Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2015: Sweeping Statement

Episode Date: June 3, 2023

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about whether Shohei Ohtani is throwing too many sweepers to opposite-handed hitters, the MLB debut of flamethrowing Ben Joyce, the extreme walk/strikeout stylings of George Kirby and Spencer Strider, the states of the Central divisions, the offense and defense of Ke’Bryan Hayes, the return of Jon Singleton, whether the […]

I want banter with nuance From two hosts to other girls I'm just a fan who wants Nothing less than effectively wild Oh, wild, oh Wild. Oh, wild. Oh, wild. Nothing less than Effectively Wild. Hello and welcome to episode 2015 of Effectively Wild, a Fangrafts baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters.

I'm Meg Rowley of Fangrafts and I am joined as always by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you sitting today? I'm sitting totally naturally. Hadn't even spared a thought for it until you just brought it up. Although, I guess naturally for me, I am almost in a full crisscross applesauce right now. Yeah, I mean, like, what is natural? So many interpretations of that. You know, there's a broad spectrum of natural. Doesn't mean either of your feet has to be on the floor.

Right. So, yeah, well, now you've made me self-conscious, but I'm going to keep sitting this way. I'm inviting you to even though I always sit casually. So I don't want to tell Shohei Ohtani how to do his job. Wow. But I do have some advice. You have notes? I think I have some notes. Yeah. So Shohei had an outing against the Astros on Friday. I was watching, of course, and he was not great. He gave up some dingers. He gave up five runs in six innings. He a slump, really, on both sides of the ball. And he has now plummeted to 11th in war on the Van Graaff's

combined war leaderboard. Yeah, this will not do. Shohei Otani is not a top 10 player by war. This cannot stand. And my note for him is that I think he throws too many sweepers. I think he does. He throws a lot. He throws so many sweepers. He throws way more sweepers than anyone else. Yeah. And way more sweepers than anything else, right? Yes. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. So his sweeper rate has upticked totally this year. And other pitches that he is better known for, used to be better known for, have had great downturns. So he barely throws his signature splitter anymore. He has cut back dramatically on his four-seamer.

He just throws sweeper after sweeper after sweeper after sweeper. So many sweepers. He has thrown about 42% of his pitches this year have been sweepers. No other starter has thrown more than 30% sweepers. That's JP Sears is in second. He's thrown 476 total sweepers this season. And Sears is in second at 293. So he's just thrown way more sweepers than any other pitcher this year.

And it is a good sweeper. I see why he wants to throw it. But he throws too many, I think, specifically to left-handed hitters. He throws so many sweepers to lefties. And sweepers are, by and large, not as effective against lefties. They are not. Ben Clemens wrote about this last year. This is sort of the hidden drawback of sweepers.

I guess it's not really hidden because most pitchers seem to know this and they throw fewer sweepers against lefties. But the advantage of a sweeper in general relative to a regular slider is not that it gets so many more whiffs. It doesn't really, but it gets weaker contact. And so it generates more pop-ups, induces more pop-ups, generates a lower BABIP. But against lefties, it does not. It does not have that advantage. And it seems to get actually fewer whiffs than regular sliders do. We're talking about right-handers throwing to left-handers here. And it gets fewer whiffs and it doesn't have that same advantage of inducing weak contact and suppressing hard contact. So its advantage on contact goes away and it doesn't really have an advantage on non-contact. And if anything,

it's a detriment to right-handed pitchers when it comes to missing bats against lefties. So you should throw it less often, typically, to lefties if you are a righty. And Shohei does, does, but barely. So league-wide, right-handed pitchers throw sweepers to lefties about 42% as often as they throw sweepers to righties. Otani throws sweepers to lefties about 85% as often as he throws them to righties. So he throws sweepers to righties about 45% of the time, and he throws sweepers to lefties more than 38% of the time. So he's not really cutting back on his sweeper usage that much against lefties. And that doesn you say, well, he has a really good one and maybe he could get away with throwing it more often, still relative to how often he throws it against righties, it seems like he should be cutting back more than he does. So if you just sum the collective run value of all of the sweepers that he's thrown to righties, 268 of them, they have amassed a negative 5.1 run value, according to Baseball Savant. Negative is good for the pitcher.

If you take his 208 sweepers to lefties, they have basically a neutral run value, negative 0.1. So they haven't really been good for him or for the batter. But given that this is Otani and he's a very good pitcher, if it's just kind of a break-even pitch, if it's like no better for him than it is for the batter, then that's not so great because he should have good run values on probably all of his pitches because he's a very good pitcher. So it just doesn't seem to be helping him very much. And he's only given up two homers on sweepers to righties,

but he's given up four homers on sweepers to lefties, including one to Jordan Alvarez on Friday, which, you know, Jordan's going to get you every now and then, regardless of what you throw. I'm just imagining like a cover of the rhythm is going to get you, but it's about Jordan Alvarez. Yeah. So sometimes there's just no pitch that you can throw to Jordan.

He's going to hit it. Yeah, he's a good hitter. But you don't have to make it any easier for him. And it's a pitch that breaks toward the batter. So if it's a left-handed hitter and a right-handed pitcher, it's breaking toward the batter. So it's easier for them to see. So it makes sense that it would have a pretty big platoon split. So Shohei's calling his own pitches. And so I guess I'm speaking directly to him here, not to his catchers. But Shohei, I'm imploring you to throw just a few fewer sweepers to lefties these days.

I think that the persistence of it is what is surprising to me, right? Like, you would think at some point, and maybe this conversation has happened, maybe there's something that we're missing or whatnot. But you would think someone from the front office would be like, hey, so the thing is, because he's not a guy who at least, I mean, I am not an Otani scholar the way that you are. So you correct me if I'm wrong, but I haven't ever gotten a sense from him that he's like an anti-analytics guy or like, you know, unwilling to engage with data or whatnot. Like the sheer number of like, hey, I'm going to try that thing that he seems to do would suggest that he is adaptable. Um, and so, yeah, it is, it is surprising that it has been a persistent concern. Um, but it does seem like, yeah, like maybe, maybe fewer of them, but I don't know, maybe we are prone to exaggeration when it comes to the speed with which adjustments are both identified and made. Because like, think about how long teams were like shifting in a way that didn't make sense. So,

I don't know, maybe we're giving too much credit, quote unquote. Yeah. Well, he has gone to driveline in the past and he seems to be open to input. It seems like he's just so talented that maybe sometimes he doesn't need the input. Like there are these stories of him just like facing a pitch as a hitter and say, oh, that's a good pitch. I should throw that. And then next thing you know,

he's throwing that pitch, right? I mean, he's done that with, he's constantly changing his pitch mix and experimenting and evolving over time. But it seemed that those evolutions were improving him, that he was continually getting better and better as he kept mixing up what he was doing. And now it seems like he's just run into a little slump where it's not benefiting him so much. So there could be other reasons, like maybe being wary of blisters with the splitter. I think that's been a concern at times.

Or I think he likes to pace himself. And so he doesn't want to be pumping 100, 101 mile per hour fastballs out there. And even though he throws very hard, his fastball just didn't get like a ton of rise and spin. So it wasn't as great a four- seamer as you might think just based on the velocity. But it just, it seems like he should not be throwing quite so many sweepers, two lefties specifically. That's just my- Just look at how apologetic you are. I mean- You're just like, I'm so sorry that I dare question that anything you do might be not perfect. But like, I just,

you know, I feel like- I know. You're so nervous, Ben. Well, he is the baseball savant, so I am hesitant to offer my input. You need to spend a little more time on baseball savant. I know. Yeah, right. Well, I just spent a lot of time on baseball savant to look up all those numbers. And yeah, I'm just saying, I don't know. Maybe he's just fallen a little too in love with the pitch. I mean, he's got a 3.3 ERA, just an unsightly 3.3 ERA.

