Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2191: (Don’t) Shake it Off

Episode Date: July 17, 2024

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the Home Run Derby, the Futures Game and skills competition, Globe Life Field, All-Star uniforms, and more reflections from All-Star Week, then (34:18) discuss a challenge-system-driven change to broadcast K-zone displays, Chris Sale’s aversion to pitch-calling, quantifying game-calling, David Fletcher’s latest knuckleballing, using a position-player pitcher against a […]

What's the greatest podcast of all? If you love the game of baseball It's Effectively Wild It's Effectively Wild With Ben Landbeck And Ben Reilly Meagre Alley Meg Raleigh of Fangraphs, deep in the heart of Texas. Actually, I guess that's not true. You're maybe in North Texas, probably would be more accurate. Deep in the heart of North Texas, Meg Raleigh of Fangraphs.

Hello, Meg. Hello. So you are at the All-Star break, though it doesn't sound like you're really getting much of a break. You are drinking in the All-Star festivities. You are marinating in All-Star Week in Texas. And we're going to be talking about that today and also next time. So we're recording on Tuesday afternoon before the All-Star game. So next time we will talk about the All-Star game and also the draft, which is still ongoing in the latter rounds as we speak. So we will have Eric Longenhagen on for his traditional post-draft breakdown next time for all the draftniks out there who are waiting for takes on the draft.

We'll get to them. But you went to the Futures game. There was a home run derby. There's some other baseball news. So I guess should we start with the derby, which I think you've always said is a better in-person experience than it is on TV. Not that it's bad on TV, but how was it in person? I have said that in the past. in person i have said that in the past um you know ben i find myself unsure what to think of the derby at this juncture because i was underwhelmed by the derby um there were individual

aspects of it that i liked there were particular rounds i thought were compelling i'm happy for teoscar hernandez seems like a really nice guy Seems like he's really enjoyed winning the Derby. I don't know if part of my struggle with this year's Derby is seeing the new format in practice and it not quite resonating. Or if it has to do with the field that they assembled. Some guys, like, I thought did well. They assembled some guys I thought did well. It was cool to see Alec Boehm do very well, despite being a guy who... I mean, we were among the skeptics.

He's having a tremendous season. I think he's a very talented player. But when I think of Alec Boehm, I think of doubles power more than I think of big, big homerun thump, which isn't to say he doesn't hit homers, but his sort of power on contact tends to be of the doubles variety. So I was a skeptic and I was proven wrong. Although there's no better bit than Pete Alonso treating the Derby like life and death and losing to someone who's just there for fun and for the heck of it. And Pete, meanwhile, is just staring silently forward and doing drills

and breathing deeply. And Alec Boehm seemingly as surprised as anyone that things are going so great for him in the Home Run Derby. Not that I bear Pete Alonso any ill will, but that is just funny. That is just for him to come in like the Terminator, like he's been training his whole life for this. His whole year revolves around doing well at the Derby. And then again, he gets upstaged by someone who's not really a betting favorite. That's just funny. I'm sorry. That's funny. I don't have any particular reason

to dislike Pete Alonzo. I do think that we have sort of a natural allergy to folks where it's like the earnestness tips into try hard. I think that that tends to be a vibe that people are a little less into uh out in the world i like earnest people very much but pete sometimes you're just like hey buddy like you could you could dial this one back he didn't he didn't hit particularly well i mean we've we've come to learn the singer of last night's anthem it sounds like has been dealing with some stuff and is entering a rehab facility so i feel bad making fun of the anthem um but it's like um it all got off to a weird start ben you know like uh it hit a false note quite literally from from the jump and again i don't want to you know he didn't know at the time but where i was sitting in the press box there was a you know a tv that had the broadcast on uh that had the the stat

cast broadcast on happy to see our buddy mike petriello back in the booth for that you know they cut to alec bone trying to keep it together yes during the anthem uh i was like oh boy they didn't accidentally light any of the participants on fire, which they came close to doing last year. The auxiliary press box is up above home plate. Like to say up above is maybe not quite doing it justice. We are like on a space station. We are on like those astronauts that are stuck up there right now. Did you know there's some astronauts stuck up in space right now, Ben? Yeah, they've been up there for a while. Supposedly,

they could come down. They're just gathering information, but they have been there for a while. Yeah, it's been a little while. So anyway, we were like way, way up there. So I had a different advantage on the Derby than I've had the last couple of times. And I will say like far less concerned for my own safety being up there. Whereas last year, the Oxbox in Seattle was just like right in the, you know, the path of a lot of the home runs. So I was a little worried about getting bonked on the head.

Didn't worry about that this year. I think that only enhances my enjoyment of the contrast between Pete Alonzo's vibe and manner at the Home Run Derby, where he is just deadly serious about everything. And everyone else who's just really having fun with their friends and their family, which is one of the nice things about the All-Star festivities is just seeing players in this laid back context and they got their kids or they've got their partners and they got their teammates and there's so many fillies everywhere just oh my gosh so with a jug of water ben i just harper he did it again yeah he did it again he did ben he did it again. All-star pandering from our boy Bryce. Oh, my God. They showed it in ballpark.

And I had a moment where I was like looking around at the people near me like, did you see this? Did you? And then they showed it on the bracket. What a beautiful. Yeah. For anyone who didn't see, he went out and got a mug that was labeled water, right? Yeah. A giant jug of water, yeah.

But everyone else is just so laid back and kind of treating it like an exhibition, even though there's a million dollars at stake. Yeah. Which is not nothing, even for a major league player. There's just so much riding on this just personal pride and self-esteem and training and everyone else is, you know, just kind of kicking it, just relaxed on the field. And so I think that contrast just makes me enjoy Alonzo and everything he brings to the broadcast even more, really, especially when he then fails pretty catastrophically. Again, not rooting against him. I just think it's funny. But I do like just seeing players like that with their friends, with their families surrounding them. That's always been one of the nice things about the All-Star Game and the Derby when teammates, opponents, they can kind of congregate and

they have their little kids and they're all just having fun and snapping photos and playing pranks and everything so it is an exhibition and it's nice to see them acting like it's an exhibition and and like entertainers and like they themselves are entertained so i agree that this year's field was not the most impressive. And Teoscar Hernandez, he earned it. He won Jordan Square. He is not the first person or maybe the 10th or 20th person you think of when you think of best home run hitter in baseball. Again, good player, good hitter, but not the first name that comes to your mind. And there were obviously

some notable absences and withdrawals, but on the whole, I liked the format. I think I don't think it was the fault of the format, any loss luster personally, just because it seemed to me like it was a little less frantic. There was a little more time between pitches maybe, and you could actually see balls land before other balls were launched, which I appreciated. And it seemed to me like there was a little less fatigue in the later rounds where everyone was just spent by the time they got to the end of it. And there were some pretty good one-on-one showdowns and matches, rounds that came down to the wire. And I do like the bonus round that is now just outs and swings. Yes. Right? Yes.

I think that's good. Yeah. Yes. Yes, I think that's good. Yeah, that lent itself to drama because you had some rounds that came down to the last out or the last swing. And it was like, okay, well, you can't screw this up. If this is an out, it's over. And if it's a home run, you can keep going indefinitely.

