Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2167: All Tuckered Out

Episode Date: May 22, 2024

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the hype surrounding Paul Skenes starts and how Skenes has leveled up since he was drafted, whether Kyle Tucker could finally shed his “most underrated player” label, Gunnar Henderson vs. Bobby Witt Jr. (and the Orioles’ infield/outfield future), the resurgent Royals, Jo Adell’s (maybe?) breakout, Joey Gallo’s ever-stranger […]

If baseball were different, how different would it be? And if this thought haunts your dreams, well, stick around and see what Ben and Meg have to say. Philosophically and pedantically, it's Effectively Wild. Effectively Wild. Effectively Wild. Hello and welcome to episode 2167 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Raleigh of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello. I think I have developed the right mindset when it comes to Skeens Day, where I have put the apprehension out of my mind. I've banished any worries, any fears about what might happen to someone who throws triple digits with the regularity that Paul Skeens does.

And I'm just going to enjoy it for as long as it lasts, as long as he's dealing. I'm just going to live in the moment day to day. This is my Dr. Strangelove, how I learned to stop worrying and love Skeen's day. I'm just going to enjoy him blowing people away and convince myself that it will last forever until proven otherwise. That feels like a healthy approach to really any pitcher you enjoy. There's nothing I can do to safeguard him. So yeah, I'll just enjoy it. Just enjoy it. And when it looks like it did on Friday, like, boy, really hard not to enjoy it because I was out of town for his first start and then got to watch, well, some of his second start, I think we were recording through. So I, you know, I went back and started it over. You know, you had told me that his command was poor in his first go.

And I don't think you were alone in that assessment. No. Yes, Manny Grandal, his catcher, said he was effectively wild. Right. And then he was just plain effective in the second one. So that's pretty cool. What a fun thing. And also, you know, you're looking for reasons to have a less sort of stressful time with him. And all that run support sure helps.

You're like, he's going to, you know, he's probably going to get a win here. And his pitch count got high enough, fast enough that you're like, we're probably not going to have to worry about a no-hitter decision point. You know, this is going to be natural. Everyone sort of understands what's going on here. That was a fun one. That was a fun Friday. Speaking of triple digits, though, they did let him throw 100 pitches. They did.

Exactly. So they have loosened the leash a little bit once he's gotten up to the big leagues. He's not throwing a ton of pitches, but he was throwing 60-something, 70-something often in his minor league outings. And so maybe it was more just, well, let's not waste the pitches or the innings in games that don't really count. And these will just be warm ups and he's not really challenged at this level anyway. And then when he gets up to the big leagues, it wouldn't be that great a leap to go from four or five innings to six, let's say, and we'll give him a few more pitches because these are meaningful pitches or more meaningful pitches now. So that was nice to see. They at least let us see six innings of unhittable skeins. He struck out, what, the first seven hitters he

faced? So it's kind of a letdown from there. He only struck out 11 in the end, really just didn't keep up that pace of striking out 21 or 27, I guess, is what he was on pace there for a while. Although if he had kept up that pace, then we would have had even more heartbreak when he was inevitably pulled for pitch count related reasons. But yeah, he was awesome. And it's just refreshing to have a positive pitching story. He's not the only great pitcher, young pitcher this season. He's not the only great young pitcher in the Pirates rotation this season. But there's been so much negative news about pitchers and they all break.

And why should we care about any of them when they will leave us? And maybe at least for now, we can just sort of appreciate this. Now, of course, if he does get hurt, then that'll be doubly depressing now that I've kind of let myself get excited and hyped about this. But what else are we going to do? What's the other option just to never get invested in a pitcher's success again? I mean, that's kind of what I was lamenting with all the injuries, how it just feels like you can't really let yourself get too attached to a pitcher because their ligaments will not stay attached. But I'm just going to put that out of my mind and I'm just going to enjoy the ride. It's hard to point to any individual

attribute of a starter and say, well, but those guys don't break, right? Like, the spindly guys break, and the big-thighed boys break, and the guys who throw soft, and the guys who throw hard, and the guys who throw mostly fast balls, and the guys who have a greater preponderance of, you know, secondary stuff. Like, there's an example of every kind of guy breaking. And so, I don't want to overstate the case, breaking. And so I don't want to overstate the case and I don't want to say that he'll never break. I think that instinctively, I'm still inclined to feel more confident and more comfortable with the guys who are built like skeins, just because that frame that size feels like it portends an ability to like absorb pitches and punches i don't know like it so and again like there are plenty of guys who are big and strong who end up needing tommy drone surgery so i don't want to say that it's impossible but i don't know

i do find myself not having to talk myself into confidence around it quite as much when it's a guy who's built like skeins is as opposed to like yuri perez where you look at that guy and you're like well you might break any number of ways like you're this like construction crane of a guy so you know it's just a tricky it's a it's a thing we have to navigate what's that expression it's better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all, something like that. Yes. Yeah, I think probably to have that kind of distribute the strain over a bigger frame or no one part of your body has to work quite as hard to generate. It's like Tim Lincecum, for instance,

who was as good as anyone for a while, but people were afraid that he wouldn't hold up. And ultimately he didn't really, because he just had to generate such incredible arm speed to generate the velocities that he did. And he could only keep that up for so long. Yeah. I don't know if that applies to, say, a UCL, because ultimately it's just the weak point in the kinetic chain. And no matter how strong the rest of your body is, I mean, yes, you can strengthen the rest of your arm and that can take some of that stress and everything. But ultimately, there is going to be a lot of stress channeled into that weak point when you're throwing as hard as Paul Skeens is, however you do it. So I don't know how much Bill affects, say, Tommy John surgery or the likelihood of your ligament staying intact. But again,

why am I even framing this in terms of when will he break? I could just appreciate how awesome he is because it's really, I think it's probably pretty rare for someone to be drafted 1-1 first overall and to get clearly better since then, right? Like he's clearly a better pitcher and prospect now than he was when he was drafted and he was drafted first overall so he was super hyped as a pitching prospect then but since then he has added pitches he has manipulated pitches he basically got by in college by blowing everyone away with his fastball and his slider and that was really all he had to do. And since he's gotten into the pro ranks and now in the majors,

he kind of has like multiple variants of pitches. He has his splinker, right? His sort of splitter sinker thing that no one quite knows what to call. And I guess that was kind of an accident. Like the pitch kind of came out of his hands in a weird way and it worked well. And so he replicated that and it turns into a super effective weapon.

And he, if anything, has too many pitches now, arguably. Noah Woodward, former Effectively Wild guest, former front office guy for the Advanced Scout, his newsletter, he wrote about how it's kind of an embarrassment of riches with the fastball, the changeup, the slider, sweeper, splinker, whatever, the curveball. And Noah suggested maybe he just won't throw as many changeups anymore. He'll be just sort of a primarily fastball splinker guy with an occasional breaking ball. Or he could get really unorthodox and be a primary splinker guy and not throw his four-seamer so much. And his changeup would kind of function as his slower fastball almost.

But he's throwing more now. Yeah. So there are a number of ways he could go. But it seems like he has the ability to manipulate the ball and do kind of a pitchability thing, a feel for pitching in addition to his extreme stuff. So, and Eric Longenhagen of FanCrafts, he raised his scouting grade, right? Yeah, he's 65 now. Yeah, and that might not sound so impressive on a 20 to 80 scale, but that is quite impressive. As Eric wrote, there's a select list of pitchers who've ever gotten that grade from him. And he was a 60 in terms of his overall future potential when he was drafted, right?

And I think he may have been even a 55 potentially leading up to the draft. And he's climbed, like he's taken some leaps to the point where, didn't people used to say, you know, I'm not exactly an expert on college baseball players, but wasn't he at a time looked at as just like a very high floor, high certainty, like it's not going to take him that long to get there, but he might not be an ace, let's say, like he's just kind of a high probability guy with potential to be better than that, but not like a lock to be an ace. Not that anyone's really a lock,

but it seems like now there's just no discounting, obviously the floor or the probability he's there, he's in the big leagues, but there just seems to be no restriction to his ceiling now whatsoever. So when, when Skeens was a draft prospect, he was, he was a 55 for us. you're right to say that. And I think that the way that Eric put it at the time when he concluded his write-up of Skeens was drafted, people had started to parse their opinion of

and expectation of the role that sort of fastball shape would play for him. And he went through this stretch where it was like, he was the best guy and everyone thought he was amazing. And then I think people started to look at stuff under the hood and were saying, well, the fastball shape isn't optimal, which it wasn't. But then I think it kind of swung back up by the time we rolled through to draft day and people were like well but there's all this other stuff and when he can locate it it's really great plus pitch even if its shape isn't optimal all the time and so i think that he was highly regarded but there was for a lot of draft analysts a greater emphasis on sort of his quick moving nature necessarily than his like super superstar upside. But, you know, people reevaluate wanting to call it with, you know, modifications to his overall usage patterns, upping the change up, put people in a sort of different frame of mind for him. And yeah, now he's a 65 and we will simply continue to look at him with the same leap of faith that we have for all really great pitching prospects.

