Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2030: Deadline Dilemmas and Needs

Episode Date: July 8, 2023

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Meg’s All-Star Week plans, play “Would you rather?” with the White Sox and Cardinals, the Padres and Mets, Carlos Rodón and Alek Manoah, and the Rangers and Diamondbacks, compare the values of Pablo López and Luis Arraez (26:25), discuss starting pitchers who might be available at the trade […]

Sometimes I still feel like that little girl Hearing Grandma's handheld reading Collecting baseball cards before I could read They say I waste my time Tracking all these stat lines They say I waste my time Tracking all these stat lines But here I've found my kind We're all Effectively Wild

Hello and welcome to episode 2030 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 Seattle again, and also of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg. You've relocated temporarily. I have temporarily relocated. I am back, arguably, where maybe I belong. I don't know.

Like, it's certainly not as hot here, which I'm enjoying. I got into town yesterday evening for draft and futures game and all-star festivity such and such. And I am sitting before a buffet of sounds that might make themselves known on the pod. I hope our listeners will be tolerant of me playing a road game, basically. But we have a construction site across from the hotel to contend with. They have so far not done any particularly loud banging, but there might be some bangs or some backing up of truck noises. I turned the air off, but there is just like a whole ass refrigerator in this

little hotel room. And so it's running as refrigerators are want to do. So, you know, we're going to see how this goes, but apologies if it's echoey or loud or any such, but I don't know. It seems to be going okay so far. Yeah. Currently, I cannot tell. Hopefully, our listeners can't either. Although sometimes I can't hear things on the recording and then we download the files and we get a nice little fun surprise afterward that something was audible that wasn't audible to us in the moment. So hopefully that won't happen. But you've all been forewarned. Yeah. I brought a mic with me so that I wouldn't be doing the AirPods because then you sound not only like you're across the street from a construction site but also at the bottom of the sea. It was the first time that TSA has been like,

what's that thing in there? And then they were like, oh, it's a microphone. And I wanted to ask, how would you assess whether or not this is a threat? What if there is something inside it? Can you differentiate between whatever weird wires are in here for podcasting purposes and like a bomb? But, you know, I'm given to understand that that interaction is not one that benefits from questions and does benefit from you being able to leave as quickly as possible. Yeah. Well, they can see inside stuff. They have that special Superman ability that allows them to penetrate the exteriors of objects.

But also, everyone has a podcast now. You'd think they'd know, like, oh, she's a podcaster. She's got a podcast mic like everyone else. Don't I have a podcast face, you know? Can you just look at me and be like, yeah, probably a podcast. All right. So you are in Seattle for all Star Festivities. So we will be bringing you Meg's coverage of that next week.

We'll talk about the draft and the Home Run Derby and the All-Star game and the Futures game and all the rest of it. Plus an exciting new Negro Leagues documentary called The League that's coming out next week. So we will have a packed schedule then. But for today, I have some stat blasts. I have a bit of banter. I wanted to start off by doing a few would-you-rathers with you, just to give you a couple choices, and you can choose which one you would rather. So this is sort of topical and timely for today. We're recording on Friday. And this weekend, we have two matchups of some of the defining, disappointing teams of the season. So we have Cardinals versus White Sox and Mets versus Padres. What a way to close out

the first half. So not the first half, the pre-All-Star break. We've already completed the first half. You did it again. Someone pointed out, we could say first half maybe because the playoffs are part of the season. But I don't think that's what most people mean when they say first half, second half. They also, I'm sorry, they're not part of the season. The name is post-season. It is following the season. I reject the notion that it is part of – it's not part of the championship season. Right.

MLB calls the regular season the championship season, which is confusing because you'd think maybe the postseason could be called the championship season. Yeah. Yeah. I guess I would kind of consider it part of the season. I mean, it's not not the season, but also we call it the postseason. So this is going to throw us into a spiral, a pedantic loop here. So we should probably just move on. So for the second portion of the season, for the remainder of the season, let's say.

That's nice and clean. Yeah. Would you rather be the Cardinals or the White Sox? That's our first one. Or I guess Cardinals fans the White Sox. That's our first one. Or I guess Cardinals fans or White Sox fans. So which remainder of the season will be less depressing, more interesting, more fun to follow? I guess technically they do both have chances to make the playoffs. I know as hard as that is to believe, the White Sox, 1.7% chance to make the playoffs.

Cardinals, 5.8% chance to make the playoffs. So there's your answer right there, potentially. Playing with house money. Yeah. Cardinals or White Sox. And I guess with the deadline coming up and these teams kind of falling out of it, there's also the layer of will they sell?

Will they be dealers and divesters at the deadline? Divesters. So Cardinals or White Sox for the rest of this year, which would you rather be or follow? Look, I know that this might be, you know, a simplistic way to view these things. I think my answer is I'd rather be the Cardinals if only because there's just 100% less Jerry Reinstorf involved. That always seems like the right choice.

They have been, as we have discussed, messy. Publicly messy in a way that if they were a friend of yours posting on Instagram, you'd like text them separately and be like, but you don't. Okay. Don't want to put it in the comments, but thought I'd check in. So like, there's that part that is, I imagine,

decidedly not fun for Cardinals fans, but I think that I still think I'd rather be the Cardinals. They certainly have their weaknesses. And many of those were predictable, you know, like the pitching's not good. But I think that you're more likely to get a latter part of the season resurgence from like parts of that Cardinals roster that even if it's not enough to push you into postseason contention will make watching it more bearable. I think part of the problem with the White Sox is like, they're not good. I mean, that's like the biggest problem

that they face admittedly, but they also are like, you know, they're kind of boring. Like they're, they're not a team that really, you know, they have individual standout players, right? Like Luis Rivera Jr. is having a great season, clearly. But like they're not, what do you, you know, and they don't even have James writing about them anymore. So like I can't be made to care. So there's that piece of it too. But I just think that they're kind of a boring squad and like even the even the drama they had last season like it wasn't fun it wasn't fun drama right like you're not getting fun drama when you have an old and grumpy manager

making bad mistakes publicly like that's not fun that's just like a bummer for your fans. So I think I'd rather be the Cardinals, which feels weird to say because, you know, like it's not going great over there, but I think it's going better. And I'd have more confidence. I have more confidence that like between those two teams, the one that is more likely to have reasonable playoff odds and sort of look back on this season and go, oh, what a weird little year that was is probably St. Louis. I mean, they still have to figure out the pitching piece because

they still don't have any, and they'll have even less next year. So they have stuff to do certainly, but I think their long-term prospects are better. So that tips the scale for me, too, maybe. I probably have the same answer. So those two teams are one game apart in record thus far. The Cardinals are 36-51. The White Sox are 37-52. The Mets and the Padres have identical records

to this point in the season entering. What a weird little year we're having. Yeah, so strange. The symmetry is just perfect here. Mets and Padres both 41-46 entering the weekend. So one of those teams will have to have a better record than the other when the break starts.

So Mets or Padres for the rest of this season? I didn't even cover this as a potential sound. I think the Padres. I agree. Yeah. They got so many good players. This is the analysis that our Patreon supporters pay for every month. They got so many good players, and fewer of them are as old as the guys on the Mets.

Yes. And their average came way down after they DFA'd Cruz, so there's that piece of it too. Even the talent that isn't performing quite the way we want it to is still good and probably has the potential like St. Louis to be like dynamic and interesting in the second half. And you have AJ who might do something wild at any given moment. And Soto's having a great season. And you have the continued like Tatis adapting to right field,

this and that. So even though it's disappointing, I think that there is more fun to be had and less like, I don't know. It's not that I think people's mileage varies on Cone, but it's like I feel like we're less likely to get a statement at the end of the season from the folks in San Diego being like,

well, I guess Spunning was a mistake. season from the folks in San Diego being like, well, I guess Spunning was a mistake. Whereas I can see a finance guy being like, well, now we have to write that payroll to expectations or whatever. So, yeah. Yep. I agree. And the playoff odds would also agree.

The Padres have a 29.2% chance, according to Fangraphs. The Mets, 19.2% chance, according to fan graphs, the Mets 19.6% chance. The Padres are eight and a half games out in the West, but that is not nearly as insuperable as the Mets being 17 and a half games out in the East behind the Braves, who are a powerhouse, right, and rarely lose a game anymore. So it does feel like the Padres have more of a chance and that they're less likely to trade away players at the deadline. I don't know how likely the Mets are to do that either, but it's more conceivable at least. So yes, I'm with you there. Well, and it's, you know,

I like to talk about the clear World Series favorite Arizona Diamondbacks, but, you know, Corbin Carroll maybe hurt his shoulder again and in a more substantial way last night. Yeah, that's going to come up again in a would you rather in just a minute. So it's like, you know, and it's not that he is the only good player on that team, but he is the best player on that team right now. And he might be either unavailable or compromised depending on

how severe this injury proves to be and it's going to be a thing that diamondbacks fans worry about every time he swings now because yeah he's just too strong for his little body you know like he is not a for a big leaguer he's like a average sized human man but for a big leaguer you know he's shorter of stature and we've seen him just tear his shoulder apart by the force of his own swing before. And, you know, they have to contend with the Dodgers being just a, I think a half game back of them, but like clearly their rotation woes are such that you're not, you don't feel comfortable, you know? So do I think it, and then, you know, the, the Giants are kind of hanging around. So do I think it and then you know the the Giants are kind of hanging around so do I think it's likely that the Padres end up leapfrogging all three of those teams no but I

feel like despite them being good clubs like the Braves are just like such a juggernaut at this point that I'd feel maybe more more yeah yeah Carol's Carol's shoulder is reminding me of Tatis's shoulder dislocation issue that that he had for a while where it was like, is he okay? Like every time he took a big swing, you worried that he was going to come up clutching his shoulder. And then he got that surgically repaired eventually. And it's been fine so far since he's returned. But yeah, worrisome signs for Carroll. So here's the third. Would you rather making their season debuts slash returns to the majors on Friday are Alec Manoa for the Blue Jays and Carlos Rodan for the Yankees?

So would you rather have for the remainder of the season Carlos Rodan or Alec Manoa. So behind door number one there, you have the guy who's been out all season, right? Who signed the big free agent deal with the Yankees and then just has been unavailable because of various physical ailments ever since the start of the season. However, we have not seen him pitch poorly. We have seen him not pitch at all. But Alec Manoa, who's been healthy as far as we know, he pitched so poorly that he got sent down to the minors to basically be rebuilt. And now after some rehab outings, the most recent of which went better than that first one, he's back to the big leagues and the Blue Jays are kind of counting on him.

