Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2181: No Ifs, Ands, or Pancake Butts

Episode Date: June 22, 2024

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the highlights of the MLB at Rickwood Field game and broadcast, Mike Trout’s unsurprisingly slow return from knee surgery, Matt Waldron’s sustained success, the incredible Royce Lewis, the challenge system’s continued ascendance over full ABS, Barry Bonds as a baseball ambassador, Elly De La Cruz’s stolen-base slump, the […]

Hello and welcome to episode 2181 of Effectivement Sauvage. Hello and welcome to episode 2181 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined once again by Meg Raleigh of Fangraphs. Welcome back, Meg. Hello. Happy to have you back. Thank you. You've been busy taking care of various things and also attending the draft combine.

Combine. Combine. So I don't know what you were doing on Thursday night, but I was watching the Rickwood game. And I got to say, Rickwood game was great. It was really good. It was really good. It was really good. I was nervous going in about just like what it would be like. I think we came away from the podcast being very impressed, sort of like pleasantly surprised by the candor of the Road to Rickwood podcast, where there was not a shying away from trying to reckon with the real horrors of not only baseball prior to integration,

but following integration. I'm doing scare quotes that no one can see but me. And I thought that yesterday was very well done. Like it struck the right balance between being celebratory and acknowledging the Negro Leaguers we still have living today. While also, I think, trying to reckon with and get its arms around the reality of the social and political environment that necessitated Negro Leagues play there. And I was very impressed. necessitated Negro Leagues play there. And I was very impressed. I thought that it had the vibe to me of like people who were deeply invested in not only that place, but this period of baseball and American history being given room to put on a game and a broadcast the way they wanted to and other

people getting out of their way. And that I thought was really great. So, yeah. Yeah, it was just a great, aesthetically speaking, the locale, the ballpark was really nice, especially when the sun started to go down and there was a nice sunset. And then you had that sort of backdrop of not brightly lit city that you're used to seeing surrounding in MLB ballpark. And here it was dark and it was almost rural. And it was just really pretty sort of that pastoral sense that you associate maybe with a non-major league park. And this was situated in that kind of area. You get

the train tracks beyond the outfield. And of course, the many stories that were told and repeated a few times, certain stories. But I'm not someone who watches pregame and postgame shows typically, but I watched these and I was locked in on the whole production. And a few quibbles here and there, perhaps, but on the whole, I think it went really well. And the game obliged. It was a pretty entertaining game. And all the interviews that were done with the ex-Negro Leaguers, Bill Greeson, it was just really great. And I think there was some tendency toward platitudes when you were listening to certain people talk about these things. But then Reggie Jackson showed up and he took care of that. So that moment, which really got a lot of attention and deservedly so,

where Reggie just kind of took the mic and ran with it. And to Fox's credit, they let him run. They just let Reggie talk for a few minutes uninterrupted about his experience playing in Birmingham in the 60s. They let him keep talking, even when he said certain words in their entirety that I doubt Fox was anticipating in that moment. But he told it like it was. He really did. And that was good because you weren't going to get quite that level of candor and frankness from Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter.

No. Not quite going to get that. I mean, they talked about what the place meant to them and David Ortiz and how they walked around. And they clearly appreciated that moment. and could tell the side of the story that was not quite as celebratory, but more, hey, it's hard to come back here because of everything that went on here. That got represented. I don't know whether that was fully in the plan, but I'm glad that it got represented that way. Yeah, I think that we have a tendency, you know, I think that the sort of official communication channels of the league and I think, you know, white baseball media can have a tendency to, you know, I think in an effort to properly acknowledge black players who live through this period, there's this like icky transmutation that goes on where it's like, well, they emerged better people for having overcome without acknowledging, first of all, that not everyone survived that era in part because of

the violent racism that they encountered, but that those who did, did so with trauma and that it was infuriating and that it was dehumanizing and you know it can be again sanitized and i think that perhaps part of why the rest of the broadcast read to me the way that it did is that it did have this powerful sort of counterbalancing at the beginning of it and yeah i'm glad that they did not they didn't cut away if they were in any of those guys ears saying like hey we got to move on from this that wasn't he didn't i'm not leveling an accusation i'm just saying that like however the decision to just let reggie jackson have time to talk about his experience and be frank about it

like room was granted to that in a way that i think was very important. And yeah, it can be this thing too, that gets talked about as if it is so long in the past. And it's like, Reggie Jackson was on TV yesterday. He is a living person and he may be advancing in years, but I think that having, for those who are keen to try to forget it, like a really visceral reminder, not only of what happened, but how recently it did is, you know, it's an important corrective to a story that is often told in sort of sepia tones, you know? Yeah. Tough to censor Reggie Jackson, historically speaking. I mean, yeah, like...

People who've tried to do that have not had a lot of success on the whole but but i you know he's a man who i think i think his public persona at points in his career was understood in a way that was like you know he could be spiky or whatever and it's like well yeah think about the things that this person has lived through you know and think about how they might have been told to kind of pipe down about that experience. So I just think that, you know, all we can, not all we can do, but one of the important things that the game can do at this point in time is to have candid conversations about what has happened and sort of where the game is now. And like, I hope it wasn't lost on people that like that was occurring in a state where like, it's hard if you're a public school student to get an honest accounting of your own state's history and your country's history.

Like this is these moments of public reckoning, I think, are more important than ever, because it isn't as if, you know, it is the universal policy perspective of this country to like try to do that, you know. So I don't know. I thought it was a very important moment. And I'm glad that it was given space to air out and that he was given time to say his piece. Yes. They were definitely not in Reggie's ear because they were not in any of the guests' ear during the pregame

because none of the guests could hear anything because they did not have earpieces, which was weird. It's like, why not give them earpieces so that they could hear what the person sitting next to them says? But that was one of my very few notes. And really, probably the best part of the broadcast was when Bob Kendrick came in and just took over for a few innings. And was his usual, valuable, engaging self that he is on Effectively Wild.

And every other interviewer ever hear him just so infectious when he's talking about these players and this history. And John Smoltz was pretty quiet while Bob was in the booth. So I would say that was an upgrade broadcasting wise. That was about the best trade since Smoltz for Doyle Alexander. I guess Smoltz for Kendrick, except in the other direction, I suppose. But that was great, too. And it was sort of story time, more so than just calling a game. And I'm glad they leaned into that. And sometimes ESPN will do that during a Sunday night broadcast, and you feel like you're,

well, listening to a podcast or something, but there's a game going on. And you're like, well, I want to kind of see the game and hear the game also. But this was a special circumstance where, OK, Giants, Cardinals, that's interesting to some people. But this is clearly bigger than just that. And so they didn't attempt to call it like a regular game. They were telling stories. They were talking about Willie Mays. They were showing graphics. They had that gimmicky but cool experiment with the black and white 50s style broadcast.

I thought it was great. I liked it. Yeah. I thought it was great. So really fun. I don't know whether this will turn into an annual tradition. Obviously, it's never quite as special as the first time that a production like that happens, especially in the wake of Willie Mays' death. But I would love for there to be more visibility and investment in that ballpark and other historic ballparks and Negro Leagues ballparks.

So they've certainly hit on something here, whether it's the Field of Dreams game, which was fake movie history, or this game, which was real history. This is fun. It's nice to have a change from the norm and the typical setting. Yeah, I think that it is just the fact that it's a real place that featured real history and real people. It added depth to it in a way that the Fields of Dreams game just, I think, couldn't have had. So there was that piece of it. And yeah, I like that they gave time and space to those stories and that they tried some fun stuff.