And I will put the emphasis on the body composition part of the catechism and hope that holds for his health going forward, as it were. And for now, if you're a Pirates fan, just enjoy it. You got Jared Jones Day. You got Paul Skeen's Day. You got a number of other promising pitchers in the rotation, in the pitching staff, everywhere around. It's just, it's nice. Things working up. A lot of exciting players to keep an eye on whether or not the team ends up contending this season. All right. A few other players I wanted to touch on today. So at the very top of the Fangraphs combined war leaderboard or any war leaderboard

you look at, tied with Shohei Otani at 3.1 is one Kyle Tucker of the Houston Astros. Kyle Tucker is having himself a season. He sure is. Yeah. He's been a very good player for quite a while now. Yeah. And I think he has kind of been the go-to when it comes to who's the most underrated player in baseball. It was Anthony Rendon for a while. Then I think it was Jose Ramirez for a while. Arguably, it could still be Jose Ramirez. Yeah, it's kind of come and gone depending on who you're talking to and when. Yeah, right.

But Kyle Tucker has as strong a case as anyone. And after a certain point, once that becomes such a frequent refrain where you can kind of identify the guy who gets identified most often as most underrated, maybe arguably you lose that status at that point. But I think it's only for, you know, kind of like a baseball diehard seam head group that would say that, oh, yeah, this guy is the best player in baseball and nobody knows it. There is still a large contingent of baseball followers and mainstream or more casual fans who still wouldn't identify that guy as among the best. And Kyle Tucker, I mean, he has a 192 WRC plus right now. He sure does. He's slugging 618. He's got 15 home runs. I think he's what tied for the major league lead in homers. Maybe he's walked more than he has

struck out. He's doing it all offensively. And I don't know what it is about him that has always repelled intrigue or excitement. I'm sure Astros fans appreciate his work and follow him very closely, but there's just something about him that just has held him back when it comes to graduating to superstar notoriety or fame. And maybe that's still the case, but if he keeps hitting like this, like, I don't know if it's just that he's not that well-rounded a player. Not that he's like bad only guy. Like, he's a pretty good base runner. He has some speed. Like, he stole 30 bases last year. He's got nine this year. It's not like he's some slow poke. And I mean, I guess defensively, he's not a standout, but he's not a liability either. He's above average. He's been quite good in right field

at times. So I don't know what it is. I mean, he's on a team that gets a lot of attention for good or ill. That's always contending and playing deep into the postseason. And yet, maybe it's just that he's overshadowed on his own team by bigger stars like Altuve, Jordan, Bregman in the past, you know, guys who've been bigger heels or maybe just better players at times until right now. I've kind of contemplated the anonymity of Kyle Tucker for a while now, because on the one hand, I think, you know, it's quite surprising that a guy who is on a team that is so regularly playing, not only in October, but deep into October, right, is still largely anonymous. And I guess I would offer your explanation that he has not been either the very best or the most notorious player on his own team. And so maybe that has a lot to do with

it. I would imagine that a guy who I think is even among people who are still worked up about the banging scheme and I'm not I feel like every time I say that it sounds more judgmental than I mean it to be you know I'm not trying to tell you you can't be bothered by it but you know he only he played his first 28 big league games in 2018 you know that wasn't you know he's one of those guys um so you would think that that would work in his favor but i think that because so much of the last couple of years of of astro's play as he has rounded into form and become you know a real presence like has been defined by the fact that you know that team was the banging scheme team he played played 20 games in 2018 and 22 in

2019. You know, he didn't establish himself until we were in this stretch of us knowing that team for their cheating. And I think that that kind of diminishes his ability to break through. You know, his first like full big league season was the pandemic year, so that's kind of working against him. I think that we are collectively disrespectful to the Ichabod Crane face, and that is

to our detriment. But he also doesn't, I think, you know, when you think about the guys who, both on the Astros, but across baseball more generally, you think of as having who both on the Astros, but across baseball more generally, you think of as having like big standout personalities like he's not really on that list. And I don't know if that's because he prefers to be sort of in the background or because he has one and it's just been underreported. Chandler Rome wrote a piece for The Athletic last April 2023 that said, from stone-faced RBI man or RBI machine to Astro's witty what-if pitch man, Kyle Tucker. And it was all about how, oh, he's actually funny and he's come out of his shell. And you had all these

teammates testifying to the fact that, yes, Kyle Tucker has a personality. Like he's actually become quite talkative and he's cracking everyone up. But I guess on a national level, that hasn't really broken through, at least on my radar, really. And maybe it was because he didn't show that initially right out of the gate that he got pigeonholed kind of as like a blander. You know, just maybe it's because his name is Kyle Tucker. It's just, it doesn't stand out. I don't know. It's just not flashy. I don't know. But we should be paying more attention to him. We should be talking about him more. We're talking about him right now. That's a good start. You know, one thing that might serve to really change the narrative for him is that, you know, I know that there has been back and forth about the sort of likelihood of Tucker and the Astros getting a long-term

extension done or him hitting free agency, but ultimately returning to Houston. And I think that regardless of the outcome there, whether it's, you know, he signs a big long-term extension, and I think it will need to be a quite sizable contract to keep him in Houston, or he reaches, you know, free agency after next season, there's nothing like a $100 million contract to put somebody's name on everybody's radar, right? And assuming he continues to play like this and stays healthy, you know, I know he's 27 this year, but I imagine his deal will be a pretty lucrative one. That'll probably help a little bit, right? Where it's like, oh, the people who don't know him are going to be like, oh, my God, that guy signed a hundred million dollar deal.

And, you know, the ones that do know him are going to be like, yeah. Although, you know, who knows what the I guess he enters free agency entering the season after next season. So he won't be he won't be in the group that I maybe most think is likely to get undone a bit by the next CBA negotiation. So, yeah, I think that people will kind of come to know him more. But the fact that the Astros aren't especially good right now probably isn't helping him either. Like, it would be one thing if he were the best guy, and he is, on a team that's leading the AL West. But, you know, as we're recording today, the Astros are still sitting at 21 and 27. You know, they're five games back in the West.

They're trailing the Mariners. Yes, they are. Yeah. Although, they're coming up lately. They've been winning. You know, they're in third place now, which I know doesn't sound great, but they were worse before. Their Fangrass playoff odds are just over 50 percent. So you can never count them out.

And they've been playing more like they have been expected to lately. We'll see if that continues. Would obviously help if Kyle Tucker keeps playing like the best player in baseball. He's doing literally everything he possibly could. You know, I don't know that you could ask a whole lot more of him. Now, just below Tucker and Otani on the war leaderboard, well, you have Mookie Betts, a tenth of a war behind, and then a tenth of a war below Mookie,

you have Gunnar Henderson and Bobby Witt Jr. And I was going to ask you, which one would you rather have? Oh, gosh. Yeah. I've played this game before. We've played this game. Gosh, I played this with like Freddie Freeman and Paul Goldschmidt and Manny Machado and Nolan Aranato years ago.

When you have a couple young stars at the same position who are sort of similarly talented, sometimes it's fun to just pick a side. Not that we can't enjoy both of them, but they're tied right now in war. Yeah, I was just about to say, the exact same war. Yes, and Ken Rosenthal wrote something this week about what do you do for all-star game voting? How do you choose between those two guys?

But how do you choose between those guys long-term, let alone this season? And Witt has slumped a little bit lately, whereas Henderson has continued to pour it on. Witt is a little bit older. Yeah. Henderson is, well, yeah. He has 16 home runs.

