Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2193: The Best Rest-of-Season Storylines

Episode Date: July 20, 2024

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the BBWAA’s new sports gambling regulations, then (11:22) discuss the stories they’re most interested in following for the rest of the MLB season (plus, the implications of a bearded Aaron Judge). Audio intro: Cory Brent, “Effectively Wild Theme” Audio outro: Alex Ferrin, “Effectively Wild Theme” Link to tweets about BBWAA […]

Hello and welcome to episode 2193 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast. Oh, tiny words. One bit of business from All-Star Week we haven't discussed yet. There was a BBWA meeting. You were present. And there was an addition made to the Baseball Writers Association of America's constitution. Correct. About gambling. And this is relevant to our interests here at Effectively Wild. And really our lack of interests, I guess. This is one of our lack of interests in betting on sports.

But this is something we had brought up at some point. Maybe it was when we were doing a podcast and we did an interview about the potential for media members to bet on things using inside knowledge or even influence lines by putting reports out there, right? even influence lines by putting reports out there, right? And we mentioned, I think, on that episode that the BBAA intended to enact some sort of measure, some sort of disciplinary procedure, and just to formally ban certain behaviors related to gambling. And so now that has happened. So, the measures, I mean, you were the one there, I guess you could explain if you want. I have the text in front of me, but. times confusion about this and the Hall of Fame and how are the rules different and what have you. Not everyone who is a member in good standing with the association votes on every award every year.

Right. The voting body or the subset of the body that votes on every award rotates every year. There are years where you might have a ballot and years when you don't in some of the larger chapters like New York, like you've never had an awards vote. I have never had one. No, I've been in the PBWA for what, like 11 or 12 years or something at this point. And I have not ever had a single opportunity to vote on an end of season award. I made it to qualifying for Hall of Fame voting before I had a single opportunity to vote for an end of season award. And I have voted multiple times, which is largely a byproduct of having been in smaller chapters. It's like an electoral college thing going on here. Kind of.

It's like crowded chapters. It's like we're not getting sufficient on here. Kind of. It's like crowded chapters. It's like we're not getting sufficient representation here. It's not our fault. There are just a lot of people in New York. Right. I'm getting cheated out of my right to vote. I don't even care that really. Yeah, you're not.

But I've never had the opportunity. Yeah, you never had the chance. Meanwhile, those weirdos out in Arizona, we just get to know. But so you are notified by your chapter chair and the association more generally that you have an awards vote. are not only not allowed to bet on those awards themselves, which like, duh, but also are not allowed to disclose in advance what their vote is going to be to betting interests or really anyone else. The sort of other measure within this amendment is that writers who are in the association are not allowed to write in a full or part-time capacity for outlets whose primary coverage is sports betting and gambling, right? So if you are a baseball writer with a

card which grants you certain privileges of access, you are not allowed to work for DraftKings and write for their in-house publications. Yeah, that was the one when I read that, I was like, that's going to get tricky for someone just because of the way that gambling is so intertwined with media, with the sports media, right? And it says you cannot create or produce any MLB-related content in a full-time, part-time, or freelance capacity for a media outlet that offers primarily gambling content. There are media outlets that seem to offer primarily gambling content. Like, does ESPN count? There's a lot of gambling content out there. So that would be one

where, and even if it's like a part-time or freelance thing, and then how do you determine like primarily gambling content versus just a lot of gambling content? So, yeah, that one seems like it could get sort of sticky for someone ironed out, you know, it was voted on the language went to lawyers to be vetted, because obviously this comes with the possibility of pretty intense penalty, including expulsion from the organization if you're found to be in violation of the policy. So, you know, I think the general sentiment within the association has been that these are very common sense guidelines and ones that we feel confident and comfortable our membership is adhering to already. But, you know, it's important to both prevent actual impropriety and the appearance of it. And we wanted as a body a formal mechanism that one made the rules clear for everyone so that there's no ambiguity. Although to your point, it's, you know, I think that there

are going to have to be some hard cases assessed when it comes to what constitutes a gambling outlet here. And also for us to have a mechanism by which to administer discipline in the event that someone is found to be violating that procedure. Yeah.

You don't want this to be a Supreme Court code of ethics where there's no binding.'t know, there's no, no binding. It's just, yeah, we'll, we'll adhere to this. We won't gamble on anything.

No, there has to be some kind of consequence here. Cause this is not a lifetime appointment to the WAA, but yeah, I mean, you can get kicked out of it, which would be bad if, if you depend on that access.

So, or suspension of voting privileges and other disciplinary actions. So you're not gonna, you know, get locked in a slammer or anything, but you're maybe just gonna get kicked out of the organization. Yeah, I think that there's a much longer conversation

that we could have about access journalism and when it's done well and when it's done poorly. And I think that we're all aware of some of the challenges that media faces. And there are instances that might come immediately to mind for everyone, for folks who are in the association who have perhaps not used their access to its best benefit. But maintaining access is a very important part of what we do. And I think that teams and players and the league and our readership need to feel confident that that access is being conducted in an ethical way and that it isn't being used to personally further the finances of any of the writers. So I was an enthusiastic voter for this.

I would have been fine with a more draconian and more restrictive policy. You would have put people in the slammer. No, I wouldn't have put people- Just right to the big house. I wouldn't have put people in the slammer. But as with the players, I just think that it's fine to say you're not allowed to bet on sports, period, end of story. I just think that that's fine. I think that what we do is a privilege. I think that there are a lot of very talented writers who are not able to pursue that full time. And I think that maintaining our integrity and the perception of

our integrity is incredibly important to being able to earn the trust of potential sources, of players, of team officials, and of our readers. And so I think that having really strict rules around this stuff is incredibly important. So I put my hand up. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And it passed overwhelmingly. So I think that as a body, we are, I feel comfortable saying of one mind about how important this is for us as an association going forward. Yeah. So now when you listen to Effectively Wild, you can just be even more confident that we're not secretly betting on the side. We're trying to move the lines here with our influential baseball podcast. No, now we can't because we sent to the who's cow. emails from like gambling folk of some stripe you know whether it's a sports book or you know one of these outlets that's primary focus is gambling and i'm just like you know my expectation isn't that you listen to the pod and i know pr emails go really far and wide which is why we

sometimes get emails about golf and do you want to buy the attendee list for this doctor's conference that happened in omaha and i'm like, no, I sure don't. but it is very funny when they email. I'm like, I know that this is a mass mailer, but somewhere along the line, you had to expend some tiny amount of effort to put this podcast email in. And it was wasted.

And I hope you know that, you know, well, it's a safe bet. Hey, they do a baseball podcast. Well, I didn't even mean it that way, but you probably assume you're emailing sports podcasters. So they're probably doing gambling ads on the show. We're the only one maybe that that email went to waste potentially. So we're confounding the PR people. Anyway, that is a bit of Inside Baseball, or I guess Inside Baseball Writers Association of

America for you. Now you know you can all be confident in our integrity. Yeah, rest easy. I wish that our acronym were something other than BBWAA, because it's hard to say, Ben. It doesn't roll off the tongue. It's got no musicality to it um we we are a bunch of writers after all we couldn't come up with something better than that shame on us really yeah i was i always want to say w you know like i wasn't even just in texas like you were but i was going to be like bbwa a but then there's two a's yeah you trip over you're tripping over syllables. It's a real mess, honestly. A jumble, as it were. If we just dropped a B, because baseball, we don't need both Bs.

But B-W-A-A is weird, too. Wah. Wah. Wah. Wah. So, today is the start. We're speaking on Friday, the start of what is commonly called the second half, at least in some circles, including Phantagraphs.com. I saw it was in the headline.

Not at the ringer, not on my watch, but other sites just don't have the same standards, I guess. But, you know, I changed two usages of second half in an article to other terms, you know, just to be precise.

