Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2169: Play Big, Windbigler

Episode Date: May 25, 2024

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about which slow-starting 2023 pennant winner (Diamondbacks or Rangers) is more likely to get back on track to return to October, explain (9:37) the saga of Dick Windbigler, the rare pitcher who actually hurt himself by pausing mid-delivery (featuring an appearance by Dick’s widow, Melba Windbigler), then (30:04) answer […]

Well, it's moments like these that make you ask, how can you not be pedantic about baseball? If baseball were different, how different would it be? On the case with light ripping, all analytically. Cross-check and compile, find a new understanding. Not effectively, why the can you not be pedantic? Yes, when it comes to baseball, how can you not be pedantic? Yes, when it comes to baseball, how can you not be pedantic? Hello and welcome to episode 2169 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters.

I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Rowley of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello. Meg, I'm starting to get the feeling that we're not going to get a World Series rematch this year. Have you gotten that feeling as well about last year's pennant winners? I have gotten that sense, yeah. Yeah. It's not looking great thus far. Now, they weren't necessarily the favorites coming into this season in their respective divisions. The Texas Rangers defending champions, the Arizona Diamondbacks

defending National League champions. They both did some stuff over the winter, more the Diamondbacks than the Rangers because the Rangers had already done a lot of stuff in preceding offseasons. But the Diamondbacks really added. They even added Jordan Montgomery, a buzzer beater, late addition in the offseason. And so far, it's not going great for either team. As we record here on Friday afternoon, the Rangers are 24-27. The Diamondbacks are 24 and 26. So almost identical records and actually pretty similar deficits in playoff odds relative to opening day. Now, again,

there were teams that had far higher playoff odds on opening day. And there are teams that are down more than they are since opening day. But the Diamondbacks are down about 13 percentage points to 38 percent. They're down about 10 percentage points in division odds to very low single digit odds of winning the West. Not that they were ever expected to, obviously. single-digit odds of winning the West, not that they were ever expected to, obviously. And then the Rangers are down about 18 percentage points now to a mere 20 or so percent chance to make the playoffs. Their division odds are actually basically unchanged, but both have scuffled, to say the least, to start the season. So putting aside the rematch joke, I mean, a rematch is never likely, obviously. But which of these teams do you consider more likely to, let's not even say make it back to the fall classic, but right the ship, make the playoffs at least, which neither of them is individually favored to do. inclined to point to the Rangers as likely to return to October play because they've employed

this high-stakes strategy with their starting pitching. Every starter they have seemingly is hurt right now, but they have a couple of guys that they are hopeful to get back at some point who, if they are healthy and effective, would be a major boon. Plus, they have a deep-ish farm system, right? They have some guys on the shelf on the offensive side of the ball who hopefully will come back and contribute. And so you could see them adding both from their internal ranks,

but also potentially in trade if they think that that's worthwhile. As much as I am thrilled that we see the Seattle Mariners in first place on Friday, May 24th, before play has started, that division, I think, is much more winnable than the NL West is, both in terms of the current occupants in first place and then whatever potential challenger they might face in the Astros. But then you zoom out from the team and the division. The wildcard picture in the American League is much tighter than it is in the NL. And, you know, it's not as if the Diamondbacks have a bad form system. When you're talking about sort of the easiest avenue to return to postseason play, and I'm not even going to contemplate sort of the likelihood of them actually making it back to the

fall classic, but it's like, you know, the Diamondbacks have a deep farm system. A lot of their best guys are sort of at the lower levels, but they have potentially prospects that they could put on offer if they wanted to. And they can take the NL wildcard route to get there, even though it doesn't seem remotely likely that they would unseat the Dodgers at the top. So I don't know. I don't know that I find that especially likely. But, you know, Ben, as I sit here, I should say, they, in theory, have their own starters coming back from injury, right? The Diamondbacks, where they would hope that Mer kelly will be able to rejoin the rotation

i know that um he was potentially progressing toward a throwing program you know eduardo rodriguez has not thrown a pitch for them in the regular season yet so that hasn't panned out i don't not quite sure where he is in his progression but you know they are they are similar in a lot of ways but i i might take the d-backs just because of the the wild card thing but it's going to take not only guys coming back from injury but they need some of their dudes who are very good and have not performed quite as well as i think they are capable of to to turn it around i mean we've already talked about Corbin Carroll's sophomore slump. He has not steered out of that as of yet. I know that his contact quality has been better of late,

and so maybe you can feel optimistic that something will come from that in shortish order. But so far, he is still looking to really get going. He's a 63 WRC plus. That's not great, you know, and he's being, you know, he's really being bolstered entirely by, um, the fact that he's playing center field. So I don't know. I don't know that it's especially likely in either case, but that it's striking the similarities. So, yeah. They weren't likely to match up in the World Series last year either. So maybe they'll beat the odds again, but they look like even longer odds right now. Although I guess you could have said the odds were long last year at various points too,

and they overcame that. But yeah, it has been somewhat surprising, even if you baked in some sort of regression. I thought the Rangers were the better team last year. And I thought they entered the offseason figuring to be the better team this year. But then I was really impressed that the Diamondbacks didn't rest on their laurels. They really went out and upgraded and were aggressive. And it just hasn't really paid off wins and losses wise thus far. I did not have the Rangers with a below league average offense.

Yeah, it's wild. At almost the end of May, that was just not on my board. So a lot of guys on both teams who have surprised me with their underperformance because both these rosters you could have looked at and said, oh, you know, some of the young guys and these teams weren't as young across the board as maybe they were reputed to be. They had some notable young guys. But there was every reason to think that those young guys would, for the most part, play better or play more or both. And in many cases, they have gotten hurt. They have slumped some combination of both.

So, yeah, I could imagine the Rangers rounding into form later in the season. They get their injured guys back on both sides of the ball. They have a fully intact rotation. They are raking like they did last year and like we thought they would this year. But you're right. It is a more crowded playoff picture. And will they have dug themselves too deep a hole by that guy is. You know, I was just looking at the DVACs, sort of offensive leaders or laggards as the case may be. And, you know, Cattell has had this, we talked about his hitting streak, but he's had a great season in the aggregate

and certainly bolstered by that blazing start. But Christian Walker's sitting there with a 132 WRC+. Like, it's going to be a scant free agent class this year, but he's probably going to be one of the more exciting entrants despite being 33 just because his track record rating is pretty

sterling at this point. He's sort of unsung, but we should sing about him. We should sing songs about Christian Walker. I'm singing those songs. Epic ballads about his scoops and also his power. So we've got some emails to get to and maybe other segments. We'll see how it goes. So this first answer I want to give you here was really an answer that was provided by a listener to another listener and then fleshed out more by me.

So a week ago, we did an email episode 2166. And at the end of that episode in the outro, I read an email by listener Dan Peterson, who asked whether we had any examples of pitchers who had hurt themselves pausing as a result of a timeout. And I've heard this my whole life. You've probably heard this. I'm sure a lot of listeners have heard this. Whenever a pitcher pauses mid-delivery or kind of cuts off the windup because someone calls time, almostably. You will hear an announcer say, oh, that's risky. That's scary. That's how you can get hurt, right? Which I've always assumed was true. It seems like it should be true. And so Dan heard this on a recent broadcast in a

Guardians Tigers game. And I will play the clip that prompted his inquiry. This is from the Guardians radio broadcast on May 8th. Time call just as Bybee was into his motion, and time was granted for Green. I don't think Bybee's too happy about that. Those are tough. When you get locked in as a pitcher right there, you're so focused on executing your pitch and having to shut it down at the last minute. That's oftentimes you see guys get hurt. Okay. I also checked the other English language radio and TV broadcasts of that

same play and two out of four, including that Guardians radio broadcast, did say the same thing, essentially. So here's an even shorter clip of the Tigers TV broadcast. Yeah, I'm not sure what Hedges was doing there, but that's how you get your pitcher hurt. He was almost ready to deliver that baseball. OK, so two of the four crews call in this game. They said the thing that we always hear the people say. And the Guardian's comment even said, oftentimes, right? Oftentimes, guys will get hurt when they do that, which makes it sound like it's a common occurrence.

I mean, it's just happening all the time. Like you should be able to easily summon some examples to your mind. Yet I couldn't. Could you? Does any example come to your mind of someone hurting themselves? No. Not even one. Not even one. And we got only one response to this. I put the call out. I thought, okay, we'll crowdsource this. We have many deeply baseball-brained listeners, and someone will be able to summon an example here. There's probably some famous one I'm not thinking of that will be able to summon an example here. There's probably some famous one I'm not thinking of that everyone is kind of picking up on here. No, we got one answer.