And, you know, I thought it was a pretty cool evening. And it's not like we're short on stories to tell from the Negro League. So I think you're right that, you know, maybe it won't register in quite the way that it has. But it was I thought it was pretty great. And I think that there's a lot of opportunity to grow that as sort of a continued exhibition for this period of history that's finally really getting its day in the sun. And, you know, as we talked about when we talked about the process of incorporating those stats into the official record, like history is a living process. It's not something that reaches a conclusion. And I think one way to really drive

that home is to have games on the calendar that are like this, that become an opportunity to showcase stuff that casual fans might not know. And not even just casual fans, that like we could all stand to sort of better understand and appreciate. So that was pretty cool. It was. Yeah. It was nice to see the Negro Leaguers who made it out there and were situated along the baselines before the game. And they seemed to be enjoying the musical numbers. So it looks great, great weather. Just everything kind of turned out well. My one little production note was, as you're saying, like with the figuring out the history being a process and how we talk about these things, is that when they would sometimes show graphics about, say, Josh Gibson as the new leader, show graphics about, say, Josh Gibson is the new leader, they consistently would have the MLB leader instead of major league leader. And we've talked about that. Other people have pointed out,

you know, important to draw the distinction there. The terminology is pretty important because you're not trying to just conflate the performance in those leagues and you want to maintain the distinctions and why there were Negro Leagues. And it's not MLB, the corporate entity, Major League Baseball that we think of now. It's the Major Leagues, right? Various Major Leagues. So that's one little note I had. But on the whole, I thought they did things well and talked about things well. And I really enjoyed the broadcast. Yeah, it was great. All right. So some other baseball stuff we could talk about.

Some things I've enjoyed, some things I haven't enjoyed. One thing I've enjoyed, Matt Waldron update for you. He's had a couple starts since the last time we talked about him. And I mentioned that he had been the most valuable pitcher by Fangraphs War over the previous month, whatever episode that had been. Well, he's had a couple more strong starts since then. And so now his past eight starts, Padres, Knuckleballer, Matt Waldron, this goes back to May 11th now, creeping up on a month and a half.

now creeping up on a month and a half. He has a 1.82 ERA over that span and a 2.74 FIP, and he has thrown almost 50 innings. And that is, I guess if you go by order on the leaderboard, then he's sixth in Fangraph's war among all pitchers since then. He is effectively tied for third because he's tied with three other guys at 1.4 war over that span. Just cannot enjoy this enough. Cannot discuss it enough. Matt Waldron, he's not just hanging on, which was the case at the start of the season. He is excelling. He has been dominant, might be a bit too much, but he has been extremely effective. He struck out almost a batter per inning. He has walked two. He's limiting homers.

He's limiting Babbitt as he would expect a knuckleballer to do. So going to continue to provide Matt Waldron updates as long as he's continuing to pitch well. It's great to see. Yeah. I mean, like Matt, let us talk to you. Like only if you want to. Standing offer.

Yes. Whenever you want to come on effectively. He probably Whenever you want to come on Effectively Wild. He probably just doesn't want to jinx anything now. Things are going so great for him. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay.

If it's going to undo your performance, then definitely don't talk to us. Yes. Now, someone we have not had the pleasure of seeing perform lightly is Mike Trout. And the update on Mike Trout is not great, which is that there just really isn't much of an update on Mike Trout. And the update on Mike Trout is not great, which is that there just really isn't much of an update on Mike Trout. And that is not particularly surprising, but it has kind of confirmed my worst fears about Trout in a way that is just almost too on the nose. Like it was reported earlier this week by Sam Blum of The Athletic that Trout has not started running yet. He's like not doing baseball activities or anything.

Now, the Angels and Trout never actually gave a timeline wisely, I supposeface to the episode when talked about Mike Trout getting hurt, that if you looked at the history of players who've had a meniscus tear and how long they've taken to return, there were other writers who were sort of circulating, well, this is kind of the average. Maybe he'll be back in four to six weeks or something. And I was like, nah, like I would love for that to be the case. But the whole history of Mike Trout returning from injuries is that it takes a really long time. So I noted at the time that according to the Baseball Perspectives

injured list ledger, the mean days missed or games missed, I forget which for players with a meniscus tear was 31 days and the median was 54 days. And I said, I'm going to take the over on that. Well, we're now at 52 days for Mike Trout. So he is basically at the median time to return. And the update is that he has not even started running yet, let alone like doing baseball activities, rehab assignment,

the whole process that you have to go through. They don't have a return date targeted. It's just demoralizing and yet easily anticipated. It was anticipated on this podcast and it's not like I'm some soothsayer here. I was just looking at every other time Mike Trout's gotten hurt and it just takes him so long to come back. That's the frustrating thing. It's not just that he gets hurt. It's that it just takes so long to return. And I guess I don't want to like draw conclusions about someone else's medical body history, but like we have this data on him and it keeps telling the same story, which is that slow healer, that seems to be as big a problem as any injury proneness.

It's just the slow healing. So we need to like cross Mike Trout with Wolverine somehow to get his healing factor up. Yeah. Because it's just time after time. Whatever timeline people might bandy about, he's just going to be way behind that. And I said at the time that if he's back by his 33rd birthday, you'd probably have to be happy about that in early August. And that might be what we're heading for again here. Yeah.

And you have to think it's like, here's a person who he's so motivated to come back. He has access to presumably every medical resource he could possibly want. Right. And sometimes like you're the human body is just the human body. It's your dumb body, you know, and there is sort of a limit to what you're able to push and sort of aspire to. Like sometimes these things just take time and I can imagine how frustrating that must be,

but yeah, it just seems to be a persistent characteristic of his ability to heal. And, you know, we want him back, but like it is what it is. I don't know what else he said. Yeah.

He acknowledged that his recovery is going slower than he wants slower than we all want, but yeah, not unforeseeable, sadly. We hope that things will look up soon. Another player who has often been injured but is not now, Royce Lewis. So we've got to talk about Royce Lewis. We've talked about Royce Lewis before.

We even answered a hypothetical question about Lois Ruiz recently, a player who is great always homers when he's healthy but is unavailable most of the time. That's sort of the Lois Ruiz story. But it is kind of incredible how good he has been when he has been on the field. So he's played 15 games so far this season as we record here on Friday afternoon. He's hitting.377 452, 925. That's your garden variety, 1376 OPS. And of course, he had over 900 OPS last year when he was the Grand Slam machine. He hit 15 homers in 58 games, 239 plate appearances. This year, he's got nine homers in 15 games, 62 plate appearances. It is really kind of incredible. And if you look at his cumulative stats since the start of last

season, he broke in briefly in 2022 and was also pretty good in a small sample. But if you just combine this season and last season, you could make the case that on a rate basis, he's been the best player in baseball. I don't think it's that much of a stretch to say. So we have to set a minimum somewhere. And I guess if we set a minimum at 300 plate appearances, which very conveniently allows Royce Lewis to make the cut because he's had 301 plate appearances since the start of last season. So I'm cooking the books slightly, but it's for fun. And he, over that span, has a 178 round up to 179 WRC+, which trails only Aaron Judge and Shohei Otani. Shohei Otani by less than a point.

And if we look at war per 600 plate appearances, and again, that's twice as many plate appearances as he's had. But if we look at what he's done and just kind of double it to get basically a full season's worth of plate appearances, war per 600, he's number one. Now, that doesn't take into account Shohei Otani's pitching last year, so maybe we wouldn't say he's the best, but 7.7 war per 600 plate appearances since the start of last season, and that is the best among position players. That barely just trumps Aaron Judge at 7.6 and then Shohei Otani as a position player only at 6.7 and Mookie Betts at 6.5. No one's been better on a rate basis than

Royce Lewis. And he's done that despite the sporadic play. I think that's what maybe makes it more impressive to me. Yeah, I think that he's a fascinating case to see, like, do good players really need to get into a rhythm, right? Because the immediacy with which he often homers upon returning from injury is incredible. And, you know, it's interesting to me that here's a guy who a lot of the maladies that he has suffered over the course of his career have been lower body injuries. And, you know, a lot of a guy's power comes from his lower half. And, you know, like it can come from not from your tiny bird bones just so fast upon returning, it's, you know, the automaticity. Is that a word?

Sure. It's automatic. It's automatic. I think automaticity. Is that a word, Ben? It could be a word. I don't know that I've heard it before, but dictionary.com says it's a word. Does it really?

