Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2170: Making it Official

Episode Date: May 29, 2024

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the career and competitive implications of Ronald Acuña Jr.’s latest season-ending injury, the retirement of infamous ump Angel Hernandez, the aesthetics of umps issuing warnings, the Brewers’ success sans Craig Counsell and David Stearns, a new unwritten rule against any(?) bunting, White Sox players vs. White Sox skipper […]

How do you calculate more? Does it come from the heart? Should we use defensive runs saved? Or follow the OAA way? Who's gonna win? With their quips and opinions Hello and welcome to episode 2170 of Effectively Wild, a Fangrafts baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of Fangrafts, and I'm joined by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you?

I'm all right. How are you? All right. Well, I'm excited about one thing, which is that we have a couple illustrious guests joining us later on this episode. Rejoining us, really, because they've both been on the pod before, though not on the same episode at the same time. So we will be talking to John Thorne and Larry Lester about MLB finally integrating the stats for the Negro Leagues. Now they are part of the official MLB record. Of course,

they've been on Baseball Reference and Fangraphs, but now you go to MLB.com, you can find Negro League stats on there, and they've been given the imprimatur of MLB. And we will be talking to John and Larry about all the work that went into that and all the work that's still ongoing. But all of that just rolled out on Wednesday morning when this podcast is going up. that just rolled out on Wednesday morning when this podcast is going up. But we also have some not as exciting news to talk about and maybe some neutral news to banter about before we get there. I guess we got to start with the worst news of all, which is that we're not getting any more Ronald Acuna Jr. this season because he has torn his ACL. He requires surgery once again. This is not the ACL he had surgery on previously. I don't know whether that makes it better or worse, but he's completing the set now and we know what happened last time. Well, Atlanta won the World

Series, so I guess that's the good news. That's the glass half full interpretation if you're a Braves fan. But for Ronald Acuna, what it means is that he's done for the year, at least until the beginning of next season. And as we know, he wasn't fully operational seemingly, even when he came back. Assuming that was because of lingering after effects of that surgery, we didn't really get to see him at full speed, literally, and full power until the following season, which was last season when he was a unanimous MVP award winner. So this stinks because deprived of Acuna this year, possibly not even going to get full power Acuna early next year. And who knows if we'll ever see the power speed combo that we saw from him last year again, which is sort of what I said before his previous knee injury, too.

I was like, maybe we won't see that again. And then he came back and was incredible. So he may well come back from this one and be incredible again. But also, he might not. You don't want to be too fatalistic about the whole thing, right? Like he isn't as young as he once was, but it's not like he's 35 or anything like that. I do think that we're at the point with him where you just are going to worry, you know, he's going to be a guy you fret over when he comes back. When a guy, we've talked about this before, when a guy you fret over when he comes back.

We've talked about this before. When a guy gets hurt in a way that involves some kind of trauma, right? He runs into a teammate, he collides with the outfield wall, he gets plunked by an errant pitcher or whatever. I think I have an easier time sort of setting that in a category of unlikely to recur or not necessarily guaranteed to recur. And there's nothing that says that he will suffer further lower body injury. But when you have a guy who gets hurt in a non-contact scenario, when it just feels like the force of his own physique and body is enough to kind of pull him apart a little bit, it's hard not to feel some amount of tension when you watch him when he comes back, even when he's cleared and he's,

you know, running at full speed, he's doing baseball activities, he's back in the field. It just, it feels tense. It colors your perception of his game when he returns. I felt that way coming into the 2023 season. And then he put up a nine war season, Ben. So, you know, as you noted, there is recent precedent for him being able to sort of trampoline eventually. Don't be anywhere near trampoline, please. But being able to sort of get

not just all the way back, but better, right? But that gets, you know, it gets harder every time you have to do it, even when it's not the same knee, because you're older. You're just a year older. It really sucks. Yeah. He'll turn 27 this December.

So again, still, you'd think he'd be older because he's been around for so long and he's been good for so long, but he came up really young because he's great. Yeah. and he's been good for so long but he came up really young because he's great yeah so yeah you just hope that we get to see not an injury attenuated remainder of his career we get to see what he can really do especially i worry about him not even as a physical necessity but just by choice not running as much because he did hurt himself here. It looked like on a steal attempt. I wasn't sure whether it was a steal attempt or whether he was just taking an aggressive secondary lead or fainting. It looked like he was going to try to steal third on the throwback to the pitcher, which he has done before. And then his left knee this time gave out. So that is a risk when guys run, like it's just wear and tear on all

different parts of your body. And this was just, you know, like his leg got stuck in a certain way that that tore. Sometimes it's a contact injury when it comes to stealing, but either way, it's risk. And even though he has not been at his best this season either, and there were already concerns that that was knee related, right? Because he had had some knee concerns in spring training. So you can think of so many players, like long list of players felled by knee injuries, or if not felled permanently compromised somewhat, or, you know, you hear about all the efforts that they had to go through just to get game ready and just all the work they had to do between games, before games. You just hope that

he won't be one of those guys. And it may be the smart move for him to come back and just be in the lineup and be a power hitter and get on base and not really run as much when he is on base. But if that is the version of Acuna that we see, and that's the version of most players that you tend to see more as they get older, even if there isn't much of an injury. But we would be deprived of something because that was one of the great individual season spectator experiences ever, what he did last year. It was spectacular to behold. And I think one of the greatest compliments that I can pay it is that, you know, he had this amazing base running season. And some of that was absolutely facilitated by, amplified by the rule changes, right? But, you know, you'd watch him running and you're like, this guy was just going to steal a bunch of bases anyway, man. Maybe not as many as he ended up swiping, but when you can sort of transcend the logical explanation for your outlier season, that's a pretty special thing. And I think he managed that more often than not last year. So man, I hope he's able to come back and be himself. And, you know,

the process, I just can't imagine you're so talented and you know what you're capable of, and you have to feel some amount of trepidation coming back. Like, is this going to happen to me again? And like that, you know, those kinds of injuries, they're painful to, to like move around in the world with, you know, it's not like the only impact or ramification for him is, you know, his ability to play professional baseball at a high level, like, you know, lower body stuff sucks. So I don't know. I just hope that it, when he's back, he's back in the way that he wants to be and that he feels confident in because it's pretty cool and that's the version of him we get and in the meantime big blow to the braves obviously oh my gosh even if even if you're

not talking about unanimous mvp level acuna even if you're talking about this year so far level acuna that's a big absence for atl. I'm not going to say the Braves are in trouble exactly, but they're certainly in trouble from a division perspective because Dan Zaborski wrote that post for FanCrafts the last week before this injury, right? And we've talked about what a fantastic start the Phillies are off to. So entering Tuesday's games as we record, there's a six-game gap there. Having already lost Spencer Strider for the season, now you're losing Acuna. And what did we say about the Braves at the beginning of the season? It was like, what could possibly go wrong?

Well, some guys could get hurt, right? Because when we had Ben Clemens on to talk about depth and how do you project and how do you quantify depth. The Braves were one team that came up because they had this incredible starting lineup and first string. But beyond that, it got thin, it got dicey pretty fast, right? And we've also talked about them because they've kind of bucked the trend toward load management and more days off. Like they just have their starters in there all the time, which might just be old school snitker, but it might also just be, it's a big step down from their starters to their backups.

And this is a team that at times like basically hasn't used one or two bench spots for large stretches of the season, but they haven't really had to. Like they've been blessed with good health in addition to the talent. And now that's slipping somewhat they haven't really had to. They've been blessed with good health in addition to the talent. And now that's slipping somewhat and there's no great answer here. And so you can take people who were platooning, you can say, okay, Jared Kelnick, you're in there against lefties every day. Not

that it's been going so great against righties even for him. And you can say, Marcel Alzuna, you still have that glove of yours that you weren't very good with before. You're definitely not going to be good with now, right? So it's going to be trouble unless Anthopolis pulls another trick like he did a few seasons ago and he does what he did the last time Acuna went down and he makes a bunch of mid-season additions that everyone pooh-poohs at the time and then turns out that they lead to a World Series championship. So that could happen too. Maybe history will repeat itself. But in the meantime, like that second

string and third string, they just got Riley back and they just got Murphy back, which cushions the blow somewhat. But yeah, it's a big hole in that lineup and in the field. Yeah. And I don't want to say that like their season's over, that they can't find their way, you know, potentially to the division, but, you know, they're already six games back of Philly and now they're without Acuna. They're going to make the playoffs. They're going to make the playoffs. Once you get in, as we always say. Right. And like you said, the last time we had something like this happen, they won the whole stinking thing. So I don't want to be overly forceful in my predictions here, but I also don't want to let the fact that they happened to win the World Series the last time

Acuna went down, like inspiring me to minimize the loss, even in a year where he isn't playing, you know, his best baseball. First of all, like who's to say that he wouldn't have turned it on, but you're never guaranteed a World Series win, even when you have your very best players on the field. And just because they happen to pull it off once doesn't mean that they're destined to again. And that Phillies team this year is better than that Phillies team was the year they won. You know, it's just like it's going to be they're going to have to navigate a different playoff field than they did the last time. And, you know, maybe they'll be able to. But it's not going to be easy because it's not easy even when you have all your guys. So I don't know. Now, the other departure that people were somewhat less upset about, in fact,

many people were elated about, is the retirement of umpire Angel Hernandez. I guess we could say notorious, infamous umpire Angel Hernandez. He will be walking away. It certainly seems like MLB made him an offer he couldn't refuse. Yes. Not like in a mob way, but just paid him to retire. Yeah. That's the reporting on this, you know, spend some more time with his family, etc. And it was kind of incredible how big that news was when that news broke. how big that news was when that news broke. That was, I don't know if it was Acuna-level news, but it was like alerts and notifications and headlines and tweets. Everyone was talking

about Angel Hernandez is gone, ding-dong, the umpire is retired, that kind of thing. And there are really no other umpires at this point whose retirement could create that kind of sensation. And I guess that is why people are not sorry to see him go. The fact that he was well-known enough for his retirement to cause such a stir, I guess, helps explain what led to his retirement. helps explain what led to his retirement. Yeah. You know, in some ways, his awfulness as an ump was exaggerated. Because once you get the reputation as the ump who's really bad,

then it becomes sort of a self-perpetuating, self-sustaining thing. Because every ump makes mistakes all the time, even the best ones. It's a tough job. But when you're the guy who already has the reputation for being terrible, well, then every mistake you make is magnified and is seen as confirmation of your incompetence, right? So it's like, avoid getting that reputation in the first place because it's hard to do away with that reputation. It will just build and build and build. That said, it was not necessarily unfair or a bad rep. It was in the sense that if you look at rankings of, say, ball strike call accuracy, he was not the worst. He was toward the bottom of the list, but he was not at the bottom of the list.