I mean, he's leading the league in strikeouts per nine. He's leading the league in hits per nine. And he's also leading the league in hit by pitches and wild pitches. So that hasn't helped either. But yeah, I mean, it's just I've noticed a few meatballs being hit off of the sweepers to lefties. And it's just anomalous, not just in how often he throws it overall, but also specifically to lefties, which seems ill-advised. So that's my note. I guess none of his pitches has been totally lights out dominant effective against lefties this season. So I guess you can't point to one in particular and say he should just be throwing that one way more often. But it's gotten

to the point where it seems a little too predictable. And there are characteristics of the pitch that would suggest that it is not so well suited to throwing it to opposite-handed hitters. So that's all I'm saying. My two cents. Shohei should know that no one has his best interests in mind more than me, except possibly himself. But possibly, possibly himself. I want the best for Shohei almost as much as he does, I think. So, I'm just saying. You are committed. That is for sure. Should you be committed? You know, who could even volunteer such a suggestion? Anyway, we'll see if he takes my advice, but I'm sure he'll be fine one way or another. He's pretty good at baseball. Have you seen,

speaking of Angels pitchers, have you seen Ben Joyce? I've been looking forward to his arrival for a while. Ben Joyce was a draftee last year. The Angels have gone heavy on pitchers in recent drafts. He was their third-round pick, despite the fact that he throws extremely hard and threw maybe the fastest college pitch on record. What did he throw? Like 105-something he was clocked at. And yet he was available in the third round.

They took him there. And it looked like there was a chance that he might even make the club out of spring training. But he did not. He went to the minors. And they just called him up. And just incredibly uncomfortable at bat, it looks like to me. Like of all the pitchers I would not want to stand in against, which is all of them, frankly. Ben Joyce is like close to the top of the list. I mean, I don't know that he will be totally dominant. Like he was in double A.

He started the season in double A. He pitched 15 innings, 15 and two thirds, and he struck out 24 guys, but he also walked 13. So he's kind of in that effectively wild classification, although he wasn't super effective. He had a 4.6 ERA, but he struck out like 14 per nine and walked seven and a half per nine. So it's very much in that he doesn't know where it's going and that's terrifying because he throws so extremely hard. So he's had two outings for the Angels in the majors thus far, and they've been close to perfect. He's given up a couple hits, but he hasn't walked anyone, and he's struck out four of the eight batters he's faced,

which is encouraging, and it's just scary. Like, you watch him, it's kind of, it's not smooth. It's not a low effort. He's averaging like 102 almost on his fastball. Like 101.6 is his average four-seamer thus far. And if he keeps that up, which seems like he could because he has a track record of doing this, like he might just be baseball's hardest thrower now, at least on an average basis. And it's kind of herky-jerky and high effort, and you don't know if he knows where it's going,

and it's just scary. So I think he has quickly vaulted to the top of the list of pitchers I would really, really not want to stand in against. I can't believe you found another angel to get, like, worked up over. I know. Penn, what's going on over there? Yeah, it's, Austin Adams has made his way to the Diamondbacks

and, you know, like I think they're just trying it out because they need relief help and, you know, he's pitching like low leverage innings. But yeah, I thought again, I'm like, if you're a batter and you're going up there

with an understanding that the pitcher just really doesn't know where it's going, like how, not that a pitcher would ever try to take the potential threat of a hit by pitch and use it to their advantage, but like how out of sorts would that make you? Like, I don't enjoy pain. So, I think I would get very nervous. I think I would get very nervous. I'd be inclined maybe to take strikes that I shouldn't, but also, you know, some of these guys are so wild, it doesn't matter if you do that. Yeah. Yeah. It's not like he's going out there and doing a Steve Dalkowski and like throwing a warm-up pitch to the screen or something to intimidate you. Right. But it is just naturally intimidating. And I think that probably works to his advantage.

And I'm sure he knows that. But yeah, his max pitch speed so far in just his two outings in the majors has been 102.9. But like he never throws a slow one. That's the thing. It's like he's topped out at roughly 103, but his slowest fastball thus far is also triple digits. He has not thrown a non-triple digit fastball thus far. He threw a cutter, I guess, that was like 89. That's the off-speed stuff.

But he has not thrown a fastball slower than 100.2 miles per hour. So will Ben Joyce throw a two-digit fastball? We will find out at some point this season. But yeah, it's sort of scary and impressive. But his college record-breaking fastball or record-setting fastball, as far as we know, 105.5. That was the fastest recorded pitch in the history of college baseball. I guess just a tick behind the 105.8-mile-per-hour fastball that Aroldis Chapman threw in 2010, according to the tech of the time. His fastball veal is back up, too.

Yeah, it is. All right. So that's all I've got on Angels pitchers today, I believe. You don't have any more? You don't want to offer any more thoughts on the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim? I think I'm good. Yeah. All right.

Yeah. But I did want to talk about a couple other young pitchers, George Kirby and Spencer Strider, because these two guys, roughly the same age, I guess Kirby's slightly older. Maybe he's 25, Strider is going for the record for strikeout rate. Essentially, he's trying to strike out more guys than have ever been struck out on a rate basis. George Kirby is trying to walk fewer than have ever been walked. So it's if you look just like purely surface level, I guess you could say that there are different ways of doing it are working approximately equally well this year because George Kirby has a 3. of ERA, then Strider has been better. Very few pitchers, if any, have been better than Spencer Strider since he came up last year. And Kirby has been very good since he came up last year. But I thought of this because I saw a couple fun facts about each of these guys. And one was that Strider was the fastest ever pitcher

to 100 strikeouts in a season. It took him only 61 innings pitch to get there this year, which I suppose stands to reason if you have the highest strikeout rate for a starting pitcher. And then Kirby, there was a fun fact that wasn't really that fun. It was like, there was a fun fact that wasn't really that fun. It was like, of all the pitchers who threw 200 or more innings over their first 36 games, Kirby had the fewest walks issued, which sounded good until you realized that Kirby only had 201 innings over those games, right? And so he's just barely over that 200-inning minimum that you set. And so the fact that he has issued the fewest walks of anyone in that group is less impressive because historically speaking,

most pitchers, most starters at least, who had 36 outings to start their career would have many more innings than just 201, right? That's kind of a product of the times. And so those guys would also have issued more walks even if they had low walk rates. But the point is Spencer Strider, extreme strikeout rate guy. George Kirby, extreme walk rate guy. 2.1%? Yeah, which is really impressive. He has only walked 28 patters in his 36 starts. So it's not like the fun fact is lying that much. Also,

he has the highest strikeout to walk ratio of anyone in the majors this year, even though he doesn't strike out that many guys. Now, Strider, still more impressive, I think, strikeout-wise than Kirby is walk-wise. I looked up their standard deviations from the mean just looking at starting pitchers who have thrown at least 50 innings pitched this season. And Kirby's walk rate among that group, he's 2.3 standard deviations from the mean, which is very impressive. But Spencer Strider is 3.5 standard deviations from the mean strikeout rate-wise in that same sample. No one else is even close. Otani is next at two standard deviations from the mean. So he is more of an outlier strikeout rate-wise than even Kirby is walk rate-wise. And yet, I'm kind of like rooting for Kirby to keep not walking

guys even more than I am rooting for Strider to keep striking out guys. Because if Strider could keep up his current rate of strikeouts, it would be the highest ever for a qualified pitcher, let's say. He's at 41.6% right now of batters he's faced have struck out. I guess the record, if you include 2020, which you shouldn't, but Shane Bieber struck out 41.1% of batters he faced that year. So that would kind of be the record for starting pitchers who qualified for the ERA title. But if you throw out 2020, which it would be great to do in all sorts of ways, then I guess the record would be Garrett Cole in 2009 struck out 39.9%. So Spencer Schreider could very well exceed that. He could do it. Yeah. I mean, he doesn't throw many different types of pitches,

but he really doesn't need to because no one can make contact with what he's doing. Now, Kirby, as you said, 2.1% walk rate, right? So he's not going to set the record, I don't think, Yes. Walk rate, right? So he's not going to set the record, I don't think, but there aren't a lot of guys who have managed to do that in a ERA qualifying season. I'm looking since 1920 here, live ball era. In the ALNL, I guess in the National League, you had Babe Adams in 1920, walked 1.7%. Brett Saberhagen in 1994, again, shortened season, 1.9%. Red Lucas in 1933, 2.0%.