But he hasn't had the health issues that Rodan had, but he has had extreme ineffectiveness issues. So do you want the guy who has been unavailable or the guy who has been very available, but also very bad? I can't believe you're making me answer this question before I've had a chance to get a look at Rodan in action. I guess it's less fun if I've actually seen him make haven't seen him and we haven't seen the rebuilt manoa so who knows um i guess i'd go with rodan just because he's been so good and the manoa stuff i feel like

i still don't have a great handle on in terms of the cause. Like, is it a matter of, and I don't want to, I don't want to like harp on this unnecessarily, but like, is it a conditioning issue? Is something happening away from the field in his personal life we don't know about that's like impacting his mental state? Like, I just don't feel like I have a good handle on exactly where the source of his recent struggle lies. And so even though the physical stuff makes me nervous with Rodan and like, we just don't know. I don't know. I think I prefer that unknown just because I feel like I can wrap my arms around its cause more directly. Right. Yeah. And Madoa seemed like he might be in line for some regression potentially

entering the season, just if you look at the peripherals and everything. Obviously, not to this degree. Whereas Radon, over the past two seasons, has been one of the best pitchers in baseball on a per inning basis. And if he's healthy, then we haven't seen any evidence to show that he's not that anymore. So yes, I guess I'd be with you there as well. We need to find one we disagree on. This is boring radio. Well, here's maybe the last one. And this is a matchup of two surprise teams, two teams that have taken great strides and have overperformed this season, but have the old perennial favorites in their division nipping at their heels now. And that's the Diamondbacks and the Rangers. Okay.

So as we speak, the Rangers are fending off the Astros just barely, right? The diminished Astros, Altuve's hurt now, but the Astros are two games back of the Rangers. And then in the NL West, the Dodgers, despite their myriad issues, we talked about all their pitching problems and shorthandedness literally last time. And then Daniel Hudson went on the aisle after that with a knee issue. So it's a pitcher's thin on the ground over there, but they are half a game back of the Diamondbacks. So both of these teams, the Dodgers and the Astros, you can't kill them. They're the serial killer in the slasher movie, right? They just keep coming back even though they're not the super teams that they were, even in their diminished states, they are right there. So are you giving the Diamondbacks or the Rangers a better chance of fending off the perennial winners of those divisions? And that's factoring in what we just said about Carol, of course. Right.

I think the Rangers. Are you going to pick the Rangers? Because if you are, I'll make the case for the Diamondbacks. It's like almost a toss-up for me. I think I'll go the other way, sure. Okay, cool. It's good for someone other than me to say nice things about the Diamondbacks on this podcast. Okay.

So I think, I guess I would take the Rangers. I had not maybe appreciated just how much the gap had narrowed here. And it's funny because it's like it's narrowed, but, you know, like you're right. Altuve is dinged up and it felt like half their rotation went down with like season-ending injuries and Bregman's been bad for him. He has a 108 WRC+. He's just not looked good. And so I think I'm going to go with the Rangers

because I do think that they have such compelling pieces on both sides of the ball. I mean, like Simeon has been so good and Seager has been so good and like Atolis Garcia is having this incredible season and, you know, Josh Young is what we thought he was and Jonah Heim and we mean that in a good way. And like Jonah Heim has taken a big step forward and, you know, we've already talked about why can't Lioti get any respect? And I mean, I'm being a little facetious there, but he's having a great year. And like, despite the fact that they have been without DeGrom,

like that rotation is really solid and has performed really well. Like, do I think that, you know, Dane Dunning will pitch like this forever? I mean, probably not, but he's been fantastic. And Evaldi's been great. And so, you know, and I think the other piece of it that I find compelling is that they are, you know, and in this respect, I think that they have some, they bear some similarity to Arizona where they have, if they decide they want to be aggressive at the end of the month, like they have the pieces to do that. And that's true of Arizona too. In some ways,

Arizona's issues absent, whatever they end up having to do to contend with Carol's injury or, or loss, like the D backs just need to reinforce that bullpen. And like they have good bullpen pieces, but they don't have like a screw you guy at the back of that bullpen. It's like you get to the eighth inning and you're like, this is where you belong. And then you see one of those guys in the ninth and you're like, well, this could be better. Like is Andrew Chafin really what we're doing here?

And I like Andrew Chafin and he's a good reliever, but he shouldn't be your guy who comes in, you know, with a, a playoff game on the line and is like, I'm going to shut down the Braves or whatever, right? Like that's not, that's not what he is best suited for. So I think that there is a lot of similarity in terms of their respective abilities to like reinforce the places that are weaker. We've seen that the Rangers are just like, they're going to do what they think they need to to win that division. You don't trade for Chapman three weeks before the deadline if you're just resting on your laurels and thinking that Houston will fall off

because the pitching being hurt will catch up with them and Altuve will be, you know, outer ineffective and Bregman's going to cool and all you have to worry about is Kyle Tucker. You know, they don't have Jordan Alvarez. Like, they've got all these hurt guys. So I think that the road is not going to be easy necessarily, but Texas is positioned to, like, really do it because even though Houston is

giving them trouble, I think they are still fundamentally compromised relative to their past rosters and Texas has this incredible farm system like they can just go get some dudes if they decide they need more dudes so and they're in we want to freaking win this thing mode so I think I take the Rangers, but it's close. There's a lot of similarity between those clubs. Yes. Yeah. That's why I chose them for this. Would you rather to make things interesting? Oh my God. You have a strategy? Yeah. I was trying to make these decisions difficult, not super easy. But I guess, yeah, you make a strong case. I think maybe an argument for the Diamondbacks is that I think they have a clearer path to a wild card if they do not hold off the Dodgers. Like the AL wild card situation is just so crowded that if the Rangers do sort of slump, like you can

see that in the playoff odds. So if you look at the odds to win the division, the Rangers are more than double the Diamondbacks' chances. So the Rangers, it's like a 50-50 almost toss-up. The Rangers actually still have the highest odds to win the AL West, just barely ahead of the Astros. Whereas the Diamondbacks are down at a 21% chance to win the division, and the playoff odds are Believers and the Dodgers, 56% chance. But then the wildcard odds, the Diamondbacks have significantly higher chances of winning a wildcard than the Rangers do, which I guess is maybe partly because their odds of winning the division are lower. But also maybe there are just fewer teams to contend with in that mix. So another reason to go with the Rangers over the Diamondbacks is that if you look at the base run standings, the Diamondbacks are four games over where they quote unquote should be based on their underlying performance. Whereas the Rangers are seven games under where they should be. whereas the Rangers are seven games under where they should be. And actually, that's a good reason to take the Padres over the Mets, too, because the Padres are also seven games under where they should be,

whereas the Mets are only one game under. So the Padres and the Rangers exceeded only by the Cubs and the Royals in being below their deserved or expected record. The Diamondbacks exceeded on the other end by the Yankees, the Brewers, the Marlins, the Orioles, the Reds. And if Carroll is seriously hurt this time, you know, he hurt his shoulder the first time they gave him a couple of days off. He came back and then he hurt himself swinging again. And they say it seems OK. No structural issues and the strength is fine and everything.

They're doing an MRI now to really get in there and see if something is amiss. But it's pretty concerning, right? And, you know, you can give him some time off with the All-Star break and maybe that helps, but if there's some underlying issue there in his already repaired shoulder, then that's going to take some serious wind out of their sails. One, you know, obviously the thing that they need to prioritize is him being healthy. He definitely shouldn't play for a little while, but it is such a bummer. It's like he should get to play in Seattle in his first All-Star game. It's so cool, Ben. Yeah, it's bad timing in that sense, I guess. Good timing that he gets a little time off.

Yeah, in the more important sense. And, like, he'll still, you know, be here and be announced and he'll get a big cheer and, you know, everyone will be excited for him. But it would have been so cool. All right. So we decided which we would rather. I just noticed while we were doing that that guess who leads the Padres in baseball reference war? It's not who you would expect, probably. Who would I least expect? Runet Odor. Yeah, not least expect,

but just not most expect. Matt Carpenter. Nelson Cruz. So they just DFA'd their leading war player. Can you believe it? No. AJ, what are you doing? Just a good player,

just not their biggest star. Hossam Kim. Yes Ha-Sung Kim. Yes, Ha-Sung Kim leads the Padres in baseball reference war just ahead of Fernando Tatis and Juan Soto. Yeah, he's third in fan graphs war after Soto and Tatis. So it's a defensive rating issue. He's a really good defender. He's a really good defender. He's a really good defender. Nice to see him having another solid season because, I mean,

he's not as big a name as those other guys and doesn't have as big a contract and as long a contract as many of the other past and present shortstops on the Padres roster.

But he really bailed them out last year. Yes. And he's backed them up this year, too. So happy to see him having success. And I also noticed on the war leaderboard and how many times have we mentioned Pablo Lopez?

Very few, probably. And probably in relation to they traded Pablo Lopez for Luis Arise. But as of yesterday, they were 29th and 31st on the world leaderboard with Lopez actually ahead of Arise because Lopez had a great dominant outing this week. And so Lopez had 2.74 fangraphs war and Arise had 2.69 fangraphs war. And then Arise had another three hit game and he just moved very slightly ahead of Lopez. So as we speak on Friday, Arise is at 2.8 fangraphs war, Lopez is at 2.7. So they are 28th and 31st, respectively, in the majors. But even though Arise has hogged the spotlight when it comes to that trade, that did feel like a trade of we each got a good player and we each needed that player. And for all the attention that Arise has gotten, justifiably, Pablo Lopez has been, by some measures, at least equally valuable. So it's not like the twins got fleeced or

something. Arise has provided his value in a much more attention-grabbing way than Pablo Lopez has, but Pablo Lopez has been a big part of the Twins' success as well. So it's not like they screwed that up, you know, and it's partly his ERA is higher than the FIP and the other peripherals, so maybe he's been better than his ERA shows, but he's just, he's been solid. Tons of strikeouts. Well, and I think that part of what maybe contributes to that perception is, like, they have a really good rotation in Minnesota and just a so-so offense, right? Like they have a team WRC plus of 100. So I think that when you have a guy who's challenging for 400 and your entire offense in Minnesota is hitting 234, 311, 403, you're like, well, shouldn't we have kept this great bat that is, you know, doing great stuff and in a really cool and interesting way that is captivating to people? Like, did we really need another arm?

