Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2064: All Down the Foul Line

Episode Date: September 27, 2023

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about The Rolling Stones’ credentials as a baseball band, Mike Trout’s slow healing, more Padres reporting and one-run-game whiplash, the Mariners’ rough stretch, how well this year’s playoff teams are built for October, and the most bonkers stats of the season, plus a few follow-ups. Audio intro: Dave Armstrong and […]

If baseball were different, how different would it be? And if this thought haunts your dreams, well, stick around and see what Ben and Meg have to say. Philosophically and pedantically, it's Effectively Wild. Effectively Wild. Effectively Wild! Hello and welcome to episode 2064 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Raleigh of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello. Help me out with this PR email. I just got a baseball-related PR email.

So as you may be aware, the Rolling Stones are releasing. Yeah, dude, I don't know. I got this one, too. It's so weird. When you think baseball, you think the Rolling Stones. And vice versa, really. When you think Rolling Stones, immediately your mind goes to baseball. So the Rolling Stones have a new album coming out next month. It's called Hackney Diamonds,

which again, just screams baseball. The London borough of Hackney, just famous for its baseball connections. So, look, I'm in the target market for this. I like the Stones. I'm going to be listening to the Stones album. The single was fine. It's Stones-y, you know, you're not expecting much from a original material Stones album in 2023, but it's the first one in almost 20 years. I'll be listening, but wasn't really thinking about a baseball tie-in until this was announced on Tuesday. So the Rolling Stones and Major League Baseball have teamed up to release limited edition vinyl of Hackney Diamonds. Okay. Available exclusively at the Stones website, this extremely limited true collector's item will feature custom art for each of the 30 MLB clubs in pocket jackets housing single disc baseball white vinyl. disc baseball white vinyl. So, you can order basically Hackney diamonds in vinyl

with your team's logo and colors, like the stone's tongue logo, but with stitches on it. Yeah. And also with the three-letter team designation and sort of the team's colors,

kind of. So they justify this partnership here. Now, this is the interesting part. The Rolling Stones and Major League Baseball have had a long history together. Have they? That's what I thought. That's exactly what I wondered when I read that sentence. And the paragraph goes on to explain that log history, which consists entirely of the fact that the Stones have played in a bunch of ballparks. That's it. which at the time people jokingly called it the Steel Wheelchairs Tour because they were so old, right?

And that was 1989, more than 30 years ago. They're still going. Yeah. So 1989, the Steel Wheels Tour came through North America playing half of the dates at homes or previous homes to Major League Baseball teams. Okay. So they played a bunch of ballparks. They had like a little residency at Shea. They played a bunch of datesparks. They had like a little residency at Shea. They played a bunch of dates there.

Fine. Okay. The Bridges to Babylon tour in 1997 saw the Stones perform at Dodger Stadium. Okay. The A Bigger Bang tour led off in August 2005 with two shows at Boston's Fenway Park. End of paragraph. End of long history together between MLB and the Rolling Stones. That's it.

Yeah. By effectively wild Sam Miller baseball labeling, what constitutes a baseball thing? If there's any tangential relationship to baseball, it's a baseball whatever. Then I guess we could say that the Rolling Stones are a baseball band because they've played a bunch of ballparks. But if that's it, if that's all you got, then I don't know that you can say that they have a long history together and that it makes sense for this tie-in to happen. Yeah. History together is suggestive of like a relationship,

is suggestive of like a relationship like a real meeting of the minds and exchange a tete-a-tete yeah sending of uh christmas cards or you know other holiday cards yeah i don't think that like these two entities and it's weird to talk about a relationship between entities i mean i know that the rolling stones are a band made out of people and mlb is a corporate entity is like a you know employs a bunch of people but like they're like they're entities you know yes the rolling stones are definitely a corporate entity as well so yeah and like you know when arbor day comes and goes i don't think they've thought of each other even one time you know so you know the most important the most important holiday yeah what holidays do they have in the uk saint christmas day christmas christmas day sure on on thames you know that holiday yeah it strains the understanding we have because like Because, like, the beauty of Sam's definition is that it doesn't require big, invested, central concerns relationship from one end to the other,

but not a coming together of rock and roll, you know, which is a kind of personal, you know, for all its bigness, for all the arena of it all sometimes, like a kind of full of feeling genre, right? Like rock and rolling, Ben. Sure. So I don't think that this makes much sense at all. And I have to say, if what they wanted, they could have leaned into the degree to which the art that they attached to this email, for me, evokes the spooky season, because you got the stitches and you got it on the tongue.

And Ben, that's disgusting. And, you know, some of these tongues don't look well. They look on well. You know, the Rockies one is purple. They look diseased, yes. Yeah, some of them look jaundiced. You know, some of them look like the White Sox one looks like it's ready to rot right out of somebody's head.

like it's ready to rot right out of somebody's head. So it's weird that they picked the less stark color for San Francisco. They put the orange on sort of a pink background with a black tongue. And I think it's probably because it's sitting right next to the D-backs one, but it makes the SF impossible to read. Anyway, this is strange. Of all the rock groups why the stones i mean the answer is because they have something coming out like that yeah that's the you know because baseball the stones both appeal to old white guys we understand but like if one were gonna pick a band like a rock band right to tag to baseball of the currently around guys wouldn't you pick

pearl jam because eddie vetter has seemed to like weirdly worm his way into the hits the vetter classic what are we doing ben i mean we're trying to sell stuff i understand what we're actually doing but like philosophically what are we yeah what are we doing? The Stones website shop says this is an exclusive collector's edition baseball white vinyl celebrating the new album and historic legacy of Rolling Stones and MLB. No, no, there's no legacy. No, no, I reject this. I reject it. Even among bands that played ballparks for no other reason than the fact that they have big capacity.

It's not like the Rolling Stones, like the Steel Wheels tour was like, you know what? We want to honor our love for baseball. Right. Our legacy within the game. No, they just wanted to play a bunch of big venues because they can sell them out. So, of course, they're going to go to sports places and arenas and ballparks. So that makes sense. It's not because of some affinity for baseball. But I don't know that you would even say that there was some, like, iconic moment for the

Stones in a ballpark more so than others. Like, some bands, I mean, you could say the Beatles are more of a baseball band than the Stones because they have the Shea concert and their final live concert other than playing the roof of the Apple building was at Candlestick. So you could say there are some really iconic moments and outfits of the Beatles associated with baseball or at least baseball stadia. Whereas I don't know that you could really say. If you're thinking of sports places associated with the Stones, it'd probably be Altamont Raceway, which would not be fond memories. Maybe that's the real thing, right? of the Rolling Stones and racing areas, speedways, I guess. Yeah, I don't know.

It's a very awkward partnership. I'm sure they'll sell these out probably because it sounds like it's limited capacity. And again, lots of baseball fans like the Rolling Stones and I suppose a lot of Rolling Stones fans like baseball. Name them our iconic duo, the Rolling Stones and Major League Baseball. Elton John and the dodgers like sure i would think of elton john and and dodger stadium before i would think of the

rolling stones and any venue that happens to be a ballpark yeah like uh ben you know, we've gotten dumber PR emails. Like, to be clear, we get so many bad ones. You know, we get so, so many. So I'm like, who, you know, do these work? Like, are people booking off of these? Is that a thing? It's because of the famous Rolling Stones song, Paint It Black, which is about throwing a pitch just right at the edge of the strike zone. Okay.

Anyway, I guess they got us to talk about it on a podcast. Now you all know it exists. The marketing ploy worked and we fell for it. I feel had, Ben. I feel had, although I still think that the Rolling Stones one is better than the marketing email we got that didn't have a successful mail merge, but assured us that they could, in fact, market our podcast very well, even though they didn't get our name in there. Yeah. It's your podcast name here. So, a few updates here.

A sort of a sad update. Mike Trout done for the season, unsurprisingly. Here's the thing. Mike Trout's comebacks from his injuries. It's not the fact that he gets injured. It's how long it takes for him to return. I made this point recently. But now that it's been confirmed that he will not be returning from his hematopoietic surgery.

I mean, he did return from it. He played one game and then he went right back on the IL after Otani got hurt and still hasn't returned. And this is not quite to the point of his calf strain that somehow ended his season, even though everyone expected him to be back with plenty of time to spare. But again, like he went on the I.L. on July 4th. July 3rd was the last game he played. And everyone said four to eight weeks. That's the typical time frame to return. And yeah, there might be some lingering performance effects after that.

But that's when people tend to come back. And I guess technically he made it back during that window. He made it back on August 22nd, but then he went right back again and then missed another month plus somehow. So it's like in a nightmare when you're trying to get away from something or get to something and somehow you never can. It's like you just asymptotically approach your destination. You just you get closer and closer, but you never quite reach it or you can't quite escape the thing that's chasing you. It's like Mike Trout's rehab process. He just it's seemingly injuries that should not end his season.

