Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2091: Runs, Hits, Errors, Turnovers

Episode Date: November 29, 2023

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the Eugenio Suárez trade and the Mariners’ payroll, the Cardinals signing Sonny Gray, the Tigers signing Kenta Maeda, the Dodgers re-signing Jason Heyward, and whether an outfielder can be said to “pick it.” Then (50:07) they follow up on listener responses to their latest email episode, focusing on […]

Hello and welcome to episode 2091 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of Fangraphs, and I'm joined by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? I'm doing okay, and I'm guessing that you're doing okay because the GMs and the Pobos largely heard your plea and refrained from making major moves over the holiday. Largely. Largely. With an exception, of course, and it's the predictable exception. With an exception, of course, and it's the predictable exception. Jerry De fascinated by, like, the holiday eve news dump, Ben. Because, like, on the one hand, I get it.

I suppose I understand the strategy. But I also think that you're just giving people something to talk about without much else to, like, you know, pass the time. That's true. Yeah. So, why would you do that, you know? time. That's true. Yeah. So why would you, why would you do that? You know? Yeah. Those, those long car trips to and from wherever you're going for Thanksgiving and then sitting at the table, just doing nothing but talking. And if it's a table full of Mariners fans, maybe they're talking about what the Mariners offense looks like now without Eugenio Suarez. So yeah, sort of a risky strategy. Yeah. So there's that. I don't particularly care for this trade

that was made. I have thoughts about it if we want to go into them. We also, after the holiday, saw some exciting signings. Yeah, we do have a few moves to talk about, but nothing major enough and timed so that you had to slack anyone as they were sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner, or you had to return to the keyboard to edit any drafts. So it worked out well. And you know, when you are keen to avoid having to do work, it's good to sanity check your sense of the urgency and bigness of a trade, right? And so I consulted various members of the Fangraph staff and I was like, we don't have to break in on this for this trade, right? And so I consulted various members of the Fangraph staff and I was like, we don't have to break in on this for this trade, right? And everyone agreed that no, it could wait till

Monday. So yeah, thank you all for generally deciding to spend time with your families instead of making me spend time with my fellow staff members when they'd like to spend time with their families, their families. The Mets hired a president of business operations. Now, do you think that that's a po-bo? No. Because they already have a po-bo. They have David Stearns, who's their president of baseball operations. And now they have hired this guy, M. Scott Havens, formerly of Bloomberg Media, as their president of business operations. I guess it's not atypical to have a business person, although sometimes they're just called the team president. I don't know if they're always called the president of business operations, probably sometimes.

But if we were abbreviating, I don't know what his business card will say, but one would have to say Popo. However, we will probably have fewer occasions to mention M. Scott Havens on this podcast than we will David Stearns. You never know with the Mets, but probably M. Scott Havens hopes that we will not talk about him that much on Effectively Wild. Yeah, I think that generally, if we know something about the president of business ops, something weird has happened. Yeah, right. That's, yeah. Which is definitely not out of the question when it comes to Mets front office executives. But we'll hope for the best. Okay, only one pobo.

We have settled that. Only one pobo. Yeah, just the one pobo. So, yeah, we do have some transactions to talk about. And I guess we might as well start with that Mariners move. So, the Mariners traded with the other team that you follow closely because it is close to you geographically, the Diamondbacks. Mariners traded Eugenio Suarez to the Diamondbacks for backup catcher Sebi Zavala and reliever Carlos Vargas. And I guess importantly for the Mariners, cash savings in that those guys make less than Eugenio Suarez, which seems to have been a major motivation for this move.

So you have thoughts. What are they? How dramatic do I want to be? I'm trying to decide, you know, it's like you're catching me several days after this happens. So on the one hand, I should be rational, clear eyed about the whole thing. So on the one hand, I should be rational and clear-eyed about the whole thing. But I think being rational and clear-eyed about the whole thing might lead one to say that, like, it just feels deeply unserious to me. And, you know, I don't dispute the internal logic of the move if what you are doing is committing to pretty meager payrolls yeah i understand why if that's what you're doing and you have recently traded for like a versatile infielder uh that you can just say well rice can just play third base uh he only costs five million dollars eugenio suarez is going to cost 11 million dollars this coming year plus a you know either an option or a buyout for 2025. And so, yeah, take the young

gun who's likely to make less and has at times shown promise, has had good seasons, although he's a bit removed from them now, and was once a well-regarded prospect, right? Maybe that guy has something to offer still and we can help him figure it out and you know maybe you look at uh what they're getting back from the diamondbacks and think well we don't want to spend money so we're not going to bring tom murphy back and you know he's been compromised by injury for a lot of the last two seasons so like that that could be a defensible move in and of itself so we get zavala we have a backup catcher to spell cal raleigh when needed and you know we're really good at turning relievers who may have had some notable issue associated with them in the past into good bullpen contributors

so maybe we can make something of carlos var, who has really great stuff, but is just at times wild to the point of not really being able to generate any swing and miss. So maybe we can make something of that guy, the way we've made something of guys before, including guys we've dealt to those same Diamondbacks, right? So, I understand the internal logic of the decision, but the broader logic of the way that they're running the organization and like, I think that at this point, I feel pretty comfortable saying that this is as much an ownership mandate around payroll as it is like DePoto trying to red paperclip his way toward a you know like a lineup that can really bang but 11 million dollars is like not a lot of money it's just such a small amount of money really and i know that suarez had some signs of being you know he's he's always been a big strikeout guy and so if any of the rest of the skill set degrades and doesn't go as well if he's not putting the ball over the fence as often like you know i can appreciate why you look

at that and say this guy who is two years older than louis arias is like maybe on the way to decline but he's still a productive bat and even if you you think that OAA was maybe too in love with his defense last year, a good fielder, to look at that guy and be like, that profile of player isn't worth $11 million to us. And now you're in a position where you haven't made your sort of everyday lineup appreciably better. You can argue that you've made it worse. You haven't upgraded sort of the bottom of the 26-man roster in a way that I think we've talked about Seattle needing to do, right? Like when guys get hurt, which they're going to do,

and your backups are like, and I feel bad picking on the guy because he seems nice enough. But when Sam Haggerty is featuring as prominently in your offense as he has for the Mariners over the last couple of years, someone's not going great. This was a lineup that didn't produce particularly well last year outside of the guys at the very top and now isn't much better than it was and you know it just seems like a fundamental misunderstanding of what their competitive window really is like you have a still very young very good Julio Rodriguez. You have a largely other than, I guess, Castillo and, you know, Robbie Ray, who will presumably come back at some point, but not for not until maybe the end of this coming season. Like much of your rotation is young and cost controlled.

This is the time for you to like, especially if you view yourself as a budget constrained team, like, isn't this the time when you want to spend a little bit more because you're getting so much production from other positions that are relatively inexpensive compared to the production they're putting up. And I know that like stuff starts to get more expensive, you know, next year and certainly in the years after when it comes to Julio. But like even Julio is only going to be making 12 million dollars next season, you know, like this this in theory should be the time when you're like, let's let's really put some complementary pieces around this young core and see what we can do with it because they don't have the farm system to bolster the group they already have at the big league level such that they're going to be competitive with Houston and Texas.

it to be, you know, commensurate with a team that is really trying to do anything more than be in the wildcard mix, you know, and they're not even like the best potential team in that category of team, you know, so I don't love it. I really, I like it a lot. I'm getting that sense. Yeah, I don't love it. And, and like, okay, so I want to put an appropriate like disclaimer or caveat on this because I shared not to media, from the Diamondbacks, that they have a program where you can go to every home game plus two additional exhibition games. Oh, yeah. I saw this. For $299. Now, I'm sure that Arizona knows, one, not everyone is going to all of the home games, right? And I'm sure they also know that even among those who are really committed to going to a bunch of games, that they're going to get upgrades within that

package because you have the option to upgrade tickets and buy both more of them and in nicer seats. These tickets are up in the upper deck. I imagine they're pretty far up there, right? they're pretty far up there, right? But you can get in for the entire season for $299. And famously, Ben, the Diamondbacks were just in the World Series, right? Meanwhile, I looked on Seattle's site and maybe I missed something. And you can certainly buy, game tickets from the Mariners. But their most modest partial season season ticket package is $1,000. It's $1,000. And right now, we estimate their payroll for next season at $133 million. And so I just, maybe there are things going on here that I don't know about yet. Maybe, maybe they're having a problem with their arson that I'm not aware of. Maybe, like, I don't know, John Stanton is suddenly cash strapped or something. It would be hard for me to not think, we're trying to do the thing here,

we're trying to bring a World Series appearance slash championship to Seattle? Because if that is the desire of this, you know, ownership group and senior leadership within the front office, this kind of stuff doesn't sell anyone on that. It reads as miserly. And, you know, for a team that was in the postseason just two seasons ago that had great attendance, like, what are you doing? You people were upset about that then. The team wasn't even doing that well at the time and they were gouging seemingly. So yeah, that followed up by not making the playoffs, followed up by not raising payroll or even trimming payroll. Yes, I can understand the frustration.