Because this season in particular, I guess the All-Star game is generally the same time roughly. Sometimes it's a week earlier or a week later. Yeah. But when you're talking about 60-40, I mean, we're basically at 60% of the season. Yeah. I just can't in good conscience say second half. I just can't do it. Yeah. I just can't in good conscience say second half. I just can't do it. Yeah, I can say after the break, I can say, you know, I changed to like rest of the season, a remainder of the season. And then we changed one that was kind of forward looking to say down the stretch or something instead of, you know, there are options out there. But I just can't call a 60-40 a 50-50 when I know it's not.

Yeah. I mean, look, some sites only cover baseball and so have leaderboards. And what are you going to do? Create a schism, Ben? Are you going to create a leaderboard schism? No. Yeah. My voice is going to be so weird by the end of this episode. My voice is going to be so weird by the end of this episode. Well, whatever you call it, baseball is back after a little break here. And we thought maybe we'd do some emails if we get to it. But we could also just highlight some stories that we are looking forward to watching over the remainder of this season. And Zach Cram, whose article I was editing, he was doing his midseason power rankings for us. Yes. lockout and then rules changes right that was such a big thing last year and i feel like i don't have a handle on what the identity of this season is exactly it's just a generic baseball season yeah

which is maybe nice to just have a generic without some sort of natural disaster stoppage in play or rules changes were kind of fun and mostly went okay. Why are you daring? Have you noticed the year around you? What are you doing? What are you inviting? Apologies for tempting fate. Good God.

Didn't a comet just narrowly miss your city like two weeks ago? We want to live in less interesting times. Completely precedented times. I am interested in a time with multiple precedents, many where we can point and say, which one is it like? I don't know, several of these mid-times. So maybe it's nice to have a season where it's just, yeah, it's another season. It's just your run-of-the-mill baseball season. But yeah, I don't know what exactly this will be remembered for, right? When we sometimes talk to Sam at the end of a season or he writes his what will we remember from this season. So far, I don't know. Last year, we had some options early on. We had Trout versus Otani before the regular season even started, right? And I still don't even know what it would be right now, but I guess that's what we're going to talk about here as we discuss what we are interested in personally the rest of the way.

So what's on your mind? What's one thing that you're looking forward to finding out or monitoring? Well, I think one thing I'm very keen on is seeing how the sort of they're not all sophomores but uh young player underperformers are going to course correct or not in the second half right so like corbin carroll comes to mind and julio rodriguez comes to mind these guys where we have seen them play at an all-star level for stretches arguably at an mvp caliber level and they haven't found their rhythm yet um and some of them might not and some of them might and some of them we might come to find out have like an undisclosed injury and i'm not saying that with

particular insight into either of those guys i named or anyone else, just like, what is the character of their second half going to be? And is it going to meaningfully change relative to their first half? You know, I think that these guys are early enough in their careers that there are still a lot of potential paths that their careers could take. But once someone has demonstrated an ability to play at the level that some of those guys did and for as long as they have, it takes a while for my sort of expectation of their baseline true talent to appreciably alter. But if they have an entire season like this, it would seem silly to not take that into significant account, particularly if they are actually playing fully healthy. So I want to know how the second half is going to go for those sort of lukewarm boys, as we might affectionately call them.

Yeah. Yeah. And I guess you could kind of lump in maybe some prospects who were up and then are down again. Yes. So, like, I've been wondering about Jordan Walker, for instance. Like, is he going to fix things? Is he going to be back up again at some point? And he's not doing so hot even down in AAA, right? He's really not.

Last time I checked. Yeah, it's not going great yeah so he has in triple a he's got a 683 ops i mean it's not good so is he gonna course correct a little bit and gosh he just turned 22 in may he's still extremely young but but it's weird. It's not what you expected to see or not see from him. And then, I don't know, who else? I guess we've had a lot of prospect call-ups already. I guess, obviously, you're wondering what are the Orioles going to do? And that might be just one of my interesting storylines. The Orioles. The Orioles.

Yeah. Specifically, I guess, like over the next two weeks, what are the Orioles going to do? Because they seem positioned to be able to trade and have the prospects to trade and have the incentive to trade for people. And yet you never really know if Michael Ias is just going to go for it. And that is a big storyline that I guess we will have an answer to in short order. But will they do something about their surplus? And if so, who will be the odd man or odd men out? I think that I would extend that bit of curiosity to just the actual amount of activity we will see at the deadline full stop. And what the shape of that activity will be. Are we going to just see the teams we know that are are struggling that aren't going to be anywhere

near october baseball when it's all said and done do they sell and whatever they have on offer is what you know and who gets moved or are we going to see some like buyer to buyer trades where teams that are in the hunt assess that they have surplus at particular positions and are willing to move, you know, if they think they're good at pitching and have a lot of it, are they willing to move pitching for the position player? They need that sort of thing. So the overall sort of shape and level of activity that we see at the deadline is of keen interest to me, not just as a baseball fan, but also as a person who's going to have to be like, hey, go write about that. Why don't you? Yeah, I got on the subject of the Orioles. I was going from Jordan Walker to Jackson Holiday and then I got sidetracked. But Jackson Holiday was the other guy

who, so I think since he came back from his most recent injury, so he's been playing regularly I think since June 25th. Yes, but I believe only as a DH. Right. And he has a 967 OPS in that time at AAA.

So it seems like the bat is fine. But yeah, he has not been playing in the field yet. So once he is capable of playing in the field, then I wonder if he's continued to hit well, whether they will give him another shot. But I guess it also depends on whether there's an opening and whether there's a vacancy because of a trade that is made. So a lot of that is contingent on the deadline and who's available. And we've talked a number of times about the White Sox and sitting in the catbird seat, as they say, when it comes to kind of dictating the deadline

because they have three of the most appealing players despite having so few other appealing players. I mean, they might be personally appealing. Just, you know, I'm not saying they're unappealing people. But their production has not been sterling to this point. It has not. So, yes. Will we see trades?

Who will decide that they're out of it or that they can sell to their fans that they're sellers without incurring some kind of backlash? And then will there be more activity than it seemed like there would be and the white box specifically what do they do do they trade all three do they trade crochet and fetty and robert or do they just trade fetty and then they keep the the younger team controlled guys and maybe crochet you have concerns about how many innings he'll pitch down the stretch because of his past low innings totals so all of that is pretty fascinating to me and i guess while we're on the subject of the white socks then once they do make those trades how low can they go how bad will they be they're just behind the 62 Mets pace now. I think they're on pace for 117 losses.

So they are certainly within striking distance of the pace for the worst team of all time. And that is before potentially jettisoning a good player or two or three. So yeah, do they pick up the pace at all? Or do they actually make a run at it? Would you call it making a run at it? That seems like the wrong terminology. That's the wrong way to think about it. But yeah, it's closer than anything else.

