Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2189: Don’t Sell Umpires Short(s)

Episode Date: July 12, 2024

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about homerless White Sox second basemen, the recent history of teams with homerless positions, and the upsides and downsides of the trend toward focusing on present-season performance in All-Star selections, then (37:11) answer emails about an award for utility players, a player’s debut age matching his debut number, whether […]

Hello and welcome to episode 2189 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Raleigh of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello. Let me tell you about a new little statistical quirk I'm tracking for the rest of this season, or for as long as it remains true. It's in the genre of White Sox fail facts. So we're tracking, obviously, everyone's tracking just how bad will the White Sox be.

And the answer so far, very bad. Everyone, the entire nation. There's not a single person in the United States who's not like those White Sox. I got to keep an eye on them. We're all glued to our tickers just trying to find out whether the White Sox will lose. And usually they come through in that respect. And they're 27 and 68 now. So that is a 284 winning percentage.

It's been worse. That's actually better than it's been. Maybe they should just switch to losing percentage instead of providing winning percentage for the White Sox. Because it sounds more impressive. Instead of saying a 284 winning percentage, you could say a 716 losing percentage. And that sounds better somehow. It's a bigger number. Well, regardless, they're on pace for 116 losses. And so we'll all be tracking that as they try to avoid setting a new record for futility for losses in the season, despite the

fact that they're probably about to trade two or three of their best players potentially later this month. But here is just the White Sox in microcosm, a tiny little stat that stands for the holistic failure of the squad. Second basemen for the White Sox have not homered yet. White Sox second basemen are homerless this season. Anyone who has played second base for the White Sox second basemen are homerless this season. Anyone who has played second base for the White Sox this season. Now we have to specify because of course there are

probably players I haven't checked who have played second base at some point who have homered elsewhere. But I'm talking about people who were in the lineup at second base in the game at second base when they were batting. those players have not homered yet. You always got to be careful when you do the splits at fan graphs on the leaderboards. There's the primary position splits, but then there's the positional split, which just tells you, okay, while this player was at second base, yeah, what did they do? And so no player who has been in the moment a second baseman for the White Sox has hit a home run this season. This will probably be one of these things where I mention it on the podcast and then next thing

you know, Nikki Lopez will hit two that night and I'll have to do an update in the outro or something. But so far, White Sox second baseman, I guess I won't because we're recording on Thursday and the White Sox are off on Thursday. So it will be accurate at least until this podcast is published. So this is just one of those little things that I'm kind of looking at and I'm like, can they keep this up? Can they do it? I saw the Twitter account Brooksgate tweeted this at Brooks underscore gate the other day. It's sort of one of these fun facts, content factory Twitter accounts tweeted this. And so now I've gotten kind of invested in handicapping this race and what's the history here. And this would be quite an instance of futility if a whole positional group got through

an entire season without once having homered. So I'm kind of rooting for it to happen now. I love that you applied the caveat that that the potential exists that a person who played for the White Sox has left the White Sox and freed from the suck that is being a participant in that team's season. They may have homered elsewhere. It's possible. That feels honestly like one of the meaner parts of what you just said. I mean, look what happened to Kevin Pillar, right? He couldn't hit his white sock and then he went to the Angels and for a little while there he was on fire. Rakin. I struggle with the White Sox. I find myself gripped in like a moral conundrum. Pretty much everyone struggles with the White Sox this year, except for a while but you you could seek them out right you can find them not in the like home run proclivities of the white sock second basement but you can find them

elsewhere right you could glob onto something like grab it and just like not let it go until it gets traded but i worry about enjoying it too much because i can't imagine i've had jobs i don't like i've had jobs that i like really don't, but other people didn't watch me do them. I got to have that frustration and pain and at times feeling like I wasn't very good at what I was doing. That was a private problem. And the only other person who really noticed maybe was my boss. We're watching that every day. I mean, we aren't. I don't know that many people are, but someone is watching them every day. We know that even teams that are bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, do reasonably well from a viewership perspective because you put the game on, there's the rhythm of it. Maybe you want to see the other team that they're playing against you know so i just i find myself a little worried that if i lean into enjoying the suck that like i will come to find that a deity that i don't have emotional or spiritual resonance with will actually be there to judge me upon my death and

will hold up these moments and be like, you know, it wasn't the meanest or worst thing you ever did, but you were kind of low-key an asshole about these guys for a while. So I'm gripped with like a panic, almost a dread. It's only the White Sox. I don't think anything else could be contributing to that sense. Yeah. So to dig a little deeper here, perhaps cruelly, but to give you a little more context on how difficult this is to do. First, I should note that, as I was saying, it's not that no one who has played second base for the White Sox this year has homered at some other time. Danny Mendick, for example, has played some second base for the White Sox, but he has not homered as a second baseman. He's homered twice as a third baseman and once as a pinch hitter. Okay. But obviously someone plays second base for the White Sox every day, every game. It's mandated in the rules, even though they might not contribute that much. There is someone playing second base. And this season, the contributors to this this Homerlessness are mostly Nicky Lopez. So he's had about 252 plate appearances, exactly 252 plate appearances.

And then 101 combined plate appearances from Mendick, Lenny Sosa, Braden Shoemake, and Zach Remillard. So those are the five who have contributed to this. It's a regular murderer zero. who have contributed to this. It's a regular murderer zero. And collectively, they've hit 248, 294, 296, a not very nice 69 WRC plus. They haven't added a whole lot of value elsewhere on the bases or anything. 1.8 base running runs, 14 steals. They have collectively been worth about 0.6 wins above replacement, which is only 21st in the majors. I mean, it could be worse, right? They are not actually the worst second base unit thus far. I guess the defense has helped them out slightly. And in fact, they're not the worst hitting second

baseman in the majors. They are only the third worst hitting collection of second baseman this year. Oh, is this going to be an opportunity for you to whack my Seattle Mariners? Actually, no. The Mariners are merely the sixth worst hitting collection of second baseman. I was going to say, that Carmen Payback would have been far more instant than I had anticipated. Yeah. So 69 WRC plus for the White Sox, 60 for Colorado Rockies second baseman. Wow. That's even more embarrassing, candidly. Yeah. Well, how about this? 45 WRC plus for Red Sox second baseman. Wow.

And the Red Sox, they aren't even that bad. They aren't bad at all, really. It's the Sox just have not handled second base. The Keystone has been a problem for all different colors of socks. And of course, they've had some injuries and they've had people filling in there the best they can. So I was looking to see, well, has this happened before? When was the last time this happened that an entire positional unit for a team went homerless for a full season? And the Fangrass positional splits go back to 2002 so that you can very easily slice and dice things this way. And so I looked at every position for every team in every season going back to 2002. So that is 207 combinations of teams and positions, 30 per year. I did not look at pitchers

back when pitchers hit. So in that time, four previous positional cohorts have gone homerless. So the 2007 Dodgers center fielders, this was before the Dodgers got good. That's how long ago this was because they've been good for a long time. 2007 Dodgers center fielders hit 293, 331, 351, which is an 81 WRC plus. So high average, but empty average. However, 14 base running runs and 64 steals. And you see a line like that with the slugging just barely better than the OBP and lots of stolen bases. You know, Juan Pierre was here.

Oh, Juan Pierre. Man. This is Juan Pierre. I haven't thought about Juan Pierre in a long Oh, Juan Pierre. Man. This is Juan Pierre. I haven't thought about Juan Pierre in a long time, Ben. I know. It's been a minute. We don't see his like very often in the majors these days. Not anymore, no.

Yeah. I kind of miss Juan Pierre. He was like a sabermetric old school versus new school stats versus scouts kind of flashpoint Juan Pierre. Because it was like, you know, he's speedy. He hits for high averages, but he wasn't that great, really. Whereas you might have some slow strikeout prone sluggers who were not defensively gifted, but overall were more valuable. I did a piece for Grantland on Juan Pierre and Adam Dunn because at the time, at least they had exactly the same career wars. Oh, get out. because at the time, at least, they had exactly the same career wars. Oh, get out. Yeah, this is an illustration of why war is useful because you couldn't have two more dissimilar players

who were regarded differently by different groups, and yet they were kind of the same when you add it all up. So that year, the Dodgers centerfielders were actually above average, I guess. They were 13th among all center field groups because speed and defense. Yeah. And that was almost entirely Juan Pierre because Juan Pierre, he led off a lot and he got tons of plate appearances and didn't miss many games. And so it was all Pierre except for 16 combined plate appearances by Matt Kemp, Brady Clark

and Wilson Valdez. That same year, 2007, twin second baseman went home or less. Same year, 2007, twin second basemen went home or less. Okay. So twin second basemen hit 273, 24, 316, 73 WRC plus with four base running runs and 18 steals. They were worth only 0.2 more. So they were basically replacement level as a group, which was a mere 24th out of the 30 teams that year. And that was mostly a guy I sort of associate with Juan Pierre because sort of a similar game, Luis Castillo. So Luis Castillo, mostly with some Alexi Casilla mixed

in and some Nick Punto and Luis Antonio Rodriguez. Then 2010, Rangers shortstops. So they hit 264, Okay. Joaquin Arias and Esteban German. And then the other one, the most recent time this has happened, 2022, Guardians centerfielders. Oh, okay. So 217, 292, 265, 65 WRC+, the worst of these groups, 6.1 base running runs, 21 steals, 1.2 war, which ranked 22nd among centerfield units that year. Almost all, Myles Straw. Myles Straw. 63 plate appearances from Will Benson, Stephen Kwan, Oscar Mercado, Will Brennan, and Alex Kahl mixed in there. So yeah, that was notoriously terrible. Guardians fans remember that well or remember that really poorly and wish they didn't remember it at all. And that sort of spelled the end of Mal Strah's tenure or not long after that. Would you say that it was the last straw?