You did have some thoughts, but I agree with those thoughts. And you could have both Suarez and Urias, right? There would have been room for both of those guys. Yes. I see how if you had to choose between one or the other and you were looking for somewhere to save money, this might be reasonable. I actually didn't realize how young Urias still is. He's 26 years old.

Yeah, he's not even 27 yet. Yeah, he's been around for a while. He debuted very young. But Suarez, right, is what, 32? He's 26 years old. Yeah, he's not even 27 yet. Yeah, he's been around for a while. He debuted very young. But Suarez, right, is what, 32? And it's, I think, maybe comparable production. Certainly the projections are comparable. Maybe Urias even a little bit better than Suarez.

So I get it. I certainly get it from the Diamondbacks' perspective, why they would want Suarez. You know, Evan Longoria was a bit of a drag on their pennant-winning team, right, offensively speaking. Who knows about clubhouse mentorship and veteran know-how, but performance-wise. So they need to get someone, and Suarez fits the bill. And even if he doesn't bounce back, it's still kind of an average player profile, at least probably, you know, not bad defensively. You summarized that. So I get that move. And if it were like, well, we're trying to save a million in here or there or several million so that we can go get Shohei Otani and, you know, blow some free agents away with our big offers, then fine. But it certainly doesn't seem like that's what's happening here. So it's just rearranging deck chairs. I don't know if it's

deck chairs. Hopefully they won't sink, but it's definitely not making them more buoyant. So, yeah, it's not encouraging. Yeah. I don't think that there is a credible argument that they could make that this is in service of Otani. Because it's like, if these are the numbers of pennies you have to pinch to cobble together an offer, how serious an offer can it be, right? How robust is your financial future anticipated to be that this is the state that you're in? And this move is annoying on its own, the idea that they aren't going to be competitive for is the state that you're in. And this move is annoying on its own. The idea that they aren't going to be competitive for Otani or really push their chips in there is ridiculous,

if for no other reason than like, you're gonna make so much money if that guy is on your roster, right? And he's gonna be well compensated. He's probably gonna set a record for his contract but like when you think about the potential that you have from a merchandising perspective from a ticket sale perspective like all of the ancillary stuff that can you know sort of redound to the organization as a benefit to you when you have that guy i think it's great for any team. I don't want to like overstate what it means for Seattle, but I do think that like they are a team. They're certainly not the only team in Major League Baseball that has a strong tradition of, you know, Japanese players on their roster, but it is part of Seattle's tradition. And I think that

you can kind of lean into that. And I don't mean it in like a cynical or exploitative way but like I think you can make a credible case if you're the Mariners that like this is the latest in a partnership between fans in Seattle and fans in Japan that you take seriously right like I just you know this has turned into a different conversation than Suarez but it's like it's indicative of a bigger problem that I don't think is being overstated, even though the magnitude of any one of these individual moves might be small. You know, it's like when I went on my rant after the Seawald trade, I think I acknowledged like, that might be a lot to pin on Paul Seawald not being in the organization anymore. And I think that that's true. But at a certain point, you're like adding this stuff up. And it points to one, DePoto continuing to have

a weird obsession with like light bat, versatile defender guys. And I get it. Sometimes those guys turn into dudes, but like, not all of them are Willie Adamas. So like, what are we doing here? And then the broader implications it has for how they view themselves from a payroll and roster construction perspective. And if they had a, you know, a farm system brimming with position player prospects, and it's like, look, we're going to sit out some of this stuff, we're going to be mindful of how we deploy payroll, because we have this young group coming up. And we want to sign, you know, George Kirby and Logan Gilbert to long-term extensions and the way that we're going to deploy our payroll might is in-house. Okay. You know, they've shown a willingness to

do some of that, right? I want to give them credit where it's due, where it's like they were like, you know, we're not letting Julio walk out the door as anything but a mariner, right? So there have been instances where they've spent, but it's like, they're not spending a lot. There have been times where they have deployed free agent capital and like, it's been kind of weird. Like, I don't know that Robbie Ray would have been my choice for the $100 million contract in this organization, right? So it just feels, again, it feels unserious. And I think that's a real shame because in addition to the really talented, you know, players they have on their roster now, and they do have those guys, even if they don't have as many of them as they

think they need to compete in a serious way in the West or a lot from a depth perspective, like, you know, Julio's Julio, the pitching acumen is real. Their ability to develop guys there is substantial. Although, you know, I guess we're going to start to see if they are able to sustain sort of that excellence with some of the personnel changes that they've had on the player dev side. So all of that to say, I wish that the thing they had given Mariners fans to talk about over Turkey was like, I don't know, signing Ohtani. You know, if Jerry wants to sign Ohtani,

he can do that any time of day and I am happy to be inconvenienced, you know? I'm willing to put up with that. But it just felt, you know, it didn't feel great. It doesn't seem like it portends awesome stuff for the org. And watch, now this year, they're going to go on a heater and they're going to win 100 games. And, you know, Arias is going to be incredible.

And Suarez will suck for the D-backs. And, you know, I'm going to feel like a goober. And, you know, Josh Rojas will have a great year and Kate Marlowe will have taken a step forward and I'll be like, how could they have contemplated having anyone as their starting DH than Dominic Canzone? Like, how could I have even doubted it? Maybe all of that will happen,

but in terms of likelihood, I'd peg it as pretty low. So. Well, I know you resolved not to talk about the Mariners as much, but they're giving you reasons to do it. During the postseason. You get a pass. Yeah. Okay. The season's over.

The season's over. There's Mariners news. Yeah. Yeah. How could you not talk about the Mariners? Yes. It's not a gag order. That's over now.

Not a gag order. That's over now. So I guess the one move that has been made that would have maybe moved you to get a transaction reaction up over Thanksgiving if it had been made a little bit earlier is Sonny Gray going to the Cardinals. So we recently talked about the Cardinals restructuring their rotation and adding a couple free agent starters. about the Cardinals restructuring their rotation and adding a couple free agent starters. And here we are again, because they have added yet another, the best of the bunch, Sonny Gray, who finished second, a distant second, to Garrett Cole in AL Cy Young Award voting. And Mozelek said he was going to go get three starters, and now he has. So I don't know if they're done. It's like done before December. Okay, mission accomplished. We can talk about how well the mission was accomplished if it has been.