And Babe Adams, again, 1922, 2.1%. So we're talking either strike-shortened season or guys in the 20s or 30s. 30s. If you look in the American League, then the only guys who've beaten what Kirby is doing right now are more recent and would be tough for him to top. So it's Kirby at 2.1 percent. Cliff Lee, 2010. He also walked 2.1 percent of hitters. Phil Hughes in 2014 walked 1.9 percent of hitters and the immortal Carlos Silva, also for the Twins, 1.2% of batters he faced he walked in 2005. Man, remember Carlos Silva?

Carlos Silva, he just never walked anybody. I mean, he did walk a couple of people, but he never walked anybody. But yeah, and that was that one year when never walked anybody. in 2005. And he wasn't that great because he didn't strike out anyone either. That year, what a wild year. That was 2005. It's not like ancient history. But 2005, 188 and a third innings

for Carlos Silva. He had a 3.44 ERA. He was like two war or something, fan graphs wise, probably better baseball reference. But he struck out 71 guys in 188 in the third innings, and he walked nine. What a weird year that was. And he also gave up 25 homers. I'm sure that many of them were solo shots because, again, he walked nine guys. But what? Just like 3.4 strikeouts per nine and 0.4 walks per nine, just at the extreme in every possible way. But I would be pretty tickled if

George Kirby could keep this up and come close to that rate because like people are striking out more hitters every year. I guess it's impressive that Strider, even in this high strikeout era, is still sort of a strikeout outlier. But it's more novel. It feels more fresh to root for a low walk rate guy than a high strikeout rate guy. I mean, I am in favor of any justification and case you have to make to root for a Mariner instead of an Angel? But yeah, this was kind of what we thought we were going to get with Kirby when he was a prospect, which is he throws a ton of strikes. He doesn't walk anybody.

He has this big fastball. He has solid secondaries. He doesn't really generate a ton of whiffs, so you're not going to get a lot of strikeouts from him. But if you get him on a night where he's able to command the fastball especially to the top of the zone like you're gonna he's gonna do really well he doesn't walk anyone he gives up very few home runs it's a good it's a good combo you know so it's um it's nice for for them you know the the hitting in seattle still subpar but the pitching continues to be excellent.

So here we are. Yeah. He misses many more bets than Carlos Silva did in his low walk rate heyday. So that's good, at least. And yes, you're right. He does not give up a lot of dingers. And he averages like 96 on his fastball, which, you know, like Carlos Silva did not do that. six on his fastball, which, you know, like Carlos Silva did not do that.

You probably, you think of a low walk rate guy as probably like a finesse guy, right? Like staying out of trouble because often, you know, if you're going to throw strikeout pitches, they're going to be out of the strike zone and guys will take them sometimes. And high velocity guys tend to be higher strikeout guys. And so it's odd, I guess, that someone would sit 96 essentially and still be a control artist, like kind of a finesse guy, which I guess is also a sign of the times. Just because these days, who doesn't throw 96? I mean, that's still above average below for a right-handed starter right but but he has some sinking action on that fastball and so that's a big part of it but yeah it's um it's impressive and another thing if you're like looking for i love how i'm like

being antagonistic like our listeners would be like no screw george kirby we're not gonna root for that guy he sucks i know that's not what we're doing here. But it is also nice that if you're looking for a guy who's going to routinely give you six, seven, even eight innings, he tends to fall in that range. He's had two starts this year where he's thrown fewer than five innings. And, you know, he wasn't good in those. So you tend to come out faster when you're not doing so hot. But one was like his first start of the year and the other was like a weirdly bad start against the Pirates. We don't have to transition right away, but I do want to

like take your temperature on a couple of teams. Sure. Go ahead. Yeah. What do you think of the pirates? Well, I didn't buy in too hard to the start to the season. Yeah. There were a lot of articles written. The pirates have arrived. They were the new hotness. And you knew that some regression was coming. And then it did. Yeah. And it bit them pretty hard for a while. But they've kind of pulled out of that again. Right. They've been okay lately, at least. They haven't been commanding as much attention because they haven't been extremely hot or

extremely cold, but they find themselves very close to the top of the NL Central. Half game back. Yeah, which again, like we talked about how really unimpressive the Brewers have been and the fact that they were kind of lucky to be atop that division. And we talked about just the general weakness of the division. Yeah. So the Pirates don't have to be good to stay in that race. I don't know that I see them as a winning team, and they are still technically an above 500 team. I don't know that they will end there.

But it's definitely like a good story, right? Yeah. There was an episode where we bantered about the Pirates and I was like, just drink this in and enjoy this Pirates band because everything's going great and good vibes and extensions and players playing well and savor it while it lasts. Yeah. And then things did take a turn. They did. But it's not a bad time to be a Pirates fan relative to recent years. It's a lot better than that.

Yeah. I think I agree with all of those things. Okay, here's another team. We just talked about them yesterday. We're going to make you do it again. The Arizona Diamondbacks. Yeah, super exciting. Feeling good.

Feeling good about the Diamondbacks. Yeah. They need bullpen help. But yeah, I feel good about... Still tied for first place. Yes. Six in a row, Ben. Yeah.

How about that? It's pretty impressive. Pretty impressive. Okay, here's another one for you. The Cincinnati Reds. I'm breaking a podcast rule, but we're on to my 501st episode, so I feel like I can really start pushing boundaries now. Yeah. No, I brought them up myself the other day.

Just there has been a vibe shift with the Reds, right? Suddenly, they're kind of fun. I mean, you've got the young guys at the top of the rotation. Suddenly, they're kind of fun. I mean, you got the young guys at the top of the rotation. You got Hunter Green throwing nice starts every now and then or very often as of late. And then you have the glut of prospects in the infield. You have Matt McClain and you have the Ellie watch and you have what are we going to do with Jonathan India?

And we have too many shortstops suddenly. So, that's kind of fun. Inspiring media feuds. Yes. So dumb. It is very silly. You know, if my last name could be shortened to Herb, I just wouldn't do it. I would refrain.

I'm not even going to clarify what we're talking about. You just get to go discover that little treasure on your own. I'll link to it on the show page if you really want to know. But it's so silly. It's so silly. Okay. Well, I guess those are the teams that I'm most interested in checking in on right now because I'm like feeling like the vibes. We got some vibes shifting around, Ben.