Now, not every Effectively Wild listener heard the outro to that episode, I'm sure. And maybe now that we're bringing up this topic in the episode proper now, we will get more responses, and I would welcome them. But we got only one submission for a time that something like this has actually happened. And it comes from listener and Patreon supporter Dennis Abrams, who says, I found exactly one example of a player being injured from stopping his pitching motion abruptly. his pitching motion abruptly. It's different from the scenario mentioned because it wasn't a batter timeout, although actually the scenario mentioned was a catcher timeout. It was Austin Hedges who called that timeout that prompted Dan's question. In April 1973, this incident involved UT Martin pitcher Dick Windbigler. Dick Windbigler, which as Dennis notes, is a fantastic name. And it absolutely is. No notes on the name.

Richard Windbigler. But we're not cheating and making it more funny by saying Dick. He went by Dick. Dick Windbigler. Right. So he was in the middle of a game here. And I will read the one newspaper account that Dennis turned up here from his hometown paper in Ohio. This is from the Mansfield, Ohio News Journal, April 28th,

1973. And it says, Dick Winn-Bigler, the Southpaw veteran from senior high, again leads the TM mound core. Winn-Bigler has fashioned five victories in his five starts with a gaudy 1.21 earned run average. He has permitted 18 hits in 21 innings, striking out 22 and walking eight. However, a freak injury has put Wynn Bigler on the shelf. He had pitched a no-hitter for four innings in his latest start and was warming up for the fifth. He attempted to stop Wow. It's not the child who had sustained the elbow injury. It was Winn Bigler because he arrested his pitching motion to spare this child who had wandered in front of the plate. The newspaper story says wandered, W-O-N-D-E-R-E-D, as if the child was just standing there wondering something in front of the plate. But wandered, I assume, wandering in front of the plate, W-A-N-D-E-R-E-D.

It was diagnosed as chipped bones, the story says. So 1973, this was quite a while ago, more than 50 years. The story doesn't mention where the game was, who their opponent was. Other sources, Dennis says, do corroborate his being injured, but don't give any details. Bigler from being inducted into the UT Martin Athletics Hall of Fame, but it might have ended his baseball career. He was a senior at the time and didn't wind up playing pro ball, despite being something of a star in what was then the NCAA College Division. He died in 2022. And to this day, the only major league alum of UT Martin is the pitcher Alec Mills. Of course, my first impulse was to cold call Dick Windbigler. Sadly, was not able to do that. However, I was able to do the next best thing, which was to call Dick Windbigler's widow, the widow Windbigler, Melba Windbigler, who was married to Dick Windbigler for 47 years, high school sweethearts. I will now play a five-ish minute excerpt of our short chat on the phone this week.

So I know this was more than 50 years ago, but I thought I'd reach out and just see if he ever mentioned that to you or if that rang a bell at all. Oh, yeah. Yeah? Oh, yeah. I knew all about that. Yeah, his elbow was splintered six places. Oh. Three at the top and three at the bottom.

But it was a bat boy ran out in front of him, and he pulled his arm back, and that's when he... Oh, wow. It splintered, and he went to the Mayo Clinic. They told him not to pitch anymore, but it was his senior year. He ended up pitching a few more games after that. And then he tried out for the New York Mets, but his elbow was too bad, so it didn't work out. Oh, I was going to ask, because I know he was a really successful college pitcher and is in the Hall of Fame for the school. And so I wondered whether this was something that maybe affected his chances of getting drafted or pursuing a professional career.

Yes, it did. Because he, you know, wanted to pitch, you know, play pro. But with his elbow the way it was, he couldn't do it anymore. Wow, gosh. Did he think that he would have been drafted if not for this injury? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, he would have been. He set records and university attendance.

He set records down there. Yeah. Did he have any, I guess, scouts were following him, or he had some indication that teams were interested? Yeah, he did, yes, because that's why he got set up for that, to try out. But they told him he couldn't pitch anymore in his senior year, but he kept trying. He loved the game. Oh, wow. So this story was from April of 73.

I don't know exactly when the injury happened, but you're saying he was able to come back and pitch that season? Yes. He pitched three more games, I think, after that. Huh. Yes. But they told him not to, but of course, he loved it so much, he tried, you know? Yeah.

Do you have any idea what the bat boy was doing running across the plate in the middle of the game? How did that happen? I'm not sure how. I think he just ran out, you know, thinking that, I'm not sure exactly, but he just ran out, and so Dick pulled his arm back to keep from, you know, throwing the pitch, so. Wow. And it splintered it, like I said, in six different,

the top of his elbow and the bottom of his elbow, three splinters in both top and the bottom. Did he end up having to have surgery, or did it heal on its own? No, he never did. They told him that it probably wouldn't do any good to have surgery because when you have an arm injury like that it only lasts just a few years and as you know he was real active and stuff and they didn't want you know uh they said it probably wouldn't do him any good because you know he wanted to you

know still be active and stuff so and then he he went ahead and coached down there in tennessee too right uh his next you know the next year and uh let's see he and then he coached down there in Tennessee, too. Right. The next year. And then he coached around here, too. He did some girls coaching for girls-based softball and stuff. But he never, you know, didn't get to do what he wanted to do. But I guess it wasn't meant to be. You know, that's the way we looked at it. You know, if it was meant to be, it would have happened, but it didn't. I was going to ask whether, you know, it was something he lamented or whether he looked at it kind of philosophically like, you know, well, it just wasn't in the cards.

Yeah, that's what we talked about. And he said it just wasn't meant to be. So it didn't happen. Did the arm bother him later in life? in life, just kind of doing routine activities? Yeah, with arthritis and stuff in it. And then he had rheumatoid arthritis, which didn't help any either. But yeah, it did bother him. Well, I wonder whether back then they couldn't do anything about it.

Maybe it would have been different today. I don't know. Well, it's possible, you know, but who knows? Yeah. Well, that's, you know, I'm sure there have been other examples, but we couldn't come up with any. It's just it's rare for it to happen like that. But it happened to at least one person.

He was the unlucky guy, I guess, who just goes to show don't stop when you're in the middle of pitching, I guess. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. When did you and he meet? Did you know him at that point or not yet? Oh, yeah. We went together in high school. And we went together for seven years, and we got married in 74 after he graduated.

Oh, okay. From college, so. You weren't at the game, I assume, when he got hurt? No. No. I wasn't there then.

No. Now, I went to Marietta when they come to Marietta to play and watched him down there and then I went to Tennessee a couple times and watched him too,

but that game I wasn't there. I see. Well, thanks so much for indulging this very random request blast from the past here. Sorry for your loss. And I wish I could have asked him about it myself. But I'm glad you remembered it and could fill me in. Oh, yeah, I remember it. Yes. OK, well, well, thanks so much. I remember it. Yes. Okay. Well, thanks so much, Melba. I really appreciate the information. Okay. You're welcome. Thanks for asking about him.

Of course. Appreciate it. Well, there it is. That is the story of Dick Winn-Bigler. Incredible. And the injury he suffered due to stopping his pitching motion mid-windup. He suffered due to stopping his pitching motion mid-windup. I like that the newspaper account is a child in the way, but it was a bat boy. I know.

You know? Which I guess technically is true. The bat boy probably was a child, but it sounds much more sensational to say there's just a child wondering. Like a loose child, you know? Yeah. Yeah, like a loose child, you know? Yeah, there was a child who had a reason to be around the field, if not necessarily wandering around home plate during play. And that bat boy must have felt pretty bad about this, I would think. I mean, not as bad maybe as he would have felt had he been drilled by a Dick Winn-Bickler fastball. But that wound would probably heal.

Whereas the guilt of knowing that you might have cost Dick Winn-Bigler a professional pitching career, that psychological damage, that could fester, I would imagine. Hopefully not. I think that we, particularly in more modern times, more current times, you know, there's this assumption that it's like you sustain sports injuries. And for a lot of guys, they get their surgery, they take their time, they get their little shots, and then it's behind them. And they never really deal with it as people anymore. It might affect their career's trajectory, but they get their UCL fixed and then that's that. And, you know, as a soon to be 38 year old who is frantically researching office chairs again,

like sometimes stuff just sticks with you and you end up feeling it for a lot longer than that. That was my my main takeaway. Well, I think it was a selfless act by Dick Winn Bigler. He was trying to protect a wayward bat boy and sacrificed his career or a career potentially. Not that he knew that that would happen in the moment, but he clearly prioritized the bat boy's well-being over his own and paid a price for that. And I think we should honor that sacrifice. And I'm glad that he was honored, not posthumously, but while he was alive, he was inducted into the University of Tennessee at Martin Athletic Hall of Fame in 2018. At the time, he said, this is just like being inducted into Cooperstown for me. And I will read his little blurb on the website there. Hailing from Mansfield, Ohio, Dick Winn-Biggler helped guide UT Martin to a 94-43-1 record and the school's first two trips to the NCAA tournament during his playing career, 1970-73. He still ranks first in program history with 26 career victories and was named an All-Gulf South Conference honoree in 1973 after posting an 8-0 record with a 2.00 ERA.