They're falling down at it. They're not even able to stay upright. That's their problem here. So whatever you call it, will they challenge the 62 Mets the the worst team of all time or most losses that is certainly something i'm following like i i checked the the box scores i checked the ticker like it's one of the first things i check what did the white socks do such a bummer that is such a wild bummer but it's it's funny because we got an email, I think it was from Reggie, listener, Patreon supporter a while ago, who

said, like, is this bad for baseball to have extremely terrible teams? And I was like, yeah, but it's tremendous content. You know, I feel bad for the country and the White Sox, but it is tremendous content. It is more interesting

to me to have a potentially historically terrible team than a merely run-of-the-mill bad team. They're like equally out of it. But if one team you actually have something to follow, not as a fan of that team, you're maybe more likely to look away because you don't want that to happen. And I feel bad for fans of that team. And I do think it's bad for baseball to have that kind of imbalance. And yet I can't look, I'm rubberdecking over here, right? So it's like to have those extremes is more interesting to me, even if I acknowledge that it's probably not good for the sport. Yeah. I don't quite know what I think about it i mean i've expressed concern that

it will be held against me in the afterlife whatever i decide but i don't think that it's good if it's a persistent aspect and trait of the league that you have a team it feels like every year we have like a new team that's challenging to be like the worst ever and like that that feels bad if it were more of a one-off sort of situation then i think you can make the argument that like oh this is a fun at least in a dark way historical oddity but now this just seems like a rotating seat in a really bad uh game so i don't know i feel nervous about it i am curious i. I'm going to pair these two, even though their current fortunes are obviously a bit different from one another. But I would say

over the offseason, both the Dodgers and the Rangers employed sort of a bulk strategy when it came to their rotations with the understanding that they would be getting guys back and that those guys would be both good and healthy. It's gone, you know, not quite totally to plan for either of them. And so I'm curious to see how the starting rotations of both the Dodgers and the Rangers shape up in the second half. I know DeGrom recently threw like a bullpen session, so he's progressed to at least that point but we are getting into the later days of july there i avoided calling it the second half out of deference to you ben he threw a 30 pitch bullpen like he's nowhere near built up to where i imagine he needs to be

to be like a contributing member of that rotation they have other pitching injuries beside that you you know we've already talked about the dodgers situation but like the dodgers are in kind of hoofed kind of territory when it comes to the state of their rotation so i'm curious like both in terms of how it informs our deadline strategy but sort of more generally do we find ourselves at the end of the season having a stronger opinion about the viability of this strategy sort of more generally because the idea was get get through and get in and then you're gonna have this really impressive group of guys who can help you to dominate come October and that's still on the table to varying degrees for both of these clubs, I guess. I mean, the Rangers have sort of farther to go in terms of just getting to October,

obviously, than the Dodgers do. But I liked it as sort of both a creative approach to building a rotation. And I admired the confidence of the strategy on both of their parts. This is a strategy you put into motion when you're like, well, yeah, we're going to play October baseball. We're the Rangers. We're the Dodgers. We're the reigning World Series champs. We're the team that's projected to be the best team going into the regular season. Maybe the Braves are a little bit ahead of the Dodgers,

but you know what I mean, one of the best teams. We're going to be in October. Maybe the Braves were a little bit ahead of the Dodgers, but you know what I mean? Like one of the best teams. We're going to be in October. We need October, guys. Like what is all this regular season chaff, right? We're a wheat team. We're interested in the wheat here. And so I kind of want to see where that goes for them in the second half.

And I think my conclusion, if I had to guess, is going to be, well, kind of depends, you know. But let's see. Let's see what it looks like when it's all said and done. And it wasn't entirely an intentional strategy. It was partly just by necessity. Everyone's hurt. So, you know, this is what we have to work with. And we just hope that we will hang around close enough that we'll still be within striking distance when we get these guys back. So yes, that is a good one. I'm glad you mentioned DeGrom because DeGrom and Clayton Kershaw's come back. So Kershaw is almost back. He's got maybe one more rehab start, I think, on Friday, a little after we speak, maybe. And then potentially

he would be back in the majors. And that's exciting. He's been one of the defining baseball players, obviously, of this century and of my time following the game and doing this podcast and just read a book about him. I feel like I know him a little bit better now. And this is his first surgery, his first arm injury like this. And they're really kind of counting on him now. When we were talking over the offseason, like, is he going to come back? He's got to come back, right? And I mean, according to Andy McCullough and his reporting, it was not always a sure thing that he would be back. And it seemed like almost a sentimental, well, Kershaw, he's got to go back with the Dodgers. It would just be wrong if he weren't a Dodger. And especially if he went out

the way that he did last year in the playoffs, that can't happen. But it was almost like surplus. It was insurance almost. You know, you didn't really know if you'd have room for Clayton Kershaw or how much you would need him. And now, yeah, no, they really need him. They need him to be good and healthy. And I hope he is. So I'm very curious to see what he looks like and what his stuff is like. And very similarly with deGrom, who just turned 36 last month.

I mean, deGrom, he's always older than you think he is. I know he hasn't gotten proportionally older. I shouldn't be continually surprised by how old he's always older than you think he is. I know he hasn't like gotten proportionally older. I shouldn't be continually surprised by how old he's not like, you know, I'm keeping pace with him. He's not aging faster than anyone else around him. As far as I know, he didn't go to the beach and old. I don't think so. Maybe his UCL did, but he is 36 and he's older than Kershaw, right? That's something I think we've remarked on before, which is just so strange because, well, actually, so Kershaw's 36 years

old in 122 days and Jacob deGrom is 36 years old in 30 days. So, okay, Kershaw's got about 100 days on him. But the fact that it's that close, you just wouldn't really expect because Kershaw came up in 2008 and deGrom came up in 2014. So, it doesn't seem like they should be the same age. And I am really curious to see, is this still the otherworldly deGrom? curious to see, is this still the otherworldly DeGrom? Now, we might not know immediately, because sometimes guys, they get back from Tommy John or UCL repair, and they're not fully 100%, and not everything is back. But you could at least get a good sense of like, does he still have his velocity? Like, is he still able to throw it triple digits? And will he have learned his lesson from this? Will he have said, okay, I pushed it too far. I don't know how many times I used the analogy of Icarus with Jacob deGrom, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Because I just, so many times I was like, Jacob, you're the best pitcher in baseball. Throw in 96. You don't need to throw 101. And he did not heed my words. And he hurt himself. And so I wonder whether he will now say, okay, I better dial it back a bit if he even has that top shelf speed that he had, or will he be like, all right, license to speed again. Like I got a fresh ligament now I could just air it out. So I'm really curious to see if he still has the stuff and if he still deploys it the same way. Because, I mean, you know, on an inning per inning basis,

maybe the best pitcher we've ever seen. I don't know if that's sacrilegious. Apologies to Pedro. He's not even pitching Pedro levels of innings, but on an inning per inning basis, just unbelievably dominant. And I'd like to think that we could see more of that, but who knows? We're going to find out. We're going to find out, Ben. Yeah, I would just like to remind you that they are both younger than I am and than you are. And it makes me feel a weird way, you know. It does give me some weird feelings.

Well, I'm still on my original UCL and as far as I know, it's in great shape. Yeah, me too. Do you feel preemptive anxiety about the load that Clayton Kershaw's going to have to carry and the narrative that's going to build up around that? Because I find myself feeling very anxious about it. But, you know, maybe I'm just displacing other anxiety.

I was so nervous that he wasn't going to end up being on the Dodgers in the offseason. And then now I'm nervous about him being there. So maybe it says more about me than him, really, for getting down to it. That would be a nice ending to the latest chapter of the narrative if it turned out that Clayton Kershaw, almost the forgotten guy, will they make room for Clayton Kershaw? Could they dig through the couch cushions

and find enough to sign Clayton Kershaw? Is it worth their while? And then if Yamamoto is heard and Bueller's heard or they're not, and then you're actually counting on Clayton Kershaw to be the one to save the day. And then he does it. And then he does it actually this time.

He has to do it. That's the thing. And it's not Yamamoto and it's not Otani. It's Clayton Kershaw among all the other newly added Dodger stars. That would be a very satisfying ending to the entire saga. And you'll have to write an epilogue if that happens. Oh, yeah. Perfect for the paperback edition. Yep. There you go.

