Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2089: Putting the WAR in Awards

Episode Date: November 23, 2023

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the proper pluralization of “POBO,” then (7:12) answer listener emails about baseball with a five-second pitch clock, how long fans will continue to boo pickoff attempts, what it would take for a team to pay a particular fan to attend (or not attend) its games, Freddie Freeman’s base […]

You never know precisely where it's gonna go By definition, Effectively Wild Hello and welcome to episode 2089 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I'm Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Raleigh of Fangraphs, who I believe is in the midst of a heated exchange on Twitter about the proper way to pluralize pobo. You know, God sends his most trivial battles to his pettiest little soldiers. And this is definitely one of them. I mean, look, I get it.

I get what Michael Bauman is saying. We've all been wrong before, you know. But here's the thing. And, you know, I initially responded to him having written out in response to my plea to the pobos to just, like, be with your families, you know. Like, please don't make me bother anyone today or tomorrow or Friday and say, hey, you left anything right now and then feel like a little jerk. And as if to, you know, and I got distracted by whatever point he was making

because like that's a, you know, like a terrible thing to do. And he acted all affronted as if I was wrong. And even once so far as to impugn my skills as an editor. And then thankfully before he did that, I got distracted by other stuff. And so I didn't see it until Craig Goldstein had weighed in to offer that it's like RBI, which is the argument that I would have made. But Craig made it for me. How courteous of him. Because like Bauman doesn't do RBI.

Well, that's the thing. Yeah, that was solidarity from another editor who has to make these decisions. But Craig saying it's just pobo as a plural like rbi, that doesn't really resolve things because there are many people who argue that it should be ars bi, rs bi, right? But they're like trying to like get attention, you know? Yes, I think so. That's attention seeking behavior or they're like trying to like get attention, you know, that's attention seeking behavior or they're pirates. Yeah, because I get it in theory. Yeah. Runs batted in. It's not run batted ins and it's not president of baseball operation. Well, it is. Yeah. President of baseball operations is it's presidents of baseball operations is its presidents of baseball operations. The thing is that you can't say P-S-O-B-O, really. How would you pronounce that? It's like Sobo.

Sobo. Psobo, yeah, is the P silent in that case. At least with RSBI, you can say that. Now, maybe you shouldn'tBI, you can say that. Now, maybe you shouldn't, but you can pronounce it. It's not quite as awkward as trying to say P-S-O-B-O or just have a silent letter

in there. If you want to write P-S-O-B-O, I guess you can, but it quickly becomes a problem when you have to pronounce it as we do on the podcast. It's just like, it's unnecessary, really. But it quickly becomes a problem when you have to pronounce it as we do on the podcast. Yeah. And it's just like it's unnecessary, really.

You know, it's a complication in search of a problem. And we don't need it. We can just say po-bo. And like we know. We know. We know. Yeah. And it's, I guess it's, you know, GMs is simpler.

We don't have to wrestle with this. It's not generals manager. It's not attorneys general. It's general manager. So this is a complication that we have to reckon with in this time of title inflation in baseball. But honestly, it had not even occurred to me that it would be anything other than povos until Bauman introduced this cursed concept into my mind. So I'm just going to say. And on the day before Thanksgiving.

Yeah. This is a Bauman problem. This is not an us problem. Yeah. I'm generally fine with just pluralizing things by adding an S or whatever, even if it technically doesn't quite make sense if you were to say it out, if it's an acronym, right? So, yeah, POBOs, that's, I think, the official policy of this podcast. Ben, I feel so much better. But we do, you know, we have leaned into the term, you know, we have expressed delight and glee at pobo and so it is our responsibility to

help to clarify the preferred stylization both of effectively wild and then you know in my capacity as managing editor of handgraphs managing's editor what no no definitely not though this is bauman brain worms now. He has poisoned you. Yeah. It's Pobos. It's Pobos. See, this is what happens when someone goes to a school where you just get to laugh at Cox for like years and years. Now, Bauman would be offended because he has said on multiple times that if you emerge from the University of South Carolina and you're still giggling at Cox as an abbreviation for Gamecocks, then

like you weren't really doing a very good job while you were there. And I'm here to say that feels like a challenge that even if I had attended that institution, I would have been able to meet because like that's objectively funny. It's funny. And, you know, I think it does something to you. I think it warps your sense of language. Good. I'm glad we straightened that out. Well, that's all the banter

I had. And there hasn't been any big news since the last time we recorded. Why would you speak that? Why would you speak it out loud? What is wrong with you? We were in alignment. We were friends. We were allies. And now look, did I say before we got on mike that

nothing had happened yeah i did but it's different than like speaking it you're like you know was it good to say rumple still skin or bad to say rumple still skin bad right because it made rumple still skin come and only after one utterance right it wasn't like beetlejuice where you had to do it multiple times it was just like you said rumpletskin and there was this guy being like, I'm going to steal your kid. It's like, what are you going to do with the kid? Was he meant to eat the kid? Or was he going to raise it?

Like what is, anyway, that's not the point. I introduced new banter because it's the day before a holiday. We get to be a little jazzy. Yeah, those original fairy tales, folk tales, Hans Christian Andersen stories. I think they did eat it in the original. They're pretty twisted.

Yeah, they've been sanitized since to make them more palatable to kids, not the kids themselves being palatable. That's what Rubble Stillskin was thinking. So the po-bo's will presumably save their transactions for the worst possible time. So after we record this podcast, just as you're putting things in the oven or settling down to Thanksgiving dinner. But that is not our problem presently. And so we're going to do some emails and maybe a stat blast at the end. So let's start with a question from Julian R., Patreon supporter, who says, hypothetical,

what if the pitch clock were something like five seconds always, or maybe 10 seconds from the moment the ball hits the catcher's mitt to avoid circumvention? Wade Miley basically threw at this tempo throughout the year, so it's certainly humanly possible. See the StatCast pitch tempo leaderboard. The game would certainly have a very different feel. No rubbing the ball, no shaking off signs, less cat and mouse between the pitcher and catcher. But I haven't been able to convince myself it would be worse. More action, less max effort throwing, zippy games.

Do you think this variant would be fun? No. This would basically be the speed chess version of baseball. Oh, yeah. Just get the ball and go. I find speed chess version of baseball. Oh, yeah. Just get the ball and go. I find speed chess really impressive because I don't really play chess at all. And so the fact that you would do it fast is like,

whoa, you must be quite skilled. I don't think it would be good. And here's why. Like, we are always, when it comes to the question of pace, trying to balance a couple of things simultaneously. And I think that we were right to be focused on the sort of dead time that we were seeing, the lack of action, the feeling of drag. But I don't want us to lose sight of the fact that,

at least from a spectator perspective, part of what is nice about baseball relative to some other sports where you have more consistent action, and I guess really the only good example that I would maybe put it up against for comparison would actually be basketball because there's so much stoppage in football. And then I don't know enough about soccer to talk about it in a way that isn't going to sound dismissive because it's just not my game. And it's fine if it's yours. It's just not for me. And that's also fine. But like one of the really nice things about baseball is as a spectator, you know, the thing breathes, right? Like it isn't too far removed from the nice pastoral sort of day at the park kind of experience where you're watching the game and it might have moments of really heightened tension. It might have lulls and you can have conversations with the people you're there with. You can sort of contemplate the action that you're seeing on the field. It allows for a really complete kind of emotional experience, right? And I think that you don't

want it to tilt too far into that part of it because then it can feel like it's dragging and it can be a little bit boring and it's like, all right, can you like do something already? But I think part of why I had resistance to shortening up the pitch clock for next year was not because I thought it was really going to change anything, but because I do have some concern that in the admirable quest for like a zippy fun game that we will lose sight of this other piece of the spectator experience that I still think is pretty important. So I would find this very rushed and stressful. You want dynamic moments to be marked, I think, by tension rather than anxiety would be maybe the distinction I would draw. And feeling rushed is terrible, you know? You don't want to feel rushed. This is why, like, I luxuriate in the fact that I'm able to grocery shop in the middle of the day, right? As a person who works from home, it's like, oh, I'm going to go. It's going to be quiet there. There's going to hardly be anyone there. It's going to be me and a bunch of retirees, and we're all going to do our little shop. And then I'm going to, you know, have a pleasant time checking out. It's not going to be a thrash drive in home. It's just going to be nice. So you want to always have an eye on the balance

of those things in baseball, but we should remember that we are trying to achieve a balance and not assume that all downtime is dead time, because I don't think that's quite right. So I would find this very anxiety-inducing, and I am already prone to that. So no, thank you. if you had this, they would be too fast. It would be like not even worth the trouble of going to a game, not enough entertainment, right? It would be so short. It would be shorter than a movie. It would just be over so quickly. And also, I think there would be some costs. Now, it's true, Julian is right that this would probably help with the max effort throwing and would probably lead to fewer strikeouts and more offense, maybe so much more offense that that would offset the decrease in game time because there'd just be so much more scoring potentially. But you need

some recovery time. Now, I haven't seen any compelling evidence that the pitch clock has increased pitcher injuries as of yet. But if you got to this point, I don't know, guys would be winded. It's a little different from speed chess where the strain isn't so much physical as you're playing, as you're making the moves. It's like you don't have as much time to weigh what you're doing and consider the strategy and forecast 10 moves out, right? But it's not like your arms are going to get tired from moving the pieces that fast or something, right? Whereas your arms are going to get tired to just throwing the ball that quickly. So yeah, this would affect the spectator experience. I mean, I'd be fine with watching it once. It would be like that shortest game ever that you and Sam did.