And that's even with the Bat Boy incident. He was the starting pitcher in UT Martin's 1971 NCAA Mideast Regional Tournament game, which was the program's first ever NCAA tournament appearance. He also served as UT Martin's head coach in 1976, guiding the then Pacers to a 23-16 overall record. And I will also read from his obituary. This was after he passed away on March 30, 2022, at the age of 70. He was a graduate of Mansfield Senior High, graduated with a bachelor's degree from the University of Tennessee at Martin.

That was where his love for baseball continued to soar. With a special love for baseball, Richard pitched for the UT Martin Skyhawks and was their coach for two years after graduating. He began setting numerous records, which he still holds today, and was inducted into the UT Martin Baseball Hall of Fame in 2018. After college, he went on to coach local sports while staying in contact with his UT Martin baseball family. Richard spent 35 years as an educator and coach for Mansfield Senior High School,

having the longest consecutive number of years coaching. He was an athletic director for 18 years and taught special education for 17 years. An avid sports fan, his favorite teams were the Cleveland, then Indians, Cleveland Browns, and the Ohio State Buckeyes. After retirement, he truly missed the people he worked with but never ceased to remember all the memories and special moments he shared with his family, friends, and students over the years. He loved birdwatching and riding his motorcycle all over the U.S., especially his trip to Alaska. His biggest blessing in life was his first grandchild,

Lyric. He had a special love for his dog, Sassy. He was a member of Elm Street Free Will Baptist Church. Sounds like what with all the educating and coaching, he had a positive impact on many lives. Who knows? Maybe a more positive impact than he would have had as a professional pitcher. Sure, there are a lot of people around today who are glad that he came into their lives in a way that he might not have if not for that fateful day. And sounds like maybe he ultimately came to see it that way, too.

So Dick Windbickler, R.I.P. And I think we should memorialize him and remember him. I know that I will think of Dick Windbickler now whenever a pitcher stops their motion. Right. And we hear an announcer say this thing. My mind will go to Dick Windinn-Bickler. And I think that we should dub that the Winn-Bickler. I think that's what we should call that when a pitcher, any pitcher, stops his motion for any reason. Someone calls timeout, a child wanders or wanders in front of the plate for whatever the cause, I think we should say he wind bigler. That was a wind bigler. You got to be careful when you wind bigler because of what happened to Dick Wind Bigler. And then we can tell the heroic story of Dick Wind Bigler's sacrifice. And I like it because not that I'm prone to necessarily believe in these sorts of things having real explanatory power, but like it's a wonderful name and a name you don't hear very often.

I don't know that I've ever heard of a human person called Winn Bigler before. I definitely had never heard of a Winn Bigler. I had never heard of that name before. I'd never heard it. And it's a lovely name and so special and weirdly musical. And I want to say it. And I want to say it. And the fact that I want to say it and that we are attributing it to a thing that we hope never happens will hopefully have some weird reverse cosmic, you know, effect that means that this doesn't happen ever again. And we'll be like, you know, we still are looking for a reason to invoke the wind biggler, but we don't have it. Right. Yeah. I hope this catches on. This could be a contribution to the baseball lexicon. It is a great name. It's kind of like a Dirk Diggler, Dick Wind Biggler. It's kind of got the same mouthfeel.

But more wholesome. But more wholesome. I shouldn't even invoke mouthfeel in connection. Oh, goodness. You spoke to a widow for this. What are you doing, Ben? Come on now. Get it together. Thank you, Melba.

And also sorry. And Melba, what a great name Melba is. Melba, yeah. Terrific. What a nice lady to spend some time with you. I hope that if Melba, if you're listening, I want you to know that our appreciation for your last name is quite sincere. It's just a cool name. I've, much as you do not encounter actual documented incidents of a pitcher suffering some injury, what sounds like quite a painful and severe injury by pausing their windup. So if you're listening to this now and you know of or can find other examples of pitchers

hurting themselves doing this, even more prominent pitchers, you can send them in. I'm interested in seeing them. But regardless, I think that we should call this the Windbickler. Henceforth, this shall be known by Effectively Wild podcast decree as the Windbickler. And let's all do what we can to spread the word and popularize that. Yeah. Rest in peace, Dick. Yes, indeed. All right. A few other emails, one from Patreon supporter and listener Michael Cohen. Not that one. And I'm sure that this Michael Cohen is sick of people making that joke about the other Michael Cohen. There have been many jokes in the Facebook group to that end, if I recall correctly. Yeah. There's only one Dick Winn-Bickler, maybe, but multiple Michael Coens, probably to the chagrin of our Michael Cohen. But our Michael Cohen says, how can you not be pedantic about stadium chasing?

ticket to see the Mets play in Citi Field on June 23, 2011. This was a day game, scheduled start time at around 1 p.m. However, the game went into a rain delay before the first pitch was thrown. My then partner and I wandered around the stadium, got lunch at one of the concession stands, but eventually decided we needed to leave to catch the subway back to the city. We had tickets for a show on Broadway that night. We left around 3 p.m. The game started at around 3.30 p.m. and was played to completion. So the question is, does this count when it comes to stadium chasing, i.e. seeing a game played in every MLB stadium?

I think it's pretty clear, Michael says, that the answer is no, despite the fact that I did my best, I did not actually see any baseball played that day. However, others I have told this story to believe that this should in fact count. We need you to be the arbiters. This is a heavy responsibility that Michael is placing on us here. So does this count or does he have to return to Citi Field to complete the set? I think that regardless of the answer to that question, that he perhaps ought to return, right?

Because you didn't get to see the baseball piece of it. But I don't know. This occupies an interesting sort of gray area for me because I wouldn't say that a person who like say has taken a ballpark tour, because you can take tour, you can just like go on a tour of ballparks. I don't know that I would necessarily see that as being consistent with the

spirit of a, like a ballpark passport, you know, getting your passport stamped. It's like, yeah, you've been there, but you've been there in the same way that someone who like went to see the

Rolling Stones play there has been there. So I don't think that it's like that right you went there with the intent of seeing baseball played you purchased a ticket to that end you you ate ballpark concessions you maybe bought a little hat um but you didn't you didn't actually see it so like i maybe would opt for like partial credit, you know, if it was the last one you had to do, you know, if all that remained for you to say, I've been to all 30 active parks and potentially ones that are no longer in service, I would say you need to go back, you know, to say you've done it. I think you need to go back, But it's like partial credit, I think, you know? Yeah.

You could be sort of sneaky about it and you could say, I've been to all 30 parks or visited all 30 parks. And probably most people would assume that you meant that you had gone there for a baseball game. They might not follow up and ask questions. You could get away with it. It's all fun facts lie. So that would be your fun fact and you'd be lying a little bit, but you would know that it wasn't completely true and you wouldn't feel that satisfaction, right? So I think you got to go back and Citi Field is nice. It's certainly the nicer of the two New York ballparks. It's nice. It's certainly the nicer of the two New York ballparks. So it shouldn't be a big imposition. I mean, the travel might be, but you'll have yourself a nice time out there,

regardless of how the Mets are doing. I'm embarrassed to say that despite the fact that I lived in Queens the entire time I lived in New York, I've still never been to Citi Field for a game. And it was like four stops away on the seven you know it was right it was right there what was it and they were bad ben you know i could have gone for cheap you know i could have just popped over and popped back and it probably would have been a nice chill day you know yeah this reminds me of the concept of the phantom ball player which is a player who is called up and spends some time on the active roster, but never actually gets into a game. And then you wonder, well, were they a

major leaguer? They were on the major league roster, but they didn't actually play in a major league game. So does that count? That's a phantom ballplayer, or at least one definition of a phantom ballplayer. or something Sam wrote about the no PAPH, the no plate appearance pinch hitter, the guy who was called upon to pinch hit and then inspires a pitching change and then gets removed immediately for a new pinch hitter. Maybe you don't see that so much now with the three batter minimum, but did they even pinch hit? They were announced as a pincher, but they didn't have a plate appearance, right?