We got shifting vibes. Yeah. I was actually going to bring up a pirate. I was going to bring up Cabrian Hayes because he hit a come-from-behind, go-ahead three-run homer on Friday, and the Pirates came back to beat the Cardinals, I believe. And so I was checking in on Cabrian Hayes. And in my head, I've kind of been waiting for Cabrian Hayes to hit, I guess, because when he first showed up as a rookie, he hit great. And it was just a small sample. It was like 24 games and 95 plate appearances, and it was 2020. But he had a 194 WRC plus in those few plate appearances and a 450 BABIP. And maybe I got a little carried away with how good I thought Brian Hayes was. And since then, he really has not been a good hitter. He had a 87

WRC plus in 2021. He missed some time that year. Last year, he was more healthy and available, but he had essentially the same offensive stats. He had an 88 WRC plus. And this year, even after that homer, he has a 77 WRC plus. Now, he was extended by the Pirates, and I'm sure that they hoped that he would be at least an average hitter, if not an above average hitter. But he's got such a great glove that he's been a pretty useful player regardless. Even when he was a well below average hitter, he was a three-war player last year in 136 games. And his defense is off the charts. I mean, the DRS totals, the defensive run saved at third base.

He was plus four in fewer than 200 innings in that first season, then plus 16 in about 760 innings in 2021, then plus 24 in 1100 innings last year. And he's already plus eight in about 450 innings this year. So it's quite consistent. in about 450 innings this year. So it's quite consistent. If it were a player doing that one time in part of a season, you might say, defensive stats, they fluctuate a lot. Who knows? No, he's like top of the scale every year.

And if you want to go by outs above average, basically the same, same sort of range. Like the OAA totals went instead of 416,-24-8, they go 4-12-18-8. I mean, it's, you know, plus 42 instead of plus 52. It's very close over a span of four seasons. So very few defenders are better than Brian Hayes. And if he could hit just a little bit, if he could even just be an average hitter, he would be a star. If he could be an above average hitter, he'd be a superstar. And if he could continue to field like this and be a well below average hitter, he's still a playable player more than that, but I guess not

quite what they wanted from him probably. So I'm still sort of waiting to see if we will get some sort of offensive breakout or rebound from Brian Hayes. I hope that we do. But if he's just a spectacular glove guy, they're worse things to be. Sometimes you get a guy because they're better than they've ever been, right? But defensive metrics are still, there's some squish to them, you know, Ben? Like there's some squish, especially when you don't have a lot. There's some squish. And so, sometimes you'll get a guy and the metrics will be like, he's great.

And you're like, how is that true, though? When I watch him, he feels not great to me. And then you doubt yourself. You doubt math. It's really like, you know, it can be kind of a dark time when you're confronted with that gap. But then you watch Cabrian Hayes and you're like, yeah, okay. Yeah, the eye test. You know, there's like a, it's quite reassuring to watch a guy and be like, I bet his metrics are really good.

And then you look and you're like, yeah, true, true fact. Yeah, yeah. Now that I look, actually, 21 through 23, the years, that is, he leads all players in defensive runs saved. Yeah. And he is tied with Francisco Lindor for the most outs above average. So, yeah, no one has been better at their respective position or really at any position relative to the average player at that position. So if he could just hit just a little bit, that's a total star. And the Pirates have done all this without O'Neal Cruz mostly, right? Which I remember when Cruz got hurt, I think I said,

yeah, I think I said it was an extra bummer because, you know, probably the Pirates won't be that great this year and he was going to be a bright spot. He was going to be someone Pirates fans could delight in. As it turns out, they have been pretty good without him. But imagine when they get him back or if he had been part of this, then perhaps they'd be even closer. They'd be at the top of that division and not just a tiny teeny bit behind the Brewers. Man, and you're just sitting there going, it could happen.

Like, they could... And it has as much to do with the division as anything else, but it's like, they could win the Central. You know? I don't know. Here's another team-based question for you, Ben. Are you ready for my team-based questions?

We're going to do this for both the American League and the National League. Okay. Are there any teams in either of these divisions where, if they were to be the division champion on the last day of the season, you would be very surprised? You'd go, what happened? You know, where you'd go, what? And that, because you know how your voice makes that sound. Are we talking about, would my preseason self have gone what?

Or my current self? Let's do both. Let's do both. Okay. I think if you had told me that the Rangers would win the AL West, I would have been- No, no, no.

I don't care about the West. No, I just want to do the centrals. Oh, just the centrals? Yeah, we're just going to keep it win the AL West. I would have been... No, no, no. I don't care about the West. The West are... No, I just want to do the Central. Oh, just the Central? Yeah, we're just going to keep it in the Central. Okay. Well, the Twins are winning the Central and they are who I predicted to win the Central.

So you would not be shocked. I would not be shocked. I would be slightly surprised if they didn't. But you're asking me, would I be shocked if any of the others won? I guess I'd be shocked if the Royals won the AL Central. But otherwise, no. I think between these two divisions, preseason Meg would be surprised by the Royals, the Reds, certainly by the Pirates.

Current Meg. Yeah. June 3rd Meg, you know, different Meg. Yeah. Would I be surprised? I think the Royals, maybe, maybe only. Yeah. They're not good divisions, Ben, you know.

No. They're really not. And that doesn't mean that some of the teams in them don't have good players and that some of them aren't, you know, some of these teams aren't at least approximating good. Right. But like, wow, it's a little it's a soupy mess, you know, they're not they're not doing anything to to undo the argument about coastal elites. I'll say that, you know.

No, the Royals are the only team that has a 0.0% chance of winning the division, according to the Fangraph's playoff odds in the centrals. So the playoff odds would also be completely shocked if the Royals were to win the central. But everyone else, the playoff odds say at least there's a chance. At least there's a chance. You're saying there's a chance. Yeah.

The Royals, they actually have now actually bottomed out just in pure playoff odds, not just division odds. They have 0.0% playoff odds as well. Yep. I mean, I'd be surprised if the White Sox won. I would not have been surprised,

would not have been shocked, certainly, if the White Sox, if you'd asked me at the start of the season. They flipped for me, too. They started so me, too. Right. They started so slowly. Yeah. I wouldn't be shocked, but I would be surprised.

What am I asking? What is even this question that I've raised? Who could say? I think I get it. And I think we agree. It's the Royals. So, one more thing on the Central. John Singleton is back. So one more thing on the Central, John Singleton is back.

I don't know if this is going to be the differentiating factor that keeps the Brewers propped up in first place in the NL Central, but how about that? John Singleton is back in the majors after, gosh, how long has it been since John Singleton was last a big leaguer? It was 2015, right? Yeah, I think that that's right. It was when John Sigleton was last up. And, of course, he came up in 2014 with the Astros. And he was one of the players they signed to an extension. And there's a whole bit in Evan Drellick's book about that, right? book about that, right? And about how the Astros were like testing him, drug testing him after he was on the 40-man roster, which you're not allowed to do. And there was a whole kerfuffle about that.

And then they did ultimately sign him to extension. And he's been one of the few players, really, that has not worked out for the team when it comes to extension. You know, extensions, by and large, they tend to be team-friendly. But this was one of the bets that did not work out for the team. And Singleton, he had a bunch of suspensions, right? And there were marijuana issues. He was tested for that as a minor leaguer. You can't be tested for that as a major leaguer. You can't be tested for that

as a major leaguer, much to the asterisk dismay. And now they don't, am I right? Yeah, they don't do that anymore. They don't do either anymore, yeah. Yeah, but when he was coming up, I mean, he's going to turn 32 in September. So yeah, he's been around for quite a while. And he, I think, is now being called up by the brewers who just released Luke Voigt. I think it's the nine-year anniversary, Evan tweeted, of when he was first called up to the Astros in 2014. And remember, like, he was a tippy-top prospect. I mean, for three, four years running there, he was a top 100 guy.