I don't know if anyone else is rooting for this because it seems like we're talking, dancing around a Dodgers World Series here and no one else is going to want that to happen. But he could still be a hero. He could still at least, you know, not choke. And that doesn't require that the Dodgers win the World Series necessarily. It doesn't. It doesn't require that. It doesn't. It doesn't. I think if I had to identify a single storyline about this season, which maybe speaks to the fact that this is kind of a banal year,

speaks to the fact that this is kind of a banal year is that there are just so many teams compressed and clustered together, especially in the NL wildcard race. And that was something that we identified before the year that you could see it in the projections that the teams were projected to be packed so tightly and just a bunch of sardines in the NL wildcard race. And that has turned out to be the case. So now let's see, you've got one, two, three, four, five, six teams that are not currently in playoff position are within three and a half games of the third wildcard spot in the National League. So it's still packed pretty tightly there. And I would imagine that it's going to be because I don't know that any of these teams kind of pull away. So that I think because it was something that we identified before the season started,

and then it's playing out that way, and then seems like it's going to come down to the wire. And that's not a very exciting thing to remember a season by. Remember that scintillating race for the third wildcard where there were a bunch of really mediocre teams within a couple games of 500, and then that one ended up being a game better? I don't know how exciting or sexy that is, but it's certainly going

to be something that we're paying attention to especially in a year where you don't have tiebreaker games like it would be one thing if you had this current wild card configuration and these tight races and then you know that those teams are all going to have to like knock each other around you know on the monday after the season ends to decide who goes. But no, they're just going to do a— Team entropy. Yeah. Would have been great coverage.

They're not going to do that. They're going to do a bunch of math. Did you see the tweet where Fangrass caught strays over the uniforms at the All-Star game? Yeah. I don't want to feed trolls, and that guy obviously is one. But I was just like, what happened to you, man? i don't want to feed trolls and that guy obviously is one but i was just like what happened to you man i don't know i don't know if we have enough therapists on call for all the trolls there are but um anyway yeah like we're not even gonna get like scintillating tie breaker games and what are those tie breakers mean about the availability of the best guys like we're

just not gonna get any of that i think that part of the like race to the middle is just the format but some of it too is that the other big story of this year is all of the pitchers who are hurt right like that has to be having some kind of a not on every team granted but i'm sure some of those clubs if they had their guys would be like pulling ahead you know like i got one more ace no you don't you don't have that ace. That ace is trying to move ligaments around in his body so he can pitch again. That tweet, now that I look at it again, that you alluded to.

It's so insane. It was about the mic'd up players, right? If we're talking about the same tweet. And the uniforms, yeah. And the uniforms. This person, I guess I'll link to the tweet on the show page if you're interested. You don't have to link to the tweet. I guess I don't have to link to the tweet. You don't have to link to the tweet. I just, you know, people are like, what are they talking about?

I'm not included. Should I just read it? Okay. Just read it. Turned on the MLB All-Star game around the second inning and made it 30 seconds. I will not support MLB players being mic'd up whilst not wearing the uni of their respective team. MLB has cowered to Fangraph subscribers living in their mom's basements. God have mercy on us.

Yeah. I don't know. A bluegrass musician was tweeting? The response has made clear that he is a troll more than anything else. We're among the foremost protesters

of players being mic'd up, not in the All-Star game specifically. Right. And yeah, we're on this person's side, if we're an authentic side, but it doesn't seem to be. It does not appear to be. Okay. So, I am interested in which team will be least bad down the stretch in those exciting wild card races. And I guess, I mean, the AL East race, I don't know how long it will remain an interesting race and whether the Orioles will just pull away. I guess I'm interested in Garrett Cole, who has not looked like himself, a major factor potentially in that AL East race.

And so, gosh, you just never feel comfortable. As soon as a guy has an elbow thing, you can just never feel good about his chances anymore. And I know that there are some guys who, yeah, it's just you're just waiting like, oh, gosh. And presumably he feels okay, I guess, or he wouldn't have come back. I don't know. Presumably. Yeah, it just hasn't been great so far. Hopefully it's just Rust and he'll be okay.

But, yeah, you just worry about it being a brattish situation where it's like, he's back. Oh, no, he's gone again. Yeah. Am I looking forward to the Mariners second half? I'm curious about it, Ben. I've got questions about it. Yep. We can leave it at that if we want to.

But am I excited? I feel afraid. I feel trepidation. excited i feel afraid i feel trepidation i love how uh i'm gonna get to be reminded over the next while about how truly agonizing it is when the team that you like best is actually in it a little bit but needs to like get get its business done will it don't know but like i could could not could do i don't know i look forward to finding, could not, could do, I don't know, could, what? I don't know. I look forward to finding out along with you and finding out what Trader Jerry does at the deadline and also Trader AJ.

And I mean, that really is like the Padres Mariners rivalry, I guess. It's more about those two. Yeah, they are natural rivals. It's not about Eddie Vedder at all. No, it's not. It's really, it's the DePoto-Preller cup. It's like who can attain their trade target first because you know they're competing against each other. That's the real intrigue here.

But yeah, will the Mariners get a hitter? Will Julio be that hitter? That would be an interesting story. But so Ben, if I hear a member of the Mariners front office at the end of the season after Julio has gone on a heater and they didn't really add a bat at the deadline and say, well, we really acquired Julio Rodriguez. I am going to light something on fire. It will be a small something. It will not be done irresponsibly, but I will pick a thing and then light it on fire. Will that be cathartic once you're practicing perfect fire safety and it's just maybe you're like lighting a match or something?

I don't know that that will really get the animus out that you're trying to express via the flames there. I don't know. If you take all those proper precautions first. I don't know. It's a good question. I hope that I don't have to find out the answer, you know? I hope I don't. Well, speaking of one hitter who is very good at the hitting

and also is a major factor in the AL East race, I mean, I guess Aaron Judge. Just how good can he be yet again? He is on pace now. Let's see what he's on pace for. He's on pace for 56 home runs, but of course he has picked up his pace as the season has gone on. So if we were to talk about his pace since the start of May or June or whatever, he'd probably be on some sort of historic pace. I don't know if it's as exciting now because it's just, can he break his own record? There won't have to be any Maris's involved at all, which I guess is kind of a mercy, but yeah. Can Aaron Judge beat Aaron Judge's American League home run record set two years ago is maybe not quite as exciting as it was two years ago. But it still has been kind of incredible to see him do his thing, especially in tandem with Soto. So just, yeah, how good can they be?

Like how close to the top of the leaderboard of best teammates ever you know since ruth and garrig that kind of thing how how fun will the facts be about those two yeah how fun will they be i don't know i'm excited to find out not even really entertaining the notion of of like soto resigning or something that seems, seems like a very remote prospect. And I don't think, I mean, not, not in season is what I'm saying.

Right. Yeah. I don't, I don't have a strong opinion about his desired destination as a free agent, to be clear, but I, I doubt strongly that it will be an in season sort of bit of business. That would be quite surprising to me.

There was a time earlier this year where it looked like maybe maybe he was willing to talk but but then it was like a he's too good we'll table this for now yeah yeah now he's just too good like don't do it you should stick around give us something to write about for the top 50 um i have one for you how high How high will Paul Skeens' war total be? Because, Ben, you've got to set the leaderboard pretty low because Skeens has not pitched all that many innings when it's all said and done, despite his scintillating All-Star Game start. He's sitting at 66 and a third innings pitched,

but he's been a two-win player in those 66 and a third innings. I mean, 1.9 technically, but we've all listened to Meg talk about how that's just too hard. These are shush. some guys who are very close to him who have many more innings. Luis Castillo, you know, he's got a lot more innings. Nestor Cortez has the same war and he's thrown 115 in the third innings. Suskins is very talented. He's been one of the best stories in baseball this year. He's had an electrifying debut. I don't know that I want to say he's going to end the season with the most Van Graaff's pitching war because Garrett Crochet is two full wins ahead of him. Chris Sale not far behind that. But he's been really excellent. Really very good. Do you think that he's the NL Rookie of the Year? Oh, I haven't looked to that you feel the need to or apply the caveats to other people's war. You know, I'm not here to judge

or police your caveats. That's your business. But I would say here are some names ahead of him, at least on the pitching side that are in the National League, importantly, because that's where Paul Skeen's place.