That means that it's a word. It's a hard word to say if it is a word. I think it is a word, but I don't know that it means what I think it does. But anyway, the ability to do that with such frequency and regularity while missing long stretches, not having an opportunity to get in rhythm as it were, and to have had your sort of lower half compromise at points. I don't know. It's just a very impressive thing. Like we talk so much about, you know, like want and good makeup and all of this, and it becomes a really hard and squishy thing to really quantify. And like, I think a lot of these guys want it,

you know, that's maybe a necessary, but not sufficient condition to being a good baseball player. But I think that you take his sort of raw power, you take whatever we've been able to glean of his sort of personhood, which seems to be, you know, he seems like a thoughtful,

good young guy. His makeup reports were always great as a prospect. And then like, he just can freaking thump it, dude. Like it's like, yeah. It's not just that he has to be rusty, but also he can't have been a hundred percent all this time, even when he's playing. It's not like he's hurt sometimes, but then when he's active,

he is completely uncompromised. There must have been times when he was trying to play through something or he came back a little too soon or he should have been nigh yelled earlier. Right. Like there must be some nagging something at some point there. So you can't say he was completely at full strength that entire time. say he was completely at full strength that entire time. And then, yeah, the being out for long stretches, coming back, not having seen live pitching for a while, or at least live major league pitching. And yet he's still done that. It makes you wonder. Granted, I guess he hasn't been subject to the grind or the fatigue of playing every day. Maybe that would be less grind or less fatigue than coming back from injury and rehabbing

and everything that goes along with that. But you'd have to think that if he had been completely healthy this whole time, could he have been even better? Can he be better than best player in baseball? Like, what's the ceiling with this guy? And how cruel is it that we're having the same kind of conversation about him that we've been having about Byron Buxton for several years, his teammates. So now you just want to see Royce Lewis. OK, can we actually just double these stats?

Like, let's see if that is actually true. If he plays twice as much, it would be nice to see that and not have to prorate or extrapolate over four seasons to get a full season or something. Right. So the sky seems to be the limit. The ceiling seems fairly limitless based on the performance thus far. Yeah. I mean, it's a pretty incredible thing. And if, if you are able to keep that guy healthy and Carlos Correa is able to sustain his performance, like, you know, there's some like cooking with gas that could be going on for that Twins offense. It's very exciting.

Yeah. He just turned 25, Royce Lewis, even with everything he's been through. Automaticity, the quality or fact of being performed involuntarily or unconsciously as a reflex, innate process, or ingrained habit. The fact or quality of starting or operating independently. I don't know if that's exactly what you were going for there. This is what I'm saying. Once I looked it up, I was like, is a word, isn't the word I want.

You know, it happens. Well, sometimes we can be prescriptivists here, but let's not. We'll just be descriptivists and we'll say that your usage of it, that's valid. You know, language evolves. You just evolved it right there. There we go. Okay. So while we were not podcasting, there was some news that I know must have warmed your heart about ABS and the challenge system.

Automatic ball strike system, robo-umps, whatever we're dubbing it. They're moving from half full robo and half challenge system in AAA to full challenge system. They had sort of a split week system where they do one some days and one the other half of the week. And now they have seemingly conceded, accepted, embraced challenge all the way. And Rob Manfred has been pretty consistent about that in his messaging lately about the fact that the challenge system seems to be embraced by one and all, or not all, but many. And they are really formalizing that here, seemingly as yet another step along the path to having this be in the big leagues, not next season, but perhaps as soon as 2026.

And I'm sure that you were happy with this. There was a story by Jesse Rogers at ESPN, and he reported on a memo about this, which said, according to the league's research, that both in-uniform personnel, players and coaches, and fans prefer a challenge system over full APS, not news to you. And I was going to say, but hard data, except it's not really data. I don't know where they put this poll in the field or whom they surveyed or what the sample size was or what. But according to the numbers in here, surveying fans and players, the league found that not only do they prefer the challenge system over full ABS,

they also prefer the current system, umpires making all calls over full ABS. I want to dig into the crosstabs here. I want to see the full numbers, but what we have, these summary stats, cross tabs here. I want to see the full numbers, but what we have, these summary stats, and who knows, the league might just be presenting its side of the story or the narrative that it wants to get out there now that it's decided to go this way, but this is how we feel. 61% of team personnel, including players, and 47% of fans prefer the challenge system, 28% of personnel and 30% of fans prefer human umpires making all calls, and a mere 11% of personnel and 23% of fans want full ABS. And who knows how these questions were phrased, but if that's the case, I guess it semi-surprises me that there's not more support for full ABS, but I am heartened as a framing

enthusiast and someone who sees some value in preserving some aspects of the human element that this does seem to be pretty decisive. Yeah, I am pleased that presented with what seems to be a, maybe not overwhelming, but a strong preference with folks having had the opportunity to view both that the thing I like is what other people like and that the league is like, yeah, we'll do the thing that Meg likes, you know, and all of her compatriots. I just, I continue to think that despite the fact that it will be a change, it is the least disruptive change. And it allows us to address the most egregious miscalls while having

a little bit of strategy injected, but doesn't completely sort of rework the zone as we have come to know it, which I think people who are full ABS proponents, a lot of the time are underrating the degree to which it's going to be a really significant change if it were to occur. So, you know, I think it's pretty good. I am quite pleased by it, yes. And I'm sort of surprised that it's gone this way, that it's apparently so conclusive or so persuasive. Because I would have thought that more people would be in favor of the full automation. Because it's not like most people have really seen this in action the way that you have.

Right. And so it's maybe, you know, sometimes I'm in a presidential election mindset. So sometimes you ask people, would you be more or less likely to vote for someone if this hypothetical happened? And that may not actually reflect how they would vote if that came to pass, right? They're just sort of expressing a preference or approval or disapproval, but it might not actually dictate the way that they decide. And so some of these people are saying, I prefer this. They might find that actually in practice, they would prefer something else. But I guess I'm glad that they're siding with us.

Our personal interests are being well represented here. And some of it, of course, is the technical challenges. But some of those technical challenges come into play also with the challenge system. Sure. It's the same. Yeah. Yeah. It's relying on the same underlying tech. So, you know, it's not going to be immune from those problems. I do think that because it is often used to address like really egregious misses, you're less likely to have those that necessarily be a problem for the channel system, you know? Yes. Right. And look, I understand that there are technical challenges when it comes to just getting a reading, getting an accurate reading. But there are also technical challenges when it comes to just getting a reading, getting an accurate reading. But there are also technical challenges when it comes to human umpires. Because like, our brains and eyes and senses have technical challenges. Sometimes those are pretty serious.

So you don't have to be perfect. I know that's sort of the standard that they're aiming for. But really, I suppose you could say a standard is better than humans, which I would tend to think is achievable, but it's less probably about, okay, occasionally you might miss a pitch or the system might just be on the fritz or something as it is. How do we define what a strike is and what a ball is and where do we draw the borders of the strike zone and do we do it in this way that would be unfamiliar to catchers and hitters and pitchers or do we do it in a way that mirrors what we're used to? And they've constantly been trying to tinker with that and change where the pitch is assessed to be a strike or not and how low and how high and how wide. Right. So it's that's kind of a part of the process that they haven't fully figured out yet. And they do still have to figure out that part of the process in order to get the challenge system working.

Right. And also they have to figure out how many challenges you are allowed, because that's another change that's being implemented here in the International League. They're experimenting with teams receiving only two challenges per game instead of three, which has been the norm to this point, because they want to reduce the frequency of high challenge games. And according to this league memo, 89% of fans believe the optimal number of challenges per game is six or fewer. However, almost 40% of AAA games featured more than six. Because of course you retain your challenge if you challenge successfully. And so those challenges can pile up. And I guess that's consistent. If you don't want full ABS,

then it would, I guess, make sense that you also don't want constant challenges because then you're basically, well, why not just have full ABS, right? So they want it in moderation also. I don't know how that will feel if you've used up all your challenges and suddenly there is an egregious one that goes against you, you know? But people are going to be pissed whatever you do or don't do.

Yeah, I think that that's right. But, you know, they can dial it in. I wonder how many games, I don't know if we have data on this yet, how many games featured, you know, six or more active challenges in a game? Like, what are they classifying as a high challenge game? And how many of those are there in the course of a season, do you think? Yeah, right. 40% featured more than six, but I don't know how high it went or what the maximum was. I don't know how high it went or what the maximum was.