It's May 21st. Yeah, so he's one ahead of Tucker, I guess. I think that's right, yeah. He's got a 169 WRC plus and he's playing short and pretty good short seemingly. Pretty good short. Yeah, and he's still 22 years old. Yeah. Witt, of course, is great. He's a little further along. I mean, he's also in his third season. He's 23, an old man of 23. So he hasn't

been quite as spectacular offensively, but he's been very good, especially prior to his recent slump. And he's continued to be good on defense after his resurgence at short last year. I don't know. It's really tough to choose. Joshian just did a thing on his newsletter where he surveyed his readers about who would they rather have, and he put it to them, Bobby Witt Jr., Gunnar Henderson, or a couple other young shortstops,

Ellie De La Cruz, and Jackson Holiday, who has continued not to hit so well in Norfolk since his demotion, but he's the youngest of them all. And then some readers also suggested, well, maybe Anthony Volpe should be in the mix there. Maybe C.J. Abrams should be. So we've got just a great young generation of star shortstops coming along here. But

if you had to pick between Witt and Henderson, how do you even decide? Because those two were essentially tied at the top of the standings, according to Joe's readers. And again, totally tied according to the fan crafts world leaderboard. So I don't know. I don't know how you choose. There are a couple of ways we could do this. So it's like with with the defensive piece of it, you know, what was so bad and then he figured stuff out and made adjustments and now has been uh quite strong as a shortstop you know with with gunner i think there is still this lingering question about where his long-term defensive home is but that's as much about getting organizational pieces to

kind of fit together as it is his own uh skill. I think he's proven to be a bit better than a viable shortstop defender, which is kind of where we thought of him when he was a prospect. So, you know, there's that. He does have versatility beyond shortstop. So maybe that sways you. Oh gosh, it's so tricky.

So in my sim league, I have Gunnar on my roster. So maybe I'll just pick him because that is easier. So in my sim league, I have Gunner on my roster. So maybe I'll just pick him because that is easier. I had regret for a stretch last year because when I was up, I could have taken him or Corbin and I took Gunner. And then I was like, did I make the right choice? And I'm like, but I don't really think you could go wrong with either choice because they're both just so talented. It's really quite exciting. I mean, maybe, I don't know, like maybe you give Witt the slight edge from like a strikeout rate perspective. But like it's not like Gunnar Henderson's strikeout rate is bad. It's just like slightly elevated relative to Witt.

So you're really splitting hairs there to make it about that. Yeah. Witt's got better speed or better base stealing ability, I guess. But yeah, I don't know. I guess I'd go Gunner just because he is a little more than a year younger and he has been better offensively. They were similar last year. And so maybe this is just a prisoner of the moment take because Gunner is off to such an incredible start and Witt is slumping slightly as we speak. So it might change my tune, but that's because you could kind of flip a coin

between these two guys. So yeah, Witt, he's very solidified at that position. Like he's, you know, his future is assured with the Royals. He signed the extension, like he's the franchise guy. The Orioles have a bunch of franchise guys and as you said there's some potential that Gunnar might move it's looking less and less likely that that will happen anytime soon with yeah Holiday struggling at the moment and Henderson handling the position just fine I don't know what the Orioles are gonna do they just have too many infielders like they just have too many I mean they traded Joey just have too many. I mean, they traded Joey Ortiz, who's been a top 50 player by fan graphs war thus far. Imagine if he was still

in the mix with Baltimore. But even as it is, it's like, well, where is, how are they going to play when he comes back up? And then where are they going to put Connor Norby and Colby Mayo? And like, there's just nowhere to stick those guys like it seems like they just have to make another trade of some sort I saw a rumor that there's some consideration of moving Holiday to center you know they have like other prospects out there too they have Colton Couser you know it's crowded wherever you look I guess he's not necessarily like a true plus center fielder, maybe. And so you could try to do the Jackson Merrill move with Holiday,

but he's already kind of picked up a new position this season and he's scuffling offensively. So maybe it's not the best moment to pile that on his shoulders too. But either they have to get creative or, well, they have to get creative in a different way,

which is just making another trade for another starter or something. It's just, you know, you're going to have prospects wither on the vine at some point. It's so funny because we talk about the, you know, the infield log jam that the Orioles are contending with. And then it's like, what about the outfield? And it's like, it's somehow worse out there. You know, like the thing about it is like the pressure seems to even be worse

out in the outfield. Got all these guys, no places to play him. I don't know. I guess like the holiday stuff, I want to, I want to avoid overreacting

to the holiday stuff in every which way, both in terms of what it means for him long-term as a player and also sort of how much needs to be done in this particular moment to like make room for him on the big league roster like i think it's clear that he is like going gonna need to go

through a meaningful adjustment and like eric wrote about this today in his top 100 update the his spray chart has changed like where he's hitting the ball to is different there's there needs to be a shift now like we saw the really amazing version of jackson holiday that still exists in there somewhere but the adjustment period has come for him and how he responds to that is gonna i think dictate a lot of things for not only him but also the rest of the guys in this conversation but leave gunner where he is right now there's not a pressing need for him to move off just yet. You know what my other thought in the Top 100 update, Ben? What?

I really wish that James Wood's name was different. I wish that James Wood had a different name because I'm like, it's going to be weird for search reasons. Anyway, who's this mean genie that makes us pick between players? Like, what's up with that genie? What's that genie's problem? That genie should go to therapy. Yeah, we get to enjoy them both. So these are fun thought exercises and ultimately the answer is

good news. We get to watch both of them. Isn't that fun? The Royals, by the way, it's not just wit. That team playing pretty well, gotta say. They're just a game and a half behind the Guardians as we record on Tuesday afternoon. They are backing up their busy offseason with some wins. Looking pretty good over there.

30-19. I think I referred to them as pesky at one point earlier in the season. And I feel like that adjective might be inadequate to our purpose now. We're going to have to come up with a new way to describe these Royals because I think they're in a position to maybe do some stuff. I still think of that Guardians team as pretty vulnerable. I know that they're 31 and 17 as we're recording and Quan is coming back at some point. It sounds like relatively soon. So that's quite exciting.

There are things for them that are going well. But I still think that the Royals are in a spot where they could do a little run for the money if they were interested in such a thing. Yeah. And it seems like they are based on their offseason activity. Yeah. And it seems like they are based on their offseason activity and they're four games over their base runs record, but the Guardians are six games over their base runs record. So I know that the AL Central having three winning teams and being kind of competitive and fun, that's been one of the stories of this season so far. Arguably, they've all been playing a bit over their heads, I suppose. Actually, if you sort by base runs over performance, it's Guardians at the top, then Rays, even though they haven't been so great, and then Royals, and then Phillies and Twins. performance it's guardians at the top then rays even though they haven't been so

great and then royals and then phillies and twins so it's three out of five of those top over performers have been in the aisle central but they've all been pretty good and at least other than the twins i think have exceeded expectations so far and theals, they have the second strongest rotation behind the Phillies right now by fan crafts war. Like this is a solid group. It's not just Cole Reagan's backing up all the preseason hype. It's a pretty strong rotation to this point. There's a lot to like about that team right now. Seth Lugo, Brady Singer, Michael Waka, some of the offseason additions who seemed kind of like, well, is this enough to put them over the top? They do have better than even odds to make the playoffs, just like the Astros do.

They've gotten there in different ways, but both slightly above a coin flip now to be playing October baseball. So that's exciting. I think I prefer the Royals way, though, because then I get to say a walka walka walka a lot. And I enjoy that. That feels like a little treat for me, Meg. The Phillies have just been a juggernaut, by the way. Yeah, they're really good. I don't want to give them short shrift either.

I think we thought the Phillies would be good and that this seemed like maybe the best incarnation of this Philly squad that we've seen. Yes. Because they remade themselves. The most complete team to me. Yeah, they remade themselves defensively and they're now a good to above average, you know, it's not a liability defensively for them anymore. And the pitching projected to be the best in baseball and has been the best in baseball. And you kind of think of them as like, oh, the Phillies, they rake, right? Like they have all the beefy boys and the former DHs and, you know, Bryce Harper and Schwerber and all these guys, right?

And their offense has not been their strength this season. I mean, it might still be. It hasn't been bad. But, you know, arguably everything about the Phillies has been good. Like their offense has been well above average, like their rotation. They just get what qualifies for length in this era. You have your Wheelers and you have your Nolas and then you have Ranger Suarez, who's been good before but has been great this year and seemingly has done it by taking a little off and improving his command, which is a way that I'd love to see more pitchers go just for self-preservation reasons. It's just a really good team. Even getting very little offense out of their outfield and Nick Castellanos and some of the guys that they have out there for their gloves more so than their bats. It's just a really solid team.