Oh, yeah. The episode where you commentated, you called the shortest game ever in a fictionalized way, and the episode was as long as that game was. So it would be novel, you know? I would watch it once just to see what it was like. But no, it would be too fleeting a spectator experience among other problems. Yeah, I think that people would be so resentful of having to pay to go to a game that quickly paced. You know, they would just be up in arms. But I do like the idea of doing it one one time i don't know maybe this is the the thing that the all-star break is missing we've talked before about kind of putting all of our weird

hypotheticals i mean not the guy having to have an extra arm coming out of the top of his head because like that seems cruel but you know putting all of the weird hypotheticals we get in one game just so that we can see them as like a sort of weird mirror world proof of concept. And maybe we can add this to the list, right? We have like baseball demonstration week and it changes every year. And then everyone goes, it's good that we don't do that. Yeah, that was episode 1453. That one that you and Sam did.

That was fun. Go check it out if you haven't heard it. All right. Related question from Tom, Patreon supporter. How long do you think people will keep booing when a visiting pitcher throws to first base? It's obviously a holdover from when pitchers could delay and play the most boring mind game to limit the running game before disengagement limits. Now that's functionally been eliminated, but at least here in Philadelphia, people still are happy to boo,

even with a good pickoff attempt. Not going to say that's Philadelphia specific or anything about fans. I don't think it is. Tom continues, from flipping around MLB TV, it seems to be down dramatically in other towns. Well, I don't know. It's anecdotal.

We'd have to do some study there. But he says, will Philly or Boston be the last place to boo pitchers for pickoffs? So, yeah, this would be an interesting bit of research to do if we got a representative sample of pitchers throwing over this season and in 2022, and we scrutinized the decibel level or the duration of the booing, has it already subsided? Is this just an artifact? I'd be curious, you know, people who attended a lot of games or watched a lot of games, what you think, whether you noticed any dramatic drop-off in the booing because i could see how it it would and should tail off because it's just not really a burdensome onerous part of the game anymore

it used to be at times it was obviously rare for for pitchers to really exploit that almost loophole that they could just throw over indefinitely. But now you just you never have more than a couple throws over really. And so no one minds anymore. And I would not be surprised if whatever lingering resentment persists would just subside after we get far enough removed from the pre-pitch clock era that people just don't even remember that being something that historically, traditionally they booed. I think that there will always be some amount of booing. I think that its concentration around the pickoffs probably will subside with time, but I think it will take a while i think it will really take a good while because i just don't think the fans need very much

to boo you know i don't think that the excuse has to be particularly strong or compelling for fans to be like this is when we boo okay booing now so i think know, again, that muscle memory might kind of atrophy over time, but I don't think it'll ever go away entirely. I mean, like baseball fans, you have a guy doing an annoying thing one time 10 years ago, you boo that guy when he comes to town, you know. And I think that, you know, fans tend to view booing as like a helpful activity to the home team, even though I don't think it really makes a huge difference. But, you know, we know that home field advantage is real. And the situation that is i mean like maybe but you know as much fun as i have kind of goofing on the the wonder the delight that is uh that is phillies fans like i i don't think that this is particularly specific to them so yeah i don't know man people love to people love to boo, Ben. They do, yeah. So maybe they just want the excuse.

But it's also like the games just move so much more snappily now that just having an extra delay there for a pickoff added to it is just a lot less annoying than it used to be. Yes. The pace is so much faster that it's just it doesn't feel like an added affront, like, oh, it's already dragging. And now here you are wasting more of our time because it's moving along more quickly. It just it doesn't feel like such an imposition. And also, I think now Tom Tango just did a study on the effects of the new pickoff rules at his site, which I will link to. on the effects of the new pickoff rules at his site, which I will link to. In the past, when you had unlimited pickoffs, a pickoff attempt was beneficial to the pitcher even if it wasn't successful.

Even if you didn't pick off the runner, it still did lead to shorter leads and lower success rates if the runner went. And now that's not the case. Now, Tom wrote, the pitchers get into this weird spot. Pickoff attempts are good when they work, but are very they can take longer leads. You know, you're less likely to have multiple throws over now. And so you can be more confident and you can get a better jump. And so now really, if anything, fans should cheer an unsuccessful pickoff attempt by the opposing pitcher because it's actually bad news for that pitcher's team. the opposing pitcher because it's actually bad news for that pitcher's team. It's good news for the base runner, which was not the case before. I don't know if fans are really taking that into account, but analytically speaking, it's now a positive play for the home fans when the opposing pitcher does that, whereas it used to be a negative play. One thing that fans are very famous for is checking the win expectancy chart before the and the run expectancy chart for that matter.

When they are confronted with action on the field. Yeah, they consult the tables like, is it okay to boo now? All right, let's just check. Yeah, okay. Yeah, this checks out. This is something. Is this a rational moment in which I should boo? And then they go, wow, it is.

Or they go, you know, I had one holstered. I was ready to go, but got to keep it inside because the little table tells me that they're not likely to score here. So I guess I'm going to keep that one to myself. Sports fandom is famously rational yeah right yeah it's not which is why there will continue to be booing but i think that um the idea that you know that sort of natural agitation around the pickoff stuff not being there it will

diminish it over time but you know all i also will say all it takes is one, right? It only takes one fan who's like, yeah, I'm a boo now. And then everybody wants to boo, you know. Yeah, it can be contagious, yeah. Yeah, we're nothing if not inclined to that sort of thing. So, yeah, man. All right. Well, while we're talking to Tom here, let's take another question from Tom, Patreon supporter, who says, A friend has a running joke that any Phillies home game loss must mean that I attended.

It's not a bad guess. I would suspect their winning percentage is somewhere around 300 with me in attendance, with the game seven loss being my most recent crime. Imagine if there were a perfect correlation between attendance and win slash losses, though. How many receipts would you have to show a team to convince them to sponsor you not to attend their games if every game you attended they lost? Could you more easily convince them to give you good tickets if every game you attended they won? The fan equivalent of the Gani Jones scenario, I guess, where there's something mystical about this player that just makes a team win. Now it's for a fan where if they attend, the team always loses or this alternate scenario for the team to pay you not to attend or maybe to pay you to attend, to gift you good tickets to be there because of the team's record of success with you in attendance? I see a couple of different scenarios here. The first is that somehow this fan gets this bit of

business to the team owner and the owner who I might imagine to be more inclined to be superstitious. Now that might be generous on my part because so many of the like principal owners these days are like, you know, private equity guys. And like, you know, they're very keen on being rational, but like, if you were to, if you were to go to John Middleton and go, hey, I've been to 200 Phillies games over the last couple of years, and they've won every single one of them. Yeah. He might be like, okay, let's see what you can do.

And then they could do, like, a whole promotion about it. Right. You know, they would find you in the crowd. It would become a thing that would be remarked upon, particularly if it was a real magical property associated with you because then they'd just never lose it, have a perfect home record. And gosh, talk about incentivizing home field advantage. I mean, does it have to be their home ballpark? Or is there just any Phillies game? I mean, I'm using Phillies because that's the example we've

been given. But like, is it any game by the team? I guess it could be any. Because if it's any game by the team, then we have a new scenario, which is that Major League Baseball bars you from going at all, because they don't want magical mystical nonsense to be what determines the outcome of the game and they definitely don't want people to assume the outcome in advance and you'd be in a real fix because if somebody found out like i you might get murdered like not by major league baseball probably i mean maybe maybe but like by an opposing fan you know or if if you are the the jinx if you're the curse like and again i'm not saying i'm using philly's fans because that's the example in the email i'm not saying anything about the murderous tendencies in philadelphia

sports fans we're not passing a value judgment let's pick a different franchise pick a team at random pick a pick a team pick a team ben pick a team guardians the guardians okay great so like you you are the you know they're cross to bear you are you are a curse you are a mystical creature any game you go to that the Guardians play, the Guardians lose. And, you know, there's going to be someone out there who thinks to themselves, what if I just killed that guy? You know? And that person's wrong, to be clear, because, like, yours is a human life. That has intrinsic value. But also, I think that Major League Baseball would probably say, you can't go anymore.

Like, this is too weird. Like, it's just too weird. But it's too weird. And it would take a lot of games. Like, I don't think you could ever actually convince anyone that this was a real thing because I think that we are skeptical of Magic? Question mark? I don't know how many it would need to be. It would need to be a lot.

I think that you would be more likely, as I said, to have success with like an owner than a pobo, maybe. And I think you would definitely have a higher likelihood of success. Success being either being bought off or given a nice seat if like the marketing people found out and thought that they could make something of it. Exactly. Yeah. You're more likely to get them to give you tickets to go than to pay you to stay home, let's say. Yeah, that seems impossible. They can, if you're at the ballpark, they could capitalize on that. They could market it. They could put it on social media. It would be fun to follow. Whereas if they just pay you not to be there, how are they going to, gonna you know make the most of that right so the other thing is that it would be hard to document you'd have to really rigorously document your attendance to prove it because of course you could just say yeah they always win

when i'm there yeah you'd have to i don't know. Like one of those like what is it like the the ballpark passport program or something like the MLB ballpark passport. There are various things that let you track every game you've attended or the ballpark app. But it would have to be or I don't know. You'd need receipts. It wouldn't even be enough just to have ticket stubs or something. No, you need like photographic evidence. Yeah, because you could just, you could collect after the fact ticket stubs to games you didn't actually go to or, right?