And so I think that that might be coloring some of the perception of Lopez's season in a way that isn't entirely fair to him because it's like, well, he's doing well at the thing he does. It's not his fault that he doesn't hit. So, yeah. And I don't know that the twins would have traded does it's not his fault that he doesn't hit so yeah and i don't know that the twins would have traded a rise if they had known that he would be batting 388 on july 7th but we'll see where he would be really interesting if they were like no we definitely would have done it still yeah yeah twins number one in starting pitcher war according according to FanCrafts. So you mentioned in an aside last time, I think,

that it was unclear which pitchers would be available at the deadline because you were saying some team maybe would need to go get a pitcher, but who knows what pitchers would be available. So Ken Rosenthal probably knows about as well as anyone. He wrote about the pitchers he thinks might be available for trade at the break here or heading into the deadline and here's his partial list so he he you know he said he doesn't think shohay otani will

be traded for all the reasons we talked about last time he's not convinced the mets will trade scherzer or verlander but if those guys stay put he has on his his list Marcus Stroman at the top for the Cubs, Eduardo Rodriguez for the Tigers, Lucas Giolito, White Sox, the resurgent James Paxton of the Red Sox, who we talked about last time, Jordan Montgomery and Jack Flaherty of the Cardinals, Shane Bieber of the Guardians. He also mentions Carlos Carrasco, Michael Lorenzen, Paul Blackburn. But some of these are interesting because they're do we decide to sell or not? Like Marcus Stroman, who's having a great season with the Cubs. I mean, the Cubs are an interesting team when it comes to deciding what they're going to do at the deadline. And again, it's sort of silly to have, if the deadline were today, what would they do conversation? Because the deadline's not today.

I would panic then. Well, there's that. I would panic. But the deadline is still a few weeks away. But the Cubs are interesting because they're in third place in the Central. They're 40 and 46. They're eight games back of the Reds. All of that seems not so impressive. But they have

that run differential, which is good, which is better than their record would suggest, right? They have outscored their opponents by 23 runs right now, so their Pythag record, 45 and 41, right now. So their Pythag record, 45 and 41, they should be right up there at the top of the central. And that's, I think, why there's some frustration and perception that they've underperformed. It's like, I don't know that anyone reasonably expected them to be that good this year. It didn't seem like they had any stars and that's kind of the way it's played out. It's like Dansby Swanson and some other players sort sort of but there is the sense that they've played better than their record suggests and they're in this winnable division where maybe the reds won't keep winning every day forever and the brewers are certainly vulnerable so like do you stay in it after

making some investments over the winter or do you decide this is not the year? Like, you've already put Cubs fans through that calculus before, right? Deciding that we're not going to do it with this group and let's punt for a few years. And here they are. I guess you could say to complete our rebuild and put the final touches on this, We need to make one more sell decision at the deadline. But it's tough given the division they're in and the way they've played, except for the fact that their record is not so hot.

I do think that it is fundamentally different to say, like, we are going to make a strategic concession within a season where we don't think we're going to contend versus we are embarking on a multi-year rebuild that involves trading away the guys that finally brought a world series championship back to the cubs like i think that fans are able to differentiate between those things at least intellectually emotionally they might end up feeling kind of the same where it's like oh we're doing this again again. But I think that if you make the case, hey, we think we can bring in a particular kind of prospect with a trade like that where it's easier to sell trading away a guy

who's been very useful to your team if you you say, get back near ready prospects who are going to be able to contribute very quickly from a messaging perspective, I think that reads differently than, you know, we are trading away Marcus Stroman and we're getting a bunch of complex level guys, right? Like their system is incredibly deep as is. They do have good prospects. But I think that the decision they have to make is like, do we have the guys in-house who we think are going to be able to push us over the line next year? How does that inform their trade decisions this deadline? Because you're right, they've played better than their record.

They've surprised me in terms of the quality there, even if they aren't sitting atop the central. So I don't know. I think it needs to be messaged very precisely if they make the decision to sell, because I think Cubs fans would be forgiven for feeling fatigued about the whole thing. But like clubs selling at the deadline with an eye on competing the following season isn't novel right like that happens all the time it's not like every deadline seller is embarking on a teardown but it does feel i think different as a fan when there is a teardown very recent in your rear view it's like i can still see the wreckage back there are we really embarking on

that again? That's sort of a weird mixed driving metaphor that I appreciate might kind of go over your head because you don't do that. Yeah. Yeah. And Stroman will almost certainly opt out after the season. He has an opt out. They signed him for three years, but with an opt out after the second, which is this year. And so he's signed for next year for like $21 million or something. So obviously – He's going to opt out. I mean like the other move for them would be to say – and I know that there's been talk of like them basically not talking about an extension. But like the other move would be for them to say, we're not trading him.

In fact, he's going to be a Cub for the next five years or whatever. I wouldn't sign him for five. But that's the other potential move. They could bob where we expect them to weave. Wait, zig where we expect them to zag. You have to bob and weave, but you want to zig when the zag happens.

Yeah, Rosenthal and Patrick Mooney reported recently that the Cubs are not inclined to sign him to an extension before the deadline on August 1st, preferring to keep their options open and see how the team does. It's so strange because the Cubs, I mentioned their run differential is plus 23. The Diamondbacks are plus 24, you know, and they're like one of the big success stories of the season. And then the Marlins, negative 10.

The Marlins have still been outscored by 10 runs. What is going on? I love that weird-ass Marlins team. It's so weird. They're so weird. It's so weird. The Marlins are 51-38. Like, their ostensible ace, Sandy Alcantara, has been disappointing.

A lot of their free agent signings, other than Jorge Soler, have backfired, have not panned out. Like, there's a lot that has gone wrong there. It's so weird. Jess Chisholm, you know, hasn't played all, has been hurt, issues in the outfield, etc. And yet, they're 51-38. And yet, and yet, they have been outscored by 10 runs still. So they have a rise. They have 10 runs still. And yet, and yet. They have a rise.

They have Yuri Perez. That's really fun. But it's that 21-5 record in one-run games, which is just ridiculous. Like, that is the best or would be the best one-run record of all time with that many decisions. So it's just like you're a Cubs fan and you look at what the Marlins are doing and it's like, are we not better than that team? What is going on here? Why are we 40 and 46? But sometimes that's the way these things shake out.

So you can be a buyer or seller based on things that perhaps aren't entirely under your control or at least aren't repeatable or sustainable or predictive. So it's confusing. And then Eduardo Rodriguez is also kind of a confusing case because he just came back. He missed a month with a finger injury, and then he came back this week against the A's and allowed a bunch of runs. And he can also opt out. He has three years and $49 million left. I can't imagine he's going to do that. I mean, the way he started the season, it looked like he could or should, right? He was pitching great, and then he got hurt and missed some time. But if he gets hurt again, he could opt in, which, I don't know, like three years and $49 million for Eduardo Rodriguez.

It's not terrible, right? opt-in, which, I don't know, like three years and $49 million for Eduardo Rodriguez, it's not terrible, right? I mean, it looked like that would be a steal at the start of the season. But there's some uncertainty, which may be resolved somewhat by the time the deadline rolls around. But I don't know. That's another opt-out, who knows what's going to happen sort of situation. And then Chialito is also

he's in his walk year, so he'd be a free agent. And then Paxton, I mean, he's not due a lot of money. He's got like less than a million and a half left for the rest of the season after the deadline, so you'd love to pick

him up, except that he's James Paxton, so can you count on him to be healthy down the stretch not really and then we were just talking about how the cardinals don't have any pitching and yet they might have a couple of the the best rentals available montgomery and flaherty and then bieber right with the guardians and i don't know like they're still perhaps too in it to deal him and he is under control for next season but mckenzie's hurt so it's just it's not a rich market for starting pitchers as you said especially if the cubs decide we don't want to sell or if, I don't know, the Guardians decide we don't want to sell, then there just aren't a lot of appealing pitchers available at the deadline. So it's tough to upgrade there. The best course of action is for James Paxton to learn how to hit and then the Mariners can bring him home and then they solve their problems. He returns to

Seattle and yeah, I don't profit after that, I guess, is the next stage. Yeah. I guess here, as we enter the weekend before the break, the toughest buy or sell or hold decisions right now are probably, so we talked about the cubs already then we talked about the mets and the padres who were sort of in that like especially the mets like they're they're pretty long shots at this point but but also the expectations that that were surrounding those teams and the payroll and everything there's just a lot of extra baggage there when it comes to deciding what to do. I think it's hard to decide what to do if you're the Guardians. Yes.

I think that that one is tricky just because the division is still, I mean, you know, 43 and 44 is we're recording and they're only a game and a half back of the twins. So like that one, I think is probably a tough call. If they're that close at the end of this month, they can't. Yeah, I can't imagine that at all. You know, especially with the way last season went, like, the Twins being in first place most of the time, and then the Guardians come storming back. Like, if you're within a couple games of first place in your division, no matter how mediocre you are or your division is, you can't do that to your fans. I don't think so. So if they were to fall further behind, that might be a tougher decision. But as it is, yeah, I mean, their playoff odds are not great.

They're at 30% right now. Yeah, it's division or bust for them. Yes, it's division or bust. And I guess the playoff odds are bigger believers in the Twins than even their slim margin, their lead there would suggest. But the fans are not looking at the playoff odds mostly, and players are mostly not looking at the playoff odds either. So even if the playoff odds are pessimistic, if you're just a few games back in first place, you cannot do anything without, I think, being rightly reviled. I mean, we know social media managers don't look at them until they do. Sure. Until they defy them somehow.

Yeah, yeah. And then the Red Sox, I guess, right? The Red Sox, I mean, they have like a one in five shot to make the playoffs. Like, they're in last place and they're a winning team in a really tough division if they were in some other divisions they'd be in first place right and here they are in the east bringing up the rear but they're not a bad team and yet are they going to catch those teams ahead of them are they going to displace the other wildcard teams including the ones out of them in their division it's it's, yeah, you'd figure they might be a team that would be looking to trade, although their deadlines are kind of confusing where they're like buying and selling at the same time and not clearly picking a side.

Yeah, it's like, no, please let us take on Eric Hosmer. Yeah, and then like you look at the AL West and it's, AL West and today it seems like it's kind of confusing. We've seen the Mariners signal at least a willingness to move on from this season with their basically giving away a useful reliever in order to clear Chris Flexen's money. But it's a weird trade for both sides, really. You know, it's a bit of a head scratcher.

And so there's like what the Mariners and Angels do over the next little bit, I think will largely determine their ultimate posture at the end of the month. Yes. I guess the Angels could make some trades that do not involve Shohei Otani. What? Yes. No. But then what would we talk about, Ben?

It's not as if if they keep Otani, which we think they will, they cannot make other moves. If the Angels make a trade involving someone other than Shohei Otani, will Effectively Wild talk about it? Sound off in the comments. Although if they still want to maintain even some semblance of a chance to keep Otani. They're going to have to do something. Right. If they trade away guys at the deadline instead of trading for guys,

what signal does that send to him in terms of their competitive aspirations? A bad one. Right. It sends a bad one. It does. Yeah. It does. Yeah. All right. I did look up just as a primer for everyone heading into peak trade deadline season.