But Sonny Gray going to the Cardinals on a three-year deal. And when we talked about them signing Lynn and Gibson, we said, okay, it's a start. It's back of the rotation types. And they got to get some innings somewhere. It's a start. It's back of the rotation types, and they got to get some innings somewhere, but they really have to go get a top of the rotation type guy to complete the picture here, or it's not going to be great. And I guess they have done that, right, Sonny Gray? He is older maybe than people might think. He just turned 34 and obviously hasn't been the most durable guy prior to this season, but he's coming off a really strong season. He has been quite effective when he has been on the mound, at least since his Yankees stint, and he's made some major changes to his pitch mix, particularly this past season that seemed

to work out well for him. Lots more sweepers and did really well with the sweeper and added or revived a cutter and a change up and just had a really great year, which was well-timed for him. So what do you make of St. Louis's moves on the whole after the three-year $75 million deal for Sonny? I think that it moves the needle for them pretty appreciably in the two areas that they needed help the most, right? They had to backfill innings. They had to backfill innings. They were going to be so lucky on innings if they didn't do that. And I think that as we noted, like they needed a guy at the top who could really do something from a quality perspective,

who wasn't just a bulk guy, but who, you know, was going to be able to move the needle for them appreciably, be sort of a, you know know a playoff game starter rather than someone who gets shunted to the bullpen and I think Gray accomplishes that I know that there's been you know some back and forth like there have been years where he has been better than others there have been years where he hasn't been able to throw like a full complement of innings but when you look at what he was able to do this past season, like, I can certainly understand the appeal. I think that it allows them to, you know, you have Gray, you have the lizard eater himself. And then, you know, you have Gibson and Lynn there.

You're way less dependent on Steve and Matt's being able to be healthy and effective over an entire season. And then like you still have room with your young guys for someone to pop and like be, you know, an impressive addition to, you know, what they're up to. So, I like it. Do I think that they would benefit from having like one more like really, really big strikeout guy i do think that ben i do think that there's still like not as much strikeout in this rotation as i would be stoked on if i were like constructing a rotation but i do think that there are a lot of ways to arrive at very impactful production as a big league starter and And, you know, I think Gray has demonstrated an ability to do that. It is kind of funny, though, that, like, it was one more dude where it's like,

yeah, he's not like, you know, it's not that he doesn't strike anyone out, but, like, he doesn't strike out as many guys as, like, I don't know, Zach Wheeler does or Spencer Strait. They weren't available for signing, so that might have had something to do with it. You know, how do you feel? Do you are you down on are you down on the sunny gray of it all? They've really they've really leaned into the puns. Yes, I know.

I was just going to say I have a I have a sunny outlook on him, I think. But I think that move in isolation is good. There's a club option, too, by the way, which I did not mention. That's the buyout for that, I think, is included in that guaranteed figure I cited. But, yeah, Gray is good and probably underrated. It's just that there's still not that much upside in this rotation. Or he's really the only guy who feels like he could be a top of the rotation type. And everyone else is just sort of there.

And you need guys to be there. And that can get you a lot of the way if they're reliably fine. But there's some collapse risk with this group, too. I mean, you're banking on Lance Lynn not giving up the most homers. I guess Sonny Gray gave up very few homers, so maybe they're just hoping that balances out somehow. But, you know, you're expecting, hoping

that he will be fairly good again. And the group as a whole, so on the preliminary projections that FanCraft shows right now on the depth charts for starting pitcher, the Cardinals with Gray are 12th and there are only 12 teams that make the playoffs even these days.

So that's not that great. And of course, that's before other teams sign some of the remaining top starters available and possibly leapfrog the Cardinals there or put more distance between them. So it's not an exciting group. And probably after the disaster of 2023, Cardinals fans would be OK with just a competent, dependable rotation. But I don't know that it's quite dependable as much as any starters or pitchers in general are dependable these days.

It's an old rotation. It almost reminds me of the Mets heading into last year without some of the- I'm sure that will thrill Cardinals fans to hear. Right, yeah. Rotation with a team that was terribly disappointing and then disassembled that rotation mid-year. They don't have anyone who's like 40 or pushing 40 the way that Verlander and Scherzer were, but they also don't really have anyone other than maybe Gray who had the upside that Verlander and Scherzer did or were thought to have. And so this group, it's like Gray's 34, Michaelis is 35, Gibson and Lynn are 36, Matz is 32. And yeah, you have some younger backstops to that group. You have Liberatore

around and other guys who could step in potentially if someone goes down, which someone inevitably will because we're talking about pitchers here. But who knows if those guys will, A, stay healthy and maintain their thus far reliable, dependable, if somewhat unexciting performance. So it could go south. It probably won't go as south as the 2023 rotation did. But even as starting rotations go, there's some risk here. I don't know how sanguine I would feel about the Cardinals' hopes of getting through a season and contending with this group of guys. Well, you know, when you think about the upper level depth that they have, it's like a lot of 45 types, right? a lot of 45 types right so you know it's like michael mcgrady's at triple a and sem they got sem ben you know they got sem and then they have this sort of weird like gap in terms of the the timing of stuff where it's like they do have a couple of exciting starting

pitching prospects that are like in the wings they might not be ready to go for 2024 i think that we view some of them as 2025 types but like tink hence does loom right and they have to koa roby looming and like we looked really good in fall again there's gordon graceffo so like they have other young guys who are interesting and might end up being like impact starters for them later but who knows where they're gonna be and how ready they're gonna be for like the 2024 campaign so you're right i think that like it there is a there's definitely a higher ceiling on the rotations results i think compared to last year, just because I do think Gray is very good. I don't think that they're like super high in a, on like a league adjusted basis,

but it's definitely better. And it does address a couple of their big needs. And like, you know, with Gray, if he is able to stay healthy, like they're going to end up with kind of a twofer, right? They're going to have quality innings over a lot of innings and that will be very useful to them. So like, I think that this is good. You know, you look at our like free agent depth charts for starters. It's like, okay, they could have tried to go after Snell, but like maybe they don't want to spend Snell money. Maybe they feel wary of Lucas Giolito. Maybe they feel wary of James Paxton. And then I don't know what their view of the international options was, although arguably if what they wanted was strikeouts, would Jordan Montgomery have wanted to come back to St. Louis? You know? Yeah.

But who knows? Michael Walker. I'm still stuck on the sentence, Tink Hentz does loom. He does loom. He does. He looms. I mean, like, how approximately? I don't know.

But he looms. I guess he doesn't loom that large physically. He's not that big for a pitcher. But also, can we take a moment to appreciate how great, from a name perspective, having Tink Hentz and Takoa Roby in the same rotation thinking of him looming, someone named Tink, I mean, his actual name is Markavian or Markavian. And he was originally named Stinker when he was a kid, which turned into Tinker and then Tink, which is probably an improvement over Stinker. I mean, if I were him, I would certainly consider that to be an upgrade. I don't think I knew the story of the origin of the nickname. That's delightful. It is, yes. So I'm sure if he turns out to be as good as he could be,

then no one will think of Tink as a non-intimidating nickname, but I'm just having a hard time just saying someone named Tink and that evolved from Stink and Stinker. It's just, you know, that alone doesn't really do it for me. But it definitely does it from an entertainment standpoint. Well, and the way that you could think about it, Ben, if you were so inclined, is to be like, what a fun juxtaposition of, like, name expectation versus, like, presence on mount.

Like, that could be so cool, you know? Yeah. Yeah, it's true. All right. Well, the Twins lost another starter to free agency because Kenta Maeda signed with the Detroit Tigers for two years and $24 million. I think I had considered taking the under on his MLB trade rumors prediction, which was two years and 36 or something like that. And then I decided not to. I think I mentioned that. Now I'm kind of kicking myself for not doing that instead of taking Jordan Montgomery, who I immediately thought better of that pick. But a pretty sweet deal for Detroit, I would say. Not as much for Maeda, but he rebuilt himself or was rebuilt physically. He got Tommy John surgery, right, and had a new UCL and struggled in his initial comeback from that.

Then went on the IL with a tricep strain or whatever it was labeled. And then he came back and was quite good down the stretch. And that's a nice addition for Detroit. I guess the Tigers lose Eduardo Rodriguez, or at least have not filled that slot yet. So they needed to do some work there. But they take a guy away from a division rival. And Maeda, you know, he's solid. Like he's been, I don't know if I'd say jerked around, but he was a starter. And then he was always sort of a swing man with the Dodgers. And he had that weird, long contract with all kinds of clauses and just an unusual structure.