So yeah, it would have to be receipts and then maybe it would have to be like the team could verify that you actually use the tickets and that you were there or you'd have to have, I don't know, timestamped photos from the game, like with the metadata that confirmed that you were in the park or whatever, you know, like it would have to be pretty, pretty well documented to prove that you were actually there or that you were not there, I guess. But yeah, it would have to be like for marketing purposes. I don't think it would have to be that long. Like if you went to, let's say, 20 or 30 games or something in a season and they happened to win all of them, that would probably be unlikely enough that it would be kind of a fun human interest story that the team might bite on potentially.

But yeah, I don't know. It would have to be, I guess, more than that for you to convince them that you should not be at the game and that they should actually pay you to stay away because that would be a little bit different. And I still think that there would be a transition point. There would be a point at which the marketing has been going on. And again, we are assuming this is a real magical power.

And so the PR people are like, this is getting kind of weird, you know? Like, it's been like 40 games. And, you know, you'd be at the very least breaking all kinds of home win streak records i'm just assuming you're going to home games it's like traveling that's a whole other ball of wax and if you're asking them to pay for that like they're gonna be like yeah right but you know at a certain point like the people will be going like this is really weird and then and then the the league would maybe they wouldn't attribute it to literal magic but they might be like what's going on is there something funky here and like i don't know how you would even architect such a thing but

you know i think that at a certain point they would be like we gotta you gotta stay home until maybe they would like make you stay home as as part of an experiment to see if it alters the fortunes of the franchise in any appreciable way and then have you go back. And how do they make sure that you don't go? Because it's hard to actually prevent someone from attending a baseball game. It's like when you are a streaker or something, you jump on the field and then they ban you. But effectively, how do they actually prevent you from going? Really? They could put your picture up or something, alert the authorities to don't let this person in. But yeah, unless they stationed a security guard with you or something during the hours that the game, you know, with your consent, so that they would know for sure that you weren't there. consent so that they would know for sure that you weren't there.

Or, yeah, I guess if you had season tickets or something, if it was like attached to your name, then they would know that those were your tickets. No, they're your tickets, but you could buy tickets on the secondary market. Yeah, right. I mean, it would, they'd have to like station someone at your house and be like, you have to stay. I don't know. I do find it. I'm always like, no one would believe it.

It's magic. But we believe all kinds of nonsense. So I'm probably putting too much store in our ability to parse reality these days. Yeah. Colin, Patreon supporter, says a question about Freddie Freeman's base running numbers. So Freddie Freeman stole 23 bases on 24 attempts this season. He has 36 stolen bases on 40 attempts in two seasons with the Dodgers. How can we understand this seemingly dramatic increase in base running effectiveness?

Can we think of a time when a first baseman in his 30s became this proficient at a skill we typically don't associate with that position? I also checked Baseball Savant and his average sprint speed has remained quite stable, all things considered. I just stat-headed this at Baseball Reference and looked for first basemen, players who played first base in at least 80% of their games, age 33 or older, most stolen bases. And Freddie Freeman's 23 this year is the most in almost a century by a primary first baseman since George Sisler,

who led the league with 27 in 1927. And that wasn't out of the norm for Sisler. He was a speedy guy and he had led his league in stolen bases multiple times before that. The thing with Freeman is that not only does he not fit the profile of a base dealer as a mid-30s almost first baseman, but it's not really in his history. And so, yeah, he's an outlier just compared to any first baseman of his age but to do it without having had that really

in his bag before like he he stole 10 bases in 2018 that was the only time he had gotten to double digits before that and obviously aided by the disengagement rule and everything this year, but still 13 out of 16 in 2022. So I guess it just reinforces for me that stolen bases, it's partly about ability, but it's also just about will, like whether you want to go, whether you're willing to risk it, because base runners these days are probably more conservative than they need to be on the whole. And, you know, attempt rates were down and success rates were up. And that's why we got those rules meant to increase base running. But sometimes it's just about deciding I want to go more often than typically like Ronald Acuna this year, right? Like he's not at least by sprint speeds, the fastest guy in baseball or anything, but he let everyone in stolen bases because he just

decided he wanted to be really aggressive about that. So it's, it's partly just about your mindset as well as your skills. Well, and I wonder if there's, I mean, not that, I mean, I'm about to say this and then people are going to be like hey i make how many bases at ronald lacuna juniors deal this year and i'm going to feel like a real dope but you know some of it too might be for whatever reason a different degree of comfort on the part of the organization maybe than what he had been faced with previously maybe he you know his sprint speed is the same, but like maybe there's been some change in like his training regimen or something and he like

just feels better running. He feels maybe more flexible in his lower half. I don't know if that's the case, but I could think of something like that where even though your sort of raw ability isn't changed, your ease of movement feels better to the point that you're willing to try it. Maybe you are being told by the Dodgers, like, yeah, go give that a shot. I don't know. It is a pretty dramatic uptick. It is. It's like quite dramatic. And look, we love a base steal in first baseman.

We love that. We love it when they steal a bunch of bases. We love it when they steal a medium number of bases but are really effective base runners. I just like it when guys defy the expectations of their positions. This is one of the charming things about Christian Walker, for instance. Not as many stolen bases as Freddie Freeman, but a very adept base runner. It's cool. Freddie Freeman has really long legs, and I don't think I'm just thinking that because of how high his pants sit. This is like a Jimmy Stewart level of high pants, though. It's up to his belly button, practically. He should be using a camera to spy on his neighbors or something. I just re-watched Rear Window the other day, and you know what? It's like up to his belly button practically. He should be using a camera to spy on his neighbors or something.

I just re-watched Rear Window the other day. And you know what? It's still great, Ben. It's still a great film. Anyway, what I mean to say is I think it's delightful. And I don't know if there is a satisfactory explanation beyond the ones that we've offered. But it would be interesting to hear if the Dodgers as an org were like, yeah, go get a shot, man.

You know, could be true. Yeah. I mean, a first time 2020 player at age 33 or it is age 33 season. Yeah. And there was some MLB was promoting the first first baseman with 20 homers, 20 steals, and 200 hits. Okay. And, yeah, I mean, he is almost aging in reverse in a lot of ways, I guess. Like, he just has not.

Benjamin Button. Yeah, he kind of is. He's not declining. Sam wrote about this, actually, that he has surpassed his Pocota projections some improbable number of years in a row. Like, you know, the projection systems would forecast a decline for a player his age, and he is not declining. He has become a higher average hitter in the second half of his career thus far. As the league average has gone lower, he has hit for higher averages.

He is stealing more bases. He's better than ever, really. He's not getting worse. He's not following the typical trajectory. So that's been fun. But a lot of it is just know-how. It reminds me of Albert Pujols, who stole a fair number of bases as a first baseman early in his career. And that was before he had his foot and leg issues and he wasn't painfully slow. We don't have sprint speeds from earlier in his career, but he wasn't a burner in my memory. But even late in his career, when he was hobbling around, he would still steal very successfully, right? He had that long streak of successful attempts. I mean, he'd only steal a bag or two a year, right? But he wasn't caught for the longest time because he was just smart about it. He had good instincts

and he knew when to go. And of course, probably he was underestimated because people watched him running very, very slowly, if you could call it, running to first base. And we're like, well, I don't need to worry about that guy, which maybe is working in Freddie Freeman's favor, too, just because that hasn't really been in his toolkit historically. And you don't think of him as someone who would be running a lot. So maybe he doesn't draw as many of those pickoff attempts as he should, given how much he's gone over the past couple seasons. But yeah, it is really fun. He's, let's see, the first player in Dodgers history to record 200 hits, 25 homers, and 20 stolen bases in a single season. It's just, it's a weird but fun profile. I'm enjoying it. Yeah. I mean, it will be interesting, I guess,

to see if there is any adjustment on the part of opposing teams when they're like, oh, yeah, he really is going to go for it. Like, he means it now. But, you know, maybe not. Like, maybe it's just the perfect combination of rule change plus good ability and a graceful decline. And he'll just, like, steal a billion of them. Maybe he'll steal one billion of them, Ben. A whole billion of them. And then we'll be like, wow, we really have some explaining to do. Must be magic. In September. Yeah, that would have to be magic. This could be magic, too. I don't know. But he's the 11th first baseman in Major League history.

The L.A. Times said to hit at least 20 homers and steal 20 bases in a season. And yet to do it without having done it at a younger age is probably even stranger. So fun. Long may he run. Yeah. All right. Question from JJ, Patreon supporter. I was listening to Effectively Wild in HEB on a Sunday.

Now, you were talking about grocery shopping before. HEB is a supermarket chain that I have no experience with, I don't think. Yeah, me neither. It's in Texas and Mexico, I think, mostly. So I do not frequently patronize HEB. But he says he was in HEB on a Sunday, which meant a lot of Cowboys jerseys, which led me to consider the interception. Baseball, unlike football and the other major professional sports in America, doesn't have interceptions, steals, not that kind of steal,

not the Freddie Freeman kind of steal, or turnovers of any kind. Anyway, I don't remember this being discussed much during the baseball exceptionalism series you did. So let's say Rob Manfred, high off the success of the pitch clock, decides he wants to further improve the game and settles on introducing the interception into baseball. What would this look like? What would it look like? This is complicated by the defense having the ball. Yeah. But what if the second baseman could sneak is complicated by the defense having the ball. Yeah.