He was, like, a top 50 guy multiple times. He was seen as, well, someone you would want to sign to an extension. And then he just, you know, he was not playing for a few years. I mean, his baseball reference page has no entries for 2018, 2019, or 2020. Of course, 2020, there was no minor league baseball with the pandemic. But 2021, he was playing in Mexico. He was in the Brewers minor league system last year and he did pretty well. He had an 809 OPS. He spent the entire season with their AAA affiliate. He hit 22 dingers.

And then I think they cut him loose and then resigned him or they took him off the 40 man and then put him back on. And this year, same team, Nashville, AAA affiliate for the Brewers. He's got an 867 OPS and he has hit 10 homers in 49 games. So it'd be a nice story if he could provide something and stick around for them. It's probably not going to change the narrative on his career as a whole, but it's definitely a different and happier ending if he comes back and produces a bit for a contending team that could use a little offense out of that position.

Yeah, I think that you're right that we are not likely to sort of look back and be like, and then he became a multi-time ulcer or whatever. But not everyone who goes through what he did gets a chance to sort of rewrite their final chapter as a big leaguer. And so if he gets to, that would be pretty great. Yeah. I wish him well. And yeah, he's got a career in the majors now. His career offensive line, it would not

be tough to top because he did not perform as anticipated for the Astros. He has a career line of 171, 290, 331 in 420 plate appearances, ironically.

Just get that number out. Excise that number. Get a plate appearance. Oh, boy. Yeah. Just get that number out. Like, excise that number. At least get a plate appearance. That would help, right? But he's been about a win or so below replacement, according to baseball reference, career-wise. So, yeah, get back in positive territory here. Yeah. That'd be good. It'd be great.

Put a nice little coda on your career here. Yeah, definitely. Definitely'd be good. It'd be great. Put a nice little coda on your career here. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. All right. So I've got just a couple emails here and then we can finish with a pass blast. So here's an email that we got from Michael who wants to know about baseball's version of a hockey goon. So he says, the last time I emailed you, it was with the idea of a pitcher tattooing his hand to look like a baseball for deception reasons. I present another idea in this vein that I think is even better.

In an online out-of-the-park baseball league playoff game, a benches-clearing brawl in the first inning led to a team's ace pitcher being tossed from the game. led to a team's ace pitcher being tossed from the game. What is preventing a manager from batting an absolute goon leadoff in game one of a playoff series with instructions to find any reason necessary to charge the mound? Even if he instigates, it seems likely if the goon makes it to the mound,

the pitcher will respond in a way that results in both players being tossed. A clear win for team goon. My question is, would this work at least once? Two, how many times could a manager do this before MLB cracked down on the practice in some way? So the hockey goon is the guy who's on the team just basically to be your designated fist fighter, right? Your brawler, right? And yeah, this practice has been curtailed somewhat, as I understand, culturally speaking. Fighting is a little more frowned upon in the NHL than it used to be, but

it still goes on. But I think you have fewer just dedicated goon guys who are there solely for that reason, maybe, than you used to. But a baseball version of a hockey goon just there to just tempt the opposing pitcher in a playoff game into doing something rash and getting thrown out. Because as we covered in a past blast, charging the mound, I believe, is an automatic ejection for the batter. But if a batter goes out there, charges the mound, I don't know if there's like a stand your ground rule kind of understanding for charging the mound. Like, are you allowed to retaliate to a certain degree if the batter, like, you know, if you're charged, I mean, you're not obligated.

Do you get to defend yourself, basically? Yeah, probably, right? Like, there's got to be some leeway there. I think probably to an extent. I think you probably get to up until a point. I guess charging the mound is the only thing I can think of that is sort of equivalent because when you, and I'm going to express this as a person whose hockey knowledge is admittedly limited, so This is a person whose hockey knowledge is admittedly limited. So, like, relax, everyone, if I'm missing an obvious thing.

But, like, when you are, when you're doing hockey, like, they just punch each other, right? They just punch each other. I can't think of a hitter equivalent that would be certain enough, you know, that would be sure enough to start screaming stuff about the guy's mom but like the ump's just gonna eject him and maybe maybe it works maybe whatever mom jokes um and insults hurled are such that the pitcher is just like but like i think particularly in a playoff game, you are going to try just as hard as you possibly can to not get ejected, whatever nonsense the hitter is trying to do. Like, aren't you just really trying to stay in the game? Cause you're like, Hey, if, if I stay in this game, I get to pitch in a playoff game. And if I get ejected, I'm going to get made fun of for that and put my team in a bad spot, you know, and particularly if you're going like deep into the playoffs, you know, your pitching is maybe kindon in question is doing would have to be so demonstrative

that the league would figure out pretty quickly. Like, oh, you're trying to get, you know, if you get one guy balanced early, sure. But if you do it successfully a second time or even attempt it a second time, someone in the league office is going to be like, Hey, manager X, what, you know, second time, someone in the league office is going to be like, hey, manager X, what, you know, we were hip to your game. Cut it out. You know? Right.

Especially if this guy is not playable for other reasons. Right. It would have to be someone who's good enough to pass for a plausible starter in a playoff game. Otherwise, it's transparent that he's just out there to try to entrap the opposing pitcher. Right. It's transparent that he's out there to try to entrap the opposing pitcher. Yeah. So at that point, like if this guy is truly terrible, if his only reason for being on the roster is that he's your enforcer or he's trying to tempt opposing players into getting thrown out, then that's going to be quite obvious. Yeah. How long are you going to carry him? Like,

it might be worth carrying him in a playoff series if you could get the opposing team's ace out of game. But I think it's only going to work once at most, because once it happens once, then it'll be just obvious that that's why he's there, that that's what he's doing. And he won't be able to anchor anyone because you'll just know that it's a trap, right? Now, as you were saying, in a playoff game, it's imperative that you give your team a little length. I guess you could also say, though, that, you know, you're going maybe bullpen heavier in a playoff game anyway. But also, as imperative as it is, if you're the ace to stay in there and try to pitch a good game, you're also extra amped up and your adrenaline is coursing, right?

And some guys, when they get on the mound, they're a different person, you know? Like we've all seen Max Scherzer or even mild-mannered Rich Hill, you know? Just the most pleasant guy you could imagine. And we had a nice, pleasant podcast chat with him. But when he's on the mound, he's an animal out there, right? Maniac. Gremlin. Yeah. So some players, like some part of their prefrontal cortex, I think, just goes into hibernation mode when they're on the mound.

And they're just like the bulldog out there. And so you might be able to. And some guys are just more hot-tempered to begin with. And if you challenge them to a fight, they will not back down from the fight, however ridiculous the fight is. And even if there's no actual reason to fight, like being challenged, it's just a macho thing, or you just have a quick fuse or whatever it is. So someone goes out there and charges you and taunts you. And even if you didn't do anything to deserve that, you might still see it as, you know, just like he threw his glove down there. I got to stay up to I got to step up to the duel here.

My my honor will be besmirched. So I think with the right guy, you could potentially get them with this. But yeah, it'd have to be someone, you know, like, if the only reason they're there is that obviously it's for this, then you'd be prepared for it psychologically, I think, and it wouldn't be as likely to affect you. And also, I think, yeah, if you just, you know, fended off the blows or maybe took a swing in self-defense, sort of, then you'd probably get some leeway for that. Unless you go full Nolan Ryan, Robin Ventura,

I don't know that you would be ejected. Yeah. It just seems like a roster spot's a pretty high price to pay for a potentially successful PSYOP, you know? Yeah. Like if I were saying why it strikes me as a thing that a team wouldn't be likely to do. No, I think that, you know, would a hitter endeavor to annoy a pitcher and kind of bug him to throw him off and, you know, get him off kilter? Oh, sure, sure.

