Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2035: Hot Streaks and Cold Spells

Episode Date: July 21, 2023

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Meg’s strategies for coping with record heat in Phoenix, revisit an earlier conversation about whether the pitch clock has boosted MLB attendance (and reminisce about when the cause of increased game times was still considered unclear), celebrate their recent wish about camera angles on broadcasts coming true, discuss […]

I want banter with nuance From two hosts to other girls I'm just a fan who wants Nothing less than effectively wild Oh, wild, oh Wild. Oh, wild. Oh, wild. Nothing less than Effectively Wild. Hello and welcome to episode 2035 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters.

I'm Meg Reilly of Fangraphs and I'm joined as always by Ben Lumberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? I'm quite all right. How are you? I'm hot. Oh, well, that makes sense. Is the streak of 110 miles per hour plus degree days still intact? I wish that it were a matter of pitch velocity. Did I say mile per hour? You did. It was delightful.

That's kind of some crossed wires there. Degrees. Yeah, that's what we're talking about here. Temperature. Let's see. I have opened my weather app. And I will say, Apple, you have at times reported the likelihood of rain in a way that has not been accurate. And I can't decide if that's kind or cruel,

but it's what it is. We don't have a day where we are below 110 in the extended. Our first 110-degree forecast day is next Wednesday. Today, our high is supposed to be 117. Oh, my goodness. It's pretty hot, Ben, you know, the UV index is extreme. Precip, zero in the last 24 hours and unexpected in the next 10 days.

So that sounds fairly unlivable. I would wilt. I would go outside even less than I currently do. That would be pretty deadly to me, the combination of the temperature and the UV. I went to a playground with my daughter this past weekend, and I was slathering us both with sunscreen because, if anything, she's paler than I am. Just being out in direct sunlight for minutes, I can feel myself being seared, but at least it was not 110 degrees.

I mean, talking about the weather can be boring, but when the weather is that extreme, I guess it's not boring. It is quite uncomfortable. Yeah. Alarming is like the word that I think is probably most appropriate. And you're like, you know, the Complex League games don't start until 6 p.m., but it's still so freaking hot. And because it's been so hot for so long, there's no relief because there's all this concrete. And so it's just cement. Cement goes into concrete, right?

That's what we determined. We've hashed that out before. Yeah, I think that that's right. So, you know it um just stays hot just stays hot i was like could i bake an egg on the sidewalk the answer is absolutely yes so you know if i sound wilted it's because i feel that way and i've been sitting in air conditioning for pretty much since the moment i got home from my other home, where it is beautiful, perfect right now. So, you know, we contemplate our life choices

and the, you know, broader choices of, I don't know, petrochemical companies apart from anything else, and wonder if the young men playing on the complexes are doing okay. I like to help you gauge how hot it has been, as if that number isn't sufficient. Like, I'm going to see Oppenheimer tomorrow, not in IMAX, just to have the privilege of sitting in different air conditioning

than I'm sitting in right now. So that's where we are. It's hard to think about anything else, but I will do my level best to contemplate questions of baseball not that those are completely separate from questions of temperature but um they do play baseball there too but yeah and at the moment they have recently concluded playing it in atlanta where i'm given to understand it is warm but not quite so hot and where the diamondbacks have once again demonstrated that they need some

reliever assistance come next week. So that's where I'm at. Yeah. I mean, usually you think it's the desert. There will be big temperature fluctuations. Dry air doesn't hold the heat overnight. It'll cool down. But from what I've heard, it really hasn't gotten under 90 even at night.

So there's no respite. There's a lot more we could interrogate here, why you're going to see Oppenheimer to cool down instead of Barbie, your break. It's longer, Ben. Oh, that's true. Yeah, you get more air conditioning for your ticket dollars.

Yeah, good point. Yeah, that was the primary motivation is that it's longer. And I don't have the stamina to do a double feature. So I'm going to kind of chunk it out in terms of the big movies of our time. But yeah, that was really as much thought as went into it. It's like, which of these is longer? Oh, it's that one?

Okay. Because again, it's not like I'm not sitting in air conditioning as we record right this minute, but the privilege of different air conditioning, you know, who could, what a luxury. I sound unhinged and that's how I feel, Ben. The cost of walking to your car outdoors, I guess you have to expose yourself to the environment for a few seconds. And not to betray my specific location, because I do worry about the internet's more unscrupulous characters, but I do live technically within walking distance of a movie theater. A cool, a cool, no, a half know, easy in November or December. Will I be driving to the movies? Oh, yes, Ben. I will be. I will be driving there.

Yeah. Anything farther than your driveway is not walking distance in those conditions. But I wish you cooler weather ahead. However, you know what else is hot? MLB attendance. How's that for a segue? You know, I think it was a pretty good one. I think that you should feel good about it. Thank you. That's a professional podcaster's transition right there. Attendance is up in Arizona specifically. Maybe it's people just wanting the different air conditioning in Chase Field. But it's also up almost everywhere.

And we talked about this early June. So several weeks ago, this was episode 2015, we scrutinized whether the uptick in MLB attendance was actually directly related to the new rules, specifically the pitch clock. And I was not fully convinced at the time. I thought it was very plausible that what we were seeing was just sort of the tail end uptick of the post-pandemic public living, right? Like we had a big attendance boost last year. Obviously, two years before that, there had been no fans in the ballpark except for the cardboard kind. And then there were some limitations on most ballparks attendance

and also people just being wary of going out in group settings, even outdoors for a while. And so I thought, OK, maybe this is just the residue of that people feeling comfortable going outside again, flocking back to ballparks.

And I was not fully convinced that this was a new thing that was a pitch clock bounce. However, I am now more convinced that it is. For one thing, it has persisted since we spoke. I think it has actually increased slightly more even since we talked about it. So attendance is up 9.3% year over year.

And Russell Carlton just wrote about this and tried to figure out the answer to this riddle also. And he pointed out, he looked at open table data, so restaurant dining reservations, right? And that can be a decent proxy for, are people going out and do they feel comfortable being out in public group settings? And also, do they have disposable income to spare? And he found that there's actually been a slight decrease in the number of diners year over year, 2022 to 2023. So it doesn't seem like it's that.

It doesn't seem like it's just, hey, let's go outside again. Even if it's 110 degrees, we got to get back out there. We've been cooped up for years. And of course, you know, the economy, maybe not as bad as people think it is, but there have been issues, obviously, and inflation and decreases in real wages, et cetera. And so you could say maybe people are cutting back on disposable dining, you know, income expenditures, right? And so if anything, maybe there's a headwind against MLB attendance being up, and yet it's up. So I think that is

kind of compelling to me. And he also broke it down by day of the week. And he found that pretty much every day of the week is up year over year. But a lot of the increase is actually coming from weekday games. Like Tuesday was the biggest uptick. People are going back to the ballpark on Tuesdays now. And I think that supports the idea that it's the pitch clock, that not only are games shorter, but as we've discussed and I've written, they are much more predictable in length. You can be much more confident that they're going to be over at a certain time or within a certain time.

And so if it's a weekday and it's a school night or a work night and you're weighing whether you actually want to go out to the ballpark and am I going to be up all night and am I going to get to see the end of the game and am I going to be up all night and am I going to get to see the end of the game and am I going to be exhausted the next day, then the increased certainty that, yeah, they're going to get this game in in roughly two and a half hours, that might make you more likely to go.

So I think I am now kind of convinced, you know, MLB has been bandying about these figures of increased attendance and also decreased age of ticket buyers. And I obviously want to believe, I want to think that that's why people are coming back to the ballpark. And now I think I do. I think I buy it. The predictability piece is really key because you feel not great. That feeling of like, I got to go, though, and it's not done is a really i think unpleasant one like i think about that game that the angels ended up winning in in walk-off fashion against the

yankees the one where like otani hit the big home run and he bat flipped and then they ended up winning in extras and as um that game was sort of concluding they note they noted that like there were people after otani's last i bet who were like kind of leaving they were they were getting ready to go and that game didn't go super long even for an extra innings game but like that that feeling of like well i gotta i gotta go because i have that meeting tomorrow at eight and i you know need to be sharp for it isn't isn't a fun one you feel like you're missing out and so you i think put a lot of there's a lot of sort of weight put on the idea of like i'm going to be able to sit this one

out no matter how long it takes and to feel like that's not going to be interminable even though there weren't that many games that were actually like wildly wildly long they were all just kind of long i think that certainty or that perception of certainty, it counts for a lot. I find it very persuasive that that is like a motivating force for people. And then, you know, in the summer, maybe you worry less about the kids being up late, but you still have to go to work, you know, and you got to be a person and presumably like a coherent one, maybe someone who sounds less unhinged than I do. So I find that persuasive, Ben. I really do. Yeah, me too. Let the record show that Meg was the first to bring up Shohei Otani today. Yeah. I mean, like, look, he's the best player at baseball, Ben. It's not as if, you know, we are out of bounds or as if you are the only one who's noticed, you know.

Don't have to make the case to me. Yeah, I'm just saying. Just saying. Also, I think you could have said, well, it's been an exciting season in a number of ways. And a lot of teams are in contention and some surprising teams are in contention. And so maybe it's attendance boost for those teams. And that could play a part. But really, almost every team is up.

In fact, there are only six teams that are down in attendance year over year. Yes, please be my guest. Well, I'm going to guess that one of them, this is a big swing, just like a really, you know, I'm out on the line. Are the Oakland Athletics one of those teams, Ben? Shockingly, no. Really? Oh, it's because their attendance was already so low? Yeah, either that or it was the reverse boycott, just that alone.

Maybe that came. Oh, buoyed their numbers? Yeah, choose the numbers. But yeah, they're not one of the bigger boosts. But yeah, they actually are up. That's so funny. Yeah. Okay, so I'm going to guess the Nationals.

Yes, the Nationals are down. I'm going to guess the Rockies. The Rockies are not down. They're slightly up. Look, the Rockies, they just seem to be immune to the fortunes of the team, their attendance. It's just like, hey, of course, it feels nice. You know, let's go out there. Just have a nice time. Get some cheap beers. Is there a game going on? Is the team

that's playing bad? Are they going to lose? Oh, well. Oh, boy. Now I feel like my sense of this is off. Okay. I'm going to go to a central division. Are the Tigers and the White Sox down? Yes. In fact, they are the two teams that are down by the most. Oh, that makes sense. You've nailed it there. Although the White Sox are just in a class of themselves. They are down more than 4,100 per game compared to last year. And the Tigers have the second biggest decrease, and it's 500 per game.

