Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2046: These Segments Are Underrated

Episode Date: August 16, 2023

With Ben Lindbergh in Sweden on Ringer business, FanGraphs’ Ben Clemens joins Meg Rowley for a turn in the co-host chair. Ben and Meg begin (1:40) by discussing the disturbing allegations made against Rays shortstop Wander Franco over the weekend. They then banter (5:00) about the experience of watching baseball while on vacation, before turning […]

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Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild

Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild

Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild

Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild

Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild

Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild

Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild

Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild

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Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild by a Ben, but a different Ben. Ben Lindbergh is in Sweden, and despite his protestations that he might be able to record, I said, hey Ben, why don't you just go be in Sweden and do ringer stuff? And so I am joined by Ben Clemens, also of Vanagraphs. Hello, Ben. Hey, how's it going? It's going okay.

How are you? I'm good. I'm not quite as much of the right Ben for this podcast as Lindbergh, but you know, I feel like I'll do an okay job. You're a recurring Effectively Wild Ben, though. I'm not joined by you every time, but we are often joined by you. So, you know, familiar. Hard to argue with that. Yeah. We are recording on Tuesday.

As I mentioned, Ben is in Sweden doing ringer business, which is kind of a funny sentence to say. I was out of town Friday through late yesterday evening at friend of the podcast, Jordan Schusterman's wedding, which was lovely and beautiful. It did mean that I watched very little baseball. It also means that we have not recorded since last Thursday, which means that I'm sorry to say, Ben, you have the unfortunate task of chatting with me about some kind of grim baseball news. We will move on to some other things later in the episode, but we probably do need to start with the news that broke over the weekend that is still being reported and assembled and importantly investigated by Major League Baseball, but that allegations emerged on Sunday

on social media of Ray Shortstop, Wanda Franco, engaging in an inappropriate relationship with an underaged girl. There have been subsequent allegations that have emerged that are being investigated by Major League Baseball, appear to be under investigation by the Attorney General of the Dominican Republic. We are sort of light on detail at this stage, but obviously pretty alarming and concerning allegations. The Rays and Wander Franco have sided mutually to put him on the restricted list. He did not travel with the team to San Francisco for their series against the Giants. How his potential discipline proceeds will, I imagine, be dictated largely by the results of Major League Baseball's investigation into him. But it is really crummy, terrible news for a lot of people

in a way that's much more important than it is for us. But I guess you just never know, right? You never know what's going on with guys. And some of this stuff is really bad. That's well said. There's not really a lot of good ways to look at this. There's obviously just going to be much more reporting and investigation going on. And I can't imagine a way where this ends up where we're like, oh, you know, what a delightful hijinks. It's just going to be awful yeah i don't want to like speculate on on who knew what and when

at what point so you know that certainly would cast the way that we understand this as either a wander franco problem a tampa bay rays problem we don't want to say anything about that before we know but it just i think it does just go to show how the combination of a lot of money and a lot of fame and being like the best guy in the room at what you do can, I think, have the effect where you just don't necessarily have the same sense of care or accountability. And we will know a lot more in the coming weeks and months, I would imagine, but it's just a really yucky set of allegations. So anyway, I don't know that we have much more to say other than this is a real stone cold bummer, but it did seem like something that we had to address because it is going to have obviously a profound impact on the actual people involved

and potentially franchise-altering impact for Tampa Bay. So, yeah. Bummer, man. Yeah, that's about how I feel. I don't really have a lot of other things to say. It's a bummer. Yeah, so I'm sure, unfortunately, there will be more to come on that as the league's investigation proceeds. But that's the the news out of tampa bay i guess out of st petersburg there's not like a you know pithy

transition from accusations of underage sexual abuse so we will simply transition awkwardly and i will say that ben i have seen very little baseball in the last, I guess, five days now. I don't know if you have this experience. You go on trips. You're a traveler. When you travel for vacation and stuff, do you make a point of not engaging with baseball? make a point of not engaging with baseball? Do you dabble with some baseball? How do you navigate the baseball when you're out and about on vacation? I think, for better or worse, I clock out a lot more than you do, for example. I'm so glad to hear that. Everyone should clock out more than I do. Yeah. I like just saying, well, I'm not on the job.

But weirdly, that doesn't mean not paying any attention to baseball. My wife's a big Giants fan. Well, she's like a Brewers fan who picked out the Giants when we moved out here. And so she wants to know how the Giants did. And so I'm always looking at baseball scores. And we picked up the Orioles for this year because we like to have an AL team to root for. And it's not going to be the A's. We picked up the Orioles for this year because we like to have an AL team to root for.

And it's not going to be the A's. So I follow baseball a little bit, but more from the, like, go look at the scores and see if anything really crazy happened. Like, the way that I would if I were a fan instead of a writer, basically. And then I come back and, honestly, I've kind of made a deal with myself that I'm just not going to try to learn all the stuff that happened when I was on vacation. There's going to be more stuff. Like, it's on a conveyor belt. More things will happen. There's infinite content. I don't need to go see the content from the two days I missed. Yeah. I got to Columbus, Ohio, where Jordan's wedding was, Friday evening in time to, well, have dinner. And then later in the evening, watch those Baltimore Orioles thankfully with

Kevin Brown back in the booth the last although in perspective much less of a bummer bummer that we talked about on the podcast and like I am still ostensibly a Mariners fan and I was like those Mariners look at them they're putting putting however many eight runs up on those Baltimore Orioles and then I like didn't watch any more baseball over the weekend and came to understand that the Mariners lost two late and close games to those Orioles. And you think to yourself, well, you know, they're the Baltimore Orioles. Like, they're 74-45 as we're recording here today on Tuesday. They have a much smaller positive run differential than you would expect

because, boy, is that pitching still? It's pitching. But taking one out of three, like, that's respectable. Taking one out of three from the Orioles is respectable. Things have changed a lot this year. Yeah, 2023 is wild, man. And then, you know, I got home in time last night to watch the Mariners almost come back against the Kansas City Royals, notably a less

good team. I don't know if you know, less good team. And I was like, oh, you know, they're pulling me back in. Those Mariners are going to do it. They're going to go on a little run. And then the Royals said, not so fast and ended up walking it off. So that happened. That's the extent of my baseball knowledge from the last couple of days, other than to see that Atlanta just seems to score a billion runs at every possible opportunity. And the New York teams are struggling sometimes against those same Atlanta Braves. So, like, that's been my experience of it. And you're right.