So this is kind of like that. Like he went there. He went there for a game. He was ready. He was willing. He was on time. It was circumstances out of his control. It rained.

It delayed the start time. So it's no fault of his own that he didn't get to see the game. He was there, but he just still just didn't quite get into the game. Right. He wasn't there in the game or when the game was going on. Yeah. Yeah. And Michael seems to know this.

Right. He knows in his heart of hearts. Other people maybe are trying to tell him, oh, yeah, it counts. You know, maybe they're trying to spare his feelings or maybe they genuinely believe that. But, yeah, I'm sorry. It doesn't quite count. Yeah. Perhaps the fact that you're asking the question of multiple people suggests that you know the answer on some level.

Yeah. You know. You want us to give you your medicine here. You want us to tough love, tell you the truth. Yeah. And the fact that you are, I think, continuing to seek answers, but that you are asking them of people who you know will tell you what's what, at least. We'll do it nicely. We like to try to do it nicely. But yeah, it's like it's not going to a concert there and it's not like going to fan fest, but it's closer to that than an actual baseball game, because you didn't, you didn't see. I mean, maybe you saw somebody warm up, but maybe not if they realized they were going to have weather concerns early enough. So.

All right. Dan, Patreon supporter says, I have what I hope is a fun question for both of you. I hope so too, that I have also sent to Jake and Jordan at Baseball Barbecast, barbecue. Wow. You're a multi-podcast question submitting here, but you know what? We'll allow it. We like Jake and Jordan. It's okay. Yeah. And he sent it to multiple podcasts and multiple podcasters to hopefully see where your thought processes align or differ. This question revolves

around MVP chants and chanting for awards in general. Oh, I found myself thinking about fans chanting MVP for their team's best player or even sometimes for a role player who's having a great game. This feels very much like an NBA thing, but I know there are examples of it in baseball and other sports. Yeah, you hear it often in baseball, I would say. I don't even necessarily think of it as a single sport thing. It's a pretty common occurrence in baseball.

I also find that the acronym works very well for chanting. MVP, MVP, MVP. Sounds a lot better than hearing an entire basketball crowd chanting, Sixth Man of the Year or Six M-O-Y. This led me to wondering what both of you would find to be the funniest award that fans could chant for. It doesn't have to sound as smooth as MVP. In fact, part of what makes it funny could be the clunkiness. Imagine an entire crowd chanting manager of the year, manager of the year as Aaron Boone walks out to make a pitching change.

I don't think Yankees fans would be chanting that about Aaron Boone. Maybe this season, but not prior to this season. that about Aaron Boone. Maybe this season, but not prior to this season. Or maybe it's chanting Platinum Glove Award winner or PGAW or PGAW after a good defensive play by a notoriously bad defender. I'm interested to hear what you think would be the funniest, craziest, and or strangest award to chant for in a baseball game. Comeback player of the year. Yeah, I was going to say that it doesn't really roll right off the tongue, right? Comeback player of the year. Yeah.

It just doesn't scan. It's too many syllables, far, far too many syllables. MVP is perfect. In fact, I don't know that I've really ever heard anyone at a baseball game in any way chant for a baseball word that is not MVP. Yeah. Have you ever heard a Cy Young chant? Uh-uh.

I don't think I have. I mean, it would work well enough, I guess. Would it? Not really. But you could, like, Cy Young, Cy Young, Cy Young. I guess, yeah. It works, right? Yeah.

That's a more legible chant than comeback player of the year. Yeah. So, I mean, I'm thinking of this as like a sincere chant more than like an ironic, sarcastic kind of chant to someone who is bad. But like even gold glove, gold glove. Again, it works. But have you heard anyone ever chant gold glove? I haven't. I don't think. I think that once you start to get into the more lengthy descriptors, people are far more likely to just chant the guy's name or some version of the guy's name, right? That's a far more likely approach because you just get exhausted. Like, you can't get out of breath by the end of it.

Like that's not going to work. MVP works really well. It's like a – and like better than – you wouldn't do a rookie of the year chant and do ROI. Like that doesn't – MVP just – I don't know, man. It's just like rolls. It rolls well. Yeah. It does. Yeah. I'm trying to think of what else you could chant that would be funny and not just funny because you're mocking someone, but funny because it would sound funny or it would be so absurd that you would be chanting this like like the Edgargar martinez award for outstanding designated right yeah you know just like instead of an mvp chant for otani you serenade him with like edgar right that sounds more like a taunt like edgar edgar edgar people would be like why are we calling shohei edgar

and everyone would say well because, because the Edgar Martinez Outstanding Designated Hitter Award, which he won, of course, in 2023, like he could repeat as the Edgar Award winner. And that would be that'd be good. I don't know if that's even the most prestigious Edgar Award because the Edgar Allan Poe Awards, which are called the Edgars, are for like the best mystery fiction. So if you chanted for the Edgars, I would assume it was for that. Would you? I would, but I don't think Shohei would be in line for that most likely unless he's credited on the Ipe TV show. Right.

We've already established that his second career is as a humble country lawyer. Oh, that's right. Yes. Come on. Come on. sport. And you could chant for commission commission commissioners historic achievement award. No, it just really, you can't maybe like, you know, they have the reliever of the year and it used to be the delivery man of the year. And at one point it was the Rolaids relief man or whatever. Right. So Rolaids roll again. I keep doing like a taunt. Yeah. But Rolaids Rolaids like if, you know, Mario Rivera is out there closing out the game and you're chanting Rolaids. OK, that that's I

think that might be my favorite because also, yeah, like people would be confused because it's like, well yeah he doesn't make you uh nervous and give you indigestion or anything that's the idea and uh people would would be flummoxed by why you were chanting roll aids if they weren't aware of the award if you could somehow get the entire stadium on board with this award then you, that would work. Because what else is there really? Like the silver slugger, you know, silver slugger. It works, but could you envision that? Silver slugger. No, I struggle with that. I would struggle with that, I think. Yeah. Hank Aaron Award, Roberto Clemente Award. I think at some point we maybe did a rundown of

obscure baseball awards, both active and defunct. So there might be some fun ones in there. How about the MLB Lifetime Pass, which is a pass gifted to players, managers, coaches, umpires, and league executives and various other people of special interest, which grants them lifetime attendance to any regular season game for the remainder of their life. And it's granted when a player or coach spends a minimum eight years in the league. So someone's on the verge of getting their eighth year in the league and the entire ballpark is serenading them with, lifetime pass, lifetime pass, lifetime pass. That's so strange.

Why would you do that? You're raised on your arms. You get just choked up a little. I feel like I would just be so confused. I'd be so confused by that. I'd be like, why are they chanting that? What is going on? You know, I think it would be really have to work well. It just has to be funny, but they're just all so far-fetched beyond the major awards. And MVP is really the only one that gets chanted to my knowledge. I think my favorite approach is when a player has a name that sounds like Boo, but isn't Boo, and then their fans will chant for them. And then the broadcaster feels compelled to remind the folks at home that they are not booing their own player, but rather recognizing his name. I like that.

That makes me mad. Boo-erns, of course. Yeah. Right. Okay. Here's a question that we got from two listeners, two impassioned emails, both of which were lengthy, so I will read only one. But we got same sort of subject matter, same prompt from Martin and Brandon. Apologies to Brandon.

I'm going to read Martin's, but I will put Brandon's on our Effectively Wild listener emails database, which is always linked on the show page for our email episodes. So Martin says, there was a game last week between the Twins and the Guardians in which a fielder positioning violation was called. It was the first such call I have ever seen. In the play, a man was on first base. Jose Ramirez hit a sharp ground ball up the middle. Carlos Correa at shortstop ranged to his left past second base, gobbled up the ball, and threw to first for the out, bypassing an opportunity to force out the lead runner. The Guardians challenged the play on the grounds of fielder positioning. It was found that Correa

had his foot on the median of the field behind second base, constituting a violation. Ramirez was sent back to the plate, where, as it happens, he ended up striking out. It's this last part that bugs me, Martin says, and also Brandon says, and I don't mean the striking out. Why was Ramirez obliged to hit again? Baseball is the game of no do-overs. What you see is what you get. There's hardly an NFL game that doesn't have an apparent TD called back because of a holding penalty or something.