Even if, yeah, they have a good one-run record and they've been a bit better than the underlying numbers. They're leading Atlanta by five games right now. Plenty of season left to go, but that's pretty impressive. I think that the answer is obvious, and it isn't better roster construction, and it's not superlative pitching. And it's not, you know, they're thumpers thumping. It's that they really like to give each other a little kiss. You know? The boys on that team seem to enjoy giving each other a little consensual kiss. And I think that there are some among our listenership that think that this is somewhat prurient on my part. And look, if that's the way you want to take this, that's your business. I that that is a way that I think men are often

discouraged from expressing that bond with each other. And I think it is a nice thing when it is the right thing for you. And so, if there were a team in baseball and I were pointing at that team to say, this is proof that there is unmeasured vibes boost going on in the sport, it would be those Philadelphia Phillies who play good baseball and want to give each other a little kiss. Yeah. Only if they want to and they do. Only if they want to and they do. You know, it's like, it seems like everybody's having a really good time over there.

And, you know, when you're winning a lot, it's easy to have a good time. But sometimes you're winning a lot and the vibes still feel weird. And that's not true of that Phillies team. That Phillies team seems like it's really hitting a nice good stride. The vibes have been weird, but in a good way. A good kind of weird. Yeah. Yes.

I mean, like, they good kind of weird. Yeah. I mean, like they haven't been off. Yeah. And another point that Joe made in his indispensable newsletter, JoeSheehan.com, is that these Phillies, they seem to have figured out developing players, too. It's not just that they have broken the bank in free agency, which they have and good for them. That has gotten them squeaking into the bank in free agency, which they have and good for them. That has gotten them squeaking into the playoffs in recent years and enabled them to have deep October runs. But it's not just that now. It's that some guys from within have really taken the leap. Because when the Phillies' rebuild seemed to stagnate and stall, and it seemed like, gosh, they might not

actually come out on the other side of this thing. This might be kind of a dud. And they managed to sort of spend their way through that. But it was kind of like some of their prospects failed to launch or failed to launch to the heights that we expected them to. And again, like Tango did a thing recently where he used the Fangraphs free agency tracker to look at sort of net free agent dollars spent. So like teams that spent more on free agents than they lost with outgoing free agents.

And the Rangers were at the top. And then the Phillies were second. It makes sense. Those teams have invested a whole lot in free agency and they have reaped the rewards in recent years. But the Braves, by the way, are down at the bottom of that list. So you can succeed either way. You can just have a bunch of homegrown guys and sign them forever. And that way is a way to win also.

But the Phillies this year, they have guys like Suarez, Alec Boehm, Bryson Stott. Like these guys have been great. You know, these have been great. You know, these have been among their most valuable players, among the most valuable players. So it's not just the Wheelers and the Harpers and the Schwarbers. And I think that is what has really catapulted them to best record in baseball as we speak second best run differential behind the Dodgers. Yep, I think that's right. I look forward to following the rest of their season. And I wonder whether the Braves will make it interesting and whether they will close that lead.

Chris Sale, by the way. My goodness, it's vintage Chris Sale. The Sale resurgence. This is exciting, too. Where would they be without him? Where would they be? Yeah, wow. I remain concerned about whether he'll hold up just because that's kind of been a pattern Where would they be? Yeah. Wow. Always super successful in the postseason, but also in like September, like he just kind of wears down.

It seems like he does not have the Skeens-esque prototypical power pitchers built. No, he's made out of candy glass. Yeah. So I don't know. I hope he's not using up his good innings early because like when they got him, part of the rationale it seemed like was just like, well, if he's just around and still standing in October and he's someone you would want in a playoff rotation, even if he doesn't give you a whole lot of bulk or length, if he's healthy and available to start in October, he's someone who has that kind of pedigree. And he's that high caliber starter. You could stick out there and be comfortable with that. But he's been a whole lot better than that early this season. So hopefully he's pacing himself and he'll still be

performing at this new peak when October rolls around because the Braves will be there, whether they're there as division champions or not remains to be seen, but they'll be in the mix. I think that all of that is right. The Dodgers, I said, had the best run differential. The Phillies had the second best. And then the Yankees have the third best. And I got to say, I underestimated them, I think. I named them as a potential flop team when I was forced to pick a flop team, which in my mind at least doesn't mean that I thought they would definitely flop, but they seemed like a candidate to, yeah, because they

flopped last year. And so you could say, well, can you flop multiple seasons in a row? Does flopping once preclude future flopping? But I don't think with the Yankees it does, because it's always going to be perceived as a flop by their fans if they're not good. And I was quite worried about them, especially after Garrett Cole got hurt. And they've been without Cole to this point. He's close, it seems like. He's getting there. He's about to be facing hitters today. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So that's got to be scary to the Yankees rivals because they're 33 and 16 with the third best run differential in baseball without Garrett Cole. I mean, I am surprised that they have done it, that they have made this work so well that especially the rotation, like I was thinking, gosh, that is super vulnerable. Without Cole, you're depending on a Nestor Cortez bounce back. You're depending on a Carlos Renan bounce back and for him to stay healthy. You're banking on a bunch of guys who haven't really proven that they can make this

work long term in the rotation. You're banking on Clark Sch Schmitt going deeper into games or, you know, like— Stroman staying healthy. Stroman staying—Louise Heal, right? And all of those guys have been good. Like, they've all been good. It's been a very effective rotation. They were just on a long winning streak that was snapped by the Mariners, who had an uncharacteristic rally.

Yeah, I guess it was uncharacteristic of the Mariners to rally, but it was definitely uncharacteristic of Clay Holmes to blow it against the Mariners. It was kind of a death by a thousand cuts ninth inning. So that snapped the Yankees winning streak. winning streak. And yet on the whole, it's been pretty darn impressive and getting Garrett Cole back and Aaron Judge hitting as well as he has lately with Juan Soto playing like a potential MVP, generating discussions of a mid-season extension, despite his being a Boris client. He's just so beloved. Everyone wants him in pinstripes forever. Like, things have been pretty impressive over there. I haven't heard quite as much doom and gloom from the Yankees fans this season. Yeah, they seem—well, here, put it this way.

I feel like I haven't really heard from them much at all. Yeah. It's a good sign for the Yankees if you don't hear from them much. It's a so unshocking thing. Yeah. Although I suspect that if they manage to linger in first place for all that much longer, we will start to get the braggadocious Yankees fans back. Oh, yeah. You know, because the quiet never seems like it lasts all that long, right?

It almost always yields to one extreme or the other. But, you know, it's only May 21st, so they've been kind of hanging back. There's not much middle ground there. It's either like, count the rings and bow down before us. And I say this as a former Yankees fan. Count the rings, we're the Yankees, we're supreme, or we are the worst organization that has ever played this sport. And everyone should be fired and heads should roll. It's either one or the other, usually. I guess one thing that might ding their war for their pitchers is they've gotten great framing. So the return of Trevino and the work that they've gotten behind the plate from all of their catchers leading the zone and Trevino sets up outside, which is

an interesting thing to watch now because more and more teams are setting up down the middle and thinking that'll be better for pitchers. Like everyone's just got such nasty stuff. Just tell them, throw it over the plate and let the natural speed and movement win out. But that does come with a cost in that if the catcher doesn't set up on the edges to receive a pitch on the edges, then you're less likely to get that call because the catcher has to maybe reach out or reach across their body. Or if the catcher is sort of squatting out there, then it reframes the umpire's understanding of where the plate is or where the zone is, or it could even block the umpire potentially. So when the catcher doesn't have to move much

on those borderline pitches, it could get you those calls. So it's kind of a trade-off either way. But yeah, it's been defense. It's been kind of everything clicking over there and Garrett Cole returning. So watch out, rest of the American League. Although, and I'm not wishing for this, and I hope that Garrett Cole is great when he comes back, but it would be very funny if he returned and then they suddenly went on a skid. Just because it would defy expectations, Ben, and we are moved by defied expectations. Yeah. Well, you know who else has defied expectations in a good way after defying expectations in a bad way for some time?

Joe Adele. The post-hype sleeper. Yeah. The breakout maybe is happening. It's maybe happening. Yeah. If there's a silver lining to Mike Trout's absence, it's that Joe Adele has not had to fight for playing time. Now, I think he had sort of solidified his spot in the outfield just before Trout got hurt.

But early in the season, he was playing pretty sporadically once he was on the big league roster. And since Trout went down, Adele has missed one game. Otherwise, he's just been a staple in the starting lineup. And you know what? He's making the most of it. He's still only 25. You know, he turned 25 in April somehow, even though it seems like he's kind of been a bust for a while.