Like, you can't learn all the things. You can't get all of the highlights in that you missed. It's sort of like when you're off of Twitter for a couple days, you're like, there's just going to be jokes that I'm going to have to pretend to get for the rest of my life because I don't know what you're talking about. Like, we're all mad at a guy singing in front of trees today. Don't know why. I think that's all just fine. Like, I think that trying to know everything

that's ever happened is overrated. And, you know, I missed like six years of knowing all the baseball in jokes, probably more than that. And it's just fine. Like. It's not that big of a deal. It's weird because it feels like it's a big deal. Right. When I don't know a thing, I'm always like, I don't know that thing. Like, this sucks. Like, I want to know that thing that people are talking about. Like, I don't want to be in on this joke. I don't like not being in on jokes.

Yeah. But often, like, they're not jokes and they're not funny. Right. Yeah. I don't know. But there's a real human pull to know. Well, in these days, it's like you try to catch up on news and you're like, oh, everything's very grim. Yeah. I don't know, but there's a real human pull to know. Well, in these days, it's like you try to catch up on news and you're like, oh, everything's very grim. Yeah, that's very true.

And there, you know, there's certain, there's a certain amount of grimness that you're like obligated to engage with as a citizen. But I think when it's baseball grimness, we have the amount of it that's our work obligations. But some of the bits and bobs that aren't grim, candidly, but are sort of the ephemera of the day, we don't have to know. Although I wish that I didn't have, I like you have like years where I was not in the weeds on baseball as a young working person who rooted for a West Coast team and worked in finance on the East Coast and was like aware, but not like really in it in the way that I certainly am now. I don't play Immaculate Grid for a number of reasons, but I realized that those like

years of absence, I bet would lower my batting average on Immaculate Grid if I were to play. So I've played like some, I'm not like trying seriously hard and I almost never get them all right. And I do a lot of like, well, like I'm going to guess this and then I'm going to go look up like these three guys that I'm curious about because I like remembering some guys, but I just don't have the absolutely outrageous knowledge that some people have of these things. I am convinced and I'm, I promise that I am not casting aspersions on any specific person. I'm not. I think that there are some Immaculate Grid cheaters, Ben. I think it's possible.

I think some people are cheating a little bit, just a little bit. But I think that there are some false ballots being cast by some Immaculate Grid players. I don't believe you. I don't believe you that you even know that guy's name, let alone that he, you know, won a silver slugger for the A's or whatever. The awards voting ones, I guess you don't vote on silver slugger. But like those are, you know, you get away from the big awards. And I'm like, why would you even? That's a piece of information you can let go. You might have other stuff that's more important that you could slot into that slot. Let me give you a counter, though.

So I was playing Immaculate. I look at it most days, I'd say. Because, I don't know, I like to take some baseball time off. And there was a square for Cubs and Giants. Like, okay, probably there's a lot of players that fit that. But I happened to have seen seen and out of the park uh this guy named walt wilmot the day before you've never heard of him presumably no because like why would you have he played that poet well right it sounds like it he played from 1888 to 1895

oh boy uh to 1898 i apologize um he played for the 1890 chic Colts, which are now the Cubs, and for the 1897 New York Giants. And so I was like, ah, I know this guy. And presumably one person answered that guy because I just happened to randomly look him up. He put up for war, if war exists, in 1889 and was never good again. So you can pick random dudes and have have them for legitimate means but then also i missed like four of the nine so right i don't know how you could do that for like eight of nine and then also hit the ninth i i agree with you either some people just like should go outside it's nice outside yeah well i mean not here but yeah well not not there yeah sorry um

it was nice to be in the midwest and be like it is balmy it is definitely super humid this is this is fantastic it was only like 85 degrees most of the weekend well you caught the tail end of the best time to go to the midwest so yeah and i'm i'm here to tell you that the mid-sized midwestern city is an underrated city experience i think that it has a lot to recommend it. Our friend and colleague Michael Baumann used to live in Columbus. So I pestered him before going to this wedding to be like, what should we do? You know, there's going to be baseball folk walking around. And some of us don't have obligations at the wedding specifically.

You know, we're not in the wedding party. And it's far enough away that you didn't like fly in the day of or anything't do that i get i get nervous about you know flying same day and even when it works out i feel like i'm i'm wrung out from being anxious about you know my flight getting delayed or what have you and so you know got to to eat some good food got to go to a good bookstore walked around and actually moved a little bit little bit in the midst of a busy wedding weekend. So it was lovely. We had a great time. But I, again, didn't watch any baseball. And you've taken on a great column idea this season, Ben, which is you look at five things throughout the week that you, mostly that you like. I think you tend to lean toward things you like,

not things you don't, which is defensible. It's nice to think about fun stuff. And also, it's your column, so. Yeah, I don't like not liking things. Right. And so I thought that what we might do is you could volunteer some things that you have liked or disliked in the last little bit here.

It doesn't have to be this weekend. If you mostly just want to tell me what you've written about while I've been on vacation, that's fine too. disliked or disliked in the last little bit here. It doesn't have to be this weekend. If you mostly just want to tell me what you've written about while I've been on vacation, that's fine too. I thought we might do that and use it as a way to talk about the baseball that has been because some things are exactly where I left them and other things have moved around, you know, just like a little bit. So what has caught your attention in the last little while here, Ben? Okay, you know, actually you hit on in your quick rundown of the things that you noticed when you came back, a few things that I liked a lot. One that I think is the thing that I think should happen more and thus liked a lot

was the Braves proving that if you bring in a position player to pitch to us, we're just going to try to hit a bunch of home runs. So the Mets were getting stomped by the Braves, just like absolutely destroyed. I think they were down 12 to three or something. I forget the exact count, but they were just down now. You know, they called for Danny Mendick to come in. And okay, fine. Like, I'm pretty tired of position players pitching, but whatever, like, it's just going to happen. You can't avoid it happening. And so here's, here's what happened when Mendick came in to pitch the ninth inning. First batter, Nikki Lopez hit a 103 mile an hour line drive single. The next batter, Kevin Pillar hit a 93 mile an hour line drive double. Ozzy

Alves hit a 106 mile an hour line drive single. Austin Riley hit a hundred mile an hour home run. hit a 106 mile an hour line drive single. Austin Riley hit a 100 mile an hour home run. Matt Olsen hit a 103 mile an hour line drive double. Marcelo Zuna hit a fly out. Eddie Rosario popped out. Okay. Sean Murphy hit a 106 mile an hour line drive single.