And so I guess the anger that he generated was disproportionate in that respect. But of course, a lot of the anger that he generated came from the ump shows and the way that he would seemingly make himself the story and escalate situations instead of de-escalating situations. And haven't really seen anyone lament his decision here. It's tough because like he sued MLB, right? I mean, there was lots of lawsuits flying back and forth alleging discrimination. Yeah. And I would not be surprised if there was discrimination, right? They're not mutually exclusive.

Exactly. Right. You know, events in the timeline, right? Like, certainly seems like, exactly, right. You know, events in the timeline, right? Not at all. Yeah. Was there discrimination against him specifically? I don't know. But if you just look at the historic makeup of umpires and the ump pool and the demographics, well, it's not a large leap there, but he was perhaps an imperfect messenger or person to sue just because of all the documented flaws in his performance. So, Angel Hernandez, rarely does an umpire attain such a level of fame and rarely is that a good sign, I guess, because, you know, it's the old saying, the old chestnut about like umpires,

like you don't want to be known, right? The less famous you are, the better you are at your job, generally. Gosh, I found the news washed over me in a moment where I was feeling like kind of emotionally squishy. And so my primary reaction when it came down was just, I did feel bad that he's going to be a guy where the reaction to his retirement is something people point to and say, wow, I hope that when I exit my career, people don't have this impression, that they don't have this reaction to the end. I think you're right to point out, I think his story is probably a more complicated one than it's often given credit for, because I don't think that it's at all incompatible to say him and this is true of a lot of umpires even ones who grade out better than angel hernandez did is that there was a you know a defensiveness to him that made it hard to locate empathy or forgiveness for the blown calls because

there was no admission that there had been a mistake made there was a very often a doubling down and it would feel like there was an un like you said an unnecessary escalation often between him and you know various members of teams field staffs or players and so it just made it hard to be like, you know, hey, we all make mistakes because he didn't seem to think that that was true, you know. And so I think that made it really challenging to find your way to some sort of empathetic place because as we have your reputation sort of take a hit very quickly, even in ways that might not be totally fair. But I saw someone joke on Twitter that actually Angel Hernandez is their hero because he was really bad at his job. And instead of just getting fired, he got a big settlement to walk away. And isn't that really the laborer's dream at the end

of the day? He and like Joe West, like there's just this generation of guy where we knew them too well. And I hope that the next generation of umpire is more anonymous in a way that sort of testifies to their improvement behind the plate. And I think that we've seen that to be largely true, which, like we said, doesn't mean that he was wrong about everything. You know, you look around at the MLB umpiring ranks and there is still a great deal of work to be done, not only on racial lines, but, you know, we still don't have a woman in Colin Bigley games. So, you know, he can be wrong about a ball strike call don't have a woman in colin bigley games so you know he can be wrong about a ball strike call and still have a point about other stuff so let's keep that in mind but

yeah it was it was wild i i uh i wonder how that news hitting sports twitter for people who don't care about baseball like how did people because like i, you know, I know the names of some NFL like side judges and back judges and whatnot, crew chiefs. And I have guys where I'm like, I feel like I am. I am often annoyed by you on Sundays in a way that I'm not by other people. But I don't know if, you know, it it hits in the same way. And so I do wonder if other fans of other sports were like, what's going on with baseball that they are like so worked up about this umpire retiring? I know.

Was there some sort of cheating scandal? Was he throwing games? No, but it's not intentionally. But there was a well-timed athletic profile of him last week headlined, does lightning rod umpire Angel Hernandez Deserve His Villainous Reputation? And the conclusion wasn't no. It wasn't a full-throated yes, I suppose. It made the point, well, he's not the worst, statistically speaking, and he is sort of singled out as the worst. And it had various character references and people who know him saying he's a good guy or he's a family man or he treats people well on an interpersonal level.

And all of that could well be true and not really affect his job performance all that much because there are lots and lots of players and other personnel who had their differences with him. And of course, you know, you'll always have differences with umpires, but had their differences in a way where there was lingering bitterness and bad blood and people willing to speak out and not couch their criticisms, right? More so than partly that umps just last so long. They're with us so long. And Angel Hernandez still standing, pissing off a new generation of players. I would guess that this era, obviously umpires have always been reviled by fans and they've always been subject to jeers and critiques and if not death threats and physical attacks, right? In some ways it was worse before, but probably it might be even worse now for individual umpire targeting. Maybe before it was just kind of as a class, you know, we're anti-umpire. We just shout at the ump, whoever the ump is, we don't even know who it is, right?

Sure. Whereas now we know because we have replay, we have pitch tracking, we have little zones on the screen. There's just media. We're able to watch all the games all the time. I mean, there are more games and more umpires. And so in that sense, maybe it's harder to keep track of them all, but the ones who've been there for this entire era, like, they've had many opportunities for their flaws to be exposed and for people to hold that against them. Oh, yeah. I think that, you know, replay is probably more responsible than anything because I think we would boo umpires regardless of their accuracy. I mean, we boo them regardless of their accuracy behind home plate as it is. And, you know, it's it's because they read as cops. So like people, you know, that I'm just saying, like, they don't rule. They don't read to people as judges. Right. And so I think that they will. Right. And so I think that they would get booed no matter what. But once we had replay and we could with some amount of like vindication with righteousness, say they are bad at this in this instance, it was it was over for them. Right. them being universally respected because we only, you know, we know the ones who we think do a bad job consistently are the ones who make a show of their calls. And the guys who don't do that, who are doing a good job, but quietly, we don't know, you know, and so the only the standouts

from the sample are the ones who we regard as being less good at their job in some important way. And so I think it's just, you know, and this is part of why I think, you know, people who think that they're going to get some amount of peace in the event that we get a full robozone, you're kidding yourselves. You want to yell at that guy. You are dying to yell at that guy. You will use the flimsiest possible excuse to yell at that guy. And I'm not flimsiest possible excuse to yell at that guy. And I'm not saying that they get everything right. Like, I think they get a shocking amount, right, given how hard their job is. And I don't think that they should make themselves the main character of the game. Ideally, they would pass anonymously through their careers. And then at

the end, we would go, oh, that guy guy how long has he been around um but you're gonna you you the person listening to this and you think no and i think yes you are going to uh you're gonna say to yourself i'm not gonna boo but you're gonna boo you're gonna boo yeah and maybe you'll miss the heel angel hernandez maybe you'll want the villain when he's gone. Probably not, though. But I did feel slightly bad for him just because it'd be tough to walk away from a job you've been doing for decades and have everyone immediately start dancing on your professional grave. It can't be a great feeling. No, it has to feel terrible. But my sympathy, somewhat moderated by the fact that he brought this on himself to some extent through the way he acted.

Because we could forgive inaccuracy or at least in the long run, depending on how the umpire handles that and owns up to it. You could lament the call, but maybe you won't curse that umpire's name. I guess there are some examples we could cite that maybe would go against that. But, you know, you rue the call, but you might not necessarily like hang, burn the ump in effigy. But what people really remember is when you make it about yourself or you really just make the situation even worse and kind of grandstand and go out of your way to make the heated tensions even hotter. And that was something that he was known for, not undeservedly. I was thinking on the topic of umpires, I just sent you this highlight, which I will link to on the show page of this incident that just happened in AAA where Pete Crowe Armstrong of the Cubs, he hit a home run off of veteran Willie Peralta,

former big leaguer who hasn't been in the big leagues for a couple of years, but he's in AAA with the Pirates now. And Peralta was either throwing at PCA or was just wild and almost hit him on a couple of pitches. And then PCA hit a home run on the next pitch and kind of crowed his way around the bases. But after that revenge Homer, whoever the ump was, again, I don't know the name of that ump. He didn't do anything wrong in this situation. So I didn't bother to look up his name, but he issued warnings to try to forestall future bad blood. And I just, I love that motion, that demonstrative warning, the like scolding point that umpires do because they they point in like three different directions. And you can see in this clip, they point at each bench and then they point at the pitcher and they're almost doing like a Mutombo like finger wag, like don't do it again.

Don't you do it. It's like you're pointing at a toddler or something yes we don't it's very wwe it's very like demonstrative because i think baseball umps they make fewer motions like gesticulations than say nfl umps right or even nba umps maybe like nfl umps they're always doing hand signals and stuff. And maybe that's because they have for a lot longer had to like convey to the crowd what was happening and make announcements. But, you know, they have like arm signals and umps don't always. I mean, they might have a strikeout call or something, but like a lot of it is just auditory, right? They just say things and we don't see what's happening. That's one reason they gave them mics recently because it was like, what the heck is happening here? I don't know. I'm not at field level.

But when they warn everyone, then they point. They do the demonstrative. I'm over here. You're warned. You're warned. You get a warning. You get a warning. I love the actual pointing because he could just walk over, you know?