In the NBA, many plays are found to be invalid and don't count, including balls going through the hoop. One of the best things about baseball is that when someone hits a double, it stays a goddamn double. Every time. Correa was at fault, so award the base to Ramirez. The twins actually benefited from the ruling, i.e. the base runner didn't get to second. I can't think of another instance where a play happened on the field that seemed to all observers to be a proper play, only for someone to say, sorry doesn't count, and then send the batter back to home plate. Can you? Obviously, timeouts or balls later found to

have been foul are not what I'm talking about here. That's what I was going to say. Of course, you could have that happen sometimes. Now, Martin says, I am mildly outraged by this. Don't do redos. Boo. This is a legitimate, genuine boo, not a boo. Martin says, what do you think? So do we think that this is how it should work? And you know what? I'll read a bit of Brandon's email who says, I can't think of other sequences quite like this where the aftermath of a violation was technically worse, but still resulted in a better situation. break for Cleveland, but I can't help but feel this could have easily resulted in a much worse outcome, such as a plain old strikeout or a double play after an original batted ball was put in play and advanced a runner into scoring position in a one-run game. The ball in question was most likely only stopped as a result of the rule being broken. Why is it, on a catcher's interference, hot topic as of late, we award first base,

but on a play like this, a batted ball, send the batter back in the box for a do-over, especially after an exceptional play on Correa's behalf that most likely would have been awarded a hit instead of an error if a mistake is to happen in the stopping of the ball. So he says, as of right now, this rule being broken is the same consequence as a pitch clock violation, which doesn't even create a possibility of a ball getting hit. So he wants to know whether we think this is a proper consequence. Should this work this way? Should you just be given the base, basically, if the fielder is found to have violated the rule? Should it not be a do-over? i feel like maybe um maybe football gives us

an answer here where you have the ability to decline a penalty basically if the accepting of the penalty would have a less advantageous result than than the enforcement of the rule would so i feel like you should be able to say no we'll take our base please because i mean it's not that it doesn't provide any disincentive to the behavior but it doesn't provide as powerful a disincentive as i think that it was envisioned to have am i am i thinking about this the right way like it seems like not like it's a a loophole you still don't want to prolong the at-bat and i guess the the counterpoint would be like if so if korea does his his violation right and he manages to throw the guy out well getting to go

back and start and resume your plate appearances is good right but but if you would just be at first base we should just be able to be at first base, I think. Right. You should be able to decline the penalty. Yeah. People don't like umpire judgment call cases. They sure do not. And yet.

Are we going to talk about that? Well, well, this kind of is one or it could be one because you could say, well, the umpire should maybe decide, like, would that have been a hit if not for the violation? Like, if there were proper positioning, then, you know, maybe it would have been a hit. And so you could just give him credit for that. But then you're kind of doing an alternate history thing. You know, there are other cases like that where an umpire has to determine like would someone have scored that kind of thing like sometimes you do just need that subjective assessment although we're trying to do away with the subjectivity somewhat with replay review so i am sort of sympathetic to the mild outrage here yeah i guess this this does seem quite unusual and uh perhaps even unfair yeah

it's a strange edge case kind of play this doesn't happen very often obviously and i don't even like the rule so i would i just do away with the rule yeah that is the most straightforward approach right yeah that would be simple just you know you can go back to standing wherever you want and then we won't have to police whether you were over the line. So that would solve the problem. But yeah, I think this is a decent point here. And maybe if this happens more often, more people would be mildly outraged by it. And this would actually come up and get people's goat more often. It is kind of shocking that there haven't been, I mean, I didn't expect there to be a lot of violations because it is a pretty, I mean, this educate society, a pretty cut

and dry rule, at least in terms of where you can and can't stand. But I'm surprised that we didn't have a couple more, you know, like last year, I'm surprised we didn't have a couple more, you know, like last year. I'm surprised we didn't have a couple more, you know. There were some or there were there was one or two. I know that it happened because people did ask us, like, has this happened? And then I looked it up and it had happened every now and then. Very rarely. But yes, it just it didn't really rise to the level of anyone's attention.

And I guess just didn't maybe change the outcome of things in the way that this did. So as Brandon describes the result, Jose called back to the plate. A ball is added to the one-two count, now making it two and two. Jimenez is sent back to first. Jose goes on to pop up in foul territory. The ball gets lost in the lights and dropped. Jose still in the box after gift number two goes on to strike out as Jimenez is still in second. The throwdown careens into center field and Jimenez advances to third. Cleveland did go on to score in that inning, but Jimenez did not due to another fielder's choice. So, yeah, we'll put it to the rules experts out there.

And if you have alternate interpretations or think this is the most just way to handle this, let us know. Yeah, let us know. Last email question I have here is from Sean, who says, I listened to your discussion of Quetel Marte's unimpressive stats during his hitting streak from episode 2167. You speculated about whether there was a benefit to never having a zero in your hit line or whether another distribution of the same number of hits would be just as rewarding. to do, I decided to take this thought experiment to the extreme. What if you got the same number of hits and outs during the streak, but they were completely clustered together? In other words, your 21 for 85 streak breaks down to 21 consecutive hits, followed by 64 consecutive outs, or vice versa. First, would the thrill of getting that many hits in a row outweigh the abject futility of the consecutive outs? Or, like football coaches always say, and I think as Sam said in The Only Rule, would the pain of losing outweigh the thrill of winning? Would you take this deal for your 85 at-bat streak?

Do you think most players would? And of the ones that do, would they prefer to get the hits first, then the outs? Or the outs first, then the hits? Also, how unhinged would the media and internet speculation about the cause of the hot and cold streaks get in the midst of each? Oh, boy. Hmm. I would kind of like to cluster. I kind of feel like I'd like to cluster for the oddity of it and the history of it. As a spectator, I would certainly prefer that because it's much more interesting to talk about.

But as the person involved, gosh, if you went 21 for 21, you'd feel on top of the world. You'd feel unstoppable. You'd feel like a superhero. You'd be the biggest story in the sport. You might be one of the biggest stories in the country. And then, of course, there would be the even worst futility you would suffer after that. I don't know whether 64 consecutive outs is worse futility than 21 consecutive hits is success. You know, most of your plate appearances and at-bats are going to be outs, so you need a bigger number for the consecutive outs to be bad. This is almost

more than three times, I guess, three times bigger. So maybe it's kind of equivalent. I guess, gosh, if I did cluster them, you'd think that you'd want to like end on a high note, you know, like you would want to have the 64 consecutive outs and then turn it on and it would be a redemption story. And you'd go from goat lowercase to goat uppercase. We should have more clearly differentiated kinds of goat, in my opinion. Yeah, me too. The way that those two terms have become like diametrically opposite things, it's kind of concerning to me. But usually you can tell from context, I guess. Anyway, in this case, you would be both. So it would be tough to tell from context. It would be quite a redemption arc, right? And you would leave feeling good about yourself having come from the depths of despair to the pinnacle of the sport.

And I guess also if you made the 64 consecutive outs, I don't know that you would get the chance really to have the 21 consecutive hits. You might be benched by that point. Right. So just in terms of practicality, not that any of this is particularly practical. Yeah, I think that if it were me, my instinct would be to space stuff out. You know, I think that there's a, sure, maybe you don't get the high, high, high,

and that's fine. But I also think that, I don't know, isn't it satisfying to come away from your working day and feel like I did something, you know, I did it. That's nice. That's a nice feeling. So there you go. Yeah. And if you just don't want the attention, positive or negative, I think most people would probably say, I just don't want to stand out in this way. I don't even want necessarily the attention that would come with the 21 consecutive hits. And some people would embrace the spotlight, but other people would hate that. And might mind that almost as much as the sucking in consecutive plate appearances. So I think most people would probably want a more even keeled experience, you know, the extreme highs and lows, but just sort of

sailing along, mostly escaping notice. Yeah, it is terrifying to be perceived, Ben. So I think you're right about that. Yes. And absolutely, the speculation would get unhinged. Oh, my gosh. People would assume you were cheating once you had the hit streak. And then people would assume you were throwing your plate appearances or at bats. Once you were making all of those outs, your character would be impugned. It would be bad. So that's another reason why you would not want to cluster your hits like this. It is striking every time there's some sort of controversy.