Forrest Wall hit a double. Nicky Lopez hit a 101 mile an hour home run. Like, Nicky Lopez hit a home run that's out of 30 of 30 parks. Like, they went 400 feet. Like, they brought Lopez got a home run that's out of 30 of 30 parks. Yeah. Like, they went 400 feet. Like, they brought in Danny Mendick. And lots of times guys just play along. Right. Kind of like, you know, don't really try to do too much.

And the Braves were just like, no. No. I'm going to make this hurt. Right. And I really appreciate that. If you bring in a position player to pitch when you're losing 12 to 3. And the other team embarrasses you. Like, that's on you. You brought that guy in.

I think that more teams should do this. And more teams should make it look like when I am looking down the box scores, they should make me go, whoa. Right. I'm not very interested in a position player who comes in and pitches like, I don't know, they're like a bunch of ground balls. And people took pitches. Sometimes that can be fun. But I think this should happen a lot more often than not. So kudos to the Braves for just seeing that this guy was up there and just

trying to absolutely maul every pitch. I think great work. I'm really pleased with them for that. I think this is a good take. So they, they came in, let's make sure to compliment, denigrate the Mets appropriately.

They came into the top of the ninth down 13 to 3. Oh, my bad. And they exited that half inning 21 to 3, both of which are football scores. That's true. And you don't want a lot of football scores in games. But I think you're right that I could just do with a lot less position player pitching. And I think that it is down relative to last season where it seemed like we were just getting it all the time, just all the time. And you know, some of that is like there's

a particular margin that you have to have reached in order for the position player to come in. And you know, like I think it feels as if we have fewer really dramatic blowouts this season i don't know what that's about but it feels like it's true but i think you're right that there should be a disincentive i don't want to lean overly much on like shame or embarrassment as like a social motivator i think that's like not the best always but a front office person is gonna say this is the best way for us to preserve resources is to just have, you know, the, and I think Danny Mendick was actually the second position player to come in and pitch. Is that right? Was he? No, but Nicky Lopez a member of the field staff to go to whoever the person is in the front office whose responsibility is to come up with the strategy in this moment and say, look, like, I get it. I do. But also, let's make the guys feel like crap. Like, really, you know, 13-3, that's a bad day at the office on its own. 21-3, again, you don't want, like, really obvious football scores in baseball.

So I think you're right. Yeah, 21 especially. 21, yeah, geez, you're like, you're really feeling it after that. Feels like a bad day at work. I'm actually going to add one bonus thing. A thing that I really don't like is that, okay, now the Braves are up 21 to three and they brought Mickey Lopez in the pitch. Okay. Like I actually find that a little funnier when you bring the guy in when, uh, when you're up so much, I'm more in favor of that. And then DJ Stewart worked a walk

by, uh, by only swinging once in six pitches. Like, are you kidding me? Really? You're down 18 runs. Just swing. He took five out of six pitches from Nicky Lopez. They're coming in at 60 miles an hour. No one cares that you took this walk. Like, you're not getting paid more because of it. You might if you hit a home run. It really bothers me. the right attitude, right? You want guys who are trying hard because like, you know, what else are you going to do? And you understand, you know, DJ Stewart, these stats are through today's action, but like DJ Stewart is slashing 171, 300, 293, you know, he has a 593 OPS, right? So it's not great. And so I understand DJ Stewart's individual incentives in that moment to try to, you know, be in it. You know, he's only, he has 51 plate appearances on the season.

He had fewer of them at the time, right? So I get him wanting to get his work in, you know, and demonstrate his value to the Mets. Like, that's an understandable instinct. But, you know, sometimes the kindest thing you can do to your friends is, like, let them go home. Yeah, I pretty much agree with that. As a final coda to that, Nicky Lopez threw 12 pitches, and the Mets took two different ones for called strikes and only swung at, like, half of them. Danny Mendick threw 32 pitches, and there were no called strikes. Everything in the strikes in the Braves swung at.

Because that's what you're supposed to do. Yeah. Yeah. They're like, we're trying to get out of here. But also, we're. Yeah. And justly, the baseball gods, promised all the Mets, rewarded all the Braves.

I think that was very enjoyable. And I think that the right team prevailed there. Sorry, Mets fans. But like, look, the way that you approached these position players pitching was a microcosm of the season as a whole. And look, this was, we should note, because I can just hear Mets fans like yelling at us through their headphones. Like, we should note that this was the first game of a doubleheader.

And so the decision to finally go to Danny Mendick, that makes good sense, you know? Oh, yeah. I'm not against them going to him. I'm just, I'm happy that the Braves punished him for it. That's what's supposed to happen. And I do think that they're batters. You can't be up there taking pitches. No.

Just like, treat it like a getaway day. Right. Like, swing at everything. Yeah, you got to get away to the second game of this doomed doubleheader that they also lost, but by a much more respectable margin, right? It was only 6-0. Yeah, not really a football score, even though it technically is. Yeah, but it's not one that screams football score to you, right? You're not up there going, oh my gosh, you got Georgia out here. That's a good one.

That's a good answer. And then, you know, they put up 11 runs on the Yankees yesterday. So that Braves team, is there, I'm going to ask a side question and then we can move on to another thing that you have observed and liked. I mean, like, you don't have to be contrarian for the sake of it. Like, our World Series odds have the Braves with the highest World Series odds in baseball. And by a comfortable margin, they're... The World Series are almost 26%, which is... You don't see that very often, the really big...