He could walk over to the pitcher and be like, hey, don't do it again. You're warned. He could sidebar with the benches or something. But no, it's just the full on. Everyone can see that I am warning you. I'm scolding you. Don't do that again. Don't do it again.

Don't misbehave or I'll give you a timeout. I wish that they had occasion to throw their hats. You know, one of my favorite things in football is when there are so many fouls that they have to throw their little hat. They're like, oh, we got to know that there's another one. Here's my little hat. Yeah. The officials don't get to throw enough stuff in baseball. You know, no cards that they throw, no flags that they throw.

They should throw some stuff some more. That's why they always want to throw get to throw some stuff some more. That's why they always want to throw the ball back to the mound sometimes. Like they just want to throw something. They want to do something more active out there. We should give them something to throw. Yeah. I like warning the benches being a place where personality comes out, because I think the idea, you know, we've spent the last couple of minutes saying how they should be completely anonymous. You shouldn't know their names. You'd be like, who's that guy? But that's not maybe fundamentally realistic to expect. And there is something a little dehumanizing about being like, you cannot be known. You must be completely unknown to baseball fans. And so maybe we should

convene like some sort of committee and say, here are the places where the injection of personality is welcome. And then with that sort of ability to vent the spleen, as it were, they would feel satisfied, right? They would feel seen and they would not have to do quite so much showing in other instances where it's like you get to, you know, think about what your gesture is and how you want to warn the benches in the picture. And they'll know you mean it, you know. fighting with a sibling in the backseat of a car when you're a little kid where your mom's like, if you do it again, this car will get pulled over and I'm not going to do anything, but you're going to be grounded. And, you know, you take TV away from a kid and they're basically not a citizen anymore. Yeah. I've been very conscious of that as a parent, not to issue empty threats like that,

where it's like, if you don't do whatever, like, we'll just stop right here because I don't want to stop right here, you know? So like, what if my daughter calls my bluff? I keep remembering when I was a kid and we'd be in school and the teacher would be like, I'll stop like until, you know, you guys stop talking or whatever. I'll just stop. And I was like, you know, okay. I mean, I didn't say that. I wasn't the biggest smartass, but I was like, all right, like, you want to stop teaching? Like, fine, right? So, you got to be careful when you issue those threats because it's, you know, you got to have some real, like, you got to follow through on that and you got to be careful that it's not a threat that you don't actually want to follow through on. Right. And you want it to be proportional to the moment. You know, you want to have a correct sense of how much this matters in the grand scheme of things. But, yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, I comp them to cuffs. But there are also a lot like substitute teachers where I think that, you know, baseball players and little kids, they can smell fear on you. And they will take advantage of that indecision and lack of follow through.

And yeah, you got to be ready to like to mean it. And once you get to the point of warning benches, like I think that they're they're quite ready to eject someone that I think they mean it. it up and you want to be fair and you want to use good sort of discretion in which moments actually merits a big consequence and then not be afraid to turn that car around. Well, we will segue from the AAA Cubs being involved in some bad blood to the big league Cubs who played the Brewers for the first time since Craig Council left Milwaukee to join the Cubs. And Council got booed lustily by the Milwaukee faithful. This was the first time he had come back to Milwaukee. And look, often I think it's silly, like when Francisco Lindor returned to Cleveland recently and got booed. Mostly cheered, to be clear.

But there were boos and there were sellout chants. And any who booed, even if it was a few boos, because boos can carry quite clearly. It's like, come on. What are you doing? Like, they traded him. Okay, I guess they traded him because he didn't want to take some sweetheart hometown discount to stay. What are you doing? Like, come on, you know, I mean, remember the good times,

thank him for his service. Like, you know, it's just, it's silly, especially because that trade worked out fine for Cleveland. In this case, I kind of get it because, you know, it's you left via free agency, kind of took everyone by surprise. And hey, you know, no, no problem with going and getting yours. I mean, that's the way that jobs work, right? Totally. The way that most of us handle our professional lives. But in baseball, you know, there's some grudges get held. Sure.

And especially in this case, because you're going to a division rival. So, you know, it's always acceptable to boo a division rival, right? Yeah. But it was kind of funny because they had a Craig Council tribute video. Of course they did. And he was getting booed during it, which, you know, not unexpected. Hilarious. But the Brewers won that game 5-1.

And you know what? Hats off to the Brewers, I got to say. Because a lot of people wrote them off this season. They seemed to maybe write themselves off to some extent when they traded Corbin Burns and made some other moves that made you think, oh, this isn't going to go great. And they lost Council. But Council's gotten so much credit for their success, not undeservedly, not unfairly, but between him and David Stearns, who also got a lot of credit for engineering those rosters, again, like he deserves some.

But a lot of it was like, well, how are the Brewers going to go on in the absence of Stearns and Council now? And Burns has gone and and and. Well, they're in first place, you know, and they have outplayed every other team in that division. Like run differential wise, the cubs have been outscored to this point the mets who have sterns now have been outscored by a wider martian they're not doing so hot like and here are the brewers like they're still trucking along you know yeah losing those architects and field generals and everything and that doesn't mean we have to reevaluate whether they actually were useful or valuable. Sure.

Does counsel have no clothes? Was he not actually a good manager? No, he's probably a good manager. But a good manager only matters so much. And the brewers have just made it work. They've called up some guys and gotten good production. They've made some trades that have worked out, like Joey Ortiz, as we mentioned, who's been really good, who they got back in the Burns trade. By some wars, at least, he's been as valuable as Corbin Burns.

Joey Ortiz, who saw that coming, right? And, you know, other smart trades that they've made in the past that have worked out, like Willie Adamas, you know. And Christian Jelic has bounced back now that he's in the lineup again. He's hitting and performing quite well. And then they have like Bryce Terang, who's hitting well. And of course, the William Contreras steal of a trade. Like, yeah, they have managed to make it work in the absence of Council and Stearns and Burns and kudos to them. Like, you know, maybe we don't give them enough credit.

Like people think of them kind of as the rays of the NL Central maybe because they have a lot of the same executives and also have managed to kind of keep things moving and trade people and promote people. And just it's sort of a treadmill, but it works and it's still working somewhat to my surprise how well it's working this year. I still am in favor as a general rule of roster construction of, you know, making things easier on yourself rather than harder. And I think that the Brewers sort of perpetual insistence on kind of coming and going as it were at the same time uh does make things harder for them um at times than it needs to but you know like they're doing pretty well and it's not like you know like the Guardians who are like eight wins better than their base runs record or something like that like which is absurd. Boy, they're playing really good situational baseball, but they are

really well over their record skis, as it were. As it were. I feel like I'm saying as it were a lot. As it were, Ben. Anyway, good job Brewers. Way to go. Yeah. Their starting rotation is 25th and more, so

it's not like... Name every member of the Brewers starting rotation is 25th in war. So it's not like— Name every member of the Brewer starting rotation. I dare you, Ben. I can name Robert Gasser because I think that's a great nominative determinism pitcher name. He's not that hard a thrower. He should throw harder being named Robert Gasser. But still, pretty good. Yeah, and they projected to have a lousy rotation.

Yeah. And they have kind of had a lousy rotation. Yeah. But they've been good in pretty much every other way. Yeah. And, you know, if you hit and you field well enough, then you can make up for that. So good for them, I guess. And also, by the way, wanted to mention another kerfuffle that involved the Brewers and also the Red Sox. And we got an email from a listener about this because this is

one of the weirdest unwritten rules flare-ups that I can recall. This was on Sunday. Brewers are playing the Red Sox at Fenway, and the Brewers end up losing the game two to one. But the benches and the bullpens emptied in the seventh inning and Red Sox reliever Chris Martin was jawing. When do you ever hear the verb jawing used, if not in a baseball, like not really brawl context? Jawing at Brewers first base coach Quinton Berry. So here's what happened. Two outs, runner on third.

This is a tie game at one at this point. Kristen Jelich grounds out to Dominic Smith, underhands the ball to Martin, who's covering. And Martin then gets into the animated discussion, as it was described, with Berry. And what are they animatedly discussing and jawing about? Bunting. The inning began with Blake Perkins of the Brewers bunting for a single before Bryce Turing sacrificed him to second. And that

was it. That was the thing that pissed off Chris Martin, that there was a bunt. Seemingly, the unwritten rule here is thou shalt not bunt. And this is not like a bunt. Seemingly, the unwritten rule here is thou shalt not bunt. And this is not like a bunt to break up a no-hitter or a perfect game or something. And it's not anything having to do with the lopsidedness of the score or anything like that. The usual sources of unwritten rules, disagreements. It's just that he bunted. So Martin said, I probably said some things under my breath that were kind

of directed toward that inning. I'll let y'all determine what those things were. But then he went on to tell us what they were. Heat of the moment, they bunted twice. You see they bunted there at the end of the game. I don't know. I don't like it. I don't like it. They butted and I don't like it. I know it's part of the game, but it is what it is. What? Then he went on to say that he leaned more toward taking as a compliment because he was asked if he felt disrespected by this. And he said he leaned toward taking as a compliment, though clearly he did feel disrespected to some extent. He said, maybe they don't think they can get a hit or whatever. I don't know.

I feel like in this league, swing the bat. That's it. And Christian Yellich said quite reasonably, it's part of baseball. You're trying to win a tie game. He got out of the inning in the tie game with no runs given up. So you'd think he'd be pretty happy about that. All we're trying to do is find a way. Part of our team's skill set is doing that.

What the heck? Look, maybe this is just one guy being upset about something for no particular reason. But like, if this is going to become an unwritten rule, just no butting. It's almost like an old school sabermetrics, never bunts, kill the bunts, right? Like Chris Martin is now saying that. And I can't figure out what his gripe is exactly. Right. Unless it's just kind of what he said that like no one really bunts anymore. Like have we just gotten to the point where the bunt is so rare that players will be pissed when someone bunts? Because it's just like, hey, I wasn't expecting that.