But what if the second baseman could sneak up behind the pitcher and steal the ball out of their hand? Maybe the defensive team is allowed to have a batter in the unoccupied batter's box and whoever hits the pitch first owns the inning. What? Turnovers

in baseball. How would that work? Okay. So like stick with me because i haven't thought this one through so we're gonna see what's rattling around in meg's brain but it would it seems to me that the the way that you could do something like this and i i'm i'm still not even quite sure what i think the mechanism would necessarily be but would be probably more um akin to stealing outs than it would be to stealing runs which sort of works against i mean i guess in that respect it is like an interception right because the defender is the one that's intercepting the ball in football where you are hastening the end of your sort of defensive inning

rather than accruing runs because you can't have both teams batting at the same time. That's crazy. And you're fundamentally limited by the fact that the defense already has the ball at the beginning. So I think that you'd have to do stuff to steal outs. And there are already some rules that allow for outs to be collected that aren't the responsibility or fault of the hitter.

So we kind of, I mean, like, you could, I mean, like, is throwing out a runner attempting to steal just baseball's version of this like is that maybe the closest thing we have at the moment or like you know interference rules can kind of cut both ways sometimes it's to the benefit of the hitting team sometimes to the pitching team but like we do you know you have interference rules where you know depending on who's interfering with whom, like the batter might be able to take base, might be able to be called out because of interference.

So maybe we already have this within our rule structure. It's just, well, first of all, less flashy generally than interceptions. Although nabbing a runner at second is like pretty flashy. That's one of my favorite plays in baseball is when you get like a really good throw. And especially at the end, if the catcher's like only on one leg, you know, like if they're kind of tilted and then they do the like, yeah, I got him.

I did a little gesture and none of you can see it, but like picture in your mind's eye, like I'm the catcher and I've just nabbed a runner and I'm going, yeah. And I'm really excited about it, but I'm only on one leg. I'm a little off kilter. You're like, wow, she really leaned into that one. I'm in a good mood. I don't know. Sometimes I'm grumpy when we record the pod, not very often,

because I like doing the pod. And sometimes I'm in like an objectively good mood and I don't know, I'd like to think it shows. So that's what occurs to me is that it would be about stealing, So that's what occurs to me is that it would be about stealing, quote unquote, outs to hasten the end of the inning and allow your guys to come up to bat. But I'm open to other suggestions if something occurs to you. Yeah. I want to hear from listeners, especially listeners who follow more sports than I do, about how turnovers could work in baseball. Do you know what an interception is, Ben? Do you need me to explain it?

I'm not familiar with the concepts. An interception. Do we need to go over the PI rules? Yeah, didn't we? Yeah, we've done all sorts of hypotheticals. I think we did one on like two teams batting at the same time. We did that one on on what if the batter catches the pitch from the pitcher

and would get something for that. But that would almost be like an interception because you're catching it instead of the catcher catching it. But you're already batting. You wouldn't want to just end the inning there because you got the ball. You want to already batting, so you wouldn't want to just end the inning there because you've got the ball.

You want to keep batting. Right. Yeah. So the thing about the defense having the ball and starting the play that does make it difficult. Yeah. All right. Give us your suggestions if you have a good one that Meg didn't mention there for a turnover in baseball. And picture yourself going, yeah, while you send the email. You'll feel really special. a good one that Meg didn't mention there for a turnover in baseball.

And picture yourself going, yeah, while you send the email. You'll feel really special. Yeah. I was just musing to myself who was the oldest first-time 2020 player prompted by Freeman. It's definitely not Freeman because I remembered that Paul O'Neill was a 2020 player for the first time in his career in his final season. Oh, wow. I don't think I realized that. Like, that's a flex, you know? I mean, he stole 22 bases in his age 38 season and hit 21 homers.

That was in 2001. He stole 20 bases in 1989, but he only hit 15 homers that year. So that was his, his career high in stolen bases in his final season as an aged veteran and a first time 2020 guy. And I, yeah, I guess he and Gary Sheffield are tied for oldest 2020 season. They both did it at age 38. So yeah, I remember that O'Neill season fondly because he was one of my favorites, which I know he was one of every non-Yankees fan's least favorites.

And he was not my favorite favorite. Bernie was my favorite and kind of an opposite in terms of like personality or at least how they presented their personality on the field but I enjoyed Paul O'Neill too especially his batting stance which I emulated as a player but he was a lefty and I'm not which made it difficult yeah I was gonna say that seems like complicated yeah yeah I'd like look in a mirror. It just it didn't work as well. But I really liked how his stance looked.

So I tried to do the righty version of that. Have you ever considered that you might have had a very long and successful baseball career if you simply hadn't done that? No, I have not considered that. But now I will. Now you're gonna. Yeah. I could have been like one of those athletic prodigies who break their arm and they decide, well, I'm a lefty now instead of a righty. And then they go on to a long and productive career.

Maybe I did the opposite of that and I should have just stuck with my natural side. All right. Nick, Patreon supporter, says, condolences, Meg, that those plucky Diamondbacks came up short for winning a championship this year. But if it's any consolation, they now have the inside track to accomplishing a very rare feat, a 30-year run of perfectly average success. Here's what I mean by that. If all teams had equal talent and the results were completely randomized, we would expect

over the course of 30 years that each one of MLB's 30 teams would win one World Series, lose one World Series, and win their division six times. Yeah, it's not perfect since the divisions had an unbalanced number of teams for several years, but just work with me here. As of 2023, the Diamondbacks, in only 26 years of existence, have won a World Series, lost a World Series, and won the NL West five times. All they need to do is win the division once over the next four years without ever making the World Series, and they will have earned a perfectly average outcome in their first 30 years. Maybe not a feat that gets too many fans excited and easier said than done when you have to share a division with the Dodgers, but it should logically make most DeepX fans fairly content. There are four more years until MLB will have played 30 years with 30 teams,

and there are nine teams that have the potential to hit the perfectly average mark by the time this span is over, though they require very different roads to get there. Some coasting off of decades old success, with others hoping a young core can propel them to sustained success soon. Since we've got a long offseason left to go, please humor us and rank these nine teams by which you think is most likely to win the perfectly average trophy by the time the 2027 season has concluded. Alright. I had not considered this accomplishment before, but this is a fun one. Alright. I will read these out, and we'll have to

repeat and remember them so that we can rank them, but the Orioles need one World Series win, one World Series loss, and four division titles. The White Sox need one World Series win, one World Series loss, and four division titles. Okay. The White Sox need one World Series loss and two division titles.

The Angels need one World Series loss and zero division titles. The Nationals need one World Series loss and two division titles. The Cubs need one World Series loss and zero division titles. The Reds need one World Series win, one World Series loss, and four division titles. The Cubs need one World Series loss and zero division titles. The Reds need one World Series win, one series loss, and four division titles. The Brewers need one World Series win,

one World Series loss, and two division titles. The Diamondbacks, as stated, need zero World Series appearances, but one division title. And finally, the Padres need one World Series win, three division titles. Don't forget, each team must hit their target exactly. If the Angels make a World Series but have the bad fortune to actually win the thing, or, God forbid, win the AL West to get there, they have now overperformed by winning two titles within 30 years and must be cast aside with the Braves and Astros and Yankees of the world. All right, so I'm going to have to go over these again.

There are a couple here that require a World Series title with no division title, which obviously can happen, but the odds are more against you if you have to do it as a wildcard team. So, like, the Angels need one World Series loss and zero division titles. And then the Cubs need the same one World Series loss and zero division titles. So that's, I mean, you know, that's doable. Obviously a lot of this has to do as well

with just like how many times they have to do it. So like – Right. I was going to say – Yeah. The Orioles, for example. Now, the Orioles are set up to be good for the rest of this time until the 2027 season is over. in four seasons, win four division titles in the AL East, and also win two pennants with one title. I mean, they're, I guess, about as well positioned as any team to do that other than the fact that they're in the AL East.

But that's tough to do. And they have not much pitching. Not currently, yeah. So, all right. So that's hard. They're well set up roster-wise, but that's a lot of work they have to do in four short seasons. Then, I mean, look, White Sox winning two division titles in the next four years. I put that at the bottom. Yeah, that's got to be toward the bottom, even though it's the AL Central.

Even though it's the AL Central. Even though it's the AL Central. Even so. Still putting it toward the bottom. Yeah. Okay. Now, Angels, one World Series loss. So they have to win a pennant, but not win the title, but zero division titles. I believe in them to do that part of it.

I think they can do the zero division titles. Yeah. That's well within their power. I just don't see them making the World Series at all. No. Like, you know, who knows in four years, I guess. But yeah, that seems fairly

unlikely. Okay. Nationals, one World Series, lost two Division titles. That seems so unlikely. These all seem so unlikely. Yeah. I mean, Cubs, one World Series, lost zero division titles.

That seems more, that's maybe the most likely? Yeah, that seems pretty likely. I mean, they could certainly win a division title, but it's possible not to win one. And then, okay, the Reds have to do the same thing that the Orioles have to do, which is kind of fun because they're in similar spots sort of with their rebuilds and their young talent and their payrolls and everything. So one World Series win, one World Series loss, four division titles. Now, easier to win four consecutive NL Central titles than four consecutive AL East titles. And they could do it. Like they took a big leap this year.

Maybe if they spend, if they try to get better, they could be the favorites in that division and potentially most of these years if they play their cards right. Play their cards right? Yeah, if they play the cards right. So I guess the Reds more likely than the Orioles. I don't think the Reds are as good as the Orioles currently. But it's just easier to win four central titles than four East titles. Okay, fair. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right.

I mean, Diamondbacks is pretty easy. Like, that's – you'd put them at the top, I guess, because no World Series appearances, one division title. That's very doable. They could do that. Yeah. Yeah, they have to contend with the Dodgers, of course, but one division title of the next four and then just not winning a pennant. That's eminently doable.