He just turned 25 last month, and he's got a 139 WRC+. His strikeout rate is down to 24.4%, so barely worse than league average, which for him is quite encouraging. He's got nine homers. He's got eight steals. He hit a home run and robbed a home run the other day. He has, if anything, underperformed his expected stats offensively by a wide margin. Like, things are looking pretty good for Joe Adele, who entered this season 619 Major League Plate appearances. So basically a full season, 178 games. So, you know, he didn't start all of those games, but basically a full season's worth of plate appearances.

So, you know, he didn't start all of those games, but basically a full season's worth of played appearances. He had a 70 WRC plus and a 35.4% strikeout rate. And here he is with a 263 BAPIP. And yet he's still really making it work. So maybe, maybe it's finally happening for him. He hit a home run last night and he robbed a home run last night against the Astros. He inspired me to message a friend of the pod, Craig Goldstein, and say, is Joe Doe good now? Yeah, he might be. And Craig was like, what happened?

Like four different people have asked me this in the last five minutes. And I was like, oh, you're not watching Angels-Astros. Cool, cool, cool. Yeah. He's having a little bit of a day, you know? That's been exciting to see. Yeah. If he could keep it up. I mean, it's like Mickey Moniak last year. He has not kept that up, unsurprisingly. But Joe Adele, this seems more sustainable, at least based on the underlying rates that have contributed to these surface stats.

Well, and I felt like, you know, his debut season like we we all felt i think mostly bad for guys who came up in 2020 and things were so atrocious for him in that season you know it's just like to be worth almost you know i think he was worth negative 1.4 war in his first season and we'll remind everyone pandemic shortened season right like that was over you know 132 plate appearances it just was it was quite rough and it had moments where it was you know like remember he he like boinked in a home run yeah over the wall as it as an outfielder to be clear he didn't hit one that that fell over the you know and it just felt like the the culmination of so many things and there's been a lot of stop and start with him and you know i can appreciate why people would be cautious because there's precedent for him like kind of

looking like he was putting it together and then like it doesn't go great but i am cautiously optimistic that we are seeing a more stable version of a good profile from him in a way that I think would be really cool and would be a fun thing for Angels fans to get to hold on to, because there's not a lot, you know, at the moment. It'd be nice for the Angels to have one fun thing to hold on to. That'd be great. Oh, man, that's just kind of a smoking crater of a farm system. It seems like. Oh boy, it's so grim. It's so grim. We ran the list for Oakland and the Angels in the same week. And I was like, God, this is some really rough stuff here between those two. Well, while we're speaking about Joes who have high strikeout rates,

have you looked at Joey Gallo's stats lately? Now, keep in mind, he has a hitting streak going on. A two-gamer. He's got a two-gamer going, which, you know, for Joey Gallo. I'm so afraid to look. Oh, no. Joey Gallo, he's one of my guys. He has long fascinated me.

Didn't he just come back from the injured list, though? He did. Yes, he was on the IL. And he's had a few good games. He's got a hit at least in three of his last four, which would not be notable for most people. But when you're batting 136 on the season, which he is, it was even lower until recently. And I've always been fascinated by Gallo because he's just an extremophile. He pushes the limits and the boundaries of performance. And at times he has been a legitimately very good player while pushing those boundaries. And at other times He's like replacement level or so. He's been a bit above replacement level, according to baseball reference, and right around there for fan graphs. And yet he's just doing it in the weirdest way.

He has 107 plate appearances in his 27 games interrupted by a shoulder injury. He struck out in 45.8% of his plate appearances. It's a lot. It really is. It's 107 trips to the plate, 49 Ks, which even for Gallo is a lot. And he is batting 136, as I said, and yet with pretty good secondary skills as usual, you know, he's got a 290 on base, which with a 136 batting average is pretty good. He's walked 15% of the time

and he's hit for some power. He has as many home runs as he does singles. He's got three homers and three singles, which is just one of those fun things to track about Joey Gallo, along with his lack of sack flies. He's just the weirdest statistical profile. I like looking at his savant percentiles because he's got a 151 expected batting average. That's first percentile. Then he has a 93rd percentile barrel rate,

97th percentile walk rate, first percentile strikeout rate. Most stats are bottom of the scale or top of the scale. He's got 218 singles career and 201 career homers. So those are quite close. The ratio is just way out of whack. So he's managed a 79 WRC plus and, you know, he's playing mostly for space now, right? And he's seemingly pretty good at that. Like, he has managed to make this work by being a plus base runner and defender despite his offensive struggles. I just, I don't know how much more extreme it can get and he can remain a major leaker. Yeah, I don't know. It's so weird.

I guess on the Nats, like maybe this can keep going for a while, but he's only 30. It's just like old player skills, I guess. And they're not terrible, you know? Like they're not a good, they're not a good team to be clear, but like they're 21 and 25.

They're not, you know, they're not like last year's A's or anything. They're not last year's A's or anything. They're not this year's A's. They're kind of close, but they're not this year's A's. They're not, I think, a real contender in any meaningful way, so they'll be able to kind of limp along here. But they are at the point where if they have guys who they want to take a look at, you know, for the next good team, I think we can say definitively that Joey Gallo will not be on

the next good Nats team, right? That, I think, is rapidly becoming maybe a better use of their roster spots, whether it's guys within their own farm system now or like you know post hype former prospect types so i don't know it'll be interesting to see like how long he can he can sustain this strangeness and is asked to you know yeah unfortunately he has out hit and outperformed my other pal joey on the nationals roster joey manessas but yeah the less said about that the better i'll just i wasn't gonna i wasn't gonna bring it up at all i wasn't i wasn't gonna make Joey, on the Nationals roster, Joey Manessis. But the less said about that, the better. I wasn't going to bring it up at all. I wasn't going to make you mention that.

The thing is, Gallo batted 177 last year and still had an above average WRC plus, which is quite a thing to pull that off. He struck out 43% of the time. Yeah, and he walked about as often as he's walking this year. And so he made it work somehow. But I guess 136, it's tough to make that work. 177 is one thing, but you lose another 40 points of batting average. It's tough to sustain the above average line. Yeah.

Yeah. It's, you know, there comes a point where the bottom does fall out. We might be there. We might be approaching it. Maybe now that he's healthy again, maybe he'll bring that average up as he already is. I have been following another guy who's been getting one hit a game or maybe two, Ketel Marte, who is actually a very good player, Maybe two. Ketel Marte, who is actually a very good player. Yes. But has had kind of a weird hitting streak recently.

Yeah. Where he came close to matching the longest streak of single hit games. Yeah. So he recently, he's got, as we speak, a 19 gamer going. And 15 of those were with one hit per game. So I think he had the second longest, or he's tied for the second longest hitting streak ever where you have no more than one hit in any game. Ted Sizemore for the Cardinals in 1975 had a 16-gamer where he had 16 hits. And Quetel Marte has a 15-gamer with 15 hits. But he does have a 19-gamer overall. Sadly, the single-hit streak was broken a couple

days ago. He had a two-hit game. And the fun thing about this is because he has had this hitting streak, but it's been about as unspectacular a hitting streak as you could have. His stats during the streak have not been so hot. Would you say he's a hot hitter if he has hit during this streak? So April 27th was his last hit list game. From April 28th to May 20th, 19 games, 85 plate appearances, and 21 hits. He's hit 266, 306, 519. That's an 825 OPS. And he entered that streak after his last hit list game on the 27th. He had an 883 OPS on the season. So his OPS during the hitting streak and his batting average, for that matter, have been considerably lower than his stats entering the hitting streak. So would you say that he's a hot hitter or would you just say that he is on a hitting streak but is a pretty tepid hitter?

Maybe he's like a lukewarm hitter. He's a, I mean, look, it's good to get hits spent, you know, and I'm sure that there are guys who are like, I would love that hitting streak. Sure, Joey Gallo would take it. Joey Gallo would take it, but, you know, we tend to evaluate players relative to not only their external expectation, but what we've seen from them before. And like, you could tell at the beginning of the season,

that was a hot hitter. I think our opinion of it is probably informed by the fact that a really impressive, truly hot hitting version of him was accessible to us a couple of weeks ago. And it makes this look tepid, lukewarm in comparison. It's not bad, but it's just not superlative. And it was for the first couple weeks of the season, for sure. It would be the funniest way for the all-time hit streak record to be broken, though, by someone who was just barely getting.