If you're just, you know, you're rolling the dice right and you just keep challenging successfully over and over and over again. I don't know what the record has been so far this season. I did mean to mention, by the way, when we were talking about Rickwood, that of course it's great to get former players involved in these things in the broadcasts and especially former players who were a little less polished than the guys who are on TV all the time. And you're A-Rodson, you're Derek Jeter, who has been saying things in a very diplomatic and mostly uninteresting way for decades at this point. And so when they got Ken Griffey Jr., for instance, on set, or I got to say, Barry Bonds.

Yeah. Griffey Jr., for instance, on set, or I got to say, Barry Bonds. Yeah. I wish that Bonds were someone you could root for more easily because he was pretty compelling and pretty charismatic in the pregame there. And he can be when he wants to be. And there are people who don't root for Barry Bonds because of the PED stuff. And then there are people who don't root for Barry Bonds because of the PED stuff. And then there are people who don't root for Barry Bonds because of the domestic violence stuff and the fact that multiple women have accused him of abuse. And either of those is a valid reason. The latter may be even more valid, but I understand why people

are upset about PED stuff too. I wish that he could be a better ambassador and messenger for the game. It almost felt strange to see him in that context because we don't usually. He's not someone who's making the rounds at marquee Major League Baseball events because of all the on and off field baggage that goes with Bonds, right? Like I haven't seen or heard him in this context lately. And it's almost like there was an exemption granted because of his relationship with Willie Mays and the fact that he's the godson of Willie Mays. How can you not have Barry Bonds on this broadcast? Yeah, it would be wild not to.

Right. And yet, I wish you could have him around because on talent and on statistical merit, he is maybe the best player ever, certainly the greatest living player. We had that conversation on the preceding podcast. And so I wish that you could have him speaking like that and showing his personality. And gosh, he looks great. He looks like he's in great shape. I guess all the cycling, not the sort of cycling he was maybe doing when he was on PEDs, but he's off those sort of cycles, it looks like, maybe, perhaps.

But he is cycling in the sense of riding bicycles, right? But he's looking like he's keeping himself in shape and he was into it. And it was nice to hear from him in that context, except that I just, yeah, I wish he could be a better messenger the way that Mays was or the way that, you know, Albert Pujols was there and all these guys who sort of say inoffensive, bland stuff mostly, like Bonds is entertaining when he's trying to be. And so I wish that I could be more sympathetic to him and that he could have that platform without all the drawbacks that come along with that. Yeah, it's a tricky one to navigate because when you have someone who, you know, if we are just interested in telling a faithful history of baseball in our lifetime to exclude Bonds feels unhinged.

Right. He was such an important figure on the field and, you know, the ways in which he failed as a person, I think are part of baseball's story too, right? In some ways it is, you know, a more complete picture of the highs and lows sort of wrapped up into one person. I understand not feeling comfortable with him being on broadcasts for a lot of reasons. You know, you've laid them out. And I don't know that the PED one is actually as disqualifying for me as the other. It runs on there every day. Right. Yeah. Like, and I don't want to say that the PED of it all doesn't do damage to individual

people, both the people taking BEDs, the people that they have to play against our sort of trust in the sport. Like there is damage that is done there. It feels more out of remove and a little more abstract to me, you know, as someone who certainly wasn't covering baseball at the height of the steroid era, then, you know, the sort of human damage of, you know, intimate partner violence. But it's a hard one to navigate. Like you're saying something with his absence.

It feels a particular way to not have him there. He does have an important perspective on the sport. And I think, you know, there is sort of important historical connective tissue with him because of his relationship with maze in particular so yeah it's a thorny one i think but yeah it would have been i think in this particular context and again it's not meant to excuse any of the bonds of bonds right but um it would have been very strange to not have him there given maze's passing passing. But yeah, it was, you know, like he can be a funny, loquacious guy, like, you know, him sitting up there being like, yeah,

I'd take Satchel Paige deep is like, that's good TV. It was, but yeah, it's a, that's a thorny one. And it's a weird thing for the league to like get on a soapbox about because, you know, A-Rod is on the broadcast all the time and you know the way that the league has thought about domestic violence over the years has required evolving shall we say so like it's a you know it's a thorny thing but it doesn't mean that we can't have like some standards around this stuff i don't know man it's tricky well i was in the midst of updating everyone on the performance of players when i doubled back to the Bonds point that I'd forgotten to make.

One update I wanted to provide was on Eli De La Cruz, who I think the last time we talked about him at length was maybe a little over a month ago. And at the time, he was tearing up the base paths, right? This was May 17th, episode 2165. We talked about his pursuit of a hundred stolen basses. He was ahead of the pace at that point. And I had to record a preface to that episode too, because he kept stealing basses after we recorded that episode. I re-recorded the intro like three times because it's like, oh, he stole another one. I have to recalculate his pace now. He stole four bases that day.

And at that time when he stole four and he was on pace for 110 or something and it seemed like he was only ramping up the pace, it looked to me like, yeah, he's really going to get there. Well, since that conversation, he has really slowed down, I guess, in more than one way, performance-wise and stolen base-wise, and those things are probably related. But 129 plate appearances. He has played from May 18th through June 19th. He has stolen a measly seven bases over that span in a month, which is fine for most players. Sure. But that's not going to get him up into that truly historic territory. in bases over that span in a month, which is fine for most players. Sure.

That's not going to get him up into that truly historic territory. Now, he's still on pace for 81, which would be extremely impressive. Yeah. And maybe what we should do is take the on pace because he had that torrid stretch where he was stealing just oodles of bases. And then he's had this slower stretch where he has not been going as much. And so maybe the truth, as it so often is, is somewhere in the middle. And we should actually take the full season pace as where he'll end up. But if you extrapolated from that hot streak, you'd say, oh, he's going to blow away everyone in the past few decades.

And now you might say, oh, he's going to fall short of those numbers that it seemed like he might attain. And part of the problem, I guess, is that he has just slumped offensively over that span. So he's hit 188, 283, 339. That's a 72 WRC plus. So if you're getting on base at a 280 clip, that's bad even by the standards of 2024. So maybe it's that. Maybe it's other factors. Matt Truplow just wrote about this for Baseball Perspectives. He looked at the idea, well, maybe pitchers are paying closer attention. Didn't seem like that was really the case.

Seemed like it might be changing lineup order, that he's moved up in the order. Maybe he's had fewer opportunities. It seems like there might be something a little there, but maybe not. You never know. Maybe he's hiding some sort of injury or something, but there's no evidence that that's the case. Or maybe he is pacing himself or he's taking it easy because it's hard to steal that many bases. Even if you have the skill to, it wears you down. It takes a toll. You get beat up. So I don't know why that has happened exactly. Maybe it's just small sample fluctuations, but semi disappointed because I was getting excited about his chase of whatever 80s speedster you want to name. Well, maybe he'll pick it up, you know, like maybe he'll get new spikes and then he'll

run faster. Or maybe he'll just like get on base a couple more times a week and have more opportunities. I'm sure that will happen. He's not going to have a 283 OBP 72 W. We've talked about just how hard it has been to pinpoint exactly how good he is and what kind of player he is, because sometimes it all clicks and you think, oh, that's it. Like the growing pains are past and he's a fully polished superstar now. Yeah. And then you remember he's still 22 and he's still kind of ironing out the kinks here. And he's been quite valuable on the whole

but yeah there's still some holes in the game from time to time and you know like guys can just be kind of young sometimes guys are just kind of young and they have ebbs and flows and you're right like we think of them as like oh he has arrived and he's done now and that doesn't tend to i don't know how predictable that shape of performance ends up being. Like think about, you know, like Corbin Carroll was incredible in his rookie year and he's been off to a slow start and it's been a little bit better,

but you know, he hasn't like fully kicked it into gear yet. You know, he was, if you would ask me at the beginning of this season, like, oh, is he fully cooked? Is he done? I've been like, yeah, and maybe not, and maybe not you know yeah no watching him at least it seemed like your mind went to oh it must be the shoulder i don't know that it is obviously but because he had those shoulder issues last season and just because of the quality of contact that he had had for much of this season at least

when he just wasn't hitting the ball hard. Yeah. It made you think something physical must be holding him back here. Who knows? But with Ellie, that's not as apparent. I guess it's really the Reds are Ellie writ large, or he's a microcosm of the Reds because they have been similarly mercurial, inconsistent. John Becker just wrote about this for Fanagraphs the other day, right? So as Ellie goes, so go the Cincinnati Reds to some extent. Yeah.

