Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2114: Weekend WARriors

Episode Date: January 21, 2024

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the offseason doldrums and this winter’s free-agent activity compared to last year’s, the Josh Hader and Robert Stephenson signings (with a contract over/under draft update), a bleak week in sports (and non-sports) media, pitcher/catcher technique and the automated strike zone, and the invasion of players named Jackson, followed […]

With Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley, come for the ball, banter's free. Baseball is a simulation, it's all just one big conversation. Effectively Wild. Hello and welcome to episode 2114 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 on a Saturday. Ben, how are you? Weekend pod. Weekend pod. At least for us. For us. Probably not for most people listening.

Yeah. But for us, weekend pod. Bringing that weekend Saturday energy to this episode. Yeah. It's like sometimes you're having a normal week and then sometimes you don't and your brain's like, hey, you know how you're stressed and haven't been sleeping a lot? Here's your reward, migraine meg. And then everyone has to readjust their schedule a little bit. So, hey, thanks for doing that. Thank you, producer Shane, for being willing to accommodate my brain misfiring, you know? We stay flexible here. We accommodate each

other's schedules on Effectively Wild. We get our three episodes in one way or another, one day or another. So, thanks to everyone for bearing with us. Yeah. We had a, you know, we have a little group chat, the three of us, when we have scheduling stuff. And I said in the midst of my migraine, I'd rather be pudding. And I was like, I didn't notice that until hours later when I had emerged from the worst of the migraine. And I was like, probably a good thing we weren't potting. I saw that you said pudding instead of potting and I was going to say something, but then I thought, Meg has a migraine. It's okay.

I'll let that one slide I'd rather be pudding what are your thoughts on pudding Ben are you putting do you like pudding yeah pro pudding yeah was a big big pudding person when I was a kid certainly loved the chocolate pudding my grandma used to make it didn't like when it had the hard skin on top though yeah didn't like that so much yeah I think anytime well there well, there are exceptions to this that I immediately have thought of. But in general, once skin gets involved in a food product, you're like, is that for me? I agree. Probably not.

Yeah. My mom's always telling me I should eat the skin of poultry, you know, like lots of protein in there. But it's not for me. I'm sorry. No. Sometimes a fish skin, a salmon skin, I might have. We're not just stalling for time. We actually do have things to talk about.

We do. Although there was a point this week where I didn't. This was maybe the first week where I acutely felt the off-season. Because I enjoy off-season effectively wild. I do too. We can get even weirder than usual and we can really explore the studio space. We can have some fun guests on. We can go on tangents. It's great. But this was a week where I'm not sorry that we ended up delaying and having a backloaded recording schedule because now we actually do

have some topics here for a while there. I was digging deep into the mailbag. I was like, maybe we could answer some several years old emails, which we'll see how the next week goes. Maybe we'll get to that. But yeah, this was the halfway point of the off season. We've passed now. Listener Kyle Loebner in our Facebook group, he does a daily countdown to opening day, which I enjoy. And he says how many days are left to opening day and who was the player who by war had that rank in the previous season. It's a fun little way to keep track of where we are. And last Sunday, he noted that we had passed the halfway point. Finally, Friday, we were more than eight-fifteenths of the way through the offseason,

69 days to go until opening day. Nice. Now, 68, seven-thirteenths of the way through the offseason. I think that's counting from the end of the World Series to opening day. Okay. Yeah, yeah. From the end of the World Series to opening day. Okay. Yeah, yeah. But this was like the doldrums because we hadn't had a lot of signings. There hadn't been a lot of news.

Did you see the tweet from our friends at Cespedes Family Barbecue about the progress in free agent signings relative to last year? No. to last year. So Jake and or Jordan noted that on January 18th, 2023, only three of MLB Trade Rumors top 50 free agents were still unsigned. Whereas this January 18th, 21 of the 50 were still unsigned. So it has been slow. It hasn't been the slowest offseason that we've seen. There have been some extremely slow backloaded ones. But relative to last year, it has been quite slow. And I don't know what to attribute that to. Obviously, it's not as strong a free agent class. Maybe there's more uncertainty about the cable bubble and broadcasts, or at least teams using that as an excuse for not spending so much, because there are quite a few teams that have sort of sat on their hands. And almost half of the top 50 as of a few days ago was still on the board. So yeah, we talked about Snellinger, right? Bodie Snellinger still out there, but it's also some less prominent free agents. So I don't know how to account for the slower pace of this winter relative to last year. It varies, obviously, from winter to winter. Yeah. I do wonder if we are seeing the effects of the RSN uncertainty,

either as a genuine budgetary issue for teams or at least an issue that is sort of clouding their budget picture or as a convenient excuse for that i imagine it's a mix of both things i wonder if that is a part of it but yeah i think we had this idea naively perhaps that otani would get sorted and then the floodgates would open that we would be you know just signings left and right and we've had like a fairly steady trickle but not a deluge um deluge deluge i don't mind this this pace much, really, because I like when the deals get parceled out, you know, distributed. So we have to do podcasts all offseason. You have to publish content at Fangraphs.com all offseason.

So I don't mind that so much. But yeah, there was really a slowdown where there hadn't been any major moves in a while there. So I was noticing it. I was noticing it. I was feeling it. But yeah, when everyone's like, oh, we should have a signing deadline and let's get it all done early. No, like then you're just going to have months with nothing. I think maybe earlier better than later, all else being equal, just so you can drum up excitement for the season. If you're a team, you can start marketing, you can sell season tickets, you can get people pumped. Perhaps there could be more certainty about who's going to be on what team. But from our perspective, I don't mind if there are some stragglers. to 19 now because we did have a couple of prominent reliever signings. Maybe the two

best relievers who were still free agents, although they took very different paths to being the two best and different contracts and different destinations, although both in the AOS. So Josh Hader has signed with the Houston Astros. Robert Stevenson has signed with the Angels. Yeah. The terms are we got $95 million for Josh Hader. Yeah. Which I guess we're doing now records in present day value I've seen. Right?

Like we've talked about how agents and or players, they want to have the bragging rights. They want to have the biggest contract ever. So sometimes they'll push it a million over, even if inflation adjusted, it's not actually bigger. But usually they do want that bigger confirmed dollar figure, the guaranteed dollars. Yes. But in this case, I'm seeing people report, Jeff Passan it this way. MLB trade rumors put it this way. I don't know if this is like an agent said, hey, please frame it this way and I will give you the news or whether they have chosen to frame it this way themselves. But Josh Hader, five years, 95 million. Right. No deferrals. No deferrals. And so it is being portrayed as the largest contract ever given to a relief pitcher in terms of present day value. Because Edwin Diaz signed a $102 million deal with the Mets before last season, which was a record. But there was some deferred money that dropped the present day value in the competitive balance tax calculation figure to about $93 million.

Isn't day value in the competitive balance tax calculation figure to about 93 million? Yeah. So technically speaking, Josh Hader, I guess, has the higher value. Right. Which, you know, if we're going to do that, then we should probably just inflation adjust too. Like we should just go all the way if we're going to be having qualifiers and conditions here. So in some ways, I guess it's more accurate, although it's not fully accurate. Anyway, it's a lot of money for a reliever. So the Astros have a great back of the bullpen, but they were left without Kendall Graveman because

he had shoulder surgery, the rare mid-January shoulder surgery, which I guess was a case of he was ramping up to throw and getting ready for spring training. Yeah, that's what it sounds like. Shoulder issues that had plagued him late in the season turned out they were still there. Usually you get either the player gets the surgery immediately after the season, and then you find out who was actually hurt and pitching hurt. Right. Because they will maintain, oh, yeah, I'm fine. And then October or November 5th, you know, it'll be surgery. Right. And then other guys, they'll get surgery or you'll hear about an injury in spring training when they start really ramping up. But this was the middle ground. So they're without Graveman and they went and got a replacement closer. I guess they could have had other replacement closers already on the roster, but they went and got another great late inning guy. So Josh Hader signed. Chandler Rome has done that, that hater was a potential trade target for them at the, at the deadline, right. That they had gotten a hater B in their bonnet as it were. Yeah. Are they just a team where they're going to give a lot of money to relievers? Is this like a,

is this like a Jim crane? This is going to be one of his picadillos as a picadillo. Am I using the right word there? Yeah, there you go. Yeah. As an owner, because like I'm of two minds about this signing, but on the one hand, Josh Hader,