And he was always, I don't know if you could say being jerked around, but I don't know if that was his preference. It seemed like he wanted to start and often wasn't as much as he wanted to. But generally, he's been quite effective when he's been healthy and when he's been used. And so now that he has been rebuilt to get him on a two-year deal for not a high average annual value. I don't know if I'd say it's a steal, but it seems like a nice pickup relative to some of the other moves that have been made from the Tigers' perspective. Yeah, I thought I liked it quite a bit. are another team that if what they are serious about is like really contending next season could use you know a big impact top of the rotation guy i don't know that that's maeda but like i think he's a good pitcher and i think that he helps to um sort of stabilize that group which

is at the moment really dependent on the young guys kind of either coming back from injury coming into their own taking a step forward so i think that is good i'm glad that he can like he provides a lot of versatility from a usage perspective but finally has a contract that will just like let him be a starter and have peace of mind like i always found his dodgers deal to be so stressful because it just seemed so obviously vulnerable to manipulation in terms of usage and innings and all of the weird escalators and incentives that were present in it. So like, I'm very happy that he has gotten this deal, even if I agree with you that like from a cost perspective, like this might end up being a coup for the Tigers. I quite like this for them. It feels serious. It's not a huge move, but it's the kind of move you make when you're like, okay, we got to do something now. It's not enough to not do

anything. We got to do some stuff. So I quite liked it. I mentioned that the Cardinals rotation was projected to be 12th best, the Tigers with Maeda 11th best. So neck and neck there. Actually, I guess they're tied. 12.3 projected war. But that rotation, I mean, if the Cardinals was like, OK, this is unexciting and maybe hopefully competent and dependable, like these are older guys with track records. The Tigers rotation is kind of the opposite of that. It's like, let's hope Scooble continues to be good and stay healthy.

And then hopefully we finally get the Scooble-Manning-Mize trio together and healthy and pitching well. But who knows if that will actually happen. They have Reese Olsen, who also has been good. So it's a much younger group, even though those guys have been highly touted prospects for a few years now. We've been waiting a while for that to hopefully all come together. But if it does, if it finally does, that'd be nice. It would be nice if the Tigers could make that work with those guys and that didn't turn into the new Generation K or, you know, some class of highly vaunted pitching prospects who just fell apart, right? So other than Maeda, all those guys are in their mid-20s, and there's just a lot of downside risk there, too, but maybe more upside potential. I think that you might be right. I think you might be right.

I wouldn't place bets because I don't do that. It's stupid. But if I were and I were asked which of these has the potential to really exceed the projected expectations, it probably is Detroit, even absent. like really exceed the projected expectations or probably is Detroit even absent not like I don't know that I view Maeda as like a one-to-one replacement for Rodriguez but even if they don't do anything else it does feel like you know it wouldn't shock me if those guys when they come back from being hurt or you know are able to take another step forward or like you know at the end of the year like you know the Tigers rotation ended up being really good. Could be true. The Twins, even after losing Gray and Maeda, their rotation is eighth best projected.

Now, we'll see. Maybe they'll try to supplement that group. But they were starting from a high position because they had a really nice rotation this past year. Another team that has indicated it is interested in trimming payroll. Yes, that is true. So the last move that maybe merits a little discussion here is not a surprising one, but just sort of a satisfying one.

The Dodgers are reuniting with Jason Hayward. I don't know if we can call it a reunion. They were never apart, but they have decided to stay together just on another one year, $9 million deal. And that marriage just worked out really well. We said something on the Dodgers preview pod last year about like, man, if they fix Jason Hayward, well, then the Dodgers really will have done it.

And part of it, I guess, was them fixing him or helping him regain some semblance of his old offensive potential. And some of it was just, you will never see a lefty again, Jason Hayward. So I don't know how much of it was just making him a pretty strict platoon player and how much of it was rebuilding his swing. rebuilding his swing. But it was just really nice to see him being a productive player on a 100-win team and now getting another deal when it looked like his career could be over when the Cubs cut him loose and decided to pay him rather than play him. It just seemed like he might be nearing the end of the line. And no, he's having now a productive part-time veteran mentor phase of his career. And he seems so well suited to that, both in terms of skills and also just in terms of his ability to be a good guy that a lot of people like being around. Yeah. I think that, you know,

does this change my expectations for like Dodgers' outlook next season? I mean, no, it doesn't really move the needle there at all. But you always like to see a guy who's able to have a second win to his career continue to get opportunities. And yeah, it sounds like he is just a really good clubhouse presence guy. And I'm stoked for him. It's nice. It's nice to see guys get another run or another another run, as the case may be. They did re-sign him, you know, so they were technically apart.

I suppose, yeah. But not very far, it turned out. Right, yeah. Or for very long. They were exploring their options mutually, and then they decided to remain together. And I guess maybe they won't get the same production that they got out of him this year. I don't know. It was kind of a best-case scenario. And I guess his quality of contact stats were not quite as good as the actual results.

And he slotted in really well for them last year because of their middle infield vacancies and needing to shift Mookie into the infield all the time. And then how can you replace Mookie with someone who's got about as good a glove shift Mookie into the infield all the time. And then how can you replace Mookie with someone who's got about as good a glove as Mookie? That's tough to do. And so they had Hayward. And when they were facing a righty pitcher, then they could move Mookie to the middle infield. That is not really how they drew it up. They just were trying to make do with the Miguel's in the middle infield. Right. And so if they don't have to do that this year and they don't need or want to move Mookie around as much, then perhaps Hayward would be more pressed for playing time. But that just worked out really well just for both of them. And, you know, it's it's funny because I don't know how much of of it to give credit to the Dodgers for and Hayward for just doing things differently and how much of it was his role.

Because you could say, well, why couldn't the Cubs have just made him a strict platoon player and had him in that role? They could have known that he would still hit righties. OK, and maybe they did. Maybe he just didn't fit as well in that role on their roster. Maybe they did. Maybe he just didn't fit as well in that role on their roster. Or maybe it's just that when you sign someone like that to a big contract and you're banking on them being a full-time, everyday star-level player, then to kind of concede, well, that didn't work out and now he's just a part-time platoon guy. Maybe there's something about that that's just hard to do on that team i guess if you're if you're cutting him loose and saying we'll we'll pay you to play for someone else then i guess you're already conceding that it didn't work out

so well and it's not like it was a mystery to anyone that it didn't work out so well aside from the 2016 game 7 pep talk, which who knows, maybe made it worthwhile on its own, but on a performance measurable basis, not so much, but maybe it's just, it's tough to do that with a team that brought you on to do one thing and then to be in that city with that salary in that uniform and just saying, well, he's just a part-time player now. Maybe it's easier to do that when you've kind of been cast off and you're in a new uniform in a new city, right? Or maybe it's just like once a team has released you, then you're like, well, I guess I've got to settle for a part-time role now, whereas maybe it's harder to come to terms with that if you haven't been given that wake-up call, perhaps. So I don't know which it was, but maybe it's a little easier for that to happen with a change of scenery than right? That you are able to mentally adjust yourself to a different role and you go into a situation that isn't necessarily laden with expectation in the same way it is when you're supposed to be like the guy, right?

So, I bet it's a combination of both of those things. Can I say something that's unrelated to Hayward but that I'm just grappling with because I'm looking at the Dodgers payroll page on roster resources? I know that it's not very much money, but the decision to extend Miguel Rojas was really weird, right? That was a weird choice to extend Miguel Rojas.

Why did he feel the need to do that? That's a weird choice. Miguel Rojas is fine. And it was like five million bucks or something. It's not very much money at all but also that was weird it was a little weird a little bit yeah I have a bone to pick with Bauman

who wrote the write up for Fangraphs on Hayward pick being the operative word because he said that Hayward can pick it right which is true in the sense that he remains a very good defender but pedantically that Hayward can pick it, right? Which is true in the sense that he remains a very good defender.

But pedantically, can an outfielder be said to pick it? Because that to me, that seems like an infield thing, right? Okay. I think. I get that. I mean, I don't want to, look, do I want to throw one of my coworkers under the bus? I sure don't.