I sort of alluded to it earlier, but there was this White Sox-Orioles game that ended on a controversial interference call against Andrew Vaughn. And we don't have to get into of that although when i saw that andrew vaughn briefly trending on twitter last night can i admit to something like dark for a number of reasons i was like oh did he kill someone i was like why would anyone be saying anything about andrew vaugh Sorry, Andrew. I like what a terrible thing to say. And then I didn't investigate any further, which says something about me, you know, like doesn't say anything about him at all, actually. He just kind of got whether a major leaguer

murdered someone, but not enough to like click. Yeah, I was like, oh, he probably killed someone anyway, going about the rest of my evening. Been a weird week, Ben. All of that to say, you know, one of the tweets I saw when I did decide to investigate and learn to know, in fact, no murder has taken place. There was just a rules controversy, which was the obvious and more likely reason for someone to trend that one of the folks responding to whichever news outlet this was assumed that it was in service of throwing some gambling line somewhere, right? Like, this is just where we're going to operate now because this is so entrenched. And I think that if you exhibited something like this, that assumption would be everywhere. And, like, how would you possibly disprove it to anyone's satisfaction? Like, there are still people knocking around who think that Oht be everywhere. And like, how would you possibly disprove it to anyone's

satisfaction? Like there are still people knocking around who think that Otani bet. So, you know, what are you going to do? Yep. Well, I will link to the full close call sports breakdown of that play in that call. I think the call was actually correct. I think it was, but I think that you're right, but I can totally appreciate why people are irked by it, especially since Gunnar Henderson seemed to have no problem at all, uh, securing the ball and then it was then field fly roll was in effect, right? So like, what does it even, what does it even matter, Ben? You know, like, what does it even matter? He looked confused know, like, what does it even matter? He looked confused, Gunnar.

Oh, yeah. Well, I think everyone was confused, except possibly the umpires. So I don't know. I haven't developed a theory of that moment yet, other than feeling bad that I, for whatever reason, thought Andrew Vaughn capable of murder. Why did I think that, Ben? I was like, I probably killed somebody. What? Meg! Interesting that you thought he was the aggressor, not the victim.

I mean, could have just as easily been either, right? Sure, yeah. I mean, he's a strong guy. I know that it hasn't always reflected in his padded ball stats, but he's a strong young man. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know, Ben. Don't know where I was

going with it, but that's the thought I had. By the way, I haven't formed that strong an opinion about that play either. I think maybe the call was correct according to the letter of the law, but either the law could be better written or maybe it's an umpire's discretion sort of situation. Seen people who seem to know what they're talking about very firmly, convinced that the call was correct and others just as convinced that it was a travesty. For what it's worth, there was a report by ESPN's Jesse Rogers who cited a source who said supposedly that the league reached out to the White Sox and essentially told them that the call should not have been made because there is some discretion there.

Maybe more to come. Mind if I help our listeners meet a major leaguer? I do not mind. 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. Usually we do a tandem thing, but you had a bunch of editing to do. I've had a couple major leaguers on the mind, on the brain here. And, you know, we're not going to run out of

major leaguers to meet. So there's no shortage here. But there are a couple major leaguers I wanted to highlight here, both undrafted free agents in the NL Central. And the first of them is Ryan Ludus, who, as we speak right now, has not actually debuted yet. So I guess technically he's still a phantom major leaguer, but he's been on the Cardinals active roster for several days at this point. He just hasn't gotten into a game yet. But Ryan Lutis has been on my radar for a while because he was a guest on Fangraphs Audio last year. for a while because he was a guest on Fangraph's Audio last year. And David Lorela interviewed him because he has or had sort of a hybrid role with the Cardinals where he was kind of a player slash front office assistant. So Ryan Ludis is a relief pitcher, large man, 6'5", 240. He's 25 years old. He's from Elk Grove Village, Illinois, and again,

was undrafted and has been bouncing around. He's been in the Cardinals system since 2021, and he just finally got the call after a strong start at AAA Memphis this year. And, I mean, how could we not be interested in someone who took a, I think we could say, unique. I don't know that that would be abusing the word unique. I'm comfortable. No, I'm comfortable with the use of unique in that instance because I think it truly is unique. I can't think of another guy whose

trajectory has been quite like his. Yeah. Now, he was nominated. You can nominate major leaguers for us in our audience to meet. And sometimes, if we are so inclined, we will take you up on those nominations. And I hadn't actually seen that he was promoted until I got a Slack that was a tweet by Jake Mintz, the aforementioned Jake Mintz. But Zach Cram at The Ringer sent that to me because Ryan Ludus attended Zach's alma mater, Washington University in St. Louis, which is also where my mother went to law school. And Lutus is the first WashU grad in quite a long time. As the WashU alumni magazine website says, it has been 38 years since a WashU alumnus appeared in one of the United States' big four professional sports leagues, not just MLB. It has been 49 years since a former Bear took the field on a major league baseball

diamond. So Lutus, he graduated from WashU in 2021, and he nearly didn't go into this line of work. He was almost poached and went into what would have been probably also a lucrative career, And went into what would have been probably also a lucrative career, not maybe as lucrative as if he makes this major leaguer thing stick. But he was offered a job as a software engineer. And he initially accepted that offer because he wasn't called in the 20-round draft. Now, you know, if it were a longer draft, if there were more rounds as there used to be, maybe he would have been drafted. But the Cardinals offered him a contract and he chose minor league baseball over the office job or at least delayed the office job for a while. And while he was at WashU, he and his then teammate Mitchell Black created a website to track analytics metrics for every single pitch thrown by a WashU pitcher.

They designed it for a web development class, but then applied it to revolutionize the way that WashU pitchers innovate their pitching techniques. So that was sort of his trial run. And then he was targeted by the Cardinals front office. He's a computer science grad for both his pitching talent and his coding background. Before his first season playing with the franchise, Lutis worked with the staff to develop a new app to innovate the Cardinals' pitching development. And according to Baseball America, the Cardinals initially valued Lutis as

much for his potential fit as a front office candidate as they did for his skill as a baseball career. So now it's paying off in multiple ways. So that's pretty cool. He can wait to fully pursue the front office career because this baseball thing seems to be working out pretty well for him. But it's been a long time since the last Wash U Bear to play in an MLB game, Dal Maxville, who retired in 1975 after winning four World Serieses in a 14-year career, 11 of them with the Cardinals. He was the last one, although he is the 23rd player, or Ludus, is or will be from WashU. But it's been a while. He was a star starter for WashU baseball from 2018 through 2021. And then there

was the COVID shortened 2020, which interfered with his college career. But he was the heart of the team in many ways, according to his college catcher, who says that his senior year, he really put the team on his back. So I guess, as they say, we have no choice but to stan a front office employee, coder, computer science if he was ever going to evolve into a legitimate big league prospect. Adding weight and strength while working at the St. Louis-based Premier Pitching and Performance Clinic, he was able to rev up his fastball to 97 miles per hour. Getting more sweep on his sweeper and more break on his curveball, stuff he was able to accomplish via the Chirp app he helped write. There's a good high slot sinker that helps him limit home runs. Also has a 12 to 6 curve and a cutter and a split change or splinker. Eric Longenhagen wrote last week, his arsenal is one that will keep the ball in the ballpark, but his

strike throwing ability gets volatile often enough that he'll be best utilized in a single inning middle relief role. So congrats to Ludus. Division three success story. And the other success story here comes from the Cincinnati Reds and a player who has actually made his debut. And that's Jacob Hurtubise. Jacob Hurtubise. That's R-U-H-U-R-T-U-B-I-S-E. And Herbys was also similarly undrafted and then signed. He was actually drafted by the Mariners in the 39th round in 2019, didn't sign. And then he went to West Point. So again, it's not just a story of an undrafted guy, but also a story of someone who went to a school where you don't get a lot of big leaguers from that school, which I guess kind of goes along with the being undrafted. But he is 26. He's a left-handed hitter, a left fielder, outfielder, speedster,

5'10", 180. And he has made his debut. He's played nine games already for the Reds, and he's kind of played true to form. He has hit 214 and slugged 214 with a 368 on base percentage. That's kind of his game. He has walked more than he struck out. He's stolen a base. That's who Jacob Hurtubise is. He is fast. He's an on-base guy. Not a lot of pop.

So his career line in the minors is 295, 434, 392. Love to see the slugging percentage way lower than the on-base. And in AAA, 39 games before the call-up, 380, 534, 444. Just wacky lines that this guy has, but I love it. He has stolen as many as 45 bases in a season. So once he works his way on with a walk, he can make you pay for it. He can turn that into a double or a triple by stealing some bases. And I'll quote from MLB.com here,

recalled from AAA Louisville on Monday, Herterbees is only the second graduate of West Point to ever reach the big leagues. Pitcher Chris Rowley, another Rowley, beating that major leaguer, appeared in eight games for the Blue Jays in 2017 to 18. No relation, I assume?

No, not that I'm aware of anyhow. Yeah, you'd probably be aware, I guess. I probably, yeah. I feel like, I mean, I do have on that side of the family, a lot of cousins, but none that play pro ball as far as I know. Yeah, well, Herbie said, I was at West Point when Chris Rowley made his debut.