I would. I guess I would say it was the last straw, if only I had thought to say that. That's what you have a co-host for, Ben. You don't have to come up with it all on your own. Yeah. And technically, I guess it wasn't the last straw because he also played a lot last year too. Guardians fans wish it had been the last draw. Almost the last straw. That's not as quippy a saying now. Almost the last straw. It's like, well, let me know when we've gotten to the last straw. This suggests there are straws left to be dispensed. I think last year probably was the last straw, but he played almost a full season last year too. He hit one homer though last year. So he did break through, he got on the board. So that's it. Those four groups, mostly other than the Miles Straw season, more than a decade ago, almost 15 years ago. And here the White Sox, they're making a run at it. So they probably won't do it. Probably someone will hit a

home run. They've played 95 games, so they're almost 59% of the way through the season. And the Fangraphs depth charts do have them projected to be the worst second baseman for the rest of the season. So it's not as if the cavalry is coming here. It's not as if reinforcements are projected to arrive. The Fangraphs depth charts just have more Lopez, Mendick, Sosa, and Shumake who's hurt right now. So the group of players, it's not going to be a different group unless, you know, I don't know if there's anyone they could call up.

Or with some other team, you might think, oh, well, what a weak spot. They'll trade for someone. But it's the White Sox. They're going to be trading people away, if anything. So I don't know how many home runs they're projected to hit rest of the season. I can't see that easily, but I'm sure it's more than zero. Yeah. Probably not many more than zero, but we'll see.

You know, I'll just be watching this now. Yeah. Playing time is such a funny thing, isn't it? Right. Because when you get that kind of production, you're like, well, surely they'll move on. But when the entire team is sort of producing at that level, albeit with a little more thump at other positions, it's like, well, we're just going to ride this.

Like your punishment is having to play, which isn't a totally fair thing to say because they get to collect a paycheck and that's its own reward. But oof, man, I just feel bad. I feel bad for them. I feel dread that they have to keep going to the ballpark. It's like a dread. this in this era, this very home run centric era. Because I mean, those seasons that I cited earlier, like this season is not really a wacky home run rate year. Home run rate is down

considerably from last year, but it's still slightly higher than it was in 2022 when Milestraw did what he did or didn't do what he didn't do. And it's higher than it was in 2007 and also in 2010, those other years when we had a Homer West position. So it's impressive that they've managed to sustain this this long. We will provide updates as warranted. I don't know if it's impressive, but it is something, you know? Yeah. At a certain point, it graduates from unimpressive to actually, it comes all the way around and it becomes, well, this is actually kind of impressive.

Yeah, I guess. Or it's so unimpressive that it's impressive in a sense. Right. So no White Sox second baseman will be All-Stars this season. I think that is pretty clear. But there is one little insight that I wanted to share here about All-star selection, which is not a big topic of conversation on this podcast these days. We're not doing like all-star snubs or have you seen the all-star selections? Although I say justice for Christian Walker. I do say that.

Yeah. You could have the whole snubs conversation and then inevitably, whoever you select as the snub will probably make it anyway when someone else pulls out of the game. So I used to care more about all-star selections and I guess about the game in general. And now I don't. I'm happy for the players who are happy about it, but I'm not really going over the selections with a magnifying glass or a microscope to say, oh, this was deserved or this wasn't deserved. But one thing that I've noticed that I've been curious about is I wondered whether all-star selections have gotten more dependent on in-season, current, present season performance than they used to be. wild stat keeper and competition tracker, Chris Hannell, who was wondering how many games would Royce Lewis have to play to become an all-star? Is it possible that he could despite being injured so much because he's just been so good when he has played? And so in order to try to determine that,

Chris looked back through the history of low playing time all-stars to see sort of what the bar was. And by combing through recent decades of All-Star selections and looking for the All-Stars who'd played the fewest games before the break, he found some examples of guys who hadn't played a lot, like Ozzie Smith in 1995. He played only 19 games before the All-Star break. And then that prompted me to do a little looking. And I reminded myself that Mike Schmidt in 1989 was elected as a starter despite having retired a month and a half before the game and being a sub-replacement level player when he was playing, which was why he retired. That's great.

Yeah. And that's obviously just a career achievement award. And we've seen that in recent years. Sometimes we're a guy who's not that great anymore. It's just, you know, it would be nice to have him. And he is, in fact, a star. Well, and sorry to interrupt you, but So now the commissioner can just say like, you are an all-star even if you're not deserving on the field because of everything you've accomplished, right? People will want to see you and send you off. Hopefully he says it nicer than that, but yeah. Yeah, right. You suck, but you used to be great. Right. So come on down. And in that same year that Mike Schmidt was selected as a starter, Jose Canseco was selected as the AL starting right fielder, despite having played zero games before the All-Star game. But he was coming off the 1988 40-40 season of his, and so he was a big star. But he got injured during spring training, and he just didn't make it back before the game. But he still was the AL starting right fielder. And I think that was the first game he played that season. And so it is.

And it seems wild, I think, especially because I feel like that probably wouldn't happen today. Like it's kind of a what have you done for me lately situation these days, or at least it seems like that to me. situation these days, or at least it seems like that to me. And Chris actually posted on Reddit about the fun fact that he had found that Jose Canseco had hurt his wrist and didn't play a single game in the pre-All-Star break portion of the season. And there was a commenter on that post who wrote, back then, the All-Star game was more about getting stars on the field together than rewarding a good first half. And someone replied to that comment to say, still is. And the original commenter said, not really as much in my experience. Now you see a lot more arguments like who the F is voting in Cal Ripken Jr.

and his pathetic 402 bacon plus when Al Pedrique has 407, right? So kind of, you know, laying it at the stat head's feet. So I went to a stat head, Neil Payne, recent Effectively Wild guest, multi-time Effectively Wild guest and prolific substacker at Neil's substack, neilpayne.substack.com. And he's one of the best at wrinkling data and looking at things like this. And I solicited a stat blast of sorts from Neil here, and I asked him if he could confirm or refute that all-star selections have gotten more weighted toward the present season. And Neil did that research. And he sent me his results, which I will share. He made a nice little graphic here. And basically, he looked at the weighting of current season war versus previous season war

versus two seasons previous war. And he looked to see just how much each total contributed to whether someone's an all-star or not. So if you want the technical details, which I'm sure some subset of our audience will, Neil explained it thusly. I basically set up a logic regression between being an all-star batter and a weighted measure of Fangraph's war, which contained this year's first half war divided by 0.6 to prorate to a full season, last year's full season war and two years prior's full season war. Then I found the combination of weights for each, which had to add to 100% overall,

and the slope and intercept that minimized the Breyer score across the sample. I did that for the entire range of seasons since 1990, tossing out any year overlapping with partial seasons, just the 90s, just the 2000s, and the 2010s and 2020s together, since a lot of the 2020s overlap with the COVID season in 2020. And he found that all-star selections are in fact becoming more, what have you done for me lately? So the relative weights have changed to favor current season performance more. So in the 1990s, first half war, and I should say first half war, at least in these decades, has mattered more than the preceding season or seasons war in all of these decades. It's just that it leans more heavily toward current or first half or pre-All-Star break war now than it used to. So in the 1990s, it was another 69. 69% of it was determined by first half war, and then 14% by the preceding

season war, and 18% by the two seasons before. And then in the 2000s, it went to 81%, so not 69%, but 81% determined by first half war. And then 10% last year's war, 9% two years ago war. And then in the 2010s and 2020s combined, it's now 82% first half war. So that's mostly unchanged from the 2000s. But then also the weighting toward the previous year has increased. So then it's 15% last year's war. And I guess doing the math, only 3% two years ago. So it's gotten steadily more toward what did you do for me last year? And what did you do for me this year, especially? And Neil has, as of yet, not gone back before the

1990s. He may still, and if he does, then I'll provide an update to see whether this trend toward the recency bias in all-star selections predated the 90s and it's been a gradual thing, or whether it was sort of consistent prior to the 90s and it's only changed lately. However, it does seem like current season performances are more predictive of all-star game appearances than they used to be. Do you think that is a good thing or a bad thing or neutral? I think probably largely neutral. It's a tricky thing because I agree with you that this is a thing that matters to players. And so I don't want to cheapen it by just saying,

just put a horror in there, right? But it also seems like the sort of thing where we have the flex in these rosters to potentially do both. And look, these are going to be overlapping populations. The guys who are very famous are often going to be guys who are very good because they're very famous for a reason right so like the star part and the good performance part those are not like mutually exclusive populations of players but i don't know like you want to have guys for folks to root for

particularly like for the host team rather to root for like i think that you can put your thumb on the scale a little bit so that the people who are most likely to be in attendance which is going to be fans of the team that's hosting the thing can be like that's my guy look look he's out there yeah i also think that a lot of players well i don't know how self-aware are they but for a lot of players for the self-aware among them a kind of fraudulent selection might not feel good you know and i suppose we don't want to introduce too much potential for like league interference because there are all kinds of like contract implications for making an all-star team or not right so like having it be

predominantly based on merit but having a little bit of room for flex fine but you don't want them to be too loosey-goosey with it because there are some pretty obvious bad incentives that could be acted upon there. But I don't know. I think it's mostly fine now. I mean, there are definitely snubs. There are guys who are worthy, who don't get to go. I think a lot of the issue with the All-Star game, to the extent that there are players there who are maybe having inferior seasons relative to guys left at home is because every

team has to have one. There are a lot of, maybe not a lot. There's some guys though, Ben. Would they go? Would it be? Would they go if you didn't have to have someone from the White Sox, whatever, the Marlins, like the A's? I mean, Mason Miller would probably go anyway because like he's been very good.