Do I want to make the point that I maybe didn't edit that piece? No, like I don't. I'm not. It doesn't matter. I get what you mean. But like you have to. I don't know. Would you have preferred he said can really scoop it?

Can really snag it? Can really go get it? I don't know. Go get it. Okay. One of those? Maybe. Yeah.

Because you prefer not to have to pick it if you're an outfielder, right? Right. I mean, pick it. I think of like, it's a short hop maybe, or maybe you're even backhanding the ball or something, but it's like, it's a grounder, right? Like a picket to me, that's a ball that bounces. And with an outfielder, ideally the ball doesn't bounce because you're so good that you went in and got it, right? You caught it before it fell. Maybe I'd accept it on a shoestring catch in the outfield, but borderline, I'm going to have to hash this out with Bauman offline. Yeah, I'll throw Bauman under the bus anytime on a podcast

publicly, but that stood out to me. I think I would imagine that he's just ascribing it to be a more generalizable term for being talented at fielding. Right. Yes. I understood it that way. I get if it had come down to it, I don't know that I would have been like, hey, can we tweet this? But I would understand asking the question i guess i guess yeah yeah well just so i say something nice about bauman great headlines from him this week incredible work i think that it's um useful to understand your own limitations as an editor and i will admit that like headline selection is definitely one of mine which one might argue is like a pretty profound limitation to have because it can have big seo implications i suppose but like more than

most places we kind of let writers do their own headers although we will like you know we'll be like hey we gotta change this every now and again and And I have said that to Bauman. I have at times been like, hey, this one's too much. But he comes up with some real bangers. He has been a raptor testing the fences in terms of what I will tolerate in that space for sure. I don't know if citing a Sufjan Stevens song title in a Kenta Maeda transaction analysis is great SEO. No, but it is a great headline. It's highly entertaining to me. Yeah. You know, if I remember correctly from my days at BP, no less illuminary than

Sam Miller said, you know, sometimes you write jokes for the people who will get them. Right. And that definitely ranks for me. It is useful sometimes for me to remember that other people's musical tastes might not be as, like, twee as mine or Bauman's. He would resent me calling them twee because he would say they're good. And they are, but they, you know,

like, sometimes, sometimes you're like, it's too fun. Yeah. Well, you had the colon and then tiger sign kentameida, so that's there. You know, the mutton potatoes. Like if you want to know what this is about beyond Michael Bauman's musical taste, then that information is there. And there's a subhead that explains further. And if you get the reference, great. Then it brings a smile to your face. And if it doesn't, you're like, Detroit, lift up your weary head. What is that? And maybe you Google it. What is that? And then you Google it. Yeah, if you're an inquisitive type. Yeah, then you maybe learn about some new music.

Although one time we went with a headline, not this postseason, but last postseason, that was a play on the lyrics to Dancing on My Own, which I assumed and Bauman assumed everyone would know as the sort of anthem of the Philadelphia Phillies. Some readers did not know that and were worried that we were like suggesting something terrible with a play on I'm in the corner watching you kiss her. And they got all worked up and I suggested that they not because it was fine, actually. Yeah. We got some requests that you share the rejected Bauman headlines on a Patreon pod sometime. So you can just jot those down.

Yeah. Some of them are, you know, like maybe, yeah, maybe for patrons. Effectively Wild After Dark. Yeah. Yeah. I definitely would want to clear that segment with Bauman before I did it because I wouldn't want to speak out of turn. You'd probably be happy to have them aired in any form, I would imagine. Yeah. I did not clear my pedantically picking a bone with his use of pick prior to this podcast. But, you know, I know him well. I think he'll be okay with it.

I think it'll be okay with it. I think it'll be okay. Okay. All right. So I have just a couple of follow-ups from the last episode that we did together. We did an email show last week. Lots of good questions and lots of good responses to those questions. And I wanted to share a few. First of all, we did a stat blast about how award votes in some ways have become less competitive over time.

And they've also hewed more closely to war. And we explored the reasons for that. exception to that, that there has been more disagreement among voters on their ballots for manager of the year as opposed to less disagreement for the player awards. And listener Kelly wrote in to suggest, I think the reason why there would be greater disagreement on manager of the year voting now than previously is that there are more contenders now than there used to be, a result of expanded playoffs. To win manager of the year, one's team must make the playoffs or come very close. The number of teams that will fit this

criterion increases as playoffs expand. So there are more managers who could reasonably win the award. If we accept this as the primary causal explanation for the trend you identified, we can also discount the notion that the award itself is somehow more interesting or complex or that there are better debates about who should win. There are just more people to consider, which results in a wider distribution of votes. That sounds plausible to me. That makes sense. Yeah. I think that's right. And you still get years where you have, I mean, this year was so fascinating, right, to this question, because we had a lot of like variants in one league and much less in the other. And so like that part of it, I find really interesting because, you know, it suggests that there is still the potential for consensus. It was really all over the place. And the AL ballot was like, you know, Brandon Hyde.

It was almost exclusively Brandon Hyde. And then you look at the NL ballot and it's like you got one guy who ends up winning, has the same number of first place votes as Brian Snitker. People voting for Brian Snitker does make me feel better about selecting him as my postseason manager, even though I ended up having notes. But yeah, I think that more teams being in the, you know, thick of it from a wildcard perspective definitely adds a complicating factor. I think that there are things that voters still care about year to year that at least winnow the field, right? Like, at least winnow the field, right? Like, it's not surprising to me that Hyde got a lot of consideration last year because of the Orioles' improvement, but it was in the year where they actually pushed through

that, you know, he was able to secure manager of the year. So it's like, you know, there's some consistency, but yeah, it can be all loosey-goosey. Yeah, I guess the bar for what constitutes a surprise team, if that's just making the playoffs, then the bar is lower than it used to be because more teams make the playoffs. So if that's what you have to do, like no one expects you to contend and then you make the playoffs, there are more teams that are doing that, but it's also less impressive to make the playoffs because you don't have to win that many games to make the playoffs now, as the Diamondbacks demonstrated. But still, I guess from a narrative standpoint, it does make all the difference to contend versus not contend. And so that is a big feather in your cap as a manager when it comes to manager of the year voting. Also, another follow-up from listener Ben, we answered an email about a fan who mystically makes a team win or lose by attending, right? The team that they go to see always wins or

always loses. And we discussed what would that team do to capitalize on that or prevent that from happening? And would they pay that person to go to games, whether as a marketing opportunity or because they believe that it will help them win? Or would they pay that person not to go to games to stay home, right? And Ben pointed out, regarding the fan whose team loses every game they attend, rather than trying to negotiate with their team to pay them to stay home? What if they negotiate with opposing teams to see if anyone will pay them to attend? So that way, I feel like you would have potentially many more clients, right? Because you could offer your services to any team that is going to be playing your team. Like if they have an upcoming series with your team and they know, oh, if we just pay this fan to attend, then we

will win those games, right? And it wouldn't matter as much to the team that's going to play one series against that team as it would to that team itself, which would be very motivated and incentivized not to have that fed at all its games. But you could have a bidding war of sorts, right? Like you could tell team A, hey, team B is paying me X dollars to go. So now you have to top that to get me to stay home and not screw stuff up for you. Yeah.

Or they would come together to have him killed. That could happen too. I do worry that someone would be like, should we just kill that guy? Yeah. Yeah. I've been talking about nefarious outcomes here. That occurred to you.