You know, I'm not saying that they don't engage in psychological games. They do. But I think that having a dedicated goon, a bruiser, you know, I'm going to do a swear, like the baseball equivalent of a shit poster, you know, that's like a lot to have a whole roster spot dedicated to that. Yeah. I need to add some other value, I think. Yeah. Wouldn't it be great, though, if like a team did this and they're like, yeah, he's like a nightmare on the field, but he's the best clubhouse guy we have. Yeah, that would be funny. I'd enjoy the profile.

I forgot one banter question I was going to ask you. Attendance is up 7.7% this year, year over year, according to Baseball Reference. So this is like through the same number of games for each team to try to the pitch clock. And I wonder how persuasive you find that. Would you agree that this is to some degree a pitch clock bump or not? Do you not find that compelling? I find it a little compelling. Here's what I think is going on. I mean, there's probably a lot of stuff going on. Like we had a normal, even though we had a bunch of rules related stuff, right? We had a normal spring, right? This was not a spring where the sport said, what if we tore ourselves apart in the service of owners making more money, right? And we are further removed from 2020. So there's, there's that piece of it. But I have anecdotally, and so like anecdotally, you know, take it with a grain of salt that anecdotes should come with.

But I have noticed on my Twitter timeline, Ben, people who I follow for their coverage of other sports being like baseball curious for the first time in the duration of me having followed them. And so I think that a couple of things are happening. I think that there are people who are hearing about how fun and zippy and lively everything feels, right? And the way that the running game feels like it's revitalized. And I'm like, hey, I'll check that out. And then they're presented with games that are on average better from a pace and duration perspective. So there's that. I also think that like maybe the pitch clock is like, you know, kind of a gateway drug. And so some people who maybe because of time,

but maybe just because they hadn't engaged with it in a while and they'd seen unwritten rules, discourse and this and that, and they think that they're coming back for the pitch clock. But maybe what's happening is they just are watching baseball and are like, hey, this is pretty cool. Like, this is great, actually. And it's not explicitly the clock that they're reacting to. It's the baseball of it all. But the clock is what gets them in the door. So I think it I definitely think it's playing a role, if only because people who I have seen engage with baseball who have not in a while are like, this is moving. It feels nice. You know, like their, their sense of it is that it is a superior iteration of the game than what they

had come to expect. And I think that we needed the pitch clock or pro the pitch clock. And I think that we needed the pitch clock or pro the pitch clock. I do think that, you know, sometimes the game got a bit of an unfair reputation for being a slog because I still think there was fun and good baseball being played. Right. So, you know, I think that maybe they're being confronted with something that they perceive to be very different. And it is different, but it's like really different because they had an expectation of it that wasn't quite right. Does that make sense? Yeah. I don't know why the pitch clock would not help boost attendance a little bit. It should in theory, right? Because not only are the games shorter, but as we've discussed, they're more predictable in length. So you can pencil in with more confidence that the game is going to take this long and I'm going to get to see the end of it and it's not going to go super long and I'm not going to miss the end and have to leave with no resolution or stay super late and be tired and

not want to go to work the next morning, at least for that reason. So it should, in theory, you know, you're providing a more compelling product. I think, in some ways. It's the same amount of action and baseball just compressed into a smaller time and a more predictable span of time. And last year, attendance was up 42.5% relative to 2021, which of course it was going to be because in 2021, some ballparks were not opened in full capacity. Most were not. Yeah, they were capacity-eliminated. Right. And so obviously there was going to be a boost after that. And some people were just coming back after the pandemic for the first time. This might still be some residue of that, right? It might still be some people who were not comfortable going back last year.

And now this year, they are. So I guess I would want to see it sustained. Sure. Could be kind of like an after effect of what we saw. Or maybe you check out the pitch clock once for the novelty value, and then you don't come back. So I don't know yet. We'll see whether this goes up or goes down relative to last year by the end of this season. And that could be kind of telling. That's my main reservation. It's obviously good for it to be up just because even prior to the pandemic, just because even like prior to the pandemic, most years leading up to then were down.

Like 2019 was down relative to 2018. 2018 was down relative to 2017. So was 2017 and 2016. 2015 was flat. 2014 was down. 2013 was down, right? And 2007 was when per game attendance peaked and we're still well below several thousand per game below where the league was then. But it's encouraging. I think I'm just I'm not ready to chalk it all up to the pitch clock just because of the strange circumstances that we've gone through over the past few years. But but it could be. I don't think that it's entirely that. But I think that it's definitely sort of in the soup and perhaps a sizable ingredient in it. What? Like the recovery from the pandemic and from the lockout, that's like the base.

That's the stock. Yeah, that's the stock. And then the pitch clock is whatever you're fixing in the soup bar. I don't know. What kind of soup do you like, Ben? I like a lot of soups. I'm a soup guy. You don't want to do an extended bit on soup.

We could do our next Patreon pod. We'll draft soups. No, we have to save that to the fall. It's like 100 degrees here. Sure. Yeah, good point. All right. Yeah, but I have also seen some indications about TV ratings being up too, especially I saw

that early in the season, like training ratings being up or early season ratings being up. So that's kind of encouraging too, I guess. So yeah, I mean, I want more people to watch baseball and go to baseball games. So any indication that that's happening is good news. And I guess you could, if you're Rob Manfred, take that as a sign of victory and declare victory of the pitch clock and the Manfred man slash zombie runner. But I think it's probably a multitude of factors. And yet it's still encouraging. And this is all happening despite the A's actively driving fans away, right?

I mean, imagine if the A's were trying to sell tickets. Then if we didn't have that as a millstone on league attendance dragging down the average that the A's are drawing less than local soccer teams or like some indie teams, I mean, then you might see a bigger boost. So negative 199 run differential, Ben. Is it still? Yeah. If so, it's been flat since the last time we talked about it. So that's actually encouraging.

It's funny because we have to laugh. Otherwise, we cry. Yeah. All right. Well, that's an even more positive spin. If we just did the strip out the A's numbers, then the percentage increase would probably be even higher. Oh, I meant to mention also, you know who is the number one position player by Fangraphs War right now? It's Mookie Betts.

Yeah. I don't know that we've talked about Mookie Betts this year. Because, like, he's always great. Like, what are you supposed to say? Like, he never has a bad year. Yeah. Not really. I mean, maybe relative to his own standards, but it's never like, what's wrong with Mookie

Betts, really? And we just, like, we take him for granted. Yeah. You know, I thought of this because he hit a couple homers on Friday. And then I was like, I didn't even really know what kind of season he was having. Like, I knew he was doing well, but I didn't know if he was doing particularly well. And he's not even really. Like, he's just having a mookie year.

Like, it's just another mookie year where he's one of the very best players in baseball. He's like a hair behind Zach Gallin for the overall war lead, leading all position players. He's only 30 years old still. And gosh, he cranks out MVP level year after MVP level year. So talented. He's so good. He's just such a good overall player. He's just such a good overall player. He's just good at, good at everything.

He's good at everything. And he's done this despite playing weird positions and playing short and playing second and he'll just play wherever they, they need him to play.

He'll volunteer to play wherever, like just, what a good baseball player and what a lovable guy. Yeah. And, you know,

not only playing weird positions, but like playing a bunch of positions in the same series, bouncing here and there and everywhere and doing all kinds of stuff. Yeah. I can't imagine like, if I wanted to really immerse myself in how it would feel to be like a Red Sox fan this year, I I'd probably be like,

well, it's gone better than I maybe expected it to. But then watching last night's Dodger game where you're like, you have Betts, you have Jenny Martinez, you know, it wouldn't, I wouldn't, it wouldn't make me feel great, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Not only does he continue to be well above average as a defender in right field, but he is either average or better, small sample, at both second base and shortstop this year. Wild. Wild. Yeah. And it is a tiny sample, but if you put us at shortstop in a tiny sample, we'd be well below average, right? I mean,

one of the reasons defensive stats fluctuate so much, A, it's partly the precision with which we can measure positioning and all of that, which pre-stack cast, at least there was some fudging and some estimating there. But also, it's just the number of opportunities you get and how many opportunities will actually test you and allow you to separate yourself from an average fielder. And, you know, he's played 50 innings at shortstop and 81 innings at second base. It's not a lot, but he's been average or better at each of them. And you could not say that for one of us. I mean, it's not impressive that Mookie Betts has been better than us.