And yet they end the season. It's very frustrating, obviously, more for him than for us. Obviously more for him than for us, but even for us, he's now played in fewer than half of the Angels scheduled games since the start of 2021. And he sounds frustrated. He talked about how he has a whole team of people he worked with over the offseason to get his body right and figure out how to deal with his back issue and help him stay on the field, which he was doing until this hemate issue, which does seem like sort of a freak thing that can happen to anyone at any time. And yet, 82 games played in 2023. And that's it.

Yep. After 119 last year and 36, of course, in 2021. It's just immensely frustrating. Yeah. He's said, you know, he reiterated that he's still planning to talk to Artie Moreno and the Angels brain trust. Can you call it that in the Angels case? Oh, boy. He said some boilerplate about how he's looking forward to showing up in spring training with the Angels again.

Like he sounds like he's trying to tamp down the trade rumors a little bit, but it's not out of the question. It's just so appropriate, I guess, that the Angels end this season. That was their last hope and last hurrah with Trout, Otani and Rendon all injured for some time. That's that's the way it had to end, I guess. What do you even do? Like so much of this is just like either the injury itself is a fluke thing or the severity of his reaction to it seems to be out of sync with what is typical. And, you know, it's not like the guy isn't trying to come back and play baseball. Like, he clearly is giving it, you know, his best. And that tends to be pretty good.

So, it has to be incredibly frustrating for him. But at this point, you're just, I don't know, maybe in some ways, I'm going to try to find a silver lining here. And you can tell me if it is remotely compelling to you or if you feel patronized. Okay. That's what we're going to... In some ways, maybe this is an okay spot for him to land, given the realities of his injury history. Because what are your expectations of Mike Trout going to be next year? They're going to be pretty low in all likelihood.

And I think that at this point, that isn't just a matter of how often is he going to be able to take the field, but like we have to start thinking about like, are these sort of compounding injuries that might meaningfully adjust our expectations of what he looks like once he is on the field. And then, like, he's my trout. So maybe he'll just be like, you silly billies, I'm great again. And then we'll all get to sit here and go, oh, look it, return of the trout.

And we'll be so excited. But is that compelling? Do you find that persuasive at all that actually, given that he's been hurt, and we have to acknowledge that he's been hurt, but like given that maybe like a lowered set of expectations is actually good? I tried. Yeah. I mean, it would be nice if he actually does come back and have a healthy peak trout-esque season. Then doing that on the heels of all of these compromised seasons, I would be even more excited about it. So that much is true. Yeah.

one more season in the sun, one more season when he plays 150 games and puts up eight or whatever, then that would be nice. I would cherish and savor that more having been through these few frustrating seasons. So, yeah. Each injury, I guess, makes it less likely that that will happen, if only because it certainly seems now, less likely that that will happen, if only because it certainly seems now, even if these are freak injuries, even if a calf strain has nothing to do with a hamate, has nothing to do with a back, although the back seems like it might be more of a chronic issue that he has to continue to deal with. But even if that's the case, it seems like the consistent factor here is that he just

has a hard time coming back from these things. So when he does get hurt, perhaps, I assume there's some genetic difference and lifestyle-related difference probably too, although I would assume he's doing everything he can to get back on the field. But there's got to be some variation in healing rates. We joke about like Wolverine healing factors for Bryce Harper, but I'm sure that there is some difference, right, in how fast Mike Trout heals versus Bryce Harper heals or just individuals in general. And that seems to be manifesting itself here. Or maybe it's the weight of all the many hypotheticals that we and our listeners have posed over the years being like, how might we hobble this great man? Like, if we could, how would we hobble him? And then all of a sudden,

like the fates came down and we're like, look, Mike, we got some like bills to pay. We didn't know, but here we are. And it's my fault for saying like, hey, what if Mike Trout were to like eat a lot of meat? Like, what if he only ate meat? Would it make him worse at baseball? And so maybe he's also, in addition to his injuries we know about, he is like just eating meat. And that's causing other issues, you know. It's as good an explanation as any. It's not a real explanation just in case anyone is confused.

But one time I was like, what would happen if Mike Trout only ate meat? Like meat, meat, meat, meat, meat. And you know, it's not good for you. Don't do that. Like whatever podcasters might tell you, that's not a good idea. No, we're not the liver king over here at Effectively Wild. Like the name, somebody goes, hey, you're going to be known as the liver king. And that isn't an immediate reality check for you. That's not just not just like oh i have strayed far from god's light like clearly i think he branded himself as the liver kick so he did not object to it at all like i can get down with a lot of weird protein or weird by by american standards right because like the weirdness is is definitely culturally determined but like i don't think people should eat filters. That's really what it comes down to for me and the liver stuff. It's like, that's a filter. It's like chewing on my air

conditioning filter. Oh, I need to change my air conditioning filter. See, this has been a productive conversation, Ben. Yeah. Well, the liver king is definitely not all natural. He's not exclusively eating liver. He's taking all sorts of performance enhancing or at least appearance enhancing. I don't know that I would even go that far. But anyway, this is altering appearance, altering. Yes. Altering. Yeah. This is not a liver king expose podcast. There are plenty of those out there. What I wanted to say, though, is that, you know, we talked about the angels all the time when Trout was healthy and Otani was healthy. And there were people starting to suggest, like, is Ben just an Angels fan at this point? He's watching all this Angels baseball.

People were annoyed by that a little bit. I protested. I was like, I'm like a Trout-Otani fan or at least someone who's fascinated by them and following them more so than the Angels. And, like, if you took those players off of the Angels, I would no longer have any interest in the Angels. And maybe people thought I was protesting too much. I'm here to tell you, I have not watched a second of Angels baseball in the week since these guys have both been hurt. I mean, they've played some games with playoff implications. So I've followed those games, I suppose, but I haven't watched the Angels broadcast of those games. I'm not paying attention to them because of the Angels.

I'm paying attention to them solely because of their opponents. So yeah, no lingering affection for the Angels. You take Trout Notani off of the Angels roster and I will not be tuning in. I have confirmed over the past month or so. Somebody needs to transcribe that and send it to the Angels and be like, oh boy, we really goofed it. I guess we goofed it. They probably know, though, I think. Yeah, I think they're aware.

And a follow-up on the Padres, who we devoted most of an episode to last week. They are basically done-zo as we record now because they lost another extra innings game. They lost another one-run game at some point since we last recorded. And what I was reminded of by Rob Maines, who just wrote about them again for Baseball Perspectives, when we were talking about the year-to-year volatility

when it comes to records in one-run games, et cetera, I noted that their clutch issues or their difficulty in winning close games was not a persistent problem for them, was not something that plagued them last year. What I had forgotten or never known is that they actually had the best record in one run in extra inning games in 2022. So Rob wrote that they were 34 and 17 in one run in extra inning games last year. I think that's not including duplicates, but 667 winning percentage in those games, again, with mostly the same team and the same organization, right? They went from

best to one of the worst ever. So again, I think that lends some credence to the idea that whatever organizational or motivational issues they may have, that is not the primary problem here. At least I don't think it is. I'm not saying it's not a contributing factor, but I just don't see how largely the same group of people goes from best to worst by far, just from one season to the next, if it's some kind of character flaw. The whiplash that you have to experience. I mean, like, I think that after a certain amount of time, my suspicion is that you would be focused more on the feeling of being cursed than disoriented. But in the beginning, you got to sit there and go, wait a minute, this normally goes okay for us. You know, this is normally, this is normally fine. What's going on? You know, and then after a while, you while you'd be like well we were being haunted by a sea witch or something you know and you know what do you do like those sea witches they'll come and get you it's like uh seattle in september you think it's going to be fine and then it's february and you haven't seen the sun in six months yeah i wasn't going to ask you for a mariner's check-in just out of uh compassion and consideration. Respect for me and my family, for our privacy in this trying

time. Yes. And also these things are changing from day to day by the time people hear this. That's so optimistic of you. That is so optimistic of you. My stars. What a kind friend you are, really, Ben. Like everyone says that about you. I mean, they do say that. I'm being snarky, but that is actually a sincere thing that people say. define it i like if i could pick one word it would be suck because it's been pretty bad i actually was in seattle or you know just north of seattle uh to see the family this past weekend get a last little bit of r and r in before I go into my playoff hole. And, you know, it feels worse when the Mariners are bad when you're surrounded by other people who also care about them. So that's a reality we're living every day and trying to take one stupid game at a time.

Yeah, that Rangers series was pretty bad. They had their chances, you know. They had some moments where it looked like, maybe though. And then they didn't do that. So, real roller coaster of a season. Yep. I don't quite, I'm not settled into my final opinion of it yet. Because to your point, like it's not technically done.

No. But it feels pretty close to that. So, you know, but who knows? You know, maybe they will just win out. Maybe the Rangers will lose to the Angels. Maybe the Astros will come down here to Arizona and Paul Seawald in a show of solidarity and affection for his former club will just close the door on a series that the D-backs need, you know.