I looked up the positions of greatest projected need for the contenders. So, I looked at- Do and Jay Jaffe's job? Yeah. I didn't look at it the way that he typically does, which is retrospective, right, which is like looking at the positions that have been the least productive thus far. I looked in terms of least productive projected positions, which there's going to be some overlap obviously between those groups. But there are some positions where they may have been bad so far, but someone's coming back from injury or someone is getting called up or someone's projected to bounce back or whatever, where it might not be as clear an area of need as the

performance to date might suggest. And there could be some areas where the performance to date might be a better indication than the projections, if you believe in someone finding some new level of performance. But I looked at the teams that had at least a 40 percent chance of making the playoffs because that's half the league. So I had to cut it off somewhere. So apologies to the Guardians and the Padres and the Red Sox who are below that threshold and some other teams. But just looked at the 15 teams with at least a 40% chance to make the playoffs. That's the Braves who are at 100%. The Rays, the Dodgers, Rangers, Astros, Twins, Marlins, Blue Jays, Phillies, Orioles, Diamondbacks, Yankees, Giants, Brewers, and the Reds just barely clear that 40% threshold.

I wanted to get them in there because they're clearly looking to upgrade, despite what the playoff odds would say. So I looked at those 15 true contenders according to the playoff odds, and then I looked at their weakest positions. Basically, I looked for any position where one of those teams projects to be 20th in the majors or worse over the rest of this season and there were among those 15 teams collectively 43 positions where they projected to be at least 20th worst in the majors and i'll in in the interest of highlighting the true areas of need and saving some time,

I'll limit it to the positions where they projected to be 25th or worst. OK, and that gives us 20 positions across those 15 teams. Interestingly, the only one of these contenders that does not project to have a position that is 20th worst or even worse than that over the rest of the season is the Dodgers. Despite all the holes, all the vulnerabilities, the Dodgers going by this do not have an acute area of need. No, I think in reality they do, obviously. But that speaks to their depth, right? That even all the losses they've suffered, even as reduced and diminished as they are, the projections still say, yeah, Dodgers are pretty good pretty much everywhere. Pretty solid. So the extreme areas of need here. So there are two positions where one of these contenders projects to be the worst in baseball at this position.

That's the Astros at catcher. So they are projected to be 30th at catcher in war over the rest of the season with 0.4. And look, I mean, the Astros, they just do what they do at catcher, right? They just they like Martin Maldonado. Yep. They just are like, this is our dude. Yeah. Here we are.

Now, they did make a trade for a catcher at the deadline last year. They did. So that's not to say that they couldn't do that. And then they didn't play him at catcher. Yeah, right. And then they were like, you know what? No, we still kind of just like Martin Maldonado. Yeah, so they cannot quit this guy. So, you know, will they go and get another Christian Vasquez and then sit him behind Martin Maldonado?

Maybe. Maybe. I doubt it. He's batting 169, 253, 277. That's a 48 WRC+. Like, I understand that the man may be a defensive whiz, but there comes a point where it just cannot possibly make up for just how bad a hitter he is. He's such a bad hitter. I mean, sorry, Martine. do anything there though because like i think they you know they have they have younger guys who are in their org who would i think be more likely to step into that role than they would be to go trade for someone outside yeah well the other thing is that his framing is bad according to fan graphs like yeah i mean it it is it was like it's it rocks yeah Like for the past several seasons, he's not really been a framing whiz. He's been about average over the previous four seasons.

Like you might expect him to be amazing at that if he's playing because of his glove, but not really. Like he's, I guess, you know, kind of like a throw guy more so than a catch guy or catch and throw guy. He's like a game calling guy. It's very Jeff Mathis-esque, I guess. Like he's hitting like Jeff Mathis and Jeff Mathis did not have amazing framing numbers. It was all about like, he's an incredible game caller and maybe Martin Maldonado is,

but at this point with his framing being bad, like is he the worst at framing this era? One of the very worst i got is he really he's got to be close i'm looking like he is because he is negative one wins like he is a full win below replacement level and on the framing leaderboard at fangraphs okay he's not worse but he's fifth worst after caber uiz shyese, Shea Langoliers, Connor Wong, Elias Diaz, and Martin Maldonado. So, man, that game calling better be absolutely amazing. The game calling and actually it's Elias Diaz, right?

And that game calling must be just amazing or just like the the comfort the working with pitchers right the being a pitcher whisper which i mean maybe he is like the astros they're not intentionally losing games i don't think that they i'm sure they have reasons to think that he is helping them or not hurting them as much as the public metrics would suggest and and of course there's a cost when it comes to changing a catcher at mid-season. We've talked about that before. I mean, you know, you have to learn a whole pitching staff on the fly, but... Yeah, but you have to learn so many fewer of them because half of them are on the injured list. Yeah, there's that. Or they're calling their own pitches on PitchCom now. But that's one projected area of need. And then the Brewers, the Brewers show up a lot here.

They have a lot of areas of need. They're kind of lucky to be where they are. But Brewers' right field projects to be the worst in the majors, 0.3 war. And then the 29th ranked positions here. So second to last in terms of projected word of position the brewers also first base and second base the brewers 29th at each with 0.3 and 0.5 respectively and they've had kind of a carousel at first base right i mean john singleton and and voight and just uh all these people they're trying to find someone who can play that position and hit a little bit.

So they still are. So first base and second for the Brewers. No Colton Wong there anymore. Not that he has been a big help either, as we discussed. And then the other 29ths, we have the Phillies third base,.8 war. The Braves left field 0.3 war I think that's the only Braves position on here because the Braves are famously pretty good everywhere especially on the position player side but 0.3 war left field and then the Phillies again center field 0.6 war from their center fielder so i guess uh the projections not brandon marsh believers

yet so the braves i i guess it's it's marcelo zuna who is uh he's still there he's still a brave and he is he's hit better like he has bounced back offensively and they kept him i think longer than people thought they should or could he has kind of hit but yeah brave's left field that's the projected weak spot for them of course azuna's these days eddie rosario in left field most of the time if we go to 28th we have four positions that are projected 28th in the majors over the rest of the season. Diamondbacks shortstop, 0.8. Marlins third base, 0.8. Yankees left field, 0.3 war. I'm going by rankings because the amount of war that you expect from different—it varies by position.

And then Marlins right field, 0.4, right? So some Marlins pickups that have not worked out so well, like, obviously, Garcia and Gene Segura, I guess, right? Like, those are projected to be holes, even though they were supposed to be filled by those free agent signings. So this is like what the Marlins do at this deadline. It's going to be pretty interesting, right? Because they are playing way over their heads seemingly, and yet they're in pretty darn solid wildcard position. You know, if they could just kind of dog paddle the rest of the way, I know they're fish, but if they could dog paddle, if they could just kind of play even from here on out, then they would be in very solid position. Like they'd end up with, you know, high 80s win total, which should get it done.

But they need some help. So do they deal like, I don't know, you know, we've talked about the pitching depth and they've dealt from some of that pitching depth. But if they traded in Edward Cabrera or someone like that, could they plug some of these positional holes? What Kim Eng does at this deadline, it's going to be a pretty big deal, I think. Yeah. And I don't know. I don't know what I would advise. I really don't know what I would advise. I really don't. I mean, I don't think that they're – on the one hand, like I don't really think that they would be in for a super long run. But you can't retrench on like being in playoff position. No.

After – you can't. You can't do it. I mean, you can, but I would advise not doing that. Yeah. Especially if you're the Marlins who've made the playoffs three times in your whole history. And one of those times was 2020. It was 2020. And the other two times you won the World Series. So, A, historically speaking, the Marlins have made the playoffs very rarely. So if you have a chance to make it, you really got to seize that chance, especially because most of the time they make the playoffs, they win the World Series. Right. yeah. There are no flaws in that logic. So I think the answer is to go for it. Go get... You know, clearly what they should do is just go trade for Juan Soto.

I don't know. Make it happen. Yeah, make it happen. All right. It would be a real boost to their offense. I would agree with that. And then wrapping up the rest of these positions of greatest need for the contenders, the 20, so a 27th place projection, the Reds' first base.3 war. Now, that's one where, obviously, real-life considerations will trump the projection. You've got Joey Votto, right? And you're not going to trade Joey Votto.

Like, there is some possibility that the Reds might trade Joey Votto, we thought, entering the season when it didn't seem like the Reds would be contending at this point. And you thought, oh, maybe he could go to the Blue Jays for a little swan song and make the playoffs. But no, now the Reds are good. Votto is your franchise lifer you're not going to trade vato and also you have christian and carnassius in carnassian strand waiting in the wings right so so that's uh not probably an area where they're going to upgrade and you have you know other players on that team who have played first base and can play first base the 26th place projections here we've got the Padres at catcher which tracks right because you know they've

had the the Gary Sanchez experiment and that worked out really well for a little while and then not so well after that and Austin Nola has just not hit right he's gosh Austin Nola makes Martin M maldonado look like a slugger austin nola has a 37 wrc plus 150 plate appearances he's batting 143 260 190. those are real triple slash stats that a actual player has so austin nola, who was a Padres deadline acquisition, right? But now they will be looking perhaps for a replacement. I guess that was an August 31st acquisition that the Padres got him from the Mariners back in 2020.

That was the deadline in 2020. That was a weird year. All right. Weird year. Marlins shortstop, 0.9 war, 26th projected shortstop war for the rest of the season. So the Marlins have a lot of holes, despite, I mean, it's what we were talking about. The underlying numbers, not so great. So there are a lot of areas of need, even in that rejiggered infield of theirs.

And then Diamondbacks third base also. rejiggered infield of theirs. And then Diamondbacks third base also. So that left side of the Diamondbacks infield, third base and shortstop both... No respect for Evan LaGoria. No, I guess not. Both showing up high in this list. Then for the final 26th place projection,

we have the Orioles starting pitchers. So Orioles starting pitchers projected for 4.2 were not a huge surprise. I mean, coming into the year, they made very modest acquisitions on the starting pitcher side. It was clear. That's such a nice way to say it. Yes, it was a really charitable, generous way to say it.