But I'm just saying, like, if he were completely unsuited to that position, then that would probably show itself even in a small sample of, like, several games worth of innings. So he's held his own there. Yeah. Yeah, he sure has. All right. Here is a question from Tyler, who is a Patreon supporter and says, Here's a question I had the other day watching a clip of Harry Carey singing the seventh inning stretch. If MLB were to create a rule in which players of the home team must perform the seventh inning stretch for

the whole stadium to hear, would this be a competitive advantage, competitive disadvantage, or neither? On the one hand, it might create a sense of camaraderie, just as home run celebrations do. It might even intimidate the away team. Or would it be a disadvantage because players might have less time before they're at bats in the bottom half of the inning? Perhaps some players would be left feeling embarrassed by their singing voices. Would love to hear your thoughts. Why would they do this? It would be entertaining.

I mean, I like when a player, you know, Adam Wainwright sings the national anthem. I'm all for that. I don't want to force anyone to sing in front of a full ballpark, but it depends on the team. And I guess it depends on whether you could designate someone. Who has to do the singing? Because would someone have a fuller career as a bench bat? Because he's got a beautiful voice. Yeah. Instead of the designated goon your designated seventh inning stretch singer yeah and like you know not a guy who now in the

seventh inning that guy's more likely to be in than at any other point in the game i guess right like you know because he's a bench guy so you're he's coming in but like what if you had like an okay reliever but he had a great voice so like he's coming in, but like, what if you had like an okay reliever, but he had a great voice. So like, he's not necessarily going to be like your seventh inning guy. Maybe like you, you know, your designated like long reliever, your guy who's there when the starter has a bad night and like, you just got to eat some innings and he, so he's not necessarily going to be warming up. Like there's stakes, but it would be I think it would work. Yeah. Like former Effectively Wild guest Stephen Brault, who had a great voice, presumably still does. And he he has a like a Broadway album called A Pitch at Broadway, where I think he sings show tunes and everything. That's nice. I don't think that's why we had him on the podcast. We had him on the podcast, actually, because I think Jeff got briefly obsessed with him because even though he was a pitcher,

he was not striking out. Like he set a record, I think, for like most play appearances for a pitcher hitter to start a career without a strikeout or something along those lines.

So we talked to him about that. Although I was recently made aware that Steven Brault is now, he's converting to becoming a position player. He's doing that. Yeah. So he's out of the majors now. And I think he's out of affiliated ball, but he's playing somewhere. Like, yeah, maybe where? Oh, yeah. I think he's in the Atlantic League now. Yeah, he was with Frederick, I think he signed in May and is trying to become a full-time outfielder position player.

So I wish him well. But also, if that doesn't work out, he could be the designated seventh inning stretch guy. I mean, he was with the Cubs in his last major league work last season, right? And he pitched nine innings for them. He could have been the the seventh inning singer if you made the last out in the previous inning. It was something like that. Because you wouldn't want it to be someone who's like coming up in that inning. Right. So I think it would be a disadvantage if it was someone who was not going to be able to prepare for the upcoming inning because they had to sing. That seems like a disadvantage.

But if it were someone else, I could see it like loosening everyone up. You know, it's a fun time. It pulls together everyone. It could even give you a little like endorphins and a dopamine hit. Like if you enjoy performing and you're good at it, then maybe it puts you at ease and makes you feel like, hey, this is like I'm in my living room here. Like this is – I'm just a lounge singer and I'm also going to pitch or hit later in the game, but I already entertained the crowd. And if I won over the crowd with my singing, with my pipes, then they'll be on my side when I come into this game. So I think that could be an advantage. I don't really see it intimidating the opposing team.

I don't know how that could happen exactly. But if you were bad at it, then I could see it maybe giving the opposing team confidence. They might look down on you. Obviously, if you have stage fright as a singer, as a performer in that way, then that could hurt you, right? And you could get seventh inning stretch yips and that would be potentially devastating. So I can see some slight psychological effects if you had no aptitude for this and were an unwilling participant. Can Hanser Alberto sing?

I don't know. He just got let go. So, you know, it's like maybe, you know, you can pitch and you can sing. Like, you can be the designated sing, pitch, hype guy who comes in sometimes as a pinch hitter late. Like, that could be a career, maybe. Yeah, why not? Or you could just get the creepy hologram of Harry Carey, I guess, right? It's so terrifying. I do want to know, like, why were you watching Harry Carey?

Are you okay? Do we need to do a wellness check? I just looked up a YouTube video of Hans-Roberto driving to the game and singing along with music in his car. So, it seems like he does. Sounds okay. And he looks like he's having a great time. You know, some people who don't have great voices. Like me. People in the audience might not be having a great time, but the performer is having a great time. They might not know that they don't have a great voice or they might just enjoy grabbing the mic and being out there, even if it's not really their strong suit. So it all depends on the attitude of the person, I think.

Dance like no one is looking and sing like your roster spot doesn't depend on it. All right. And here's our last question for today. This comes from Mac who says, I'm wondering if you might be interested in stewing on a thought I had the other day, though it seems to be inevitable at this point that some version of a robotic ball strike system

will make its way to the major leagues in the next few years. I've been thinking about how hard it must be for a human not named Pat Hoberg to call balls and strikes. Year over year, pitchers get faster. They break harder. They break differently, etc.

In the remaining years in which human beings will be using their eyeballs to call games, do you think it would be at all beneficial for umpires to be equipped with pitch comm transmitters as well? Surely, knowing what kind of pitch is coming might help improve call accuracy. Or would it? Might it be too distracting? Could it unconsciously bias them toward calling certain pitches, balls, and certain pitches,

strikes? Would major league teams be into sharing their pitch calling with umpires? Would Rob Manfred improve? In my mind, this could likely lead

to more accurate pitch calling, but your insight will be far more nuanced than mine. I don't know about that. I don't know about that. We'll try to give you whatever insight we have. So the catcher and the pitcher have the Pitch.com devices, and you're

also going to give it to the umpire now so that the umpire can anticipate the pitch type. Such a good question. Do I think that it would help them properly identify a pitch? Do they have like an archetypal pitch in mind? And maybe the pitcher's version of that goes a little differently. And so even though they're throwing a strike, his slider looks different than what the ump is expecting a slider to look like. And so he calls it a ball even though it was a strike. I think it would be detrimental more than beneficial. I don't know who I think it would benefit. I think that it would end up kind of goofing in both directions. So maybe it would be fine, but probably not. I don't know. I do want a stew. I want a stew on that. Ben, what do you think? Soup and stew, we're running into a theme. Yeah. I don't think teams or Rob Manfred would mind unless, I mean, what grounds would they

have for objecting unless they think the umpire is on the take or something? Like he's going to signal to the batter somehow what pitch is coming? I mean, that seems like it would be a problem with or without the pitch comms. So I don't think that would be such an issue unless you thought there were some greater odds that it could get hacked or something with more transmitters or umpires just so leaving their devices around. I don't know. I would think that they wouldn't really mind, but I also sort of lean toward this making umpires less accurate.