So if we're going to look for hope, we might find it there. But looking for hope in the D-backs bullpen is like kind of a tricky proposition. So, you know, it doesn't, it's not the best, but, you know, Julio's still good, so that's nice. We'll return to this topic when all is said and done, one way or another, I'm sure. I will say this. Try this take on for a set of eyes, Ben. You let me know if I'm just engaged in really obvious cope here. I think that like the tired take is the Mariners are bad. And the wired take might be that none of the ALS teams are actually that good. Yeah. You know, they've all had their moments over the last couple of weeks

where they have looked quite vulnerable. And their, you know, their moments haven't lined up, which is why there's been so much back and forth in the standings. But I was sitting here this morning thinking about the podcast and what I wanted to say on this topic because I thought, you know, this probably didn't come up. And I was thinking to myself, like, we know that the Orioles are good. We do know that they are also vulnerable and i know that it pains orioles fans to think about

their pitching relative to some of the other pitching but i think it's i think it's not unfair to say that like there is other pitching in the postseason that is better you know i'm not saying it's all bad i'm just saying like it's not all good you know yeah so a lot of it is mostly just like pretty average is probably the the most accurate way to describe it and then like you have the rays and they can do razy stuff and then you have the twins who speaking of teams that might be haunted by a sea witch you know like their postseason fortunes are very variable and then like you're gonna have probably you know the like their postseason fortunes are very variable. And then like you're going to have probably, you know, the Astros and Rangers and also the Blue Jays who have been weird and fluky all season.

And so I guess what I'm trying to say is I haven't made the staff make predictions. And so I haven't thought about my own yet because the field isn't set. So I, you know, but I suspect that I am going to end up taking an NL team for my eventual World Series winner. And that's not to say that there aren't pieces of these NL rosters that are also vulnerable. Like I'm not convinced that the Brewers actually field nine hitters at any given time, you know, and the Phillies, I don't know, the Phillies, I'm not going to try to understand. understand they're just like the vibes are good and i'm not going to ask you any questions about it because some of those fans still scare me and uh the diamondbacks bullpen quite vulnerable they have stretches where they're very streaky i don't know what i think of the cubs the dodgers have

their own pitching concerns even though they got you know wins, Ben. So all of that to say, it feels like the NL is the likely home to the World Series winner. But I don't feel like, with the exception of Atlanta, there's no team in this postseason field where I'm like, oh boy, indestructible. And of course, no team in the postseason is actually indestructible because there's so few games relative to the rest. But there's a lot of vulnerability. There's a lot of obvious vulnerability for many of these postseason squats. Yeah. Yeah, very much so. Yeah. I was actually going to bring that up because Dan Szymborski just did a post at Fangraphs about how teams are built for postseason success. And Dan would be the first to acknowledge, as he does in this article, that there's only limited utility to trying to define who's actually suited for the postseason or what factors lead to postseason success. He, among many others, has written about that

before and has found next to nothing predictive other than how good the team is. That's the main predictive factor. And even that isn't all that predictive. But other than that, kind of squishy. Yeah. Home run reliance, he has found, as I have found and others have found, is actually a benefit in the postseason. And he's found that's especially true against better pitchers, the best postseason pitchers, which makes sense, I think, because the reason why it helps in general in the playoffs is that you're facing better pitching and better defensive teams. And so it's tough to string together a bunch of positive events on offense. And so if you can just have a home run, then you don't have to rely on long sequence offense. So it makes sense that that would be even more true against your October aces.

So other than those factors, he just, you know, he's tested all of them, all of the momentum and how you finish the season and age and experience and all these things. And none of it just seems to matter at all except how good the team is really. Even the home run reliance factor is a minor one. at how the team has performed all season versus how it is currently constituted and how the postseason roster is constructed versus the entirety of the roster. We talked about this with the Mariners, right? When it looked more likely that the Mariners were going to be a playoff team. Again, so generous of you, Ben.

What a kind way of phrasing that. Yeah. We were saying that it seemed like maybe the Mariners would sort of be built for the playoffs So generous of you, Ben. What a kind way of phrasing that. each team to look like and then took into account the schedule and just looked at what the projections would be for that postseason roster versus the regular season roster, which obviously is going to include players who are no longer even on the roster or wouldn't be playing in the playoffs. So giving more emphasis to the top tier talent, the top of your rotation that's going to be throwing a higher percentage of your innings and the back of your bullpen, same. And then also taking into account your offense and how it's composed.

And so he has sort of a regular season roster strength projection versus a playoff roster strength projection. versus a playoff roster strength projection. And cruelly, the Padres actually are the team that would have the biggest boost in their playoff strength relative to their regular season strength, which I guess, again, is due to some top heaviness and the construction of the lineup and everything. So he's not saying they're going to make the playoffs. He has a table of eliminated teams

that he just ran for funsies and to torment fans of those teams that will not actually get to see them in the playoffs. And it turns out that the Padres' projection is like 38 points of winning percentage higher, which is a bigger increase than

any other teams. And sadly for them, they will not get to actually show that they would be a better postseason team. Although if they had somehow snuck in, then yeah, you probably would have been sort of scared of the Padres, even though they're down Joe Musgrove and Hugh Darvish. Still, you would have said, okay, wipe the slate clean. This is the playoff Padres.

They could be as good as they were expected to be. No zombie runner in the playoffs. They've been terrible with the zombie runner in extra innings. So this is starting from scratch. But no, they don't get to start from scratch. Actually, there was an article in the San Diego Union Tribune by Kevin Acey, who wrote one of those deep dives, what went wrong postmortem articles that we talked about last week. And he was talking about how there's uncertainty about the front office and will there be change with Preller? Will there be change with Melvin? And also expectations that the payroll will be pared down.

Right. And some reporting about how the Padres aren't in compliance with MLB's debt service ratio in the CPA. And so they've got to cut payroll. And even though their revenue has increased, seemingly doubled since 2018, apparently there are concerns about the fact that they are still spending a lot of money. And there's a line that says, team officials have been talking for more than a year, even as massive checks were still being written about getting costs under control. So there's some indication here that

the spending increases have outpaced the revenue increases and all the owners and execs who were sitting back this spring and saying, this isn't sustainable, I guess, maybe are kind of crowing about this now, but it's partly because of the extreme ill luck that they've had this year, which who could have seen that coming, but says that they are going to try to get their payroll down to not low, but maybe like 200 million instead of what it's been this year, which is what, like 250 or something in that range, I think. Yeah, 255, according to Roster Resource, which is going to be tough for them because they have all these players under long-term contracts, right? If you look at the Roster Resource page, then it says 128 million in 2024 commitments, but that's not including arbitration raises like Juan Soto is probably going to be making $30 million or something in his last year

before free agency. So it's sounding like, per this reporting, that they might have to let go or they might be inclined to let go of Snell and Hader and other free agents and then there's even talk of will they have to trade Soto like which would be a very sad outcome of all of this if you could just bet on a bounce back and say they'll have better luck next year just run it back it can't help but be better but if their failures this season force them or encourage them to cut payroll then maybe the bounce back won't come or at least won't come as strongly as if they actually kept this group

together like the core will be together one way or another right but if they have to trim around the edges a little bit then it's not going to help them have a resurgent season where they make everyone forget 2023. No, and it's so, it's so, it's such a, oh, Ben, it's such a bummer, right? Because there are so many things about the whole thing that are so fluky and weird and that you would expect to just be freaking normal or more normal, more normal, you know, not even all the way normal, Ben, like more normal. Just slightly more normal would have been enough for them. It would have been enough. That's wild. And, you know, you think about, it's not like they are

completely like devoid of any farm system talent they have some they have a couple guys who are really exciting but like is another shortstop gonna be what makes the difference right they're they're jackson is that enough is is a god every time i i have to think about how young ethan solace is it just makes me feel like a pile of sand. Yeah. Like a bunch of dust held together by, I don't know, sadness about the Mariners. But like, you know, you're not going to look to Ethan Salas to save the franchise. You're not like, this is, but like, I can see why people could talk themselves into it a little bit, you know?

Like, I don't think that they will. I don't know. Maybe they will. People in San Diego seem pretty happy on average. So like, maybe they'll be like, yeah, you know, it'll be fine. But it's not like they're the best farm system in baseball. And it's not like the guys they have who are really good are necessarily close. You know, it's not a bad system.

I think we have them like, I don't know, somewhere between like 11 and 11. Wow. What could be in my brain if I didn't have that holster? Jeez. But it's a lot of their guys are kind of far. You want to you don't want to rush a 17 year old to the big leagues. I mean, you want to send him there if he's ready, but like, wow, that seems like a tall order at catcher.