Like, you're going to make me go run after the ball now as a pitcher? Like, people don't bunt anymore. I wasn't expecting that. Like, is that that seems to be basically what this amounts to. You bunted. I don't like that. Okay. What? What? Isn't it? this is so silly here's what i would posit i don't think that there's anything that he could have done that that he would have been happy with right because like you know what's that t-shirt say never bunt hit dingers or something like that like would he have wanted him to hit a home run you know would he have wanted him to work the count and draw a walk like what would have been i don't know the. The thing is that you got to play baseball. You got to play baseball for the whole game. That's it. You just have to do. It doesn't strike me as remotely disrespectful.

And like, what's the success rate on bunt attempts, non-sacrifice bunt attempts these days? Like, yeah, there's a reason why they don't happen as much anymore although like now that they are more scarce the success rate is higher because the only players who do them now are those who are qualified to do them or it's a situation where they can do them so bunts have gotten more rewarding and successful on the whole as they've gotten more scarce but but on the whole yeah the reason why there are so many fewer bunts is that like generally it was kind of counterproductive, right? So I don't know. This was a bunt for a hit and then a sacrifice bunt. So back-to-back bunts of different kinds.

But I still can't – like is it just – it's unfamiliar? You're not expecting it? Is it like not macho to bunt? Like real men swing away or something? Like, I don't even know what the complaint is because usually it's about showing someone up or as Sam Miller has postulated often, it's about discouraging some strategy that would be advantageous to your opponent. And so you try to like basically play mind games and gamesmanship and discourage

them from doing that thing because it would be bad and or embarrassing for you. But yeah, unless it's just that like either bunts have gotten successful enough that that's what's happening, that they're trying to discourage it because it might work too well. Or it's just like, I was not expecting that. It surprised me. I don't like to be surprised. You took advantage of my non-expectation that you would bunt. And therefore, I'm going to glower at you until we have a war of words about it. Maybe he feels embarrassed about his fielding and it caused a problem because of that. Maybe he's like, I'm going to look, I'm going to look away and I'm not going to be happy about it.

You know, maybe that's it. Is that it? It's weird. It's very weird. It's weird. There's almost never been a non-silly unwritten rule story, but this is one where I can't even figure out. Usually you can at least figure out like how to classify it, like what genre of unwritten rule is this?

And here, that's not even clear to me. While we're talking about Chicago teams, the other Chicago team for a moment, the worst one, the White Sox, they have had some bad blood themselves, though seemingly within their own clubhouse. Now, every bad team or a lot of bad teams get to the point where player-manager relations start to break down or player-player relations because everyone's kind of on edge. Things aren't going

great. You start pointing fingers, not in an umpire warning the bench way, but at each other. And that's what's going on with Pedro Graffal, White Sox manager here, who was last featured on this podcast when he was unimpressed by the eclipse and was basically like, I don't have time to watch the eclipse because I'm busy with baseball. Right. And we encouraged him to take time to appreciate the eclipse. Yeah. Yeah. Well, he's now criticizing his own team in a very public way. So on Sunday against the Orioles, the White Sox were no hit for seven innings and they ended up losing. They had one hit, which was a Danny Mendick solo homer. That was the only hit and the only scoring for them on that day. And Graffol

took aim at his team's effort level. And, you know, in the heat of the moment, okay, maybe things are sometimes said and you walk them back later or you have a meeting about it and everyone comes to some sort of understanding. He had an opportunity the following day, speaking before Monday's game, to walk back those comments. And instead, he doubled down on them. In fact, he literally said, I'm doubling down on what I said yesterday. I thought we were flat. He had said that the team's effort on Sunday was f***ing flat.

And on Monday, he said, I'm doubling down. I thought we were flat, and that's where I'm going to leave it. I'm doubling down. I thought we were flat, and that's where I'm going to leave it. Now, Sunday he praised his starter, Garrett Crochet, who has been one of the few productive White Sox this season. Crochet pitched his ass off. We got no hit through seven innings. We had a pinch hitter break it up. The rest of the guys, not the rest of the guys, most of the guys were f***ing flat today.

Unacceptable. Wow. You're doing. Unacceptable. Wow. You're doing big swears. Yeah. You know what I'm quoting someone. I know, but I know. I know. And the players seemed not to agree.

They did not co-sign their flatness. They said that they had dimensions to them. And White Sox catcher Corey Lee said, I'll let him comment on his statement, which he did. And again, doubled down on it. He's going to feel that way. And obviously, we have a different feeling. He's entitled to his own opinion. I think that's a valid reason. It's nothing to hide about that. Gavin Sheets said that the comments came from mutual disappointment. The team did have a closed-door meeting after that loss. Right after a tough stretch like that, she'd said, emotions are high, everybody's pissed off,

everybody's disappointed, blah, blah, blah, except then Graffal then repeated the same sentiment the next day. And Graffal said, there's no animosity between him and his players. Everyone's on the same page, except that he said they've got their opinions and I have mine. This is not divided by any means. Kind of is, though, like they're clearly divided on this matter, at least. This isn't them against Pedro. It's just a situation. I thought we were flat. They didn't think they were flat. Clearly a divide, I think. It's over. We got to go out there and play some baseball. I mean, it's just frustrations boiling over, I know. But why allow to think that's pretty rare in this era, especially of player friendly managers. And if you have the closed door meeting, OK, you can say whatever you want behind closed doors and you can take your team to task and you could say they're flat.

But to tell that to the world, unless you feel like you've already delivered the message and it hasn't been accepted and now you have to escalate the situation. You got to go public. I just, I don't know what good could come out of that. You know, it just feels like it's not going to improve relations or efforts. It's just going to lead to more simmering tensions. And another thing I think is that always like when you're the manager and you're questioning the team's effort level, isn't that kind of your fault? Like, isn't that part of your job is to ensure that the team isn't flat? Right. You might not have complete control over that, but you're supposed to be the motivator. Like, that's at least ostensibly part of your purview.

So unless you're like, hey, and it's on me too, or, you know, I need to be better about motivating the guys, which I don't think he did. Like, if you're just saying the team's not playing well, or the fundamentals are bad, or the effort's bad, or whatever, well, it's kind of a, we're all looking for the guy who did this sort of situation, where it's like, well, isn't that kind of a reflection on you also, though? Right. And there's the part of it that is just, you know, that's your job in your workplace. Go do the thing. And then there's the part of it that is a seeming strategic error, which is, you know, you look at that White Sox roster and I imagine their thought process is going to be fire sale. Everything must go, you know, like they they want to move guys.

this is going to be fire sale everything must go you know like they they want to move guys anyone who is remotely productive you would think that they are going to want to try at least and be open to the idea of moving them at the deadline so don't you want to project this image of like we're not winning but like we're giving it the college try that guy's so great like it's such a bummer this is how the it just seems like you want to lie a little bit so that you can move guys and you know it goes both ways like it's hard to be enthusiastic about your job when everything's going wrong and i don't want people to feel like they have to like stuff it down but also don't you want to get traded if you're on the white socks like if you are a member of that organization aren't you trying to like play your way out of town every opportunity you get?

I don't know. But I think it's just hard when things are going, when you have compounding issues, you know, the play is bad. So many guys are hurt. Like the organization at the ownership level feels kind of rudderless. I think it's hard to fake it. So maybe I've come back around to just like be, I don't know. I don't know. But don't, you don't really benefit from deciding to air it

with the media, but I don't know. Maybe, maybe you're just like, oh, my fault. I'm, I want to get a job after this one. Maybe. I don't think this will help though. But have you looked at the lineup lately? Also, the lineup card that you're filling out, Pedro, is pretty flat before the game begins. And that's not his fault. But also, like, that's why you get one hit. A, you're facing Kyle Bradish, who's been good and healthy again. And B, look at your lineup, right? So, yeah, it's not great.

Right. So, yeah, that's it's not great. By the way, have you looked at what Tim Anderson has has done this season? Ex-ex-white sock, because he made a couple of costly errors in a recent game that the Marlins lost by a run. And that inspired me to be like, hey, how's Tim Anderson doing otherwise this year? Because I've I've not watched a lot of Marlins baseball. What? Yeah. And let me tell you, Meg, he's not doing great. It's really not good at all.

If you thought last season's Tim Anderson's stat line was bad, then avert your eyes from this season's because he's batting 203, 240, 224 as we speak. That is a 34 WRC plus in 150 plate appearances. He's 28% strikeout rate with the usual lack of walks and zero power, and the BABIP isn't what it was. That has been a swift fall. Yeah, it has, you know? Yep.

Stinks. Stinks. I miss peak Tim Anderson. I know, me too. Very fun, productive player. Yeah, good player. Okay. And then lastly, just wanted to note something that is working well, which is Aaron Judge's defense.

Now, everything about Aaron Judge is working well these days. Kind of the anti-Tim Anderson in that sense because he's hitting for all the power. There was no power left for Tim Anderson to hit for because Aaron Judge has hit for all of it. He's had like an all-time great month of May from a power perspective. It's just been nonstop dongs from him. It's just been nonstop dongs from him. And he's like set some records like most barrels in a calendar month in the StatCast era. He's set that by a lot already.

I know. But more longstanding records. I saw James Smith tweet that he had 12 doubles and 11 homers in his last 20 games, Judge. And it's the first 20 game span in MLB history with 12 or more doubles and 11 or more homers. Like he's just hit for a ton of power. But the big question coming into the season wasn't so much will Aaron Judge hit for power because that was sort of assumed, even though it took a little while for the power to kick in. But he's made up for lost time lately. But the question was like, how's that center field experiment going to go?