Wow. So the White Sox are way, way, way down. Wow. I can't blame you, White Sox fans. I don't really want to pay good money to go see the White Sox this season either. But yeah, it's the Nats, the Tigers, the White Sox, the Giants are down slightly, the Red Sox are down slightly, and the Brewers are down slightly, like double digits, basically flat. Almost all of those teams, all but the White Sox, are down by 500 or fewer. So it's almost everyone's up, right?

And the big increase comes from the Phillies. Okay, yeah, they won the pennant. They signed Trey Turner, sure. The Guardians, they had a surprisingly successful season last year, right? So, you know, the Rangers are fourth, they obviously invested and they've gotten good again. The Reds are fifth. The Orioles are sixth. The Pirates are seventh.

They had a little run at the start of the season, right? I skipped over the Blue Jays, but a lot of those teams are teams that are newly good or much more successful than they had been for a while. So you would expect there to be boosts there. But still, the fact that it's almost league-wide, I think, also supports the pitch clock explanation, right? Because that's the constant everywhere. And the fact that this has continued throughout the season, that the increase is actually a little higher than it was when we talked about it several weeks ago, that encourages me too,

because you might've said, well, maybe it's just the novelty value. Maybe it's everyone hearing some buzz about this newfangled pitch clock. Wow, let's go check out this countdown timer. I hear there's a timer that counts down. How exciting that sounds. Let's go see what that looks like.

And then maybe you'd go see it once and you feel like, okay, I saw that. It's still pretty much baseball. I don't need to come back just to see that again. But either people are coming in waves to see it once and you feel like, okay, I saw that. It's still pretty much baseball. I don't need to come back just to see that again. But either people are coming in waves to see it or they were converted. They went once and they liked it and now they're coming back. So good news, I think. I don't know if it will persist beyond this season, but positive trend. It's always nice when you see people having a good time at the ballpark it makes you feel

makes you feel like uh sport is the future like there's a direction to the whole bit that's good so i'm with you i think that's an encouraging thing and i hope that you know if it were only the pitch clock and we couldn't attribute it to the you know the like the reds are good now you know i i think that you want the league-wide trends to be positive for attendance, but I do hope that we can point to other stuff being in the soup because you want, you know, an owner sitting in the owner's suite to look out and be like, look at this full ballpark because of my competent and or good baseball team. You know, you want that connection to feel direct.

But I do think you're right that the league wide trend is hard to, hard to ignore. You know, it's certainly giving people a boost in their experience of things. Although I do find it interesting because it's like, I think that I stand by my earlier position about the predictability being important and being able to enjoy a sporting event on a weeknight and and go to work the next day and not feel wrecked by that i think is is important but i will say that the one time i felt like it's going too fast is when i am in ballpark and i i don't have that experience at home but when i have been to games in person there have there's been a time or two where i've been like, wow, it really flew by. Like, you feel nervous getting up to get a hot dog because you're like, am I going to miss like a whole bunch of baseball? So, I would be curious to hear from others if they've had that

experience of being like, wow, slow down. I got to go get a beer, you know? Yeah. Do you remember prior to the pitch clock being implemented, especially in the minors, there was a lot of confusion about why games were getting longer. Do you remember that? Yes. It seems silly in retrospect, but people would debate. Maybe we debated on this podcast. I'm sure we did. Yeah. Why are the games so long? And there were all sorts of theories and explanations. And a lot of people would say, oh, it's more commercials. Right. Right. Yeah. That was a popular answer. Right. Or it's more pitching changes or maybe it's just more pitches, period. And some of these things are small factors.

Sure. But we got a pretty convincing answer. Yeah. You put the pitch clock in place. It's like, oh, yeah, that was it. That was it. That was basically the entire problem. That was the whole thing. If you consider a problem.

Like Grant Brisby, our pal, wrote a great article for SB Nation in 2017 where he studied this issue, right? The headline was why baseball games are so damn long. And he took a game in 1984 and a game in 2014 and he he watched them both, and they were similar games in a lot of respects. And he just tried to figure out why was the later game longer? And he won a Sabre Award for that. A deserved Sabre Award. It was an acclaimed article.

I know I linked to it several times. And now it's like, duh. Like, yeah, now we've seen the pitch clock clock and yeah, we lop off all that time. And his conclusion watching those games side by side was, yeah, like it's almost entirely or primarily the pitches. It's the time between pitches. He found that the later game was 35 minutes longer and the vast majority of that was just more time between pitches in 2014 and 1984. And even that, I mean, not everyone read that article or maybe it didn't convince everyone. So it still wasn't a totally settled question even after that pretty convincing look at it.

And now, no, that was it. It's rare that something works so well, right? And everyone likes it and it's generally acclaimed and it does the job that it's supposed to do. And it does it immediately with very few unintended byproducts. And also, it just answers a mystery that in retrospect maybe shouldn't have been a mystery at all. It's such a funny thing because we tend to think, I think not as just baseball fans, but like as people, you know, that when you like something, having more of it is just good. It's just good to have more of it. You know, it's good to have more air conditioning and more places to experience air conditioning than, right?

Now, it's not good to have more temperature as we've seen. Although, you know know you get to you get to the other end of that spectrum and you're like please some heat so you know balance is also i guess a thing that we tend to prize but you know you want more popcorn you want more hugs you want more time with people right we want more And here we've achieved a good outcome by embracing less. And so, you know, I don't know if that means that Marie Kondo was right about stuff, but I think it is revealing about the various ways in which we as human beings can find satisfaction in ourselves. I'm really philosophical today. I don't know what's going on. The temps have rattled my brain loose and now I got all kinds of ideas floating up there.

So a couple other topics to revisit. One, we have a bit of a history of talking about things that then subsequently happen or become stories in a way that's almost kind of creepy or prescient if we want to flatter ourselves. And this podcast has been going on for 11 years this week. Actually, this week is the 11th anniversary and 2000 plus episodes. So purely by coincidence, a lot of things would have happened right after we talked about them. And it would have been like,

ooh, they just talked about that on Effectively Wild. Aren't they soothsayers or isn't the game responding to this podcast in some way? That just would have happened by coincidence, much like almost everything will happen on a baseball field at some point because they play so darn many games. But I don't know whether it's that, whether we got our finger on the pulse or whether it's more of a Bader-Meinhof phenomenon type thing where we talk about something and then I'm more conscious of that thing and our listeners are more conscious of that thing. And so if something like that thing happens, then we pay attention to it or people

inform us about it. But that just happened again. So just last week, we talked about baseball broadcasts and we talked about the angles on baseball broadcasts and what we see and what we don't see. And we answered a listener email about this from a listener who was kind of frustrated about the fact that a lot of the relevant action is cut off when we're watching, say, a runner rounding the bases, a play at the plate. This was episode 2033. You know, there's that standard kind of choreography where if there's a runner on base and there's a ball hit in the gap, let's say you see the batter hit the ball and then you see the fielder start to run after it. And then you get another cut to the runner rounding a base. And then you get another cut back to the fielder as he throws the ball. And then you get another cut back to the player, let's say rounding third, heading for home and you see the catcher and everything. And you miss some stuff. You miss the play shaping up. And the listener was saying, well, why can't we have it all? Why can't we get

a wider angle potentially or a picture in picture or what the Mets broadcast experimented with, which they called a ghost runner. And I'm kind of okay with that use of the term where they just superimposed the runner over the fielder and you got to see a bit of both. And we were informed by a number of listeners that this just happened right after we talked about it. So this is listener Jenny, who was at least one of the people who notified us about this. And it was on the Bally Sports Southwest broadcast recently. Jenny says, I think the the Valley Sports Southwest broadcast team heard y'all's convo about getting some more comprehensive angles to see the action on the field. Today's Rangers game, this was a day or two ago, has had a couple wide shots that looked great. Adolis throwing out Josh Lowe at home and then a nice shot from behind and above with Diaz on first while Gray threw a pitch.

And some other people tweeted us about this, too. And we will link to a highlight of this play on the show notes. It is beautiful. Yeah. It's beautiful. When we were talking about this, I was like, well, maybe if this actually happened and we got what we wanted, it wouldn't be that great. And some of the surprise or suspense would be spoiled. But no, this is perfect. This is great. And I don't know if a ballet sport Southwest

producer heard us talk about this and said, let's try it or whether they've been doing this all season. And we were just informed about it because we talked about it. I mean, it sounds like it's new to Jenny's eyes and new to the other people who informed us about this. No one said, hey, actually, Ballet Sports Southwest has been doing this all season. Check it out. They flagged it when this just happened this week. But it's great. And now I feel like I'm going to be cheated every time I don't see it like this. Like, it's beautiful.

You see the pitch and the hit. Then you see the cut to the right field shot. To that point, it's normal. But then it pulls back to this very distant sort of wide angle shot where you can see everything. You can see the runner rounding the bases. You can see the cutoff man positioning himself in shallow right to receive the throw. You can see the right fielder retrieving the ball and throwing it. You can see it all shaping up. And then you kind of get a zoom in on the play at the plate. And it's just great.

I think this should be the new default. Since we recorded that episode, I was watching a Mariners game. They have like a, I think it's like a football cam you know where you have like the sky cam that goes along the track on the third baseline and i was like yeah that's that's closer too so yes i hope that other broadcasts will kind of look around and say hey that you know that works pretty well and we're able to even if it's even if it's not the default angle because i think think some people are, you know, kind of wedded to what they know. But even if it's just there to provide a better replay on cool plays like that, it really does add something. Because you, I think part of it too is you like, it helps you appreciate the size of the field, you know?

It helps you appreciate the size of the field. You know, I don't know if you have this experience, but like whenever I go to a game, if I'm there like for work and I'm actually on the field. Yeah. You just are like, you know, these guys are incredible because it's enormous down here. You know, this place is huge. Have you seen these ballparks? Ben, these days, they're enormous. They're enormous. So I think it really, maybe this is view of things that I think is meaningfully better some of the time. So yes, I was happy. I don't know, maybe they are. Are they listening?