But you get what I'm saying. I think a lot of the problem is because we want to give every fan base something to get excited about. And in the process of doing that, we sometimes maybe snub some guys who could otherwise go there. I don't know. Yeah. And I think that's not new. So the rule that every team has to have an all-star, I think that goes back to 1935,

like a few all-star games into it. But there maybe is more of a tendency toward players pulling out of the game now than there used to be. I don't know. I'm not sure if that's the case, but it seems like that's the case that nagging injuries or players just begging out of the game for one reason or another, it's on the

rise. You just want a break, I think. I mean, like, I think- Yes, no, I don't blame them really. Yeah. If I were a player and I were a worthy all-star, two things that are impossible to contemplate, but let's pretend for a moment, like I got bit by a radioactive spider or like, they're like, well, there's no rule. You can't put a bad not player in the all-star game actually there probably is a rule about at least the player part but anyway it was an airbud reference imagine i'm in the all-star game i've been selected i've had a great season everyone's like wow meg's middle infield defense is incredible thumbless but like really leather wizard out there i would like to be selected and go and then i would like to in the next season also be worthy and they were like wow the power in her bat it's really

progressed she's an all-star again and then i'd say thank you so much but ouchy my foot hurts because i would want to break you know you want to go one time i think that everyone wants to go one time because you you watch these guys when they're there and they're doing their intro. It means something to them. I think it really is like a moment. But I also think that it's a long season. And getting to have like a chill. Like I remember when Kyle Seager was an all-star.

That was so cool. And then like the next season he was not an all-star. And his wife was just like posting photos of them at chalan which is like a lake in eastern washington and i was like i think he's happier at that time because he just gets to chill with his wife and kids and like be a grill dad for like a couple of days so i think those are my thoughts about the all-star i didn't realize i had so many other than i do think that Christian Walker has been snubbed. And I hope that there is justice for him.

Yeah, I do. Sometimes retrospectively, if you look at a player's career, it's nice to be able to say he was an X-time All-Star. And that says something about that player. It's obviously always been an imprecise gauge of how good that guy was. Because sometimes they're All-Star selections that weren't necessarily merited based on the on-field production and other times they were, right? Again, every team gets one. Every team. And some of these teams, Ben, they're not good. Right. And I guess I wouldn't want someone to get an invite to the game purely based on reputation unless it were a farewell send-off celebration sort of thing. When I was a kid, I was much more militant about all-star selections,

and I just cared more about them in general. And I was very much in the camp of what you do that season should be the only thing that matters. It's an all-star game for that season. If you've had a great season, then that should be honored, and you should get to go to the game and what you did before. So I guess I'm going against the trend here because when I was a kid, I was more that way. And I think I've become less that way as the selections themselves have gone in the other

direction. So now I'm more in the camp of, eh, it's the all-star game. We just want to see the best players on the field and the best players may not have been the best in the pre-all-star break part of the season that said i absolutely would want an elliot ramos and a david fry and guys like this who break out and kind of come out of nowhere and are great stories it means so much to them yeah that's compelling too neil said in the piece he's writing for his sub stack, which I recommend everyone subscribe to, that Elliot Ramos is 1.6 times more likely to make an all-star roster in the current era than he would have been in the 1990s. But I don't think that's a bad thing. Or Jerickson Profar, Alec Boehm, or someone like Jordan Westberg. I guess you also have younger players being more productive in this era. So almost inherently you have to focus on more recent

performance because they might not have played the past season or two. And I guess maybe something about the selection process has changed to favor the present. I think managers played a part in the selections up until 2017 maybe. And you could imagine managers not really paying attention to what's going on with players who aren't on their team in the current season. So they might have tended toward the veterans. I don't know if that's causing as many people to tune into the game, but I think that the idea that the makeup of the roster governs the audience is probably overblown. I think you're right. Yeah. I doubt this trend toward we'll put the first half all-stars in here instead of the projected best players in baseball or the best over some longer period. I doubt that's a major factor contributing to people tuning into the game less or caring about

the game less. I think that's more just about trends in media and sports in general. I mean, we've seen that with lots of different all-star games. If anything, the MLB all-star game is still pretty much up there in generating interest. And I think because we see these guys all the time year round, right? We can watch them whenever we want. And there's no league bragging rights aspect to this NL versus AL. It's just kind of a relic of earlier eras. It doesn't really mean anything competitively to anyone, even in terms of wanting to do their best in the exhibition. And yeah, you don't see the stars playing the entire game anymore. Again, not just an MLB issue, but I think it's more,

it would be hard to make this event as intriguing as it used to be for reasons that are basically outside of MLB's control for the most part. And, you know, could they do skills competitions like they're doing with the Futures game or minor leaguers? Yeah, maybe. We'll see. But I doubt, like, having a guy who was really good the last couple of years but started slow this year as opposed to, like, Julio Rodriguez, let's say. Right? If you wanted to say, let's have the biggest stars, the most recognizable names and faces, well, let's get Julio in the game, even though Julio's not having a good season.

No. So I lean more towards, yeah, let's get the biggest stars in the game, but also they have to clear some bar for production in that season. Julio's not an all-star. He shouldn't be in that game. That would be,

he'd be taking somebody's spot who is deserving when he is not having a season, that is. I imagine he'll have another all-star season in him, but it's not this year. Yeah. So it's always a mix. You kind of have to calibrate how you balance one thing or the other. And now I guess it's gone more toward current season. And I don't know whether that's because of the trend toward more players pulling out of the game and thus you have to replace them with someone and you look around and you say, oh, who's available?

Or I guess it could be because as that one Reddit commenter was implying, we do have all of these stats and leaderboards we can look at now that give us a great sense of performance in this current season. Neil didn't look at this, but I would imagine war on the whole has just gotten more predictive of whether you're an all-star or not, whether you're talking about same season or previous seasons. But then maybe because we can look at a war leaderboard for this season or something, maybe it's easier to say, oh, this guy's been really good this year, even though he was never great before, and give him credit for that and get him to the game. So I think it's a bunch of trends, but it is a trend. And that kind of confirmed my inclination.

I also think that tools like war and all the other sort of statty kind of tools that we have, like they help to align the perception of worthiness and actual worthiness in a way that I think brings everybody's temperature down, right? Like, you know, that's not true of every fan or every fan base. And like, people people are just gonna have their favorite guys who they want in the game and like that's fine you just can like your guys you know and wish that they were an all-star but i do think that people have a clear understanding of like not only how good individual players are beyond their surface stats but how they compare to one another in a more all-encompassing kind of way.

And I think that that helps to sort of bring the temperature of the whole thing down pretty considerably. But look, I don't know Julio Rodriguez, so I'm making an assumption about how he would feel about something based on what I've been able to observe of him. But I bet he would feel kind of lousy if he were made an all-star. This is what I was talking about before like they do have self-awareness so if you're julio and you're made an all-star because you're famous but like you're not having the season you want you're getting asked about the season you're having and how it's not what you want all the time like what are you gonna get asked about that at the all-star game like that's terrible like hey you famous, but what's going on with you? Like, what's wrong?

Please, Julio, tell us. We're all so confused. But I think that it works out pretty okay a lot of the time. Yeah. I got a PR email the other day about a Julio documentary that's coming out next week. Welcome to the J-Rod show, Fox Sports Films. Probably they wish that the show were going a bit better this season when they were releasing that documentary. I think that literally everyone involved wishes that.

I mean, I think the only people who don't wish that things were going better for Julio were for the Houston Astros. They were, I imagine, pretty happy with how his season is going when it's all said and done. Well, you will be going to the All-Star Game. I will. And that means you will not be here on our next episode. And so we can't do Friday emails because you'll be traveling to Texas. And so maybe we can do a few Thursday emails here. It's going to be so hot.

It's going to be so hot. And you might say, hey, Meg, isn't it so hot where you are right now? And to that I would say, yeah, it's like so hot, you guys. It's going to be so hot. And you might say, hey, Meg, isn't it so hot where you are right now? And to that I would say, yeah, it's like so hot, you guys. It's so hot. But it's going to be a different kind of hot in Texas because it's going to be so hot and it's going to be humid. Do you remember that episode of Friends where they were like making fun of Monica and her hair when they went to the Bahamas or something like that? Yeah. That'll be you.

That might be me. We're going to see how it goes. It might be a big Meg ties her hair back kind of week. All right. Well, here is a question from Preston, Patreon supporter, and it's an All-Star inflected question. In the era of the All-Star game, so this just starts with some fun facts

and then segues into a question. In the era of the All-Star game, there are 100 batters who have accumulated at least 100 walks. Only one was never an All-Star. 100 walks in the season, I suppose. Not total. Yeah. By the way, I was going to say, I guess the downside of the first half All-Star being an All-Star is that sometimes their second halves don't go so great, right?

Right. And then in retrospect, you look at the All-Star selections, you're like, that guy? Right? Oh, yeah. Because you're only looking at the full season line. Yeah.

So if you're weighing by previous season or previous two seasons or something, maybe they're more likely to bounce back and be good on the whole. Whereas if it's

the recency bias All-Star, then some of those guys are going to slump and decline and regress in the second half. And then after the fact, it'll be one of those all-star, then some of those guys are going to slump and decline and regress in the second half. And then after the fact, it'll be one of those weird like, oh, I guess he must have been his team's only all-star or something. And then it's like, no, actually, he just was really good before the break. I was going to say, if you're someone who's going back and assessing retrospectively the worthiness of all-stars, go do something else with your life.

