Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 207: Reevaluating Patrick Corbin/Baseball and Redheads

Episode Date: May 21, 2013

Ben and Sam discuss whether they’ve underrated Patrick Corbin, then talk about whether there’s a bias against redheads in baseball.

Time now for the ridiculous and tonight we're adding the ginger jeer squad the crimson Criticizers that's right all the redhead haters Good morning and welcome to episode 207 of effectively wild the daily podcast from baseball prospectus I am Ben Lindbergh with Sam Miller. It just occurred to me that we will be taking next Monday off I know I've been thinking about it for days. Which means that we will not be on a multiple of five

ending of the week pattern as we have been for what months now? It's been nice I actually have wondered whether you would sneak into the recording studio and record a solo show and throw it up there without telling me. I'm not surprised that you think it would almost be worth it.

I think if you could do it in under a half hour of time, I bet you will. But what would you do? What would you talk about all alone? I don't know. I'd have to get a guest to talk time, I bet you will. But what would you do? What would you talk about all alone? I don't know. I'd have to get a guest to talk to, I guess. No one would want to listen to me talk by myself. Waste of all day. Did you see the email from John about the hot seat? Yes. So should we go over that? Yeah, sure. We talked yesterday about why it's called a hot seat. We've proposed, and not just proposed, I think it has been passed, the motion passed between us to now call it, when a manager might be fired, to call it the wobbly chair. Yes, the wobbly chair or seat.

I don't remember what you said. I don't know. I'm not sure. We can stick with seat. I don't mind seat. I love it. I'm not sure. We'll work it out. I don't mind seat. I love it. I still love it.

It makes me giggle. But John emails to let us know. Well, first he speculates about the reason a hot seat is hot. And honestly, I don't think John has any idea what he's talking about. But out of courtesy to him, I'm not going to edit him. So he suggests a hot seat is hot in the same way a hot potato is hot. You can't touch it. In the case of the seat not touching it means that you're standing up. And as we all know, your ability to hold onto a chair you're not actually sitting in is tenuous at best. So the analogy works pretty well until you consider how the seat cools down for the next person who grabs it.

I just don't think that's right. But he does then go on to provide some research and says Google offers an alternate definition for hot seat as the electric chair. So there you go. I think that's probably absolutely correct. I'm sure that the hot seat originally was slang for the electric chair and migrated over to managers. I did look it up in Dixon's baseball dictionary and it was not in there. That was disappointing.

Do you consider it a baseball term? I don't know. I wonder whether people who are not baseball fans would consider it a baseball term. Probably not. I guess it's in general use, and I don't know. I guess it probably didn't originate in baseball. Yeah, I would guess that it's no more of a baseball term than it's a life term. Okay.

All right, what did you want to talk about? Patrick Corbin. Okay, and I'll talk about redheads. Ah, okay. Corbin. Okay. And I'll talk about redheads. Ah, okay. Uh, well I'll start with Corbin cause I wanted to ask you about him because you have feelings about him or have had feelings about him. I think that we have alluded to briefly on the podcast. Uh, I think during this season, you said maybe it was time to reevalvaluate your your stance on Corbin um so yesterday he pitched a a three head shutout uh at Coors Field to go seven and oh and it's

interesting how I'm always tempted to say seven and oh even though that means nothing to me but if he were six and one though you wouldn't be tempted, right? No, I wouldn't. We've talked about this. Haven't you and I talked about how we're... At some point I've talked about how I'm still a sucker for the lopsided win-loss record. So I looked back at our player comment inp 2013 about him uh we called him a control artist we talked about his pitching to contact it was sort of a i don't know it wasn't a negative comment but it wasn't an extremely flattering comment it was just it sort of said that or

implied that he was just a guy kind of uh and his even his his baseball reference sponsorship says pat is just one of many pitching prospects in the diamondback system which i enjoyed um and so i wonder if that if that is changing now or whether it should change, he is sort of throwing a little bit harder now. He's not like a flamethrower, but I mean, he's averaging something like 92.5 right now, which for a lefty is certainly above average. He's getting grounders. He's not really getting any more strikeouts than he was last season, but he seems to have excellent control. He threw 74 of his 97 pitches for strikes yesterday at

Coors Field. He has a very good slider. I was just doing an article, which is up now at BP, on pitches that are thrown outside of the strike zone most often. And Zach Greinke's slider was on that list, high on that list, and he had one of the highest whiff rates on a slider. But Corbin was actually higher, and that was also including some of his relief appearances from last year so maybe maybe starter only he he wasn't quite as good but but basically corbin's slider is is swung out and missed at the same rate as zach grinke's slider uh he gets grounder he's he's got good control so should we be thinking of him as a top of the rotation guy? Is it time to reevaluate him?