And so the pressure was on and even down to the wire with Witt and his very last out hitting the wall, Right. And there was suspense. Oh, is it going to go? Right. So I thought that was actually an improvement, if anything. anticipate is perhaps doing the format dirty a little bit because i think that one of the things that you're right that there were moments of drama and i think that that shift from time to outs was was really cool um i do think that it missed like the awe-inspiring homer that we have gotten in years past like there was no equivalent in this year's derby to the way it felt watching like julio's you know early round last year this didn't have like the big huge you know moon shots from like a judge or a stanton it felt very you know how is that one gonna get over the wall and, I think having some variability and variety in the field is good. Like you want there to be a contrast. And I think not having were times that it felt overly long. And like, you know, part of this too is the league made a decision to like invite Marcelo that like ozuna has had a really terrific season he's performed very well i think it is completely appropriate for him to be an all-star but like bringing him into this setting where it is supposed to be celebratory and you got like little kids in the outfield shagging balls and

we're supposed to be able to just like do the ah wow kind of big home run thing is undermined by like including a guy who like had a dv incident and had a dui like it wasn't just one thing right so like there was that part of it that was kind of odd i think it's also one sort of to my mind you know middling derby year it doesn't diminish my enthusiasm for the event and i think that there were parts of what they did this year that like i think will with a a different field of players play really well um and be really dramatic and i just was kind of it just also felt it went so long part of this too ben let me just offer this so i have said in the past better in person you know do you want to hear my scouting report on globe life fields do you have

interest in my globe life field scouting report okay so we've all made fun of globe life fields um because like it looks like a giant costco on the outside not every side of it makes it look like a giant costco there's like one particular vantage where you get like the end of the stadium um that has the t for texas rangers like that is its most costco-esque edifice where you're like that is the biggest big box store i've ever seen and then you get inside and you're like oh it's really nice in here like it's it's a nice looking ballpark it has like a a good feel to it i do think whoever designed the acoustics in there should be brought up on charges though because i know that some of this is my age advancing and i i'm i tend to be a sensitive listener you know i don't i struggle

with it really loud ben you know i don't do well from an auditory processing perspective there i've never been in a ballpark as loud as that ballpark and like my local major league stadium is chase which famously has a roof that closes and sometimes does not open i've never it's so loud it's so loud and it's incomprehensible right like the way that sound echoes around in there makes it just impossible to understand what the pa announcer or any of the video effects or anyone who's miked on the field like what are they saying i don't know all i hear is loud it's so ben so it's so loud it's so loud. It's so loud. Oh boy, it's loud.

And so, and at the Futures game, which we will get to, here's the thing I learned they do when I was at the Futures game. And maybe I've noticed this on a broadcast before, but when someone hits a home run, they set off fireworks inside and it is so loud, Ben. It is eardrum shattering. It is jump in your seat uh out of alarm and so i think that part

of the issue with uh the in-person derby experience i had this year was that it was just like you know you couldn't get amped for any of the guys because um everyone who was talking down on the field what are they saying i have no idea if no i don't know if there are other places in the park where it is easier to make out what they're saying like that maybe maybe that's true ben you know i don't know but up in the uss ranger which is the space station they put you in in the press box up there oh my god it's so far away and it's so loud it was so loud i had my noise canceling headphones in with nothing playing i was just like i need to dial down the the sound and so like maybe what we learned is that it was too loud for pete alonzo like maybe he too was

like it's so loud in here and i can't process even one thing that's going on around me because it's so loud. Although he just seems to be so in the zone that he's entirely unaware of his surroundings which again if you can't tune out all the distractions and then still loses to Alec

Bohm who's just like I'm just happy to be here. Yeah Alec Bohm seemed like he was having a great time. He was enjoying himself. He was drinking his water. He, you know, he seemed like he was having a great time. And, like, look, I understand that for Pete Alonzo, there were times during his career, and, you know, like, he's making $20 million dollars this year um you know the arbitration process has treated him fairly well but there were times early in his career where when he won the derby he made more winning the derby than he made in

salary that year right so like and he's a guy who you know he's gonna be 30 next year we've talked about the season that he's having i I imagine that his market as a free agent might end up being kind of tepid. This is a profile of player. It's tough to be a right-right first baseman. That's a profile of player that doesn't tend to be super well compensated in free agency, especially a guy like Alonzo who didn't come up and you know, season until he was in his age 24 season. Like so he's an older right right first baseman. So like I understand at least especially early in his tenure, like the the incentives to take it seriously because like that was meaningful money to him.

But it's like, hey, Pete, you're making 20 million dollars this year like a million dollars there's nothing to sneeze at like hey yeah i would i would you could give me a million dollars and i that'd be fine you know i wouldn't i wouldn't turn up my nose in a million dollars i'd be like that's great look at that a million dollars it's maybe partly about the money for him but i think it's about more than that i think it's about the personal pride I think it's about more than that. I think it's about the personal pride. I think it's about the game. Yeah. It's just about being the derby dude. It seemed like he was poised for derby dominance for years to come. And so again, the fact that he has not really sustained that and yet has gone into it with just the whole mien of someone who thinks he's going to. I don't know. It just tickles me. But I also enjoy the derby, but I do find that maybe my tolerance for the derby or my

appetite for the derby tends to peter out maybe before the derby does. Yeah, it's too long. It's longer than a game, at least in the pitch clock era. And there's a lot of downtime. And again, that downtime can be fun and that can be part of the appeal. But once you get into hour three of glorified batting practice, it can drag a little bit. And if you don't have the guys who are hitting the most titanic taters, there were some bombs and all those guys are capable of hitting very long home runs. But without the judges or Stantons or Otanis or the PED era participants, it made you feel like you weren't seeing superhuman displays of power, the likes of which we've seen in the past. And so, yeah, maybe it slightly suffered from that comparison. But on the whole, I thought the format was fine and I look forward to seeing it again in the future.

There is always an impulse to tinker, right? I saw people saying, well, didn't they just change the derby rules not that long ago? Yeah, they did. And they're kind of always changing them in pursuit of some platonic derby ideal, right? Like, we're just going to get it perfect this time. And maybe part of the appeal is that it does change frequently. And having seen them, I thought they were still pretty good. So there were also some changes for the Futures game, namely the skills competition, which I did not watch live. Was it even broadcast live? Did they broadcast it? I don't know if they did. There were clips, certainly.

But what was that like live? What was the bunting target competition? Was that scintillating live in person? No, it wasn't. I mean, here's the thing. I don't want to abandon the exercise, right? I think there's a version of the skills competition that would be good and could be entertaining. I do think that it went too long.

So that was that was definitely part of it. It went far too long. And it was weird because there was like they're doing this for the first time. And so they had to do a lot of explaining like here are the rules and here's what you you gotta do and how we're going to score it and how we're going to, you know, have people advance and what have you. And then, like, Roman Anthony just won because he hit a bunch of home runs. And so you're like, don't you just maybe just do a derby, you know. I also think that having the skills competition be individual participants, like individual competitors, was part of why it dragged. It would be cool to see them do like a team. And rather than have everyone do everything, they have like, you know, who's your designated like bunting guy? Like have that guy do that thing. And here's your home run dude.

And here's your whatever. Like I think that having it be every guy do everything just made it go on and on and on and then again it was one because of like home runs and um this is the first time i've had the opportunity to see roman anthony play in person boy that guy can hit the ball real far it can go real far part of my impression of the skills competition is also colored by the fact that uh they still are insisting on keeping the futures game seven innings and then you do the skills competition thing and the skills competition which i think they had budgeted like an hour for and it definitely went longer than that i'm like let's just play nine in a game like i'd rather watch

these guys do like do it i'd rather watch them them do it. And I think that part of the project for them going forward is determining what is the purpose that this is meant to serve? Because if you want to see guys demonstrate how they can play, then putting them in a game situation and having them actually play because there were there were players who including roman anthony who participated in the skills competition and did not play in the futures game so they only did you know trey morgan was another guy he did the the skills competition but not the futures game and i think that in some ways that probably made life easier for the futures game managers because there's two you know there are a couple of guys that you don't have to worry about getting into the game but just play a regular game and then maybe that issue resolves itself i think that it can be like a fun lively thing but i'd rather them to do teams i'd rather them do like fewer events maybe or not have everyone do every event so that you can have fewer participants in every stage and then yeah you you gotta decide, is the purpose of this to like showcase guys and be able to have talent evaluators see them and do their work?