Some people are listening. Are you listening? Because we have other ideas for stuff. Some of them are real weird, but if you're open, let us know because we can put a little Google Doc together and be like, hey, try this out. I know that the Rangers broadcasters, at least some of them, use the term zombie runner. And I believe they picked that up from this podcast. So, yeah, we're influencers over here. But, yeah, instead of having it just kind of like chopped up into discrete portions of the play, you get a sense of the full sweep of the play. And all these things are happening at the same moment.

And it's very balletic and graceful and smooth. And when you just see the guy make the throw and you don't get to see where the throw goes until you then cut to the runner and then cut back to the ball, getting where, like, you can tell if they spike it Raul Abana style or something. But sometimes it can be tough to tell if it's going to be a little longer short or it's going to be on the line or a little wide. or a little wide. And this way, you don't get the close-up of the right fielder, but you get to see the whole arc of the throw

from start to end. And you see if it's heading where it's supposed to be heading or if it's going to airmail the cutoff man. Like, it's just great. It just gives you much more information

about the play. And it's just aesthetically pleasing, too. It replicates the optimal in-ballpark experience better than the camera angles we already have and there are definitely places where you'll sit in the ballpark and you're like i don't know what's going on over there you know it's not like every view is perfectly unobstructed but it does give you something it adds some juice to the proceedings in a way that's especially on

a play like that where you're like wow and it's funny because you watch it, and I, you know, you sent me that play, I didn't watch it in real time, but my initial reaction was, like, he's kind of slow getting to it, and then he really nabs him at still, we like it. So another follow-up on episode 1976, back in early March, we did a Dodgers preview. And Trey, one of our listeners, was remembering that and sent us this message this week. I've enjoyed the recent discussions about Jake Diekmann's fit with the Rays regarding if the Rays can fix that guy, they are magical. Something that came up in the season preview series that I don't think has been revisited unless I missed it is Jason Hayward with the Dodgers. There was a similar sentiment in that episode along the lines of if the Dodgers can fix Hayward, they are magical. And in fact, I'm going to play a little clip of myself from that episode saying

that essentially, and maybe Shane can give us a little traveling back in time sound effect here. If Jason Hayward went from getting released by the Cubs to then bouncing back with the Dodgers, that would just be at this stage of his career, the ultimate Dodgers devil magic. So, I mean, I hope it happens because who doesn't like Jason Hayward and wants him to do well? But that would really be, I mean, of all the hitters that they have rehabilitated, that would be up there on the list, I think, if they could get the old Jason Hayward back in the actually old Jason Hayward. back in the actually old Jason Hayward. So I've got Trey emailed about this because I actually noticed that Hayward had homered and I made a little note to myself,

hey, we should revisit the Jason Hayward situation. So Trey says, what is your perception so far on if that has come true? Hayward is being used almost exclusively against righties. So it may be more of a deploying him more strategically situation than truly making him better. But still, he is currently sporting a career-high isolated power and his best WRC plus since his rookie year, if you exclude 2020. Curious to get your thoughts on one of my favorite former Braves.

And yeah, he's certainly having a bounce back, right, at age 33 and what felt like an old 33 prior to the season. Entering Thursday, he's hitting 251, 350, 465 with nine homers. That's a 123 WRC+. I wouldn't say it's necessarily vintage Hayward, but WRC plus wise, it's kind of close. If you only look at that and exclude his rookie season, It's kind of close if you only look at that and exclude his rookie season. Then, yeah, and this is 76 games, 223 played appearances, not a pure flash in the pan. So can we say that the Dodgers have worked their magic again, that they have fixed Jason Hayward? I think we can say that. I mean, like, I don't know that I am inclined to hold it against a team when they put a guy in an optimal position to succeed, right? Like, that's good roster construction when you have the flexibility to only use him in the circumstances where he's likely to do well. And then he has to do well. You know, there are plenty of guys you bring in hoping to be a meaningful platoon player and

it turns out they're just cooked all the way through right not just on not just on one side they're not rotisserie chickens meg what are you even they're not on a spit um but you know they're just they're done and he has demonstrated that he is not done he just needs to be used in the right circumstances you know i i I guess the equivalent is like, just because a reliever doesn't have the repertoire to start doesn't mean that what he does in relief doesn't matter. It just means you have to use him in the right circumstances, Ben. So I think would fix be the word I'd use?

I don't know if it would be that, but it would be something akin to it probably. I think that we will look back on that and go, that was a nice little pickup that they had. And we'll look back and say, it's nice that he got to have a season where, you know, there's like a rebound and a return to form, even if it's under limited circumstances. Right. Yeah. He has faced right-handed pitchers 209 times and left-handed pitchers 14 times. So he's a very strict platoon. That is sure a platoon. That is platoony.

And he is hitless in his 12 at-bats against lefties. But look, they changed his swing, right? There were some mechanical changes there. And he hit well in spring training, as I recall, and he hit some balls very hard and far. And we wondered, is Jason Hayward back? And yeah, I don't know if he's all the way back. If we can't say that he's an everyday player, then perhaps not. But yeah, I think it's pretty impressive. It's better than you would have expected for Jason Hayward. I guess actually in spring training, he had some highlights, but on the whole, he was not that great by the end of the spring. Anyway, yeah, he has carved out a role and a roster spot. And for someone who looked like he was on the way out. The Cubs couldn't find a place for him. He is a meaningful contributor on a probably playoff-bound team. So that's something. That's something.

And happy for him. Everyone likes Jason Hayward. Everyone wanted Jason Hayward to do well. And obviously in his prime, he was not only a pretty good hitter, but just an elite outfielder. And that was where a lot of his value came from. And that's not really the case these days, right? But they're not asking him to do that. And I guess if we're hailing a former Cub for coming back with the Dodgers, then we

should also acknowledge that a former Dodger has come back with the Cubs, right? And Cody Bellinger. Professional transition. Pro move. Yeah. Cody Bellinger has the same WRC Plus this year that he had in his rookie sensation season, 138. He's hitting 311, 367, 527. So that's not quite peak MVP, Bellinger, but it's pretty darn good. And both of these guys have exceeded their expected stats. Bellinger more so than Hayward. He's, you know, running a 377 weighted on base and a 313 expected weighted on base. That's Bellinger.

So, yeah, maybe he's not fully back, but he's back compared to who he was for the past few seasons. So they've sort of swapped underperforming outfielders, and I guess it's worked out well for everyone. Now they should trade them at the deadline and see how each of them does. That would be the ultimate test of who's the better influence, who is deploying their players in the most strategic way. That would be the way to do it, I think. Yeah. And look, sometimes, quote unquote, fixing a player that can be making some mechanical changes to get them back to who they were. And I guess some of that has gone on with Hayward.

But it could also be recognizing some limitations and putting that player in the best position to succeed and maybe getting away from the baggage of a big contract and expectations and all of that, right? A fresh start. So it's not to say that the Cubs could have had him make exactly these same changes or should have used him in the same role. It's a different city and a different context entirely. But it's nice that they've both bounced back to an extent. Yeah, I was just going to say, you know, sometimes you do need a change of scenery. You need to be in a different place. You need to be in front of fans who have either no real clear expectations or at least a different set of expectations for you and that can kind of loosen you up a little bit i don't know what that's worth

from a war perspective but i think in terms of finding you know sort of or reclaiming a prior level of performance it's probably worth something, you know, because they are people after all. And we all have moments of being like grumpy or in our heads. And we can't really do something about that until we're in a place where, you know, no one's like,

hey, remember when you signed that deal with us? Like, no one's saying that in LA. I don't care. They're like, yeah, it's Jason Aylward. He's playing well. How nice. Yeah. And speaking of subjects, we have previously spoken about one more,

and this was another formerly underperforming outfielder in the LA area, actually. The segues, the transitions, they're just suggesting themselves here. I don't even have to do anything. But on episode 2021, this was in mid-June, we talked about one Mickey Moniak, right? And at that point, Mickey Moniak, former first overall pick who didn't work out with the Phillies and then went to the Angels in the Cinderguard trade, and no one thought that much of it. But through that point in the season, roughly a month or so since he had come up in mid-May, he'd been totally tearing it up.

And our takeaway was essentially, this is fluky. This is not likely to continue. But hey, how fun that he's having this moment in the sun, at least. Well, since then, I mean, he was primed for regression, right? That was like why I brought him up at the time. It was like, we got to talk about him before he goes ice cold and slumps. This is not a fun story anymore. I think he had a 177 WRC plus at that point through 75 plate appearances. Since then, he's had 90 more plate appearances. So he has hit even more times than he had to that point. And in those 90 plate appearances, he has a 165 WRC plus.

So he has barely declined at all. And he remains one of the most productive hitters in baseball on a per plate appearance basis. If you set the minimum at 150 plate appearances, which we have to do to include him because he's at 165, have to do to include him because he's at 165. Then the top four hitters by WRC Plus this season are Aaron Judge, just a hair ahead of Shohei Otani, Corey Seager, and then Mickey Motiak at 170 on the season. So Mickey Motiak, like in the absence of Trout, I mean, he is putting up a Trout-esque batting line. I mean, he's hitting.331,.364,.631 through 44 games and 165 plate appearances. He is giving Shohei Otani a run for his money WRC Plus-wise.

So I am pleasantly surprised that we could revisit this more than a month after we first talked about it. And still be like, wow. It's still going somehow. Yeah, look at that. at mickey moe i think that every time our broadcast brings up the fact that he is the former like first overall pick they should have to mention the discount under slot that he took to sign yes because and i think i think that we talked about this when we noted his prior sort of you know regression primed performance. But it just people don't contextualize that well. And that isn't to say that, you know, he wasn't a well-regarded prospect.

Right. It's not like they were like, oh, this guy was someone we'd normally take in the 20th round and we're taking him first overall. But it's like the dynamics of draft signings in baseball are so different than they are in the NBA or the NFL. And so they should have to say, but he signed for like $3 million under slot when he signed. They should have to say that. And then people will be like, that's weird that they keep bringing that up. It's like when you go to a dinner party and there's that one person who's like, I want to know how much money everybody makes. And you're like, what's up with that guy he's really weird it's awkward but it is important context to mickey moniak and i wish that we would grant him that but you know i like that he has managed to change the thing that i feel compelled to talk about when

it comes to him so that's so fun good job do you think that he feels good about mickey still Yeah. full name, but what a comp, right? Like what a- Yeah, there is that. And what a comp that you're setting yourself up for there. And I don't know if he was named with that in mind, but McKenzie. I don't know if I would have guessed McKenzie as the full first name. McKenzie Matthew Moniak. My goodness, what a name. That is a, I don't know what that name evokes other than professional athlete, but it is sure something. Mickey as a, hmm, wow.