So, you know, it's just like going to be a weird year. I feel like we're going to look at the Padres and they're going to be like a Rorschach test. You know, the real precise alchemy that resulted in this like completely bizarre season for them is going to be hard to discern over time and so we're going to sort of hang our hats on alchemy hanging hats bizarre anyway i think that people are going to kind of see what they want to see there and i am nervous

that the narrative that will get the greatest currency will be well so i don't spend so much money returning to dan's playoff projections your your inkling that it seems like the nl field is the edge over the al field backed up by the fan graphs playoff odds which has it about 60 40 that the world series winner will come from the nl it's uh 59.5 versus 40.4 to precise. And I guess there's probably a 0.1 of rounding lost somewhere in there, but that is largely because of Atlanta, of course. And the thing about Dan's post is that I mentioned that the Padres, would they have made the playoffs, would have had the biggest increase in playoff roster strength versus regular season roster

strength. Second biggest increase is the Braves, which seems unfair because they're so good already that they don't need any extra help. But it looks like the format will favor them too, I guess, because they have such an overpowering offense. And also, I guess, because of some concerns about the depth of the pitching staff, which will not be such a concern in the playoffs. Charlie Morton has a finger problem and he's going to miss a little time in the playoffs, it looks like. But you might be concerned about them if you were starting a season now with some of the pitching depth issues that they've had, although seemingly they could just slug their way past that anyway, they've had some pitching problems at some points this season and it hasn't held them back. But it really doesn't look like it will hold them back in October, given the demands on a playoff pitching staff and how low they are relative to the regular season.

So the Braves are the team that seems to benefit the most. And then the Astros, which I guess makes sense for similar reasons. There's sort of depth issues there, but the top of the staff, some of those guys have struggled. Like, the Astros, they've hardly looked. Yeah, I mean, the Mariners have plunged lately, but the Astros, I mean, coming off of losing another series to the Royals and being swept by then. And the way that some of their pitchers, Framber and Hunter Brown, et cetera, have struggled in the second half, right? I mean, they just, they have not been the overpowering Astros of old either.

And yet it looks like playoff Astros may be a little better, more strong, intimidating than the regular season Astros. And then the Dodgers have a boost too, which again, we've talked about the Dodgers lack of pitching depth too. So it's like the old guard here. pitching depth too. So it's like the old guard here. They're the ones that seem to be built to win in October or at least built to be less likely to lose in October slightly because they're kind of just trying to make it work and piece things together. And that might be enough in October. I spent that time saying like that American League is weak maybe all the teams in the al west are weak and then you know you watch their the stupid astros are in his power their way through the stupid playoffs and they're in a stupid world series and i'm going to see her saying everything

stupid but like all of their pitching has been pretty bad lately verlander's outing last night aside like jay just read about this uh for us for being aggressive boy some of that pitching has been bad and like the the bullpen hasn't been like incredible either um they have gotten some very good offensive production but like you know like kyle tucker's been kind of suing louis at home run yesterday so i don't know man like i don't know what to i don't know i don't know what to believe ben you know what am i gonna't know what to believe, Ben. You know, what am I going to do if the, like, okay, this isn't going to happen. So, like, big humor me, right? What am I going to do if the Mariners do win out and somehow, like, they find their way to, how am I going to feel, Ben?

Am I going to feel better or worse? You should feel better. Yes. Am I? You got to feel a little good when things go well. Well, yeah, it does seem like you were pretty miserable when the Astros were winning. I was so stressed. Yeah, I was really stressed.

Oh, wait, they're actually in this? Do these games matter? Now I'm more nervous than I was before. So you can't feel bad when you lose and then feel worse when you win. I mean, I guess you can. That feels like a challenge. But no, you're right. Like, that's not the ideal way to approach these things.

Will it be the way I do it? I don't know. Stay tuned. Yeah. All right. So the only other teams that have some meaningful difference when it comes to how they stack up in the playoffs versus the regular season, the Rangers also project to get a boost, which, again, I guess makes sense for the same reason, right? They've been shorthanded in trying to piece together that staff, and their bullpen has just been so thin and so weak.

Even the back end of the bullpen hasn't been the best, but they've had to overwork some guys because they've only got a few that they can trust. So you get into the playoffs, not that just pitching a Roldis Chapman for multiple inning outings in the playoffs has always worked out well. But at least you have to dip a little less into the dregs of that bullpen. So those four teams, Braves, Astros, Dodgers, Rangers, are the only ones with double-digit increases in their projected roster strength winning percentage-wise. And then the only two teams with projected decreases or declines of double-digits are the Blue Jays and the Diamondbacks, 11 points and 15 points respectively, which I guess would speak to some depth or like the Orioles are eight points down, which is pretty

negligible. But again, that suggests that they're not necessarily built for the playoffs, which I think makes sense, right? You look at that rotation and yes, we don't want to slight Kyle Braddish because we've gotten some emails from Kyle Braddish supporters and he has indeed done quite well.

Yeah. The Braddish heads are they first of all, they exist. Yep. Which for non Orioles fans might be a little surprising, but is very real. And they are they have stuff to say. Yep. In our inbox. And sometimes in my Twitter mentions.

He's been good. He's been good. I can't dispute that. No one is trying to disrespect the man. That's not our purpose here. We don't try to disrespect anyone. You know, that's not really our project. But I think we can, you know, everybody chill. Like, it's fine.

If you look at the projected, the starting pitcher depth charts at FanCrafts, the Orioles are 16th, which again, they're not bad, but they're not great, right? This is what I was just saying. More average than you see with some other groups that are postseason bound. That's all I'm saying. And granted, that's taking into account the back half of the rotation as well, which might not be a factor in the playoffs. But you look at the top half and, okay, Grayson and Kyle Braddish. But then, you know, Kyle Gibson. I mean, it's just a lot of Kyles and some of the Kyles are better than others.

But, yeah, you stack that up to the very best rotations in baseball. And, you know, it's not Burns and Woodruff and Peralta, right? I mean, it's not, if the Mariners were to get in, it's not Castillo, Gilbert, Kirby. It's not Gossman, Burrios, Bassett, well-rested Yusei Kikuchi, right? I mean, there are better rotations out there. So that's all we're saying right we're just saying that the biggest pitching reinforcement move that they made was jack flaherty who is now in the bullpen like that's that's all we're saying and like that lineup has some boppers

it has a bunch of guys that are who are very talented they hit well they hit perhaps unsustainably well with runners in scoring position which is another reason why our projections are like hold your horses a little bit with these orioles but you know no one in their right mind is sitting here saying that like a group made up of gunner and adley and, you know, Cedric Mullins is like a bad group. Like there's a lot of good stuff on that team. They just don't have the playoff experience. I'm not even saying that. We're certainly not saying that.

Because like I'm not convinced that we actually know who half of the guys in that lineup are because they all look the same. So maybe they're actually other guys entirely, you know. Who are more experienced, but they're also cherubic is the word that I've seen described as, which I think fits. You know the picture from a sporting event where it was like variations on the same white guy leaning down to wave at the camera? And that's kind of a lot of their line.

Not all of it, but there's a good chunk in there that looks notable core quartet there yeah yeah and and then you've got nola wheeler walker nola wheeler walker nola wheeler walker yeah you've got uh i guess i mean look at what about uh pablo lopez sunny gray joe ryan yeah that's just. Kenta Maeda is a strong group there. Yeah, no one's respecting the twins. So rude. Yeah, yeah. So it just, you know, we're not saying they're bad. We're just talking about their relative strengths and relative weaknesses.

And it's fine. Like everyone, that team seems quite likely to, well, they seem likely to win the East, you know, and they're going to be rested. All of the Kyles will be so well rested. They could even be as well rested as Kikuchi. Like, they could, if they wanted to, get so much rest. Maybe. Not everyone can, at will, just decide to get as much rest as. This is what we talked about.

So anyway, I'm just saying, like, it's going to be a fun group. And I think that the fact that, again, with the exception of Atlanta, all of these teams seem to have obvious vulnerabilities is, I think, exciting. Because you're going to have a lot of really in theory you have the potential we don't know we'll see how it goes but we have the potential for like closely contested series and teams that feel well matched and you know we can put the strength of good

lineups against good pitching and see how it goes like that you know I don't it doesn't read as mediocre to me it just looks it reads as more balanced whereas we've had years where there have been two Braves teams. I mean, not literally, but like there have been multiple teams where it's like, wow, this is the real powerhouse and they're going to just steamroll through. And that doesn't even always happen as we know. But you know, it's, I think it's fun when you got, and we got some, you know, like assuming some of these teams make it, like we have a little bit of a mix-up of who's going to be there.

I think it's good. I'm content with most of this playoff field. My only notes are around the AOL cards. Like, I just have a couple of notes. I think, look, I don't want to make Houston fans feel bad because this isn't a knock on you guys, but isn't the best possible scenario that somehow the wildcard teams end up being Tampa, Toronto, and Seattle and Houston just misses a postseason entirely? That's the best for the sport. I'm not saying that you guys should be made to feel sad. I'm just saying the absence of your team would be the best thing for baseball.