What didn't occur to us when we were talking about this on the podcast is like gambling implications. Just because neither of us thinks or cares about that all that much. But I saw some of our listeners saying like, oh, isn't it cute and pure that Ben and Meg didn't even think about like what would probably happen here, which is that like some sports book would pay these people to like move the lines or, you know, have the outcome that they wanted so that they could just make bank on all the bets that were in because people did not know about this fan and their mystical powers. Yeah. Yeah. It didn't occur to me. It didn't occur to me. And then by far, the most

responses we got were to our topic about baseball interceptions or turnovers, right? We got a question about, well, baseball doesn't really have turnovers the way that other sports do because, you know, the defense starts the play and has the ball. And so how could we have turnovers or interceptions in baseball? And we threw it out to the listeners and said, suggest some possible interceptions or turnovers. How would that work in baseball? And we got many responses, and I will share some of them here. in other sports. So he's saying we already have turnovers of a type. The hidden ball trick, which as we've lamented, is all but extinct, certainly endangered these days at the big league level, and pickoffs.

So I guess there's something vaguely turnover-esque about those. Maybe it's like the defense can fight back after you make it to a base, after you get on base, then they can trick you or they can catch you and it's a turnabout and it's a fair play, right? I guess there's something interception-y about that. I hadn't considered that. Yeah. I think it's a fair one. Yeah. It's not exactly what we were thinking about. And so Matt, one of our Patreon supporters in the discord group said, I think

having it be tied to outs somehow makes sense because that's the finite resource in baseball that seems to rather roughly admittedly most correspond to the finite resource of possession in other sports right so if you can somehow rob outs from someone then it's almost like taking the ball away from an opposing team and so we had a number of suggestions that were outs related so for instance Casey says as a Royals fan now Casey I believe that's their name. Those were the initials. I don't know if that stands for Kansas City. But Casey is a Royals fan and says, during their 2014 and 2015 playoff runs, I had the realization that the best thing that can happen when your team is on defense is nothing.

I was nervous enough that I would pace around the house, do dishes, take a lap around the neighborhood, etc., while the Royals were defending. The closest solution I came up with was allowing the defending team to score by defying run expectancy charts. So your pitcher loads the bases with zero outs, but the other team doesn't score at a run on defense. If it's one out, maybe half a run. Add a run on defense. If it's one out, maybe half a run. So in other words, you take the run expectancy that the offensive team had, and if you deny them that, then you get that. So it's not just that you keep them off the board, but you get credit for the runs that you prevented them from scoring that they quote unquote should have scored or deserve to score. What do you think about that? I like that. I'd be interested in that.

Yeah, I like that conceptually because it does feel like when you have a Houdini like that, if there's a bases loaded no outs situation and it's a noble tiger for one team, but for the other team, it's extremely exciting when that happens because even if we're not consulting the run expectancy tables, we have an inner barometer. We've watched a lot of baseball. You have some informal run expectancy table in your mind as a baseball fan. And so when you get out of that situation, in a way, you feel like you won something even without getting any runs or anything, because you've already mentally been like, well, we're probably going to give up a run or two here. And then when you don't, it's extremely exciting. So I guess you could say, well, you don't need to add any additional prize on there because it already feels like it's its own reward.

Yeah. You escaped unscathed, but it would be extra exciting if you got something. It wasn't just that you lost something or your opponent didn't get something, but you got something too. That'd be extra exciting. I wonder if it would change like, you know, if we change the calculus for value of a particular skill, if suddenly being able to do this not only takes, like, an out off the board for them, but gives you a run or something. Like, does it alter who is valuable? Like, how big a shift does it have to be for it to alter our understanding of who's valuable? You know what I mean? put the game out of reach or make it so that you won't have a high leverage situation later on

because you've got an early lead. Or maybe it does put a priority on just getting the run across. Yeah. Right. I mean, you already want to get the run across, but like, I don't know if it leads to more small ball because you just don't want to get skunked. You just want to put the ball in play, but not get a double play. You just really want to push a runner two across and you could almost sort of sell out for a runner two rather than, I don't know if that would actually help you. Maybe that would be worse than just trying to get a hit the way that you normally would. But yeah, maybe not swinging for the fences at least because you don't want to strike out

and not get that guy in from third. So maybe it would change your approach or who you would want up at the plate in that situation. Yeah, maybe. Okay. A couple situations here along the same lines. Chris says, when a player robs a home run by leaping in the air, and it can be shown on replay that the ball would have been hit out, the team on defense gets whatever number of runs the home run would have generated.

It should always be up to the defensive team to appeal for this, similar to replay appeals, though a spectacular leap and grab might draw an auto score from the umps. We got some other variations of that. So Justin, for instance, said my suggestion for an interception baseball is if there is a home run robbery with fewer than two outs, the inning ends right there and the defending team gets to bat. So in one of these versions, you get the runs that you robbed. They just go directly to your ledger. And then the other one, the inning ends early, right? And you just get to run all the way back into the dugout and celebrate and be at bat. I think that this one I like a lot. It feels the most actually interception-y, right? Because you

are literally intercepting the ball. And I think that this one would, I mean, like, robbing a home run is already very valuable, right? Because you're taking runs off the board already when you rob the home run. But I do wonder if it would be like, we gotta get Monstars out there. Like, everyone needs to be as tall as Aaron Judge to play

the outfield, and we're gonna make the wall shorter. But, you know, you gotta have that in balance because if you don't, then they can just take all of your home runs away. Real tricky. Yeah. But I like this one. I feel embarrassed that I didn't think of this candidly. Once the email started coming in, I was like, yeah, I guess that's the closest we get. Yeah. Because a home run robbery is, if not the best and most exciting play in baseball,

it's quite close, right? It's certainly one of the prettiest plays. It, if not the best and most exciting play in baseball, it's quite close, right? It's certainly one of the prettiest plays. It's one of the best kinds of highlights. And so in that sense, it's kind of like the getting out of the inning where you think you're going to give up a lot of runs and then you don't. It's already really impressive and exciting and something to be celebrated. And so you almost don't need a bonus on top of that. But it is really exciting. And so maybe it should be really rewarding.

And yes, it does feel like an interception. And what a swing in emotions and obviously run expectancy if not only did you prevent the worst from happening, but you either get those runs yourself or just the inning is over. Because it's always, I think, better when the home run robbery is the last out of the inning and you get to run all the way back into the infield. Right. Like slapping gloves and high fiving all the way as opposed to just I did that, but we're still playing and I got to stay out here for a while. to just, I did that, but oh, we're still playing it. I got to stay out here for a while. Just like that celebratory jog, the triumphant run back into the infields, just accepting praise and people applauding you the whole way. That's really fun. So it'd be great if it were just an automatic

inning ender. It's like, you can't come back from this. I like that. Yeah. I like it too. And like, then they could, you know, they could do dances, you know, like coordinated dances, everyone together, like defenses do sometimes when you have an interception, particularly when you have like a pick six. So I support that. I think that would be a fun and lively thing. Yeah. It's also rare enough that it wouldn't be super disruptive.

Yes, I agree. Because, you know, baseball has worked fairly well for a long time. So we don't necessarily need to reinvent everything about how you score or prevent scoring. But yeah, this is rare enough that it wouldn't completely rewrite the game. I mean, it's a high home run era and also a high home run robbery era, as I wrote about a few years ago. And I think that's a good thing because it's not so common

that any of the luster has been lost. You know, it's not like position player pitching or something that was fun and then it happened too much and now it's a little less fun. A home run robbery is still as fun as ever, I think. But because you have balls carrying farther and guys trying to hit home runs and everything, you also inevitably have more home run robberies and has to do with fence height too.

And so I guess you would see, as you said, yeah, maybe Monstars in the outfield like this would be an even more prized and valuable skill than it already is. But I wonder whether it would affect ballpark construction too. Yeah. Like would it affect fence height if you're a team that doesn't have a lot of home run hitters but has good outfield defenders? Then would you want to just lower the fences as low as you could get away with in order to make it easier to have home run robberies? You can't have it too low or it would be too easy and then it wouldn't be as fun. But I'd be in favor of some of that at least.

It also strikes the right balance, right? Because you don't want to tip things between the offense and the defense in any one direction, like too strongly. And so I think you're right that like the rarity of it allows you to maintain a basic level of balance, even if it makes this one event more valuable. You can make it more valuable and more entertaining without, you know, getting everything totally like off kilter in a way that I think would be really good. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. How about this one? Adam, Patreon supporter. The inning automatically ends if a fielder can catch the ball while holding hands with a teammate. He says. See, I'm the target audience for this because everyone knows that I think that the guys should be able to kiss if they want to. Yeah.