Well, because you don't want to, you know, it's not those dudes as you don't need to make them feel worse. They know how they pitch. We don't have to lay it on too thick. And then the hope was, well, Grayson Rodriguez will help them out, and that has not been the case at the big league level thus far. So he's got a 2.11 ERA and AAA and seven starts,

but might he help perhaps in the second part of the season here perhaps but uh you've had oriole starting pitchers and then if we move down to 25th projected uh production for the rest of the season we have the reds catcher 0.8 war we have Giants shortstops 0.9 war we have Brewers again third baseman 0.9 war and Reds left field 0.4 war so again a lot of Reds here Reds third baseman show up at 24th also along with Brewers center fielders Reds starting pitchers. You know, you would hope that all the injured young guys they have come back and are good and that maybe solves that problem, but there's some uncertainty there. So a lot of Reds and a lot of Brewers, which is, and a lot of Marlins, which is not surprising really because of the teams that have good chances or significant chances to make the playoffs. Those are probably the three or

among the three that you think, yeah, they're in decent position, but there are a lot of areas where they could upgrade and maybe those are internal upgrades. Maybe they're external, but those are the great areas of need. I'll link to this little handy dandy spreadsheet I made. It's kind of a cheat sheet heading into the deadline, the teams that we'll be looking to upgrade and where. If we go down the list a little bit, we've got Phillies first baseman and second baseman. We've got Reds, again, center fielders.

Rays, catchers. The Rays finally show up here at catcher. Marlins first base, like the entire Marlins infield, basically, I guess, except where a rise is playing is in need of an upgrade. You know, they have Joey Wendell. They have some other people. Rangers left field, which was an area of need coming into the season. Phillies right field. Diamondbacks starting pitchers show up here.

Yeah. Rays, R Yeah. Rays. Rays. Rude. Rays relievers. Not a great surprise, right? Giants third baseman. Giants center fielders.

Reds right fielders. Rangers starting pitchers actually show up. They have the 21st worst projected starting pitcher war over the rest of the season without DeGrom. Even though, you know. Wow. Yeah. I mean, not buying the Dane Dunning

breakout, I guess, is what's happening here. Rude to Dane Dunning. Rude to Zach Allen, who I'm sure is not the problem in that prediction. No, definitely not. Reds relievers, even though Reds bullpens have been pretty solid. Padres,

first baseman, jay's second baseman twins third baseman phillies left fielders twin center fielders and diamondbacks right fielders those are all the positions that are 20th or worst in projected were at their position i didn't do dh by the way because dh just feels like kind of a catch-all you can stick anyone there or move anywhere move anyone anywhere else. So those are the glaring areas of need, at least according to the projections. Actually, not many bullpens show up here. Only a couple of bullpens actually showed up among these contenders as needing reinforcements. But again, in reality, almost every bullpen needs reinforcements, right? Or you could use bullpen help just because of the nature

of like bullpen playoff usage and even if your entire bullpen projects to be pretty solid you might as you said like with the diamondbacks not have just like your shutdown guy that you want in those super high leverage moments so you might still want to go get someone like that. Not that there are that many someone's like that out there, but bullpen war might not be reflective of how you go about approaching your bullpen upgrades as the deadline rolls around if you are a presumptive playoff team. I know that we already talked about them. We don't have to belabor the point. We did our this and that. We did the would you want to this or would you want to that right but man that white socks offense is so bad yeah it's it's like overwhelming it's um i'm just looking at it again and i um i oh man it's um uh it's not it you know it's not going it's not going great over there.

No. Really not. Really not. No, other than Luis Robert, it's just not really going great. Yeah, you have a couple people who are holding their heads above water. Yeah. Eloy Jimenez and Andrew Vaughn. Yeah.

Jake Berger. I guess Ben Attendee has been average. Yeah, but that doesn't feel good It doesn't feel good when Andrew Ben Attendee has literally exactly a 100 WRC plus and he was like your big signing and the team had some metrics, I mean like we don't want to put too much stock in

first part of the season but what did we settle on? What are we using now? Anyway. The portion of the season that has transpired thus far. Sure. But whatever we're calling it, the defensive metrics don't like him very much. There are downsides to being pedantic about baseball sometimes.

Sometimes there's a reason why the technically incorrect shorthand has become a shorthand. It's because it's much more convenient to say things that way. But yeah, the White Sox, WRC Plus, they're 25th in the majors this year, ahead of only the Tigers, the Brewers. The Brewers, again, that's why they showed up so many times on the, like, we need a better player here, despite being just a couple games back of the Reds

in that weak division. They've been kind of, we talked about it earlier this season, there was like clutchness going on with like timing of pitching and that sort of thing that was helping them keep their heads above water, despite just being an abysmal offensive team, which is nothing new for the Brewers really. But yeah. And the defense, I guess, makes up for it somewhat. But, yeah, it's bad. And then you have the A's and the Royals and the Rockies bringing up the rear after that. All right. So we will end with some stat blasts.

We'll take a data set sorted by something like ERA-9S 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 DASTA-plast. All right. This will be a fun one. I hope I've got several stat blasts here from several sources. So we'll go with the quick ones first. So here's a question from Nat who says, from Nat who says, in a perfect game, a pitcher faces 27 batters and gets them all out. But a pitcher can face 27 batters in a non-perfect game if each base runner is erased by a double play or

is picked off. Has it been asked and now it has. And you can stat head this. So courtesy of stat head. Now there's one game that shows up on stat heads. If you look for batter's faced equals 27 and innings pitched equals nine and sort by descending base runners allowed. You get one game from June 7th, 1908, that says there were 14 base runners allowed. But I don't think that that is the case. It says that there were eight hits and four walks and two hits by pitch. And that just seems like it must be some sort of data error. It's 1908. But aside from that game, I think five, five is the record. I think that sounds more reasonable. So on April 23rd,

1989, Orioles pitcher Bob Malachy, he had a 27 batters faced start, and he gave up two walks and three hits. And I think he was facing the Twins that day, and they grounded into four double plays. So you get a lot of twin killings behind you. Bob Mlackie pitched that complete game, faced the minimum, but gave up five base runners. Mackey pitched that complete game, faced the minimum, but gave up five base runners. And then the other five base runner game was August 3rd, 1946. And this was the Senators versus the White Sox. And Orville Grove of the White Sox went nine, gave up three hits and a walk.

And I don't know, maybe there was a hit by pitch or something else in there i don't think there was a hit by pitch but five base runners reached and uh then there were a bunch of double plays it looks like there were five double plays by the senators that day so that'll do it that's the record and i guess you feel like you're living a charmed life if you face the minimum like that's impressive but there was a fair amount of traffic on the basis and you just got good defensive support just got the ground ball when you needed it and got out of it so it's a nice little distinction all right probably should have done this one first because it would have been a good segue from the terrible offenses we were just talking about. Dylan, Patreon supporter, says the Brewers have the least number of runs scored but are tied for first in the division. This was a few days ago.

Is this something? Go back a day or two. I'm sure they were in first at some point. So he's basically wondering about a team that was in first place despite having the fewest runs scored in its league. And it's true, like the Brewers on June 29th, they were first in the NL Central and last in the National League by runs. So again, they're doing it in a very weird way, like timely, effective pitching and defense. And then the closest you can come to a team doing that over a full season is 1973.

The Mets won the division with the second fewest runs scored in the National League. And that's the closest that any team has come in a full season. So that's what the Brewers are aiming for here. There has not been a team that won its division while having the fewest runs scored in the league. But the Brewers, if they could catch up with the Reds, if the Reds stop winning every day, maybe, maybe they could do it. All right.

And then the last stat head one, that was answered by Ryan Nelson, by the way, frequent StatBlast consultant. Find him on Twitter at rsnelson23. We also got a question just this week from Jesse R., who is a Patreon supporter. And he wanted to know about the Nationals' odd home away winning percentage split. So he said, for some reason, I'm still following the Nats. After watching them lose four straight at home to the Reds, they've lost 14 of their last 15 at home.

Their home record is 13 and 31. That's a 295 winning percentage. And their away record is 21 and 22. That's a 489 winning percentage. I've heard of large home away disparities, but usually they skew toward home being better. Has a team ever had this big a gap favoring road performance? This is a bad team, so I suppose anything goes, but this seems bad even by 2023 Nats standards.

I can't think of a way to more demoralize fans than a win-half-as-many-games-at-home-than-on-the-road strategy, but here we are. So he says even Patrick Corbin seems to have caught up in this. He had his best outing in years, but did it in the furthest possible place from Nationals Park, Seattle. And after we got this email from Jesse, the Nationals actually lost again at home. They lost to the Reds in extra innings on Thursday at home. So it's now even slightly more extreme than it was when he emailed.

And you can stat head this, stat blast on stat head. And I did. And I looked at it a couple different ways. So one, I looked for teams that have the biggest winning percentage gap between their away winning percentage and their total overall winning percentage. And if you go by that, the number one team is the 1994 Cubs. So strike short in season, but they had a away winning percentage of 537 and an overall winning percentage of 434. and an overall winning percentage of 434. So their overall was 103 points worse than their away record.

Right now, the Nationals would be second all time because they have a 488 road record, 21 and 22, and then they're at 391 winning percentage overall. So that's a difference of 97 points. And that would be the second highest ever. And then I guess you've got to go back to like 1908, the Pirates in a full season. They'd be next or the Royals 1998 and 162 game season. They would be after that. Another way you can do the split is like the percentage. So you can do the percentage of the overall record that the away record is. So for example, the Nats this year of their overall winning percentage.

And if you do it that way, then they are first all time or would be as of now, it would be the most extreme away split in favor of being better on the road. So if this keeps up, which it probably won't, the Nationals are chasing history here.

And I guess it would be a weird spectator experience. Like if you were a fan of a team that was that much worse at home, like you're still happy to have wins wherever they come. And I guess most people watching a given team's games are not in the ballpark on any given day, right? Like your audience on the radio and on TV is going to be bigger than the people who are actually in the ballpark. But I wonder how much it would matter to a fan base. Like, would you accept a worse overall record in exchange for a better home record? like if you're someone who goes to a lot of games and you want to see person? Like, would you make any sort of exchange or sacrifice there? Or do you not care?

Are you, as a fan of a team, not going to accept any fewer wins for, like, a more favorable home-away split when it comes to your fans getting to witness those wins in person? Well, I mean, I think if you're having, like, a really crummy season, maybe you do give up some wins on the margins so that you can see them in person at home. Like if it's not going to matter, you know, that could, I'm sure, tip too far in the other direction. Because like if you're already bad and then you're like, we're going to make ourselves like worse, maybe it just puts you in a like tier of futility that feels bad, no matter what wins you're able to see at home. But like, if you're a, you know, slightly below 500 team and you're not going to make the post season and you're like, I will sacrifice three to four road

wins so that we can win more of our games at home and the home fans can see them like that might that might feel like an okay trade-off i mean that's not like a strategy you would affect or anything but that might feel that might feel okay and on balance if you're like well this team isn't good but i had some some nice days at the park like that's that's worth a lot in a losing season yeah right it's gonna vary by fan based on are you watching every single game? Are you going to a lot of games? If not, then you probably don't care where they're winning as long as they are winning. And obviously, you're not going to make that trade off if it's going to cost you a playoff spot early or you're so far from clinching one that you're never going to. And I guess it might be worth the few fewer wins in order to have a more favorable distribution for your home fans. All right. Next question comes from me, Ben Lindberg, co-host of Effectively Wild.