Okay. Matt and Heather, I want to hear from you guys about your choices. I'm not saying it's a bad name. That's a solid. Mackenzie Matthew Moniak, you sound like you're either going to be a baseball player or a robber baron. I don't know which of them is more likely, but here we are with the baseball player version. Yeah, I have Googled quickly, and it does sound like his baseball idol is Mickey Mantle.

So he says, my favorite all-time player is Mickey Mantle, and not just because of the name, but obviously he's not shying away from any echoes there by going by that. So you wouldn't think someone Mickey Moniak's age would consider Mickey Mantle his baseball idol necessarily. It's a little surprising. I guess Moniak's grandfather, Bill Moniak, was a contemporary of Mantle's but only played minor league baseball. But maybe that's kind of where it comes from. Anyway, my long-term prognosis about Mickey Moniak has not necessarily changed, even though he has kept this up. The way that he's doing it is still very surprising that he has managed to sustain this because, again, he strikes out a lot. Maybe the strikeout rate has come down a bit since we last talked about it, but it's still over 30 percent. And the walk rate is 3 percent. You know, you don't love to see the 10 to 1 strikeout to walk ratio, even in this day and age. Not ideal. Woba being quite a bit above the ex-Woba by about 60 points, it looks like.

Although even the expected is 363, which you would certainly take that. That's solid. So even if he's over his head, I guess it kind of supports, hey, he's a productive player. But it's just he's doing it in a weird way. He's 427 BABIP. He still pretty much swings at everything and whiffs a lot and doesn't hit the ball that hard, really. Jay Jaffe just wrote about him for Fangraphs, and he does, like, barrel it fairly often, but it doesn't go that hard, really. It's just an odd combination of skills and a weird shape to his production. So again, I don't know if it can keep up, but if it's a flash in the pan, it's a longer lasting flash now, at least.

Like you'd think he would have been a prime candidate for, oh, the league will adjust, right? Because even if you look at his game by game or rolling average zone rate, which you can do at a wonderful website named fancrafts.com, you can see that he has seen fewer pitches in the strike zone as the season has gone on, which you would think is the prescription. Hey, you've got a guy who is hitting the ball well, but swings at absolutely everything. Well, don't throw him anything to hit. And it seems like pitchers have gotten that memo, and yet he is still somehow making it work. I guess part of it, it's the same deal as Hayward's, right?

He's more or less platooning. He has faced righties 144 times and lefties 21 times. And he has a 296 OPS against lefties in those 21 plate appearances. So he's not made a case to face them more often. So almost as extreme a platoon differential playing time-wise as Hayward. So that's part of it, too.

Maybe, what is the metaphor, what is the analogy? He, he's a, this is such an unkind, man, I'm in a really strange mood then, you know? I hadn't realized how much the weather has, like, I'm in a really strange mood, Ben. You know? I hadn't realized how much the weather has, like, messed with me. He's a grease fire in a kitchen, and they've tried to put it out with water, and they don't know.

You gotta smother it, Ben. I don't want them to smother Mickey and Moby-Egg. What am I even talking about? You know, even the episodes from the road, I felt like I was with it more than I am right now. Sometimes it's fine for Meg to be a little unhinged, but I sure am. It's so hot, Ben. You know, it's just like I came home and I said words out loud and I just trailed off, you know? It's like my brain was cooked a little bit. It's like it had cooked it a little bit. And I'm, you know, I'm just going from air-conditioned spot to air-conditioned spot.

I'm in a, you know, feeling fortunate to be in the conditions that I'm in, given the given. So, worse for others. But, yeah, he's a, you know, you've heard it here first. What's the first thing you think of when you think of Mickey Ammoniac? Well, a grease fire. You know, that's the first thing. You got to smother them.

You know, you don't want to put water on it. It just makes it worse. Yeah. Splatters. Then you get burnt. It's bad. Jake Diekman update, by the way, because I know everyone's wondering. You're like, I'm going to let that go.

And I'm just barreling ahead. We're going to keep this cart on the track. Here we go. Jake Diekman. How's he doing? What's up with Jake? Quite well. We have to provide updates on this on the track. Here we go. Jake Diekman. How's he doing? What's up with Jake? Quite well.

We have to provide updates on this because people can't just look up how Jake Diekman is doing on their own. If they did, though, they could do it at a great website called Fangraphs.com. They could. That is true. That is, in fact, where I am doing it. But in 25 games for the Rays, 20 and a third innings, Jake Diekman has a 2.21 ERA. Shut the heck up. Again, a guy who had an 8 ERA for the White Sox, who are bad, and who said, we don't want Jake Deakman in our lives anymore.

And then he goes to a contending team that needed bullpen help, and he's got a 2.21 ERA. 3.83 FIP, to be fair, which is what we were going by, but still. But still better than the FIPs we were expecting. Yep. Still better than the FIPs we were expecting. Meaningfully better than the FIPs that we were expecting. It just goes to show all the projection systems are a lie, you know. That's the takeaway here.

Mickey Moniak is like a grease fire and all of the projection systems are lying to you, you know? Yeah. I know that Dan Szymborski, he doesn't make a special razor Dodgers adjustment to zips. He does not. These are things that we can't count on these things continuing. Who knows? But these are things that make you want to manually adjust the projections and be like, yeah, but the race. Yeah, but the Dodgers. Yeah, but the, yeah, I know.

It does make you want to do that. Speaking of the Rays, they are not in first place anymore. What? Yeah. That happened despite the best efforts of Jake Dupin. Oh, my gosh. It's the Baltimore Orioles? Yeah.

Now, technically, they're tied. They have fewer wins, but also fewer losses. Percentage points ahead. The Orioles are 58-37. That's a 6-11 winning percentage. The Rays are 60-39. That's a 6-06. They are zero games back, technically.

But the Orioles have caught up with the Rays and just in time to set the stage for a four-game Rays-Orioles series. I mean, what could be better? What fortuitous timing. What could be better? Yeah. Sometimes things just work out that way. But this also harkens back to previous conversations that we had because, of course, early in the

season, everyone was marveling at the Rays and it seemed like they couldn't be beaten. And it seemed like despite how strong that division is, that maybe they had put it on ice early on. And then bit by bit, the Rays looked a little more vulnerable, right? A lot of pitching injuries, and they were in the position to be motivated to pick up Jake Teekman from the White Sox. And then, you know, a lot of their players were playing, if not over their heads, just above their previously established levels. And we talked a couple of times about, hey, the Rays, despite that hot start, maybe they don't have this thing, you know, like there are other really good teams in this division and the Orioles are really making a run. They're kind of creeping up there. And now they have actually evened it up, if not pulled slightly ahead. A pretty impressive comeback that I guess reminds us of how good the Orioles are, but also of how long the season is, which we know intellectually.

And I don't think we went overboard on like the Razor a joke or not. I think maybe some people did. are a juggernaut. I think maybe some people did, but, you know, a team starts out undefeated like that and you notice it more than you would if it were just a mid-season streak of equivalent length because it's like, oh, 13-0, right? That seems amazing. But, you know, when we had Jeff on, I think he said, like, it would have been nice if it had been a longer winning streak. I'm sure the Rays were not taking it for granted that they had locked up that division, and clearly they have not. I think we noted at the time how useful it was to be banking wins when you play in such a tough division because the good times are not likely to roll forever.

And, you know, we, I think, I love how I'm like, I don't remember anything that we've ever said on the podcast, I think I love how I'm like, I don't remember anything that we've ever said on the podcast, but I think we noted that like they did have injury vulnerability, particularly on the pitching side. And every team has that, but even beyond sort of the normal level, just because of the guys that they already had who were hurt and, you know,

they've continued to take some, some lumps when it comes to the injury stuff. So yeah, you know i i am gonna be so fascinated by the volume of trades that we get at the deadline because you look at the teams that are most heavily incentivized to move and they do have minor league pieces that are going to be appealing but who do they trade them to ben you know do they just who do they trade them to and who blinks first on otani you know like if you're baltimore as i said last time like they are in a good position to make that

move if they decide they really want to do it although given their personnel in in the front office i'm slightly skeptical but yeah you know it's a it's a it's a pickle, a conundrum, you know? Yeah, yeah. I mean, the Orioles already made that move for the 29-year-old Japanese pitcher named Shintaro Fujinami. That was so sneaky of you. Quite as marquee a name, but they made a move. And Fujinami, he's been better since his disastrous start to the season. Oh, yeah. It was really bad, but it's

been better of late, particularly. I mean, they moved him to the bullpen. We were like, he's probably a reliever. And they were like, no, we're going to try it. And then they were like, no, he is a reliever, in fact. And you're right. He has been better over the last two months. Quite good, in fact. I think

everyone, upon seeing that trade, was like, you're going to get fooled by ZRA. And I think people have largely not been fooled because people are smart. I have a lot of faith in them. Yeah, so I'm sort of— I'm so sorry for how weird I am right now, Ben. I'm so sorry. I'm not even sitting outside. I mean, if I were outside, I'd just be,

you know, a melted mess. But I didn't think it was going to be weird. And then we got on mic, and I was like, guess I'm in a weird mood, you know? I'm not like angry, which is how I expected to be with this weather. Although I got in a car yesterday, and I was like, no. I said, no, really loudly. Because it was so hot even sitting back against like not leather, like cloth upholstery. I was like, no, no, no. Yeah, the weather doesn't really listen to your protests, unfortunately. Shane's like, how much of this do I leave in? Is it all of it?

Like, is she having an actual breakdown on Mike? Who could say? I don't even know, man. Like, here we are. Anyway, we're psyched for this midseason matchup. Yeah, we are. Yeah, the Rays and the Orioles. That's what we were talking about.