Immediately, every single person on the team bought a Chris Rowley jersey. We were wearing them around the locker room once we got them. So everyone at West Point was wearing Rowley on the back, which I love that. I love that whenever a major leaguer gets made from a school that doesn't usually have – this has come up in previous major leaguer segments. a school that doesn't usually have, this has come up in previous major leaguer segments. It's like, you know, no matter how obscure you are,

if you are a big leaguer, you are celebrated somewhere, you know, you're the best ever to do it from your school, your little league, whatever it is, right? Usually, at least from your town, you know, except for some

notable examples where there may be multiple stars or you were overshadowed by someone. There's another Army player, outfielder, Walt French, who did not graduate from West Point, but attended and then played for the Philadelphia A's from 1923 to 29. And had it not been for a change in government policy about pro-athlete exemptions made six months before he graduated, Herbie's likely wouldn't have been able to play professionally. He was the first baseball player allowed to defer his military service obligation. He can keep playing as long as he has a professional contract and continues to provide positive media exposure for the Army. So I guess we're helping him out here with this segment if

he wants to defer his service. here's some positive media exposure he can show. He said, I'm kind of blazing my own trail here. I really have no idea what it's going to look like. I'm going to be honored to serve in whatever capacity, however it looks in the future when I'm done playing. But for now he's serving as a Cincinnati Red and he never thought he was going to be a big leaguer. He says, I was a scrawny 150 pound kid. I didn't have any power. Doesn't have all that much now. I basically had my one tool, which was speed. And that's what got me into Division One as a sophomore. He stole 42 bases. He led all Division One schools. And that's when he got on the radar as a small blip on the scouts radar there but again not drafted but was eventually signed and uh covet interfered and everything and we talked about tj friedel and his multiple bone breaks and his bone break was a break for jacob hurtabese because when tj friedel broke his thumb and went on the il that was what created the vacancy for Hurtabese to come up.

He was actually interviewed by David Loroa for FanCrafts, also a print interview this January. And when he was asked which players on the Reds big league roster he was most similar to, he said, I've gotten comparisons to TJ Friedel. I'd say Friedel with a little bit less power, but a little bit more speed. So he was both a replacement player and kind of a doppelganger. According to that interview, what power he does possess may have been enhanced by a trip to driveline two off seasons ago. He's been doing some bat speed training. He didn't hit any home runs in his first minor league season. He hit one in his second. And then in 2023, after that off season work, he exploded for seven, bumped himself up to 34th on this year's fan graphs, Red's prospects list. Ludus was 20th on the Cardinals list. So Hurtubise,

what a great name and a pretty good story too. Yeah, we've been, we've had a couple of those this episode. Got his first major league hit on armed forces day and said, you can't write the script any better than that. So we will monitor their stories. Okay. I have one more thing to do, which is to share with you a stat blast that is related to the hitting streak question that we just answered. So we just answered that question about clustering hits, and we talked about Quetel Marte's hit streak, which he's had a couple actually good games lately that were not just single hit games to extend the streak, but he has extended it.

It's up to, what is it, 22 games, I think, now. So it's still alive. But making fun of his somewhat mediocre performance during his hitting streak, I think you called him, what, lukewarm during his streak, right? He wasn't exactly a hot hitter, at least by Quetel Marte standards, but he's kept the streak alive. And that made me wonder, what are the quote-unquote worst hitting streaks that anyone has ever had at various game thresholds? So I couldn't quite stat head this, but I went to a source at Baseball Reference, Kenny Jacklin, semi-frequent StatBlast consultant slash correspondent, and I asked him to give me

the lowest OPS in a hitting streak for each five game increment. And he gave me a big spreadsheet with the leaderboard with lots of lines on it, which I will link to on the show page, of course. And Kenny notes, the main caveat here is that the streak itself is its own entity. So within a 13 game hit streak, there might be 10 straight games with a lower OPS, but this spreadsheet only has the streak as a whole from start to finish. Okay. So I said, all right, what's the lowest OPS in a five or more game hit streak? And the answer there is Mickey Rivers in 1975 when he was with the Angels. He went five for 25 in his five game hitting streak, and they were all singles.

And he struck out a few times he stole a few paces but got caught stealing five total bases you know that's kind of the minimum you can do i guess for a five game hitting streak and so he batted 200 200 200 during his five game hitting streak there so that's's an OPS of 400. Not so great. Probably didn't feel super special about his five-game hitting streak. Okay, if we look for 10 or more games,

and most of these, obviously, are going to hew close to the minimum number to qualify because that's usually the case when we're looking at extremes here. So lowest OPS with a 10 or more game hit streak, Dick Schofield in 1965 for the Giants. Dick Schofield went 11 for 44 in those games. All 11 hits were singles. So 11 total bases. Had one walk during that span, drove in one run, during that span, drove in one run, struck out seven times, grounded into a double play.

He hit 250, 261, 250. That's a 511 OPS. Again, probably didn't feel super accomplished about that. Okay. 15 or more games. Now we have the legend Juan Pierre. Juan Pierre in 2000 with the Rockies, favorable hitting environment, and he went 18 for 66 in those 15 games. All 18 were singles because, of course, this was Juan Pierre. So 18 total bases. He hit 273, 333, 273, and without even cores adjusting, that's an unimpressive 606 ops so the numbers are getting higher here obviously like you know the longer you keep the hitting streak going even if it's an unspectacular hitting streak you gotta beat some minimum just to get a hit right and he had more than the minimum barely now we're up to 20 or more games. And our laggard here, I guess, is Eddie Foster. He had a 21-game hit streak for the Senators, it looks like, in 1918.

He went 26 for 88, 24 singles, two doubles. And he batted 295, 333, 318. So again, pretty empty average, pretty powerless there. So 652 OPS. And it was 1918, but still, we're in the realm of batting average respectability now at least, but still pretty subpar ops 25 games we're only gonna go up to 35 here after that there are very few insurance all right 25 or more super joe mcewing it's one of those nicknames you just you gotta say super you can't just say joe mcewing you gotta say super joe mcewing one of those uh nicknames that just inseparable from the name of the player. Super Joe McEwing, this was for the Cardinals in 1999.

He had a 25-game hit streak, and he went 35 for 110, 25 singles, eight doubles, one triple, and one homer. So we're starting to fill up some other columns here because we're talking a lot of games. He also walked six times, struck out 21 times. He batted 318, 350, 436, which is a 787 OPS. All right, now we're really getting into rarefied air here, 30 games or more. Jerome Walton had a 30-game hit streak in 1989 for the Cubs. He went 46 for 136, 37 singles, five doubles, 449. That's an 801 OPS. So again, in 30 games, that's pretty impressive. You do a little double take when you see a 30-game hit streak. You're more than halfway to Joe D, and yet 801 OPS. It's pretty pedestrian. It's all right, but it's nothing to write home about if he had

gone hitless one of those days. And finally, 35 or more games. We've got George Sisler, who had a 35-game hitting streak. This was not his longest hitting streak. He had a 41-gamer a couple seasons earlier. But in 1924, George Sisler had a 35 game hit streak where he went 60 for 152, 54 singles, three doubles, one triple, two homers, three walks, not error adjusting or anything here, but that is a 395 average, 406 on base and 467 slug. is an 874 OPS so I think you kind of have to get up to 35 games or more to impress me yeah the worst possible overall line you could have during that hit streak because you know batting 395 over uh 160 plate appearances that's good. Even if you're not walking a whole lot and not hitting for a ton of power,

that's still pretty impressive. But 874 OPS, again, like, you know, it's not mind blowing, but that's pretty good. So I guess like 30 is kind of the minimum where you have to like really be pretty good. You have to have at least an 800 OPS, which people might think of depending on the era is like, OK, that's pretty good. So that's how how long you can sustain one of these streaks and have it be by necessity sort of semi impressive at least. Yeah, I agreed.