Or should we just still sort of look at his tiny BABIP and his tiny home runs per fly ball rate and say that he's good but not really that much better than we thought he was and he's just kind of a mid-rotation guy still? I think mid-rotation guy is probably better than we thought he was and he's just kind of a mid-rotation guy still uh i think mid-rotation guy is probably better than we thought he was i mean the the we thought he was that when he was when he was 20 um and when he was 20 he was in he was in a ball um so i mean i think that what i'm saying is that uh there it was going to take a lot of things going right for him to get to mid-rotation in the majors. And I think that you can say for sure that he's that.

There's not a lot of doubt right now that he's going to have a career. And when the Angels traded him, you know, there was a lot of doubt. There was probably a lot of people who thought that he was going to move up to AA and not have nearly the success and that he might be the sort of Anthony Ortega guy that you keep in AAA and bring him up and hope to get spot starts out of. So that's not that. Is he an ace now? Is I guess the question? Yeah, I guess so. Is that your only question?

Well, I guess that's my question. And also, have you kind of, have your reservations about him evaporated at all or are the same things that you were thinking last time we talked or before the last time we talked still in effect uh well you know i haven't i i haven't i think it takes sometimes it takes a little bit of work to to change your mind you have to you have to actually you know go in willingly and look at the evidence and and have your mind changed, or else you just need to be beaten down by peer pressure.

I have not yet been beaten down by peer pressure, because I think there's still people who are sounding these notes of doubt about the luck parts of his performance. Although it's building somewhat. I think that there are more people who are believing him to be real now. Like Jeff Passan yesterday, he basically tweeted, like, whoops, I was wrong when he ripped the Dan Heron deal. That was in reference to Pat Corbin. I haven't and that was in reference to Pat Corbin. But I haven't actually done the work to look and see how real I think he is. I don't think I've sat down and watched a start by him yet this year.

And, I mean, frankly, I wouldn't trust me on this topic because, you know, it's hard to change your mind. We sort of get stuck in our opinions uh and uh i you know i i made an opinion i i developed an opinion three years ago about a player who um doesn't seem to necessarily be the same player anymore and you know frankly at the time uh three years ago i I mean, I wouldn't have necessarily trusted me then either. I basically had access to the same publicly available information that everybody else had. That information suggested that Corbin was, you know, the sort of advanced lefty who can carve up low A pitching and doesn't really excite the people who should know better for the higher level.

So, you know, it's not as though I had any like incredible insight into Patrick Corbin and it's not as though I am ever going to generate it. I'm just sort of guessing like everybody else, right? But he's been great. It's kind of been fun to watch, or it's been fun to observe, if not actually sit down and watch all of his starts. Yeah, the Diamondbacks have kind of an interesting rotation.

Everyone in that rotation is... I mean, I guess their fifth starter would be Wade Miley, which is pretty good. I mean, they don't really have any ace type guy, assuming Corbin is not that guy. They don't have anyone who's striking out. I guess, I guess Corbin would be just about at, at league average strikeout rate for a, for a starter. But they don't have anyone above that. It's just Corbin and Cahill and McCarthy and Kennedy and Miley just a bunch of kind of good ground ball not very high strikeout

pretty good control guys with no no real ace but uh I guess it's the the type of rotation that could be just fine if everyone stays healthy. And so far they have had only five starters start, which is always a good thing when you don't have to dip into your sixth and seventh and eighth starters. So if they were to keep that up, it would be sort of, I don't know, to keep that up, it would be sort of, I don't know, like a 2005 White Sox rotation, sort of, that doesn't really have a dominant guy, but has everyone who's solid and doesn't get hurt. So that's nice for Diamondbacks fans.