But then I remember that we have an entire off-season that we have to go with content. So who am I? Who am I to crush that particular dream? You know, go find your weirdo all-stars. Go do it. So 100 batters who've accumulated at least 100 walks in the year of the all-star game. Only one was never an all-star. There are 155 batters who were worth at least 50 baseball reference war.

Only one was never an All-Star. I can't sort fan graphs by whether or not someone was an All-Star, but it appears that there are 178 batters with at least 45 fan graphs were, and only one was never an All-Star. In integrated baseball, there are 32 players with 2,000 hits, 300 doubles, 50 triples, and 100 homers. 31 of them have combined for 353 All-star selections with none fewer than two, 124 Gold Glove Awards, 72 Silver Slugger Awards, and 82 MVP shares. The 32nd player never made an all-star team and only received MVP votes in one season for a 0.03 MVP share. It's the same player in every instance, Tony Phillips. He's almost certainly the most underappreciated player

in baseball history we now have awards for the best designated hitter and the best closer we now award a gold glove to the best utility glove and in fact i believe we answered an email back then someone messaging us to say there should be a gold glove for a utility player i think maybe there was a fielding bible award already and we lent our support to that initiative. And I think shortly after that, they did start handing out utility gold gloves. And so Preston is saying, we need an award for the best utility player, and it should be named the Tony Phillips Award. I'm not sure we need to go so far as putting players in the Hall of Fame for being good utility players, but if we were to do so, Phillips would be the first choice. By war and wins above average,

he's more deserving a spot than Harold Baines. Poor Harold Baines, always used here. Jack Morris. Everyone leave Harold Baines alone. I know. Or probable future inductee Yadier Molina, I guess by baseball reference war, yeah, of that trio. Yadier has the best wins above average

at 15.5. Phillips accumulated 21.1. In fact, there are 43 modern era batters in the Hall of Fame with best wins above average at 15.5. Phillips accumulated 21.1. In fact, there are 43 modern era batters in the Hall of Fame with fewer wins above average than Phillips, including recent inductees David Ortiz and Fred McGriff. Can we start a movement to have the Tony Phillips Award? If it existed, perhaps David Fry would be this year's honoree. Although I guess Fry would have a pretty stiff competition from another just named all-star Willie Castro, right? Because Castro, first player in MLB history to appear in at least 20 games at five different positions in a season. And he did that before even getting to

the halfway point of the season. Although Fry also has catcher on his resume. I was just about to say, he's no slouch. Right. If you have catcher on your resume, and he has played left and right and first and third and catcher. So yeah, it would be tough to figure out, which I feel like catcher, that should count like for two or three other positions. I agree.

Because you don't move as freely between catcher and other spots as you do with some other positions. freely between catcher and other spots as you do with some other positions. Anyway, whether we named it the Castro Award or the Fry Award or the late Tony Phillips is the honoree, should we have just a general utility player award? I think we should. First of all, I like to give out awards because they make people feel good. That's so nice to make people feel good. But I think that it would reflect an important sort of, to say a shift in how we think about value isn't quite right. But I think that the guys who are able to layer defensive versatility into their profiles and really give their team the ability to, whether it's on the positive end of things,

they want to play matchups, they want to get really specific, and you're able to just sort of be a plug and play defensive player wherever they need you so that they can move other dudes around. Or, you know, because the guy who was supposed to be the starting shortstop tore his ACL and now guess what? You're a shortstop. That guy, I think, has value for the roster that isn't always completely captured by war. I think we do a reasonable job of crediting that player with their performance at those respective positions. But in terms of what they really bring, being a good, solid utility guy, but like you're a full-time guy

with defensive versatility is maybe more the way that I think about it. Like you're going to play every day, but where you play, it might, like that's really useful. That's very useful. So yeah, give them an award, you know? Yeah.

And I think it makes sense more now than ever because bench players, there are so few of them now because bullpens are so big that position players are expected to play more positions. Yes. And they're kind of schooled and groomed that way as they come up through the minors. You're carrying a bunch of gloves. You have to be versatile defensively to have a non-starting spot on a team. offensively to have a non-starting spot on a team. I mean, some of these guys are starters. They're just super utility guys who are in the lineup somewhere every day. It's just a different place. But yeah, I think the time is ripe for a utility player award. Jay has been describing some guys as super duper utility men. And I quite like that. I think it's in fact super duper. Okay. Well, here is a super duper question from

Simon prompted by another all-star, Jose Ramirez. I was perusing Jose Ramirez's baseball reference page and noticed that his debut age of 20 years and 349 days when read as a five-digit number was quite similar to his debut number as the 20,516th player in Major League history. Checking recent debuts, Brooks Lee is even closer. He debuted at 23 years, 140 days, and he is the 23,260th player. This is, again, as judged by baseball reference. This got me wondering, has any player's debut age matched their debut number exactly? Given that the average age a player reaches the majors is around 23 to 25, and that there have been a little more than 23,000 major leaguers,

it would seem that if it hasn't happened yet, we ought to be on the lookout. A few additional thoughts from Simon. The ideal window to search would seem to begin on September 23rd, 2001. Michael Kadir was the 18,000th debut in Major League history. And I can't recall any Joe Nuxhall situations in my lifetime. As players trend younger, I suspect we are living through some of the best odds for a match, although I wouldn't rule out a 29-year-old rookie reliever perfectly matching sometime in the 2040s. And perhaps most importantly, the inclusion of 2,300 Negro Leagues players has changed the way that baseball reference accounts for a player's debut number. Databases that I've looked at have

generally disagreed on the total number of major leaguers, but not by very much. A match in any dataset would be interesting. So I put this question to frequent StatBlast consultant Kenny Jacklin of Baseball Reference, and he wrote back, this is an amazing question. So Kenny says it has not happened yet. He sent me a spreadsheet with the full data, and I will link to that on the show page. But he says, interestingly, our closest player debuted seven years ago now. So even though the conditions seem to be maybe most conducive to this now, seven years ago, Jose Alvarado debuted at 21 years, 347 days, and he was major leaguer number 21,354, missing by just seven days or seven debuts. And Kenny also said a big caveat, of course, is that these debut numbers can be expected to drift as we learn more about the identities of historical players, and especially as research continues with respect to the Negro League. So yeah, sometimes there will be a player who we only have a last name or something,

and then the researchers will determine, oh, this was this guy, or sometimes two players with the same last name will be grouped together, and then someone will realize, no, that was two different players. And then, oh, you have another major leaguer all of a sudden. So this will change. And I guess when Jose Alvarado debuted, that was prior to the reclassification of the Negro League. So he would have had a different debut number then that he does now. But he's the closest as of now. And the other closest 10 days, Abner Ribe. He debuted last year. And then Lawrence Butler debuted last year. He was 13 days. Sam Huff in 2020, 13 days. Christian Arroyo, 2017, 13 days. And Jazz Chisholm Jr. in 2020, he was 17 days apart. But I will link to the full sample there. So yeah, if anyone notices, we're always looking at the Baseball Reference New Debuts page as we meet major leaguers.

If anyone notices a match, please let us know and flag that for us. Okay. Question from Julian, Patreon supporter. I've become extremely curious about whether it's possible for an infielder to rob a home run. According to a knowledgeable-sounding Redditor, the longest known hang time for a home run is in the six to seven second range. Knowledgeable-sounding Redditor. That can be different from knowledgeable Redditor, that can be different from knowledgeable Redditor.

But that's a load-bearing sounding. Yeah, but it sounds reasonable, roughly, I guess it would be in that range. Sure, yeah. I mean, you have greater faith in Reddit than I do, but even I will admit that that sounds about right.

Yeah, we aim to be both knowledgeable and knowledgeable sounding, but we may fall short on one or both of those counts, depending on the episode. Yeah. It seems that an infielder positioned optimally in a stadium with a short porch, such as playing first base near Fenway's right field corner, could be 200 feet from the wall or less. If we take Eli De La Cruz's top speed of 30 feet per second, he could cover that distance

in 6.7 seconds, meaning it's just within the realm of possibility. Seems like the kind of thing you or your stat blast consultants could be interested in doing a more rigorous calculation of. So yeah, I guess if you divided the minimum distance that an infielder would have to cover to an outfield wall by sprint speed, to an outfield wall by sprint speed, I guess it would appear theoretically possible. But in reality, I don't think it actually would be, right? Because it takes some time to attain your top speed, right? So, Ali De La Cruz does not go zero to 30 instantly. He goes quickly, but he's a big guy. He takes a long stride before he gets fully up to speed. So even though his average sprint speed is like 30.1 feet per second, his average

home to first time is 4.22 seconds, even though that distance is 90 feet. So you'd say, oh, well, divide 90 by 30. It should take him three seconds to get down there, but it doesn't because he's starting from a stop, right? So he has to get up to speed. And in this case, if he's trying to rob a homer, he'd have to turn around before he started running, right? So I mean, he'd have to recognize, oh, I got to get going. I got to turn around. I got to get on my horse here out to the outfield. And that would take some time. Or I guess even if he decided, I'm just going to try to rob a homer every time. I'm not going to try to field a ground ball here. I'm just going to get prepared for a possible home run robbery opportunity. And I'm just going to be poised on the starting block at shortstop with my back to the batter, basically, or looking over

my shoulder. And then he took off toward the outfield corner immediately, he'd still have to track the ball on his way, which would slow him down, right? Unless you told him exactly here's the landing spot and go to that point, and he'll just sprint head down to that point. So it's not going to happen. I don't think it can happen. And you're also forgetting the presence of outfielders. So not only does he have to get all the way there, he has to get all the way there and do all of that before an outfielder, presumably closer to the ball and the potential home run, right? I guess I assume that the other outfielders would be in on this for some reason, that

they would- Why would they be in on that? I don't know. Why would they? This is a terrible idea. They would be like like get out of here why are you here i am that is my job you go do your job which does not involve the outfield grass at all yeah now the thing is that prior to the shift restrictions right an infielder quote unquote could have been stationed in the outfield that's not the spirit of the question, Ben.