Curious about the fact that the Cleveland Guardians just acquired a pitcher, Chris Valamont, from the Orioles who had just debuted, just made his major league debut for the Orioles. So Chris Valamont, he – meet a major leaguer abbreviated here. He's a fifth-round pick in 2018. He's a 26-year-old right-handed pitcher. And he made his major league debut for the Orioles on July 3rd. So July 3rd, he came in. He was the last pitcher to pitch for the Orioles that day, came in in the eighth inning, gave up a two-out double to Isaiah Kiner-Falefa, but Falefa was thrown out at third. And then he struck out Anthony Volpe for the last out of the inning, and that was it. So, you know, semi-successful, I suppose, in terms of results, Major League debut.

And that's the end of his Orioles career because he was just traded. He was designated for assignment shortly after that game and was optioned to AAA. And then he was traded to the Guardians. So I wondered, what's the fastest turnaround, the shortest time elapsed between making your major league debut and getting traded? Because that seems super fast, right? You debut on a Monday

and then I guess he got traded on Thursday. So three days later, you get traded, which I don't know if that's like an insult, like, oh, okay, we saw you. And now having seen you, we don't want to see you anymore. Or if it's like another team saw you and they actually want you,

it's just, you know, your usual bullpen reliever shuffle. You get called up, you debut, you get sent back down again. And I guess the Guardians needed more than the Orioles. So I asked Kenny Jacklin of Baseball Reference about this one, and he looked it up. He found the list of players traded less than a week after their major league debut. And this is not unprecedented in fact there have been eight previous players who were traded within a week of their major league debut so starting from the least recent we have hugh poland who debuted on april 22nd 1943 and was traded on the 27th. He went from New York to Boston five days after his debut.

Then it didn't happen for another 40 plus years. Rich Surhoff was traded from the Phillies to the Rangers. He debuted on September 8th, 1985, and five days later was dealt. Then 1989, we have Wilson Alvarez, who went from the Rangers

to the White Sox. He debuted on July 24th, 1989, we have Wilson Alvarez, who went from the Rangers to the White Sox. He debuted on July 24th, 1989. Five days later was dealt. And also, actually, I guess this was not sorted by most recent to least recent. So disregard that. But Joe Giannini, he was actually the first one. So 1911, he went from Boston to Brockton three days after he debuted. So August 7th, 1911, he debuted. Three days later, he was traded. Bob Sadowski was traded from St. Louis

to Philadelphia three days after he debuted in September of 1960. And then the more recent ones, we have B.J. Ryan, actually, notable player. He was traded from the Reds to the Orioles three days after he debuted. Now, that was a deadline deal. So he debuted July 28th, 1999, and then was traded on July 31st, 1999. So, you know, deadline move. Then Jared Wells, he was traded from the Padres to the Mariners three days after he debuted on May 24th, 2008. And another player I just mentioned, Gene Segura, had been the most recent one. He was dealt also at the deadline. So he moved from the Angels to the Brewers three days after his debut on July 24th, 2012.

So a couple notable players there, although I guess the most notable of them were deadline guys. So Gene Segura, he was traded in the Zach Greinke deal. And then one of the Zach Greinke deals, not the most notable, I guess, of them. And then BJ Ryan, he was traded in 99. That was, I guess, it's the BJ Ryan trade in retrospect that was traded by the Reds with a minor leaguer to the Orioles for Juan Guzman and cash. weaker to the Orioles for Juan Guzman and cash. So that's how it's happened generally, at least in recent years. But it is quite rare, which I guess it's not so surprising that you would turn around and trade someone away immediately after you decided that you wanted to call them up. But I don't know if he's going to be more of a starter or reliever for the Guardians, but they had Cal Quantrill get heard and McKenzie's heard and Peyton Battenfield is heard and he has options.

So they can kind of move him around and he can be an up and down guy and a swingman sort for them. I can't decide if I would find it to be the most convenient or least convenient time to get traded because like if you've just debuted. True. You haven't moved. You're in a hotel. So it's not like you're moving twice in a short period of time. No one wants to move, really. It's terrible.

But also, you're just starting to get accustomed to being in the clubhouse and getting to know people. And then you move teams teams and it's like, am I going to be able to stick on that team's big league roster or am I bound for the minors again? Yeah. Right. It's already a period of upheaval and change for you. So,

so maybe it's best to concentrate, but it's gotta be whiplash. It's like, Hey, I'm a Baltimore Oriole. Oh no, I'm not. Oh no,

I'm not. Yeah. And then like, you know, your family just flew out for your debut and then did they go again? Like, no, I'm not anymore. Oh, no, I'm not. Yeah, and then like, you know, your family just flew out for your debut. And then did they go again? Like, it seems like a lot of logistics. I guess the real takeaway from this story is that we probably don't put enough shine on the traveling secretaries in every big league org because, boy, is that a hard job.

Yeah, definitely. All right. And I mentioned Chris Valmont. that a hard job. Yeah, definitely. All right. And I mentioned Chris Falmont. He might be an up and down guy. And this next stat blast is about the all time up and down guys. So this was a question that was posed by listener and Patreon supporter Andrew M., who wrote this in the stat blast channel in the Effectively Wild Discord group. He said, excepting 2020 when there was no minor league season, Tommy Malone has pitched in both the minors and the majors every year since 2013. And that is true again this year. I think

he just got sent down again, right? He's been with the Mariners, but he's been in the minors and the majors for them. They just sent him back down. He also did this in 2011, his debut year. This means he's been up and down in 11 seasons, including 10 straight seasons since 2020 was an impossibility. Has either the total or streak been topped for a pitcher to pitch in both the minors and majors? is he the ultimate up and down pitcher? So is Tommy Malone the ultimate up and down guy? And it kind of depends how you look at it. I asked Kenny Jacklin of Baseball Reference about this again.

So if you look at streaks, the longest streaks of consecutive seasons that a player has played in both the minors and the majors, the record is 10. So Corky Miller from 2001 to 2010, he was in the minors and the majors each season. Todd Green, 1996 to 2005. So you got your backup catcher action with those guys then. And then Paul Shuey, 1994 to 2003. So those guys all did it 10 consecutive seasons. Now, if you were to count 2020, and I don't think we can just make that a gimme because you never know if you would have been in the minors if there had been minors that

year. But if 2020 had had a minor league season, then three guys would have had a shot to break that record of 10 because they would have gone to 11. This one goes to 11, right? So Eric Kratz would have been 2010 through 2020. Tommy Malone would have been 2013 through 2023 now. would have been 2013 through 2023 now, and Javi Guerra would have been 2011 through 2021. So I don't think we can count it. We got to asterisk that, but you got to figure probably at least one of those guys would have seen some minor league action in 2020 if that had been a possibility, right? So probably one of those guys would be the leader if that had been available to them. Now, the second part of the question, just total number of up and down seasons, not necessarily consecutive. So the record here, if we don't give him credit for 2020,

and we won't give credit for 2020, but the record holder is Rich Hill. Rich Hill, patron saint of the podcast, he's at least tied for the record, right? So 2005 to 2022, that was like the minimum and the maximum year. And he was in the minors and the majors in 14 of those seasons, could have been 15 if he had been in the minors in 2020 and kenny said he was surprised to see that rich hill has pitched in the majors every season since 2005 he would have thought that he had missed a season somewhere in there but but no so he has been sort of an ultimate up and down guy he was for a while at least and if we don't give him credit for 2020 then he has 14 total up and down years tied for that record would be Rudy Sienes, who also had 14. And then Tommy Hunter has 12 if we don't give him credit for 2020, as does Lou Klimchak, as does Juan Castro, as does Ron Mayhay, as does now Tommy Malone. So Tommy Malone would be, I guess, one of a few players tied for second on the total up and down seasons.

And then actually Malone, sorry, not counting 2020, Malone is only at 11 total such seasons. So he's – What a bum. Yeah, what a bum. And he's then with Andrew Miller and Cameron Maben. And I guess Steve Pierce and Bruce Chen also had 12. So those are the records basically. With the caveat that we are not distinguishing here between demotions and rehab assignments, there is no easy way to do that because especially for past years, like having the transactions or to like line up the injured list stints, that info wouldn't have been easily available where we could have.

So that probably moves things. It probably does somewhat. Especially for the pitchers, I would think. Yeah. Because they break all the time. Yeah, probably. Yeah. They break all the time.

Yeah, probably. Although, you know, if you're just going to go on the IL for like a 15-day stint or something, you're not going to do a rehab stint. So most of these are probably legitimate demotions and promotions. But there are a few in there that I'm sure are rehab assignments. So you can keep that in mind. Man, Ben. Ben, remember Andrew Miller? I do.

He was really good. Yeah, really good. He was really, really good. Yep. I miss He was really good. Yeah, really good. He was really, really good. Yep. I miss watching that guy pitch. Me too. Yeah. Anyway.

All right. And then just a couple last ones here. So I'll do two that are related to errors. So you know how last time we answered an email about just like the silliest, like the stupidest ways for a game to end, right? Which is inspired by- And everyone had to contemplate sadness after listening to the episode. Yeah. Inspired by a minor league game where the batter had thought he had walked after three balls. And so he bat flipped and then the runner on base thought it was a walk and just started strolling to second and got quote unquote caught stealing. So yeah, that was a walk and just started strolling to second and got, quote unquote, caught stealing.

So, yeah, that was a silly way for the game to end. And we solicited other nominations. Right. And we got some people writing in about other silly games like Scott, who's a Patreon supporter, wanted to submit August 11th, 2005 Angels A's. Francisco Rodriguez dropped the ball when thrown back to him by catcher Jason Kendall. So that's very weird, right? So K-Rod was on and, you know, dominant closer and K-Rod just dropped the ball. Like Kendall was on third base and he ran home when the angels closer rodriguez just dropped the throw back from the catcher and uh oakland won five to four and took possession of first place so kendall said i've never seen that in my life but that stuff happens in baseball you learn early on that you're

supposed to always follow the ball i saw it rolling away and I didn't think he'd get it back in time. Fortunately for us, I was right. So yeah, that's a weird one. And listener Terry in the Facebook group said, Ben asked about stupid losses we have witnessed in July 1991. I was at a Phil's Dodgers game. The score was one to one in the bottom of the ninth. The Dodgers got a runner on third with one out.