Should we be asking whether Trevor Cahill is changing our minds about him, or is this... asking whether Trevor Cahill is changing our minds about him or is this, I mean, I guess, see, the thing that's interesting is that, well, it's not a perfect analogy because, like I said, Corbin has already exceeded a lot of expectations and he's, you know, proven himself to be something that wasn't a guarantee. Cahill, though, in a lot of ways is also having a great year and also has, in a lot of ways is also having a great year and also has you know the the basically the low strikeout and high walk rates that he has always had um and you could just easily say that um you know that he needs to be re-evaluated based on his results but um but we don't right we basically you and i haven't changed our opinions about Trevor Cahill, have we? I feel like historically I've probably underrated him just because of a bias against guys who don't get a lot of strikeouts, I guess. But he's been doing what he does for quite a while now pretty successfully.

Yeah, what he does is a credible third starter and what he's pitching like right now is ace and that's basically what corbin is supposed to be and that's basically what corbin has been doing right now so corbin is also probably credible third starter right pitching like an ace yeah so i mean both guys haven't really changed their peripherals much this year. It's just kind of an ERA or win-loss record thing. And I guess with Cahill, we already kind of were confident that he was that mid-rotation guy. And Corbin, we were less confident. So our perception of Corbin has changed more than our perception of Cahill. our perception of Corbin has changed more than our perception of Cahill.

Corbin has 7.4 strikeouts per nine right now. This is a totally different question, but he's 23. He's new to the majors, fairly new to the majors. He's a guy who's not supposed to get a ton of strikeouts, but he pounds the strike zone. Would you guess that as the league sees him more, but also while he develops, that that strikeout rate will go up or down? If you had to bet on an up or a down?

I guess I would say down. I mean, he's, I don't know. Doug called his stride funky in the annual. So maybe he's a deception guy to some extent. I don't know. I guess I wouldn't expect a huge change in either direction. But I guess I'd say down, if anything. Yeah, I would too. But then you look at his minor league strikeout rates,

and he always managed to miss bats even when he wasn't wowing scouts. Anyway. Redheads? Redheads, I have about 40 seconds worth of things to say about redheads. But I almost am not, like I've been trying to, well, okay. So Brandon McCarthy tweeted a cover of Baseball America last night. Did you see this? I didn't see the tweet. I saw the article, I guess, by by Jerry Krasnick. Right. I read that. Oh, you did read it. Oh, thank goodness, because I don't have any idea what I'm talking about. I was looking for it and I couldn't find it.

talking about i was looking for it and i couldn't find it uh so the headline of this uh the headline on the cover of baseball america is georgia high school outfielder clint fraser has the tools to overcome baseball's unusual scouting bias against redheads um and i've never heard about this and i thought it was hysterical uh and then i went around looking and looking and looking on the internet and i also couldn't find anything about this. Although I did find that there is a, I found a Sports Illustrated story about quarterbacks and it was an article actually about, well yeah, it was about the 2011 quarterback draft and the second to last paragraph is at least one team is thinking not just about Dalton's brains, but also about what's on top of them. Has there ever been a redheaded quarterback in the NFL who's really done well? A coach asked last week, it sounds idiotic,

but is there any way that could be a factor? We've wondered. So, uh, there's an, apparently there's an anti bias, anti redhead bias among quarterbacks quarterbacks. I would be a terrible scout, partly because I'm always unsure of what color people's hair is. The blonde Redhead spectrum to me is difficult to decode. So is Mark Reynolds Redhead, do you think? No, I don't think so. I think he's blonde. Okay. See, I can't tell. I'm, I'm redhead colorblind. Uh, is Bobby Kielty redhead? Uh, I mean, I guess it's, it's a spectrum. I guess it's like saying is a pitch type,

this certain type of breaking ball or not. I think – Well, no. I mean I'm not a redhead at all. I'm a zero redhead. Yes. I think Kelty is a redhead, yes. And is Matt Merton a redhead? I'm doing Google image searches here to refresh my memory.

Yes. All right. image searches here to refresh my memory yes all right so well matt merton is sort of the classic stat head player who couldn't you know for years people didn't think he was getting enough of a chance based on his stats so maybe we found it man maybe we've maybe we found patient zero for the anti-red advice but you read the article i did so i actually have to admit i wasn't 100 sure that this was actually a real cover like there's no indication that brendan mccarthy was joking and he's got a screen grab of it it's it's a real looking thing and yet it seemed possible that i had been duped so i'm glad that you've read it what what did what did jerry

krasnick write uh it was a very, very long article. It was almost the history of redheads, really, from beginning to end, not just in baseball. Of time. Yes, pretty much. And how there have been certain prejudices against redheads and beliefs about them. Actually, I'm looking at it now,

and he does mention Kelty and Matt Merton as redheads. He also includes Seth MacLung as a redhead. Is Jerry Krasnick a redhead? Yes, he is. So he's speaking from experience. Is Louis C.K. a redhead? Sure, I think so. All right.