Or is it to like do something that is meant to play at home and be broadcast? If that's the case, then maybe just do a derby. just do a derby so you know it's a strange evaluation environment particularly for the pitchers when you're at the futures game because you're really seeing like what if every every good starting prospect was a reliever like that's what you're seeing when you go to the futures game and there's some utility to that to be clear like seeing how a guy's stuff ticks up in a single inning setting and like what he might look like if he were shifted into that role like that's not nothing there's not it's not like there's no value to that but i guess even in the era of max effort all the time for everyone there's still a slight difference yeah no there were definitely you know and of course like uh

the brain fog of the last week is like there were definitely a couple of guys where it was like oh they're throwing harder in this than they typically do like they're up you know two or three ticks sometimes because they you know they only have to go like a couple of a couple of batters did you watch the futures game itself i did not oh my gosh yeah i can't believe you didn't watch the Futures game. You always watch the Futures game. You always say how prospects are your favorite, and you take a lot of pride in your ability to evaluate them and know all of their names.

Yep. You know one thing I will say? So Drake Baldwin, who catches, he DH'd in this game from the Braves, was there. He had a very impressive batting practice round. He can really put a charge in the baseball. I'm so excited to give you my Futures game takes, and then we'll have Eric on who actually knows what he's talking about.

He's going to be like, Mike's wrong about everything. Xavier Isaac, who I think we've talked about with Eric before, who was sort of a surprise draftee of the Rays, first baseman for them. This was the first time I had seen him play in person when he was drafted. That pick was sort of met with a fair amount of derision because a lot of teams were like, who is that guy? I don't think we had him on our board at all when he was drafted. And when Eric went to go do film study on him, he looked like he would benefit from being on a pro strength and conditioning program. His body wasn't in really awesome pro shape. And he looks fantastic.

He has completely remade his physique. He had an impressive BP. It was very exciting. Here's a guy who, when he was drafted, everyone was like, who's that guy? He was like a Rays first rounder in 2022. And, you know, it turns out that the Rays might be good at scouting. You know, I think you're going to hear it here first. You know, I'm not a uniform guy, but I think my scouting report on the Futures game uniforms was that they were better than the All-Star Game uniforms.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And didn't the Futures Game guys wear the caps of their respective minor league teams? They did. It was so cool. Yeah. I know that's just something people are very up in arms about. They're really, yeah.

Generic blah Nike All-Star Game uniforms. Yes. As opposed to what they used to do, which is just let all the players wear the uniforms of the teams they're repping. And it sounds like we might be heading back to that. Rob Manfred made some comments to that effect. He's aware of the comments. He's aware of the sentiment around this issue. Yes, the universal concern is the all-star uniform. So there's been Nike contract stuff, right? But it sounds like perhaps next year, in the future, maybe they will go back to that. This was not an issue that I cared about a whole lot before that was taken away. But I have been semi-radicalized about this. I would say I've become a convert again. There's a limit to the degree to which I care just because generally uniform stuff, I typically don't get that exercised about, but I am with you. You have

my support people who are campaigning for a return to everyone wears their individual uniforms. And partly, I guess it's just that some of these uniforms are just not good looking. Oh my God, Ben. It feels like a test, you know? It feels like they are being designed in a way that is meant to be intentionally ugly just so that they can see what we'll tolerate you know what are we as a society willing to put up with and i am glad that we are drawing this line because they are i mean this year's uniforms are horrible and they do not look we haven't seen you know they wear they you know, they wear their normal ass jerseys for BP and Media Day, you know, which like apart from the people who are there, most people don't see. So they wear them those days.

So I haven't seen the uniform uniform in person yet. in person yet but i have seen people at globe life field too loud wearing the too loud jerseys and they do not look better upon close inspection and you know last year's were also very poor we should all been paying more attention to the pants but we were so distracted by how ugly the rest were i think they were dark colored pants though last year. So that's why we couldn't tell that we could see undies through them. They're real bad. They are horrible. Yeah, because the whole idea, in principle, it doesn't sound like such a bad thing. Like this doesn't bother me initially, I think, when they switched to this because I thought, okay, you get a special all-star uniform for your special all-star appearance.

That doesn't sound like such a bad idea, but that sometimes it looks totally terrible. And the whole reason to do it from Nike's perspective is, oh, we'll sell some extra jerseys and people will want to buy. But will they, though? Will anyone want to buy it if it looks like that? Or does that defeat the whole profit purpose of it for you? Or does that defeat the whole profit purpose of it for you, right? Like, it's got to meet some bare minimum of, this is something I would want to wear to commemorate this event. And I don't think they're clearing that low bar.

So that has only compounded the problem. And yeah, if you're going to have, hey, every team has a representative and a reason for fans to tune in to see their guys in the game, then yeah, why not let them wear their jerseys, right? I get that it could look kind of busy potentially. And the idea of a uniform is it's uniform. Everyone wears the same thing. In theory, it sounds like, yeah, everyone should have their own uniform, But also, it's baseball. So they're not going to confuse who's on what team. You know, it's not football or hockey or something. It's not something with like continuous action and people running over where you're going to like be passing to people and be confused because they're like wearing the colors of a different team or something. It's baseball. It's a team sports, but barely.

different team or something. It's baseball. It's a team sports, but barely. So like. And other than the catcher, like you can see their faces the whole time. I think it's fine to have them wear an all-star hat, like, you know, to have there be something that differentiates them as representatives of their team there for this particular showcase versus, you know, what they do when they're at home like that's fine but i think that you know part of what you're doing when you are representing your franchise is like you're bringing you're bringing you know your team with you to the game and they're not all there but like if you're wearing the uniform you're a representative of all that and i think that i don't want like it you know on the one hand this like objectively doesn't matter

very much and so i don't want to make too much of it but there is something about it that feels like it it cheapens the exercise to me because then it's about selling this ugly ass. I just can't even imagine. They're so ugly. I own ugly jerseys. I do. I do own ugly jerseys. But you're there to say, I am the best that the the phillies have to offer that the mariners have to offer that the yankees have to offer and like i'm the one who's here but i am

representing like all the promise of my squad and the people who root for it and it would be nice to be able to see that like look a way that's recognizable, right? And it feels like it's connected to that place that you're coming from and is going to look like, you know, the uniform you wear when we come back from the break. I don't know. I just feel like it's important connective tissue between those things and you can put a cool patch on it, you know? Like there are ways to do it and still have it look like you're recognizably

representing the place that you're from. And, you know, part of it too, is that we have so many of these goofy ass uniforms now, right? Like it would be one thing if, if the only goof ass we had was the all-star uniforms, but like, yeah, you have all these like weird city connects and it's like this is another one where it's like am i an esports team who am i who am i representing like what am i what am i doing here you know what am i even do like they they did this in the fall league a couple of years ago where they had the guys wear fall league uniforms and i will say like fall league uniforms look

great especially compared to those like they have cool logos and i will say like fall league uniforms look great especially compared to those like they have cool logos and like they look like real baseball uniforms and not like someone like dumped sherbert on a jersey like what are we it's like gelato colors what is happening anyway and it was so frustrating to fans you know this isn't a problem most of the time in the all-star game but like it was frustrating to fans because they don't know who all the prospects are you know so like being able to say well at least that guy plays for you know the yankees i'm i'm a yankees fan i'm gonna care about this yankees guy and learn something about him like made it easy but then it was like if you're in a javelina's jersey no one knows who you are or you do but like maybe you don't so anyway i just

like have them wear, have them wear their jerseys and have those jerseys not be sheer. Another tweak that was made and we can get more into prospecty stuff with Eric next time as well as all-star game reactions. But one tweak that was made that I did not see live and I guess you didn't see live either because you were in the ballpark. There is a tweak made to the K zone, to the strike zone plot during the Futures Game broadcast. And it actually dovetails with ABS. It was kind of a trial run for what we might see with the challenge system in the future. And this sort of is a sweet spot for us because we have lately condemned the K-Zone. Yeah.