And you know what? It's gone pretty well. He's leading or is tied for the American League lead in games played. He's played in every game that the Yankees have played through Monday. Yeah. And the defense has been good. If you go by OAA or DRS or DERP, I could keep listing defensive stat acronyms. He's average or better in all of them. And I don't know whether this will take a toll long term and maybe he won't be asked to play so much center long term. But you know what? This is working. He's been in the lineup. He's been available. He's handling his defensive duties well,

and he's mashing and raking. Doesn't seem to have hurt him at all offensively, at least once he got used to it, I guess. So thus far, you know, the risk has not translated into injury or underperformance on the whole. No, it sure hasn't. I mean, I think it just goes to show that Jay Jaffe needs to write about every player who is struggling and they will all get a little boost after that because Jay threw down the gauntlet. And then, you know, I like to think that Aaron Judge was like reading fan graphs and was like, oh, I'm going to do a swear.

Oh, I need to play better. Oh, God. Yeah, I'm going to get on that. But, yeah, I think that if you are a Yankees fan, like the offensive turnaround is so exciting and necessary and cool. And look at your team like sitting there in first place with like the best record in the American League. That's so awesome. But in terms of positive signs for the rest of the season, him being healthy and being able to hold down center, awesome.

That's got to feel incredibly exciting. And I don't imagine that Aaron Judge will be a plus center fielder for the duration of his contract. That seems unlikely, but you want the early seasons of that contract to be the ones where he maxes out, right? Because those are always going to be the ones where he maxed out in all likelihood. And so that seems good. Good job, Aaron Judge. And Jason Dominguez already playing in rehab games,

so help could be on the way to spell Judge if needed. But it doesn't seem like it's been needed so far. Oh, meant to mention when we were talking about team meetings, I saw a note from Chelsea Jaynes of the Washington Post because she was quote tweeting a tweet about the fact that the Mariners were having a team meeting after they lost to the Nationals. And the message was going to be there was not energy or offense or whatever, sort of similar to the White Sox, but a little less public condemnation maybe. But Chelsea pointed out that this was at least the third team meeting,

I assume this season, preceding a Patrick Corbin start. Oh, my God. Oh my God. Oh no. And what happened in the very next game after the team meeting in the Corbin start, the Mariners score nine runs and beat the Nationals. Now, Corbin actually wasn't terrible. He gave up four of those runs, three earned, but still. But that just makes me think maybe it's

random, but could it be strategic on the part of managers? Because, you know, if you have a closed door meeting and you do your pep talk and everything, and then the team sucks again the next day, it's like, well, does that reflect on your abilities as a motivator, right? And so, and then does that deflate the team? They're like, oh, we just had this meeting and we rallied the troops and everything and we came out and we're flat, to use Greffulhe's term again, right? Maybe that's even more demoralizing. So maybe you look ahead at the probable starters and you're like, Patrick Corbin coming up. This is the ideal time to have a team meeting. I guess you could say, well, maybe we don't need to have the meeting because we're facing Corbin and that'll do the trick right there. But if you want

to be almost Machiavellian about it, you just feel like let's have the team meeting immediately before the Patrick Corbin start. We'll score a bunch of runs. I'll look like I sent the right message and spirits will be buoyed. And I mean, it could be random, but maybe it's not. Maybe there is a pre-Patrick Corbin disproportionate likelihood of team meeting. I feel terrible for him. I know. Oh, it's that's, I mean, like, look, it's not wrong.

It's not wrong. But you feel bad for the guy. If I were him, I'd be like, really? Like, you have to do this every time. I mean, I would probably broaden it out to say that, like, you could just team meeting before any series with the Nationals. Although, you know what? Those Nationals, I'm being a little dismissive, Ben. You know?

They're only four games under 500. They have a better record than the Mets. Oh, 500. They have a better record than the Mets. Oh, yeah. They have a better record than the New York Mets. Sure do. Yeah. Yeah. Even the White Sox, though, beat Patrick Corbin this year, I believe.

I don't know whether there was – I don't know whether the White Sox had a meeting preceding a Patrick Corbin start, perhaps. But the White Sox only beat him in the Nationals 2-0. So they didn't hit him hard. But, you know, White Sox adjusted scoring two runs in five and two-thirds. That's not nothing. It was one of his stronger starts of the season. But you got to think strategically. You want that message to be received and to translate into wins. And you got Patrick Corbin coming up.

I mean, sorry, Patrick. You know, there are Nationals fans who will be sorry to see him go because he and Tanner Rainey now after Victor Robles was designated for assignment. They're the only two guys left from the 2019 World Championship team. And they're kind of competing to see which one can get cut first, I guess. So, like, Corbin's had a long leash. Yeah. But there will probably be some Nats fans who are, it'll be bittersweet. Some will be celebrating like they did when Angel Hernandez retired, and others will be

like, oh, we remember when he was actually good. When he was actually good, he was very good. He was. Yeah. You would have team meetings after facing Patrick Corbin, not before. Not before. Pre-Patrick, post-Patrick. Actually, the Mariners held a team meeting last June after Corbin shut them out for seven

innings. So I guess if Corbin's really good against you now, you might still have a post-Patrick meeting because it's a sign you've sunk so low you can't even muster much offense against Corbin. All right, let's get to our guests and talk about Negro League stats becoming part of the official MLB historical record. Quoth the commissioner, Rob Manfred, we are proud that the official historical record now includes the players of the Negro Leagues. This initiative is focused on ensuring that future generations of fans have access to the statistics and milestones of those who made the Negro Leagues possible. Their accomplishments on the field will be a gateway to broader learning about this triumphant American history and the path that led to Jackie Robinson's 1947

Dodger debut. We'll be back in just a moment with John Thorne and Larry Lester to discuss that further. A good time I wanna learn about statistics I wanna hear about none of them RBI's, yeah Tell me about some prospect I should know about A fake, a fake, a fake Disney World A fake, a fake Disney World A fake, a fake, a fake Disney World A fake, a fake Disney World Well, the combined baseball knowledge among the participants on this podcast is now increasing considerably because we've just been joined by two eminent historians.

You may remember one of our guests as that erudite sweater-wearing fellow in Ken Burns' Baseball, or as the author and or editor of many a baseball book, including The Hidden Game of Baseball and Baseball in the Garden of Eden, or in his current capacities as the official historian of Major League Baseball and the chair of the Negro League Statistical Review Committee. John Thorne. Welcome back to the show. Hey, Ben. Glad to be with you. Also with us once again is a member of that Negro League Statistical Review Committee, the former chair of Sabre's Negro Leagues Committee, and a member of the Hall of Fame's

Special Negro Leagues Committee, a co-founder of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, the author and or editor of numerous Negro Leagues-related books, the author and or editor of numerous Negro Leagues-related books and publications, Larry Lester. Hello again, Larry. Hello, Ben. Thank you for having me on your show. Just recounting the histories of you two takes enough time. Now we've got to talk about some baseball history, too.

Quite accomplished fellows. It's been a while since the reclassification of the Negro Leagues was announced by Major League Baseball in December 2020. And we knew that it was going to take a while, that it was not going to be an overnight thing to produce a unified official statistical record. that it would take less than three and a half years, but it was going to be quite an undertaking one way or another. John, maybe you could start us off and take us through the timeline of the work that went into this, starting with, I guess, the initial behind-the-scenes conversations, the official announcement, and then everything that's transpired since. Well, the announcement came December 16, 2020, in a press release by Commissioner Manfred. And what ensued was the better part of two years of negotiation with our Seamheads colleagues, all of whom we had known previously and whose work we respected.

had known previously and whose work we respected. And finances were really not a part of the disputatious commentary. It was, how would these stats be used? How would they be presented? What would the relationship be between MLB and Seamheads? That kind of thing. And once all of that was ironed out and we welcomed RetroSheet.org, as well as Elias as our official statistician and auditor of all incoming statistics, I think our progress has been lickety split. It's been remarkable that we have done as much as we have in as short a time. We really thought that this was years away. And I don't want to dwell too much on the dispute while we're celebrating the accomplishment here, but what can you say, I guess, about the requirements maybe that led to the initial

back and forth there? Because of course, there have been Negro League stats now on baseball reference and fan graphs as well as seam heads itself for a while. But I know that MLB had some special requirements or preferences when it came to, say, game level data, right, and the integration with the existing official record. Well, because Seamheads licensed their data on block to Basereference.com and subsequently to Fangraphs, we felt we were not in the position to do the very same thing of accepting into our database third-party stats unaudited. So not only did we need to review the findings, we also needed to establish minimum qualifying standards for seasonal titles and for career titles into which a Josh Gibson or a Mule Suttles or a Turkey Stearns might fit. And Larry, from your perspective, can you take us through a little bit from the data side,

the availability of the information? we've talked to you about that some years ago, but when it came to auditing everything, satisfying the requests or standards here, what went into adapting the existing information into the form that led to this new unified database? Well, the availability of the stats comes from primarily black newspapers. For the most part, they did an excellent job of coverage in the 1920s during the depression years from 1928 to 1932, limited coverage, and then they ran back up during the late 30s and on through the 40s. So we have very good coverage of league games except for the depression years.

Therefore, we have probably found 75 to 80 percent of games listed in these schedules. We feel confident that we have enough data to quantify league leaders and career leaders, seasonal leaders. We're confident. What the public needs to know is the numbers are solid. We do a lot of data integrity checks to make sure that the ledger balances between the batters and the pitchers. Hits by team equal the hits by the pitching team. Runs equal runs, etc., etc. Let's keep in mind that there's no software and no app out there that can scan a box score and it will populate a spreadsheet or a database. All these numbers must be inputted manually. And of course, that means human error. And so we run data integrity checks to make sure

that our numbers are accurate. For example, a common mistake that I make, Ben, is I enter a solo home run, but I forget to add an RBI for that hitter. And so when I run my query just for that instance, it shows me all the solo home runs I missed for that season where I forgot to put in an RBI. season where I forgot to put in an RBI. So we do a lot of checks, walks equal based on balls, et cetera, et cetera. And so at the end of the day, at the end of the season, we know our numbers are solid. It's just so many ways to quantify the data. I mean, the nine key is next to the zero key. So sometimes I might give nine runs to a hitter instead of zero. But that shows up in the database. I mean, when we do the integrity check. So it's fun. And finally, it probably takes me probably 30 minutes to input the data manually. It's just not something that you just type in.