Yeah. So it could have been possible then if you could have done a four-man outfield and you had an infielder out there, then he would have been in the box score as playing infield, but he could have robbed a home run. But now you can't even do that. You can't have an infielder stationed in the outfield prior to the pitch. Right. Can't even do it.

I don't think so, sadly. But it would be very funny if an infielder were just hell-bent on achieving this, or even if everyone coordinated this. This would be, if we want to do skills competitions in an exhibition setting, this I would like to see. If you told Ellie, hey, can you rob a homer from the shortstop position? And he just tried to do that. I would watch that. But yeah, in an actual game, I don't think the math works here.

It has to be so cool to be Ellie De La Cruz. Like that's an obvious statement, but here's the specific way that I mean that. It's not like the guy hasn't had moments of disappointment or had to make adjustments or figure stuff out like you know there's some risk in his game and he's had to figure out how to balance like leverling it's chasing all this stuff but like i bet more often than not if you were to ask ellie de la cruz like could you go do that thing that he would probably be like i think i could try to yeah that has to feel incredible i can't reach the top shelf in the kitchen without help. You know, I have to like be like, hey, are you tall for me? And that problem he definitely doesn't have because he's like built like a construction crane. But what would that be like? You know, what would you do if you believed you could do anything? What a cool thing. your tongue in cheek claimed I'm the fastest man in the world. I mean, he said that, you know,

and I doubt that is true, but if you're Ellie and you have gifts like that, then yeah. Why would you not think I could do anything until proven otherwise? And like, you might come to learn, no, I can't do that or whatever, but to have your default position be like, yeah, probably like, wow, man. Helps to have that mindset, I guess, rather than going and thinking you're going to fail, which is probably something we would do. A professional athlete, you think you're going to succeed until you fail, and then maybe you're still in denial about it. Yeah. Okay. Question from David. On episode 2185, in the discussion of how baseball would be different if ejected players couldn't be replaced.

Ben noted that it would actually be an advantage if a team's worst hitter or hitters were ejected since the shorter lineup would then be more wheat and less chaff. Talking about wheat and chaff a lot these days. This seems axiomatic. The shorter a team's lineup is, the better it would be. But I'm wondering what the limit to this axiom would be. A hypothetical, through some combination of events, the 2024 Dodgers are allowed to have a four-person lineup, a healthy Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, Shohei Otani, and Will Smith. The team is allowed five designated fielders to make up the positions. I believe with four batters, they wouldn't even need a ghost runner. And this is an actual ghost runner we're talking about here. So it's okay to say ghost runner.

Would this be the best offensive team in baseball history or would the toll of overuse? Each player would rack up something like 1,500 plate appearances over the season. That's too many. Be so much that it would counteract the benefits. How good would they be? So the all wheat lineup, the no chaff lineup, just Mookie and Freddie and Shohei and Smith, but they have to take like 1500 play appearances each. And I guess they have to be on the bases a lot. Right. hurt right then it places even more strain on the remaining one of the quartet right so if you have a healthy mookie but then mookie gets hurt as he did in real life then suddenly you just have

freddie and shohei and smith right and then there's like a cascading workload issue yeah oh yeah think about how exhausted you could just get in one game in just one game because like so you have to have four right because like you could load the bases and still have a guy there to hit but then like let's say you like load the bases who do you hit fourth in your four-person lineup when it's those four guys ben what's your order here well it's probably what they do currently i guess right yeah regular dodgers lineup but right so okay we loaded the bases it's time for and then you're just like perpetually and you'd make outs eventually, but like you could have this big long inning and you'd be exhausted. You could

think about how many we'd have to talk about batting around so much. And we hate doing that. We hate it. Well, you'd bat around constantly. However, you define batting around because it just needs to be, yeah. With these guys, your lineup is so short that it would be pretty easy. Yeah. And yeah. I mean, how many play appearances are you going to get to be yeah with these guys your lineup is so short that it would be pretty easy yeah and yeah i mean how many play appearances are you gonna get per game you don't just double the current you know four-ish but these guys are i mean if they're good i guess that's the question but if they're good they're just going to be getting on base so much that you're going to be getting even more play appearances so you might be looking at closer to triple, plus it's fewer than half the current number of lineup spots. So if you're

like tripling your number of plate appearance, I guess that's how he got 1500, but it might even be more than that over the course of the season. Yeah. Now if guys get hurt, I mean, who do you, I guess you have to put in one of your designated fielders at that point. If you have to have a minimum to avoid forfeiting or something, or you have to have enough not to use a ghost runner, an imaginary runner there. So, yeah, I think probably you're still going to be better than having a lighter workload on everyone, but having much worse hitters in your lineup. I mean, don't you think the Dodgers would make this trade, right? If the Dodgers right now, if you told them, forget about the bottom of your lineup, which has been pretty thin at times this year, forget about those guys. You can just rely on your actual good players, but they have to play all the time. Don't you think they would make that exchange offensively?

You don't have to have Gavin Lux hit, and you don't have to have James Outman make outs, and Chris Taylor, and just the good guys. Just the oops-all sluggers light up. Excuse you. I think you mean whoops-all sluggers.

Whoops. Let's call back kids. I don't know that they would actually, Ben. You know, I'm going to offer this controversial take. I don't know that they would because like they might do it for like a month, but I don't think that they would want to do it over the course of the full season because. You do it in October, I guess. Well, sure. Yeah.

Like, yeah, if you can only bat your best guys in the postseason, you definitely do it. But like. Life hack. Yeah. Bat only your best batters in October. If you have to do it like in April, I actually don't think that they would. Yeah. Maybe if you're the Dodgers, you wouldn't because you're fairly certain that you're going to get to the playoffs anyway.

And then you don't want everyone to be exhausted. Right. You're playing for October. Yeah. But what if you're really in a tight race? It doesn't even have to be Dodgers specific, but would they be better? At what point does the workload wear you down to the point that you would be bad offensively or you'd be hurt and then you'd have to put in worse hitters? So I kind of think you'd still come out ahead, but I'm not confident in that. I don't even know that you'd necessarily get hurt, although you might get hurt. I just think that you would be exhausted. I think that, I mean, we hear guys talk about how tired they are come the end of the season when they're just doing, you know, baseball as we currently understand it. Think how exhausted you would be. You would be so tired. I want to fall asleep just thinking about it. Yeah. It's a lot of swings. And I guess even though these are some selective

hitters who will take pitches, it's still a lot of swings. We talked about how tired guys get in the home run derby. This would not be quite that many swings in a concentrated period, but it would be a lot. You'd be dragging by the end of those games. Though I wonder, would you improve your plate discipline? Would your pitch recognition improve because you're just seeing so many more pitches? And also, what about the times through the order effect? That would be magnified, right?

Because you'd be seeing the same pitchers many times in a game. And that would benefit the hitters, too. I think that you're right on some level, but I think you're maybe underestimating the effect of the fatigue. And I think it's hard to know, like, what would the fatigue effect be? How would that offset any potential gains that you would experience because of familiarity? But I don't know. Maybe they're all just less tired than I am. That wouldn't be hard. Yeah.

And I don't know, a tired Mookie or a tired Freddie Freeman versus a fresh usual player or not very good player because you're replacing your worst hitter in the lineup. Now, if you could use a designated fielder for these guys too i don't think that's part of the question but if they could all dh this is what i was about to say that was what i was okay like we also need to take into account the potential effect this has on them as fielders yeah true because like imagine you're're Mookie and you're up there. I don't know, maybe I'm underestimating the degree to which they could kind of like put a regulator on their effort and dial some of it down, but still be really effective. But like, you would be so tired and like, think how tired your legs would be, be dead on your feet, Ben,

you know, you'd be so exhausted. Yeah, you would. I don't know. I think I'd still take only the good hitters, even if they get very tired. I mean, I don't know. I think maybe I'm just being a little too Dodgers specific about all of this, but I don't think that that team, which has such a profound focus on maximizing performance and they have like a whole team of sports science folks. And like, that's not exclusive to the Dodgers, but like,

I think they would be like, Oh, we got to rest some of these dudes. Some of the, at least some of the time. Now, if you could pick your spots, Ben,

then I say go ham because yeah, like you'd rather have Mookie than pretty much anyone else. But I just think it's a bad idea. I think guys are going to get hurt. They're going to be tired. They're not going to be in their legs. That makes it sound like their legs and their upper half are separate from one another. But, you know, at a certain point, you can't drive the ball the same way.

Your legs are tired. I don't know. Fielding would be bad. You'd be lead-footed. And, Ben, okay, here's the real argument to not do it. You know what they would insist upon? No more pitching for Shohei. No more.

Yes. Yes. That would be a tall order for Shohei to pitch in addition to this. No more. Deal breaker. And then game over, man. Yeah. Okay.

Question from Kenuff, Patreon supporter. In episode 2187, you mentioned how cool a Mariners Brewers World Series would be as both teams have never won. By the way, someone wrote in to note because you wished that these teams would get to enjoy their World Series DVD or their World Series Blu-ray. And apparently they discontinued the World Series DVD, that noble tradition. We got an email from Coleman who noted he's a lifelong Rangers fan, was looking forward to that DVD, but it looks like it's no longer happening. This may be the first year that there was no commemorative. Disgraceful.