very talented, our top ranked reliever on the top 50 and sort of in a tier of quality, sort of unto himself as, as we reckoned with it at fan graphs um and i know that his time in san diego was sort of mixed at least initially you know he was traded from milwaukee in 2022 which is not last season because we now exist in the year of our Lord 2024, was traded at that deadline, had been like a diminished version of himself in Milwaukee in that season, although his peripheral numbers were better than like his ERA was, and then just had a terrible time in terms of results in San Diego, particularly in the early going of his tenure there, although his peripherals were still quite a bit better than

his ERA, but quite a bit worse than his past results, right? And you realize, well, what is up with Josh Hader, right? They were at the point where they didn't really even necessarily trust him in the late innings. And then as we talked about quite a bit during last season, as in 2023, had a really superlative year. Not his career best, but very much a classic hater season, right? Him signing, I think, with Houston at least puts potentially to bed one of the issues that had sort of cropped up during his time with the Padres last year, where it's like, you know, if you have Ryan Presley, you know, if you have Brian Abreu, if you have a better version of Rafael Montero than they had last year, you don't really have to worry about how Hader is deployed,

right? You're not sitting there going, we have to have this guy go multiple innings like their their bullpen is currently constructed does not require that um and i i suspect suspect that now that he's like secured his bag that he might be more flexible in how he's deployed but even if even if he's not and even if their understanding of him is just like this is our ninth inning guy which is how i suspect it will go um provided that the other guys around him remain sort of healthy and effective that's not going to be a problem right i like it in that respect is he like a basically 100 million dollar guy in this market probably i mean he's certainly the best option um and while he is a good bit older than Diaz was when he signed his deal, like he's not yet 30 and he's been pretty healthy throughout the course of his career. So I like it.

I do think that there might be some like owner overreaction in this particular signing based on what happened with Graveman. In this particular signing, based on what happened with Graveman. But like if owner overreaction results in like a very talented guy getting paid a lot, I'm kind of not fussed about that. You know, it's like that's it's it's Jim Crane's money. If he wants to spend it this way, I say, you know, like go with God in a good way. So, yeah. Yeah. Dana Brown, the Essers GM, he was being coy. Maybe he was saying after the Graveman injury, like, yeah, we might go get a guy, but we don't, you know, we like our internal options.

By the way, he was, it sounds like being coy, but like, that's not a completely ludicrous thing to say. Ryan Presley is a perfectly reasonable closer substitute. Although I maintain that every time I watch him, he's like less good than he is the other times. He's like my very special particle that behaves differently when observed. But yeah, like that's a reasonable thing to say. Ryan Preston's great. Right. So I don't know whether that was for leverage or secrecy or whether it was something where Jim Crane swooped in and said, let's go get Josh Hader. But it's not as if Crane has been a huge spender, certainly on free agents during his Astros ownership. This is actually the biggest free agent deal that Jim Crane has signed, I believe.

So they really haven't broken the bank. This is probably going to be their first time going over the competitive balance tax threshold. I think they're over the lowest now. Maybe they were over in 2020 when there was no penalty, but this will probably be their first time actually incurring the penalty. So they really hadn't done a whole lot this winter. They signed Victor Caratini and that's about it. And arguably they didn't have a whole lot to do. But yeah, this is a departure from the non-activity of the rest of their offseason. And they had lost or are losing other pretty good relievers, too, because Hector Neris is a free agent. Phil Maton's a free agent, right? But they've done a good job of developing pitchers and finding guys.

And they've generally had good bullpens during this extended run of theirs. So, yeah, the 70, 80 inning hater is probably long gone, and you're getting the 50 to 60 inning hater, most likely without a lot of flexibility. And we've talked about that plenty, and I have a stat blast related to that later. But on an inning per inning basis, he's about the best bet of any reliever in baseball. So I can certainly say where they would want him. Yeah, it is an interesting, I don't want to say it's a departure for them. I mean, it is a departure for them. But it is an interesting sort of first entry into significant free agent spending. Because it's not like the

astros haven't spent in the past but their approach from a payroll perspective has mostly been let's extend our guys right like we're gonna give jordan alvarez 115 million dollars we're gonna give al tuve his like big extension although as as bauman wrote do you realize how many of these guys are gonna be free agents after this season like yeah they're gonna have some choices to make so it's like let's extend altuve let's extend bregman you know we're gonna give lance mccullers a deal we're gonna you know that that has sort of been their focus um and they have been very good at developing pitching particularly out of the bullpen like they've had a real acumen there, which isn't to say they can't develop starters. They absolutely can. But like, it's

just been this really consistent quality, which is, you know, I think kind of admirable given that relievers are so volatile. So it is interesting that their first sort of significant multi-year expenditure is in an area where they have established and i think credible player dev acumen um so it's interesting in that regard but yeah man this astros team is gonna potentially look really different really soon yeah what will happen anyway we can save that conversation for when they actually are free agents because there's still a possibility that one or both of them just gets extended again um But yeah, like when Bauman was like, have you grappled with this, what this depth chart might look like? He didn't say it in that voice because he's like from New Jersey. But

I was like, no, I hadn't. Go right about that. Yeah, that's a good idea. And he did. Yeah. We've talked about the Astros aging or maybe like the window kind of closing before, like years ago, and that just didn't happen. They have propped it open. But perhaps it could be coming. Ryan Stanek, another Astros reliever who's a free agent. So, yeah, they had a lot of holes to fill in that bullpen. But this is a pretty good way to plug one. And the other reliever who signed, so Robert Stevenson to the Angels for three years and $33 million. Yeah.

These are fairly uncomplicated deals, by the way. There are no deferrals, no options in haters deal. There's a no trade clause. There are some incentives and that sort of thing. Sure. there are some incentives and that sort of thing. Now, Stevenson's deal, he took a very different route to this contract than Hayter did. It's obviously a smaller contract than Hayter's, but it's still a significant one. And you would not have forecasted that for Robert Stevenson a year ago. When we talked a couple episodes ago about the Japanese pitcher, Naoki Uesawa, who signed with the Rays on a minor league deal or a split contract and forwent major league offers from other teams because he's a big believer in Rays pitcher development.

Yeah. This is why, right? Right. I don't know if he was thinking specifically of Robert Stevenson, but that's a good example where Stevenson was bouncing around. I mean, former prospect, obviously, former high draft pick with the Reds, first rounder, but just was scuffling around and going from team to team. Then he gets traded to the Rays in June, and he's basically from day one, one of the best relievers in baseball for the rest of the season. So June 2nd was when he debuted for the Rays. The rest of the way, minimum 30 innings

out of the bullpen, I think Stevenson was fourth in strikeout rate among all relievers, even better than Hader, who was sixth. And he threw hard before, but I don't know whether it was a new pitch or just a tweak to an existing pitch, but he had this cutter with the raise, sort of like a slider cutter thing that was just untouchable. Like really, like the whiff rate on it was ridiculous. And by the end of the season,

he was really riding it hard. He was throwing it like three quarters of the time. So I don't know whether this was just the Rays teaching him this pitch or just suggesting that he tweak his existing breaking ball and just turned it into a monster and then said, hey, this is a great pitch, throw it a lot more. But how many times have we seen that? I mean, we talked about the Rays and all the reclamation projects in their rotation and their bullpen this year. And so many guys who were dominant or really effective that you just could not have foreseen that happening. Yeah. And Stevenson, great example. So goes to the Rays, helps them out when they were really shorthanded on their pitching staff. And now he gets to cash in and we get to find out whether a player

development improvement made with another organization sticks when that player then goes to the Angels, like Tyler Anderson going from the Dodgers to the Angels, for example. I was just about to say. Yeah. As we have talked about the sort of incentives, it's like, yeah, this is an area where you can, as an organization, potentially punch above your weight in terms of attracting free agents. Now, you don't necessarily always get to retain those guys, right? And I do wonder sometimes like how raised front office members feel about like, well, you fix the guy and then he just like, but he, you know, but yeah, like you can make a compelling argument that we will help you

get better and even if you don't get paid by us you'll probably get paid by somebody else and i think a lot of teams are willing to especially if it's you know three years and 33 million dollars like that's not it's fine like you know i don't know that you can say like it doesn't matter how that contract turns out because it does. It's more than a year. Right. It's it's not one year and 11 million, for instance. But, you know, I think that teams are willing to take a somewhat inquisitive approach to those guys and see like for two or three years.

Like, let's see what you can do. How sticky are these changes? So, yeah. Yeah. It's got an option also for 2027. Huge implications for the free agent contracts over underdraft with both of these signings. Wow. Meg, it is way too close for comfort for me now. Your comeback continues. I cannot believe how I wasn't even dejected, right, Ben? I couldn't even describe myself as like disappointed. I had been blown out of the water so emphatically, or so I thought, that I was just like, you know, good for Ben, right?

Yeah. He needed a win, right, after I dominated two of the, two other drafts, you know? Like, good for him. That's, that's nice. Yeah, he'll throw me a win here. Right. Yeah. You know, I was like, that's good. Cause I don't want his self-esteem to crater, right? Like we don't want a dejected Ben on the pod. And so I was like, okay, fine. And then I don't know, sir, I might, I might scrape one, scrape one across. Yeah. So you have the under on mlb trade rumors 110 million dollar prediction for josh hater so you get the barely squeaked by on that though that is that was way

closer than i thought it would be i was like he'll settle for it'll be like an 80 million dollar deal that's kind of where i thought in my head like i going to be like 80 million, maybe. Well, you still made the 15 million plus the 10 million dollar directionally right bonus. So that's a 25 million dollar gain for you. And I had the under on Robert Stevenson and their prediction of 22 million dollars, which I don't know why I had the under. I have no recollection of picking the under on that particular contract. And having reviewed how good he was with the raise, I am confused about why I took the under. But I did.

It wasn't a super long track record to give you. No, definitely not. You know, I get it. I guess it could have been a shorter term deal. Right. But anyway, I lost $11 million there. So I am now 39 million in the black on the offseason, and you are 28.5 million, even with the negative 172 deficit that you took with Otani. Yeah. And you were sort of spiritually correct on Otani, right? I mean, technically not. We litigated that.

Yes. And I want to remind everyone that I accepted the results of the election. Yes, you did. Yes. You respected the democratic process and you may be rewarded for that because now you are very much in this thing. I mean, there are like 10 million bucks between us, even with that enormous, what's the opposite of a headstart that you had, just early deficit that you had with Otani. I stumbled out of the blocks. You did. I don't know. What are other racing words? I did another bad race thing oh that's a no let's cut that line terrible out of context good god not that kind of race okay Sometimes the Saturday pods are too loose. So, you have now almost closed the gap entirely.

So, this would just be the comeback for the ages. And we still have several players on the board. I've got four. You've got three. So, to review, you had the under on Aroldis Chapman at $24 million and the under on Gio Urshela at $20 million. I think I'm going to be right about both of those. Your big ticket item, Blake Snell, you had the under on $200. All we have left is unders at this point. I had the under on JD Martinez at 40 and on Matt Chapman at 150 and Jordan Montgomery at 150, which I immediately regretted as soon as I made that pick. I feel like that's not going to go my way. But then, of course, I had the number one overall selection in the draft and I took the under on Cody Bellinger at 264. So unless Scott Boris gets his man what he wants to get him, that's still going to help me out here.

But, man, like it is going to actually come down to the wire to my surprise. I can't believe it, really. I really can't. Yeah. Like, I just, I'm still remembering the really bad line. Yeah, wow. What a turn. What a turn this particular draft has taken.

Mm-hmm. All right. Well, that's something to monitor for the rest of the offseason. Okay. So, a few other things to get to. I guess one thing we should talk about is a bleak week in media, maybe, right? In sports media specifically,

but just media more generally. And it makes me think of the old running Sports Illustrated bit, this week's sign that the apocalypse is upon us. And this week's sign is Sports Illustrated specific. So the latest demise of Sports Illustrated, possibly the final demise, it remains to be seen whether it will shamble on in some sort of zombie deadspin way. But for now, you know, under current ownership, the authentic brand group, which has licensed the brand of SI and the private equity owners that have just been bleeding this thing dry for several years at this point.

It's been circling the drain for some time. And I would forgive you if you thought that Sports Illustrated had already bitten the dust, but it had not. And it still employs excellent writers in addition to sometimes some AI writers and also some content farmers. But friends of ours, great respected baseball journalists and other journalists, Emma Batchelieri, of course, friend of the show, Tom Verducci, the Sports Illustrated veteran, right? These people had still been hanging on and doing excellent work despite really rough circumstances. And now that is finally coming to an end. It sounds like everyone or virtually everyone who has hung on to this point will be getting laid off at Sports Illustrated over the next few months. So it's sad.

It's sort of the end of the end of an era maybe. And that was not an isolated example. This week Pitchfork went down as well or at least was absorbed into GQ. Lots of layoffs there. The LA Times, tons of layoffs coming. There was a walkout. There's been some collective action there. But in a lot of these cases, it's sort of the same story, right? It's some sort of private equity vulture takes over these respected storied legacy brands and basically bleeds them dry, tries to cut costs, tries to lay off people, tries to flip it potentially. Meanwhile,

the publication gets worse and worse and worse and finally is forced into oblivion. And this has been repeated way too many times. And sick of seeing it. Obviously, we have friends and acquaintances and people whose work we respect at a lot of these places and really wish that this would stop happening. It's just media, man. It's not a great industry for job security these days. It seems very odd to contemplate a baseball media landscape where like Emma and Steph Epstein and Tom Verducci aren't employed. And I know that like not all of these layoffs at SI are like effective immediately. It seems like they timed it such that they can get some preseason coverage for baseball and then let everybody go. But it's just very disappointing, not only to like

operate in a world where your friends have this little security where it seems as if very talented people lose their jobs with great regularity. And the fact that they're talented doesn't forestall their layoff for all that long. But it's like, there's never any repercussions or consequences for the venture capital ghouls who come in and do this. Like, if you can't make SI work, that's not about SI. That's about your ability to run a business. And it seems like the consequences of that failure should be suffered by the people who managed to screw this stuff up. And they absolutely never are. And they just get to move on to a new venture to suck dry and then torpedo. I don't think that you can really react

to it any other way but feeling sad and scared even when you're not at one of these publications. And obviously, like, I don't want to make a thing that isn't about me about me because, like, I have a job today. But this doesn't serve anyone. It certainly doesn't serve talented journalists. It doesn't serve readers because what is left in the wake of this kind of move is always less good. And it doesn't serve sports as sort of a broader concept. And you look out at the landscape and you're like, there's money not all of the money there's enough money out there and so you know it sucks and it i find it so disorienting because it feels like the speed with which these things are happening it just has accelerated past a point that i ever anticipated it wasn't like it's not like this is a an era that is unique in terms of media ventures failing. Like, media ventures have failed since there have been media ventures, right?

But they normally failed for, like, media reasons, right? And now they're failing for venture capital reasons. And that, I'm going to do a swear, f***ing sucks. It's SI. How do you screw up si you know again it's like the the way that consequences should unfold in an in an instance like this shouldn't be about anyone who works at si it should be about the people who managed to screw this up like this is this is the kind of screw up that they should teach people you know like do a seminar

about in business schools right because that's where the failure sits it's on the business side it's not on the journalism side and i think that the part of it that has been the most disconcerting and sort of disheartening for me isn't even that the the vc ghouls aren't going to suffer a consequence because like i'm kind of i'm almost a nerd to that at this stage of capitalism but it's like you look at some of the replies to this stuff from i would imagine readers and they're like well that hasn't been hasn't been good for a while and it's like i wonder why i wonder why and i kind of i like I hesitate to grant that premise because I think that there's a difference between the decline that you have seen at SI that has sat alongside people still managing to do very good work under incredibly difficult circumstances and it all being bad. It's like you're right. A lot of this has been kind is something that should be lauded. And so for readers to have that short of a memory, for them to have that little object permanence and be able

to suss out causality here is like really concerning to me as a person who still works in media and is trying to like help like shepherd through and a publication that i think matters to people and thankfully isn't subject to these kinds of like vc goals but still is in an industry that is like unsettled from a revenue perspective and so i guess that kind of incoherent rant should lead me to say this, which is like, if you care about a publication, if you find value in their work and you have the means to do it, you should sub to them. You should give them money. And I know that we're all getting to the point where we're like maxed out on subs. I get that there is fatigue in this space. Right.

maxed out on subs i get that there is fatigue in this space right because every every publication every service is trying to like get a couple bucks a month out of you we try to get a couple bucks a month out of you like i get it there is you know i am sympathetic to this idea because as a consumer i sit around and i'm like God, how many monthlies am I actually able to sustain in terms of my own disposable income? I get it. But, like, we, you know, the only path forward for a lot of these places, including Fangraphs, is if you care about the work, if you think it's good and you have the means to do it, and I get that not everybody does right now, Baseball America, sub to all the Baseball Plus other word sites, right? Because, you know, ad revenue comes and goes. And the only way that you have a stable site is through the support of readers. So please do it if you can, because these announcements, we're not at the end of them.

And it doesn't, you know, it's not like the only way that ventures can fail is because some dweeb with an MBA is like, I don't know, is Sports Illustrator good? I don't know what voice that is, but that's my dweeb voice. Like, I'm trying to make him sound like Beaker. Yes, that's the authentic brands group, the arena group voice. That's meant to Beaker. Beaker's great. Why am I picking on Beaker? Beaker would never do this. Beaker didn't do this. Beaker would never. No. And I think people are under the impression that some of these publications are just victims of a changing world and changing industry. And obviously, some things had to change, right?

I mean, we're not talking about the SI of the days of enormous expense accounts and unlimited travel budgets and people having liquor breaks in the office. You know, it's not that era. And obviously, like the decline of print journalism, and sure, there were publications that were slow to go online, though Sports Illustrated wasn't one of them. But, you know, there were some that just kind of didn't change with the times and paid some price. But it's not just that. And it's not just falling ad rates, which, you know, you could maybe blame on big tech to some extent, but just it's not even that. It's in some specific circumstances, it's just some group, some owner

that came in and said, this is working, but it's not profitable enough. We have to make it more profitable. And the way we're going to do that is by making it worse, by lowering expenses, by slashing and burning, by watering down the good name of this publication. And then hopefully we'll just flip it before someone realizes that it's not what it used to be and they pay for the name. And so we make bank and we just walk away from the flaming wreckage of this thing that people care about. just walk away from the flaming wreckage of this thing that people care about. So in many of these cases, the thing could have kept trucking along until someone came and said, no, maybe this could be bigger. This could scale. This can't just be mildly, moderately profitable.

It has to be enormously profitable. Everything has to be so, so proud. It has to be exponential growth everywhere, which is not really a reasonable expectation for media or legacy media. It's not some sort of unicorn're just going to try to make a quick buck here. And we will do it at the expense of these publications and the people they employ. and the people they employ. And it's tough because normally you would say, well, all these great writers and journalists like Steph and Emma, like, you know, they'll land somewhere else who wouldn't want to have them.

And hopefully they will. But you can't take that as a guarantee anymore because there just aren't that many outlets anymore. There just, there aren't as many jobs to go around. It's not just media, obviously. Like there's been cutbacks and downsizing in other industries, too. I cover video games and there have been a whole lot of layoffs post-pandemic the last couple of years. And I work for Spotify, plenty of layoffs there, plenty of layoffs in

tech, right? So it is kind of across the board. But in media, it has really, really shrunk for various reasons. And this is just the most frustrating way that that happens. So many good writers, people laid off by The Athletic, they just aren't employed. They aren't writing somewhere right now. And if you're thinking, well, yeah, times are hard in a lot of places and I'm not a media person. This doesn't affect me directly. in a lot of places and I'm not a media person.

This doesn't affect me directly. Well, if you're listening to this podcast, it probably does because you care about baseball coverage and quality baseball and sports coverage. And there are some purveyors of that coverage who are not able to purvey it anymore. No one will pay them to do that or at least not pay them enough to do that well. And that's not good for anyone.

That's not good for any sports media, baseball media consumers. And they're just fewer and fewer outlets that can do really good journalism. You know, you have leagues buying into ESPN, right? Like NFL going to maybe own a stake of ESPN, other leagues interested in buying in as well. So are people at ESPN going to be questioning those leagues and having hard-hitting journalism? And then that's another one that bites the dust where you're not going to get that kind of critical coverage. So it's not great. It's really not ideal. And people either they struggle to make ends meet or they get out of the industry.

They go to PR. They go to something else, which they have to do what they have to do. But that robs their readers and listeners of the pleasure of reading them. And it undermines when the only jobs that there are in sports media pay a pittance. Like, you know, particular kinds of people can take those jobs and other kinds can't, you know, and I realized, like, you know, here I am, I'm like, yeah, people can't take those jobs. And like, you know, the three recent, you know, folks who got laid off are all like white people. So, you know, like, there's already, but what I mean is, like, there is, this is only going to worsen the diversity problem that we have because it constrains these jobs to people who have, you know, other sources of income and can afford to take them.

So, there's that problem, too. It just, like, it makes everything worse. And it limits the kinds of stories that readers are going to be able to read, you know, whether it's because the leagues themselves are controlling. But it should be concerning to everyone when there are just fewer independent media outlets that can scrutinize this stuff. Because as we have seen in the last couple of years, like, it's not as if we are in an era free of scandal or corruption or, you know, crummy owners or duplicitous front offices, right? Like, there is a need for an honest accounting of sports. And I know that it isn't the same as political journalism. I'm not saying that it's like, on the level of being able to, you know, uncover local political corruption or regulatory failure or creeping fascism, right? But I think that sports journalism actually does serve a really important purpose in terms of

our understanding of how the world functions. And a lot of the same, a lot of the incentives and corrupting influences that exist in sports exist in other places. And so if we don't uncover those, we're just looking at a less honest accounting of our world. And I think we're in an era where an honest accounting of it is pretty important, you know, for like democracy and society. And so when you have, you know, fewer places where people can do that work without someone from the league being in a position where they can veto it, they don't always do that, right? But if you have that voice up the chain, the potential for it exists, and that's bad. It feels very dark out there. I say that as someone who has a job.

So... Me too. Yeah. It's hard for everyone in the industry and it's bad for everyone outside of it. It's bad for the people in the industry too, in a more proximate way. But I hope that people will view this as a problem for everyone and not merely a problem for people whose ability to pay rent is now in flux. Yeah. A lot of people lamented the loss of SI because they have some deep-rooted fondness for it from their childhoods, right? How many people did you see sharing stories of, oh, I remember when I was 12 and I'd go to the mailbox and I would wait for my magazine to come, right? I don't even have that, to be honest. I'm pretty sure I got SI Kids for a while when I was a kid. And we may have gotten Sports Illustrated for a while.

But the fact that I can't clearly remember tells you that it wasn't like a formative part of my upbringing. you that it wasn't like a formative part of my upbringing. And maybe I am just a little too young to have been around for the heyday of Sports Illustrated and for people subscribing to Sports Illustrated, although there are certainly people our age who did and who remember it fondly and who developed a love of sports through it. I don't even have that lifelong attachment to it myself, but I have enjoyed so much Horse Illustrated work as an adult, as a consumer of baseball media, and do to this day. So to be deprived of that would really stink. And imagine that private equity came for Effectively Wild, right? Right.

Imagine, I don't know that we would be the best acquisition target, but let's say some private equity person was like, wow, look at this extremely long running baseball podcast. You know, they've been pumping out episodes for 12 plus years. Like, we can take this thing. We can scale this up, right? We can make this into a juggernaut and then we'll flip it. So, you know, private equity vulture buys effectively wild somehow. And suddenly there are 10 ads on every episode and gosh, we do a lot of episodes as it is, but probably not enough for their appetite. So, you know, they would bring in some other contributors to like do episodes on all the days when we don't do episodes and

maybe they would be bad, or at least they wouldn't be what you're used to, you know, the quality or lack thereof that you've come to expect from Effectively Wild. It wouldn't be that Effectively Wild brand. Suddenly there'd be like three Effectively Wild episodes in your feed every day, just larded up with ads. And you'd have to- It'd all be for sports betting up with ads. And you'd have to-

It'd all be for sports betting. Of course. And you'd have to sift through to find the ones that we were actually on, right? And then you'd be like, I don't even, you know, this isn't what it used to be. I don't even like Effectively Wild anymore, right? So the fact that we don't have to do that, we have the benevolent ownership of David Appelman at Fangraphs, but also we have our Patreon support. And I couldn't even tell you what our traffic is, to be honest. I have not looked at our download figures in years, literal years.

Sometimes people ask us what our audience is. I might have some vague idea, but other than when like maybe business partners inquired and we actually had to look that up, I haven't even bothered to ask Appleman, hey, how's our traffic doing these days? Like I look at our Patreon and if that is growing and robust, then I'm happy, right? And it has been, but obsessing over that stuff, I feel like it just gets in your head and, you know, we're making the show we want to make as it is anyway. But that is kind of the equivalent. Like, you know, if Effectively Wild is something you've been listening to and liking for a very long time and it's doing fine, you know, it's not like a gold mine, you know, it's not a world beater. We're not trying to take over the world here. gold mine, you know, it's not a world beater. We're not trying to take over the world here.

We're just trying to make a good show that we like and you like and has some sort of stable income and audience. And we can do that thanks to our Patreon supporters. But this would be the equivalent. Someone comes in and is like, no, we could make even more money from this by making it much, much worse in the short term, which I know it's paradoxical that that is the game plan, but that is the game plan. So I'm glad that we don't have to do that. And you're right, it leads to this very fractured, splintered, siloed media environment, as we've discussed recently, where everything is kind of cordoned off. And it has to be because you have to pay people to do that work. And as someone who grew up with the early internet where everything was accessible, we were sort of spoiled by that. You know, everything's free. We can read everything. It's all there. And now increasingly it's paywalled, which sort of stinks from a consumer

perspective, but it's just a necessity really. And fortunately we're not paywalled on the podcast. It's all out there thanks to the generosity of our listeners. But a lot of publications and some podcasts have had to make that choice. the podcast and i'm so grateful that we're able to sustain ourselves at the you know using that model but like even the model we have bothers some people you know like i'm sure that there are people who wish that we'd stop asking folks to join the patreon i know that there are people who are who are sometimes irritated by the stat blast being sponsored by like actual baseball stuff that isn't sports betting like the pod is arguably under monetized but like this is what we've decided we want to do and you know we think about that a lot because we get asked a lot you know people want to put ads on effectively wild like they really want to put it well we get asked a lot you know people want to put ads on effectively wild like they really want to put

well we get asked a lot about that you know and we've you know made the decision till now to not and so i say till now like we're about to announce we're doing ads which is not don't everyone show everyone relax i know that someone somewhere is like i'm gonna write an email you delete your email that's not we're not making any announcements but it's a really tricky thing to navigate and like we are we feel that way sometimes and like you said this is a very established show we have a really terrific wonderful community around it we have such generous patreon support and like we feel stressed about it sometimes and And so I just, you know, I know how much more stressed people who are having to navigate that anew feel.

So I don't know, man. It's just like, there's not really a happy ending to put on it. It's just, there's no bow. It just sucks. Like it all just sucks. It makes me grateful for the people who support this show every day.

It makes me super grateful for the people who support Fangraphs every day. I feel like we deliver, like, you know, I feel like that is a good exchange that people are getting, you know. But it does feel very precarious at times because it is. Yeah. Yeah. You don't want AI ben and ai meg hosting ai effectively wild i'm pretty sure if nothing else the jokes about mascots would be worse you know they'd be like a lot worse and there's no way that like you know some private equity

goon coming in would like want to cut all of the whimsy out of the show absolutely and they'd want us to be like actually we've changed our minds about sports betting. It's super interesting and lucrative. Okay. I have a couple little statistical tidbits

segwaying into an episode ending stat blast. So, Tom Tango's been cranking out the stat cast posts at his site recently, and I've been consuming some of those, tangotiger.com, especially because some of them are related to catching, which we are big geeks about. We do love to catch. He has developed or is in the process of developing a StatCast-based command metric. And he's doing that by tracking the wrist movements of catchers, which, again, we're living in the future.

It's science fiction. If you had told me that at some point we would be tracking the minuscule movements of wrists of catchers as they prepare to catch the ball and after they catch the ball. I don't know that I could have foreseen that happening as soon as it has, but the wrist movements are pretty subtle. And one interesting point he made is that some of the past command metrics that purported to track the glove have actually overestimated the error, the inaccuracy, because they didn't account for the fact that catchers, when they put a target down or up or wherever it is, it's not really like a one-to-one movement

where they put the glove exactly where they want the pitch typically. They sort of gesture in the direction that they want it. So, you know, if they want it high, their glove will be a bit higher. If they want it low, their glove will be a bit lower, but not necessarily as high or low as they want it or as high or inside. It's sort of directionally, but not really magnitude wise. And so some past metrics I have cited, for instance, Command FX, which was an earlier tracking based metric like PitchFX and HitFX. There was for a while a CommandFX metric from Sport Vision that was never fully public, but sometimes

you'd see some stats and data from it. And I actually got some data from them back in 2014, I think it was. I wrote a piece for Grantland about Tim Lincecum at the time and had some command FX numbers then because I was trying to see whether his command had improved with a more repeatable delivery. And a stat that they gave me that has been cited elsewhere since, they told me that the average miss for a pitcher was like 13.8 inches. for a pitcher was like 13.8 inches. And I think this, yeah. And this was, I think, just on fastballs too, which sounded like a really big number. And that made me think,

have we been overestimating how accurate pitchers are and how pinpoint command is? And there were players at the time sort of crying foul and raising a red flag over that and being like, like, that's missing by like the entire diameter of the plate. Like it can't be that imprecise, right? And it wasn't, it turns out. If you sort of account for the fact that the glove movement, it's not really one-to-one, like it's sort of subtle, you have to extrapolate from it. one like it's sort of subtle you have to extrapolate from it then it's really closer to like six to ten inches is what tom told me which matches more closely with there was a stats the the data provider stats had a command plus metric that was i think based on video charting and

inferred location it's it's hard to tell, where did he mean to throw that pitch, right? But they said maybe more like seven inches or so. And that seems to be the case. So pitchers, not as inaccurate as the initial wave of glove tracking metrics would have had you suggest, which, again, I think it's a good example of, you know, players, they know what they're talking about a lot of the time. And when they were like, no, that can't be right, they were probably right that it wasn't it wasn't right. So I think pitchers, we got to give them credit. They do actually have pretty pinpoint command missing by six to 10 inches on average when

you're throwing that hard with that much movement over that long a distance. I'm pretty impressed by that. So that was one takeaway. The other is that he's been tracking how the catcher's wrist movements and also where the catcher sets up affects the called strike probability. So basically framing, right? Just kind of quantifying framing, but also just qualifying why framing produces the results that it does, depending on how you receive the pitch.

And this was one takeaway. And this was sort of a limited sample. It was just four seam fastballs right on right. And looking at that sample, he looked at pitches over the outside part of the plate that are like 50-50 to be called a strike typically, but where the catcher sets up is extremely important to whether that is a ball or a strike. So if the catcher sets up on the outer half and catches that pitch that's over the outer

half there, then you get the call 65% of the time. But if a catcher is set up inside and then catches the pitch on the outside part of the plate, then you get the strike 40% of the time. So that's the swing. It goes from quite likely to be a strike to not likely to be a strike, not based on the location. Again, same location, same pitch type, same matchup. The only thing that's different is where the catcher is set up before the pitch. And that produces a swing of like 25 percentage points in strike probability. And maybe my most toxic trait from some people's perspective is that when I read that, I think that's so cool. Like, I think most people see that and they're like, this is a travesty. This is an outrage. Where the catcher sets up should not impact the

strike probability. It should only matter where the pitch was located. Why should the batter be penalized for where the catcher set up or helped for that matter? Why should the pitcher be helped or penalized? And meanwhile, I'm like, no, I love that. Like the technique of the catcher and the pitcher, it's partly command, of course, like did the pitcher put the pitch where he wanted to, or is it just sort of an accident that it ended up there? And then did the catcher prepare? Was he setting up in the right place? Did he have to lunge and stab at it, or did he more smoothly and gracefully adjust to the unexpected location? To me, like, that makes it so much more satisfying when the technique is there,

like when the pitcher hits a spot or when the catcher compensates for the pitcher missing his spot. And I just, I don't know what to tell people. Like, I get it, you know, I totally understand that that shouldn't matter from the batter's perspective and from the Ruhlberg perspective.

And yet there's a part of me that just so appreciates that execution and that technique that I almost am happy that you're either rewarded or you're dinged for not executing, like getting it in that location, but not doing it well, right? So, you know, if we get full robo umps, so we're seeing that going to Korea, there's still talk of that in the majors, though it seems like a challenge system is more likely. Like this nuance won't matter. It won't matter how you set up. It won't matter how you received it. It won't matter whether you missed your spot or not. And I will miss that. A lot of people, most people probably will celebrate that and I cannot blame them. And I realize there's some inconsistency in my stance on this because I'm in favor of replay review.

I want to get those calls right, even if it takes a while. And yet I just have to acknowledge that this is just a way I feel about baseball. Yeah, Ben. Yeah. Yeah. I like I think I think there's a skill here. You know, I think that there is an actual skill here, and it's one I enjoy watching. And I totally get other people not liking it. I understand. I disagree with them, but I do get it. I don't think that they're know, I don't think that they're like stupid. I don't think that they're, you know, ruining the game. My objections to the robo zone actually have a lot less to do with maintaining my preferred aesthetic than they do with me, first of all, being skeptical that the tech is ready for

what people want and two, that it will actually give people the version of the zone that they want, right? I don't think, you know, we've talked about this before. I don't think people like fully comprehend what they're asking for here. And again, I don't think they're stupid. I just think that like, you know, there are problems with umpiring. There are calls that are just like very obviously wrong. And that's why we should employ the challenge system

because that's a beautiful little solution. And it adds like a strategic wrinkle to the game rather than taking something away. And I think that that's nice. I get why people don't want it, but I would invite them to come to fall leak, you know, and sit there and watch it and probably can be like,

that's so cool. That's great. It's so good, Ben. We have the perfect solution to this problem. We should embrace it. We should hug it with both of our arms. Not like a weird little side hug where you're like, I don't really like you, but I'm in a social situation where I have to hug you. Yeah, I just, I want there to be things to analyze and discuss, not necessarily to complain about.

I mean, I know a lot of people are like, hey, you know, you complain about the umpires now, but when we don't have the umpires to complain about, we'll miss that. But I don't know if that's the case. Maybe we all are just angry all the time for less reason than we need to be. But I do think it just adds a strategic wrinkle. It adds like a player planning and execution wrinkle. I mean, if an umpire does have a somewhat distinctive zone and they're much less distinctive than they used to be, which I think is good. It's not like totally different zones umpire to umpire. There's much more consistency, but some difference maybe so that you can plan for that. You could even take advantage of that. You can analyze that. Even the variability of the size and dimensions of the zone based on the count, a lot of people think that is very silly and wrong, that the count

would affect how big the strike zone is. And I totally understand that philosophically. And yet I think there is maybe some unintended benefit there that when one person is down in the count, they get a leg up. Basically, they get a helping hand because the zone shrinks for the other person who currently has the upper hand. And maybe that leads to more competitive plate appearances. I'm just saying all these things like when we streamline it and standardize it, take the individual variation. Am I arguing for the human element? I guess in some way I am. Not just like the human ability and capacity to make been part of the sport for time immemorial, being able to put the pitch where you want to, being able to receive that pitch smoothly. I do just so enjoy that as a spectator. And I know that's a certain perspective to the batter who is just trying to get a pitch to hit and doesn't even know what the catcher is doing behind him. Totally understand all of that. But I do feel like even if you are a firm advocate of let's just take this all out of the hands of the humans, maybe there are things that you would miss. Maybe there

are some little wrinkles that you're not fully considering or forecasting what baseball would look like without them. I just also, I don't know, like it comports with the way I think about the strike zone. Like I think about the strike zone kind of probabilistically. It's like, you know, pitch right down the gut, like that should be a strike. But when you're playing on the outer edge, like, I feel like if you're a pitcher and you're playing on the outer edge, like you're trying to, I don't know, like that's a borderline thing. And like a hitter should have to show judgment there, right? They should have to have discernment. Like that's part of the interplay. And I think that part's really cool and i i don't i don't know man i like it like that i do kind of like it like that i don't know are we just stuck in our ways are we just bad are we old fogies maybe i mean yeah like increasingly

i'm like you know i just i find myself and at a much earlier age than i anticipated being like oh i don't need to know about that that's you know you know, it's like I watch commercials now and I'm like, the context clues of this commercial are telling me that that's a famous person. But I don't know. I don't know who that is. I just don't. I'm not even 40 yet. I don't know, Ben. I don't know who some of these people are.

And then I come to find out that, well, this is an old person thing, actually. It's like, you know, I come to find out that Young Sheldon is popular. And that's not because of the Youngs. Like, that's a... That's CBS. That's the olds, if anything. Yeah, that's an older bucket. You know, that demo is, I think, maybe above me.

That show's getting a spinoff. Is it an even younger Sheldon? Is it like baby Sheldon? I hope they didn't make a show about a baby because unless the baby talks in voiceover, they're not dramatically interesting. They're dramatic and they cry, but they're like not a, you know, you're just like not doing acting then yes no having had a real life baby they're not that interesting at that age young sheldon spin you shouldn't have spinoffs on spinoffs georgie and mandy i'm not gonna learn who these people are who are who is georgie is that you know georgie i i mean like by mandy mand Mandy seems like a name that is mostly given to women. But Georgie, like, what? Could go either way. Mental, it's revealed Georgie has two ex-wives.

Is Georgie Sheldon's dad? You know what? I don't want to know. I think it's fine for this to be a mystery. And this is my point. It's like sometimes I'm like, I don't, that's, I don't need to know. And I'm not upset about it. And this is how I hope that I will age into someone who doesn't yell at clouds because curious and constantly questioning their assumptions and interested in new things. And I hope that I will age that way.

I'm trying to question my preferences and assumptions here. Do I like this just because it's the way it's always been? Or are there other rational reasons to like this? And I lean toward the latter, but maybe I'm biased anyway. We'll have many more opportunities to talk about that as lean toward the latter, but maybe I'm biased anyway. We'll have many more opportunities to talk about that as we get the challenge system or as we get the RoboZone or whatever it is. People are like, but have fewer opportunities to talk about Young Sheldon. We're good on Young Sheldon. I mean, there's an insatiable appetite for Young Sheldon, at least

the show, if not our coverage of the show. I hope that the name is an even younger Sheldon. I hope that they lean into the ridiculousness of it, you know just Benjamin Button Shelton. He just gets younger and younger. Yeah. One other thing I want to shout out. So do you remember a stat blast back in episode 1851 did one prompted by Taylor Ward and Tyler Wade about the influx of Tylers and Taylors and how they took over baseball. And then on episode 2054, when we were talking about new prospects coming up with Eric Langenhagen last September, I mentioned that there's just an onset of Jacksons, right? The Jacksons are upon us.

A bushel, a peck. Yeah. I didn't even realize how many Jacksons are on the way. And J.J. Cooper just crunched the numbers for Baseball America. This was actually not a paywalled piece. You can read it for free, but it is supported by your subscriptions.

Did you see the guy who was like, I don't know, does BA do good work? And I'm like, what is the world we're living in now? I don't want to pick on an individual Twitter user, but I do feel like that guy is out of sync, out of touch. Yeah, it's a proven brand of Baseball America. It's an authentic brand. So, JJ wrote about the Jacksons because Baseball America just put out their top 100 prospects, and their number one prospect is Jackson Holiday, and their number two prospect is Jackson Churio.

And this is the first time in Baseball America top 100 history, which goes back to 1990, I believe, that the number one and two prospects have had the same first name. And who would have guessed that the first time that would happen, the name would be Jackson. And this also means that Jackson is now tied for the most popular name at the top of the top 100 all time. And J.J. writes, the Jacksons are coming to take over baseball. So there's Jackson Jobe and Jackson Merrill also on the top 100. And then there are several other Jacksons among teams top 30s. There's a Jackson Baumeister and a Jackson Ferris and a Jackson Humphreys and a Jackson Cox and a Jackson Wolf and a Jackson Rutledge. There is also a Jackson Wiggins spelled J-A-X-O-N, which, I mean, look, I guess if we're going to count all the Zacks the same, whether it's an H or a K, it seems like K is kind of taken over these days. Then, you know then we got to get the Jackson probably has to be part of this trend. So of the 900 prospects that they ranked

on team top 30s, 10 of them are Jacksons. Maybe that doesn't sound like so many, but Jackson, again, 10 Jacksons. That's more than 1% of all the prospects are Jacksons, and that's not even counting the Jackson with an X. So Jackson is now tied with Luis and Michael for the most popular name in the Baseball America Prospect Handbook this year. There are 14 Jacobs and 11 Jose's and 11 Ryan's, and then Luis and Michael and Jackson. So we're in the Jackson era. And the reason why this is weird, why we're not marveling at the Jose's or the Michael's or the Luis's, is that this is a name of newer, more recent vintage, right? So there have been 62 MLB players with the last name of Jackson. As JJ points out, there's even been a Jack Jackson. That's funny. Jackson Todd was the first player to go by Jackson to reach the big leagues. He was an early Jackson. He was at the vanguard. He was like the scout sent by the invading army of other Jacksons to just see

if it was safe for Jackson kind. So Jackson Todd, he pitched, he debuted in 1977. There were three Jacksons before that, but they all went by other names. Now, after Jackson Todd, there wasn't another player who went by Jackson until Jackson Stevens debuted in 2017. And that opened the floodgates. So suddenly you had Jackson Coar and you had Jackson Tetralt and you had Jackson Rutledge and Wolf. So from the beginning of MLB to 2016, there was only one player who went by Jackson to play in the big leagues. Last year, there were four. And this year, we will probably see double that. We'll have double the Jackson action. And then there are others who are in the draft prospect list or probably will be some draft prospects who are Jacksons. So as JJ points out, Jackson was the 14th most popular name for baby boys in the U.S. in 2021, according to the Social Security Administration.

Didn't even crack the top 100 until 1998. First cracked the top 25 in 2010. So if anything, the Jackson wave is not even cresting right now. We may see even more Jacksons on the way because the popularity of the name has on the rise and still seemingly is. So get used to it. We are just going to have a surplus of Jacksons in Major League Baseball from now on. Yeah, it's coming. All right. Well, that was sort of stat blasty, and that will segue into the actual stat blast. sorted by something like ERA- or OPS+.

A thin mil-tease atom interest in tidbit, discuss it in length and analyze it for us in amazing ways. Here's today's StatBlast. So I got a few here and these were kind of community generated. They were listeners submitted or they came out of conversations in the StatBlast channel of our effectively wild Patreon Discord group. So thanks to everyone for kind of crowdsourcing this StatBlast. Now, the first one is related to Josh Hader. So this is topical, and I really like this stat. It's very appropriate.

So Dennis in our Discord group pasted something. I think someone had noted that Josh Hader has 648 career strikeouts, and he has 216 strikeouts with each number of outs. So he has 216 strikeouts with no outs, 216 strikeouts with one out, 216 strikeouts with two outs. And Dennis asked, is this odd? Because the original contention was, this seems weird. So Dennis said, well, is it weird? I can't think of an obvious reason that strikeouts would skew noticeably toward a certain number of outs. And that does generally seem to be true. So for instance, in 2023 in the majors, there were 13,997 strikeouts with no outs, 13,826 strikeouts with one out, and 14,020 strikeouts with two outs. So really barely any difference there.

You could come up with reasons why player approach might differ based on the number of outs. You know, you can't have a double play with two outs, so you might be more likely to try to put it in play. But then there might be men on base and you're airing it out at the end of an inning. So maybe the pitcher is more group pointed out, Mariano Rivera, for instance, 367 strikeouts with no outs, 382 with one out, and 424 with two outs. So a pretty pronounced skew toward two-out strikeouts for Mo. Same with Trevor Hoffman, 339, 367, 427. But then Craig Kimbrell, for instance, is pretty hater-esque, 398-398-396. So Sir Parsifal looked this up via StatHead at Baseball Reference and just looked up most career strikeouts for pitchers who have even splits by number of outs, same number of strikeouts with each number of outs. And Josh Hader, at least like in the past several decades when we have complete records,

at the top of the list by a lot with 648 strikeouts. That is by far the most career strikeouts by anyone who has the same number of strikeouts with each number of outs. The next guy is Noah Lowry down at 420 strikeouts. So a gap of more than 200 between Hader and the next guy is Noah Lowry down at 420 strikeouts. So a gap of more than 200 between Hayter and the next guy. And then you have to go way down to Renelvis Hernandez at 246, Andy Sisko, 141, Taj Bradley, 129, Roman Colon, 120. So Hayter's kind of an outlier here. And the reason why I like this, yeah, of course, it's pretty random. And the second he gets one strikeout in the 2024 season, this will at least temporarily

no longer be the case. But it seems appropriate to me because of his usage, because he is so rigidly a one-inning guy, and because he is almost always coming in at the start of an inning, pitching one inning, and leaving, it makes sense to me that he would be the guy. Again, it's still sort of fluky, but a lot of closers, if there were more flexible usage, you might tend to bring them in more often when you're in a jam already, right? Right. Late in inning. Maybe that's why Rivera, for instance, has more strikeouts with two outs. You might've brought him in with two outs in the eighth

or something to get out of a jam and then bring him back for the ninth. With Hayter, at least this vintage of Hayter, you're not gonna do that. He's just gonna give you one inning. And so he is more likely maybe than the typical cat. And, you know, there are a lot of one inning relievers these days who are pretty rigidly one inning guys. But at least for guys who get a lot of strikeouts the way that he does, I think most have some more variability in their usage.

So it seems perfectly appropriate to me that he would have those very evenly distributed splits. So this will be my favorite fun fact currently. Yeah. I'm now rooting for him to continue this. I want him to sustain this fun fact. So I'm just going to be rooting for him to not get too many strikeouts with one out or two outs or no outs. Got to spread them out, Josh. Spread them out. Got to keep this fun fact valid. All right. That was fun. Also got an email, subject line, a stat blast, if you will. And I will.

Here it is. Evan Olosky wrote in to say, the other day I was reviewing the Immaculate Grid with a friend who used Taylor Scott in the Mariners A's spot. This prompted me to look up Scott and I realized that he has pitched for six major league teams, but has thrown no more than 12 innings for each of them. Surely this is some kind of record I thought to the database for any given number of teams. I searched for the player who played for that many teams,

but accumulated the smallest maximum playing time among those orgs. I call these players minimum journeymen, traveling around the league in the smallest amount of playing time possible. Taylor Scott is indeed a record holder, sort of. No pitcher who has played for exactly six organizations has ever faced fewer hitters in their longest stint than Taylor Scott, who faced 59 hitters as a Padre, 52 as an Oriole,

41 as a Mariner, 38 as an A, 30 as a Dodger, and 20 as a Red Sox. However, Preston Gilmette pitched for seven organizations and topped out at 43 batters faced. Gilmette pitched between 2013 and 2021 with 43 batters faced for the Orioles, 39 for the Jays, 28 for Cleveland, 23 for the Rays, 13 for the Cardinals, 12 for the Brewers, and 7 for the Marlins. And Evan has attached a spreadsheet, which I will share, that contains the record holders, hitters, and pitchers for each number of teams, as well as the full data set. He notes that Kevin Padlow is the minimum journeyman,

having played for five teams with no more than 14 plate appearances for any of them. That's 14 for the Rays, 12 for the Giants, 11 for the Mariners, 11 for the Pirates, and 8 for the Angels. Padlo signed a minor league deal with a new team, the Dodgers, for 2024. Only two major league pitchers have faced just one batter in their career. Rufus Meadows for the 1926 Reds and Hagen Danner for the 2023 Blue Jays, who still has a chance to add to his total. I was hoping it was Hagen Danner. Oh, yeah.

It sounded like ice cream, you know, Hagen does, Hagen Danner. But no, apparently it's Hagen, so that's no fun. Disappointing. It is disappointing. But I like this, the minimum journeyman. So he has a whole breakdown of the most batters faced or, you know, pitchers faced by anyone. So, yeah, with one team, Hagen-Danner and Rufus Meadows, just one batter faced is the minimum and the maximum total batters faced. Two teams, it's Bob Ewell and Lino Urdaneta with six.

Three teams, it's Vinny Natoli with 15. Four teams, Brandon Waddell, 25. Five teams, Rico Garcia, that's a max of four. And then six, Taylor Scott, as mentioned, seven, Preston Gilmette, eight, Fernando Abad, that jumps all the way up to 421. So once you get up to eight teams, then you're going to have some sort of sizable stint with one of them, it seems. But it's got to be a Groundhog Day situation for these guys who are jumping from team to team and never getting a very long look for any of them. You know, just like low double digits wherever you go. You know, you must once you're on your like fifth or sixth team and you

start getting up to your previous max and you face like 30 or 40 hitters, it's like, oh man, I'm going to hit the wall. They're going to get rid of me again. Like this is as long a leash as I ever get. You must just be hoping one of these teams got to give me a shot here. Like, let me pitch a little longer to show that I can do it, but nope, keep bouncing around. At least there's a market for their services, just a market that quickly expires. Do you think that we're underrating how hard a word minimum is to say? I just screwed it up multiple times. So yeah. It's hard to say. I feel like it's hard to say. We've talked about minimum innings, but yeah, I kept wanting to say minimum journeyman.

Maybe because it was of the journeyman part, but yeah, minimum journeyman. Yeah, minimum. Not easy. Not easy. Yeah, no. Okay. Another question here is about palindromic win-loss records. So this was actually posed on Reddit some time ago. User Nessus Pool posted on Reddit,

curious if any of you stat fiends could help me figure out what team over the years has the longest palindromic win-loss record. For example, loss, win, loss, loss, win, loss. So it's the same sequence, whether you start at the beginning or the end. And no stat fiends helped this user. No one even responded to that post, but someone in our Discord group, Sean Kelly, did seize the initiative here and picked this up and ran with it. And he has determined the answer, which, you know, we've done some stat blasts before about win-loss sequences, like episode 1733 and 1997 and 1998, we did like matching win-loss sequences between teams, that kind of thing. And I faced the quandary of whether to read out very long sequences of

wins and losses, which I did and people seemed to enjoy it for some reason. So I guess I will try that one more time. The all-time record holder, I guess it's a tie, unfortunately, because I don't want to have to read off these long sequences twice. But the all-time record holders, it's 39 is the longest palindromic win-loss sequence. 39 games and both pretty terrible teams. So the 1890 Pittsburgh Alleghenies, who were notoriously terrible, and then the even more notoriously terrible 1899 Cleveland Spiders, they both had extremely long sequences. And, you know, it wouldn't even be that fun to read them out because they're almost all losses. So the 1890 Alleghenies one was they went two and thirty seven during their stretch and the Cleveland Spiders went four and thirty five during their stretch. However, the third place team, Boston in 1915, 38 games. They actually went 28 and 10 during their sequence.

So you don't have to be totally terrible in order to pull this off. It can be done with a respectable record. But that's the longest. And in recent years, so like 2022, the Red Sox had a 31 game palindromic sequence during which they went 21 and 10. during which they went 21 and 10. So they went loss, win, loss, loss, win, win, win, win, win, win, win, loss, win, loss, win, win, win, loss, win, loss, win, win, win, win, win, win, loss, loss, win, loss. And if I were to do that backwards, it would sound exactly the same with different intonation. So the longest sequence where you only had wins or losses, it was just a winning or losing streak, was 1875. Wow. The Brooklyn team, which I guess that's pre-National League. That was National Association. So that may or may not count as major leagues, depending on the site and the classification.

But they went 2-42 on the season, and they had a 31-game losing streak. So yeah, whether you start at the beginning or the end, it's losses all the way down. So that's how long it goes. You can get up to 39 games max in the history of Major League Baseball where you have a palindromic win-loss sequence. I hope that satisfies the curiosity of that Reddit user who posted about that two months ago or so and has been left hanging by the entire internet ever since. Yeah, geez. And lastly, we have another stat blast where the legwork was done by Sean Kelly in our Discord group. And this was also prompted by a question by listener and Patreon supporter Dennis, who asked, I don't know if this was apropos of anything, but Dennis wanted to know the longest consecutive start streak for catchers? Do we know who has started the most consecutive games at catcher? And now we do know that thanks to Sean Kelly. And you would not

believe how many games in a row catchers used to start in earlier eras, it was absolutely ridiculous through my modern eyes. Because, I mean, across the board, players get more rest these days and more days off. And not only are there far fewer qualified pitchers, but as we've covered, there are fewer qualified hitters as well. Teams have recognized that there's some value when it comes to freshness and performance and perhaps injury prevention. You know, give a guy a day off every now and then. Right.

Teams didn't used to do that, even with catchers who were most in need of it. Yeah. And so Sean went back and looked for the most consecutive starts, not necessarily full games, but starts by a catcher. And the record, it's a two-way tie. It actually happened twice in 1944, 155 starts in a row. Every game of the team's

season was started by the same catcher. So Frankie Hayes did this in 1944, every single game, all 155. And Ray Miller did the same thing, 155 consecutive starts at catcher. Now, we didn't look across seasons because that's a little bit different. Obviously, you get to rest between seasons, if not mid-season. So the fatigue effect perhaps is not quite the same, although maybe there's a cumulative effect over multiple seasons. But according to Hayes' Wikipedia page and the page that the Wikipedia page cites, Hayes actually caught 312 consecutive games, a record for major league catchers. I don't know that he started all of them, but October 43 to April 46,

that he started all of them. But October 43 to April 46, he caught all of those games. I mean, it's just ridiculous. Like the poor guy, I feel bad for him and his knees. And I looked at his monthly offensive splits to see like, did he wear down? Not as much as you'd think, like his before All-Star break or first half OPS 761 and post break 729. So there was a decline there, which I think historically you've sort of seen with catchers. But it's like a wonder that he was able to hit anything just starting every single game at catcher. I cannot believe it. It seems like malpractice, except that I guess he was able to pull it off for the most part. I mean, these would just be full of lava.

They would be, right? And after that, it's Mike Tresh at 150. That was 1945, all World War II era there. And then George Gibson, 1909, 133, Frankie Hayes, another 45, 119. Then it goes down from there. Obviously, in recent years, there's nothing like this, right? So, I mean, in 2023, the record for consecutive starts at catcher was the Diamondbacks' Gabriel Moreno, 14. 14 he caught he started every game from game 148 to 161 and that was it jonah heim was at 13 like that's kind of the outer limit these days so just think of like doing it more than 10 times that many games in a row like how how did that happen? If we just look at since the year 2000 and look at the record there, Jason Kendall was the Ironman by 21st century standards before he got hurt. So, Jason Kendall actually has the top four streaks of any catcher in the 21st century. He had a 36 game streak in 2006 and then 34 game

start streaks in 2008 and 2004 and 31 in 2003. Other than Kendall, it's Yadi Molina. He had a 27 start streak in 2018. Sal Perez had a 26 game streak in 2014. Of course, he never wants to take a day off. Right. But it has come down dramatically. And I did ask Sean to look at this over time just to sort of track how this has declined. games started at catcher by the leader at starts at catcher for that team. So, you know, take the leader at starts at catcher for a particular team, take the percentage of games that that guy started, and then take that across the league, the average of all teams for that year. And what I found is that we are indeed at a low ebb for the percentage of games started by the typical leader in that category. We're now down to roughly 55% or so of games started at catcher by the leader, which is about 10 percentage points lower than it used to be. So, like, at the beginning of the century, it was roughly where it is now. You know, maybe the equipment wasn't as good and guys would get hurt and that sort of

thing. But once the equipment got a little bit better, you really did have catcher Ironmen. I was sort of surprised to see, given the leaders, that actually World War II was kind of a dip in this category, which maybe makes sense because you didn't have your established starters. They were away. They were in the service. You were mixing and matching maybe. But era adjusted, that makes it even more impressive what guys like Frankie Hayes were

doing back then. But if you go by decade, let's say in the 1900s, it was 56.2% of teams games started by the leader at catcher. In the 1910s, it was 59.2. In the 1920s, it was 62.4. In the 1930s, 64.2. Then in the 40s, again, it goes down a bit. World War II, it goes down to 59%. In the 50s, back up to 62.3%. In the 60s, 61.9%. In the 70s, the age of all sorts of Iron Men goes back up to 64.2%. So that's the all-time high in the 30s and 70s. In the 80s, 62.9%. 90s, 62.8%.

2000s, it was actually 63.5%, which is quite high. So up until then, you had Kendall roaming the earth and there wasn't really a decline. But then finally, the 2010s, 58.9%. And so far in the 2020s, 55.6%. There was a bit of an uptick in 2023. As noted in a post of Fangraphs. There were a lot of qualified catchers, which was either because there were a lot of young catchers who were more sprightly or maybe it could be a pitch clock effect. You know, you're you're on the field

less time, less total time crouching. So maybe we'll see some slight comeback in this category. But on the whole, you know, probably across positions, there's been a decline. But I would think and hope that it's been a steeper decline for catchers because, you know, give those guys a day off. At least let them DH or something, you know? Frankie Hayes, poor guy, was like catching both ends of double headers and, you know, extra inning games. I mean, my goodness. So I think the way we're doing it now, even if it means sacrificing a bit on offense when your backup catcher is in there,

Frankie Hayes had a 14-year career, so it worked for him. I don't know. Maybe catchers aren't worked hard enough. They're coddled these days, coddled catchers. But no, I think it's probably smarter to do it this way. Yeah. Okay.

After further review of Hayes' Sabre bio after we finished recording, maybe it didn't work for him. He had knee surgery at 27. He failed his physical for induction into military service the following year because of two bad knees. Then he retired at 32. And then he died at 40. Not necessarily because of two bad knees. Then he retired at 32, and then he died at 40. Not necessarily because of the catching. But still, this only strengthens my suspicion that starting every game at catcher is not a good idea. That will do it for today and for this week. Thanks to everyone for listening,

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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.