It's a labor of love. And that's one reason why it's taken so long. And for those who are familiar with this data as it has appeared at Seamheads or at Baseball Reference or Fangraphs, what are some of the differences that they can anticipate when they start to see it populated on Major League Baseball's side? Are there seasons or particular kinds of games that are being included in some places that MLB will not be including in its data set? Meg, if I may take that one, and Larry can chime in after. I think that we are not going to include East-West games and World Series games within player and pitcher registers. That may have been the case with the earlier iteration. That may have been the case with the earlier iteration. We also will not accept certain barnstorming games that perhaps were accepted earlier. statistics for Negro League teams, particularly the Monarchs, who dropped out of league play for a number of years, registering as independents, continuing play, and then resumed their league status afterward. So those games, which we had segregated and we're not going to include in

version 1.0, which is what we call this initial release, are now included, including the player stats. So that Newt Allen, for example, who was the Monarchs' second baseman in their last year of league play, then they went independent for three or four years, and then resumed league play. Well, all of his stats with the Monarchs are now included. Well, you're right on point, John. And Newt Allen is one of my favorite ballplayers. He played on more championship teams than any Negro league player. Just a guiding light on many teams.

But we need to include those games because those independent games played by the Monarchs were played against league teams. And the mode of thinking is when we look at a Notre Dame football team, which is independent, they are eligible to play for the championship at the end of the season. They don't belong to any league, but they're eligible to play for any bowl, Super Bowl, Rose Bowl, Cotton Bowl, championship. Likewise for the service academies. Bowl, Super Bowl, Rose Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Championship. Yeah, likewise for the service academies. So I think that, Larry, you're right that collegiate football and the way it was played in the 20s, 30s, 40s particularly may have supplied a model for our understanding of

Negro Leagues play rather than trying to do a one-to-one relationship with either the National League or the American League. The Negro Leagues are different. You're right on point, John. And Larry, I wanted to ask you about that. Probably the more sources, the better, the more places where people can access this information, the better. And if they can go to whichever site they usually use to browse baseball stats and they can find Negro Leagues stats there, they usually use to browse baseball stats and they can find Negro League's stats there. That seems better than the alternative. Are you concerned at all about discrepancies or possible sources of confusion due to different

definitions or classifications or inclusions? You know, I guess MLB and say the independent Sabre committee that also evaluated this largely reached the same conclusions about in the broad strokes which leagues to designate as major. But as we've just been discussing on the margins, there may be some differences there. I don't think there will be any differences. The number one source is seam heads. They are the go-to place for statistics. I have full confidence in Gary Ashwell and Kevin Johnson in what they do. I work with them on a regular basis. All my stats go to

them and I see what they produce. They run the same data integrity checks. I've seen the other competitors and I've seen their numbers. They're not as solid as SeamHeads. So I'm not worried about other options for people to go to. At the end of the day, they will come back and see that the SeamHeads data is the best data out there. You see more games played and more statistics per season than any other database because they have found more games. I will just throw as the cherry on top that there is only one source for official Major League Baseball statistics, and that's MLB.com. And we are not trying to corner the market. We're not trying to say that Fangraphs or BaseballReference.com may not present the data as they see fit, but they're unofficial.

I think that's a good point, John. MLB.com is the official database. individual and season and career leaderboards. I wanted to just pick at something you said, John, that this is version 1.0 of the database. I wonder if the two of you could talk about the process for incorporating additional information as it comes to light, because I think everyone hopes that we will discover new treasure troves of box scores in somebody's attic or that further archival work will uncover additional stats that we can incorporate into the record. So what do future versions of the database look like to you guys? And what is the process for bringing that new research into the fold when it occurs? I think we have deliberately excluded from version 1.0 scheduling information and game logs.

We also have certain game accounts like Josh Gibson's four home runs at Zanesville in 1938 or Willie Mays' home run for Birmingham in August of 1948, for which we don't have box scores. And thus, we cannot create a balanced presentation. We don't know where all the runs and hits and outs were recorded against individuals. So if these box scores were to emerge, or if fuller game accounts were to emerge, from which box scores might be deduced, that would be for version 2.0 or version 3.0. The whole idea behind this is that history is not product. It's not a bronze plaque in Cooperstown. It's process.

It's product. It's process. We are dedicated to this proposition in Major League Baseball. And I agree. We may find additional data, box scores. You never know. We may find an old scorebook in somebody's attic or basement. Yeah.

So we want to keep an open mind going forward that records are out there somewhere. And the statistical review committee that you chaired, John, and that you served on, Larry, consisted of, I think, 16 members from all different baseball backgrounds, executives, players, journalists, historians. And I wonder how you directed traffic, John, to the extent that you did. Or did everyone ever assemble in one place? Were there conference calls? Were there email threads? How did you all deliberate? There were Zoom calls, scheduled Zoom calls with an agenda that I prepared that was handed out beforehand. The agendas form something of a historical document unto themselves because they figure out where we were and where we got to.

The contentious nature that may have been anticipated by some never truly emerged. Sean Gibson, for example, was not dedicated to the proposition that his great-grandfather had hit 800 home runs. He was okay with the number being 166 or ultimately, I think, 174. So I think that people who were determined to get along and get something out that reflected our labors all had their oars on opposite sides, and we went forward. That's completely right. At the end of the day, I think we convinced Sean Gibson and others that Josh Gibson is still the greatest slugger in Negro League history, statistically speaking. And even if Satchel Paige claimed to have won 2,000 games, we know that that wasn't so.

won 2,000 games. We know that that wasn't so. But the statistical record does not negate the legend. It augments it. And the idea that baseball was invented by Abner Doubleday has been pretty much been cast to one side. But we have researchers working maniacally to figure out when and where it might have been played in the 18th century. So it's all to the good. Beautiful. I mean, we know Sancho Pedro is great, but I doubt if he pitched 50 no-hitters. families and descendants of Negro Leaguers more generally and see what their reaction has been to this process, because I know that many of them have been quite vocal in expressing the need to preserve this history and give an honest accounting of it. So beyond Sean, what has the reaction of the family members of Negro Leaguers been? Yes, I think they're very happy that something has come to fruition. You have to understand that you got Reverend Greeson,

who's in his 90s, and Rod Teasley in his 90s. And they're like, you know, I'm not going to be around tomorrow. I need to hurry up. Yeah. I mean, when you're 99 years old, you may get that call home any day now. So they were impatient, and I understand that, but we wanted

to do a quality job, and I think they'd be pleased with the results. What's really important here is not so much the men with bronze plaques in Cooperstown. It's not the Mule Suttles and the Turkey Stearns. It's the Charlie Chino Smith. It's the guy you never heard of who hit 451 in 1929. And it's not merely the overlooked stars. It's 2,300 plus players, some of whom had negligible careers at the Negro League's major league level. But their families, their descendants can say with some pride that they are now in baseball's big record book. Yes, I want to ask you about Charlie Chino Smith in just a moment. I think when it was announced that this would be happening, It was largely greeted quite positively.

It certainly was by me. There were, I think, two main objections that I saw throughout this process. One was essentially, who is MLB to pronounce anything about the Negro Leagues, right? Why would we even care what MLB says or how is it their place to classify or reclassify or designate or redesignate, right? That was one. I think the other was, well, this might bring more attention to the Negro Leagues, but it might also obscure the distinctions between these leagues, that there might just be a big jumble of major leagues and future generations might forget why there were Negro Leagues, right? Why these were separate leagues to begin with. And there was even one sentence I saw in one of the documents that we were sent that said Negro League statistics have not been thrown into an MLB melting pot from which the identity of an individual or team or league may not be viewed distinctly. So that sort of seemed tailored to addressing that objection.

Maybe, John, you could field the first one and Larry, you could take the second one. Do you want to start off, John? I would prefer to take the second one and give the first to Larry, because that first one is best addressed, I think, by a man who has spent decades researching Negro Leagues baseball. Well, it's important that Negro Leagues are recognized by Major League Baseball. We've been shadowboxing for a long time, and now we have a chance to be in the ring. You cannot fight unless you're in the ring, and that's important to know.

And so now we're in the ring with Major League Baseball. We can throw some counter punches and we can throw some jabs and say, hey, here we are and here's the records. And how do those records compare to your sluggers? We have sluggers too. We have finesse fighters just like you do. So now we can have that conversation

at the local bar, pool room, barbershop and talk statistics and talk about how many rings that he went during his career versus your man's career. We never needed their confirmation to know the quality of Negro League play. The amount of melanin in somebody or the lack thereof does not define someone's greatness or their athletic ability. So we can now have a level playing field and compare stats. I mean, that's why we want to be in the ring. That's the only way you can fight is be inside the ring, not outside, talking about what if, what it should have, could have. If I could add to that, stats are shorthand for stories. And many fans will know very little about Babe Ruth or Henry Aaron, but they'll know 714 and they'll know 755 and they'll know Barry Bonds is 762. So they'll know the shorthand and they may not choose to delve further into the life story or the circumstances of how these home runs were hit.

So if bringing the statistics to fans permits them to short circuit some of the research that Larry and I love, so much the better, because we've provided a stenographic guide to the history of baseball with these statistics. And so the second objection that sometimes surfaced was, well, if we put all of these stats together to some extent at MLB.com or Baseball Reference or FanCrafts. When we tell those stories, we wouldn't want to elide the differences among these leagues and have people forget the conditions under which some of these stats were produced and why, right? So, John, what pains were taken, if any, or what consideration was given to that concern in this process?