Sure. Right. Yeah. And also it would lead to the fact that there are no or fewer super teams and the mismatches, the talent differentials will be less than they've been in some recent Octobers means that we don't also have to stress about like, what does it all mean? Why are we doing this? And does it defeat the purpose of having a long regular season when the great team immediately loses to the not so great team in the playoffs? Yeah, okay. If the Braves get knocked out early and, I don't know, the Marlins make the World Series or something, which, look, that would be in character for the Marlins to make a World Series if they make the playoffs. But we won't get as much hand-rigging and existential questions about why we watch playoff baseball and does this even make sense. And I've certainly done plenty of that hand-rigging myself as recently as last October when really good teams got knocked out by less good teams. October when really good teams got knocked out by less good teams. So this year, I guess you could say, well, you won't get the thrill of huge upsets, but you also won't get that round of discourse that occurs after the upsets when we all wonder what the purpose of this exercise is.

Right. Apart from of the teams that are currently in a playoff position, the only club with a negative run differential are is the diamondbacks and the other clubs here the they're not close they're not squeaking by with like plus three right like these are these are good teams um the only the only clubs on the outside looking in with a positive run differential are the padresres and the stupid Seattle Mariners. They're not stupid. I have such affection for so many of the players on that team. And so much frustration with the general experience of them.

You know, it's really disorienting in my own head sometimes, you know. We had a listener, Patreon supporter in our Discord group, JG White, who said, Did you ever think the reason Kikuchi does so much better as a Blue Jay than he did when he first came over from NPB might be that he was dot, dot, dot, sleepless in Seattle? Oh, my God. How did we not think of that? How did we not? Like, I'm failing on multiple vectors of fandom here, right?

There's the Mariners of it all. There's the part of me that is really weird about being from Seattle because I really like it there. And then there's the, you know, the Nora Ephron. Like, I am humbled. All right. One last exercise here for today. Read an article, good article at MLB.com by Anthony Kastrovitz, who wrote it. Here's the headline. Here are the 10 most bonkers stats of 2023. I assume you've not seen this yet, so I'm just going to run these stats by you, and you can confirm or refute their bonkersness, or maybe we can rate their bonkersness.

What is our scale, Ben? What is our bonkers scale? I don't know. I guess just 1 to 10 would be pretty boring and not very bonkers. The fact that you want to have 1 to 10 and not 20, 80, it is pretty funny. But we should think about Looney Tunes. Like who's the most bonkers Looney Tune? It's probably the Tasmanian Devil, right?

It's probably Taz. Yeah, I guess that makes yeah, that makes sense. Okay. He's Taz and then the most non-bonkers Looney Tune is probably, is Droopy Dog a Looney Tune? Are they themselves Looney Tunes? But is he part of the Looney Tunes crew, the Looney Tunes gang? Droopy Dog. Because I'm just saying, like, yeah, he's a Looney Tune, right?

Is Droopy Dog a Looney Tune? Beyond his Looney Tunes work. Oh, wow. Droopy Dog is... Oh, no, this is in reference to the illustrator, not Droopy Dog himself. So, yes, I think we can feel comfortable saying that Droopy Dog is a loony tune. Okay. All right.

So we're saying the scale from Droopy Dog to the Tasmanian Devil, although I don't know what the intermediate stands for. What's the intermediate? Okay. Maybe we can just go on to the next one. Okay. But I might call something a full Taz. Yeah.

Is barnyard dog? Barnyard dog is different from droopy dog, right? Barnyard dog. Those are different dogs, but barnyard dog is a Looney Tunes character. Yeah, barnyard dog is different. Yeah. And can I tell you another? Okay, I swear we're going to talk about baseball again in a second.

So I always mix up in my head barnyard dog and foghorn like horn like i yeah and i think that that's same same voice actor i think yeah yes yes and they're kind of i mean like one is a dog and one is a rooster sure i know that those are different animals like i'm not you know to be clear i'm confused about that. But they are kind of animated similarly in that, like, they have, you know, they're mostly white and then they have bold bits of, like, reddish brown. So, anyway, yeah, Barnyard Dog is a loony tune. So, on a scale of 1 to 10, you could rate the bonkersness of these stats. Okay. I'm ready.

All right. These are all through Sunday's games. Number one, I don't know if these are ranked in order of bonkersness. I think they're just all supposed to be bonkers. But number one, Atlanta's amazing 501 slugging percentage. So the Braves as a team, 501 slugging percentage. I feel like that's pretty bonkers. Yeah.

Don't you think that's pretty bonkers? I think that's, I don't, see, I'm nervous to say that it's like a full Taz with the first stack. Because like, what if it gets, you know, this is why the gymnasts do better as time goes on in the competitions because you don't want to burn your perfect score early. But like that's pretty bonkers. That's. Yeah. Yeah. Like, wow.

Yeah. The stat itself doesn't sound that bonkers. We're just citing a slugging percentage here. It's not like we have some convoluted list of qualifiers or anything, but just for an entire team to slug 500. It's incredible. It's pretty bonkers. That's bonkers. That's pretty bonkers.

They've already got, I think, the most home runs of any team in National League history. They are on the heels of the 2019 Twins for the most homers ever. They are the first team, I think, to have 300 homers and 100-plus steals. Thanks largely to Ronald Acuna Jr. Wow. And their rated runs created plus, they have a 124 WRC plus, which is close to the best ever. So it's not just that they're good at slugging. It's that they're good at offense in general.

That is their greatest strength. But they have a 124 WRC plus, like the Murderer's Row Yankees are at 125. I think they're the only team ahead. The Astros from a few years ago were also 124, and they got a lot of talk of, is this the best offense ever? So yeah, the fact that the Braves have this 501 slugging percentage and all these homers, possibly record-breaking number of homers, in a not extreme home run and offensive season. I mean, it was one thing when the 2019 Twins hit tons of homers. Everyone hit tons of homers that year. They hit more homers.

They still hit an extraordinary number of homers. But to do it in 2023 with a deader ball, hardly a dead ball, but still deader, we're not used to seeing so many home run records being set now because they were all set four years ago. So this is more notable. And also this speaks to that. It's not that every team is hitting tons of homers. They lead the majors by a lot of homers. Like there's a pretty big gap between the Braves and the next best team. Like they have 299 as we speak and the Dodgers have 240. That's a big gap. That's one of the bigger gaps. In fact, this article says, citing Sarah Langs, that it's, I think, the fourth biggest gap ever between the top team and the next best team.

And two of them were 1884, I think, and then the 1947 Giants. So, yeah, they're lapping the league here. So, this is bonkers. Can I offer another, I don't know if it's bonkers but an interesting brace related stat if it steps on something later okay you tell me i find it very amusing that like obviously ronald acuna jr is leading the majors in stolen bases he has three on estuary ruiz and quite i think like 17 on Corbin Carroll. So he has 68 stolen bases. And the Braves as a team,

like they're not doing badly from a stolen base perspective, but they are like 11th with 124. Ben, think about the percentage of total stolen bases on the Atlanta Braves that Ronald Acuna Jr. accounts for on his own. That's bonkers. That might be a Tasmanian double bonkers. Yeah, it is. Yeah.

And they have eight, I guess, qualified hitters. So eight guys who have qualified for the batting title. And all of them have been above average. The worst of them by WRC Plus, Orlando Garcia and Eddie Rosario at 104 each. It's like the depth. I guess it's obvious maybe that they have great depth because you're not going to have a 501 team slugging percentage. If you've got a couple of powerless guys at the bottom of the lineup, kind of everyone has to be contributing to that. Right.

And they have also joined the 2019 Twins as the first teams or only teams to have five guys with 30-plus homers. And they might still get to be the first team to have nine guys with 20-plus homers. Probably not, but maybe. So, yeah, it's a true team effort. That's just an overpowering offense. And as we just discussed, being home run reliant and home run heavy, that is actually a boon in October. Bonkers. Yeah. The top slugging mark ever, the 2019 Astros, that other excellent offense I just mentioned, 495. And again, that was 2019. That was different, right? So as of the

writing of this article, there were 19 qualifying players in MLB with a slugging percentage as high as the Braves team slugging percentage. And five of those 19 were Atlanta players. So, yeah, it's really it's ridiculous. All right. Number two stat. So so we're given that. What are we given that on the bonkers scale? I know it's hard to calibrate without seeing the other stats.

Let's give it an eight. Okay. Number two, rookies with nine triples. So the presumptive rookies of the year, Corbin Carroll and Gunnar Henderson, each of them has nine triples this season. And how rare would it be for rookies to have at least a share of the league lead in triples in both the AL and NL? So Henderson shares the lead in the AL with Bobby Witt Jr. And Carroll shares the NL lead with Quetel Marte. According to Elias, this would be the second time that rookies had at least a share of the league lead in triples in both of these leagues, the first being 1904, when, of course, the Washington Senators Joe Cassidy led the American League with 19

triples and the Brooklyn Superbas Harry Lumley led the NL with 18. Oh, I don't know. Six? Feels like six. Like, it's like definitely like, oh, wow. But not like, whoa. Maybe this is, I'm introducing a new scale. Whoa.

Like a six. Doesn't it feel like it's maybe a six? Yeah. I wouldn't go higher than that. I think if the Braves is an eight, this is definitely a lot less bonkers than that. I mean, it's impressive that they've both been so good. Like, it deserves representation. If you were going to summarize this season in 10 stats, then it's good to get Corbin Carroll and Gunnar Henderson on there somewhere.