Yeah, it is. I mean, look, you could watch highlights on YouTube or MLB or wherever it's out there, right? I guess it's less needed now maybe than it used to be because before, unless you like taped the World Series on VHS or something, you just wouldn't see it again. But still, that's a nice memento. It's a nice commemorative keepsake, right? I have a DVD of when the Seahawks won the Super Bowl. And I will admit I have not watched it in many years. But it's nice to know I could, Ben. You know, it's sitting there on the shelf.

It's the decline of physical media. It's not just this, but this is one manifestation of that. I have been buying so many DVDs lately. Okay. And I know that it's somewhat silly. I do know. But also, I have been doing it because I'm just worried. They pull stuff off. How is that legal? It's wrong. Yeah. There is a book. There appears to be a World Series. Well, there's a program. Sure. I guess. I don't know. But yeah, it's not the same.

You're like, I don't know, memories, who cares? Anyway, the question from Knuff is, I suppose I'm wondering if it's true, if the Mariners and Brewers matched up, would it be true that both teams have never won? Where does a title ultimately live? While the Brewers have never won a World Series, the Milwaukee Braves did win the series in 1957. Does that title belong to Atlanta now? Milwaukee fans of a certain age?

Nobody? I believe it belongs to the city, and the pennant could be proudly displayed in the Brewers' ballpark. Put another way, if the Yankees move to Las Vegas tomorrow, I don't think it would be accurate to say that the Las Vegas Gamblers have won 27 World Series. But if the Yankees made the A's pivot and moved to the Bronx and become the Yankees and done the pinstripes, it seems reasonable to me to say they've won 27 titles and could, for example, retire Ruth's number three. What say you? So where do the titles reside? I know it's never going to happen. And so

why long for it, right? But I want to be in the room when someone's like, yeah, the Oakland is a retiring babes number. What are you going to do about it? I want to be there when that gets announced in this like alternate timeline. They both have Reggie, I guess. But yeah, that would prompt some pushback, I think. I think that it's a great question. And it's one that I've thought about a lot because, you know, coming from Seattle, obviously, we had our NBA team stolen away from us in the dead of night. And my understanding is that the Thunder have, like, raised banners related to the Sonic stuff. They wanted to, like, retire Gary Payton's number. And Gary apparently told them to

get lost, which of course he did, because he's Gary. He's the best. And so it's like, you don't get to lay claim to any of that. Those aren't your trophies. It's a real salt in the wound kind of thing. But for a team that is in the same place but has changed names i think that you kind of get down to like what does the team understand as its own identity and is there anyone really around who can claim that they have sort of allegiance to both organizations so some of this is just like a matter of time like here's another example so the seattle metropolitans were a pro hockey franchise way back in the day i think they won if i understand correctly the first stanley cup nhl championship they won something it was early on the kraken don't get to lay claim to that trophy, right? That was a million years and like several versions of Seattle ago. Although I did advocate at the time that Seattle was granted an expansion franchise that they should raise a banner on the first night that they were at Climate Pledge because it would have been funny, Ben. You know, it would have been funny ben you know it would have been funny i also advocated for them adopting the metropolitan sweaters because hot take the krakens uniforms

are garbo and i don't like them the winter classic ones were beautiful though so bring those back guys so if i were a brewers fan i would be like my, the team that is the Milwaukee Brewers, has never won a World Series. And it might be able to display memorabilia from prior iterations of the team, but it would be disingenuous to say, oh no, we've won a World Series. Because we, the people involved in this collective project that is the Milwaukee Brewers have never done that and so it does feel importantly separate to me I think it's

much closer than a team like say the Oklahoma City Thunder relocating an existing franchise to another place renaming it and then pretending some of that franchise's rich history is part of yours it's not that's nonsense but it's still you wouldn't say that the brewers have won a world series at bar trivia right because the brewers haven't done that right so we got to apply the

bar trivia test and also the oklahoma city thunder. It's so funny because I was like, I like the Sonics, but I was never like a diehard. I was never a diehard Sonics fan. And yet I feel aggrieved. I feel slighted. I feel like something was stolen from me. Because like, what if I had become one, Ben? Right. I never had that opportunity.

It was taken from me. Yep. I'm with you. I think you have to distinguish. Not on that specifically, but most of what you said. All of it is exactly right, Meg. It's perfect. I have no notes.

I think what you mean to say is that you have no notes. You've got to draw a distinction between the city and the franchise. I mean, there are some cities with multiple franchises. What do you do then? So yes, I don't think we can say that the Brewers get to claim the Milwaukee Braves Championship, but Milwaukee residents can claim it if they want to, especially if they were around to see it, which wouldn't be that many people these days. But yeah, it happened. It's not like it never happened and the experience is negated or anything. But yeah, I don't think you can claim. Cup, you get the dumb cups. If you have a Stanley Cup, it's fine.

They were the first something to win something. Maybe they were the first U.S. Maybe they were the first American team to win the cup. That's what it was. I'm heading these emails off at the pass. They were the first American. I knew they were the first something with the cup, but I was like, you know, 1917 sounds like the cup's been around for longer than that because hockey people are so serious about it. And you're not serious about something that's only been around since 1917.

I'm bringing the Friday energy to the Thursday show. You've understood the assignment. All right. Last regular question, and then we'll wrap up with a couple pedantic ones as if our regular ones aren't also sometimes pedantic. Alex, Patreon supporter, says, do umpires ever wear shorts? Multiple question marks. Are they even allowed to? When it gets cold, it's normal to see them wearing jackets, but when it's super hot, I imagine it might be nice to wear shorts. Yet I don't think I've ever seen it. yet I don't think I've ever seen it. Now, I assume this is much like in my White Sox second baseman stat, and I'm talking about only when they're playing second base, not when they're doing other things.

Alex is probably also talking about umpires when they are umpiring, not just like in their civilian life. I think they're allowed to wear shorts when they're not umpiring. I love the idea that they're like, you can't wear shorts to the grocery store. It's unbecoming.

Who will take you seriously on the field? You smirch the fine reputation of umpires. Your authority will be compromised if someone sees you shopping in shorts. But look, you never see them wear shorts. And as best as I can glean. So I found the 2019 MLB umpire manual. That was the most recent one I could find. Just quickly Googling.

But I doubt this has changed much. Just the section about umpire attire and uniforms. It says Major League Umpire should take pride in their appearance. Oh. Yeah. So no shorts because what kind of loser would show below the knee. Yeah. Uniforms and caps.

What are you, an ASU student? Shall be kept clean, pressed, and in first-class condition. Major League Baseball will replace any uniform that is no longer in condition to be used in a Major League game. MLB umpires' uniforms shall be worn only in the dressing room and on the field. So you can't actually wear them grocery shopping. Yeah, no. That would be against the rules, actually.

Umpires may not sit in the stands or enter public areas of the stadium while in uniform. Any use of the uniform off the field must have prior written permission from the office of the commissioner. I just really, I want to rep umps and I just want to be in the gear 24-7. In theory, you could, but you got to get prior written permission from Rob Manfred. What if you're an umpire and your wife finds it sexy? You get prior written consent. If you want to do some umpire role play behind closed doors, you are not allowed to without written permission.

I think you should keep it to yourself. No, I think you should. You don't. I know that you're not allowed. I know it's technically a circumvention of the rules, but I think you should just do it and not tell anyone about it. Maybe the fact that you'd be breaking the rules would actually make it even steamier. I want to apologize to the people who are listening to this and are like, I hate you. I'm canceling my Patreon for making me think about any of these men in a sexual scenario i hear me and i have regrets so i you're right and i was wrong i mean they do say some women you know like men in a

uniform so uh i don't know if they mean umpires they don't mean umpires umpires they're like oh yeah give me those weird tall shoes yeah Yeah, that'll do it. It really does it for me. They're so thick. They look like cartoon shoes. You get the ick from the umpire shoes, so you're saying. Yeah, I mean, I get the ick from the whole thing. But they look cartoonish.

They look like you're a Disney character, those shoes. like you're like a disney character so the uh it does say that while traveling to and from work assignments or at a ballpark or other workplace umpires are required to be groomed and attired in a neat professional manner that presents a positive image about the office of the commissioner to the public dress when in hotels restaurants or other public places shall be what is recognized as proper for the locale, activity, and surroundings. I love that crew chiefs shall be responsible for their crew's compliance with this rule. So if you have like a sloppy dressing umpire off the field, it's the crew chief's fault. Hey, Phil, you gotta tighten up, man. Tighten up. You got to be groomed in a neat professional manner while performing duties during games that presents a positive image about the Office of the Commissioner of the Public.

Umpires tattoos and other forms of body art must be covered by their uniforms so they're not visible and all piercings must be removed. You must remove piercings. I guess that's another one where it's like, hey, maybe we just won't tell you about this particular piercing. Oh, I want Phil Causey to get a septum piercing so bad. I wonder whether this has been updated at all. I wonder, yeah. I wonder whether tattoos are okay now. Have you ever seen an uncle with a full sleeve tattoo? Not that I can recall, but I guess it would be under their sleeve, so maybe we wouldn't know.