Mike Socia hits a pop fly down the left field line that slices foul toward the stands. Phillies left fielder Wes Chamberlain runs over, leans into the crowd and makes a really nice catch. And the runner from third trots home on the sack fly for the walk-off win. That's a good one or a bad one, depending on your perspective. Listener Eric nominated the game on August 12th, 1995, when the Dodgers won in the 11th because the catcher picked up the ball with his mask instead of his hand. That was Angelo Encarnacion. And some people nominated drop pop-ups like the famous Luis Castillo game.

Rick, Patreon supporter, said, I don't think it's as bad as the ones you cited, but the dumbest way I ever saw a game end was a Padres-A's game in Oakland on June 30th, 1998. Pinch running at first base as the potential tying run Ruben Rivera was picked off to end the game when he fell for a fake to third throw to first move by Mike Fedders. Remember the old fake to third throw to first, which was always described as the old fake to third throw to first move? I wrote when that was outlawed, like at the end of the 2012 season or whenever it was, I wrote like a fond farewell to the fake the third third or first which had such a low percentage it it so rarely worked but every now and then it did and it was embarrassing and everyone was surprised when it happened and there's like every fan base remembers like one guy who was reputed to be good at that because he did it like two times or something right so so you know it was jeff nelson for me or two times or something. So, you know, it was Jeff Nelson for me or like Tim Hudson for other. It's like, oh, I remember that guy did it a couple

times. He was the master of the fake to third, throw to first. Just a very silly move that's no longer allowed. Anyway, I was thinking about that because there is a pretty dumb ending to a Cardinals game the other day, which. Oh, no, they're going to make me feel bad about my picks. Well, Jordan Hicks just flubbed. I guess it's not quite as embarrassing as what happened with K-Rod in that game. But Jordan Hicks, he threw the ball away on like a pretty routine throw to first. It was July 5th. Now Now he has since had a routine save and has restored order. But on July 5th, this was another Marlins one-run victory in the end. One run's going to score, and here comes the game winner! How do you like that?

It's a Marlins walk-off win! Soak it in and enjoy every moment. Sometimes they're not pretty. It was a ground ball to Hicks from Joey Wendell, and there were a couple runners on, and Hicks just threw it away, like just airmailed it over first base. And a couple Marlins runners scored. And that was it. It's like walk off, you know, error off.

Very, very silly. And I guess it was scored as a single and then advanced on an error by the pitcher. And so that made me think, because there's a reputation that pitchers are terrible at throwing, right? Like not pitching, obviously, they're famously very good at that. But in terms of fielding their position, not always the best. Right. So I wanted to see whether that was the case. And I looked for every position from 2021 to 2023. And I looked at their errors, their error rate. So like errors per opportunity, which I went with put outs plus assists. And then I looked for the percentage of their errors that are throwing errors. Okay. So at the bottom of the list on the error rate, errors over opportunities is first baseman 0.6% of opportunities are errors.

Makes sense, right? Because first baseman get a lot of put outs that are just, they just have to catch the ball, right? So it's hard to make an error on that. And if it's like a tough catch, then often that'll be scored as an error on the person who threw it, right? And then second, catchers, 0.7% are errors. And I guess that's largely because put outs, strikeouts are scored as put outs for catchers 0.7 percent uh are errors and i guess that's largely because uh put outs strikeouts

are scored as put outs for catchers right so if you if you subtracted strikeouts other than the drop third strikes i guess then catchers would actually have a pretty high error rate but it's it's a small number of plays you know catchers they don't have to make that many plays on on little squibbers in front of the plate but if you include put outs then they have the second lowest error rate center fielders one percent error rate left fielders 1.4 percent right fielders 1.4 percent then we get to the infield second base 1.8 percent shortstop 2.8%, third base, 4%. So highest of the regular positions, which, you know, a lot of hard hit balls to third and also a long throw. And then pitchers.

So pitchers, 5.1% error rate. So that would support the idea that pitchers make a lot of errors on fielding opportunities. And then I broke it down also by the percentage of errors that are throwing errors. And so if we rank those, first base, only 21.1% are throwing errors. Makes sense. First baseman, don't have to make a lot of throws, right? Center fielders, 25.8. Left fielders, 30.2.

Right fielders, 35.8. Second baseman, 42.2. Short stops, 51.1. Second baseman, 42.2. Shortstop's 51.1. Third baseman, 51.4. Tough throw from third. Catcher's 61.2, which again makes sense because catchers don't get that many opportunities, but they get a lot of opportunities to throw, of course, so they can mess up that way. And then at the top, pitchers, 77.2% of their errors

are throwing errors. So I'm going to say the conventional wisdom is fully validated, vindicated here. Pitchers not only have the highest rate of errors per opportunity of any defensive position, but they also have by far the highest rate of throwing errors or ratio of throwing errors to other kinds of errors. So it is true. Pitchers, they make a lot of errors. And I guess we couldn't quantify this, but pitcher field not going to count as an error on you anyway, probably. But there are a lot of times when pitchers, they have all the time in the world as Jordan Hicks did, and they just throw it away. And it's very silly and strange because pitchers are the best throwers. That's their whole job is to throw the ball, but they do it in a very specialized way. You're right. I mean, they throw it as hard as they can with a lot of movement and within a prescribed space and 60 feet, six inches, and they're trying to throw it over the plate or in the vicinity of the plate.

And then when they have to whirl around and throw to any other base, they actually have less practice doing that than anyone else on the field. Right. So it's a strange dichotomy where like they're the most practiced at throwing at the throwing motion, but the least practiced, I guess, at throwing to bases and thus the worst at it. It's very odd, but it is true. Yeah, it is odd. You've got to go. You're in Seattle. You got places to be and things to do. So I will wrap

up in a sec, but I look forward to talking to you about All-Star stuff next week. Have fun. Thank you so much. My home ballpark is hosting an All-Star game. I'm pretty excited. All right. Meg is gone, but the Stat Blast cavalcade continues. Just got a little more for you here.

And this is a linked one from the last app last because it's also errors related. So we talked last week about this idea that maybe MLB has instructed official scores to stop calling errors in order to juice batting average. David Laurela wrote about this in his most recent edition of Sunday Notes at FanCrafts. I'll quote him. MLB error totals are lower than one might reasonably expect and not because a plethora of defenders have morphed into Omar Vizquel. Rather, it has become increasingly common for balls in play to be ruled hits. This isn't simply my observational opinion. I've heard multiple broadcasters express disbelief after an infielder botched what

looked like a sure out only to have the official scorer award the hitter a single. In a nutshell, ordinary effort ain't what it used to be. Why is this happening? Many, including yours truly, are of the belief that the MLB office has been pushing official scores in this direction with declining batting averages factoring into their efforts. To the detriment of pitchers and their earned run averages, the powers that be seemingly want to see more hits in the box scores and higher numbers at the front end of hitter slash lines. As reasonable as that may seem on the surface, some of the rulings being made are questionable at best. In a recent three-game series, Miami's Joey Wendell

was awarded hits on four ground balls that had an expected batting average of 170 or lower. A few weeks ago, I was watching a game where Kansas City's slow-footed Salvador Perez was awarded a hit on a routine chopper to third base that had an 080 expected batting average. That's not a typo. The expected batting average was truly 80. MLB has an official scoring problem. Moreover, it is unlikely that the men and women performing the task in press boxes are at fault. They're simply doing what they're being asked to do. The absurdity of some rulings be damned.

So I don't know what David has heard from official scorers. I did send this to our official scorer friend and listener who shall remain nameless for what it's worth. He said oversight of the process has never been more than it is today,

but I can honestly tell you from the inside, this has not been the push or any of the messaging. So he says they're not being instructed to back off on errors, but maybe other official scorers have, or maybe you don't want to take the word of an anonymous official scorer. So looked into this a little more with the help of frequent stop-loss consultant, Ryan Nelson. Now it is true that there are fewer errors per game now than there have been in any previous season, 0.52 errors per game. However, there are

also fewer balls in play than there used to be. There are more home runs, there are more strikeouts, so there are fewer non-homer hits than there have been before. So you really have to look at it as a function of errors on balls in play. And that's what Ryan did. So, so far this season, there have been errors on about 2.12% of balls in play. Now, if you go back to the very beginning of baseball, 1871, the National Association, it was 18.25% then. So it was like almost nine times higher, the error rate. But of course, people were not using gloves and fields were not well-groomed and players

were not as athletic. And so the error rate on balls in play, as Ryan said, has been decreasing basically forever throughout the game's entire history. He described it as exponential decay, which is if something keeps decreasing by a kind of consistent percentage over a period of time. I'll link to the graphs in the spreadsheet so you can see, but it's sort of a steep drop in the error rate at first and then a slower but sustained drop. So as I said, in the first season that sometimes classified as major league, 18.25% of balls in play. By the time you get to 1890, it's 10.10%.

By the time you get to 1901, it's 7.65%. By the time you get to the end of World War II, it's 3.65%. By the time you get to 1998 end of World War Two, it's three point six five percent. By the time you get to 1998, it's two point six two percent. And again, this season, two point one two percent. So it's been a very long, gradual decline. It has dropped a little faster in the last few years since 2020, basically, but it had actually plateaued or gone up a little bit in the years before that. So it isn't that much lower than it was, say, 10 years ago. There was sort of a local maximum in 2020. Again, a lot of players called up while other players were on the COVID IL. Maybe they were all creeped out by the cardboard

cutouts in the stands. They didn't have a regular lead up to the season, etc. So Ryan made three exponential decay models, one using all of baseball history, one using the previous 50 years and one using the previous 20 years. The full model is surprised that there hasn't been even further reduction in the error rate. The 50 year model does a decent job of predicting it. And the 20 year model didn't think it would drop this much. None of the models thought it would drop quite so quickly in the past few years. However, Ryan says the silver bullet statistical test here is something called the Chow test. It basically tests whether an existing trend has been statistically significantly changed by some sort of intervention. If there's a change in slope, is that statistically significant or a

fluke? That's what Chao's test helps you figure out. He says, if we assume there was an intervention of some sort in 2020 when the error on balls and play rate had a recent peak. There was some sort of change that year. There was a pandemic. Using the 50-year model, there is a 0.00001% chance that the change in direction is caused by a single intervention and not random chance. The odds using the 20-year model are even lower. So he concludes there is no statistical evidence that the drop in errors over the past three seasons has to do with anything other than fewer balls in play and random fluctuations. If anything, the weird thing is that there was a little bump in the error rate in 2019 and 2020. If not for that, if you just continued the decline trend from previous seasons, then no one would be looking at where we are now and saying there must be some instruction to the official scorers. So statistically speaking, there's no smoking gun here. This is a continuation of a very, very long-term trend exacerbated by a reduction in

balls in play. And you got to figure that over the long run, maybe there has been more of a tendency to call certain plays hits that would have been called errors in the past. Maybe it's that equipment has improved, fields have improved, fielders have improved, even though batters are probably hitting the ball harder than they used to. An interesting question, of course, is if some part of this is official scores lowering their bar for what constitutes a hit, then how much has batting average been boosted as a result? It's sort of impossible to say. A lot of errors would not have been outs, even if they were played cleanly. You can't really just say all errors would have been outs or they all would have been hits. They're some of both. It's tough to determine the proper proportion there. But it is interesting

to note that the error rate on balls in play is lower than ever. It's just basically been lower than ever at almost every point in baseball history. Now, last one. And yes, it's about Otani, although it's also about Trout. I felt a little bad in retrospect because when Meg and I talked last time about Trout's injury, we little bad in retrospect because when Meg and I talked last time about Trout's injury, we talked about it in the context of what this means for Shohei Otani. Does this mean the Angels

are more likely to trade Otani? We kind of just glossed over Mike Trout getting hurt because sadly, we're sort of used to it at this point. Trout hardly missed games at all his first five seasons or so in the big leagues.