It's early. I mean, I guess they're 100% to win the division, which helps. Right. But, yeah, it's still crazy. Right. You know, outpacing the second-place Dodgers in that regard, who have 15.5% odds of winning the World Series. Man, I really wish—we talked about this in the run-up to opening day, I think, where I was, you know, I think that our staff predictions are understandably and perhaps properly a little boring more often than not,

right? Because we put pretty good store in our playoff odds, and I think that we spend a good deal of time thinking about these rosters. And I get it, but I also worry sometimes that they're too chalky. And so I was trying to come up with ways to make mine just a little spicy. And I almost didn't have the Mets making the postseason. And then I lost my nerve. It felt like too much. And so I think I bounced the Phillies because I really wanted to put the Diamondbacks in as a wildcard team,

which is not looking as smart now as it did earlier in the season. But the Dodgers, man, those stupid Dodgers. I mean, they're not stupid, but boy, they just keep doing it, even though I really wonder who's pitching for them these days. You know, how does that feel? I really wish that I could, this is a perfect thing that I want to talk about that I feel like I've been waiting to get on a soapbox about for like a year. I wish Ben was here, but I think Ben makes the worst predictions in the world.

Wow. But I think that it's a symptom of what you're talking about is that I think people misunderstand the point of prediction markets. If a team is 51% to win something or has 1% more likelihood than the next most likely team, like let's say to win the World Series, one team is 20% and no one else is above 15%, like the Braves right now. And if you asked 100 experts, like, should you get back 100 Braves? I don't think so. I think that when someone asks me, hey, should you get back 100 Braves? I don't think so. Right. I think that when someone asks me, hey, predict the winners of this, they're not just saying, like, pick the most likely. Like, I treat it like, think about what everyone's picking and pick things that are, you think are more likely to happen than the consensus. If you think something is 15% to happen and no one's going to pick it, then you're going to look really good if you pick it.

Similarly, like if you think a team is 30% to win their division, which is the most, or let's say 40% to win the division, and that's the most in their division, but everyone else thinks they're 75% likely to win the division and is going to win it, maybe don't pick it. Then you'll look really good if you get it right. And I think that predictions are as much about saying, here's a contrarian view I have as saying, like, here's just the most likely thing to happen. And I think if you treat

it as, I just want to say the thing that I think is most likely to happen in the abstract or like in a vacuum, that's just not very interesting. Like, we know we have playoff odds. You don't need to, if everyone just put the most likely thing from the playoff odds right and let's say we improved them slightly to like patch up some holes that we know exist there sure like really is that is that fun is is that what we want here i generally object to people who just go down the line chock chock chock chock chock chock i picked the orioles to win the al east this year for example yeah like now that obviously that's made me look really good without really me having that much conviction beforehand. But I like to do stuff like that.

And I like to generally err on the side of, like, weird things are happening. Right. If it's a weird thing that I think is more likely than consensus. And Ben is, like, the exact opposite of that. Yes. I think that it is an exercise that he just fundamentally does not enjoy doing at all. You know, I think he wants to be right. Like, I think he's mindful of that. But I think that that is the 1B goal, and that the 1A goal is for no one to remember his predictions at

all. Yeah, that's fair. For not one person come the final day of the season to get into his mentions on Twitter and say, you said that my Baltimore Orioles, I don't know what his staff predictions were for the ringer this year, but you know that your, that my Orioles were not going to make it and here they are. Right. He just wants to be so down the middle that no one can, like, if you want to be mad at him you'll find someone right more prominent who did a different thing to be mad at only three people picked the dodgers doing the nls this year that's wild that's wild meg what did i do you picked the padres oh well but you picked the braves to win the at least i did i did pick Cardinals, like all of us. Yeah, that was, in hindsight, that was the wrong choice.

It was the wrong choice. Happens to the best of us. Yeah. I do hope that the Diamondbacks can rally back and, like, you know, fulfill my prophecy. But what I was going to ask, as I started to look at our World Series odds, is there anyone who, like, if you were picking today, would you just take, you're just taking the Braves? Is there anyone you see as, like, challenging the Braves?

I don't see. I think we overrate the Braves. That much percent is. It's a lot. Too high. It feels rich. I think they're the favorites. Yeah.

I would not take anybody above them if you're just drafting. But I think that, I think the Dodgers are probably a little low on ours. I think the Rangers the favorites. Yeah. I would not take anybody above them if you're just drafting. But I think that the Dodgers are probably a little low on ours. I think the Rangers are really low. Yeah. Yeah. I think that that's right. I think that we just have too low of an estimation of their team strength. Yeah.

Basically. I don't know if that's like projections lagging or something. But I don't think I make sense that the Astros are way more likely to win the World Series than the Rangers. Even though the Astros are three and a half back. Yeah. I just don't buy it. Like that buy is too important. Yes.

I think that that's right. I think that that's right. Oh, and I would take the Dodgers over there. Number two. Come on. Like they always figured out. It seems like they figured it out and now they're going to be really good.

Yeah. Oh man. Tampa. What do we do with you? Take the Orioles. Yeah. There's, there's teams on there.'d lift yeah there are teams on there that yeah well twins man i feel like i have al central face blindness where i'm not confident in any given moment if the twins or the guardians are in first place in the Central.

I would believe anyone telling me any answer to that question any day. Maybe this is because I follow too many disgruntled Twins fans who seem to actively hate their team. Yeah, they really do. Yeah, but I am surprised, as we sit here today on Tuesday, to learn that the Guardians are four and a half back. Yeah, like way under 500 half back. Way under 500. Yeah, way under 500. That part is less surprising to me than their distance. Again, I just it's it's sure it's sure a bad division.