Man, you really need help when it comes to identifying these guys. So he includes a quote from Jeff Lunau. And so Lunau says, I mean, he asks him if he's given it any thought and if he's factoring it in as he decides whom to draft. draft. And so Luna says, anytime you're going to make a significant personnel decision on behalf of the organization and you're delving into waters that are not that populated, you have to wonder why. The answer could be as simple as the percentage of redheaded people in the population. There just aren't that many out there. If that's the answer, okay, so be it. But there could be something more to it. And if there is, it's certainly worth exploring. Is it because the parts of the world where redheaded people typically come from don't play baseball as much and it's not part of the

culture? I don't know the answer to that. Is it because they're fair skinned and not as durable under the sun? I've heard all kinds of crazy theories. I haven't done anything to verify any of them, to be honest with you, but it certainly is an interesting topic. So Krasnick says that, and this seems like it could pretty much just be the explanation on its own, is that one to two percent of the world's population has red hair, according to multiple sources he cites. He cites a 2002 Washington Post story as saying that the percentage is between two and six in the U.S. So, I mean, redheads are just scarce. So, I mean, I guess if it's one to 2% or two to 6% or whatever of 750 players that are in the majors right now,

I wonder what the actual percentage is. I don't think he included that, but I mean, it can't be that much less than that, I guess. I mean, right? I guess that can't be. I mean, if it's 2% of 750 players, that's 15 guys. I would believe that there are 15 redheads in the majors right now. Can you name one?

No. Well, there we go. I don't know. Maybe I don't see hair color either. You're so progressive that way. You don't even see hair color. you're so progressive that way you don't even see hair color um i i love the maybe they're they have fairer skin and aren't as durable under the sun theory uh because uh unless he's unless he means like they're less likely to play baseball from an early age because they get sunburned

uh it would be super duper weird if his scouts didn't want players who had fair skin because they might not. That would be a whole new bias. I mean, if there was a box on a scouting forum that said melanoma, present, future. They'll get weeded out when they get melanoma in Little League or something. I don't know. So, wow. So that's fascinating. And I guess we've also learned that Jeff Lunow will

definitely talk to you about anything. Yes. Okay, well, yeah, I mean, I think that the numbers probably explain it. I think I also agree that the numbers also explain it, but you might also suggest that the rarity with which they exist in the population, it gives you a little bit of a reason for why.

I mean scouts are always looking for things that are different. Scouts are looking – I guess it's – I don't know. Do you think scouts look – I guess maybe that's not true. I was going to say scouts are looking for for scouts are probably uh i think the the stereotype has been that scouts cast a a wide net and see positives they they cling to the positive part of a player and coaches are the opposite is that that coaches see the negative and scouts see the positive uh and so you actually wouldn't expect scouts necessarily to to be like you know like like i i remember uh in college i had a professor who talked about how

script readers for movies uh they're not really looking for the good thing in the script they're just they're just scrolling down until they find one tiny thing that they hate and then they just throw it out and you wouldn't expect that from scouts based on what we know about scouts. So I guess that. And scouts are always drawing on their, their memory or their collective memory of players who have succeeded in the past. And I guess there could be some sort of bias there if they're, if they're making comps based on physical appearance and they can't come up with a lot of people who look like a redhead physically just because i mean at some point that had to start somewhere um but i guess i don't know just the fact that if redheads are are five percent of the population uh it's

hard to come up with examples of them and then maybe that's how you'd end up with 2% of the baseball population, just because you kind of discount a guy's chances because it's harder to, to come up with comps. I don't know. So redheads are almost as common as left-handers. If it's 6%, aren't left-handers like 9% or something like that? Uh, yeah, I think it's like 10%, something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think that every redhead gets a rick suck cliff call uh yeah probably uh all right well

uh great so that's interesting so now everybody knows this okay uh so we'll be back with the email show tomorrow send us emails at podcast at baseball prospectus.com