I think it was a false concern, if you'll forgive my opprobrium for some of my betters who put forward this point of view. There is no melting pot statistically. If you want to look at MLB.com and select out players from the Union Association of 1884, which is a questionable decision to include as a major league in the first place. But if you want to look at Fred Dunlap's record in that year with the St. Louis Maroons, who I think won 94 and lost 19, he hit 419 in that year. Can you find Fred Dunlap in that year? Yes. Can you find the St. Louis Maroons? Yes. Can you find the Union Association? Yes. It is not different from the Negro American League. It is not different from the East-West League. It's not different from any of the seven canonical leagues, all of which have independent representation, team representation, and individual player-slash-pitcher representation within the database. Given all of that, I wonder if you now could take us through some of the most sort of significant changes to both the single season records as well as the career leader boards, because you noted there are many names with which I imagine our listeners will be familiar, but also a number of players who they

might not know as much about. So who are some of the big movers in this process of incorporation? Well, Josh Gibson heads the list, of course, in batting average, slugging percentage, OPS, not on base, which I think Ted Williams continues to hold the career record. But the surprise is not so much that Josh Gibson now heads these. It is the idea that there will be outrage by the former record holders. And I want to know who is outraged on behalf of Hugh Duffy losing his title in 1894 with a 440 batting average, which is actually a fairly recent reconstruction because prior, for those of us old enough to recall baseball cards, Rogers Hornsby's 424 in 1924 used to be the all-time batting average high. Then somebody discovered that Napalajew bat at 426. Then we had Tip O'Neill at 435. Then we had you, Duffy, at 438 or 440, depending upon your calculation.

So where is the outrage on behalf of former record holders, even Barry Bonds, who is going to yield the top spot? I think we can presume that he'd be absolutely fine with this. So we mentioned Charlie Chino Smith, who might be one of the less familiar names to be rendered more notable here. Tell us, Larry, what you can about Charlie Chino Smith, who batted 451 in 1929. If people look him up, they might not find that many seasons of official Negro Leagues stats. But what can you tell us about the player since that number is an inspiration for a story? Well, Charles Chino Smith, he didn't play very long. He died at an early age. That's the challenge.

He died at around 30 years old. I think of TB, but he was an outstanding player with the Brooklyn Royal Giants and the Lincoln Giants. When he was with the Lincoln Giants, that's when he had that incredible career season, you know, playing from the mid-1920s through 1931. Would have been a Hall of Famer if he had continued to play but he becomes one of the great what-if stories you know he's like jim creighton who was the greatest pitcher baseball had ever seen and then died at the age of 21 and you know we look at lyman bostock junior right what the what-ifs uh are not just the process of tragedy and early death. It's early injury. What about Eric Davis? What if he hadn't gotten hurt?

What about Acuna, who just had another ACL injury? Baseball is filled with what-if stories, and we do love them. John, I mean, you co-wrote The Hidden Game of Baseball, and this aspect of baseball has been too hidden for too long, though that wasn't the kind of hidden game you were talking about at that time. 69 had not even decided against including the Negro Leagues as major, but not even considered doing so. If the last several decades there had been this sort of information at your fingertips, how do you think that would have changed the course of the baseball history that's been done since then or your career or the shape that Ken Burns baseball took, you know, hopefully going forward with the availability of this information, some of those oversights will be rectified to some extent. But I wonder to what degree you think that would have changed things.

Well, we tell the story separately for black baseball and we tell the story together and we tell the story separately for black baseball, and we tell the story together. And we tell the story post-1947. We tell it pre-1884. There were black heroes on integrated, racially integrated baseball teams in the 1860s and 1870s. Bud Fowler just worked his way into the Baseball Hall of Fame two years ago, and he was the first Black professional playing for a white team to be paid. The stories keep coming. And, you know, if Larry and I live long enough, we'll contribute our share. Yes, we will. I mean, Bud Fowler is a great story.

He played for almost 40 different teams across the country because he was such a quality, top-notch, level one ball player. long as you have, how have the last four years or so since this came to increased mainstream public prominence changed things in terms of the resources available to researchers, the number of people who are interested in doing this work, funding, attention, media requests, et cetera? Well, it's a golden opportunity to piggyback on the current news. When people talk about Otani, I can say, well, you know, that was Bullard Rogan. He also batted clean up and won 15 games every year. Otani is not an aberration, but he's not the first by far.

So I'm glad you brought that name up so I can talk about Bullard Rogan. We want to talk about Leon Dade. The media continues to talk about Bob Feller's only major leaguer to pitch an opening day no-hitter, but that's not true when you look at Leon Dade, who pitched one in 1946 for the Newark Eagles against the Philadelphia Stars. We will not be including the World Series data. We need to keep in mind that on the red grid for the back of the rack Giants, Harold, a no-hitter against the Chicago American Giants in 1926. Some of those stories that come out and people will be interested in probably somewhat amazed that the Negro Leagues are just a mirror image of white major leagues,

The Negro Leagues are just a mirror image of white major leagues, just a different complexion. That's about it. When we look at these statistics, league statistics, the batting averages in certain years mirror Major League Baseball, American League, National League versus Negro National League, Negro American League. The numbers are within two or three percent of each them. There's no coloring inside the lines here. They just blend together. We have mined more than 450 newspapers to get the current database. But that doesn't mean that there's still some box scores out there to be found. My motto is we're drowning in information but starving for knowledge. And so I continue to think that there are other box scores out there and other sources that we have not tapped into. I never stop researching and I welcome anyone who wants to join me in that effort.

Thank you. I wanted to ask you, Larry, if there's a particular game or stretch of games, any individual player's career who you're still reaching for more information on? Is there someone in particular or some game in particular that you haven't been able to get a full accounting of yet that kind of keeps you up at night that you want to put the call out for? Well, yes. I go back to the game John mentioned in 1938 in Zanesville, Ohio. We want to find that game where Josh Gibson hit four home runs. That is the only instance that we know of that a Negro leaguer hit four home runs in one game. So I would love to find that.

I did have a researcher drive to Zanesville to their library and pulled up three newspaper accounts, but none of them had a box score. So we don't always rely on online information. Sometimes it's best just to go inside the library, the local library, and pull up the microfilm or the microfiche and see what we can find. Because not everything is online yet. When I started, there was no such online database. It just didn't exist. I had to order microfilm from different libraries and scroll through it reel by reel, time-consuming process, and make copies,

10 cents a copy. That's what it was back then. So I kept a bucket of dimes in the library, and they kicked me out at nine o'clock at night. So I don't have the luxury that the researchers have today of sitting in front of their computer and having dinner and searching for box scores. So I think there's more data out there to be found. And so I'm very optimistic that we'll find the last 10 percent. I share Larry's optimism about finding more data, but I know that there are more stories to be found. that there are more stories to be found. And I believe that, echoing my prior remark, that stats are shorthand for stories. The story of the Negro Leagues is still not well understood.

And the idea that you open your regular season in May and you post your schedules, but by July 4th, they are pretty much shopped because everyone has lined up so many exhibition games for the rest of the summer. And revenue is the key because you've got to survive. And survival was an issue for most Negro League teams, not maybe the Grays and the Crawfords and the Monarchs, but so many other teams were living at the edge. And every game, every additional bus trip they could take to pay the players and pay the owners and make expenses,

this was not the way Major League Baseball was played between 1920 and 1948 in the white leagues. Things were tough in the Depression era, and many of the former MLB franchises did go into receivership, but they never had the problems that the Negro Leagues teams did. The stats are the gateway to stories, and when we put these stats out, we find that 50 years before King Griffey Jr. and Sr. appeared on the field together, the Monarchs in 1941 had Frank Duncan Sr. and Jr., a battery from the first father and son, a battery in Major League Baseball playing for the Monarchs. So we got all these stories that will come out of this data set. And we'll have a list of no-hitters pitched by Negro League pitchers.

I think maybe in Al Gibson, and Gibson with a P-G-I-P-S-O-N, where the Birmingham Black Bears struck out 20 Philadelphia Stars in one game in nine innings. He'll be recognized and joined players like Max Scherzer and Jerry Woods and Roger Clemens in the record books. So those are more stories that come out of what we're trying to do here. I'm having so much fun. It should be a law against it. Yeah, and more inclusive is better than less inclusive.

The whole idea that the motto on the dollar bill is e pluribus unum out of many that's the story of baseball baseball is if you want to view it separately you can view it separately it's still available to you if you wish to do a study of the Negro Leagues. But baseball from, what, the 1780s on up to last night's box score, it's a story of one people. Right. And of course, there are some of those people and some of the protagonists or characters in those stories who are still with us. And I did want to ask you one question about that before we end, Larry, because there was an announcement last week preceding this announcement about the stats that MLB and the MLB Players Association had announced an expansion of some financial support for living Negro leaguers, not just in the 20 through 48 period, but up through the very end of the Negro Leagues, and that this would also be applied then to Negro Leaguers who had had fewer than four years, I believe, in the leagues. And my understanding is that this will affect an additional 50 or so

players. And Larry, I know that you probably know many of those players or their families. And, of course, this is coming too late for many, many players who have left us. But I wonder if you could talk about the potential impact of this sort of financial support or the advocacy that went into making this happen? Well, I think this is a great move by Major League Baseball to make these retroactive pensions. In some cases, you may call it compensatory capitalism or reparations. I worked with Major League Baseball for the last three years to make this happen. And last week, I provided them with a list of 50 plus Negro League players who are still living that will get these pensions. The premise of my fight or my argument is the Negro Leagues were created by the bias of Major League Baseball. So we have to look at that. They are a byproduct of racism in this country. If there was no racism, they would have played in integrated leagues and they would have been eligible for a pension. leagues and they would have been eligible for a pension. But many of these men at the age of 35 or 40 had to retire from black baseball and take a living somewhere else with no pension.