You know, it's sure one bad division. OK, what other what other things in the last little bit have delighted you about baseball, then? Yeah, I'll give you another one from last night. This actually makes sense now that I know it, but last night was the first time that Felix Bautista had faced Juan Soto. Yeah. And it was in a, like a fairly high leverage spot. I mean, actually no, it wasn't, but it was a fairly high leverage at bat for soto because the padres were down three it was the bottom of the night fernando tatis jr had worked a walk so it was one on one out and soto came up and you know after him it's machado and bogarts who are like home run hitters in a sense like they got power they can hit the ball out of the yard and

so whatever soto did didn't matter. He just needed to get on base. You know, he's a very good guy for this. But he was in the middle of an eight-game walkless streak. The longest of his career. That's also surprising that the longest he's gone without walking in his career is eight games. He's very good at walking. But this was, like, a really high-leverage matchup for, like, a scuffling batter against, I guess, a recently having

scuffled pitcher, but who is probably the best closer in baseball this year. I don't think that's very controversial to say. Josh Hader's pretty good too, but Bautista has been awesome. And Soto's great. So it was a really fun matchup. Two guys who hadn't seen each other before, but who are among the brightest at their position in the game. And Soto just put on a masterclass, essentially. Like, Bautista threw five pitches, six pitches. One was in the strike zone. Soto swung at it. Another one got called a strike.

It was out of the strike zone. And Bautista knew he had the scouting report. You can, like, you should probably try to nibble. You should probably try to throw high fastballs. And that's kind of, that's just the bargain here. And Bautista went fastball, fastball, fastball, fastball, splitter, fastball. And I think that's about right. Like you don't really care if he hits a home run. So I think that the game calling was okay, except for like a 2-2 splitter to Juan Soto. Like it better be really good. And it wasn't, it just bounced in the dirt and it was fine. He took it just completely

unstressed. But I found that really enjoyable that it was fine. He took it just completely unstressed. But I found that really enjoyable that this was a matchup. Like they both knew the score. Soto knew that he needed to get on base. Bautista knew that he could just pump fastballs. And he was just not able to locate them enough in the zone that Soto would swing. He can't always hit the zone. And Soto just had perfect pitch recognition.

And it was really fun to watch. And then Machado grounded a double play on the next pitch. So it didn't matter. I also enjoyed that. I don't need three-run comebacks to be happening all the time. I got the drama I wanted out of this. I actually, this will tell you how much time I spend watching baseball instead of keeping up on pop culture.

I finished watching Succession last night. Oh. It's like not, it's not close to when that show ended. I haven't started Succession if it makes you feel better. Uh, yeah. It makes me feel about the same. I don't know. It's alright. I think it is probably overrated. Like the bravest chance of winning the World Series, but still good. Like the bravest chance of winning the World Series. There is a whole thing about going to Sweden for a corporate retreat. That's's very funny i almost made a reference to that earlier um but i was

going to just go watch succession and then i was like oh bottom of the ninth yeah like kim tatis soto up i should watch that first yeah and it paid off like it's very enjoyable and generally speaking felix fun soto fun yeah kind of neat that they never faced each other yeah yeah I mean I think that um you know we had like interleague play before this year but I initially was sort of like yeah okay whatever on the balanced schedule but I do I think I've come around to just really liking it because the number of times that I get to see a guy who I want to see face another guy and then and then he does it's there's been a lot of those this year like you're right I want to see you know you're right that Batista's been scuffling by his standards this year a little bit more of

late but like fantastic really enjoyable season yeah he's like one blow up away from being, having an Alzheimer's season. Exactly. So incredible. And Soto is occupying this zone where I think that there was a while, this is a difficult thing to back up with evidence because I think the over and underrated conversation is, is generally just about feelings. Like how,

how does one substantiate that claim, right? Which is why sometimes when writers would be like, I want to write about this guy being underrated. I was like, just write about him being good. You know, like, because otherwise you have to show me, like, underrated by whom? By what measure? You know, just write about him being good.

It's fine. You don't have to do this weird abstract thing. But I think that there was a stretch where, because of the particular shape of his production, average fans perhaps underrated Soto a little bit, which was wild because he's so incredible, and yet still so young. I remember when you and I were going back and forth on the

the trade value series and you had written your little soto blurb i was like we we have to put in here that he's not yet 25 it's pretty crazy it's so wild it's just a it's a truly bizarre beautiful wild fact about juan soto you know he's been he's been you know basically a full-time big leaguer since he was 19 and he's not yet 25 incredible just wild stuff so anyway I think that he went through a phase where he was underrated and then he went through a stretch you know last year where he was not he was down relative to his own standards right and like i say down he like had a four win season and put up a 145 wrc plus but people were like oh on so what's going on with one soda especially since you know he the scuffling of that stretch happened largely after the the trade things kind of all took a, all of his

numbers kind of took a dip, right? And then this year, you know, he had the slow start and then has been, you know, really quite good. And I feel like we are, we've maybe come back around, especially after his initial sort of debut as a Padre where people are like, you know, Wansoda is overrated. And I'm like, I don And I'm like, I think we are in the other direction. He might be back to being underrated again, which feels wild for a guy who I think with that walk has joined some pretty august company in terms of the number of seasons age 25 or younger to have 100 walks because that was his 100th walk. Yeah.

Especially impressive when you consider 2020 is kind of a brick. Right. And he came up late in 2018, so that would have been really hard to get 100 walks that season. He only had like less than 500ed appearances. Right. But he still had he still had been almost 80 walks and 10 intentional walks in that 2018 season. How old is that? Swild. Swild. Yeah.

I was going to say that I think he's enough people think he's overrated. Right. Now that I think he's probably back to being underrated. I agree with you. Do you know Matt Trueblood? Yeah. The former BP writer who writes about various teams now.

He occasionally tweets about the people that Soto is passing on the career walks list. And it's just hilarious. Yeah. Like, like Hall of Famers and stuff. Long careers. Yeah.

Yeah. He's the best ever at walking. Probably better than Ted Williams. Yeah. Yeah. He's, he is incredible. I feel like, uh, long careers yeah uh yeah he's the best ever at walking probably better than ted williams yeah yeah he's he is incredible i feel like uh amongst our and again here's that word feel but among active position players um the only other guy who i think of as being like embroiled is too strong but where the properly ratedness of his play is such a big part of the like conversation about his career is probably jose ramirez but otherwise you know it's

like those two guys and different and you know all we ever say about jose ramirez is that no one appreciates him enough um which is probably true no one has ever said that jose ramirez everybody talks about him too much yeah no one ever says It's like, this is what happens when you play in Cleveland. And as we know, mid-sized Midwestern cities, underrated. Here I am saying it's true. I did see that happening. Baseball fan. Saw it.