This is not quite that kind of PDA. But it's holding hands, and Adam says, might be mostly on pop-ups, but there's still a risk of being less mobile while tracking the ball. Could lead to interesting new shifts to place more fielders closer to each other, like

if you want to have the outfielders clustered so that they could be close enough to hold hands with each other. But yeah, it might be on the cans of corn or the pop-ups that have enough hang time that you would be able to get close enough to lock hands. But yeah, what if you could do that? Or what if all three outfielders join hands and then they form some run-saving entity, some sort of Voltron or something, Captain Planet?

I don't know what it is. Maybe if three or more fielders link hands, then you get additional runs on top of that. I don't know. But maybe this would at least be tender if it were to happen. Yeah. I mean, it would be tender. I think that it is, even for me, a person who appreciates the fun here, maybe a little too much away from baseball to be what I would really be into. But potentially, it could be cool. We get more hand-holding than ever just with the umpire sticky stuff inspections. But that's awkward hand-holding. It's like we don't want to do this, but we have to. We'll make it as quick and cursory as possible. With the outfielders,

maybe it would be a little more friendly, but it's an idea. Here's another idea from Lucas, Patreon supporter. Here's my idea for a baseball interception. When a team is batting, they get to stash one player outside the foul lines, not counting the player in the on-deck circle. Let's call them the interceptor. Okay. The interceptor's goal is to try to catch a foul ball, and if they do so, they have to run around and avoid getting tagged by the player's fielding. While they hold the ball, the player batting gets to run the bases as if they had gotten a hit. When the interceptor is tagged, they drop the ball, which is now in play.

I think this would add a fun playground-esque game of tag and increase action on the base paths. Obviously, some quirks here to work out. Yeah. But let me know what you think. know what you think. It might be a little too, like, I don't want to say unprofessional, like, in a judgmental way, although I guess it is kind of in a judgmental way. But you know what I mean? It might be a little too much in that direction.

Yeah. Entertaining. Yeah. Maybe in a Savannah Bananas style context more so than in mlb but uh i like your thinking lucas i mean would be amusing in the same way that say uh someone who who runs on the field and eludes security can be sometimes amusing even though like they shouldn't do that and you definitely don't want them to do it very often like no you don't want that and you also like don't want them to go near the players like if you have to streak

or run onto the field like at least don't scare anyone you know like don't make a beeline for any players like yeah if it's more about like with acuna yeah like is this guy gonna get creamed you know like is this guy gonna get leveled or can he somehow escape into the stands? That can kind of be entertaining. And so this would be similarly like because everyone likes a pickle and a rundown. But the problem with that is that you can't really go outside the base paths. And so here you would just have free reign. And that would be kind

of fun to watch someone really athletic. Like you might have just a designated super athletic fast person. Like this might be a Terrence Gore kind of role and they're the interceptor, right? And it's just, you're it, you know, like catch me if you can. Yeah. That would be kind of fun. It's not really baseball, but it's not really baseball. Yeah. That would be kind of fun. It would be kind of fun. It's not really baseball, but it would be kind of fun. No, it's not really baseball. Yeah. I mean, tag is like a professional sport now. So if that's what you want, you can watch that.

Is it a professional sport? It is. Yeah. They have all kinds of courses set up and everything. What does one realize from a salary perspective as a professional tag player? That I could not tell you. I doubt it's highly lucrative, but it is, you know, I will see it like on TV at the gym, like World Chase Tag or whatever it is. Like there are leagues that are, you know, on reputable networks and people just swinging around and taking corners and vaulting over things.

And it's fun to watch. I kind of like it. Okay. Well, you know, different strokes for different folks, I guess. Exactly. Raymond says, let's see, a turnover is when you go from offense to defense prematurely, either because you messed up or because the defense did something somewhat impressive. So in baseball, the messed up would be an inning-ending two-plan.

For somewhat impressive, I would vote for turning an inning-ending double play. So he's arguing in favor of like that's the closest to what we already have. to what we already have, I guess, similar to Robert's argument that it's a hidden ball trick or, you know, a pickoff, maybe just an inning ending to plan or double play, I guess, could be kind of like a turnover. It's like, oh, good things were happening. And then we did something bad or the defense did something good. And now it's their turn to be the offense, right? So, I guess that's kind of a close equivalent. And now the last most popular suggestion, along with the home run robbery one, as Chris succinctly stated,

base runners can have gloves. If they catch a ball on the fly, one out is removed and they advance one base. Or as Caitlin, Patreon supporter, put it, it made me think of base runners being able to catch the ball. So if a runner already on first catches instead of the first baseman, it counts as a home run or at least gets the batter on base

and advances all runners. I know that's the opposite of a defensive interception, but it would be interesting and possibly dangerous. That's almost like an offensive interception in a way. But a lot of people suggested this. So on the Discord, user Trexor82 also said, my not well-considered idea for a turnover rule in baseball is that if a runner cleanly catches a batted ball, they and all other runners are automatically entitled to the next base,

and either an out comes off the board or next half inning begins with one out. Naturally, the runner would not be allowed to interfere with a fielder's attempt to field the ball. Can't leave the baseline, can't touch a fielder or threaten to do so. But let's say the infield is playing back with two outs and one on, the runner snags a grounder before the second baseman can get it. All of a sudden, it's two on and one out. And then the last person who wrote in about this, listener Ben and Patreon supporter Ben, and he, I think, had the most thorough consideration of this concept. So here's an idea for adding an interception rule to baseball. A base runner can intercept a live ball. I see

this happening two ways. A runner, instead of jumping over or otherwise avoiding a nearby ground ball, could intercept it. Or after an attempted steal, pickoff, or other close play at a base, a runner could snatch up a ball if the fielder doesn't have control of it. Once the base runner has control of the ball, the hitting team can do as they wish. So runners can proceed home to score. A couple rules. One, a base runner can intercept a live ball after it is hit fair by a batter. The base runner cannot leave the base path and cannot come in contact with any fielder during an attempt to intercept the baseball. And two, if a base runner is safe on base, they can intercept any live ball

provided they not leave the base and the ball is not under control of a fielder. And Ben says this is a little different from an interception or turnover in football, basketball, etc., because the defense doesn't become the offense after the interception. But control of the ball does still temporarily change, as was raised during your podcast. It is a fun thought experiment because it draws attention to a distinct feature of baseball compared to many other sports. The defense, not the offense, has control of the ball during play, except for the brief moment a batter makes contact. When this interception rule is inevitably adopted, perhaps once a player successfully reaches base, they'll receive a glove instead of a sliding mitt. What do you think? I do think it's a little too unlike baseball as we play it.

It is, yes. Yeah, but it does sound fun. I mean, it would add an interesting bit of something to what's going on, but it might be too much, you know? Yeah. Initially, I was going to say, well, it sounds a little dangerous, but if you give them gloves.

Yeah. Now, I don't know what that would do to base running. Because ultimately, it might actually hurt you because if the base runner is preoccupied with fielding or catching a batted ball, not only are they wearing a glove as opposed to a sliding mid, an oven mid or whatever, but also they would have to be like really paying attention to the batted ball and trying to track it. Like, of course, the base runner is always going to have one eye on the ball because they have to know, is it safe for me to advance and how far? But here it's like, you'd never get a good jump on anything, right? And you'd have to decide, do I want to just run or do I want to try to face the batter here and make a play on this ball, even though it would be tough for me to advance if I don't make that play, right? So there'd be kind of an interesting tactical calculus there. Yeah. I mean, like, I think a lot

of these would entail an interesting tactical calculus, but we do want to balance it, right? We want to balance it against, I don't know, like it still being appreciably and noticeably baseball. And I think that this kind of goes a little too far in the other direction. Yeah, it would pit a premium on athleticism because now it would be beneficial to be a good fielder even when you're on the bases. It would be beneficial to be a good fielder even when you're on the bases. I guess most players, I guess speed and athleticism and defensive ability often go arm in arm, right? But like if you're a bad base runner and now you're also a bad fielder and because you have to do both of those things when you're on base, like it wouldn't just be clogging the bases. Like it would go beyond that because now you wouldn't be able to make plays on batted balls either while you're on base. So maybe that nudges things in the direction of the type of player we prefer. Peach said, for turnovers in baseball, you could have the offense be able to steal outs back. So players can choose to remain on the bases if they're out. And if they cross home, their out is removed.