It's Imanaga, who has been good, but has been inconsistent, and is giving up some home runs. It's happening. Yamamoto, who I imagine will just be taken out of it by virtue of the innings that he has to offer. The other NL guys, I guess I should be

respectful toward Jackson Merrill. I should put some respect on Jackson Merrill. He is very good and is doing this, having very recently converted to center field. But Skeens is in the conversation.

He's in the top couple of guys in the conversation. Joey Ortiz. Joey Ortiz. Michael Bush. Joey Ortiz. Good for you. Good for you, Joey Ortiz. Good for you. People are like, oh, throw it. No. Yeah, I would say. We were right about Joey Ortiz. We were right.

Skeens is within a few tenths of a win of the closest, and he is one of the more recently arrived guys toward the top of this leaderboard. So yeah, if he stays healthy, I mean, that's, I just want him to finish this season healthy. At least like I'm not even going to get ahead of myself and hope that he makes it through next season.

No, take it a year at a time. Year at a time. Yeah, let's take it a year at a time. But just let us have this year let us go into next season with the prospect of full season of schemes right paul schemes give us give us the hope you know yes let us just save that a little longer i'm talking about this in such fatalistic terms, but it's like... We're just trying to be engaged with the realities of the world, Ben. And the realities of the world are that pitchers get hurt even once built, as Michael Bowman says, like the USS Nimitz.

Which is my favorite way to describe a pitcher now. I do think that if he stays healthy, he will win the rookie. And he has like the you know it just feels like the season of skeins it feels like the season of skeins got the narrative value like he's he's the the it guy this season yeah he and look i'm gonna stop on this tangent in a second i promise but like he and merrill are such an interesting one two to think about in this conversation and again like there are guys on our leaderboard, again, Joey Ortiz. Why would I disrespect Joey Ortiz?

We were right about Joey Ortiz. Joey Ortiz is such a good player. We're looking at two guys, one of whom underwent a significant position change, right? And is playing big league caliber, first division center field defense, which is incredible. And is having his bat pickup. Merrill looks great. Good for Jackson Merrill. What a campaign. What a rookie campaign for that guy. Also an all-star. So exciting.

And then you have Skeens, arguably whose best pitch is a pitch he didn't start throwing until this year. It's so cool, Ben. What a cool... I'm jealous of people who have an NL Rookie of the Year vote. I imagine by the time it's all said and done, it's going to be quite hard to decide because there are a lot of really

talented guys and they're kind of close or clustered in an interesting way. There are some parallels in terms of how they're performing and the challenges they've had and the changes they've had to make on the fly. What a cool field. So cool, Ben.

I'm so excited. And he's already been pulled from two hit list starts and Joshi and ran some numbers and, and dub this the skeins. If you're, if you go at least six innings pitch, no hits and you don't finish out the game, it's never happened three times or more in a season.

So if he were to have one more hit list start of at least six innings and get pulled, that would be a record. That would be emblematic of our times and also of his excellence. And I guess another thing that could keep his innings totals down if the Pirates are not in it right up until the end and they say, let's save Skeens for next year, then they could shut him down potentially at some point. But if he's in the running for rookie of the year, would that be a factor? Should it be? So yeah, just watching Skeens. He's off to just one of the best starts by a pitcher

through X number of starts. So that's just going to be fun. I mean, it's an event. It's Skeen's Day. Skeen's Day. I just got myself all excited about baseball again. I was like, I'm tired. I'm sick.

There's so much working. There's more work to be done. It's like I was feeling like, eh, I got the Friday doldrums. I just got myself all amped up about baseball again because of Paul Skeens and Jackson Merrill. What a cool sport. Yeah, he has. Neil Payne had this stat the other day. The highest game score through

a pitcher's first 11 starts. That's how many he's had. Not ever. I have to finish this stat. That would have been a really appropriately wound. I was like, that's a very fun fact. That was a fun fact, yeah. Not quite that fun, but he is the first.

So Masahiro Tanaka had a very dominant first 11 starts in 2014. But of course, he was a rookie after having been a pitcher in NPB. So it's not quite the same. So, it is the highest for a pitcher who was kind of like a true rookie in that sense since, let's see, well, Jose de Leon, another pirate in 1983, and Mark the Bird Fidrich-esque season. Not that Skeens is like talking to the ball and wandering around on the mound and also hoping that I'm not cursing him by comping him to Fidrich who got hurt

and just, you know, wasn't that good again. Just like curl. You have multiple monkeys paws on your desk and you're like, let's make a ball curl. Yeah.

But in the sense that Fidrich was a sensation and Skeens is also a sensation. It's fitting in that sense. So, yeah. How high can he go? How good can he be? And how long can he be healthy? When you say Fidrich, do you want to say it like Kittredge from Mission Impossible? Because that's how I want to say it every time. Kittredge. And I guess you talked about the Rangers and their rotation that's repairing itself, knitting itself together as the season goes on. Kind of. Well, in theory. Also, I guess the Rangers, Diamondbacks trying to right the ship kind of competition, which we have talked about them before.

I guess the Diamondbacks are in better shape to do that. Certainly, playoff-wise, they just have an easier path to the playoffs because of that weak NL compressed field that we were just talking about. And, you know, I guess that's just an easier in for them. Sure. But otherwise, I don't know which of them I would bet on to get back. But neither of them has been great. Right. So Neil also had another stat about this, that the Rangers, as of a few days before the break, had the eighth worst record by a defending champion through the first 94 games of the next season. And then because the Diamondbacks only just got to 500 for the first time since early April, collectively, both teams' records are tied were kind of improbable World Series teams. Isn't so surprising, maybe. Yeah, I guess. But yeah, it's Rangers Diamondbacks this year, and then it's Blue Jays Phillies in 94, and then the season ended, I guess. And then Marlins and the then Indians in 98.

Of course, the Marlins had their fire sale. Yankees, Dodgers in 79, Royals, Cardinals in 86, Orioles, Dodgers in 67, and Braves Athletics in 1915. So they have a losing record, I guess, collectively still. So they're trying to avoid some history there. I am curious to see if we will see any of the guys who were just drafted debut in this year. And I will say that I will include both regular and post-season debuts.

Cause sometimes we get that. Sometimes we get and post-season debuts because sometimes we get that. Sometimes we get the post-season debut. And then it gets all goofy in terms of remembering when they debuted, you know, because it's like it doesn't it doesn't it's nowhere. You know, it's nowhere. It doesn't happen at all. It doesn't count. It doesn't count. It should count even more probably.

But because it's just a weird. But like, how would you make that work? So anyway, I am curious if we get any guys sort of run up the ladder quick. I don't anticipate that we will, but you know, I didn't anticipate some of the most more recent ones that we've had either.

And yet here we are. So who could say? Who would be the likeliest guy? I guess we just could have asked Eric Langenhagen about that last time. Yeah, who's the most likely guy? We didn't ask. So now we just get to sit in a mystery, you know? If we had, he might still be here listing guys that I've never heard of.

I love that your approach to this every year is like, I'm not going to do any prep. I mean, you do prep because you ask a question. So you clearly have thought about it. I have a few questions, but I only need a couple. You only need a couple. Off to the races. Yeah, it's like the top at the end of Inception. Is it going to keep spinning?

We don't know. Yeah, but I find it infectious, the enthusiasm that he has. He's just very, very enthusiastically describing these people who, for all I know, could be completely made up. He could be pranking. Right, he could make up a guy. You would probably know, but I would have no idea. But he would never do that because he's just so invested in talking about these guys and doing the scouting. He's enthused.

He's enthused about those guys. He knows his stuff. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep. All right. Well, it's funny. Neither of us, I would be the more likely to, but neither of us mentioned Otani and his quest to be like the first true full-time DH to win an MVP award, which I don't know if that's a cool thing or not.

But I guess it does go to show how good he has been that he might do that. And also that you have a little less competition at the top of the NL leaderboard. Sometimes it just shakes out that way. You know, if he were still in the American league, then Aaron judge would once again be trumping him as he did a couple of years ago.