Lightly condemned, at least, if you can lightly condemn something. And also have been pro-challenge system. Yes. And so this is a case where those things go together. What they did for the plotting of pitches on the Futures Game broadcast was they showed the pitch location. So they showed where the ball was, just like a little circle with the velocity number under it. But they did not show the zone. Oh.

Yeah, it was just a point with no— So they showed the pitch but not the zone. Right. No box around the pitch, just the pitch. And this was a purposeful thing that they did for a couple reasons, and I'll link to an MLB.com story about it. But this might be a preview of what games with the challenge system might look like. A, because of, and I'm quoting here, cheating concerns associated with ABS. Though sign stealing rules prevent dugouts from having a live feed of games,

live feeds are available in so many other places in the ballpark that there could be concern of a team having a system to relay to the players whether or not to challenge a ball strike call. So by removing the plot, you still get some inkling of where the pitch was. You do see the dot, but you don't see where the dot was in relation to the zone. Gotcha. Which in theory, at least might mirror the ABS zone exactly. So if you could see on the broadcast, whether it was in the box or not, then you would know whether to challenge and depending on the turnaround time.

Yeah. Maybe that would give you too much Intel. And then secondly, the home viewers entertainment experience. If a reasonable approximation of the automated strike zone is available to viewers and a player issues a challenge, the viewer will already know the correct call prior to the system's review. The fun of the challenge system is that anxious moment. And if you've witnessed the ABS challenge system, you know it's only a moment between when the player asks for the challenge and the system's conclusion is shown on the scoreboard and broadcast. So in order to preserve the suspense for the audience watching

at home, they would not show you the box. So you would not know until the appeal is made. Oh, was that actually in the zone or not? So it's a little less obtrusive, I guess. And there's no box blocking your view. There's just a dot and you don't immediately have that feedback, correct or incorrect, of the plot. So this seems like maybe a happy medium. And Manfred again was talking up the challenge system and saying that it might be tested in spring training in 2025 and they've got to work out issues with the umps too, as opposed to in addition to everything else? Yeah. So what he said today, so one of the things that happens during this stretch of time is that we, we being the BBWA, have a meeting at the All-Star Game every year.

And part of that meeting is an availability with the commissioner and also with tony clark from the players association whose beard still looks fantastic manfred was asked about abs and the challenge system and sort of what he anticipates the timeline to implementation to be someone asked specifically whether that was something that he anticipated being up and running in the big leagues in 2026. So part of why he was specifically mentioning 2025 as a pilot season was in response to this question about whether we would get it in 2026, because he, it sounds like, thinks it is important that there be a spring training trial of the challenge system. And, you know, it sounds like they are still, while they have made strides in terms of the specific technology, like the question of like, I'm going to sound like such a stoner when I say this, like, what is the zone, man? But like, what is the zone?

Like, how are we going to call and define and represent it? And that is something that they are still taking a fair amount of feedback on from umpires, but also from players change in the way that the game is administered be something that requires like a ton of tweaking i'm sure there will be you know bits and bobs that get changed uh over time but i think that you know he sounded like he wanted to take sort of a slow and steady approach to the implementation even even of the challenge system. So, yeah. Well, I guess that's doubly good news then if it's another step along the path to the challenge system and we might do away with the box in the process. It's the best of both worlds. It's a little bonus there. So, that's potentially something to look forward to. Yeah.

So that's potentially something to look forward to. Yeah. All right. So we will return to All-Star Week festivities and draft stuff next time. A few unrelated things. I guess this is lightly related because it came out of a comment that was made. One of the nice things about these events is that the All-Stars show up and often they're laid back. They're kind of in a relaxed situation and they show up and often they're laid back. They're kind of in a relaxed situation and they're more frank and they're having fun. And sometimes they're talking

to other players and they're just, it's a more natural setting to get kind of good jokey comments than when everyone's super serious. And Chris Sale was doing an interview, I think, with the Foul Territory folks. And he was talking about how he has never called a pitch or shaken off a pitch in his life. So he just has never, like, whatever the catcher puts down. That's what he throws? Yeah, you lay it down and he will pick it up. He just thinks about throwing the pitch and doesn't stress about anything else and he was saying like in little league his coach would tell him what to throw and then in high school his coach and then in college he's not going to shake off the coach and then you get to the minors and suddenly you're you're

not really equipped to call your own pitches or you have a veteran catcher and you don't want to be the rookie, the hotshot draft pick who's shaking off the veteran catcher or something. And then suddenly he found himself being in the big leagues at like 24 and just not really having the skill set to know what to throw. Like he's just in the mindset of I will throw whatever. And that's fine. You know, he's had a heck of a career, possibly all fame career given his renaissance this season. We'll see. Yeah. Anyway, I just wonder if at some point down the road, let's say that we can quantify pitch calling at some point. You know, there have been some rudimentary efforts along those lines, often just sort of,

well, what can we quantify? Okay, here's what's left. Maybe that's pitch calling. That's about as precise as it gets unless you do a case study of, okay, what does this catcher tend to throw with this pitcher compared to what this pitcher throws with that catcher or something, but it's hard to put a value on it. But let's say eventually we find a way to put a value on it. And let's say you have a pitcher like Chris Sale who acknowledges never calling a pitch in his life. And then let's say you have another pitcher who calls all his pitches through PitchCom. And let's say we know that. pitchcom. And let's say we know that. Now, how would you handle that value-wise, war-wise?

Because everything is kind of double-entry bookkeeping in baseball with value. Like if you credit a catcher with framing value, then that value can't also be attributed to a pitcher, right? Like you can't have kind of double counting. Everything's got to kind of even out. So let's say down the road we have game calling and that's something that you could credit a catcher with. What do you do then with someone like Chris Sale who doesn't call his own games compared to a pitcher who does. There's got to be less value there, right? It's a weird thing because he's the one throwing the pitches and he throws them really well. But if there is value to be had from a catcher calling his own pitches or a pitcher calling his own pitches, then seemingly there would have to be value detracted from or subtracted

from or just withheld from a guy who's not calling his own pitches. So could you foresee a scenario where you're dinging Chris Sale, even though he's the one throwing those pitches? You're dinging him. You're crediting that value to his catchers and Chris Sale's career war is taking a hit, let's say. Maybe it won't apply to Chris Sale because we won't have this data for him. Who knows? But down the road, he pitches for a few more years. Then you have your five-year waiting period. Maybe we've cracked the code of game calling in the interim. And suddenly, you have catchers whose cases maybe have gotten a boost from their framing.

Maybe Chris Sale's candidacy takes a hit from game calling value not being on his ledger. Could you foresee that? Would that be fair? So like on the one hand, it's not that there's no value to good game calling. value to good game calling there obviously is value but i would probably not be inclined to ding a guy for calling his own pitches because i think you just get to see how he throws them you know like he just gets to throw them and then they're good or they're bad and like stuff happens with them and then we're like he's a good pitcher or stuff other stuff happens and we're like he's pretty bad actually so it's not that there's no value there but you're always going to have a catcher back

there for one i think that even the guys who are like calling some of their own pitches are probably still working to some degree in consultation with their catcher um even if it's in a pre-game you know game planning capacity you can have a good plan and not execute that good plan and then where are you you know what i mean and that applies to catchers too like let's say that you're a catcher and you call a brilliant plan but like you just have a guy who like he doesn't have his change up that day and then you shift away from that and he starts yanking stuff and his velo dips. Like, is that your fault? No, like you still called a good game potentially,

but like that guy couldn't do what he needed to. And I'm much more comfortable sort of crediting or debiting a pitcher for the execution of those pitches rather than feeling confident that like we always can guess intent. And we don't have like a, you know, we don't have like a log of that stuff. Right. If like pitchcom logs were public, if like.