I did. I turned it on. I was like, oh, they're still going. I think at that point, the Rays' giant score had kind of broadened out. Yes, I shared that same. I think it went to 6-1, and I was like, Yeah, I'm going to switch over to the other game now. And so I toggled over to San Diego.

Yeah, look at all the other. Look at the Diamondbacks. Let's look at the Rockies. Oh, man. It's not great. It's not great for them. I mean, as someone who has no stake in either side of that, I didn't particularly care.

That was a – they blew a lead, too. Yeah. Yeah. Joe Mantepli had a rough go, gave up three runs. Not the best upsetting that – oh, yeah, Chris Fluxen is a Rocky. He's mantiplied their score by two. He is. Actually, I don't know if he went from three to six or two to five.

That's very good. Yeah, it's just nice when you're local with a team that you can just drive down the road to see is doing well. It is. I go to a lot of Giants games. Yeah. I watch a lot of Giants games. Yeah.

Do you know how bad the Giants offense has been? Yeah. It's. I go to a lot of Giants games. Yeah. I watch a lot of Giants games. Yeah. Do you know how bad the Giants offense has been? Yeah. It's been so, so bad. That's all. Like, I don't have anything

to say other than that. Yeah. So I don't really have a whole item. I do have another one if you want to do an awkward transition here. Okay,

so a thing that I love and that I don't get enough chance to write about because it's not interesting. Oh, I was going to say, Ben, you can write about pretty much whatever you want. Or it's like...

Am I holding you back, Ben? No, it is poorly suited for text fan graphs articles. Okay. I love goofy local stuff on broadcast. Oh, yeah. Oh, man. Like, I wrote about Michael Lorenzen's No Hitter. Yes.

And what I did write about that is that i just watched the whole game right um like i skipped commercials and i skipped some of the phillies batting because it just wasn't that important right but i just watched the game like that's how i get a sense of what's going on yeah and there was just a whole inning and i even mentioned this this one was rare and good enough that i had to talk about yeah they just they weren't planning on this being a no-hitter, obviously. Right. And so they devoted a whole inning to having Ryan Howard come in and talk about the chicken and waffle stand he was opening.

Yeah. And instead of, like, focusing on the game, which was kind of boring then. It was, like, 4-0, and no one thought Lorenzo was going to throw a no-hitter. Right. They just, like, they had the uh the sideline reporter or like the the field level reporter yeah at the stand trying them and she was handing out chicken and waffles people around her because it was too big and they were making fun of howard and he was like you know why are these so much he was like talking back at them because he's like oh you're angry because

there's too much food and john crock was visibly distracted by there being chicken and waffles in the booth the whole time. I learned that the only food he won't eat is spicy food. Which is like so much of food. It's very strange because clearly he does eat a lot of food. Right. You know, like 20% of the food in the world is spicy. The other 80% is coveted by John Kruk. I guess that's how this works.

Yeah. But I love that stuff like this happens in baseball broadcasts. And the Giants have great versions of this too when I'm watching. Like last night, this isn't quite an announcer thing, but somebody, I forget who, one of the coaches had to go be the ball boy for the day

because he lost a fantasy football bet last year. And that was funny. And not really, again, worth writing about. But I just love these little goofy local flourishes in broadcasts. I think it is a huge benefit of watching games, like for your local team a lot. Yeah. And I think it's a major reason that I like baseball as much as I do. Like, yeah, I like baseball stats a lot. This job would be really, really bad choice for me if I didn't. I really enjoy the numbers of baseball. But if I didn't like watching baseball, that would be stupid. Why would I do this if I didn't like watching baseball? And I think that a lot of the reason I like watching it is because

it's so fun to watch broadcasts. It's just like, it's just a blast. And I think that the local color does a lot for that. Yeah, I think you're right. I mean, like some of the, does a lot for that. Yeah, I think you're right. I mean, like some of the commercials that you get, particularly if you listen to the radio broadcasts, they're spectacular, man. I really appreciate that. And it's not every team, but it's a good number of teams will be sponsored in part by like their local pipe fitters union you know and i always enjoy hearing those and then you get some legal uh advertising that is like here in arizona um we get the the husband and wife law team and they're there for you if you have been in an accident or um you know have have a minor property dispute.

I think they do some, like, consumer rights law. There's one, there's another local legal ad. I think they're local. And this is the other thing you learn is that some of these firms, you know, they have a nationwide presence. But they make it sound like, you know, they're just down the road from you and down the road from you only. One where, you know, a big part of the ad is like, have you been bitten by a dog? No. And look, sometimes when you go to small claims court, you need the husband and wife law team, I guess.

I think a lot of lawyers can probably do those cases without much trouble. But yeah, the local ones are great. And since I don't live in the New York area anymore, I don't have to hear the cars for kids. Is that only New York? That ad is really bad. It's pretty brutal. Because I haven't heard much of it recently. Yeah, I don't know.

There's a turf war going on in San Francisco for the local injury attorneys. Oh, really? So you've got Ann Fong. Something wrong? Call Ann Fong. Great. Terrific. There's a turf war going on in San Francisco for the local injury attorneys. Oh, really? So you've got Ann Fong. Okay. Something wrong, call Ann Fong. Great. She's terrific.

She's kind of the incumbent. Buses everywhere at the stadium. Yeah. But there's an upstart, Sweet James. Oh. Sweet James is an LA guy who don't love it. Oh, boy. Don't love it. And I think a former appearer on the real housewives of beverly hills

oh okay is my understanding by his wife of course now ex-wife um but he is trying to horn in on the northern california market and his plan to do so has just been to have ads everywhere okay and so like every giants game every everything at the giant stadium every bus it just like you take the muni to the game covered james ad yeah and and fong has fought back by getting more ads too sure it's it's very yeah i like this local stuff yeah you got the pipefitters another san francisco classic yeah you gotta you gotta protect your your turf right? Man, the practice areas of the husband and wife law team are, there's some escalation here. And I love that there are separate practice areas for the three things I'm about to name. Car accidents, motorcycle accidents, truck accidents listed separately,

personal injury, construction accidents, dog bites, slip and fall, wrongful death. And it's like, wow, that one at the end is like quite a crescendo oh nursing home abuse yeesh amish um yeah the the local the local flavor on um on broadcasts is is great like it you know you really do feel like you are being grounded in a place even though to your point like like every place has maybe a different personal injury firm. But they sure do advertise a lot. They spend a lot of money on advertising those personal injury lawyers. They do, yeah.