So, all right. I'm going to put Diamondbacks at the top. All right. And then the Padres were at one World Series win and three division titles. So that's kind of tough to win three of the next four titles in the West, but not impossible. All right. So I'm going to go Diamondbacks at the top. And then Cubs, no division titles, one World Series loss.

Yeah, like if anything, I'm worried that they're too good for that, at least division title-wise. But, okay, Diamondbacks, Cubs. Cubs, Reds. Reds. So Reds, one World Series win, one World Series loss, four division titles. It's so many things. Yeah, that's, four division titles. It's so many things. Yeah, that's a lot of things. That's too many things.

That's just a lot of business. Yeah. How about Brewers? That's a lot of business. Two division titles and one World Series win and one World Series loss. That's so many things. Yeah, two division titles is doable. things yeah two division titles is is two world series anything feels like it has to move people toward the bottom because it's just just getting there is so hard yeah yeah you're right okay so

that's yeah that's got to be toward the bottom okay so let's go simply tortured by this very arbitrary exercise diving backs c backs, Cubs. How about Nationals two-division titles, one World Series loss? I mean, I don't know. I don't know. Nationals, they're getting better, hopefully, but the Braves are in that division,

the Phillies are in that division, the Mets are in that division. It's a really hard division. Yeah, that's two-division titles of the next four is tough. Why am I whispering? Why am I whispering? Yeah, you want to be audible. It's a podcast. Sorry.

It seems really hard, Ben. It seems really hard. Alright, yeah. See, the Angels, zero division titles, okay, but then like, how are they going to win the pennant at all in the next four years? They're not. Like, could they luck into a wild card and then, you know, have a Cinderella run and win a pennant and lose in the series four years from now?

No. Sure. No. I think no. I'm so skeptical. I'm skeptical too. Oh, Lord. All right.

I'm going to go Diamondbacks, Cubs. Diamondbacks, Cubs. I almost want to say Angels. Oh, my God. Because all the others are just like you have to win so many division titles. You have to win so many things, but the Angels are so bad. They're so bad. All right.

How about Padres, three division titles, one World Series win? Oh, my God. That's so much stuff. At least they only have to make one series, though. Right. Yeah, that's true. As opposed to the Orioles and the Reds who have to make two. True. And the Brewers. Yeah, the Brews who have to make two. True.

And the Brewers. Yeah, the Brewers. So let's say Padres next. Okay. Padres next. Deal. And then Brewers, they have to make two World Series winning one, but only two division titles,

which is maybe a little easier than the four division titles that the Reds and the Orioles have to win in addition to their two pennants. So many. Yeah. So let's go Brewers next. And then let's say, man, I honestly,

I kind of want to put like Angels, even though they're so bad. They're so bad, Ben. All they need is one fluky season to do this. Whereas the Orioles and the Reds have to be so good so many times. Man. All right. I'm going to say, okay, let's say Orioles, then Reds, then Angels.

I'm going to put Angels above Nationals just because they're both bad now. And the Nationals, they have to win two division titles, whereas the Angels don't have to win any. So I'm going to say Angels and then I'm going to say Nationals last, I think. Yeah. All right. I like this, though. I hadn't thought of the perfectly average team accomplishment. So we'll have to check

back on this after 2027. See if any team managed to pull this off. You know, my first thought was when you read the email. Did Jerry DiPoto write this email? Yeah. Jerry. Alright. Brighton Patreon supporter

says, as a Canadian, I'm predisposed to comparing everything to hockey, including MLB's playoff format. This may shock you, so ensure you're sitting down before you read it. For the 79 to 80 season, the NHL changed its playoff format to include 16 teams out of 21 total.

What? More than 75% of teams made the playoffs each season and this state would continue until the 90s when expansion started to make the format look a little less absurd. Luckily, this period coincided with Wayne Gretzky's Oilers winning a bunch of cups so there weren't really too many major

upsets or Mickey Mouses or whatever. But anyway, that's neither here nor there. My point is that as a somewhat recent baseball convert, I found it really interesting how much more conservative the playoff formats have been historically and how much interest there is in preserving this state among baseball fans. It got me wondering, hockey fans in the 80s tolerated a playoff saturation of 75%, but how much playoff creep would it take to totally kill interest in MLB? Has people's tolerance for playoff expansion changed over time in your experience? I think people are, I mean, with each new expansion, people just get used to the idea and some traditionalists kick and scream and still object to it and resent it. But we learn to live with it. So, yeah, I think every time they expand it, we just, we get dragged along. I don't know if there is a number of playoff teams that could completely kill interest in baseball. It could have some greater effect on a reduction of interest in the regular season as that gets less and less

significant. I don't know if it would kill the sport. I think it would depend on the state of expansion sort of to the hockey point, right? Because if you're still dealing with the number of teams we have like i think people are going to be like enough already i mean people already think that about the expanded format but if we add two more teams we had four more teams if there are six more teams well then i think people's kind of tolerance for it is a little bit different than it would be if it were still 30 you know yeah so and i? Yeah. And I think for most people, it's more about sort of the ratio, the percentage of the league

that is in the playoff field versus not, than it is like the discrete number of teams. Yeah. So that's part of it. Can you imagine if you were one of the hockey teams that didn't make the playoffs during that stretch? You'd feel like real garbage. Like, I bet that was profoundly demoralizing for some people. I bet they were like, we are not good at hockey, which is not generally. But that was one of the questions they polled on, the size of the playoff field, what's the ideal size. the most popular response.

What we have currently, 38.4% of respondents selected that. 34% selected 10 teams. So what we had prior to the recent round of expansion and then 24.4% selected eight teams and then only 3.2% selected other. There was a small share of write-ins wanting to get back

to two or four team postseasons, but more teams generally was preferred. More than two-thirds of respondents want 10 or 12 team playoff fields, and a couple dozen people wrote in that they wanted 14 or 16 teams, especially come expansion. So it does seem like this has become normalized. People are more or less used to it, even if they then object to when teams lose. And there are a lot of upsets in the playoffs. But I guess people are just sort of stuck on this being the way that it works now and not being that dissatisfied with it on the whole. with it on the whole. And hockey is pretty similar to baseball in how random its playoffs are and how rarely the quote unquote best team wins. So they are kind of used to that and they tolerated tons of teams getting into the playoffs. NHL, NBA has had a big playoff field as well. And so, yeah, I think it is the historic smallness of the baseball

playoff field. Probably the owners would have wanted to push things even further and faster if they could have gone away with it to expand the playoff field more. But because we're kind of anchored to, gosh, you didn't used to have any playoffs other than the World Series. And then it was just a gradual incremental expansion. And so to me, at least each time we expanded again, it feels like we've strayed further from God's light or something. But I think people who come of age in this era, they probably just accept it. They're probably mostly fine with it. I think that that's right.

I will say just briefly on the NHL playoffs, like I haven't watched a ton of playoff hockey more lately because of the Kraken and wanting to gear up for the Kraken. I really wish that their uniforms were better. That's not the point of this segment. And I've also, I would also like to say that like I've never done cocaine, but I,

And I would also like to say that I've never done cocaine, but I, in my limited hockey viewing experience of the postseason, feel like I have. I'm like, I'm good. I don't need to replicate that experience because now I guess it's a thing that I do once a year by watching the NHL playoffs. And baseball isn't as big on that sensation in my experience as hockey has been. I was like, wow, it's amazing. Any of you are alive because it seems like surely this would take just years and years off the tail end. Anyway. Yeah.

All right. And I guess we'll do one more playoff related question from Bill, Patreon supporter, who says, in the category of unlikable ideas requiring the evaporation of 100 years of collective baseball memories, I thought of a way to prove out

the best regular season teams meeting up in the final series. The idea began as a way to be similar to the college football bowl season, but became different as a compromise was made for the less good

but still good teams to be included in the postseason. Here it is. Three two-round series would be created with teams playing for separate achievements. So you'd have the Hannes Wagner Cup. Each league's team number one plays the league's number two in a best-of-seven series, and the winners go on to play each other in a best-of of seven, thereby have the best play the best. So that's kind of the top tier playoffs. Then you have the Nelly Fox Trophy.

Each league's team number three plays the league's number four in a best of five series, and winners go on to play each other in a best of five, giving the still good teams a chance to show off in a consolation level series. Finally, the Harold Baines plaque. It's not the last Harold Baines question. Each league's team number five plays the league's number six in a best of three series and winners go on to play each other in a best of three. This means that the also-rans from the season could remain relevant for a couple weeks. Noting that you are kind folks, I hope you could find at least one interesting point to make about this idea before you construct a long list of the problems, such as that's

a lot of series at the start, or no one would care about the secondary series, or the names of the series are blatant indications of the implied quality of the teams. So yeah, those are all good objections. So what is a kind thing that we could say about this? I mean, I guess the kind thing would be that it would reward the better teams for being better. And it would give you a more representative of the regular season champion at the end,

or at least the team hoisting the Hannes Wagner Cup. That would be a more rarefied, more elite pool of talented teams. So that would be a nice thing, but there would still be something to play for for the lesser teams, but it would not sort of dilute the playoff field, I guess would be one way to interpret it, you know? Right.

But those objections are also good objections. Yeah. We can't call it the Harold Baines thing. That's just... We're too kind. He didn't pick it, you know? He didn't... I mean, he's not like... He wasn't like, no, don't put

me in the hall. I suck. But who would expect that of another person? You know, it's like Mendoza. We should retire the Mendoza line thing too. Because it's just like. It's too targeted. We're singling out a particular person. There have been a lot of bad hitters, man.