I mean, he is arguably their most important player. So, yeah. Well, we had a big series this week. Yankees-Orioles. Now, we can't say potential World Series preview because they're both American League teams. But we could say potential playoff preview. preview because they're both American League teams. But we could say potential playoff preview.

If potential World Series preview were offered for two teams from the same league, then I think you've gone rogue. We could object to that. Yes, I think we could. That's just inaccurate. But this was an exciting series. This had some stakes. Now, as we've mentioned, division races are not what they used to be because the stakes are seeding and buys and such as opposed to making the playoffs or not making the playoffs. And this has the makings of a really exciting division race.

And yet both of these teams have like 99 percent or higher playoff odds. So the loser will have the consolation of still making it to the playoffs. And because the baseball playoffs are the baseball playoffs, they may very well have as successful a run as the team that ends up on top here. But this could come down to the wire. It's pretty exciting. They are effectively tied almost in the standings right now. I guess the Yankees have a half game on the Orioles, but basically same winning percentage out to three decimal places at least. And this was kind of the clash of the Titans in the Titanic division. Yeah.

And it was an entertaining series. So the Yankees took the first one and then they get Garrett Cole back for the second start. He pitched okay. And meanwhile, the Orioles lose Kyle Braddish for the season to not Tommy John, I guess, but UCL repair with internal brace. So he's done right. And that's, you know, we've talked about Braddish multiple times seemed like, oh, maybe he's, he's going to be the exception. He's going to make it that elbows going to respond to rest and rehab and PRP. And I guess it did for a little while. He pitched pretty well while it held up, but then the soreness recurred and now he's had

surgery. So the Yankees get an important rotation reinforcement as the Orioles suffer a significant loss, except that the Orioles pulled out that second game in extras. Yeah. And then in the rubber match, they totally tattooed the Yankees. They scored 17 runs. The Yankees have not allowed that many runs in several years. And they did it off of Luis Gil,

who has been one of the most effective pitchers in baseball this year. So not really one to attribute much importance to a statement. So it was a real statement game, the statement series, the momentum. They'll match up a couple more times later in the season. But that, I think, augurs continued entertainment down the stretch. And they both need reinforcements maybe in different areas of their roster. And the need for the Orioles in the rotation, I guess, is not as dire as one might have thought. If you would say, oh, yeah, you're going to lose Means and Bradish for the season at this point. Some of their other starters have stepped up, much like the Yankees starters in rotation stepped up in Garrett Cole's absence. The Yankees starters in rotation stepped up in Garrett Cole's absence.

But looking ahead to October, you still would like to add to that group most likely. And especially when you're then looking, forecasting further ahead in the playoffs, maybe these two teams match up there. So I'm sort of sad that there aren't even higher stakes associated with this race. That's just something we've lost as a product of the playoff format that we have now. But this is pretty fun. You know, you might have thought this would be a three or four or five team race. Who knows, right? And as of now, it's a two team race, but it's a pretty entertaining two team race. Yeah, it's an incredibly entertaining two team race. That's hard to say. Incredibly entertaining two-team race. I still think that they need rotation reinforcements,

but that's maybe just me. I can't believe that I finally reliably am saying Kyle Bradish's name correctly. I know, and now he's gone. TJ. Just when you mastered that. I know. It's not a hard name, but it was one I got wrong a lot.

What do I think about this? I think it's funny that your like mocking voice didn't dip into stereotypes about either of those cities so like that's kind of surprising you like could have done a whole bit ben you elected not to yeah i don't really have anything more to say on that but i think that uh it's a good fun time i wish that the race were better that would be nice. They're not. Yeah.

You know, they're usually quite good. So every now and then they have an off year. They can take a year off. It's not like they've been bad. No. Yeah. It's not what I expected to see out of them. Yeah. Right now, the Fangraphs playoff odds.

I hate to want to get you in trouble with any Orioles fans, but I guess you're used to it with the Fangraphs playoff odds. But the playoff odds currently see the Yankees as favorites in this division by a fairly wide margin, at least roughly twice as high probability of winning the AL East. And look, I mean, we understand why the playoff odds say the things that they do. I'm pretty sure I said I'd take the over on those estimates when the season started. I thought the Orioles would be good. I thought the Orioles would be better than the Yankees. I'm surprised that the Yankees have been as good as they have. They have surprised me more than the Orioles, certainly. And it would not really surprise me much, if at all, if the Orioles do end up taking this division.

But yeah, I think it's going to be even closer than the odds would lead you to believe. And as for the rotation, projected starting pitcher strength, Fangraphs has Yankees seventh in projected starting pitcher war rest of season and Orioles at 11th. So neither just severely in need of reinforcements, but both not quite what you want as Joe Girardi used to say. Yeah. I just think, I don't know, like it's funny because like individual starters on the Orioles, I would take over individual starters on the Yankees, but I just like that Yankees group better. I feel like there's,

I don't know. Oh, definitely. Yeah. Got to feel pretty good about Corbin Burns. Yeah. But beyond that, you know, yeah,

there are some guys who are pretty good, but yeah, Grayson Rodriguez at times has been excellent. Yeah. And yeah, beyond Burns and Rodriguez, and you could play that game with a lot of teams. Well, yeah, beyond Burns and Rodriguez, and you could play that game with a lot of teams. Sure.

Well, yeah, beyond your top two, things tend to thin out a bit, even especially with all the injuries. But you would like a little more high-level depth there if you're forecasting a playoff appearance, which we are. I think that's right. Yeah, I think that that's right.

Okay. One other thing I wanted to bring to your and our audience's attention, there was a great statistical deep dive data journalism done by the excellent basketball writer Tom Haberstroh this week, which appeared at Yahoo Sports. And it was about Michael Jordan's Defensive Player of the Year Award in 1988, or I guess the 87 to 88 season. Haberstroh looked into this and he found that it seems like the books were being cooked in favor of Jordan when it came to certain subjective stats that were not subject to a whole lot of scrutiny in that era. stats that were not subject to a whole lot of scrutiny in that era. And this has been a known thing in the NBA that scorers from that era have come out and said, yeah, we kind of gave preference to certain stars and home cooking, right? This is not solely an NBA phenomenon. This has happened in MLB since time immemorial too. And it doesn't happen as much anymore in MLB or the NBA as Haberstroh documented the split in like steals and assists and blocks home road.

It's almost even these days because there's kind of a data component to how those things are apportioned. And so it's not just the whims of the official scorer. And MLB has sort of standardized the scoring process somewhat too, so that you don't get a lot of home cooking. But this is important for basketball fans and for the reputation of Jordan vis-a-vis LeBron, because winning defensive player of the year, that's the one thing really that LeBron has not quite managed to do. It's his one regret, his one piece of hardware that he doesn't have in his house. He cited it as the thing that he wishes he had. He finished second.

He's been in the top five other times, but he never quite broke through. And so people have held that over the head of LeBron. The Jordan stands in the eternal Jordan versus LeBron debate will often cite that one, well, data point. I guess it's a subjective data point that Jordan has the defensive player of the year. And so he wasn't just a scorer, he was an all around great. And he was like Haberstroh is not saying he was a bad defensive player, just that the stats were juiced. And it's a pretty compelling case, because not only does he show that it was a great outlier in terms of the home road splits for

him that season, but also it was like a specific goal of Jordan's that he wanted to win that award. And we all know how Michael Jordan is when he feels snubbed and feels disrespected. And he takes offense to that and takes it personally. And it seems like he was maybe getting a helping hand here from the longtime scorer for the Bulls who was kind of buddy-buddy with Jordan and would tip him off to when he was within reach of certain milestones, et cetera. Haberstroh really went deep and documented this,

not only from a statistical perspective, but then dug up video of some of the games and was able to see that there were just phantom stats associated with Jordan, essentially, that should not have been credited to him. And people are probably wondering, okay, this is a baseball podcast, though. Why are we talking about Michael Jordan? Well, he was a baseball player that came up on the Rickwood broadcast, but that's not why. It just struck me that this is a case where you're talking about either the greatest of all time or the runner up. And this is something that still affects that debate to this day.