I mean, it would be probably great from a spectator perspective because there would be suspense constantly because only one hit per game or close to it. There'd be a lot of times when it came down to the last plate appearance. I wonder whether it would detract from the achievement, though. Do you think it would? Would we just look at it as a weird curiosity? I guess any long hitting streak is kind of just a weird curiosity and a lot of things have to go right and it's obviously very subject to randomness even if you're hitting really well like joe hit 408 463 718 and 1181 ops during his 56 game hitting streak in 1941 and he had some help from

the official scorers and he had some bloops and some luck during that streak as well. But he was hitting well, of course. But if the person who broke his streak someday didn't actually hit that well during the streak, but just managed to keep puttering along with a hit here and there, would we celebrate that as much or would it sort of cheapen the achievement, do you think? Maybe it would force us to reevaluate whether we think any hitting strike is cool, you know, because I, you know, there have definitely been better ones than this. appreciate what all goes into sustaining one of those and it is gonna for every single one even ones that boast a better slash line than cattell's like some of it's maybe gonna be luck and some of it might be a little help from the official scorer and i don't know i wonder what what it would cause

us to think about the entire enterprise maybe we'd come away and be like, we just can't play baseball anymore. It's ruined now. I wonder how it feels as a hitter too, because you're never going home empty handed. But if you're just basically batting 250, if you're just one for four or one for five or one for three, does that make you happy? Do you feel like, because you're getting the constant positive reinforcement, like you're not getting the zero in your box score. Like every day you get to have a hit, you get to win a plate appearance, you get to be on base. And yet it all amounts to, if you're Cattell Marte, playing below your established level. So I wonder whether it makes you feel better about your performance than, say, if you distributed the same number of hits over the same period in a different way so that you didn't have the hitting streak but you had sort of the same stats.

Right. How down could you feel on any given day if you did have a hit that day? You didn't get skunked, right? Yeah. I don't know. That would be – yeah, it's tricky. I don't know how it would feel i think my my guess would be that you know every guy who's had a long and impressive hitting streak

has been in a in a deep dark slump right where um they would give anything to be coming away with a hit a day and so i think the distance you'd be able to maintain from that feeling would probably be enough for you to go like i, I'm doing great. But I'm sure, again, someone like Cattell, who had such an incredible start to this, and his season line is still very strong. He's playing good baseball. But I bet in moments of quiet reflection, someone who has especially so recently put together a hot stretch where he's hitting leadoff home runs all the time and all these long balls is probably like, I can do better than this, you know. And that can be, you know, it doesn't have to invalidate the work that you're doing at this particular moment, but I think it does reframe your sort of understanding of it. The most entertaining one of these might be the Orlando Cabrera on Bay Street because we've talked about, right, and Sam's written about maybe we should be paying more attention to the on base streak.

Yes. Yeah. But then the counter to that is Orlando Cabrera and his 2006 streak, which I think 63 game on base streak, which I think is the longest by anyone other than Ted Williams or DiMaggio. which I think is the longest by anyone other than Ted Williams or DiMaggio. And he was Orlando Cabrera, who had, I think, a below league average on base percentage that year. He had like a 335 OBP despite the on-base streak, which was below the MLB average and below the AL average. And he didn't even do that great during his on-base streak. And he didn't even do that great during his on-base streak. He hit like 303, 372, 418, a 791 OPS, which wasn't really, it was kind of like average at the time, you know, and Orlando Cabrera, who would have expected him to be. So that I think is among the funniest, like Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, Orlando Cabrera. The all-timers.

Yeah, what a list to be on. The great on-base guys. So I would hope for a hitting streak in that vein, I think. Sure. That might be the funniest way that that could go. A couple things came to my attention with pitch selection controversies in recent days, which were kind of interesting. There was one involving Twins closer, Yohan Duran, and there was one involving Astros starter, Frambois Valdez. And in both cases, there was sort of a dispute over which pitches to throw. So Frambois, he was doing well in a start, and then there was a seven-run fifth inning.

And after the game, he said and catcher Yannur Diaz said and also Astros manager Joe Espada said that he went away from the game plan, whatever the game plan was, which was seemingly working for the first four innings. Valdez stopped doing that. And Yannur Diaz said, I could try to force him to throw a certain pitch, but he knows how he feels and how his pitches feel. He makes the decision. This is the first time this has happened, but maybe me as a catcher, I should have forced him more to throw certain pitches. And Frambois Valdez said, Yainer did a really good job calling pitches. I was the one that decided to try and change the game plan. I had to deal with the consequences. And then the Duran story was sort of different. So the twins, as part of their recent losing streak, they got swept by the Guardians, which was a big blow.

gave up a losing home run for the second time in the series. And this was kind of an opposite case where Duran didn't really take responsibility for throwing, quote unquote, the wrong pitch, but he kind of blamed the team for forcing him to throw the wrong pitch. So Duran said he wanted to start, reading from the Star Tribune here, he wanted to start Brennan with a fastball after the twins opted to intentionally walk Josh Naylor with first base open and two outs. After Durant received a mound visit from pitching coach Pete Mackey, his first pitch curveball was drilled over the right field wall. The first time the curveball was on my own, said Durant, referring to a go-ahead home run he allowed to Jose Ramirez on Friday. This time, it's not my decision. I thought Brennan wasn't good with fastballs. I'm an employee here, so whatever I need to throw, I need to throw it.

So pretty pointed quote, right? So apparently it seems like there was maybe disagreement over what he would throw, and then the pitching coach comes out, and then Duran did what he was told to do according to his telling and threw the curve, didn't want to throw the curve. And then that came back to bite them. That's interesting because these days, like we just have so many numbers about pitch effectiveness and pitchers in some cases have a lot of control over what they throw with pitch comms. Some of them call their own games. And then in other cases, a lot of it is kind of delegated to the team and the front office via the catcher, at least. And teams will encourage pitchers to throw more of a certain pitch or less of a certain pitch. Speaking of splinker guys, as we were earlier with the Skeensins duran is another one of those guys and i always

just wonder what makes the most sense because if if the pitcher isn't convinced that that's the pitch he should throw then is it bad to force him to throw that pitch even if the numbers suggest it like framber was kind of going against the grain, but following his own convictions, and it didn't work out. Whereas Duran was not following his convictions. He was following the convictions of, I don't know, the Twins analytics department, let's say. And so perhaps he wasn't fully behind the pitch or confidence or execution or delivery was lacking. And that came back to bite him. So I guess two different ways to throw the wrong pitch confidence or execution or delivery was lacking. And that came back to bite him. So I guess two different ways to throw the wrong pitch or at least the wrong pitch in

retrospect. But I wonder, you know, I guess ideally you would want everyone to be on the same page and be equally convinced, right, that this is what they should throw. I think that you can throw pitches you don't have tremendous conviction in and get good results. And I think you can throw pitches that you are like, this is going to be a real, like, this is going to do it. And then the ball goes over the wall. So I think conviction can be kind of a fickle friend when it comes to pitching. But my instinct is that you are more likely to get good results if you think that you can do the thing than if you can't. But I don't know, people exhibit irrational confidence and then they end up getting got.

So I don't know, it's a tricky amorphous thing. I also would imagine that there are guys for whom the sense of belief is more important than others. True. And I don't mean it in like a, you know, he's manifesting it way, but just in a, you know, you might subconsciously have timidity that manifests in bad mechanics or what have you, if you're not really feeling that pitch on any particular day. And I also think that like people just sort of react negatively to being told what to do a lot of the time. Yeah, right. Yeah, I don't think you would sort of tank yourself and your own stats to prove a point.

Oh, sure. No, no, I want to throw this pitch? I don't think you would do that in a real meaningful game against a division rival in a playoff race. Definitely not. Especially when it's your own stats and potentially future earnings that suffer. But maybe there's some small part of him that's just like, I told you so, you know, after he gave up that pitch. And the question is like, does that incipient I told you so, like, is there some small part of him that's thinking that as he's delivering the pitch? Like, oh, if this goes wrong, I can lord it over them that I didn't want why they're telling him that necessarily. I mean, the twins have thrown the fewest fastballs of any team or they've thrown fastballs less frequently than any team but the Red Sox, who have had a well-documented pitching turnaround as they've kind of abandoned the fastball in a Giants-style way. And that's any type of fastball, lumping together various fastball types. So the twins have gone away from the fastball in general. So maybe that's part of it. I did see that Duran's curveball numbers weren't that great last year, like on a rate basis. But then, man, you almost need like expected stats for that too, because I was looking at like on baseball, Savant is expected weighted on base versus his on base on on curveballs that were put in play last year.