Yep. They do match up again. This is a four-game series in Tampa. They do have another four-game set in mid-September in Baltimore. So that could be quite compelling too. But the timing, the pre-deadline timing, the Orioles just racing the gap, I think this is going to be pretty fun. And so the Orioles are, I guess they're both to some degree different teams than they were at the start of the season, but the Orioles, they've called up a lot of guys who are exciting and fun, different team today than they were at the start of the season. But the Orioles, they've called up a lot of guys who are exciting and fun, different team today than they were at the start of the season. So,

yeah, get excited. And those two teams, I guess they are second and third Orioles and Rays when it comes to strength of schedule to date, according to ESPN's measurement. And then they're also up there when it comes to rest of season strength of schedule. Obviously, they are in a difficult division, so they're going to have a tough time, even though they don't have to play each other. The Orioles have the toughest strength of schedule projected over the rest of the season. Their opponents with a projected strength of season of 513, whereas the Rays are basically you know, basically the same, 508. So it's not going to get any easier for them.

But it's going to be a fun stretch run, I think, for them. Looking forward to it. It is 35 whole degrees hotter here than it is in Seattle right now, Ben. Oh, my goodness. 35 entire degrees. Yeah. You'd think. Jared Kelnick just broke a bone of his.

Poor Jared Kelnick. broke a bone of his. Poor Jared Kelnick. Yeah. Although he brought this one on himself. I know. But did you see him talking to reporters? He was crying. Yeah. He was down, understandably. Yeah. Poor guy. He kicked the water cooler and he struck out. He went back to the dugout. He was upset. And then now he's more upset because he fractured his foot when he kicked the water cooler. That was bad, right?

And Jared Kelnick, we haven't really revisited him since our early season conversation when there was a Jeff Passan tweet about, oh, the breakout's here. And we talked about, is the breakout actually here? And the breakout not entirely here, and we talked about, is the breakout actually here? And the breakout, not entirely here, right? I mean, the WRC Plus is down to 112, and given where it was when he had that early season hot streak, it's probably not so great if we do since that date. So it's obviously a massive improvement from his first partial couple seasons in the majors, but it's not the full Jared Kelnick breakout, but it is now the Jared Kelnick break.

But this is not a great turn to his season. And again, I just, I continue to call for, I don't know, like bubble wrapping the entire dugout area. Like this is different from punching a wall and breaking your hand, which pitchers do often. And you'd think pitchers would just instinctively want to protect their digits and their hands. And so often they don't. And so I've advocated just padded walls everywhere basically.

But maybe the water cooler – a lot of people take out frustrations on the water cooler, right? I mean, Tommy Canely got upset the other night and he threw a glove in the direction of the water cooler. Now that's okay, right? Only his glove is going to get hurt and that's an inanimate object. But I still feel like because tensions run high, these are competitive people. There's a lot of money and reputation on the line and they're coming off the field after something doesn't go their way and they're running hot even if it's not Phoenix temperatures. And this happens often enough that – look, I don't know if some kind of like counseling or something. When you're in the heat of the moment, there may be nothing you can do.

There's just a lot of testosterone involved and people do things that are ill-considered. And so that's why I'm saying, you know, add up all the injuries over the years, all the IL stints, all the salaries paid to players who are on the IL with self-inflicted injuries like this. If we were just to pad the whole dugout area and the tunnel and everywhere that people punch things and kick things, you know, you really would actually protect players sometimes. I don't know how they would feel being in a padded walls surrounding, but still, like, it would pay dividends, I think. I think. Now I'm just imagining like every baseball player dressed like Joey on friends, like in all of Chandler's clothes being like,

could I be wearing any more clothes? It still wouldn't protect your, your delicate little fingers with their weird bird bones in your feet and your hands. So, you know, I wouldn't, you're right.

We need, we need to go beyond the Joey and, and, and maybe pad some stuff i do think that players would push back on it because on some level it feels infantilizing but like if they were to give but they wouldn't break their hands when they were pushing exactly and imagine you're like the you know you're the manager you're the front office person whomever who has to make that decision and a player comes and complains and it's like like, well, I don't know, man.

You need to have better impulse control, and then we wouldn't have to do this stuff. And that might lead to tension, but also not breakage. So I think it's a good idea. I kept being frustrated. I don't have the punching or kicking impulse, but as we've noted, I do being frustrated. I don't have the like punching or kicking impulse. But as we've noted, I do like to yell, no! Right.

That stuff. You know, no! Maybe they need those big, you know, like when you go to company parties and you're supposed to be doing team building and they give you those things that look like Q-tips and you're supposed to play rock'em sock'em or whatever. Yeah. Or yeah, you put on a'em, sock'em or whatever. Yeah. Or, yeah, you put on a suit and wrestle with each other or something. Yeah. There's really no way to hurt each other. Or maybe there could be pillows in the dugout, like designated punching pillows.

You know, people sometimes like to take out their frustration on a pillow or scream into a pillow. Right. So just some designated area or object that could take the brunt of that but is soft enough to protect the player. This would be like my first initiative, you know, if I were the trainer, the conditioning, the medical person, or even the GM. Day one, what can we do about padding all the walls, you know? Right.

It can really sink your season if some crucial player interests themselves in this way. Yeah, I mean, we talk all the time about taking advantage of very small edges. And I think you're right. This is an underexplored one. And you wouldn't even, candidly, do you even need to say anything? Do you have to explain? No, just do it. Just do it.

You don't have to write a memo being like, hey, we think that you all make terrible decisions and have bad self-preservation instincts because young men sometimes do. So we've padded everything. You just do it and see if anybody even notices. And then if you, you know, if they ask, you can be like, well, you know, we were thinking a lot about how Aaron Judge injured his toe. Right. It's the same impulse, right? I mean, we used to have a lot more like brick outfield walls. Right.

And now. Now we don't. Mostly. Yeah. Now mostly we don't. Yeah. Yeah. I think that, you know what I'm surprised that we still see so much of?

Because it's not the dominant like outfield material. I'm surprised we still see as much like chain link out there as we do and i it's probably not chain link in the sense that you would see it like a you know a community ball field or whatever but like i'm surprised by as how much of that we see because it seems like the the potential for injury is non-zero with that also like pat just do padded walls out there. Like, there are a bunch of breakable young men whose bodies need to be held together for as long as possible so that they can delight themselves and others, you know?

Yes. So, yeah. Yeah. And last little bit of banter here. I was reminded of the existence of Miguel Cabrera recently. Good grief, Ben. I mean, he doesn't call much attention to himself these days.

No, he doesn't. But he had a hit. He had a go ahead. And I think game winning run, he drove in in a one run game that the Tigers won over the Royals. And I thought to myself, oh yeah, Miguel Cabrera, baseball legend,

still an active major leaguer. But he's had such a long twilight, a very Pujolsian twilight without the Pujols final season Cinderella resurgence. Which of those players' decline phases do you think is more surprising or would have surprised you more? Because they've had very similar tail ends except for the Pujols' final season, St. Louis Surge. But if we look at their last seven seasons, let's say, presumably this is Mikel Cabrera's final season. So his final seven seasons from 2017 on, he has compiled negative 2.4 war over that span. And Albert Pujols over his last seven seasons, 2016 through last year, he compiled negative

0.7 war, which would have been more like negative two and a half without the St. Louis bounce last year, which was almost miraculous and wonderful. But still, he was in the red for those final seven seasons of his career. So because they were so good, because they were signed to such long contracts, they've had just extremely long sort of circling phases, the drain baseball-wise phases to their career to the point that like a generation of baseball fans has come of age and knows them only in their diminished forms, which is why it was so great and fun that Pujols showed a flash of his old self in that last season

because it was like, this is the guy, you know, this is the guy we were all so excited about. But which of those guys do you think would have surprised you more if someone had told you prior to their last seven seasons, let's say, this is how it's going to end for them? You know, would you have? I mean, either one you probably would have said. Yeah, it would have been surprising on either side. But gosh, what a good question. I mean, hmm, hmm, hmm, Ben, hmm. What a good question. I mean, hmm, hmm, hmm, Ben. Hmm. I think probably I would have been more surprised by Pujols' decline, I guess marginally. Part of that is that, and I know that I don't mean to diminish what Miggy accomplished in his career because he had prior to this like bad stretch, like he had a superlative career right but my association with pools is that he had higher highs than cabrera which i think is borne out by looking

at his metrics i think part of it too is that like there's something about a guy who strikes out as little as he did during his prime that feels like it's going to be sustainable. And that's not to say that Cabrera's K-rates were crazy or anything like that, but there was more strikeout to his game, so that's part of it for me. I'm doing that stalling voice to see how much real conviction I have and I think that you know some of it too

is that like Poole's game felt oh do I believe this that it felt more multifaceted I guess I do I do believe that in his prime I mean he was a good face runner

he was a very good fielder for a first baseman. Ben, I was just about to say that, Ben. And so, you know, it felt like it was more decline-proof. Even though, again, I would have said that Cabrera was going to be a good, even though you didn't expect him to be a good, even though, you know, you didn't expect like him to be like a defensive standout or anything that like he was such an enjoyable, just pure hitter to watch that the bat going the direction it did is like still shocking to me. Even though we've seen this version of him for a number of years now. Yeah. Yeah.

He has one home run in almost 200 plate. He's just like completely powerless now. You know who doesn't have any home runs is Tim Anderson. That's crazy too. I mean, he didn't hit as many, but like, um, so sorry, I just edited a piece about that today. So I have it on the brain, you know? Um, but yeah, I think I probably would have said Pujols' decline is more surprising just because it felt like he had more to fall back on if he had a single point of failure in terms of his underlying skill set. And then it felt like he experienced just multiple points of failure simultaneously. And then he got to have that one great last hurrah. Yeah.

Yeah. They're two of the best, certainly, right-handed hitters of all time. Oh, yeah. Maybe we don't even need that handedness qualifier. Yeah. Career-wise, very similar, actually. Yeah. Cabrera, 140.

WRC Plus, Pujols finished at 141. 141, yeah. Yeah. I think the only counter to that, I think you're right, because Pujols was better than Cabrera in their respective peaks. He was just such a machine, hence the nickname is so consistent at such a high level during his St. Louis phase that the Anaheim phase would have been pretty inconceivable. I guess the only counter to that is that Pujols did have a bit more of a gradual decline than Mickey did. Yes, he did. Right?