They don't score runs. However, they can also make another out. So you can just decide to get an out back basically. But that's, I think, a little different from the turnover idea, probably. That's just kind of how are you going to apportion your outs and are you going to give them more outs? But that's like your personal choice. So it's not really something that I don't know if that, you know, the defense doesn't force you to do that or isn't really involved. So that doesn't quite fit the description for me. Robert said the defense can record a fourth or fifth out, thereby subtracting from the current offense's

future outs. For example, bottom two, two out, runner on first, batter grounds out to short, who steps on the bag and throws to first while not necessary in our game the extra throw beating the batter to first steals an out from the offense when they bat again in the bottom of the third meaning the defense would only need to record two outs this means each ball in play must reach a dead ball status all runners have to hustle every play more extended action shorter Starters would go further into games. Teams might need to be extra cautious how they put the ball in play with two outs. Again, interesting idea, but I don't know if it quite is a turnover or an interception. It seems a little bit different, you know, talking about like getting outs that transfer across innings or saving outs across innings. I guess, hypothetically, you can have a fourth

out in an inning, which Sam just wrote about in his substack. But again, this is a little bit different. And I will end with two more related. The first one is from Patrick, whose way of introducing interceptions to baseball hinges on a new position I would call the designated fielder. Each half inning, the offensive team would send out their designated fielder to play alongside the defense. He could stand anywhere on the field and could change locations from batter to batter. He may not physically interfere with defenders to avoid injuries, but if he fields the ball first, he has recorded an interception and the batter is automatically safe. Okay, along similar lines, this one is from Ben, a Patreon supporter who says, here's a rule slash hypothetical that's been kicking around in my brain for a while,

which I think is relevant to the idea of baseball's equivalent to an interception, the defense on the defense rule. In short, in certain situations, the hitting team is allowed to send one player out into the field with the goal of interfering with the fielders and allowing runners to safely reach base or take extra bases. This is, I guess, not unlike that interceptor idea, but it's a little different in that this isn't necessarily about like stealing the ball in foul territory or running away with it, but you could distract the fielders. So Ben says, I imagine there's a lot you could do to disrupt the fielders, including intercepting fly balls to prevent fielders from catching it for an out, hence the relevance to this discussion. However, I do think we need a few restrictions to keep it from being too powerful, being used too frequently, and to maximize the chaos. be a one inning per game limit, which would be straightforward enough. However, my proposal is this in any half inning, the fielding team has the option to only send out eight defenders holding

one in reserve. The following half inning, that player takes the field with the other team as the anti-fielder. Maybe also limit each player to only be able to anti-field one inning per game. What can and can't they do? There are a few things that jump to mind that I'd like to legislate against. Grabbing and holding the ball, since that would pretty much just be an automatic home run. Standing in front of the first baseman and blocking throws, since the first baseman is limited in where they can be standing to get an out. I feel this would make routine ground balls too valuable. And bunting to an anti-fielder stationed on the infield grass. That would be like a pass, sort of like an offensive pass in baseball. In light of

that, Ben says, I propose the following restrictions. The anti-fielder is not allowed to hold the ball or trap it anywhere in or under their body. They are, however, allowed to slap or kick a ball on the ground, bat a ball out of the air, use their body to prevent a fielder from getting to the ball like a soccer player, protecting a ball that's rolling out of bounds for a corner kick, etc. Two, the anti-fielder cannot make a play on the ball while on the infield dirt. Outfield grass and infield grass are both fair game, and they can cross from one to the other, but they can only make deliberate contact with the ball while on grass. And third, on a bunt, the anti-fielder can't play the ball on the infield grass either.

If a bunt reaches the outfield, though, then it's fair game. What if their turn to bat comes up? I think my preference would be to have the current pitcher bat for them, but you could also just skip their spot in the order or have them hit and send in a replacement anti-fielder. If this rule were in effect, very unlikely at the MLB level, of course,

but I think it's got some Savannah Bananas potential, where do you think you would position your anti-fielder? What sort of player do you think would be ideal for the role? Any other restrictions you think would be in order? And this, again, it does sound fun, right? Yeah. It's not baseball, exactly. No. I don't want it in our current version of baseball in these leagues, but I would watch it. If you

did this somewhere in an indie ball game or Savannah Bananas or whatever. I think it would be fun. And I guess it could be someone who's going for maximum distraction. Yeah. Like a Max Patkin clown prince of baseball sort who's just like trying to distract you, get in your way, do something funny. This would be like violating the Eddie Stanky distraction rule of like doing jumping jacks in front of, you know, like this would be the complete opposite of that. It would just be, yes, you can distract anyone at any time.

Like hopefully it wouldn't lead to a lot more injuries. Like you, you couldn't have them be positioned by the pitcher or something like you. I don't think you would want to mess with the pitcher on a comeback or that could be dangerous unless they're like protecting the pitcher. But I kind of like the idea. I think it would be fun. I don't know how you'd handle it from a broadcast perspective.

Oh, yeah. Would you have to have like a dedicated camera on the anti-fielder? I think so. I think you would. To keep track of where they are and what they're up to? Yeah. You'd need like the Otani cam on the NHK broadcast. It's just the camera's always on Otani

no matter what he's doing. You'd need maybe a picture in picture or a split screen or something, which people lament, like we don't know where the defenders are positioned well enough now because we can't see that with the typical center field angle,

but you would need to see where the anti-fielder was. So you would definitely need at least some small window focusing on them at all times. Yeah, because otherwise, I mean, it could be funny to not have that and then have them be like, where did that guy come from? But I think it would be distracting, although it would be distracting to have a dedicated camera, too. You'd just be like watching that guy the whole time. The whole point is distraction, but I guess not distracting the viewer so much. But yeah, I don't know what type of person. It just could be someone who is very silly or just someone who's very speedy like the Terrence Gore type, right? So yeah, I mean, look, we asked for suggestions and we got them. So this was what I wanted. This was what I expected. This is what we asked for. So thanks to everyone for writing in. Thank you. that came in after we recorded. This is from Jeff, Patreon supporter, who said, as I understand it, football turnovers are either fumbles or interceptions.

An interception is the defense stealing the ball and cutting short the opposing team's offensive turn. Doesn't baseball already have a version of this? When a hitter hits a ball into foul territory, even though it's out of play, the fielders are allowed to try to intercept it before it hits the ground. If they manage to make the catch,

they've effectively stolen an out, thus cutting short, if not ending, the opponent's offensive inning. Is this not akin to an interception? He goes on to question if the ball's out of play from an offensive perspective, shouldn't it be so for the defense too? This is something we talked about on episode 2059 in the thick of our baseball exceptionalism series when we were talking about qualities that make baseball unique or unusual. Foul territory, the intermediate zone between inbounds and out of bounds where equipment can reside and non-participants in the play can be, even though it technically is in play. It's a weird thing about baseball, but I suppose there's something to the suggestion that there's an interception-esque quality to catching a ball in foul territory. Thanks, Jeff. Can't say thanks,

Jeff, without feeling like I'm on the bear. Also, in case anyone was wondering, I relayed my critique to Michael Bauman about saying an outfielder can pick it, and he said I'll accept that criticism. Glad he didn't mind my picking on him. If you want to help support such pedantic points as this, you can fund Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad-free, and get themselves access to some perks. CM, Brendan Pulsford, Paul Denyer, Greg Loon, and Andy Gran. Thanks to all of you.

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