Because their season's big parts of the story of 2023 in baseball. But, you know, share of the league lead in triples. I don't know. It speaks to their speed. They both have uh a lot of speed and power at least doubles the 25 homers 25 doubles to go along with their steals like they're good all-around players but yeah it's it's a little less impressive and the fact that they don't hold the leads themselves maybe a little less impressive you have to go

the share of the lead. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Number three, Royce Lewis's four Grand Slams. So we've talked about this. I think it was one Grand Slam ago that we talked about this. He hit another one. So he has four Grand Slams this season, five, of course, in his career, and he's played 70 career MLB games, so he is obviously the fastest ever to five career Grand Slams.

He has only 217 at-bats this year with his four Grand Slams, and Anthony writes that no one has ever had this many Grand Slams in a season of fewer than 450 at-bats. many grand slams in a season of fewer than 450 at bats and also maybe the this is i think the most impressive version of this stat is that he hit his four grand slams this season in an 18 game span and the previous lowest number of games in which a player hit four grand slams was 39 by Don Mattingly in his famous 87 rabbit ball year grand slam season. It took him 39 games. He had a span of 39 games where he hit four. So for Lewis to hit four grand slams in 18 games, that's less than half the number of games that Mattingly did it in. that Mattingly did it in. So I'm gonna give this like a six. And part of it is like,

do you think that that's too stingy? I feel like setting the Braves at eight has kind of goofed my scale here. I feel like- You can retroactively raise it if you want to. Maybe I want that to be a nine so I have more room to maneuver. Because I feel like this is probably a seven. And part of that is absolutely the fact that I am keenly aware of his injury history.

So like he is getting a it's we're just happy you're here at all boost. And that and then for him to be able to play so well, having dealt with so much and had and having had to navigate so much to come back and just be on the field at all feels like it it kind of ups the the ante a little bit and i don't know if that's fair or like totally in keeping with the idea of the exercise but it's hard to not just give him some additional boost because like we didn't know we didn't know what kind of career this guy was gonna have and we still don't i guess you know if we're being fair we don't really know what the whole career will look like but that there has been a stretch this good and that he has managed to play as much as he has is i think pretty impressive yeah this is like

in the fun fact category like i wouldn't call the Braves just having a 501 slugging percentage a fun fact necessarily. It's just a really impressive stat. Whereas Lewis, the Grand Slam is over a certain span. Obviously, there's a lot of luck and flukiness involved there. He's having a fantastic season when he's healthy.

It's not like he's just randomly hit a bunch of Grand Slams and done nothing else. Right, and then it sucks. Like, he's good. Which in some ways might make it more fun, I guess, that that were so random and fluky, but it's more fun for Twins fans that he's just generally

been good when he's been healthy. He has a 154 WRC+. Those four Grand Slams are only four of 15 homers that he's hit this year in only 58 games and 239 play to princess. So he's just been excellent. And the Grand Slam part, that has more to do, I guess, with the fact that he happened to hit those homers at those times. And obviously the bases had to be loaded for him when he came up.

I guess you could call it flukiness or you could call it clutchness, whatever you call it. It's fun. They had to pitch to him, you know. Yeah, it's cool. I enjoyed it. I was like, wow, another Grand Slam for Royce Lewis. How about that? Whether or not he has some Grand Slam hitting talent, you can still enjoy that something

weird and improbable like that happens. So, yeah, I think maybe the best version of this that he hit four Grand Slams in a span of 18 games and just blew away the record for that, I think that's pretty bonkers. Yeah, it's pretty bonkers.

Bonkers. Bonkers is the scale. I gotta think about... Okay, hit me with the next one. Okay, next one. Home teams winning at a measly 521 clip. So the winning percentage of home teams league-wide, 521. So that would be the lowest winning percentage by home teams in a full season since 1999 when it was also 521. when it was also 521.

So to have a lower one than that, I guess you've got to go back to, well, 1994, but that's a strike season, so that was a shortened year. You had a 517 winning percentage. 1971, 520. 1981, again, shortened season, 521. So you've got to go back quite a ways. 1968, 521. So you got to go back quite a ways. 1968, 511.

They're only a handful of years with lower home field advantages. And all of them were a long time ago or in shortened seasons. So it's the lowest home field advantage since 1999. How much of this do we attribute to the zombie runner? That's part of it, probably. Yeah. We talked about that with Rob and that's not the entirety of it, I guess. And obviously we've had the zombie runner for a few years now. Yeah.

I don't know that this means that much. I'm trying to think of what other factors. I don't know that it means that much. Yeah. that much. Anthony mentions the Astros, who have been a great team at home even after the

sign-stealing years, we think, but they've got a 481 winning percentage at home. They've been pretty bad at home, actually. They painted part of the batter's eye out there after their hitters complained about it, right? You're just allowed to do that

after the season starts? I mean, I guess both teams play with the same conditions in any given game. I guess, but doesn't it feel like you should not be able to do that? Repairs, sure, but changing would be like... Yeah, you can't

change the dimensions of your mid-season. And this isn't as meaningful a shift as change the dimensions of you in mid-season. And this isn't as meaningful a shift as changing the dimensions, but it still seems odd to me that you're allowed to do that kind of mid-go. Yeah. They would, I guess, be the team with the second lowest home winning percentage ever. Lower than 518 in a full season. The 2001 Braves had a 494 winning percentage at home and won the division. So, yeah.

I don't know. Is this bonkers? I don't know that it's bonkers. I do think it's pretty bonkers that Houston as a team has a 112 Wc plus and such a bad home record like yeah that's just funny i bonkers like yeah six i feel like i'm overrating the royce lewis one i might need to adjust the whole scale it's like the the scouts who don't want to hand out 20s or 80s we gotta go higher low. Granted, they should all be bonkers to some degree. Right. Because otherwise.

It's only 10 stats. They're all supposed to be bonkers. But we're rating, I think, stipulating that they're all bonkers to some degree. Right. We're still looking for some variation here. Yeah. So maybe like a five. Yeah.

Like a four or a five. Yeah. Yeah. I wouldn't go higher than four for this one personally. Yeah, like a five. Yeah. Like a four or a five. Yeah. Yeah. I wouldn't go higher than four for this one personally. Yeah, like a four. Yeah. It made me go, huh. Yeah.

It didn't even make me go wow or whoa. Whoa. Yeah. Because I don't know what it means really. I don't know if it – It means anything. Yeah. I'm not sure it means anything and it's not that wild.

So, yeah. All right. Next bunker stat. Okay. Well, the. All right. Next, bunker stat. Okay, well, the Padres, 0-12 in extra innings. Bunkers. We've talked about this. This is bunkers, yeah. Full Tasmanian devil.

Whoa, wow. Ooh. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. It's the close games that they've sucked in and the extra inning games. It's kind of a combination of both,

but the 0-12 just because, as we've discussed, the only other team to do this is the 1969 Expos. And that was an expansion team. That was not a good team. That was a terrible team. They went 52-110 overall, which you still wouldn't expect them to go 0-12 in extras. which you still wouldn't expect them to go 0-12 in extras, but if it's a truly terrible team, it's a little less surprising than the Padres, who even going by the surface record are not a truly terrible team.

They're a mediocre team that might under the hood be a good team. So 0-12 in extra innings. That is indeed bonkers. All right. Bonkers. Next, Trey Turner's 29 flawless stolen base attempts. So as we speak, Trey Turner has stolen 29 bases this year. He has not been caught.

And the record for most steals in a season without being thrown out is held by a previous Philly, Chase Utley, who went 23 for 23 in 2009. So if Turner can avoid being caught over the last week of the season here, he could decide to do that, right? It's like the Ted Williams deciding not to play to preserve the batting title, although Sam has written about that and how it's different than people expect it to be or understand it to be. But Trey Turner, he could just not attempt to steal a base over the rest of the season,

and no one would fault him, I don't think. So this is entirely within his control to preserve this record if he wants to. But he could go for it. He could try to get to 30, which would be even more impressive. So 29 flawless stolen base attempts. Is that bonkers or how bonkers is it? What did I give Ray Salewis' grand slams? I adjusted down to a five. I gave it a six.

I gave it a seven. Six-ish, I think. I'm getting a lot of scouting fidelity here. I feel like this is, it might be the same. I feel like the fact that he has the ability to control this is somehow working in the same way as Royce Lewis not having the ability to control hitting a home run when he does. Where it's like, Trey Turner could just be like, I want to have a perfect, like, I just want it to be perfect. I'm not going to steal anymore.

And then he could not steal anymore. And it's you know it's perfect yeah where you know just like royce lewis can't control who's on base when he goes up there and hits a home run so but it is pretty it's pretty cool and he is such a cool base runner you know but more when he's like going home that's when the trey turner like moves are at their at their peak you know but more when he's like going home that's when the trey turner like moves are at their at their peak you know but it's pretty cool like that's pretty cool and his season was so bad and then it got so much better yes so you know yeah this is one where i do subtract some bonkers points because of the new rules which i think think have clearly enabled this or helped this out. Like, I don't subtract so much from Ronald Acuna's season because him going 40-70 or potentially, that's super impressive, even given the new rules making it easier to steal bases.