All right. Meg had to jet. Just got a few more mini blasts to share with you here. Listener Chris wrote in to say, after a decade of listening, I finally decided to send a question in. Well, how could I not answer? What is the extraordinary occurrence that could have prompted this first email after that many years? Well, he says, I was looking at a box score for the Diamondbacks over the weekend and they had hit two extra base hits in the game and they were both triples. I was wondering how many times in MLB history a team had multiple extra base hits in a game, and they were all triples. No doubles or homers, just multiple triples. That's a simple one to stat head. Only triples in the building. Well, it's rare,

but it's not unheard of. The Rockies were the last team to do it last September 16th against the Giants. They were the only team to do it last season. However, it happened five times in 2022, three times in 2021, three times in 2020, once in 2019, five times in 2018. You get the point. Of course, would have been more common in earlier eras with more triples and fewer homers. Chris wrote back, not nearly as uncommon as I thought, but you know, I hope he doesn't regret sending in that email. Send us another one before another decade goes by. Robert writes in to ask, what is Tyler Rogers? Who he is is clear. He's a twin. Duh. He's guile incarnate. Look at his ding dang baseball savant page. Every year he has elite greater than 80th percentile showings in walk rate, average exit velocity, ground ball rate, etc. He's given up zero walks this year and has been part of zero

decisions. Ostensibly, there's a stat blast question here. How many appearances in a row without a walk or without a decision is the record? He's up to 35 straight without a decision and 22 without a walk. Well, the record for consecutive appearances without a walk belongs to Dennis Eckersley with 41 in 1989 to 1990. Rodgers is up to 28 now. Still a ways to go. And as for consecutive outings without a decision, win, loss, or save, well, that one's probably out of reach. Peter Moylan owns that one.

154 consecutive games, 2016 to 2018. Hobie Milner. Hobie in a distant second place with 95. However, Robert and I collaboratively determined that Rodgers does own the record for a combination of those streaks, most consecutive appearances without a walk or a decision. So no walk, win, loss, or save. He has that record now. Congrats, I guess. 27 consecutive such appearances, surpassing Joe Thatcher's 25 from May to July of 2014. Of course, no sooner did we notice this than Tyler Rogers recorded a save. So that streak, that historic record streak is snapped. I'm guessing

he does not know he owns that record. I'm also guessing that if he did, he might say, huh, guess if you got granular enough, you could find many, many players with a bunch of different aspects of performance that don't really have a whole lot of significance to them or a reason to be grouping together those particular stats. Also got an email from Dave who says, Alex Verdugo hit a long home run at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday that stood out to me, but it was less about the homer itself and more about how Verdugo reacted that felt out of the ordinary. He stood in the box admiring his shot for so long.

When it came time for the broadcast to switch away from the center field camera to track the path of the ball, Verdugo was still just standing there, still as a statue. It looked like a glitch out of MLB The Show and made me laugh out loud while watching. I will link to multiple angles. Pimping your homer usually happens on the way to first base, right? Tossing the bat, pumping your chest, yelling over to your dugout, all while you walk or jog to first.

It felt weird to see Verdugo still firmly planted in the box seconds after the ball left the bat. This got me wondering, have there been any other StatCast-era homers where a player spent more time in the box than Verdugo before taking a step toward first base? Is this even measurable? Well, I sent this to the StatCast research folks at MLB. I was hoping for some sort of measurement of longest time to start moving toward first on a homer, but that would probably be some complex custom query. So I heard back from Shanti, the closest we could probably get would be his home to first time. For the home run in question, Verdugo's time was 10.51 seconds,

now the 23rd slowest on the year. MLB's average is currently 6.59 seconds. That said, Verdugo does have two homers this year on which his time was slower. His slowest was 11.07 seconds, and Adolis Garcia, 12.03 seconds, both quite similar visually to Verdugo's long looks. So yeah, maybe the best way to pimp a homer now. Admire your homer motionlessly. And finally, got a stat blast submission from listener and Patreon supporter John, who says, I ran my own personal stat blast, and I figured if anybody in the world that isn't me would care about it, it might be effectively wild. I was thinking about the concept of the one team player and which franchise could field the best roster composed entirely of players who played Major

League Baseball only with that franchise. I judged by combined fan graphs war of the nine fielding positions. And in cases where a player spent a lot of time at multiple positions, John slotted them in wherever it would open a spot for the next best player. He blogged about his high-level findings at stlbullpen.com. I'll link to his post, but he sent me the full data, which shows that, as he says, in an extremely unsurprising turn of events, the number one team was the most successful franchise in history, and the number 30 team was the relatively new team that famously trades off its best players, the Yankees and Marlins, respectively. So the Yankees have a combined total of 562.4 war.

That's Whitey Ford at pitcher, Bill Dickey at catcher, Lou Gehrig at first, Gil McDougald at second, Red Rolfe at third, Derek Jeter at short, Roy White in left, Mickey Mantle in center, and Aaron Judge in right. Second place, it's the Giants. 399.9, Carl Hubble, Buster Posey. Bill Terry. Robbie Thompson. Jim Davenport. Travis Jackson. Jojo Moore.

Mike Yastrzemski. Mel Ott. It then goes Twins. Cardinals. Tigers. Red Sox. Reds. Pirates.

Orioles. Astros. That's the top 10. Marlins at the bottom. Amir 28.9. War. Jose Fernandez at pitcher. Sadly.

Nick Fortes at catcher. Nate Rollison at first. Jazz Chisholm Jr. at second, Ed Lucas at third, Osvaldo Martinez at short, Brian De La Cruz in left, Dane Myers in center, and Jesus Sanchez in right. Not quite as distinguished a group. And to bring us back to where we started this episode, second to last, Texas Rangers, third to last, Arizona Diamondbacks. And I'll leave you with this. You know about my interest in the mid-plate appearance pitching change. Talked about it just last episode at the end. As I've written, this is much more common in college ball than it is in the majors.

So we started with Dick Winn-Bigler's college baseball career. We're circling back to college. Thanks to an email from listener Matt who informs me about the mother of all mid-plate appearance pitching changes. I'm not sure this one can be topped. Here's what Matt writes. I'm watching a college baseball game right now with a mid--plate appearance pitching changes. I'm not sure this one can be topped. Here's what Matt writes. I'm watching a college baseball game right now with a mid-at-bat pitching change. Mid-plate appearance, Matt, please. And this game feels like it is niche enough that you might not get a million emails about it.

True. In fact, this was the only one. TCU is playing Kansas in an elimination game in the Big 12 tournament in a 10-10 tie in the bottom of the seventh. The TCU manager, whom I have subsequently learned is former major leaguer Kirk Sarlos, just called for a pitching change with a full count and the bases loaded. I simply could not believe my eyes. For further context, Kansas had one of its best hitters, Ben Hartle, at the plate.

He started down 0-2, but after three balls sandwiched around a foul, Hartle worked his way back in the count. I'm not super familiar with college players, but the TCU pitcher, Hunter Hunter Hodges seems like he mostly relied on a slider, so perhaps the TCU coach was thinking Hardell had the breaking ball figured out after he'd laid off a couple of good ones with two strikes. The pitcher had also walked the two previous hitters to load the bases. What is crazier to me is that he summoned Braden Sloan, a lefty, to try to get that last pitch in against Hardell, a righty. As a Kansas fan, much to my chagrin, it did work out for TCU as Sloan got Hartle to swing through a breaking ball at the bottom of the zone. Regardless, I'm still buzzing about this and thought that I must notify you about it. I

will also add that Hodges, the pitcher who was pulled, certainly did not seem very happy about it. There was very little eye contact made during that trip to the mound. It's true, there could be clubhouse costs here, but what a glorious moment. Let me play you the clip. That was so great. Congrats to Sloan. Congrats to Sarlos. TCU was subsequently eliminated from the tournament, though they did win that game. But they're the biggest winners in my book for pulling off that audacious feat. If you see anything like that, please let us know. If you conduct any interesting stat blasts, feel free to inform us about that, too. And as I said, if you want to nominate a major leaguer to meet, please do.

I almost selected Porter Hodge today of the Cubs solely because when I started reading his name, my mind went to Porter House and he is quite a big guy. But then again, ever since we talked about Joe Adele the other day, I've been singing to myself, Joe Adele, a female deer. So maybe it's just me. If after all this, you still want to support Effectively Wild, you can do it 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. Matthew Richards, Adam Bliss, Trevor O'Brien, Alex Markle, and David Sanchez. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, monthly bonus episodes, the latest of which we will be recording and releasing soon, playoff live streams, prioritized email answers, discounts on merch and ad-free Fangraphs memberships, and so much more, check out all the offerings at patreon.com

slash effectivelywild. If you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. If not, you can contact us via email. Send your questions and comments and intro and outro themes to podcast at fangraphs.com. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. You can join our Facebook group Thank you. listener meetups at MLB Ballparks. That'll do it for today and for this week. Thanks as always for listening. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. If you have a long weekend, we hope you enjoy it, and we will be back to talk to you next week. With Ben and Meg from Fangraphs. Effectively Wild. Effectively Wild.

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