Like, Pujols, his last season in St. Louis was still good, but not up to his typical standard. Right. And then his first season in Anaheim was a little worse than that. But, like, in the neighborhood of that, right? Right. He had some seasons where, you know, he was still kind of a fraction of his peak self, but he was like doing a convincing Pujols impression. Like if he didn't look that closely, I mean, even in 2015 when he had a 114 WRC plus and was worth less than two war, according to photographs, he still hit 40 homers that year. So like he retained his homer hitting ability he kept adding to his home run total

which everyone paid attention to so I guess in that sense like Miggy went from one of the best players to just not good at all I mean he went

from like winning MVP awards or finishing in the top 10 in MVP voting to just like he's a replacement level player now with like no in between. Like 2016, five win player, 153 WRC plus. 2017, negative 0.7 war player with a 92 WRC. Yeah, he was underwater. Yeah, they both had injuries, obviously. It also happened

earlier with Cabrera. Without getting into any of the rumors about Albert Pujols' age. He was listed at 37 in his first sub-replacement level season. Miggy was only 34, so it seemed more premature. But yeah, with Pujols, it felt a little more gradual and protracted, whereas Cabrera, it was just like fell off a cliff day and night kind of thing. Well, and it's fun. In some ways, it's funny that that was our experience of it because it's like he goes to, you know, Pujols goes to L.A. And it's like the guy you're naturally going to compare him to on his own team is literally prime Mike Trout. Right.

Right. And so you would think that the contrast would be like, whoa. But in some ways, I think he benefited from being on a roster with trout and it you know his his stars shining so bright him being so good in those in those years kind of took a little bit of the pressure off whereas like yeah you know you start to get into some of those like late 2010 tigers teams and it's not that they had no one, but it's like Miggy being bad was suddenly like a really big problem. Yeah.

You know, on a team that started to have some really big problems. So there was that piece of it too, which isn't to say that like those Angels teams were like, you know, routinely in the playoffs. Famously not. You know, it's been sort of its own issue, Ben. You know, it's been its own problem.

But yeah, I think it just felt like here today, gone tomorrow in terms of Cabrera's star power. And it did feel more gradual with Pujols, even if it felt more gradual than it maybe ended up being. So, yeah. Since the start of last season, minimum 600 plate appearances. That is 210 hitters. Miggy's in the bottom 10 in slugging percentage. He's tied for ninth lowest slugging percentage with Jesse Winker at 319. Yikes.

Yeah. You know whose rebound didn't really last very well? Jesse Winker's. Oh, well, yeah. There's that. Yeah. Okay. All right. I've got a couple emails here, and we did get another Otani email. Hey, they keep coming. And this one from Patreon supporter

Nikhil, who says, sorry for bringing up Otani again. Don't apologize. Nikhil never apologized for bringing up Otani. Not to me anyway. But I was curious, he says, what do you think would help his legacy more? Other two-way players following in his footsteps over the coming years and decades, or him being the only successful two-way player in the modern era? I could see arguments for both. If seeing two-way players became not rare

or even commonplace, baseball commentators and historians would be talking about the Otani effect for decades to come. On the other hand, if he was the only two-way player in our lifetimes, we'd talk about him like he was a myth. I'm imagining sitting with a future grandchild of mine watching a game and telling them about a guy long ago who both hit and pitched and them being like, no, Grandpa, you're lying because it sounds so far-fetched. What do you think? you're lying because it sounds so far-fetched.

What do you think? It's like the meme of the young woman with her grandma being like, okay, grandma, gotta get you to bed now. It's not a very nice meme. As I sit here and think about it. It's kind of nasty. It's kind of a nasty little thing, isn't it?

Hmm. I am going to have to leave my house to go to Oppenheimer. I kind of hadn't, I'd like blocked that part of it out, you know? Okay. So, but anyway,

back to Otani. I think the attempt and then failure to follow is the sweet spot between these two. Because I think that it is so hard. And, you know, we talked, when we were talking about Jack Caglione at Florida and how, you know, the comps are starting to flow that maybe he's, you know, like Otani and we're like, please relax, like for his sake, please relax and stop.

It's so hard. And I think people wanting to do it and then failing to to do it even if they fail to do it just to his level but especially if at a certain point it just gets abandoned as a as an attempt in the minors i think that that really drives it home like it it is such an obvious place to extract just to put it in like the coldest most like boop up terms possible like it is such an obvious place to extract extra value from a player in a roster spot and it is so hard to do that i think teams will you know given the right player attempt it they will continue to try and i think that it will just eventually get abandoned at some point a player dev person's going to be like look you're

obviously better at one of these than the other and we don't want the continued attempt to be a two-way guy to undermine your development on one side of the ball and so sorry but you're a hitter now sorry you're a pitcher now. Like, that's clearly where your talents lie, and we're going to have you focus on that so that you can, you know, maximize the player you end up being and help us to win. And I think every time that happens,

where we're like, oh, you've got another two-way prospect, and then, you know, two cycles later, Eric's like, no, he's just a pitcher now. Every one of those sort of adds to the mystique, the myth of Otani, right? Because, you know, look, would it help to underscore things if there were at this exact moment a convincing two-way guy. Like if Michael Lorenzen were a two-way guy for Detroit, because he was a two-way guy, right? I'm not making that up. Michael Lorenzen was.

He wanted to be at least. Or he wanted to be, right? Kind of was, yeah. So if there was a guy right now who was trying and doing a mediocre job at being a two-way player, then I think it really serves to underscore stuff but i think what you know later in his career there will come a time where otani will be less good at both um he might be dramatically less good right and then you're not going to get the

the contrast to drive home how special what he's doing right now is right so i think that in in future seasons um just having guys be like no i can't do that is is like wow it's really cool and special what he did and how well he did it for as long as he did um if a guy came up next season and was like okay at both then then it's useful also but while he's at his peak if you don't have that contrast, you don't want to then have non-Picotani contrast later. That doesn't do it. You want Jack Haglion to be like, no, I'm just going to focus on being a jack wagon. Yeah. I think Unicorn trumps Trailblazer when it comes to this. If he remains one of one, at least in this era, then that stands

out more. Because if he inspires a whole generation of copycats, that would be a great legacy, but it would require some education and some context because future generations of fans would just think that was the norm. And then you'd have to tell them, no, no one did that for a century, really. Between Babe Ruth and Bullet Rogan and Shohei Otani, there was no one. And it got progressively harder to do that. And no one even considered it was possible. And then Otani came along. And that's why we have this whole wave of two-way players.

They might say, OK, that's impressive that he opened everyone's minds. But if he's still the only one, then I think that would do it. If others try and fail or don't even try, then I think that cements the legacy even more. Because even Babe Ruth, like by the time Babe Ruth retired, his style of hitting had caught on around the game. And there were other great power hitters who rivaled him. They weren't his equal necessarily. But whereas he came up at the beginning and he was like lapping entire teams, right? And he was hitting more home runs himself

than all of his teammates were and that many other teams were collectively. And by the end of his career, everyone was like, oh, maybe we should swing for the fences like that Babe Ruth guy seems to work out well for him. And that caught on. And there were a lot of Babe Ruth-esque players, even if they weren't his equals. They were in the Babe Ruth mold. And I think that didn't really diminish his star power legacy so much because he's a legend. He's Babe Ruth. He was a larger-than-life figure. But certainly in terms of, like, records and everything, Sam just wrote about this this week in his sub stack.

Like these days, we talk about Babe Ruth almost as like a proto-Ohtani more than we talk about him just purely as a hitter, right? We talk about him as a two-way player. Like that was the argument. And yeah, but he was a really good pitcher too in addition to being the best hitter even if not for long at the same time. So a lot of his other records were eclipsed or matched or rivaled over the ensuing decades, but not that so much until Otani came along. So yeah, I think that's the answer, but I would enjoy it if a whole crop of two-way players came along too. Yeah. I mean, like we would we would have first of all, we'd have so much more to talk about. That would be great. Jack wagon. I think they're going to have to workshop that. I'm going to be a weirdo about it. most likely outcome here, that he remains a two-way player until the end of his career, just with diminishing effectiveness at both, presumably, or he gives up one or the other,

and which one is likeliest, which one is likelier for him to give up first. So, okay. Sure. Three options, right? A, he remains a two-way player until the end of his days in the big leagues. B, he gives up hitting but remains a pitcher at some point. And C, he gives up pitching but remains a hitter or a DH or whatever at some point. although I imagine that the time horizon on it might be love like enjoyably long um but I I just pitchers break and pitchers who have broken before tend to break again at some point even if it's not in as dramatic a fashion as as he did um so it just feels like from an injury perspective that's the most likely thing yes and. And I think that you, not that he is entirely velocity dependent or anything like that, but when I think about sort of stable tools that will drive his performance as he ages into the back half of his 30s, just feels like he is such a good hitter. And he's got such strength, Ben. And you can DH until you're Nelson Cruz's age, right?

Right, right. And hopefully longer. Wouldn't it be cool if he ended up being a different kind of exceptional, right? It's like he's so amazing now and then maybe he becomes like this elder statesman in the game where sure he's not pitching anymore but he's like a valuable dh bat and you know a team leader and a mentor like i i think that one of the coolest things about otani is that because he is unprecedented in so many ways right like he is so special at least within the context of the modern game and arguably in the history of baseball um that um there are probably ways that we will come to appreciate him that we struggle to to think of now right uh and that's so

neat what a what a special thing we get to we get to watch otani like prime otani ben you know yeah like we should i know that you think about that well maybe all the time that might be how many times a day how many times a day do you think about Shoaib Ohtani, man? Like, is it? I mean, because it's at least once every day. Oh, please. At least. It's a lot more than that.

It's a lot more than that. So, we won't make you, you know, we don't want to, like, pin you down. But it's a lot more than that, right? And just think about all the people in the history of baseball who didn't ever get to watch them at all. Now they got to watch some fantastic players of their own who we, I think would appreciate like a time machine to go back and see for a day. Right.

So it's not like it was all bad for them, but they didn't get to see this. And we do, it's, you know, as you sit here and think about whether you could fry an egg on the sidewalk, um, it's a little bit of respite from something. You hear those fake stats sometimes about how people think about sex X times per day. It's often men in particular. I don't know if that's that accurate. Then they do studies and it's not nearly as many times per day as the exaggerated stats. But however many times that is, that's probably about as many times as I'm thinking about

Otani. I'm not saying I'm thinking about him in a sexual way. You know what, Ben. You know what, Ben. I'm just saying that my mind turns to Otani quite often. Often. A completely clean and peach way typically, but still. Yeah.