They're never going to do that. No, they're probably never going to do that. Like if baseball savant, if we could look up what pitches were called and who called them. And I'd love to have that data. That'd be a fun thing to play around with. But no, we probably will to have that data that'd be a fun thing to play around with but no we probably will never have that then yeah because that's part i guess of why we don't have a way to quantify game calling currently is that it's really hard to untangle these things and you would have to

have almost like uh you know in the way that we have these stuff-based metrics where you can kind of quantify the stuff independent of the outcomes, you would need to quantify game calling independent of the outcomes, which would be hard. It's, you know, kind of a chicken and egg thing. It's like, okay, that was the right call, but it got hit hard anyway, or it was the right call, but the pitcher didn't throw it well, didn't execute it well. And then how do you ever know if he, he didn't execute it well, because that wasn't really the pitch that he wanted to throw, or they weren't really on the same page, like in the abstract, maybe that was the right pitch call. And yeah, in theory, it's, it's better not to double up a pitch type or it is good to double up or to

throw this pitch after that pitch or right. Like you could come up with some way to model that maybe, but it would be difficult because you'd almost have to account for what does the catcher know that day about what's working or not? And what has the pitcher said to him? Has the pitcher said anything about, Hey, this is what I want to do in Chris sales case, I guess, no. He's just putty in your hands, Chris Sale. It's just,

you know, choose your own adventure. You just tell Chris Sale what to do and then he will do it to the best of his abilities. But most pitchers are maybe not as malleable as Chris Sale in that respect. Also, and I think this applies regardless of whether it's the catcher or the pitcher who's determining the call. Hitters are really good too. Like, sometimes you make the right call. You are throwing the right pitch in the right place. It's nasty. It's unhittable. And they just hit it anyway. You know, like, I think this is part of the struggle with untangling, you know, how to assign credit in these moments it's like credit for what you know credit for being clever clever and getting it done dumb and getting it done anyway like sometimes that happens you know or sometimes you just like have a guy who has

nasty late-breaking stuff and like you're kind of just like freaking throw it wherever man like they're not gonna hit that you know like so this is why it's such a quandary and why it's such a hard thing to quantify i will be curious to see like how teams think about wanting to proactively either take those responsibilities away from catchers or, you know, maybe have a stance where they say to their staffs, no, we're really more comfortable with this call coming from the guy who's crouching back there. You know, I, I, because I think that there will probably be a couple of different approaches that are taken. And I think there are going to be clubs that are like, no, that really good at that and like even if they don't have a public a public metric that tells them

precisely how good like down to a fraction of a win when you talk to clubs about how they're evaluating their catchers like they they know who they think is good at game calling even if they can't put a number to it and i think that that some of them have like, you know, attempts at that. Yeah, I don't doubt it. Yeah. Yeah, that sit internally. So that's one thing I'm really curious to see is sort of like, how do they understand where the, not even just like where the value sits, but like where the greatest acumen for that sits.

And it probably will depend even within teams, right? Like there might be guys, and guys, I mean, pitchers who are, are just really adept at that and have a good, they have a good feel for their own strengths and weaknesses, you know, they're in their bodies. So they might have a better sense on any given day of like what's working for them versus not. And they might have insight into that on a finer or more specific level than even their catchers do. Although I think most

pitchers tell their guys like, Hey, I just let you know, like we, we did the bullpen changeups not working today. We got to do other stuff, you know? Right. And even if you had a, a game calling section on a player's fan grass page, right. Would that then be subdivided into different columns where it was like the actual pitch call as opposed to just making your pitcher feel comfortable. Is that different? Yes, this was the correct, precise pitch call, but also he was just making the pitcher feel antsy for some reason, as opposed to this other guy who's good at settling him down and making gestures and doing a mound visit at the perfect time and, you know, just knowing what to say, right? And so is that a separate column with different entries? And then

how would you ever determine that? And I guess you could kind of back into it by quantifying everything else you could quantify and then saying whatever's left, that must be just your general vibe sort of, you know, I like throwing to this guy left, that must be just your general vibe. I like throwing to this guy for reasons that are sort of nebulous. Yeah. But look, we may never be able to actually get granular enough to do this, certainly with public information. But if we had perfect knowledge of everything that was happening on the field, then in theory, I think you would break it down so that if we think there's a skill in game calling, which everyone seems to believe, and I believe, then if you're calling your own game and you're doing it well, then you should probably get credit for that. And if you're

calling your own game and you're not doing it well, then you should have credit debited from you, right? There would be some way to do that so that if you had two pitchers, all else being equal, and one of them was calling his own game and one of them was Chris Sale who was not, and they had the same sort of surface stat performance, then presumably the pitcher who was calling his own pitches maybe would get more of the credit for that. Whereas maybe Chris Sale's catcher would get a slice, get a bite of the value that seemingly he is providing, right? I think if you had perfect knowledge and you could divvy up things that way, then I think you would want to. We just may never get there. But it does strike me that

in theory, at least maybe, but then again, like pitch calls, it's almost like, well, do you give a closer credit for being in high leverage situations? I mean, he's not putting himself into those situations, and yet he's pitching well enough that he is being deployed in those situations. So if you're Chris Sale, you're enabling your catcher to call for nasty pitches that another pitcher who doesn't possess that repertoire would not. that another pitcher who doesn't possess that repertoire would not. So like, well, does he actually get credit then? Because ultimately it's his repertoire that determines what pitches can be called. Yeah. I don't know.

Anyway, it was just thought provoking. So here I am spilling all of my thoughts onto everyone's ears. Well, that's good because I feel like I've said a lot of words and everyone is going to be sitting there thinking, you sound like you're getting a cold, Meg. Let Ben talk. Well, while we're talking about starting pitchers in the Atlanta organization, I do just have an update on David Fletcher for you, who is not yet a major league teammate of Chris Hale's. But Meg, I'm telling you, if he keeps pitching like this and doesn't

get suspended from the sport, then sooner rather than later, he's going to be a big leaguer because he's pitching really well. I feel like you can't do it, man. He had one kind of disastrous outing at the end of June. Again, he's in AA pitching for the Mississippi Braves. He's a knuckleballer. He is still doing the two-way thing nominally, but his AAA OPS was sub 600 and his AA OPS is sub 500. So he's really putting all his eggs in the pitcher basket here, the position player pitcher basket, as opposed to the position player basket. And other than that one bad start, like he's really only had one bad start and it was bad. He went two and a third and he gave up eight runs and seven hits. And Hey, sometimes the knuckleball

is not there, but he's bounced back from that July 5th. he went six and a third, gave up two runs or two earned, three runs in total. And then July 13th, his most recent outing, eight and two thirds innings. David Fletcher, starting pitcher, went eight and two thirds innings, eight hits, two runs, both earned, one walk, five strikeouts. And it seems to me like they are building him up now to actually be a full-length starter. It was kind of, oh, this is sort of fun at the start of the year when he was pitching an inning at a time in relief. Now they've had him three of his last four starts, the ones that weren't the one when he blew up, he's thrown 100 or more pitches in each of them. He maxed out at 106 pitches in that eight and two-thirds inning.

As far as we know, he is still under investigation for involvement with gambling and have not heard any updates or resolution on that saga. But meanwhile, he's like a legitimate knuckleballer. Like if he has a few more outings like this, if not for this other cloud hanging over his head, I would say, I know that's, you know, if not for that small matter,

he might be in line to like be a big league fringe two way player knuckleball. I wish there weren't this one caveat, this one minor sticking point to the story. But we don't know what he did or how reported, at least, that he didn't bet on baseball. So, if he stayed away from that third rail, then I feel like I could still get into this story. And we might be in a situation where, like, post-All-Star break, you know, we're talking about David Fletcher, Major League knuckleballer. It could happen. Yeah. But the thing is, there's that other thing about him though i just like you can't bring that guy into the big league clubhouse with this hanging over him you got to sort that nonsense out yes because if they decide if they determine that he needs to serve a suspension and then he's just been promoted you can't have that ben you can't have it you know no look we ben we need to be

like john luke picard in first contact this far no further the line must be drawn here this far no father why does he do the line read like that i don't dislike it but it is an active acting choice that he is making no father that's my that's my jean-luc questioning patrick stewart's acting choices here i know i'm just i'm not saying it's a bad choice i'm saying it's an active choice i'm saying that there was a choice made my whenever my mom has problems with like bugs or various rodents because she kind of lives out in the country now. She does Patrick Stewart in First Contact. There's a father. I'm like, ma.

I mean, look, to my mind, the best of the Star Trek movies. I'll say it. I think it's the best one. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I do agree that they should get that straightened out. Like, let's lock that down. Let's get to the bottom of things before I want to get ahead of ourselves here. But, you know, if at some point he is cleared or kind of cleared or is not suspended indefinitely and can proceed as a player, then I can get fully invested in this story. I want to be clear. I don't know.

I don't know. It could be that he is cleared. I'm sure that this investigation is receiving the attention it deserves because of how serious all of this stuff is. So maybe they will look into it and they will come away thinking that he and his knuckleball should get right on into the

big leagues everything's fine but i think that while the question is pending uh then he simply must not be able to be in a big league clubhouse that is my belief yes he could be both a knuckle head and have a good knuckleball it's possible those things sometimes coincide there you go speaking of position player pitching although he's maybe now graduating to the point where good knuckleball. It's possible those things sometimes coincide. There you go. Speaking of position player pitching, although he's maybe now graduating to the point where we need not denigrate him as a position player pitcher. He's like a legitimate two-way player. But speaking of position player pitching, there was some in the last game before the break when the A's played the Phillies. And surprisingly, the A's, one of the worst teams in baseball, blew out the Phillies, one of the best teams in baseball, by a score of

18 to 3 and hit eight home runs and just put on an incredible power display. And part of that display was that Lawrence Butler hit three. Yeah. How about that? Friend of the show, former guest of Effectively Wild. And I'm going to say it, all-star snub, Brent Rooker. I know I said there's no such thing as an all-star snub anymore. But if there was one. Yeah.

Andrew Christian Walker, Francisco Lindor, Brent Rooker. They're still out there maybe. Wait. Can I interrupt you very, very briefly? Yeah. With Alonzo losing, how bad does that look now, man? Yeah. Oh, man.

I know. All my stars. It's like, if you got to put, I guess you don't have to be an all-star to be in the derby, right? But if you're one of his Mets teammates, if you're a Lindor or Nimmo or someone and you're like, huh, him? Interesting. And then he doesn't even show out in his event. It's, you know, it's like, I don't know, it's, he's like Nadal on a clay court or something. Like, that's what we're led to believe Pete Alonso in the derby is. And so when that doesn't come through, anyway, I've had enough fun at his expense. But Rooker hit a couple homers in that game.

Lawrence Butler hit three. And he came up with a chance to hit a fourth, which was marred somewhat by the fact that Garrett Stubbs, catcher, was pitching for the Phillies at that point. And Stubbs at first, he didn't come out firing. He came out lobbing. He came out lobbing. He came out effacing. He was like barely throwing hard enough to actually have the pitch make it all the way to the plate. And then he reached back.

He dug deep and he actually did come up with some surprising speed, surprising given that it was like in the 70s as opposed to in the 30s. But that just made me think that if we do at some point get a situation where someone is going for an unprecedented fifth home run in a game, there's every likelihood that that would be coming against a position player pitcher, right? Because if Lawrence Butler had taken Garrett Stubbs deep here, that might have had an asterisk of sorts when you're talking about the four homers in one game club, if the last of them comes against a position player pitcher. And it's even more likely if someone manages to hit four home runs and comes up with a chance for a fifth,

there's a good chance that that player's team is going to be winning by a lot at that point, which means there's a good chance that there's going to be a position player pitcher on the mound, which means, A, that it would be more likely that there would be a fifth homer hit, but also that that achievement would be somewhat spoiled, right? Could we find that fun if someone did finally break through and hit a fifth homer in a game, but it came off of Garrett Stubbs? And if that situation does arise and someone has a chance for a fifth homer, then are you obligated as the opposing manager to put in a real pitcher to then treat that situation as a real one with some consequence because you don't want to detract from the history that could be made? I think that it is the sporting thing to do. I don't know that it's like an enforceable

sporting thing to do, but it's the sporting thing to do. But it also is like a weird thing to do but it also is like a weird thing to do because sure you don't care about the outcome of the game anymore because clearly you've gone to a position player to pitch so like it's well out of hand but you like are putting in one of your real guys so that if he does hit a home run it's against one of your real guys like that's maybe not sporting to your own guys you know yeah well i think in general it would be sporting to have real pitchers pitch all the time but but yes ben yes but that wasn't one of the options i was given no but i i do kind of feel like yeah you got to respect the moment because that's a potentially momentous occurrence in baseball history right and if it

comes against a position player pitcher then it's it's not quite so it's going to be spoiled somewhat so i i feel like you're you know you kind of you gotta play along you gotta give that guy the opportunity i mean maybe you could you could ask the opponent like hey do you want a better chance to hit a home run here or do you want a worse chance to hit one? But if you hit it, it will actually count fully. It counts anyway. Maybe my actual answer is to reject the premise of your question because, well, first of all, when you hit home runs against a real pitcher, someone whose profession is pitcher. Sometimes you're like, wow, you hit a home run off of that pitch. That's amazing. That was such a great pitch. And sometimes, you know, we're sitting here telling pitchers that they shouldn't throw that, you know,

right down the dick. So we don't make that distinction when it's, you know, a meatball from a guy who happens to have, you knowhp or rhp next to his name oh my gosh then the mariners drafted the switchfisher i can't even i'm so excited yeah we're gonna save that for the next show but um all of that to say that we don't keep track you know i don't think we have a good mental inventory of the pitches that are the result of you know a guy executing well and the hitter just also executing well versus the ones where you know you left one hanging and it went 400 feet or whatever now is the likelihood that you get a meatball much higher from a position player yes

but i you're not you're still not guaranteed to hit a home run so you know i think i reject the premise of the question and we don't have to view it as cheap we can just view it as execution because we've also seen ben we've also seen big league hitters you know really good guys who will get a meatball and they don't do anything with it they don't hit that meat Yeah. You know, they pop it up. They swing underneath it. They take a strike that they shouldn't take. And so I think that, like, it would have been fine. I'm getting all animated. He didn't even do it.

No, you could imagine a hitter getting ahead of himself and just jumping out of his shoes and thinking, hey, I can be the first guy to hit five homers in a game. And easy pray, right? Here's a position player pitcher and just, you know, swing out of your translucent pants. And with, I mean, we've seen position player pitchers strike out hitters sometimes. And so that could happen too. Maybe you would just psych yourself out in your eagerness to take advantage of that easy mark, maybe. Yes. Yes. So I'm just saying, be the sense of joy and awe you want start adjusting for the stats, like discounting performance against position player pitching. And I do think it'd be nice to adjust for opponent quality, maybe more than we do already. But we have noted that the position player pitch, it's a little less rampant so far this season for one thing. Hopefully,

they're starting to get that kind of under control. And it's still rare, even though it's vastly more common than it used to be. It's still, you know, very small minority of innings pitched by position players. Are you going to adjust a hitter's stats because he hit a home run against like the, you know, the bullpen shuttle guy who goes up and down between the majors and AAA when someone gets hurt? Like, you know, this is always the thing. How up and down between the majors and triple a, when someone gets hurt, like, you know,

this is always the thing. It's like, how far do you take it, Ben? How far? Well, I'm like really starting to feel this cold. It's cool.

It's weird. You can feel my cognition changing in real time. Yeah. It's just the, the mucus is, is building in real time. Oh no. Comparing the beginning of the podcast.

I can't decide. Well, speaking of pitchers on shuttles, Oh, no. Comparing the beginning of the podcast. Do I go to this game? I can't decide. Oh, boy. Well, speaking of pitchers on shuttles, I was going to bring that up because I was marveling or maybe kind of aghast at the state of the Dodgers rotation right now. Yeah. It's bad. Yeah. It's looking thin because, I mean, they've had all sorts of fates befall their pitchers. Because, I mean, they've had all sorts of fates befall their pictures.

So poor Dustin May tore his esophagus seemingly spontaneously. That's so scary. Yeah, I was not even aware this was an injury one could suffer. Just like you're eating and then next thing you know, you have torn your esophagus somehow. Like, that's a new nightmare fuel for me. It's like, okay, that's all right. That's another way our bodies can break. So, you know, you figure with him, he's had all the arm related issues

and it seemed like he was nearing a comeback and this would be a great shot in the arm, so to speak for the Dodgers rotation. And he'd be back and reinforcements and the cavalry would arrive. And now, no, not because of an arm injury, but because of a torn esophagus, which, yeah, got to get that taken care of. Hope for the best.

But meanwhile, so you have Tyler Glass now who's on the IL with lower back tightness, which doesn't seem serious. Hopefully that is just an all-star break, let's hope. But then you have Walker Buehler, who was supposed to be the reinforcement and then came back and was not the old Walker Buehler, was not really his old effective self, and then went on the IL again in mid-June with hip discomfort. And, of course, Yamamoto has had the strange rotator cuff and has been out for a month now. He got put on the 60 day, right?

Yeah. And then you have, I mean, you know, of course, you're down Emmett Sheehan and Tony Gonsolin with Tommy John already. And meanwhile, you have Bobby Miller, who's like your rotation stalwart. And then suddenly he seemingly falls apart. Not as far as we know for injury related reasons, at least recently, but he has just sort of self-destructed performance wise. It's been bad. Like he just got options to get himself straightened out because nothing was working. And so you're down to, if I go to roster resource right now and I look at the Dodgers rotation, now granted, hopefully you have Glasnow back soon and hopefully Clayton Kershaw is maybe a rehab start away. is maybe a rehab start away. And suddenly Clayton Kershaw, like you're kind of counting on him all of a sudden. It's not just like, oh, it'd be gravy and it'd be a nice story if Clayton Kershaw can come back. Like you kind of, you need him to take regular turns now because you're looking at James Paxton, Gavin Stone, Landon Knack, and Justin Robleski, who was just called up. Like he's the most recent addition, or I guess there's been yet another newer addition since

then. Like there are pitchers coming up that I am not intimately familiar with their work to reinforce the Dodgers rotation now. So I know they're the Dodgers and they'll probably be fine. But man, you know, like it's all just got to come together for October. And we knew like, okay, they've got like 10 guys, but all of them are various states of injury prone, basically. So like, you just hope that when the dust settles and October rolls around, you have four or five who were healthy at once. And that could very well

be the case. But right now, it's not looking great. Well, and that would be the more concerning thing to me. They're in probably a good enough spot that it doesn't necessarily super matter in terms of their ability to make the postseason or even to win the west but i think that there are a couple of things in play first like they do have to pitch well in october to win a world series which is what they're trying to do and i think the other thing for them to keep in mind particularly if they want more time for guys to get healthy is like do you get in a spot where you you know you win the nl west but because it's a spot where you, you know, you win the NL West, but because it's a bumpy road, you end up having to play in the wildcard series because

right now, like the Brewers are only, only have one, the fewer win than they do. Right. And like their goal is probably going to be to, to, to pass that entire round and skip that whole round and then just go straight to the division series. So I think that there are a couple of ways that this could go wrong for them. And I bet they want to avoid those, Ben. That would be my guess. Yeah. The most recent reinforcement I was trying to summon, River Ryan. River Ryan. I like that name, River Ryan. Yeah. We love River Ryan. I like that name, River Ryan. Yeah, we love River Ryan. Yeah, former infielder, right? 2021 draftee. So it's basically like an all-rookie rotation plus James Paxton, who's very far from a rookie.

But yeah, they're kind of just cobbling it together and promoting some pitchers maybe before they expected to. And they'll probably make it work one way or another. But, yeah, it's looking a little dicier. It's dicier than they wanted me. And Paxton's the only one who stayed healthy. Yeah, River Ryan was, isn't that funny? He hasn't been pitching particularly great, but he's been able to take the ball every turn. So, like, that's something.

Yeah, River Ryan was a top 100 guy for us preseason we had a 55 future value on him i don't remember where he ranked relative to that in other publications but he was a top 100 guy for us i know eric likes river ryan a lot i did not have paxton as as the the workhorse the innings eater the guy you could count on to take the ball last man standing from the opening day rotation just about. James Paxton. So wild. True new.

Yeah. Yeah, that was like an insurance signing almost. And, you know, sometimes you need to cash in that policy, I guess. Yeah. But like you said, like, hopefully Glasnow will be back in short order and effective. And this has just given him a little extra time relative to the break. Again, who among us doesn't deal

with lower back tightness, Ben? Who is immune? What is your stretching routine? Requiring minds want to know. If you have one at all. You gotta stretch, Ben. Hey, my back's doing pretty well so I'm just saying you know, just saying.

You need that. Anyway. You sit even more than I do. I can't believe it. It's true. It's so wild. Okay. Well, I was just saying I did not predict this outcome for James Paxton to be the one

you could count on. Do you buy this prediction? Supposedly, the Yankee Austin Wells predicted that Aaron Judge would reach the all-star break with exactly 34 homers and 85 runs batted in. This just came out the other day

that Austin Wells... Would you take such a specific posture to that question? That's so weird. He has claimed, and we've talked about player predictions and how they're constantly predicting things, and so you just never know what their hit rate is That's so weird. permutation, every possible total of home runs and RBI that Aaron Judge could have. And so. Well, that would be even weirder. It's like, you know, the people who will like tweet every prediction about something and

then they'll just delete all of the wrong predictions and then they will leave the prediction that was right. And everyone will say, oh, wow, soothsayer. I think that has happened. But, you know, that's weird, too, saying that that's what happened with Austin Wells. Sayre. I think that has happened. But, you know, saying that that's what happened with Austin Wells, maybe he did claim and predict that it would be 34 and 85. But even so, there's kind of a publication bias happening here where unless you get the results you desire, you just don't publicize that you said that thing. So apparently, if he actually said 34,85, well, you know, if it had been 32-80 or something, maybe he wouldn't have piped up and said, I was close.

Because then, you know, you're one off. It's just not that good a story, right? Right. Do you buy it? Do you buy that Austin Wells predicted? Now, apparently, he didn't predict this like on opening day. Okay. He predicted it.

I guess it was the last time the Yankees were in Baltimore, which I think was in April. And to be fair, Judge had not gone off at that point. I think he was still batting sub 200 at the end of that series. And so if it is true that that's when he predicted this and he was essentially predicting that Aaron Judge would have like the hottest couple months, you know, in history, just about that, I guess would be a pretty impressive prediction. But, you know, I'm going to need documentation. That makes it seem more likely to me actually because that to me feels like a teammate trying to like buck up his teammate like you're gonna yeah by the all-star break you're gonna be at this you know and it's like a random number that probably didn't have

any particular meaning like you didn't have like super strong conviction in that specific number but that feels like a i'm gonna pep up my dude my dude, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to buck him up and make him feel like, Hey, don't you worry. You're going to, you know, that's what that feels like to me. Yeah. There is a scenario where that's an impressive prediction, but as with all player predictions that we hear about after the fact, I just, I need it. You know, it's like's like when you do a study as a scientist, sometimes you have to like pre-register what you're looking for or, you know, so that you can't kind of do p-hacking and doctor the results after, or even just unconsciously try to come up with some significant result. You know, you pre-register what you're doing and like what would constitute a meaningful result so that you can't be swayed by what happened after. And, you know, maybe like he's zeroing in on that target and maybe you don't even remember if it was exactly 3485, but you're like, you know, it was,

it was right in that neighborhood. You know, I probably did say 3485 and then, you know, memory is malleable and we, we summon memories summon memories and then we alter those memories in the process of remembering them. And maybe you kind of reprogram that memory so that it seems to you like you actually did say 3485. Right, because it's a better story. Right, exactly. Yeah. So, I'm just, I'm sort of suspicious, but I guess there is a world where that actually would make me say, wow, I'm not sure if it's this world. But, you know, it was a notable one that specific.

Because usually it's just like, yeah, call the homer here or something, which would not be impressive with Aaron Judge because you could call a homer very often and he will often make you look prescient. But it's just that he hits lots of homers. I don't know. Maybe I believe it. Maybe I believe it. Maybe I, maybe I believe it. Although in, in that scenario, Aaron judge is relying on literally Austin Wells,

who still has rookie eligibility this year to be like his buck up guy. But you know what? Maybe they're buds, you know, maybe they're friends. And my last observation, which I had while I was working on a story coming to a website called TheRinger.com near you sometime later this week, potentially, I'm following up. I'm doing a deeper dive on the history of expanding the foul lines and widening the foul lines, something that's come up on the podcast before.

So more to come potentially next time on that. But in the process of doing research for that, I was struck by the realization that, you know, strikeout rate really has plateaued lately. or what to attribute it to. But it is notable that what seemed to be an inexorable rise in strikeout rate, which is not to say that all the offensive problems are solved because like- Yeah, have you looked at the league-wide batting average lately? Yeah, the league's batting 243 and bat-ups 289, which would be the lowest in a full season since 1992, et cetera. There are problems here, but it's not solely strikeouts. You might assume that the problem with batting average is strikeouts, and it is, to be clear. That's a

contributing cause here. But the reason that average is even lower now than it was a handful of years ago is not that the strikeout rate has continued to increase, but that the results on balls in play have gotten worse. And there are various reasons for that. But that surprises me because for a period of, gosh, 10 to 15 years, it was just a steady ascent. Strikeout rate went up every single year like clockwork. There seemed to be nothing that could arrest the rise. And you might say, well, yeah, universal DH pitchers don't hit anymore. And that is true. That has helped,

but that's actually not all that it is. So the league-wise strikeout rate this year, which is 22.3%, that historically it's still high. It's still near the all time high, but it is not the all time high. It is essentially on par with the strikeout rate in twenty eighteen. And even if we look at position players only, so take pitchers out of the equation entirely, position players only have the lowest strikeout rate this season since 2018. So it's not just that pitchers don't hit anymore. And I don't know why it is because pitchers have continued to become overpowering more and more. Fastball velocity is a record high this year, 94.4, depending on which data source you use, 94.2. And also the rate of non-fastballs almost counterintuitively is the highest it's ever been and nasty breaking stuff and pitchers just being cycled in and out of games and hitters not seeing the same pitchers

multiple times in a game, et cetera. All these things that have helped depress offense yet have not sent strikeout rate soaring. And I wonder why that is, but it's something that we were always kind of wailing and gnashing our teeth about strikeout rate rising. Well, it has at least plateaued lately. So that's, I guess guess a small victory of sorts maybe it's a combination of a bunch of little things like maybe like better sticky stuff enforcement you know it might be that like the orioles do play or die really well now maybe it's just that all on their own you know um it's just that uh i'm anticipating a draft joke later don Don't worry about it. We're going to talk about it on Thursday. It is interesting. I don't know what to specifically attribute it to. I do think it's probably a blend of things, some of which I can with the ball being a little less lively than it was in 2017, 2019, for instance. It's not quite as power potentially or taking your walks. The shift suppression of last year, that was ostensibly at least part of that, that would change that calculus and make hitters want to make contact more.

I don't know that that has happened to a great degree and on the whole still trying to hit the ball in the air and swing hard and hit it hard. Yeah, still pretty valuable. That pays off. Right. But, but maybe, you know, it only takes a little bit to just hold things constant instead of just this little bump bit by bit by bit. So yeah, that's a progress, I guess, just a lack of backsliding contact wise that constitutes progress. So that's right. You know, tip of the cap to whoever or whatever is responsible for that. sort of aesthetic impact that the rising strikeout rate has had and how do we account for that and does it actually bother us and is it noticeable like on a game by game basis and then you talk

about how many more strikeouts per game it is and it's like not that many you know and so maybe it takes a small a bunch of little small things to sort of course correct and you're talking about one or two fewer k's per game and then all of a sudden you're like wow the rate stabilized it's not getting worse that's so exciting but we must remain vigilant we have to remain vigilant because not everyone can be an oriole ben you know not all of them can and some some orgs, I think, you know, some of this I do think is maybe a little bit a result of player dev, where I do think we are seeing more orgs that are like really telling their dudes not to swing sometimes. They're just like, you know, preaching.

It's not patience necessarily as much as it's passivity. And so sometimes they're not striking out. But you can, Ben, did you know that you could still strike out looking? So maybe that doesn't matter. Yeah, right. You know, maybe it doesn't matter because you don't have to swing to strike out. That's how they get you. You know, you just think, aha, I've solved this hitting thing.

I just won't swing. And if I don't swing, I won't swing and miss. And yet, yeah, they've thought of Yet. Yeah, they've thought of that. They've thought of that. The planners of the sport. You can't just wait to walk. You can't strike out looking. Yeah, you got to sometimes take the bat off your shoulder, Ben.

Get in there. Get in the action. All right. Well, you got to get in the all-star action and maybe blow your nose. Oh, I'm so sorry. And we will talk to you hopefully later in the week and we'll all find out together what Meg sounds like in a couple days. Yeah. It'll be a fun adventure. I guess if it gets worse, then the good news will be that Eric can talk a lot as he is want to do when we ask him about prospects.

Well, there's just so many guys, Ben, you know, they do. We sit here and we bemoan the draft getting shorter. And I am opposed to that. But I also am like, it's 20 rounds of dudes. That's a lot of guys. You know, we're putting records in the board and it's just like, oh, boy, I got to look up a bunch of birthdates. All right. That will do it for today. By the way, Effectively Wild listener, Patreon supporter and statistician slash scorekeeper Chris Hanel has checked in on where our preseason predictions stand at the break. He's done an all-star break breakdown. All-star breakdown? He wrote up a Medium post with all of our predictions from the preseason predictions podcast game, evaluating which have come true, which have already flopped, the likelihood of

all the remaining ones proving prescient. I won't get too into the details here because I want to preserve the surprise and suspense both for me and for the listeners who are looking forward to our end of year breakdown of the results. But check the links on the show page and in your podcast app if you can't wait till the end of the year and you want to see where things stand now. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going. Help us stay ad free and get themselves access to some perks. Andrew Gillen, Gray K, Ryan Harrington, Hannah Bennett and Max Jacobs.

Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, monthly bonus episodes, playoff live streams, discounts on merch and ad-free Fangraphs memberships, prioritized email answers, and so much more. Check out all the offerings at patreon.com slash effectivelywild. If you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. If not, you can contact us via email.

Send your questions, comments, intro and outro themes to podcast at pangrass.com. You can rate, review and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash effectively wild. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild. And you can check the links on the show page and in your podcast app for information on upcoming Effectively Wild listener meetups at MLB ballparks. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We will be back with another episode soon. Talk to you then. distracted it's a long slog to death but for sure to make you smile this is effectively this is effectively this is effectively