That's because they're all Italian uncles. That's true. Now, look, some Italian uncles are like, look at my cool tattoos, but some of them are like, hmm. Right. So as to the shorts question, it does say that pursuant to Article 19.A of the Basic Agreement, the Office of the Commissioner shall provide to all umpires covered by this agreement necessary uniforms caps and equipment including this is important clause but not limited to oh plate shoes those are the shoes that you're making fun of base shoes everyone makes fun of those shoes they're ridiculous

they serve a practical purpose but shin guards face, chest protectors, sunglasses, pants, shirts, jackets, and gloves, and shall provide properly identified equipment trunks. The office of the commissioner shall provide plate coats only to those umpires who request one. The parties agree that during any major league game, umpires may only wear such uniforms, caps, and other items of equipment, clothing, including pins or other insignia, and footwear provided or approved by the office of the commissioner. Umpires are prohibited from altering their uniforms and caps in any manner. The office of the commissioner shall consult with the union on the design of uniforms, caps, and appropriate protective equipment for umpires. So you can't freelance here.

You can't just pursue your personal fashion sense and pieces of flair. You cannot say unilaterally, I want to wear shorts today. It's hot. I guess the union could lobby the office as the commissioner and say, can we get shorts for players and the idea that it would be tough to slide in them. But when it was tried, that didn't seem to be an issue in that short, small sample, short, short sample. Yeah, no pun intended, but nonetheless, a pun committed. Umpires, they don't have to slide really, but A, they have to be out in the sun a lot. So you really get some short sunburns there unless you were very diligent about applying sunscreen, which you should do because players are in the field all the time. They got skin cancer issues. And I guess the other thing is that if you have shin guards with shorts, that's going to be a weird look, right? I mean, that's going to produce an even stranger sunburn probably, but also just aesthetically speaking, shin guards with shorts. I mean, look, you play soccer or whatever. That's a common look, right? But with the plate shoes, shin guards and shorts, I don't know about that look.

But I sympathize. I mean, umpires with the long sleeves and the long pants and all the rest. And of course, they're not running around as much, but they're long sleeves and the long pants and all the rest. And of course, they're not running around as much, but they're still out there in the hot sun all the time. I mean, sometimes they collapse, they get heat stroke, right? So it would be maybe humane to offer the option. It just wouldn't be perceived to be as dignified, possibly. I found a forum thread on the website umpireempire.com, which just says shorts. The subject line is just shorts. This is like 10 years old. And it was like a young ump asking about whether in a hot

10 and under rec game, could I wear shorts? Would that be okay? And mostly the ump said, no, under no circumstances, you could never do it. It's just unbecoming of the position. One person posted, it is never okay to wear shorts, period, which seems pretty prescriptive. But I guess that's kind of the code among umps is that no shorts, no service. No shorts, no plate shoes, no service. I wonder if part of it, Ben, and look, we've already suggested intimacy between umpires and they're you know partners so let's go for it i wonder if part of the problem is like you know especially the home plate umpires got to bend over and look you can get a look at the took us when they're bent over like that already you got a real you know you got to just like a clear

ass shot but like are you worried about you know depending on the length of the short right you know too much yeah too much yeah although you might be less likely to get the sweaty crotch issue that you have highlighted if you had the shorts maybe you're a little cooler that doesn't happen quite as much maybe i think the sweaty crotch issue so glad you brought it up i think you're misunderstanding the sweaty crotch issue because the issue for sweaty crotch is contact between your midsection and your crotch because you're bent over yeah and it's a problem for umpires who maybe have a little bit of a gut. Nothing wrong with that, but you might have a little bit of a gut.

And then you're going to close that distance easier. Yeah. But I think it's a problem that could happen to any sort of physique, you know, to all physiques. And I don't think that the coolness of your lower half below your crotch really does a lot to mitigate that, because this is a contact issue, you know? Right. Good point. I've seen people say also that umpires are mandated to wear black underwear. Again, not for bedroom-related reasons, as far as we know, but because- As far as we know. If the pants split, another phenomenon that we have documented on this podcast,

then you would want the darker underwear. I don't see that specified. Maybe it's kind of an unwritten rule. But then I guess if that's not specified and yet it happens, this governs the outerwear, right? And shorts are outerwear. So, look, as global warming becomes more of an issue, I think there's been research that says on hot days, umpires are a little less accurate with their ball strike calls. You know, let their legs breathe a bit. Maybe.

Maybe it's the humane thing to do. But what if we go in a different direction? I think the answer is not shorts. It's linen. Oh, sure. Okay. You can have dark linen. It doesn't have to be. You don't have to be Diane Keaton in a Nancy Meyers movie, although that would be a tremendous look for on fires to gravitate for it to just be like, I'm here for cottage chic.

Why do I have a turtleneck on in July? No one knows. No one knows, Nancy. Why are you doing that to her? She likes it. It's fine. Yeah. What was I going to say?

No one. She likes it. It's fine. Yeah. What was I going to say? Not even one player that I have observed has decided to mess with the transparent pant colorful pattern on his briefs. Everyone is a coward. No brave souls to be had. I a lost opportunity. Yeah. Just I'm surprised we haven't gotten sponsorships really of the underwear and ads. We've got ads on the outside. Why not in the inside? Would we have to model them like Eno did? Because I'm not doing that. No. I can't believe no one made a pudge pudge joke when those came out. Like not even one.

I mean, like I did, but no one was like, pudge pudge. Like, you know. Okay. one i mean like i did but no one was like punch punch like you know okay we'll just wrap up here with a couple pedantic questions because how can you not be pedantic about baseball rob says the braves radio broadcast does a lot of inning based giveaways a couple years ago they started having the eighth inning be the strike out the side inning and if a braves pitcher struck out the side a random person would win an ATV. The problem with that giveaway is that they... Why? Why an ATV?

I wonder. What was the tie in there? An ATV? I guess because you could strike out off roads. I don't know. What does that have to do with an ATV? Strike out on the unbeaten path. Oh, path?

Okay. Yeah, that's very l Maybe. I don't know. Yeah, that's very lyrical for an ATV. The problem with that giveaway is that they originally used the definition of all three outs in the inning are strikeouts regardless of other outcomes and quietly switched to three up, three down, all strikeouts without telling anyone this year. We've litigated that issue in the past. However, this is a separate one.

The Braves Radio giveaways have a new problem now, which is that the fourth inning is a clean inning based giveaway. If the Braves have a clean inning, every Braves fan can get a free ATV. Now, that would be the opposite of cleanliness, probably, if you're off-roading. A free car wash the next day. Okay, that makes sense. The problem here is that they've defined a clean inning as a scoreless inning, regardless of how many base runners or pitching changes there are. I don't think you can call an inning with base runners and pitching changes a clean inning.

Yeah. Where do you draw the line for a clean inning? I completely agree. That's not, I don't think that's a clean inning. Yeah. It's not just scoreless. Yeah. First of all, a scoreless inning is a scoreless inning. If it's about it being scoreless, then just have it be a scoreless inning. Right. So like there's that. Also, I think that if you can describe a guy as having had to say pitch out of a jam or having traffic on the base paths, that's not a clean inning. That's right. That's stress.

You're feeling stressed. If you can have stress sweats, it's not a clean inning. That's stress. You're feeling stressed. If you can have stress sweats, it's not a clean inning. Yeah. If we can appeal to the authority of the Dixon Baseball Dictionary here, I think it would agree with us. The entry for clean adjectives set of a period in which a pitcher gives up no hits or walks, for example, a clean inning or a clean outing. So yeah, I would agree with that. You'd think that the car wash would want to have a stricter definition of the- I would think that, yeah. They're giving out a free car wash for just a scoreless inning. Isn't that going to be like

half the time? And every Braves fan can get a free car wash after, I mean, it's going to bankrupt the car wash place, right? I would think. So I don't know, but my sense is that the margins in that business are actually pretty good. But yeah, it seems like they would want to have a more restrictive definition so they can give out fewer free car washes. All right. Jay Criscoli, Patreon supporter, says, I have a problem with the phrase not in time. Isn't there a better way to describe some attempted tag outs than not in time? For example, I was just watching a clip of Juan

Soto scoring during a rundown and the throw from Vladdy was seemingly in time. It's not like it was coming from far away because of the play, but just not exactly in line enough to get the out. Doesn't the phrase not in time imply the throw, not the tag arrived late? Am I misreading this phrase and wrongfully bothered by it? So in time, can we say that about any play where the tag was not applied, where the runner was safe? Or should it be reserved for times when the throw actually arrives late? And it's not just applying the tag issue, it's a throw timing issue. I think I would most often deploy that phrase in a situation where the throw was not there in time. Yeah. I'd hang that ornament on the throw, not the tag. Right. Because I would say like, he missed him with the tag.

Right. Because I would say like he missed him with the tag. Like, I don't know that the timing piece of it is necessarily like the part of the action you're as keen to note when it's a tag issue. But like, I don't think that it's like necessarily wrong. But you would normally say it like you would like if a catcher doesn't get out of his crouch quickly enough and a guy steals second, the throw wasn't in time, you know? Right. But you might also hear that said sometimes if the throw is in time and the tag is not applied properly or swiftly. Right. Yeah, I guess. Often you wouldn't specify necessarily. You just say the tag is you just say not in time.

And that could mean that the throw was not in time or it could mean the tag was not in time, right? So you might have to specify. If you're talking about the throw, if you're breaking it down and saying the throw was not? Because technically, any throw is not in time if the runner wasn't tagged out, right? Even if it's the fielder's fault for not applying the tag correctly, you could say, well, the throw was not in time given the tag that was applied, right? Sure. And if the throw had arrived even earlier, then maybe even the inefficient tag would have been in time. So I guess it's kind of technically true either way. But I think the questioner is onto something here. If I were breaking down why the tag was not applied in time. I would want to try to distinguish between a throw that didn't get there in time for the tag to be applied in time as opposed to a throw that's in time,

but the tag is not good or a throw that's offline. And then like, what if the throw is in time, but offline? I mean, is that possible? Or would you say that it's not because you're kind of factoring in that the tag will take longer because the throw was offline? So even if the ball was caught, it was caught far enough away from where the tag is being applied that really it wasn't in time, even though it was there. Right. I would probably say that that's not in time. But I think that the thing I would say to describe the scenario you're detailing would be to say that the throw is offline. Yes. right.