Like, what was the question? I'm just thinking about poor Harold Baines and how he just gets, like, zazzed every year when we do Hall of Fame discourse, and it's just like, this poor guy. Yes. Well, should we have different pools, different tiers, different, you know, trajectories you could take to each having your trophy or your cup or your plaque

so that you could kind of have the best teams rewarded, but then the not as good teams would still be in it. They'd still be playing for something. I guess the question is, as Bill raised that possible objection, like would anyone care about the basically, it's a loser's bracket more or less, right? You haven't lost in the playoffs, but you've not won enough in the

regular season to be in the running for the Wagner Cup. So you'd just be fighting it out for the Fox trophy or the Baines plaque. And maybe people wouldn't be as interested in that. And maybe players wouldn't be as motivated. And yeah, if all of these were running simultaneously especially right like you'd almost have to run the less interesting matchups first or else who's going to be watching the the baines plaque while the wagner cup is going on except for fans of of those particular teams i suppose but if they're going head to head up against each other, then probably the most prestigious award and matchup that's going to crush the less prestigious ones in the ratings. Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, I think people would still watch the other stuff because the thing about it is we all really love

watching baseball. So we would be like, let's watch some baseball. You know, think about how many people tune in to watch like really bad teams play regular season games. And if this had some prestige, you know. Yeah. Like, okay, people will watch that. People will watch anything. We're, you know, we're not discerning generally, you know, as these things go. But, yeah, I think people would watch.

But I think you'd want the highest thing to still be called the World Series because people would get confused between the new names. And you really want people to be like, no, but which one matters? Which one counts? So, I think you still want to call that one just the World Series. And then you can have the consolation bracket of other stuff if you want. You know, I would be interested in maybe a modification here where it's like you take the actual postseason field and then they do play a consolation. Like, is that part of this? Did I misunderstand the email? No, yeah. I mean, say you'd have the regular playoff field, but then after you lose, you still get shunted off into something else.

Like the Olympics. Yeah. Don't they else. Like the Olympics. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Don't they do that in the Olympics? I really like the Paris logo, you know. I'm not a big Olympic person, but I was like, oh, yeah, that looks like Paris. You know, there it is. That's nice.

Yeah. Okay. Colby says, forgive me if you've pondered this before, but with all the hand-wringing over bullpen games and suggestions about limits on pitcher roster spots, I had a solution. Of course, this is only a solution if you think it's a problem that the significance of starters has diminished and you want to restore sense of the starting pitcher as the protagonist who is supposed to battle through a quality start. My idea, the bullpen bank. Give teams a bank of 150 reliever innings before the seventh inning per season. Any non-bulk pitcher innings before the seventh subtract from your bank.

Any starter who works past the sixth adds to the bank. In innings seven to nine, we expect and accept relievers, but creating scarcity on reliever innings before that would align with what we intuitively and aesthetically feel should be a starter's goal. Six quality innings. This bank would require team starting pitchers to work about 840 innings. Ten years ago, every team easily qualified. This year, half the teams in the league would have had to adjust their strategy. It seems like since the times through the order penalty is both real and unfun, as Mike Petriola said, you'll need a rule to tilt the incentive balance.

A rule like this still allows managers to pull struggling pitchers or carry starters who are likely to go only four to five innings. But starters with the ability to pitch deeper into games become just a little more valuable, and starters who are cruising are just a little more likely to be left in, even if that last inning or two is tougher to navigate. I feel like even though this rule would have relatively little noticeable impact, it's just not a big change, it would bring up some fun conversations and debates about strategies, which teams are on pace, which teams may need to adjust as the season progresses. I wouldn't expect anyone to actually run out, but the nominal

penalty would be that if your bank is empty, only designated position players can absorb those pre seventh innings. This would avoid a manager ever being required to leave a pitcher in. This would require some special wording to account for openers to avoid loopholes. And obviously there would have to be diligence about removing pitchers for injuries. But the bottom line is that a rule like this would ensure that teams would have to prioritize in acquisition, development and strategy something that is good for the fan experience. The bank number could also be toggled more easily than roster spots if you wanted to tweak it over the course of a few seasons to find the magic number that works best. I kind of really like this. Yeah, it number that works best i kind of really like this yeah it's not bad i kind of really like it i feel like it's a it would be fun fun quote unquote to like watch which teams would view the bank the way that like young 20-somethings view their bank account as they approach the next payday where it's like

this is gonna hold out for just a couple more days she says from no experience at all um it would be bad to have an unexpected expense in the next two days hold on please yeah i kind of i like it i agree that it probably when it was all said and done, maybe it wouldn't change all that much. But I do like it as sort of just a framework in which to view this stuff. And, you know, would it make a manager who was like on the fence about leaving a guy in, it's like, should I leave him? It's like another inning in the bank. Yeah, maybe. like should i leave him another it's like i get another inning in the bank yeah yeah maybe you know it would be interesting to try just like in a season and see how it goes because i think one

of the nice things about it is it doesn't strike me as something that is likely to lead to like significant over usage to the point of maybe risking injury with anyone which is always kind of what we we worry about first when we think about introducing roster restrictions around how many relievers you can carry or whatnot, because you want to make sure that you have the arms on staff to not have to push it when a guy is either already injured or might be on the edge and you're kind of trying to manage that stuff.

So this doesn't strike me as prone to abuse in that way. So I think it would be a cool way to think about it for a season and see kind of where it leaves teams. And then, you know, like the email says, fairly easy to adjust up or down in terms of your credit or debit balance. And then you just really have to hope that, you know, no unexpected root canals right before payday. So I think this is pretty good. It would be interesting. Interesting tactical strategic implications. We get a lot of suggestions about ways to prioritize the starting pitcher and penalize teams for pulling starters too early or incentivize them, reward them for leaving in starters long.

And I'm always like, yeah, that would probably work like that. That would have the intended effect. But I'm still just so anchored to the idea of reducing the number of active pitchers on the roster that everything else just sounds needlessly complex to me. just sounds needlessly complex to me. Like, imagine explaining this to fans all the time, like the bullpen bank and how many innings and what does this mean? Maybe some fans would be interested, but others would be like,

I don't want to think about this. I don't want to have to keep track of this. I just feel like it's the most elegant, unobtrusive solution is just, you're only allowed this many pitchers. Now do with them what you will and it's true maybe you couldn't toggle that as easily within a season but you can you know turn the dial like a drill tweet style and you know they they lower it by one oh that didn't do enough

okay let's uh let's lower it a little more let's see if that has the intended effect and then you can eventually get to the right amount and you can do it gradually enough that you're not suddenly stressing people much more than they have been of late, which could lead to injury. else just sounds overcomplicated. It's like, yeah, it might work, but it's just like a lot of stuff to keep track of as opposed to just, here's how many pictures I have and here's how many I can use. And I have to keep that in mind to get through the game and get through the week and get through the season. So that's still my preferred solution. Like every other proposal has to beat that. And in my mind, nothing has. But this one is a fun one as these things go, I think. Okay.

I agree. All right. I mentioned that there was another Baines question and it is directly related to what we were just talking about. It is Hall of Fame season now, so I guess we'll have to do

a Jay Jaffe segment sometime soon. But Henry said, in a not-too-distant episode, you discussed Bill James' tiered Hall of Fame idea and part of the conversation revolved around keeping the history alive and keeping retired players said in a not-too-distant episode, you discussed Bill James' tiered Hall of Fame idea, and part of the conversation revolved around keeping the history alive and keeping retired players in the conversation.

Scott Rowland received more attention before his induction, et cetera. And then, as usually happens with Hall of Fame talk, Harold Baines came up. He gets more attention post-induction, and most of it seems negative through no fault of his own. He is now the go-to example

of someone who stretches our criteria for inclusion, a less deserving Hall of Famer who got in via that most American of means, the nepotistic committee ballot. So here's my question. Would Baines have been better off declining enshrinement? It would have been a huge flex and we would forever mention him as the guy who said no. Assuming Harold Baines the man enjoys writing HOF after his autograph, and let's be honest, I would sign my checks that way, would his legacy have been better served? And is there anyone else in the coming years of BBWA and committee voting who might be better served declining an invitation to Cooperstown? This poor guy. I know.

Well, that's all the abuse that's heaped on Baines. This poor guy. Statistical standards? Is that bad? Does that make his life worse? I mean, only Harold Baines could answer that, I guess. Here's the thing that I would invite us to consider. I think the answer to this question is no. I think that the answer is like, obviously no. And here's part of it. He doesn't know all the stuff we're saying, you know? Probably not. I think that that's a big part of it. I hope that this man is just like living his Hall of Fame life and he's ignorant to the fact that we're all like, we didn't want, they want Hall of Fame. So there's that piece of it. I hope that he is insulated from that by virtue of, you know, not being online or not listening to podcasts or at least not listening to podcasts about baseball. So there's that piece of it. I just fundamentally don't think it's his responsibility to to to correct the record like he doesn't have to do that he he still had a good career it's not like you know he played one season and then was done

like he was a qualified hall of famer in terms of the parameters of, you know, consideration, whether we think he really was a Hall of Famer or not. Well, like, that's our problem. That stopped being Harold Baines's problem as soon as they said that he was a Hall of Famer. If anything, the people who should get tagged with it are the people who put him in there, you know, like make it their problem and say, hey, you got to be more discerning next time. But that doesn't strike me as his problem to solve. I hope he's fully able to enjoy it because even the people who are like, yeah, I wouldn't have put Harold Baines in there still say, well, he seems like a nice guy and happy for him. Right. So it would be the worst of all worlds if he wasn't able to enjoy it because of people criticizing.

if he wasn't able to enjoy it because of the people criticizing. So I hope that now that he's in, he's happy to be in. He said at the time that he got in, like he wasn't sitting around waiting for that call, like he wasn't necessarily expecting it. And he said he wasn't playing to get into the Hall of Fame. That wasn't his goal exactly. And he was aware of the fact that some people were questioning and criticizing.