Because he's just so far. He's like, you know, leading the league with how many he's stolen and he's been so aggressive. He's taking advantage of those rules more than anyone else. So even if you were to discount it and say, OK, 40-70, maybe it would have been 40-50 or something in a previous season. That's still pretty amazing. But this one, would he have done this if not for the new rules? Probably not, right? He either would have stolen fewer overall or he would have been caught at some point probably.

So this is one that I doubt would have happened without the new rules. And granted, like everyone gets to play under these new rules. But that, I think, hurts the bonkersness to me. The exchange rate of 29 for 29 versus 23 for 23 in 2009, I don't know if that actually is more impressive. Maybe on a percentage basis, it still is. But yeah, it's worth noting. It deserves to be on the list, I think. But I'm going to give it a pretty low bonkers rating, I think, just because of that. I think that you have to acknowledge that there is some adjustment, new rule adjustment that needs to take place when it comes to stolen base stuff, but with guys who are good

at stealing bases, I discount it less. I do discount it less. Like, you know, like, Horne Carroll's just really fast. He's just so fast, you know. Ronald Acuna Jr.'s just, like, fast and a really good baseman. Like, some of these is the exact number

the result of some of this stuff? Like, yeah, sure. It's definitely contributing. That would be silly to deny, but it's not all that, you know? No. It's the thing is, though, that this depends on flawlessness. This depends on perfection. If you've been caught one time, it would not be on the list, right?

And Trey Turner has always been an excellent percentage base dealer. Yes, he has. Really, really good. For his career, he has stolen 259 bases and been caught a mere 42 times. And so prior to this season, he was, what, 230 and 42. I mean, that's still fantastic, right? But like last year, he was 27 for 30, which is great. And 2021, he was 32 for 37, which is excellent.

And 2020, he was 12 for 16. And 2019, he was 35 for 40. Like he's always been good at this, but he's always been caught a couple times or a few times in a season. And the fact that he's been caught zero times this season, that's what makes this stat. And I'm guessing that that would not have happened if not for the new rules. So I don't know. That just, I guess it's like emblematic of 2023 and we're looking for bonkers stats in 2023. But it just, it saps some of the luster for me.

All right. Seventh stat, Kaushwerber is hitting 197 and still making a big impact. So that's a little imprecise, I suppose, in the phrasing, the framing. You know, he's, I guess we should say batting. I would say batting if I'm referring specifically to his batting average. But Kyle Schwerber is hitting slash batting 197 and still making a big impact. So within this section here, Anthony goes for a couple more specific and precise fun facts. So he's hit 45 homers.

So the current record for most home runs by a player with a batting average of 200 or lower was 38 by Joey Gallo in 2021 when he batted 199. So, okay, most homers by someone batting under 200. He's cleared that bar by a lot unless he gets over 200 here in the last week so is that bonkers i guess that's that's one formulation of this also in 483 plate appearances as a leadoff man schwarber has batted 206 and the only player with that many leadoff plate appearances and a lower batting average was dick Schofield, 199 in 483 plate appearances of the Pirates and Giants in 1965.

He also gets on base at a reasonable 345 clip. So how many other players with a minimum of 300 plate appearances in the leadoff spot have batted below 210 as a leadoff man, but have put up at least a 340 OPP just to Goat Anderson of the 1907 time. Stop it. You're making that up. Goat Anderson. Goat Anderson. Yeah. Goat Anderson.

And that was before Goat stood for greatest of all time. So I don't know if he was GOAT because he was like the GOAT, as in like he's the scapegoat, like the guy who blew it. GOAT Anderson played for one season in the majors for the Pirates in 1907, 127 games, 77 OPS plus. He had a 0.4 war and then was never seen in the majors again.

Goat Anderson. So, Goat Anderson and then Floyd Baker of the 1948 White Sox. And those guys combined for one home run by Goat in those seasons, whereas Schwarber has hit 32 as a leadoff man. So, this is sort of a soup of stats. off men so this is sort of a soup of stats but the fact that he's batting under 200 and is still i mean we thought it was going to be a bunker stat that he was that he had so many home runs and still was like replacement level or sub replacement level when we talked about it he's a little bit above replacement level now that would have been a bonkers stat. So is it a bonkers stat that he's batting under 200 and still has, I guess, like the home run part of it?

No, I'm giving this like a three. There's something bonkers about Kyle Swarbrick's season as a whole. Yes, I agree with that. I just don't know if this is quite nailing the thing about his whole deal that I find bonkers. Yeah, it's sort of just a holistic. I mean, it's the fact that he's a leadoff batter. It's the fact that he's hit 45 homers with a sub-200 bat. Like that, I guess most home runs by someone with a sub-200 batting.

a sub 200 batting. Like that, I guess most home runs by someone with a sub 200 batting, except that batting under 200, like it's not entirely, in a sense those things are not directly connected. Like you can still hit for a lot of power. I guess the fact that it's hard to have a lot of hits of any kind if you're batting under 200

and then it's hard to like get enough playing time to hit 45 homers if you're batting under 200 and then it's hard to like get enough playing time to hit 45 homers if you're batting under 200 the fact that he's batting under 200 and is a leadoff guy who's getting all these play appearances that is sort of bonkers that kyle schwarber is a leadoff man at all although that's that's not new necessarily the whole thing is bonkers, but it's hard to reduce it to a single stat, I think. Yeah. And we don't want to reduce it to war either, just to pick another single stat that we could. But you'd see, you should have picked the war one, and then we could have had a conversation that was more all-encompassing. But also, we've already had that conversation,

so this insight we got to hear about a guy named Goat. Yeah. All right. Number eight, Clayton Kershaw's team leading 126 and a third innings pitched. So he will have the lowest innings total ever for a leader on a division winning team. The previous low was 153 and a third for Mike Fiers on the 2017 sign-stealing Astros. I guess it's reasonably bonkers. Just because... But, like, is it, though?

Yeah. You know, it's like a four. Is it a four, Ben? Maybe, yeah. Now we're over-utilizing the low end of the scale. Any stat that has to do with dwindling innings totals doesn't impress me that much because it's been happening for a while now. It's like anything that's like, oh, strikeouts are going up, innings pitched are going down. Yeah, we know.

There's just a fatigue with that. So the fact that the Dodgers are still going to win so many games with this staff that's just been pieced together and everyone's been hurt or the fact that Clayton Kershaw, as undurable as he's been in this latter stage of his career when he's still been highly effective, but not very durable, that he's still leading the Dodgers in innings pitched. That's like kind of a wow-ish. But yeah, I don't know. Right now, he has the same innings total that he did last season exactly. Although I guess if he pitches again, that won't be the case. But yeah, I don't know. I'm continuing to be like bowled over by Clayton Kershaw's effectiveness. Sure.

In this post-peak decline phase of Clayton Kershaw where he has, like, a two-something ERA every year. But, yeah, this stat doesn't really do it for me. Sorry. All right. Yeah. Second to last stat, Shohei Otani's injury-plagued 10-war. So he has the fewest games played in a 10-war season. This is baseball reference war, obviously. The wars, as some of our Patreon supporters have noticed, have continued to fluctuate slightly with Otani

even since he's been playing, right? Like he's been at 9.9. He's at 10.1 right now because obviously it's relative to replacement level and that changes regardless of whether he's playing. So he's still going up or down slightly. But 135 games, fewest games played in a 10-war season according to baseball reference in ALNL history, excluding full-time pitchers, of course, who are not going to get into as many games. So is that bonkers? The fact that he's gotten to 10 war and has missed all this time at the end of the season.

It's pretty bonkers, I think. Yeah, I think it is. I think it's, wow, Ben, you're not like, see, this is how we know you're an honest man. You know, this is how we know that you're in it to tell truths. You know, you're not just here to be like a partisan. You're like, it's medium bonkers. You know, this incredible unicorn of a man. He's just a, you know, just medium bonkers.

His existence is bonkers. That's a 10. Fair. The fact that he exists and that he could have a season like this is bonkers, certainly. Don't want to discount that. But I think what kind of does away with the bonkersness here is that the previous low for games played in a 10-war season was only one game more. Mookie Betts played 136 games in his 2018 MVP season, and he had 10.7 war that year. So he played one more game and had 0.7 war more, which I guess Otani has had 0.7 war games, but that detracts a little bit from the specialness. Sure.

Now, there was a supplementary stat in here that he is likely to win the MVP award despite missing his team's final 25 games. If so, that would be the most games missed by an MVP at the end of the season, according to Sarah Langs. Mike Trout, in his 2019 MVP MVP season missed the final 19 games. So that's like it's not just that he missed games, but he missed them in a bunch at the end, which I guess like you might think that you have to have a strong finish to convince the MVP voters that, OK, you know, like it's going to come down to the wire. You've got to finish strong. voters that, OK, you know, like it's going to come down to the wire.