And technically, they work for free. Unless they win. No, they do not work for free. Yeah, exactly. Unless they win. But I do enjoy that a lot. Yeah, it's a good part of it. And you're right.

Like, they just will go in, you know, broadcasts go into a game. They know they have nine innings to fill. And that most of that is going to be occupied by the action on the field. But that sometimes a former player wants to talk about his chicken and waffles. I can understand being really, like, Crook getting really into the chicken and waffles is understandable both because chicken and waffles delicious. And also it's a you got a knife and fork that, you know. Yeah. It's not like a hot dog where you can just pick it up and eat it.

It is kind of a strange ballpark. Yeah, it's not. It's not straightforward as ballpark food goes. So I get being into it. But yes, it does end up being a funny backdrop to these like big moments and like with lorenzo and he was so inefficient in the early innings of that game that even though they you know he just figured he was gonna get to a point where he was at 100 pitches through five innings and was gonna have to be done so yeah

yeah i uh i wrote last week about how i I find the broadcaster superstition about not talking about no-hitters kind of funny. Yeah. Because it's so dumb. It's so dumb. It's so performatively dumb. Yes. And then I never know if the people doing it are being performative or actually dumb. Are they in on the joke or not?

Yeah. And that adds a layer of enjoyment to it for me. Yes. But for the first half of that game, they weren't doing that. They just were like, we don't even need to talk about it. Yeah. Yeah.

They weren't avoiding it. It just seemed like such an odd thing to assume might happen. And it never came up because it wasn't going to happen. Yeah. It wasn't going to happen. And then, and then it did. Okay.

Do you have any other things that you want to share about baseball that you've liked lately? I have one thing. It's not about baseball that I've liked lately. Okay. But I do think it's interesting. Okay. Okay, so you are a Mariners fan. Yes. How long do you think it has been

since the Mariners finished ahead of the Astros in the standings? Like finished the season ahead of the Astros? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Finished the season, you know, on the last day of the season, had a better run. Well, it was probably, I mean, almost certainly during one of their, the Astros tanking years, they were ahead of them. Certainly, yeah. So, I don't know, 2013.

So, 2014, they finished slightly ahead of them. Okay. They actually won 87 games in 2014. Yeah, there were some years in there where it's like, you really couldn't have just... Excuse me, I swear. They also finished ahead of them in 2016. They both had winning records. Okay, yeah, sure.

So it actually hasn't been that long, even though, you know, the Astros are this dominant team. Right. And the Mariners have at times been sad sacks. Yeah. When do you think the last time the Pirates finished ahead of the Cardinals is?

Oh, gosh, a really long time like um let's see we are in uh 2023 famously i'm gonna guess 20 we'll see now it's like what year what year were the Pirates in the postseason? But they went as a wild card. 13 and 14. But they weren't division winners that year, right? Maybe it was 14 and 15. They were not division winners. I'm going to guess 2010.

That's not a bad guess. The correct answer is 1999. Shut up. Really? Yeah, when they went 78 and 83 and the Cardinals went 75 and 86. Wow. So since then, we'll just do this really quickly. The Cardinals won in 2000. Right. The Cardinals got second in 2001. They tied the Astros and lost on tiebreaker. The Pirates got bad right after that. Yeah. The Cardinals started winning. The Pirates never put together a good team when

the Cardinals were even decent. They've come a little bit close a few times. In 2015, actually, memorably, the Cardinals, Cubs, Pirates finished with 199 and 98 wins, more or less respectively. I think maybe the Cubs won 98 and Pirates won 99, but the Cardinals won 100 games. And so they finished ahead. And so this is the longest streak ever in any professional sport, any major American professional sport, of one team finishing ahead of another team in their division. It's never happened. And, like, it's never happened

this long. And they're tied right now. They're tied in the 2023 standings. So going down the stretch, there's a very fun, silly chase to watch. Because if this streak continues through this year, it could continue for a long time. Yeah. Like, the Pirates, I don't have a lot of faith that they're actually going to be able to put this together. Yeah. The Cardinals, I do have a lot of faith that they're not going to be this bad. Sure. Going forward.

They're just like, I don't know, they're going to spend a lot more money. They're not going to keep getting near 100 losses. And I think the Pirates probably will here and there. Right. So this is like, if this doesn't happen this year, if the Cardinals finish ahead of them, this streak could go on a long time. Yeah. It started in 1999. Yeah. that was last century like 2010 i thought was a pretty good guess

and it's like half the length yeah it's uh so that is something that i am going to be watching down the stretch eagerly is the thing that i'm most interested in in the cardinal season that and lars newt bar i love yeah there's a lot on the line for history in a way that is not on I'm most interested in in the Cardinals season. That and Lars Knudbar, who I love. Yeah. There's a lot on the line for history in a way that is not on the line at all for any of the players on either team. And I think that's kind of interesting. Yeah. How about that?

Wow. Well, I have one thing to ask you about, and then I have a future blast to close us out. And then you will have fulfilled your substitute band obligations for effectively a while through the week but I want to run quickly through our current division winners and ask you if there are any who you think might end up not being the division winner that doesn't mean that they have to miss the postseason, but not being the division winner when the season comes to a close.

So we'll start in the American League. We have right at this moment the Baltimore Orioles. They are up on the Rays three games, the Rays being their closest competition. Give me the Orioles. Okay. The Minnesota Twins, which we have famously noted, they are up four and a half games as we record today on Tuesday. Yeah, give me the Twins, which we have famously noted they are up four and a half games as we record today on Tuesday. Yeah, give me the Twins.

Okay. The Texas Rangers up three and a half on the Houston Astros. I... Oh, man. This is the one that gives me a little bit of pause. I'm going to say the Rangers will do it. Okay. I think that the Astros are probably a better team.