And yet you find that it's based on such a flimsy foundation. And in baseball, I think there's a little less subjectivity, which I'm grateful for when it comes to stats that are important like assists, rebounds, steals, blocks in the NBA. There is a lot of leeway with those things where it's like, was that a block? Was that a steal? Was that a rebound? Was that an assist? And you could be kind of creative in your bookkeeping. And in baseball, I guess the closest equivalent to that is errors, right?

And that's been a case where you have seen some home cooking in the past. But it doesn't really go beyond that so much. You know, most of the stuff in the box score, it tends to be fairly cut and dried, I would say. And especially these days where people don't pay attention to errors and ERA as much as they used to. Now we're looking at peripherals and we're looking at advanced stats and those basic stats have kind of fallen out of favor. And so what is actually subjective now about baseball stats where you're relying on someone to say, yeah, that was that or not, right? Like with hits, with put outs, with assists, it's generally very clear whether you should score something one way or another. And I guess I appreciate that. I'm grateful for that precision that we have in baseball because it's such a statistically governed and informed sport that it would be even more problematic if even more sports came down to someone passing judgment in kind of a

murky way. Yeah. I mean, I guess like the only like errors and the way that they interact with hits is like really the only thing that is subject to judgment. And we're pretty tight on that stuff. I know that there was a great error conspiracy last year. Yes. A great minor error conspiracy last year. But in general, I think that even as we sometimes joke about like,

you know, a hometown score and all of that most of these things are pretty both cut and dry and called correctly so yeah we don't really have a lot of yeah i don't have a lot there that no our measurement of certain statistical outputs can improve and change over time right like? Like how we quantify defense, for instance, has shifted around a good bit over the course of baseball history and has taken sort of really big leaps forward

in terms of its precision of late, although it's still like the least reliable of all the publicly available things, or at least the most subject to variance is maybe a better way to put that. But that has a different kind of feel to it, right? Like that's about being able to quantify positioning and the difficulty of getting to a ball and your ability to do that.

That's a different thing. You're taking out subjectivity with that stuff. You're not injecting more of it into the game. That's maybe the difference. Yeah. And of course, there have been rules changes that have affected scoring. And so I was trying to think like, what would be the equivalent, something like this, where it might change your understanding of who was the best at the sport in a meaningful way. And of course, during Babe Ruth's career, there were balls that were classified as homers or not classified as homers that would be totally different today, right? There were multiple different rules that if Babe Ruth had done exactly the same things that he did then with our modern rules, he would have a different home run total. And we would not think of 714 as this hallowed number. And who knows? He might still be the all-time record holder.

And so certain numbers like that, I think, would definitely be different. But I don't know what would sway you when thinking about the best of all time, which is, again, a debate that was had by me and others on the recent Effectively Wild and everywhere else in the sports world after the passing of Willie Mays, who's the greatest and the all-time greatest and the current living greatest. And now, certainly, there have been times earlier in baseball where things were not recorded correctly. Like, they were just people lost hits or credited extra hits or whatever it was. And so you might find out retroactively that, oh, you thought that guy won the batting title. Actually, this guy won the batting title. But those weren't cases so much of someone essentially kind of doctoring the numbers as they were just things getting lost in the shuffle.

And even with the error controversy that you referenced from last season, which I poo-pooed at the time, the idea that there was some kind of conspiracy that MLB was instructing official scorers to juice the batting average league-wide by scoring things as hits instead of errors. That was a league-wide thing, not specific to one team or one player who was getting an edge there, right? And so I guess the closest thing I could think of is the 56-game hitting streak of Joe DiMaggio, which it's been pretty well documented that there was probably some home cooking going on there that extended that streak. And so it would not necessarily be

the legendary accomplishment that we think of now if everything had been ruled completely accurately and objectively. So that's a significant thing that would change baseball history if that happens. But I guess it kind of goes hand in hand with just the nature of the sports and baseball being this kind of clockwork thing that you have frequent stoppages and it's not technically one-on-one, but there's more of a head-to-head confrontation. Whereas in basketball, in football, in hockey, there are just more players involved in various plays and the action is more continuous. And it's just hard to quantify and get granular. Not that there aren't ways to do it, but part of that, I suppose, does come down to the subjectivity of scoring, which in baseball is just a little clearer most of the time.

Even though now we have like expected stats and actual stats. And so we're like, well, what should that have been? But we can kind of keep these things separate and we could say, well, this is what that actually was. And yet here's what might have been expected based on certain attributes of that ball in play or that pitch. I guess this has been another Ben talks about some other sport and tries to relate it to baseball segments. So you attended the draft combine. I did. Tuesday and Wednesday. the draft combine i did tuesday and wednesday did you see or hear the comments that buck showalter

made on the broadcast of the combine i okay so it's so funny you asked that question ben because i didn't hear anything that buck said we did have the combine broadcast on in in our uh little suite the way that they set this up is that so so first of all, you're a chase and the guys are doing their on-field this and that. And then on the suite level, they have a suite for every team. And then they have a suite for like each credentialed organization so that you can like do interviews and stuff and have a place to work and what have you. So we were in our little fan graph suite, and we had the broadcast on but muted. And my first sight of Buck on the broadcast

is him sitting at the desk on the field, and his arms are crossed across his chest, and he looks very grumpy. And I was like, Buck, man, first of all, we can only ever be ourselves, right? And second of all, I was like, Buck, you've been on TV a fair amount by this point, man. Like somebody hasn't said to you, hey, sit up, uncross your arms, look as if you want to be there even a little bit. So, yeah, that was my visual impression of Buck.

But also, you know, I don't know if he said things that sounded grumpy. So that's what I have to say about Buck. Did he put his foot in his mouth or anything? Well, not exactly. Oh, no. But he did talk about certain parts of people's anatomies. I will play the clip. Oh, no. But he did talk about certain parts of people's anatomies. I will play the clip. Oh, no.

You know, I watch these kids. I'm looking at other things than a lot of people. I'm looking at, you know, how high is their butt? How high is their butt? Yeah. Are they got a full beard? You don't see a bunch of pancake rear guys playing. You don't.

There's some exceptions to everything. I'm just telling you. What just happened? Okay. I'll tell you another one, too. If you look at a full beard. If I see a guy that's got a full beard, there's an X there. Because he's not getting any bigger. He's not getting any stronger. You better like what you see.

He's fully grown. You know, for the most part. You better like what you're seeing. I've got more. You know, but I'm going to start. What color eyes do they have? Are they brown? Are they green? Are they blue? Well, take a look at the batting title, guys, over the last 40 years.

What color eyes they had, Greg? There's some consistency. I can keep going. Your wrist, your fingers, you know, I'm looking too much. And that's why they do all the different data points they do. They test them on everything, how long their wingspans are, how long their strength is, all that stuff that gets measured in. It's pretty cool.

Okay, I'm going to defend Buck. Are you ready? First of all, well, here's the one where I think it's kind of funny. I assume that he means, here's what I think he means about the eye color thing. Here's what I think he means about the eye color thing. There is a belief that I will say anecdotally, I have experienced as a person with blue eyes that like people with light colored eyes are more light sensitive. And so I think there is a belief among some scouts that like light eyed guys have a harder time seeing the ball during day games than guys without light colored eyes. I have no idea how scientifically sound a theory that is. I know that I have to wear sunglasses and I had to wear sunglasses growing up in Seattle when it was overcast because it would

just be too bright for me. But I don't know that there's anything really to that. Look, I don't know that there's anything really to that. Look, people talk about the high butt thing, man. Like they talk about that. They like, and in a way that isn't prurient, to be clear, they're not like, they're not Al Pacino-ing in heat. It sometimes sounds that way. It sure can sound that way. Yeah, they're not sitting out there

like making Al Pacino face in heat. But you know, like they're talking about body composition and they're talking about sort of having a well-composed lower half with, you know, a tuchus so that you can generate power. A baseball butt. A baseball butt. It's a term. Yeah. Like, you know, I'm a Mariners fan. I remember Kyle Seeger. Like we talked about that guy's butt a lot in a way that I imagine made his wife uncomfortable. And some current Mariners as well. Yeah. Yeah. See? See?