Because like that's the relevant thing that prevented an out from being made. Exactly. Yes. Okay. All right. Last one from Andrew. I'd like to make my contribution to your archives of baseball pedantry. I do not like when someone says a player broke out of a slump after one good result.

Yeah. Announcers make this mistake all the time, and I find it very annoying. If a batter is undergoing a prolonged slump and then hits one home run, the slump is not broken. The reason is a slump is a trend over time, and to break the trend, you have to be on a better trend. As far as how many good results a player must have before the slump is broken, I'm open to ideas. My initial reaction would be at least two or three games with positive results. But the more positive results, the more confidence you have that the slump is over. The main point is that there has to be more than one result that changes the trend. And what if it's one good game? What if it's multiple positive

outcomes or events in one game? Can you break out of a slump with just, you know, what if you hit three homers or something? Is that right? As opposed to just a one Homer or something. I wouldn't say, even if you have like a really great game. So like, you know, we talked about Julio today.

Yeah. Julio had a very nice game against the San Diego Padres. Yeah. Yeah. So I would not say that he has broken out of a slump because one game, but I might say maybe we're starting to get some indicators that he's starting to turn things around, right? Yeah. You got to caveat it because like one game, I think a good rule of thumb for this sort of thing

is if you had a guy who was having a great season and he had one game where he like had a golden sombrero, you wouldn't immediately say he was in a slump. Yeah, right. Right. And so I think that you want to be sort of consistent directionally there. You could say he had a great game, starting to turn things around maybe, but I think you need to see sustained performance. Another way to think about it is this like let's say you get in kind of like a batting average hole like we could still talk about julio for you to raise your average to something approaching what you might expect like you

have to have a really hot streak you're probably out of the slump once you can have a game where you go like one for three and it's not really moving your average one way or the other maybe that's too conservative of a description but i think that's closer to right in terms of the duration you need before you say a guy's out of a slump or he's broken out or he's turned things around. It's just, you know, it can turn back on you so fast. Yeah. Now, what if you get more granular? I was trying to see if anyone had said that Julio broke out of his slump. I'm sure someone somewhere did, but I didn't see any headlines. However, I saw a headline from late May, Mariners outfielder Julio Rodriguez breaks

power slump. And it was just about the fact that he'd hit a home run so it was his third homer of the season he hadn't hit a home run for a while he hit one so did he break out of a slump see i think you have to draw a distinction between slump and drought yes yes you could break out of a drought with one yes because yeah if you're in a drought and it rains once then the drought well now it's breaking down because if it, I guess drought is still defined as like a certain amount of rainfall over a certain period, maybe if you want to get technical about it. Or you live in the state of Arizona. Right. Yeah. And so you could still, I guess, have a drought even if you had a day of rainfall or something. But in a baseball context, if I hear someone is in a home run drought or something, I assume that means he has not hit a home run and that the drought is over or Mariners, a playoff drought, right?

When the Mariners did not make the play, they ended the drought by making the playoffs the first time they did that, I think, even though they were certainly still in a playoff slump, I guess, right? I don't know. But I think there's a little bit of a different connotation there. Yeah, I think that that is correct. Okay. I guess you could also say ended the power outage. All right. Glad we've established all of that. That reminded me of a question we answered on episode 2045, and I don't know why it came to mind, but it did about heating up. The question then was about because the listener then was saying like, well, isn't he hot now? You know, like if you had a

really good game and someone said that you're heating up, then shouldn't you say, well, you are hot right now because you just had a hot game. Like, is there some level of performance you have to attain to achieve the base level of hotness? That's kind of a flip side to this question. So we're suggesting that there should be, I guess, a heating up period. Like even if you're, there's like a rolling average, or it's like a, you know, lagging indicator kind of thing. I guess if you have a hot game, indicator kind of thing i guess if if you have a hot game you're still just heating up maybe because we're factoring in the slump the cold snap that preceded the the right spell yeah like again to go back to that julio game like i might say oh maybe he's starting to heat up but he's the frog and the water's knocking it come to to a boil. Okay. To end this going full circle,

we started out talking about all-star selections and short, small sample performances before we started talking about shorts, actually. While we were speaking, Paul Skeen's day has happened and he was great again. He gave up no hits in seven innings before he was pulled and he struck out 11. And so his overall numbers on

the season now are pretty spectacular. He has started 11 games. He has pitched 66 in the third innings. He is a 1.9 ERA and a 2.59 FIP and a 2.23 XFIP. And he has struck out 89 in 66 and a third and walked only 13 and given up seven homers. He's great. Would you support a Paul Skeen's all-star starter movement? Because I think I would. Maybe make it a Paul Star game. He's 15th in the National League in pitcher war, and that is updated, I think, for his- Sure, because he wasn't up. Right. He wasn't up. And so you could say, well, he doesn't have a case or I guess he's like tied for 13th. But do we want to see the new hotness of Paul Skeens, who hasn't even been here all of this season, let alone prior seasons?

Or do we want to give that honor to someone who's been around for a while? Like, well, Chris Sale is at the top of that leaderboard. Yeah. In the sale resurgence, the sale-a-sance, how could you not want to see? Or a Logan Webb or a Zach Wheeler. I know he's got back issues in Tower of Glass now. Right. But like, would you want to see the star or would you want to see, in this case, I guess the difference is that Paul Skeen is a star, at least in baseball circles. He's the phenom.

He has the star power, even though he hasn't been around. So it's a small sample, but it's not unrepresentative of his talent. He's just one of the best pitchers in baseball from day one. Hmm. What a good question. Because on the one hand, I do think that things like the starter designation or the home run derby, they give us a release valve for satisfying the let's acknowledge the home run Derby. Like they give us like a release valve for satisfying the, like, let's acknowledge the stars part of this that is maybe really useful, even if, you know, you have to be an all-star to start the all-star game, obviously, but like you can participate in the Derby and not be an all-star, so maybe like it works

better for the Derby than it does for the starter designation, but I don't know. for the starter designation, but I don't know. I am okay with the notion that Paul Skeens needs to do more over a longer time to earn that particular honor. And that doesn't mean that Chris Sale has to start necessarily. You mentioned Webb. There are other good NL starters there. I don't quite have like a particular guy in mind, but I do think that there is something about that particular designation that is maybe an honorific that is better given out to a veteran than, I mean, like Paul Skeens was drafted last year and is an all-star. Paul Skeens is doing great. Is there a discourse about him getting pulled? Quite a year. I don't think so. Paul Skeens is doing great. Is there discourse about him getting pulled? Quite a year. I don't think so because people know the drill with a young starter and I'll

look up his pitch count, but yeah, it wasn't. What was his pitch count? It was 99. So you're not going to get it. Colin Holderman held the lead for him, the 1-0 lead, and then Chapman saved it. So they won 1-0 over the Brewers. But yeah, I think especially with like Jared Jones is hurt now. I remember I read a piece at BP just like a couple of weeks ago, Jared Jones and the plight of the max effort starter. And it was basically like he's the model of the modern major league starter. He just comes right out of the gate firing and doesn't last that long, but he's effective. And then the other plight of the max effort start is that you get hurt. So he has what, lat issue or something.

So, you know, you hope that Skeen's averaging 99 on the fastball will hold up. I guess that would be one argument is like, hey, before he breaks and let's hope he never does, but like capitalize on the pitching phenom is healthy and pitching great while it lasts. Yeah. And like, I don't want to, I'm not trying to insult Jerry Jones's physique, but like, I think Michael Bauman compared Paul Skeens to the USS Nimitz in terms of his physicality. So I'm perhaps a touch less concerned about the breakdown possibility than i am with other guys although big strong dudes do get tommy john it does happen i don't know maybe it makes me old school but i don't know i want that to be a thing yeah you gotta earn it rook that's you do kind of have to earn it i think it's okay to have to earn it in that context and

here's the thing i bet paul skeens will you know? But I think having that be a recognition of more than just your all-star selection, but your sort of prominence and the respect people have for you in the game and having that be something that is, I'm not saying it has to be like you don't have to be a 10-year veteran, but probably not a rookie, you know, who's been up for like two months. Yeah. It's just been a very brief window. I bet that Paul Skeens maybe has sneaky high recognition as a major league player less because of him and more because of who he's dating. Yes.

I bet there are more people who know who Paul Skeens is because of Livy Dunn than because of Paul Skeens. He's had quite a year. Yeah. He was a Golden Spikes finalist, right? And then won the championship and then got drafted first overall. And now he is one of the best pitchers in baseball and an all-star and has a famous girlfriend. Yeah. I mean, things are going pretty well for Paul Skeens these days. Yeah. one of the best pitchers in baseball and an all-star and has a famous girlfriend. Yeah.

I mean, things are going pretty well for Paul Skeens these days. Yeah. It seems like it's working out for him. Okay. It's nice. All right. Well, I hope you enjoy your all-star experience. Thank you. And I'll be without you next time.

But I look forward to talking to you when you're in Texas next week about the derby and the game and the draft. All of the things. I'm going to eat something and probably large while I'm there, I suspect. One thing that's just like, why is it this size? Your meals will be bigger in Texas. Yeah, everything is. All right.

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