You know, though, and final season, his farewell tour, his last game, you know he's going to go out there for a final two-way start if he's at all capable of that still, or at least, like, a final relief appearance. Imagine, like,

there won't be a dry eye in the house. That will be, you know, especially if he hasn't been able to do it for a while, which I hope won't be the case. I hope he will be able to continue to do it for a long time. But if there's been a one-way Otani time and just as his final bow and farewell, we see two-way Otani one more time, oh, my goodness. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, it's going to be quite something, you know. And we'll be like trying to get the attention of the youths around us and they'll be like, yeah, okay.

And it's like, no, you need to pay attention now. You need to pay attention now. I'm getting choked up just thinking about it. Yeah. I think, you know, he has so many pitches and not quite like a Darvish number of pitches, but a lot, right? No, but he's got quite a repertoire. Yeah, and his fastball, fast as it is, hasn't ever really been his best pitch, right? So I could see him, as long as he's healthy, managing to be effective on the mound for quite some time to come.

All right. Question. Now, this is from Derek, Patreon supporter, who wrote in about all-star game player usage, which we've talked about a couple times. He said,

I just listened to the most recent episode and the question about having all-star starters end the game instead of start it reminded me of something I thought about when the Otani rule. Otani comes up in every question, even if it's not about Otani.

It's just, it's Otani on the brain these days. You go to any baseball website, every headline is Otani. Look, I mean, we've all just caught Otani fever. It's not about Otani. It's just Otani on the brain these days. You go to any baseball website, every headline is Otani. Look, I mean, we've all just caught Otani fever. It's great. The symptoms are positive for the most part. Derek continues, make me think about when the Otani rule was first instituted in the All-Star game.

Why can't we let the All-Star game position player starters, at least, come back into the game? If it seemed necessary, some innings limit could be imposed on the starters that could be used up throughout the game, just not necessarily consecutively, maybe three or four to guarantee that everyone gets to hit the first time through the order, but still leave some playing time left over for them to come back into the game late. That way the game kicks off with the true stars. But if it's close late, then we still get to see them in the high leverage spots. The all-Star Game is already not really a real baseball game.

So why not bend the rules a bit to make it more fun? And again, I think the 2021 All-Star Game Otani rule is the perfect precedent for this, though I certainly wouldn't want this rule to eventually make its way into actual games like that one did. Yeah, I think that it's a great solution. You see this in like in spring training games sometimes, right? A guy will come out, a pitcher will come out, and then he comes back in and throws a couple more.

I think, yeah, we don't have to take the format so seriously. We want to take, I think, continue to take the selection process for the All-Star game seriously because it matters to the players a great deal and I want to be respectful of that as a marker of career success that means something to them. But the format

of the game itself, we can be, within reason, I think a little creative as the circumstances call for. Yeah, I like that. I guess it's asking a lot of the all-star managers to not only try to get everyone into the game, but then also bring players back. And if there is some sort of limit on how much you can use them to keep that in mind, it's already a lot of juggling.

Yeah, but they've got like 20 guys on their coaching staff. how much you can use them to keep that in mind. It's already a lot of juggling of— Yeah, but they've got like 20 guys on their coaching staff. Yeah, that is true. So can't they have a designated usage watcher who's like there to be like, no, no, don't put that guy back in yet or do put that guy back in or whatever. Yeah, and I guess it would also be a bit of a slap to be like, oh, Elias Diaz, sorry, you're out of the game. We're bringing back the first stringer.

You got to go back to the bench now. That would be kind of cruel, I guess. Yeah. That's a good – that's, I think, a good counterargument to it. But I don't know. Like, how clear-eyed do you think guys are about, you know, I'm here because my team has to have a representative i mean like didn't lorenzen think he had gotten traded rather than being named an all-star you know i i think guys i'm sure there are exceptions to this and there is a certain amount of of ego

that i'm sure you have to carry around with you when that's your job because it's so hard and you're just like on this high wire act all the time but i don't know i i imagine that like most guys you know know what's what although i will say that ds's home run has made its way into the like the mlb highlight reel that plays during mlb tv and he's so happy ben the look on his face when he hits that home run. He is just a kid again. And so it does feel lousy to take that away from him. I mean, he gets to have that memory the rest of his life. But, you know, the future Diaz's of the world, right? Like, you know, it is meaningful to these dudes. We don't want to be cavalier with the meaning making going on. I think we've got to have some respect for that. But we can also have some fun.

You know, we can do both things. Here's one about another exciting player from Garrett, Patreon supporter. With all the Reds games I've been watching this summer, I've come to think we ought to enter a new epic of effectively wild hypotheticals, the Ellie age, if you will.

I continue to be so blown away at the ways in which his particular skill set and baseball instincts affect the game. His famed three steel inning back on July 8th brought one to mind that I thought I would share. What if Ellie were visited by the ghost of vroom-vroom guys past? He is told that if he reaches base and chooses to steal first, he has no choice but to vroom-vroom on and eventually, not necessarily on the next pitch, attempt a steal of third and subsequently of home, if the inning allows. Watching some of his effortless thefts of second and third, I think that he might have a chance to stay above the break-even point as far as base stealing value

goes, even after catchers and pitchers pick up on the fact that he can't ever rest after just one steal. I can't quite wrap my head around the renewed potential for pitch-outs, too, and how that would inevitably impact his success rate. The steal of home is obviously where things become complicated and would stack the odds against him. But I almost love the idea, particularly for fans in the park, of knowing he will at some point at least attempt to steal of home. That seems pretty thrilling, especially late in close games. What sort of damage do you think a vroom-vroomified Eli De La Cruz could tally up over the course of a full season if somehow he could stay healthy through it all? Could a team almost break the break-even point for steals if they had a guy who could reasonably steal 200 plus bases while getting caught 100 or more times imagining the defensive chaos of even

throwing down that many times in a game for other base runners is fun maybe there are other somewhat useful historical comparisons out there too curious to see what you think so ellie without the element of surprise essentially everyone knows he's got to go he is so fast yeah he is really fast you know like it it it's probably i mean him being so fast means it's it's retaining more value than you'd expect it does take away a part of how he arrives at base running value that is not to be underrated, which is that he is savvy, right? Like he is not relying purely on speed. He has speed to like really make the savviness sing.

But like he is a savvy base runner. So I don't want to take that away from him. But I think it would you know when you're you're thinking about the guys who might do better with this than you'd expect like he's on that list right it's probably like him and corbin carroll and maybe just those two acuna probably actually but then it's like does he get hurt and so then you're worried about that part i mean you worry about that with the other two but like i don't know um you know kuni has like a lower leg precedent that you worry about so i don't know i think even ellie would not be fast enough to make yeah i mean

like he wouldn't you wouldn't want to do it like you you're probably seeing the optimal or close to the optimal deployment of his base running prowess right now. Like, and how cool is that to think about, right? Like, wow. Because even his steal of home in that inning relied on inattention on the part of the catcher and pitcher. So, it wasn't like. Right. And so, if he were just always, always going.

Yeah. You'd be like, wow. Yeah. It wasn't like they knew he was going and they still just couldn't catch him because he was so fast. Right. So, no. And I guess if we knew he was going to go, maybe that would also make it less entertaining, right? Like the reason that a steal of home or an attempted steal of home is so exciting.

Yeah. It's rare. So, if we knew he had to go and, you know, I just – I think it would it would not work so well, even given Ellie's amazing skills and speed. But he'd be on the list of guys who would who would make you think about it for a second. Right. Hence the question. But yeah, ultimately, you want him to to use the totality of his base running skill. And that also means knowing when not to go, you know? Yeah. In fact, he was thrown out trying to steal home earlier, right?

That game where he cycled. I mean, he was thrown out trying to steal home. That was before he... I thought you meant today. No. No, today, his latest feat is that he threw a ball 99.8 miles per hour, which broke his own record, which he set recently. I mean, everything he's done in the big leagues has been recent, but he broke his own record by like more than two miles per hour

for the fastest throw by an infielder. He's already got, Sarah Langs was tweeting these stats, like most 95 plus mile per hour assists as an infielder. He's already tied with Fernando Tatis Jr. with four, and then it's O'Neal Cruz with three, Didi Gregorius with two. And, yeah, he broke his own. Now, if we want to be pedantic, and when don't we,

this 99.8 mile-per-hour assist of his came when he was the relay man and he was in the outfield. He was in moderate to shallow left field. So he's still an infielder, but he was not in the infield when he was making this throw. And of course, outfielder throws can be harder because you get your whole body behind it, right? And in this play, he was almost as much of an outfielder as he was an infielder. So I guess you could say it's in a somewhat separate category from just fielding a grounder and firing it over there. But he did that the other day and it was 97.8

miles per hour or whatever it is. It's pretty ridiculous. So I don't know which of his tools or skills is the most impressive at this point. I mean, his speed, his arm or his exit speeds. I mean, putting aside the baseball IQ and everything, just the pure raw physical stat cast standout tools. I guess like the throwing, it's not my favorite, but maybe it is the most outlier skill that he has relative to the others because there are other guys who hit the ball as hard as he does.

It's amazing that he does it at his age and as an infielder and everything, but it's not unprecedented, whereas his throws kind of are, seemingly. I can't, why do I have to pick a toy? Yeah, I don't know. He has them all. That's the whole point. Right, that's the whole thing. It's like the combination.

Right. What is the most fun thing to watch about him? All of it, you know, Ben? Yep, all of it at once in one package, yeah. Last question. This is from BK, who says, Ben? Yep, all of it at once in one package, yeah. Last question. This is from BK, who says, as we're all aware, recently Bryce Harper

broke a long home run drought. The drought was so long that Harper forgot to acknowledge his friends and teammates in the bullpen. It led to some hilarity with Harper calling them on the bullpen phone and giving an excuse, I'm sure. But this led me to think, why are bullpens so far away? Why don't the bullpen

pitchers sit in the dugout during the game and go down in the clubhouse to warm up before going into the game? Not only would this increase team camaraderie, but it would also reduce the time needed to call the bullpen. Remember when bullpen phones would break regularly and the time needed to run in from the bullpen. Surely there's a better reason for the bullpen to be that far away other than the opponent needs to see who's warming up to get a pinch hitter ready. This could easily be solved with a camera in each team's clubhouse bullpen. I'm sure the bullpen pitchers are sad they have to miss out on all the cool home run celebrations. This is their chance.