There's two. So you went to the combine. I went to the combine. How were the beards? What color was everyone's eyes? The beards. I love the part of that clip where Harold is just trying so hard to get it back to something that is like more network friendly and he's like yeah that's why they do all these tests you know they

measure their wingspan and they look at their one step from phrenology but didn't quite get there fortunately thankfully no calipers were produced on the MLB network set but yeah like I think that there's something to the baseball butt thing

you know it is oh god this is gonna make me i'm not being a creep i promise but like you know you go to games and there will be sometimes it is easy to identify the young men who play for the team like if you're on a backfield by their baseball butt you know like they got a high butt it's a thing you know they're like well he's he's not in uniform and maybe he's like rehabbing down here or something because like look at that butt that's a baseball butt you know yeah now can you have a low butt or is it merely that you don't really have one at all you got the pancake rear as buck puts it i think that the distinctions that i have heard have been high butt, and by that they mean like a pronounced butt.

It's not like the altitude of the butt. It's the prominence. The altitude of the butt. I love the idea of the altitude of the butt. I'm going to incorporate that, man. I'm going to work that in. Yeah, that should be on Langenhagen's scouting reports going forward. Altitude of the butt. I'm going to incorporate that, man. I'm going to work that in. Yeah, that should be on Long and Higgins scouting reports.

The altitude of the butt. Jot it down. But really, like the height of your butt is affected by just the height of you, partly. Yes. Just how high off the ground are you and is your lower body proportionately larger, longer than your upper body, right? But that's not really what they mean because you could probably have a short guy with a high butt and a tall guy who has a pancake rear, you know? Right, right. I don't know if it correlates to – it's not like measuring the height of the butt off the ground. It's more about like the height off the butt off the ground. It's more about like the height off of the rest of you or how much it protrudes. And so I don't know that you can have a

protruding butt that is low. Can you have a low butt that it would probably still be a high, it would still be high. It would still be classified as high. I would think it's either A high, it would still be high. It would still be classified as high, I would think. It's either pancake or high. I don't know that there's a low. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know either, man.

I think it's just the two. I think it's a high butt or a pancake butt. Yes. But there are good players who have pancake butts, man. Like that exists. Man, why am I doing that? You know, it's a thing. That's a thing.

So, you know, I think it can be fine. Like there are many baseball bodies that produce good baseball results there. There's not only one type that does that, but I think you see more high butts than you do pancake butts. The beard thing, I don't know what, I mean, like, I think again, what he's trying to say is that like, if a guy has a full beard, he is probably like done maturing and might not be as projectable. But I think that that he's on much shakier ground when it comes to that, because I don't know how well that correlates to like, yeah. Are your growth plates closed? I mean, is it testosterone related?

I don't really know because there are obviously like full grown people who can't really grow a beard. Right. There are young people who can. Yeah. I don't know if there's a maybe directionally he's right. Yeah. I don't know.

Like, is he like, ah, all the testosterone he has is what he has. Like, I don't know if that's what he means. But I think that thankfully scouting is more sophisticated than this. This was very Moneyball making fun of scouts sort of scene. Right. Like, does he have a girlfriend? Is she ugly? Like that kind of thing. Yeah. But I, you know, I think that projectability is a hard thing to get quite right. I think that you can try. And I think that good scouts can kind of look at a young person and be like, oh, OK, like he's a bigger guy. He's got a big frame, but he's not fully filled out. Like there's projectability in the body. But like guys can be, you know, sometimes guys will come through smaller college programs or they'll be high school draftees and like they get on a pro strength and conditioning program and they look completely different a year later and you know some of that you can kind of peg like what the outer bound might be what the ceiling might be but like guys surprise guys all the time which is part of why they try to do these more precise

measurements to get like a more rigorous and scientific understanding. I don't think that anyone's being disqualified for having light eyes. Eye color. Wow. Yeah. I mean, like, you know, the high butt thing. He should have stopped with the butt, you know? Like, if he had stopped with the butt, I think it would have been better.

But at least his arms weren't crossed while he was talking about it. So, yeah. No, he loosened up a little when he was talking about the butt. I think it would have been better, but at least his arms weren't crossed while he was talking about it. So. Yeah. No, he loosened up a little when he was talking about the butts. So this is what you got to get him talking about butts. Here's what I got to say. Everybody likes to talk about butts, you know, like that's a universally popular thing. Even the Buck Show Walters of the world will find their way to productive, joyful butt discourse. Every single person on the planet likes to talk about a butt. How they talk about the butts? Wide range, much variation. The world is a rich tapestry full of interesting people. But I think every person likes to talk about butts.

You know, I think that that's a belief I have. I don't know if it means anything about the human condition other than butts can be funny. You can have a funny butt. You can have a sexy butt. You can have an athletic butt. Some of these things overlap with one another, right? You can have a pancake butt. You can have a pancake butt. Some people probably think pancake butt sexy, right? It's all a personal preference. Look, I think every kind of person is attractive to at least somebody. You know, that's one of the beautiful things about being alive. There's just like, again, a rich tapestry. Now I sound like the Friday show is like a stoner exercise. It's not.

I promise. I was working before this. I wish we could stat blast the butts and the beards somehow. I feel like. Saying stat blast the butts. I don't know about that one, Ben. I don't know about that turn of phrase. I already felt like Jim doing the Dwight impression on The Office.

Beards, butts, Battlestar Galactica. Everyone's like, you know, Meg didn't have a ton to say about the Orioles and the Yankees. And she had some thoughts about errors and defensive positionings. But she was going to let Ben go and do his thing. And then we got to butts and it's like, here's Mike, just got a lot to say. Cause I, again, everybody likes a butt, man. At least one kind of butt everyone likes.

You missed the last episode. We didn't talk about butts at all, as I recall. Well, there was, you know, there was like some heavy stuff to discuss, you know, a reflective and respectful moment. Yes, and that moment passed and we're back to talking about butts again. Yep.

There's something to like eye dominance, right? Eye color is one thing, but eye dominance is something you hear about hitters a lot too, right? Like which eye is dominant? Dominant, yeah.

Do you get a better look at the ball from that side? Yeah. You know, there's something floating around here that might be meaningful. Hopefully not in your eye, but, you know. Buck was dancing around something significant there, but in a very old school.

In a very Buck kind of way. Frankly, quite charming way. Yeah. I'm so happy to have known what he said, because he just looks so grumpy. And I was like, happy to have known what he said because he just looks so grumpy and i was like fuck come on i know it's early but can i pay um a couple of compliments around the combine to the good folks who you know what was not obnoxious about the combine and is often obnoxious about you know it can be obnoxious about baseball games generally and showcase environments in particular. Music, not at all offensive. Wide range. I think I heard two country pop songs the entire time I was there. It was not overly loud, which I think on Tuesday had as much to do with them needing to not worry about clearing

rights as anything else. But two thumbs, way, way up. And yeah, the folks at the league are always really helpful around the combine, which is nice. And got to hear a lot of hopeful young men talking about their futures, which is always interesting. And we'll have more on that in the coming days. Not talking about their butts. Yeah. Not directly. I was talking about stat blasting butts.

And you're talking about two thumbs up in close proximity to butts. We got to watch our words. I was much further away from the butts than you were i had moved i had backed away from the bus i mean i could ask you like hey which players looked like they were good at baseball that might be relevant too but but i probably would not have heard of them you would not have heard of most of them and we will be doing draft coverage we will be doing draft coverage of some sort when the draft rolls around. Yeah.