And you can end up in these deep rabbit holes of like hypothetical. Right. So, you know, he he didn't get great results on the curveball last year. So maybe that's what the Twins are looking at. But then maybe Duran is looking at the fact that it seems like he got kind of unlucky on curveballs he threw last year. And maybe he thinks like, oh, my curveball is better than the results showed. the clubhouse, but hopefully just present a convincing enough case that your player's going to go along, not out of obligation, but because they believe in whatever you've laid out. This dynamic feels like one that is largely sort of like navigable to me, because I think this is a conversation and a conundrum that teams and players face all the time, right? And I think there are a lot of ways to sort of impart that conclusion to a player and there are going to be guys with whom it's easier than others

and it's going to be like a weird alchemy you have to do and sort out for each guy. But it strikes me as something that can be resolved because it has to be. It's a problem that teams face with players all the time. And the players face with teams, right? It's a two-way thing. I don't mean to make it sound so hierarchical. That's a hard word to say. I don't have conviction in my ability to do that with any regularity. Well, I won't instruct you to say it any more often than

you're comfortable saying it. Yeah. We have many more numbers now when it comes to pitch effectiveness. And so there's a lot more analysis we can do when it comes to like, what's the optimal pitch mix for this guy? And we've seen a lot of pitchers make those changes. It's still sort of a black box, at least publicly, when it comes to like sequencing within a plate appearance as opposed to like your overall pitch usage. And so that can still be a tough nut to crack because I think there used to be a mantra that was just like, well, you want to get beat on your best pitch or, you know, you don't want to get beat on your second or third or fourth best pitch,

which was sort of an oversimplification because there is a game theory aspect to all of this. And you know that the hitter knows that if you're approaching this saying, I'm just going to throw my best pitch in every crucial situation, well, it's probably not going to be your best pitch in practice because the hitter is going to be expecting it. So sometimes you have to throw a pitch that's not so effective on the whole because you'll have the element of surprise there. But then people will second guess you and say, why didn't you throw your better pitch in this situation? But you can't always default to that.

It's kind of like the sacred cows that have been slaughtered when it comes to throwing high or low in the zone or starting off with a fastball or pitching backwards, so to speak. And backwards has now become frontwards. You know, people are throwing more breaking balls or off-speed pitches than fastballs now. So all of those tropes have kind of cratered recently. So I'm sure this has been a bit of a battleground nonetheless. All right. And maybe we can close with a few follow-ups here. First of all, we mused recently about Javier Baez's tagging acumen.

Yes. And we answered an email about, are infielders better at controlling the running game than we give them credit for? Do they have a bigger impact there? And how much does tagging matter? And we brought up Javier Baez and his formerly wonderful highlight reel qualifying tags. And we noted that we haven't really heard a whole lot about Javier Baez's tags lately. Has he gotten worse at tagging or is it just that he is worse overall? And so it

doesn't make as much news and he's on worse teams. And that's why it's just not as visible. Well, we mentioned that Sports Info Solutions tracks tag performance, and we got an email from someone at SIS, listener, Patreon supporter, I believe, Alex Vigderman, who says, I wanted to jump in on the discussion about whether Javier Baez has gotten worse at tagging or we just don't care as much because he's otherwise worse. It turns out that he has been less prolific as a tagger in recent years. From 2016 to 2020, roughly four and a third years, we charted him with 14 good tag plays that resulted in an unexpected out, while from 2021 to now, roughly three and a third

years, we've charted him with only two. This includes tags on balls and play, like on a dribbler where he tags the runner as he goes by, but it's all the same skill set. And he notes we don't incorporate tagging ability into defensive runs saved, primarily because it's clear from the rest of our data that the player recorded the out, so we don't want to give double credit. There are other somewhat analogous hidden skills that we do include because their effect isn't as obvious, like deceiving a base runner or holding the batter to a single by either keeping the ball in the infield or making an

aggressive approach as an outfielder. So yeah, it appears that Javier Baez's game has regressed in this arena too. Interesting. More bad Baez news. Sorry to break it to you Tigers fans, but it's not news to you. He had a great series against the Diamondbacks, though. Yeah, there's that. And also in a recent stat blast when you were away, we answered one about the most strikeouts and earned runs in an outing. And it was prompted by the return of Alec Manoa to the majors. And it was prompted by the return of Alec Manoa to the majors. And it seemed like his being back was a formula for some high run, high strikeout outings. And indeed, his first start of the season in early May was one such outing.

He went four innings and he gave up six earned runs and he walked four and struck out six. Well, just wanted to give credit where credit's due. His last two outings have been good, have been vintage Manoa. Maybe Manoa's back. May 12th against the Twins, he gave up no earned runs, three unearned runs, but no earnies in seven innings,

walked only one, six strikeouts. And then May 19th against the Rays, he got his first win since like last August. He went seven again, gave up one hit, no runs earned or unearned, one walk, seven strikeouts. So maybe Manoa back? I mean, it's two starts, but you know, you'll take it if you're Manoa or if you're a Blue Jays fan. I mean, yeah, I think that he would have been thrilled with two starts together of the quality he's had recently last year. He was in that range where you're like, this guy might just not be rosterable, right? I need a complete change of scenery and reworking to emerge as something that is a guy who you can play and have on a big league roster, but probably a significantly different pitcher and maybe in a quite different role than he's had.

Right. That's that's where I thought we were trending with him. And so for there to be for the momentum toward that to be arrested at all, I think, is a very encouraging sign. for the momentum toward that to be arrested at all, I think is a very encouraging sign. We will monitor Manoa. And another follow-up, last time we answered an email question about the impact of newfangled pitching machines that at least claim to perfectly or close to perfectly mirror an individual pitcher's stuff and release point and movement, et cetera. And we speculated a bit about what might that mean for the times to the order effect or for the minors to majors transition. Well, Zach Cram, my pal at The Ringer, alerted me to a piece by Jeff Fletcher at the Orange County Register that was an application of this new pitching machine technology that

I had not considered. So angels, pitchers, look at us, multiple positive angels mentions in this single episode. I know. They have turned the pitching machines around on themselves. Pitcher, pitch thyself. I don't know, pitch to thyself, right? So, to instill confidence in their pitchers, they have given their pitchers a look at what their stuff looks like at the plate. Yeah. So Jeff writes, in the continuing effort to get their pitchers to throw more strikes, the Angels turn to technology to teach the pitchers a lesson. The Angels are one of the teams that uses a traject pitching machine, which replicates the precise repertoire of any pitcher.

A hitter can see video of the pitcher, and then the ball comes out with velocity, break, and spin to mimic the real thing. The Angels, though, had their starting pitchers stand in the box against themselves. The point was to provide a confidence boost that their stuff is good enough to attack the strike zone. So, Jose Soriano, Angels starter, he throws 101, and he has a knuckle curve. He said, wow, it's amazing. I knew my pitches were good. That's some healthy confidence. But when I faced myself, I find out they're really good. So I have more trust in my stuff now. The Angels ranked 29th in the majors in first pitch strikes, despite an emphasis on that throughout spring training. You could knock me over with a feather. Spring training emphasis on something doesn't carry over to the majors. But they rank third in whiff rate on

pitches in the strike zone, which might suggest that, well, you should throw more pitches in the strike zone. So this is one way they've tried to do that. And Patrick Sandoval says it was a cool experience. Hitting is hard. It was cool to get that perspective. And Griffin Canning says you stand in there and see that your stuff is good. So one thing Cram asked me was, what pitcher do you think would have the opposite takeaway from this experience? Would like stand in against themselves and be like, I could hit that. You know, I guess Otani would be one obvious example, even though his stuff as a pitcher is great when he's healthy. He's also a great hitter. But could this backfire for someone if they had really pedestrian stuff and they're like, I got nothing. Like, I'm just throwing

junk up there. How am I getting away with any of this? Yeah. Maybe this is just a continuation of the earlier confidence conversation, right? Like what role does that play and how important is it for you to – what's the proper balance between insight and self-reflection and confidence maybe? Again, I imagine it differs player to player, but there are probably guys where it could be shattering. Yeah, I was thinking Zach Greinke is the obvious answer. I guess he's not technically active, but he's retired. He could be active again, hopefully, sometime soon, maybe. But if he were to hit against himself, and I don't even necessarily mean diminished modern day Greinke, though it goes even more so for him.

modern day Granke, though it goes even more so for him. But Granke has always been a confident guy when it comes to his own stuff and performance, especially his offensive skills. He laments that he wasn't just left alone to play shortstop. And if he could do his whole career over again, I wouldn't be surprised if he scrapped the Hall of Fame pitching career and was like, let's take a crack at this as a position player. If he faced himself, and he's been very comically, maybe unintentionally comically funny when giving tough love and advice to other hitters, but he has a pretty high opinion of his own offensive prowess. And so I'd imagine that if he were to face himself, he'd be like, yeah, I could.