Right. But because he's not, and neither is one soto and now otani kind of has the top of that leaderboard to himself and maybe it's just not even that interesting because it it seems like he kind of almost has it sewn up but i don't know but you know to win an mvp in both leagues to do the frank rob and to do it. I really didn't think, and I'm the last guy to doubt Shohei Otani. I'm always in his corner when it comes to, yeah, he could do that thing. But I brought up on a podcast that he had the third best odds to win the NL MVP award, according to some sports book or another before the season started, I think it was, or tied

for third or something. And initially I was like, really, that doesn't seem right. But then I think the projections more or less backed it up and obviously his performance has. So yeah, the fact that it's not even really all that interesting because it just feels like here in mid-July, he almost just kind of, it's his to lose that is pretty impressive because i thought this was going to be a less impressive otani year and i guess it is in some respects but in other respects not so much if he if he can win an mvp while he almost literally has a hand tied behind his back or at least an elbow then that's pretty impressive stuff. I feel bad for Mookie Betts. Me too.

Every time I think about the NL MVP, it makes me sad because I just feel bad for Mookie Betts. As much as I root for Otani in general, I think I would have rooted for Mookie Betts to win the MVP because I would have thought that that would be such a cool

thing to do it with the shortstop conversion that he made. But yeah, not to be, sadly. Yeah, sometimes you get hurt, man. Mm-hmm. All right. Is there anything else that we are interested in following? I guess offense, I'm interested in will offense rebound at all? Yeah, it's been up a bit.

The batting average went up from 240 to 250 going from April, March to the most recent month, I think. So will it get to the realm of less of an outlier and almost respectability? Or will it end at 243? outlier and almost respectability? Or will it end at 243? Because I think that would affect just the kind of political will to do something, to enact new rules changes. Because we just had a bunch of rule changes and LB is keeping its powder dry for ABS stuff. And so there probably wouldn't be a whole lot of willpower behind it. But if it actually did end up down there, then I think that might increase. There might be more people out there saying, I heard this guy talking on a podcast about widening the foul lines. Sounds interesting to me.

So some more unorthodox ideas, at least to be experimented with somewhere, some when, I think would be more likely the more extreme the scoring environment appears at the end of the year. I wonder how many people, if any, in the league office listen to Effectively Wild. Yeah, I don't know. I probably don't really want to know. I was just about to say, I don't know what I want the answer to that question to be. It's better to not know maybe. My general take on these things is that on some level, I want people to like the pod and we do know, we do get valuable feedback from listeners. I don't want to say that it's all trolly nonsense or anything, but, like, on some level, it doesn't feel like my business, you know, in a weird way. It's like, that's why I don't name search.

It's not my business. You know, people get to think what they think and I don't have to know about it. Yeah, it's funny. When we're talking, I don't think about the fact that there are other people listening to us. It is a thing that when I post an episode, I like that thought of like, oh, it's going out there, and it's going to suddenly appear on all these people's phones, and people all over the world doing different things will be hearing this thing that I'm about to press publish. But I don't really want to be fully conscious of that, I guess, while I'm talking, thinking of like the number of people, if they were physically arrayed around me, that would probably be somewhat intimidating. So I don't tend to think about that. And I also don't tend to think about the fact that they're like very smart baseball people listening to our nonsense. Yeah.

And, you know, sometimes we say smart baseball things, but also sometimes not. Yeah. And sometimes we say silly nonsense. Yeah. And I don't know if they like that or they tolerate that to get to the more serious baseball stuff or they're just humoring us or what. But every now and then we are confronted with the news that some prominent executive i've heard of listens to the show or something and i'm like oh i i'm flattered but also

i wish i didn't know that in a way yeah but also horrified yeah oh and how did this not come up before now i guess because i've mentioned it on every other episode, so I didn't need to mention it here. But will David Fletcher make the – Oh, my God. Will he be cleared? Will his good name be restored in the public square? Does it deserve to be restored? Also curious about that.

Yeah. Will we find out whether he has a good name? Will we find out whether he has a good name? And also then if he does, will we see him applying his trade as a newly christened two-way player, two-way knuckleballer, no less? I mean, come on, two-way knuckleballer. Converted at age 30. Like, that'd be the best story of the season if that happens. Okay. of the season if that happens okay i want to be clear because apparently it requires me saying again i'm not rooting for him having been like a gambler in an illegal way i hope that their

investigation yields the conclusion that like he maybe was a dope but didn't violate any of the league's policies like it would be better for him and the sport if that were true i am simply saying that the possibility that that is not the conclusion of the investigation i think requires his distance from a big league clubhouse that's all i'm that's all i'm saying yeah i guess so i have to we we we have to care about it you you know that we have to care about it. You know that. We have to care about this because otherwise I can't get up on my soapbox the next time somebody breaks the rule. And you know how I love standing up there because I'm not very tall. It was reported that he was the one who made the introduction between the bookie and Ipe.

And who knows, because Ipe had previous gambling experience and, you know, maybe it would have happened anyway. But fateful introduction potentially there. Still sort of feel bad for Ipe on some level there. And so, you know, don't want David Fletcher going around and introducing anyone else to illegal bookmakers. But I do really want him throwing knuckleballs.

What if he Freaky Friday'd with somebody else? What about that? It's like the meme with the guy with the buttons and he's sweating. That's me with David Fletcher being back in a big league clubhouse. Don't want to promote illegal gambling or any dodgy, shady sports betting stuff, but also just really want to press that button. That's like David Fletcher, 30 year old converted two-way knuckleballer. Really, really want to see that. But I can, I guess, content myself with Matt Waldron also

can continue to watch Matt Waldron, who as far as we know, good name, Matt Waldron, not under suspicion of anything as far as we're aware. Be happy with the knuckleabar you have at home, you know? I don't know if that's how that meme works, but I think that I did it right. I think I deployed it. I haven't sneezed into the microphone even one time.

How good a job am I doing? I did have to put another cough drop in, though, so sorry for hard candy sounds. I guess I should have said, do you think that Aaron Judge, Gunenderson is a race mvp wise like do you think it should be war wise but like yeah will it be really um well what a good question that is i don't know man like it's so close it's so close. It's so close. It's also close home run wise.

Governor Henderson's. Yeah. 28. He's got 28 bombs. Yeah. Right. So he's not that far behind. Okay.

Can I. I'm going to make a case. And I hope that all of the Orioles fans listening who have been upset with our projections around the Orioles, will heed this case. And remember, I'm not out to get you. I think that because of the completeness of Gunnar Henderson's game, that he should win MVP at this juncture, even though he is marginally behind Judge from a War and Home Run perspective.

How about that, Ben? How about that? You ready? I mean, I don't have a conviction in this case, but I do have a little bit of conviction, which is to say, you know, Gunnar Henderson is playing the majority of his games at shortstop.

He's doing it at a plus level. He grades out very well defensively. He looks good out there better base runner both in terms of just like his raw stolen base totals but also when you look at his base running runs much

much better base runner adding value on the base paths is he a less good hitter yeah yeah one has to grapple with that but like is he a less good hitter? Yeah. Yeah. One has to grapple with that. But, like, is he a lot? He's only six homers behind, but he's almost 100 points of slugging percentage behind.

Yeah. It's a pretty sizable gap. It's a 207 to 160 AWRC plus gap. So, like, again, is this a case with a lot of conviction? No, it's not. I'm mostly being a pest but i'll also just say that like you know he he has a very well-rounded plus game as a player i think um the mustache is great is it aaron judge's fault that he doesn't have a mustache i don't know can he grow one

couldn't say not not aware but gunner hend, he has one. He's got a mustache. He's hit 28 home runs. He's hit 28 of them, and he has more swan bases, better base runner, better defender. I don't know. I'm just saying it's very close. I mean, Aaron Judge, I think Aaron Judge would win in a landslide

if the vote were held today. I think it wouldn't be remotely close. It would be like... I'm not going to make an election analogy. That bums me out. I think that it would not be remotely close because he has been such an offensive force.