So can we bring the team together? Can we unite the bullpen guys and everyone else? stadium and the fans and the atmosphere and the weather, and obviously you used to have more bullpens down the line in foul territory, but that means that the stands then have to be further away from the action. Yeah, farther away. Yeah. And also, I guess there's potential injury risk there. You could get smacked by a ball when you're not looking.

Run over the mound and fall down and hurt yourself. Yeah, right, yeah. So there are good reasons not to do that. That was a way to have it closer. So this way you have to have it physically separated so that there's room for two guys at least to throw simultaneously when they're warming up, that would be tough to do. Now, you know, I guess you could have the bullpens be where they are, but have the bullpen guys stay in the dugout for part of the game or something and then go down there. Maybe that happens already to some extent, but the bullpens, it's like their own little world and ecosystem

out there. They play pranks on each other. They sit out there and discuss life because they're separated somewhat. Yeah, I mean, I think that there's like the real estate concern, right, of wanting to have fans as close to the action as possible, not wanting to have foul territory bullpens lead to potential injury you know you put them out in the outfield i imagine historically because those seat like if it's taking up spots where there might otherwise be seats those are cheaper seats and so you don't mind as much but i also think that they're just like weird little guys yeah and they want them to stay amongst themselves because

they're strange and um and they want to allow them the chance to be strange um but over there um i think there's like a quarantine yeah piece of it but like uh you know like i think is it at wrigley where they they did the remodel and now the bullpens are, like, inside and far away and, like, sealed off? Yeah. Under the stands or something? Is that right? Is that where they are? I don't know.

I don't know if, also, I don't know if it's that imperative that you hide the pitchers who are warming up from the team so that they know. Because, like, I mean, you know, it's mentioned on the broadcast. Yeah, they announced. Yeah. You could have someone out there who could report back. It's not, like, I mean, you know, it's mentioned on the broadcast. It's shown on the broadcast. Yeah. You could have someone out there who could report back. It's not like top secret, right? So that's not that important a consideration. I do think maybe there is a little trend toward getting the bullpen guys involved because in this era of rampant home run celebrations, like the bullpen guys potentially feel left out

when everyone's doing their home run ritual. So the Angels, for instance, they have a thing where there's like a chop, not an Atlanta style chop. It's like a sledgehammer. It's like a hammer thing that started because when Otani would hammer a baseball, their bullpen coach started doing like a hammer motion.

And now whenever they hit a home run, they have the helmet, right? And then they walk down the dugout and then the guy who homers like does the sort of like a salute slash chop slash hammer motion out to the guys in the bullpen who do that too. And I guess Carlos Estevez does a similar motion. So they're kind of making an effort to include everyone across the vast gulf of the field, which, as we noted earlier, is quite large when you're actually on it. So I think, yeah, we might see more of an effort to bridge that gap just because everyone else is celebrating. And so it feels like you're leaving out the bullpen, guys. And maybe that makes them feel worse because they are so weird, you know. And then they're like, am I being excluded because I'm a weird guy?

I don't think they're all weird. And there's nothing wrong with being weird. But, you know, it is a consistent thing. You know, it seems to be a trend that they're a little bit weird, you know, in general. trend that they're a little bit weird you know in general yeah and if they did sit on the bench more often for the full game until they were told to warm up then we wouldn't get the spectacle of the whole bullpen on mass just running into belatedly join a a bench's clearing situation and i would miss that so my favorite bullpen configuration is when they're stacked. I like it when the bullpens are stacked.

Not just side to side or belly to belly or back to back or whatever we've decided that is supposed to say. But I like it when they're stacked on one on top of the other. And so you can get simultaneous warming up. Or like you can envision them, you know, talking trash to each other. Like it is a satisfying visual when they're stacked. So I support that. And having trash talked at them. Right.

I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Yeah, that part I'm less enthusiastic about. Afford fans more heckling opportunities when they're out there than if they were ensconced in the dugout, right? Right, right, yeah. Although fans talk trash to guys in the dugout. Yes. Also, although it's just you know, it's different when you're able to

get up on the bullpen rail and be like, rah! Yeah. Alright, we will finish with the Future Blast, which comes to us from 2035 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, the umpires strike back. The big news on the field in 2035 was that there was no news on the field until mid-July when the Players and Umpires Associations came to a hard-fought one-year agreement with the owners on the new rules concerning artificial intelligence in the dugout and on the field. After a successful run in AAA, the one-umpire rule was enacted in spring training at the major league level.

The head official, as that ump was called, was in the press box overseeing the electronic base umps and the home plate balls and strikes calls, and was the final arbiter on close calls, able to overrule the AI umps if need be. There had been rumblings the previous two seasons from the Major League Baseball Umpires Association, so when several technical breakdowns in the first two weeks of spring training caused game delays and one cancellation, the MLB UA called for a work stoppage at all levels of the game in the United States and abroad, and the Major League Baseball Players Association joined in, listing its own grievances over the intrusion of artificial intelligence into the pastime.

The Associated European Division, as well as the Asian and Caribbean divisions, signed on to the stoppage as well, and professional baseball globally came to a halt. It was mid-July before the owners caved and agreed to staff every game with three umpires who were free to overrule the AI umps. And the players won the rights to have a manager back in the clubhouse in the dugout. After two weeks of spring training, though it was summer training, the shortened season took place, ultimately resulting in the Cardinals beating the Dublin Rovers to advance to the World Series and the Yankees overcoming the Estrellas Orientalis from the Dominican Republic to advance as well, the Cardinals beat the Yankees in six games. So some blowback, some ramifications

to the encroachment of AI into the game. You know, we just, we all like watched so many Terminator movies, and then we just, I don't know, forgot about them. So I hope we remember. Well, the Orioles won the first matchup with the Rays

after we recorded, so they are now really alone in first place. The Fangraphs playoff odds still say that the Rays have about double the division odds of the Orioles.

I don't know if I buy it. Also, I wanted to read a few responses we got to a topic we talked about last time, the idea of a Legends home run derby, old timers coming back to swing for the fences during the all-star festivities. Craig,

Patreon supporter, writes in to say in reference to your conversation in episode 2034 regarding the potential for an old timers home run derby, I wanted to bring to your attention a similar concept already in place in the NHL, the winter classic slash heritage classic alumni game. This event is played either the day before or directly before the NHL's marquee outdoor event and features 20 to 25 alumni of each team of varying ages and skill level putting on an exhibition for the fans. Usually these games are fairly competitive as these players normally range in age from about 40 to 55, and there's never any love lost between the combatants. Most notably, in 2016, Chris Draper

laid a heavy hit in the corner, and in retaliation, noted hockey beef boy Gary Roberts followed up with a big hit of his own. They slashed and jawed their way down the ice, and the refs were forced to stop play, lest they televise a fistfight between middle-aged men. This had an additional bit of fun as the on-ice-slash-in-play interview mic got passed to Gary Roberts directly after the kerfuffle. Roberts very sternly told the broadcasters, you don't want to talk to me right now. It was great. Should this happen in baseball, a team bonds wall scraper beats out a team Griffey potential comeback, which makes Vladdy senior extra salty on a broadcast and calls out Mark McGuire for cheating again. Oh man, would love to see it. And I think the younger generation would love it too.

I do like the idea of old beefs, beeves resurfacing and being hashed out by ex-players still carrying grudges. Another message from Patreon supporter Peter, he said, just wanted to note that the Veterans Home Run Derby has been done before, at least on the team level. In 2021, Joe Maurer hosted a charity derby at Target Field

made up of recent Twins legends, who I believe also play pickup hockey together sometimes. From what I recall, Peter writes, Nick Punto was the big winner, though no one was entirely embarrassing, so it can be done. However, a counterpoint comes from one final email from listener Mark, who said, just had to give my two cents about the Legends home run derby idea. In 2003, my father and I went to a Phillies Orioles game at Camden as part of our annual baseball stadium tour. As part of the 20th anniversary celebration of their World Series, there was a home run derby before the game between those two teams. Rick Dempsey hit the only homer to save an embarrassing

shutout. And I found an ESPN article about that from the time that touches on exactly what my and Meg's misgivings were about this Legends home run Derby idea. The lead from the AP, actually. The object of the competition was to hit home runs for charity. For Eddie Murray and Mike Schmidt, the Home Run Derby was really about avoiding embarrassment and injury. Murray and Schmidt, two of 19 players in Major League history to hit more than 500 home runs, failed to clear the wall at Camden Yards during a home run contest. Once we get out on the field, don't expect a home run barrage, Schmidt warned beforehand. I fear not hitting them, and I fear hurting myself trying to hit them. Dempsey hit a ball three rows into the left field seats. Murray, as well as Schmidt and Darren Dalton, failed to

go deep. Murray says, it feels good to be in this uniform, but we haven't really been swinging. We're not going to hit home runs like we used to. It's a difficult trick to do once you've stopped playing. A cautionary tale, perhaps. Eddie Murray was 47 years old then. David Ortiz is 47 years old now. And he never really knew what it was to fail and decline in Pujols or Cabrera-esque fashion because Ortiz went out as one of the best hitters in baseball. He led the major leagues in his final season in home runs with 48. So he might think he could still swing it.

Hey, perhaps he still can. But be careful what you wish for. Here's something I wish for. People supporting the podcast on Patreon. You can do that 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. PJ Wessels, Jeff Gilbert, David Cohen, Harold Walker, and Aaron

Wuffter. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, as well as access to monthly bonus episodes, playoff live streams, discounts on merch, and ad-free Fangrafts memberships, appearances on the podcast, expedited email answers, so much more patreon.com slash effectively wild. If you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site, but anyone and everyone can contact us via email at podcast at fancrafts.com. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectivelywild. You can follow Effectively Wild on Twitter, and you can find the Effectively

Wild subreddit at r slash effectivelywild. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We will be back with one more episode before the end of the week. And if it all comes together in time, I hope it will be a special one. I was going to say a fun one, but we try to make them all fun. But this will be something a little bit different. So stay tuned. Talk to you soon.