There might be times when being able to anticipate the break on a pitch would help because pitchers are trying to fool hitters. And obviously, umpires could get fooled too, right? And I mean, it's hard to anticipate where a pitch is going to go. And so if you're an umpire and you know, okay, it's a slider, it's a fastball, it's a curveball, whatever. You can anticipate which way it's going to break and then as you're watching it come in, you can be ready for that kind of movement and you could maybe be more likely to be looking where the pitch actually ends of pitch that tends to be thrown more or less often inside or outside of the strike zone and tends to be called a strike when it's taken more or less often, I think that would probably hurt. Like if you're an umpire, you can already see where the target is set. So based on the target, which is information that the hitter in theory doesn't have, unless he peaks somehow, based on the count and the target and everything else,

you could already anticipate, I suppose, what kind of pitch it'll be and also where it's supposed to go, right? Like if you look at where the catcher's glove is, you already know where the pitch is supposed to go if the catcher is someone who is actually setting a target. So maybe it wouldn't help you that much to look in the right place just to know the pitch type on top of everything else. The other thing is that you can pick up on the pitch type once the pitch is thrown. Right.

the pitch is thrown. Right. And as an umpire, you have to make a split-second call and maybe before you even process what type of pitch it was, you have to signal strike or not. So I just, I kind of think knowing in advance and thinking, okay, slider's coming here, like he's going to try to get a chase. So if the chase doesn't happen, it's probably going to be a ball. Like, how could you help but think that? And then if the pitch were just like on the edge of the strike zone,

maybe the pitcher missed a spot and it was closer to a strike or more hittable than he meant for it to be. And it was actually a strike in the strike zone, but you're already thinking this was a waste pitch. This was a chase pitch, then you're going to be less likely to give him that strike. Well, and I think just at a very fundamental level, like, it's just a diversion, a further diversion of attention from a thing that requires a tremendous amount of attention. And I know it happens like pre-pitch and all that, but I just think you want to be able to have umpires really like focusing, get down on their ground, you know, touching the back of the catcher, like looking. Because it's such a hard thing. It's such a hard job, right?

Like the fastballs, they're so fast. The breaking balls, they break so much, you know? Even the fastballs move around a lot now. Like, they're just moving all over the place. Yeah. That's the only thing I'm thinking. If you see it coming in and you think it's a fastball and you're anticipating it to not dive suddenly. Right.

And then it does dive suddenly and you're looking up and you're thinking fastball and then it dives because you misread the pitch as the umpire, which, you know, you probably will do often because you're probably less good at differentiating between pitch types than hitters and hitters misread pitch types all the time. All the time. All the time. So then are your eyes focusing on where you think the pitch is going to end up and then you're fooled and it ends up somewhere else and then you misread it, whereas if you had known in advance, oh, it's a splitter, like, get ready for the bottom to fall out of this thing, then you'd anticipate that, and you wouldn't be caught looking in the wrong section and thus trying to make

some judgment based on an imprecise reading. That's the case for it would be better to know, I guess. But I still kind of lean towards you just be biased in a way that would hurt more than it would help. Yeah, I think it could be a real problem. I think it could be a real problem. Well, we could figure this out in Lab League. I'd be curious. I'd like to know whether it helped or hurt, but I'm not totally sure. I lean toward hurt, though. All right. Well, we can wrap up with a pass blast, which comes to us from 2015

and also from David Lewis, who is an architectural historian and researcher based in Boston. And I swear I did not put David up to this. This is not sponsored content. I do not direct him about what to select for his past blast topics, but here is what he has sent. Moneyball comes to IndieBall. In 2015, Ben Lindberg and Sam Miller, co-hosts of the baseball podcast Effectively Wild, brought their baseball analytics knowledge to the field, serving as the baseball operations team for the independent Pacific Association Sonoma Stompers. Explaining the intrigue of the opportunity in a June 2015 interview with NPR, Lindberg said, These days, everyone's an armchair general manager, right? Because we all have our fantasy teams and we sit at our keyboards and it's easy to do

when you're not actually in that room making that decision. And there's the human side of it. There's interacting with players and what happens when you have to cut a player who's underperforming. You know, it's not as easy as pressing the drop button in your fantasy league.

You have to sit a guy down and tell him he's out of a job because he wasn't good enough. And so we're hoping to get a little bit of a culture shock by getting out from behind our computers and getting into the clubhouse and seeing how these things really work. The pair hoped to use sabermetrics to find previously overlooked players who were still available and could contribute to the team.

As Lindbergh said, this is very weird for me to read. I was going to say, you should have told me and I could have read it. I probably should have. We're looking for skills that are underappreciated. Really, sabermetrics? It just means the search for objective knowledge about baseball. That is how Bill James defined it before I did. Thanks in part to the sabermetric prowess of the duo. The Sonoma Stompers made it all the way. It's going to be spoilers here, book spoilers for anyone who's dragging their heels on reading the book but still wants to. It's going to be spoilers here, book spoilers for anyone who's dragging their heels on reading the book, but still wants to. David's about to spoil the ending of the

Sonoma Stompers 2015 season here. The Sonoma Stompers made it all the way to the championship game, which they lost four to three to the San Rafael Pacific's Pass Blasters. Note, David says, I suppose this is probably a pretty major book spoiler. Yes, it is. But I included it with a warning. Lindbergh and Miller further detailed their time with the Stompers in their 2016 book, The Only Rule Is It Has to Work. And David says he happens to have just read the book. So he thought it would be a fun idea for a pass blast as the timing coincides. Well, I appreciate the promotion, David.

I don't know that that was the most notable event to happen in baseball in 2015, but that's never what the pass blast has been about, right? Right. If someone else had done this in 1937, it could have been grounds for a pass blast back then. So I suppose it's a fair game, even though it makes me blush a little bit. Man, what are we going to do? What am I going to do? I have an idea for what we catch up. You do?

Oh, we should maybe talk about it offline. Yeah. All right. All right. I'll leave you with one email. I meant to mention earlier when I noted that George Kirby is 2.3 standard deviations above the mean in walk rate for starting pitchers with more than 50 innings pitched this season that Alec Manoa of the Blue Jays is 2.9 standard deviations below the mean in walk rate. I guess I'm sort of saying above and below backward when it comes to walk rate. What I mean is that Kirby is better than the mean. Manoa, worse than the mean. That's what I mean about the mean. It's been a really, really rough season for him. And I mentioned that just because I got an email today from Thomas, a Patreon supporter, who says, on episode 1993, as the Rays were coming into Toronto on the heels of their 13-game win streak, Ben quipped sarcastically that they would now run into the buzzsaw that is Jose Barrios,

so I'm sure that will be the stopper. Barrios did indeed stop the Rays that day and since that day has had a 2.59 ERA and 3.91 FIP with 1.2 fangraphs wore on the season. Maybe not a human buzzsaw, but he certainly seems fixed. So thank you. Now please fix Alec Manoa. I'll note that that episode was 1993, an auspicious year in Blue Jays history, and we're coming up on episode 2015, another important year. So maybe that will amplify the podcast's magic healing abilities. Well, this is episode 2015, and I have just mentioned how bad Alec Manoa has been. So there you are, Thomas.

I have put that out into the world. According to Dan Zimborski, Manoa has walked about 13 more batters than he deserved to. And after we recorded, Brian Hayes put another ball out at PNC Park. That'll do it for today and for this week. Thanks as always for listening. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some monthly or yearly amount to help keep us going, help us stay almost ad free, and get themselves access to some perks. Mule Beats Drums, Asher Jatel, Adam Maz, Ezra Thompson, and Jerry Kropp. Thanks to all of you.

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