And he said at the time, well, they can't take it away from me now, even if they don't think I should be there. Right. Good for him, man. Yeah. He should tell us all to screw off. Yeah. I'm sure he's not as exposed to the Baines Hall of Fame discourse as the extremely online among us. God, I hope not. He is literally Harold Baines.

So I assume those things also, you know, like if he has a Google alert set up, then he's going to see that stuff, right? Don't have a Google alert set up. Probably don't have a Google alert set up. I mean, just don't anyway. This is not Harold Baines specific advice. Yeah. And he acknowledged that it probably helped him that he had people like Jerry Reinsdorf and La Russa advocating for him or voting for him.

You know, people who were instrumental in his career being on that committee at the time. So I guess the only way I would say that he'd be better off not being in there is like if he goes to the induction ceremony and he questions whether he belongs, like if he's looking around at these other baseball legends and he's like, what am I doing here? You know, if he feels imposter syndrome, like being up there on the dais with all the other Hall of Famers to the point where like you could imagine, gosh, I don't deserve to be there. You could imagine, gosh, I don't deserve to be there. If you internalize the criticism to the point that you start to believe it and you can't enjoy it anymore, then maybe. I hope that that's not the case, though, and that he just gets to say, I'm Harold Baines, and he gets to have his autographs be more valuable than they were or his speaking engagements probably pay more now or whatever financial rewards you reap from that. probably pay more now or whatever financial rewards you reap from that. And I hope now that he's in that he feels like a fully deserving Hall of Famer and he goes to bed at night feeling proud and fulfilled about his career. But yeah, if that's not the case, like if it became a millstone around your neck where

it's just like, oh, I'm the guy everyone cites as the example of not someone who's up to snuff. Maybe that could get to the point where it becomes more trouble than it's worth. I just, I hope it hasn't for him. Yeah, I hope it hasn't for him. I mean, I don't know. I just, I don't want to say that professional baseball players are entirely confident, but I do imagine that they have more self-assurance than like, maybe like I do. So I do wonder, like, maybe he's just like, I don't belong up here. Or maybe he's like, look at me and my friends, you know, look at us. We're just a bunch of Hall of Famers.

Yep. And two more quick Hall of Fame ones. Ramsey says, how much did Adam Wainwright hurt his Hall of Fame chances by pitching so horribly this year? I'm sure he was looking to have another great year, not only get his 200th win and really solidify his chances, but him pitching to almost an 80 RA this year made me really see him as a really good pitcher, but nowhere near a Hall of Famer. I don't think he had a shot anyway. I mean, very good career, very good. But it's hard to get into the hall as a pitcher these days because the voters just haven't really era adjusted when it comes to, you know, comparing starting pitchers who have not had a whole lot of luck in the Hall of

Fame voting than Adam Wainwright. I mean, you know, Andy Pettit, I know he has the HGH thing against him, but Pettit and Burley and Hudson, you know, like lots of guys in that class who are probably, you know, around the Wainwright territory or maybe better who've just had a hard time getting in or even better ones than I just named, right? So I don't think he had a realistic shot even if he had finished strong. I just – I don't think he could have gotten support. But this is an interesting question to ponder. Like can one really bad year at the end sink your chances? If he had been a borderline

guy and he had come back for one final season and sort of stunk up the joint for most of the season, even though at least he ended on a high note with a great start and got his 200th win, which was a real feel-good moment that maybe

was worth it all for him or for Cardinals fans, at least to have him around to have that moment. But you could imagine someone who was like right on the bubble and then hurt themselves at least like war-wise and Jaws-wise. I guess the question is, would voters hold it against them or not? Would you consider that just sort of, you know, give him a pass for that one? Yeah, I, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I don't think it affected his chances. And I don't know that it would with anyone, really. I just, like, especially because it's like, he was, like, let's imagine for a minute that he had been like, right on the line, and then then he comes back and they need innings, Ben. The Cardinals need innings and here he is soaking them up.

And yeah, are they good innings? No, they weren't good innings, but like it's service in a way, right? I just don't imagine it would have been enough to keep him out, but I don't think he was going in anyway. So it's sort of irrelevant. And last question, Ricky from Minnesota, Patreon supporter. Hope Joe Maurer gets in for Ricky's sake. I'm listening to episode 114. All right, going deep into the archives. And I had a thought about a way to make the Hall of Fame matter more to fans and take it out of the hands of writers. What if we had fans vote players in, but not just any fans, only fans who have bought a ticket to a game and you get a vote for every game you go to, there could still be an eligibility list. Top 10 vote getters make it and you drop off if you

don't get a certain percentage of votes and or after so many years but fans get a voice and fans who are around the ballpark at the time get a louder voice well i just like i'm conscious of who that potentially excludes now this the current setup excludes all the fans right um it's because it's only about the the writers and the later the committees but like if you tie it to being able to buy the thing, well, that shows that you're committed to going to games. But does that demonstrate like an expertise that is useful in determining the hall worthiness of someone? I'm not convinced that it does, you know. So, yeah, I don't know about that. I don't like that part.

The people who make the argument that you had to see them play, this is really literally, right? Like you were at the ballpark, you saw them play. So if you think that's a big qualification that you had to have witnessed firsthand the player's career to deem them worthy or not, then I guess this makes sense. But I don't think that's so important. I think in baseball, we have great metrics and things that we can judge these things without actually having seen every bit of action ourselves. That's why we keep the stats, right? Because memories are fallible and we can't see everything. And in earlier eras, it was even harder to see players in person. So, yeah, I mean, you'd get people who were just going to every game every year so that they could get more of a say in Hall of Fame voting, probably. job. Most of the objectionable Hall of Fame selections or snubs, certainly the writers screw up sometimes and snub people who probably should be in. But most of the people you look at

and say, that guy's a Hall of Famer, they're usually just the veterans and era committee selections. Most of those are not the writer's fault or responsibility. So the writers have a decent track record. And not to be like an elitist snob here, but generally like fan voting, I don't know that it's great. And you could say the same about player voting. But at least it doesn't conform as well to the way that we tend to appraise players' value, I guess would be one way to put it. And also, it's not like fans currently don't care about the Hall of Fame, right? Fans already care a lot relative to other sports and other Halls of Fame. So, I don't know that this is something where we need to juice interest in the Hall of Fame. We need to

give fans a reason to care about this. It seems like they already care quite a bit. So I think maybe it's okay as is, at least in that sense. Yeah, I agree. I think there's, you know, there are definitely improvements to be made, but I think it is, it's trending in the right direction among the writers. I mean, the biggest challenge now is just getting all of the eligible voters to actually vote because we have fewer ballots being cast now. I'm part of the problem, I suppose. All right. So I will end with one stat blast. They'll take a data set sorted by something like ERA- or OBS+. And this is an unsponsored StatBlast.

Our sponsorship has concluded, and we are now back to a fully 100% ad-free podcast, wholly Patreon-supported, which we appreciate as always. which we appreciate as always. So I mentioned when we talked about all those unanimous MVP and other awards results, I speculated about, I wonder whether things are getting more homogenous, right? Now I said homogenous, I got to say someone wrote in with a pedantic point, which, you know, I always have to give space to pedantic points. And listener Dan wrote in to draw the distinction between homogenous and homogeneous. So Dan says, in the latest episode, you triggered a pet peeve of mine by referring to the MVP voting as homogenous, which is technically an archaic term from biology with a one-syllable suffix. What you, of course, meant was homogeneous, which has a two-syllable suffix pronounced as in simultaneous or indeed

heterogeneous. Sorry for the pedantry, but I figured that since you earn your living with language, you would want to be aware of this. And since we make pedantic points plenty of the time, too. This is one of those where it's now acceptable to say homogenous when you mean what used to mean homogeneous, right? Like it's in the dictionary, you know, that definition has become accepted. And sometimes I will cling to, you know, that was like the original true meaning of it. And now it's just morphed, you know, like my prescriptivist impulse comes out. In this case, I don't know. It doesn't bother me. It's not a pet peeve of mine. And I think people understand what you say. And maybe people usually say homogenous when they mean what might have meant homogeneous before. I think you're right about that. Yeah. So apologies to Dan. I think you're right about that. Sorry, I whispered again

to have it be a little secret, but it's an auditory medium, so hello. Yeah. Sorry to trigger your pet peeve, Dan, because I've been there, so I feel your pain there, your pedantic pain. But yeah, you know, substitute homogeneous if that's the way you want to go. But what I mean is basically there's greater accords, right? Like the ballots are matching up more, I speculated, maybe because of war, because we have this established metric

that is increasingly valued and trusted and gives us sort of a common value that we can consult, whereas in the past people could just kind of come up with whatever they wanted or, you know, prioritize whether you were on a playoff team or whatever it is. Or I said, maybe it's social media and the pressure, the public pylons that can happen now. If you stray from the pack, if you don't herd with everyone else and kind of have a group think going on, then people will pick on you and maybe you'll decide that that wouldn't be worth it.