And he has managed to be an offensive force despite really not producing at the plate in the month of April at all. It's very impressive. He has, among qualified hitters, the highest WRC plus in baseball. It's by a not small margin. Think about how good

you think Shohei Otani's season at the plate has been. We all think it's been wonderful. It's been beautiful. Ben won't shut up about it. He has a 186 WRC+. Aaron Judge has a 207 WRC+. No, I said that. I was like, Aaron Judge, you're

ruining Shohei Otani's season for me right now because you're so much more impressive. But yeah, it's both wars. I mean, baseball reference has them separated by a tenth of a win and fancraft has them two tenths of a win. So even though those are different defensive systems being factored in there, I guess they have very similar evaluations of Henderson.

So maybe that gives you more confidence. Usually I would say, well, yeah, the the wars are very close, but we're more confident in the offensive component there. Maybe the defense would need a little regression going on. I guess there is some regression going on. Watch the games, man. Just watch the games, man. No, he passes the eye test. Yeah.

Good defender out there. The reason, though, why I don't find the well-rounded argument all that convincing is just because Aaron Judge is a center fielder. Sure, but like— If he were in a corner, if he were DH-ing with these numbers, but— It's—Ben, Ben. I know he's not, you know, a plus center fielder. If he were in a corner, if he were DHing with these numbers. I know he's not a plus center fielder. It's fine out there, but it's not plus is the point that I'm making. But because he's so big, it feels plus.

It's like judge adjusted plus. He shouldn't be average. You're making the Beto O'Rourke error. He's not actually that handsome. He's just tall okay that's like don't do i think it does apply to center field defense i didn't say how handsome he was i just said it is more impressive because he is looks like he should be this enormous lumbering giant who just got off of a mad scientist table and yet he's out there playing pretty fluid defense i understand and i think that he's doing an admirable job out there i don't think he's a bad center field defender by any

means i know the metrics are like kind of whatever on him but like i don't think he's a bad center field defender and i think the fact that he is doing it because that is what his team requires exactly at this juncture what could be more mvp than service, and that is the counterweight to the really awesome, well-rounded argument. And I already said I don't have conviction here. I'm just trying to get the Orioles fans off my back. And I think that Gunnar, and mostly— You're pandering to Orioles fans now like Bryce Harper panders to Phillies fans. I know. I'm not—I have crab fries.

Ah, crab fries. What better fries are there? There aren't any. Old Bay. Baltimore is cool. I like, I have still never been to that ballpark and I really want, here's actual pandering. I want to go to that ballpark so bad that I really hope that the Orioles get an all-star game quite soon because I look forward to going out there. And yeah, it looks beautiful and your team is awesome.

No, mostly I'm being a little hyperbolic. And the reason is that I do think that if voting were held today, the judge would win in a landslide. And I think that him winning would probably be the defensible right choice. But I think that it's quite close. And I think that Gunnar Henderson is having a really, really excellent campaign. I think that he has clearly taken a step forward on offense.

He's a great defender and a good base runner. And I just hope that when it comes time for everyone who actually has a vote to cast their votes, that they spend some time with this guy's season and really, you know, They spent some time with this guy's season and really, you know, assess it on its merits. Because I get the judge has this incredible story. He's having an incredible season.

He's 20,000 feet tall. He's as handsome as Beto O'Rourke. I'm right about that, though. It's like, it's, you know, it's a perfectly fine face, but it's just that he's tall and younger than everyone else. That's the only reason we all got so excited about Beto. I'm right about this. I'm just saying that Henderson's having a really special year, and I hope that it is taken seriously as a challenge to judge, assuming that both of them continue on their trajectory that they are. It's a season that deserves serious consideration.

So, there you go. Yeah. And that well-rounded argument, even if you weren't making it with great conviction, that was kind of what I was saying about Mookie, why I would support Mookie over Otani even just because it just feels more earned. I mean, value is value. And if you can produce that value as a DH, then in some ways that just feels more earned. I mean, value is value. And if you can produce that value as a DH, then in some ways that's even more impressive. But if Mookie had remained healthy and had been playing a decent shortstop all the time, I guess it's similar because Mookie, I think, is a fine shortstop. He's, you know, really impressive given the circumstances, but probably not an elite shortstop.

Who knows if he'd get better with more reps, but it's sort of similar in that they were both pressed into service. Now Judge has more experience playing center, obviously, than Mookie had playing short, but it's kind of comparable where it's like you give them extra points just for being there, just for being willing to do it and sort of stepping up service yes yeah that's what most valuable players do so and it just yeah i think that's a real

argument to be clear yeah yeah oh yeah and it feels like an mvp should just be playing in the field or it just feels like that i mean because that's always been the case because it's so hard to have a legitimate case to be an mv MVP without playing in the field of your position player. So that does make it more impressive that Otani's making that case. And you know what? Like, Ellie's only less than one war behind him. And it's, I guess, more of a defense-based case and base running and everything. But Ellie, just how will Ellie finish the season? Will he finish the season strong? How many stolen bases will he end up with? Will he make that a race? That is certainly something I'm interested in seeing. And I want to be clear about two things. The first is, I'm not saying that,

I'm not saying that Judge is a bad center fielder. I'm not saying that. But I also am saying he's not a plus center fielder. I'm not saying that. But I also am saying he is not a plus center fielder. And it's fine to say that, too. It's impressive that he's doing it. It's impressive that he's playing to the level that he is. He's not bad out there. But, like, you watch plus center field defense,

and then you watch your own Judge, and you get back to me if you think those are the same thing. They're not the same. I'm just saying that. same. Just saying that. I'm just saying that. No, it's like it's body adjusted plus an experience adjusted plus. Body adjusted plus. We're going to get emails about better.

When you brought up his mustache, his hypothetical mustache. Now, he would be allowed to have a mustache on the Yankees. They allow mustaches, right? You could have your Don Mattingly if you wanted to. He just doesn't have one, I'm saying. Right. Yeah. No, he would be allowed to have a mustache on the Yankees. They allow mustaches, right? You could have your Don Mattingly if you wanted to. He just doesn't have one, I'm saying. Right. Yeah. No, he doesn't.

I don't know if he wants one. I don't know if he can grow one, but you could. I don't really know. I'm sure that there's a reason why the upper lip hair is considered more respectable than bottom, than below the mouth. I mean, there must be historical reasons for why a mustache is permitted in the country club of the New York Yankees, but not the beard or the goatee or anything. I can speculate about some of those reasons if you really want to get emails. But if Aaron Judge, if he just wanted to grow a beard, he could do it, right? He could be the one to, because we periodically will get questions about that, like who's going to be the one to just challenge the Yankees on this.

Because if someone did, they would not really have a legal leg to stand on, I don't think, right? Like the Players Association would probably back them up. There'd be a grievance, like, you know, I don't know. There'd just be like workplace rules that would come into it. It just doesn't seem enforceable. I don't think I know I've read like lawyers considering this question. So I guess it's something of an open question, but I think you could. And if you were Aaron Judge and you have the clout and the cachet, like, you know, the Yankees depend on you. If you said, I'm going to grow some whiskers, are they really going to put their foot down and say, no, not you, Aaron Judge, who we have hundreds of millions of

dollars invested in, and you're the captain, and you're the face of the team, and best player, and everything else? No. So he could do that if he wanted to. Now, I don't think he would. I don't think he would rock the boat that way. He's into the Yankee way. That's why he's the captain, right? He wants to put on the pinstripes. He wanted to be there forever. He's bought into that whole thing to some extent. But if you had someone like that, a star like that, I think they could put an end to that if they were really devoted to it. I don't know. My sense has always been, and I am not a lawyer. My lawyer mom talked me out of becoming one, but my sense has always been

that the most likely successful challenge to that policy would be a player challenging it on sort of discriminatory grounds. Like if they are required to grow a beard for religious purposes right like if there is someone who as an article of their faith is meant to have facial hair and this policy is telling them they can't and then they challenge it on those grounds i also think that like it puts a person a hypothetical player in that position in like a tough spot if they have to bring that kind of action against the team and so i think it would be a mark great leadership for someone who actually doesn't give that much of a but does have

the gravitas and sort of social capital to be like this is dumb why do we do this like it's weird and alienating to people and some of them look better with beards let them keep their beards you know so that's what i think about that doesn have to be Judge, but he is sort of the natural candidate amongst this current crop of Yankees because he's literally the captain, as you noted. Yeah. And public support would be behind. It would be an untenable position for the Yankees. I think there are some Yankees fans, as a former Yankees fan, who feel that exceptionalism. You know, it's like where the Yankees count the rings

and don't count the beard hairs because there aren't any. And it's like, you know, we're the special Yankees. And so we want to look professional. And, you know, the boss said, this is how it's done. And you come here, you got to shave, like, you got to look a certain way, right? There are some fans, I think, who have internalized that identity and maybe would even side with the team to some extent but against aaron judge you know like if it comes down to it and he's like i'm not playing unless i can grow my hair out here is any yankees fan really going to care enough about that policy to support that or to like bench her and judge over this dispute or something i can't can't imagine so i you know and there's some speculation about like this is cost the yankees players potentially that there are players who wouldn't

want to shave there are players who have gone there and have reluctantly shaved but maybe there are some who would draw a line. Would it actually prevent them from getting, anyway, there's a whole history. It goes back decades, obviously, but I do think that someone, the right person could change it. Like Andrew McCutcheon was critical of it.

I think after he had been with the Yankees, right? Because he had the long locks, but not when he was there, because he had cut them off, I think, for charity previously. I think that might be right, but I don't quite recall the sequence there. But he said if he still had them, that it would have been a very difficult thing for him to do kind of under duress because the team told him to. So yes, one of these years,

I think someone will challenge that or they'll just relax it themselves and be like, let's, let's get ahead of this. Let's get a chin of this before someone calls us on it. And we look silly trying to hold the line here. Let's just, let's just give in.

I think that if I were giving guidance, they have not asked for my feedback on this question, but if I were giving guidance to them, I might say something along the lines of the parts of the quote-unquote Yankees way that really matter and that are worth expression aren't actually defined by what's on your face or on your head. It's defined by how you conduct yourself on the field and off and how you treat people, including your teammates and the amount of effort and work you bring to the field every day. And we know that, you know, societal standards around this stuff change. They're sometimes rooted in bits of ugliness

and we want to take a step forward as the new yankees and bring our same level of competition to a new era of yankees baseball and people can wear whatever the hell they want on their heads you know like it's not hard you can do it you can do it you just have to have the will to do it. But it's great. It's a wild policy. And like the understanding of professionalism they have is like, it's very easy to point it and say that's racist because it's racist. make those determinations yourself because then when you say things like uh this is a a new step forward for the yankees in a new yankees way it feels sincere you know and then because it's not being forced yeah so anyway and we ended up talking about the yankees and facial hair but it's i mean like put it this way king groovy jr doesn't like it. And that's good enough for me. Yeah, there are, I think there are, it's nice to have idiosyncratic team traditions or things that sets your team apart from another team,

kind of a quirky thing that it's like, yeah, this is how we do it here. But not if it's just like kind of, you know, about policing people's hair. That's not a cool idiosyncratic quirk to have. I don't think there's a lot of tradition behind it, obviously, but that's just not a fun thing. You know, if it's some other, however, like, you know, they, they have candles in the clubhouse. That's, that's a nice fun thing. You know, that's a cool thing for them to do,

but the facial hair thing, yeah, it's just not very charming. You have to buy into the almost militaristic, like, we're the Yankees, drill sergeants. It's eyewash, kind of. It's kind of eyewash. I think that when you take that in conjunction with the refusal to put names on the back of the jerseys, that it's anti-labor because you're trying to anonymize all these guys. So put that in your pipe and smoke it. Put names on the back of the jerseys. Give people the dignity of their name.

It's in the crucible for Pete's sake. And there, you got a Yankees connection by proxy, separate? Yeah. That'd be nice if Judge's name was finally on the back of his jersey then i could finally oh that's aaron judge oh right gotta pick them out look they're not all that tall ben famously 99 i mean there are like two guys who are that tall on this current iteration of the yankees but but historically not been true. True. All right.

Have we done it all? All the storylines? I think that we have. Everything we're interested in seeing? Okay. Yeah. Maybe we save emails for next time. Yep. I got to say,

I'm like slightly interested in seeing if the Astros, you're going to hang up on me. What are you even doing? What are you doing? I mean. There's three things in this episode now. Three. like the cutting out clippings and putting it on the clubhouse wall. And they didn't believe us and they ruled us out. And here we are yet again in our eighth consecutive ALCS after overtaking the Mariners to win the AOS

and knocking them out of the playoffs entirely, potentially. That's what I'm envisioning here. And, you know, it'll just be a feel-good story, really, that the Astros picked themselves up off the mat people counted them out and they just showed that the true you know character of the Houston Astros they're champions

and they will never be cowed Ben I feel betrayed I show up to pod with you sick and this is how I'm repaid I show up to pod with you sick. This is how I am repaid. I cannot believe it.

I cannot. Also, like, AL Central. I'm kind of interested in AL Central. Yeah, there you go. We didn't talk about the AL Central. We should give them some shine because they deserve it this year. There are actually some pretty good teams over there. So, are the Guardians this good? Will they regress at all?

Will Stephen Kwan bat 350 can anyone catch them will your will the royals actually manage to stay in the race will they be more aggressive at the deadline will they fall out of it a lot of uh interesting al central storylines to go along with will the white socks be the worst team ever? Only the Tigers are kind of in like no man's land where, you know, they're not bad anymore, but they're also just not that good. I know there's been, you know, will they trade Tarek Skubal? That kind of thing, along with Flaherty potentially. I see the case for it, but it would be a bummer if they traded Tarek Skubal. But it's just, it's tough.

They're like perpetually rebuilding. Anyway, just wanted to mention those Port Detroit Tigers because we're shouting out all the other AL Central teams. Oh, and will there be a third consecutive NLDS matchup between Philly and Atlanta? And if so, will it go the same way? It was an upset the past couple of years where the Phillies took out Atlanta 3-1, not being the better team. And now it seems like the Phillies took out Atlanta 3-1, not being the better team. And now it seems like the Phillies are the better team. So will Atlanta turn the tables and upset them right back?

We'll see. We're going to find out. Or maybe we won't. Maybe they won't even chase each other, but they could. They could, Ben. They could. All right. Let us know what we missed, if anything.

I guess ongoing. Keep your better opinions to yourself. Ongoing A's saga. Will they actually play in Sacramento? Will they manage to play night games so that they don't literally melt on the fields? Will there be further Vegas developments? Oh, my God. That's just kind of a depressing story all around.

So maybe that's not even looking forward to it. Like I will pay attention to it, but I wish it just weren't happening. So will Mike Trout return soon and stay healthy? Wow. Okay, pick a happy one to end on because geez, geez. That would be happy if you did that.

The tone. The tone. You had such skepticism. great confidence. Yeah. Hmm. Will the Blue Jays tear it down?

That's not a fun one. All right. I'm calling it. Pack it in. We're done. Cook us. Will the Red Sox under the Netflix

cameras and Tristan Cassis and Jaron Duran and all the rest, will they be the Cinderella team that produces the perfect documentary that we're all watching next year? Sure. That'll work. All right. That will do it for today and for this week. Thanks, as always, for listening. And thanks to those of you who support the podcast on Patreon by going

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