famously traded wives with teammate Fritz Peterson. I get that this last part is hard to play in decks,

but figured it fit the double entendre nature of your conversation. Yes, indeed it does. Also got a bunch of responses to the stat blast about pitch counts and Justin Turner

and how it seems like running up the pitch count of starting pitchers is as valuable as it ever was, if not more so, even in this era of deep bullpens and great relievers. Read you a few responses. Andrew noted, is it possible that Justin Turner's old team is skewing the sample? Since 2015, the Dodgers have been uber dominant in the regular season and seen more pitches per at-bat than a lot of other teams. I'd be curious to know if the numbers are more in line with the historical average if we eliminate Los Angeles and its massive winning percentage from the group. After all, pitches per at-bat can't be the main reason,

let alone only reason that they've had this decade-long run of supremacy. Good point. Haven't checked on that yet. Cole says, I suspect the reason that driving up pitch counts has a bigger effect in today's game has more to do with starting pitcher usage than bullpens. In modern baseball, throwing at high effort in fewer innings is sometimes part of the plan. Think of someone like Spencer Strider, who may only go four or five innings in many of his starts, but will often rack up eight or ten strikeouts while doing so. With fewer balls being put in play, his pitch count climbs quickly, but he might still be dominating the opposing hitters.

In this case, bring on the bullpen. Contrast that with several decades ago, where the average pitcher was inducing much more contact with fewer strikeouts. If those pitchers had a high pitch count by the fourth inning, it almost certainly meant they were giving up lots of hits and having a bad outing. Hitters might not benefit as much from seeing the bullpen arms in this case. A related thought, managers also have a much quicker hook with starting pitchers now, and they might pull a pitcher early based on things other than results. In the past, managers would often wait until the starting pitcher imploded before pulling them early. results. In the past, managers would often wait until the starting pitcher imploded before pulling them early. Lastly, Jacob says, my deep conviction is that this is a matter of simple probability

relating to the number of pitchers used and their chance of either having it or not on a given day. Basically, in the past, fewer relievers were used per game, including early starter exit games, but they tended to have longer outings. They were not as good, but there were fewer of them. Recently and today, relievers are better, but just by dint of there being more of them, each responsible for fewer innings in early starter exit games means that the chance is higher that at least one of them just doesn't have it that day, leading to a higher chance of a further blow up and thus lowered expected odds of winning or comeback. You might be able to get at this by investigating the standard deviation of expected outcomes multiplied by the number of pitchers needed, but I'm not sure that even gets it.

Nonetheless, I remain convinced this is true. I am always curious about the someone won't have it this day hypothesis. I recalled that a few years ago, Craig Edwards and Ben Clements at Fangraphs had written about how there did seem to be some dilution in reliever talent and particularly low leverage mid-game relievers, the soft underbelly of the bullpen. Those guys do seem to have been stretched a bit by the fact that starters aren't going deep into games and thus relievers have to make up the innings. And there are only so many good relievers to go around even now. So it might really be just what Justin Turner said, feasting on those last guys in the bullpen who aren't actually the uber effective late inning arms that we think of. And if anyone was wondering from earlier, dilly dally stems from

the French word dally. It originally had flirtatious connotations. The addition of dilly to dally is directly linked to doubling the word for effect, which is known as reduplication. Lollygagging has the root word lol to lie about. This also had some romantic sexual associations, was used to describe the way two people in love would act around one another, wasting time with one's lover, flirting, lovemaking. Very appropriate for today's episode in Statplast. We are now rotating our Effectively Wild intro themes that we've received from listeners. We don't want to mothball any of them forever, so we're just going to keep using them. And we continue to welcome submissions via email.

and we continue to welcome submissions via email. We also welcome Patreon supporters via patreon.com slash effectivelywild, where you can sign up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad-free aside from our StatBlast sponsorship, and get yourself access to some perks, as have the following five listeners. Matthew Tobin, Tobias Cortese, Andrew Pink, LP, and Jim Stewart.

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other podcast platforms. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash Effectively Wild. You can follow Effectively Wild on Twitter at EWPod, and you can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash Effectively Wild. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We will be back with another episode a little later this week. Talk to you then. Nothing less than effectively wild