But since then, it's become commonplace. This is going to be his third consecutive season not qualifying for the batting title, which sucks. I don't think we can quite call his decline Griffey-esque yet, but it's not trending in a great direction. And he has been eclipsed by Otani to the extent that now when Trout gets hurt, we talk about the impact on Otani. And I'm going to do that again now in a different way, because I got curious about the effect of Mike Trout batting behind Otani. When Mike Trout is healthy, he remains one of the best players in baseball.

Certainly up until this season, he was still one of the best hitters in baseball. And he was often, though not always, batting behind Shohei Otani. Sometimes Otani batted behind him. But I got curious about what it might mean for Otani that Trout is out, let's say, through August, most likely, because I remembered that late in the 2021 season when not only was Trout out, but Anthony Rendon was out, Justin Upton missed a lot of time, Jared Walsh missed a lot of time, and the Angels lineup, other than Otani, was quite anemic. After the All-Star break, the hitters who batted behind Otani collectively

slashed 202, 264, 274 that season, compared to 251, 384, 408 in the first half. From August 4th on, it was almost always Phil Gosselin, David Fletcher, or Joe Adele hitting behind Otani. And over that span, Otani batted 221, 392, 436 compared to 274, 362, 666 prior to that. And so it seemed like, even though Otani didn't appear to be getting a lot fewer pitches to hit, that maybe he was putting pressure on himself. He was pulling the ball a lot more. Maybe he felt like he had to do it all himself, understandably. So I was curious about Otani's numbers from 2021 through 2023 with and without

Trout batting behind him. This was kind of a tag team of Lucas Apostolaris from Baseball Prospectus and Sean Dolinar from Fangraphs. It turns out to be kind of tough to look up these numbers, but here are the splits excluding the 37 plate appearances when Otani ended the game. Just from a querying perspective, it was tough to see who was hitting behind him when no one actually hit behind him because the game was over. So taking those 37 plate appearances, which were all outs out of the equation, we're left with 1,297 plate appearances without Trout hitting behind him and 360 plate appearances with Trout hitting behind him. Without Trout, Otani's triple slash line average OBP slugging 275, 378, 574. With Trout, 295, 371, 649. So that's a 952 OPS without Trout behind him and a

1019 OPS with Trout behind him. Again, these are slightly inflated by the fact that 37 outs are being removed from the sample. So his on-base percentage is a little higher with someone else hitting behind him, but his batting average is about 20 points higher with Trout behind him, and his slugging percentage is about 75 points higher with Trout behind him. So if we break it down into walk, strikeout, home run rate, without Trout, he's walked 14% of the time. With Trout, he's walked 9.4% of the time. Without Trout, he's struck out 24.8% of the time. With Trout, he's struck out actually a little more, 26.9% of the time. Finally, without Trout, he's homered in 6.5% of his plate appearances. With Trout, he's homered in 7.5%

of his plate appearances. So he walks more often without Trout hitting behind him. He hits more homers with Trout hitting behind him. And this is not unexpected because the sabermetric orthodoxy on lineup protection, which comes from the book, which is close to 20 years old now and landmark a book as it was, and as much as many of its conclusions still hold up, could probably stand to be revisited with all the new data that we have these days. The book concluded that at least in some situations where you might have some incentive to pitch around a batter, if you have a good hitting behind that guy, then he's not going to walk as much. If you don't have a good hitter protecting him, he's going to walk more and maybe also strike out more because the pitcher's not throwing as many hittable pitches. But the counterintuitive conclusion was that on balls in play, it didn't

seem to make a difference. And so lineup protection, perhaps historically overrated. And we see that here, right? Without Trout behind him, pitchers are more likely to pitch around Otani and he walks more, but he doesn't get quite as many hittable pitches. He doesn't hit as many home runs. And with a lot of combos, you might say, eh, it's a wash. Don't worry about it. But in this case, you have Mike Trout, who's been one of the best hitters in him, David Fletcher, Justin Upton, Brandon Drury, Max Stassi, Joe Adele, Matt Duffy, Jose Iglesias, David McKinnon, Jack Mayfield. It's a steep, steep drop off from Trout to almost anyone on this list. So in that case, when you have someone who's as scary as Otani, I think having Trout behind him may make a difference. And Lucas was able to look at the plate discipline stats too. And as expected, with Trout hitting behind

Otani, the zone rate is higher. Not dramatically higher, but he does see more pitches in the strike zone. He does swing at a higher rate of pitches in the strike zone. So again, not enormous samples here, bigger samples than when we did the Otani splits on days he pitched and days he didn't pitch, which has changed since we first did that stop last. Maybe this will equalize too. Maybe it's just that Otani has happened to be hotter or colder at different times when Trout was or wasn't hitting behind him. But I think if you were hoping that Otani would have some enormous number of home runs this season, test the modern limits of single season

war. I think Trout being out for an extended period and thus not protecting Otani probably does make those outcomes a little less likely. So we can be sad not to see Trout for a while, and we can also be sad because it may mean that Otani goes deep a little less often than he would have otherwise. Now it is time for the future blast. have otherwise. Now it is time for the Future Blast. This comes to us from the year 2030 and from Rick Wilber, an award-winning writer, editor, and college professor who has been described as the dean of science fiction baseball. Rick writes, in 2030, baseball fans who attended games in person embraced the upgraded smart glasses branded by each club that offered voice-controlled stats, highlights, zoom lenses, recording times that captured an entire game, and chat rooms where fans could talk to one another as if they were sitting side by side wherever they were in the ballpark. The fans at home fully embraced the new Apple Be There system with its Apple Vision Pro 12 goggles, where they felt like they were at the plate and knocking it out of the park themselves.

12 goggles where they felt like they were at the plate and knocking it out of the park themselves. They too could chat with other users. And what many of them were chatting about was the home run season as it came to be called with 8,242 home runs hit in total, a record eclipsing 2019's previous record of 6,776. It was the charismatic Ellie De La Cruz who led all hitters and no surprise led in total followers with 2.6 million Be There followers as he knocked one ball after another out of the park, carving out a truly remarkable season with 74 homers and 102 stolen bases. The aging but still powerful Aaron Judge was next with 1.2 million followers as he hit 62 dingers, marking the third time in his career to eclipse the 60 mark. Shohei Otani had 3.4 million

be there followers, more than half of them in Japan, as he pitched his way to 20 wins and 55 homers for the Dodgers, who felt that their $400 million eight-year deal with the 34-year-old Otani was a bargain. That is a bargain, if that's what they got Otani for in this timeline. Don't think that's going to be happening in ours. Otani finished third in the MVP race and second in the Cy Young race. At season's end, Otani and his Dodgers teammates beat Judge and his Yankees in six games, Shohei winning twice on the Hill and once more with a walk-off homer. I promise that I have not requested that Rick turn the future blasts into pro-Otani fan fiction, but hey, how could they not be? A couple quick follow-ups from last time. We talked about Fall Out Boy's cover of We

Didn't Start the Fire and the sports references in that song there's a line about michael jordan 23 and also a line about michael jordan 45 we were saying that maybe the 45 was a baseball reference because he wore 45 when he played baseball however he did also wear 45 briefly during his comeback in the nba so that may also have been a basketball reference instead of a baseball reference. I'd like to think that it was partly a baseball reference, but if not, that would add to basketball's lead on the other sports when it comes to representation in that song. Also, we answered a question about when we might see a softball or football style helmet worn by a player in a game, something with the full face guard. And we were reminded that this actually did happen in an MVP season, no less. In 1978,

Dave Parker of the Pirates dove headfirst into Mets catcher John Stearns and fractured his left cheekbone. He insisted on continuing to play. He said, I'm the toughest man in the world. I can see so I can play. However, he did miss some time. And when he came back a couple of weeks later, he was wearing a hockey goalie mask. I almost joked when we talked about this the other day that you could go up there looking like Jason from Friday the 13th, and that's essentially what Parker did. Although no one would have said that at the time because Friday the 13th hadn't come out yet, but he couldn't see some pitches. So he went back to wearing a conventional batting helmet, but when he got on base, he switched to a batting helmet with a football face mask attached that he

continued to wear for the rest of that season and into the next. So as we said, it would have to be a player who got hurt and decided to try to prevent himself from getting hurt again. And as Meg said, it looks badass, probably partly because it's Dave Parker doing it, but also because of the mask. Finally, on episode 2025, we talked about the Marlins dilemma with Yuri Perez. He's already well over his single season high for innings pitched. He's very young. What would they do? Would they try to moderate his usage? Would they

shut him down? On Friday, we learned they are sending him down to double A. You hope this is not service time related. You hope it's health related, trying to manage his workload, not stress him too much and try to keep him available later in the season if the Marlins are still in the running in the playoffs. Of course, they have to get there first, but he's going to continue to throw down there, if not pitch. Maybe they can keep his arm built up without wearing it down too much with Major League Innings. There's a risk, though, taking the foot off the pedal and then putting it back on. So we were sort of hoping to see them use him, but just not use him too much. Give him a little extra rest. Don't let him go as deep into games. You could even put him in the bullpen,

I suppose, potentially. But they said they didn't want to have him make extremely short starts, which could compromise the bullpen. Although that might be what ends up happening anyway when they call up Johnny Cueto to replace him. He will be missed.

I hope he stays healthy and I hope he's back in the big leagues soon. 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 the podcast going. Help us stay ad free and get themselves access to some perks. Paul Crawford, Blake Bergey, or Blake Berg, or Blake Burge, or Blake Burgey. Ryan Pierce, Monty French, and Mohamed Khan.

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