You've got to finish strong. So the fact that he sat out almost all of September and is still almost certainly going to win the thing, that's, I guess, kind of bonkers. Like that just comes down to how he's he's been so much better than everyone else that even if you spot them a month, they can't catch up to him. So that's I guess there's something. Yeah, it's it's pretty bonkers. It's not the most bonkers. It's just the general Otani is bonkers.

Like any specific Otani stat, we've talked about how it's just like evolved past the need for fun facts or stats about Otani. It's just like, yeah, he's like the best at both things or one of the best at both things. Like I don't even need a stat to sum that up we know yeah all right and lastly the return of the 2020 player so 17 2020 players and counting as of the writing of this article 20 homers 20 steals too shy of the record set in 1999. And entering the final week, there are enough players near those parameters. Chaz McCormick, one stolen base away. Xander Bogarts is a homer and two steals away.

Josh Lowe and Christian Jelic are both one homer away. So that record could be broken. And as Anthony notes, it's a product of the new rules environment last year there were only 24 players with 20 steals period whereas this year they're already 49 but he asserts still bonkers so is it still bonkers that we have a near record and potentially record number of 2020 players i mean like it's just so hard to be like super excited about it because of the rule changes but like i said like some other guys doing that or like ben what do you think i don't know man i feel like i'm underrating stuff now i feel like

i'm too low i'm yeah i don't think it's bonkers. I think it's emblematic of the season. Yeah, that's a better word. Yeah. If you wanted to say the 10 stats that sum up 2023 or most representative of baseball in 2023, then I think, yeah, because as we covered in a recent stat blast, just going by power speed number, this has been an extraordinary season. So it's been a hallmark of baseball in 2023 so there's a lot of power and there's a lot of speed so this stat representing that i don't think that's that bonkers it's like yeah that's the brand of baseball we're seeing like this is emblematic of baseball i don't think it's bonkers but i think it's telling it's a it's a good stat it's just yeah it doesn't bowl me over

yeah it's so so was the break so i guess atlanta was the highest yeah it was the closest to wow that is truly truly bonkers yeah yeah and then i think otani is next for me i didn't put a number on it but like that that's next for me i think yeah and then padrezo and 12 i think is up there oh yeah yeah maybe i think that that and otani get like maybe the same i might be over adjusting i might be applying too strong an adjustment to it yeah you know because like otani like you said like everything is bonkers about Otani. Right. It's hard to maintain the same bonkers energy when we have been talking about that all season. Right. So, yeah, we know it's bonkers, but we've acclimated to the bonkersness slightly.

I never want to just accept, oh, ho-hum. Yeah, Otani had a 10-war two-way season. Yeah, Otani had a 10-war two-way season. But, you know, there's only so many times you could talk about it without just at some point saying, this no longer knocks me over because I've been knocked over already. I'm still on the ground. I still have not recovered from all the previous times that I contemplated this. Oh, I was just about to say something very sad about Otani. It's like you're lying prone on the ground like okay well soon joey we we sure miss you you know we have to come up with so much more content for this show now that he's hurt my stars yeah i have to decide what games

i'm gonna watch and take the angels off the board when I'm making my MLB TV decisions. I'm just going to encourage you to like not watch the Mariners ones. Like we should just, you know, we can divide and conquer. And I'm already, you know, let me be the sin eater here. You know, I'm already incurring this sadness. You don't have to subject yourself to that. I'll let you know how it goes. Thank you.

All right. Well, we'll assess your mental state next time. All right. Well, we'll assess your mental state next time. All right. Let me leave you with a few responses from listeners to topics we discussed last week. This first message comes from David, who wrote in about the Blue Jays' history of great sleepers, at least one previous great sleeper. He said, Freddie Galvis, who at the time was the league leader in consecutive games by a long shot, was also apparently an epic sleeper, though perhaps not as heroic as Kikuchi. Galvis acknowledged what this meant for his role as a parent and the work it created for his wife.

He links to a Sportsnet piece that says, Galvis watches what he eats in the hopes of staying healthy, but most important of all might be the rest he gets. He sleeps a lot during the season from 12 or 1 a.m. until about 11 a.m. and credits his wife for making that possible. When their two daughters aged one and four need attention, she's typically the one who takes care of them. So I don't know. Maybe it's something about being north of the border. Maybe there's a sleep exchange rate we have to apply. Maybe this is hours of Canadian sleep. It's different from hours of U.S. sleep. I'm a dual citizen. I'm definitely more American when it comes to sleep hours, if so. Also, we talked about player headshots and amusing ones. And we mentioned the three-year progression of Robert Andino's headshots, where he got progressively less happy

in his headshots when he was with the Orioles. I said something about how that may be the thing that Robert Andino is best remembered for. Got some responses from Orioles fans who stuck up for him. Dan says, just wanted to mention that Robert Andino is moder remembered for. Got some responses from Orioles fans who stuck up for him. Dan says, just wanted to mention that Robert Andino is moderately famous among Orioles fans in the know for the curse of the Andino. It was the final game of the 2011 season for the Orioles and Red Sox,

and Boston was sitting on a precarious wildcard spot. Andino's walk-off hit in the ninth, combined with Evan Longoria's walk-off homer against the Yankees moments later, took Boston out of the wildcard spot and put Tampa in. It was very exciting and cathartic for an Orioles team that was not yet good, but would return to relevance in 2012. Not that the fans knew that then. And yeah, I guess the curse of the Andino didn't last quite as long as the curse of the Bambino, given that the Red Sox won a World Series in 2013. But still, I had forgotten that he was

part of that exciting end to the 2011 regular season. Another email on that subject from Patreon supporter Joe. I wanted to respond to Ben's offhand comment about no one remembering Robert Andino for anything other than his sad baseball reference pictures to report that he is something of a folk hero for Orioles fans of a certain vintage. He had a game-ending single off Jonathan Papelbon to win the final game of the 2011 season for the O's and eliminate the Red Sox from playoff contention that year. the final game of the 2011 season for the O's and eliminate the Red Sox from playoff contention that year. Of course, a lot of the fun of this for Orioles fans was to deny the Red Sox an opportunity to go to the playoffs. Red Sox and Yankees fans typically travel very well to Camden Yards, and this was especially true in the years the Orioles were a consistent losing team after Cal Ripken's retirement. It felt nice that the Orioles showed some fight and struck a blow against one of the giants of the AL East. It's hard to feel too bad for the Red Sox, though. After the incredibly cursed 2012 season they had with

Bobby Valentine, they did win the World Series in 2013. More importantly to me, Andino's hit represented the end of an era of Orioles baseball and the beginning of a new one. 2011 was Buck Showalter's first season with the team, and though they had a typically poor record of 69-93, in the 2012 season they reversed that record and made the playoffs for the first time in 15 years. Starting in 2012, they were on and off contenders through the 2016 season. Though Andino remained on the team only for the 2012 season, his hit at the end of 2011 felt like it heralded the beginning of a positive stretch of Orioles baseball, albeit a short one, and reminded fans that the Orioles were capable of making an impact in the baseball world.

Sometimes it's surprising the fondness that a fan base will have for a somewhat obscure player. Just a lot of reasons to be attached to a player and someone who's not in the know, who doesn't follow that team closely, might never know about or might forget about that bond. So thank you for the reminders. Also, we talked about player retirement tours, and I think Meg mused about what the retirees do with their gifts that they're given by other teams. Carter says, I was listening to episode 2063 and thought the discussion of post-retirement gifts was fun and interesting, and it made me think of the Rays, Devil Rays at the time, giving Wade Boggs a fishing boat for his 3,000th hit. I did a Google

search, and it turns out Boggs has since put the boat up for auction in 2015. He links to an ESPN article and says, while there isn't any information that I can find on him actually being able to sell the boat, the article mentions that this isn't even the first time he'd done it. He tried to sell it before then, but was unsuccessful and was packaging a fishing trip with bogs with the boat

as an extra incentive for people to submit bids. When asked about the reasoning for it, he mentioned going on some hunting trips and saying he could use the extra cash. So yeah, those retirement tour gifts may not be lifelong possessions. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following listeners have already signed up and pledged some monthly or yearly amount to help keep us going, help us stay almost ad-free, and get themselves access to some perks. Aaron Plotsky,

Chris Reed, Matt Piscitella, Andrew Perlman, Taman, and Jabran Riaz. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, as well as access to playoff livestreams and monthly bonus episodes, plus discounts on merch and ad-free Fangrafts memberships, and so much more, patreon.com slash effectivelywild. If you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site, but anyone and everyone is welcome and encouraged to contact us via email at podcastatfangraphs.com. Send us your questions and comments. You can also 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 at EWPod, and you can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash Effectively Wild. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We'll be back with another episode a little later this week. Talk to you then. Des avis pétantes et superbes, une fête Je pense que c'est effectivement cool Je pense que c'est effectivement wild

Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage