Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2152: The Worst Vibes in Baseball

Episode Date: April 17, 2024

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about MLB jerseys as Fremen stillsuits, an update on Blake Snell the self-perceived strike-thrower, Brent Suter and being the “best teammate,” which MLB team is last in the league in vibes, the struggling Marlins demoting the not-struggling Max Meyer, whether teams are working minor league pitchers (such as Paul […]

Take me to the diamond Lead me through the turnstile Shower me with data That I never thought to come by. Now I'm feeling out my scorecard. With a crackerjack of a smile. Effectively wild. Hello and welcome to episode 2152 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of Fangraphs and I am joined by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? Doing all right. You know how we talked about the sweaty jerseys recently? And they're still prone to sweat stains or whatever euphemism Nike used to describe the

sweat stains. But it has now broken containment and come to the attention of a publication called Chemical and Engineering News, which I learned about from our Patreon Discord group where I learn about all sorts of interesting things. The textile researchers are on it now. They're investigating what could possibly be causing this informally. It's not that they're formally consulting. They're just speculating, informed speculation about what's causing the sweatiness of the jerseys, the visible sweatiness. This article quotes some experts, including Juan Inistrosa, professor of fiber science and apparel design at Cornell University. Amazing. He says, textile structures are incredibly complex, and when you add chemical finishes, the degree of complexity multiplies.

So it sounds like there's any number of potential causes for this, why this has gone wrong, assuming this was not what Nike intended. Here are the possibilities that he lays out here. Performance Fabrics wick moisture using two methods, Inistrosa says. The physical method combines fibers of different diameters and shapes to create channels that move sweat away from the body via the capillary effect. The chemical route consists of coatings

that combine hydrophilic and hydrophobic materials to draw sweat away from the skin. Inestrosa says that from what he sees in the pictures, the MLB uniforms appear to be reverse wicking, capturing humidity and sending it back to the body. So the explanation is that MLB players are wearing Fremen still suits this season. Yeah. That is what is happening here. are wearing Fremen still suits this season.

Yeah. That is what is happening here. There's another expert quoted, a professor of fiber science and apparel design at Ohio State University. This is a thriving field in academia, it would seem. Yeah. And Tasha Lewis says that the problem could be that the material is wicking moisture to the surface,

but that the moisture is not evaporating. Maybe something's been done to the fibers or the yarn that prevents evaporation. So again, it supports the still suit hypothesis. That's what's happening here. Oh, God. Yeah. Oh, does that mean the Jackson holidays,

the Kisatz Soderreich? Maybe, yeah. Oh, my God. You know, Ben, a lot of my issues with Dune 2 would have been solved by them just being brave enough to have a creepy kid. Maybe. Yeah. And, you know, I don't want to brag, but I was sitting in some pretty nice seats. I wasn't there working. I was there to drink a beer and watch some baseball, you know. So I had a pretty good view of these uniforms. And I will say they don't look better in person. The letters are so tiny.

And as it pertains to the question of still suits and moisture wicking, it was particularly notable when looking at Yvonne Herrera, the Cardinals catcher's jersey, because he has to wear catcher gear half the game, right? And just an entirely different shade of gray where his catching gear had made contact with his body. And they sweat throughout the game, but this was a day where the roof was closed at Chase.

They had the AC pumping, although it was kind of muggy. There wasn't a breeze. You know, this is what happens with that. It's sort of a funny thing. It just was noticeable, and much more so than has been true in the past. And I noticed that kind of stuff, particularly with catchers, but it's like, you could like see where the outline of the straps on the back were and where

the chest protector had been on the front when he came up to the plate to hit. It was quite noticeable. And I saw the outlines of so many briefs, you know, just could see them right there, could see them right through, could see. Yeah. You probably turned to whomever you were with and said, check out the moisture-related aesthetic color differences on Herrera's jersey over there. That's how most people put it. I turned to someone and said, the spice must flow. And then I reminded them that he who controls the spice controls the universe, Ben. Yeah. A man's flesh is his own.

The water belongs to the tribe. I'm glad we've gotten to the bottom of this mystery. Spoilers for Dune, a novel that came out literally decades ago and a movie that's been out for several months. The way that they handled taking the water from the Harkonnen at the beginning, very creepy, delightful. There was a lot about Two Night Lights, but some of it I was like,

you know, it's too short a time frame. You know, in the book, this is like years and years. You're doing all of this over the course of Lady Jessica's pregnancy. That doesn't make any sense. I had the same thought leaving the theater, which you wouldn't think

for a nearly three-hour movie, but I thought that was too short. Too short. Or at least they crammed too much in. I don't think it was too short of a movie. They should have just had the courage to have a creepy kid. I know that the Lynch Dune is divisive, and I know that he has disavowed it to a large degree because he didn't have Final Cut.

I love it. I think it is a weird, fun, beautiful little time capsule of a movie. And that kid is creepy as shit. And it works. It plays great. But they should have had a creepy kid. You know, it would have been solved by a creepy kid. Well, now we have a Dune MLB crossover.

Next time we see the moisture-related aesthetic differences out there. Who is the dorkiest active big leaguer who we could ask about this? You know, who could we put this question to and be like, so you're, you know, you're in the nerdosphere. You've worn this uniform. Did you feel like you were wearing a still suit the whole time? You know, did you have the instinct and the impulse to ride a worm? Were you worried about your role in destiny and prophecy. And see if, you know, it can't be any weirder than springing like the haunted pool movie on Brent Rooker.

Oh, definitely not. I would not hesitate to ask next time we talk to a player. So, update on Blake Snell, who doesn't seem like he'd be a big Dune fan, but I don't know. Maybe I'm misjudging him. He had a second start, and it went even worse than the first one. So he was pitching against the Rays. This time he went four innings, which is an improvement over three. And it took him a mere 78 pitches to get through four, compared to 72 to get through three in his first start. However,

this time he allowed six hits and seven earned runs and two walks and struck out four. And remember last time he was talking about how usually he just throws it right over the plate, right? And we were kind of questioning based on data and reality and facts, whether that actually has historically been the case for Blake Snell. Well, this time he said, similar vein, my locations is bad. At least that's what this says. I don't know if there really was a subject for agreement issue there, if there was a transcription issue, but my locations is bad. My locations are bad. I need to get better. I just got to get in the zone and attack. No excuses. I'll get better results, but until then, nothing's going to change until I start commanding. And you know what? I mean, he doesn't necessarily have to get in the

zone and attack. He won a Cy Young award last year without doing that. And so again, the fact that he's doubling down on like, gosh, this isn't like me, makes me think, is he still trying to fool Giants fans? Is he trying to convince a new fan base that he has a different MO than he has had before? Or is he trying to turn over a new leaf? Or does he just not understand himself very well? Like maybe when he's nibbling and he's on the periphery of the zone and he's trying to get guys to chase, which has worked very well for him in the past, is he thinking in his mind there's just some disconnect between what his brain is telling him he's doing and what is actually happening, what his eyes are reporting. I'm fascinated by this seeming inability to own up to or understand the way that Blake Snell has pitched in the past and has thrived in the past. Unless this is eyewash, unless he's just coming

out and saying what he thinks people want to hear, like, oh, yeah, you got to throw strikes, you got to just fire it in there, you got to go after him. That's not how he has historically operated. And he's been a very successful pitcher. So he could persist. He could say, you know, like, this is me. It's sort of stubborn. This is my approach. I wait for guys to give in. And, you know, it does speak to the debate about does he have bad command and control or does he just want to put it where he typically puts it? You know, he doesn't really throw strikes, but maybe he doesn't really mean to throw strikes. So maybe that's what he's getting at here. Like, he's missing, but he's not missing where he wants to be missing.

I'm just fascinated by the inner monologue, the self-conception of Blake Snell as a strikethrower. I'm fascinated by how genuine his understanding is. Is it aspirational? Is he like a manifestation guy? Like, is he like a manifestation guy? Or, you know, is he, again, saying something that he hopes fans will like latch on to and kind of give him some leeway as he gets back into pitching form? You know, like this is a guy who didn't have a normal spring, right? Like he didn't really have a camp at all. Is he like auditioning already for after he opts out?

On the one hand, this objectively is like it's two starts i'm sure that when he is sort of back in the swing of things and pitching like he is capable of he will still like have a frustrating command but like will probably be better right he will he will generate better results in all likelihood even if he remains, to my mind, unwatchable. So, you know, there will come a point where this is maybe sort of a silly thing to quibble about. But to the extent that he maybe actually has a real misunderstanding of exactly what he's up to, that would be concerning to me if I'm the Giants. Now, I want to give Blake Snell the benefit of the doubt that he has thought about his own existence as he's moved through the world as a big leaguer and is like, you know, the funny thing about me is, but it's a weird thing to keep insisting upon.

I find myself quite flummoxed by it, Ben. I just don't under, who is it for? Who is what you're saying? We can all look it up? We can all look it up. We can all look it up, Blake. Yeah. I just got to get in the zone. No one is less frequently in the zone than you. You are like kind of never. Oh, gosh.

He can be in the zone while being out of the zone. I mean, in a figurative sense. But Bob Melvin managed him last year. He doesn't not know how Blake Snell pitches. It just mystifies me. So, who's the target audience here? I don't know. I've had a little bit of an insight about my own experience of watching Blake Snell. And I maybe alluded to this previously on the pod, but I want to assert it as what's going on. Because I hope at least that I'm capable of self-reflection. I think that at least lately, it's just because it's George Kirby's fault. Get you a pitcher who just doesn't walk anybody ever.

Like, you know, this isn't new. He's been doing this. But boy, what a joy. I got to watch a fun Mariners game yesterday I guess is what I'm trying to say. So nice. Nice change for a Mariners game to be fun for Mariners fans. Comfortable win. It was a nice night for George. Like, he didn't seem like he wanted to murder any of his teammates. How nice for him, you know?

Here's another thing that crossed my mind. You tweeted on Monday night, Ellie De La Cruz is so cool. Oh, gosh, she's so cool. And I didn't know in the moment what you were referring to because I was not watching the game. And then I went to the Reds website and I ascertained what it was that you were responding to. I assume it was his catch, right? His extraordinary catch. Oh, yeah, it was so cool.

Yeah, he sprinted into, I wouldn't even call it shallow left field. It was more like mid left field. It was like a 31 foot per second sprint and just kind of nonchalantly caught it over his shoulder. It was pretty impressive. You know, Ellie athleticism on display yet again. Just another, he was 0 for 4 in that game, right? So it's just like, can go 0 for and look bad

sometimes and then he just looks extraordinary at other times. But while I was on Reds.com trying to figure out what had prompted your tweet, I saw a headline. So you went to like another website rather than just being like, hey, you know how we G-chat all the time?

What did Ellie do? No, I just, I did my own research. I try to make up my own mind. And here's the headline I saw. Souter aims to be best teammate on and off field. That's a story at Reds.com by Mark Sheldon. Best teammate. And it sounded strangely competitive to me. In a way that would maybe make him a less good teammate. And it sounded strangely competitive to me. In a way that would maybe make him a less good teammate? Yeah, exactly. It sounds almost paradoxical. I'm going to be the best teammate. All the other teammates will be worse than me. Watch me teammate so well, I will be an unparalleled teammate. Really, if you read the story, I assume it means that he's just trying to be the best teammate he can be. Yeah.

He's trying to do his best personally. And it seems like he's a great teammate. You know, all the people quoted in the story agree. No dissenting quotes in the story saying, actually, he's not really a good teammate. That would be incredible. Mark Sheldon didn't try and, you know, talk to both sides, like get the countervailing narrative. Actually, that guy's an asshole. Yeah, no, no one quoted saying that.

Ben doing another swear. If that counts. Is that even bleep worthy? I'll leave it up to producer Shane. But it sounds like, you know, he goes out of his way to be a good guy. Yeah. And, you know, teammates and managers are saying, what a great guy. And if you know Brent Suter for anything other than being a effective but fairly nondescript reliever for years, he has been pitching a lot this year, which is, I guess, one manifestation of his desire to be the best teammate is that he just, he's pitching a lot. He's pitching multi-inning outings.

He wants to kind of pick up the rest of the pen. But, you know, he's been a good reliever for coming up on 10 years now. It's a nice career. If you know him as a person at all, it's probably because he is well known for the impressions that he does, which are all very like 90s kid impressions. He does Jim Carrey and he does Harry Carrey. But of course, like most people doing Harry extra exaggerated, taking the caricature and caricaturing that further. Yeah. And he does like Chris Farley. It's like probably Elie Delacruz is probably like, who are you doing an impression of right now? Or, you know, people Elie's age who would just not know who these people are, right? Yeah. So he's known for that. He's also known for being a

notably eco-conscious player. Yes. He's very green, right? Yes. That's one of the things I know about him, yeah. Yeah. Players for the Planet, I think, is an organization that he's had a hand in. So he's trying to be a good teammate to the planet. He's trying to be a good teammate to Earth, to the human race, to all of the creatures in heaven and earth, right? But I just wondered like what it would be like if you could be the best teammate. Like if we could quantify that somehow, if it were competitive, if there were a ranking of teammate-ness. teammate-ness and if we could look that up on fan graphs like teammate plus or something like how that would affect like player valuation and roster construction it goes back to the complex issue of clubhouse chemistry and right and like would it be something that was sort of context neutral the way that other stats are or would teammate plus be very context

sensitive because it depends on who your teammates are and do you get along with them well unless you're such a great teammate that you're like you know oh negative blood type you're like the universal donor you're like the the universal teammate that that everyone can connect to. But how would that change things if that were something that we actually assessed in kind of a quantitative way and graded players on? I have two thoughts about this. The first is, you know, to your specific question, like, I think that we see sort of the ripple of this in free agent signings now and this might help to illuminate the motivation behind you know sort of like there are guys who either you know they start to decline as they progress in age but they still get a lot of work or have always been sort of bench guys

sort of fifth outfielder spare infieldielders, relievers, but they get a lot of consistent work. And sometimes I think, you know, it's because they're like good enough or they have a standout tool that really, you know, elevates them above other guys sort of in that tier of performer. But sometimes it's like that they're a good glue guy, right? They're a good clubhouse guy. And so it might be the kind of thing that allows us to sort of better explain longevity among big leaguers. But I also think, you know, it would be such a tricky thing because like there's a set of personality traits that I think would be common to all good teammates. You want a guy who's going to be respectful toward everyone and who is maybe someone who's not super sloppy in the clubhouse.

I don't know. There's going to be a core set of traits that I think they don't micro-fish. Maybe they're someone who helps to organize, like taking care of the clubbies. Like, you know, there's going to be stuff that we sort of identify across the board as like you're maybe a kind person or a conscientious person or respectful person. But there's so many different kinds of people, you know, and I would imagine that identifying like one kind of good teammate would be impossible because you might need really different things in your good teammate, right? It's like how, you know, even when you're in like a really happy and committed and sort of mutually beneficial romantic relationship, you're not getting everything you need as a human being from that one person. Like that's too much to ask of one person. You have friends, you have family, you have coworkers and acquaintances. You know, I think it would be sort of akin to that where there would be traits that we

could point to and say, yeah, all these great teammate guys have these things in common. But, you know, maybe you're someone who like really appreciates like a sense of humor in someone and there's a guy who tells good jokes and there's another guy who's kind of a bump on a log Like you might, you know, if you're a rookie and there's a Nelson Cruz in the clubhouse, well, that guy probably stands out as like a great teammate because he has talked about, and we know from reporting that like he took the mentorship role really seriously. He wanted to help bring up young guys and sort of buck them up

and help them figure out how to be professionals and big leaguers and all this stuff, right? Well, if you're an established veteran, you probably don't need that, right? You need other things from a good teammate. So I think it would be hard to have it be a consistent thing because there's a lot of different kinds of people and they're going to gravitate toward different personality types. You know, they might all engage in like, I feel like everybody's talking about love languages again.

All of a sudden, who you notice this, there's been like an uptick in like people being like, my love language is this. And I'm like, we're doing this again anyway. But like, you know,

you might have guys who are like inclined to sort of like help out with clubhouse, like acts of service stuff. But, like, maybe that's all you need. Maybe you, you know, you get your own mail. Who knows? Like, it's just a lot of different kinds of stuff. Well, Souter's teammate TJ Antone is quoted in this story saying about Souter, that's a top two teammate and he ain't number two. Incredible teammate, Antone says. That's a really nice way to do that emphasis. I like that a lot.

Yeah. Antone tells a story here about when Suter demonstrated that he's the best teammate, which is when he came in in relief of Antone after he suffered a season-ending elbow injury. Yet another. He's had a few in his career. And so after a couple innings, Antone was in the training room and he was very upset. And then Suter walked in and he gave him a hug

and he sat down with him and kind of comfort him. And then he left the room because he was still in the game. He was still pitching. Yeah, he had pitched two innings and he was going back out for a third scoreless inning. And Antonio said, I thought he was done. I didn't realize he was going out for another inning. He cares.

He has a really good character. So by all accounts, Suter, great team. If there really were a ranking of teammate quality and if it affected how you earned money, whether you were desired on rosters, there'd probably be more eyewash than ever. Oh, yeah. Some of it would be just fake kind of going through the motions, trying to artificially seem like a good teammate when you're not really sincere. And, you know, maybe you go through the motions, you fake it till you make it. And, you know, maybe you go through the motions, you fake it till you make it. At some pointup the rest of the roster. And that might lead to actual bitterness and bad points. It's like, you're trying to out-teammate me right now.

I see what you're doing. You're trying to be extra polite. You're trying to comfort me. I comforted you first. You can't comfort me. It'd be kind of competitive team-mating. And so, maybe it's for the best that we aren't able to quantify it quite to that extent. But I'd love to see if we did some sort of like ELO rating of teammates and like, you know how they'll do those online head-to-head poll things where, you know, you'll have like people vote on something and it's just one head-to-head matchup and then another head-to-head matchup. And ultimately you get everything matched up with everything else. And so, there are enough votes if you have enough participation that you just get to see where

everything ranks in relation to everything else. And if you did that with everyone in baseball, in theory, you could probably get an ordinal ranking of all teammates in professional baseball because, you know, people know each other and word spreads and they've played with various people in various organizations. So, we could determine who the best teammate is. And I wonder whether it would be Brent Suter. I'm sure he'd be up there. Yeah. I mean, I think that there would probably be guys who you know you do develop a reputation if you've been in the game long enough um and i'm sure that there are guys who when they move clubhouses people are excited that that guy's gonna have a locker and there are other guys where it's like oh god we have to deal with this guy now and i'm not gonna name

any of those players because why would I be? It's so rude. But like there are guys who have good reputations and there are guys who have kind of nasty reputations. And so I'm sure there would be some commonality, you know, if you were to survey the guys in all 30 clubs, there would be names that come up more than once. And I'm sure it's tough to fake over the course of a career because you spend a lot of time with players. Even it's not like the days where you were roomies, but still you're traveling with your teammates, you're on the field, emotions raw.

And I think it would be tough to maintain the facade of good teammate for a very long time in close proximity to other players without people piercing that facade and seeing through it. It's a profession that seems to lend itself to experiencing big feelings, you know, and having dramatic swings in sort of your emotional day to day. And I think because, you know, you're also encountering people because of the average age of a big leaguer, you know, you're seeing people who are progressing through some really big, potentially tumultuous times in their lives as like people away from the field that I would bet that you gain a lot of insight into kind of the character of your fellow players and coaches and front office folks too.

And that's not to say that like, I'm sure Brent Suter has days where he's like kind of grumpy because he's an all live person, right? But I think you would get a big enough, I hate to say sample size because like what a ridiculous way to talk about this but you would you'd see people often enough and in a sort of like diverse enough set of circumstances that i think you would get a pretty good sense of of them now the counter argument to that i suppose is that you are still seeing a limited slice right you're seeing a slice of their personality as mediated through baseball, right? So, you know, you might think you have a really good idea of like what kind of a family person they are, what kind of a husband or father, and you might see slices of it, but you're not

getting the full picture. You're getting the version of that that they're willing to bring to the workplace, which might be, you know, in some cases, unfortunately, quite different than what they do at home. But I think you'd get to know people pretty well. And you'd get to know their people pretty well. Because again, for whatever reason, this is a job where you just like bring your kids to work all the time, which is, you know, it's not a bad thing, but it is kind of a weird part of baseball, right? They're just like around all the time. All the time. Because then you end up with a Drake LaRoche situation.

I mean, he's probably the best teammate, but he's no longer in clubhouses. He's all grown up, Drake LaRoche, these days. You know, what's amazing to me is that there are people who have no idea what we're talking about listening to this pod right now. And they're going to be like, what do they mean about that? And they're going to Google it. And I'm so excited for the journey they're about to take. What an afternoon you're about to have. Check the links on the show page. I'll take care of you. You don't have to Google, just click. Oh. So, speaking of the White Sox and also speaking of teams that are suffering from some big emotional swings and also some teams that could probably use the best teammates right now, I wanted to ask you which team you think has the worst vibes thus far in this early going because last time or a recent pod, we talked about teams that had changed their

playoff odds the most upward or downward. And here I'm just talking about teams that have been just clouded in some sort of miasma that makes their season sad and just makes you want to avert your gaze. And I guess there are maybe three, four contenders. The White Sox certainly are up there or down there. I guess they technically have the worst record in the majors as we record on Tuesday. They're 2-14. Much of their team is injured. They have signed Tommy Pham

as a reinforcement on a minor league deal, which is surprising because he's got to be one of their best players like on day one. I assume that they will manage to find some room for Tommy Pham.

And I don't know if he's the best teammate, but he is certainly a singular teammate one way or another. And they have lost, of course, Luis Robert. They have lost Eloy Jimenez.

Who else have they lost? Yohan Mankata's hurt right now. Yohan Mankata they've lost. Yes, right. And that lineup is bleak. It's bad. Really, really bad. So they're one contender.

I guess you have to include the A's in any vibes-based discussion, except that that's largely an organizational ownership management vibes issue, more so than the team itself. respectable start. There are good and fun players on that team. So obviously all of that is colored by the Sacramento move, the hypothetical Las Vegas move, the Dave Cavill and John Fisher involvement, but it's less related to the day-to-day. Obviously the attendance is very low, again, through not much fault of the players themselves. So they're a contender. They have to be mentioned. Oh, yeah. Then you have the Marlins. The Marlins are 3-14.

3-14, Ben. Just a tad better than the White Sox. They've had their fair share of injuries. They just demoted Max Meyer, who one of their not injured and actually effective pitchers thus far. We can talk about the rationale for that move in a moment. But the luck is going against them. Schumacher's got one foot out the door. The Kim Ang departure, we've discussed that all recently.

Then I guess we got to mention the Rockies here, right? Rockies are 4-13. They are resorting to Kyle Freeland's pinch running and immediately hurting himself, though seemingly not seriously. So that's nice. Oh, my God. It was so – because I flipped over to that game in time to see the collision at home. And then Kyle Freeland rolled over and I was like, is that Kyle Freeland? I was like, what is he doing there? It was just the worst, Ben. The worst. Your eyes did not deceive you. That was indeed Kyle Freeland. It looked very

bad at first. It looked very bad. It's not that bad, so that's good, I guess. There's some bright spots. It seems like Brenton Doyle is hitting now. That's good, I guess. They're the Rockies. They're the Rockies. Bard is out for the season,

it seems like, and maybe could be the career for him. That's too bad. So Rockies, White Sox, Marlins, A's, which would you say has the worst vibes now? Which brings you down? Can I submit a dark horse candidate for this group? Oh, yeah, a write-in. Yeah, let's hear it.

I feel like the vibes around the Red Sox must be kind of bad. Oh, yeah. I mean, the vibes around the Red Sox must be kind of bad. Oh, yeah. I mean, it started well. It started well. It has gotten worse. And, you know, Trevor Story is done for the year. And they got pitching injuries. And Tyler O'Neal is, like, running into people in the outfield.

Like, that was—there was a very scary moment there. So I don't think that they are anywhere near as bad a vibes team as the clubs that you just mentioned. But I think that like for a team that is above 500 and has so far played like pretty well in a very competitive division that we didn't expect them to sort of hang around in. They've had some stuff happen in the early going here

that has been pretty kind of gnarly. That seems not the best. Yeah, the vibes trajectory, if we were to graph the vibes for the Red Sox, it would probably be a steep climb and then a steep descent more recently. But yeah, they're a winning team, so I don't think they swim in these waters. That's fine.

Although being a 9-8 team in the AL East, I guess gets you a tie for third slash a tie for fifth. So it's a good division. But there are also some good or presumably good teams that are off to slow starts and have injuries. The Astros we talked about recently, the Twins, right? But they're not in the depths of despair where we're just staring headlong into the abyss of a lost season and really unwatchable baseball. That's right. So that's what we're trying to get to the bottom of here and it really is the bottom.

So what is the bottom? Where does baseball bottom out right now? I mean, it's such a funny question because objectively it feels like just from an organizational trajectory perspective, to say anything other than the A's is ridiculous. But I think that my answer is the White Sox. I think I'm going White Sox. Like, oh boy, you know, what do you get excited about right now? Garrett Crochet. You get excited

about Garrett Crochet. Okay. So there's one thing, but like given the state of the injuries at the moment you got paul de young in this lineup every day you got robbie grossman you got i was never high on dominic fletcher but dominic fletcher you got gavin sheets like we're trying to run it back with andrew vaughn like what are we yeah you know these are the guys batting cleanup like i think ke Pillar was batting cleanup. I think you're right that he was batting cleanup. Nick Nostrini, okay, okay. You could get excited for Nick Nostrini if you really were searching. If you were like, oh, how do I find something to get excited about? Maybe you get excited about Nick Nostrini.

Maybe. But it's not great. You know, it's a pretty bleak situation. And, you know, they're not where the A's are in terms of the actual relocation process, but it's not like Reinsdorf is like a great owner himself. So you don't really have that much more. Now, I guess if you want to paint an optimistic picture, you would say, okay, so new regime-ish, kind of new regime, you know, sort of new regime. Sort of. White Sox, you're making it hard for me.

You're in, you know, you play in a beautiful city full of passionate baseball fans. So that's just really quite a shame. I don't know what else to say about it, honestly, other than I'm sad. You know, I feel sad. You could say, I guess, that this is the ripping the Band-Aid off. This is as bad as it's going to get. Maybe there's light at the end of the tunnel. I don't know.

Is it as bad as it's going to get, though? Well. This is the thing, Ben. How soon is it going to get appreciably better? I like Colson Montgomery fine. I think that they picked up some interesting players in some of their recent trades. I don't know that I have a lot of confidence that they know how to maximize any of those guys. But like, it's a lot to put on Colson Montgomery and like, Ariarte and Drew Thorpe, like, and Nick Nostrini, poor Nick Nostrini. Here I am saying get excited. And it's like,

it's just... Yeah. Yeah. They have a 65 WRC plus just as a team, which is very, very bad. That's quick for you. Except that they're tied for worst with Miami. The Marlins also have a 65 WRC plus. So it might be those two duking it out. You could say that maybe the Rockies are more depressing organizationally in terms of long-term direction. But I don't know, that's kind of a photo finish with the Marlins. I mean- They get to play in that beautiful ballpark. They do, right? And the thing is like the Marlins, well, they've imported an ex-Rays

exec. Now that doesn't always go great. That doesn't guarantee success, but it does at least guarantee that you're kind of conversant with the modern world in a way that the Rockies probably aren't, which is perhaps reassuring. But it's the Marlins, and gosh, their whole history in Miami and their ownership history doesn't make you feel much better than the Rockies does. So, that's a tough one. And the Max Meyer demotion, now maybe your first impulse when you see that, when I saw it, was, oh, there's some service time shenanigans going on here. I don't think that's actually what's at play here. Right. I don't think that really applies to this situation because he started the season with one year and

82 days of service. He wasn't going to get super two, even if he was up the entire season. And the only way that he will miss getting to two full years of service and thus delay his free agency by a year is if he stays in the minors for more than half of the rest of the season, which seems like a stretch. I mean, don't put it past them, but it seems like this is probably a shorter term thing. And so it's probably not a service time related move. In a way that makes it even more mystifying because if they were just cheaping out, you'd be like, oh, well, they're just cheaping out. They're the Marlins. Okay. They're playing to type here. But no,

it seems like this is motivated by baseball reasons, but maybe misguided baseball reasons. It's tough from a vibes standpoint because when you're 3-14 and you send down a pitcher who has been credited with two of those wins and pitched very well in those two and has pitched very well in his three starts overall.

And nice to have him back. He had Tommy John surgery in August of 2022. He missed all of last season. He was, of course, a top prospect. So here he is. You've lost Sandy Alcantara. You've lost Erie Perez. You have Max Meyer at least.

And then you decide to send him down. The reason, and Peter Bendix talked about this and Ken Rosenthal wrote about it, they said it was that just something had to give, that they tried to find some alternatives, that they started to get healthy again. Edward Cabrera came back from his own injury and pitched well. And then you had other guys who were sort of mainstays in the rotation, even if they're not doing so great. Braxton Garrett is or was about to be back and then started dealing with some dead arm, but they just kind of had a crunch. So I guess they determined that Max Meyer, who wasn't even necessarily expected to break camp with the team until their entire rotation was injured. But he looked good.

He looked like he deserved to be there. And then he started off so well. Yes. And it's even compared to the Estiari Ruiz demotion, he's back up in the majors now. But when he was sent down, you know, they were like, well, long term, he's got some stuff to work on.

He's got to get on base more. And he was off to a hot start. But maybe that was sort of deceptive and he hadn't had that great a spring. OK, maybe you take the long view. It's tough to tell a guy who's at least on the surface having good results so far

that he's got to go down. But in this case, when you have pitchers really throwing well, and he's the odd man out as opposed to, I don't know, pick anyone who's not pitching as well, A.G. Puck, right, who's a little more established. But as we've noted, the conversion to starting not going so great. So what if you put him back in the bullpen, you demoted a reliever, you keep Max Meyer starting. It's got to be a little demoralizing to see that guy go, who's helping lead you to the little success that you've had.

And part of it also is it's just workload management and he didn't pitch last year, so they don't want him to throw too many innings. And so now they're just going to rate limit him again here. He's going to be pitching like three innings a week at AAA, something like that. I don't really love this solution. I don't have all the answers, you know, but this is a case where I feel like teams don't either. And so in many cases, I'm kind of okay deferring because it's like, well, they have all this information that we're not privy to. And we could speculate, but it's less informed speculation, which doesn't mean it's wrong. But we're not working with all the information.

I just, I don't know that teams have any better handle here. I feel like they're kind of guessing too. And we saw how they handled Erie Perez last year and they did sort of the same thing with him and they sent him down and maybe that was more service time related but also work-road related.

And he ended up breaking anyway, which doesn't mean that everyone will break and just pedal to the metal on everyone. But it just seems to me like it's kind of a half measure. It's like, we're not going to shut you down, but we're just seems to me like it's kind of a half measure. It's like, we're not going to shut you down, but we're just going to have you pitch a few winnings a week, and then we will call you up later in the season. I'd almost rather see like delay the start of the

season maybe, you know, and just have him fully rest and rehab and then come back when there are no limitations or just keep pitching a reasonable amount? Because it seems to me that if you devote someone and he's pitching three innings a week, well, if you bring him back up to the big leagues, isn't there going to have to be some ramp up that happens at that point? And then isn't that stressful too? So like, what if you just had him keep throwing five and taking his regular turns and, you know, just recovering between starts? But, like, is this actually better? I don't know. I'm very skeptical that it's actually better.

Me too. The fact that we operate with incomplete information and that it can be difficult for us to know really what is going to be the best course of action for these guys. But it just doesn't seem, I don't know, it seems self-defeating almost. I don't quite know how to make heads or tails of it, really. Bendix, I guess to his credit, said sort of the same thing, that we're trying to be as responsible as we can with his workload this year. What exactly that means, I don't know. I don't have the exact answer on how to best keep anybody healthy, let alone someone like him. But we're trying. So he's not claiming that they know what they're doing.

But I feel like if everyone acknowledges that no one knows what they're doing here, the guy is pitching okay. And as far as we know, he's not publicly complaining of anything. Just keep running him out there, you know, just like, and, you know, don't push him too hard,

but it seems like it could do more harm than good to sort of slow him, you know, ramp him up, then slow him down, then ramp him back up and he's going up and down.

It's just like, you know, just have him pitch a reasonable amount on regular turns or skip a start here and there if you need to. It feels like a sort of drastic solution. And that's without even getting into what effect it might have on Marlon's morale right now. They're like, we can't buy a win except for this guy and you're shipping him out. I will say, and I think, you know think it's important for us to say this part, like, I am more inclined to sort of grant the benefit of the doubt in a situation like this because the service time consideration doesn't seem to be what's motivating it, right?

That doesn't mean it's good decision-making, but I don't know. I guess in some ways it makes it more confounding, but I'm not inclined to view it as attempted shenanigans. But is organizational incompetence better? I don't know. I don't know what the answer to that is. And to be clear, maybe this is the right approach. Maybe the right way to deal with this guy is just to be incredibly careful. But I think you're right that we tend to underestimate the stress that ramping back up into major league form puts on guys. And we'd be well served to not forget that part because, you know, that process counts on your arm too, right? It's mileage on the odometer or whatever. Yeah. And while that demotion was happening, we're also seeing a number of promotions,

a number of prospects are coming up. The Rangers are promoting Jack Leiter. The Dodgers are promoting Andy Pagas, who is not to be confused with Pedro Pagas, who made his debut earlier this year. I'm definitely not to be confused with Andy Pages, as one fall league announcer insisted on calling him throughout his entire time in the AFL. I don't know who it was, which means I can't call them out by name, but boy, did you butcher that every single night I heard you say it. Yeah, there's no accent mark. I believe he doesn't use one. I guess I could understand the confusion once, but maybe not. Yeah, but there's a guide.

You know, they give you pronunciations right there in the media guide. You got to get that. Come on. Yes, yes. And Forrest Whitley is coming up for the Astros. Don't say any more about that because that might be related to another thing we're doing later. Okay. So lots of guys coming up.

Paul Skeens will be up sometime soon, it certainly seems, because he is dominating at AAA for the Pirates. Except that he's dominating in such short bursts. So he's made three starts for Indianapolis now. And he's pitched a total of nine and a third innings. And they've been brilliant innings. He has walked two. He struck out 19 in nine and a third and he's given up four hits.

So he's been dominant. He hasn't allowed a run. And I saw a tweet by Brandon McCarthy who quote tweeted a pitching ninja tweet about how good Paul Skeens has been. And McCarthy said three and a third innings and he's been pitching for two months. What are we doing here? Is he preparing to be a big league starter or not?

Guys aren't staying healthier. So why are they still treated like children? He was throwing 105 pitches plus every week at this point last year. And Brendan McCarthy, as probably most of our listeners know, he's a thoughtful guy, right? He's a smart player and looks at things in a fairly progressive way. He's not like one of these back in my day, lunkhead types. He's a cerebral sort of player. He's worked for organizations. He now works in soccer, actually. But for him to say this, and he had other replies and tweets of people responding to him, he does have a point

because it's not just skee-ins. It's many top pitching prospects are being prepared, if you can call this preparation these days. And we know that major league starters aren't expected to go deep into games, but minor league starters, even less so, right? It's like a great reluctance to use any bullets, as they say, right? When it doesn't quite count when you're not at the major league level yet. It's like you don't want to subject them to any wear and tear before they get there. And yet, does it hurt if you're expecting someone to come up and throw at least like, say, five or six? Then wouldn't you want them to do that at some point in the minors? Wouldn't you ever want them to have the experience of trying to work through a lineup two or three times. And as McCarthy is alluding to,

like Skeens had heavier workloads in college, arguably too heavy. Like he had among the heaviest workloads of the top pitching prospects. So I guess you could say this is a corrective measure that maybe they were worried he was worked too hard, and now perhaps they're going too far in the other direction. It does just seem like there has to be some sort of happy medium, like unless you're grooming him to be this kind of pitcher, like conditioning him to be a three-inning pitcher. Which makes absolutely no sense given what they need on their roster. And given how good he is, right?

He's the top pitching prospect in baseball at this point. You want him to go a little deeper into games than that, but how is he going to if he never prepares to do that? And again, as Brandon was saying, it's not as if this is clearly working. And again, as Brandon was saying, like, it's not as if this is clearly working, you know, it's not like pulling back and lightening the workload on all these guys is paying dividends in terms of no one getting hurt. No, if anything, it's the opposite. And the radar readings with Skeens are sort of scary. I mean, you know, he's touching triple digits constantly, right? It just scares me when I see him, when I see Mason Miller, who's also been dominant for the A's,

but with velocities that scare me, you know? Yeah. Although it's important to note with Miller that, yes, you're right, the velocities are scary, but he throws that hard. Yes. And so what they are doing by pushing him into a relief role is trying to keep him healthy, Yes. to throw even harder in those three innings because he wants to show what he can do. He wants to blow off some steam. He wants to get his work in and he knows he doesn't have to pace himself.

It's part of this larger pitcher usage, pitcher injury conversation we keep having. But I do kind of question, again, like whether teams know what they're doing. Again, I don't know what I'm doing here. I'm not at all confident that they know what they're doing either. With respect to Skeens in particular, his post-draft usage made a ton of sense to me. I mean, he ended up throwing like six innings, six and two-thirds innings last year post-draft. He basically like did a little tour of the Pirates affiliates, and then he was done because he had thrown 122 innings for LSU, right? And a lot of them were very high-stress innings because they had such a deep College World Series run. So it made sense to me that they would not really

have him do much at all in affiliated ball post-draft. There are plenty of teams that just shut all of their arms down post-draft, right? They just don't throw at all. They might start to throw again a little bit in instructs, but they're not throwing at an affiliate after the draft. So there are a lot of teams that sort of take that approach to the load management question, especially for college guys. But this strikes me as kind of odd.

Look, we have to apply the usual caveats here, which is we're a bunch of dummies. We don't worry about anything about. And even if we did know what we were talking about, right, even if we each had advanced degrees in, you know, biomechanics or sports science or any of these things. You just, with any individual pitcher, don't know when the pitch will come that causes the guy to break. You can't predict that. If you could, it would all look very different. But I think that when you look at someone like Skeens, who has a lot of experience throwing a lot of innings, throwing deep into games, right? Throwing high velocity deep into games. And then you look at Paul Skeens and you're just like, hey, look at him, though.

Like, physically, as a physical entity, look at that guy, right? goal entity look at that guy right like part of what was so appealing about skeins in the draft wasn't just that he throws really hard isn't just that he had all these pitches isn't just that he's been super effective it's like you look at this guy and you're like well yeah like he looks like a big league starter right and there are plenty of guys who look like big league starters who end up sucking so it's you know it's not a perfect way to discern anything but he's not a spindly guy right he's not he doesn't have a tristan mckenzie physique he's paul skeens like look at him the guy should be throwing big league innings soon right and so i don't want to attribute to um the pirates uh incompetence which kind of leaves you with this question of, like, are they trying to change his role?

That doesn't make any sense for their organizational needs at the big league level. Aren't they using him in the Xerxes time? I mean, you know, one could if one wanted to make a compelling argument. So it's like, what are we doing here? You know, what are we doing? I'm all worked up now. Yeah, that's exactly what Brandon asked. It's just, I feel like also if you're a team that, if you're the Marlins and you're probably

not going anywhere great this season, I mean, it's not like, oh, let's save him for October in Max Meyer's case, right? Because look, I hate to break it to you, but it sure doesn't look like you're going to be there, right? So I'd rather see a shutdown. You know, if you get too late in the season and the guy is feeling fatigued and worn down and it's actually a concern,

okay, then shut him down at that point. But it's not like, oh, we got to save those innings for more meaningful moments on that team. Now, I guess the Pirates at least can hold out hope shut him down at that point, but it's not like, oh, we got to save those innings for more meaningful moments on that team. Now, I guess the Pirates at least can hold out hope that they might have meaningful games and innings later in the season. That's more realistic. But even so, I'd like to see him either promoted or challenged more in the minors where he

is, like prepare him for the job that he's going to be doing because just treating everyone with kid gloves like this, it just doesn't really seem to be helping. And if anything, just instills this max effort mindset even more, one would think. And look, we will again say, we're dummies, you know, we're a bunch of dummies, you and I, and they might know something we don't know, maybe they know something about i don't know but then you then they wouldn't be letting him throw 100 miles an hour every time he throws the baseball right like if they had if they knew something about his elbow or his shoulder that we don't know you'd think that they would be having him regulate Velo in a different way

than they are. I also am looking at Polskins' Instagram as we're talking. And when he is not in uniform and is like dressed up, he looks like he's ready to sell insurance. He just like has, I am here to make sure you get the best policy we can get you. if you have bundle you'll save you know he has sort of that vibe but i know that i made the bold prediction that the pittsburgh pirates would win the nl central as part of our bold predictions podcast right i did that i'm not hallucinating that i made that prediction and and uh eagle-eyed listeners which is a funny combination of words will note that i didn't have any courage of my conviction with that because i definitely did not pick them to win the central when we did staff predictions for fan graphs but like they are a fun and surprising team in the early going here they're 11 and 6 as we're

recording they have a better record than the mariners you know and at the moment on their roster resource page they have four guys in their starting rotation. They have four. And famously, that tends to not be enough. And so it's a weird thing. And a lot of the most plausible explanations are not super flattering to the Pirates. Again, we will leave open the possibility that there are things here that we don't know that are determining what they're doing. And maybe this will all prove

moot because they'll call Skeens up and he'll just sink or swim at the big league level and we'll kind of see what we get. But right now, they need another starter. And they have some really exciting, cool players. and i think that this is a team that won't take all that much to like dream on as a potentially competitive club and that's so cool so like lean to that why don't you stop you, goofing around with stuff. Make it better by promoting Paul Skeens. I just want to see the guy pitch at the big league level. Like, I would much rather get in fights about, you know, whether, like, let's fight about fastball shape again.

Come on. Let us fight about fastball shape. Don't you miss that? I super don't, as an aside. But I am like, I'm ready. I'm ready to be in the discourse trenches. Yeah. Fastball shape.

But instead, I'm having to sit here and be like, why is this young, tall? He's so tall, you know? He's very tall. You look at that guy and you're like, that's a big league starter. Let Libby Dunn stop hanging out in Indianapolis. Get that gal to Pittsburgh. He's very tall. prospect was popularized at Baseball Prospectus or Rexport Baseball or wherever it was by Gary Huckabee back in the day, that has come to be seen as there's no such thing as pitching prospect because pitching prospects break and they're undependable. And there's certainly truth to that. But the way it was originally meant was if you're ready, you should not be just a prospect. They should call you up immediately because everyone's

going to break at some point. And so if you're a prospect, then you're being wasted in the minors if you could be effective in the majors right now. Of course, that doesn't take into consideration service time, et cetera. But you'd like to think that teams wouldn't either as much as they do, though they seem to less these days, at least relative to the past. You think about some of the pitching prospects that are percolating who have very real injury concerns, right? You think about someone like Kumar Rucker where it's like maybe, you know, if this guy had not and he blew out. But like the idea was like get him to the bigs as soon as you can because there might only be so many bullets, right? And wouldn't it be nice if that effort and performance were expended on behalf of the big league club rather than toiling away in the minors?

Now, the flip side of that is then he broke. So, you know, it sucks. It sucks. But yeah, it's like if you if for some reason you had concern about skeins beyond the typical concern you have for a pitcher, put him in the majors today. See what he can do. Because like that division is surprisingly competitive and not in a Central in a way that I don't think a lot of people saw coming. And this club is outperforming a lot of people's preseason expectations. I don't know if that's going to last forever. I still don't think they're going to actually win that division. But, like, bring him up and see what he can do. And, you know, again, let me fight about basketball shape again. Well, we have something planned for the very end of this episode.

So I have one more thing to say before we get there, which is that I was surprised by how emotional I was to hear that John Sterling was retiring this week. He was kind of one of the last live links to my fandom, you know, just a voice that took me back to my childhood. I mean, he's been calling games for the Yankees since I was two years old. I have never known the New York Yankees without John Sterling behind the mic. And, of course, he had lived a full life before he even got to the Yankees and started calling their games in 89. He was with Atlanta calling baseball, multiple sports. I mean, he's been broadcasting since the 70s on sports radio, on hockey games, basketball games, baseball games. He's kind of done it all everywhere and yet is still associated with the Yankees, known as the voice of the Yankees, and I think the longest continuous Yankees broadcaster.

It's funny how some of the iconic broadcasters who are so associated with one team, often they did have stints somewhere else before, you know, whether it's Ernie Harwell or whoever, right? They were somewhere else and didn't stick and then were somewhere for decades at a time. But John Sterling, as corny as he could be, as bombastic as he is, I was very fond of the man and was very sad to see him abruptly retire, it seems to be a mix of motivations, maybe some hopefully not acute health issues and fatigue and also just generally feeling like he'd had enough, which would not be surprising. He's 85 years old. He's been doing this forever except for the fact that he has basically said that he wanted to like die at the mic before. So he was unwilling to take a day off.

Like John Sterling is to Yankees broadcasts as I am too effectively wild, except even more so, right? I mean, he- Still encouraged to occasionally take a day off, Ben. I know. Well, we don't take road trips is the thing. In recent years, he's taken some road trips off. I'd probably take some of those off, but I don't have to go anywhere.

I just have to roll right out of bed and I can do a podcast. But John Sterling was, I mean, he basically like doubled Cal Ripken's games streak just in the broadcast booth, which, okay, it's maybe a little less physically taxing. But, you know, 5,000 plus games he's called for the Yankees. And whenever I hear him, and granted, I'm not watching the Yankees or listening to the Yankees every day anymore the way I was when I was a fan and haven't listened to a whole lot of John Sterling lately, but it was still reassuring to know that he was there, that I could tune in and hear him and it would take me back because everyone's had this relationship with their team's broadcaster. Not every team has a longtime broadcaster who's just been such a stalwart in the booth for them. But if you have

had that person, then you know they're yours, right? And you're theirs. And maybe you had this, Mariners fans certainly had this with Dave Niehaus and just so many fan bases. And even if it's someone who other fan bases don't understand the appeal of, maybe they even find that person off-putting. Maybe they think they're kind of a hack. I get that. And yet when I hear John Sterling's voice, I am taken back to game five of the 2001 World Series under the covers because it was late and I had to go to bed and it looked like the Yankees were going to lose,

but I was sneakily listening to the radio under the blankets anyway. And then he called Scott Brocious's incredible semi-miraculous home run yet another amazing Yankees comeback. And then I was tearing out of the bedroom to turn on the TV and see it the air. The deep left. That ball is high. It is far. It is good. I don't believe it. Once again, deja vu. A two-out, game-time, two-run home run by Scott Prochess. Probably the most unbelievable feat in World Series history.

Those moments are just indelible. And hearing that voice will just forever call that back, right? And so how can you not feel some sentimentality there? So to hear him just announce his retirement abruptly, he's getting a ceremony and a farewell this weekend, but never really even got to take a bow in the booth, so to speak, right? Never really said goodbye on the air, or at least hasn't thus far, which is, you might say, sort of like a dignified kind of quiet ending for John Sterling. You might have expected something more, a more bombastic goodbye from him, but I'm going to miss the man.

You know, he was a character, a New York character, kind of a one of a kind. And of course is responsible for your pinned tweet now and hopefully forever. Oh my gosh. Well, anyway, this is Fangraph. I don't know who Fangraph is.

You know what the percentage was for the Mets to win? It was 99.8%. They didn't win. That moment in 2020 was just, like, very cathartic. Like, I laughed in a very genuine and deep and sustained way. And that experience was then on the ground that year. Yeah, I've actually listened to Sterling a lot more in the last couple of years because the Yankees TV booth is like just okay to me.

And so often would put on the radio overlay in part because I wanted to listen to Susan. I wanted to listen to Susan. But yeah, it's just very strange when one of these voices leaves. It's like the only feeling I can liken it to is like, you know when local sportscasters retire? liking it too is like um you know when local sportscasters retire like the local sportscasters you grew up with and you're like are you allowed to not be telling me the news in traffic aren't you supposed to make be making me alarmed about like razor blades and apples at halloween like come on right yeah yeah so yeah werner wolf should be going to the videotape forever, right? So it's really a sad thing for me. And I mean, he had a lot of great attributes

as a broadcaster. Obviously he had the voice, which is almost like a caricature of a baseball broadcaster voice. I mean, it's just, you know, the stereotype of the traditional baseball broadcaster. And if you hear other baseball broadcasters talk about John Sterling,

they'll all say, oh, the voice, right? Like they all kind of envy the voice. Of course, it's what you do with the voice that ultimately matters. And I think there's a philosophy of broadcasting that's kind of like, let's get out of the way a little bit. It's almost like umpiring. Like if you're too aware of the umpire, that means that they're doing a bad job. It's not quite the same with a broadcaster, but there is kind of like a, you know, let it breathe. Like you're not the story. You're trying to relate the action here, especially maybe on the radio where you're really relying on the person to tell you what is happening. And John Sterling, not always the best. Not always the best at it. I can certainly concede that when it came to reporting the score and the situation and deciding accurately whether to launch into his home run call. It is high, it is far, right? And he's got to start early. He'd be like, I have to be ahead of the call. And he's like, and you know, sometimes that means that I'm going to call one as far as it is caught. And those moments would be deflating, obviously, listening as a fan,

and you'd be wondering, what is this guy watching? What is he seeing? What is this game that is going on in his head? It does not mirror the one in reality. And yet with him, at a certain point, it reaches the point where you're such an institution that you just kind of laugh along with that. Like when John Sterling doesn't know who Fangraph is, you just chuckle, right?

You just go, mwah, it's perfect. It's John Sterling. It's your cor chuckle, right? You just go, muah, it's perfect. It's John Sterling. Yeah. It's your corny uncle, right? Yes. And, you know, maybe he's a man of a certain age who's maybe a little less likely to know who Fangraph is or to rely on Fangraph. Well, anyway, this is Fangraph. I don't know who Fangraph is.

You know what the percentage was for the Mets to win? It was 99.8%. They didn't win. But I think with him, you just kind of like, oh, that's John. You know, that's Uncle John. Like, he's just the constant. And yeah, he has his catchphrases and he has his silly celebrations. And he's going to say you can't predict baseball in every single game.

And sometimes he's going to be kind of old school and reactive in certain ways. But it's like, you know, he's a character and you spend so many hours with that guy over so many years that you're just happy to hear him and his quirks and idiosyncrasies. Happy to hear him and his quirks and idiosyncrasies and no one is more quirky and idiosyncratic than John Sterling and his affection for show tunes and soap operas and just like, you broadcasters now who are amazing at it and certainly not afraid to show their personalities. But there are also a lot of broadcasters who are, like, competent and accurate and might do a better job of calling the game on the field, but, like, just don't seem to stand out as much. And probably some fans are totally fine with that and approve of that. It's like, I'm not really tuning in for you. You know, I want to know what's going on in the game. Just the facts, right? But when you get a booth that become kind of your constant companions and pals or almost

extended relatives, then you're really, really sorry to see them ride off into the sunset. So I'm going to miss John Sterling quite a bit. Because so much of our experience of baseball, and by our, I mean like literally you and I, you know, we have like this professional obligation to the game. And I think that we both enjoy watching it a lot, but we both really like listening to it. And I do think that there's, you know, something really exciting about the potential for new voices in the space and seeing what they might do and how they might approach bringing to life in your mind's eye what's going on on the field. But it is a loss. I mean, it's a tradition that kind of goes with you for such a long time. And I don't think that I feel like I have a

parasocial relationship with broadcasters necessarily, but there is a companionship to their literal voices. And that doesn't mean you can't establish new connections to people, but I think it's fine to take a moment to like feel a little bit sad about losing that. Like I think about the moment in 2020 and, you know, for all of the reasons you've just described when it comes to like who John Sterling is and what he can sound like and some of his, you know, like little tics or what have you. Him not knowing what Fangraphs was, not knowing what Fangraphs was to the extent that he didn't know that it was Fangraphs and not Fangraph, felt so normal. Right. It felt so normal in a year where everything felt so terrible and strange. And so it just was, it felt said, he's not even my guy. You know, the voices of sports that I have connection to aren't his, although, you know, like they have things in common with him.

So I think it can be good, not because I mean it as any knock on Sterling or anyone else who's been doing it a long time who ends up moving on. But, you know, having changeover can be, I think, good and sort of enlivening. But it's sad. You're losing something even if you end up gaining something else later. Yeah. And because he was sort of a symbol of Yankees bombast, I think people who aren't kind of in the Yankees cult probably look on him, some people at least, with the same distaste that they would for other aspects of Yankees exceptionalism. And here's this guy hamming it up, and he's got his signature home run calls for every guy, and he's screaming, the Yankees win, right? Yankees win, right? And it's just part and parcel with the whole Yankees, just everything that goes with the pinstripes and the mystique and the aura, especially the fact that, I mean, they were very bad when he started calling their games early in his tenure.

And then he's been calling them through their entire now three-decade and counting winning streak and the dynasty years. So he was very associated with that, right? It was, the Yankees were always winning and he was the guy rubbing it in by yelling the Yankees win. And so that probably didn't endear him to others, but it's kind of like a teammate who's like a red ass maybe.

And it's like, if, if he's your guy, you'll like him, you know, not the best teammate like Brent Suter necessarily, but just if you day in and day out watch that guy and he's red-assing for you instead of against you, then you admire that attitude. Whereas anyone else, it just pisses you off. And there's probably some of that too. And I feel like the fondness for Sterling, if anything, just grew over time because he learned to tolerate or like or even love just the Sterling-ness of it all. And, you know, you can't imagine a radio broadcast booth that doesn't include him except for the rare road trip that he would take off. And so you just become conditioned. Yeah. Okay. I'm used to this. You know,

you get exposed to something often enough, you at least learn to tolerate it or maybe even convince yourself that you like it. The way that I would think about it was, I mean, there were definitely moments where I was like, come on, John. But I just viewed it as like the exchange that I got was really being amused and laughing at the home run because it

did not actually come before home runs. The pitch to Stanton. There it goes. Deep left. It is high. It is far. It is gone. Out of the ballpark. A Stantonian home run. Now, what did I do wrong?

What did I see wrong? He's at first base. Like, that felt like the exchange rate on those moments was what I needed it to be in order to tolerate it. But yeah, man, it was, those were so funny. Those were so funny. So good. And his calls are exhaustively chronicled. Oh, yeah. called Moiters Row that has an ultimate list of John Sterling home run calls

where it has like every call he's ever bestowed on someone or at least as complete a record as they could compile. That's great. I have my favorites here. Moiters Row. They're all kind of great in sort of a groan-worthy way. Yeah, yeah. And when he started, I feel like it was less elaborate.

And I mean, if I watch a highlight to this day and I hear Sterling saying, burn, baby, burn, like that gets me going because that's my favorite player. And that's just a straight hit to my nostalgia center, you know. And he could really raise his adrenaline and his excitement. Like people have been sharing the call he made in the eighties back with the Braves of Rick Camp's only home run in extra, extra innings in a really extraordinary game. And he kind of said before it happened, how amazing it would be if it happened. And then he really rose to the moment. Like sometimes that operatic stentorian tone that he had, like was really suited to the moment.

It'll be an 0-2 pitch. And he is at the deep left. He goes back. It is gone. Holy cow. Oh my goodness. I don't believe it. I don't believe it.

Rick Kemp. Rick Kemp. I don't believe it. Remember what I just said? If he gets a home run, that certifies this game as the wackiest, wildest, most improbable game in history. So at first it was just like, you know, Burn, Baby, Burn and Georgie Juice won and, you know, the Bamtino and Robbie Cano, don't you know? Like it was not quite as involved as it became later. Yeah. I think maybe my favorite of all time is Curtis Granderson, the Curtis Granderson call where he said he's something sort of grandish, which is, of course, a song from Finian's Rainbow. He just had the most obscure references to things and musical theater.

But he wouldn't just leave it. He basically sounded like he'd been lifted out of the cast of Guys and Dolls, so it makes sense. Yeah, he dressed like that in that kind of old school pocket square way. And everyone says he's a really nice guy, so there's that too, even off the air. But not only would he then say he's something sort of grandish, which what percentage of the audience listening in the early 2010s understands that reference. But then he would break into song, of course, and a different song and would start launching into the Grandy Man can, the Grandy Man. And Susan, Susan Waldman, his longtime partner for almost 20 years now, like she had the same references in her head because she was a musical person, right? And so she gets it.

And so they were kind of like a perfect pairing in that way, or maybe the worst possible pairing in the sense that they egged each other on because they understood each other's references so that they could share them more often, whereas someone else would have been like, what are you talking about? But sometimes he would go for just like a pure like SponCon, like he would have just a reference to some product slogan. Like for Mike Ford, he would say for the Yankees, there's a Ford in their future. Mike is Ford tough. And it's like, are you being paid for this? No. And you couldn't tell sometimes with the radio broadcast booth for the Yankees because everything would be sponsored. Like, oh, that's the 15th out of the game. You call Geico, 15 minutes, right?

Mark Reynolds, it's a Reynolds rap. You're on the mark, Reynolds. Or like a good Glaber, Torres is there. Or Shelly Duncan, the Yankees run on Duncan. It's like, are you a Duncan spokesperson? Or Anthony Rizzo, just in recent years, a current Yankee, he'd go, oh, Rizzo rakes. And then nobody beats the Riz, which was, of course, a reference to nobody beats the whiz, to Nobody Beats the Whiz, a defunct New York area tech retailer, which I remember from my childhood, but closed like 20 years ago. Just the least timely references. I don't think I have that one.

Yeah, this is not, you might think it's like a baby Gronk rizzing up someone right Livy rizzing a baby gronk or vice versa but no this was nobody beats the whiz much less timely and topical a few others I liked Zolo Almonte you know what opponent is thinking curses soiled again just no no shame whatsoever I love that like almost everyone had a call, even if they were very briefly a Yankee and didn't hit many home runs. Although it's got to be disappointing if you're, say, Eric Kratz, who played 20 games for the Yankees and never hit a home run, so he never got a Sterling call.

I'm sure he had one holstered. Or like Josh Phelps. Josh Phelps, boy, helps that's not that's not anything that's just not anything jason nicks a nicks knock hasten jason round the bases he kept also like adding layering on like it wasn't he couldn't just do one anymore because he was john sterling and he had to have a signature call so he'd have to have like two or three so for Luke Voight it would be like Luke here as in look here Luke here Voight is a droid and then later it was Voight hits one to

Beloit cool hand Luke so he'd just be like spitting catchphrase after catchphrase, outdated reference after outdated reference. Didi Gregorius. Ah, yes, indeedy. Gregorius makes Yankee fans euphoric. Which is not a word. No, it's definitely not a word. He made it one. Then he changed it to, this is the dawning of the age of Gregorius. Again, which, you know, maybe 50 years or so out of date at that point as a reference.

Wilson, Wilson Betamete. You can bet on Betamete for the Betamete of the Yankees. Wilson hits it out. No. And you bet a 10-D. Benny. Oh, multi-Benny. In the right field seats. no and you bet a 10d and that's raining bennies from heaven no no no no no no no he had some kind of good ones too like i remember shane spencer the home run dispenser. I always enjoyed that one. Yeah. Or more recently in the same genre, Kyle Higashioka. Another home run.

Kyle makes you smile. Higashioka, the home run stroker. All right. I'll allow that. I don't know if I like it, but I'll allow it. Also, Gary Sanchez was good because he went through a couple incarnations. It was like, Gary is scary. He's the Sanchez.

Sanchez. And then when it seemed like he might not really be the Sanchez, it was like the Kraken cracks one. But there was also a phase where it was the Sanchino. The Sanchino. The Sanchino. I get the Bamtino instead of the Bambino for Tino Martinez or like the Giambino for Jason. But the Sanchino, that's really labored. It's not even really like a slant rhyme.

It's not even close. And also, sometimes he would just totally phone it in where like Randy Wynn would be on the Yankees and he'd say, he helps the Yankees win. Wow. Like, this is John Sterling. He's going to dig deep. He's going to come up with the unexpected thing to say about Randy Wynn. But no, it was the most obvious. Or Raul Banez. Raul, so cool. Wow.

It's been a popular sports radio segment in New York for years at this point, just to play Sterling calls and giggle. And I am now doing the same thing. I mean, it's just the best. Some of these things are just like emblazoned on my mind. Like if you ever mention Kareem Garcia, I don't know why you would, but if you ever did. Why would I do that? Yeah.

But if I did, I'd learn a lot. I'd hear John Sterling saying, the Kareem of the crop. I don't know. I'm going to miss him. I don't know. I don't know about that. It's the opposite of the Vin Scully

sort of like let the moment breathe. Like, don't say anything, you know, just play the crowd noise and, you know, have some reverence for the moment. And John Sterling, not really that. It was more like he's going to put his stamp on the moment. But at a certain point, you learn to love that. I guess. Yeah. It's, you know, you just, you have things you. I guess, yeah. You have things you grow up with, right? You have things you grow up with, and you're like, these are my things. I'm in on them

as my things. Well, we'll play him out with his last home run call, which was for a recent John Carlos Stanton Grand Slam. And the pitch hit in the air! To deep left, it is high! It is far! It is gone! It's a Grand Slam. And the pitch hit in the air. To deep left, it is high. It is far.

It is gone. It's a Grand Slam. Non-Dementi car. That ball sure traveled far. Giancarlo, he hits a Grand Slam deep in the left field seats. And the Yankees take a 5-1 lead. All right, should we do a quick Meet a Major Leaguer? Yeah.

Meet a Major Leaguer. I am very eager to meet this nascent Major Leaguer. It's the thrilling debut of somebody new. Let's meet this mysterious major leaguer. We're bringing this segment back because there are many more major leaguers to meet. And they're not all the notable ones whose names we've already mentioned on this podcast. There are 51 new major leaguers so far this young season. And for the past couple seasons, at least, we have been meeting some of them every now and then. We'll do a segment where we meet a major leaguer.

It's usually an unsung or at least less sung major leaguer, not your tippy top prospect who everyone knows and you don't need us to introduce you to. But they're just constantly major leaguers being minted left and right. It's an incredible accomplishment to make the majors, even if you don't get to stick around very long. And so you deserve your day in the sun or on Effectively Wild. So who is your major leaguer that we're meeting today? or uneffectively wild. So who is your major leaguer that we're meeting today? To the surprise of, I'm sure, no one at all, my major leaguer is Spencer Arrighetti.

Spencer Arrighetti. I want to clarify one thing before we go into this. I don't actually know for certain that Spencer Arrighetti is of Italian descent. Okay? I don't know i strongly suspect because his name is spencer arraghetti but i i just would like to point out that like um you know for instance i have noticed as i've edited our prospect list over the last couple of months that like there are a number of venezuelan players who have italian sounding names um and i don't know who their people are you know but um they're from venezuela and uh so

like who knows you know i could be wrong but i'm doing the hands the entire time i'm reading this i want i want people to know because spencer if you are italian you know if you are of italian descent i want you to know that you just you gotta you gotta embrace the spaghetti of your name because like your first name is spencer and your last name is arachidi so your your name is spaghetti essentially like you and that's wonderful that's beautiful know, you should cherish that because I do. So, so, Spencer, he grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, but he went to high school in the Houston suburbs and rooted for the Astros throughout his childhood, which had to have been exciting for him because he was then drafted by Houston in the sixth round of the 2021 draft. Houston in the sixth round of the 2021 draft. And he made only 15 appearances above double A when he was called up because of injuries to Houston's rotation. So Chandler Broome called him in a piece on Arrigetti, a cerebral and confident right-hander with a remarkable grasp on how pitching is modernizing. His confidence is lauded throughout the organization and his pragmatism is perhaps one of his best traits.

I will now read Eric Longenhagen's report on Spencer Arrighetti, who he has evaluated as a 40-plus future value prospect. He came in as a 35-plus when he was drafted, so, you know, on the up and up. Eric has him ultimately sliding into a multi-inning relief role, which when I describe his first two starts in the majors might not come as a huge surprise to anyone, but here's the report. Arrigetti had a nomadic amateur career going from TCU to Navarro Junior College in Texas before finishing up at Louisiana. His velocity climbed throughout the 2021 and 2022 seasons, with

Arrigetti throwing four ticks harder than he did in college by the end of that span. That velo spike was sustained but plateaued in 2023, even as the Astros took the piggyback starter leash off and Arrigetti consistently worked five innings or more. This year, he's added a cutter to his fastball sweeper mix. Arrigetti's fastball tails and rides in on the hand of right-handed hitters while his sweeper breaks in the exact opposite direction. His breaking ball command is better than his fastball command,

which is a big reason why I, Eric Langenhagen, had him evaluated as a reliever. Considering how loose and whippy his delivery is and that this level of velocity is relatively new for him, it's plausible Arigati could sharpen his command enough to more comfortably project as a starter. His fastball plays up because of huge extension, and if you go to Arigati's report on the board, we have video linked, and you will see in that video just how much extension there is down mound when he delivers the baseball, so go check that out.

And he might not even need precise command of that pitch to bully hitters in the zone with it because of the way it jumps on them. Really, what Arrigetti has needed is a more reliable way to thwart left-handed hitters, and while the new cutter definitely gives opposing hitters something else to parse, I'm not sure it's going to be a panacea against lefties. Arrigetti also has a changeup that he barely uses, and the way he tends to approach lefties

is by altering the shape of his slower breaking ball to make it more vertical, like a curveball. As we've seen with 30-year-old Ronald Blanco and his brand new changeup, Houston can teach an old dog new tricks, and it's plausible Arrigetti will find yet another gear with big league instruction. He's needed as a starter right now due to injury, but even though my future value grade for him has gone up a tier, I still think on a healthy contending team's roster, this guy is probably a multi-inning reliever. Arigetti was called up on April 10th and made his debut that night against the Kansas City Royals, and it did not go well, Ben. It went very poorly. He went

just three innings. He surrendered seven hits, seven runs, all of them earned, and issued three walks. He struck out three batters. That amounts to a 21 ERA, which is not what you want. Now, much of that came in a disastrous third inning, which went as follows. Kyle Isbell single. Kyle Isbell stolen base. Michael Garcia fly out. Cool. Bobby Wood Jr. walk. Vinny Pasquantino, two RBI double. Salvador Perez single. MJ Melendez walk. Nelson Velasquez, two RBI single. Adam Frazier, RBI single. Adam Frazier stolen base. Hunter Renfro, two RBI double. Kyle Isbell strikeout. Michael Garcia fouls out to catcher. So, you know, it's not the best.

This is from a piece that Chandler Rowan wrote about that start for the Athletic. Afterward, Arrigetti's news conference alternated between amazement and analytical, complete with some head shakes and a steady dose of self-criticism. He acknowledged being a little bit of an anxious mess before the game and in the bullpen. Things went better in his second start in Atlanta. He went four innings. That's more than three. He gave up four hits, two walks, a hit by pitch, which did bring in a run, and just two earned runs. But he struck out five, including Ronald Acuna Jr. twice, Ozzie Albies, and Marcelo Azuna. He also got Luis Guillerme, I think.

He brought his season ERA down to 11.57 and was pulled because of his pitch count. Here I'm again quoting from Chandler. There's a lot to look back and be proud of, Arrig count. Here I am again quoting from Chandler. There's a lot to look back and be proud of, Arigetti said. I made some good adjustments between starts this time around. I definitely had some good days to work on things in between, so a little bit of confidence there. I feel like I got accustomed to the environment a little bit more, and I made some big pitches tonight and some big situations that I'm really happy about.

Now, before we recorded today, Spencer Arigetti was optioned to make room for Forrest Whitley, who we mentioned earlier in the episode and who we should do our own Meet a Major Leaguer about because, boy, has that guy had a journey. But I think given Houston's situation with injuries that we will see Arrighetti again. As Chandler has noted, if and when Forrest Whitley makes his major league debut, this was tweeted before Whitley was officially called up, he will be the 22nd pitcher used by the Astros this season. It is April 16th, Ben. Yeah, that's a used 24 pitchers total last season. And while Arrigetti's second start wasn't especially efficient and it wasn't amazing, it was better.

And the strikeouts to Acuna seemed to have been confidence building for him. He said postgame, it shows me I can pitch here, Arrigetti said. It shows me that I can pitch here the same way I pitched in the past. So until we see you again, Spencer Arrighetti, it was nice to meet you. Can't believe Vinny Pasquantino victimized Spencer Arrighetti. Come on. I know. Got to get on the same page here, people. I can confirm that he is of Italian descent because I found a story from last summer when he was in AA for the Corpus Christi Hooks. And it says, whenever Arigetti has made a start recently, his teammates have rocked a shirt pregame that reads, spaghetti of meatballs.

I do love spaghetti, Arigetti says. I am Italian by heritage. So the nickname kind of just comes from Spencer and Arigetti getting mashed up. I think people my entire life have called me that. So that should be very reassuring for you that he's not letting the nickname go unused. Well, and look, you know, sometimes people get very sensitive about these things, you know, and you don't want to assume,

but also it's just too good a nickname to pass up. It really is. Yeah. Okay. Really, I'm doing sort of a twofer here because they're teammates, maybe best teammates. But really, my primary meet a major leaguer is Blaze Alexander of the Arizona Diamondbacks, who you've probably seen in person. He made his debut on March 28th, and he is still up. and he is still up.

I also want to give a shout out to his briefly teammate, Jorge Barrosa, also at the Diamondbacks, who made his debut on April 1st and then was sent down not long after, hopefully and probably he will be back. But Blaise Alexander is 24 years old, going on 25, and he's a shortstop and second baseman. My eye was drawn to him

in part just because his name is Blaze. It really is. That's not a nickname. That is his given name, Blaze. He's not the only Blaze these days in baseball. And he comes from a baseball family. So his brother, CJ Alexander, is a player right now. He's a minor leaguer. And they were drafted in the same draft. So CJ Alexander is in the Royal system, I believe, at AAA. So for all we know, we might get another Alexander up sometime soon. But they were both drafted in 2018.

Blaze in the 11th round, CJ in the 20th round. And on that day, each of them tweeted that the other was the steal of the draft, which is very cute, brotherly love, right? But, and they were, I think, expected to go higher in the draft, and they fell. I guess in Blaze's case, it was because he was holding out for a bigger bonus. I think he ended up getting half a million. But it's not just them.

So their father, Chuck is their father, was a minor league pitcher in the Cleveland organization in the 80s. Their father's father, Charles, is the grandfather. He pitched in the Cubs organization. So they had two generations there preceding them in the minors. But then also they are related to the Plesaks. So Chuck Alexander, the father of Blaze and CJ, is the first cousin of Dan Plesak. So they are related as well. And Plesak had a brother who was a minor leaguer too. Amazing. And the nephew of Dan and Joe Plesak is, of course, Zach Plesak, the Plesak Hatterack. And then the Alexanders, their mother played high school volleyball and softball, and they had brothers and sisters who played volleyball and wrestled and football.

It's just jocks all the way down with the Alexanders and the Plesaks, right? I mean, they're family gatherings. If they have scrimmages on the backyard, it must get extremely competitive. And apparently he's named Blaze. I was wondering how you get the name. Yeah, like how do you get there? Right. And according to him, my dad played minor league baseball for the Indians and met a player called Blaze. So he decided on the spot that he would name his kid Blaze. Amazing. He thought it was a really cool baseball name and

actually argued with my mom, who wanted to call me Chaney, C-H-E-N-E-Y, so they battled and settled on Blaze Chaney Alexander. I don't know who the original Blaze was, because there doesn't seem to have been a Blaze in Cleveland's system

in the 80s. Interesting. Or really anywhere during the time that Chuck was active. So I don't doubt that he met a Blaze, but it seems not to have been a professionally playing Blaze at the time. But the MLB.com story about that says, you may wonder where his name Blaze comes from. So unique, so fiery. Well, it's not actually unique these days.

Blaze is kind of catching on. Like, I don't think it's one of the more popular names, but there are a bunch of Blazes out there these days. After almost no Blazes before, there was one Blaze, a Blaze Kadich, or Kadich in 1983 played a few games in the Expos system, but he was the only professional baseball Blaze. But lately, there have been a bunch of Blazes and there are some other active Blazes. There's Blaze Jordan, who's in the Red Sox system.

There's Blaze Pontes. He's in the A's system in the lower minors. There was a Blaze Brothers. What an amazing name. Sorry he hasn't made it, but he was in the minors for a couple years, a couple years ago. Several Blazes these days. I kind of like it. You almost have to be fast.

Like if you're Blaze and you're not fast, that would just be sort of disappointing. So you kind of have to live up to the name. But I guess he does. And so he comes from incredible baseball bloodlines and here they are. He was like down in the thirties, I think, in the Diamondback system in Eric Long and Higgins ranking last summer. But he went to IMG, which is sort of like a prestigious high school. That's such a nice way to describe IMG. It's a prestigious sports high school.

Yes. Although the alumni of IMG when it comes to the majors are not that impressive, really. Apparently, John Ryan Murphy, the former catcher, is like maybe the most distinguished baseball alum of IMG to this point. Oh, wow, really? Unless Blaze surpasses him. So Blaze says, I went for my senior year. There are posters of John Ryan Murphy everywhere. That's great.

Who knew they made posters of John Ryan Murphy? That's so funny. There are posters of John Ryan Murphy everywhere in the hallways and the locker rooms. That's so funny. There are posters of John Ryan Murphy everywhere in the hallways and the locker rooms. So John Ryan Murphy is, I guess, a hero at IMG, which doesn't say that much about the credentials of IMG as a sports school. Because John Ryan Murphy, kind of like, you know, replacement level player, he's stuck around for several years. But if he's the guy on the posters, you know, that's not the best. I think they have more impressive long-term prospects than him.

Just two dates, I guess. Yeah, yeah. But maybe Blaze will be better than John Ryan Murphy, and they'll tear down those John Ryan Murphy posters and replace them with Blaze Alexander posters. But he's a big video game guy, self-described, so I like that, obviously. He's kind of a Fortnite type, which makes sense given the demographic here.

I hope that he will be doing it side by side with Jorge Barossa. I know. Yeah, who was called up again. His initial stay was short. That's not a pun. I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. He's literally my height.

He is for a major leaguer. It's funny because everywhere I went, like I was reading Long and Higgins' scouting report on him, he was like ranked 10th in the Diamondback system last year. And he kept describing his swing as short. It's a good thing.

It doesn't mean he is short, but also he is short. He is short. This story at is short. He is short. This story at MILB.com this March, Barossa's big league dream within reach after 2023 season of growth. Oh boy. Which made it sound like,

you know, he grew a little last season and now he's like, you must be this tall to make the majors. He's like, he's within reach. If he stands on his tippy toes, he could make it to the majors. It's like, he's within reach. If he stands on his tippy toes, he could make it to the majors. It's so funny though, because he is one of,

and the D-backs had a number of guys like this, where when they got measured for ABS, he shrunk. I mean, he didn't literally shrink, but his listed height went down by several inches. Well, I'm not surprised because if you were on the shorter end of the spectrum, historically,

athletes will tend to tack on an inch end of the spectrum, historically, athletes will tend to tack on an inch or two or three, not just athletes, men in general. Orgs that employ athletes. Dating apps. Yeah. So it happens. And now there's no hiding anymore, I guess. And so we know that he stands five foot five. I assume that is now accurate. Yeah. Barrosa is 23 and from Venezuela, unlike the Floridian Blaise Alexander, who stands a comparatively tall five foot 11. I hate to dwell on this single thing about him. He's probably sick of everyone fixating on that, but it is notable. Certainly for a major leaguer. We have not seen the likes, really, of Jorge Barossa in quite some time. The only 5'5 or shorter player that we've seen in any recent years is Esteban Quiroz,

who played very briefly for the Cubs in 2022 and was also listed at 5'5", though 5'5", 199, which is a little bit different from the 5'5", 165 that Barossa is listed at. The thing is that Barossa is an outfielder. He's a center fielder and a good one. A very good one. And that makes him stand out even more because most of the players that height have been infielders, which, you know, you kind of think of like middle infielders, you know, smaller of stature in the past at least. They can be weak. that short on the position player side, you have to go from Quiroz to Freddie Patek, who last played in 1981, and then Al Montreal, who played in 1972 and only 1972. They were infielders. So the last outfielder to be 5'5 or shorter was Albie Pearson, who played from 1958 to 1966. That was a really, really long time ago. And players have gotten bigger and people in general have gotten bigger.

And Jorge Barossa is really bucking the trends here. So he is the first in several decades, certainly to be in the outfield at that height, at least an accurate height. Listed. At least his listed height. Because if one wanted to point fingers and cast a side eye, one might look to the Astros infield and just blink. Exactly.

But Jose Altuve is an infielder again, so fits that mold a little more. The last pitcher to be 5'5 or shorter was Connie Marrero, who last pitched in 1954. five five or shorter was Connie Marrero who last pitched in 1954 so he really is an outlier there and that's why that gets a lot of attention but he's a switch hitter he's a good defender yeah you know maybe unsurprisingly he doesn't have a ton of power he not a ton no he hit like 12 homers in the minors last year which was partly a park effects league effects thing he he hadn't really hit for that much power before that was like as much as he had hit to that point, I think he hit last year. So, you know, maybe he's more of a defensive replacement, extra outfielder type. Maybe he can be better than that, but it's exciting to see anyone who deviates in either direction from the typical body type for a baseball player,

especially if they can really play, and he can. And he had a suspenseful night before his big league debut because he was waiting to see if he would get the call. He was on the taxi squad in the postseason last year, so he was around the team. He got exposed to the team, but never got into a game. And this year it was kind of like a game time almost decision whether he would get the call because he was waiting to see. It was Alec Thomas who was getting an MRI and it wasn't clear if he was going on the IL and he did. And Jorge Barosa said he

didn't sleep a lot the night before he made that debut. He was tossing and turning, waiting to see if he would get the call, which reminds me of the night back in college when I was tossing and turning because I hoped or thought that my first ever baseball prospectus piece was going to be published in the morning. I didn't know which day it was going to be. And so I was so excited. I couldn't sleep. I was like waiting for the day's BP articles to go up for Christina Carl to press publish and make my day. And I was so excited. I just couldn't sleep, which is much like Jorge Barrosa. So we've all been there in one way or another. Yeah. And then Randall Gritchick came up and ruined everything. Yeah. All right. A few

follow-ups for you. Rangers reliever Brock Burke became the latest in a long line of big leaguers to break his own hand in frustration after an outing. It was a Brock Burke break. Further fodder for my suggestion that there needs to be a punching bag and or padded walls in every dugout tunnel and clubhouse area. Burke did show some restraint. He's a left-handed pitcher and he broke his right hand, but he still has to go on the IL because pitchers need their non-pitching hand to field. Telling you, punching bag, padded walls, millions dollar idea. Couple responses to our MLB reboot hypothetical from the last episode.

Dan, Patreon supporter, says, I can imagine at least two not entirely depressing scenarios where this might come into play. One would be the rise of an alternative league like Live Golf, or perhaps more positively, a player-operated league. By design, this league starts with a clean slate, and upon overtaking MLB,

it becomes the dominant timeline. A second viable version would be a major merger of pro leagues. For example, if MLB, NPB, and KBO combined to form the Pacific Baseball League, all three might agree to zero out their stats and start anew. This would be cool.

Less cool, but maybe more plausible, Bennett, Patreon supporter, says, the English Premier League did a form of starting over in 1992. It was an economic breakup, but one of the effects is that they restarted the record books. It's common still, though, for records to be discussed in both context of Premier League since 1992 and where it

stacks up against the full history of top-flight football. Something like that seems the most likely scenario to me where a rebrand or reset of league history would happen. Imagine a scenario where the top 20 teams or so decide they don't want to pay luxury taxes anymore and they don't want to share national revenue, so they break off and form their own super league. I'd imagine there would be both a new record book for that league and a continuation of the major league record book. And that isn't so far-fetched that it feels impossible to happen in our lifetime. And past pass blaster Richard Hershberger, the historian, says, Your discussion of whether MLB might reboot its history overlooked that this has already been done.

Your discussion of whether MLB might reboot its history overlooked that this has already been done. MLB will tell you that the first World Series was in 1903. The World Series between the National League and the American Association from 1884 to 1890 are written out of the history books. Baseball Reference lists them, but that's a recent development prompted by tiresome 19th century baseball nerds. Read sports writers in the 1900s, and they clearly knew perfectly well that the World Series of the 1880s happened, and they treated the NLAL World Series as a revival. The great forgetting that 19th century baseball happened is a phenomenon of the 1930s with a younger generation of sports writers who didn't grow up with it. What makes the erasure of the 1880s World Series work is the gap of the 1890s. This provides a clear separation. Talking about eras is harder. Whatever year we land on for the beginning of the modern era, was baseball the season before that actually that different? Era boundaries are

fuzzy, making them hard to enforce. But people try. Lots of people today discount pre-integration stats. This is well-meant, but the idea that everything reset in 1947 does not stand up to scrutiny. The lack of discrete boundaries is what would make a formal reboot of the record books difficult, not a resistance to the idea of a reboot as shown with the early world series. Also in response to our discussion of Shohei and Ipe, Jeff says, one point I haven't seen made regarding Ipe not betting on baseball is that his bookie likely wouldn't allow him to. Bookies, as far as I know, use public lines and pay winnings from their own pocket. And given Ipe's betting amounts, his bookie would have known who he was. We know he knew who he was.

Any large wager on baseball would potentially come with inside information, making the public lines incorrect, posing too great of a risk to the bookie to accept it. I think that explains the uncharacteristic restraint Ipe appears to have displayed. Possible. And in response to the interpretation kerfuffle over Dodgers interpreter Will Ireton saying that Otani had said that he personally had met with the fans who caught his first home run ball with the Dodgers. Subsequently, he did meet with them in person. But that first time he didn't, Ireton translated what Otani said as indicating that Otani had met with them personally, whereas a lot of other people who understand Japanese disagreed that he implied any personal interaction.

Well, maybe the last word on this comes from listener Wataru, who says, I'm an associate professor of linguistics at University of Edinburgh, and the syntax and semantics of Japanese is one of my specialized areas. It's pretty clear from the audio that Otani didn't say that he himself met the fan,

but it is also easy to see why it was misunderstood by many people as such, even by the translator. If translated literally, it would be something like, because it was the fact that I would receive someone else's talking with the fan. The receive bit is crucial here. This is a part of the so-called benefactive construction in Japanese, where verbs like give and receive are used in combination with another verb

to indicate that the action described by the latter verb is done for the benefit of another person. In the case of give, the subject of the sentence does something for the benefit of someone else. In the case of receive, the subject is the beneficiary of another person's action. Crucially, it is grammatically impossible for the beneficiary and the agent of the action to be the same person. The above statement by Otani involves the benefactive construction with receive. So the implicit subject, the first person I equals Otani, is the beneficiary of someone else's action of talking to the fan. You can infer from the context that this someone else is probably a Dodgers staff member. And of course, Ayrton, being Otani's interpreter for the moment, knew that Otani had not spoken personally to the fan. Wataru says, now Ben correctly pointed out that pronouns can often be dropped in Japanese

and this can sometimes cause confusion. However, this is probably not the source of the confusion in this particular case. I suspect the confusion has come from the fact that the crucial benefactive verb receive linearly comes after the verb talk due to the fact that Japanese is a head final language. And so if you listen to the sentence in real time

up to the verb Hanashite, talk, you might interpret him as saying, I talked to the fan, but you have to revise this interpretation after hearing itadaku, receive. In both interpretations, though, the implicit subject is the first person, I talk to the fan, and I received someone else's talking to the fan. In the audio, I could hear that Otani paused a bit after hanashite, talk, and itadaku, receive is less audible. So that didn't help either. In any case, I thought this might give you some insight into the situation. Let me know anytime when you'd like to reconstruct the baseball tower of Babel. By the way, I asked Wataru whether he thought this was an understandable mistake for the

interpreter to make in that moment, or whether, in his opinion, someone in that position should have avoided this confusion. And Wataru said, given that the resulting interpretation is clearly truth conditionally different from the one Otani intended, I think a professional translator should have avoided the mistake. And lastly, let me put in a plug for the annual Saber Seminar, which will be taking place this August 24th and 25th in Chicago on the Illinois Tech campus. Early ticket sales just opened, as well as abstract and scholarship submissions. So get your tickets

or submit your papers at saberseminar.com. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some monthly

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Check the links on the show page for upcoming Effectively Wild listener meetups at MLB ballparks across the country. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We'll be back with another episode soon. Talk to you then.