I think that the challenge that will always face the combine is that the very, very best guys aren't necessarily going to do on-field activity. Well, some of them did. Some of them are unavailable to do on-field activity because they're like playing in Omaha. This was a big problem last year. It was like Skeens is busy. Some of them are unavailable to do on-field activity because they're like playing in Omaha. This was a big problem last year. Like it was like Skeens is busy. He can't even, you know, he probably wouldn't have thrown anyway. But even if he had wanted to, he had to like go in a College World Series.

But it is a really efficient scouting look. There are always going to be a couple of guys who like wow you like um i had not really come in knowing what to expect out of pj morlando but he had a really good bp i got to make a great joke about his name because you know because of his power the outfielders they have to cover morlando Orlando. So I came away very impressed by his BP. I wasn't behind home during pitchers, so I don't have an informed view there. You'll have to wait. But Orlando stood out. Yeah, it's like a weird exercise.

They sit and they meet with teams, you know. They're there to work, those guys, and what they're doing is meaningful in that respect. So I think it's a cool event. You can't get away from the like meat market feel of it. That's just going to be a thing that's there and it's not the best and it's hard to navigate. And, you know, what do you, you know, the draft as an exercise is like gonna inspire some of that. So definitely can't get away from that when Buckshaw Walter is evaluating everyone's butt. But I mean, and beards and eye color and my goodness, there's fingers, hands. Yeah. Yeah.

Combine. Can I ask you a question? Cause some big, you know, you brought up basketball, but I'm going to do it and ask you, how do you feel about the world you helped create for JJ Redick? Yeah, I don't know if I personally had a hand in his new gig or his old gig for that matter, but I suppose the ringer played a part in his ascendance to his various roles. No, I think it was you and Sam. I think that you established the podcaster to coach pipeline. We did. Yeah, baby. I know that you weren't actually coaching. You guys were in a GM capacity, but like you walked so he could run really. I think that if he wins a title with the Lakers, you guys should be among the first people he thanks you know um he might need to learn your

name first but if he does his homework and learns his history he will know ben limberg and sam miller there who got me here today yeah yeah i mean i don't know if you're trailblazers but you're something you know i thought you might i'm not saying anything about your butts that's not my business he used to do podcasts for the ringer but that's not what you meant to say. I'm not saying anything about your butts. That's not my business. He used to do podcasts for The Ringer, but that's not what you meant at all. That's not what I meant at all. Following in our footsteps. Yes. Yeah.

You're welcome, JJ. Yeah. There you go. Last thing I wanted to say, I was looking at the Fangraphs War Leaderboard, as I do quite often. And I noted that the top war guys are in the AL this year, at least to this point. The top four war players are all American leaguers. And you have Shohei Otani now who is on the top of the National League leaderboard. And he has surpassed Mookie Betts, presumably for good, now that Mookie will be missing some time.

And in the non-Mookie department, Otani has 22% more fan graphs than any National League player. So he really might make a run at this MVP thing. Like this is starting to get sort of serious. I know we're not even halfway through the season yet, but he is on pace to be a leading candidate as first DH only MVP. And yet his total value pales in comparison to a few other guys in the other league. And that's the thing. As impressive as Otani has been offensively, the presence of Aaron Judge has made it hard for me to be impressed by anyone else. As long as Otani is not doing the two-way thing,

as soon as he is once more, he will catapult to the top of impressing me leaderboards. But Aaron Judge has hit better than Otani on the season while playing a solid center field. And it seems like he's going to continue to play center field for the foreseeable future because Jason Dominguez has an oblique injury now and he's going to be out for a while. So no reinforcements really on the way, but Judge, Gunnar Henderson, Bobby Witt Jr. and Juan Soto. So you have their two shortstops who rake and one center fielder who rakes and then Juan Soto, who doesn't really give you the defensive premium position, but he's Juan Soto, and he always rakes. I'm just saying Aaron Judge has made it hard for me

to appreciate Shohei Otani this season, and I'm one of the world's foremost Shohei Otani appreciators, and so that says something about the season that Aaron Judge is having because he's doing the same thing, if not better, at the plate, and yet he's doing it covering ground and center field every day. And that's pretty impressive. That Aaron Judge guy, he's on pace for more than a 10-war season, and I wouldn't bet against him getting there.

I am shocked, Ben. I am floored that someone is coming between you and maximal enjoyment of Otani. I feel unsettled. Like I feel shaken up. I think that my new example that I'm going to point to when we are in like the first month of the season and your favorite guy isn't doing what you want him to, I'm going to say, do you remember in judges 2024 season? And people are going to go, yeah. And then they're going to go, I should relax. Now, sometimes your favorite guy stinks in the first season and then

he keeps thinking. So it's not like a guarantee, but can't count on a guy having one of the hottest hot streaks of all time. You cannot count on that. No, you cannot count on that. And I would imagine that if you were to ask Aaron Judge, you know, he's probably thrilled that things have gone the direction they have because, like, who would he be to complain about, you know, his current situation? He just, like, has a 211 WRC plus. What a guy. But I imagine that like if you were to ask any ball player, their preference would be, let's have perfectly smooth, symmetrical excellence, right?

I don't want any dips. I don't want any troughs. I want to be like the guy the whole time. But, you know, the reality is that I think a lot of players have streakier performances. And lest we forget, like we were like, oh my God, Aaron Judge, the reality is that I think a lot of players have streakier performances. And lest we forget, like, we were like, oh, my God, Aaron Judge, what's wrong with him? He still had like a 117 WRC plus in his worst month of the season. It wasn't like he was like really bad.

He just wasn't like, I mean, he certainly wasn't on a rocket to the moon like he is right now. Maybe he's from the moon, you know, like he doesn't seem to be of this world, so. The low gravity, that's why he got so big. Oh, high butt. Yeah, true. I was, everything about him is high off the ground, but again, that's not what we're talking about. That's not what we're talking about.

Yeah, it really shouldn't be vertical. It shouldn't be high. It should be more horizontal because that's what we're really talking about. Right. high butt. So like, you know, Ben, like the whole way. So really, Buck is doing a service because while we all like to talk about butts, it's clear that we need some refining in our butt discourse. You know, we are perhaps lacking butt precision, which like if you have a toddler sounds terrifying because that's how you make a mess. I was trying to make sure it wasn't sexual, right? Now we're talking about doo-doo. I'm experiencing that in my daily life. Potty training?

Yes. Sorry, bud. It's going okay. But it's still a work in progress. But I had hoped I had expressed the hope that someone would quantify the hotness of Aaron Judge's hot streak. And Mike Petriello did his level best there. hotness of Aaron Judge's hot streak. And Mike Petriello did his level best there. And he looked at a very hot stretch that Judge had had and looked at the best Wobas over those spans of plate appearances going back very far and wasn't era adjusted or offensive environment adjusted.

But still, without doing that adjustment, the only guys with hotter stretches than judges over that span of 40 games were people who played in the 20s or 30s and Barry Bonds, basically. Like, that's it. So it was, yeah, the eye test kind of sufficed, I guess, in this case. Because I was like, oh, very few people have ever been that hot. And, yeah, the numbers bear that out. But, yeah, it's not that Judge has gotten in the way of my appreciating Otani. I guess he has set an even higher standard for excellence this year. It's really that Otani's elbow got in the way of my appreciating Shohei Otani. And, you know,

I thought I said coming into the season that I thought we'd probably talk about Otani less. And I think that probably has been the case. And especially if you filtered out all the times we talked about the betting scandal, which was just a whole different thing, just purely performance related times that we've talked about Otani. I would say that there has been a dramatic decrease in the rate at which I am bringing him up on this podcast, which is not to say that he's not among the more mentioned players because he is and still should be.

Yeah. He sort of demands to be mentioned. Hey, Ben, remember how the best player in baseball and its biggest star actually didn't end up

getting taken down by a gambling scandal? Wasn't that nice? Post-recording updates. Yankees lost. Orioles lost. Ellie did not steal a base. Lewis hit another home run.

All right, that will do it for today and for this week. Thanks, as always, for listening. And thanks to those of you who support the podcast on Patreon, which you can do by going to patreon.com slash effectivelywild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad-free,

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bantering bodily, drafting discerningly, giggling giddily, equaling effectively, while...