So anyway, I wanted to see whether that was the case or if there's any evidence for that. And I got some data from semi-regular StatBlast consultant Kenny Jacklin of Baseball Reference. And Baseball Reference has a page with the award votes for each year and like the award share and how many points you got, all of that info for the four major BBWA awards. And it has it for every year. So he just gave it to me for every year all in one spreadsheet with wars for those years as well. And I will put that all online for people to peruse. But I also sent it to frequent StatBlast consultant, Ryan Nelson. Find him on Twitter at rsnelson23, who dug into it a couple different ways. And he looked at the vote share of the winner of each award over time with a

five-year moving trailing average to smooth things out a bit because it'll jump around a lot from one year to the next, which he said is essentially the same thing as the concentration ratio, which is used to measure a company's level of monopoly in a market. So this is kind of measuring the monopolization of the award voting market. of the award voting market. And it looks like to me, he made a graph and I'll share that, but all of the awards except manager of the year are at or near all-time highs when it comes to the winner's vote share.

So I think that does lend some credence to the idea. If anything, the manager of the year has gotten less homogenous, homogenous. There's more disagreement now about what a manager of the year should be. But the other awards, the ones where we have stats or agreed upon stats to judge these things, those do seem to be – there's a trend toward, at least in recent decades, the winner getting a bigger share of the vote.

And I should say one complication here is that some of the ways that these things are voted on have changed over time too. So it used to be even fewer writers. Now it's like 30 writers will vote on each of these awards. But for MVP or what the MVP was called before it was the MVP, it was like eight writers only from 1922 to 29. That doesn't seem like enough. No, although there were fewer players and teams back then too. And then from 31 to 37, it was like one writer per city with a team. And then it was three writers per city with a team from 38 to 60. And then two writers per city with a team. And then it was three writers per city with a team from 38 to 60, and then two writers per city with a team starting in 1961. But of course, there've been more teams

and more players and more cities with teams. So these things have changed. And then Cy Young was given to one pitcher in the AL and NL, not one per league from 56 to 66. And then like there was a tie in the 69 voting and then it changed from voting for one pitcher to voting for three pitchers. And then it later became five pitchers, right? Starting in 2010, I think. And then naming three rookie of the year candidates in your ballot started in 1980. So some of these things have changed in ways that might affect this vote share. And Ryan did sort of draw some distinctions there and do some cutoffs to study and try to just look at recent trends when these things have been unchanged. But it does look like without adjusting for that, yeah, the share of the winner in the non-manager of the year awards has increased of

late. He also looked at something called the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index, the HHI, and essentially a score of 10,000, he said, is a perfect monopoly. Homogenous, homogeneous thinking. See, now you're going to say the wrong one. It's in my one. I don't know. I got to say both to please everyone. I'm a people pleaser. And lower means more competitive. And this, the HHI, this considers the entirety of the field, not just the winner or just the top three. So it'll consider like the down ballot candidates too. And so if you look at the MVP five-year moving average for the HHI, it has indeed been getting less competitive over time. And it seems to be at an all-time high now. So yeah, less differentiation among the ballots and the vote getters. And then

Rookie of the year had a big change coinciding with that voting change rule that I mentioned. Since then, hasn't changed in a very significant way. It doesn't look like. MVP was fairly flat from the mid 80s through the 2000s. And then lately it's been up again, which would coincide with the rise of war and also the rise of social media. Correlation is not causation, but it would at least fit with that hypothesis of mine.

And then Cy Young was slowly getting less competitive as well before the voting process changed in 2010, and it's been fairly flat since then. 2010 and it's been fairly flat since then. But yeah, the trend over time, historically speaking, has been more agreement for the top guys and the ballot as a whole. And at least with MVP, it seems like that has accelerated over the past 10, 15 years or so. Cy Young, not as noticeable lately, but that kind of makes sense because there's more disagreement among the wars probably with pitchers than with hitters, you know, fan Young, not as noticeable lately, but that kind of makes sense because there's more disagreement among the wars probably with pitchers than with hitters.

You know, fan graphs and baseball reference at least value pitchers quite differently. So there's no clear consensus with war. And then Ryan also looked at just war, like the correlation between war and vote share. And he found that that has increased as well. He did it. He broke up the non-manager of the year awards, and they're all fairly high with some other high blips in the past. But he did this combined metric of all three of them to get a generalized war approval, just how well the placement matches up with war. And that is at an all time high. And so like looking at it since 1960 to today, it has been slowly increasing. Obviously, like war wasn't a thing or wasn't a well-known thing until very recently.

Obviously, like war wasn't a thing or wasn't a well-known thing until very recently. But there still has been a trend toward increasing over time. But it is particularly high now. It's, you know, higher than it's ever been, which makes sense. And I would say it's probably a good thing looking at some of the awards in the past that defy our understanding now, right? But, you know, it was because a playoff team or RBI or whatever, you know, batting average, whatever it was, things that we've discounted now. So even if things have gotten less competitive and less varied, maybe it's a good thing if you actually want the deserving people to win. But it does make it, I guess, a little less interesting to talk about

or to scrutinize the ballots or a little less suspenseful. I think that mostly, like there are going to be years where there is legitimate debate to be had, right? Where the wars are close. We need a new word. The wars are close, but the wars are close, right?

And it allows us to assert an aesthetic preference amongst relatively equal candidates. You can make that conversation about the style of baseball you like best or whether you prioritize having a player who has one really standout 80-grade skill or a guy whose game is super well-rounded. There are going to be times where it's this great opportunity to think about stuff. And then there are going to be times where you're like, this is so Tawny. Or it's just Mike Trout. Or it's just whatever. It's just Ronald Acuna Jr. I mean, I think that that one was probably a little more open for debate, but like I would have voted for

Acuna if I had had an MVP vote. So, you know, I think all that I expect of voters for any of the awards in any given year, and we can set manager of the year aside for a second because I just think that one is so weird and hard and people should go read zach buchanan's piece that he wrote about that wrote about that award for us at fan graphs i structured that sentence super strangely but anyway he wrote a piece for us at fan graphs about this very question where it's like it's just you know it's hard for even the managers to know what the right answer is. But I want voters to come to the question with an open mind. And my expectation is not that they engage in sort of groupthink for its sake or that they achieve sort of a artificial consensus. But in years where the answer is very clear,

I hope they come to the right one. So that's what I expected them. Yeah. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Happy Thanksgiving, Ben. Thank you. You too. Well, one pobo did not heed Meg's plea for a pre-Thanksgiving transaction freeze. Naturally, it was none other than Jerry DePoto,

who traded Eugenio Suarez to another team of interest to Meg, the Diamondbacks. We'll see if the pobos can restrain themselves on Thanksgiving Day itself. One stat blast follow-up and addendum for you here. Did a stat blast last time about the dramatic increase in winning percentage, particularly in the postseason lately, among teams that scored first in a given game. That was on episode 2085. Got an interesting response from listener and Patreon supporter Michael, who said, Something's been bugging me since you had the conversation about the probability of the team

that scores the first run winning the game in the playoffs, which is that there's the obvious fact that every run is going to be positively associated with winning the game, and it's not obvious at all that the first run should hold a privileged position among runs. Indeed, my intuition was that the first run should be marginally less valuable. I'm sure someone's looked at this before, but I didn't see it immediately, So I did the analysis and the results are interesting. I would agree. First of all, using RetroSheet data for 2000 through 2022, a random run in a game is scored by the team that ultimately goes on to win the game with P equals 0.6904. In other words, 69% of runs scored in a game are scored by the winning team, which obviously makes sense.

But if you break those runs down by the order in which they were scored in a game, you get an interesting distribution, namely that the first run is the least valuable with a 0.658 correlation to winning percentage. The second run, the correlation goes up to 0.709. Then the correlation with winning percentage peaks with the third run at 0.722. And then run four is 0.721. Run five is 0.715. And he plots the rest of them on a graph that I will share. It goes down from there. A lot of this, Michael says, has to do with the fact that runs one and two are most likely to be scored by the visiting team,

while subsequent runs are more likely to be scored by the home team, which is in turn more likely to have won the game. I guess that makes sense that the visiting team would be more likely to score first just because it bats in the top of the first. Michael says these are facts that need to be known to all baseball announcers as soon as possible. I agree. That's interesting because you will sometimes hear an outsized importance attributed to the first run of the game. It's actually in some respects the least important. to the first run of the game. It's actually in some respects the least important. In the stat blast, we were just talking about how the team that scores first has gone on to win

more often recently, particularly in the postseason. So fewer lead changes and comebacks, less excitement, that's all still valid. But this is some interesting research from Michael, something I hadn't thought about. So thank you to him for doing the research on that. And while we're thanking people, it is Thanksgiving after all.

Thanks to those of you who have supported the podcast on Patreon. We do depend on you. And if you're thankful for this podcast, why not do some giving by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild and pledging some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad free and get yourself access to some perks as have the following five listeners, Alex Vigderman, George Boff, Jason Tyler, Will C, and Yo-Yo. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks, as have the following five listeners, Alex Vigderman, George Boff, Jason Tyler, Will C, and Yo-Yo. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, monthly bonus episodes, prioritized email answers, discounts on merch and ad-free fan crafts

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We are thankful to Shane McKeon today and most days for his editing and production assistance. If you're celebrating Thanksgiving, we hope you have a happy holiday and we will be back to talk to you again after your digestion is done. as it does to me. When we look at baseball, how much do we see? Well, the curve balls bend and the home runs fly. More to the game than meets the eye.

To get the stats compiled and the stories filed, fans on the internet might get riled. But we can break it down on Effectively Wild.