And so that's my premise. And thankfully, Major League Baseball has been listening to my argument over the years. So I'm glad that this finally happened. Three years was a long time to wait. We lost probably another 60 players in the process. So this is all good. I think Major League Baseball is stepping up and taking account for their sins of the past. And the last thing I want to ask you about, because you have written a book about the East-West game, Black Baseball's National Thank you. I don't know if you got to see that or watch that or how closely you followed that, but I wonder if you could tell us briefly about the games that that event was commemorating and your thoughts on the East-West Classic. Well, I was there in Cooperstown to see that game. It was a great occasion, sold-out crowd. Man, it was so good to see so many talented people, Hall of Famers, trying to run and throw. We won't throw out any names. But they did hit a few balls over the fence, and some of them still have quick reflexes. And it was just real comforting to see one team with East uniform

and another team with West uniform. The highlight for me personally, because I'm a father of three daughters, was to meet Monet Davis. I've seen enough Hall of Famers in my career, but to see Monet Davis playing center field with major leaguers really raised my temperature. And of course, when she batted, she struck out. They didn't give her any courtesy pitches. They fired her down to another plate, but she walked away proudly after striking out on four pitches.

But all in all, it's good that we can recognize the East-West game for what it is. Let me throw one thing on top there, and that's when Jackie Robinson was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, and that was 1962. There was a real scramble to find a hotel for him, and it wasn't until some very big names intervened on his behalf that the Otisaga was opened to him. So we have come a long way. Yes, and I stayed at the Otisaga. First time for me. So I can say now I stayed in the same hotel with Jackie Robinson, my idol. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. more to come. Of course, next month, June 20th, we have tributes to the Negro Leagues and Willie Mays at Rickwood Field when the Cardinals and the Giants play. So lots to look forward to and lots already accomplished to celebrate. And we thank both of you for your contributions to those

efforts and also for joining us today, Larry Lester and John Thorne. Thanks, guys. Thank you, man. Okay, in case it wasn't clear which playing time minimums MLB is using for its single season and career revamped leaderboards now, I'll read you what the materials we've seen say. The current standard for qualifying for batting titles is 3.1 plate appearances times the number of team games scheduled. For the ERA title, it's one inning pitched per game scheduled. Both of these guidelines continue for seasonal accounting. So that hasn't changed. It's just that the length of Negro League seasons counting only official league games might be shorter than what we've been accustomed to. However, for career records, MLB says the current

standard for career leaders is 5,000 at-bats and 2,000 innings pitched. Both equate nearly to 10 full seasons as currently defined. Career record eligibility for 10 full seasons in the Negro Leagues equates to roughly 1,800 at-bats and 600 innings pitched. So that's a lower playing time bar than we have seen other sites use. Baseball Reference, for instance, uses 1,000 innings pitched and 3,000 plate appearances for its career leaderboards. Hence, you have Josh Gibson supplanting Ty Cobb at the top of the career batting average leaderboard in the new MLB formulation. I could see that sort of thing eliciting some reasonable pushback. MLB has said that this is just the 1.0 release, that minimums could change in the future. Of course, it would cause some confusion if they raised the minimums later and removed

people from leaderboards where they had just appeared. It is a thorny issue because you don't want to lower the minimums so much that you enter small sample randomness territory. Not that anyone's wondering, are we sure Josh Gibson was good? Yeah, we're sure. But you also don't want to keep the minimums so high that you exclude incredible players who were themselves excluded from being able to play more official league games. I don't know that there's a right

answer to that. Of course, even if MLB decrees its records official, there's probably room for other people to reach reasonable but differing conclusions when it comes to career minimums. Regardless, I think it is on balance much more good than bad that the Negro Leagues have received this overdue recognition. And I'm proud of the small part that this podcast played in that. We got an email from an Effectively Wild listener named Philip Han on July 20th, 2020, who said, hey, MLB labeled all these other leagues major. Why didn't it or hasn't it done the same for the Negro Leagues? And the first two people I reached out to about that were Larry Lester and John Thorne. So there's some nice full circle symmetry to having them both

on today. And I asked, hey, why hasn't this happened? And then I did some additional reporting and reached out to some other people and figured out how the Negro Leagues had been excluded from that classification in the first place. And I approached MLB about it and there was back and forth and there were deliberations. I had no input in the process beyond that, nor should I have. But I was able to report at the ringer that August that there was a process, that this was in the works. And then also in December that the reclassification was going to happen. And of course, after that news came out, then Sabre's efforts and Baseball Reference's efforts followed. And it was one belated but wonderful domino after

another. Now, hopefully, probably, this would have happened anyway. But would it have happened exactly when and how it did? I don't know. The time was certainly ripe for it, what with the centennial of the Negro Leagues being celebrated in 2020, what with all of the re-evaluations that were taking place in that year. And, of course, there were Negro Leagues researchers who had been calling for this for years, and it couldn't have happened without all the incredible research they did that laid the foundations for this. But nobody had broached it with MLB up to that point. It just wasn't really on the radar, even though it should have been. So I'm happy that this podcast exists and has existed for many reasons. But that might be number one on the list, even though the league

has made some missteps along the way, like in its be number one on the list, even though the league has made some missteps along the way, like in its initial press release back in 2020, saying that it was elevating the Negro Leagues to major league status, not the best choice of words. And one that got some deserved blowback made it sound like MLB was lifting up the Negro Leagues, which was certainly not the case. And I think it is important to preserve some distinction between MLB, the business entity that exists today, and the idea of a major league or major league baseball, lowercase ML or MLB. But sometimes those terms get used interchangeably.

Couple quick follow-ups from last time. First, from listener and Patreon supporter JM in response to our discussion on episode 2169 about the shift violation in the Twins Guardians game and the subsequent do-over that took place. J.M. points out correctly, I believe. I think there's one detail about the rule that wasn't part of your discussion. When the Guardians challenged Correa's position on the field during the play and then won the challenge, the umpires did not directly enforce the outcome you discussed. The umpires gave the Guardians the choice to take the result of the play or to send the runner back to first base

and send Jose Ramirez back to the plate with an additional ball added to the count, the much maligned do-over that you discuss at some length. While the decision to move the base runner back to first base did indeed take a runner out of scoring position by moving him backward 90 feet in real time, one might surmise that the Guardians preferred that outcome given that it came along with the opportunity to get Ramirez, arguably if not certainly their best hitter, another chance at a more significant offensive outcome than his original swing had produced. Naturally, the baseball umpires during the game did their customary job of explaining

absolutely none of this to the attending audience nor the television viewers in real time. The only reason I understood what was unfolding was that the same thing happened in a Padres game earlier this season when Ha Sung Kim was flagged for having his toe might have been the nail across second base on a similar play. And in that case, it took until the next morning's Padres newsletter for me to get a detailed explanation of what had unfolded. It's true, the rule does say if the infielders are not aligned properly at the time of the pitch, the offense can choose an automatic ball or the result of the play. I think there's still the potential objection, though. What if the shift violation resulted in an out when there shouldn't be an out? Shouldn't the fielder be punished for being over the line

by just giving the batter the base, as with a catcher's interference play, for instance? Or even a balk, sort of. If you think illegally shifting is really a big advantage and you want to discourage it, you could make the cost steeper. But thanks for the clarification, JM. And also, we got one more submission of a possible Dick Winbigler-like case of a pitcher hurting himself by arresting his windup. Patreon supporter Max says, really love the story and the interview about the Winbiglers. I endorse naming this phenomenon after him. And I share this not to somehow dim the light on that story, but just as a matter of attempting to shed light on an old memory. I remember watching the 2012 NLDS between the Giants and the Reds and Johnny Cueto having to leave the first game very early.

I thought I had remembered it being a case of a late batter timeout call as the cause. Upon doing a little digging, it sounds as though there might be some truth to that and some ambiguity. So yes, Johnny Cueto did leave that game very early in the first inning with what was initially called back spasms and then later reclassified as an oblique issue. And he did do a wind biggler. There was a late batter timeout and Cueto went through most of his windup but didn't release the ball and it was kind of awkward. However, it's not a clear cut case of a wind biggler causing an injury because Cueto had

actually hurt himself initially while warming up in the bullpen. He experienced a sharp pain on the right side of his back as he was making his final two warm-up pitches. He also threw four more pitches in the game itself after the wind biggler, so he didn't do a wind biggler and immediately depart. It seemed like, if anything, he aggravated the warm-up injury two pitches after the wind bigler. So it could have contributed, but it certainly wasn't the sole or even probably primary cause of the injury. So I think for now, at least, Dick Wind Bigler stands alone as a documented case of a wind bigler immediately leading to an injury. Though I did note that in that Quato case, an announcer did say right after he went Biglered.

And you're always taught to just finish the pitch. He did not. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. 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. to help keep the podcast going,

help us stay ad-free, and get themselves access to some perks. Ran Bunnell, the aforementioned JM, Evil Camels, Peter Tuller, and Alexander Brock. 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 have recorded and will be posting soon, playoff live streams, prioritized email answers, discounts on merch and ad-free fan graphs, 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 at podcastatfangraphs.com, where you can send your questions, your comments, and your intro and outro themes, like the new intro theme we used today, submitted by a listener whose musical group is called Moonhound. I really like this theme. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild. You can follow Effectively Wild on Twitter at EWpod. You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash effectively wild. And you can check the show page for links to upcoming Effectively Wild listener meetups at MLP ballparks. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and

production assistance. We'll be back with another episode soon. Talk to you then. Effectively wild, effectively styled, distilled over chilled beets, effectively mild.