Yeah. Maybe he'd be right. I think he'd be right. And lastly, we got a response to our discussion about Quinn Priester's war and FIP-based war in general and why we use FIP in Fangraph's war. This was a response from listener Phil the Geezer, self-described geezer. I did not apply that label to him. He writes, as a follow-up to your always illuminating discussion on why a FIP-based war for pitchers is preferable to a runs-aloud-based war, wouldn't it not then make sense for the offensive portion of a batter's war to be based on fib fielding independent batting.

If what happens to a batted ball other than a home run is out of the pitcher's control, isn't the same true for a hitter, fib would strip out the prowess or lack thereof of the opposing defense, just as fib strips out the teammate's defense. Perhaps for the stat cast era, X WOBA would be a better metric than FIB, but if so, wouldn't X ERA be better than FIP? So he makes something of a fair point here. If we're going to have more of a context neutral defense independent focused on the individual's performance approach to pitching war, why wouldn't we do the same for offensive war and position players? Might fib a little less when it comes to a batter's prowess and performance? I guess like maybe, but I think we have other stats that try to to you know represent a player's ability above and beyond just the slash line stats right both ones that try to capture that themselves and then stats that try to um give context to

the slash line in a way that helps us to better understand what might constitute flukiness versus not right so it's like you know you can think about a player within the context of WRC+. You can think about a player's slash line production in terms of his batting average on balls in play. We've already tried to gravitate away from the most simplistic version of hitting stats by looking at stuff that's not just like batting average, for instance. I would quibble with Phil's contention that the batter is just as out of control of the results of the batted ball as the pitcher, because we know that's not true. Not true.

Yeah, some pitchers may exert some control over their batted balls, but hitters do exert more control because it's dependent on their bat speed and their quality of contact and where they hit the ball and how hard they hit the ball. And batter BABIP is much more stable and repeatable and consistent than pitcher BABIP. There's still a lot of randomness for sure, but if you see a batter with a 330 BABIP, you might say, well, that seems a little high, but is he fast? Does he hit the ball hard? What are his previous BABIPs? Like if he's had that before, maybe he's just a 330 BABIP guy. There is such a thing, right? Whereas there probably isn't really such

a thing among major league pitchers, or if there is, they won't be a major league pitcher for very long, right? So batters do have more control over the outcome of their batted balls, but it is true. We could have a more abstract approach to measuring batting value. We kind of got into this with Petriello when we were talking about the bat cast stats and like how abstract,

how many layers removed from the results do we want to go? abstract how many layers removed from the results do we want to go. And I would imagine that when MLB does put together a stat cast based war, obviously like shouldn't do. I think they will. But I mean, yeah, I guess, you know, fan graphs wars is partly stat cast based because defense, right? Correct. But at some point, MLB seems to be building toward a StatCast war.

And if and when they do release that, I guess they could build it entirely on expected stats. I would guess that maybe they will provide the option to look at an expected version of it because people are still going to want to see what actually happened. For one thing, the current incarnation of ex-Woba doesn't even really take into account the spray angle where the ball was hit on the field. It's just exit speed and launch angle. I do think that it would be another step removed from the results. It would be another layer of abstraction, even relative to FIP, right? Yes, This is what I was about to say. Yeah.

Yeah. So like, I think that one of the great things about FIP is that yes, it is an abstraction in the sense that it is looking at something beyond just earned runs allowed, but it is still grounded in real results on the field, right? It's still tied to actual results that we see from the pitcher. We think that those outcomes are more in the pitcher's control. And so, I guess in that respect, it is abstracted away a bit from earned run average, but it's not abstracted away from what the pitcher has actually done. And I think that that's a really meaningful and important distinction because you have to, I think, have a very fine and well-calibrated sort of theory of baseball if you're going to move to expected stuff in forming war for hitters because it's not

grounded in the actual results on the field. I think you want to contextualize those results just like you do for pitchers, but I think you want it to be about stuff that actually happened. And then when you are trying to understand what might happen next, it is useful to look at metrics that are informed by quality of contact and speed and what have you to help you kind of get a sense of that, how close to a hitter's true talent level that performance has been and what kind of performance he might put forth in the future. But I think you want it to remain grounded. And if you think war is hard to get people to buy into when it's based in fit, just, I mean, like, imagine going to somebody and saying, well, here's what a hitter should have done. And so, that's what he was worth. And it's like, but he objectively wasn't worth that in that moment. He might be worth that in the future. sort of and inform our expectations of him going forward. But I think when you're looking at something that is a value metric, you want it to be rooted in a real something, you know,

even if you are more particular about what that something is than an ERA-based FIP or an RA9 FIP might be. So. Yeah. I'd be interested in seeing it i suppose just like a totally results independent you know you could say a stuff plus or pitching bot or whatever based war for pitchers where it's just like how good were the pitches they threw forget about everything that happened after they threw the pitch or for batters just uh could be based on swing metrics. It could be based on quality of contact metrics. It would be interesting to strip out everything that comes after that and see what that says about someone. But I wouldn't probably base my standard offering of war on that because that's a lot to get people to swallow and arguably not really what you want to use the set for. You know, that would be useful in a predictive sense, but I think probably even less useful in a retrospective sense.

And I argued that I think FIP is useful. FIP-based war is useful in a retrospective sense because it is capturing something the pitcher actually did. And all of the FIP components, they're in the box score, you know, it's walks, it's strikeouts, it's homers. Like it's not really that complicated. You can point to exactly why and what the pitcher did that resulted in that number. So yeah, it would be a leap to then go to let's toss out the results entirely. And I think there's a place for that, at least in analytical circles and predictive forecasting circles, but might be a bridge too far for war, certainly from an acceptance

standpoint, but also just even with what I want out of the stat. But yeah, I would draw a distinction between that and fit-based war, like an ex-Woba-based batting war or something. I think that's not just a difference of degree. It's kind of a difference in kind. Yes, I agree. All right, a few updates on players we discussed on this episode. After we recorded, Cattell Marte went 1-for-5, lukewarm hitting streak now up to 20 games. Joey Gallo went 0-for-3 with three strikeouts.

Joe Adele went 0-for-3 with three strikeouts. Joe Adele went 0-5 with two strikeouts. And while Gunnar Henderson went 0-3, Bobby Witt Jr. powered the Royals to another win with a three-hit game, including a stolen base and two long home runs. Is it too late to change my answer there? You know who else hit two home runs? Kyle Tucker. He takes the Major League lead with 17. One last follow-up, something we talked about last time. We answered an email about a radio promotion that referred to the first batter of an inning as on deck. And I think we allowed that it was technically correct in that maybe he's standing in the on deck circle, but that it was a little confusing in that we expect that term to be applied

to the second batter when an inning is just starting. Got an email from past past blaster Richard Hirshberger, historian, author of the great baseball book Strike Four. Richard writes, I argue that on deck is fine for the first batter of the inning up to the point when he steps into the batter's box. On deck is a nautical metaphor. This is made more obvious when we recall that the next batter after the guy on deck was originally in the hold, though today this is often rendered in the hole. I guess you can also say that a batter is in the hole when he's behind in the count, but that would be a different usage. Richard continues, the player at bat is up in the rigging doing sailor stuff. The player on deck is ready to

make the climb when the time comes. The player in the hold will then make his way onto the deck. The metaphor works just as well whether the player on deck poised to climb the rigging is going to be the first guy up or someone else is already up there. The baseball usage probably dates to no later than 1872 in Belfast, Maine, a maritime town where 1872 was still the age of sail. The metaphor would not have been old-timey at that time and place. Richard sent me much more background information about the origins of the use of On Deck in baseball. It might not be to everyone's interest, but if it is to yours, check the show page for a link where I will paste in all of the information he sent me. 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 or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad free and get themselves access to some perks. Connor, Andy Young, Tim Westcott, Jimston, and Remington Douglas. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, monthly bonus episodes, playoff live streams, prioritized email answers, discounts on merch and ad-free fan crafts, memberships, and so much more. Check out all the offerings at patreon.com slash effectively wild. If you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site.

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Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We'll be back with another episode a little later this week. Talk to you then. Effectively Wild. Since we'll be back with another episode a little later this week, talk to you then. Joey Manessis. No. Walk-off three-run digger. Stop it.

Walk-off three-run shot. Oh, my God. Meg, he's the best player in baseball. I'm actively wild.