But I think three and a half games is enough that I'm willing to take it. God, this is not going well for me. Well, I was about to say this is all very chalky. The Atlanta Braves up 11 and a half games. I'll give it to the Braves. It's close. Okay. The

Milwaukee Brewers currently up three and a half on the Cincinnati Reds. I'm going to say they all stay in front. I'm sorry, Meg. That's okay. That's okay. You know, it's just good to check in on these things every now and again. I do think it's worth saying that the Brewers,

I'm only picking them because Corbin Burns got good again. Yeah. And he is your favorite. Or at least. I like him. He's one of your strong favorites. They badly needed some good player on the team. Yeah. And he is your favorite. Or at least. I like him. He's one of your strong favorites. They badly needed some good player on that team. Yeah.

They needed like one player who was good. Yeah. They didn't really have that. Yeah. Like no offense Brewers. Before then they were just like kind of hoping to get it together. So like the Cubs are pretty close to me picking the cubs yeah over them but i think that burns being good and just that division being really bad yeah is

enough to kind of see them through the end of the year wow god no this brewers team is just not good it's not it's not especially good and and you mentioned the cubs and i should say that they are also technically three and a half back of the Brewers. So, sorry, Reds. And it's a funny thing, right, because we were recording on August 15th, and I'm sitting here going, well, it's probably, I mean, there might be minor movement here and there, but it's probably all chalk. And then you think about it in comparison to opening day. And then you think about it in comparison to opening day. Our playoff odds prior to opening day thought it's going to be the's a bit... It happens earlier, and then we get teams that are surprisingly fun and good.

If the postseason ended today, the Miami Marlins would be a playoff team. The Giants, the Phillies, the Cubs and Cincy, they're not super far off, at least in... I don't know if they're going to displace any of those teams. Probably Miami. That seems like it's possible. What a weird team that team is.

Miami? It's a weird team, Ben. It's a very strange team. Yeah. Well, if you will bear with me for one moment, we will do the future blast. The future blast, as always, is brought to you by Rick Wilber. Rick is an award-winning writer, editor, and college professor, and has been described as the dean of science fiction baseball.

And this Future Blast comes from the year 2046. In 2046, baseball offered some moments of joy to a nation and a world worried about the new Cold War turning hot in the Pacific and in Europe, where armies and navies were poised to do battle. In the Pacific, baseball took a distant backseat to national defense as a belligerent China continued to threaten Taiwan, so some of MLB's most talented players from nearby Japan and South Korea were at home and in uniform when spring training began. In Europe and the UK, things were calmer as Russia agreed to the Helsinki Agreement and backed away from its threat to attack NATO members Finland and Poland.

In the baseball parks of America, Canada, and Mexico, the Louisville Colonels were the surprise success of the first half of the season, 22 games over.500 and eight games in front of the AL Central at the All-Star break, with excellent starting pitching, a durable bullpen, and hot bats from both rookie sensation Jonathan McLeod and the well-traveled DH veteran Colton Oleski. The Colonels stayed hot right through the summer and finished with 115 wins, then weaved their way through the truncated postseason with no Asia teams taking part to win the franchise's first World Series 4-3 over the Brewers, who'd had a great

season themselves, winning 110 games and cruising through their postseason. The seventh game of the series in Louisville's shiny new apple field was an epic 11 10 win for the colonels with a walk-off home run by jonathan mcleod on the first pitch of the bottom of the 12th inning mcleod's baseball ballplayer brothers rather kenton and jalen were in the stands to help celebrate his heroic so the future blasts are getting increasingly worrisome from a geopolitical perspective but the glimpses of baseball have been delightful. Ben, thank you so much for joining me today for subbing for Other Ben. He is Other Ben while you are here.

Is there anything that you would like to specifically promote that you've written lately that you've engaged in? You want to tell people why they should be playing Magic the Gathering? They should play it if they like it, because I think it's a fun game with a lot of, like a very high skill ceiling and a fun way to put some of your brain muscles to use in a way that feels fun and rewarding. But, you know, that's you.

That's what you want to do with your free time. In terms of things to promote, Fangraphs is great. A lot of good writing there. Yeah. I haven't read anything that I'm like particularly not proud of or proud of recently. Okay.

I think I've been writing pretty well. If you want to read me gush about Lars Nudbar, that is currently up on the website. Yeah. Nice feature position for it. And aside from that, that's kind of the most recent thing I wrote. But yeah, I write this five things column every week. If you enjoyed us just talking

about random things that happened in baseball that were like notable or interesting, honestly, not notable, almost, almost exclusively not notable. There's not a lot of a lot of notable things in this. I like a lot of weird bunts and that kind of thing. But yeah, if you kind of enjoy that, there's one of those every week-ish. Mostly. I take some breaks sometimes because it's a lot of work. But yeah, that's always a highlight of my week. And yeah, Fangraphs is great.

You should go there and read stuff. I agree. It's great. You should go there and read stuff, particularly Ben, because he's here with us today. Well, Ben, thanks so much. Yeah, thanks for having me. That'll do it for today. Thank you for listening, and thank you to Ben Clemens for joining me so that temporarily other Ben can be in Sweden. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following five listeners have already signed

out to help keep the podcast humming and ad-free. Robert Cope, Thomas Masterman, Richard, Jim Pergolizzi, and Lisa Holt. Thanks so much. Your Patreon membership also comes with a variety of perks, including monthly bonus episodes, access to the Effectively Wild Discord group and our playoff streams, as well as discounts on merchandise and complimentary Fangraphs memberships. You might even get to come on an episode and chat with me and Ben. It all depends on your level of support, but every level of support is greatly appreciated. You can check out all the offerings on patreon.com. You can also join our Facebook group, facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild, and you can rate, review, and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and other podcast platforms. Keep your questions and comments for

me and Ben coming via email at podcast at fangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you're a supporter. And if you're musically inclined, we're still looking for theme song submissions, so keep those coming. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his production and editing assistance. He's already edited this outro a couple of times. Will he leave in me stumbling over his name? I don't know. It's up to him. I'll be back with another episode later this week. Until then, be well and enjoy baseball. Lindbergh and Meg Riley I want to hear about Shohei Ohtani Or Mike Trout

With three arms